Category: KB

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Karen Stollznow, Research Fellow of linguistics, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University; University of Colorado Boulder

There’s a common assumption that if someone starts learning a language when they are very young, they will quickly become fluent.

Many people also assume that it will become much harder to learn a language if they start later in life.

Research into language learning shows that how old someone is when they learn a language does matter, but there is no point at which the ability to learn a language switches off.

While a young language learner can more easily acquire a native accent, adults retain the ability to learn new languages well into later life. Anyone can continue to learn and refine their vocabulary and grammar. Other factors, like motivation, can also play a role for learners of all ages.

I am a linguist and the author of a forthcoming book, “Beyond Words: How We Learn, Use, and Lose Language,” which looks at how language is learned, used and lost across a lifespan — and why age alone does not set hard limits on our linguistic abilities.

Instead, the strategies learners use, the outcomes they achieve most easily, and how others judge their progress can all change over time.

How age shapes language learning

Someone’s age can influence their language learning ability in a variety of ways.

Scientists sometimes talk about sensitive periods, or an early development window in which the brain is especially receptive to certain kinds of input.

When it comes to language, babies and children are particularly sensitive to the sound patterns of speech. They can also pick up on subtle phonetic distinctions that adults struggle to perceive or reproduce.

This helps explain why children who grow up bilingual often sound native in both languages. Accents, more than vocabulary or grammar, are where age-related differences are most pronounced.

Sensitive periods are found in other animals, too, especially birds, which have an early sensitive period for learning their species-specific song from an adult tutor.

After this window closes, learning a new language is still very much possible. But it usually takes more conscious effort and practice.

Studies also show that children exposed to a second language early, roughly before puberty, are more likely to develop nativelike pronunciation and intonation.

Brain imaging research shows that people who learn two languages early in life tend to process both languages in the same parts of the brain. Those who learn a second language later often use slightly different brain areas for each language.

In practical terms, early bilinguals are more likely to switch between languages effortlessly. Later learners may have to more consciously work through their second language, especially at first.

Benefits to learning a language as an adult

Pronunciation is only one part of language proficiency. Adults bring their own strengths to the task.

Unlike young children, adult learners already have a fully developed first language. They also have skills in reasoning and pattern recognition, as well as an awareness of how language works.

This allows adults to learn in a more deliberate way, as they study grammar rules and consciously compare languages. Adults are also more likely to rely on deliberate strategies, such as memorization, to learn a language.

In classroom settings, adults often outperform children in early stages of learning, particularly in reading and writing.

Language learning never truly stops. Even in adulthood, people continue to develop and refine their first language, shaped by their education, work and social environment, and how they use it day to day.

While it may be harder for adults to acquire a nativelike accent later in life, the good news is that grammar, vocabulary and fluency remain well within reach for most adult learners.

Benefits of learning a language as a kid

Children, meanwhile, tend to learn languages implicitly, through immersion and interaction, often without conscious attention to rules.

Social and emotional factors also play a major role in successfully learning a language.

Children are generally less self-conscious than adults and more willing to take risks when speaking.

Adults, by contrast, are often acutely aware of mistakes and may hesitate to speak for fear of sounding foolish or being judged.

Research consistently shows that being willing to communicate is a strong predictor of success in learning a new language. Anxiety, inhibition and negative feedback from others can significantly slow progress, regardless of age.

Accent, bias and social pressure

Other factors, like social pressure and discrimination, matter as someone tries to learn a new language.

Research into language and identity shows that listeners frequently associate accented speech with lower intelligence or competence, despite there being no connection between accent and cognitive ability.

Non-native speakers often experience stigmatization, discrimination and prejudice from native speakers.

This bias can discourage adult learners and reinforce the false belief that successful language learning means sounding native.

Motivation and aptitude matter, too

Motivation is another key factor that affects learners of all ages.

People learn new languages for many reasons: a new country, work, school, relationships or interest in another culture.

Research distinguishes between the different reasons people learn a language. Some are practical, like advancing a career or passing a test. Others are personal, such as wanting to connect with a community, culture or family.

Learners who feel a strong personal or emotional connection to the language are more likely to keep going even when it gets difficult, and they often reach higher levels of fluency than those without this connection.

Other people have a natural aptitude for learning a language and can pick it up easily. Perhaps they quickly notice sound patterns, or they can remember new vocabulary after hearing it once or twice.

Language aptitude is different from intelligence and varies from person to person. Aptitude makes success in learning a language more likely, but it doesn’t guarantee it.

Learners with average aptitude can still become very proficient in new languages as adults if they have consistent exposure, practice and motivation.

Different ages, different strengths

So is it better to learn a second language as a child or as an adult? Research suggests the more useful question is which aspects of language learning, such as pronunciation, fluency or long-term mastery, matter most.

Learning a new language early makes it easier to sound like a native speaker and to use the language smoothly, without having to think about the rules.

Learning that language later in life draws on adult strengths, such as planning, problem-solving and focused practice.

Ultimately, some people pick up languages quickly while others struggle, regardless of how old they are.

Beliefs about language learning shape education policy, parenting choices and how multilingual speakers are treated in everyday life.

When adults are told they’ve missed their chance to learn a language, many never bother to try. When foreign accents are treated as flaws, capable speakers can be unfairly discriminated against.

In fact, research shows that learning a language is possible at any age – it’s a lifelong, achievable journey, rather than a race against the clock.

Karen Stollznow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. It’s never too late to learn a language – adults and kids bring different strengths to the task – https://theconversation.com/its-never-too-late-to-learn-a-language-adults-and-kids-bring-different-strengths-to-the-task-276583

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Libby John, Professor of Sustainability, University of Lincoln

A yellow disc with rays of white – an icon of childhood drawings and a flower with healing properties. We have picnics on it, play football on it and make daisy chains out of it.

The common or lawn daisy, Bellis perennis, is probably familiar to most people living in temperate climates. But there may be few things you do not know about this fascinating and perhaps under estimated flower.

A flower made of little flowers

Each daisy is actually an inflorescence – a multitude of tiny flowers called florets working together to set out a buffet for pollinators. There are two types of florets. The tube florets form the yellow centre of the inflorescence, about 100 in a typical daisy. You can see them open in sequence over several days from the outside inwards, revealing their treasures of nectar and pollen.

The ray florets have the long white petals. They are female, whereas each tiny tube floret has a set of male and female floral attributes. Every tube floret produces pollen and nectar as well as having an ovary which can make a tiny fruit at the bottom.

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Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.
This article is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.

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The white and yellow contrast between the two types of florets is probably attractive to pollinators. Watch a pollinating insect land on a daisy and it will probe each open floret for a sip of nectar. The florets all sit on a capitulum (a cone-shaped platform), which is surrounded by green phyllaries (or bracts). The capitulum also bears the miniature fruits called achenes which are one-seeded fruits.

Unlike some members of the same family, such as the dandelion, the little seeds have no hairy parachute or pappus to help them disperse. This means that most probably drop close to the parent plant, although they can also be dispersed on muddy paws or shoes, and by worms, ants and birds.

Intrepid explorers

The formal name of the daisy – Bellis perennis – was chosen in the 18th century by biologist Carl Linnaeus, who invented the system by which botanists still name species. Bellis is probably from the Latin for beautiful and perennis for perennial or long-lasting. The word daisy is thought to come from “day’s eye”, a reflection of the fact that the flowers close at night.

However, the word daisy is applied to many other species with similar inflorescences and is used to describe a whole family of plants, the Asteraceae. This is the largest family of flowering plants, incorporating species from thistles to sunflowers, almost all of which have the same inflorescence structure of smaller florets collected on a capitulum. There are over 32,000 species in this family, from tiny daisies to large tropical trees. They are found in most ecosystems on earth, except Antarctica.

This indicates they have a successful evolutionary strategy that has allowed them to adapt and spread. The little lawn daisy has travelled around the world from its native distribution in Europe to be ubiquitous in temperate climates from New Zealand to the US.

Circadian strategy

Most flowers stay open all the time but some, like daisies, open towards the sun in the morning to maximise warmth. This may make them more attractive to insect pollinators who need heat to regulate their body temperatures.

The ray florets do the opening and closing, covering the inner disc florets when closed. On cloudy cool days the daisies might not open at all. The movement of the petals is likely to be as a result of cell growth on either side of the long white ligule of the ray floret, with the cells on both sides of the petals growing at different rates.

Resourceful

Gardeners who want the perfect lawn may see daisies as a nuisance. But a 2021 study showed that lawn daisies provided up to 11% of the nectar available to pollinators in some urban environments, making them important food for our urban bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other pollinating insects. These insects are, in turn, food for so many other animals along the food chain.

Daisies can self-pollinate. They can also clone themselves – sending stolons (runners) sideways to colonise a patch of ground. Bellis perennis seems to be well adapted to human-made habitats, with its short sward or dense mat. Daisies with longer swards tend to get outcompeted as they only produce leaves in a rosette near the ground. Its natural habitats include areas of low or disturbed vegetation such as trampled ground, stream edges and lake margins.

Bellis perennis, in common with most flowering plants, forms associations with fungi in its roots. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi have been co-evolving with plants for the last 400 million years, allowing the colonisation of land by early plants. The plant feeds the fungi with carbohydrates and in turn, the fungi reach out into the soil and supports the plant with nutrients. This ancient partnership between plants and soil fungi still mediates plant interactions with other soil microbes, and regulates plant-plant interactions.

Human connection

The Asteraceae is probably the most popular plant family in popular medicine containing a wide range of active plant chemicals or phytochemicals with antioxidant, anti-inflamatory, antimicrobial, diuretic and wound-healing properties. Bellis perennis itself has had many common names over the centuries including gardener’s friend, bruisewort and poor-man’s arnica.

It feels like daisies have always been part of our lives in the temperate parts of the world and always will be. Daisies have long featured in literature and poetry, mentioned by Chaucer (The Good Woman), Shakespeare (Ophelia’s flowers in Hamlet) and the 19th century poet John Clare.

But the species that are thriving today are not necessarily assured a future. For example, many once common species of birds, like swifts and skylarks, are in decline now in the UK. Arable weeds such as common corncockle (Agrostemma githago) or cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) that were once a nuisance in crops are now rare species that need intervention to prevent their extinction.

So, we must treasure and monitor these flowers, to ensure they are part of our future as well as our past.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The wonders of daisies: the buffet we walk on – https://theconversation.com/the-wonders-of-daisies-the-buffet-we-walk-on-241396

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Kaylin Klie, Associate Professor of Family Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

In Colorado, from 2016 to 2020, 33 women who were pregnant or had recently given birth died from accidental overdoses. That’s more than died from traditional obstetric complications like infection, high blood pressure or bleeding combined.

More recent data shows an encouraging turnaround. The number of maternal overdose deaths dropped 60%, from 20 in 2022 to eight in 2023. I think one contributing factor might be increased access to naloxone for moms and families across the state.

As a perinatal addiction medicine physician, I specialize in taking care of pregnant people and families impacted by substance use disorder. Part of the care I provide is prescribing or distributing naloxone directly to patients and their family members. Naloxone is an over-the-counter medication that reverses the effects of opioid overdose.

I served as a member and then co-chair of the Colorado Maternal Mortality Review Committee from 2017 to 2023. The committee reviews every death of a person in Colorado that occurs during a pregnancy or within 12 months of the end of a pregnancy. I personally reviewed the records of Colorado mothers who died from overdoses.

In Colorado, unintentional overdose and suicide have been the top two causes of maternal mortality each year since 2016. Nationally, the leading cause of maternal mortality is overdose, followed by homicide and then suicide.

Almost all overdose deaths occur in the community, outside of a medical center: in homes, cars and public places. In almost all circumstances, the review committee determined that if naloxone had been present, there was a good chance the mother would have survived.

Giving naloxone directly to patients and families

In 2023, The Naloxone Project, a nonprofit, started distributing naloxone directly to pregnant and postpartum moms and their families before leaving one of the 48 birthing hospitals in Colorado. The distribution is through a program called the Maternal Overdose Matters Initiative, also known as MOMs. The initiative was in direct response to the number of women dying from overdose during pregnancy or within a year after pregnancy.

The Naloxone Project was started in Colorado in 2021 by an emergency and addiction medicine physician. The project distributes naloxone directly to patients in Colorado hospital emergency rooms at risk for opioid overdose.

To date, The Naloxone Project has distributed more than 2,500 naloxone kits to 107 hospitals to give to patients across the state. The project also works to normalize the conversation about opioid overdose and prevention in health care settings. It’s grown, and now it has chapters in 16 states.

Naloxone can make recovery possible

The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines substance use disorder as “a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment and an individual’s life experiences.” People with the disease of addiction can, and do, recover – but only if they can stay alive to receive the support and treatment they need.

Research shows direct distribution of naloxone to people, families and communities saves lives. Access to naloxone gives people, including Colorado moms, a literal second chance at life.

Naloxone for more than substance use disorder

While people with substance use disorder are at the highest risk for overdose, they’re not the only ones. In 2024 alone, 1,603 people died of accidental opioid overdoses in Colorado.

Prescription opioids, such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine, are commonly prescribed after a surgery, including C-sections. Opioids like these taken at home, even with a prescription, can be a source of accidental overdose. For example, a person prescribed these medicines may take too much at once or have an unexpected interaction with other medications or alcohol.

Accidental overdose also occurs in people the prescription was not intended for. That includes children who find medications in their homes. In Colorado, 17 children died from opioid overdoses in 2024.

Today, parents leaving the hospital with their new baby are given naloxone and education. They learn about safe storage and disposal of medications, how to recognize an opioid overdose, and how to give naloxone in case of emergency. Nasal-spray naloxone, the most common form provided by The Naloxone Project, is safe for all ages, including infants and toddlers.

Naloxone as a standard of care

Caring for people impacted by substance use disorder has convinced me that naloxone has a place in every home, school and workplace in our community.

Recognizing and responding to opioid overdose, including giving naloxone, is now a standard part of Basic Life Support training. Opioid overdose reversal is now seen as a critical, lifesaving skill comparable to CPR. Including this skill in training empowers bystanders to intervene.

For some of my patients, receiving naloxone during an overdose event gave them a chance to seek treatment and enter long-term recovery from substance use. Opioid use disorder treatment includes evidence-based medication for opioid use disorder, such as methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone, residential or intensive outpatient treatment, individual therapy and peer support services, especially programs designed for pregnant and parenting moms.

How these facets of treatment come together in an individual person’s journey is unique. As much as I seek to individualize treatment plans, naloxone is for everyone. It can build a bridge between despair and hope — life and death — and as the data shows, it might be a part of saving Colorado moms’ lives.

Kaylin Klie receives funding from Colorado State Opioid Response funding. She is affiliated with The Naloxone Project as the Physician Lead for MOMS Plus.

– ref. Fewer new moms are dying in Colorado – naloxone might be one reason why – https://theconversation.com/fewer-new-moms-are-dying-in-colorado-naloxone-might-be-one-reason-why-273761

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Elke Schwarz, Professor of Political Theory, Queen Mary University of London

The very public feud between the US Department of Defense (also known these days as the Department of War) and its AI technology supplier Anthropic is unusual for pitting state might against corporate power. In the military space, at least, these are usually cosy bedfellows.

The origin of this disagreement dates back months, amid repeated criticisms from Donald Trump’s AI and crypto “czar”, David Sacks, about the company’s supposedly woke policy stances.

But tensions ramped up following media reports that Anthropic technology had been used in the violent abduction of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro by the US military in January 2026. It was alleged this caused discontent inside the San Francisco-based company.

Anthropic has denied this, with company insiders suggesting it did not find or raise any violations of its policies in the wake of the Maduro operation.

Nonetheless, the US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has issued Anthropic with an ultimatum. Unless the company relaxes its ethical limits policy by 5.01pm Washington time on Friday, February 27, the US government has suggested it could invoke the 1950 Defense Production Act. This would allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to appropriate the use of this technology as it wishes.

At the same time, Anthropic could be designated a supply chain risk, putting its government contracts in danger. These extraordinary measures may appear contradictory, but they are consistent with the current US administration’s approach, which favours big gestures and policy ambiguity.

At the heart of the dispute is the question of how Anthropic’s large language model (LLM) Claude is used in a military context. Across many sectors of industry, Claude does a range of automated tasks including writing, coding, reasoning and analysis.

In July 2024, US data analytics company Palantir announced it was partnering with Anthropic to “bring Claude AI models … into US Government intelligence and defense operations”. Anthropic then signed a US$200 million (£150 million) contract with the DoD in July 2025, stipulating certain terms via its “acceptable use policy”.

These would, for example, disallow the use of Claude in mass surveillance of US citizens or fully autonomous weapon systems which, once activated, can select and engage targets with no human involvement.

According to Anthropic, either would violate its definition of “responsible AI”. Hegseth and the DoD have pushed back, characterising such limits as unduly restrictive in a geopolitical environment marked by uncertainty, instability and blurred lines.

Responsible AI should, they insist, encompass “any lawful use” of AI models by the US military. A memorandum issued by Hegseth on January 9 2026 stated:

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and social ideology have no place in the Department of War, so we must not employ AI models which incorporate ideological ‘tuning’ that interferes with their ability to provide objectively truthful responses to user prompts.

The memo instructed that the term “any lawful use” should be incorporated in future DoD contracts for AI services within 180 days.

Anthropic’s competitors are lining up

Anthropic’s red lines do not rule out the mass surveillance of human communities at large – only American citizens. And while it draws the line at fully autonomous weapons, the multitude of evolving uses of AI to inform, accelerate or scale up violence in ways that severely limit opportunities for moral restraint are not mentioned in its acceptable use policy.

At present, Anthropic has a competitive advantage. Its LLM model is integrated into US government interfaces with sufficient levels of clearance to offer a superior product. But Anthropic’s competitors are lining up.

Palantir has expanded its business with the Pentagon significantly in recent months, giving rise to more AI models.

Meanwhile, Google recently updated its ethical guidelines, dropping its pledge not to use AI for weapons development and surveillance. OpenAI has likewise modified its mission statement, removing “safety” as a core value, and Elon Musk’s xAI (creator of the Grok chatbot) has agreed to the Pentagon’s “any lawful use” standard.

A testing point for military AI

For C.S. Lewis, courage was the master virtue, since it represents “the form of every virtue at the testing point”. Anthropic now faces such a testing point.

On February 24, the company announced the latest update to its responsible scaling policy – “the voluntary framework we use to mitigate catastrophic risks from AI systems”. According to Time magazine, the changes include “scrapping the promise to not release AI models if Anthropic can’t guarantee proper risk mitigations in advance”.

Anthropic’s chief science officer, Jared Kaplan, told Time: “We didn’t really feel, with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments … if competitors are blazing ahead.”

Ethical language saturates the press releases of Silicon Valley companies eager to distinguish themselves from “bad actors” in Russia, China and elsewhere. But ethical words and actions are not the same, because the latter often entails a real-world cost.

That such a highly public spectacle is happening at this time is perhaps no accident. In early February, representatives of many countries – but not the US – came together for the third time to find ways to agree on “responsible AI” in the military domain. And on March 2-6, the UN will convene its latest conference discussing how best to limit the use of emerging technologies for lethal autonomous weapons systems.

Such legal and ethical debates about the role of AI technology in the future of warfare are critical, and overdue. Anthropic deserves credit for apparently resisting the US military’s efforts to undercut its ethical guidelines. But AI’s role is likely to be tested in many more conflict situations before agreement is reached.

Elke Schwarz is affiliated with the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC)

Neil Renic is affiliated with the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC)

– ref. Anthropic v the US military: what this public feud says about the use of AI in warfare – https://theconversation.com/anthropic-v-the-us-military-what-this-public-feud-says-about-the-use-of-ai-in-warfare-276999

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Daniel Cueto-Villalobos, PhD Candidate, Sociology, University of Minnesota

I’ve been living in Minneapolis and working on my doctoral dissertation about local religious communities since 2019.

It’s given me a chance to personally witness how the COVID-19 pandemic, the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by police officers, and the surge in federal law enforcement presence have fostered grassroots networks of what’s known broadly as “mutual aid.”

Simply put, mutual aid is when communities work together to distribute resources people need to survive, whether it’s food, shelter, clothing or help paying bills. Unlike charity or government assistance, mutual aid is decentralized, grassroots-led and not channeled through nonprofits or government agencies.

One reason why mutual aid flourishes in Minnesota is that it has deep roots in the state.

Enduring ‘Operation Metro Surge’

Citing an already prosecuted case of fraud in which some of the perpetrators were Somali American citizens residing in Minnesota, the Trump administration dispatched Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to the Twin Cities in late 2025.

Within weeks, the number of federal agents in what the Department of Homeland Security dubbed “Operation Metro Surge” had topped 3,000, outnumbering those in local police forces and ushering in widespread fear and uncertainty.

Local mutual aid networks quickly mobilized in response to these federal operations. Immigrant advocacy organizations have organized constitutional observer trainings and distributed “know your rights” information on flyers.

As in other cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, “ICE Watch” volunteers in Minneapolis sound 3D-printed whistles and car horns to alert neighbors during ongoing raids. Constitutional observers document key details and provide support to neighbors.

The participants come from every walk of life.

Churches and sex shops alike have pivoted away from their routines to distribute food, diapers, cash and other household items that immigrant households need. Residents with disposable income have organized targeted “cash mobs” to support struggling local businesses.

Crowd-sourced campaigns have directed rent money to families whose breadwinners are afraid to go to work.

Federal agents have targeted schools and bus stops, apprehending adults and children. Parents and neighbors across the region have begun patrolling school drop-off zones to shield students from federal immigration actions.

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Read more:
How anti-ICE organising in Minnesota reactivated mutual aid networks started after George Floyd’s murder

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The North Star State’s heritage

The local grassroots resistance to Operation Metro Surge came as no surprise to me. Mutual aid has deep roots in Minnesota, and this history is closely connected to the violence of European settlement and American expansion.

Minnesota’s harsh winters have always demanded cooperation and neighborliness, not merely as an expression of “Minnesota Nice” – the state’s reputation for a warm, if guarded, way of interacting – but as a survival strategy that predated the first European arrivals in the 17th century.

Generosity, respect and compassion are central values among Dakota and Ojibwe people, Minnesota’s original inhabitants.

From when French fur trappers and Catholic missionaries first made their way to the Great Lakes in the 17th century until the onset of a population boom in the mid-19th century, Indigenous inhabitants sustained relatively stable and mutually beneficial relations with colonial powers.

The North Star State’s Minnesota Nice reputation has long encompassed progressive politics; a polite, if guarded, interpersonal demeanor; and a hearty neighborliness formed out of necessity during frigid winters.

Undergoing demographic changes

After Minnesota gained statehood in 1858, a series of broken treaties, armed conflicts and several laws forced Indigenous people onto reservations, opening up large swathes of land for white settlement. Immigrants from countries like Sweden, Norway and Germany settled in Minnesota in hopes of better opportunities than they had back home. Catholic and Lutheran churches and mutual benefit societies preserved cultural heritage, combated isolation and shaped the new state’s religious culture for generations.

In 1850, 6,100 people lived in the Minnesota Territory. By 1900, the state’s population had reached more than 1.75 million residents, 37% of whom were foreign-born.

Beginning in the 1970s, Minnesota welcomed Somali and Hmong refugees, as well as immigrants from Latin America. Robust social services and Catholic and Lutheran refugee settlement agencies have helped to integrate new arrivals, many of whom fled their countries of origin in response to economic crises and geopolitical instability.

While more than 4 in 5 Minnesotans today are white, the Minneapolis-St. Paul region remains far more diverse in terms of race, religion and national origin.

The seven-county region is 72% white, 10% Black or African American, 8% Asian or Pacific Islander, 7% Latino and just under 1% Native American, according to the 2022 American Community Survey. White people make up just over 50% of the population in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. At just under 20%, Black people constitute a higher share of population in Minneapolis. In St. Paul, about 1 in 5 people are Asian, mainly Hmong and other people of Southeast Asian descent.

Minnesota’s religious landscape is changing too. Since 2000, for example, the share of Muslim Minnesotans has grown from 1% to 3%.

Hmong and Somali Minnesotans play an increasingly prominent role in Twin Cities politics. The Trump administration has harangued the region’s Somali American elected officials, including Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis, especially during its immigration crackdown.

Welcoming donations

The fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Good on Jan. 7, 2026, by ICE agent Jonathan Ross further galvanized the local resistance. While it is unclear if Good was acting as part of a local ICE Watch group, attendance at observer trainings increased in the following weeks.

A few weeks after Good died, on Jan. 23, more than 50,000 people marched in frigid weather through downtown Minneapolis to demand “ICE out!”

In what organizers billed “A Day of Truth and Freedom,” over 700 local businesses closed in solidarity. An estimated 100 clergy were arrested outside the city’s airport, where they decried daily deportation flights to detention facilities.

The outrage increased when, the next morning, border patrol officers shot and killed Alex Pretti, a South Minneapolis Veterans Administration nurse who was documenting ICE actions at the intersection of 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue.

In response, local businesses sheltered people from the chemical that agents deployed. Residents of the neighborhood opened warming stations and distributed granola bars, hot water and hand warmers to mourners.

One organizer insisted they were not accepting payments for these goods and services, although donations were welcome.

Lasting harm

The federal government said it had detained over 4,000 people as of Feb. 4. With public pressure welling up, Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, announced on Feb. 12 that Operation Metro Surge would come to an end.

As of Feb. 25, ICE is less visible in South Minneapolis. But locals across the region are well aware of the ongoing presence in suburban areas, where agents are reportedly using new tactics.

Even if the immigration agents do completely clear out, the damage caused will surely be long-lasting.

Children like 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was taken from his suburban Twin Cities home and flown to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas, have received inadequate food and limited access to recreation while held there, according to ProPublica’s investigative reporters. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called attention to the lasting harms of juvenile detention.

South Minneapolis’ Lake Street corridor, home to over 1,000 immigrant-owned small businesses, has lost over US$46 million in revenue since December. Local leaders estimate that the citywide economic damage exceeds $200 million.

But Minneapolis residents are carrying on the state’s long-standing tradition of solidarity through mutual aid.

Daniel Cueto-Villalobos receives funding from the Lilly Endowment.

– ref. Minneapolis united when federal immigration operations surged – reflecting a long tradition of mutual aid – https://theconversation.com/minneapolis-united-when-federal-immigration-operations-surged-reflecting-a-long-tradition-of-mutual-aid-275987

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Victor (Vik) Pérez, Associate Professor of Practice, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Hub, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

For most of human existence, listening was closely tied to moments that carried meaning, emotion or survival. Nature supplied the backdrop – wind, water, animals – and music surfaced in hunting rituals, healing ceremonies and communal celebrations.

That balance began to shift with the industrial revolution, and the arrival of many loud, unnatural sounds. Today, many people move through the day with a near-constant stream of sounds: playlists for work, ambient study tracks, noise-cancelling headphones on commutes, podcasts on walks, background music for comfort.

Sound is no longer occasional or, for much of the time, collective. It is personal, portable and continuous.

What has changed is not only how we listen, but what listening is for. Many people use sound to manage how they feel and perform – to drown out distractions, stay motivated, reduce stress or make demanding tasks feel easier. Streaming platforms use music labels such as “deep focus” or “workflow” – signalling that these sounds are designed to do something for your mind.

There are upsides to this modern soundscape. In busy workplaces or homes, shaping the auditory environment can restore a sense of control and reduce disturbance – especially from intelligible speech. What we listen to can be a key tool for emotional self-regulation.

But there are downsides too. Continuous audio can crowd out silence, which supports recovery and reflection. What often disappears in a continuous soundscape is not just silence but the space to think. This daily exposure to non-stop music, chat and other sounds may be shaping how you think, decide and cope without you even noticing.

The always-on effect

Neuroscience points not to a dramatic rewiring of our brains through this changing audio experience, but a gradual adaptation. Repeated sound environments shape how attention is allocated, how effort is experienced and how mental states stabilise over time.

Those effects vary, though, depending on the context. Music can support repetitive or low-complexity tasks by increasing engagement and reducing boredom. But when tasks rely on language, problem-solving or new learning, the same music can compete for attention, making sustained thinking feel more effortful.

How listening shapes thinking:

Reviews consistently find that music with lyrics is more likely to interfere with reading, writing and verbal reasoning, and that harder tasks are generally more vulnerable to interference. When sound competes with task demands, it can increase mental effort and fatigue, even if outward performance remains unchanged.

Experimental work suggests higher background sound levels can impair auditory working-memory performance — the capacity to hold and rehearse spoken information while filtering competing sounds. In other words, sound can reshape how thinking is experienced from the inside, long before measurable performance changes become visible.

Because these shifts accumulate gradually, they rarely announce themselves as effects. Instead, they shape mental defaults – how patiently you think, how quickly you judge and how you cope when answers aren’t clear.

Here are some ideas, based partly on my work exploring sound-based cognitive environments and learning readiness, for how to redesign your soundscape before it designs you.

Three principles of audio happiness

A simple principle is to match the sound environment to the kind of thinking you’re doing. Some types of louder sound can support repetitive work, while quieter conditions are often better for reading, writing or analytical reasoning.

While lyrical music is more likely to disrupt reading, writing and analytical work, simpler sound is often safer for language-heavy tasks. By contrast, for repetitive or low-complexity work, self-selected or familiar music may support engagement for some listeners by tuning arousal into a more workable range.

Familiar or self-selected music can sometimes support repetitive work because the brain spends less effort processing novelty. Instead of continuously analysing new sounds, attention can remain anchored on the task itself, helping stabilise alertness during routine activities.

A second principle is self-monitoring. Generic “focus playlist” advice is less useful than paying attention to your own signals: rising distraction, mental fatigue, irritability or the feeling that you are working harder than you should. Audio that boosts energy or enjoyment does not always improve sustained concentration.

When these signals appear, pausing your soundtrack and shifting to a simpler sound environment can help reset your attention balance. Reducing linguistic content, lowering volume or introducing short periods of silence may ease the cognitive load before performance begins to suffer.

Which brings me on to the third principle: protect silence. Quiet time supports neural recovery and internally directed thought – functions linked to default-mode brain activity, when regions linked to reflection, memory integration and future planning become more active.

But valuing silence does not mean removing sound altogether. Beginning complex tasks in quieter settings, introducing short sound-free intervals between activities, or ending the day without continuous background audio can give the brain space to reset attention and recover from sustained input.

Environmental noise can also influence sleep quality by increasing micro-awakenings and reducing deeper restorative stages, even when people do not fully wake up. Many people use sound to help them sleep, but evidence shows it can have a disruptive effect on sleep quality.

Day or night, the sounds we live with do more than just fill the background. They help shape the mental conditions under which we learn, decide and live.

And that is the perhaps uncomfortable point. If you don’t actively choose your soundscape, someone or something will choose it for you – and your mind may start adapting before you realise it.

Victor (Vik) Pérez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What the constant sound of modern life is doing to our minds – https://theconversation.com/what-the-constant-sound-of-modern-life-is-doing-to-our-minds-276486

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hugh Gusterson, Professor of Anthropology & Public Policy, University of British Columbia

Following horrifying revelations about Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic sexual assaults and trafficking of underage girls, the United States Department of Justice has been forced to publicly release millions of the late sex offender’s emails and texts.

I am an anthropologist of elites who conducted field work among the secretive community of nuclear weapons scientists. The Epstein files opens a window into the even more closely guarded world of capitalism’s 0.1 per cent.

Anthropologists study people through what renowned American anthropologist Clifford Geertz called “deep hanging out” — mingling informally and taking notes on what we see. We call this “participant observation.”

People like Bill Gates and Elon Musk do not welcome anthropologists bearing notebooks. But the Epstein files, where the global elite are talking to each other in private — or so they thought — open a peephole into their world.

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And what do we find there?

On a mundane level, we can see how they spend sums of money most of us can only dream about.

For example, we learn that in 2011, billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the New York Post and U.S. News and World Report, spent US$219,000 on his collection of horses, $50,000 on skiing and $86,000 to insure his private art collection.

But the Epstein files are most interesting for what they reveal about a web of gifts, favours and financial transactions that knit together what would otherwise be a disparate sprawl of bankers, developers, tech bros, media personalities and high-profile academics.

A web of gifts and favours

A century ago, French anthropologist Marcel Mauss argued in The Gift that, across cultures, gifts are a way to create relationships of solidarity and obligation.

“No gift is given but in the expectation of a return,” he wrote.

This is evident in Epstein’s relationship with Leon Black, at the time the billionaire CEO of Apollo Global Management and chairman of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Epstein claimed his advice on Black’s finances saved the billionaire as much as $2 billion. In exchange, Black steered at least $158 million to Epstein and gave $10 million to one of Epstein’s charities, Gratitude America.

Black then made Epstein a trustee of the Debra and Leon Black Foundation, and Epstein invested in a startup where two of Black’s sons were on the board.

Epstein also helped Black manage his $2.8 billion art collection. He advised on selling individual works at a profit, getting paid by museums for loaning artworks and using art as collateral for bank loans.

Incidentally, one of the lessons I take from this is that billionaires do not look at art the way I do. I may buy (modestly priced) artworks because I like to look at them. Billionaires like Black and Zuckerman see them as investments.

Favours could also be exchanged, zig-zag style, among several people to create network solidarity. Epstein asked Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, to make sure Woody Allen’s daughter was admitted, while also gifting Allen $10,000 worth of shirts and luxury underwear.

Brad Karp, head of the Paul Weiss law firm, asked Epstein if he could intercede with Allen to get a job on his movie set for his son. In turn, Epstein asked Karp for help with a woman’s visa, and Karp steered $158 million from his client, the aforementioned Leon Black, to Epstein.

Collecting academics

When there is an asymmetry among the resources of two people, gifts lead to subordination, not reciprocity. Mauss referred to this as the “poison in the gift.”

We see this in Epstein’s transactions with academics whose research he bankrolled. He collected academics the way his billionaire friends collected artwork — Botstein, president of Bard; Larry Summers, president of Harvard; Lawrence Krauss, celebrity physicist; Dan Ariely, organizational psychologist; and the evolutionary psychologists and biologists Steven Pinker, Robert Trivers, Stephen Kosslyn, Martin Nowak, Joscha Bach and Nathan Wolfe to name a few.

Epstein was drawn to these academics because of his interest in eugenics, which he needed them to legitimize. He thought Black people were intellectually inferior and wondered if they could be improved through genetic modification. In a typo-ridden message, he texted German cognitive scientist Bach:

“Maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation.. The earths forest fire… too many people, so many mass executions of the elderly and infirm make sense… if the brain discards unused neurons, why shold society keep their equivalent.”

And he talked about creating new superhumans by seeding batches of women with his own sperm.

After spending days reading Epstein’s messages to his associates, it reveals something essential about the contemptuous way they view the rest of the world.

One of them, lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler, texted Epstein that she would “get gas at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, will observe all of the people there who are at least 100 pounds overweight … and will then decide that I am not eating another bite of food for the rest of my life out of fear that I will end up like one of these people.”

Hopefully, most of the world is not like them.

Hugh Gusterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What the Jeffrey Epstein files reveal about how elites trade toxic gifts and favours – https://theconversation.com/what-the-jeffrey-epstein-files-reveal-about-how-elites-trade-toxic-gifts-and-favours-275727

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

South Korea’s very low birth rate and ageing population have long served as a cautionary tale for other governments worried that they’ll see similar demographic challenges.

But now, for the second year running, more people in South Korea are having children, according to new preliminary data published by the ministry for data and statistics.

The 6.8% rise in births in 2025 is the largest rise since 2007, and has taken the country’s total fertility rate to 0.80, up from 0.75 in 2024. The news is being cautiously celebrated, but with South Korea’s overall population still shrinking, it is yet to reverse its demographic fortunes.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Stuart Gietel-Basten, a demographer and professor of social science and public policy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, about how South Korea has got to this point. Part of the reason is that a generation of so-called “echo-boomers”, born in the 1990s after a relaxation of the coutry’s strict anti-natalist policies, are now starting to have children.

But Gietel-Basten says many of the issues stopping people in South Korea from having children remain, despite huge sums spent by the government on tax incentives, housing benefit and childcare support. “ Unless you change underlying structural issues around gender roles, around work, culture, and so on, then even well-meaning policies are not necessarily going to have the impact that they should,” he says.

Listen to the interview with Stuart Gietel-Basten on The Conversation Weekly podcast. This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer.

Newsclips in this episode from WION.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Stuart Gietel-Basten is a also guest professor at Osaka University and an adjunct professor at Khalifa University.

– ref. South Korea’s birth rate is rising – but the population is still shrinking – https://theconversation.com/south-koreas-birth-rate-is-rising-but-the-population-is-still-shrinking-276924

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Luiz Leomil, PhD candidate, Political Science, Carleton University

The United States government recently announced it will allow companies to resell Venezuelan oil to Cuba amid a severe fuel shortage on the island. Earlier this year, the U.S. cut off oil shipments to Cuba from its main supplier, Venezuela, after American forces abducted that country’s president.

Cuba’s ambassador to Canada, Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz, recently told Canadian MPs on the House foreign affairs committee that the U.S. was “suffocating an entire people.” He was referring to the decades-long American embargo against Cuba, which has become even more severe in recent weeks.

In his remarks, Diaz also urged Canada to follow through on a promised aid package to Cuba. Canadian officials have committed to sending an additional $8 million, which will be channelled through international aid organizations operating in Cuba.

This represents a modest and indirect commitment, especially in comparison with the initiatives undertaken by other countries. Mexico has sent more than 2,000 tons of direct humanitarian aid while continuing diplomatic talks on resuming oil supplies, and other countries in the Global South are reportedly preparing similar, more tangible responses.

In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a widely praised address in Davos, Switzerland, that many saw as an apt diagnosis of the failings of the U.S.-led “rules-based international order.” In it, he urged middle powers such as Canada to act with greater honesty and consistency, applying the same standards to allies and rivals so that states can co-exist in an international order that actually functions as advertised.

The Davos speech set high expectations. These are now, however, fading as Carney’s government wavers in sending robust aid to the people of Cuba and in denouncing the most recent unlawful coercive measures imposed by the U.S.

Explaining restraint

Canada has crafted a longstanding image as one of the largest humanitarian contributors in the world. It also has historical and economic ties with Cuba. Canada was one of the few American allies to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba following the 1959 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed regime.

Cuba is Canada’s top market in the Caribbean, and Canada is the Cuba’s largest source of tourists as well as its second-largest source of direct investment. Canada is also among the overwhelming majority of United Nations member states that regularly vote in support of resolutions condemning the U.S. blockade.

However, three factors help explain the gap between the Canadian government’s rhetoric and its actions.

First, geopolitical constraints are significant. Like other middle powers, Canada’s freedom to act in open defiance of the U.S. is tightly limited. Canada’s fundamental economic and security interests are reliant on the U.S., and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Canada is open to a high risk of American retaliation if it chooses to aid Cuba. Such risk is even more heightened under the Trump government, which has demonstrated a willingness to use coercive measures against Canada.

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Second, domestic politics shape foreign-policy choices. Contrary to simplified assumptions in classical international relations theory, state behaviour is not determined only by systemic incentives but also by domestic constituencies and how important particular issues are to segments of the population.

In Canada today, there is no broad public movement demanding robust government aid to Cuba. By contrast, there are vocal constituencies mobilized in support of Ukraine that keep assistance to that country politically salient and prioritized.

Third, officials in Global Affairs Canada have long favoured taking what they regard as a pragmatic approach toward Cuba. That posture helps explain Canada’s reluctance to provide direct, high-profile assistance during acute shortages or crises.

Canada did not intervene during Cuba’s 2024 blackout crisis, for example. On the other hand, the same approach has also led Canada to be less critical of political issues in Cuba, unlike its firmer stance toward the Venezuelan or Nicaraguan governments.

This approach has generally allowed Canada to preserve a baseline level of diplomatic engagement and safeguard economic and strategic interests. In recent years, this posture has become partly institutionalized within Global Affairs Canada and is regarded as the most workable and sustainable policy line.

Aid by proxy, unfulfilled commitments

In recent years, Canada has preferred to send assistance to Cuba through international aid organizations, but these efforts are unlikely to be sustainable given the scale of the humanitarian needs the country may face.

It remains unclear whether Canada will adopt a more robust strategy, departing from this established approach, to support Cubans. While facing their own constraints, it’s more likely that leadership in countries from the Global South, including Mexico, China and Brazil, will take action.

The outcome is twofold. Not only is the Canadian government failing to live up to a humanitarian image it has promoted on the world stage, but the international community also applauded a Davos speech that was both conflicting and somewhat disingenuous.

At times in his speech, Carney was realistic and incisive, exposing the weaknesses in the United States-led rules-based order. At key moments, however, Carney suggested that Canada still supported those rules and was willing to defend them through a more honest and equitable approach. Here, the tension between diagnosis and prescription was never resolved.

When it comes to the U.S. blockade of Cuba, Canada’s options are widely perceived as limited, and the country is seen as being forced to “go along to get along,” as Carney said in Davos. However, the blockade also presents Canada with an opportunity to showcase how middle powers can chart their own course.

Carney also said middle powers have the “the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.” If Canada continues to equivocate on Cuba, Carney’s speech will come to reflect a familiar pattern in Canadian foreign policy: rhetorical candour about global inequities combined with reluctance to challenge them.

Luiz Leomil does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Canada-Cuba relations must navigate the dangers of the U.S. embargo – https://theconversation.com/how-canada-cuba-relations-must-navigate-the-dangers-of-the-u-s-embargo-276875

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Ambrose Kolawole Dada, Research Assistant, Media and Communication, Nelson Mandela University

In a widely viewed YouTube sermon called 3 Types of Keys, a preacher, dressed in a sky blue Italian suit, holds a microphone and speaks with great assurance about spiritual matters. Prophet Shepherd Bushiri is telling his audience that their financial struggles are not accidental.

He warns that business, marriage or social standing can easily crumble if believers don’t pay their tithes to the church every month – 10% of their earnings. This message is not presented as advice, but as divine instruction.

Bushiri is one of the most influential and controversial Pentecostal prophets to emerge from southern Africa in the digital age. As journalist Pumza Fihlani writes:

This is a man who says he has cured people of HIV, made the blind see, changed the fortunes of the impoverished and, on at least one occasion, appeared to walk on air.

The growth of African evangelical movements has often been associated with self-styled pastors taking advantage of Africans who are already vulnerable. Their lives are characterised by socioeconomic failures of government, inadequate healthcare systems, beliefs in supernatural forces, and corruption-driven inequalities.

In recent years, Bushiri has been involved in a series of legal battles – including charges of financial crimes and sexual assault – leading to his exit from South Africa to Malawi, where he was born.

His sermons continue to reach masses of worshippers online, with 794,000 subscribers on YouTube alone at the time of writing. He says he has two million registered congregants today.

As media and communication scholars who are interested in religious communication, we analysed what his sermons can tell us about why his online presence is so successful.

We found that, like other rhetoric (persuasive language, for example by politicians or advertisers), his YouTube sermons are carefully framed narratives that promote ideas about faith, authority and prosperity. They strengthen the pastor’s personal influence over his audience and, at the same time, build his brand.

Who is Shepherd Bushiri?

Bushiri – called Major 1 by his followers – is the founder of the Enlightened Christian Gathering Church. He rose to prominence in the 2010s through TV broadcasts and social media (he has 5.8 million followers on Facebook alone), presenting himself as a prophet with supernatural insight.

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His ministry expanded rapidly across Africa and among Africans living overseas. Reports claim that Bushiri is one of the richest pastors in Africa. His ministry reflects what has been described as “prophetpreneurship” – the strategic blending of prophecy, charisma and business.

These descriptions raise interesting questions. How are prophetic authority and prosperity communicated to followers? And what role does digital media play in sustaining this influence?

Sermons as communication

To answer these questions, we turned to Bushiri’s YouTube sermons. Video-sharing platforms play a central role in African Christianity today. YouTube has the capacity to boost religious audiences. Sermons are watched on mobile devices, replayed repeatedly and shared across borders, often outside formal church spaces.

Rather than evaluating Bushiri’s teachings as “true” or “false”, our study focused on how his sermons communicate meaning. Sermons function as public communication. Like political speeches or advertising, they’re designed to persuade, inspire and guide behaviour.

We used Critical Discourse Analysis, a research method that examines language to uncover underlying messages about power, authority and values. This was supported by framing theory, which explains how speakers present issues through storylines. A frame is simply the angle through which a message is communicated.

Four dominant themes

The analysis identified four recurring frames in a selection of 10 of Bushiri’s YouTube sermons.

1. Paying to pray

It’s a human aspiration to want to prosper. In Bushiri’s 3 Types of Keys sermon, human prosperity is closely tied to financial giving, emphasising that God requires the “whole tithe”.

South African theologian Mookgo Solomon Kgatle argues this emphasis resembles a money cult. While the Bible has references to tithing, interpretation and context are crucial. When money is a condition for divine favour, faith risks becoming about moneymaking rather than spirituality.

2. Self-positioning

In the sermon Exposure to the Spiritual World, Bushiri claims:

The spirit of God is in your nostrils; if I can breathe on you, you will see the power of God.

This teaching seems rather simplistic, and shifts focus to the self-positioning of Bushiri as a super prophet whose very breath has spiritual power.

Scholars have noted that such practices, common among new prophetic churches, can oversimplify or misrepresent spiritual truths. Despite their emotional appeal, these teachings risk misleading followers by elevating a prophet’s opinion over the scripture and established Christian tradition.

3. Building the brand

Self-branding is common in business, but in religious contexts it can be intensified. Bushiri repeatedly presents himself as a channel of divine blessings, with what he calls his “contract-winning touch”.

He recounts testimonies from international visitors who said, “Papa touched me and the contract came.” He claims that when he touches someone, he leaves a spiritual “substance” on them.

This framing encourages dependency on him. Personal contact is a drawcard for those seeking jobs or “healing” from illness.

4. Media strategy

Digital media has allowed more people to have access to more religious content, but it also raises ethical concerns. Scholars have argued that media-mediated spiritual encounters can blur the line between what’s real and what’s a performance.

In The Perfect Will of God, Bushiri claims that physical distance does not limit spiritual connection. He claims he can anoint people through the screen.

Televised images of new prophet church leaders are often carefully constructed to project success and extraordinary spiritual power, reinforcing their authority. Bushiri, for example, once made headlines for apparently raising a man from the dead.

The role of YouTube

Digital platforms intensify these frames. On YouTube, sermons can be consumed privately, without immediate discussion or challenge from a physical faith community. Emotional moments – prophecies, miracles and dramatic testimonies – are rewarded by likes and comments, and can be enhanced by controversies.

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Followers affirm their faith and loyalty in a video’s comments. Over time, this creates a sense of a global spiritual community centred on a single individual.

Digital religion is not only about spreading faith. It is also about expanding influence and, in some cases, monetising belief.

Why this matters

Religion plays a vital role in African societies, offering hope, identity and belonging. But religion, like all forms of communication, is not neutral. It is designed to achieve particular aims. Recognising this does not mean dismissing faith; it means engaging with it critically and responsibly.

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For audiences navigating online spaces, learning to recognise persuasive strategies, religious or otherwise, is increasingly important.

Understanding how religious messages are framed can help believers make informed choices and encourage healthier forms of accountability in religious leadership.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Prophets and profits: the art of the sell in Shepherd Bushiri’s YouTube sermons – https://theconversation.com/prophets-and-profits-the-art-of-the-sell-in-shepherd-bushiris-youtube-sermons-276277