Author: TheConversation

By Anna Nagurney, John F. Smith Memorial Professor of Operations Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst Perhaps you’re snacking on a banana, sipping some coffee, or sitting in front of your computer and taking a break from work to read this article. Most likely, those goods – as well as your smartphone, refrigerator, and virtually every other object in your home – were once loaded onto a large container in another country and traveled thousands of miles via ships crossing the ocean before ultimately arriving at your doorstep. Today, an estimated 90% of the world’s goods are transported by sea,...

By Paolo Sigismondi, Clinical Professor of Communication, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism As a kid growing up in Italy, I remember watching the American TV series “Happy Days,” which chronicled the 1950s-era Midwestern adventures of the Fonz, Richie Cunningham and other local teenagers. The show, combined with other American entertainment widely available in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, shaped my perception of the United States long before I ever set foot in the country. Today, I call the U.S. home, and I have developed my own understanding of its complexities. I am able to see “Happy...

By Christopher R. Cherry, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee About 30 people in the United States have been killed riding electric scooters since 2018. Most of them, 80% of the fatalities, were hit by drivers of cars. Publicly available e-scooters arrived to U.S. cities in 2017 as an energy-efficient and fun new way to get around town. By 2019, e-scooter rides had soared from zero to 88 million trips annually. But putting e-scooter riders on the same roads as cars without good infrastructure or clear rules has been dangerous. Making streets safer will require urban...

By Alexis Karteron, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers University – Newark; Jeannine Bell, Professor of Law, Maurer School of Law, Indiana University; Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor at the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University; and Ric Simmons, Professor of Law, The Ohio State University Scholars analyze the guilty verdicts handed down to former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Outside the courthouse, crowds cheered and church bells sounded – a collective release in a city scarred by police killings. Minnesota’s attorney general, whose office led the prosecution, said he would not call...

By Simran Jeet Singh, Visiting Professor, Union Theological Seminary On April 16, 2021, a gunman opened fire at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis killing eight people and injuring several others before taking his own life. Four members of the Sikh community were among those gunned down. The site was reported as having a significant number of Sikh employees, and the massacre has left the community shaken and in grief. “I have sat with families from our community and so many others at the Holiday Inn Express as they wait to hear the fates of their loved ones,” said Maninder...