The history of the Taliban is crucial in understanding their success now – and also what might happen next

  The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban left many surprised. To Ali Olomi, a historian of the Middle East and Islam at Penn State University, a key to understanding what is happening now – and what might take place next – is looking at the past and how the Taliban came to prominence. Below is an edited version of a conversation he had with editor Gemma Ware for our podcast, The Conversation Weekly.

The U.S. government vs. the United States

  Advocates of empire and interventionism are saying that even given the debacle in Afghanistan, America should not “retreat” from the world. Even though our nation has lost “credibility” in the world, they say, it is imperative that the United States continue to project power and influence around the world. To do otherwise, they say, would create a “vacuum” into which would flow Russia, China, Iran, the terrorists, or some other adversary, opponent, or enemy. Some of them are even bringing up the dreaded "I" word — isolationism! 

Biden’s new arms transfer policy must balance security and values

  U.S. arms transfer policy strives to strike a balance between promoting human rights and the need to develop strong security partners. President Biden’s arms transfer policy will reportedly increase the emphasis on human rights. Exactly how much this will change the status quo remains to be seen.

How Aretha Franklin asserted control over her career, paving the way for female musicians

  “I need a change,” Aretha Franklin says at one point in “Respect,” the new film starring Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul. “I want to sing what I want to sing.”

  For all her talent, Franklin’s rise to superstardom wasn’t easy. When she left the world of gospel music to try to become a mainstream pop star, it meant a move into a segment of the industry that was dominated by men who had very specific assumptions about how a woman should sing – and what she should sing about.

The oil and gas industry’s dangerous answer to climate change

  No one is immune to the effects of the climate crisis—not even those responsible for its causes. Rising sea levels, record heat, unprecedented extreme weather disasters, and increasingly unstable environmental conditions are making it costlier and more difficult for oil and gas companies to operate in environments that their own destructive practices have altered. The same ecological fallout that hurts communities is hitting the industry’s bottom lines.

I studied people who think leisure is a waste of time – here’s what I found

  When I first took my now-husband to Turkey, I tried to prepare myself for anything that could go wrong – delayed flights, language difficulties, digestion issues.

  But I wasn’t ready when, as we walked into a beautiful beach club on the Aegean coast, he grumbled, “What are we going to do?”

Climate change is an infrastructure problem – map of electric vehicle chargers shows one reason why

  Most of America’s 107,000 gas stations can fill several cars every five or 10 minutes at multiple pumps. Not so for electric vehicle chargers – at least not yet. Today the U.S. has around 43,000 public EV charging stations, with about 106,000 outlets. Each outlet can charge only one vehicle at a time, and even fast-charging outlets take an hour to provide 180-240 miles’ worth of charge; most take much longer.

  The existing network is acceptable for many purposes. But chargers are very unevenly distributed; almost a third of all outlets are in California. This makes EVs problematic for long trips, like the 550 miles of sparsely populated desert highway between Reno and Salt Lake City. “Range anxiety” about longer trips is one reason electric vehicles still make up fewer than 1% of U.S. passenger cars and trucks.

What does full FDA approval of a vaccine do if it’s already authorized for emergency use?

  Thirty percent of unvaccinated American adults say they’re waiting for the COVID-19 vaccines currently authorized for emergency use to be officially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has since granted that approval for those age 16 and older for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Aug. 23, 2021. What had to happen for the FDA to advance from emergency use authorization, or EUA, to full approval?

Hospitals often outsource important services to companies that prioritize profit over patients

  Hospitals have long embraced the practice of outsourcing some services to specialized companies. Much of this outsourcing is for nonclinical tasks such as laundry, information technology, and cybersecurity, and outsourcing those types of services can boost efficiency and quality.

  However, over the past few years, there has been a fast-growing trend of hospitals outsourcing clinically relevant services – like anesthesiology and emergency medicine – to companies separate from the hospital. When that happens, hospitals relinquish some of the control they have over quality of care.

The story of Nearest Green, America’s first known Black master distiller

  When you hear the name Jack Daniel, whiskey probably comes to mind.

  But what about the name Nathan “Uncle Nearest” Green?

  In 2016, The New York Times published a story about the distiller’s “hidden ingredient” – “help from a slave.” In the article, the brand officially acknowledged that an enslaved man, Nearest Green, taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey. Since then, scholars, researchers, and journalists have descended upon Lynchburg, Tennessee hoping to learn more about a man who, until then, had appeared as a mere appendage in the story of the country’s most popular whiskey brand.