Recent ucb items

The Influence of Atmospheric River Seasonality and Orientation on Pacific Northwest Surface Temperatures

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract Atmospheric rivers (ARs) influence weather and climate along the North American west coast, yet their effects on Pacific Northwest (PNW) surface temperatures remain unclear across seasons and synoptic configurations. Motivated by the 2021 PNW heatwave—which was preceded by a poleward‐tracking AR—we analyze how ARs modulate daily maximum temperatures ( T max ) during summer (JJA) and winter (DJF) from 1989 to 2024. Using reanalysis data and an AR detection algorithm, we composite integrated vapor transport (IVT), Z500, total precipitation, cloud cover, and T max anomalies for AR detection days and the subsequent 10 days, and classify summer ARs according to the tilt of their IVT plumes as meridionally oriented (MARs) or zonally oriented (ZARs). Winter ARs exhibit a coherent southwest to northeast orientation and generate widespread, statistically significant PNW warming that persists for over a week. In contrast, composite summer ARs produce no consistent T max response...

Impact of the Plasticizer Content on the Lithium Plating Behavior in Lithium Polymer Batteries

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

At present, the only commercial lithium-metal battery (LMB) technology is based on polyethylene oxide (PEO) based electrolytes. However, its limited ionic conductivity at ambient temperatures requires the operation (discharge and charge) at elevated temperatures of around 60 °C–80 °C, i.e., close to and above the melting point of PEO. Herein, we investigate the impact of incorporating varying amounts of tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether serving as chemically identical plasticizer to enhance the ionic conductivity also at lower temperatures. A comprehensive comparison of the physicochemical, electrochemical, and mechanical properties is conducted via complementary experimental and theoretical studies, with a particular focus on the impact on the morphology of the deposited lithium using ex situ X-ray tomography. The results reveal that the mechanical properties play a key role for achieving a homogeneous and smooth lithium deposition. These insights are anticipated to contribute...

Strangeness production as a function of charged-particle multiplicity in proton-proton collisions at s=5.02 TeV

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

(Multi-)strange particle production rates and transverse momentum distributions are measured at midrapidity as a function of the charged-particle multiplicity density by the ALICE experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), using proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of TeV. This study extends similar studies performed at TeV and TeV to a lower-energy regime, improving the statistical precision and extending the measurement to previously unexplored low-multiplicity regions. While , , and yields can be described with a linear multiplicity dependence within uncertainties, the yields follow a significantly faster than linear increasing trend. For all analyzed particles, the overall production rate is consistent with that observed at higher energy and at similar multiplicity densities. Transverse momentum distributions are observed to evolve with multiplicity. Several state-of-the-art QCD-inspired Monte Carlo models have been compared with the data, testing...

Hydration-dependent exciton-phonon coupling in a metal-organic framework photocatalyst

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have potential for light-harvesting applications owing to their tunable optoelectronic properties via building block selection. The presence of bound solvent in MOFs is known to impact gas adsorption properties, but little is known about their effect on optical properties. Here, we investigate how the presence of bound water can modulate the optical properties of a reported MOF photocatalyst, SU-101. Using the GW approximation and the ab initio Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) and treating exciton-phonon coupling with a finite difference method, we show that exciton-phonon interactions in SU-101 are strong and highly sensitive to the presence of bound water molecules. Specifically, we find that the presence of bound water is associated with a stronger localization of excitons due to phonons. Guided by our calculations, we synthesize SU-101 and study this MOF under different water loadings. We measure photoluminescence (PL) emission and UV-Vis absorption...

Dark Matter as the Z2 Partner of the Standard Model Higgs Boson

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A possible gamma-ray excess from the Galactic halo favors dark matter with a mass of several hundred GeV. In previous work, we found that an electroweak scalar doublet is a particularly economical—and nearly uniquely selected—interpretation among simple renormalizable thermal dark-matter models. We point out that its unbroken Z2 symmetry is exactly equivalent to an interchange symmetry between two Higgs doublets, making dark matter the Z2-odd partner of the Standard Model Higgs boson and suggesting that the two doublets may share a common weak-scale origin. We connect this model to the recently reported 248keV nuclear-recoil event in the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment. For dark-matter masses of several hundred GeV, the fixed off-diagonal Z interaction can produce the observed recoil within a narrow, halo-dependent strip near the kinematic boundary, predicting a large annual modulation for a smooth Standard Halo Model. Dedicated solar-capture calculations, however, exclude this Standard-Halo...

Search for displaced decays of long-lived particles in events with missing transverse momentum in s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A search for long-lived particles in events with significant missing transverse momentum and at least one displaced vertex is presented. This analysis is performed using 137 fb−1 of pp collision data collected between 2016–2018 during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider by the ATLAS detector. Displaced vertices are identified using two different secondary vertexing algorithms, including a novel “fuzzy” vertexing algorithm optimized for identifying displaced decays of heavy quarks. Separate searches are performed using each algorithm, and the expected Standard Model background is independently estimated for each search using a data-driven procedure. No significant excess is observed over the background in either case. The results are used to set 95% confidence-level limits on potential beyond-the-Standard Model physics that could produce this final state. Results are interpreted in the context of four models: long-lived gluinos that form R-hadrons before decaying, neutralinos decaying...

A generic ωb tension in early-time solutions to the Hubble tension

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I show that early-time (pre-recombination) solutions to the Hubble tension are generically expected to increase the preferred baryon density ωb . This puts these models in tension with Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), as measurements of primordial deuterium constrain ωb at percent level. I show that existing analyses are in tension with the BBN determination of ωb , and that including a likelihood component for primordial deuterium deters two representative models from recovering a high H0 .

Probing of core excitons in solid NaF with polarization-selective attosecond time-resolved four-wave mixing spectroscopy

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Nonlinear four-wave mixing processes are a powerful technique to unravel ultrafast dynamics in solid-state systems. Here, we employ attosecond four-wave mixing spectroscopy with one extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pump and two independently delayed, noncollinear near-infrared (NIR) probes to resolve the ultrafast decoherence of both dipole-allowed and dipole-forbidden core excitons at the Na+L2,3 edge in sodium fluoride (NaF). The decoherence times of the core excitons are observed to be much faster than the 8 fs limit of the instrument response time, which is attributed to strong exciton–phonon coupling. Furthermore, polarization control of the NIR probes (perpendicular and parallel polarizations) reveals that the bright core excitons exhibit s-like orbital angular momentum, while dark core excitons, reached by two-photon excitation, exhibit p-like orbital angular momentum.

Emergent Decoherence Dynamics in Doubly Disordered Spin Networks

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Elucidating the emergence of irreversible macroscopic laws from reversible quantum many-body dynamics remains challenging, particularly in disordered media. Here, in a doubly disordered electron-nuclear spin network in nitrogen-doped diamond, we uncover an emergent decoherence law for ^{13}C polarization, M(t)=e^{-sqrt[R_{p}t]}e^{-R_{d}t}, that persists over >500 s and across broad Hamiltonian regimes. We trace the law to two interdependent, electron-mediated channels: direct depolarization by a fluctuating electron bath and an indirect pathway governed by polarization transport within the dilute nuclear network, which is anomalous and subdiffusive. Combining Floquet engineering with all-optical modulation of the electron environment, we demonstrate deterministic control of the channels and the ability to selectively eliminate either one. Disorder, typically viewed as detrimental, here proves protective by generating rare electron-free clusters that trap polarization and dominate...

The marked power spectrum as a practical bispectrum measure for galaxy redshift surveys

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Modern datasets have the precision necessary to uncover new information by including higher-order, non-Gaussian information into cosmological inference. The marked power spectrum offers access to such information while preserving the structure of two-point correlators. This approach to higher-order statistics has the advantage that many modeling questions can directly benefit from progress already made in standard cosmological analyses using the power spectrum and correlation function, while increasing the data vector size negligibly and retaining much of the degeneracy-breaking power of the bispectrum through a particular data compression. In this work, we first restructure the marked power spectrum to isolate its higher-order information and demonstrate its ability to break parameter degeneracies. We then investigate the effect of survey geometry on the marked power spectrum and find that a treatment similar to that of the power spectrum is sufficient. Additionally, we investigate...

Understanding the Microscopic Structure of Counterion Condensation Near a Charged Polypeptoid Surface

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract The molecular-level study of the electrical double layer is key to understanding ion solvation, adsorption, and transport in many electrochemical and biological systems. Here, we combine the modified Gaussian renormalized fluctuation theory and molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the microscopic structure of counterion condensation near a charged nanofiber created by self-assembly of amphiphilic polypeptoids in water. Our theory shows a peak shift of the counterion distribution, indicating the existence of a water monolayer between condensed counterions and surface charges. Without any fitting parameters, the peak position and the shape of the counterion distribution predicted by our theory are in quantitative agreement with recent experimental results using cryogenic electron microscopy. We provide a possible explanation for the formation of such solvent-separated ion pairs in terms of the image charge repulsion at an interface with a dielectric mismatch. This...

Time resolution of the ALICE time-of-flight detector with the first Run 3 pp collisions at s=13.6 TeV

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Particle identification (PID) is a fundamental aspect of the ALICE detector system, central to its heavy-ion and proton–proton physics programs. Among the different PID strategies, ALICE uses the time-of-flight (TOF) detector to identify particles at intermediate momenta (0.5

Targeting cancer-specific mutations with RNA-triggered chromatin shredding

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Genetic mutations that drive cancer often occur in tumour-suppressor proteins such as the p53 transcription factor, which is altered in 40–50% of cases1,2. However, current therapies often fail to target these mutations because the mutant proteins typically lack defined drug-binding pockets and restoring their endogenous function has proven challenging. Here we program Cas12a2, an RNA-guided CRISPR nuclease with trans-nucleolytic cleavage activity3,4, to kill cancer cells selectively by targeting cancer-specific transcripts. This approach limited cell growth by inducing trans shredding of chromatin and triggering DNA-damage responses and cell death. In contrast to existing methods, RNA-guided Cas12a2 senses cellular RNA signatures, enabling precise targeting of undruggable mutations. Transcript-activated chromatin shredding provides an innovative approach to precision disease treatments for undruggable targets.

Fundamental Phase Noise in Thin Film Lithium Niobate Resonators

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

ABSTRACT Fundamental phase noise in thin‐film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic integrated circuits is governed by thermal‐charge‐carrier‐refractive (TCCR) dynamics arising from thermally driven carrier fluctuations. In contrast to the predominantly thermorefractive noise (TRN) in silicon photonic platforms, TCCR noise represents a distinct mechanism that becomes critical for applications requiring high frequency stability and phase coherence, including optomechanical sensing, low‐phase‐noise microwave synthesis, and on‐chip quantum squeezing. Here, we identify three dominant contributors to the TCCR noise in TFLN microresonators: material anisotropy, surface states, and temperature. Material anisotropy results in increased noise for extraordinarily polarized optical modes and leads to a geometry dependent phase noise. Surface‐state effects manifest as increased noise in higher‐order transverse modes as well as more than 120‐fold higher noise in suspended microresonators. Temperature‐dependent...

Explaining Far-Right Thinking and Its Surge in the United States

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article offers a relational conceptualization of the far right that is applicable across space and over time. Far-right thinking is conceptualized as adaptable to diverse socioeconomic and demographic groups relative to diverse targets of resentment and hatred. It pivots on a linkage between casteism and replacement theory, the latter being the affective register of the former. The recent surge of far-right thinking is a matter of movement not from the fringe to the mainstream, but rather from implicit to explicit status within the mainstream, where it has always resided yet shapeshifts between covert and overt. Focusing on the US context, this article critiques three salient frameworks that explain the surge of the far right and imbricates pertinent points from each relative to the conceptual framework. All have merit, but alone their recommendations for countering the far right are mainly short-term. The article concludes with an agenda that connects with the conceptual...

Contactless Cavity Sensing of Superfluid Stiffness in Atomically Thin 4Hb-TaS2

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The exceptional tunability of two-dimensional van der Waals materials offers unique opportunities for exploring novel superconducting phases. However, in such systems, the measurement of superfluid phase stiffness, a fundamental property of a superconductor, is challenging because of the mesoscopic sample size. Here, we introduce a contact-free technique for probing the electrodynamic response, and thereby the phase stiffness, of atomically thin superconductors using on-chip superconducting microwave resonators. We demonstrate this technique on 4Hb-TaS_{2}, a van der Waals superconductor whose gap structure under broken mirror symmetry is under debate. In our cleanest few-layer device, we observe a superconducting critical temperature comparable to that of the bulk. The temperature evolution of the phase stiffness features nodeless behavior in the presence of broken mirror symmetry, inconsistent with the scenario of nodal surface superconductivity. With minimal fabrication requirements,...

93. Archaeobotanical Results from water flotation of samples from the Stone Age site of Leira, Aure municipality, Norway

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

93. Archaeobotanical Results from water flotation of samples from the Stone Age site of Leira, Aure municipality, Norway

Regulation of Transpiration and Whole‐Tree Crown Conductance in Tropical Forests

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Summary statement We found a consistent, emergent relationship between tropical tree crown conductance and its sensitivity to vapour pressure deficit across diverse species and sites. This reveals convergent stomatal–hydraulic regulation alongside distinct drought sensitivities among plant functional types.

Probabilistic Storylines: Characterizing the Likelihood of Impactful Events in an Uncertain World

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract Storylines are a useful approach for understanding and preparing for impactful events. For instance, resource managers often use “design droughts” or “floods of record” to stress-test system vulnerabilities and consider alternative responses. While plausible storylines are sufficient for many applications, there is a growing interest in rigorously evaluating storyline probabilities to inform risk-based adaptation investments, especially in cases where preparing for storylines is costly or where storyline probabilities are changing over time. However, assigning actionable probabilities to storylines presents conceptual, methodological, computational, and data challenges. One key challenge is how to reconcile deeply uncertain aspects of the future arising from different scenarios and model structural biases with those aspects that are more amenable to statistical characterization, such as stochastic variability. Another challenge is translating the idiosyncratic features...

Toward Hydrogen Isotope Separations through Strong Hydrogen Adsorption at Open Copper(I) Sites in an Ultramicroporous Metal–Organic Framework

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Metal-organic frameworks with coordinatively unsaturated metal sites (open metal sites) capable of engaging in orbital interactions with π-acidic gases are of interest for enabling ambient-temperature gas separations, such as hydrogen isotope separations. In view of the weakly π-acidic nature of H₂, we sought to strengthen π-backbonding-mediated H₂ adsorption through pore confinement effects. Toward that end, we synthesized and characterized the ultramicroporous metal-organic framework Cu_xZn_5-xCl_4-yH_z(bbta)₃ (Cu^IZn-MFU-4; H₂bbta = 1H,5H-benzo(1,2-d:4,5-d')bistriazole), featuring π-basic trigonal pyramidal Cu^I sites that reside within 7 Å of one another at their closest. Gas adsorption measurements reveal an H₂ adsorption enthalpy of -38 kJ/mol, exceeding that of the larger-pore analog (Cu^IZn-MFU-4l;...

Air Emissions Impacts of Fuel Substitution in the United States Cement Industry

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

High-heat industrial processes cannot be easily electrified, often rely on comparatively high-emitting solid fuels, and are essential for economic growth. Cement production in particular is critical to supporting construction and the expansion and maintenance of infrastructure systems in countries around the world. Fuels for cement production include petcoke, coal, and waste solvents, and their combustion contributes approximately 40% of the CO2 emissions from global cement production. Broadening the fuel resources to include agricultural residues and other wastes can reduce emissions and divert waste from landfills. We assess the potential to use 16 different alternative fuels across the 88 integrated cement plants in the United States. The share of alternative fuels in the cement production sector could increase from the current level of 17% to as high as 73%. Fuel substitution can reduce the current fuel-related life-cycle emissions (28.6 ± 5.7 Mton CO2/year) by 19-45%. The...

Articulating Efficiency and Equality in College Access: A Systematic Review of Statewide Transfer Articulation Research

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Articulating Efficiency and Equality in College Access: A Systematic Review of Statewide Transfer Articulation Research

ClURGT4 contributes to biomass accumulation in watermelon by influencing cell size and cell wall composition

Tue, 10 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Leaf and fruit size are the crucial fitness characters for plant evolution and the agronomic traits for crop yield and quality improvement in watermelon. However, the underlying genes and molecular mechanisms for regulating fruit size and biomass remain elusive. Here, we identified a Citrullus lanatus UDP-rhamnose (Rha)/UDP-galactose (Gal) transporter ClURGT4, which is localized in the Golgi apparatus and has the dual functions of transporting UDP-Gal and UDP-Rha. Loss-of-function clurgt4 mutants resulted in decreased biomass and reduced Gal, Rha, and galacturonic acid (GalA) in cell wall components. Microscopical analysis showed that ClURGT4 promoted leaf and fruit size by modulating cell expansion. Proteomic analysis revealed that several cell wall metabolism-related proteins were changed in clurgt4 mutants. Moreover, protein glycosylation was changed in the mutants, and several of the differentially glycosylated proteins were related to cell wall metabolism. These findings...

Teachers of Preschool-Age Children in California

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Early care and education (ECE) programs for children prior to kindergarten in California are provided through a mixed delivery system that includes licensed home- and center-based programs as well as school settings. Parents make decisions about what type of program(s) their children attend based on a combination of factors such as culturally affirmative practices, cost, schedule, and location. Most ECE services must be purchased by parents; public funding is limited, and if subsidized access to early care and education is available, it is typically linked to income eligibility. As a result, many children who qualify for ECE don’t have access. Furthermore, the financial resources available to a program often depend on what families can afford to pay, not necessarily the true costs to provide services.

The requirements, experience, and supports for educators vary widely across settings, depending more on funding sources and regulatory status and less on what educators...

Front Matter v6 iss1

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Front Matter v6 iss1

Parental Labor Supply

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We analyze effects of the minimum wage on the labor supply of parents of young children. Distributional difference-in-differences and event study models document a sharp rise in employment rates of single mothers with children ages 0 to 5 following minimum wage increases. Effects are concentrated among jobs paying close to the minimum wage. We find corresponding drops in the probability of staying out of the labor force to care for family members. Results are consistent with simple labor supply models in which childcare costs create barriers to employment. Minimum wage increases then enable greater labor force participation and reduce child poverty.

The Kindergarten Lessons We Never Learned

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Today, free public kindergarten for five-year-old children is available in every state and community throughout the United States, and public education is routinely referred to as K-12. But kindergarten did not start out this way. Kindergartens in the United States once served children as young as three and four years old. In fact, today’s movement for public pre-kindergarten (pre-K) is a consequence of the gradual exclusion of almost all three- and four-year-olds from public kindergarten.

A century ago, the U.S. kindergarten landscape looked similar to preschool today. Kindergarten had limited public funding and was predominantly composed of private programs paid for by families and charitable donations. It took more than a hundred years to establish kindergarten as a public...

State Finance Beyond the Core Budget: Off-Balance-Sheet Fiscal Agencies in Germany’s Fiscal Ecosystem

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The state is often perceived as a unitary fiscal actor, operating through a core budget managed by the treasury. However, recent scholarship increasingly emphasizes the role of off-balance-sheet fiscal agencies (OBFAs)—entities distinct from the treasury but tasked with similar fiscal activities, often backed by implicit or explicit state guarantees. This creates a complex and historically contingent “fiscal ecosystem,” shaped by political, economic, and legal dynamics. Using Germany as a case study, this article develops a methodology to categorize and map its extensive ecosystem of OBFAs, which number in the tens of thousands. These entities are analyzed in relation to their legal status, revenue models, and debt-issuance practices, with particular attention to their alignment with Germany’s constitutional debt brake and EU fiscal rules. The German case illustrates how states extend their fiscal reach by operating a more complex web of balance sheets than is often thought.

Capitalist State, State Capitalism, and the Current Conjuncture of International Law

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This review essay engages with various conceptualizations of the “capitalist state” and “state capitalism” within four newly published books. It posits that the capitalist state is not a homogeneous category—that the “mature independence of the economic sphere from the political sphere” in liberal capitalism and their “immature independence” in state capitalism render the role of the state in each geography different while producing distinct geopolitical structures within the global economic order. The essay argues that the extraterritorial liberal capitalism of the Anglo-Saxon sphere has historically produced and simultaneously peripheralized state capitalism outside this sphere. State capitalism has, in turn, posed threats to free competition and profitability rates of liberal capitalism, requiring intervention by the hegemonic power arising from liberal capitalism to tackle market distortion. As such, debates around the “return of geopolitics” to international law should...

High Minimum Wages and the Monopsony Puzzle

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We present the first causal analysis of recent large minimum wage increases, focusing on 47 larger U.S. counties that reached $15 or more by 2022q1. Using stacked county-level synthetic control estimators, we find substantial pay growth, no disemployment effects and reduced wage inequality. Our novel procedure ameliorates pandemic-related bias. We pose and address a monopsony puzzle: Researchers often invoke monopsony to explain absent negative employment effects, yet the model generally predicts positive employment effects. When we reduce selection and attenuation biases—by excluding areas with local minimum wages and high-wage counties—we find large, significant positive employment effects.

Neoliberal Eugenics and the Political Economy of Reproductive Biotechnology

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

High-profile pronatalist supporters of reproductive genetic technologies have thrust these technologies into the national spotlight in the US, reprising questions about the relation between reproductive biotechnologies and eugenics. This article develops the concept of neoliberal eugenics to reframe common understandings of this issue. Neoliberal eugenics refers to the way that neoliberalism facilitates eugenic logic and outcomes through a framework of “choice.” The article draws on scholarship in disability justice and reproductive justice to articulate the limitations of choice before analyzing specific new reproductive genetic technologies and their political economy. The concept of neoliberal eugenics also reveals the flaws in judges’ reasoning in decisions about reproductive technology and eugenics. In short, the article argues that we need a new theory of neoliberal eugenics to understand the burgeoning reproductive biotechnology industry. That theory must consider political...

Review of Melinda Cooper, Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance (Zone Books, 2024)

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Melinda Cooper, Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance (Zone Books, 2024)

Preparing SEL Systems to Sustain (and Support!) Educators

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Preparing SEL Systems to Sustain (and Support!) Educators

International Legal Ordering and the Lithium Supply Chain: Struggles over Extraction, Corporations, and the Developmental State

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

International legal and financial organizations have recently been proposing that the acquisition of lithium and other critical minerals should be mediated through particular kinds of supply chain policy. In this article, I examine the legal practices that have shaped lithium extraction, and the modes of legal thought on the relationship between the nation-state and the corporation that have influenced how international lawyers often understand this intensifying extraction. I suggest that what we now call the lithium supply chain could be understood as an accretion of practices of international legal ordering, very often in a hierarchical manner. In my analysis, these historical practices of legal ordering can shed light on international institutions’ current focus on critical mineral supply chains, where demands for reparation or reorganization of the global economy often become sidelined through the promise of the energy transition: that more lithium is all we need.

Timber Capitalism: The Journey of Industrial Logging Across Tropical Forests in the Post–World War II Era

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article investigates the rise of the global tropical timber trade in the post–World War II era by focusing on two key actors, Japan and Malaysia. It probes into the rise of corporate capitalism in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s and state developmentalism in Malaysia in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by the creation of the International Tropical Timber Organization. It then turns to Malaysia’s defense of tropical logging both during and after the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, leading up to the internationalization of the Malaysian timber industry. The article argues that the development of international norms governing the tropical forests of the South in the 1990s was made possible by the assimilation of both the developing states’ aspirations for economic growth and the industrialized world’s environmental demands into neoliberal environmentalism as underpinned by technological fix and a retreat from the earlier narratives of “limits to growth.”

CHIPS Child Care Requirement -- How Equitable Implementation Can Promote Stable, Well-Compensated Early Childhood Jobs

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This policy brief provides guidance for advocates on how to influence implementation of the CHIPS Act child care requirement. By promoting quality jobs for the early childhood workforce and supporting small independent programs (especially those owned and/or operated by women of color), employer-sponsored child care will contribute to a system of stable, community-centered programs that address the diverse needs of their employees.

Pennsylvania Early Childhood Higher Education Inventory

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This report describes the early childhood degree programs offered in Pennsylvania, focusing on variations in program content, age-group focus, student field-based learning, and faculty characteristics, as well as how Pennsylvania ECE higher education programs responded and adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Review of Mark Paul, The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights (University of Chicago Press, 2023)

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Mark Paul, The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights (University of Chicago Press, 2023)

Small Businesses and the Minimum Wage

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We provide the first causal analysis of the role of firm size on minimum wage effects in the U.S. Using a stacked event study estimator, we find that minimum wages increase pay in low wage industries, particularly so in small businesses. We do not detect any corresponding disemployment effects. For teens, wage increases are stronger in larger businesses and come with modest disemployment effects in smaller ones. These results point to strong monopsony power for large firms and backward bending teen labor supply curves.

Forestry Extractivism and the Constitutive Role of Law: The Public/Private Divide in a Southern Chilean Case Study

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines the relationship between law and the expansion of forestry extractivism in southern Chile since the country’s neoliberal Constitution of 1980 was put in place, as well as the prospects of that relationship in the context of constitutional reform. It does so by focusing on the ideological and distributive functions of law as constitutive of forestry extractivism. The article shows how, through the ideology of the private/public divide, law attributes a subsidiary role to the State in shaping forestry extractivism, obscuring the fact that it has fostered this sector’s growth through land-use regulation and legal-economic entitlements such as tax benefits and subsidies. Moreover, it shows how legal institutions, specifically property and freedom of contract, have shaped and enabled processes of land concentration in the hands of a few large-scale companies that dominate the forestry sector, creating an imbalance in bargaining power to the detriment of peasants...

Racial Inequality in Frictional Labor Markets

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We provide the first causal analysis of how state and federal minimum wage policies in the U.S. have affected labor market frictions and racial wage gaps. Using stacked event studies, binned difference-in-differences estimators, within-person analyses and classic panel methods, we find that minimum wages increased wages of black workers between 16 and 64% more than among white workers and reduced the overall black-white wage gap by 10% (and by 56% among workers most affected by the policies). Racial differences in initial wages cannot explain this differential effect. Rather, minimum wages expand job opportunities for black workers more than for white workers.

We present a model with labor market frictions in which minimum wages expand the job search radius of workers who do not own automobiles and who live farther from jobs. Our causal results using the ACS show that minimum wages increase commuting via automobile among black workers but not among white workers, supporting...

Parent Preferences in Family, Friend, Neighbor, and Nanny Care

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first in a series of reports on the 2022 California Family, Friend, Neighbor (FFN), and Nanny Study. In this report, we discuss findings from a survey of California parents with children under age six. This report highlights parental care choices—both current and ideal—and the value that family, friend, neighbor (FFN), and nanny care holds for California parents.

Front Matter

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Front Matter

Review of Trevor Jackson, Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690–1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Trevor Jackson, Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690–1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

Teaching Transitional Kindergarten: A Snapshot of the Teacher Experience Before UTK Expansion

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

California is expanding transitional kindergarten (TK) to become a universal preschool program for all four-year-old children. Upwards of 300,000 children are expected to enroll in universal transitional kindergarten (UTK) by 2025, requiring thousands of additional lead teachers and classroom aides to meet lower student-to-teacher ratio requirements and new student demand (Melnick et al., 2022; Williams et al., 2021). While previous studies have documented the positive impact of TK on children’s learning (Banks et al., 2022; Manship et al., 2017; Sulik et al., 2023), this report presents the first comprehensive data collected from California’s transitional kindergarten teachers about their teaching experiences.

Understanding what TK teachers themselves are saying about their preparation, work environments, and experiences is essential to ensuring a quality program as school, district, and state leaders plan for UTK expansion. In the fall of 2020, the Center for...

Review of Edward Jones Corredera, Odious Debt: Bankruptcy, International Law, and the Making of Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Edward Jones Corredera, Odious Debt: Bankruptcy, International Law, and the Making of Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Introduction—The Law and Political Economy of Extractivism in the Anthropocene

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction—The Law and Political Economy of Extractivism in the Anthropocene

Early Educator Voices: OREGON–Work Environment Conditions That Impact Early Educator Practice and Program Quality

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Early educators are the key to quality early care and education (ECE) services, and there is broad consensus that high-quality care and learning environments for young children depend on educators who are skilled at nurturing children’s development and learning. Yet, inadequate working conditions and low pay routinely hamper educators in their efforts to apply effective teaching and caregiving practices (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2015; McLean et al., 2021). Early educator work environments have a direct impact on their teaching practice, ongoing skill development, and general well-being, yet work environments have routinely been overlooked in quality improvement efforts. Transforming the way that the early care and education system values and supports the working conditions of early educators requires sustained strategies on multiple levels.

As a part of ongoing efforts to transform Spark, Oregon’s quality recognition and improvement system...

Bold on Early Educator Compensation Learning Community 2022: Lessons from State Actions

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past two years, pandemic funds like the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) served as much-needed relief for our early care and education (ECE) system, a system in the midst of collapse. ARP dollars provided an opportunity to think differently about how we resource the early care and education workforce—those who work with children prior to kindergarten. However, emergency funding is insufficient to comprehensively address the long-standing low pay and lack of benefits facing early childhood educators. As the deadline for spending ARP funds approaches, what can we learn from state efforts to improve ECE compensation so that we see permanent change? Even as we acknowledge how racism, sexism, and classism have shaped the current ECE system, including our inadequate subsidy system, how do we ensure that policymakers design and implement compensation solutions equitably?

The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley convened 20+ advocates and...

Integrating Law and Ecology: The Biodiversity Crisis and Juridical Ontology

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Human activity is dramatically reducing global biodiversity. In response, legal decision-makers have deployed regulations aimed at minimizing the impact of the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history. However, environmental law has recurrently failed to arrest rates of biodiversity loss. As such, legal scholars have proposed myriad reforms to overhaul the legal protection of biodiversity, ranging from introducing a crime of “ecocide” to granting legal personality to nonhumans. Yet there is a gap in the literature concerning the tendency of these novel proposals to reproduce the limitations of traditional methods. This article addresses that gap by critically reviewing the literature on the ontological tensions between Western-descended legal systems and the science of ecology. It argues that these tensions produce ecological “translation errors” within law that run deeper than is often acknowledged. The article concludes that increased skepticism—but not apathy—toward...

The International Climate Change Regime and the Growth-Oriented Ontology of Sustainable Development: A System on Shaky Foundations

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This research examines the international climate change regime, critically assessing the extent to which it is underpinned by the growth-oriented, mainstream conceptualization of sustainable development. The study first outlines the shortcomings characterizing the concept of sustainable development, as well as differences which exist between its mainstream and more progressive conceptualizations. Subsequently, it adopts a post-sustainable-development perspective to identify elements within the international climate change regime that reflect and normalize the mainstream conceptualization of sustainable development. Although climate change treaties “shall be based on best available scientific knowledge,” the literature reveals that mainstream sustainable development ontology is built upon shaky assumptions, including the feasibility of decoupling global economic growth from ecological pressures. Nonetheless, the three climate change treaties have increasingly been influenced...

Extractivism as Authoritarianism

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Scholars characterize Latin American resource-dependent countries as “low-intensity democracies” with electoral competition and political rights. In this literature, undemocratic practices like participation exclusion and state repression are marginal phenomena. This article focuses on Peru—a country with many socio-environmental conflicts and a historical global provider of minerals—to understand the relationship between increasing extractive operations, social protests, and the enactment of emergency decrees as a crucial authoritarian feature of extractive states. By analyzing the case study of the “Southern Mining Corridor” and the emergency decrees enacted from 2015 to 2023 to protect mining, the article argues that emergency decrees have been normalized in extractive sites as a form of state control that excludes the political agency of Indigenous movements. Ultimately, the law establishes an unequal distribution of democratic...

Challenging the Constitutional State in a Context of Transnational Mining Economies and of Global Coloniality

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Focusing on the case of the municipality of Marmato, Caldas, within the Colombian mining regime, this article argues that a global economy based on intensive resource-accumulation activities reshapes the state apparatus in normative and institutional terms. This article discusses how the Colombian mining regime has been articulated within a transnational lawmaking process and is legitimized by a classic development discourse that reproduces the continuity of particular (neo)colonial forms of exploitation. It shows how certain forms of capital accumulation and exploitation in (neo)colonial contexts, like those developed in large-scale gold-mining projects, persist under constitutional democracies due to the reprimarization of the economic processes. The extractive dynamics of the twenty-first century not only demonstrate that the constitutional state is permanently re-inscribed in a (neo)colonial rationality, but also show how the (post)colonial period is reconfigured through...

The Legal Tragedy of Exploitation: Irresponsibility and the Complicity of Law

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The article argues that labor litigation helps to sustain, rather than interrupt, the process of worker exploitation. Using legal claims raised by Uber drivers and Deliveroo riders in the UK as a backdrop, it focuses on undue exploitation—exploitation beyond the limits set by law—as a mechanism that facilitates capital accumulation while hedging against the liability this mode of exploitation imposes. While assuming this outcome is socially undesirable and ideally curtailed by law, the article shows that the legal framework of labor litigation produces two complementary effects that reinforce exploitation through the embeddedness of irresponsibility. First, it disassembles the reciprocity between exploitation and liability, enabling extraordinary profit flows for exploiters. Second, it normalizes residual profits that persist beyond court awards. These effects frame exploitation as a gamble that will generally pay off, all the while embedding its social effects at a level no...

Law and Extractivism in the Anthropocene

Mon, 9 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines the historical and contemporary relations between law and extractivism in the Anthropocene. As an organizing concept of our times, extractivism describes the intensive removal of raw materials—largely from the Global South—for processing and consumption in the Global North. Extractivism is entwined with the histories and legacies of colonialism and imperialism and is central to the entrenched operations and politics of contemporary capitalism. It (re)produces a racialized global political economy and attendant climate and ecological crises. Although legal scholars have long been concerned with regulating extractive activities, attention has only recently turned to the notion of extractivism as a logic, ideology, imaginary, or imperative connected with law. This article furthers this engagement by exploring how law authorizes extractivist relations and proposing a research agenda for envisioning and building nonextractive legal and political economic orders.

Continuum Editors' Note