Society

University of Otago, Wellington—Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, Pōneke researchers believe the government is breaching the rights of imprisoned and recently-released Māori.... Read more

The military continues to play a vital role in powering San Diego's economy, supporting nearly 357,000 local jobs and contributing $61.3 billion to the region's total economic output, according to the 2025 Military Economic Impact Report (MEIR). The report is released annually by the San Diego Military Advisory Council (SDMAC)... Read more

Food brings people together. It serves as a tool to communicate political stances, to cultivate cross-cultural comprehension or, if necessary, create tensions. Menus can reflect these intentions by using food to create specific psychological effects and convey symbolic messages. But how exactly is it done?... Read more

A University of Massachusetts Amherst study has found that gerrymandering in North Carolina resulted in reduced access to health care services. As states across the country grapple with politically charged redistricting efforts, the finding could ultimately offer a new strategy to fight gerrymandering in the courts, the researchers say.... Read more

When large corporations help Ukraine maintain its digital sovereignty, it is not just a matter of technical assistance. They are political actors who are reshaping the relationship between states and private companies, new research shows.... Read more

Medical parole, or compassionate release, is a mechanism for people with advanced illness in prison to be released because they are no longer considered public safety threats.... Read more

When political parties consider potential Indigenous candidates, they often worry about voter backlash.... Read more

Ethnic profiling remains a sensitive and complex issue within police work. In his Ph.D. research at the University of Twente, Bas Böing examined how police officers can be more effectively engaged in addressing this problem. His research shows that sustainable change is possible when officers are given space to learn,... Read more

In recent months, Russia has frequently flown drones into NATO territory, where NATO countries typically try to shoot them down. By contrast, when three Russian fighter jets made an incursion into Estonian airspace in September, they were intercepted and no attempt was made to shoot them down—although the incident did... Read more

Mass shootings can spur higher voter turnout in nearby communities, but the effect is highly localized and doesn't appear to change how people vote for president, according to new findings from researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law.... Read more

A systematic review of academic research in the International Journal of Web Based Communities has looked at the relationship between the leading online video content sites and its recommendation system and how this might affect the circulation of polarized or misleading content. The review analyzed 56 studies investigating how the... Read more

China's new Fujian aircraft carrier, unveiled recently by President Xi Jinping with great fanfare, has been hailed by Chinese state media as a major milestone in the country's naval modernization program and a key development in the country's aspirations to become a maritime power.... Read more

New research reveals that people find AI-delivered political arguments convincing. This could help bridge political divides—or fuel polarization.... Read more

In the last decade, armed drones have become one of the most visible symbols of modern warfare. Once the preserve of advanced militaries, armed drones are now widely available on the global arms market. Countries such as Turkey, China and Iran are producing lower-cost models and exporting them. In Sudan's... Read more

Most Canadians have access to workplaces that are safe, promote health and autonomy and, most importantly, are protected by the law. But for people in criminalized professions, including sex work, it's a different story.... Read more

As the first American pope, Leo XIV has largely avoided speaking out about domestic politics in the United States.... Read more

In China's social media universe, celebrities are often assumed to set the tone for millions of adoring followers. But a new study led by the University of Michigan shows the dynamic works the other way around: When it comes to online nationalism, fans are the ones leading—and stars are following.... Read more

Between January and mid-October 2025, calls to local 211 helplines from people seeking food pantries in their community held steady at nearly 1,000 calls per day.... Read more

Migrants in Europe stand by the basic values of democracy, according to a new study conducted by a research team led by Professor Marc Helbling, sociologist at the University of Mannheim focusing on Migration and Integration and Executive Board member of the Mannheim Center for European Social Research (MZES).... Read more

Populists use controversial issues to a far greater extent than other issues to promote their political messages. This is deliberate.... Read more

Routine congressional oversight hearings usually don't make headlines. Historically, these often low-key events have been the sorts of things you catch only on C-SPAN – procedural, polite and largely ignored outside the Beltway.... Read more

Adults aged 55 and older are significantly more likely to share political misinformation than younger social media users. And it's not because they're unable to discern fake news from real news, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research.... Read more

Current U.S. immigration enforcement and deportation policies are producing widespread harm to physical and mental health, with family separation and the specters of fear and intimidation affecting the well-being of immigrant and non-immigrant communities.... Read more

With more than 1 billion people around the world living in fragile or conflict-affected situations, establishing food security is an increasing challenge.... Read more

New survey evidence from the UK and Japan shows people are open to MPs using AI as a tool, but deeply resistant to handing over democratic decisions to machines.... Read more

Australians filed over 80,000 reports of online child sexual abuse last financial year, more than double the 36,600 reports in 2021/22.... Read more

In an era of intensifying geopolitical rivalry, the global economy is being reshaped by tensions between the United States and China. For U.S. firms, this raises a pressing question: How should they adjust their supply chains to navigate the future?... Read more

Voting behavior in elections is strongly linked to the future risk of death, and is likely a stronger determinant of health than education—considered a key influence on health—suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.... Read more

Oklahoma has become a testing ground for reshaping public school curriculum to reflect conservative viewpoints, Make America Great Again priorities and a push for Christian nationalism in the classroom.... Read more

As satellite technology surges ahead and space becomes increasingly accessible to private and state actors alike, the new and unsettling threat of space terrorism looms above Earth's atmosphere.... Read more

About one-third of U.S. nonprofit service providers experienced a disruption in their government funding in the first half of 2025.... Read more

Since 2013, a hidden and lucrative economy of ransom-based human trafficking has emerged in Libya, run by traders who attempt to bring migrants and refugees to Europe via the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea. Based partly on interviews, Ph.D. researcher Morgane Wirtz reveals a system of imprisonment, (sexual) violence, and... Read more

A new study from University of California San Diego has found that while a third of Californians use cannabis regularly, there are significant gaps in knowledge around cannabis use and driving. The researchers found that even six years after the legalization of recreational cannabis use, adults in California demonstrate mixed... Read more

The European Union's legal ambiguity on the Western Sahara frozen conflict is an increasingly glaring source of vulnerability for Sahrawis, a new study shows.... Read more

Milk is one of the most familiar things in the world—comforting, wholesome, ordinary. But beneath this common perception lies something far more complicated.... Read more

A study led by Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) confirms the rise in ideological polarization and biased or false news posted on Facebook. This research analyzed over 6 million news-related URLs—from 1,231 different domains in the United States—shared on Facebook between 2017 and 2020.... Read more

In a time of tariffs and political trade disputes, new UBC Okanagan research shows that it's not what you know but who you know—and how well you treat them.... Read more

In an era of heightened political polarization, merely longing for civility is no longer enough. Understanding just how to debate and respectfully disagree has become truly imperative, now more than ever and for a couple good reasons.... Read more

In Australia, where turning up to vote is mandatory, deliberately spoiling your ballot is one of the only legal ways to protest or opt out.... Read more

According to a new study, offline social networks, revealed by co-location data, predict U.S. voting patterns more accurately than online social connections or residential sorting. Michele Tizzoni and colleagues analyzed large-scale data on co-location patterns from Meta's Data for Good program, which collates anonymized data collected from people who enabled... Read more

Over the summer, the United States deployed warships to the Caribbean—ostensibly to menace drug traffickers but also as a none-too-subtle warning to Venezuela. Earlier in the year, a U.S. Navy destroyer bobbed along waters close to Iran for similar reasons. And in the Taiwan Straits and Pacific, China and the... Read more

The growing age imbalance in the duty solicitor scheme in England and Wales risks eroding trust in the criminal justice system, a new study warns. Most duty solicitors are aged 45 and over, putting at risk the ability of vulnerable suspects to access timely and effective legal representation at the... Read more

Minerals such as cobalt, copper, lithium, tantalum, tin and tungsten, which are all abundant in central Africa, are essential to the comforts of everyday life. Our phones, laptops and electric vehicles would not function without them.... Read more

Iran and Israel fought a 12-day war in June. Although a ceasefire was declared the same month, news coverage of Iran continues to focus on the conflict's aftermath and the Middle East's tense political situation.... Read more

What happens now?... Read more

It's an almost universally accepted truth that walking in well-lit areas is safer. But Aaron Chalfin, associate professor of criminology in Penn's School of Arts & Sciences; John MacDonald, criminology professor and director of the Master of Science in Criminology, and Brian Wade, senior data scientist at Penn's Crime and... Read more

New research suggests that trying to change people's climate habits won't hurt support for big picture solutions.... Read more

A study in Management Science finds that public charities with corporate directors on their boards are significantly more likely to lobby on behalf of the connected firms' political interests. More to the point, the research found that nonprofit governance structures can quietly serve as extensions of corporate influence into the... Read more

Political attitudes and opinions can and do shift, sometimes drastically. Recent psychological research from Washington University in St. Louis offers insight into how emotional responses to threats contribute to shifts in political attitudes.... Read more

More than 300 ostriches have been threatened with destruction in eastern British Columbia after avian flu was detected in the flock. The birds' owners have argued this is a case of "unjust governmental overreach."... Read more