Society

When lawmakers name bills after victims of tragedy—such as Megan's Law or the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993—public support surges, but this emotional boost may come at the expense of sound policymaking, according to research published in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.... Read more

Turning on the "For You" algorithm on X (formerly Twitter) may shift users' political opinions toward more conservative views, suggests research involving nearly 5,000 X users. These effects are shown to persist even after users return to a chronological feed, according to a new paper published in Nature.... Read more

For the first time in more than half a century, there are no binding restraints on the buildup of the largest nuclear forces on Earth. The New START treaty expired on Feb. 5, 2026, ending the last agreed limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear forces.... Read more

Fake news generated by AI is often perceived as more credible than texts written by humans. That worries linguist Silje Susanne Alvestad. In 2017, "fake news" was chosen as the new word of the year by the Language Council of Norway. But what are the linguistic features of fake news,... Read more

Messages intended to suppress votes can be precisely delivered to particularly vulnerable and consequential groups of people via social media and keep millions of them from casting ballots, according to a new study that is the first to quantify the effect of this kind of microtargeting on voter turnout. A... Read more

Bureaucratic hurdles and racial disparities restrict access to victim compensation for adult survivors of sexual assault, deepen justice system inequities and compound trauma. The absence of police verification of a crime is the primary reason for rejection, representing 34.4% of disapproved requests—which account for roughly 8 out of every 100... Read more

A vast majority of professional athletes believe they should be allowed to engage in political activism and intend to use their social media channels to raise awareness about racial injustice, according to a report issued today by the Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California.... Read more

Americans are less confident in U.S. elections than they were a year ago—Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. In a national survey from the Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections (CTTE) at the University of California San Diego, produced in collaboration with the university's Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research, 60%... Read more

A global team of researchers, including Professor Stephen Reicher from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, have produced a new World Bank Working Paper offering an innovative and integrative analysis of how collective hate develops and the strategies that can be used to counter... Read more

A new study published in Nature has found that X's algorithm—the hidden system or "recipe" that governs which posts appear in your feed and in which order—shifts users' political opinions in a more conservative direction.... Read more

Certain markers of high status may more strongly boost attitudes toward women versus men, and low status markers may more strongly worsen attitudes toward men versus women—with both findings more pronounced in countries with more conservative gender norms. Marie Isabelle Weißflog of Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, and the University of York,... Read more

While there are plenty of historical topics U.S. citizens agree on—generally, events and figures from the Civil War up to the end of the Cold War—the birth of the nation isn't one of them, according to a new report from Johns Hopkins SNF Agora Institute and a nonprofit called Millions... Read more

Thousands of people were killed by Iranian security forces in days of protests in January 2026. Meanwhile, in the same month, the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis shone a light on the use of fatal force by American law enforcement—a phenomenon that in 2025 saw the deaths of more... Read more

Chinese chatbots may be censored by the state, according to a study published in PNAS Nexus. China has a robust program of censorship and all China-originating LLMs must be approved by the Chinese government before release.... Read more

A new pilot study examining how immigrant residents engage with city services and government processes in Long Beach suggests that heightened federal immigration enforcement is undermining democratic participation, even among U.S. citizens who fear for undocumented family members.... Read more

The Swiss job market is a popular location for workers from outside the country. At the end of 2024, the Swiss Federal Statistical Office reported about 400,000 cross-border commuters in Switzerland—that is, people who live outside the country and commute to work in Switzerland. By contrast, there are about 1.9... Read more

In the face of widespread pessimism about the political fate of the United States and growing political polarization, scholars and citizens across the country are reimagining how American democracy could better serve the needs of the whole population.... Read more

Voters might think less taxes would equate to more money in their pockets, but a new study shows that at the local level, the opposite may actually be true. Economists and politicians have weighed the benefits of different theoretical models for years, but a lack of direct, empirical evidence showing... Read more

In mid-2023, around the time Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as X but before he discontinued free academic access to the platform's data, my colleagues and I looked for signs of social bot accounts posting content generated by artificial intelligence. Social bots are AI software that produce content and interact with... Read more

Researchers in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent have found that sharing conspiracy theories on their dating profiles can seriously damage first impressions and reduce romantic interest, but this reaction depends on the political views of the person viewing the profile. In particular, the study, which involved... Read more

A three-pronged research project seeks to empower communities, policymakers, and law enforcement agencies by improving access to and understanding of police use-of-force rules.... Read more

A new national study finds a concerning surge in teen "sexting," which frequently exposes them to serious risks, including sextortion, coercion and privacy violations. Sexting involves sending or receiving sexually suggestive images or video, while sextortion is the threat to share explicit or intimate images without consent to pressure someone... Read more

Conversations about Philippine jail congestion often begin and end with statistics: thousands of case backlogs, cells built for 50 crammed with 200 bodies, and facilities straining at 300% to 400% beyond capacity. Yet these numbers barely capture the everyday human cost of overcrowding.... Read more

Living near other lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people makes LGB people significantly more likely to vote, according to new research published in The Journal of Politics. When the share of LGB residents in a neighborhood increases by just one percentage point, LGB residents become 1.56 percentage points more likely... Read more

New research from The University of Manchester has shown that debates and resistance about wearing face masks go back a lot further than the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Meng Zhang, a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University's Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, found that barbers went... Read more

Few countries talk about "ghettos" the way Denmark does. For more than a decade, the term has shaped national debates about migration, integration and who truly belongs.... Read more

When it comes to national politics, Americans are fiercely divided across a range of issues, including gun control, election security and vaccines. It's not new for Republicans and Democrats to be at odds over issues, but things have reached a point where even the idea of compromising appears to be... Read more

A century ago, the section of U.S. federal law governing public health and welfare was relatively small and loosely connected to the rest of the legal system. Today, it is one of the largest and most interconnected parts of the United States Code.... Read more

Scroll through social media long enough and a pattern emerges. Pause on a post questioning climate change or taking a hard line on a political issue, and the platform is quick to respond—serving up more of the same viewpoints, delivered with growing confidence and certainty.... Read more

A psychological assessment test often used to evaluate psychopathy in Canadian criminal cases is unreliable and prone to unconscious bias on the part of expert witnesses, according to research from the University of Toronto Mississauga.... Read more

Just four months ago, Timor-Leste formally became a member of the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN). This week, the tiny country took an unprecedented step: its judicial authorities appointed a prosecutor to examine the Myanmar military's responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It's believed to be the... Read more

Researchers, including Professor of Management and Organization Reuben Hurst at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, have produced VRscores, an unprecedented public database for understanding the partisan lean of different employers in the United States.... Read more

People who sign consent forms feel more trapped—not more empowered—than those who give consent verbally, according to new research by Vanessa Bohns, the Braunstein Family Professor in the ILR School, and co-author Roseanna Sommers of the University of Michigan Law School.... Read more

Around the world, millions of families have suffered forcible separation, through war, trafficking, natural disasters, or socioeconomic crises. In China, family separation is a particularly large-scale and far-reaching problem. Following the enactment of the country's One Child Policy in 1979, many children were abandoned or trafficked and then adopted either... Read more

Informing people about political deepfakes through text-based information and interactive games both improve people's ability to spot AI-generated video and audio that falsely depict politicians, according to a study my colleagues and I conducted.... Read more

Journalism in the United States is in crisis: Local newspapers are shuttering at an alarming rate, large cities that were once served by multiple daily local newspapers now barely sustain one or two major outlets, and the government has made concentrated attacks against public media. A new report from the... Read more

Would you create an interactive "digital twin" of yourself that can communicate with loved ones after your death?... Read more

A new briefing paper produced by the London Social Media Observatory (LSMO) at Royal Holloway and Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) details emerging risks to democratic participation on TikTok. The LSMO and WFD brought together 45 policymakers, academics, civil society representatives and strategic advisors at a roundtable discussion to explore... Read more

The introduction of mandatory photo ID in the 2024 general election may not have provided the security boost promised by the government, new research suggests. Polling clerks operating during the UK's first mandatory voter ID election made mistakes in 36% of cases when tested with real ID documents, according to... Read more

Divisions within the US population on social and political issues have increased by 64% since 1988, with almost all this coming after 2008, according to a study tracking polarization from the end of the Reagan era to the dawn of Trump's second term.... Read more

City council public comment periods may focus on local issues, such as housing and public services. But new research from the University of Michigan shows they also serve as powerful forums for expressing broader societal concerns, including democracy, equity and social justice. The study is published in the Journal of... Read more

International labor migration plays a vital role in supporting families across low- and middle-income countries, often providing a critical source of income for families back home. However, when mothers migrate abroad for work, young children may be left without steady parental care during important developmental stages. While this concern is... Read more

Leading English-language news outlets often misuse the term "hard-right" to describe far-right political movements, potentially softening their extremist image and boosting their electoral appeal, according to a new study published in the journal European Political Science. The research, conducted by Dr. Georgios Samaras from King's College London's School for Government,... Read more

A report published today by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law shows that 53% of transgender youth between the ages of 13 and 17 in the U.S.—approximately 382,800 young people—live in 29 states with laws or policies that restrict their access to gender-affirming care, sports, bathrooms and facilities... Read more

On February 4, the New START Treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, is set to expire. Signed in 2010, the agreement caps deployed strategic nuclear forces at 1,550 warheads and 700 delivery systems. It also establishes one of the most extensive verification... Read more

Firearm purchasing patterns can shift in response to specific events, including presidential elections, according to Rutgers Health researchers.... Read more

It's common to wonder as tax season ramps up: Are taxes too high? According to a new study by University of Cincinnati economics professor David Brasington, the answer is no, at least when it comes to Ohio's city service taxes. These taxes go toward local services such as funds for... Read more

As controversy over Australia's new hate laws continues, last weekend's so-called March for Australia rallies were the latest in a string of events that have raised the temperature of public debate.... Read more

Legal efforts to tackle excessive personal information collection by social media giants could transcend international boundaries if nations moved away from a focus on assessing competition using the value of data, a new study says.... Read more

A new analysis of 471 U.S. counties has found that, for everyday travel, people from counties with particularly strong political leanings—whether liberal or conservative—are more likely to visit like-minded destinations. Zhengyi Liang and Jaeho Cho of the University of California, Davis, U.S., present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS... Read more