Legislative effort seeks to end no-knock search warrants in Wisconsin after almost a quarter century
State Representative LaKeshia Myers recently introduced a new bill to prevent the use of no-knock search warrants by Wisconsin law enforcement. The bill was named “Breonna’s Law” after Louisville, Kentucky EMT Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old who was killed during such...
A party of lawlessness and disorder: How Republicans became co-conspirators in the abolition of democracy
There really is no debating that Trump incited a deadly insurrection riot, no more so than we might debate that the earth is round. And the pending vote to convict or acquit will make clear exactly what the GOP has become. If it was not clear before, the Senate...
The story of Yasuke: An enduring history of the first African Samurai in feudal Japan
Almost 500 years ago, a tall African man arrived in Japan. He would go on to become the first foreign-born man to achieve the status of a samurai warrior. Known as Yasuke, the man was a warrior who reached the rank of samurai under the rule of Oda Nobunaga – a...
Fad Diets: A chronicle of the strange American obsession with gimmick weight loss plans
By Melissa Wdowik, Assistant Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University “Of all the parasites that affect humanity I do not know of, nor can I imagine, any more distressing than that of Obesity.” So started William Banting’s “Letter on...
A Political Game: The danger of voters acting like hard-core sports fans
By Michael Devlin, Associate Professor of Communication, Texas State University; and Natalie Brown Devlin, Assistant Professor of Advertising, University of Texas at Austin During Donald Trump’s presidency, the American electorate became more divided and partisan,...
New lawsuit seeks to stop part of Waukesha’s $286M plan to drain drinking water from Lake Michigan
The city of Waukesha’s $286 million plan to pipe in water from Lake Michigan has hit another snag in its decades-long effort to provide residents with safe drinking water. The Village of Waukesha has filed a lawsuit against the city that aims to shut down construction...
Law enforcement continues to criminalize Black activists while accommodating White reactionaries
By Paul Ringel, Associate Professor of U.S. History, High Point University In the early hours of February 10, 1971, police surrounded a property in High Point, North Carolina, where members of the Black Panther Party lived and worked. In the ensuing shootout, a...
Another crisis of unity: Old divisions resurface to show historic fragility of American democracy
By Alasdair S. Roberts, Director, School of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Amherst For many people, the lesson from the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 – and more broadly from the experience of the last four years – is that American...
Congress could use a Reconstruction-era Amendment to hold Trump accountable for Capitol attack
By Gerard Magliocca, Professor of Law, Indiana University Until recently, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was an obscure part of the U.S. Constitution. The amendment is better known for its first section, which guaranteed individual rights and equality following the...
The Stories that matter: How the COVID generation will look back at their memories of 2020
By Katie Holmes, Professor of History, La Trobe University The speed with which the COVID-19 virus infected the world and the dramatic nature of its fallout is without parallel. Individually and collectively we have struggled to understand and process it. Early on in...
Lessons from Chinese social media for countering America’s COVID-19 infodemic of conspiracy theories
By Kaiping Chen, Assistant Professor of Science Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison Conspiracy theories about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic from the beginning. Crucial to managing the pandemic is mitigating the effects of misinformation, which the...
An autocratic legacy: How the radicalization of the right gave rise to death threats of public officials
By Shelley Inglis, Executive Director, University of Dayton Human Rights Center, University of Dayton As the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump approaches, federal officials are investigating threats to attack or kill members of Congress. This comes in...
