Emotional Intelligence: To cry while watching a movie shows empathy and is the exact opposite of weakness
By Debra Rickwood, Professor of Psychology, University of Canberra You have probably found yourself weeping quietly, or even suddenly sobbing uncontrollably, while watching a movie. Common culprits include Marley and Me, The Color Purple, Schindler’s List and The Lion...
Mamie Till-Mobley’s quest to educate America about her son Emmett’s lynching continues in new film
By Brandon M. Erby, Assistant Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, University of Kentucky After 14-year-old Emmett Till was kidnapped, severely beaten and killed in the Mississippi Delta on August 28, 1955, his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, made the...
WisDOT recommends environmentally disruptive expansion of Milwaukee’s I-94 instead of plan to fix
Milwaukee-area commuters will see a widened Interstate 94 on the city’s west side if a new recommendation from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is adopted. The department announced its preferred plan for the $1.2 billion highway expansion on November...
How private organizations are filling gaps in Federal programs to help Dreamers fulfill their dreams
As a high school junior, Denisse Amezquita knew she wanted to go on to college and someday become a lawyer. But when she sought state and federal financial aid, she quickly learned assistance was not an option because she lacked permanent legal status in the United...
Railroad unions seek fair benefits for workers as labor laws remains tilted against them
By Erik Loomis, Professor of History, University of Rhode Island The prospect of a potentially devastating rail workers strike is looming again. Fears of a strike in September 2022 prompted the Biden administration to pull out all the stops to get a deal between...
A prison cell as the Oval Office? What laws says about a candidate under indictment running for president
By Stefanie Lindquist, Foundation Professor of Law and Political Science, Arizona State University Donald Trump announced his 2024 run for the presidency on November 15. In his address he railed against what he perceived as the “persecution” of himself and his family,...
Combatting confusion: College students push to make voting access easier after facing midterm barriers
Young voters made their voices heard during the recent midterms, turning out in relatively high numbers in an election that produced the first congressperson from Generation Z. But university students and voting rights advocates say voters on college campuses faced...
Majority at stake: Why Wisconsin’s spring 2023 supreme court race will be an “electoral ground zero”
Just weeks after the 2022 midterm elections, Wisconsin is already moving on to this spring’s state supreme court race in which the ideological tilt of the court is up for grabs. Justice Patience Roggensack is retiring at the end of her term, leaving an open seat on...
Carbon Budget: Why reducing deforestation is vital to protecting biodiversity and slowing climate change
By Tom Pugh, Reader in Biosphere-Atmosphere Exchange, University of Birmingham and Senior Lecturer, Lund University Humanity injects an almost incomprehensible 42 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide CO₂ into the atmosphere every year. The majority of this comes from...
How the government can encourage the public to use clean energy without subsidizing just richer people
By Eric Hittinger, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Eric Williams, Professor of Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology, Qing Miao, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Tiruwork...
Lessons Unlearned: Schools were failing to adequately serve students of color even before COVID
By Adriana Villavicencio, Assistant Professor of Education, University of California, Irvine National test results released in September 2022 show unprecedented losses in math and reading scores since the pandemic disrupted schooling for millions of children. In...
Zombie Virus: Scientists reanimate 50,000 year-old microbes released in thawing Siberian Permafrost
As our world continues to warm up, vast areas of permafrost are rapidly melting, releasing material that have been trapped for up to a million years. Included are uncountable numbers of microbes that have been lying dormant for hundreds of millennia. To study these...
