Commentary

A new study on the state of compassion in America by the Muhammad Ali Center, which the late boxer co-founded 20 years ago in Louisville, Kentucky, to advance social justice, found that the desire to help others still animates many Americans despite the nation’s current polarization and divisive politics. Cities with high compassion scores have more community engagement and civic participation than those with low scores.

The president is flouting U.S. District Court Judge James Bloasberg’s order that planes carrying deportees must return to the United States. The subsequent legal back-and-forth, which is still going on, intensified so quickly and dramatically that many legal scholars say the U.S. is past the point of a constitutional crisis, as the Trump administration appears to be defying a federal court order, for which Boasberg may hold the government in contempt.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to blame Hamas for the resumption of fighting that killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18 – “only the beginning,” Netanyahu warned – the truth is the seeds of the renewed violence are to be found in Israeli domestic politics.

Whether the many attacks on DEI – first from right-wing bloggers, then from the Supreme Court, and then from the president – will affect the makeup of Fortune-level boards in 2025 and beyond remains to be seen. But so far, these boards are diversifying and seeing the value in DEI.

The church may not have seen women as equals, but nevertheless, their work was key to the workings and finances of the papal court and its surroundings. The fact is made obvious in the archives by simply following the money. It was hardly glamorous work but necessary for the functioning of the papal court.

In 2024, approximately half of all U.S. states passed at least 50 bills that make it harder for children and teens to spend time online without any supervision. Research shows that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media have an increased risk of anxiety and depression. Almost half of teens have faced online bullying or harassment, with older teen girls most likely to have experienced this. Social media use has been linked to self-harm in some cases.

Nearly two-thirds of non-U.S. citizens and one-third of U.S. citizens who responded to a survey, said they hesitated to seek medical care in the year after Florida’s anti-immigration law, SB 1718, was enacted. Laws like SB 1718 amplify preexisting racial and structural inequities. Structural inequities are systemic barriers within institutions — such as health care and employment — that restrict access to essential resources based on one’s race, legal or economic status.

People can make changes throughout adulthood that can help prevent or delay cognitive decline and even reduce their risk of dementia. These include quitting smoking and properly managing blood pressure. Brain-training games, which claim to optimize your brain’s efficiency and capacity at any age, are unproven.

Embracing traditional U.S. imperialism would upend the rules that have kept the globe relatively stable since World War II. That would unleash fear, chaos – and possibly nuclear war.

Tough-on-crime policies are surging again, despite research showing they do little to reduce crime, particularly violent offenses. Research highlights the inefficacy and unintended consequences of these laws. There is no compelling evidence that punitive sentencing policies discourage individuals from engaging in criminal activity. And states without truth-in-sentencing laws have seen their crime rates fall to roughly the same degree as states that have the laws.

Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, different governmental and nongovernmental organizations and political interest groups have engaged in what can best be described as “map wars.” Maps of the region use the naming of places, the position of borders and the inclusion or omission of certain territories to present contrasting geopolitical visions. To this day, Israel or the Palestinian territories may fall off some maps, depending on the politics of their makers.

USAID is a government agency that, for more than 63 years, has led the United States’ foreign aid work on disaster recovery, poverty reduction and democratic reforms in many developing and middle-income countries. A yearlong pause in USAID’s work on health, food and agriculture in the world’s poorest countries would raise malaria deaths by 40%. It would also result in an increase of between 28% and 32% in tuberculosis cases, among other negative effects.

In halting its Spanish-language communications, the White House is ignoring the demographic reality of the U.S. and rejecting a long-standing tradition in American government of making key civic information accessible to the public. These changes, while mostly symbolic, signal the Trump administration’s unwelcoming stance toward Spanish specifically and multilingualism in general.

The resumption of death by firing squad is part of a morbid search for “better” execution methods. It comes amid concern over botched lethal injection attempts and a scarcity of the drugs needed to carry out such executions. In 2020, the first Trump administration expanded how federal execution can be carried out to include ghoulish methods such as hanging, the electric chair, gas chamber and, indeed, the firing squad.

The world is lurching ever closer to a full-blown trade war as the U.S., China, Europe, Canada, and Mexico talk tariffs and retaliation. It’s important to first understand what a tariff actually is and does before we can determine whether new trade barriers are good or bad.

Toxic masculinity is a version of masculinity that discourages empathy, expresses strength through dominance, normalizes violence against women and associates leadership with white patriarchy. Trump’s reaction to Zelenskyy in the Oval Office illustrates how these inclinations stymie the president’s purported dealmaking abilities, undermine democratic values and make the world a more dangerous place.

The reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris has recalled debate over the €200 million contribution of France’s Bernard Arnault, the CEO of the LVMH luxury group, to its restoration. From founding the Louis Vuitton Foundation in 2014 to regular multi-million-euro donations, Arnault’s patronage has become almost synonymous with the LVMH brand. But what drives these expenditures? What do Arnault and his luxury empire stand to gain? And what risks are they taking?

Some clichés are like planets, their gravitational pull too strong for all but the most propulsive acts of creativity. Middle age is one of these. The changes often associated with being in your 40s and 50s – gray hairs, career doldrums, time’s squeaky-wheeled chariot drawing near – can seem as inevitable as aging itself.

Biomedical research in the U.S. is world-class in part because of a long-standing partnership between universities and the federal government. On Feb. 7, the U.S. National Institutes of Health issued a policy that could weaken the position of the United States as a global leader in scientific innovation by slashing funds to the infrastructure that allows universities and other institutions to conduct research in the first place.

Article 2 does not grant the president unlimited power. While almost all modern presidents flex their muscles in the initial stages of their administration, the first weeks of the second Trump presidency have seen a rapid-fire, often dizzying array of executive actions that have sparked heated, even virulent, disputes among politicians, the media and citizens about how much power the president of the United States should have.

In his short yet prolific life, Dunbar used folk dialect to give voice and dignity to the experience of Black Americans at the turn of the 20th century. He was the first Black American to make a living as a writer and was seminal in the start of the New Negro Movement and Harlem Renaissance. Dunbar also penned one of the most iconic phrases in Black literature – “I know why the caged bird sings” – his poem “Sympathy.”

In America’s constitutional balance, Congress passes the laws, the president administers the laws, and the courts interpret the laws. This elegant but simple system stood in contrast to the nearly unshackled power of the British king, who ruled over the American colonies before independence. During its first month, the second Trump administration has pushed a new balance of these powers, granting the president expansive and far-reaching authority. These actions imperil the power of elected lawmakers to pass legislation, oversee the federal government and exercise spending authority.

Among Friedrich Merz’s first acts was a bold statement that his first priority is “to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA”.

Flu returns annually as an epidemic. It is a constant threat to public health, affecting millions of people and causing severe complications in the most vulnerable: young children, older adults, and people with pre-existing conditions.

“Degrowth” emerged in Europe, particularly in France, in the late 2000s. Philosophers such as André Gorz and economists such as Serge Latouche were among its early proponents, with researchers such as Tim Jackson later popularising the concept in the English-speaking world. They argue that the root cause of environmental destruction lies not only in human activity but also in a global economic model that has prioritised growth and profit since the Industrial Revolution.

A recent survey conducted by Sermitsiaq (a Greenlandic newspaper) and Berlingske (a Danish newspaper) directly addressed this question and found that only 6% of respondents wanted Greenland to leave Denmark and instead become part of the US.

The U.S. is falling in line with Moscow on a key plank of the Kremlin’s plan to delegitimize Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government. Challenging Zelenskyy’s legitimacy is part of a deliberate ongoing propaganda campaign by Russia to discredit Ukrainian leadership, weaken support for Ukraine from its key allies and remove Zelenskyy – and potentially Ukraine – as a partner in negotiations.

European leaders are scrambling to respond to what looks like the end of reliable US protection of the continent. It is unclear what the “main European countries” (which includes the UK) might be able to agree on. But individual countries, including the UK and Germany, have come forward to put concrete offers on the table for Ukraine’s security, which could include putting their troops on the ground.

Removing millions of immigrants would be costly for everyone in the U.S., including American citizens and businesses. Overall, immigrants without legal authorization make up about 5% of the total U.S. workforce. But that overall percentage doesn’t reflect these immigrants’ concentrated presence within various industries. Approximately half of U.S. farmworkers are living in the country without legal authorization. If those workers were to be suddenly removed from the country, Americans would see an increase in food costs, including what they spend on groceries and at restaurants.

The six-year terms reflect a goal of establishing a largely nonpartisan governing board, since presidents usually appoint board members aligned with their own party. Until now, that balance has been the norm. But that outcome wasn’t mandated when Congress passed legislation establishing the Kennedy Center. Having a politically balanced board has historically helped the Kennedy Center raise money and attract world-class artists.

While the idea of AI politicians might make some people uneasy, survey results tell a different story. A poll conducted by my university in 2021, during the early surge of AI advancements, found broad public support for integrating AI into politics across many countries and regions. A majority of Europeans said they would like to see at least some of their politicians replaced by AI.

The problem with relying on the courts for help goes beyond ideology and right-leaning justices going along with a right-leaning president. One challenge is speed: The current administration is moving much faster than courts do, or even can. The other is authority: The courts’ ability to compel government action is limited, and also slow.