Penn in the News

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center comments on what makes Donald Trump appealing for media outlets to cover him in the election season.

Elliot Hersh of the School of Dental Medicine is quoted about the dangers of dentists overprescribing opioids.

As an investigation into whether police used excessive force in breaking up a University of Maryland commencement party gets underway, U-Md.’s president sent a message to the campus community Thursday describing the inquiry and acknowledging the “outcry” and complaints about racism he has been hearing. “This incident compels us to confront the reality that African-Americans, and other persons of color, experience bias and unequal treatment in everyday life,” Wallace Loh wrote. “Members of my staff have met with some of the students who were at the party.

Gino Segrè and Bettina Hoerlin of the School of Arts & Sciences write about the decision to drop the first atomic bomb.

Baylor University's Board of Regents has fired its head football coach, and its president will soon resign, amid allegations that the world’s largest Baptist university has continuously mishandled -- and sought to suppress public discourse about -- sexual assaults committed by its football players and other students. The president, Kenneth Starr, will remain at the university as its chancellor and a law professor, though the terms of the arrangement are still being discussed.

Scott Barry Kaufman of the School of Arts & Sciences is profiled about an Imagination Institute workshop on futurism.

Sitting on the stage at DePaul University Tuesday, Milo Yiannopoulos spoke without incident for around 15 minutes, offering his trademark inflammatory criticisms of feminism, the transgender rights movement and campus politics. And then the conversation turned to microaggressions. “They’re called microaggressions because you can’t even see them,” Yiannopoulos, a pundit at the conservative website Breitbart.com, told the crowd. “And the reason you can’t see them is because they’re not there.

A Yale professor and his wife who became targets of protests for an email about potentially offensive Halloween costumes are resigning their positions as heads of a residential community at the university. The professor, Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician, announced on his Twitter feed Wednesday that he was stepping down as head of Silliman College, a residence where he and his wife served as social and intellectual mentors to students. Dr. Christakis, who directs Yale’s Human Nature Lab, said they were not severing all their ties to the university.

Baylor University on Thursday released a summary of a long-awaited investigative report into its handling of sexual-assault allegations — and, with it, word of a housecleaning of sorts. Its president, Kenneth W. Starr, was reassigned. Its head football coach, Art Briles, was fired. And its athletic director, Ian McCaw, was put on probation. A glance at the investigation’s findings reveals why Baylor’s governing board took such broad action. In short, virtually everything that could be wrong with a university’s treatment of sexual assault was wrong at Baylor.

Olivia Mitchell of the Wharton School is mentioned for researching financial literacy.