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Public Policy
Two Penn leaders named to new national science and technology task force
Antonia M. Villarruel and Kathleen Hall Jamieson are among 60 people named to a task force to produce a Vision for American Science and Technology.
60 years of civil rights with Mary Frances Berry
The emeritus Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought reflected on the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in conversation with Marcia Chatelain.
The bullet train turns 60
In both Asia and Europe, high-speed rail knits regions, countries, and continents together. What will it take to see more rail infrastructure in the U.S.?
A summer in Harrisburg with an eye on global affairs
Henry Franklin, a second-year economics and cinema studies major, spent his summer interning in Pennsylvania’s Office of International Business Development.
How is the world working to save biodiversity?
A Sept. 18 panel hosted by the Environmental Innovations Initiative and the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies discussed local and global initiatives.
Rainwater harvesting in Mexico City
Rising fourth-year Krishna Chandrasekhara spent three weeks in Mexico this summer as part of a project exploring the impact of water collection on public and community health.
Will America’s clean car policies persist?
Four ambitious clean-car policies are driving a major transformation in the United States. Will they survive legal and political threats?
Path to 2024 series highlights realities of American attitudes
Focusing on corporate political action, AI, immigration, and more, the Polarization Research Lab aims to dispel myths about partisan beliefs.
False belief in MMR vaccine-autism link endures as measles threat persists
As measles cases rise across the United States and vaccination rates for the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine continue to fall, a new survey finds that a quarter of U.S. adults do not know that claims that the MMR vaccine causes autism are false.
Teaching climate change communication, from the classroom to a conference of journalists
Michael Mann and Kathleen Hall Jamieson are co-teaching the Climate Change and Communication course this spring, tied to the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference, held this year at Penn.
In the News
Trust in science hasn’t fully recovered from pandemic controversies
Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says that Republican lawmakers engaged in a sustained attack on a sector of science during and after the pandemic.
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Trump has promised lower interest rates. That will be largely out of his control
Kent Smetters of the Wharton School says that the Federal Reserve doesn’t have as much control over mortgage rates and longer-term loans as it used to.
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Why planning for retirement is hard, and what to do about it
Research by Olivia Mitchell of the Wharton School and colleagues finds that low-income workers aren’t incentivized to learn about supplements to retirement income like IRAs and 401(k)s, since they tend to rely on and benefit more from fixed-income retirement sources like Social Security payments.
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More than two million voters backed both Trump and abortion access
Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says that Donald Trump’s ambiguity on abortion served him well during his campaign.
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Donald Trump, evangelicals and the 2024 MAGA coalition
Shawn Patterson Jr. of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says that Donald Trump was largely an apolitical figure in 2016 with a wide array of celebrity relationships, donations to candidates of both parties, and a career in New York real estate.
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The U.S. has a new strategy for combating foreign election interference, but is it working?
According to Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, democracies are based on common understandings, among them that rival political factions will accept election outcomes and work to win back power at the next opportunity.
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