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Reinstituted rules in the U.S. House of Representatives allow members to fire federal staffers and cut programs. Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

How the ‘Holman rule’ allows the House to fast-track proposals to gut government programs without debate or much thought at all

House Republicans have adopted a rule used periodically over the past 150 years that allows lawmakers to speed up and streamline votes to dismantle federal programs and fire federal employees.
Approach with caution, advises a journalism scholar. simon kr/E+/Getty Images

Don’t trust the news media? That’s good

Journalism has been fodder for politicians’ contempt for generations. A huge percentage of the public doesn’t trust the news media either. That mistrust isn’t a bad thing in a democracy.
Black men disproportionately make up the US prison population. AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

Biggest racial gap in prison is among violent offenders – focusing on intervention instead of incarceration could change the numbers

The US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. When it comes to violent offenders and the Black community, the system isn’t working, argue criminologists.
The sculpture of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln towers over the Black Hills at Mount Rushmore, near Keystone, S.D. Scott Olson/Getty Images News via Getty Images

What are the limits of presidential power to forgive student loans? A constitutional law expert answers 5 questions

The Supreme Court is considering the legality of the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan and whether the administration had the power to offer debt forgiveness in the first place.
Temporary shelters have been set up near neighborhoods in the Idlib province demolished by the Syria-Turkey earthquake. Omar Haj Kadour/ AFP via Getty Images

Syria’s earthquake survivors struggle in a disaster made far worse by civil war, bombed-out hospitals and currency collapse

The earthquake that struck Turkey and neighboring Syria on Feb. 6, 2023, was a natural disaster, but its consequences have been shaped by the human tragedy of the Syrian civil war.
Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson mourns the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 13, 1945. Edward Clark/Life Magazine

I’ve spent 5 years researching the heroic life of Black musician Graham Jackson, but teaching his story could be illegal under laws in Florida and North Dakota

Jackson used his musical talents to overcome racial barriers in the United States. But telling Jackson’s story may not be legal under proposed laws restricting how race is taught.