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Trump administration – Analysis and Comment

If implemented, President Trump’s proposed foreign aid cuts would have many repercussions. Kendra Helmer/USAID

US foreign aid, explained

As President Trump puts U.S. foreign aid on the chopping block, few Americans know much about it. Perhaps even fewer realize that the U.S. lags behind its peers on this front.
GOP Senate Judiciary Committee members after voting in favor of sending Gorsuch to the full Senate for confirmation. Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Should Americans fear the ‘nuclear option’ in Congress?

GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have pushed Gorsuch’s nomination onto the full Senate. Both the Republicans and Democrats are getting ready for a fight.
Not much science will get done without the money to fund people and equipment. Michael Pereckas

Who feels the pain of science research budget cuts?

What are research dollars actually spent on? Rather than looking at artifacts like publications and patents, a new initiative directly tracks the people and businesses that receive research funding.
President Trump holds up the signed Energy Independence Executive Order, Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at EPA headquarters in Washington, surrounded by coal miners and members of his Cabinet. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Trump’s energy and climate change order: Seven essential reads

President Trump’s latest executive order weakens or reverses multiple rules and policies designed to slow climate change. Scholars explain the order’s impact.
FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers at hearing on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Dangers of the witch hunt in Washington

A ‘witch hunt’ is what Trump called investigations into his campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election. An anthropologist explains the connection between witch hunts and social control.
Research shows that regular ethics training helps. O'Riordan Images

What’s the point of an ethics course?

Ethical dilemmas arise not because someone did not know the ethical rules. Instead, they arise when individuals are unable to identify the relevant ethical principle at the time of crisis.
A 1969 photo of political theorist and scholar Hannah Arendt. AP Photo

The power of ordinary people facing totalitarianism

Hannah Arendt, a political theorist, fled Germany during Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and later wrote about ‘the banality of evil.’ Her work has recently become a best-seller. Here’s why.
Coal train in Missouri. Assigning a social cost to carbon emissions puts a price on activities that generate them, such as burning fossil fuels. Scott Granneman/Flickr

Curbing climate change has a dollar value — here’s how and why we measure it

To weigh the economic impact of climate change policies, we need to estimate the social cost of carbon. An economist explains how it’s done and why the Trump administration shouldn’t end the practice.
A member of the Muslim Brotherhood during Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party convention. Lilian Wagdy

Is the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization?

The Muslim Brotherhood exists in the form of many local organizations and well as an international organization. Research shows there isn’t a coherent Muslim Brotherhood ideology.
Trump’s budget director, left, says White House spending priorities are straight out of the president’s mouth. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Why Trump’s ‘skinny’ budget is already dead

Trump is proposing a budget with little substance and filled with politically toxic spending cuts, making it very unlikely to go anywhere, even in a Republican Congress.