Month: June 2018

United States (Conversation) – President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate are pushing through nominations for federal judges at an unusually fast pace ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. That’s when the GOP could lose its majority and end the easy path to confirmation for Trump’s nominees. As political scientists who study diversity and the federal bench, we keep an eye on nominations and confirmations. As of early June, Trump has the opportunity to fill 216 vacant seats out of 890, or almost 25 percent of the…

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United States (EFF) – So why do we know so little about it? The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is quietly building what will likely become the largest database of biometric and biographic data on citizens and foreigners in the United States. The agency’s new Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) database will include multiple forms of biometrics—from face recognition to DNA, data from questionable sources, and highly personal data on innocent people. It will be shared with federal agencies outside of DHS as well as state and local law enforcement and foreign governments….

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United States (Conversation) – The Environmental Protection Agency made news recently for excluding reporters from a “summit” meeting on chemical contamination in drinking water. Episodes like this are symptoms of a larger problem: an ongoing, broad-scale takeover of the agency by industries it regulates. We are social scientists with interests in environmental health, environmental justice and inequality and democracy. We recently published a study, conducted under the auspices of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative and based on interviews with 45 current and retired EPA employees, which concludes that EPA…

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Africa (Conversation) – Women are less likely than men to participate in politics in Africa. This gender gap affects everything from attending community meetings to contacting elected officials, joining others to raise public issues, expressing a partisan preference and even voting. On average, women also participate less than men even when they have the same level of education, are in work, are the same age, and express the same level of interest in political affairs. This gap has important political consequences. The most important is that elected officials are less…

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(Ensia) –  The sun beats down on the dried Tanzanian soils. Dust is slowly settling back down to the ground in the wake of a parade of tourists’ vehicles, which are now disappearing over the horizon. It’s dry season in the Serengeti National Park, and safari trucks are groaning under the weight of excited visitors. The park, a World Heritage Site, draws tourists from all over the world. Its ecosystem is carefully managed by hard-working park rangers — a delicate balancing act between wildlife promotion and preservation made even more daunting…

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(Conversation) – After the recent shooting at the Santa Fe, Texas, high school, the mother of one of the victims claimed that the perpetrator had specifically killed her daughter because she refused his repeated advances, embarrassing him in front of his classmates. A month prior, a young man, accused of driving a van into a crowded sidewalk that killed ten people in Toronto, posted a message on Facebook minutes before the attack, that celebrated another misogynist killer and said: “The Incel Rebellion has already begun!” These and other mass killings…

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United States (Conversation) – On May 30, a grand jury indicted Harvey Weinstein on charges he raped one woman and forced another to perform oral sex on him. And new allegations and lawsuits against the movie producer continue to pile up. Since the earliest reports of his abuse came out in October, scores of women in Hollywood have taken to social media and shared their own stories of sexual assault and harassment by Weinstein. And thanks to the #MeToo movement, women in a range of professions have also found their…

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Palestine (ISM) – Sunday at midday, hundreds of protestors marched through the streets of Ramallah to mourn the execution of Razan Al Najjer, the 21-year-old medic who was executed by Israeli forces in Gaza on Friday. Members of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society from across the West Bank, largely students, marched with portraits of Razan. Protestors held signs calling for #JusticeForRazan and end to Israeli war crimes and the seige in Gaza. Hundreds of protestors march through the streets of Ramallah to mourn the execution of Razan Al Najjer, the 21-year-old…

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