The Conversation

San Francisco is using a Montana sheriff's playbook to sue Trump on sanctuary cities

Written by Anthony Johnstone, Professor of Constitutional Law, The University of Montana

A rally outside of City Hall in San Francisco in January.AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

San Francisco is suing over President Donald Trump’s executive order against “sanctuary cities.” A federal court hearing is set for April 14, and a decision is expected soon after.

The order, signed in January, defined “sanctuary jurisdictions”...

The key to writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning story? Get emotional

Written by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Professor; Director of Research Development and Environment, School of Journalism, Cardiff University

A bust of newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer looks on as reporters look through a box containing the announcements of the 1996 Pulitzer Prizes at Columbia University.AP Photo/Wally Santana

The 2017 Pulitzer Prizes have just been announced, and this year’s winners of the prestigious award include Charleston Gazette-Mail reporter Eric Eyre for...

Who wears the pants in a relationship matters – especially if you're a woman

Written by Laina Bay-Cheng, Associate Professor of Social Work, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

In most relationships, one partner wields more power than the other.'Hands' via www.shutterstock.com

When it comes to power in romantic relationships, men are often cast as dominant and women as deferential. But working against this are caricatures of domineering women with their “hen-pecked husbands” and “whipped...

Maximizers vs. minimizers: The personality trait that may guide your medical decisions – and costs

Written by Laura Scherer, Assistant Professor, Psychology, University of Missouri-Columbia

A suitable disposition helps the medicine go down. Cropped from charlesonflickr/flickr, CC BY

Do certain people want more medical care than others do? And, does that matter?

To consider this idea, start by answering the following question: Which of the paragraphs below describes you best?

“I prefer active medical interventions and being...

Using randomness to protect election integrity

Written by Eugene Vorobeychik, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University

Inspecting election results is best done with a dash of randomness.Boonyen/shutterstock.com

Democratic societies depend on trust in elections and their results. Throughout the 2016 presidential election, and since President Trump’s inauguration, allegations of Russian involvement in the U.S. presidential campaign have raised concerns about how...

Melding mind and machine: How close are we?

Written by James Wu, Ph.D. Student in Bioengineering, Researcher at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, University of Washington

A noninvasive brain-computer interface based on EEG recordings from the scalp.Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (CSNE), Photo by Mark Stone, CC BY-ND

Just as ancient Greeks fantasized about soaring flight, today’s imaginations dream of melding minds and machines as a remedy to the pesky problem of human mortality. Can the mind...

What Trump’s foreign aid cuts would mean for global democracy

Written by Sarah Bush, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University, Temple University

The government-funded International Republican Institute, a nonprofit, supports democratic efforts like this voter education campaign in Burma.International Republican Institute, CC BY-SA

President Donald Trump’s proposed budget would slash State Department spending by 28 percent, drastically reducing U.S. foreign aid flows.

Will he prevail?...

Are the rich more selfish than the rest of us?

Written by Jan Stoop, Associate Professor of Applied Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Businessmen pass by Occupy Wall Street protesters at New York's Zuccotti Park in 2011.AP Photo/Kathy Willens

Social scientists have long known that the rich are not exactly model citizens.

They evade taxes more often, flaunt traffic laws that protect pedestrians and donate less frequently to charity. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, there...

Why can't America just take out Assad?

Written by David Alpher, Adjunct Professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University

The Trump administration has done an abrupt about-face on Syria, contradicting its own nascent foreign policy. Within 24 hours, it went from calling out the Assad regime for using chemical weapons to launching missiles at military targets. As limited as the strikes were, there are also statements that plans are in the works to target Syrian...

Strikes against Syria: Did Trump need permission from Congress?

Written by Jordan Tama, Assistant Professor of International Relations, American University School of International Service

President Donald Trump after speaking at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Launching 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield in response to a Syrian chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians raises important questions. Does the president have, or should he have, the authority to use military force...