President Biden announced that his administration is expanding access to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges to immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, allowing participants in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) to access government-funded health insurance programs.
Jamila Michener, associate professor of government…
Franz Mahr/World Bank
World Bank Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
World Bank shareholders are gathered in Washington this week for their annual spring meetings, while the global financial institution is poised for new leadership that could change how it approaches climate and other global crises. Business executive Ajay Banga is expected to be confirmed as the bank’s president in the coming weeks.
Richard T. Clark is a political scientist who studies…
K. Mitch Hodge/Unsplash
Belfast City Hall, Donegall Square, Belfast
President Joe Biden has departed on a four-day trip to Ireland. The timing of the trip coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland. The British intelligence service recently raised the terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland from “substantial” to “severe.”
Anil Menon is a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell…
The U.S. government was left scrambling over the weekend when dozens of highly-classified intelligence documents were posted on the internet. The files included details on U.S. spying operations in Russia, as well as against key allies, including South Korea, Israel and Ukraine.
David Silbey is an associate professor of history at Cornell University where he specializes in military history,…
The UK’s data privacy watchdog has fined TikTok $15.9 million for data violations including the use of children’s data without parental consent. This is the latest example of tighter scrutiny TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance are facing in the West as governments are concerned about risks that the app poses to data privacy and cybersecurity.
Sarah Kreps is a professor…
NASA/Dartmouth/Alexa Halford/Creative Commons license 2.0
A high altitude research balloon, launching in 2015
U.S. officials have confirmed that a Chinese high-altitude balloon was able to gather intelligence from U.S. military sites and send the data back to Beijing, according to multiple media outlets.
Paul Lushenko is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and a senior policy fellow at Cornell University’s Tech Policy Lab. He says the revelation suggests several considerations for the…
Daderot/Creative Commons license 1.0
Wiscosin state capitol building, state Supreme Court entrance
Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and likely the future of abortion access, will be determined in a state election on Tuesday.
Glenn Altschuler, professor of American studies at Cornell University, says this race will not only affect the future of abortion and gerrymandering, but also shed key insight into constituent sentiment around judicial candidates explicitly sharing views on…
Official photo by Makoto Lin/Office of the President. Creative Commons license 2.0
Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in 2021
Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen has arrived in the United States for a highly-sensitive diplomatic stopover. Despite the fact that Tsai has passed through the U.S. multiple times since taking office in 2016, Beijing has warned that the trip could have a ‘severe impact’ on US-China relations.
Allen Carlson is an associate professor of government at Cornell University and an expert on…
As the nation awaits the details of the indictment of former president Donald Trump, many Americans are left wondering what the aftermath will look like.
David Bateman, professor of government and policy in the College of Arts and Sciences and expert on democratic institutions, says the country could face enormous consequences if the former president is later nominated as the Republican front…
Viktor Borinets/Ministry of Defense, Ukraine
Soldier at the Battle of Bakhmut, Nov. 2022
For seven months, Russian forces have been fighting to capture Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Much of the city has been destroyed and both sides have endured severe losses, leading some Western analysts to question whether holding the city was worth the cost.
David Silbey is an associate professor of history at Cornell University where he specializes in military history, defense policy and…
Phil Wilde
3MT 2019 winners (from left): Pamela Meyerhofer (People’s Choice), Teddy Yesudasan (1st place), and Shao-Pei Chou (2nd place).
Eight Cornell doctoral students will be advancing to the final round of the 2023 Three Minute Thesis competition (3MT). The students and their fields are:
Fangming Cui, psychology
Sharada Gopal, biological and biomedical sciences
Yuexing Hao, design and environmental analysis
Kimberly Hochstedler, statistics
Lidia Komondy, entomology
Sangwoo Park, biophysics
Susannah Sharpless,…
TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to appear on Capitol Hill today as lawmakers contemplate the future of the popular app amidst national security concerns.
Sarah Kreps, the John L. Wetherill Professor in the Department of Government in the College of Arts and Sciences, director of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School Tech Policy Institute and adjunct professor of law, researches the…
The International Monetary Fund and Ukraine have agreed on a $15.6 billion loan package aimed at bolstering government finances, which have been sapped by Russia’s invasion. The deal would mark the first IMF loan to a country currently at war.
Richard T. Clark is a political scientist who studies policymaking at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Given the IMF’s prior…
President of the Russian Federation/Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
In 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin for official talks on Tuesday. The visit offers a show of support for the Kremlin, while further aligning the two countries in their mutual rivalry with the West.
Jessica Chen Weiss is a professor of China and Asia-Pacific studies at Cornell University.
Weiss says: “Xi’s visit to Moscow reflects the continuing…
How will the OpenAI large-language model, ChatGPT, improve research productivity in the humanities?
An open forum on that topic will be held Friday, March 24, at 3:30 p.m. in the Guerlac Room of A.D. White House. Participants will include: Morten Christiansen, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology (College of Arts and Sciences); Laurent Dubreuil, professor of French, francophone and…
Agenlaku Indonesia/Unsplash
High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is ubiquitous in single-use applications such as packaging and containers, labeled with the number two inside the triangular recycling symbol.
Plastics are incredible materials with properties invaluable to the functioning of our modern world. They are strong, flexible, versatile, long-lasting and inexpensive. In particular, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) is ubiquitous in single-use applications such as packaging and containers, labeled with the number two inside the triangular recycling symbol.
But the ways HDPE is produced and…
Heber Barahona/Unsplash
Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras
The Honduran government announced Tuesday a move to establish diplomatic relations with China, thereby severing relations with Taiwan. The switch would leave Taiwan recognized by only 13 countries.
Kenneth Roberts is a professor of comparative and Latin American politics at Cornell University.
Roberts says: "Honduran President Xiomara Castro is opening negotiations with China to establish…
Protesters are taking to the streets across Mexico, claiming that electoral law changes — enacted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — pose a threat to democracy and could mark a return to the past.
Gustavo Flores-Macias is a professor of government at Cornell University and an expert in Latin American politics. He says the United States has relatively few diplomatic options to push back…
On Saturday, Nigerians will head to the polls for a fiercely-competitive presidential election in Africa’s largest democracy.
Rachel Beatty Riedl, director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and a scholar of Sub-Saharan Africa political systems, is available for interviews ahead of what she calls “an opportunity of historic turnover.”
Riedl says: “The 2023 elections in…
Aurore Simonnet/LIGO-Caltech-MIT-Sonoma State
An artist’s conception shows two merging black holes similar to those detected by LIGO.
When two black holes collide into each other to form a new bigger black hole, they violently roil spacetime around them, sending ripples called gravitational waves outward in all directions. Previous studies of black hole collisions modeled the behavior of the gravitational waves using what is known as linear math, which means that the gravitational waves rippling outward did not influence, or…
Quartetto di Cremona will perform in the Cornell Concert Series on Thursday, March 2 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall on the Cornell campus. Their program will include works by famed Italian composers Boccherini, Puccini, Respighi and Verdi.
Hailing from Cremona, Italy, the birthplace of the violin, the foursome has toured extensively in Europe, the United States, South America and Asia, appeared at…
February 24 will mark one year since Russian tanks rolled over the border into Ukraine. As it stands there is still no end in sight and the U.S. is facing increasing pressure to provide military aid in the form of high tech equipment such as F-16 fighters and M1 Abrams tanks.
David Silbey is an associate professor of history at Cornell University where he specializes in military history,…
Angie Torres-Beltran is a doctoral candidate in government from central Florida. She earned her B.A. in international and global studies at the University of Central Florida and now studies how women’s political participation is influenced by gender-based violence and interactions with state institutions under the guidance of Sabrina Karim and Gustavo Flores-Macías at Cornell.
What is your…
NASA/Dartmouth/Alexa Halford/Creative Commons license 2.0
A high altitude research balloon, launching in 2015
Several unidentified flying objects were shot down over the U.S. and Canada over the weekend. Countries have long used balloons to extend intelligence collection though more sophisticated technologies have replaced them in recent years.
Paul Lushenko is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and senior policy fellow at Cornell University’s Tech Policy Lab. He discusses several potential…
During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden called for a focus on police reform as seven additional Memphis police employees fall under investigation for the death of Tyre Nichols.
Joseph Margulies, attorney and professor of government at Cornell University, says that while President Biden was right to call for police accountability, we all share responsibility for the police…
Vinson Cunningham, a theatre critic at The New Yorker magazine, has been named winner of the 2021-22 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
The award committee praised Cunningham for his “lucid, lyrical, and evocative prose, through which he draws his readers into the performance moments he chronicles.” The committee said it was equally struck by his cogent remarks on art, politics,…
LCPL Matthew J. Anderson/USAF
US Marine Corps personnel on the Philippine Marine Corps Base
The United States is expanding its presence in Southeast Asia with an agreement to establish four bases in the Philippines, as part of an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The move is widely viewed as a means to deter China’s influence in the region.
Tom Pepinsky is a professor of government and director of the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University. Pepinsky says the…
New York Representative George Santos has told GOP colleagues that he is temporarily stepping back from his congressional committee assignments as he faces multiple investigations.
Steve Israel, professor of government and policy at Cornell University and a former congressman, can speak to the ramifications for Santos’ constituents. He says most of the hard work is done in committees.
…
Project Kei/Creative Commons license 4.0
A quadcopter drone
Iranian officials claim Israel was behind a weekend drone strike on a defense factory. The attack comes as tensions between Iran and the West are growing over Tehran’s advancing nuclear program, ongoing crackdown on peaceful anti-government protests, and the supply of arms for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Paul Lushenko is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, senior policy fellow at Cornell…
Meta will be reinstating former president Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks with what the company calls “new guardrails” to deter repeat offenses. The following Cornell University experts are available to discuss the news.
Alexandra Cirone, assistant professor of government and expert on the spread of disinformation online, says Facebook is still struggling to…
Torbjørn Kjosvold for the Norwegian Military Media Archive/Forsvarets Mediearkiv
A Leopard 2 A4 NO tank from Telemark Battalion Tank Squadron 1 in a training area outside Camp Rena.
Ukraine has asked Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to help it break through Russian lines and recapture territory. The Leopard 2 offers significant advantages over the older, Soviet-era tanks currently in service with both the Russian and Ukrainian armies.
David Silbey, associate professor of history at Cornell University and director of teaching and learning at Cornell in Washington,…
George Baird/Creative Commons license 3.0
Michelle Yeoh at the Cannes Festival in 2017
On Tuesday, as the Academy released its picks for Oscars contenders, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” clearly lead the pack with 11 awards nominations.
Kristen Warner, associate professor of performing and media arts at Cornell University, studies racial representation and employment in the creative media industries. She warns while it may seem like diversity has arrived in Hollywood, that…
Lindsay France/Cornell University
Composer Roberto Sierra, at home
Composer Roberto Sierra’s new work, “Cuatro Piezas para cello y piano,” will be featured at a concert in Barnes Hall on Sunday, Jan. 29 at 3 p.m., performed by the Sierra Duo – John Haines-Eitzen, cello, and Matthew Bengtson, piano. They will also perform George Walker’s “Sonata for Cello and Piano” and Beethoven’s “Sonata in A Major, Op. 69.”
The new Sierra piece was a surprise gift to…
Entrepreneurship allows biotechnology researchers to help people by bringing their innovations out of the lab and into the market. However, this process tends to be expensive and lengthy — not to mention the high failure rate of biotech startups. What does it take for a biotech company to succeed in such a challenging market?
Stephanie Wisner ’16, cofounder of biotech startup Centivax,…
The New Yorker profiled Jessica Chen Weiss, Michael J. Zak Professor for China and Asia-Pacific Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences and professor in the Brooks School of Public Policy as an influential public intellectual in "A Professor Who Challenges the Washington Consensus on China."
"Weiss has emerged as a kind of loyal and measured opposition to a rare case of bipartisan…
We gathered recommendations from faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences for the best books and poetry to read in 2023. We hope you will enjoy them!
Leslie Adelson, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of German Studies, Department of German Studies
Valzhyna Mort is an extraordinary wordsmith of grit and grace. Forged in the fires of history and imagination, her alchemical…
Associate Professor Jesse Goldberg shared his research at this year’s Mitzi Sutton Russekoff ’54 Lecture at the Cornell Club in New York City Nov. 15.
Attendees at the event, hosted by the Alumni Affairs and Development office of the College of Arts & Sciences, heard about Goldberg’s work during his talk, “Courtship overrides thirst: What thirsty songbirds can teach us about human brain…
International cooperation across universities and borders is imperative in our rapidly changing world, President Martha E. Pollack said in kicking off the two-day “Global Grand Challenges Symposium: Frontiers and the Future,” Nov. 16 in Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, in Klarman Hall.
“The last few years brought to light just how deeply and irreversibly interconnected our global society…
Melissa Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
New observations of WASP-39b with the James Webb Space Telescope have provided a clearer picture of the exoplanet, showing the presence of sodium, potassium, water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide in the planet's atmosphere. This artist's illustration also displays newly detected patches of clouds across the planet.
Known for beaming stunning images back to Earth, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world’s skies.
The telescope’s array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere of a “hot Saturn” – a planet about as massive as Saturn orbiting a star some 700 light-years away – known as WASP-39 b. While Webb and other…
Territory of American Canada/Creative Commons license 4.0
US and China flags
President Joe Biden will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday before the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, their first in-person encounter since Biden took office.
Jessica Chen Weiss, professor of government at Cornell University and former senior policy adviser to the U.S. State Department, is an expert on Chinese politics. She says this meeting is an important opportunity to…
Who: Jennifer Wissink, Department of Economics, Cornell University
Course: ECON 1110 Introductory Microeconomics
How long have you been teaching ECON 1110 for online Winter Session?
Econ 1110 was in the very first group of on-line distance learning classes/courses Cornell piloted. I believe the year was 1999—so, 23 years ago! The technology has come a long way since then…
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
Webb’s First Deep Field is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723
When NASA’s Kepler mission glimpsed its first two Earth-size exoplanets with a decent chance of having liquid water on their surfaces a decade ago, mission head Bill Borucki turned to Lisa Kaltenegger, who is now associate professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Carl Sagan Institute, to confirm that the planets might be habitable, reports a feature in Quanta…
Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt
An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle flies a combat mission over southern Afghanistan in 2008.
General Atomics, the U.S.-based manufacturer of the most advanced armed and networked drone in the world – the MQ-9 Reaper – announced it intends to deliver the capability to Ukraine as part of a broader U.S. defense aid package.
Paul Lushenko is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and senior policy fellow at Cornell University’s Tech Policy Lab, as well as a doctoral student and co…
Concerns about violence are growing as Election Day nears, especially in light of the recent attack on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband in their San Francisco home.
Mabel Berezin is a comparative sociologist at Cornell University whose work explores fascist, nationalist and populist movements and associated threats to democracy.
Berezin says: “The expectation of violence…
Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine/Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Benjamin Netanyahu, January 2018
Former Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is on the verge of returning to office and the country is likely to be led by one of its most conservative governments. Netanyahu’s comeback appears powered by politician Itamar Ben-Gvir and the far-right.
Uriel Abulof is a visiting professor in Cornell University’s government department and professor at Tel-Aviv University. Abulof studies the politics…
Shiny Things
The World Bank Group headquarters building in Washington, D.C.
In a speech outlining U.S. priorities and concerns ahead of the COP 27 climate negotiations, U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry called for the World Bank and other multilateral institutions to expand financing for low-carbon projects in developing countries.
Richard T. Clark is a political scientist who studies policymaking at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and how…
An Ethiopian government delegation and Tigray forces are meeting in South Africa for the first formal peace talks since war broke out two years ago. The talks are being mediated by the African Union (AU).
Oumar Ba, assistant professor of government in the College of Arts & Sciences, studies law, violence, race, humanity and world order in international politics. He says the AU is still…
Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash
Monday early morning in Shanghai.
With the 20th National Congress of China’s Communist Party over, the country has finally reported that its third-quarter gross domestic product grew, beating expectations.
Jeremy Wallace, associate professor of government at Cornell University, is an expert on Chinese politics. He is author of the forthcoming book “Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts: Information, Ideology, and Authoritarianism in…
Ivan Serediuk/Unsplash
Lutsk, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine
The United States is calling for a United Nations Security Council briefing regarding news that Russia is using Iranian drones for its war on Ukraine.
Paul Lushenko is a doctoral student at Cornell University and co-editor of "Drones and Global Order: Implications of Remote Warfare for International Society.” He is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and senior policy fellow at Cornell’s…
Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced she will resign after 44 days in office. The following Cornell University experts are available to discuss what’s next for the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Daniel Schade, visiting assistant professor of government, studies the politics of the European Union.
Schade says: “The instability of the UK’s political system couldn’t come at…
