By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Friedrich Merz during his official visit as Federal Chancellor at the Red Town Hall, Berlin, Germany, December 3, 2025. © 2025 Bernd Elmenthaler/Geisler-Fotopr/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to visit Israel on 6th of December and meet, among others, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including the deliberate starvation of the civilian population and attacks on civilians.Merz is putting Germany’s credibility…
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By Amy Brown, Professor of Child Public Health, Swansea University
Aimee Grant, Associate Professor in Public Health and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow, Swansea University
If you’ve been celebrating the news that the government will save you £500 a year on baby formula, we’re sorry to be the bearer of bad news: that’s not what’s actually happening.
The UK government has just published its response to a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into high baby formula prices, and media headlines…
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By Matthew Blanton, PhD Candidate, Sociology and Demography, The University of Texas at Austin
Protestant churches’ growth in Latin America gets lots of attention, but another important shift is happening, too: people leaving organized religion altogether.
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By Michelle Lynn Kahn, Associate Professor of History, University of Richmond
Neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists were early adopters of bulletin board systems, pioneering online recruiting and radicalization techniques long before the social media revolution.
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By Ellen T. Meiser, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Hawaii at Hilo
The season of gifting is in full swing – a time when people scour the internet and shops of all kinds for items that appropriately symbolize their relationships with their loved ones.
Gift givers hope that their gift will appropriately communicate their feelings and bring the recipient joy. But that’s not always the reality. Gifts can be tricky and rife with hidden hazards. Relationships…
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By Sarah Lubienski, Professor of Mathematics Education, Indiana University
Colleen Ganley, Professor of Developmental Psychology, Florida State University
Martha Makowski, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Alabama
The reasons are not yet fully understood, but researchers consider societal influences that encourage greater compliance among girls as a potential cause.
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By Roger J. Kreuz, Associate Dean and Feinstone Interdisciplinary Research Professor, University of Memphis
From AI slop to rage bait, to the cryptic ‘6-7,’ this year’s slate captures a growing sense that online life is flooded with fakery, frustration and meaninglessness.
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By Jonathan Deutsch, Professor of Food and Hospitality Management, Drexel University
The Michelin awards will almost certainly bring more tourism to the city, and more revenue to the honored restaurants. But will it make Philly’s dining scene better?
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By Steve Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett University
The Beatles’ song Yesterday was written in what psychologists refer to as the “hypnagogic state”. This is the twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness, when we drowsily linger in a semi-conscious state, experiencing vivid mental images and sounds.
Waking up one morning in early 1965, Paul McCartney became aware of a long complex melody playing inside his head. He jumped straight out of bed, sat down at his piano and picked out the melody on the keys. He quickly…
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By Fabian Pape, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh
Johannes Petry, CSGR Research Fellow, University of Warwick
Tobias Pforr, Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute
The US has long sat at the centre of the global financial system, with the US dollar serving as the backbone of the world economy. Private investors rely on the dollar as a store of value in times of uncertainty.
Governments and central banks hold dollars to manage the value of their own currencies and as a form of insurance against economic shocks. Key commodities such as oil are also priced in dollars.
This dominant position, which has given the US enormous privileges including the capacity to borrow money cheaply and the ability to use the global…
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