By Charli Carpenter, Professor of Political Science, UMass Amherst
Geraldine Santoso, Ph.D. Student in Political Science, UMass Amherst
As the Trump administration carries out what many observers say are illegal military strikes against vessels in the Caribbean allegedly smuggling drugs, six Democratic members of Congress issued a video on Nov. 18, 2025, telling the military “You can refuse illegal orders” and “You must refuse illegal orders.”
The lawmakers have all served either in the…
(Full Story)
|
By Rowena Hill, Professor of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University
While we cannot stop increases in the magnitude or frequency of adverse weather, there is a lot more people can do to reduce the consequences on their way of life.
(Full Story)
|
By Anna-Louise Milne, Director of Graduate Studies and Research, University of London Institute in Paris
All along Paris’s River Seine, private foundation money has been pouring into older Parisian institutions to make their buildings hospitable to large modern conceptual works.
Crowds flock to the Bourse du Commerce, for example: once a grain and later a labour market, it has now been transformed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando into clean, white spaces. The same has happened at the recently opened Cartier Foundation, previously a hotel and commercial spaces. French…
(Full Story)
|
By Jack Shelbourn, Senior Lecturer and Director of Photography, University of Lincoln
Millions of us unwind with reality television. It’s comforting, social and, when the format is good, brilliantly engineered drama. But there’s an invisible carbon cost to all that escapism.
Plenty of attention has been paid to the carbon footprint of big Hollywood productions, but less so to unscripted TV. Yet the key emitters are similar: travel, energy and materials.
The British Film Institute’s Screen…
(Full Story)
|
By Bran Nicol, Professor of English, University of Surrey
From HBO drama Succession to Netflix reality show Selling Sunset, TV depictions of work tend to treat it as a vehicle for social betterment rather than a means to survival. The Chinese writer Hu Anyan’s arresting memoir, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, just published in an English translation, provides an alternative perspective.
The book began life as a lockdown blog post about its author’s experiences in a logistics warehouse. When it went viral, he reshaped it into a book about his time working as a courier…
(Full Story)
|
By Christopher Saville, Clinical Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology and Sport Science, Bangor University
Research suggests many young adults do not understand the difference between stopping air and stopping blood flow to the brain.
(Full Story)
|
By Lewis Eves, Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham
Tensions are rising between China and Japan again over a dispute in the East China Sea. Such tensions are usually over the Senkaku Islands, an uninhabited chain administered by Japan but claimed by China. The current row, however, stems from international anxiety over a possible Chinese invasion of democratically ruled Taiwan.
On November 17, in her first parliamentary address since taking office in October, Japan’s prime minister Sanae Takaichi suggested…
(Full Story)
|
By Natalia Zwarts, Research Leader in Wargaming at RAND Europe, RAND Europe
Ondrej Palicka, Junior researcher, RAND Europe
Consider the following scenario. There’s a ransomware attack, enhanced by AI, which paralyses NHS systems – delaying medical care across the country.
Simultaneously, deepfake videos circulate online, spreading false information about the government’s response. At the same time, a foreign power quietly manipulates critical mineral markets to exert pressure on the economy.
The scenario is not just a theory. It is a situation waiting to be rehearsed. And research suggests an old tool called wargaming…
(Full Story)
|
By Malcolm Claus, Senior Lecturer, Astronautics and Space Technology, Kingston University
An experimental supersonic aircraft called the X-59 took to the skies for the first time in October.
The plane lifted off from Skunk Works, the famed research and development facility in California owned by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. It cruised for about an hour, before landing at Edwards Air Force Base 85 miles (136km) away.
Nasa’s X-59 is designed to test technology for quiet supersonic flight. In the US, loud sonic…
(Full Story)
|
By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Flags of the EU and AU, photographed during the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the European Union and the African Union in Brussels, May 21, 2025. / Photographed on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office. Photo by: Florian Gaertner/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images. © (Nairobi, November 21, 2025) – The African Union (AU) and European Union should put respect for human rights and international humanitarian law at the center of their partnership, Human Rights Watch said today ahead of the blocs’ seventh summit on November 24-25, 2025, in Luanda, Angola. Both…
(Full Story)
|