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How are LGBTQ people treated by law enforcement?
June is Pride Month, which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprisings in Manhattan that brought the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people to the fore. Stefan Vogler, a professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is a co-author of a new American Civil Liberties Union research report, “Policing Progress: Findings from a National Survey of LGBTQ+ […]
How are states altering higher education by redefining academic freedom?
Carol Symes, a professor of history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is vice president of the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Symes spoke with News Bureau education editor Sharita Forrest about a trend of state legislation that is changing U.S. higher education by redefining academic freedom and tenure for faculty members. […]
How does bird flu infect so many species?
Recent reports of the first documented case of the H5N1 virus passing from birds to cows — and then from a cow to a person — have generated a lot of press in an age of worry about diseases “spilling over” from wildlife to agricultural animals and humans. Dr. James Lowe, a professor of veterinary […]
What effect will Trump trials have on the perception of jury trial, civic participation?
Suja Thomas is the Peer and Sarah Pedersen Professor of Law at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and author of the 2016 book “The Missing American Jury: Restoring the Fundamental Constitutional Role of the Criminal, Civil, and Grand Juries.” Thomas, who is working on a documentary related to her research on jury trials, spoke with […]
Why is the reparations movement gaining momentum in the U.S.?
The call for reparations for people of African descent to compensate for slavery has a long history, but it has been discussed more broadly and gained support in recent years. Illinois, California and New York have established commissions to examine how to address the repercussions of slavery and racial discrimination, and several cities have done […]
What can researchers learn about ecosystems and the environment during the total solar eclipse?
Scientists across the U.S. and Mexico are engaging in a one-day data-gathering operation to record how the 2024 total solar eclipse affects various aspects of life on Earth. At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, crop sciences and plant biology professor Carl Bernacchi and his colleagues will focus on atmospheric and ecosystem-scale responses to the eclipse. […]
Can genetic genealogy restore family narratives disrupted by the transatlantic slave trade?
Some political figures seek to remove references to slavery from the study of American history, adding to the vast knowledge gaps that stem from the transatlantic slave trade. To better understand these histories, scholars and individuals are turning to genetic genealogy to discover and retrace descendant-family lineages. In a recent paper published in the journal […]
How is the Russia-Ukraine war affecting non-allied countries’ interest in joining NATO?
Cynthia Buckley, a professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, assesses threats to geopolitical stability along Russia’s periphery through the Central Eurasian State Capacity Initiative. Buckley spoke with research editor Sharita Forrest about the ongoing war in Ukraine. Sweden recently joined NATO, ending decades of neutrality. How significant is Sweden’s membership and will […]
Expert advises eclipse watchers to get the best vantage point – are you ready?
Leslie Looney is an astronomy professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and director of the Laboratory for Astronomical Imaging. He spoke with News Bureau physical sciences and media editor Lois Yoksoulian about the significance of solar eclipses and what to expect on April 8. There are many different types of solar eclipses: What kind […]
How should voters feel about polls heading into the presidential election?
Brian Gaines is a professor of political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Honorable W. Russell Arrington Professor in State Politics at the U of I System’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs. Gaines, who studies elections and public opinion, spoke with News Bureau business and law editor Phil Ciciora about the […]
How will generative artificial intelligence affect political advertising in 2024?
It’s estimated that $12 billion will be spent on political ads this election cycle – 30% more than in 2020. The sheer volume of ads is remarkable, and there is vast potential to use this political information to contribute to democracy: to reach more potential voters and provide accurate information. There’s also more potential than […]
What does the death of Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny mean for the future of opposition movements in Russia?
Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny died Feb. 16 while serving time in a remote Arctic prison. Navalny was the main political opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and an anticorruption activist who survived being poisoned in 2020, which many believe was a state-ordered assassination attempt. He was serving multiple prison sentences on what were widely […]