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Teenagers and younger kids are learning coded predator phrases like ‘MAP’ online, long before their parents have even heard of it

  • Written by Sharlette A. Kellum, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, Texas Southern University
imageTeenagers and children may encounter terms like MAP in memes, comments or other ways online. Catherine Falls Commercial

When I checked my 10-year-old daughter’s TikTok messages in early February 2026, I expected to find the usual mix of dance challenges, school jokes and anime clips. Instead, I saw a stranger ask her, “Do you like...

Read more: Teenagers and younger kids are learning coded predator phrases like ‘MAP’ online, long before...

What gig workers and employees who get tips need to know about the new no-tax-on-tips tax break

  • Written by Annette Nellen, Professor of Tax and Accounting, San José State University
imageGig workers, including DoorDash delivery people, are eligible for a new tax break on their tips.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

About 1 in 10 American workers are earning a living as a gig worker. That means they find their customers through Lyft, DoorDash, TaskRabbit and other digital platforms, or do another form of what the IRS...

Read more: What gig workers and employees who get tips need to know about the new no-tax-on-tips tax break

Lebanon’s political elites are using displacement and humanitarian crisis to delay elections again

  • Written by Jasmin Lilian Diab, Assistant Professor of Migration Studies; Director of the Institute for Migration Studies, Lebanese American University
imageLong-time Lebanese power broker and speaker of the parliament Nabih Berri speaks during a legislative session. AP Photo/Hussein Malla

Lebanon was meant to be preparing for key parliamentary elections in May 2026. Then came the return of war.

Two days after the U.S. and Israel launched their military operation in Iran on Feb. 28, Hezbollah and Israel...

Read more: Lebanon’s political elites are using displacement and humanitarian crisis to delay elections again

US and Iran: A brief history of how decades of mistrust and bad blood led to open warfare

  • Written by Jeffrey Fields, Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
imageAn Iranian walks past an anti-U.S. mural in Tehran on April 5, 2025.Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images

With U.S. bombs raining down on Iran and Tehran’s leaders responding by hitting targets across the Persian Gulf and restricting transit through the Strait of Hormuz, it is fair to suggest that the present moment represents a low in relations...

Read more: US and Iran: A brief history of how decades of mistrust and bad blood led to open warfare

What a US attorney general actually does – a law professor spells it out

  • Written by Jennifer Selin, Associate Professor of Law, Arizona State University
imageU.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi answers questions from the media at the U.S. Capitol on March 18, 2026.Matt McClain/Getty Images

President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 2, 2026, only 14 months after she was sworn into office, making her time in the role the shortest in 60 years.

While much recent attention has focused on...

Read more: What a US attorney general actually does – a law professor spells it out

Toxic dust from California’s shrinking Salton Sea is harming children’s lung growth – our study tracked the impact in 700 kids

  • Written by Jill Johnston, Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupation Health, University of California, Irvine; University of Southern California
imageThe Salton Sea is shrinking and releasing toxic dust from its lake bed.Jennifer Davis/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Southern California’s Salton Sea was once a resort playground, with sunny beaches, celebrities and people waterskiing on the vast inland lake in the 1950s and ’60s.

Today, those resorts are long gone, replaced by a drying and...

Read more: Toxic dust from California’s shrinking Salton Sea is harming children’s lung growth – our study...

Supreme Court ruling on Colorado conversion therapy case is not a clear win for conservatives

  • Written by Kevin Cope, Professor of Law, University of Virginia
imageThe U.S. Supreme Court found a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for gay and transgender minors likely violates free speech. Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

In an 8-1 decision authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court held on March 31, 2026, that a Colorado law prohibiting licensed counselors from performing “conversion therapy&rd...

Read more: Supreme Court ruling on Colorado conversion therapy case is not a clear win for conservatives

Why the manosphere has an antisemitism problem

  • Written by Miriam Eve Mora, Managing Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, University of Michigan
imageFitness content is big in the 'manosphere,' but extreme ideologies make appearances, too.ljubaphoto/E+ via Getty Images

Toward the end of Netflix’s “Into the Manosphere,” documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux chats in Marbella, Spain, with British influencer Ed Matthews.

“The people who run the world, they don’t have our...

Read more: Why the manosphere has an antisemitism problem

Why Americans give: New research finds 5 distinct profiles for generosity

  • Written by George E. Mitchell, Professor of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, CUNY
imageAbout 82% of Americans said in response to a survey that they give to charity or to people in need.Overearth/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Given that fewer Americans are donating and volunteering and that people in the U.S. appear to be losing trust in one another, it may seem like generosity has eroded in the United States.

The nation’s politic...

Read more: Why Americans give: New research finds 5 distinct profiles for generosity

More Articles ...

  1. The costume maker who convinced Hersheypark to embrace candy mascots and ‘chocolatize’ their old-timey theme park
  2. Pam Bondi’s extreme political loyalty to Trump wasn’t enough to save her job
  3. Iran’s president appeals to Americans − but does his office still hold any real power?
  4. The nonprofit status of NCAA athletic departments is starting to raise questions
  5. Kratom poisonings surged 1,200% over the past decade, and regulators are struggling to keep up with the dangers
  6. SpaceX and OpenAI IPOs are unlikely to bring skyrocketing returns that Amazon and Apple did, as companies go public later in life and early investors cash out
  7. For adults with ADHD – or even those with just some symptoms – using smart strategies to start and complete tasks can make all the difference
  8. MLB doubles down on gambling with new Polymarket deal
  9. How Iranian hackers pose a threat to US critical infrastructure
  10. Getting $750 a month didn’t end homelessness – but our study shows it still improved the lives of homeless people
  11. Irresponsible parental gun ownership could become a factor in custody disputes
  12. Better urban design could help save Florida’s threatened Big Cypress fox squirrel
  13. Bypass the Strait of Hormuz with nuclear explosives? The US studied that in Panama and Colombia in the 1960s
  14. AI’s fluency in other languages hides a Western worldview that can mislead users − a scholar of Indonesian society explains
  15. 75 years after she led a student strike that helped end school segregation, Barbara Rose Johns now stands in the US Capitol where Robert E. Lee once did
  16. Trump risks falling in to the ‘asymmetric resolve’ trap in Iran − just as presidents before him did elsewhere
  17. Why Iran targeted Amazon data centers and what that does – and doesn’t – change about warfare
  18. The Department of Justice is suing states for sensitive voter data − an election law scholar explains why federal efforts are facing resistance
  19. Why Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris, won’t stop ‘til she gets enough from his estate
  20. You’re not going to be alone in national parks this summer – enjoy the company
  21. Winter’s alarmingly low snowpack offers a glimpse of the changing rhythm of water in the western US
  22. Federal election observers once played a key role in securing voting rights for all − but times have changed
  23. The NFL draft brings economic gains – and hidden public safety costs
  24. What Detroit can learn from participatory budgeting processes in NYC, Boston and Brazil
  25. Students were skipping my astrophysics class to play video games – so I turned the class itself into a video game
  26. How long young cancer patients survive often depends on the insurance they have
  27. Astronaut Victor Glover is the latest in a long line of Black American explorers − including York, the enslaved man who played a key role in the Lewis and Clark expedition
  28. ‘Project Hail Mary’ demonstrates how intellectual humility can be a guiding force for scientists and astronauts
  29. Holocaust survivors in France came home to stolen apartments, looted furniture and bureaucratic hurdles
  30. How California’s war on smog and its ambitious car pollution rules made everyone’s air cleaner
  31. How polling failures, gambling legalization and political gridlock paved the way for the explosive rise of prediction markets
  32. From youth bulges to graying societies: The demographic dynamics that are upending the world
  33. Trump Fed pick Kevin Warsh could shake up the central bank with his ‘family fight’ model
  34. Ticks are the backyard threat southwestern Pennsylvania homeowners keep ignoring
  35. Benefits of mindfulness meditation go far beyond relaxation – here’s what it is and how to practice it
  36. Artemis II’s long countdown – a space historian explains why it has taken over 50 years to return to the Moon
  37. How sea mines threaten global trade, and how navies detect them
  38. Decades of hostility between Iran and the US were preceded by a little-remembered century-long friendship
  39. NASA wants to build a base on the Moon by the 2030s – how and why it plans to build up to a long-term lunar presence
  40. Basic income’s appeal today is similar to its roots in 18th-century England – it’s a way to compensate people for a common good taken for private gain
  41. Are multiverses real? An astrophysicist explains why it depends on how you define ‘real’
  42. Panicking scientists, canceled experiments – federal funding cuts turned my work as a research dean into crisis management
  43. Sex test used in IOC’s new transgender ban more likely to exclude from Olympics intersex women who were assigned female at birth
  44. Shiite grief over attacks on Iran’s sacred cities has deep historical roots
  45. We analyzed Philly street scenes and identified signs of gentrification using machine learning trained on longtime residents’ observations
  46. Trump’s ‘God Squad’ pits energy vs. endangered species, but it’s a false choice – protecting wildlife can be good for business
  47. COVID-19 variant BA.3.2 is spreading quickly across US – a doctor explains what you need to know
  48. Ultralightweight sonar plus AI lets tiny drones navigate like bats
  49. What Americans can learn from other civil activism movements against authoritarian regimes
  50. War on Iran during nuclear negotiations undermines the US’s ability to talk peace around the world − and the effects won’t end when Trump leaves office