Some do Coachella. Others do Stagecoach. The really cool kids do Western in the Emerald City. Great to be back at the Annual WSPA Meeting with some amazing scholars. #politicalscience #seattle #wspa #cgu #claremont . @wpsa.bsky.social @claremontgraduateu.bsky.social

Conference bound

NEW: For decades, the Wilson Center in DC has produced valuable research on foreign policy for US policymakers and the public. Today, its 130 workers were put on leave and will be fired because of Trump and Musk ordering a shutdown. Our @nytimes.com story: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/u...

News Analysis: U.S. officials seek to curb Houthi militants’ attacks on ships in the Red Sea. But the Iran-backed group was not deterred by strikes in the Biden era and won’t be beaten by air power alone, experts say.

Sharks have long been seen as the silent killers of the water. But researchers in New Zealand have recorded what they believe is the first instance of a shark actively making noise.

Breaking News: The Trump administration announced plans to lay off 10,000 federal employees at the Health and Human Services Department as part of a major restructuring by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Follow live updates.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University, was detained March 25 by Department of Homeland Security agents in masks and plainclothes. “We should all be horrified at the way DHS spirited away Rumeysa in broad daylight,” Mahsa Khanbabai, Ozturk’s lawyer, said. wapo.st/3QPfoiA

Breaking News: A federal judge ordered the U.S. government to halt efforts to arrest and deport a Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

The largest-ever class of high school seniors is about to graduate, just as colleges are facing major upheaval. Here’s what students could face as they head to campus.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring people to provide documents proving they are citizens when they register to vote, a mandate that experts said could prevent millions of Americans from voting. Follow live updates here.

Breaking News: The Trump administration repeatedly stonewalled a federal judge seeking answers about whether the government had violated his order barring the deportation of more than 200 noncitizens without due process.

The purge, which also targeted multiple webpages about women and LGBTQ+ service members, highlights how aggressively military leaders are pursuing President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI mandate. Read more here:

Net favorability of historic and current political figures by party. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

📢 Out now! Democracy Report 2025: 25 Years of Autocratization - Democracy Trumped? Read the Report: v-dem.net/publications... Download the V-Dem Dataset v15: v-dem.net/data/the-v-d... #DR25 #DemocracyReport2025 #VDemDatasetV15 #Polisky #PoliSciSky #PoliticalScienceData #PoliticalScience

From our new issue: "Varieties of Values: Moral Values Are Uniquely Divisive" by Jae-Hee Jung and Scott Clifford. #APSRNewIssue www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A whale-watching crew in California captured video of a "superpod" of about 2,000 dolphins swimming off the coast. So many the water looked "like it was boiling," a boat captain with the crew said. nyti.ms/4ki1Fy7

From the Editorial Board: The conviction of Michael J. Madigan on corruption and conspiracy charges marks a definitive end to the Daley-style machine era.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thomson Reuters has won an early battle in court over the question of fair use in artificial intelligence-related copyright cases.

The Department of Government Efficiency is one of the most ambitious efforts to reform US government. It could define President Trump's second term.

Here's my new working paper w/ Aaron Kaufman & Chris Celaya. Focusing on race and class, we argue that quant studies of inequality, discrimination, etc across identity groups should use the estimand that reflects its underlying theory of identity development ungated www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ophfv...

Hard to overstate the scale of self sabotage www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/u...

Desalination requires tons of energy. One company is testing a hack to make it greener, Becki Robins reports.

I have been using a vintage Stanley thermos for a number of years now.

Iranian authorities killed, tortured and raped women, men and children in a brutal repression of mass protests that erupted over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in 2022, UN investigators found.

Pencils down. A sad day for all lovers of the Dixon Ticonderoga #2 soft.

As/if you listen to SOTU commentary, remember that the net effect of the speech on presidential approval ratings is, on average, less than 1 percentage point.

Are you interested in democratic backsliding? With @honoratam.bsky.social and Joep van Lit we are organizing a workshop on "Early Signs of Democratic Recession in Established and Backsliding Democracies" Join us at the @ecpr.bsky.social joint sessions polisky ecpr.eu/Events/Event...

On average, presidential approval ratings tick up by a whopping 0.6 percentage points within a week of a SOTU address and an impressive 0 points four weeks after.