It’s been two decades since Facebook first launched in 2004. Since then, the company has grown into a social media giant with billions of users worldwide. Facebook remains one of the most widely used social media sites among adults in the United States. But it’s also had its controversies, including those related to politics. Facebook was widely criticized for how it handled misinformation leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And some researchers believe its algorithm amplifies partisan divides. This chapter explores Facebook’s connection with politics, including its prevalence on the site and users’ views of its impact on…
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Instagram has grown from a place where friends and family share photos to a destination for brands, memes and entertainment. It’s also a growing news source – especially for younger Americans. And it’s become a way for elected officials and activists to engage with the public. But its connection with politics is evolving. Earlier this year, the company announced it would limit the political content it suggests to its users. This chapter explores if and how Americans engage with political content on Instagram and what users think of its impact on politics. Here are some of the key findings: Instagram…
Tumors that travel to the lungs, or lung metastases, pose a formidable challenge in the realm of cancer treatment. Conventional chemotherapy often falls short because it’s inefficient. It doesn’t directly target the lungs and accumulate in a high enough concentration to kill tumors. My colleagues and I from the Wang lab and Zhang Research Group at the University of California, San Diego have spent the past five years developing biohybrid microrobots, tiny objects made of both natural and synthetic materials, that can be used in medicine. In our newly published research, we made a green microalgae-based biohybrid microrobot that can…
Support for Ukraine and securing peace in the Middle East priorities at G7 Leaders Summit. UK provides package of up to £242m funding for immediate humanitarian, energy and stabilisation needs in Ukraine. Leaders seek to leverage billions from immobilised Russian assets to support Ukraine. The Prime Minister will be clear that the UK will lead from the front on supporting international peace and security as he attends the G7 Leaders Summit in Italy against a backdrop of heightened volatility. At the Summit, the Prime Minister will announce up to £242 million in bilateral assistance to Ukraine, to support immediate…
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States, with allies and partners, has rallied support for Ukraine’s defense and imposed sanctions and export controls on an unprecedented scale. Today, in line with the commitments President Biden and Group of Seven (G7) Leaders made as they prepare to meet this week in Italy, the Departments of State and the Treasury are imposing further costs on Russia by designating more than 300 individuals and entities for enabling Russia’s prosecution of its illegal war. The Department of State is imposing sanctions on more than 100 targets across multiple sectors…
Astronomers, maybe more than anyone, appreciate what an island of perfection our Earth is. Our orbit may put us at a perfect distance from the sun for life to flourish, but it is too small to easily help astronomers determine how big the universe is. Late Renaissance scholar Nicolaus Copernicus suggested that the Earth orbits the sun in 1543, but it took 300 years to prove it. In 1838, a nearby star appeared to wobble because our viewpoint on Earth was moving due to our planet being in orbit around the sun. Such apparent motion is called “parallax.” We can…
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s attacks on Italy’s cultural heritage – from libel suits against intellectuals to her government’s censorship of texts critical of Mussolini – have made headlines across Europe. Less attention, however, has been granted to the agricultural minister’s blows on the country’s natural heritage. Francesco Lollobrigida, who has held this position since October 2022, is a lawyer who cut his teeth on politics at the neo-fascist party Italian Social Movement before joining Fratelli d’Italia in 2012. Italy’s “war” on wild boars On May 5, Lollobrigida passed a law intended to fight African swine fever, a disease spread from…
Today, the winners of the EU 2024 Prize for Citizen Science were announced. Citizen science – the general public engagement in scientific research activities – contributes to a vibrant civil society and is getting increasingly popular with Europeans.Out of the 288 applications, three citizen science initiatives received the main prizes and 27 were recognised with honorary mentions. The winners are:The ‘Grand Prize’, worth €60,000, goes to the EU-funded INCREASE project for its outstanding achievements in advancing knowledge on seed preservation through the empowerment of civil society and citizens, in particular from rural areas.The Digital Communities prize, worth €20,000, is given to the Horizon 2020…
EAST ST. LOUIS, IL – The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a complaint in federal court against two Illinois restaurants — operating as IHOP franchises in O’Fallon and Alton — and their owner after its investigation identified numerous violations, including management telling servers to surrender their tips to a shared tip pool when, in fact, the owner was keeping the tips for the restaurant or sharing them with back-of-the-house employees not eligible to participate in a mandatory tip pool. In addition to violating tip pool regulations, the department’s Wage and Hour Division also learned the restaurants and owner, Khalid Ramadan skirted…
The court on Wednesday convicted six of the nine men on various charges after a grinding three-year trial. It did not hand down a life sentence to the three main suspects, instead sentencing two of them to 28 years in prison and the other to 26 years. A seventh man was also sentenced to just four weeks in prison for drug possession. Two others were acquitted. The court said it could not be proved that de Vries was killed because of his involvement in the murder trial and dismissed the prosecutor’s claim that two men who filmed and posted the…