Will the Inflation Reduction Act actually reduce inflation? How will the corporate minimum tax work? An economist has answers

  The U.S. is about to spend US$490 billion over 10 years on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving health care, and reducing the federal deficit. Where’s all that money coming from?

  We asked University of Michigan economist Nirupama Rao to examine how the new law will raise enough revenue to pay for clean energy tax credits, Affordable Care Act subsidies, and incentives for manufacturers to use cleaner technologies, among other initiatives. We also wanted to know, given its name, will the Inflation Reduction Act actually bring down inflation?

Big new incentives for clean energy aren’t enough – the Inflation Reduction Act was just the first step, now the hard work begins

  The new Inflation Reduction Act is stuffed with subsidies for everything from electric vehicles to heat pumps and incentives for just about every form of clean energy. But pouring money into technology is just one step toward solving the climate change problem.

  Wind and solar farms won’t be built without enough power lines to connect their electricity to customers. Captured carbon and clean hydrogen won’t get far without pipelines. Too few contractors are trained to install heat pumps. And EV buyers will think twice if there aren’t enough charging stations.

College students are increasingly identifying beyond ‘she’ and ‘he’

  When students today fill out their college applications, they are not just identifying as “she” or “he.” More than 3% of incoming college students use a different set of pronouns. That’s according to my analysis of the more than 1.2 million applications submitted for the 2022-23 school year through the Common App, an online application platform used by more than 900 colleges.

  While 3% may not seem like a lot, it represents nearly 37,000 students. It is also indicative of a growing number of young people who identify outside of a gender binary – that is, they do not identify as female or male. For example, the percentage of college students who indicated that they are nonbinary on one national survey has nearly tripled from 1.4% in 2016 to 4.1% in 2021.

Next US energy boom could be wind power in the Gulf of Mexico

  With passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains US$370 billion for climate and energy programs, policy experts are forecasting a big expansion in clean electricity generation. One source that’s poised for growth is offshore wind power.

  Today the U.S. has just two operating offshore wind farms, off of Rhode Island and North Carolina, with a combined generating capacity of 42 megawatts. For comparison, the new Traverse Wind Energy Center in Oklahoma has 356 turbines and a 998-megawatt generating capacity. But many more projects are in development, mostly along the Atlantic coast.

You don’t have to be a spy to violate the Espionage Act – and other crucial facts about the law Trump may have broken

  The federal court-authorized search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate has brought renewed attention to the obscure but infamous law known as the Espionage Act of 1917. A section of the law was listed as one of three potential violations under Justice Department investigation.

  The Espionage Act has historically been employed most often by law-and-order conservatives. But the biggest uptick in its use occurred during the Obama administration, which used it as the hammer of choice for national security leakers and whistleblowers. Regardless of whom it is used to prosecute, it unfailingly prompts consternation and outrage.

Faced with a rise of extremism within its ranks, the US military has clamped down on racist speech, including retweets and likes

  Less than a month after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin took the extraordinary step of pausing all operations for 24 hours to “address extremism in the ranks.” Pentagon officials had been shaken by service members’ prominent role in the events of Jan. 6.

  Of the 884 criminal defendants charged to date with taking part in the insurrection, more than 80 were veterans. That’s almost 10% of those charged.

If Biden decides not to run for reelection, he faces a big threat: Being a lame duck

  As President Joe Biden’s approval ratings continue to hover around 40% and polls consistently show that most Americans do not want him to run for reelection, Biden’s spokespeople insist that he plans to run.

  It would be more surprising if he did not run.

After Trump, Christian nationalist ideas are going mainstream – despite a history of violence

  In the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections, some politicians continue to ride the wave of what’s known as “Christian nationalism” in ways that are increasingly vocal and direct.

  GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Donald Trump loyalist from Georgia, told an interviewer on July 23, 2022 that the Republican Party “need[s] to be the party of nationalism. And I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”

Social media provides flood of images of death and carnage from Ukraine war – and contributes to weaker journalism standards

  Photos of civilians killed or injured in the Russia-Ukraine war are widespread, particularly online, both on social media and in professional news media.

  Editors have always published images of dead or suffering people during times of crisis, like wars and natural disasters. But the current crisis has delivered many more of these images, more widely published online, than ever before.

Pushing ‘closure’ after trauma can be harmful to people grieving – here’s what you can do instead

  From the breakup of a relationship to losing a loved one, people are often told to find “closure” after traumatic things happen.

  But what is closure? And should it really be the goal for individuals seeking relief or healing, even in these traumatic times of global pandemic, war in Ukraine, and mass shootings in the U.S.?

  Closure is an elusive concept. There is no agreed-upon definition for what closure means or how one is supposed to find it. Although there are numerous interpretations of closure, it usually relates to some type of ending to a difficult experience.