Nutrition Facts labels have a complicated legacy – a historian explains the science and politics of translating food into information

  The Nutrition Facts label, that black and white information box found on nearly every packaged food product in the U.S. since 1994, has recently become an icon for consumer transparency.

  From Apple’s “Privacy Nutrition Labels” that disclose how smartphone apps handle user data, to a “Garment Facts” label that standardizes ethical disclosures on clothing, policy advocates across industries invoke “Nutrition Facts” as a model for empowering consumers and enabling socially responsible markets. They argue that intuitive information fixes could solve a wide range of market-driven social ills.

  Yet this familiar, everyday product label actually has a complicated legacy.

Local elections are less partisan because voters will cross party lines when issues hit close to home

  Hand-wringing over American politics commonly focuses on the sharp and growing divisions between Democrats and Republicans.

  Accumulating evidence indicates that voters are less likely than ever to split their ticket or vote for candidates from different parties in presidential or congressional races. Polarization over hot-button issues has spiked, as has animosity toward members of the opposite party.

Alabama’s deadly fantasies about guns

  Rep. Kenyatté Hassell’s bill requiring permits for assault weapons stopped me.

  Not because there’s anything unusual or objectionable about the legislation. Instead, it was how it laid out the damage a modern, legal firearm can do.

  Take the bill’s definition of “assault rifle.” At base, it’s a semi-automatic gun that can accept a detachable magazine. We should all be familiar with that. AR-15-type rifles can fire at least 30 rounds a minute. With training or weapon modifications, that number can go higher.

Politicians step up attacks on the teaching of scientific theories in US schools

  Scientific theory has had a rough time in America’s public schools.

  Almost 100 years ago, science teacher John Scopes was convicted of violating a Tennessee law that prohibited teaching the theory of evolution. Although his conviction was overturned on a technicality in 1927, laws banning classes on Darwin’s theory stuck around for another 40 years. They were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968.

China leans into using AI − even as the US leads in developing it

  In the competitive arena of global technology, China’s ambitions in artificial intelligence stand out – not just for their scale but for their distinct strategic approach.

  In 2017, the Chinese Communist Party declared its intent to surpass the United States to become the world leader in AI by 2030. This plan, however, is less about pioneering novel technologies and more about strategically adapting existing ones to serve state economic, political, and social objectives.

Project 2025 will undermine America’s national security

  In a nearly 1,000-page proposal, a group of far-right former officials and experts have authored a policy agenda, dubbed “Project 2025,” for a future right-wing presidency. The plan, which would gut America’s 250-year-old system of checks and balances to allow far-right extremism to take over the federal government, includes a vision for the “common defense” that will place the United States in direct confrontation with its adversaries and privilege unilateral militarism over a thoughtful, holistic, and adequately resourced national security strategy. In so doing, Project 2025’s proposals would fundamentally undermine America’s national and economic security, and ordinary Americans will pay the price.

A call for more civility

  When George Washington was 16, he discovered a booklet of 110 maxims describing how a well-mannered person should behave. He was so convinced that these maxims would help him become a better person that he set out to incorporate them into his daily living. Among Washington’s many virtues, his commitment to civility marked him as a gentleman and helped him become a universally respected and enormously effective leader.

US voters say they’re ready for a woman president − but sexist attitudes still go along with opposition to Harris

  Since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race on July 21, 2024 and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris’ campaign has generated widespread enthusiasm and attention. She quickly became the official Democratic presidential nominee and erased Donald Trump’s lead over Biden in national and swing-state polling.

  Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have also drawn tens of thousands of supporters to their recent rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada.

The unpunished crimes of the Clotilda — and Alabama

  The Clotilda isn’t the most important part of the Clotilda story.

  That’s not to say Alabama shouldn’t do everything in its power to preserve the rotting remains of that ship, the last known to have brought enslaved people to the United States.

  Since the Alabama Historical Commission announced the discovery of the Clotilda in 2019, there has been talk about raising the ship off the banks of the Mobile River and putting it on display as a memorial to the 110 men and women kidnapped from Africa in 1860, forced onto the ship, and sent into slavery in Alabama.

Americans love free speech, survey finds − until they realize everyone else has it, too

  Americans’ views on free speech change directions every so often. One of those times was during the protests at U.S. universities about the Israel-Hamas war. As scholars of free speech and public opinion, we set out to find out what happened and why.

  The Supreme Court itself, as recently as 1989, has declared that the “bedrock principle” of the First Amendment is that “the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”