Beginning in the late 19th century, a Canadian network of residential schools for indigenous children became sites for rampant child abuse. Documentary filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat recounts the horrors that took place in those schools.

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In recent years, commentators and gadflies have looked at American presidents and, based on age and, sometimes, politics, called for the invocation of the 25th amendment to remove the president from office. Constitutional scholar John Feerick helped write the 25th amendment and shines a light on its provisions and the intentions of its framers.

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In the summer of 2020, the country was racked by disease, violence, and social disruption as generations of racial injustice seemed to fall in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.  Thomas Chatterton Williams warns, however, that extreme views on the left—ascendent in that summer heat—are just as dangerous to western liberalism as extreme views on the right.

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Artificial Intelligence is changing all of our lives and the biggest changes are yet to come. Yet despite the revolution on our doorstep, few have looked carefully at the impact of AI on children. Dr. Mhairi Aitken has done just that and has evidence-based advice for policy makers and developers. 

Aitken is a Senior Ethics Fellow in the Public Policy Programme at The Alan Turing Institute, where she focusses on social and ethical dimensions of digital innovation. Aitken leads research on AI and children’s rights there, in addition to a data justice, ethics of Generative AI and emerging AI policy and regulation topics. She is particularly interested in the role of public engagement in informing ethical data practices and is a frequent contributor to media discussions on AI and data. She is a visiting senior lecturer at the Digital Environment Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London and an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Australian Centre for Health Engagement, Evidence and Values at the University of Wollongong, Australia. 

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For more than a decade, now, the world has been experiencing a process of “democratic backsliding,” while alternatives to governing by popular consent have gained popularity—even in the West.  James Fishkin offers a path to improving not just the health of democracy, but the effectiveness of liberal democratic governments. 

Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University where he is Professor of Communication, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab. He is best known for developing Deliberative Polling®, a practice of public consultation that employs random samples of the citizenry to explore how opinions would change if they were more informed. His work on deliberative democracy has stimulated more than 100 Deliberative Polls in 28 countries around the world. It has been used to help governments and policy makers make important decisions in Texas, China, Mongolia, Japan, Macau, South Korea, Bulgaria, Brazil, Uganda and other countries around the world. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge.

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Scholars, journalists and even some politicians often warn about the lack of critical thinking in contemporary public and private life. Alex Edmans picks up that alarm and warns that we’re regularly exploited by those who would use our own sloppy thinking and unconscious biases to mislead us.  

Edmans is a professor of finance at London Business School. His research interests are in corporate finance, responsible business and behavioral finance. He serves in leadership roles for the American Finance Association, Western Finance Association, Financial Management Association, British Academy and the Academy of the Social Sciences. He has spoken at economic forums, testified in the United Kingdom Parliament and been interviewed by many major news networks. He has won 28 teaching awards, was featured in “Thinkers50 Radar” and was named professor of the year by Poets & Quants in 2021. His latest book, “May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit our Biases- And What We Can Do About It,” was published in 2024.  

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It’s comforting to think about American political institutions as “transparent” and open to scrutiny.  However, this week on “Story in the Public Square,” Anna Massoglia describes a campaign finance system built, increasingly, on so-called “dark money.”

Massoglia is a political influence expert and investigative journalist with more than a decade of experience exposing the hidden forces of money, power and politics. As the founder and author of “Influence Brief,” Massoglia helps readers to navigate the complex financial systems and influence networks shaping politics and public policy in the United States and across the globe. She also works as an independent consultant and advisor for various organizations, offering expertise in research, strategy and public policy. She is a director of investigations at the Sunlight Reseach Center, a nonpartisan journalism support organization that equips newsrooms to provide their communities fact-based, transparent investigative journalism holding power to account.

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Eighty years ago, World War II ended in the Pacific with the first, and thus far, only use of nuclear weapons in warfare.  The widely popular decision to use the bomb at the time has become fodder for historians to debate in subsequent decades. Fred Borch helps us view the decision to drop the bomb from the perspective of American leaders in that summer of 1945.  

Fred L. Borch is a historian, lawyer and soldier by profession. He has three history degrees, three law degrees and an M.A. in national security strategy from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He served on active duty as an Army lawyer from 1980 to 2005 in a variety of roles, at one point having chief responsibility for overall prosecution efforts against alleged terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After retiring as a colonel, Fred returned to the Army for a civilian position as the professor of legal history and leadership at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has authored 10 books and more than 200 articles on legal and non-legal topics.  

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The history of humanity is the history of individuals making decisions, sometimes collectively, and sometimes individually. New artificial intelligence, AI, brings a new player into the mix: machines capable of making decisions alongside or instead of their human counterparts. Sean O’Callaghan and Paul Hoffman grapple with the theological implications of this new technology.  

Sean O'Callaghan is an associate professor of religious and theological studies at Salve Regina University, where he also serves as a coordinator of the AI Initiative. He previously served as director of the Ph..D.. program in humanities and technology and is currently a faculty member in that program. He received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from the University of Liverpool in 2008.  

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Where five years ago, we were in the thick of the pandemic, with the bulk of the sickness and dying still to come, now, the U.S. federal government is poised to slash spending on public health, as well as basic research in science, healthcare and more.  Dr. Ashish Jha helps us sort through competing claims and make sense of it all.

An accomplished and practicing physician, Jha is a trusted expert on major issues impacting public health, and a catalyst for new thinking and approaches. A long-time leader on pandemic preparedness and response, from directing groundbreaking research on Ebola to serving on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response, he has analyzed key issues and advised local and federal policy makers around the world. In March 2022, he was appointed by President Biden as White House COVID-19 response coordinator and led the work that increased the development of and access to treatments and newly formulated vaccines. He has served as a professor of medicine and is currently the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

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