Population Studies and Training Center

In the Media

A new study reveals that mindfulness practices may significantly reduce depression symptoms, particularly in people who have experienced early-life adversity, such as childhood abuse and neglect.
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The Providence Journal

Trump order bars international adoptees from US parents

A Coventry couple had to cancel their flight to Colombia to finalize their child's adoption. The same thing happened to another couple in Wisconsin. An Ohio couple's Haiti adoption is on ice, and so is that of another couple in South Carolina.
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In the days since U.S. forces extracted Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela to face justice, much of the debate in Washington has focused on whether what was done was a good idea, or even legitimate. Unsurprisingly, that debate has split almost perfectly along party lines.
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WNPR (Connecticut Public Radio)

The hidden history of Indigenous slavery in New England and beyond

New England has a long and hidden history of enslaving people who were Black, but Native American enslavement was “the most dominant form of slavery, probably, throughout most of the 17th century,” Fisher says.
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University of Michigan News

Fans, not celebrities, drive nationalism on Chinese social media

In China’s social media universe, celebrities are often assumed to set the tone for millions of adoring followers. But a new study led by the University of Michigan shows the dynamic works the other way around.
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Psychology Today

Viral Humanity: Lessons From COVID-19

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on American society were complex. How the pandemic impacted racial and ethnic relations, and how differently its impact was felt by people of different races/ethnicities, of different socioeconomic classes, and in different “media silos,” are much-discussed topics.
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Center for Global Development

The $100,000 H-1B Fee That Could Derail “Made in America”

The Trump administration just made it $100,000 harder to bring talent into the United States. From now on, employers must pay a one-time $100,000 surcharge when they file an H-1B petition—the visa program companies use to hire skilled foreign workers.
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Americas Quarterly

Unlocking Ecuador’s Migrant Paradox

With the right policies in place, Venezuelan migrants could help the Noboa administration revitalize the economy, two experts write.
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Sociologist Susan Short gave a keynote address at the International Forum on Beijing +30: Gender Equality in Great Demographic Shifts. This UN event commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
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CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish

Where are they now? The people displaced by Katrina

Twenty years after hurricane Katrina, this big question remains. What happened to the million people who fled? Most never returned. And their journey reshaped the south.
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The American Sociological Association announced its Inaugural Policy Outreach Fellows this week, and Emily Rauscher was named one of the 10 sociologists who will meet over the next year with the aim of honing skills in communicating with the media and translating complex scientific information from sociological research into plain language for policymakers and the public.
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Sri Lanka Guardian

1 in 5 Can't Have Desired Number of Kids: UN

Despite declining fertility rates -- now below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman in more than half of all countries -- the desire for parenthood remains strong.
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Last month 31 men at Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, positioned their bodies in the shape of the letters “SOS,” a cry for help, as journalists flew overhead. Much has been written about the state of deportations under the Trump administration and the flouting of the Supreme Court’s orders, as well as the court’s temporary blocking of removals of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious prison complex in El Salvador. However, less has been said about how human rights violations are pervasive at detention centers all over the United States, including Bluebonnet.
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Brown University history professor Mack Scott grew up Indigenous in Rhode Island. He moved to the Narragansett reservation in Charlestown in middle school, where he was steeped in his culture. But prior to that he lived in Providence, where he said this identity was less present in his own life.
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For years, people concerned about falling birth rates have warned of the economic consequences of population decline. When a country falls below replacement-level fertility, its aging population will surpass the new, younger generation, shrinking the labor force and straining the national economy with increased costs of elder care, retirement benefits and medical services.
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In early February, seventh grade math teacher Jamie Gallimore tried something new: She watched herself teach class. The idea had come from Ed Baker, district math coach at Tennessee’s Weakley County Schools. Baker set up an iPad on a cabinet in Gallimore’s classroom at Martin Middle School and hit record.
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The Hoover Institution: American Lives podcast

American Lives

Steve turns to Stelios Michalopoulos for insights into the sources of meaning, happiness, and hardship in the lives of everyday Americans.
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Possibly Podcast (Rhode Island PBS)

Are people moving because of climate change?

We hear a lot about climate migration—the idea that people will have to move as climate change makes some places unlivable. But is this something we’re still waiting for, or is it already happening?
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