July 19, 2026

PayPal shares jump on reported $53 bn Stripe takeover bid

Shares in PayPal surged as much as 13% on Wall Street Wednesday after reports that payments firm Stripe and private equity group Advent International had made a joint offer to buy the digital payments pioneer.

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Americans increasingly view illicit drug policy through a partisan lens, new analysis finds

Since the early 1970s, when the Nixon administration launched the “war on drugs,” Gallup has been asking Americans how they feel about problems surrounding illicit drugs. But the war has not gone well and Gallup’s [...]
New research shows how to expand the pool of tomorrow’s leaders

Americans are dissatisfied with the state of leadership in the United States across several sectors—business, education, government and health care—a Harris poll showed in 2025. The survey raised a foundational question about developing the next [...]
Trump wants to make daylight saving time permanent—but some fear the move would be a nightmare

One of the most intractable, contentious and niche issues in U.S. politics has come back into the spotlight. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to make daylight saving time permanent in the United [...]
AI explored as tool for unraveling radicalization’s complex drivers

Radicalization is a complex process, influenced by many variables that interact to varying degrees. AI scientist Mijke van den Hurk investigated whether artificial intelligence could help unravel this intricate interplay. She defended her Ph.D. thesis [...]
When words signal conflict: Measuring exclusionary nationalism in prewar Japan

Why do countries go to war? While economic, military and geopolitical factors are often part of the answer, researchers have also pointed to exclusionary nationalism—the belief that one’s own nation is superior to others. One [...]
Watchdog science journalism: Crucial yet precarious work, according to study

How do journalists act as watchdogs of science? New qualitative research led by University of Amsterdam media scholar Alice Fleerackers sheds light on the labor-intensive nature of watchdog science journalism, a form of critical journalism [...]
UN statements help predict China’s human rights compromises, analysis suggests

A study of China’s participation in United Nations human rights reviews argues that its public statements are more than diplomatic rhetoric. The paper published in the International Journal of Public Law and Policy also suggests [...]
Researchers suggest ways to improve US sentencing guidelines

The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines play a pivotal role in some of the federal government’s most consequential drug policy decisions. Two recurring themes have been the balancing—or lack of balancing—between drug weight and the defendant’s role [...]
Widespread misuse of crowd-control weapons by law enforcement at immigration enforcement protests

Law enforcement agents misused crowd-control weapons during protests against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations in 412 verified incidents across 16 U.S. cities from when immigration enforcement protests escalated in Los Angeles in June 2025 [...]
Unequal taxation helped fuel the French Revolution, say economists

Deep inequalities in taxation played a key role in fueling the French Revolution, according to a new study published by the ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin). For the first time, economists have substantiated this with figures. [...]