In all his years as an expert in Latin American history, Penn State professor Matthew Restall never had much interest in Christopher Columbus as a subject. But a trip to Spain changed his mind and ultimately yielded his new book, “The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus.” Published by W.W. Norton & Company, the book traces Columbus’ life and his many afterlives in terms of public perception. Along the way, Restall separates fact from fiction and seeks to understand why Columbus continues to mean different things to different people.

New research reveals that ‘third-sector’ services, such as those run by housing associations, are far more effective than government work programmes at helping the long-term unemployed in deprived areas.

 

The study, led by the University of East Anglia (UEA), investigated the impact of alternative support services and recommends key strategies for helping individuals move closer to employment and improve their overall wellbeing, using a person-centred, strength-based, and long-term approach.

In a Policy Forum, Yue Zhu and colleagues provide an overview of China’s emerging regulation for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and its potential contributions to global AI governance. Open-source AI systems from China are rapidly expanding worldwide, even as the country’s regulatory framework remains in flux. In general, AI governance suffers from fragmented approaches, a lack of clarity, and difficulty reconciling innovation with risk management, making global coordination especially hard in the face of rising controversy. Although no official AI law has yet been enacted, experts in China have drafted two influential proposals – the Model AI Law and the AI Law (Scholar’s Proposal) – which serve as key references for ongoing policy discussions. As the nation’s lawmakers prepare to draft a consolidated AI law, Zhu et al. note that the decisions will shape not only China’s innovation, but also global collaboration on AI safety, openness, and risk mitigation. Here, the authors discuss China’s emerging AI regulation as structured around 6 pillars, which, combined, stress exemptive laws, efficient adjudication, and experimentalist requirements, while safeguarding against extreme risks. This framework seeks to balance responsible oversight with pragmatic openness, allowing developers to innovate for the long term and collaborate across the global research community. According to Zhu et al., despite the need for greater clarity, harmonization, and simplification, China’s evolving model is poised to shape future legislation and contribute meaningfully to global AI governance by promoting both safety and innovation at a time when international cooperation on extreme risks is urgently needed.

Previous research has shown that higher education dampens support for capital punishment, but University of Nebraska scholars have discovered those collegiate effects are lessened among conservatives.

Despite the popularity of true crime media — and its ability to highlight cases that need attention — its production has a dark side, often adding to the trauma experienced by victims’ loved ones. University of Nebraska–Lincoln scholar Kelli Boling published new research highlighting the impacts of true crime media on the family and friends of crime victims, finding that co-victims have to wrestle with a dichotomy between feeling an immense loss of privacy amid grief and wanting the media’s help to keep a criminal case in the public eye in the pursuit of justice.