David Y. Yang.Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer Nation & World When global trade is about more than money Economist’s new tool looks at how China is more effective than U.S. in exerting political power through import, export controls Christy DeSmith Harvard Staff Writer August 27, 2025 6 min read International trade can yield far more than imports and exports. According to David Y. Yang, Yvonne P. L. Lui Professor of Economics, trade can be used to wield political power. Yang watched ...| Harvard Gazette
Jonathan McHugh/Ikon Images Nation & World Global concerns rising about erosion of academic freedom New paper suggests threats are more widespread, less obvious than some might think Christina Pazzanese Harvard Staff Writer August 26, 2025 8 min read Political and social changes in the U.S. and other Western democracies in the 21st century have triggered growing concerns about possible erosion of academic freedom. In the past, colleges and universities largely decided whom to admit and hire, ...| Harvard Gazette
Nation & World Setback in the fight against pediatric HIV Funding cut disrupts Botswana-based effort to help patients control illness without regular treatments Liz Mineo Harvard Staff Writer August 19, 2025 4 min read Roger Shapiro.Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer For more than 20 years, Harvard infectious disease specialist Roger Shapiro has fought HIV on the ground in Botswana, where the rate of infection exceeded 30 percent in some areas of the country in the 1990s. Progress has be...| Harvard Gazette
Nation & World Why was Pacific Northwest home to so many serial killers? In ‘Murderland,’ alum explores lead-crime theory through lens of her own memories growing up there Jacob Sweet Harvard Staff Writer August 19, 2025 5 min read In Caroline Fraser’s 2025 book “Murderland,” the air is always thick with smog, and sinister beings lie around every corner. Fraser, Ph.D. ’87, in her first book since “Prairie Fires,” her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of “Little House on the P...| Harvard Gazette
Photo by Jennifer S. Altman Nation & World Why Malcolm X matters even more 60 years after his killing New book by Mark Whitaker examines growth of artistic, political, cultural influence of controversial Civil Rights icon Christina Pazzanese Harvard Staff Writer August 15, 2025 8 min read Malcolm X was the provocative yet charismatic face of Black Nationalism and spokesman for the Nation of Islam before he was gunned down at an event in New York City on Feb. 21, 1965, after breaking with the ...| Harvard Gazette
Nation & World Foundation for U.S. breakthroughs feels shakier to researchers Max Larkin Harvard Staff Writer August 6, 2025 6 min read Funding cuts seen as threat to nation’s status as driver of scientific progress With each dollar of its grants, the National Institutes of Health — the world’s largest funder of biomedical research — generates, on average, $2.56 worth of economic activity across all 50 states. The awards yield new drugs, like the naloxone spray used to prevent opioid ...| Harvard Gazette
Nation & World ‘By mid-March, corpses littered the street like newspapers’ August 4, 2025 long read Young Ukrainian mother and her toddler left to fend for themselves after husband joins soldiers defending Mariupol Excerpted from “By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine” by Danielle Leavitt, Ph.D. ’23. By the end of February, Leonid had begun taking food and supplies to the Ukrainian soldiers at the front lines of Mariupol’s defense. He talked about th...| Harvard Gazette
