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Top headlines
Lead story
The Trump administration’s trade wars have yielded a string of surprising twists. Tariffs have been announced and then dialed back, trade deals pledged and then paused, all while economists continue to parse exactly how much the levies have hit businesses and the American consumer.
Then came the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that decisively overturned President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs, which had brought in the bulk of revenue from the import taxes announced to date. At first it looked like a clear win for the companies that had fought for relief in court. But even that outcome is up in the air, as it remains unclear how or whether the government will ever refund the $166 billion in tariffs paid so far, write economist Peter R. Crabb and criminal justice scholar Alison Graham Larson, who have been following the case.
Uncertainty is so high that some companies are choosing to sell their refund rights for a fraction of what they’re worth, as they doubt whether they’ll ever get that money back, the authors explain.
In today’s lead article, Crabb and Larson attempt to untangle the very “mess” that Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned about in his Supreme Court dissent.
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Helen Fessenden
Senior Economy and Business Editor
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Containers are stacked up in a cargo terminal in Frankfurt, Germany.
AP Photo/Michael Probst
Peter R. Crabb, Northwest Nazarene University; Institute for Humane Studies; Alison Graham Larson, Northwest Nazarene University
Companies that had sued for tariff refunds are taking different approaches to getting their money back – or quitting the effort.
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Environment + Energy
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Vidya Mani, University of Virginia; Cornell University
US consumers, already feeling pain at the gas pump, can expect higher prices and prolonged shortages for goods of all sorts, including food, as additional consequences of slowed oil production.
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Alejandro N. Flores, Boise State University
The 2026 water year has been anything but ordinary. In fact, its snow drought has few parallels in recent history.
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Brian C. Keegan, University of Colorado Boulder; Harvard University; Emily Klancher Merchant, University of California, Davis
In the 1960s and ’70s, his arguments also resonated on the left, including with the head of a powerful environmental group.
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Politics + Society
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Lisa Schirch, University of Notre Dame; David Cortright, University of Notre Dame
History suggests that boycotts are uniquely suited to expand public participation enough to spur political change.
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Health + Medicine
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Elizabeth Riley, Cornell University
Keeping a tiny brain area called locus coeruleus functioning properly may stave off symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and keep the aging brain healthy
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Education
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Jeanne Beatrix Law, Kennesaw State University
A pilot study analyzing college students’ writing with AI shows an interactive process, from brainstorming to editing the output produced by chatbots.
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Science + Technology
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David Van den Heever, Mississippi State University
Elite athletes miss plenty of shots during March Madness and the NBA playoffs. Training both brain and body can help even beginners and novices get more net.
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Anne McNeil, University of Michigan; Madeline Clough, University of Michigan
Tiny particles from certain lab gloves look like microplastics, and they can contaminate samples, new study finds.
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Carolina Rossini, UMass Amherst
A lawsuit against Meta and Google avoided the issue of liability for content and focused on allegations that social media platforms themselves are harmful by design.
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Scott Pace, George Washington University
Artemis II will test the life control systems on the Orion spacecraft and, if all goes well, take a trip around the Moon.
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International
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Howard Stein, University of Michigan; Michael Olabisi, Michigan State University
Africa holds key green energy minerals but exports them raw. If the continent had its own Green Bank, it could finance local manufacturing and green industry.
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Ranaivo Rasolofoson, University of Toronto; Camille DeSisto, Rice University; Tristan Frappier-Brinton, Duke University
Madagascar’s protected area forests have 2.5km buffer zone forests surrounding them that also need urgent protection.
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