Nation & World

Social scientists have long understood that a child’s environment can have long-lasting effects on their success later in life. Exactly how is less well understood. A new Harvard study points to a handful of key indicators, including exposure to high lead levels, violence, and incarceration, as key predictors of children’s later success.

A team at the Center for Population and Development Studies and the Center for Geographic Analysis has remapped a trove of health and wellness data to align it with political districts in India, to help voters in the world’s largest democracy better decide how to vote in the six-week election.

Harvard President Larry Bacow met with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego ’04 and city manager Ed Zuercher during a trip to Phoenix to discuss the partnership between Harvard and the city that began in 2017, as part of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. He also visited Houston.

Former intelligence officers, lawmakers, national security analysts, and top journalists discussed some of the ethical and moral issues in intelligence work and looked at the current challenges facing those in the field during a conference this week hosted by the Intelligence Project, a program of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

A quarter-century after genocide killed as many as a million Rwandans, the country’s women are leading its renaissance.

In advance of a conference on climate change and Amazonia on May 7‒8 at Harvard, the Gazette interviewed Davi Kopenawa, an indigenous leader who is known as “Brazil’s Dalai Lama of the Rainforest.”

The Gazette recently spoke to noted architect and Harvard alumnus John H. Beyer about how the monumental task of restoring and preserving Notre-Dame will likely be approached and about the possibilities for introducing modern elements to the historic landmark.

A group of first-year joint-degree students from Harvard Business School (HBS) and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and representatives from West Virginia’s government and its flagship school, West Virginia University, exchanged trips.

Harvard Kennedy School student’s nonprofit to help poor farmers in India wins Mittal South Asia Institute innovation prize.

New research from Assistant Professor in Sociology Joscha Legewie links the aggressive policing of New York City’s Operation Impact with lower test scores for African American boys.

President Trump’s trade czar, Peter Navarro, said during a speech at Harvard that the administration’s efforts to remake American trade policies, pressure China to reform its practices, and revamp the tariff system are boosting the American economy.

Shorenstein Center Fellow Miguel Head, who served for a decade as chief of staff and press secretary to Prince William and Prince Harry, talks about the royals and the changing role of the British press

Sociologist Amy Austin Holmes, an associate professor at the American Unviersity in Cairo and a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead Center, thought her research was “safe” — until she was labeled an operative by Egypt’s authoritarian regime.

Hours after the release of the Mueller report, the Gazette asks Harvard professor and former prosecutor Alex Whiting what it all means.

A Q&A with Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard, about his new book on how to raise successful children based on interviews with highly accomplished young people and their parents.

Psychologist Maria Konnikova ’05, who studies the workings of con artists, talks about what underlies some recent pop culture scams and why we’re so fascinated by stories about them.

The American Enterprise Institute’s Arthur C. Brooks and University Professor Danielle Allen agree to disagree (and sometimes to agree) in lively exchange over the political necessity of love.

Legal, intelligence, and news analysts discuss the arrest in London of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces conspiracy charges by U.S. federal prosecutors for the disclosure of classified national security documents stolen by Pfc. Chelsea Manning

A panel including Al Gore, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Roger Porter, and Harvey Fineberg, with Graham Allison moderating, discussed what Richard Neustadt would have thought of the Trump presidency on the 100th anniversary of the late Kennedy School professor’s birth.

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but are not treated equally, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said at Radcliffe conference on “Unsettled Citizens.”

Nadia Murad came to Harvard as a survivor of genocide under ISIS, an advocate for victims of sexual violence, and the first Iraqi citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Her talk focused on her personal journey and how her ordeal turned her into an activist.

Masha Gessen’s lecture “How We Think About Migration,” was delivered Wednesday at Paine Hall. It was the first of two lectures on “How Do We Talk About Migration” that Gessen delivered as part of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values.

A panel of journalists and former Rep. Barbara Comstock discussed what might lie ahead for presidential investigations Wednesday at the Institute of Politics’ John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

Amanda Sloat, senior fellow at the Project on Europe at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, explains the chaos befalling the U.K. as it hashes out Brexit.

Radcliffe fellow and former director of advocacy and communications for Doctors Without Borders helped rescue 77,000 Mediterranean immigrants over four years — until politicians shut down the operation.

Former New York City transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, speaking at the Graduate School of Design, describes successful pedestrian-friendly efforts and offers advice to those seeking change.

Was there an upside to segregation? At Harvard, Vanessa Siddle Walker, president-elect of the American Educational Research Association, said black educators secretly networked to instill high aspirations, and beat the system, before Brown v. Board of Education.

A conference organized by Harvard graduate students explores the ethics of love and desire after #MeToo.

Author Daniel Ziblatt analyzes the worldwide movement toward autocracy and concludes American democracy is safe — for now.

Harvard President Larry Bacow, on a 10-day trip to the Far East, tells audience at Peking University in China of commonalities, and expresses hope for continued collaboration.