In word and in deed, Obama has emphasized resilience to terrorism more than many other U.S. leaders, said Stephen Flynn, a national-security expert at Northeastern University. But the shift Obama embodies actually began during the second term of the George W. Bush administration, as U.S. officials came to recognize that their overseas war against al-Qaeda […]

Recall the 20th century, with its race to the moon, advances in medicine and information technology, and “this incredibly strong belief in the promise of science,” says Matthew Nisbet, a communications professor at Northeastern University. People in the 1960s “had faith in science, had hope in science. Most people thought science was responsible for improving […]

Will Donald Trump try to weasel out of the presidential debates? On the one hand, he has verbally committed to three joint appearances with Hillary Clinton this fall. On the other, he seeks to renegotiate the terms under which the matches will take place. At some point, and soon, Trump will have to decide which […]

Andrea Matwyshyn, a professor at Northeastern University Law School, and David Greene, Civil Liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, discuss Twitter’s Wednesday victory after a federal judge ruled that the social media platform cannot be held responsible for the Islamic State’s use of the network to spread propaganda. Twitter claims that it’s already suspended […]

Sarah Jackson, a professor at Northeastern University who studies political movements, explained the cycle to me this way in 2014: first, people who knew the victim or witnessed the fatal encounter turn that victim’s name into a hashtag. Then the story spreads to local activists and news outlets. Finally, the story lands on the radars […]

The campuses of Northeastern University and Berklee College of Music are jammed together in the Fenway like roomies sharing a too-small dorm room. It was in a Northeastern dorm in 1999 that freshman Shawn Fanning launched a digital file-sharing service called Napster, which could make any piece of recorded music instantly accessible, for free. Seventeen […]