A few initial reactions to the not-ready-for-prime-time “kids’ table” debate that just aired on Fox… First, there is a reason this was the undercard debate. Though some participants fared better than others, not a person on that stage delivered a performance so commanding that it merits promotion into the top tier. In this Trump-less environment, […]

Max Abrahms, professor of political science at Northeastern University and member at the Council on Foreign Relations, says that the decision not to bring Sayyaf back to the United States or even to the Baghdad government, who officially control Iraq’s sovereign territory, was questionable. Normally, “either the person would be brought to the United States […]

Mullah Mohammad Omar, often simply called Mullah Omar, was the supreme commander and spiritual leader of the Taliban from 1996 to 2013, though confirmation of his death came just late last month. The news broke amid Pakistan-brokered peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which Omar supposedly endorsed in a mid-July Eid message […]

When I was a kid, I noticed that sometimes fear and anticipation felt the same way. I’d get butterflies, a kind of queasiness in the stomach. To figure out what I was feeling, I came to realize, what was needed was not introspection, but attention to the context. According to Lisa Feldman Barrett, who directs […]

“We’re in a unique, extremely unsexy industry,” explained James Steinberg, who founded Shotput with fellow Northeastern University graduate Praful Mathur around 18 months ago. Part of Y Combinator’s summer 2015 class, Shotput provides an end-to-end product delivery and fulfillment suite to customers. Started as a response to the frustration the cofounders experienced with warehousing inefficiencies, […]

Plus, the less-crowded 5 p.m. slot still promises lots of exposure and opportunities for “fireworks and attacks on Donald Trump,” says Daniel Urman, a professor of law and politics at Northeastern University. In presidential contests in a nation of more than 300 million, lines need to be drawn somewhere. It’s easy to blame Fox News […]

From his spot on the stage’s fringe, Christie also may have less time to make his case than rivals ahead in the polls, said Alan Schroeder, a journalism professor at Northeastern University in Boston who studies presidential debates. Christie placed ninth – with 3.4 percent support – in an average of national polls used by […]

“You have all these elements of controversy, excitement and weirdness coming together in a perfect storm that’s going to make this seem much, much more important than we could have imagined any debate 15 months before the election could possibly be,” says Alan Schroeder, a journalism professor at Boston’s Northeastern University and author of Presidential […]

But Alan Schroeder, a professor at Northeastern University who has written extensively about campaign debates believes candidates tempted by a joust with Trump will be wary. “I don’t think theres a magic bullet here,” he said. “ I don’t think there’s a recipe for dealing with Donald Trump because he’s so unpredictable. Schroeder added: “Trump […]

iPhone users have it better, because Apple designed all the hardware and software, making it relatively simple to build and test software upgrades and security patches. But even Apple must have its software tested by the phone companies. So fixing an iOS security bug can take a long time too. “Multiple weeks are minimum,” said […]

The prime-time debate highlights a number of GOP rivalries. Huckabee and Cruz are vying for the affections of Christian conservatives. Cruz, Rubio and Paul are wrestling for tea party support. Bush and Walker hope to consolidate the party’s establishment. “A little bit of this is survival of the fittest — which of the social conservatives […]

On a recent Friday, 1.7 million people were tuned to Fox News at 5 p.m., the time of the lower-tier event. “You can look at being relegated to the 5 p.m. debate as a form of punishment, but it’s also kind of liberating because there’s fewer people on stage so you are not fighting for […]