Does democratic public diplomacy work in authoritarian societies and, if so, when? I investigate the impact of the US Embassy in China’s online advocacy of American democracy through two survey experiments conducted during the first Trump administration. The results show that American public diplomacy can improve Chinese audiences’ attitudes toward the United States, not in relatively normal times but when the US international image is under threat. This novel finding suggests that public diplomacy may function more as a “shield” to maintain residual credibility than as a “sword” for proactive influence, expanding our understanding of how public diplomacy works. At the same time, the embassy’s messaging had little effect on Chinese audiences’ attitudes toward democracy, views on China, or behavioral intentions such as protest, regardless of the US image. This general silence greeting the democratic sound underscores the challenges of democracy promotion in a rising authoritarian power, at least in the short term, while also undermining authoritarian governments’ frequent attempts to blame domestic grievances on “foreign forces.” The findings illuminate both the potential and limits of democratic public diplomacy.

The Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was established during the first administration of Barack Obama to coordinate gender equality policy and programs across USAID bureaus and missions. Susan Markham (SM) was appointed Senior Coordinator during the second Obama administration, 2014–2017, while Jamille Bigio (JB) served in this role during the administration of President Joe Biden, 2021–2025. This is a slightly edited version of an interview that took place with Mona Lena Krook (MLK) via Zoom on March 23, 2026.

Longitudinal research on the development of deception across the lifespan remains limited, particularly regarding trajectories of lie-telling and their associations with later problems. The current study aimed to address this gap using longitudinal data of 3,017 Quebec francophone children (47.2% girls, 52.8% boys, aged ∼6 years). Growth mixture modeling identified distinct trajectories of parent and teacher reported lie-telling from ages 6 to 19 years, with reports showing links to early aggressive-disruptive behavior. Trajectories of perceived lying by parents and teachers were also associated with antisocial personality disorder and criminal records in early adulthood. Findings suggest that identifying patterns of observed lying may inform theoretical understanding of the developmental evolution and interpersonal significance of deception over time, as well as highlight potential long-term interventions for problematic lying.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) at the United States Department of State focuses on the interlocking issues of democracy, human rights, and workers’ rights. It is also responsible for producing annual reports on the state of human rights in countries around the world. During the administration of Joe Biden, Tambria Schroeder (TS) was the Gender Equality Policy Advisor, and Andrea Gillespie (AG) served as Senior Advisor in the Office of the Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons and in the Office of Multilateral and Global Affairs. This is an edited and compiled version of interviews that took place with Mona Lena Krook (MLK) via Zoom on January 8, 2026, and January 27, 2026.

The effect of sound change and analogy upon inflectional paradigms has been traditionally described through Sturtevant’s Paradox, which states that sound change is regular but generates irregularity, whereas analogy is irregular but generates regularity. While past work has explored trends in sound change and analogy qualitatively, quantitative investigation with large data sets remains underexploited. We tackle this by exploring the effects of sound change and analogy from Latin to French in large etymologically paired inflected lexicons containing the complete paradigms of 310 verbs with 11,593 total forms. We employ a novel method combining the automated application of historical sound changes and entropy-based quantitative analysis to examine separately the effects of sound change and analogy. The results confirm the role of some oft-cited predictors of analogy like token frequency and morphological regularity, but offer no support for others like markedness. Results also confirm the complexifying role of sound change, and the simplifying role of analogy, on aspects of morphological complexity like the number of inflection classes and the amount of allomorphy, but suggest that these forces have no comparable effect on more modern measures of complexity like average conditional entropies between inflected forms.

Since the late twentieth century, institutional autonomy has become a major issue in the relationship between the government and higher education institutions, with autonomy being presented as a virtuous option that satisfied both government’s regulatory aims and institutional capacities to develop in an increasingly dynamic and complex sector. Due to concerns about the effectiveness of higher education, the development of autonomy was increasingly linked to a market-like logic, with a growing emphasis on competition and efficiency. Thus, what was initially regarded as a path to emancipation of institutions from government’s influence became a mode of relationship that could curtail previous dimensions of autonomy. One of the major regulatory dimensions that helps understand the reversals and nuances of institutional autonomy is funding. Like other regulatory dimensions, recent decades have seen the emergence of new forms of funding that have influenced institutional governance and management. In this text, we analyse these trends in European higher education by mapping changes in governments’ approaches to the sector, specifically the evolution of funding mechanisms and how these highlight a shift in the pendulum between degrees of autonomy and modes of government’s influence in institutions.

Is it permissible to implicate non-epistemic values in the ‘core’ of scientific reasoning? This paper offers an appraisal of Parker’s (2024) Epistemic Projection Approach (EPA) prescribing acceptable relations between epistemic and non-epistemic values in research conduct. Non-epistemic values are granted a role in determining epistemic characteristics for a research project but are meant to be ‘screened off’ from core research decisions via epistemic projection. This discussion takes the EPA for a test drive. We identify three challenges to its conceptual and practical viability and show how EPA currently lacks resources to address them, indicating a need for further development.

If a complex X is a subcomplex of a diagrammatically reducible (DR) 2-complex Y that has locally indicable fundamental group, then X has locally indicable fundamental group. This is a consequence of the Corson–Trace characterization of diagrammatic reducibility. In this article, we use a Corson–Trace-like characterization of diagrammatic reducibility away from a subcomplex to obtain a considerable stronger result. We apply this to the question of local indicability in the context of Whitehead’s asphericity conjecture. We show that an injective labeled oriented tree that is DR of degree 2, and all its quotients are as well, is locally indicable.

Climate-related worry is increasingly recognized as a mental health concern and a potential correlate of pro-environmental behavior (PEB). However, little is known about these associations in the Global South or the potential role of mindfulness. This crosssectional study examined relationships among climate change anxiety, psychological distress, mindfulness, and PEB in 340 university students (aged 19–25 years) from Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Data were collected between January and June 2024 using validated measures of climate change anxiety (Climate Change Anxiety Scale), psychological distress (DASS-21), dispositional mindfulness (MAAS), and PEB. Analyses included bivariate correlations, block-wise linear regression, and mediation models (PROCESS Model 4; 5,000 bootstrap resamples). Climate change anxiety was positively correlated with psychological distress (r = .47, p < .001) and indirectly associated with lower PEB through distress (ab = −.09, 95% CI [−.15, −.04]). Regression analyses showed that mindfulness was positively associated with PEB (β = .27, p < .001), whereas distress (β = −.22, p = .002) and climate change anxiety (β = −.18, p = .018) were negatively associated with PEB. Mindfulness was indirectly associated with higher PEB through lower distress (ab = .11, 95% CI [.05, .19]) and lower climate change anxiety (ab = .08, 95% CI [.02, .15]), while also showing a direct positive association with PEB. These findings highlight mindfulness as a relevant factor for understanding climate-related distress and environmental engagement among young adults.

Low dietary diversity is a predictor of depression in high-income countries, but evidence from low-income settings where poor nutrition and depression often co-occur is scarce. We examined the association between dietary diversity and depression in rural Western Kenya. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of data collected between June and August 2025 from 311 participants enrolled in a group-based microfinance (‘BIGPIC’) program. Depression was measured using twenty-item Centre for Epidemiologic Studies for Depression Scale, and dietary diversity was assessed based on the consumption of five food groups in the previous 24 hours using a validated scale. We used linear regression models to estimate the association between high dietary diversity and depression scores and assessed effect measure modification by wealth status. Quantile regression was used to examine variation across the distributions of depression scores. Higher dietary diversity was associated with lower depression scores (adjusted β (95 % CI): −3·49 (–6·62, −0·38)). This association was stronger among individuals with lower wealth (adjusted β (95 % CI): −6·00 (–10·46, −1·42)), compared with those with high wealth (adjusted β (95 % CI): −0·53 (–4·76, 3·68); Wald P–value for interaction = 0·0003). Effect sizes were larger at higher quantiles across 75th (Q75: β = −7·56; 95 % CI: −12·82, −2·27) and 90th (Q90: β = −6·01; 95 % CI: −12·43, 0·43) quantiles, though estimates were imprecise. These findings suggest that greater dietary diversity may be associated with improved mental health, particularly among socio-economically vulnerable individuals, and those with severe depression. Future work using longitudinal and quasi-experimental designs are needed to strengthen causal inference and clarify underlying mechanisms.