The Baines Report
By Afnaan Qayyum A hundred companies in the UK recently announced four-day workweeks without pay cuts. Meanwhile, there is an emerging debate in the U.S. over labor rights and workplace wellness. “Better late than never,” they said about the world’s richest economy. The business motivation for introducing employee wellness programs lies in increased productivity, reduced […]
By Alejandro Hernandez Amidst the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the Ukrainian counter-offensive in September, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) 77th session went mostly under the radar. Citizens around the world usually ignore these sessions, even though the UN is the largest international organization in the world working on the most important challenges […]
By Sabrina Page You can learn a lot about population change in Texas simply by entering the parking lot of your local HEB. When I moved to Austin from Seattle last fall, I started noticing the high out-of-state representation by playing a game called “How many different license plates can I spot today?”: Illinois, Massachusetts, […]
By Kathleen Hillery Human-accelerated climate change is the most urgent crisis of our time. Each successive iteration of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change hammers home the increasingly desperate environmental come-back necessary to prevent cascading disruption to ocean currents, biodiversity, and humanity’s way of life. Scientists have published robust studies confirming human activity has caused […]
By Nicholas Whelan An octopus almost prevented me from existing— at least indirectly. My grandmother, Kuei-Mei, frequently shares the story of her near-death encounter with the octopus, offering a glimpse into her childhood in Taiwan. My grandmother was scavenging for food along the shore outside her home, doing everything she could to feed a family […]
By Connor McMann Before kickoff of every Michigan football game versus Ohio State, my father used to light a large wax candle, emblazoned with a blue Block M, and place it in the room for good luck. By the time Michigan lost to our bitter rivals for the eighth straight year, the middle of the […]
By Alejandro Hernandez In December 2021, when President Vladimir Putin was still threatening to invade Ukraine, the official Ukrainian Twitter account published a meme describing how being Russia’s neighbor can give you the worst type of headache. Two months later, when Putin invaded, the tweets and memes did not stop. The account continues to be […]
By Francisco Alvarado I. Preface This piece is an attempt to paint a panorama of the lives, deaths, and experiences I came across during a 5-day research trip to South Texas sponsored by the Robert Strauss Center’s Central America and Mexico Policy Initiative. The trip was ostensibly a simple exercise in data collection. In this […]
By Sarah Murphy During the pressure of the interview, you do not want to rely on winging your responses. You want to be perceived as prepared and cogent. Interview preparation also helps assure that you get across the message to a prospective employer: I’m a badass, you’d be remiss to not hire me. Tell them […]
By Shelby Frye 2021 saw more attacks on reproductive health than any year since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, most notably in the restrictive abortion bills from Texas and Ohio. Protests are sweeping across the country, and activists are organizing to protect reproductive rights. However, in a world dominated by binaries, LGBTQIA+ people […]