Psychology Headlines Around the World

Source: United Nations News Across agencies, the United Nations is implementing artificial intelligence tools to help promote peace, security, and human rights. The U.N. is also using AI to detect land mines, assess disaster damage, identify suspicious financial transactions, and monitor radioactive contamination. But as technology advances, the U.N. is emphasizing equity, human rights, and ethic…

Source: CBS News - U.S. News The Trump administration pressured career civil rights attorneys to investigate allegations of antisemitism at the university campuses of Harvard, Columbia, and Brown even though there was no factual or legal basis to do so, according to a former Justice Department attorney. Veteran civil rights lawyer Haley Van Erem made this allegation as part of a whistleblower com…

Source: Science Daily - Top Health Physical activity and healthy blood sugar levels during midlife may be linked to a significantly slowing of cognitive decline decades later. Yet the results, published in the journal Alzheimer's, differed across ethnic populations. Physical activity was associated with slower cognitive decline among Hispanic participants, whereas lower fasting blood glucose leve…

Source: Science In 1953, civil rights activist James Baldwin wrote that "people are trapped in history and history is trapped in them"—an observation that would ring all too familiar to researchers studying racial health disparities in the U.S. today. A study published by the National Academies of Science, suggests that slavery may still cast a long shadow on the country's well-being, worsening h…

Source: United Press International - Health News On Tuesday, the Trump administration finalized rule changes that ban the use of Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program funds for gender identity healthcare for children. The new rule—the administration's latest move to bar access to such healthcare—will go into effect on October 13. President Trump lauded the changes in a post on social m…

Source: Science A wave of wildfires across Southern Europe has so far this year burned more than half a million hectares—an area equivalent to Grand Canyon National Park—far exceeding the area burned by August 2025, the worst year on record. Indeed, since the 1980s, the number of "fire weather" days—scorching, dry, breezy days—has more than doubled across much of the region, exacerbated by climat…

Source: PBS News Hour A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit that accused Harvard University of turning a blind eye to harassment of Jewish students. The decision said that the administration failed to prove an ongoing violation of federal civil rights laws. Harvard wrote in a statement that it "cares deeply about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remai…

Source: Al Jazeera A new poll of U.S. adults finds that more are feeling a personal impact from extreme heat, yet a smaller number believe in climate change. The poll, released Thursday by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, surveyed 1,165 Americans in late July. According to the survey, 66% of Americans believe climate change is happening, down from 73% last year, b…

Source: PsyPost A new study has found that feeling grateful increases a person's willingness to help others. However, experiencing gratitude does not make individuals immune to the bystander effect—a psychological phenomenon in which people are less likely to intervene when other bystanders are present. The findings suggest that gratitude boosts overall helpfulness but does not change our tendenc…

Source: PBS News Hour A New Mexico court has ordered Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta to pay $567 million to address harms to young people from its platforms. Most of the money will be used to treat young people and increase awareness and prevention. The penalty is in addition to $375 million ordered against Meta in March after determining the company knowingly harmed children's mental …

Source: CBS News - U.S. News Technology giant Meta revealed Wednesday that one of its artificial intelligence models hacked another organization during testing—the third time in recent weeks that an AI model has improperly accessed a third-party company. In a statement provided to CBS News, Meta said that "a misconfiguration by Irregular, an independent testing company Meta uses, inadvertently al…

Source: Google News - Health Artificial Intelligence has been used to design new viruses that are fully functional and can replicate in the laboratory, say U.S. researchers. It is the first time AI has designed whole genomes. The resulting 16 novel viruses were created to infect bacteria and pose no threat to people, and the breakthrough has been labelled a "very significant turning point" in sci…

Source: Al Jazeera What was once considered exceptionally hot European weather, such as temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Prague, are becoming the norm. According to Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service, late May and June heatwaves brought average daily temperatures more than 10C (18F) above the norm in parts of France, the U.K., and Spain—a rise in temperature so large that it is…

Source: United Press International - Health News Minnesota in May became the first state in the nation to pass legislation banning the practice of using AI to digitally remove clothing from a pictured individual. Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI—which develops the chatbot and image generator Grok—then filed the suit over the ban Tuesday, but a federal judge turned down the request…

Source: CBS News - U.S. News Three different versions of Anthropic's artificial intelligence model Claude "gained unauthorized access" to outside organizations on three separate occasions during testing that was supposed to keep them away from "real-world" systems, the company reported on Thursday. The announcement comes just days after rival company OpenAI first revealed that its models improper…

Source: DW- top stories By May, a record-breaking 20 million tourists had visited Mexico so far in 2026. But with increased tourism comes a heightened risk of human trafficking and sexual exploitation—especially of women and children. Said one woman who suffered this fate, these crimes happen "because there are bad people who sell other people. And there are bad people who buy other people." In M…

Source: PsyPost You are sniffing right now. On top of each ordinary breath, you take roughly 240 extra small inhalations an hour, sampling the air without any idea you're doing it. We know because people born without a sense of smell don't—and put a normal smeller in an odorless room, and the habit fades within the hour. That's one of 101 findings below, all from peer-reviewed research. And it's …

Source: Google News - Health A GLP-1 pill a day may help keep problem drinking at bay. Researchers have conducted a small randomized trial of oral semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, for people with alcohol use disorder. Compared to those taking a placebo, people on semaglutide reported fewer days of heavy drinking, among other benefits. The findings, published in the Americ…

Source: CarbonBrief Rising temperatures are redistributing the risk of childhood malaria in Africa, resulting in areas of "new risk" in the east and south of the continent but also "relief hotspots" in western Africa. This is according to a new study, published in Nature, which provides the "most comprehensive look to date at the impact of climate change on any infectious disease." The World Heal…

Source: DW- top stories Poland's highest court on Tuesday overturned a law that would have led to the legal recognition of same-sex spouses who married in other EU member states and subsequently moved to Poland. The government in Warsaw had been moving to accommodate a ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union saying that majority-Catholic Poland, which does not permit same-sex marri…