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MAGA Tension Over Why Hasn’t Trump Released the Epstein Files

MAGA Tension Over Why Hasn’t Trump Released the Epstein Files

Is the U.S. Heading to a Police State? Trump Executive Orders and Project 2025 Raise Alarms

Is the U.S. Heading to a Police State? Trump Executive Orders and Project 2025 Raise Alarms

Did Trump Play a Role in Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Getting Canceled?

Did Trump Play a Role in Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Getting Canceled?

Supreme Court Greenlights Project 2025 Plan to Dismantle  Education Department

Supreme Court Greenlights Project 2025 Plan to Dismantle  Education Department

Temples and Test-Tubes

Temples and Test-Tubes

Podcast: Separating news from noise

Podcast: Separating news from noise
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumJan 30, 2023
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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How much news is too much? Or not enough? News Over Noise, the new podcast from Penn State's News Literacy Initiative explores that question and offers guidance on how to consume news that enhances your participation in our democracy without becoming overwhelmed by all the noise on social media and the 24/7 news cycle.

News Over Noise co-hosts Matt Jordan and Leah Dajches join Democracy Works to discuss how the news impacts our mental health, the future of media literacy education, and more. Jordan is a professor of media studies and Dajches is a post-doctoral researcher, both in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State.

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Former President Donald Trump
Governance & Legislation

The Big Beautiful Bill Reflects the Trump Administration’s Priorities, Not America’s

Combating ICE Through Sound and Solidarity
Pop Culture

Combating ICE Through Sound and Solidarity

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The Sanctuary City Debate: Understanding Federal-Local Divide in Immigration Enforcement
Police car lights.
Getty Images / Oliver Helbig

The Sanctuary City Debate: Understanding Federal-Local Divide in Immigration Enforcement

Immigration is governed by a patchwork of federal laws. Within the patchwork, one notable thread of law lies in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The Act authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) programs, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to work in tandem with local agencies and law enforcement on deterrence and enforcement efforts. Like the now-discontinued Secure Communities program that encouraged information sharing between local police agencies and ICE, the law specifically authorizes ICE to work with local and federal partners to detain and deport removal-eligible immigrants from the country.

What are Sanctuary Policies?

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Trump Slams Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians Over Name Changes

President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Trump Slams Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians Over Name Changes

Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump has reignited controversy surrounding the Washington Commanders football team, demanding the franchise revert to its former name, the “Redskins,” a term widely condemned as a racial slur against Native Americans.

In a series of posts on Truth Social this past weekend, Trump declared, “The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team.” He went further, threatening to block the team’s $3.7 billion stadium deal in Washington, D.C., unless the name change is reversed.

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Media criticism
News media's vital to democracy, Americans say; then a partisan divide yawns
Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images

Public Media Under Fire: Why Project 2025 Is Reshaping NPR and PBS

This past spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part, nonpartisan series examining Project 2025—a sweeping policy blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. Our analysis explored the proposed reforms and their far-reaching implications across government. Now, as the 2025 administration begins to take shape, it’s time to move from speculation to reality.

In this follow-up, we turn our focus to one of the most consequential—and quietly unfolding—chapters of that blueprint: Funding cuts from NPR and PBS.

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Person voting

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Hill Street Studios/Getty Images

New York City’s Ranked Choice Voting: Democracy That’s Accountable to Voters

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Heads turned when 33-year-old state legislator Zohran Mamdani knocked off Andrew Cuomo, a former governor from one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent families. The earliest polls for the mayoral primary this winter found Mamdani struggling to reach even 1 percent.

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