Tag: Government

Finding solidarity in the teachers’ lounge

In the United States, social institutions from church organizations to sports leagues occupy key roles in shaping political life, with unions perhaps the most familiar player, affecting change in realms from protest movements to elections.    But while these civil society institutions draw little notice in a democracy, they turn heads in settings where political […]

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J-PAL North America and Results for America announce 18 collaborations with state and local governments

J-PAL North America and Results for America have announced 18 new partnerships with state and local governments across the country through their Leveraging Evidence and Evaluation for Equitable Recovery (LEVER) programming, which launched in April of this year.  As state and local leaders leverage federal relief funding to invest in their communities, J-PAL North America […]

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Who will benefit from AI?

What if we’ve been thinking about artificial intelligence the wrong way? After all, AI is often discussed as something that could replicate human intelligence and replace human work. But there is an alternate future: one in which AI provides “machine usefulness” for human workers, augmenting but not usurping jobs, while helping to create productivity gains […]

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Improving US air quality, equitably

Decarbonization of national economies will be key to achieving global net-zero emissions by 2050, a major stepping stone to the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (and ideally 1.5 C), and thereby averting the worst consequences of climate change. Toward that end, the United States has pledged to […]

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Q&A: The BRICS expansion and the global balance of power

In early September, the BRICS group of countries with emerging economies — an informal alliance among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — announced it would expand its ranks by six nations. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are now set to join the BRICS group in the near future. This would […]

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New Volpe Center opens to support the country’s most innovative transportation projects

On a crisp Tuesday afternoon, representatives from MIT, the state and federal government, and the Cambridge community celebrated the official opening of the new John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Kendall Square. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was the culmination of nearly a decade of collaboration in which MIT designed and constructed the highly energy-efficient […]

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Homer City Council hopefuls tackle housing, transportation, harbor

Candidates for Homer City Council gathered Monday in the Homer Public Library to talk about their bid for public office and issues facing city voters as part of a candidate forum hosted by the Peninsula Clarion, KDLL 91.9 FM and KBBI 890 AM public radio. The forum, hosted in partnership with the Central Peninsula League […]

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Mariama N’Diaye’s design-led approach to governance

Mariama N’Diaye, a design fellow at the MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD), works to transform the public sector through design thinking and innovation. With a diverse background in urban planning and business administration — she’s pursuing a dual master’s degree at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and the MIT Sloan School […]

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How to keep people out of the emergency room

Encouraging immigrants to visit primary care doctors creates a striking decline in costly emergency room use, according to a new study co-authored by an MIT economist. The findings are from a New York City program that helped arrange medical appointments for undocumented immigrants with limited incomes, from May 2016 to June 2017. Those who received […]

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Tracking US progress on the path to a decarbonized economy

Investments in new technologies and infrastucture that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions — everything from electric vehicles to heat pumps — are growing rapidly in the United States. Now, a new database enables these investments to be comprehensively monitored in real-time, thereby helping to assess the efficacy of policies designed to spur clean investments and […]

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The Inflation Reduction Act Could be the New, New Deal

For businesses, the carrots are even more significant. “This legislation can catalyze an entirely new set of climate-friendly industries,” says tech and climate journalist and Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick. The Brookings Institution calculates that, by 2030, the IRA will help reduce U.S. CO2 emissions about 40 percent below 2005 levels. “This is a business-first approach to government climate action,” […]

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Borough to hold community meetings to gauge local funding priorities

The Kenai Peninsula Borough will hold meetings in 11 communities this month to better gauge the peninsula’s capital project priorities heading into the next session of the Alaska Legislature. That’s according to a memo included with the packet for Tuesday’s borough assembly meeting, in which Borough Clerk Assistant Tamera Ward said the borough is reviving […]

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3 Questions: How are cities managing record-setting temperatures?

July 2023 was the hottest month globally since humans began keeping records. People all over the U.S. experienced punishingly high temperatures this summer. In Phoenix, there were a record-setting 31 consecutive days with a high temperature of 110 degrees Fahrenheit or more. July was the hottest month on record in Miami. A scan of high […]

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New clean air and water labs to bring together researchers, policymakers to find climate solutions

MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is launching the Clean Air and Water Labs, with support from Community Jameel, to generate evidence-based solutions aimed at increasing access to clean air and water. Led by J-PAL’s Africa, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and South Asia regional offices, the labs will partner with government […]

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Dyanna Jaye: Bringing the urgency of organizing to climate policy

Growing up in the Tidewater region of Virginia, Dyanna Jaye had a front row seat to the climate crisis. She recalls beach stabilization efforts that pumped sand from the bottom of the ocean to the shore in response to rising sea levels. And every hurricane season, the streets would flood. “I was thinking at a […]

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Q&A: Steven Gonzalez on Indigenous futurist science fiction

Steven Gonzalez is a PhD candidate in the MIT Doctoral Program in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS), where he researches the environmental impacts of cloud computing and data centers in the United States, Iceland, and Puerto Rico. He is also an author. Writing under the name E.G. Condé, he recently published his first book, […]

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