Category: Society
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Why appeals don’t always fix errors
Appeals courts sound like a safety net, but the rules limit what they can correct. Here’s why even clear trial errors often survive appellate review.
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The role of emotion in jury decisions
Juries are supposed to weigh evidence dispassionately, but research shows emotion shapes verdicts in predictable ways. Here’s what’s actually happening in deliberations.
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The Common App created the admissions arms race
The Common App made applying to dozens of colleges almost free. Here’s how that single design choice reshaped admissions selectivity, anxiety, and inequality.
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Religious and apocalyptic framings of 9/11 conspiracies
Some 9/11 conspiracy theories take on explicitly religious or end-times shapes. Here’s how those framings developed and why they spread among certain audiences.
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People who make a living as professional mourners
Hired mourners are an old profession with a surprisingly active modern market. A look at where professional funeral attendees still operate and why.
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The persistence problem: why Pizzagate refuses to die a decade later
Pizzagate was debunked within weeks but resurfaces every election cycle. Examining why the theory keeps returning despite zero new evidence.
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Ghislaine Maxwell: from British heiress to convicted sex trafficker
Ghislaine Maxwell’s path from media-empire daughter to federal prisoner traces a specific arc through wealth, access, and the orbit of Jeffrey Epstein.
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We’ve medicalized normal grief
Grief is painful but not pathological. Turning ordinary mourning into a billable disorder helps the system more than the bereaved — and changes how we recover.