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How Democrats’ midterm wins reshape Farm Bill politics
Democrats’ sweeping gains in this week’s congressional midterms, driven in part by voter frustration in farm states, give the party new leverage in Farm Bill negotiations, according to farmers and farm advocates.
Health Brief: Medicare’s big payment shake-up
Plus: A new “STEM wave” is headed to Congress, with doctors and other medical professionals ready to take on health policy fights.
CVS Health Is Breaking Up. Is The Blue Wave To Blame?
A Democratic Congress would have tried to force the breakup.
Democrats won on affordability. Can they deliver it?
Democrats will hold Congress but President Donald Trump still has the power to block their plans.
Democrat Christina Bohannan wins election to U.S. House in Iowa's 1st Congressional District
The third time was the charm for Bohannan, who lost by just 799 votes in her second race against Miller-Meeks two years ago.
Uneven And Fragile Progress Against Neglected Tropical Diseases
While substantial progress has been made in driving down the global burden of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), trends are “uneven and fragile”, and
Ranking Member Lofgren Announces She Will Seek Chair of House Science Committee as Democrats Win Control of Congress
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
An Opportunity for Renewal and Progress on Science and Democracy
The American people have spoken, and they clearly want a Congress that will prioritize their well-being over corporate interests; that will help ease the affordability crisis instead of worsening it; and most of all, a Congress that will stand up to the authoritarian, destructive impulses of Preside
CVS Health Stock Leads Defensive U.S. Dividend Value Picks
Washington has just handed investors a plot twist. A Democratic sweep of Congress, fresh worries over debt ceiling fights and pressure on Treasury yields are shaking sentiment, yet pockets of dividend-paying value stocks may quietly benefit from the reset in expectations. This article walks through three U.S. dividend payers from our value-focused screener that appear closely tied to these political crosswinds and explains why each could deserve a second look now. The three stocks below are...
Jay Feely's Congressional Dreams Have Doinked Off The Uprights
Tuesday sure delivered. The blue wave—a bluenami—is a great relief to people with brains and functioning moral senses, but much of the strongest juice produced Tuesday night was drawn from a few individual races. Some of those were incredibly stirring. It feels amazing to wake up in a world where Susan Collins is out in…
Reaching Across the Aisle to Lower Health Care Costs
Following a panel organized by Penn LDI and Penn Washington, two health policy experts share how both aisles of Congress can reduce health care costs.
A looming deadline to fund the government will shape Congress’ unusual lame duck session
Before Democrats take control, Congress must fund expiring health care programs, confirm HHS nominees
Congress gave Nebraska millions for rural healthcare. Most isn’t getting to rural hospitals.
Much of the $218 million Nebraska has received to soften the blow of looming Medicaid cuts has gone to big cities and out-of-state contractors. DHHS leaders argue more money will make its way to rural areas.
Pearson accepts loss in U.S. District 9 race, but says ‘Tennessee politics will never be the same’
Democratic state Rep. Justin J. Pearson conceded the race to represent Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District Wednesday.
Watch CNN’s coverage of Election Night in 5 minutes
The 2026 midterms results have revealed a blue tsunami as Democrats take back control of Congress. CNN’s coverage over the night highlights the stunning turn of the tides for Donald Trump’s Republican Party.
It was a big night for doctors to win seats in Congress, riding the blue wave
Historically, most physicians who served in the House or Senate have been Republicans. In the next Congress, physicians who are Democrats made significant gains.
Report: Japan's Tashima to stand against Infantino for FIFA presidency
Kozo Tashima, the honorary president of the Japanese Football Association (JFA), will challenge Gianni Infantino for the FIFA presidency, according to reports. Infantino’s position appeared under threat after a dropped plan for private investment in the World Cup caused consternation, but he has rallied and now looks to be in a strong position to win a fourth term at FIFA Congress in Morocco next year.
Healthcare powers Democrats’ midterm rout: 4 takeaways
Voters sent a strong rebuke of the GOP health agenda on Tuesday night as Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress, rejecting Republicans who pushed sweeping healthcare cuts. Here are f…
Baumgartner lead widens in Eastern WA race for U.S. House
Baumgartner led 50.9% to 48.7% in the 5th Congressional District, a narrow lead but one that has widened since Tuesday night as more votes have been counted.
Grubhub parent files confidentially to go public
Wonder has been aggressive with acquisitions, snapping up Blue Apron, Grubhub and food media company Tastemade.
Election over, the clock starts ticking again on landmark college sports bill in lame-duck House
Next week, Congress could begin debating a bill to overhaul college sports, amid uncertainty from recent Democratic election victories.
Post-Election Analysis: The Annihilation of the Trump Coalition
Ten years ago, Donald Trump shocked the political world with an Electoral College victory that hurled defiance at the polls, the pundits, and the traditional tenets of the Republican Party. On Tuesday night, Republicans in Congress received a rebuke from voters that was equally earth-shattering.The sheer size of the Democratic wave — they are on track to flip at least 40 seats in the House and seven in the Senate — is even more impressive given how many of those seats Trump carried by double digits just two years ago.
US stock futures tumble as Democrats score key midterm election wins
Wall Street faces fresh uncertainty over what Democratic control of Congress could mean for taxes, government spending and regulation.
Latin Grammy-winner Bobby Pulido wins Texas Congressional District 15
Bobby Pulido becomes the first Latin Grammy winner elected to Congress. He will represent Texas' 15th Congressional District.
Jack Campbell Releases Emotional Statement Following Injury
Detroit Lions LB Jack Campbell reveals he has full lower-body movement and is making progress with upper-body movement in an emotional statement.
Democrat Eileen Laubacher leads Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 4th CD
Democrat Eileen Laubacher saw her slim lead over Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert narrow as late returns posted Thursday in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, the state’s most heavily GOP seat. The race remained too close to call, with Laubacher leading the incumbent by 2,276 votes, for a margin of just under 0.7%, according to results […]
Democratic leaders say affordability and accountability will be focus of new Congress
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer promised to reduce costs and end corruption.
After taking control of Congress, Democrats vow major probes into Trump's 'tentacles of corruption'
Corruption topped the list of concerns for voters who ousted Republicans and handed Democrats control of Congress in the midterm elections. Now, the newly empowered Democratic Party is putting the issue front and center as its leaders chart their course for investigations and policymaking.
Lawsuits likely over Washington’s ban on trans girls in sports
At least one progressive advocacy group is exploring legal action over a ballot measure set to pass in Washington state that would ban transgender girls from girls’ school sports.
Election over, the clock starts ticking again on landmark college sports bill in lame-duck House
Next week in Congress, the clock starts ticking on a groundbreaking bill designed to overhaul college sports with nobody quite sure how an overwhelming wave of election-night victories for Democrats across the country will reset the debate.
Among Democrats’ first affordability targets: Health care
The incoming congressional majority will work to restore federal Affordable Care Act subsidies and Medicaid funding early next year, officials say.
Progress being made on work at Greensboro Science Center
GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — Multiple projects are underway at the Greensboro Science Center. Construction on the Greensboro Biodome, which will be part of the center’s new area “Expedition Rain…
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed wins election to U.S. Senate from Michigan
Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed will become first Muslim U.S. senator.
Healthcare powers Democrats’ midterm rout: 4 takeaways
Voters sent a strong rebuke of the GOP health agenda on Tuesday night as Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress, rejecting Republicans who pushed sweeping healthcare cuts.
Democrats secure historic majorities in the midterms — and are poised to win even more seats
The party is poised to have strong majorities in Congress for the final two years of President Trump’s term. Follow for live updates.
Democratic leaders say affordability and accountability will be focus of new Congress
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer promised to reduce costs and end corruption.
Democrat J.D. Ford wins election to U.S. House in Indiana's 5th Congressional District
In an upset that many analysts did not see coming, Democratic nominee J.D. Ford defeated three-term Rep. Victoria Spartz in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District in Tuesday's election.
Business leaders pack the DECC for Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce dinner
The event is held to celebrate and recognize "outstanding" individuals and organizations for their contributions to the chamber and business community. The theme was "celebrating progress," highlighting innovation, investment, regional
Medicus Pharma proposes $135M SkinJect spinout through SPAC business combination
Medicus Pharma CEO Dr Raza Bokhari joined Steve Darling from Proactive to discuss a proposed transaction involving the company's wholly owned subsidiary, SkinJect, which has entered into a non-binding letter of intent with an undisclosed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) for a potential business combination. The proposed transaction contemplates a US$135 million pre-money enterprise valuation for SkinJect, alongside a concurrent equity financing intended to support the company's SKNJCT-005 clinical study in patients with Gorlin syndrome and preparations for a potential New Drug Application (NDA). Bokhari told Proactive that the proposed deal is designed to establish SkinJect as a separately listed company focused on advancing its dermatology and rare-disease development program. Under the proposed structure, the SPAC would acquire 100% of SkinJect in exchange for newly issued common shares in the combined company. Medicus Pharma intends to retain majority economic and voting ownership, allowing existing Medicus shareholders to maintain significant participation in SkinJect's potential future value. The separation would also provide SkinJect with a dedicated financing platform to fund its clinical development activities, particularly the SKNJCT-005 study targeting Gorlin syndrome, a rare genetic condition associated with the development of multiple basal cell carcinomas. The concurrent financing is expected to support the clinical program and the work required to prepare and potentially submit a New Drug Application, subject to successful development and regulatory progress. Final ownership percentages have not yet been determined. These will depend on negotiations surrounding the definitive transaction agreement and the combined company's capitalization, including retained SPAC cash, public and sponsor shares, warrants and other potentially dilutive securities. Medicus said the proposed transaction remains subject to the completion of definitive documentation and other customary conditions. The planned spinout represents a strategic step in Medicus Pharma's efforts to give SkinJect a dedicated corporate and financial structure, while allowing the parent company to retain majority participation as the dermatology program advances towards its next clinical and regulatory milestones. #proactiveinvestors #nasdaq #mdcx #tsxv #mdcx #pharma #SkinJect #Biotechnology #Healthcare #RareDisease #GorlinSyndrome #Dermatology #SPAC #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #NDA #Biopharmaceuticals
Triumphal Arch Set to Win Final Approval Despite Court Challenges
President Trump’s 250-foot arch project is expected to win approval on Thursday from a federal planning board. Court action and Democrats’ upcoming control of Congress could halt the plans.
The percentage of people without health insurance is growing
The percentage of working-age adults without health insurance has increased in the past two years, largely because many people can no longer afford Obamacare coverage after Congress allowed federal subsidies
Here’s what to expect on healthcare from a Democratic Congress
The Democratic takeover of Congress will revive fights over Medicaid cuts, insurance subsidies and healthcare affordability.
Advocates for science funding energized by midterm rout
Some hope a Democratically controlled Congress can restore funding for scientific research that has been cut by the Trump administration
House Speaker Mike Johnson will not stay on as Republican leader after GOP losses
The Louisiana Republican told staff on a call Wednesday morning that he will not run to lead his party as House minority leader in the next Congress.
The Future of Democracy
The 2026 midterm elections didn’t just determine who controls Congress for the next two years—they also determined whether the United States, 250 years after its founding, remains a democracy, Anne Applebaum says. She explores what citizens and lawmakers can do next to strengthen the institutions and values that have been threatened in the Trump era.
Health: How Can Congress Combat The Rising Cost Of Healthcare?
The cost of most necessities is rising right now. And healthcare is no exception.In 2026, the average employer-based family healthcare plan cost a little over $28,000. And employees contributed over $7,400 more to those plans than in 2025. That’s according to analysis from the health research group KFF.And the nearly 20 million Americans who rely on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance are facing a 13 percent premium increase next year.Two days out from the midterm elections, what can Congress do to keep healthcare affordable in the United States?Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.
Penn hosts political analyst to discuss midterm elections, future voting trends
“Congressional races offer a brilliant preview of trends in the electorate that are coming down the pike that impact what the presidential race might look like,” Wasserman said.
Sony says PlayStation 6 development is ‘progressing as scheduled’, as PS5 sales hit 97.9m
The company intends to make ‘solid progress’ on development of PS6 next year…
Election 2026: A Political Earthquake
Tuesday's election puts Democrats in position to block some of Trump's anti-environmental efforts while expanding state clean energy policies.
Vance: ‘The reason we lost is the war’
The morning after voters delivered a blistering midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, with Democrats flipping both chambers of Congress and racking up victories even in deep-red bastions, Vice President
Democrat Denise Powell wins election to U.S. House in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District
Powell flipped a district that Democrats have been targeting for several election cycles.
Democrat surge brings changes to South Carolina politics
The results of Tuesday’s elections will bring major changes to Washington and the South Carolina State House.
Video: Democratic Health Professionals Win Seats in Congress
Some Democratic doctors and nurses ran and won congressional seats by centering their campaigns on opposing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Democratic leaders say affordability and accountability will be focus of new Congress
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer promised to reduce costs and end corruption.
What Democratic control of Congress means for healthcare in 2027
Tuesday’s forecast-busting blue wave puts wind in the sails of Democrats who have promised a stark departure from Trump-era healthcare policy—though whether or not the shifts will be incremental or | Tuesday’s forecast-busting blue wave puts wind in the sails of Democrats who have promised a stark departure from Trump-era healthcare policy—though whether or not the shifts will be incremental or seismic hinges on intra-party debates and the president’s veto.
TN Politics: Election reveals blue shift in a ruby red state
Otis Sanford discusses Tuesday's election results, including the governor's race and new congressional districts.
Gusciora: Trenton Must Choose Progress Over Politics
Mayor says eight years of progress, including more than $250 million in state aid, more than 11,000 lead lines replaced and an estimated 20 percent decline in violent crime, are at stake in the December 8 runoff TRENTON, N.J. (Nov. 5, 2026) — Mayor Reed Gusciora said today that voters in the December 8 runoff will decide whether[...]
Event to celebrate anniversary of ‘Gone With the Wind’
Ninety years after Margaret Mitchell introduced readers to a world that would become one of the most recognizable stories in American literary and cinematic history, the story is coming home.
Democrats dominate Bernalillo County election results
By Jesse Jones, The Paper. — Bernalillo County voters gave Democrats wins in nearly every contested partisan race, from county offices to Congress, while also deciding judicial contests and a slate of ballot questions. Democrat Eric Olivas won another term on the County Commission and Democrat Linda Stover won election as county assessor. Bernalillo County […]
How Democrats’ Big Win Could Reshape Health Care
Democrats scored huge margins in Congress and made big gains at the state level. What does it mean for health policy in the final two years of the Trump administration and beyond?
Experts question tactics, lack of mental health response in Columbia Pike police shooting
Overly aggressive tactics combined with an apparent lack of mental health responders may, according to policing experts, have contributed to a standoff on Columbia Pike escalating into a fatal officer-involved shooting. In interviews with ARLnow, two public safety experts questioned a series of decisions leading up to officers’ final confrontation with 33-year-old Shawn Valn, who
Accel Entertainment (ACEL) Rallies On Q3 Beat As Expansion Progress Fuels Undervalued View
Accel Entertainment (ACEL) just reported third quarter results that topped analyst expectations, with revenue of US$363.56 million and earnings of US$0.25 per share, along with fresh progress in Chicago and Wyoming expansion plans. The stronger third quarter has been followed by a sharp shift in sentiment, with Accel Entertainment’s share price jumping 13.15% in a single day and 21.01% over the past week. This has contributed to an 18.03% year to date share price return and a 32.35% one year...
'Bad politics': Blue tsunami visible months before it emerged
Voters across the political spectrum became increasingly irritated by President Trump's flippant governance, which congressional Republicans enabled.
The Blue Tsunami Swept Doctors and Scientists Into Office
More than 80 percent of congressional candidates backed by the pro-science PAC 314 Action won, including Michigan senator-elect and epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed.
Raman defeats Bass in race for LA mayor, ushering in new era of progressive politics
Raman, who is of Indian descent, becomes the first South Asian mayor of LA. A relative newcomer to local politics, she was elected to the City Council six…
Health Care: Don’t Just Fix What They Broke
The new Congress must not only repair what Trump has wrought but focus on immediate relief for the already insured.
‘It Changed Science Fiction’: Hunter Schafer on Her Fave Sci-Fi Film
OK, we’ll give you three guesses as to what “Blade Runner 2099” star Hunter Schafer’s favorite sci-fi film is. Schafer plays Cora, a human pretending to be a replicant in order to survive, in the upcoming miniseries. Speaking at WIRED World Fair in Miami, Schafer said the action scenes were “really physically demanding.”
Elon Musk spent $445 million to help Republicans. Their losses put his businesses in the crosshairs
Elon Musk spent at least $445 million to try to help Republicans keep control of Congress
Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan race for Senate
El-Sayed bested Republican Mike Rogers to become the first Muslim senator in US history.
KFF Analyzes the Role of Health Care in the Midterms
The midterm elections mean changing power dynamics and shifting legislative agendas in Congress, both next year and during the upcoming lame duck session—the period between the November election and the new session beginning in January. As policymakers consider next steps, new KFF polling analysis examines the role health care played in voters’ decisions. Key Takeaways […]
Democratic doctors win big in 2026 midterm elections
A political action group says Congress now has a new mandate against Health Secretary RFK Jr.
A ‘STEM wave’: Democratic doctors, scientists win a record number of seats in the midterms
New members of Congress are expected to help shape the health agenda next year.
Emboldened Democrats gear up to challenge Trump over Iran war, Gulf business ties
Democrats are weighing options to enforce Congress’ authority to declare war.
Election over, the clock starts ticking again on landmark college sports bill in lame-duck House
Next week, Congress could begin debating a bill to overhaul college sports, amid uncertainty from recent Democratic election victories.
A Democratic Sweep Gives Congress an Opening to Reassert Itself
President Trump usurped power from the legislative branch with Republican help for two years. Democrats are now positioned to try to claw back some of Congress’s prerogatives.
Democrats win control of the U.S. House
Democrats win the U.S. House and take unified control of Congress as voters deliver resounding rebuke to Trump.
'Bad politics': Blue tsunami visible months before it emerged
Voters across the political spectrum became increasingly irritated by President Trump's flippant governance, which congressional Republicans enabled.
Democratic socialist Nithya Raman defeats Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayor’s race
NBC News projects the progressive City Council member has unseated Bass, a longtime fixture of California Democratic politics who served one term as mayor.
Elections change Congress, but they don’t change trucking’s priorities
Cargo theft does not have a party affiliation. Neither do deteriorating roads and bridges, safety compliance, the shortage of truck parking or lawsuit abuse.
Editorial: Voters rejected tariffs. Congress should too
Amid the drubbing Republicans received in midterm elections on Tuesday, one point shouldn’t get lost: Voters have summarily rejected the president’s tariffs, and the new Democratic congressional majority should do
A 'political meteor strike': Florida Gov. DeSantis talks GOP losses
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis says the GOP's loss of Congress and key races landed like a \
Progressives in Congress Can Now Sway Funding, Investigations, Health Policy
Progressives may soon have the best opportunity in decades to influence the direction of the Democratic Party.
Democrats seize Congress in sweeping midterm repudiation of Trump
Democrats seized control of both the Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday, scoring sweeping victories in Republican strongholds for the first time in generations.
Who is Nithya Raman, the democratic socialist who will be Los Angeles’s next mayor?
Urban planner and outsider who bested Karen Bass has close ties to Hollywood progressives – and a complicated relationship with the DSA
US stock futures mixed as Democrats score key midterm election wins
Wall Street faces fresh uncertainty over what Democratic control of Congress could mean for taxes, government spending and regulation.
Democrat Vasquez wins third term after $21.8 million race
By Kevin Hendricks — After months of TV ads, mailers and text messages across southern New Mexico, voters in the 2nd Congressional District gave U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez a third term, and it wasn’t close. Vasquez, a Las Cruces Democrat, beat Republican Greg Cunningham 59% to 41% on Tuesday, according to unofficial results from the […]
Another limited practice for David Njoku
Chargers TE David Njoku making progress with back-to-back limited practices
'Bad politics': Blue tsunami visible months before it emerged
Voters across the political spectrum became increasingly irritated by President Trump's flippant governance, which congressional Republicans enabled.
When papers become currency: a Chinese debate about trust in science
Last Saturday, 31 October, I went to the University of Hong Kong’s Beijing Centre for its Talent Forum. It was the fourth stop in the series this year, following events in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang, Shenzhen’s Qianhai, and on HKU’s main campus. The programme covered a remarkable distance in one afternoon. HKU’s Xiao-Jing Wang discussed computational neuroscience, intelligence, and the prefrontal cortex—before even delivering his inaugural public lecture to students back in Hong Kong. His colleague Bing Zhang took us from the Big Bang to artificial intelligence. Tsinghua’s Xue Lan asked how AI might reshape the institutional infrastructure underpinning higher education. There were lively panels featuring industry leaders from JD.com, Xiaomi, Haier—and Kaiser Y Kuo on the closing panel discussing innovation and international connections. I cannot pretend to have followed every detail of the brain models or the astrophysics. The talk that stayed with me was closer to something we have covered before: Zhou Zhonghe 周忠和 on papers, evaluation, and scientific trust. Zhou is a palaeontologist, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also editor-in-chief of The Intellectual (知识分子), China’s leading science commentary platform. His subject was uncomfortable enough for a room full of successful academics: what happens when the system for recognising good science starts rewarding something else? Part of my interest came from our sister newsletter, The East is Read, which covered the controversy around “Geng Tongxue” in May. A PhD dropout from Beihang University, Geng has publicly challenged papers by prominent researchers through detailed online allegations of manipulated images and fabricated data. At Tongji University, an investigation into a challenged Nature paper found academic misconduct, and the dean of its life sciences school was removed. The affair brought doubts about academic integrity well beyond laboratories and university committees. How could someone outside the established hierarchy spot problems in papers that had passed through prestigious journals and institutions? And what, exactly, had all that prestige guaranteed? Zhou approached these questions through two essays published in July by The Intellectual: one by Wang Xiaodong, director of the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, and a response by Wang Liming, of Shanghai’s Shangsi Institute of Natural Sciences. Both began with the controversy over Geng. Their arguments deserve a wider audience, so I want to put parts of them alongside what Zhou said on Saturday. Wang Xiaodong’s starting point is evolution. A research system selects for the behaviour it rewards. Grants, jobs, journals, talent programmes, and prizes collectively determine which scientists prosper and which practices get passed down from advisors to students. “Whatever the system rewards is what it will evolve to produce,” he writes, citing the ancient Chinese saying: The King of Chu loved slender waists, and many in the palace starved to death. That is a more demanding diagnosis than saying there are dishonest people in science. Punishing a fraudster does not change the selective environment that made a particular kind of research profitable. His account also gives scientific success an awkward role in the story. As Zhou put it on Saturday, science became a victim of its own success. Once research became central to industry, national power, and economic growth, universities and laboratories expanded, and public money followed. That created an administrative need for rapid decisions: who should get the next grant, the next laboratory, the next appointment? The difficulty is that the true value of a discovery may take years or decades of testing and building to become clear. Resource allocation cannot wait that long. Publication counts, journal prestige, impact factors, and citations therefore become convenient ways to make an instant judgement. “The real problem is not that these indicators have no value,” Wang Xiaodong writes, “but that they are trying to answer a question that only time can answer.” Telling administrators simply to stop counting papers will never be enough. They still have budgets to distribute and appointments to make. Something has to replace the shortcut. Zhou described the consequences inside publishing. Papers acquire ever more requirements: a complete story, polished presentation, extensive datasets, and accessibility to readers beyond the immediate field. Individually, those demands sound reasonable. Together, he warned, they produce formulaic “eight-legged” papers 八股文 and rigid reviewing, while genuinely original or non-consensus work struggles to get past journal editors—some of whom wield immense gatekeeping power despite having limited laboratory experience themselves. Meanwhile, the demands for sprawling, “complete” narratives have fuelled a wider replication crisis. Wang Xiaodong uses a mahjong metaphor to describe the result: put the complex papers published by the exact same lab over several years side by side, and they often look like “Thirteen Orphans” (十三不靠)—every tile completely unrelated to the next, and none of them reproducible by outsiders. Zhou also spoke frankly as an editor who has trouble finding reviewers. Everyone wants someone else to review their work; qualified senior researchers have little time to return the favour. The labour is anonymous, unpaid, and brings almost no institutional recognition, so it increasingly gets passed down to postdocs and graduate students. And while anonymity protects reviewers from rank and personal favours, hyper-specialisation means an author’s most qualified reviewer is often a direct competitor, shielded from accountability. The protection and the problem coexist. Wang Liming takes the argument a step further. The decisive change, in his essay, is the instant conversion of academic honour into material resources. Once a paper can be cashed in for funding, a job, students, commercial investment, or even a company valuation, scientists are alienated from their work: they must keep minting this “research currency” to keep their teams alive. He is careful not to romanticise the past. The old world of gentleman scientists—financially independent figures like Boyle and Darwin who needed nothing from external funders—was also a closed club that excluded people without inherited wealth, women, and much of humanity outside the West. Professional science allowed ordinary people, himself included, to become researchers. Nobody should want to undo that. The problem, in his account, is an exchange system that becomes too uniform and too difficult to correct. His most pointed Chinese example is the “hat” (帽子): the prestigious talent designation that brings continuing access to money, laboratory space, students, and institutional influence. “If papers are the circulating currency of the research system, then a ‘hat’ is a bond that pays interest over the long term,” he writes. A paper at least requires another round of peer review. A title in the Chinese context can lock in a judgement made years ago and turn it into permanent status rent, regardless of whether its holder is still doing good science. Here, official institutions hire, organise, and evaluate scientists. Unlike honours awarded by autonomous academic communities in the West, a Chinese “hat” blends non-scientist administrative power with state authority. Once granted, it turns a past judgement into permanent status rent that is nearly impossible to revoke—because taking a hat off would imply that official authority erred in putting it on. Both Wangs see China as experiencing, at compressed speed, pressures present across global science. Research expansion, rising investment, publication growth, and elaborate evaluation metrics arrived in China within two or three decades rather than two or three centuries. Zhou agreed with that international framing—noting that recent US White House science policy documents and the new president of the US National Academy of Sciences, a fellow palaeontologist who recently visited Zhou’s institute in Beijing, have raised strikingly similar warnings about consensus-bound peer review, short-term project grants, and the replication crisis. Still, Zhou emphasised that China’s traditional hierarchy, personal networks (guanxi), and the ethos that “a good scholar becomes an official” (学而优则仕) amplify those pressures at home. So what would change things? Here Zhou’s tone differed from the call for a revolution in scientific trust in Wang Xiaodong’s essay. As an evolutionary biologist, Zhou favoured patchwork repair (修修补补). Living systems survive through accumulated adjustments; dramatic mutations are usually fatal. Science cannot return to a small, slow-moving pastoral era, especially after the successive accelerations of professionalisation after the Second World War, the internet, and now artificial intelligence. But it can alter the local environment in which researchers work. He pointed to domestic experiments designed to support unconventional research and diversify funding, including Tencent’s New Cornerstone Investigator Program, the Xplorer Prize, and the Future Science Prize. He also mentioned participating in reviews for “major non-consensus projects” under the National Natural Science Foundation of China. One guiding principle he recalled was wonderfully direct: “Failure is allowed; corruption is not” (允许失败，不允许腐败). That distinction would mean quite a lot if taken seriously. An honest attempt that fails should not have to disguise itself as a success to survive an assessment. Wang Liming’s essay adds a sharp caveat to the optimism about new domestic funders. Multiple organisations do not automatically produce multiple ways of judging science. If the same pool of senior domestic scientists makes the decisions through the same two-round review procedures, it is still “fake diversity.” He argues for three distinct kinds of money: broad baseline funding governed by fair procedures; patient funding for questions that take ten years; and non-consensus funding based on individual taste, deliberately empowering a few genuine experts to make biased, contrarian bets on eccentric ideas that would inevitably be averaged out by a committee. Replacing one monopoly with another achieves little; a healthy ecosystem needs variance. Zhou’s proposals for publishing were similarly concrete: strip papers of their resource-allocation burden and return them to recording discoveries and establishing priority; separate dissemination from evaluation, as eLife and Peer Community In do; adopt more modular “micro-publications” and real-name endorsements; recognize the labour of editors and reviewers; and give replication work proper credit rather than treating it as an unpublishable dead end. AI makes every part of this debate more urgent—and Zhou wove it throughout his talk. In his own preparation, he used AI to survey the declining influence of academic monographs, noting how tools are already changing how scholars gather information. More fundamentally, he placed AI as the latest great acceleration in scientific history: just as the internet sped up the pace of research and tightened external resource pressures, AI is compressing the cycle again. In the essays Zhou cited, AI cuts both ways. Wang Xiaodong expects large language models to erase much of the English-writing disadvantage long faced by Chinese scientists, further swelling the flood of papers coming out of Chinese labs. Wang Liming sees AI accelerating both ends of the trust crisis: it lowers the cost of paper mills and fabricated images just as quickly as it lowers the cost of automated image forensics, data auditing, and code reproduction. “Whoever builds the verification layer wins,” Wang Liming writes. His proposed alternative to the static, packaged “story paper” is a continuously versioned “unit of discovery” containing a falsifiable claim, raw data, analysis code, experimental parameters, and an ongoing log of independent checks—where negative results and failed replications are recorded rather than buried. Zhou ended his keynote by bringing AI back to the question of scientific honour and credit. Citing a recent Intellectual discussion on “What AI Means for Mathematics” featuring Fields Medalist Deng Yu 邓煜—at a moment when AI is already batch-solving mathematical conjectures, as HKU Vice-President Lin Chen noted in his opening remarks—Zhou agreed that human researchers must remain the principal agents: AI is a tool that frees scientists from tedious calculation to think about deeper, messier real-world problems. Yet that partnership creates a thorny new evaluation problem. When a breakthrough is made with AI, what is the human contribution and what is the machine’s? And since AI models distil centuries of accumulated human scholarship, is it right that the credit and value flow so heavily to the private AI companies building the tools? The old struggle over how to assign scientific honour is acquiring a whole new layer. What I took away was a serious discussion of how science can remain trustworthy as its scale, incentives, and tools change. These were scientists with real standing inside China’s system questioning how that standing is produced, and proposing changes that would affect their own institutions and peers. That made the afternoon at HKU’s Beijing Centre worthwhile. At the close, Wang Feng, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at HKU, said the value of the forum series—which heads to Hangzhou in December and cities like Chengdu early next year—would lie in the real cooperation it helped bring about. The university has plenty to celebrate: this week it topped the QS Asia rankings for a second consecutive year, alongside its 11th-place position in the QS World University Rankings 2027. For me, bringing this debate to an audience beyond the people who review papers and allocate grants was a useful contribution. Share [ The East is Read PhD dropout’s exposé forces an academic fraud reckoning in China A former doctoral student turned blogger has shaken China’s academic establishment by publicly accusing prominent university scholars of fabricating data and manipulating papers, triggering investigations at several leading institutions and drawing rare attention from state media… Read more 5 months ago · 43 likes · 8 comments · Yuxuan JIA ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/phd-dropouts-expose-forces-an-academic?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=47580)
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