Houston ISD students report fewer mental health issues compared to the rest of the United States, but they are more likely to have attempted or considered suicide, according to a recent report published by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Christopher Kulesza, the report's lead author and a scholar in child health policy at Rice University noted that conflicting trends of reported mental illnesses going down but attempted suicides on the rise is a sign of the district's gap in counselors available.
"However, there is really something to having more counselors on campus, not away from the campuses, so that services can really be provided and meet the students where they are," Kulesza said.
The vetting of US scientists and their work by the federal government for potential foreign influence concerns—willful or otherwise—for decades was mostly limited to research with near-term national security or commercial implications. Now, scrutiny is starting to be applied more broadly and more strictly. For many university faculty members, details about the implementation of research-security measures remain fuzzy.
The requirements “are a moving target,” says Kenneth Evans, who studies research security at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “There is a ton of confusion about what constitutes risk.”
The Trump administration has taken aim at government websites with data that it considers contradictory. Organizations are mobilizing to save what can be saved. Evans shared his concern in this Les Echos piece, saying "It's not for financial reasons that this government is sliding towards secrecy..."
U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 calls for unprecedented cuts to scientific agencies that, if enacted, would deal a devastating blow to American science, with media reports saying that half of the National Science Foundation's staff may be terminated as a result. Should the cuts go through, Baker Instiute Science and Technology Policy Scholar Kenneth Evans said, "I don't know how the agency functions as Congress intended it."
Neal Lane, former NSF director, views the NSF’s termination of DEI-related and other grants following an executive order from President Donald Trump, as unprecedented and deeply troubling, suggesting that NSF leadership is constrained by political pressure. He interprets current NSF leadership's messaging as a quiet effort to preserve inclusive research within new limits, emphasizing that true scientific progress requires broad participation.