Earlier this month, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the United Nation’s World Food Programme. Batten's Kirsten Gelsdorf and Galen Fountain discuss what that means in the era of COVID-19.

Congress is back from its August recess, and lawmakers face public demands for action on issues as varied as health care, infrastructure, gun safety and trade. Legislators face at least one set of “must pass” agenda items: 12 spending bills that need to be enacted into law by Oct. 1 or the federal government will shut down.

Research into public policy diffusion has exploded in the last 20 years. Scholars and thinkers have published hundreds of studies tracking the spread of policies from government to government. With countless dollars and thousands of hours invested, could it be that their studies are wrong? That’s what Batten School Professor Craig Volden seeks to find out.

Black Americans are systematically undertreated for pain relative to white Americans. We examine whether this racial bias is related to false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites (e.g., “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s skin”).

UVA Today spoke with Batten professor Harry Harding on Friday to learn more about what is happening in Hong Kong and what it means for China and the U.S.