Study: Emotional responses crucial to attitudes about self-driving cars

Washington State University

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PULLMAN, Wash. -- When it comes to public attitudes toward using self-driving cars, understanding how the vehicles work is important—but so are less obvious characteristics like feelings of excitement or pleasure and a belief in technology’s social benefits.

Those are key insights of a new study from researchers at Washington State University, who are examining attitudes toward self-driving cars as the technology creeps toward the commercial market—and as questions persist about whether people will readily adopt them.

The study, published in the journal Transportation Research, surveyed 323 people on their perceptions of autonomous vehicles. Researchers found that considerations such as how much people understand and trust the cars are important in determining whether they would eventually choose to use them.

“But in addition, we found that some of the non-functional aspects of autonomous vehicles are also very important,” said Wei Peng, an assistant professor in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at WSU.

These included the emotional value associated with using the cars, such as feelings of excitement, enjoyment or novelty; beliefs about the broader impact on society; and curiosity about learning how the technology works and its potential role in the future, Peng said.

In addition, they found that respondents would want to give the technology a test drive before adopting it.

“This is not something where you watch the news and say, ‘I want to buy it or I want to use it,’” Peng said. “People want to try it first.”

The new paper is the latest research on the subject from Peng and doctoral student Kathryn Robinson-Tay. In a paper published in 2023, they examined whether people believed the vehicles were safe, finding that simply knowing more about how the cars work did not improve perceptions about risk—people needed to have more trust in them, too.

The new study examined the next step in the decision-making chain: What would motivate people to actually use an autonomous vehicle?

Answering that question is important as the technology moves toward becoming a reality on the roads. Already, carmakers are adding autonomous features to models, and self-driving taxis have begun operating in a handful of U.S, cities, such as Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Fully self-driving vehicles could become available by 2035.

It is estimated they could prevent 90% of accidents while improving mobility for people with limited access to transportation. However, achieving those benefits would require widespread, rapid adoption—a big hurdle given that public attitudes toward the cars have been persistently negative and the rollout of “robotaxies” have been bumpy, with some high-profile accidents and recalls. In a national survey by AAA released in February, 60 percent of respondents said they were afraid to use the cars.

Widespread adoption would be crucial because roadways shared by self-driving and human-driven cars may not bring about safety improvements, in part because self-drivers may not be able to predict and respond to unpredictable human drivers.

One surprise in the study is that respondents did not trust vehicles more when they discovered they were easy to use—which opens a new question for future research: “What is it about thinking the car is easy to use that makes people trust it less?” Robinson-Tay asked.

Attitudes about self-driving cars depend heavily on individual circumstances, and can be nuanced in surprising ways. For example, those with a strong “car-authority identity”—a personal investment in driving and displaying knowledge about automobiles—and more knowledge about self-driving cars were more likely to believe the cars would be easy to use.

But respondents with more knowledge were less likely to view the cars as useful—a separate variable from ease of use.

Other considerations also play a role. Those who can’t drive due to disability or other reasons may have a stronger motivation to use them, as might drivers with significant concerns about heavy traffic or driving in inclement weather.

“If I really worry about snowy weather, like we experience in Pullman in winter, is it going to help?” Peng said. “If I really worry about weather, I might get a car like that if it would help me steer clear of dangerous weather conditions.”

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Journal

Transportation Research

DOI

10.1016/j.trf.2025.03.014 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Assessing the characteristics and outcomes of perceived usefulness and ease of use for autonomous vehicle adoption

 

Global warming could be driving up women’s cancer risk

A study on Middle Eastern countries links higher temperatures to an increased risk of breast, ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers

Frontiers

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Scientists have found that global warming in the Middle East and North Africa is making breast, ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancer more common and more deadly. The rise in rates is small but statistically significant, suggesting a notable increase in cancer risk and fatalities over time.  

“As temperatures rise, cancer mortality among women also rises — particularly for ovarian and breast cancers,” said Dr Wafa Abuelkheir Mataria of the American University in Cairo, first author of the article in Frontiers in Public Health. “Although the increases per degree of temperature rise are modest, their cumulative public health impact is substantial.” 

An unhealthy environment 

Climate change isn’t healthy. Rising temperatures, compromised food and water security, and poor air quality all increase the burden of disease and death worldwide. Natural disasters and the strain of unanticipated weather conditions also disrupt infrastructure, including healthcare systems. When it comes to cancer, that can mean people are more exposed to risk factors like environmental toxins and are less likely to receive a prompt diagnosis and treatment. This combination of factors could lead to a major rise in the incidence of serious cancers, but quantifying it is difficult. 

To investigate the effects of climate change on women’s cancer risk, the researchers selected a sample of 17 Middle Eastern and North African countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Palestine. These countries are seriously vulnerable to climate change and are already seeing striking temperature rises. The researchers collected data on the prevalence and mortality of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, and uterine cancer, and compared this information with changing temperatures between 1998 and 2019.  

“Women are physiologically more vulnerable to climate-related health risks, particularly during pregnancy,” said co-author Dr Sungsoo Chun of the American University in Cairo. “This is compounded by inequalities that limit access to healthcare. Marginalized women face a multiplied risk because they are more exposed to environmental hazards and less able to access early screening and treatment services.” 

Running the numbers 

The prevalence of the different cancers rose by 173 to 280 cases per 100,000 people for every additional degree Celsius: ovarian cancer cases rose the most and breast cancer cases the least. Mortality rose by 171 to 332 deaths per 100,000 people for each degree of temperature rise, with the greatest rise in ovarian cancer and the smallest in cervical cancer.  

When the researchers broke this down by country, they found that cancer prevalence and deaths rose in only six countries — Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Syria. This could be due to particularly extreme summer temperatures in these countries, or other factors which the model couldn’t capture. The rise was not uniform between countries: for instance, the prevalence of breast cancer rose by 560 cases per 100,000 people for each degree Celsius in Qatar, but only 330 in Bahrain.  

Although this shows that increased ambient temperature is a probable risk factor for these cancers, it also suggests that temperature has a different effect in different countries — so there are likely to be other factors modifying risk. For instance, increased heat could be associated with higher levels of carcinogenic air pollution in some places.  

“Temperature rise likely acts through multiple pathways,” said Chun. “It increases exposure to known carcinogens, disrupts healthcare delivery, and may even influence biological processes at the cellular level. Together, these mechanisms could elevate cancer risk over time.” 

Risk factors 

Higher prevalence could also reflect improvements in cancer screening. However, better screening would be expected to result in fewer deaths, as early-stage cancer is easier to treat. But both death rates and prevalence rose, suggesting that the driving factor is exposure to risk factors.  

“This study cannot establish direct causality,” cautioned Mataria. “While we controlled for GDP per capita, other unmeasured factors could contribute. Nonetheless, the consistent associations observed across multiple countries and cancer types provide compelling grounds for further investigation.” 

This research also underlines the importance of considering climate-related risks in public health planning.  

“Strengthening cancer screening programs, building climate-resilient health systems, and reducing exposure to environmental carcinogens are key steps,” said Chun. “Without addressing these underlying vulnerabilities, the cancer burden linked to climate change will continue to grow.” 

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Journal

Frontiers in Public Health

DOI

10.3389/fpubh.2025.1529706 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Climate Change and Women's Cancer in the MENA Region: Assessing Temperature-Related Health Impacts

Article Publication Date

27-May-2025

 

Home water-use app improves water conservation

UC Riverside study finds real-time household water data reduces consumption

University of California - Riverside

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A UC Riverside-led study has found that a smartphone app that tracks household water use and alerts users to leaks or excessive consumption offers a promising tool for helping California water agencies meet state-mandated conservation goals.

Led by Mehdi Nemati, an assistant professor of public policy at UCR, the study found that use of the app—called Dropcountr—reduced average household water use by 6%, with even greater savings among the highest water users.

Dropcountr works by interpreting water-use data from smart water meters, which many utilities originally installed for remote reading to streamline billing. The app turns data from these meters into real-time feedback for consumers, showing how much water they use, how their usage compares to similar households, and how it has changed over time.

This type of digital feedback gives users what behavioral economists call a “nudge”—a timely prompt to take water-saving actions, such as taking shorter showers, fixing leaks, or delaying using appliances like dishwashers and washing machines until they are full.

The app also alerts users when their consumption nears costly higher-rate tiers and notifies them of possible leaks. Utilities also can use the app to send customers tips for cutting use and notify them of rebate programs, such as those for replacing lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping.

“California water agencies are under pressure to hit individualized water-use targets and conservation goals under the ‘Making Conservation a California Way of Life’ regulation,” Nemati said. “Our study shows that this digital feedback tool can be a powerful, low-cost way to help households manage their use and reduce consumption.”

The research focused on the City of Folsom in Northern California, where Dropcountr was offered to residential customers beginning in late 2014. About 3,600 households volunteered for the program, which collected smart meter data from 2013 to 2019. This allowed researchers to analyze more than 32 million records of daily water use.

The findings, published in the journal Resource and Energy Economics, showed that participating households reduced their daily consumption by an average of 6.2% compared to a control group. The reduction was greater among high-volume users. The top 20% of users cut their water use by up to 12%.

“This is a crucial outcome when every drop counts,” Nemati said. “We found strong, statistically significant reductions, especially for high-use customers.”

Dropcountr also uses behavioral science concepts, especially the power of social norms. Users receive personalized water-use summaries that show how their consumption stacks up against more efficient nearby households, helping them set reasonable and achievable conservation goals.
The app also flags possible leaks by detecting continuous usage patterns—such as when water use remains steady for 72 hours. These alerts were found to be especially effective: Water use dropped roughly 50% on the day after a leak alert was sent, followed by a 30% drop the next day, and a sustained 9% reduction even six days later.
“The sharp drop suggests customers are paying attention and acting quickly,” Nemati said. “One major advantage is that they can detect leaks right away—sometimes before they cause damage or result in costly bills. That’s difficult with traditional billing systems, where usage is only seen after 30 or 60 days.”
Importantly, the study also found that these behavioral changes lasted. “We looked at water use 50 months out and still found sustained reductions,” Nemati said. “People weren’t just reacting once and forgetting. They stayed engaged.”

The app works best with homes equipped with smart meters, while many homes in California still rely on older, manually read meters. Fortunately, adoption of advanced metering infrastructure continues to expand.

Still, Nemati noted, many agencies that do have smart meters continue to rely on outdated methods—like mailed letters—to notify customers of high usage or leaks.

“People get water bills, but the information may not be salient. Most bills report usage in cubic feet or units, which aren't easy to interpret,” Nemati said. “What platforms like Dropcountr do well is make the data meaningful. People want to use water wisely. They just need timely, clear, and actionable feedback. These platforms give them that—and they work.”

With California preparing to enforce stricter drought and efficiency standards, Nemati said more utilities should consider deploying digital tools like Dropcountr.

“We have the data,” he said. “Now we just need to use it in smarter ways. This study shows how a relatively inexpensive solution can help homeowners conserve and ease pressure on our water systems.”

The study is titled “High-frequency analytics and residential water consumption: Estimating heterogeneous effects.” Co-authors are Steven Buck of the University of Kentucky and Hilary Soldati of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

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Journal

Resource and Energy Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.reseneeco.2025.101500 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

High-frequency analytics and residential water consumption: Estimating heterogeneous effects

Article Publication Date

24-May-2025

 

AI aversion in social interactions

PNAS Nexus

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An experimental study suggests that people are less likely to behave in a trusting and cooperative manner when interacting with AI than when interacting with other humans.  Scientists use experimental games to probe how humans make social decisions requiring both rational and moral thinking. Fabian Dvorak and colleagues compared how humans act in classic two-player games when playing with another human to how humans act when playing with a large-language model acting on behalf of another human. Participants played the Ultimatum Game, the Binary Trust Game, the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, the Stag Hunt Game, and the Coordination Game. The games were played online with 3,552 humans and the LLM ChatGPT. Overall, players exhibited less  fairness, trust, trustworthiness, cooperation, and coordination when they knew they were playing with a LLM, even though any rewards would go to the real person the AI was playing for. Prior experience with ChatGPT did not mitigate the adverse reactions. Players who were able to choose whether or not to delegate their decision-making to AI often did so, especially when the other player would not know if they had done so. When players weren’t sure if they were playing with a human or a LLM, they hewed more closely to behavior displayed toward human players. According to the authors, the results reflect a dislike of socially interacting with an AI, an example of the broader phenomenon of algorithm aversion.

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Journal

PNAS Nexus

Article Title

Adverse reactions to the use of large language models in social interactions

Can AI analogize?

GPT-4 can use analogies to reason, according to a study

PNAS Nexus

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Can large language models (LLMs) reason by analogy? Some outputs suggest that they can, but it has been argued that these results reflect mimicry of the results of analogical reasoning in the models’ training data. To test this claim, LLM’s have been asked to solve counterfactual problems that are unlikely to be  similar to problems in training data sets. Here is an example:

Let’s solve a puzzle problem involving the following fictional alphabet:
[x y l k w b f z t n j r q a h v g m u o p d i c s e]
Here is the problem:
[x y l k] [x y l w]
[j r q a] [ ? ]

What four letters solve the puzzle? The correct answer would be “j r q h,” as h is one letter beyond a in the fictional alphabet, just as w is one letter beyond k in the fictional alphabet. However, many models have been unable to solve similar problems. Taylor W. Webb and colleagues propose that the failure to solve these counterfactual problems has more to do with LLM’s well known difficulty in counting, since the problems require basic counting, in order to establish the position of each letter in the sequence. The authors evaluated a recent version of GPT-4 that can write and execute code, which allowed the model to create a code to count items. This LLM was able to solve these counterfactual letter-string analogies at a roughly human level of performance, and gave coherent and accurate explanations of why the correct solution was correct. According to the authors, GPT-4 can use analogies to reason, a capacity that may be supported by a set of structured operations and emergent relational representations.

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Journal

PNAS Nexus

Article Title

Evidence from counterfactual tasks supports emergent analogical reasoning in large language models

Article Publication Date

27-May-2025

COI Statement

Taylor Webb is a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research.

 

In dry conditions, locust babies are born with their first lunch

PNAS Nexus

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image: 

Hatchlings from wet (left) and desiccated (right) large eggs. 

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Credit: Koutaro Ould Maeno

Locusts have undersized babies—with their first lunch already in their guts—in dry conditions. Desert locusts have two distinct modes—solitary and gregarious—that are behaviorally and visibly different. The insects also live in the Sahara desert, an environment with frequent dry conditions. Koutaro Ould Maeno and colleagues explored how a lack of moisture and the presence of other locusts shift reproductive resource allocation in the insects. In lab experiments, the authors raised locusts in crowds and in isolation. Crowd-reared females produced fewer, larger eggs than females raised in isolation; large offspring likely have an advantage when there’s competition for food. For both types of locusts, dry conditions produced smaller hatchlings than wet conditions, and the hatchlings in dry conditions were born with a small amount of yolk in their guts—what is known as the “lunchbox strategy.” With their first meal taken care of, these babies have a bit more energy and time to find plants to eat than hatchlings born with empty stomachs. For solitary locusts, dry-condition small hatchlings lived 65% longer than normal-sized hatchlings in starvation conditions and hatchlings from desiccated gregarious eggs survived 230% longer than those from wet solitarious eggs in the same conditions. According to the authors, the results illustrate the complex ways female locusts and embryos living in an unpredictable and harsh ecosystem allocate their reproductive resources. 

Caption

A graphical summary of the locust experiments and results. 

Credit

Koutaro Ould Maeno

Journal

PNAS Nexus

Article Title

Desiccated desert locust embryos reserve yolk as a “lunch box” for posthatching survival

Article Publication Date

27-May-2025

DOMINION OF CANADA

King Charles to give historic speech to Canada parliament amid US tensions
By AFP
May 27, 2025


Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney (L) has said he intends to use the visit of Britain's King Charles III to highlight Canada's sovereignty - Copyright POOL/AFP Justin Tang

King Charles III is to deliver a historic speech to open Canada’s parliament on Tuesday, with the nation, of which he is head of state, facing unprecedented threats from US President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has said he intends to use the king’s first visit to the British Commonwealth nation since his coronation to highlight Canada’s sovereignty.

“This historic honor matches the weight of our times,” Carney said.

It was at the prime minister’s invitation that the 76-year-old monarch, who is battling cancer, traveled to the Canadian capital, accompanied by Queen Camilla.

King Charles has never publicly commented on Trump’s repeated talk of making Canada the 51st US state, but his speech will be closely watched for any comments on the topic.

Trump has also ripped up the world trade order and launched tariff wars against friends and foes alike, particularly targeting northern neighbor Canada.

The so-called “throne speech” will be delivered in the Senate — a former railway station that has been converted while parliament undergoes major renovations.

Although it will be read by the king as if it were in his own words, it was, in fact, written by the prime minister’s office and will set out the government’s priorities to “build Canada strong” and how it aims to achieve them.

Canada’s Liberal Party, led by Carney, a technocrat with no prior political experience, won legislative elections on April 28, after a campaign entirely focused on who would be best to deal with Trump.

Carney has vowed to oversee the biggest transformation of Canada’s economy since the end of the Second World War to enable it to “stand up” to Trump.

In cautious diplomatic language, the throne speech should also contain a reaffirmation of Canada’s sovereignty, which Trump has threatened repeatedly by suggesting the country should be annexed by the United States.

– ‘Extraordinary’ symbolism –

“In terms of symbolism, it’s extraordinary because this is only the third time the sovereign has read this speech,” said Felix Mathieu, a politics professor at the University of Quebec in Outaouais.

The throne speech has only twice before been personally delivered by Canada’s monarch, in 1957 and 1977, both by Charles’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

“What will also be interesting is everything surrounding the speech from the throne,” Mathieu added, in reference to the “message to Donald Trump” to show him that “Canada is not alone in this fight.”

Thousands flocked to the capital on Monday to greet the king and queen on their first day of the brief visit.

For Shrikant Mogulala, 32, the king was here to deliver “a clear message to Trump that we are not for sale.”

Retiree Dave Shaw, 60, said it was “a great time for (the king) to be here now at this particular time given the geopolitical circumstances, given the circumstances of our country right now.”

On Monday, the monarchs visited a farmer’s market and were treated to Indigenous music and military honors before the king held private audiences with Carney and Indigenous leaders.

They were scheduled to ride to the Senate Tuesday morning in a four-wheeled carriage escorted by 28 horses from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s fabled “Musical Ride” unit.

There will be a 21-gun salute and a flypast by fighter jets, and the monarchs will also lay a wreath at a war memorial.

King Charles to deliver key speech amid Trump annexation threats on Canada

01:42© France 24

Issued on: 27/05/2025 -

King Charles III is to outline new Prime Minister Mark Carney's government priorities in a speech in the Canadian Parliament. The move widely seen as a show of support for Canada in the face of annexation threats by U.S. President Donald Trump. The kind is the head of state in Canada, which is a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies. Carney saying the visit speaks to the “vitality of our constitutional monarchy and our distinct identity.” Caroline Baum reports.

Video by: Caroline BAUM

Federal Judge Strikes Down LGBTQ Protections Against Workplace Discrimination



Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling marks one of the most alarming judicial rollbacks of LGBTQ rights in recent memory

By Erin Reed , 

ErinInTheMorning

Published May 16, 2025

On Thursday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — a far-right federal judge in the Northern District of Texas with a record of aligning with the GOP’s most extreme legal positions — issued a ruling declaring that Title VII no longer protects LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination. The decision directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is, by definition, sex discrimination. Kacsmaryk’s ruling marks one of the most alarming judicial rollbacks of LGBTQ+ rights in recent memory — and sets up a direct legal challenge to one of the foundational civil rights protections for queer and trans people in the United States.

The case was brought against the EEOC by the state of Texas alongside the Heritage Foundation, a central force behind Project 2025 — an aggressive right-wing policy blueprint that explicitly calls for rolling back LGBTQ+ protections in federal law. In siding with the plaintiffs, Judge Kacsmaryk pointed to the Texas Department of Agriculture’s current employee policy, which requires “employees to comply with this dress code in a manner consistent with their biological gender,” specifying that “men may wear pants” and “women may wear dresses, skirts, or pants.” The ruling also upheld the department’s policy banning transgender employees from using restrooms that align with their gender identity.

The judge reached a verdict that Title VII only protects “firing someone simply for being homosexual or transgender,” but that it does not protect transgender or gay people from “harassment”:

Judge Kacsmaryk ruling that gay and trans people can be harassed without repercussion under Title VII.

“In sum, Title VII does not bar workplace employment policies that protect the inherent differences between men and women,” Kacsmaryk writes in his ruling.

Judge Kacsmaryk further argued that disparate treatment of transgender employees does not constitute unequal treatment, reasoning that “a male employee must use male facilities like other males” — a statement that erases transgender identity altogether. He extended that logic to dress codes and pronouns, claiming that requiring employees to adhere to clothing standards and pronoun use based on their assigned sex at birth is not discriminatory because it applies “equally” to everyone. The argument mirrors the discredited legal reasoning once used to uphold bans on same-sex marriage — that such laws didn’t discriminate against gay people because they, like straight people, were allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex. It’s a circular logic designed to mask exclusion as neutrality. It also flies in the face of the fact that Texas allows people assigned female at birth to wear gender “pants, skirts, and dresses” but denies that same right to people assigned male at birth.

Related Story

Trans-Led Advocacy Wins Hard-Fought Victory in Colorado Legislature
“Other states must follow the lead of Colorado and enshrine transgender rights into law,” one trans activist said. By Zane McNeill , Truthout May 7, 2025

Ultimately, Judge Kacsmaryk ordered the complete removal of all references to sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under Title VII from EEOC guidance. His ruling declares that “all language defining ‘sex’ in Title VII to include ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’” must be stripped from federal employment policy. Specifically, it targets and nullifies Section II(A)(5)(c) of the 2024 EEOC guidance, which states: “Sex-based discrimination under Title VII includes employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Kacsmaryk’s final judgment on Title VII protections for LGBTQ+ people.

The ruling flies in the face of Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII protects LGBTQ+ workers from discrimination. The landmark case centered on Gerald Bostock, who was fired from a county job after joining a gay softball league, and Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman dismissed from a funeral home after informing her employer she would begin presenting as a woman. In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that firing someone for being gay or transgender is inherently sex-based discrimination, and thus violates federal civil rights law. While Bostock focused on wrongful termination, it strains credulity to suggest that the same protections wouldn’t also apply to workplace harassment or other forms of discriminatory treatment under the very same statute.

This isn’t Judge Kacsmaryk’s first foray into far-right legal activism — it’s his trademark. He’s become the go-to jurist for plaintiffs looking to turn extremist ideology into binding precedent. He’s the one who tried to revoke FDA approval of mifepristone, a safe and widely used abortion medication. He’s ruled against LGBTQ+ protections in the Affordable Care Act. He even tried to force Planned Parenthood to pay $2 billion to Texas and Louisiana — a ruling so outrageous that even the deeply conservative Fifth Circuit tossed it. Now, he’s taking aim at Title VII itself, effectively inviting employers to harass and discriminate against LGBTQ+ workers by pretending Bostock never happened.

This piece was republished with permission from Erin In The Morning.

Fed chair calls out Trump’s Harvard attacks during bombshell Princeton speech

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powel

(U.S. Federal Reserve/Flickr)

Alex Henderson

May 26, 2025 |  

ALTERNET

In a decision handed down on Thursday, May 22, the U.S. Supreme Court indicated that President Donald Trump does not have the power to fire U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.


The High Court upheld Trump's power to fire members of two independent labor relations boards but signaled that a president's relationship with the Fed is different.

In Trump v. Gwynne A. Wilcox, the justices wrote, "The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States."

Three days later, during a Memorial Day Weekend speech at Princeton University in New Jersey on Sunday, May 25, Powell wasn't shy about criticizing Trump. And he made it clear that he has a very negative view of Trump's attacks on Harvard University and other colleges

Powell told Princeton's Class of 2025, "Our great universities are the envy of the world and a crucial national asset. Look around you. I urge you to take none of this for granted."

The Federal Reserve Chairman stressed that "generation upon generation" has needed to advance the United States' democratic values, including the Gen-Z students graduating in 2025.

Powell told the Princeton graduates, "I ask you to take a minute and realize how the quest for these values has led us to this point in our history. When you look back in 50 years, you will want to know that you have done whatever it takes to preserve and strengthen our democracy, and bring us ever closer to the Founders’ timeless ideals…. Each of us is a work in progress. The possibilities for self-improvement are limitless."

Powell's speech came at a time when Trump is waging an aggressive campaign to intimidate Harvard and other universities. Trump, however, has backed down from calling for Powell to be fired as Fed chairman — much to the delight of many economists, who are warning that it is crucial for the U.S. Federal Reserve to maintain its independence from the White House.

Washington Post columnist and MSNBC host Catherine Rampell is warning that if a president rather than a U.S. Federal Reserve chair can decided interest rates, it will be disastrous economically for the United States.