It’s not your imagination. Political discourse on Twitter really has grown meaner in recent years, according to a new study.
The research, published Thursday in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, found that the level of incivility in tweets by members of Congress increased by 23% between 2009 and 2019 — a change the study’s authors attribute in part to how Twitter’s “like” and “retweet” buttons reinforce the spread of toxic content.
Its findings mark “the first robust evidence that incivility is rising among American politicians on Twitter,” wrote the study’s authors, hailing from several U.S. and Canadian universities.
Researchers examined 1.3 million tweets from official congressional accounts between 2009 and 2019. To quantify the levels of incivility, they used artificial intelligence to analyze the messages and assign a toxicity score from 0 to 100, reflecting the likelihood that someone would consider the text to be rude or disrespectful.
The analysis classified a 2009 tweet by then-Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) with a high incivility score of 45.1 for accusing a rival of “going AWOL” from his congressional post. And a 2019 tweet by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) — which said another politician was “endorsing infanticide & proudly doing it!” — scored at 47.6.
To some degree, the increasingly antagonistic tone is due to more civil members of Congress being replaced by less civil ones, the study says. But the findings attribute more of the shift to members themselves changing over time and posting more provocative tweets.
The increase in incivility was most pronounced among liberal Democrats, especially in the first half of President Trump’s term.
“They were much more likely to be reacting negatively to Donald Trump — both his behaviors and his tweets,” said Robb Willer, a co-author and director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford University.
The study analyzed tweets during President Obama’s two terms and the first two years of Trump’s presidency. (The sample did not include posts from the contentious 2020 election or the start of President Biden’s term.)
The analysis also evaluated Obama’s and Trump’s tweets. Obama’s posts had an average incivility score of 13.4, which remained fairly steady over his two terms. In Trump’s first year, his score was 18.8, and it climbed to 23.0 by 2019.
The study didn’t place any moral judgments on Twitter incivility, Willer said. People sending harshly worded tweets “might have all sorts of explanations that might be morally well-founded and valid for why they engaged in the speech they did.”
Whatever the motivation, the more toxic tweets stand out in Twitter’s crowded online platform. The average congressional tweets were not especially uncivil, with relatively low scores. But the tweets with higher toxicity scores tended to get much more attention, via retweets and likes, which increase the public’s exposures to such messages and make incivility seem more prominent than it actually is, according to the study.
The study’s results indicate “the people running these accounts are learning from these metrics they can see and doing more of whatever gets likes and retweets,” Willer said.
But, as the common Twitter disclaimer goes, retweets and likes don’t equal endorsement. People may retweet a message to draw attention to content they dislike, for example. Willer said their research indicated that users are largely not fond of toxic tweets, despite appearances to the contrary.
“There’s a possibility here that the Twitter platform, with its pretty spare metrics, may be misleading people that certain tweets are more popular with people … than they really are,” Willer said.
Just as congressional Twitter feeds have grown more toxic, so have the tweets of the general population, the authors said, based on a rough sample of civilian posts.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), one of the most prolific tweeters of California’s congressional delegation, said he wasn’t surprised to hear that incivility has grown on the platform — which he blamed partly on anonymous users and bots. His own feed has plenty of pointed messages to Republicans, often delivered with dry humor, as well as standard fare highlighting his work in Congress.
After 13 years on the platform, Lieu said it’s still hard to predict what will take off in the Twittersphere.
“Sometimes I’ll write what I think is an amazing tweet about a very important policy point and get only a few” likes or retweets, he said. But an evening observation that Scotch and peanut butter make a tasty combination will yield “astronomical” engagement.
One consistent factor for a viral tweet: Trump.
“What I’ve found is in the last five years, when the former president would say something stupid or say something false, and I responded to that, that would get higher engagement,” Lieu said. “If the former president is going to say 27 false things a week, I’m going to try to highlight all 27 false things he said.”
While Twitter has not been seen as a hub of civility for some time, some on the platform expressed fears this week that the tone may worsen now that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is set to take the reins. Musk says Twitter’s current system of content moderation clamps down on speech. He has said he wants fewer restrictions on what can and cannot be posted, although he has not given many specifics; users have warned that loosening the rules could lead to upticks in harassment, abuse or pornographic images.
Republicans, meanwhile, have celebrated Musk’s takeover, anticipating he will lift moderation that they see as silencing their views. Among other issues, they object to Trump and other prominent right-wing politicians being blocked or suspended from the site. And Twitter’s fact-checking of false claims of election fraud and COVID-19 misinformation has had a disproportionate effect on right-leaning accounts.
“The most uncivil aspect of Twitter is the company’s transparent censoring of free speech and silencing of conservatives,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall). “Additionally, the platform will not reach its potential or best serve its users until it demonstrates a commitment to fundamental fairness. I’m optimistic that may soon happen.”
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Amgen (AMGN) said new findings from a pre-specified Phase 3 VESALIUS-CV trial analysis showed Repatha (evolocumab) reduced the risk of death by 20% in high-risk adults without a prior heart attack or stroke when added to statins or other LDL-C-lowering treatments.
New headlines this week are raising concerns for parents of high school football players.
According to a study published from researchers at Mass General Brigham, Boston University and the Concussion & CTE Foundation, one in four former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 might have had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). There were 338 brains donated to study, and 315 of them had evidence of CTE, a brain disorder that can happen because of repeated injuries to the head.
Allan Walsh, a sports agent and lawyer, said in a tweet: “This is a crisis.”
Parents have previously debated among themselves the risks and rewards in letting a son or daughter play a contact sport, but this new study regarding football head injuries is once again going to rattle, if not cause a retreat, from some allowing family members to participate in football.
“It causes concern,” said Mike Hamilton, a former high school football and basketball coach who has a son playing football at Chatsworth High. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Do I want him to play?’ I’m apprehensive. He has a passion for the game. He’s conscience about his health. What gives me relief is knowing that practices are going well. There are protocols parents should abide by. We didn’t let our son play football until he got to high school because of the hits.”
Tim Moscicki, an athletic trainer at Loyola High for 38 years, said much has changed for the better in protecting football players from concussions and other head injuries. He said new policies, improved equipment, a focus on tackling fundamentals and new protocols are all having an impact.
Loyola athletic trainer Tim Moscicki doing baselining of students in 2014 to help diagnose concussions.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
He remembers the days when coaches would say, “He got his bell rung.” The player would sit out a few plays, then get put back in. Now that term is barred from everyone’s vocabulary. New rules requiring players to sit out a minimum of seven days following a concussion while needing clearance from a doctor to return and tackling restrictions put in during weekly practices show the CIF is taking CTE concerns in a serious matter for high school sports.
“To me. football has gotten a lot safer,” Moscicki said. “Right now, given what’s in place, it’s safe to play football. Kids are being held out now when they develop any kind of symptom. Back in 1990, if a kid had a concussion and they were free of symptoms for 24 hours, we’d give them their helmet back, ‘You can play.’
“My thing it’s still up to parents if they want their sons to play football. My youngest played football, oldest played lacrosse. There’s always a risk. There’s a risk riding a bike. There’s risk playing baseball. It’s a just a little higher in the full-contact sports. The standards have changed so much. There really wasn’t a return to play protocol in the ‘70s ‘80s and ‘90s.”
Moscicki was one of the first high school athletic trainers to do baselining of all students, giving them tests of their balance and brain functions so it can be used and compared with a similar exam if the student is suspected of having a concussion. Loyola also started a return-to-school program because students with concussions have headaches that also affects their school work.
Parents must understand “you cannot prevent a concussion,” Moscicki said.
“If you get hit hard enough, there’s nothing out there that would 100% prevent a concussion,” he said. “A concussion happens as a result of your brain hitting the inside of your skull.”
The good news is everyone seems to be endorsing funding research into head injuries, including the NFL. It’s still too early to conclude where the research is headed.
That’s where parental choice comes into play.
“Football is a sport,” Moscicki said. “You don’t have to play it. You don’t have to watch it.”
And yet, the Super Bowl is the most watched annual television broadcast in the United States, with lots of monetary rewards for those who participate.
There are many challenges ahead. Pierce College and Orange Coast College paused their junior college football programs this year for lack of players. Junior varsity programs at lots of high schools have been discontinued for lack of players. A CIF participation survey for 2025-26 found 11-man football is the most popular boys sport with 87,718 participants, a drop of 4% from last school year.
“Anything that’s a contact sport runs a risk,” Hamilton said. “You want to protect your son.”
A decade-long fight to outlaw child marriage in California is nearly at an end.
A bi-partisan bill that makes it illegal to issue marriage licenses to anyone under 18 cleared the state Assembly on Wednesday, drawing cheers from supporters who said the measure was a long overdue fix to an “archaic” piece of California law.
“The issue has evolved now because we have better stories, we have better data. We have a growing national movement … marriage is really something that can be reserved for consenting adults,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz).
The bill — whose chief authors include Republican Assemblywoman Diane Dixon and Democrats Caroline Menjivar and Cottie Petrie-Norris — glided through the state Senate and Assembly without major opposition. It now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
Until the bill is signed into law, California remains one of three states in the U.S. without a minimum age to get married or enter into a domestic partnership. While the state has guardrails on the marriage process for minors, requiring them to gain judicial approval and the consent of at least one parent before receiving a license, advocates say children can still be easily pressured to wed by their parents or religious groups.
“All we’re doing with any judicial review process … is putting the onus on a terrified child,” said Fraidy Reiss, the founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, an advocacy group working on legislation to end child marriage across the U.S.
There were 88 marriage licenses issued in California where at least one party was a minor between 2019 and 2025, according to data collected by the state Department of Public Health. Some of those marriages involved weddings between girls as young as 15 and men in their 30s, according to a Senate analysis of the bill. In L.A. County, 51 licenses were issued to minors between 2014 and 2025, according to the county Registrar’s office.
“Even if the numbers are relatively small every child deserves protection,” Pellerin said. “And we don’t want to wait for a problem to become so widespread before we start protecting children.”
A 2020 study by the International Center for Research on Women shows underage marriages can have devastating long-term impacts on young girls.
“Marrying early has universally detrimental effects over a range of outcomes, including educational attainment; earnings; physical, reproductive, and mental health; experiences of violence; and likelihood of divorce, particularly for girls,” the study found.
Although consensual sex between a person over 18 and someone under that age is still considered statutory rape under California law, sex between those same two people becomes legal if they are married. Reiss said the state’s law allowing underage unions was essentially a shield for sexual abusers.
“It destroys almost any aspect of a girl’s life and it doesn’t deliver any benefit,” she said. “The only benefit it brings is to creepy guys who want to prey on teenage girls.”
The American Civil Liberties Union filed an opposition letter against the measure in June, warning the bill could have an unintended consequence of removing a minor’s autonomy over their own body.
“Just as minors have the right to decide to have an abortion or to carry a pregnancy to term (or to seek a restraining order) on their own, they should maintain the right to marry, with robust protections in place to prevent coercion and abuse,” the ACLU wrote.
But Pellerin, who previously served as Santa Cruz County Clerk, said it was the memory of a pregnant teen that helped push her to fight for the bill. She recalled issuing a marriage license to a 16-year-old girl and man in his late teens or early 20s, and felt that the girl’s parents were forcing them to wed.
Under California law at the time, Pellerin said, she had no evidence of coercion or force so she had no choice but to process the license. She hopes once Newsom signs the bill, no young girl will have to go through that again.
“I’m often haunted by that look on her face,” Pellerin said. “My kid is out at soccer practice and this girl is in here, pregnant, scared to death, signing up for a lifetime commitment.”
If signed into law by Newsom, the new minimum marriage age would take effect January 1, 2027.
As many as 97.7% of NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 could have had brain disease related to repeated blows to the head, a new study says.
Researchers looked at 878 former players who died during that period, with 235 having donated their brains to research.
Of those, 215 were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease which can only be diagnosed after death.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, external, also found dementia was common among brain donors.
“We and others have shown that in NFL players, specifically, there is about a four times higher rate of death from neurodegenerative disease than the general population,” said the report’s lead author Daniel Daneshvar, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
“These findings indicate that NFL players have a higher prevalence of CTE at death than has been previously shown in multiple community based studies.”
Researchers calculated a “conservative minimum” of CTE prevalence among those who died in the six-year period to be 24.5% – rising to a “maximum” 97.7%.
They have urged the NFL to take prevention measures to reduce repetitive head impacts across all levels of the sport.
Aug. 19 (UPI) — A study released Wednesday shows that the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea are far hotter than normal, threatening ecosystems and coastal communities.
Parts of the oceans around Europe reached more than 42 degrees Fahrenheit above average this week in a marine heat wave hitting the area.
Climate change is the cause, said the World Weather Attribution consortium in the study.
This summer has been especially brutal in Europe, which has seen multiple heat waves with extreme temperatures and worsened by wildfires. Western Europe recorded its hottest summer on record.
In the water, the high temps harm marine life, raise jellyfish populations and increase the risk of stronger storms later in the year.
“This summer, we’ve seen some really exceptional ocean temperatures around Europe,” said Catherine Gregory, a climate scientist at the University of Bern who contributed to the study, Politico reported.
“By July, the average temperature of the entire Mediterranean Sea was just over 27C [80.6 degrees Fahrenheit], which was the highest July value on record,” she added. “We’ve had a buoy reading to the west of Mallorca measuring more than 33C [91.4F] in open water … and we’ve seen similarly extreme conditions in the North Atlantic.”
The scientists analyzed four regions: the Eastern and Western Mediterranean; the Atlantic around the Bay of Biscay and Iberian Peninsula; and the seas around Ireland and western Britain.
“We find it’s the most extreme July marine heat wave conditions in the record for the Western Mediterranean, the Celtic region and for the Bay of Biscay-Iberian Peninsula region,” Gregory told Politico.
The scientists found that climate change raised temperatures in both Mediterranean regions by 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and Iberian waters increased by 34.52 degrees. The Irish seas rose by 34.34 degrees.
Oceans absorb most of the excess heat from burning fossil fuels. The warming waters push some species to search for cooler water, while those that can’t move, such as corals or seagrasses, could see mass die-offs.
“We have what we call winners and losers. So a lot of species wane in abundance or completely disappear while others bloom and proliferate,” said John Bruno, an ecologist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and one of the study’s co-authors.
The central bank poured cold water on the claim that stablecoin can make cross-border remittances cheaper.
A new study from Italy’s central bank challenges one of the crypto industry’s biggest selling points: that stablecoins can make cross-border remittances cheaper and faster than traditional payment networks.
Banca d’Italia’s research examined remittance corridors involving Italy, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan, comparing USDC transfers against established money transfer services. Its conclusion was sobering.
Stablecoin transfers showed no systematic cost advantage, with total costs ranging between 0.3% and nearly 9%, meaning digital-dollar transfers were sometimes more expensive than conventional remittance providers.
Payment industry veterans addressed the findings, highlighting a critical distinction often overlooked in discussions about digital money: the difference between low-cost blockchain settlement and the expensive legacy networks surrounding it.
“The [central bank’s] test was fundamentally flawed,” said Daniela Sozzi, founder of London-based fintech strategy firm DNYC.
Why? Because of the relatively small transaction size used by the study’s authors ($200). In an email to Global Finance, Sozzi explained that the use of stablecoins is economically advantageous only for sums of at least $100,000. These are still relatively small compared to “traditional” wholesale transactions using traditional correspondent banking services, such as $1 million and above, she pointed out.
“So, stablecoins are cheaper for certain types of transactions, not universally cheaper,” said Sozzi.
But that $200 threshold isn’t arbitrary — it’s the standard transaction size the World Bank uses to benchmark its Remittance Prices Worldwide index, which put the global average cost of sending money through traditional channels at 6.36% in the third quarter of 2025.
The index of major international money-transfer operators, such as Western Union, came in at 5.52% — squarely inside the 0.3% to 9% range the Italian central bank found for stablecoins, underscoring Sozzi’s point that at this size, the two systems are comparable.
Still, Banca d’Italia’s findings track with a broader body of research on stablecoin remittances. A BIS paper published in March scrutinized how cross-border payments, “particularly remittances and retail transactions, remain more costly, slower, less accessible, and less transparent than domestic payments.”
Rather than viewing the report as a rejection of digital money, payment industry experts say the findings point to a broader structural issue: while settlement on the blockchain is fast and cheap, moving money into and out of legacy networks remains costly.
These expensive friction points stem from legacy bank networks, explained Alexander Taskey, CEO of global settlements platform Frame.
“Much of the cost around stablecoins comes from on- and off-ramping, since that requires moving in and out of legacy payments infrastructure,” Taskey wrote in an email to Global Finance.
London-based Frame operates as a programmable settlement layer, enabling financial institutions to orchestrate and route funds across both legacy banking rails and on-chain networks.
“Once funds are on blockchain rails, the cost of transacting collapses to near zero,” Taskey added.
Pankaj Bengani, founder and CEO of payments infrastructure company Meld, said that the friction lies at the edges. “The cost on the blockchain is not the issue. Once the fiat — whether it’s euro or U.S. dollar — is on the blockchain, the costs are very, very low. All the cost is baked into the on- and off-ramps.”
Because of this, both executives agree that judging stablecoins solely on current consumer remittance pricing misses the broader trajectory of payment rails.
Bengani likens today’s stablecoin ecosystem to the early days of global container shipping, where efficiency gains only materialized after shipping ports and logistics networks matured. Similarly, Frame’s Taskey said that end-user priorities will ultimately drive how these backend systems evolve.
“Ultimately, customers don’t care which rails are being used,” Taskey added. “They simply want payments that are cheaper, faster, and more secure.”
While consumer remittances in developed corridors like Europe and the U.S. remain highly optimized via traditional rails, stablecoins are finding immediate traction where traditional systems fall short — such as high-fee corridors or markets with volatile local currencies where businesses and consumers prefer holding USD balances.
Looking five years ahead, industry leaders see stablecoins operating not as a total replacement for traditional banking, but as one part of a larger, hybrid settlement architecture.
“Five years from now, I expect stablecoins to coexist alongside legacy fiat rails as one option among many,” said Taskey. “The challenge for banks will be tying it all together and consolidating fragmentation into a single, interoperable platform.”
For now, the Banca d’Italia’s findings serve as a reminder that while blockchain technology offers near-frictionless settlement, the global financial infrastructure built around it still has significant ground to cover.
Anthony Noto covers corporate finance and private credit. Contact him at anoto@gfmag.com.
10:15, 17 Aug 2026Updated 13:19, 17 Aug 2026
Russell falls in the Mount Field National Park southern Tasmania, Australia
Brits are ditching holiday destinations they’ve returned to for years in search of ‘more meaningful’ trips, a study has found. Research from Tourism Tasmania found nearly two-thirds would no longer consider visiting a destination they once visited regularly.
More than a third say they want to discover new places, while one in five believe their old favourite has become too touristy, overly commercialised or overcrowded. Tourism Tasmania says the findings point to a broader shift in British travellers seeking more meaningful holidays, with a growing desire for deeper connections to people and places.
Almost all of the respondents say it’s important that their next holiday offers a ‘genuine connection to a destination, rather than an overly touristy experience’. Immersing in local culture, trying regional food and drink, discovering history and seeking new adventures now rank among travellers’ highest priorities.
Three-quarters hope to visit a bucket-list destination and more than two-thirds are actively searching for somewhere lesser known and off the beaten track.. Tourism Tasmania says interest in Tasmania continues to grow among Brits, with two-thirds of respondents to their research saying they would consider visiting in future.
Nearly halfare drawn to the island’s natural landscapes, while half say unique nature and wildlife experiences help them feel more connected to a destination.
Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson were even recently announced as the international headliners for Tasmania’s Tamar Valley Writers Festival, held in Launceston – a UNESCO City of Gastronomy.
CEO of Tourism Tasmania, Sarah Kingston Clark, said: “While British travellers still want holidays that give them a chance to rest and recharge, this research suggests they’re increasingly looking for experiences that leave a lasting and more meaningful impression.
“We’re seeing a real shift in the UK and globally in what people want from travel. Holidays are becoming less about ticking another destination off a list and more about slowing down, connecting with a place and coming home feeling like you’ve genuinely experienced it.
“People are looking for holidays that feel authentic and meaningful, whether that’s spending time with the locals, immersing themselves in culture, discovering distinctive food and drink and experiencing the real character of a destination beyond its best-known attractions and bucket-list sights.