Maximpact Blog

Immigrant Skills Top Family Ties in New U.S. Poll

By a wide margin, a majority of Americans are in favor of altering U.S. immigration policies to place less emphasis on family reunification and greater weight on admitting English speakers with high-level skills, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday.

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Women and Men Give Differently

When planning campaigns, wise fundraisers take into account the real differences in the ways in which women and men give to charitable organizations. “From motivations to causes to behavior, women and men demonstrate different giving patterns,” finds new research from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

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Redesigning Refugee Camps for the Digital Age

A Syrian refugee living in a Jordanian camp, or an immigrant to the United States, will have multiple associations with place enabled by digital technology,” says Professor Rana Abudayyeh from the University of Tennessee’s College of Architecture and Design. “They may live in a new environment, but they carry archival memories and images of their home with them on smart devices…

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Solar Power Comes of Age Across the World

Solar is already the world’s fastest-growing power generation source, and the future looks bright for the widescale adoption of solar power. As this decade nears a close, the national trade association for the U.S. solar industry has designated the next decade The Solar+ Decade.

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Turkey Helps Syrian Refugee Girls Avoid Child Marriage

“Young girls who have fled conflict and instability in rural Syria in search of a more peaceful and dignified life in Turkey can find themselves still at risk from a harmful traditional practice their families have brought from their homeland,” warn three women and a man writing for the Turkish Red Crescent …

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Energy Efficiency Is the ‘First Fuel’

“Energy efficiency is the single most effective strategy for reducing carbon emissions,” the Washington, DC-based nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy told a congressional hearing on climate change earlier this year. The group urged lawmakers to prioritize energy efficiency to stabilize the warming climate.

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Common Framework Helps Europeans Trim Food Waste

Every year about 20 percent of the food produced in the European Union is lost or wasted, while 43 million EU residents cannot afford a quality meal every second day. Now, based on a new methodology, EU Member States will be expected to fight food waste by collecting and sharing information…

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Families Displaced by Multiple Indian Ocean Storms

This cyclone season in the Indian Ocean Basin has been exceptionally fierce, with 15 storms, including nine intense cyclones, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). At least a million people had to be evacuated from stricken coastal areas in India, while over a thousand died in eastern African countries.

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Europe Boots Mining Into the 21st Century

The European Union is already one of the world’s major consumers of minerals and metallic raw materials, and demand is expected to grow quickly. The EU wants to mine those minerals and raw materials on its own territory, but at the same time would like to avoid invasive, destructive mining practices that have given the industry a bad reputation throughout the world.

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