On July 27, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that five government-owned supermarkets, one in each borough, will sell key food items at prices 30 percent below typical retail. The discount will cover all fresh produce, meat, and seafood, plus roughly 20 categories of pantry staples, dairy, and refrigerated goods, including milk, bread, and eggs.
Supporters believe the stores could help solve food insecurity during a period of rising food costs, while some economists and small business owners have criticized the plan, saying that the stores could drive out private competition and reduce variety. Whether the plan succeeds will depend on both its economic rationale and its execution, according to Columbia Business School professors Joseph Stiglitz and Lori Yue.
Two of the world’s most fire-prone regions have followed strikingly different wildfire trajectories despite a warming climate in common, and a Pacific Ocean pattern helps explain it, according to a new study led by Tess Wei-Ping Jacobson, postdoctoral fellow at NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and a recent PhD at Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Though nearly three-quarters of Earth’s surface lies beneath the oceans, the seafloor remained largely uncharted until the mid-20th century. Published in 1977, the World Ocean Floor map, created by Lamont-Doherty geologists Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp, is regarded today as a landmark in oceanography and scientific cartography.
Columbia Journalism School is pleased to welcome the award-winning investigative journalists for the 2026–27 academic year. Alfonsi and Pelley will mentor students, pursue reporting projects, and bring decades of newsroom experience to the school.
Theft of the Ruby Lotus is a New York Times bestseller and the latest young-adult novel by Sayantani DasGupta, co-founder of and senior lecturer in the Master’s Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies.
Prenatal alcohol exposure—a contributor to adverse pregnancy outcomes and the leading preventable cause of neurodevelopmental disability worldwide—has increased in the United States over the past decade, according to a new study from Columbia Public Health.
Though they’re often purchased as gifts, souvenirs, or home accents, there’s more to great “coffee table books” than pretty covers. Here are just a few of the unique and visually immersive publications released by Columbia alumni over the last two decades.
Featured Event
The Scientist and the Storyteller Workshop
This two-day intensive workshop will help bridge the gap between scientific research findings and the distribution of important health information to the public. Led by a cross-disciplinary team of experts consisting of an experienced journalist and experienced public health researcher, the workshop will integrate seminar lectures with hands-on activities to put concepts into practice. This short course will train scientists to be better communicators and journalists to be better translators of scientific information. Thursday, Aug. 13 – Friday, Aug. 14
Photo of the Week
A towering public mural in honor of pioneering suffragist Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (BC 1916, TC 1918, GSAS 1921) was unveiled in Washington, D.C. last month. Created by artist Jeff Huntington, known as Jahru, the artwork celebrates Lee’s historic journey from helping lead 10,000 marchers down Fifth Avenue at age 16 to becoming the first Chinese woman in the United States to earn a doctorate.
