Recently, Jonathan Mattingly has been a detective of sorts, delving into partisan gerrymandering in North Carolina. (Gerrymandering is when one party manipulates voting districts for their own gain.) Mattingly is chair of the math department at Duke and his mathematical analysis of the state’s 13 Congressional districts was used in a court ruling that declared the state's maps unconstitutional. He says what he uncovered in his research could be used to address gerrymandering in other states.

A panel of federal judges recently declared North Carolina's Congressional maps unconstitutional. (Congressional maps divide the state into voting districts.) The maps had been drawn by Republicans and tilted heavily in their favor. The ruling required lawmakers to redraw the maps by the end of January 2018, but the U.S. Supreme Court has put that ruling on hold.

Recently Tom Ross ran a bipartisan simulation which demonstrated how independent redistricting in the state might work. Lessons learned in North Carolina could be applied to other states who are grappling with these issues.

Tom Ross is president of the Volcker Alliance, which is working to rebuild public trust in government. He is the first Terry Sanford Distinguished Fellow at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

The algorithms that determine what we see on social media platforms wield a lot of power, especially when it comes to the news that people see. Facebook made big news recently when the company tweaked its algorithm. And did you know some real news stories are not written by humans, but by smart algorithm?

Kelly Brownell discusses the promise and peril of algorithms with Phil Napoli. Napoli was recently awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to explore this topic more closely.

Phil Napoli's upcoming book is titled "Media Technocracy: The Rise of Algorithmic News and the Future of the Marketplace of Ideas."

Recently, the Charlotte Observer ran a powerful five-part series that revealed shocking practices inside the state’s prison system. The investigation exposed correctional officers running contraband rings and collaborating with gang members. As a result of that series, the state commissioned a study to see whether best practices from other state prison systems could be implemented in North Carolina. The authors of the study, Caitlin Saunders and Joel Rosch, discuss their findings.