Under Threat: Milwaukee election workers still face harassment from Trump voters who push the Big Lie
For decades, election officials have largely been invisible, working out of the public spotlight to ensure the machinery of elections runs smoothly. But as Trump and allies target that machinery as part of an effort to insist something was amiss in 2020, those...
Ambition vs. Public Good: Our founding freedom was not meant to allow people do whatever they want
By Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino President Joe Biden has mandated vaccines for a large part of the American workforce, a requirement that has prompted protest from those opposed to the measure. Meanwhile, a similar move in New...
Local immigrant rights allies pressure Democrats to keep their promises and deliver a path to citizenship
Organizations allied with Latino and immigrant communities are keeping up the pressure on the Biden administration and Democrats to deliver on immigration reform on October 28. The immigrant workers’ rights group Voces de la Frontera organized a rally outside the...
No perfect time: Why a lingering stain of homophobia has kept major league baseball in the closet
By Peter Dreier, E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, Occidental College In his 1990 autobiography, “Behind the Mask: My Double Life in Baseball,” Dave Pallone, a gay major league umpire who was quietly fired in 1988 after rumors about his sexual...
Día de los Muertos: How commercialization has transformed the Day of the Dead holiday
By Mathew Sandoval, Lecturer in Culture & Performance, Arizona State University As a Mexican-American who celebrates Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, at the end of October and beginning of November, I have noted an increasing concern the past several...
Halloween 2021: Simple safety tips to minimize risks from the Delta variant while trick-or-treating
By Meg Sorg, Clinical Assistant Professor of Nursing, Purdue University The air is getting chillier, pumpkins are perched on porches, and kids across the country are planning their spooky costumes. As a professor of pediatric nursing and a mom to four young children,...
The Great Vampire Epidemic: How the myth of Dracula was born from disease and folklore
By Stanley Stepanic, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia The vampire is a common image in today’s pop culture, and one that takes many forms: from Alucard, the dashing spawn of Dracula in the PlayStation game “Castlevania:...
Human cost of climate change: Millions of urban families at risk from dangerous weather exposure
By Cascade Tuholske, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia Climate School, Columbia University; Chris Funk, Director of the Climate Hazards Center, University of California Santa Barbara; and...
Fossil fuels and global warming: What Big Oil knew about climate change and kept secret from the public
By Benjamin Franta, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Stanford University Four years ago, I traveled around America, visiting historical archives. I was looking for documents that might reveal the hidden history of climate change and when the major coal, oil and gas...
Republican Rule: Gerrymandered election maps would ensure minority dominance of Wisconsin for decades
Wisconsin’s top Republicans unveiled new political district lines on October 20 that would help preserve their majorities in the Legislature until 2032 and increase the odds that Republicans will win six out of eight of state’s congressional seats. The...
A future default: The political game of chicken over the debt ceiling has real-life consequences
By Michael Humphries, Deputy Chair of Business Administration, Touro College Congress has seemingly kicked the debt ceiling deadline down the road, but the threat of a future default still exists. On October 7, 2021, lawmakers in the Senate agreed to extend the...
Falling Behind: 40% of American families struggle with financial problems made worse by the pandemic
Nearly 40% of U.S. households have faced serious financial problems, including struggling to afford medical care and food, in the last few months, according to a survey published on October 11. The survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard TH...
