Amputation and death: Another Wisconsin lumber company is fined for violations of workplace safety
A lumber company in northeastern Wisconsin has been fined nearly $300,000 by federal safety regulators for continuing to expose workers to amputation and other dangers years after an employee was killed on the job. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health...
Study finds secondhand smoke could significantly contribute to higher lead levels found in youth
By Genny Carrillo, Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health, Texas A&M University; Taehyun Roh, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Texas A&M University Secondhand smoke may be an important but overlooked source of chronic lead exposure...
Fallout from political tentions continues to damage long-cultivated academic ties between U.S. and China
In the 1980s, Fu Xiangdong was a young Chinese virology student who came to the United States to study biochemistry. More than three decades later, he had a prestigious professorship in California and was conducting promising research on Parkinson’s disease. But...
1776 Betrayed: How Trump whitewashes his crimes by calling the January 6 insurrectionists “patriots”
Three years to the day after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to prevent the counting of the electoral ballots that would make Democrat Joe Biden president, officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested three fugitives wanted in connection...
Limits of religion: How “In God We Trust” laws tests in public schools are used to push Christian Nationalism
By Frank S. Ravitch, Professor of Law & Walter H. Stowers Chair of Law and Religion, Michigan State University When Louisiana passed a law in August 2023 requiring public schools to post “In God We Trust” in every classroom, from elementary school to college, the...
Morgue to medical school: Why cadavers of the poor and vulnerable can be dissected without consent
By Eli Shupe, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of Medical Humanities and Bioethics, University of Texas at Arlington Every year, first-year medical students approach their human cadavers with a mixture of awe and trepidation. They will come to know...
Immoral minority: Why SCOTUS puts First Amendment rights for Christians before equal protection for all
By Pauline Jones, Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan; and Andrew Murphy, Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan When the Supreme Court ruled in 303 Creative v. Elenis in 2023 that a businessperson could not be compelled to create...
We nearly lost America: President Joe Biden condemns Trump for his bloody riot on January 6 anniversary
President Joe Biden warned on January 5 that Donald Trump’s efforts to retake the White House in 2024 pose a grave threat to the country, the day before the third anniversary of the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol by then-President Trump’s supporters...
Consumer gloom: Why Americans continue to worry about the economy despite falling inflation
Inflation reached its lowest point in two-and-a-half years at the end of 2023. The unemployment rate has stayed below 4% for the longest stretch since the 1960s. The U.S. economy also repeatedly defied predictions of a coming recession. Yet according to a raft of...
A crisis for democracy: Collapse of local news outlets accelerates despite efforts to save vital journalism
The decline of local news in the United States is speeding up despite attention paid to the issue, to the point where the nation has lost one-third of its newspapers and two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2005. An average of 2.5 newspapers closed each week...
If it bleeds, it leads: When network TV learned how to profit from the Kennedy assassination
By Michael J. Socolow, Professor of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine In journalism, bad news sells. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a famous industry catchphrase, which explains why violent crime, war and terrorism, and natural disasters are ubiquitous on...
Earthquake in Japan shatters the peace of New Year’s Day and revives trauma from 2011 triple disasters
The powerful earthquake that shattered the peace of New Year’s Day in central Japan did not spur massive tsunamis like those that scoured the Pacific coast in 2011, killing nearly 20,000 people and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes. The...
