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Midterm Elections 2014: This Is Where We Break It Down for You
If the commercial breaks between your must-watch shows are clogged with silly attack ads or your street is lined with yard signs, chances are you’re finally realizing an election is coming. Only five days away, we’re in the final stretches of some of the bloodiest (metaphorically speaking) political campaigning in recent memory as Democrats and…
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Midterm Elections: What Do Black Women Want?
Making sense of high-profile House, Senate and gubernatorial races this tight will mean breaking down every voting bloc into microscopic bits of data to parse in the postmortem. And of all the big mysteries that will be closely watched and dissected on Nov. 4, few will be as anxiously anticipated as the exit polling for…
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Do You Know Who’s Running for District Attorney? Here’s Why You Should
It’s bad enough only 15 percent of us will be passing through the polling station for one of the most important elections of our time. You can imagine that barely a slice of voters know or care about the local prosecutor running for office. And yet that position commands as much control over our daily…
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Long-Term Unemployed Are Largely Ignored in a Recovering Economy
Is it a recovering economy or not? That’s one of the great, persistent mysteries stumping modern economists and pundits. Most obviously don’t think so—a recent Politico poll tells the story of a national mood in perpetual funk. The answer is not that simple, and it’s hidden in pockets of partisan quackery obfuscating a solution. Each…
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Democratic Candidates Must Work Harder to Lock in Black Voters
It’s hard not to see this coming. Democrats will be popping Tylenols in bed the morning of Nov. 5—only hours after election-night returns stream in. And once political junkies sort out the scorched earth, some will point not only to the absence of usually reliable, Democratic-leaning black voters at the polls but also to the…
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Nigeria and Boko Haram Reach Cease-Fire Deal; Girls Reported to Be Released
A cease-fire deal has been reached between the Nigerian government and notorious Islamic militant group Boko Haram, according to a number of sources. Details are still emerging, but BBC reported earlier Friday that “Nigeria’s military says it has agreed a truce with Islamist militant group Boko Haram—and says the schoolgirls the group has abducted will…
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If Black Voters Don’t Show Up for Midterms, ‘Shame on Them’
What we do know is this year’s midterm Senate races will be tight—what we don’t know is just how tight. Despite constant spinning in the news cycle, most Americans either don’t know a big election is coming up or don’t care. In the last major midterm of 2010, only 41 percent of voters turned out…
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Something Fishy Is Going on With Ferguson’s Voter Rolls
Something fishy is going down in Ferguson, Mo.—and it’s not just with the cops. While that hint of something not quite right grows with each passing retaliatory arrest and botched grand jury probe, the extent is still unclear. But at one time, political change in the wake of Michael Brown’s killing seemed like a…
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Why Send the Military and Not Medicine to Ebola-Stricken Africa?
Ebola had been on blast since the spring, but despite the thousands of West Africans dying from it, few in the U.S. thought seriously that it would ever hit American shores. Then 42-year-old Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan arrived in Dallas, dispelling any notion that the often fatal virus wouldn’t cross the Atlantic. Now Americans…
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Where Ebola Meets Concerns Over Race, Class and the Uninsured
It’s a question that’s left people scratching their heads: How does a fully equipped hospital send an Ebola-infected man home—right after he arrived from West Africa and complained about being sick? Some observers and public health experts are beginning to wonder if there’s an elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about:…
