Long-standing efforts to increase the number of low-income voters have been paying off. Several voting rights groups point to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission that show an increase in new voter registrations coming from public-assistance agencies. Since 1993, the National Voter Registration Act, known as the “Motor Voter Bill,” requires that voter registration be offered at DMV offices and public-assistance agencies. At the time of its passage, the law was heralded for empowering poor and working people, while detractors said it could lead to registering dead ... Read More
Eyewitness IDs Can Be Made Better
July 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
A year ago April, Alan Northrop and Larry Davis walked out of a Clark County, Wash., courthouse on the north banks of the Columbia River, across from Portland, Ore. The two had just been cleared by DNA evidence after serving 17 years in prison for rape and burglary. The real perpetrators have not been found. In the year since their exonerations, Davis and Northrop have been virtually forgotten. They were convicted in 1993 based entirely on the eyewitness identification of the victim, who said she was blindfolded and never got a clear view of her attackers. Detectives eventually got ... Read More
Noise Complaints Draw Opposition to Wind Farms
January 6, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Mike Eaton and his wife live in northeastern Oregon for the peace and quiet. But ever since wind turbines arrived on the ridge above their home two years ago, the Eatons' slice of heaven has been a nightmare. "It makes me seasick and nauseous," said Eaton, who carries a cane. "I take medication for it, but it just keeps it slightly balanced so I'm not vomiting all the time, to be honest with you." The constant swoosh-swoosh of wind turbines cutting through a downwind gust can be excruciating for Eaton. For others, like Dan Williams, who live nearby just a few miles south of the Columbia ... Read More
Stunting Stents
September 16, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The results of a three-year study showing coronary bypass grafts were often better than drug-eluting stents for patients with severe heart disease may not surprise cardiologists and astute patients who have watched the warnings for stents grow in recent years. Around 1.3 million Americans each year have angioplasty, which props open a clogged artery with a balloon and often involves a stent — what amounts to a tiny mesh-like device that acts like a permanent scaffold. About half of those patients have severe heart disease that researchers now say might be better treated with bypass ... Read More
Can Mining Provide a Renewable Energy Future?
August 22, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
It's difficult to look out over miles of waste rock and tailings from a century of copper mining in the American Southwest and see anything but environmental destruction. But a growing number of mining companies and renewable energy developers are beginning to use these vast plains of disturbed dirt as the ideal spots for large-scale solar and wind power projects. Mine sites in the region attract developers such as Tessera Solar for several reasons, said communications manager Janette Coates. Existing transmission lines, available water and roads capable of supporting wide, heavy loads ... Read More
Voting Technology Research Gets In-Depth
August 6, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
As head of the Voter Technology Research Center at the University of Connecticut, professor Alexander Shvartsman directs a team of computer scientists granted special access to the optical scanners used to count the state's paper ballots. Connecticut uses the Accuvote optical scanner by Premier Election Solutions — now Election Systems & Software — along with about 20 percent of all precincts in America. Despite certification in numerous states, it wasn't until after the scanners were on the market that widespread reports of memory loss and other problems surfaced over the past four ... Read More
Study Finds Racial Pay Disparities Among Nurses
May 10, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
When Sandra McGinnis and Jean Moore at the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the State University of New York at Albany looked at the results of a 2007 survey of close to 3,000 New York City hospital nurses, they didn’t expect to see such wide differences in pay. Conventional wisdom suggests in a world of inequality, nursing is less unequal, McGinnis said. “It’s pretty well known there are salary disparities by race and ethnicity in the wider work force, but because nursing has been a field that has these cyclical shortages, a lot of people have regarded it as some place where ... Read More
Is American Medicine Too Stent Happy?
April 17, 2010 • By • 4 Comments
Chances are you know someone with a stent. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Americans walking around today owe their lives to a miniscule piece of mesh called a coronary stent used to prop open a clogged artery. For heart attack patients, stents provide the greatest chance of recovery of any medical device out there. That's not where researchers disagree. Since 1994 when the Food and Drug Administration first approved doctors implanting stents as a voluntary procedure — for instance, to relieve chest pain from stable heart disease — the use of stents in America became more than ... Read More
Pentagon’s Claims of Gitmo Recidivism Don’t Add Up
January 22, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
As the Obama administration struggles to decide what to do with roughly 200 remaining detainees held at Guantanamo Bay prison, the Pentagon says more of those previously released may now be on the path to terrorism. The day after President Obama announced the United States would stop releasing Guantanamo prisoners to the country of Yemen, a Pentagon spokesman said the number of recidivist detainees — those who allegedly returned to terrorist activity — had increased. A similar report that surfaced in May said 1 in 7 detainees likely returned to battle. Now, the Defense Department ... Read More
Both Sides Exaggerate Effects of Public Option
November 2, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
With all the fighting over a public option in the debate over how to fix the nation's health care system, it's amazing how few journalists report a simple fact — that under both the House and Senate versions of proposed legislation, the so-called public health insurance option would only be "optional" for less than 10 percent of Americans. Each of the bills introduced so far don't take effect for another four years (incidentally following Obama's re-election bid) and seven years down the road — in 2019 — the vast majority of Americans will not have any more lawful ability to choose ... Read More
