state

24Oct

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

BUSINESS, POLITICS

State Politics And Election Corporate Spending Can Affect Everything From Your Wallet To Your Health

Political spending by corporations is big business. As one corporate executive with experience in business-government relations says, “A company that is dependent on government that does not donate to politicians is engaging in corporate malpractice.” Our research group heard that statement during a series of interviews with industry insiders that we conducted for a study on corporate political strategy and involvement in U.S. state politics. In the 2020 election cycle, private interests spent US$486 million on campaign contributions to U.S. federal election candidates and over $7 billion to lobby Congress and federal agencies. The 2022 cycle could be a record period if recent trends are any indication. At the federal level, nine of the 10 most expensive Senate races to date happened du...

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism, LGBTQ

The State-by-State Penis Size Survey

Does Penis Size Really Matter? It Does in Some States! There are jokes to mask it and articles that say it's no biggie, but men are still obsessed with the age-old question: Does penis size really matter? It's probably such a pervasive question because it really can't be answered. It's probably because the question is unfinished. It completely depends on what it matters for - making a baby, giving unknown pleasure, opening doors a foot back - but that part of the equation is never stated. Instead, it leaves a lot to be considered to fit all the possibilities. That could be the reason why many men put so much emphasis on it, which may be why many women don't want to give an opinion. However, a man's penis size has become a sort of perceived reflection of who he is. If he is powerful. If...

Newly Enacted State Laws Don’t All Hold Up Under Closer Review Of Claims Of Voter Suppression

11Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

Newly Enacted State Laws Don’t All Hold Up Under Closer Review Of Claims Of Voter Suppression

Derek T. Muller, University of Iowa As states across the U.S. enact new laws relating to elections, there have been efforts to capture, in aggregate, the effects of those laws. Reports, found in both journalism and advocacy group statements, that new election laws will “restrict” voting or have an “anti-voter” effect misrepresent what many of the laws will do. On July 14, 2021, a story in The Washington Post described what it called “voting restrictions,” citing figures from a website called the “Voting Rights Lab,” and noted that “17 states had enacted 32 laws with provisions that tighten rules for voting and election administration.” The Voting Rights Lab describes itself as working to “build winning state legislative campaigns that secure, protect, and defend the voting rights of all ...

State Laws Are Beginning To Recognize That Domestic Violence Isn’t About Just Physical Violence

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism, SEX & RELATIONSHIPS

State Laws Are Beginning To Recognize That Domestic Violence Isn’t About Just Physical Violence

Three or more U.S. women are murdered every day by their current or former intimate partner. That may in part be due to a failure of state laws to capture the full range of behavior that constitutes domestic abuse. The law continues to treat intimate partner violence like a bar fight – considering only what happened in a given incident and not all the prior abuse history, such as intimidation and entrapment. Research shows, however, that domestic abuse is not about arguments, short tempers and violent tendencies. It’s about domination and control. Men who kill their female partners usually dominate them first – sometimes without physical violence. Indeed, for 28% to 33% of victims, the homicide or attempted homicide was the first act of physical violence in the relationship. Most state...

A Plan That Would Attract More Students To The State’s Flagship Colleges Failed – The Texas Top 10% Plan

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

A Plan That Would Attract More Students To The State’s Flagship Colleges Failed – The Texas Top 10% Plan

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea A 22-year-old Texas initiative – meant to broaden the pool of high schools whose graduates attend public universities after affirmative action was banned – has made little difference in who enrolls at Texas’ two flagship public universities, according to our new research. The Texas Top 10% Plan guarantees college admission to any four-year public Texas institution for students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class. Our recent study, currently undergoing peer review, found that in high schools with no history of sending students to Texas A&M or the University of Texas at Austin, only about half sent a student to either flagship campus in the five-year period after the plan started in 1998....

Only Congress Can Make Puerto Rico The 51st State In The United States

14Dec

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

Only Congress Can Make Puerto Rico The 51st State In The United States

Puerto Ricans requested statehood on Nov. 3, 2020, with 52.3% of voters asking to change the island’s status from unincorporated territory to U.S. state. This is the sixth time statehood has been on the ballot since Puerto Rico ratified its Constitution in 1952. Voters rejected the status change in 1967, 1993 and 1998. The 2012 election results were unclear because some voters did not answer both parts of a two-part statehood question. In 2017 statehood won decisively, albeit with very low turnout of around 23%. Puerto Rico didn’t become the 51st state then, and it is unlikely to achieve statehood any time soon. Only Congress can add new states to the Union, via an Admission Act or House Resolution that requires approval by a simple majority in the House and Senate. Territorial status T...

Failure to shore up state budgets may hit women’s wallets especially hard

30Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

Failure to shore up state budgets may hit women’s wallets especially hard

States are seeing enormous budget shortfalls because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the consequences for teachers and other public school employees could be dire. At least 640,000 education jobs in state and local government vanished between February and August 2020. The states, which provide an average of about 47% of U.S. public school funding, are cutting school spending because their tax revenue is declining and they have no easy recourse to balance their budgets; unlike the federal government, states can’t just print money. Negotiations continue around another pandemic relief bill, which would include money for states to spend on public education. But lawmakers have passed no measures since May, when the House of Representatives passed a US$3 trillion coronavirus relief bill that ...

State prosecutors and voters – not the feds – can hold corrupt officials accountable

12Jun

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LAW ENFORCEMENT

State prosecutors and voters – not the feds – can hold corrupt officials accountable

Two high-ranking officials with ties to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hatched a plot in 2013 to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, a town adjacent to the George Washington Bridge – the busiest bridge in the world. The reason for targeting the mayor: his refusal to endorse Christie for reelection. To inflict pain on the mayor, the aides ordered lane closures on the bridge under the guise of a sham “traffic study,” causing massive backups – with school buses idling in traffic for hours and emergency vehicles and ambulances blocked. A public uproar ensued. The press swarmed, the plot unraveled and the state legislature began an investigation, as did the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Two aides were charged and convicted under a federal wire-fraud statute for misusing fede...

The secondhand smoke you’re breathing may have come from another state

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

The secondhand smoke you’re breathing may have come from another state

Scientists estimate that each year in the U.S., outdoor air pollution shortens the lives of about 100,000 people by one to two decades. As it turns out, much of this pollution originates not in a person’s own neighborhood, but up to hundreds or even thousands of miles away in neighboring states. And, absent strong federal regulations, there’s very little Americans can do about it. In a study published on Feb. 12, we used state-of-the-art modeling to estimate the number of air pollution-related deaths that combustion emissions – those from any kind of burning, from cook stoves to car engines to coal power plants – from each state have caused in every other state over the past 14 years. On average, 41% of these air pollution deaths in the U.S. resulted from what we call “secondhand smok...

18Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL JUSTICE

How Babies Adapt to Their Mother’s Physiological State

The classic image at New Year's where old Father Time represents the year just ended while the bannered New Year's baby emerges onstage, heralds the iconic star of a conference I attended in San Diego recently. Sponsored by the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH) the international congress addressed the scientific and psycho-social discoveries centered on "the conscious baby." Founded in 1983 by Canadian psychiatrist Thomas R. Verny MD, and David Chamberlain PhD, the APPPAH started as a small group of people who shared an interest in the sensitivity and consciousness of babies. Membership chair and parental educator Barbara Decker explains, "Their premise is that babies are having experiences in the womb-welcoming or not being welcomed, experiencing fear...