President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he plans to nominate former Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan as administrator of the General Services Administration, a powerful position whose previous occupant played a role in his delayed transition to the presidency. Carnahan earned a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.
The student group’s 2020 Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard found that Gibson Dunn conducted the second most anti-climate litigation of any law firm with its representation of oil and gas exploration, development and production companies. “It’s unacceptable that a supposedly prestigious firm like Gibson Dunn has no standard guiding its fossil fuel work other than profit,” said Jeremy Kemp, a University of Virginia School of Law student, and member of the group.
Luminiferous aether became the answer. It was the medium that light travelled through, an invisible substance all around us that couldn't be felt the way air could, but just existed. It was the stuff that waved when light moved, the same way that air waved when sound moved. With that, scientists went on to measure the "aether wind." Michael Fowler from the University of Virginia explains that, under the assumption of the aether, the Earth moves through it while orbiting the sun. Therefore, the aether should be felt rushing past the Earth (like if you ran your hand through water), and ligh...
Aynne Kokas, author of Hollywood Made in China and assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia in the US, says Chinese movie producers face the double bind of producing commercially viable films that meet the demands of Chinese censors. “Political content [from China] tends to present a challenge overseas,” she says.
The Democratic primary for a Pennsylvania Senate seat that’s key to future control of the chamber is shaping up to be expensive and crowded, with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman setting the pace with a substantial early cash haul. Fetterman’s receipt of $3.9 million in first quarter contributions already is starting to affect the 2022 race to replace retiring Republican Patrick Toomey, according to outside analysts and campaign aides. “It certainly helps” get him attention and support from national Democrats seeking to expand their majority, said J. Miles Coleman, an analyst at the UVA Center for Poli...
Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said, regarding substance abuse generally, that it was “now so widespread that it’s hard to see how there could be prejudice around it."
The intense focus on anti-Asian violence in America comes as the Biden administration is seeking to rebuild its credibility and popularity in the region, where the U.S. has recently condemned human rights abuses in Myanmar and Xinjiang, China. "It's a smear on the ability of the U.S. to advocate for human rights globally," said Aynne Kokas, a media studies professor focusing on U.S.-China relations at the University of Virginia.
When UVA professor and activist Jalane Schmidt, who has advocated for the removal of the statues and led historical tours recontextualizing them, heard the news last week, she felt a mixture of excitement and sadness. “I wish this could have happened several years ago. We lost three people,” says Schmidt, referring to the deaths of Heather Heyer and two Virginia State Police troopers during the Unite the Right rally. “Things should have never gone this far.”
(Commentary) Thus you get the seemingly incongruous but immensely revealing cooperation, starting in the 1950s and continuing today, between white supremacists and “libertarians.” Who thereby show their true colors. Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains” is illuminating on this point. Her book describes the career of the influential Nobel laureate economist James M. Buchanan [once a UVA faculty member], one of the founders of public choice theory, which is devoted to the impeccably capitalist goal of exposing and explaining the systematic failures of government.
(Video) Dr. Gregory Madden is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Virginia, specializing in infectious disease and epidemiology. We recently spoke with Dr. Madden as part of our “VADOC in Focus” video series. In this interview, Dr. Madden discusses vaccine hesitancy and addresses concerns about COVID-19 vaccine side effects and safety. He also examines the risks of not receiving the vaccine.
Drug maker AstraZeneca has come under scrutiny for its COVID-19 vaccine. While it is not approved for use in the United States, reports connecting it to a small number of rare blood clots in Europe have raised concerns across the globe. “The safety concern is that there's been a very low incident of blood clots in patients that have received […] the AstraZeneca vaccine,” said University of Virginia infectious disease expert Dr. William Petri. “It's one specific kind of clot, which makes one concerned about whether that could be a side effect since it's not your everyday blood clot.”
The odd dreams that many people report to have experienced after getting their shots were not not reported in clinical trials for the vaccines, according to Dr. William A. Petri, the chief of the division infectious diseases at the University of Virginia. “The CDC is accumulating self-reported data from the millions of people receiving the vaccine. This will help us gather more information on the rare side effects,” he says.
A March survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that among Republican adults, 29% say they “definitely will not” get the vaccine. For white evangelical Christians, it’s 28%. “I think that we’re all, at heart, altruistic,” said Dr. Bill Petri, who studies infectious diseases at UVA. “We want to help other people, and gosh, what better opportunity to be helpful to other people than to yourself be vaccinated?”
(Editorial) The legislature has no vetoes from Gov. Ralph Northam to override but does face a stack of bills that he’s sent back with amendments. The one we are most concerned about is the amendment he wants to attach to the bill abolishing the coal tax credits — an amendment that recommends the state’s savings be directed to the University of Virginia’s College at Wise “for the expansion of course offerings in data science, computer science, cybersecurity, and renewable energy.”
The legislature will also consider an amendment to legislation that would phase out two coal subsidy programs. The amendment would send the money saved by the state to the University of Virginia’s College at Wise in Southwest Virginia.
Timothy Beatley, author of “The Bird-Friendly City: Creating Safe Urban Habitats,” is an expert in environmental planning and policy at the University of Virginia and a longtime advocate for intertwining the built and natural environments. Here he takes readers on a global tour of cities that are reducing the risks birds face in urban areas.
(Commentary) In a 2002 oral history for UVA’s Miller Center, Caspar W. Weinberger, the implacable Soviet foe who served seven years as Reagan’s defense secretary, described Nancy as “a strong influence” on her husband, persistently pulling him toward “closer relationships with the Soviet Union.” Weinberger noted that Nancy “was more receptive to the idea of forming a working relationship with the then-Soviets than some of the rest of us were, and more willing to trust them. She believed strongly in his negotiating capabilities.”
Researchers at the UVA Cancer Center say they’ve made a discovery that could revive a cancer treatment originally thought not to work. It is an antibody treatment for solid cancer tumors like ovarian, colon, and triple negative breast cancers. Originally the treatment had an unintended effect, suppressing a person’s immune system in clinical trials. Now researchers say they’ve figured out a way to make it work.
UVA researchers have published a new study that could revitalize once-promising treatments that help fight solid cancer tumors, the university announced on Monday. The research successfully laid out why the immunotherapy treatments targeting ovarian, colon and triple-negative breast cancer, succeeded in lab tests but failed in human trials.
“Foundations of diversity and inclusion” is offered by the University of Virginia and explains how power and privilege play out in organizations. It also covers how companies can turn calls for action into new policies, how to have difficult conversations around race and power at work, and how to begin to root out bias in hiring practices.