The allegations against Collins give a boost to Democrat Nate McMurray, the town supervisor of Grand Island, in a western New York district outside Buffalo that overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016. "A strong Democratic year combined with a potentially damaged candidate means this should be on the competitive radar," according to Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the election forecaster Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia, which also shifted its rating of the race.
(Commentary) Tuesday's results "fell right in line with expectations based on all the of the other data we have," said Geoffrey Skelley, associate editor at Crystal Ball, a political analysis website hosted by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "The range of outcomes is mostly favorable to Democrats — and if Republicans do retain the House, it will be by an extremely narrow margin."
(Commentary) Ohio native Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said the GOP’s narrow lead in the special election “is very much in line with what we’ve seen all over the country in special elections this cycle: Democrats often running well ahead of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance.”
“Nothing that happened on Tuesday night suggests that the environment is improving for Republicans. They barely held a traditionally GOP seat in Ohio,” said Kyle Kondik, an analyst at the University of Virginia‘s Center for Politics, who added that other results showed “a House playing field that is expanding, not contracting,”
As the general election campaign gets underway, going negative on Sharice Davids – Kansas’s first openly gay, Native American nominee for Congress – could present pitfalls for Republican congressman Kevin Yoder. “I do think there’s potential because of the education level of the district, and it’s got a decently sized non-white population, there’s a chance for blowback” from negative ads or campaigning, said Geoffrey Skelley, political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
If Colyer goes on to lose by the current margin, “it will actually be the closest loss for any gubernatorial incumbent candidate in any primary ever,” said Geoffrey Skelley, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics whose research dates to the 19th century.
You’ve heard this advice over and over again, but it’s worth repeating: Spending time online right before bed (or in bed) is a recipe for poor sleep. First there was evidence that the type of blue light our devices emit could disrupt our circadian sleep rhythms. “When you take smartphones out of the bedroom, people sleep better and longer, and they’re more focused the next day,” says Kostadin Kushlev, a psychology research scientist at the University of Virginia who has studied the effects of smartphones on human health.
Recreational marijuana has roughly 10 to 30 percent THC in its dry weight of flowers, said Michael Timko, professor of biology and public health sciences at the University of Virginia. Industrial hemp has .3 percent or less. But the industrial strain, which was widely grown in colonial Virginia to make fiber for rope and other products, became lumped over time with the recreational strain. And both were stigmatized and suppressed in the early 20th century.
The number of births in Virginia continues declining, reaching the lowest level in years in 2017 — only 100,248. A decade before, births had numbered 108,884. Demographers Savannah Quick and Shonel Sen at the Demographics Research Group at the University of Virginia attribute the overall dip in fertility decline to a dramatic decline for 15- to 19-year-olds and 20- to 24-year-olds and a slight increase for 30- to 24-year-olds and 35- to 39-year-olds. In other words, many women are postponing childbirth, not choosing not to have children.
(Commentary) A new book entitled “Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects us and Undermines Democracy” questions whether Facebook is really a tool for democracy. The author, Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, argues that one reason why there is nothing like Facebook is the fact that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, did not have a vision of what Facebook could be like in the future. The author believes that Zuckerberg simply decided to take an existing dating app one step further and change the world via engagement. He points out that Facebook’s enga...
They weighed in on how they think the First Amendment unfairly protects white supremacy. “Just in the past year, we've seen a variety of examples in which the term ‘free speech’ or the abstract concept of free speech has worked to the advantage of white supremacists and against anti-racist activists,” Ben Doherty, a research historian at the University of Virginia’s law school, said.
(By Elisabeth Becker, postdoctoral fellow in sociology) As a New York chauvinist born to a Jewish mother and Baptist father, I had no more expected to join a shul than live in the South. But there I was, in Charlottesville, on a whirlwind trip to find my small family (son, husband, me) an apartment, after accepting a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia.
The Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses announces its 2018 AORN Go Clear Gold Award recipients. AORN partnered with Medtronic to create the award, which is given to hospitals – including the UVA Health System’s Outpatient Surgery Center – that successfully complete AORN's Surgical Smoke-Free Recognition Program. The program seeks to ensure a smoke-free environment for the hospital perioperative team and patients.
BlackDoctor.org, a health and wellness website for African-Americans, announced its 2018 Top Hospitals For Diversity, honoring hospitals – including the UVA Health System – that deliver high quality care while promoting equity and inclusion in their operations, programs, services and staffing.
(Commentary) When late U.S. Sen. Russell Long learned that the White House had killed an appropriations line item for a Shreveport post office, which was his own personal pet project, the Louisiana lawmaker picked up the phone and called his fellow Democrat, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. The men had been freshmen senators together, they were old friends and they both knew that all politics were local. The resulting exchange, secretly recorded by Johnson from the Oval Office, is now housed and maintained by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
With move-in weekend for University of Virginia students fast approaching, a grassroots organization is increasing its staff to help get more young people registered to vote before November's midterm elections.
Gloria Graham, who works for the University of Virginia, says the Level 1 Trauma Center hospital is ready. Graham also added that UVA is working to make the weekend a period of reflection versus the violence seen at the university last year. “We don't expect to get instant grace for things that folks think that didn't go well in times past,” says Graham. “But what we ask is that you join us in moving forward and reflecting."
On Wednesday, the NEH announced $43.1 million in grants for projects across the country, including three at the University of Virginia.
Cody Nystrom, 35, is a venture capitalist who makes health care investments for SJF Ventures, where she is a managing director. For the UVA engineering alumna, it was important for her work to align with her values. “I was raised by two hippie parents in a remote area of Alaska about 45 minutes from Fairbanks. They would have probably died at the time if they had been told I would end up in a career in finance,” Nystrom says.
William Brangham talks with Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.