(By Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia) Last year at this time, Democrats were in the final month of their losing battle to hold the U.S. Senate. But while licking their wounds after the election, they consoled themselves with a 2016 comeback vision. Democrats already had a candidate so credentialed she was likely to sweep to the nomination and be in a solid position to bury the eventual GOP nominee. Demographics and destiny were on Hillary Clinton’s side, and she’d help the party recapture the Senate too. What...
How did we get to the point where it is more likely you’ll end up in the can if you knock off a 7-Eleven than if you’re responsible for the financial ruin — even the death — of countless people? The author of the book Too Big to Jail, University of Virginia Law School professor Brandon Garrett, says a lack of resources when going up against heavily lawyered big businesses contributed to the Justice Department’s don’t-prosecute predilection. But he adds this: “I’m puzzled that the misbehavior of high-profile i...
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy spurred numerous conspiracy theories, many of which doubted whether sniper Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and asserting that the CIA was involved. “For a complete nobody, Oswald certainly did seem to hang out with well-connected people,” University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato, author of “The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F.Kennedy,” told Business Insider in 2013.
With OTC remedies for colds crowding self-help shelves, experts are divided on the merits of single-symptom treatment over multi-symptom therapy. Ron Eccles of Cardiff University in Wales argued in favor of multi-symptom therapy, while Ronald Turner of the University of Virginia School of Medicine held the opposite view, claiming that targeted, single-component, single-symptom therapy is the ideal approach.
The idea that leaders’ actions are heavily shaped by the position of their country and the whims of its populace has long been the prevailing opinion among political psychologists. Allan Stam, dean of the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, believes this is a misguided assumption. Stam is co-author of the forthcoming book, “Why Leaders Fight,” which argues that measurable, individual personality traits are the most accurate indicators of a political leader’s tendency toward violence and their actions during warti...
Can something as simple as watching movies—and empathizing with fictional characters—help generate more compassion and understanding in the real world? Roger Ebert thought so. “The purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people,” said Ebert in Life Itself, a 2014 documentary about late film critic’s life and career. Science supports Ebert’s theory. Dr. Jim Coan, associate professor of clinical psychology and director of the Virginia Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of V...
Will Overman may be the busiest man in Americana music. I used to think Jerry Douglas was until I met Overman, who is the front man of his band of the same name, which is affectionately referred to by fans as WOB. The 21-year-old sociology major at the University of Virginia works part-time in a soup shop and spends every other spare minute writing songs -- songs with lyrics and melodies that belie his youth -- booking gigs and marketing his band's music, which has been described as "amped-up" folk rock.
Dr. Marcus L. Martin is the recipient of this year’s Paul Goodloe McIntire Citizenship Award, given out each year by the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce. Martin — an emergency care physician by trade and former assistant dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine — wears many hats for UVa, including vice president for diversity and equity.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has added the President of the University of Virginia to its ranks. Teresa Sullivan has been inducted as a member of the Class of 2015.
It is called Indigenous Peoples' Day, and it is an alternative to celebrating Columbus Day. The reason is to honor the indigenous people who were here before Columbus arrived. When you look around at some of the statues in Charlottesville, it is clear that the role of Native Americans is downplayed in American history, at least according to Karenne Wood from the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities. Wood says there are moves to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day in Virginia. She says the University of Virginia Native American Student Union is lobbying state lawmakers to of...
Are you willing to sign your name to a dishonest statement? It may depend on how you’re asked to sign. People feel less committed when they sign electronically and are more likely to fib than when they sign by hand, new research finds. “It’s actually a cautionary tale of the price that we may be paying for convenience,” says Eileen Chou, the study’s author and an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Virginia. “People feel more removed when they’re submitting things electronically.”
Mrs. Clinton’s strong performance could undercut an incentive for Vice President Joe Biden to jump in the race, as he has been privately debating for months. His supporters have said that one possible rationale for him to run would be to campaign as Mr. Obama’s logical successor, the most unalloyed advocate for a continuation of the Obama legacy. “If Joe Biden were looking to the (debate) for a reason to jump it, he’ll have to search elsewhere,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, in a Twitter message.
Overall, Asian Americans are more educated: More than half of Asian Americans (51.5%) have a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 30% of the general U.S. population. And they earn a lot more: $74,105 in median income versus $53,657, according to Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey. But behind the numbers is another story. “There are still garment workers, and the people who give you your foot massage in Chinatown, there are still low wage workers,” said Sylvia Chong, the director of the Asian Pacific American Studies Minor at the University of Virginia. &l...
Patients who have a heart attack, stroke, respiratory failure or other emergency trauma have a better chance of survival if they were transported by basic life support ambulance rather than one equipped for advanced care, according to new research released this week. "I don't think the two groups were all that comparable," Dr. Robert E. O'Connor, professor and chair of the department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and spokesperson for the American College of Emergency Physicians, told CBS News. "It's an interesting study t...
The Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia hired its first professor of practice—a non-tenure track faculty position for distinguished professionals—this month, welcoming longtime CBS correspondent Wyatt Andrews, who graduated from UVA with honors in 1974.
It took an architect lying on the floor, sticking his head into a hole and looking up to realize: There was something there. The something initially was nothing — an empty space. But an empty space in the Rotunda that Thomas Jefferson designed at the University of Virginia is something. It’s one of the most studied buildings in the country, said Brian Hogg, senior historic preservation planner in the Office of the Architect for the University, so renowned that it is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
While the economy in the state continues to improve, Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Maurice Jones said there is a lot of risk that comes from an imbalance between the public and private sectors in job growth. Jones spoke on Tuesday at the University of Virginia Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy about “The New Virginia Economy.”
The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library will commemorate the historic lawsuit that admitted the first African-American student to the University of Virginia. Gregory Swanson, a Danville-born attorney, filed the lawsuit in 1950, along with six other lawyers from the NAACP. The case was heard in the old U.S. Post Office and Courthouse, which is now the Central Library, at 201 E. Market St. Swanson was later admitted, becoming the first black student at an all-white university in the South.
The World Bank will offer up to $1.2 million in research grants to combat sexual violence around the world as part of an initiative in memory of slain University of Virginia student Hannah Graham.