The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse at his home threatens to exacerbate Haiti's already rampant problems. "Everything that could go wrong seems to be going wrong," says Robert Fatton, an expert on Haitian politics at the University of Virginia, and a native of Haiti himself.
(Audio and transcript) The president of Haiti was assassinated Wednesday morning in his home on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Jovenel Moise had been in office for four years. His wife, Martine, was wounded in the brazen attack. Yamiche Alcindor begins our coverage and speaks with Robert Fatton, a professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia, who has written widely on Haiti.
“I’m just dumbfounded by the event,” said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics professor from the University of Virginia. “I don’t understand how you just go inside the residence of the president, and you kill him – and then you leave. It’s all very strange. I’m not sure who is going to benefit from that …. We have no clue.”
“He had obviously many enemies,” said Robert Fatton, a professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia who has written extensively on Haiti. “There might have been some degree of complicity on the part of those protecting the president.”
(Commentary by Raymond Scheppach, professor of public policy) Across the country, states got huge infusions of cash from the federal government to help them deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic; the most recent infusion of money comes from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which was President Biden’s COVID-19 stimulus plan. The Conversation’s senior politics editor, Naomi Schalit, interviewed the University of Virginia’s Raymond Scheppach about whether the federal government gave the states more money than they needed.
Mental health problems and thoughts of suicide are common among U.S. coal miners with black lung disease, a new UVA study finds.
Eastern university gets Mormon collection: Gregory Prince has written books about Mormon priesthood, former church President David O. McKay, late historian Leonard Arrington, and gay rights within the faith. Along the way, Prince has amassed an impressive array of books, documents and other Mormon memorabilia. Now he’s donating that collection to the University of Virginia.
An East Coast university just became the leading site for the study of Mormonism outside of Utah. The University of Virginia announced the donation of more than 10,000 books and other print materials from the collection of scientist and Latter-day Saint historian Gregory A. Prince, which are now being installed in its research archive.
For Black women, navigating academia “is an existential crisis every single day,” said Meredith Clark, a UVA professor of media studies. “Every single day, you have to worry about whether the way you perform your job is going to come up as some sort of critique five, six years from now.” Clark emphasized that Hannah-Jones’s case is exceptional: Many Black female professors face much more limited options when it comes to job placement and security.
(Commentary by Anne Coughlin, Lewis F. Powell Jr. Professor of Law) When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed out Bill Cosby’s conviction for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand and barred his retrial for that crime, Cosby’s survivors reacted with shock, outrage and sorrow. The stunning reversal shows that our criminal justice system is too often not ruled by law – it’s ruled by prosecutors.
Claude Joseph has so far been the public face of the crisis, announcing Moïse’s assassination early on Wednesday morning and assuring the population the situation was under control. “We don’t really know [who is governing] – and that struggle between Joseph and Henry is not over,” said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics professor at UVA. “All the cards are up in the air. We are really still in a crisis, but the fact that they arrested the assassins may generate some calm in Haiti.”
Name, image, and likeness has been the talk of both businesses and college athletes as of late. Now Rhoback, a clothing company headquartered in Albemarle County, is setting up its own program aimed at partnering with college athletes. “The NCAA made these changes on July 1,” Matt Loftus, a co-founder of Rhoback, said. “That day we received hundreds of messages from college athletes across the country. We had to start a program. ‘Rhoback U’ was our answer.” The pool of applicants is nearly 1,000 athletes from all corners of the country, including the University of Virginia.
In her latest book, “The Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright,” architectural historian Lisa D. Schrenk, the former education director for the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust, delves into the evolution of Wright’s studio in Oak Park from 1898 to 1909.
Capt. Joe Amoroso, USA, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 2012. A decade later, after service in the 82nd Airborne and a deployment to Iraq, he will return to West Point as an instructor of American Politics. But first this MOAA member is wrapping up his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and could use your help for his thesis. Amoroso is surveying veterans on political engagement and participation. All veterans are invited to participate. Survey questions will explore voter behavior, perceptions of government, and running for office.
Republicans need just one seat to claim the Senate. Five seats for House control. “If Republicans don’t win the House, I think it would be a pretty significant surprise and a real, almost an embarrassing, result,” observed University of Virginia political forecaster Kyle Kondik.
Many men who suffer from black lung disease also face depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder, according to a study out of the University of Virginia.
A new study has found that many current and former coal miners who are suffering from black lung disease are also struggling with depression. Researchers at the University of Virginia found more than a third are facing this issue, and more than a tenth have recently considered suicide.
As the businesses world increasingly recognizes mental health as critical to an employee’s overall health, research is showing more than one-third of coal miners, both current and former ones diagnosed with black lung, are struggling with depression, the University of Virginia School of Medicine reported. Further, more than 1-in-10 have recently considered suicide.
(Commetnary) So what is a “super course”? Let’s start with a few examples: In a course at the University of Virginia, undergraduates work with young inmates in a maximum-security prison to contemplate the big questions that propelled Tolstoy, Turgenev, and other Russian writers.
Nine leading U.S. schools and colleges of architecture, planning, and design have co-founded the Deans' Equity and Inclusion Initiative to work together to nurture a diverse population of emerging scholars focused on teaching and researching the built environment to advance socio-ecological and spatial justice, equity, and inclusion. Partners in the Deans’ Initiative include the University of Virginia School of Architecture.