In a drastic step, the agreement ordered the disbanding of the tobacco industry’s former voices in public debate, the Tobacco Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), with the groups’ files to be turned over to anti-tobacco forces to pick over the once-confidential memos contained therein; furthermore, the agreement attached stringent controls to any newly formed entity that the industry might form intended to influence public discussion of tobacco. In her book on tobacco politics,Up in Smoke, University of Virginia political scientist Martha Derthick writes that ...
Is it possible to win the White House if more than half the electorate thinks you’re dishonest? Hillary Clinton may yet put that question to the test. It’s not the kind of challenge any candidate would relish, but two new polls released on Tuesday underlined the presidential hopeful’s difficulty in persuading the public of her integrity. “Her husband transcended numbers like this and it’s not crazy to think that she can as well, especially because American politics is so partisan now,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics....
For generations, physical evidence at crime scenes has been collected using techniques to reduce contamination. Technicians wear gloves on their hands, masks on their faces, bootees over their shoes. With sterile tools, they tweeze, swab and dust for hairs, bloodstains and fingerprints, and place them in individual packets for lab analysis. A review of 161 wrongful convictions found that 57 percent of the eyewitnesses had not been certain during the initial identifications but had no hesitation when testifying much later during trials, according to Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the U...
It’s not uncommon for medical students to think they have some of the very diseases they’re studying, but for one recent graduate of UVA’s med school, a classroom exercise led to life-saving surgery. In his fourth year of medical school, Cullen Timmons took a course on physical diagnosis in which students took turns using their stethoscope. He also listened to his own heart and quickly turned to his professor for a second opinion.
(By John M. Owen IV is the Ambassador Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor professor of politics and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia) Scholars, pundits and journalists often look to Western history for analogies to help us understand ongoing dynamics in the Middle East.
Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have made a dazzling discovery, published this week in Nature: the brain is directly connected to the immune system by previously unknown vessels. The discovery of these new vessels has enormous implications for every neurological disease with an immune component, from Alzheimer’s to multiple sclerosis.
An exciting new discovery has turned the medical world upside down, and could have important implications for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). It turns out that previously undiscovered vessels exist that connect the nervous system and immune system directly. Led by postdoctoral fellow Antoine Louveau, PhD, scientists at the University of Virginia studied the covering of the brain, called meninges, in mice. They discovered “functional lymphatic vessels” lining a region known as the dural sinuses, which are cerebrospinal fluid-filled c...
Analyst, electoral forecaster and University of Virginia Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics Larry J. Sabato looks to continue his streak at the Emmy Awards this year, as his massive open online course The Kennedy Half Century has been nominated in the Best Instructional Programming category.
Just as some experts are sounding the alarm about the potential for hacking into the connected car, transportation officials in Virginia say self-driving cars soon will be cruising along more than 70 miles of northern Virginia highways. The two security companies, which are working with the University of Virginia and the Pentagon, have run tests showing it is possible to hack into and disrupt a multi-sensor system. The companies also are working on a system to counter cyber attacks.
Governor McAuliffe has made four new appointments to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors. One of those is Whit Clement of Richmond, a partner in the Hunton & Williams law firm. Clement ran for attorney general after several terms in the House of Delegates from the Danville area. He also served as Secretary of Transportation on the cabinet of former governor Mark Warner.
(By Robert F. Turner, professor, associate director and co-founder of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law) On May 7, in ACLU v. Clapper, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that the controversial National Security Agency (NSA) telephone metadata collection program—involving the court-ordered collection of vast amounts of telephone bill information for subsequent computer searches to identify phone numbers that communicate with phones associated with foreign terrorists—was not authorized by Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, th...
The dean of the University of Virginia's School of Law is stepping down next summer. The Daily Progress reports Paul Mahoney announced he will leave his post in June 2016 to return to full-time teaching and scholarship. The university has formed a search committee, headed by John C. Jeffries, former dean of the Law School.
Writing for The New York Times last weekend, conservative columnist Ross Douthat predicted that polygamy could be legalized in the United States as soon as 2040 given the rate of change in its acceptance. Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project (NMP) at the University of Virginia, more or less agrees with that prediction. In a phone interview, he told The Daily Beast that there is no way to predict when or if polygamy will become law but, if it does, it could happen within “the next 20 to 30 years.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina announced a long-shot bid for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination in his hometown of Central, S.C. Monday, becoming the ninth official Republican candidate. “Even if Graham were to win South Carolina, where does he go from there?” Kyle Kondik, of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics in Charlottesville, told Monitor congressional correspondent Francine Kiefer. “Generically, he’s just not a popular guy.”
“This may be another reason why she is not answering questions. But when she does boast about the Obama administration, it strains credulity if the economy is weakening or there are signs that cause citizens to question whether the economy is stable. So absolutely it hurts Hillary Clinton and it hurts President Obama and Democrats generally,” said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia.
In Chicago, Illinois, the tax sales law was changed in 1951. This change in the law gave rise to a class of investors who made millions of dollars through fees, interest payments and acquisition of real estate. A recent study has traced the history of tax buying in Chicago amidst the fiscal crisis of the 1970s. Andrew Kahrl, from the University of Virginia, claims that tax sales shed new light on the making of contemporary municipal fiscal policies and administrative practices. In his article, published in the Journal of Urban History, Kahrl argues that by looking at this period we can e...
The Sexual Assault Advocacy Fund was launched by a University of Virginia alum in response to the now discredited Rolling Stone article about an alleged rape culture at UVa. It is now expanding its reach to help more victims of sexual assaults.
It’s been a long-established fact: The central nervous system of humans lacks the conventional lymphatic drainage system of the rest of the body. Unfortunately for anatomy textbook authors, though, the results of new study found in Nature probably mean this fact will have to be stricken from the books. The first reaction was disbelief. “I really did not believe there are structures in the body that we are not aware of. I thought the body was mapped,” said Dr. Jonathan Kipnis, who runs the University of Virginia lab where the discovery was ma...
It’s never easy to deal with sickness and death, but nurses do it every day. In her essay, UVA graduate student Melissa Beth Behl explains how and why she’s able to cope with the stress of caring for patients.
Investing money for colleges and universities is a huge responsibility usually reserved for the most experienced financial advisors. The University of Virginia is trying something different. They are allowing students to help decide how $10 million of their money is used in the market. The student-run Darden Capital Management Club makes all investing decisions for five funds with assets totaling more than $10 million.