Short Reads

Becoming caught up in a serious ethics scandal isn’t necessarily a career-ender for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. It turns out only about a quarter exit the political stage through resignation or retirement.  The rest choose to seek re-election despite the blot on their records—and two-thirds of them win. This scandal scorecard comes […]

Last week, San Francisco Bay area television station KTVU broadcast fake names for the pilots of the Asiana Airline flight that crashed on July 6. The error involved ethnic stereotyping, leading the Asian American Journalists Association to assert that these kinds of mistakes “underscored the importance of newsroom diversity” at America’s media outlets. A similar […]

Liz Cheney’s decision to challenge Sen. Mike Enzi for re-election sets up a primary contest where the main difference appears to be generational, not ideological: Cheney, the 46-year-old daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and Enzi, Wyoming’s 69-year-old third-term senior senator, both are conservative Republicans. “I think that part of the problem in Washington […]

A new study of cultural diversity and economic development measures the amount of cultural diversity in each of more than 180 countries.

Four in 10 U.S. adults are caring for a loved one with significant health issues.

While the Senate appears to have reached a deal on executive-branch appointments that heads off a showdown over filibuster rules, the fact that the confrontation went as far as it did points up the increasingly polarized state of Congress. From immigration reform to food stamps to student loans, it almost seems as if congressional Republicans and Democrats inhabit […]

The response on Twitter to George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin was almost equally divided between sharing news about the verdict and weighing in on it. And among those offering opinions about the outcome, their conclusion was very different from the jurors’. According to a new Pew Research Center analysis of nearly […]

45% of Americans say Congress should change the law to address sexual-assault problems in the military.

On Monday, the Mexican military captured Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, leader of the Zetas, one of the major Mexican drug cartels. Treviño Morales is wanted in Mexico and the United States for charges of drug trafficking, murder, torture, kidnapping and extortion, among other crimes. Mexican armed forces made the arrest early Monday morning after a […]

Just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decisions on same-sex marriage, LGBT advocates are ramping up legal efforts to expand marriage rights for gays and lesbians at the state level. In five states – Arkansas, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas – gay marriage supporters have filed new lawsuits seeking to legalize same-sex […]