Life News (Law and Public Policy)

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As the anniversary of the landmark civil-rights legislation approaches on August 6, Manoj Mate, an associate professor with DePaul University College of Law, discusses the details and implications of these recent court rulings for the 2024 elections and the broader challenges facing voters.

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Susan G. Komen commends commends the introduction of the Access to Breast Cancer Diagnosis (ABCD) Act of 2023 in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The legislation would remove a significant financial barrier to people receiving medically necessary diagnostic and supplemental breast imaging.

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The United States has more than 10 times the number of mass shooting incidents than other developed countries, yet little research has shown the distribution and types of shootings, geographically.

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Experts on women in cinema, social media advertising, and the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict are available to comment on trending news topics for the week of July 24, 2023.

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For more than 40 years, there has been an effort to reduce nutrient loads to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee released a report on its three-year investigation into this effort. The results suggest that significant adjustments are needed to the existing programs as well as public expectations to improve its health.

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A new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that only a small number of U.S. food policies consider ultra-processed foods, lagging behind countries such as Belgium, Brazil, and Israel.

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Court decisions provide little unifying guidance on food labeling for manufacturers, with judges applying idiosyncratic reasoning to lower-court opinions. That’s why a team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign analyzed hundreds of court documents and labeling laws to provide a set of guidelines courts can follow for more consistent verdicts, which could, in turn, influence food labeling practices. Their article, published in Loyola Consumer Law Review, was recently cited by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a product labeling case.

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A new research paper from Notre Dame Law School Professor Derek T. Muller, points to a tool that is already available for courts to handle election subversion — the writ of mandamus.

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As municipalities contract with the City of Chicago to supply fresh water from Lake Michigan, a new report from University of Illinois Chicago researchers recommends that plans include supplying recycled water for industry to avoid looming issues related to the region’s water supply. 

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The United States has already experienced record-breaking high temperatures this summer, heat that threatens the lives of thousands of people. Extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States. Vulnerable populations, such as older adults, infants, outdoor workers and others, are at the greatest risk.

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The following experts from American University have availability and can discuss the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision for higher education and society at large.

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Jadrian Wooten, a Virginia Tech professor of economics, answers questions about the circumstances that led to the impasse in labor negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters and what the effects could be should UPS workers strike.

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The federal government has announced historic high-speed internet infrastructure funding through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, or BEAD.

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Rutgers Institute for Health researcher calls for policymakers to consider animal welfare in decision-making and explains benefits for doing so.

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Not all nonprofits are created equal — and some exist mainly to capitalize on a tax law loophole that allows them to anonymously funnel donations to political causes. New University of Oregon research proposes an index that rates the financial transparency of social advocacy nonprofits to give people more awareness of organizations that are funneling anonymous donations, or “dark money,” into politics.

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The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in college admissions is likely to encourage more lawsuits against other race-conscious policies, including in employment, says an employment law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.“A majority of the court has clearly expressed a general antipathy to explicitly race-based policies that are intended to improve equity,” said Pauline Kim, the Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law.

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University of Utah political scientist Baodong Liu served as an expert witness in a consequential voting rights case decided on June 8 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision in Allen v. Milligan, No. 21-1086 rejected Alabama’s congressional redistricting map because it disenfranchises African-American voters. What follows is a Q&A with Professor Liu about the issues in the case.

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Newswise offers a roundup of the latest expert commentary on the recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Susan G. Komen® filed an amicus brief supporting the U.S. Department of Justice’s request that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issue a stay in Braidwood v. Becerra.

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In an emergency televised address to the Russian people on Saturday, as Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private army of mercenaries rumbled nearly 500 miles toward Moscow on its “march for justice,” Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the traitors, vowed punishment, and compared the scenario to the turmoil that resulted in the Russian Revolution.

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In a peer-reviewed research letter published online today in JAMA, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimate that a Texas abortion ban that went into effect in September 2021 was associated with 9,799 additional live births in the state between April and December 2022.

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Prisoners in Bolivia are trading in jaguar skins and other wild animal body parts to produce wallets, hats, and belts for sale in local markets. The fangs and bones of jaguars are being illegally exported for use as traditional Asian medicine.

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As the new Ukrainian counter-offensive retakes areas of that country where war crimes may have occurred, speed and mobility by Ukrainian forces may limit Russian occupiers of the time needed remove evidence and cover up those crimes, including genocide, according to Edward Westermann, noted scholar at Texas A&M University-San Antonio.

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A new report from the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and its Peace Accords Matrix Barometer Initiative in Colombia presents the status of peace accord implementation as of November. The sixth year of implementation of the Colombian Final Accord was marked by minor variations in implementation levels.

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The startling, open challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin raises questions about Russia’s future. Virginia Tech international security expert Yannis Stivachtis shares insights on factors that led to the conflict and what to pay attention to as the consequences unfold.

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Having a defense attorney present at an initial bail hearing lowered the use of cash bail and pretrial detention without increasing the odds that a defendant won’t show up at a preliminary hearing, according to a new study co-authored by UAlbany Professor of Public Administration and Policy Shawn Bushway.

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The recent tragic loss of the Titan submersible in the depths of the North Atlantic has brought the fascinating (and very dangerous) world of Oceanography and Marine Science to the forefront. Below are some recent stories that have been added to the Marine Science channel on Newswise, including expert commentary on the Titan submersible.

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Do you have experts on abortion issues? Media are looking for commentary as they work on stories related to the 1-year anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

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The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) urged Congress to take steps to address the broken Medicare physician payment system. The formal request came as part of a House Energy and Commerce Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee hearing held yesterday on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).

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Appointed to the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History this year, Tamika Nunley is using her time at the Library of Congress to work on The Black Reproductive Justice Archive, a collection of oral histories.