What drove Binh Thai Luc, 35, to be charged this week with slaying five people in a San Francisco home last week? The grisly murders have rocked the city and left investigators and the public searching for a motive. News media reports have suggested that the killer may have been trying to collect on gambling debts. Although gambling addiction affects every group, researchers have found unusually high levels among Asians.
The primary issue before the U.S. Supreme Court this week is the debate over whether the federal government can compel people to buy a product, in this case health insurance. But just as important is the secondary challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) expansion of Medicaid to cover million of currently uninsured, low-income people. If this is upended, it could flood the courts with legal challenges to a wide range of other laws on everything from environmental protection to civil rights.
For the first time in over two decades, I am no longer a driver. Facing spiking gas prices and much-needed repairs, I finally donated my Toyota Corolla to an organization that takes care of orphans. It's an odd feeling to be on this side of being green. Without a car, my sense of time and space has been immediately altered. What was once a matter of expediency is now an effortful navigation.
Most undocumented immigrants in Arizona either can’t afford private health insurance or don’t qualify for state insurance programs for low-income families. As a result, many seek alternative ways of meeting their health care needs by tapping into an underground market for medications, including birth control pills.
The merry month of March might well have marked the beginning of the end of political lunacy in the United States, replaced by a refreshing maturity among the electorate——never mind the various fevered fanatics currently holding public office, or hoping to. Signs are numerous that zealotry has had its day in the sun, and that radical pragmatism, if you will, shall be the Zeitgeist come November.
Curious historians, cultural fanatics, stumped friends, and inquisitive introverts alike may turn to advice columns. In the age in which columns are run by anonymous “therapists,” in which answers are archived and extremely accessible, and in which screens can be more frequented than friends or professionals, the columns hold a contradictory positive support and easy avoidance.
In the wake of Citizens United v. the Federal Election Committee, a landmark Supreme Court decision that prohibits the government from restricting political expenditures by corporations, the notion of “democratic elections” in America now sounds more like an oxymoron than an impetus for political participation. In 2008, a conservative nonprofit group, Citizens defied the FEC by trying to air a scathing film about Hillary Clinton, on DirecTV. Broadcasting “Hillary: The Movie,” a feature-length attack ad against the popular primary candidate, explicitly violated the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold). In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United, a now infamous 5-4 decision that has corrupted political democracy in the name of “free speech.”
Burlingame, CA -- The Republican party’s desire to appeal to Latino voters is a matter of survival. Nearly 22 million Latinos in the United States are eligible to participate in this year’s election—the most ever, and up by more than 2 million since 2008. But Republicans don’t have the best track record for getting Latinos, or any minority group candidates, in office. There are no Latino, Asian or Black Republicans serving in the state’s Senate, Assembly or congressional delegation.
A group of pro-immigrant rights activists in Arizona aim to develop a smartphone application that would help immigrants notify friends, family and their attorney if they are detained and arrested during a traffic stop. The app will allow users to notify family, friends, attorneys and even their consulate when they get pulled over by law enforcement or when they are facing an emergency situation that puts their safety or civil rights at risk.
On the 900-mile trek of mostly desert that stretches between Eritrea and Egypt, hunting for humans has become routine. Eritrean refugees who have fled their homeland fall prey to Bedouin or Egyptian traffickers. The refugees are held for ransom. Those with relatives abroad who can pay for their release might survive. Those who do not are often killed. The United Nations confirms that some are harvested for their organs — their livers and kidneys sold on the black market — while others, the young and able, are sold off.
In curating this lineup, I selected four films that all share one specific point of commonality: flawed people trying to make it through their day despite the odds being stacked against them. Some stories are more successful than others, yet these four films demonstrate a unique perspective in their search to make sense of our current American lifestyles.
Godfrey was returning to the area at the time to find inspiration for a book about the lives of the girls who live in a group home since they have nowhere else to go. There, she meets Josephine Bell, the de facto leader of the girls. Godfrey quickly learns of their harsh lifestyle and the fact that the city sees them as disposable.
