FiveThirtyEight and Sabato's Crystal Ball examine Congressional redistricting in New York State

I haven't written about redistricting since Brenda Lawrence announces retirement from Congress and Rashida Tlaib announces run for her new district, the latest in Congressional musical chairs from Michigan, which itself was the first I'd used the label since 2020. It's time to revisit the subject beginning with FiveThirtyEight's video New York’s Gerrymander Might Change Which Party Picks Up Seats In The Midterms.

Senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich breaks down how New York state was able to pass its Democratically gerrymandered congressional map and what it could mean for the 2022 midterm race.

Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics had its own analysis as part of Democrats’ Position Improves in Redistricting Tally by Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman.

Democrats enacted an aggressive gerrymander of their own in New York, which we will analyze in some depth below.
...
Though New York had a newly-formed independent commission to oversee the line drawing this cycle, the legislature retained the power to draw the lines itself. As expected, Democratic legislators ended up doing just that, and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) made good on her earlier suggestion that she’d use the redistricting process to boost her party’s prospects.

Hochul’s approach is a departure from that of her predecessor, former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. A decade ago, he seemed intent on taking the high road, and publicly decried gerrymandering — Republicans also still controlled the state Senate back then, meaning that neither side could dominate the process. As a result, New York ended up going with a court-drawn map for the decade. But this round, New York supplanted Illinois as the largest state where Democrats had a free hand in drawing a map, although some Republicans may complain that California’s independent commission made consistently pro-Democratic choices.

While New York lost a district — had it counted just 89 more residents in the last census, it would have retained all its seats — Democrats seem likely to come out ahead. If the Democratic plan pans out as intended, the number of Republicans in the New York delegation will shrink from 8 of 27 to 4 of 26.

Hearing Andrew Rakich and reading Kondik and Coleman makes me glad that Michigan's independent redistricting commission was able to agree on its maps for the state's legislative and Congressional districts. At least that part of the reform has worked so far, but I'm not celebrating until the maps survive all the court challenges they face.

Also, it shows how important the U.S. Census is. Just 89 more New Yorkers to retain a Congressional seat? Yikes!

Follow over the jump for more from Sabato's Crystal Ball along with my commentary.

High voter turnout expected in Detroit, Michigan, and nationwide

I told my readers to "Stay tuned for at least one entry a day about the election all the way through to November 7th."  I return to CBS News for today's election story, which asked Midterm voter turnout hasn't topped 50% in more than a century. Will it this year?

In the past century, the highest midterm turnout the country has seen was 48.7% in 1966. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, spoke to CBSN about whether 2018 might be different.

I'm with Sabato, the answer to the question will most likely be no; voter turnout nationwide won't top 50%.  However, I do expect it to be high for a mid-term, say in the mid-to-high 40s.

That's also expected to be true in Detroit, where WXYZ reported City of Detroit preparing for large voter turn out on Election Day.


To place this news in a statewide perspective, I'm quoting the Detroit Free Press: A record 4 million Michigan voters projected for Nov. 6 election.

After a record voter turnout in the August primary, local clerks are gearing up for an even bigger showing for the Nov. 6 general election.

Chris Thomas, a national voting expert and the former longtime director of elections for the Secretary of State, said Tuesday he expects statewide turnout in November to be in the neighborhood of 4 million voters, setting a new record.

"I think it will be higher than in 2006 when we hit 3.8 million," he said. "I generally wouldn't use primary results to make predictions about the general, but this was a big jump. I particularly looked at the Oakland County returns, where they generally get between 193,000 and 200,000 voters, and they were at 320,000.

"There's a bit of a pent-up desire to vote, not only with all the statewide offices open, but the ballot proposals are stimulating enthusiasm."

Detroit officials project that between 41 and 46 percent of the city's 470,000 registered voters will cast a ballot Nov. 6, marking a significantly higher turnout than in previous elections. Voter turnout in both 2010 and 2014 was 31.4 percent.

I am not surprised, as turnout for the August primary shattered records.  I'm also glad that Janice Winfrey has apparently improved voting operations in Detroit, as I was not impressed with the results of the 2016 recount; she did not appear to be running a tight ship then.  I hope voting in Detroit goes much more smoothly and efficiently next week than it did two years ago.

Marching band moments

Instead of posting about something collapse-and-decline-related for my Sunday entertainment entry, I'm going to go with this month's Joy theme and post about marching band, something that brought me joy.  Here are three videos and a news item from the tip jar for last week's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Orion test flight next week) on Daily Kos about marching band.

First, Rutgers Marching Band Takes You Behind the Scenes

Can you imagine performing a new show in front of over 50,000 fans with just six hours of practice? That's what the Rutgers University Marching Band does for each home football game. Watch our video to see how 250 people become one at halftime on Saturdays.

The answer is that I don't have to imagine.  I know what it's like.  I did that for four years while I was in the marching band at UCLA.

Follow over the jump for comparable videos from the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech.

Nutrition and poverty from campuses on the campaign trail

Nutrition news from SDSU included an outreach story about how to educate low-income families about proper nutrition.  It turns out that wasn't the only story about nutrition and poverty from campuses on the campaign trail in my archives of Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos.  Here are two more.

First, Meredith Gunter of the University of Virginia reported back in January about U.Va. Study: One in 10 Virginians Receives Food Stamp Benefits.

Slightly more than one in 10 Virginians receives monthly benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, according to University of Virginia researchers in the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service’s Demographics Research Group. SNAP payments in Virginia in 2012 totaled approximately $1.2 billion, as reported by the Virginia Department of Social Services.

This finding and others related to SNAP benefits across Virginia are detailed in a Census Brief released today, the second in a series of short publications depicting trends in census and other data of interest to the commonwealth.

SNAP provides monthly subsidies to individuals and families in or near poverty, specifically for the purchase of food; a family of four in Virginia with a net monthly income of $1,963 or less is eligible for benefits. Individuals recently unemployed are eligible for only a limited time.

The next month, the University of Michigan described how Poor conditions early in life may lead to health problems for many elderly in the developing world.

ANN ARBOR—Well-intended efforts to improve infant and child health in the developing world in the mid-20th century could be linked with increased risk of diabetes, obesity and heart disease for people born during this period when they reach older age, a University of Michigan researcher found.

People born in developing countries in the 1930s through the 1960s lived their early lives when there was rapid improvement in life expectancy—mostly due to public health interventions involving antibiotics or other medical innovations. But for many of them, their standard of living did not improve, said Mary McEniry, a demographer at the U-M Inter-university Consortium of Political and Social Research, part of the U-M Institute for Social Research.

"Having a higher standard of living often means better nutrition and improved ability to fight off infections," she said. "We know that adult lifestyle—diet and exercise—can be very important in terms of health. However, there are now several studies that suggest that poor living conditions in early life can have long-range consequences on one's health at older ages.

As I wrote yesterday, here's to everyone being properly nourished.

Bad news and good news for International Women's Day

As today's Google Doodle is remining everyone who uses the search engine today, it's International Women's Day.  To mark the occasion, I'm presenting stories from my past six months of Overnight News Digests about discrimination against women and the efforts to rectify it in science education.

First, the bad news from SDSU: Gender Inertia in Television and Film.

The Annual Celluloid Ceiling report shows that women’s roles in television and film have not improved in the last 16 years.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The employment of women working in key behind-the-scenes roles in film continues to stagnate, according to the 16th annual Celluloid Ceiling report released today by Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. 

Women accounted for 16 percent of directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 domestic grossing films of 2013.  This figure is slightly smaller than the percentage of women working on top grossing films in 1998.

“The film industry is in a state of gender inertia.  There is no evidence to suggest that women’s employment has improved in key behind-the-scenes roles over the last 16 years,” Lauzen said.

Next, CBS reported Gaze-tracking Study Apparently Confirms Everyone Really IS Staring At Your Chest.

LINCOLN, NE (CBS) – A new study has confirmed something women have been complaining about for years.

The research, out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and published in the Springer-published journal Sex Roles, essentially corroborates the belief that people tend to focus more on the breasts and figure of a woman when analyzing her appearance than they do on her face.

That's enough bad news.  Any more, and I'd post Professor Farnsworth saying "I don't want to live on this planet any more."  As I'm still in an "I can't be all DOOM all the time" mood, I'll stop. 

It's time to post some good news about efforts to educate more women in science and health to cheer myself up.  Follow over the jump for it.

Space news for the last week of February

Just a brief generic summary of space and astronomy news this week.  When that happens, NASA weekly summary goes first: Cygnus Released on This Week @NASA.

With delivery of more than a ton of supplies and experiments completed, Orbital Sciences Corporation's Cygnus cargo craft was detached and released from the International Space Station February 18 -- wrapping up the first of at least eight NASA contracted supply missions to the space station for Orbital through 2016. Also, Orion recovery tests, NuSTAR findings, Stofan visits Stennis, Virginia Aerospace Days and Friendship 7 anniversary!

Follow over the jump for the rest of the week's space news from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Our best animal friends) on Daily Kos.

Update on ACA and other health care policy stories for the new year

As part of my opening to Unemployment insurance extension and the State of the Union, I mentioned that I was sitting on a backlog of material.

I watched tonight's State of the Union address and marveled that the entire speech was organized around the conflict between austerity and sustainability, with President Obama consistently coming down on the side of sustainability.  It fits what I've been blogging about here for the past three years, as I've written about every major topic Obama mentioned at least once, some of them, such as energy, education, healthcare, and technological innovation many times.  I felt validated.  It also reminded me that I have a long backlog of material from the past two months of Overnight News Digests on Daily Kos about healthcare and energy that I need to post here.

I took care of the energy news in More energy and the State of the Union, but got distracted by the Super Bowl, so I didn't get around to the healthcare items.  So, it's high time to update on the ACA for the first time since More ACA news from KPBS and UAB.  I begin with Maggie Fox of NBC News making her forecast on the topic with Think 2013 was a bad year for health politics? Just wait for 2014.

It was the gift that kept on giving: The disastrous roll-out of the health-insurance exchanges provided daily fodder for Republican opponents of Obamacare. And the dire state of U.S. health care, coupled with a headlong rush by people to get health insurance, gave Democrats ample opportunity to say “we told you so.”

So once it’s January 2014 and people can start having their new insurance and all the deadlines have passed, can we relax and talk about something other than health reform?

Not a chance, say experts. They predict 2014 will be, if anything, worse than 2013.

So far, that's been true, as this week's news about the ACA inducing people to reduce their hours has shown.

Follow over the jump for news from KPBS and other sources about health care policy, including the ACA, that I've included in Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos since New Years.

More energy and the State of the Union

I'm not done with Energy and climate in the State of the Union.  It turns out that being Secretary of Energy singles one out for special treatment during the speech.  Time explains in This Man Will Be Your President If The Worst Happens.

If the unthinkable happens during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz will assume the role of President of the United States.

Moniz, the 12th person in the line of succession for the Oval Office, will be protected by Secret Service agents at an undisclosed location as the so-called “designated survivor” while President Barack Obama delivers his address to Congress. Meanwhile, the vice president, members of the Cabinet, Supreme Court justices and others will gather at the Capitol to listen to the president’s annual address.

...He’s better liked inside the administration than his predecessor—and last year’s designated survivor—Steven Chu, who was considered by some administration officials to be a political loose cannon.

It just so happens that I have articles about both men, beginning with Virginia Tech's Nobel laureate talks about innovation in modern research world before capacity Burruss audience.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Oct. 14, 2013 – Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and a former United States Secretary of Energy, talked about how to create a research and development environment modeled after the famously successful “Bell Labs” on Friday during the initial Hugh and Ethel Kelly Speaker Series presentation, hosted by the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) and the College of Engineering.

Chu said researchers in today's research climate are forced to concentrate on their best ideas, work in small groups, and to collaborate with experts from different fields. In that respect, it reinforces the Bell Laboratories' philosophy to build small research groups containing usually just an investigator, a postdoctoral associate, and a lab technician, and to have active scientists fill the management roles.

"A small group makes you think hard about the most important things to work on, and being forced to share ideas may be a good thing," Chu said. "That's the lemonade from the lemons."

Next, Science Magazine updates its readers with the people around the new Energy Secretary in Obama Names Energy Science Team.

President Barack Obama has added two academic researchers to his new science team at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Obama yesterday announced his intention to nominate chemical engineer Franklin "Lynn" Orr, a professor and administrator at Stanford University in California, to fill the newly created position of undersecretary for science and energy. The same announcement tapped physicist Marc Kastner of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge to lead DOE’s Office of Science, which manages a $4.6 billion research portfolio. Last week, the White House picked physicist Ellen Williams, chief scientist at energy giant BP and a former longtime professor at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park, to run DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

If approved by the U.S. Senate, the trio will round out Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz’s leadership team for DOE’s civilian research programs, which include 10 national laboratories run by the Office of Science.

That's not all.  As I wrote in Unemployment insurance extension and the State of the Union about the speech:

It also reminded me that I have a long backlog of material from the past two months of Overnight News Digests on Daily Kos about healthcare and energy that I need to post here.

Follow over the jump for the energy news from the past three months that I've posted on Daily Kos since Renewable energy news from campuses on the campaign trail.

ISS extended and dead stars in this week's space news

This week's space news report has good news for the ISS.  NASA Television reports that ISS Extended to 2024 on This Week @NASA.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and White House Science Advisor John Holdren, announced that the Obama administration is extending usage of the International Space Station to at least the year 2024. In his blog, Bolden noted that NASA is hopeful and optimistic that our ISS partners will join this extension effort and enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted on the unique orbiting laboratory. Also, International Space Exploration Forum, Cygnus' resupply flight, Super Bowl of Astronomy, 10 years roving Mars, TDRS-L Update and more!

I'm tempted to break out Professor Farnsworth, but decided not to jinx the announcement, so I illustrated this entry with the ISS instead.

Follow over the jump for more astronomy news originally included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Polar Vortex) on Daily Kos.

Larry Sabato on JFK, 50 years later

To mark the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination, I present the following video and lede of a press release from the University of Virginia featuring UVa's Larry Sabato.

The Kennedy Half Century by Professor Larry Sabato

On the eve of 50th anniversary of the election of President John F. Kennedy, the University Center for Politics announced details for a major new book on JFK by Center Director Larry J. Sabato and the production of a national television documentary focused on the legacies of President Kennedy and his administration. Also, later this week Sabato will tape a special for NBC's "Meet the Press" commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Great Debates of 1960; and then travel to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas, where he will begin a series of interviews with eyewitnesses to the Kennedy assassination. Today's announcement is part of the Center's Golden Anniversary Series, a comprehensive series of events, productions and publications illuminating the landmark political events of the 1960s.

Sabato's new book, THE KENNEDY HALF-CENTURY: The Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy, will be published in 2013 by Walker & Company, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing. Based on interviews with major political and media figures and ordinary citizens alike, along with new archival finds, the book will tell the compelling story of how John F. Kennedy's life and administration, as well as his tragic death on November 22, 1963, have influenced the general public, the media, and every president who has followed him. Working in partnership with the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas, Sabato is scheduled to begin a series of in-depth interviews this week with many of the key players and eyewitnesses who were in Dealey Plaza and personally witnessed the Kennedy assassination.

Among the completely original features of this book will be the most extensive study ever conducted of the public's view of an historical figure. The accomplished pollsters Peter D. Hart and Geoff Garin will supervise large-sample public opinion polls of Americans—those alive on November 22, 1963 and those who have come of age since. The polls will be supplemented by focus group interviews of Americans conducted at various locales across the country.

Sabato Engaging Students Globally While Impacting Them Locally
Ashley Patterson
October 18, 2013

Who killed John F. Kennedy? And what is the legacy of “Camelot”?

Starting this week, students around the world will plunge into University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato’s online class to grapple with these questions.

Residential students at U.Va. have already been examining Kennedy’s legacy in “Workshops in Contemporary American Electoral Politics,” an American politics course taught by Kenneth Stroupe, associate director of U.Va.’s Center for Politics.

If the video looks familiar, it's because I first embedded it in Election eve news from campuses on the campaign trail.  I'm an environmentalist; I recycle.

Hurricane Sandy and the Boston Marathon Bombings in this week's health news

At the end of Health news for the week of election day, I wrote "Look for one more installment next week."  I also wrote in Kepler findings and other space news "This one will be huge!"  I wasn't kidding.

Rutgers University has the honor of going first, with Rise in Falls and Fractures Among Elderly After Superstorm Sandy.
Rutgers researcher attributes increase in injuries in older New Jerseyans to power outages
By Lisa Intrabartola
Monday, November 11, 2013

Everyone knows Superstorm Sandy left many New Jersey homes and businesses battered and bruised.

But most are not aware of the considerable toll the storm and its aftermath took on our state’s residents.

“With disasters, there are things beyond the obvious,” said Rutgers’ Sue Shapses, a professor in the department of Nutrition and chair of the Interagency Council of Osteoporosis. “There are real health hazard risks, especially falling and fracturing.  And it’s especially a problem for our elderly population.”

Based on a report Shapses wrote using data from the New Jersey Hospital Association that showed state hospitals experienced an 18 percent increase in visits related to falls and a 13 percent increase in visits related to fractures, during the week following the storm in comparison to the week prior. Of those who sought medical attention for falls and fractures after the hurricane, there was a 40 percent rise in falls and fractures in those who were 65 or older.

I couldn't resist putting a health story about Hurricane Sandy first, especially after four retrospectives last week.

Speaking of stories I've covered before, and being the exception to the rule that "if it bleeds, it doesn't necessarily lead" here at Crazy Eddie's Motie News, Boston University has a four-part video series about the university hospital's response to the Boston Marathon Bombings accompanied by a feature story in its magazine Bostonia.  Videos first.

Trauma Part 1: The Trauma Algorithm


Trauma Part 2: The Clock is Ticking


Trauma Part 3: The Lethal Triad


Trauma Part 4: Why It's Called a "Trauma Team"

Peter Burke discusses the methods his team uses to shave seconds off response time.

Now, the excerpt from the feature article Trauma.
Peter Burke spent 14 years building a surgical team that could handle the worst kind of emergencies. On April 15, that emergency arrived.
By Susan Seligson

Peter Burke had just finished the morning session of a medical conference at the Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas when the news flashed on a lobby TV: two bombs had exploded near the Boston Marathon finish line, turning an annual celebration into a war zone.

Minutes later he received an emergency text message from Boston Medical Center (BMC), where he is chief trauma surgeon. The unit was inundated with the grievously injured from an attack that killed 3, among them BU graduate student Lu Lingzi (GRS’13), and wounded at least 260. Many of those rushed to BMC were battling for life, with mangled legs, collapsed lungs, and profound blood loss. Burke called his chief nurse to find out if there was any way he could help from a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. The answer was no.

When he arrived in Boston around midnight, Burke rushed from Logan Airport to BMC, one of the city’s five adult Level 1 trauma centers, all of which were scrambling to stabilize the injured. BMC received 28 bomb victims; 19 were admitted, 11 with critical injuries.

In his 14 years at BMC, Burke had dealt with hundreds of multiple admissions from car crashes or shootings. But Marathon day presented a scene more familiar to trauma program manager Joseph Blansfield, a nurse practitioner who has been at BMC since 1992. An active colonel in the US Army Reserve, Blansfield (SON’78) had run combat support hospitals in Mosul and Tikrit, Iraq. As BMC trauma surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses mobilized, Blansfield was doing what had become second nature in those war-torn places: identifying the most critically injured and getting them to the trauma bays.

Follow over the jump for the rest of this installment of health news from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Super Typhoon Haiyan).

America Recycles Day

Yes, there is such a day, as I found out when I came across the following press release from Virginia Tech: America Recycles Day to be celebrated Nov. 15.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Nov. 7, 2013 – On Friday, Nov. 15, Virginia Tech will celebrate America Recycles Day, a national campaign to raise awareness to schools, universities, and community groups on the importance of recycling.

Hosted on campus by the Office of Energy and Sustainability, the America Recycles Day celebration will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the Squires Student Center Plaza between Squires and the Graduate Life Center at Donaldson Brown.

Participants can learn easy recycling tips and see recycling demonstrations. Food, games, and prizes are also part of the event.

The website for this day is AmericaReyclesDay.org, which lists events for the day.  It also has an embed of the following video from Keep America Beautiful: Keep America Beautiful - Recycling Campaign - Journey - 60

The Recycling Campaign, sponsored by Keep America Beautiful and the Ad Council, aims to generate awareness, explain how and where to recycle, mobilize individual ownership and emotional connection to recycling through community building, and transform recycling into a daily social norm. The campaign shows consumers that their recyclable materials want to be something more, and promotes recycling as a way to give garbage another life.

In "Journey," a plastic bottle refuses to settle for being just a bottle and recognizes its dream in a coast-to-coast journey after being recycled.

Lovely PSA.  If I can figure out a way to show it to my class, I will.

By the way, VT isn't the only university in Virginia who hosted a recycling event this fall.  University of Virginia did as well: Waste Diversion Challenge Scheduled For Georgia Tech Game.
Matt Kelly
October 23, 2013

The University of Virginia will step up its game Saturday by adding food composting in its efforts to win an annual football game waste-reduction competition.

The Department of Athletics, U.Va. Sustainability and U.Va. Dining Services are partnering in the annual Game Day Challenge, to be held Saturday when the Cavalier football team hosts the Georgia Institute of Technology Yellow Jackets at Scott Stadium at 12:30 p.m.

The Game Day Challenge is a national competition sponsored by the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s WasteWise program, Keep America Beautiful and College and University Recycling Coalition, designed to promote waste reduction. This year, 63 colleges and universities are competing to reduce waste during a home football game. The schools will be ranked on their recycling and waste data, with the winner to be announced in January.

In previous years, U.Va. has relied solely upon aggressive recycling efforts in the competition, but this year it will include food waste composting.

As for me, it's Friday, which is trash and recyclables pick-up day.  That means I'll celebrate by doing what I do every Friday--recycle!

Veterans Day on campus

I uncovered a lot of colleges observing Veterans Day while collecting stories for last night's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Super Typhoon Haiyan).  The result was such a great aggregation of videos and articles that I am reposting all of them here.

Rutgers University goes first with Veterans Transition to Civilian Life at Rutgers.

When you've handled life and death in war, an exam in the classroom doesn't seem like such a big deal. But some veterans say succeeding in classes and fitting in were their biggest concerns when they came to Rutgers as nontraditional students. "Everyone has said 'thank you' and that is a huge thing," one veteran said. "It goes miles with us vets."

Here's the article that goes with it.

Rutgers University: Veterans Transition to Civilian Life at Rutgers
Rutgers student Juan Hernandez was one of first U.S. forces to touch down for Benghazi evacuation
Monday, November 11, 2013
By Fredda Sacharow

'The reality check of being in a third-world country was stark. Even the simple task of looking for clean water becomes an ordeal.' – Juan Hernandez

November 28 will mark Juan Hernandez‘s first Thanksgiving home after three years of active military duty with the U.S. Air Force, and he can practically taste his Mexican-born mother’s signature chicken tamales.

During his service abroad, the Rutgers student helped in the mission to bring American Foreign Service workers home from Benghazi after the deadly 2012 attack on their compound. He took part in humanitarian projects in Africa, dropping water bottles in Mali and Ethiopia to ensure residents had safe drinking water at hand. He trained forces in Ghana.

Now Hernandez is anticipating a series of firsts in the coming months: first birthday home after lengthy postings in Spain, Germany and Africa; first Christmas and New Year’s out of the military; and even today, his first Veterans Day as a veteran.

In his first semester at Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations, where he’s majoring in both human resource management and labor studies, Hernandez says thoughts of home and family were never far from his mind throughout his years overseas.

Follow over the jump for more from Rutgers and other campuses on the campaign trail I originally included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Super Typhoon Haiyan) with a bonus video from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (ACA and shutdown on campus) that I've been saving for the right occasion.

Space and astronomy news for early November

I already covered some space news in NASA back from shutdown and Fall back and solar eclipse, but I haven't had a comprehensive space news entry yet.  In fact, I really haven't had one since NASA videos from just before the shutdown more than a month ago.  It's time to resume the series.

I begin with NASA Television's Mars Mission Briefed on This Week @NASA.

During a news briefing at NASA headquarters officials and scientists discussed MAVEN, the agency's next mission to Mars. Scheduled to launch November 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, MAVEN will study the history and change of Mars' atmosphere, climate, and planetary habitability. Also, Bolden visits Langley, Power Up, Solar Flares, A busy time!, Free flight and Ice Flight!

Follow over the jump from more news from NASA, the Hubble Space Telescope, Columbia University, Rutgers University, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Virginia originally included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (NASA back from shutdown) and Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Eclipse, Sandy Anniversary, and Fall Back) on Daily Kos.

Health news for the week of election day

It's time for the next installment of health news from campuses on the campaign trail.  I'll begin with a health issue that will become a political one, mandating that all employees be eligible for paid sick leave.  Rutgers University has the latest polling in Rutgers Study: Overwhelming Majority of New Jerseyans Support Paid Sick Days
Wednesday, October 30, 2013

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – As New Jersey’s policymakers consider establishing a minimum standard for paid sick days, the Center for Women and Work (CWW) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey has released an issue brief on the subject that finds an overwhelming majority (83 percent) of state residents of all political affiliations support paid sick day policies.

While there is a great deal of public support, results reported in, It’s Catching: Public Opinion toward Paid Sick Days in New Jersey, document a persistent need: 37 percent of state residents currently lack access to paid sick days, particularly Hispanic and Latino workers, younger workers and those who work part time or earn less than $50,000 per year.  

“Over 37 percent of New Jersey residents work in jobs with no paid sick days,” said Linda Houser, CWW affiliate fellow, assistant professor at Widener University and co-author of the report. “This proportion is significantly higher for some of New Jersey’s most vulnerable citizens – low-income earners, part-time workers and young adults. Additionally, over 50 percent of these workers cited concerns about financial affordability, job loss or bad performance reviews as having an impact on their decision about taking time off from work to recover from illness.”

In related news, the ballot measure to raise the minimum wage in News Jersey I mentioned in Election eve news from campuses on the campaign trail passed.  That's good news, but it's not for everybody, so no Professor Farnsworth.

Follow over the jump for the rest of the health-related news from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Eclipse, Sandy Anniversary, and Fall Back) on Daily Kos.

Election eve news from campuses on the campaign trail

I told my readers to "stay tuned for more elections coverage" at the end of Examiner.com article on Michigan Daily endorsements.  The implied promise was for more about Michigan elections, especially those from Washtenaw County and Detroit, which I've been covering here and at Examiner.com.  I'll get to those tomorrow night, but first allow me this follow-up to Election news from Rutgers and Election news for Food Day--the election news from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Eclipse, Sandy Anniversary, and Fall Back) on Daily Kos.

First up, Rutgers University on New Jersey Minimum Wage Up for a Vote.

As New Jersey residents prepare to vote on increasing the minimum wage, Rutgers students remain divided over the issue. Some students say extra cash would help families pay bills and college students pay off debts, but others fear a boost could hurt the economy.

Next up, the University of Massachusetts has New UMass Poll Shows Walsh Taking Lead Over Connolly in Boston Mayoral Race.
State rep. comes from behind to lead city councilor 47-40 among registered voters
October 30, 2013

AMHERST, Mass. – The results of a new UMass Poll released today by the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows state Rep. Martin J. Walsh with a seven-point lead over Boston City Councilor at Large John R. Connolly among registered Boston voters in advance of the Boston mayoral election on Nov. 5. The UMass Poll confirms that voter support has swung from Connolly to Walsh in the final days of the campaign.

With leaners included, likely voters prefer Walsh over Connolly 47 percent to 40 percent, a lead that is outside the 5.9 percent margin of error for the poll. With less than a week to go in the campaign, 13 percent of likely voters remain undecided.

“No matter how you define ‘likely voters,’ our poll shows that Walsh has capitalized on a couple of strong weeks of campaigning to vault out in front as the clear leader in this race,” said Brian Schaffner, chair of the political science department at UMass Amherst and director of the UMass Poll.

The telephone poll conducted Oct. 22-26 included interviews with 600 registered voters sampled from a list of registered voters in the city of Boston. The sample included both landline and cell phones.

Finally, here's a bonus from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (NASA back from shutdown), the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato making a prediction about the contest for Virginia's Governor in The Kennedy Half Century by Professor Larry Sabato.  Look for it.


Again, stay tuned for more election coverage.  Also, if you are in a jurisdiction that is holding elections, vote.  I will, even if you don't.

Health news for the week of Halloween

As I've mentioned before the research universities on the campaign trail have proven to be rich sources of health news.  While I've already posted some Halloween-related health news, I have lots more from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (NASA back from shutdown) to pass along.

Follow over the jump for health research and outreach from Boston University, Columbia University, Rutgers University, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech.

Happy Halloween on campus

It's time for one more Halloween entry, this time highlighting the events campuses on the campaign trail are holding to celebrate the spooky holiday.  Boston University goes first with Pumpkin Palooza: Carving for a Cause.

Boston University students demonstrate their carving and decorating prowess during this year's Pumpkin Palooza, sponsored by the Community Service Center.

In Virginia, both major public universities are holding trick-or-treating events on campus.

The University of Virginia is playing it straight: U.Va. Annual ‘Trick-or-Treating on the Lawn’ Event Set for Oct. 31.
October 14, 2013

The University of Virginia will host its annual “Trick-or-Treating on the Lawn” on Halloween, Oct. 31, from 4 to 6 p.m.

U.Va.’s trick-or-treating tradition, started by students in the late 1980s, is open to the community. Children are invited to dress up in costumes and take part in trick-or-treating at each of the 54 Lawn rooms. Candy is donated and distributed by more than 70 student groups.

The event is hosted by the Lawn residents and receives additional support from the Office of Housing & Residence Life, Office of Emergency Preparedness, Parking & Transportation and the University Police Department. EMTs and a lost child station will be located on the south steps of the Rotunda and at Old Cabell Hall.

Virginia Tech already had their event, which was trick-or-treating FOR SCIENCE!

Virginia Tech: Tech-or-Treat offers Halloween-themed activities infusing science, technology, engineering and math

BLACKSBURG, Va., Oct. 15, 2013 – Children of all ages are invited to Tech-or-Treat, a family-friendly, Halloween-themed event featuring technologies developed by the affiliated faculty and students of Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology.

The free event, designed to give children the opportunity to learn more about science, technology, engineering, and math, will be held in the Cube, Center for the Arts, 190 Alumni Mall, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, from 5 to 8 p.m. Costumes are encouraged.

Children are invited to experience a room full of research and technology-based activities, including “The Labyrinth,” a series of intersecting circles creating a variety of paths throughout the space for participants to travel. The installation features a forest with hanging interactive light and sound components created by Paola Zellner, an assistant professor in the School of Architecture + Design in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, and Tom Martin, an associate professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering.

And that's it for All Hallows Eve from campuses on the campaign trail.  Happy Halloween!

Religion news from campuses on the campaign trail

It's the week of Halloween, which means I have lots of scary and silly material planned for my upcoming entries, as if the prospect of civilization collapsing, for whatever reason, and the (pop) cultural responses to the possibility weren't scary and silly enough.  Before I begin with that project, I will take a more serious look at an aspect of culture I cover irregularly, religion.  Here are the religion stories from campuses on the campaign trail I've included in the past three weeks of Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos.

I begin with Rutgers Hillel Moves Torah to New Home from Rutgers University.

Members of the Rutgers Hillel community celebrated and danced in the street as they ceremoniously moved Torah scrolls to a temporary home on Bishop Place while their new building is under construction. Rabbi Esther Reed, senior associate director of Rutgers Hillel, says the ceremony recognized the significance of the move for the entire Jewish community on campus.

Follow over the jump for more, beginning with something appropriate both for the season and to the inspiration for the name of this blog, a book about Dante's Inferno.

Food Day on campus

In "Food, Inc." book worksheet for Food DayI made the follow promise.

I'm not done yet with Food Day.  Stay tuned from Food Day news from campuses on the campaign trail, which I'll schedule to post at 8 PM EDT tonight.

Here are the Food Day events on campuses on the campaign trail from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Another asteroid fly-by).   For more food articles from universities, surf over to food news from campuses on the campaign trail.

University of Virginia: ‘Food Stamped’ Film, Meal and Discussion Set for Thursday
October 18, 2013

In celebration of National Food Day on Thursday, the University of Virginia Food Collaborative is screening a documentary film, “Food Stamped,” that follows a couple as they attempt to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet on an average food stamp budget – $1.50 per person per day. Along the way they consult with members of Congress, food justice organizations, nutrition experts and people living on food stamps to take a deep look at what they describe as America’s broken food system.

The event will include a post-screening panel discussion, led by U.Va. politics professor Paul Freedman, and a healthy meal prepared by Whole Foods on a budget of less than $1.50 per serving.
...
The film will be followed by a panel discussion of topics raised by the film, including health, food economics and politics, featuring Joe Caputi, the Charlottesville branch manager at the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank; Stephen Hitchcock, director of The Haven, a day shelter for the homeless; and Galen Fountain, an instructor at U.Va.’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

Virginia Tech: Lynchburg Grows and Virginia Cooperative Extension celebrate Urban Agriculture Month in Virginia

BLACKSBURG, Va., Oct. 18, 2013 – Lynchburg Grows and Virginia Cooperative Extension celebrated the important role that agriculture plays in the commonwealth’s economy and the designation of October as Urban Agriculture Month in Virginia with a ceremony at the Lynchburg Grows H.R. Schenkel Urban Farm and Environmental Center in Lynchburg on Oct. 17.

The ceremony included a presentation by delegates Kathy Byron, Ben Cline, and Scott Garrett of the Virginia General Assembly; a proclamation by Lynchburg Mayor Michael H. Gillette; and testimonials by Edwin Jones, director of Virginia Cooperative Extension, and by members of the state Extension Leadership Council. Mayor Gillette praised Lynchburg Grows for making the city a better place.

Delegates Byron, Cline, and Garrett presented Jones and Michael Van Ness, executive director of Lynchburg Grows, with House Joint Resolution No. 758, designating October 2013 as Virginia’s first annual Urban Agriculture Month. The delegates were among the measure’s 27 legislative patrons.

As a parting shot, I might just post another installment of food (and drink) news from the ancient world at midnight.  Stay tuned.