Archive for April 2024

The Comstock Act… is an 1873 anti-obscenity law, named after anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock. The law, which is still on the books, calls for banning the mailing or shipping of “every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance.” In addition, it specifically outlaws mailing “every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” The intent of the law was not expressly about abortion, according to Mary Ziegler, law professor at the University of California, Davis. Instead, it was about what Comstock and his contemporaries called “sexual purity.”

We wanted to know if Chronicle readers have had their own compensation frustration, so we put out a request. Hundreds of you wrote in with stories of stagnant pay, opaque raise processes, and worries about the future. Here is just a small sampling of what you shared with us.

US healthcare is defined by the greed and inequality that its patients must battle, but Puerto Rico’s calamity is unique. Thanks to a combination of colonial neglect, a disastrous legacy of privatization that has given health insurance companies outsize control, and a series of devastating austerity measures in recent years, it’s not just patients who are feeling the impact; it’s also the people who are supposed to look after them. Puerto Rico has seen a mass exodus of doctors that has left it struggling to provide even the most basic level of care. And no medical specialty has been affected more than pediatrics.

The University of South Africa (Unisa) has raised concerns over an article regarding its Bachelor of Social Work programme. Unisa expresses deep concern regarding the significant inaccuracies present in both the headline and various sections of the article.

No one should be surprised that artificial intelligence is following a well-worn and entirely predictable financial arc

Along with a secure post and academic freedom, tenured professors enjoy financial security—or so many outsiders imagine. In fact, many tenured faculty are expected to cover much of their salary with grants, and may be penalized with salary reductions if they do not. That’s what happened at Tufts University School of Medicine—and some researchers are fighting back.

As global billionaires see their wealth soar to record heights, one Vietnamese real estate tycoon was sentenced to death on Thursday in the Southeast Asian nation’s largest-ever financial fraud case, part of a government crackdown on corruption.

What isn’t said enough is that rural whites are being told to blame all the wrong people for their very real problems. As we argue in the book, Hollywood liberals didn’t destroy the family farm, college professors didn’t move manufacturing jobs overseas, immigrants didn’t pour opioids into rural communities, and critical race theory didn’t close hundreds of rural hospitals. When Republican politicians and the conservative media tell rural whites to aim their anger at those targets, it’s so they won’t ask why the people they keep electing haven’t done anything to improve life in their communities.