Editorial Staff

Sianne Garlick

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Unprepared: Lessons From Two Massive Oil Spills

A disastrous oil spill off the coast of Alaska and massive explosion of a rig in the Gulf of Mexico revealed a pattern of unsettled standards and inconsistent oversight that cast doubt on the oil industry’s preparedness for future accidents.

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Nuclear Meltdowns Raised Fears, but Growing Energy Needs May Outweigh Them

Catastrophic accidents at power plants have heightened fears about the safety of nuclear energy, but environmentalists and others are giving it renewed attention as a way to fight global warming.

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Amazon Rainforest Defenders Confront Violence, Encroachment and Politics

Debates over development in the world’s largest rainforest have led to deadly conflicts, threats to its indigenous people and harm to the global atmosphere.

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Why Supreme Court Confirmations Have Become So Bitter

The defeat of Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987 changed the way justices are confirmed today.

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How Prop. 187 Transformed the Immigration Debate and California Politics

Today’s immigration policies echo an anti-immigration movement from the 1990s in California.

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How to Fact-Check History

Meet Joseph Hogan, Retro Report’s fact-checker who explains what methods and processes he employs to verify the information in our stories.

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Presidents v. Press: How the Pentagon Papers Leak Set Up First Amendment Showdowns

Efforts to clamp down on White House leaks to the press follow a pattern that was set during the Nixon era after the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

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Transgender Rights, Won Over Decades, Face New Restrictions

More than 50 years after the Stonewall uprising marked the birth of a movement for LGBTQ+ rights, transgender activists continue to push for inclusion.

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How Fear of the Measles Vaccine Took Hold

Skepticism and fear surrounding vaccines were fed by a flawed study done in 1998 linking the MMR vaccine to autism. The study was quickly discredited, we’re still dealing with the repercussions.

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Horses: Wild, But Not Free

There are now so many wild horses on public land – nearly 100,000 – that they have become caught in a battle between the government, ranchers and environmentalists.

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Coronavirus: Lessons From Past Epidemics

Dr. Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox, says past epidemics can teach us to fight coronavirus.

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Bush v. Gore: How a Recount Dispute Affects Voting Today

The dramatic controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential election led to sweeping voting reforms, but opened the door to a new set of problems that continue to affect elections today.

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A New Housing Program to Fight Poverty has an Unexpected History

Some cities are trying to help poor children succeed by having their families move to middle-income, so-called “opportunity areas” – an idea that was once politically impossible.

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How Watergate and Citizens United Shaped Campaign Finance Law

The Watergate campaign finance scandals led to a landmark law designed to limit the influence of money in politics. Decades later, some say the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, it’s what’s legal.

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How Biden vs. Sanders Echoes a 1964 Republican Party Split

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are the icons of an ideological split among today’s Democrats, echoing a similar split in the Republican party of 1964.

Image from Nuclear Meltdowns Raised Fears, but Growing Energy Needs May Outweigh Them
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Nuclear Meltdowns Raised Fears, but Growing Energy Needs May Outweigh Them

Catastrophic accidents at power plants have heightened fears about the safety of nuclear energy, but environmentalists and others are giving it renewed attention as a way to fight global warming.

Image from Why Supreme Court Confirmations Have Become So Bitter
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Why Supreme Court Confirmations Have Become So Bitter

President Biden is hoping for bipartisan support for his nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson to the Supreme Court. But bitter battles over some recent nominations have set a different precedent.

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Political Memes: The Rise of the Political Meme in Politics Today

Political memes are being deployed to share opinions, similar to how editorial cartoons were used in the past – but with one important difference.

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