Big tobacco targets populations who experience minority stress, discrimination, stigma and other systemic harms with targeted advertising and promotions. I am a public health professional with a specific interest in working with populations that have higher risks for poor health. I worked in HIV prevention for several years. I was naïve to big tobacco’s manipulations […]

For state treasuries, the worst thing is probably not having enough money. No one likes cutting programs, but raising taxes isn’t exactly popular, either.  But – surprisingly – having too much money can also be a problem. Counterintuitively, politicians seem to quarrel almost as much about dividing up the spoils as they do in distributing financial pain. Witness Angus King’s administration, where Maine’s independent […]

If you’re the sort of person who sees no difference between the Israeli military defending its citizens and Hamas terrorizing civilians, you might want to pass on this column. This column is for the sort of person who realizes that violence is horrible, that killing civilians is horrific, that politics is dirty and that the […]

Having tired of the culture wars, Republicans have returned to the familiar and comforting battlefield of the class wars. The GOP is seizing on disappointing jobs numbers as an excuse to call for the end of extended unemployment benefits, based on the slender and debunked premise that they have discouraged people from seeking work. Neil […]

US should not support Israeli aggression I am appalled and distressed with President Biden’s response to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Seventy-three years ago Palestinians were chased out of their homes into refugee camps and more than 500 villages were destroyed. Then in 1968 Israel won the Six-Day War with Jordan and took […]