What are viruses anyway, and why do they make us so sick? 5 questions answered

  Editor’s Note: You may sometimes have felt like you “have come down with a virus,” meaning that you became sick from being exposed to something that could have been a virus. In fact, you have a virus – actually, many – all the time. Some viruses cause the common cold, and some are crucial to human survival. New viruses can also emerge, and they typically create illness in humans when they have very recently jumped from another species to humans. As world health leaders try to determine how to respond to the new coronavirus, virus expert Marilyn J. Roossinck answers a few questions.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1707 - They said it could not be done, but we continue to do it

  They said it could not be done, but we did it. It was 1964, and the Civil Rights Act had just been enacted by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders were thankful, but they were still pressing for legislation to ensure voting rights for Black people. Voting was the last legal right being clearly denied to Black people in the United States of America. The highest political officials and others said that no such legislation could possibly pass Congress on the heels of the most comprehensive civil rights legislation ever. They said it could not be done, but we did it.

Is hiring more black officers the key to reducing police violence?

  High-profile cases of officer brutality against black citizens in recent years have caused Americans to question the racial makeup of their police departments.

  Many advocates believe that diversifying these forces will help reduce police violence against people of color.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Primaries next week

  Folks, our primaries are next week! On the Democratic side, the presidential preference primary will be the big show and will be interesting to watch. On the right, the Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate seat will be the marquee event.

  In addition to the Senate race, we have two open Republican Congressional seats in the First and Second Districts. We also have some important statewide Supreme Court and Appellate Court races on the ballot.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1706 - They said it could not be done, but we did it

  They said it could not be done, but we did it. The United States of America is the only country in the world where laws were enacted to prohibit certain people from learning to read and write. Black people are the only people in the world who were prohibited from learning to read and write. Black people learned in spite of the legal prohibitions and other obstacles. They said it could not be done, but we did it.

The war in Iraq has cost the US nearly $2 trillion

  Editor’s note: The Costs of Wars project was started in 2011 to assess the long-term consequences of the post-9/11 wars. Project co-director Neta C. Crawford, professor and chair of political science at Boston University, explains the major implications of the Iraq War for the federal budget.

  Even if the U.S. administration decided to leave — or was evicted from — Iraq immediately, the bill of war to the U.S. to date would be an estimated US$1,922 billion in current dollars.

Joe Cain returned Mardi Gras to Mobile

  Though Mardi Gras had been celebrated for nearly a century and a half in both New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama, as with many things, the Civil War had nearly ended this celebration permanently. Though no one ever gets to know what might have been, one thing is certain, Mardi Gras was no longer being celebrated once the long and gruesome war had come to end.

Trump’s politicization of the justice system

  Since the vast majority of Republican senators failed in their constitutional duty to be a check on serious government corruption, President Donald Trump has repeatedly exhibited his willingness to abuse the power of his office. But involving himself in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recommended sentencing of Roger Stone, a convicted federal criminal—and Trump’s close political ally—was perhaps the most flagrant display of how little respect Trump’s administration has for American democracy.

Well, impeachment didn’t work – how else can Congress keep President Trump in check?

  Donald Trump’s removal of impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the White House and intervention in his friend Roger Stone’s sentencing have prompted concern that the president’s acquittal in his recent impeachment trial may embolden him to further expand executive power while avoiding accountability.

  But the conclusion of the trial in the Senate should by no means end congressional oversight of the executive branch.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1705 - They said it could not be done, but we did it!

  They said it could not be done, but she did it. She was female. She was Black. She was Southern. She was poor. People said she could not be a mathematician. Being a physicist was so beyond the possibility that they did not bother to say she could not be one. But she overcame all odds not only to be a mathematician and physicist but to be great. She became Black History. They said it could not be done, but we did it.