Articles by Danika McClure

In September, President Trump issued a presidential proclamation adding a number of countries to his travel ban that made headlines earlier this year. The original list of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen now includes Chad, Venezuela, and North Korea. Taking effect on October 18, this travel ban has restrictions that are indefinite and subject to change, ABC News reports. While there has been much speculation about how this travel ban might affect citizens from these countries, many hope...

Recent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, ended violently, as white supremacists clashed with counter-demonstrators, and a car driven by 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., ploughed into a crowd full of anti-racist and anti-fascist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring at least 19 others. According to Al Jazeera, the “Unite the Right” rally, was planned for Saturday, August 12, in an effort to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate soldier and icon, General Rober...

Americans are facing a new public health crisis. According to a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry, an astounding one in eight Americans are currently struggling with alcohol addiction. The study tracked the drinking patterns of 40,000 people between the years of 2002 and 2003, and followed up with the participants ten years later in 2012-2013 to gain an accurate reading of their long-term drinking habits. The results are grim. On the whole, alcohol disorders rose by an alarming 50 percent...

Over the past few weeks, headlines regarding the legislative efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Effort have been abundant, with some experts indicating that there may still be an opportunity for Senate Republicans to revive the debate sometime later this week. “When the cameras so dramatically showed Senator John McCain (R-AZ) voting “no,” he was actually just providing the deciding vote against the so-called ‘skinny’ repeal amendment offered by McConnell,” Forbes contributor Sta...

Life expectancies for Americans have increased significantly over the past hundred years. Today, Americans can expect to live an average of 25 years longer than in generations previous, living fulfilled lives well into their late 70s. Although the increased life expectancy is something to be celebrated, Americans still have some of the lowest life expectancies in the developed world. Additionally, this expanded life expectancy comes at quite a price, costing trillions of dollars each year on he...

Access to higher education has been on the forefront of the political sphere over the past two presidential races, with both parties agreeing that students need to be educated in order to succeed in today’s competitive and rapidly advancing workforce. At the same time, higher education has changed drastically with the influx of technology making it more accessible to students of all ages and locations. There is a significant population of individuals who aren’t considered in this educational di...

Student loan default rates are a major problem for many students. In fact, according to a recent analysis from the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), millions of Americans have fallen behind on their student loans. This data reveals that nearly 42.4 million people in the U.S. owed at least $1.3 trillion in federal student loans by the end of 2016. Since then, the average amount owed per borrower has increased by at least 17 percent. Under the previous administration, however, students were ...

Americans spend nearly $2.6 trillion each year on healthcare, but have some of the lowest life expectancies in the developed world. In addition, rates of infant mortality, diabetes, and other chronic conditions are at an all-time high when compared to the rest of the globe. Part of the reasoning behind the high rates of disease and decreased lifespan, public health experts note, is a lack of preventative care in the United States. Preventing diseases is one of the most common, and least expens...

Over the course of 25 years, women’s incarceration has increased drastically, and has reached a point where females are jailed at a rate of nearly 150 percent when compared to men. According to the ACLU, there are now more than 200,000 women behind bars and more than one million women on probation and parole--many of which have been caught up by the “war on drugs,” with heavy sentences for non-violent offenses. Although women are incarcerated at an alarming rate, they still make up a paltry fra...