News and Issues

Stanford political scientist Andrew Hall found that contentious primaries that receive heavy media coverage and voter attention tend to produce nominees who do less well in the general election. But, if the primary has not generated much attention, then the primary winner is less affected — and sometimes even helped — in the general election. more »

California's chief of workforce development, is trying different tactics to keep senior workers on the job: offering a flexible work schedule, promoting work-life balance and creating the first government-wide employee management survey to assess the needs of workers. The idea is to find out who is leaving — and why. more »

Several tracking apps were marketed to individuals for the purpose of tracking or intercepting the communications of an intimate partner to determine if that partner was cheating. About one-third of the websites marketed their tracking apps as surreptitious, specifically to track the location and intercept the smartphone communications of children, employees, or intimate partners without their knowledge or consent. more »

By tapping into a database of opioid painkillers dispensed in the state, physicians can check patients' opioid medication history, as well as their use of other combinations of potentially harmful drugs, such as sedatives and muscle relaxants, to determine whether they are at risk of addiction or overdose death. "We in the health care profession had a lot of years to police ourselves and clean this up, and we didn’t do it," Kentucky physician Greg Jones, an anti-addiction specialist.   more »