Surprising Truths About Immigration
When Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed America’s toughest immigration law in April, she and her backers justified SB1070 on the grounds of rising crime, perpetrated by illegal immigrants. The bill also sprang from a greater concern in Arizona, shared by other states: Illegal immigrants take jobs away from citizens. SB1070,…
Breakout Stars: Tough Girls Under 25
In the past year, the entertainment world delivered more than its fair share of successful, strong, and resilient young female stars. Some of our perennial favorites? Teen queen Miley Cyrus (age 18) was the most-searched person of 2010. Lady Gaga (24) had eight — yes, eight — versions of herself…
Femme Fatale: A Year in Lady Spies
In 2010, the Cold War returned. Suddenly, spies were all around us, in film, on television, and — notably — in the news. In November, WikiLeaks created a political firestorm, releasing 250,000 classified documents that indicate U.S. diplomats performed low-level spying. Earlier that month, director Doug Liman’s “Fair Game,” a…
Misheard, Mistaken, Misspelled: The Year’s Finest
Misspelled words of 2010? This list is not one to be “refudiated.” Among the billions of searches that course through Yahoo!, there are bound to be oodles of misspellings. After all, one reason that people search is to figure out an unfamiliar concept, like who the heck this Justine Bieber…
No. 10: An Angel in Queens
The catalyst: Every weekday, Jorge Munoz starts his shift at 5:15 a.m. He drives a school bus, picking up elementary schoolchildren at a bus stop and dropping them off at a few schools on Long Island in New York. As part of his regular route home, he passes a food…
No. 9: Secret Agent L
The catalyst: By day, blogger Laura Miller, 32, worked as an administrative assistant at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her busy workload — booking schedules, managing projects, and fielding inquiries from students and the public — didn’t allow much time for another important thing she neglected on her to-do list:…
No. 8: Donald Arthur
The catalyst: Donald Arthur, a retired bookkeeper, suffered from multiple health concerns, smoked, drank heavily, and didn’t watch what he ate. His careless habits as a young man contributed to serious disabilities as he aged: His heart became dangerously enlarged, and later he was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. In the spring…
No. 7: Phoebe’s Food Bank
The catalyst: Five-year-olds ask a lot of questions. One that Phoebe Russell asked her mother was, Why do the homeless live that way? It’s a question that seemed unanswerable. In Phoebe’s city, San Francisco, the homeless population ranges between 6,200 and 15,000, depending on which source you consult. There may…
No. 6: Friendfactor
The catalyst: Bullying captured headlines in 2010, but a sad spate of suicides, including that of Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, shifted public attention to harassment of gay kids. Swift response followed, from columnist Dan Savage’s online video project, It Gets Better, to the U.S. Department of Education’s outreach to…
No. 5: Wonder Capes
The catalyst: Are superheroes for real? Amy Pankratz just might qualify. Like many superheroes, the stay-at-home mother from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, discovered her powers by accident. One cold winter day, her then four-year-old daughter Isabella said, “Mommy, I want a superhero cape.” Pankratz says, “I told her OK.” But…