Sarah Bufkin

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control reported that three of the 11 people who have contracted the plague in the United States had died. Rather frighteningly, the overall disease incidence rate is higher than usual. Between 1970 and 2012, the…

More than a year out from the election proper, Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is raking in millions in small-scale donations — more than any other candidate in the 2016 contest thus far. Sanders, who appears on…

Human rights activists and former President Jimmy Carter announced last week that he has four cancerous lesions on his brain, provoking an outpouring of support from his native state of Georgia, the country he ran for four years, and the world that…

A former Virginia cop has been indicted on murder charges for shooting John Geer, an unarmed man, in the doorway of his own home in August 2013. According to at least four officers on the scene at the time, Adam Torres fired a single shot without…

This week, the Missouri state house discussed implementing a dress code specifically for interns as a means of combating sexual harassment in the Jefferson City legislature. Yeah, you read that right. After two lawmakers resigned following…

Over two weeks in mid-July, at least five black women were found dead in police custody. First, after a routine traffic stop turned violent, 28-year-old Sandra Bland was found hanging in a Texas jail cell on July 13 under mysterious circumstances.…

Almost half of the more than 10,000 firefighters combating California's wildfires are prison inmates. Trained and deployed by California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the inmates are on the front lines against some of the year’s…

In a tongue-in-cheek move to fix his state's looming budget shortfall, an Alabama state senator has started a GoFundMe account to bring in revenue — to the tune of $300 million. State Sen. Paul Sanford from Huntsville, Alabama, said that he opened…

With the first debate of the 2016 GOP presidential primary looming, 10 candidates will set out to, among other things, defend their conservative credentials on women’s rights and healthcare. But just which kinds of women voters are Republicans…

A majority of Americans say that more needs to be done to guarantee equal rights to African-Americans, according to a new poll from The Washington Post. In contrast, a similar Pew Research Center poll from this time last year found that only 46…

GOP presidential candidate and unlikely frontrunner Donald Trump gave significant campaign donations to Democrats until about five years ago. According to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of Trump's campaign finance data from 1989 forward,…

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to ban large-capacity gun magazines, targeting the type of firearm that has all too often been deployed in mass shootings around the country over the past couple of years. The push to ban…

It's been an entire year since Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot out of the sky over conflict-ridden eastern Ukraine. And yet, the families of the 298 victims still have few answers as to who is responsible for their loved ones’ deaths. Led by…

Trumpeting his support for the sharing economy, GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush took Uber to a San Francisco meeting Thursday. While his driver, a 35-year-old Yemeni man named Munir Algazaly, said the former Florida governor was “a nice guy,”…

Jared Fogle, better known as the “Subway guy” from the early 2000s commercials, has parted ways with the company after federal investigators raided his house in Indiana on Tuesday for evidence in connection with a child pornography case. Fogle’s…

In the coming weeks, President Barack Obama will commute the sentences of dozens more nonviolent drug offenders, his aides told The New York Times Wednesday. The commutations, which reduce offenders’ sentences but would not void their convictions,…

During its next term, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could prove catastrophic to public sector unions if SCOTUS justices take aim at how organized labor traditionally collect dues for its workplace negotiations. In the worst case scenario,…

A Louisiana man who served nearly 30 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit died of Stage IV lung cancer Monday, less than a year after he regained his freedom. Glenn Ford, who was black, was wrongfully convicted back in 1984 by an…

A French teenager made baseball history Sunday by becoming the first woman to be named to Major League Baseball’s international registration list, meaning that a professional club could draft her this summer. There is no guarantee that Melissa…