Enrollment for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as “Obamacare,” began on October 1, in preparation for the official launch of the new insurance plans on January 1, 2014. Yet the massive overhaul of the nation’s health care system faces almost as many questions and challenges now as when it was … Read more
Just before this edition of the HPR went to press, the U.S. federal government remained shut down, a victim of allegedly irreconcilable differences between our political parties. The shutdown may be the stuff of history textbooks, but a few weeks earlier, there was another remarkable occurrence, this time a cross-continental op-ed submission. Vladimir Putin, the … Read more
In a 5-4 vote this past June, the Supreme Court dealt a serious blow to the legacy of the civil rights movement in Shelby County v. Holder. Striking down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the decision nullified the coverage formula that determined which states and local governments required preapproval from the … Read more
Our newsreel plays out in predictable fashion when covering Afghanistan. The headline might contain the death toll from the nation’s latest suicide bombing, perhaps accompanied by footage depicting a terrorist attack and shell-shocked streets. The stories often speak for themselves, and there is little left to say besides the notion that nothing has changed in … Read more
While traditionally privacy has referred to our ability to decide what to disclose and what to keep secret, it also entails the right to self-presentation. In Europe, this right is considered so important that members of the European Parliament have proposed enshrining a “right to be forgotten” in new privacy legislation. Such a right would … Read more
People go to Paris to see what is there, but also what is not there. Haussmann’s boulevards, the Louvre’s glass pyramid, and the spires of Notre Dame would not amount to much if they had to compete with modern skyscrapers. While most cities grapple with slums and industrial sprawl, Paris has also had to sweep … Read more
Dear Readers, “Anything Could Happen at Harvard.” It’s the latest viral video sweeping campus, and it is generating all kinds of buzz among the student body. Students, feeling everything from disillusionment to unbridled optimism, look to the video as either a serious misportrayal of the Harvard experience or spot-on encapsulation of undergraduate life. After watching … Read more
The importance of the coming years on India’s long-term viability as an international power is not lost on either local officials or international onlookers, and economic growth and internal development are crucial to the country’s future.. Economic growth rate is often used as a gauge for a countries’ commercial potential, drumming up interest in foreign companies for … Read more
Conservative positions on income inequality are often cast by the wayside. In a certain way, they are considered as fossils: They can teach us about the failures of the past, but they are never considered as any type of solution. This isn’t without reason. After all, as Josh Barro, politics editor at Business Insider, told … Read more
Mounting unemployment. Empty city blocks. Foreclosed properties. Soup lines. If not for the conspicuous signs of modernity – the 21st century high-rises, the passers-by using mobile phones – you’d be forgiven for mistaking downtown Detroit for any Depression-era American city. On July 18, 2013, the city, once an industrial powerhouse buoyed by the likes of Ford … Read more