Contrary to the stories that have been dominating coverage of the Latino vote, there is far more enthusiasm among Latinos for voting in November than previously thought, according to POLITICO:
“Almost 60 percent of Latino voters now say they are ‘very enthusiastic’ about voting, up from 41 percent on Sept. 6, according to the latest Latino Decisions tracking poll released Monday.
“But the level of enthusiasm among this fastest-growing segment of the electorate still pales in comparison to September 2006, when 89 percent of Latinos said they were determined to vote, and Oct. 2008, when that figure spiked to 92 percent.
“Still, the jump in interest over the last two months is an encouraging sign for Democrats, who need strong Hispanic turnout in states such as Nevada, Colorado and California if they hope to hold onto those Senate seats – and, in turn, keep the chamber in Democratic hands.”
The New York Times has a must-read editorial on our country’s mortgage mess:
“The mortgage mess just keeps getting messier. Last week, Bank of America announced that it had performed a ‘thorough review’ of its processes, found nothing amiss and would soon restart 102,000 pending foreclosures. On Sunday, the bank acknowledged that it had in fact found errors in its filings, and would resume foreclosures only in a deliberate manner as new and corrected paperwork was submitted to the courts.
“The repeated recalibration cast further doubt on Bank of America’s procedures and the ability of the entire industry to clean up this mess.
“The immediate issue is robo-signing, in which employees at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and other banks falsely attested to having verified the facts in what may turn out to be hundreds of thousands, or more, court foreclosure filings. That has brought to light other problems, including crucial documents that have been lost or improperly transferred — raising questions about the banks’ legal standing to foreclose as well as the value of securities backed by these mortgages.”
The Environmental Protection Agency aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by requiring stricter standards for big trucks, according to the Los Angeles Times:
“The regulations, the first of their kind, call for a 20% reduction in heavy-vehicle emissions by 2018, which would require boosting fuel efficiency to an average of 8 miles per gallon, compared with 6 mpg now, experts estimate.
“Trucks and other heavy vehicles make up only 4% of the U.S. vehicle fleet, but given the distance they travel, the time they spend idling and their low fuel efficiency, they consume 20% of all vehicle fuel, said Don Anair, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists' clean vehicles program.
“The standards, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department, are the latest in a series of measures designed to chip away at greenhouse gas emissions at a time when a sharply divided Congress has been in a stalemate over climate change legislation.”
A new study finds that heavy smoking in middle age significantly increases one’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. USA Today writes:
“Heavy smoking in midlife more than doubles your odds of developing Alzheimer's disease, a Kaiser Permanente study said Monday.
“The study is the first to examine the long-term consequences of heavy smoking on Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, says the study's principal investigator, Rachel Whitmer, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland.
“From 1994 to 2008, researchers evaluated the records of 21,123 men and women in midlife and continued following them, on average, for 23 years. Compared with non-smokers, those who had smoked two packs of cigarettes a day increased their risk of developing Alzheimer's by more than 157% and had a 172% higher risk of developing vascular dementia — the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's. The research is published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.”