On Wednesday, November 18, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap certified the petition signatures gathered by The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV Maine) to put RVC on the 2016 ballot.

A team of bipartisan lawmakers has introduced a bill designed to end what they call "the illegal, counter-productive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad."

In September, hedge-fund manager and entrepreneur Martin Shkreli made headlines when he bought the rights to a 62-year-old drug, then raised the price from $13.50 a pill to $750.

And while more Americans are becoming keenly aware of this growing practice--price gouging on existing drugs--where's the outrage?

We typically believe in the free market, where innovation is rewarded, but some of the worst price gouging is occurring in the generic market on very old drugs.

During the Independent Voter Project's 2015 Business and Leadership Conference, experts in the pharmaceutical and medical fields, along with California legislators, participated in a panel discussion on medical innovation up to now and what the future may hold for the industry and patients alike.

At first glance, it would appear that the Golden State has beaten the odds when it comes to creating jobs following the Great Recession. In 2014, the 1.3 million jobs that were lost during the Great Recession were regained and then some, according to the Political Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

Almost weekly, a new headline about Silicon Valley’s booming tech industry reinforces the idea that California’s jobs problem is a thing of the past.

There is no doubt that immigration is one of the primary hot-button issues for the 2016 presidential election -- in particular the influx of those entering illegally or staying beyond their legitimate visas.

But a new Pew Research study calls into question the legitimacy of the concerns. The net numbers of immigrants, both legal and illegal, have dropped.

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

The above appears on the Statue of Liberty and is part of a larger poem by Emma Lazarus. With its location near Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty became the symbol for new immigrants and refugees entering the United States in search of a better life.

The 113th Congress was rated one of the least productive congresses in history, and the 114th is not shaping up to do much better. Things have gotten so bad that we consider it an achievement when our elected officials just agree to pay the bills instead of shutting down the government.

At the national level, the conversation on energy and climate is usually portrayed as a zero-sum game, where a victory for one side means a defeat for the other. One is either a climate science denier or doesn’t care about environmental hazards associated with energy production.

Since the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, the world is once against debating how to understand and respond to such tragedies. French President Francois Hollande has said that the country is now "at war" with ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the attacks, and France has bombed ISIS targets in Syria for consecutive days.