Good morning! A 97 percent turnout is expected in today’s referendum on whether or not Scotland will declare its independence from the UK. After the voting age was lowered, Scots as young as 16 are now able to cast a ballot, but those living abroad — estimated to be around 20 percent of the Scottish population — won’t have a vote.
Stat of the day: 40 percent — the share of the American public that has “a great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media’s ability to report the news “fully, accurately, and fairly,” according to Gallup, which says the number matches the all-time low it measured in 2012.
“Unusual but not unheard of” –> Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson testified for four hours yesterday before the grand jury investigating the shooting death of Michael Brown. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Kim Bell explains why it’s unusual in a case like this for a prosecutor to invite the target of a probe to speak with jurors.
Dangerous losers –> At NYMag, Joe Coscarelli looks at the aimless, confused and mostly young Americans who have tried to join the Islamic State.
“Groundwater levels here have plunged by 60 feet” –> At the LAT, Diana Marcum has a fascinating piece about one of the towns in Central California that’s been hardest hit by the drought — and a 72-year-old woman who took it upon herself to find out how many of the community’s wells had run dry when she learned that nobody was keeping track.
NRA “going big” in midterms –> James Hohmann reports for Politico that over the next few months the National Rifle Association will spend heavily in a handful of Senate races, in addition to backing Governors Rick Scott in Florida and Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
Occupy student debt –> StrikeDebt and the Rolling Jubilee, both offshoots of the Occupy movement, killed off $3.85 million in student loan debt for almost 3,000 people who attended Everest College, a for-profit institution. The group purchased the debt for three cents on the dollar. Jerry Ashton has the details at HuffPo.
“A sharp-shooting, cop-hating survivalist” –> More is becoming known about Eric Frein, the prime suspect in an ambush-style attack that left one Pennsylvania State Trooper dead and another wounded. Patrik Jonsson reports for the Christian Science Monitor that while police haven’t come to a conclusion about the motive for the attack, it appears that Frein held a “particular kind of American antigovernment, off-the-grid extremism.”
What could possibly go wrong? –> A study released Wednesday by Everytown for Gun Safety found that 8 out of 81 people seeking to buy an unlicensed gun over the Internet had criminal records that made them ineligible to purchase firearms. Michele Richinick reports for MSNBC.
The culture dodge –> Jonah Birch and Paul Heideman have an excellent piece in Jacobin about the Zombie Lie that dysfunctional “culture” can be blamed for African-Americans’ social and economic problems. RELATED: William Finnegan writes at The New Yorker about efforts to demonize the minimum wage — and those who rely on low-wage work to get by.
“Undue burden” –> Jeffrey Toobin writes that one of former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s most important triumphs was a decision that prevented states from placing an “undue burden” on the right to have an abortion. Toobin explains how, “as the Court moved to the right, following O’Connor’s resignation, the scope of the constraints on state power began shrinking.”
Living history –> When she was in her twenties, Margot Wölk was one of 15 young women compelled to taste Hitler’s food to make sure it hadn’t been poisoned. She was the only one to survive the war. Now 96, Wölk told her story for the first time to Tony Paterson of The Independent.
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