Useful Hot Topics Sites

Sites with information on controversial or newsworthy issues.

Doctor-Assisted Suicide--A Guide to Web Sites and the Literature - http://www.longwood.edu/library/suic.htm

• Description: Last updated in early 2004. Excellent site with a bibliography and links to articles, web sites, Supreme Court decisions, and more. There are also links (through Growth House, "the Yahoo of death and dying,") to sites on HIV/AIDS, hospice care, elder care, funeral planning, suicide, grief, palliative care, and similar topics.
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: ]

Ethics Updates Home Page - http://ethics.acusd.edu/index.html

• Description: This page is maintained by a philosophy professor at the University of San Diego. It contains numerous ethics links, including hot topics in applied ethics.
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: ]

Government Documents in the News - http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/docnews.html

• Description: U. Mich site which offers documents relating to newsworthy topics, arranged by year and topic. Government and U.N. documents predominate, but there are some from other sources as well.
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: ]

FACSNET - http://www.facsnet.org/

• Description: Includes sections on top stories from the day's Associated Press wire, and links to materials for journalists, including (under "Top Issues") summaries of recent decisions by the US Supreme Court, disasters, and global climate changes. "Reporting Tools," includes more useful information. The site requires registration, but is free.
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: Choice, Mar. 1998, p. 1185]

Hot Topics List & Supersites - http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/guides/hot/list.shtml

• Description: Links internet sites which have resources on many controversial topics of current interest.
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: ]

Online NewsHour: Backgrounders and Transcripts - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/background.html

• Description: The online version of the PBS show, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, has background information and an archive of interviews on many newsworthy subjects the show has reported. Indexed by broad topics.
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: ]

PollingReport.com - Public Opinion Online - http://www.pollingreport.com/

• Description: Full-text, searchable database of public opinion polls on a wide variety of subjects. "PollingReport.com is a service of THE POLLING REPORT, an independent, nonpartisan resource on American public opinion, published in Washington, D.C." It "... publishes the results of the latest surveys (by respected polling organizations like Gallup, Harris, Yankelovich, and Princeton Survey Research Associates) on health care, taxation, welfare, education, environmental policy, and the other major issues of the day."
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: Library Staff]

Public Agenda Online - http://www.publicagenda.org/

• Description: Offers briefing on issues connected to public policy. Well organized, easy-to-use, and fast. Searchable. Has digests of recent notable news as well as analysis. Major issues include as a feature "Framing the debate." which offers three perspectives on each issue, in summary and in more depth, with arguments for and against each approach. "Public Agenda is a nonpartisan, nonprofit public opinion research and citizen education organization ... founded in 1975 by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance."
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: Library Staff]

• Description:A bibliography of sources on the legal aspects of same-sex marriage, compiled by Paul-Axel Lute at the Rutgers School of Law. Has lists of articles in favor and opposed to gay marriage. Also has links to legislation, legal opinions, and other material.
• Appropriate to course or program:
• [Reviewed by: Library Staff]