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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Study Maps Hate in America

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Tuesday, February 13, 2018   

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Hate is a national phenomenon, but the way hate is directed varies depending on where you live, according to new research from the University of Utah.

A team of geographers mapped the patterns of active hate groups in more than 360 U.S. counties in 2014 and found that nationwide, less education, population change, ethnic diversity, poverty and conservative politics correlated with more hate groups.

But, Richard Medina, the report's senior author, says the ways people hate are based on cultures, histories and other factors specific to different regions.

"If you look at the South, they have different racial issues, and areas along the border of the U.S. may focus on anti-immigrant issues," he notes. "So you can start to see this whole map of hate that is really regionally specific."

Medina and his team focused on organized groups that target entire classes of people based on factors beyond their control - including ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 2016 saw a near-high in the number of hate groups in the U.S.

Medina says while many people are facing uncertainty and change, those involved in hate groups believe their actions will help secure the future for the people they see as members of their tribe. Medina notes that fear can turn to hate, and in the worst case, violence.

"You know, the neo-Nazi, the national anti-immigrant hate, really, I think, in a lot of ways, boils down to this fear of losing identity from what those people consider to be "other" people," explains Medina.

Emily Nicolosi, a doctoral candidate in the University's geography department who contributed to the study, says places that have a history of large-scale immigration, such as the east and west coasts, are more accepting of people with different backgrounds.

She adds that, even in non-coastal regions, counties that experienced an influx of new people over a five-year period tended to have less hate.

"So that kind of goes to show that when people perhaps have a chance to interact with people who are different (from) them, that might contribute to more tolerance," she points out.

The study was recently published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.


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