Most Rhode Island voters favor same-sex marriage by a margin of 60 percent to 31 percent, according to a new statewide survey conducted by the Taubman Center for Public Policy. A larger majority, 75 percent, would support a law allowing civil unions for same-sex couples. Additionally, the survey found that President Barack Obama has considerable support in Rhode Island, with 74 percent of respondents approving of his job as president and 68 percent approving of his handling of the economy.

Rhode Islanders are gloomy about the state’s economy, according to a poll by the Taubman Center. Most news reports centered on the poll’s finding on same sex marriage, but the same poll found three out of every four Rhode Island residents say the economy is doing poorly.

Melani Cammett, assistant professor of political science, weighs in on the upcoming elections in Lebanon. Lebanese voters head to the polls on June 7 in an election that could alter the political fabric of the country. Hezbollah and its allies are poised to make significant gains against the current anti-Syria majority.

Deep brain stimulation is expanding its reach to new types of patients. Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, associate professor of medicine, has shown success using the technique on patients who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Newsweek correspondent Richard Wolffe has written his version of Theodore White’s classic campaign story The Making of a President. White’s protagonist was JFK, while Wolffe chronicles Barack Obama’s remarkable rise to power in Renegade: The Making of a President. Ted Widmer, director of the John Carter Brown Library writes that the remake “stakes an audacious claim to its own importance and largely lives up to it.”

Undergraduate Gauri Tilak is trying to make a difference in the lives of AIDS/HIV patients in a Mumbai hospital. “We realized nothing is being done about the nutritional needs and education of HIV-positive persons, particularly women and children – factors which could play an important role in improving their quality of life,” she says.