For decades now, major left-wing parties throughout the West have been bleeding support from the working-class voters whose interests they claim to represent. In the mid-20th century, a voter's socioeconomic position strongly predicted his or her partisan allegiance: In Britain, France, and the United States

An estimated 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications last winter - the disease's highest death toll in at least four decades. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, revealed the total in an interview Tuesday night with The Associated Press.