A Young Mom Resists A Cycle Of Failure

Second of a five-part series Of the million or so kids who drop out of school every year, nearly half are girls. They drop out for the same reasons boys do: they skip school, fall behind academically and they’re bored. But the single biggest reason girls drop out is because they get pregnant. Not a [...]

Killing Focuses Attention On Iran’s Nuclear Program

Iran says a scientist killed in Tehran over the weekend was not connected with the country’s nuclear program, but the daylight killing and recent announcements by Tehran of nuclear advances have renewed scrutiny of the country’s nuclear effort. Iranian media said 35-year-old Darioush Rezai-Nejad was a promising graduate student. Officials speculated that his assailants — [...]

Two States Protect Lake Tahoe, But One Eyes Changes

Lake Tahoe sits right on the state line between California and Nevada, and the two states work together to protect the lake’s ecosystem. The partnership has helped to stall the reduction in the remarkable clarity of the lake’s deep blue waters. But now Nevada wants out of the partnership if it doesn’t get some concessions [...]

Report: ATF Guns Recovered At Mexican Crime Scenes

Weapons traced to a failed U.S. law enforcement operation that sought to take down violent Mexican drug cartels have been recovered at more than 48 different crime scenes in Mexico, including bloody kidnappings and gun battles that left more than a dozen Mexican police and cartel members dead last May, according to a new report [...]

Study Shows Racial Wealth Gap Grows Wider

There’s long been a big gap between the wealth of white families and the wealth of African-Americans and Hispanics. But the Great Recession has made it much worse — the divide is almost twice what it used to be. That’s according to a new study by the Pew Research Center, which says that the decline [...]

Obama, Boehner Again Square Off On Debt Ceiling

Decrying a “partisan three-ring circus” in the nation’s capital, President Obama criticized a newly minted Republican plan to avert an unprecedented government default Monday night and said congressional leaders must produce a compromise that can reach his desk before the Aug. 2 deadline. “The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t [...]

FAA Suspends Airport Construction Projects Nationwide

The Federal Aviation Administration has stopped work on air travel infrastructure projects across the United States after Congress failed to pass legislation re-authorizing federal ticket taxes. The taxes fund the building airport facilities such as control towers and runways. The FAA issued a statement Monday saying, in part, that the halt in work would end [...]

Chicken Pox Deaths Plummet With Help Of Vaccine

Ever since the chicken pox vaccine became routine for kids back in 1995, deaths from the virus, also known as varicella, have been dropping. A study in the journal Pediatrics out today tells us just how steep that drop has been. In the 12 years after the one-dose vaccination program was launched, deaths from varicella [...]

‘Twelve Breaths’: Lessons From The End Of Life

When life draws to an end, family, caregivers and medical professionals face a flurry of often heartbreaking decisions. Are there any last treatments to try? How much longer can a patient hold on? When is it time to turn off the ventilator — and who gets to decide? Everyone involved has to balance intervention with [...]

With Modesty In Mind, TSA Rolls Out New Body Scans

Beginning in 2007, full-body scanners were installed at the nation’s airports to address concerns that terrorists could smuggle explosives hidden in their clothing — or, in one infamous case, their underwear — that wouldn’t be picked up by standard metal detectors. The scanners produced a fairly detailed image of a traveler’s body, which was viewed [...]