From Drug Dealing To Diploma, A Teen’s Struggle

First of a five-part series No statistic in education is more damning than the nation’s dropout rate. Almost 4 million students start ninth grade every year. One in four won’t graduate. About half of those who drop out every year are black. Most will end up unemployed, and by their mid-30s, six out of 10 [...]

Weather Warnings For A ‘Climate Changed Planet’

This summer of record breaking heat followed a spring that brought some of the most extreme weather on record. Climatologist Heidi Cullen writes, “It’s time to face the fact that the weather isn’t what it used to be.” Cullen is the author of the book The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and [...]

‘Stone Arabia’: The Cost Of Artistic Commitment

One summer, when I was in high school, I took a fiction writing course at The New School in New York; the most valuable thing I learned there was the golden rule of creative writing: “Don’t quit your day job.” Of course, lots of writers, as well as artists and musicians, ignore that practical wisdom: [...]

Venezuela’s Chavez Vows To Run For Re-Election In 2012, And Beyond

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is determined to stay in office for years to come despite treatment for a cancerous tumor in Cuba. In an interview published by the government newspaper Correo del Orinoco, Chavez said he would run for re-election in 2012 and suggested he hoped to remain in office until 2031. The AP reports [...]

Bear Attack Nearly Ends In Tragedy For Teens In Alaska Training Course

Two teenagers are in an Anchorage hospital after a bear attack in the Alaska wilderness over the weekend. Joshua Berg, 17, of New City, N.Y., and Samuel Gottsegen, 17, of Denver were part of a group of seven teenagers who came upon a grizzly bear and her cub near the end of a 30-day backcountry [...]

Circumcision: Age-Old Rite Faces Modern Concerns

For many couples, having a baby is a spiritual experience. For Jews, there’s another, religious, element that is intrinsic to the Jewish identity. Nearly all Jewish parents have their baby boys circumcised, as commanded by God in the Bible. And yet, for some Jewish couples, whether to circumcise or not is becoming an agonizing decision. [...]

Vaccine Mistrust Spreading To The Developing World

The public health community has gotten markedly better at distributing effective vaccines to the children who need them. But researchers are noticing an increase in mistrust of vaccines around the world, and they’re concerned that unfounded suspicions could derail immunization programs essential to saving lives. Anti-vaccine groups in the U.S. and Europe have for years [...]

Norway Attacks Stoke Fears Of Growing Extremism

The attacks in Norway have focused attention on the rise of right-wing extremism in many parts of Europe, where there is growing animosity to the arrival of large numbers of non-European immigrants. The continent’s recent economic crisis has exacerbated longstanding unease with immigrants, which has its roots in the founding of modern European nation-states as [...]

‘Sister,’ An Elegantly Suspenseful Whodunit

The thing that makes fictional detectives — especially the hard-boiled British ones — so good at what they do is a healthy sense of detachment. Lovers and family members are too close to the case, so in swoops Detective Handsome to crack the code. These sleuths may have sordid, tangled personal lives of their own, [...]

Are Investors Nervous About Lending To The U.S.?

The central news narrative of the weekend was that Congress and President Obama needed to cut a debt deal by Sunday night in order to avoid panic in the financial markets on Monday. There was no deal this weekend, and there is no panic today. There are signs of anxiety — notably gold’s rise to [...]