So far in 2013, Chicago homicides outnumbered slayings in the larger cities of New York and Los Angeles last year. Chicago has drawn a lot of attention for the soaring gun violence and gang bloodshed, creating a political test for Mayor Rahm Emanuel in President Obama’s hometown.  But a year later, Chicago has Chicago has [...]

Recent lawsuits and Justice Department investigations have uncovered grotesque abuses of mentally ill inmates at state and local prisons. It has been an extraordinary three weeks , and maybe the darkest period in the history of the American penal system. In four states the systemic abuse and neglect of inmates, and especially mentally ill inmates, [...]

An elderly Chinese woman participates in a survey on dementia. China had more people living with Alzheimer’s disease than any other country in the world in 2010. They had twice as many cases of Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia as the World Health Organization thought.    

When a bridge falls in America, like this one near Seattle last week, infrastructure spending has a way of transforming into a national obsession. Fortunately, falling bridges in America are still a rarity. But, infrastructure spending is being squeezed at the very moment that infrastructure spending is a historic bargain for the federal government.    

National holidays in the United States really aren’t national holidays. The U.S. isn’t like the rest of the developed world, we don’t guarantee every worker paid time off. Not for summer vacations. Not for Christmas. Not for Memorial Day. So while most of us kicked back with beer and overcooked burgers this past holiday weekend, [...]

In America today there seems to be an extremely problematic phenomenon of the ever growing industry of privatized prisons across America, generally referred to as the Prison Industrial Complex, as well as skyrocketing rates of incarceration that leave the rest of the nations of the world trailing behind.    

Texting behind the wheel is much more dangerous than driving drunk because of the frequency in which teenagers send texts verses how often they drink. A new study has found that texting while driving has now replaced drunk driving as the number one cause of teenage deaths on the road in the U.S.    

The new attacks seek to destroy data or to manipulate industrial machinery and take over or shut down the networks that deliver energy or run industrial processes. Warnings from federal officials, including a vague one issued last week by the Department of Homeland Security, are being prompted by a new wave of cyberattacks that are striking [...]

Four year old Wu Xiaotian has breathing problems that are linked to air pollution. A boy in China has a chronic cough and stuffy nose that began last year at the age of 3.  When smog across northern China surged to record levels this winter his symptoms worsened. Now he needs his sinuses cleared every night [...]

Over 16,000 dead pigs have been found in China’s rivers. The “dead animals in Chinese rivers” toll seems to have stabilized.  According to recent reports, over 16,000 dead pigs have been joined by 1,000 dead ducks and, rather ominously, 13 dead black swans in China’s rivers. The discovery of so many carcasses has elicited no small amount of public [...]