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Underfunded and overburdened, public transit agencies aren’t wrong to view Uber and Lyft as threats to ridership statistics and fare revenue. But viewed as a complement , ride-hailing offers an answer to the so-called “first-and-last-mile” problem which transit users often face, especially in low-density cities. Some agencies are wholeheartedly embracing ride-hailing’s potential—and undoubtedly, the rest will have a lot to learn from them. Pinellas County, Florida, is among those early...

We intuitively know that our personalities and temperaments — whether we’re introverts or extroverts, how we respond to novelty or adversity, whether we’re hard-driving or laid back — are the result of a complex interaction of nature and nurture. We likely start with some general social tendencies established by genes inherited from our parents. But it seems equally evident that experience matters. Did you grow up beloved or neglected? Have your surroundings and people close to you...

At any given time you’ll find 4 or more parenting books on my Amazon wish list, a few by my nightstand, and an email box chock full of insightful parenting theories and approaches. Granted, child development is my career, but I speak with plenty of parents in my practice who find themselves in similar circumstances. With information around every corner and our culture projecting constant messages (many times contradictory) regarding how we should raise our kids, feeling like a confident and...

This is on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration website this week. A new SAMHSA Report highlights the correlation of exposure to traumatic events, the occurrence of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), and negative health and behavioral health outcomes. This report was developed from a study on the characteristics of adults exposed to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and adults who had PTSS, and their association with health and behavioral health conditions. The study...

In medieval myth, Cockaigne was a land of plenty, where work was outlawed, houses were made of pie and sausages , rivers of wine flowed, and ready-roasted geese and grilled fish followed villagers around, eager to be eaten. To the poor of the Middle Ages, according to the Dutch historian Herman Pleij, Cockaigne was a well-known paradise , a fantastical escape from the harshness of everyday life. Nowadays, the Dutch city of Utrecht is about to see if such a place, where citizens’ fundamental...

Nancy Gutierrez was primed to shine. As the new principal at Fischer Middle School in East San Jose, California, it was more than a new job for Gutierrez, it was a homecoming. She was a product of the heavily Mexican American, working-class, and immigrant community, and her mom still lived just a few blocks from the school in Northern California. “I grew up going to the same bodega on the corner as they did,” Gutierrez said, speaking of her students and their families. “I wasn’t someone who...

Angela Duckworth, in her best-selling book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” celebrates a man whom she calls a “grit paragon”: Pete Carroll, the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, who led the team to a Super Bowl victory in 2014. It seems that Carroll had seen Duckworth’s ted talk nine months earlier and got in touch, eager to reassure her that building grit was exactly what the Seahawks culture was all about. Two years later, Duckworth visited the Seahawks training camp. She...

People who experienced frequent hunger during childhood are more than twice as likely to exhibit impulsivity and engage in violent acts as adolescents and adults, according to a new study at the University of Texas (UT) at Dallas. Earlier research has shown that childhood hunger contributes to a variety of other negative outcomes, including poor academic performance. This is one of the first studies to establish a correlation between childhood hunger, low self-control, and interpersonal...

When Frank Biro walks into a class of second- or third-graders these days, there are almost always a couple of girls who look different than the rest. “There will be quite a few girls that look like they’re going into early puberty,” says Dr. Biro, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center who gives talks about puberty at schools occasionally. Dr. Biro researches a phenomenon that has increasingly captured the attention of researchers: Puberty appears to be...

In their neighborhood, teens Shanice and Estherica Seman are considered members of the old guard. When new neighbors move into Fairview public housing in Bremerton, the sisters are among the first to greet the arrivals, often with food. On Friday night, they extended that practice in a unique way. The girls helped prepare and serve a meal to seniors living in public housing as part of Teen Challenge, a leadership and mentoring program that aims to provide resources for at-risk youth in...

At the U.S. Capitol today, United States Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) delivered remarks on “the bipartisan commitment to ensure that the effect of incarceration on children and families is not lost in the national debate on criminal justice reform,” as announced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Casey Foundation, reviewed the findings and recommendations of the KIDS COUNT policy report, A Shared Sentence: The Devastating Toll of...

It's sardine time,” says Aleida Diaz (Elizabeth Rodriguez), scanning the overcrowded cafeteria at Litchfield Penitentiary in the Season 4 premiere of “ Orange Is the New Black .” “We a for-profit prison now. We ain’t people no more. We bulk items.” When the series, created by Jenji Kohan and based loosely on Piper Kerman’s memoir, debuted on Netflix three years ago, interest in subjects like the privatization of prisons was largely confined to academics, activists and journalists. Not...