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WASHINGTON — It was 1993, and a South Dakota jury was debating whether to sentence a gay man to death. Life in prison, one juror said, would be no punishment at all. Allowing the defendant, Charles Rhines, to spend his days surrounded by men would, the juror reasoned, be a kind of reward. “If he’s gay, we’d be sending him where he wants to go,” the juror said, according to a 2016 sworn statement from Frances Cersosimo, who also served on the jury. She did not name the juror. Another juror,...

BALTIMORE — The latest disaster in Baltimore’s deadly and worsening opioid epidemic was a small one: The addiction treatment van, now 13 years old, wouldn’t start. The white GMC truck, open four mornings a week and parked outside the city jail, is an attempt to close a gap in the city’s struggling addiction treatment system. But as the breakdown showed, even the attempts to plug holes in the system sometimes themselves have holes. With the van out of service, doctors and nurses took to their...

Dennis Mitchell owns a small ground-floor barbershop in the heart of Harlem, where he presides over rows of gleaming salon chairs, cutting fades and shaves and earning the nickname Denny Moe. For years, one of the regular customers sitting in front of Moe's mirrors has been Dr. Joseph Ravenell , an associate professor in the Departments of Population Health and Medicine at New York University's School of Medicine. Barbershops have been havens for Ravenell since he was a kid, when he...

In an excerpt published in Next City from her book BIASED: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do , Stanford social psychologist (and MacArthur Fellow ) Jennifer Eberhardt delves into the impact of implicit bias in perpetuating segregation and racial discrimination. More than half of whites, Eberhardt explains, say they would not move to an area that is more than 30 percent black, because they “believe that the housing stock would not be well maintained and...

So many of us consume ourselves with self-help, myself included. Literally as recently as last month, I still prided myself on reading 50 books a year “less than 10% of which were fiction.” And even as I swore off “bullshit business books” I kept pounding self-improvement ones, repackaged in ways that won’t embarrass you on the subway (not that I ride on) or the airplane (which I often do); re-marketing the same messages but wrapping it up as “biographies.” They know what you doing with...

Lately, more light has been shed on the risks Black women face during pregnancy and childbirth. While this is good, another struggle remains largely hidden for Black woman—becoming pregnant. While infertility affects roughly 12 percent of the population , Black women are twice as likely to experience challenges achieving or sustaining a pregnancy—and less likely to seek assistance. According to Juli Fraga, a psychologist who specializes in women’s health, including pregnancy-related...

For far too long, discriminatory laws and policies have prevented people from living healthy lives. Everyone deserves good jobs and schools, healthy food, safe neighborhoods, quality health care, and affordable housing. But some folks are excluded from accessing these basic needs because of unfair policies that create barriers to health in underserved communities. Changing existing laws and policies is the most effective method for undoing the harms of discriminatory policies and advancing...

Storytelling heals. But I grew up split in two. Half of me was a normal child who was praised for writing well. The other half of me lived underground, scarcely breathing and in cold silence.

When groups that lobby for federal prison reform found there was no money in the budget this year for the First Step Act, many gave Congress and the White House a pass. They focused instead on next year’s funding for the new law, which includes more prison education and job-training programs. But on Monday, their good faith was put to the test as President Trump released his budget priorities for 2020. Only $14 million was explicitly listed to finance the act’s programs. It’s unclear if...

Research suggests that about half of the county’s children experience at least one traumatic event before the age of 17. These adverse childhood experiences — known as ACES — include experiencing or witnessing violence; living in poverty; or having a parent go to jail. Even as school districts across the country become more aware of how these traumas can affect learning, there’s been little concrete policy on the state or federal level for how schools should prepare. [For more on this story...

Preschool is already too late, if you ask Ian Rowe. The head of Public Prep charter schools in New York City believes that, when it comes to setting students up for academic success, the key is starting earlier. Much, much earlier. That’s why the network has teamed up with a pair of nonprofits to start getting children ready for school when they’re just toddlers — a full two years before even enrolling in pre-K. The unique partnership sends trained mentors to meet with families in their own...

By P. Berman, K. Hecht & A. Hosack Claire is the only one who cares about me. Larry had a lot of time to himself in prison. One of the things he looked forward to e ach day was the possibility that a letter from Claire would arrive in the mail . While still angry at her, he realized that unlike the rest of the world, she cared that he existed. In her latest letter, Claire told him she had taken Davy to a Head Start picnic. The teachers had created silly contests for the kids to play.