In recent decades, social isolation has been recognised as a major risk to our health and longevity. It's twice as bad for you as being obese and nearly as bad as smoking. The rising number of people who say they are affected, across a wide range of...
Our nation’s capital closed out the year with 105 homicides , up one over 2013 . But violence and the fear it brings won’t end with a flip of the calendar or the last gunshot of 2014. The nightmarish scene of a body...
Inside a squat building in this town of 3,500 people just outside the state capital of Dover, six high-school students sat around a table last week, each holding a stack of small laminated cards. One girl had her spare arm wrapped around her...
Few city-related topics have generated as much debate in 2014 as broken windows policing. New York has played host to this discussion, especially in the aftermath of the over-aggressive arrest that led to Eric Garner's terrible death, but the...
Valerie Seeley has been behind bars since 2003. But her troubles started much earlier, in 1995, when she first met Oliver Williams and his 10-year-old daughter while visiting a friend in Brooklyn. “I thought it was a really cool thing that he...
For thirty-four years, a lawyer in New York City named Jonathan Chasan has been trying to stop officers from beating up inmates on Rikers Island. He started working at the Legal Aid Society when he was thirty-one years old, in a unit known as...
This neighborhood south of downtown is bleak, with empty parking lots fenced in by barbed wire, and skeletons of buildings covered in graffiti. Many of the people walking the long blocks of Mechanicsville grew up poor, and their children are...
My partner is lying on her back and both of us are trying to hide our nervousness about the first ultrasound of the pregnancy. As the examination starts, we hold hands and stare intently at the bedside screen. Initially, the monitor shows...
Silvina and Eduardo know too well the difference between "inside" and "outside." As former inpatients of Argentina's largest psychiatric hospital, they have experienced the stigma attached to those who are confined inside it, and the difficulty...
Hector Garcia Jr. shared his story as a cautionary tale. Severely obese, he did not want others to suffer the same pain and isolation he had experienced throughout his too-short life. He didn’t want others to be mocked, as he was as a kid...
Intead of an apple, could a hug-a-day keep the doctor away? According to new research from Carnegie Mellon University, that may not be that far-fetched of an idea. Led by Sheldon Cohen, the Robert E. Doherty University Professor of Psychology...
When I was 15, I attended a writing workshop with a girl who had been sexually abused by a family member, trauma that she explored in her poetry. She said she was offended when people told her: “I’m really sorry that happened to...
Melissa Mahler of Pro Player Insiders and Andrew Willis of the Stop Abuse Campaign tackle the topic of child sexual abuse with the creator of the ACE study Dr. Felitti , survivor and advocate Matt Sandusky , survivor and...
A leading Tennessee lawmaker —concerned that kids have been shackled and improperly jailed—is drafting legislation to ensure that accused truants receive prompt appointment of legal counsel when facing prosecution in the...
My earliest memories of my father’s racism are rooted in the family dinners of my childhood. Dad sat to my left, always. My mother sat across from me, with my little brother seated to her right. My two younger sisters sat at opposite...