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My mom passed away in September 2019, just a few months before the pandemic began. Her passing was sudden and unexpected. After her passing, the plan was that I would return to the town where I grew up the following summer to scatter her remains. Due to the pandemic, this was not possible. A year after my mom’s passing, I began graduate school where I studied Community & Social Change. I’d always known I wanted to continue my education as I have a passion for community and a heart for...

By Linda Jacobson, Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images, The 74, June 23, 2022 This summer marks the third time in eight years that the U.S. Department of Education is overhauling its policy on how school districts should handle student discipline. And while the controversy surrounding the issue hasn’t changed, the pandemic offers up a troubling new context: Districts are reporting spikes in student misconduct , violent attacks on school employees and blatant disregard for school rules.

By Yalda Uhls, Greater Good Magazine, June 28, 2022 Several years ago, when my son was a preteen, I worried he was addicted to video games. I remember looking into his room and seeing his tiny body in an oversized office chair. He sat there for hours, wearing gigantic headphones and shouting to his fellow players while his fingers moved the gaming mouse. I told myself it was social. At least when he was playing the game, he was interacting with the other people playing the game with him.

By Markian Hawryluk, Photo: Eyeem/Getty Images, Kaiser Health News, June 28, 2022 Dolores County Sheriff Don Wilson never expected to use Colorado’s red flag law when it was passed in 2019. He thought the law made it too easy to take a person’s guns away. The statute allows law enforcement officers or private citizens to petition a county court to confiscate firearms temporarily from people who pose an imminent threat to themselves or others. “All it is is one person’s word against another,”...

By Katy Knight, Illustration: Siegel Family Endowment, The 74, June 27, 2022 The past two years have demonstrated that schools are much more than places of education. While pandemic-related closures interrupted learning, reduced academic expectations and widened inequality gaps for students, they also carried high consequences for communities at large. When schools shut down, working parents — especially women — who were left without child care suffered career setbacks as they struggled to...

By Gene Marks, Photo: Drazen Zigic/Getty Images/iStockphoto, The Guardian, June 26, 2022 Recently, the Society of Human Resources Executives surveyed approximately 3,100 HR executives about the benefits their companies are providing and of course the obvious ones – healthcare, retirement and paid time off – made the top of the list. But here’s something that should catch your attention if you’re a small business owner: more than 91% of the respondents also said that their company provides...

By Moira Szilagyi, American Academy of Pediatrics, June 24, 2022 “Today’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade means that the once Constitutionally protected right to access an abortion is no longer guaranteed nationwide. This decision carries grave consequences for our adolescent patients, who already face many more barriers than adults in accessing comprehensive reproductive healthcare services and abortion care. “The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) this morning reaffirmed...

Just as millions of other people over the last few days, we’re still reeling from the news of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade . One overpowering emotion after another hit us—we’re sad, devastated, numb, livid. So many parts of people’s lives are affected that it’s overwhelming to try to comprehend. It’s not just the 40 million women of childbearing age who live in states where access to abortion will be prohibited,...

By David Frum, Photo: New York Daily News/Getty Images, June 27, 2022 The culture war raged most hotly from the ’70s to the next century’s ’20s. It polarized American society, dividing men from women, rural from urban, religious from secular, Anglo-Americans from more recent immigrant groups. At length, but only after a titanic constitutional struggle, the rural and religious side of the culture imposed its will on the urban and secular side. A decisive victory had been won, or so it seemed.

By James Russell, Photo: Ken Sparks/Fort Worth Camera Club/Transform 1012 N. Main Street, Bloomberg City Lab, June 20, 2022 After years of start-and-stop efforts, citizens in Fort Worth, Texas, are taking steps to change the narrative about a darker time in their city’s history. A project to transform a nearly century-old Ku Klux Klan meeting hall just received a $3 million boost from the federal government. The former KKK Klavern No. 101 auditorium — long an eyesore — was headed toward...

By Matt Vasilogambros, Photo: Matt Rourke/Associated Press, PEW, June 27, 2022 With President Joe Biden signing legislation that will incentivize states to enact red flag laws, some states already are trying to find ways to make their current red flag laws more effective in preventing gun violence. Nineteen states and Washington, D.C., have laws that allow law enforcement—and sometimes family members and school administrators—to petition civil courts to confiscate firearms from people who...

By Darius Tahir, Illustration: exdez/Getty Images, California Healthline, June 23, 2022 In 2011, Sean Duffy and Adrian James were sitting in San Francisco’s Dolores Park debating what to call some workers at the company they founded, Omada Health. Omada , which launched that year, provides virtual treatment for chronic conditions. The company addresses the conditions through a team of employees — some traditional clinicians and others meant to give encouragement to patients as they manage...