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Imagine this scenario - A young man walks into your office for help and tells you the following story: He tells you his name is Al. He is a 20-year-old who graduated high school and is now working two jobs trying to make ends meet. He works as a dishwasher and a cashier at an auto supply store. He hopes someday to be an anesthesiologist. He seeks your guidance because he was recently fired from one of his jobs after shouting at his boss who had treated him unfairly. He recently moved to town...

Perhaps another salary-related grievance for teachers: Depending on where they live, buying a home can be far out of reach. In a new report , the National Housing Conference, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing, analyzed 210 metro areas and whether workers in public education — from bus drivers to teachers — could afford to buy or rent a home. (The report did not account for a second income in the household.) High school teachers had a median income of $56,882, making it...

The 2016 Health of Women and Children Report by the United Health Foundation found that when it comes to the health of women and children, Wisconsin ranks at number 15 out of 50. That’s a "middle-of-the-road" ranking according to Dr. Ana Fuentevilla, chief medical officer at Unitedhealthcare Community & State. Wisconsin is well behind neighboring Minnesota and Iowa, which are ranked at numbers five and eight respectively, but ahead of surrounding states like Illinois and Michigan, which...

Many youngsters in Wales are being "left behind" with Brexit "uncertainty" set to make the situation worse, the children's commissioner has said. Prof Sally Holland believes those with mental health problems and in poverty are most at risk, while some being home-educated go "under the radar". In her annual report she has called on the Welsh Government to publish a specific programme to help. A spokeswoman said it would study the report and "respond in due course". Prof Holland pointed to the...

Reviewing Danny Brown’s new album Atrocity Exhibition yesterday, I wrote about how we’re in a moment when rappers like Brown are regularly defying stigmas against admitting to depression, addiction, and other mental-health issues. Wednesday brought another powerful example from Kid Cudi, the Ohio rapper known for songs like “Day and Night.” He has checked himself into rehab for depression and suicidal thoughts, and he isn’t trying to hide it on. On Facebook he wrote , Its been difficult for...

As movie genres go, the Western is a workhorse. It draws from a well of cultural symbols meant to capture the essence of America, including the freedom of the open frontier and the righteous self-determination of man. Standing tall inside this cinematic shorthand is the cowboy himself, a figure commonly understood to be an excellent shot who rides horses and who, above all, is white. This narrow image is foundational to the genre, which includes films such as John Sturges’s 1960 classic The...

At the end of a long day of work at a small sports-marketing firm in Atlanta, a very pregnant Micki Velmer is driving to pick up her 3-year-old son, Burke, from childcare when her car overheats and breaks down. Velmer’s husband, Jason, soon swings by to get her and then get both of them to the Frazer Center before it closes and starts charging late fees. Still, Velmer is uneasy. In just a few short weeks, once their second child is born, the Velmers will be paying more than $2,800 a...

Two police officers watched Christopher Araujo pace back and forth, a gun in his waistband. Araujo was in Texas, but his mind was in Iraq. “I’m here to help, bro,” one of the officers said. “You need to stay outside the wire,” Araujo snapped back, his perimeter secured. The pistols stayed in the holsters. “I can get you in touch with some care,” one of the officers calmly said. “Why don’t you come on out?” Araujo snapped out of his daze: “Yeah, I can do that.” The Roy Butler Training Academy...

Childhood adversity can activate the human stress response system, which is primarily made up of the hormones/chemicals cortisol and adrenaline. In the developing brain of a child, prolonged activation of the stress response system can cause these chemicals to actually become toxic. Think of that – a child’s brain being bathed in toxic chemicals due to abuse, neglect, or chaotic household dysfunction. It’s called toxic stress. It’s real, not imagined, and it’s physiological, potentially...

Childhood trauma might promote faster cellular aging in people, a new study suggests. Adults who had experienced stress as kids appeared to have an increased risk of shorter telomeres, which are found at the ends of a person's chromosomes. And that might increase the risk of illness and early death in adulthood, said lead researcher Eli Puterman. He is director of the Fitness, Aging & Stress Lab at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Puterman added that the increased...

Alex Sanchez knows the temptations of joining gangs for young Central American immigrants. He fled to the United States in 1979 as an unaccompanied minor (he was 7, his brother 5) to escape the Salvadoran civil war. Eventually he got involved in gang violence, went to prison and was deported before returning to the United States illegally. He was granted political asylum in 2002 and in 2006 became the executive director of Homies Unidos , a nonprofit violence- and gang-prevention...

A project called How is the world feeling? is aiming to use an iOS and Android app to conduct the world’s largest study of mental health over a one-week period starting on October 10. The aim is to gather data from ordinary people to identify patterns in emotions, then to open-source anonymized data to mental health professionals in a bid to devise approaches to reducing suicide rates … The app is designed to take seconds to use, asking people to select an emotion, select how strongly it is...