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A man, charged with capital murder after a violent outburst leads to the death of a four-year-old boy. Another man, accused of sexually assaulting his girlfriend’s seven-year-old daughter. These are just two of the horrific cases of child abuse we’ve reported in the past month – and the impact reaches far beyond the families involved. Roy Maas Youth Alternatives runs emergency shelters for kids who were removed from dangerous homes. Counselors are on hand 24 hours a day, and years of...

The National Park Service celebrates its centennial this week, and our national parks have never been more appreciated; visitors made a record-breaking 307.2 million visits to them in 2015 . But what many park goers may not realize is that the access to natural scenery and park activities national parks provide play a role in improving health. In fact, research shows that using public parks—even tiny local ones in your neighborhood—contributes to health in a number of ways, from promoting...

Thirty years ago, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing gave a series of lectures, later published in a book, “Prisons We Choose to Live Inside,” in which she reflected on the brutality in the world and asked how individuals and societies could evolve into something better. It’s a sobering book, but Lessing is hopeful — and her main source of hope stems from the capacity of human beings to study themselves and learn from their own behavior. “I think when people look back at our...

Right before students are due to return for the fall session, tri-county area educators learned how to incorporate play into the school day during a wellness seminar at the Pottstown Middle School. About 160 people representing 13 area school districts attended the 2016 “Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds Institute” last week. The two-day event shows educators and school administrators how to incorporate physical fitness as well as other healthy activities into the school to create a better...

Stigma and discrimination, unsafe schools and discriminatory policing drive lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth into the justice system where they are overrepresented and subject to unfair treatment and abuse, says a new report . Studies show that while LGBT youth make up about 7 to 9 percent of the population, they account for larger percentages of youth in juvenile justice facilities, according to the report by the Movement Advancement Project and the Center for American...

In the small flood-ravaged town of Springfield, La., Rachel Moriarity waited more than a week for a center where she could apply for emergency food stamps to finally open in the Am-Vets hall — but she's been turned away at the door. This week they are processing only those with last names beginning with A through D. "I don't have a vehicle to get here," she tells a staffer from the state, who replies that due to the volume of applicants in need, there isn't anything they can do. A defeated...

American kids in more than 4,000 public schools in 21 states were paddled, spanked, or otherwise physically punished at school during the 2013–14 school year, according to a new analysis of the latest nationwide data by Education Week. About 109,000 students, ranging from kindergartners to high school seniors, experienced corporal punishment at school that year. Overall, physical punishment at school is rare and declining in America. The United States has about 98,000 public elementary and...

Last year, a woman was shot and killed on 75th and Stewart in Englewood. Most people have that moment when enough is enough. This was Tamar Manasseh’s. Manasseh lives in Bronzeville, but she grew up in Englewood. Right after the murder, she decided to organize Mothers Against Senseless Killings, or M.A.S.K. [For more of this story, written by Natalie Moore, go to https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/how-one-mom-is-building-community-in-englewood/ad478912-c74c-439d-a1cf-52f0c58989b6]

To most, Walmart is synonymous with low prices. To others, the retail behemoth brings to mind an image of a decidedly asinine smiley face. But to many, the store evokes something far more troublesome: crime. Walmart has typically relied on local law enforcement to deal with all kinds of crime on company property, but, last week, Time reported that the retail chain is taking on responsibility for at least one type of crime: theft. Walmart is partnering with Corrective Education Company, a...

When then-8th grader Trey Clayton entered the Independence High School assistant principal's office for a paddling in 2011, everyone—school officials, his mom, even Trey himself—thought it was a preferable alternative to being suspended. "I'm not going to lie, I was in a lot of trouble during school," Clayton said. "Every time, they gave me the option to get a paddling or get sent home, and I took the paddling." But that March, the decision to take paddling over suspension would lead to...

Imagine the Earth at night—the vast and curving darkness, splotched with rivulets of light. It is a gorgeous sight, and a familiar one. Today, this image often plays as a beautiful cliché, a pre-metabolized testament to human invention and connectedness, as likely to appear in Koyannisqatsi as in a Kia commercial. For economists, though, this spectacle is more than a symbol: It is a powerful data set. For the last few decades, and almost since astronauts first captured images of the...

H earing the news that children in care and “special schools” were subjected to drug trials in the 1960s without their parents being consulted sent shivers down my spine. As a 10-year-old I was shipped off from my children’s home to a school for maladjusted children – a boarding school I knew had a lot of the bad boys from my area. I now know, 40 years later, that my problems were emotional and could have been solved with love and care. Instead, I was exposed to violence, bullying and abuse.