When the Treasury Department announced last June that a woman would grace the vignette of a newly designed US$10 bill in 2020 – rather than Founding Father Alexander Hamilton – there was a groundswell of support for the plan, as well as heated debate.

Even before Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew made his announcement, a nonprofit...

The last few months have witnessed the unraveling of the remarkable life sciences company Theranos, culminating in the latest news that federal regulators may ban founder Elizabeth Holmes from the blood-testing industry for at least two years. The company is also facing a federal criminal investigation into whether it misled investors about its...

Child hunger is a serious problem: 48 million Americans, including more than 15 million children, live in households that lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis. In large cities, about 25 percent of households with children do not have sufficient food.

The federally...

We humans are fire creatures. Tending fire is a species trait, a capacity we alone possess – and one we are not likely to tolerate willingly in any other species. But then we live on Earth, the only true fire planet, the only one we know of that burns living...

Many interest rates in the U.S. are close to zero and even negative in some parts of the world, like Japan.

Not unexpectedly, U.S. savings rates are also quite low as individuals ask themselves: “Why save a lot of money at a bank if I get no return?”

This situation has many commen...

It’s unlikely that presidential candidates will ever utter the word “biodiversity” while campaigning this year.

Yet among emerging environmental challenges, none has fewer facts or more enduring...

Run a Google search on naturalist and preservationist John Muir and you will quickly turn up one of his best-known, yet abbreviated, sayings: “The mountains are calling and I must go.” It’s a compelling quote that says it all for many outdoor lovers, which may explain why...

The charter school debate is getting even more heated. Recently, charter opponents launched a campaign from the steps of the Massachusetts State House to warn that charter schools were “sapping resources from the traditional schools that serve most minority students, and creating a...

The first Earth Day was organized on April 22, 1970 to force U.S. leaders to address rising public concerns about pollution and waste. In an election year, it’s a fitting time to compare the leading presidential candidates' approaches to environmental regulation.

Their...

Companies such as drugmaker Pfizer and medical device maker Medtronic that have used a technique called an inversion to reduce their tax bill recently got a smackdown from President Barack Obama:

I am very pleased that the Treasury Department has taken new action to prevent more corporations from taking advantage of one of the most insidious tax...