Cigarette smoking in the U.S. has dropped dramatically since the landmark publication of the 1964 U.S. Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health. This has led to improved health for millions of Americans.

Those reductions, however, are unevenly distributed....

In an effort to pass the health care law, Donald Trump placed intense political pressure on members of the House, even telling one key...

Editor’s note: The fight didn’t last long. Moments before a scheduled vote on March 24, House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act. It was a surprisingly swift defeat for a legislative priority talked up by Republicans since the day Obamacare first passed. We asked congressional scholars...

Republicans have tirelessly campaigned to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with a conservative, market-based...

On March 25, European Union leaders celebrate the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty, a central pillar of the structure set up in the aftermath of World War II to solidify peace, prosperity and partnership in Europe.

Over the last 60 years, the EU (and its predecessors) has served as an essential U.S. partner: for example, by enhancing...

As an anthropologist, I know that all groups of people use informal practices of social control in day-to-day interactions. Controlling disruptive...

Tuberculosis should be a specter of the past, something only our great-grandparents feared and died of. Alas, although almost all cases of TB today are both preventable and treatable, several different strains and manifestations of the disease still sicken and kill millions of people every year.

Global tuberculosis interventions are usually tied...

Heaven’s Gate – also known as the “UFO cult” – burst into American consciousness 20 years ago this month, when, on March 26, 1997, law enforcement discovered 39 decomposing bodies in a San Diego, California mansion.

Each detail that emerged from the scene stunned a rapt public: Adherents had committed suicide in waves...

Details about the man who attacked the British Parliament on March 22, identified by London police as British national Khalid Masood, are still emerging. With three victims confirmed dead, the attack is the worst in London since the July 7, 2005 bombings on the London transport system.

A day after the attack, the Islamic State media organization...

How does a galaxy like our own Milky Way form? Until now there’s been a lot of inferring involved in answering that question.

The basic story is that gas collects toward the center of roughly spherical...