President Obama’s trip to Cuba this week accelerated the warming of U.S.-Cuban relations. Many people in both countries believe that normalizing relations will spur investment that can help Cuba develop its economy and improve life for its citizens.

But in agriculture, U.S....

Utah’s conservative state Senate recently voted to abolish the death penalty. The action reflects a growing bipartisan recognition of the documented flaws of the death penalty, including its high cost, decades-long appeals and faulty lethal injection protocols.

To get the measure through the Republican-led House, Utah legislators might point...

Beginning in 2010, mathematics and English language arts standards, called the Common Core State Standards, were adopted in 45 of 50 U.S. states.

The Common Core Standards represent a substantial change from what was in place before. They are not just national (nearly) in scope, but also their content...

2016 hasn’t been a great year for the selfie.

In February, Argentinian tourists passed around a baby La Plata dolphin in order to take selfies with it. The endangered animal subsequently died from stress and heat exhaustion.

Then, in early March, a swan died after a...

Cars and trucks in the United States are supposed to achieve great fuel efficiency gains over the next decade. But now that gasoline prices have plunged, those plans may be delayed.

In 2012, the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), issued regulations that...

The presidential campaigns deserve some credit for finally voicing some of the deep frustrations and anger felt by American workers who have lived for decades in an economy that works for those at the top but not for them and their families.

Thirty years of wage stagnation, the loss of one-third of the nation’s manufacturing jobs since 1970,...

As more personal information is collected up by ever-more-powerful computers, giant sets of data – big data – have become available for not only legitimate uses but also abuses.

Big data has an enormous potential to revolutionize...

The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) serves an important role in our nation’s fight against hunger. Formerly known as food stamps, SNAP helps 45 million low-income Americans – nearly half of whom are children –...

For over a year, I’ve been documenting the lives of three long-term drug users – Marie, Cheryl and Johnny – who are participating in Vancouver’s heroin-assisted clinical study and program.

In recent years, heroin use in North America has exploded into an “epidemic.” At the same time, policymakers and the public...

In 1473, Alexander Hardynge, who had finished his bachelor’s degree at Oxford nearly two years previous, borrowed money through an educational loan service. The loan came with a one year repayment deadline.

With some of that...