January 2016

Many ACE survivors are incredibly accomplished. I speak regularly to Ph.Ds and professionals who have more than 7 ACEs that they can identify. Yet they have achieved through education and work. But on occasion I am reminded about the price we pay for not addressing the ACEs, and instead praising those who are succeeding for being “resilient” and “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.” Carol Redding is one such example to go along with another example recently...

A story about the punishment of a priest who turned in a fellow priest with a record of pedophilia was revealed in the press recently. [ LINK HERE ] Father John Gallagher, serving in Palm Beach, FL, reported the actions of a fellow priest to the local priest. Apparently, church leadership wanted him to keep silent about the abuse and put the priest back on a plane to his home country, India. For his contrary actions, Father Gallagher said that he had been “frozen” out of the...

Ever send your kid to his room to “think about what he’s done” in order to give him time to be alone to reflect, feel remorseful and come out to hug you and tell you he’s sorry and it won’t happen again? Can you recall the aftermath when he willingly accepted your hug of approval — or better yet when he came to you for much-needed comfort following a punishment? Maybe it doesn’t turn out that storybook perfect, but it works and has for centuries. So...

What is being done to fight heroin and prescription drug abuse in hard-hit states like New Hampshire? What can Congress do to help? Lawmakers tackle the issue. ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: The abuse of heroin and prescription drugs is an issue that's not only getting the attention of politicians who are campaigning. It's also led to a rare moment of bipartisan cohesion in Congress. NPR's Ailsa Chang reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee has zeroed in on how lawmakers might be able to respond.

First, the good news: The Affordable Care Act has resulted in a significant increase in the percentage of Americans with health insurance. Last September, the Department of Health and Human Services published a new analysis estimating that 17.6 million previously uninsured people had gained health insurance due to various provisions of the ACA. Similarly, a  paper published last summer in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the ACA's first two open enrollment...

In 1963, 17-year-old Henry Montgomery shot and killed a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Montgomery was found guilty, and automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole, where he has spent the last five decades of his life. Then, in 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that life without parole for juvenile offenders is akin to cruel and unusual punishment, and, as such, violates the Eighth Amendment. But for Montgomery and the thousands of other inmates...

Historically, the relationship between gene science and racial justice has been uneasy at best. Too often, geneticists—or pundits brandishing their findings—have propagated bogus theories of racial superiority. And yet, in the current millennium, black Americans have embraced genetic testing with enthusiasm. The slave trade ripped Africans from their home tribes; once in America, black families were split apart as members were bought and sold—transactions for which...

For teenagers from low-income households, trauma from bullying, parental abuse and dating violence often goes untreated, since many families can’t afford traditional therapy. In search of a less expensive, yet effective, form of therapy, a new study led by University at Buffalo behavioral health researcher Ellen Volpe will investigate the effectiveness of narrative exposure therapy (NET) at treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse among adolescents who have...

On August 3rd last year, 12-year-old Maher fled from his village to the Sinjar mountainside where he and tens of thousands of others sought refuge from ISIS attackers who swept up from the south to invade the region. Every person from Sinjar remembers the date, as men, women and children from each village and town in the area packed what they could carry on their backs and left their homes travelling by car or by foot to find safety. Stranded on the mountain, surrounded on all sides by ISIS...

Earlier this week, actor Idris Elba addressed the U.K.'s Parliament, delivering a powerful speech about diversity. Maybe you know him from his role as Detective John Luther on BBC's "Luther"? Maybe you saw his powerful performance in "Beasts of No Nation"? Maybe as Stringer Bell on "The Wire"? Or maybe you just know him as that really good-looking guy who was rumored to be taking over as James Bond a while back. [For more of this story go...

As researchers have come to understand how poverty and its stresses influence children's brain development, they've begun untangling how that can lead to increased behavior problems and learning difficulties for disadvantaged kids. Rather than trying to treat those problems, NYU child development specialists Adriana Weisleder and Alan Mendelsohn want to head them off. They say they've found a way: Working with low-income parents when they bring babies and young children to the pediatrician.

It's a challenge making sure that low-income children who get free- and reduced-priced meals during the school year continue to get fed during the summer. Government meal programs served 3.8 million children on an average summer day last year — far fewer than the 22 million children who got subsidized meals during the school year. Now, the Obama administration wants to change that. The president will propose in his 2017 budget next month that families who qualify for subsidized school...