Jack Levin, co-director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University, said so many variables are at play when examining homicides that it’s “almost impossible to give a definitive explanation for the dramatic decline.” But he said the aging population definitely makes a difference. “There’s a larger number of older people, the baby boomers […]

Two Chicago area players were named Wednesday to the 21-member U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team that has become the favorite to win the gold medal next month in Sochi, Russia. They are forward Kendall Coyne of Palos Heights, a Northeastern University junior, and high-scoring defenseman Megan Bozek of Buffalo Grove, who won NCAA titles at […]

Stephanie Pollack, associate director at Northeastern University’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, said lawmakers’ lack of urgency to make the commuter tax urgent may be attributed to a perception that it affects only wealthier commuters. “It makes Congress just think, well, it doesn’t affect that many people, or it affects people on commuter […]

The effects of the chronic issues stemming from sequestration and the acute problems that accompanied the shutdown will probably continue to be felt by scientists for years to come. “Given the impact we already have seen, we urge the members of the House and Senate who are negotiating funding for FY 2014 and beyond to end sequestration, […]

If you’re strapped for time and cash, a certificate can be the next best alternative to the long-term investment of a master’s degree. “The certificate is great for a career professional that’s already experienced to some degree, looks to broaden and deepen their knowledge and seeks to have the opportunity to understand leading practices,” says […]

Rand Paul says he cares about the unemployed. He says it’s “our moral obligation as a society to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.” That “no one asserts that the problem [of long-term unemployment] is people not wanting to work.” Rather “the problem is not in the minds of the unemployed, but […]

Only in Chicago, where murder is a macabre civic pathology and an almost daily habit, would the slaughter of more than 400 people in 2013 be cause for relief. But with the 503 killings of 2012 still haunting the city, this year’s 410 through Dec. 26 is an improvement. Context, though, counts: These two years […]

“Does it make sense for our country to borrow money from China to give it to the unemployed in America? That is weakening us as a country,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told NBC recently. “I am worried about the workers. Not that I think they become bad people by becoming unemployed longer, but that the longer they’re […]

The country’s highest court does not say why it agrees to hear specific cases, but legal analysts say that this case combines hot-button issues in one question: abortion rights and free speech, and a state’s responsibility to balance the two. “That’s the issue the court will be looking at, and obviously [the state’s] argument is, […]

Effectively, this means that those states that have offered benefits for anywhere from under 26 to 73 weeks will now be limited to offering 26 weeks or less. (See what that looks like in these helpful maps from the Washington Post.) At the very least, a temporary suspension of emergency unemployment assistance will delay benefit checks for […]

For his part, Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, is not convinced that knockout game attacks are growing. He argues in an upcoming journal article that racially fueled knockout attacks are in the news is because they’ve actually become rarer than in the past, so they are more notable. The 1990s, he says, […]

“I think that’s an old story,” says Barry Bluestone, an economist at Northeastern University in Boston. He’s been studying the 7,000 manufacturing businesses in Massachusetts, surveying hundreds of them and making site visits to dozens. “We’re seeing a new, almost renaissance in manufacturing,” he says. Bluestone says manufacturers are learning new technologies, and new manufacturing […]