Mitigating climate change doesn’t sound as monumental as ending, or reversing climate change. But with global phenomenon already “contributing to the deaths of nearly 400,000 people a year and costing the world more than $1.2 trillion… annually,” according to the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, MIT professor Henry “Jake” Jacoby explains why efforts to mitigate climate change […]

Talk about two teams with something to play for. When Northeastern University and Boston College square off for the Beanpot championship next Monday night, both will have plenty of incentive. The Northeastern Huskies (8-13-3), after knocking off Boston University for the first time in 16 Beanpot contests, are looking to end 25 years of frustration […]

“The quality of your gun-licensing laws is only as good as those surrounding you,” said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist. By that measure, according to gun-law proponents, Massachusetts has proved to be vulnerable. Only two states have a higher percentage of out-of-state guns found at crime scenes, according to a study by Mayors […]

Massachusetts passed some of the toughest guns laws in the nation in 1998, but statistics show that since then, the number of gun-related crimes committed here has risen. The Boston Globe reports that in 2011, Massachusetts recorded 122 gun-related homicides, almost double the 65 homicides in 1998. … James Alan Fox, professor of criminology, law […]

Students of the decades-long gun debate said there is a clear public relations advantage for the NRA in talking about guns as a women’s issue. “Unlike men, who may be viewed as having this self-interest of maintaining their guns for sport or as a form of aggression, women are seen as purely concerned about self-protection […]

A move to make Northeastern University smoke-free is stirring controversy on campus around issues of civil rights and questions of enforceability. University administrators announced in December that they had formed a committee that includes staff and students to weigh the initiative, which would make Northeastern the newest of at least 1,130 colleges nationwide to create […]

So where or how does the Volkswagen ad fit into this paradigm? I reached out to my colleague, Carole V. Bell, Assistant Professor in the Communication Studies Department at Northeastern University to get her reaction. (By way of disclosure, I am Trinidadian; Professor Bell is Jamaican). Although Professor Bell is not offended by the ad, […]

“If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population,” says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. “If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you’re likely in one of the country’s safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso–these cities are teeming with […]

A third reason: improving the performance of black, Latino and lower-income kids requires particular attention to boys. Black women are nearly twice as likely to earn a college degree as black men. At some historically black colleges, the gap is astounding: Fisk is now 64 female; Howard, 67 percent; Clark Atlanta, 75 percent. The economist […]

“If you remove gang-related incidents from the Chicago homicide statistics, the homicide rate involving normal citizens is much lower,” says James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.  

Here’s a safe prediction for 2013: The folks in D.C. will continue the policies of extend and pretend, endlessly kicking the can into the high grass, lurching from crisis to crisis and showdown to showdown without addressing the causes of our fiscal woes, as pundits complain about how uncertainty is undermining economic recovery.

The real Jackie Robinson was far from the man who had agreed to enter baseball so delicately with the mission to not offend anyone, so his outspokenness on major civil-rights issues was not a surprise. “He had the success; he had the position,” says Dan Lebowitz, executive director of the Center for the Study of […]