What could be more open and democratic than a debate? For all the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth now taking place over the massive amounts of free media bestowed upon Donald Trump, it was his dominating performance in the televised debates that allowed him to separate himself from the pack. Yet the debates […]

In the wake of last week’s bloodshed in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Texas, people across the country are asking what they can do to improve the relationship between police departments and the communities they serve, especially those with diverse populations. Possible responses include the following: you could support efforts to train officers about implicit racial bias […]

For Matthew Nisbet, an expert in environmental communications at Northeastern University, there is a risk that differences of opinion within the movement could lead to greater enmity over time, resulting in a lack of focus. Progress could be lost, he said, “if they start to see each other as rivals and opponents, and they lose […]

And then there’s teixobactin, a still-experimental drug that may herald a new era of antibiotic discovery. A team of researchers at Northeastern University’s Antimicrobial Discovery Center reportedlast year in the journal Nature that they had discovered a compound in soil unlike any found before. Teixobactin was highly effective in killing such common bacterial troublemakers as Clostridium […]

While you may not know for sure who will leave, there are some telltale signs that an employee is looking for a new job, says Lynne Sarikas, workplace expert and director of the MBA Career Center at D’Amore McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. “Often a manager will see clues that an employee is […]

Students of racial violence in the United States identify three discrete periods of such terror after slavery: the era of the noose from 1890 to 1930; the Jim Crow/Civil Rights years; and the current experience of mass incarceration. Police brutality — now more visible than ever, more disruptive of the post-racial fiction than any other […]

Priced-out buyers who have given up on owning a home could explain sky-high rental prices, as people have resigned themselves to renting, said Barry Bluestone, professor of public policy at Northeastern University, who has studied Boston real estate for years. “They’re caught between this rock and hard place. On one hand, there’s very little available […]

Once again we are reminded that nothing is forever; not now, not ever, never. On June 23 Great Britain’s electorate voted to quit the 28-member European Union despite threats that economic Armageddon will follow. The Brexit vote represented the sort of populist victory over establishment politics that give elites, few of whom have the scars […]

“We’re looking at a paradox because on the one hand Islamic State is clearly getting weaker as an organization in its strongholds of Iraq and Syria and yet the impression that many people have is that the group is more dangerous than ever, especially outside its core conflict zone,” says Max Abrahms, professor of political […]

The move by the probation department comes as the electronic monitoring program continues to lose track of hundreds of people each month, people whom it is supposed to be watching. “I call these modern-day ball and chains with a major defect,” said a woman on probation. The woman agreed to talk with 5 Investigates about […]

According to Citizens for Adequate Housing, Massachusetts’ housing wage (the minimum hourly wage needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment) is $24.08, which is 282 percent above the state’s minimum wage of $8.50 and well above the national average of $18.62. Those numbers explain why the family shelters here are full. Over 4,500 families are part […]

Thanks to Facebook Live, nearly anybody with a cellphone can be a broadcast journalist. And this week’s tragic events prove that many people welcome the opportunity. Instead of rushing to save themselves, eyewitnesses grabbed their phones and shared their stories with the world. “I do think it’s a kind of watershed moment in terms of […]