Crime rates have gone down since 2000, but lethal police shootings of both white and black Americans have increased, says James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. In fact, the increase among white Americans has been steeper – “certainly not what one might expect if you believe that blacks are treated differently […]

Research differs on whether better lighting leads to a reduction in crime, though a 2007 meta-analysis of 13 cities around the world, including eight in the United States, showed an overall reduction. “I believe in New York, you would expect to see a positive result,” said Brandon Welsh, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University […]

Still, it would seem foolhardy to ignore the growing footprint of dominant companies, strutting their stuff across the broader economy. The best-understood downside comes from rising prices. John Kwoka, an antitrust expert at Northeastern University, made a study of dozens of mergers that were reviewed and ultimately approved by regulators. In 75 to 80 percent […]

Still, there are those who challenge the idea that online media has dramatically sidelined truth from politics. After all, the popularity of conspiracy theories is nothing new. “Many of the same things were happening before Facebook,” says David Lazer, a computer and political scientist at Northeastern University in Boston. “I have not seen a compelling […]

In Puerto Rico’s hyper-partisan milieu, official holidays are saturated with deeply conflicting interpretations. Typically, Fourth of July commemorations follow a predictable pattern: pro-Commonwealth supporters celebrate it modestly, statehood advocates proclaim it the holiest day on their political calendar and revere it in grand fashion, and those favoring the island’s independence from the United States utilize […]

Legal analysts and some civil rights groups caution against adding police officers to the hate crime statute. They argue it’s an occupation that already receives special protections under the law. There are laws currently that make it a crime to assault public servants, including police officers, and Governor Charlie Baker recently filled a bill that […]

Northeastern University hosted a special screening of “American Ninja Warrior” Monday evening with Josh Levin, who’s competing on the NBC show. Levin was joined by plenty of friends, family — including his parents, who flew in from California for the occasion — and classmates. Watching the television broadcast with an entourage of supporters “was pretty […]

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 […]