Stephen E Flynn, the director of the Center for Resilience Studies at Northeastern University, says that the recent state-level responses, including the original, occasionally ham-handed efforts in Texas, “tell us a lot about the nation’s uneven preparedness for a deadly disease outbreak”. “The alarms that should be ringing around the country should not be centred […]

Nurse Kaci Hickox on Friday arrived in New Jersey after spending a month in Sierra Leone treating Ebola patients. Under a mandatory quarantine policy announced by Gov. Chris Christie the same day, Hickox was forced to stay in a tent outside a hospital with no working shower, even though she tested negative for the disease. The mandatory […]

In cases of forced quarantine or isolation, “people do have a right to have their detention reviewed by a court, especially if there are individualized determinations being made,” said Wendy E. Parmet, a Northeastern University law professor and expert on public health policy. “The Constitution is very clear,” she said. “While governments have a right […]

Here’s some not-so-happy news as the holiday shopping season continues: The price you see online for a given item may not be the same as the price others see. The retailer may ask you for more money, or just show you an array of more-expensive products, depending on what kind of machine you’re using, or […]

Today on The Gist, Stephen E. Flynn, political science professor at Northeastern University, explains that the Ebola story isn’t a story of federal government incompetence. It’s the story of a lack of investment and commitment to public health at a local, county, and state level. For the Spiel, Thomas Friedman delivers a train wreck of […]

When searching for a flight or hotel room online, it’s hard to know if you’re getting the best price. A new study from Northeastern University looked at how much prices change based on the user, and found a greater percentage of inconsistencies on travel sites than other kinds of retailers. The study looked at personalized […]

New jobs data reveal a rising number of Massachusetts residents discouraged with their employment prospects — even as others started looking for work again, in a sign of an uneven recovery across the state. Between October 2013 to September 2014, the average number of so-called “marginally attached” job-seekers grew by more than 3,000 compared to […]

At the Justice Department, senior officials like to congratulate themselves on the headline-making, big bucks settlements they have imposed upon banks and lenders for their part in causing the 2008 mortgage meltdown that sparked the biggest American financial crisis since the Great Depression. But wait a moment. Those settlement figures are not quite what they […]

Three out of four Americans want to seal the nation’s borders against travelers from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa. Republican members of Congress are demanding it. But experts say mandatory quarantine of health workers and travel bans are unnecessary and could cripple the global fight against Ebola. Against this backdrop, I had a long conversation […]

Freshmen in Arts & Sciences at Cornell in the 1960s were required to take a science course. I took chemistry, but should have taken geology. Chemistry was way too challenging for someone who came to Ithaca to study political science. Geology, I was told, was a course designed for athletes. It was known colloquially as […]

For years now, merchants have tracked individual online shopping habits to personalize their websites and attract customers. That also helps them make assumptions about income and spending power. But a new study says some companies are going beyond that by using what they know about each shopper to set different prices for the same product. […]

John Kwoka, an economics professor at Northeastern University and research fellow at the American Antitrust Institute, is skeptical. He says these kinds of agreements — chopping up a company and demanding that it compete against itself — usually fail. Firms find ways around the rules, he says. And the promised savings rarely materialize: “We know […]