WCVB TV Probation department replacing 3,000 ankle bracelets for criminals 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 […]
WGBH How the Globe’s home-delivery woes morphed from an annoyance into a crisis Boston Globe owner John Henry now has a full-blown crisis on his hands. Before Sunday night, the Globe’s inability to deliver newspapers to its paying customers looked like an annoying but manageable problem—provided it was solved within the next few days. But the stunning revelation by the paper’s new distributor that it could take four […]
U.S. News AP Exclusive: Documents show how university responded to theater shooter’s homicidal thoughts “There’s no reliable way we can identify those few who will pick up a gun and start shooting people from the vast number who might seem odd or unusual or even scary,” said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist who has studied and written about mass killings. “You can’t predict it. Did they do […]
The new blue collar jobs of tomorrow The stock market’s wobbly, Europe’s economy looks weak, China looks a little peaked. You could worry plenty about the economy with a capital “E.” But for most people, the economy boils down first to a job. Everybody’s been spooked on that front at some point, but especially American blue collar workers. Now, we’ve got big […]
Boston Magazine What it takes to preserve the Boston Marathon Memorial Since January, Nancy Marche has been sorting and sifting through the memorials that were carefully laid down at Copley Square last year for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings. But even after all of these months looking at the items, she manages to discover new, heartfelt messages tucked away on the sides of the […]
To Stay At Home Or Not To Stay At Home: That Is The Long-Term Care Question ntroduction: Many elderly and disabled Americans may face extended hospital stays or long term care in nursing homes. But, many could be receiving high quality care that keeps them healthier, longer in their own homes. Alice Bonner, of Northeastern University, and Robert J. Master, of the Commonwealth Care Alliance, look at how the long-term care landscape […]
Miami Herald Cruising — a safe, enjoyable way to travel There have been claims recently that alleged serious crimes occur frequently on cruise ships and that many of those crimes go unreported. Nothing could be further from the truth. For an industry that enjoys a high repeat customer rate and with some of the largest cruise lines catering to families, any allegation of a serious crime is […]
Don’t Blame Unemployment Insurance for Our Jobs Crisis The Great Recession has not been a great vacation. Four years since the recovery officially began, many people are still unemployed not because they don’t want to work, but because, with three job-seekers for every job opening, they can’t find any work. And they are trying to find work. Indeed, a new paper by Rand Ghayad, a visiting scholar at the […]
Science Magazine Network Science at Center of Surveillance Dispute Instead, NSA is most likely fleshing out the social circles of suspects identified by other means. “If you have the data on everyone, then when you have reason to believe that Mr. X is someone of interest, you can go back and look at his behaviors,” says David Lazer, a political scientist at Northeastern University […]
Popsci How Facebook Used Science To Design More Emotional Emoticons In 1872, Charles Darwin published The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, a book that cataloged emotional expressions in humans and their link to the animal world. In the book, Darwin described more than 50 universal emotions. Now Facebook, with the help of a psychologist who studies emotions and a Pixar illustrator, has turned some […]
After Catastrophe There are surely more disruptions to come. Stephen E. Flynn, a security expert and former military officer who is co-director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security at Northeastern University, ticks off the most likely threats: a breakdown in the power grid; interruption of global supply chains, including those that provide our […]
Nieman Journalism Lab A community news co-op, aiming to build a replicable model, moves a step closer to reality It was as incongruous a situation as I could imagine. April 19 was one of the most gripping news days we have ever experienced in Massachusetts. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the suspected marathon bombers, was in hiding. Boston and several other cities were under voluntary lockdown. And that morning I was driving north, toward Haverhill, […]