The Return of the Sequester Wary of the cuts on the horizon, agencies appear to already be slowing funding. On campus, researchers are seeing a slowdown in federal grant-making and disbursement, said Tim Leshan, vice president for government relations at Northeastern University and president of the Science Coalition, an association of research universities advocating for federal scientific research. The Institute […]
The market speaks Even the top schools acknowledge that much of the more formulaic learning can be done online, often before the campus programme begins. But surely this is an argument for cutting the length of the on-campus programme? Even if universities still have their heads in the sand, prospective students do not. According to a national opinion […]
Defendants bend under tyranny of plea deal MOST OF us know that we have a criminal justice system that rewards confession with leniency. Many are less aware of the coin’s other side — that the few who contemplate asking a judge and jury to decide whether they are guilty are threatened with far greater punishment solely for exercising their right to a […]
What’s missing in U.S. gun control scramble? Bullets SERIAL NUMBERS Northeastern University researcher Glenn Pierce is a co-author of a RAND Corporation study (link.reuters.com/byb45t) of Los Angeles ammunition purchase logs from April and May 2004 that found 2.8 percent of purchases were by prohibited possessors. He sees regulating sales as the first step in ammunition control. The second is to put serial numbers […]
U.S. News Prescription Painkillers Trail Only Marijuana in Abuse Rates, Report Shows Another expert, Leo Beletsky, an assistant professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University School of Law & Bouve College of Health Sciences in Boston, is concerned that government efforts to curb narcotic painkiller abuse may go too far. “Government officials have championed a number of solutions drawn primarily from the drug enforcement playbook, […]
Hartford Business Journal Preparedness, vigilance keys to addressing mounting cyber threats Cybersecurity breaches continue to plague the information technology community in and outside Connecticut. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team received more than 100,000 incident reports and released more than 5,000 actionable cyber security alerts and publications. Anti-virus software maker Symantec 2011 State of the Enterprise report identified cyber-risk as […]
I Can’t Stop Looking at These Terrifying Long-Term Unemployment Charts There’s a new cliff in town, and it’s much scarier than the fiscal cliff. It doesn’t have anything to do with expiring tax cuts or sequesters. It has to do with people who have been out of work for six months or longer. It’s the worst cliff of them all: the Unemployment Cliff. Our unemployment […]
No single cause in state’s economic slowdown Governor Deval Patrick blamed political gridlock in Washington and the so-called fiscal cliff as a “direct cause” of the economic slowdown that has tamped state tax collections and created a $500 million budget shortfall. But economists say other factors deserve more blame. A weak national recovery and global economic slowdown have weighed on the Massachusetts […]
Kansas City Chiefs murder/suicide key may never be unlocked The murder/suicide committed on Saturday by Kansas City Chiefs football player Jovan Belcher left the National Football League, its fans and health professionals struggling to understand what drove him to do it. Dan Lebowitz, executive director of Sport in Society at Northeastern University, said he saw the Belcher tragedy as something that speaks to societal […]
ABC News Analysis: The Diversity Lottery — Do We Need It? In a country where 11 million people live without papers, cutting 50,000 more visas without improving legal immigration flows will do nothing to fix the greater system, according to Rachel Rosenbloom, an associate professor of law at Northeastern University School of Law. “We have millions of people in this country who have been here for […]
MBTA, highway system face vast budget deficits Just months after the MBTA raised fares, the T faces a $130 million deficit for the next budget year, according to an analysis released Monday by a regional think tank. But that daunting financial gap is eclipsed by a $240 million shortfall to operate the highway system, the study concluded. The budget analysis, conducted by […]
Mass. jobless rate edges up in October The state unemployment rate rose for the fourth consecutive month in October as the Massachusetts economy grew too slowly to absorb an influx of workers seeking jobs. Economists have warned in recent months that the Massachusetts economy is slowing in the face of global economic slowdown and uncertainty about US tax and spending policies. Congress […]