Special Sections

Children of color receive worse medical care than white kids, according to a sweeping new review in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. 

How you define your characters in a book is crucial to the flow of your story. Dialect often defines characters more than mere descriptions. If your protagonist is from the deep south, don’t expect him or her to speak with a Boston accent. Perhaps he or she is from New York, where the manner of dialogue is crisp and fast.

The California State University system and the union representing thousands of professors and lecturers reached a tentative deal on Monday to raise wages, ending what was the largest strike by university faculty members in U.S. history.

A tale as old as time: deceit, deception, trickery. I am no historian, but I am willing to bet a good sum that people have been swindling each other since the sixth day of Genesis. Tales of doublehanded cheaters run thick through generations, warning and teaching of devious behavior. Scams are nothing new.

We like how they avoid jargon, are typically straightforward with their motivations, and help humanize the issues we present to our audiences. I’ve always given at least lip-service to this journalistic reflex, but I might not have fully embraced it before reporting our series on Minnesota’s mental health crisis.