'The criminal justice debate is often divided into two camps: “Tough on Crime” and “Soft on Crime.” What we need is “Smart on Crime” — policies that distinguish between nonviolent, low-risk offenders and violent, career criminals. more

Instead of serving as a springboard to social mobility as it did for the first decades after World War II, college education today is reinforcing class stratification, with a huge majority of the 24 percent of Americans aged 25 to 29 currently holding a bachelor’s degree coming from families with earnings above the median income. more

Scott Youngquist is trained to save lives, not pull teeth. But rarely does the emergency room doctor end a 12 hour shift at University Hospital without seeing at least one dental complaint — from cavities to abscesses. It is a national problem spotlighted Feb. 26 in a report by the Pew Center on the States.

For the first time, Idaho Republicans are trying presidential preference caucuses on Tuesday. Jonathan Parker, the state party's executive director, is excited about the chance to hold party building exercises on such a broad scale. "For the first time, maybe ever, Idaho is relevant in the nominating process," he says.

Why do some Mississippi officials want to turn back the clock and revive one of the Jim Crow laws from the post Civil War "black code," installed to suppress blacks from voting? 

Lacking access to regular care from a dentist, an estimated 830,590 Americans sought help for their dental ailments in the E.R. in 2009, according to a report released yesterday from the Pew Center on the States.

02 28 2012 Americans who turn up in the emergency room to get dental care aren't lost, they're probably just running out of options. According to a new report from the Pew Center on the States, more than 800,000 visits to the ER in 2009 were for toothaches and other avoidable dental ailments.