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The mention of “bails bonds” can conjure familiar images: red neon signs glowing near a county jail, or the leather vest, dark sunglasses and blond mane of reality show star Dog the Bounty Hunter. Usually not a skyscraper or office building. But insurance companies form the quiet backbone of the industry, underwriting the vast majority of the millions of bail bonds written each year while undergoing little public scrutiny. [For more on this story by JOSEPH NEFF, go to...

The importance of an inclusive workforce culture in health care is key to advancing scientific inquiry, improving the quality of care, and optimizing patient satisfaction. In fact, diverse student bodies and workforces have been shown to improve everyone's cultural effectiveness and address inequities in health care delivery. Now, inclusiveness of workplace culture can be measured by a concrete set of six factors, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open from researchers at...

S ettling into a sense of safety is hard when your life’s catalog of memories teaches you the opposite lesson. Imagine: You fled from a government militia intent on murdering you; swam across a river with the uncertain hope of sanctuary on the far bank; had the dawning realization that you could never return to your village, because it had been torched; and heard pervasive rumors of former neighbors being raped and enslaved. Imagine that, following all this, you then found yourself in New...

For a rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by a dismal reality: bankruptcy. The signs of potential trouble — vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings — have been building for years. Now, new research sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all...

U.S. cities struggling with soaring housing costs have found some success in lowering rents this year, but that relief has not reached the renters most at risk of losing their housing. Nationally, the pace of rent increases is beginning to slow down, with the average rent in at least six cities falling since last summer, according to Zillow data. But the decline is being driven primarily by decreasing prices for high-end rentals. People in low-end housing, the apartments and other units that...

An eight-year-old girl named Anna has sparked a movement to end childhood trauma in New Mexico. Anna is a fictional character based on a real case within the Protective Services Division of the New Mexico Children, Youth & Families Department and it's her story in the book, Anna, Age Eight, that is guiding urgent community work focused on ending childhood trauma and maltreatment. A group of family-focused Dona Ana county agencies have initiated a groundbreaking project that will use data...

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2018 State Opioid Response Grants (Short Title: SOR). The program aims to address the opioid crisis by increasing access to medication-assisted treatment using the three FDA-approved medications for the treatment of opioid use disorder, reducing unmet treatment need, and reducing opioid overdose related deaths through the provision of prevention, treatment and recovery...

When Robyn Price Pierre walked down the street with her husband and newborn baby, she often noticed the curious stares and smiles her spouse received from strangers as he pushed his daughter’s stroller. She soon realized why: It was the surprise of passers-by encountering a scene that’s mostly invisible in mainstream culture — a black man as a devoted parent. This realization inspired Ms. Price Pierre, creative director of the publisher Twenty Eight Ink, to explore black fatherhood in depth...

The experience of trauma makes a profound mark on a person. It doesn’t matter whether the injury is grave and evident, like the bruising of a battered person, or hard to see, like the emotional neglect of someone detached and withdrawn. Whatever the cause, when a person feels threatened, helpless, and unable to escape, that person knows trauma. The overwhelm of trauma often leaves survivors feeling out of synch with the rest of the world. Unresolved anxiety, turmoil, and emotional pain...

All 350 puzzles had been packaged, labeled, and were ready to be given away as gifts and an activity for conference goers. Teri Barila of CRI and her daughter Whitney had spent hours putting everything together when they noticed- the dog. And a puzzle piece in his mouth. Half-chewed. Discouraged, they looked over at the pile of boxes as Whitney muttered, “are we going to have to open every one of those?” Without knowing which puzzle was missing a piece, Teri had to get creative. Another...

F or centuries, religion and science have regularly found themselves at odds in defining the essential truths of our world—a debate that, of course, continues today. So, we should take note when distinguished leaders in those two, often-conflicting domains find themselves arriving at the same conclusion about a fundamental question: how do we out more struggling young people on a path toward success? This alliance is on full display in two recent books that explore the epidemic of childhood...

This is Part Five of Stateline's 2018 Legislative Review. Austin recently took a new tack in the ongoing war between “sanctuary cities" and federal immigration authorities. Declaring itself a “freedom city,” the Texas capital instructed its police officers to arrest fewer people for minor crimes — to prevent their fingerprints from going to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and to inform people that they may refuse a request to present their immigration papers. Though novel,...