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One of the biggest educational trends of the past decade is social-emotional learning. Experts quibble over what these soft skills are exactly but the term generally refers to things like managing emotions, learning to set goals and getting along with others. Programs to boost these skills have proliferated at schools. Some are sold by curriculum publishers and cost many thousands of dollars. Others are free but can still involve hundreds of hours of teacher training. Many of the programs...

Women in the United States face a far greater risk of dying from childbirth complications than in many other wealthy countries. Now the federal government has taken a step toward addressing the problem with the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act , signed in December, which will provide federal grants to states to investigate the deaths of women who die within a year of being pregnant. A report released by the Commonwealth Fund in December that looked at 11 high-income countries found that...

The longest government shutdown in history ended in late January. Once rare, government shutdowns have become more frequent , as the major parties fail to compromise enough to even keep the federal government funded and open. The shutdowns are one consequence of rising social and political polarization in the United States. Polarization is not the same as disagreement about how to solve public policy problems, which is healthy and natural in a democracy. Polarization is about more than just...

The number of infants under the age of one in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention at the border has increased since January, reaching levels that alarm immigration advocates. Pro-bono attorneys working along the southern border noticed the increase over the course of a few weeks last month, when visiting clients in a detention center in Dilley, Texas. Attorneys were worried to see infants as young as five months old cradled in their mothers' arms. By the end of February, they...

Have upper-middle-class Americans been winners in the modern economy — or victims? That question has been the subject of a debate recently among economists, writers and others. On one side are people who argue that the bourgeois professional class — essentially, households with incomes in the low-to-mid six figures but without major wealth — is not so different from the middle class and poor. All of these groups are grappling with slow-growing incomes, high medical costs, student debt and so...

We spend a great deal of our energy on fitting in. While insecurity and ego are sometimes part of this effort, it’s inappropriate to think of “fitting in” as a weakness or a crutch. The drive to connect is built into the essence of being human. Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk in his (one of the best I’ve read in the last five years) book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” says, “Our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level, we barely exist as individual organisms. Our...

At Washington State Penitentiary, Tony McGuire talks to the inmates in his construction trades apprenticeship preparation (CTAP) class about ACEs, trauma and resilience every single day. Not only is he teaching the guys a trade, but he also teaches them how to be a healthy, happy and well-adjusted employee. Note: Becoming a healthy, happy, well-adjusted employee is way harder than basic carpentry, plumbing, electrical and HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning).

Kids are pretty basic. When you're nice to them and you give them attention and buy them things, they love you. They want you around. They want to be around you. Predators know that. So, they do all of the things that a child wants to get their loyalty. They then proceed to satisfy their own physical or emotional needs.

Rosa Franco, a farm worker living in the rural community of Huron, suffers from many conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. To Franco, one of her gloomiest moments was when her doctor told her she had cancerous cysts. Due to her immigration status and lack of health coverage, Rosa has not been able to undergo surgery. She is one of the 1.1 million undocumented immigrants who do not have Medi-Cal, not even for emergency care. According to data from UC Berkeley, there are...

Sitting in a modest room in New York’s ­immodest Peninsula Hotel, the richest person in the world for most of the past 20 years ponders an existential question suddenly in vogue among the left’s confiscatory set: Should he even exist? “It is fascinating,” says Bill Gates, “that for the first time in my life, people are saying, ‘Okay, should you have billionaires? ’ ” Dispassionately, he begins to unpack that thesis. “I’m afraid if you really implemented something like that, that the amount...

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is poised to release the results of his Stephon Clark shooting investigation at 11 a.m. Tuesday, three days after Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced she would not file criminal charges against the two Sacramento police officers who shot him to death one year ago. Becerra’s office schedule a news conference at his office as Sacramento officials contend with growing unrest among activists angered over the death of Clark, an...

You've maybe heard of EMDR, neurofeedback, EFT (tapping) or practiced yoga. Maybe you've taken part in traditional healing ceremonies or religious rituals that are part of your culture. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Do these things really heal the hurts that we acquire during life and can we trust our recovery to something other than pharmaceuticals or the therapists' couch? There are plenty of communities that say yes .