top story in June-July 2008

In Europe and elsewhere, governments are using ideas from the new science of well-being to try to make citizens more content. Will America follow their lead?

By funding its own research, industry has raised unwarranted doubts about a range of scientific issues — from the risks of tobacco to the reality of climate change — delaying response to public dangers for decades. Can scientists and journalists learn to beat the doubt industry before our most serious problems beat us all?

Public debate has been dominated by the belief that education builds human capital, causing increased income, health and political participation, among many positive outcomes. But new research suggests that costly expansions of education may not always bring the promised social results. In some cases, those expansions may do little but sort people according to their native ability.

Democrats are challenging Republican incumbents in three “Cuban” congressional districts in South Florida. Could the campaigns foreshadow a shift in presidential politics or Cuba policy?

Each year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tracks the arrival and initial settlement location of refugees coming to the United States.

Ken Nedimyer and the Nature Conservancy find coral tough enough to withstand global warming.

Cristi Hegranes and her nonprofit train women around the world so they can help their communities — through journalism.

Authoritative research shows exactly how to fix public schools. What we need are leaders with the guts to put it into practice.