Social Issues

Fixing up seniors' homes to help them age in place
Many older Americans wind up in a nursing home not because they're sick but because they can't get through their days safely at home. Now a major research project will bring handymen, occupational therapists and nurses into the homes of 800 low-income seniors in Baltimore to test if some inexpensive fix-ups and strategies for daily living can keep them independent longer, and save millions in taxpayer dollars spent on nursing home care.
YMCA tackles racial disparities in swimming, drowning rates
African-American kids between the ages of 5 and 14 years old are three times more likely to drown than their white peers. The YMCA of the Greater Twin Cities, which runs 22 pools, has been trying to change that.
How military deployment, missing parents affect families
Thousands of Minnesota's military families know what it's like: birthdays missed, family trips delayed and childhoods changed because dad or mom is deployed overseas.
As more victims of clergy sex abuse came forward, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan oversaw a plan to pay some abusers to leave the priesthood after writing to Vatican officials with increasing frustration and concern, warning them about the potential for scandal if they did not defrock problem priests, according to documents released Monday.
Legalese aside, how do we talk about race nowadays?
This was a week in which the country was reminded of our continuing struggle with race -- and how we're still not quite sure how to talk about it. The conversation started with the actions of the Supreme Court: A key provision of the Voting Rights Act was dismantled, and the University of Texas was told to re-evaluate its affirmative action policy. But it soon moved to events outside the Supreme Court -- to the murder trial of George Zimmerman and celebrity chef Paula Deen's self-defense against accusations of racism.
Legalese aside, how do we talk about race nowadays?
This was a week in which the country was reminded of our continuing struggle with race -- and how we're still not quite sure how to talk about it. The conversation started with the actions of the Supreme Court: A key provision of the Voting Rights Act was dismantled, and the University of Texas was told to re-evaluate its affirmative action policy. But it soon moved to events outside the Supreme Court -- to the murder trial of George Zimmerman and celebrity chef Paula Deen's self-defense against accusations of racism.
Legalese aside, how do we talk about race nowadays?
This was a week in which the country was reminded of our continuing struggle with race -- and how we're still not quite sure how to talk about it. The conversation started with the actions of the Supreme Court: A key provision of the Voting Rights Act was dismantled, and the University of Texas was told to re-evaluate its affirmative action policy. But it soon moved to events outside the Supreme Court -- to the murder trial of George Zimmerman and celebrity chef Paula Deen's self-defense against accusations of racism.
Across the country, this week's landmark Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage have energized activists and politicians on both sides of the debate. Efforts to impose bans -- and to repeal them -- have taken on new intensity, as have lawsuits by gays demanding the right to marry.