Forty years after his death, the body of a poet will be gently disinterred from his grave at Isla Negra, on Chile’s Pacific coast. The hope is that Pablo Neruda’s remains will answer a question that has exercised Chileans ever since his sudden death. Was he murdered by the military regime that killed his old friend, Salvador Allende, on 11 September 1973? Or did he die of natural causes, or of sorrow, just 12 days …

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Worried that public schools are failing to prepare students for a complex and changing world, educators unveiled new guidelines Tuesday that call for sweeping changes in the way science is taught in the United States, emphasizing hands-on learning and critical scrutiny of scientific evidence.

Among many other changes, the guidelines call for introducing climate science into the curriculum starting in middle school, and teaching high school students in detail about the effects of human activity …

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Sequestration can seem a little vague, abstract, difficult to wrap your head around.

But here’s what it means when it comes to housing: up to 140,000 fewer low-income families receiving housing vouchers, more children exposed to lead paint, higher rent for people who can’t afford it and a rise in homelessness.

These are among the human costs of sequestration noted in a new paper by Doug Rice, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy …

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For Jason, the hospital emergency room was practically his home. Literally. He lived on the streets for nearly five long years, making frequent visits to the hospital — dozens and dozens of times — because of a pestering chronic disease and no healthcare insurance. The nursing staff knew him by name, often times giving him food and a few bucks to survive.

That urban health center was the closest place to being a home for him, …

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — With perhaps billions of dollars at stake, a hearing Tuesday over concussion litigation filed against the NFL promises to be a contest between legal lions.

About 4,200 former players have sued the league. Some suffer from dementia, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological problems. Others simply want their health monitored.

And a small number, including Ray Easterling and 12-time Pro Bowler Junior Seau, committed suicide after long downward spirals.

The players’ lawyers accuse the NFL …

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Never have I witnessed a gap between the mainstream media and the public, quite like the last 24 hours since the death of Margaret Thatcher. While both the press and President Obama were uttering tearful remembrances, thousands took to the streets of the UK and beyond to celebrate. Immediately this drew strong condemnation of what were called “death parties”, described as “tasteless”, “horrible”, and “beneath all human decency.” Yet if the same media praising Thatcher …

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Seventeen months ago a Canadian teen was allegedly gang-raped by four of her peers and the photo evidence of the rape spread across her community. But unlike the situation that unfolded in Steubenville, where the victim was at least given the comfort of knowing her assailants received some measure of punishment (even if the media took their side), this case ended in tragedy: The victim was taken off life support by her family on Sunday, …

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Though Indiana University’s March Madness is over, a generation of gutting and restructuring has left Hoosier country on its feet. This Thursday and Friday, the university will be the site of a statewide strike. As the Board of Trustees holds its annual meeting, many students and staff are expected to walk out of class and off the job.

As one poster states:

The goal is to contest the administration’s efforts to make IU a more exclusive, costly …

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ROME, Italy — If the 1970s mob classic “The Godfather” had been filmed today, you’d see giant wind turbines in the backdrop of scenes around Vito Corleone’s hometown. They’ve sprouted by the dozen in western Sicily, part of a green-power boom fueled by government subsidies.

They wouldn’t be out of place. Police have long suspected that much of the money has gone toward lining the pockets of figures such as Matteo Messina Denaro, the head of …

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Hosting Obama during his visit to San Francisco last week was Tom Steyer, the former head of Farallon Capital Management. Steyer, who is a billionaire (probably the 344th wealthiest person in America if you trust the Forbes rankings), has been a liberal bankroller of the Democratic Party for many years now. More recently Steyer has been positioning himself to be policy maker for team Obama; Steyer recently was rumored to have been included on the …

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