News & Features

Because drugs are illegal, one can sell them for a huge markup, and that means you can make a living, or even get by, helping to sell drugs instead of getting a legitimate job. That black market stands as an eternal temptation—often quite a rational one—for a young black boy stuck in a lousy school and growing up in a tough neighborhood. Negative interactions with often surly white cops are the main contact he ever has with the world outside his neighborhood. Hence, generations of young black men who feel like aliens in the only country they will ever know.

In recent months, the impoverished Southeast Asian country has been enmeshed in a series of strikes involving garment workers who stitch clothes for Western brands. Workers are demanding a doubling of the minimum wage, saying they can’t live on their current $80 monthly income. Late last week the government responded with a violent crackdown. Elite units wielding Chinese-made weapons, batons, and steel pipes chased protesters through the streets. Five were killed and dozens were injured.

Like millions of other Americans, Ted, who also found a new career working in the high-tech end of the film industry, fled America and reinvented himself overseas. And nowhere is the expat invasion more evident than in East and Southeast Asia. In Hong Kong alone the number of American expats is estimated to be 60,000 in 2009, though many say that number is much higher.That is almost the number of expats living in mainland China, which is somewhere around 72,000, according to the Chinese census.  

Native peoples reintroduced fading species, restored habitats and stopped big industry in its tracks. Several species began coming back, many of them thanks to the efforts of tribal programs. Northwest tribes were pleased to see a record return of Chinook salmon to the Columbia River. A healthy wolf population flourished in Yellowstone National Park, strengthening the wildlife web around it. Here are some of the more notable wins, and the tribes involved in making them happen.

The GOP has ruthlessly sold the outlandish myth to millions that a hike in the minimum wage is a huge job killer. It has been so effective in its hard sell that President Obama and Congressional Democrats have repeatedly been stymied and frustrated in every effort they’ve made to boost the minimum wage nationally. And almost certainly, Obama in his State of the Union Address later this month will again demand that Congress, meaning House and Senate Republicans, immediately raise the minimum wage. 

The odds of humans being dealt the medical equivalent of a royal flush—eliminating disease and slowing or stopping the aging process—may not be as long as we’ve been made to believe, according to scientists.Some futurists think even more radical changes are in the offing: That humans will be able to use technology to solve “the problem of dying.”How did humans go from living an average of 35 years two centuries ago to contemplating living a century or more?

For news headlines, 2013 didn’t disappoint. From ongoing violence in the Middle East to the rollout of landmark health care reform here at home, the ascension of a new pope and the passing of an international human rights icon, the year’s tumult was splashed across news Websites and front pages worldwide. But for U.S.-based ethnic media, there were other stories that – while less reported – hit closer to home. 

It was probably a slow news day when we breathlessly followed along the live-tweeted fight between "The Bachelor" producer Elan Gale and "Diane," a nasty airplane passenger in seat 7A who caused a scene for being delayed on her Thanksgiving flight. Because we've all met "Dianes" in real life, the Internet applauded Gale for sending the offending woman handwritten notes that chastised her unruly, self-absorbed behavior. As you know by this list, he punked us all...even actor Alec Baldwin. "So many questions unanswered about Diane. In 15 minutes I will post the photo and hopefully we can resolve all this," he wrote on Twitter.