The John J. Moran Prison in Rhode Island is one of the last places one would expect to find a thriving meditative community.

Under the current law, someone caught with a joint in Washington, D.C., can be arrested and jailed for six months. But on Tuesday, the District council voted overwhelmingly for a bill that would eliminate criminal penalties for possessing a small amount of the drug.
There are 2.3 million people in US prisons in conditions that are often inhumane and at worst life threatening.
SAN JUAN – The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency says it addressed significant threats, while “optimizing resources and building partnerships” in the Caribbean last year.

Washington DC’s Department of Human Services has a really big problem. The city’s population of homeless families has skyrocketed this winter, filling up every one of the 285 shelter rooms at the former DC General Hospital and forcing officials to place hundreds of families in hotels around the city and in Maryland.
Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman is yet another victim of the war on drugs. Prohibition is not working. It is time to try something new.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic resumed their bilateral talks on Monday.

After months of a relative lull, immigration policy reform appears to be on the front burner again. With President Obama emphasizing it in his State of the Union Address and Speaker Boehner and the Republican Party leadership adopting Principles, the stage appears to be set for passage of legislation this year.

Five years after the inauguration of the first black president, racial inequality lives on, reproducing itself in a vicious cycle. Even if all discrimination were to end tomorrow…

Jennifer Pruitt can hardly remember a time when she felt safe. She says her father beat her until her eyes were blackened. He beat her mother and brothers. He drank and crashed their family cars, she says, and then he came home and beat them some more.
US President Barack Obama will host a summit with African leaders in August in a bid to strengthen trade and investment ties with the continent.

Chicago’s Cook County Hospital has one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation, treating about 2,000 patients a year for gunshots, stabbings and other violent injuries.