Gage Skidmore / Flickr

I heard the news of Angelina Jolie's mastectomy on NPR last Tuesday as I was driving to work. Several co-workers stopped by my office that morning to ask I what I thought about her decision to remove both her breasts to prevent her from getting breast cancer.

"I ...

The recent scandals swirling inside the beltway seem to have come one after another—Benghazi, the AP records seizure, the IRS audits. While investigations continue about the details of each, the incidents have been enough to raise bigger, broader questions of responsibility, ...

Danny Feld / NBC

For me, it wasn't love at first sight. The first time I ever watched The Office, the scenes felt awkward and the staff of Dunder Mifflin seemed weird. But it didn't take long before I fell for those quirky characters, and I've been watching ever since.

Sure, ...

Nic McPhee / Flickr

Along with prom comes angst, materialism, and drama. As much as we tend to associate those issues with teens attending the big dance, the grown-ups end up just as guilty. As they take pet prom issues far too seriously, parents and teachers indulge in plenty of excesses of ...

Jane Rahmy / Flickr

"The best defense against modern-day slavery is a vigilant public. Be the nosy neighbor."

That's what anti-human trafficking activist Kevin Bales wrote in his book, The Slave Next Door. He had to instruct us to be nosy because these days, we won't do it ...

Craig A Michaud / Flickr | FBI

In the weeks since two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, we've learned much about the two young men first introduced to us as "Suspect 1" and "Suspect 2" in blurry images released by the FBI. The ongoing investigation into ...

Porschelinn / Flickr

As a writer, an editor, and an advocate for people affected by mental illness, I was deeply encouraged to learn of a new entry in the Associated Press Stylebook, offering guidelines on how to describe and characterize mental illness. As the definitive guide to using language ...

Lititz Borough Police

In one picture, Brenda Heist smiles, with round cheeks and dark brown eyes. In the next, taken 11 years later, her face is sad and sunken, framed with stringy blond hair. As disturbing as these side-by-side photos appear, more chilling is the story that catapulted her into ...

zzvillano / Flickr

At age 34, I'm trendier than I've ever been. When my husband and I adopted our son in 2008, we didn't know anyone else whose family looked like ours. We were more oddity than poster family. But, by 2011, when we adopted a second son, the evangelical orphan care ...

U.S. Army / Flickr

Like many in the pro-life community, I watched in horror as the FBI raided Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic back in 2010. As much as I wanted to turn away from the gruesome descriptions of the carnage that took place at his hands I felt compelled to read the stories and ...