BILL DEDMAN

State and federal laws protect whistle-blowers, those who refuse to do something illegal, and workers who file claims for workers' compensation.

Many police departments still use DNA evidence the way they have used fingerprints and tire tracks: to determine whether a suspect committed the crime.

Ted Williams, an extraordinary hitter in his day, has said the swing starts in the hips, and Sosa arrived with one of the strongest lower bodies in the game.

In Montana, where Sen. William Andrews Clark made his fortune and lost his reputation, people had assumed that all his children were long dead. After all, he was born in 1839 and was of age to serve in the Civil War.

The main threads running through the lives of W. A. Clark and his daughter Huguette include the costs of ambition, the burdens of inherited wealth, the fragility of reputation, the folly of judging someone's life from the outside, and the tension between engaging with the world, with all its risks, and keeping a safe distance from danger.

The Adversity Index was created by msnbc.com and Moody's Analytics to track the economic fortunes of states and metro areas. Each month, the Adversity Index uses government data on employment, industrial production, housing starts and home prices to label each area as expanding, at risk of recession, in recession or recovering.

If he is convicted, Dr. Kevorkian says he will die a martyr's death by going on a hunger strike.

Groups that work in black neighborhoods around the country have contended that much of subprime lending is 'predatory lending.'

The entire federal budget for landslide research is $3.5 million a year - far less than the property value lost on a single day when 17 mansions slid down a hill in 2005 in Laguna Beach, Calif.

In Minneapolis, the overhead sky walks protect pedestrians from the winter cold and snow.

I'm not in the what-people-feel business. It is not my place to guess.

About 100 firefighters a year die in the line of duty in the U.S. Heart attacks on the job and vehicle accidents on the way to the fires account for about half. The other half are traumatic deaths while fighting fires.

Subprime lending is growing faster in black areas than in white areas.

Spring and summer in Pittsburgh mean outdoor festivals.

When Goldberg's 'Liberal Fascism' came out in January 2008, his employer 'National Review Online' announced that Tribune Media Services, which carries Goldberg's opinion columns, had 'nominated' Goldberg for a Pulitzer in commentary.

If police officers routinely issue tickets for the most serious traffic offenses, they'll be treating drivers of all races, sexes, and ages equally.

The scientific effort to inform the public about landslide risks often runs head-on into powerful economic interests.

In New York, FEMA granted the Mamaroneck Beach & Yacht Club's request to be remapped from the high-risk flood zone in August 2012 - just two months before the club was damaged and its outbuildings destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, which stacked up yachts at its docks like pick-up sticks.

Relaxing at home in his 55th-floor condominium before a game, Sammy Sosa is the same as at the ball park: focused but funny, exuberant but reserved. He is in a strange country, conversing in two languages, but his every movement displays a combination of confidence and humility.

It's hard to say whether the general incidence of school violence of all types is increasing or not.

Brand names are well known to business school professors, but only one professor is a brand name herself. Call her Professor Oprah.

In more than 500 instances, from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.

In Atlanta, with a large African-American population, Sosa is often considered a black man. In Miami and Los Angeles, with larger Hispanic populations, he is a Latino man, and the black label is rejected as robbing Hispanics of a hero.

For the first six years of his career, Sammy Sosa was one of the least patient players in the game. He could hit the long ball and steal a base, but he was undisciplined.

The Secret Service once watched for people who fit the popular profile of dangerousness: the lunatic, the loner, the threatener, the hater.