Robert Benincasa

Way too many residents of U.S. nursing homes are on antipsychotic drugs, critics say. It's often just for the convenience of the staff, to sedate patients agitated by dementia. That's illegal.

Jim Justice, a West Virginia philanthropist and mine owner, gave away and invested more than $200 million while his mines failed to pay $2 million in delinquent mine safety penalties.

In the eight years regulators didn't collect penalty fines from D&C Mining, it was cited 1,500 times for safety violations — including many that federal inspectors say put miners at serious risk.

With the Common Core State Standards' emphasis on "complex texts," some critics worry kids are being asked to struggle too much. We ask: How much is too much?

An NPR investigation found thousands of American mine owners fail to pay penalties for safety violations, even as they continue to manage dangerous — and sometimes deadly — operations.

The NPR Cities Project has been reporting on the options for coastal communities in light of rising sea levels. Cities might choose to armor the shoreline with floodwalls, or they might opt for what's sometimes called a "managed retreat."

Since Superstorm Sandy, for example, both New York and New ...

The federal budget for bioscience has undergone big swings since 2000. Some scientists are now out of work and others are abandoning the ambitious, creative ideas that fuel discovery.

Residents of an upstate New York town who've long associated their illnesses with the air they breathe may finally get some answers about the health effects of living next to a toxic polluter.

The town of Tonawanda lies in the shadow of Tonawanda Coke Corp., whose ovens heat coal into ...

Wells Fargo & Co. and U.S. Bank said Friday that they will stop offering "deposit advances," a kind of payday loan that had come under fire by federal regulators last year.

With about $1.5 trillion in assets, Wells Fargo was the largest bank offering the costly, low-dollar loans. Regions ...

One of several banks that offer payday loans is getting out of the business.

Regions Bank announced Wednesday that it will discontinue its "deposit advance" product known as Ready Advance.

Deposit advances are small, costly loans that bank customers take out between paychecks, and pay back automatically when a scheduled ...

A payday loan is a costly form of credit operating on the fringes of the economy. That's why the target of a new crackdown by federal regulators may surprise you: Instead of a forlorn-looking storefront with a garish neon sign, it's your familiar neighborhood bank.

A small but growing number ...

Last year, the federal government made accessibility standards at playgrounds mandatory under the Americans with Disabilities Act so that children with disabilities can more easily play alongside typical kids.

But whether children with disabilities are able to enjoy their new civil rights to play may depend on where they live, ...

Remember running around the playground when you were a kid? Maybe hanging from the monkey bars or seeing who could swing the highest?

It wasn't just a mindless energy burn. Many have called play the work of childhood. Play teaches children how to make friends, make rules and navigate relationships.

...

If you stand in front of Almena and Sidney Poray's house in Baton Rouge, La., and look straight down the street, past the other houses and the shade trees, you see more than a dozen plumes of exhaust in various hues of gray and white.

"That's something you see every ...