Marcus Abrams, a 17-year-old autistic teen from St. Paul, who also suffers from seizures, didn’t belong on the tracks at a Metro Transit station, but his family is questioning the violence of his subsequent arrest during which police tackled him to the platform floor. Advocates for the autistic and disabled say the incident highlights the need for better police training.

Don’t let anyone fool you: Sectarian strife in Syria has been engineered to provide cover for a war for access to oil and gas, and the power and money that come along with it.

While the mainstream media showers attention on any crime with even the slightest hint of a connection to ISIS or other Muslim extremists, less attention is being paid to a growing number of threats against everyday Muslims in the United States despite the FBI raising the alarm. The FBI issued an intelligence bulletin in May, warning that “militia extremists” are increasing their violent rhetoric against Muslims and even potentially making concrete plans to target them for violence.

Two years ago, Austin Police Det. Charles Kleinert shot and killed Larry Jackson, Jr., an unarmed black man, under a bridge near one of the city’s many greenbelt trails. His death was the savage culmination of a wild chase through the city that ultimately led to Kleinert’s early retirement and indictment for manslaughter.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015, would have been Abdulrahman Awlaki’s 20th birthday. Instead, he was killed in 2011, by a CIA drone strike in Yemen, a country which the US had not declared war on. Abdulrahman was not linked to any terrorism-associated activity, never mind charged with an actual crime.

Many have suspected through the years that extreme stress and trauma leave their mark not just on their victims, but on their descendants as well. Now science is catching up to these beliefs through the developing field of epigenetics.