The United States this year is set to have the worst outbreak of whooping cough since the 1970s. From January to mid-July, there were 17,000 registered cases and nine deaths.

Olympic athletes are very special people, but are they more special than, say, Nobel Prize winners, or police officers, or nurses, or spiritual gurus, or brilliant inventors or researchers whose discoveries enhance our lives?

The next time you use your cellphone, watch satellite-delivered television programming, use a cordless power tool, drive on enhanced radial tires, drink a bottle of purified water or find your way with a GPS device, thank the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Very little in the way of surprises were found in a recent survey of baby boomers conducted by the AARP, but lessons can be learned from the headlines produced by the survey.

Nate Silver, the baseball stats geek who has become an All-Star interpreter of political polls, has a record that’s hard to beat.

The Maine Turnpike Authority was never a model of good government in the past, but its recent handling of a toll increase is making it one.

Until this week, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had sought to make the election a referendum about just one thing: President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy.

You’d think a 17-day Olympiad couldn’t stretch long enough to be habit-forming, but this week, the evenings seem awfully empty.