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.

Bill Dedman

Categorized in : Home Government Adversity Data

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

Bill Dedman

issues race sex

John Glenn's father, known as Herschel, was mostly deaf from injuries in World War I. To help out at home, young Glenn sold rhubarb all over town from the family garden.

Bill Dedman

home war father

In Chicago, integrated neighborhoods do not stay integrated for long.

Bill Dedman

chicago neighborhood long

Disclosure of private e-mails from government officials has been a legal issue in many states.

Bill Dedman

issues mail government

Cities vary widely in the use of DNA testing.

Bill Dedman

dna cities use

History is the best guide to the future.

Bill Dedman

guides

FEMA says that it does not factor in previous losses into its decisions on applications to redraw the flood zones.

Bill Dedman

decision doe loss

Some parents believe that competition helps prepare children to succeed. Others fear that their children will not be able to handle failure.

Bill Dedman

parent believe children

Firefighters go where they're needed, sometimes ignoring the dangers even when no one is inside a burning building to be saved.

Bill Dedman

inside go building sometimes

Even with good maps, there's no guarantee that the public will get the word about landslide hazards, or that state and local governments will take action to discourage or prevent building in dangerous areas.

Bill Dedman

good dangerous building action

At one point, Sarah Palin sent her husband instructions to stock up on 'fresh fruit and veggies' for the kids, and 'as little processed foods as possible.'

Bill Dedman

fresh possible fruit husband

With better gear, firefighters no longer surround and drown a fire - they go in.

Bill Dedman

firefighters better go fire

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.

Bill Dedman

die job fighting heart

After every massacre in a school, Americans grasp at quick cures. 'Let's install metal detectors and give guns to teachers' Let's crack down on troublemakers, weeding out kids who fit the profile of a gunman. Let's buy bulletproof whiteboards for the students to scurry behind, or train kids to throw erasers or cans of soup at an attacker.'

Bill Dedman

teachers behind down school

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

Bill Dedman

die will hunger death

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.

Bill Dedman

insurance bar more flood

New flood maps in many states have raised the estimation of flood risks along rivers, streams and oceans, adding many properties to flood zones for the first time.

Bill Dedman

risks new first-time time

Humidity notwithstanding, summer seems to bring out the best of Cincinnati.

Bill Dedman

bring out best summer

I'm pretty much a documents reporter. I'm a public records geek.

Bill Dedman

reporter pretty geek records

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.

Bill Dedman

new like new-york beach