Bill Dedman

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

One-third of all professional baseball players come from Latin America, and Sosa is following role models such as the late Roberto Clemente, a Puerto Rican, from whom he adopted the No. 21. Now he is a model for others.

Federal regulations forbid delaying inspections for fracture-critical bridges like the fallen Minneapolis bridge - the kind with a lack of redundancy in design, so that a single failure in a load-bearing part can cause the entire bridge to collapse.

MSNBC policy requires journalists to report any potential conflict of interest and to seek approval from the president of NBC News before making any political contribution.

A foundation representing firefighters who die in the line of duty is calling for Congress to strip the Centers for Disease Control of its role investigating firefighter deaths.

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.

Jason McDermott's political career, however bogus, appears to have had an early and promising start.

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.

In Illinois, where legislators are paid $45,000, plus as much as $10,000 for leadership work, about half are full-time politicians.

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

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.

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