Last rights. In sickness and in health, more people are taking life's biggest decision away from doctors and into their own hands

When dying is all that awaits them, more and more people are choosing certain death now rather than uncertain life on medical support systems. But the decision seldom comes easy, as a Newsweek reporter discovers during three weeks with the doctors, nurses, patients and families in an intensive-care ward. A best-selling guide to suicide fires debate over when it is right to let life go--and who should make that choice when the patient no longer can.     

Money madness. Are private psychiatric hospitals resorting to kidnapping in their quest for paying patients?

In their zeal for lucrative insurance reimbursement, some private psychiatric hospitals seem to have gone over the edge themselves. A number of these institutions, critics charge, use outright coercion to commit and retain patients. Now some formerly abducted "recruits" are fighting back with lawsuits.     

Radical Islam: The Death of an Ideology?

Dr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Gvosdev is a senior fellow at the Nixon Center. The following is adapted from the conclusion of their recent book, The Receding Shadow of the Prophet: The Rise and Fall of Radical Political Islam (Praeger, 2004), reproduced with permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT.     

Gender Differences in Self-Perceptions and Academic Outcomes: A Study of African American High School Students

There is increasing divergence in the academic outcomes of African American males and females. By most accounts, males are falling behind their female peers educationally as African American females are graduating from high schools at higher rates and are going on to college and graduate school in greater numbers. Some have suggested that school completion and performance is associated with how students feel about themselves. The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences in the relationship between self-perceptions and 2 academic outcomes among a sample of 243 African American high school sophomores. The results suggest that, overall, females are more favorably oriented toward high school completion. Both male and female students with more positive self-perceptions have stronger intentions to complete the current year of high school. Higher grade point averages were more strongly associated with greater self-efficacy for females than for males. Given these findings, increased attention to educational programming, societal messages, and future research is warranted.