Marianne McCune

Andrew Rosenkranz says at least two or three times a week, he finds himself sitting across from an employee at his market research firm near Seattle, listening to some complicated personal problem.

Just last week, an employee described how her daughter and baby granddaughter were assaulted by a boyfriend. The ...

Brushes are pretty simple: a bunch of flexible fibers sticking out of something stiff. Not surprisingly, Chinese manufacturers have grabbed a big share of the U.S. brush market. But several hundred small U.S. brush factories are still hanging on. Here are three strategies they're using to survive.

1. Compete On ...

Miguelo Rada doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd have extra cash. He just spent 32 years in prison, he lives in a halfway house in West Harlem, and his current income comes only from public assistance.

He uses food stamps for food, wears hand-me-down clothes and buys almost ...

If you're trying to grow a business in Nigeria and you want investors, you want Nigeria's economy to look as big as possible.

Bayo Puddicombe and Zubair Abubakar own a company called Pledge 51, which creates applications for Nigeria's low-tech cellphones. One of their most popular games lets players ...

Chuck used to sell marijuana in California. But the legalization of medical marijuana in the state meant he was suddenly competing against hundreds of marijuana dispensaries. So he moved to New York, where marijuana is still 100 percent illegal. Since making the move, he says, he's quadrupled his income. (For ...

Sales of guns and ammunition rose after President Obama took office in 2008, and they went through the roof starting late last year, when a school shooting led to a push for new gun control measures. That's led to a prolonged ammunition shortage, even with manufacturers running at full capacity.

...

A May series on marijuana continues with a look at addiction. Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, marijuana legalization consultant for Washington State, and co-author of Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2013) talks about the drug's effects and how legalization might address treatment.  He's joined by WNYC senior reporter Marianne McCune who talks about her piece on abuse and dependence of marijuana, as part of the "Weed Next Door" series.

Jake’s life started out just right. He lived in a nice house on a nice block of the sophisticated New Jersey town of Montclair. His dad worked for the NFL, his mom a couple days a wee...

Marijuana culture in this country is changing. There was legalization of recreational marijuana use back in November in Washington and Colorado. Medical marijuana is still legal in Ca...

Meet Chuck, a San Francisco marijuana dealer. (That’s not his real name. We agreed to keep that to ourselves because, otherwise, he wouldn’t talk to us.) Chuck came to New York from California to sell weed because, here in New York, where his trade is 100% illegal, he can make more money. 

Liyan Chen, a grad student in New York, was chatting online recently with her cousin in China.

"He said, 'I want Abbott milk powder,' " Chen told me. " 'I want you to buy it and ship it back.' "

Her cousin wanted her to buy three boxes of Abbott ...

Last year, a federal program called the Earned Income Tax Credit took about $60 billion from wealthier Americans and gave it to the working poor. And here's the surprising thing: This redistribution of wealth has been embraced by every president from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama.

"This program worked," says ...

Many teenagers live half their lives on social media sites, and they're writing the rules as they go. One online trend Radio Rookie Temitayo Fagbenle finds disturbing is "slut-shaming".

Stress is often associated with Christmas along with its promise of holiday cheer. But for residents who suffered great losses from Sandy and its aftermath there are extra burdens. In some cases storm's victims are putting their lives on hold.

Danielle was 13 when she left her home and her mother in the Congo.  She came to New York to pursue the American dream, but she wound up living in a homeless shelter.  

Nearly 100,000 Americans suffer from a disorder called Sickle Cell Anemia. Radio Rookie Bree Person hates talking about Sickle cells – but she put together this report nevertheless.

In New York City the high school graduation rate for black males was 28 percent in 2010. Radio Rookie Mike Brown is a young black man living in Harlem and being raised by a single mom.

For homeowners of flooded houses along the shores of New York and New Jersey, the post-Sandy to-do list is endless: sort, dry, trash, clean, make calls to the electrician, the boile...

Teachers were back in school Friday, preparing for Monday’s reopening.  But eight public schools are still doing double duty as shelters for those displaced by flooding from Sandy. At Brooklyn Tech, the borough's most sought after public high school, students will share their building with the elderly and people with mental and physical disabilities. Some are apprehensive.

It's been more than three days since power went out across large swaths of the city and beyond. And some New Yorkers haven’t ventured out of their apartments since the power went out. In multi-story public housing complexes like La Guardia Houses on the Lower East Side, getting in and out of the building can be daunting.