By Des Moines Register Editorial Board

Police have long used scientific tools to identify criminal suspects, ranging from head measurements and mug shots to fingerprints. Today’s law enforcement agencies have something that’s considered unsurpassed: a person’s DNA.

A DNA test run on a bit of body tissue or body fluid collected at the crime scene can be matched with near certainty as belonging to only one individual in the world.

By Christine "Cissy" White

“The big question is, ‘Why didn’t they leave earlier?’” I heard Elizabeth Vargas ask on the morning news last week, not even 24 hours after the country learned that three women were free after a decade of captivity.

I could feel the heat under my skin making my neck red and my face blotchy. “So many asking that,” replied David Muir, further wondering, “Was there never another chance to escape?” before beginning a report about kidnap victims.

By Diana Reese

Where were the parents?

This is the question that’s bothered me since hearing about Steubenville, Rehtaeh Parsons in Canada and now Audrie Pott.

by Marianne Møllmann, Amnesty International

Each year around March 8 (International Women’s Day), representatives of world governments come together to draw up a statement that is supposed to communicate the notion that women and men are equal. This has been a key tenet of international relations since the signing of the United Nations Charter in 1945, so one would think it would not be terribly controversial.

One would be wrong.

By Frida Ghitis