CATEGORIES

THE NEW ROMANTICS

A decade after Fifty Shades, pop-culture romance has become alarmingly wholesome

Paul Reubens

Forever in character

Climate Is Everything

One of the enduring legacies of this summer's heat waves is a disease that few people have heard of. First documented in El Salvador's sugarcane workers 21 years ago, chronic kidney disease of nontraditional origin (CKDnt) occurs among manual laborers working in high-heat conditions.

Why did early puberty spike during the pandemic?

ITALY NOTICED FIRST. IT WAS THE FIRST COUNTRY TO lock down during the COVID-19 pandemic, and later in 2020, researchers at Florence's Anna Meyer Children's University Hospital were the first to point out a puzzling trend: more young girls than ever before had been showing up at the hospital with clear signs of early-onset puberty.

Why Trump's Georgia case may matter most

THE SIGNS IN GEORGIA WERE THERE FOR MONTHS. BACK in February, the forewoman of a special grand jury hinted that her advisory panel had recommended criminal charges against \"not a short list\" of familiar names in connection to an effort to overturn the results of Georgia's 2020 presidential election.

THE HEALING SEA

In a quest to preserve the zones that let oceans thrive, ecologist Enric Sala heads for the South Pacific

The creative ways teachers are using AI

PETER PACCONE, A SOCIAL-STUDIES TEACHER IN SAN Marino, Calif., has a new teacher's aid helping him in the classroom this year.

Special counsel

In Biden probe

Writing for Friends was no joke

EVER SINCE I RETIRED FROM TELEVISION WRITING AT the ripe age of 38, people have asked me, \"Why would you quit such a cool career?\" It's impossible to answer this question over cocktail-party conversation. Where would I even begin? There were the grueling hours, the egotistical bosses, the dysfunction-there's everything the Writers Guild of America is currently fighting against with their ongoing strike, and the issues have only gotten more complex since I left in 2008.

The Secretary on education

THE TWO YEARS THAT MIGUEL Cardona has been in the nation's top education job haven't exactly been serene: In June, the Supreme Court rejected President Joe Biden's student-loan-forgiveness plan and, in another ruling, essentially overturned affirmative action.

THE PARENT TRAP

American teens are having a hard time. High school students reporting chronic feelings of sadness and hopelessness rose from 1 in 5 to 1 in 3 from 2008 to 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). By the pandemic fall of 2021, the feelings were reported by 42% of high school students and almost 60% of girls. The thing is, a lot of parents are in really bad shape too.

The man who was everything, and then some

IN A NATION TORN APART BY, OF ALL THINGS, the perception that drag performers will corrupt our children, the time is right for a documentary about the glitter king himself, Little Richard, a performer who broke all kinds of boundaries at a time when doing so could be life-threatening.

The day hip-hop changed forever

AS A PERSON WHO LOVES HISTORY, I'M one of those people who can spot a historical moment as it's happening-both as a participant and as an outside viewer.

AFTER THE FLAMES

In the Maui wildfires, a summer of climate warnings reached a hellish crescendo

"Absolutely Do Not Send Them There"

Foster kids have few advocates and little agency. That makes them the perfect cash cow for the country's biggest psychiatric hospital chain.

VAPOR TRAIL

After a cannabis product turned up at my kid's school, I rode into the Wild West of unregulated pot.

RICH DOC, POOR DOC

Why do the most important kinds of doctors earn the least money?

MEDICAL RESTRAINTS

How health care companies use debt to trap nurses on the job

FREEDOM READERS

Authors of banned books-like me-are battling right-wing censorship daily. But we can't do it alone.

Montreal: It's All French to Me

THE MONTREAL BIODÔME’S scarlet macaw named Bouton “will be deported to the Toronto Zoo next Friday after she only spoke English during a government inspection,” The Beaverton reported in July 2013

TRUE CRIME DISTORTS THE TRUTH ABOUT CRIME

In their telling, it was Kercher’s roommate, an American exchange student named Amanda Knox, who had killed the young woman during some sort of satanic sex game gone awry

Affirmative Action Loses in Court

THE END OF affirmative action in university admissions has been prophesied since 2003, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in Grutter v. Bollinger. In the majority opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that “25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today

Private Tyranny' Is Less Private Than You Think

KIMBERLY NARANJO MAKES for a sympathetic protagonist. In childhood, she suffered abuse at home. In early adulthood, she struggled with addiction

Civics in Public Schools Won't Fix American Democracy

ON THE CAMPAIGN trail in May, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy provocatively proposed raising the voting age to 25 for Americans who have not had any kind of civic experience, such as serving in the military or working as a first responder

Subsidies Won't Stop Stagnation

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN is making a “big bet on place-based industrial policy,” writes Brookings Institution senior fellow Mark Muro

America's Immigrant Brain Drain

THE UNITED STATES boasts more international students, immigrant inventors, and foreign-born Nobel laureates than any other country

Taylor Swift, Junk Fees, and the 'Happy Meal Fallacy'

WHEN AMERICA’S LARGEST ticket retailer announced plans to adjust its pricing structure, President Joe Biden was quick to claim credit

HOW Hippies Saved the Fourth Amendment

THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION DID EVERYTHING IT COULD TO CURB ANTIWAR ACTIVISM. THEN THE COURTS SAID IT HAD GONE TOO FAR

Africa's Planned Cities Need Unplanning

NIGERIA'S SLUMS AND STARTUP CITIES CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

THE PIRATE PRESERVATIONISTS

WHEN KEEPING CULTURAL ARCHIVES SAFE MEANS STEPPING OUTSIDE THE LAW