CATEGORIES

LIFE GETS BETTER FOR SPORTS BETTORS

BUT PLACING A WAGER ON YOUR FAVORITE TEAM IS STILL TOO COMPLICATED IN MANY STATES.

How To Talk About Racism

Linguist John McWhorter on the ways social justice activists have betrayed black Americans

When Is Drinking Ayahuasca a Religious Experience?

Inside the vast apparatus of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), there’s a bureaucrat who is tasked with investigating the tenets of psychedelic churches. That improbable job figures in the legal troubles encountered by Arizona’s Vine of Light Church.

Two Courts Debunk Persistent Opioid Myths

Since 2014, state and local governments have filed thousands of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies they blame for causing the “opioid crisis” by exaggerating the benefits and minimizing the risks of prescription pain medication. The theory underlying these cases is pretty straightforward: Drug manufacturers lied, and people died.

Some People Love a State of Crisis

Can’t we get back to some version of normal? That’s a fair question now that every American who wants a COVID-19 vaccine has had the opportunity to get one. But we still get breathless coverage of every variant and new rounds of travel restrictions, mask mandates, and vaccine document checks as if it were still the early days of the pandemic.

How Anti-Smut Activists Made ‘Louie, Louie' Famous

Censors wore out their welcome during the 20th Century’s indecency wars.

The Destruction of Black Bottom

How the zeal for government project housing killed a prosperous black community in Detroit

Two Years to Slow the Spread

Government can’t stop moving the Covid-19 goal posts.

Dark Day — The News in Pictures

U.S. Capitol Police officers after morning roll call on Capitol Hill on January 6, a year after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in hopes of interrupting the certification of the election of Joe Biden as President.

World Economic Forum Warns Cyber Risks Add to Climate Threat

Cyberthreats and the growing space race are emerging risks to the global economy, adding to existing challenges posed by climate change and the coronavirus pandemic, the World Economic Forum said in a report this week.

After Wave of Cancellations, Delta Sees Recovery in 2022

Delta Air Lines lost $408 million in the final quarter of 2021, dragged down by a COVID-19 surge that rocked the airline in December, and the carrier predicted Thursday that it will suffer one more quarterly loss before travel perks up in spring and summer.

THE LOCKDOWN SHOWDOWN

ALARMED BY UNILATERAL COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS, STATES ARE IMPOSING NEW LIMITS ON EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. ERIC BOEHM

WE KEEP GOING BACK TO THE MATRIX

HOW A GENERATION WAS REDPILLED BY A NERD POWER FANTASY ABOUT DEFINING YOURSELF IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Inflation Will Make Government Budget Problems Worse

"Recent comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted that the Fed may soon get serious about hitting the monetary brakes to slow the economy. Until recently, inflation was described as transitory. But at some point, that story has to change."

‘The Only Crime of Most of Us Was That We Were Uyghur Muslims'

Concentration camp survivor Tursunay Ziyawudun on her imprisonment and torture in China

Had Badge, Will Travel

An ex-sheriff slings bogus constitutional lessons at cops—with your state’s seal of approval.

The Legal War Against Mother Jones

"Journalists shouldn’t hide behind a veil of false objectivity."

The Small Lie

To support the Republican myth that our elections are rife with fraud, someone needs to take the fall.

The Children Are in Danger!

Across America, well-meaning citizens are raising money and awareness about a child-sex-trafficking epidemic that doesn’t exist.

January 6 Was Practice

Donald Trump is better positioned to subvert an election now than he was in 2020.

Snowbirds

Photographs by Naomi Harris

The Antiquities Cop

Matthew Bogdanos is on a mission to prosecute the wealthy dealers and collectors who traffic in the looted relics of ancient civilizations.

Shape-Shifting Animals on an Inhospitable Planet

Lizards’ feet are morphing, squid are shrinking, butterflies’ wings are growing stronger.

The Miraculous Sound of Forgiveness

In his thrillingly transgressive opera The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart pulled off his most amazing musical feat.

The Autocrats Are Winning

If the 20th century was the story of liberal democracy’s progress toward victory over other ideologies— communism, fascism, virulent nationalism— the 21st century is, so far, a story of the reverse.

W. G. Sebald, Usurper of Lives.

Germany’s renowned and morally scrupulous novelist ransacked the stories of Jewish lives for his fictions. Does it matter?

Geography Class

Photographer Matt Black’s epic work of “critical cartography”

Sweet And Lowdown

The hidden suffering behind America’s sugar habit

Field of Trees

The case for bringing foliage back to the Corn Belt

Mainstreaming Militias

In Virginia, right-wingers who face down anti-racist demonstrators with AR-15s have earned an official stamp of approval.