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The Highlight

A digital magazine unpacking the big ideas changing our present and shaping our future.

Sesame Street, 2020, and me: A New York story
The Highlight

The city I loved was shut down this year. I found comfort in the beloved TV show’s idealized version of it.

By Anna North
Welcome to the Time Issue of The Highlight
The Highlight

Why time felt warped this year, plus an accounting of how women’s work is (or isn’t) valued, an ode to hours spent video gaming, and more.

By Vox Staff
How the pandemic is forcing women out of the workforce, explained in a comic
The Highlight

Between child care and homeschooling, women’s time is becoming worth less. It could take years to recover lost ground.

By Aubrey Hirsch
2020 was a time warp
Science

Was it a year, a day, or a millennium? Science offers clues to why it feels like all of the above.

By Shannon Stirone
What was 2020? For me, it was video games.
The Highlight

1,200 hours later, I regret nothing.

By Alanna Okun
On Waiting
The Highlight

Racism takes its toll in stolen days, months, years. Tired of the time taken away from me, I decided to leave America behind.

By Tiffanie Drayton
The Highlight
Some brand names have long perpetuated racism. Black Lives Matter is changing that.Some brand names have long perpetuated racism. Black Lives Matter is changing that.
The Highlight

The Cleveland Indians are reportedly the latest group preparing to abandon a stereotypical name, following the Washington Redskins and Aunt Jemima this summer.

By Allegra Frank
He was arrested for marijuana 17 years ago. Now it’s legal. So why is he still guilty of a crime?
Features

As weed hits a cultural tipping point, states face an urgent call to expunge, or erase, minor pot convictions.

By John Washington
Plight at the Museum
Culture

Facing twin crises, four museum directors share their vision and hopes for the future.

By Constance Grady, Jen Trolio and 1 more
Welcome to the Museums Issue of The Highlight
Culture

Museum leaders grapple with a crisis like none other, plus striving for diversity, what it feels like in an empty Met, and more.

By Lavanya Ramanathan
If museums want to diversify, they’ll have to change. A lot.
Culture

2020’s racial reckoning has rocketed through elite cultural institutions. Undoing old patterns means untangling nearly everything.

By Constance Grady
The joy and uneasiness of an empty museum
Culture

With tourists nowhere to be found, this is the eerie new reality of New York’s cultural institutions.

By Alissa Wilkinson
The Please Touch Museum and children’s museums everywhere wonder: What now?
Culture

Once tactile and crowded, interactive spaces for families must re-imagine what “hands-on” will look like now.

By Lindsey Norward
Who are museums for?
Culture

When the marble corridors feel like fences.

By Lavanya Ramanathan
Love, delayed
Features

As the pandemic rages on, single people are feeling the anxiety of missed opportunities.

By Elizabeth Segran
Is this the end of American optimism?
Politics

Facing a seemingly endless pandemic and an election that has little hope of going smoothly, we’re all on a grim, existential roller coaster now.

By Eleanor Cummins
How old should a president be?
Politics

Americans are poised to elect the oldest commander in chief ever to serve. Does that matter?

By Charlotte Alter and Daniel J. Levitin
Welcome to the Home Issue of The Highlight
Politics

The new nesting; the shabby, messy chic of maximalism; traveling for the holidays; and what it’s like to move home with Mom and Dad.

By Vox Staff
What “home for the holidays” means during a pandemic
The Highlight

Without specific guidance around whether — and how — to travel, some find themselves playing a game of risk roulette.

By Terry Nguyen
A millennial moved back in with her parents. Her mom maybe wants her to stay forever.
The Highlight

52 percent of US adults under 30 are now living at home, many because of Covid-19. Here’s how it’s going for one family.

By Julie Vadnal
The 6 types of tidy people: A comic
The Highlight

We’re all homebodies now. And, no, it does not spark joy.

By Kaye Rishad
Home, bittersweet home
Features

Can a single place — one that’s failed us in the past — squeeze in everything it takes to live a life?

By Foster Kamer
The new maximalism
Features

The next big thing in home design is overstuffed, garish, and glorious.

By Rebecca Jennings
Kamala Harris, Jill Biden, and the national embrace of stepmothers
Politics

Their presence on the political stage spotlights the truth about the American blended family.

By Eleanor Cummins
America has never grappled with its racist past. Could Germany be a model?
Features

The long and public reckoning that followed the Holocaust shows a path forward for a United States that desperately needs to confront its demons.

By Mattie Kahn
Welcome to The Great Rebuild Issue of The Highlight
Politics

Covid-19 exposed fractures in our economy yet also offers an opportunity. From defunding police to fixing housing, this is how we can prepare for future crises.

By Vox Staff
How to build a better American economy
Policy

A blueprint exists for a more inclusive, successful nation that invests in the well-being of its citizens. We only have to look to the past.

By Zachary D. Carter
We can end America’s unemployment nightmare
Policy

The problem with our social safety net is clear. The solution is, too.

By Emily Stewart
Young people are the new corps of engineers the US has been waiting for
Social Policy

We have more than enough work to go around for the next generation if we address one of our nation’s biggest problems: infrastructure.

By Andrew Yang
The financial case for defunding the police
Police Violence

It’s time to ask why we continue to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on police misconduct lawsuits and billions more on policing that yields poor outcomes.

By Sean Collins
Building housing — lots of it — will lay the foundation for a new future
Policy

A massive boom in new construction would create countless jobs and help finally end the legacy of racist housing policies.

By Matthew Yglesias
The future of the economy hinges on child care
Policy

We must bail out the industry that allows millions of parents to work.

By Anna North
“They didn’t see me as innocent”
Features

Can you remember your first experience with the police? For these 9 Black and brown people, the encounters would shape their sense of safety forever.

By Kiana Moore
Welcome to the Escape Issue of The Highlight
The Highlight

Escapist summer reads, including: The girl who wanted to ride bulls with the boys, the true crime search for a missing father, a respite from work, and the future of clubbing.

By Vox Staff
The bull rider
Features

She wanted to ride with men in one of the world’s most dangerous sports. She had a lot more than her competition to be worried about.

By Steven Leckart
The man without a name
Science

Robert Ivan Nichols simply disappeared from his average, 1960s Midwestern life — until, using DNA, sleuths uncovered the truth. But were they digging where they shouldn’t have been?

By Katya Cengel
“For the first time in my life, I had money in my savings”: Workers on the relief of the $600 weekly benefit
Politics

How Covid-19 unemployment benefits changed these workers’ lives.

By Michael Waters
Is this the end of clubs?
Features

Farewell (for now) to dark rooms, flashing lights, sweaty bodies, and escapism.

By Lavanya Ramanathan
The unexpected joy of the worst summer of our lives
The Highlight

Covid-19 made my world small and bleak. But I still found solace in the quietest places.

By Christine Mi
After revealing in a sermon that she is trans, a Baptist pastor is fired by the church
The Highlight

As Christian congregations grapple with LGBTQ acceptance, Junia Joplin hoped that candidly telling her story would help her keep her job.

By Emily St. James