The Highlight
A digital magazine unpacking the big ideas changing our present and shaping our future.
“Insinuation anxiety” — or fear of suggesting that other people are untrustworthy — is making every drinks date or meet-up in the park feel fraught.
How a nation engulfed by economic precarity turned a TV show about workplace drudgery into an aspirational fantasy.
Small business was already risky — then came Covid. Plus: distracted at work, swaddling ourselves in “The Office,” and 2020 grads on their prospects.
How seasonal gigs became a nostalgic relic of the past for many of today’s young people.
“I think about it every day, maybe even every hour.”
For remote employees, meetings and deep work are now coupled with online shopping, soothing puzzles and video games, and an array of other distractions.
Covid-19 relief loans have dried up or never arrived. Customers aren’t returning. What comes next for your neighborhood wine shop, bodega, nail salon, or art gallery may be “an extinction-level” event.
Turbulent reopenings and partisan mask wars have only highlighted the nation’s preoccupation with personal liberty above all — even a deadly pandemic.
The church has not easily embraced those like Junia Joplin. Could telling her story help her keep her job?
For generations, a single street paying homage to Robert E. Lee and his Confederate allies has upheld Richmond’s racist foundations. Change is coming.
The insular world of romance novels shunned black and queer writers. Then those writers started speaking up. Plus: Weddings in quarantine, a comic about true love, and more.
Romance Writers of America represented one of the sexiest and most lucrative genres in books. But writers of color say it didn’t represent them.
Stripped-down ceremonies, no families and no open bar, but these newlyweds loved the intimacy. It “boiled it down to what was most meaningful to us,” says one groom.
“Wanna hear something super bitchy?” is a kind of love language.
Health officials are urging lovers to stop kissing, and start improvising. But will we listen?
From drive-through ceremonies officiated by Elvis to couples a little too tipsy to make the biggest decision of their lives, the owner of Little Vegas Chapel has seen it all.
Covid-19 has led states to adopt mail-in voting. But it can be a barrier to ballot access for Native groups.
“I think, without question, this is the most time I’ve spent with my kids, ever.”
From woeful public transportation to dimly lighted streets, urban areas consistently fail women.
With her passport collecting dust, a travel writer turns to friends to help illuminate a globe weathering the storm together.
As the federal response to protests in Washington over the death of George Floyd have added urgency to the quest for DC statehood, we look at why achieving that status has proven so complicated.
Older people at risk of social isolation are finding new connections through their phones.
Zoom, FaceTime, and other video calls have become the sole way for some friends and family to connect during quarantine. But does it really bring us closer, or only highlight the distance?
Amid the pandemic, workers whose jobs once defined their lives are questioning what it was all for.
The coronavirus pandemic has done a number on our mental health. We asked five psychologists for advice on emerging from our homes to a changed world.
As Covid-19 ravages families in New York, a religious leader offers comfort — and some semblance of tradition.
Why are women bemoaning their hair, clothing choices, and more, even during a pandemic?
A mysterious outbreak was spreading at Girlstown. But what was making the children sick? Plus: How we look on Zoom, considering the right age for a president, and more.
A mysterious outbreak. Hundreds of stricken schoolgirls. Was it an illness, or was something darker to blame?
On the existential comforts of coaxing yeast out of air, kneading, proofing, baking, and sharing.
Nativist scapegoating and racist restrictions in the name of public health are nothing new. But this time, anti-migrant policy could have devastating effects.
For the first time, it seems, the entire world knows what it’s like to live inside my head.
The psychology behind your dog or cat’s new eating habits, constant whining, or extra-loud purring.
Tone-deaf mask photos, ill-advised jaunts and comparisons to “jail” are triggering a backlash against celebrities and influencers.
This period of social distancing may increase our loneliness, but it’s really only exacerbating a problem that’s been building for years.
Covid-19 changed the world’s jet-setting ways in the blink of an eye. It could take years to return to normal.
An emerging “quarantine state of mind,” a new era of frugality, and expanding how we vote: Here’s what next.
From hospital closures to the rise of telehealth, five ways the system is already transforming.
When clinging to America’s individualistic ideals in a pandemic means letting poor people die in service of the economy, society cannot hold.
Envisioning life after the coronavirus, from the emergence of “quarantine state of mind” to the bleak future of tourism to health care and worker protections.