The Highlight
A digital magazine unpacking the big ideas changing our present and shaping our future.
Cars can be a source of freedom. They also drive discrimination.
Vox analyzed dozens of studies and found that racism adds up in insidious ways.
From chronic stress to cancer, racial discrimination weathers Black Americans’ lives over time.
Is it possible to be truly original anymore — in your own life, in commerce, in art?
Self-improvement is old. What’s new is the bootstrapping mythos and toxic positivity of the very rich.
When you democratize finance, you get the good and the bad.
The endless cycling — and recycling — of parenting advice.
How today’s fight over pornography is rooted in a 40-year-old feminist schism.
Could we ever really tell a new story about a very old mermaid?
What happens if the Colorado River keeps drying up?
Wildlife needs water, too.
How extreme weather is driving a deadly fungus further into the American West
Welcome to the population paradox of the 21st century.
The Colorado River is going dry ... to feed cows.
A huge amount of US food is grown in the desert using water from a river that’s drying up.
One in eight Americans depend on a river that’s disappearing.
What the Medicine Wheel, an indigenous American model of time, shows about apocalypse.
The Netherlands’ hyper-efficient food system is both a triumph and a cautionary tale.
We can break the cycle of negativity bias in the media and get a more balanced view of the world.
Climate pessimism dooms us to a terrible future. Complacent optimism is no better.
It’s boom times for doom times but there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic that the future will be better — if we make it so.
Pumping the brakes on artificial intelligence could be the best thing we ever do for humanity.
The necessity of progress.
How the quest to own the nation’s most popular, most Instagram-worthy pup has bred a world of problems.
The Supreme Court case that shaped US schools, the long shadow of Covid learning loss, the after-school care crisis, and the latest classroom culture war. Plus: What is homework for, anyway?
How a landmark Supreme Court decision was shaped by the racist idea that poor children can’t learn.
Social-emotional learning has been a basic — and uncontroversial — part of education for decades. So why are conservatives waging a war against it?
The hours between school dismissal and the end of the workday are a mess. They don’t have to be.
The pandemic took young people’s present. What will it do to their future?
EVs catch fire far less often than gas-powered cars, but firefighters still need to adapt.
Solo dining is one of life’s great pleasures — and privileges.
The trouble with conservation’s cutest mascot.
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum says humans should grant equal rights to animals, even in the wild. Is she right?
What’s lost when focusing on the cute and charismatic. Plus: Why Teslas keep catching on fire, the progressive case for more people, and others.
The progressive case for population growth.
The country has leaped far ahead of others on redressing the wrongs of its past. While the program isn’t perfect, it has lessons to teach the US.
Comedian Ashley Ray on grief, theater camp, and learning to make herself laugh first.
It turns out investing based on hype and vibes doesn’t really pay off.
The world doesn’t make it easy for us to crack a joke.