The Highlight
A digital magazine unpacking the big ideas changing our present and shaping our future.
An Ivy League economist, Oster won fans by empowering parents with data. Then she began calling for schools to reopen.
As schools prepare to open, we’re crunching numbers with the economist who fought to reopen schools, exposing the myth of the perfect college experience, dressing for class, and more.
In 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children and their driver disappeared from a small California town. Forty-five years later, we revisit the story.
The influence of the “wave” of Korean music and film on global culture was no accident.
I never believed I could be a critic. That’s a problem.
Twitter had a field day with Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.” Now, the author is speaking out.
Streaming services’ playlists make listening easy. But they’re also breaking fans’ relationships with artists.
Music, books, film, and the people who move pop culture forward.
The TV show sold us an idealized vision of these relationships. For young adults, the real thing is far harder to find.
As dating and marriage evolve, so is the way couples tackling the uncomfortable question.
From a Buddhist to a humanist, seven faith leaders weigh in on building a better world.
Ride-sharing companies are pushing to make a third category of “independent” worker the law of the land. Drivers say the notion of independence is little more than a mirage.
Kiese Laymon on Black revision, repayment, and renewal.
Together, the pandemic and the death of George Floyd revealed to all Americans the rampant inequities and stratifications many face. But is fairness the goal?
Anti-trans bills, women’s sports, and the misguided pursuit of an even playing field.
From the meat-based meals to kitty litter to plastic poop bags, pet care is unarguably bad for the environment. What can we do about it?
Intelligence plays a role in how we treat them. Maybe it shouldn’t.
Should humans care whether creatures live good lives, even in the forests or jungles? A group of philosophers and scientists has an unorthodox answer.
Iowa’s largest hog producer courted power and turned farming into a numbers game. Businesses like it are increasingly the norm.
How one pork baron transformed the heartland. Plus: The unfortunate tale of the “it” dog, a fringe idea to protect wild animals from suffering, and more.
A struggling town versus Amazon; inheritance and the middle class; the “Black tax” and more.
Debtors’ prison might sound arcane. But this comic explains how it exists under a certain guise in America today.
From mental health to home-buying, there are myriad ways education loans can affect lives. That’s why it’s so difficult to find a one-size-fits-all solution, economists say.
As a money coach and a Black woman, I’ve seen the racial wealth disparity firsthand.
Why a memorial for Covid-19 victims can help us process our grief, and our anger, too.
A “great wealth transfer” may be on the horizon. Will a gift from grandma save the middle class?
Bessemer, Alabama, has been called an “unlikely” place for an epic union battle with Amazon. They don’t know Bessemer.
The pandemic took lives far too soon. How much human potential has been lost?
“Question everything, right?” is the new mantra for some. But social echo chambers have propelled “healthy” skepticism into surreal terrain.
Culture tells us bodies like mine are impossible to love. Don’t believe it.
Reconciling the sweatpants-wearing me with the fashion-loving woman I was just a year ago is an existential crisis like no other.
J. Ranji Smile served Indian food and tall tales to a hungry American public. Was he the first “celebrity chef” or a crook? The truth is complicated.
From the costumed workers of Times Square to the cooking con man who fooled a nation, these are the stories of how we reveal and present — and love — ourselves.
Life was never easy for New York’s costumed performers. What happens when the tourists disappear?
With more than 500,000 dead and no clear end in sight, some have found tools for coping with loss and stress are no longer working.
As a new year and a new administration begin, we explore life in transition, from the new utopias to parents bucking the “baby bust” to Congress’s newcomers.
“Maybe it’s like a psychological trick to make yourself feel better, but I don’t regret it.”
As crystals’ soothing popularity continues, one — carnelian — attracts those in search of self-improvement and positivity. Is it too good to be true?
For a certain jet-setting sect, wide-open spaces with views, few Covid-19 cases, and the freedom to go maskless are all the rage. But who pays the price?