The Highlight
A digital magazine unpacking the big ideas changing our present and shaping our future.
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.
Why liberals and conservatives don’t get each others’ jokes.
How studying what tickles our funny bone can help explain who we are.
Remember when “epic bacon” was the height of comedy?
A status symbol, a political battleground, an emotional tool — humor is anything but a joke.
This is what the future of mental health could look like.
AI gets smarter, more capable, and more world-transforming every day. Here’s why that might not be a good thing.
Robert Greenstein isn’t a household name. But his career lobbying for the poor has changed the lives of millions of Americans.
Covid-19 vaccines helped stem the pandemic, but public skepticism about them could doom future vaccines.
Earth’s population passed 8 billion this month — now what? Plus: the rise of an anti-vaccine America, the looming dangers of superintelligent AI, the shifting landscape of higher ed, and more.
The population of college-age Americans is about to crash. It will change higher education forever.
Rethinking old ideas about what we eat, where we live and work, and how we power our communities.
What’s going to happen to the office space we no longer need?
Toxic landfills are emblems of environmental injustice across the US. Clean energy can remake them.
Americans are terrible at recycling. Electric cars are a chance to change that.
In the EV era, old automakers are learning new tricks.
Hybrid cars gave way to electric vehicles. Could “hybrid meat” do the same for beef and pork?
Here’s how to fix them — and what’s getting in the way.
Inside the Arizona’s representative’s restless, highly online, and seriously combative plan to transform the Democratic Party.
Latino voters’ growing power, what the parties get right and wrong about them, and a brash Congress member on what Democrats need to do better.
So what now? 5 experts in Latino politics weigh in.
Los demócratas culparon a la desinformación por sus pérdidas con latinos en el 2020. Pero el problema también tiene que ver con otros errores del partido.
Democrats blamed misinformation for some of their losses with Latino voters in 2020. But the problem is getting more entwined with the party’s failures with Latinos.
Why Latino voters have such a misunderstood stance on abortion.
If there’s a red wave in 2022, it will be powered by Latina candidates.
Hispanic voters could swing the 2022 midterms. Here is how that might happen.
Republicans are slowly winning over Latino voters. Democrats may not have learned from their 2020 mistakes.
Every election year, plenty of Americans, especially political pundits, rediscover the “sleeping giant” that is the Latino electorate.
The “male friendship recession” is having dire consequences.
Inside this issue: The state of American friendship, its radical power, and advice for small talk and making your social battery work for you, even if you’re an introvert.
It’s all about managing your social battery.
How urban planning contributed to the great undoing of modern friendship.
In defense of the much-maligned conversational form.
It can help us push back against tyranny. Philosopher Hannah Arendt’s legendary cocktail parties were proof.