Nick Sadler and his wife had different ideas of what a chill Saturday looked like. He considered the weekend a blank slate — no set plans, the family’s moment to reset and chill. She was under the impression that time was up for grabs and put a short hangout on their calendar, which Sadler saw […]

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Sávio Bortolini Pimentel just missed getting on the roster to represent his national team, Brazil, at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States. At the time, he was a 20-year-old professional player with the Rio de Janeiro […]

For the first time in the 21st century, the United States has approved a new sunscreen ingredient. Well, new to us. It’s called bemotrizinol, also known as BEMT, and it’s been available in Europe and Asia for years. But the peculiar way that sunscreen is regulated in the United States — as an over-the-counter drug […]

In May, Ferrari introduced its first entry into the electric vehicle market: the Luce. With an exterior like a Nissan Leaf, and an interior designed by the guy who designed the iPhone, it received a lot of hate. So, if Ferrari can’t make a cool EV, who can? Enter the Slate truck. It’s a Jeff […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump is fueling a new voter fraud conspiracy. What’s happening? California held its primaries last week, and a week later, votes are still […]

Humanity may be scrolling its way out of existence. Across the globe, fertility rates are plummeting. In 2023, the average number of births per woman worldwide fell beneath 2.1 — the minimum level necessary for averting population decline (also known as the “replacement rate”). And this collapse is not concentrated in just a handful of […]

This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather predictions and El Niño forecasts, with economic consequences for the United States, European and…

In just 10 days over the summer of 1854, 500 people died of cholera in the Soho neighborhood of London. The city’s population had more than doubled to 2.3 million people in the first half of the 1800s, and its sewage system could not keep up. But the streams of human waste flowing into the […]

At its outset, the war known as Operation Epic Fury in the United States and Operation Roaring Lion in Israel marked a historic first: the first time the two countries’ militaries went to war fighting side by side. By all accounts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the key voices — if not the […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: The World Cup starts this week, and the Trump administration is already creating problems. What’s happening? On Monday, BBC Sport reported that a Somali referee, […]

Over the weekend, the Department of Defense stepped into one of the more delicate questions in American religiosity: who gets to be called “Christian.” More specifically, does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly called the Mormon Church), fit the bill? The brouhaha started with Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to simplify and reform […]

The internet is full of ambitious people, particularly when it comes to home improvement. You will find people installing an entire kitchen themselves, buying and renovating an abandoned house, or even digging a series of tunnels under their home. And even renters are getting in on the DIY game. Take Imani Keal: The Washington, DC-based […]

Editor’s note, June 7, 8 am ET: We’re bringing you some of our best-loved Your Mileage May Vary columns while Sigal Samuel is on parental leave. The one below originally published on November 3, 2024. This unconventional advice column offers you a unique framework for thinking through moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism — the idea that […]

Virginia’s plan to redraw its congressional maps to create as many as four new Democratic seats is dead, struck down by the state supreme court. Its impact on Virginia politics, though, is still being felt — and nowhere more visibly than in Virginia’s First District. The district, which covers much of Virginia’s coastline and includes […]

In a darkened convention hall in Chicago on May 31, a Harvard oncologist named Brian Wolpin stood at a podium and in a voice that sounded as if he was reading from the phone book, recited a set of numbers that brought a roomful of cancer doctors to their feet for 42 seconds. Adam Feuerstein, […]

Caitlin Squier-Roper, 45, recently discovered an intriguing club on Instagram: Philly Cooks a Book, a monthly meetup where locals prepare and share an assigned recipe from a specified cookbook. She could’ve enrolled through the group’s social media and shown up to a meeting, dish in hand, not knowing a single soul. So she held off […]

President Donald Trump’s second term began at a breakneck pace, with a wave of executive orders and other actions imposing tariffs; targeting law firms, universities, and individuals he believed had wronged him while he was out of office; and reshaping the US immigration system. Nearly a year and a half into his second term, the […]

Forty-one years ago, the late singer, songwriter, and education activist Whitney Houston urged us to teach children and let them lead the way. Decades later, some believe that this means instructing kids to use scissors as forks; teaching them that zookeepers can sweep under water; and leading them to believe that magical, mystical, rainbow-hunting unicorns […]

A flesh-eating parasite that the United States spent decades eradicating, and even longer trying to keep at bay, has now shown up in Texas. Federal officials confirmed this week that New World screwworm, a fly whose larvae burrow into living tissue, had been found in a 3-week-old calf in Zavala County in Southwest Texas. It […]

In May 2025, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat, arrived at an ICE detention facility in his New Jersey city and asked for a tour. Though he was initially let inside the facility’s gate, he was soon confronted by about a dozen federal law enforcement officers and asked to leave. And so he did. For […]

The Americans were closing in, the situation was getting more dangerous by the minute — and President Xi Jinping was waiting for my recommendation. The standoff began in May, when the US announced a package of anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles to Taiwan that would significantly upgrade the island’s ability to repel a Chinese invasion. We […]

In 2019, Erin Wing worked for nearly three months at a salmon hatchery in Maine that’s owned and operated by Cooke Aquaculture, the world’s largest privately held seafood company. As a hatchery technician, she helped to raise millions of delicate salmon eggs into salmon juveniles. From there, they were transported to Cooke’s fish farms off […]

As the world waits to see if President Donald Trump will give his final approval to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and, perhaps, finally bring the 2026 US-Iran conflict to a close, it’s already clear that one of the more surprising developments of the conflict has been the prominent role of Pakistan […]

Since the Iran war led to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, about 20 percent of global oil supply has been choked off, sending prices sky high, especially for jet fuel. So far, the war may already be costing the airline industry an additional $15 billion. Airlines have responded by raising ticket prices, charging […]

Welcome to the era of the big three. We’re not talking rappers here — although according to Kendrick Lamar, it’s “just big me” — we’re talking AI companies: Anthropic, SpaceX, and OpenAI. These three leading artificial intelligence companies are all expected to go public this year. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which recently acquired another Musk company, […]

A generation or two ago, when Americans had an important but nonemergency medical need, many of them would have called on their family doctor, somebody who had treated them for years. It was a little like going to a family restaurant: The purveyors knew you, knew your tastes and personal quirks, and they were part […]

As AI continues to encroach on every aspect of our lives, there is a persistent fear or hope, depending on your angle: AI will someday take over art. The internet is full of quizzes showing that most lay people cannot tell the difference between AI-generated art (digital pictures of paintings, prose) and the real thing. […]

The NBA Finals are upon us and, if you haven’t noticed, this one’s a little more hotly anticipated than usual. The president and the pope are getting involved. Why? There’s the New York factor, with the Knicks back in the finals for the first time since 1999 after years of struggles. And then there’s their […]

Here’s a familiar story. On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that will almost certainly give the Republican Party an additional seat in the US House of Representatives. Not all of the justices disclosed how they voted, but the decision appears to have come down 6-3 along partisan lines — that is, […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is still trying to implement his tariff agenda. Wait, didn’t the Supreme Court strike that down? Yes — this is the Trump administration’s […]