The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the reality that health in the U.S. has glaring racial inequities. Since March, people of color have been more likely to get sick and more likely to die from COVID-19 infection because they have been living and...

When it comes to the digital divide, often the focus is on how lack of internet service and basic technology will hurt students’ academic performance. This is particularly true during the pandemic, when most schools are...

The first U.S. COVID-19 vaccines are expected in clinics in mid-December, and states are drawing up plans for who should get vaccinated first.

But one important group is absent: children.

While two vaccines are expected to be cleared soon for adult use in the U.S.,...

Joe Biden won the election, but whether he wins the transition is another question. The peaceful transfer of power always tests an incoming president, but this time promises to be particularly perilous.

The...

In the closing sequence of “The Queen’s Gambit,” the chess-playing heroine, Beth Harmon, defeats her archrival Vasily Borgov at the Moscow Invitational. The next day she impulsively skips her flight home to join a group of adoring chess players in what appears to be Moscow’s famous Sokolniki Park. The symbolism of this...

When President Barack Obama signed the America Invents Act in 2011, he was surrounded by a group of people of diverse ages, genders and races. The speech he delivered about the legislation, which changed the...

For a brief moment in October, it seemed that youthful protesters calling to “abolish” a police force had succeeded. After weeks of mass demonstrations against police brutality, the government agreed to disband a widely hated police unit.

This was...

The Taliban militants of Afghanistan have grown richer and more powerful since their fundamentalist Islamic regime was toppled by U.S. forces in 2001.

In the fiscal year that ended in March...

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

The widespread reliance on remote learning is harming students of color from low-income households more than kids who are from...

Peatlands are a type of wetland where dead plant material doesn’t fully decompose because it’s too soggy. In these ecosystems, peat builds up as spongy dark soil that’s sometimes referred to as sod or turf. Over thousands of years, yards-thick layers of peat accumulate and...