It’s been five years since the start of the pandemic. Some 1.2 million Americans died from COVID. But our loss is much more than death. Many of us are still left unmoored. Maybe our collective grief can bring us together.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Current Events
Lauren DePino started singing at funerals as a child. As a professional funeral singer, she thinks of her work as a form of alchemy—a way to transmute grief into something bigger.
People in these disaster zones now face an agonizing choice: rebuild or relocate? Urban planner Brian Stone says we need radical new thinking for our cities to survive.
Lightning hitting your house or a storm flooding your basement used to be an “act of God.” But can you call a flood or wildfire a “natural” disaster if climate change is the cause and humans failed to prevent the calamity?
Writer Annalee Newitz has spent a lot of time walking around ancient lost cities and imagining future human civilizations on other planets. Newitz is a hard-headed, realistic optimist who believes the one technology that can save us is stories.
Quannah ChasingHorse is both a Native American activist and a supermodel in the fashion industry. In her early twenties, she represents the next generation of activists working to protect Native land rights.
Most Americans take their sovereignty for granted — the nation’s right to make its own laws and govern its own people. But for Native Americans, sovereignty is not some abstract idea. It’s an ongoing, daily struggle.
Science journalist Deborah Blum thinks both reporters and news consumers have a responsibility to try to understand the truth. That includes being willing to pay attention to the uncomfortable, complicated news that we might not want to hear.
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