This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. At the Department of Agriculture’s research division, everyone knows there’s one word they should never say, according to Ethan Roberts. “The forbidden C-word” — climate. Roberts, union president at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois, […]

A surprising quirk of the Trump administration is that every so often, it tries so hard to be anti-woke that it accidentally does something woke.  See, for example, the efforts of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who oversaw USAID’s demise — directives that have contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people — […]

I work with a lot of very smart people, and sometimes one of them asks me a question that stops me in my tracks. That’s what happened after I published the newest installment of my advice column, Your Mileage May Vary, which was about whether it’s morally icky to send your kid to private school […]

When I was growing up, my dad and I would play a game at the grocery store: As the cashier was ringing up the items on the list my mom had given us, we each would guess what we thought the total would amount to. Whoever was closest won bragging rights, and maybe if we […]

Editor’s note, April 6, 2026, 6 am ET: This story was originally published on March 29, 2018, and we’re revisiting it for this Easter. Christians from a variety of traditions will celebrate Easter this Sunday. Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. For many Christians, including those from Eastern Orthodox traditions (who […]