The anti-woke backlash is coming for CBS News — in the person of Bari Weiss. In a deal that will have seismic ramifications for the mainstream media, Paramount (CBS’s parent company) has purchased The Free Press (Weiss’s online publication) for around $150 million in cash and stock. It’s an enormous win for Weiss, an outspoken […]

There’s a “paradox” at work in global health, as the philanthropist Bill Gates wrote last week. Even as funding for global health is declining, the science that supports those efforts is accelerating. And nowhere is that divergence more apparent than in the most important tool in public health: vaccines. Earlier this week Gavi, the Vaccine […]

Netflix’s mega-hit KPop Demon Hunters is now the streaming platform’s most popular movie of all time. But its ascendance as 2025’s surprise cultural phenomenon extends far beyond the animated movie itself. It’s the music. It is the first soundtrack to have four songs in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 at the same […]

Empathy is in a weird place right now. Most of us probably think the ability to place ourselves in someone else’s shoes is a good thing. That’s what compassion is all about right? But a recent trend in conservative Christian circles is calling empathy into question. Some people even believe it’s a sin.  Even those […]

If you’re not quite sure why everything is suddenly Dubai chocolate or what exactly a Labubu is, you’re not alone. Trends have such a tenuous connection to our culture at large that posters online have started to identify the phenomenon with word salad: “labubu matcha dubai chocolate crumbl cookie benson boone …” You get the […]