France will repatriate the skulls of King Toera and two Sakalava warriors to Madagascar, marking the first return of human remains under a new French law passed in 2023. The remains, which were taken during France’s colonization of the island in 1897, have been held for more than a century in Paris’s Natural History Museum. The decision was...
A decade ago, Amy Sherald was still struggling to make her mark. But even before she was commissioned to paint former First Lady Michelle Obama’s portrait, she knew she’d have a major museum retrospective some day, and she came up with its title: American Sublime. That dream has now come true. This week, the Whitney Museum of...
At a Mexican military base, Captain Eduardo Barrón picks up not a rifle but a microphone. Swaying boot-to-boot, he belts out a song as the sounds of trumpets and accordions roar from a band of a dozen camouflage-clad soldiers. The rhythmic style — known as a corrido — is recognizable to just about every soul...
Americans at all wealth levels are more likely to die sooner than their European counterparts, with even the richest U.S. citizens living shorter lives than northern and western Europeans. That is the key finding of our new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. We also found that while the wealthiest Americans live...
My brother’s text messages can read like fragments of an ancient code: “hru,” “wyd,” “plz” – truncated, cryptic and never quite satisfying to receive. I’ll often find myself second-guessing whether “gr8” means actual excitement or whether it’s a perfunctory nod. This oddity has nagged at me for years, so I eventually embarked upon a series...
To attract business investment, American cities and states offer companies billions of dollars in incentives, such as tax credits. As the theory goes, when governments create a business-friendly environment, it encourages investment, leading to job creation and economic growth. While this theory may seem logical on its face, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation....
Over the past few weeks, as negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine drag on, I’ve thought back to Feb. 28, 2025: the day of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s heated visit to the Oval Office. Zelenskyy has called the tone of the meeting “regrettable” as he tries to salvage support for Ukraine. But in some ways, he has...
In today’s volatile world, where wars can be fought over territory, commerce can be abruptly subjected to tariffs, and friendly nations can turn hostile after a single election, political leadership is more consequential than ever. So, one must ask, what makes a leader effective, and how should we choose who should lead? Classics such as...
Global Art Market Faces Challenges in 2024 but Shows Signs of Resilience: Key Insights from The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2025 Amid a challenging economic landscape, the global art market recorded an estimated $57.5 billion in sales in 2024, a 12% decline from the previous year. This marks the second consecutive...
When U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sweeping new tariffs on imported goods on April 2, 2025 – upending global trade and sending markets into a tailspin – he presented the move as a response to a crisis. In an executive order released the same day, the White House said the move was necessary to address...