“La Belle Sauvage” is the first volume of “The Book of Dust” series, in which the best-selling fantasy author Philip Pullman returns to the world of “His Dark Materials.” As a scholar of fantasy and children’s literature, I have been hoping for this novel for 17 years. The original trilogy, which consist of “The Golden...
After decades of bitter struggle, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge seems on the verge of being opened to the oil industry. The consensus tax bill Republicans are trying to pass retains this measure, which was added to gain the key vote of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. This bill, however, stands no chance of being the...
From internet trolls to college dropouts: Our 6 favorite charts from 2017 Where we’ve been in 2017. rawpixel.com/shutterstock.com 1. Invisible inequality America may be getting richer, but who’s reaping the reward? The economic gap in the U.S. has widened over the past few decades. Today, the top 10 percent of U.S. households control over three-quarters...
Imagine a shopper, Sarah, who is concerned about child labor and knows about groups like the Fair Wear Foundation that certify which brands sell ethically produced clothing. Hours after learning that fashion giant H&M reportedly sells clothing made by children in risky workplaces in Burma, she goes shopping. Completely forgetting about what she just heard,...
The 2017 Stress in America survey has confirmed it: Americans are officially freaking out. The survey, conducted by the Harris Poll, reports that what keeps many Americans up at night is genuine political anxiety. Rather than issues related to their work or families, respondents said they were most worried about the “future of the nation”...
Wildfires tearing across Southern California have forced thousands of residents to evacuate from their homes. Even more people fled ahead of the hurricanes that slammed into Texas and Florida earlier this year, jamming highways and filling hotels. A viral social media post showed a flight-radar picture of people trying to escape Florida and posed a...
The recent outrage over Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore allegedly targeting teenage girls for sex has elicited reports that some evangelical churches actually encourage teenage girls to date older men. It seems unlikely that Moore was ever interested in marrying any of the women who have thus far accused him of unwanted sexual attention...
From gathering around the campfire sharing tales to binge watching the latest Netflix series, humans are, and have always been, inveterate producers and consumers of stories. But why do we spend hours listening to and telling stories, often of exploits that never even happened? Clearly, from an evolutionary standpoint, this is time and effort that...
What happens when you combine a cultural obsession with thinness, a bit of organised propaganda and a catchy hashtag? Enter the “bikini bridge”: the space between the bikini and the lower abdomen that occurs when bather bottoms are suspended between the two hip bones. On January 5, 2014, anonymous internet trolls on 4chan, an imageboard...
Is the royal marriage story we’re being sold really a fairy tale come true? Or is it a story spun by Buckingham Palace for its own self-interest, one shrouded in myth and make-believe? In the coverage of next spring’s marriage between Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, two main narratives have emerged. One is Markle’s mixed-race,...
