What to know about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine blood clots. Plus, how progressives misunderstood Biden.

An illustration of a nose and virus droplets

Deep Cleaning Isn’t a Victimless Crime

The CDC has finally said what scientists have been screaming for months: The coronavirus is overwhelmingly spread through the air, not via surfaces.

Derek Thompson

The Danger of a ‘Dudes Only’ Vaccine

We still don’t know who’s most at risk of getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine blood clots.

Katherine J. Wu

The mRNA Vaccines Are Looking Better and Better

Concerns about blood clots with Johnson & Johnson underscore just how lucky Americans are to have the Pfizer and Moderna shots.

Sarah Zhang

A pair of eyeballs looking at a bunch of red pills, shifting back and forth.

The Alt-Right Has Lost Control of Redpill

A classic meme about being radicalized is now so absurd that it means almost nothing at all.

Kaitlyn Tiffany

collage of illustrations: woman alone; stacks of cash; truck with birds on wire; sketches of men; Nixon

A Kidnapping Gone Very Wrong

In 1974, John Patterson was abducted by the People’s Liberation Army of Mexico—a group no one had heard of before. The kidnappers wanted $500,000, and insisted that Patterson’s wife deliver the ransom.

Brendan I. Koerner

The Republican Party Finds a New Group to Demonize

The recent wave of anti-trans legislation follows a decades-long pattern of the GOP targeting those they think lack the numbers or votes to properly fight back.

Adam Serwer

Photo of Glacier National Park, Montana, with light streaming through the clouds

Return the National Parks to the Tribes

The jewels of America’s landscape should belong to America’s original peoples.

David Treuer

Exit Strategy

There will be no power-sharing, no reconciliation, no peace of the brave.

Eliot A. Cohen

Welcome to the New Progressive Era

Progressives thought they knew what a Biden presidency would look like. How did they get him so wrong?

Anand Giridharadas

Melody Hurd and Deborah Ayorinde in "Them"

Who Wants to Watch Black Pain?

More Black storytellers are turning to the horror genre to unpack the traumas of racism. But some viewers are growing tired of these stories.

Hannah Giorgis

A person with a shopping cart gazes at a large pile of smiley faces

How to Buy Happiness

The joys of money are nothing without other people.

Arthur C. Brooks

Izidor Ruckel near his home outside Denver

30 Years Ago, Romania Deprived Thousands of Babies of Human Contact

Revisit this story from 2020: Izidor is one of the tens of thousands of abandoned children raised in Romania’s “child gulags.” Melissa Fay Greene reports on what’s become of them as adults.

Melissa Fay Greene

A person holds a globe against a background of Earths hit by meteors, crumbling, and colliding with rockets.

Why Earth's History Appears So Miraculous

Revisit this story from 2018: The strange, cosmic reason our evolutionary path will look ever luckier the longer we survive

Peter Brannen

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