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The Plight of the Eldest Daughter

Women are expected to be nurturers. Firstborns are expected to be exemplars. Being both is exhausting.

The Pro-Family Policy This Nation Actually Needs

If the Trump administration wants more babies, it needs to embrace a different kind of parent.

How to Define Old Age

Why would the World Health Organization want to call “old age” a disease?

The Destruction of the Department of Justice

When people at the department embrace Trump’s scorn for the law, the law, as a practical limitation on government action, ceases to exist.

The SNL Sketch That Captured Millennial Anxiety

The guest host Quinta Brunson was the perfect fit to introduce “Forever 31.”

A Trip Into Alaska’s Copper River Valley in 1902

At the end of the 19th century, an estimated 100,000 people joined the Klondike Gold Rush, seeking their fortunes in the interior of Alaska and Canada’s Yukon territory. Many gold seekers who chose the arduous path inland from Alaska’s port of Valdez also discovered rich copper deposits along the way. The U.S. Army soon started work on the Valdez Trail, which would become the main route between the mining fields and Valdez. Several competing businesses rushed to build a railroad along the route. In 1902, one of those groups sent a team of photographers, the Miles Brothers, to document the town, the growing trail, the landscape, its newly arrived residents, and Alaska Natives. Prints of these photographs were collected into an album I was able to digitize recently at the U.S. National Archives, giving us a remarkable glimpse into daily life along a rough trail into the Alaskan interior, nearly 125 years ago.

‘The Worst Internet-Research Ethics Violation I Have Ever Seen’

The most persuasive “people” on a popular subreddit turned out to be a front for a secret AI experiment.

How the Ivy League Broke America

The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.

The Short-Circuiting of the American Mind

A century-old book foresaw Trump’s most basic strategy.

Why Are Young People Everywhere So Unhappy?

Here’s the answer to that—and what we can do about it.

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

It’s not just a phase.

The Great Cousin Decline

Families are shrinking. But the weirdest family role is a vital one.

We’re Back to the Actually Internet

Fact-checking is out, “Community Notes” are in.

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

He used the constitution to shatter the constitution.

Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids

Sometimes, the best thing a parent can do is nothing at all.

We’ve Been Thinking About Love All Wrong

What illness taught me about true friendship

I Should Have Seen This Coming

When I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, there were two types of people: those who cared earnestly about ideas, and those who wanted only to shock the left. The reactionary fringe has won.

Parenthood Cannot Be Optimized

Amanda Hess’s new book examines a surplus of experts and gadgets that promise to perfect the experience of raising children.

Is Anthony Weiner Ready to Go Another Round?

The ex-congressman whose name became a punch line is running for New York’s city council. In some ways, he hasn’t changed a bit.

Russia Is in Demographic Free Fall. Putin Isn’t Helping.

The Russian president is enacting one of the world’s most extreme natalism programs—and one of the weirdest.