The virtual world can bring a kind of friendship and a kind of connection, even to the grieving. But it can also facilitate exploitation of very human needs Joaquin Oliver was 17 years old when he was shot in the hallway of his high school. An older teenager, expelled some months previously, had opened fire…
This story was published by a Voices of Change fellow. Learn more about the fellowship here. Growing up as a sci-fi geek, the promise of humanity’s future among the stars was bolstered by artificial intelligence. In “Star Trek,” the ship’s omnipresent computer was a font of knowledge, advice, and could even make a cup of…
The scene before me appeared and disappeared and reappeared again with every breath I took, the hot air from my lungs fogging the gas mask that fit snugly over my face. My mother, father, and little sister stood in front of me wearing hazmat suits. It was October 2005, and we’d been among the first…
Lately, Angela Reyes’ oldest daughter talks her ear off. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘I need you to quiet down!’” Reyes laughed. But when the now-12-year-old was a kindergartener, her speech was largely unintelligible. Reyes credited school-based speech therapy for her daughter’s progress and that of her three sons. Reyes and her four children are among the…
The VP of a thousand holidays has done Disneyland and skiing in Vermont. Now it’s time to skive off among the worst people Britain has to offer I don’t have access to the employment contract, but find myself increasingly intrigued by a question: how many days annual leave does a vice-president of the United States…
Roman Pilipey / AFP / Getty Ukrainian service members of the 59th brigade’s mobile-air-defense unit fire a Soviet-made ZU-23 anti-aircraft twin-barrel auto-cannon toward a Russian drone, during an air attack near Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region, on July 19, 2025, amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Badan Geologi / AP In this photo released by the Geological…
Tentatively, I want to make a moral case for escapism – for allowing oneself a break from world events If you’ve locked your phone in a drawer, hidden the newspaper down the sofa or unplugged the radio, I wouldn’t blame you. Just glimpsing or half-hearing the headlines can be enough to plunge you into a…
Last month, the world’s highest court issued a long-awaited opinion on how international law should regard climate harm. The International Court of Justice concluded, unanimously, that states have binding legal obligations to act to protect the climate system, and failure to do so—by continuing to produce, consume, and subsidize fossil fuels—may “constitute an internationally wrongful…
With unique views, fascinating history and opportunities for wildlife-spotting, taking a small boat across a river or to an island can be a holiday highlight The hills of the Scottish Highlands were still in sight when the cry went up: “Whale!” And there it was, a humpback on the port side of the Caledonian MacBrayne…
Mountains, butterflies, bears and pelicans are among the natural wonders in the stunning Prespa lakes region, which straddles three countries I’m on a steadily rising road in northern Greece as swallows sweep over the burnished grasses to either side of me and pelicans spiral through the summer sky. Gaining height, the land thickens with oak…
