Nearly 1,000 workers at this Smithfield Foods pork-processing plant in South Dakota contracted COVID-19 between mid-March and mid-April 2020.
Kerem Yucel / AFP via Getty Images
Women form a human chain on Feb. 14 in central Moscow to support jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, his wife Yulia Navalnaya and other political prisoners.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
A medic administers a COVID-19 vaccine in Mumbai. India and South Africa have led efforts to get a waiver on intellectual property rights.
Pratik Chorge/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Women who are collectively donating to an all-girls school in Peru discuss their charitable giving in a Vienna, Virginia dining room.
Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Plus new research finds a way to speed up the search for dark matter. Listen to episode 4 of The Conversation Weekly.
Mexican-American deported veterans at a Memorial Day ceremony held annually on the bridge that connects Texas to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, May 28, 2018.
Herika Martinz/ AFP via Getty Images
At least 92 US military veterans were deported between 2013 and 2018. These deportees are not currently included in Biden's effort to reunite families as part of his new immigration reform plan.
Power to the people, but it will cost you.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Some Texans are receiving eye-popping electric bills after power providers passed on volatile costs to some of their customers – legally.
If a proposed law passes, this group of immigrants apprehended at the U.S. border near Mission, Texas, would be called ‘noncitizens,’ not ‘aliens.’
Sergio Flores for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Social media platform Clubhouse is a buzzy Silicon Valley darling, but its core attribute – audio chat – is unlikely to be a flash in the pan.
A Donald Trump supporter wears a gas mask and holds a bust of him after he and hundreds of others stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
Given the current, often erroneous, use of the term 'fascist' to describe political movements and leaders, it's important to determine what fascism is and is not.
Price gouging during disasters further shuts out those living in poverty.
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Some economists have defended price gouging, saying it helps increase supply and prevent against hoarding. An ethicist suggests this might be missing the point.
Surface transmission is a very uncommon way of getting COVID. We should focus most of our attention on the airborne route, potentially saving millions of dollars on obsessive cleaning practices.
Biden made passing his $1.9 trillion bill one of his top priorities.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Nir Eisikovits, University of Massachusetts Boston and Dan Feldman, University of Massachusetts Boston
By letting machines recommend movies and decide whom to hire, humans are losing their unpredictable nature – and possibly the ability to make everyday judgments, as well.
Bacteriophage (yellow) are viruses that infect and destroy bacteria (blue).
Christoph Burgstedt/Science Photo Library,Getty Images
As the world has focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, other microbial foes are waging war on humans. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a growing threat. But viruses may defeat them.
An early 20th-century NAACP map showing lynchings between 1909 and 1918. The maps were sent to politicians and newspapers in an effort to spur legislation protecting Black Americans.
Library of Congress
With fewer funds to fall back on, minority-owned enterprises have struggled in the recession. To make things worse, many are in sectors that have been badly hit by lockdowns.
In some states, getting a COIVD-19 vaccination appointment has felt like winning the lottery.
Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Tinglong Dai, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing
Websites that crash. Appointments that fill up within seconds. Scheduling your COVID-19 vaccine shouldn't be this hard. A few states have found a better way.
Black biomedical researchers receive less funding than their white counterparts.
hyejin kang/iStock via Getty Images Plus
There aren't just health care disparities between white and Black people. There are funding disparities too that make it harder for Black scientists to succeed in academia.
A statue of Bishop Richard Allen outside the historic Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
As a PBS documentary explores the history of the Black Church, a scholar looks at how African American congregations in Philadelphia weathered crises over 200 years.
The success of Brazil’s vaccine program will have a ripple effect on countries to which it exports commodities such as steel.
Michael Dantas/AFP via Getty Images
The world's most advanced economies will incur half the total costs associated with a failure to vaccinate poorer nations, which could exceed $4 trillion if only half their citizens are inoculated.
Signs of a fraying relationship can appear in subtle ways.
Betsie Van der Meer via Getty Images
Sarah Seraj, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts; James W. Pennebaker, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts, and Kate G. Blackburn, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts
Psycholinguistic researchers analyzed more than 1 million Reddit posts a year before and a year after users posted about their breakup.
The pandemic blew up some carefully constructed ‘polycules.’
Bilyana Stoyanovska/EyeEm via Getty Images
For single people, finding at least one partner has been hard enough. But for those used to juggling multiple relationships, the pandemic has forced them to rethink dating altogether.
State Farm’s ‘Drake’ ad was one of the Twitter winners of the Super Bowl.
State Farm
Advertisers forked over $5.5 million for a mere 30 seconds of air time during the Super Bowl. Here's Twitter's verdict on which brands got social media bang for their bucks.
The Weeknd performs at the 2020 American Music Awards on Nov. 22 in Los Angeles.
AMA2020 via Getty Images
Over the past year, the singer has carefully constructed a visage that has made him nearly unrecognizable.
Armed demonstrators attend a rally in front of the Michigan Capitol in Lansing to protest the governor’s stay-at-home order on May 14, 2020.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
You need a new shot every year because current flu vaccines provide limited and temporary protection. But researchers' new strategy could mean a one-and-done influenza vaccine is on the way.
Rioters clash with police as they try to enter the Capitol building.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Wendy Wall, Binghamton University, State University of New York; Christian K. Anderson, University of South Carolina, and Daisy Martin, University of California, Santa Cruz
The whole world saw the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. How will the textbooks read by America's students describe what took place?