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Is posh moisturizer worth the money? Don't break the bank. (March 1, 2025)

So far, mass deportation has been more rhetoric than reality. A raid in New Jersey highlights the barriers Donald Trump faces (February 16, 2025)

How bad will the smoke be for Angelenos’ health? Expect more sickness and disrupted schooling (January 16, 2025)

Most Americans think moderate drinking is fine. They are unaware of the cancer risk (January 9, 2025)

Donald Trump threatened to smackdown the education department. But his pick for education secretary is relatively tame (December 11, 2024)

Is RFK junior right to say America allows more toxins than the EU? He is, but things are slowly beginning to change (November 22, 2024)

How gaga is MAHA? RFK junior, Dr Oz and co. have the potential to do harm, but also some good (November 20, 2024)

Should America ban fluoride in its drinking water? The idea by Robert F. Kennedy junior—nominated by Donald Trump as health secretary—may have teeth (November 14, 2024)

Why Republicans have failed to scrap the Department of Education. And why they keep promising to do so (October 31, 2024)

What is the effect of the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action ban? Making sense of the drip-drip of admissions data from American universities (September 19, 2024)

America’s college heads revise rules for handling campus protests. University leaders have learnt some lessons, but face a tough test this autumn (September 12, 2024)

The fate of America’s for-profit colleges hinges on the election. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump would claim to be fair—one by cracking down, the other by loosening the reins (August 29, 2024)

Pious pupils in America perform better

But that does not justify Republican efforts to put Christianity into classrooms (August 15, 2024)

Non-white American parents are embracing AI faster than white ones. The digital divide seems to have flipped (June 27, 2024)

America is educating a nation of investors.

Encouraged by research, more states are requiring schools to teach personal finance (June 21, 2024)

American parents want their children to have phones in schools. But phones in the classroom are disruptive. What should schools do? (June 6, 2024)

After a season of Gaza protests, America’s university graduates are polarised but resilient. After enduring covid and turmoil over free speech, the class of 2024 finally takes its bow (May 16, 2024)

American pupils have missed too much school since the pandemic. But clever policies have got some truant children back in the classroom. (May 9, 2024)

Lots of state legislators believe any contact with fentanyl is fatal. It is not. (Apr 18, 2024)

The impact of the Baltimore bridge disaster. 

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge will hurt the city, but highlight its resilience, too (Mar 26, 2024)

The best dataset on American health care will be harder to access. This will hold back research (Mar 14, 2024)

Cousin marriage is probably fine in most cases. It is also illegal in 25 American states (Feb 15, 2024)

Charter schools do things that all Democrats say they support. And yet the party has turned against them (Feb 1, 2024)

Kentucky eyes ibogaine, a psychedelic, to treat opioid addiction. The state’s commission may use some of its opioid-settlement money to study the drug (Dec 30, 2023)

New Jersey introduced a smart voting reform—then let it lapse. The automatic right to vote from home helped make the state’s turnout the highest in America (Dec 7, 2023)

Why sexually transmitted infections are rising in America. The decline of HIV may be partly to blame (Nov 9, 2023)

Why doctors in America earn so much. A mismanaged training system has artificially depressed the supply of medics (Oct 31, 2023)

One response to school shootings in America: arm the teachers (Oct 15, 2023)

Travelling to and from America has become a waiting game. And the waiting could well get worse (Oct 5, 2023)

America’s states are trying to set rules for the internet. This sets up a clash between protecting children and free speech (Sep 21, 2023)

Are American children’s books getting more “woke”? A new study suggests not (Sep 15, 2023)

Drugs to treat alcohol addiction are underused. Two popular new medications may change that (Sep 14, 2023)

Floridians should avoid wrestling armadillos unless necessary. Leprosy is still rare, but is spreading in Florida and the south-east (Aug 24, 2023)

American universities have an incentive to seem extortionate. They are much cheaper than the “crisis of college affordability” suggests (Jul 23, 2023)

America’s state lawmakers are passing ineffective anti-porn laws. Bills that do not do what they advertise have bipartisan support (Jul 13, 2023)

How American universities will react as race-based admissions end. More enlightened policies could follow the Supreme Court’s ban (Jun 29, 2023)

How ChatGPT could help teachers and lower the cost of college. The college essay may be dying, but AI has plenty of upsides in education (Jun 15, 2023)

Columbia University ditches the college-ranking system. The Ivy League departure could signal a turning-point in higher education (Jun 8, 2023)

The push to bring insulin prices down in America. But not all patients are able to use the available schemes (May 25, 2023)

San Francisco’s “woke maths” experiment.

How the pursuit of racial equity provided a lesson in unintended consequences (May 18, 2023)

America is ending its emergency declaration for the pandemic. Many services that Americans have come to rely on are about to wind down (May 4, 2023)

School-voucher schemes are spreading across America. This is despite little evidence that they improve academic achievement (Mar 30, 2023)

Theft from America’s anti-poverty programs seems troublingly easy. State and federal governments are struggling to prevent it (Mar 16, 2023)

Christian Californians may have a solution to America’s obesity. Lessons in longevity from Seventh-day Adventists (Feb 19, 2023)

Why it was so easy for crooks to steal money meant for pandemic relief. America’s fragmented and antiquated state systems were an open door to fraud (Feb 2, 2023)

Ron DeSantis wants to limit free speech in the name of free speech. The Sunshine State’s public colleges are getting a dose of illiberal right-wing politics (Jan 26, 2023)

E-cigarette taxes may reduce teenage drink-driving deaths. But anti-vaping policies could also have unintended consequences (Dec 15, 2022)

Homelessness is declining in Washington, DC. Despite the abundance of tents in the capital, the city is doing a good job (Nov 24, 2022)

America’s school-choice movement is gaining steam. Plenty of people are not happy about that (Nov 18, 2022)

How affirmative action works in practice. Legacy admissions and athletes also get a big boost (Nov 4, 2022)

“Descendant” reveals the story of the last American slave ship. A documentary about Africatown asks who gets to tell and profit from America’s history (Nov 3, 2022)

No, American schools are not encouraging pupils to identify as cats or use litter boxes. But the accusation shows what partisans will believe about political opponents (Oct 20, 2022)

Breast cancer has become less lethal in America. Not all public-health news is doom and gloom (Oct 13, 2022)

America-wide universal pre-school is dead, but California forges ahead. Its programme is costly, but has many potential benefits (Sep 15, 2022)

A water crisis in Mississippi’s capital is a harbinger of worse. Jackson’s residents have been without drinking water since August 29th (Sep 6, 2022)

Heatwaves kill more Americans than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. Yet some local governments are still not taking extreme heat seriously (Sep 1, 2022)

America’s new “national teacher shortage” is neither new nor national. But it suits both Democrats and Republicans to play it up (Aug 21, 2022)

America’s response to monkeypox has been underwhelming. A new epidemic, same old mistakes (Jul 27, 2022)

“Critical race theory" is being weaponized. What's the fuss about? (Jul 14, 2022)

California pushes back public-school start times. For teens the extra rest should come as a relief (Jun 23, 2022) 

Since George Floyd’s murder, new ways of policing have been spreading. “Defunding the police” is defunct; reforming policing is not (May 29, 2022)

Texas’s governor wants to deny education to undocumented migrant. How serious is Greg Abbott about challenging a 40-year-old federal precedent? (May 14, 2022)

Los Angeles provides every first-grader with cash for college. Automatic college savings can go a long way (April 2, 2022)

Columbia is the latest university caught in a rankings scandal. Dodgy data in the race to the top (March 26, 2022)

A new drug for Alzheimer’s is struggling to justify its price. The government is put off by Adulhelm’s $28,200-a-year cost (March 26, 2022)

Taking stock as America moves into a new phase of the pandemic. Planning for the future should involve a frank look at the country’s poor performance over the past two years (March 12, 2022)

Once mundane, school-board meetings have become battlegrounds. A new front line in America’s culture wars (February 19, 2022)

America resorts to remote learning, against pupils’ interests. Why have so many schools been cancelling classes? (January 15, 2022)

In America the pandemic seems to have hit a turning-point. Health-care officials start to favor social well-being over individual illness (January 8, 2022)

Why America’s Omicron response is so weak.

Politics and the courts have hampered President Biden’s efforts against covid (December 6, 2021)

 How an impoverished, battered island handled covid-19 better than the us (November 20, 2021)

How teaching multiplication tables became another victim of the political divide (November 6, 2021)

Ethnic-studies lessons benefit low-achieving non-white pupils. That might not be enough to convince naysayers of the course’s value (October 23, 2021)

Biden’s booster plan has created confusion and concern. Following the science would have led to more certainty (September 25, 2021)

President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate is ordinary yet controversial. The requirements will probably increase vaccination rates as long as they are found to be legal (September 18, 2021)

Edtech that helps teachers beats edtech that replaces them. As children go back to in-person lessons in America some innovations will stay (September 18, 2021)

California’s coming bacon crunch

Animal welfare regulations will push up the price of pork (August 21, 2021)

Vaccine mandates are spreading.

But fear of the Delta variant may be more effective in prompting vaccinations (August 8, 2021)

America’s vaccination woes cannot be blamed only on politics. Surging covid infections and slow vaccinations in some states are caused by health illiteracy, not just partisanship (July 31, 2021)

Aduhelm may not cure Alzheimer’s, but it might help fix drug prices. The controversial drug is so expensive that it has attracted the interest of Congress (July 15, 2021)

The fight over critical race theory in schools is part of a century-long battle over whose version of America is taught (July 10, 2021)

American schools teach reading all wrong.

Mississippi, a state not often associated with pioneering reforms, is teaching the rest of the country to read (June 12, 2021)

Hispanic Americans are most vulnerable to covid-19. Researchers still do not understand why. (June 5, 2021)

“I spent thousands on chemical straightening”: the price of having black hair in a white world (May 27, 2021)

What the evidence says about police body-cameras. The George Floyd Act would require some police to wear recording devices. It may not be enough to curb the excessive use of force (May 23, 2021)

Having taken criticism for being overcautious, the CDC tries the opposite. Meanwhile, America’s vaccination rate is plateauing at a low level (May 22, 2021)

In America, a million evictions take place in a normal year. Covid-19 prompted a giant experiment in halting them. What were the consequences? (May 15, 2021)

Republicans want to ban businesses from requiring proof of vaccination. Governors are making an illiberal argument in the name of freedom (April 29, 2021)

Why America’s white evangelicals shy away from covid jabs. And what can be done to change their minds (April 17, 2021)

Vermont’s race-based vaccine policy raises legal questions. The move to give priority to vulnerable non-white groups aims to address persistent inequities, but is risky (April 11, 2021)

America tries to figure out a fairer way to select students. Sidelining standardized tests won’t make college admissions fairer (April 8, 2021)

How medicine discriminates against non-white people and women. Many devices and treatments work less well for them (April 7, 2021)

More non-white than white parents prefer remote learning for their children. Covid has revealed inequities that predated and could long outlast the pandemic (March 15, 2021)

The virus has suspended standardized tests, delighting those who would scrap or reform them (February 27, 2021)

Oregon decriminalizes drugs for personal use. Portugal, the first country to do this, contains valuable lessons for America (February 13, 2021)

Large numbers of pupils no longer enrolled in America’s schools. Getting them back requires ingenuity (February 6, 2021)

Racial minorities in America are more vaccine hesitant. Access can reduce that hesitancy (January 28, 2021)

Why re-opening schools in minority neighbourhoods is hard (January 21, 2021)

America’s vaccination roll-out will improve with practice (January 21, 2021)

Do police officers in schools help or hinder teachers? (July 18, 2020)

Fathers face higher penalties for taking parental leave than mothers do (July 20, 2019)

What budget cuts during the Great Recession did to pupils’ test scores (June 6, 2019)