The long shadow of housing discrimination (NPR)
by Maria Godoy
Want to know which areas of a city have high levels of asthma and obesity, short lifespans, and high poverty? New maps show that you can make a very good guess just by finding the places affected by racially discriminatory redlining more than eighty years ago.

Why is reading the news so exhausting? (The Conversation)
by Mark Satta
Why is doomscrolling so very tiring? One philosopher says it boils down to “epistemic exhaustion”: The kinds of information many of us spend hours paging through trigger some mental responses that require an awful lot of effort.

What do Down syndrome screenings mean for humanity? (The Atlantic)
by Sarah Zhang
When prenatal screenings can easily detect Down syndrome, many parents choose not to have children with the condition. The shift has implications far beyond one demographic—for social expectations, gendered care work, guilt, class, and fundamental questions of human value.

How the deepfake threat flopped (Wired)
by Tom Simonite
Remember how deepfakes were going to disrupt the 2020 election? That didn’t happen. But why? And are we safe from digitally doctored videos now?

Escape to Mexico (The New Yorker)
by Alice Baumgartner
For escapees from slavery in nineteenth-century Texas and Louisiana, traveling to the free North was very difficult—and still couldn’t provide a promise of safety. Instead, many found ways to cross the border to Mexico, where things got complicated.

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