Zach Wener-Fligner, Annabelle Timsit

Over the last five years, a lawsuit alleging that Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants has become one of the most divisive pieces of litigation in the United States and kickstarted a fierce debate about the merits of affirmative action. On Tuesday (Oct. 2), it reached its much-anticipated conclusion when US district judge Allison D. Burroughs ruled against the plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), and in favor of Harvard.

The US Justice Department’s inspector general has found that the agency in charge of preventing drug misuse and diversion failed to stop either as the American opioid epidemic worsened.

Uncertainty tied to Brexit is scaring some businesses away from the UK—and now it seems to be having the same effect on au pairs.

From Karen Le Billon’s French Kids Eat Everything to Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing Up Bébé, much has been made of the French mother’s ability to raise perfect kids—and to look effortlessly chic while doing so.

Rulindo District, Rwanda

Early childhood education has increasingly become just one more opportunity to cram toddlers full of knowledge in order to “prepare” them for formal schooling. An unusual preschool in Ar-Rayyan, Qatar is proposing a radical alternative.

Donald Trump has damaged America’s standing in the world in his three years as president, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Europe.

In this Quartz membership conference call, reporter Annabelle Timsit and editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney discuss the Quartz documentary How to Sell Drugs (Legally), about the global spread of marketing practices that addicted millions of Americans to pain killers. Among other subjects, they discussed:

In the last decade, a spate of lawsuits—some settled, many ongoing—have shed light on the role that pharmaceutical companies have played in the US opioid epidemic, a public health emergency which claims the lives of 130 Americans every day. The most notable, Purdue Pharma, the Sackler-family owned maker of OxyContin, has been found guilty of downplaying the risks and overplaying the effectiveness of opioids, contributing to an epidemic of overprescription and diversion. 

Indian Twitter is abuzz tonight over something a bit surprising: a scientific journal. A prestigious weekly British medical journal decided to publish an editorial that appears to criticise the Indian government’s actions in Kashmir.

Every morning at Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi, a group of new mothers files into a spacious room housing Kenya’s first human milk bank. The room, freshly-painted aqua blue and bustling with nurses, is lined on either side with private lactation booths separated by curtains speckled with hearts and stars. They’re there to donate their extra breast milk to the hospital’s premature babies in need.

Parents in rich countries spend a lot more time with their kids today than they did 50 years ago. But phones are increasingly creeping into those interactions, impacting their depth and quality.

Two separate investigations published yesterday by ProPublica and the Wall Street Journal are highlighting the lengths some parents will go to in order to avoid paying the high cost of college tuition in the US. The publications found incidences of parents in wealthy Chicago suburbs prepared to give up custody of their teenage children in order to make them eligible for need-based financial aid.

In the US, it’s not uncommon for a preschool teacher to make less than a tree trimmer. Childcare workers are often out-earned by janitors. The people caring for America’s youngest and most vulnerable are chronically underpaid and work in strenuous conditions, making it a struggle to recruit and train people for those jobs.

It’s only July, but Americans already have Halloween on their minds.

The field of early childhood development is one of extremes.

Boris Johnson is the new prime minister of the United Kingdom, the man responsible for steering the country towards its scheduled exit from the European Union on Oct. 31. Not everyone is thrilled.

Last week, US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer became the latest Democrat to visit a migrant detention facility at the US-Mexico border. He described the conditions, particularly for children, as “inhumane” and “awful.”  In response, president Donald Trump tweeted a request to meet with Schumer to discuss what both sides of the political spectrum agree has evolved into a crisis.

Europe has some of the world’s most family-friendly countries.

Temperatures are running high in France. So are tempers.

In 2003, a vicious month-long heatwave hit France. Temperatures across the country rose above 40°C (104°F). Close to 15,000 people died.

Japan’s population is aging at an unprecedented speed, bringing the country to the brink of a demographic crisis that will have long-term implications for its economy and society.

In the last decade, the largest driver of GDP growth in Latin America has been an expansion of the labor force. That’s been tied in part to the increased participation of women. On average, across the region, female labor force participation grew from 47% to 52%, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report (pdf).

Every year for 18 years, kids leave school for up to three months, and parents are left scrambling to fill their days in other ways. When kids are very young, that might involve a desperate search for daycare options. When they get older, it might mean summer camp, travel, or work experience. Either way, most parents agree it’s a hassle, and an often expensive one at that.