Zach Wener-Fligner, Annabelle Timsit

The opioid epidemic’s youngest victims haven’t yet been born.

Every parent likes to think that they chose a unique and original name for their baby. But science tells us that’s not the case; trends in naming are better understood as a group phenomenon. And those same trends show that, when it comes to baby names, it’s getting increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd.

Angela Merkel’s announcement this week of her planned exit from German politics is a loss for the European Union, a constantly-evolving project that she has protected and safeguarded since she took office, even at times when it seemed no other world leaders cared. But it is even more of a loss for French president Emmanuel Macron, the person who will now have to take up the mantle of protector of progressive Western values.

Robert Plomin is no stranger to controversy. It comes with the territory, he tells me, for someone who has spent over four decades studying the role genetics play in making us who we are.

On Oct. 28, Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro as president in the second-round runoff of a hotly contested vote. Some analysts characterized the campaign as a battle for the future of democracy in Latin America’s largest economy.

This week Chinese president Xi Jinping ordered the Southern Theatre Command, responsible for monitoring the South China Sea and Taiwan, to boost its military capabilities to prepare for a possible conflict, according to a Hong Kong newspaper.

A gunman has killed multiple people, and shot at least 12, including three police officers, at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Saturday (Oct. 27). The suspect has been named as 46-year-old Robert Bowers. While we don’t yet know his motives—authorities are treating the attack as a hate crime—we do know that this tragedy is the culmination of years of rising anti-Semitism in the US, both off and online, that has ramped up ahead of the November midterm elections.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi visited the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2, 2018, to pick up some documents he needed for his upcoming marriage. That day, he disappeared.

Ireland has voted by a significant majority in favor of removing the crime of blasphemy from its constitution, according to exit polls today (Oct. 27).

In June 2018, a 14-month-old Israeli toddler named Yasmin Vineta died at daycare.

Omar and Mohammed are cousins from Damascus, and they’ve traveled a long way to get here.

The opioid crisis in the US has ballooned into a full-blown public health emergency. Every day, 115 Americans after overdosing on opioids.

On Friday (Oct. 26), citizens of the Republic of Ireland will vote to decide whether their nation can speak sacrilegiously about “God or sacred things” without legal consequences. The referendum will determine whether parliament should overturn both a 2009 law and a clause in the constitution that prohibits blasphemy.

Who knew that Saudi Arabia and Turkey were such good friends?

The Wing, a women’s co-working space and club with offices in four major US cities, recently announced the forthcoming launch of The Little Wing, a short-term childcare center for members who are moms.

On Oct. 2, 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi visited the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to pick up documents he needed for his forthcoming marriage. That day, he disappeared.

The murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 has sparked an international crisis that came to an underwhelming head this morning (Oct. 23) with a parliamentary speech by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Just a few decades ago, many people around the world considered spanking or slapping a child to be an appropriate—and ultimately harmless—method of discipline. But a solid body of science has since linked corporal punishment with a wide array of developmental problems for children. This has led countries around the world, starting with Sweden in 1979, to introduce bans on corporal punishment both in schools and at home.

Emma is rocking her baby, speaking to her softly in the neonatal intensive care unit of Winchester Medical Center in the city of Winchester, Virginia. The blinds are drawn and the room is quiet. A cheerful poster on the wall says that Emma’s daughter, Story, was born six days ago. She weighs six pounds and 13 ounces.

Halloween is a time for frights. But for kids, there is such a thing as too scary—which is why a British advertising watchdog ruled that a Halloween-themed Spotify advertisement was too spooky to be shown to children.

Whenever French president Emmanuel Macron wades into issues involving women’s reproduction, he tends to get into trouble. That was the case during a press conference at the G20 summit in Hamburg in July, when he said that the African continent had a “civilizational” challenge, including with population growth, adding that where there are “seven or eight children per woman,” spending billions in aid is pointless.

In a turn of events that can only be described as peak 2018, “Gritty”—the googly-eyed, bearded orange monstrosity who serves as the recently adopted mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers—has emerged as an icon of the left-wing, anti-fascist militant group Antifa.

Donald Trump has made a habit of questioning people’s origins—particularly those of his political rivals. He spread ”birther” conspiracy theories about Barack Obama, demanding to see the former president’s birth certificate as proof of his American citizenship status. And he has repeatedly called Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren a liar for claiming to have Native American heritage. At a rally in Montana this summer, Trump went so far as to make a hypothetical bet. Imagining a debate with Warren, he told the crowd:

It’s been a big year for diversity in films—from the wildly successful Marvel superhero film Black Panther to Crazy Rich Asians and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, two romantic comedies that some say are kickstarting the golden age of Asian-led films. The success of these movies has given new energy to conversations about the importance of representation in popular culture—particularly for kids and young adults.