Posts by Sophie Clearwater
The Gun-Safety Advocate Bringing Communities Together Across America
Recent years have seen Moms Demand Action expand its legislative advocacy to address new and emerging threats, particularly the rise of ghost guns and other DIY firearms. In 2024, Polymer80, the largest manufacturer of ghost gun kits and parts, shut down after Everytown and Moms Demand Action led an effort to hold the company accountable…
Read MoreGeorgie Smith Helps Former Foster Youth Create Homes of Their Own
For Smith, furniture poverty—the inability to buy essential household items including beds, tables, and chairs—is a too-often overlooked factor in the homelessness crisis among former foster youth. In the U.S., 50% of people who have experienced homelessness have spent time in foster care, according to the National Foster Youth Institute, and roughly 25% of former…
Read MoreThe Science and Health Breakthroughs Shaping a New American Era
Selected by Rebecca SklootBehind every medical advance—vaccines, IVF, gene editing, GLP-1s—you’ll find animal research, the hidden thread linking all of modern medicine. And behind animal research, you’ll find two polarized extremes who’ve been arguing for a century. (Shocking, I know.) One side says it’s all waste and abuse; the other, it’s all essential and well…
Read MoreHow Chess.com Co-Founder Danny Rensch Turned a Centuries-Old Game Into a Media Empire
Danny Rensch helped Chess.com grow into a 250 million-member platform spanning subscriptions, creators, coaching and media. Florencia Tan Jun/Web Summit via Sportsfile via Getty Images At Web Summit Vancouver last month, Danny Rensch, co-founder and chief chess officer of Chess.com, asked the audience for a show of hands: Who had seen Untold: Chess Mates, the…
Read MoreFor David Hockney, Looking Was Living
David Hockney at the Orangerie museum in Paris in 2021. THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images The British have a term for people like David Hockney: national treasure. It’s an informal title reserved for people who achieve success so substantial that their name becomes synonymous with the nation’s identity. When Hockney died last week, both the…
Read MoreHo Jae Kim’s Civil Art Returns to Christie’s With a Million-Dollar Milestone in Sight
Since its founding in 2022, Civil Art has raised more than $755,000 to create over 140 opportunities for API artists. Photo: Bochun Cheng Asian Americans account for only 1 percent of reported cultural engagement, making them the least supported community in New York. Civil Art—an organization that supports API artists, art writers, and cultural professionals—was…
Read MoreFrancesca Mollett’s Architecture of Abstraction
Installation view: Francesca Mollett’s “Buried Shadow” at GRIMM New York. Courtesy GRIMM Francesca Mollett swiftly captured the attention of curators and collectors with her magmatic abstractions, which evoke and embrace the pure alchemical magic of painting to mimic the perpetual flow of matter and energy—the origins of everything. Her canvases create sensory and poetic, almost…
Read MoreThe Best Rosé Wines to Sip This Summer
June 15, 2026 Few wines capture the essence of summer quite like rosé. This light, refreshing and fruit-forward varietal gets its signature pink color from limited contact with red grape skins, creating a vino that is darker than your typical white, but lighter than a standard red. Though many consider this pink vino a year-round…
Read MoreWhat the Cultural Sector Got Wrong About the Philadelphia Museum of Art Rebrand
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (briefly) becoming the Philadelphia Art Museum inspired not only confusion but also harsh critiques from the public. Photo by Graydon Wood. Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Art Museum As rebrands go, it was a short-lived one. Less than four months after the Philadelphia Museum of Art revealed its new identity,…
Read MoreWhen a Team of Meteorologists and Combat Pilots Set Out to Understand Thunderstorms, They Made Flying Safer for Everyone
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/a6/f6/a6f69982-d239-479d-b8ed-1442d130b16b/opener_-_mitch_dobrowner_lightning_strikes.jpg?w=1024&resize=1024,1024&ssl=1 "When a Team of Meteorologists and Combat Pilots Set Out to Understand Thunderstorms, They Made Flying Safer for Everyone")
The sky was a very dangerous place in the early days of commercial aviation. By flying into storms to learn how they worked, these experts made air travel and weather forecasting much more predictable Lightning strikes in Peckham, Oklahoma. Mitch Dobrowner The 22 passengers who boarded Pennsylvania Central Airlines Flight 19 out of Washington, D.C. on…
Read More€3.5 Million Raised in 20 Minutes: Inside the American Friends of Versailles Gala
Saskia Connery and Peter Brant Jr. Photo by Marc Piasecki/Getty Images “Versailles… exists as an unparalleled and final statement that is likely never to be repeated,” declares the American Friends of Versailles on its website. Yet for all its singularity, like the Ship of Theseus, the Château must be restored, bit by bit, to fend…
Read MoreWhy Cutting Humans Too Fast Could Backfire in the A.I. Era
A.I. is transforming business faster than almost any technology before it, but companies removing humans before systems are ready may be creating confusion rather than competitive advantage. Unsplash+ A recent ad from the A.I. company Narwhal Labs featured an image of a woman who was half human, half cybernetic machine alongside the tagline: “She Outworks…
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