Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the further enrichment of the opulent. We cannot really have an adequate understanding of the future without some view about how well the lives of the poor can be expected to go. Is there, then, hope for the poor? To answer this question, we need an understanding of who should count as poor. Some types of poverty are easy enough to identify. There is no way of escaping ...

This week hundreds of Roma in Italy watched as their long-established homes in Milan were bulldozed to the ground. The act of racism came just weeks after France evicted Roma from their camps and forced them to board flights bound for Romania and Bulgaria, where they experience seemingly inescapable poverty and hate. Europe's largest and most widespread minority continues to experience school segregation in Slovakia, and targeted acts of violence, including murder, in Hungary. Yet their life ...

The iPhone started out the way a lot of cool things do: as something completely different. A few years ago, Steve Jobs noticed how many development dollars were being spent--particularly in the greater Seattle metropolitan area--on what are called tablet PCs: flat portable computers that work with a touch screen instead of a mouse and keyboard. Jobs, being Jobs, was curious. He had some Apple engineers noodle around with a touch screen. When they showed him what they came up ...

As your report "What Makes Teens Tick" aptly illustrated [May 10], science is catching up to what parents and teachers already know: teenagers' brains are different from adults'. The ability to make adult judgments comes later, as different parts of the brain develop. That is why our legal system does not allow people under 18 to vote, serve on juries or enjoy many of the other privileges and responsibilities of adults. It is also why juries are more and more ...

There have been a lot of weird things for sale on Craigslist over the years. But a $3,000 dinner reservation? Admittedly, the rezzie is actually a Wonka-style golden ticket that includes the cost of the meal itself, and the restaurant, Grant Achatz's Next in Chicago, is one of the most anticipated in many years. But still. Though no one has taken the seller up on his or her audacious offer, the mere fact of its existence has ...

Harvard in the spring is usually a beguiling vision of academe as it ought to be. Blossoms and youthful aspirations flower under the warming sun; the beauty of old buildings and young people complement each other in striking harmony. This year is different. TIME'S Boston Bureau Chief, Gavin Scott, offers this description of the concerned, uncertain and defiant mood of the Cambridge campus a week after the occupation of University Hall. HARVARD Yard was a mosaic of confused activity as ...

All sports are competitive, but they are competitive in very different ways. Team sports pitch two groups of players against each other in direct combat. Racket and fighting sports involve individuals going at it against each other. In racing—whether power-assisted or not—each individual competes against the field. But some sports—target sports such as archery and shooting, ice-skating, bowling, classic ski racing—are different. An individual competitor in these sports can't directly affect how a rival does; he ...

He's a country-music megastar whose tour with wife Faith Hill was one of 2006's biggest moneymakers. He's also a doting husband and dad who has vowed never to spend more than two nights away from Hill and their three young girls. Now, with this week's opening of his family-friendly movie Flicka, Tim McGraw can add "lead actor" to his titles. McGraw, 39, talked with TIME's Jeff Chu about parenting, politics and the secret to the success of his 10-year marriage. ...

Every year around this time, millions of American kids graduate from high school, throw massive parties and get drunk. Police end up arresting a lot of these kids, causing them legal trouble for months or even years. So, every year around this time, there's a new debate about whether we should lower or even abolish the legal drinking age. What's different this time is that an entire organization — a conspicuously sober group led by a ...

Take a look, if you can stand it, at video footage of the World Trade Center collapsing. Your eye will naturally jump to the top of the screen, where huge fountains of dark debris erupt out of the falling towers. But fight your natural instincts. Look farther down, at the stories that haven't collapsed yet. In almost every clip you'll see little puffs of dust spurting out from the sides of the towers. There are two competing explanations for these puffs ...