Portside

Eleanor J. Bader explores with Four Mothers author Abigail Leonard how national policies and cultural norms in Finland, Japan, Kenya and the U.S. shape the first year of motherhood—and redefine what it means to parent in vastly different societies.

Western donors are cutting budgets, but the aid model they built—rooted in control and dependency —still shapes Africa’s development. As aid shrinks, the work ahead is not just to survive the cuts, but also to refuse the system that made them matter.

Study found prices are skyrocketing across the board. From 2020 to 2025, the inflation rate in the United States rose by 22%; however the average price increase at 16 popular chain restaurants was nearly twice as high, at 42%.

Scientists deploy self-splicing protein subunits to insert strange new additions into target proteins.

In 2024, Israel's military censor banned 1,635 articles from publication and partially redacted another 6,265 — part of a wider assault on freedom of press.

The Russian president is enacting one of the world’s most extreme natalism programs—and one of the weirdest.

The film represents a departure for the “Black Panther” director, and a creative risk; it grapples with ideas about music, race, family, religion—and vampires.

The new order effectively allows police to get away with murder. And that’s just the beginning.

"These shows have become about getting through tough times with community and sisterhood."

The US invasion of Vietnam was a catastrophe for the Vietnamese people, resulting in millions of deaths. Fifty years ago today, the US-backed regime finally collapsed as North Vietnamese forces took control of Saigon.