Welcome to the May issue of The Highlight

Roughly a yr in the past, the federal government started dispatching funds of a whole lot of {dollars} a month, no strings connected, to a broad swath of American mother and father. A response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the expanded youngster tax credit score had an instantaneous and placing impact on the financial safety of thousands and thousands of kids, briefly lifting them out of poverty — till, that’s, the funds stopped late final yr.

The abrupt finish of America’s profitable experiment to assist households and kids is simply one of many nationwide conversations we’re exploring on this month’s subject of the Spotlight.

Some of the urgent tales of our day is the way forward for authorized abortion; the leaked Supreme Court docket draft opinion this month has left many People considering the autumn of Roe v. Wade and the efficient finish of abortion in roughly half of US states. Consultants say treatment abortion will change into the best choice for these wishing to finish their pregnancies within the early weeks, within the privateness of their houses, typically with out ever visiting a clinic — making pregnant folks each affected person and supplier. All of those developments, writes Anna North in our cowl story, are making a schism inside the anti-abortion motion, with a brand new, extra radical guard getting ready for the following battles simply because the motion attains considered one of its greatest victories ever.

For hundreds of years, butterfly collectors — often known as lepidopterists — have pursued their quarries with a regular set of apparatus: vials of alcohol, cyanide bricks, steel pins, jars, a butterfly internet. Now, as scientists are starting to doc what seems to be an alarming price of insect loss of life, many are questioning that technique. Is it merely time to benefit from technological developments and pin down butterflies with binoculars and cameras, as a substitute?

Herbalism has a protracted historical past within the Appalachians, and right now, regardless of the rising reputation of plant dietary supplements in American medication cupboards — assume: echinacea, ginseng and St. John’s wort — those that develop and forage native herbs in Appalachia are going through the tip of an period. We dispatched a reporter to the forests of Kentucky to study extra about herbalism and the way overharvesting and inhabitants declines are threatening this long-held apply.

And eventually, we take a look at the rise of the emo muscle boys of our greatest motion pictures and TV exhibits. From John Cena to Jason Momoa to Dave Bautista, this new trio of cumbersome himbo associates embraces our rising understanding that males can cry, too. So does this new wave of anhedonic Adonises characterize a considerable break from the previous?

Séan Alonzo Harris for Vox

The profound impact of giving American families a little more cash

Six months of funds lifted thousands and thousands of kids out of poverty. Then they stopped.

By Marin Cogan

Amanda Northrop/Vox

To kill or not to kill: Butterflying during the “insect apocalypse”

Is it nonetheless moral to gather butterflies for science?

By Joanna Thompson

Beth Hoeckel for Vox/Getty Photographs

The rise of the sadboi big man

From John Cena to Jason Momoa, our most muscular film stars are more and more our most weak, too.

By Emily St. James

Stacy Kranitz for Vox

In Appalachia, a race to preserve the practice of plant healing

Whilst ginseng, St. John’s wort, and different herbs develop in reputation, the area is struggling to maintain its age-old apply of herbalism alive for a brand new era.

By Alex Schechter

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name/Getty Photographs

The anti-abortion movement is about to win. Even they aren’t ready for what comes next.

The post-Roe panorama will appear like nothing earlier than.

By Anna North