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As trees disappear, the Amazon’s ability to return moisture to the atmosphere declines, leading to less rainfall, higher temperatures and a dry forest. Unless levels of deforestation drop dramatically, this feedback loop could transform over half of the Amazon into savanna within decades.

Schools are stepping up efforts to combat chronic absenteeism, a major factor in plummeting test scores and other problems educators have faced with students since the pandemic.

Chronic absenteeism — commonly defined as missing more than 10 percent of school days — has affected millions of students and caught the attention of the White House, which has said the issue calls for an “all-hands-an-deck approach.”

For years now, GiveDirectly has been conducting the world’s largest test of basic income: It is giving around 6,000 people in rural Kenya a little more than $20 a month, every month, starting in 2016 and going until 2028. Tens of thousands more people are getting shorter-term or differently...

Program aims to prevent low-income older adults from becoming homeless.

Future Perfect 50: The economist aims to kickstart the slumping rate of progress by reforming the science of science.

Future Perfect 50: After founding GiveDirectly, Niehaus is pushing the frontiers of social science research.