Inflation has changed the way many Americans shop. Now, those changes in consumer habits are helping bring down inflation.

Fed up with prices that remain about 19%, on average, above where they were before the pandemic, consumers are fighting back. In grocery stores, they’re shifting away from name brands to store-brand items, switching to discount stores or simply buying fewer items like snacks or gourmet foods.

What happens when the fantasy of getting everything you want collides with cold, hard reality? Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility attempts to answer that question by plotting the love lives of two young women: the cool-headed, pragmatic Elinor Dashwood, and her feverishly emotional younger sister, Marianne. Together, the pair embody the novel’s titular struggle: of practicality versus passion, decorum versus desire, the head versus the heart (or the hormones).

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”. His formula is justifiably famous, but it’s worth noting that it comes from an autobiographical essay titled “The Crack-Up”, which painfully detailed Fitzgerald’s inability to pass his own test, and resulting descent into alcoholic dysfunction.

Americans are increasingly unlikely to believe that those who work hard will get ahead and that their children will be better off than they are, according to two recent polls.

Why it matters: The polls reflect concerns that the American dream is dimming — or already extinguished.

Driving the news: The WSJ asked respondents whether they believe "the American Dream — that if you work hard you'll get ahead — still holds true."

“We are on a stormy sea, without a shore”, wrote Alexis de Tocqueville to a childhood friend in the midst of the 1848 revolutions. “The shore is so far away, so unknown,” he added, “that our lives and perhaps the lives of those who follow will pass before we set foot and settle on it.” Though the French aristocrat had prophetically warned about a possible revolution less than a month before the February events, he felt confused about their historical meaning.

Despite near record inflation, consistent recession predictions, and rising borrowing costs, Americans continue to do what they do best—spend. Even if it means leaning on savings and credit cards, all income brackets have been taking vacations and eating out at restaurants.

As the Kansas City Chiefs gear up for their fifth Super Bowl appearance in six seasons, one of the biggest stories surrounding the team has little to do with the players actually on the field. It's Taylor Swift.

While it's long seemed like Swift has had no room left to grow, the popstar has seen her star reach new heights over the past few years. Her internet-breaking Eras Tour has become the highest-grossing tour of all time, having raked in over a billion dollars in one calendar year, and it's still got nearly a full year to go.

Celebrities wept in court. Coaches lost their jobs. Elite universities saw their reputations stained. And nearly four years later, the mastermind of the Varsity Blues scheme was sentenced this month to more than three years in prison.

But there’s little belief the college bribery scandal has stirred significant change in the admissions landscape. Some schools tweaked rules to prevent the most flagrant types of misconduct, but the outsize roles of wealth, class and race — which were thrust into public view in shocking plainness — loom as large as ever.

Corporate America's patchwork approach to vaccine requirements is deepening the pandemic's class divides.

Why it matters: New cases of coronavirus, driven by the Delta variant, are up 86% in the U.S. over the past two weeks. The rise in new infections has upended return to work plans for certain sectors of the economy, while others can't afford to change course.

On Thursday, the state of Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade. “Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong,” the state said in a brief submitted to the Court. “The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition.”