Worldcrunch
Welcome to Ciudad Mitad del Mundo, the city in the middle of the world, about 30 kilometers north of Quito. My wife Claudine and I were standing on each side of a line symbolizing the Equator. Modern equipment has since shown that the Equator actually lies about some 240 meters north, but this stays between […]
As Pakistan began to bury its children Wednesday, the world reacted to one of the most horrifying terrorist acts in recent years: the Taliban’s methodical assault on a school in Peshawar. The death toll in Tuesday’s attack stands at 141 people, including 132 children, as survivors recounted point-blank-range elimination of one student after another. The […]
The Arbore church in northern Romania was built in the early 16th century and dedicated to St. John the Baptist — the martyr beheaded by Salome. Coincidentally, the Orthodox monastery itself suffered a comparable fate when marauding Cossack troops melted the lead roof to make bullets.
Madina, a British artist and designer, has launched a collection of stamps featuring hip hop artists of the golden era of the genre, in the 1980s-90s. All photos: Madina For a very long time — until 2005 in fact — stamps in the United Kingdom only depicted members of the Royal Family. Except for a […]
It was a year of far too much bad news for the history books, crunched here into one minute. And there’s more (not always so grim) history to cover. We are launching a daily video feature that squeezes all of world history — well, almost — into less than a minute each day.
Your 57-second shot of history.
A recently discovered species of deep sea snail, the Alviconcha strummeri, has been named by scientists in honor of the Clash frontman Joe Strummer. Why? “Because they look like punk rockers in the 70s and 80s and they have purple blood and live in such an extreme environment, we decided to name one new species […]
Funny how a picture without any people in it can still illustrate a city’s dual heritage, both linguistically (French/English) and demographically (Acadian/Creole).
(March 21 to April 19) The Final Quarter of the Moon will test your patience and perseverance. You can get just about anything, just as long as you manage to get an organized system in place — this requires patience. This is your “challenge” for the last quarter, and if you embrace it you will […]
I told you we were going to publish this slide soon, didn’t I? As you read this, my grandson may be taking pictures of the same statue of the Little Mermaid before which his mother, my daughter Cécile, was posing 47 years ago: He’s in Copenhagen today.
The weekend is almost upon us, which means it’s time for our weekend staff playlist. And if this week’s edition seems farewell-themed, it’s because our business developer Garrett is setting off to conquer new horizons — so we’re all feeling a bit nostalgic. So long, Mister G!
MEXICO CITY — Legislators in Mexico have voted to forbid the use of jungle animals such as elephants, big cats or monkeys in circuses across the country, threatening fines equivalent to over $220,000 for offenders, Spain’s EFE agency and Latin American newspapers report. The ban, applicable nationwide, is already in force in Mexico City and […]
Thailand takes national pride very seriously. Every morning in schools throughout the country, students gather to salute the flag, stand at attention — hands out of pockets — and sing patriotic songs.
Sometimes it’s best to just let the slide do the talking.
In the mountains of central Sardinia, the Giara horses are at risk again. The total population is estimated at around just 700 horses, and the breed has been considered at risk of extinction since 1971. Named for the Giara plateau on which they roam, the steep cliffs, difficulty of access and the isolated location have […]
Al Karak, with its famous Crusader castle, used to be an important place of power because of its control over the caravan route between Damascus and Egypt, and the pilgrimage route from Damascus to Mecca. But that was a long, long time ago. Just three months before we went there in 1996, there were food […]
Gabi Orrù, a fifth-grade teacher at the Heinrich Andresen School in the northern German town of Sterup, has a staff of two, but they aren’t paid a dime and sometimes they scratch their ears during class. Her assistants, Stableford and Dimple, are Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers, who have been coming to morning classes since […]
More than once have I experienced the power and joy of a 70-300mm telephoto lens. Looking from afar, in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, I couldn’t even make out what these little creatures were — they even looked like they could have been penguins! But once I zoomed in, I could enjoy watching these locals […]
(March 21 to April 19) This is truly a splendid Full Moon that will reveal that the time has come to move forward. Strike out boldly towards the new, leaving old fears and traps behind. It is time to tear off the mask of that Wizard of Oz to find that he is just a […]
When I dug up this shot of the statues of Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza next to the monument to their author Miguel de Cervantes, in Madrid’s Plaza de España, it got me hunting for other literary characters who had come to statufied life: I’ve got one photo of the Little Mermaid in […]
As Syria’s civil war rages on, soldiers and supporters manage to finding coves of intimacy amidst the violence around them.
Use of this incredibly addictive drug is growing in Germany, especially among Millennials who say it makes them feel invincible.
In the 1970s some elderly women in Volendam in northern Netherlands were still wearing traditional dresses and bonnets as part of their daily lives. Back in my native Franche-Comté, I was the conductor of a traditional folk choir in which the singers — including me — wore 19th century costumes.
Photo: David Muir Although Santa Claus is not coming to town quite yet, it’s time for music website Stereogum’s Cold Hard Facts On The Year In Pop, which looks at the stats and charts to find out which artists were the most popular on Spotify, Vevo, Shazam, and other music sites. And if figures aren’t […]
The second edition of the Worldstock festival, an event that aims to break the barriers of genres, started this week in Paris. The motto remains the same as last year’s successful inaugural edition: search for that universal je-ne-sais-quoi that somehow gives music from anywhere the possibility to touch anyone. Until Dec. 13, artists from all […]
The Bay of Brest, in northwestern France’s Brittany region, has been an important military port for centuries. I walked a hundred meters or so on a forbidden but unguarded path overlooking a naval base to take a picture of this fine example of our glorious French fleet.
A 17-year-old recording of a freestyle battle between Eminem and a local rapper named A.L. has been released online. The two-part recording features a 25-year-old Marshall Mathers in his early rapping career displaying an already impressive talent for freestyle. The battle took place when Eminem visited New York’s Baruch College’s Solo Vibes radio show for […]
If snake skin and dried llama fetuses are your thing, then La Paz” El Mercado de las Brujas (The Witches’ Market) is a must-see.
Can fish get sore scales? Without a doubt, says the Federal Ethics Commission for Non-Human Biotechnology domaine (CENH), in a report released this week. It found that there is “no reason to conclude that fish are insensitive” to pain. Until the 1980s it was commonly believed that fish behaved more or less like machines and […]
Romania was one of the largest automobile producers in Central and Eastern Europe during the Communist period. But that doesn’t mean horse-driven carts were entirely discontinued, especially on a traditional wedding day like this one.
“What is a DJ if he can’t scratch?” Sims asks in his bio. The answers to this question may not be crystal clear for us at Worldcrunch, but at least one thing is certain: Sims can scratch and sample, and is therefore a DJ. He proves it on Instagram, where in a series of short […]
(March 21 to April 19) The week starts with an unusual sense of melancholy. The First Quarter Moon in Pisces shows you the challenges you’ll face in order to learn the teachings of the month. It’s a lesson of independence and an exploration of new territories. The downside may be a sense of loss and […]
When snow falls on Monesi di Triora, a ski resort in the Alps, it can seem like a perfect winterland paradise. But any kind of winter sports activity has now been prohibited — just because of a big bird. The black grouse in question, say naturalists, could be bothered by excessive human presence, because during […]
Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome’s Piazza Navona, with its four allegorical statues representing the Nile, the Ganges, the Rio de la Plata and the Danube, contains one of the most comical pieces of sculpture I’ve ever seen. Actually, Nile’s head (center) is covered with a piece of cloth because at the time […]
A new study from Shell shows that changing behavior among younger generations of Germans will eventually lead to fewer cars on the road – and more women behind the wheel.
It’s not only Friday, it’s Black Friday! If you’re planning to go berserk this weekend like these people above in London, listening to our weekend staff playlist might help. It puts together, among many other more or less acceptable musical favorites, One Direction, Primus and Bob Dylan.
We arrived in our Los Angeles hotel at night, happy to rest after a long trip. The next morning, Easter Sunday, we got a nice Easter egg: This was the view from our hotel room!
Here is a view from a boat trip we took on the khlongs, the canals that crisscross Bangkok. Traffic is so bad in the Thai capital that locals still rely heavily on these water routes to go from one place to another. The many khlongs earned Bangkok its nickname of the “Venice of the East” […]
Auberta, the bear cub abandoned by her mother in April in the Catalan Pyrenees, was found dead earlier this week in her 5,000-square foot enclosure. The 10-month-old cub was going to be released into the mountainous region, where there are believed to be just 30 other brown bears. CCTV cameras in the enclosure had captured […]
Five years after Latvia’s independence was recognized by the Soviet Union (one of the last things the dying Union got to do), we toured the Baltic states, still then in the early stages of painstaking de-Russification. But from above, Riga, the largest city in the three Baltic republics, looked as beautifully Latvian as ever.