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Economy

With Frankfurt’s Housing Detectives, Cracking Down On Illegal AirBnB Rentals

Armed with cameras, case files and witness tips, Frankfurt city inspectors track down covert Airbnb-style apartments that are squeezing an already tight housing market.

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Green

From Stoned To Bricked: Hemp Could Be The Building Block Of A Greener Construction Future

Hemp has long had more uses than getting high. The plant is now increasingly being used in the construction of houses, with huge benefits for the climate. The only issue is growing enough to meet surging demand.

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Ideas Society

End Of The Road? When A Vanlifer Buys Her First House

After living in a campervan for more than a year, the author reflects on the limits of both settling down and rolling on forever.

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In The News

View From A Batak Backyard

It’s sometimes easy to forget that the Batak houses of Indonesia’s North Sumatra are not there only for the tourists’ viewing pleasure — people actually live in them. All you need to do is take a little walk around the impressive facades to get a glimpse of the Batak’s way of life.

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In The News

Trump Or Trudeau, Deconstructing A False Choice

OTTAWA — One has brown hair, the other orange. One is effortlessly bilingual, the other horrifies editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. One openly calls himself a feminist, the other grabs female genitals. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes for a tempting contrast with President Trump. He seems like the picture of serene and right-thinking liberal mindedness compared with all of the United States’ most cartoonishly boorish elements. As a Canadian, I’m not surprised that the American news media and the Internet are saturated by swooning profiles. The Rolling Stone cover story “Why Can’t He Be Our President” was only […]

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In The News

Trump’s New Policies Are A Hit (They Are Obama’s)

-OpEd- WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Trump appears to have found himself a new national security adviser. His name is Barack Obama. Recent days have brought evidence of two foreign policy successes for the Trump administration: On Friday, a top State Department official who has served in the Obama and Trump administrations announced that gains against the so-called Islamic State have picked up sharply and that the militants have lost 78% of their territory in Iraq and 58% in Syria. The Washington Post“s headline (which the White House circulated in an email): “Under Trump, gains against ISIS have dramatically accelerated.” Then, […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Flying Blind, Trump’s Foreign Policy Keeps Allies Guessing

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As he nears his 100th day in office, President Donald Trump’s efforts to appear decisive and unequivocal in his responses to fast-moving global crises have been undercut by a series of confusing and conflicting messages from within his administration. Over the past two weeks, policy pronouncements from senior Trump aides have often been at odds with one another — such as whether Syrian President Bashar Assad must leave power as part of a negotiated resolution to end that nation’s civil war. In other cases, formal White House written statements have conflicted with those from government agencies, even […]

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In The News

Trump Flexes Deal-Making Muscles On Foreign Front

-Analysis- Donald Trump is already discovering the old dictum that presidents are elected on domestic policy but eventually take refuge in foreign policy. With his own Republican party bickering and blocking his healthcare proposal in Congress, Trump turns this week to welcoming foreign leaders with whom he can attempt his powers of persuasion on a […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

How Merkel’s Lectures To Thin-Skinned Trump Can Backfire

-Analysis- BERLIN — On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Donald Trump released a joint statement regarding their first phone call earlier that day. The statement about their 45-minute conversation noted — in the neutral tone common to all statements of this kind — that a wide range of topics were discussed: NATO, […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Trump Presidency Begins, 27 Front Pages From Around The World

Newspapers across the globe featured a defiant, ‘America First’ Donald Trump taking over the White House.

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In The News

America Can’t Stop Talking About Us, A View From Moscow

Russia has become a main theme in the U.S. In part, perhaps, this is a sign of success of the Kremlin’s politics. But both Putin and Trump will have to compromise if they want to change things.

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In The News

Jakarta’s Sick Lack Palliative Care, One NGO Offers Relief

JAKARTA — Yanti, 93, lives in a tiny room along with three other family members in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. She’s unable to move or get up so she lies on a bed that dominates the cramped space. The air is thick with the stench of stale urine. Yanti tells me she can’t pass a bowel movement. She says she’s constantly urinating. She lies on a layer of opened diapers. She grabs the flesh on my arm, which suddenly feels more chubby and elastic than ever before in her bony hand covered in thin, papery skin. Palliative care is […]

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Ideas Trump And The World

Melania Trump And Me, Two Slovenians Arrive In Washington

WASHINGTON — Melania Trump (or Melania Knavs, as she was called before she married and moved into Trump Tower) will be the only first lady since 1829 to have been born outside the United States. John Quincy Adams’ wife, Louisa Adams, was the last, having been born in England when the U.S. was still a […]

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Society

Poor Woman’s Tiny Home In Brazilian Slum Wins Architectural Prize

A Sao Paulo cleaning lady turned to a group of architects in hopes of sprucing up her ramshackle home. The result was a prize-winning revamp that challenges conventional ideas about cost and aesthetics.

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blog

Popsicle Walls — Video Quote Of The Day

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blog

Each To Their Home

It is not only interesting to compare the differences in the architecture of monuments and famous buildings around the world, but also that of more modest lodgings. Take a look for instance at this palheiro thatched house on the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira, and then go back to the little house on the fjord I’ve […]

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Society

In Chile, Modern Housing Fit For Ancient Customs

Architects near Santiago are building a new kind of housing in Chile, both modern and adapted to the ancient culture of the Mapuche community.

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Economy Eyes on the U.S.

How The World Sees The US Shutdown

PARIS – The United States woke up Tuesday to a rather expected, but nonetheless stunning government shutdown after Congress failed to agree on a new budget by the midnight deadline in a political standoff over Republican attempts to reverse President Obama’s landmark health care reform. The government is forced to put an end to non-essential […]

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Eyes on the U.S.

The World Eyes Northern Ohio: Will Joe The Plumber’s Neighbors Decide The Election?

SPRINGFIELD – Whenever he has half an hour free, Joe goes into the yard of his little house to split logs. “It’s fun for me. It’s the only thing that really gets my mind off the election.” In the living room there is a pool table, a bearskin on the wall, and his tools. “I […]

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Eyes on the U.S.

American Politics’ Fifty Shades Of Sexism

WASHINGTON – As Mitt Romney would say, it’s a particularly well-stuffed “binder full of women.” The 2012 vintage of candidates for public office is one of the best — at least in terms of quantity. More women are running for Congress this year than ever before. The newspapers are comparing it to the 1992 so-called […]

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Food / Travel

The History Behind The Narrowest House In The World

THE WARSAW VOICE (Poland), JTA (USA) Worldcrunch WARSAW – Squeeze inside, what is being dubbed the “narrowest house in the world” has officialy been opened in Poland’s capital, reports the Warsaw Voice. The two-story aluminum and plastic buiilding has a floor area of 14 square meters (150.70 sq feet) and measures 92 centimeters (3.02 ft) […]

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