Worldcrunch
WASHINGTON — I loved Amazon when it first appeared. It was the 1990s, and I was living in Italy and then China, two countries that are strongly monolingual with a scarce number of foreign-language bookstores. Rome for instance, with three and a half million inhabitants at the time, had a couple of English bookstores and […]
It may be the most iconic photograph of the Great Depression. Dorothea Lange’s 1936 image has come to be known as Migrant Mother, though the Library of Congress references its full title as Destitute pea pickers in California.
Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil and the X-Men, has died at the age of 95. Lee was an outspoken advocate of equality and the value of comics as an art form. “I have always included minority characters in my stories, often as heroes. We live in a diverse society – in fact, a diverse world, and we must learn to live in peace and with respect for each other.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/1l1bdUepqHM expand=1] ©Ringo Chiu/ZUMA ⠀ OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an […]
This is a story about love, hate and Mark Twain. The object of Twain’s desire (then resentment): the typewriter. Twain first laid eyes on a “newfangled typing machine,” as he called it, sometime in the early 1870s. He was, by then, on his way to becoming the world’s most famous writer and humorist. At the same time, the tools of writing were undergoing a profound transformation — from fountain pens, with their leaking and smudging ink, to the pleasant sound of tapping a key whose corresponding letter was magically stamped to paper. The new technology did not emerge with the […]
WASHINGTON — On the night of the midterm elections, my wife and I organized an open house, inviting friends and people from all walks of life to watch the results. The TV was on, but instead of staring at the screen and following the constant predictions of electoral victories and losses, people were interacting and […]
America’s midterm elections saw Democrats recapture the House, but lose ground in the Senate. A nation as divided as ever, though with new checks on Trump.
-Analysis- BERLIN — Democracies are made of constant ups and downs. Sometimes one party is on top, the next it’s another. And what may look like a dramatic election result often is, in reality, nothing more than the natural ebb and flow that characterizes healthy democracies. Every now and then, however, comes a moment when […]
To act, let’s start by not looking away.
This is what they had long been fearing. As the threats increased, as the online abuse grew increasingly vicious, as the defacing of synagogues and community centers with swastikas became more commonplace, the possibility of a violent attack loomed over America’s Jewish communities. On Saturday, the worst of those fears was made real as a gunman stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing at least 11 of its members and injuring many more, reportedly shouting “All Jews must die” during his rampage. It is the worst single attack on American Jews in the history of the country. And it is one that […]
A series of bombing attempts have targeted prominent Democrats and other Trump critics. Is this the inevitable result of inflammatory presidential rhetoric.
Before he became a celebrated photojournalist of war and conflict, Stanley Greene produced The Western Front, a unique documentation of the San Francisco’s punk scene in the 1970s and 1980s. Here is a memorable shot, and Greene’s memories of the moment, as Bonnie Hayes hits the right note at the right moment. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/5sntNncH7Lk expand=1] OneShot — Queen of the night, 1977 (©Stanley Greene/NOOR) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
Yonder’s Slovenian-born Andrej Mrevlje is also a part-time Uber driver in Washington. Oh, the people he meets.
WASHINGTON — When Christine Blasey Ford accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault last month, she did more than open herself up to unwanted scrutiny. She held up a mirror to a country in crisis, revealing its political players and embattled institutions not for what they claimed to be but for what they really are. The painful 20-day passion play that followed — staged in committee rooms, Senate floor debates, hallway protests and millions of private conversations — did little to alter the future makeup of the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed Saturday by the Senate, 50-48, in a […]
As U.S. hegemony fades, the dollar has become the worst currency in the world — expect, of course, for all the others.
In some western states, utilities are flipping the script on waste-water treatment, transforming sewage facilities into attractive parks with streams, hiking trails and science museums.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The subject was supposed to be the selection of a new justice on the Supreme Court. Instead Thursday’s showdown on Capitol Hill was a raw, scorched-earth confrontation across the nation’s most emotionally wrenching divides. This was men against women, right against left, a cascade of recriminations, explosions of anger, hours of tears and sobs. A hearing that was supposed to bring clarity instead erupted in thunderclaps from the nation’s built-up tensions over how the sexes are supposed to behave with each other. Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and the woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her came […]
With Bully Pulpit, U.S.-born artist Haley Morris-Cafiero offers a parodic comment on the phenomenon of bullying in the age of social media.
-Analysis- CARACAS — Artificial Intelligence is opening up new opportunities for the economy and society. But it will also affect millions of human jobs, and thus poses a huge challenge for public policymakers, warns a 2016 White House report on AI’s projected impact on the U.S. economy. Among other things, the report predicts that AI […]
-OpEd- PARIS — The gravity of the situation at the White House grows clearer each day. The anonymous article published by the New York Times in which a high-ranking official from the Trump administration describes the internal resistance, coupled with the publication of “Fear,” in which the investigative journalist Bob Woodward, celebrated for his role […]
The story remains a mystery to this day. On February 4, 1974, the 19-year-old daughter of millionaire newspaper publisher Randolph Hearst was kidnapped from her home in Berkeley, California.
Look into her eye… The East Coast of the United States was bracing for Hurricane Florence to make landfall Friday, with hundreds of thousands evacuating to avoid potential for deadly wind, rain and flooding.
NEW YORK — The New York Times published an extraordinary column this afternoon by an anonymous contributor identified as a “senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure.” (In a tweet, and perhaps inadvertently, the Times also described its op-ed columnist as a man.) It’s readily apparent why the writer’s job would be threatened. His column describes a White House mired in subterfuge and scheming because President Donald Trump isn’t able or fit to carry out his duties. “The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” […]
Taking pictures of Lady Liberty with my telelens wasn’t even the highlight of this crisp October day in New York City: A couple of hours later, on nearby Ellis Island, I had the surprise of seeing my last name among the list of immigrants featured on the Wall of Honor.
The major disgrace of America’s Catholic bishops was to foster a culture in which priests sexually assaulted children and were then sent on to new duties as their ungodly behavior was covered up. There is also a second failure. Thanks to the bishops, who are supposed to strengthen the faith, Catholics are now regularly asked: “How can you be a Catholic?” And, even more pointedly, “How can you stay?” This summer, these questions became much harder to answer. This is about the institution, not about whether to be a Christian. Christianity heroically preaches a devotion to the poor and the […]
Donald Trump’s all-out trade war has a singular source of ammunition, even as China is pushing to make the RMB a global currency on par.
The President’s former lawyer pleads guilty on the same day his former campaign chairman is convicted of financial crimes. The hand of special counsel Robert S. Mueller is significantly strengthened. What happens now?
A view from Russia on the topic of Russian-American relations: time to keep a low profile.
Lawyers representing students in several U.S. states are making the case that the right to literacy is the bridge to so many other rights.
Aretha Franklin, the undisputed Queen of Soul, died on Thursday at the age of 76. All kinds of Respect in this time of mourning for the music world.
The top layers of corals reduce the cost of storms by an average of $4 billion annually, a new study finds.
Tim Cook’s company has broken a stock market record, but a closer look at Apple’s operating numbers tells a more nuanced story.
The good, the bad, and the bizarre. Part-time Uber operator Andrej Mrevlje offers an honest, intimate take on what it’s like to work with the controversial ride-sharing platform.
-OpEd- This must have been the moment he was waiting for: an energetic handshake with Donald Trump, with a smile and a deep look into his eyes to top it off. The two men seemed to be sealing a fresh pact. Cameras flashed, capturing the important moment for newspapers and history books — the five […]
As a member of the National Child Labor Committee, starting in 1908, Lewis Hine photographed working children.
The largest saline lake in the western hemisphere gets more than half its water from a single tributary — the Bear River — which runs through three thirsty states.
The legendary American photographer Walker Evans spent three years secretly capturing images of passengers in the New York Subway. He produced the Many Are Called series (1938-1941) by hiding his camera in his coat, and making the shutter release button accessible up his sleeve. Best known for his work through the Great Depression, Evans was […]
WASHINGTON — It is not hard to see similarities between President Donald Trump“s last two Supreme Court nominees: They are both white male conservatives who attended Ivy League law schools, clerked for retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and went to the same exclusive private prep school. The elite background does not end with them. If the Senate approves Trump’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, every justice sitting on the Supreme Court will have attended either Yale’s or Harvard’s law school. (Ruth Bader Ginsburg started at Harvard and transferred to another Ivy, Columbia.) The shared elite backgrounds of Supreme Court justices, some experts […]
The Santa Cruz River, once the city’s lifeblood, has been bone-dry for the past 70 years. But if all goes according to plan, the ancient waterway could be back in action by as early as next year.
-OpEd- WASHINGTON — After many weeks of claiming, dishonestly, that European allies “owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back” — in fact, Europeans spend far more money on European defense than does the United States — and after referring to NATO members as “delinquent” and worse, President Donald Trump appears to have handed America’s European allies an ultimatum: Pay up, spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on the military, do it fast — or the United States will pull out. We can “go it alone,” he told them, by some accounts. During the news conference […]
Lewis Hine was an American sociologist and photographer, best remembered for his images of immigrants arriving in Ellis Island, and for shining a light on the brutal reality of poor children forced to work.