Worldcrunch
Droves of customers stampeding through large department stores on Black Friday was once a uniquely American phenomena. But the traditional day-after Thanksgiving shopping sale event has recently gained traction in other countries that have no connection to the American holiday. The insatiable consumerism that fuels American capitalism, it seems, is a more viable export than […]
Despite the growing list of powerful people toppled in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the biggest names in Washington are still dodging real scrutiny.
WASHINGTON — The neo-Nazis were hungry. They had spent the day in a Charlottesville, Va., courthouse testifying at the preliminary hearing for a white nationalist jailed for pepper-spraying counterprotesters during August’s deadly Unite the Right rally. Now, after the long drive home to Alexandria, Va., they craved pizza. “We were going to order from the local place where we get pizza all the time, but we said no, Papa John’s is the official pizza of the alt-right now,” said Eli Mosley, the 26-year-old leader of the white separatist group Identity Evropa. “We’re just supporting the brands that support us.” That […]
Xi Jinping knows exactly where he wants to go. Donald Trump, not so much…
WASHINGTON — This is an elegant city. It is smooth and soft-spoken. It’s clean and well kept, possibly because most of the residential buildings in the city are family townhouses. Low, two, three-story buildings spread the city out, creating the impression Washington is bigger than it is. Sparse-density urbanity evokes the pastoral, idyllic way of […]
-Analysis- A political neophyte who launched his presidential campaign by railing against Mexican “rapists’ and “murderers’ was never supposed to win, especially against a seasoned stateswoman backed by her party’s establishment. Add to that unthinkable episodes, like his mocking a disabled reporter or the revelation of the infamous “grab ‘em by the p***y” recording, and […]
The shooting at a Southern Baptist church in Texas is believed to be the worst such shooting at a church in modern U.S. history. Several prominent Southern Baptist pastors have President Donald Trump’s ear as members of his unofficial evangelical advisory council. Even so, it would be very surprising if Southern Baptists pushed for changes in gun policy, because it hasn’t been a priority for the denomination in decades. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in the country with about 15 million members, has taken up issues like abortion and same-sex marriage at its annual conventions, but it […]
-Analysis- The headlines echo of the not-so-distant past this morning. Yesterday, media outlets around the globe began to report on the Paradise Papers, a massive leak of documents detailing the offshore investments of politicians, business tycoons, and corporations. Le Monde, which dedicated 12 journalists over the past year to the multi-outlet investigation, writes that the […]
Think of Facebook as akin to a delivery truck, noting that such trucks often carry guns, junk food and bad books.
A day after a suspected 29-year-old Uzbek national killed eight people and injured a dozen more with a rented pickup truck in Manhattan, newspapers around the world devoted their front pages to the worst terrorist attack in New York since 9/11. Here’s is how it looked in 11 different countries, including Argentina, home to five […]
“Trump is finished.” That sentence has been pronounced so often over the past 18 months that it has lost any real meaning. Still, the events unfolding in Washington right now are different. By targeting top Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, and perhaps even more crucially, a lesser known foreign-policy advisor named George […]
Washington and the Trump administration are reeling after the first charges are filed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
Any day now, Google is expected to achieve quantum supremacy—the use of a quantum computer to solve a problem that even the most advanced supercomputer can’t unravel. That milestone, which Google has said it will reach by year-end, will no doubt be greeted with headlines proclaiming the dawn of the quantum computing age. Prepare for lots of stories about how quantum computing will soon do everything from inventing wonderful new pharmaceuticals and almost-magical new materials (good) to rendering obsolete all existing public-key encryption (not so good). There’s plenty of momentum. Earlier this month, Intel Corp. researchers unveiled a superconducting chip […]
WASHINGTON — Almost a year after New Yorker Jessica Leeds and other women stepped forward with harrowing accounts of being sexually assaulted by a powerful man, another scandal with similar elements exploded. Only this time, the punishment was swift and devastating. “It is hard to reconcile that Harvey Weinstein could be brought down with this, and President Donald Trump just continues to be the Teflon Don,” said Leeds, who claims she was groped 30 years ago on a plane by the man whose presence she cannot escape now that he sits in the Oval Office. In Florida, Melinda McGillivray, was […]
Voltaire reminds us that today’s Islamic fanaticism is a kind of pathology of religious faith.
Nondisclosure agreements and other contracts perpetuate a culture of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.
U.S. President Donald Trump is raising the threat of an arms build-up, and even nuclear confrontation itself. But he’s not the only one.
Hellish firestorms in northern California have killed at least 17 people and razed entire neighborhoods, destroying more than 2,000 structures. Dozens of other people have been reported missing, raising fears that the death toll could rise sharply. The “disaster is relentless,” Wednesday’s front page of the San Francisco Chronicle reads above a photograph of the […]
A young American in Paris watches Trump in Las Vegas, in the shadow of Obama and Orlando — and Bush at Ground Zero.
—Analysis— WASHINGTON — More than any other issue that has threatened transatlantic cohesion this year, President Donald Trump’s decision to decertify Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal could start a chain of events that would sharply divide the United States from its closest traditional allies in the world. “After the Paris climate decision,” in which Trump withdrew the United States from a widely supported, painfully negotiated accord, “this could push multilateralism to the breaking point,” said a senior official from one of the three European signatories to the Iran deal. None of the three – Britain, France and Germany – […]
SAN FRANCISCO — I can’t help but feel disappointed that TaskRabbit, the San Francisco-based startup and “sharing economy” pioneer, has agreed to become a unit of Ikea. Although the company has tried to cast the deal as an expansion opportunity, this outcome is a far cry from the lofty expectations of its early days. TaskRabbit’s fate illustrates Silicon Valley’s unbounded idealism when it comes to optimizing everything. The company was a catalyst for “collaborative consumption,” a movement in which everyone would share their homes, their vehicles and their time. In a seminal TED talk, Rachel Botsman declared that the currency […]
-OpEd- PARIS — Donald Trump’s task on Tuesday should have been simple enough. Traveling to the storm-ravaged island of Puerto Rico, the American president was supposed to offer some comforting words, distribute emergency supplies, and commit the federal government to rebuild the U.S. territory as quickly as possible. But rather than disaster relief, Trump was […]
The carnage in Las Vegas is evil and tragic, but is it terrorism?
The worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history was the top story in newspapers around the world, after a gunman opened fire at a country music concert Sunday night in Las Vegas. Here’s a sample of front pages from 14 countries: UNITED STATES Las Vegas Review Journal USA Today Tampa Bay Times MEXICO “Terror in […]
Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oct. 2, 2017 “Mass shooting on Strip,” reads the front page of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, just hours after a man opened fire on a crowd of an open-air country music festival in Las Vegas. At least 50 people were killed and 406 people transported to hospitals according to the latest report […]
-Analysis- PARIS — It was a final gift from the American patron of beauty and pleasure: The sight of Hugh Hefner’s silk-robed portrait, splashed across the top of the internet as Paris woke up this morning, was an odd kind of relief from the neverending stream of terrorism, natural disaster and nuclear threats. The death […]
The Getty Center launches a festival of Latin American art that also considers its influence on American culture and identity. In the age of Donald J. Trump, this has become doubly significant.
Facebook has agreed to give the government information on political ad campaigns. But the social media giant must behave more like other media companies in a functioning democracy.
With each passing day, war with North Korea seems to draw closer. Kim Jong Un continues to test his arsenal; Donald Trump issues new threats and nicknames his nemesis “Rocket Man“; Kim responds in kind, saying the U.S. president’s speech yesterday at the United Nations was “the sound of a dog barking.” Some say the […]
The U.S. president’s threat to ‘totally destroy’ a nation is beyond the pale. But is there method to it?
WASHINGTON — This month, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will open for signature at the United Nations. Signatories will promise never to “develop, test, produce, manufacture . . . possess or stockpile nuclear weapons’; never to transfer weapons to other parties nor to receive them; and never to “use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.” The treaty’s aims, if they could be universally effected, are noble. After all, the prospect of nations — including, now, an international pariah like North Korea — facing off with their respective nuclear arsenals is horrific. Their renewed use in war would […]
That’s the beauty of shooting with a telelens: From the top of the famous Space Needle, I was able to see details of downtown Seattle — more than a mile away.
Cleaning up after natural disasters has become a lucrative business, but raises questions for victims and governments alike.
In May 1999, I visited North Korea. I was based at the time in Beijing as a correspondent for a Slovenian newspaper, and it was impossible not to visit the country that had aroused so many questions and offered so few answers. One just needed to see the place. So I did. I joined a […]
Donald Trump’s Mexican border wall has been a rallying cry and all-purpose metaphor since his improbable campaign began in 2015. But if and when it gets built, the wall would also be, well, a wall. The U.S. president’s decision Tuesday to let the so-called DACA program expire is aimed at pushing Congress to find a […]
WASHINGTON — President Trump is hurtling toward a crossroads on immigration — his signature campaign issue and a key source of his law-and-order reputation — where each path before him comes with significant political risks. Trump has temporarily placed the fates of roughly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children in the hands of Congress, buying himself time and shunting responsibility. Should Congress act, the president will have to choose whether to sign on to a legislative solution granting the “dreamers’ legal status — or to let the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, […]
Erkan Emre’s occasional cravings for Berlin-style döner kebabs led to an unexpected career shift, and proved to be a recipe for success.
MONTREAL — In the aftermath of Charlottesville, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he was considering taking down a statue of Christopher Columbus because it could be offensive to Native Americans. If you were to believe it, this statue risked arousing hate, like so many symbols associated with European expansion and American […]
From zoning laws and insurance polices to the realities of climate change, there are ways to prevent such widespread suffering. But it requires political will.
-Analysis- It was the “Fight of the Century.” Or was it? As far as fighting goes, Saturday night’s $700-million mega-bout between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor — also humbly dubbed “The Biggest Fight In Combat Sports History” (capital letters matter) — was actually a tad more entertaining than Mayweather’s 2015 “Fight of the Century” against […]