“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” wrote British historian Arnold Toynbee. Lessons from the downfall of the automotive industry’s once-glorious capital.
“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” wrote British historian Arnold Toynbee. Lessons from the downfall of the automotive industry’s once-glorious capital.
LA TIMES (US) Worldcrunch LOS ANGELES – At least three people — two firefighters and one civilian — have been injured in the Silver fire, a fast-moving blaze that had consumed 6,000 acres in Riverside County by Wednesday night and was continuing to spread. The fire spread so quickly that some residents were told to […]
AP Worldcrunch DES MOINES – Powerball luck has struck three times — once in Minnesota and twice in New Jersey — for the multistate lottery’s latest massive jackpot. Sue Dooley, senior drawing manager production coordinator for the Multi-State Lottery Association, said late Wednesday night that three tickets matched all six numbers and would split the […]
Thursday, August 7, 2014 ISLAMISTS SEIZE IRAQ’S LARGEST CHRISTIAN TOWN Thousands of Iraqi Christians are fleeing Qaraqosh, the minority’s largest town in the country, after the Islamic State (IS) — the militant group previously known as ISIS — seized it early today.This follows the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from the area, the BBC reports. Qaraqosh […]
NEW YORK TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – Nineteen American diplomatic outposts across the Middle East and North Africa will remain closed this week, the State Department said Sunday, despite what officials said was no new information about terrorist plots that they believe are in the works. One day after President Obama’s top national security aides […]
CBS (USA) Worldcrunch MINNEAPOLIS – Dozens of gay couples began tying the knot early Thursday morning at Minneapolis City Hall, as Minnesota became the latest state, together with Rhode Island, to legalize same-sex marriage. “I didn’t expect to cry quite that hard,” said a beaming Cathy ten Broeke, who with Margaret Miles was the first […]
CNN Worldcrunch SAN DIEGO – A University of California San Diego student left unmonitored in a holding cell for five days by the Drug Enforcement Administration has settled a lawsuit for $4.1 million, his attorney said Tuesday. “This was a mistake of unbelievable and unimaginable proportions,” said attorney Julia Yoo. Daniel Chong, 25, drank his […]
Worldcrunch A day after a U.S. military court convicted Bradley Manning of 20 charges — including espionage, theft and computer fraud — the world press reacted Wednesday to the WikiLeaks whistleblower judgment. Some newspapers chose to emphasize the fact that Manning was found not guilty on the most serious charge of aiding the enemy. UK […]
REUTERS Worldcrunch ORLANDO – Dozens of explosions rocked a propane tank servicing plant in central Florida, northwest of Orlando, late on Monday, injuring seven workers — at least three critically — and prompting the evacuation of nearby homes, authorities said. No one outside the plant was hurt by the blasts, which began at about 10.30 […]
BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will resume peace talks in Washington on Monday, the U.S. State Department has announced. The talks, stalled since 2010, follow months of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The statement came hours after Israel approved the release of more than 100 Palestinian […]
Illegal irrigation and other practices by black-market marijuana growers are drying up California’s rivers, poisoning groundwater and killing wildlife.
MOSCOW – Honestly? Stanislav opens his eyes wide. “I swear!” he exclaims, “I gave him water, a glass of water to be precise. He often passes by to go to the smoking area by gate 31.” That is where the flights for Italy depart. We station ourselves by the smoking area for almost an hour, […]
MUNICH – As a measure of Microsoft’s hold over the technology-driven economy, one American tabloid once published a “Countdown to World Domination” calendar in the lead-up to the company’s launch of its new operating system. That was nearly 12 years ago. Today, we are living in a completely different era as the number of PC […]
DETROIT NEWS, NYT (USA), LE MONDE (France), O GLOBO (Brazil) Worldcrunch DETROIT – From Kalamazoo, Michigan to Paris, France, news of Detroit’s bankruptcy — the largest municipal financial default filing in American history — was making headlines far and wide and close to home on Friday. “Detroit, the cradle of America’s automobile industry and once […]
BOSTON MAGAZINE, ROLLING STONE Worldcrunch BOSTON – In an angry response to this week’s controversial Rolling Stone cover of alleged Boston bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, a police photographer has given pictures of the dramatic capture to Boston Magazine to publish on its website. Massachusetts State Police Seargent Sean Murphy leaked the photos he took of the […]
–Essay– Whether a place can continue to attract immigrants relies fundamentally on institutional competition. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson concluded in their book Why Nations Fail that countries with “inclusive institutions” will attract a diverse citizenry and adequate resources, and that this is advantageous for sustained economic progress. Instead, they argued, countries with more isolated, […]
ZOO ATLANTA, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION (USA), AP Worldcrunch ATLANTA – The world’s second most closely watched pregnancy has reached an end: Lun Lun, Zoo Atlanta’s giant panda gave birth to two little cubs on Monday night — the first twin pandas born in the U.S. since 1987. Both cubs appeared healthy, Zoo Atlanta deputy director […]
The revelations of the NSA surveillance program came on the heels of the Boston Marathon attack. America weighs the links between an alleged terrorist and self-avowed whistleblower.
BBC (UK), CNN (USA) Worldcrunch WASHINGTON– In a statement released on the White House’s website, US President Barack Obama has called for calm as protests continue following a Florida jury’s not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, reports the BBC. In his statement, Obama called Martin’s death a tragedy, but said that America […]
PARIS – So Yves Saint Laurent“s CEO has been named vice president at Apple. We don’t know much yet about what Paul Deneve’s role will be beyond the company’s mention of “special projects” and his reporting to Apple chief Tim Cook, but let’s try to analyze the move from the perspective of luxury strategy. We […]
BUENOS AIRES – Washington’s blatent public pressure to keep Edward Snowden from obtaining political asylum has fed a new wave of anti-Americanism worldwide. It also represents a test for the United States’ bilateral relations with several countries, including Russia and those in its own “backyard.” What explains the willingness of Barack Obama’s government to pay […]
Thursday, July 10, 2014 77 PALESTINIANS DEAD IN GAZA A Gaza health ministry spokesman said that at least 77 Palestinians had been killed and more than 500 injured in the past three days, as Israel intensified strikes on targets in Gaza, The Guardian reports. Israel military said it had hit 322 targets last night, taking […]
With the latest incarnation of Superman on the silver screen in “Man of Steel,” we see the most evolved form of the complicated and conflicted superhero.
The United States is increasingly a Latino nation, which means the time is ripe to make sweeping immigration reform a reality. A view from Bogota, Colombia.
BEIJING – These are good days for China. Not so much for the United States — or Sino-American relations. After Edward Snowden left Hong Kong unhindered last week, the angered Americans at first threatened this would have “negative consequences” on relations between the two superpowers. Snowden’s departure had delivered a blow to “mutual confidence,” the […]
Thursday, July 3, 2014 ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN STRIKES CONTINUE Israel’s air force and Palestinian militants exchanged fire for another night, with 15 air strikes in Gaza leaving at least 10 Palestinians injured. The New York Times reported that multiple rockets were also fired from across the border, with two Israeli houses hit in the border town of […]
From Rio to Cairo, from Snowden to Erdogan, the excess and limits of the popular will.
They were shocked by 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and they firmly believe the world is coming to an end. To cope with the imminent disaster, some of these preparation enthusiasts (or “preppers”) turn their SUVs into armored fortresses while others buy fancy bunkers. Julie Zaugg met one of those so-called “survivalists.” NEW […]
Thursday, June 26, 2014 SYRIA STRIKES ISIS IN IRAQ Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confirmed in an interview with the BBC previous reports that the Syrian military had carried out air strikes against ISIS near the Iraqi border town of Qaim, explaining he had not requested them but “welcomed” the strikes against the jihadist group. […]
To help mark France’s annual Fete de la Musique, Le Monde looks back at an old study that asked whether country music causes suicide.
– Op-Ed – BERLIN – Two people recently “disappeared” into the vastness that is China. The whole world is talking about one of them: Edward Snowden whose revelations about digital spying by the National Security Agency have fueled fear and indignation. Big Brother, your name was and is USA. Nobody is talking about photographer and […]
Google+, the social network of the American web giant is, in fact, a lot more than a social network. Larry Page, the web giant’s CEO, describes it as “the social backbone” of a company whose ambition is simple, if not the least bit modest: to control the Internet. “If Google+ was just a social network, […]
GENEVA – From one culture to another, the temperature of what people drink during their meals can vary. In many Asian countries for instance, people like to drink a hot beverage while they eat. Europeans for their part tend to favor drinks at room temperature, while North Americans prefer them ice-cold – on the rocks. […]
HANOVER – Students here at Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university in New Hampshire have been protesting against the rising numbers of sexual assaults on campus, as well as discrimination against homosexuals. The rallying cry of protesters is: “Dartmouth has a problem!” There have also been protests in recent weeks at other elite academic institutions, […]
Wednesday, June 18, 2014 POROSHENKO TO ISSUE CEASEFIRE Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko announced after a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that he would order shortly a “unilateral ceasefire” by government troops engaged in fights with pro-Russian groups in Eastern Ukraine, The Kyiv Post reports. According to RT’s live blog, fighters in the […]
Why did he do that? And if you ever thought to do the same…?
BUENOS AIRES – The meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Venezuelan counterpart, Elias Jaua, was certainly one of the most significant during the recent annual assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Guatemala. During their 40-minute encounter, the two top diplomats agreed to reopen a dialogue at the highest […]
The National Security Agency’s spying on both its own citizens, and foreigners, has turned the idea of the “open web” on its head.
The findings raise serious questions of international law. German officials have denied knowledge of the operations.