Blood And Soil In Narendra Modi’s India
The Prime Minister’s Hindu-nationalist government has cast two hundred million Muslims as internal enemies. The lack of journalistic scrutiny has given Modi immense freedom to control the narrative. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the months leading up to his reëlection.
The Tragedy On Great Slave Lake
Paddling alone on the 31st day of his expedition, Frenchman Thomas Destailleur tried to “attack the waves” of mercurial Great Slave Lake. But the planet’s 10th-largest lake struck back, soaking Destailleur and flooding his 13-foot kayak with ice water, forcing the paddler ashore.
The Malaysian Job: How Wall Street Enabled A Global Financial Scandal
The story of possibly the largest fraud in financial history—in which, billions of dollars were diverted from a Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad into covert campaign-finance accounts, U.S. political campaigns, Hollywood movies, and the pockets of innumerable other recipients.
Inside The Bizarre Subculture That Lives To Explore Chernobyl’s Dead Zone
As the first generation of Ukrainians born after the Chernobyl tragedy comes of age, a small subculture of them is now doing the unthinkable: defying government prohibitions and illegally entering the highly radioactive Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, or “Dead Zone”—for fun.
Infinite Scroll: Life Under Instagram
The speed of machine learning is startling, often creepy. It is hard to tell what is creepier: the feeling that someone is somewhere out there, following your every step, or the fact that no one is, just the tracking device you carry with you in your pocket.
This Cape Porpoise Fish House Is An Icon. But Of What, Exactly?
It is a natural-shingled, colonial-shed–like structure suspended on stilts over — and perfectly reflected in — the glassy waters of a low-tide Porpoise Cove. A Maine fishing village grapples with beauty, community, and authenticity in the Instagram era.
What The Psychedelic Drug Ayahuasca Showed Me About My Life
For four consecutive nights, a group of 78 of us here at a retreat center in Costa Rica have been drinking a foul-tasting, molasses-like tea containing ayahuasca, a plant concoction that contains the natural hallucinogen known as DMT.
The Dark Secrets Lurking Inside Your Outdoor Gear
Allegations of abuse have surfaced at Bangladeshi and Malaysian factories whose multinational owner manufactures for some of the most popular outdoor brands we love. Here’s why that should surprise no one.
The Girl In The Box: The Mysterious Crime That Shocked Germany
After class on Tuesday 15 September 1981, the first day of the new school year, a 10-year-old girl named Ursula Herrmann returned to her house in Eching. She never arrived. So began one of Germany’s most notorious postwar criminal cases, which remains contentious to this day.
How To Trick People Into Saving Money
Walmart has an incentive to become the place people think about when they think of their financial future. Inside Walmart’s curious, possibly ingenious effort to get customers to build up their savings accounts.
Somewhere In Finland, A Village Dies While A River Continues To Thrive
In central Finland, there is a small village, Yli-li, nestled against a river called Iijoki that is succumbing to the realities of life, like so many other places. It is a place that captured the interest of Finnish photographer Janne Korkko, who took pictures of the village and the river.
Hicamp: Camping & Glamping Everywhere
Hicamp is an app that lets you book unique camping experiences on farms, ranches, vineyards and public parks across the country. Find undiscovered, one-of-a-kind camping destinations or visit tried and true staples.
I Tried AirBnb’s Zaniest Online Experiences
Could the company’s latest play to own the experience economy transport me virtually around the world? I made sangria with drag queens in Portugal, meditated with sleepy sheep in Scotland, and visited stray dogs in Ukraine to find out just how far Zoom-powered travel could take me.
The Most Pessimistic Town In The World
Puolanka, a small town in the centre of Finland, had become famous for its particular brand of pessimism. Recurring themes are town’s declining population and lack of much to do.
The Quest For Ancestral Riches That May Not Exist
Videos of men riffling through documents are meant to offer proof that thousands of people from a Dominican family, the Rosarios, are the heirs to a multibillion-dollar fortune they believe resides mainly in Credit Suisse’s vaults and those of Banco Santander SA in Spain.
Inside X, Google’s Top-Secret Moonshot Factory
Within Alphabet, Google’s parent company, it is grouped alongside Deepmind in “Other Bets”, although in that metaphor, X is more like the gambler. Its stated aim is to pursue what it calls “moonshots” – to try to solve humanity’s great problems by inventing radical new technologies.
Faith, Friendship, And Tragedy At Santa Fe High
Sabika Sheikh, a Muslim exchange student from Pakistan with dreams of changing the world, struck up an unlikely friendship with an evangelical Christian girl. The two became inseparable—until the day a fellow student opened fire.
How A Volcano In Hawaii Became A Battleground For Astronomy
Native Hawaiians are protecting the mountain of Maunakea, at the heart of Hawaii’s Big Island, from the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) at its summit, where the facility would join venerable observatories like the twin Keck domes and NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility.
How A Single Mom Created A Plastic Food-Storage Empire
The story of Tupperware is a story of innovation and reinvention: how a new kind of plastic, made from industrial waste material, ended up a symbol of female empowerment. The product ushered women into the workforce, encouraging them to make their own money, better their families, and win accolades and prizes.
They Came From Outer Finland: The Town Where Everyone Saw UFOs
Photographer Maria Lax comes from a northern Finnish town where UFO sightings were common – so she set about looking for answers. “I’m from a small town in northern Finland surrounded by a vast, sparsely populated wilderness. Most pass through the town without ever knowing it was a hotspot for UFO sightings in the 1960s.”
Can One Earthquake Trigger Another On The Other Side Of The World?
It’s well known that natural disasters can cause others in their immediate vicinity, for instance, hurricanes are often accompanied by flooding, and earthquakes are followed by aftershocks. But what about longer distance interactions? Could one earthquake trigger another on the other side of the world?