Cryptoqueen: How This Woman Scammed The World, Then Vanished
Ruja Ignatova called herself the Cryptoqueen. She told people she had invented a cryptocurrency to rival Bitcoin, and persuaded them to invest billions. Then, two years ago, she disappeared. Jamie Bartlett spent months investigating how she did it and trying to figure out where she’s hiding.
What Happens If You Commit A Murder While Sleepwalking?
It seems impossible — a person unconsciously killing another person and having no knowledge of his actions the following morning — but according to legal defense teams, it isn’t just a possibility, but a reality.
The Last Time Democracy Almost Died
The last time democracy nearly died all over the world and almost all at once, Americans argued about it, and then they tried to fix it. What can we learn from the upheaval of the 1930s?
Can $500 A Month Change Your Life?
A California-based experiment in universal basic income considers the mundane, and potentially transformative, power of a little extra cash. It’s not a new idea, dating as far back as Tudor England. Thinkers ranging from Martin Luther King Jr. to Milton Friedman have backed it.
The Night The Music Died
It came out of the sky about five miles north of Clear Lake, Iowa, and slammed into the frozen earth. Outside lay the bodies of three young men who had been thrown from the plane at more than 100 miles per hour. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Jiles P. Richardson, also known as the Big Bopper, were dead.
What Brought Beyoncé, U2, And BTS To Amish Country?
Rock Lititz is a one-of-a-kind production community in Amish Country. They aim to be a one-stop shop for major bands: They build the stage, they design the lighting, they do the sound, and after a couple days or a week or a month of rehearsals, they send you off to tour the world.
Beyond The Growth Gospel
The Hotel Belvédère du Rayon Vert symbolizes the very empire these adherents of “degrowth,” as the movement is known, wish to overthrow: consumption, wealth, inequality, travel, and cement, the whole modern industrial condition.
Sex Abuse Scandal At The Church Of England: A Survivor’s Story
Phil Johnson was groomed and abused by members of the clergy as a schoolboy in Eastbourne, UK, during the 70s and 80s. This is the story of a cover-up that went to the highest levels of the Church of England and how the determination of a survivor helped convict the man who abused him.
Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Homes?
In the UK, only one in four middle-income millennials are on the housing ladder. Twenty years ago, 65% of this group owned homes. What’s changed? Is it possible to buy a house without help? And with more people privately renting, what are the implications for starting families, retirement and society at large?
The British Once Built A 1,100-Mile Hedge Through The Middle Of India
There was nothing charming about what the British built. It wasn’t meant to protect anything except imperial revenue. It grew along the Inland Customs Line, a bureaucratic barrier that the British created to impose a high salt tax on the people living on one side of the line—the relatively saltless one.
How The English Language Is Taking Over the Planet
English is everywhere, and everywhere, English dominates. From inauspicious beginnings on the edge of a minor European archipelago, it has grown to vast size and astonishing influence. Almost 400m people speak it as their first language; a billion more know it as a secondary tongue. Is there any point in resisting?
Lifetime Free 1st Class Air Travel Pass: A Disaster
In 1982, American Airlines had an idea to offer a lifetime free first-class air travel pass to its wealthiest customers. The person holding this pass could fly on American Airlines at any time it wanted, to any destination it wanted, for as many times it wanted, for the rest of its life after paying a one-time fixed membership fee.
What Noma Did Next: How The ‘New Nordic’ Is Reshaping The Food World
In our time of climate crisis and inequality, as top chefs dream less of Michelin stars and more of changing the world, the New Nordic movement is reaching beyond haute cuisine into classrooms, supermarkets and parliaments.
How Two Lottery-Crazed Bank Clerks Cooked Up China’s Biggest Bank Robbery
On April 16, 2007, the fuzzy, grey star had just set, and the bustling streets cast further into darkness, when police detectives arrived at the Agricultural Bank of China. When detectives entered the vault, they were stumped. The suspects had left behind only one piece of physical evidence: a bag full of lottery tickets.
The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America
In one of the best decades the American economy has ever recorded, families were bled dry by landlords, hospital administrators, university bursars, and child-care centers. For millions, a roaring economy felt precarious or downright terrible.
The Woman Who Lives 200,000 Years in the Past
Lynx Vilden is a 54-year-old British expat who, for most of her adult life, has lived wholly off the grid. She doesn’t have cell service or WiFi. Until about ten years ago, Lynx also possessed no credit card, nor fixed address; her previous abodes had neither electricity nor running water.
The Dollhouses Of Death That Changed Forensic Science
Frances Glessner Lee created dollhouses with dead dolls. Her miniatures significantly advanced forensics and forensic science, but they aren’t just CSI curios – they’re complex, confounding works of art that manage to be morbid and beautiful at the same time.
The Everything Town In The Middle Of Nowhere
On any given day, thousands of packages from Walmarts, Targets, and stores around the country travel north along a two-lane road out of Billings, Montana — past the Tumbleweed Saloon, past cows grazing on empty rangeland, past the Busy Bee Cafe and stands of short pines — to the town of Roundup, where they will be unboxed, re-boxed, and sent off to Amazon.
A Long Walk’s End
On May 18 2015, the FBI announced the search for a 53-year-old accountant accused of embezzling $8.7 million from an Ohio-based Pepsi distributor had come to an end. His name: James T. Hammes. Authorities say Hammes took the funds through a series of banking transfers while working as a controller for the distributor. Then he went for a hike.
Extreme Loneliness Or The Perfect Balance? How To Work From Home And Stay Healthy
More and more people are working where they live and living where they work, attracted by the promise of greater flexibility. Beyond the lack of interaction with colleagues – there are no ideas by osmosis, no overhearing others talking – there is also the lack of interaction with the wider world.
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.