How America Ends
The United States is undergoing a transition perhaps no rich and stable democracy has ever experienced: Its historically dominant group is on its way to becoming a political minority—and its minority groups are asserting their co-equal rights and interests.
Killer, Kleptocrat, Genius, Spy: The Many Myths Of Vladimir Putin
Putin’s recent ubiquity has brought great prominence to the practice of Putinology. This enterprise – the production of commentary and analysis about Putin and his motivations, based on necessarily partial, incomplete and sometimes entirely false information – has existed as a distinct intellectual industry for over a decade.
The Making Of A Bedsit Nazi: Who Was The Man Who Killed Jo Cox?
Thomas Mair shot and stabbed the British MP as she made her way to a constituency surgery at the local library in Birstall, West Yorkshire, on 16 June 2016, a week before the EU referendum. He told the two police officers who arrested him that he was a “political activist”.
Donald Trump’s Worst Deal
The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Trump Tower Baku never opened.
Staring At A Digital Black Hole
On the morning of November 16, 2019, we, the exiled Iranians, woke up and like billions of other internet addicts in the world immediately checked our phones, only to realize that Iran had been cut off from the global internet.
What Happened To Donald Trump’s $365 Million Airline?
For a short time in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Donald Trump owned an airline. In 1989, Trump raised $365 million to purchase the Eastern Shuttle. Within 18 months, the airline lost over $125 million, and by 1992, Trump decided it was time to walk away.
‘It’s Been Hell’: Inside The Town Where Trumpers Are Building A Private Wall
Either as a demonstration of loyalty to the president or, in the case of one developer, a bid for lucrative government contracts, some private citizens are furiously erecting their own barriers along the Southwest border. The latest iteration, the three-and-a-half-mile Rio Grande Valley wall, is now nearly complete.
How Public Housing Fails, And Why
There was a time when public housing served a different purpose — that it served fairly well the people who lived in it, that it was safe and decent housing, and that it did help people as a sort of stepping stone. It was a different demographic that it was serving in that way.
The Proto-Communist Plan To Resurrect Everyone Who Ever Lived
Nikolai Fedorov, a nineteenth-century librarian and Russian Orthodoxy philosopher, went so far as to call the resurrection project “the common task” of humanity, calling for the living to be rejuvenated, the dead to be resurrected, and space to be colonized specifically to house them.
The Secret Rules Of The Internet
Many US-based companies continue to consign their moderators to the margins, shipping their platforms’ digital waste to “special economic zones” in the Global South. The murky history of moderation, and how it’s shaping the future of free speech.
How One Town Developed A New Way To Police
Renton, Washington, has become a national model for inclusive governing. Nearly 12 years of work with its growing communities of color helped Renton and its police force defuse the racial tension that sits below the surface of much of urban America.
What Happens When Immigrant-Rights Advocates Reach A Breaking Point?
There has arguably never been a worse time to be an asylum seeker in the United States. This is due, in part, to an administration that has taken a xenophobic approach to immigration, with an openly hostile stance toward asylum seekers and their advocates.
Highly Secretive Iranian Rebels Are Holed Up in Albania. They Gave Us a Tour.
In a valley in the Albanian countryside, a group of celibate Iranian dissidents have built a vast and tightly guarded barracks that few outsiders have ever entered. Depending on whom you ask, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Jihadists, are either Iran’s replacement government-in-waiting or a duplicitous terrorist cult.
How The CIA Turned The Tables On Soviet Industrial Espionage
When French President Mitterrand tells President Reagan in July 1981 that the KGB has been stealing Western technology, it confirms Reagan’s distrust of the Soviet Union. Reagan fears that stolen technology will help the Soviet Union complete a giant engineering project, the Trans-Siberian pipeline.
Saudi Arabia: What Happens When The Oil Stops
Mohammed bin Salman is about to find out what happens when the world does not need his oil. In the past, the standard response to that hypothesis was condescending looks. Not any more. The prospect of Saudi becoming a debtor nation is real.
America’s Cocaine Habit Fueled Its Migrant Crisis
During the 90s, traffickers started shipping their drugs through Central America and over land to Mexico. That created a violent and competitive turf war between gangs and organizations in Guatemala and Honduras, and after the governments cracked down, violence only increased, forcing people to flee, often to the US.
Mapping America’s Stark Wage Inequality
One of the most important economic stories of the past couple of decades is the rise of economic inequality in the United States and around the world. Since 1980, economists say, wage growth for the highest-paid workers has been roughly triple that for the lowest paid. In some cities, the disparity is wider.
What Do We Do With Robert E. Lee?
The president of Washington and Lee University, Will Dudley, understood the depth of his problem the moment he turned on the television and saw hoards of white men in collared shirts and khakis carrying tiki torches as they marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.
The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign To Reelect The President
After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.
The Man At The Center Of Brussels Spy Probe
A flamboyant former EU ambassador with a fondness for plaid bow ties and a taste for the finer things in life, Gerhard Sabathil is the man German authorities suspect was at the center of a clandestine Chinese operation aimed at delivering European secrets to Beijing.
What Do Political Databases Know About You?
American citizens are inundated with political messages—on social networks, in their news feeds, through email, text messages, and phone calls. If you live in the US, you’re almost certainly being tracked by political organizations. They know a lot about you—but some data is just guesswork.