How Oxford University Shaped Brexit — And Britain’s Next Prime Minister
You turn the pages of yellowing student newspapers from 30 years ago, and there they are, recognisably the same faces that dominate today’s British news. Boris Johnson running for Union president, Michael Gove winning debating contests, Jeremy Hunt holding together the faction-ridden Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA).
I Stumbled Across A Huge Airbnb Scam That’s Taking Over London
As the short-term rental goldrush gathers pace, Airbnb empires are being rapidly scaled and monetized. This is the curious tale of a man called Christian, the Catholic church, David Schwimmer’s wife, a secret hotel and an Airbnb scam running riot on the streets of London.
The Invasion Of Venezuela, Brought To You By Silvercorp USA
It is the afternoon of Sunday, May 3, 2020, and Jordan Goudreau is confirming that a botched attempt to infiltrate Venezuela with a team of expatriate soldiers (and later, two U.S. citizens) on a hopeless mission to topple the government of President Nicolas Maduro is his doing.
The Invisible City: How A Homeless Man Built A Life Underground
After decades among the hidden homeless, Dominic Van Allen dug himself a bunker beneath Hampstead Heath, a vast open space that sits as a sort of green beehive haircut on top of metropolitan central London. His life would get even more precarious.
‘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.
Big Tech Takes Aim At The Low-Profit Retail-Banking Industry
After years of timidity Big Tech, with its billions of users and gigantic war chest, at last appears serious about crashing the fintech party. Amazon and Apple introduced a credit card. Facebook announced a new payments system and Google said it would start offering current (checking) accounts in America.
Flat 13: Facing Down Apartheid
This is the story of the apartment in downtown Johannesburg that, between the late 1940s and early 1960s, became a hub of resistance against apartheid.
The Best Hike In Every American State
Alpine scrambles and beach-front strolls; multi-day singletrack adventures and quick urban escapes; soaring trees and rolling sand dunes—every state in the country has something to offer intrepid hikers.
Why Aren’t More Millennials Having Kids And Becoming Parents?
I just got married a few months ago. Once my husband and I entered wedded bliss, we started looking to do married-people things that weren’t in the song: buy a house, get our 401(k)s figured out, assess health-care plans. But the baby in the baby carriage? For now, the kid question hangs between us, unanswered.
How Half A Tonne Of Cocaine Transformed The Life Of An Island
In 2001, a smugglers’ yacht washed up in the Azores and disgorged its contents. The island of São Miguel was quickly flooded with high-grade cocaine – and nearly 20 years on, it is still feeling the effects.
The Man Who’s Going To Save Your Neighborhood Grocery Store
American food supplies are increasingly channeled through a handful of big companies: Amazon, Walmart, FreshDirect, Blue Apron. What do we lose when local supermarkets go under? A lot — and Kevin Kelley wants to stop that.
“You’re Essentially A Prisoner”: Why Do Dubai’s Princesses Keep Trying To Escape?
First Princess Latifa tried to flee by boat and almost made it to India—before being sent back. Then Princess Haya, Sheikh Mohammed’s “public wife,” refused to return from England. Now the sheikh is battling her in court over their children.
The Quickest Way To Fix Presidential Elections
Abolishing the Electoral College and creating a national popular vote are far-fetched ideas for now. But there’s a more targeted way to reform American elections by 2020—starting with the swing states.
Other Countries Have Elected Women Leaders for Decades. Why Can’t America?
In American politics, a woman’s gender acts as both an invisible adherent and a tight constraint: it’s harder to shake off mistakes, harder to pivot, harder to throw punches and harder to avoid them. Sexism is transparent, easy to look through if you don’t want to see it, which makes it possible to pretend it isn’t there at all.
Why You Shouldn’t Exercise To Lose Weight, Explained With 60+ Studies
We’ve been taught for years that as long as you hit the gym you can hit the buffet line and still lose weight. But there’s plenty of science out there to prove this statement false.
The Case Of The Empty Frames Remains Art World’s Biggest Mystery
What happened at the Gardner Museum has become the most famous art heist ever, not only because of the money involved—$500 million, making it the largest art theft in history—but also because of the countless FBI agents, private detectives and art dealers who’ve tried and failed to solve it.
I Survived the Warsaw Ghetto. Here Are the Lessons I’d Like to Pass On.
As a Polish Jew born in 1925, who survived the Warsaw ghetto, lost my family in the Holocaust, served in a special operations unit of the Polish underground, the Home Army, and fought in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, I know what it means to be at the sharp end of European history – and I fear that the battle to draw the right lessons from that time is in danger of being lost.
The Invention Of Money
When the Venetian merchant Marco Polo got to China, he saw many wonders. One of the things that astonished him most, however, was a new invention, implemented by Kublai Khan, a grandson of the great conqueror Genghis. It was paper money, introduced by Kublai in 1260.
Cash For Kim: North Korean Forced Laborers In Poland
On its website, the CRIST shipyard advertises that they build ships for various clients throughout Europe. And we know that North Koreans are still working here today. VICE gained exclusive access to documents that reveal the wages of North Korean laborers in Poland before the Kim regime’s deductions.
Why Ban Dollar Stores?
Dollar-discount stores get the blame for “food deserts”—neighborhoods without supermarkets. It’s claimed, these stores drive out supermarkets with their low prices and saturate poor neighborhoods with junk food. But are dollar stores really to blame for bad diets?
The Case Against Boeing
In the wake of the 737 MAX disasters, caused by a software feature, Boeing and regulators initially placed blame on the planes’ pilots. Since Samya Stumo’s death in a 737 MAX crash, her parents and her great-uncle, Ralph Nader, have devoted themselves to proving that the company put profit over safety.