Lisbon, City of Light and Dimming Futures By our correspondent in existential real-estate, still waiting for the tram that never comes If you stand on the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte at dusk, the Atlantic bruises the horizon while the Tagus River reflects the last euro your landlord just hoovered out of your wallet. Below,…
Countdown: Season 2 – When the World Holds Its Breath, Again By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk Geneva—If you listen very carefully above the hum of espresso machines in the Palais des Nations canteen, you can hear it: the low, collective murmur of diplomats rehearsing the phrase “red line” in sixteen languages. Countdown: Season 2 has…
Beyond the Gates: How the World’s VIP Rope Became a Geopolitical Fault Line By Our Correspondent, Somewhere Over the Pacific, Seat 47B For centuries, “beyond the gates” meant pasture land, graveyards, or the occasional dragon. Today it’s where the planet’s real decisions are made: the velvet-roped lounges of Davos, the blast-proof checkpoints of COP summits,…
Patrick Gibson: The Actor Who Accidentally Became a Geopolitical Barometer Dave’s Locker – Global Bureau, 12 June 2024 PARIS—In the grand carnival of 21st-century fame, where TikTok dentists become foreign-policy advisors and crypto bros lecture the G-20 on monetary policy, the case of Patrick Gibson is refreshingly modest. The 28-year-old Irish actor did not invent…
UMass Lowell: How a Former Textile Trade School Quietly Became the Canary in Global Higher-Ed’s Coal Mine By Our Man in the Commonwealth, Nursing a Dunkin Cold Brew and Existential Dread LOWELL, Massachusetts—Somewhere between the rust-red brick of a repurposed mill and the aggressively optimistic glass of a new “Innovation Hub,” the University of Massachusetts…
Paris—In the age when a TikTok of a cat sneezing can upend the Dow Jones, the curious case of LaMonica McIver has become the latest proof that geopolitics now behaves like a drunk algorithm. McIver, a city-council president from Newark, New Jersey—population smaller than a Shanghai subway car—has been elevated by the gods of cable…
007 First Light: When the Sun Never Sets on British Nostalgia By Correspondent at Large, Dave’s Locker Global Desk The codename “007 First Light” sounds like the title of an overpriced artisanal gin, but it is in fact the freshly unclassified designation for the United Kingdom’s next-generation signals-intelligence satellite constellation, launched last week from a…
Dwayne “The Smashing Machine” Johnson: When a Hollywood Titan Picks Up a Hammer, the World Listens By the time the first grainy TikTok clip surfaced—Dwayne Johnson, all 260 pounds of him, demolishing a cinder-block wall with a single, oddly elegant swing—global markets had already priced in the tremor. Tokyo’s Nikkei dipped 0.4% on “construction-volatility fears.”…
The United Nations has climate summits, Davos has its alpine power brunches, and the global poor have… MrBeast. Somewhere between the two-billionth view and the latest video in which he cures 1,000 blind people with the casual flourish of a man ordering dim sum, Jimmy Donaldson has quietly become the most influential foreign-aid program the…
MrBeast Tackles the NFL: When YouTube Philanthropy Meets America’s Most Sacred Violence Circus By Dave’s Locker International Desk If you woke up last week to learn that Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson had purchased the Carolina Panthers, congratulations—you’ve just witnessed late-stage capitalism’s newest halftime show. The rumor mill began whirring after Beast dropped a teaser video titled…
Julia Bradbury, the erstwhile queen of British rambling television, has unwittingly become the global canary in our collective coal mine. While she once merely guided middle-class English pensioners through Cotswold cowpats, her recent public battle with breast cancer has transformed her into an unlikely geopolitical barometer—proof that even the most anodyne celebrity can’t escape the…
The Gloria Funicular: Lisbon’s Vertical Escalator to the Human Condition By our Special Correspondent, still waiting for the elevator to self-respect If you stand at the foot of Calçada da Glória on any given afternoon, you will witness a tableau so perfectly absurd it could be commissioned by the United Nations as a cautionary exhibit….
