GLOBAL FENDER-BENDERS & THE MERCENARIES WHO LOVE THEM A dispatch on car-crash lawyers from our correspondent who once watched a Lagos traffic jam swallow an ambulance whole Lagos, 8:03 a.m. The danfo minibus kisses the rear bumper of a freshly-imported Tesla—an unholy union of 1990s carburetor and 2020s firmware. Within seconds, two men in fluorescent…
The Transnational Ballet of Gargantuan Steel and Litigious Grace By Diego “Diesel” Morales, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between the Malacca Strait and the M6 outside Birmingham, an eighteen-wheeler hauling Vietnamese sneakers took a corner too fast, scattering its cargo like a piñata of global capitalism. Within minutes, a German insurer, a Singaporean logistics firm,…
NEWSROUND: THE PLANET’S DAILY DOSE OF WHIPLASH, NOW WITH EXTRA SCHADENFREUDE By Our Correspondent, filed from Somewhere with Spotty Wi-Fi The word “newsround” used to sound quaint—like something a BBC announcer chirped between puppet segments while your toast burned. Today, however, it is the metronome of global anxiety: an endless, algorithm-curated carousel of triumph and…
Cincinnati Weather: A Global Parable in Fahrenheit Geneva—While the Security Council debates grain corridors and methane pledges, an equally decisive front is shaping up 4,200 miles away on the banks of the Ohio River. Cincinnati, population 309,000, is currently auditioning for the role of “Atlantis with Skyline Chili.” The city has spent the last month…
Hawaii News Now: Sunrise from the Edge of Empire By Our Man in the Lagoon, filed via coconut-scented sat-phone Somewhere between the ninth breaking-news push alert and the tenth advert for reef-safe sunscreen, the global viewer is reminded—via Hawaii News Now—that paradise is not immune to the algorithmic indigestion afflicting the rest of the planet….
Today’s Weather: A Global Forecast of Mild Panic, Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Existential Dread By Dave’s Locker International Bureau (a.k.a. one slightly jet-lagged correspondent with a dying phone battery) Good morning, afternoon, or whatever temporal fiction you’re clinging to in your corner of the planet. While you debate whether that suspicious cloud is…
Sun vs. Sky: A Global Cage Match Sponsored by Existential Dread Dave’s Locker, International Desk – 12 June 2024 Somewhere above the Malacca Strait, a container ship the length of a small principality steams east while its captain squints at the sun like a man trying to read the fine print on a doomsday contract….
Martha’s Rule: When the World Learns to Listen—Sort Of By Dave’s Locker International Desk Geneva—Another week, another acronym. This time it’s “Martha’s Rule,” a protocol named after a 13-year-old London schoolgirl who died of sepsis in 2021 because nobody in the hospital bothered to ask the patient—or her parents—what they thought. In simpler terms, the…
London’s Tube Strikes Go Global: A Tale of Rust, Rage, and the Universal Art of Not Getting to Work By the time the first picket sign hit the pavement outside King’s Cross, the ripple was already lapping at distant shores. Commuters from São Paulo to Singapore glanced up from their phones to discover that London—once…
Today’s Weather: A Global Forecast of Mild Panic with a Chance of Existential Dread By Dave’s Locker International Desk Geneva, 07:14 UTC—If you squint at the synoptic charts long enough, the planet resembles a feverish patient whose temperature keeps spiking every time the nurse turns her back. From Anchorage to Addis Ababa, today’s weather is…
Birmingham, England—where the weather has always been a reliable punchline—recently delivered a masterclass in meteorological passive-aggression. A bruised-purple sky dumped golf-ball hail on the Bullring, flash-flooded the A38, and then sauntered off like a drunk who’s just keyed your car. Locals responded with the traditional stiff-upper-lip shrug: “Could be worse; could be Leeds.” Yet, from…
Hurricane Hawaii: A Global Tempest in a Teacup, Served with Pineapple By Dave’s Locker International Desk HONOLULU—While the rest of the planet busies itself with wars, elections, and whatever Elon Musk tweeted at 3 a.m., the Central Pacific has coughed up Hurricane Hone, a Category-4 bruiser currently doing an interpretive dance around the Hawaiian archipelago….
