Safra Catz, two syllables that sound like a Bond villain’s accountant, has quietly become the planet’s most powerful Israeli-born woman who doesn’t run a country. Instead, she runs Oracle, the Redwood City behemoth whose cloud contracts determine whether your local tax authority can process your return before the next ice age. From São Paulo tramways…
The Return of the Mutating Houseguest: COVID’s Latest Variant Does the Global Tour By Dave’s Locker International Desk It was bound to happen. After two years of polite applause for our collective efforts—mask theater, vaccine nationalism, and the world’s longest group chat with the WHO—COVID has graciously unveiled its newest remix: “Arcturus,” a sub-lineage of…
LONDON, 4:42 p.m. GMT—In the grand tradition of catastrophic news arriving just in time for the evening bulletins, Chelsea winger Noni Madueke has sustained what club sources delicately call “a significant setback to his left hamstring,” and what the rest of the planet calls “a spectacularly inconvenient tear right before the business end of the…
Graceland Goes Global: Lisa Marie Presley’s Final Curtain Call and the World’s Unshakeable Obsession with American Tragedy Byline: Dave’s Locker, International Affairs Desk LOS ANGELES—They say dying is easy, celebrity is hard, and being a Presley is somewhere between waterboarding and a Vegas residency. When Lisa Marie Presley collapsed at her Calabasas mansion on January…
**The Doctor Who Became a Diplomat: David Tennant’s Accidental Reign as Global Comfort Blanket** *From London to Lima, the Scottish actor has transcended mere stardom to become humanity’s collective security blanket—proving that in an era of existential dread, we all just want someone with good hair to tell us everything will be fine.* LONDON—While the…
The Hack: A Global Rehearsal for the Next Apocalypse By “Spengler in a Suit,” Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between a ransomware note written in Comic Sans and the sight of a Belgian chocolate factory grinding to a halt because its servers now speak only Russian, humanity received another gentle reminder that we are one…
**The Great Fortnite Reel Conspiracy: How a Video Game Easter Egg Became the UN of Digital Futility** GENEVA—While the Security Council debates grain exports and nuclear non-proliferation, a far more consequential code has been cracked in the fluorescent basements of global diplomacy: the Fortnite Reel Secret Code on Instagram. Yes, dear reader, in a world…
Wordle Hints: How a Five-Letter Grid Became the Last Neutral Border on Earth By Our Correspondent in Exile, somewhere with spotty Wi-Fi and cheaper whiskey PARIS—At precisely 00:00 GMT, a hush falls across time zones as if the planet briefly remembers how to synchronize. From Lagos to Lima, thumbs freeze mid-scroll, diplomats mute the crisis…
The sun never sets on the Bitcoin empire—partly because it’s too busy rising and falling every fifteen minutes. From the glass towers of Singapore to the blackout-prone suburbs of Johannesburg, the BTC price has become the world’s most unreliable heartbeat monitor: every spike a collective gasp, every dip a synchronized clutching of national pearls. In…
Steve Carell: The Last American Export the World Still Wants By the time the credits rolled on the final episode of *The Office*’s U.S. incarnation, the planet had already binge-watched Michael Scott humiliate himself in 192 countries, 47 of which had no offices to speak of. From Lagos internet cafés to Siberian railway berths, viewers…
**The Man Who Would Be Kingmaker: Ed Davey’s Global Appeal to the Chronically Undecided** In an era where world leaders stumble over their own red lines like drunken tightrope walkers, Sir Ed Davey has emerged as Britain’s answer to the question nobody asked: “What if we had a political leader who looked like your favorite…
In the grand carnival of global television, where Nordic noir meets K-drama and every nation now exports its own brand of brooding detectives, Steven Knight has quietly become Britain’s most reliable arms dealer—shipping melancholy, morally compromised protagonists to every corner of the earth. From the soot-choked streets of Birmingham to the neon-drenched alleyways of Tokyo,…
