Arc’teryx Fireworks Display: When Outerwear Brands Decide to Burn Money for Sport By Lucía “No, That’s Not a Typo” Valdez, International Correspondent-at-Large Vancouver—The same city that once apologized for being too polite—twice—has now apologized for being too loud. Last night, the outdoor-apparel monolith Arc’teryx staged what it billed as “a vertical light symphony celebrating human…
**The M3 Manifesto: How a British Traffic Jam Became a Global Metaphor for Existential Despair** LONDON—In the grand theater of human suffering, few performances are as consistently underwhelming yet universally relatable as the M3 traffic jam. While the BBC dutifully reports “severe delays between junctions 9 and 14” with the same gravitas they might announce…
# The Global Pothole: How Asteroid Craters Remind Us We’re All Sitting Ducks Somewhere in the Yucatán Peninsula, there’s a 180-kilometer scar that serves as Earth’s most dramatic reminder that we’re essentially living on a cosmic dartboard. The Chicxulub crater—named after the Mexican town that now sits atop ground zero for the dinosaur apocalypse—has become…
Fireball Over France: A Cosmic Flash Mob Rehearses the End Times By L. Marlowe, International Affairs Desk (and part-time meteorite chaser) PARIS—At 21:43 local time on Tuesday, the skies above the Dordogne briefly resembled a deleted scene from a Christopher Nolan film. A neon-green fireball, described by witnesses as “a dragon’s sneeze” and by astronomers…
Athletics Schedule Today: A Global Parade of Sweat, Sponsors, and Existential Dread By Special Correspondent, Somewhere Over the International Dateline Today, from the frostbitten tracks of Reykjavik to the humidity-drenched infields of Jakarta, humanity’s finest sinewy specimens are dutifully consulting laminated timetables and wondering whether the 200-meter heats clash with their third anti-doping control of…
Colts vs Titans: A Forecast from the End of the World By our Special Correspondent in the Hotel Bar of a Depressed Airport NASHVILLE—Somewhere above runway 20R, a Lufthansa cargo jet groans south toward São Paulo, loaded with European pharmaceuticals and the existential dread of a continent that can’t quite decide if the next war…
Fireball Over the Channel: 2023 CX1 and the Planet’s Brief Collective Gasp By Our Correspondent in a Café Where the Wi-Fi is Named “ApocalypseLater” Somewhere between Dover and Calais, at 02:59 UTC on 13 February 2023, a lump of cosmic gravel no wider than a studio flat in London decided to go out in style….
**The Curious Case of Valentin Royer: How a French Extremist Became the World’s Problem** In the grand theater of global terrorism, where jihadists and white supremacists compete for headlines like rival streaming services, a new player has emerged from an unlikely market: France’s suburban extremism scene. Valentin Royer, a 27-year-old Frenchman who traded his champagne…
Ballon d’Or 2025: A Glittering Lie We All Agree to Believe Paris, 1 October 2025, 20:00 CEST. That’s the date and time the Châtelet Theatre will once again transform itself into a cathedral of selective amnesia. Mark it in your calendar—right next to the dentist appointment you’ll postpone and the climate summit you’ll ignore. For…
Berlin Marathon Tracker: The Global Panopticon We Happily Strap to Our Wrists By Our Correspondent, Still Somewhere Between Checkpoint Charlie and the Airport Bar If you want proof that humanity has surrendered to the gentle tyranny of metrics, look no further than the Berlin Marathon Tracker—an app so precise it can tell you, in real…
World Athletics Schedule 2024: A Global Itinerary of Sweat, Flags, and the Quiet Horror of Personal Bests Dave’s Locker, International Desk – 12 June 2024 If you unfold the 2024 World Athletics calendar and hold it up to the light, it looks uncannily like a boarding pass for humanity’s more delusional ambitions. The season begins,…
BAKU, Azerbaijan – While delegates at last week’s COP-adjacent energy forum were busy congratulating themselves on “transition roadmaps,” the sky over the Absheron Peninsula delivered a masterclass in atmospheric sarcasm: 38 °C in late September, a humidity index that could pickle a cucumber, and a wind that locals call the Khazri—essentially a hair-dryer aimed at…
