Budapest, 3:07 a.m. local time—while the rest of the city nurses pálinka hangovers and debates whether the Danube is rising fast enough to solve the parliament-building real-estate problem, a man named Za’Darius Smith is simultaneously being discussed in five different languages on three continents. Not bad for someone whose surname sounds like an investment bank…
Pyongyang’s New Wet Suits: What a Rumored North Korean Navy SEAL Program Says About the World’s Favorite Hermit Kingdom Dave’s Locker | International Desk | By E. V. Mortensen SEOUL—Somewhere between the 37th parallel and the Sea of Japan, a man in a knock-off Crye Precision uniform is reportedly trying to grow a beard that…
Anna Kendrick and the Great Global Shrinking of Stardom By “Sergei” – our man in the departure lounge of whatever airport still has free Wi-Fi Somewhere between a NATO summit and the latest crypto-currency implosion, humanity has decided its most pressing geopolitical question is: what exactly is Anna Kendrick up to? In a world where…
Martina Navratilova: The Defector Who Beat the World at Its Own Game by Dave’s International Desk Prague, 1975. Somewhere behind the Iron Curtain, an 18-year-old left-hander with a serve like a guillotine and a mullet that mocked the very concept of aerodynamics decided she’d had enough of velvet revolutions and state-sponsored haircuts. She slipped out…
Jimmy Butler, the NBA’s resident philosopher-king in basketball shorts, has spent the last decade exporting a very American product—pure, weaponized spite—to every corner of the globe. From the frostbitten arenas of Minnesota to the pastel humidity of Miami, he has played the same tune: “You didn’t believe in me? Good. Let’s make this awkward.” It’s…
Novak Djokovic: The Last Sovereign of a Crumbling Empire By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk There’s a small, rectangular kingdom that exists wherever a tennis court has white lines and a net. It has no parliament, no currency, and no immigration queue—only a scoreboard and the faint smell of overpriced sunscreen. For the better part of…
Sergio García: The Man Who Turned a Golf Club into a Global Rorschach Test By Our Correspondent in a Café That Charges Extra for Existential Dread If you mention “Sergio García” in a Madrid tapas bar, a Dubai boardroom, a Tokyo driving range, or a Wyoming truck stop, the reactions split faster than a Brexit…
The World According to Alcaraz: How One 20-Year-Old from El Palmar Turns Global Panic into Forehand Therapy Dave’s Locker | International Desk | 14 June 2024 It is a truth universally acknowledged that whenever the planet feels as though it’s sliding down a compost heap of wars, inflation, and algorithmically generated pop stars, humanity demands…
Arthur Ashe Stadium, Flushing Meadows, New York—where the world’s best tennis players come to grunt in eight languages while a global television audience pretends to understand line-call replays. From the upper deck, you can see LaGuardia’s planes descending like anxious pigeons, reminding everyone that even aircraft want a closer look at a facility named for…
Novak Djokovic is no longer just a tennis player; he is a walking diplomatic incident wearing sweat-wicking polyester. To the untrained eye he chases fuzzy yellow balls, but to immigration officers, constitutional lawyers, and Balkan conspiracy theorists he is a one-man geopolitical crisis who happens to have a two-handed backhand. In the grand carnival of…
Shabana Mahmood: The Woman Reheating Britain While the World Burns By our correspondent in a climate-controlled bunker somewhere neutral Ladies, gentlemen, and whichever gender the algorithm assigned you today, meet Shabana Mahmood—Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, Shadow Justice Secretary, and, to the surprise of everyone who still thinks Britain’s biggest export is self-deprecation, a potential…
Norman, Oklahoma—population 128,000, longitude 35.22° N, latitude 97.44° W—doesn’t usually appear on the radar of the average Berlin stockbroker, Lagos software contractor, or Singaporean port-logistics clerk. Yet every autumn, when the Sooner Schooner rolls onto Owen Field and 80,000 crimson-clad pilgrims howl at a sky the color of dried blood, the University of Oklahoma football…
