STRAKA: A CURIOUS CZECH WORD THAT FLEW THE COOP AND NEVER LOOKED BACK By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk Prague, 3:17 a.m.—The night tram rattles past the National Theatre, and somewhere between the clatter of iron wheels and the last-call slur of tourists, a lone pigeon strafes an outdoor café. A Czech grandmother hisses “Straka!” and…
The planet’s most reliable diplomatic channel these days isn’t Geneva, Vienna, or even that soulless Marriott in Riyadh with the 24-hour hummus bar. It’s a paddock in Kentucky where a 1,200-pound quadruped with the IQ of a damp sponge is currently deciding whether to sign a free-trade agreement by trotting clockwise or counterclockwise. Welcome to…
Weather Forecast: A Global Séance Where Everyone Pretends the Future Still Obeys Us By Lila Moreau, International Desk PARIS—At 05:47 CET, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) supercomputer in Reading, England, coughed up its daily oracle: scattered showers over the Ruhr, a Saharan dust plume aimed at Marseille, and the obligatory “unseasonable warmth”…
The Global Cannibal Economy, or How Armie Hammer Became a Geopolitical Indicator by Our Man in Everywhere, Still Hungover from 2019 It began, as most modern scandals do, with screenshots. Messages—allegedly from actor Armie Hammer—detailed a culinary enthusiasm for human flesh that would have made Hannibal Lecter file for trademark infringement. Within hours the story…
The Curious Case of Sinclair: How a Three-Syllable Name Became a Global Rorschach Test By L. Marlowe, International Correspondent, Somewhere Over the Mid-Atlantic PARIS—To the average European sipping an €8 espresso, “Sinclair” sounds like the brand of an in-flight magazine you pretend to read while calculating carbon offsets. To a North American, it evokes either…
Nico Hoerner and the Quiet Art of Global Subversion By “Marcello del Viento,” roving correspondent, currently somewhere between Reykjavík and a dimly lit airport lounge Somewhere in the Sea of Japan, a salaryman streaming a grainy Cubs feed on his phone pauses his bento. In Lagos, a bus conductor toggles between Afrobeats and a pirated…
LISBON—Tonight, high above the Tagus, the floodlights at Estádio da Luz will do what they’ve done since 1954: pretend the rest of the planet isn’t quietly combusting. Somewhere between the 38th parallel and the 401(k) plunge, 60,000 souls will watch Benfica versus Gil Vicente, a fixture that sounds like the title of a minor Graham…
Weather Phoenix: When the Sky Decides to Rebrand, the World Gets Burned By the time the mercury in Phoenix hit 119°F (48°C) last week, the city had already exhausted the English language for “hot.” Locals were reduced to comparing the sidewalk to a George Foreman grill and describing their shoes as “flambé.” But the spectacle…
Stormers vs Leinster: A Small Ball, A Large World By Our Man in the Departure Lounge Cape Town – Somewhere between the roar of the Atlantic and the drone of the Boeing 777s stacked over the Winelands, two rugby provinces are preparing to murder each other politely on Saturday night. The Stormers—once a regional brochure…
NOTTINGHAM, England — Every October, when the northern hemisphere tilts reluctantly into winter and daylight becomes a rationed commodity, the city of Nottingham unclenches its civic jaw long enough to regurgitate the Goose Fair. One thousand odd years young, the event began as a medieval poultry pop-up where farmers hawked surplus geese before Michaelmas rent…
Blackpool’s Fireworks: A Pyrotechnic Mirror for a World That’s Already on Fire By the time the first shell arcs over the Irish Sea and detonates in a chrysanthemum of magnesium and regret, half the planet is watching—some via livestream, others through the grainy lens of a refugee-camp phone charger jury-rigged to a car battery. The…
Inflation Refund Checks: The World’s Most Expensive Apology Note By Our Man in Geneva, Still Waiting for His Own Check GENEVA—The latest fad in crisis management is neither a rate hike nor a stern op-ed, but a literal envelope stuffed with what economists call “inflation refund checks,” and what the rest of us call “hush…
