The Washington Nationals and the Miami Marlins, two baseball franchises whose combined payrolls could bail out a modestly failing European bank, faced off last night in a contest that the global community greeted with the same polite indifference normally reserved for a UN subcommittee on agricultural tariffs. From the Maracanã to the Marina Bay Sands,…
ATHENS — The Acropolis did not crumble, the tourists still queued, and the ouzo kept flowing, which is the closest thing the planet has to a miracle these days. A 4.8-magnitude earthquake shook the Greek capital yesterday at 14:13 local time, rattling marble facades and reminding the world that, beneath every cradle of Western civilization,…
Royals vs Guardians: How a Pedigreed Pastime Became a Global Power Struggle The phrase “Royals vs Guardians” sounds like the elevator pitch for a Netflix fantasy series—complete with brooding heirs, moody castles, and a CGI dragon voiced by a disgraced Oscar winner. In reality, the drama is unfolding on baseball diamonds from Kansas City to…
Mets vs Phillies: Two Rust-Belt City-States Fight Over a Pastime While the Planet Melts By Ignacio “Nacho” Valdez, International Correspondent, currently hiding from his bar tab in Athens If you squint at the right moment—say, during a 3-2 changeup that dies in the humid Philadelphia night—the Mets-Phillies rivalry starts to look like a low-stakes reenactment…
Renée Zellweger and the Collapsible World Order By our correspondent drinking coffee in three time zones at once In the grand geopolitical casino, you wouldn’t normally bet on a Texan who once pretended to be British for two whole films. Yet Renée Zellweger—yes, the woman who made millions by squeezing into impossibly large knickers and…
Ann Ming: The Woman Who Turned a Mother’s Grief Into the World’s Slowest-Motion Revenge By the time Ann Ming finally watched her daughter’s killer convicted for a second time—14 years after he’d literally laughed at the verdict—the rest of the planet had already moved on to fresher horrors: two Gulf wars, the birth of social…
Retirement Planning: The World’s Most Expensive Waiting Room By Our Correspondent, presently in one of those “wellness” cafés that charge extra for existential dread ZURICH—On the polished parquet of Credit Suisse’s flagship branch, a septuagenarian in Loro Piana loafers is asking whether his 3-million-franc nest egg will still cover a flat white when he turns…
The Global Bazaar of Hope and Hubris by our correspondent in three time-zones and one existential crisis If you want to see humanity at its most optimistic and delusional in equal measure, skip the dating apps and go straight to the investment pages. From a glass tower in Singapore where a 29-year-old analyst just bet…
Coronation Street Spoilers: A Microcosm of Geopolitical Meltdown, but with Better Biscuits By Dave’s International Affairs Desk (and the intern who still thinks Weatherfield is a UN observer state) GENEVA — While the Security Council spent the week arguing over whose turn it is to veto human rights, a far more consequential power struggle unfolded…
Bermuda: The Atlantic’s Hand-Painted Mirage of Money, Moss, and Mild Existential Panic By Dave’s Locker International Desk Somewhere between the jet-stream and the 401(k) statements of hedge-fund divorcees floats Bermuda, a 21-square-mile pastel hallucination that insists—politely, in a crisp accent—on being taken seriously. To global capital, it’s a PO Box with a navy blazer; to…
Israel vs. Italy: When a Soccer Qualifier Becomes a Geopolitical Mood Ring Dave’s Locker, Tel Aviv–Rome Express, 5 June 2024 In the grand carnival of global sport, most qualifiers are polite affairs—ninety minutes of hair gel and mild cardiac stress, after which everyone flies home to argue on podcasts. Not this one. Thursday night’s Euro…
Paris, Thursday — The French government has fallen faster than a soufflé in a wind tunnel, and the rest of the world, nursing its own political hangover, is watching with the kind of sympathetic grimace usually reserved for a friend who just face-planted on the dance floor. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne handed in her resignation…
