Eurobasket 2025: When the Continent’s Fractured Egos Learn to Share One Orange Ball and a Trophy By the Global Affairs Desk, Dave’s Locker Berlin—The biennial festival of hardwood nationalism known as Eurobasket has rolled back into town, and once again Europe is pretending that twenty-four countries can resolve centuries of mutual suspicion by sweating through…
American Eagle Outfitters—ticker symbol AEO, for anyone still pretending retail tickers are more than three-letter horoscopes—has spent the year behaving like a jet-lagged tourist: stumbling out of bed in Pittsburgh, checking its passport, and suddenly discovering the rest of the planet exists. The stock is up roughly 60 % since January, a figure that sounds…
Turkey vs Serbia: When Two Middle Powers Decide to Throw Elbows in the Balkan Playground By the time you read this, the latest diplomatic “flare-up” between Ankara and Belgrade may have already been memory-holed by the next algorithmic outrage. Still, for those keeping score on how small, proud nations weaponize history, the Turkey–Serbia spat is…
Countdown: Season 2 – When the World Holds Its Breath, Again By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk Geneva—If you listen very carefully above the hum of espresso machines in the Palais des Nations canteen, you can hear it: the low, collective murmur of diplomats rehearsing the phrase “red line” in sixteen languages. Countdown: Season 2 has…
Beyond the Gates: How the World’s VIP Rope Became a Geopolitical Fault Line By Our Correspondent, Somewhere Over the Pacific, Seat 47B For centuries, “beyond the gates” meant pasture land, graveyards, or the occasional dragon. Today it’s where the planet’s real decisions are made: the velvet-roped lounges of Davos, the blast-proof checkpoints of COP summits,…
UMass Lowell: How a Former Textile Trade School Quietly Became the Canary in Global Higher-Ed’s Coal Mine By Our Man in the Commonwealth, Nursing a Dunkin Cold Brew and Existential Dread LOWELL, Massachusetts—Somewhere between the rust-red brick of a repurposed mill and the aggressively optimistic glass of a new “Innovation Hub,” the University of Massachusetts…
Marvel Rivals: When Super-Powers Collide in the Shadow of Real-World Chaos By Our Man in the Multiverse In the grand tradition of pitting gods against each other for our mild amusement, Marvel Entertainment has once again invited the planet to watch its costumed demigods punch each other through digital skyscrapers. Marvel Rivals—the freshly announced 6-v-6…
Warsaw, 2024 – Somewhere between the Vistula’s lazy bend and the next EU summit, Poland has quietly become the world’s most over-qualified cautionary tale. Thirty-five years after the Berlin Wall’s souvenir hawkers packed up, the country sits at the geopolitical equivalent of the last booth in a 24-hour diner: everyone ends up there eventually, the…
Honduras: The Little Republic That Couldn’t Catch a Break By Dave’s Locker International Desk (with a stiff cup of contraband coffee) If global geopolitics were a dinner party, Honduras would be the guest who arrives early, helps set the table, and still gets seated next to the drunk uncle who keeps spilling merlot on the…
ABTC Stock: From a Quiet Nevada Lab to the World’s Lithium Chessboard By Dave’s Locker International Desk When American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) closed Monday at US $1.47—up 38 % in five sessions—day-traders in New York saw a meme revival. Half a world away, however, the ripple was felt on three continents where governments are…
Gold’s Quiet Rally: Why GLD Is Suddenly the Whole World’s Hedge By Dave’s Locker International Desk LONDON—On trading floors from Tokyo to Toronto, one three-letter ticker has muscled its way back onto every macro strategist’s screen: GLD, the SPDR Gold Shares ETF. After months of listless drifting, the world’s largest bullion-backed fund has surged 11…
