Justice, American Style: Brett Kavanaugh as the World’s Favorite Reality Show By a Correspondent Who Long Ago Gave Up Explaining the United States to Anyone PARIS—On quiet nights along the Seine, you can still hear the faint clink of Bordeaux glasses as European diplomats toast the fact that, for once, the political circus isn’t theirs….
The world woke up this week to discover that the United States—largest debtor, loudest debtor, and self-appointed hall monitor of the global playground—has decided to re-decorate reality by executive fiat. Again. Donald J. Trump, now auditioning for the role of “comeback kid with a Sharpie,” signed a flurry of orders destined to ricochet through foreign…
Sun News, Earth Blues By our roving cosmic correspondent, still hung-over from last night’s aurora The Sun has been making headlines again—always a bit of a narcissist, that 4.6-billion-year-old ball of plasma. From Delhi’s smog-choked rooftops to Reykjavík’s geothermal spas, the latest “sun news” is that our star has entered a more exuberant phase of…
The American Primeval Reboot: A Global Audience Watches Uncle Sam Re-Enact His Own Horror Movie By the time the term “American primeval” began trending in seven languages, it was no longer clear whether the United States was staging a historical reenactment or simply filming a live-action prequel to The Purge. From Berlin to Bangkok, the…
The World Holds Its Breath While You Decide Whether to Start Jordan Addison or Zay Flowers by Diego “DraftKings Diplomat” Mendoza GENEVA—For a planet simultaneously on fire and underwater, the question thundering through 47 group-chats from Lagos to Lisbon this Wednesday is not about carbon credits, grain corridors, or the whereabouts of the missing submersible…
Jayden Higgins: The Unlikely Protagonist in a Planet-Wide Plot Twist By Our Man in Everywhere PARIS—In an age when a single TikTok can hemorrhage markets faster than a central banker’s sneeze, the planet has crowned its newest Rorschach test: Jayden Higgins. The name now ricochets through encrypted chat rooms in Lagos, appears on protest placards…
The Fate of One Knee in a Fractured World by Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk Geneva, 12 September – While the UN Security Council wrung its collective hands over grain corridors and microchip sanctions, 7,000 miles away in a climate-controlled practice bubble, Brock Bowers’ left knee became the single most monitored joint on planet Earth. The…
Reddit Goes Dark: A Planet Holds Its Breath While the Meme Mines Collapse By Our Man in the Ether, filing from an undisclosed timezone When the servers at Reddit HQ flickered and died at 03:41 UTC on a grey Tuesday—an hour when only insomniacs, Australians, and algorithmic traders are awake—humanity discovered, to its mild surprise,…
Facebook’s $725 Million Privacy Settlement: A Global “Oops, We Monetized Your Soul” Rebate By Our Correspondent, fresh from deleting cookies (the browser kind, alas the biscuit jar is still full) In the grand bazaar of geopolitics, where empires once traded spices and gunpowder, today’s hottest commodity is you—specifically, your taste in cat videos and your…
Joe Manchin, the Senator from a state most foreigners mistake for western Virginia, has spent the last few years perfecting a very particular art form: looking like the last adult in the room while quietly setting the room on fire. From Brussels to Beijing, policy watchers have learned to read his frown lines the way…
Blown Britannia: How a Small Island’s Breeze Becomes a Global Mood Ring By Our Man in the Jet Stream, filing from an airport lounge whose roof is currently somewhere over the North Sea LONDON—The United Kingdom has issued yet another “yellow warning” for strong winds, which is meteorologist-speak for “batten down the ornamental gnomes.” Gusts…
**Northern Lights: Earth’s Cosmic Nightlight in an Age of Blackouts and Bluster** From the frostbitten taiga of Siberia to the suddenly fashionable fjords of southern England, the aurora borealis has spent the last fortnight behaving like a drunken diplomat—showing up uninvited, glowing suspiciously bright, and reminding everyone that geopolitical borders are meaningless once you leave…
