Burnham Yard: The Tiny Patch of Rust That Just Taught the World How Not to Die By the time the last Union Pacific freight rumbled out of Burnham Yard last Tuesday, the Denver rail hub had already become an international parable. Not because it was particularly large—at 70 acres it could fit comfortably inside a…
Charlie Ming, the Man Who Outsourced Apocalypse GENEVA—While the rest of us spent the pandemic arguing over sourdough starters and which Netflix series most accurately predicted the collapse of Western civilization, Charlie Ming quietly built the algorithm that now decides whether your next shipment of baby formula leaves the port of Rotterdam. If that sounds…
Indianapolis: A Flat, Friendly Fiefdom Where the World Quietly Reboots By our man in the corn belt, still wondering why every flight here lands next to a steakhouse Most foreigners can’t find Indianapolis on a map that already has a red “You-Are-Here” arrow pointing at it. That’s a pity, because the city is a low-stakes…
Garnet Fire: The Global Inferno Nobody Ordered but Everyone’s Paying For By Our Man in Geneva, nursing his third espresso and a mild sense of existential dread GENEVA—At first glance, “garnet fire” sounds like the name of a boutique hot sauce marketed to people who own more than one bidet: artisanal, slightly menacing, and destined…
Asheboro, North Carolina—population roughly 26,000, median income politely described as “aspiring,” and home to the North Carolina Zoo, which proudly advertises itself as “the world’s largest natural-habitat zoo,” a phrase that sounds suspiciously like a dating-app bio—has become an improbable litmus test for whether globalization can be bothered to remember the small print on the…
When the London Underground coughs itself into another 48-hour industrial coma, the world does not exactly stop turning. Traders in Tokyo still open their screens, Lagos bus drivers still outrun physics, and São Paulo’s skyline keeps blinking like a gambler who knows the house always wins. Yet beneath the blasé shrug of globalization, the tube…
ATLANTA — Somewhere between the peach-scented humidity and the sudden, theatrical thunder that makes European tourists think the rapture has arrived, Atlanta’s weather has quietly become a geopolitical barometer no one asked for but everyone now consults. If you want to know how the planet is feeling on any given Tuesday, skip the IPCC report…
Dallas, Texas—never the shy type—has spent the last few weeks auditioning for the Four Horsemen. One moment it’s 28 °C and the cicadas are gossiping like hedge-fund analysts at a rooftop bar; the next, marble-sized hail is auditioning for the lead role in “The Day After Tomorrow: Suburban Edition.” International observers, once content to treat…
Spring Valley Fire: A Local Blaze with Global Arsonists By “Scorched” Santiago Vega, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker The first wisps of smoke rose above Spring Valley, Nevada, last Tuesday at 14:37 local time—just late enough in the day for European traders to notice the haze on their Bloomberg terminals and wonder if their algorithmic portfolios…
Good Morning, World: How “GMA Deals & Steals” Became the Soft Power Bargain Basement of the 21st Century By Henrietta “Hank” Delacroix, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker NEW YORK—While the United Nations Security Council bickers over commas in draft resolutions, a far more efficient form of geopolitics is unfolding at 8:07 a.m. Eastern inside a Times…
Global Product Recall: A World United in Mild Panic and Mildew By A. Cynic, Senior Correspondent, Somewhere Over International Waters GENEVA—This week’s planet-wide recall of the “ForeverFresh” smart refrigerator—marketed as the appliance that would “outlive your grandchildren” but instead appears to be trying to out-mold them—has achieved what decades of climate conferences and UN poetry…
Hurricane Hawaii: A Global Tempest in a Teacup, Served with Pineapple By Dave’s Locker International Desk HONOLULU—While the rest of the planet busies itself with wars, elections, and whatever Elon Musk tweeted at 3 a.m., the Central Pacific has coughed up Hurricane Hone, a Category-4 bruiser currently doing an interpretive dance around the Hawaiian archipelago….
