Mustafizur Rahman: The Cutter That Cut Through Geopolitics By Our Man in Dhaka, Nursing a Cup of Over-Street Tea To the uninitiated, Mustafizur Rahman is merely a 6’2″ left-arm fast bowler who grips a cricket ball like a barista handles a scalding latte—delicately, yet with lethal intent. To the rest of us, he is a…
Shubman Gill: The Accidental Messiah of a Nation That Can’t Decide Whether It Needs Saving or a Netflix Subscription By Our Correspondent, still recovering from a 3 a.m. doom-scroll in economy class NEW DELHI—In the blue haze of Narendra Modi Stadium—capacity 132,000, or roughly the population of Reykjavik poured into a concrete cereal bowl—Shubman Gill…
United Airlines Flights: How One Airline’s Schedule Chaos Became the World’s Shared Migraine By Desmond “Desi” O’Rourke, International Correspondent Geneva—From the glassy corridors of the Palais des Nations to the sweaty visa queues of Dubai, the same lament echoes: “My United flight’s delayed again.” What began as a charmingly American tradition—turning boarding passes into lottery…
Arsenal 3–0 Port Vale: A Friendly Reminder That the World Order Is Still Intact By Our Man in the Upper Tier, Nursing a £6.50 Pint There is something almost soothing in watching Arsenal, a club whose annual wage bill rivals the GDP of a medium-sized island nation, swat aside Port Vale, a team whose yearly…
Emma Watson: The UN’s Favorite Hermione and the Global Guilt-Trip Industry PARIS—If you’ve ever wondered what happens to a child star once the goblin-run bank of public affection finally forecloses on her magic, look no further than Emma Watson. Two decades after she first flicked a wand in the Great Hall, the now-33-year-old Brit has…
Fermi, the Enigma That Keeps the Lights On—and the Existential Dread Flowing by Dave’s Locker International Desk Somewhere between a Roman metro ticket and the edge of the observable universe sits Enrico Fermi, the chain-smoking, chalk-dust-slinging physicist who managed to be both the midwife of the nuclear age and its first critic. Mention his name…
**The Global Hunger Games: How America’s Mega Millions Became the World’s Favorite Fantasy** While inflation ravages purchasing power from Lagos to Lisbon, there’s one American export that remains blissfully immune to currency fluctuations: the dream of instant, unearned wealth. The Mega Millions lottery—America’s weekly exercise in mathematical masochism—has transcended its humble origins to become a…
MOLDOVA: THE WORLD’S MOST INTERESTING FOOTNOTE TRIES TO TURN THE PAGE By Our Correspondent, currently hiding from both Russian and Romanian linguists in Chișinău Somewhere between the Carpathians and the collective international yawn, Moldova has spent three decades perfecting the art of being forgotten. Sandwiched between Ukraine’s ongoing pyrotechnics and Romania’s EU-funded smugness, this sliver…
**Riot Stock: How Wall Street Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chaos** The world watched with mild amusement and growing horror as shares of Riot Platforms (RIOT) became the cryptocurrency world’s favorite financial yo-yo, proving once again that humanity’s capacity for speculative excess knows no borders—or apparently, any upper limit on cognitive dissonance. From…
**The Accidental Diplomat: How Precious Achiuwa Became Nigeria’s Most Effective Export Since Scam Emails** In a world where international relations have devolved into a glorified kindergarten playground—complete with name-calling, toy-throwing, and the occasional nuclear tantrum—it’s refreshing to witness diplomacy through the unlikely medium of a 6’8″ power forward who can dunk on your economy faster…
Dwight Howard Lands in Taiwan and the World Shrugs—Then Checks the Box Score By our sardonic foreign correspondent, still jet-lagged from watching civilization decline in real time Taipei—While the rest of the planet argued over grain shipments, hypersonic missiles, and whether Twitter will survive the decade, Dwight Howard—yes, that Dwight Howard—quietly signed to play for…
A Cuban-American dancer glides across a British ballroom, watched by 11 million Britons clutching their cups of tea and existential dread, while WhatsApp groups from Manila to Mexico City ping with the same question: “Who the hell is Janette Manrara, and why is my algorithm suddenly obsessed?” Welcome to the 21st-century fame centrifuge, where a…
