In perhaps the most powerful human migration wave in the world, heads of state, philanthropists and business leaders from hundreds of countries are flocking to New York City for the annual United Nations General Assembly. This week, they’ll have their work cut out for them, to right an increasingly rudderless global ship.
There is something so comforting and joyous about prehistoric figurines depicting women, particularly the small, curvy ones, so welcoming in the abundance of their forms, so buttery in their hard, stone body.
Since Italy’s government—run by a Five Star Movement-Lega coalition—was inaugurated on June 1, things have changed rather dramatically in the handling of migrants and refugees coming from Libya to Italy.
Instagram influencers, watch out: You’re getting some stiff competition from European Council president Donald Tusk.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh tends to use a particular phrase when he speaks to other members of the American elite about their activities behind closed doors: “What happens at [private school or club] stays at [private school or club].”
The 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA—pronounced /unga/ by those in the know) is back in New York City. From Sept. 18 until Oct.5, world leaders, philanthropists, activists and the occasional celebrity will crowd in and around the United Nations’ Manhattan headquarters to decide the fate of the rest of the world—at least in theory.
On Sept. 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico. It ravaged the island, and killed 16 people, according to the official death count. But thousands more Puerto Ricans died over the following months due to systematic failures, including a lack of electricity and health care.
As many as 10 million people may lie in the path of Hurricane Florence, which is bringing strong winds and a massive storm surge to the coast of the Carolinas, and is expected to dump more than a foot of rain on already-saturated areas of the eastern United States.
Hurricane Florence is expected to make landfall today, hitting the Carolinas and Maryland. In the past 12 hours, the storm has been downgraded from a potential category four storm to a category two. But the lower windspeed of a category two storm doesn’t mean that coastal areas on Florence’s path are out of danger.
American citizens can get daily updates on the government directly from the White House’s “1600 Daily” newsletter, which was launched in March 2017. The newsletter shares daily updates from the White House, together with a feed of positive news about Donald Trump’s administration (primarily from conservative outlets supportive of the government, such as Breitbart or the Washington Times.) Plus there’s an occasional satirical item (it once shared an article making fun of the president’s policies, which was presumably an accident.)
QAnon, the fringe conspiracy theory community centered around decoding clues from a supposed government insider called Q, has crossed a digital line. At least for Reddit.
As Hurricane Florence bears down on the US East Coast, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a $10 million hole in its budget—from funds that were diverted for Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants.
Building peace between Israel and Palestine is not “as difficult as people had thought,” Donald Trump claimed in May 2017. It was early in his presidency, and he had just met with Palestine’s president Mahmoud Abbas. In a joint press conference, Trump promised, “We want to create peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We will get it done.” Yet so far, the White House’s peace strategy appears to consist mainly of provoking Palestinians.
New York State governor, democrat Andrew Cuomo, and his progressive challenger, Cynthia Nixon, are scheduled to have their first (and likely only) debate tonight (Aug. 29). A lot will be on the plate: Cuomo will face his opponent shortly after it was made public that he received money from Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer during the same month in which he suspended an investigation on sexual assault charges against the producer.
The body of late senator John McCain will lay in state in Arizona’s state capitol in Phoenix today (Aug. 29), starting five days of commemorating his life in Arizona and Washington DC.
More and more active US service members are reporting sexual abuse. So are veterans—but a recent report found that at least 1,300 sexual trauma claims may have been wrongly declined by the Department of Veteran Affairs.
No rich country has a rate of maternal death (and near-deaths) comparably high to the US. The blame has been placed largely on how the US treats pregnancy and related emergency issues, but new data on deaths across the US (pdf) released by the country’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggest otherwise: there are systemic issues causing American women across all age groups, and particularly younger women, to die earlier.
Serena Williams is one of the greatest athletes of all time—and a global hero. Not only has she sustained a two-decade career, winning a mind-boggling 23 grand-slams (the most of any player, male or female, in the Open era), but she has done so while relentlessly fighting arguably the two biggest forces of social evil: sexism and racism.
With midterm elections just over three months away, and a sizable chance that Democrats win the House in their favor, US Republicans are bracing for a reckoning.
Legal fees are expensive, and Michael Cohen—whose commission to broker the sale of a luxury Hermes bag was $30,000 or at least 30% of a similar bag’s value—should know. He going to have to pay quite the bill once he’s done with his federal case.
Michael Cohen’s messy personal finances and complicated arrangements to hide Donald Trump’s alleged affairs were laid bare by the Department of Justice today (Aug. 21) as he pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges.
The “ultras” supporters of Lazio, an Italian Serie A soccer team that plays in Rome, are already infamous. Lazio ultra groups have pulled stunts like pasting stickers depicting Anne Frank with the t-shirt of their rivals, AS Roma, outside the stadium the two teams share, and have been known to sport swastikas, perform Fascist salutes, and gift new coaches with a fascio littorio, the bundle of wood that “Fascism” took its name from. Now they’re back in the news cycle, this time for attacking women.
The US has deported Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi Germany prison guard who had been living in the US for nearly 70 years.
With Brett Kavanaugh as Donald Trump’s nominee for Supreme Court justice, reproductive rights advocates are concerned that America might soon overturn Roe v. Wade, opening the way for conservative states to ban abortion.
