Diplomatic cars are special. In the US, they get distinctive blue and red license plates, are exempted from taxes, and because of diplomatic immunity their drivers don’t have to pay parking tickets—though there are sometimes repercussions if they don’t.
The song “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X is the surprise hit of 2019. Using the Atlanta rapper’s musical methodology, we tried to make the next one.
The fleet of diplomatic cars driven in the US has its quirks:
Thirty years ago it would have been unimaginable, but thanks to a better understanding of data it’s about to happen for third time this decade.
The number of Americans who identify as bisexual is on the rise. According to recently released data from the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS), a nationally representative survey of people in the US collected every two years, over 3% of US adults say they are bisexual (a sexual identity in which someone is attracted to people of their gender or other genders). This is up from just over 1% in 2008. (The GSS allowed individuals to self-classify as “heterosexual or straight,” “gay, lesbian, homosexual,” “bisexual,” or “don’t know.”)
The Republican National Committee, pro-Trump super PACs, and Republican political candidates spent almost $100,000 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC during the first quarter of 2019, according to Quartz’s review of new Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings.
People have long dreamed of moving to California, but increasingly the people in the state are looking to get out.
The Korean pop band BTS is almost certainly the biggest band in the world right now, and on April 12 it released its most anticipated album, Map of the Soul: Persona. It is the music of triumph.
Americans are anxious. We’re suffering from economic anxiety, political anxiety, social media overload, neuroexistentialism, and plain old FOMO. And in CBD, many hope to find a cure for this modern condition.
April 15 is the due date for people in the US to pay their taxes. Most are way ahead of the game.
It’s not often that a country song tops the Billboard Hot 100, the influential US music chart used to rank the country’s most popular songs. Country classics of the last several decades like LeAnn Rimes’ “How Do I Live,” Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart,” and Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” all reached the top ten, but could not crack number one. (Twain should have named her song “You’re Still Not Quite the One”).
In the 1930s, economist John Maynard Keynes was trying to figure out why unemployment was so high during recessions. Keynes decided one important reason was that people really hated pay cuts. If an employer told a worker that they would have to work for $1 an hour rather than $3, he thought they would just up and quit. In tough times, then, employers faced the choice of keeping employees on their current wages or firing them; keeping people in jobs, but at lower wages, was not a viable option, according to Keynes.
Increasing inequality is now at the center of world policy debates, and there is perhaps no person more responsible for that than French economist Thomas Piketty.
Six years after its release date, the Disney musical Frozen remains the most popular animated film of all time. The teaser trailer for the November sequel, Frozen II, has drawn more than 36 million views since appearing on YouTube last month. There’s no singing in it, but for many viewers the mere sight of Elsa, Anna, Kristof, and the gang is likely to trigger “Let It Go”-induced flashbacks.
Economist Alan Krueger died over the weekend, at age 58. It is a major loss for the economics profession, and also for the low-income workers who were the focus of Krueger’s research.
There are few better feelings than discovering a new band you love. It’s the feeling of knowing you have months or years of listening pleasure ahead of you. Perhaps a live show to anticipate too.
The US Justice Department recently released details on a criminal cheating conspiracy that prosecutors say helped rich parents get their kids into elite colleges. Parents allegedly paid around $25 million over eight years by parents to the founder of a college-preparation business, who would use the money for bribes to allow cheating on college entrance exams and get college sports coaches to designate students as recruits for their teams.
The first jars of pureed fruits and vegetables marketed as baby food appeared on US grocery shelves in the late 1920s. Parents rejoiced. By the 1950s, 90% of US babies were slurping up store-bought purees. Marketed as a convenient, modern, healthy way to nourish an infant, prepackaged baby food was an unchallenged staple of the American infant diet for decades.
On Feb. 22, Korean pop band Z-Girls released their debut song. In most ways, “What You Waiting For” is standard K-pop fare—catchy, melodically complex, and filled with vapid come-hither lyrics.
You really can’t trust China’s official GDP statistics. That is the gist of an explosive new research paper by economists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Chicago.
Americans worry about limiting the screen time of their children. They might be worried about the wrong generation.
It’s unusual for a solo star to thrive in the cutthroat world of Korean pop music. Now a $5 billion global industry, K-pop, as its passionate followers across the world call it, is most recognizable for its girl and boy groups who train for up to 10 years before ever setting foot on stage. These groups, sometimes made up of more than eight people, accompany their songs with elaborate choreography, making it hard to stand out in the fierce competition as a solo artist.
For a song to make an artist money on Spotify, it must be played for at least 30 seconds. Solange doesn’t seem to care.
The gig economy has side effects. In addition to creating a new set of jobs and income sources for people across the world, companies like Airbnb and Uber also spur demand for some surprising products. Airbnb hosts and Uber drivers have needs, like soap and shampoo dispensers and multi-device cell phone chargers, and manufacturers are here to service them.
