It’s being called the 2018 equivalent to “let them eat cake.” Almost a week into the US government shutdown, the federal office of personnel management finally has some help for their furloughed employees, who now face an indefinite period without pay.
It’s a tale as old as time, or, at least, the internet: None of us are reading any more, the physical book is dead, Amazon has killed the independent bookstore, and it’s all only going to get worse. But this year, the story looks like just that—a fiction. We are buying books—especially the kind with physical pages—and we’re doing so, increasingly, in well-loved indie bookstores.
On average, what does the most admirable man in the world look like? According to Americans, he’s white, in his late sixties, an American born to white American parents, straight, and a present or former US president.
It’s a holiday that should be on every culture lover’s calendar. Each year, Jan. 1 brings with it a day off from work for most, a fresh start in a new planner, and a whole load of free works of art tumbling out of copyright and onto the internet.
Pop quiz: Which 16th-century woman is thought to have been Britain’s first female professional writer and poet?
It’s the day before Christmas. Stockings are hung; fairy-lights are strung; turkeys are brined; children are primed; everything is ready to go. Well, almost everything.
When markets were good, US president Donald Trump was happy to take all the credit. Now, as bearishness intensifies after the worst week for markets in a decade, Trump wants nothing to do with it. And he’s looking for someone to blame.
More than 370 people have been killed and almost 850 more injured after a deadly tsunami struck Indonesian coastal towns in the Sunda Strait without warning on Saturday (Dec. 22). It’s believed the waves were caused by undersea landslides, precipitated by the volcanic island Anak Krakatau, also in the Sunda Strait. The island’s name—which means “child of Krakatau”—comes from the volcano beneath it.
US Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin announced this weekend that he would be convening the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets for a call today (Dec. 24) to discuss the volatility that has plagued markets in recent weeks.
It probably won’t be a happy new year for Carlos Ghosn. The former Nissan chairman was re-arrested in Japan today on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust. He faces as much as 20 days in detention.
It’s been a day of chaos—with no finish line in sight. A series of drone sightings near London’s Gatwick Airport grounded nearly 100,000 passengers, with dozens of flights rerouted to airports around Europe.
In September, a fire ripped through Brazil’s 200-year-old National Museum, destroying more than 90% of its collection of 20 million scientific and historical items, including statues, fossils, and irreplaceable artifacts. Both the museum and its contents seemed gone for good.
The short version: It’s the full moon that appears in December, coinciding with the astronomical start of winter in the northern hemisphere.
If everything were running smoothly, some 49,472 passengers would be flying into Gatwick Airport today (Dec. 20), while an additional 65,592 would be leaving. But everything is not running smoothly. Instead, following reports of drones flying over the airfield, the airport has grounded all flights (paywall)—in the middle of one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year—if you’re into stargazing. The last two weeks of 2018 bring with them all kinds of celestial displays, kicking off with the Ursid meteor shower.
In the space of barely a decade, Paul Klee went from being one of the most celebrated artists of his generation to having his works forcibly removed from Germany’s very best museums. Nowadays, of course, he is heralded as a great. Klee is among the best-loved artists of the 20th century, with retrospectives in such museums as London’s Tate Modern and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
The find was front page news, just as the original disaster had been. In September, 1985, the New York Times proclaimed: “Wreckage of Titanic Reported Discovered 12,000 Feet Down.” The famous ship’s remains were found at the bottom of the ocean by “a team of American and French researchers,” the paper reported, later clarifying that American researchers were scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
As of last year, the Netherlands was home to some 9,000 Tesla drivers—one for roughly every 1,900 people. Nearly three-quarters of them, according to figures released by the Dutch Board of Statistics, picked up at least one speeding ticket last year, beating owners of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, or any other car brand.
When Airbnb last month (Nov. 20) announced plans to suspend almost 200 listings in the West Bank, they were met with fury from Israeli politicians, who accused them of discrimination and “a disgraceful surrender” to the pressure of pro-Palestinian and human rights organizations alike.
It’s a find worthy of Indiana Jones: the tomb of an Egyptian royal priest and his family, left untouched for thousands of years in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, south of Cairo. Egyptian authorities announced the rare discovery on Saturday (Dec. 15), according to the New York Times (paywall). Excavation has been underway since November.
Over the next few days, many thousands of American high school seniors will receive what may feel like the most important news of their lifetime.
To the claims of bankers that working with women in the age of #MeToo is too risky, Richard Handler and Brian Friedman, the CEO and bank president of investment bank Jefferies, suggest an alternative view: “We cannot control the markets, but we can control how we act and behave.”
If you miss Comet 46P/Wirtanen this year, it probably won’t be your last chance to see it. The blazing celestial body passes near the Earth roughly every five and a half years. But just because you can miss Comet 46P/Wirtanen doesn’t mean you should—because this year’s appearance promises to be one of the best in four centuries. And if that’s not enough, it’ll probably also be the brightest comet visible in 2018. Comets are at their brightest when they reach their perihelion, or closest approach to the sun. For Comet 46P/Wirtanen, this will fall on Sunday (Dec. 16).
The UK spent $1.2 billion ($3.1 bilion, in today’s dollars) on a war to win back the Falkland Islands in 1982. Thirty-six years on, one of the 700-odd islands is now up for grabs—and you don’t even need to assemble your military to get it.
