The world’s second-largest economy could be in trouble—and it risks bringing the global economy down with it. That’s the worst-case-scenario conclusion many analysts are tussling with after a slew of bad news out of China.
Donald Trump’s threat to declare a national emergency at the US border with Mexico is being taken so seriously inside Congress that a powerful committee is preparing a bipartisan challenge to the move.
It’s all the machines’ fault.
It’s being touted as the policy that might solve climate change, put the rich in their place, and get the US on track to being a haven of egalitarianism and opportunities for all. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, proposed a 70% tax rate on earnings over $10m, sparking dozens of think pieces and critiques and thousands upon thousands of tweets.
In the midst of the longest bull market in history, investors are starting to get nervous. What goes up must come down—but when?
It’s sometimes known as “millennial burnout”—even though the inability to complete seemingly uncomplicated tasks is by no means limited to one generation. In a viral tour-de-force for Buzzfeed, Anne Helen Petersen lays out the steps: paralysis, shame, and a failure to separate out medium-priority tasks from more pressing professional concerns. It’s all fed by overwork-fueled burnout that stultifies any effort to get things done, from completing paperwork for reimbursement to mailing a package.
With three years left in his current term, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim announced he will resign on Feb. 1 after six years in the role. Immediately after his departure, he will “join a firm and focus on increasing infrastructure investments in developing countries,” the World Bank said, promising that more details would be announced soon.
Investors agree: 2018 was a bad year for markets.
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.
