Spain’s constitution promises to ensure quality of life for todos los españoles—for all Spaniards. There’s just one problem: Some women feel left out by the language of their country’s law. Now Spain’s new deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, has embarked on a controversial mission to make the constitution more gender-inclusive.
South Korea has become the surprise soft-power mecca of the 21st century. American music and movies still make loads of money worldwide, but they seem increasingly passé and predictable. It is instead K-pop and Korean dramas that are providing the world with fresh sounds and storylines, catapulting the Korean boy band BTS atop the 2018 Time 100 reader poll.
Language is squishy and imprecise. Does “I think France will win the World Cup” mean you are near certain they will win, or does it mean you think they have just a slight edge? It could be either. Including words like “maybe,” “likely,” and “possibly,” can help, but are all perceived differently.
The world is really into memes. Reddit has its own meme economy, a community that appraises new formats as if they were stocks. The World Cup has spawned memes mocking the on-field overacting of Neymar, the Brazilian soccer star, in languages from Spanish to German, Dutch, Hungarian, and beyond. The many memes of China poke fun at Xi Jinping and call out out-of-touch celebrities.
Every sport has moments that, when mentioned, bring fans into a haze of dreamy nostalgia. Two people will, even if they are strangers, reminisce as though old pals, reliving the parts of the dream they remember best.
Linguistically, Belgium is complicated. The country is wedged between France, The Netherlands, and Germany. And so Belgians speak versions of French, Dutch, and German, depending on where they live in the country.
For a Brit trying to decide which foreign language to learn, French has long been an obvious choice. France is just across the English Channel, the language is widely spoken, and it is influential on the world stage.
US border agents use a computerized system to help make decisions about immigrants facing deportation. Given information about an immigrant—their criminal history, work status, likelihood of fleeing, and so on—the system suggests whether to “detain” or “release” them.
The US Department of Homeland Security has tried to assure the public that the migrant children it is detaining are well taken care of. “We provide food, medical, education and all the needs of the child,” DHS secretary Kirjsten Nielsen told the National Sheriff’s Association.
The town of Liberal, population 20,000, lies on the southern edge of Kansas, right where your thumb would be if you grabbed Oklahoma by its western-facing panhandle. The map around the town is barren. The nearest cities—Wichita, Oklahoma City—are hours away.
Germany is dealing with the national shame of Auftaktniederlage.
The word “hooligan” is one of those that sounds oddly like the concept it describes. Just as “glitter” sounds shiny and “lump” sounds lumpy, “hooligan” has a playful unruliness that suggests it is up to no good. Wear the wrong color jersey and it will smash a beer bottle over your head.
“For more than a decade, the Donald J. Trump foundation has operated in persistent violation of state and federal law governing New York State charities.”
T-shirts in Asia are politically fraught. Last month, Gap, the US retailer, apologized to China for making a t-shirt with a map that didn’t include Taiwan. Chinese tourists in Vietnam were also asked to change out of t-shirts that showed China’s claim on parts of the South China Sea.
Imagine hearing it five years ago: A cryptocurrency designed to facilitate marijuana purchases is backing Dennis Rodman’s trip to a peace summit between North Korea and the United States, led by Donald Trump.
LeBron James and Stephen Curry are two different kinds of great basketball players. One is mostly power. The other mostly touch. And they are pitted against each other in the NBA finals.
The Donald Trump presidency has brought with it an unending torrent of major news events. Every week seems to deliver new leaks, gaffes, summits, summit cancellations, firings, hirings, and of course, tweets.
The internet meme has gone mainstream. Once exclusively shared by nerds on message boards, email lists, and other parts of the old-school internet, memes are now spread by the tech-unsavvy billions of Facebook and Twitter.
A few hours ago, if you googled “California Republicans,” the search engine would produce an information box listing “Nazism” as the party’s primary belief system.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a three-day, nationally televised event in which more than 500 kids compete with one another to spell increasingly difficult English words. Over the years, it’s achieved the status of a cult sport. ESPN has broadcasted it since the first competition in 1994, and more than one million people tune in to watch the crowning moment of America’s smartest nerds.
To make it to the limelight of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, American middle-schoolers need to be able to spell some of the English language’s most obscure words. In 2015, the winning word was scherenschnitte, whatever that means.
Last week, US clothing retailer Gap apologized for printing a t-shirt that didn’t include China’s claimed territories, including Taiwan, South Tibet, and islands in the South China Sea. In doing so, it joined Marriott and Delta, which had previously triggered Beijing’s ire for maps-related issues. At the same time, a group of Chinese tourists to Vietnam generated outrage by showing up at a Vietnamese airport wearing t-shirts with a Chinese map including parts of Vietnam.
There was a time when Ashley was a fine name on its own. Then the simple letters “ey” fell out of fashion, replaced by a gang of four: e, i, g, h.
The NFL has declared that any players kneeling during the national anthem will now be hit with a fine. Looking at the racial breakdown of the league helps understand why.