City dwellers have a reputation for being hardened and unfriendly. At the opposite extreme is the utopian rural community, where everybody knows everybody else’s name and is willing to lend a cup of sugar. Stereotypes like this have contributed to the notion that there is a deep cultural divide between urban and rural areas, especially in the United States.
American babies were given 29,910 distinct names last year. Of those, 1,100 were brand-new ones that hadn’t appeared in the data before 2017, new data on American baby names shows.
When people choose a new language to learn, they don’t generally pick the one that everyone around them already speaks. Germans don’t typically decide to double-down on their German. Danes don’t usually need to study Danish. Or so you’d think.
Venezuela’s presidential election will take place on May 20, amid various crises. Inflation is by some measures 18,000%, meaning basic food items can cost a month’s salary. Cash is worth so little that people are making bags out of it. The incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, is expected to rig the election.
This is a video of a nuclear-ready Chinese bomber aircraft landing on an island in the South China Sea. It marks the first time Chinese bombers are known to have landed in the area.
Today, a big wedding happened in the UK. There were lots of big hats.
After seventeen died in a February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the White House issued a list of ways in which it promised to “secure our schools.”
One Trump-family member can claim to be the inspiration for one of the fastest-growing American baby names. It is not Donald.
Oil companies don’t like talking about climate change. As the prime movers of fossil fuels, they’d probably prefer not to mention it at all. But sometimes outside pressure forces companies to do things they don’t like.
Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin made a bold claim: By the end of his current six-year plan, in 2024, Russia would become the world’s fifth-largest economy. That’s a big jump from its current position, at 12th, behind Canada and South Korea.
At its annual developer pilgrimage in California yesterday, Google announced Duplex, a new feature for its virtual assistant. Duplex aims to make the boring phone call a thing of the past. It automatically calls businesses, and can talk to humans on the line to make appointments, set dinner reservations, that kind of thing.
Taiwan was once considered an economic miracle. Now economic progress there has slowed to a halt as China, Taiwan’s imposing neighbor, grows bigger by the day.
In 2014, Panorama, an investigative news program produced by the BBC, brought a story about student-visa fraud to Theresa May. At the time May was home secretary, a high-level official in charge of immigration and citizenship.
Finding housing in New York is a struggle. A new app being advertised on the subway wants to help—but only if you speak Chinese.
Languages are dynamic. After just a few hundred years, the English of Chaucer looks bizarre to today’s readers.
Last year, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the only president in the history of Kazakhstan, declared (link in Kazakh) that the country’s writing system had to change. No longer would it be based on the Cyrillic script used by its former Russian colonizers. Instead, he announced, it will use the Latin script of English, German, and French.
The French elite has long been protective of its mother tongue. Its latest target: fake meat.
A new device, created by mad scientists at MIT, can accept commands that you say only in your own head.
The nascent trade war between the United States and China continues to escalate. A few days ago, China announced tariffs on 128 American products, covering close to $3 billion worth of US exports. Now, the Trump administration is preparing to retaliate, proposing import tariffs on 1,300 categories of Chinese products worth some $50 billion.
Americans have a reputation for being bad at learning languages. Now even fewer of them seem inclined to try.
Chinese internet users like to make fun of Kim Jong-un. When it was revealed that he was in a Beijing on a secretive diplomatic trip, they started posting references to him using names like “Kim Pig,” “Third fat kid,” and their favorite, “Kim Fatty.”
In 1910, just 5% of American babies named “Charlie” were girls. Over 100 years later, girl Charlies took over their male counterparts for the first time in 2016—making up 51% of the share.
A North Korean train unexpectedly rolled up in Beijing, Japan’s NHK reported earlier today (Mar .26), amid curious crowds and heavy security. Now Bloomberg is confirming the rumor that among the train’s passengers was none other than Kim Jong-un, the elusive North Korean leader, marking his first trip abroad.
In the midst of a truly awful week for Facebook, during which it was revealed that users’ personal data was harvested by a company working for the Trump campaign, users are threatening to delete their accounts en masse.
