Humboldt’s gift
Feature: Has politics really killed the humanities in America? Chad Wellmon on a red herring in public debate about the universities—and what you see when you start following the money.
‘No more elections here’
Briefing: In Nicaragua, why an 80-year-old president is clearing the way to hand power to his wife. In Iran, the truce the regime is secretly pushing for—and still swears it doesn’t need. + Why hasn’t Ukraine collapsed into autocracy?
To the victor …
The weekend despatch: In Budapest, the machinery of the old order, handed to the people who ran against it. A 25-kilometer crater in the Quebec bush that no one noticed for 390 million years. + How rare are creative multi-hyphenates in Hollywood?
All in favor
Briefing: An election the U.S.-installed government in Caracas has agreed to hold—and would rather not. Russia’s grain and Ukraine’s ports, each in the other’s sights. + Why have buildings gotten so ugly?
The language of beauty
Feature: Why have buildings gotten so ugly? Samuel Hughes on a status game that’s been playing out in contemporary architecture—and how elite taste may be starting to turn.
‘So-called international law’
Briefing: A campaign to take apart the world’s war-crimes court. An Ebola outbreak with four in five new cases unlinked to any known patient. + More and more countries are banning kids from social media. Will it work?
Oil, oil, everywhere
The weekend despatch: A petrostate lines up for petrol. The discovery in Egypt of a town that buried its dead with gold on their tongues. + Is time slowing down, or are jazz tracks getting longer?
Here we go again
Briefing: Ninety American targets over one night, and an unsettled question of who collects at the Strait of Hormuz. A president-elect’s call for Colombian soldiers to disobey the man still in office. + Why is the U.S. government going so easy on white-collar crime?
‘Someone knew, and someone was trading’
Feature: Why is the U.S. government going so easy on white-collar crime? John C. Coffee Jr. on how the White House is making corruption safe again.
The wizard of Tehran
Briefing: Iran’s supreme leader, missing from his father’s funeral—as from everything. The first Western leader in post-dictatorship Syria, with two bombs, a block from the hotel. + Do America’s biggest media platforms really change minds?
