Copper rush
Feature: Why is there so much of it—and yet not enough to go around? Adam Simon on the “huge stakes” of global competition for the metal.
Hollowed-out in Hollywood
Feature: Why is Los Angeles’s entertainment industry in such crisis? Andrew deWaard on the shape-shifting effects of financialization and monopoly.
‘A casino in your pocket’
Feature: What’s online gambling doing to American society? Gerda Reith on the new “ecosystem” tech, finance, and marketing firms are cultivating together.
‘Profiting from incuriosity’
Feature: How did the open web go into such “rapid decline”? Michael Socolow on why search engines have gotten worse, old links no longer work, and the internet is increasingly siloed.
Empress of luck
Feature: Why is betting everywhere now? Gerda Reith on how it became so mixed up in sports—and then everything else.
One more great power
Feature: As America pulls back from global development, is China taking over? Pritish Behuria on what doesn’t change when the lender does.
The jagged frontier
Feature: Who’s got the best AI? Selina Xu on America’s intelligence explosion—and China’s “dark factories.”
An age of coercion
Feature: The post-Cold War economic order is crumbling—what’s taking its place? Nicholas Mulder on the forces behind the “phase shift” in the world economy.
The specter of Detroit
Feature: Can Europe save its auto industry? Sander Tordoir on how Chinese competition, American tariffs, and self-inflicted injury have put Europe’s carmakers on the brink.
‘A huge, flying conflict of interest’
Feature: What does Qatar want from America? Nick Cleveland-Stout on Doha’s massive influence operation in Washington.
