“I’m scared of those women in chadors.” “There’s nothing to be scared of. Not all of them are supporters of the government. Look at my aunts. They dress like that.” “Yeah, but you can’t trust them. Look at the way they’re looking at me. I feel like they’re going to come and choke me. I’m [...]

Imagine the vast Pacific, with its rhythm of trade winds and currents, warming as though a fever were spreading across its surface. Fishermen along the coasts of Peru and Ecuador notice their nets returning empty, rains arrive where deserts once stood, and drought grips lands that once thrived. This recurring phenomenon is known as El [...]

As a physician, I have spent a career on the far side of a fact pattern I did not choose. This is the moment when something prescribed or administered goes wrong inside a body that trusted it not to. I have seen that more than once. It would be more comfortable to cast myself as [...]

There are evenings when I walk through my apartment as if the apartment were a badly designed republic whose entire constitutional order depends upon the imagination of one person, and I take upon myself, with a seriousness that is immediately undermined by the absurdity of the situation, the role of the president of the United [...]

On January 14, 2026, the US Department of State announced that it would suspend immigrant visa issuance to nationals of 75 countries beginning one week later. The stated concern was public charge: the State Department described the affected nationalities as at high risk of relying on public benefits. The instructions sent to US embassies and [...]

An Iranian court has announced that crude removed from the US-owned Advantage Sweet tanker has been sold for $36 million to $37 million. The proceeds, held by Iran’s judiciary, are intended to satisfy a damages judgment for 771 Iranians with epidermolysis bullosa (EB) over sanctions-related barriers to medical supplies. The vessel was released in 2024. [...]

Allegations of sexual violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) keep making international headlines: a UN mission’s finding of reasonable grounds to believe rape occurred during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks; Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times column detailing accounts of sexual abuse, including alleged gang rape, of Palestinian detainees; a Gaza flotilla activist’s [...]

Smoke fills the air, making it thick and palpable. The pollution creates an acrid stench that burns and is impossible to escape. Strikes on oil depots and energy plants cause black rain to fall from the sky, depleting the soil of the vital nutrients necessary to grow food and turning drinkable water sources acidic.  This [...]

For most people, data privacy is an abstract concern—something that matters in theory but feels distant from everyday life. That perception is changing quickly, and the legal landscape of 2026 is the clearest evidence of it. Across the world, regulators are no longer just writing rules about personal data. They are enforcing them at scale, [...]

Orchestrated voices are laying the groundwork for a constitutional amendment required to partition the four provinces. The Interior Minister, close to the Establishment (a popular term for serving generals and top bureaucrats), declared that the current system has collapsed and cannot deliver. The military spokesman, who periodically holds press conferences on state affairs, opined that [...]