Part I: When a Murder Becomes a Question On 23 May 2025, Raja Raghuvanshi and his wife Sonam began the climb back from Nongriat, a village in Meghalaya famous for its living root bridges. They had been married for less…
Standfirst The 2026 FIFA World Cup has spent two weeks spreading itself across a continent. The knockout stage must now turn that sprawl into a single story. In doing so, it exposes one of the digital economy’s quiet limitations: it…
Standfirst: Summer in Europe was once an economic asset. Now, it is exposing the hidden vulnerabilities of a continent built for a climate that no longer exists.Along the East Coast Main Line in the United Kingdom, track engineers have spent recent…
Standfirst Artificial intelligence can generate almost anything instantly. It still cannot generate history. As digital technology makes content abundant, trust has become the one asset AI cannot manufacture. Article Before the first ball is struck at Wimbledon, another contest has…
Standfirst The largest Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak on record has exposed more than a gap in vaccine preparedness. It has revealed a deeper pattern: societies consistently mobilize extraordinary resources once crises begin but struggle to sustain the investments that could prevent…
Standfirst A farmer who cannot repair his own tractor. A driver asked to pay every month for heated seats already installed in the car. Customers discovering that television shows they purchased have disappeared from their digital libraries. These incidents seem…
Standfirst Oracle reduced its workforce by roughly 21,000 employees while preparing to spend about $70 billion expanding AI infrastructure. Across Silicon Valley, companies are making similar decisions. The layoffs and the spending spree look like separate stories. They are not.…
Standfirst For three decades, the internet rewarded those who created more information. Generative AI is overturning that bargain. As content becomes abundant and inexpensive to produce, economic power is shifting toward the companies that decide what billions of people see,…
Technology companies have spent decades monetizing information, entertainment and attention. Artificial intelligence is opening a new commercial frontier: emotional connection. When Google agreed to pay roughly $2.7 billion in 2024 to license technology from Character.AI and rehire its founders, Noam…
Birth rates are falling almost everywhere. The bigger surprise is that many people still want larger families but increasingly struggle to achieve them. Nearly one in five adults worldwide believe they will not have the number of children they want.…