China’s Naked Emperors

Politicians who preside over economic booms often develop delusions of competence. You can see this domestically: Jeb Bush imagines that he knows the secrets of economic growth because he happened to be governor when Florida was experiencing a giant housing bubble, and he had the good luck to leave office just before it burst. We’ve seen it in many countries: I still remember the omniscience and omnipotence ascribed to Japanese bureaucrats in the 1980s, before the long stagnation set in.
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Lower Lake,California Rocky Fire

8 The sun rises over an area smothered with smoke from the Rocky Fire in Lower Lake, California. Over 900 firefighters are battling the fire has burnt over 15,000 acres since it started on Wednesday. The fire is currently five percent contained and has destroyed three homes.
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Racism on Camera

The recent wave of police violence isn't anything new. It's just been caught on video.
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[JP] "Digimon World: Next 0rder" Teaser Trailer!

Bandai Namco has given us the first look at the recently announced Digimon World: Next Order. Featured above, the debut teaser trailer was revealed by the publisher. While there isn’t much actual gameplay, you can view small bits of it around the 0:44 mark in the video. The game is supposed to be about an “evolving world,” where you can adventure with your Digimon companions. Digimon World: Next Order is launching in Japan sometime in next year, for Playstation Vita.
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Edward Gorey: cover star of book design

The author and illustrator is much revered for his own weird and wonderful books, yet his 200-plus jacket designs are virtually ignored. Steven Heller celebrates his contribution to a unique era of publishing.
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Turkey v Islamic State v the Kurds: What's going on?

What lies behind Turkey's decision to bomb the Kurds and Islamic State - while pushing for a 'buffer zone' in Syria? The BBC's Neil Arun explains.
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It's not at war, but up to 3% of its people have fled. What is going on in Eritrea?

Adam was forced to serve as a child soldier before he escaped – his story is one of many in a totalitarian state where citizens are afraid to leave their homes
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The Week's Best Photojournalism (7/31)

In some of the week's most striking images, a synchronized swimming team performs, clouds float over a Buddhist academy in China, and more...
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Blue Moon At Statue of Liberty

The Blue Moon effect refers to the second full moon in a calendar month.
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San Francisco Earthquake 1906 - no sound

Black and white video of the San Francisco Earthquake
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The man with the toughest job in the world

In July 2014, Staffan de Mistura, a 68-year old Italian-Swedish diplomat, was enjoying a peaceful semi-retirement on the isle of Capri when he received a telephone call from his former boss, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, offering him what might be the world’s most difficult job. De Mistura had worked under Ban as the chief of the UN missions to Afghanistan and Iraq, and he was now being asked to take up a role as the UN’s special envoy...
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The men of Friday Night Lights football team reunite to relive their story 25 years later

What an epilogue.
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Americans may soon be seeing far fewer “Made in China” labels at the mall

Sometimes it seems like everything we own has been made in China—the iPhones in our pockets, the TVs in our living rooms, the clothes in our closets, and the toys under the Christmas tree. (And if it’s plastic—the tree, too.) China, after all, manufactures more stuff than any other country in the world.
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Galleries: let's ditch the artspeak and artybollocks

If public galleries really want to be more accessible, they should listen to George Orwell and never use a long word where a short one will do.
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Russian influence rises in the post-Iran deal Middle East

Before signing the Iran deal, Obama administration officials often repeated an "I think I can't" mantra.
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The Invisible: How China Deals with Mental Illness – in Pictures

Yuyang Liu photographs people all over China with mental health issues. He says his subjects are ‘overlooked or not recognised at all within society – they are invisible’. His astonishing shots have just won the Ian Parry scholarship 2015.
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Gaza still in ruins, a year after the war

The anniversary on Wednesday of last summer's war comes as the besieged territory struggles to rebuild its infrastructure, and tens of thousands of its people struggle to access basic amenities. Al Jazeera spoke to Palestinians who said little was being done to help them recover and go on with their lives.
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Art as a Form of Active Prayer and What Writers Really Labor For

“Immerse yourself in the common ground of the universe so that your true voice — not the egoistic voice that clamors vainly for power (for it will ruin you if you listen to it) — your authentic voice … may be heard.” Why do we humans create — why do artists make art, why do writers write? Pablo Neruda gave a beautiful answer in his metaphor of the hand through the fence. For Joan Didion, the impulse is a vital gateway to her own mind.
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After capitalism, what comes next? For a start, ethics

While some find it hard to imagine life after capitalism, the digitally connected people of the world have begun embracing a new set of ethical concerns requiring new types of economies.
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The War Nerd: Don’t be fooled -- Turkey is attacking the Kurds

You might be cheering for the Turkish Air Force, which has reportedly finally decided to strike Islamic State targets in Syria. Don’t believe it. By Gary Brecher.
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One Two Three, by Michael Loughran

The future is treebound in its iron feathers, lazy, possibly indigenous, mute as a roach and as scampery, so I pick up your sunglasses and put them down, I’m enthusiastic about sunglasses and saying your name in full— the high river in me would take a chainsaw to every tree and that’s the part that belongs to you.
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Painting With Land

Terraced rice fields are seen from above in Lao Cai Province in northern Vietnam. Rice is one of the country’s key exports. Photograph by Tuan Guitare.
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Photos of Pamukkale, Turkey

Above the calcium laden travertines is the ancient Roman ruins of Heiropalis and the ancient pool where Cleopatra, legend has it, used to swim.
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The sordid history of Australian heart transplants

The rigmarole of constant checks and consent forms in modern hospitals can be tiring, but as medical historian Dr John Carmody notes, it may be preferable to the alternative. He casts an eye back to the late ‘60s, where Australia's first heart transplants revealed the wild—and occasionally unethical—side of surgery.
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30th July 1966 - England win the World Cup in front of 97,000 fans and the Queen at Wembley

England captain Bobby Moore lifted the Jules Rimet trophy after a thrilling match which saw a late German comeback, a controversial winner and the only hat-trick in a World Cup final.
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The Incredible Versatility Of Photographer John Dominis

Over the course of a few decades at Life magazine, Dominis not only worked in just about every photographic genre but also seemed to have mastered them. He died Monday at age 92, leaving behind an archive that's hard to comprehend.
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Larung Gar Buddhist Academy

. The academy, founded in the 1980s among the mountains of the remote prefecture, is one of the largest Tibetan Buddhism institutes of the world, housing tens of thousands of monks and nuns,
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China's market lesson will be one of wealth transfer

As China's markets stabilise the net result will probably be a transfer of wealth from ordinary Chinese to the wealthy.
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Which paintings were the most creative of their time? An algorithm may hold the answers

Humans are no longer the only judges of creativity. Computers can perform the same task – and may even be more objective. From Picasso’s The Young Ladies of Avignon to Munch’s The Scream, what was it about these paintings that arrested people’s attention upon viewing them, that cemented them in the canon of art history as iconic works?
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Photos of Crete in the Rain

Taken with my old lumix
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The case for quotas in politics: the absence of women isn't merit-based

Thanks to quotas, the proportion of women in parliaments across the world has nearly doubled in the past 20 years.
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MONSTER Tornado Intercepted in Manitoba, Canada!

**WARNING bad language** NEW video: Dominator 3 intercepting MONSTER wedge tornado in southwest Manitoba!! This violent tornado ripped up pavement on highway just S of Tilston, as we measured a 122 mph wind on the south side in the RFD.
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The Law That May Accidentally Break Times Square: "Those Billboards are Probably Illegal"

That, pictured above, is Times Square, the tourist trap center of New York City. You can tell because there are billboards the size of small aircraft plastered on virtually every vertical square inch. The signs, collectively, are iconic. The billboards define the space, perhaps moreso than the cross-streets (Broadway and Seventh Avenue) or the newspaper (the New York Times) after which the square is named. Times Square wouldn’t be Times Square without the billboards.
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You May Know Me from Such Roles as Terrorist #4

It's Hollywood's ugliest casting problem: Jon Ronson talks to seven Muslim-American actors, a group earning virtually their entire livings pretending to hijack planes and slaughter infidels.
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21 Extraordinary Black and White Celebrity Portraits Taken by Michael Tighe

“Dear so and so. I'm a young photographer shooting a series of portraits of celebrated New Yorkers. If you could spare a few minutes of your time I would very much like to photograph you.” Michael Tighe began his career by writing and mailing letters to New York artists and entertainers in 1974. He sent out between 30 and 40 letters a week, hearing back initially from two or three people over the course of two years who, to his surprise, all said yes...
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24 Unusual Beaches You’ve Never Heard Of Before

Do you think that beaches are blasé tourist destinations with nothing unique or interesting to offer? Well, you’re only partly correct. Many of them are over crowded and boring, but none of the beaches we feature here will disappoint. A singing beach, a glowing beach, a beach with rainbow-colored sand — here are the most offbeat seaside destinations you’ll find on Earth.
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Hey, Internet: Stop Trying To Inspire Me

Jamie Varon's ironically inspiring write-up about those who fake happiness and positivity. "I’m tired of people trying to inspire me to have a better, bigger, happier life. Let me exist. Let me fumble. Let me find the patch of light in the long tunnel of darkness."
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Wong-Bernardi debate puts four myths about marriage on show

The same-sex marriage debate between Australians Cory Bernardi and Penny Wong exposed four myths about marriage that have plagued recent debates worldwide.
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This 1956 guidebook for black travelers is an important reminder of America's racist past

During the Jim Crow era, traveling in the United States for African-Americans was difficult and often dangerous. Motels and restaurants didn’t have to serve you if they didn’t want to. “Sundown towns”—places where it was unsafe to be black at night—dotted the nation’s geography. If you were driving around the country, the only way to know if you were safe was by word-of-mouth.
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Bangkok is sinking and may be underwater in 15 years, study says

A new report from Thailand's government says that Bangkok, its capital city and home to some 14 million people, could be underwater in the next 15 years thanks to a combination of sinking land and rising global sea levels. The conclusion comes from Thailand's National Reform Council, which issued a report last week that warned "immediate and costly solutions are needed to avert a catastrophe," caused by "excessive pumping from the [underground] aquifer...
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Australian security agencies reveal 11,000 cyber security incidents last year

The nation's top spy agencies warn that the number of cyber security threats facing Australia is increasing by the day.
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How to Smuggle $1,000 Into North Korea

“Son, is that you?” Recognizing the weak, shaky voice on the other line, Kevin immediately hangs up the phone. Kevin, the eldest son in his family, defected from North Korea in 1998 when he was 17 years old and is currently a graduate student in South Korea, working odd jobs to save cash to send as remittances to his family, all of whom still reside in North Korea. Several years ago, he sent smart phones to his family so that they could stay in touch.
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CBTC: Communications-Based Train Control

Learn all about CBTC, the future of the New York City Subway.
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Amazing spectacle! Penguins in Melbourne, Australia

Introduced by David Attenborough .
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Google will now require explicit consent for tracking European users

After a long and costly legal battle in the European Union, Google is making some changes to the way it serves ads to European users.
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Picturing England: photographs of English life

From egg gatherers in Yorkshire to the Holborn viaduct under construction, a book by the Historic England Archive brings together photos dating from 1850.
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A Full-Circle Rainbow

A full circle rainbow appears during a one-year wedding anniversary. Brittany Wilson caught this gem over Kauai, Hawaii.
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Andy Warhol's intimate polaroids: from Divine to Bianca Jagger

A new book by Taschen offers a fascinating insight of Andy Warhol’s intimate relationship with his celebrity friends – and the look he wanted from them for the photographs
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Your sexual fantasies: the results are in

One man wants to service soldiers on leave, one woman was taught about multiple orgasms during The Antiques Roadshow … what happened when 10,000 people were asked to share their deepest desires? My latest foray into this minefield – entitled Excuse Me, Would You Mind If I Asked You a Few Personal Questions About Sex? – is currently on display at the Wellcome Collection in London.
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Nursing-Home Costs Leave Seniors Pondering Divorce

Jerry Clarke is pondering divorcing his wife of 52 years to deal with a monthly increase of $700 to pay for his wife's care in a nursing home in Fredericton, but the province says couples in need don't have to split to cover such costs.
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