Tariffs on Chinese rare-earth minerals create a sticky problem for US competitors

Rare-earth minerals mined in the US need to be sent to China for processing.
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How Restaurants Got So Loud

Fashionable minimalism replaced plush opulence. That’s a recipe for commotion.
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Millennials in China Are Using Nudes to Secure Loans

Money lenders offering services like Afterpay are demanding that customers send naked selfies as collateral.
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The 96-year-old painter who saved a village

When a former soldier learned that his village was going to be demolished 10 years ago, he picked up a brush and started painting – and he hasn’t stopped since.
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Beavers are engineering a new Alaskan tundra

Climate change has enabled the recent expansion of beavers into northwestern Alaska, a trend that could have major ecological consequences for the region in the coming decades.
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Sins of the Fathers

The Confederacy was built on slavery. How can so many Southern whites still believe otherwise? One writer’s year-long argument with a man who has devoted his life to celebrating the Confederacy.
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So Disney Just Gon' Kill Mufasa Again for a Whole New Generation of Kids with This The Lion King Live-Action Remake, Huh?

It is officially official: the live-action version of The Lion King, with all of your faves, will hit theaters in July 2019 so we can all excitedly watch Mufasa die. Again. Twenty-five years after he died the first time. By Panama Jackson.
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As deadly flames approached, a mother called her daughters to say goodbye

The group takes a selfie, dubbing it their last photo together. The house next door is on fire. By Corina Knoll.
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FIFA urged by own rights body to give Iran deadline for allowing...

Global soccer body FIFA has been urged by its own human rights advisory panel to...
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We have food safety laws thanks to 19th century “poison squad”

Ars chats with author Deborah Blum about her new book, The Poison Squad.
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One of the world's largest tombs is a keyhole-shaped forest

Shrouded in mystery, the gigantic Daisen Kofun mound in Japan is thought to hold the remains of a 5th century emperor.
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Japan plans hi-tech 'super city'

Japan's government is planning to develop a so-called "super city" where cutting-edge technologies will undergo fast-track testing to study their feasibility. Government officials have drawn up a basic plan that calls for the city to be developed on a former industrial site, with people invited to serve as residents.
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Your Clothes Could Be Made in the USA Again

Apparel from Asia takes too long to reach Western markets and automation is making manufacturing at home cost-effective.
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The Website That Shows How a Free Press Can Die

Origo was a popular, independent news outlet that made trouble for Hungary’s far-right leader, Viktor Orban. Relentless pressure changed all that.
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The Mystery Font That Took Over New York

How did Choc, a quirky calligraphic typeface drawn by a French graphic designer in the 1950s, end up on storefronts everywhere?
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Video Games In East Germany: The Stasi Played Along

In East Germany, a gamer scene emerged just before the fall of communism. Teenagers met at a computer club to swap and play C64 games. The state watched with interest.
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The Great National Circus: Punch-Ups in the Senate

Eric Foner reviews "The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War" by Joanne Freeman.
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China blacklists millions of people from booking flights as dystopian 'social credit' system introduced

Officials say aim is to make it ‘difficult to move’ for those deemed ‘untrustworthy’
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Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

Cash is disappearing in the country faster than anyone thought it would. Now, officials are trying to slow its demise as they determine the societal costs.
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The nine ghost villages of northern France

Over 300 days during World War One, these villages were completely wiped out – along with hundreds of thousands of French and German soldiers – during the Battle of Verdun.
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The Victorian Occultist Accused of Killing Men With Her Mind

Pioneering feminist and animal rights campaigner Anna Kingsford was one of the 19th century's most remarkable women. Then she was charged with using black magic to murder two vivisectionists. By Dee Cunning.
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Bangladesh clothing factories face squeeze if safety push blocked

A group set up to improve safety in Bangladesh's garment industry after the...
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Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s Unique Regional Strategy

In recent years, Iran has projected its power across the Middle East, from Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and Yemen. One of the keys to its success has been a unique strategy of blending militant and state power, built in part on the model of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The acknowledged principal architect of this policy is Major General Qassem Soleimani, the long-serving head of Iran’s Quds (“Jerusalem”) Force. Without question, Soleimani is the most powerful general in the Middle East today; he is also one of Iran’s most popular living people, and has been repeatedly touted as a possible presidential candidate. By Ali Soufan.
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Half-Life turns 20 today, and it feels more original than ever

There are no collectibles in Half-Life. It’s incredible. That’s not how I would have praised the groundbreaking first-person shooter, which turns 20 years old today, when I first played it. At that point, I might have described how Half-Life infused sci-fi shooters with a sense of realism. It set an alien invasion in an Earthbound scientific research facility called Black Mesa, where an ordinary man (or at least, an ordinary MIT-trained theoretical physicist) named Gordon Freeman is forced to fight for his life...
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My Brilliant Friend review – a beautiful adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s tale

This authentic take on the first Neapolitan novel is the most honest and vivid portrait of the lives of young girls ever brought to TV
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Crossing the Sahara in the Fourteenth Century

How to make the trip from Sijilmasa to Oualata, circa 1352. By François-Xavier Fauvelle.
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Gibbous Moon beyond Swedish Mountain

This is a gibbous Moon. More Earthlings are familiar with a full moon, when the entire face of Luna is lit by the Sun, and a crescent moon, when only a sliver of the Moon's face is lit. When more than half of the Moon is illuminated, though, but still short of full illumination, the phase is called gibbous. Rarely seen in television and movies, gibbous moons are quite common in the actual night sky.
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The 17 Most Dangerous Airports In The World And Why You Must Experience Them

A complete guide to the world's scariest airport landings and takeoffs where only specially trained pilots are allowed to fly.
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This Thanksgiving, I’m Grateful for Donald Trump, America’s Most Honest President

There’s a case to be made that Donald Trump is simultaneously the biggest liar in U.S. political history and its greatest truth-teller.
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Nigerian police say “fake news” on Facebook is killing people

Nigerian police say “fake news” on Facebook is killing people. BBC Africa EYE investigates how viral misinformation and hate speech is inflaming tensions in a region already ablaze with ethnic violence.
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Donald Trump Is An Accessory To Jamal Khashoggi's Murder

That Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman "ordered this atrocity is beyond serious doubt."
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Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

Containment measures meant to stop a rampant bacterium have been frequently delayed.
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This Day in History: Lincoln delivers The Gettysburg Address

On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In just 272 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.
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How cities can fix tourism hell

A steep and rapid rise in tourism has left behind a wake of economic and environmental damage in cities around the globe. In response, governments have been responding with policies that attempt to limit the number of visitors who come in.
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The Facebook Movie Told Us What We Needed to Know About Mark Zuckerberg

Rewatching “The Social Network,” eight years later: What seemed like an underdog story at the time is now more of a warning.
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Extreme gardening at Powis.

Find out how we keep our famous yew tumps in tip-top condition at Powis Castle. It’s a huge task for us to get all the trimming done. Two gardeners spend six weeks trimming the box hedge and two more spend 12 weeks working on the yew. One gardener spends about 10 weeks in the air on this hydraulic cherry-picker getting all the high trimming done.
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Inside Colombia’s beloved candy factory.

For nearly 50 years, Bon Bon Bums have been produced in the Colombina factory in La Paila, north of Cali. At the start, 20 workers were responsible for the production of four million lollipops per month. Today, in that same factory, 200 workers produce more than 40 times as many.
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'Toxic Air is Killing Us but We can’t Afford to Quit'

Delhi's rickshaw pullers say they don't contribute to air pollution, but are still the worst affected.
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The buried secrets of the deadliest location on Earth

Chicxulub Puerto, Mexico, is the centre of the impact crater that scientists believe was made when the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs smashed into the Earth’s surface.
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Stress, Abuse, Harassment: Nintendo Russia’s Ex-employees Speak up about Their Time at the Company

On November 15, the Net saw a clip of a 2017 Mario Kart 8 tournament released, in which Yasha Haddaji, CEO of Nintendo Russia, verbally abused his employees during the livestream. While gamers are busy signing the petition calling for Haddaji’s dismissal, we have talked to the company’s former workers about the incident and found out some telling details about the CEO and the inner workings of Nintendo’s Russian office in general.
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The last velvet merchant of Venice

Velvet was once among the most coveted fabrics in the world, but now only one family in Italy produces it the traditional way – and can trace its textile tradition back to 1499.
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‘It’s a Crisis of Civilization in Mexico.’ 250,000 Dead. 37,400 Missing.

In an echo of Latin America’s “Dirty Wars,” tens of thousands of people have vanished in Mexico, leaving mothers behind to search for their corpses. This time the violence, linked to criminal networks, is more complex and more intractable.
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Plans Revealed for Enormous Particle Collider in China

Scientists this week released a conceptual design report for a next-generation particle accelerator in China, which would serve as a “Higgs boson factory,” as its proponents have called it.
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Greek archaeologists uncover first remnants of ancient city of Tenea

Greek archaeologists have uncovered the remnants of a city believed to have been founded by Trojan prisoners of war in the 12th or 13th century BC.
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'I went loopy': the photographer who walked 1,200 miles from Wales to Poland

Michał Iwanowski came across some graffiti in Cardiff that said: ‘Go home, Polish.’ So he did. The 105-day slog almost broke him – but it restored his faith in a volatile, fractured Europe
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Trump administration's reported effort to 'barter' a US resident to convince Turkey to ramp down Khashoggi probe stuns foreign-policy veterans

The White House's reported effort to extradite Fethullah Gulen sheds light on President Trump's efforts to ease rising tensions with Turkey.
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Japan's cyber-minister 'never used computers'

Yoshitaka Sakurada is responsible for ensuring the 2020 Olympic Games are not hacked.
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The 18th-Century Quaker Dwarf Who Challenged Slavery, Meat-Eating, and Racism

Benjamin Lay is not to be overlooked. By Natasha Frost. (Sept. 11, 2017)
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A Racial Reawakening

Tulsa [Oklahoma] Struggles to Make Amends for a Massacre It Ignored for Nearly a Century. By Liz Farmer.
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Canadian indigenous women kept from seeing their newborn babies until agreeing to sterilization, says lawyer

At least 60 Indigenous women are pursuing a lawsuit alleging they were sterilized against their will, as recently as last year. Is there an issue of systemic racism within Canada's healthcare system?
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