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In a crowded convention center in San Jose, Calif., this past January during the Genesis 4 Super Smash Bros. tournament, away from the main competitive stage, a small group of gamers gathered around a clunky, four-year-old HP laptop. Amidst the onlookers, a professional player called Gravy was battling on familiar ground against an unfamiliar opponent. […]

Donald Trump has sent US-Mexico relations into a tailspin. To set them back on track, the countries’ top diplomats avoided any mention of the combative US president when they briefed reporters (link in Spanish) on their first meeting in Mexico today. It was the first real working session between US and Mexican authorities since Trump […]

The rich are just like everybody else, at least according to their car purchases. The Ford F-150 pickup truck was most popular 2016 vehicle for Americans with incomes above $200,000, according to a study by consumer-research firm MaritzCX. That means wealthy Americans have something in common with the rest of the country’s consumers. Ford’s F-series […]Read More

The top two aides to US president Donald Trump have been trying to show the world that, despite reports about their “war for the White House,” they’re actually really, really good buddies. Chief of staff Reince Priebus and senior advisor Steve Bannon made the latest stop on their friendship tour today at the Conservative Political […]

US attorney general Jeff Sessions officially rescinded a memo issued by former president Barack Obama’s Department of Justice to phase out the use of private prisons for federal inmates. According to Sessions, the move impaired the Bureau of Prison’s “ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.” The August 2016 memo from […]Read More

Bathrooms are once more a political battleground in America. US president Donald Trump’s rollback of the Obama administration’s policy on transgender bathroom use yesterday (Feb. 22) rescinds previous federal guidance that allowed transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice in public schools. Now, it’s up to individual schools to decide what to allow—and […]Read More

While campaigning for US president, Donald Trump said marijuana legalization should “be up to the states.” But, in an about-face from the campaign trail, the Trump administration now appears to be planning to shut down legal recreational use. Expect the Department of Justice, under new attorney general Jeff Sessions, to undertake “greater enforcement” of federal […]

Society pays a heavy price for traffic. It leads to lost time, more pollution, and increased spending on gasoline. In metropolitan areas, road congestion in 2012 led consumers to waste 2.9 billion gallons of fuel and spend 5.5 billion hours sitting in traffic. According to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, the average commuter wastes 42 […]

Once again, there are signs of growing xenophobia in South Africa. Despite the lives lost in previous waves of violence, the country has still not learned this painful lesson. It’s a familiar escalating narrative: vigilante groups accuses foreign migrants of local crime and go on attack, the government blames “criminal elements,” the public marches against […]

Last year, Americans bought more new cars than ever before. Given that auto sales make up around a fifth of all retail spending, 2016’s banner year is being hailed as a sign of burgeoning consumer confidence across the country. But something else is revving up, too: auto loans. The US closed out 2016 with just […]

After extending a 10-day vacation in the UK for medical reasons, Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has now been out of the country for more than a month. Despite his administration’s best attempts to reassure the public, speculation about the health of the president, who has been in office since 2015, has dominated national discussions. A […]

[embedded content] What you’re seeing in the video above is a 40 meter tall SpaceX rocket booster, weighing more than 20 tons, fly itself back to Earth from space and land precisely on a target at Cape Canaveral. What you may be wondering is, how did it do that? The first thing to know is […]