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  • Election Letters

    In Ukraine, No Election Doesn’t Mean the Electorate Is Happy

    President Zelensky Is an International Star. At Home, It’s More Complicated

    by Daria Badior |

    Regular presidential elections should have taken place in Ukraine this month.

    But on day one of Russia’s full-scale invasion of our country, Ukraine’s government introduced martial law, under which …

  • Poetry

    Doubling Your Image

    by Mario Martz, translated by Aldo Amparán

    I
    What’s so good about the night
    that sleeps inside the body
    of someone who learns to love
    with their fingers
    when everyone else sleeps.
    (Quiet! The sea is dreaming!)

    You …

  • Up For Discussion

    What Is the Future of the Digital Public Square?

    Five People Who Study and Write About Technology on Their Hopes for Online Community

    The public square is the meeting ground where people make society happen. In these spaces, physical or metaphorical or digital, we work through our shared dramas and map our collective …

  • Essay

    My Father, the Madrasah, and Me

    In Nigeria, Where Western Education Is King, an Arabic Studies Legacy Lives On

    by Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi |

    On a phone call the other day with a new friend, Zay, we ended up on the topic of religion. “Did you attend madrasah?” I asked her, referring to the …

  • Connecting California

    California’s High-Speed Rail Dreams Could Go “Whoosh”

    The Golden State Seems Primed to Repeat the Mistakes and Miscalculations of Indonesia’s New Bullet Train

    by Joe Mathews |

    The good news is that California will almost certainly have a high-speed rail line someday.

    The bad news is that it may look a lot like “Whoosh.”

    Whoosh is the name of …

  • Election Letters

    Seeking a Politics of Solidarity in Putin’s Russia

    In a Country Where Nothing Changes, a 23-Year-Old Finds Hope Outside the Electoral System

    by Shura Gulyaeva |

    In 2013, when I was 13, one of the oldest comedy TV programs in Russia released a sketch in which a group of musicians performed a version of Queen’s “I …

  • Poetry

    Sky Song

    by Tobi Kassim

     

    Sky’s lit today. it’s
        all moody and shit
    heavy with a pregnant
      tint. we’re curved under the clouds
           in the verge of moisture

        nervous behind its refusal

  • The Takeaway

    The App Economy Is the Past—And Not Necessarily the Future

    “‘What Is a Good Job Now?’ In Gig Work” Shows How Algorithms Have Transformed Freelancing, and What Comes Next

    by Talib Jabbar |

    In a week when a federal labor rule went into effect making it easier for app-based gig workers to be classified as employees (with significant pushback), and a month after …

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