Chinese espionage in the European Union and neighboring countries reveals its full scope when certain pieces are connected. The May 20 arrest in Germany of a German couple of Chinese origin who were taking military-technology information from universities is a particularly notable case. But it is only one of many. The episode exposes a strategy of large-scale, coordinated infiltration when placed alongside other arrests in EU member states and neighboring countries. In total, around 30 agents and collaborators have been uncovered in Europe and its vicinity in just the past two years; some were arrested, several expelled, and others are awaiting trial. China typically denies all espionage allegations and describes them as slander.

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In a huge warehouse in Geel, Belgium, $9.7 million in contraceptives have been locked up since early 2025. Some 77% of the shipment from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was destined for about 10 African countries, including Kenya, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mali. But when Donald Trump’s administration dismantled the world’s largest development aid organization, these medicines were left stranded, destined either to be destroyed or to expire box by box. About 5,800 miles south of Belgium, in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, Jane Anyongo, Violet Mosomi, Salma Kamau, and hundreds of thousands of women are still waiting for their pills, condoms, subdermal implants, intrauterine devices, and other sexual and reproductive health supplies.

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Those were turbulent times. It was November 2024 and Nicolás Maduro was holed up inside Miraflores Palace, the Venezuelan presidential residence. When any foreign leader hinted to him that it might be time to leave power, he answered with a single word: “Never.” The police and intelligence services under his command detained thousands of people who had taken to the streets to protest the electoral fraud that Chavismo had perpetrated in plain view of the world. Protesters had pulled down bronze statues of Hugo Chávez across the country. Prisons were overflowing. The nation was on the brink of rebellion or a bloodbath — or both.

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In September 2021, The Wall Street Journal published the Facebook Files, a series of reports based on internal documents from the tech company that, among other things, showed its executives were aware of the harms Instagram and Facebook were causing young people. It was a bombshell. It triggered the biggest reputational crisis for Mark Zuckerberg’s company, which weeks later rebranded as Meta. The person behind it was engineer Frances Haugen, 42, who left her post at Facebook carrying 21,000 internal documents. The U.S. Senate summoned her to testify, and investigations were opened into her revelations.

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A friend is upset because you didn’t “like” a photo from her last trip, but the truth is you haven’t even had a chance to see it. Instead of displaying it on your feed, Instagram prioritized showing you ads for food.

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In the early days of 1975, David Bowie was a broken toy. Holed up in his grotesque Los Angeles mansion, the British musician spent his days reading obscure essays on Nazi esotericism, watching television sprawled across a wide Victorian four‑poster, and performing black‑magic rituals inspired by his new hero, the crackpot charlatan Aleister Crowley.

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In each photograph by 37-year-old Citlali Fabián, you can find the story of an encounter, as well as an attempt to portray memory with dignity. For her series Bilha, Stories of My Sisters, the artist — who hails from the Yalateca Indigenous community in the Mexican state of Oaxaca — was named Photographer of the Year at the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards, run by the World Photography Organization. This is one of the most prestigious recognitions in her field.

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The rhythm, the cadence, is hypnotic. The late-afternoon sun helps: scales flying off the fish flash in a silvery, summery gust. Three young men fall into a soft, steady rhythm — fish, knife, entrails — chop, chop! The day winds down at the pier, and Curaçao — this small, arid island off the northern coast of Venezuela, part of the former Dutch Antilles — now stands out as one of the best ideas conceived since the Big Bang; at times, it may also seem like the opposite: a Caribbean theme park for Europeans and Americans. But not now — it is a kingdom of physical well-being, a haven of tranquility, the soul of the slow world. Guts, scales, salt water, milky sun, rhythm, rhythm, rhythm.

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Since May 28, dozens of people have been coming to the Fairmount Heights Library in Prince George’s County, Maryland, looking for more than books. Bread, vegetables, fruit, cereal: the facilities built to feed minds will now also feed stomachs thanks to an initiative by the county’s District 5, which has installed a free grocery store inside the local library. The idea was born to help the neediest families, whose finances have suffered in recent months. In addition to inflation — which has driven gasoline prices to new highs because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and raised the cost of basic goods — the loss of SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), pared back under the Trump administration, has hit low-income households hard.

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