Chicago Makes the Right Move in Equal Access to Bathrooms

Four months to the day since the Charlotte City Council passed the discriminatory House Bill 2 in North Carolina, Chicago has done the opposite. In a vote passed at 45 to five, Chicago’s City Council has announced that transgender people are allowed to use whichever bathroom matches their gender identity. “As other states try to erase transgender people from public life, let’s recognize that this …

Mongolia’s New Postal System

The Mongol post has several hurdles to jump over in order to deliver mail: a quarter of the country’s population is nomadic, roads rarely have well-known names, and the country is huge but barely populated (it’s twice the size of Texas but has a tenth of the state’s population). Now the Mongolian government is teaming up with a British start-up called What3Words in an attempt …

Portishead: SOS (ABBA Cover)

In an exhilaratingly dark version of ABBA’s “SOS,” Portishead’s Beth Gibbons brings an immense heartbreak to the Swedish group’s 1975 pop song. The cover is a tribute to Jo Cox (a Batley and Spen MP who fought for refugees’ rights) who was murdered last week outside a library. In this context, and in this downtempo version, the song carries much more weight, pain and sorrow. …