Lunch With the FT: Sepp Blatter
The disgraced former FIFA president tries to defend himself while eating boiled beef.
The Financial Times
Welcome to Mogadishu
A portrait of the Somali capital.
My Father, the Good Nazi
Horst von Wächter confronts - and rationalizes - a difficult family legacy.
Death in Singapore
Authorities say an American electronics engineer committed suicide after working on a project involving a Chinese telecom giant. His family believes he was murdered.
Amazon Unpacked
Thousands of new warehouse jobs were supposed to help lift a struggling British economy. Instead, employees started equating the work with “being in a slave camp.”
Farewell Tour
For New Year's Eve, a Times Square encounter chronicled by the author of Open City.
"Low and I stood under the cold blazing lights of Times Square, smoking, and I asked him what he had eaten. Oysters, he said, the pleasure coming back into his voice, in a row on a ridge of ice, eager to be eaten. Fluke, caviar, octopus, some champagne but not a lot."
Rio: The Fight for the Favelas
On the experimental favela police force UPP (aka “The Big Skull”) and their efforts to clean Rio’s largest slum in advance of the World Cup and Olympics.
A Man Walks Into a Bank
“What could possibly be funnier than depositing a perfectly ridiculous, obviously false, fake cheque?”
Word on the Suite
With flash, hip-hop echoes rock’s golden age.
When rock was at its peak in 1972, Americans earning the equivalent of $1m a year took just over 1 per cent of national income. In 2010, this group’s share of national income had grown to almost 10 per cent. At the same time, the average tax paid by these top earners almost halved. The rise of Jay-Z’s “new black elite” reflects the growth in numbers of the super-wealthy. But the opulence that he and West flaunt also reflects the growing estrangement of those at the top from the rest.
Inside McKinsey
On the history, internal culture, and scandals of the consulting giant.
The Year of Reading Differently
The author reluctantly commits to a Kindle.
Lunch with the FT: Shi Yongxin
The “CEO monk” is decidedly unfamiliar with RZA, Ghostface Killah and Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
Inside Match.com
A look at the dating site's new algorithm.
Codenamed “Synapse”, the Match algorithm uses a variety of factors to suggest possible mates. While taking into account a user’s stated preferences, such as desired age range, hair colour and body type, it also learns from their actions on the site. So, if a woman says she doesn’t want to date anyone older than 26, but often looks at profiles of thirty-somethings, Match will know she is in fact open to meeting older men. Synapse also uses “triangulation”. That is, the algorithm looks at the behaviour of similar users and factors in that information, too.
The Trial of Mary Bale
Last summer, when she thought nobody was looking, Mary Bale put a cat in the trash. The act was caught on video, and Bale was quickly tried and convicted online. The aftermath of a viral crime.
The Search for the Securitas Millions
In 2006, seven men stole £53m. Six were caught, but more than half the money remains at large. On modern money laundering best practices.
The Forger's Story
Searching for (and easily finding) Mark Augustus Landis, the man behind the “longest, strangest forgery spree the American art world has known.”
How Annie Got Shot
If Annie Leibovitz sold her work through the traditional channels of the art world, she would have amassed a small fortune. But at the tail end of a career that has snubbed art galleries and collectors, she is destitute.
Moscow's Stray Dogs
The complex, highly evolved world of Moscow’s subway-riding stray dogs.
