The Sri Lankan government’s decision to block all social media sites in the wake of Sunday’s deadly attacks is emblematic of just how much US-based technology companies’ failure to rein in misinformation, extremism and incitement to violence has come to outweigh the claimed benefits of social media. Sri Lanka’s government moved to block Facebook, WhatsApp…

A member of an armed civilian group that has detained migrants near the US-Mexico border who was arrested on Saturday reportedly faced similar charges in Oregon 13 years ago. In Sunland Park, Texas on Saturday, FBI agents and local police arrested Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, on suspicion of being a felon in possession of firearms….

A presidential election in North Macedonia that gave voters another chance to express an opinion on their country’s new name will go to a runoff after turnout in the first round was too low for any candidate to win outright, election officials said. The runoff on 5 May is inevitable because election law requires a…

The tangram was the first ever puzzle craze – and it is still going strong. You may have come across it before. You are shown a shape, and you must arrange seven pieces – five triangles, a square and a rhombus – to make that shape. In the early nineteenth century, the tangram, of East…

Let Eighth Grade count the ways in which social media has warped teenage life beyond all recognition. Insta-envy, artificial vlog personas, painstakingly posed selfies, Snapchat etiquette – generally engaging more with your smartphone than any human, and still getting it wrong. But as well as high-school social intercourse, the film also marks how social media…

In 2004, the New York artist Andres Serrano walked into Trump Tower with his camera to photograph Donald Trump. He spent 30 minutes shooting the president as part of his America photo series. Fifteen years later, this portrait is the centerpiece of an exhibition in New York called The Game: All Things Trump, where Serrano…

As Michelle Obama enters the final month of the global book tour for her memoir, Becoming, it would be remiss to comment on book sales – 10m since its November publication and growing – without discussing the optics of the tour itself. Most notably what she wore. This week, in Paris, that culminated in a…

Ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft have taken more than 11 billion people for a ride in their relatively short life. And yet the two companies have yet to make a cent in profits. Now, as the companies go public, some drivers think they may have spotted one way the companies plan to close that gap:…

In the late 1970s, a small group of art students at Leeds University created a pivotal hotbed of radical post-punk. Gang of Four’s jerky-punky-funky music would influence bands as diverse as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Massive Attack. Together with the jaggedly romantic Mekons and the slightly lesser-known Delta 5 (and, initially, the early…

Youth activists have taken the Extinction Rebellion protests to Heathrow on the fifth day of action, demonstrating beside the main roundabout on the road to the airport. The activists, all born after 1990, unfurled a banner asking: “Are we the the last generation?” as dozens of police prevented them from blocking the road. The protesters…