At the beginning of summer, when people head to carefree destinations, I went to …. Atlantic City. That’s where four of the 12 ocean-front casinos went bankrupt in 2014 leaving thousands of empty hotel rooms and acres of abandoned gaming space. The city itself has been on the brink of insolvency since at least 2010. Read more

Zaha Hadid was indomitable, tough, blunt, and pugnacious. You did not want to be on the receiving end of her withering tongue. Her abundant critics said she was an insatiable egoist, inflicting her personal vision—heedless of budget and context. Her projects asserted the primacy of form over operational convenience or easy maintenance. Though she is Read more

Few of us will mourn the passing of a year of terror, so much of it inflicted under the banner of alleged religious orthodoxy. Senseless and shameless fanaticism dominates politics in the U.S. The one voice that drew together the hopes of global millions was Pope Francis. He roiled the war mongers with a message of Read more