In college, I majored in Rhetoric. Yes, I know . My major disqualified me from every job imaginable. Yet, I've been employed my entire adult life. This is because after college I realized I am good at filling out job applications. I'm really fucking good at it. Filling out applications is my super…

BRITAIN has never been a typical European Union (EU) member. It is the only country vetoed for membership (by France), and twice, at that. It joined only in 1973, almost two decades after the original six members established the European Economic Community. It is more free-trading, free-marketeering…

LONDON — I have been overcome by gloom since Britain voted to leave the European Union. It’s not just the stupidity of the decision. It’s not merely the lies of the charlatans who led the “Leave” campaign. It’s not only the absence, now so evident, of any “Nextit.” It’s not even the betrayal of…

IF BRITAIN votes to leave the European Union, it seems likely to spell the end of David Cameron as prime minister. Even if he does not resign, his backbenchers will force him out. In the circumstances it will be hard for those who backed Remain to step into the role; the most likely replacement…

The centre-right appears to have been re-elected IN ITS second general election in six months, Spain has moved much closer to breaking its political deadlock. The big winners in the vote on June 26th were Mariano Rajoy, the prime minister, and his centre-right People’s Party (PP). The PP did not…

Courtesy of Kanye West I’m watching a video of 12 of the most famous people on the planet naked in bed together. The material is being guarded so closely that the people in possession of it have refused to send me a link in case it gets hacked. Instead I’m looking at it via Skype, with the person on…

Mainstream video games have a problem with sex. The question they struggle with today is not whether or not to include it, but rather how to portray it. According to Robert Yang during a 2016 Games for Change talk, most video games are still missing some key points: Sex can be awkward, and it's…

Are you still undecided? Are you someone who – pummelled by weeks of claim and counter-claim – has been left exhausted and annoyed? Have you been looking for answers, yet all you’ve encountered are insults and exaggeration? Maybe you’re so fed up you think to hell with it, let’s throw caution to the…

A dachshund passes through the lives of several owners in Todd Solondz’s movie. Illustration by Guillaume Plantevin The new Todd Solondz film, “Wiener-Dog,” really is about a dog. The animal in question is a female dachshund, with a sleek chestnut coat and a purposeful trot, plus the indefinable air…

IT WAS a troubling exchange. On live television Faisal Islam, the political editor of SkyNews, was recounting a conversation with a pro-Brexit Conservative MP. “I said to him: ‘Where’s the plan? Can we see the Brexit plan now?’ [The MP replied:] ‘There is no plan. The Leave campaign don’t have a…

A string of frontbenchers depart in protest at their leader’s tepid referendum campaign IT IS the sort of political crisis that might normally dominate the headlines for days. But these are hardly normal times in Britain. After a week in which voters decided to leave the European Union, causing the…

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has told the BBC that Holyrood could try to block the UK's exit from the EU. She was speaking following a referendum on Thursday which saw Britain vote by 52% to 48% to leave Europe. However, in Scotland the picture was different with 62% backing Remain and…

BY INSTINCT Americans cheer declarations of independence, especially when those going it alone claim to be throwing off the shackles of foreign tyranny. A certain note of piquant irony may intrude when the revolutionaries hail from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But no…

HOW quickly the unthinkable became the irreversible. A year ago few people imagined that the legions of Britons who love to whinge about the European Union—silly regulations, bloated budgets and pompous bureaucrats—would actually vote to leave the club of countries that buy nearly half of Britain’s…

This morning, I woke up in a country I do not recognise. David Cameron’s big gamble – the future of Britain against his personal political ambitions – has backfired so badly that we’ve blasted clean out of the EU. By the time I’d put the kettle on, the stock markets were in free fall, Scotland was…

Elena Scotti/FUSION When I was 20, I bought my first sex toy from the dingy strip mall storefront that had served my hometown’s pervy needs for at least 15 years. To be fair, its dinginess wasn’t entirely its own fault. Because the street-facing glass had to be made opaque, it was effectively…

On weekends, Colleen teaches fitness classes. Mary builds websites. Luke sells vintage video games. Tony designs and 3D-prints custom Star Wars miniatures. I write for the internet. Among my friends, and 20- and 30-somethings as a whole, the side hustle–the gig you work in addition to your day…

FOR Eleonora Ossola, one of an estimated 600,000 Italians who live in Britain, Thursday’s vote to leave the European Union came as a personal blow. “It is as if your mother were to tell you to get out of the house,” said Ms Ossola, who manages Italian Kingdom Radio, a station serving the country’s…

The geography reflects the economic crisis of the 1970s, not the 2010s It became clear early on in the night that Leave had extraordinary levels of support in the North East, taking 70% of the votes in Hartlepool and 61% in Sunderland. It subsequently emerged that Wales had voted for Leave overall,…

Former Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Varoufakis’ crusade to help save the 60 year old European Union from a growing potential disintegration is intriguing. He, and the other activists talk ultimately about the collapse of Western civilization, an d more so as if it would necessarily be a bad thing…

British Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Friday that he would resign in October. Photograph by by Matt Cardy / Getty At about three-thirty in the morning British time on Friday, Nigel Farage, the loquacious head of the anti-European Union U.K. Independence Party, gave his second public…

A Remain supporter walks past a Leave supporter outside Downing Street, in London, the day after the U.K. voted to leave the E.U. in the Brexit referendum. Photograph by Kevin Coombs / REUTERS To many people around the world, the United Kingdom’s vote, on Thursday, to quit the European Union came as…

Opening up: Laura Mvula wears a jacket, £925, by Dries Van Noten (brownsfashion.com). Fashion editor Jo Jones; photographer’s assistant Sam Copeland; fashion assistant Billie Brand; make-up Gabriella Ciullo using Illamasqua and Keihls skincare.Photograph: Julian Broad for the Observer Laura Mvula…

Illustration by Matt KenyonIllustration: Matt Kenyon W hile I respect that the referendum on 23 June is one to be decided by the UK electorate alone, many Irish citizens living and working in Britain form part of that electorate. Ireland is also the UK’s nearest neighbour and our relationship with…

Part research project, part society devoted to titillation, the Casual Sex Project reminds us that hookups aren't just for college students. Illustration by Wren McDonald Zhana Vrangalova had hit a problem. On a blustery day in early spring, sitting in a small coffee shop near the campus of New York…

WASHINGTON — Britain’s vote to withdraw from the European Union sent a shudder through the capital on Friday as the forces of economic nationalism and working-class fury forced American political leaders to wonder: Could it happen here? Driving the “Brexit” vote were many of the same impulses that…

The view from the London Eye ferris wheel. Tom Jamieson for The New York Times In the height of the summer travel season, Britain voted to exit the European Union , scrambling markets as well as the political picture. What happens in the aftermath of “Brexit,” as it is known, is far from clear, but…

The UK’s vote to leave the European Union has totally stunned the world. Almost no experts saw this coming, and professional foreign policy watchers appear to be in a state of panic. Not because they blew the call, but because the Brexit seemed too scary to actually happen. To understand why so many…

PARIS — When the Berlin Wall fell, I was in high school. When the planes hit the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001 , I was a rookie reporter in New York. When Britain voted to leave the European Union, I woke up to the news at home in Paris and was stunned, but not entirely surprised. I’ve covered…

On Thursday British voters willfully walked off a cliff when they decided to leave the European Union. The "Brexit" victory is a defeat for Britain, Europe and the global economy. Tens of millions of Britons voted for isolation — to go it alone — rather than for cooperation. The European Union just…

Boris Johnson has got everything he supposedly wanted, but it didn’t look that way.Photograph: Reuters “If we are victorious in one more battle … we shall be utterly ruined.” Like the good intellectual that he’s vigorously pretended not to be of late, Boris Johnson will probably know that line. It’s…

Round two? The Commons website crashed after experiencing a higher volume of simultaneous users than ever before.Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA The backlash against Brexit has strengthened with more than 2.5 million people signed a parliamentary petition calling for a second EU referendum. Demand…

Markets Shudder U.S. S&P 500 Index -3.59% Britain FTSE 100 Index -3.15% Germany DAX Index -6.82% The New York Times | Source: Reuters Global markets rose earlier this week when the polls edged toward remaining. But the voters’ choice to leave has severely undermined the confidence of investors.…

David Cameron is not given to melodrama but he has starred in enough. For the time being, there are three moments of history to remember, outside that famous door. The time when he walked through it with Nick Clegg. The time - even more surprising - that he walked through it on his own, just…

Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. Chapter 1: “Inmates Run This Bitch” H ave you ever had a riot?” I ask a recruiter from a prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). “The last riot we had was two years ago,” he says over the phone. “Yeah, but that…

Sober analysis from economists in Washington, DC AS IF the economic evidence against Brexit were not already strong enough, the IMF has today published an analysis which shows just what a hit Brexit would be to the British economy. It is an even-handed piece of work, but probably still…

Photograph by Jack Taylor / Getty LONDON ( The Borowitz Report )—Across the United Kingdom on Friday, Britons mourned their long-cherished right to claim that Americans were significantly dumber than they are. Luxuriating in the superiority of their intellect over Americans’ has long been a favorite…