A Week Without a Press Release in the Islamic Republic

Last Tuesday, Mojtaba Khamenei received mourners for his father. Since then, the office of Iran's Supreme Leader has said almost nothing.

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The Shadow Commander

Arash Azizi

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A Week Without a Press Release in the Islamic Republic

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Aug 25, 2026

Country Music Remade: Power, Roots, New Voices

How country music got made and remade, from the managers and superstars who set the rules to the women and Black artists widening the genre.

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Greenland Melts: Whales, Ice, and Stakes

As sea ice retreats and glaciers calve, whales move into once-frozen fjords and the Arctic becomes a contested, fast-changing frontier, and these books trace the biology, cryosphere, and geopolitics of that shift.

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Aug 22, 2026

Racing the National Mall: Power, Cars, and Public Space

Reading on executive authority, the cultural pull of the automobile, and what happens to a city when its civic core is handed over to a corporate-backed spectacle.

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