Tennessee conservatives have been crusading against drag and LGBTQ+ for months, including passing a new anti-drag law. Charlie McCann explores how a climate of fear is forcing gay institutions to close their doors.

1843 Magazine brings stories of an extraordinary world to life. The Economist publication covers topics like culture, lifestyle, design, fashion, health, travel, and technology.

1843

The last drag queens of Tennessee

Sarah, like many before and after her, was only a teenager when she was raped by a UN peacekeeper. Through her story, Olivia Acland discovers the hidden epidemic of sexual exploitation in Congo.

Sarah said she was raped by peacekeepers. The UN offered her $50

You're a comp sci grad, but big tech doesn't want you. Now what?

Students at the Bay Area's best universities once dreamed of working for Apple, Google and Meta. Then the layoffs happened, and the world of work changed. Charlie McCann explores what the future holds for computer-science graduates.

You studied computer science but big tech no longer wants you. Now what?

Inside the school where Russia’s TV journalists are trained 

Russia's propaganda machine is working overtime to put a positive spin on Putin's war in Ukraine. Kate de Pury enters a damp Moscow classroom to see where it all begins for the state's TV journalists.

Inside the school where Russia’s state TV journalists are trained 

A new space age is dawning, and life on Mars could soon be a reality - if Elon Musk's SpaceX can achieve its extraplanetary ambitions. Charlie McCann meets the "space dorks" who worry that Twitter is distracting their hero.

The Musk superfans who want to live on Mars with Elon

Artificial intelligence is increasingly sounding and acting more like us. But is it sentient? Tomas Weber discovers the narrowing divide between man and machine through 73-year-old Stephen Thaler's story. 

The inventor who fell in love with his AI

Inside the college on the front line of DeSantis’s culture war

Conservatives have seized control of the New College of Florida to purge academia of left-wing rhetoric and woke ideology. Charlie McCann meets with the students fighting back.

Inside the progressive college on the front line of Ron DeSantis’s culture war

With the Lebanese economy descending into a spiral of hyperinflation and debt default, Wendell Steavenson meets with poverty-stricken families to discover the terrible price of their government's failures.

In Lebanon, parents are abandoning their children in orphanages

Following the closure of RedIssue, a Manchester United fan-run Twitter account, Jack Shenker meets with conspiracy-believing founder John-Paul O'Neill to discuss everything from COVID to financialised capitalism's impact on the beautiful game.

How a Manchester United superfan became a conspiracy theorist

Years of hyperinflation, political turmoil and a deadly pandemic have worsened Lebanon's ongoing liquidity crisis, and the citizens have had enough. Wendell Steavenson discovers the lengths enraged depositors have gone to access their own money.

My money or your life: the bank robbers of Beirut

Several months after Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, software engineer Manu Cornet divulges the wild, behind-the-scenes events that followed until - like his colleagues before him - he lost his job too.

“I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired”: tales of a Twitter engineer

Discover the story behind the world’s most powerful man.

Xi Jinping wants to ensure that the Communist Party never loses its way again as it did during the Cultural Revolution or the pro-democracy protests of 1989. But the way he sees it, only he is qualified to navigate the passage. Sue-Lin Wong profiles the influential Chinese leader.

Xi Jinping: the making of a dictator

The criminal justice system has no room for neurodivergence. 

In 2021, Brandon Fleury was sentenced to five years in prison for harassing the families of school shooting victims online. Through Fleury's story, Stephanie Clifford examines the drawbacks of a system that isn't ready for those wired to see the world differently.

An autistic man was surfing the internet on his dad’s sofa. Then the FBI turned up

The social movement has lost its moral motives.

The Effective Altruism community claims to use practical ethics to strive for a better world. However, as Linda Kinstler discusses, the "empathy with evidence" philosophy no longer applies to our changing world.

The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

Even going out onto the streets and demonstrating is a brave act in China.

One Shanghai protester shocked the world by leading a crowd’s chants. But what happened to him next? Eva Rammeloo talked to the young bartender after the protest and has been tracking his whereabouts.

What happened to the man who led the chants against Xi Jinping?

Why should an education count against women?

More women have access to higher education than ever before in Urban China. But, as Roseann Lake discovers through June's story, their success often counts against them in the marriage market.

A wife less ordinary

The pandemic suspended our fear of missing out, but has it returned?

After two years of the pandemic, you'd think we'd be able to handle the fear of missing out. However, as Josh Cohen discovers, no matter how wonderful our lives seem, there's no escaping the human assumption that there's something better out there.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda: why FOMO won’t let go of us

The UK's political U-turn carries a charge of anxiety.

Prime minister Liz Truss is attempting to mould herself into the second coming of Margaret Thatcher. And, as Matthew Sweet explores through Britain's tumultuous political history, she's not the only leader to draw inspiration from the past.

Turn, baby, turn: reversals, from politics to palaeontology

At least 200,000 people are thought to have left since the Ukrainian war broke out.

From artists to journalists, tens of thousands have relocated to Georgia since the war began. Wendell Steavenson explores the story of one of Russia's leading documentary makers who is now learning how to live and work in a strange land.

Midnight train to Georgia: among the Russians in exile

Pandemic stimulus cheques created a new class of investors behind bars.

Believing the system is designed to keep them poor, some prisoners in America are investing in stocks and shares to break a vicious cycle of financial illiteracy and incarceration. Tomas Keen with Nick Hacheney explore their story.