It’s Drake Night in Toronto, and the Raptors are enduring an early-season shellacking courtesy of the Golden State Warriors. The man of the hour, Drake himself, sits courtside and lobs taunts at the visitors from the West Coast. The baby-faced rapper and the Splash Brothers — Steph Curry and Klay Thompson — have something besides trash talk in common. They all sport the same kind of haircut: the low fade.
ASIA: STAND-UP COMEDY'S NEXT FRONTIER?
Inside a sweaty sports bar in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese comedian Uy Le bombards a sleepy crowd of local teenyboppers and Western expats with a flurry of quantum physics and game-theory wisecracks in English — you know, “relatable” jokes. Then he moves on to raunchier, more third-rail material: awkward first dates, obeying Mom and, gasp, playing hooky from work. His oversize spectacles creep down his nose as he delivers the punch line: “I wasn’t even sick!” He snickers — at his own joke — as the audience giggles quietly.
‘I Am Being Investigated’
He’s a reliable source. On Friday, after hurling vitriol at a Washington Post report that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was investigating him for possible obstruction of justice, President Donald Trump verified the story himself, tweeting, “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director.”
The Great Blockchain Robbery
Did they move too fast? Using ultra-secure code dispersed on a worldwide network, Ethereum’s creators took blockchain, the programming concept that’s enabled bitcoin’s success, to another level. But a year ago, when their ether currency’s collective value hit $250 million, a bug was discovered — almost simultaneously by programmers and hackers — setting off a high-stakes cyber war.
CAN THIS KOREAN SINGER REVIVE FRENCH JAZZ?
Koreans work some of the longest hours in the world, while the French work some of the shortest. When Youn Sun Nah quit her corporate job in fashion to move to Paris to study jazz at the ripe old age of 25, the hyperkinetic Korean singer continued to apply the work habits of her motherland, by attending four schools simultaneously (though she claims her voice is “80 percent genetic” rather than a product of the mad multitasking). Even after topping the jazz charts in France, Nah continues working the Korean way, averaging more than 100 concerts annually while renting a modest flat in Paris — last month, her eighth album, She Moves On, was released.
WHO WILL SUCCEED VLADIMIR PUTIN? YOU DECIDE
We’ve spent the week looking at possible contenders to the presidency if there’s a sudden leadership vacuum in Russia. Here’s a look back at the prime contenders, as well as your chance to weigh in on who’s next atop the Kremlin.
WHY I (KIND OF) REGRET PRANKING TRUMP SUPPORTERS
Some five months into the Trump administration, I find myself looking back on the day before he was inaugurated as the country’s 45th president.
I was in Washington, D.C., and I felt awful. It was 7 a.m., and I hadn’t had any coffee — something I needed before I could contemplate America’s imminent downfall.
It was the beginning of the spring semester in my senior year of college, and my roommate and I were on our way to the National Mall and decided to veer off near the Kennedy Center to find a cup.