Buildings destroyed after the earthquake on February 13, 2023, in Hatay, Turkey. | Murat Saka/dia images via Getty Images Turkey is investigating and has arrested some contractors, but the entire political and economic system is implicated. Turkey is still in the middle of an emergency, reeling from the earthquake that killed at least 35,000 people last week. But the finger-pointing has already begun. The rush to punishment comes amid the grief, but also the mounting fury and frustration over the Turkish government’s earthquake response. Much of that is focused on the emergency response — wait ..read more

Getty Images How we turned 20,000 Soviet nukes into zero-carbon energy — and how we can do the same with some of our own. Just a decade ago, one in 10 American lightbulbs was powered by dismantled Russian nuclear weapons. That was made possible by the Megatons to Megawatts program, an agreement negotiated after the collapse of the Soviet Union to convert uranium from Russia’s nuclear weapons stockpile into fuel for US nuclear power plants. The unconventional policy was first proposed by MIT physicist Thomas Neff in a 1991 New York Times op-ed. By the time Megatons to Megawatts ran its full cou ..read more

Volunteers stand on rubble of a destroyed building in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on February 7, 2023. | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images What Turkey and Syria’s deadly earthquakes reveal about wealth. In the early hours of Monday, February 6, residents living in southern Turkey and northern Syria were woken by violent shaking, collapsing buildings, and sweeping blackouts. The earthquake buried residents in rubble and was followed by powerful aftershocks. By the following Monday, the death toll had passed 36,000 people. “It was like the apocalypse,” Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a resident of Atareb, Syri ..read more

Drew Angerer/Getty Images A third object was taken out Sunday afternoon in Michigan, after transiting over Montana. An as-yet unidentified object was shot down over Michigan’s Lake Huron Sunday afternoon, the third over three consecutive days. A US jet shot down a flying object over Canada Saturday, and on Friday a US fighter brought down another over Alaska. According to Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the objects taken down Friday and Saturday are likely Chinese balloons, “much smaller” than one shot down in US coastal waters off South Carolina last week. North American Aerospace Defense ..read more

Anas Alkharboutli/picture alliance via Getty Images Rebel-held areas were already in a dire situation before the earthquake hit The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria last week has compounded the devastating effects of a twelve-year-long civil war in Syria, particularly in the hard-hit northwest. Controlled primarily by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a coalition of armed groups formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda, Syrians in the northwest are under siege by the Syrian state, compounding a decade-plus of misery. The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has effective ..read more

Shah Rukh Khan, star of Pathaan, performs in Sydney, Australia, in 2013. | Don Arnold/WireImage An Indian film expert explains Shah Rukh Khan’s latest Bollywood hit, the biggest film of 2023, and its subversive political message. Talk about a comeback. One of the biggest movie stars in the world is at one of the most tenuous moments in his career. Bollywood titan Shah Rukh Khan hasn’t made a movie in almost five years, his two most recent films failed to captivate audiences, he’s at odds with India’s ruling government, and his industry has been plagued by pandemic disruptions, boycotts from ri ..read more

People stand amongst the rubble of collapsed buildings on February 9, 2023 in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. | Photo by Aziz Karimov/Getty Images After the disaster, Erdogan’s decisions — past and present — are under scrutiny. The earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey this week is now one of the deadliest disasters in decades. More than 20,000 people have been killed in Turkey and Syria, with the toll expected to rise as wintry conditions and time foreclose the chance to pull survivors from the rubble. In Turkey alone, an estimated 16,000 have been killed. More than 6,400 buildings have collapsed ..read more

Russian nesting dolls of President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are seen at a souvenir stand. | Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images “Volatile” but not “a powder keg”: An expert explains the state of play in a tense Asia-Pacific region. The saga of the Chinese spy balloon floating over the United States dominated media attention last week, and its destruction by the US seemed a signal moment in the relationship between the two superpowers. It had already been a tense few months. Just before the balloon standoff, Washington took a major step to expand its military presence around the ..read more

Russian nesting dolls of President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are seen at a souvenir stand. | Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images “Volatile” but not “a powder keg”: An expert explains the state of play in a tense Asia-Pacific region. The saga of the Chinese spy balloon floating over the United States dominated media attention last week, and its destruction by the US seemed a signal moment in the relationship between the two superpowers. It had already been a tense few months. Just before the balloon standoff, Washington took a major step to expand its military presence around the ..read more

US President Joe Biden speaks during a State of the Union address at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. | Bloomberg via Getty Images Follow here for all of Vox’s coverage on the latest news, political analysis, reactions, and more. President Biden delivered his second State of the Union address at 9 pm on Tuesday, February 7. He touted the record-low unemployment rate; his biggest legislative accomplishments, including the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act; and his administration’s executive order on policing. Arkansas Gov ..read more