Americas

Reports for the US Department of Energy show that, per passenger mile, rail has a lower energy footprint than road and air (despite the diesel locomotives). And with Amtrak declaring a 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 2010 – and more efficient, high-speed engines on the horizon – Michael, like me, is in favour of supporting rail. But I was curious, too. At some stage, all my American road trips have intercepted a train ploughing off into deep country; I have so often wanted to be aboard. And now, with the lights of Kansas City disappearing into the night, and Elvis’s Mystery Train loud in the headphones, at last I am. … [Read more...] about Views you don’t get on the freeway … across America by train

To the trailhead: train and car from Williams, Arizona, to North Rim Just over 200 miles east of the bright lights of Las Vegas, I bumped the hire car off Route 66 and rolled into the old cowboy town of Williams, Arizona. My plan was to leave the vehicle in the Grand Canyon Railway car park. From there, I would travel by train to South Rim, and then take a shuttle taxi service to the remote North Rim trailhead early the next morning. This way, when I finished the hike back at South Rim, I could catch the train back to Williams and my car. … [Read more...] about How to hike the Grand Canyon

However, there are concerns the 5,000 year-old ancestral crop is being eaten less by its traditional consumers: quinoa farmers. "They have westernised their diets because they have more profits and more income," says Mejia, an agronomist. "Ten years ago they had only an Andean diet in front of them. They had no choice. But now they do and they want rice, noodles, candies, coke, they want everything!" … [Read more...] about Quinoa brings riches to the Andes

Traditionally, Yanomami do not give each other names, referring only to their relationships with one another. In order to keep medical records, the team needed a way of identifying each patient. Each of the Yanomami were assigned a number, written on a wood necklace, which Andujar photographed them wearing. In their pragmatic simplicity, and numbering in their hundreds, the images show the Yanomami at their most vulnerable, facing the onslaught of sickness brought in by outsiders. And, while this process was born out of administrative need, it has become Andujar’s most biographical project, the young and old staring back at the camera, their numbers recalling those branded on the victims of the Holocaust. … [Read more...] about Shamen, spirits, survival: how Claudia Andujar fought for the Yanomami tribe

The last nine months of our lives, since the beginning of those reports, have been filled with attacks of every kind. We have received detailed death threats containing personal, non-public data available only to the state. Many have been directed at our two sons, sometimes with gruesome detail. A month after our reporting began, a news site notorious for being a dumping ground for leaks by Sérgio Moro announced that an agency under his command had initiated an investigation into Glenn’s personal finances, one stopped by the supreme court on the ground that it was clearly retaliatory and thus a violation of the constitutional guarantee of a free press. We learned in September that the same federal agency had also initiated an investigation into David’s personal finances, one launched two days after the Intercept’s reporting began. … [Read more...] about The far-right Bolsonaro movement wants us dead. But we will not give up