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Istanbul

People put flowers over a memorial placed on the spot of Sunday's explosion on Istanbul's popular pedestrian Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul, Nov. 14, 2022.

Turkey detains Syrian suspect in deadly Istanbul bombing

Violence

At least six people died and dozens of others were wounded in an attack on a popular thoroughfare in Istanbul on Sunday. Police detained a Syrian woman who they say has confessed to planting a bomb.

Yörük Işık, an independent Istanbul-based geopolitical analyst, is among a small group of ship watchers —  some hobbyists, some professionals — who observe ship traffic in Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait. 

At the mouth of the Black Sea, a ship spotter watches for clues amid Ukraine war

Ukraine
drawing

For this man in Istanbul, the pandemic renewed a lifelong passion for drawing 

Coronavirus Art
A few cows graze on green grass along a river in daylight hours.

Istanbul’s mega-canal poses threats to surrounding villages, wildlife

Development
On the exterior of the building, the stencil of a stag created by the artist MAD stands solemnly, with pieces of women's underwear hanging from its horns. 

Temporary art exhibit pays homage to an Istanbul apartment building scheduled for demolition 

Arts
Sevilay, a mother of two in Istanbul, got permission from her husband to have an abortion as required by law. But she had trouble finding a public hospital that would do it, and even some of her friends criticize her for her decision.

Abortion increasingly hard to access in Turkey

Reproductive rights

Abortion has been legal in Turkey since 1983, but the ruling AK Party and president have been chipping away at access to the procedure over the past decade.

A man in a suit walks with a woman wearing a dark pink dress with white head covering in ornate museum with Arabic script

Whose Haghia Sophia? 

Religion

The Byzantines commissioned it as a Greek Orthodox cathedral. The Ottomans conquered it and turned it into an ornate mosque. Then, secular revolutionaries converted it into a monument to two faiths. Its ownership and usage have become a perennial political debate.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan

New Istanbul mayor’s star power could be a challenge for Erdoğan

Global Politics

Ekrem İmamoğlu of the Republican People’s Party won a decisive victory on Sunday, his second in three months after authorities annulled an earlier vote. His first task is to take the reins from Erdoğan’s AK Party which, along with its Islamist predecessor parties, has run the city for 25 years.

A river winds through a city full of buildings and skyscrapers.

Erdogan’s ‘crazy’ canal alarms villagers and environmentalists

Environment

When residents of Sazlibosna, a village near Istanbul, tried to attend a public meeting about the Turkish government’s plan to dig a 1,300-foot canal through their farmlands, they were stopped by police. The 28-mile Kanal Istanbul will link the seas north and south of Istanbul and ease traffic on the Bosphorus strait, a major global […]

shawarma

Pro-opposition Syrians in Turkey grapple with losing the war

Conflict

For many of the Syrians in Turkey who fought in, or rooted for the opposition, the bloodshed is ending in death and destruction with no freedom.

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Attack in Turkey, Corruption at the Department of Homeland Security, O.J. Simpson and Race in America