Everybody, quick, open an office in Abu Dhabi! The oil-rich desert metropolis is opening a new "media hub" consisting of bizarre, bubble-like office buildings, and major news outlets are rushing in. CNN is opening a whole new bureau there! And they'll be joined by the FT, the BBC, Reuters, and some book publishers. How the hell did a city that got its first paved road in 1961 suddenly become the place where news networks simply have to have their Middle Eastern headquarters? By offering reporters more cool futuristic offices, and fewer car bombs: Abut Dhabi took its billions in oil wealth and, through sheer force of will and money, made itself into a default location for news outlets to situate themselves. CNN, for example, can now cover the Middle East exclusively from the Middle East, while staying safely in the lap of luxury. Invest more in Baghdad, where the news is? Or invest in a state-of-the-art new facility in Abu Dhabi, which has far more world-class restaurants and fewer I.E.D.'s?

After almost 55 years, the Baltimore Sun has closed its Moscow bureau. No news from the land of Putin is apparently good news! Brave hero Sun reporter Erika Niedowski filed one last story, now leaked online, about the shuttering of the bureau, but, not surprisingly, it did not make it into the paper. That's okay, nothing going on over there anyhow! Photo: The National Bolshevik Party protests outside the Central Election Commission HQ in Moscow earlier this month. Their leader described the recent elections as "the most unfair and dirtiest in the whole history of modern Russia." Misha Japaridze for AP.