World
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny dies in prison
Just over three years after he was imprisoned in Russia, the Putin critic Alexei Navalny has died. The news was…
Will the Ukrainian army retreat from Avdiivka?
The battle for Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast is a bloodbath. The city, which is also called the ‘gateway to Donetsk’,…
Shoppers are falling out of love with online shopping
Maybe the Office for National Statistics should stop seasonally adjusting its data. That is the lesson from today’s retail sales figures,…
The Tories should be worried about Reform
And with one bound he was free. In fact let’s make that two. A pair of whopping by-election wins in…
After last night Sunak is heading for electoral wipeout
And so Keir Starmer’s bad week comes to an end, just like that. Labour has won two by-elections in a…
2024 and the invasion at the southern border
Donald Trump crushed the New Hampshire primary, as every poll in Alpha Centauri predicted he would. Nevertheless, his sole remaining…
Why is Generation Z so undersexed?
There is a girl on TikTok, a bleached-blonde New York transplant who just passed a million followers, whose videos I…
How Covid amnesia spread through the right and left
In August 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control released new Covid testing guidelines, which called for increased vigilance in…
What will the new Trump foreign policy look like?
A month after the election shock of 2016, CBS’s John Dickerson sat down with the ninety-three-year-old Henry Kissinger to get…
Donald Trump and the clash of realities
As Donald Trump marches to the Republican nomination a third time, Americans are divided into two radically opposed camps. On…
How low birth rates could threaten our civilization
The village we moved to in central Italy is lovely — old stone houses and olive trees on a hillside…
Meeting Eric Ripert, chef of America’s best restaurant
For Eric Ripert, cooking is like jazz. Ad-libbing, balance, motion. “One day the garlic is very pungent, one day it…
The car seat cartel
I work on the back deck and must work quickly while I have the midday sun. The mixing bowl holds…
My friends keep dumping me
T.S. Eliot was wrong. April is not the cruelest month — January is. It’s cold and bleak and days end…
An introduction to presidential grave-hunting
Where better to talk about dead presidents than over beer and wings at Jim’s Saloon in East Pembroke, New York,…
Britain’s economic pain started long before the recession
The Tories have had a tax problem for quite some time. But news of a recession at the end of…
The digital habit
In an era that claims to value the authentic, the direct and the natural, the word “processed” has negative connotations,…
Megève’s enduring magic
Kitted out in black Givenchy, huge sunglasses blocking out the snow glare, Audrey Hepburn is lunching al fresco in the…
Hamas can’t hide behind hospitals anymore
Israeli special forces are operating in Nasser hospital, one of the main hospitals in the city of Khan Yunis, where…
Plogging: Europe’s bizarre eco-friendly fitness craze
The first finisher crossed the line sweaty, tired and almost black with dirt, his white Decathlon shirt turned gray and his…
Tan Ikram and the corruption of the justice system
The case of the ‘paraglider girls’ just keeps getting worse, exposing a criminal-justice system that seems to have become riddled…
Mökki life and Moomin minutiae in Finland
Moomins are synonymous with Finnish culture, like saunas, porridge and mökki (summer cottages). The large-snouted white fairytale creatures feature in the Moomin…
In search of the quintessentially British afternoon tea
It is a strange coincidence that both my sister and I, born and raised in Scotland, have married Americans. I…
The Long Room, a reliable Chicago bar with all the essentials
I was sipping a beer on the patio behind Ten Cat Tavern with my friend Charlie, debating which was the…
How to do St. Patrick’s Day like an Irish American
For a country like Ireland, as devoted to its faith as to a good party, the fact that St. Patrick’s…
