Pete Hegseth emerged from a Senate committee hearing with the support of the Republican Party intact following weeks of scrutiny over his qualifications and allegations of misconduct.
The negotiations, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, appear to be making progress after months of failed attempts to achieve a breakthrough.
More than 90,000 people under evacuation orders are making do however they can.
Special Counsel Report Says Trump Would Have Been Convicted in Election Case
The report, which said the special counsel’s office stood “fully behind” the merits of the prosecution, amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of the president-elect.
Tiffany Daneff savours the exotic surroundings of Tresco Abbey Garden, where the temperate climate of the Isles of Scilly has created a colourful paradise
Box of tricks
The devastation of box blight is well documented, but what can we do to save our hedges? Charles Quest-Ritson investigates
Now that’s what I call pulling power
The ox may have disappeared from the fields of Britain, but that mighty beast of burden still plays a huge role in agriculture across the globe, finds Laura Parker
‘Make way for Her Majesty’s gloves!’
You’ve got to hand it to Cornelia James, suggests Katy Birchall, as she recounts the incredible rise to prominence of our late Queen’s favourite glove-maker
Amie Atkinson’s favourite painting
The actress selects a heavenly landscape that has fired her imagination since childhood
The legacy
Tiffany Daneff pays tribute to Beth Chatto, whose ‘right plant, right place’ philosophy inspired her Essex dry garden
Top seats
The best chairs and benches for the garden, with Amelia Thorpe
Cool schools
Non Morris taps into the expert knowledge of Troy Scott-Smith, Charles Dowding and Tom Stuart-Smith as she digs into some of Britain’s best garden courses
Town versus Earl
John Goodall charts the history of The Lord Leycester and its outstanding medieval buildings in Warwickshire that have been given a whole new lease of life
See you on the top deck
To celebrate the centenary of London’s covered double-decker bus, Rob Crossan hops aboard for a whistle-stop tour of our capital’s public transport
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell keeps her cool with a sparkling selection of jewellery inspired by ice
Interiors
Arabella Youens admires a sitting room in London and Amelia Thorpe answers the call of the wild with animal accessories
Kitchen garden cook
Earthy leeks take centre stage in winter for Melanie Johnson
Be still, my beating art
An obsession with Emma, Lady Hamilton led painter George Romney to produce his finest pieces, reveals Carla Passino
Introducing “How the System Works,” a series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life
The Tyranny of Now
There’s no time like the present to revisit the warning of forgotten media theorist Harold Innis: “Enormous improvements in communication have made understanding more difficult.”
THE NATION MAGAZINE (January 14, 2025): The latest issue features ‘Jazz Off The Record’ – In the late 1960s, the recording industry lost interest in America’s greatest art form. But in a small, dark club on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, jazz legends were playing the …
MONOCLE RADIO (January 14, 2025): The impeachment trial for South Korea’s embattled president, Yoon Suk Yeol, gets under way with the first hearings in Seoul. Also on the programme: Pope Francis’s biography is published and leaders of Nato’s Baltic nations talk defence.
Then: has there been a “breakthrough” in a deal between Israel and Hamas? Plus: the life and legacy of Italy’s Oliviero Toscani, the photographer behind shock Benetton ads.
Clearing the toxic remnants of burned buildings around Los Angeles will require a complex and expensive mobilization. California has been there before.
In the hills above Pacific Palisades, there is crime scene tape and scattered debris, clues to what may have caused the initial fire that eventually raged through thousands of structures.
The White House scrambled to get a message to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last year after U.S. intelligence agencies said a Russian military unit was preparing to send explosive packages on cargo planes.
Battles Rage Inside Russia, With Waves of Tanks, Drones and North Koreans
Ukrainian soldiers are describing fierce clashes as Russian forces try to retake territory in the Kursk region that could be key in eventual cease-fire talks.
Without confronting the economic conditions that gave rise to right-wing populism, the Harris campaign could not meaningfully address a deepening crisis of liberal democracy.
To understand the body, “we might picture the heart as a pump, the brain as a kind of computer, the lungs as bellows, the kidney as filters”. But what about the immune system — asks immunologist John Trowsdale in his engaging analysis. It has no straightforward analogy, operating simultaneously as an antiviral software, a surveillance camera, a weapons system and a way to share resources. The system is “unobtrusive yet extensive, nowhere and everywhere, redundant yet essential, powerful yet remote”.
Wild Chocolate
Rowan Jacobsen Bloomsbury (2024)
When residue inside decorative pots from ancient Mexico was analysed, it yielded traces of cacao — early evidence of cocoa consumption. The Spanish word chocolate might have been influenced by the Nahuatl (Aztec) cacahuatl, or cacao water. Journalist Rowan Jacobsen’s appealing book explores wild chocolate’s history as he travels through Central and South America, meeting chocolate makers, activists and Indigenous leaders who revive the bean’s variety in taste and prestige, lost during its modern industrial manufacture.
Talking Images
Eds Silvia Ferrara et al. Routledge (2024)
The logo of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games was a figure with a red dot ‘head’, blue ‘body’ and single, straight green ‘leg’ — adapted from the Chinese character zhi, meaning ‘birth, life’, ‘arrival’ and ‘achievement’. It is one of a huge variety of “talking images” in a collection edited by three scholars interested in writing. Images range from Palaeolithic symbols and ancient Mesopotamian pictograms to modern Chinese calligraphy and Indian comics. The book traces links between images, marks, language and writing.
Do Plants Know Math?
Stéphane Douady et al. Princeton Univ. Press (2024)
Certain business titans have made Mar-a-Lago a scene of such flagrant self-abnegation, ring-kissing, and genuflection that it would embarrass a medieval Pope. By David Remnick
Lorne Michaels Is the Real Star of “Saturday Night Live”
He’s ruled with absolute power for five decades, forever adding to his list of oracular pronouncements—about producing TV, making comedy, and living the good life. By Susan Morrison
How Religious Schools Became a Billion-Dollar Drain on Public Education
A nationwide movement has funnelled taxpayer money to private institutions, eroding the separation between church and state. By Alec MacGillis
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
