The reelection of Donald Trump would mark the end of George Washington’s vision for the presidency—and the United States.By Tom Nichols
Voters detest the things that Trump wants to do. But they just don’t believe he’ll follow through.By David A. Graham
And how to get them to stopBy Bill Adair
Times Literary Supplement (October 9, 2024): The latest issue features ‘This English House’ – W.H. Auden’s changing view of home by Seamus Perry…
The daily stream of racism and mendacity has had a numbing effect. But the question of what Trump might actually do is a prospect that voters cannot afford to ignore. By Jonathan Blitzer
From crypto to A.I., the tech sector is pouring millions into super PACS that intimidate politicians into supporting its agenda. By Charles Duhigg
Donald Trump is lying next to you in the bed, wearing snug cotton pajamas printed to look like his signature blue suit. You want to tell him a few things you think he ought to know, but his fake snoring drowns you out. By Ian Frazier
Kill or be killed is the region’s new logic. Deterrence and diplomacy would be better
Why property prices could keep rising for years
It will take more than a spectacular stockmarket rally to revive the economy
A story of modern migration has had extraordinary results
The first “connectome” of the brain of a complex adult animal has just been completed
The Guardian Weekly (October 2, 2024) – The new issue features ‘ 7 OCTOBER 2023’ – The day that changed the world. The Anniversary foreshadows a region on the brink. Plus: the shapeshifting Giorgia Meloni.
Events in the Middle East were moving so rapidly this week that the stunning assassination of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last Friday, killed by an Israeli heavy bombing raid, already feels quite distant. By Tuesday morning Israeli forces had launched what was called a “limited, localised and targeted” ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hours later, Iran responded with a barrage of ballistic missiles aimed at targets across Israel.
To put things in some kind of perspective, the coming week also marks the first anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel, setting in motion the brutal chain of events leading to the deaths of more than 41,000 Gazans by Israeli bombing, last week’s dramatic events in Lebanon and Iran’s military response which many now fear leaves the region close to full-blown war.
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Spotlight | The ‘marriage competition’ that divided South Sudan
Underage marriage is illegal in South Sudan yet so commonplace it rarely attracts attention. But the case of Athiak Dau Riak, who her mother says is only 14, has gone viral, polarising her family and the country. From Juba, Florence Miettaux reports
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Science | Telescopes that could save us from death by asteroids
The existential threat from a large meteor is real, but two next-generation telescopes are about to make us safer, writes Robin George Andrews
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Feature | The shapeshifter: who is the real Giorgia Meloni?
She’s been called a neo-fascist and a danger to her country. But the Italian prime minister has won over many heads of Europe. Should we be worried? By Alexander Stille
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Opinion | Trump v Harris and a battle between the sexes
There are clear reasons why women are running from Trump, but men are flocking to him – and it’s vital to understand why, argues Jonathan Freedland
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Culture | Will Ferrell’s road trip of trans discovery
Saturday Night Live writer Harper Steele came out as a trans woman in 2022 at the age of 61. Her friend of 30 years Will Ferrell had questions. So what else to do but jump in a van, cross the US, and make a documentary about it? Guy Lodge reports
Literary Review – October 2, 2024: The latest issue features Richard Vinen on Churchill; @wendymoore99 on Marie Curie; Ritchie Robertson on Augustus the Strong; @robinsimonbaj on British art and @tomlamont on James Salter
‘It’s not a bad life for the leaders of the British bourgeoisie! There’s plenty for them to protect in their capitalist system!’ So wrote Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador in London, after his first visit to Winston Churchill’s country house at Chartwell in Kent. He described the house thus: ‘A wonderful place! Eighty-four acres of land … all clothed in a truly English dark-blue haze.’
Frederick Augustus (1670–1733), elector of Saxony and king of Poland, owed his sobriquet ‘the Strong’ to such feats as crushing a tin plate in his hand (mentioned by Rilke in the ‘Fifth Duino Elegy’) and to his vigorous sex life. Contemporaries credited him with fathering 354 illegitimate children; Tim Blanning soberly reduces the number to eight. This biography is concerned not with court gossip, however, but with Augustus’s political career and cultural achievements. Blanning celebrates Augustus as the virtual creator of the once-magnificent city of Dresden, where the kings of Saxony resided, and hence, surprisingly, as ‘a great artist, arguably the greatest of his age’.
Times Literary Supplement (October 2, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Canon Fire’ – Emma Smith and Brian Vickers on authorship in the golden age of theatre…
The dark art of crafting nuclear ‘pits’ was almost lost. Now it’s ramped up into a multibillion dollar industry.
Our system leaves parents with unreliable waitlists and mortgage-size payments, while teachers go overburdened and underpaid.
The party realizes that progressive issues win voters, even when their candidates don’t.
Raymond Tallis wonders what the world is made from.
Scenes of rowdy bars and tipsy revellers in the 20th century show a world that is both alien and comfortingly familiar
Sarah Moss returns to a Pre-Raphaelite painting that made a lasting impression on her in when she was a teenager
The veteran sherry-makers at Bodegas Tradición in Cádiz may have perfected their craft, but the winery’s collection of paintings by great Spanish artists is no less impressive
