From Aboriginal rock art to colonial encounters, sharks have been a figure of fear and fascination throughout the long human history of this continent Is there a more primal fear among beach-goers than the shark? Although many more Australians drown each year at the beach than are killed by these creatures, it’s sharks that inhabit the jagged edges of our collective consciousness. After a…
New species and regional instability are factors – but decisions made in the US and Britain are also costing lives Did you know that there is a major Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it’s on track to be the deadliest ever ? It is already the second-worst Ebola outbreak in history, with the fastest community transmission we have ever seen. It’s estimated that there have…
I understand gen Z’s concerns about the cost of romance. But anything can be a date if you want it to be A couple of months ago, I wrote a column imploring young people to keep trying to find love, to not become cynical about romance and avoid the temptation of the accursed “loneliness influencers” peddling antisocial behavior as some sort of newfangled experiment that no one had thought of…
Cuts to the Access to Work scheme will mean no more contributions to shows like Sex Education, Call the Midwife or The Hack. It will be devastating to lose such talent When Chris McCausland won Strictly Come Dancing in 2024, he held his trophy aloft and said: “It’s for everyone out there that thought and got told they couldn’t do something. It just shows with opportunity and support and…
The president was forced to hide in a catering truck amid the Iran war, in an encapsulation of the conflict’s failures For decades, Donald Trump cultivated a public image based on strength and dominance. He was a brash New York real estate mogul; a reality TV star who deployed his signature phrase: “You’re fired!” to eliminate contestants from The Apprentice; and eventually US president and…
Brexit didn’t create all the problems young people now face, but renewing close ties with Europe will give us so many opportunities I was 14 when the UK voted to leave the EU. Too young to vote, but not too young to understand that a decision was being made that would affect the rest of my life. In many ways, Brexit was my political awakening. It taught me that politics matters, because decisions…
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It’s vital that Yvette Cooper’s taskforce acts on the Amos and Ockenden reports – and puts the needs of women and families at the heart of maternity services It is hard to find the words to describe the agony for those who have experienced preventable baby loss, injury or maternal death. Understandably, families who have been through this have campaigned relentlessly for local and national…
The villeggiatura, a month-long break, was popularised in the 1960s when trade unions were strong – and so was economic productivity On the Riviera di Ponente, sandwiched between the glitzy resort towns of the Ligurian coast, sits the Albenga plain. Dotted with campsites and bungalows, the area developed during Italy’s postwar boom as an affordable refuge for workers to escape the smog of nearby…
There is something depressing about being scammed. Every unknown number, every marketplace purchase, every text with a link now arrives with suspicion My day started with exciting news. It was a long and gushing email from popular Australian breakfast radio show host Sally Sara saying she was following up on a previous conversation (huh? wot?) and would love to interview me about my 2009 book,…
She second-guessed herself and was eager to please. She ‘felt frozen’ when she believed she displeased someone The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work Ali* initially came to therapy for disordered eating. She was a young and diffident woman. She described recurrent cycles of restricted eating followed by attempts to exercise it away. We…
As chief US diplomat, Rubio could do great good. His pandering and neglect are a disgrace we shouldn’t ignore Viewed from the state department in Washington DC, the world is on fire – but record heatwaves are not to blame. The unresolved Iran war has badly burned Donald Trump. His military campaign conclusively failed , energy and food prices are still rising, and a Republican rout in November’s…
AOC’s remarks about past excesses have been ripped out of context. Progressives shouldn’t get roped into this sideshow There is probably no word that has been more used and abused in the last decade than “woke”. It has been rendered completely meaningless, but it refuses to die. Indeed, it has now taken on new life: in the past week, there’s been a flurry of headlines about “Woke 1.0” or “Woke…
Recent comments by AOC have reignited a fiery debate about ‘wokeism’. But what are we really talking about? Full confession: I am one of those who have come to think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can essentially do no wrong. At times when I most fear for the future of our country, I watch her videos and am consoled and cheered by her clarity, her honesty, her intelligence, her simple common sense.…
Despite the recent hearings in Congress, we seem to be even further from the goal of understanding Covid-19’s origin’s than we have ever been As a microbiologist and infectious disease clinician, it has been tough to watch the recent devolution of public discourse on Covid-19 origins. It has been especially difficult for me to read the comments of Anthony Fauci about the origins debate in his…
The FBI from the 1950s to the 1970s tried to infiltrate and discredit leftist organizations. Trump seems to be repeating that sordid practice It is bad enough that the Trump administration blocked a federal criminal investigation when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent killed Renee Good as she was turning her car away from him in Minneapolis the past January. Just before the…
The pattern in the US and Britain is clear. They serve up stunt after stunt to mask incompetence and the betrayal of all those who trusted them It’s a shame Nigel Farage ducked the announcement of his victory in the Clacton byelection, which confirmed his return as MP for the seat he had needlessly resigned from just a few weeks earlier. You’d have thought he would have loved it. It was the…
Attending a Nick Jonas show with my kids was an invitation to ‘collective effervescence’. We need these shared experiences now more than ever Three years ago, I agreed to accompany my children to a Nick Jonas concert. The appeal of the Jonas Brothers, and in this case only one of them, was unfamiliar territory. The concert happened to land on a particularly inconvenient day. As I sprinted out of…
The congresswoman’s decision is an assertion of women’s freedom and dignity at a time when our status is rapidly eroding “Don’t be weird about this,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star and rumored 2028 presidential contender, said on her live video broadcast as she raised her shirt to angle the syringe into her abdomen. Then, with resignation, “even though I know all of…
The dangers of AI become clearer every day. Why are we still acting as if we have no choice about our future? Rather than producing jobs, the US economy actually lost 23,000 jobs in July, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released on Friday. In addition, May and June’s job numbers were revised downward, showing a combined 103,000 fewer jobs than previously reported. As if this weren’t…
A cheap currency helps finance the US tech boom. Washington is intervening because allies matter only when they are useful Japan’s yen has slid back towards 160 to the dollar, despite last month’s extraordinary US-Japanese intervention. Traders are betting that its role as a cheap funding pipeline for global finance will continue. Earlier this month the Trump administration stepped in to help…
Our children should be able to visit our nation’s capital without having to think about Donald Trump and about how much he did to deface it History has shown us how much dictators and aspiring dictators love building monuments to themselves. They enjoy reminding the world that they can do anything, no matter who is responsible for the physical labor or who will be paying the financial and human…
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has no interest in agreeing to a deal. For relief to come to Gaza, real US pressure must be exerted At the end of July, Donald Trump announced that a “monumental” US-backed deal had been struck on Gaza, securing the phased disarmament of Hamas in parallel with Israeli military withdrawal. Three days later it was reported that another 18 people had died…
It’s easy to second-guess decisions made during the pandemic. That doesn’t justify the Republicans’ politicized response Like the rest of us, Anthony Fauci is far from perfect. His influential guidance, as the country’s top infectious-disease specialist during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, certainly didn’t get everything right. A great deal about the deadly disease – where it came from, how…
An exchange between Dr Erica Schwartz and Senator Josh Hawley during her confirmation hearing is alarming Robert F Kennedy Jr’s new cooking show isn’t the only big news out of the public health world this week. On Wednesday, Dr Erica Schwartz was confirmed by the US Senate as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), making her the first Black woman to hold the position.…
Tech companies offer eye-movement trackers, personalized podcasts and ‘optimized nap predictions’. Who actually needs this? What job in our world is less lucrative than being a parent? A Hollywood internship? Volunteering at a soup kitchen? Professional writer? Parenting is the only job you have to pay money to do. Lots of money . Lodging, clothes, food, school, Pokémon cards – it really adds up.…
We’re seeing America wake up to the tyranny that’s engulfed us With the victory of progressive Abdul El-Sayed over representative Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic primary, prepare yourself to hear enormous quantities of bullshit about the Democratic party now being “taken over” by the “left” or by “democratic socialists”. Or as the reliably establishment New York Times put it : “Can an…
The administration’s proposed agreement met a scathing response. But universities must remain vigilant The Trump administration has quietly abandoned the poisonous deal it tried to foist on American universities. Under its so-called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, the administration offered select universities privileged access to federal grants if they agreed to conform with…
Amid stop-and-start threats and with a divided staff, it’s clear Trump has no idea how to end a war that shouldn’t have begun On Thursday, 23 July, after weeks of escalating attacks between the US and Iran, Donald Trump told a reporter that Iran hadn’t received “enough pain yet”, and he leveled a threat. “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before,” he warned. “I am close to making…
Summer is not what it once was. We have been robbed of one of life’s great joys Far beyond the fires raging across Europe and North America, the smoke, dangerous to breathe, hangs in the air, dimming the view, changing the very color of sunlight into something grimly unsettling. An estimated 20,000 are said to have died in the extreme heat in Europe earlier this year, and heat is climate change’s…
The Greeks learn at Troy that breaking the rules works, then carry the lesson home. Nolan’s film shows how an exception becomes a habit of power This article contains spoilers for The Odyssey I had not read The Odyssey since I was a student. Stories change when we return to them later in life, or perhaps we are the ones who change. Christopher Nolan’s film made me want to find out what I had…
Donald Trump may reject the negotiations, but he cannot veto a global effort to make multinational companies answer to governments Governments are told that public services must shrink because money is tight. Yet a new Tax Justice Network report says that countries could capture an extra $500bn a year without raising corporate tax rates. The answer is to tax multinational profits where real…
The longevity influencer and his girlfriend, Kate Tolo, say they’re studying women’s health – a worthy goal, but perhaps some skepticism is in order The tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson has devoted his life to dodging death . The 48-year-old is obsessed with becoming the healthiest person in the world and is on a quixotic quest to reverse his biological age and live forever. As such, Johnson is…
A New York school district has paused plans to bring an android into the classroom. Is this our educational future? What’s more harrowing than sending your child to school? Maybe getting stuck on a city bus that can’t drop below 50 miles per hour or it will explode, but that’s about it. Once your kid hits school age, you have to decide (if you’re lucky) between public and private education, vet…
Trump’s conflict keeps escalating, with Saudi Arabia joining airstrikes in Iraq and reportedly planning an attack on the Houthis. A recession could follow The US war against Iran is spiraling out of control. Over the past week, the conflict has expanded across the Middle East , with attacks and counterattacks in at least five other countries. Instead of a quick war that sought to topple Iran’s…
A youth movement born from exam leaks and online mockery has pierced Narendra Modi’s aura of invincibility and may yet reshape Indian politics “What if all cockroaches come together?” was the question that humbled India’s strongman prime minister, Narendra Modi. It was posted on X by Abhijeet Dipke , an Indian student in the US with a master’s in public relations. Enraged that India’s top judge…
