America

Brits or Europeans might not have taken note of the ongoing strike by United Auto Workers (UAW) nor of the fact that Donald Trump has chosen to host them at a rally in Michigan instead of participating in the GOP primary debate last night – just a day after president Joe Biden had joined the workers on the picket line near Detroit.  Yet the strike’s relevance lies not only in Michigan’s central place in America’s complicated electoral politics. It is also a harbinger of political battles as the Western world, and Europe in particular, transition to electric mobility. Most importantly, it is a warning to Europe that an overly ambitious

‘If aliens attacked Earth, do you think we would be safer under Joe Biden or Donald Trump?’ That’s a question in a new poll of American voters, and 43 per cent of respondents opted for Trump, 32 per cent for Biden, while 25 per cent sagaciously picked ‘Don’t know’. It’s fun to imagine President Donald in charge against the extra-terrestrials. ‘Zogblark the Magnificent is a good friend of mine,’ Trump would shout from the White House lawn, as the helicopter blades of Marine One clattered away behind. ‘He’s said some very nice things about me. Believe me. Things you wouldn’t believe… But we can’t have him exerting the supreme authority

Professor Ibram X. Kendi has run into a spot of trouble. His fantastically funded Center for Antiracist Research – more than $43 million (£35 million) in the first two years alone – at Boston University is in financial meltdown. What happen to the $10 million (£8 million) from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey? Where are the donations from discount retailer TJ Maxx, food emporium Stop & Shop, and exercise empire Peleton? Why did the centre lay off almost all its staff last week?  No one at Boston University can give a straight answer. The story has made it into the national press, but the most illuminating details come from the student newspaper, the Daily Free

Hunter Biden, the ne’er-do-well son of the president, has been indicted by federal prosecutors on gun charges. Last night, a Delaware federal court indicted Biden on three counts following an investigation by Special Counsel David Weiss. Two of the counts concern the president’s son allegedly lying on a form when purchasing a Colt Cobra revolver five years ago, where, according to the indictment, he falsely claimed that he was not using illegal narcotics at the time of sale. The third count alleges that he was using the drugs while in possession of the firearm. The indictment attempts to lay out how Biden fibbed to the authorities when he agreed ‘that

Like the little boy who pointed out that the emperor was naked, veteran US politician Mitt Romney has just voiced an uncomfortable truth that everyone knows, but few wish to utter: America is being run by men who are too old for office. At 76, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts and presidential contender is no spring chicken himself, but in announcing that he is retiring from being the junior senator for his native state of Utah, Romney called on both 80-year-old President Joe Biden and 77-year-old former President Donald Trump – who is running for a second term in the White House – to follow his example and step down

There were many potential titles for Liz Truss’s memoir: 49 Days that Shook the World, perhaps, or simply What Happened, like Hillary Clinton’s. Instead, she’s gone for a cri de coeur: Ten Years to Save the West. Westminster has a long history of drawing inspiration from Washington Such swashbuckling language is best suited to an American market, and the former prime minister seems to have this in mind. She has declared that her book will appear ‘ahead of the US presidential election’ and explain why it’s vital that ‘conservative arguments win – and the left is defeated’. In the PR so far, Truss has referenced Joe Biden more times than

Harvard, consistently ranked as one of the world’s best universities, has just been rated the worst for free speech in the United States. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), which compiled the rankings, described the state of free speech at Harvard as ‘abysmal’. This news is surprising, since in April over fifty Harvard academics formed a Council on Academic Freedom dedicated, in its words, ‘to promoting free enquiry, intellectual diversity and civil discourse’ on campus. The Council’s formation marked a milestone in official recognition of the problem of free speech, mainly for conservative professors. The psychologist Steven Pinker and Lawrence H. Summers, former advisor to President Clinton, are both members. So why does

It’s a peculiar thing about billionaires: they don’t half have a weak spot for building ideal communities from the ground up. You could call it pluto-utopianism. The latest manifestation of this is California Forever. A number of ultra-wealthy Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs have been quietly buying up 55,000 acres of farmland in Solano county, California, and at the end of last week they launched a website revealing what they planned to do with it. Behold, the future of rural America: a new community rising from the empty earth, the vision for which is set out in a series of watercolour-style illustrations.   Here is a version of that anxiety transmitted into town-planning: a sudden burst of

Senator Mitch McConnell appeared to have another elderly moment in Kentucky following an event yesterday, where a question about whether he would run for re-election in 2026 left him silent as the cameras tracked the awkward scene. It is obviously not the first time that this has happened for McConnell — and the eighty-one-year-old deserves the grace that we would grant to anyone struggling with the inevitability of age. But this is also a moment that presents a challenge for the Republican party, an effort that is larger than just one man (despite what diehard fans of Donald Trump would sometimes have you believe), and one that Senate Minority Leader

As Ukraine marked its 32nd national holiday since independence, news from the front lines and the wider world appeared better than perhaps in any week since the recapture of Kherson in November. In Zaporizhzhia, the hard-fought front lines moved a few miles forward. In Crimea, a missile strike took out a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft complex and a team of Ukrainian commandos briefly raised their yellow-and-blue flag on the peninsula for the first time since Russia’s 2014 annexation. A Russian Mi-8 helicopter pilot defected to Ukraine with a load of jet engine parts. Near-nightly waves of drone strikes deep inside Russia blew up two Tu-22M long-range bombers, four Il-78 transport aircraft

It was the last week of August 2013. I was Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The course of the Arab uprisings of 2011, which had been greeted with such naïve optimism at the time, had become bloody, not least in Syria. Only the previous week there had been a chemical weapons attack on opposition-controlled areas of Damascus in the ancient oasis – the Ghouta – that lies to the south-east of the city.  UN inspectors were begrudgingly and belatedly allowed access by the Syrian government. They concluded that the chemical in question was Sarin. Hundreds of people had been killed, many others severely injured. Some may have been insurgents. The overwhelming majority were civilians, men, women and children, all trapped in

In the dog days of summer, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government are skating on thin ice once more.  An August 18-23 national survey by Abacus Data of 2,189 adults revealed that 56 per cent of respondents believed he ‘should step down’ rather than run again for re-election. Only 27 per cent felt he should stay, and 17 per cent were unsure.  The Canadian public is clearly tired of his ineffective, mediocre leadership and want him to return to private life This number is in line with recent polling data in Canada. Pierre Poilievre and the opposition Conservatives have led in almost every opinion poll conducted since he became party leader