Society

Small cities in the Midwest are steadily growing

If the aim was to elevate places that have been ‘left behind,’ NYC and NOVA should have been at the bottom of the list

‘What? This time they’re going to mean it, and I am supposed to act like this is going to change something — for them or me?’

How can tech employers be expected to hunt for female recruits when few women have chosen to acquire relevant qualifications?

The Canadian psychologist squares off with Helen Lewis for GQ’s December issue

Unlike her, however, I snapped out of it before I was old enough to vote

The celebrated writer made social activism a lot less dangerous to the ruling class

‘Meaningless and unhelpful’: The Times is making it up about Brexit — again

The Facebook CEO is enthralled by the power ancient tyrants wielded

The entrepreneur only seems like an oddball because culture is so homogenised

According to Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, America’s universities have succumbed to ‘safetyism’, whereby students are protected from anything that might cause them anxiety or discomfort. In their book The Coddling of the American Mind, published this week, they attribute the spread of ‘trigger warnings’, ‘safe spaces’ and ‘bias hotlines’ on campus to a misplaced concern about the psychological fragility of students. In their view, millennials aren’t ‘snowflakes’, but imagine themselves to be on account of having been surrounded by over-protective parents and teachers. The fact they are the first generation of ‘digital natives’ hasn’t helped, since it has left them marooned in echo chambers, unaccustomed to challenge. In addition,

The Pussy Church of Modern Witchcraft has been given Tax Exempt Status as a ‘place of lesbian faith’

In a recent column, I vowed to return to a point made in passing. To refresh your memory, the American magazine the Nation printed a formal apology for running a harmless 14-line poem by a white writer about homelessness. The poet’s sins: using the word ‘cripple’ and adopting a voice lightly evoking what I gather we’re now to call ‘AAVE’: African-American Vernacular English. Facebookers were incensed, comments huffy. The poet apologised, too. I decried this ritual progressive self-abasement as cowardly and undignified. But it’s worth taking a second look at that story as a prime example of screaming emotional fraudulence in the public sphere. Employing today’s prescribed lexicon, those apologies

If the head of any other organisation were guilty of such complicity, he or she would not only be forced to resign but could also end up in the dock

The allegation by a former senior Vatican diplomat that Pope Francis vigorously covered up sex abuse is looking more credible by the day. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former apostolic nuncio to the United States, says he told Francis in 2013 that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired Archbishop of Washington, was a serial abuser of seminarians. The Pope ignored him, he claims – and lifted sanctions placed by Benedict XVI on McCarrick. Moreover, he fully rehabilitated the old man, who became one of his most trusted advisers. Viganò has called on Francis to resign. We can now be reasonably certain that Benedict, after a deplorable delay, did punish McCarrick, whom independent sources have confirmed was forced out