Features

Friday

Thomas Steventon

My miracle match against the Vatican’s cricket team

Many have come to Rome seeking spiritual guidance: Thomas à Becket, Lord Byron, Lionel Richie. I came for a different purpose: to defend a papal cricket trophy. I am not Catholic. And, until last year, I had never played cricket before. It all started, as many great British stories do, with a pub: the Three Stags in Kennington. My friend Tom had invited me to what he described as a “Cricket Club Party.” As I headed upstairs, the barman’s quizzical look when I mentioned I was there for “the party” should have given me cause for concern. As I came in through the doors, I was greeted by what appeared to be the end of a Sunday lunch and a collection of six individuals for whom the collective age would have been a record-setting Test score.

Natalie Livingstone

The unlikely link between Nuremberg and The Devil Wears Prada

In the aftermath of Péter Magyar’s victory in Hungary, while I watch people dancing in the streets as they celebrate Viktor Orbán’s dramatic ousting, I think of my Hungarian grandparents. As Holocaust survivors, they were the lucky ones, and they remained proud Hungarians to the end. They would have greeted this election with characteristic realism: Minden csoda három napig tart, as the saying goes. Every miracle lasts three days. Hungary is a country still feeling the long aftershocks of World War Two and the Holocaust. Those shocks seem clearer than ever after the years I have spent researching The Nuremberg Women, my new book on the trials.

Lionel Shriver

‘Tea-towel-gate’: another British travesty

During last September’s freshers’ fair at Royal Holloway, University of London, two students got into a brief verbal tiff that became subject to the administration’s immediate alarm. Our characters: Brodie Mitchell, a self-described non-Jewish Zionist, and Huda El-Jamal, the female president of the Friends of Palestine Society, who is of Palestinian descent. Mitchell says El-Jamal taunted him – “Here’s the wannabe Jew” – and questioned why he wasn’t wearing a yarmulke. Referring to the keffiyeh El-Jamal was wearing as a headscarf, Mitchell taunted back: “You’re wearing a tea towel over your head.” A monstrous exchange, we can all agree. Naturally, Royal Holloway suspended Mitchell for nine weeks – nine weeks!

Geoffrey Cain

Why Apple’s new CEO will play it safe

When Apple named its next chief executive last month it did so without ceremony. Tim Cook will become executive chairman on September 1; John Ternus, his senior vice-president of hardware engineering, will succeed him as CEO. The announcement came with a photograph, not a keynote: the two men walking through Apple Park, the circular glass campus in Cupertino that Steve Jobs designed with the British architect Norman Foster and did not live to see completed. It was the first Apple succession of the post-masterpiece age, and the prose matched. Apple said the transition had been approved unanimously by its board after a “thoughtful, long-term succession planning process.” Cook had spent 15 years building a company that could change its CEO without spectacle.

Sebastian Mallaby

Meet Mythos: the new AI system causing panic over cybersecurity

It’s tempting, even fashionable, to pooh-pooh the hyperbole from our tech overlords. The release in 2022 of ChatGPT, the first mass-market conversational AI system, unleashed a volley of supercilious put-downs. The chatbot was not intelligent. It was merely hallucinating, manipulating statistics, regurgitating phrases from the internet: it was a “stochastic parrot.” Well, over the next three years, ChatGPT became unputdownable. It learned to handle photographs and videos, extract wisdom from dense textbooks, sound like Scarlett Johansson, write everything from code to songs to emails and offer tips on fixing washing machines. Not bad for a parrot.

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Charles Cornish-Dale

Could too little cholesterol be the cause of autism and ADHD?

In September last year, shares in Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, plunged when Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the results of an investigation into the environmental causes of autism. One of the causes discovered, RFK Jr. said, was Tylenol use by pregnant women. Studies positing a link had already been used in lawsuits by hundreds of parents who believed acetaminophen – the drug’s medical name – had caused their children to develop autism or ADHD. Now, Kennedy said, the FDA had even more robust data to support that link. Kenvue has since lobbied the FDA to prevent new warnings about the risk of using Tylenol during pregnancy from being added to its product.

SPLC
Blake Neff

The powerful incentives for vilifying white Americans

The Southern Poverty Law Center may not, we hope, be long for this world. The Trump administration’s new indictment has exposed the organization’s practice of funneling millions of dollars through fake bank accounts to “informants” sitting in senior positions at the very “hate groups” it claimed to monitor. Even if the SPLC survives, the criminal proceedings may leave it so damaged and exhausted that it sheds most of its influence. Others have charted out the potential financial incentives behind the SPLC’s alleged misconduct: the demand for “hate” in America exceeds the supply, so to create sufficient far-right activity to keep donations flowing, the SPLC was perhaps ready to pay off the operatives it supposedly fought.

Michael Tracey

Fight me, Jim Acosta: Michael Tracey

The recent DC media revelry was thwarted by a blundering assassination attempt, and in my case, a drunken challenge from journalist Jim Acosta, formerly of CNN and now Substack. He asked me to “step outside” so we could settle our differences like real men. I was eager to oblige on the sidewalk in front of the Smithsonian Museum, where Substack was hosting its gala. His fury erupted when I dared approach the VIP partygoer Julie K. Brown – comically credited with having broken the Jeffrey Epstein story in 2018 with her series of painfully overrated articles in the Miami Herald. She has since enjoyed hero status, getting showered with every contrived journalism award. Julie has even had her likeness optioned for some sort of streaming-service drama.

Sarah Beth Spraggins

Is Usha Vance the mastermind behind J.D. Vance?

In 2006, when Usha Vance was still a college junior called Usha Chilukuri, she appeared in the “50 most beautiful people list” of the Yale student magazine, Rumpus. “The charming Chilukuri says that she doesn’t have particular preferences as far as the less fair sex is concerned,” said the article, “though she does like a man who has a lot to say for himself.” “In the past, her liaisons have been tall, handsome, and conservative (though she herself is of the leftish political persuasion). However, she says that the future doesn’t necessarily have to imitate the past. So stay hopeful.” Today, Brittany Hugoboom, the editor-in- chief of conservative women’s magazine Evie, says: “Usha is just really pretty and I like that.

Trump Iran
Spectator Editorial

How will Trump solve the Iran problem?

Has President Trump discovered his “off-ramp” from the war in Iran? His administration insists that Iran’s military power has been crushed, that its already broken economy is now all but dead, and that the Islamic Republic is on its last legs, desperate to make a deal. Yet Tehran, or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard deep state that effectively calls the shots, still shows little willingness to accept defeat. Indeed, if anything, the official noises and propaganda emanating from Iranian channels suggest a regime that feels Trump has committed a huge strategic blunder. Trump has, on Truth Social at least, extended his ceasefire “indefinitely” while negotiations continue.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

My night under fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Last Saturday evening, the American media class descended for its annual jamboree of back-slapping at the Washington Hilton. Protesters outside waved signs reading "Death to tyrants" and "Death to all of them." The atmosphere inside was more jovial. Donald Trump was attending the dinner for the first time since becoming President, along with most of his cabinet and senior officials. We were expecting him to give the assembled media a good roasting – and some of us were looking forward to it. Attendees had to show invitations to get into the hotel, but there were few ID checks and no screening as we went to the pre-parties thrown by the major news organizations. Only when we walked into the main dinner hall did we pass through metal detectors.

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

The inverted imperialism of the royal visit

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Christian Turner, the UK's new ambassador in Washington. He’s only been in post three months, yet he’s already had to handle a string of bilateral crises – none his fault. US-UK relations are under intense strain over Iran, Ukraine and now the Falklands. And the Jeffrey Epstein stench still lingers thanks to his predecessor, Peter Mandelson. The King’s visit was meant to gloss over all that unpleasantness. Word went round last week that a grateful Donald Trump would pack King Charles and Camilla off and promptly declare the US-UK trade deal had been finalized. Then, on Tuesday, the first morning of the visit, news broke of a leaked tape.

Tuesday

Roger Kimball

We all know how Cole Tomas Allen was radicalized

This column is about the relation between rhetoric and reality, with special reference to political violence and security. Everyone reading this knows that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was rudely interrupted by a crazed gunman. The marksman in question was Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old Cal Tech grad from Torrance, California. I say that he was “crazed” because, shirtless but armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives, he charged the entrance to the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC. Inside were some 2,600 people, including President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and several cabinet members. Outside were who-knows-how-many armed Secret Service agents and local police officers. Not great odds for Allen.

Cole Tomas Allen after he was apprehended at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner

Monday

Katherine Dee

How we all become numb

These nights, sleep won’t take me. Thirty-one weeks pregnant, I’m too big to ever be comfortable. I toss; I turn; I move to the guest room in the vain hope that having a bed to myself might offer some reprieve from the fact my bones can no longer support my weight. Some time around 3 or 4 a.m., I give up and open TikTok, where the algorithm offers its nightly liturgy of dread. “If you’re seeing this, it’s meant for you,” a woman in her car, voice low, telling me to install a Ring doorbell because somebody could be casing my house. I live in Chicago, and someone just stole my neighbor’s catalytic converter. It’s plausible, I think.

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Daniel McCarthy

Why America still longs for monarchy

Even when he’s not visiting the United States, King Charles III might occasionally daydream about what his reign would be like today if things had worked out differently 250 years ago. The King is not, of course, the head of government anywhere nowadays, and were Charles the king of America, he wouldn’t necessarily wield any more power here than he does in modern Britain. Yet there’s reason to think he possibly could – for the truth is, Americans love monarchy at least as much as they fear it, and they love the royal family, too.

Monday

Robert Hardman

Why Donald Trump won’t embarrass the royals

Elizabeth II was never particularly enthusiastic about birthdays. They were a good excuse for a parade or an honors list, but not a patch on a major wedding anniversary, let alone a jubilee. Those were a celebration of true dedication, not of mere longevity. Even so, were she still with us, the late Queen would have acknowledged that her centenary on April 21 is a big deal. It would also have created a delightful conundrum for the Buckingham Palace anniversaries office, the department that sends out 100th-birthday congratulations from the sovereign. At the start of her reign, she was sending 385 of those each year across all her realms (by telegram). By the end, it was over 16,000 (by card).

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Blake Neff

Populism curve: what is the supply side of Britain and Europe’s decline?

In his new book Why Populists Are Winning: and How to Beat Them, British MP Liam Byrne argues that it’s time to go after the “supply side” of populism – time, that is, to curb freedom of the press and the right of individuals to spend money on causes they believe in. For a decade, you see, the European and British establishments have focused on quashing the demand side of populism. They have employed police, prison, censorship and shame to stop people from voicing anti-establishment opinions, demanding populist policies or voting for populist parties. They have formed preposterously broad coalitions to exclude populist parties from power.

Sunday

Olivia Potts

Gentleman’s Relish is no more

It is the early hours of the morning and an email drops into my inbox. Lacking any kind of willpower, I open it. Now I’m wide awake. Because this isn’t the usual PR slop that starts my days. It’s a tip-off. A big one. A reader has discovered something about a company and they are urging me – me! – to investigate. Adrenaline surges. This must be what it felt like to be Woodward. Or Bernstein. Only my informant is pointing me in a slightly different direction. Their intel is on Gentleman’s Relish: the incredibly niche spread is disappearing from our shelves. It has been available in the House of Lords dining rooms – but for how much longer? Online supermarkets and delis are showing it as out of stock. What is going on?

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oz pearlman
Oz Pearlman

Can I read Trump’s mind?

Making time to prepare to host the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has not been easy. Presently I’m flying back to New York, where I live, on a red-eye after a show in Las Vegas. My wife and five kids, all under the age of ten, are at home waiting for me. On average, I have one media appearance every day and a half between now and then. I’m not asking you to cry for me. All of this momentum and publicity is terrific. And my preparation for the big night on April 25 is always simmering below the surface. It feels as if reading minds for the last 30 years has been training for this moment. My goal is to have Donald Trump take part – and to save the best for last. If I could read only one mind in this world, it would be that of the most powerful person in the world.

Saturday

Sarah Beth Spraggins

Melania’s mysterious messaging

On April 9, Melania Trump held a lone press conference. She showed up in a charcoal suit, delivered a speech and turned to exit, runway style, without pausing. Melania doesn’t take questions from the press. The facts, according to Melania: Jeffrey Epstein had not introduced her to Donald Trump. She met her husband, “by chance, at a New York City party, in 1998.” She and her husband were acquainted with Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein, but this was “common in New York City and Palm Beach.” She had engaged Maxwell in polite “casual correspondence” over email. That was the extent of the relationship. “I am not Epstein’s victim,” she said somberly. White House staff were perplexed. Why had the presser been called?

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