When I walk to my local supermarket in north Belfast, the journey takes me through a Catholic, Nationalist area, marked by Palestinian flags, to the edge of a Protestant, Loyalist area, where Israeli flags flutter, alongside Union flags, from the …
How the Diddy Conspiracy duped America
First the facts, then the alternative facts. Sean Combs — aka Diddy, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy — no longer resides in his $19 million Star Island Miami mansion, but at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where the 54-year-old …
How the Diddy Conspiracy duped America
First the facts, then the alternative facts. Sean Combs — aka Diddy, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy — no longer resides in his $19 million Star Island Miami mansion, but at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where the 54-year-old …
What Jews can’t afford to forget
Some memories can be lethal to the psyche. Every reader of the Bible knows that Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt, the stuff of tears, when she turned to face the firestorm engulfing Sodom. Who can blame her …
Will revolution return to Tunisia?
Karim Benabdallah looks tired. The 48-year-old activist and blogger has been actively engaged in Tunisian politics for more than 20 years. Yet as he gazes up at a carob tree, at the Belvedere Park in the hills above Tunis, his …
Hurricane Helene is America’s Chernobyl moment
Hurricane Katrina looms large in American cultural consciousness. As one of the defining events during George W. Bush’s second term as president, the scale of the devastation that struck Louisiana — combined with the inadequacy of the relief effort — …
The revenge of the Conservative Hot Girl
There’s a new weapon in the culture wars and its assets are considerable. In America, Republicans have become obsessed with the “conservative hot girl”: an unreconstructed, curvaceous and unashamedly flirty young woman who counts as Right-coded simply in virtue of …
MrBeast’s faux philanthropy
Jimmy Donaldson dropped out of a community college near his home in North Carolina at the age of 18 to crack one of the mysteries of modern life: what makes a video become a viral sensation on social media? Together …
My year of horror in Gaza
I have lived in Gaza all my life, and for 30 years have been a journalist, which means I have witnessed a lot of violent conflict. But when I woke up to the booms of rockets being fired towards Israel …
The genesis of the MAGA Bible
It has been more than two decades since I walked away from the evangelical Christian faith in which I was raised as a preacher’s son, but I still know blasphemy when I see it. In an ad for his God …
The moral weakness of Britain’s ruling class
Elite misbehaviour is the Ariadne’s thread, the unifying theme, running through Alan Hollinghurst’s oeuvre. From his debut novel, The Swimming-Pool Library, to his latest work, Our Evenings, his characters tend to be entitled toffs — or bourgeois parvenus with a …
Meet the alt-Right Crunchy Mums
If you were lucky enough to have a mother growing up, there are a few moments you’ll probably remember. In the middle of the night, stumping over from your bedroom to admit “I frew up”. The ceremonial bringing out of …
In Israel, we are masters of uncertainty
I’ve treated scores of terror victims, traumatised soldiers and bereaved families, since I moved to Jerusalem as a psychologist in 1986. I thought I’d seen it all. Nine friends and neighbours murdered by suicide bombers, drive-by shootings, and stabbings; and …
The toxic empathy of the VP debate
“Everybody’s got a plan,” Mike Tyson once said, “until they get punched in the face.” The American media’s plan for last night’s vice-presidential debate between Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz was that the two running mates would, all …
Macho Christianity is flexing its muscles
Is he the messiah? Or just a very naughty boy? Since Russell Brand found Jesus he hasn’t stopped talking about it, whether on TikTok, or Tucker Carlson’s live show, or while baptising other men in a lake while clad only …