35 The Two Gentlemen of Verona View image in fullscreen Denton Chikura and Tonderai Munyevu in a two-man production for the Globe to Globe festival in 2012. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy With its imp

In 2016, Afrobeats – the catchall term for a range of contemporary dance music emerging from west Africa – began to seep into global pop culture, propelled by intercontinental collaborations such as W

Late-night hosts reacted to Donald Trump’s indefinite extension of the Iran ceasefire as his cabinet fumbles negotiations over the unpopular war. Jimmy Kimmel “The White House is not a fun place to

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is launching a new inquiry into the TV ratings system, including whether content related to gender identity is not adequately flagged for parents, in the la

The American Library Association (ALA) has reported a record high in the number of books banned in US libraries. In 2025, 5,668 books were banned – representing 66% of the total number challenged – w

Garry Marshall’s 1988 film Beaches is no testament to subtlety. But in its gauzy, hustling way it is an effective tear-jerker, poignantly tracing decades of a friendship as it unwittingly approaches t

Lace up your gumshoes! Hard-boiled detectives are back on the scene, fedoras pulled low, cigarettes sparked up. Nicolas Cage is leading the charge in Prime Video’s Spider-Noir, a shadowy spin on Spide

Stranger Things takes us back to simpler times. The original Netflix series plonked us in a fantasy past where kids in small American towns rode bikes, chewed gum, listened to cassettes and played Dun

“Metaphors can kill,” the linguist George Lakoff wrote in an influential essay on the Gulf war. “The use of a metaphor with a set of definitions becomes pernicious when it hides realities in a harmful

When blue-collar Trump voters and Maga-friendly midwest states join the same cause as Bernie Sanders and liberal California teachers, something novel is afoot. Last month it was the turn of the Republ

As the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to a podium in Pakistan after 21 hours of diplomacy and said no deal had been reached to end the war with Iran, his boss Donald Trump was in Miami watching a m

A picture posted on social media last April by Prof Yasuyuki Aono of a spreadsheet, with its blank row for 2026, carries a quiet poignancy. Prof Aono died before he got to fill in this year’s entry fo

You’ve probably heard of the Barbra Streisand effect: the phenomenon where attempts to censor information end up drawing more attention to it. Now we might soon be referencing the Melania Trump effec

The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or

Resistance, in physics, is the force that hinders the flow of charged electrons as they zigzag from point to point. Resistance doesn’t stop the flow of electricity. Instead, it causes heat. Popular r

There’s money to be made in California this spring, no startup pitch or buzzy screenplay required. Instead, signatures are one of the state’s most coveted commodities: campaigns are paying $15 apiece

Donald Trump was quick to declare victory over Iran, but this weekend’s negotiations suggest that Tehran has the upper hand. His war of choice has backfired. His military solution has emboldened rathe

The Trump administration, dominated by religious anti-abortion conservatives and reeling in money from a new wave of pronatalist tech reactionaries, has long been considering ways to persuade, pressur

The strongest men I’ve known didn’t behave anything like Donald Trump. They were capable of restraint, first off. They may have spoken loudly, but they never used volume to enforce authority. None of

Since returning to office, Donald Trump has issued more than 1,800 pardons – to financial fraudsters, drug kingpins, January 6 insurrectionists and others. Unfortunately, Trump’s pardons don’t begin t

To Lena Dunham, I need to say that I’m sorry. I’m sure she’ll never read this, since she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who Googles herself. If I was Lena, I certainly wouldn’t. The internet is

I’ve had my ups and downs with the church of my childhood. On the one hand, as a “cradle Catholic”, I’ve received the sacraments, often get to Sunday mass, and am the product of a Catholic education,

Iran may have reopened the strait of Hormuz, but a global energy crisis has not yet been averted. The war has already damaged as much as $58bn worth of power infrastructure. Even under the best-case c

I’m not a particularly religious person, even though everyone tells me how cool believing in God is now. Every so often, we get a new trend piece about how rad and chill Christianity has become. All t

Viktor Orbán’s electoral loss was a slap in the face for Donald Trump and JD Vance, who had enthusiastically endorsed Europe’s most visible autocrat but proved unable to salvage his candidacy. But Hun

With Americans focused on Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran, far too few Americans are focusing on another disastrous Trump idea: increasing the Pentagon’s budget to a colossal $1.5tn.

When I first researched dating apps and intimacy almost a decade ago, participants would regularly reach for romantic comedies to describe the kind of love they were hoping for. Eyes meeting across a

A funny thing happened on the way to the budget: changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, which had for years been a no-go zone, are now looking likely. One of the first times I wrote about

At times of extreme dysregulation, I turn to the safest of safe foods: a particular frozen cheeseburger that has changed its recipe once since last century. I knew it was time to throw one in the micr

Last month, the International Olympic Committee announced that transgender women athletes would be barred from competing in all Olympic events in the women’s category – but not the men’s events. In ad

You can’t kill something that is already dead. New details about Peter Mandelson’s disastrous appointment as Britain’s ambassador to Washington can trigger more paroxysms of outrage in Westminster. Th

The airport in Las Vegas last Friday afternoon was what you might expect for a WrestleMania weekend. Packed terminal. Delays stacking up. Nobody going anywhere. Then we heard why. Air Force One was o

I know that child labour is generally frowned upon but, in this economy, sometimes you’ve got to put your kid to work. Last week I gave my four-year-old an important assignment: she had to watch all f

???? Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app ???? Are voters about to hand Nigel Farage his biggest win yet? Reform are polling in second place in Scotland, and while Farag

At least two senior civil servants knew weeks ago that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting for his US ambassador role, Sky News understands. But they did not pass over the information to the

Former transport secretary Louise Haigh will outline an economic agenda to help voters with the cost of living in one of her most significant interventions since being forced out of cabinet 18 months