Late in 1928, the Guardian made plans to give its readers a weekly cryptic puzzle. At the time, crosswords were considered a waste of time; other newspapers campaigned against them as a distraction keeping the working man from his duties, but the cryptic was different. Sly and witty rather than purely definitional, the cryptic makes…
In the late 19th century, after Reconstruction, US federal protections for Black voters began to erode. Southern states sought to reshape their electoral systems – through poll taxes, literacy tests and districting – to consolidate political control for white supremacist politicians. Over decades this led to Jim Crow laws, under which most Black Americans in the…
As Donald Trump’s second term has become overshadowed by plunging poll ratings and an illegal, ill-advised war in the Middle East, European governments have regularly been singled out to bear the brunt of the US president’s growing frustration. Sir Keir Starmer’s refusal to militarily back the attack on Iran led to unfavourable comparisons to both…
China senses opportunity when Donald Trump visits later this month. A nakedly transactional US president in need of a trade deal, and hoping that Beijing could lean on Iran, might shift on Taiwan in return. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, linked the issue explicitly to broader bilateral cooperation in his call with Marco Rubio, the…
The two-year decline in healthy life expectancy in Britain, set out in new analysis from the Health Foundation thinktank, is devastating. In a wealthy country like the UK, at a time of rapid advances in the treatment of illnesses including obesity and cancer, people should not be living with sickness or disability earlier than they…
The U.S. Marine Corps has accumulated thousands of first-person view drones over the span of several months, with thousands more on the way, the service said Thursday. The meteoric rise of the service’s autonomous weapons stockpile was a result of a clear edict from the top down and service member adaptability, according to Commanding Officer…
When the Bank of England warned this week that food inflation could reach 7% by the end of the year, it revealed how little stands between a geopolitical jolt and a domestic crisis in Britain. A shock wave in the Gulf feeds through energy, fertiliser and supermarket prices into falling incomes, weak growth and job…
Opec appears to be the latest casualty of the Iran war. On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates announced that it was leaving the oil cartel after 60 years. The loss of a critical member is a blow to the group and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, in the midst of the biggest supply crisis in history….
Whether a prime minister misled parliament is a serious matter. The pattern of statements made by Sir Keir Starmer about appointing Lord Mandelson as US ambassador may justify a parliamentary sleaze inquiry. Opposition parties claim that the prime minister misled MPs over the process that led to the peer taking the Washington job. But they…
When King Charles’s mother became the first British monarch to address the United States Congress in 1991, she spoke in the aftermath of the US-led response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, in which more than 50,000 UK troops participated. Queen Elizabeth II used the occasion to celebrate the role of the transatlantic alliance in upholding the rule…
