“I almost worship him as if he were a god. I have never felt such an extravagant admiration for anybody.” So the 22-year-old Bertrand Russell wrote to his fiancée Alys Pearsall Smith in November 1894.

Fyodor Dostoevsky—rigorous dialectician and grand inquisitor into the human soul—is having a moment. The American “new right” has enlisted the Russian author in the debate over “cancel culture”; and, ...

In October 2023, Brechin, a Scottish town near the North Sea, was hit by a wall of water that changed it forever. During Storm Babet, a record 150 to 200mm of rain fell in parts of the area. The ...

Spend time with supporters of emerging AI technologies such as chatbots and you’ll hear an oft-repeated phrase: “The worst it will ever be.” This quote, from the Wharton professor and AI booster Ethan ...

Historians will debate for ever and a day why the second Donald Trump government was so much more extreme than his first. So extreme that Trump’s second term, if unchecked, could launch a revolution ...

The recently assassinated right-wing activist Charlie Kirk built his celebrity around a table, a sign—“Prove me wrong”—and a formula. On campuses across the United States, he invited students to ...

Since the summer, Keir Starmer has taken to lashing out at Nigel Farage. Last week he branded Farage’s immigration policy as “racist” and “immoral”; in his Labour party conference speech yesterday, ...

Donald Trump’s first term brought misery to the transgender community in the United States. He successfully banned trans people from serving in the US military and overturned healthcare protections ...

In 1978 President Jimmy Carter gave a speech praising a new National Solar Energy Research Institute, and extolling the sun’s “inexhaustible sources of energy. No cartel controls the sun.” He even ...

The Labour government is struggling and the party is divided. Meanwhile, Reform is on the rise, and the Tories are collapsing. What kind of change does Labour need, if it is to get back on track? This ...

Politically, are you a bit down these days? Feeling that last year’s election result has turned sour? That glad, confident morning is a distant memory? That Britain these days is in as big a mess as ...

How have Trump’s defamation lawsuits affected press freedom? Alan and Lionel discuss Donald Trump’s $15bn lawsuit against the New York Times with NPR’s media correspondent, David Folkenflik. David ...