Sometime in the late morning of February 4, somebody at SpaceX headquarters pressed a computer key. A command line was beamed to Starlink’s 9,600 satellites in low Earth orbit. Their onboard processors, circling 550 kilometers above the Earth, instantly obeyed the command and fractionally changed their operational settings. Back down on the frozen ground, in
Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, the longest in history, served as a reminder of the relentless will and unstoppable energy he brings to the office of the presidency. In a coup de grace he humiliated Congressional Democrats, securing footage of them remaining seated en masse as they refused to accept that the role
One of the most serious issues in the well-filled in-tray of freshly endorsed Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi is Taiwan (which China claims as its own sovereign territory) and the lamentable state of Sino-Japanese relations. Takaichi provoked fury with comments in the Japanese parliament in November when she stated that were China to attack Taiwan,
No TV show better encapsulates the nexus between money and power than Industry. The HBO drama sees investment bankers screwing, snorting and slogging their way to the top of English society. Now, in its fourth series, political intrigue is taking centre stage. Think House of Cards – but with more sex and better-remunerated hotties. Mickey
‘The Special Relationship only exists when the Americans want something,’ a former Downing Street aide observed after Donald Trump rejected the Chagos Islands deal. There are profound differences between London and Washington over military action against Iran while the fourth anniversary of the war in Ukraine this week has exposed further fault lines. The result
In 2001, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met privately with Spain’s then-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. Aznar recounted how Khamenei dubbed Israel a ‘cancer condemned to disappear’ and said that an open confrontation with Israel and the United States was inevitable. Iran, the supreme leader insisted, would prevail. Fast forward to 2026, and the war
My family name has become a byword for scandal. My father Robert went from press baron to tabloid monster within weeks of his death in 1991. My sister Ghislaine, convicted in New York three decades later for sex-trafficking offences linked to Jeffrey Epstein, became the algorithmically optimised villain of the online age. Last week’s arrest
Peros Banhos on the Chagos archipelago looks like your basic tropical island paradise: turquoise waters and golden sands, waves lapping on a palm-fringed beach. But step off the strip of sand into the wall of green behind, and you’re enveloped by mosquitoes. The old well you were counting on for water is a shallow puddle.
The Russians are on the warpath – and Europe is Vladimir Putin’s next target. That was Sir Keir Starmer’s alarming claim at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. Britons ‘must be ready to fight, to do whatever it takes to protect our people, our values, and our way of life’, Starmer warned. Britain and
At the Baftas on Sunday night, John Davidson – whose story of living with Tourette’s syndrome is dramatised in the (very good) film I Swear – shouted out the n-word when black actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan were on stage to present an award. You’d hope that by now people might understand the mechanics of
Donald Trump may have celebrated Team USA for winning the gold at the Olympics in hockey, but he was not in a puckish mood during his State of the Union speech. Instead, Trump stuck to his tried-and-true script of denouncing Democrats as “sick,” mocking concerns about affordability and cooing over Melania as a great new
Watching Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address tonight, I thought of two homely things. One was something that a friend used to say to her young daughter: “Don’t forget to have an attitude of gratitude,” she would remind her preteen when that attitude was absent. The second thing I thought about was a fact
We know the terrible details of how congressional staffer Regina Santos-Aviles, 35, died. She poured gasoline on herself and then flicked the flame on a lighter – a mad decision she instantly regretted. “Please send help. It hurts so bad,” she screamed at the 911 dispatcher. “Oh my God, I don’t want to die.” She
President Trump will deliver the first State of the Union address of his second term tonight – and the White House social media team want to whet your appetite. “The White House digital team will transform all its social channels into ‘Trump TV’ – a 12-hour retrospective of the year since President Trump’s last address
When President Trump speaks to Congress and the nation Tuesday night he will follow several familiar tropes. Like a long line of presidents before him, Trump will say the state of the union is great and take full credit for it. They all say that, unless we are in a recession or at war. They typically add that everything is getting better, too, thanks to their wise policies. In a nod
Washington’s warning last week about the spread of far-left violence in France did not go down well in Paris. In an interview on Sunday, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot accused America of wading into a matter that “concerns only our national community”. This doesn’t surprise conservative commentators in France who have coined the phrase “Red
Half of America’s deployable air power sits within striking distance of Iran, and yet Washington is negotiating. Gaza is promised a gleaming future, and yet Hamas still refuses to disarm.Is this strategic patience, or proof that the US President has been dangerously misled, indulging adversaries who are buying time? By placing comprehensive proposals on the
German politicians like to talk about Zeitenwende – the country’s great turning point in its defence policy since the invasion of Ukraine. And it has certainly turned: towards spending billions of taxpayer euros on drones that cannot fly in frontline situations, seemingly cannot hit their targets, and whose largest investors sit not in Berlin or Brussels,
Americans took a break from their partisan vituperation in February to mull over newly revealed testimony that Richard Nixon gave to grand jury investigators in 1975, a year after the Watergate scandal drove him from power. James Rosen, a veteran Washington journalist and the biographer of Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell, revealed the episode in
It’s strange interviewing a friend who is dying, but Karl Zinsmeister is at peace. I met Karl in Washington, DC, in the spring of 1981, when we two Upstate New York hicks were new to the staff of Senator Pat Moynihan. The first thing I learned about him was that he and his girlfriend (and
Cars ruined cities. Anyone can see that cities built before the invention of the automobile are incomparably more beautiful and serene than anything built after them. The contrast between Los Angeles and Prague is unmistakable. But people like things that move fast and make life easier, which means we’re stuck with the modern city hellscape
Peter Mandelson, our short-lived ambassador to the US, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. In a statement to journalists, the Met Police said: Officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was arrested at an address in Camden on Monday, 23 February and has been
To understand the latest disturbing spasm of violence in Mexico, it helps to go back six years to an ultra-wealthy colonia called Lomas de Chapultepec, near the heart of Mexico City. Lomas de Chapultepec is protected, partly by a large security apparatus net that has been thrown around it, and partly by the pacto de
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says that World War Three has already started. Speaking to the BBC on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion, it’s understandable why he would want to take this line, but he’s wrong. What is striking about Putin is the lack of a messianic ideology On an emotional
Mayhem has erupted across Mexico after security forces eliminated Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the drug lord widely known as El Mencho, in a gun battle in the town of Tapalpa. El Mencho was the head of one of Mexico’s most violent and sadistic organizations, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Henchmen forced passengers out of their
When I first became enamored with barbecue in the 1990s, I ate a lot of chopped pork at Carolina barbecue joints, and sometimes chicken and ribs. One thing I almost never encountered was beef, especially slow-smoked brisket. That barbecue cut remained mostly a Texas thing until well into the 21st century. A few pioneers did
In the early hours of Sunday, Mexico’s security forces carried out a daring military operation that ended with the death of El Mencho – the sadistic leader of Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). Even as the Mexican government hailed the success of the operation, the country erupted into violence. Armed groups loyal to CJNG
People say love develops more quickly in war – because in a world where anything can happen, what is there to lose? Single and in Kyiv for a while, I decide to swallow my distaste for dating apps and start swiping. The first thing I notice is how many men are from Turkey and based
It’s a bit difficult to explain a Senate confirmation process to those who haven’t gone through it. It is, to put it in a single word, intense. Years ago, the first time I had a hit piece written about me, I wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground and die. During my confirmation