Hungarian election exposes tensions at the heart of Donald Trump’s plans to boost the far-right in Europe
The world will be watching on April 12 when Hungarians head to the polls in parliamentary elections that will determine the country’s next prime minister. This may sound exaggerated, but these parliamentary elections are about much more than simply whether the incumbent prime minister, Viktor Orbán, will serve another term as Hungary’s leader. His main […]
My Undesirable Friends: Part I – an extraordinary portrait of young Russian journalists fighting to report the truth
Director Julia Loktev’s “undesirable” friends are women, mostly in their 20s or early 30s, who live in Moscow. They all work for TV Rain (Dozhd’) founded in 2010 as a lively, optimistic channel with cool programmes for a young audience, which also addressed more serious issues. The Russian authorities tolerated the existence of TV Rain […]
You Are the Führer’s Unrequited Love by Jean-Noël Orengo is a masterful take on Nazi memory, myth and moral reckoning
Writing a biographical novel about one of modern European history’s most skilled liars – whose fame rests almost entirely on his own self-crafted stories – is, to say the least, a difficult task. So it’s not surprising that Jean-Noël Orengo has approached this challenge by making his superb novel about Nazi architect and war criminal […]
Fashion Becomes Art: a deliciously decadent journey through the surrealist world of Elsa Schiaparelli
“Nobody has been able to pronounce my name properly … but everybody knows what it means,” Elsa Schiaparelli once said, with typical self-assuredness. A protagonist of surrealism, the Italian-born fashion designer was an extraordinary couturier who pushed the bounds of creativity, leaving her mark on Paris fashion and beyond. Dazzling, theatrical, witty and avant garde, […]
Why is Israel continuing to attack Lebanon, despite the ceasefire? Expert Q&A
The ceasefire in the Middle East is on shaky ground. Israel continued its bombardment of Lebanon on Wednesday, claiming its activities there are not part of the deal with Iran. These attacks killed at least 254 people across Lebanon and injured over 800 more in what was Israel’s largest offensive of the war so far. […]
The pseudoscientific attractiveness scale that grew out of incel forums and is now making money for looksmaxxing influencers
If you have teenagers in your life, they’ll probably have heard of the PSL scale. Or at least the language associated with it. Chad. Stacy. Normie. Subhuman. The PSL scale is a pseudoscientific attractiveness rating system used by looksmaxxers, men in a part of the manosphere who sometimes use extreme methods to change their appearance. […]
Hungary election: how a new opponent has forced Viktor Orbán into the first genuinely competitive race in 16 years
For the first time since Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010, the Hungarian electorate is faced with a genuinely competitive campaign ahead of the 2026 general election on April 12. For the past 16 years, Prime Minister Orbán’s party Fidesz has dominated. Faced with smear campaigns and attacks portraying opponents as a threat to […]
The more commodified your job, the more likely AI can do it – lessons from online freelancing
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock Not long ago, if you needed a speech polished, a document translated or a logo designed, you would probably have hired a freelancer online. Millions of people did exactly that. They went to platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork and paid someone (maybe on the other side of the world) to do the job. […]
The human body isn’t a masterpiece of design – it’s a patchwork of evolutionary compromise
Our bodies are a living archive of evolution. ZCOOL HelloRF/ Shutterstock The human body is often described as a marvel of “perfect design”: elegant, efficient and finely tuned for its purpose. Yet, when we look closer, a rather different picture emerges. Far from being a flawless machine, the body reads more like a patchwork of […]
Could revisiting Asimov’s laws help us avoid AI’s ‘Chernobyl moment’?
The conflict in Iran – but also the war in Ukraine – show not only that AI is radically changing the economics of war (which may be good news), but also that we may be heading towards some kind of “Chernobyl moment”. We may soon experience a disaster that will force us to belatedly realise […]