When does hardship become poverty? The left and right draw the line differently
Daisy Daisy/Shutterstock Is someone in poverty if they can afford food, housing and the things they really need, but not other things most people take for granted? Answering this question requires a judgment about where an acceptable standard of living ends and poverty begins. Statistics can tell us how many people live in those circumstances, […]
Crime is falling – but the public doesn’t feel safer, study finds
FotoDax/Shutterstock Crime levels are falling for most offences across the UK – but the public doesn’t necessarily feel safer. It’s a human trait to focus on frightening information in the news or on social media – but it could also mean that people are more fearful about crime than they need to be. Reform UK’s […]
Germany: why the AfD won in Saxony-Anhalt – and what happens next
The results of Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt state election on September 6 were far worse than feared for the country’s mainstream political parties. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) came close to winning a majority of votes, with 43.8%. This was about 4% higher than polls had suggested. Support for the centre-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany […]
Immigration in Sweden: how the country went from one of Europe’s most welcoming, to one of its most restrictive
For decades, Sweden was known as one of Europe’s most welcoming countries for refugees. It took pride in pursuing one of Europe’s most generous asylum policies, and often presented itself as a humanitarian role model. But today it has one of the continent’s most restrictive migration policies. That transformation has taken little more than a […]
Star Trek used wormholes to jump through space – what’s the science behind them?
Since Star Trek began sending its crews out to explore strange new worlds 60 years ago, the franchise has both imagined and inspired new concepts for travel across the vast distances of space. Among the most intriguing are “wormholes”: mysterious tunnels through spacetime that connect otherwise distant places. Star Trek always has a difficult balance […]
Reform UK polling sting: why even small donations matter in politics these days
Reform UK’s national conference has been rocked by allegations that senior members of the party plotted to circumvent rules on political donations. The reports centre on two payments – one real and one suggested, but both important. The two Reform staff members at the centre of the investigation have been suspended. The apparent plans were […]
War drama Pressure depicts D-day’s weather forecast – what we found when we recreated the challenge using modern systems
Meteorologist James Stagg gave what many regard as the most important weather forecast in history in June 1944. The fate of more than 150,000 allied troops preparing to invade the Normandy beaches on D-day and the future of the war in Europe depended on Stagg and his forecast teams. Get the forecast wrong and an […]
The Raw and the Cooked exhibition: art goes medieval in search of the aesthetic of the middle ages
Entering The Raw and the Cooked at the Saatchi Gallery in London, you are faced with a single enormous painting that occupies the whole of the opposite wall. The Punishment of Richard Roose (2026) is a magnificently anachronistic project: a museum-scale picture of a fairly obscure episode of English history. Stiff, stylised, life-sized figures stand […]
Climate change images are getting scarier – could fear help drive action?
Over the summer, Europe provided a stark new set of images of climate change. Wildfires raced across forests and grasslands, rivers and reservoirs dried up in droughts and extreme heat disrupted everyday life. Instead of the familiar photographs of people enjoying days at the beach, coverage of heatwaves increasingly comes with images of their consequences. […]
In re-releasing Avengers Endgame, Marvel is quietly admitting its Multiverse failures
The rumours have been swirling around for several months, and now they’ve been confirmed with a shiny new trailer: Marvel is re-releasing 2019’s Avengers: Endgame on September 25 2026 – three months before its epic Christmas showdown, Avengers: Doomsday. On the one hand, the encore edition of Avengers: Endgame makes perfect sense. Endgame was the […]