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This summer, much of the media’s attention has focused on record temperatures across Europe and the United States. Television coverage has been filled with familiar images: heat maps shaded deep red, schools closing, rail lines slowing, wildfires spreading and emergency rooms treating growing numbers of people with heat-related illnesses. Public officials have responded with equally … Read more

One is led by Sweden’s first female prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, and has promised smaller school-class sizes, more housing and free dental care for young people. The other, led by Jimmie Åkesson, has neo-Nazi roots and has pledged to lower taxes, improve public safety and treat “anti-Swedishness” as a hate crime. In the run-up to … Read more

According to a recent analysis, China enjoys a surplus in its manufactured goods trade with the European Union that is roughly equivalent to Italy’s national income. That trade disparity, it is estimated, continues to grow by about 30% each year. The stark implication, according to a paper from Centre for European Reform, is that Europe, … Read more

France and the UK have agreed to increase staffing at border controls in response to warnings of travel chaos caused by new fingerprinting and facial recognition checks. Disruption at Channel crossings is expected to rise sharply next weekend at the start of the summer holiday season, with MPs saying there would be “utter chaos and … Read more

Donald Trump memorably took out a full-page advertisement in multiple newspapers in 1987 charging that America was carrying too much weight for its allies. In his first term he repeated this charge, threatening to withdraw from Nato and berating US allies around the world in the process. Last week’s gathering of Nato’s heads of government … Read more

Above average temperatures combined with below average rainfall across much of western and central Europe during June and the first half of July have placed increasing pressure on rivers, ecosystems and energy infrastructure. Persistent high pressure brought prolonged sunshine, suppressed rainfall and enhanced evaporation, causing river levels to fall and water temperatures to increase. These … Read more

For many years, I have observed Marine Le Pen and her party and how they operate in France. I have heard their xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric and felt it contaminate French political life. It is a rhetoric rooted in the history of a party founded by figures from France’s postwar far right. Nothing they do or … Read more

It was revealing that one of the first tributes to Lindsey Graham, a US senator who died on Saturday aged 71, came from Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, a far-right provocateur who recently caused widespread anger by sharing footage of himself taunting bound activists who had been trying to sail to Gaza with aid. … Read more

We need an Ozempic for cars. They are growing at a phenomenal rate, wreaking havoc on the roads, squeezing out smaller vehicles in car parks and endangering pedestrians. Like ever-hungry teenagers, cars in Europe are growing, on average, a centimetre wider every year, according to new research reported by the Guardian. And fewer than half … Read more