NEW EUROPEAN

JUNE 5. 2025

Germansplaining: Merz can’t win with Trump. So why try?

Trump’s disdain for ‘Good old Germany’ is well known. Will the chancellor hold his own on his first official trip to the White House?

The rise of bombs: how physics lost its innocence

How did an inquiry into the laws of nature produce a form of technology capable of annihilating civilisation?

Dilettante: Kemi Badenoch is driving straight into a wall

She’s in opposition, and her errors are her problem. That doesn’t mean that her many, many failings as Conservative leader are any less galling

Can padel take over the world?

Big money and big ambitions fuel the racket sport born in a Mexican back garden

Is there really another planet out there?

2017 OF201 is the largest object to have been found in our solar system for more than a decade

It’s Moron v Loser as Reformers exchange blows

Two of the party’s most prominent pundits are tragically at each others’ throats

The rise and flaws of agentic AI

Digital assistants that can autonomously perform tasks for a user are the new big thing. But do they actually work?

Everyday philosophy: Alasdair MacIntyre’s moral bombshell

The philosopher’s 1981 book After Virtue suggested that modern morality is fragmented and rootless – an argument that still stands today

Fears are not enough: the hard sell of net zero

A populist pushback is fuelled by voter scepticism that our global leaders can ever crack the climate crisis

Zed Nelson’s unnatural world

The photographer’s images of man’s ongoing mission to tame and commercialise the wild are a spectacle

Helen Lewis: ‘Is Musk a genius? Look at his tweets’

Lewis’s new book, The Genius Myth, skewers rebel innovators who come to believe they can do no wrong. Remind you of anyone?

Reigning cats and dogs in America

In dog-obsessed Chicago, pets dominate social life and identity, leaving non-owners feeling alienated, bemused and increasingly outnumbered

Nerd’s Eye View: 12 things you need to know about Air Force One

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

A newer, cleverer kind of racist

A failed far right rally in Birmingham highlights how racist activism has evolved in strategy, becoming more subtle and media-savvy