Zohran Mamdani’s racial equity plan is bad economics Earlier this week, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani introduced his “Equity Plan”, presenting it as an answer to the city’s crushing affordability crisis. But the plan rests on a basic confusion: it…

Zohran Mamdani is mistaking redistribution for abundance | Santiago Vidal Calvo unherd.com/newsroom/zoh...

Can Lidl save Northern Ireland’s pubs? There are few things that the Northern Irish love more than alcohol and bargains. On the rare occasions when the two coincide, we are at our happiest. It is therefore exciting news that Lidl is about…

Northern Ireland is plagued by draconian licensing laws. Could the construction of a Lidl pub mark a positive shift? | Adam James Pollock unherd.com/newsroom/can...

Future of Iran war hinges on Lebanon When fighting exploded across the Middle East at the end of February, Lebanon was dragged into the maelstrom by forces beyond its own control. Now that the guns have — temporarily, at least — fallen…

‘This is no longer merely a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah wrapped up in the broader Iran war' | Michal Kranz unherd.com/newsroom/fut...

California lawmakers have proposed additional taxes on ultra-rich residents to plug the state’s financial black hole — but new taxes could hit the middle class hardest | Joel Kotkin

‘Trump can only lose by appearing to be the Pope’s enemy’ | Alexander Lucie-Smith

Does Kanye deserve our forgiveness? Kanye West performing in 2024. (China News Service/Getty)

'Actions emanating from insanity can only be excused, not forgiven.' | Kathleen Stock on the cancellation of Kanye West

unherd.com/2026/04/does-kanye-deserve-our-forgiveness/

Starmer is losing the narrative war to the Greens Since entering power in 2024, Labour’s problem has been simple: a threadbare manifesto built on not being the last Tory government. It is politics defined by negation rather than conviction.…

‘Starmer campaigned on competence, without laying the groundwork for thinking about what was broken and how to fix it’ | James Sean Dickson unherd.com/newsroom/sta...

The world has got uranium poisoning Still from the TV series Chernobyl 2019. (YouTube)

Talk of a nuclear-powered future got hot and heavy in the first decade of the 21st century, backed by Panglossian discourse until a 2011 earthquake ravaged the Fukushima power plant. Now it's being discussed again. | Peter Zoellner

unherd.com/2026/04/the-world-has-got-uranium-poisoning/

It’s time to kick Pride out of football Gender ideology is intrinsically misogynistic and dangerous to children. It should go without saying that it has no place in football. Yet, despite having already cut ties with Stonewall and…

‘When there is still so much blatant homophobia in the game, why choose to posture with rainbow laces?’ | Julie Bindel
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How censorship seized America Biden's presidency marked a high water mark for the information state. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Back in 2017, two academics affiliated with Harvard had created a novel category to describe speech that was factually true, but undermined official interests. They called it malinformation.| Jacob Siegel on the rise of the information state

unherd.com/2026/04/how-censorship-seized-america/

Trump should be wary of any promises made by Netanyahu.

The Israeli PM has his own agenda, warns Tom Rogan 👇

Muslims and the uneasy truth about assimilation There is something admirable in Shadi Hamid’s protest. In an article for the Washington Post, he argues that Muslims should not have to assimilate into American society to belong and should resist…

In his latest WaPo piece, @shadihamid does not tell us what binds a society together.

This omission is not trivial. It is decisive, writes @GlennLoury 👇

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Iran is not Trump’s Suez Crisis As the fallout from Trump’s ceasefire with Iran unfolds, America’s place in the future world order is being called into question. Retired British general Richard Shirreff remarked that the war with…

‘A serious immediate prospect of another superpower replacing America, as with Suez, is not on the cards’ | Richard Vinen

One might be inclined to get up in arms about AI taking over the music charts — but most hyper-derivative pop acts are just as soulless as an LLM | Lias Saoudi

‘Questions around fairness in women’s sports and privacy in sex-segregated spaces are not all that complicated’ | Ben Appel

Reform UK reveals hollowness of slavery reparations claims “The era of British self-flagellation ends here,” Zia Yusuf declared this week. The Reform UK home affairs spokesman’s comments come a fortnight after a motion was passed in the United Nations…

‘If the Commonwealth is merely a vehicle for extortion attempts, it might be time to rethink Britain’s membership’ | Michael Murphy

Tucker Carlson is forcing a Christian reckoning on the Right Donald Trump’s “fragile truce” with Iran may stop the war, but it will not stop some Christian conservatives from reevaluating their support for him. So direct was Trump’s threat to wipe out an…

Donald Trump’s 'fragile truce' with Iran may stop the war.

But it will not stop some Christian conservatives from reevaluating their support for him, writes Emily Jashinsky 👇

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Kanye West ban highlights the perils of state morality When Kanye West was announced as Wireless Festival’s headline act, social media fractured into familiar camps. Should he be allowed to perform at the event? Should he even be allowed into the…

‘The liberal state, whose role was once as a neutral arbiter of rules, is now enforcing moral legitimacy’ | Jide Ehizele
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Iran ceasefire won’t erase months of market turmoil After the announcement on Tuesday night that Iran and the US had agreed a two-week ceasefire, during which time the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to maritime traffic, stock markets around the world…

After the announcement of a ceasefire with Iran, stock markets around the world celebrated — but this upturn is only a temporary reprieve | John Rapley
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‘Everything becomes a market, every market a game, every game content, every piece of content a lure back into the machine’ | Ryan Zickgraf

‘We are told that this is a national emergency, yet the legal and social penalties remain woefully inadequate’ | David Matthews

You might agree with Kanye West's visa ban.

But we should be wary of encouraging governments to flex their power this way, writes Sarah McLaughlin 👇

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Trump and Crassus share a fatal misunderstanding of Iranian civilisation Earlier today, President Trump warned Iran that the “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if it did not agree to a deal to end the war. What he fails to grasp is that…

Is the President doomed to repeat the same mistake as Crassus?

Trump and the Roman general share a fatal misunderstanding of Iranian civilisation, warns Antonio de Loera-Brust 👇

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Fatherlessness is fuelling Britain’s masculinity crisis A so-called “masculinity crisis” is emerging in British schools, marked by increasing misogynistic abuse towards female staff. At the same time, adolescent males are growing up without role models,…

‘There is now an entire ecosystem feeding boys a version of masculinity that is demeaning, performative, transactional, and detached from real life’ | Stella O'Malley

Anthropic’s new AI model could lead to White House reconciliation Last week Anthropic, the company behind Claude, accidentally left a cache of internal corporate literature in an unsecured, publicly searchable data store. In one trove was a draft blog post about…

‘The era of autonomous hacking is upon us’ | Gavin Haynes

Demis Hassabis: renaissance man The new Cromwell. (Jack Taylor/Getty/SXSW London)

Interviews with Hassabis often lead one to believe that this low profile is deliberate. | Alys Key on the founder of DeepMind

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The twilight of America's sky knights Still the gold standard? (Dan Kitwood/Getty)

History is the mass grave of idealistic and foolhardy peasant rebels who crumble the moment they meet serious military power. Until that changes. | Malcom Kyeyune on American military equipment

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Kemi Badenoch is in denial about broken Britain War is brewing once again over the small matter of whether Britain is broken. Writing for the Times over the weekend, Kemi Badenoch declared that the county is not broken — it is, apparently, a place…

‘Badenoch needs to admit that Britain is broken and that her Tory predecessors played a significant part in breaking it’ | Peter Franklin

Why Orbán needs Ukraine Will Orbán pull off a last-minute victory? (Pierre Crom/Getty)

Hungary's news cycle is now dominated less by campaign pledges than by competing leaks of wiretaps, intelligence service interrogations, arrests and accusations of treachery and espionage. | Aris Roussinos

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Rising petrol prices, a severe jet fuel shortage and higher household bills.

For the EU, Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is turning into a crisis, warns William Nattrass 👇

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