Two senior gardaí told me lately it’s getting worse. Last year we wrote here that around 50pc of all students were doing drugs. The only proof I had was anecdotal. Since then several superintendents have spoken out and their view is we have a drugs epidemic. Two young people were poisoned by bad drugs in […]

One hundred years ago this fall, a celebrity showman became a strongman. The womanizing, profligate Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, who had become a hero of World War I by airdropping his own propagandistic poetry over Vienna, marched into the Hapsburg city of Fiume (now Rijeka in Croatia) and declared himself its leader. Fiume’s postwar status […]

This article is part of David Leonhardt’s newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday. Earlier this week, my colleague Nicholas Kristof interviewed Representative Adam Schiff — the Democrat leading the impeachment inquiry — at a public event in New York. Toward the end, Nicholas asked about the inquiry’s apparent lack of […]

The worst-case scenario of the UK crashing out of the EU has receded, but it would not be correct to label the process that’s now in motion a ‘soft’ Brexit in any form. Everything now points to a significantly harder Brexit – when it happens – than had been on offer under Theresa May’s Withdrawal […]

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.) Good morning. We’re covering Mick Mulvaney’s comments about quid pro quos, and the attempted arrest of a son of the Mexican drug lord El Chapo. And it's Friday, so there’s a new news quiz. Mick Mulvaney admits, then denies, quid pro quo The acting White […]

Good morning. We’re covering Boris Johnson’s push to sell his Brexit deal, a five-day pause in fighting in northern Syria and a potential breakthrough in malaria prevention. Brexit deal in hand, Johnson turns to Parliament Prime Minister Boris Johnson, having secured a hard-fought Brexit deal with the E.U., will today try to sell it to […]

Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill has long been a hero of the current incumbent in No 10 Downing Street. Boris Johnson even penned a ridiculously sentimental biography of the British Bulldog which is more hagiography than history. In fact, the ‘spirit of Churchill’ and rhetoric about an island nation set apart against the continental […]

United Automobile Workers leaders voted Thursday on a tentative agreement to end a monthlong walkout by 50,000 workers at General Motors over wages, health insurance premiums and the use of temporary and “tiered” contracts. The accord includes raises and a large ratification bonus and gives temps a path to permanent status — but it also […]

RIYADH/LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is setting the stage for a blockbuster listing of state oil giant Saudi Aramco in Riyadh, relying on easy credit for retail investors and pushing rich locals to invest with cash held abroad to achieve a $2 trillion valuation target. The world’s largest oil firm could announce plans next week […]

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Qatari company Baladna, which has built a dairy business in the desert following a trade embargo by Saudi Arabia and its allies, will launch an initial public offering this month that could raise 1.426 billion riyals ($392 million). The company flew in thousands of Holstein cows after the embargo and Baladna’s rapid […]