Donald Trump has alienated a good number of his MAGA supporters by seeking to suppress the full disclosure of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Are his supporters angry because they think he is guilty of having sex with underaged girls, or because he is using his office to control information and limit what the public can know? Many of the most fervent Trump supporters subscribe to conspiracy theories, believing that a ‘deep state’ runs their lives and that Democrats either built that state or protected its clandestine operations. For Trump to conceal the disclosure of a file that might contain details about powerful people implicated in a sex trafficking network is to act like one of those politicians who profit from lying and keep ordinary people in the dark. Alex Jones, the far-right radio host, told Trump: ‘You’re not the pope, bro!’ Steve Bannon predicts that 10 per cent of Trump’s loyalists will turn away (they will still be Trumpists, but against Trump).
The main component of cigarette filters is a plastic, cellulose acetate, and trillions of butts are discarded into the environment every year, making them the most common single item of plastic pollution. Each filter contains more than twelve thousand strands of cellulose acetate, which break down into microfibres and particles. Toxic chemicals from discarded cigarette butts, including nicotine, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals leach out, polluting rivers and seas and harming vertebrates, invertebrates, micro-organisms and plants. There is no possible mitigation strategy for plastic waste from tobacco products. Clean up programmes, a form of greenwashing for the tobacco industry, collect only a trivial proportion of the trillions of discarded butts. The material is too toxic to be reused or recycled. In any case, cigarette filters are a fraudulent product, providing no protection to people who smoke, while giving the false impression that they are doing something to reduce the risk.
Why is the London Review of Books putting out records? We liked the idea of marking the paper’s 45th anniversary with a series of 45 rpm vinyl singles, and drawing on our rich archive of poems made sense (LPs of readings by Dylan Thomas or Stevie Smith used to sell by the bucketload). But which poems? There are thousands of contenders. A seven-inch record has space for about eleven minutes of spoken word, which is more than you get with music: the bass requires deeper and therefore wider grooves. Happily, this equates to a long-ish poem – the kind that takes up a whole page or even a double-page spread in the LRB – being read in full.
Police officers and a protester on Balmedie Beach ahead of Donald Trump’s visit to his Menie golf course in Aberdeenshire, 28 July 2025. (PA / Jane Barlow)
I don’t suppose Donald Trump or Keir Starmer saw the row of flags, black, white and green with a red triangle, on a high dune near the Trump International golf course, eight miles north of Aberdeen, when they flew in together on Monday evening.
During the curtain call for the closing performance of Verdi’s Il trovatore at the Royal Opera House on 19 July, one of the cast, Danni Perry, took their bow holding a Palestinian flag. The moment, filmed by several people in the audience, went viral, with videos showing someone appearing from the wings and trying to wrest the flag from Perry’s hands.
England celebrate their victory over Spain in the Euro 2025 final in Basel, Switzerland (Harriet Lander / FA / Getty)
Compared to 2022, when England was the host nation, there has been a distinct lack of interest in this summer’s Euros. After England beat Italy last Tuesday to qualify for the final, I texted my nearest and dearest to say I would see them on Sunday. I hoped this loosely veiled threat would pay off. Does it matter if we don’t show our support for the women competing? If you follow football but have ignored this tournament, it matters.
Israel’s allies are still buying time for Israel to change course or come to a deal with Hamas over how many trucks to allow in, as though food were a legitimate bargaining chip. Gazans cannot afford to wait for either. Every day that foreign governments stand by, devastating starvation becomes harder to avert.