67 h. ago Welcome on board this aircraft. Please return your seat to the upright position – for ever | Arwa Mahdawi

Air rage episodes are on the rise – many sparked by seat problems. Surely Trump could use his executive overreach to impose an outright ban on recliners?Down with reclining seats in airplanes! Or, more to the point, up with them. Please sit up straight and pay attention while I make this very serious in-flight announcement: the airline industry should prevent all seats in basic economy from reclining until the general public has shown they know how to use them responsibly. And by “use them responsibly” I mean: don’t recline. Or, if you must, do so courteously and not for the entire flight.Now, I understand a blanket ban might not be a popular solution. But it is the fairest and most utilitarian approach; whatever small degree of comfort you may achieve by being able to lean back a few inches is outweighed by the misery you inflict on the person behind you. Particularly if said person is trying to work on a laptop, eat a meal or nap on their tray table. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Please don’t succumb to hopelessness over Palestine. Your voice can still make a difference | Arwa Mahdawi

As the war gets livestreamed to our phones, it is easy to be overwhelmed and feel helpless. But even small acts of activism add upI don’t know if Frankenstein star Christoph Waltz is normally a man of few words but he didn’t have much to say at a recent Venice film festival press conference. Waltz uttered only six words, with “CGI is for losers” constituting four of them. The remaining two were “I don’t”, in response to a question about how he stays hopeful in today’s “monstrous times”.Waltz is certainly not alone in despairing of a world which seems to elevate liars, cheats, and adjudicated sexual predators. It’s hard to feel hope when a genocide has been livestreamed to our phones for almost two years and there is no justice in sight; just a systematic slaughter of the journalists who serve as messengers. No peace prospects on the horizon; just well-paid consultants putting together ethnic cleansing prospectuses so a “Gaza Riviera” can be built. (Oh, sorry, we’re supposed to say “...

Politics

6 d. ago Everyone’s got a theory on Taylor Swift’s engagement – even JD Vance | Arwa Mahdawi

Will she go Maga? Will it change the NFL or lift the stock market? The left-field claims are everywhereBreaking news alerts were pinged to phones around the world; Swifties screamed in the street; the Prince and Princess of Wales delivered their royal approval; Donald Trump wished them luck. By now it will not have escaped your attention that Taylor Swift, the reigning queen of pop, is engaged to Travis Kelce, a podcaster who also plays football.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago Why does the Maga elite love conspicuous cosmetic surgery? | Arwa Mahdawi

Mar-a-Lago face is suddenly everywhere – and there is a version for both men and womenA group of chimpanzees in Zambia have been very busy putting grass in their ears and sticks up their bum for fashion purposes. Scientists studying the behaviour think that one influential chimp started the trend and, instead of the rest of the gang going, “mate, you look like an idiot”, they all just followed suit.Clearly we haven’t evolved from apes that much because a similar phenomenon is at play with the billionaire and Make America Great Again (Maga) set, who are spending enormous sums of money acquiring identical plastic faces. The trend is so widespread that it’s even got a name: Mar-a-Lago face. Among women the look is characterised by huge lips that look as if they could suck up a small child whole, frozen facial expressions, and cheeks so bulbous you could hide a gerbil underneath them. Men also have the slick frozen faces, but instead of bigger lips they’re pairing them with bigger jaws....

Politics

1 week ago Gavin Newsom is taking the fight to Trump – but for whom is he fighting? | Arwa Mahdawi

The California governor is one of the few Democrats who seems ready to play the president at his own game. But he also has to show voters that he has empathy and a vision for their futureEvery time you think US politics could not possibly get any stupider, it does. Today’s instalment of “we live in hell, where politicians are passing around the last remaining brain cell” comes via New York and the latest shenanigans of the city’s mayor, Eric Adams. Desperate to distract voters from a steady stream of scandals, the latest of which involves a former aide giving a reporter a crisp packet filled with cash after an Adams mayoral campaign event, he is trying hard to flex his social media muscles.This weekend, Adams joined Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who is running as an independent in November’s election, and others in mocking Zohran Mamdani, the charismatic Democratic candidate and frontrunner, for his weightlifting efforts at a community event. Adams posted a side-by-side video on...

Politics

2 w. ago Did the system update ruin your boyfriend? Love in a time of ChatGPT | Arwa Mahdawi

Some people with AI partners expressed dismay at the new GPT-5 modelYou’ve met the love of your life; someone who understands you like no one else ever has. And then you wake one morning and they’re gone. Yanked out of your world, and the digital universe, by a system update.Such is the melancholic lot of a group of people who have entered into committed relationships with digital ‘partners’ on OpenAI’s ChatGPT. When the tech company released its new GPT-5 model earlier this month, described by chief executive Sam Altman as a “significant step forward”, certain dedicated users found that their digital relationships had taken a significant step back. Their companions had undergone personality shifts with the new model; they weren’t as warm, loving or chatty as they used to be.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Maga star Katie Miller’s new podcast reeks of toxic femininity. I listened so you don’t have to | Arwa Mahdawi

The ex-Doge staffer and wife of Stephen Miller says she wants to reach conservative women – and her first guest is JD Vance Want to hear a cute little story about JD Vance and a Dutch baby? Don’t worry, he didn’t deport it, he cooked one for breakfast. Then he sat down with Katie Miller to tell her all about his baking skills in the very first episode of her brand-new podcast. Which, by the way, I have heroically listened to all 44 excruciating minutes of so that you don’t have to.Miller, for the uninitiated, is a Maga bigwig and married to Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s far-right chief of staff and a man so odious his own uncle once wrote an article calling him a “hypocrite”. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago The Trump administration has decided coal is female – here’s why | Arwa Mahdawi

What is really behind the US Department of Energy’s weird pronouncement on social media?Have you ever tossed and turned at night wondering what the correct pronouns are for a lump of coal? No, me neither. However, it seems someone at the US Department of Energy has devoted a few spare brain cells to this matter and decided that coal is a she/her.Co-opting a phrase adopted by the LGBTQ+ community, the official energy department X account tweeted on 31 July: “She’s an icon. She’s a legend. And she is the moment,” alongside a sparkling picture of coal. This comes as the Trump administration devotes considerable energy to making fossil fuels great again. The president has signed numerous executive orders aimed at “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” and reversed Biden-era pollution regulations on coal-fired power plants. These plants, according to a 2023 report, killed at least 460,000 Americans over the past two decades. Deaths declined when the environmental regula...

Politics

3 w. ago Golf for them, grind for us: Trump, Vance and the hellish US holiday divide | Arwa Mahdawi

While American workers battle burnout and ‘infinite workdays’, the men at the top are living the endless vacation dreamYou know what the problem is with the US? Nobody wants to work any more. People feel entitled to cushy jobs with fat salaries and unlimited holiday time. And by “people” I mean American politicians, who seem to treat public office as an excuse for endless vacations. Because the president and vice-president are technically always on duty, there’s no official holiday policy – and it rather feels as if they are taking advantage of this.Take the vice-president, JD “OOO (out of office)” Vance. When he’s not inspiring memes or threatening to deport menswear influencers, he always seems to be off on a jolly. So far this year, the man has been skiing in Vermont, shut down bits of Disneyland for his family’s use and apparently raised the water level of a river in Ohio for a kayaking trip. Now, the Vances are summering in the Cotswolds. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago What is going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene? | Arwa Mahdawi

The far-right Republican and conspiracy theorist is suddenly speaking (a small amount of) sense. Weird!Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right conspiracy theorist and bigot who also happens to be a Republican congresswoman, has suddenly started to speak (a small amount of) sense. It’s unclear what exactly precipitated it, but the Georgia congresswoman has declared war on her fellow Republicans.“The course that [the Republican party] is on, I don’t want to have anything to do with it,” Greene told the Daily Mail last week. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago When will we finally admit: the Gaza death toll is higher than we’ve been told | Arwa Mahdawi

We have no idea how many people have been killed in Gaza but I would bet my own life that the number is far higher than the 60,000 number the media usesHow many people have been killed by Israel in Gaza since 7 October 2023?It’s an almost impossible question to answer but, as the likes of the New York Times publish atrocity-minimizing op-eds that argue Israel hasn’t killed all that many people really – certainly not as many people as it could kill if it wanted to with all the big-boy bombs US taxpayers have helped fund – it’s an increasingly important issue to grapple with. “The first question the anti-Israel genocide chorus needs to answer is: Why isn’t the death count higher?” Brett Stephens asked in his recent New York Times op-ed. Here’s the thing, Brett. It almost certainly is.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Events