A statistic leapt out at me last week that I can’t get out of my head. Three-quarters of a million New Yorkers, eligible to vote, have no memory of 9/11 – because they weren’t born when it happened 25 years ago.
It feels quite astonishing for those of us who were around when it happened and can remember it as if it were yesterday. This is something that Jon Sopel delves into as he looks at the bizarre behaviour of the US president, which, last week, included telling tall tales about where he was on 9/11. On one level, Sopel says, Trump is an 80-year-old whose memory might be playing tricks on him. But, on the other hand, it reveals something much darker about the President’s mind which should concern us all.
It is shocking the way we have become so accustomed to the American leader’s lies; a kind of global acceptance that this is just who he is and how things are now. But words have consequences and some are listening more closely than others. Never more so than Falkland Islanders.
In this great dispatch, Traighana Smith, explains what islanders like her really feel about Trump’s suggestion that America might not help Britain if Argentina invaded the islands again. The “what if” question of another invasion looms large, she writes, especially in light of reports that the State Department has also made a deal to sell Black Hawk helicopters to Argentina too.
Meanwhile, back on this fair isle, many parents will be whizzing up and down the motorways to drop off their children at university this weekend as a new term starts. I’ll be heading up to Norwich as our youngest returns for his second year at UEA, while our eldest is back at home after graduating this summer. Just when you think the nest has emptied, it starts filling back up again. But Eleanor Mill believes there is something else we are getting wrong about this transitional phase of our lives too.
Read her piece on empty-nest syndrome here and what it might really mean for your relationships, health and, well, life in general.
And, as both a parent and teacher, screenwriter Sarfraz Manzoor considers whether going to university is still worth anyone’s time or money at all in 2026? He loves teaching at university, but would an 18-year old him choose to go today?
It’s a debate that isn’t going away any time soon, but when experts are telling us that AI is probably going to wipe us out in the next five years, maybe we should all stop fretting about any of it. Today may very well be tomorrow’s good old days. I am just still trying to figure out whether that is a good or bad thing.
Until next weekend!
Victoria Harper
PS. The Independent is offering free tickets to a special screening at the ICA London of the powerful new documentary Hard Labour by chief international correspondent, Bel Trew. She looks at the most dangerous countries to give birth and there will be a panel discussion led by Bel afterwards. The screening will take place at 6.30pm on Tuesday 15 September. If you would like to attend please email: ashley.wood@independent.co.uk
-Sane-Seven-Day.jpeg?quality=75&width=1368&crop=3%3A2%2Csmart&trim=235%2C59%2C983%2C20&auto=webp "National Theatre boss Indhu Rubasingham: ‘An NT North? The north already has brilliant theatres’")
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