For some, it was threatening to wipe out an entire civilisation; for others, it was posting an image of himself as Jesus. But whatever the trigger, questions are now being asked openly about whether Donald Trump is mentally fit to hold the office of US president.

“Let’s not pussyfoot around talking about his ‘erratic’ or ‘unpredictable’ behaviour,” said former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger in The Independent. “Let’s just say all the signs are that he is positively unhinged.”

What did the commentators say?
Calling the US president insane “is not meant as playground abuse”, said Matthew Parris in The Times. By saying that, “I mean Donald Trump is mentally ill; that he is of unsound mind; that he is suffering from substantial cognitive decline”. If he worked at a bank, as a pilot, a solicitor or GP, or in many other lesser offices than the American presidency, “urgent discussions would be taking place among colleagues about his mental fitness for the post”.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll in February found that 61% of Americans, including 30% of Republicans, believed Trump had become more “erratic with age”, while the number of people who believed he was “mentally sharp and capable of handling challenges” had fallen from 54% in 2023 to 45%.
But for his supporters, the president’s increasingly erratic behaviour is merely proof of his “unorthodox personality”, said Iker Seisdedos in El País. They argue that this is simply the “unpredictable and approachable style of someone who has no regard for the conventions of traditional politics”.

What next?
Last week, House Democrats put forward legislation to create a commission to assess whether Trump is unfit to serve. But passing the bill “is a long shot in a Republican-controlled Congress”, said Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian.

Two years ago, Congressional Republicans eagerly scrutinised Joe Biden’s “every word, his every stumble, even the mechanics of how he signed documents”, said Juan Williams in The Hill, but that “chorus of critics on Capitol Hill is now silent”. Most of those in Trump’s own party “apparently think their responsibility” is to back him no matter what – even if that means an “unsteady hand in control of the nation’s nuclear arsenal”.

From ordering groceries online to using AI to write emails, technology is making life exponentially easier. But while that might be appealing, experts warn that constantly outsourcing our thinking can be detrimental in the long term. Some are recommending a new trend, called friction-maxxing, that seeks to reintroduce discordance into our lives.

‘Tolerance for inconvenience’
Although many everyday tasks are simpler in the digital world, “living a frictionless life may not be the best for your cognitive function over time”, said The Washington Post. It’s the neurological equivalent of “having a personal trainer lift the weights for you”, neuroscientist Lila Landowski told the newspaper.

Tech companies are “making us think of life itself as inconvenient”, said sociologist ​​Kathryn Jezer-Morton on The Cut, and as an endeavour from which we should retreat into “digital padded rooms of predictive algorithms and single-tap commands”. Our “love of escaping is one of humanity’s most poetically problematic tendencies, and now it’s being used against us”. But we can defend ourselves through friction-maxxing, which is not “simply a matter of reducing your screen time”. Rather, it requires “building up tolerance for inconvenience” and “the vagaries of being a person living with other people in spaces that are impossible to completely control”.

‘Feel genuinely alive’
Friction-maxxing could take the form of navigating by road signs rather than Google Maps, or arranging to meet up with friends in person rather than doing video calls. It could be not using ChatGPT to get information that could be learned from a book or by asking other people. Each of these acts might seem insignificant, but an “orientation toward friction is really the only defence we have against the life-annihilating suction of technologies of escape”, said Jezer-Morton.

Friction-maxxing could “play a valuable role in reorienting yourself away from tech dependency” and back towards “embracing the effort that makes people feel genuinely alive and fulfilled”, said Mashable. No one needs to optimise their life in “pursuit of a proverbial gold star”.

South Korea’s President Lee Jae-myung and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi plant a sapling together outside Hyderabad House in New Delhi. Lee arrived yesterday for a three-day state visit aimed at strengthening trade ties between the two nations.

Sajjad Hussain / AFP / Getty Images

“It wasn’t long ago that crunchy or smooth was the sum total of our nut butter options,” said Sue Quinn in The Telegraph. But now the “humble peanut is jostling for shelf space with almond, cashew and pistachio” spreads.

Filled with “fibre and healthy fats, it’s easy to see why nut butters appeal to the health-conscious”, said Lauren Shirreff in The Telegraph. They are a fantastic source of protein, “especially for people who are following plant-based or vegan diets”, nutritionist Jenna Hope told the paper. A 30g serving of peanut butter contains around 8g of protein, which is “roughly the same as that in a large egg”, and nearly 3g of fibre.

Almond butter is arguably one of the best alternatives to peanuts. It ticks lots of boxes, having the “most fibre” of any nut butter, said Shirreff, and “fewer calories”. And although it has “marginally” less protein than peanut butter, it’s “packed with magnesium and calcium”.

The easiest ways to eat nut butters include “on a slice of sourdough” or “poured over porridge”, said Stacey Smith in Women’s Health. But there are more creative uses, too – a dollop of pistachio butter can be “placed under the skin of a chicken breast pre-roast for extra crispy, sweet-nutty moisture”, said Autumn Swiers on Tasting Table.

Just be sure to check labels for additional ingredients, said nutritionist Brianna Sommer on Delish. “I would look for a pure nut butter that has no added anything.”

Trump’s presidency is what evil looks like: absurd, frightening, cruel
Nesrine Malik in The Guardian
What’s “so bewildering about the cruelty” in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran is “how it has been allowed to pass”, writes Nesrine Malik. “Donald Trump hovers above the circus of death and chaos” and is seemingly animated by “little more than momentary impulses and resentments”. His “lack of vision or ideology” can make him appear “less dangerous than the authoritarians of the past”. But “evil is composed of frivolity and nonchalance and fragility” as well as “brutality”.

In Britain, even the toasters are part of our class war
Lucy Mangan on The i Paper
Class “permeates the entire way of life on this wonderfully septic isle of ours”, writes Lucy Mangan – even toasters. Cheap ones can’t accommodate any “actual loaf-shaped bread”, just “the small, perfectly square slices of the cheapest bread around”, so buy a “plebeian toaster” and it’s “plebeian bread for you”. Money always dictates “where you stand in the pecking order”. “All of which is to say two things”: “we need a revolution” and “don’t scrimp on your toaster”.

Selfish strikers have failed to read the room
Libby Purves in The Times
Strikes “sometimes” elicit a “good degree of public sympathy”, says Libby Purves. But as the RMT union prepares for two 24-hour walkouts in London this week, Tube drivers should note that the world of “work has shifted”. The gig economy is booming, but many of its workers “would rather be employed” and have protections, paid holiday and sick pay. Perhaps “those who lead strikes should remember they are sabotaging the lives and incomes of millions more vulnerable”.