Jun 1st 2024

Meet America’s most dynamic political movement

The world this week

Leaders

Von der Leyen, Meloni and Le Pen

The three women who will shape Europe

At a crucial moment they encapsulate the dilemma of how to handle populism

Revolt of the reasonable

The pro-choice movement that could help Joe Biden win

A backlash against abortion bans is energising the middle ground in America

Prudent pensioners, profligate politicians

What penny-pinching baby-boomers mean for the world economy

They are saving like never before. But even that may not bring interest rates down

Eastern promise

Japan and South Korea are getting friendlier. At last

As the world economy fragments, two export powerhouses see the virtue of chumminess

Mark a cross

Incompetence or opacity: the choice facing British voters

The first week of the election campaign points to a failure of political competition

Letters

On Singapore, Arab armies, China, romantasy, immigration, car names

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

Artificial intelligence

AI firms mustn’t govern themselves, say ex-members of OpenAI’s board

Artificial intelligence

OpenAI board members respond to a warning by former members

Briefing

Abortion and politics

The undoing of Roe v Wade has created a mighty political movement

The power of women with clipboards

Asia

Diplomatic inertia

Is America giving Narendra Modi an easy ride?

A protest against parliament

Some Taiwanese worry that their lawmakers may sell them out to China

Banyan

Want to stop a third world war? Pick up the phone

Monetising minerals

Australia joins the industrial arms race

Four legs good

Bans on dog meat sweep across Asia

China

Beware the work team

The evolution of forced labour in Xinjiang

Signs of decline

Has China reached peak emissions?

Controlling behaviour

Hong Kong convicts 14 pro-democracy activists

Chaguan

How China uses Russia to chew up the UN

United States

The 3% party

What are America’s Libertarians for?

Budget-modelling wars

Fiscal nerds determine the fate of legislation in America

Howzat meets fuhgeddaboudit

Will Americans be bowled over by cricket—again?

Be prepared

America could face its most active hurricane season ever

Gone with the wind

A tornado destroys a barn—an Economist favourite—in Wisconsin

No joke

The side-effects of the TikTok tussle

Middle East & Africa

Occupation and responsibility

Who is responsible for feeding Gaza?

Horrors in Rafah

Outrage at a strike in Rafah is unlikely to change policy

Last stand in Darfur

A battle rages for a key city in Sudan’s ravaged western region

Give peace a chance

A Sudanese gathering outside the country proposes a third way

Buzz kill

New fronts are opening in the war against malaria

The Americas

Mexico’s moment

Mexico’s next president can reset relations with the United States

Influencer and president

Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s mañaneras boost his presidency

Double trouble

Bolivia’s left wing is at war with itself

Jaded nation

Canada’s jade mines boomed on Chinese demand. Now that’s over

Europe

Europe votes

The rise of the hard right threatens Europe’s political stability

Too sizeable to shun

Hard-right populists are pushing their way into the mainstream

From Uffizi to office?

The Brothers of Italy take the fight to Florence

Captive in the Caucasus

Georgia’s government cosies up to Russia

No way back

Ukraine’s desperate draft-dodgers drown in the river of death

Charlemagne

Ceci n’est pas un divorce: why surging separatism won’t break Belgium

Britain

Prospective MPs

Generation K: Keir Starmer’s cohort of Labour candidates

Outlier or omen?

Half of Northern Irish patients wait over a year for treatment

Lights, camera…inaction!

Sir Keir Starmer meets the public. Sort of

Limitations of statute

Brexit is the only big legacy of the 2019-24 parliament

Not a postcode lottery

The seats where Labour is concentrating its campaign firepower

In the box, and on it

Footballer, broadcaster, podcast mogul: the career of Gary Lineker

Bagehot

The British election is becoming an episode of mob justice

International

Control yourself!

Is your rent ever going to fall?

Business

Flyover country

Japanese businesses are trapped between America and China

Upping the X ante

Can Elon Musk’s xAI take on OpenAI?

Prêt-à-partir

Can Benetton be patched up?

Bartleby

How to write the perfect CV

Back, with a vengeance

ExxonMobil rediscovers its swagger

Schumpeter

The soldiers of the silicon supply chain are worried

Finance & economics

Live a little

Baby-boomers are loaded. Why are they so stingy?

A high-interest-rate phenomenon

Young collectors are fuelling a boom in Basquiat-backed loans

In the shadows

OPEC heavyweights are cheating on their targets

Buttonwood

When to sell your stocks

Stepping on spiky grass

Xi Jinping’s surprising new source of economic advice

Gift horse

Foreign investors are rejecting Indian stocks

Free exchange

Why any estimate of the cost of climate change will be flawed

Science & technology

Of mice and menses

Progress on the science of menstruation—at last

Flying bugs

Hordes of cicadas are emerging simultaneously in America

Drone warfare

Many Ukrainian drones have been disabled by Russian jamming

Avian flu

A second human case of bird flu in America is raising alarm

Culture

Beaches like no other

Remembering D-Day, as a new war rages in Europe

Bad sport?

Bullfighting is under attack

Braking China

Is time more on America’s or China’s side?

The booby trap

There is more to breasts than meets the eye

Literary afterlives

A century after his death Franz Kafka is still in the zeitgeist

The Economist reads

The Economist reads

Five of the best books on climbing mountains

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Obituary

Fixing a likeness