Hug pylons not trees

The world this week

Politics
Business
KAL’s cartoon
This week’s covers
Leaders


Hug pylons, not trees
The case for an environmentalism that builds
Economic growth should help, not hinder, the fight against climate change

Trans treatments
What America has got wrong about gender medicine
Too many doctors have suspended their professional judgment

Rules of the code
What is a responsible cyber power?
Britain’s principles for cyberwarfare are a good start

An American first
What America’s friends should make of The Trump Show
Reasons to be both relaxed and worried

A frail financial firefighter
How to fix the International Monetary Fund
The fund must get tough on obstructive creditors, but save them a seat at the table

Higher expectations
The university lottery
Students are veering away from dodgy degrees. Governments should help them

Letters

On life expectancy, the Chagos Islands, the Federal Reserve, car washes, the OECD, eggs
Letters to the editor
By Invitation


American inflation
The Fed may not get inflation down to 2%, says Richard Clarida
Briefing


Trans substantiation
The evidence to support medicalised gender transitions in adolescents is worryingly weak
The effectiveness and side-effects of the most common treatments are not well understood
Asia


Wet bulb hot
India’s deadly heatwaves are getting even hotter
Hit for six
The Indian Premier League is taking over global cricket
The sonic outernationalist
Sakamoto Ryuichi heard how the world sounds—and changed it
Banyan
China’s huge Asian investments fail to buy it soft power
In the dragon’s mouth
The view from the front line between Taiwan and China
China


Europe and China
Will Xi Jinping outsmart Emmanuel Macron?
China and Taiwan
Ethnic terminology bedevils Taiwan-China relations
The West and China
It is getting even harder for Western scholars to do research in China
Chaguan
Why Xi Jinping is not another Chairman Mao
United States


The irresistible nation
America’s chance to become a clean-energy superpower
Legally bland
At American law schools, a fresh fuss over freedom of speech
Bringing down the house
The message from the striking elections in Chicago and Wisconsin
Holidays in the unPacific
Guam, where America’s next war may begin
Lexington
Why do Democrats keep helping Trump?

Middle East & Africa


Africa’s slowing baby boom
The world’s peak population may be smaller than expected
African demography
Kenya’s population growth is slowing in cities and towns
A real estate boom in the Gulf
Russians have helped make Dubai’s property market red hot—again
Dam-nation
February’s earthquakes have damaged the Middle East’s dams
The Americas


Prophets of the ballot box
Evangelicals may soon rival Catholics in Latin America
When the tortillas run out
Crazy policies and climate change are hurting Latin American agriculture
Europe


The inner circle of Germany’s chancellor
Who does Olaf Scholz listen to?
Kingmakers and scapegoats
Turkey’s Kurds are joining the coalition to oust Erdogan
Press freedom
Calls for Russia to free Evan Gershkovich fall on deaf ears
Reversion to form
Sanna Marin concedes defeat in Finland
A battle yet to be won
Ukraine’s gay soldiers fight Russia—and for their rights
Falling off the black mountain
Montenegro’s long-time boss is ousted
Britain


A good Good Friday
Thanks to the Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland is a better place
A tremor in the force
Cyberwarfare is all in the mind, says Britain
The Iron Lady’s chancellor
Nigel Lawson was the economic brain of Thatcherism
Bagehot
National Swing Man, the British electorate’s new-old tribe
International


Useless studies
Was your degree really worth it?
Technology Quarterly


The ultimate supply chains
The electric grid is about to be transformed
Hurry up and wait
Adding capacity to the electricity grid is not a simple task
Direct delivery
Electric grids fed by renewables need a different kind of plumbing
Defying Dunkelflaute
It is harder for new electric grids to balance supply and demand
Back in black
The physics of rotating masses can no longer define the electric grid
Electric grids
Sources and acknowledgments
Business


Asian business elites
Meet Asia’s millennial plutocrats
Game changer
How AI could disrupt video-gaming
Watching the wheels
American railways and truckers are at a crossroads
Bartleby
The resistible lure of the family business
Why, EY?
EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany
Toyota after Toyoda
Toyota gets a new hand at the wheel
Schumpeter
What the world’s hottest MBA courses reveal about 21st-century business
Finance & economics


Trouble on 19th Street
The IMF faces a nightmarish identity crisis
Post-zero-covid
Chinese officials promise foreign investors greater access
An angry farewell
The Swiss rage about the demise of Credit Suisse
Buttonwood
Stocks have shrugged off the banking turmoil. Haven’t they?
Pain to come
The rich world’s housing crunch is far from over
Free exchange
Why economics does not understand business
Science & technology


Astrobiology
Icy moons with vast oceans are the latest candidates for alien life
Digital poisons
It doesn’t take much to make machine-learning algorithms go awry
Sickies called
An algorithm can diagnose a cold from changes in someone’s voice
Culture


After the Good Friday Agreement
Northern Ireland’s arts have blossomed. But divisions endure
Feminism in South Korea
Inside the fight against misogyny and patriarchy in South Korea
Nigerian fiction
Wit and wisdom in “The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa”
Educational entertainment
Games are a weapon in the war on disinformation
Back Story
Picasso was a genius—and a beast. Can the two be separated?
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Graphic detail


Garbage in, garbage out
A new study of studies reignites controversy over mask mandates
The Economist explains


The Economist explains
What to make of Israel’s new national guard
The Economist explains
Who is Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s arraignment?
Obituary


Obituary
Phyllida Barlow had a lifetime of adventure making art