The world this week

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


Elixir of life
Living to 120 is becoming an imaginable prospect
Efforts to slow ageing are taking wing

A bigger, better EU
The war in Ukraine is a powerful reason to enlarge—and improve—the EU
Nine new countries, including Ukraine, are vying to join

Striking contradictions
Joe Biden may come to regret his claim to be pro-union
The UAW strike highlights the deep strains in Bidenomics

A short war with a long shadow
A humanitarian disaster is under way in Nagorno-Karabakh
And Russia may also be destabilising its old ally, Armenia

The budget bust-up
Forget the shutdown. America’s real fiscal worry is rising bond yields
Watch Wall Street, not Washington

Reboot successful
The lessons from Microsoft’s startling comeback
A bold bet on AI could help it overtake Apple as the world’s most valuable firm

Letters

On America and China, household costs, mining, Indonesia, cannabis Airbnb, children’s books
Letters to the editor
By Invitation


Climate change
David Keith on why carbon removal won’t save big oil but may help the climate
Briefing


A second flight
How Microsoft could supplant Apple as the world’s most valuable firm
It hopes to seize on AI to transform the future of work
Asia


Strait up lies
China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation
Japanese loos
The world’s greatest toilet culture
Politics and the law
South Korea’s opposition leader narrowly avoids arrest
Losing the Voice
Australians look set to reject new provisions for Aboriginal people
Gender politics
Narendra Modi wants a lot more women in Indian politics
Digital Jio-graphy
Can a $12 phone get 300m illiterate Indians online?
After the assassination
India is testing America’s friendship
China


No time for stinginess
Politics hamper China’s efforts to stimulate the economy
An absurd life sentence
China’s persecution of Uyghurs extends to those it once favoured
Return game
After an unsuccessful boycott, women’s tennis is back in China
United States


Who has agency?
The new Supreme Court term takes aim at the administrative state
Stars and gold bars
Bob Menendez’s indictment is colourful even by Jersey standards
Nihilists in Washington
America’s next government shutdown could be the strangest yet
Woke and broke
DEI initiatives have foundered over the past three years in America
Sanctuary in the city
The flow of migrants into Chicago is a crisis and an opportunity
Summary smackdown
Donald Trump is found liable for fraud in his real-estate dealings
Lexington
A Trump Party in the Reagan Library

Middle East & Africa


Trip hazards
America, Israel and Saudi are “at the cusp of a deal”
Powering up
Saudi Arabia wants to become a force in electric-vehicle manufacturing
France and Africa
Why Emmanuel Macron is pulling French troops out of Niger
The horn laws
Why there is a bear market in rhinos
Crime fiction
Kenya’s cops are spinning wild tales
The Americas


Canada’s embattled prime minister
The spat with India only adds to Justin Trudeau’s woes
Criminal enterprise
Mexico’s gangs could be the country’s fifth-biggest employer
A textbook row
Andrés Manuel López Obrador puts his stamp on Mexico’s schools
Europe


One last push
The EU is finally rebooting the enlargement machine
Black and Blue Sea
War has arrived in Crimea
Good from evil
Seven years after a terrorist attack, Nice has rebuilt itself
Charlemagne
The definition of Europe has always been both inspiring and incoherent
Britain


Biden’s Britain
Britain’s Labour Party takes lessons from Joe Biden
Organised retail crime
Why shoplifting is rising in Britain
No laughing matter
Britons take laughing gas merrily. Tories take it more seriously
Up the junction?
Why Britain’s government would be wrong to cut HS2
The Lib Dems
Could Britain’s Liberal Democrats matter again?
Cultivated fat
Is lab-grown meat kosher?
Bagehot
Blind optimism is the only bet for Britain’s Tories
International


Assassin’s creed
States are becoming more brazen about killing foes abroad
Technology Quarterly


In search of forever
Slowing human ageing is now the subject of serious research
Don’t be greedy
Eating fewer calories can ward off ageing
Out with the old
Ageing bodies need to get rid of decrepit cells
Of bowheads and borzois
Alternatives to the laboratory mouse
You can’t have everything
Older genomes have more dodgy genes
Give us the tools
Fighting ageing requires properly equipped cells
Blood and guts
What the young can give to the old
A design for living
Some claim human lifespans can be lengthened indefinitely
Insight
Video: In search of forever
Business


Cranes, drains and automobiles
Will the auto workers’ strike jeopardise Joe Biden’s manufacturing boom?
That’s a wrap
Hollywood’s strike enters its final act, as writers reach a deal
Grid unlock
Can Europe’s power grid cope with the green transition?
Exit the dragon
Ties between foreign businesses and China go from bad to worse
Bartleby
Films and the white-collar workplace
A medical gold rush
Pharma’s big push for a new generation of obesity drugs
Schumpeter
Customer service is getting worse—and so are customers
Finance & economics


Conflict economics
The costs of Russia’s war are about to hit home
Laboratory visit
The city that encapsulates China’s economic stagnation
Buttonwood
Investors’ enthusiasm for Japanese stocks has gone overboard
Republican doves
America’s Federal Reserve could soon be flying blind
Cruel world
Why fear is spreading in financial markets
Better off without you
Sri Lanka shows how broken debt negotiations have become
Free exchange
Why the state should not promote marriage
Science & technology


Storming the fortress
Sticking together makes bacteria nearly invincible
Bacterial warfare
Colonies of bacteria could save the Pentagon billions
Ice and fire
Glaciers on volcanoes could serve as early-warning systems
It’s grim down south
Antarctic sea ice is at a record low
Culture


The emperor strikes back
A new book by Mary Beard looks at the glitz and gore of Rome
Writing the wrongs of history
Some people in China are bravely trying to document the past
Johnson
In favour of simple writing
World in a dish
Dave Portnoy, an internet personality, has become pizza’s kingmaker
The unreal deal
Hyperreal art is Instagram-worthy and booming
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Graphic detail


Olive oil and snake oil
Places claiming to be centenarian hotspots may just have bad data
The Economist explains


The Economist explains
What happens if America’s government shuts down this weekend?
Obituary


Life in its fullness
Fernando Botero became famous for his over-size people and animals