The world this week

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


Pumped up
America’s extraordinary economy keeps defying the pessimists
Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have ideas that endanger it

Beyond Ukraine
Rogue Russia threatens the world, not just Ukraine
The West must show its enemy is Vladimir Putin, not 143m ordinary Russians

Time’s up
Time for TikTok to cut its ties to China
To stay on Western screens, the video app needs new owners

Geopolitics
The Gulf’s scramble for Africa is reshaping the continent
Its increased influence brings economic rewards and political risks

Angry young men
Making sense of the gulf between young men and women
It’s complicated. But better schooling for boys might help

Crude awakenings
Oil’s endgame could be highly disruptive
The oil shocks of the future will be driven by demand, not supply

Letters

On skiing, defence, Russian refugees, mining, Blackpool, the Moon, office meetings, Twitter
Letters to the editor
By Invitation


American trade policy
Donald Trump’s former trade chief makes the case for more tariffs
The Israel-Hamas conflict
An Israeli scholar explains why he no longer supports the war in Gaza
Briefing


Who’s afraid of Wile E. Coyote?
America’s economy has escaped a hard landing
But there are still pitfalls ahead
Asia


Wealth creation in India
Inside the world of crazy rich Indians
Religious politics
India’s government implements a controversial citizenship law
Spooked
An Australian spy chief triggers a debate about China
Hydra-headed nukes
India is souping up its nuclear missiles
Banyan
Pakistan’s generals look increasingly desperate
China


Blowing hot and cold
Is China a climate saint or villain?
Vino vinci
A toast to the possible end of Chinese tariffs on Australian wine
United States


Soft bigotry
New numbers show falling standards in American high schools
Unorthodox ways
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women are staging a sex-strike
Choo choo choices
Amtrak’s ridership is touching record highs
Moving the needle
Time is called on Oregon’s decriminalisation experiment
Tunnel troops
Is deploying soldiers on New York’s subway as mad as it seems?
Number blocks
The best dataset on American health care will be harder to access
Lexington
“Dune” is a warning about political heroes and their tribes

Middle East & Africa


The Israel-Hamas conflict
Hopes for a truce in Gaza give way to fears of a long stalemate
Gaza’s shadow economy
A shadowy wartime economy has emerged in Gaza
Restitution gone wrong
The return of a mask stolen by Belgium is stoking violence in Congo
Don’t call it a scramble
Gulf countries are becoming major players in Africa
The Americas


The China-Mexico-US triangle
Could there be a US-Mexico trade war?
Infinite regress
The struggle to free Haiti from violence and impotent governance
A tempting package
Mexico and Brazil dither as chip supply chains are reforged
Europe


A plebiscite and a funeral
Russians go to the polls in a sham election for their president
Everyday Putinism
Vladivostok is a window into wartime Russia
Ventura’s gain
Portugal’s hard right gets a big election boost
Not so quiet
A grinding, difficult war on Ukraine’s southern front
Charlemagne
Europe’s economy is a cause for concern, not panic
Britain


The ancient deal that saved the Barclays
Was the Barclay brothers’ business empire built on a fraud?
Warm words, tough choices
Northern Ireland’s new government puts on a show of unity
Home biased
The government wants investors to buy British
Yellowing red tape
England’s historic buildings are causing headaches
Forty years on
British museums remember the 1984 miners’ strike
Bagehot
How Britain’s Tories came to resemble the trade unions
International


Of Mars and Venus
Why young men and women are drifting apart
Special report


The long goodbye
For 50 years the story of oil has been one of matching supply with increasing demand
A changing market
Why oil supply shocks are not like the 1970s any more
Demand
The end of oil, then and now
Last men standing
Oil’s endgame will be in the Gulf
The molecular turn
Can Big Oil run in reverse?
The oil industry
Sources and acknowledgments
Business


Tick, tock
Will TikTok still exist in America?
A freighted question
Can lorries go green faster?
Not beyond petroleum
Is Saudi Aramco cooling on crude oil?
Domestic strife
Why are Chinese nationalists turning on Chinese brands?
Bartleby
Every location has got worse for getting actual work done
Schumpeter
Elon Musk is not alone in having Delaware in his sights
Finance & economics


Plentiful helium
Is the bull market about to turn into a bubble?
Global trade
China’s economic bright spots provide a warning
Life’s a beach
China is churning out solar panels—and upsetting sand markets
Princely demands
Saudi Arabia’s investment fund has been set an impossible task
Buttonwood
The private-equity industry has a cash problem
Bullet dodged
Russia’s economy once again defies the doomsayers
Free exchange
How NIMBYs increase carbon emissions
Science & technology


Water, water, everywhere
How to harvest moisture from the atmosphere
Puppy fat
Some Labradors have a predisposition to obesity
AI alignment
How to train your large language model
Free speech
A flexible patch could help people with voice disorders talk
Under construction
New York City is covered in illegal scaffolding
Culture


Silicon Valley’s scribes
Why is it so hard to write a good book about the tech world?
True crime’s first crime
A double murder in 1843 ushered in a new era of tabloid journalism
In ruins
Climate change is unearthing and erasing history all at once
Once upon a time, again
What’s behind the wave of literary retellings?
Lessons in decryption
How Aesop’s fables fostered a secret language of protest in Russia
Art with history
Maastricht is where museums go on shopping sprees
The Economist reads


The Economist reads
What to read to understand God and sex
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
The Economist explains


The Economist explains
What is photo retouching and when is it permissible?
The Economist explains
Who is Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, Haiti’s most prominent gang leader?
Obituary


From strength to strength
Toriyama Akira was probably Japan’s greatest manga master