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The world this week
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Leaders

Revitalising Japan
The world’s most powerful woman
Japan’s prime minister has earned a once-in-a-generation chance to remake her country. Will she seize it?

Let them scroll
Don’t ban teenagers from social media
Restrictions would do more harm than good
Picture of Jeffrey Epstein over a red and black background
1.4m deadly sins
The Epstein files tell a story of justice denied
Prosecutors have moved far too slowly
A man sells towels on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.
The parable of Brazil
The rich world should beware Brazilification
When governments are indebted, high interest rates wreak havoc
Male members of the choir at St Mark's church in Camden, London
The travails of amateur choirs
How to solve the tenor shortage
A voice that is made, not found

Britain in crisis
Britain’s predicament will get worse before it gets better
With Sir Keir Starmer weakened, the government will drift left

Letters
A selection of correspondence
Is education technology mostly useless?
Briefing
Illustration of two teenagers on their phones, seated under a sign that reads 'No social media'
Social outcasts
More and more countries are banning kids from social media
But the case for bans is weak and the benefits are uncertain
Asia
Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaks during a press conference
Takaichi’s triumph
How Japan’s prime minister will use her massive new mandate
Shocks absorbed
Led by a Marxist, battered by a storm, Sri Lanka is doing better
Digital money
Asia is turning stablecoins into banking infrastructure
Thai politics
Thailand’s conservatives win a shock big victory
Banyan
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are weaponising cricket
China
A polar bear walks with her cubs near the Xue Long 2 ship in the Arctic
The melting north
What China is really up to in the Arctic
The healing process
What’s the point of AI in acupuncture?
Boom times
Why China’s concert scene has boomed since the pandemic
United States
Observers film ICE agents.
Restrain or abolish?
How Democrats aim to curb ICE without losing votes
Latin lessens
America may be reaching peak Spanish
A gathering storm?
Lawsuits over transgender medicine for minors could be huge
Of Homer and home ownership
The decline of single-earner housebuyers in America
Winning with a lottery
Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools
Lexington
RFK’s idea of making America healthy starts with making it politically sicker
Essay

Enlightenment ideals meet reality
America at 250
America at 250
The Declaration of Independence still defines America’s purpose, writes Jon Meacham
America at 250
Political parties are a feature, not a bug, of American democracy, writes H.W. Brands
America at 250
Six books to understand the Founding Fathers

The Americas
A man enjoys a sunny morning at Arpoador beach, Rio de Janeiro.
The grind
Brazil’s economy is being throttled by entrenched interests
Running on empty
Cuba’s fate may be in Marco Rubio’s hands
No off-ramp
Central America’s biggest city is eternally snarled with traffic
Middle East & Africa
Samia Suluhu Hassan
An unlikely journey
Don’t welcome Africa’s newest despot
Unwelcome guests
A deadly attack shows Nigeria’s security crisis is worsening
Bronze bust-up
How Africa’s hottest new museum unravelled
Awkward neighbours
Why Syria and Iraq cannot reconcile
The more things change
Why Saudis feel squeezed even as the economy booms
Europe
Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Mirage 2000 and a Dassault Rafale
Flying on empty
A European fighter-jet partnership is verging on a break-up
An interview with France’s president
Emmanuel Macron declares a European state of emergency
SAMs tomorrow
Can Germany rearm its way to growth?
Northern exposure
The Epstein files are sullying Norway’s squeaky-clean image
Tales from the far side
At the last open crossing, Ukrainians flee Russia’s annexation
Charlemagne
The European Onion is a joke whose time has come
Britain
Sir Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, is silhouetted against a red backdrop.
A zombie prime minister
Sir Keir Starmer clings to office—but not power
Brotherly shove
King Charles tries to limit the fallout from Andrew’s Epstein mess
Growth’s dubious precision
Britain’s shifting GDP numbers
Cornish nice dream
Tin mining is making a surprise return to Cornwall
Dinner with Jesus
Alpha offers a starter course in salvation
Unintended consequences
Britain’s “Hillsborough law”, pledging candour, is avoiding it
Bagehot
The alternatives to Sir Keir
International
Collage illustration featuring Epstein and some of his emails.
A nightmare, quantified
Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s network
The Telegram
Are liberal values a luxury the West cannot afford?
Business
Government official arms wrapping around stacks of coins and buildings with green arrows trending upwards
Shaking up the boardroom
Asia’s capitalists will need to fight for their revolution
Elbow grease
Arm wants a bigger slice of the chip business
Copycat crisis
China once stole foreign ideas. Now it wants to protect its own
Posh nosh
America’s hottest grocery store is also its priciest
Bartleby
The excruciating quest for a meeting room
Schumpeter
Private-equity barons have a giant AI problem
Finance & economics
Illustration of a robot hand touching a bubble with a human hand cupped beneath.
Fit to burst
How to hedge a bubble, AI edition
Comparative advantage
Who wrangled the best trade deal from Donald Trump?
Diversity hires
Ethnic minorities are driving America’s startup boom
Sex and pay
What drives the wage gap between men and women?
Bringing the house down
Chinese homebuyers are enraged by shoddy building standards
Marginalia
Why China’s central bank won’t save the country from deflation
Buttonwood
The coldest crypto winter yet
Free exchange
How to put a price on a human life
Science & technology
Candela P-12 passenger ferry is shown travelling on the water.
Anchors aweigh
“Flying” electric boats could remake urban transport
Animal hospital
Humans are not the only animals that treat each other’s injuries
Seeing the light
Robots with human-inspired eyes have better vision
Well informed
Does being induced lead to a medicalised birth?
Culture
A caveman holding a phone, sending heart emojis that float upward.
Passion and pre-history
Need a bit of dating help? The caveman’s guide to romance
Choral singing
The world is suffering from a shortage of tenors
Gimme moors
Sex, sex and more sex: Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”
Continental fates
Africa needs to follow Asia’s path to grow
What a way to make a living
The rise of the 9-to-5 influencer
Bossy Aussie
Real-life “Succession”: Media’s most dysfunctional family
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary
Virginia Oliver, at age 101, bands a lobster's claws on a boat in Penobscot Bay in Maine, United States, July 31st 2021
Obituary
Virginia Oliver worked Maine’s waters for nearly a century