The summit of suspicion
The world this week
Politics
Business
The weekly cartoon

Leaders

Our cover
The Trump-Xi summit will expose a dysfunctional duo
Mutual vulnerability is no substitute for global leadership
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets his supporters as he arrives at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters
Indian democracy
Narendra Modi’s party is on a roll in India
The BJP has beaten a bad ruler in West Bengal. But India must not become a de facto one-party state
Man working with dangerous viruses in a laboratory
From cyber-security to biosecurity
The world must stop AI from empowering bioterrorists
The threat from new pathogens is an even graver danger than AI-backed hackers
A member of the Jewish community looks at the scene where two Jewish men are seriously injured after being stabbed in Golders Green, London, April 29th 2026
Antisemitism
To fight antisemitism, first grasp where it comes from
What looks like a 21st-century problem has deep, dark roots
Illustration of the European flag as a circular saw cutting through red tape.
Simplify and deregulate
Europe is unshackling business. But not enough
Why market liberals must win the battle for Brussels—and national capitals, too

Letters
A selection of correspondence
Why does Britain consistently fail to capture economic returns from innovation?
By Invitation

A bleak view from Moscow
Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia
BIT of progress
The pact that could help America and China repair relations
Briefing
A photo collage featuring portraits of Trump and Xi, alongside images of container ships, medicines, and computer circuit boards, illustrating the economic relationship between the U.S. and China.
Summit in Beijing
Trump and Xi will struggle to strike a major economic deal
Just avoiding a renewed clash will count as success
A photo collage featuring a map of Taiwan, Xi’s portrait, and images of fighter jets, illustrating the security tensions surrounding Taiwan.
Pacific insecurity
China is pushing Donald Trump for concessions on Taiwan
Some in Taipei and Washington fear he may give ground
Asia
BJP supporters celebrate lead in Assam and West Bengal state elections, New Delhi, India - 04 May 2026
Saffron march
Narendra Modi has extended his grip on India
Choppy waters
Asia’s stranded seafarers suffer as the Iran war drags on
Farm to fuel
The energy shock triggers an Asian dash for biofuels
No saviours
The gutting of USAID has left a void China will not fill
Red sky in the morning
America is massing troops near Taiwan to deter troublemaking by China
Banyan
The case against trees
China
Illustration of a chessboard integrated into a computer chip, set against a green circuit board. A red king and a white king stand facing each other on the board
A MAD problem
Artificial intelligence revives a cold-war-style dilemma
Superyachts
A Chinese high-seas misadventure in luxury yachts
Chaguan
China thinks America is declining but still uniquely dangerous
United States
A child throws rocks into the East River at Brooklyn Bridge Park as the sun sets behind the NYC skyline.
The kids in America
City parenting has become a financial flex
Awake not awoke
The Democratic approach to AI is not all about bans
Calais consequences
The Supreme Court has unleashed the gerrymanderers
Honey, I got primaried
“Midwest Nice” is no match for presidential petty
Doing business
Foreign firms: have you considered America?
Virile vibes are not enough
Young men are souring on Donald Trump
Lexington
The Supreme Court has become a great place to build your brand

The Americas
Argentina's President Javier Milei attends a business event in Buenos Aires.
The slump and the spiral
Javier Milei is in serious trouble
Land and oil
Venezuela’s 100-year territorial dispute is back in court
Trialling times
Claudia Sheinbaum is in a bind, with her party accused of corruption
Middle East & Africa
An illustration showing a reilef map the United Arab Emirates breaking away from the continent. There are three Iranian arrows planted in the centre of the UAE.
Taking aim
Despite Donald Trump’s talk, a lasting peace is some way off
No way out
Diplomacy or more war? Iran’s leaders are split
Out of sync
Arab rulers have little sympathy for Iran
Desert doldrums
Mali shows the growing strength of jihadism in the Sahel
Europe
Friedrich Merz looking downcast.
The off-chancellor
Friedrich Merz can’t go on like this
Nordic education
Why Swedish schools are going unplugged
Apocalypse on the Black Sea
A Ukrainian strike on a Russian oil hub causes catastrophe
Feeling exposed
Trump’s threat to withdraw troops is serious for Europe
Pumpernickeled up
Germany claims it has the world’s best bread
Charlemagne
Inside the Brussels deep state
Britain
Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets emergency response workers as he visits Golders Green in London, April 30th 2026
Golders Grim
What to do about Britain’s rising antisemitism?
Teach first
Britain’s teenagers deserve better help getting equipped to vote
Bodge job
Watch out for the unintended consequences of Britain’s rent act
Stagflation
Britain’s deer are thriving. It’s a nightmare for the countryside
Hitting a boundary
The surprising supply-chain choke point for cricket bats
Troubles and light
Belfast’s murals are an open-air gallery of history and art
Bagehot
One decade, two Britains
International
U.S. Marines with 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company conduct final topside checks of a combat rubber raiding craft before beginning a nighttime launch and recovery operations on Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Georgia in the Mediterranean Sea.
Which navy’s better, down where it’s wetter?
American subs rule beneath the waves, but China’s are catching up
The Telegram
America must hope Donald Trump is not a new Caligula
Business

Red lights
Global carmakers desperately want to be more Chinese
Fuming
Airlines are grappling with dwindling supplies of jet fuel
Bunged up
Not all oil giants are prospering from the Iran war
Unjumbled
The remarkable revival of eBay
Vanity project
Can a beauty mega-deal save Estée Lauder?
Bartleby
The pros and cons of commuting
Schumpeter
Only one of Berkshire Hathaway and SoftBank can survive
Finance & economics
Illustration of Europa riding a bull, brealing up red tape.
Simplify and integrate
The EU wants to unshackle its economy. For real this time
Kulturkampf
UniCredit’s lowball bid for Commerzbank causes consternation
The rent is too damn AI
DeepSeek and Alibaba rescue China’s office landlords
Disfigured
Bad government statistics can cost the economy billions
TrumpAID
Donald Trump’s foreign policy gets a muscular finance arm
Buttonwood
Can Bill Ackman save the closed-end fund?
Free Exchange
The myth of the petrodollar
Science & technology
illustration of biohazard symbol in pixel art style on yellow background.
Bio hazards
How AI tools could enable bioterrorism
Troubled waters
How worried should you be about hantavirus?
Meet the peptideins
The human genome encodes for a new category of molecule
Well Informed
Does acupuncture work?
Culture
A collage of actresses and singers with books around them.
Literary tastemakers
Many celebrities now have book clubs. Most are irritating
The world’s richest man
What is Elon Musk’s formula?
Back Story
Turn on, tune in, trust no one: the paranoid style captures TV
Literary posterity
Oscar Wilde’s grandson separates fact from fiction
Dear headgear
In an age of status symbols, tiaras take the crown
Kremlin rules
The history of Moscow helps explain Russia’s pathologies
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary
Craig Venter in a new greenhouse at his company, Synthetic Genomics, in La Jolla, California, in July 2010
The outsider
Craig Venter raced to decode the human genome