A Starship enterprise
The world this week
Politics
Business
The weekly cartoon

Leaders

Our cover
SpaceX is capitalism on rocket fuel
Make what you will of Elon Musk, his rocketry firm is a marvel of free markets

The MAGA tax
American growth could be even better
MAGAnomics shows the world what not to do. But also what America keeps getting right
Mark Rutte
Planning for divorce
Why NATO needs a Plan B
Mark Rutte is wrong to quash talk of one. The risks of the alliance unravelling are too great to ignore
A woman washes her hands at the Rwandan border following confirmation of an Ebola outbreak in Congo
Parrying pathogens
How to stop the Ebola outbreak
The latest epidemic in central Africa is a warning about future pandemics
Illustration of members of the Labour party pictured as football players, looking beaten after a game.
Political football
Lessons from the Premier League for Britain’s next premier
How a deflated country can bounce back

Letters
A selection of correspondence
Do most baristas in Norway have a master’s degree?
By Invitation
A portrait of Gill Whitehead
Power to the founder
The IPO wave will enshrine the AI gods’ control over the future
Briefing
The SpaceX Super Heavy booster rolls past the production facility toward launch pad 2 ahead of the 12th test flight of the Starship spacecraft in Starbase, Texas
Out of this world
SpaceX has initiated the biggest ever public offering
Elon Musk is again going all-in on an unproven technology—data centres in space
Asia

The Sino-Japanese spat
Why Japan and China will struggle to end their feud
Transactions over Taiwan
Is Donald Trump selling out Taiwan?
Ashoka
India’s loudest political fight obscures a more urgent one
Busy doing nothing
India’s diplomats are hosting the world
Crumbling pillars
Overseas Chinese risk losing their oldest institutions
China
A pedestrian stands near giant screens showing news footage of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Great Hall of the People during a state visit to China, in Beijing, China May 20, 2026.
Russian in
Vladimir Putin’s turn with Xi Jinping
On the wish list
How China quietly helps Russia in Ukraine
Reflation nations
What China can learn from Japan about escaping deflation
United States
A large image of U.S. President Donald Trump hangs from the the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building.
Friends with benefits
Even by Trumpian standards, a $1.8bn fund for friends is bad
A disarming delay
Drained by war with Iran, America is stalling deliveries of arms to Europe
Pulpit partisans
America’s sermons are becoming op-eds
Bottoms up
Democratic primary voters chose a dicey candidate for Georgia governor
Basqueing in it
Europe’s first known language is alive in America’s West
Three ways, not third way
Michigan’s Senate primary is a fight over the future of the Democratic Party
Lexington
Leftist populism’s next big test

The Americas
People illuminate themselves with their phones while playing dominoes as a fire set up by residents protesting against prolonged power outages burns on a street in Havana, Cub
No country for old men
Donald Trump is pushing towards the end-game in Cuba
On the block
Months after electing a centrist president, Bolivia boils over
Pharmapower
Why Brazil’s government is obsessed with vaccines
Middle East & Africa
A visitor has their temperature checked as they arrive at Kyeshero Hospital in Goma
The pathogen crosses borders
A new Ebola outbreak could be the worst in a decade
Into Africa
How to save the safari
Israel’s next election
Is Binyamin Netanyahu facing his last stand?
Guns and unicorns
Israel’s economy is booming
Feeling surrounded
The mother of the world v the upstart
Déjà vu all over again
Donald Trump is still looking for a quick fix in Iran
Europe
A soldier of the United Kingdom's 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian infantry unit storms an enemy position in a simulated attack during the NATO "Brilliant Jump" military exercises.
Transatlantic rift
Europe’s secret Plan B to replace NATO
The wild south-east
Who are Europe’s newest troublemakers?
Pitch battle
Real Madrid’s boss calls an election
Bytebreak
How Europe is fighting for digital sovereignty
Charlemagne
Bre-entry may be the next drama to grip the European Union
Britain
Kenyan fans of Arsenal FC react while watching a match on television in Nairobi, Kenya
World champions
In football, Britain has a world-beating industry
Fever pitch
Why football attendance is booming outside the Premier League
Playing by the rules?
The legal case hanging over Man City and the Premier League
Politics in Birmingham
Britain’s second-biggest city goes from dysfunctional to worse
The phoney war of the roses
Labour’s “battle for ideas” is a skirmish over small differences
Bagehot
Hate Labour? Vote Labour!
International
Illustration of a young girl sat on a pile of books shaped like a house, writing in a notebook
Education
Home-schooling is on the rise around the world
The Telegram
Israel the lonely
1843

Sport
Dope and glory: inside the Enhanced Games
Business

Everything engines
AI super-apps are remaking China’s internet
Agents for the masses
Google is dethroning OpenAI as the king of consumer AI
Loco for Coco
Chanel’s creative revival is paying off
Striking a new chord
The strange fate of Hard Rock Cafe
Yodanomics
How Star Wars went from space opera to soap opera
Power move
A new mega-deal shows how AI has turned utilities into hot property
Crossing the tracks
Can an Italian company disrupt Germany’s broken railway industry?
Bartleby
Why you should (almost) always look on the bright side of life
Finance & economics
A lone evergreen tree rises above a sea of clouds beneath a clear blue sky
The MAGA tax
How much is Donald Trump costing America’s economy?
Loss leaders
The insurers on the hook for war in Iran
Flying pterodactyl
The other China shock
Locked out
Economics lessons from Home Depot
New oases
Where expat escapees from Dubai end up
Buttonwood
Investors fear another surge in inflation
Free Exchange
How should economists treat morality?
Science & technology
Illustration of three glowing cylindrical batteries against a black background, each releasing blue electrical discharges from the top terminals. The center battery features a circular cutaway revealing a colorful microscopic pattern inside
Charging ahead
Breakthroughs for batteries could soon make them much better
Cruise control
The hantavirus outbreak is a tragedy—and a valuable data source
Climate modification
Could microscopic spheres of silica help cool the planet?
Well Informed
How well do anabolic steroids work?
Culture
illustration of two wine-bottle cannons on wooden carts, one with a French flag and the other with an American flag, facing each other on a yellow background.
Red, white and cru
A blind tasting revolutionised the wine world 50 years ago
The Kim catechism
The unlikely inspiration for North Korea’s first dictator
Back Story
Why the sex in “Rivals” is more than mere titillation
Zionism’s Jewish opponents
Not all Jews believed their future lay in Israel
Foul copy
Beware the typo—and other lessons of literary history
Ready Reader One
Gamified novels—known as LitRPG—are a winning format
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary
Dr Edith Eger when young, by the sea with a little girl
The ballerina of Auschwitz
Edith Eger danced for Josef Mengele