Mar 16th 2024

America’s pumped-up economy

The world this week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Home biased

The government wants investors to buy British

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

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

Plentiful helium

Is the bull market about to turn into a bubble?

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

Who is Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, Haiti’s most prominent gang leader?

The Economist explains

What is photo retouching and when is it permissible?

Obituary

From strength to strength