The Economist USA - April 6, 2024

Politics
Business
KAL’s cartoon
This week’s cover

Leaders

Letters

On carbon pricing, handbags, museum collections, Starship, AI and music, British immigrants, how to describe X
Letters to the editor

By Invitation

Chinese aspirations
Yu Hua on why young Chinese no longer want to work for private firms


Nuclear weapons
As the world changes, so should America’s nuclear strategy, says Frank Miller

Briefing

Nuclear weapons
America and its allies are entering a period of nuclear uncertainty
And it means the balancing act is getting harder

United States

Like a dream to me now
The Biden campaign in Michigan has a tremendous ground-game advantage

Florida woman
An abortion ruling has Democrats hoping Florida is in play

Marriage
The rise of the remote husband

Drug-dependent
Joe Biden’s assault on the $900 child-eczema cream

The struggling state
California is gripped by economic problems, with no easy fix

Lexington
Are American progressives making themselves sad?

The Americas

The Anti-communist International
Latin America’s new hard right: Bukele, Milei, Kast and Bolsonaro
Feeling the heat
South American vineyards brace for tricky summers ahead

A house divided
Justin Trudeau is beset by a divided party and an angry electorate

Asia

The Modi paradox
Why India’s elite loves Narendra Modi

Building back stronger
Japan is still reeling 100 days after the Noto earthquake

In a different league
The end of cricket’s Indian monopoly

Damaging dynasties
Asian “nepo babies” are dominating its politics

Banyan
For a glimpse at Japan’s future, look at its convenience stores

China

The power of princelings
How China’s political clans might determine its future

Chaguan
China’s tin-eared approach to the world

Middle East & Africa

Israel’s shadow war with Iran
Israel is ratcheting up its shadow war with Iran

World Central Kitchen
What Israel’s killing of aid workers means for Gaza

Jihadist blues
Protests have erupted against another Syrian dictator

A cruel law
Ugandan judges uphold a draconian anti-gay law

Cool it
Recent heatwaves are a harbinger of Africa’s future

Europe

The Olympics and urban planning
The new geography of Paris

The trouncing of a strongman
An electoral bruising for Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey

A well-timed feud
Poles and Ukrainians are at loggerheads. That’s good news for Putin

Organised crime in Italy
The mafiosi of Naples turn white-collar

Happy Finns
The secret behind the world’s happiest country

Charlemagne
Germany’s Free Democrats have become desperate spoilers

Britain

Stormy weather
How has the Bank of England dealt with four years of shocks?

Private renting
Two cities show the problems faced by Britain’s renters

Unionism stunned
What Jeffrey Donaldson’s arrest means for Northern Ireland

Young people’s movements
Why some parts of England have so few graduates

Waxing and waning
Madame Tussauds reflects the fragmentation of fame in Britain

Bagehot
Sadiq Khan’s London offers a taste of Starmer’s Britain

International

Mass killings
Thirty years after Rwanda, genocide is still a problem from hell

Business

A new opening?
The mind-bending new rules for doing business in China

King of the castle
Bob Iger has defeated Nelson Peltz at Disney. Now what?

The world’s largest startup
India’s biggest conglomerate takes on chipmaking

Less general, more electric
Will GE do better as three companies than as one?

System engineering
Meet the French oil major that balances growth and greenery

Bartleby
The six rules of fire drills

Schumpeter
Why Japan Inc is no longer in thrall to America

Finance & economics

Hype and hyperopia
How Xi Jinping plans to overtake America

A lovely wall
The Federal Reserve cleans up its money-printing mess

The $10.6bn question
Will FTX’s customers be repaid?

Buttonwood
How to build a global currency

Free exchange
Daniel Kahneman was a master of teasing questions

Science & technology

Pharmacology
Could weight-loss drugs eat the world?

Robotics
Why robots should take more inspiration from plants

Hacking the internet
A stealth attack came close to compromising the world’s computers

Culture

Under the mushroom cloud
What would nuclear war look like in the 21st century?

Atomic beast
On his 70th birthday, Godzilla has roared back to relevance

Selling scripture
How to make money from the Bible

A numbers game
In the Premier League, data help minor clubs take on the mighty

Rwanda
How Paul Kagame uses culture to keep Rwandans on message

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets

Obituary

Fighting for breath
Paul Alexander lived longer than anyone in an iron lung