AI voted: How artificial intelligence will affect the elections of 2024
The world this week
Leaders
AI voted
How worried should you be about AI disrupting elections?
Disinformation will become easier to produce, but it matters less than you might think
Global politics
How paranoid nationalism corrupts
Cynical leaders are scaremongering to win and abuse power
Destroyer of worlds
How to stop a three-way nuclear arms-race
America, China and Russia must agree on mutual restraints before it’s too late
Great Danes
To fix broken mortgage markets, look to Denmark
Rising interest rates have exposed the problems with many home loans
Beware side-effects
America’s new drug-pricing rules have perverse consequences
Medicare’s price mandate will deter innovation
Letters
On corporate lobbying, ultra-processed foods, life sciences, the British Virgin Islands, Chinese youth, the Luddites, public toilets, holey socks
Letters to the editor
By Invitation
The future of WFH
Nicholas Bloom predicts a working-from-home Nike swoosh
Briefing
Looters with flags
How cynical leaders are whipping up nationalism to win and abuse power
Hatemongers often erode checks on misrule and corruption
Britain
Scottish politics
Can Scotland help Labour form Britain’s next government?
Northern Ireland
Political dysfunction in Northern Ireland is the new normal
Local government
A blunder costs a British town billions
Big trouble with the big C
Why Britain is so bad at diagnosing cancer
Clearing the air
Who is to blame in Britain for delayed and cancelled flights?
Europe
Buzzing with ideas
Inside Ukraine’s drone war against Putin
Escaping the war
Thousands of Ukrainian men are avoiding military service
Business and Germany’s far right
Business leaders worry about the rise of the AfD
Getting out
Why Europe is a magnet for more Americans
United States
Mr Bot goes to Washington
AI will change American elections, but not in the obvious way
Bodice ripping
Romance (as a category) is far from dead
Middle East & Africa
Russia in Africa
Wagner’s customers will have to adjust to new leadership
Here’s looking at coup, kid
The coup in Gabon is part of an alarming trend
Abraham discords
Why Libya’s cackhanded Israel diplomacy is bad for America, too
The Americas
Half a century later
Chile is still haunted by the coup in September 1973
Asia
The Next Big One
Japan is preparing for a massive earthquake
Budding growth
What now for Thailand’s weed industry?
In the chicken coop
A mercurial billionaire, Terry Gou, shakes up Taiwan’s presidential race
Cemetery gates
North Korea’s borders are creaking open
China
No love for livestock
China has embraced pets, but animal welfare is still a problem
Instruments of power
China’s Communist Party has co-opted ancient music
Coverage that counted
An old health insurance scheme in China may have saved millions
International
Oppenheimer’s nightmares
A new nuclear arms race looms
Business
The shopping channel
Amazon has Hollywood’s worst shows but its best business model
Indian business
India’s scandal-hit Adani Group forges on
Shareholder shake-up
The rise of the Asian activist investor
Finance & economics
The property paradox
How can American house prices still be rising?
How to make money
Which country’s genius deserves the €200 note?
Brace for impact
Europe’s economy looks to be heading for trouble
Cause and consequence
Germany’s economic model is sputtering. So are its banks
Ubiquitous, opaque, tangled
China’s shadow-banking industry threatens its financial system
Free exchange
How will politicians escape enormous public debts?
Science & technology
A new world of hurt
Some forms of chronic pain are particularly mysterious
Culture
Pulp fiction
How to write a bestseller
The fierce urgency of NOW
Betty Friedan and America’s forgotten feminists
Some like it hot
Long feared, volcanoes help the planet
Coolly calculating
How the pocket calculator paved the way for the digital age
Hands up, don’t shoot
Some developers are pushing back against violent video games
World in a dish
Chinese food is more diverse than Western eaters might think
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Graphic detail
A bloody legacy
Wagner routinely targets civilians in Africa
The Economist explains
The Economist explains
What is “friendshoring”?
Obituary
How to win a war