Leaders
New and untested
American finance, always unique, is now uniquely dangerous
Donald Trump is putting an untested system under almighty strain
How to repel talent
Pausing foreign applications to American universities is a terrible idea
The Trump administration hobbles a great American export
A dictator’s progress
First he busted gangs. Now Nayib Bukele busts critics
El Salvador’s president has all the tools of repression he needs to stay in power indefinitely
Intensive care
How Labour should save the NHS
Among all its ideas, the most important is to go all-in for digital transformation
The lesser of two evils
India needs to turn the air-con on
If its awful air pollution is ever solved the country will get even hotter
Letters
A selection of correspondence
Does Europe have a free-speech problem?
By Invitation
American business and trade
Want to destroy American business? Protect it, writes Carl Benedikt Frey
Briefing
From cool to cruel
Nayib Bukele is devolving from tech-savvy reformer to autocrat
El Salvador’s president is young, MAGA-friendly and ruthless
Asia
Climate change
If India chokes less, it will fry more
Be more chill
Can India be cool?
Compounding misery
Myanmar’s scam empire gets worse, not better
The unwilling of the coalition
Australia’s conservatives bicker in the political wilderness
China
The superpower technology race
Xi Jinping’s plan to overtake America in AI
All that hot air
China’s carbon emissions may have peaked
Chinese consumers
China’s crazy reverse-credit cards
United States
A big, beautiful do-over
America’s Senate plans big changes for the House’s spending bill
Ivy beleaguered
Demand for American degrees is sinking
Elbows up, library cards out
MAGA: protecting the homeland from Canadian bookworms
The Zillennial election
How young voters helped to put Trump in the White House
The Americas
Cowboys in Canada
The king “loves” Canada. Many Albertans want out
Otherworldly success
Why Latin American Surrealism is surging in a down art market
The eloquently silent voice
Venezuela’s sound of silence
Middle East & Africa
On the sidelines
The losers of the new Middle East
Murder in Birakat
What a massacre reveals about Abiy Ahmed’s Ethiopia
The Alabuga connection
Africans are building Putin’s suicide drones
Cultural globalisation
Afrobeats’ new groove
Europe
Here be dragons
Europe’s tricky trade threesome
Catholics in France
France’s improbable adult baptism boom
Young Turks
A new threat to Erdogan: Gen Z
The war in the air
Russia is raining hellfire on Ukraine
Britain
Labour and the NHS
Where next for Britain’s broken National Health Service?
TikTok, fillers and fraud
Harley Street resists a facelift
Alternative navigation
What on earth is what3words?
International
The gig economy of crime
The Uber of the underworld
Special report
The new masters of the universe
Financial giants are transforming Wall Street
Convergence
Clash of the titans
Trapped capital
What it means to be illiquid
Private lending
The debt barons who are taking on the banks
Titans of finance
Can anything stop America’s superstar hedge funds?
Future shock
How the next financial crisis might happen
Business
The new economies of scale
Why it has never been better to be a big company
Eastward ho!
Will European business turn away from America?
Lifted up
Boeing enjoys a Trump bump
Schumpeter
Can Korea Inc step up?
Finance & economics
Back to the 1930s
Trump’s financial watchdogs promise a revolution
Tightening the screws
Soaring bond yields threaten trouble
Boy cries wolf
Why AI hasn’t taken your job
No capex please, we’re Indian
India has a chance to cure its investment malaise
Free exchange
How might China win the future? Ask Google’s AI
Science & technology
Digital archaeology
The decoding of ancient Roman scrolls is speeding up
Third time unlucky
Elon Musk’s plans to go to Mars next year are toast
Blemish treatment
Old oil paintings are suffering from chemical “acne”
Well informed
Should men be screened for prostate cancer?
Culture
Party, piety, pity
How an agonising relationship with his dad shaped Xi Jinping
Death on the Danube
The second world war changed Budapest for ever
Out in the open
Museums should open up their storerooms
Feeling averse
Rhyme, once in its prime, is in decline
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary
Green light flashing