Drilling into the numbers: ExxonMobil
America’s biggest oil firm has long been recalcitrant on climate matters, so its new net-zero targets may seem surprising. We examine the substance of its pledges—and motivations. For an economist, ti...
19 Jan 202222min
Through deny of a needle: vaccine mandates
Austria is set to enact a bold policy of levying fines on the unvaccinated. We look at what is driving governments to such measures, and whether they will work. Japan’s shift in thinking about its gro...
18 Jan 202222min
But who’s counting? Voting rights in America
Democrats will spend the week battling for a tightening of laws on casting votes; that will overshadow Republicans’ worrying push into how those votes are counted and certified. Earthquakes remain dam...
17 Jan 202223min
His royal minus: Prince Andrew
The queen’s second son has been stripped of his titles—an apparent bid to insulate the crown from his legal troubles. But dangers to the prince and to the monarchy remain. A blockade of Mali, intended...
14 Jan 202223min
In vino, veritas: Boris Johnson under fire
While Britons followed covid strictures, the prime minister’s residence hosted boozy gatherings; widespread fury hints that his prevarications this time may be his last as leader. Religious institutio...
13 Jan 202222min
Not in the same class: America and schools
The country’s children have missed more in-person learning than those in most of the rich world—to their cost. We ask why battles about schooling rage on. Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president, ca...
12 Jan 202222min
Talking out his asks: Putin’s NATO demands
This week’s flurry of diplomacy aims to address what Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, says he wants. He cannot get it. Does an invasion of Ukraine hang in the balance? At an annual jamboree of econ...
11 Jan 202221min
Hope for the crest: an Omicron wave hits India
The country has the world’s worst estimated covid-death total—but as another variant takes hold there are reasons for optimism. Mexico’s president has some old-fashioned notions about energy, and his ...
10 Jan 202221min
