Those aren’t stars
Briefing: Canada’s bid for Europe. America’s weapons in orbit. + Is September 11 still an open case?
Pass this to Gilberto, would you
Briefing: A curious note, handed across a defense conference in Seoul. South Korea’s record exports, after a 26th month of factory-job losses. & Is September 11 still an open case?
Party balloons over El Paso
Briefing: The tariff over Canadian cars that doesn’t tax cars. Local police in the U.S., now licensed to shoot down aircraft. & What happens when the American government hires private firms to hack foreign criminal networks?
The wrong machine
The weekend despatch: American companies, hired by the White House to break into computers overseas. Off Angola’s Lisima Plateau, a survey team’s palm-sized beetles and blue spiders. + Who is Rustie?
A mailbox in Virginia
Briefing: The CIA’s apparent attacks on Ecuadoran fishing boats. Hungary’s new president, someone its last government got rid of. + Why is the White House calling its political opponents “national security” threats?
Leave your phone at home
Briefing: No one can get to the villages that took the worst of a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in Colombia. The White House pares American childhood vaccines down from 17 diseases to 11. + Why do temperatures keep rising—even after they cool off?
‘A shield of peace’
The weekend despatch: A new military alliance is taking applications. An unknown ancestor is in every human genome. + Who is Kurt Ballou?
Overdrawn
Briefing: The Pentagon regrets finding itself out of missiles—until 2030. In India, the ex-prime minister of Bangladesh brushes off her death sentence. + What happened to the “public intellectual”?
Just passing through
Briefing: Sixty thousand over the fence into Spain in two days. Iran decides on a price for reopening the Strait of Hormuz: total control of everything. + What could the defeat of Hezbollah actually settle?