Truce after truce
Briefing: War spreads to the Red Sea. Sanctions hit the Russian stock market. + Has politics really killed the humanities in America?
‘No more elections here’
Briefing: In Nicaragua, why an 80-year-old president is clearing the way to hand power to his wife. In Iran, the truce the regime is secretly pushing for—and still swears it doesn’t need. + Why hasn’t Ukraine collapsed into autocracy?
To the victor …
The weekend despatch: In Budapest, the machinery of the old order, handed to the people who ran against it. A 25-kilometer crater in the Quebec bush that no one noticed for 390 million years. + How rare are creative multi-hyphenates in Hollywood?
All in favor
Briefing: An election the U.S.-installed government in Caracas has agreed to hold—and would rather not. Russia’s grain and Ukraine’s ports, each in the other’s sights. + Why have buildings gotten so ugly?
‘So-called international law’
Briefing: A campaign to take apart the world’s war-crimes court. An Ebola outbreak with four in five new cases unlinked to any known patient. + More and more countries are banning kids from social media. Will it work?
Oil, oil, everywhere
The weekend despatch: A petrostate lines up for petrol. The discovery in Egypt of a town that buried its dead with gold on their tongues. + Is time slowing down, or are jazz tracks getting longer?
Here we go again
Briefing: Ninety American targets over one night, and an unsettled question of who collects at the Strait of Hormuz. A president-elect’s call for Colombian soldiers to disobey the man still in office. + Why is the U.S. government going so easy on white-collar crime?
The wizard of Tehran
Briefing: Iran’s supreme leader, missing from his father’s funeral—as from everything. The first Western leader in post-dictatorship Syria, with two bombs, a block from the hotel. + Do America’s biggest media platforms really change minds?
‘There is no road’
The weekend despatch: A Maya city found after 11 centuries, intact in the rainforest. A glow at the center of the galaxy that could be dark matter. + What are Boards of Canada doing in hell?
At the neighbor’s pleasure
Briefing: The trade pact America won’t renew—or give up on. In South Africa, migrants driven out by a deadline with no force of law. + Why is Turkey’s government moving so hard to kill off its opposition?
