Sep 30th 2023

Living to 120: A special report on how to slow ageing

The world this week

Leaders

Elixir of life

Living to 120 is becoming an imaginable prospect

Efforts to slow ageing are taking wing

A bigger, better EU

The war in Ukraine is a powerful reason to enlarge—and improve—the EU

Nine new countries, including Ukraine, are vying to join

Striking contradictions

Joe Biden may come to regret his claim to be pro-union

The UAW strike highlights the deep strains in Bidenomics

A short war with a long shadow

A humanitarian disaster is under way in Nagorno-Karabakh

And Russia may also be destabilising its old ally, Armenia

The budget bust-up

Forget the shutdown. America’s real fiscal worry is rising bond yields

Watch Wall Street, not Washington

Reboot successful

The lessons from Microsoft’s startling comeback

A bold bet on AI could help it overtake Apple as the world’s most valuable firm

Letters

On America and China, household costs, mining, Indonesia, cannabis Airbnb, children’s books

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

Climate change

David Keith on why carbon removal won’t save big oil but may help the climate

Argentina

Javier Milei argues that Argentina’s central bank should not exist

Briefing

A second flight

How Microsoft could supplant Apple as the world’s most valuable firm

It hopes to seize on AI to transform the future of work

Asia

Strait up lies

China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

Japanese loos

The world’s greatest toilet culture

Politics and the law

South Korea’s opposition leader narrowly avoids arrest

Losing the Voice

Australians look set to reject new provisions for Aboriginal people

Gender politics

Narendra Modi wants a lot more women in Indian politics

Digital Jio-graphy

Can a $12 phone get 300m illiterate Indians online?

After the assassination

India is testing America’s friendship

China

No time for stinginess

Politics hamper China’s efforts to stimulate the economy

An absurd life sentence

China’s persecution of Uyghurs extends to those it once favoured

Return game

After an unsuccessful boycott, women’s tennis is back in China

United States

Who has agency?

The new Supreme Court term takes aim at the administrative state

Stars and gold bars

Bob Menendez’s indictment is colourful even by Jersey standards

Nihilists in Washington

America’s next government shutdown could be the strangest yet

Woke and broke

Diversity initiatives in America are foundering

Sanctuary in the city

The flow of migrants into Chicago is a crisis and an opportunity

Summary smackdown

Donald Trump is found liable for fraud in his real-estate dealings

Lexington

A Trump Party in the Reagan Library

Middle East & Africa

Trip hazards

America, Israel and Saudi are “at the cusp of a deal”

Powering up

Saudi Arabia wants to become a force in electric-vehicle manufacturing

France and Africa

Why Emmanuel Macron is pulling French troops out of Niger

The horn laws

Why there is a bear market in rhinos

Crime fiction

Kenya’s cops are spinning wild tales

The Americas

Canada’s embattled prime minister

The spat with India only adds to Justin Trudeau’s woes

Criminal enterprise

Mexico’s gangs could be the country’s fifth-biggest employer

A textbook row

Andrés Manuel López Obrador puts his stamp on Mexico’s schools

Europe

One last push

The EU is finally rebooting the enlargement machine

Black and Blue Sea

War has arrived in Crimea

Good from evil

Seven years after a terrorist attack, Nice has rebuilt itself

Charlemagne

The definition of Europe has always been both inspiring and incoherent

Britain

Biden’s Britain

Britain’s Labour Party takes lessons from Joe Biden

Organised retail crime

Why shoplifting is rising in Britain

No laughing matter

Britons take laughing gas merrily. Tories take it more seriously

Up the junction?

Why Britain’s government would be wrong to cut HS2

The Lib Dems

Could Britain’s Liberal Democrats matter again?

Cultivated fat

Is lab-grown meat kosher?

Bagehot

Blind optimism is the only bet for Britain’s Tories

International

Assassin’s creed

States are becoming more brazen about killing foes abroad

Technology Quarterly

In search of forever

Slowing human ageing is now the subject of serious research

Don’t be greedy

Eating fewer calories can ward off ageing

Out with the old

Ageing bodies need to get rid of decrepit cells

Of bowheads and borzois

Alternatives to the laboratory mouse

You can’t have everything

Older genomes have more dodgy genes

Give us the tools

Fighting ageing requires properly equipped cells

Blood and guts

What the young can give to the old

A design for living

Some claim human lifespans can be lengthened indefinitely

Insight

Video: In search of forever

Business

Cranes, drains and automobiles

Will the auto workers’ strike jeopardise Joe Biden’s manufacturing boom?

That’s a wrap

Hollywood’s strike enters its final act, as writers reach a deal

Grid unlock

Can Europe’s power grid cope with the green transition?

Exit the dragon

Ties between foreign businesses and China go from bad to worse

Bartleby

What if Hollywood blockbusters were remade as workplace dramas?

A medical gold rush

Pharma’s big push for a new generation of obesity drugs

Schumpeter

Customer service is getting worse—and so are customers

Finance & economics

Conflict economics

The costs of Russia’s war are about to hit home

Laboratory visit

The city that encapsulates China’s economic stagnation

Buttonwood

Investors’ enthusiasm for Japanese stocks has gone overboard

Republican doves

America’s Federal Reserve could soon be flying blind

Cruel world

Why fear is spreading in financial markets

Better off without you

Sri Lanka shows how broken debt negotiations have become

Free exchange

Why the state should not promote marriage

Science & technology

Storming the fortress

Sticking together makes bacteria nearly invincible

Bacterial warfare

Colonies of bacteria could save the Pentagon billions

Ice and fire

Glaciers on volcanoes could serve as early-warning systems

It’s grim down south

Antarctic sea ice is at a record low

Culture

The emperor strikes back

A new book by Mary Beard looks at the glitz and gore of Rome

Writing the wrongs of history

Some people in China are bravely trying to document the past

Johnson

In favour of simple writing

World in a dish

Dave Portnoy, an internet personality, has become pizza’s kingmaker

The unreal deal

Hyperreal art is Instagram-worthy and booming

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Olive oil and snake oil

Places claiming to be centenarian hotspots may just have bad data

The Economist explains

What happens if America’s government shuts down this weekend?

Obituary

Life in its fullness