Bet noir: Macron’s electoral gamble backfires

2024-07-01

Why are two old, unpopular men the main candidates for the world’s most demanding job? It’s the question John Prideaux, The Economist’s US editor, gets asked the most. And the answer lies in the peculiar politics of the baby boomers.

Since 1992, every American president bar one has been a white man born in the 1940s. That run looks likely to span 36 years – not far off the age of the median American. This cohort was born with aces in their pockets. Their parents defeated Nazism and won the cold war. They hit the jobs market at an unmatched period of wealth creation. They have benefitted from giant leaps in technology, and in racial and gender equality.

And yet, their last act in politics sees the two main parties accusing each other of wrecking American democracy. As the boomers near

2024-06-29

On July 4th Britain will have a general election, one in which is widely expected to result in dramatic losses for the ruling Conservative party. If so, it would bring to an end 14 years of Tory rule. It’s been a turbulent period; the twin catastrophes of Brexit and Covid, set to the grinding and gloomy mood music of the 2008 financial crash. The Economist’s Andy Miller travels up and down the country, to the towns and cities shaped by these events, to get a sense of how Britain is feeling.

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2024-06-25

As Julian Assange is released from prison our correspondent reflects on how the work of Wikileaks changed whistleblowing in the internet era, for good and for ill. Meanwhile Peter Navarro, Donald Trump’s trade hawk, remains behind bars—but is plotting for a second Trump term (09:25). And the social-media trend changing tinned fish from frumpy to foodie fare (18:33).

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2024-06-24

After decades as a scientific also-ran, China is becoming a superpower (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/13/how-worrying-is-the-rapid-rise-of-chinese-science?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_shownotes_na-na_article&utm_term=sa.listeners) particularly in the physical sciences. We examine the risks and opportunities that poses for the West. Our correspondent looks into why denizens of the Mediterranean live so long (https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/06/20/why-southern-europeans-will-soon-be-the-longest-lived-people-in-the-world?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_shownotes_na-na_article&utm_term=sa.listeners)

2024-06-20

No energy source has ever increased as fast as solar photovoltaics. The technology will transform humanity’s energy consumption–even when the sun doesn’t shine. Many people associate champagne with success but wine collectors often shun it. Now global sales are fizzing (10:51).

2024-06-07

When Russia attacked the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine a year ago, lives were lost, families stranded and towns submerged. But from that devastation emerged discussion on post-war reconstruction (https://www.economist.com/interactive/europe/2024/06/05/russias-explosion-of-a-huge-ukrainian-dam-had-surprising-effects). Our correspondent spent months investigating Narendra Modi (https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/the-modi-raj), the strongman who was humbled at this week’s Indian election (10:02). And remembering Barry Kemp (https://www.economist.com/obituary/2024/06/06/barry-kemp-spent-his-career-digging-up-akhenatens-abandoned-city), the Egyptologist who dug up Akhenaten’s abandoned city (17:18).

Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and

2024-02-01

What if text prompts enabled anyone to make a blockbuster movie, or even an entire box-set’s worth of TV? That is the promise of AI. This technology could one day prove as transformative to the movie business as sound, colour, or even the camera itself. Generative AI can already make videos in seconds which would normally take a visual-effects artist days to create. However it has yet to master photo-realistic video. The people at the forefront of this tech say it is only a matter of time.

00:29 How does AI-generated video work?
02:43 How long until feature films are generated by AI?
03:57 Can AI-generated videos be photorealistic?
04:36 How revolutionary is AI in film?
05:05 A dystopian threat to jobs or democratisation of the industry?

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