Spring a leaker: Assange goes free

2024-06-18

The post-war generation reaped the benefits of peace and prosperity. Yet rather than spend that bounty, retired boomers are hoarding their riches (https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/05/26/baby-boomers-are-loaded-why-are-they-so-stingy)–and upending economists’ expectations. The science of menstruation is baffling, partly because most animals don’t do it. Now clever innovations (https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/05/29/progress-on-the-science-of-menstruation-at-last) may help improve women’s health (9:13). And how old-fashioned wind-power is blowing new life (https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/05/21/a-new-age-of-sail-begins) into the shipping industry–and cutting its emissions (16:13).

Listen to what matters most, from global

2024-06-13

America’s upbeat assessment of a ceasefire deal masks deep divides (https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2024/06/12/hamas-and-israel-are-still-far-apart-over-a-ceasefire-deal?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) that may not, in fact, be bridgeable. There are nevertheless reasons for optimism. Our data team digs into the accusation that the New York Times’s bestseller list is biased (https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/06/11/is-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list-politically-biased?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) against

2024-06-12

We have dusted off and tuned up our forecast model (https://www.economist.com/interactive/us-2024-election/prediction-model/president?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) for America’s presidential race. So far it gives Donald Trump a marginally higher chance of a second term. There is at last progress on not one but two vaccines to beat malaria (https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2024/05/30/new-fronts-are-opening-in-the-war-against-malaria?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) (9:02). And a look at the “tradwives

2024-06-10

Hard-right parties did well in Europe’s parliamentary elections—so well in France that President Emmanuel Macron called (https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/06/09/as-the-french-hard-right-triumphs-in-eu-elections-macron-calls-snap-vote?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) a risky snap election. Elsewhere, though, the political centre held. We examine the policies that are getting America’s many chronically truant students