economist

THE ALLIANT ENERGY CENTRE, a stadium complex in Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, hosts all sorts of events, from exhibitions to concerts. In November it played host to “Mega Monster Trucks Live”, a three-day affair apparently dedicated to choking its attendees, mostly families with small children, with exhaust fumes. The stadium was filled with mud and two large ramps, over which five enormous cars did jumps. “I know we have some big-time monster-truck fans!” called the breathless announcer. At one point an ageingBMWwas lifted into the arena for the trucks to crush. A motorcyclist roared in with a bikini-clad model riding pillion, carrying an American flag. Children in ear mufflers screamed in delight as the vehicles, with names like “Kamikaze” and “Jailbird”, each a good five metres (16 feet) tall, pulled doughnuts and kicked up mud.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Car wars”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

EXPONENTIAL GROWTHis a dizzying thing. In the week to December 8th Britain saw 536 new cases of covid-19 ascribed to the Omicron variant, less than 0.5% of the number caused by the dominant Delta variant. But the week before there had been only 32 cases of Omicron—and by December 14th the case number was over 10,000. Omicron looks set to become the country’s dominant strain in terms of cases before advent calendars run out of windows.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Seeing the need for speed”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

WHEN CHINA’Sgovernment censors books, bars “effeminate men” from television or spoon-feeds Communist Party dogma to schoolchildren, liberals agree that its behaviour is shockingly repressive. But when in August it banned children from playing video games for most of the week, liberals who happened to be parents were in two minds. Yes, restricting the under-18s to an hour of gaming a day, on only three nights a week, was rather drastic. But perhaps it might be good for them?

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Can you get hooked on video games?”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

ASK A VICAR, a rabbi or an imam about the biggest challenge facing his or her congregation, and the need to foster spiritual values in a secular world may leap off the tongue. Yet the world’s religions face an equally acute but different sort of problem: how to stay in business in a material, competitive sense. In religion as elsewhere, covid-19 has helped sort out winners and losers. Churches that were catering effectively to the needs of their flocks even before the pandemic have often thrived as people worry more about death—and in lockdown have found more time to spare for worship and prayer.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “God, Mammon and real estate”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

DAVID FRANKstarted working for tips when he was 11 years old, delighting restaurant diners in New York with his magic tricks. As a teenager he would make an average of $60-70 in an evening—not bad, but he wanted more. So he started reading research on tipping, and found a study showing that servers who left a sweet at the end of the meal could up their pay. He tried handing punters a playing card at the end of his act, hoping that the memento would persuade them to part with more cash. It worked.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “The point of tipping”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

SCOTT ANDhis then wife, who live in Australia, had a vile but not unusual divorce. Their lawyers, he said, “fired off affidavits and legal letters at each other” for eight months. Their children were put on a federal police watchlist so they could not be taken overseas. The couple reached an agreement before going to court but Scott still spent A$35,000 ($25,000) on legal fees. Had they gone to court, there would have been little money left to divide. It was “like playing a game of poker,” says Scott. “You never show your full hand.” The combatants were forced to be devious. Like so many divorces, it was bitter and costly.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Breaking up is less hard to do”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

DURING DONALD TRUMP’Spresidency many people looked afresh at China’s technological prowess. Some concluded that it posed a threat to Western economies, and perhaps even to global security. In news headlines Huawei, a brilliantly successful manufacturer of telecoms equipment, became the face of that threat. America accused the firm of acting as a conduit for Chinese government surveillance and control. In 2018 America clobbered Huawei. It banned the export to the Chinese firm of American microchips essential for its products. This seems to have had the desired effect. Last year Huawei’s revenues shrank for the first time in a decade, by almost a third.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Game of chiplomacy”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

FRADIA BULAGE, a school nurse in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, says the 100,000 shillings ($29) the government gave her last year through a scheme to help the country’s poorest 500,000 households was not nearly enough. The one-off payment amounted to about a week of her pre-pandemic salary. Her school, like all Uganda’s, had been closed for the best part of two years, due to covid-19 lockdowns, and reopened only last month. Strapped for cash, she stopped paying utility bills. Instead of turning on the tap she bought water by the jerrycan; for light she relied on candles. Her mother, who lives in a village, sent cassava in the hope of saving Ms Bulage’s household from hunger.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Just keep us alive”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

VLADIMIR PUTIN’Sgiant oval table in the Kremlin is as extreme as it is kitsch. Sitting far from foreign visitors may be his way of social distancing. But it also betokens the gulf that separated Russia’s leader from his guest, Emmanuel Macron of France. It may also illustrate what diplomats say is Mr Putin’s worrying isolation from the world. None can claim to read his mind as he masses some 130,000 troops on the borders around Ukraine. Is he about to launch the biggest war in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall? Or is it all a big bluff?

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “How Russia revived NATO”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young

“PUTIN’S AGGRESSION against Ukraine will end up costing Russia dearly, economically and strategically. We will make sure of that.” With these fighting words, President Joe Biden announced on February 24th that America would impose sweeping economic sanctions on Russia for itsinvasion of Ukraine. The measures freeze the American assets of Russia’s biggest banks, hamper its ability to raise debt, restrict its import of high-tech goods and seize the wealth of its elites and their children. Britain and the EU announced similar steps.

Sweden is banning OnlyFans content as the lines around sex work blur

It is meekly welcoming the new sheriff’s vigilante justice

The answer matters more than you think

Donald Trump prefers deals to regime change

After decades of rising secularism, Christianity is holding its ground—and gaining among the young