A sea-cucumber farm is not an obvious target for spies. So when a group of foreigners turned up at one in north-east China last year, the owner, Mr Zhang, did not think much of it. According to state media, the guests received permission to install seawater…

“TO WALK AWAY and retire, it’s a pretty dismal prospect,” Rupert Murdoch told an interviewer in 1998, when he was already well into pensionable age. If he ever did stop working, he added, he would “die pretty quickly”. So the announcement on September 21st…

THE OLYMPIC GAMES are old—the first modern edition was held in Athens in 1896—and so are the fans. The median age of American viewers of the games in Barcelona in 1992 was 39. That increased to 53 for the Rio de Janeiro games of 2016. Overall viewing figures…

When the Tour de France, a gruelling multi-stage cycling race, takes place in July 2024, it will for the first time in its 120-year history end not in Paris, but in Nice. Instead of finishing on the Champs-Elysées, cyclists will complete the final stage along…

Muhammad bin salman does little to hide his relish at the prospect of a strategic pact between America, Israel and Saudi Arabia. In a rare television interview on September 20th, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and the country’s de facto ruler acknowledged with…

Populist, right-wing parties are already in power in Hungary, Poland and Italy—and getting closer to it across the continent. We ask why. At long last Rupert Murdoch, the patriarch of a global media empire, has stepped aside—sort of. We examine how he will…

A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, how to win a long war in Ukraine, what Asia’s economic revolution means for the world (11:05) and why a disgraced comedian is the symbol of a cruel, misogynistic…

When FBI agents searched the home of Bob Menendez, New Jersey’s senior senator, in June last year, they found $100,000 in gold bars and $480,000 in hidden cash. Some of the money, stuffed in envelopes, was hidden in clothes, including jackets with Mr Menendez’s…

STANTON, TENNESSEE, looks like a place from a bygone age. The town hall quaintly resembles a 1960s grocery store. Next door is a cannery, where townsfolk use communal stoves to make soups and peach preserve for winter. For much of its history, Stanton’s main…

At the back of room 100 in the Cook County criminal court, in south-west Chicago, a conversation is taking place before proceedings start. The room is packed, and two young men awaiting a decision on the fate of a friend, arrested the night before, chat with…

This is part one of our series on slowing the progress of ageing. Other articles include: Eating fewer calories can ward off ageing—and various existing medicines may offer similar benefits Ageing bodies need to get rid of decrepit cells. Senolytics and cellular…

In 1991 eight volunteers sealed themselves into a huge greenhouse in the desert near Tucson, Arizona. They were part of an experiment seeking to discover whether a carefully curated selection of plants and animals could develop into a self-sustaining ecosystem:…

Senolytics and cellular rejuvenation could hold the key

Editor’s note (September 26th): The commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, whom the Ukrainians claimed to to have killed in its raid on Sevastopol, reappeared on September 26th. The article has been amended accordingly. TWO UKRAINIAN missiles smashed into…

Muhammad bin salman does little to hide his relish at the prospect of a strategic pact between America, Israel and Saudi Arabia. In a rare television interview on September 20th, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and the country’s de facto ruler acknowledged with…

Dust-sheets cover the sets inside one soundproofed Hollywood studio, as placard-wielding writers and actors make as much noise as they can outside. The covers have been on since May, when America’s writers downed pens; in July the country’s actors joined…

THINK OF BRAZIL and, if you’re like most people, you’ll think of palm-lined beaches, samba and caipirinhas. The cliché needs updating. In the past two decades the centre of political and economic gravity has started shifting from the humid coasts, to which…

Scholars of happiness have found that close relationships are one of the critical ingredients of a contented life. What is true in general is also true of the workplace, according to research by Gallup. The pollster finds that having a “best friend at work”…

President Emmanuel Macron’s about-face on maintaining a presence in the coup-stricken country portends a broader change in France’s relations on the continent. Shifting geopolitics is changing the list of the world’s big arms dealers (9:08). And the internet…

BEYONCÉ STRUTS around the stage, a squadron of dancers in various states of undress bopping in her wake. On her blockbuster “Renaissance” tour—which is expected to make more than $2bn by the time it wraps up in October—the pop star performs “Break My Soul…