Flagship

Europe’s Ukraine push

European powers renewed their push to bolster Ukraine after being shut out of peace talks between the US and Russia. France’s leader sought to win over US President Donald Trump on a trip to Washington, while European leaders traveled to Kyiv to mark three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion. To restore its position, the region has aimed — belatedly, many analysts argue — to ramp up defense spending. Its effort is fraught with challenges: Trump spoke disparagingly of France’s Emmanuel Macron over the weekend, and European leaders are not aligned on strengthening Ukraine. As The New York Times put it, “after three years of grinding warfare and isolation by the West, a world of new possibilities has opened up for” Russia.

Moscow and Beijing deepen ties

Russia’s leader briefed his Chinese counterpart on recent talks with the US, underlining their close ties even as Washington purportedly seeks to draw Moscow away from Beijing. The telephone conversation Monday afternoon came as The Wall Street Journal noted that the two countries’ militaries are “working together as never before,” accelerating the pace of joint military exercises in the Pacific, from near Alaska to the Philippines. The US strategy of prying the pair apart will be challenging, the Journal’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent noted, pointing to China and Russia’s deepening relationship that ranges from military and intelligence cooperation to economic support, and the potential cost for Washington of alienating its allies in Europe.

Germany’s Merz faces tough task

Friedrich Merz, whose center-right party won the most votes in Germany’s election, faces a packed in-tray as he tries to form a new government. First will be finding coalition partners: The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, which came second, is beyond the pale in German politics, so Merz must make deals with other parties, a job which could take weeks, one analyst said. Then he must try to revive a moribund economy, hampered by strict debt rules which will constrain spending — also a problem if he wants to increase defense expenditure to meet NATO targets, as demanded by the new US administration. The AfD and hard-left Die Linke, the election’s other big winners, have enough votes to slow any such reforms.

Mexico cartels labeled terrorists

The US and Canada designated several Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, paving the way for military action against them. US President Donald Trump has ramped up his criticism of Mexico — which he said is “essentially run by the cartels” — after it failed to stem the flow of drugs across the border. But experts say Trump’s recent decision to freeze aid to Mexico weakens the fight against criminal gangs, which control up to a third of the country. A broader culture of impunity which sees around 90% of murders go unpunished in Mexico further emboldens them. “People tell me… ‘God will do justice,’” one victim of cartel violence said. “There are also authorities here on earth. Why don’t they do anything?”

US troops patrol quiet border

Thousands of US troops are patrolling the Mexico border after US President Donald Trump declared illegal migration a national emergency, but they have little to do. Illegal crossings into the US have been dropping for over a year: In January, there were 29,000 arrests at the border, down from almost 250,000 in September 2023. Some asylum shelters have shut for lack of demand, The New York Times reported, while one soldier told The Wall Street Journal that his unit is doing “A whole lot of nothing.” The White House and some Trump supporters argue that the decline is a result of the tough border stance, but critics argue that the huge troop deployment is a waste of money.

Sudan army makes key advance

The Sudanese Army captured a key southern city from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, is a strategic hub connecting the capital to Darfur. Sudan’s finance minister said the victory was a “massive step” which would allow more aid to be delivered to the besieged region, the BBC reported. Meanwhile the RSF said it had taken steps to establish a parallel government despite concerns from human rights groups that the group has committed mass atrocities. Almost two years into the war, close to 15 million people have been displaced, with many seeking refuge in neighboring nations, which are among the poorest in the world.

Domestic tourism bump in China

A record number of Chinese tourists traveled over the Lunar New Year, boosting hopes of an economic recovery. In what has become a key barometer of consumer demand, 9 billion trips were made by rail, road, and air during the holiday, up from last year’s 8.4 billion. The surge in travel is also a stress test for the country’s transport system, Reuters reported, putting particular pressure on airlines: The three big state-owned carriers are increasingly using C919 planes, China’s first home-grown large passenger jet, rather than Airbuses or Boeings. Each Chinese-made jet flew on average for 6.5 hours a day over the holiday period, in a sign of reliability that offered relief for the domestic airline industry.

Buffett’s cash pile

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett reported a record cash pile, put off from buying stocks by sky-high prices. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway recorded its best-ever profits, which — unusually, for America’s most famed stock picker — came as a result of a ninth consecutive quarter of selling more shares than it bought. Analysts attributed that to increasing company valuations and a rising stock market, with Buffett himself noting in his annual letter to investors that though Berkshire is still targeting equities, “often, nothing looks compelling.” He also took the opportunity to issue a warning to policymakers, warning against “fiscal folly.” Markets peg the likelihood of a government shutdown this year at 60%.

US increasingly reliant on the rich

The US economy is becoming ever more reliant on its wealthiest members. While most Americans are “pinching pennies, exhausted by high prices and stubborn inflation,” the top 10% are spending heavily “on everything from vacations to designer handbags,” The Wall Street Journal reported, as the value of stocks and real estate has surged. Those 10% of consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, the highest since records began in 1989. This shift away from a broader base of consumer spending may leave the economy vulnerable: A decline in the stock market or home prices would have a big impact, and consumer sentiment is already weakening thanks to tariff threats, the Journal said.

The return of fur

Fur is back in fashion after years of decline. The use of pelts such as mink or fox in clothing was the target of animal rights campaigners for decades, with considerable success: California banned almost all manufacture, and big brands stopped using fur. But while production remains low, the market for second-hand fur is booming, with celebrities wearing it on the red carpet and Google searches for “vintage fur coats” up 688% in two years. A social media trend for the “mob wife aesthetic” may have driven the interest, a look which “required a big fur, a French manicure and animal print,” The Wall Street Journal reported. One New York fur shop owner said “I haven’t seen this many young people coming in, in 25, 30 years.”

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to issue a video address to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
• A British lawmaker from the governing Labour Party will be sentenced for assaulting a passerby.
• Seventeen mountain bongos — a critically endangered sub-species of antelopes — arrive in Kenya from Florida.

Czech mate

Some countries’ renaming efforts are more successful than others. Hardly anyone calls Myanmar “Burma” any more; the Democratic Republic of Congo does not get referred to as “Zaire.” But, notes journalist Jonn Elledge, “Czechia” has not caught on — it’s still the Czech Republic to most people, even though Czechia has been used by Prague since 1993 and has been the official English name since 2016. Other renamings include Cape Verde, now Capo Verde, Swaziland becoming Eswatini (which still means Land of the Swazis, but now in its native language), and North Macedonia, which wanted to gain a bit of cachet from association with Alexander the Great, aka Alexander of Macedon.

Elledge had been unaware that Turkey changed its official name to Türkiye in 2022, perhaps because it was “slightly embarrassing having the same name as a huge ungainly bird,” which doesn’t live in your country anyway. But will it catch on, or will it be another Czechia? We don’t always refer to countries by their native-language names — like “referring to Germany as Deutschland” — and lots of media outlets (including The Associated Press, whose stylebook is used by news organizations the world over) still say Turkey. “On the other hand,” he notes, “Google Maps uses the correct name.”

Parking lots, parking less

Self-driving cars are coming. They’re common sights in several US and Chinese cities, and on their way to several more. But they’re not just a safer way to drive, argues the tech blogger Sam Harsimony: They’re “an entirely different mode of transportation that happens to look like a car,” and will change how cities are organized. Crucially, they will change — and hopefully vastly reduce — the need for parking, which takes up almost a quarter of the land in US cities, forcing them to sprawl.

A fully autonomous car can take you to your destination, then go away. “No parallel parking. No competing for a spot while the backseat yells suggestions. No squinting at parking rules. Just get out at the doorstep and let your car glide away.” It can go off to some high-rise structure, populated entirely by self-driving cars, where it can sit until it is needed again, freeing up vast areas. That’s just one way, albeit a crucial one, in which this new technology can change urban spaces: “With foresight, self-driving cars are an opportunity to build a better city around them.”

Diverse benefits

The new US administration has loudly and quickly come for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures. “Organisations with DEI commitments are in a panic about being sued by staff, strafed on social media, or tasered by the government’s anti-woke police,” notes the politics and culture writer Ian Leslie. “Across corporate America, the same executives who marched their organisations up the hill of DEI are now marching them back down again.” Companies are dropping their initiatives, changing targets, modifying language.

But, argues Leslie, in a strange way, this might be good for corporate diversity, even if it means a reduction in the number of measures. For a long time, it was virtually cost-free for corporations to signal progressive values with DEI measures, and so companies used them “unthinkingly,” resulting in “a profusion of poorly thought through initiatives, pointless and expensive training, and endless boiler plate.” Now, the cost of the signal has increased. That will mean that “we learn which companies are genuinely committed to social justice” and which were simply making the low-cost signal, and should force those organizations which want to stick with it to design better programs.

Conclave, directed by Edward Berger. This film, based on a Robert Harris novel about the death of a liberal pope and the machinations among Catholic cardinals over who should succeed him, was one of 2024’s “standout films,” said RogerEbert.com: “The performances and dialogue crackle like electricity… every frame is gorgeously composed,” and the cast is “superb.” It was the “big winner” at last night’s Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, the BBC noted — and a poignant one, as the real-world pope remains seriously unwell. Watch Conclave at your local theater.

Two weeks after Carl Eschenbach laid off 1,750 Workday employees in the interest of “prioritizing innovation investments like AI,” Eschenbach is not buying the idea that artificial intelligence will replace vast swaths of the workforce, writes Semafor’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson.

In a year, Eschenbach predicts Workday may have even more people on its payroll than before, but they will increasingly be focused on AI, and more spread out around the world.