Flagship

Trump’s economic vision

Donald Trump set out the economic vision for his potential second term, promising swingeing corporate tax cuts, tighter immigration restrictions, and pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. Speaking to Businessweek, the former US president also pledged looser regulations for the crypto industry but tighter controls on Big Tech. On the Fed in particular, he said the bank’s chief — with whom he has had public clashes — could serve out his full term but should refrain from cutting rates as analysts expect in September. “Business leaders prize stability and certainty. They didn’t get much of either in Trump’s first presidency,” Businessweek noted. “This time around, his campaign is more professionally run.”

Trump makes Taiwan defense claim

Remarks by Donald Trump that Taiwan should pay the US for the island’s defense sent Taiwanese semiconductor stocks plunging. The former president’s comments to Businessweek — “We’re no different from an insurance company,” Trump said — come amid growing tensions between Beijing and Taipei: The latter has alleged that the former is increasing military pressure on the self-ruling island. US officials view the protection of Taiwan as a priority, given its key role in the global semiconductor supply chain, while Beijing has sought to increase its own ability to manufacture chips in the face of tightening US restrictions: The Chinese tech giant Huawei said this week it had completed a $1.4 billion chip research facility in Shanghai.

Biden looks to regain momentum

US President Joe Biden will reportedly endorse major changes to the Supreme Court, part of efforts to regain momentum for his reelection campaign. The proposals, first reported by The Washington Post, include term limits for justices and enforceable ethics codes, and follow scandals surrounding individual members of the court over ties to conservative groups. Yet even as the drumbeat of Democratic lawmakers calling for Biden to step aside has temporarily subsided, anger towards the president persists among progressives: Politico reported that party grandee Nancy Pelosi was “very receptive” in a private conversation to concerns that Biden would lose in November while Axios said Democrats in Congress were reviving their rebellion. Republicans, by contrast, are coalescing around Donald Trump.

The political ‘doom loop’

Public hostility to politicians pushes good candidates away, and bad candidates make the public more hostile to politicians, creating a “doom loop,” a Financial Times columnist argued. Almost everyone deplores actual violence, such as the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, Janan Ganesh wrote. But harassment, intimidation, abuse, and cynicism are much more commonplace, and deter able or even “well-adjusted, non-masochistic” individuals. That makes the quality of public life lower, which makes politicians less popular, and the cycle begins again. It’s our right to deride our politicians, said Ganesh, but “the joke, in the end, is on us.”

Starmer promises to get Britain building

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his newly elected government will “take the brakes off” the country’s economy, as it prepared to outline its policy proposals to Parliament. The details are unknown, but Labour has promised to reduce barriers to building homes and infrastructure, and local governments will be given mandatory house-building targets to tackle a cost of living crisis, alongside easing regulations on public transport. It is unlikely that the government will be able to pledge much in the way of new spending, though: The party has promised to achieve a balanced budget, and Britain had a $66 billion deficit last financial year.

Israel claims Gaza successes

Israeli forces said they were making significant progress against Hamas, even as a widening conflict with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah loomed. Israeli military commanders believe “a string of successes” has piled pressure on the Palestinian militant group, Haaretz reported, while the CIA has reportedly said Hamas’ leader in Gaza is facing calls from his own camp to end the war, according to The New York Times. Despite the apparent battlefield successes, “there are growing fears within Israel that its soldiers are overstretched and its resources depleted,” The Washington Post reported, with military officials wary of a second flank opening with Hezbollah — a better-armed, better-financed, and more experienced enemy than Hamas.

Poverty drops in Colombia

The number of people living in poverty in Colombia fell by 1.6 million in 2023 compared to the previous year, new census data showed. Although the country’s president celebrated the figures, critics noted that Colombia still needed to do much more to tackle inequality, with a third of its population living below the poverty line, El Tiempo reported. Despite decades of economic growth, Latin America remains the world’s most unequal region. The highest 10% of earners in the region make 12 times more than the poorest 10%, compared to a four-to-one ratio for richer countries: According to a 2022 report, it takes 11 generations for the poorest Colombians to reach the median income of society.

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Ghana cocoa output plummets

Ghana’s cocoa production fell by almost 50% this year compared to 2023, a disastrous harvest resulting from erratic weather and tree disease. Plummeting production in Ghana and Ivory Coast — which together account for around 60% of global cocoa supply — has sent prices for the crop soaring multiple times above their average, hurting chocolate producers across the globe. The shortfall has put further pressure on Ghana’s beleaguered economy, which generates roughly 15% of its GDP from cocoa. Once one of West Africa’s more prosperous countries, political instability including a proposed anti-LGBTQ+ law could jeopardize international funding, further hampering Ghana’s growth prospects.

Lab-grown pet food approved in UK

The UK became the first European country to approve lab-grown meat, albeit only so far in pet food. Regulators said Meatly could sell its cultivated chicken cells, classified as an animal byproduct, to manufacturers as an ingredient. The company said the first products, probably dog food, could arrive this year, although it is focusing on scaleup and cost reduction rather than immediate rollout: Even mixed with filler material such as cereals, it will be a “premium product,” WIRED reported. No other country has approved lab-grown pet foods, although human food is available in the US and Singapore. A 2022 study found that the “carbon pawprint” of a dog can be equivalent to that of a human, thanks to their meat-heavy diets.

Asteroid could reveal solar system’s past

Scientists hope a piece of a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid will reveal secrets of the early solar system. The OSIRIS-REx mission collected bits of rock from Bennu, a small near-Earth asteroid, and returned a 120-milligram — 0.004-ounce — sample to Earth last year. Bennu is believed to have been orbiting the sun just 10 million years after the solar system formed: It probably broke off from a larger asteroid, but is otherwise unchanged. It may contain organic materials like those involved in the start of life on Earth, preserved by the cold of space: “Bennu is a snapshot of what the solar system was like,” one scientist said.

• HSBC names its chief financial officer Georges Elhedery as the bank’s next chief executive, starting from Sep 2.
• The new British and Irish prime ministers hold their first meeting in the UK.
• The Teachers’ Lounge, a new German film, is released on Netflix.

The number of humans expected to exist when the world reaches its peak population, probably in the mid-2080s. The United Nations’ latest demographic report says that in 63 countries — containing more than a quarter of the world’s population — numbers have already peaked. Another 48 countries are expected to start seeing population decline in the next 30 years. The total number of people alive in 2100 is now projected to be 700 million smaller than the last estimate, a decade ago, as birth rates decline faster than anticipated.

The Lucky Ones, by Zara Chowdhary. Out this week, Chowdhary’s memoir is a “moving tale of survival” that spans two decades of violence against Muslims in India, Time wrote. Growing up in the early 2000s in Ahmedabad, one of the country’s fastest-growing cities in the region of Gujarat, Chowdhary witnessed violence between Hindu and Muslim communities that still endures today. The book explores the rise of Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat and now India’s prime minister, who came to embody the rise of Hindu nationalism in the world’s largest democracy. The personal story of a multigenerational Muslim family intertwines with India’s complex and often bloody past.

• ‘CEOs are shocked’ that JD Vance is Trump’s running mate.
• Donald Trump may be the luckiest man in the world.
• Italy reconsiders nuclear energy 35 years after shutting down last reactor.