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LARGE food companies have long been among the world’s most solid, with reassuringly consistent returns even in hard times. None would seem steadier than Nestlé, based in the Swiss town of Vevey, on a lake near snowy peaks.

IN 2015, a bit over two years after Hurricane Sandy hit his city, Bill de Blasio, New York’s mayor, announced the creation of a $3 billion restoration fund. Part of the money is intended to pay for sea walls that will help protect the place from future storms.

INDUSTRIAL policy via Twitter is a new development in economics but we may all have to get used to it over the next four (or eight) years. Donald Trump's tweets on the car industry (and his planned cuts to corporate income tax) may or may not have persuaded Ford to keep a plant in Michigan, creating 700 jobs.

To mark the publication of "Go Figure", a collection of The Economist’s explainers and daily charts, the editors of this blog solicited ideas on Facebook and Twitter. This week we publish five explainers suggested by our readers, who will each receive a copy of the book.

SLYLY and without warning, on January 2nd Republican congressmen announced as their first major initiative of the new year a scheme so crassly self-interested as to suggest they had learned nothing from the old one.

IF YOU look up from the bustle of the winter tourists thronging the streets of Barcelona, you will see some balconies draped with the estelada, a blend of the Catalan and Cuban flags that has become the banner of those who want their land to become independent.

THE YEAR 2016 was not a great one for business travellers. In Britain, the Brexit referendum and related collapse in the value of the pound made travelling abroad costly; transport strikes meant getting around was an ordeal for those who stayed put.

PERHAPS the biggest decision Donald Trump faces in January is his choice of nominee for the Supreme Court. But the president-elect will have many more opportunities to make his mark on the judiciary.

UNTIL fairly recently, it was rare to find Americans who were passionate about both medieval history and contemporary politics.

IF 2016 was a year of shocks, what will the next 12 months bring? It is time for the annual tradition (dating all the way back to 2015) when this column tries to predict the surprises of the coming year. By definition, a surprise is something the consensus does not expect.

IF ONE hope united Turks at the start of 2017 it was that the new year would bring respite from the horrors of the old one, the most violent the country has seen in decades.

JOHN KERRY, the American secretary of state (pictured), chose to mark the end of his long public career with a valedictory speech on December 28th devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.