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United States

Why Joe Biden isn’t afraid of debt any more

Donald Trump and the covid pandemic have changed the politics of spending big

Finance & economics

Archegos, a family office, brings Nomura and Credit Suisse big losses

More bad news may follow. But the episode already raises disquieting questions

China

Will countries boycott China’s Olympics in 2022?

Outrage about Xinjiang is fuelling calls to stay away

Britain

Deliveroo’s listing is less appetising than hoped

Fund managers smell something whiffy about a food-delivery IPO

Graphic detail

How rich countries cause deforestation in poor ones

Such losses cannot be offset by planting more trees at home

Britain

Bagehot: What Boris Johnson has in common with Benjamin Disraeli

Remarkable hairstyles and an understanding of the role of the imagination in politics

Books & arts

Whatever you tweet may be used against you

Tweets feel like conversation but are judged like writing

Daily briefing

Take five minutes to catch up on today’s essential news.

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Covid-19 and medical science

Leaders

Bright side of the moonshots

Covid-19 has brought together biomedical technologies that will transform human health

Briefing

Covid-19 vaccines have alerted the world to the power of RNA therapies

And the molecule has many more tricks up its sleeve

Technology Quarterly

Covid-19 has shown what modern biomedicine can do

It can move very quickly, but needs to be well applied

Essay

Viruses have big impacts on ecology and evolution as well as human health

They are ubiquitous, diverse and very powerful

Readers’ favourites

Business

Volkswagen will catch up with Tesla

Then comes the hard part

Business

China boycotts Western clothes brands over Xinjiang cotton

Retailers may be caught between nationalistic Chinese consumers and conscientious ones at home

Business

Flexibility is the new great workplace divide

The outlines of the post-pandemic regime are becoming visible

Graphic detail

How a racist film helped the Ku Klux Klan grow for generations

Lynchings rose fivefold after “The Birth of a Nation” came to town

Weekly edition

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Podcasts

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Technology Quarterly: Racing against time

Covid-19 has shown what modern biomedicine can do

It can move very quickly, but needs to be well applied

Testing and tracing could have worked better against covid-19

Many countries did not use the technology to its utmost

Well conceived drug trials have saved hundreds of thousands of lives

But new therapies have been scarce

Novel vaccines have performed remarkably quickly and well

They may herald a new era of reprogramming cells

Watching SARS-CoV-2 evolve is fascinating and frightening

Variants of concern may require tweaked vaccines

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