WHEN THE boxer Mike Tyson was asked ahead of a fight whether he was concerned about an opponent’s plan, he was blunt: “Everybody has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth.” With NATO it has been the other way around.
TO A CASUAL visitor, the basement of the William Eckhardt Research Centre, at the University of Chicago, might appear nothing special. Whereas the upper floors of the building are a postmodern tower of angled glass, underground the walls are bare-white MDF.
PUSHED BY THE threat of climate change, rich countries are embarking on a grand electrification project. Britain, France and Norway, among others, plan to ban the sale of new internal-combustion cars. Even where bans are not on the statute books, electric-car sales are growing rapidly.
The Federal Reserve decided to leave its key interest rate unchanged at a range of 5% to 5.25%. It was the first time that America’s central bank left the rate on hold following ten consecutive increases, which started in March 2022. However, it indicated that it would probably lift the rate twice again this year.
Elon Musk appointed Linda Yaccarino as chief executive of Twitter, five months after he said he would relinquish the role. Mr Musk took over the company last October. Ms Yaccarino comes from NBCUniversal, where she was in charge of advertising.
In an attempt to stave off more banking turmoil, regulators in California took control of First Republic Bank, a regional lender based in San Francisco, and placed it into federal receivership. Much of the bank was then sold to JPMorgan Chase following a bidding auction.
The motives for mass murder vary. The teenager in Buffalo who on May 14th shot and killed ten people, most of them black, was driven by racial paranoia. The 68-year-old who killed one and injured five on May 16th in a Californian church hated Taiwanese people.
AMERICA’S CONSTITUTION promises the “free exercise” of religion; it also prohibits religious “establishment”. Recently the Supreme Court has been strengthening the first guarantee—a right to live one’s faith free from government meddling—while chipping away at the wall separating church from state.
WITH AN AIR of efficiency Judge Amy Page moves through the day’s docket. Defendants stand sheepishly before her to face their charges: assault and battery, stalking, larceny, drunk driving.
In addition to releasing 1m barrels of oil a day from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Interior Department will resume new lease sales for oil and gas drilling on public lands, reneging on Mr Biden’s campaign promise to end the practice.
A woman in Missouri who decides to end her pregnancy has a choice, of sorts. She can go to the state’s last remaining abortion clinic, in St Louis, where state law dictates she must be told that “the life of each human being begins at conception” and warned of...
DRIVE ANYWHERE in New Jersey and you will almost certainly see a bumper sticker or a car magnet bragging that “Jersey girls don’t pump gas”. For 73 years, New Jerseyans have relied on petrol-station attendants to fill their cars and lorries, rather than do it themselves.
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