The Intelligence from The Economist

@theintelligencefromtheeconomist · Podcast

Latest segments

• New Hampshire Senate race, 2026-10-30
  Reports from a Pappas rally in Exeter
  Reports from a Pappas rally in Exeter and puts the New Hampshire Senate race at six to seven points for Pappas, a wider margin than the Times/Siena poll on the record, and frames it as a race Democrats are still spending big to win.
• Hamilton's Kansas Senate run, 2026-10-29
  Profiles Hamilton on the Kansas trail
  Profiles Hamilton on the trail in Lawrence: the pastor who looks like a Rotary Club Republican, his family's founding of Hope, Kansas in 1870, and his pitch as an independent-minded Democrat. Adds The Economist's own election model, which still gives Marshall a slight edge, and the Trump and Vance attacks on the stump.
• Georgia Senate debate, 2026-10-28
  Reports Ossoff's fundraising lead and surrogates
  Reports from an Atlanta bar and an Ossoff rally on the campaign's closing stretch: he leads every major poll, has outraised every candidate in the country, and is drawing Obama and Buttigieg. Adds the fundraising figure and the surrogate schedule to the debate-and-pledge file.
• Israeli election, final week, 2026-10-28
  Cross-checks exit polls against the partial count
  Eleven hours after polls closed, with about half the votes counted, walks through the count: exit polls had the opposition at 70 seats and Netanyahu's coalition at 50, but actual votes put his coalition around 55 and Likud the largest party. Lays out the deadlock and the path to a possible early 2027 election.
• Anthropic's IPO filing, 2026-10-27
  Walks through the prospectus revenue and profit
  Walks through the prospectus filed the day before: $11.6 billion in second-quarter revenue, a 30-fold rise from early 2025, and an operating profit above $900 million. Notes the warnings on capital spending and long data-center leases, and the credit-rating motive for listing now.
• Paxton-Tallarico Texas Senate race tightens, 2026-10-26
  Reports from a San Antonio rally and Frisco
  Reports from a San Antonio Trump rally and from Frisco on Republicans playing defense in Texas: Paxton trailing in almost all polls, Abbott unable to shake his challenger, and nativist appeals rallying crowds but losing the Frisco mayoral race by 16 points. The Paxton material retells what is already on the record.
• Lula wins fourth term, 2026-10-26
  Adds the precise vote shares and swing
  The episode's main segment on the runoff result: the final margin, the mechanics of Lula's comeback from a two-million-vote first-round deficit, and the constraints of a hostile Congress. It adds the precise vote shares and the scale of the between-rounds swing.
• Indonesia haze school closures, 2026-10-22
  Widens the haze story to Singapore
  Widens the haze story beyond Malaysia and Timor-Leste: Singapore is the world's most polluted city at points, masks and a library haze shelter are in use, and Singapore issued preventive measures notices to several Indonesian companies under its Transboundary Haze Pollution Act. Also adds Indonesia's 98 corporate cases and Prabowo's new peatland agency.
• Davos in the Desert postponed, 2026-10-22
  Assesses MBS's year and the investment shortfall
  Carlstrom's assessment of MBS's year: the Houthi war at home, the stalled economic transformation, and a Trump relationship that has not paid off. It goes to the record for the first time on the investment shortfall and the IMF's swing to contraction.
• Davos in the Desert postponed, 2026-10-22
  Frames the cancelled summit as MBS's latest blow
  Opens the episode with the cancellation of Saudi Arabia's Future Investment Initiative, known as Davos in the Desert, and frames it as the latest blow in a bad year for Muhammad bin Salman.
• Witkoff's Oslo talks, 2026-10-21
  Frames Europe's ability to fund Ukraine alone
  Uses Witkoff's arrival in St Petersburg as the peg for a wider discussion of Europe's ability to keep funding and arming Ukraine alone, from the $90 billion loan and the frozen Russian assets to Patriot missiles and Starlink. Analysis and framing, not a new development in the Oslo talks.
• France riots, October 2026, 2026-10-20
  Dispatches from Bordeaux on the weekend riots
  Bordeaux dispatch on the weekend riots: three groups on the streets, the Limoges town hall and the Marseille bust of Marianne, the interior minister's refused resignation, and the curfews. It retells the weekend's destruction and stays inside the government-blame frame already on the record.
• Alberta separation vote, 2026-10-19
  Retells Alberta's vote day and western grievances
  The bulk of the episode on Alberta's vote day: the grievances behind western separatism, Quebec's longer movement and the new Parti Quebecois government, and Carney's tax cuts, Building Canada Act and export diversification. A wide-ranging retelling that stays inside the framing already on the record.
• India voter roll purge, 2026-10-14
  Reports the airport detention and blackout
  Delhi dispatch from the ground: sealed borders, a 24-hour internet blackout in central Delhi, and the July protest that forced the education minister out. Adds the airport detention of Dipke and two co-leaders for 24 hours without phone access, and the 2023 law letting the PM handpick the election chief.
• Trump's refinery plea, 2026-10-14
  Adds the reported Starlink speed cap
  The Economist's deputy editor walks through the diesel deal and the one-sided energy ceasefire, then adds a new development: Ukraine believes SpaceX has capped Starlink terminals at under 100 miles an hour, grounding its fast-moving strike drones. SpaceX has not confirmed it.
• Houthi strikes on Riyadh airport, 2026-10-12
  Recaps the week of strikes from Riyadh
  Correspondent dispatch from Riyadh: recaps the week's strikes on the airport, the 2014 takeover, the 2015 intervention and the 2022 ceasefire, and explains why the Houthis target airports. It stays inside the week's coverage, adding only the World Petroleum Congress timing and the Dammam airport targeting.
• Siberia plague outbreak, 2026-10-09
  Interviews the defence editor on the death
  Interviews The Economist's defence editor on the death of Daria Shepilova at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute: the undisputed facts, the quarantine of about 200 people, the WHO director's complaint about an unconfirmed second fatality, and the history of Soviet and Russian biological weapons programmes.
• Bond yields hit highs, 2026-10-08
  Finds little fiscal risk premium in US yields
  Lays out the three shocks behind the global bond sell-off and finds the fiscal risk premium in US long yields is very small; France is the outlier, with the spread over German yields at its widest since 2011.
• Cornell confrontation video, 2026-10-07
  Adds the Title IX machinery and its numbers
  Turns to the Cornell case's Title IX machinery: Hochul's disclosure that Jane Doe told investigators she was 100% confident she was raped, and that the words never reached prosecutors. Adds the 2020 rule's origin, the 14% investigation rate, and the Office of Civil Rights' collapse in resolutions.
• France school riots, 2026-10-07
  Reports from the streets of the school protests
  Paris bureau chief reports from the streets: the protest began at one school in Créteil in September, spread to over a thousand blockaded lycées, and drew a quarter of a million people on October 6. Adds the prime minister's half-day class halt and a student who lost a hand to a police grenade.