Feb. 29 update

America’s Supreme Court agreed to rule on whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in his federal election-interference case. Mr Trump’s claim—that he cannot be tried for acts he carried out while in office—has been rejected by two lower courts. His appeals have already delayed the trial, which had been due to start on March 4th. The Supreme Court scheduled arguments for the week of April 22nd. Separately, a court in Illinois ruled that Mr Trump should be removed from the state’s presidential primary because of his role in the insurrection on January 6th 2021. Illinois is the third state to strike him from the ballot.

Reliance Industries, India’s biggest firm, said it would merge its Indian television and streaming media assets as part of a joint venture with Walt Disney. The entity, valued at $8.5bn, will have over 750m viewers across India. Mukesh Ambani, Reliance’s boss and Asia’s richest man, will inject $1.4bn into the joint venture, giving him a 63% stake.

France’s annual inflation rate slowed to 3.1% in February, down from 3.4% the previous month. The figures show the weakest rise in consumer prices since September 2021. Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, said the government is set to approach its 2% target by the end of the year. “The fight against inflation is being won”, he said.

Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, visited the country’s east in an effort to combat support for Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party. AfD currently ranks second in national surveys; in Saxony, where Mr Scholz is meeting with business executives, it leads with the support of around 30% of voters. German bosses are growing increasingly vocal about the threat from the far-right.

In his annual state-of-the-nation address President Vladimir Putin claimed Russian forces have the upper hand on the battlefield in Ukraine. Speaking just over two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Mr Putin accused the West of trying to turn his country into a “fading, dying space” and implored his citizens to “devote most of their time to the family”.

Consumer groups from eight European countries accused Meta, a social-media giant, of breaching EU privacy rules on user data. They also alleged that Meta’s “pay or consent” system, whereby users pay to prevent their data being used for targeted advertising, obscures “massive, illegal data processing”. The groups have filed complaints to their local data watchdogs.

Ghana’s parliament passed a bill criminalising homosexuality. Under its provisions merely identifying as gay carries a prison sentence of up to three years in prison, and forming or funding LGBT groups carries a five-year sentence. The bill—which still needs to be signed by Ghana’s president to become law—is among several recent anti-gay laws passed in Africa.

Figure of the day: 450%, the amount by which Nvidia’s share price has surged since January 2023. Read the full story here.



A doctors’ strike in South Korea
Around 9,000 trainee and junior doctors in South Korea have been on strike since early last week. They are protesting against the government’s plan to increase an annual quota for medical-student enrolment from 3,000 to 5,000.
Doctors argue that the large number of new students will harm medical education. Yet South Korea is in desperate need of more medical students. It has a shortage of doctors in areas such as paediatrics, and one of the lowest doctor-to-patient ratios in the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. Some self-employed doctors have received bumper pay packets owing to the shortage.
Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s president, has vowed to stand firm, promising to suspend medical licences unless doctors return to work by Thursday. Doctors say they will not give up either. During the strike, surgeries have been cancelled. A woman died after seven hospitals turned away her ambulance because they are short of staff and beds.

The Australian-Philippine alliance strengthens
On Thursday Ferdinand Marcos, president of the Philippines, addressed a joint session of both houses of Australia’s Parliament. The invitation to speak was a rare honour, and Mr Marcos used the occasion to stress the importance of the Philippine-Australian strategic partnership, formed in Manila in September. In particular, Australia and the Philippines share an interest in standing up to China in the South China Sea.
Philippine forces are too weak to deter the Chinese from advancing far into the disputed areas of the South China Sea. But they have found an ally in Australia which, for generations, has endeavoured to keep adversaries at bay as far as possible from its own shores. Last November warships and warplanes from Australia and the Philippines began jointly patrolling the disputed waters. Chinese forces watched closely, but left them alone. China is mindful, no doubt, that both countries are increasingly important allies of America.

Putin lauds the state of Russia
President Vladimir Putin gave a state-of-the-nation address to Russia’s parliament. He has cause to feel upbeat. Russian forces are slowly making progress in Ukraine. On February 17th they took Avdiivka, a small eastern town, following a months-long siege. At home, the economy is growing rapidly because of the stimulus from the Kremlin’s financing of the war. And the recent death in a Siberian penal colony of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, removes a thorn from the president’s side. Mr Putin is certain to win a blatantly unfair presidential election next month.
In the long term, however, the Kremlin will struggle to maintain living standards while funding its war. Public discontent may grow. After Navalny’s death, many Russians left flowers at memorials for victims of political repression. An anti-war movement led by the female relatives of soldiers is gaining traction. Still, Mr Putin will only double down on his war, and his campaign of repression of those who speak out against it.

Does a leap day pay?
In the Gregorian calendar Thursday is a “leap day”, added almost every four years because a solar year is a little longer than 365 days. Ever-youthful leap-day babies can celebrate their rare birthdays by taking advantage of offers that companies make just for them, from free beer to a Caribbean cruise.
Thankfully, others benefit, too. Krispy Kreme gives free doughnuts to “leapies”, and offers leap-day discounts to everyone else. The extra working day will boost February’s numbers for businesses and economies. For instance, KPMG, an accountancy firm, estimates that the additional day will add A$6.6bn ($4.3bn) to Australia’s economy, helping it to avoid a recession.
In 2016 Zappos, an American shoe seller, gave staff a paid day off and lobbied for February 29th to become a public holiday. In general hourly-paid workers get their usual rate on a leap day. But firms usually don’t compensate salaried staff for their extra toil. Cheap doughnuts are the least they deserve.

An extraordinary survival story
On March 4th 1973 Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s boat crashed into a 40-foot sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean. For the next 118 days the British couple drifted on a tiny inflatable life-raft. They survived by drinking rainwater and catching turtles, fish, birds and sharks. A Korean tuna-fishing ship rescued them. In “Maurice and Maralyn”, a riveting book published in Britain on Thursday, Sophie Elmhirst (an occasional contributor to 1843, The Economist’s sister magazine) retells the survival story.
The couple dreamed of becoming explorers, free “to go wherever they liked, whenever they liked”. That impulse to spurn conventional life is widespread today, when many workers are “quiet quitting”. Almost 60% of workers across the world say that their jobs do not interest them. But, despite the adventure, the book suggests that it was the strength of the couple’s relationship that was truly extraordinary.