March 13 update

Primary results confirmed that America’s presidential election will be an unappealing rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Both won enough delegates to become their parties’ respective nominees after votes in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington. A recent New York Times/Siena College survey found that only 23% of Democratic primary voters were enthusiastic about Mr Biden’s candidacy, and less than half of their Republican counterparts are excited about Mr Trump.

Vladimir Putin warned the West that Russia was ready for a nuclear war “from a military-technical point of view”, and warned America against deploying troops to Ukraine. He said that a recent spate of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities was designed to disrupt Russia’s presidential “election”. That three-day vote, which begins on Friday, is guaranteed to hand Mr Putin another six years in power.

A Japanese rocket launched by Space One exploded on its maiden voyage seconds after launch. The solid-fuelled Kairos, which was carrying a government intelligence satellite, lifted off from the Kii spaceport in the western part of the country. Space One had hoped to become the first private Japanese company to send a satellite into orbit.

Country Garden, a huge and embattled Chinese property developer, missed a yuan bond payment, reported Bloomberg. The firm, an emblem of China’s rickety property market, has previously defaulted on dollar-denominated bonds, but not on local-currency ones. Last month a creditor filed a petition to a court in Hong Kong asking that the indebted firm be wound up.

The British government said that hundreds of innocent Post Office workers who were prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting because of an IT-system error will be formally exonerated on Wednesday. Many became destitute and some were imprisoned. The postmasters will receive an interim payment and compensation worth £600,000 ($766,080). A televised dramatisation of the scandal sparked public outcry earlier this year.

America will send a weapons package worth $300m to Ukraine, cobbled together from savings in defence contracts. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, acknowledged that the aid was “nowhere near enough”. The president has authority to send emergency military assistance, but funds to replenish American weapons are overdrawn. A package including $60bn for Ukraine is stalled in Congress.

A Romanian court approved a request by Britain to extradite Andrew Tate, a misogynistic influencer, and his brother, after their trial in Romania ends. They were detained in Romania after a British court issued a warrant for their arrest over alleged sexual crimes. The pair face charges of human trafficking and rape in Romania. They deny all charges.

Figure of the day: $152bn, the US trade deficit with Mexico in 2023, up 17% from 2022. Are the two countries facing a trade war? Read the full story.

In the run-up to America’s presidential election, we’ve launched The US in brief—a daily update to help you keep on top of the political stories that matter. Sign up here to receive it as a newsletter, each weekday, in your inbox.

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photo: getty images

TikTok v Congress

Last week a stern pop-up message interrupted American TikTokers’ scrolling. “Congress is planning a total ban” of the short-video app, it warned users, urging them to call their representative to protect their “Constitutional right to free expression”. On Wednesday the House of Representatives appears poised to pass the bill in question, which is less a “total ban” (such efforts have faced legal challenges) than a requirement that TikTok be separated from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

Lawmakers have long fretted about the national-security threats TikTok may pose: both the data that the company may be collecting, and the potential for the app to spread propaganda on behalf of China’s government. It is already barred on government devices.

President Joe Biden supports the new bill, though the Senate is divided. TikTok fans have reportedly flooded lawmakers’ phone lines, emphasising how much time they spend on the app—which only emboldened those critics who believe Americans are being brainwashed.

photo: getty images

Britain’s underperforming economy

Data released on Wednesday showed that Britain’s economy grew in January, but by a modest 0.2%. The update is the first since the news that a 0.1% month-on-month contraction in December pushed the economy into a technical recession. It has barely grown since the pandemic, and has performed less well than the euro zone and America.

Figures released the day before showed that the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% (from 3.8%) and that wage growth fell faster than expected. Inflation numbers are due next Wednesday. All this will guide the rate-setters at the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, which is due to meet next week. The MPC’s last vote was an unusual three-way split: members voted to raise rates, to lower them and to keep them steady. This division reflects economic trends that are in tension with each other: reasonably robust employment, falling (but still high) inflation and feeble growth.

photo: reuters

Germany’s missile saga continues

Germany’s Taurus cruise missiles boast exceptional accuracy, explosive force and range. They also pack the power to cause controversy. Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has for months dodged calls from allies abroad and political foes at home to deliver the weapons to Ukraine. But the issue always resurfaces. On Wednesday he faces a grilling in Germany’s parliament and on Thursday the opposition will table a motion to deliver Taurus.

That vote will probably not succeed, but nor will the missile saga end. Most Germans agree with Mr Scholz that, as Ukraine’s second-biggest donor of military and financial aid after America, Germany is doing enough. But hawks say that “enough” would be giving Ukraine the means to beat Russia. The Taurus, a better version of systems France and Britain have already sent, would give Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces a welcome boost. The day may yet come when Mr Scholz sees the need for the missiles to stop flying in circles and instead land with a bang.

photo: getty images

High hopes for a fashion giant

The world’s biggest fashion retailer, Inditex, publishes its earnings on Wednesday. The Spanish group—which owns both high-street brands (Zara) and upmarket ones (Massimo Dutti)—has been on a tear recently. Net profit reached €4.1bn ($4.4bn) in the nine months to October last year, an increase of nearly a third over the same period in 2022. Inditex has been gradually raising prices while keeping inventory low, getting garments from design to shelves in as little as a fortnight.

Not everything, however, has been going well. In December Zara caused uproars with adverts that seemed to show a mannequin in a white body bag amid rubble. Zara said that the pictures were misunderstood and were taken before Israel’s offensive in Gaza. But it withdrew them anyway. The misstep doesn’t seem to have hurt Inditex’s share price, however. And on March 8th Ukraine’s foreign ministry praised the firm for deciding to reopen most of the 84 stores it had closed following Russia’s invasion.

photo: andrew lawson

Monet’s garden blooms again

It is surely the most famous garden in art history. Claude Monet called the grounds of his house in Giverny, just west of Paris, his “most beautiful masterpiece”. It was there that he produced his most celebrated series, “Water Lilies” (made up of 250 paintings), as well as renditions of irises and wisteria. Almost a century after Monet’s death in 1926, half a million people visit Giverny every year.

A new exhibition at the Garden Museum in London shows how Monet turned the garden into a profusion of flowers and trees. After his son’s death, however, Giverny fell into disrepair. Jean-Marie Toulgouat—who grew up in the village and was the great-grandson of Monet’s second wife—worked as an adviser on its restoration ahead of the reopening in 1980. Mr Toulgouat painted pictures of the garden at the same time. On display in London are his abstract renderings of dahlias, tulips and nasturtiums in bold strokes of colour. Some landscapes, it seems, demand a canvas.