The Economist US

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Francis was the first non-European pope for almost 13 centuries. That in itself was interesting. He would become one of the most radical for many years, too. But many of his attempts at reform were hampered econ.st/3GifJIE

Has Donald Trump misread his mandate? Taking stock of the president’s tariffs and sinking polls, with @JohnPrideaux, @chowardchoward and @imkahloon on this week’s “Checks and Balance” podcast econ.st/4jhTYqQ

“There is a grand plan. It’s not a brilliant strategy, but there is a plan,” says @s_rabinovitch of Donald Trump’s trade policy on this week’s episode of “Checks and Balance” econ.st/3YuH3tB

“How much is this MAGA core going to put up with higher prices?” asks @daniella_raz on this week’s “Checks and Balance” podcast econ.st/4jHxlw4

Does Donald Trump’s tariff turnabout show a weakening appetite for political risk? Our “Checks and Balance” podcast this week looks at the president’s reversal and declining poll numbers, with @JohnPrideaux, @chowardchoward and @imkahloon econ.st/42DiHia

The Trump administration has said it will withhold funding worth $2.2bn promised to Harvard. It has already held back hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants from other prestigious schools. How can they respond? econ.st/42BhGY9 Illustration: Kyle Ellingson

Despite the FTC’s claim that the network effects of Meta’s social-media empire create insurmountable barriers to entry, the past few years have seen a rush of successful social-media startups. Competition has intensified in other ways, too econ.st/3Y0inc0

China’s aviation regulator has told airlines to stop taking deliveries of aircraft from Boeing, according to Bloomberg, a news agency. The symbolism of the move will not be lost on American bosses in Shanghai or Beijing econ.st/3RjsYuY

The blockbuster antitrust case which threatens to break up Mark Zuckerberg’s $1.3trn empire deserves to fail. We explain why econ.st/42IgmUx

As Donald Trump’s heavy use of tariffs renders their supply chains untenable, retaliation by the Chinese government threatens to unwind years of commercial success econ.st/4ijte8k

What began as a thin antitrust case against the social-media empire has become progressively weaker, and now looks downright absurd. The court should waste no time in swiping it up and away econ.st/4j487Ia

Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine within a day. Now, insiders say, he hopes to secure a ceasefire within his first 100 days. If the conflict drags on, he worries that “Biden’s war” will increasingly become his econ.st/4jBFl1C

If the Supreme Court’s conservative majority once again sides with Donald Trump’s expansive vision of his office, the president may be tempted to keep exploring its outer limits econ.st/4cDiXCM

Amazon hopes to deliver “high-speed, low-latency internet to virtually any location on the planet”. But can it compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink? econ.st/4lreVBh Photo: Reuters

Donald Trump’s volatility means that the impact of tariffs is hard to assess. But the balance of probabilities is that things will be bad this year, and potentially quite a bit worse in the years to come econ.st/42JRw6D

In the latest of a series of emergency applications to the Supreme Court, Donald Trump is asking the justices to grant him the unfettered power he once wielded on reality TV econ.st/44oF3GM

♦️Harvard stands up to Donald Trump. ♦️The White House reportedly considers halving the State Department’s budget. ♦️A group of American businesses sues the Trump administration over tariffs. Follow the latest in US politics econ.st/4jCGbLA

The fate of Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne Wilcox, who sits on the National Labour Relations Board, will be watched carefully by markets econ.st/4jsmbLf

For decades a precedent from the administration of Franklin Roosevelt has stood for the idea that America’s president lacks an “illimitable power of removal”. That principle may be in Donald Trump’s firing line econ.st/4jBT0FY