One way Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confronts Russian attacks and seeks to show resolve is by appearing in the most dangerous places. He has done so since his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022. At that time, Kyiv was the Kremlin’s primary target, but the attempt was beaten back. In recent weeks, Moscow has increased its aerial attacks and bombs the city day and night, hitting numerous civilian targets. “They want Ukrainians — especially those in the capital — to leave. In fact, that’s what they were aiming for when the full-scale invasion began,” Zelenskiy said during a conversation with EL PAÍS while visiting a school that had been attacked on Thursday morning in Kyiv.

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Brett Christophers, 55, has spent years studying the strategies of large corporations. He began by examining big investment banks such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. But he soon noticed those names being pushed aside on the agendas of politicians and influencers by investment firms like BlackRock and Blackstone. It was not sudden: for decades they had quietly gained ground, and now control almost every aspect of a citizen’s daily life — the home they live in, the water they wash with, the road or railway they use to get to work, or the hospital they visit for an emergency. That is what Christophers, an economic geographer at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University (Sweden), has been documenting in multiple studies and, more recently, in books such as Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World and Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?.

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Evan Gershkovich does not conceal the fact that he would rather be on the other side of the table. “Your job as an interviewer is much more fun than mine,” admits the journalist who has had to get used to being the center of the story. His ordeal began on March 29, 2023. The then–Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal was detained that day on charges of espionage. He spent 16 months in prison before being freed in the largest prisoner swap between Russia and the West since the Cold War. The exchange, in which the governments of the United States and Germany were heavily involved, had the makings of a spy movie.

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Two images clearly showed the growing international isolation and criticism facing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Inside the UN headquarters, the conservative Israeli prime minister was met Thursday with jeers and the departure of many delegations before he began his address. The half-empty General Assembly was a powerful metaphor. “If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t left this hall, please do so now,” he said defiantly, while members of his delegation shouted: “Am Israel Jai” (“The people of Israel live,” in Hebrew). Outside the building, police detained about 100 demonstrators, among them actress Susan Sarandon and Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Ávila Chevalier, who were protesting the presence of a head of state accused of committing genocide in Gaza.

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The Jamaica–179th Street subway stop in Queens is only about a 10-minute walk from Wareham Place. But an abyss separates the two places. From the crowded low-rise blocks of busy shops, where spotting a white resident is difficult, to single-family homes with manicured yards on quiet streets where cars rarely pass. “Different parts of Queens were rough; this was an oasis,” Donald Trump said in a 2015 New York Times interview. This “oasis” is where the man who is now president of the United States lived as a child, in a house an anonymous family has just bought for $1.93 million.

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