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TO MUCH RELIEF, a cargo vessel fully loaded with Ukrainian grain set sail from Odessa on August 1st. The 26,000 tonnes of corn on board is currently en route to Lebanon via the Black Sea. This was the first such shipment since the war started and a Russian blockade prevented Ukraine from shipping its crops. In the week since its ports reopened under a UN-backed deal last month, nine more ships, carrying almost 300,000 tonnes of grain, have set off. By the autumn, Ukrainian officials expect to match the pre-war level of exports. (See chart.)

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LIKE MUCH of Europe, Britain has had a sweltering summer. The mercury rose to a record of 40.3°C (104.5°F) on July 19th, shattering the previous high of 38.7°C set in 2019. On August 9th the Met Office, Britain’s weather service, issued another “extreme heat” warning for the coming days. The country is not designed for hot weather. Just 2% of homes in England have air-conditioning and many homes, particularly flats, overheat because they have poor ventilation and are exposed to the sun. The results could be deadly. In England and Wales excess deaths—the number of people that have died compared with what has historically been expected—for the two weeks ending July 29th are 16% higher than usual, with 3,058 additional deaths registered over that period (see chart). A recent spike in excess deaths has also been reported in other parts of Europe. Is the heatwave responsible?...

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TO MUCH RELIEF, a cargo vessel fully loaded with Ukrainian grain set sail from Odessa on August 1st. The 26,000 tonnes of corn on board is currently en route to Lebanon via the Black Sea. This was the first such shipment since the war started and a Russian blockade prevented Ukraine from shipping its crops. In the week since its ports reopened under a UN-backed deal last month, nine more ships, carrying almost 300,000 tonnes of grain, have set off. By the autumn, Ukrainian officials expect to match the pre-war level of exports. (See chart.)

For a look behind the scenes of our data journalism, sign up to Off the Charts, our weekly newsletter

TO MUCH RELIEF, a cargo vessel fully loaded with Ukrainian grain set sail from Odessa on August 1st. The 26,000 tonnes of corn on board is currently en route to Lebanon via the Black Sea. This was the first such shipment since the war started and a Russian blockade prevented Ukraine from shipping its crops. In the week since its ports reopened under a UN-backed deal last month, nine more ships, carrying almost 300,000 tonnes of grain, have set off. By the autumn, Ukrainian officials expect to match the pre-war level of exports. (See chart.)

The Economist has been publishing journalism on paper since 1843. Today, though, our readers are as likely to see our work online as to read it in print. We are updating our techniques to match. Our data-journalism team brings together journalists, visualisers and programmers to produce visually ambitious stories, charts, and maps for our newspaper and our website.

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A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT that would have allowed Kansas’s legislature to overturn the right to an abortion failed on August 2nd, dealing a blow to conservative efforts to outlaw the practice. Kansans voted by 59% to 41% to block the amendment, so that abortion will remain legal in the state up to the 22nd week of pregnancy. That compares with the 56% of the state’s electorate that voted for Donald Trump, the anti-abortion candidate, in the presidential election in 2020. Given that such a traditionally red state upheld abortion rights, it is likely that most others would, too. The Economist’s analysis of the results suggests similar referendums would probably succeed in 41 of the 50 states; the others either would be likely to end in losses for abortion-rights activists or appear too close to say either way.

“COMPANIES AREN’T going to be able to hide their income in places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda,” declared President Joe Biden this spring as the US Treasury detailed its tax plan aimed at helping fund $2trn-worth of infrastructure spending. Mr Biden wants to let loose a barrage of legislation to stamp out profit-shifting, following on from Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, which many tax experts argue got watered down with loopholes and exemptions.

ON SEPTEMBER 13th the price of Litecoin briefly jumped by nearly 30% following a fake press release claiming that Walmart would begin accepting the digital currency for online payments. The hoax, which managed to fool several financial-news outlets, could spur calls for greater oversight of the cryptocurrency industry.

“COMPANIES AREN’T going to be able to hide their income in places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda,” declared President Joe Biden this spring as the US Treasury detailed its tax plan aimed at helping fund $2trn-worth of infrastructure spending. Mr Biden wants to let loose a barrage of legislation to stamp out profit-shifting, following on from Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, which many tax experts argue got watered down with loopholes and exemptions.

“COMPANIES AREN’T going to be able to hide their income in places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda,” declared President Joe Biden this spring as the US Treasury detailed its tax plan aimed at helping fund $2trn-worth of infrastructure spending. Mr Biden wants to let loose a barrage of legislation to stamp out profit-shifting, following on from Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, which many tax experts argue got watered down with loopholes and exemptions.

ON SEPTEMBER 13th the price of Litecoin briefly jumped by nearly 30% following a fake press release claiming that Walmart would begin accepting the digital currency for online payments. The hoax, which managed to fool several financial-news outlets, could spur calls for greater oversight of the cryptocurrency industry.

ON SEPTEMBER 13th the price of Litecoin briefly jumped by nearly 30% following a fake press release claiming that Walmart would begin accepting the digital currency for online payments. The hoax, which managed to fool several financial-news outlets, could spur calls for greater oversight of the cryptocurrency industry.

ON SEPTEMBER 13th the price of Litecoin briefly jumped by nearly 30% following a fake press release claiming that Walmart would begin accepting the digital currency for online payments. The hoax, which managed to fool several financial-news outlets, could spur calls for greater oversight of the cryptocurrency industry.

ON SEPTEMBER 13th the price of Litecoin briefly jumped by nearly 30% following a fake press release claiming that Walmart would begin accepting the digital currency for online payments. The hoax, which managed to fool several financial-news outlets, could spur calls for greater oversight of the cryptocurrency industry.

ON SEPTEMBER 13th the price of Litecoin briefly jumped by nearly 30% following a fake press release claiming that Walmart would begin accepting the digital currency for online payments. The hoax, which managed to fool several financial-news outlets, could spur calls for greater oversight of the cryptocurrency industry.

THE SWEETEST chocolate can come from the most bitter of sources. In May police in Ivory Coast rescued 68 children working on cocoa farms, allegedly trafficked in from neighbouring Burkina Faso. They are a tiny share of the approximately 790,000 children working in cocoa production in Ivory Coast alone. According to a report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNICEF based on data from more than 100 national household surveys, some 160m five- to 17-year-olds—one in ten of the world’s children—are engaged in labour, understood as work that they are too young to perform or that might harm their “health, safety or morals”. Between 2000 and 2016 the percentage of children in work globally fell. But since 2016 that decline has levelled off—and the absolute number of child workers has increased by 8m, the first time it has gone up since the ILO began collecting data.

THE SWEETEST chocolate can come from the most bitter of sources. In May police in Ivory Coast rescued 68 children working on cocoa farms, allegedly trafficked in from neighbouring Burkina Faso. They are a tiny share of the approximately 790,000 children working in cocoa production in Ivory Coast alone. According to a report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNICEF based on data from more than 100 national household surveys, some 160m five- to 17-year-olds—one in ten of the world’s children—are engaged in labour, understood as work that they are too young to perform or that might harm their “health, safety or morals”. Between 2000 and 2016 the percentage of children in work globally fell. But since 2016 that decline has levelled off—and the absolute number of child workers has increased by 8m, the first time it has gone up since the ILO began collecting data.

AS INDIA MARKED its 75th year of freedom from British rule on August 15th, Narendra Modi, the prime minister, set his eyes on another sort of independence: liberation from imported energy. This will put pressure on India’s coal industry, which powers the bulk of the country’s grid and has seen prices surge. Mr Modi also promised to leave “no scope for corruption” in the government. A new study by Sam Asher of Johns Hopkins University and Paul Novosad of Dartmouth College suggests that these goals might be at odds with each other. They find that India’s commodities boom could help elect—and enrich—dodgy politicians.

IF YOU WRITE a book called “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty”, the last thing you want to be associated with is fraud. Yet this is where Dan Ariely, a behavioural economist at Duke University, finds himself, along with his four co-authors of an influential study about lying.

THE SWEETEST chocolate can come from the most bitter of sources. In May police in Ivory Coast rescued 68 children working on cocoa farms, allegedly trafficked in from neighbouring Burkina Faso. They are a tiny share of the approximately 790,000 children working in cocoa production in Ivory Coast alone. According to a report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNICEF based on data from more than 100 national household surveys, some 160m five- to 17-year-olds—one in ten of the world’s children—are engaged in labour, understood as work that they are too young to perform or that might harm their “health, safety or morals”. Between 2000 and 2016 the percentage of children in work globally fell. But since 2016 that decline has levelled off—and the absolute number of child workers has increased by 8m, the first time it has gone up since the ILO began collecting data.

THE SWEETEST chocolate can come from the most bitter of sources. In May police in Ivory Coast rescued 68 children working on cocoa farms, allegedly trafficked in from neighbouring Burkina Faso. They are a tiny share of the approximately 790,000 children working in cocoa production in Ivory Coast alone. According to a report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNICEF based on data from more than 100 national household surveys, some 160m five- to 17-year-olds—one in ten of the world’s children—are engaged in labour, understood as work that they are too young to perform or that might harm their “health, safety or morals”. Between 2000 and 2016 the percentage of children in work globally fell. But since 2016 that decline has levelled off—and the absolute number of child workers has increased by 8m, the first time it has gone up since the ILO began collecting data.

THE SWEETEST chocolate can come from the most bitter of sources. In May police in Ivory Coast rescued 68 children working on cocoa farms, allegedly trafficked in from neighbouring Burkina Faso. They are a tiny share of the approximately 790,000 children working in cocoa production in Ivory Coast alone. According to a report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNICEF based on data from more than 100 national household surveys, some 160m five- to 17-year-olds—one in ten of the world’s children—are engaged in labour, understood as work that they are too young to perform or that might harm their “health, safety or morals”. Between 2000 and 2016 the percentage of children in work globally fell. But since 2016 that decline has levelled off—and the absolute number of child workers has increased by 8m, the first time it has gone up since the ILO began collecting data.

AS INDIA MARKED its 75th year of freedom from British rule on August 15th, Narendra Modi, the prime minister, set his eyes on another sort of independence: liberation from imported energy. This will put pressure on India’s coal industry, which powers the bulk of the country’s grid and has seen prices surge. Mr Modi also promised to leave “no scope for corruption” in the government. A new study by Sam Asher of Johns Hopkins University and Paul Novosad of Dartmouth College suggests that these goals might be at odds with each other. They find that India’s commodities boom could help elect—and enrich—dodgy politicians.

IF YOU WRITE a book called “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty”, the last thing you want to be associated with is fraud. Yet this is where Dan Ariely, a behavioural economist at Duke University, finds himself, along with his four co-authors of an influential study about lying.