Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist.

In New York, I'm John Fassman.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

War has, of course, made life difficult for Ukrainians.

It's also been hard on the country's animals once kept as pets or in private zoos.

Our correspondent went to Kiev to meet the woman who has saved at least 600 of them.

And four decades ago, Jacqueline Gold hit upon the idea of revamping the top-aware parties

of the 1950s to sell sex toys.

Our obituary's editor reflects on the legacy of a woman who changed British attitudes towards sex.

First up, though.

For the past year, the Federal Reserve has had one job, wrangle inflation and stop it from

getting out of control.

Record high gas prices at play in these numbers, 8.6% year-over-year inflation.

Here, over year 8.2% that is hotter than expected.

The Fed's saying ongoing rate hikes will be appropriate.

The Fed also raising the 2020...

Successive rate hikes since March 2022 have made decent headway.

American inflation peaked at 6.6% in September 2022 and has been falling steadily since.

It seemed things were on track.

But in the last fortnight, a destabilizing banking collapse through the Fed, a nasty curveball.

Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on Friday.

It became the largest U.S. bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.

...