Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

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

As the presidents of China and America hold a sideline chat at the G20 meeting in Japan,

we examine a bigger question. What are the odds that a trade war could turn into the shooting

kind? And plenty of trends get their start in Silicon Valley. Our correspondent has seen

a surging interest there in surrogacy. Fertility startups are starting up. Employers are helping

to finance it and techy types are discovering another means of efficient life design.

But first, America's Supreme Court handed down two landmark decisions yesterday, both with big

implications for how voters are represented in government. They also hint at the court's reluctance

to get drawn into politics. One case tackled the Trump administration's bid to add a citizenship

question to the 2020 census. Opponents argue that question would suppress responses,

particularly from Hispanic households. That would leave those households without representation

in voter roles, in federal funding decisions, and in Congress. The other decision tackled

gerrymandering. The practice of cleverly drawing district boundaries so that one party gets more

representation in the legislature than it actually has on the ground. It's an old political ploy,

but one in the big data era has been used with increasing sophistication. But who ultimately decides

what's fair redistricting and what's gerrymandering? The court seems to think that power lies not with

the federal government, but with the states. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that partisan gerrymandering claims

present political questions that are beyond the reach of federal courts. Steven Maisie

covers the Supreme Court for the economist. They have no license to reallocate political power

between the two major political parties. So what does this look like in practice? Give me an example

of how gerrymandering can impact the electoral process. Well, we have seen the impact of gerrymandering

...