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.

Since the final flight of the Concorde in 2003, commercial supersonic flight has been out

of reach, but its appeal never went away. Now, a few firms are promising to break the

sound barrier again, more quietly, more cheaply, and perhaps more sustainably.

And our US policy correspondent looks back on a lifetime of tussles with her hair, recounting

how much black women will do, pay, and risk to tame their natural curls. And that is largely

because of prejudices against black hair that go very far back. But first, across Brazil

this month, citizens banged pots and pans in protest against a televised speech by President

Jair Bolsonaro. In it, he apologized for the lives lost to

COVID-19, but praised the country's vaccination program.

Mr. Bolsonaro's populist, straight-talking, nationalistic approach propelled him to the

presidency in 2018. But his popularity has since plummeted. His flippant attitude to

even denialism about the pandemic has contributed to the loss of nearly half a million lives.

The public turn against the president has weakened him politically, and his bids to regain

support rollback on a fundamental campaign promise.

Bolsonaro ran for president in 2018. He promised voters that he would have none of what he

called Valia Policica or old politics, basically using government jobs and state resources

to gain support from congressmen and form a political base.

Sarah Maslin is our São Paulo bureau chief. However, last year he did just that, forming

an alliance with a block of parties known as the Saint-Draun or the Big Center. These

are very opportunistic parties that have pretty little in the way of ideology, and their support

...