Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

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

Last year, there was a great worry that the annual flu season would compound the COVID crisis,

but in the end, there were few outbreaks.

And it's for that reason that this year's flu season could be far worse even than in pre-COVID times.

And there's nothing particularly wrong with the word like, but plenty of purists hate it when it shows up in like the wrong part of a sentence.

Take a closer look, though.

Linguistically, that like is doing plenty of interesting work.

First up, though, bigwigs are flying in, the streets of Midtown Manhattan are clogged,

and snazzy restaurants near the United Nations headquarters are all booked up. Nature is healing, or international diplomacy is

anyway. Last time the UN's General Assembly happened in person, then President Donald Trump

left attendees without much of the usual warm cooperative feeling. The future does not

belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots.

Things are different now. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden used his first outing at Unga, as insiders know it, to call for global unity.

We're not seeking, say it again, we are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocks.

Mr. Biden will find a more welcoming audience than Mr. Trump did.

But there's still a yawning credibility gap he has to close,

given the shine that's been taken off America's reputation recently.

Today, the French took an unprecedented action.

They recalled their ambassador to the United States.

Afghans scrambling to get out, clinging to the side of a U.S. military plane.

...