Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Paulner.

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. The 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.

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 now it to call for global unity. We're not seeking. Say it again, we are not

seeking the new Cold War. We're a world divided in the rigid blocks.

Mr. Biden will find a more welcoming audience than Mr. Trump did. But there's still a

yearning 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. Afghan scrambling to get out, clinging to

the side of a U.S. military plane. And anyways the pandemic has really highlighted the

chasm between the haves and the have-nots. In his opening remarks to the conference UN

...