Following his party’s poor performance in regional elections, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for a snap election on July 23. The surprise announcement left analysts debating whether Sanchez had made a clever strategic gamble or opened the door to the far right to enter government as part of a ruling coalition.
Nearing the end of his first year in office, and facing local elections just around the corner, Colombian President Gustavo Petro can boast of few major political victories. His “Total Peace” plan for a country long wracked by conflict has suffered serious setbacks, and his most ambitious political reforms have been stymied.
Bank failures are back in the news, after three of the United States’ 30 largest banks collapsed in the past three months. These bank failures and the policy responses to date have taught us several important lessons about why such crises keep happening in the U.S. and how policymakers can act to break this self-destructive cycle.