Jules Evans

This year is set to be the year of psychedelics – Trump’s trip, you could call it. Since the President signed an executive order supporting the use of psychedelic medicines in April, no fewer than six federal agencies have announced initiatives to help usher the industry along. The agencies, mainly connected to the Department of Health and Human Services, have approved multiple million-dollar initiatives to research, approve and roll out psychedelics. A whole fleet of startups are now circling the Food and Drug Administration. Three of these have Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers from the FDA, which means that when they submit their new drug applications, the agency will make a decision within two months of filing.

How does the army of a liberal, multicultural and often secular society develop in its soldiers the spiritual resilience to cope with war, to face trauma, death and bereavement, and to fight opponents who have the advantage of a strong and common religious faith? That’s the question the Pentagon has been grappling with, as it confronts the apparent epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder affecting a fifth of its troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Its response is a new psychological training programme called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, which aims to strengthen the emotional, psychological and, yes, spiritual resilience of each of the 1.1 million soldiers serving in the US Army.

Jules Evans says billionaire industrialist Oleg Deripaska has global business ambitions — but a dispute with another Russian tycoon, Michael Cherney, may get in his way Oleg Deripaska wants it all. He already has quite a lot: assets in Russian insurance, pulp, construction, airports, media, cars, and oil, and a controlling stake in the world’s largest aluminium company, Rusal. These make him Russia’s second-richest man, worth $18 billion according to Forbes; only Roman Abramovich is richer. But Deripaska’s ambition is not yet sated. He wants a place in the top league of global businessmen alongside Bill Gates and Lakshmi Mittal. And so far his ambition appears to enjoy strong Kremlin backing.

It’s not every day a former KGB spy invites you to interview him. But Alexander Lebedev is not your typical KGB spy. He’s made billions in stock-market trading, he throws lavish parties in London attended by the likes of Tom Wolfe and J.K. Rowling, and he might just be the most serious critic of Kremlin policy still standing. Naturally I accept, and go to meet him in the Hyatt hotel in central Moscow. He’s sitting at the back of the bar, dressed more like a rock-band manager than a billionaire spook. Lebedev joined the KGB in the early 1980s and was sent to London in 1988, operating out of a flat in Kensington High Street.