Daily briefing

America’s turbo-charged recovery from the covid-19 pandemic is done. The economy is expected to have grown at an annual rate of about 3% in the third quarter, down from 6.7% in the second quarter, according to data due to be released on Thursday. There were two major drags. First, the spread of the Delta variant of covid-19 undermined confidence just as Americans were starting to travel for their summer holidays. Second, congested supply chains have weighed on output.

Yet glum headlines about the slowdown will be misleading. The nature of growth reporting—the annualisation of quarterly rates—overstates swings. Early figures from October in fact showed a rebound in consumer confidence as the Delta variant recedes. Ports remain backlogged but a shift in spending towards services, such as at restaurants, and away from online shopping will ease some of the pressure. Even if growth is weaker, the economy is still healing.

Samsung Electronics, a chips-to-smartphones behemoth, announced record-breaking quarterly revenues on Thursday. Its vice-chairman, Lee Jae-yong, is newly out of prison. The third-generation scion of the founding family had served time for his part in a bribery scandal. It was known that Samsung’s numbers would be strong and they did not disappoint: operating profits rose by 28% year-on-year, to 15.8trn won ($13.2bn).

The company has benefited during the pandemic from soaring demand for electronics and resulting hunger for its semiconductor chips. Detail on the performance of its four main divisions—memory and logic chips, screen displays, smartphones and home appliances—helped assuage analysts’ worry that Samsung’s biggest earner, the memory-chip business, is about to tumble. Expectations of a downcycle have weighed on the firm’s share price, which at one point was down by 23% since a peak scaled in January. The firm may also have an update on a $17bn semiconductor factory it plans to build in Texas, its second on American soil.

The Association of South-East Asian Nations’ main annual summit is supposed to showcase unruffled harmony among the bloc's ten members. But this week’s three-day virtual meeting, hosted by Brunei, was notably different: the space on the screen intended for Myanmar’s representative was left blank. General Min Aung Hlaing, who in February ousted and imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi and her elected government, before turning the army’s guns on Myanmar’s citizens, was not invited. It was the most severe sanction against a member since ASEAN’s founding in 1967.

Non-interference has its limits. A limp response to the coup risks damaging ASEAN’s international relevance. Members are watching the great-power rivalry between America and China with concern. President Joe Biden confirmed he would drop in on the summit only after Myanmar had been excluded. His presence is a relief to South-East Asian leaders. Xi Jinping, China’s president, and Li Keqiang, its prime minister, are ASEAN perennials.

Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, is fighting on all fronts. The conservative opposition think he is a liar. He is also overseeing a dispute between his Socialist party and Podemos, his far-left coalition partner, over a liberalising labour-market reform of 2012. Podemos wants to scrap it; Mr Sánchez’s Socialists merely want to tinker. They have agreed that Podemos (which controls the labour ministry) will lead negotiations with employers and unions, but Socialist representatives will be at the table. Policy differences remain.

If that were not enough, Arnaldo Otegi, the leader of a radical Basque separatist party, implied that they would vote for the minority government’s budget only in exchange for releasing militants convicted during the long terrorist campaign for independence. (He later denied offering a quid pro quo.) And Catalan separatists, whom the government also needs for the budget, demanded minimum quotas for Catalan language on Netflix and other streaming platforms. With friends like these, Mr Sánchez hardly needs an opposition.

She called the mini-skirt “the most self-indulgent, optimistic, ‘look-at-me- isn’t-life-wonderful’ fashion ever devised.” Mary Quant, a British designer famed for a retail empire that became stratospherically popular in the 1960s, did not invent the mini but she was certainly its champion. Her clothes were a riot of colour— thigh-skimming dresses with Peter-Pan collars, candy-coloured tights, PVC raincoats and daisy logos—cleverly marketed and mass produced.

“Quant”, a documentary telling the story of her life and clothes, has its premiere in Britain on Friday. Directed by Sadie Frost, an English actress and fashion designer, it features Edward Enniful, British Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Kate Moss, a supermodel, and Vivienne Westwood, a fashion designer. Disappointingly, it is too reliant on gushing interviews to really do this complex designer justice. But it does celebrate the ways in which Ms Quant broke the mould. At a time when twinsets and pearls were the norm, she offered something exciting: clothes that women could move in freely.