Opinion

  Just like old times. That’s what it must seem like with the S&P 500 Index up about 15% since mid-June and poised for its fourth consecutive weekly gain, its longest winning streak of the year. Those who question the durability of this rally, given the slowdown in the economy and a Federal Reserve that has doubled down on its ...

China has published its first white paper on Taiwan in more than two decades, offering as a blueprint for unification the “one country, two systems” model that it used to recover Hong Kong a quarter of a century ago. The proposal should make chilling reading for those on the self-ruled democratic island. The Hong Kong formula has never held much ...

The Covid wave fueled by the Omicron BA.5 surge is finally starting to ebb in the UK and in some of the harder-hit parts of the US. But why? It’s no longer tenable to argue that disease waves peak and fall primarily because people start taking precautions. People, especially in these two countries, are taking fewer precautions all the time. ...

  Inflation is so last season. In many parts of retail, particularly clothing, there’s a sea of red price-reduction stickers washing across stores and websites as retailers mark down their unwanted stock. Shoppers should make the most of these sales — they may be as good as it gets for a while. Many US retailers, led by Walmart Inc and ...

  A central dilemma of US foreign policy today is this: The country that most threatens the American-led global order is also the country whose cooperation is essential to preserving a livable world. That quandary flared anew, when China responded to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan by terminating bilateral discussions on climate change and other issues. In doing ...

If the FBI search at Donald Trump’s Florida home leads to the prosecution of the former president, as supporters fear and detractors hope, then citizens of democracies everywhere might ask Americans, “What kept you?” The US has been a laggard in an important measure of freedom: holding former leaders accountable to the law. From Brazil, France and South Africa to ...

The Bank of England (BOE) delivered an unusually apocalyptic economic outlook at last week’s quarterly economic review, overshadowing the biggest interest-rate hike in more than a quarter of a century. Yet UK markets have barely moved, and their skepticism is entirely understandable and completely justified. Like a bad pianist playing the right notes but not in the correct order, the ...

  When it comes to a comfortable retirement, women in the US have the cards stacked against them. New efforts to start changing this are laudable, and yet they’re still missing the mark because they’re being shaped by decades of misperceptions. The inequities a woman faces throughout her working life — from earning less to shouldering the lion’s share of ...

  Italian politics bears a striking resemblance to South American telenovelas: filled with episodes of unrequited love, bizarre couplings and multiple breakups. Narrative lines reach a fever pitch of crisis before an unexpected turn of events makes everything right — the deus-ex-machina moment. That’s the climax in ancient dramas when a god is swung on stage by a machine to ...

The reduction in Hong Kong’s mandatory hotel quarantine period to three days from seven will come as a welcome relief to many in a pandemic-weary population. Whether it will do much to revive the financial centre’s international competitiveness is far more doubtful. In a world where most of its rivals abandoned Covid curbs months ago, the city still looks like ...