Bloomberg Consumers across the globe donning gloves to do the dishes may soon feel the heat from rubber being burned on China’s roads. Surging car sales in China in the last few months have more than doubled the price of a little-known chemical called butadiene. The colorless gas, used for making synthetic rubber, has soared in tandem with rising ...

  Bloomberg China home prices increased last month in the fewest cities since January last year, signaling property curbs to deflate a potential housing bubble are taking effect. New-home prices, excluding government-subsidized housing, gained last month in 46 of the 70 cities tracked by the government, compared with 55 in November, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Prices dropped in ...

  President Trump’s slash-and-burn actions in his first week have been dramatic, but dangerously lacking in a consensus of support, even within his own administration. The risks were evident in the collapse of a planned meeting with Mexico’s president and in Trump’s embrace of torture tactics rejected by his secretary of defense and CIA director. Trump’s ‘tweet from the hip’ ...