If Kenya goes ahead with its presidential vote this week, it will be making a historic mistake — one that threatens unrest and undermines a landmark court decision affirming the importance of transparent, free and fair elections. Thursday’s scheduled vote is a redo of one held on August 8, which Kenya’s Supreme Court annulled on September 1. In making its …

From 2008 to 2014, according to the US Department of Justice, background checks prevented 556,496 gun purchases. In the last six months, about that many people have been removed from the national database and are newly eligible to buy a gun. The FBI’s national instant criminal background check system, which screens such transactions, is not quite perfect: It has an …

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, has guided his country’s monetary policy for most of the 21st century. He was appointed in 2002, shortly after China joined the World Trade Organization, and helped steer its economy through the global financial crisis. In the process, he gained widespread respect at home and a reputation for prudent liberalism abroad. …