Acid attacks are catching on in Britain. The numbers may still be small relative to other violent crimes, but they’re sharply on the rise. These assaults are especially shocking — and they’re attracting feverish attention, which could inspire copycats. The government needs to act. The UK now has one of the highest rates of recorded acid attacks in the world, …

Will it be R.I.P. for China’s VPNs? The Chinese government had ordered telecommunications providers to block access to individual virtual private networks by February 1. VPNs are popular and widely utilized services that allow internet users to bypass web restrictions. In effect, the new rules would block the most popular means for Chinese netizens to see beyond the so-called Great …

Things only seem to get worse for India’s farmers. They’d barely recovered from two years of drought when they were hit by the government’s decision last fall to declare 86% of India’s currency illegal. They struggled through that, and the consequent crash in prices, in hopes that this year’s monsoon would be healthy. And, although forecasters insisted enough rain would …