Nigeria’s population is growing rapidly. It now stands at 182 million, and is projected to exceed 300 million by midcentury, surpassing the US to become the world’s third-largest country. And thanks to a high fertility rate — more than five children per women, higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa and more than double the global rate — that growth ...

Internet giant Amazon recently ran into a problem that eloquently illustrates the pitfalls of big data: It tried to automate hiring with a machine learning algorithm, but upon testing it realised that it merely perpetuated the tech industry’s bias against women. What’s most troubling isn’t the discovery itself. It’s that most companies using similar algorithms don’t even want to know. ...

Calm down, the world’s biggest car market isn’t going to drive off a cliff. Sales to dealerships in China fell for a third month in September, dropping almost 12 percent from a year earlier, data showed. Retail sales declined 13 percent. Total vehicle sales could now be on track for their first annual drop in more than two decades. Scary ...