Jerome Powell’s debut rate-setting meeting as Federal Reserve chairman had few surprises. The quarter-percentage-point increase in the target for overnight US interest rates was expected. An added relief was policymakers’ decision to leave their median forecast for end-2018 rates unchanged. Yet the all-important dot-plot—committee members’ individual expectations—are telling Asia something more worrying. A possible fourth rate hike in 2018 hasn’t ...

History will probably remember Elaine Herzberg for a tragic reason: She’s thought to be the first pedestrian ever killed by an autonomous vehicle. Herzberg was struck by a self-driving Uber last week in Arizona, apparently stepping off a median and into traffic too quickly for the car’s sensors to detect her. Even Uber’s safety driver—the human backup sitting behind the ...

Just when the European Union seemed to have recovered some of its free-trade zeal, it now faces the prospect of a mutually destructive trade war with its biggest economic partner, the US. Escalation has risks for both sides. The US from counter-tariff measures and the EU from a fragmented response as some member states are tempted to accept US offers ...