China has published its first white paper on Taiwan in more than two decades, offering as a blueprint for unification the “one country, two systems” model that it used to recover Hong Kong a quarter of a century ago. The proposal should make chilling reading for those on the self-ruled democratic island. The Hong Kong formula has never held much ...

The Covid wave fueled by the Omicron BA.5 surge is finally starting to ebb in the UK and in some of the harder-hit parts of the US. But why? It’s no longer tenable to argue that disease waves peak and fall primarily because people start taking precautions. People, especially in these two countries, are taking fewer precautions all the time. ...

  Inflation is so last season. In many parts of retail, particularly clothing, there’s a sea of red price-reduction stickers washing across stores and websites as retailers mark down their unwanted stock. Shoppers should make the most of these sales — they may be as good as it gets for a while. Many US retailers, led by Walmart Inc and ...