China has all but met President Xi Jinping’s pledge to eradicate extreme poverty by 2020. More than 800 counties considered severely impoverished just under a decade ago have now cleared a government-defined line of 4,000 yuan, or roughly $600, in annual per-capita income. The last nine, in the province of Guizhou in China’s southwest, were removed from the list this ...

Ivan Glasenberg, the pugnacious boss of commodities giant Glencore Plc, says he will retire next year. His influence will linger beyond that. After years of brushing off succession questions with the reassurance that he wouldn’t outstay his welcome, Glasenberg slipped the word into a mundane investor presentation. He’ll be replaced by a lieutenant, Gary Nagle, who takes the helm as ...

For the past four years, debate about immigration policies has grown both more heated and more beside the point. President Donald Trump was committed to immiserating as many immigrants as possible, and any cost/benefit analysis was irrelevant. It is easy enough to imagine a less sadistic system. But reimagining enforcement altogether — its ends and means — is a more ...