The tension between the media and technology industries has long been characterised as a fight for users’ attention. The more of it they have, the greater the opportunity to sell new products and services. The advertising technology giants Facebook Inc and Google have turned that into a $200 billion-a-year business. Now that millions of people are stuck at home trying ...

The need for any kind of treatment to help stem the coronavirus outbreak is acute as cases and hospitalisations continue to mount. But there’s a strong need to balance urgency and evidence. President Donald Trump’s cheerleading of chloroquine and its derivative hydroxychloroquine — older malaria drugs with limited evidence of efficacy in Covid-19 — is arguably dangerous. As he touts ...

Since 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced at a prime-time television address that he was withdrawing most of India’s currency overnight, such speeches have been preceded by wild speculation. Modi’s message was even starker than most expected. From midnight [March 24], this country of 1.3 billion will shut down: “For 21 days, forget what going out means.” Modi is ...