Clean coal, always dubious as a concept and never proved as a reality, has now failed as business proposition. Southern Co. has decided to stop work on a process that would have captured carbon dioxide emissions from a coal plant in Mississippi. Giving up on the project, which was nearly $5 billion over budget and three years behind schedule, makes …

The first task for the Brexit negotiators is to agree on the rights of European Union citizens in Britain, and of UK citizens in the EU. In a rational world, this would be straightforward. In the real world, it will be a problem if one side or the other chooses to make it one. Roughly 3.2 million EU citizens live …

For all their national pride and natural boosterism, Chinese officials don’t seem to think much of their own companies. Regulators have sought to limit everything from high-speed trading to short-selling, arguing Chinese firms can’t yet handle the vagaries of modern financial markets. They’re particularly leery of greater transparency, for fear of what might be exposed. Only last week, the China …