When he talks about “rigged” elections and calls for voter-identification laws to prevent fraud, Donald Trump is squarely within the Republican mainstream. The party has made passing those laws one of its highest priorities in state after state. Yet as the evidence continues to show, the type of fraud that voter ID laws could prevent is basically non-existent. Now …

  Investors are courting Africa like never before. The resource-rich continent, which has massive business potential, is turning into the new investment hub for many countries — with Japan and China taking the lead. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to unveil aid and development projects at a conference in Kenya this weekend. He will meet business leaders to …

  Ronald Reagan famously summed up the logic of government thusly: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Uber and Lyft move, so naturally, the state of Massachusetts wants to tax them. And since taxis aren’t moving nearly as much as they used to, the state wants to hand …

  Donald Trump made a seemingly momentous announcement on Monday, jettisoning a presidential campaign’s worth of assertions that he would deport millions of undocumented immigrants and close what he has repeatedly called an “open” border. Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly, who interviewed Trump, was obviously stunned. After telling Trump that the news media is “running wild with this,” he asked …

I miss 2011. Looking back, that was the heyday of economic blogging. The financial crisis had abated, but the recovery from the recession was disappointing, and everyone was talking about how to jump-start growth. Macroeconomics was important again. Now, with the U.S. economy having returned to some semblance of normal, and with political threats looming, the finer points of macroeconomic …

  Bloomberg Google is investing hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece in virtual-reality films and programs, part of a plan to line up exclusive content for the debut of its new Daydream service in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Google will help promote projects from Hulu LLC and fund the production of 360-degree videos with …

  Beijing / AFP China has unveiled illustrations of a Mars probe and rover it aims to send to the Red Planet at the end of the decade in a mission that faces “unprecedented” challenges, state media said on Wednesday. China, which is pouring billions into its space programme and working to catch up with the US and Europe, announced …

  Bloomberg Project Loon, Google’s high-profile effort to put broadband-emitting balloons into the stratosphere over remote parts of the world, is getting a new leader with practical industry experience. X, the research division of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., said it hired Tom Moore, co-founder of satellite-based broadband service provider WildBlue Communications Inc. He starts as a vice president at …

ABU DHABI / WAM The UAE became the 33rd developing country member of the WTO to join the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) after the Federal Cabinet’s approval of the signing of the Protocol of Accession to the Agreement Establishing the ACWL. Commenting on the country’s ACWL membership, Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, termed the move as …

  ABU DHABI / WAM The Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) on Tuesday presented the UAE’s third national report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as part of the nation’s participation in the Seventh Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties (CPs) to the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) set to take place from March 27 to April 7, …