Just when the European Union seemed to have recovered some of its free-trade zeal, it now faces the prospect of a mutually destructive trade war with its biggest economic partner, the US. Escalation has risks for both sides. The US from counter-tariff measures and the EU from a fragmented response as some member states are tempted to accept US offers ...

The public is set to hear from Mark Zuckerberg soon to address the latest company crisis. Given how Facebook has mishandled its response so far, the company’s boss could use some advice. Here’s what no one needs from Zuckerberg: A pledge to “do better” or an attempt to recast Facebook as the victim of the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. ...

Climate change is profoundly unfair: By failing to address it, today’s leaders are imposing what could prove to be an unbearable burden on future generations. But how can they be made to recognize the danger and act? Using the US legal system, a group of children has found a novel way to do so. The 2015 Paris Agreement on reducing ...

Nectome promises to preserve the brains of terminally ill people in order to turn them into computer simulations — at some point in the future when such a thing is possible. It’s a startup that’s easy to mock. Just beyond the mockery, however, lies an important reminder to remain skeptical of modern artificial intelligence technology. The idea behind Nectome is ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank is making sure its bond-buying program doesn’t run into any problems in Germany in the final stretch. Six months before purchases are currently set to expire, the ECB added seven German regional development agencies to the list of institutions whose debt is eligible for quantitative easing. The expansion was done at the request of the ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp.’s corporate and investment banking division agreed to pay $42 million to settle a New York state probe into a so-called masking scheme in which it misled clients about who was seeing and filling their orders and who was trading in its dark pool. Bank of America Merrill Lynch for years, starting in 2008, had trading ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. considers itself a leader among banks fighting climate change. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon lauded the 2015 global Paris accord, and the bank has committed to buying and financing clean energy, as well as reducing its coal-industry work. Yet the bank is the top US lender and financier to oil-sands producers and pipeline companies, according ...

Bloomberg Japan’s key inflation gauge ticked up in February, putting the Bank of Japan halfway to its goal of 2 percent. Yet a strengthening yen and the threat of a global trade war underscore the central bank’s vulnerability to global markets and events. Despite the progress made, inflation remains far from the BOJ’s target, while the yen’s 7 percent gain ...

Bloomberg Kenya’s biggest bank by market value is not giving up an inch as lenders go head-to-head with the government over what they can charge customers. The introduction of interest-rate caps in late 2016 has caused lending to grind to a near halt, spurring the International Monetary Fund to warn that growth in East Africa’s largest economy could suffer if ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England is piloting anonymous job applications to promote diversity. The more than three-century old central bank only appointed its first female senior official in 1988, according to a speech by Chief Operating Officer Joanna Place at an event in London. It’s one of a handful of new measures to boost the proportion of women at that ...