Big Take

China’s men’s soccer team has qualified for the World Cup just once, despite millions in investment and a personal push from President Xi Jinping to turn the nation into a footballing powerhouse. On t...

14 Jul 19min

The last few days have brought a flurry of developments in the Iran war. As armed hostilities between the US and Iran resumed over the weekend, news broke that US Senator Lindsey Graham had died. Grah...

13 Jul 14min

The great famine of the 1870s killed 50 million people – and El Niño was a key driver. Another El Niño phase has just begun and it’s expected to be among the strongest. There are five times as many pe...

12 Jul 33min

Some of the world’s top tennis players will face off at the Wimbledon finals this weekend. The players who make it to Centre Court have already achieved a bigger feat: a career as a tennis player. On ...

10 Jul 15min

Maine Democrat Graham Platner’s withdrawal from his US Senate race is ratcheting up an already intense run-up to the US midterm elections. And yet, across the political spectrum, lawmakers in Washingt...

9 Jul 18min

For two decades, American universities have doubled down on master’s programs, relying on graduate degrees as their financial backbones. Now, the Trump administration’s policies are posing existential...

8 Jul 18min

China rattled neighbors from Japan to Australia on Monday by test-launching a long-range ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine in the Pacific Ocean. While such launches are rare, the latest test ...

7 Jul 18min

Two opaque corners of finance have joined forces: shadow banking and phantom debt. Put another way, private credit firms are backing Buy-Now-Pay-Later companies to finance their expansion into the US ...

6 Jul 20min