Modern love: dating in the digital age
The world this week
Leaders
Crisis in Ankara
How much to worry about Turkey’s turmoil
An increasingly autocratic country is at the centre of an economic storm
The prickly prince
Muhammad bin Salman’s capriciousness is hurting Saudi Arabia
The kingdom’s spat with Canada is merely the latest example
Pilot error
China is conducting fewer local policy experiments under Xi Jinping
Officials are increasingly scared to try new things
Letters
Letters
Letters to the editor
Europe
Big lake, small sea
Is the Caspian a lake or a sea?
Ferry risky
Brexit could mean chaos for Irish trade, too
The Guggenheim effect
Can other cities imitate Bilbao’s cultural-tourism success?
Briefing
Meet markets
How the internet has changed dating
Better algorithms, business models and data could have even more people finding partners
Britain
Scottish public policy
Nicola Sturgeon’s government was meant to be a reforming force
Rough sleeping
No end in sight for the homeless
Visa delays
Stamp duty in Edinburgh
Middle East & Africa
Too big to jail
Efforts to tackle official abuses in Kenya are failing
Tough to unseat
A year after big protests, Faure Gnassingbé hangs on in Togo
The mighty v migrants
Europe is coddling Arab strongmen to keep out refugees
Competition over Kabul
Eager to please America, the Gulf states want a role in Afghanistan
Art turns ugly
The Egyptian authorities crack down on culture
United States
Of pythons and ostriches
The number of money scandals in Trumpland is overwhelming
A kingdom for a couch
West Virginia’s statehouse impeaches the state’s entire Supreme Court
Cornhusker dues
The death penalty is becoming more popular again in America
Omarosa speaks
Another insider account of Trumpland
The Americas
The first frontier
Donald Trump makes migration Mexico’s problem
Disrupting the air bridge
Peru and Bolivia are unlikely allies in the war on drugs
Asia
Mahathir’s second act
Malaysia’s new leaders have found their first 100 days tough
Regaining Ghazni
Afghanistan’s government retakes a strategic town
A peal for friendship
In the Philippines, church bells may heal old war wounds
Politicians’ pets
The shortcomings of India’s police are not entirely their fault
China
Feeling the stones
Local experiments with reform are becoming rarer under Xi Jinping
Taming the tiger mothers
China sounds the alarm over its stressed-out schoolchildren
And hell is just a sauna
China suggests its camps for Uighurs are just vocational schools
International
There’s a treaty for that
A UN treaty to regulate the global arms trade has little impact
Business
Quantum spring
The race is on to dominate quantum computing
Bayer beware
A shock court verdict against Monsanto’s Roundup
Border-line ridiculous
Passport queues vex airlines
Out of the woods
Tiger Woods is a boon to golf, sponsors and broadcasters
Finance & economics
Fear of the lira
Turkey’s crisis is not fundamentally contagious
Buttonwood
The contrarian case for emerging markets
Appealing returns
Litigation finance offers investors attractive yields
Icing on the cake
Life-insurance policies with perks make it to America
Seeking the devil in details
New software helps uncover Mafia crime masked as ordinary business
Slipping through the net
African governments let too many taxpayers off the hook
Free exchange
How to design carbon taxes
Schools brief
Freedom v economics
Was John Maynard Keynes a liberal?
Science & technology
Construction technology
Crumbling infrastructure is a worldwide problem
Paleobotany
A plant’s ancient relationship with a beetle
Culture
The art of survival
Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to bring Turkey’s artists to heel
Tale of the century
How one family endured the horrors of Russian history
There were dragons
The story of a ship that changed the world
Obituary
No settled place