• Since the crises of the 1990s, leading emerging markets have done much to combat ‘original sin’ — the inability to borrow abroad in their local currency — but threats to stability still linger.
• Despite relatively strict gun laws, lax rules in neighbouring states and escalating gang violence have contributed to rising gun deaths in Chicago.
• The New York Times has profiled Gérard de Villiers, an 83-year-old French writer who has spent most of his life cultivating spies and diplomats for his novels, some of which have turned out to be quite prescient.
• Law school applications are headed for a 30-year low, prompting much soul-searching about the future of legal education and the profession.
• Adam Segal wonders if anything can be done about cyber-attacks originating in China — “What will also be dispiritingly familiar in the aftermath of the attacks is the discussion about what can be done.”
• Richard Dowden writes about the upcoming Kenyan election and how it “could take the country elegantly into a dynamic new era” — but will it?

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