From Billionaire to Prison

Hui Ka Yan once stood at the summit of China’s extraordinary economic transformation. He built China Evergrande from a property company founded in the 1990s into a sprawling corporate empire, became one of the richest people in Asia and accumulated a fortune once estimated at more than $40 billion.

On 20 August 2026, the story ended somewhere very different.

A court in Shenzhen sentenced the 67-year-old Evergrande founder to life imprisonment, deprived him of political rights for life and ordered the confiscation of all his personal property after one of the most consequential corporate criminal cases China has seen in years.

Deadly Night Over Kyiv: Russia Launches One Of Its Largest Recent Air Assaults

Russia has launched another enormous combined missile and drone assault against Ukraine, killing at least 16 people in Kyiv and the surrounding region and injuring more than 40.

The attack was not simply another night of bombardment: it exposed one of the most dangerous weaknesses now facing Ukraine as Russian strike capacity grows while supplies of the interceptors needed to stop ballistic missiles remain under severe pressure.

The assault continued for hours and involved ballistic weapons, cruise missiles and 168 attack and decoy drones. Residential buildings were damaged alongside a school, medical facilities and other civilian infrastructure, while emergency workers searched damaged areas as the casualty count continued to be assessed.

The World Runs On US Debt — What Happens If Investors Stop Trusting It?

America has crossed a financial threshold that would once have been almost unimaginable. Gross US federal debt has passed $40 trillion, while renewed pressure in the Treasury market has forced Washington to take unusual action to support trading in some of its longest-dated government bonds.

The intervention does not mean the United States is bankrupt, nor does it mean a sovereign debt crisis is imminent.

But it exposes an increasingly important contradiction at the centre of the global financial system: the asset treated around the world as the benchmark for safety is being issued in ever greater quantities by a government that continues to spend substantially more than it collects.

What Happened To Nike? Inside The Politics, Backlash And $41 Stock

Nike was once one of the clearest brands on the planet. Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods. Cristiano Ronaldo. Serena Williams. Air Max. Just Do It.

The company sold sporting greatness, rebellion and aspiration with almost unmatched effectiveness.

Then something changed. Over the past decade, Nike increasingly attached that rebellious identity to racial politics, social justice, diversity programmes and LGBT inclusion.

Supporters saw a global company standing for its values. Critics saw one of the world's greatest sports brands becoming another corporation consumed by progressive politics.

Now the argument carries a new dimension.

Nike shares are trading at roughly $41, close to their 52-week lows and dramatically below the company's pandemic-era peak.

The adjusted closing record was $163.63 on 5 November 2021, meaning the stock has lost roughly three-quarters of its value from that level.

That does not prove that Nike's political positioning caused its financial decline. It did not. Nike's current problems include weakening demand in Greater China, struggling digital sales, product problems, competition and a difficult attempt to rebuild its wholesale relationships.

But the combination has created an uncomfortable question for one of corporate America's most recognisable brands: while Nike was trying to influence the culture, did it lose focus on selling the products that created its cultural power in the first place?

China Puts Thousands of Robots on Display as the Humanoid Race Accelerates

China has transformed Beijing into a vast demonstration ground for the next stage of the robotics revolution.

More than 300 exhibitors and thousands of robotic products are filling the 2026 World Robot Conference, with humanoids walking, boxing, dancing, serving customers and attempting the mundane physical tasks that engineers hope will eventually make them useful workers rather than expensive technological spectacles.

But the most important part of the exhibition is not what the robots can do for an audience.

It is what China is trying to build around them. Beijing increasingly sees humanoid robotics and "embodied intelligence" — artificial intelligence able to perceive and act in the physical world — as a strategic industry capable of changing manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and eventually everyday life.

The GCSE Failure Cycle: Why Britain's English Resit System Is Facing A Reckoning

Four in ten GCSE English Language entries in England failed to reach the crucial grade 4 threshold this summer.

The overall grade 4-or-above rate was just 59.5%, meaning 40.5% of entries ended below what is widely treated as the standard pass.

But that number needs context. Among 16-year-olds taking English Language, 71.4% reached grade 4 or higher. The much darker part of the story emerges after pupils leave Year 11, because older students returning to the examination system are overwhelmingly failing to cross the same line again.

A Cancer Vaccine Built For One Patient At A Time Just Passed Phase 3

Moderna has delivered what could become one of the most important validations of mRNA technology since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Its experimental personalised cancer therapy, developed with Merck, has succeeded in a large Phase 3 trial involving patients at high risk of melanoma returning after surgery — pushing Moderna shares dramatically higher and moving a once-futuristic idea much closer to routine cancer medicine.

The treatment, intismeran autogene, is not a conventional vaccine designed to stop healthy people developing cancer.

It is individually manufactured from the genetic characteristics of an existing patient's tumour, effectively giving the immune system a customised description of what that person's cancer looks like and helping it hunt down malignant cells that may remain after surgery.

The Messages, The Memorial And The Battle Over What His Death Means

Jason Arday died at 41 only days after resigning from one of the most prestigious academic jobs in Britain.

In the space of barely two weeks, a dispute about plagiarism, academic credentials and the extraordinary claims attached to his life story transformed into something much larger: an argument about racism, media power, academic standards, vulnerability and whether public scrutiny can become punishment.

His death has not ended the controversy.

It has intensified it.

Friends have described a man who appeared overwhelmed during his final days, tens of thousands have gathered in London in his memory, calls for an inquiry are growing and a memoir that was already attracting intense attention is approaching its UK publication date.

Yet the central facts require care: police have said Arday’s death was unexpected but is not believed to be suspicious, and a file is being prepared for the coroner.

Wang Yi’s South Korea Visit Is About Far More Than Diplomacy

China’s most powerful diplomat is returning to South Korea for his first official visit in five years at a moment when almost every major relationship around the Korean Peninsula is shifting.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi is due in Seoul on August 19 and 20 for meetings with President Lee Jae Myung, Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac, with China-South Korea relations, North Korea and wider regional security expected to dominate the agenda.

The timing makes the trip far more important than a ceremonial diplomatic exchange. South Korea is trying to preserve its security alliance with the United States while repairing relations with China, reopening possibilities for diplomacy with North Korea and avoiding being trapped inside an increasingly rigid confrontation between Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, Pyongyang and Moscow.

Wang’s arrival therefore offers Beijing something it has wanted for years: another opportunity to influence where Seoul places itself in Asia’s emerging balance of power.

The Ship That Did Not Make It Out Unscathed

A commercial vessel has been struck by an unknown projectile while sailing out of the Strait of Hormuz, damaging its engine room and resulting in what maritime authorities described as a crew casualty.

The remaining crew were being assisted by the Omani Coast Guard as investigators tried to establish exactly what hit the ship and who was responsible.

The attack matters far beyond one vessel. It has landed at the heart of the most dangerous shipping corridor in the global energy system, where repeated strikes, dramatically reduced traffic and months of regional conflict have already transformed an ordinary commercial transit into a potentially life-threatening operation.