...main characters start out as adolescent friends growing up around a Beijing courtyard in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. After the oldest is poisoned, perhaps by one of the others, the survivors drift apart...

North and South Korea have agreed to hold working-level talks this weekend following months of soaring tensions. The talks, to be held in the village of Panmunjom where the two sides concluded an armistice in 1953, would be the first such dialogue between the countries in more than two years...China, the North's sole major ally and economic benefactor, has been under pressure from the US to restrain its neighbour, and both Washington and Beijing welcomed the tentative talks agreement.

“It’s really bad for your health, obviously...I bike to work every day and always wear a mask. The pollution in recent years is probably due to the increase in private cars and government cars.” Visibility was less than 100 meters (100 yards) in some areas of eastern China...More than 100 flights were canceled in...Zhengzhou, 33 in Beijing, 20 in Qingdao, and 13 in Jinan.

Elsewhere, that is a barely comprehensible local story—all other rich countries provide some version of universal coverage and spend less money and achieve better outcomes than the United States.

But from Berlin to Beijing, the debate about manufacturing and whether governments have a duty to support it is a live issue. That is one more reason this U.S. election campaign matters so much to the rest of the world.