Your Evening Briefing

Takata has filed for bankruptcy protection in the biggest corporate failure in postwar Japanese manufacturing, buckling under liabilities from millions of recalled air bags that have been linked to at least 17 deaths. The filings remove the last hurdle for the 84-year-old company to be sold to Key Safety Systems, the U.S. airbag maker owned by China’s Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp. Here's how the company's failures led to lethal products and the biggest auto recall in history.

China's rags-to-riches transformation isn't over quite yet. In 1992 more than a half of the country's population lived on less than $2 a day—on par with Haiti. Thanks to economic reforms put in place by Deng Xiaoping from the seventies that set off rapid industrialization and urbanization, the China miracle is set to continue with its per capita GDP seen rising to 64th out of 166 countries by 2022, up from being the 133rd-poorest 25 years ago.