European immigrants landed in the Big Apple before settling in the heartland, and later Irish, Italians, Chinese and Puerto Ricans founded businesses and communities that have shaped the city into what it is today. Yet in recent years, New York has become less welcoming to its more entrepreneurial immigrants. Today’s New York Times discusses the […]

Via Meadia has long considered fears that America would be overrun by waves of immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America to be overblown. As with previous waves, immigration from Mexico will peak and then begin to fall.Now a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center finds that over the past five years, immigration from […]

The decline of manufacturing jobs due to automation and the growth of outsourcing may paint a dire picture of the future American workforce, but as we’ve noted before, innovation offers the potential for substantial upside as well. The Economist points to some of that promise: Ask a factory today to make you a single hammer […]

To many on the American Left, Sweden sets a gold standard for public policy. That its strong economic performance is coupled with liberal social programs, government-run healthcare and a “welfare-driven economic model” is often touted as evidence that blue policies can still be successful in the modern era.Yet news from the country’s third-largest city, Malmö, […]

Europe’s financial woes are well documented, but the malaise of the grand European political project has received far less attention. Decades of painstaking diplomacy aimed at uniting the continent into a single political entity have stalled and may even be reversing. At least that’s the view from Beijing.With Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao due to meet […]

Earlier this month Iran met with representatives from six major powers in Istanbul to discuss its nuclear program. The meeting in itself represented progress, as it was the first time Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jaleeli, had met with the group in more than a year. And although little was advanced in the form of concrete resolutions, […]

Kofi Annan’s mediation in Syria has largely failed. The Assad regime continues to flout a tenuous ceasefire, drawing more intense international condemnation. The New York Times is reporting that the rhetoric is heating up: International pressure for a harsher line on Syria escalated Thursday, with the president of France calling the Syrian leader a liar, the American secretary of state moving a […]

Another Democratic governor is distancing himself from the blue model: Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced a plan to shore up the state’s pension system by reducing benefits and increasing contributions and working time by state employees. Quinn’s plan would raise the age at which pensions can be collected by two years to 67, while reducing […]

Mohammad Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives, was forced to resign his post at gunpoint in February. Nasheed says that remnants of his predecessor’s thirty-year dictatorial reign are running the government now in collusion with Islamic radicals. The United States and India have begun to work with the new government, saying “dialogue” is the […]

With falling revenues and declining tax bases ripping holes in state budgets from California to Rhode Island, it’s been a bad few years for state governments. But a new report from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government has some heartening news—state tax revenues have risen to $184 billion, higher than the pre-recession levels of […]