A major corruption investigation is underway in New Orleans. One by one, businessmen and city officials are being brought to trial under corruption allegations, many of them dating back to former Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration. The Wall Street Journal‘s sources suggest that a broader corruption investigation aimed at Nagin himself may be underway: Rodney Williams, […]

Cuba and the United States are in yet another spat, this time over the mistreatment of Alan Gross, an American citizen who has been held in Cuban prison since 2009. The State Department alleges that Gross has been receiving poor medical care and has lost more than 100 pounds in prison—charges denied by the Cuban government. The […]

Eleven states, including California, have more residents who draw money from the government—as employees, pensioners, or welfare recipients—than people employed in the private sector. This means that roughly one-third of Americans live in states where more people receive tax dollars than pay taxes on non-government income.Over at Forbes, William Baldwin counsels potential home buyers to […]

The crimes Bradley Manning is accused of are extremely serious and destructive, and if he is guilty as charged they should throw the book at him.Manning now seeks to have his case dismissed because of unduly harsh conditions during his confinement, including, as the LA Times reports, being “stripped of his clothing, forced to sleep […]

In August, Via Meadia called attention to a prominent conservative donor and high-level backer of the Romney campaign who is also a proponent of same-sex marriage. Now there’s another one, and you may have heard his name mentioned during the campaign. The WSJ is out with an interview with the biggest, and perhaps most well-known, […]

There’s an old piece in the NY Times that tells of a dinner in February 2011 in which California’s finest gathered for the opportunity to ask President Obama one question each. When it came to Steve Jobs’s turn, Obama was instead the one to ask him a question. He asked about Apple’s choice to manufacture […]

One of the reasons blue programs jump the shark is that over time more and more special interests lobby politicians to get special features added. The small add-ons and tweaks make programs more expensive and complicated to administer—and much, much harder to reform. This process begins when the laws are written; the lobbyists are there […]

Most of the attention about Syria has been on the civil war and its appalling human toll. Rightly so. But the Syrian economy may ultimately be what brings Assad down, as the economic strains mount. As the FT reports, “The value of the Syrian pound has dropped by more than 15 per cent on the black […]

The U.S. isn’t the only developed economy anxious about its infrastructure. A deadly tunnel collapse last week on a busy highway near Tokyo has led to doubts about the quality and safety of Japan’s much vaunted, enormously expensive infrastructure. The Associated Press: Experts told the panel that about 40 percent of the 8,716 kilometers of expressways […]

Greece is entering the latest stage of its long decline, as businesses flee the country and move their headquarters away from the collapsing country. Those businesses that choose to remain not only face rising taxes and increased regulations; they are also risking credit downgrades for the simple fact that they are located in Greece. Coca-Cola’s […]