A blooming future for New York’s community gardens

TUCKED AWAY in an unassuming corner of north Brooklyn is a 3,000-square-foot patch of open space. Keap Fourth, at the intersection of Keap and South 4th Streets, is a community garden established in 2013. It’s a well-known hub in this largely Dominican and Puerto Rican neighbourhood, perched at the edge of trendy Williamsburg. The sun is out, and “it’s...

1d

A challenge to male-only draft registration lands at America’s Supreme Court

“BE THE MAN”, says an advert for the Selective Service System. The entreaty is not merely a suggestion. For decades, registering for the Selective Service—the federal agency that keeps a roster of America’s 18- to-25-year-old men, in case a military draft returns—has been a legal duty males must fulfil within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Whether...

1d

America’s boom has begun. Can it last? 

THE LATEST monthly employment report, published on April 2nd, painted an impressive picture: over the previous month America created more than 900,000 jobs. That figure, the strongest since August, reflects the state of the economy in the first half of March, when the surveys took place. But a look at “high-frequency” economic data for more recent weeks,...

1d

America tries to figure out a fairer way to select students

THE PANDEMIC has played havoc with college admissions. With many testing sites closed, over 1,400 colleges and universities (about a third of American degree-granting institutions) no longer required admissions exams for first-year students applying for autumn 2021. Many made the submission of test scores optional; 69 did not consider test scores at...

1d

The bumps ahead for Joe Biden’s plan to decarbonise America

IN 2020 LOCKDOWNS caused the largest single-year drop in America’s greenhouse-gas emissions on record: some 10%. Even then, for every American 16 metric tons of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere. By 2050 President Joe Biden would like that number to be net zero. Getting there within three decades seems daunting. Every sector, not just...

1d

Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

IN 1871 WILLIAM JACKSON PALMER, a civil-war general and railway magnate, looked up at Pikes Peak in central Colorado and decided “he wanted to build a city that matched the magnificent scenery”. Or so says John Suthers, the mayor of Colorado Springs, the town Palmer would eventually found at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Now, 150 years later, Mr...

1d

Corporate America weighs in on Georgia’s voting-rights law

THOUGH THE divide has never been tidy, for the past century Republicans have been seen as the party of big business in America and Democrats as the party of labour. Under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama the Democrats found friends in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, but they never overcame the Republican formula of cutting taxes, opposing regulation...

1d

America Inc is on the hook for Joe Biden’s splurge on infrastructure

UNLIKE HIS $1.9trn covid-19 relief bill, which was almost entirely deficit-financed, President Joe Biden would like his recently unveiled $2trn infrastructure plan to be paid for with taxes. Individual taxes have been left for later. Unluckily for American companies, the White House has set its sights on them to pony up. This is hardly unexpected....

2d

Reforming Maryland’s cruel treatment of young offenders

WARREN HYNSON’S teenage troublemaking, which began when he dropped out of school at 16, did not last long. Within months he was involved in a burglary in which the householder was shot dead. Mr Hynson was not holding the gun; he himself was shot and badly injured. But when he woke up in hospital he was charged with homicide. That is because Maryland...

2w

Cooking up a new business model during the pandemic

A YEAR AGO Aaron Gordon supposed it was all over for his restaurant in a prosperous enclave of Washington, DC. The city had ordered restaurants to close for eat-in dining. But a surge in orders for takeout and delivery soon pushed his takings back up. Sensing an opportunity, he searched for a site to launch a takeout- and delivery-only business. Ghostline...

2w