Is there merit in President Donald Trump’s call for a merit-based immigration system for the United States?Take two cases.Rosa Gonzalez, a housekeeper from Honduras and a US citizen, seeks to sponsor her aunt Mercedes Silva to immigrate to the US. A resident of Yuscatan (population 2,400), Ms. Silva is 80 years old, blind and severely diabetic. She is cared for by a younger sister and niece.Sergei Schevchenko is a 33-year scientist from Ukraine with double doctorates from American universities i

This could become President Donald Trump’s Sen. Jim Inhofe moment, in which a dramatic flourish to make a political point instead just displays an astounding mix of arrogance and ignorance.So what did Trump do this time (how’s that for an evergreen question)?It’s cold in most of the country. Of course, it’s also winter, and they go hand in hand in most of the US. As does snowfall. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, famously carried a snowball made of fresh-fallen snow on Capitol Hill to the Senate

As US President Donald Trump decamped to his mansion-cum-private club in Palm Beach, Florida, for the holidays, he left Washington, DC, on edge. It’s obvious that Trump and his strong allies in Congress are determined to torpedo what’s supposed to be an independent legal inquiry into whether Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia in its efforts to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.The Trump camp’s behavior toward Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI makes Richard Nixon and his aides’ beh

The trade war didn’t happen. Prepare for a few skirmishes.It was high on many observers’ lists of things that could go badly wrong in 2017. Buying and selling of goods and services across borders not only increased last year, but also grew more than anticipated. This year may test whether that’s a durable trend or just an accident that flew in the face of politics. Part of the thanks goes to a more vigorous global economic expansion. The resilience of the international system should also get its

Monopoly power is a hot topic of economic debate. Economists are starting to ask whether increasing industrial concentration is choking off productivity growth, reducing capital investment, throttling or deterring would-be entrepreneurs, raising consumer prices, and reducing the share of national income flowing to workers.This is a good and important effort. But it’s also possible that with all the attention being paid to concentration at the industry level, there hasn’t been enough focus on the

An old joke among foreign correspondents in Latin America says that Americans will do almost everything for Latin America -- except read or watch news about it. But that may not hold true in 2018: It’s going to be a year in which the region will make big headlines worldwide.Here are six major reasons why:First, in 2018 there will be presidential elections in Mexico and Brazil, the two biggest countries in the region, as well as in Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay and Costa Rica. That means that nea

Americans have never been more addicted to devices. Thanks to the mobile revolution initiated by the iPhone, the US alone is home to 238 million mobile phones and 140 million tablets that are rarely shut down. And their numbers are growing, thanks to a perpetual upgrade cycle and demand for new features. For environmentalists, it’s a looming electronic nightmare in which America’s gadget obsession consumes increasingly higher volumes of the world’s limited resources.Thankfully, the data shows th

So, you’re a woman rocking along in a job you love. Your bosses seem more than pleased with your hard work. You feel appreciated for the most part.That is, until the moment you discover that your male colleague sitting right next to you in a similar position with similar years of experience is paid far more than you are.Talk about a slap in the face.That’s what reportedly happened last week to “E!News” host Catt Sadler, who after 12 years at the network said she learned that co-host Jason Kenned

Yang Yang, a 22-year-old Chinese corn farmer, spends two to three hours per day streaming video of life in his cliffside village to smartphones across China. He spends lots of time clinging to a cliffside ladder, one hand on his selfie stick, while he banters with fans about village life.It’s hardly riveting television, but in China it has an audience: In just two months, Yang has managed to earn more than 1 million views and 45,000 regular followers on Kuaishou, an online video app favored by t