Brookings Institution

"Greetings from Maryland, home of the number one public school system in America for four years in a row!" That is how Gov. Martin O'Malley opened his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., last week to a roar of applause. He...

"Two great airlines, one great future" was American Airlines' slogan as it walked the aisle with TWA a dozen years ago, heading into a future nowhere near as rosy as advertised. If that marriage truly had been something special in the air, American...

Ivo Daalder, U.S. ambassador to NATO and a national security expert, will become president of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs effective July 1. Daalder, 52, is succeeding Marshall Bouton, who served in the post for 12 years. "As a thought...

Here are three things the Obama administration has done that you probably didn't know about: Ever struggle with those accordion-style rubber sleeves on nozzles at the gas station? The sleeve — technically a "vapor recovery nozzle" — was...

The chairmen of Congress' primary tax committees, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), have launched a bipartisan effort to reform our messy, inefficient federal tax law. They've agreed to look for ways to lower tax rates on both...

Connecticut's latest fiscal crisis roared to the forefront this week with patterns that say a lot about what we can expect to see not just this month or even in the coming year, but for the rest of Dannel P. Malloy's term as governor. The big picture...

It is no longer teenagers stumbling into pregnancy and parenthood about whom we should be fretting. Those numbers continue to drop, because the kids are having less sex and using more contraception. No, it is the 20-something women who are putting...

Five years ago, I thought I might have to leave Baltimore. Not because I wanted to but because I thought I needed to. It was 2008. Like many employers, Urbanite magazine, where I worked, was feeling the effects of the Great Recession, so I would soon...

I never thought I'd hear a Baltimorean say such a thing. Last week, while reporting on the Rawlings-Blake administration's 10-year financial plan, I spoke with the mayor's press secretary, Ian Brennan. We covered a lot of ground in our hourlong phone...

Almost exactly 20 years ago, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead wrote a controversial essay for the Atlantic titled "Dan Quayle Was Right." In case you forgot (or never knew), let me fill you in on what Quayle was right about. There once was a popular sitcom...

I wonder what grounding looked like in the 1920s. What items or privileges were restricted? "Young man, hand over the stick. There will be no stick ball and no fishing." And what did kids get grounded for? Were they lighting matches or dressing like...

WASHINGTON -- Logically, what happens in Cyprus should stay in Cyprus. With a population of just over 1 million and an economy that's a mere 0.2 percent of the 17-nation eurozone, the country seems too small to matter on the world stage. Yet, that's where...