Local news is in steep decline. A recent report from Pen America finds that the US has lost more than 1,800 newspapers since 2004. The consequences include a decline in civic engagement and an increase in corruption. The report mentions how government officials in Bell, California, a city without a newspaper, were able to get rid of caps on their ...

With India’s growth tumbling to 4.5% from 8.1% in little more than a year, you’d be surprised to know that Shaktikanta Das has one of the easiest jobs in central banking. He just has to keep doing what he’s been doing since becoming governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last December: cut interest rates. Fortunately, political will is ...

Reading Susan Rice’s new memoir, “Tough Love,” is a reminder of two things: what a remarkably gifted, subtle and perhaps tragic man President Obama was; and how people like Rice who served him endured ceaseless public attacks in a country that was already on the ragged edge, though we didn’t yet know it. Washington memoirs are most valuable for the ...