Melissa Hunfalvay feels Claudio Reyna's pain. Not the pain caused by the sprain in Reyna's knee -- an injury the captain of the defeated U.S. World Cup soccer team sustained last week while conceding a goal in an all-important match against Ghana.

Like most people in Virginia, Donald Black was horrified by Seung Hui Cho's shooting rampage last week that left 33 people dead, including the shooter.

As big Labor Day sales roll around, computer stores will tell you about laptops that now come with biometric fingerprint readers. Car companies will talk about "variable air suspension" features that allow you to change the ride of a car, depending on terrain. And video game manufacturers will ha...

John Duffy lost 67 of his colleagues at the firm of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods six years ago during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Among the dead was Duffy's son Christopher. The investment banking firm, located in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, was among the companies hit hardes...

Four years ago, during a speech in Manila, President Bush drew an analogy between the history of the Philippines and the history he was rewriting in Iraq.

Let's say there are 10 houses on your street and a giant pothole develops right in the middle of the block. Everyone benefits if the pothole gets fixed, but that might require multiple calls to municipal authorities and a lot of hassle. Since every resident benefits even if he or she does nothing...

Through much of the Republican presidential primary, Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney could barely restrain their contempt for each other. During one Republican debate in New Hampshire in early January, McCain landed a zinger that summed up Romney's opportunistic...

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant/Success in Circuit lies/Too bright for our infirm Delight/The Truth's superb surprise . . .

Subprime mortgages have been linked to a meltdown in housing and questionable Wall Street practices, and they may have been the original domino that set off America's current economic crisis.

After nearly two years of political jockeying for the presidency, hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising and wall-to-wall campaign coverage in the media, nearly half of all Americans eligible to cast ballots in the presidential election may not bother to vote. Turnout for primaries, as well...

When nearly 200 people in India were killed in terrorist attacks late last month, the carnage received saturation media coverage around the globe. When nearly 600 people in Zimbabwe died in a cholera outbreak a week ago, the international response was far more muted.

Americans like to live in diverse communities. At least, that's what they say.

In case you want to catch up: here are Parts 1 & 2 of my first-year journey. We like to think that our life stories have happy endings, perhaps that we can carefully partition our lives into fourths of each … Continue reading →

Across Europe, grassroots efforts have emerged in the wake of crisis that draw members of the public into the process of receiving refugees and supporting their integration. This policy brief examines the many forms community-based or private sponsorship can take, what benefits such approaches may hold for European communities, and the tradeoffs policymakers face in their implementation.

The EU-Turkey deal has been credited with helping to end the migration crisis of 2015-16, and after two years in force it has fostered a myth that such deals are cure-alls. They are not, as this MPI Europe commentary explores. Recent EU responses place great emphasis on transit routes to Europe. But what if the next major event is a different kind of shock altogether?

Fostering the social and economic inclusion of refugees has long been the domain of governments and NGOs. In the wake of the 2015–16 European migration and refugee crisis, however, new actors have emerged and taken on important roles in integrating newcomers. This report describes key discussions and takeaways from an MPI Europe conference on these developments.

As European asylum systems are tested again by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has injected the need for social distancing during processing and in reception centers, it appears lessons learned during the 2015-16 migration and refugee crisis may be fading. Chief among them: A number of Member States have phased out their buffer capacity. This MPI Europe commentary explores the diametrically different approaches taken to asylum during the pandemic.

La migración entre México y Estados Unidos ha cambiado dramáticamente en los últimos años, pero las políticas y la retórica política en ambos países no se han actualizado a este contexto a la misma velocidad. Este reporte explora esta nueva realidad migratoria y cómo los dos gobiernos podrían trabajar juntos para abordar los desafíos de políticas públicas que tienen en común.

One of the major challenges Canada faced during its extraordinary push to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees during a four-month period was to find housing for these newcomers. This report explores how the government, resettlement case workers, and private citizens tackled this challenge—balancing cost and location, access to services, and more—and how lessons learned can improve refugee housing practices for other countries going forward.

Rising numbers of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe and North America have been matched by an equally unprecedented outpouring of public support. How can service providers most effectively harness this volunteering? This report considers where community members can add the most value to integration efforts and offers recommendations for how policymakers can facilitate the effective engagement of communities in integration initiatives.

Seasonal worker programs in the European Union have a long history, but have yet to find the sweet spot of working for migrants, employers, and countries of destination and origin alike. This policy brief explores some of the challenges common to these programs—drawing on examples in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand—and highlights promising practices.

Dual Language Learners (DLLs) are a growing segment of the Minnesota young child population, and a particularly "superdiverse" one with myriad origins, cultures, and languages—a new reality other states and communities will face. Drawing on interviews with policymakers and service providers, as well as analysis of census data, this report examines what this incredible diversity means for the state’s early childhood policies and programs.

These fact sheets provide a sociodemographic sketch of parents with children ages 0 to 8 in the 30 states with the largest number of immigrant families, offering data and analysis of some of the key parental characteristics to help stakeholders identify populations that could be targets for early childhood and parent-focused programs working to improve child and parent outcomes.

As states work to build high-quality early childhood systems and implement the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), having detailed knowledge of the characteristics of immigrant parents can help maximize the effectiveness of programs that seek to improve child and family outcomes, as this commentary explains.

Marking the release of an MPI report, researchers and practitioners on this webinar discuss brain waste among college-educated immigrants and initiatives that ease the barriers foreign-educated newcomers confront with regards to credential recognition, employment, and relicensure, as well as recent policy developments and ongoing challenges in the field.

Marking the release of a report on the barriers foreign-trained high-skilled immigrants face in the United States, this webinar examines programs and initiatives that assist with credential recognition, employment, and relicensure, as well as recent policy developments. Discussants review recommendations for community-based organizations, employers, and policymakers to expand successful efforts aimed at preventing brain waste. 

BRUSSELS — While the European Union has called on Member States to expand channels for foreign workers as a way to meet labour market needs and potentially tackle spontaneous migration, they have struggled to deliver on this pledge. To date, policies have focused more on attracting high-skilled workers, but less attention has been paid to admission of low- or middle-skilled nationals. Policymakers would do well not to overestimate the potential of legal channels to reduce irregular migration.

BRUSSELS — Even as the number of refugees in need of protection has reached an all-time high, the resettlement spots offered by countries in 2018 were less than half the level in 2016—and future commitments may shrink further. With refugee needs high and generosity dimming, there is increasing urgency for humanitarian actors to find new ways to bring refugees to safety as well as to rebuild public interest and consensus around the importance of protection.

WASHINGTON — A new age of migration has been ushered in by large-scale spontaneous migration flows on both sides of the Atlantic, which have upended asylum adjudications systems and placed enormous stress on reception, housing and social services, particularly in Europe.

WASHINGTON — The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) today published the annual update to its data-rich article, Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States, offering readers a wealth of information that can help inform understanding about an issue that is the subject of much conversation.

Findings will be discussed during 25 February MPI Europe – SVR webinar

Brussels and Gütersloh, 05.03.2020 — Anticipated reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which was high on the agenda as nearly 2 million asylum seekers arrived at Europe’s door in 2015-16, quickly fell victim to EU Member State competing views on what constitutes equal burden-sharing, domestic politics around migration and the urgency of first addressing overtaxed national asylum systems.

WASHINGTON – Even as 1.5 million immigrants and refugees are already employed in the U.S. health care system as doctors, registered nurses and pharmacists, another 263,000 foreign-born health care graduates are on the sidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic—many of them because of difficulties getting their credentials accepted by employers and licensing bodies.

As the top destination in Europe for asylum seekers in recent years, Germany has rolled out a number of integration policy changes. Based on an early look at how newcomers’ integration is progressing, the report finds the policies have had ambiguous implications. The report also provides insights into the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the asylum seeker and refugee population.

As migrant- and refugee-receiving countries in Europe, North America, and beyond prioritize services that are focused on employment, language instruction, and civic integration, newcomers who are not in the workplace are at high risk for social isolation. As a result, societies should reconsider what successful integration looks like for vulnerable newcomers who will never find traditional employment or who need a longer-than-average timeline to get there.

Addressing the deep-rooted integration challenges unearthed by large-scale migration and rapid social change will require a combination of strategies. Governments in Europe and North America must create a new social contract for increasingly diverse societies that are confronting cycles of disruption. This report sketches a blueprint for an adaptive process oriented by skill needs rather than national origins.

Referred to as a Japanese 'pizza', okonomiyaki is probably best described as a cabbage fritter. There are many versions that can include seafood, pork belly, kimchi or cheese, and either served with the sauce described or with Japanese mayonnaise. Delicious snack food, which can also be a meal.

Simple things are often the best, and never more so than in cooking. Although it's tempting to gild the lily, sometimes the best thing you can do with beautiful ingredients is keep things as simple as possible - and this light, refreshing sorbet is a case in point. The flavours are true and clear, and it needs nothing more than a few orange segments and strawberry slices to finish it off.

This recipe for Mango Alphonso featured on Foodie Tuesday, a weekly segment with Raf Epsteion on Drive, 774 ABC Melbourne, 3.30PM, courtesy of Christy Tania, head chef at the Aldelphi Hotel's Om Nom restaurant.

This recipe features on Foodie Tuesday, a weekly segment with Raf Epstein on Drive, 774 ABC Melbourne, 3.30PM, courtesy of Annie Smithers from du Fermier, a wonderful French farmhouse style kitchen in Trentham.

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 1 large brown onion, thinly sliced 2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped 1 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger 1 small red chilli, finely chopped, optional 1 heaped teaspoons ground cumin 1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander teaspoon cinnamon 2 teaspoons #harissa 1 tablespoon sun-dried tomato pesto (or regular tomato paste) 1 kg carrots, peeled and fairly finely sliced 150g red lentils, thoroughly washed 1 x 400g can diced tomatoes 2 teaspoons raw sugar 2-3 teaspoons sea salt, to taste Freshly ground black pepper, to taste Approx.1 litres (6 cups) cool water (double-check next time I make it) Juice - 1 lemon (or lime), to taste 1 x 270ml can coconut cream # My favourite harissa is Chris Manfield's which is available in speciality food shops and on-line

Pumpkin soup on it's own can be rather plain but with interesting garnishes, the ordinary becomes delicious. This variation on a classic pesto, which uses pine nuts, incorporates roasted almonds instead, giving this ubiquitous winter soup a greater depth of flavour and crunch.

This recipe features on Foodie Tuesday, a weekly segment on 774 Drive with Raf Epstein, 3.30PM, courtesy of Tez Kemp, La Madre Bakery

Sweet glazed lamb loin with hazelnut dukkah

Fortunately Tuscan black kale (cavolo nero) with its sweet, earthy flavour is readily available now, however as it's gratifyingly hardy and easy to grow, if you have a small patch or pot to put some in I can't encourage you enough to do so; it will pay you back in spades. The crinkly blue/green leaves are quite tough, but with long, slow cooking they become tender and gently sweet, and that's the quality they give to this stick-to-your-ribs soup. I usually make it on the weekend when I have a bit more time to potter around in the kitchen, and love that it makes rather a lot (I've never been one to cook by halves! Although by all means make half the recipe if you'd rather not have leftovers) as having a tub tucked away in the fridge is like gold in the bank in a busy week. There's a fair bit of chopping required to start with, however once that's done the recipe is really straightforward.

Atlantic Salmon is Australia's most popular farmed fish and is a healthy weekly staple for many people. This recipe offers a marinade more commonly thought of for chicken however is simply delicious with salmon. Enjoy with a fresh local limes, which are in season from early April to mid September.

This recipe features on Foodie Tuesday, a weekly segment on 774 Drive with Raf Epstein, 3.30PM, courtesy of Alice Zaslavsky,

1 1/2 cups fine semolina 1 1/2 cups sugar 1/2 cups Greek yogurt 2 tsps. baking soda 1/2 tsp ground mastic resin, we are substituting ground fennel 3-4 tbsps. butter, melted slivered almonds For the syrup: 2 1/2 cups sugar 1 1/2 cups water 1 lemon, cut in half 1/2 tsp. rose water Dash of vanilla extract 1 cinnamon stick

A spicey version of a winter favourite