The Justice Department has dismissed more than 50 desegregation cases that kept Southern school districts under federal supervision for decades. Some districts still needed court permission to alter attendance zones or construct new schools long after desegregation had been completed. DOJ says the outdated orders diverted money from students and kept local schools trapped under mandates written for another era.

El Salvador is offering tax breaks and other incentives to bring citizens home from the United States. Falling crime, a construction boom and severe labor shortages have created demand for the skills Salvadoran migrants acquired abroad. The campaign undercuts claims that returning longtime migrants would mean sending them into chaos: their home country is actively recruiting them to help build its future.

A new investigation estimates that California spends approximately $10 billion annually on state-funded benefits available to illegal immigrants, including health coverage, cash assistance, food, housing support and tuition. One mixed-status family could receive public services valued above $100,000 a year. California has built a parallel welfare system while taxpayers absorb an expanding budget deficit.

Scotland embraced decriminalization, supervised consumption and a harm-reduction strategy intended to treat addiction more compassionately. Drug deaths have instead risen another 11 percent, leaving Scotland with Europe’s highest mortality rate and a death rate four times its 2000 level. A policy built around managing addiction is failing to help enough addicts escape it.