April 28, 2026

Photo credit: Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo

Last year, the U.S. spent approximately $425 billion building data centers. The heart of the boom? Loudoun County, a quiet, affluent community in Northern Virginia.

The county is home to 200 data centers that take up about 50 million square feet, and more are planned. Nowhere else in America even comes close. Northern Virginia boasts 5,000 megawatts of data-center capacity—more than twice as much as Beijing.

The centers have been a boon to Loudoun County’s economy, Judge Glock observes, generating nearly half of its tax revenue. “Thanks to them, Loudoun enjoys smooth roads, lavish schools, and low tax rates for homeowners,” he writes. “Even as opposition to data centers grows, Loudoun’s experience shows what can happen when governments embrace growth.”

Read more about Virginia’s experience, and how Loudoun offers a model for other U.S. localities.

The recently announced “pied-à-terre tax” in New York City will apply to second homes valued at $5 million or more. The thinking: wealthy nonresidents are freeloaders who treat the city as an occasional indulgence. Never mind that they consume little in city services, still pay property taxes, and aren’t contributing to the housing shortage.

The real problem that Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul should be focused on, John Ketcham writes, is rent-stabilized pieds-à-terre. There are thousands of them, and they are unlawful. Landlords don’t enforce the law because they have no incentive to do so. As Ketcham explains, “Why take on the cost and burden of proving nonresidence and pursuing an eviction when the tenant pays reliably and causes fewer issues than full-time residents?”

Read his take.

In the United States, regulations require that health insurance finance all “medically necessary” goods and services, regardless of effectiveness and cost. Americans don’t have the option of choosing a plan that covers just the basics at a more manageable price. Why?

“The Affordable Care Act is part of the problem,” Chris Pope writes. “The legislation required insurers to sell plans on the same terms without regard to enrollees’ medical risks, which incentivized plans to eliminate benefits that would be disproportionately appealing to seriously ill enrollees.” To stop a race to the bottom with benefits, the law mandates highly prescriptive benefits and network-adequacy requirements. “This has frustrated both affluent individuals willing to pay a premium for top-tier medical access and those with modest incomes who prefer more affordable health-care options,” Pope explains.

Read more.

The U.S. fertility rate declined to just 1.57 births per woman in 2025, bringing the country perilously close to the “ultra-low” threshold of 1.3, below which demographic decline becomes self-reinforcing. The nation’s population is also graying; the median age is now 40, up from 35 in 2001.

These demographic realities point to severe economic and political problems ahead, argues Aidan Grogan. Worse, three potential policy responses—cutting entitlement spending, increasing immigration, and raising the retirement age—are political nonstarters. “Absent a change in the political winds, we may soon see the Left and Right unite behind a counterproductive option: raising taxes,” he writes.

That would be a mistake: raising taxes has historically backfired, killing jobs, shrinking the tax base, diminishing government revenue, and worsening the debt-to-GDP ratio. Constraining government spending is the better option.

Read more.

For decades, judges have used the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence  to determine what counts as legitimate science. But a newly released edition suggests the manual could be moving away from its original role.

“Changes to its treatment of scientific reasoning—and controversy surrounding its new material on climate science—demonstrate a broader shift in how the manual defines reliable evidence,” Jennifer Hernandez writes. “If that shift takes hold, it will influence how courts evaluate some of the most consequential scientific claims in litigation.”

Read more about the problematic revisions.