Nicole Gelinas

American employers added 585,000 jobs in November and December of 2014, according to encouraging jobs reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The growth occurred across the board: 139,000 new jobs in professional and business services; 63,400 in retail; 46,000 in manufacturing; and 71,000 in food service. Even construction, which suffered worst during the recession, added 68,000 jobs, driven by new housing activity.

Washington has a new corporate scourge: tax “inversions,” through which an American company sells itself to or merges with a foreign firm so that it can avoid paying full U.S. taxes. There’s an easy way to thwart these moves: Cut corporate tax rates and pay for the rate cut by eliminating some of the country’s biggest tax breaks.

The March 12 gas explosion in Harlem leveled two buildings, killing at least eight people. Already, observers are saying that the tragedy points up New York’s need to invest billions in its aging public infrastructure. But the incident and the pre-existing infrastructure deficit may have nothing to do with one another.