Europe
The Overview
What we can learn from the results of the European parliamentary elections. "1. Protest parties critical of the status quo in Brussels did very well, as expected... but not well enough to upset the fundamental balance of power in Brussels. 2. The elections may slow the movement of power to the Parliament. 3. The Italian government was substantially bolstered by the results. 4. The French and UK governments were weakened a bit. 5. Most other governments avoided serious new problems." Douglas J. Elliot at Brookings.
Centrist governments are on notice. "The surprise in elections for the European Parliament over the weekend wasn’t that candidates of the far right and far left made huge gains. The surprise was that it took this long. After all, for four years now, unified Europe has been an economic basket case ... The good news. The European Parliament’s powers are sufficiently weak, and the extremist parties that made gains so fractured (don’t expect to see British anti-Europeans forming a coalition with Greek Communists), that the elections are unlikely to have major practical consequences for policy ... The centrist parties of Europe are now on notice." Neil Irwin at the Upshot.
Belgium
A shooting at a Jewish museum in Brussels killed 3 people. "An unidentified gunman opened fire on Saturday at the Jewish Museum in the center of Brussels, killing at least three people in what officials said appeared to have been an anti-Semitic attack ... Two women and a man were killed in the attack and a fourth person was seriously wounded. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said two of the dead, a man and a woman, were Israeli tourists, according to Reuters. Israeli news media reported that they were from Tel Aviv." Andrew Higgins at the New York Times.
Russia
Ukraine: Putin's 21st century lesson. "It pits a ... worldview that says we can take advantage of 21st-century globalization ... and we can behave like 19th-century powers ... versus a view that says ... the world of the 21st century is ... interdependent and either you play by those rules or you pay a huge price ... The world turned out to be more interdependent, and Russia more exposed ... than Putin thought ... Let’s add it up: Putin’s seizure of Crimea has weakened the Russian economy, led to China getting a bargain gas deal, revived NATO, spurred Europe to start ending its addiction to Russian gas and begun a debate across Europe about increasing defense spending. Nice work, Vladimir." Thomas L. Friedman at the New York Times.
Russia and Ukraine are also holding negotiations over natural gas sales. "Russia and Ukraine took a tentative step toward resolving a dispute that threatened to cut off Ukraine's natural gas supply, as the two sides said they would consider a deal in which Ukraine would quickly pay Russia $2 billion in unpaid bills. Under a deal floated at negotiations in Berlin ... Ukraine would make the $2 billion payment ... followed by negotiations on Friday over the disputed price Russia charges Ukraine for its gas ... But first, the deal would need to be approved by Moscow and Kiev, as well as the boards of state gas companies Naftogaz of Ukraine and Gazprom ... of Russia." Anton Troianovski at the Wall Street Journal.
Ukraine
The Ukrainian president has been elected. Now comes the more difficult part of the job. "Petro Poroshenko’s convincing first-round victory in yesterday’s Ukrainian presidential elections, with 54 percent of the vote, is an important step toward political stability. But hard work lies ahead, as attention now returns to the even-more-daunting task of restoring economic stability. Remember that the political crisis of the last six months began as an economic crisis and had its origins in decades of failed economic policies." Robert Kahn at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Political stability might also take a while. "Ukrainian aircraft and paratroopers killed more than 50 pro-Russian rebels in an assault that raged into a second day on Tuesday after a newly elected president vowed to crush the revolt in the east once and for all. The unprecedented offensive throws a challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has said he reserves the right to defend Russian speakers under threat, but whose past assertions that Kiev is led by an illegitimate 'junta' were undermined by the landslide election victory of billionaire Petro Poroshenko." Sabina Zawadzki and Gabriela Baczynska at Reuters.
Don't expect Ukraine to integrate with the EU and NATO anytime soon. "Many in the West and in Ukraine will disagree on the definition of a 'good ending.' If you define it as a free and united Europe, with Ukraine fully embedded in the European Union (and possibly NATO), dream on. Not only does this goal lie years or decades away (if it has any prospects at all), but pushing for it prematurely could spark a violent backlash, the likes of which we’ve been witnessing these past few months." Fred Kaplan at Slate.
Foreign Policy
Afghanistan
Obama's plan for Afghanistan: Leave thousands of troops for two more years. "President Obama revealed his long-awaited plan for Afghanistan ... announcing that a residual force of 9,800 U.S. troops will remain there for one year following the end of combat operations in December. That number will be cut in half at the end of 2015, and reduced at the end of 2016 to a small military presence at the U.S. Embassy. The plan ... is largely in line with what the U.S. military had requested. It also is in line with what NATO ... said was necessary for them to retain a presence in Afghanistan." Karen DeYoung at the Washington Post.
Assuming Afghanistan lets us stay. "The precise timing of the pullout will depend on the decision of whomever wins Afghanistan’s next presidential election. So far, Afghan president Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) ... to allow troops on the ground after 2014. Both the candidates to replace him — former World Bank executive Ashraf Ghani and opposition leader Dr. Abdullah Abdullah — have indicated that they will do so ... The White House clearly remains wary, given that they framed the pullout’s timeline as '[a]ssuming that the BSA is signed,' but ... the candidate’s willingness to sign gave the president the 'confidence' to make this announcement." Hayes Brown at Think Progress.
Good news for the US, bad news for Afghanistan. "The war against the Taliban is not one that the US believes it can win, so we're going to stop trying ... Afghanistan's war, is going to continue ... Many Afghans ... are outspoken about wanting the Americans to stay, not because they are blind to the invasion force's mistakes or missteps but because they see it as the security bulwark against something much worse: the Taliban. So while this may be good news for Americans, who are understandably sick and tired of a war that has cost them so much and yielded so little, do not mistake it as therefore good news for Afghans." Max Fisher at Vox.
How the public feels about the Afghanistan withdrawal. "Polling suggests that most Americans would support the plan ... to keep some United States forces in Afghanistan ... In December, the public favored, by 55 to 41 percent, keeping some troops in Afghanistan for training and anti-insurgency operations, rather than removing all forces from Afghanistan in the year ahead. That’s not to say that Americans think the war has been worthwhile. In the same poll, 66 percent said that considering its costs to the United States versus its benefits, it has not been worth fighting; 50 percent said they feel that way strongly." Dalia Sussman at the Upshot.
Africa
We're also widening our anti-terrorism mission in Africa. "United States Special Operations troops are forming elite counterterrorism units in four countries in North and West Africa that American officials say are pivotal in the widening war against Al Qaeda’s affiliates and associates on the continent, even as they acknowledge the difficulties of working with weak allies. The secretive program, financed in part with millions of dollars in classified Pentagon spending and carried out by trainers, including members of the Army’s Green Berets and Delta Force, was begun last year to instruct and equip hundreds of handpicked commandos in Libya, Niger, Mauritania and Mali." Eric Schmitt at the New York Times.
Syria
Obama to announce deeper involvement with Syrian rebels. "President Barack Obama is close to authorizing a mission led by the U.S. military to train moderate Syrian rebels to fight the regime and al Qaeda-linked groups, a move that would significantly expand Washington's role in the conflict, U.S. officials said ... The proposed military training mission has been the subject of a nearly yearlong ... debate pitting top American diplomats seeking leverage to pressure Mr. Assad against Pentagon leaders wary of open-ended commitments that risk deepening U.S. involvement in another messy Middle Eastern conflict." Adam Entous at the Wall Street Journal.
Politics
Congress
How a bill becomes a law (aka: updating Schoolhouse Rock). "The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act — was signed into law on May 9, 2014 ... It's a saga that includes lobbying, leaks to the press, bureaucratic sabotage, and last-minute twists. And crucially, it involves compromise after compromise. Put together, the story offers a new guide not just to how a bill can become a law — but why so few actually become laws, and why the ones that do are often so disappointing. In that way, it's an updated Schoolhouse Rock lesson for our polarized, dysfunctional Congress." Andrew Prokop at Vox.
The Economy
Everything you need to know about patents, updated. Timothy B. Lee at Vox.
Education
Yes, a college degree is still undeniably worth it. "College is worth it, and it’s not even close ... A four-year degree has probably never been more valuable. The pay gap between college graduates and everyone else reached a record high last year, according to the new data, which is based on an analysis of Labor Department statistics ... Americans with four-year college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree. That’s up from 89 percent five years earlier, 85 percent a decade earlier and 64 percent in the early 1980s." David Leonhardt at the Upshot.
But you have to graduate to get the benefits. "But just because people who graduate from college are better off doesn’t necessarily mean that going to college is a good decision. Most of the benefits of college come from graduating, not enrolling. Indeed ... the wage premium for people with some college but no degree has been stagnant, even as debt levels have been rising. That means that people who start college but drop out may be worse off than people who never enrolled in the first place. Any attempt to answer the 'Is college worth it?' question, therefore, has to grapple with not only the value of a degree, but the likelihood of obtaining one." Ben Casselman at Five Thirty Eight.
Elections
Explaining why different Senate models have such divergent forecasts. "The bottom line: Even at this early stage, polls are our best way to predict November outcomes ... Predicting the partisan control of the Senate in 2015 is a far harder problem ... Most models fall somewhere between two extremes: Type 1, which is purely fundamentals-based, and Type 2, which is purely poll-based. Here are a few different quantitative models and how they answer the question: Will Republicans take over the Senate?" Sam Wang at Politico.
So much for real issues. The GOP is going back to 2013 scandals for the midterms. "Republican strategy for the fall elections seemed set: hammer Democrats on the health care law and 'jobs, jobs, jobs.' As Democrats show increasing confidence ... House Republicans are gambling that ramping up new inquiries into ... the Internal Revenue Service and Libya will energize conservative voters without turning off moderates. Over Democrats' heated objections, House Republicans voted this month to hold an IRS official in contempt for refusing to testify. They also launched a new investigation into the ... attack on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya." Charles Babington at the Associated Press.
Republicans still can't explain what they would use to replace Obamacare if they took control of Congress. "No Republican candidate in a tough race has come up with a workable response to this question. What would replace the Affordable Care Act? What would do so without kicking more people off their existing plans? It's just impossible to answer, given that Republicans want the focus to be on the people whose private plans were ended or altered by the ACA." David Weigel at Slate.
Mary Landrieu's re-election strategy: run on her seniority. "Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu is banking on one thing to get her reelected in November: her clout ... Landrieu is the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which is no small thing for a poor state that pins its economic future to the booming oil and gas industry ... At a throw-the-bums-out time of disgust with Washington, and in a state that is increasingly hostile terrain for Democrats, Landrieu considers her seniority the key to her survival. Why, she asks Louisianans again and again, would you trade the energy committee chairman for a rookie?" Philip Rucker at the Washington Post.
Florida is being sued for gerrymandering. "Were Florida's Congressional districts gerrymandered to help Republicans? That's the question currently before a judge in the state. In most of the US, this wouldn't be a matter for the courts at all, as partisan gerrymandering is perfectly legal. But a recent Florida constitutional amendment prohibits the practice — so, if the courts find partisan motives were at play, they could throw out Florida's maps entirely." Andrew Prokop at Vox.
Energy and the Environment
California drought is bad - and it could get a whole lot worse. "California is currently in the grips of a harsh dry spell — with every part of the state facing 'severe,' 'extreme,' or 'exceptional' drought. That's a potential problem for the nation's food supply, since California is responsible for about half of the fruits and vegetables grown in the United States ... Is a food armageddon on the way? It's complicated: US food prices have been rising in recent months, but we haven't really seen massive shocks just yet ... partly because California's farmers have found ways to adapt to the drought ... The bad news? Those coping mechanisms might not be able to last forever." Brad Plumer at Vox.
Obama's new climate regulations will still allow for state flexibility. "The proposal is designed to give states, which will administer the regulations, flexibility to meet the benchmarks, as opposed to placing emissions limits on individual plants ... Central to the strategy of flexibility: the option to include a cap-and-trade component where a limit is set on emissions and companies can trade allowances or credits for emissions as a way of staying under different benchmarks the EPA sets for each state. Power-plant operators could trade emissions credits or use other offsets in the power sector, such as renewable energy or energy-efficiency programs, to meet the target." Amy Harder at the Wall Street Journal.
Fiscal Fights
The DOD budget wars have flared up again. "Lawmakers who oversee defense policy outlined a vision ... for the ... Pentagon budget that is sharply at odds with the blueprint the Obama administration proposed ... Members of the House and Senate armed services committees rejected many of the administration’s proposed cost-saving measures ... Lawmakers preserved funding for myriad programs and platforms that bring jobs and money to their constituents, including several the Pentagon has come to see as expendable ... The markups, the first key battle of a months-long process that is expected to drag out until the end of the year, drew sharp responses from the Pentagon and the White House." Ernesto Londano at the Washington Post.
States are getting more federal money for Medicaid - and less federal money for everything else. "The federal government is sending states more money for Medicaid — and less money for pretty much everything else. Federal funding for Medicaid increased 35 percent between 2008 and 2014 ... Over the same time period funding for education, transportation and 'everything else' (a category that includes, among other things, funding for agriculture and veterans' benefits) declined." Sarah Kliff at Vox.
Gender
(One of) the problem(s) with male nerd culture. "But the overall problem is one of a culture where instead of seeing women as, you know, people, protagonists of their own stories just like we are of ours, men are taught that women are things to 'earn,' to 'win.' That if we try hard enough and persist long enough, we’ll get the girl in the end. Like life is a video game and women, like money and status, are just part of the reward we get for doing well." Arthur Chu at the Daily Beast.
How not to report on the UCSB shootings. "Elliot Rodger blamed women ... for the killing spree ... arguing that by not having sex with him, they pushed him to take revenge. Today, the New York Post does the same ... How, exactly, does not paying attention to someone light 'a fuse'? Are women obliged to flatter, cajole, and even have sex with men they find repulsive in order to prevent lighting this fuse? ... Rodger's problem ... was that he believed he was entitled to women simply because he wanted them. The Post cover and accusatory language reinforce this kind of entitlement, suggesting that women are somehow responsible for men's actions if they don't give them what they want." Amanda Marcotte at Slate.
GOP
Why the GOP no longer supports the Earned Income Tax Credit. "The list of issues that Republicans touted ... until the president said he agreed with them, is not short ... The EITC now belongs on the list. This was an area of bipartisan agreement for the last three decades ... and ... a credible alternative to a minimum-wage hike ... Republicans ... now oppose both. Some of the opposition is based on financing – closing tax loopholes that help the wealthy in order to give the poor a tax break is apparently outrageous – and some of it is the result of the EITC leaving many working families with no tax bill at all." Steve Benen at Maddowblog.
Those Benghazi inquiries aren't going too well. "If House Republican leaders hoped a brand new, partisan investigation of the 2012 Benghazi attack would help unify the party, the plan backfired spectacularly. GOP lawmakers are divided among themselves about whether the select committee’s investigation trumps the other committees’ investigations. They’re divided over whether to exploit the terrorism for campaign fundraising .They’re divided over strategy and tactics, some of which appear to be inadvertently helping the White House. They’re divided about whether the whole endeavor is poised to backfire." Steve Benen at Maddowblog.
Health
Refusing to expand Medicaid is much worse than the VA scandal. "It would be nice to see bipartisan outrage extend to ... the 4.8 million people living under the poverty line who are eligible for Medicaid but won't get it because their state has refused Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. As appalling as the wait times are for VA care, the people living in states that refused the Medicaid expansion aren't just waiting too long for care. They're not getting it at all ... when federal law grants them comprehensive coverage. Many of these people will get sick and find they can't afford treatment and some of them will die." Ezra Klein at Vox.
Charging Medicaid premiums deters people from enrolling. Good things states aren't doing that or... wait. "A few states aim to expand Medicaid on their own terms, and are exploring the idea of charging some enrollees a small premium for the public program. Those terms, it turns out, could scare new enrollees off. Charging Medicaid patients monthly premiums — even if those premiums are as low as $10 — causes people to disenroll, according to a new study in the Journal of Health Economics." Adrianna McIntyre at Vox.
Don't trust Wikipedia for your medical advice. "Wikipedia ... contains errors in nine out of 10 of its health entries, and should be treated with caution, a study has said. Scientists in the US compared entries about conditions such as heart disease, lung cancer, depression and diabetes with peer-reviewed medical research. They said most articles in Wikipedia contained 'many errors'." Pippa Stephens at BBC.
21 things Obamacare does that you don't hear about in the media. Adrianna McIntyre at Vox.
Immigration
Historical shifts in American immigration patterns, in one gif. "Who comes to the US is still shaped by both old and new immigration laws ... The story of who's come to America over its history, and how that has changed, is largely the story of who America has decided it wants to allow to come." Dara Lind at Vox.
Michigan
It will take billions to get Detroit's property issues fixed. "Here's a sign of how bad things are in Detroit: one in five properties are damaged, vacant, or flat out uninhabitable. And an estimated 70,000 may need to be demolished over the next five years. That's the finding of a new report from the city's Blight Removal Task Force, a team established by the Obama administration when in late 2013 it pledged more than $320 million in relief for the city. That report says the city may need nearly $2 billion to relieve the city's blight problems." Danielle Kurtzleben at Vox.
New Jersey
Why Chris Christie renominated a Democratic chief justice. "After years of fighting ... Rabner's renomination is an olive branch ... But in placating local liberals, Christie has angered national conservatives ... Since Rabner is only 53 years old, if he's renominated now, he could be chief justice until he turns 70 in the year 2030. Many observers feared that Christie was gearing up to substitute his own chief justice nominee for Rabner, as a way to appeal to conservatives ... But, weakened by Bridgegate and recent bad fiscal news, Christie backed away from the fight. He made a deal to renominate Rabner, in return for Democratic approval of a new Republican nominee, Lee Solomon." Andrew Prokop at Vox.
NSA
How Snowden harmed the US. "The harms to lives from disclosing communications secrets are harder to see because they are usually diffuse and probabilistic ... But they are no less real ... in the thousands of ways that our surveillance superiority undergirds our successful national defenses. Moreover, publication of communications surveillance secrets ... affects the agents and firms involved in intelligence operations to the extent that these actors quite rationally are less likely to cooperate with a U.S. government next time, with the attendant harms to national security that such chilling brings. These harms are real even though they are hard to discern at the time of publication." Jack Goldsmith at Lawfare.
The House has passed a watered down NSA reform bill. "The USA Freedom Act, a bill meant to end NSA surveillance of phone records, has passed the House of Representatives ... The House passed it by a margin of 303 to 121 ... The USA Freedom Act requires the NSA to leave phone records in the hands of telephone companies for 18 months, making searches for specific terms only after getting court approval, instead of collecting them in bulk and storing them for years. It's also meant to limit how the agency collects online communications and make it easier for companies to report the orders they receive. Many former supporters, however, now see it as more of a paper tiger than a real solution." Adi Robertson at the Verge.
Four reasons civil libertarians dislike the new NSA bill. H.L. Pohlman at the Monkey Cage.
Journalists shouldn't (always) have the final say on government secrets. "The question is who decides. It seems clear ... that ... newspapers, and their employees, should not have the final say over the release of government secrets, and a free pass to make them public with no legal consequences. In a democracy (which, pace Greenwald, we still are), that decision must ultimately be made by the government. No doubt the government will usually be overprotective of its secrets, and so the process of decision-making ... should openly tilt in favor of publication with minimal delay. But ultimately you can’t square this circle. Someone gets to decide, and that someone cannot be Glenn Greenwald." Michael Kinsley at the New York Times.
Race
What America's (implicit) racism problem looks like. Video at Vox.
SCOTUSwatch
A new limit on the death penalty - good news, but we could still do better. "After leaving it to the states to decide when an individual convicted of murder was too intellectually incapacitated to be executed, a divided Supreme Court ... withdrew some of that discretion. The states, the five-to-four majority ruled, cannot use a fixed IQ score as the measure of incapacity to be put to death ... But even the new attempt at guidance may have left some uncertainty ... It did say that it was not ruling on whether a state could set the fixed score at 75 or above, and use that alone as the measure." Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog.
This lawsuit could be a problem in another couple of years. "The Republican National Committee filed a complaint ... to force federal election officials to allow the party to raise unlimited money from individuals ... The new lawsuit follows the court’s decision last month in McCutcheon ... The majority opinion ... raised the bar for federal limits on contributions, suggesting that the only constitutional justification for limits on contributions is to prevent politicians from explicitly trading policy decisions for campaign cash. The Republican suit suggests that the McCutcheon decision should make federal courts rethink the rules on fund-raising for party committees." Nicholas Confessore at the New York Times.
The States
A step backwards on executions. "The recent scarcity of lethal-injection drugs has prompted some death-row states ... to consider retro-style solutions.Firing squads, for example. But Tennessee made the first concrete move this week by effectively dusting off its electric chair ... Tennessee’s decision is breathtakingly regressive ... States have historically gone to new methods of execution ... from hanging to electrocution, to lethal gas, to lethal injection. 'But they’re going backwards,' ... 'They’re going back to using a method of execution that was basically rejected because it was so problematic. That’s never happened before.'" Dan Barry at the New York Times.
Virginia
I really wish this was satire... "In a congressional district in Northern Virginia ... state Sen. Richard H. 'Dick' Black, is running in the Republican primary ... And he's guaranteed to ignite wedge-issue passion. Exhibit A: As a state legislator, Black opposed making spousal rape a crime, citing the impossibility of convicting a husband accused of raping his wife 'when they're living together, sleeping in the same bed, she's in a nightie, and so forth.' Black has referred to emergency contraception ... as 'baby pesticide.' Black also fought to block a statue of Abraham Lincoln at a former Confederate site in Richmond ... He has argued that abortion is a worse evil than slavery." Molly Redden at Mother Jones.
War on Terror
Obama still hasn't come through on his drone promises. "One year ago last Friday, President Barack Obama gave a major address on drones, targeted killing and terrorism. The president and administration officials promised that the drone program would operate within limits protecting civilians, control would be transferred from the CIA to the Pentagon, and a new era of transparency would begin. The number of drone strikes has fallen since then, but it is far from clear that the drop was a result of a shift in administration policy. Frustrated in part by Congress and the facts on the ground in Pakistan and Yemen, when it comes to drones, Obama has fulfilled few of his promises." Matt Sledge and Sabrina Siddiqui at the Huffington Post.
International
Global
The biggest takeaways from Bloomberg's list of 'self-made and inheritor billionaires.' Matthew Yglesias at Vox.
Only authoritarian states want to host the Olympics. "Researchers have known for years that hosting ... the Olympics always costs more than expected and always yields less revenue and useful long-term infrastructure than estimated. Now voters and politicians in democratically elected countries are starting to realize the same thing. Potential host cities are dropping out of the bidding process for the 2022 Winter Olympics like crazy ... The final two bidders for the 2022 Olympics are Almaty, Kazakhstan — who's first and only president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, won 95% of the vote the most recent election, which was roundly criticized by international monitors — and Beijing, China." Tony Manfred at Business Insider.
Fascinating facts about Starbucks, in 10 maps and charts. David Yanofsky at Quartz.
Asia
More disputes over the South China Sea: China-Vietnam edition. "Vietnam and China traded barbs over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat, their most serious bilateral standoff since 2007 as China asserts its claims in the disputed South China Sea. 'It was rammed by a Chinese boat,' ... The incident occurred after some 40 Chinese fishing vessels encircled a group of Vietnamese boats in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, the government in Hanoi said ... China said the Vietnamese vessel capsized after it rammed a Chinese fishing boat, having intruded into a 'precautionary area' around an oil rig that China has located near islands claimed by both Vietnam and China." Bloomberg.
China's fight against air pollution is tamping down growth, but could provide a longer-term economic boost. "The Chinese government has ... vowed ... to improve air quality ... 'Chinese policymakers are getting serious' ... GDP will slow 0.35 percentage points cumulatively from 2014 to 2017 because of air pollution mitigation efforts ... Slower growth is a good thing—and not just for Chinese lungs. It means that the government is finally willing to close traditionally state-supported factories that aren’t producing value ... Zapping those 'zombie' factories now means that they can’t eat up capital that could create real value elsewhere in China’s economy." Gwynn Guilford at Quartz.
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Middle East
Pakistan and polio. "Pakistan has launched a fresh polio vaccination drive ... but officials warned that nearly 370,000 children are likely to miss out ... A three-day vaccination drive began on Monday in four tribal areas ... with more than 620,000 youngsters on course to receive polio drops. But the official ... warned that children in ... targeted areas 'would not be able to receive polio drops because of the militancy and opposition to the immunisation'. Violence has badly hampered the campaign to stamp out polio in the South Asian neighbour, where armed groups with strongholds in tribal areas, including the Pakistani Taliban, see vaccination campaigns as a cover for espionage." Al Jazeera.
Egypt is wrapping up its presidential election. "Egyptians cast ballots Monday for a new president in an election widely expected to secure a resounding victory for military strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, one that will likely further entrench the army’s decades-long rule over the country ... Many Egyptians view the ex-army chief as a strong, charismatic candidate capable of ushering in stability after years of political and economic turmoil. But Sissi, who led the army coup against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi ... has also been criticized for presiding over a widespread crackdown against dissidents, including the Muslim Brotherhood group that backed Morsi’s presidency." Erin Cunningham at the Washington Post.
Saudi Arabia's line of succession is stirring up controversy. "When Saudi Arabia’s ... king took the unusual step of naming a deputy heir, the move initially was welcomed as a sign of continuity ... But ... the announcement has stirred a rare outburst of dissent ... The king’s youngest brother, Muqrin, who was named deputy crown prince ... in March, appears to be popular among ordinary people ... He also is well-regarded by foreign diplomats ... But behind closed doors, royal tongues have been wagging about the manner in which Muqrin was chosen, the validity of his newly created title and his pedigree as the son of a Yemeni concubine who was never formally married to his father." Liz Sly at the Washington Post.
Economics
Everything you need to know about bank capital. Matthew Yglesias at Vox.
Polisci
Why wealthy lobbyists don't run Washington DC. "Even though money talks in Washington, it's incredibly difficult to shout down the din of status quo bias ... If you want to make change happen in congress you're probably going to lose — no matter how much you spend ... The most comprehensive study of lobbying campaigns ... found that 60 percent of the time they failed ... On most issues there's at least some meaningful money on both sides ... and one bloc of businesses trying to outspend another doesn't work very well ... All interest groups of any kind face the same basic problem. All the money in the world doesn't change the fact that in America the status quo usually wins." Matthew Yglesias + Video at Vox.
Everything you need to know about gerrymandering. Andrew Prokop at Vox.
Lots of districts are gerrymandered - but you can't tell from their shape. "The shape of a district Just Doesn’t Matter ... Gerrymandering is drawing district lines for political reasons ... Ugly districts are neither a measure of partisan gerrymandering nor even an indication that partisan gerrymandering is at work. Ugly districts only tell us is that districting is based on something other than compactness ... Here is a classic example: Perhaps the most egregious partisan gerrymander was the division of the Dakotas into two states, which was done for the sole purpose of giving Republicans a couple more senators and Electoral College votes. And it was done with a straight line." Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg.
Quiz: Can you identify gerrymandered districts? John Sides at the Monkey Cage.
Sometimes, ugly districts are better. "'Representation is about people, not polygons.' ... Sometimes ugly districts are serving valuable goals, such as ensuring representation for a historically under-represented minority group or simply reflecting the bizarre geographic patterns in which people have chosen to live (or in which they have to live thanks to rivers, mountains, etc.). Districts with clean lines, conversely, may well be used for nefarious political purposes. But of the many rights we should be worried about, the right to live in a legislative district that looks attractive on a map must be at the bottom." Seth Masket at Pacific Standard Magazine.
Science
LGBT individuals are perfectly qualified parents. Duh. "Researchers at Bar-Ilan University... found that the gay dads developed brain patterns that resemble both mothers and fathers. In the study, the mothers, who played a primary caregiver role ... demonstrated heightened activity in their brain’s emotion-processing regions when watching their children. The straight fathers, playing a ... secondary parenting role, exhibited increased cognitive activity ... demonstrating awareness of what their children ... were trying to communicate. But the gay fathers demonstrated both the mothers’ emotional and fathers’ cognitive brain activity, suggesting that they were ... operating like both mothers and fathers." Zack Ford at Think Progress.
Mummies still hold signs of smallpox. "Smallpox has a reputation as one of the worst diseases in history ... Native Americans and Africans suffered in extreme ways ... populations all but vanished after contracting the disease from European settlers ... The WHO ... by the end of 1977, had eradicated the disease. Yet remnants of variola remain scattered around the world. Signs of the disease, including skin lesions, virus particles and smallpox DNA, have turned up in stored human scabs and corpses as old as the 3,200-year-old mummy of Rameses V ... But no one has ever reported the recovery of live virus from a dead body." Sara Reardon at Nature.
Blue volcano! So cool! "It's a volcano, but not as we know it. This cerulean eruption takes place in the Danakil Depression, a low-lying plain in Ethiopia. The volcano's lava is the usual orange-red – the blue comes from flames produced when escaping sulphuric gases burn." Clare Wilson at the New Scientist.
Miscellaneous
Everything you need to know about the National Spelling Bee. Alex Abad-Santos at Vox.
All of New York City can eat out on the same day. "New York City is a top-tier restaurant destination, with tens of thousands of choices and cuisines ... But what if every Big Apple resident ate out on the same day? ... As long as diners keep meals to an average of 40 minutes or less, all of New York could eat out in a single day. But this would clearly require coordination, and the planning would have to be down-to-the-minute. And while some New Yorkers would eat at Per Se, others would get Taco Bell in Union Square. It would also entail residents obeying the planners and following directions closely. In New York? Fat chance." Walt Hickey at Five Thirty Eight.
