Politics
Congress
Everything you need to know about Congressional dysfunction. Ezra Klein at Vox.
DOD
Railguns are awesome. "The Navy ... has spent ten years and at least $240 million developing a ... 'electromagnetic railgun' capable of launching projectiles that reach speeds of up to Mach 7 - seven times the speed of sound - and can travel more than 100 miles before smashing into their targets ... The service has fired the railgun successfully hundreds of times over the past few years, but only while the cannons were mounted on land … Next year, the railgun will be fired from a new high-speed ship, the USNS Millinocket, for the first time. That's a major step for a program that has never been operated at sea." Dan Lamothe + Video at the Complex.
The Navy (still) isn't so great at dealing with mines. "A generation ago, the Navy vowed to get better at finding and destroying sea mines. The proclamation came months after the first Gulf War, when Iraq ... overwhelmed the Navy’s fleet of anti-mine ships and helicopters. More than 20 years after that embarrassment, the sea service is still working to ... address a centuries-old threat that some analysts have called the Navy’s Achilles’ heel … After hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development — and despite some meaningful gains in technology — the Navy’s core mine countermeasures force looks a lot like the one that struggled two decades ago in the Persian Gulf." Mike Hixenbaugh at Stars and Stripes.
The Pentagon's secret space drone is still secret. "The Air Force’s secret space plane has been up in orbit for nearly 500 days—a space endurance record. But nearly a year and a half into the mission, the Pentagon still won’t say what the X-37B is doing up there, or when it might come back … It’s orbited the Earth thousands of times, overflying such interesting places as North Korea and Iran." Kyle Mizokami at the Daily Beast.
The Economy
Everything you need to know about Jobs Day. Matthew Yglesias at Vox.
Labor force participation rate gives reason for economic optimism. "Labor force growth is a key input to GDP growth. It was thus good to see a little pop in the labor force participation rate in last Friday’s jobs report … the participation rate is up 40 basis points off of its December trough … While it is still elevated, its decline is quite sharp, a signal that fewer unemployed are giving up and leaving the labor force and a positive sign for possibly restoring some labor force growth." Jared Bernstein at On the Economy.
Americans are highly financially vulnerable. "If you experienced an emergency and needed to come up with $2,000, could you? A study conducted in 2012 by FINRA asked exactly this question. Professors Amir Sufi and Atif Main looked at this data for their work on household debt and came up with this chart. Nearly 40% of Americans are unlikely to be able to come up with $2,000 if need be. Less than 40% are certain they would be able to come up with the money." Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider.
Obama moves to address equal pay issues without Congress. "Obama is to sign an executive order ... barring federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay with each other … The president also will direct the Labor Department to adopt rules requiring federal contractors to provide compensation data based on sex and race … The moves showcase Obama’s efforts to pursue action without congressional approval and demonstrate that even without legislation, the president can drive economic policy. At the same time, they show the limits of his ambition when he does not have the support of Congress for his initiatives." Jim Kuhnhenn at the Washington Post.
Education
Why low-income students don't get through the high school pipeline. "Every year, tens of thousands of disadvantaged students start high school with high eighth-grade test scores. These students seem like prime candidates to attend a selective college, get a four-year degree, and do better than their parents later in life. Yet by the end of high school, they've slipped far behind their wealthier classmates. Many never end up going to college at all, and just 16 percent end up at highly selective colleges." Libby Nelson at Vox.
Everything you need to know about student debt. Libby Nelson at Vox.
Elections
The Tea Party is backing off of primary challenges. "The Tea Party may be nudging Republicans to the right in Congress with the implicit threat of primary challenges, but when it comes to recruiting quality challengers to take out incumbent senators, it is falling decidedly short … The incumbents are not all totally safe bets yet ... But the officials who would have been the most formidable challengers to Republican incumbents in Texas, South Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas and Tennessee stood down." Jonathan Martin at the New York Times.
But it's still bad to be a GOP moderate. "Most Republican Senate incumbents up for re-election in 2014 have avoided strong challenges from conservatives in the primaries … The only incumbent who looks to be in danger of losing is Mississippi’s Thad Cochran … The lack of strong challengers has mostly to do with the ideology of the incumbents. Most safe senators are conservative; Cochran is more moderate. Cochran was more moderate than 85 percent of the Republican caucus in the 112th Congress (2011-2012), according to DW-nominate scores … Cochran fits the ideological profile of someone we’d expect to have primary problems." Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight.
How GOP experts will shape 2016 campaigns. "Most of the 2016 hopefuls are networking within an entrenched community ... who rose to prominence in the Nixon, Reagan or Bush eras … Those being tapped hew to Republican norms on foreign policy, with emphasis on a vigorous military and a willingness to use force ... On domestic policy, the Republican mantra of slashing federal spending and loosening regulations remains the consensus view. At the same time, many in the potential field are seeking to incorporate fresh perspectives … including talk of combating income inequality." Philip Rucker and Robert Costa at the Washington Post.
Jeb "Glassjaw" Bush, 2016. "For the ... conservative movement, Jeb appears to determined to follow in his father’s and brother’s footsteps ... Poppy’s support for a tax increase ... was ... an almost biblical lesson of the baleful consequences of compromise ... W. rebuilt that trust with conservatives, only to squander it via a series of heresies ... No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, runaway federal spending ... Iraq, and then TARP. Jeb … is now contemplating a presidential run with a glass jaw exposed on immigration and education policy, and with his most conspicuous base of support being Establishment Republicans who are abandoning Chris Christie." Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly.
Scott Brown is back. "Scott Brown ... will formalize his bid for a New Hampshire US Senate seat … The long-expected move comes as Brown has been ramping up campaign activity in his nascent effort to unseat Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. On Monday evening, he held his first fund-raiser ... Brown, who was unseated by Elizabeth Warren in 2012, was among the Republican Party’s most prolific Senate fund-raisers during his last run … His fund-raising prowess is one of the reasons national Republicans believe he has a strong shot of unseating Shaheen ... Democrats are bullish that Shaheen, who had $3.4 million in the bank at the end of 2013 and is well known in the state, will win reelection in November." Joshua Miller at the Boston Globe.
Energy and the Environment
Fiscal Fights
The Senate will probably extend unemployment benefits; the House will probably do nothing. "The Senate is expected to easily approve legislation ... restoring unemployment benefits to nearly three million people, throwing the bill to a divided House … Many House Republicans oppose passing the unemployment benefits ... arguing that such 'emergency' benefits are no longer needed nearly six years after they were first extended at the outset of the recession." Jonathan Weisman at the New York Times.
Here are some strategies that Democrats could use to get unemployment benefits closer to passing the House. Wesley Lowery at the Fix.
Foreign Policy
The Syria debates continue. "Frustrated by the stalemate in Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry has been pushing for the U.S. military to be more aggressive in supporting the country's rebel forces. Opposition has come from the institution that would spearhead any such effort: the Pentagon … It isn't clear where Mr. Obama stands." Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes at the Wall Street Journal.
US to deploy missile-defense ships to Japan. "The United States will send more missile defense ships to Japan ... as part of an effort to bolster protection from North Korean missile threats. North Korea has carried out a series of missile launches in recent weeks and has warned it was preparing to test another nuclear device, prompting fresh criticism from the United States. Speaking during a visit to Tokyo, Hagel announced that two Navy destroyers equipped with missile defense systems would be deployed to Japan by 2017." Marie-Louise Gumuchian at CNN.
GOP
The GOP civil war is rhetorical. "There is no Republican civil war … Republicans consistently vote together in the House and the Senate. Another approach has to do with the 2016 contest: Other than Rand Paul (and ... only when it comes to foreign-policy and national-security issues), would the nomination of any of the dozen ... signify that a particular faction had achieved a takeover ... Of course not. 'Moderate' candidates ... haven’t tried to moderate the party. Instead, they tried to convince the party that they were sufficiently in line with mainstream conservative positions. The same ... will be true of ... whoever the so-called establishment pick might be." Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg.
The Tea Party is just a conservative rebrand. "It’s not a movement, it’s a brand ... It is simply the conservative movement in a tri-corner hat. And that movement, as Ronald Reagan described it, famously sits on a tri-legged stool of traditional values, strong defense and small government … The Tea Party was assumed to be populated by people who cared little about social issues and defense and instead signaled the beginning of a new, highly motivated libertarian faction in the GOP. But polling showed the Tea Party largely overlapped with the Christian Right and the traditional Republican hawks. In fact, they are the same people." Digby at Salon.
Why is America not listening to the scientific consensus on climate change? Blame the GOP. "Americans are more climate-skeptical ... because the U.S. has a two-party system with one party dedicated to climate skepticism. Most people follow trusted opinion leaders … Views on climate change probably are reinforced by the rise of the partisan media in recent decades. But Rush Limbaugh and Fox News aren’t even necessary for most Republicans to disagree with the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists; all it takes is for voters to tend to accept what high-visibility Republicans are saying." Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg.
Guns
GOP goes to bat against the Pentagon on guns. "Hawkish Republicans and the senior leadership of the Pentagon typically see eye-to-eye on most things, but the deadly shooting at Fort Hood last week has exposed a rift on a highly-charged issue: Gun control. After U.S. Army Specialist Ivan Antonio Lopez killed three troops and wounded 16 others last week, Republicans on Capitol Hill began calling for new legislation to allow servicemembers to carry concealed weapons on U.S. bases. The measures are strongly opposed by the Pentagon, which says they would be costly and do nothing to improve security at bases." John Hudson at the Cable.
Health
Everything you need to know about the Affordable Care Act. Sarah Kliff at Vox.
The ACA has now reduced the number of the uninsured to an all-time low for Obama's presidency. "The number of uninsured Americans plummeted to the lowest rate since 2008 after the launch of Obamacare's marketplaces, according to a Gallup survey released Monday. The uninsured rate among US adults dropped from 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013 to 15.6 percent in the first quarter of 2014. And the uninsured rate dropped by 3.2 percentage points among lower-income Americans and 3.3 percentage points for blacks, the survey found." German Lopez at Vox.
Even if the ACA works perfectly, conservatives will still push back. "Let’s remember there is a conservative fallback position if it does ultimately appear Obamacare is working as intended: it just means the number of Americans enslaved by dependence on the federal government is increasing. There simply cannot be any proximate point at which the Right accepts the law as a positive development. Heads they win, tails you lose." Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly.
Immigration
Everything you need to know about immigration reform. Dara Lind at Vox.
Obama: the deportation president. "Since President Obama took office, two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involve people who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all. Twenty percent ... of the cases involved people convicted of serious crimes … Deportations have become one of the most contentious domestic issues of the Obama presidency, and an examination of the administration’s record shows how the disconnect evolved between the president’s stated goal of blunting what he called the harsh edge of immigration enforcement and the reality that has played out." Ginger Thompson and Sarah Cohen at the New York Times.
Mississippi
Mississippi, you've really outdone yourself. "Mississippi’s sex-ed curriculum is not notable for its progressive nature. But one thing you can’t say about the Magnolia State is that it follows the advice of some conservative parents who want schools to totally ignore homosexuality. In fact, state law mandates that the subject be discussed, at least briefly: Students are to be told that homosexual activity is illegal." Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic.
New Jersey
Everything you need to know about Chris Christie (and his scandals). Andrew Prokop at Vox.
Race
Race, politics, and the age of Obama. "If you set out to write a classic history … once you had described the ... fact of Obama’s election, race would almost disappear from the narrative ... The racial-policy agenda of the Obama administration has been nearly nonexistent. But if you instead set out to write a social history … you would find that race has saturated everything ... The Obama years have been defined by a bitter disagreement over the size of government, which quickly reduces to an argument over whether the recipients of big-government largesse deserve it. There is no separating this discussion from one’s sympathies or prejudices toward, and identification with, black America." Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine.
SCOTUSwatch
A Republican ruling for the wealthy - go figure. "It’s a shame that the Republican majority on the Supreme Court doesn’t know the difference between an oligarchy and a democratic republic. Yes, I said 'the Republican majority,' … based on the pretense that when people reach the high court, they forget their party allegiance. We need to stop peddling this fiction. On cases involving ... the ability of a very small number of very rich people to exercise unlimited influence on the political process, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and his four allies always side with the wealthy, the powerful and the forces that would advance the political party that put them on the court." E.J. Dionne Jr. at the Washington Post.
Turning down the New Mexico photography case was a win for progressives. "The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from a New Mexico photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony because of her religious beliefs, which the state supreme court found violated New Mexico’s anti-discrimination law … Gay and lesbian rights supporters feared that if the Supreme Court had taken the case and sided with the Huguenins, anti-discrimination laws of all kinds would have been vulnerable, allowing for-profit business serving the general to turn away customers not just based on sexual orientation, but race or gender as well." Adam Serwer + Video at MSNBC.
State Department
Don't worry - we only lost $6 billion. "A government investigation has found that the State Department has incomplete files or is missing files for more than $6 billion in contracts over the last six years." Associated Press.
War on Drugs
More marijuana, no increase in crime. "Three months into its legalization experiment, Denver isn't seeing a widespread rise in crime. Violent and property crimes actually decreased slightly … Outside of Colorado, most research on crime and marijuana looks at legalization for medicinal purposes. One study published in PLOS ONE concluded the expansion of medical marijuana did not lead to more violent or property crime, and medical marijuana legalization might in fact correlate with a reduction in some crimes." German Lopez at Vox.
Maryland is decriminalizing marijuana. "Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley will sign legislation decriminalizing marijuana in his state, the governor's office announced Monday. The legislation will make Maryland the 17th state to decriminalize marijuana." German Lopez at Vox.
International
Global
The death penalty, globally. "In terms of number of countries, the world is moving away from the death penalty .. 37 countries had the death penalty in 1994, compared with 22 today. In Europe and Latin America, the practice has essentially been entirely banished and an increasing number of African countries are reviewing their laws. On the other hand, with the exception of Brazil … and Russia ... the world’s 10 biggest countries are all death penalty states. With India, Japan, and Indonesia rejoining the U.S., the world’s largest democracies are death penalty countries and the practice has heavy popular support in all of them." Joshua Keating at Slate.
On genocide prevention and political will. "The Security Council’s ongoing divisions hamper effective action in the most serious cases of mass atrocity, such as Syria today, where geopolitical interests of world powers diverge and the body count has risen exponentially ... Political will remains a huge issue. The Rwandan tragedy was not largely the result of a lack of knowledge … but a lack of leadership from institutions and countries that should have done better when they had the opportunity to make a difference. The leaders who might have seized on the multiple warnings of looming catastrophe were otherwise preoccupied and unwilling to act." Sara J. Bloomfield and Michael Abramowitz at the New Republic.
The global fight against polio is going … badly. "The fight to eliminate polio is now imperiled ... by 'insecurity, targeted attacks on health workers and/or a ban by local authorities on polio immunization,' ... The virus, which existed in only three countries at the dawn of 2012, is now returning to places from which it had been eradicated ... thanks to warfare and to the growing belief within Islamist circles that the polio-eradication effort is a secret CIA plot, designed to harm or contaminate Muslim children. Amid assassinations and bombings of vaccination sites ... the death toll for healthcare workers now exceeds the number of children dying of polio." Laurie Garrett at Foreign Policy.
Everything you need to know about Bitcoin. Timothy B. Lee at Vox.
Making progress on an Iranian nuclear deal. "Iran said it hopes enough progress will be made with major powers this week to enable negotiators to start drafting by mid-May a final accord to settle a long-running dispute over its nuclear program. The Islamic Republic and six world powers will hold a new round of talks in Vienna ... intended to reach a comprehensive agreement by July 20 on how to resolve a decade-old standoff that has stirred fears of a Middle East war … A U.S. official gave a similar timetable last week, voicing hope that the drafting of an agreement could begin in May." Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl at Reuters.
Africa
Libya's security dilemma. "Libyans face a thorny security dilemma: The absence of strong state institutions creates the need, opportunities and support for militias to provide security and play a role in the transition, but these groups undermine security and the development of strong state institutions … The dilemma is clear. When citizens desperately need security and welfare … they will support militias. So, too, when political elites recognize that ... weak state institutions can be trumped by arms on the street … Both citizens and elites make these choices, even when the choices undermine a better future. All are stuck in a suboptimal equilibrium, and no one wants to be the first mover out of it." Lindsay Benstead, Alexander Kjaerum, Ellen Lust, and Jakob Wichmann at the Monkey Cage.
The Nigerian economic miracle. "The economy nearly doubled, racking up hundreds of billions of dollars, ballooning to the size of the Polish and Belgian economies, and breezing by the South African economy to become Africa's largest. As days go, it was a good one. It was, in fact, a miracle borne of statistics: It had been 24 years since Nigerian authorities last updated their approach to calculating gross domestic product (GDP), a process known as 'rebasing' that wealthy countries typically carry out every five years. When the Nigerian government finally did it this week, the country's GDP … soared to $510 billion." Uri Friedman at the Atlantic.
Central America
Costa Rican opposition figure wins the presidency in a landslide. "Opposition candidate and former professor Luis Guillermo Solís easily won Sunday’s runoff election, ushering in Costa Rica’s first third-party candidate in 44 years … The Supreme Elections Tribunal (TSE) announced him the winner in a landslide with 77.8 percent of the votes … Solís exceeded his goal of 1 million votes, garnering just under 1.3 million – the most votes ever captured by a Costa Rican presidential candidate … President-elect Solís and his campaign managed to displace Costa Rica’s oldest and most established political party, which won the presidency the last two consecutive terms." Zach Dyer at the Tico Times.
Europe
Everything you need to know about the Ukraine crisis. Max Fisher at Vox.
If it looks like Crimea and quacks like Crimea... "Pro-Moscow protesters in eastern Ukraine seized arms in one city and declared a separatist republic in another, in moves Kiev described ... as part of a Russian-orchestrated plan to justify an invasion to dismember the country … Pro-Russian protesters seized official buildings in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk on Sunday night, demanding that referendums be held on whether to join Russia like the one that preceded Moscow's takeover of Crimea." Richard Balmforth and Lina Kushch at Reuters.
Russia can carve up Ukraine without using one additional troop. "With Crimea in hand, Russia appears to be using powerful tools—from natural gas price hikes to a threat of the further loss of territory—to secure influence in the rest of Ukraine in advance of May 25 presidential elections. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s strategy seems to be not to actually invade Ukraine ... but to assert dominance through levers already on the ground ... Putin’s apparent preference is for Ukraine to split into federated states with independent foreign policies prior to the presidential election—allowing the leaders of some of them to form subservient relationships with Russia." Steve LeVine at Quartz.
No solution for the Russia crisis. "With Russian troops amassed on the Ukraine border, some observers are worrying about what is being called a 'post-Crimea crisis.' … That leads to the inevitable question: does Putin have the military might to roll into other Russian-speaking regions, such as the Baltic States, and annex more territory? The answer is a firm yes … There were signs of hope when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei in Paris in recent days, offering a ray of hope that Moscow was open to a political solution. But there have been little hints since of possible resolution." Catherine Maddux at VOA News.
Middle East
The Afghanistan elections went well - but it's not over yet. "The first round of elections to replace President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan took place on Saturday. Karzai has been the country’s sole leader since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2002. Fifty-eight percent of Afghanistan’s 12 million eligible voters turned out to the polls ... a marked improvement over the turnout in 2009′s presidential election. This vote marks the first time that Afghans have been able to take part in the democratic handover of power and it appears little was going to stand in the way of those who wanted to exercise their right." Hayes Brown at Think Progress.
Afghanistan's post-ethnic presidential election still went along ethnic lines. "As ballots were tallied Sunday from Afghanistan’s presidential election, many voters hoped that the country was moving into a new era marked by its first democratic handover of power. But early returns in Kabul pointed to the enduring power of ethnic politics. The presidential candidates had tried to market themselves as post-ethnic leaders, promoting ... reform rather than the kind of sectarianism that fed the civil war in the 1990s. An electoral result that breaks down along ethnic lines could complicate the formation of the next government, requiring negotiations and compromises to create a broad-based coalition." Kevin Sieff at the Washington Post.
Palestine throws a wrench in the peace process. "Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas defied American diplomats Tuesday by unilaterally signing more than a dozen United Nations treaties, endangering the U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians … A pall of confusion descended as diplomats could not answer basic questions about how and when the negotiations will continue … It was clear that Abbas’s move blindsided the United States." William Booth and Anne Gearan at the Washington Post.
Israel expands the scope of its naval operations. "Last month’s capture of an Iranian arms cache in international waters south of the Red Sea’s Port Sudan is just 'the tip of the iceberg' of Israeli maritime black operations … An after-action investigation of Operation Full Disclosure ... that culminated in the bloodless March 5 raid of a Panamanian-flagged freighter some 1,500 kilometers from Israel’s Red Sea port — is still in progress. But Rear Adm. Yaron Levi, Israel Navy chief of staff, said preliminary findings reaffirm the service’s tactic of choice for tackling contraband on the high seas: force prevention through force projection." Barbara Opall-Rome at Defense News.
Another roadblock to improved US-Iranian relations. "Iran's reported decision to name Hamid Aboutalebi as its ambassador to the United Nations has ignited anger in the U.S. That's because the diplomat was part of the student group that held Americans hostage in 1979 … It's the latest sign of just how difficult it will be for Washington and Tehran to overcome decades of mistrust." Michele Kelemen at NPR.
North America
Low productivity is pulling down Mexican GDP growth. "For all of its successes ... the country has recorded relatively slow GDP growth. For the past 20 years, annual GDP growth ... has averaged about 2.7%, which is low by emerging-economy standards and not enough to raise living standards substantially across a growing population. The main factor behind Mexico’s anemic growth is chronically weak productivity increases ... It could be headed to 2% growth, rather than the 3.5% that is widely expected. That is because population aging and a falling birth rate will slow the flow of new workers into the labor force, the source of more than two-thirds of GDP growth in recent decades." Jaana Remes and Luis Rubio at Project Syndicate.
Polisci
On ignorance and the application of military force. "In addition to measuring standard demographic characteristics and general foreign policy attitudes, we also asked our survey respondents to locate Ukraine on a map as part of a larger, ongoing project to study foreign policy knowledge. We wanted to see where Americans think Ukraine is and to learn if this knowledge ... is related to their foreign policy views. We found that only one out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map, and that this lack of knowledge is related to preferences: The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force." Kyle Dropp, Joshua D. Kertzer, and Thomas Zeitzoff at the Monkey Cage.
Science
Fossil galaxy discovered - and why it's important. "A tiny galaxy circling the Milky Way may be a fossil left over from the early Universe, astronomers say. A recent study found that the stars in the galaxy, called Segue 1, contain fewer heavy elements than those of any other galaxy known, implying that the object may have stopped evolving almost 13 billion years ago. If true, Segue 1 could offer a window into the conditions of the early Universe and reveal how some of the first galaxies came to be." Clara Moskowitz at Nature.
Night-vision contacts. "As the Pentagon continues to build a lighter, faster and stronger soldier of the future, new technology that could provide night vision without bulky goggles has caught the Army’s eye. Researchers at the University of Michigan, Ted Norris and Zhaohui Zhong, have created a super-thin infrared light sensor using graphene — an atom-thin material related to graphite — that could be layered onto contact lenses." Allen McDuffee at Wired.
Miscellaneous
UConn - good at basketball, bad at academics. "The University of Connecticut Huskies made a triumphant return to the NCAA tournament this year — winning the national championship ... after the school was barred from competition in 2013 for poor academic performance. But UConn's graduation rate for male basketball players is still the worst of any team in the 2014 tournament. UConn graduates 8 percent of its players ... To put it another way: of the 12 players who started as freshmen eight years ago, exactly one managed to finish a college degree or leave UConn in good academic standing." Libby Nelson at Vox.
Why you're now less likely to die in a car crash. Susannah Locke at Vox.
Why UPS drivers (almost) never turn left. "In 2004, UPS announced a new policy for its drivers: the right way to get to any destination was to avoid left-hand turns … UPS engineers found that left-hand turns were a major drag on efficiency. Turning against traffic resulted in long waits in left-hand turn lanes that wasted time and fuel, and it also led to a disproportionate number of accidents. By mapping out routes that involved 'a series of right-hand loops,' … the right turn rule combined with other improvements ... saved around 10 million gallons of gas and reduced emissions by the equivalent of taking 5,300 cars of the road for a year." Alex Mayyasi at Priceonomics.
Explaining Amtrak's crazy train-boarding rules. Matthew Yglesias at Vox.
The new best April Fools prank. Scott Gustin + video at Fox News.
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