The war on drugs!
These Two Maps Explain ISIS's Chokehold Over Iraq →
Al Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS's predecessor, had been defeated when the US pulled the last of its troops out of Iraq in December of 2011. The US troop "surge" that began in 2007 helped secure the gains made by an American-supported Sunni Arab uprising against AQI — the "Sahwa," or Anbar Awakening campaign that decisively shifted grassroots Sunni support away from Al Qaeda and towards the US and its partners.
But as these maps illustrate, the reach of the Sahwa by the end of the American campaign against AQI has an unnerving correspondence with the parts of Iraq now under ISIS's control...
Natural Gas Is Leaking And Warming The Climate — And You’re Paying For It →
The leaks mentioned here are the hard-to-reach ones. We've known for years that companies aren't responsive in fixing the easy ones, even when it would save them money.
The latest on Amazon and Hachette
Two somewhat competing accounts of Amazon's [ab]use of power in the book market.
Paul Krugman, Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
Does Amazon really have robber-baron-type market power? When it comes to books, definitely. Amazon overwhelmingly dominates online book sales, with a market share comparable to Standard Oil’s share of the refined oil market when it was broken up in 1911. Even if you look at total book sales, Amazon is by far the largest player.
Joshua Gans, Amazon: it’s not the power, it’s the lost focus
Paul Krugman sees Amazon’s actions against Hachette — not allowing pre-orders, slipping delivery times and the like — as evidence it cannot be trusted with its power. But his anger is missplaced. The issue is that Amazon has taken these actions in a way that actually harms consumers right now.
Today's Very Good News on Ebola - That You Probably Haven't Heard →
Today is October 19th, the last day of the quarantine for the family members who were living with Duncan just before he was hospitalized.
...according to news reports as recently as yesterday, none of the family members have shown any symptoms of the disease. So we can now say close to definitively that none of them contracted Ebola even though they were living with him in close quarters as he entered the infectious period.
Factbox: Egypt's Student Protests →
Banned from campuses by judicial order since 2010, the question of police presence on university campuses once again emerged during the previous academic year. In October 2013, police presence was approved on Al-Azhar’s campus. In April 2014, Cairo University followed suit.
In October of this year, private security firm, the Falcon Group, was hired to provide on-campus security services at fifteen state universities, as well as at Al-Azhar University. Measures put in place by Falcon included steel gates installed in front of electronic gates at campus entrances, and female security guards stationed at entrances. The firm, however, would not be equipped with live ammunition.
Students have been protesting for awhile now. This will be important to watch.
U.S. Stocks Rebound With Crude as Treasuries Drop on Fed →
From a couple of days ago. The stock market has been highly volatile.
The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons →
One of the more viral pieces of news from yesterday:
From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.
In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.