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(Reuters)
Wonkbook’s Number of a Day: 4.2 percent. That’s a Commerce Department’s revised estimate for a U.S. economy’s annualized rate of enlargement in a second quarter.
Wonkbook’s Chart of a Day: Americans still feel a economy has a prolonged proceed to go to come behind from a Great Recession.
Wonkbook’s Top 5 Stories: (1) The expanding U.S. quarrel opposite Ebola; (2) vigour yields campus sexual-assault measures; (3) a flourishing GOP Medicaid enlargement train; (4) an improving economy that people still don’t feel; and (5) a discuss over children and guns.
1. Top story: The flourishing U.S. quarrel opposite Ebola
WHO warns that Ebola cases could tip 20,000. “More than 20,000 people might be putrescent with Ebola before a conflict in West Africa is controlled, and curbing a widespread will cost during slightest $490 million, according to a World Health Organization plan. The array of people descending ill is accelerating, with some-more than 40 percent of a infections duty in a past 21 days, a Geneva-based United Nations organisation pronounced today. In some areas, a array of cases might be dual to 4 times aloft than reported, a WHO pronounced in a ostensible highway map that lays out a devise to understanding with a misfortune Ebola conflict on record.” Simeon Bennett in Bloomberg.
NIH officials contend clinical trials on vaccine to start soon. “The early-stage tellurian hearing is set to start subsequent week during a National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda and will exam both a reserve of a vaccine and a ability to beget an defence response in patients. The initial hearing will embody about 20 adults, and officials pronounced they wish to have initial reserve information by a finish of a year — a systematic and reliable prerequisite before distributing any new drug widely….At a same time, a NIH and other groups, such as a British-based open health gift Wellcome Trust, are perplexing to line adult identical tellurian Ebola vaccine trials in a United Kingdom, Gambia and Mali commencement as early as subsequent month.” Brady Dennis in The Washington Post.
Mutations will make it worse to stop a outbreak, examine says… “The Ebola pathogen unconditional by West Africa has deteriorated regularly during a stream outbreak, a fact that could impede diagnosis and diagnosis of a harmful disease, according to scientists who have genetically sequenced a pathogen in scores of victims. The findings…also offer new insights into a origins of a largest and many lethal Ebola conflict in history, that has killed some-more than 1,500 people in 4 countries and shows few signs of slowing. It also supposing another pointer of a low fee a conflict has taken on health workers and others in a influenced areas, as 5 of a paper’s some-more than 50 co-authors died from Ebola before publication.” Brady Dennis in The Washington Post.
…but these commentary could assistance with vaccine development. “This minute genetic mapping also could eventually make a bit of a disproportion in a proceed doctors mark and quarrel a disease, generally with work in rough vaccines….Researchers have already checked that still-not-tested vaccine opposite some of a some-more than 350 mutations in this aria of Ebola to make certain a changes a illness is creation won’t undercut science’s brisk efforts to quarrel it, pronounced Pardis Sabeti, a scientist during Harvard University and a dependent Broad Institute.” Seth Borenstein in the Associated Press.
Burial practices aren’t usually swelling a virus. They’re creation it harder for public-health responders to do their work. “Burials of people who have died of Ebola are holding as prolonged as 5 days in Liberia as a necessity of ambulances and fuel devalue a fear and siege that are stoking a misfortune conflict of a pathogen on record. A miss of vehicles and a fuel necessity are also hampering a ability of a World Health Organization and a allies to strech influenced communities and examine new cases, pronounced Rick Brennan, executive of a WHO’s dialect of puncture risk supervision and charitable response.” Simeon Bennett in Bloomberg.
They are a physique collectors: A hazardous pursuit in a time of Ebola. “‘When we arise adult in a morning, we will urge to God to give me strength and focus,’ says 21-year-old Sorie Fofana. His pursuit is collecting a bodies of those who die from Ebola in Monrovia, Liberia’s collateral city of roughly 1 million people. Before, Fofana was an artist, creation designs for T-shirts. The new pursuit pays improved — $1,000 a month. But each morning, a lanky, laid-back Fofana has to steel himself to go out and do a job.” Nurith Aizenman in NPR.
How a conflict could parent a food crisis. “The Ebola health predicament threatens to spin into a many broader ‘food crisis’ in some of a world’s many bankrupt countries, according to a United Nations’ World Food Program. The module is scaling adult a operations in West Africa to yield food to 1.3 million people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The food will go to people being treated for Ebola; their relatives; and those who have been quarantined by their governments, in an bid to hindrance a widespread of Ebola….Farmers are withdrawal their crops as they rush areas scorched by Ebola….People are not means to transport and trade freely, as countries tighten borders and general airlines cancel flights….People are also not means to hunt for brush meat.” Liz Szabo in USA Today.
Other public-health reads:
White House orders biosafety examination during sovereign labs. Jocelyn Kaiser in Science.
SEPKOWITZ: A vaccine might do tiny to assistance the current crisis. “In other words, a vaccine being complicated roughly positively will have no impact on a stream West Africa crisis. Given a gait of useable science, even with a compressed, hurry-up-already complement a claimant vaccine is being ushered through, rough formula on reserve and a vaccine’s ability to incite a suggestive defence response will not be accessible until a finish of a calendar year — during a indicate when a now 6-month prolonged widespread approaching will have finally fizzled out.” Kent Sepkowitz in The Daily Beast.
Top opinion
BARRO: Don’t wish me to recline? You can compensate me. “Obviously, it’s crude to chuck H2O during another newcomer on a flight, even if he deserves it. But I’ve seen a pathetic volume of magnetism for Mr. Knee Defender, who wasn’t usually instigating a quarrel yet usurping his associate passenger’s skill rights. When we buy an airline ticket, one of a things you’re shopping is a right to use your seat’s recumbent function. If this newcomer so badly wanted a newcomer in front of him not to recline, he should have paid her to give adult that right.” Josh Barro in The New York Times.
CASSIDY: The good news about Medicare and a budget. “What’s new is that a problem no longer appears to be a destroyed one. The knowledge of a past decade shows that a rate of enlargement of health-care spending doesn’t have to accelerate from year to year; it isn’t an permanent law of domestic economy that Medicare contingency always squeeze a bigger cut of supervision spending….That doesn’t meant that we’ve solved a plea of financing a aging of a boomers: we haven’t. Even if a new trends persist, we’ll still need to lift additional revenues or trim spending. But, for a initial time in a prolonged time, there’s reason for rhythmical optimism..” John Cassidy in The New Yorker.
DAYEN: The SEC could have bound a damaged rating agencies. It whiffed. “The manners enclose a large loophole, given they don’t extend avowal to ‘private placements,’ where holds get sole secretly to worldly investors rather than on a open market. Banks could simply change their sales into private placements to equivocate a requirement. Too many of a financial courtesy relies on duping investors about a peculiarity of investments. The SEC is ostensible to be a initial line of invulnerability opposite that, yet has unsuccessful in that goal regularly in new years. That feeds doubt about a earnest in combating rascal during a rating agencies, generally given it refused to change a inherently injured remuneration model. As prolonged as a rating agencies get paid by issuers, they’ll have incentives to greatfully them with high ratings.” David Dayen in The New Republic.
AVI-YONAH: Why corporate taxes are good for you. “Burger King’s due pierce to Canada is usually a latest in a array of ‘inversion’ transactions….These increasingly common exchange have led some observers to doubt either we need to taxation companies during all. For example, Greg Mankiw, President George W. Bush’s mercantile adviser, argues in The New York Times that a United States should annul a corporate taxation and reinstate it with a taxation on consumption. Even magnanimous pundits like Matthew Yglesias have toyed with a idea….This view, yet fashionable, couldn’t be some-more misguided. We shouldn’t throw a corporate taxation — we should strengthen it.” Reuven S. Avi-Yonah in Politico Magazine.
GLECKMAN: CBO projections map a entrance mercantile battle. “While CBO’s updated necessity foresee got many of a attention…the some-more engaging story is what is approaching to occur to sovereign spending underneath stream law….Think of a CBO news as a map of a entrance margin of battle. As always, a check agency’s projections assume stream law. That means a sequester’s involuntary spending cuts for many of supervision resume as scheduled after mercantile 2015. Without those cuts, spending would be $874 billion aloft over a subsequent decade (plus $156 billion in seductiveness on a combined debt)….It is already easy to see where a vigour points will come when Congress and President Obama once again block off over spending.” Howard Gleckman in Forbes.
Caffeine interlude: This is your mind on coffee.
2. How sovereign and public vigour might assistance quell campus passionate assaults
U.S. inspection of campus passionate assaults has found a proceed to a states. “When Congress reconvenes after a Aug recess, a bipartisan organisation of lawmakers will continue their pull to pass legislation directed during curbing campus passionate assaults. The Obama administration has taken on a issue, creation open recommendations for how colleges should respond to a problem and some-more aggressively posterior institutions that desecrate passionate conflict cases. But…the emanate is also increasingly autocratic a courtesy of process makers during a state level. Echoing concerns finished by their sovereign counterparts, lawmakers and other officials in a handful of states are posterior new ways to impulse down on campus passionate assaults.” Michael Stratford in Inside Higher Ed.
California passes a ‘yes means yes’ customary to tackle campus passionate assaults. “The California Senate upheld a first-in-the-nation check Thursday to conclude what amounts to consensual passionate activity in colleges in a state….California’s check comes after some-more than a year of vigour from a sovereign government, Congress, and student activists for aloft preparation institutions to do more….Colleges and universities have been changing their policies for months in response to sovereign pressure. And after new changes in a Violence Against Women Act that need colleges to categorically news their impediment efforts, many colleges will be phenomenon new policies and programs this tumble where they never existed before. The ostensible ‘affirmative consent’ customary that California’s legislature has introduced in a latest check is not a new concept.” Eliza Gray in Time Magazine.
More colleges are buying sexual-assault insurance. “As schools grow some-more wakeful of a risk of passionate attacks on campus, some have implemented educational programs for students or reformed how they hoop accusations of abuse. A few colleges are doing something else….They’re shopping new word policies designed to strengthen them when passionate bungle scandals arise….Most schools still don’t have standalone passionate bungle policies, given their guilt word covers passionate conflict claims that tumble underneath Title IX….Often that covers claims of abuse, passionate assault, or rape and also provides services to assistance victims, examine allegations, and cover lawsuit expenses.” Alyssa Abkowitz in Bloomberg Businessweek.
A scripted response on passionate assaults. “Proposed sovereign manners approaching to be published in Nov would need institutions to offer impediment programs to new students, as good as employees, yet many campuses have already begun….Stepping adult impediment is usually one proceed colleges are responding to vigour from activists and supervision officials….While some colleges are formulating programs of their own, many are shopping online courses constructed by record companies and other groups….A screening of a online impediment programs reveals a array of similarities among 5 of a many renouned ones.” Monica Vendituoli in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
A lodge courtesy has emerged on preventing a assaults. “A discerning hunt for terms like ‘campus safety’ and ‘sexual assault’ on a Apple App Store reveals dozens of applications marketed toward disturbed college students….And it’s not usually mobile apps. From risk supervision firms to educational programs to products like fingernail gloss that can detect date rape drugs, students and administrators have an augmenting array of ostensible impediment methods to select from. Driven by a larger turn of authorised and sovereign inspection in new years, a lodge courtesy is flourishing around campus passionate assault.” Jake New in Inside Higher Ed.
Other education reads:
What’s a pivotal emanate in Jindal’s Common Core lawsuit? “In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal claims that a Obama administration improperly impinged on internal propagandize administrators by enlivening states to adopt a Common Core standards….Some discharged his fit as lacking merit, observant that a administration gave states space to evade Common Core if they chose. All a same, a governor’s box raises anew an critical doubt about a Common Core that divides a supporters and a detractors: either a beginning is usually a set of standards that mention what students should learn, or a curriculum that sum how they should learn it.” Max Ehrenfreund in The Washington Post.
Why Jindal had to sue: Think forward to 2016. “Jindal’s lawsuit a latest in a fibre of moves opposite Common Core. In June, he released an executive sequence instructing state officials to exercise a new educational standard. Here’s a intensity payoff: Imagine an competition going after Jindal during a discuss in Iowa subsequent year, indicating out his early support for Common Core. His comeback: ‘I sued President Obama over Common Core. I’m no cheerleader.’ Now design that same line in TV ad. Not a bad counterargument for him to make. More generally, it’s a good thing in Republican circles to be suing a Obama administration — on any issue, really.” Sean Sullivan in The Washington Post.
Common Core dissolution costs Oklahoma a NCLB waiver. Caitlin Emma in Politico.
A new year, a new proceed to propagandize policing. Chris Opfer in The Atlantic CityLab.
Kids contend a darndest things interlude: Boy goes crazy given his mom is profound again.
3. The GOP is increasingly hoping on a Medicaid enlargement bandwagon
Pennsylvania’s Republican administrator expands Medicaid. ” Corbett, whose reelection discuss is suffering, joins Republican governors like Jan Brewer of Arizona and New Jersey’s Chris Christie who conflict a ACA yet have taken a law’s billions of dollars to enhance coverage to a lowest citizens….Iowa and Arkansas used private word to enhance their Medicaid programs, as some states have sought coherence from a sovereign government….Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), a rumored 2016 presidential candidate, is also seeking a sovereign government’s accede to enhance Medicaid by an existent state module providing health assets accounts to low-income adults. Pennsylvania’s enlargement will be engaged by managed caring plans, that are already used in a state’s Medicaid program.” Jason Millman in The Washington Post.
Or is it Medicaid expansion? “Corbett, who is lagging in a polls in his bid for re-election this fall, pronounced his plan, Healthy Pennsylvania, is not enlargement underneath ostensible Obamacare. The administrator ‘has been transparent that he would not enhance Medicaid given it is an unsustainable desert program,’ a matter from his bureau pronounced on Thursday. However, sovereign officials pronounced a capitulation finished Pennsylvania a 27th state to enhance Medicaid underneath Obamacare.” Hilary Russ and David Morgan in Reuters.
Explainer: Here’s how Pennsylvania is expanding Medicaid. Adrianna McIntyre in Vox.
GOP increasingly hopping on Medicaid enlargement bandwagon… “The preference has poignant impact for Pennsylvania residents: By observant approbation to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, as many as 600,000 low-income state residents would advantage subsidies to squeeze health coverage. (According to Gallup, about 10% of state residents are now uninsured.) And it’s another vigilance that GOP governors, who’ve resisted a ACA’s coverage enlargement for a brew of domestic and process reasons, are usually entrance around to a idea. Why? More sovereign supports and reduce rates of uninsurance, for starters.” Dan Diamond in Forbes.
…and shying away from Obamacare repeal. “Heading into a initial congressional choosing given millions of Americans gained coverage underneath a health law, many Republican possibilities are holding a some-more nuanced proceed to how they impugn a law. Rather than usually pursuit for repeal, they are following Ayres’ recommendations to concentration on arguments about how a law is spiteful consumers, supervision budgets or a economy. And while domestic ads on radio are still common, a array of new ads about a law has declined given open when a administration rebounded from a uneasy launch of healthcare.gov.” Phil Galewitz in Kaiser Health News.
ACA will advantage some-more tiny businesses in a fall. “Three some-more state-run SHOP exchanges are slated to open, and a sovereign supervision will betray exchanges for a 32 states that chose not to run their own. SHOP exchanges were ostensible to open national on Oct. 1, a same day as exchanges charity health word for individuals. But a Obama administration deferred a SHOP launch, citing a need to repair critical technical problems with a exchanges for individuals….Also, word companies speedy business owners to replenish their skeleton before a Oct 2013 deadline to equivocate carrying to pointer adult for a new process during a initial year of a argumentative ACA rollout.” Christine Vestal in Pew Stateline.
A deadline looms for many to keep their Obamacare, yet a glitch might bushel them. “Hundreds of thousands of people risk losing their new health word policies if they don’t resubmit citizenship or immigration information to a supervision by a finish of subsequent week — yet a sovereign Healthcare.gov site stays so glitchy that they are carrying a tough time complying. Consumers are being forced to send their information mixed times, and many can’t entrance their accounts during all….The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent letters to about 310,000 consumers dual weeks ago, revelation them they need to contention explanation of their citizenship or immigration standing by Sept. 5 or their word will be canceled during a finish of a month.” Jayne O’Donnell in USA Today.
Other health care reads:
Why won’t doctors pierce to farming America? Olga Khazan in The Atlantic.
More information to be funded from database of medicine payments. Charles Ornstein in ProPublica.
Long read: The emergence of a post-clinic abortion. Emily Bazelon in The New York Times Magazine.
It’s unequivocally tough to magnitude a effects of termination restrictions in Texas. Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in FiveThirtyEight.
Obamacare spurs concentration on faster drug development. Daniela Hernandez in Kaiser Health News and Wired.
States enhance entrance to overdose annulment drug. Arian Campo-Flores and Zusha Elinson in The Wall Street Journal.
The enlargement of mental health caring hits obstacles. Abby Goodnough in The New York Times.
‘Friends’ interlude: A mini-reunion.
4. The economy keeps removing better, yet try revelation that to workers
U.S. second-quarter enlargement revised higher; jobless claims tumble again. “Gross domestic product stretched during a 4.2 percent annual rate instead of a formerly reported 4.0 percent pace, a Commerce Department pronounced on Thursday. Both business spending and exports were revised higher, while a buildup in business inventories was smaller than formerly estimated — a brew of enlargement that provides a stronger underpinning for a residue of a year. Separate reports display a second true weekly decrease in a array of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits and a jump in home squeeze contracts also suggested underlying movement in a economy.” Lucia Mutikani in Reuters.
But are many people feeling it? “Despite a faster altogether enlargement rate, businesses still seem to be benefiting some-more from a economy’s ceiling arena than many particular consumers are. The rider on Thursday, for example, lowered a guess of workers’ income and income enlargement somewhat in a initial half of 2014, with income rising 5.8 percent in a second quarter. Corporate profits, on a other hand, jumped 8 percent in a second quarter, a Commerce Department said. That separate could change if stagnation continues to dump and a labor marketplace tightens adequate to give employees some-more negotiate energy to direct aloft pay.” Nelson D. Schwartz in The New York Times.
Why it still feels like a retrogression hasn’t ended. “From a start of a retrogression in 2007 to today, a normal cost of a things we buy…has risen by 15 percent. This, in itself, isn’t a problem during all. The problem is that salary haven’t kept gait with that increase. In fact, for all yet a tip income earners, genuine (inflation-adjusted) gain are indeed down over a same period….These total are from a new Economic Policy Institute news on a common income growth….And they yield critical context for a new Rutgers University poll…showing augmenting melancholy in a issue of a Great Recession.” Christopher Ingraham in The Washington Post.
People are quitting their jobs. That’s good news. “Want to make Janet Yellen happy? Quit your job. The Federal Reserve Board Chair watches a lot of mercantile information as she and her colleagues on a Federal Open Market Committee make their decisions about environment seductiveness rates and circuitous down a stream mercantile impulse program. One of a information points that Yellen has pronounced she pays courtesy to is a rate during that workers quit their jobs. It might seem counterintuitive, yet in a Fed’s view, it’s a good pointer when an augmenting array of people willingly leave their jobs. The meditative is that when jobs are wanting and people are disturbed about anticipating work, they are reduction peaceful to desert an existent practice arrangement.” Rob Garver in The Fiscal Times.
K.C. Fed sees improvements in pursuit marketplace in new gauge. “The bank pronounced that a Kansas City Fed Labor Market Conditions Indicators activity magnitude changed to -0.6 in July, something a news deemed a ‘substantial improvement’ from a low of -2.1 seen in Dec 2009, in a inlet of a biggest mercantile and financial downturn seen given a Great Depression. The new sign also marks labor marketplace momentum, and found gains there as well. The Kansas City Fed pronounced a biggest contributors to alleviation in a pursuit marketplace were a rising array of pursuit openings.” Michael S. Derby in The Wall Street Journal.
Other economic/financial reads:
A mall with dual smallest salary provides a real-world experiment. Steve Henn in NPR.
Evictions soar in prohibited market; renters suffer. Shaila Dewan in The New York Times.
Businesses find ways to equivocate corporate taxes, yet a repair seems unlikely. David Gelles in The New York Times.
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge interlude: What we need to know about ALS before we take a challenge.
5. The discuss over children and guns
Should children be authorised to use guns? “Gun-control advocates…said it highlighted a dangers of children carrying entrance to firearms. In a singular impulse of agreement, some gun rights advocates also took a occurrence as a warning that maybe such immature children should not be authorised to hoop such a notoriously formidable and lethal weapon. But a pro-gun advocates combined that, when finished safely, there are advantages to training even really immature children to glow certain guns. Youngsters learn hand-eye coordination. They learn what to do if they event on a arms on a playground. And they learn how to urge themselves if they are ever attacked.” Sandhya Somashekhar and Mark Berman in The Washington Post.
Explainer: 4 blunt points. ” A 9-year-old lady in Arizona being taught to glow an Uzi appurtenance gun mislaid control of a arms and killed her sharpened instructor. The Internet has a video. This is a kind of terrible occurrence that invites overheated debate. Herewith 4 blunt points—framed as questions and dictated to strew light before a ideologues go ballistic.” Paul M. Barrett in Bloomberg Businessweek.
Meanwhile, it looks as though the Obama gun burble has burst. “On Wednesday, gunmaker Smith Wesson (SWHC) reported lousy earnings, and a batch cost fell 14 percent. It’s down 34 percent on a year. Sturm Ruger (RGR), a other publicly traded U.S. gunmaker, has fared even worse: It’s batch is down 42 percent this year. As my co-worker Kyle Stock put it yesterday, people aren’t shopping guns. But there’s some-more to a story. Until this year, guns were offered like crazy. Sales had skyrocketed via a Obama presidency. Now, unexpected it looks like America has reached ‘peak gun’—and a Obama gun burble is bursting.” Joshua Green in Bloomberg Businessweek.
Other legal reads:
White House nominates Botticelli, a recuperating alcoholic, to be drug czar. Katie Zezima in The Washington Post.
Hillary Clinton cites secular inequities in initial comments on Ferguson. Peter Nicholas in The Wall Street Journal.
Oklahoma invalid died from injection in botched execution, not heart attack, autopsy finds. Matt Pearce and Tina Susman in Los Angeles Times.
Lack of information creates it tough for credentials checks to work properly. Sarah Ferris in The Washington Post.
Governor of Utah says state should urge anti-polygamy law in arise of decision. Lindsay Whitehurst in a Associated Press.
Elders interlude: Elders conflict to Oculus Rift.
Wonkblog roundup
Contraception, Obamacare subsidies and ice buckets: Health care’s summer to remember. Jason Millman.
Pennsylvania’s Republican administrator expands Medicaid. Jason Millman.
The core doubt in Bobby Jindal’s Common Core lawsuit. Max Ehrenfreund.
Yes, a impulse worked: highway spending would have depressed 20% though it. Matt O’Brien.
There’s a large opening between what group and women make in a grill industry. Roberto A. Ferdman.
This is because it feels like a retrogression never ended. Christopher Ingraham.
Et Cetera
America’s spark heartland is in mercantile freefall — yet usually a many unfortunate are fleeing. Chico Harlan in The Washington Post.
Obama picks Texas-based U.S. prosecutor as initial Latina to conduct ICE. Todd J. Gillman in Dallas Morning News.
VA wait times have decreased, new information show. Meghan Hoyer in USA Today.
The head-on politics of going around Congress on meridian change. Michael Catalini and Ben Geman in National Journal.
The FCC’s subsequent CTO is a net-neutrality expert. Nancy Scola in The Washington Post.
A new proceed to save gas: Talking cars. Jason Plautz in National Journal.
Shell launches a latest bid for Arctic oil exploration. Jennifer A. Dlouhy in a Houston Chronicle.
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Wonkbook is constructed with assistance from Michelle Williams and Ryan McCarthy.