In The News

The Washington Post: US Life Expectancy Varies by More Than 20 Years From County to County

Joel Achenbach May 9, 2017
Life expectancy at birth reflects the overall mortality level of a population, but the fragmented nature of US health care – with state oversight of health insurance and regulation – contributes to a 20-year gap among some counties. Life expectancy in some places like Kentucky is in decline while rising in parts of New York, California and Alaska. A report from the University of Washington’s...

The Guardian: Venezuela Plan to Rewrite Constitution Branded a Coup by Former Regional Allies

Jonathan Watts and Virginia López May 3, 2017
Venezuela has ample oil reserves and other natural resources, but its citizens must contend with unemployment, inflation, corruption and negative growth. Foreign investors and neighboring states are alarmed as protests and riots over food shortages overwhelm the country. The opposition won control of the national assembly by a large margin in 2015, but President Nicholás Maduro plans to revise...

Project Syndicate: Will Economic Illiteracy Trigger a Trade War?

Jeffrey D. Sachs April 28, 2017
An introduction to economics defines a nation’s deficit or surplus – “The current-account balance, measuring the balance of trade in goods, services, net factor income, and transfer payments from abroad, is equal to national saving minus domestic investment.” The Trump administration is mistaken about the source of the US deficit, overlooking the low US rate of saving and instead blaming Germany...

Stratfor: Changing the Scientific Climate in the United States

April 26, 2017
Throughout history, experimentation and science have delivered comfort and prosperity – electricity, road and air transportation, cures for disease, satellites and weather forecasting, communication technologies and more. US scientists are alarmed by political leaders who reject policy recommendations based on evidence – notably the near unanimous agreement among climate scientists that reliance...

Barron’s: Don’t Give Up on Globalization

Joseph Quinlan April 20, 2017
Much of the world no longer trusts “the unfettered cross-border flows of goods, services, people” of globalization anymore,” explains Joseph Quinlan for Barron’s. “Without access to the world’s resources, capital, and labor, many U.S. firms would be shadows of their current selves in terms of market capitalization and earnings. That would endanger the whole U.S. economy.” Quinlan also expresses...

Wired: To Save Florida’s Oranges, Scientists Race to Weaponize a Virus

Megan Molteni April 19, 2017
A disease known as citrus greening, spread by the bacteria Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus and the psyllid as insect vector, has infected about 90 percent of Florida’s orange groves. Scientists try traditional breeding and genetic engineering methods as well as chemical and heat treatments to slow the disease's spread without luck. One citrus company “is developing something more like an...

The Guardian: Who Are the New Jihadis?

Olivier Roy April 18, 2017
The contemporary terrorist’s brutal acts against symbolic targets are centered around his or her own death, explains author Olivier Roy in an essay for the Guardian. “Muslim tradition, while it recognises the merits of the martyr who dies in combat, does not prize those who strike out in pursuit of their own deaths, because doing so interferes with God’s will,” he writes. Roy describes jihadism...