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World News Twice Monthly
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Reuters/Marcelo Del Pozo: Spanish bullfighter Julian Lopez readies himself before a fight in Seville.
Specter defector
You don't have swine flu. But more and more of your fellow human beings apparently do, and medical mysteries surrounding the disease abound. Why are Mexicans contracting a far more virulent version of the illness than others? Could this be the modern pandemic that epidemiologists have been predicting for decades? Where's Dr. House when you need him? We clear up some of the confusion with a summary of the latest developments.
House Republicans are feeling woozy and nauseous, too, but not because of the flu. They're just sick of former colleague Arlen Specter, whose stunning decision to convert to the Democratic party almost swept Barack Obama's first-100-days party off the front page. We take a look at how much practical change this Washington power play could bring about, and how much of it is merely symbolic. Finally, this week sees the return of a popular Activate feature: Nearly News. So, instead of the usual weighty links to think pieces about Afghanistan, you now get to read about a windswept chihuahua. Enjoy.
- Benjamin Hart, Managing Editor
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Top story
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Reuters/Oleg Popov
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Pandemic panic »
A poorly understood illness rattles the world
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If you've so much as glanced at a newspaper or website over the past week, you're at least marginally aware of swine flu, the maybe-pandemic that has quickly dethroned Somali pirates as the best reason to follow the news.
Over the past week, cases of the disease have been disclosed the world over, from Scotland to Peru to California. Mexico, where the illness was reported to have killed 152 people — though some say the number is as low as seven — is the flu's undisputed epicenter. Wired reports that its spread may have begun in the town of La Gloria, not far from a "large and notoriously unsanitary hog farm" run by Granjas Carroll, a division of American conglomerate Smithfield Foods.
In New York City, 45 cases were confirmed at the St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens — none of them life-threatening — and outbreaks have been reported at two other schools in the city. While all deaths to date save one have occurred in Mexico (one of the ailment's central mysteries is why it is so much more virulent in Mexico than elsewhere), the WHO has still raised the influenza alert level to a phase 5. According to its website, this is an indication of sustained human-to-human transmission across borders. The only level above it indicates a full-scale pandemic.
Global responses so far have been varied and chaotic. EU officials have discouraged travel to North America, Israel has proposed renaming the strain the "Mexican flu" because of its citizens' aversion to pork, and in Russia, the government has banned the import of pork altogether. Within US borders, President Obama asked Congress on Tuesday for $1.5 billion to combat the disease, and the Senate used the opportunity to confirm Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services, thus completing the president's cabinet. FAQs about swine flu can be found here, here, and here, and, as always, Activate encourages you to wash your hands before you put them in your mouth (or anybody else's).
- Jessica Loudis
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Feature
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Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
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Democratic domination »
For Republicans, Arlen now just a specter
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On Tuesday, veteran Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter announced that he would defect from the Republican Party to join the Democrats on the other side of the aisle. This drastic decision, which will give Democrats a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority (provided that Al Franken is eventually seated in Minnesota), stunned party leaders and political observers. But in retrospect, it seemed like Specter's only logical move. What forced his hand? And just how important is his conversion for Senate policy and President Obama's agenda? What follows is a brief guide to the political calculus behind Specter's flip-flop, and a snapshot at what it all means for politics and policy.
Before Tuesday, Arlen Specter was a member of a species just slightly less endangered than the dodo bird: the old-fashioned moderate Republican. In the Senate, only he and Maine's two popular lawmakers, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, could be said to fit that category. Though these Senators usually voted along Republican lines, their occasional disagreements with party leadership over issues such as abortion, fiscal policy, and gay rights set them apart. Increasingly, so did their geography — these days, the Northeast Republican is also very much in danger of extinction.
Specter was elected in 1980, and is the Senate's 12th-most senior member. But when he came to Washington at the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, his mixed-bag approach to Republican orthodoxy put him near the center of his party, not at the margins. Specter's support for abortion and affirmative action, and, more recently, his relatively liberal stance on immigration, gradually came to be seen as radical, not reasonable, by party members. And as Republican legislators took a hard right turn in the mid-'90s, veering even further during the Bush presidency, Specter looked increasingly like an anachronism. Still, in 2004, the senator received full support from Bush when Pat Toomey, a challenger supported by the ultraconservative Club for Growth, almost upset him in a Republican primary. Specter barely squeaked by the upstart candidate, 51% to 49%, but the race's competitiveness was an ominous sign.
Keep reading for the full analysis »
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