Suicides in Greece rose to their highest level in 30 years following the implementation of the country’s severe austerity programme in 2011, new figures reveal, in stark comparison with EU superpower Germany where suicide rates have continuously declined over the last two decades.

After severe cuts were introduced in Greece in June 2011 suicides increased by 35.5%, according to researchers in the U.S. and Greece, and the number continued to rise throughout the rest of 2011, reaching an all-time high in 2012.

While Angela Merkel has continued to talk tough on Greece’s problems, ruling out any debt cuts from EU creditor nations, Germany has witnessed a decline in the number of suicides since 1990, according to figures released by the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB). In 1990, 13,900 Germans took their lives compared to 9,900 in 2012 - a 29% decrease.

Other EU countries have suffered from higher suicide rates in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Britain saw an increase of 7.8% from 2010 to 2011 according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the same period in which the Conservative-Liberal coalition entered Westminster and implemented a series of cuts.

Another study, published in 2013, found that suicide rates in Spain went up by 8% after the 2008 recession. However, none of the spikes were as notable as the increase in Greece of more than a third in 2011-12.

Discussing the reasons behind the surge in Greek suicides, the principal author of the research Charles Branas, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke of the importance of communication for governments and the media when it came to times of austerity, and also highlighted how governments need to be better prepared to deal with the short-term implications of financial cuts to vital services.

“The messaging of this is important I think. It could be the austerity policies themselves and partly the messaging of the policies. The messaging here is the responsibility of both the government and the press,” he said.

“The second thing I think is interesting is that the countries could be better prepared for the short-term fall out of the austerity measures. This would include both a more robust public health system and also a better health response. The Greek mental health system has really been eroded in the past five years in particular.”

The findings also revealed that, after the passage of the new austerity measures, suicides among Greek women rose an astonishing 35.8% and 18.5% among Greek men.

Reacting to the Greek suicide figures, a spokesperson for the Samaritans charity said: “Generally, we know that suicides do tend to go up in times of economic decline. Looking at our calls during the recession [since 2008] we have seen increases in the nature of our calls being about financial worries.”

Following the 2008 financial crisis, calls to the Samaritans from people with financial worries increased from one in 10 calls to one in six.

Last year, researchers at the University of Portsmouth found that, not only had suicides in Greece risen in correlation with spending cuts, but they calculated that 551 men had taken their lives “solely because of fiscal austerity” between 2009 and 2010.

Greek aid group Klimaka, who research suicide rates in the country and run a suicide prevention hotline, released similar findings in 2013, reporting that Greek suicides rose steadily from 2007 to 2011 and continued to do so in 2012 and 2013. The Athens-based charity was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Newsweek.

Branas noted that the findings showed that the implementation of “prosperity policies” led to a decline in suicides: “We looked at both austerity but also prosperity policies. One of them - the introduction of the euro banknotes and coins - led to a drop in suicide so it’s interesting to think that positive events may indeed have an effect in the other direction,” he said.

Greece’s new government, the radical left-wing Syriza party, has called for an end to austerity policies and its enigmatic finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has revealed that Athens will request debt swaps for its £238bn foreign debt, raising fears that the country will not be able to pay what it owes and will eventually have to leave the currency bloc.

In the UK, the Samaritans helpline is 08457 90 90 90 and the email address is jo@samaritans.org.

Updated | The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has executed another prisoner, Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh, unverified media circulating on social media Tuesday appeared to indicate. 

Photographs circulating Tuesday appeared to be still images from a video showing al-Kasasbeh being burned to death. The pictures and video has not yet been authenticated, and their validity could not be independently confirmed by Newsweek.

The Jordanian government did not directly confirm the video's authenticity Tuesday, but vowed a "earth-shaking" response.

"The revenge will be as big as the calamity that has hit Jordan," army spokesman Colonel Mamdouh al Ameri said in a televised statement confirming al-Kasasbeh's death.

State minister Mohammad al-Momani  also said Tuesday that "whoever doubted the barbarity of the terrorist group ISIS, this is the proof. And whoever thought that they represent forgiving Islam, this is the proof."

SITE Intel Group, an organization that monitors jihadist threats, said Tuesday the images of al-Kasasbah’s death came from a longer video titled “Healing of the Believers’ Chests,” released by the al-Furqan Media Foundation on Tuesday morning. Al-Furqan is an ISIS-controlled media organization, it has previously released videos of western hostages being beheading and terrorist propaganda material.

Al-Kasasbeh was taken hostage in December when his F-16 jet crashed in ISIS territory, he was a First Lieutenant from a well known family in Jordan participating in targeted air strikes against the Islamic State led by the United States. 

Previously, the terrorist organization had indicated they wanted to swap al-Kasasbeh for Jordanian prisoner Sajida al-Rishawi, who confessed to her role in a 2005 suicide bombing that killed dozens. Initially, Jordan agreed to al-Rishawi’s release in a statement in exchange for al-Kasasbeh and asked for proof that the pilot was alive. The terrorist organization failed to deliver any indication the pilot was still living to the officials.

The terrorist group demanded al-Rishawi's release in two videos, saying that two of their hostages would be killed if she wasn't released. The other hostage, Japan's Kenji Goto, was executed last week. 

A correspondent for Kuwait's Al Rai newspaper recently cited sources within the Jordanian government saying that Islamist prisoners held by Jordan would be executed if al-Kasasbeh was killed.

Jordanian State Television speculated Tuesday that the video is not recent and that al-Kasasbeh may have been killed on January 3rd. On January 8th, social media users who follow jihadist activity in Syria discussed reports from an ISIS leader that a prisoner had been burned. If these reports are accurate, ISIS would have attempted to secure the release of al-Rishawi by promising Jordanian officials an impossible prisoner trade, as their prisoner was already dead at the time of the swap offer.

Speaking at an unrelated briefing, Obama told members of the press Tuesday that he had just gotten word of the video's release. While saying that he wasn't aware of the specifics of the video, Obama said it was an indication "of the viciousness and barbarity" of the Islamic State. "I think it will redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of the global coalition to make sure that they are degraded and ultimately defeated,” he said.

The Turkish government has canceled the passport of ally-turned-foe Fethullah Gulen, local media reported on Tuesday, the latest salvo in a bitter feud between the U.S.-based Muslim cleric and President Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan and his ruling AK Party accuse Gulen and his supporters of seeking to establish a "parallel state" in Turkey and of orchestrating a corruption investigation in 2013 which briefly threatened to engulf the government.

Gulen, who denies the accusations, stepped up his own criticism of Erdogan, saying he was leading Turkey "toward totalitarianism".

CNN Turk said on its website that Turkey had informed U.S. officials on January 28 that it was revoking Gulen's passport because it was issued based on a "false statement". Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.

A Turkish foreign ministry official said he could not confirm the media reports.

The move could bring Ankara a step closer to issuing a formal extradition request for Gulen. Washington is expected to reject such a demand, further fraying bilateral ties already strained over regional policy and U.S. concerns over what some see as Erdogan's increasing authoritarianism.

Erdogan has already called for Gulen to be deported. In December a court issued an arrest warrant for the cleric, who had been a close ally of Erdogan's Islamist-rooted party for many years after it came to power in 2002.

After the graft allegations emerged in 2013, however, Erdogan, then prime minister, purged Turkey's state apparatus, reassigning thousands of police and hundreds of judges and prosecutors deemed loyal to Gulen.

"SILENCING DISSENT"

Turkish authorities have also conducted raids against media organizations seen as close to Gulen, triggering criticism from rights groups and the European Union, which Turkey still aspires to join.

Hidayet Karaca, head of the Samanyolu broadcaster who has been jailed since December, said on Tuesday the case against Gulen and senior media executives was politically motivated.

"The police raids and arrests have become part of a strategy by the AKP government to silence the free press … It's no longer possible to discuss judicial independence in Turkey," Karaca said in a written response to questions from Reuters submitted through his lawyers.

In an op-ed published on Tuesday in the New York Times entitled 'Turkey's Eroding Democracy', Gulen accused Erdogan -- who remains popular in Turkey -- of using his electoral successes to ignore the constitution and suppress dissent.

"By viewing every critical voice as an enemy — or worse, a traitor — they are leading the country toward totalitarianism," he wrote.

Updated | The countdown to the Israeli elections on March 17 has started, and incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party is pulling out all the stops.

That includes, apparently, portraying himself as a trustworthy babysitter in a TV campaign ad—a more responsible one than his opponents Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog would be.

In the ad, a couple is shown running around in a frenzy preparing for a night out when suddenly the prime minister, who is often referred to by the nickname 'Bibi,' knocks on their door.

“You asked for a babysitter, you got a Bibi-sitter! Where are the kids?” he says to the astonished parents when they open the door.

“Look, it’s either me, or Tzipi and Bougie,” Netanyahu says, referring to the Zionist Camp’s Livni and Herzog.

“No no no,” exclaims the man, and the three stand around the kitchen joking about the disastrous outcomes that would supposedly befall their home if Livni or Herzog stepped in as babysitter.

At the end of the segment, Netanyahu turns to the camera with a serious face.

“In the upcoming elections,” he says, “you’re choosing who will care for our children.”

The new television commercial was released Saturday, and Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page Sunday to ask voters to watch and share.

“The upcoming election offers an important contrast between left and right. We must focus on the security of our great nation,” he wrote. “Please watch my latest TV commercial, ‘Babysitter.’” The embedded video had been viewed nearly half a million times as of Tuesday and liked and shared more than 10,000 times each.

The new video comes after the Central Elections Committee banned another Likud ad—in which Netanyahu sees his opponents as out-of-control kindergartners—for violating rules prohibiting the use of children under age 15 in ads.

A version of the video was posted on YouTube with English subtitles Monday:

This article has been updated to clarify Benjamin Netanyahu's nickname. 

An animal charity which set up hidden cameras in a Halal abattoir has released footage revealing the slaughtermen abusing the animals before they are killed. The video, released by animal rights group Animal Aid, shows workers at Bowood Lamb abattoir in North Yorkshire kicking sheep in the face before having to hack repeatedly at their throats as the knife being used is not sharp enough.

The disturbing clip has called into question how humane religious slaughter is, as the traditional practice prohibits the animals from being stunned before they are killed. Last week an e-petition launched by the British Veterinary Association (BVA) to end non-stunned slaughter reached the 100,000 signatures, as new Food Standards Agency (FSA) data showed there has been a 31% increase in the number of cattle not stunned before slaughter for Halal meat production compared with the FSA’s 2011 Welfare Survey.

However, the BVA acknowledged that 80% of Halal meat is stunned before slaughter and emphasised that their “concern does not relate to religious belief but to the animal welfare compromise of non-stun slaughter”.

The Halal Monitoring Committee (HMC) UK, an independent organisation which monitors Halal products in order to ensure Muslims can be confident they are eating ‘genuine Halal’ meat have issued a statement saying that Bowood Lambs abattoir is not HMC certified.

The Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have ruled out any change to the current policy, saying that: “The government has no intention of banning religious slaughter”. Despite the department saying they would prefer if animals were stunned before they were killed, DEFRA also emphasised that they “respect the rights of Jewish and Muslim communities to eat meat in accordance with their beliefs”.

Including this latest example, Animal Aid has secretly filmed in a total of 10 randomly selected slaughterhouses and have found that nine of those were breaking animal welfare laws, implying the problem is widespread. Kate Fowler, a spokeswoman for the charity said there was a fundamental problem with the system.

“In almost all the slaughterhouses we’ve filmed in we’ve seen animals mistreated - being kicked in the face and belly. When they are not stunned there are of course problems and the knife used has to be razor sharp, which it obviously wasn’t in this case. But the stunning process can also cause as many problems as it solves.”

Fowler also blamed some of the violence on the “bullying” that occurs in the industry. “We’ve heard reports of wellys being filled with blood, people have eyeballs pinged at them. Anyone can become a slaughterman - they don’t check if they’ve got convictions or anything before.”

The group have called for CCTV to be installed in slaughterhouses with mandatory independent monitoring, something which the FSA insist they “encourage and support” and DEFRA commissioned a report to look into the issue, although they have since concluded that the use of CCTV “has limitations and relies on regular and consistent monitoring.”

Dr Shuja Shafi the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain distanced religion from the abuse filmed at Botwood: “Halal-ness doesn’t come into it at all. What they’re doing is contravening the law and it’s disturbing. We will wait to see what the FSA recommendations are, but things like this bring into disrepute the large number of Halal slaughterhouses that work to standard.”

There are currently 332 approved abattoirs in the UK, and every abattoir has the capability to carry out religious slaughter without stunning, once approved under European legislation.

Updated | The Obama administration announced new rules governing data collection Tuesday, a move that comes more than a year after the president called for intelligence agencies to reform surveillance procedures during a speech at the Department of Justice.

The rules also come nearly two years after former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. government was conducting mass surveillance on Americans and foreigners and storing the gathered information without their knowledge, which produced an international outcry.

“For our intelligence community to be effective over the long haul, we must maintain the trust of the American people, and people around the world,” Obama said on January 17, 2014.

Intelligence activities “must take into account that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside,” he added.

The new rules were detailed in a policy document titled “Signals Intelligence Reform: 2015 Anniversary Report” and published Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on its Tumblr site.

The new rules call on intelligence analysts to immediately delete private communications data, such as the content of conversations, that is collected on American citizens during foreign surveillance sweeps, which “lack[s] foreign intelligence value.” The rules require agencies to delete similar data on foreigners after five years and for the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to oversee decisions on what data are retained.

The administration will also allow national security letters, which are secretly used to compel companies to hand over users’ data, to be disclosed publicly after three years.

The rules also state that data on U.S. citizens will not be used as evidence against them in any criminal proceeding unless approved by the attorney general, or in cases with national security implications or in other “serious crimes.”

The new policies limit when intelligence agencies can collect signals intelligence data in bulk: when detecting, countering or combating international or domestic threats such as terrorist or cybersecurity threats.

Furthermore, the document says that intelligence officers must undergo “mandatory training programs” to ensure that they “know and understand their responsibility to protect the personal information of all people.”

While the report outlines the administration’s most serious surveillance reforms to date, administration officials quoted Monday in The New York Times deemed the changes “modest,” as many of the reforms mentioned during Obama’s Justice Department speech a year ago remain unaddressed.

For instance, last year Obama called for an end to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which gives the NSA its legal authority to conduct mass surveillance of metadata on all calls, which includes phone numbers and timestamps. The new reforms, however, make no mention of ending the collection of metadata.

Section 215 is among three provisions in the Patriot Act that are set to expire in June. While privacy advocates look forward to its expiration, many expect the Republican-controlled Congress to cite terrorism concerns as a reason to renew the law.

“While we welcome the release of more information about the NSA’s surveillance activities and efforts to put in place enhanced protections, the proposed reforms do no more than tinker around the edges,” Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberty Union’s Washington Legislative Office, said Tuesday.

“The documents clearly show that the government continues to stand by a number of its troubling mass surveillance policies, despite mounting evidence that many of these programs are ineffective,” Guliani added. “The report released today underscores the need for action by Congress and the courts to fully reform the NSA.”     

Members of the Russian parliament are creating a task force to estimate the damages inflicted on Russia by Germany during WWII, in a bid to demand financial compensation from the German state almost 70 years after the end of the conflict, Russian daily newspaper Izvestia reported on Tuesday.

The initiative is a direct response to trade sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and EU, for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March and continuous support of separatist fighters in Eastern Ukraine since, according to Mikhail Degyaterov, an MP from the Liberal Democrat Party of Russia, who has proposed the task force.

“Practically, Germany paid nothing to the USSR for its wave of destruction and savagery during the Second World War,” said Degyaterov.

“After the Yalta convention the USSR took back some German assets - largely looted furniture, clothes and industrial equipment, as well as some spoils of war - but largely there was no compensation of the war’s economic blow to the USSR,” Degyaterov added.

According to Degyaterov, Russian satellite East Germany was not liable for the reparations because it and the Soviet Union had a legally binding agreement not to demand reparations. Such an agreement was never made with West Germany, however, and after the USSR’s collapse and the reunification of East and West Germany, the bill for the war should now be footed to their modern successor - the German Federation.

“Worse still, Germany continues to inflict economic damage to Russia, by extending EU-trade sanctions,” Degyaterov added, referring to the series of trade restrictions the EU has imposed on Russia following the latter’s backing of separatist militants in Ukraine which have caused a crisis in the Russian economy and run on the rouble.

Russia is not the only country disputing WWII reparations with Germany. Calls for greater reparations have got louder in Greece in recent years, particularly in the face of German-imposed austerity.

Degyaterov is among those individuals, personally blacklisted by the US and EU for his vocal support for pro-Russian forces in east Ukraine. However, he shrugged off the sanctions in July, arguing he did not have overseas assets and was not greatly affected by them.

“Throughout the duration of the war, 30% of our country’s treasures and national heritage, while 1,710 Soviet cities were destroyed, alongside over 70,000 towns and villages, 32,000 industrial sites, while some 100,000 farming sites were ruined,” Degyaterov said, referring to figures compiled by Stalin’s USSR committee which estimated damages after the war.

According to Degyaterov these material damages amount to $600 billion, while he also estimated that by virtue of the same principle which obliged Germany to pay Israel €60 billion for the Nazi regime’s execution of over six million Jews during the Holocaust, Russia is owed more as a result to the loss of life on Soviet soil at the hands of the Nazi army.

“Germany paid compensation for the six million victims of the Holocaust but ignored the 27 million Soviet citizens killed, 16 million of whom were peaceful civilians.”

“It appears that, with all that considered, under the current exchange Germany owes reparations of no less than €3-4 trillion, which it must pay to the successor of the Soviet Union - Russia,” Degtyarev said.

The Russian MP expressed his hope that other countries will join the ranks of his task force and request reimbursement from Germany, extending an open invite to willing representatives of Belarus, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

The chairman of the Russian parliament’s defence committee, admiral Vladimir Komoedov has applauded Degtyarev’s initiative, lamenting the loss of “human capital” to the Soviet union as a result of the war.

“It is no secret that if there had not been a war, the Russian population would be 300-400 million today and we would be in a completely different economic condition,” Komoedov said.

The initiative has also received the support of Russian historian Sergey Fokin, who argued the the task force can put forward a reminder of the Russian contribution to defeating Nazism, particularly to German Chancellor Angela Merkel - one of the main supporters of the current sanctions imposed on Moscow.

“It is unlikely that Germany will end up paying anything because of this but it is necessary to remind ourselves about history,” Fokin said.

“It is possible that frau Merkel, who so longs for more sanctions against Russia, would never even have been born if it were not for the kindness of the victors towards the defeated,” Fokunin said, referring to social programmes organised by the USSR in East Germany after the war.

Angela Merkel grew up in a small town north of East Berlin, making her the first German Chancellor to have been a citizen of the Soviet occupied half of the country during the Cold war.

In response to the economic sanctions placed on Russia by the Eurozone, led by Merkel, the Russian parliament is also currently discussing changing the historical status of the German state’s reunification.

A proposal is currently being discussed by Russian MPs to recognize German reunification as an annexation of Eastern Germany by West German forces, since the two became one state after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

The German embassy in London declined to comment.

One of the great achievements of the last century was the effective elimination of many deadly communicable diseases by the widespread deployment of vaccines. I can still remember the fear that struck the hearts of every family in the early 1950s at the onset of another summer watch against polio, a disease whose spread has since been all but eliminated globally by the innovations of first the Salk (dead virus) and then the Sabin (live virus) vaccines.

A similar triumph occurred with the development of reliable vaccines for measles, a childhood disease that poses a serious threat to the health and life of those who become infected.

Before the measles vaccine in 1963, the death rate from measles was close to twice that from polio. Fortunately, the new vaccine turned the situation around. In 1963 and 1964, there were over 800,000 cases of measles in the United States. By 1982, vaccination had largely eliminated the disease. Measles made a modest comeback around 1990, and then fell quiescent—until the recent outbreak of measles cases at Disneyland in California, which, as it spreads, puts the issue of vaccines back on the table.

The resurgence of measles is largely attributable to the confluence of two separate factors. On the one side there is a strong, if unacknowledged, effort on the part of some people to free ride off the vaccination of others. The self-interested calculations of many conscientious parents can run as follow: Of course, measles is a contagious disease, but it only spreads if there is a sufficiently large population of unvaccinated people in any given community. Taking any vaccine, including the measles vaccine, necessarily carries with it some risk of adverse outcomes. Vaccines could be impure or improperly administered, and even in the best of times, there is always a residual risk that the vaccine itself will transmit the very disease that it is supposed to prevent.

So long as other individuals are vaccinated, the rational free rider decides that it pays not to vaccinate his or her own children. They receive the protection afforded by herd immunity, without subjecting their loved ones to the risks, however small, that vaccinations always present.

The second factor that reduces vaccination levels is the spread, sometimes deliberate, of misinformation that overstates vaccination risks. This sentiment is often fueled by powerful suspicions that drug companies are greedy and governments corrupt.

This entire episode was fueled by fraudulent studies published by Dr. Andrew Wakefield in 1998 in Lancet magazine, which 12 years later the journal eventually retracted, but only after much of the damage was done. Those studies, which had been funded in part by plaintiffs’ lawyers suing vaccine manufacturers, purported to find a (non-existent) link between vaccines that were manufactured using a mercury-based compound, Thimerosal, and autism.

Unfortunately, Lancet’s forthright retraction of the article did not quell the uneasiness about vaccines in either Britain or the United States. Indeed, it may well have fueled populist concerns of an ever-wider conspiracy among establishment figures.

This combination of free-riding and misinformation may now be exacting a high toll, as the increased spread of measles puts a large population of unvaccinated persons at risk for the disease, no matter what their overall health. It is not surprising, therefore, that the anti-vaccine groups have now been put on the defensive in part by a recent lawsuit brought in California by Carl Krawitt on behalf of his 6-year old son, Rhett, who suffers from leukemia and therefore cannot safely take the vaccine.

Krawitt’s suit demands that his local school board require all students who can, but have not, been vaccinated to stay at home, so that Rhett can more safely attend the school. Legally, his suit is likely to founder on the shoals of modern administrative law, which vests a large and virtually unreviewable discretion in local health officials to decide whether this action is required.

Yet by the same token, if the school board should deem the risk sufficient to call for those suspensions, it is equally unlikely that any parent who refuses to vaccinate their children for either religious or medical reasons could have any success in keeping them in school. Discretion is always a double-edged sword, so that the high level of official discretion that lets health officials allow unvaccinated students attend school also gives them authority to force those students to stay home.

The current struggles over sound vaccine policy raise a tension between public health on the one hand and competing versions of individual liberty on the other. This conflict was, if anything, more acute a century ago when infectious diseases cut a wide path for which vaccines and other treatments provided only a limited response.

The main constitutional lens through which these issues were viewed at the time was one of police power. This all-pervasive notion has no explicit textual authorization in the Constitution. But a moment’s reflection makes it clear that the Constitution’s various provisions protecting individual liberty must at times give way to government control in response to health hazards.

From the earliest times, therefore, the police power has always been construed to allow public officials to take strong action against individuals who posed threats to the health of others by the spread of communicable diseases.

In perhaps the most famous statement of this sort, Justice John Marshall Harlan, himself a champion of limited government, wrote in the 1905 case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts that while the Supreme Court had refrained from defining the limits of police power, it had “distinctly recognized the authority of a State to enact quarantine laws and ‘health laws of every description,’” and then proceeded to sustain a Cambridge Massachusetts compulsory vaccination statute against smallpox, a disease for which Edward Jenner had developed an effective vaccine as early as 1796.

The basic soundness of the constitutional recognition of a police power to deal with communicable diseases is beyond dispute. Even in a free state, quarantines are the only reliable remedy to protect the health of the public at large from the spread of disease. It is sheer fantasy to think that individuals made ill could bring private lawsuits for damages against the parties that infected them, or that persons exposed to imminent risk could obtain injunctive relief against the scores of persons who threaten to transmit disease.

The transmission of disease involves hidden and complex interconnections between persons that could not be detected in litigation, even assuming that it could be brought in time, which it cannot. Public oversight should be able to achieve the desired end at a far lower cost.

In making his broad defense of the police power, Justice Harlan did not mean to eradicate the substantive protections otherwise afforded by the Constitution. Thus, only three years later in Adair v. United States, he struck down a mandatory collective bargaining statute on the ground that its interference with the contractual liberties of the employer and individual employees could not be justified on grounds of either health or safety.

That said, the categorical defense of compulsory vaccination statutes raises serious questions of its own. In Jacobson, the plaintiff had objected to taking the vaccine on the ground that his own prior medical history exposed him to serious risks, including death, if he was given the vaccination. It would be a mistake to assume that Jacobson resolved this case in favor of the state’s power to force vulnerable individuals to expose themselves to deadly risk, because the legal sanction under the Cambridge law was not vaccination itself, but only a $5 fine for Jacobson’s refusal to be vaccinated—a trivial expense, which if sustained, might reduce the number of individuals who will claim spurious health exemptions from general vaccination requirements.

But it is all too easy to imagine the next hard case in which the state does order compulsory vaccination—i.e., orders some public health official to vaccinate individuals against their will—once it is determined that they face no special risk of an adverse reaction.

The key question, therefore, is just how far compulsory vaccination statutes should go. At one level, I have little doubt today that claims for individual liberty, even those raised on religious grounds, would be sustained by courts if vulnerable individuals like Rhett Krawitt were required to submit to these vaccines. But the situation becomes more complex when the question is whether unvaccinated individuals can be excluded from public schools.

The recent public discussions on this issue have assumed that health boards have the power to decide. Indeed they do thanks to the unanimous 1922 Supreme Court decision in Zucht v. King. I think that this decision is eminently defensible. To be sure, public bodies cannot just act on a whim, but in this instance, the decision of school authorities to send unvaccinated or sick pupils home is one taken routinely by private schools. Governments, acting in their own management capacity, deserve the same degree of deference from the courts.

Today, in some cases, the stakes are now far higher and it appears that some parents, like Crystal McDonald of Palm Desert, are unwilling to buckle and pull their students out of school. Right now there is little movement to extend the state police power further, so as to allow the state to keep unvaccinated persons out of other public places.

Yet agonizing choices will arise if the number of serious measles cases continues to rise inexorably. Ironically, it may well be that children like Krawitt will, through no fault of their own, be caught up in this regulatory web, as he too poses a risk to other people when allowed to go into public places. Yet notwithstanding his lawsuit, the current law probably would allow the school district to keep him out of school along with other unvaccinated individuals, given that his presence in school (or other public places) necessarily poses a health risk to other students.

It is very difficult to draw any happy conclusions from this difficult impasse. The blunt truth is that even libertarians and other defenders of small government should support the basic constitutional framework that gives public officials extensive powers to control against infection and disease by devices such as quarantine and vaccination. Apart from the forced vaccination of compromised individuals, it is difficult to carve out some enduring constitutional island of individual rights from the general principle of state control.

The weak constitutional system does not mean that nothing else should be done. Rather, it suggests that relief in this matter rests on two uncertain supports. The first is the awareness of most parents that vaccinations for their children are justified even on the narrowest grounds of individual self-interest. The bloated parental fears of adverse reactions to standard vaccines have to be effectively countered by concerted campaigns from both public and private sources. The simple truth is that in most cases, vaccinations make overwhelming sense as a way for parents to protect their children’s health.

Second, a constant pressure has to be placed on health and school officials to be sensitive to the difficult trade-offs involved in all these decisions. Thus far, the bad news is that private decisions have led people to let down their guard against communicable diseases on the naive assumption that the diseases won’t spread. The good news, so far, is that the public response has been sensible. Let's hope, going forward, it stays that way.

Richard A. Epstein is Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. This article first appeared on the Hoover Institution website.

Nearly 80% of self-employed people in the UK are living in poverty, according to recently updated government statistics from the 2012-2013 tax year.

The HM Revenue and Customs data, which was updated on 30th January, assessed the earnings of approximately five million self-employed people between 2012 and 2013, including income from other sources such as full-time employment and pensions.

However, even when these other earnings are taken into consideration, 77% of self-employed people live in poverty, according to analysis by Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK.

Earning £15,000 or less, or two-thirds of the median level of pay, classifies a person as living in poverty.

According to the statistics, the average income for a self-employed person was just £14,655. The top 1.7% of the group make 30.7% of the total of self-employed profits, and are often lawyers and accountants who are taxed as self-employed and who can earn up to 25.5 times more than the average.

Self-employment made up 44%, or 540,000, of new jobs since 2010, according to the Guardian. Half of this number is made up workers aged 50 and up. In addition, more than 40% of the self-employed jobs created in that year were part-time. There are now a total 4.5 million people working for themselves in the UK.

According to Murphy, a chartered accountant and UK tax specialist, the number of self-employed people is steadily growing: “The rise in self-employment has been apparent since 2010 as a consequence of changes to benefit system in UK, where people have been encouraged to take self-employment positions.”

Murphy says that the self-employed jobs created since the coalition government came to power are not proving profitable: “The average rate of profit for a person who is self-employed in the UK is falling - these are primarily marginal, unpaid and unskilled jobs.”

“We have the appearance that there are jobs in the UK but the reality is that the jobs people have are underpaid,” Murphy said, adding that many self-employed people are forced to subsidize their poor wages by seeking out part-time employment elsewhere, such as becoming a delivery driver or working in a pub.

Murphy thinks the solution is a further round of quantitative easing - the purchase of government bonds by the Bank of England in order to pump money into the economy. “We need to start spending money that actually provides security, a decent wage and puts people back to work doing something they want,” he says.

NASA scientists have revealed that they are one step closer to launching a mission to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, thanks to a budget boost from the White House.

Although President Barack Obama has already proposed a $18.5 billion budget for the space agency in the new fiscal year of 2016, yesterday NASA’s chief financial officer called for an extra $30 million to begin preliminary work into a mission to Europa.

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California have been working on concepts for a mission to Jupiter’s moon for 15 years, but up until now the proposed programs have not been quite right in terms of the size or costing.

According to JPL senior research scientist Robert Pappalardo, the new concept which is called ‘Europa Clipper’ is “just right”, and preliminary studies are anticipated to being on 1st October, as long as the budget is confirmed.

The Clipper study aims to conduct detailed studies of the moon by using a spacecraft orbiting Jupiter to make 45 flybys over Europa’s surface over the course of three years.

Although Europa is covered by a thick icy surface, scientists believe beneath this lies a sub-surface ocean carrying three times the volume of water that make up Earth’s oceans. Scientists predict that the surface maintains its liquid state through tidal interactions with the gaseous planet Jupiter, a so-called ‘gas giant’.

“The way we framed the Europa mission science objectives is not to specifically look for life, but to understand habitability; the ingredients for life,” Kevin Hand, JPL’s deputy chief scientist for solar system exploration said at a press event in California yesterday.

According to Hand: “Europa’s ocean, to the best of our knowledge, isn’t that harsh of an environment”. Although estimates for how deep this ocean is range from 6.8 miles to a rather more impressive 62 miles, the mere presence of water indicates the potential for life.

Lovers of the 1960 classic To Kill a Mockingbird have reason to rejoice. Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, announced Tuesday it would publish a “new” novel by Harper Lee. Go Set a Watchman was in fact finished earlier than To Kill a Mockingbird. Though it was completed in the mid-1950s, the novel was only recently rediscovered by Lee’s lawyer.

The resulting novel, featuring a young Scout Finch and set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, has sold more than 40 million copies and has been read by schoolchildren in classrooms across the country. It received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961, and the 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck earned three Academy Awards.

The book, considered among the great American classics, was banned by some schools for its handling of racial inequality and sexual taboos.   

But after To Kill a Mockingbird appeared in 1960, Lee never published a second novel. Lee herself had thought her old manuscript for Go Set a Watchman had been lost, but her lawyer, Tonja Carter, discovered it in 2014 attached to a typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird.

“I hadn't realized it had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it,” Lee says. “After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”

Lee’s book will be hitting shelves just as another “new” novel will be published by another revered literary hero, Ayn Rand. In December, New American Library, a branch of the Penguin Books USA, announced that a novel by the late Rand would be published in July. Rand, best known for her philosophical novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, first wrote Ideal in 1934 but set the novel aside, writing it as a play instead. More than eight decades after she first wrote it, Ideal will be the first Rand novel published in nearly 60 years.

Lee’s Go Set a Watchman will break the reclusive author’s silence when it’s released on July 14, 2015. It tells the story of an adult Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, returning to her childhood hometown to visit her father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer who in To Kill a Mockingbird defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

“I, along with millions of others around the world, always wished that Harper Lee had written another book. And what a brilliant book this is,” Michael Morrison, president and publisher of HarperCollins US General Books Group and Canada who negotiated the deal for Lee’s second book, says in the press release.

Soon after the announcement, Twitter was flooded with reactions—and alternate titles—for Lee’s second novel, the To Kill a Mockingbird sequel readers never thought they’d get.

Can we all just take a minute and have a GLOBAL EPIC FREAKOUT over this 2nd Harper Lee novel thing. Ok. Thanks. http://t.co/AcX3h3f7Zh

— Ryan Brown (@ryanlenorabrown) February 3, 2015

As if being a @HarperCollins author couldn't be any cooler--HARPER LEE!!! @ABBalzer, this is epic!

— Marcie Colleen (@MarcieColleen1) February 3, 2015

An actual picture of me in my class today when I found out about the new Harper Lee novel. #SoFreakinExcitedpic.twitter.com/8y05gKagKW

— Hailey Cooper (@HaileyCoopah14) February 3, 2015

Harper Lee’s new book will be titled “How to Kill a Mockingjay.” It’s actually Hunger Games fan fiction.

— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) February 3, 2015

The bidding war over the movie rights to "To Kill A Mockingbird 2: Electric Boogaloo" will be legendary.

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) February 3, 2015

2 Kill 2 Mockingbirds RT @AP: BREAKING: 'To Kill A Mockingbird' author Harper Lee to publish second novel this summer.

— Neetzan Zimmerman (@neetzan) February 3, 2015

Harper Lee's publisher announced Tuesday that the To Kill a Mockingbird author will finally publish a second novel. The book, titled Go Set a Watchman, was written in the mid-1950s but set aside for 60 years. Here's Newsweek's January 9, 1961 profile of the writer.

No book in years has commanded the kind of volunteer claque which is now pushing an unassuming first novel toward the best-seller list's summit. The success of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a melting and witty treatment of a refreshingly undepraved Southern childhood, suggests a moral that may be worth the book's trade heed this year: To garner word-of-mouth publicity—most sacred phrase in the press agent's Book of Common Prayer—first of all, get yourself a book that people needn't feel ashamed to confess that they've read.

Readers have been evangelizing in Harper Lee's behalf ever since her manuscript, faulty and shapeless at the time, first started churning through the editorial mills of the house of Lippincott more than three years ago. While the author struggled to get it right—quitting her desk job with an overseas airline and hiving up in the traditional cold-water flat—her champions in the firm went around, she gratefully remembers, "screaming and yelling and hollering, 'The book may not sell 2,000 copies, but we love Nelle.'" Nelle, as they first named Miss Lee 34 years ago back home in Monroeville, Ala., has now made it up to her friends. The book, a selection of the Literary Guild and of the British Book Society, a Reader's Digest condensation, a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate for next month, has just topped the 30,000 sales mark.

In the flesh—too much of it, she believes—Harper Lee strongly calls to mind the impish tomboy who narrates her novel. There is a faint touch of gray in her Italian boy haircut and a heavy touch of Alabama in her accent ("If I hear a consonant, I look around"). 

Meet the Author

Sunk in a club chair in the lounge of New York's Algonquin Hotel the other day, she gave herself out as a "journeyman writer" by trade and a "Whig" by private conviction ("I believe in Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the Corn Laws"). Just then, somebody sighted Brendan Behan, Ireland's newest play-writing boy of the Western World, marching through the lobby. Harper Lee eagerly craned around. "I've always wanted to meet an author," she said.

Snowed under with fan letters, Harper Lee is stealing time from a new novel-in-progress to write careful answers. Her favorite letter, a little out of the mold, is a roasting from a crank in Oklahoma who heard she was guilty of writing a novel in which an innocent Negro is convicted of raping a moronic white woman. "In this day of mass rape of white women who are not morons," her accuser demanded, "why is it that you young Jewish authors seek to whitewash the situation?" Will this rate an answer, too? "Oh, yes," said the author—who is kin to Robert E. Lee. "I think I'll say, 'Dear Sir or Madam, somebody is using your name to write dirty letters. You should notify the FBI.' And I'm going to sign it, Harper Levy."

Despite nasty spats with the press and Albany at the beginning of his administration, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio did manage to deliver on key campaign promises during his first year in office. De Blasio touted these hard-won successes—such as universal pre-K and expanded paid sick leave—in his State of the City address Tuesday. De Blasio also thanked the New York City Police Department for reducing crime to an all-time low and lauded the Department of Correction’s end to punitive segregation of adolescent offenders. The mayor’s speech then focused on how he would address inequality (the “Tale of Two Cities”) with extensive affordable housing initiatives, calling for the construction of 80,000 affordable units, 160,000 market rate units, as well as preserving 120,000 existing affordable units. 

But notably absent from de Blasio's State of the City: his ongoing conflict with cops.

De Blasio's accomplishments have been dramatically overshadowed by these long-simmering tensions.

This animosity came to a breaking point after a Staten Island Grand Jury failed to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the choking death of Eric Garner—a decision that came shortly after a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri failed to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown.

On the eve of the Garner decision, tens of thousands took to the streets in protest. Demonstrations have continued at a slower pace, but discontent remains. As advocates push for reform of the NYPD, their momentum has launched calls for change throughout the entire U.S. justice system.

After de Blasio said that he had warned his son about police, Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch slammed him as unsupportive of cops. When Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were gunned down in December, Lynch blamed de Blasio, saying he had blood on his hands due to these statements. Cops literally turned their back on de Blasio. An alleged policing slowdown then ensued, with arrests and summons plummeting for several weeks.

De Blasio has tried publicly to make nice with the cops. His administration adamantly supports the NYPD in a Muslim spying lawsuit. After the New York City Department of Investigation stated in a report that a music video advocating cop-killing was filmed at the Bronx Defenders' offices—and featured two attorneys from the legal aid firm—he effectively threatened their funding. He announced last week he would fight allegedly questionable lawsuits against the NYPD. The Department cheered the policy shift, according to reports.

If relations with the police improved, why not mention it?

Perhaps it's because any discussion of improvement could remind New York City residents just how dire relations had become.

For Kenneth Sherrill, professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College, talk of these tensions could portray de Blasio as a “sore winner.”

That is, discussing these issues could move the conversation away from his achievements and agenda and back toward a low point in his administration’s first year.

“Politically, it made no sense for him to talk about it,” Sherrill tells Newsweek. “It would have distracted attention from the housing initiative which was the main point—then the press coverage would have been about the police and not housing.” 

Last night the latest Israeli elections polls came out. For the first time in this campaign, cycle polls showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party with a clear lead over Yitzhak Herzog’s HaMachaneh HaTzioni (The Zionist Camp) Party.

These results confounded many, who expected to see a decline in support for the Likud as a result of recent revelations about the alleged actions of Netanyahu and his wife. Instead, exposure of these latest allegations seem to have had the opposite effect: bolstering support for the Likud.  

As is often the case, good insights often come from taxi drivers. Yesterday afternoon I came across one such vocal driver. When I asked him what he thought of current news events, he responded with a diatribe against Tzipi Livni and Yitzchak Herzog.

The cabby contended that Herzog and Livni were the corrupt ones, citing that Herzog was responsible for never answering questions about his role in fundraising for former Labor prime minister Ehud Barak’s campaign in 1999. He followed up with a claim that Livni stole a primary election from Shaul Mofaz.

Despite the fact that the driver’s rant was a completely irrelevant rejoinder, it is similar to the responses offered by the Likud to the reports of scandal attributed to their ranks that have come to light over the last two days. How, in spite of mounting negative revelations, can the increase in Likud support be explained? In short, the explanation is: When your family is attacked you return home, circle the wagons and fight back. It is almost as if the Likud dreamed up these alleged scandals to convince their supporters to “come home” to the party and defend it.  

So, what scandals have been brought to light? There are in fact two and a half different stories, or “scandals,” alleged against Netanyahu and one claimed scandal against the opposition filling the airways over the past few days.

The first scandal involves a previously exposed scandal, “Bibi Tours,” that revolved around trips abroad Netanyahu took while he served as finance minister in the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. According to the allegations, Netanyahu double-billed certain groups and organizations for his trips. Additionally, it is claimed he had influential people from Israel and abroad pay for the airfare of his wife and kids.

The attorney general currently serving under Netanyahu decided not to go forward with the investigation, claiming too much time had elapsed to investigate criminal charges. Nonetheless, the state comptroller launched an investigation. However, that investigation seemed to lose steam when a new state comptroller was appointed, with Netanyahu’s strong support, after the previous state comptroller retired.

A few days ago rumors started spreading that a report on the affair had in fact been completed two years ago, but had been buried. Two days ago, Raviv Drucker, a television reporter, published a draft of the investigation’s findings confirming earlier reports that during his tenure as finance minister, Netanyahu’s family trips were indeed paid for by people who should not have done so and, as such, the report continued, Netanyahu had violated public trust.

The second scandal surrounds the management of Netanyahu’s official residence. The state comptroller has been working on a report about the management (or more accurately, mismanagement) of the prime minister’s residence over the past two years.

This past week the state comptroller, Joseph Shapiro, was asked by Netanyahu’s lawyer to delay issuing the report—a request that was well reported in the media. As a result, the state comptroller’s office announced that the report would be released within the next two weeks—i.e., long before the upcoming election.

This morning Shapiro announced that, based on the report’s findings, the actions that took place at the prime minister’s residence “deviated from norms of good governing and might have indeed been criminal.” The state comptroller’s findings relate to the mini-scandal, part of a larger potential scandal hovering over Netanyahu, in which the prime minister’s wife, Sarah, had been accused of pocketing money from deposits received from returned alcohol and beverage bottles, on bottles originally paid for by the government.

The larger potential scandal involves the level of expenditures on what an average Israeli would surely consider luxury items at the official residence.  

The Likud’s response to these scandals has been an attempt to create a scandal by pointing a finger at an organization called “V15.”  V15, formed by two young Israelis, was created with the goal of replacing the current government in 2015. V15 has been running a campaign to convince Israelis to vote out the current government.

The V15 organization has received 95 percent of its funds from S. Daniel Abraham and Daniel Lubetsky, both Americans. The Likud claims this is a violation of Israel’s election laws, which make it illegal for Israeli parties to receive foreign financing for election campaigns.

Initially, Likud spokesmen claimed that President Barack Obama was indirectly involved in the V15 efforts. However, they quickly dropped that claim. That being said, most independent observers and legal analysts say that since V15 is not calling on people to vote for a specific party and has been careful not to coordinate their actions with any party, they are not violating the letter of Israeli elections law.

Everyone agrees that the actions of V15 probably violate the spirit of the law, but no more than the actions of Sheldon Adelson, who single-handedly funds Yisrael Hayom, a newspaper that is distributed free-of-charge and unconditionally supports Netanyahu.

To date, the Likud has been successful in deflecting much of the attention that would have been generated by the alleged scandals involving Netanyahu by using the V15 allegation to its advantage.

Another event that has worked in the Likud’s favor this week is the failed attempt by the Bayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home Party) head, Naftali Bennet, to appoint Eli Ohana (a former soccer star) to a reserved spot on their Knesset party list. Bennet has been trying to transform his party (previously called The National Religious Party) into a party that would attract a greater secular following, and thus become a good alternative to non-religious traditional Likud voters.

Ohana’s appointment was vehemently opposed by many of the rabbis of the party, ostensibly because he was a soccer player who had played routinely on the Sabbath and thus should not represent the party. Many claimed, however, that opposition to Ohana was especially strong because he is an Israeli of Sephardi origin (one whose lineage is from an Arab country). Results of the latest poll show that this move hurt the Bayit HaYehudi party, who lost 2-3 seats to the Likud, thereby helping make the Likud the single largest party.  

If this was not enough excitement, the ongoing investigation into the alleged corruption perpetrated by members of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party continues. No one knows when Yisrael Beiteinu may again take front and center in the news.

While I was having breakfast with a friend this morning discussing politics, we were interrupted by a man in his 70s, named Shlomo, sitting at the next table. Shlomo claimed to have been a former political operative of the Labor party. He warned us that we were missing the really big story of the past week—and that that was the uniting of all four Arab parties into one unified list.  

This long anticipated unification could result in much higher turnout among the Arab population, and thus significantly affect that balance of power between right wing and left wing.

The final irony of these elections may be that Lieberman is fighting to ensure that his party has enough support to remain above the newly raised threshold for representation in the parliament, a threshold that, in an ironic twist, was his idea to raise.

Lieberman hoped, in part, to reduce the power of the Arab parties in the Knesset. Instead, the Arab parties have been strengthened and his party may find itself on the outside looking in.

Multimedia historian Marc Schulman is the editor of historycentral.com. An archive of his recent daily reports from Tel-Aviv can be found here.

Dozens of protesters, including members of the Ukrainian military, gathered inside a presidential administrative building in Kiev on Tuesday to express frustration with the ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine. The group, which has complained about a lack of supplies on the front lines and poor strategy, also demanded to speak with President Petro Poroshenko. Some attempted to make a statement on television, and one of the protesters live-streamed the incident online, which more than 10,000 watched.

The protest was generally peaceful, though the group remains at odds with the National Guard, which demanded that the demonstrators leave the building. Many of the protesters eventually moved outside. “There was no storming [of the building.] There’s also nobody being detained, and no one was injured during the action,” a Ukrainian Interior Ministry spokesman told RT.

UPDATE:#Tension grows between #protesters and riot #police in #Kievpic.twitter.com/RI05Io4xB1

— Ruptly Newsroom (@RuptlyNewsroom) February 3, 2015

The protest was led by the All-Ukrainian Battalion Brotherhood, a group of volunteer soldiers and Euro Maidan activists who want Russia to stop meddling in Ukraine’s affairs. They were hoping to influence Poroshenko and defense ministers to change their combat plans against pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. According to the Itar-Tass news service, some protesters have asked Poroshenko to introduce martial law and would like the defense minister to resign, saying his tactics have been ineffective.

Some protesters attempted to call Poroshenko on the phone on Tuesday, but they were unable to reach him. The volunteer soldiers also broke out into song while in the building, mainly “Slava Ukrainiania,” a Ukrainian national hymn about the glory of the country. 

Getting vaccinated isn’t fun. It hurts. But it’s better for you in the long run.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky should have taken that lesson to heart before throwing in with the anti-vaccination crowd. The likely presidential contenders have said they believe parents should be given some choice when it comes to vaccinating their children. Their position puts them at odds with the near-unanimous position of the medical establishment, not to mention longtime support for vaccinations in Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Even Christie’s own New Jersey Department of Health tells visitors to its website that “in the last 50 years, vaccinations have led to a 95 percent decrease in vaccine-preventable disease.”

Despite that, when asked by a reporter if he believed vaccines for diseases like measles should be mandatory, Christie responded, “I...understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide.” As on February 1, more than 100 cases of measles had been reported in the U.S. after an unvaccinated child introduced the disease to park-goers at Disney World in California.

Obama aide Daniel Pfeiffer used the comment to get in a quick jab on Twitter against Christie’s possible 2016 presidential campaign, saying “not clarifying” his remark “will say a lot about how he plans to run his race.”

@MarkHalperin@GovChristie@mikiebarb@mattkatz00 not clarifying will say a lot abt how he plans to run his race

— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) February 2, 2015

For their part, other would-be presidential candidates, such as Marco Rubio and Ben Carson, are sticking up for inoculations. So has Hillary Clinton.

Paul, a certified ophthalmologist, went further, telling conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham on Monday he thought most vaccines should be voluntary.

That’s actually a backpedaling for Paul, who in 2009 told Alex Jones of Infowars that he is opposed to mandatory vaccines because “the first sort of thing you see with martial law is mandates.” He also said he would not receive the swine flu vaccine or allow his children to receive it. “I worry, because the last flu vaccine we had in the 1970s, more people died from the vaccine than died from the swine flu,” he said.

However, investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found no evidence the vaccine and deaths were causally related.

Coming out against mandatory vaccination could be a nonissue in a week, let alone a year. But in a 2015 poll by the Pew Research Center, 68 percent of adults said vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella and polio should be required for children. Presumably, Iowa caucus-goers, who include a large number of religious and libertarian-minded citizens, might find mandatory vaccinations to be too much government intervention, just as they do for regulations for homeschooling and consumption of raw milk.

Will winning votes early on in Iowa be worth compromising a strong footing for the general election in 2016? A closer look at Pew’s demographics should have anti-vaccine candidates worried. Those most likely to think vaccines cause autism, and thus least likely to vaccinate their children? Young adults: 41 percent of those aged 18 to 29 think vaccination should be a choice. And millennials vote at a lower rate than any other age cohort. Plus, they tend to vote Democratic in presidential elections, so Republicans have little ground to gain by coming out against vaccines.

The elderly, meanwhile, with memories of polio and other communicable diseases, are overwhelmingly against choice in vaccination. Only 22 percent of those 55 and older think parents should be given the choice to vaccinate their children. And older Americans, as is commonly known, vote more than any other group.

Outside of the straw poll, neither Christie nor Paul has much to gain in Iowa. “For the most part, Iowa is a very vaccinated state,” says Lori Parsons, executive director of the Iowa Immunization Coalition. “We certainly have small pockets of people who want a medical exemption, which everyone does, and we also allow for a religious exemption,” she says. Only 19 states allow “philosophical” exemptions, but Iowa isn’t one.

Picture Planet Earth, the groundbreaking BBC nature show, but with people in it. That’s sort of what PBS’s new show Earth a New Wild is like: a documentary about the beautiful landscapes and creatures on this planet, including humans, and the myriad issues like climate change that will determine whether man and beast alike survive.

The inclusion of humans doesn’t make it any less magnificent. In some ways, it makes it more exciting, as when show host M. Sanjayan furiously scrambles off a forest log to avoid encountering a charging wild panda. Or when the team interviews Bangladeshi villagers whose family members have been eaten by tigers. Of course these animals are beautiful, but they are also wild, and this is real life.

I sat down with Sanjayan, a conservation scientist and writer, to hear more about the show, which debuts Wednesday, February 4, at 9 p.m. EST. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

How is Earth a New Wild different from other nature series?  

I was blown away by Planet Earth, but if you watched it and weren’t familiar with Earth, you might be a bit surprised to find more than 7 billion people [are] living here, in every corner of the planet.

I felt nature shows were in two camps: They either show nature as something sacred like the Sistine Chapel, or [involve] wrestling an animal and jumping on top of it. And neither reflected the reality of what humans do on the planet. So we wanted to do a new series that showed humans’ role in nature, and not separate from nature.

What were some of the coolest moments you encountered during filming?

Seeing the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was something else. This sea has dried up in our lifetime. [Editor’s note: It’s now 90 percent smaller than it was 50 years ago.] In the late ’60s, it produced 10,000 tons of fish per year. Now what’s left is too salty to have fish in it. You can see huge abandoned ships, up to 30 meters long [100 feet], and it’s another 150 kilometers [93 miles] to the water.

Lake Malawi [in Africa] was incredible, the diversity of fish there is off the charts, and yet there’s a hidden killer in the lake that kills people in the tens of thousands. And you realize that saving those people involves saving the lake. The killer is schistosomiasis, spread by snails that have invaded the shallows.

I also went “para-hawking” with this guy who runs a vulture rescue. This is when you paraglide with a vulture [or hawk] that flies along next to you. You sort of integrate into the social lives of the vultures in the sky. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

In China we also got to see 14 baby pandas up close. That was special.

Baby pandas in China are featured in “Earth a New Wild.”PBS

Did you have any close calls or really dangerous encounters?

There were lots of times you had to be really aware of what you were doing. We did a fair amount of things with sharks, sometimes even holding them. Another time a panda bear tried to bite me.

In the Sundarbans [mangrove forests in Bangladesh and India], we were in a place with genuine man-eating tigers. Nearly every week somebody is killed. We saw a tiger and filmed it, though we were fine. We also nearly got our plane stuck in the mud here, and it was a miracle we got it out of there before the high tide came.

Who were some of the most inspiring people or stories you came across?

I met a guy in Bangladesh whose father was killed by a tiger, while the two of them were cutting grass. He attacked the tiger, his dad died on his lap. Amazingly, though, now he’s not bitter about [the animals], he’s actually become a tiger conservationist. He realized that the tiger was just doing what tigers always do. And if it’s gone, people will go into the forest and cut down the forest. [Editor’s note: one reason that the Sundarbans are protected is due to the presence of endangered animals like tigers; they also serve as an obvious deterrent.]

That’s a hero, to me.

What’s the strangest or most surprising story you came across?

Reindeer were likely to be the first animal to be [semi-]domesticated. But you can’t fully domesticate them, because then you’d have to feed and shelter them. So you semi-domesticate them by half-castrating them, and the way the native Sami people of Norway do that is with their teeth, destroying the testes but not removing them. I’ve witnessed this. This way the animals are less aggressive and less likely to fight and fragment the herd, but still have migratory instincts.

Describe the biggest challenge in shooting the series.

Pure logistics. So many crews, often working at the same time. Filming in really difficult places, in 29 different countries. One time we were at a remote atoll 1,000 miles south of Hawaii and a big storm blew in and disabled one of our ships.

There was also just many stories that were difficult to tell. Each episode involves four to five different narratives woven together.

What do you want people to get out of the show?

I want people to be blown away by the planet we live in. The one we actually live in. It’s still spectacular, even with all our problems. I want people to fundamentally realize that we are part of nature—because if they realize that, they will realize that saving ourselves involves saving nature. 

Before we close the book on Super Bowl XLIX, and the roof on University of Phoenix Stadium, let’s take a look back at one of the most memorable contests in the game’s history, an event that provided newly minted stars out of heretofore unknowns Chris Matthews, Malcolm Butler and Left Shark. Oh, and it turned out that the Seattle Seahawks’ entrance song, “Bittersweet Symphony” by the Verve, was an apt choice.

On with the insights and observations…

The Play’s the Thing

We must begin with what deserves to be one of the five most memorable blunders in Super Bowl history. They include Jackie Smith’s dropped touchdown catch in Super Bowl XIII (“He’s got to be the sickest man in America”); Garo Yepremian’s failed toss on a blocked field goal that turned into a pick-six in Super Bowl VII (this is why no one names their children “Garo” any more); and Atlanta Falcon Eugene Robinson, who on the eve of Super Bowl XXXIII was presented with the Bart Starr Award (for “outstanding character”) and was later arrested for soliciting a prostitute. (Robinson, a Pro Bowler that season, stunk up the field the following night.) Then there was Dallas Cowboy Leon Lett’s premature celebration in Super Bowl XXVII and, of course, Dan Patrick asking New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski “Did you forget what that feeling [winning a Super Bowl] was like?” when it was Gronk’s first Super Bowl win.

I kid. Slightly. Let’s assess as many aspects of Seattle’s 2nd-and-goal call from the one yard-line as humanity is able to digest here…

--Yes, Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson’s pass was slightly high and ahead of Ricardo Lockette. And yes, New England Patriot defensive back Malcolm Butler made a fantastic break on the ball. Both factors are irrelevant. Your best weapon is Marshawn Lynch, and at this moment, after Jermaine Kearse’s ridiculous, all-four-limbs-touch-the-ball-before-he-secured-it-33-yard-catch, and then Lynch’s four-yard burst on first-and-goal from the five, the Patriots’ will was all but broken. Lynch was going to barrel into the end zone on the next play, or at worst, the one after that.

--Yes, Lynch was one of five this season in rushes from the one-yard line. Who cares? Seattle also had allowed only one fourth-quarter touchdown pass in the previous 10 games and yet had just surrendered two to Julian Edelman, a former seventh-round draft pick who looks as if he should be putting a new roof on your garage. The point being, you toss out those stats in moments such as these. There’s a reason they refer to Marshawn Lynch as “Beast Mode.” He may be the most punishing runner since Larry Csonka. No one was going to stop him.

--Has there ever been a single play in Super Bowl history that altered more legacies? Russell Wilson was about to go down as the first quarterback in Super Bowl history to win two Super Bowls in his first three seasons (while earning less than $700,000 per year), as well as upping his career record to 11-0 against quarterbacks who have won a Super Bowl (an even more impressive feat, perhaps). Pete Carroll was about to become the first coach to win two Super Bowls and at least a share of two college football national championships. Tom Brady, as sublime as his 15-year career in New England has been, was about to have lost his third Super Bowl in a row (only Jim Kelly of the Buffalo Bills lost more, four). Same for head coach Bill Belichick.

The unsung hero would be Seattle wideout Chris Matthews, the former Foot Locker employee who had never caught an NFL pass before this day, instead of New England nickelback Malcolm Butler, the former Popeye’s cook who was also a rookie. Marshawn Lynch, the most laconic and truculent Super Bowl participant since Duane Thomas of the Dallas Cowboys (“If it’s the ultimate game, how come they’re playing it again next year?”) was about to be the go-to quote and perhaps Super Bowl MVP?

Legacies, bling and speaking endorsement fees all changed on that one play. Yes, I remember St. Louis Ram Mike Jones’s tackle of Tennessee Titan Kevin Dyson on the one yard-line on the final play of Super Bowl XXXIV (a highly underrated Super Bowl moment), but I would say this is the most significant single play in the contest’s history because of the legacies at stake.

--Foraging for an analogous pop culture and/or sports moment, the closest one I could conjure was the climactic moment of Hoosiers, with a few colossal exceptions. It’s the final play of the Indiana state championship game between tiny Hickory High and mighty South Bend Central.

Unlike the Seahawks, Hickory calls timeout to discuss strategy.

Just like the Seahawks, Hickory’s coach, Norman Dale (Gene Hackman. Would this have made Dennis Hopper’s “Shooter” the offensive coordinator? And had he been on the bench instead of in the hospital, wouldn’t he have snorted at Dale’s play call?), overthinks the moment, choosing to use his Beast Mode, Jimmy Chitwood, as a decoy for the game-winning play.

Unlike the Seahawks, and again, because they had the luxury of a timeout, Hickory’s players exchange what would not then (in 1954) be known as “WTF?” looks until Dale notices their discomfort. “What’s the matter with you guys?” asks Dale. And can’t you just imagine Lynch, if given the opportunity, assuring Pete Carroll, “I’ll make it.”

--Let history remember that offensive coordinator Darren Bevell, who starred as quarterback at Scottsdale (Arizona) Chaparral High School 25 years ago, made that play call. Not Carroll. Football historians may remember Carroll as the Captain Edward J. Smith of this gridiron Titanic, but Bevell was the man operating the switchboard who missed the iceberg warnings.

--Imagine if Russell Wilson had overruled the call in the huddle and just called Lynch’s number—and why not run the same play that just gained you four yards again? Imagine if Lynch had scored. Would anyone ever even have learned that? What Seahawk would have the temerity to tell the media, “Yeah, coach Bevell wanted to pass and Beast Mode said, “The [bleep] with that!”

--How much money did Skittles lose by Lynch not scoring the game-winning touchdown?

--Imagine this Snickers ad: Darren Bevell calls a pass (or makes any decision that seems hopelessly wrong), is then advised to “bite into a Snickers” and then morphs into Pete Carroll and calls a run.

--The Seahawks squandered what would have been the ultimate troll moment in sports (at least since the term troll entered the vernacular as a verb). If only Carroll and/or Bevell had conceived of a goal-line play in which Seattle used an unbalanced line and a tackle-eligible play to beat Belichick and the Pats on a Fat Guy Touchdown pass. The Internet would have exploded.

--After four seasons in Seattle in which Golden Tate increased his catch totals by at least 10 per year (21 to 35 to 45 to 64), the Seahawks chose not to re-sign him. This year with Detroit, Tate caught a career-high 99 passes and was voted to the Pro Bowl. I’ve followed Tate’s career closely since his freshman year at Notre Dame and have rarely seen a receiver who wins more 50-50 balls. You can see evidence of that here in college, versus Southern Cal All-American safety Taylor Mays, or here two years ago in Seattle in the epic Monday Night Football“Fail Mary” game-winning catch. If Golden Tate is running that slant route instead of Ricardo Lockette, I believe Seattle is celebrating today.

--No city can match Boston for miraculous and incongruous reversals of fortune in epic contests: “Havlicek stole the ball!” Carlton Fisk’s home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Larry Bird’s steal of a Detroit Pistons inbounds pass that altered the tide of the 1987 Eastern Conference finals. The Tuck Rule. David Ortiz’s grand slam in Game 2 of the 2013 American League Championship Series that came with the Sox trailing 5-1, and having been one-hit through seven innings. I think we can put the Bill Buckner story to bed now (and how odd that another Bill B. has given Boston sports fans so much to, well, revere?).

--I still don’t understand what Bill Belichick was doing in that final minute, and again, history will spare him the scrutiny. Yes, Kearse makes what is the first four-limbs catch that I can ever recall seeing at the 1:06 mark, after which Seattle calls timeout just five yards shy of the game-winning touchdown. New England has two timeouts remaining. On first down, Lynch carries the ball off-tackle left for four yards. If you are Belichick, the genius, how do you not call timeout here with about :55 seconds left? Instead, the play clock runs so that Seattle next snaps the ball with about :30 remaining.

What good would two timeouts have been if Seattle had scored, or even if that pass had fallen incomplete and the Seahawks had scored on the subsequent play? Either way, New England is getting the ball back—following a Seattle squib kick—with about :20 remaining?

Was Belichick really astute enough to know that calling timeout might have given Seattle enough time to think twice about a bonehead play call by Bevell?

-- Hopefully, we can now all appreciate just how irritated Belichick had been eight days earlier, having his Super Bowl prep interrupted by a second Ball-ghazi presser? What do coaches do with all that preparation time? They have their assistants break down an opponent’s tape; then categorize plays, formations and personnel packages; then sub-categorize them; and then, after all that is done, the most difficult part: feeding as much of this information to their players as the players can reasonably be expected to digest. It’s too much to assume that every player will have the intelligence and, more important, the motivation to retain everything a coach does, but it’s Belichick’s job to see that they retain as much as possible.

New England ran that very Seattle goal line play out of that same formation in practice earlier in the week. Jimmy Garoppolo, in the role of Wilson, had connected with Josh Boyce, who played the role of Ricardo Lockette. Butler had been beaten on the play because he had hesitated. When he saw and recognized the same three-receiver formation (Butler had actually been on the sideline the previous play after being beaten by Kearse on the catch two plays earlier), he jumped the route and made the play of his life.

What do they say? Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. New England, Belichick and Butler all prepared. They won Super Bowl XLIX, as most football teams do, earlier that week in practice.

--Finally, the final 35 seconds of Super Bowl XLIX were not Pete Carroll’s finest hour. In fact, you may call them his most ignominious. Couple this play call with the decision to keep Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush on the bench for a game-clinching fourth-and-two in the 2006 BCS national championship game versus Texas—a game the Longhorns would go on to win—and you can argue that two inscrutable play calls cost the Peter Pan-like coach a pair of championships.

Those 35 seconds were not Carroll’s finest hour. But the 30 minutes afterward were. Carroll, speaking to NBC minutes after the most crushing defeat of his life, said, “That’s my fault, totally.” Carroll argued that Seattle was playing for third or fourth down, to “waste the clock,” but if Seattle had wanted to do that, why run the quickest pass play possible, where the results would only be a touchdown, an incompletion (stopping the clock) or what actually occurred? And how cute do you really want to be with time management when there are 30 seconds remaining and the task of taking the lead in the biggest game of your life is still before you?

In short, it was not Carroll’s fault. And his “waste the clock” line was a nice rationalization, but it holds less water than Belichick’s “Mona Lisa Vito” line. But Carroll gets all the accolades, and so he rightly felt that he deserved to take all of the blame. At the lowest moment of his professional career, Pete Carroll gave the ultimate lesson in sportsmanship. As much as leaders at business schools and management seminars will point to Seattle’s last-minute blunder as a learning moment in the future, here’s hoping they also shine a light on how Carroll handled it. Every bit as instructive.

Nearly 60 percent of the funding pledged to help fight the Ebola epidemic has not made it to its destination, according to research published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal.

Nations and individuals have pledged a combined $2.89 billion to Ebola relief since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the epidemic a “public health emergency of international concern” in August 2014. But as of December 31, 2014, only $1.09 billion of that $2.89 billion has been actually disbursed.

“Had the resources reached the countries in a timely fashion the epidemic would not have reached the scale it did,” says Karen Grépin, an assistant professor of global health policy at New York University and author on the study. “It’s unlikely it would have gotten so far.”

According to Grépin, it is not unusual for donors to make big pledges and not always see them through. But that only covers part of the gap. The bigger problem, Grépin says, is the lack of an adequate and efficient system for soliciting funds and then disbursing them. She says this has been a latent problem at the WHO for years, but the scale of the Ebola epidemic—and, accordingly, the scale of the need—caught the world off guard.

“This was a new situation for everyone,” Grépin says. “What I found was that donors were quite generous, but the problem was delays. It took a very, very long time for donors to engage. WHO was not calling on donors to make pledges until late in the game.”

Much of the funding that did make it to countries battling Ebola did not arrive until months after the outbreak had become dire, the paper notes. It took until “at least mid-October” for the first $500 million to arrive, and the first $1 billion didn’t show up until December. 

Estimating how much money to ask for also proved difficult: In August, when WHO began appealing to donors, the organization estimated $490 million would be required to stop the outbreak. Roughly six weeks later, the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated $1 billion was needed. The latest estimate is $1.5 billion.

“Clearly, international leaders have found it challenging to estimate the financial requirements to tackle this rapidly spreading outbreak,” the paper reads.

Grépin's research indicates that as of December 31, 2014, another $1.3 billion was tied up as "firm commitment" money, or money that has been pledged and is likely to be disbursed but hasn't yet. The U.S., by far the biggest donor with $900 million pledged, had either funded or made a "firm committment" on 95 percent of its total pledges, according to the paper. The U.K., the second-biggest donor, pledged $307 million and had paid or made a "firm committment" on 98.4 percent of it by that time. The World Bank, meanwhile, pledged $230 million, but had only funded or made a "firm committment" on 51 percent. The paper notes that the World Bank and other groups have also granted loans to Ebola-stricken countries, which were not taken into account in these figures.

Grépin says enormous political will is needed to change the way the World Health Organization calls the international community into action during epidemics like these. Now, the WHO waits until it declares a public health emergency of international concern before it begins asking the international community to respond, she says. In the case of the Ebola epidemic, the WHO was first alerted to the outbreak in March, but it did not give it that designation until August. Grépin hopes a new mechanism will be put in place to start the cycle of soliciting humanitarian assistance sooner. In addition, the international community needs to see the current Ebola outbreak through to the end. 

“Now that the epidemic is dying down, people are looking away,” Grépin says. “If we don’t pay attention to this, we’ll be doing it again in a couple years.”

One out of every two people in the U.K. will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, according to new research published in the British Journal of Cancer on Wednesday.

Other studies have forecast that the U.K.’s cancer rates would hit that level at some point in the future, but the newest finding, from the organization Cancer Research U.K., indicates that that moment has already arrived for anyone born after the early 1960s. The new figure updates a previous figure published by the organization, which pegged the U.K. cancer rate at more than one in every three people.

Researchers say this new, higher figure is partly due to advances that have allowed people to live longer.

“Cancer is primarily a disease of old age, with more than 60 percent of all cases diagnosed in people aged over 65. If people live long enough, then most will get cancer at some point. But there’s a lot we can do to make it less likely—like giving up smoking, being more active, drinking less alcohol and maintaining a healthy weight,” Peter Sasieni, a professor at Queen Mary University of London and one of the paper’s authors, said in a press release. “If we want to reduce the risk of developing the disease, we must redouble our efforts and take action now to better prevent the disease for future generations.”

These figures are not a major shock to anyone familiar with the subject. Cancer rates in the U.S. are extremely similar. According to the latest publication of the American Cancer Society, the lifetime risk of developing cancer is slightly less than one in every two for men, and slightly higher than one in every three for women.