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THE CHANCELLOR’S half-yearly statement on the public finances is usually one of the biggest events in the political calendar. Not so on March 13th, when Philip Hammond rose in the House of Commons to deliver his spring statement. The chamber was far from full. Conservative MPs sitting directly behind Mr Hammond checked their phones as he delivered his speech. "I am acutely conscious of the fact that the House has other pressing matters on its mind today," Mr Hammond began. Brexit is not just a distraction. It also makes a mockery of the process of fiscal forecasting. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog, makes its projections based on current government policy. For now it assumes a smooth exit from the EU on March 29th. Yet after a week of Commons defeats the government looks set to request an extension to the exit date.


And although MPs have also voted against a no-deal exit, that is not enough to stop such an outcome happening by accident. Since no one has the foggiest idea how Brexit will pan out, fiscal forecasts are barely worth the paper they are written on. Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Yet the government is required to deliver two fiscal updates a year. Mr Hammond also loves his numbers. MPs were therefore treated to the chancellor reeling off forecast after forecast, often with an absurd level of precision. By 2023, Mr Hammond claimed, the economy will have 600,000 more jobs.


GDP growth that year will be 1.6%—no more, no less. 130m) for the police in 2019-20 to tackle a surge in knife crime, and free sanitary products in secondary schools. The real meat in this year’s spring statement was not policy but politics. Mr Hammond, normally not a very political chancellor, spent a lot of his speech attacking Labour. He claimed that John McDonnell, his opposite number, views business as "the enemy". The message was clear: the Tory government might be making a pig’s ear of Brexit, but under Labour everything would be even worse. The attacks on the opposition, however, concealed subtler criticisms of Theresa May. Mr Hammond argued that if MPs approved a withdrawal deal with the EU the economy would pick up and he would be able to loosen the fiscal purse-strings—what he calls his "deal dividend". Mrs May’s attempts to get her withdrawal agreement through Parliament have failed. Yet as Britain edges ever closer to the cliff edge, she has shown little desire to adapt the agreement to win Labour support.


In the second chart, the dots’ colors reflect which party held the seat after the 2016 election, conveying the political stakes of hardship in non-urban America. There’s a clear pattern. Districts with many dollar stores are more likely to be conservative. That’s true even within suburban areas.Virginia’s second and eleventh congressional districts, for example, are both classed by CityLab as "dense suburban." But according to 2008-18 data, VA-11—Washington D.C.’s bedroom suburbs—has only five SNAP authorized dollar stores. VA-02, home to Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and the two poorest counties in Virginia, has forty-three. In VA-11, life is good. In VA-02, it’s not great.


The median household income in VA-02 is only two-thirds as high as in VA-11, and the portion of adults with advanced degrees is less than half as high. In 2016 congressional races, Democrats carried VA-11 by a forty-four point margin. Republicans took VA-02 by twenty-three points. Rural America is no more uniform. Much like suburban districts, rural districts with fewer dollar stores tend to be more affluent and less Republican. Consider, for example, New Hampshire’s second congressional district. CityLab codes it as "pure rural," and its population is dispersed. But it’s also relatively well off. In NH-02—home to twenty-nine SNAP authorized dollar stores—less than 10 percent of children live in poverty.


73,000 like NH-02. Virginia’s ninth has 112 SNAP-authorized dollar stores. Hillary Clinton won NH-02 by two points. Donald Trump carried VA-09 by forty-one points. Republicans’ slow rise to dominance in the kind of places dollar stores have colonized—more rural, less wealthy, more white, more evangelical—stuttered with the 2008 recession but then surged after Barack Obama’s election. Donald Trump’s campaign, with its populist rhetoric and rejection of Republican orthodoxy on trade and entitlements, furthered the trend. Trump earned a smaller vote share than Mitt Romney in low-dollar-store districts, but made up for it in places where the number of dollar stores is high. The rural districts to the right of this chart have long been home both to voters who depend on programs like SNAP to help put dinner on the table, and to voters who resent thoseprograms.


The former tend to vote Democrat when they vote at all. The latter are thisnation’s staunchest Republicans. In 2016, Donald Trump convinced enough of the former that he might be their champion, or at least that Hillary Clinton would never be, that he carried these districts by unprecedented margins. This chart shows the number of SNAP-authorized dollar stores for congressional districts, sorting each district by its presidential votes in 2012 and 2016 and color-coding each by its 2016 congressional districts. Starkly, the districts that Hillary Clinton sliced away from the Romney were systematically those home to the fewest dollar stores. Surprisingly, Obama-Clinton districts cover a pretty broad range, in part because there are a handful of heavily African American rural districts in the Deep South with high numbers of dollar stores.


Meanwhile, the 2012 Obama districts that Donald Trump won over were largely in the 30 to 60 dollar store band. These were New England and Midwestern districts with small cities and waning numbers of union jobs. Above, we have mapped out how these districts voted in the midterms. Purple diamonds represent seats that Democrats flipped and orange ones represent seats that Republicans flipped. At first glance, these results might suggest Democrats increasingly speak mostly for places with low numbers of dollar stores. The party entered the 2018 midterms holding two-thirds of the 218 districts with thirty or fewer stores, and it picked up an additional twenty-nine seats in this category. By comparison, Republicans went into the midterms holding three-fourths of the 217 districts with over thirty SNAP-authorized dollar stores and lost a net of just eleven seats in that range.


But Democrats flipped few seats in high-dollar-store districts because they started from far behind. In two dozen of them, Democrats did not even field candidates in 2016. But in 2018, that changed. The chart above highlights those newly contested seats with diamonds. Most of them are disadvantaged rural districts where Democrats have not been competitive since Ronald Reagan first won office. Many are southern districts that went red as party positions on civil rights switched. In 2018, Democrats stepped back up to compete in these places, and did so with a nationalizedbrand that is avowedly progressive on issues of racial justice. These candidacies are a leading indicator of Democrats’ new dynamism in places far beyond affluent suburbs. But it isn’t just that more Democrats ran in dollar store country.


The above plot shows congressional districts where Democrats ran in both 2016 and 2018. Each dot’s color shows the party that held the district going into the midterm election. Each dot’s location shows the magnitude of the congressional vote swing. The breadth of the shift is clear. Very few districts moved towards the GOP in 2018. Those that did were almost entirely in (and remained in) Democratic hands. Up through the 2016 elections, the ongoing geographic concentration of prosperity drove a widening political divide. Democrats were positioned as caring about the kinds of people who live in urban areas, and the kinds of poverty and inequality they face. That left Democrats vulnerable to Republican claims that they didn’t care about the kinds of people who live in small town and rural areas or the hardships they face.


The social infrastructure through which Democrats once made their case in dollar-store country, like unions and working-class churches, was battered by the same grim trends that favored dollar stores’ arrival. So how did Democrats make a comeback? In place after place, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, local progressives decided they could no longer wait for someone else to fix a political system they saw as broken. They stepped forward, found each other, created and used online resources, and took hands-on political action. Where Democrats’ local infrastructure had most atrophied, the new presence was most impactful. New or re-energized progressive groups in red districts have repopulated local Democratic committees and altered the ecosystem for campaigns up and down the ballot. These groups aided candidate recruitment and fundraising, knocked on doors and made calls, and encouraged campaigns to come hold events in locales they might otherwise have skipped.


Within Iowa’s deeply conservative fourth congressional district, for example, a dozen separate grassroots groups joined the Indivisible network. Meanwhile, another new group (one not even listed on the Indivisible site) helped Democratic candidate J.D. Scholten host a campaign stop in Pocahontas, Iowa, population 1,700. The stop featured a rally with forty attendees as well as a coffee-shop phonebank. That may not sound like a revolution, but it’s local activism like this that helped Scholten almost defeat fifteen-year incumbent Steven King. What happened in Scholten’s seventy-eight dollar store district is happening in places like it across the country. Regional politics have been renewed by activists’ passion, time, and treasure. They supported Democratic candidates who ran for positions large and small—with locally framed messages to match.


As a result, GOP-skeptical younger voters far outside metro cores found persuasive Democratic alternatives in front of them. The distance between countryside and country club has not collapsed. Choosing cans carefully on the dollar store aisle to make sure you don’t go over your EBT limit remains a common experience in some communities. It remains unknown in others. But Democratic organizing is now underway in local hands in districts at both ends of this gulf, and across its vast middle. For Democrats, the task ahead is translating this into sustained electoral gains and policy action that will reduce the disparities dividing America.


Idai is moving westaward in the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and Mozambique. It will make landfall in Mozambique Thursday. Idai will produce a life-threatening storm surge of at least 3 meters (10 feet). Deadly rainfall flooding has already occurred this month in Mozambique and southern Malawi. Tropical Cyclone Idai will make landfall in Mozambique Thursday night, producing life-threatening storm surge, flooding rain and damaging winds just days after the system spawned deadly flooding in the country and neighboring Malawi. The disturbance that developed into Idai originated in Mozambique, where it caused flooding earlier this month in northern parts of the country, as well as in neighboring southern Malawi. Idai's outer bands of rain soaked parts of northern Madagascar with over 6 inches of rain on Monday.


Idai then underwent rapid intensification Sunday into Monday, meaning maximum sustained winds increased by 35 mph or more in a 24-hour period. Idai's estimated maximum sustained winds topped out at 120 mph Monday, the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane. Since then, Idai has undergone an eyewall replacement cycle, common in most stronger tropical cyclones, during which a storm's eyewall is surrounded by a second eyewall, which eventually chokes off the previous eyewall, resulting in a larger eye. During an eyewall replacement, the cyclone typically weakens a bit, but then gains some intensity once the new outer eyewall contracts inward.


Idai has now regained its Category 3 status as rainbands begin to lash Mozambique. The U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center is forecasting Idai to weaken some before landfall near or just north of Beira. Idai is expected to make landfall Thursday night or early Friday local time near Mozambique's fourth largest city, Beira, which has a population of more than 530,000 (similar to Tucson, Arizona). Beira is prone to storm-surge flooding. Coastal areas near and south of where the center makes landfall are likely to be inundated with life-threatening storm surge exceeding 3 meters (roughly 10 feet), which could include Beira if the center tracks north of the city. RSMC-La Reunion says storm surge could reach as high as 5 to 6 meters - roughly 16 to 20 feet - at the mouth of the Pungwe River.


According to a 2015 study led by storm surge expert Hal Needham, about 40 percent of Mozambique's population lives near the coast, and 25 percent of the nation's gross domestic product comes from the coastal zone. Idai could bring more flooding rainfall to Mozambique late this week. Some spots may see up to 500 millimeters (nearly 20 inches) of rain near the landfall point and points inland over central Mozambique. Damaging winds are also a concern near and inland from the coast. There have been only three tropical cyclones that have made landfall in Mozambique at Category 3 intensity or stronger since the use of satellites began in 1966, according to NOAA.


Wildlife biologists work in conservation and management of biological resources. These duties include the study of wild animals and their habitats. They study the life processes of animals including origins, diseases, genetics and behavior. This work takes much research both in the field and in laboratories and requires an extensive amount of investigative thinking and much hands-on experimentation. Wildlife biologist must possess the ability to work independently or as part of a team. An educational background in chemistry, biology, zoology, mathematics and botany is necessary to become a wildlife biologist. Other courses of study involved in a wildlife biologist degree include wildlife management, mammalogy, animal ecology and ornithology. Wildlife biologists who wish to pursue research careers should concentrate their studies in wildlife biology, botany and zoology. A Ph.D is often a prerequisite of research positions, teaching or for advancement to management positions.


A bachelor's or master's degree in biological science can be sufficient for entry-level research positions. Other career facts about a wildlife biologist include who will hire a wildlife biologist. Many wildlife biologists find jobs in colleges or universities as teachers or in research. Federal, state and local governments also hire biological scientists and make up about 40 percent of all wildlife biologist positions. Biological scientists working for the federal government work for U.S. Departments of Defense, Interior and Agriculture. Industries that hire biological scientists include scientific laboratories and technical consulting services. Opportunities exist for advancement in this occupation. Wildlife biologists can move into management positions where they become responsible for directing activities at botanical gardens or zoos.


The U.S. Department of the Interior hires wildlife biologists who work in many locations throughout the United States and its territories. They offer both research and non-research positions. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were approximately 91,300 wildlife biologist jobs in 2008. Employment for biological scientists is expected to increase faster than average for all occupations due to the increase in biotechnological research. This occupation has an expected growth rate of 21 percent over the next decade. Marine biology is a very specialized field and the employment opportunities there will be limited. The effort to clean up the environment will also call for an increase in the number of wildlife biologists. Keen competition will exist for research positions. 56,500. Wildlife biologist positions are less affected by the recession. Research projects are often long-term and the biologists have a better chance of keeping their jobs. However, government budget cuts sometimes cause these projects to lose funding. For more information regarding career facts about a wildlife biologist and other biology jobs, read Education and Training for a Marine Biologist and Understanding the Role of an Environmental Biologist.


Everything you need to know about the British Labour Party is contained in the fact that Luciana Berger is no longer a member and Alex Scott-Samuel is. Two weeks ago Berger, a member of parliament, shocked the nation when she announced her departure from the country’s official opposition. The great niece of a postwar-era Labour government minister, Berger joined the party at age 15 and was parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement. Standing at a lectern with several other former Labour MPs, she announced the formation of a new caucus called the Independent Group, established for those disaffected with the growing extremism of the country’s two major political parties. Labour, she said, had become "sickeningly, institutionally racist" under the tenure of its leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Specifically, it was anti-Semitism that drove Berger out.


Last April, speaking in the House of Commons, Berger joined several other Jewish female Labour MPs in reading aloud some of the hateful anti-Semitic invective hurled at them by Corbyn’s supporters. Berger’s courage in speaking out only elicited more attacks, however, such that she required bodyguards at her own party conference later that year. Now consider the fate of Scott-Samuel, chairman of the local Labour association in Berger’s constituency of Liverpool. "Until Jeremy Corbyn became its leader in September 2015, Labour did not have a problem with anti-Jewish racism," Joan Ryan, who followed Berger in leaving the party, wrote recently.


Corbyn is indeed unfit to be leader of the Labour Party, much less one of Europe’s largest military powers. He is a man who considers Hamas and Hezbollah "friends," defended a luridly anti-Semitic mural in East London, and laid a wreath at the gravesite of participants in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. For these reasons and many, many more, more than 85 percent of British Jews consider Corbyn to be an anti-Semite; almost 40 percent say they would "seriously consider" leaving the country were he to be elected prime minister. The majority of Corbyn’s parliamentary colleagues agree that he should not be prime minister. In 2016, they voted 172 to 40 against him in a vote of no confidence.


But the exigencies of the parliamentary system mean that as long as they stay in the party, Labour MPs will be working toward a Prime Minister Corbyn at the next election. And what would it signify if, in the words of its own former MPs, a "sickeningly, institutionally racist" party that poses "a threat to national security" and is a "danger to the cohesion of our society" ever came to power? Britain would boast the dubious distinction of having the first anti-Semitic government in Western Europe since the Third Reich. The crisis engulfing Labour is not just about Jews. Anti-Semitism is a societal cancer that eventually devours its host, a harbinger of irrationality, democratic failure, and other ominous trends.


Britain’s official opposition party being overtaken by anti-Semites is worrisome enough. If this pernicious organization were to win power, the future health of British democracy itself would very much be in doubt. For this reason, the nine MPs who quit Labour should be lauded for their honesty. Corbyn is the problem, and a political party will not be able to extirpate its anti-Semitism as long as an anti-Semite leads it. But a decent man would stop and ponder what it is about his ideology and political style that persuades so many of his supporters to heap vile, misogynistic and anti-Semitic abuse upon one of his female colleagues. Not only has Corbyn not done this, he has also not even bothered to meet with Berger, his former shadow health minister, in well over a year. The scourge of anti-Semitism has torn apart two of the most important progressive organizations in the West, the Labour Party, and the Women’s March. Anti-Semitic statements by leaders of the latter eventually caused it to splinter, with many local chapters distancing themselves from the national group. As for Labour, it will not be redeemed until it is Corbyn and his acolytes, and not Berger and her colleagues, who feel unwelcome.


Adam Wren is a contributing editor at Politico Magazine and Indianapolis Monthly. Inside a Navy Yard WeWork on M Street, Todd Deatherage spends his days trying to bring peace to the Middle East. That’s his home base when he’s not jetting off to the Holy Land, where he has made more than 50 trips over the past decade. Telos officials have met with midlevel staffers in President Donald Trump’s State Department, and progressive evangelical policy officials such at Matt Duss, Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy adviser, when he was at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. The group made inroads in through the Office of Public Liaison in the Obama administration, getting a briefing on their peace initiative. 1.3 million budget, of which 58 percent comes from their travel program, 25 percent comes from foundations, 14 percent comes from individual donors and 5 percent comes from churches.


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