A newspaper brings the world to you, and I occasionally ask students to use a newspaper as part of an assignment. But I find that quite a few of their families don't subscribe to a newspaper because of cost.  That's why I thought I would share this deal from The Washington Post: a full year of home delivery (plus digital access) for just $89.99 in the DC metro area or, for those outside the DC metro area, a full year of digital access for $99.  subscribe.washingtonpost.com/acqbeta1/#/offers/promo/digital07

These two maps, from Oxford University's Malaria Atlas Project, show the impact of focused efforts on eradicating the dominant form of malaria in Africa, Plasmodium falciparum. The red areas show high incidence of infection; the blue areas show low incidence of infection. From 2000 to 2015, P. falciparum infections fell by 40%, which translates into roughly 663 million fewer clinical cases of malaria. www.map.ox.ac.uk/

Yemen has been described as the forgotten Arab Spring country with the forgotten civil war. The Trump Administration has decided to increase U.S. support for the Saudi coalition seeking to defeat Yemen's Houthi forces. To better understand the issues and choices involves, this BBC article provides a good starting point, looking at the causes, players, and status of Yemen's civil war: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29319423

This article from BBC Earth begins with the proposition, "Of all Earth's danger zones, which is the most deadly?" and explores the connection between physical geography and human geography in identifying threats -- some well known (like hurricanes) and some less so (like "limnic eruptions") -- and how humans are trying to manage those threats.  www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170202-the-places-on-earth-where-nature-is-most-likely-to-kill-you

This unusual look at human geography shows the (arguably) most famous book from each country. Even if you disagree with some of the map creator's selections, you will no doubt pick up some new ideas to add to your reading list.  i.imgur.com/Iu0G2wV.jpg

The Yale Program on Climate Communication recently released a series of maps based on their survey work documenting Americans' views on climate change. One of the most striking maps, to me, was this one, that maps respondents' views on if there is scientific consensus on whether climate change is real and is caused by human activity.  i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170227163854-climate-map-3-scientists-super-169.jpg  You can find six of the maps here:  www.cnn.com/2017/02/28/us/sutter-climate-opinion-maps/ 

One of the best deals in outdoor education in the DC area is Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, which is out Rt. 4 in Anne Arundel County, MD, near the border with Calvert County. Jug Bay is now accepting spring field trip bookings. The bay itself is a tidal wetland on the Patuxent River, a few miles from where the Patuxent empties into the Chesapeake Bay, and the sanctuary offers a variety of top-notch naturalist-led student programs that blend outdoor exploration with classroom time for only $3 per student. In addition to the school-day programs, the sanctuary also runs a few summer camps and will soon start taking reservations for its popular wetland ecology by canoe program for students and adults. www.jugbay.org/education

This geo-graphic provides a snapshot of the world economy, based on percentage of global GDP and grouped by continent. howmuch.net/articles/the-global-economy-by-GDP

Accepting refugees for resettlement continues to be a political hot potato for leaders throughout the world, not just in the U.S. and Europe but also in Australia, Canada, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and elsewhere. An understanding about who the refugees are, though, seems to lag far behind the rhetoric. Give it a try: who are the refugees coming to the U.S.? Specifically, what are the top 10 native languages spoken by refugees who have come to the U.S. over the last 10 years? Submit your guesses in the comments section. I'll post the answers, based on data collected by the government agency responsible for refugee resettlement, later today.  (Answers posted below .)

If you have always wondered about the scope and usefulness of a degree in geography, Times Higher Education (UK) recently ran a piece "What can you do with a geography degree?" Among other things, it notes that, in the UK at least, students who graduate with a degree in geography -- a group that includes Theresa May, the current UK prime minister -- are among the least likely to be *un*employed after graduation.  Hot subfields in geography include sustainability (how do 10 billion people make use of one Earth?) and computer/satellite-supported geographic information systems (GIS). www.timeshighereducation.com/student/subjects/what-can-you-do-geography-degree

To better appreciate how lightly populated much of North Africa is, this map shows the Nile River valley and the major population centers on Morocco's Atlantic coast together account for half the region's population.  http://68.media.tumblr.com/a48a10c48b4a58f65a70c73b31a4098e/tumblr_o1ab967Mob1ucqp0so1_500.png

This Wednesday (3/22) the Koshland Science Museum is hosting the first of a two-part program on "Bioethics in Our Everyday Lives." The Koshland Science Museum is affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences and is located near Washington, DC's Gallery Place Metro. The program will be 6:30-8:30 pm and will include speakers from NIH, Kaiser Permanente, and the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.  (The second part is scheduled for April 19.) More information and tickets are available at
www.koshland-science-museum.org/events/do-right-thing-part-i-bioethics-our-everyday-lives

Which areas of the U.S. are most vulnerable to a trade war? The Brookings Institution compiled data from the 382 largest metropolitan regions in the U.S., analyzing how much the economy of each city  is dependent on exports. Although the nation's biggest cities are major manufacturing and export hubs, they have larger, more diversified economies that are less dependent on exports. The most vulnerable cities? Metro areas in Indiana, Texas, and Louisiana. This map shows volume of exports (the bigger the circle, the greater the dollar value of exports) and economic dependence on exports (the darker the blue, the greater share exports represent in the local economy).  https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/01/27/u-s-metros-most-dependent-on-trade/

How does disease tie in to geography? Emory University is sponsoring a free webinar next Friday (3/24, noon to 1 pm ET) on "The Social Geography of Zika." For more information or to register, see http://www.engage.emory.edu/s/1705/alumni/index.aspx?sid=1705&pgid=4250&gid=3&cid=6626&ecid=6626&post_id=0

The New York Times recently ran an excellent story on how the physical and human geography of Mexico City, the biggest metropolitan area in North America and at considerable elevation and far from the coasts, is increasingly vulnerable to changes in climate. I am excerpting parts here but encourage you to read the whole thing: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/17/world/americas/mexico-city-sinking.html

"Mexico City, a mile and a half above sea level, [is] sinking, collapsing in on itself. ... Always short of water, Mexico City keeps drilling deeper for more, weakening the ancient clay lake beds on which the Aztecs first built much of the city, causing it to crumble even further. ... It is a cycle made worse by climate change. More heat and drought mean more evaporation and yet more demand for water, adding pressure to tap distant reservoirs at staggering costs or further drain underground aquifers and hasten the city’s collapse. In the immense neighborhood of Iztapalapa — where nearly two million people live, many of them unable to count on water from their taps — a teenager was swallowed up where a crack in the brittle ground split open a street. Sidewalks resemble broken china, and 15 elementary schools have crumbled or caved in. Much is being written about climate change and the impact of rising seas on waterfront populations. But coasts are not the only places affected. Mexico City — high in the mountains, in the center of the country — is a glaring example. ... The effects of climate change are varied and opportunistic, but one thing is consistent: They are like sparks in the tinder. They expose cities' biggest vulnerabilities, inflaming troubles that politicians and city planners often ignore or try to paper over. ... Mexico City now imports as much as 40 percent of its water from remote sources — then squanders more than 40 percent of what runs through its 8,000 miles of pipes because of leaks and pilfering. This is not to mention that pumping all this water more than a mile up into the mountains consumes roughly as much energy as does the entire metropolis of Puebla, a Mexican state capital with a population akin to Philadelphia’s. Even with this mind-boggling undertaking, the government acknowledges that nearly 20 percent of Mexico City residents — critics put the number even higher — still can’t count on getting water from their taps each day. ... 'We expect heavier, more intense rains, which means more floods, but also more and longer droughts.' If it stops raining in the reservoirs where the city gets its water, 'we’re facing a potential disaster,' [the director of Mexico City's water system] said. 'There is no way we can provide enough trucks of water to deal with that scenario. If we have the [drought] problems that California and São Paulo [Brazil] have had,' he added, 'there is the serious possibility of unrest.'"

"At the extreme, if climate change wreaks havoc on the social and economic fabric of global linchpins like Mexico City, warns the writer Christian Parenti, 'no amount of walls, guns, barbed wire, armed aerial drones or permanently deployed mercenaries will be able to save one half of the planet from the other.'”

Reuters does a weekly podcast called War College that investigates "the weapons systems and tactics that both endanger the world and keep it safe." Recent topics have dealt with the issues involved in creating civilian safe zones, Russia's hybrid war against the West, battlefield ethics, a history of the National Security Council, the case for leaving Afghanistan, and Nazi interest in the occult during WWII, among others.  To listen to a War College podcast or to subscribe, see http://www.reuters.com/podcasts/war-college

MAPS IN THE NEWS:
This map, based on NOAA data looking at average snowfall from 1981-2010, suggests March snow is not particularly uncommon.  As usual, mountainous areas and locations subject to the Great Lakes' lake-effect snow show the highest average snowfall for late-season snow. s.w-x.co/us-snow-mar-to-may-brettsch.jpg

This pair of maps, from The Economist (UK), shows France's unemployment rate (the darker the red, the higher the unemployment rate) and support for Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front party in the last election (the darker the blue, the greater the support).  cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20170304_WOC022.png

The next round of France's national election, expected to be the most momentous in decades, begins in six weeks. For an explanation of the French voting process and position of president, Bloomberg offers a helpful guide: www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-12/french-election-guide-2017-how-do-voters-choose-a-president

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) tie together several disparate fields of philosophy, including philosophy of mind and moral philosophy. By adding in some game theory, Google's AI project, DeepMind, recently revealed that AI networks are already perhaps more human than we imagined: cooperating when hunting, leaving each other alone when gathering an abundant commodity, and shooting each other (really, targeting lasers at each other!) when gathering a commodity in short supply. www.extremetech.com/extreme/244564-googles-deepmind-survival-sim-shows-ai-can-become-hostile-cooperative

In a recent article published in Science, conservation biologists have tried to identify areas of the planet that are both roadless and of biological importance (based on biodiversity and importance to the ecosystem). Roads promote the movement of goods and people but also contribute to environmental degradation, species loss, and the introduction of invasive species. Although the vast majority of the earth's surface is roadless, roads have fragmented roadless areas into roughly 600,000 sections, more than half of which are smaller than a square kilometer.  The full article in Science is behind a paywall, but this article from National Geographic summarizes and maps out the findings: news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/map-roadless-development-conservation/

High school students interested in world affairs might want to check out the very modestly priced summer Leadership Academy on International Affairs being offered by the Washington, DC, chapter of the World Affairs Council (July 17-21).  Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the program is full. worldaffairsdc.org/ForStudents_LeadershipAcademy.aspx

Planning  a road trip? This map, created by The Washington Post, provides a look at the 55,710 U.S. bridges that have been classified as "structurally deficient." (The darker the red, the higher percentage of bridges that are structurally deficient.)  In Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, the percentage of structurally deficient bridges exceeds 20%. www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/02/bridges_deficient_web.png

The Lowy Institute's Global Diplomacy Index is an interactive tool for exploring diplomatic relationships between countries. www.lowyinstitute.org/global-diplomacy-index/#

Tomorrow is International Women's Day, and to mark the occasion, HowMuch.net has assembled this geo-graphic highlighting the growth in women-owned businesses in the U.S. over the last decade:  the taller the spike, the faster the growth in women-owned businesses; the darker the pink, the greater the value of women-owned businesses in that area. For more analysis, see howmuch.net/articles/state-of-women-owned-business