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Wonkbook’s Number of the Day: 3 million. That's the number of comments the FCC has received from the public on net neutrality, more than double the previous record-setting count.

Wonkbook’s Chart of the Day: For the first time since tracking began, there are more single adults in the U.S. than married ones. Here's where they live.

Wonkbook's Top 5 Stories: (1) The Fed's big meeting; (2) the U.S. war on Ebola; (3) more Obamacare nuisances await; (4) rethinking climate policy's costs; and (5) Big Data comes with big privacy concerns.

1. Top story: Previewing the Fed's policy meeting this week

What to watch for as the Fed is nears a milestone: "The Federal Reserve is nearing a milestone. The nation’s central bank is expected to announce the end of its trillion-dollar bond-buying program on Wednesday after officials wrap up their two-day policy meeting in Washington. That will clear the way for the Fed to raise interest rates for the first time in eight years -- though the timing and economic conditions surrounding any move remains hotly debated." Ylan Q. Mui in The Washington Post.

The least surprising actions that should emerge: Continuation of the taper. "The Fed is expected to announce on Wednesday that it will add just $15 billion to its bond holdings in October. Then it plans to end the purchases, concluding a series of 'quantitative easing' campaigns....That will let officials focus on the Fed’s central policy tool, the level of short-term interest rates....The Fed has indicated it plans to hold interest rates near zero well into next year, to encourage businesses and consumers to borrow money and investors to take larger risks. But the internal debate has shifted in recent months as job growth has increased to a monthly average of 215,000 jobs so far this year, a level that some of the Fed’s economic research has suggested is about as strong as it is likely to get." Binyamin Appelbaum in The New York Times.

Explainer: Everything that has happened since last time Yellen gave a big press conference. Myles Udland in Business Insider.

The Fed's unsolved jobs mystery. "When and how hard the Fed should hit those brakes is still the subject of furious debate. The right answer — what’s really best for the economy — depends in large part on how much 'slack' there is in the labor market, and economists readily admit that’s a hard measure to gauge....Economists are struggling to determine just how much of the decline in participation is structural and how much is cyclical — and it’s not a question with a clear answer. There is significant disagreement among economist about whether there is even a clear line to be drawn between cyclical and structural effects." Rob Garver in The Fiscal Times.

As Fed chair, Yellen the consensus seeker, not the unabashed dove of yesteryear. "As vice chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen was an unabashed advocate of easy money who pressed colleagues to embrace her view. As chairwoman she has taken a much different approach, becoming a restrained consensus seeker modeled after her predecessor, Ben Bernanke. The switch has implications for how the Fed will navigate tough decisions in the months ahead. Many expected Ms. Yellen to steer the central bank toward extending its long period of superlow interest rates. But she has shown herself willing to move toward exiting from that policy as officials found the economy to be on stronger footing." Jon Hilsenrath in The Wall Street Journal.

America's missing workers aren't coming back, Fed economists say. "The findings support hawks on the Federal Open Market Committee, who feel that the Fed needs to prepare to raise rates sooner than expected, although the results are still being debated and might not persuade the committee's more dovish members....Americans who can't find work have been leaving the workforce, as have more and more retirees as the population ages. The question now is whether there is anything that the Fed can do to slow the decline....That might not work, suggest the authors of the paper." Max Ehrenfreund in The Washington Post.

Fed has multiple paths to take, each with its pluses and minuses. "While investors wager on when the Federal Reserve will start raising short-term interest rates, a more complicated debate is taking place inside the central bank about the path of future rate increases....Should the Fed start raising rates early and proceed gradually, or wait longer and be ready to move rapidly? Before they decide when, officials need to weigh the costs and the benefits of these two approaches. The economic models and theories they typically consult don't provide ready answers. The choice will ultimately be a judgment call made by Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and her colleagues on the Fed's policy committee." Jon Hilsenrath in The Wall Street Journal.

Fed may drop that now-infamous 'considerable time' line. "Officials...have said it’s time to consider dropping a pledge to keep rates low for a 'considerable time' after the completion of the central bank’s bond-purchase program....Speculation that such a signal may be at hand is apparent in trading using options that expire within the next few months....Investors in put options are betting that market participants will raise their expectations for the level of the federal funds rate in 2017. They are wagering that Fed policy makers meeting this week will forecast a higher rate at the end of 2017 than most investors now predict." Matthew Boesler and Liz Capo McCormick in Bloomberg.

Dear dollar doomsayers: You were wrong. "It had looked to some like the Fed was debasing the currency by printing so much of it. It is true, as Milton Friedman famously argued, that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. But you...Friedman didn’t argue that whenever there is an abundance of money there is inflation. Nor does money printing necessarily lead to currency devaluation. Other factors play into the purchasing power of a dollar, including the velocity at which dollars are lent out by banks or invested by businesses. Other factors also determine the relative value of a dollar against other currencies....The dollar doomsayers can be forgiven for getting it wrong so far....What’s less forgivable is that the surest among them will never admit it." Jon Hilsenrath in The Wall Street Journal.

New Fed committee seeks to forestall next crisis. "The Fed, which failed to foresee the 2008 financial crisis, has responded by greatly increasing its scrutiny of the health of financial markets. The new committee, conceived by Mr. Fischer and the Fed’s chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, will oversee the work of a department devoted to financial stability that was created in 2010....Officials say they see excesses in some financial markets, but they do not see evidence of significant danger to the broader economy....Yet Fed officials, and some outside analysts, remain worried about the potential for disruptions as the central bank retreats from its economic stimulus campaign" Binyamin Appelbaum in The New York Times.

OECD cuts 2014 growth forecasts slightly for U.S.; cuts for other developed economies. "Growth in the U.S. and other major developed economies this year will be much lower than forecast in May amid weak demand in Europe and rising geopolitical instability, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday....The cut in the U.S. growth forecast was largely due to severe winter weather that caused a sharp economic contraction in the first three months of the year. Noting a strong rebound in economic growth in the second quarter, it said the moderate recovery in the U.S. 'remains broadly on track.'" Jim Puzzanghera in the Los Angeles Times.

Other economic/financial reads:

Labor department awards grants to fight tax cheats. Franco Ordoñez and Mandy Locke in McClatchy Newspapers.

Unseen toll: Wages of millions get seized to pay past debts. Paul Kiel in ProPublica and Chris Arnold in NPR.

Treasury to seek clarity in mortgage-bond ratings. Jody Shenn in Bloomberg.

Once-troubled reverse mortgages poised for a rebound. Hope Yen in the Associated Press.

EL-ERIAN: Will the Fed avoid a language tantrum? "I strongly suspect that when the Fed ponders how to communicate with investors this week, it will take into account what happened early last year when former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke introduced the concept of a 'taper' to investors.The result was a widespread financial market disruption. This 'taper tantrum' alarmed a Fed that has no choice but to artificially support financial markets with forgiving interest rates as a means of pursuing its broader economic objectives. So the Fed will do everything it can to avoid another tantrum by being very clear that the timing and intentions surrounding any rate changes are highly data dependent and will not be allowed to derail the recovery or disrupt markets. But that's not a straightforward process, as the Fed knows all too well." Mohamed A. El-Erian in Bloomberg View.

BIVENS: Long-term wage trends are key to Fed's debate. "This week’s Fed meeting comes amid increasing pressure to raise short-term interest rates sooner rather than later....It’s crucial that the Fed allow longer-run wage trends to inform its decision making....The experience of the late 1990s should bear much more heavily on today’s debates. Then, many warned that the Fed was irresponsibly flirting with inflation by allowing unemployment to get too low. But no inflation developed. Instead, workers up and down the wage distribution got their first meaningful raises in a generation. To understand the present and plan for the future of wage-growth, one really should look at the past." Josh Bivens in The Wall Street Journal.

Top opinion

SCHNURER: Don't worry about the size of government. "Which is better: More government or less? Most people have an ideological answer ready, but from a practical standpoint, it’s a ridiculous question. Better is better....What would it really mean to take money out of cleaning up our messes and instead spend it on preventing them? One model is Maine, where the legislature decided to reduce the role of expensive institutions in handling at-risk youth." Eric Schnurer in The Atlantic.

DAVIS: Hospital mergers can lower costs and improve care. "Decades ago, hospital mergers set off alarm bells. Some worried that they would decrease competition and raise costs. Yet thanks to cataclysmic changes in the delivery of health care, hospital mergers now offer the potential for higher quality and more efficiency....Hospital mergers are the way to promote these positive trends while delivering high-quality, better-coordinated care, improving efficiency and rooting out unnecessary costs." Kenneth L. Davis in The Wall Street Journal.

WEISSMANN: IUDs as the next great weapon in fight against poverty? "We shouldn't expect better birth control availability to work miracles....Even if change came faster, there would still be millions and millions of one-parent families in need of a stronger safety net in the U.S. But in the end, that simply means nobody shouldn’t fixate on better birth control as a silver bullet for poverty....There’s no good argument against promoting effective contraceptives. Like I said, it’s a no-brainer." Jordan Weissmann in Slate.

FRAKT: A caution on limiting choice to control health care spending. "Despite these early warning signs, it’s too soon to tell if narrow networks are doomed, along with the cost control they offer...Consumers may be more tolerant of them than 1990s managed care plans....Also, today’s plans and health care organizations may be more focused on quality than their predecessors....Nevertheless, the story of 1990s managed care is a cautionary tale: Cost control by limiting choice can seemingly be achieved, only to slip away if consumers and providers reject the limitations it imposes. Only with great hubris can one say that low health care price and spending growth will be sustained long term and that narrow networks will play a role." Austin Frakt in The New York Times.

DYNARSKI: For inspiration in ranking colleges, look to health care. "Creating any system of incentives is tricky. For inspiration — and caution — the administration should look to another sector where it has tried mightily to curb rising costs: health care. The markets for health care and college share many peculiarities, all of which tend to make consumers inattentive to price and uninformed about quality. Economists have contributed key insights to our understanding of how consumers and producers make decisions in the health care market, and many of these insights also apply to the college market." Susan Dynarski in The New York Times.

Animals interlude: Behold, the nation's first permanent cat cafe!

2. The U.S. declares war on Ebola

Up to 3,000 military personnel could be dispatched and $750M spent in the anti-Ebola operation. "A general sent by U.S. Africa Command will be in place in Monrovia, Liberia...to lead the effort called Operation United Assistance. The command will help oversee and coordinate U.S. and international relief efforts while a new, separate regional staging base will help accelerate transportation of urgently needed equipment, supplies and personnel. In addition, the Pentagon will send engineers to set up 17 treatment centers in Liberia — each with a 100-bed capacity — as well as medical personnel to train up to 500 health-care workers a week in the region." Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post.

Debate: What President Obama should and shouldn't say and do, in the minds of two experts. Marc Silver in NPR.

This may be one reason why the world will be happy to see the U.S. aid. "A month after declaring the Ebola outbreak in West Africa a global health emergency, the World Health Organization warned on Friday that the disease is still outpacing the international response to contain it. 'The Ebola outbreak that is ravaging parts of West Africa is the largest, most severe and most complex in the nearly four-decade history of this disease,' Margaret Chan, the health organization’s director general, said....'The number of new cases is moving far faster than the capacity to treat them.'" Nick Cumming-Bruce in The New York Times.

Background reading: The U.S. will try to help bolster what many experts have called a disorganized public-health response. Lena H. Sun in The Washington Post.

Non-military help on its way, too. "The White House plan would increase the number of doctors and other health care workers being sent to West Africa from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other American agencies, officials said. The American government will also provide 400,000 Ebola home health and treatment kits to Liberia, as well as tens of thousands of kits intended to test whether people have the disease....Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease and public health expert at Vanderbilt University, praised the plan, calling it a 'major commitment,' and said it was more extensive than he had expected." Helene Cooper, Michael D. Shear and Denise Grady in The New York Times.

Why improving basic care is a huge part of fighting Ebola. "Lurie stresses that in the absence of proper, basic care it becomes exceedingly difficult to determine whether any biomedical interventions actually work. ZMapp, an experimental cocktail of Ebola antibodies, has been given to seven people (two of whom died) and received enormous attention despite a complete absence of clinical data that suggests the treatment helped. A researcher familiar with blood tests from two of the five surviving ZMapp recipients...said the drops in their levels of Ebola virus mirrored what was seen in monkey experiments with the antibody cocktail. But without being able to compare the clinical care they received — leaving aside the fact that there was no untreated control group — the data have little meaning." Jon Cohen in Science.

Explainer: U.S. to step up Ebola aid, but will it be enough? Lauran Neergaard in the Associated Press.

Could Ebola become transmissible by air? Not likely. "from one outbreak to the other, scientists haven't seen a lot of variation in this virus, suggesting there may be limits to how much it can change and still be able to infect humans. Other virologists say, an airborne Ebola virus might be a theoretical possibility. But it doesn't keep them up at night. 'I'd say it's highly unlikely that Ebola virus would be able to do that,' says Vincent Racaniello, a virologist at Columbia University in New York. He says in people, this virus has always been transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person." Neel Greenfieldboyce in NPR.

Explainer: How is Ebola spread? Linda Poon in NPR.

U.S. epidemiologists see longer fight with Ebola than WHO does. "The deadly Ebola outbreak...in West Africa is likely to last 12 to 18 months more...and could infect hundreds of thousands of people before it is brought under control, say scientists mapping its spread for the federal government....Both the time the model says it will take to control the epidemic and the number of cases it forecasts far exceed estimates by the World Health Organization, which said last month that it hoped to control the outbreak within nine months and predicted 20,000 total cases by that time. The organization is sticking by its estimates, a W.H.O. spokesman said." Denise Grady in The New York Times.

IMF says Ebola will keep taking a toll of another kind: economic. "Economic growth in Liberia and Sierra Leone could decline by almost 3.5 percentage points as the world's worst outbreak of Ebola has crippled mining, agriculture and services sectors in the two West African states....The IMF said economic growth in Sierra Leona was likely to fall to 8 percent from 11.3 percent this year, Liberia's growth might decline to 2.5 percent from 5.9 percent, and in Guinea, economic output could fall to 2.4 percent from 3.5 percent. Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are among the poorest countries in the region and the hardest-hit by the worst Ebola epidemic on record." Anna Yukhananov in Reuters.

Ebola prompts new look at old therapies. "The use of convalescent plasma is highly experimental, potentially dangerous — and a very old treatment. It reappears in desperate times such as these, where despite tens of millions of U.S. dollars donated for supplies and speedier drug and vaccine research, Ebola rampages out of control. There’s even an emerging black market for the blood of Ebola survivors, according to the World Heath Organization. It’s one of the many scientific and policy challenges on the Ebola landscape, which will be surveyed by both House and Senate committees this week." Arthur Allen in Politico.

Some good on-the-ground reporting:

Back to the slums of his youth, to defuse the Ebola time bomb. Norimitsu Onishi in The New York Times.

Liberia’s sick must fend for themselves. Lenny Bernstein in The Washington Post.

Public service announcement: Reposting this list of aid groups working on Ebola crisis — and how to donate. Susannah Locke in Vox.

ADALJA: The path forward on Ebola. "Notably, there is no czar for other infectious diseases that, like HIV/AIDS, inflict a considerable amount of morbidity and mortality on the world and the US such as tuberculosis, malaria, bacterial meningitis, pneumonia or influenza—the last two of which comprise the leading infectious disease cause of death in the US. The appointment of a US Surgeon General with infectious disease expertise, a senior-level biosecurity/emerging infectious diseases coordinator and a prioritization of the WHO and CDC budgets and workforce to ensure the capability to perform core functions are the essential components of the path forward." Amesh Adalja in Forbes.

BROOKS: Goodbye, organization man. "At root, this is a governance failure. The disease spreads fastest in places where the health care infrastructure is lacking or nonexistent. Liberia, for example, is being overrun while Ivory Coast has put in a series of policies to prevent an outbreak. The few doctors and nurses in the affected places have trouble acquiring the safety basics: gloves and body bags. More than 100, so far, have died fighting the outbreak. But it’s not just a failure of governance in Africa. It’s a failure of governance around the world. I wonder if we are looking at the results of a cultural shift." David Brooks in The New York Times.

GERSON: U.S. leading from behind the curve. "The Ebola outbreak is a continuing crisis that will doubtlessly demand further resources and effort. But it is also a stress test for future emergencies. The virus, at this point, spreads through contact with bodily fluids. Future threats may only require a touch or a cough. This is not alarmism but a repeated pattern of struggle between humans and microbes, in which humans have often suffered massive casualties....This test has revealed several weaknesses....We have seen that the U.S. government’s response to an outbreak can be fragmented and slow off the mark." Michael Gerson in The Washington Post.

Distraction interlude: Stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and look at this image of a cowdog.

3. The latest challenges for Obamacare 

Why hundreds of thousands will soon lose their insurance without quick action. "More than 100,000 immigrants who bought health-care plans through the federal insurance exchange will have their coverage cut off at the end of the month, because they failed to provide proof by the Sept. 5 deadline that their citizenship or immigration status makes them eligible for insurance on the marketplace. Those individuals can still send in the needed information...and if they are found eligible, they will be able to regain coverage....Separately, about 363,000 consumers who have coverage could lose financial subsidies for their insurance premiums unless they clear up information about their incomes that differs from that on federal tax records." Lena H. Sun in The Washington Post.

ACA insurance plans falling afoul of abortion restrictions. "The Government Accountability Office said...that only 1 of 18 insurers it reviewed was separately itemizing a charge for coverage of elective abortions on enrollees' bills. That detail is important because the original compromise that President Barack Obama sealed with anti-abortion Democrats stipulated that no federal funds would be used to pay for elective abortions. Instead, private health plans covering the procedure would collect a separate premium....Although abortion is a legal medical procedure, longstanding federal laws prohibit taxpayer funds from being used to pay for it, except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother." Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in the Associated Press.

Glitch in health law lets employers provide substandard plans. "A flaw in the federal calculator for certifying that insurance meets the health-care law’s toughest standard is leading dozens of large employers to offer plans that lack basic benefits, such as hospitalization coverage, according to brokers and consultants. The calculator appears to allow companies enrolling workers for 2015 to offer inexpensive, substandard medical insurance while avoiding the Affordable Care Act’s penalties, consumer advocates said....At the same time, a kind of Catch-22 bars workers at these companies from subsidies to buy more comprehensive coverage on their own through online marketplaces." Jay Hancock in Kaiser Health News.

Add in a bunch of other glitches and problems that could plague consumers' experiences this fall. "Don't expect a repeat of last year's website meltdown, but the new sign-up period could expose underlying problems with the law itself that are less easily fixed than a computer system. Getting those who signed up this year enrolled again for 2015 won't be as easy as it might seem. And the law's interaction between insurance and taxes looks like a sure-fire formula for confusion." Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in the Associated Press.

Indeed, renewing ACA coverage may not be so straightforward. "Millions of consumers will soon receive notices from health insurance companies stating that their coverage is being automatically renewed for 2015, along with the financial assistance they received this year from the federal government. But consumer advocates and insurers say they see a significant potential for confusion because some of the information will be out of date and misleading on costs and other aspects of coverage. Some people who have been receiving monthly subsidy payments this year could get much less if they stay in their current health plans." Robert Pear in The New York Times.

Still, number of uninsured has fallen in line with expectations. "The number of uninsured Americans fell by about 8 percent to 41 million people in the first quarter of this year, compared with 2013, a drop that represented about 3.8 million people and that roughly matched what experts were expecting based on polling by private groups, like Gallup....The findings were part of the National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative examination that is considered a gold standard by researchers....Larry Levitt...at the Kaiser Family Foundation...said the first-quarter findings 'dramatically understate the effect' of the law, as almost half of the people who signed up for insurance during the open enrollment period did so in March and did not get their insurance cards until later." Sabrina Tavernise in The New York Times.

The Obamacare sales pitch for fall enrollment is getting a facelift. "Supporters and advocates of the Affordable Care Act say they learned lessons from last year's sign-up effort, when they persuaded a few million uninsured people to buy coverage....In for this fall: testimonials from real people, more emphasis on deadlines, and an increased focus on in-person help. Out: No longer will ACA advocates steer clear of talking about the law's requirement that people either get health coverage or pay a penalty when they file their taxes. It turns out the so-called individual mandate actually does motivate some people to sign up, research suggests." Louise Radnofsky in The Wall Street Journal.

Other health care reads:

$1.43 of every $100 in America goes to hospital administration, study finds. Sarah Kliff in Vox.

Bat virus scare at CDC latest snafu to surface at U.S. labs. Andrew Martin in Bloomberg Businessweek.

CDC: Prescription painkiller deaths slowing down. Melanie Eversley in USA Today.

Robot interlude: Watch this squishy robot get run over by a car — and survive.

4. Fixing may climate change may actually save money

Addressing climate change may not add costs, report says. "A global commission will announce its finding on Tuesday that an ambitious series of measures to limit emissions would cost $4 trillion or so over the next 15 years, an increase of roughly 5 percent over the amount that would likely be spent anyway on new power plants, transit systems and other infrastructure. When the secondary benefits of greener policies — like lower fuel costs, fewer premature deaths from air pollution and reduced medical bills — are taken into account, the changes might wind up saving money, according to the findings of the group, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate." Justin Gillis in The New York Times.

New policies — easier said than done in gridlocked U.S. — would be needed in three areas. "1. An end to fossil fuel subsidies, imposition of new taxes on carbon and the adoption of new rules to encourage the growth of renewable energy, such as wind and solar. 2. Financial innovations to encourage governments and the private sector to invest in badly needed upgrades of public infrastructure, which are likely to be more energy-efficient. And 3. More support for low-carbon innovators, including strong patent protections and more public spending on research and development." Lori Montgomery in The Washington Post.

Chart: NASA ranks August 2014 as the warmest on record. Andrea Thompson in Climate Central.

Administration to seek to phase out chemical coolant over heat-trapping concerns. "The White House will announce on Tuesday a series of voluntary commitments by some of the country’s largest chemical firms and retailers to move rapidly away from R-134a and similar compounds used in nearly every office, home and automobile in the country, according to current and former U.S. officials....The administration is simultaneously stepping up diplomatic efforts to encourage major U.S. trading partners to phase out production of the potent greenhouse gas, the officials said. The initiatives are being disclosed in advance of next week’s summit of world leaders at the United Nations to debate options for slowing the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere." Joby Warrick in The Washington Post.

Explainer: Previewing the U.N. climate summit in New York — Obama's last big chance on climate change? Rebecca Leber in The New Republic.

Primary source: See the list of world leaders who will be in New York next week.

Report says big corporations outdoing governments on carbon pricing. "The progressive corporate sector plans to make a major push at next week’s climate change summit in New York for the introduction of a meaningful global price for carbon, believing it to be one of the most effective measures to keep temperature rises within 2C. The World Bank is also taking a lead on carbon pricing and will unveil a long list of states, regions and businesses announcing plans to factor in the costs of burning fossil fuels....CDP, the sustainable-economy non-profit, has compiled the first global database which shows that the world’s largest corporations are outpacing their governments in responding to climate change and expect carbon to be priced." Jo Confino in The Guardian.

A science-textbook battle is brewing in Texas over climate change. "Bradley is not a climate scientist, but he's about to make big decisions governing what Texas students learn about climate change. In November, Bradley and the rest of the state's 15-member board will vote to adopt new social-studies textbooks for public schools from kindergarten to 12th grade....Bradley plans to push for textbooks that teach climate-science doubt—presenting the link between greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity and global warming as an unsubstantiated and controversial theory. For people who do study the climate for a living, that mission is infuriating, as such a posture misrepresents the state of climate science." Clare Foran in National Journal.

Other environmental/energy reads:

Leaky wells, not hydraulic fracturing, tainting water, study finds. Seth Borenstein in the Associated Press.

Hydraulic fracturing or drinking water may become choice. Mark Koba in NBC News.

Coal shows zero growth in 2014, report shows. Bobby Magill in Climate Central.

Coal power-plant retirements more than thought, GAO says. Timothy Cama in The Hill.

Decades after nuclear testing, U.S. studies cancer fallout. Dan Frosch in The Wall Street Journal.

Musical performance interlude: Check out this amazing musical mashup.

Wonkblog roundup

How fighting climate change could save the planet AND rebuild the economy. Lori Montgomery.

Study: Bad fracking techniques let methane flow into drinking water. Steven Mufson.

Should we ban states and cities from offering big tax breaks for jobs? Emily Badger.

Name That Data answers, week 8. Christopher Ingraham.

Nearly one in every three beers in the world could soon be sold by the same company. Roberto A. Ferdman.

What to watch when the Fed meets this week. Ylan Q. Mui.

Welfare’s weak response to the recession, in one chart. Jeff Guo.

Map: The states that produce the most Miss America winners. Christopher Ingraham.

Et Cetera

Long read: Would a GOP Senate be king of the world? David Nather in Politico.

Long read: Pride and power — how members of Congress use little-known power to shape military and help constituents. Gregory Korte and Fredreka Schouten in USA Today.

Border agency reports fewer immigrant deaths. Molly Hennessy-Fiske in the Los Angeles Times.

House passes child care bill. Maggie Severns in Politico.

Here come the food-stamp work requirements again. Jake Grovum in Pew Stateline.

Regulators are faulted in defects at GM, House committee finds. Aaron M. Kessler in The New York Times.

Got tips, additions, or comments? E-mail us.

Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams and Ryan McCarthy.

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