Morning Briefing

"The toilet is a magnificent thing. ... Unfortunately it is an impractical luxury for about two-thirds of the world's seven billion people because it relies on connections to water and sewerage systems that must be built and maintained at great expense," a Bloomberg editorial writes. "About 40 percent of all people, an estimated 2.6 billion of them, have no access to even a minimally sanitary facility, according to the World Health Organization," and "[t]he result is illness and early death. Diarrheal diseases, including those linked to improper sanitation, are the second largest killer in the developing world, taking two million lives annually," the editorial continues.