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1. Who won the shutdown?
2. Will ObamaCare eventually become a long-term entitlement?
3. Should the U.S. normalize relations with Iran?
4. What will be the Supreme Court’s most important case in its next term?
5. Are efforts to prevent school bullying working?
6. Is Sarah Palin still relevant?
7. How can the U.S. enhance its reputation in the Muslim world?
8. Is the sequester harming America’s economic recovery?
9. Can Matt Bevin defeat Mitch McConnell in Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary next year?
10. How can President Obama increase his influence in Congress?
Today’s R&D provides articles on this week’s New Jersey’s special election for the U.S. Senate. Democratic candidate and Newark mayor Cory Booker defeated Republican candidate Steve Lonegan by a ten point margin, 55-45%. Despite the convincing win, political analysts noted that Booker underperformed and Lonegan clawed back from a forty point deficit earlier in the race, but could not find enough votes for victory in a traditionally “blue” state. Democrats gained a Senate seat from the win, since Booker will replace Republican Jeff Chiesa, who Governor Chris Christie appointed to the seat after the death of Senator Frank Lautenberg in June.
Today’s R&D provides extempers with resources on the problems facing Libya, which has been in a state of disrepair since the Arab Spring toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi from power in 2011.
Here is today’s premium R&D to accompany 
Today’s R&D covers proposed reforms to the British welfare system. The Conservative Party has proposed measures to reform the British welfare system to discourage long-term joblessness. This is also in reaction to anti-immigration sentiment on the British right.
Today’s R&D covers voter ID laws, which have produced considerable controversy for the last decade in American politics. Those in favor of the laws argue that it prevents illegal immigrants from voting and voter fraud, but opponents argue that they are not needed, impose an unfair barrier on the poor, and violate the Twenty-Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of poll taxes. The Justice Department is currently suing several states, with North Carolina being the most recent (which is why most of the articles below cover North Carolina), over its voter ID law.
On September 22nd, German voters handed Chancellor Angela Merkel her biggest electoral triumph and put her in a position to lead her third consecutive government. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) took 41.5% of the vote. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) took second place with 25.7% of the vote and the communist leaning Left Party took 8.6% of the vote. However, the CDU/CSU only won 311 seats in the 630 seat German Bundestag, which leaves it five seats shy of a majority. The CDU/CSU’s coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) failed to win representation in parliament for the first time since 1949, so the CDU/CSU must now enter into a coalition with the SPD or the Green Party, which took 8.4% of the vote, to govern the country. A failure to form a new coalition would inaugurate new elections. The German election was watched closely by European political observers because Germany’s economy is the largest in Europe and it guides a great deal of European Union (EU) policy. A Merkel defeat might have spelled significant changes for how the EU is handling debtor countries like Greece and further complicated the process of European integration. Her victory shows that German voters have endorsed her handling of the German economy through the euro zone crisis that began in 2010.