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1. Has the New Jersey traffic scandal permanently damaged Chris Christie’s presidential ambitions?
2. What policies can the federal government pursue to get more adults in the labor force?
3. Will marijuana be legalized in all fifty states by 2020?
4. Are police playing too much of a role in school discipline proceedings?
5. Bill de Blasio’s horse-drawn carriage ban: necessary step to protect animal rights or poor political move?
6. Is a new bubble forming in the American stock market?
7. What impact will the West Virginia chemical spill have on the coal industry?
8. Will the polar vortex strengthen or weaken the hand of global warming advocates?
9. How can the Republican Party improve its image as a party that is insensitive to the poor?
10. Why has the war on poverty not been won?
While most of the extemp world was focused on the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin last week, Myers Park High School in Charlotte, North Carolina played host to forty-two extempers and the weekend’s only Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC) qualifying tournament. Nida Ansari of Riverside High School (SC) was the tournament champion, posting a cumulative elimination rank total of fifteen and defeating Mark Cohen of Durham Academy (NC) by four ranks. Durham Academy had two finalists and six elimination round participants, which was more than any other school in attendance.
Last week, on December 29th and 30th, two suicide bombings in Volgograd, a Southern Russian city formerly known as Stalingrad, killed at least thirty-four people and sent at least fifty others to the hospital. The town of Volgograd is located 400 miles from Sochi, where next month’s Winter Olympics will be held. Although no group has taken responsibility for the attacks as of the time of this brief, Russian security forces and international experts believe that the suicide attacks are listen to terrorist groups in the North Caucasus region of Russia, whose Muslim population has long sought self-government. Considering that Doku Umarov, a Chechen terrorist leader, proclaimed in July that he wanted to disrupt the Olympics, there are concerns in the international community that the Sochi Olympics would become a 2014 version of the 1972 Munich Games, which were marred by the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Russian President Vladimir Putin is also facing international condemnation for his nation’s policies regarding homosexuals and the gradual erosion of democratic safeguards that were put in place after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Due to these issues, it would not be surprising to encounter questions at tournaments over the next six weeks about the Sochi Olympics and whether Russia is capable of protecting the athletes and tourists attending the event and how it should respond to international criticisms of its domestic policies.
Here is today’s premium R&D to accompany 
