Articles and More!: Midday open thread: the House on Iran, "a little convenient massacre," "Cured" HIV patients relapse

Rep. Sean Maloney will marry his long-time partner:
With their marriage, Maloney will become the second member of Congress to legally wed his same-sex partner while in office. Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, became the first to do so in 2012.
Maloney and [Randy] Florke, who have three adopted children and live in Cold Spring, New York, got engaged on Christmas Day.

Their youngest daughter, Essie, wrote a letter to Santa earlier that week, asking if he can “try making my wonderful fathers get married.”

Markos abandons politics for a few moments to write about cyclist “Fast Freddie” Rodriguez.

Men supposedly cured of HIV by bone marrow transplant relapse:
These two men were both HIV positive and had lymphoma, a type of cancer. They both received bone marrow transplants. Post-transplant they continued on their antiretroviral medicine (used to combat HIV) while the donor bone marrow cells engrafted. Researchers found that all traces of HIV in the patients vanished.
They were followed and, in time, both patients stopped their antiretrovirals. They remained HIV free—or so everyone thought, since their viral loads were undetectable and no trace of HIV was found in peripheral blood cells.

Unfortunately, over time, both relapsed and tests showed HIV was again (still) present.

DEA let tech-savvy drug cartel do what it pleased:
Catapults. “Jalapeños.” Dune buggies. $ 1 million subs. Sophisticated drug tunnels. Firetruck-sized industrial pipeline drills. These are just a few of the ingenious ways that Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, arguably the world’s largest, most powerful and technologically advanced organized crime syndicate, has tried to perfect the fine art of smuggling drugs into America. And to think, the US’s premier drug enforcement arm gave the Sinaloa a pass to do so largely unhindered during the bloodiest stretch of Mexico’s drug war.
That’s the thrust of a landmark investigation by El Universal, which found that authorities with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the broader Department of Justice struck a deal with the Sinaloa, in exchange for intelligence about rival cartels. Citing court documents and extensive interviews with both Mexican and US officials familiar with the matter, El Universal reports that the US-Sinaloa arrangement lasted from 2000 to 2012.

Picking up seashells down by the seashore is an environmental problem:
It’s a normal part of summer vacation: head to the beach, pick up a few seashells and take them home as keepsakes. But multiply this innocent activity by millions of tourists and we might have a big problem, researchers warn in PLOS ONE. Skyrocketing numbers of beachcombers are pocketing seashells, and the environmental effects could range from increased erosion to fewer building materials for bird nests.

House Republicans could rescue Iran diplomacy: In the Senate, a majority supports adding economic sanctions to those already imposed on Iran, something the Obama administration and the Iranian foreign minister say could wreck efforts to come to agreement on international controls on Iran’s nuclear program. Sixteen Democrats, led by Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey have signed onto the sanctions bill introduced in December. Forty-two Senate Republicans have joined. But
Enter House Republicans. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that House GOP leaders are considering bringing the Senate bill to the House floor, a move that could inject a heavy dose of partisanship into what had been a bipartisan affair. If House Republicans take control of the legislation, Democrats may become more anxious about supporting it and less likely to buck the White House.
“I’m hearing Cantor wants to take up the Menendez language,” confirmed one senior House Democratic aide. “Since the House has already passed a sanctions bill, it’s quite clear that this has turned into a completely political matter.”

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, the Chris Christie and WV stories aren’t dead yet. Greg Dworkin brought us a round-up of the headlines on Christie and the latest on Obamacare, which is still a thing! Plus: new gun outrage out of FL. A retired police captain shoots a fellow movie-goer for texting during the previews. We return to the WV story for more on just what this spilled chemical is, how dangerous we should consider it to be, and whether or not Koch Industries really is connected to the situation. And just how did a relatively small spill end up contaminating the drinking water of nine counties? The answer, at least in part is privatization.