2020 presidential election: Joe Biden advisers smell a conspiracy

The long-term wage gap: Women tend to have more gaps in their employment, such as time off to raise children and part-time work while caring for a family member.

• Last year, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research published a study showing women earned only 49 cents on every dollar compared to men over a 15-year increment.
• 28% of women and 59% of men in the 2001–2015 period worked at least 12 of those 15 years full time. 57% of women and 77% of men in that period worked full time every year (no years off).
• For women (and men) who took just one year off from working during that period, their earnings were 39% lower.
• Even women who didn't take time away during the 2001–2015 period still only earned 67 cents for every man's dollar.

The savings gap: Only 56% of 18- to 34-year-old women have savings, compared to 70% of men.

• Women also tend to have fewer working years, yet live longer than men. This means a woman needs to save 18% of her income, compared to 10% for a man, to live similar lifestyles once they retire. And they're more likely to fall below the poverty line at 65 and older.

The startup equity gap: Women own just 9% of all equity, despite making up 33% of founders and employees.

• Women own just 6% of all founder equity despite representing 13% of all startup founders, according to Carta and #Angels. This translates to 39 cents in equity for every dollar that a male founder owns.
• Women own just 20% of employee equity despite being 35% of all employees who hold equity. That's 47 cents for every dollar of male employees' equity.

The racial pay gap among women: Among U.S. women who hold full-time, year-round jobs, black women are typically paid 61 cents, Native American women 58 cents and Latinas 53 cents. White women earn 77 cents, and Asian American women 85 cents, for every dollar paid to white men, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Go deeper: This gender pay gap chart is worthy of your time

What's new: "Circumstantial evidence suggests a strong relationship between [enterovirus D68] and AFM," Anthony Fauci, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and co-author of the commentary, told Axios.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new figures last week on EV-D68 showing a strong increase — of 14%— in detected infections in hospitalized patients in 2018, compared with the prior year of 1%. Detections of EV-D68 peaked in September — the same month that AFM peaked last year.
• There was a record number of illnesses in 2018 with 228 confirmed cases in 41 U.S. states, and 4 confirmed cases in 4 states this year so far. Most of the children diagnosed had cold-like illnesses with low fevers that got better, but experienced sudden-onset of muscle weakness or paralysis 3 to 10 days later.

But, but, but: Not every year with an uptick in AFM — which so far has been cyclical
with an increase every 2 years — has also correlated with EV-D68, although it's been a prime suspect. Among others, enterovirus A71 has also been a suspect.

• The authors suggest there could be a "hit-and-run infection" by EV-D68 or another virus, which may have run its course but triggered an immune response or caused other effects. Then it's the paralyzing event that demands testing of blood, stool or spinal fluid, at a point when the virus is out of the patient's system.
• Another possibility is we could be "entering some kind of new epidemic era" of viral mutations, they write.

What's next: Research is continuing into both the causes and treatments, for which the CDC has interim guidelines.

The bottom line: While there's "significant suggestion" that EV-D68 plays a role in AFM, it's "very frustrating when you don't know the etiology of the infection," Fauci says. In the commentary, the scientists wrote...

"Watching healthy children become permanently paralyzed virtually overnight by a seemingly random, lightning-strike disease is as heartbreaking today as it was in the polio era."

"The trajectory of AFM over the past 5 years suggests that the problem is getting worse, and so it is critical that we galvanize our efforts to learn more about, and respond adequately to, this ubiquitous, often crippling, continually reemerging group of viruses."

Go deeper:

• Hunting down the cause of AFM
• CDC sets task force on determining cause of rise in polio-like illness
• Public health officials seek answer to mysterious polio-like illness

Details: Facebook told Axios that "a very small group of people have the option of entering their email password to verify their account when they sign up for Facebook," but noted that people could choose instead to confirm their account with a code or link sent to their phone or email.

"That said, we understand the password verification option isn't the best way to go about this, so we are going to stop offering it,” the company said in a statement.

Those being asked for their e-mail passwords were users who listed an e-mail address that doesn't use the secure OAuth protocol, which allows users to verify their identity to a third party without sharing their passwords.

Facebook's use of passwords to verify some new accounts was first reported earlier Tuesday by The Daily Beast.

Facebook also recently acknowledged it had been storing some of its users' Facebook passwords in plain text.

• The receptionist called Secret Service, who said Zhang spoke to agents in English without difficulty before becoming "verbally aggressive."
• After being detained, Zhang told agents that her Chinese friend "Charles" had told her to travel from Shanghai to Palm Beach, Florida, to attend the event and speak to a member of Trump's family about Chinese and American foreign economic relations.
• Zhang has a hearing scheduled for next week.

The big picture: The Miami Herald is reporting that Zhang may have been referring to an event promoted by Cindy Yang, the former owner of the massage parlor where New England Patriots Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution. Yang, a frequent guest of Mar-a-lago, is believed to have been selling access to President Trump and his family to clients in China.

Cummings also said Monday that the committee is prioritizing security clearance documents related to the following current and former officials:

• Ivanka Trump — White House adviser
• Jared Kushner — White House senior adviser
• John Bolton — National security adviser
• Michael Flynn — Former national security adviser
• Sebastian Gorka — Former deputy assistant to Trump
• John McEntee — Former personal aide to Trump
• K.T. McFarland — Former deputy national security adviser
• Rob Porter — Former White House staff secretary
• Robin Townley — Former senior director for Africa

Go deeper: House Oversight subpoenas Wilbur Ross over census citizenship question