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Days after some 300 would-be migrants from North African drowned in the Mediterranean as they were trying to reach Italy, the United Nations is calling on the European Union to establish a broader search-and-rescue effort to avoid future tragedies.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres reiterated a call on for the EU to expand its current operation, known as Triton, to locate and rescue would-be illegal migrants from Africa.

"There can be no doubt left after this week's events that Europe's Operation Triton is a woefully inadequate replacement for Italy's Mare Nostrum," Guterres said in a statement. Unless something is done, Guterres said, "it is inevitable that many more people will die trying to reach safety in Europe."

The Associated Press notes: "The Italian operation was abandoned after criticism that its aggressive search-and-rescue patrols encouraged migrants. Triton is more focused on protecting borders."

UNHCR says in a statement: "Crossings of the Mediterranean by migrants are age old, but 2014 saw a dramatic rise in the numbers of refugees undertaking this dangerous journey – spurred by conflicts in Syria, the Horn of Africa and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In all at least 218,000 people crossed the Mediterranean, and 3500 lives were lost. "

Italy's operation, launched following a similar tragedy in Oct. 2013 in which 366 people drowned, was credited with rescuing more than 150,000 people fleeing the African coast, but was terminated a year later when Triton was established.

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Hundreds of U.S. troops, sent to help fight Ebola in West Africa, are now coming home. That's the news from the White House today.

Did they make a difference?

Goats and Soda

Can The U.S. Military Turn The Tide In The Ebola Outbreak?

Not in the way you'd think. The grand plans to build 17 new field hospitals in Liberia and train thousands of health care workers, announced in September, didn't quite come off. Several of the hospitals weren't needed and were never built. Others opened after the epidemic had peaked and were practically empty. Only a fraction of the promised health workers were trained.

But even though the hospital-building strategy wasn't the most productive, the U.S. did have a significant impact.

Tom Kirsch, who runs the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at John's Hopkins University, says the deployment of U.S. troops sent a strong message internationally — and it was about more than just building or not building new Ebola hospitals.

At the time the U.S. went in, he explains, "most of the ports along West African coast were blocking transport in to Liberia, the airlines had begun to pull out. And only one or two carriers were still left. So the logistical capacities that the U.S. military brought I think were probably the most important part of their response."

In other words, the military got things where they needed to go. The U.S. Air Force, for example, set up an air supply line from Senegal to ferry supplies in.

That's not all the U.S. accomplished. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention helped create systems to track cases. The U.S sent in mobile laboratories to test blood sample of suspected Ebola patients. This cut the time it took to diagnose — or rule out — an Ebola infection from days to just a few hours.

Over the last year the U.S. spent nearly a billion dollars fighting Ebola in West Africa. And only about a third of that went to the military part of the response. The $939 million the U.S. has spent on the outbreak is far more than the other leading donors — the U.K., Germany, the World Bank and the European Commission — combined.

Just because most of the troops are coming home doesn't mean the battle is over. President Obama says there is still a lot to be done to completely stop the spread of the deadly virus — and it's not charity work.

"In the 21st century, we cannot build moats around our countries," Obeama said today. "There are no draw bridges to be pulled up. We shouldn't try. "

And he vowed that the U.S. civilian response to the Ebola outbreak will continue until there are "zero" cases in West Africa.

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Not-quite-yet presidential candidate Jeb Bush posted the first chapter of an e-book about his two terms as Florida governor online Monday, along with six massive files containing a quarter-million of his emails.

This was something Bush said he would do back when he announced he was "actively exploring the possibility" of running for president. (He's since explained the phrase is legalese he is using for now; the lack of an actual candidacy allows him to raise unlimited donations for a super PAC supporting him — something that will be impossible once he is a candidate.)

In his introduction, Bush explains that he made a point of making sure average Floridians had access to him via email, and he estimates he spent an average of 30 hours per week reading and responding to it. At least some Floridians had trouble believing he was actually doing this.

One woman wrote to complain about tractor trailers on Interstate 75, but then added: "By the way, are you really Jeb or a staff member? Just curious."

Bush responded: "I am jeb." And then referred her to the Department of Transportation.

Here are five things we learned from the chapter — and the emailing habits of the man who refers to himself as Florida's "eGovernor:"

1) Bush loved his job.

The two-term GOP governor starts out his ebook saying so:

"I loved being the governor of Florida," he wrote. "It was my dream job, and that feeling never changed, not in eight years. Not through the hurricanes, budget debates, or even hanging chads."

Read even a few pages of his correspondence, and the time and attention he paid to any number of issues, big and small, quickly become clear. A Jan. 15, 1999, email at 8:36 pm to chief of staff Sally Bradshaw, for instance, sets out an agenda for a coming staff meeting:

Pharmacy formulary

Tobacco endowment rollout

Dev. Disability rollout

Mentor initiative"

In layman's terms: Medicaid prescription drug purchasing; the creation of an endowment fund with money collected from the state's successful lawsuit against the tobacco industry; a revamping of state services for children with developmental disabilities a new program to mentor at-risk children.

All but the last were highly technical in nature, and Bush was right at home down in the policy weeds.

2) No, it's not his White House agenda.

Those hoping for an outline of what he might do were he elected president will be disappointed. Bush's e-book is less a narrative than a series of brief explanations of a topic followed by emails about that topic. The chapter released Tuesday covers his first month in office. The rest of the book will be released by the end of this year.

3) Some transparency about Bush's transparency

Although Bush cites the "spirit of transparency" as the reason to release all these emails, there is also the fact that he had no choice. Florida has one of the most comprehensive public records laws in the country, and emails by a public official pertaining to public business are (with some specific exceptions, such as the privacy of children) open to public inspection.

The emails Bush posted today were public from the instant they were sent or received. Many reporters requested and received them (with varying degrees of bureaucratic and cost hurdles) in real time, and several news organizations, including NPR, requested and received the entire set from the Florida State Archives. In other words, Bush's use of them for his own book can be seen as taking a potential liability and turning it into an asset – making political lemonade from the lemons Florida law saddled him with.

4) A limited level of candor

Those looking for complete candor about the functioning of Bush's governor's office will also be disappointed. Within a month of officially taking office, Bush and his staff were keenly aware their correspondence was serving as news coverage fodder. When his staff began debating later that year whether the amount of vacation time they were getting was appropriate, Bush advised they take their discussion offline. "I suggest that you guys have a verbal conversation about it rather than create a public document." He did, however, finish the thought with a smiley face.

5) The governor's competitive streak

Despite knowing that everything he was typing would someday become public, Bush sometimes hit the send button even when perhaps he shouldn't have. In a May 2002 email, he reveals both the competitive streak and flash of temper that were well known inside the Capitol building. A Democratic voter sent him an email with the subject line "Shame, shame, shame..." to criticize his education plan and vowed to boot him from office come November. Bush responded by defending his record and then finished: "Give it your best shot," and "Have a wonderful day."

Bush won his re-election easily.

2016 Republican presidential nomination

Jeb Bush

David Axelrod recalls the first time he met Barack Obama in 1992 when they had lunch: "I was really impressed by him," he says.

The veteran political consultant was struck that the president, who had been the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and was highly sought after by big law firms, instead decided to put together a voter registration drive and practice civil rights law at a little firm in Chicago.

The world of candidates, Axelrod tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies, divides into two candidates: "People who run for office because they want to be something, which is the more numerous category, and people who run for office because they want to do something," he says. "That is the smaller and more admirable group that I love to work with and for. It was clear he was going to be that kind of a person."

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Chief campaign strategist David Axelrod (left) and communications director Robert Gibbs talk to members of the traveling press corps during a flight leading up to the Pennsylvania primary in 2008. Scout Tufankjian/Polaris hide caption

itoggle caption Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

Chief campaign strategist David Axelrod (left) and communications director Robert Gibbs talk to members of the traveling press corps during a flight leading up to the Pennsylvania primary in 2008.

Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

Axelrod ended up crafting the media strategy for Obama's two presidential campaigns and spent two years in the White House as a senior adviser to the president. He gives stories and insights about his years with Obama in his new memoir Believer: My Forty Years in Politics offers plenty of stories and insights from his years with Obama.

Specifically, Axelrod recalls the moment in the 2008 campaign when he interrupted Obama and running-mate Joe Biden on a flight to tell them Sarah Palin was the Republican vice presidential nominee, which prompted Biden to say, "Who's Sarah Palin?"

Axelrod's book also recounts his early years as a political reporter and his work with other candidates, including presidential contender John Edwards (not a good experience) and plenty of rogues and colorful characters from his home base in Chicago, among them Harold Washington, the city's first black mayor, and Rod Blagojevich, who eventually became governor and went to jail in part for trying to sell Obama's former U.S. Senate seat.

Axelrod is now director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, which he says he founded to inspire young Americans to consider participating in American politics.

Believer

My Forty Years in Politics

by David Axelrod

Hardcover, 509 pages | purchase

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Interview Highlights

On the transition from being a journalist to a political adviser

The first time I was at a rally with [Paul] Simon after I made the switch and realized that I could applaud, it was kind of a shock to my system because I was so used to maintaining at least the veneer of objectivity. I think every reporter has views, but you try to be as objective as you can.

On whether he believed in every candidate he represented

I always went through a process of trying to sell myself before I tried to sell anybody else, and I would get emotionally wrapped up in my campaigns and sometimes on behalf of candidates who weren't worthy of that.

On President Obama's first debate with Mitt Romney in 2012 for his re-election

We were always worried about the first debate because it historically is a killing field for presidents. Presidents aren't used to debating. Their opponents have generally been debating in primaries; presidents aren't used to being challenged by someone standing four feet away from them, being treated as a peer.

So presidents generally do badly in the first debate and we tried mightily to avoid that. But the prep sessions didn't go very well. There were a lot of testy exchanges with John Kerry who was playing Mitt Romney. We actually cautioned the president against engaging too much, which may have been a mistake, because we were worried about the testiness of those exchanges.

It drives my wife crazy. She hates the caricature of the rumpled, sloppy, food-stained political warrior — but that's the cartoon and I've come to live with it. Maybe I've come to represent it, I don't know.

- David Axelrod

We had a last prep session before the first debate in Denver, which we all thought was pretty appalling. ... I had the dubious honor of going in and talking to him for the group after the session and he said, "Well, I think that went pretty well." And I said, "Well, actually there are some things we need to work on yet." He didn't receive that news well and used a word that he has never used before or since and that I won't use here, but made clear how he felt about me at that moment, and he bolted out of the room and I didn't see him until the next morning.

I was kind of stunned by it because we'd known each other for so long, but I also knew that he really wasn't directing it at me so much as at his own frustration, because he knew we weren't where we needed to be. I think every single one of us, including the president, knew we weren't headed into Denver in good shape — and that, of course, turned out to be true.

On following the many different media platforms

Yes, you follow Twitter and you're aware that any little event somewhere could hijack a day's news, sometimes a week's news, or several weeks' news. It makes [for] a really, really difficult environment. It also means that if you're president — we used to talk about the "bully pulpit" — but you have to assemble your bully pulpit each time you want to communicate something because Americans aren't watching the same thing or aren't getting their news from the same place as they once did. So you have to speak through many different platforms.

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As Obama steps up his campaigning during his first presidential bid, his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod talks with a reporter in Malvern, Pa. Scout Tufankjian/Polaris hide caption

itoggle caption Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

As Obama steps up his campaigning during his first presidential bid, his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod talks with a reporter in Malvern, Pa.

Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

I mean, who would've thought that the president of the United States would be on a show called Between Two Ferns to promote his health care plan? But the fact is he hit 10 million people with that appearance — many of whom were the target for younger people who we needed to sign up for that health care plan. So it's a far more complex and challenging environment than past presidents and past generations have faced.

On how Axelrod restrained himself while on Meet the Press and other shows

It was hard, but you know, when you're speaking for the president of the United States, you know that one misstatement can send armies marching and markets tumbling — and that is a very sobering realization.

So yes, I felt constrained when I was on those programs to color within the lines and not to be too venturesome because I knew some off-handed remark could have real consequences. ... It was a discipline that was hard for me because I'm a congenital smart aleck and I love tossing off good lines — and this was decidedly not the place to do it.

On what he's been called in the media, including Axelfraud, Streetfighter, Message Maven, Political Protector, Marxist Mentor and Lefty Lumberjack

The "Axelfraud" thing sticks in my mind because those guys were shouting it at me when I was on the steps of the capitol in Massachusetts. I hadn't heard Lefty Lumberjack, it seems like an oxymoron to me. But I'm surprised though that on your list there aren't [other descriptive words]. "Rumpled" almost always comes up and "stained" is another one because generally you can find remnants of my last meal somewhere on me. The president loves that. He's always inspecting me so he can ask me what it was that I had that he's looking at. So those are the ones that are most prominent in my mind. It drives my wife crazy. She hates the caricature of the rumpled, sloppy, food-stained political warrior — but that's the cartoon and I've come to live with it. Maybe I've come to represent it, I don't know.

On leaving politics to direct the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago

I really am happy to be where I am today and I think my family is happy that I am where I am today. I asked them to make so many sacrifices — and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to inspire these kids and spend time with my family.

If people call me and ask me for advice, of course I'll give it to them, but I'm not going to get on that carousel again. I had such a singularly great experience with Obama. I had a relationship with him that I'll never have with anyone else, and I'd rather go out on top and move on.