Russia’s radical new strategy for information warfare

strong, it will dictate to the Western partners [the United States and its allies] from the position of power.” Krutskikh’s comments may have been a precursor of a new doctrine for information operations announced publicly by the Kremlin in December. The senior administration official described the Russian strategy: “They think of information space as a domain of warfare. In the U.S, we tend to have a binary view of conflict — we’re at peace or at war. The Russian doctrine is more of a continuum. You can be at different levels of conflict, along a sliding scale.” Russian hacking during the 2016 presidential campaign, as outlined in the unclassified report released this month by U.S. intelligence agencies, is an example of Russia’s use of new tools in this continuum of conflict, the U.S. official said. “Certainly, I believe the Russians are working to increase their capabilities in cyberspace, because they’ve realized they can use cyberspace to pursue their foreign policy goals,” he said. In Russia’s view, America is pushing just as aggressively in the information space, but denies it. “Things we perceive as free speech, they perceive as aggressive behavior from the West,” noted the senior U.S. official. Putin, for example, saw Hillary Clinton’s support for anti-Putin dissidents as an attempt to foment a “color revolution.” Russians also claim (without public evidence) that the U.S. orchestrated last year’s disclosure of the “Panama Papers,” which included allegations of Russian money laundering, and last year’s allegations by the World Anti-Doping Agency of drug use by Russian athletes. In Putin’s mind, the United States attacked first in the information war. Russia is now strong enough to retaliate, as Krutskikh signaled in his February 2016 speech. Krutskikh and other Russian cyber experts don’t appear to have been deterred by public warnings or sanctions. Krutskikh was quoted by the Russian Information Agency Dec. 29 describing U.S. sanctions announced that day as “the agony of the ruling elite,” reflecting “the personal hatred” of President Obama, and “an attempt to prevent future cooperation.” “We don’t exclude the lifting of the sanctions after Trump enters office,” Krutskikh said. Krutskikh’s comments highlight the emerging world of information warfare, where “fake news” and hacking are tools for covert warriors in many nations. The senior administration official warns: “The Russians are particularly advanced — in technology, organization and doctrine. They’re at the head of the pack. But there will be others.”


Olympic runners ‘truly blessed’ to be alive after potential career-ending scooter crash

Two British Olympians are thankful to be alive after a scary accident in Spain. (Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images) The running careers of British Olympians James Ellington and Nigel Levine are in jeopardy after the two suffered serious injuries in a road accident Tuesday. British Athletics “regretfully” confirmed the incident Wednesday that occurred in Tenerife, Spain, where the two runners had been training. “Both athletes are receiving medical treatment and are conscious and stable,” the athletics governing body said in a statement. “British Athletics medical staff are with the athletes and liaising with hospital staff over their treatment.” According to the Guardian, the runners were riding a motorized scooter when they were hit by an oncoming vehicle. Levine, the driver of the scooter, suffered a serious injury to his pelvis that will require at least two surgeries. Ellington, meanwhile, suffered serious injuries to his pelvis, arm, leg and eye socket. The Guardian reports the 31-year-old already underwent surgery to repair fractures sustained to his tibia and fibula, and he will have an additional surgery on his pelvis before doctors reevaluate. Both runners were said to be wearing helmets. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, although Levine is not suspected to be at fault, according to the paper. “I truly am blessed as I do not know how me or my training partner Nigel are still alive,” Ellington posted to Instagram on Wednesday. Ellington, who competed in the 100-meter dash and 4×100-meter relay at the Rio Olympics and in the 200-meter event at the 2012 London Games, added he hopes to “bounce back” after the accident, which has ended his current track season and could affect his career going forward. Levine, who competed in the 4×400-meter relay at the London Games, has not publicly commented on the incident; however, his career faces similar obstacles as his season is cut short.


Donald Trump and his team are dodging climate science

May speaks at Lancaster House in London, Jan. 17, 2017. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP) British Prime Minister Theresa May announced her intention on Tuesday to lead her nation fully out of the European Union, prompting a great deal of commentary the next day. It was celebrated by supporters as a declaration of independence from the diktats of Brussels. But others cautioned against British delusions that they could secure a better trade deal with Europe than what the E.U. already offers them. Here's a quick survey of some of the smarter pieces: "Britain will not try to stay in Europe's Single Market, and only on a limited basis in its Customs Union. It will instead try to negotiate new free trade deals with Europe, and the rest of the world for that matter. In other words, Britain really is going to make itself poorer so that it can restrict immigration. Welcome to the new nationalism." Washington Post's Wonkblog "The prime minister might have seized control of the agenda but she has sacrificed time. In calling for everything, including a new trade deal between Britain and the EU, to be wrapped up in two years she has bound herself in a schedule most people in Brussels think is impossible. A successful deal will rest on the length and scope of 'the transition,' which May admitted was crucial to avoiding a cliff edge for the economy." Politico EU "The truth is that when Mrs May formally triggers Brexit she will find the cards stacked against her. Subject to an imminent Supreme Court ruling on needing parliamentary approval, she plans to initiate the process in March... As she conceded, the other 27 EU countries have been impressively united over Brexit. They may welcome her new clarity, but for them the preservation of the union is more pressing than all else. As several leaders have said, Britain cannot have a better deal outside than inside the club." The Economist "Brexit will be a sad, surreal and exhausting process. The EU must use the UK’s departure to reform and move forward. Britain can choose to be a partner in this process, or it can be an impediment to it." Guy Verhofstadt, the E.U.'s chief negotiator for Brexit Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? Sign up for the Today's WorldView newsletter.


Australia’s infamous wildlife: Venomous? Yes. Deadly? Not quite, first-of-a-kind report says.

#EimeoBeach in #Mackay closed until 1.30 today after box jellyfish found during drags yesterday https://t.co/3YOvygcbAC Australian wildlife, by popular account, so brims with venom that the average Outback spider could dispatch you with an octuple-eyed glare. The description for the National Geographic show “Australia’s Deadliest Attacks,” for instance, reads: “Whether it walks, crawls, swims or hops, even the unlikeliest animal could be one of Australia’s killers.” It is true that strange and potent fauna thrive on the island continent. Biologists consider the box jellyfish, found floating off of Australia’s shores, to be the most toxic marine animal on the planet. The skin of this jellyfish is studded with cells known as nematocysts, which explode to release barbs containing chemicals strong enough to arrest a human heart within minutes. But such factoids, along with nature shows and headlines about ill-fated animal encounters, promote a particular narrative: That Australia is, as University of Melbourne public health expert Ronelle Welton described it to The Washington Post, “the epicenter of everything venomous.” In reality, Australian animals are venomous — but they very rarely kill, according to research Welton and her colleagues recently conducted. Their report, to be published in an upcoming issue of Internal Medicine Journal, reviewed hospitalizations and deaths from venomous Australian animals between 2000 and 2013. Based on medical admission data, coroners’ findings and autopsy reports, the scientists determined that venomous bites and stings hospitalized more than 41,000 people over those 13 years — an admission rate of 199 people per 100,000 in the population. Venom killed 64 people during the same time period. The results surprised even Welton. “I was expecting to see larger numbers,” she told The Post by phone early Thursday. “Just the number of people hospitalized, I thought, would be a lot larger.” By way of comparison, the researcher noted that there were 5,000 drownings and nearly 1,000 lethal burns in the same time period. In broad terms the Allergic reactions to bee and wasp stings — not the insect venom itself — were responsible for a third of the hospital admissions. More than half of the reported deaths, too, stemmed from anaphylactic shock after an insect bite or sting triggered a reaction. Spider bites caused 30 percent of hospital admissions, but these arachnids killed no one during the 13-year period. The last recorded death from a funnel web spider was in 1980, before the development of antidotes,


The Daily 202: Will Trump deliver the unifying inaugural address that his aides keep promising?

which come just one week after a host of similar threats. (Justin Wm. Moyer ) - JPMorgan agreed to pay $55 million to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit, over allegations that it charged minority borrowers higher mortgage interest rates and fees than white customers for years. (Renae Merle) - The drugmaker Mallinckrodt agreed to pay $100 million to settle FTC and state charges related to anti-competitive behavior to preserve a monopoly on lifesaving infantile spasm medicine. (Carolyn Y. Johnson) - Three utility workers in Florida went underground to investigate some pesky, unsettled pavement – and descended to their deaths. They were hit by poisonous gas created by years of rotted vegetation, and the fumes were so noxious that even a trained firefighter who attempted to come to their rescue became unconscious within seconds. (Samantha Schmidt) - A federal police officer accidently shot himself in the leg while manning a traffic control booth on Pennsylvania Avenue, just four blocks from the White House. Officials said the man’s pistol discharged “while it was in his holster,” but he’s in good condition. (Peter Hermann) - Six sheriff’s deputies in Ohio are accused of beating up a mentally-ill veteran with PTSD who was “annoying” them, putting him into a month-long coma and confining him to a wheelchair for life. (Cleve R. Wootson Jr.) - Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. (Dave Sheinin) - The National Zoo said it is preparing for the departure of its giant female panda cub, Bao Bao, who will be sent back to China this year. It’s part of a long-term breeding agreement struck with the China Wildlife Conservation Association, but the beloved panda – and her love of snow -- are sure to be missed in Washington. Zoo officials said they will be announcing a series of goodbye events. (Michael E. Ruane) Shane Bouvet stands before a set of grain silos in his hometown. (Photo by David Zalaznik for The Washington Post) THE INAUGURATION IS TOMORROW: -- Trump is the most unpopular president-elect in the history of polling. But, but, but: It’s really important to remember how many millions of die-hard supporters he still has. “In donated shoes and suit, a Trump supporter comes to Washington,” by Justin Jouvenal in Stonington, Illinois: Protesters created a dance party and marched to the D.C. neighborhood of Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Jan.


Test story here

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is assisted by his aides as he prepares to perform rituals during the inauguration of a Mongolian Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, India, Jan. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Manish Bhandari) The young Tibetan monk was taking his elderly aunt and uncle on a trip of a lifetime — a tour of holy Buddhist sites in India and a chance to meet the Dalai Lama. But halfway through, word came from China: The family was to return right away. Chinese police had descended on the monk’s home five times in December, fingerprinting his parents and forcing them to sign documents guaranteeing his return. But the monk and his family were determined to see the Dalai Lama speak at Bodh Gaya, the Indian city that many consider the birthplace of Buddhism. So they defied Chinese authorities and continued their journey, risking imprisonment, harsh questioning or loss of identity cards when they return home. “I’m very worried,” the monk said on a chilly evening, sitting in a tent not far from a teaching ground where thousands have gathered daily since Jan. 3 to pray, meditate and hear their religious leader. “If we are put in prison, they will interrogate us: ‘Why did you go to India?’ This can be very dangerous.” Authorities from the Tibetan government in exile say the Chinese government barred an estimated 7,000 Tibetan pilgrims from attending this month’s 10-day gathering in India, an unprecedented move that further erodes the rights of 6 million people who live in the Tibetan region of China. It was also a fresh reminder that the Chinese are threatening to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama after the eventual demise of the renowned religious leader, who is now 81. An Indian fan takes a selfie with actor Richard Gere in Bodh Gaya on Jan. 12, 2017. (AFP/Getty Images) “It’s tragic,” said Lobsang Sangay, the head of Tibet’s government in exile, which is based in India. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Tibetans, like Muslims going to Mecca. It’s a sad commentary on the Chinese claim to have religious freedom — or any kind of freedom in Tibet.” The Dalai Lama told reporters that the move was “unfortunate.” China has denied threatening pilgrims or blocking their departures, but local authorities in Tibet declared this ritual gathering, called the Kalachakra, illegal in 2012, the last time it was held in Bodh


The best places to eat within walking distance of the National Mall

A view of the National Mall. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria) Imagine you've been roaming the National Mall for hours, when America's front yard can feel like America's front line, and your kids suddenly hit the wall. Not the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, but the invisible wall of hunger, the one that leaves young ones crankier than a one-eyed purple Minion hankering for a banana. Now imagine you don’t have bottled water or Goldfish snacks to calm your savage preteen. Where near the vast Mall would you turn, when even a short walk with a famished child can feel like a Lewis and Clark expedition over the Great Divide? The Mall, after all, is a contradictory landscape: It's packed with food options, most of which reveal nothing about the D.C. scene. Sure, you could duck into the National Air and Space Museum and quiet those rumbling tummies with a Happy Meal from McDonald's in the Wright Place Food Court. Or you could follow our advice. Sweet pastries, cakes and cupcakes at WTF. (Dayna Smith for The Washington Post) Quick bites and sips Astro Doughnuts and Fried Chicken Chinatown Coffee Co., L’Enfant Plaza Metro Mitsitam Cafe National Place food court Teaism Pitango Red Apron WTF The meaty Partisan is an easy walk away from the Mall. (Greg Powers for The Washington Post) With more time and money Fiola Rasika China Chilcano Oyamel The Partisan Old Ebbitt Grill The Source [This story was originally published Sept. 16, 2015, and has been updated. Becky Krystal contributed to this report.] Related items: - The forgotten D.C. area restaurants that all diners should try - Where to find the best pupusas in the D.C. area - A definitive guide to the best cheap-eats destinations in the D.C. area


One problem with shutting down the circus: Where will the animals go?

of homeless wild animals, though bears are also “ridiculously hard to place,” said Kellie Heckman, executive director of the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries, which has accredited 132 U.S. sanctuaries, only 11 of which accommodate big cats. Ordinary people adopt fuzzy cubs as pets, and some zoos and refuges allow let visitors handle and take photos with them, a practice animal welfare advocates condemn. But cute cubs grow into aggressive adolescents within a matter of months, and those used for entertainment often don’t perform for many years. They outgrow their use, in other words. U.S. officials and conservation groups estimate that 5,000 to 10,000 tigers live in the United States, far more than in the wild. Until recently, dozens of them resided at Serenity Springs, an unaccredited Colorado sanctuary that bred big cats, offered photos with cubs and had been cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for animal welfare violations. Last fall, it was sold to a respected sanctuary in Arkansas, which has since been finding new homes for 110 animals, mostly cats. “The sanctuary community cannot continue to be the dumping ground for all of those that make a profit off animals — whether that is using them for cub photos, circus acts or any commercial purpose. There just isn’t enough capacity,” Heckman said. “Building more sanctuary enclosures is not the answer. We need to regulate who can have exotic animals and for what purposes.” A rescued former circus lion sits inside a cage at a temporary refuge in Lima, Peru, in 2014. (Rodrigo Abd/AP) Laws on owning wild animals vary by animal and by state. Some states have bans or require permits, while five do not restrict keeping dangerous wild animals. Last year, the federal government finalized two regulations aimed at increasing oversight of the American tiger population. Advocates say they are hopeful the Ringling closure might generate momentum for two federal bills, which the company opposed, to ban private ownership and breeding of big cats as well as the use of wild animals in circuses and traveling shows. In the meantime, representatives of accredited sanctuaries say they’re eager to help find homes for the Ringling animals. Susan Bass, the spokeswoman for Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, said its founder had offered assistance in an email to chief executive Kenneth Feld. The sanctuary would be able to add some of the tigers to its population of 80


Climate change will hurt crops more than it helps them, study suggests

available for plants to drink up, and it can also cause more water to evaporate from the leaves of the plants, themselves. Past a certain point, plants can become stressed from lack of water. When plants are short on water, they initiate a series of processes designed to help them survive — these may include closing the pores on the undersides of their leaves to prevent excess water loss. Since these pores are also responsible for gas exchange, this process also forces plants to take in less carbon dioxide, which can affect their ability to photosynthesize. Water-stressed plants may also devote more of their energy to spreading roots underground and less to growing body mass above ground. “We can adapt to [water stress] in some sense by irrigating more, but only as there is enough water,” Schauberger said. In drought-stricken or otherwise water-stressed parts of the world, irrigation may not be a long-term option for protecting crops. The study also suggests that we can’t necessarily count on rising carbon dioxide levels to balance out the effects of rising temperatures, either. In the simulations, extra carbon dioxide did not have any broad, significant impact on alleviating crop yield losses at high temperatures. Schauberger noted that higher levels of carbon dioxide can, in fact, lead to an increase in plant growth, resulting in bigger plants. But bigger plants require more water, which can work against them in warm conditions — under high temperatures, the effect of having larger biomass can more or less cancel out the benefits of having access to more carbon dioxide. The result is that there are no significant differences in crop yields under elevated carbon dioxide conditions. The researchers are careful to note that these findings shouldn’t be taken as concrete predictions for the future. For one thing, the study only examines one high-emissions future scenario, which may or may not reflect what actually happens in the coming years. There are also various forms of adaptation, aside from just increasing irrigation, that could help protect global food security in the future. Working to develop plants with greater heat tolerance is one strategy, Schauberger noted. But, he added, preventing the problems caused by extreme temperatures in the first place is the best first line of defense. “The best adaptation is mitigation,” Schauberger said. “The less climate change we actually cause, the less we have to deal with the impact.”


What to expect at Tiger Fork, an upcoming dim sum spot in Blagden Alley

Aside from flavor, the chef believes the meat is simply “more responsible and more sustainable” than other sources of beef. Van Oordt's interest in Asian cooking started not long after his family moved from Peru to Rockville when he was nine years old. He explored the dining options along Rockville Pike: Sichuan Jin River, A&J Restaurant, Maria's Bakery & Cafe, the now shuttered Bob's Noodle 66 and others. He returned to Peru to attend culinary school but, post-graduation, headed to Singapore, where he landed a job at 2 am: lab, the research and development arm of chef Janice Wong's acclaimed 2 am: dessertbar. While Van Oordt was there, Wong collaborated on a dim sum cookbook that required the team to make frequent trips to Hong Kong to promote the tome. Hong Kong was something of a revelation to the young cook. “Hong Kong is like East meets West,” Van Oordt says. “Think about New York but think about New York on steroids.” Van Oordt has followed a time-honored tradition among chefs: Learn from as many masters as you can before assuming your own kitchen. Van Oordt has worked not only under Wong in Singapore, but also under Virgilio Martinez at the Michelin-starred Central in Lima and Daniel Clifford at the two Michelin-starred Midsummer House in Cambridge, England. In the District, Van Oordt has worked for José Andrés at minibar and Johnny Spero at the short-lived Suna. Since taking the gig at Tiger Fork, scheduled to open in early February in the former Rogue 24 space, Van Oordt has been furthering his education in Hong Kong cooking. He's returned to Rockville and made trips to New York to study the art and science of dough making for Hong Kong buns, dumplings and other dim sum dishes. (The Tiger Fork team has been working with Lumos, a Manhattan bar specializing in cocktails made with the high-proof Chinese spirit baijiu, and a certified Chinese medicine specialist to develop a drinks menu that provides medicinal benefits — other than drunkenness, one presumes.) But Van Oordt says Tiger Fork won't be a Hong Kong dim sum house with a slavish devotion to tradition. It will draw from numerous Chinese provincial cuisines, including Sichuan. It may even borrow from Chinese-Muslim cooking traditions, found in many major Chinese cities. “We don't want to get boxed in,” Van Oordt says. “When you think about what dim sum is,


The world might see a mass extinction of primates if humans don’t act

and co-author Anthony Rylands argue, mirror the threats to biodiversity at large. “Many people would say, ‘Oh dear, you know, this species is in trouble and that species is in trouble,’ ” Rylands said in a video released by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes Science Advances. Rylands is deputy chair of the Species Survival Commission’s Primate Specialist Group, part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and a senior research scientist at the Virginia-based Conservation International. “But few people can see the really big picture, which is that human activities … are resulting in the demise of tropical forests around the world, and this has serious consequences for not just the primates,” Rylands continued. “Loss of these forests affects water supply, affects climate change, affects all sorts of major conservation issues around the world.” Primates play a significant role in ecosystems, the authors note. They help transfer pollen between the trees they feed in and pass seeds in their droppings, allowing plants to spread. They're also important model organisms, essential to understanding the evolution of our own species. Researchers study primates for insights into human behavior, parenting, conflict, learning and memory, social bonds, language and cognition. And it's up to humans to protect them, the researchers say. They suggest that protected areas be expanded and sustainable land-sharing programs, which ensure that both people and animals can make use of forests, be improved. Better monitoring programs need to be set up to protect wild animals and prevent illegal trade, and steps should be taken to reduce the impact of human activities on forest ecosystems. These steps will not be easy, they acknowledge. The most vulnerable primates often live alongside the most vulnerable human communities, where poverty, inequality, poor governance and violent conflict hamper efforts to improve conditions. Hunting bushmeat is often an important source of food and income, as are the farms and industries that threaten primate habitats. “Improving the human condition” is the first step the report's authors list in their recommendations for addressing conservation needs. “We have one last opportunity to greatly reduce or even eliminate the human threats to primates and their habitats, to guide conservation efforts and to raise worldwide awareness of their predicament,” they conclude. “Primates are critically important to humanity. After all, they are our closest living biological relatives.” Read more: Will Trump echo JFK's moonshot and vow to


This man is running 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days. Why?

in seven days. An elite ultrarunner, Wardian has his sights on breaking the eventâs record average marathon time of 3:32:25 set last January by U.S. Marine Corps captain Daniel Cartica. Wardian, a 42-year-old Arlington resident, is a prolific racer, known in the ultrarunning community for seeking tough courses and setting world records. Last year, he ran 1,254.65 miles in 47 races. The World Marathon Challenge, like most of Wardianâs running goals, will be about pushing his limits. âI love diverse and unique challenges,â he said. âI am definitely interested in seeing what I can handle and what my body can accept. That drives me.â An epic adventure Something about the way Richard Donovan carried himself appealed to Wardian. Perhaps it was the sense of adventure Donovan exuded when they first met at the 2010 50K Championships in Galway, Ireland, where Donovan was the race director. The two hit it off, and soon Wardian was participating in Donovanâs events. It was at the North Pole Marathon, a race that Donovan organizes, that Wardian first heard about the Irishmanâs plan for the World Marathon Challenge â a challenge that Donovan himself completed in 2009 and 2012. âI knew that many people had a goal of running seven marathons on seven continents during any time period,â Donovan, 50, said. âI felt the natural extension to this idea would be to try to achieve it within a seven-day period.â Wardian started saving for the trip in 2014, connecting with sponsors and getting approval from his wife, Jennifer, before committing. Registration for the event costs 36,000 euros, which covers international charter flights to each of the seven marathon locations: Union Glacier (Antarctica), Punta Arenas, Chile (South America), Miami (North America), Madrid (Europe), Marrakesh, Morocco (Africa), Dubai (Asia) and Sydney (Australia). The challenge is a test of both physical strength and mental fitness. Sleeping on a crammed plane, adjusting to different time zones and finding food to eat (Wardian is a vegetarian) would make it an exhausting trip over a month, let alone a week. âThe key to a race like this is getting comfortable being uncomfortable,â said Becca Pizzi, last yearâs womenâs champion. âThe highs are inÂcredÂibly high, and the lows of the race were incredibly low.â Since turning it into an organizedÂ event in 2015, Donovan has attracted a variety of runners. This yearâs challenge will feature a far more elite field, which includes


This new pop-up in Alexandria will satisfy your cravings for bagels and pickles

Salt | Bagel is popping up in the old Dairy Godmother space. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post) Collaborations between local food producers aren't uncommon these days, but here's a brand new pairing to get behind: bagels and pickles. More specifically, Bagel Uprising and Number 1 Sons. The two businesses became friendly while selling alongside each other at the farmers market. That's where they also became acquainted with Liz Davis, the owner of frozen custard shop Dairy Godmother. Davis offered her storefront on Mount Vernon Avenue during her winter hiatus, and the pop-up was born. (Davis has since announced she's closing Dairy Godmother after 17 years in business, and the space's future remains up in the air.) At Salt | Bagel, which debuts Friday and runs through Feb. 26., home baker turned Bagel Uprising owner Chad Breckinridge will offer his full roster of five bagel flavors: plain, poppy, sesame, salt and everything. On market days, he'd been making about 500 bagels, but he plans to scale that up by several times for the pop-up, with the help of a recently purchased 1,400-pound mixer. Breckinridge will continue to balance bagels with his federal day job, but he's using the pop-up to test the waters should he want to set up shop permanently in the future. "My litmus test is, 'Is it still fun?'" he said. "And can we make it work?" Number 1 Sons and Bagel Uprising are collaborating on a six-week pop-up. (Left, April Greer for The Washington Post; right, courtesy Bagel Uprising) The bagels will be used to make a variety of sandwiches using spreads developed by Number 1 Sons, the fermented food business that specializes in the likes of kimchi, krauts and pickled vegetables. Expect such cream cheese flavors as District Dill (fermented garlic and pickle spice blend), sweet potato pecan and apricot marmalade. Sandwiches will include one made with a poppy seed bagel, cream cheese, pepitas and a spread featuring Number 1 Sons's cider masala beets. Another will combine smoked salmon and dill cream cheese on an everything bagel with sprouts and pickled onions (a vegan version will feature smoked tofu salad). The full lineup of Number 1 Sons products will also be available for purchase, which is especially nice, co-founder Caitlin Roberts said, because it will be the only place this season where they'll be selling indoors. Potential customers have already expressed their excitement about the makes-perfect-sense and


Trump is feuding with the CIA, but he could end up making it stronger

to reports in the New York Times, a small group of congressional staffers regularly travels to CIA headquarters to secretly witness the results of drone strikes, but does little else to investigate the specifics of the drone program or other CIA and Special Forces operations. Journalists, meanwhile, are rarely able to question CIA paramilitary operatives or leaders of the agency’s paramilitary branch, let alone travel with CIA and Special Forces units in the field. In contrast, journalists are given more on-the-ground access to operations involving conventional forces in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. This lack of oversight increases the chances of field operatives using brutal, illegal tactics and getting away with it. One senior CIA paramilitary operative in Laos, Tony Poe, eventually wound up overseeing a band of tribal fighters loyal primarily to him, and — according to his own reports — supervising the killing of people linked to communist forces and occasionally dropping their heads from helicopters or mailing their severed ears back to the U.S. Embassy in Laos’s capital. He retired with accolades from the CIA. More recently, CIA operatives were responsible for overseeing black sites where alleged terrorists were detained and reportedly tortured under the George W. Bush administration. In a lengthy article this month, the Intercept documented allegations that individuals in SEAL Team 6, probably the most elite unit in the Special Forces or the CIA’s paramilitary branch, mutilated corpses, killed unarmed combatants and committed other abuses during operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many of these actions reportedly took place more than a decade ago and never resulted in any real sanctions. Secret wars also make victory hard to achieve. In Laos, as the CIA pushed its proxy army to fight bigger battles, backed by bombers, it bled local troops and soured many Laotian civilians on the U.S. presence. Having kept most advisers from U.S. conventional forces out of the operation, the CIA was unprepared for how to handle a growing war, with more conventional battles, and a public backlash in Asia. Indeed, the Laos operation did not prevent a communist takeover there. It left U.S. allies devastated, with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the country after the communists’ victory in 1975. When the war ended, one-tenth of Laos’s population had been killed or wounded, and more than 700 Americans had died, although these U.S. casualties were not fully acknowledged by Washington for decades. Turning


The big contradiction in how the world’s most powerful people think about its future

increasing as fast as it once did. Many economists worry that leaders such as Trump could exacerbate these negative trends by restricting global trade. In a discussion on stage in Davos on Friday, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde offered a cautiously optimistic view. She said the fund expects the pace of economic expansion worldwide to accelerate from 3.1 percent last year to 3.4 percent this year as developed countries continue to recover from the financial crisis. “This certainly is looking better than what we have seen in previous years,” she said. Lagarde also laid out a couple of worrisome possibilities. She noted that under the Trump administration, the U.S. government is expected to borrow more money while the Federal Reserve increases interest rates. Both of these shifts would limit the supply of dollars available overseas. Since many governments and corporations around the world have loans that must be repaid in U.S. currency, these trends could put a real squeeze on foreign economies. Lagarde also worried that if Trump combines tariffs on goods imported into the United States with tax relief for corporations and deregulation in the financial sector, policymakers in other countries might be inclined to follow suit in all three areas to discourage businesses from shifting their operations to the United States. The result, Lagarde suggested, would be a decline in global commerce, less revenue for cash-strapped governments and a more unstable financial sector. “That, for me, would be a really big black swan,” she said, using investors' slang for an unpredictable disaster. The contrast between those grim warnings and the extraordinary prosperity forecast by technology's evangelists makes the mood at the conference feel somewhat manic. The program features sessions on artificial photosynthesis, quantum computers and using animals to grow human organs. The organizers have labeled a few innovations “world-changing technology.” Just outside the conference hall on the Promenade, the main street running through this ritzy alpine resort, major software companies have brick-and-mortar retail spaces for advertising and socializing during the week of the forum — the Microsoft Cafe, the Palantir Pavilion. Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, foretells a world in which robots can see as well as humans and converse fluently in human language. “It takes some imagination, but not that much imagination,” he said in an interview. “That is going to transform the economy.” Brynjolfsson says that official statistics do


Inauguration Guide 2017: Lowest Metro ridership since before 2005, protest clashes slow travel downtown

for the smoothest trips. Further guidance on how to use Metro to navigate the inauguration and parade can be found in the “Pedestrians” section below. Five stations will be closed for security on Inauguration day. (Screenshot: Metro) The bus: While routes 30N and 30S will not operate, Metro recommends a number of alternatives: passengers can use the 31 and 33 for service between Friendship Heights and Washington Circle, or the 32, 34 and 36 for service between Eastern Market and the Naylor Road and Southern Avenue Metro stations. Some 30-line routes will operate in two segments. Metro has the details here. The 96, P6 and D6 will add detours due to road closures. Details can be found here. In Northern Virginia, the Pentagon Transit Center will be closed for security reasons. Bus routes serving Pentagon will start and stop at Pentagon City Metro station. On the D.C. Circulator, service will be suspended on four routes: Union Station-Navy Yard, Mall, Rosslyn-Dupont and Georgetown-Union Station. DC Streetcar: MetroAccess: Pedestrians: Consult this Metro Guide for the best route to the Inauguration. If you’re watching inaugural ceremonies from the Mall, you won’t need tickets. The non-ticketed area stretches from Fourth Street NW past the Washington Monument to 17th Street NW. Bags will, however, be checked. The following items will be prohibited: Aerosols; ammunition; animals other than service or guide dogs; large backpacks; balloons; bicycles; coolers; drones; explosives; firearms; glass, thermal or metal containers; laser pointers; mace or pepper spray; packages; selfie sticks; structures; supports for signs and placards; toy guns; weapons of any kind; and any other hazardous items. Biking: Capital Bikeshare has a $2 single-trip option instituted ahead of Metro’s yearlong SafeTrack repair program, that has proven popular with riders. But Bikeshare stations around the Mall will be closed today. Bike “corrals” will be set up at two popular locations; 17th and K streets NW and Fourth and E streets SW. Hailing a ride: To hail an Uber or Lyft, afterward, you might have to do a little walking. Because of a “geofence” set up around the Mall, you can’t ping the services from inside the perimeter. Uber has created designated pickup zones, which are mapped below. Expect delays and potential price surges. A “geofence” will prevent Uber cars from being hailed from inside the inauguration perimeter. (Screenshot: Uber) Metro security: “Specifically,” he said, “we are aware of unconfirmed statements by a small


The art of protest

Saturday), to Tysons (where the mixed-genre concert “Sisterhood in Song” brings together women from a range of musical backgrounds at 8 Friday night). And all over the country, the J20 art strike has shut down galleries, museums, and other cultural institutions in an effort to galvanize attention and build focus both among the public and within the art community. But what, in fact, is effective? Last week, I spoke to an orchestra contractor, Edward Walters, who had been charged to put together orchestras for two inaugural events, and had encountered an unprecedented amount of pushback from the freelance musicians’ community, many of whom turned him down. Walters has played in every inauguration since Ronald Reagan’s, but he said this had never happened before: In Washington, locus of political events, a job is a job. “This is different,” he said. He did assemble the orchestras, though he “had to cast my net a little wider” to find players; but he and some other musicians also decided to donate a portion of their fees to charity. “If I sit home to protest,” he said, “nobody knows it but me”; by donating the money, he felt, he was at least taking action. But, he conceded, maybe he was just trying to make himself feel better. Artists aren’t unique in feeling powerless. In a society in which the arts, as a construct, are so marginalized and face new concrete threats — abolishing the NEA would have a weight disproportionate to the amount of money actually involved — some have questioned whether giving a concert or writing a new piece of music is a meaningful response at all. Maybe this is the time to focus on calling congressmen, volunteering to help at-risk populations, and generally working directly to bring about social change. Others, though, have voiced the idea that this can be a galvanizing moment for the arts: that now, more than ever, art can give voice to a consciousness and a conscience that might not find other outlets for expression. For commentators, such debate is fine. For artists, it may be a risk to spend a lot of time talking about it. In a discursive piece I wrote in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks about art’s response to crisis, I quoted Theodor Adorno. In today’s society, he said in 1949, “even the most extreme consciousness of doom threatens to degenerate into


Britain’s shocking calm

British Prime Minister Theresa May in London on Tuesday. (Neil Hall/Reuters) As an experiment in radical political uncertainty, Britain today is enthralling. Last summer, the nation voted to hack its ties to its key partners in Europe, putting everything from the legal landscape to Scotland’s union with England in doubt. For the past seven months, nobody has known what “Brexit” means for Britain’s industries — from the right of London financial houses to sell into the other 27 countries of the European Union to the ability of technology boutiques in Cambridge to hire scientists from the Netherlands or France. Fully 37 percent of London’s population is foreign-born. Many of these productive people are waiting to hear whether they will be thrown out. What’s more, there is no sign of this uncertainty abating. On Tuesday, Theresa May, the inscrutable prime minister, gave a widely heralded speech that was supposed to define Brexit. She confirmed that formal negotiations are to start in March and that the divorce papers are to be finalized by the spring of 2019. Britain will exclude itself from the most appealing aspect of the European Union: the Single Market that unites 500 million consumers, allowing goods and services to cross borders without customs checks or regulatory obstacles. The British will reclaim their ancestral right to bar Europeans from their territory. By the same token, they will no longer be able to count on studying in Dublin, working in Munich or retiring in the Spanish sun. Yet all of this leaves the big questions unanswered. Certainty is gone: Everyone knows the existing rules are to be renegotiated. But clarity has not arrived. The prime minister referred obliquely to a desire for a new trade arrangement with Europe, but if you are working at an auto factory or an international legal practice, you have no clue what this means for your prospects. If you are running a farm, you do not know what will replace Europe’s generous subsidies. If you are a university researcher, you await clarity about E.U. scientific grants. If you own a house, you wonder what the eviction of a chunk of the workforce might do to its value. Although the prime minister spoke of a “phased process of implementation” to avoid a “cliff-edge” for business, you have no idea whether the rest of Europe will go along with her plans. To be fair, part of this


Massive Women’s March crowd starts trip home; Metro warns against overwhelming stations

the last trains will be shutting down at midnight. Beltway exit to Greenbelt station closed for two hours (1:30 p.m.) Maryland State Police closed down the Greenbelt Metro station exit on the Capital Beltway for approximately two hours Saturday morning, due to the overcrowded parking lot and the long lines of people waiting to enter the station to attend the Women’s March. “They were backed up all the way out of the station, so we shut down the ramp. The parking lot was already full,” said Cpl. Tim Woodward, of the State Police College Park barracks. “There were just too many people.” Woodward said troopers were reopening the ramp just after 1 p.m. Those closures affected one group of marchers who chartered a bus from New York City; 22-year-old Chloe Gbai said she could see the lines of people from her window as the bus passed the station and continued on to College Park. Lines were much shorter there, but it still took more than an hour to get into the station and travel along the Yellow Line to Gallery Place. Parking at the Greenbelt Metro station was also a problem for Nilay Sheth and Jamie John, who drove from Ellicott City. When police turned them away, they drove about half a mile and parked in a random office building parking lot, along with other marchers. They worried that they might get ticketed or towed, but they didn’t know what else to do and wanted to make sure they didn’t miss the march. “We don’t know if our car will still be there when we get back,” John said, shrugging. —Martine Powers Metro: Don’t rush to the Metro after the march (1:20 p.m.) If you are participating in the Women’s March, Metro has a message for you. “Consider waiting/enjoying Downtown DC to allow crowds to ease,” the transit agency said in a tweet. Metro said earlier that 275,000 people took Metro Saturday morning, many of them going to the march. The transit agency in the early afternoon was urging participants to stay in the District and wait a little longer before the board the trains back. “After the event, Metro will be very crowded,” the transit agency said in another tweet. After event, Metro will be very crowded. Pls consider waiting/enjoying Downtown DC to allow crowds to ease. Pls retweet #wmata #womensmarch L’Enfant Station reopens (1:10 p.m.) Train are now


“When I turned 40, that’s when I started wrecking records, and that’s when I started getting really, really serious.”

the stereotypical depictions of senior citizens as frail or cute. I wanted my photos to rebel against cliché.” In its page upon page of showing the will and determination of people living out their passions, no matter their age, “Racing Age” does just that — brushes aside quaint cliches, providing us with a document that celebrates what is possible, if we put our minds and bodies to it, at any age. Pengxue Su, 87, of China competes in discus during the men’s decathlon in Lyon, France, during the 2015 World Masters Athletics Championships. (Angela Jimenez) A banked track at the USATF Masters Indoor Nationals in Albuquerque (Angela Jimenez) Sue Yeomans of Great Britain, 62, clears pole a vault on the way to a second-place finish in the W60 division at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Lyon, France, in 2015. (Angela Jimenez) Axel Magnusson, 86, of Sweden during the 2007 World Masters Championships Stadia in Riccione, Italy. (Angela Jimenez) Janis Mankovskis, 75, of Latvia competes in the pole vault during the decathlon in Lyon, France, for the 2015 World Masters Athletics Championships. (Angela Jimenez) Kathy Bergen, 75, of California competes in the discus in St. Paul, Minn., at the National Senior Games in 2015. (Angela Jimenez) Helen Beauchamp, 87, of Memphis participates in the 85-89-age-bracket women’s javelin during the 2007 National Senior Games in Louisville (Angela Jimenez) Shot puts at the USATF Masters Indoor Nationals in Albuquerque (Angela Jimenez) A senior long jumper competes in the 80-84-year-old age division at the 2007 World Masters Championships in Riccione, Italy in 2007. (Angela Jimenez) Athletes in the M80 and M85+ divisions of the men’s decathlon stand ready for the start of the 1500-meter in Lyon, France, during the 2015 World Masters Athletics Championships. (Angela Jimenez) Hurdles at the USATF Masters Indoor Nationals in Albuquerque (Angela Jimenez) Heptathlete Christel Donley, 80, of Colorado Springs falls during the 80-meter hurdles during the 2015 World Masters Athletics Championships. Donley got up and finished the race and the heptathlon. (Angela Jimenez) Golden Bertram, 65, of Huntsville, Ala., warms up for the track &field competition at the 2007 National Senior Games in Louisville (Angela Jimenez) “Racing Age” is available to purchase here. The book will also be exhibited as part of the 7th Annual Photobook Show at the Griffin Museum of Photography [griffinmuseum.org] in Winchester, Mass. Show runs March 9-31. Opening reception March 9 from 6:30-8:30 pm.


One of the last Obama-era climate reports had a troubling update about the rising seas

of occurring even under a business-as-usual climate trajectory. The estimates are intended to help policymakers make decisions about how to protect communities in the unlikely event that such a scenario should occur in the future. The new report also includes a series of regional projections, which the authors developed using a model informed by their global sea-level-rise estimates. The model was able to account for a wide variety of processes known to affect regional sea levels, said In many places, the motion of the land plays a big role in rising water levels. In parts of Louisiana, for instance, the ground is actually sinking — this is a process called “subsidence,” which can be exacerbated by a variety of human activities, including the extraction of groundwater. Changes in ocean currents over time can also affect the way water is distributed around the world. And recent research has suggested that melting glaciers can also affect the Earth’s gravitational field — Because gravity is proportional to mass — in other words, objects with greater mass exert a greater gravitational pull — large amounts of ice loss in places like Greenland or Antarctica can result in a decreased gravitational pull between the land mass and the ocean. When this happens, ocean water moves away to other parts of the globe. The result is that “when you melt ice sheets, they cause greater-than-average sea-level rise far away from the ice sheet,” Kopp said. The takeaway from all these physical processes is that sea levels rise at different rates in different parts of the world. And knowing what to expect in a specific location is key for policymakers trying to make decisions about how to plan for their own communities. Along much of the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, for instance, sea-level rise could be greater than the global average in just about all possible climate scenarios. And under the higher scenarios, the same will be true for nearly all U.S. coasts except for Alaska. The authors also investigated the future of flooding along U.S. coastlines. Specifically, they focused on five-year flood events — these are damaging floods that occur at a frequency of about once every five years in any location. In other words, these are events that have about a 20 percent chance of occurring in any given year. The authors decided to investigate what it would take to increase the


This is how Donald Trump engineers applause

performance greeted by an encomium chanted by five thousand of his soldiers. … The recollection of this gave the 16th-century French poet, Jean Daurat, an idea which has developed into the modern claque. … There are commissaires, those who learn the piece by heart, and call the attention of their neighbours to its good points between the acts. The rieurs are those who laugh loudly at the jokes. The pleureurs, generally women, feign tears, by holding their handerkerchiefs to their eyes. The chatouilleurs keep the audience in in a good humour, while the bisseurs simply clap their hands and cry bis! bis! to secure encores. Trump, probably without knowing about the historical precedent, has revived this old tradition. To understand how claques work, look at bee swarms Obviously, the claque is usually far smaller than the audience that it is supposed to manipulate. So how can it be effective? The answer has to do with social influence. Scott Page, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, describes how simple systems of social influence (such as standing ovations or bee swarms) produce collective outcomes in his book “Diversity and Complexity” (see here if you want to play around with his models). For example, when bees collectively attack an intruder, they are influenced by pheromones — chemicals that bees spread through the air to communicate. When a bee attacks an intruder, it starts to diffuse a pheromone that communicates the presence of a threat to other bees, perhaps causing them to attack. Different individual bees might have different “thresholds” — meaning that some will react when there is only a small amount of pheromones in the air, and others require a relatively large amount of pheromone before they attack. This then means that bee attacks against intruders are shaped by social influence. Initially, perhaps only a small number of bees, who see the intruder, attack. If they spread pheromones, then other bees, which only need a small amount of pheromones to be triggered, may attack too. As they add more pheromones to the air, this can create a kind of cascade effect, in which more bees keep attacking, producing more pheromones, which in turn trigger more bees. However, it is also possible that the numbers of attackers will taper off. When you start to play around with the mathematical models underlying this kind of behavior, it becomes clear that even relatively


Americans can’t agree on the country’s ‘most important problem.’ Why that’s also a problem for Trump.

Gerald Ford's first month in office, 70 percent or more of Americans said inflation or the cost of living was at the top, while 41 percent of Americans named the Vietnam War when Richard Nixon was inaugurated in January 1969. (In its report, Gallup did not list the dominant problems for incoming administrations before 1969, and no data were available for the months of Jimmy Carter's and George H.W. Bush's inaugurations.) Trump's numbers are relatively similar to the inauguration of George W. Bush, when, in the aftermath of the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, 13 percent of respondents named “ethics and moral decline” as the country's top problem. Twelve percent named education, 9 percent said crime and violence, and 9 percent named dissatisfaction with government. The dispersed opinion is a clear illustration of the polarized electorate that both Trump and Bush faced when they were inaugurated. Both won the electoral college but lost the popular vote in particularly divisive elections where there was not a “towering problem,” in Gallup's description, that a majority or near majority of Americans were most concerned about trying to solve. But it's also a reminder of the leadership challenge Trump will face in galvanizing the kind of buy-in and broad-based supportive public sentiment that can come when the public shares the same concerns over the country's biggest problem. It's much harder to rally people around a common vision or lead the country forward when there's little agreement on what they should be rallying for. Of course, with Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump has advantages in getting his agenda through, however divided the country may be on political priorities. A brash leadership style bent on dealmaking and public condemnation of those who disagree with him is likely to embolden him, even if agreement over the problems is limited. But without an imposing issue at the top of Americans' list of concerns, Trump's presidency is beginning with little agreement over where his greatest focus should be. In his inaugural address, Trump sounded the sort of populist, anti-establishment, nationalist themes that were common during his campaign. Yet beyond the numbers listed above about the economy and dissatisfaction with the government, issues like income inequality, immigration and foreign trade were not among the most common responses. Perhaps ironically, there's one other issue that failed to rise to the top of Americans' list of biggest


Sierra Nevada recalls 8 beers because a bottle flaw could hurt drinkers

Eight beers brewed at the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Mills River, N.C., are being recalled because of potential problem with the glass bottles. (Jacob Biba for The Washington Post) Sierra Nevada, the nation’s third-largest craft brewery, is voluntarily recalling eight beers sold in 12-ounce bottles in 35 states, including Maryland and Virginia, plus the District, because of a bottle flaw that could cause glass-related injuries. The recall includes several of the company’s most popular brands, including Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Hop Hunter IPA and Torpedo Extra IPA, which were bottled and packaged at its brewery in Mills River, N.C., between early December and mid-January. The problem, according to a news release from the brewery, is “a very limited number of bottles with a flaw that may cause a small piece of glass to break off and possibly fall into the bottle, creating a risk for injury.” Mike Bennett, Sierra Nevada’s chief supply chain officer, said in a news release that the company believes the condition exists in 1 in 10,000 bottles, though no consumers have reported injuries related to the flaw. Bottles included in the recall have a packaging code that includes an “M,” for Mills River, printed on the shoulder of the bottle, above the label, or on the outside of a 12-pack or 24-bottle case. Any bottles with a code that includes the letter “C,” designating the company’s original plant in Chico, Calif., are safe, as are all cans and draft versions. [Beer: Why large West Coast breweries are building East Coast plants] Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is one of the recalled beers. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Beers affected are Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottled between Dec. 5 and Jan. 8, and bottles of Beer Camp Golden IPA, Hop Hunter IPA, Nooner pilsner, Otra Vez gose, Sidecar Orange Pale Ale, Torpedo Extra IPA and Tropical Torpedo packaged between Dec. 5 and Jan. 13. Customers who purchased recalled bottles should visit sierranevada.com/qualitymatters to find more information about deciphering the bottle codes and applying for a full refund. Constellation Brands, the parent company of Corona, issued a recall last year after warning that particles of glass could be found in some of its bottles. Most recent beer recalls, however, have concerned the quality of the beer rather than customer safety: Goose Island recalled most of its vaunted 2015 line Bourbon County Brand Stout in 2016 after off


Super Bowl LI provides a long awaited meeting: the Patriots and Roger Goodell

Kyle Shanahan is in line to be named the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, although he cannot officially be hired until the Falcons’ season is done. Shanahan’s father Mike was the coach of the Denver Broncos the last time the Falcons reached the Super Bowl. The Shanahan-led Broncos beat the Falcons at the conclusion of the 1998 season in John Elway’s final game as Denver’s quarterback. Dan Reeves was the Falcons’ coach then. Chris Chandler was their quarterback and Jamal Anderson was their “Dirty Bird”-dancing running back. Those Falcons were undone by a legendary quarterback, in Elway, and a Super Bowl-tested team, as the Broncos won their second straight championship. These Falcons face a similarly daunting task against Brady and the Patriots. The Atlanta defense is not overpowering, but it has the ability to rush the passer, especially with a lead, and generate turnovers, as it did Sunday against the Packers. And the offense is special. It perhaps has carved out a place as one of the league’s better offenses in recent memory alongside such units of the St. Louis Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf” with Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk, the Brady-led Patriots in their unbeaten season of 2007 and some of the offenses orchestrated in Indianapolis and Denver by Peyton Manning. New England’s defense should present more obstacles than the Packers for Ryan and the Atlanta offense. The Patriots led the league in scoring defense during the regular season. It is a defense that improved steadily throughout the season after once being regarded as a potential postseason liability. “I think there’s a lot of noise, always,” Brady said. “Sometimes you don’t always have it figured out four games into the year. And there’s a lot of moving parts. The second half of the year . . . I practiced against those guys every day and it’s hard to complete passes against them. I know if I can complete them against our defense, then we should be fine on Sunday because our guys do a great job in the passing game . . . We’ve got a good defense.” Patriots cornerback and former Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler was not quite ready to switch gears in the postgame locker room and begin thinking about defending the Falcons’ standout wide receiver, Julio Jones, in the Super Bowl. “You’re going too far,” Butler said. “I’m enjoying the moment, man.”


One of the most expensive restaurants in Washington is going to increase its prices

Jonny Black plates a dish at Pineapple & Pearls, Aaron Silverman's tasting-menu restaurant on Barracks Row. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) Pineapple and Pearls “There were a lot of things that we wanted to do to improve our food, our service, our employees' lives, our guest experience as a whole,” Silverman said. “We were maxed out at where we were with what we could accomplish. We wanted to take the experience even further.” The restaurant, which Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema called the “premier example of fine dining in the country,” sells tickets as a way for guests to reserve a seat and prepay for their meal. Tickets are $150 for the bar, which does not include beverages, or $250 for a dining room table, which is beverage-inclusive (both options include tax and gratuity). Beginning April 4, both ticket prices will increase by $30. The price of fine dining has been a sore spot in D.C. lately. Criticism over Shaw Bijou's $481-per-person (with pairings) price, in part, brought about the premature end of chef Kwame Onwuachi's restaurant. Even with the price hike, Pineapple and Pearls is not the most expensive tasting menu in D.C. -- that honor still belongs to Minibar, which charges $275 without beverages; drinks can add up to $500 to that price. “We wanted to raise it as little as possible so the value's still there,” Silverman said. “We've always tried to charge the least amount we can.” The price hike will go toward a number of improvements, Silverman said. It will ensure that he can have an additional person at the front desk to welcome guests and “make sure everyone has a welcome drink in their hand as soon as they arrive.” It will fund a parental leave plan for staff members and “give many of our hourly employees a raise that's well deserved.” It will also enable them to buy higher-quality ingredients for guests. “It's little things. It's not like when you walk in there's going to be a tower of champagne and caviar waiting for you,” Silverman said. “It allows us to get slightly nicer or more expensive fish, or serve an extra slice of truffle.” Read more: - Shaw Bijou, one of D.C.’s most expensive restaurants, has closed after less than three months - No three-star restaurants in Washington’s first Michelin guide. But these earned two. - Pineapple and Pearls review:


The apple that never browns wants to change your mind about genetically modified foods

fed to animals intended for human consumption, or routed into processed foods as corn starch, corn syrup, soy lethicin and dozens of other derivatives. Yet even if consumers already eat GMOs, very few do so knowingly. To date, most agricultural engineering has focused almost exclusively on improving yields for producers. The exceptions are the Flavr Savr tomato -- the world’s first commercialized GMO, which suffered lackluster sales and was eventually pulled following its introduction in 1994 -- and the more recent non-browning Innate Potato, currently sold at several stores under the White Russet brand. But the Arctic Apple has a distinct advantage over its predecessors: It’s being sold sliced in 10-oz bags as a convenience snack food. The Carters say they’re imitating the baby carrot model, which has proven a success for vegetable growers, helping to catapult sales of the vegetable. Pre-sliced apples, currently treated with chemicals to prevent browning, enjoy a similar popularity in school cafeterias and Happy Meals. “We might eventually sell them to distributors for service in schools,” Carter said. “We thought our initial go-to-market strategy would be through food service. But a significant number of retailers reached out, and we realized -- they’re ready for us.” Just in case they’re not, of course, Okanagan has hired a marketing consultant and a consumer research firm, convening apple-tasting focus groups and commissioning surveys. Okanagan, which had six full-time employees 14 months ago, plans to quadruple that workforce in the next two years. The February trial-run is part of that public relations campaign; Okanagan wants to “validate our messaging and go-to-market strategy” before launching commercially in the fall, Carter said. The apples will be available at 10 locations of “a few” regional Midwestern grocery chains, which Carter declined to name, where employees will be on hand to poll customers about their first impressions. Crucially, the apples’ packaging will not explicitly declare that they’re genetically engineered -- to get that information, shoppers will have to scan a QR code with a smartphone. This was one of the most controversial points of the Obama administration’s GMO labeling law, which requires genetically-modified ingredients be noted with an on-package statement, approved symbol, or electronic code. Okanagan has argued that, thanks to press coverage, most consumers will already know that it’s apples are GMOs. This non-browning technology could theoretically be applied later to any number of tree fruits, including pears and cherries, which Okanagan’s


These are the best-looking menus of Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week

Central Michel Richard is offering Restaurant Week specials for both lunch and dinner. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Love it or hate it, Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week makes its first appearance of 2017 beginning next week. The promotion sponsored by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington runs Jan. 30 through Feb. 5, and features three-course lunches and brunches for $22 and dinners for $35. Around 250 restaurants are participating. What makes an appealing Restaurant Week menu? Value, for one — getting extra courses is always an attractive option. It's also nice when you can enjoy a three-course meal for the same, or not much more, than one course the rest of the time. Having plenty of options to choose from is key, too. With those things in mind, here are some of the best-looking menus for the week. Central Michel Richard Michel Richard's fried chicken was one of the late chef's signature dishes, and it's still on the menu at the restaurant that bears his name. It's normally $24.50-$25 on its own, so if you order the crunchy bird as part of the Restaurant Week lunch special (also available at dinner), you're really getting a steal with two more courses thrown in. 1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. 202-626-0015. Conosci The least expensive menu at Michael Schlow's gemlike seafood-centered restaurant is typically $45. So, with Restaurant Week, you're getting a $10 break at dinner. The menu features four savory dishes — arctic char sashimi, American red snapper ceviche, wild mushrooms and crab risotto — and a dark chocolate budino for dessert. 465 K St. NW. 202-629-4662. Convivial This Shaw restaurant continues to offer one of the most appealing Restaurant Week menus, because it's virtually identical to its regular dinner menu. And there's plenty of flexibility, too, because you can choose one dish from three of five different categories (nibbles, hot, cold, cheese and dessert). Highlights include a zucchini roulade wrapped around goat cheese, fried chicken coq au vin and the s'mores dessert. 801 O St. NW. 202-525-2870. Daikaya If you like variety, this is the menu for you. The Restaurant Week menu at the upstairs izakaya (not the ramen bar) offers customers a dinner menu spread over six courses: little bites, "green things," skewers, fish/meat, "rice things" and dessert. (Note: Only the Restaurant Week menu will be available at the izakaya next week.) 705 Sixth St. NW. 202-589-1600. Customers at the bar


UK Supreme Court rules Brexit requires vote by Parliament

of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Scotland voted overwhelmingly against Brexit in last year’s referendum, and might well have tried to block Brexit, if given the opportunity to do so. Assuming the parliamentary vote goes as expected, Britain and the European Union will enter into negotiations on an exit agreement. At this point, it seems likely they will end up with “hard Brexit,” an outcome under which Britain leaves the EU without any broad agreement on free trade or reciprocal freedom of movement between the two jurisdictions. The May government is unwilling to agree to the EU’s probable terms for retaining access to its single market, which, among other things, include continued freedom of movement for EU citizens. For its part, the European Union seems unwilling to give Britain a favorable deal, lest it encourage further exit by other states. If “hard Brexit” does occur, it will be a major setback for free trade and freedom of movement in Europe and the UK, potentially inflicting considerable damage on the UK economy, and lesser but still notable damage to the remaining EU states. Among other things, EU migrants are sigificant contributors to the British economy and government revenues. Britain could try to offset some of the damage by negotiating individual trade agreements with various nations. But it will be hard for it to replicate the EU’s network of agreements with numerous states around the world, and Britain’s negotiating leverage is likely to be less than that of the EU. The “Norway option,” once touted as a free-market alternative to EU membership by some Brexit supporters, no longer seems like a live option. Even if the British government decides to pursue the idea, it could well be vetoed by Norway itself, which has the power to prevent Britain from rejoining the European Free Trade Association. EFTA membership is necessary for Britain to have the same free trade arrangements with the EU enjoyed by Norway and other members of the former organization. On the domestic front, the May Government seems set to use Brexit as an opportunity increase government intervention into the economy and institute policies favoring politically influential domestic industries, that might previously have been blocked by the EU. Should the opposition Labor Party come to power in the next election, economic policy will be even more statist, as the party is headed by Jeremy Corbyn, the most socialistic Labor leader in


Look out China, Mexico, Japan and Germany: How trade shapes Trump’s worldview

to foreign goods and investment, and Trump could declare victory if he convinces a manufacturer here and there to relocate to some jobs from Asia to the United States. But China’s trade surplus is unlikely to vanish overnight. Here’s Robb again: - National security under this regime will be used to reinforce and grow positive trade relationships. For example, military tension with China creates the opportunity for sanctions that simulate the function of tariffs (allowing the U.S. to circumvent trade organizations and domestic resistance to tariffs). In a national security policy slaved to trade, any and all security guarantees extended to other nations will require a positive trade arrangement with the U.S. The U.S. simply won’t protect or extent security guarantees to any nation that has a non-beneficial economic relationship with the U.S. (i.e. runs a trade deficit). Of course, trade and national security are arguably not either-or choices, but are often interlinked. Indeed, China’s large trade surplus is one reason it has been able to extend its influence across Asia and the rest of the world, in ways that have clear national security implications for the United States. Yet Robb’s argument does yield interesting insights, so let’s run with it a little further. The second-largest U.S. trade deficit in 2016 was with Japan, at $62.4 billion. Japan largely got a pass from the United States when it used protectionism and state subsidies to build its industries after World War II: then, it was seen as a key strategic ally worth supporting despite running a large trade surplus with the United States. Trump, wearing trade rather than national security glasses, sees a much less rosy picture. Japan’s auto trade is “not fair,” he said this week. He has also warned Toyota could face tariffs if it builds a car factory in Mexico, and he argued that Japan’s government should pay more of the cost of stationing U.S. troops in Okinawa. The same goes for South Korea, which runs a $26.5 billion trade surplus with the United States. Trump has taken aim at the cost of the strategic alliance and criticized a free trade deal agreed between the two countries during the Obama administration. Third on the list comes Germany, with a trade surplus with the United States running at $59.6 billion in 2016. If trade is all that matters, perhaps, it should not have come as such a surprise to


Who will suffer from a government hiring freeze? Veterans.

the problem with government work was people who didn’t want to work hard, but outside of military service, the hardest I have ever worked was at the VA. Mandatory overtime, production quotas, hours and hours of continuing education — and all for less money than I made as a secretary working in the private sector. My memories are of halls filled with racks of folders and less than 200 co-workers to process hundreds of thousands of claims. There simply weren’t enough new workers coming in to replace those who left for other jobs, illness or retirement. I was one of the people who left early, too, after the stress began giving me optical migraines. I couldn’t stick around for years of the Sisyphean task of processing a never-ending stream of claims without enough staff, and, frankly, I had healthier options. A federal hiring freeze that President Trump implemented as one of his first acts in office is being lifted. This is what's next for the White House's plan to overhaul the federal workforce. The argument for small government ignores the real need for enough employees to serve the population. You can’t serve 21.8 million veterans with 340,000 employees and expect anything but long wait times and subpar access to care; you can’t starve an agency of resources for decades and not expect significant problems. No agency should better understand what is at stake here: After devastating investigative reports, a 2014 VA internal audit showed that tens of thousands of veterans home from war had to wait at least 90 days for medical care. The VA acknowledged 23 deaths due to delayed care, and in 2014, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the agency. Yet a s recently as 2015, some VA hospitals were facing staffing shortages that left as many as half of the critical positions open. Currently, 4,308 jobs are listed as open at the VA. More than 1,100 of those listings are for physicians; 1,185 are for nurses at various levels — from licensed practical nurses to nurse practitioners. Another 284 are for positions that have direct contact with veterans to help them access benefits. Shrink that number of employees any further, and the two-year backlog that is just now being conquered may return. And veterans won’t just lose out on decent services thanks to this hiring freeze; they’ll also lose out on jobs. About one-third of


The one way fast food may actually be ‘good’ for you

said. But food safety advocates point out that mistakes still happen — either because not every company adheres to equally high standards, or because it’s next to impossible to guarantee compliance across hundreds of suppliers and thousands of employees. And when mistakes do happen, the size of the chain and the concentration of its suppliers can make the results deadly. “There are too many exceptions that prove the rule,” said Marion Nestle, an expert on nutrition and food safety, in an email to The Post. “The issues in restaurant food safety are ensuring a safe supply chain, following basic food safety rules (hot foods hot, cold foods cold, no cross contamination, etc.), and keeping employees healthy and washing their hands. Violations of those principles can occur anywhere, and do.” The most infamous chain restaurant outbreak occurred in a string of Pacific Northwestern Jack in the Boxes in 1993. Six children died, and 171 people required hospitalization, as a result of an E. coli strain traced back to undercooked beef patties. “A lot of people changed a lot of things after that,” said Beck, who served as an expert witness in one of the resulting lawsuits. “There was an immense response from suppliers and [other restaurants]. Safety became a cornerstone issue.” More recently, the fast-casual chain Chipotle suffered repeat outbreaks of E. coli, salmonella and norovirus, sickening more than 500 people in the second half of 2015. While federal investigators weren’t able to identify the cause of every individual outbreak, one was attributed to salmonella-infected tomatoes, and two were pinned on sick front-of-house employees. No national chains have seen outbreaks in the past year — at least none that rose to the attention of CDC. But four regional and midsize chains have suffered incidents of food-borne illnesses, all of which were traced back to supplier facilities. In Hawaii, Genki Sushi was briefly closed for selling scallops infected with hepatitis A; several Virginia locations of Tropical Smoothie Cafe also found the virus in imported strawberries. In Western New York, Mighty Taco discovered a bacteria in its refried beans. In Ohio, the ice cream maker Jeni’s — which has 20 scoop shops and also sells in grocery stores — has twice found listeria in its factories. “Every restaurant poses a potential risk,” Schaffner said. “It’s not whether a place is a fast-food chain or not — it’s what programs they have in place


NFLPA composing proposal for ‘less punitive’ approach to marijuana use

bit more of the way that we looked at it in 2014. We tried to move more towards a treatment, addiction-eradication focus rather than punitive. I think that we are gonna take that to another level. . . . But it’s also complicated. “Obviously [we] understand the changes in legalization all over the country. I don’t know how many people here have kids or grew up the way that you grew up, but people think differently. But I also know one thing: Chemically it is not the same strain or strength of marijuana that people may have experienced a few years ago.” In November, voters in California, Nevada and Massachusetts approved recreational marijuana use, joining four other states and D.C. that have enacted similar laws. Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota voters approved medical marijuana use in November, bringing the total of states with such measures to more than two dozen. “How do you make sure that you address any potential addiction issue? Because I’ve read the literature on both sides,” Smith said. “How do you deal with the fact that some people are using it purely recreationally and pivoting it to… people who are using it medicinally either as a pain eradicator or a stress-coping mechanism? So what we’ve decided to do is, to the best we can, look at it as related but nonetheless separate issues. Do I expect in the near future we are going to be presenting something to our board on the first issue? Yes.” The union’s pain management committee actually is a subcommittee of its Mackey-White traumatic brain injury committee. The committee’s study of players’ use of marijuana as a pain management tool is to continue at least through the spring. “When it comes to the issue of medical marijuana… we made the decision a few months ago to form a pain management committee. . . . We’ve now asked that Mackey-White group to create a subcommittee just dealing with the issue of pain and treating pain as its own separate, identifiable ailment, as opposed to it being a consequence of some other injury,” Smith said. “And we will be looking at the issue of the efficacy of using marijuana, along with looking at opioid use and all of the ways in which our players are treated by physicians and sometimes not treated well by physicians and, being blunt, the ways in which they self-treat.


Missing: Sunny, the red panda, from a zoo in Virginia

A red panda named Sunny is missing from the zoo in Norfolk, Va. (Courtesy of Virginia Zoo) Missing: A 19-month-old red panda. The female, who goes by the name Sunny, went missing sometime after Tuesday evening from the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk. Authorities at the zoo said they are working with police, using a geothermal camera, to try to find the wayward panda. Sunny was last seen at 5 p.m. Monday in its habitat at the zoo, officials said. But on Tuesday morning, when zookeepers were doing their first checks, Sunny was gone. Officials said they did a “thorough search” of the zoo grounds. It isn’t the first time a red panda has been known to escape. In Washington, Rusty the red panda likely used a tree and bamboo bridge a few years ago to escape from the National Zoo in the Woodley Park neighborhood. Rusty was later found running on the street in the Adams Morgan neighborhood and returned to the zoo. Rusty, the red panda, whose escaped from the National Zoo a few years ago and was found in Adams Morgan. (Smithsonian National Zoo/Getty Images) And in 2007, a 1-year-old red panda named Yin went missing for a bit from an exhibit at the Norfolk zoo. Red pandas are reddish-brown and have thick fur and a long tail. They are close in size to a raccoon. They can be seen on the ground and in trees, zookeepers said. Sunny came to the zoo in Norfolk in last May from the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal. Zoo officials said in a statement that they are “hopeful Sunny is still on” the zoo grounds. But there is a chance she “wandered off the property and is spotted in the community.” Red pandas are not considered aggressive animals but zookeepers in Norfolk cautioned that “like any wild animal its behavior can be unpredictable and you should not try to touch, feed, or capture Sunny yourself.” Those who may see her are asked to call the zoo at 757-777-7899.


Are birds cut out for city living?

in an interview. “Basically what we’re trying to figure out is why the community of birds changed so much with urbanization.” A site marked for suburban development. (John Marzluff/University of Washington) Two of the species — the Pacific wren and Swainson’s thrush — were dubbed “avoiders” because of their dependence on ground shrubs and brush and their shyness around humans, characteristics that make them unable to adapt well to urban encroachment and the landscaped lawns that come with it. They were divorcing one another at a consistent rate and leaving in search of more forested habitat, the researchers found. Four other species, considered “adapters,” went about their business next to their new human neighbors; some even thrived in their newly developed areas. Other studies have found similar effects of city life on bird development and behavior. Researchers at Ludwig Maximilian University and the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology studied great tits — a bird scientists call a synanthrope, or a species that benefits from living in close proximity to humans — and found that they also appear to suffer reproductively, yet in a slightly different, though still disruptive, way. While great tits bred earlier in urban areas, their eggs were consistently smaller and their nestlings weighed less than great tits born in the country. Another study on great tits, carried out by researchers at Lund University in Sweden, determined that city birds had a higher propensity for dying young than their rural counterparts. Yet birds can also benefit from urbanization. After marveling at the ability of Barbados bullfinches to snatch food from humans’ plates, Jean-Nicolas Audet, a doctoral candidate at Canada’s McGill University, was inspired to study them. Audet compared rural and urban bullfinches on the island and found the city birds had better cognitive abilities and problem-solving skills. They were also less skittish around humans and were overall more confident – perhaps because of the daily commotion in their urban environment. A great tit is pictured spreading its wings in Darmstadt, central Germany. (Susann Prautsch/AFP/Getty Images) Some initiatives, including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Urban Bird Treaty, are aimed at conserving bird habitats within cities and reducing hazards to urban and suburban birds. But given that development isn’t going anywhere, researchers say understanding how cityscapes influence birds is essential to protecting those that live among us. Marzluff, for his part, doesn’t think urbanization is a net negative for


How Theresa May will surprise Trump at their first summit

British Prime Minister Theresa May has promised a government report on Britian's Brexit plans. It comes amid growing pressure for a formal document from MPs after the UK's highest court ruled lawmakers must vote on Article 50. If President Donald Trump hopes he has found a loyal and willing ally from across the pond in Theresa May, who visits him on Friday, he could be in for a big surprise. Yes, its an honor that the British prime minister becomes the first leader to meet Trump since his inauguration on Jan. 20. The symbolism itself ought to help rekindle the once special Anglo-American relationship. But May is not going to Washington for any feel-good factor or to sign on to the administration’s controversial trade, energy and foreign policies. She is going with her own shopping list that could be good news for Europe, good news for NATO and good news for those who want to promote multilateral trade deals. All the above may seem paradoxical as Britain prepares to leave the European Union. But it is precisely because Britain is quitting the bloc that it joined back in 1973 that May, more than ever, needs a strong European Union, a strong NATO underpinned by the United States and an open trading system. Without all three, a post-E.U. Britain could find itself vulnerable. “The linkage between Britain and the United States is going to be very important not only for Britain but for NATO and the E.U.,” Rem Korteweg, a foreign and security policy expert at the Center for European Reform, said in an interview. It’s also because Trump sees things very differently. When Britain voted to leave the union, Trump asked which country was next in line to quit the organization that the United States helped to build after World War II in order to strengthen a Western liberal order. May, however, does not want a European community that is set on the path toward fragmentation. “I know many fear that this might herald the beginning of a greater unraveling of the E.U.,” May said when setting out in a major speech this month the government’s negotiating objectives to leave the E.U. “But let me be clear: I do not want that to happen. It would not be in the best interests of Britain. It remains overwhelmingly and compellingly in Britain’s national interest that the E.U. should succeed.” May’s second


Usher in the Chinese New Year with these food specials and events

8 p.m. (There will be karaoke, too.) Patrick Coyne, who spent a year teaching English in China, has a menu that uses Chinese tradition as a springboard for modern interpretations. Options ($6.50 per order of four) include the Porkhemian Rhapsody, Livin' on the Vedge, and Purple Rain (wild mushrooms in purple dough). 1539 Seventh St. NW. Muze/Empress Lounge at the Mandarin Oriental Friday through Feb. 28, both dining options in the hotel will feature a special "year of the fire rooster menu." Dim sum offerings (11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily; $12 per basket or $14 per person to taste all of them) include crab rangoon, foie gras pot stickers and duck spring rolls. Other savory selections (5:30 to 10 p.m. daily; $12 to $28) include pork buns, Sichuan chicken and seafood chow mein. 1330 Maryland Ave. SW. The Partisan Nate Anda is collaborating with chef Scott Drewno from the Source on a Sichuan duck burger ($10) with sesame pickles and hot mustard. It's available Saturday through Feb. 3. 709 D St. NW. The Source The Chinese-accented restaurant will host a series of events to mark the year of the rooster. On Saturday at noon, Drewno hosts a cooking class ($100), with live demonstrations, a dim sum brunch and cocktail. On. Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m., the restaurant will be the site of Bao Down ($50), which will feature Drewno's riff on the Chinese buns, along with dishes from Patrick Curran (Momofuku CCDC), Peter Chang (Peter Chang restaurants), Peter He (People's Bao food truck), Myo Htun (Chaplin's), and Rob Rubba (Hazel). The Source's night market ($85) takes place Feb. 2 at 6:30 p.m., with Chinese barbecue by participating chefs from the BBQ Joint, Texas Jack's and the Tavern at Ivy City Smokehouse, plus a three-course dinner and dance performance. 575 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. TenPenh On Saturday, TenPenh will serve a Five-Spice Rooster cocktail ($10) with baijiu (a Chinese grain spirit), lemon juice, house-made five-spice simple syrup and fresh blood orange juice. Also on the menu: shrimp and pork spring rolls with spicy rooster sauce ($10). 7900 Westpark Dr., Tysons Corner. This post has been updated with more specials. Read more: - These are the best-looking menus of Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week - 9 things to do in the D.C. area the week of Jan. 23-27 - What to expect at Tiger Fork, an upcoming dim sum spot in Blagden Alley


NASA under Trump is still waiting for marching (and launching) orders

been no command from on high to change policies about communications — nor any attempt to take down the agency's extensive online discussions of human-influenced climate change or other scientific issues. What Trump will want out of NASA is unclear, because no one's talking. Trump has rarely spoken about space, but he and his aides have now met several times with Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX. (Musk went twice to Trump Tower, and was part of a gaggle of business leaders that visited the White House earlier this week.) Musk badly wants to colonize Mars, and he is a man in a hurry (which is why today he's been tweeting about the tunnel he wants to bore between his office at SpaceX and Los Angeles International Airport — anything to dodge that heinous L.A. traffic!). Trump and Musk have different political ideologies, but they would seem to be on the same page when it comes to contracting and the costs of traditional aerospace contracts. Soon after the election, Trump went after Lockheed Martin over the costs of the F-35 stealth fighter. Musk has no love for Old Space behemoths such as Lockheed and Boeing, who jointly own United Launch Alliance, which dominates the military and national security launch business. Musk can plausibly claim to provide a much cheaper launch service via his Falcon rockets; his rivals will note that SpaceX has had two launch failures in the past year and a half. But Musk's anti-establishment posture could prove attractive to Trump and help explain this surprise bromance. Ultimately, NASA answers to the White House. Vice President Pence is expected to reestablish an entity known as the National Space Council, and serve as its chair. That would oversee not only NASA but the (this part has to be whispered) even more extensive U.S. military and national security space operations. (You should know that taxpayers fund a lot of telescopes that look down, not up.) President Obama killed his predecessor's moon program, Constellation, but Trump and Pence could revive it in some form, or find a way to combine a back-to-the-moon program with NASA's existing "Journey to Mars.” Key point: NASA's current plan is to go slow and go reliably. That means sending astronauts to Mars no sooner than the 2030s. Moreover, that first mission would call for the astronauts to orbit the Red Planet but not land.


Federal hiring freeze will be waived for VA jobs with ‘public safety’ missions, agency says

doctors and nurses at the root of a patient wait-times scandal in 2014, will continue to recruit for medical personnel, suicide-prevention counselors and many other health-care jobs. David Shulkin, Trump’s nominee for VA secretary who is now head of the agency’s sprawling health-care system, has said the agency urgently needs to hire more doctors and nurses. Advocates for veterans had been alarmed by White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s assertion Tuesday that VA’s workforce of 312,000 employees is covered by the order Trump signed Monday. “Right now, the system’s broken,” Spicer said of VA, explaining that a halt to hiring is meant as a “pause,” in part until Shulkin can settle into the job. “And I think the VA in particular, if you look at the problems that have plagued people, hiring more people isn’t the answer,” Spicer said. “It’s hiring the right people, putting the procedures in place that ensure that our veterans — whether health care or mortgages or the other services that VA provides to those who have served our nation — get the services that they’ve earned.” By Wednesday morning, though, the interpretation had softened to exempt new hires that fall into the category of “public safety.” A White House spokesman said “public safety” can be construed to include “public health.” The American Legion, the country’s largest veterans service organization, said it is still concerned that the long backlog in appeals for benefits will linger if VA cannot hire staff to process paperwork. “We have strong concerns, however, about how this will impact the veterans who have been waiting too long to have their claims processed,” National Commander Charles E. Schmidt said. “The sacrifices that these veterans have made must not be forgotten. VA has made progress in this area and it must continue to do so.” Confusion over VA’s status followed similar uncertainty in recent days over hiring for the 750,000 Defense Department civilians. Uniformed military are exempt from the hiring freeze, but until late Tuesday, Defense officials were still sorting out what will happen with the civilian workforce that supports the military. Word came then that DOD civilians are covered by the halt to hiring. But since Trump’s order gives agency heads wide latitude to waive the rules for national security and public safety missions, it’s possible that some — or many — open jobs will be filled while the freeze is in effect.


Trump administration backs off plan to scrub climate pages from EPA website

in writing before anyone removed content. “Management was pushing back as far up the chain as we could get to say this was not an acceptable move and to delay it,” the employee said. In addition, some staff members spent part of the week before Trump’s inauguration downloading “everything” from the EPA’s climate change pages so that it would be preserved no matter what happened, the employee said. The employee said some people had been asked to preserve data on physical media, such as flash drives, so that a copy existed — even though much of the scientific and emissions data on the agency’s site exists elsewhere in the government. The site also links to scientific data on climate change, including emissions data that the agency gathers and temperature data from other federal agencies. The pages also are catalogued in places such as the Internet Archive. Screen shot of EPA climate change website. (Epa.gov) “It would be a travesty,” the EPA employee said about the prospect of climate data being removed from the EPA’s website, noting that some of the information posted includes congressionally mandated data. “You’re saying the American public will have that removed from their ability to look at? That [would be] pretty unprecedented.” The EPA’s Climate Change website dates to the Clinton administration, when it was called the EPA’s Global Warming site. The site has long served as a comprehensive portal to climate-change information, including basics about climate science and the impacts of climate change, a section on various indicators of climate change around the United States, details about the EPA’s climate change policies, and programs and guides to what individuals and local governments can do to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. But it isn’t unprecedented for the White House to exercise control over the EPA’s climate site. During George W. Bush’s first term, new political staffers initially placed a hold on updates to the website. That was followed by a stretch in which EPA staffers were told that updates required review by White House staffers. Given that the site contained hundreds of individual pages, this policy meant a number of pages became outdated. But aside from speeches from the Clinton administration about climate change and information about policies specific to the Clinton administration, which were removed, the content involving the science and impacts of climate change and emissions data remained untouched. Later in Bush’s tenure, constraints