It took forever but the Los Angeles Rams finally fired Jeff Fisher. What’s next?

player. Quarterback Jared Goff — the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2016 — and running back Todd Gurley could be offensive centerpieces, even if Gurley’s production hit a downturn this season and Fisher waited an inexplicably long time before turning to Goff as his starter mid-season. There already has been speculation about big-name coaches such as Jon Gruden, the former Super Bowl-winning coach now in the ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” broadcasting booth, and the University of Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh. It remains to be seen if either would be interested. The same goes for other college coaches such as Jim Mora of UCLA and David Shaw of Stanford. The league-wide trend a year ago was for teams to hire offensive coordinators as head coaches. That list is headed this time around by the New England Patriots’ Josh McDaniels, a former NFL head coach in Denver, and the Atlanta Falcons’ Kyle Shanahan. Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Teryl Austin also is extremely well regarded. Fisher’s firing came the day after the Rams fell behind the Atlanta Falcons, 42-0, en route to a 42-14 defeat that was Fisher’s 165th career loss as an NFL head coach, tying Dan Reeves for the most in league history. The embarrassment of Sunday’s loss was magnified when Gurley said the Rams appeared to be running a “middle school offense.” Fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum made their displeasure clear, something that may have influenced the timing of the team’s decision. The NFL stressed before it approved the Rams’ move from St. Louis to Los Angeles prior to this season that its L.A. return, following a two-decade absence, must be conducted in the right way. Kroenke wowed fellow owners with his proposal for a palatial new stadium in Inglewood. But in terms of the product that the Rams have put on the field this season at the Coliseum, the sport’s return to Los Angeles has been far from first-class. The Rams have a record of 4-9. That’s after they went 7-8-1, 7-9, 6-10 and 7-9 in four seasons in St. Louis with Fisher as their coach. Fisher once took exception to Arizona Cardinals Coach Bruce Arians referring to the Rams as “a team that is always 8-8.” In truth, Arians was being overly generous. The task for the next coach will be to do what Fisher could not do and turn the Rams’ considerable promise into victories.


House Intel chief demands answers from top spy on conflicting Russian hacking reports

“lacked strong evidence connecting Russian government cyber-attacks and WikiLeaks disclosures.” “The claims in these articles also appear to conflict with recent IC statements to the public and to this Committee characterizing alleged Russian activities,” Nunes wrote. He asked Clapper to brief the committee by Friday about the CIA and FBI’s latest intelligence of what role Russia played in hacks related to the election, including a coordinated, written assessment of the intelligence community’s current position, and update them on the president’s plans to review allegations of Russian hacking. The committee “has an urgent need to accurately understand the current IC assessment of alleged Russian cyberactivities relating to the election, and any disagreements among IC components,” Nunes wrote. He also asked that by Jan. 13, Clapper’s office do a standards review to verify the integrity of the intelligence community’s assessments related to Russian hacking, and determine whether classified information was revealed in media reports about the allegations. “I am deeply concerned that these press reports may contain unauthorized disclosure of both classified IC information and the contents of closed intelligence committee proceedings,” he wrote. Nunes’ letter comes as many lawmakers are calling for a more dedicated examination of Russia and the role it is accused of playing in cyberthreats related to the election, as well as U.S. interests across the world. Trump has consistently downplayed the idea of a Russia connection, arguing that it could have been China or “some guy in his home in New Jersey” behind the hacks of the DNC and Clinton campaign director John Podesta’s emails. In a tweet, he suggested that people were trying to “play the Russia/CIA card.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rushed to defend the intelligence community during a news conference Monday, saying he had “the highest confidence in the intelligence community and especially the Central Intelligence Agency.” The Post’s report on the CIA’s assessment that Russia hacked the election to help Trump’s chances detailed how McConnell cast doubt on those finding when he was briefed about them. McConnell added Monday that he had “every confidence” that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) would “review the matter in a responsible way.” In a statement released before his letter on Monday, Nunes said that he does “not see any benefit in opening further investigations” into the matter of Russia’s alleged election-related hacking, “which would duplicate current committee oversight efforts and Intelligence Community inquiries.”


Right after an asteroid killed the dinosaurs, life returned to the scene of the crime

drilling program — an effort to drill more than 2,000 feet into Chicxulub crater, which was left behind when the asteroid hit. Last month, the team published a paper in the journal Science describing jumbles of “shocked” granite rocks from deep in the crust that had been pushed upward by the impact. The finding helped validate their models about how rocks that were displaced during the asteroid strike collapsed into a mountainous “peak ring” around the center of the crater — a phenomenon seen on other bodies in the solar system but never before found on Earth. It also let them figure out how powerful the impact was: It had roughly the same energy as 100 million atomic bombs. Unlike that research, the finding about the organisms in the crater has not yet been published in a peer reviewed scientific journal (though Bralower hinted there will be more studies coming soon). The investigation into the life that survived — and even thrived — at ground zero for the mass extinction could help scientists illuminate one of the darkest times in Earth's history. Bralower explained that there are three main theories about what factors made the asteroid impact so deadly. One is darkness: Dust from the cataclysm could have spread throughout the atmosphere, blocking out the sun and killing anything that relied on its light. This explanation is problematic because it's unlikely that the effect would last very long. “You can stop photosynthesis for days and weeks, it's really hard to stop it for 1,000 years,” he said. Another is ocean acidification caused by a sudden influx of carbon dioxide released after the impact. “But the dilemma you have is it dissolves all the evidence that you’re primarily looking for,” Bralower said, noting that the calcium carbonate shells of many marine organisms are dissolved by acidic water. Then there are the toxic metals expelled by the impactor — things like nickel and iridium that make the ocean a distinctly unpleasant place to be. These will be easiest to test for in the cores taken from the site. Bralower and his team spent two months on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico, extracting long tubes of rock from the crater's “peak ring.” The samples were then sent to a lab in Germany, where they were examined for clues about the environment in the wake of the cataclysm. The cores divided into


A disturbance in the Matrix

a fun topic. I asked Gates: Does the fact that matter and energy are quantized add plausibility to the hypothesis that the universe is made of bits, like a computer program? The professor said no, but then he added this interesting thought: If the universe is a computer program — if we are living in a simulation of reality rather than reality itself — then ghosts are real. He explained that the hypothetical program could be reprogrammed. Which I think means you could have do-overs. People who were gone (dead) could come back — reloaded into the system. That’s where we left the conversation because the crowd was herded downstairs to an inner courtyard for the evening’s main event (at which Gates, in introducing the team behind the LIGO experiment, explained laser interferometry). This week, it occurs to me that the Matrix hypothesis potentially explains recent political events. Someone, for example, could have executed a program called Complete Corporate Takeover of U.S. Government. Let me see whether there is a way to write this that is not overtly political. [Muzak in background.] Okay, not really, but I’ll make it quick and relatively painless. The newly loaded Matrix program calls for the election of a businessman without any public-service experience. He is famous for self-promotion, runs a divisive election and wins considerable support from “working class” voters who view his opponent as too much of an elitist and too cozy with Wall Street. For the most important Cabinet position, secretary of state, the president-elect nominates an oil company executive who also has no experience in public service and is friendly with Russia. For treasury secretary, he nominates a Wall Street person who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs before starting a hedge fund. For the directorship of the National Economic Council, he nominates a current top official at Goldman Sachs, a fellow who apparently made $20.5 million in compensation in 2015. (The Matrix program has lots of inside jokes: A recent treasury secretary was constantly misidentified as a Wall Street banker who had worked for Goldman Sachs.) For commerce secretary, he nominates a billionaire investor. And so on. Is this reality? An elaborate simulation? What happens when the Matrix is infected with malware? These questions are above my pay grade. I think I need to call Jim Gates! Further Reading: The A.I. Anxiety “Ex Machina” and the paper clips of doom


Beer of the Week: A symphony of coffee and whiskey

Almost 5 million barrels of bourbon are aging in distillery warehouses in Kentucky, which is good news for beer drinkers craving the distinct flavors that come from aging ales — particularly stouts — in wood that previously held whiskey. This is a developing story. It will be updated.


The Arctic just had its hottest year on record ‘by far,’ scientists say

cover and thawing permafrost, and massive sea level rise from the shrinking Greenland ice sheet and other Arctic glaciers.” One of the most watched — and most controversial — aspects of this rapid Arctic change involves the jet stream. There’s a prominent theory, advanced by Rutgers University’s Jennifer Francis, that the decreasing temperature difference between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes as the Arctic warms is slowing this stratospheric air flow and causing it to take a more elongated and loopy path, which can in turn lead to more weather extremes as weather systems become stuck in place for longer. NOAA isn’t officially endorsing this theory yet, but it is studying it closely, Mathis said. “As the Arctic destabilizes, these cold air masses can start sliding down into the lower 48 that can give us extreme weather,” he said. All of this is happening due to global warming resulting from the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But in the Arctic itself, the NOAA report notes, permafrost soils currently contain twice as much buried carbon as resides in the air. And one of the most striking parts of the NOAA report is that this region “appears to be releasing net carbon to the atmosphere,” even after an increase in plant growth in the Arctic that partially offsets soil losses. The news about the record warm Arctic comes as president-elect Trump has named Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, as his secretary of state. As head of the world’s largest private oil company, Tillerson and Exxon “had begun a drilling program in the Arctic’s Kara Sea, where Exxon made a find, and had agreed to explore shale oil areas of West Siberia and deep waters of the Black Sea,” note Steven Mufson and two Washington Post colleagues today. But this was halted by sanctions on Russia. The irony is that if Arctic drilling goes forward, the resulting fossil fuels will surely make global warming even worse — but global warming, by reducing the amount sea ice, will also have also made drilling easier to pull off. Read more at Energy Environment: Trump names Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general suing EPA on climate change, to head the EPA Atmospheric levels of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, are spiking, scientists report Rex Tillerson’s view of climate change: It’s just an “engineering problem” For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter


A sub-two-hour marathon, once seen as ‘impossible,’ could happen much sooner than experts thought

Dennis Kimetto of Kenya at the 2014 Berlin Marathon. To fully appreciate that time, Kimetto averaged 4:41.6 minutes per mile and required a speed of just under 13 mph. Toward the end of his book, Caesar details the complexities of a moonshot marathon. It would require athletes who choose to forgo competing in lucrative races, a company with plenty of financial muscle, a window of a few days of potentially ideal running weather (windless and chilly) and a string of pacers to help the runners along the course. These are ideas Nike could make a reality, Caesar realized as he toured the Nike headquarters last month in Beaverton, Ore., while on his assignment for Wired. “I was very impressed by the seriousness in their approach to this,” Caesar said. “Whether or not they succeed is one thing, but they’re taking it seriously as something academic and practical to achieve.” In 1991, Michael Joyner, an expert in human performance at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., published a paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology stating it might be physiologically possible for a 1:57:58 marathon runner. Joyner, 58, wrote in Sports Illustrated earlier this year that if lucky, the sub two-hour marathon would happen in his lifetime. Some have been even more optimistic. David Martin, a statistician and marathon historian, told Runner’s World in 2012 that sub-two would occur in 2015. Doug Casa, an American sports scientist, told Caesar he believes it would happen within a decade. But to others, dropping nearly three minutes off the world record in the marathon in such a short amount of time is difficult to fathom. Olympian Meb Keflizighi, one of America’s top marathon runners, won the silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics and ran a personal best time of 2:08:37 at the 2014 Boston Marathon. The 41-year-old estimated he was in shape to run in the 2:05 range during his prime and questioned if runners today are ready to break the two-hour barrier. Of the three Nike runners, Kipchoge has the fastest marathon time of 2:03:05, set this year at the London Marathon. “There should be nobody at the elite level that should [run a] three-minute [personal record],” Keflizighi said Monday by phone. “At Boston, I ran like 2:09 10 times. Why? Because it’s so hard to take off seconds — not minutes, but seconds.” Nike understands the doubt and points to 1954


The most radical shift in Trump’s foreign policy from the status quo will be …

who studies economic sanctions in his day job, there’s another passage in Rogin’s story that’s worth stressing: At various times, Tillerson has criticized the U.S. sanctions against Russia. At ExxonMobil’s 2014 annual meeting, he said, “We do not support sanctions, generally, because we don’t find them to be effective unless they are very well implemented comprehensively, and that’s a very hard thing to do.” It’s the word “generally” that caught my eye. One can debate whether the sanctions against Russia in particular have worked well — see the Atlantic Council’s latest report, for example. But Tillerson’s rhetoric on economic sanctions sounds about 15 years out of date. He’s right about comprehensive trade sanctions, but he’s wrong about the way sanctions are implemented today. As I’ve written at length elsewhere, sanctions are not a panacea by any means, but they’ve become a pretty potent tool that has strong bipartisan support. There are very good reasons to think about the proper role of sanctions in American foreign policy — but dismissing them as Tillerson does in that quote is disturbing. Tillerson’s skepticism about sanctions mirrors that of his soon-to-be boss, Donald Trump. Here’s what he said to the New York Times back in March on the sanctions against Iran. Even as he attacks the Iran deal, his attitude about trade sanctions comes through quite clearly: TRUMP: SANGER: TRUMP: SANGER: TRUMP: This might explain Trump’s silence on Boeing’s recently announced $16.6 billion deal to sell planes to Iran — as well as how Boeing’s has framed the deal. There are two massive ironies built into Trump’s approach to economic coercion. The first is that the sanctions he’s complained about — the ones on Russia and Iran — have hurt the European Union way more than the United States. If Trump unilaterally lifts sanctions against Russia — which he can do come Jan. 20 — without consulting with European allies, it would be a significant foreign policy own-goal. The second irony is even as Trump and Tillerson express skepticism about the utility of economic sanctions, Trump seems super-keen to use this tool to advance his trade policy. If a Trump administration raises tariffs by 35 to 45 percent as a way to extract trade concessions from China, for example, that’s an attempt to use trade sanctions to advance foreign economic policy goals. It won’t work, because it can’t work. No matter how many times


Rex Tillerson’s view of climate change: It’s just an ‘engineering problem’

particles using fighter jets or cannons, and mimic a volcano’s effects of reflecting away the sun’s radiation, cooling the planet. (Of course, there would be other, er, consequences if we did that.) “One senses a geo-strategic attitude from Tillerson on energy and climate, in which oil and gas flows for example play a larger role in the broader foreign policy agenda,” said Paul Bledsoe, an energy and climate consultant and a former Clinton White House climate adviser. “On climate change, this might lead the Trump Administration toward different technologies,” he said, including not only nuclear energy but negative emissions approaches or so-called “geoengineering.” “This could be seen a distinctly Republican brand of climate effort, representing a kind of brave new world in climate policy, but one certain to be highly controversial,” said Bledsoe. Controversial indeed. So what can we make of Tillerson’s non-denialist optimism? First, there are still reasons to worry Tillerson may be downplaying the magnitude of the problem — may be too rosy-eyed, basically. According to a transcript of ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder meeting in 2015, for instance, Tillerson was asked a question about what it would mean for ExxonMobil if we couldn’t get climate change under control and ended up in a world where atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were at 600 parts per million (they are just over 400 now). Tillerson responded that we “don’t really know what the climate effects of 600 ppm versus 450 ppm will be, because the models simply are not that good.” But actually, we do know one thing for sure — warming at 600 ppm will be worse than it will be at 450. Going that far is a huge risk. In fairness, Tillerson did then go on to say, “I don’t want to suggest that we know at 650, you get x-centimeters rise in sea level versus 450 because the models just aren’t that good. But it is a risk management problem which we have always described it. And in risk management, you have to consider the range of possible consequences and be prepared for those.” So Tillerson acknowledges a worst case. Assuming such a very bad scenario arises, his answer once again was that Our plan B has always been grounded in our beliefs around the continued evolution of technology and engineered solutions to address and react to whatever the climate system and its outcomes present to us, whether that


United Negro College Fund: HBCU students are shouldering heavy debt burdens

for high fees, minimal protections and saddling parents with debt they cannot afford. The Education Department’s decision to tighten lending standards for those loans in 2011 put the Obama administration at odds with some historically black schools that said the policy led students to drop out. The administration relaxed the lending criteria, but the episode exposed the difficulties some African American families face accessing credit to finance higher education. More than two-thirds of HBCU students who received bachelor’s degrees in 2012 used a combination of federal and private loans to cover the costs, compared with 43 percent of students at other public and private nonprofit schools. The vast majority of the nation’s 100 historically black schools have a fraction of the endowment wealth held by their historically white counterparts, leaving them with fewer dollars to fund scholarships and grants for cash-strapped students. Research by Marybeth Gasman, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, found that many HBCUs simply receive less funding from foundations and corporations than other schools and contend with lower rates of alumni giving as a result of African Americans’ historic lack of access to wealth. “Our institutions grant substantial amounts of aid, but HBCUs are a very underresourced sector of higher education,” said Cheryl L. Smith, UNCF’s senior vice president of public policy and government affairs. High wages and family resources serve as buffers against the risk of borrowing, but in their absence, people with student loans can struggle to repay the debt, even small amounts. Barely 60 percent of HBCU borrowers in 2013 were making progress in paying off their student loans seven years after leaving school, compared with 85 percent of borrowers at other institutions. UNCF researchers suspect socioeconomic inequality is contributing to the disparities in repayment rates. Nearly three-quarters of HBCU students receive Pell grants, a form of federal financial aid for families typically earning less than $60,000 a year. When those students fall on hard times, leaning on their families for financial support may be out of the question, Smith said. “Many of our schools are also in the South, so a number of our graduates are in the South, where earnings are lower,” she said. “Our students are facing issues in the labor market, with underemployment and unemployment. They are facing greater challenges, so we need to take a step back and look at their loan burdens.” Regardless of the


Watch a mountain lion drag a deer off a family’s porch

noises shortly before 4.a.m. It was raining, and they heard a loud crack. Mines said they thought a tree branch might have fallen. Their three dogs were barking, so Mines went to the front door to look through the peephole at the porch outside. She saw something move and figured it might be one of the coyotes that are common in the area. She opened the door a crack and realized it most definitely was not. “Mary turned on the light, and lo and behold, there was a big cat,” Rauenbuehler said. The couple surmised that the deer had been munching on their potted roses — “the deer are so brazen here,” Mines said — while the mountain lion stalked it. The crack, they think, was the sound of the cougar snapping the deer’s neck. They also found hair on their wrought-iron fence, which they believe was left when the cat dragged the deer over it. The mountain lion later lugged the deer from the front porch, up the four steps to the street and carried it to a neighbor’s home, where it left the prey after having only “eaten a couple bites,” Mines said. All this drama left the couple relatively unfazed. They’d recently returned from a vacation in Borneo, where they viewed exotic wildlife whose existence is crucial to that nation’s tourism industry. “We’re in their home,” Mines said of cougars. “It’s pretty intimidating animal. It’s a pretty awesome animal. But it was also pretty cool.” “It was more exciting than scary,” Rauenbuehler added. They said they’d told their son to be careful outside, Mines said, “to be big and loud and don’t run” if a mountain lion crosses his path. That’s sound advice, according to the Bay Area Puma Project, which tracks sightings of mountain lions — which are also known as cougars or pumas — in the San Francisco region. The big cats are the area’s “top predator in the natural spaces around the Bay Area,” the project says. And for a brief few minutes, a mountain lion was certainly the top predator on the Mines-Rauenbuehler porch. Read more: Squirrels have declared war on Christmas How do dogs’ genes affect their behavior? Your pet could help scientists find out. Jaguar spotting: A new wild cat may be roaming the United States A rancher licensed to kill a ‘beloved’ L.A. cougar now says she wants to save


Using the dormant commerce clause to challenge state computer crime statutes

necessarily recorded anyway? As the underlying technological facts over which the laws apply have changed, the local benefits of the laws have diminished. On the flip side, the burdens on interstate commerce of such laws are often great. The laws effectively require every Internet business to comply with the most restrictive state law. Think of a state law that prohibits violating Terms of Service, which the more recent federal cases have said does not violate the CFAA. If you’re using the Internet, or you have a business that visits different websites, you need to watch out for those state laws. You might be clear under the CFAA but violate the state CFAA analogue somewhere else, which could lead to criminal liability, civil liability or both. And because the reach of the state laws may be governed by server locations, which you won’t necessarily be able to know ahead of time, you would have to follow the law of the most restrictive state even if you have no intention of doing business there or being regulated by the laws of that state. Exactly how far such challenges should go is a hard question. I’m very skeptical that the federal laws should occupy the field with no room for the states. There’s clearly some role for states, such as by imposing greater standards of cause on state investigators if voters want it. So I tend to disagree with the Second Circuit’s prediction in 2003 that “the internet will soon be seen as falling within the class of subjects that are protected from State regulation because they imperatively demand a single uniform rule.” At the same time, I think there are significant instances in which state computer crime laws fail the Pike balancing test in application. I should also flag that there’s already a somewhat significant body of caselaw on dormant commerce clause challenges to state Internet crime laws. See pages 697 to 710 of my “Computer Crime Law” case book for the details. I haven’t seen any challenges to state computer crime laws on the grounds I propose, however. Maybe someday I’ll write a short law review article fleshing out these ideas. But for now, I thought I would flag the argument here with the hopes that enterprising lawyers might read it and may start to make the arguments in court. And feedback is very welcome in the comment threads or elsewhere.


Ivanka Trump could be the most powerful first lady ever

and Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio, two of the country’s most visible environmental activists. She was already a powerful voice in the campaign, and before that she was the most visible representative of the Trump brand, next to her father. She’s already participated in calls and meetings between Trump and heads of state, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Argentine President Mauricio Macri — signaling that her father trusts her diplomatic instincts, but also raising questions about conflicts of interest between her role as a member of the first family and her post in the Trump Organization, which has business dealings in both of those countries. One way to view Ivanka’s unapologetic assertion of herself as a policy adviser is that she’s already cleared the bar that Lady Bird warned her daughters about: “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t mind seeing on the front page of the newspaper.” Ivanka has lived her whole life understanding this maxim and is prepared for the White House in a way that presidential daughters who came before her, including Luci and Lynda Bird Johnson, Tricia and Julie Nixon, and Jenna and Barbara Bush, weren’t. She always appears unflappably cool, calm and collected. And while it is nothing new for presidential children to give campaign speeches (Lyndon Johnson routinely graded his daughters’ speeches) it is rare to have a presidential daughter so eclipse the president’s wife. Melania made only two big speeches during the campaign — including her embarrassing remarks at the Republican National Convention when it appeared that she had cribbed from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech. By contrast, Ivanka was a constant presence, traveling the country to places that wouldn’t automatically be seen as likely campaign stops for a glamorous New Yorker, avoiding major gaffes and being widely viewed by political observers as an asset to her father’s political operation. [Sexism did not cost Clinton the election] Other presidential daughters who’ve waded into politics have had to make tremendous personal sacrifices. As Vietnam War protests raged in the spring of 1970, the head of Julie Nixon’s Secret Service detail warned her against attending her own graduation from Smith College. She had been one of her father’s fiercest public defenders and in a heart-wrenching plea she wrote to her father’s adviser, John Ehrlichman: “I truly think the day will be a disaster if he comes.” To wield the power she potentially could, Ivanka


‘Marijuana’ or ‘marihuana’? It’s all weed to the DEA

prohibit use of the drug soon discovered that associating it with Mexican immigrants was an effective propaganda tool. The word marijuana — with both “H” and “J” variants — was “popularized in the United States during the 1930s by advocates of prohibition who sought to exploit prejudice against despised minority groups, especially Mexican immigrants,” explained journalist and medical marijuana advocate Martin Lee in his book Smoke Signals. NYU's Kleiman said that “if the drug could be made to sound Mexican it would seem more dangerous.” The “h” variant is what eventually made its way into the Marihuana Tax Act of the 1930s, the federal government's first crack at regulating the drug. That spelling was again used in the Controlled Substances Act, passed in 1970. Starting in the 1960s “marijuana” began to be adopted as the preferred spelling in popular usage. “Marihuana” declined precipitously in the 1970s shortly after the passage of the Controlled Substances Act. You can see the evolution of all three terms — “cannabis,” “marijuana” and “marihuana" -- in Google's corpus of English language books between the 1860s and early 2000s. In the late 19th and early 20th century, “cannabis” was the dominant term. Starting in the 1930s both “marijuana” and “marihuana” gained popularity. The use of all terms exploded in the 1960s, particularly “marijuana.” Google Ngrams The cause for the switch between the “h” and the “j” isn't clear. Kleiman attributes it to “people learning how to pronounce Spanish words,” but stresses he doesn't know for certain. The 70s were a time of increasing marijuana use nationwide, and many of those new users appear to have adopted the spelling with the “j.” Today, “marihuana” is rarely used and “cannabis” is making a comeback. Many in the drug reform community advocate doing away with “marijuana” altogether due to the term's racial baggage. A number of researchers prefer using “cannabis” as well, as a simple matter of precision. As for the DEA, spokesman Russell Baer told me they use “marijuana” and “marihuana” interchangeably. He said “there's no clear dividing line” between the two. The spelling used in any given document usually comes down to the preference of whoever's writing it, he said. Indeed, a perusal of the DEA's federal register notices turns up numerous results for both “marijuana” and “marihuana.” Asked how the DEA would respond to advocates arguing for dumping the word “marijuana” completely, Baer declined to comment.


Democrats’ policies are more popular. But Republicans are more ideologically unified.

political outlook, knowing how the main parties’ ideological positions relate, and being attached to one’s party’s ideological and policy concerns. Thanks to that greater consistency and commitment, Republicans can resist pressure to move society in a more liberal direction. The result: though the Republican Party is the smaller party, it can punch above its weight. For as long as political science has had data on this, Republicans have been: - Twice as likely as Democrats to support their party’s ideological policies. - 50 percent more likely to know that the Republican Party is more conservative than the Democratic Party. - More than twice as likely to have ideological reasons for supporting their party. - More than four times less likely to list social reasons for identifying with their party. Indicators of ideologically sophistication by party and over time<br />Data: American National Election Study; Figure: Yphtach Lelkes and Paul Sniderman These differences aren’t because of demographic differences like income, education, race or ethnicity. It’s not because of differences in political knowledge. Even those self-identified Republicans who, according to American National Election Studies interviewers, weren’t well-informed about politics knew more about the ideological structure of U.S. politics than self-identified Democrats who were very well-informed. This ideological sophistication keeps Republicans from being attracted to popular social welfare policies. Below, using data from the 2012 American National Election Study, we show mean support for a number of social welfare policies among Democrats (columns 1 and 2) and Republicans (columns 3 and 4) who are more and less ideologically sophisticated. As you can see, Democrats don’t need to be ideologically aware — i.e., to know what’s “liberal” and what’s “conservative” — to want to increase government support for social security, public schools, child care and the like. But adopting conservative ideology deeply affects Republicans. Far more than Democrats, Republicans who are and who are not well-versed in ideology have very different opinions on social welfare programs. In fact, in many instances, Republicans who aren’t very ideological hold positions — for example, on Social Security and public schools — that are more like those of Democrats than like those of highly ideological Republicans. Meanwhile, those Republicans who are steeped in conservative ideology resist increased spending for the most popular social policies, like Social Security and public schools. In fact, they decisively support cutting government spending on other policies that are nearly as popular, like unemployment, health


Wake Forest football coach says his players were ‘cheated’ by leaks

had found materials on our sideline the Friday when setting up the locker room,” Clawson said. “You’re not allowed to get there until a certain time, the assumption being they’re going through their walk-through. And our equipment people found cards laying right on our sideline and didn’t think much of it. “And the day of the game we got there about an hour before, and the equipment manager presented our offensive coordinator with the cards and said, ‘I don’t think this is any big deal,’ just a lot of stuff that we do normally. And our coordinator flipped through it, and there was very, very detailed information there. Formations that we had never run, alignments, even some of it was even some empty sets we had never run before, but some of it was even sets we had run but we had flipped personnel.” Elrod’s motivations have not yet been revealed, though on the surface it would appear to be a case of revenge for not being retained. Also unclear is the exact number of teams to which Elrod leaked the information. Louisville and Virginia Tech both have admitted to receiving information, and Army officials said Elrod contacted the Black Knights but did not send any information, according to the Journal. With the lone exception of Indiana, whose officials did not respond to requests for comment from the News & Observer’s Joe Giglio, every other school on the Demon Deacons’ schedule over the past three seasons has said they have not been contacted by Wake Forest as part of its investigation. The Hoosiers have played the Demon Deacons in each of the past two seasons, and in 2015 they had an assistant named Brian Knorr on their coaching staff. Knorr, who moved on to Ohio State ahead of the 2016 season, coached with Elrod at Wake Forest. In an attempt to suss out whether Elrod was providing the information to Wake Forest’s opponents for the purpose of betting against the Demon Deacons, Giglio notes that Wake Forest won three of the five games, against Army, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Indiana, that are in question. It also covered the point spread in three of the games, including the loss to Louisville this year that brought Elrod’s alleged misdeeds to light. So Wake went 3-2 (.600) in the games Elrod tried to sabotage and 9-22 (.290) in the games he didn't #Wakeyleaks


our sideline the Friday when setting up the locker room. You’re not allowed to get there until a certain time, the assumption being they’re going through their walk-through. And our equipment people found cards laying right on our sideline and didn’t think much of it. “And the day of the game we got there about an hour before, and the equipment manager presented our offensive coordinator with the cards and said, ‘I don’t think this is any big deal,’ just a lot of stuff that we do normally. And our coordinator flipped through it and there was very, very detailed information there. Formations that we had never run, alignments, even some of it was even some empty sets we had never run before, but some of it was even sets we had run but we had flipped personnel.” Elrod’s motivations have not yet been revealed, though on the surface it would appear to be a case of revenge for not being retained on the Deacons’ coaching staff. Also unclear is the exact number of teams to which Elrod leaked the information. Louisville and Virginia Tech both have admitted to receiving information, and Army officials said Elrod contacted the Black Knights but did not send any information, according to the Journal. Every other school on the Demon Deacons’ schedule over the past three seasons has said they have not been contacted by Wake Forest as part of its investigation with the lone exception of Indiana, whose officials did not respond to requests for comment from the News & Observer’s Joe Giglio. The Hoosiers have played the Demon Deacons in each of the past two seasons, and in 2015 they had an assistant named Brian Knorr on their coaching staff. Knorr, who moved on to Ohio State ahead of the 2016 season, and Elrod coached together at Wake Forest. In an attempt to suss out whether Elrod was providing the information to Wake Forest’s opponents for the purpose of betting against the Demon Deacons, Giglio notes that Wake Forest won three of the five games against Army, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Indiana that are in question. It also covered the point spread in three of the games, including the loss to Louisville this year that brought Elrod’s alleged misdeeds to light. So Wake went 3-2 (.600) in the games Elrod tried to sabotage and 9-22 (.290) in the games he didn't #Wakeyleaks


Md. teen shoots a buck that stormed into his living room and trashed a Christmas tree

Ryan Manchester, a teenager from Frederick, Md., tried calling 911 when a deer entered his home through the front door on Dec. 5. He later shot the deer dead. A 17-year-old in Frederick, Md., shot and killed a deer after it stormed his house and attacked his Christmas tree. Ryan Manchester, a senior at Walkersville High School, was home eating cereal at about 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 when he heard a loud banging on his front door. Ryan Manchester with the deer in his living room. (Courtesy Ryan Manchester) “It sounds like someone breaking my door down with a sledgehammer,” he said. Manchester peeked into his living room, where his family had just trimmed its new Christmas tree over the weekend, and found the source of the sound: An eight-point buck had broken in and was determinedly trashing his Tannenbaum. Fearing the buck might injure his dog, Manchester locked her up and went upstairs to call 911. As animal control responded to the scene, Manchester called his father, John, at work to ask him where the keys to the family gun safe were. “I had to convince him a little bit, but he gave them to me,” Manchester said. John Manchester said he works about an hour from home, in Baltimore, and would have dispatched the deer had he been home. “Absolutely, had I been there I would have done it myself,” he said. “Though Ryan might be a better shot than me.” Now armed with a 9 mm Smith & Wesson, Ryan Manchester called animal control, and learned they were 15 minutes away. The front door damage caused by the deer. (Courtesy Ryan Manchester) “That was a little long for me,” he said. So, Manchester, who said he is not a hunter but has target shooting experience, decided to bag his first deer in the comfort of his living room. “I went downstairs,” he said. “I had to follow it around a little bit and wait for it to calm down. And I shot it.” The deer slain, Manchester — a resident of the Dearbought neighborhood of Frederick — took photos with police, sent the head to a taxidermist for mounting, and sent the rest of the animal to the butcher. Though it’s not clear why, Manchester speculated that the buck stormed the house through its solid oak front door because a doe had marked the Christmas tree,


‘They want to prove they’re “real men”’: Princeton suspends swimmers for ‘misogynistic’ messages

express guilt about verbally stripping others down with their peers. “They feel pressure to go along with it,” he said. “They want to prove they’re ‘real men.’ ” They also know recording this activity opens the door to getting caught. Sometimes, he said, the thrill of impressing the guys outweighs the potential consequences. The investigation into the swimmers’ conduct comes after Harvard University canceled its men’s soccer season in October upon discovering players had written and circulated a “scouting report” about female athletes, rating their appearance and perceived sexual prowess. “She seems relatively simple and probably inexperienced sexually, so I decided missionary would be her preferred position,” the author wrote about one woman in the document, an apparent annual tradition. Days after the soccer team was punished, Harvard’s men's cross country runners stepped forward with their own appraisals of female athletes, this time in spreadsheet form. (The team captain told the Harvard Crimson it was better to come clean before the school found the conversations.) In November, the men’s wrestling team at Columbia University sparked an investigation after the student newspaper published images of their group text messages, which included racial slurs and such lines as: “Columbia b------ feel entitled to something when in reality they’re all ugly socially awkward c----.” Popular culture exacerbates this behavior, implicitly granting young men permission to partake in conversations they’d be ashamed to share with their mothers, said Jackson Katz, an anti-sexism educator and author of “ “They might think, perhaps subconsciously, ‘The most powerful man in the world can do this,’ ” Katz said, ‘so I can, too.’ ” He encourages his students, regardless of gender, to think about how their words could affect others. An open letter published by six Harvard women's soccer players opens a window into the potential pain. “We feel hopeless because men who are supposed to be our brothers degrade us like this,” they wrote. “We are appalled that female athletes who are told to feel empowered and proud of their abilities are so regularly reduced to a physical appearance. We are distraught that mothers having daughters almost a half century after getting equal rights have to worry about men's entitlement to bodies that aren't theirs.” More on Wonkblog: Today's men are not nearly as strong as their dads were, researchers say What happens when you act too manly at work Your manliness could be hurting the plant


Aging baby boomers increasingly embrace marijuana, heavy alcohol use

are married (4.0 percent) are much more likely to indulge in the occasional toke than those who are divorced or separated (1.6 percent). But those who are single (8.1 percent) or widowed (8.5 percent) outsmoke all the others. One area of potential concern is the correlation between marijuana use and mental health issues among older adults. Among those 50 and older, people who have had depression (11.4 percent) or anxiety in the past year (9.0 percent) are much more likely to smoke marijuana than average. A number of studies have shown a link between marijuana use and mental disorders. Given the widespread prevalence of medical marijuana laws (over half of the states, plus D.C., as of this year), some seniors may be turning to marijuana to treat the ailments of old age. Earlier this year, one study found that Medicare reimbursements for a number of common prescription medications dropped sharply after the introduction of medical marijuana laws. The survey used as the basis of this new study doesn't differentiate between medical and nonmedical use of marijuana, so it is unclear why more older adults are turning to weed. Medical or not, it's clear that the rise in marijuana use among older adults is driven by the aging of the baby-boom generation, who dabbled extensively with pot in their youth and may be returning to it in old age for a variety of reasons, according to researchers. “The trends noted in our study are likely capturing a major transition in the aging of the Baby Boomer generation,” the authors write, “and highlights how this cohort of older adults are different in substance use behaviors compared to the generation before it.” And since there are still plenty of boomers under 65, the trend toward increased drug use in old age is likely to continue in the next decade, they add. The second paper, recently published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, looks at the prevalence of binge drinking and alcoholism among the same cohort of older adults. For starters, older adults are still way more likely to drink than they are to smoke pot — 63 percent had drunk alcohol in the past year in the period from 2013 to 2014. But from a public health standpoint, researchers are more concerned about the prevalence of binge drinking — having five or more drinks on the same occasion. In the period from


Congressional push for sanctions against Russia could set up clash with Trump

which voted this week to extend Ukraine sanctions against Russia for six months. Trump’s new pick for secretary of state, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, publicly opposed those sanctions, which Exxon estimates cost them over $1 billion in lost business. “We do not support sanctions, generally, because we don’t find them to be effective unless they are very well implemented comprehensibly and that’s a very hard thing to do,” Tillerson told an annual meeting of Exxon executives in 2014. It is unclear if Tillerson will continue to oppose sanctions if he is confirmed as secretary of state. The Trump transition team did not respond to an emailed question on the subject. Sanctions have emerged as a popular, relatively bloodless tool for the GOP-led Congress to address intractable international conflicts and threatening foreign regimes. In the last year alone, lawmakers passed congressional sanctions against North Korea and extended a comprehensive range of measures against Iran to preserve the option to reimpose sanctions if Tehran violates last year’s nuclear deal. President Obama allowed the 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act to become law last week without his signature, under apparent pressure from Iranian leaders and others who argued renewing the energy, trade, defense and banking sector restrictions would jeopardize the nuclear pact. The administration believed the president already had authority to sanction Iran in the event of any nuclear deal violations. All of this occurred even before the CIA’s assessment that Russia meddled in the U.S. elections in order to boost Trump — a conclusion Trump has called “ridiculous.” Senior lawmakers and foreign policy leaders have vowed to aggressively investigate those claims and others regarding Russia in a series of probes in the new Congress. McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) have indicated a preference to conduct any election-related probes in their intelligence committees, where leaders are able to wield influence over what information is ultimately released to the public. President Obama suggested Friday that he was unlikely to answer calls from several top congressional Democrats to declassify all information pertaining to alleged Russian hacks before he leaves office. “We will provide evidence that we can safely provide that does not compromise sources and methods. But I’ll be honest with you, when you’re talking about cyber security a lot of it is classified,” Obama said. Efforts to investigate Russia’s alleged election interference and impose expanded sanctions against the Kremlin may


At 7, Bana al-Abed told the world about the siege of Aleppo on Twitter. Now, she is safe.

who garnered thousands of followers on social media with her updates from the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo, is evacuated by aid workers. "Bana — a petite child with long dark hair, big brown eyes and a lilting voice — quickly became the newest symbol for the horrors unfolding in Syria," The Washington Post's Caitlin Gibson wrote in a profile. But online, her emotional messages also caused a backlash. Her mother and Bana were attacked by critics who attempted to discredit the account's authenticity. To them, the account appeared too active for a resident of a city that experienced frequent power cuts. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also joined the chorus of people trying to mock her messages, portraying the account as “propaganda.” As The Post's Adam Taylor has explained, the wave of criticism led to a fact-checking initiative by Bellingcat, a website which uses open-source information and social media to aid investigations. In their final report, former British army soldier Nick Waters and image analyst Timmi Allen rebuke most of the conspiracy theories that surrounded the Twitter account, for instance, by locating her neighborhood. Bana's flight from Aleppo will now put an end to doubts over the authenticity of her account, her supporters hope. On Monday, a video interview with her appeared on YouTube. An Interview with the famous Syrian Little girl from Aleppo : Bana Alabed In the last tweet that was published on Sunday, Bana's mother made a plea to Turkey's foreign minister and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to "make this ceasefire work." Dear @MevlutCavusoglu & @rt_erdogan please please please make this ceasefire work & get us out now. We are so tired. - Fatemah #Aleppo Comparisons between Anne Frank, a Dutch teenager who chronicled the Nazi horrors and was later killed by them, and Bana became more frequent in recent days as the 7-year-old and her mother described how the Syrian regime army came closer to their neighborhood. We are sure the army is capturing us now. We will see each other another day dear world. Bye.- Fatemah #Aleppo Whereas Anne Frank's diary was published long after her death, the world was able to follow Bana's messages within seconds. "Because of the internet and social media, we see in real time what is happening inside Aleppo," Cameron Hudson, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, recently explained. It was the immediacy of Bana's


Hold off on the obituaries for Islamist parties in the Middle East

after the 2013 coup than anything committed by Islamists. Egyptian activists, liberals and secularists failed repeatedly, contributing their share to the polarization and extreme rhetoric that overtook the transition. Looking beyond Egypt further proves the limitations of sweeping conclusions about Islamist parties. In almost every Arab country, Islamist parties have adapted their political strategies to the local context rather than pursuing an unyielding ideology. Islamist parties have continued to contest elections when given the opportunity and to join coalitions when available. Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood survived unprecedented state repression and internal divisions, returning successfully to parliamentary elections this year. Kuwait’s Islamic Constitutional Movement ended years of electoral boycotts and won four out of the five seats it contested. Morocco’s Party of Justice and Democracy has won consecutive parliamentary elections and has governed reasonably effectively within the constraints of the monarchical system. Tunisia’s Ennahda most vividly demonstrates this Islamist adaptability. Contrary to the common mantra that Islamists would never voluntarily surrender power through elections, Ennahda did precisely that. Faced with a profound and escalating political crisis in 2013, the Islamist party decided to voluntarily surrender power to a technocratic government. It then gracefully accepted the victory of the anti-Islamist Nedaa Tounes party in both parliamentary and presidential elections, choosing to work closely with its rival to ensure national consensus rather than engage in scorched earth opposition. Earlier this year, it made a huge splash by separating the Ennahda party from the Islamist movement — although the realities of this split remain to be seen. Other Islamist parties have found ways to make themselves useful to the same regional powers who have led the anti-Brotherhood campaign. Yemen’s al-Islah has been a critical component of the Saudi-led coalition’s war. Despite its weakness on the ground, Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood established itself at the center of the opposition institutions supported by Turkey, the Gulf states and the West. Islamist parties across the Middle East have been key sources of financial and media support for the Syrian rebels more broadly. Bahrain’s al-Minbar made itself useful to the monarchy by rallying Sunni support for its harsh sectarian repression. Less successful has been Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood, caught up in a fierce proxy war. Islamist parties tend to adapt to their political environment. But, given the increasingly intolerant, violent and repressive regional political environment, this is not necessarily reassuring. The regional campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood has taken a toll,


The longest-running wildlife census in the world is counting birds now

climate change. Tufted titmice are expanding northward and boat-tailed grackles are moving west, just two of the 314 species whose range Audubon predicts to shift by 2080. More than a third of species that spend their winters in the United States are declining, mainly from loss of habitat, including the Northern bobwhite, American kestrel and D.C.’s official bird, the wood thrush. There are some bright spots: Peregrine falcons and bald eagles have responded to intense conservation efforts and have rebounded from their midcentury nadirs. As our team crossed MacArthur Boulevard and down through the lovely Potomac Palisades Park, a small flock of ring-billed gulls was a nice pickup, and we finally saw a pair of powerful red-tailed hawks in trees looking over the Potomac, but at this point in a bird count it becomes as much about the birds you haven’t seen as the ones you’ve got. “How have we not seen a northern mockingbird?” we asked ourselves. “Where are the vultures? We’re still missing a pigeon!” There’s a house on the corner of Nebraska Avenue and Sherier Place NW with an incredible bird-feeder set up, and we paused to enjoy another large burst of woodpeckers, house finches, Carolina chickadees, mourning doves, Northern cardinals and tufted titmice. No new species, but it was good to see so much activity. As we walked through the pleasant neighborhoods along Nebraska Avenue and Chain Bridge Road back to the entrance of Battery Kemble, we braved another meltwater shower and reconvened in the parking lot to go over our tally. We ended the day with 27 different species, fewer than in previous years but pretty good considering the difficult conditions. We had some high numbers for some species, though, including 190 American robins, 77 white-throated sparrows, 20 red-bellied woodpeckers and 30 mourning doves. Dampened by the weather but buoyed by our contribution to citizen science, we said goodbyes and headed home, to dry off. The D.C. Christmas Bird Count was one of the earlier ones this counting season, which runs from Dec. 14 through Jan. 5. Check the Audubon website to volunteer for a count near you. Read more: David Allen Sibley on the joys of watching birds The cat people vs. bird people war has made it to federal court Nest cam livestreams bald eagle parents feeding a cat to their eaglets People count birds at Battery Kemble Park. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)


Tabloid columnist wrote that a Disneyland-bound British Muslim family had al-Qaeda ties. She was dead wrong.

London time Monday. The Mahmood family – an apology https://t.co/PaLFWgn3Hx Mohammed Tariq Mahmood and his brother Mohammed Zahid Mahmood said they were pleased that Mail Online had corrected the record “after a great deal of dragging their heels,” but called on Hopkins to personally apologize to the family. In an interview with the BBC, Tariq Mahmood said he worried anti-Muslim sentiment would not go away. “Once you drill a hole in the wall, you can fill it but the mark will always be there,” he said. Hopkins and a Mail Online spokesman didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Tuesday. Tariq Mahmood told The Washington Post last December that it was their children who first proposed going to Disneyland last year. After saving for months, he said, the family spent more than $13,000 on tickets. He said they applied for a visa waiver through the Department of Homeland Security and were able to check in at the airport on the day of their flight without trouble. Minutes before they were set to board, however, a border security official told the brothers that officials in Washington had canceled their right to travel, Mahmood said. “The kids saw right away that we had our heads down,” he told The Post at the time. “They never see us like that, so they realized something was wrong. They had tears in their eyes.” U.S. officials didn’t disclose why they had barred the family, but denied that religion played a role. The decision led advocacy groups and others to call for an investigation into whether then-candidate Trump’s calls for a ban on Muslims entering the country had anything to do with it. Hopkins’s columns attacking the Mahmoods were hardly the first of her pieces to draw controversy. Once a contestant on the BBC series “The Apprentice,” Hopkins has made something of a brand out of her outlandish views, coming under fire in recent years for ridiculing overweight people, saying she wouldn’t allow her children to play with poor children, and comparing migrants to “cockroaches.” Just before she wrote her columns about the Mahmoods, president-elect Donald Trump praised her on Twitter for “powerful writing on the U.K.’s Muslim problems.” “Thank you sir,” she replied. “You have support in the UK.” Thank you to respected columnist Katie Hopkins of Daily https://t.co/LgtY0qdv9U for her powerful writing on the U.K.'s Muslim problems. Tariq and Zahid Mahmood said in


Pregnant women are increasingly using marijuana for morning sickness, study finds. That’s not good.

studies have shown links between prenatal marijuana exposure and impaired functions such as impulse control, visual memory and attention during school years. An ongoing study also found an association between prenatal marijuana exposure and restricted fetal growth during pregnancy, as well as increased frontal cortical thickness among school-age children. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that pregnant or breast-feeding women — and women considering pregnancy — should be screened for and discouraged from using marijuana and other substances. The study published Monday analyzed data from women ages 18 through 44 from the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2002 through 2014. Researchers assessed data from 200,510 women of reproductive age, including 10,587 pregnant women. Among pregnant women, the prevalence of the use of marijuana in the past month increased 62 percent from 2002 through 2014. The use was most prevalent among women ages 18 to 25, indicating that younger women are at greater risk. Recent use among women who were not pregnant also increased, from about 6 percent in 2002 to 9 percent in 2014, researchers reported. Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug during pregnancy, Volkow wrote, and a study from Hawaii suggested that pregnant women with severe nausea are more likely to use marijuana than other pregnant women. Despite medical recommendations, some online forums and articles laud the pain-relieving benefits of marijuana use during pregnancy, particularly to treat hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe type of morning sickness consisting of persistent nausea and vomiting that can lead to dehydration, weight loss and electrolyte imbalances. To date, 29 states and Washington, D.C., have passed laws legalizing medical marijuana. Nausea is a medically approved reason to take marijuana in all of the states where medical use is legal. Although no states specifically list pregnancy-related conditions as an indication for the drug, none of them prohibit or include warnings about the possible harms of marijuana, Volkow wrote. The numbers of pregnant women using marijuana — less than 4 percent, according to the study — are not high. Nevertheless, the authors of the study wrote, “the increases over time and potential adverse consequences of prenatal marijuana exposure suggest further monitoring and research are warranted.” More from Morning Mix Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6 million scheme has to pay it back, judge rules Tabloid columnist wrote that a Disneyland-bound Muslim family had al-Qaeda ties. She was dead wrong.


Guest Post: Some juvenile defendants still denied justice through lack of counsel

to its rehabilitative roots. Access to an attorney is critical to ensuring that youth are held accountable without leaving them vulnerable to inappropriate and counterproductive punishment. As the only court actors who are mandated to operate in the child’s interest, juvenile defenders bring equity, fairness and legitimacy to our court system. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason, head of the Office of Justice Programs. (Department of Justice) Yet, a half-century after the nation’s highest court guaranteed this most basic of rights, youth still encounter obstacles to quality representation. Throughout the United States, juvenile defenders are overworked and underpaid, and many lack the training and resources critical to their success. Many young people in detention facilities never had a lawyer appointed to represent them, and too often children are encouraged to waive their right to counsel even when doing so can hurt their chances of a fair hearing and a fair result. For example, due to chronic and persistent underfunding, the public defender’s office in Cordele Circuit, Georgia, did not have an attorney trained to represent children, and often no attorney was even present in juvenile court. Children routinely “waived” their right to counsel because of the time and cost of repeatedly returning to court, because of the uncertainty of knowing when a lawyer would be available, and sometimes just because they wanted to go home. Indeed, in 2012, the juvenile courts handled 681 delinquency cases, but the public defender reported handling just 52, even though many, if not most, of these children came from poor families. Last year, the Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest in N.P. et al. v. The State of Georgia, et al., asserting that children are denied their right to counsel not only when an attorney is entirely absent, but also when an attorney is available in name only. It was the first department filing in a state court action to address children’s due process right to counsel established by the Gault decision. The situation in the Cordele Judicial Circuit is no different in many other jurisdictions. In assessments of juvenile defense programs in 21 states, the National Juvenile Defender Center found that children in 13 states routinely waived their right to counsel without first consulting an attorney. Access to legal counsel is particularly important for young people whose families lack adequate financial resources. Justice-involved youth who have even minimal contact with the justice


5 mistakes Americans are making with their money

(Washington Post illustration; iStock) Americans have a long way to go when it comes to understanding and managing money. A recent report from the financial literacy center at Champlain College compiled state and national data to assess the big picture when it comes to Americans’ financial behaviors. The results were pretty dismal. Americans across the country are struggling to stick with basic and healthy financial habits, such as saving, reducing debt or paying their bills on time. John Pelletier, director of the financial literacy center at Champlain College, said that even the highest rated states likely have some room for improvement. Here are some of the key areas in which Americans may be making some costly mistakes when it comes to money: Not paying their bills on time. Carrying too much credit card debt. The best approach to keeping your credit card debt in check is to pay the card off in full each month in order to avoid interest charges. If you can’t afford to do that, keeping the balance to below 30 percent of the total available credit can still give lenders the impression that you’re a responsible borrower. Spending too much on housing. A common rule of thumb is to spend no more than a third of your take-home pay on housing to leave room for other financial goals, such as paying down debt, saving and investing. In some areas, a shortage of affordable rental units makes it difficult for households to keep housing costs down. But any effort to reduce what is typically the largest monthly expense can go a long way to helping you meet other financial goals. Living outside your means. Tapping their retirement accounts early. It doesn’t help that many workers are not saving enough as it is. Some 54 percent of workers have less than $25,000 saved for retirement, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. About a quarter of workers have less than $1,000 saved. Once those savings run out, retirees will probably be left to rely on Social Security benefits, which may not bring in enough income for many households, Pelletier said. Read more: The five money mistakes that are making you poor The tiny change that can leave you much better off in retirement


How ‘busyness’ became a bona fide status symbol

him telling her "the junior shouldn't leave before the boss." The study also found that brands associated with helping people deal with their busyness can also take on higher status. They compared what more than 450 respondents thought about a middle-aged consumer who shopped at an online grocery service like Peapod, the high-end grocery store Whole Foods, or a middle-of-the-road store like Trader Joe's. Both Whole Foods and Peapod were seen as having more status than Trader Joe's, but were on par with each other in how consumers viewed them. "Shopping online conveys that the person doesn’t have time to shop, and that operates as a signal of status," Bellezza said. Likewise, in another experiment, people wearing a Bluetooth headset, which acts as a display of professional multi-tasking, switching between talking and listening to music, were seen as higher status than those wearing traditional headphones, which are more associated with leisure time. Some brands have already tried to use that dynamic in their advertising. She points to a Cadillac ad from 2014 starring actor Neal McDonough that touted American achievement and hard work, even finishing with "as for all the stuff, that's the upside of only taking two weeks off in August." She believes we're likely to see even more ads "where you see these products that have nothing to do with [being busy], but they're implicitly telling people they’re important because their time is scarce." Bellezza also did a comparative study in the paper of how American subjects versus those in Italy perceived busyness at work. Unsurprisingly, they saw the reverse among Italian respondents, with busyness at work being less of a status symbol, similar to the way it was a century ago, when leisure time was the mark of the good life. Of course, the more people brag about how busy they are, the more common it becomes, and as that happens, particularly in workaholic cultures, status symbols, just like fashions, are likely to change, Bellezza says. "It becomes mainstream," Bellezza says. "For signals of status to operate, they need to be visible and they need to be costly. And visibility is compromised if everyone else is doing it too." Read also: Dan Ariely wants to help you manage your time To improve diversity, don't make people go to diversity training. Really. Like On Leadership? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.


These two sentences could hint at the next threat to climate science under Trump

ever recorded in the history of human civilization on this planet – the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future. Only by combining past observations and the basic physics that has been well known since the 1800s that forms the foundation of climate models today can we ensure that we safely and successfully negotiate the curve of a changing climate,” she said. Party platforms are not, to be sure, the same thing as policies. But platforms do underscore a manner of thinking in general, and thus far the Trump transition has been jampacked with climate change doubters who would seem sympathetic to this critique of climate models. If sentiments like those expressed in the language were to be somehow implemented in federal agencies, that would have implications for a government that employs climate-focused researchers at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies. Many of these scientists make use of state-of-the-art climate change simulations to calculate what could happen under ever-increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. “The next president shouldn’t compromise the independence of scientists by constraining the methods they use to learn more about our world,” said Michael Halpern, program manager of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Every major field of science uses simulation, modeling, and sophisticated statistical analysis. Scientists need the freedom to use modern scientific techniques to come up with the most accurate results. If scientists can only use data derived through observation, they won’t be able to create a vaccine for the Zika virus or understand our changing climate.” Halpern underscores that the Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonpartisan organization and doesn’t take sides in endorsing candidates or critiquing parties or their platforms — so these words, he said, are some “general principles” for the administration. Halpern also noted parallels between the platform language and proposed congressional legislation such as the Sound Science Act, which if passed would have required government agencies to accord “greatest weight to information that is based on experimental, empirical, quantifiable, and reproducible data.” Halpern and his colleagues critiqued that bill, and related legislation, in an article in Science last year, arguing that, “The decision about how to weigh different types of information should be a scientific decision, not a political mandate.” Now, they believe it (or something like it) will come up again in the next Congress. The Union of


Airports have discovered how to make people happier about waiting for their planes

quickly realized there was an underused asset in front of him, according to Jokic. “What you see now is the curve of their revenue is switching. Many of the best airports are making as much on non-air revenue as air traffic revenue.” According to the Airports Council International-North America, an airport industry association, food, beverage and retail businesses paid more than $1.3 billion in 2015 to airports to operate their outlets on airport property. That represents about 15.8 percent of airport non-aeronautical revenue. In the United States, all airports are owned publicly and operated by a city, county, or state government or airport authority, according to the association. Airports in other regions of the world are either operated by a private not-for-profit entity or wholly owned by a shareholder corporation. Jokic predicts that with rock-bottom fares throughout Europe, some day travelers may jet to another city just to shop or eat at the terminal. “It’s possible that airports become destinations themselves,” said Jokic. “Can it be that people might say, ‘I am going to hang out in the Munich or whatever airport?’ So with $20 flights, you can go from Copenhagen to London to go check out the airport mall?” The Los Angeles Times ventured Dulles International and Reagan National airports outside D.C. are getting in on the act. “For the last three years, we’ve been doing a complete concessions overhaul of both Reagan National and Dulles International airports to offer broader food and retail options for our traveling public,” said spokesperson Kimberly Gibbs. “This is to improve the overall travel experience.” The list of restaurants and shops at Dulles International Airport, which ranks 20th in the J.D. Power survey, reads like a list of Beverly Hills addresses: Burberry, Estee Lauder, Coach, Kitchen by Wolfgang Puck, Swarovski, Michael Kors, Vino Volo Wine Room, Chef Geoff, Bar Symon, Tumi, Thomas Pink, Montblanc and, of course, Starbucks. Even a Redskins-themed restaurant called Burgundy and Gold, including memorabilia from the NFL team, will open next year at Dulles. The J.D. Power survey covered seven areas of passenger experience: overall satisfaction, airport accessibility, check-in, security, terminal facilities, baggage claim and terminal shopping. Respondents could choose ratings among the following: Among the Best, Better than Most, About Average and The Rest. Here are the top 10 airports, according to the survey: 1. Portland International 2. Tampa International 3. McCarran International (Las Vegas) 4. Orlando International


Your future commute: Flying through tubes at 760 mph

Rush hour traffic is backed up along Interstate 66 in this view from the Vienna Metro Station in Virginia, in May 2015. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) Picture the commute of the future: You live in Palo Alto, Calif., but work 350 miles away in Los Angeles. After your morning latte, you click on a smartphone app to summon your digital chauffeur. An autonomous car shows up at your front door three minutes later to drive you to a Hyperloop station in downtown Mountain View, where a pod then transports you through a vacuum tube at 760 mph. When you reach the Pasadena station, another self-driving car awaits to take you to your office. You reach your destination in less than an hour. That is the type of scenario that Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) chief executive Dirk Ahlborn laid out for me as we were preparing to speak together on a panel at the Knowledge Summit in Dubai on Dec. 5. He was not talking about something that would happen in the next century; he expects the first of these systems to be operational in the United Arab Emirates by 2020. The Abu Dhabi government has just announced that it has been working with his company to connect Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, two UAE cities separated by 105 miles, using the Hyperloop system. A proposal for this mode of transportation came from Elon Musk in August 2013, in a paper titled “Hyperloop Alpha.” Musk envisaged a mass transit system in which trains travel as fast as 760 mph in pressurized capsule pods. These would ride on an air cushion in steel tubes and be driven by linear induction motors and air compressors. He claimed that the system would be safer, faster and cheaper than trains, cars boats and supersonic planes, for distances of up to at least 900 miles, and said that it would be resistant to earthquakes and generate more energy through its solar panels than it would use. Straight out of science fiction it may be, but two start-ups took up Musk’s challenge to develop the technology: HTT and Hyperloop One. These companies have raised more than $100 million each and say they will have operational systems in three to four years and that they have governments backing them. Hyperloop One demonstrated elements of the technology in the Las Vegas desert in May 2016. The sheiks I spoke


Mellow drivers? Study says states with medical-marijuana laws have lower traffic fatality rates.

Glass containers display varieties of marijuana for sale at the Station, a retail and medical cannabis dispensary in Boulder, Colo., on Aug. 11. (Brennan Linsley/AP) States with medical-marijuana laws have fewer traffic fatalities than those without, especially among younger drivers, a new study has found. You would think crash rates might be higher, supposing that more drivers are, too — especially around midnight, when a run to a 7-Eleven becomes necessary. But, no. Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found an 11 percent reduction in traffic fatalities on average when examining places that have enacted medical-marijuana laws — 23 states and the District of Columbia. The presence of medical-marijuana dispensaries also correlated with fewer traffic fatalities, the study found. Silvia Martins, a physician and associate professor who was the study’s senior author, theorized that lower traffic fatality rates in states with marijuana laws might be related to lower levels of alcohol-impaired driving as people, especially younger people, substitute weed for booze. There was little evidence of a reduction in the traffic fatality rate for people 45 or older, who are disproportionately represented in larger numbers among enrollees in state medical-marijuana programs. The largest drop in traffic fatality rates in states with medical-marijuana laws occurred among drivers ages 15 to 44. “We found evidence that states with the marijuana laws in place compared with those which did not, reported, on average, lower rates of drivers endorsing driving after having too many drinks,” Martins said in a written statement. She said other factors that might help explain the correlation could be the “strength of public health laws related to driving, infrastructure characteristics, or the quality of health care systems.” The researchers cautioned, however, that not all states with medical-marijuana laws experienced declines in traffic fatality rates. California and New Mexico had initial reductions of 16 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively, after the passage of medical-marijuana laws but then saw gradual increases in their traffic fatality rates. The study, which was published online in the American Journal of Public Health, analyzed National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data on traffic fatalities from 1985 to 2014. The researchers took into account factors such as whether the states had graduated driver licensing laws, as well as median household income, unemployment rates, laws increasing the speed limit to 70 mph or more, laws on enforcing the use of seat belts, and bans on using


After legalization, teen marijuana use drops sharply in Colorado

other state to open recreational marijuana markets in 2014. But that drop wasn't statistically significant. Conversely, adult marijuana use rose significantly in Colorado over the same time period. Among Coloradans ages 26 and older, past-year marijuana use rose from 16.80 percent in 2013/2014 to 19.91 percent in 2014/2015. Annual adult marijuana use was up in most states during the same time frame. The legal marijuana markets in Colorado, Washington and elsewhere feature strict age and purchasing limits. This federal data released this week is the first clear evidence of a drop in teen marijuana use in Colorado following legalization. Legalization supporters have long argued that the best way to prevent underage marijuana use is to legalize and regulate the drug. Marijuana use is generally a riskier endeavor for adolescents and young adults, whose brains are still developing. Studies show people who start using marijuana in their teens are at a greater risk than adults of becoming dependent on the drug or suffering from mental health issues related to it. The federal data doesn’t speak to what, exactly, is behind the decrease in teen marijuana use in Colorado. Broadly speaking, adolescent substance use has declined across the board in recent years. In Colorado, the drop in teen marijuana use could reflect changes related to legalization, such as a diminution of the black market. Or it could be a reflection of broader cultural trends, such as increasing disapproval of teen drug use or better substance abuse prevention programs for kids. It’s likely that a number of factors are at play. Some experts had expected more permissive attitudes toward pot to lead to increased teen use and have subsequently been surprised to find that teen marijuana use has held steady or even fallen nationwide over the past few years. The federal survey data do show that the overall rate of teen marijuana use remains higher in Colorado than it is in any other state. But that trend began well before legalization, as the chart below of monthly marijuana use in Colorado and the United States shows. Other data sources, including the Colorado Department of Health’s own numbers, show that Colorado is essentially middle-of-the-pack among the states on adolescent marijuana use. In either case, the overall trend — flat or falling teen use — appears to support legalization supporters’ arguments that liberalizing marijuana policies will not pose a serious public health threat to adolescents.


16 good news stories of 2016

In 2016, we slogged through the nastiest U.S. presidential campaign in history. The conflict in Syria rages on, and the Islamic State has yet to be eradicated from the Middle East. We lost Prince, Bowie and, recently, John Glenn. What good could have possibly come out of a year like this? Turns out, at least 16 things in 2016 weren’t wholly terrible (and, hey, the year’s not over!). What else should be included? Tell us in the comments. 1. There was good news in the U.S. economy. Markets hit record highs, wages rose and unemployment dropped to its lowest rate in nine years. Post correspondent Jason Rezaian speaks at the headquarters of The Washington Post on Jan. 28. He was released from an Iranian prison on Jan. 16. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) 2. On the press freedom front, journalists Jason Rezaian, Khadija Ismayilova and Can Dundar were released from prisons in, respectively, Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkey (though they shouldn’t have been there in the first place). 3. The United States saw milestones for diversity in government. A sampling: Catherine Cortez Masto became the first Latina elected to the Senate; Ilhan Omar, a former refugee, will be the first Somali American lawmaker; and although she went on to lose the general election to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton was the first female U.S. presidential nominee of a major party. 4. In sports, Bethesda’s Katie Ledecky dominated in the Rio Olympics; the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time since 1908; and the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers gave Cleveland its first pro sports title in 52 years. 5. It was announced that Harriet Tubman will appear on the front of the $20 bill, relegating Andrew Jackson to the back. 6. Colombia’s congress approved a peace deal with the FARC, the rebel group the government has been fighting since 1964. The Washington Monument is reflected in a window of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened to the public Sept. 24. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) 7. The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened on the Mall. 8. President Obama visited Hiroshima, the Japanese city where the United States dropped the first atomic bomb, and called for the end of nuclear weapons. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will join Obama this month at Pearl Harbor to “pay tribute” to those who died in the


Three bank fees that can sneak up on you — and how to avoid them

according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts. New rules put in place after the financial crisis block banks from charging overdraft fees unless consumers opt in to the service. But some people who opted in several years ago when they opened their accounts may not remember signing up, says Nick Bourke, director of consumer finance for Pew Charitable Trusts. Some people may not realize they’ve overdrawn their accounts until after they’ve been charged several times, he said, adding that many people would rather have their transactions denied than pay the fee, which is typically $35 at big banks. People who want to avoid these fees completely should call their banks to find out if they are enrolled in overdraft programs and ask to opt out. Monthly service charges. Many banks waive monthly service fees for checking accounts, which often range from $5 to $10, for customers who meet certain rules. Those requirements may include setting up a direct deposit, opening a second account or completing a certain number of transactions each month, McBride says. Some people may start to notice the charge if they change the way they use their accounts — say by switching to a job that does not offer direct deposit, he says. Find out what the specific requirements are for you to avoid monthly service fees at your bank. Some people may want to shop around for a checking account with requirements that better match their habits. Low balance fees. Your savings account may have a minimum balance requirement. Falling below that threshold can lead to a recurring monthly charge of between $5 and $10. These fees can particularly add up quickly for accounts that are not used regularly since you may not notice the cost, McBride says. Check the statements for your savings accounts periodically to scan for any unusual charges. With interest rates on savings accounts still low, those fees can quickly eat into any interest you may be earning. Consider consolidating your savings into one account to make it easier to meet any balance requirements and to keep track of the cash. Shop around with online banks, credit unions and small banks, which may offer more attractive yields than what you can get with a large institution. Read more: 5 mistakes Americans are still making with their money How a Fed rate hike could affect your wallet Aggressive sales


The real reason grocery stores are running out of whipped cream this Christmas

“The nitrous oxide shortage has impacted the majority of food suppliers who distribute aerosol products,” said Reace Smith, a spokesperson for Dean Foods. “Our co-packer is working closely with suppliers and allocating the supply based on greatest need.” Manufacturers say the shortages will strike consumers on a store-by-store basis, depending on demand and preexisting inventory. Right now, Smith added, restaurants, hospitals and schools — not grocery stores — are taking priority. And yet, even after Reddi-wip is back in stores, the core problem will remain: the concentration of food production among a few companies in a few areas and at a handful of facilities. For instance, dairy farms — which supply the cream in whipped cream — are growing larger and less numerous, as are the dairy cooperatives that distribute their product. The number of dairy manufacturing plants fell by 75 percent between 1970 and 2005, according to the Department of Agriculture. Howard said they see a close parallel in the Eggo waffle shortage of 2009, which deprived consumers of the frozen breakfast food for several months. Kellogg’s, which makes Eggo, eventually revealed the cause was a flood in one manufacturing facility and the outbreak of listeria in another — problems that would have had a less dramatic impact, Howard argues, if Kellogg’s had a less concentrated production process. A similar — albeit vastly more dangerous — scare broke out around spinach in 2006, when an E. coli outbreak infected 199 people in 26 states. Investigators traced the bug back to a single manufacturing facility in San Juan Bautista, Calif., which processed the spinach sold by 40 different brands across the country. As a result of the ensuing recall, consumers learned that even competing brands, like Earthbound, Dole and Ready-Pac, often came from the same places and were processed in the same plants. “If there is a problem at a single facility, there’s a big impact,” said Paul Wolfe, a policy specialist at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which advocates on behalf of midsize farmers. He calls the whipped-cream shortage a “symptom of the consolidation taking place” everywhere from pork slaughterhouses to California pear orchards. Reversing the trend will not be easy, Wolfe acknowledged. NSAC has lobbied for more antitrust enforcement in the agricultural sector, particularly in chicken and livestock processing, where the market is dominated almost entirely by four large firms. Howard said he would also like to see


The most memorable stories of the year, as told by Washington Post foreign correspondents

about their lives and their culture. A sacred, snowy mountain dominated the skyline, lines of Tibetans crossed the slopes on the same quest, and, high above us, a herd of yaks grazed, black dots on the high slopes. 'I wanted to shine a light on the things these women go through.' Anna Fifield Suh, a 30-year-old woman, carries her daughter Ji-yeon on her back as they illegally crossed the border from Laos into Thailand at night. (Sin Huh) This was a heart-wrenching story to write. I spent several days in Vientiane, Laos, with four women who had escaped from North Korea and then escaped again from China, and were on their way to freedom. Hundreds or thousands of women live in the shadows in China, in constant fear of being repatriated to North Korea — where they would face harsh punishment. They live in terrible circumstances in the meantime. I wanted to shine a light on the things these women go through and the perilous journey they have to make to escape. But it was personally moving, too. One of the women, Ms. Suh, had an 18-month-old daughter who was with them. The girl, Ji-yeon, didn’t have a single toy. While I was talking to her mom, she drew with my pens and highlighters in one of my notebooks. Afterward, I bought her a soft teddy bear. I’m a mom too, and I couldn’t stand the thought of this little girl not having anything to play with. She was delighted. I was due to meet the women again in Bangkok, but after they crossed the Mekong river into Thailand, they got caught by the police. The mom sent our intermediary photos of them in the prison van and then in the jail — and there was Ji-yeon, holding the teddy bear. 'This article reminded me why I got into journalism.' Michael Birnbaum Pollster Lyubov, 47, right, questions Igor, 52, in a corridor of an apartment building on March 2 in Moscow. (Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr. for The Washington Post) When you live in Russia, you constantly hear about President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating. The Kremlin keeps a close eye on it and does everything possible to keep it sky-high. Some people even argue the concern over the president's popularity amounts to a crude form of democracy, even if choices don’t happen at the ballot box but instead with pollsters' questionnaires. So


new refugees crossing the Afghan border. Because of this, and accompanying images from photographer Andrew Quilty, our story ran on the front page, bringing attention to an important but underreported crisis. 'At no point did any of the mothers or relatives caring for these infants express anything other than love.' Dom Phillips Cleane Serpa, 18, holds 1-month-old cousin Maria Eduarda, born with microcephaly, at her aunt’s home in Recife, Brazil, on Jan. 9. (Lianne Milton/Panos Pictures for The Washington Post) We were among the first foreign media to go to Recife to report on Brazil’s microcephaly outbreak, linked to the Zika virus. It was both emotional and inspiring to meet the generally low-income families struggling to deal with a daunting new reality — that their newborn babies were disabled. And yet at no point did any of the mothers or relatives caring for these infants express anything other than love and a determination to deal with the challenge. That’s something that Lianne Milton was able to capture in her remarkable photos. Recife, a big, noisy city in Brazil’s northeast, felt like it was on alert, with troops checking houses for stagnant water. Many of the people we talked to had caught one of three related mosquito-borne diseases that are hard to distinguish between — Zika, dengue and chikungunya — or had friends or relatives who had. Brazil’s microcephaly outbreak is a story we have returned to again and again. And with scientists and researchers still trying to understand why so much of this rare birth defect is concentrated in a limited area of northeast Brazil, it's a story that is likely to continue. 'It was a current affairs event that always fascinated me as a child.' Ruth Eglash Shay Gross stands next to a photo of himself as a 6-year-old when he returned to Tel Aviv after the hijacking at Entebbe during a ceremony in the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa, Israel, on June 27. (Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency) Having the opportunity to accompany Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Entebbe, Uganda, this past summer was certainly one highlight of 2016. That was not only because it was a chance to visit Africa and be able to record the Israeli leader’s emotional recollection of the brother he lost during Israel’s dramatic hostage rescue operation there in 1976, but because it was a current affairs event that always fascinated me


Online bullies once made Gabby Douglas cry, so now the Olympian is fighting back

the Pew Research Center, approximately 70 percent of people aged 18 to 24 have been bullied online. While Douglas bore the brunt during this year’s Olympics, some of her Final Five teammates, including Biles, 19, Raisman, 22, and Madison Kocian, 19, also found themselves on the receiving end of online hate when they posted a picture to Instagram of themselves in bikinis on a Rio beach after the Games. It wasn’t their expressions, hair or patriotism that some took issue with, but their muscular physiques. “Everybody’s on social media in my generation and everybody’s using it,” Douglas said. “I think that’s why a lot of teens, more than adults, are dealing with these problems.” Douglas, who said she stayed offline before the Olympics to concentrate on her training, said she wasn’t ready to deal with the onslaught of criticism she received when she finally logged back on. “I Googled myself after the team event, after we won the gold,” she said about how she found out she’d become a target of online bullies once again. “I probably shouldn’t have done that.” She said when she first saw what people were saying, she thought it “was gonna blow away” quickly. It’s when it didn’t, however, that it really began to affect her. “When they talk about my hair or me not putting my hand up on my heart or me being very salty in the stands, they’re really criticizing me, and it doesn’t really feel good,” Douglas tearfully told reporters in Rio in August. “It was a little bit hurtful.” Douglas can still recall the hurt she felt, although it no longer elicits tears. “We already feel a lot of pressure being out on the competition floor . . . and when someone has to deal with that, you know, it’s a lot,” she said. “It was a lot for me.” She continued: “I thought people were taking such small things and making them a bigger deal than they were and I had accomplished something so great. You know, going back to the Olympics, winning another team medal, qualifying for the bar finals. I was like, wait, why can’t they focus on the good instead of the negative?” Douglas doesn’t claim to know the answers, but she knows it’s not because of anything she did or didn’t do, and she’s hoping to instill that sense of self worth into young people