Cruz: ‘Nuts’ to draft women into the military

Cruz slammed some of his rivals who have said they would support making women over 18 eligible to be drafted into the military, saying they were motivated by "political correctness." PETERBOROUGH, N.H. -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) told a town hall meeting here that he completely rejected the idea of women registering for Selective Service, weighing in on a late-burning issue that only a few of his rivals were asked about in Saturday night's debate. “It was striking that three different people on that stage came out in support of drafting women into combat in the military," said Cruz. "I didn’t get an opportunity to respond to that particular question. But I have to admit as I was sitting there listening to that conversation, my reaction was, ‘Are you guys nuts?’ Listen, we have had enough with political correctness, especially in the military. Political correctness is dangerous, and the idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in combat, I think is wrong. It is immoral. And if I am president, we ain’t doing it.” That separated Cruz from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), former Florida governor Jeb Bush and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, none of whom are really competing in the "libertarian lane" of the primary that Cruz hopes to own. "I have no problem whatsoever with people of either gender serving in combat so long as the minimum requirements necessary to do the job are not compromised," Rubio said Saturday. "If women can meet the requirements, the minimum requirements for combat service, they ought to have the right to do it," said Bush. In Peterborough, as he criticized those answers, Cruz raised the specter of harm to young women and suggested that his rivals were trying to sound "politically correct" by not rejecting the idea. “I’m the father of two little girls," he said. "I love those girls with all my heart. They are capable of doing anything in their heart’s desire. But the idea that their government would forcibly put them in a foxhole with a 220-pound psychopath trying to kill them doesn’t make any sense at all. And it’s yet one more sign of this politically correct world where we forget common sense. We’ve got to get back to common sense. We’ve got to get back to a president who says, ‘No, that doesn’t make any sense.’ ”


How soldiers like Bowe Bergdahl can wind up hating good commanders

the Bergdahl affair, told a preliminary hearing of an Army court, or Article 32 hearing, last fall. Dahl, whose investigative team included an infantry platoon sergeant, a psychiatrist, and a psychologist, sought to understand Bergdahl’s frame of mind as thoroughly as he could, spending two days talking to the returned prisoner so extensively that the transcript of their conversation ran 371 pages. “He has very high standards and a very idealistic view of people,” Dahl testified, referring to Bergdahl. “When he describes his experience in basic training, everyone was a disappointment” except for one drill sergeant, a pattern that continued as he went to infantry training and joined 1st Battalion in Alaska. “I asked him, ‘Wasn’t there anything or anyone that measured up?’ And he said no.” In Paktika, Dahl said at the Article 32 hearing, the focus of Bergdahl’s disappointment and ire became Baker. Bergdahl was horrified with a harsh remark Baker made when Bergdahl’s platoon came back from their first really dangerous mission, although other soldiers shrugged the remark off. After Baker angrily reprimanded some solders at an observation post for failing to wear all their protective gear, Bergdahl was furious. As Dahl understood it, Bergdahl’s concern was that when Baker disciplined the soldiers, the rocks the colonel was kicking in the dirt to demonstrate his ire were really Afghan graves — which could have badly offended any local resident who witnessed the incident. (Dahl wasn’t “able to corroborate” that the rocks were graves, although Bethea told Checkpoint that he did remember there being a graveyard near the observation post in question.) Asked why he didn’t bring his concerns about Baker to his team leader, squad leader, platoon leader, or company commander, Bergdahl told Dahl that “all of them were, you know, pretty much unfit to lead and didn’t have the right perspective; and [that] they were only in it for the money or they were only in it for the rank or they were only going to protect themselves.” It’s possible that Bergdahl saw leadership problems in his unit at a very low level, former 1st Battalion officer Bethea acknowledged. But Bethea dismissed out of hand the notion, apparently central to Bergdahl’s motive in abandoning his platoon, that Baker either did not exercise due care in exposing his men to risk or was insensitive to local people’s customs and concerns. “Colonel Baker was the first field-grade commander


Hopheads rejoice (and get in line): Hopslam hits D.C. on Monday

If you can't make these events, don't worry: Hopslam tends to pop up in surprising places. Last year, there were Hopslam events at some of the better beer bars, including Rustico, the Big Hunt and Roofers Union, but it also showed up on tap at Kangaroo Boxing Club, Capitol Lounge, the Blaguard, Ivy Coney and the Black Cat. It's worth pointing out that Hopslam shows up at bars that sell a lot of other Bell's beers, so if you have a favorite spot for a pint of Two Hearted Ale, it's worth asking about Hopslam. One major gap in the Hopslam map: Bell's is "not currently distributing to Montgomery County at this time," so fans will have to head to Frederick or D.C. events. There are two major differences between this year's release and 2015's: Hopslam will be available in 12-ounce cans, not bottles. So Hopslam is here or on the way. Which leads to this question: Is the beer, sometimes mocked by skeptics as "Hypeslam," worth the effort of fighting crowds for a glass or scouring stores for a six pack? The Hopslam craze is so strange. People following our accounts for the first time to ask if we're getting it. 10% DIPA with true mass appeal Hopslam is good. @TroegsBeer Nugget Nectar is better. If you love big, hoppy, floral beers, Hopslam is undeniably delicious. The double IPA is brewed with six hop varieties and a noticeable dose of Michigan honey, and gets an additional dry hopping of Simcoe. At 10 percent ABV, it's very smooth and drinkable. Hopslam receives high marks on the three primary beer-rating sites. Ratebeer gives it 100 out of 100, it has a 98 (out of 100) rating on Beer Advocate, and the 2016 release already has a 4.5 (out of 5) rating on the Untappd social beer app. And, Hopslam was just named as one of the best 100 beers in the world by RateBeer, and received one of five silver medals in the double IPA category. Also worth noting: Unlike any of the gold medal or other silver medal winners, you actually can get Hopslam here in the region, if only for a brief time. Our sage advice: Hopslam is worth trying. If you stumble across it at happy hour, great. If your local bar hosts a tapping party, even better. But if you don't find it, or don't want to


University of Phoenix parent company to go private

an accreditation group. Apollo expects the deal to close by the end of its fiscal year in August. Once the transaction is completed, Tony Miller, chief operating officer of Vistria, will become chairman of the Apollo board. “For too long and too often, the private education industry has been characterized by inadequate student outcomes, overly aggressive marketing practices and poor compliance. This doesn’t need to be the case,” said Miller, who served as deputy secretary at the Department of Education from 2009 to 2013. He added: “We are committed to accelerating and enhancing efforts to establish University of Phoenix as the leading provider of quality higher education for working adults and to continue supporting the organization’s commitment to operating in a manner consistent with the highest ethical standards.” One of the world’s largest private education companies, Apollo got its start in 1973. The company, based in Phoenix, runs schools that provide undergraduate, graduate and career training throughout the United States, Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and Latin America. Profits at Apollo have continued to slide over the last few years, with the company posting an operating loss of $61 million in the quarter ending Nov. 30. Sluggish enrollment at the University of Phoenix has put a damper on revenue. Average enrollment in degree programs tumbled 20 percent to 183,800 during that same quarter. The university has been at the center of several state and federal investigations into its recruitment and marketing practices. Late last year, the Defense Department suspended the school from recruiting on military bases and accessing federal education funding for allegedly violating an executive order preventing for-profit colleges from gaining preferential access to the military. Earlier this month, the DOD lifted the ban but said it would continue to monitor the school, the largest recipient of federal student aid for veterans, taking in nearly $1.2 billion in GI Bill benefits since 2009. Phoenix is still under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive advertising and marketing. The regulator requested information about the school’s military recruitment, enrollment and student retention, among other things. Apollo is not the first company to go private in an attempt to save a flagging business. Education Management Corp. (EDMC), which operates the Art Institutes, Argosy University, Brown Mackie College and South University, went private in 2006, using the flush of new capital to grow its online business. The move, however, was not enough to


Why people cheat

(Amy King/The Washington Post; Aha-Soft/The Noun Project; iStock) When Lance Armstrong was found guilty of doping a few years ago, the sports world was aghast. For almost a decade, he had dominated cycling so thoroughly that the thought of anyone else winning bordered on ridiculous. Few had guessed that he had done it by cheating, and many found it hard to believe, even after Armstrong himself owned up to his dishonesty. Part of what was so perplexing about the realization was how it rubbed up against Armstrong's public persona, which painted the athlete as exemplary, largely because of his ties to Livestrong, the largest athlete-founded charity in the world. His story was also inspirational: His record-breaking string of victories came immediately after he had beaten life-threatening testicular cancer. But for all the confusion, there might actually have been something of an explanation. While no one knows precisely what went through this mind or motivated him, there was at least one thing that could have hinted at what drove Armstrong to cheat: He was a winner. "Winning seems to have this strange effect on people," said Amos Schurr, a professor of psychology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. "When people succeed in competition against others, it seems to compromise their ethics. It makes them more likely to cheat afterwards." Schurr, who has taken an interest in exploring what drives people toward dishonest behavior, has long suspected that there might be something insidious about competition. Specifically, he has wondered if people who succeed when pitted against others are more prone to cheat. And he has reason to believe he's on to something. This month, he, along with Ilana Ritov, who teaches psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published a new study that sheds some light on his hypothesis. The two put dozens of participants through a series of four experiments in order to see how they acted in the aftermath of winning and losing various competitions. The results were telling. In the first experiment, Schurr and Ritov split 86 students into groups of two, and then had them compete against one another in a game in which it was impossible to cheat. The participants watched as a series of objects appeared and then disappeared from a screen, and then were asked to guess which objects appeared most often and how many objects appeared in all. One person won and


What the Earth will be like in 10,000 years, according to scientists

glaciers outside of Greenland and Antarctica. Greenland gives up as much as four meters of sea level rise (out of a potential seven), while Antarctica could give up up to 24. Combined with thermal expansion of the oceans, this scenario could mean seas rise an estimated 25 meters (or 82 feet) higher in 10,000 years. There is, to be sure, “a big uncertainty range on that prediction,” Pierrehumbert said by email. Once again, a key factor that could mitigate this dire forecast is the potential development of technologies that could remove carbon dioxide from the air and thus cool down the planet much faster than the Earth on its own can through natural processes. “If we want to have some backstop technology to avoid this, we really ought to be putting a lot more money into carbon dioxide removal,” Pierrehumbert said. Pierrehumbert said he believes that we will manage to develop such a technology in coming centuries, so long as human societies remain wealthy enough — but he added that we don’t know yet about how affordable it will be. The new study fits into a growing body of scientific analysis suggesting that human alteration of the planet has truly brought on a new geological epoch, which has been dubbed the “anthropocene.” Taking a 10,000-year perspective certainly reinforces the geological scale of what’s currently happening. The ability to carry an analysis out so far into the future, Levermann said, is really the result in recent years of several key scientific developments. One is that “we are now in a better position to model the ice sheets, really,” he said. At the same time, scientists have also recently begun to calculate so-called carbon budgets that describe how much we can emit and still hold the planet to a variety of temperature thresholds. All of this coming together means that a conversation about increasingly long-range forecasts, and about the millennial-scale consequences of today’s greenhouse gas emissions, is growing within the scientific world. The question remains whether a similar conversation will finally take hold in the public and political one. More at Energy Environment: Why so many economists back Obama’s idea of a tax on oil Why climate change is really, really unfair It’s not just Flint: Poor communities across the U.S. live with ‘extreme’ polluters For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.


The paradox of unanimity

systematically produce a particular result, and the notion that results of a “poll” can become less reliable as more and more people agree unanimously on the outcome, is a bit unsettling. And the implications may be quite far-reaching. The paradox of unanimity has many other applications beyond the legal arena. One important one that the researchers discuss in their paper is cryptography. Data is often encrypted by verifying that some gigantic number provided by an adversary is prime or composite. One way to do this is to repeat a probabilistic test called the Rabin-Miller test until the probability that it mistakes a composite as prime is extremely low: a probability of 2-128 is typically considered acceptable. The systemic failure that occurs in this situation is computer failure. Most people never consider the possibility that a stray cosmic ray may flip a bit that in turn causes the test to accept a composite number as a prime. After all, the probability for such an event occurring is extremely low, approximately 10-13 per month. But the important thing is that it’s greater than 2-128, so even though the failure rate is so tiny, it dominates over the desired level of security. . . . The recent Volkswagen scandal is [another] good example. The company fraudulently programmed a computer chip to run the engine in a mode that minimized diesel fuel emissions during emission tests. But in reality, the emissions did not meet standards when the cars were running on the road. The low emissions were too consistent and ‘too good to be true.’ The emissions team that outed Volkswagen initially got suspicious when they found that emissions were almost at the same level whether a car was new or five years old! The consistency betrayed the systemic bias introduced by the nefarious computer chip. [And] a famous case where overwhelming evidence was ‘too good to be true’ occurred in the 1993-2008 period. Police in Europe found the same female DNA in about 15 crime scenes across France, Germany, and Austria. This mysterious killer was dubbed the Phantom of Heilbronn and the police never found her. The DNA evidence was consistent and overwhelming, yet it was wrong. It turned out to be a systemic error. The cotton swabs used to collect the DNA samples were accidentally contaminated, by the same lady, in the factory that made the swabs. Food for thought for sure.


USOC to athletes worried about Zika: Just don’t go to Rio Olympics

(Paulo Whitaker/Reuters) The U.S. Olympic Committee has a message for any prospective Olympian who’s worried about catching the Zika virus in Brazil: Maybe you should just skip the 2016 Rio Games. So says Reuters Federations were told that no one should go to Brazil “if they don’t feel comfortable going. Bottom line,” said Donald Anthony, president and board chairman of USA Fencing. The USOC’s briefing to sport federations is the latest sign that Olympics officials are taking the Zika threat to the games in Rio de Janeiro seriously, and acknowledging that at least some athletes and support staff could face a tough decision over whether to attend. The Zika virus, which is especially dangerous for pregnant women or women who plan to become pregnant, can be spread via mosquitoes or by sexual contact. The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak a “global emergency.” On Jan. 15, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that “pregnant women in any trimester should consider postponing travel to the areas where Zika virus transmission is ongoing.” Brazil has seen a surge in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly that has been linked to the Zika virus. The International Olympic Committee has already announced its plans to counter the outbreak during the Games. For one, officials will inspect competition venues for standing water where mosquitoes might breed. Officials in Brazil also say that containing the outbreak will be easier during the Rio Games in August, when mosquitoes are less prevalent because of the cooler, drier air seen in that country’s winter.


Morning Bits

Newly-wed Syrian couple Nada Merhi, 18, and Hassan Youssef, 27, pose for a wedding picture amid heavily damaged buildings in the war ravaged city of Homs, Syria on Feb. 5. (Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images) Live free or die Maybe, by and by, the West will actually do something. “German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday that she is horrified by Russian airstrikes in northwestern Syria that have created a new exodus of civilians seeking refuge from friendly countries. During a special visit to Ankara to discuss the refugee crisis, Ms. Merkel said Russian bombing runs are exacerbating the global refugee crisis by forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.” Eureka Equal rights Sic semper tyrannis The oil and gas industry is going great guns in Europe, thankfully. “One of the last big North Sea projects sanctioned under high oil prices has begun pumping natural gas, highlighting an unexpected boom in U.K. energy production that analysts say is unsustainable. French oil company Total SA said Monday that a deep-water natural-gas project west of the Shetland Islands called Laggan Tormore will produce the equivalent of 90,000 barrels of oil a day—almost 6% of the U.K.’s total output.” If only the administration would show comparable enthusiasm for developing our own reserves. Going forward, this might become an issue. “Marco Rubio said ‘Ted Cruz defended a Chinese company that stole an invention from an American inventor.’ Cruz’s firm represented a Chinese firm found liable for stealing blueprints. While other lawyers argued the appeal, Cruz’s name appears as one of the lawyers representing the Shandong Linglong Rubber Co. against an American company. . . . We rate Rubio’s claim Mostly True.” Note


With rumors flying, scientists are set to make a big announcement on gravitational waves

An illustration of gravitational waves. (LIGO) The rumors were (probably) (possibly) (maybe) true. Last month, you may recall, we reported that award-winning physicist Lawrence Krauss was stoking Twitter rumors about the detection of gravitational waves. Krauss claimed to have confirmation that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a collaboration between physicists at MIT and Caltech, was close to making a big announcement. My earlier rumor about LIGO has been confirmed by independent sources. Stay tuned! Gravitational waves may have been discovered!! Exciting. Now the good folks at LIGO have sent out a media alert for a news conference on Thursday. And, well, scientists don't tend to gather the media at the National Press Club to announce null results. Gravitational waves [European probe launched in a search for ripples in space-time] Gravitational waves could theoretically help us study mysterious objects, such as black holes, because they'll give scientists a bright beacon to search for even when objects don't emit actual light. And since they pass through matter without interacting with it, gravitational waves would come to us carrying undistorted information about their origin. But their effects are so tiny — even when massive black hole collisions send them rippling into space at high speeds — that we haven't been able to detect them yet. At least until now (maybe). What's the rumor mill got to say about it? Last week (before the official announcement of the news conference) Science Magazine reported rumors that LIGO had detected the gravitational waves emitted by two black holes colliding. An email extolling the results ended up on Twitter (you can see it here) and the physicist who penned it, McMaster University's Clifford Burgess, told Science that he hadn't read the paper in question himself but had spoken to scientists who claimed to. "I've been around a long time, so I've seen rumors come and go," Burgess told Science. "This one seems more credible." We'll be at the news conference Thursday to keep you updated. Read more: Why is this famous physicist tweeting rumors about gravitational waves? This is what it looks like when a black hole tears a star apart Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the next decade Scientists just smashed the distance record for quantum teleportation The new biggest thing in the universe, and why it’s a headache for scientists


Chinese mall becomes ‘prison’ for bears, belugas, wolves

A man takes a picture of a bear in Guangzhou Mall Ocean World in Guangzhou, China, on Feb. 1. (Simon Denyer/The Washington Post) A Chinese shopping mall has become a “prison” for a variety of marine and polar animals. Two white bears — billed as polar bears but more likely polar bear–brown bear hybrids — five walrus calves, six young beluga whales and two Arctic wolves are among the animals on display in the Grandview Mall Ocean World in the southern city of Guangzhou. Animals Asia, a Hong Kong-based charity, calls the conditions in the mall “horrifying” and describes it as a “prison for animals.” In China, an article complaining about belugas swimming in dirty water, a whale shark being confined to a small tank and a grouper dying went viral on social media and provoked outrage. ”The owner of Grandview Mall Ocean World should be kept in a fishbowl for his whole life,” one person wrote on the Sina Weibo microblogging site. “It is indoors. Exposing such adorable animals to the noise and the glare for a long time might not be good for them,” wrote another. A cleaner taps on the glass to try and attract the attention of beluga whales at Grandview Mall Ocean World in Guangzhou, China, on Feb. 1. (Simon Denyer/The Washington Post) On a recent visit, one bear paced back and forth in a small enclosure, displaying behavior that experts say reflects stress and possible psychological problems. Wolves lay listlessly in a small room, while walrus calves and belugas swam back and forth in confined spaces. “Taking animals from their natural environments can never be defended, but when they’re re-homed in conditions like we’re seeing at the Grandview Aquarium it’s the worst possible situation,” wrote Animal Asia’s Animal Welfare Director Dave Neale in a blog post. “While those behind this may claim this as education, it’s clear the motivation here is bottom line profit. As long as businesses are allowed to use animals in this manner, wealth will always be put ahead of welfare.” A girl looks at two Arctic wolves at Grandview Mall Ocean World on Feb. 1. (Simon Denyer/The Washington Post) On a recent visit, WorldViews overheard some visitors complaining about the “skinny” and “pathetic”–looking animals, although others seemed content to take photographs and move on. Nevertheless, Neale took some encouragement from the negative reaction to the mall on social media. “What


Giant panda cub climbs a tree and gets a little help from mama

The National Zoo's giant panda cub Bei Bei ventured outside to climb a tree for the first time. His mother Mei Xiang waited with open arms to help him down. He eats. He goes outside. And now the National Zoo is showing off a video of the giant panda cub Bei Bei doing what pandas do — climbing a tree with a little help from mama bear. The video shows Bei Bei’s mother — Mei Xiang — helping him with a gentle guiding of the paw as he climbs back down. She appears to nuzzle him as he gets to the ground safely. Pretty sweet. Last week, the zoo shared how Bei Bei had started to eat solid foods, including bamboo and sweet potato. [He eats! Zoo says panda Bei Bei is eating solid foods] And he recently took his first steps outside his enclosure, with mamma bear looking out nearby. He’s hit all his other big milestones, including weight gains and his first tooth. His name is pronounced “bay bay” and means “precious treasure” in Mandarin. He was born Aug. 22 at the zoo, along with a twin. His twin died a few days later. [National Zoo’s panda gives birth to two cubs] Bei Bei in December. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)


Hope Solo says she may not attend Olympics because of Zika virus

U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo warms up before an international friendly against Ireland last month. (Gregory Bull/AP) Although the Brazilian outbreak of the Zika virus and its possible link to microcephaly have drummed up immense awareness and financial aid, one group of people, Olympic athletes, has not sounded off all that loudly. That is, until now. In an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl Nobody, Solo said, should be or feel forced to risk the health of their unborn child for a gold medal. “I would never take the risk of having an unhealthy child,” she told Wahl. “I don’t know when that day will come for [husband] Jerramy [Stevens] and me, but I personally reserve my right to have a healthy baby. No athlete competing in Rio should be faced with this dilemma. Female professional athletes already face many different considerations and have to make choices that male professional athletes don’t.” You can read the full interview over at SI, but Solo’s announcement will most likely not be the last. Solo, after all, is one of the Games’ most visible female stars, so for her to claim she is not willing to take the risk — and attending the Olympics at this stage in Zika research, with no vaccine yet established, most definitely is a risk — represents a monumental step.


Samantha Bee looks more like a Jon Stewart heir than anything we’ve see so far

Comedian Samantha Bee killed in the premiere of her late-night show, "Full Frontal." (TBS) Something has been missing from the 2016 presidential campaign. With a reality TV star and a democratic socialist looking like real contenders, some might say the absent ingredient is sanity. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a singular voice of satire — a Jon Stewart-like figure whose zingers make you laugh and think at the same time. After Monday's premiere of "Full Frontal" on TBS, Samantha Bee sounds like that voice. It's only one episode, but you can already see that the former "Daily Show" correspondent has a knack for delivering smart, spot-on political critiques through humor. And she saved some of her best material for Democrats — something Stewart probably didn't do often enough. For example: Bee nailed one of the top complaints about Hillary Clinton — that she lacks authenticity. The host played a clip from last week's CNN town hall in New Hampshire, where Clinton said "I never thought I'd be standing on a stage here, asking people to vote for me for president." (Warning: Some foul language in the video below.) Rumble in New Hampshire | Full Frontal with Samantha Bee | TBS Here was Bee's reaction to that line: Oh, [expletive] off. "Who me? President? Golly gumdrops. I don't know if little old me could ever. ..." At this point, Bee turned to a second camera shooting up at her. Lights flashed in the background, and a synthesizer added an ominous quality to her voice, as she continued to impersonate Clinton. "Yes, anoint me your god! What more do you people want from me?" It was a funny, over-the-top way of exposing false humility. Everyone knows Clinton has, in fact, been imagining herself as a presidential candidate for a very long time. It's insincere to suggest otherwise, and Bee called her out without needing to utter the "authenticity" buzzword. Similarly, Bee jabbed at Bernie Sanders for trying so hard — too hard, at times — to keep up the populist persona of a man of modest means and simple tastes. Again referencing the CNN town hall, she said Sanders "played up his image of blustery old grandpa living off Social Security checks and stolen sugar packets" before playing a clip in which the Vermont senator described his car to moderator Anderson Cooper. Rumble in New Hampshire |


How touring puts orchestras on the map — even with a lame-duck leader

The Wiener Konzerthaus, where the National Symphony Orchestra performed last night in the middle of their current European tour. (Photo: Clemens Pfeiffer.) ‘Tis the season of lame ducks. Take Christoph Eschenbach at the National Symphony Orchestra. I’ve been plenty critical of Eschenbach during his tenure, but there’s no denying that he’s gotten a few things done. When he came to the NSO, he arrived with rosy dreams of improving the orchestra, performing chamber music with its musicians, making more recordings and going on tour more. Now, he’s on his way out, departing after his contract expires in 2017, at the end of what is seen as a rather inconclusive tenure — and yet, he did many of the things he said he wanted to do. True, he made only one recording, which wasn’t particularly notable. And true, the orchestra still hasn’t managed to shake off its second-tier, needs-improvement status. But to be fair: it has a lot of new players, it’s sounding better, and — true to his promise — it has embarked on its third international tour in four years, to some of Europe’s musical capitals (last night, the NSO played Vienna) with two soloists, including the pianist Lang Lang. The announcement in January that Gianandrea Noseda would be Eschenbach’s successor has no doubt helped morale and arguably undermined Eschenbach’s status on this tour and at home, but in his final seasons, he leaves the orchestra with a sense that, finally, things may be looking up. In some incalculable way, the tour may help solidify this sentiment. Tours, as I’ve written before, are morale-boosters for an orchestra, building a sense of solidarity — certainly in the repertory the players perform night after night — and bringing the group in front of new audiences — something more important than ever, since there are fewer opportunities for an orchestra to be heard in today’s uneven recording landscape. (If you measure by recent releases, the Seattle Symphony, with its in-house label, is more in the limelight than the august Boston Symphony Orchestra.) [From 2012: What the National Symphony Orchestra gets out of its tour of South America.] They’re also hugely expensive — and more popular than ever. Indeed, in touring so often of late, the NSO may be riding the proverbial bandwagon. According to Classical Movements, the Alexandria-based travel agency that is responsible for booking and arranging the NSO’s tours, orchestra touring


I thought I was a serious runner. Then I ran a track workout with professionals.

Washington Post sports aide Kelyn Soong is an avid runner and regularly competes in longer-distance races. He spent a day training with some of the fastest middle distance runners in the country to see if he could keep up. FOLSOM, Calif. — I consider myself a dedicated runner. I got my start in high school track and, now 28, I compete in longer-distance races, including finishing the Marine Corps Marathon the past two years. During marathon training, I average around 40 miles per week. These days, my weekly mileage is closer to 20, but I regularly train on the track for road races ranging from 10Ks to marathons. So when I was invited to join a track workout with the NorCal Distance Project, a post-collegiate team comprised of some of the fastest female middle distance runners in country, I had high hopes I could keep up — at least for a while. But 66 seconds in, as I was gasping for air, I experienced first-hand the gap that separates the pros from competitive amateurs like myself. *** On a sunny and warm morning late last month, I arrived at Folsom Lake College, a little less than 30 miles northeast of Sacramento, and put on the neon-green track spikes I hadn’t laced up in nearly five years. I was eager to get a sense of how elite athletes approached the daily grind of training and, of course, to see how I would measure up. Drew Wartenburg, the coach who co-founded the group in early 2014 with Olympian Kim Conley (they married last spring), tailors his workouts to each individual. Wartenburg had divided that day’s session into three groups: Conley, winner of the mile at the New Balance Indoor Games in New York a few days earlier, would go on a “light” 35-minute run with Alycia Cridebring and Lauren Mitchell; Rolanda Bell and Lauren Wallace, both training for a mile race later that week, would run a track workout together; and Kate Grace and Lianne Farber would spend the morning sharpening their speed in a mile-specific workout. I had my pick of any session. Olympian Kim Conley: I'm "living the dream" None of the options sounded appealing, but I decided to run with Grace and Farber, who had both starred collegiately on the East Coast — Grace graduated from Yale in 2011 and Farber finished her career at North Carolina last spring


As concern grows over terrorists on social media, Senate bill calls for national strategy

said in an interview Tuesday that he pushed the legislation because the Obama administration lacks a comprehensive strategy to tackle the threat. His bill would require President Obama to send to Congress within three months a report on the nation’s strategy to combat terrorists’ and terrorist organizations’ use of social media, an evaluation of the role social media play in radicalization and an overview of social media training available to investigators. “It’s sporadic,” Poe said of the administration’s social media efforts. “There isn’t an overall plan. The Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the FBI all have different ideas on how foreign terrorist organizations should be combated online… just come up with a uniform plan so we’re all dealing with the same issues.” Administration officials vigorously disputed that characterization, saying the government is working hard to combat the terrorist threat on social media. If Congress really wants to fight the Islamic State (also known as ISIL), they said, it should pass Obama’s authorization of use of military force — or AUMF in D.C. parlance — that he first submitted a year ago this week. It would authorize the president’s use of military force to fight the Islamic State. “When the use of social media crosses the line from communication… into active terrorist plotting, that is deeply concerning and has to be addressed,” said Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. “This is something that we have been focused on for some time.” Horne said senior administration officials have held a series of meetings over the last year with technology and new media officials and others to discuss “ways in which technology companies can harness their entrepreneurial and innovative expertise to consider ways in which we can make it harder for terrorist groups to recruit and radicalize.” She added that the administration is “committed to working closely with Congress on these measures, though Congress has thus far refused take any serious action” on Obama’s request for military force authorization against the Islamic State. The Senate version of Poe’s bill was introduced Tuesday and is sponsored by homeland security committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). Senate staff members, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal meetings, said they expect to obtain bipartisan support for the legislation. The committee is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to send it to the Senate floor.


Hundreds of galaxies found hiding behind the Milky Way

in the area make it hard to see distant ones shining) it seems like a void when you look at it with optical telescopes. This simulated fly-through shows the real positions and images of the galaxies that have been mapped so far. A new study suggests stars are slowly fading out across the universe. So scientists used the Parkes telescope, which uses radio waves to observe space. They detected 883 galaxies in the ZoA, about a third of which had never been spotted before. Enter the Great Attractor: This is a region of space that sits beyond the Milky Way and pulls all nearby galaxies toward it. Scientists know it must be incredibly massive to exert that kind of gravitational force, but because it's obscured by the Milky Way, we don't know much about it. "We don't actually understand what's causing this gravitational acceleration on the Milky Way or where it's coming from," lead author Lister Staveley-Smith of the University of Western Australia said in a statement. "We know that in this region there are a few very large collections of galaxies we call clusters or superclusters, and our whole Milky Way is moving towards them at more than two million kilometres per hour." That's more than 1.2 million mph. Staveley-Smith and his colleagues believe that this bumper crop of new galaxies could help solve the mystery: Perhaps there are enough of them in the ZoA to collectively exert huge gravitational forces. This isn't to say that the case is closed: The researchers will have to do more work to calculate the mass of these previously unknown galaxies, and only then can they determine whether the newfound stars can account for the Great Attractor's pull. Until then, we'll just keep hurling toward the unknown at about 1.2 million mph. A look at the best photos of space. Correction: This article previously stated the speed of the great attractor pull at 12 million mph, thanks to a missing decimal point. This has been corrected. Read More: Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the next decade With rumors flying, scientists are set to make a big announcement on gravitational waves Scientists detect the magnetic field that powers our galaxy’s supermassive black hole Map of the Milky Way reveals our galaxy’s growth strategy A ‘dead’ galaxy full of dark matter is lurking close to home


Placing the Clean Power Plan in context

proceed with the CPP. Could this happen? Yes. Among other things, there are questions about whether it is adequately demonstrated that the projected emission reductions can be met at reasonable cost, and whether the EPA impermissibly relied upon federally subsidized energy projects in making these determinations. These various legal vulnerabilities are one consequence of trying to reduce GHG emissions through the regulatory process. Yet the alternative — a climate policy statute that directs the reduction of GHG emissions — is not viable in Congress, at least for the time being. The CPP is by far the EPA’s most ambitious GHG emission control initiative to date, but does it make a difference? Supporters note that the emission reductions promised by the CPP were key to encouraging other nations to commit to GHG emission reductions of their own at the Paris climate summit. This is a fair point, but it’s also worth nothing that the CPP — for all its ambition — will not do much to reduce atmospheric concentrations of GHGs. Cutting utility emissions by 32 percent over the next 15 years is but a small step toward the 80 percent reductions policymakers claim we need and is an even smaller step toward the stabilization of GHG levels in the atmosphere. It is also not clear the CPP will do much to spur the sort of innovation that is necessary for poorer countries to develop in a less carbon-intensive fashion. More than 1 billion people around the world lack access to reliable sources of electricity. If low-carbon power cannot be made less expensive than the available fossil alternatives (coal in particular), then atmospheric stabilization of GHGs will not happen. Whatever ultimately happens with the CPP in court (or the next administration), greater attention needs to be paid to the real climate challenge: making a low-carbon future cheap and easy. Unless and until that occurs, GHGs will continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, spurring greater amounts of climate change. I am skeptical of the ability of centralized regulatory programs to add much to the climate effort, preferring innovation-spurring policies (such as technology inducement prizes) and placing a direct price on carbon. Whether or not this represents the right policy mix, climate change represents a monstrous policy challenge that will require more than the CPP has the potential to offer — and that’s even assuming that the CPP survives its day in court.


Part of M Street in Northwest Washington reopens

Updated at 10:30 a.m. M Street in Northwest Washington’s NoMa neighborhood has reopened. Original post at 7:15 a.m. D.C. Police have closed part of M Street in Northwest Washington as they investigate a fatal shooting in the area that occurred late Tuesday. Drivers are advised to avoid the roads in that area of NoMa. Update:Unit Block of M Street NW is closed until further notice. Use Alternate Routes: New York Ave & H St https://t.co/Utyr6aSZme The shooting happened around 8:45 p.m. at North Capitol and M streets NW. The man later died.


The bogus draft issue highlights Ted Cruz’s ignorance

world that drafts women along with men. Women constitute a third of all Israeli conscripts but make up only 2.5 percent of combat soldiers – and most of those women are in light infantry units that primarily patrol the peaceful Jordanian border. Women are not allowed into elite infantry or heavy armor units, which can be expected to suffer the heaviest losses in combat. The odds are that if the U.S. instituted a draft, women would be allowed to volunteer for slots in ground combat units but would not be required do so. In any case, unless physical standards are radically transformed, very few women will qualify for such units. The most informed senators on national security (including Marco Rubio) understand this. Roll Call reports today: “While there’s no expectation the U.S. military will return to conscription any time soon, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is siding with service chiefs who say that with all combat roles opened to women, the Selective Service system should include them, too.” The report continued: “As women serve in more roles across the armed forces, I support the recommendation of the Army Chief of Staff and the Commandant of the Marine Corps that women should register for Selective Service,” McCain said in a statement provided to Roll Call. “It is the logical conclusion of the decision to open combat positions to women.” . . . . Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, a frequent ally of McCain on national security policy, said earlier this week she had reached the same conclusion after hearing from the uniformed leaders of the Army and Marine Corps at an Armed Services Committee hearing last week on broader issues of women in combat. But let’s back up for a moment. Cruz is really saying that in a time of extreme emergency — the only conceivable time a draft would be needed — women would not be able to serve in any military capacity. Are women less capable? Less patriotic? Cruz seems immune to the notion that one of his little girls might grow up relishing the chance to direct drones, create advanced software, solve logistical issues and deal with the thousands of other tasks military men and women carry out. It’s both insulting to women and counter to the need for attracting the best and the brightest to defend the country. But then Cruz is never really interested in


Why classical music fans are upset at orchestra’s Super Bowl spotlight

Members of the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles got a prominent spot on stage accompanying Chris Martin of Coldplay during the Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show. But for some in the field, that wasn’t enough. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images) There’s been much backlash in musical circles in the wake of the Super Bowl halftime show. For most of America, that means people have been arguing about Beyoncé’s performance, and her daring at making an actual political statement in the midst of the feel-good flowers and rainbows and dancing of Coldplay, the band everyone loves to hate. But in the classical music world, the arguments focus on the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA). Members of that orchestra took part in the halftime show as well — did you see those dancing violinists on stage with Chris Martin? For some in the field, that was a really great thing; for others, a big disappointment. YOLA is the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s outreach program for kids aged 6 to 17, based in underprivileged Los Angeles neighborhoods, and modeled on the El Sistema program in Venezuela that spawned the LA Philharmonic’s music director, Gustavo Dudamel. Chris Martin met Dudamel, invited the kids to perform, and gave them a jolt of starry exhilaration — a big bonus payoff for their involvement in classical music. [Half time, half notes: an orchestra goes to the Super Bowl.] Surely this is a feel-good story. Except that the classical music press, given the advance information that YOLA would be performing at the Super Bowl, got a little giddy with the idea of it representing a great leap forward for classical music. So when the cameras panned across the screaming crowd of young people at the start of the halftime show and took in not an orchestra per se, but a bunch of teens with colorful violins, dancing on the stage and playing backup, without any identification or mention of where they came from, it was, for some people, a let-down, and a missed opportunity. (That the band they were backing up was Coldplay may only have added insult to injury.) Members of the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA), in red and blue jackets, take center stage with Beyonce, Chris Martin and Bruno Mars at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. (That’s Gustavo Dudamel between Beyonce and Chris Martin.) Some fans wanted them to get better exposure. (Photo by


For the record: A student asked the best question on climate change in all the presidential debates

A team of international scientists heads to Chile’s station Bernardo O’Higgins in Antarctica on Jan. 22, 2015. (Natacha Pisarenko/Associated Press) Debate moderators in the 2016 presidential election cycle have had plenty of data to pose strong questions to candidates regarding climate change. Impacts include mass dislocation, alterations in the spread of infectious diseases, more intense Western wildfires and record-breaking warmth in both 2014 and 2015. Almost a year before the first debate, the Pentagon issued a study identifying climate change as a national-security problem. “Destruction and devastation from hurricanes can sow the seeds for instability. Droughts and crop failures can leave millions of people without any lifeline, and trigger waves of mass migration,” said then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Surely the Pentagon’s warnings could well have informed a number of sizzling questions from the leading lights of broadcast journalism regarding climate change. No such luck. Twenty debates into the schedule — 15 on the GOP side (including the undercard events) and five on the Democratic side — the questions on this most pressing of modern issues show how easily journalists get sidetracked by frivolities in their quest to hold politicians accountable. The result is a lot of talk, dozens of hours of programming and little substance on a do-or-die matter of public policy. Perhaps PBS can patch up the shortcomings Thursday night at 9 Eastern, when it hosts the Democratic contenders from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. For tips on how to phrase a simple and consequential question, the PBS-ers may want to follow the example of an outsider. During the Oct. 13 CNN Democratic debate, Arizona State University graduate student Anna Bettis of Tempe, Ariz., asked via video, “As a young person, I’m very concerned about climate change and how it will affect my future. As a presidential candidate, what will you do to address climate change?” An extensive discussion of the topic followed. Easily done, right? Not right, to judge from other attempts by full-time journalists to poke at this topic. Here’s Bret Baier of Fox News at the Jan. 28 Republican debate: “Senator Rubio, on the issue of climate change, in 2008, you wanted Florida to get ahead of other states and establish a cap-and-trade system, a program for carbon emissions, which many Republicans thought at the time would hurt the Florida economy. Now, you’re a skeptic of climate change science. And in fact, you warn that


Kevin Love has shoulder stinger: It ‘felt like fire was running down my arm’

(NBA.com via Twitter) To hear Kevin Love describe it, the shoulder injury he suffered Wednesday night when he was bumped by Kobe Bryant was painful and felt as if it might be serious. “At the time, I didn’t really know what it was, but it was just like when you get hit in the funny bone, the elbow, just a shooting pain,” Love said after the Cleveland Cavaliers’ victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. “It felt like fire was running down my arm. It was just a stinger and the doctor said we’ll just be cautious and use the [all-star] break for it to feel better, but it feels okay right now. “It’s not concerning, but this is the first time where that sort of thing has happened.” Kevin Love has a shoulder injury that occurred on this play where he was defended by Kobe Bryant https://t.co/zUsDPnR1Ur Love was hurt on a shot attempt with less than a minute left in the second quarter and he immediately headed to the locker room with his arm hanging limply at his side. The injury is to the same shoulder he hurt during the first round of the playoffs against Boston last spring. He was sidelined the rest of the way and later underwent surgery. Cavs General Manager David Griffin told ESPN that the injury looked worse than it was. Luckily, All-Star Weekend comes at a good time. Kevin Love said it "felt like fire was running down my arm" but he doesn't expect to miss any time via @FOXSportsOH https://t.co/sqBSWsN2er ICYMI @kevinlove left Wed's @cavs game after injuring surgically repaired shoulder WATCH: https://t.co/c8tpc3fgHN https://t.co/csv5DfUAh5


The solution to climate change that has nothing to do with cars or coal

warmer climate might do the same. The length of the dry season here is expected to increase due to climate change, and in fact, that already seems to be happening in some Amazon regions. And this, in turn, could not only threaten regional hydrology but push a transition to less carbon-dense forests – in some cases even exacerbating the possibility of wildfires that could transform tropical forests into a different, savannah-like environment. Thus, both continuing deforestation and a warming climate alike threaten the carbon storage, and the rain generation, of the vast Amazon system. It’s not one menace – it’s two that are closely intertwined. Forests become part of the climate story “Happily, forests are now part of the way the whole climate agenda is put together,” he said, even though “it may have been only a couple of paragraphs in Paris.” The key change in tone may simply reflect the huge ambition of the Paris agreement – and its citation of the seemingly unattainable 1.5 degree temperature target in particular. With goals like these, it’s becoming clear that the solution to climate change isn’t any one thing. It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment. The harpy eagle, glimpsed on two successive mornings in its giant tree, with its regal crest and powerful legs that Whitney says are “as thick as a man’s wrist,” is no party to any of this. It’s just trying to survive, and pursuing a strategy for doing so that evolved long before modern deforestation. It can’t help needing very large trees and vast areas over which to hunt – so it can’t help being a kind of symbol. But what’s increasingly clear is that the birds, the forests and all of its other life, the rainfall, the carbon – they all come as a package. And what’s equally clear is that climate change isn’t just about temperature, or about fossil fuels. It’s about all the ways that humans keep pushing gigantic systems like the Amazon, and hoping that they’ll bounce back, just because they always have before. More at Energy Environment: Why so many economists back Obama’s idea of a tax on oil The Supreme Court could block Obama’s climate plans — but it can’t stop clean energy It’s not just Flint: Poor communities across the U.S. live with ‘extreme’ polluters For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.


LIGO Day in DC!

Albert Einstein/AP LIGO! I like saying that. LIGO! There’s a big presser scheduled for this morning at the National Press Club. Repeat after me: Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. I’ve already posted a backgrounder at SOS that gets into Aristotle and Galileo and Newton and Einstein. Read it here. I know there are boodlers who are into this kind of physics, so please help us understand the news today. I’ve worked up my own back-of-the-envelope calculation on the likely wave form signature of black hole mergers — that last little chirp is what you’re looking for, prior to the ring-down, right? One key point that might get lost in the shuffle today: LIGO is a completely different experiment than BICEP2, using completely different methods and searching for different phenomena. We note this only because the BICEP2 scientists made a dramatic claim about gravitational waves a couple of years ago, and then had to walk it back. [Big bang backlash: BICEP2 claim disputed by cosmologists] Other scientists said they’d only detected foreground dust. That was front-page news coming and going. Kind of a fiasco, to be honest. BICEP2’s experience is relevant here only in the sense that it provides a cautionary tale for anyone who is thinking about announcing a major discovery. First, do your peer review. More news coming in a few hours…. And here it is! Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger


Thursday’s massive gravitational wave news was broken by a sheet cake (really)

couple of outlets went live a few minutes early, especially given the fact that rumors about gravitational waves have been circulating for months. What is surprising is the leak that prompted them to pull the trigger. The leak came from a cake. Somebody caked the embargo. And here's the best part: This is actually the second time she's broken an embargo with a cake. The cake-tweeting culprit is Erin Lee Ryan, a research associate at the University of Maryland who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "It was September of 2013, and someone had brought cake," Ryan recalled to The Post on Thursday. The lab would have coffee chats every Monday and Friday to discuss science, but cake was an anomaly. "I was like, yes, there's cake at the coffee thing! So I tweeted it. That's how we'd get people from other labs to come over, by telling them we had food," Ryan said. But the cake actually featured a picture of a scientific result that was embargoed for another two hours. Because scientists aren't typing up articles about their colleagues' findings and broadcasting them out into the world, they don't usually have to be aware of embargo times or think about what constitutes breaking them. But in the age of Twitter, that can become a problem. "A couple hours later, I got a phone call from my boss, like 'where are you, do you know what's going down right now?' " Ryan said. "I mean, they weren't happy about it." But in the end, her tweet actually got more attention than the press release that got tweeted out later. "They told me to maybe chill with the tweeting for a week or so," she said — but she didn't get in trouble. Fast forward to Thursday morning, when Goddard scientists received another embargoed confection — and Ryan tweeted it with 16 minutes to go until the press conference. Ryan was aware of the 10:30 a.m. announcement, but didn't realize an embargo was still active when the cake arrived. She and her colleagues were even told to take pictures of the cake, Ryan said in an email. She didn't think tweeting the picture would break an embargo, even if there was one. On the one hand, Ryan was right in thinking her cake tweet was probably harmless: Physicists had been talking about the findings announced Thursday for weeks. It's


The problem with Whole Foods’ plans for a new grocery chain

A customer builds a salad at the new Whole Foods Market store in downtown Los Angeles. (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg) The year ahead could be a pivotal one for Whole Foods Market. The grocery chain is facing steep competition, and its reputation for being a wallet-buster isn’t helping. Which likely explains the motivation behind two major efforts the company has announced to better compete in the increasingly crowded organic grocery wars. In November, it outlined plans to gin up profitable growth at existing stores by boosting its prepared foods business and offering more discounts, among other measures. And, in its biggest gamble, it is launching a new chain this year called 365 by Whole Foods Market that it hopes will appeal particularly to millennials and budget-conscious shoppers. The twin strategies raise questions about how Whole Foods will prevent one brand of stores from cannibalizing the business of the other. And on Wednesday, the company’s latest quarterly financial results underscored what a big challenge Whole Foods faces as it tries to hang onto the organics crown. Whole Foods released a video featuring its co-CEOs and acknowledged that customers were charged incorrect prices for some of their products, following an investigation by New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs. [The popularity of organics is both good and bad news for Whole Foods] Whole Foods reported that total sales in the most recent quarter rose 3 percent. However, sales fell 1.8 percent at stores open more than a year, and the company said that was due to both a decline in the number of transactions and a decrease in “basket size,” or in how much money was spent per transaction. Executives said on a conference call with investors that some of the decline was because the grocer has gotten more aggressive with promotions, offering deals such as a three-day sale on supplements. Those promotions are not going away anytime soon. Whole Foods announced Wednesday it was launching digital coupons within its mobile app, and executives said they were continuing to find places to slash prices outside of temporary promotions. “There are certain very important categories that we know that we need to be competitive on an everyday basis on and so we are working to systemically identify those and move pricing on those to make sure we’re competitive,” said A.C. Gallo, the company’s president, on the investor call. Whole Foods Market is cutting about


Make women eligible for the draft? No, new legislation says: Ditch the system entirely.

A female soldier serving in a cultural support team alongside U.S. Special Operations troops scans the terrain while sitting in the back of a Humvee in Kabul province, Afghanistan, in December 2013. (Photo by Spec. Sara Wakai/ Army) The Pentagon opening all jobs in combat units to female service members has raised the question of whether women should be required to register for any future military draft. But a handful of congressmen have another proposal: Why not eliminate the Selective Service System that handles military drafts altogether? Reps. Mike Coffman (R.-Colo.), Peter DeFazio (D.-Ore.), Dana Rohrabacher (R.-Calif.) and Jared Polis (D.-Colo.) introduced legislation Thursday that would do so. No draft has been held since the Vietnam War, but the system has existed in some form since 1917, when the United States was preparing to enter World War I. “I think we are sort of at the proverbial fork in the road,” Coffman said Thursday. “I know there are a lot of members of Congress who would probably like to ignore this, but I don’t think we have a choice. Either you require registration for men and women, or you do away with the system altogether. And I’ve chosen to do away with the system altogether.” The argument is two-fold, said Coffman, who has served as an enlisted infantry in the Army in the early 1970s and later as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps. First, fighting wars with professionalized volunteer service members has led to a stronger military than using those who were drafted “and don’t want to be there,” Coffman said. And second, eliminating the Selective Service System would save the U.S. government about $24 million per year, he added. [Army and Marine Corps chiefs: It’s time for women to register for the draft] The issue has come up periodically since then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced in January 2013 that the U.S. military would move to integrate men and women fully by this spring. But it has been especially emotional since Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter affirmed that decision in December, saying no exceptions would be granted to the services to keep any position closed to women. Carter’s move appeared to up-end the premise under which women are exempt from any draft. It stems from the 1981 Supreme Court case Rostker v. Goldberg, which reversed the decision of a lower court and found that the Selective Service System


A brief history of gravity, gravitational waves and LIGO

spacetime fabric. Scientists in subsequent decades looked for such waves to no avail. In the 1960s, University of Maryland physicist Joseph Weber built devices for detecting gravitational waves, and he claimed to have evidence of success, but his findings did not hold up to close scrutiny and the quest for Einstein's waves fell into disrepute. But on Thursday, when one of Weber’s students, Kip Thorne, a legendary physicist at the California Institute of Technology, joined several colleagues in announcing the LIGO breakthrough, he made sure to mention Weber, who died in 2000. After the news briefing, he told reporters that Weber was the true founder of the field, and was just ahead of his time. “We had to wait another 40 years,” Thorne said. “It does validate Weber in a way that’s significant. He was the only person in that era who thought that this could be possible.” Thorne and other physicists ultimately persuaded the National Science Foundation to fund the creation of LIGO, which has two facilities, one in Livingston, La., and the other in Hanford, Wash. LIGO had its detractors from the very start because it was going to be expensive and might detect nothing at all. These waves, if they existed, would be extremely subtle. It’s not like picking up the vibration from a passing truck. The gravitational waves, in theory, should contract or expand space by an almost infinitesimal amount. A detector a couple of miles long might become longer or shorter by less than the width of a subatomic particle. Gravitational waves pass through everything and can't be directly captured. So the two LIGO facilities use a laser beam to try to deduce the passing of a gravitational wave. The beam is split in two, with each part bouncing off mirrors perched at the end of perpendicular, airless tubes about 2.5 miles long. When those cleaved beams again converge, they should align perfectly — unless some invisible gravitational waves have come trundling through the building, stretching one tube or compressing another and thereby changing the distances traveled by the beams. One of the controversies over LIGO was simply about the name. Was it really an “observatory”? Some astronomers weren’t ready to go there. Astronomy has always been a science built around light. When astronomers talk about observing in the optical, the infrared, or with radio waves or gamma rays or X-rays, they are talking about


This Boise State buzzer-beater was waved off, but was that the right call?

Boise State’s James Webb III (23) had his buzzer-beater (not pictured) called off despite apparently beating out the clock. (Otto Kitsinger/Associated Press) Boise State guard James Webb III hit one of this season’s more incredible buzzer-beaters in last night’s game between the Broncos and Colorado State, nailing a one-footed fade-away jumper as time expired in overtime to give his team an 87-84 win. The only problem? According to the referees’ stop watch, Webb didn’t get the shot off and the Rams went on to win in double-overtime. There has been plenty of public outcry in the past day, both over the referees’ decision and their methods. Here’s the shot in question at full speed: HE HIT IT!!! https://t.co/o7UsPaSJT0 Just for good measure, here is the shot in slow motion: Slow-motion video of James Webb III's 3-pointer to beat Colorado State that was later called off. https://t.co/2RPiWizl14 According to the red lights on the backboard, Webb III got the shot off in time. Even in slow motion, with the clock plainly in view, it does not appear that the clock starts 0.4 to 0.5 seconds late, as the officials claimed it did in a press release after the game. Statement from official Dave Hall regarding the end of the first OT between Boise State vs. CSU. https://t.co/Iv9MDfbnc8 The method seems outdated—this is a world and athletic sphere in which video technology exists—and much of the uproar was over the fact that many made use of the same stop watch method and continually came up with times closer to 0.6. After noting the number of video frames Webb III held the ball, Deadspin’s Tom Ley posits that the shot in question actually took roughly 0.57 seconds: A much more reliable way to determine how long it took Webb III to get that shot off is to break down the video of the shot frame by frame. Webb III held the ball for 17 frames before releasing it, which is equal to 0.57 seconds. Why the referees decided to rely on stopwatches rather than simple video technology is a mystery. While the Boise State loss will stand regardless, Mountain West referees would likely be best served if they avoided using, or mentioning, stop watches moving forward. H/T Deadspin


Ahead of debate, liberal groups challenge Clinton to list candidates for treasury secretary, attorney general

power," the petition from Rootstrikers, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Revolving Door Project, Americans For Financial Reform and Public Citizen's Congress Watch reads. " All the groups involved have supported Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren's policy proposals for financial regulation, which go farther than Clinton's plan. The groups plan to use the challenge to highlight stories of hardship in Nevada, which holds its primary Feb. 20 and has been disproportionately hurt by home foreclosures, a leader involved in the campaign said. The person involved, who requested anonymity to preview the Nevada activity, provided this testimonial from Tarl Michael, a former Las Vegas small-business owner who leans toward Clinton, but wants to see presidential candidates be strong on challenging Wall Street power. "During the Great Recession, the banks cut my operating capital down to nothing even though I had good credit. Because my mortgage was upside down, I could not get a business loan to continue operating my business," Michael said. "Not only did I lose my home to foreclosure, I also lost my business income and was forced to file bankruptcy. My life has been changed forever because I lost my home and business income. The banks were bailed out with my tax dollars, but they refused to help me and millions of Americans just like me. Wall Street needs to be held accountable, and Wall Street greed needs to be halted." Clinton has pledged what she calls more comprehensive financial regulation than Sanders, and frequently says that just breaking up the biggest banks, as he proposes, would not have prevented the last economic recession. But Wall Street veterans are among her close advisers and friends, and she has never suggested she would ban anyone with that background from working for her. One of her deputies at the State Department, Tom Nides, was a Wall Street executive before and after his government service, and she named another as head of the State Department's economic affairs bureau. “We are seeing a rising economic populist tide across the nation. Many issues in the 2016 debate boil down to voters wanting the next president to truly challenge Wall Street power and corporate power," said Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Stephanie Taylor. "Personnel is policy — and key to assessing a politician’s seriousness about challenging Wall Street power is who they would appoint to senior positions like treasury secretary, attorney general and SEC chair."


Miscarriages reported in 2 U.S. women with Zika virus, CDC says

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Zika virus and its spread across North and South America. Two U.S. women who contracted the Zika virus while traveling out of the country miscarried after returning home, and the virus was found in their placentas, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Federal health officials have not previously reported miscarriages in American travelers infected with the mosquito-borne virus while abroad. But there have been miscarriages reported in Brazil, the epicenter of a Zika epidemic that now spans nearly three dozen countries. Researchers in Salvador, Brazil's third largest city, are investigating some miscarriages and still births at three maternity hospitals for possible links to Zika. The STAT website first reported the U.S. miscarriages, based on information from the CDC's chief pathologist. The pathologist told STAT the women miscarried early in their pregnancies but provided no additional details. Last month, officials said a baby born in a Hawaii hospital was the first in the country with a birth defect linked to Zika. Hawaii officials said the baby's mother likely contracted the virus while living in Brazil last year and passed it on while her child was in the womb. Babies born with this rare condition, known as microcephaly, have abnormally small heads and brain abnormalities. In cases when women have one or two miscarriages, the cause is usually severe chromosomal problems, experts say. "It's absolutely possible for an infection, whether it be viral or bacterial, to result in a miscarriage," said Zev Williams, an obstetrician-gynecologist who specializes in pregnancy loss at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. "Whether it was caused by Zika remains to be determined," he said, but urged individuals to take precautions to avoid contracting or transmitting the virus. Some virus infections in pregnancy, like Rubella or German measles infections especially early in pregnancy, can spread from the mother and infect the cells of the fetus and cause direct injury to it, said Jesse Goodman, an infectious diseases doctor at Georgetown University. Here's a look at the pandemics that made it to our shores. In testimony before Congress Wednesday, CDC Director Tom Frieden reiterated that the agency is learning more about Zika every day, including how it can be transmitted from mother to fetus. Increasing evidence in Brazil also is linking Zika to microcephaly and other suspected neurological


Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger

Scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) announced on Feb. 11 that they have detected gravitational waves, ushering in a new era in the way humans can observe the universe. Scientists announced Thursday that they have succeeded in detecting gravitational waves from the violent merging of two black holes in deep space. The detection was hailed as a triumph for a controversial, exquisitely crafted, billion-dollar physics experiment and as confirmation of a key prediction of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It will also inaugurate a new era of astronomy in which gravitational waves are tools for studying the most mysterious and exotic objects in the universe, scientists declared at a euphoric news briefing at the National Press Club in Washington. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves. We did it!" said David Reitze, executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), drawing applause from an audience that included many of the luminaries of the physics world. The briefing was watched around the globe by physicists who have long waited for such a detection. Some of the scientists gathered for the announcement had spent decades conceiving and constructing LIGO. From Aristotle to Einstein, the world's greatest minds have long theorized about gravity. Here are the highlights, and where the study of gravity is headed next. “For me, this was really my dream. It’s the golden signal for me," said Alessandra Buonanno of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, who started working on theoretical models of gravitational waves in 2000 and flew to Washington for the announcement. The observatory, described as "the most precise measuring device ever built," is actually two facilities in Livingston, La., and Hanford, Wash. They were built and operated with funding from the National Science Foundation, which has spent $1.1 billion on LIGO over the course of several decades. The project is led by scientists from the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is supported by an international consortium of scientists and institutions. Gabriela Gonzalez, a physics professor at Louisiana State University who is the spokesperson for LIGO, said during Thursday's news conference that the work relied on the efforts of "a worldwide village." The scientific paper published Thursday names 1,004 individual authors. “Einstein would be beaming, wouldn’t he?” said NSF Director France Cordova. LIGO survived years of management and funding turmoil, and then finally began operations in


have long theorized about gravity. Here are the highlights, and where the study of gravity is headed next. “For me, this was really my dream. It’s the golden signal for me," said Alessandra Buonanno of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, who started working on theoretical models of gravitational waves in 2000 and flew to Washington for the announcement. The observatory, described as "the most precise measuring device ever built," is actually two facilities in Livingston, La., and Hanford, Wash. They were built and operated with funding from the National Science Foundation, which has spent $1.1 billion on LIGO over the course of several decades. The project is led by scientists from the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is supported by an international consortium of scientists and institutions. Gabriela Gonzalez, a physics professor at Louisiana State University who is the spokesperson for LIGO, said during Thursday's news conference that the work relied on the efforts of "a worldwide village." The scientific paper published Thursday names 1,004 individual authors. “Einstein would be beaming, wouldn’t he?” said NSF Director France Cordova. LIGO survived years of management and funding turmoil, and then finally began operations in 2002. Throughout the first observational run, lasting until 2010, the universe declined to cooperate. LIGO detected nothing. Then came a major upgrade of the detectors. LIGO became more sensitive. On Sept. 14, in the predawn darkness, LIGO heard something — a clear, compelling signal of two black holes coalescing, the observatory scientists said. A bird's eye view of LIGO Hanford's laser and vacuum equipment area, which houses the pre-stabilized laser, beam splitter, input test masses and other equipment. (Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab) These black holes were each approximately the diameter of a major metropolis. They orbited one another at a furious pace at the very end, speeding up to about 75 orbits per second — warping the space around them like a blender cranked to infinity — until finally the two black holes became one. The pattern of the resulting gravitational waves matched what scientists expected based on Einstein's relativity equations. The physicists knew, from supercomputer calculations and theoretical models, what gravitational waves from merging black holes ought to look like — with a rising frequency, culminating in that chirp, followed by a "ring-down" as the waves settle. Gonzalez revealed images of the waves picked up by the two detectors and then


Transcript: The Democratic debate in Milwaukee, annotated

rebuild the ladders of opportunity that will give every American a chance to advance, especially those who have been left out and left behind. I know a lot of Americans are angry about the economy. And for good cause. Americans haven't had a raise in 15 years. There aren't enough good-paying jobs, especially for young people. And yes, the economy is rigged in favor of those at the top. We both agree that we have to get unaccountable money out of our political system and that we have to do much more to ensure that Wall Street never wrecks main street again. But I want to go further. I want to tackle those barriers that stand in the way of too many Americans right now. African-Americans who face discrimination in the job market, education, housing, and the criminal justice system. Hardworking immigrant families living in fear, who should be brought out of the shadows so they and their children can have a better future. Guaranteeing that women's work finally gets the pay, the equal pay that we deserve. I think America can only live up to its potential when we make sure that every American has a chance to live up to his or her potential. That will be my mission as president. And I think together we will make progress. WOODRUFF: Thank you both. (APPLAUSE) WOODRUFF: Thank you both. And we'll be right back after a short break to begin questions. WOODRUFF: And, welcome back to this PBS Newshour debate, Democratic debate, here in Milwaukee. Let's get right to the questions. Senator Sanders, to you first. Coming off the results in Iowa and New Hampshire, there are many voters who are taking a closer look at you, and your ideas, and they're asking how big a role do you foresee for the federal government? It's already spending 21% of the entire U.S. economy. How much larger would government be in the lives of Americans under a Sanders presidency? SANDERS: Well, to put that in a context, Judy, I think we have to understand that in the last 30 years in this country there has been a massive transfer of wealth going from the hands of working families into the top one-tenth of 1% whose percentage of wealth has doubled. In other words, the very rich are getting richer, almost everybody is going -- getting poorer. What I believe is


Einstein predicted gravitational waves 100 years ago. Here’s what it took to prove him right.

artificial signal introduced to the system to keep researchers on their toes, make sure that they’re able to treat an apparently exciting development with the appropriate amount of scrutiny. But the injection system wasn’t supposed to be running yet, since research had just started. After about an hour of seeking some other explanation, Drago sent an email to the whole LIGO collaboration, he told Science: Was there an injection today? No, said an email sent that afternoon. Something else must have caused it. But no one had an explanation for the signal. Unless, of course, it was what they were looking for all along. An aerial photo shows Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Hanford laboratory detector site near Hanford, Washington in this undated photo released by Caltech/MIT/LIGO Laboratory on Feb. 8, 2016. (Caltech/MIT/LIGO Laboratory/Handout via Reuters) Chad Hanna, an a “My reaction was, ‘Wow!’” LIGO executive director David Reitze said Thursday, as he recalled seeing the data for the first time. “I couldn’t believe it.” Yet, as the weeks wore on and after an exhaustive battery of tests — including an investigation to make sure that the signal wasn’t the product of some ill-conceived prank or hoax — all the other possible sources of the signal were rejected. Only one remained: Long ago and far from Earth, a pair of black holes began spiraling around one another, getting closer and closer, moving faster and faster, whirling the spacetime around them, until, suddenly, they collided. A billion years later, a ripple from that dramatic collision passed through the two LIGO facilities, first in Louisiana, then, after 7 milliseconds, in Washington. The realization of what they’d found hit the LIGO collaborators differently. For some, it was a vindication — for themselves as well as the men who inspired them: “Einstein would be beaming,” Kip Thorne, a Cal-Tech astrophysicist and co-founder of the project with Weiss, said at the news conference Thursday. After the briefing, he also credited Weber, the UMD professor: “It does validate Weber in a way that’s significant. He was the only person in that era who thought that this could be possible.” Thorne told Scientific American that he’s feeling a sense of “profound satisfaction” about the discovery. “I knew today would come and it finally did,” he said. For Weiss, who had invested half his life in the search for gravitational waves, there’s just an overpowering sense of relief.


Renting an aged apartment comes with vintage problems — and perks

Jamie Grigg’s Kalorama apartment may be 90 years old, but she says its unique layout makes it worth the occasional plumbing problem. (Jason Hornick/For Express) Sometimes the plumbing in Jamie Grigg’s apartment acts a little funky after she’s been on vacation. “And my kitchen window is drafty, so if it’s ever really windy it tends to howl and whistle,” she says. Despite these quirks, she loves living in her 1920s-era apartment building in the Adams Morgan-Kalorama area. “My apartment is my pride and joy,” says Grigg, 26, who runs the apartment listing site Exposed Brick DC. “There’s so much character. In a place like D.C. that’s so old and historic, why wouldn’t you rent an older place? It might be one of your last opportunities to do that.” There are lots of new apartments going up around the D.C. area. But there are still plenty of older ones, some even boasting a historic pedigree. Whether you’re a fan of retro rentals like Grigg is, or attracted to one because of its location or price, there are a few things to consider when renting an apartment with some age to it. When looking at an older rental, check for signs of water damage or other issues and make sure that all the appliances and utilities work. “Flush the toilets and turn on the faucets,” says Eric Suissa, director of sales for the DC Apartment Company, which matches renters with available rentals. “If the toilets are running slowly or the drains take forever to drain, it could be a sign of bad stuff.” Be wary of peeling paint, because if it contains lead the dust could lead to poisoning. There’s a good chance lead-based paint was used in buildings constructed before the federal government banned it in 1978. Landlords are required to disclose information about lead paint in the property. “If they don’t give you a disclosure form or it’s not in the lease, ask where it is,” Suissa says. When it comes to utilities, they’re sometimes included in your rent in older apartments. But that may mean you don’t have as much control over them. With radiators, for example, you might be able to control the output but not the temperature. “I’m in one of those buildings where everything’s on one system,” says Grigg, who’s also an agent with DCRE Residential. “From May to September, we have air conditioning, but after


Vigilante Coffee reopens Friday with more space and the promise of alcohol

Continuing the trend of coffee shops that deal in dueling diuretics, Vigilante Coffee plans to add beer and wine to its newly expanded Hyattsville location later this year, but owner Chris Vigilante assures his caffeinated faithful that, despite the addition of alcohol, his focus will remain on the joe. The revamped Vigilante Coffee will feature some new toys, including this La Marzocco Linea PB 3 espresso machine. (Photo by Austin Redington) "The alcohol is definitely secondary," Vigilante says about the beer and wine program, which should launch around April. When the shop does start pouring suds and vino, it will join a growing list of java houses that double as bars: Chinatown Coffee Co. (a pioneer), Slipstream, Colony Club, Northside Social (another pioneer) and others. Closed since Monday for the final stages of an interior renovation, Vigilante Coffee will reopen Friday with about 75 seats, or about a 50 percent increase over its previous capacity. The extra space is not just for more drinkers but also for bands, which regularly grace the coffee house. In fact, four bands will perform on Saturday as part of Vigilante Coffee's grand reopening party at the Hyattsville shop. Look for the musicians to start plugging in around noon, or whenever they are fully caffeinated. They're expected to perform until 7 p.m., which is Vigilante's new closing time. The shop previously shut down at 4 p.m. "We have a lot of folks that try to rush over right after work to get one more coffee, and it was always difficult for them. We have such a growing influx of University of Maryland students coming over to study and stuff," the owner says. "It just made sense to offer more time to them." Once Vigilante secures his liquor license, he plans to build an "international" beer program with the help of outside consultants. The idea, he says, is to differentiate the beers at his place from those at Franklins, the restaurant and brewery located just across Baltimore Avenue. Vigilante expects to offer about 10 beers and seven or eight wines. "We haven't locked it into one specific type" of beer, Vigilante says, "But I'm a big fan of Belgian beers so I'm sure you'll see a lot of that on the menu." Not coincidentally, Vigilante has been consulting on the coffee program at the Neighborhood Restaurant Group's latest project, the Belgian-focused Sovereign in Georgetown. One immediate


The Daily 202: Hillary Clinton won last night’s debate by making it all about Barack Obama

said the status of their on-again-off-again relationship is “over.” (Emily Heil) - Martin Shkreli, the pharma bro who pleaded the Fifth before Congress last week, offered Kanye West $10 million for his new album. Under the terms of the offer, Kanye would release the album to him and him alone. (USA Today) WAPO HIGHLIGHTS: -- “ -- In related news, -- “ Louise Lucas (D) works at her desk on the floor of the Virginia State Senate in Richmond. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) -- “ The collision of two black holes holes, a tremendously powerful event detected for the first time ever, is seen in this still image from a computer simulation. (Caltech/MIT/LIGO Laboratory/Handout via Reuters) -- “Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger,” by Joel Achenbach and Rachel Feltman: “Mapping the abundance of black holes and frequency of their mergers could get a lot easier. Scientists announced Thursday that they have succeeded in detecting gravitational waves from the violent merging of two black holes in deep space … hailed as a triumph for a controversial, billion-dollar physics experiment and as confirmation of a key prediction of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Until now, astronomy has been almost exclusively a visual enterprise … But now gravitational waves can be used as well. They could potentially take a census of black-hole mergers, spot the collisions of ultra-dense neutron stars, probe the inner dynamics of exploding stars and discover theoretical ‘cosmic strings’ left over from the big bang … [and] could improve methods for estimating the distances to other galaxies.” -- Breanne Deppisch and Elise Viebeck contributed to this report. SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ: — ZIGNAL VISUAL There were 360,000 total mentions of the two Democratic candidates during the debate. Sanders received the lion's share of the attention with 57 percent, compared to Clinton's 43 percent. The Internet also weighed in on an important Sanders-related question: How many U’s are there in the word "yuge"? - Yuge: 115 - Yuuge: 4 - Yuuuge: 15 - Yuuuuge: 12 - Yuuuuuge: 3 The question for Sanders is whether tonight's debate performance is enough to translate the momentum of his victory in New Hampshire into a bona fide national campaign. If he can, it will be yuge. -- Nationally, the majority of the conversation during the debate on Facebook specifically was about Bernie on their platform (57 percent to 43 percent). But,


Beyond Zika: The terrifying map of things that keep NIH’s infectious diseases director up at night

For infectious disease experts, the most terrifying aspect of their job is the unpredictability of emerging infectious diseases. When Anthony Fauci first took the job as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984, there was only one that dominated everyone's minds and that was HIV/AIDS. No one knew exactly how the virus was spread, how quickly it could move from host to host — or how many it would eventually kill. Below is a copy of the slide Fauci used to show when giving talks to Congress, fellow scientists and others about this threat to humanity: [NIH officials accelerate timeline for human trials of Zika vaccine, saying they will now begin in the summer] In the 34 years that have passed, the map evolved. Fauci said in an interview that he still continues to show that same slide, but "I added one or two or three new emerging diseases every year." The last two years have been especially busy. "Remember the measles outbreak in Disneyland, drug-resistant TB, MERS, etc. Chikungunya in the Caribbean. And now we're dealing with Zika," Fauci said. "It's now a constant battle with emerging and reemerging infectious diseases." This is the map he showed at a hearing on Capitol Hill this week: (Courtesy National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) Read more: Why Zika is a ticking 'time bomb' for Latin America Zika and sex: What you need to know about the case in Dallas NIH officials accelerate timeline for human trials of Zika vaccine, saying they will now begin in the summer FAQ: What is Zika, and what are the risks as it spreads? Miscarriages reported in 2 U.S. women with Zika virus, CDC says For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter


That time China censored an art summit — in another country

The censoring did have an impact. Supporters posted pictures of the censored and uncensored frames online, generating interest well beyond the world of art summit attendees. Wasfia Nazreen, a Bangladesh native who is a friend and colleague of the artists, posted the photographs to her Facebook page, and the images quickly spread. Institutions should not be “fearfully bowing down to any foreign government’s threats,” she said. But sometimes they do. Though China maintains that its foreign policy is guided by the principle of "non-interference" — that is, non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries — it seems increasingly willing to assert itself across borders. In 2009, Bangladesh police shut down a Tibet-related show at the request of the Chinese. In other cases, people have stood up to Chinese pressure — and paid a price. In 2010, when Sarin and Sonam were scheduled to screen a Tibetan documentary at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Chinese officials asked organizers to pull the film. They did not; two Chinese film entries were subsequently pulled. The requests can border on ridiculous: This year, Chinese officials reportedly tried three times — in three countries — to ground a hot air balloon painted to look like the Tibetan flag. Sarin and Sonam said the problem with any type of interference is that event organizers may think twice before including Tibetan artists or Tibet-themed work, just to avoid the hassle. "The danger with this kind of action is that it creates a climate of uncertainty. Self-censorship begins to creep in.” Diplomats and rights groups also worry that Beijing’s tactics are escalating, that what starts as a strongly worded letter may end somewhere far worse. 'Last Words,' Censored. (Wasfia Nazreen 2016) Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch, drew a line between what happened in Bangladesh this week and the apparent abductions, from Thailand and Hong Kong, of booksellers affiliated with a publishing house that specializes in gossipy books about China’s elite. “Beijing’s growing desire to control expression inside China is rapidly mutating into a desire to control expression outside China,” she wrote. Threatening to shut down an art show over five letters speaks to this. The question now: Will Bangladesh give Beijing final say? Read More: China's plan to 'liberate' a cradle of Tibetan culture In the Dalai Lama's hometown, a moment of limbo Bookseller's televised confession was absurd — and that's the point


Everything you need to know about gravitational waves (in gifs)

as much noise as possible, then wait for really, really tiny movements to happen anyway. This graphic is not a gif, but it's the best we can do: The apparatus is so sensitive that if it were measuring the distance from the Earth to the Sun it could detect a change in width less than that of a human hair. Here's the "chirp" detected by LIGO, converted to a frequency that human ears can hear: The Sound of Two Black Holes Colliding 7. What do we know about those colliding black holes? This is our first direct evidence of binary black holes — a pair of them interacting and colliding. The black holes were each about as wide as a metropolitan area. But incredible mass was packed into that tiny space: One of the two black holes had a mass about 36 times greater than our sun. The other registered at 29 solar masses. Both were rather massive as black holes go — 10 solar masses is more typical. They orbited one another at a furious pace at the very end, speeding up to about 75 orbits per second — warping the space around them like a blender cranked to infinity — until finally the two black holes became one. "The storm was brief — 20 milliseconds — very brief, but very powerful," Thorne said during Thursday's press conference. "The total power output during the collision was 50 times greater than all the power of all the stars in the universe put together." 8. What now? It's true that the folks at LIGO got first dibs on gravitational waves. But that doesn't mean other folks will stop trying. In fact, there are other gravitational wave labs in the pipeline that haven't even opened yet. Detecting gravitational waves is just the first step. Now scientists at LIGO are working with a true observatory, and they can get better and better at using gravitational waves to decipher the secrets of the universe. They're proud of themselves, and they should be, but they want other gravitational wave labs to step up to the plate. Because scientists may be competitive, but science is a team effort. (YouTube) Read More: Thursday’s massive gravitational wave news was broken by a sheet cake (really) Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the next decade Scientists just smashed the distance record