Thursday’s best D.C. Beer Week events

DC Beer Week is underway. Through Sunday, local bars and restaurants will be hopping with beer tastings, happy hours and special events. Every morning, we'll provide a rundown of the night's best events. If you need to plan ahead, check out this list of each day's best events that require reservations. A word before we start The big one: Find your new favorite IPA Tonight's History and Hops happy hour at the Heurich House features beers from the Mad Fox Brewing Company. (Photo by Craig Hudson/For The Washington Post) My favorite event of DC Beer Week 2013 was Blind and Bitter, a blind tasting of two dozen IPAs from a dozen breweries organized by DCBeer.com. Participants at Scion and Crios Modern Mexican ordered small pours of beer using only brief tasting notes, such as “citrus, piney, fresh cut grass,” and then voted for their favorite. (The winner was Evolution’s Lot #6 Double IPA.) The event returns this year with an expanded lineup of twenty-four breweries, all of which are bringing just one beer. Big names are involved, including Stone, Dogfish Head, Founders and Bell’s, which adds to the intrigue. Be warned: It gets very crowded, especially in Scion's bar, and taps will run out. Doors open at 4 p.m., and admission is free, though you'll pay for each beer. Other highlights The stars have aligned for the Heurich House Museum, as its monthly History and Hops happy hour falls during DC Beer Week. Tour the historic Victorian home of Christian Heurich, who was the most powerful brewer in Washington in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and taste three beers from Mad Fox, including a dry-hopped cask of the Abbaye des Chutes Abbey Ale. Unlimited beer and finger foods are covered by the $30 ticket. (UPDATE: This event has sold out.) We're counting the days until Snallygaster, D.C.'s best beer festival, which takes place in Yards Park on Sept. 13. Bluejacket is one of the sponsors, and the Navy Yard brewery is preparing exclusive beers for the event. Tonight, you can get an exclusive taste of Snallygaster Ale, which Bluejacket describes as "a 7% golden Farmhouse-style ale, brewed with 30% wheat (a portion of which is malted and a portion unmalted), hopped with New Zealand-grown Southern Cross and Oregon-grown Horizontal hops, then fermented with a blended culture of Brettanomyces (Bruxellensis & Lambicus strains), Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces (Saison Ale yeast)."


Chef Michael Harr moves on from Bethesda’s Food, Wine & Co.

Chef Michael Harr at Food, Wine & Co. in Bethesda. (Scott Suchman/For the Washington Post) Executive chef Michael Harr is moving on from Bethesda's Food, Wine & Co. The chef has worked at the restaurant -- in addition to its sister restaurants Fish Taco and City Burger -- since February 2011. Harr said by e-mail that he would be moving on to the next phase of his career after taking a vacation. In a 2013 review of Food, Wine & Co., Tom Sietsema said Harr's cooking, especially deviled eggs and a 30-minute roast chicken, had him "seeing more stars." Food, Wine & Co. owner Francis Namin said chef Sam Henderson will replace Harr. Henderson plans to keep the core of the Food, Wine & Co. menu unchanged, Namin said. Henderson, who is currently director of culinary operations for Aramark, will begin Sept. 8. Previously, he's worked at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston. Part of Henderson's mandate, Namin said, will be to spearhead an expansion of Fish Taco and City Burger. "We have committed ourselves to a few other spaces where we’re going to be opening new restaurants," Namin said. "My company was in need of an individual who was a corporate chef to help us on new concepts and new business developments." Namin said that he has already signed letters of intent to open a City Burger in Rockville, and a Fish Taco in Arlington. He is exploring other options in McLean, Columbia and Gaithersburg.


The brutality of ‘Jihadi John,’ the Islamic State militant who decapitated James Foley

by him. He is reported to have led negotiations with at least eight Western families in the past year for the release of their loved ones, and may have been involved last spring when Islamic State militants released two Spanish journalists. But the Islamic State’s correspondence with Foley’s family was different. The group demanded the astronomical sum of $132 million for his release, a “number so absurdly high that private third parties or insurance groups that cover kidnappings would have struggled to pay it,” wrote The Post’s Adam Taylor. It was so high, in fact, that most experts agree the Islamic State never expected to get paid. Foley, it seemed, would be reserved for something else. John and the rest of the guards disliked Foley. They seized his laptop, and their subsequent discovery that Foley’s brother served in the U.S. Air Force stirred acts of recrimination, fellow hostage Didier Francois told Europe 1 Radio. “Being an American, he was probably more targeted by the kidnappers,” another captured French journalist told the BBC. “Well, he would be beaten a bit more probably, he was some kind of scapegoat. And the kidnappers knew that his brother was in the U.S. Air Force. He became the whipping-boy of the jailers.” One particularly brutal scene came right before Francois’s release in April of this year. The jihadists began to perform mock executions on Foley. “One of the last times I saw him before leaving, the group — which has macabre taste — had forced him to pose as if he was being crucified against a wall,” François said, according to the Wall Street Journal.. Finally, on Aug. 12, days before Foley’s execution, his captors sent a final e-mail to Foley’s family. The publication Foley wrote for, GlobalPost, published the letter in full with the permission of Folely’s family. “HOW LONG WILL THE SHEEP FOLLOW THE BLIND SHEPPARD?” it read. “…As for the scum of your society who are held by us, THEY DARED TO ENTER THE LION’S DEN AND WHERE EATEN! … Today our swords are unsheathed towards you, GOVERNMENT AND CITIZENS ALIKE! AND WE WILL NOT STOP UNTILL WE QUENCH OUR THIRST FOR YOUR BLOOD. … You and your citizens will pay the price of your bombings! The first of which being the blood of the American citizen, James Foley! He will be executed as a DIRECT result of your transgressions toward us!”


A year in the adorable life of Bao Bao

Related: Year of the panda, and 154 other zoo babies The National Zoo’s giant panda cub is celebrating her first birthday. Here's a look at some of the most memorable moments since her birth on Aug. 23, 2013. Bao Bao August 23, 2013: The panda cub at two days old. (National Zoo via Getty Images) Two weeks: The giant panda cub during her first full veterinary exam. (Courtney Janney/National Zoo) Six to eight weeks: Zoo staff handle the panda cub during the shutdown. The animals were cared for, but the zoo’s 15 camera systems — which require federal resources, primarily staff, to operate — were deemed nonessential during the impasse. (Bill Clements/National Zoo) Almost three months: Two National Zoo employees give the giant panda cub a checkup in mid-November, around the time she took her first steps. (Connor Padraic Mallon/National Zoo) Three months: Five months: Bao Bao almost seemed bored at times on the first day members of the general public got a view of the most recent panda born at the National Zoo. She licked at a piece of bamboo and walked a bit and then promptly went back to sleep for much of the morning. She often slept 20 hours a day at that point. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) Seven months: Bao Bao ventured outdoors with her mom, Mei Xiang, for the first time on April 1 at the zoo. The zoo said Bao Bao tried out her climbing skills on one of the smaller trees and sat on the grass with a piece of bamboo. (AP Photo/Smithsonian National Zoo) Bao Bao, Washington D.C.'s beloved baby panda, celebrates her first birthday with a Zhuazhou (dra-JO) ceremony, a Chinese tradition for a 1-year-old child.


READ IN: Friday, August 22, 2014: Guard leaving Ferguson, Shaheen up just 2 in NH, House staffers’ Wikipedia problems, Steyer parachutes into Colorado, New Hampshire, stunning number of Army recruits are overweight

reasons. It was unclear whether the orders were issued by U.S. or Guatemalan officials. -- Paul was in Guatemala as part of a group of ophthalmologists sponsored by the University of Utah, the Hope Alliance and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. Paul paid his own way and asked donors, including Donald Trump, to chip in to help pay for almost 200 cataract surgeries and the distribution of 8,000 pairs of eyeglasses. (Washington Post) B1: -- NASA is expected to announce a multi-billion dollar contract to build a reusable spacecraft for U.S. astronauts. NASA wants to be able to rent the spacecraft from the private sector firm, instead of paying Russia more than $70 million for a seat in Soyuz spacecraft. SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and Boeing are the front-runners for the new vehicle. (Washington Post) -- Markets are trading lower today after rising slightly on Thursday. Most world markets were down today, though the Hang Seng in Hong Kong closed higher. (CNN) C1: -- The most interesting interview you'll listen to today: Major Gen. Allen Batschelet, who heads the U.S. Army's recruitment program, says more and more recruits are showing up overweight, and that more recruits have rap sheets including infractions that police didn't used to consider crimes. "Today about 15 percent [of recruits] are disqualified for obesity, and we think by 2020 that number could go to 50 percent," Batschelet said. About 70 percent of Americans between 17-24 are not qualified to join the Army. (Here And Now) C4: -- "Woman pays fine for climbing into giraffe pen." (WISN-TV) "New Jersey congressman's office apologizes for using photo of Soviet medals in Facebook ad." (Associated Press) -- Watch Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) get a bucket of ice water dumped over his head. (Helena Independent Record) And Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R). And South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R). And Rep. Mike Coffmnan (R) and his opponent, Andrew Romanoff (D). We're sure there will be others. Attn HuffPo: -- Arizona State House Speaker Andy Tobin (R) said this week it's possible migrant children crossing the border into the U.S. could bring the Ebola virus. Tobin acknowledged that Ebola has been limited to outbreaks in Africa, "to the extent that they're really aware of that." (Arizona Republic) Tobin is the business-backed candidate in the race against Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D); Mitt Romney recorded a robo-call for him this week.


Wonkbook: BofA’s record settlement may leave homeowners disappointed

reform: One of the nation’s most expensive ballot campaigns is heating up. Niraj Chokshi in The Washington Post. Long read: As more hospices enroll patients who aren’t dying, questions about lethal doses arise. Peter Whoriskey in The Washington Post. American employers are rethinking their role in workers’ health care. The Economist. Most Obamacare exchanges got bigger. California's is getting smaller. Dan Diamond in Kaiser Health News and California Healthline. Animals interlude: 4. Positive labor-market signs before Yellen's speech A rare sign of real economic confidence? Housing, jobs data bolster economic outlook. Despite rise in economic indicators, some areas of weakness remain. Why are jobless claims falling so fast? Private bankers left out of Jackson Hole meeting. Central bankers wrestle with easy money amid uneven global recovery. Foreign banks the beneficiary of Fed's exit strategy. Related: Explainer: Other economic reads: Why hotel, restaurant workers may soon get a raise. Quoctrung Bui in NPR. Kayaking interlude: 5. The politics and policy of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge It’s going to take a lot more ice buckets to fill the NIH funding gap. Don't expect U.S. diplomats, service members or House members to take the challenge. Related: Videos: Oops: Lawmakers who took challenge voted (even if reluctantly) to cut funding. Background reading: Unique Ice Bucket Challenge interlude: Wonkblog roundup A drug naming dispute, with billions on the line. Jason Millman. How much $100 is really worth in New York, Washington and Chicago. Niraj Chokshi. Some homeowners could get hit with a whopping tax bill if they accept help through Bank of America’s settlement. Dina ElBoghdady. 12 years of data from New York City suggest stop-and-frisk wasn’t that effective. Emily Badger. It’s going to take a lot more ice buckets to fill the NIH funding gap. Jason Millman. Et Cetera Profile: Prosecutor in Rick Perry case called ethical, fair. Andrea Ball in the Austin American-Statesman. Net worth falls for majority as wealth grows. Carol Morello in The Washington Post. Inversions push falls to Treasury's tax man, Mark Mazur. Damian Paletta in The Wall Street Journal. Florida same-sex marriage ban ruled unconstitutional, but decision stayed. Michael Winter in USA Today. Long read: Paying NCAA college athletes — inside the legal battle. Paul M. Barrett in Bloomberg Businessweek. Coal terminal decision highlights exports' greenhouse-gas emissions. Bobby Magill in Climate Central. Got tips, additions, or comments? Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams and Ryan McCarthy


Pentagon launches investigation into Marine general’s alleged retaliation

Marine Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, left, commander Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces North, speaks with Maj. Gen. Glenn H. Curtis, adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard, during an Aug. 4 meeting at Jackson Barracks in New Orleans. The Defense Department Inspector General’s office has launched an investigation into Mills’s handling of a controversial legal case tied to an insider attack in Afghanistan. (Photo by Master Sgt. Toby M. Valadie/Louisiana National Guard) The Pentagon’s top watchdog organization has launched an investigation into whether a three-star Marine Corps general retaliated against a lower-ranking officer who warned Marines in Afghanistan about a potential threat posed to them by an Afghan police chief 17 days before an on-base shooting killed three of them. The Defense Department Inspector General’s office opened the investigation against Lt. Gen. Richard P. Mills, commanding general of Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces North, of New Orleans, according to an Aug. 19 memo sent from the IG’s office to the lower-ranking officer, Maj. Jason Brezler. The watchdog will examine whether Mills violated the Defense Department’s directive guaranteeing protection to whistleblowers in the military by ordering Brezler to appear before an administrative board that met in December 2013 and recommended he be discharged. Mills, who commanded all Marines in southern Afghanistan for a year spanning 2010 and 2011, did not respond to an e-mail. A spokesman for the general, Adam Bashaw, referred comment to the Defense Department IG. Bridget Serchak, a spokesman for the watchdog, said the office as a matter of policy does not confirm if investigations are ongoing. Brezler could not be reached for comment, but a lawyer for him, Kevin Carroll, said they believe Brezler became the target of retaliation after he communicated with Congress and law enforcement after an Aug. 10, 2012, killing of three Marines at Forward Operating Base Delhi in Garmsir, Afghanistan. Before the shooting, Brezler sent classified information on July 24, 2012, to Marines in Garmsir about a police chief, Sarwar Jan, that he had encountered during a previous deployment. The Afghan official was believed to have ties to the Taliban and had been removed as the police chief in another district while Brezler was deployed in 2009 and 2010. He was later put in power in Garmsir anyway by the Afghan government. The move prompted deployed Marines to ask Brezler, a reserve Marine who works for the New York City fire


The weekend’s best D.C. Beer Week events

tap at all three Pizzeria Paradiso locations has been turned over to sour beers. Order flights -- served on Pintristable slate boards -- to try them all. (Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) BrewHaHa Other highlights If your image of English beer is old-fashioned malty cask ale, you need to visit ChurchKey this event. Siren Craft Brew is an inventive two-year-old brewery that makes IPAs filled with tropical hops, and smoky chocolate stouts. Fifteen Siren beers will be featured on draft and in bottles at ChurchKey, beginning at 6 p.m., including Siren's collaborations with Evil Twin, Cigar City and the slightly off-kilter "Limoncello IPA" brewed with Hill Farmstead and Mikkeller. Through Saturday night, every single draft beer at all three Pizzeria Paradiso locations will be a funky sour ale. (The raspberry-tinged Birrificio Del Ducato Frambozschella and the ginger-and-carraway-infused Professor Fritz Briem 13th Century Grut Bier were particularly good at Dupont last night.) The full menus for each bar are on the Paradiso website. If all the drinking works up an appetite, head for GBD for the Late Night Munchies Party, which pairs beers from Colorado's Breckenridge Brewery with GBD's decadent menu: Think Nutella-glazed doughnuts served with a Vanilla Porter, or Lil' Chicken Biscuit sandwiches with the malty Autumn Ale. (The full menu is here.) The menu begins at 9 p.m. Saturday The big one: Devils Backbone in Columbia Heights Other highlights "We Can Brew It" is the latest in Black Squirrel owner Amy Bowman's series of events for ladies who love craft beer. A $25 ticket includes six beers, appetizers, and a beer school with local beer celebrities talking about their favorite brews, including Denizens Brewing co-owners Emily Bruno and Julie Verratti, DC Homebrewers Club vice president Elizabeth Hartman, and beer writer Tammy Tuck. A meet-and-greet happy hour begins at 1 p.m., and the talks run from 2 to 5. (Buy tickets) Colorado and Delmarva breweries Sunday The big one: A beery block party Other highlights Sunday marks 200 years since the British army burned the White House and the Capitol after routing the American troops at the Battle of Bladensburg. In "honor" of this unforgettable event, Pizzeria Paradiso's Georgetown and Dupont Circle locations will each have six smoked beers on tap all day, including Mikkeller Beer Geek Bacon (Dupont) and The Monarchy's Grodziskie and Grätzer (Georgetown). No word on whether the other draft beers will be British. The menus are here.


Extreme drought is causing the ground to rise across the western U.S.

(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Vanishing water is causing the ground to rise in the western U.S., according to a new study. Scientists estimate that 63 trillion gallons of water has been lost in the West over the past 18 months. The surface of the earth is much more springy than you might think. When you put something very heavy on it, there’s a good chance the ground will sink at least a little bit. And in the same way, when you remove something very heavy, the ground will lift. As it turns out, 63 trillion gallons of water is pretty heavy. That is how much water scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego estimate has gone missing from the western U.S. over the past 18 months. That incredible water deficit weighs nearly 240 billion tons, and as it evaporated, the ground began to shift. Related: A network of GPS devices, the Plate Boundary Observatory, is laid out in the western U.S., used to study shifting tectonic plates. As small earthquakes happen, the distance that the ground shifts can be measured with the same technology that gets you from here to there in your car. Drought conditions across the western U.S. as of August 21, 2014. (U.S. Drought Monitor, modified by CWG) While scouring the GPS data, researchers noticed that the ground was slowly rising beneath their feet, coinciding with the drought. Taking a closer look, they found that across the western U.S., the ground has risen an average of 0.15 inches since 2013. The effect is much more pronounced in the mountains of California, where the uplift was as high as half an inch. More: Using these measurements, scientists were able to put a number on the vast amount of water that the West has lost. Scripps scientist Dan Cayan is hopeful these results can prove to be helpful in monitoring water shortages across the globe. “These results demonstrate that this technique can be used to study changes in fresh water stocks in other regions around the world, if they have a network of GPS sensors,” Cayan said in a press release. Drought conditions have spread across over 70 percent of the western U.S. as of Thursday. But no state is feeling the drought as bad as California, where over half of the state was in an exceptional drought, the U.S. Drought Monitor’s worst drought classification.


Does the federal computer hacking law apply to a laptop not connected to the Internet?

marijuana could have an impact on the supply and demand for marijuana in the national economy. No matter how local the marijuana growing, Congress could still regulate it. This excursion into Commerce Clause doctrine explains just how broad the current version of “protected computer”has become, and by extension, just how far the CFAA reaches. Because the definition now applies to both computers in the United States and abroad that are used in or affecting interstate commerce or communication, every computer around the world that can be regulated under the Commerce Clause is a “protected computer” covered by 18 U.S.C. § 1030. This does not merely cover computers connected to the Internet that are actually “used” in interstate commerce. Instead, it applies to all computers, period, so long as the federal government has the power to regulate them. The 2008 amendments of the CFAA and the nearly limitless scope of modern Commerce Clause doctrine mean it may be no exaggeration to say that a “protected computer” now just means a “computer.” Computers are ubiquitous as tools of modern commerce, and intrastate use of computers often has interstate effects. Computer data created and used in one state is easily moved across state lines, and breaches of computer security among intrastate computers can have an effect on computer use generally. It would be premature to rule out Commerce Clause challenges to intrastate use of computers in all cases. If limits exist, however, they likely are very narrow ones. Perhaps the only identifiable exclusion from the scope of protected computers is a “portable hand held calculator, or other similar device,” exempted from the definition of “computer.” Everything else with a microchip or that permits digital storage is, arguably, covered. As I understand the doctrine, then, the laptop is a “protected computer” because the aggregated effect of intrastate unauthorized access into computers would nonetheless have an effect on interstate commerce. See, e.g., United States v. Jeronimo-Bautista, 425 F. 3d 1266 (10th Cir. 2005) (concluding that Congress can prohibit the purely intrastate production of child pornography because the aggregated effect of such production would impact interstate commerce). Under the applicable standard from Raich incorporated by the 2008 amendments, whether the computer is connected to the Internet at the time does not impact whether it is a “protected computer.” Or so it seems to me. I’d be very interested to know if anyone has a different view.


A second and different Ebola outbreak hits Congo, the fifth infected African country

That makes five. The first was Guinea. Then, three days later on March 27, the World Health Organization reported that there were “suspected” cases of Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Months passed before the disease, which has now killed 1,427 people across West Africa, reached Nigeria in early August. Now it’s the Democratic Republic of Congo. “I declare an Ebola epidemic in the region of Djera, in the territory of Boende in the province of Equateur,” Reuters quotes Congo health minister Kabange Numbi saying on Sunday. But, he said, it appeared to be a different strain from the West African variety, which has hopped borders, forced quarantines from rural villages to overpopulated slums, and terrified a continent. “The epidemic has nothing to do with the one in West Africa,” the minister added. Governments move to stop the epidemic from spreading further as the death toll from the virus continues to grow. The World Health Organization couldn’t confirm Sunday whether the two outbreaks were different strains and expected more answers on Monday. “Need to wait for confirmatory tests,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said on Twitter. “But yes there could be two different strains here, meaning two different events/outbreaks.” A second Ebola front will further complicate international efforts to combat what has become an out-of-control outbreak in West Africa. On Sunday, it was unclear how many had died of Ebola in the northwestern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Three Ebola survivors from Liberia were interviewed by the World Health Organization on July 17, 2014. They describe their symptoms, who they contracted the disease from and their paths to recovery. In the last several weeks, a mysterious disease had reportedly riddled 592 victims with symptoms similar to Ebola, killing 70 of them. The WHO originally said the outbreak wasn’t related to Ebola. “This is not Ebola,” one WHO representative initially told Reuters late last week. But that assessment, following the analysis of eight samples, now appears shaky. Two of those samples tested by Congolese health workers had tested positive for the virus. Officials now contend 13 people had died of Ebola, including five health workers. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told the Associated Press the initial information had been the result of “miscommunication from the field.” He added on Twitter: “I was given premature information from the field.” Either way, Congolese Health Minister Kabange Numbi expressed confidence. “The experience acquired during


Cakelove founder adds jars to cups

Dismary Prudencio with Cakelove’s cake in a jar.(Jeffrey MacMillan/Capital Business) Washington’s love affair with cupcakes began in 2002 when lawyer-turned-baker Warren Brown opened Cakelove on U Street NW. And now that people’s ardor for these baked goods is waning, D.C.’s designer cupcake godfather is trying to find a way to bring back business. Brown’s next big idea: Cake in a jar. The inspiration? His own customers’ complaints about the very product that brought him sweet success: Cupcakes are messy. You get frosting on your nose and crumbs everywhere else. They topple over, and they don’t keep their shape. “People want to be able to have cake on their own terms,” Brown said. “They want something that’s portable, that they can eat with a spoon and save for later.” It took Brown a few months to perfect the idea. After that, he set out looking for the right jar, a plastic container with a resealable white lid. The jars of cake, which include flavors such as red velvet and chocolate chip cookie dough, hit local shelves in November. A number of area Whole Foods stores carry the products, as do Glen’s Garden Market in Dupont Circle and Dawson’s Market in Rockville. GCDC, a grilled cheese restaurant in Foggy Bottom, also stocks the desserts. Cakelove sells between 2,500 and 3,500 jars a month. Cakelove founder Warren Brown at his shop in National Harbor. (Jeffrey MacMillan/Capital Business) Brown said he is looking for a separate kitchen space, but for now, Cakelove’s 30 employees assemble the jars in the company’s three stores. They typically start with large layer cakes, then scoop them into 4-ounce jars that sell for $3.99 a piece. Brown says much has changed in the dozen years since he founded Cakelove. High-profile competitors such as Georgetown Cupcake and Sprinkles have cropped up, and people have become more cautious about their spending. All of that has translated to dwindling demand for the company’s cakes. “The retail market is completely different than it was in 2002,” Brown said. “People shop and buy differently. They don’t spend as much money on celebrations.” Brown shuttered Cakelove’s Silver Spring store in January and plans to close its National Harbor location next month. He will continue to operate Cakelove’s two remaining shops, but said he is shifting his focus to the wholesale cake-in-a-jar business. It’s a more flexible product, Brown said, and one that can be sold


It’s a beautiful time to be alive and educated

bank, Credit Suisse First Boston, so I know what I am talking about. I too used to obsess over building wealth, and didn’t believe I could really make a difference in the world. So don’t take my comments too personally. The author delivers his speech at Hult International Business School. (Photo courtesy of Michael Reeves/GradImages) I am here to tell you that you have opportunities that I could not even have imagined when I was young. You can build the Star Trek future that we have dreamed about. It has become possible for people such as all of you here to solve the big problems; to rid our civilization of the ills that have long plagued it; to take humanity from eons of scarcity to an era of abundance. You can take us into a world in which we worry more about sharing prosperity than fighting each other over what little we have. This period in human history is unique, because now entrepreneurs can do what only governments and big corporations could do before. You are the space cadets with the opportunities to make amazing things happen. Let me explain what changed over the last couple of decades and why I have become so optimistic. You have seen the advances in our computers: how they keep getting faster and smaller. The Cray supercomputers that I used to read about when I was young were considered to be strategic government assets. They could not be exported; they were for scientific research and defense; and they cost in the tens of millions of dollars. They needed to be housed in huge buildings, and required water cooling. The smartphones many of you carry in your pockets are many times more powerful than these were. This progression is known as Moore’s Law. For more than 100 years, the processing power of computers had doubled every 18 months. Faster computers are now being used to design faster computers. Computers—and the information technology that they enable—are absorbing other fields. So we are seeing exponential advances in sensors, artificial intelligence, robotics, medicine, 3D printing, and so on. Futurist Ray Kurzweil says: “As any technology becomes an information technology, it starts advancing exponentially.” That is what is happening. These technologies are also converging — and making amazing and scary things possible. Take the advances in sensors such as the camera in your smartphone. Kodak introduced the first “computerized”


How the U.S. Digital Service could upset D.C.’s ‘IT vendor ecosystem’

It launched on Aug. 11 as the United States Digital Service, or USDS. But now the question becomes what success looks like for the USDS, and the two dozen or so technologists expected to serve as its crop of in-house experts. It is, explained Pahlka in an interview with The Washington Post this week, is "getting to the point where government can buy and build what it needs" in the way of digital technologies. The USDS's British inspiration, though, also provides a preview of some of the challenges the new office might face. The U.K. arm of the multinational technology firm CGI has been vocally critical of the Government Digital Service's push to partner with tech start-ups and other small firms. (The company's subsidiary CGI Federal was the lead contractor on the $90 million contract for the troubled HealthCare.gov rollout.) "The government," Tim Gregory, the head of CGI's British operations, told ComputerWorld UK in 2013, "is making life difficult for IT vendors." Pahlka insisted that the USDS isn't about cutting vendors out of the process. They're a critical part, she said, of figuring out how the U.S. can better handles its technology needs. It's just that they're not going to be the same ones that they've always been, working the same way that they always have. Pahlka said that she hears the grumblings about the USDS -- along with the team of hands-on federal technologists called 18F that launched in the spring and is housed at the General Services Administration. The criticism starts with the premise that since the U.S. federal government will never be able to build all the technology it needs, it should stick to simply hiring outsiders well-versed in the ways of federal IT procurement. But that, she said, is "a weird logical leap." How so? Figuring out what to build and what to buy requires more people in the ranks of federal service who truly understand how government and technology can meld, she said. "It's about, 'How does the government have the core capabilities in digital to make the right decisions?'" The British GDS's story thus far, she says, "isn't in-sourcing vs. better outsourcing. It's taking back control, re-crafting their approach in a user-centric way, and recreating the vendor ecosystem away from the big systems integrators and to smaller, more agile vendors." Indeed, the core assumption baked into the USDS is an embrace of so-called "agile


Arby’s has the oldest customers in the fast-food biz. Can the company turn that around?

“Maybe they’ll order a dessert or go back for a shake,” said Jason Rollins, Arby’s manager of public engagement. The company plans to remodel 30 stores this year and about 100 more stores next year. Arby’s has also launched a new television marketing campaign and a slogan, “We have the meats,” that the company hopes will help prospective customers recognize they have more than just roast beef sandwiches. Fuller said the campaign is especially timely given that it plays to the recent trend toward high-protein diets. Fast-food competitor Taco Bell has also tried to take advantage of the trend, offering a Cantina Power menu focused on high-protein items. (For a glimpse at perhaps the most protein-heavy item at Arby’s, read here about their new Meat Mountain.) Restaurant consultant Aaron Allen said Arby’s menu, with its emphasis on deli meat, not only faces competition from other restaurants, but from grocery stores that offer freshly-cut deli meat and prepared foods. “The consumer has to be thinking, ‘Can’t I just get that same thing at Publix?’” Allen said, referring to the grocery chain with many locations in the Southeast region of the country. As part of its efforts to reach younger consumers, Arby’s has also been working to boost its social media presence, an effort that was especially visible during this year’s Grammy Awards, when the brand pointed out that R&B singer Pharrell’s distinctive Vivienne Westwood hat looked awfully similar to the hat in the Arby’s logo. The company subsequently bought the hat in a charity auction and after displaying it briefly in its headquarters, has loaned it to the Newseum in Washington. Executives were in town last week to celebrate its debut at the museum. As it looks to expand in the U.S. next year, Arby’s will be looking at a variety of settings. A recently-opened outpost in downtown Atlanta has a smaller footprint than many other Arby’s restaurants, a test of whether the format might be effective in other dense, urban locations. In the suburbs, Fuller said it will continue to focus on spaces where it can offer a drive-through window. That means it would mostly opt for freestanding stores, but would consider an end unit in a strip mall or similar property. “Right now they really seem to have things working,” said Jonathan Maze, editor of Restaurant Finance Monitor, a trade publication. “But they still have a ways to go.”


The Army’s experimental hypersonic missile just exploded four seconds after takeoff

test just ran into a major snag: For reasons yet to be determined, the weapon and the rockets propelling it exploded about four seconds after lifting off early Monday from a missile range in Alaska, Pentagon officials say. The missile and its three-stage rocket booster system fell back on the Kodiak Launch Complex, a commercial facility on Kodiak Island, about 300 miles southwest of Anchorage. “Fortunately, no one was injured,” said Maureen Schumann, a spokeswoman at the Pentagon. The Pentagon said in a news release that the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command and Army Forces Strategic Command launched the test flight shortly after 4 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The test “was terminated near the launch pad shortly after lift-off to ensure public safety,” the Defense Department said. An extensive investigation will be conducted, defense officials said. The Pentagon released no images or videos of the test, but the Web site for the radio station KMXT 100.1 FM in Alaska posted a photograph of the explosion that it reported was taken from about 12 miles away. Witnesses told the station that the rocket carrying the weapon lifted off but turned nose down and quickly self-destructed or exploded after hitting the ground. It marked the second test flight for the program. The first, in November 2011, successfully launched the hypersonic “glide vehicle” about 2,500 miles from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site, an island installation in the Pacific’s Marshall Islands. The glider and rocket system were developed by Sandia National Laboratories, which is overseen by the Energy Department and managed by Lockheed Martin. An artist’s rendering of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon in flight. (Courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories) The explosion leaves it unclear what’s next for the project. As Breaking Defense noted in March, senior defense officials planned to figure that out if Monday’s test was successful. The hypersonic weapon is part of the larger Prompt Global Strike program, which researches ultra-fast projectiles and was established after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to attack time-sensitive targets that could threaten large numbers of people, according to a Daily Beast report. The Pentagon continues to spend money on the program. In June, it awarded a $44 million contract to Miltec Corp. in Huntsville, Ala., for research and and development of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon. The work is expected to continue through 2019.


States with medical marijuana have 25 percent fewer prescription overdose deaths

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the prescription drug overdose death rates. In aggregate, states with medical marijuana laws had higher death rates than those without, though the authors’ statistical analysis did find that the laws were in fact associated with overall decreases in overdose deaths. States that allow medical marijuana have 25 percent fewer prescription drug overdose deaths, a team of researchers finds in a newly released academic paper, suggesting that expanded access to marijuana, often used for its purported pain-alleviating qualities, could have unintended benefits. “As our awareness of the addiction and overdose risks associated with use of opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin grows, individuals with chronic pain and their medical providers may be opting to treat pain entirely or in part with medical marijuana, in states where this is legal,” Colleen L. Barry, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School and senior author of the study, said in a statement. The analysis was conducted by researchers from the Bloomberg School and the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The unanalyzed data show that states with medical marijuana laws consistently had higher average prescription drug overdose death rates throughout the years studied, 1999 to 2010, as depicted in the chart below. But after the researchers applied their statistical analysis—accounting for the years a law was in place and comparing death rates after laws were passed in each state to those expected based on pre-passage data—they found that medical marijuana policies were associated with a 24.8 percent lower annual rate of painkiller overdose deaths. In absolute terms, those states had 1,729 fewer overdose deaths in 2010 than would be predicted by trends in states without such laws. (JAMA Internal Medicine) To conduct their analysis, published in the peer-reviewed JAMA Internal Medicine on Monday, the researchers relied on CDC death certificate data. The rate of overdose deaths rose in all states over the study period. California, Oregon and Washington were the only three states with medical marijuana laws in place before 1999, while ten more joined by 2010. While the results seem to suggest that the availability of marijuana may lure people away from prescription drugs, the researchers caution against drawing that conclusion too decisively. Factors specific to each state, such as attitudes about health, could explain the association between marijuana laws and overdose deaths, for


Is medical marijuana the answer to America’s prescription painkiller epidemic?

they can't make a direct causal link between state medical marijuana laws and lower painkiller overdose rates. There are other limitations to the study — for instance, researchers couldn't adjust for factors like socioeconomic status, race and patient diagnoses. Further, medical marijuana laws differ across the states, and implementation is usually the result of a messy and highly political process, making it difficult to measure the over all effects of those laws, write University of Maine professor Marie Hayes and Mark Brown of the Eastern Maine Medical Center in commentary published with the study. "[R]igorous evaluation of medical cannabis policies, including provisions that vary among states, is required before their wide adoption can be recommended," wrote study author Marcus Bachhuber of the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The medical marijuana laws, researchers said, likely have the biggest effect on people with legitimate painkiller prescriptions, who account for about 60 percent of painkiller overdose deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That still leaves a large chunk of people who are getting prescription painkillers who shouldn’t. The findings, if they hold up, seem important as policymakers try to get a handle on the prescription painkiller crisis. Those drugs kill more than 16,000 Americans each year, with deaths more than tripling in the past 25 years as prescriptions have also surged. And now the issue has come to the court system, with Chicago and two California counties recently suing five manufacturers of prescription painkillers, claiming they concealed the addictive risks of drugs like OxyContin and Percocet. Importantly, marijuana comes without a fatal overdose risk. There's still a debate about the effectiveness of medical marijuana to relieve pain, though studies have shown it can help some patients. One study found that using medical marijuana allowed patients already taking opiates to reduce their painkiller dosage — a key finding, since higher painkiller dosages have been linked to increased risk of overdose deaths. But as the New York Times pointed out earlier this month, researchers still face significant hurdles in trying to understand the benefits of medical marijuana since it's categorized as a Schedule 1 drug, the most restrictive class. Notably, that's more restrictive than the classification for prescription painkillers. Legalizing marijuana in Colorado was supposed to help undermine the black market. Instead, it's had almost the opposite effect. PostTV brings you into the world of black market weed dealers to explain.


The Pentagon can easily drop its ban on transgender troops, study finds

15,500 transgender personnel in the U.S. military, but they are not allowed to serve openly. The center reached that figure by extrapolation based on surveys conducted with veterans, said retired Army Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, a former deputy surgeon general of the Army, who helped lead the Palm Center commission examining the issue. The commission included several other retired military officers, including Army Brig. Gen. Clara Adams-Ender, who once led the Army’s nurse corps, and Army Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Kolditz, who is now a professor at Yale University. “From a military officer perspective, we consider honor and integrity to be just essential values,” Pollock said. “But how can we say that when we’re asking these men and women to lie about who they are? That’s very comparable to the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ piece. To me, it’s just wrong.” The report says that any change must promote military readiness, comprehensively cover all of the Defense Department and minimize rules that treat transgender service members differently. A policy change also should provide medical care to transgender personnel, apply lessons from the estimated 18 other countries that already allow it, and provide flexibility so that individual service members and their commanding officers can develop a transition plan as they shift genders, the study recommended. The commission advocates treating gender transition surgery undertaken before military service “no differently from any other surgery that potential recruits may undergo.” Active-duty service members who determine they need transition surgery should be treated the same as service members who need to recover from other more common surgeries. Gender-specific uniform items, like skirts, should be issued all at once, in order to prevent embarrassment, the commission found. Another potentially thorny issue would be formulating policy if the military ever adopted another draft. Presently, all men between the ages of 18 and 25 living in the United States must register with the Selective Service Administration. The organization only considers a person’s sexual orientation at birth, though. Selective Service rules should be amended to recognize gender transition — meaning women who transition to being men should be required to register, the study found. Pollock acknowledged cultural concerns in the military about allowing transgender service members, but said rank-and-file troops “don’t have an issue with it” because they have grown up in an era that is more tolerant. “They have been around people who are open about their personality


Chinese reportedly working on submarine that would ‘fly’ in an ‘air bubble’

do with friction and how to conquer it. The reported plans for the super-fast Chinese submarine draw on research that reaches back to the Cold War on “supercavitation,” a technology that creates a friction-less air “bubble” around a vessel that allows it to “fly” underwater, facilitating incredible speeds. The Russians have developed torpedoes that travel faster than 230 mph using that approach. Now researchers at Harbin’s Complex Flow and Heat Transfer Lab are reportedly figuring out how to use that science to build submarines. “We are very excited by its potential,” lead researcher Li Fengchen, a professor of fluid machinery and engineering, told the South China Morning Post. “… Our method is different from any other approach, such as vector propulsion,” which involves engine thrust. Rather, he would lubricate the vessel in a special liquid that would reduce water friction until the vessel would reach speeds high enough to enable “supercavitation.” How could a vessel reach such high speeds in the first place? And how would it be steered? Li says the liquid membrane would navigate the vessel. “By combining liquid-membrane technology with supercavitation, we can significantly reduce the launch challenges and make cruising easier,” he told the Chinese publication. Increasing or decreasing the liquid membrane would manipulate friction to steer the ship. The specifics of the research are being kept under wraps for now, South China Morning Post reporter Stephen Chen told the Washington Post. “These studies in China do not go to academic papers, but the technology is being tested in the laboratory,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The scientists have received pressure from authorities due to the sensitivity of the research and they hope the matter can cool down a bit.” The potential of supercavitation has not gone unnoticed by the U.S. Navy. “Some technologies innovations have so significant an impact on our way of doing business that they are often described as ‘disruptive technologies,’ with the potential to change the future,” said a 2002 paper published in Undersea Warfare, the official publication of the submarine force. One of them, it said, was ” ‘supercavitation’ techniques.” The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was once reported to be doing much the same, and Popular Science says the project would have allowed the “delivery of men and material faster than ever.” That’s exactly the end game for the Chinese research team: civilian transportation — or even swimming. “If a


From batteries to nuclear power and 3D printing, here’s who to keep an eye on

Sakti3’s research and development has produced models with disruptive properties — double energy density today, and larger gains in the future. These are properties that no competitor has come close to demonstrating in a real material, and importantly – they are able to produce gains predicted by their R&D heavy multi-disciplinary work. The battery industry is changed by this — high energy density, scalable systems and the promise of future improvements. The leadership team at Sakti3 has over 100 years of collective start-up, big company, manufacturing, equipment, finance and research and development experience, and is led by chief executive Ann Marie Sastry, a University of Michigan professor of materials science. Issues with nuclear power as we know it are leading to the decommissioning of reactors like this. But something better may be possible. (Thomas Peter/Reuters) 2. TransAtomic Power This is a bet on green energy! We all need energy, we go to war to protect supplies of energy, and the planet is heating up while traditional nuclear energy (although very green with zero carbon footprint) is deemed too risky in light of several disasters. Furthermore, we don’t want nuclear waste in “our back yard.” What if you could build a nuclear power plant that was safe and it could use existing waste from other nuclear power plants? What a fascinating proposition! Enter TransAtomic Power. Nearly all currently operating commercial reactors use uranium oxide fuel in the form of solid pellets which are surrounded by a metal cladding that helps the fuel retain its shape and prevents release of fission products into the surrounding coolant. In contrast, Transatomic Power’s reactor uses liquid fuel that consists of uranium dissolved in a molten fluoride salt. This solution acts as both fuel and coolant. Liquid fuel has significant advantages over solid fuel. It provides higher efficiency during normal operation and fail-safe cooling by releasing the liquid fuel into a large containment tank which does not require any active cooling (unlike the design of current reactors). Some of the essential technology for this type of reactor was invented 50 years ago in the United States, and the team from TransAtomic has figured out solutions to commercialize this alternative design. They are closely engaged with groups of scientists and advisors specialized in nuclear and energy technology, plus strong industry-veterans as part of their team to make this happen, all led by CEO and co-founder Leslie Dewan.


While there is a lot of work ahead to translate theory and lab results to building the actual nuclear plant, I am extremely thrilled to see the thought leadership which will offer us far better alternatives. 3. SpaceGlasses by Meta-View Imagine how much more information you could handle if you had a new/additional sense? Well, the promise of augmented reality is just that, adding a new dimension to what you see! Applications range from professional (for example, a surgeon seeing multi-layered data while operating) to education (similar multi-layers complementing printed content or physical objects in front of the reader) to communication (an architect showing an impression of a final product while walking with a client through the intended area) to toys, to gaming (virtual games played in a physical space such as an office or home). As the name clearly conveys, SpaceGlasses are actual glasses that a user wears in order to experience an enhanced reality visible thru the glasses. Unlike Google-Glass, SpaceGlasses adds the ability to physically interact with the projections in front of you, for example, ability to use your hand to grab a projected floating window and move it to another corner, or to play a game of chess with your hands while grabbing virtual (projected) chess pieces on a real table. SpaceGlasses was started thru Kickstarter around mid-2013, funding goal was $100,000, raised $194,000. They are shipping products now, and new orders are expected to ship in 2015. A great team led by CEO Meron Gribetz. (Photo courtesy of Structure Sensor) 4. Structure Sensor by Occipital Structure Sensor* has developed a 3D sensor for the iPad that creates a detailed model of the real world in front of the iPad (imagine a reasonable size room with physical objects), where this highly detailed virtual model can be used by apps to create virtual objects that identify and interact with the real world. For example, a game developer can create a virtual puppy that jumps on the real couch in your living room, and chases a virtual cat around the room while avoiding real physical barriers. We all love fun games, but an equally exciting use of this technology is for enhanced communication of ideas and concepts among groups of people. For example, an architect and a client looking through the iPad and discussing remodeling options that are overlaid over the physical space in front of the iPad.


READ IN: Tuesday, August 26, 2014: 10 weeks to Election Day, Obama to American Legion, Coakley lead shrinking?, Ex-Im becomes issue in Senate battle, third time could be charm for ‘Personhood’ backers

third with 16 percent. The Democratic primary is Sept. 9. (Boston Herald) -- Illinois: Gov. Pat Quinn (D) has vetoed legislation that would have established statewide regulations on ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) and Quinn's opponent, venture capitalist Bruce Rauner (R), had both called on him to nix the regulations, which Quinn said imposed a "one-size-fits-all" set of rules. Taxi companies wanted him to sign the bill. (Chicago Tribune) New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) criticized Illinois' new same-day voter registration law. (Newark Star-Ledger) -- Colorado: A so-called "Personhood" amendment on the ballot this year has abortion rights groups worried, even after similar measures have failed twice in the last decade. This version defines a fetus as a person under the criminal code, making it a crime to injure or kill the unborn. Planned Parenthood will spend at least $3.8 million to try to defeat the measure, which they say would be used to limit access to abortions. (Washington Post) DC Digest: -- President Obama heads to Charlotte today to address the annual American Legion convention. Later, Obama meets Secretary of State John Kerry in the Oval Office. -- Obama will use the speech to announce executive actions aimed at improving access to mental health care for veterans, improving suicide prevention programs and programs designed to treat PTSD. The White House will issue an executive order that automatically enrolls military personnel receiving care for mental health disorders into VA programs, and Obama will tout new partnerships with banks like Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America that will make it easier for service members to get mortgage rate reductions. (Associated Press) -- Vice President Biden attends a fundraiser for Maryland gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown (D) at The Powerhouse, a former paper mill that's now an event site in Georgetown. Biden will sit in on the meeting with Kerry, then he's got other meetings at the White House to attend. -- Two weeks until Congress is back. Two weeks until Congress is back. Just keep repeating that to yourself. TV Time Out: -- Michigan: Conventional wisdom holds that Rep. Gary Peters (D) has a big lead over former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (R). The League of Conservation Voters is pounding a few more nails into Land's chances: They're dropping almost $400,000 into Michigan TV, according to new FEC filings. (FEC) Land goes up


Wonkbook: Burger King and Tim Hortons, with a side of tax reform

virus. LEVINE: This inversion isn't very inverted at all. Top opinion SUNSTEIN: Who cares what economists say about immigration? BERNSTEIN: Cutting the corporate tax would make other problems grow. LIFTON: The climate swerve. GABLE: One Colorado program did not significantly cut the state's teen pregnancy rate. CROVITZ: More regulation doesn't always mean more safety. LITAN: Where the jobs are coming from and why it matters to the Fed. JOHNSON: To end population growth, lift mothers out of poverty. Emmy interlude: 2. The economic and policy fallout of the Napa Valley quake Costs to the tourist industry could rise to $4 billion. Earthquakes cost more in rich countries, but devastate poor ones. Explainer: Why the earthquake probably won't make your next bottle of wine more expensive. A picture doesn't tell the story when it comes to the damages. Why 8 of 9 Californians don't have earthquake insurance. All this is happening as California deals with drought. Quake boosts calls for early-warning systems. System under testing gives 10-second warning. Dog days of summer interlude: 3. Changes are coming to the VA care system Watchdog finds no evidence that delays in care caused deaths at hospital. The VA is preparing a whole host of fixes for its troubled care system. VA also seeks to replace its much-maligned scheduling system. Other health care reads: WHO seeks $430 million for the fight against Ebola. Simeon Bennett in Bloomberg. Could a wording glitch doom the health law? David G. Savage in the Los Angeles Times. New birth control rules appear to track Supreme Court suggestion. Julie Rovner in Kaiser Health News. The end of tanning? Olga Khazan in The Atlantic. Demanding animal interlude: 4. The legal challenges to legal marijuana Colorado judge will not strike down 'self-incriminating' marijuana taxes. Medical marijuana faces federal legal hurdles. Is medical marijuana the answer to America’s prescription painkiller epidemic? Meanwhile, the debate over whether e-cigarettes promote tobacco use just got messier. Leading heart group weighs in, says they may be worth it, but only to try to stop smoking. Animals dancing interlude: Wonkblog roundup Why the Napa Valley earthquake is unlikely to affect wine prices. Max Ehrenfreund. Is medical marijuana the answer to America’s prescription painkiller epidemic? Jason Millman. Existing home sales are up, but new home sales are down. What’s going on? Dina ElBoghdady. Have taxes your way: Why Burger King wants to become a Canadian citizen. Roberto A.


‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ will set some action in Washington, D.C.

This Metrobus is close, but not quite there. (courtesy @Bananadoc) Batman and Superman are coming to the District, it seems. Or rather, enterprising set builders are bringing D.C. to them. The star-studded cast of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” is filming at a studio in Detroit with some vehicles that will look awfully familiar to Washingtonians, according to photos taken by enterprising Michigan movie blogger Bananadoc. Meanwhile, batman-news.com reports that the U.S. Capitol building will somehow be involved. There is no word if Ben Affleck as the Batfleck or Henry Cavill as Clark Kent will actually make a cameo here. Filmmakers said in a news release that principal photography would take place at sites in Detroit, Illinois, Africa and the South Pacific. If past events are any indication, it’s better not to get one’s hopes up. Washington has notoriously failed to woo major movies and TV shows that are set in the city to actually do their filming on-site. The Michigan Film Office shelled out $35 million dollars in incentives for the privilege of having the superhero flick shoot in the state (D.C.’s film incentive fund was around $4 million in 2014). So, we’ll stick with nitpicking about how Detroit’s “D.C.” taxis, police cars and buses (hopefully they won’t even try to tackle Metro) don’t quite look like the real thing. Try sending Batman to Adams and First streets, just try. More from Express: Alphabet animal art invades Capitol Hill, Eastern Market and Southeast Ferguson turmoil prompts cancellation of costumed “Cops and Robbers” race in D.C. Bao Bao’s birthday, and how she compares to Tai Shan


A great view of colliding galaxies, thanks to magnifying glasses in the sky

This diagram shows how the effect of gravitational lensing around a normal galaxy focuses the light coming from a very distant star-forming galaxy merger to created a distorted, but brighter view. (ESA/ESO/M. Kornmesser) Remember "lensing galaxies"? With the help of several telescopes (including the Hubble) and an international team of astronomers, one of these gravitational lenses has revealed our best ever view of an ancient galactic collision. The two galaxies are pictured as they were when the universe was just half its current age, the astronomers report. The collision, using combined images from Hubble and Keck-II (NASA/ESA/ESO/W. M. Keck Observatory) Interacting galaxies The galaxies (known together as H-ATLAS J142935.3-002836) resemble a collision called the Antennae Galaxies. The latter collision is much closer to our planet, and has been imaged quite clearly using the Hubble before. But H-ATLAS J142935.3-002836 turns more than 400 times the mass of the Sun in gas into new stars each year, which is around ten times the rate of the Antennae system. It was a multi-telescoping effort that revealed clear images of the combined system. But the Hubble can track down the traces of these perfectly aligned cosmic lenses, allowing astronomers to devote their efforts to the right nooks and crannies of the universe.


Down with whatever — these viral beer ads are going too far

I don’t know what to believe any more. (Tom E. Puskar/Associated Press) The payphone was ringing. I picked up. “Hello?” I said. “Yes,” a muffled voice on the other end said. “Do you like fun?” “What?” There was a muffled sound on the other end of the line. Like chanting. “I said, do you like fun?” “Fun with a period or fun without?” I asked, trying to inject some levity into the conversation. “Fun dot?” “What?” the voice said. “No, fun. Like, spontaneous fun.” “Oh boy,” I said. “Is this a viral beer marketing thing?” I began to be excited. I had, just a few days prior, thought seriously about submitting a video audition for Bud Light’s “Whatever, USA.” Maybe that had showed up in my metadata. I was quite confident in my answers to all the questions. (“What are the three clothing items can’t you live without and why? “Two shoes and I guess a dress if I only get one other thing.” What one dance move describes you best and why? “The fainting goat.” If you were a DJ in Whatever USA, what would be your DJ name and why? “DJ Turnitup because think of the ensuing confusion and mayhem.”) Sure, on the surface, this call seemed a little sketchy. But I knew from the commercials I had watched that right now, you can receive a mysterious call on a payphone and follow a stranger into a basement for a very special evening — and it will turn out to be a Spontaneous, Disruptive campaign for Heineken. Actually. I know that one of the biggest problems of growing up today is that everyone is far, far too paranoid about stranger danger. Well, beer companies are out to set that to rights. It’s become something of a calling. Formerly, you could feel pretty secure that if someone came up to you, handed you a drink, and said, “Come with me into this strange vehicle,” you should probably not go. But now you will be left wondering if this was actually a viral beer adventure and you might have missed the time of your life. You say creepy? I say “spontaneous.” Basically, the sketchier it sounds, the more likely that someone in marketing thought it was a strong concept. At first, I thought this creepy seizing of people off the streets might be limited to “Cash Cab” and Bud Light,


Researchers say they have invented non-allergenic peanuts

(BigStock) Scientists have created non-allergenic peanuts, a possible workaround for a potentially lethal allergy that plagues 2.8 million Americans. The advance also proved promising for wheat and other tree nut allergies. When the product might be available was uncertain. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a blog post that researchers at North Carolina A&T’s School of Agriculture removed allergens from peanuts by using enzymes to break down proteins that trigger the allergy. Shelled, skinless peanuts are soaked in a food-grade enzyme that reduces two key allergens by 98 to 100 percent. The treated nuts can then be eaten or ground into flour to make other peanut products. The process doesn’t affect the peanuts’ shape or shelf-life, and won’t cause peanut products to go rancid or change color. The treatment is not the same as genetic modification, which involves manually adding new DNA to an organism. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine confirmed the results through skin-prick tests on human test subjects, the USDA said. “Peanuts are increasingly used in food products, which make it difficult for the allergic individuals to avoid accidental exposure,” said Jianmae Yu, a food and nutrition researcher at North Carolina A&T. In severe cases, a peanut allergy can cause difficulty breathing, low blood pressure, vomiting, skin rashes, blisters and death. Parents go to great lengths to shield allergic children from any contact with peanuts. They’re not allowed, for example, in some dugouts where kids play ball. Some schools have banned peanut products to prevent inadvertent exposure. North Carolina A&T signed an exclusive licensing agreement for the patented process with Xemerge, a Toronto-based food technology company, and is working to get hypoallergenic peanut products into stores “in the near future,” according to the USDA. “This is one of the best technologies in the food and nutrition space we have seen,” Johnny Rodrigues, chief commercialization officer of Xemerge, said on the university’s Web site. “It checks all the boxes: non-GMO, patented, human clinical data, does not change physical characteristics of the peanut.” Good news for the gluten-sensitive: The procedure could also work on wheat. Yu has already found a modified version of the procedure significantly reduces gliadin, the allergy-causing protein in wheat flour. The research was supported by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.


Washington’s legal marijuana law is actually two experiments in one

Colorado might have been the first state to implement a recreational marijuana law, but Washington’s version may be the more-radical reform. As it establishes a new regulatory system for legal pot, Washington is also simultaneously setting up a system by which to measure it. In doing so, the state created two experiments, writes Philip Wallach, a Brookings Institution fellow in governance studies: One is in drug policy; the other is in how to measure its impact. “Washington’s knowledge experiment creates the conditions to make marijuana regulation wonkish, the province of careful analysts rather than angry firebrands,” he writes in a new paper on the law. As with another such report on Colorado’s effort a few weeks ago, the paper is focused not on the structure, success or failure of legalization, but rather on the implementation of the law enacting it. From the start, Wallach writes, Washington’s law has been rooted in policy. The writers of the initiative, which voters approved in 2012, were led by ACLU of Washington Drug Policy Director Alison Holcomb and the group was “motivated by opposition to America’s failed war on drugs, which they believed had delivered few benefits while exacting huge costs in the form of squandered law-enforcement resources and unnecessary incarcerations.” In their cost-benefit analysis, the policy had failed. Inspired by that positioning, Washington’s regulatory framework seeks to document and oversee all aspects of the legal industry. Producers, processors and sellers must be licensed, which includes receiving criminal background checks and subjecting their business plans to state review, Wallach writes. The law establishes three research programs of note: exploring the law’s impact on youth, prevention and treatment and comparing its costs and benefits. That focus on research has the potential to help settle some policy debates that, until now, have had little evidence to rely on. Of course, data cannot provide all the answers, but something is better than nothing, Wallach writes. In the end, there are two experiments being tested and either could succeed or fail without the other: In principle, Washington’s marijuana initiative may be deemed a political success even if its public-knowledge initiative fails. The public and the media might simply be unwilling to await or attend to what researchers learn, or researchers may be unable to produce results that are clear enough to be helpful, or social scientists may prove (not for the first time) maladroit at communicating what they


New Obama plan calls for implanted computer chips to help U.S. troops heal

mental health of U.S. troops and veterans, one of them centered on a particularly novel effort: The development of new computer chips designed to modulate the nervous system to help with everything from arthritis to post-traumatic stress. The project is headed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a Pentagon agency that develops a variety of high-tech equipment for the U.S. military. It’s known as the Electrical Prescriptions program, or ElectRx (pronounced “electrics”). Program officials say the goal is to develop a technology that could help people heal more quickly through the use of biosensors and electromagnetic devices that control human organs. “Instead of relying only on medication, we envision a closed-loop system that would work in concept like a tiny, intelligent pacemaker,” said Doug Weber, the program’s manager. “It would continually assess conditions and provide stimulus patterns tailored to help maintain healthy organ function, helping patients get healthy and stay healthy using their body’s own systems.” Obama did not reference the new program directly in his speech Tuesday at the American Legion national convention in Charlotte, N.C. In a joint fact sheet released by the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, however, the agencies said DARPA will start a new $78.9 million, five-year research program “to develop new, minimally invasive neurotechnologies that will increase the ability of the body and brain to induce healing.” It’s part of the Obama administration’s larger “BRAIN Initiative,” which involves the National Institutes of Health, DARPA, the National Science Foundation and the Food and Drug Administration, among other organizations. Officials say the BRAIN Initiative — which stands for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies — includes a related DARPA effort to build new brain chips that will be able to predict moods to help treat post-traumatic stress. It’s known as the SUBNETS program, short for Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies. Teams at both the University of California, San Francisco, and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are involved. The major hurdle for the ElectRX program may be shrinking the technology needed so that it can be used in the body. Implantable devices already are in use to fight inflammatory diseases and other health problems, but most are about the size of a deck of cards, requiring surgical implantation that can result in side effects, DARPA officials said. They want “ultraminiaturized devices” that would could be inserted through needle injection or other less invasive means.


These revolutionary technologies promised to help save us from climate change. So what happened?

driving the battery hype: curbing climate change. Much of the public discussion on climate change has focused on adopting new energy sources, like wind and solar power. But because those renewable energy sources aren’t always available (the sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind doesn’t consistently blow), our ability to fully utilize those renewable power is dependent on a transformative leap in the sophistication of energy storage. Unfortunately, today’s batteries are inefficient, have short lifespans and negate their environmental benefits by leaving behind a heap of toxic waste when they die. So overhauling our power sources isn’t about gradual improvements in technology. We are desperate for a paradigm shift in battery science. Certainly, there has been some progress in the world of batteries over the past few years. At the Energy Department, researchers recently identified the microscopic vulnerabilities in rechargeable batteries that cause them to rapidly lose their ability to hold a charge, paving the way for a solution and the creation of overcasting cellphone and electric vehicle batteries. The development of wearable technology like Google Glass and smartwatches has created market pressure to develop efficient, long-lasting batteries beyond what humanity has ever seen before. And NASA is testing the limits of fuel-cell technology by using a “reverse fuel cell” on Mars that will try to convert existing carbon dioxide into oxygen, which is needed to produce power as well as to breathe. Still, the practical advances have been limited. The rapidly rechargeable battery that MIT announced in 2006 led to the creation of Boston-based company FastCAP Systems in 2010. The company manufactures batteries that helps harvesting of geothermal energy, which, though useful, doesn’t have the ubiquitous presence of double-A batteries and rechargeable cellphone packs. The company didn’t go the consumer route because the technology that went into the battery — a modified ultracapacitor whose main strength was its ability to handle extreme temperatures — ended up being most immediately useful for geothermal and military applications. As for that secret Texas startup that appeared in 2007 – well, there’s still nothing from it. The company, EEstor, signed a supply agreement with Lockheed-Martin in 2008, according to a press release. And its partner company, Zenn Motor, has raised nearly $2 million off of EEstor’s proposed energy-storage technology. But from all currently available public reports, EEstor has yet to follow through on the claims of its groundbreaking technology. One of its


How all sides are committing war crimes in Syria

Rebel fighters walk in front of damaged buildings in Karam al-Jabal neighbourhood of Aleppo on Tuesday. (Zein Rifaizein Al-Rifai/AFP/Getty Images) A report published Wednesday by a United Nations-appointed commission on Syria indicates that both the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebel factions seeking its overthrow, including the extremist Islamic State, are guilty of war crimes amid the country's ongoing, brutal civil war. Last week, the U.N. said at least 191,000 Syrians have died since hostilities broke out in 2011. The U.N.'s findings, based on 480 interviews and months of compiled documentary material, "establish that the conduct of the warring parties in the Syrian Arab Republic has caused civilians immeasurable suffering," according to the report's executive summary. It documents how the Assad regime has targeted civilian populations, reportedly used chemical weapons and conducted torture and extrajudicial killings. Beyond the hideous slaughters carried out by the Islamic State, many rebel factions have a record of recruiting child soldiers, shelling civilian-populated areas, taking hostages and murdering members of religious minorities. The panel behind the report recommends referring the situation to the International Criminal Court -- an earlier team of investigators placed Assad at the top of a list of war criminals in the conflict who ought to be prosecuted someday. But given the paralysis in the U.N. Security Council surrounding action on the conflict, as well as the complex geopolitics that have led to Western ambivalence about the Assad regime, it's unlikely this latest inquiry will affect much change on the ground. Below are excerpts from the compiled findings. First, a snapshot of the Assad regime's reported crimes, which include the disappearance and torture of thousands of Syrian civilians: In mid-2013, a 12-year-old boy was arrested in Damascus after speaking with his cousin, a member of an armed group. The family hired a lawyer, who determined that the boy had been held in Military Security Branch 235. On their taking the matter to court, the judge informed them that the boy was at a private hospital. When they arrived there, they were told their son was dead. His body bore marks of severe torture, including electrocution. The report offered this damning indictment of Damascus's behavior: Government forces perpetrated unlawful killings as part of a widespread attack directed against the civilian population. The attacks included widespread shelling and bombardment of civilian-inhabited localities and the targeting of civilians for arrest, detention and disappearance


A host of rebel factions have taken to kidnapping, partly as a tactic to extort money as well as a means of gaining leverage amid a constellation of fighting units vying for influence. From the report: Armed groups continue to hold hostages for extended periods. On 4 August 2013, groups, including Ahrar Al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra [an al-Qaeda-linked organization, supported in part by the government of Qatar], abducted over 200 civilians during an operation on villages in eastern Latakia. On 23 September 2013, the Islamic Front kidnapped over 56 civilians from Zahra (Aleppo). In both instances, most hostages were women and children. While a small number of hostages in both cases have been released, the whereabouts of the majority remain unknown. Civilians from Nubl and Zahra (Aleppo), taken hostage by armed groups — including the Islamic Front and Jabhat al-Nusra — on 23 September 2013, suffered beatings while being held. Hostages were divided into different groups, with at least one group held in cold, damp conditions and provided with inadequate food. Groups like the Islamic State have systematically targeted ethnic and religious minorities that don't subscribe to its puritanical dogma. An example from the report: On 18 March, ISIS fighters entered Tal Akhder village (Ar Raqqah). Fighters used the mosque’s minarets to deliver an ultimatum to Kurdish residents to leave the village within two days or be killed. On 20 March, several hundred ISIS fighters returned and repeated the threat. Civilians fled in fear, carrying few possessions with them. Their recruitment of child soldiers is a war crime: [Islamic State] has established training camps to recruit children into armed roles under the guise of education. According to an account about an [Islamic State] training camp in Al-Bab (Aleppo), ISIS actively recruited children from the ages of 14 or 15 to undergo the same training as adults, offering financial rewards. At the camps, the children recruited received weapons training and religious education. The existence of such camps seems to indicate that ISIS systematically provides weapons training for children. Subsequently, they were deployed in active combat during military operations, including suicide-bombing missions. In Ar Raqqah, children from the age of 10 are recruited and trained at [Islamic State] camps. In the recruitment and use of children under 18, ISIS has violated international humanitarian and human rights law. In using children below the age of 15, the group has committed a war crime.


Hostage’s mother makes emotional plea to Islamic State for the release of her son, Steven Sotloff

Shirley Sotloff, the mother of American journalist Steven J. Sotloff, pleads for her son's release from Islamic State captors and speaks directly to the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in video obtained by The Post. Islamic State militants referenced Sotloff in the video showing the execution of James Foley. The mother of Steven J. Sotloff, an American journalist who was captured last year by the Islamic State, has made a video plea to the head of the terrorist organization asking for her son’s release. In a video released Wednesday, Shirley Sotloff asks Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to “please release my child. And as a mother, I ask your justice to be merciful and not punish my son for matters he has no control over.” Steven Sotloff was covering the civil war in Syria and is said to have been kidnapped after entering northern Syria from Turkey on Aug. 4, 2013, The Post has reported. Until recently, Sotloff’s family has been publicly quiet about his kidnapping in the hopes that public silence might keep him safe. But Sotloff, a Florida native, appeared at the end of the video execution of journalist James Foley. In that brutal video, a hooded extremist with a British accent criticizes the airstrikes in Iraq that President Obama authorized Aug. 7. The man said Sotloff’s life would depend on Obama’s next decision. In her video plea, Shirley Sotloff said that her 31-year-old son “traveled to the Middle East to cover the suffering of Muslims at the hands of tyrants. Steven is a loyal and generous son, brother and grandson. He is an honorable man and has always tried to help the weak.” She continued: “Since Steven’s capture, I’ve learned a lot about Islam. I’ve learned that Islam teaches that no individual should be held responsible for the sins of others. Steven has no control over the actions of the U.S. government. He’s a journalist. I’ve also learned that you, the caliph, can grant amnesty.” Shirley Sotloff ends the video by telling Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State spanning parts of Syria and Iraq: “I want what every mother wants: I want to live to see her children’s children. I plead with you to grant me this.”


Go the distance: Neptune’s opposition amid a busy week for the planet

Voyager 2’s view of Neptune’s south pole as it passed by the planet 25 years ago. (NASA) Neptune – the most-distant official planet in our solar system – just celebrated the silver anniversary of the Voyager 2 flyby, and felt a far-away whoosh from another spacecraft soaring past. The planet reaches what astronomers call “opposition” on Friday. This frigid planet is the eighth from sun and the fourth largest planet in our solar system. Neptune is having a busy week. The planet Neptune. (NASA) In astronomical terms, opposition simply means that the planet is opposite to the sun, from Earth’s perspective. The sun, Earth and Neptune form a straight line. Think of it as a “full” Neptune, like you would think of a full moon. (When the moon is full, it is opposite the sun from our earthly vantage point.) Neptune has a 164-year orbit around the sun, so it is generally in the same place it was back in 1850. If you have a telescope or a mounted, steady pair of binoculars, you may catch a glimpse of the cold, distant planet, as Neptune rises at 7:38 p.m. in the east-southeast heavens on Friday, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. (The sun sets in the west at 7:42 p.m.) Neptune loiters in the Aquarius constellation, snuggling near the fourth-magnitude star Sigma Aquarii, says Geoff Chester, an astronomer with the Naval Observatory. Neptune’s 7.8 magnitude sits far outside naked-eye visibility range. It is due south at 1:12 a.m. on August 30, and sets at 6:41 a.m. in the west-southwest. Each day, Neptune’s rise and set times vary by a few minutes. Use the Naval Observatory’s free online service for determining these times for major solar system bodies. The view of Neptune and one of its fourteen moons, Triton (small crescent), from Voyager 2 as it passed by the planet 25 years ago. (NASA) If you are without a telescope or binoculars, check Slooh for a live view of Neptune from the Institute of Astrophysics, Canary Islands, starting at 8 p.m. ET on Friday. The four-hour image stream will be accompanied by astronomical discussions, including Slooh astronomer Bob Berman. On August 25, 1989, the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune, offering the first close-up views of the far-away world. On Monday, the New Horizons spacecraft crossed Neptune’s orbit at about 2.5 billion miles away – or about 4 billion kilometers away


Famous giant panda fakes pregnancy, gets nice things

This is a giant panda. Not the lying giant panda that just got caught faking her pregnancy. But you get the idea. (Yue Wu/The Washington Post) Officials called off the live broadcast of a giant panda giving birth because, as it turns out, she wasn't actually pregnant. Ai Hin, a 6-year-old giant panda living at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Center in China, had exhibited signs of pregnancy for two months. But the center realized she actually had a "phantom pregnancy," state news agency Xinhua reported. The life of a pregnant giant panda living in captivity sounds pretty sweet, relatively speaking. She gets her own suite loaded with amenities such as air-conditioning, around-the-clock care and a serious supply of buns, fruit and bamboo. According to Xinhua, pandas with phantom pregnancies sometimes notice the nicer set-up that comes with initial signs of pregnancy and carry on with the charade. "So some clever pandas have used this to their advantage to improve their quality of life," panda expert Wu Kongju told Xinhua. Could it be that the beloved Ai Hin is nothing but a liar who will stop at nothing in pursuit of that luxurious panda life? Well, for starters, "phantom pregnancies" -- or "pseudo pregnancies" -- are quite common among giant pandas (they occur in other species, too). Pseudo-pregnant pandas exhibits signs of pregnancy, including a decreased appetite and activity level, along with some physical changes. They also experience an increase in the same hormones that are associated with panda pregnancies, a surge that drives behavioral changes. So you can't really use those hormones as a biomarker for pregnancy, Iain Valentine, director of the Edinburgh Zoo's giant panda program, told the BBC last year. "They have a complicated biology." As such, figuring out whether a panda is pregnant is no easy task. And a giant panda fetus is actually quite small, so it's difficult to find it with an ultrasound scan. Some fake-pregnant pandas may have been pregnant but miscarried before giving birth, Suzanne Hall, a senior research technician at the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research, wrote in 2011. But, she wrote, false pregnancies have been observed in giant pandas who didn't have a chance to breed. So why would a giant panda pass herself off as pregnant? Could it be the extra bamboo? Wrote Hall: We aren’t entirely certain, but here is one theory: because it doesn’t


Schadenfreude in Gaza

no effect on intergroup empathy bias. Participants still reported greater empathy for in-group members and greater schadenfreude for out-group members, even after they received information signaling that the out-group was no longer a threat. In a final effort to decrease intergroup empathy bias, we presented participants with cues that signaled reduced cohesion, or “groupy-ness”, within the two competing groups. In this experiment, participants were randomly assigned to see different images of the social networks comprised of the two teams. Some participants saw an image of two segregated social networks indicating that members of the Rattlers and Eagles were closely connected to fellow in-group members but not out-group members (i.e., two small clusters far removed from one another). Other participants saw an image of a integrated social network indicating that members of the Rattlers and Eagles were interconnected with one another (i.e., one large cluster). Visualizations of two segregated social networks (left) and an integrated social network (right). People who saw the integrated social network expressed greater empathy toward out-group members. (Figure: Mina Cikara) Participants who thought the two teams were interconnected with one another reported greater empathy for the out-group. Merely making people aware that the members of each group are not monolithic in their social connections may be one way to help restore empathy in intergroup conflicts. It would be naïve for us to suggest that this simple intervention could resolve the violent conflict in Gaza. The fact that Israelis and Palestinians are increasingly socially and physically segregated may make such an intervention very difficult to implement. Even our use of social media seems to mirror this segregation: “pro-Palestinian” activists and media outlets are closely connected to one another and the same is true of “pro-Israeli” activists and media outlets. The problem is that there is very little connection between the two groups, and information is unlikely to pass between them. Thankfully, this does not have to be the case. A recent study on Israelis and Palestinians teenagers who were brought together as part of a summer program called Seeds for Peace offers reason for hope. Campers who made friends outside their own group developed positive feelings towards all members of the out-group, and were likely to retain those feelings long after returning home. By removing campers from the social pressures of home, they were able to forge new social networks and increase their empathy with the other side.


Wonkbook: What you need to know about the CBO’s new report on the deficit

National Journal. Texas federal prosecutor could become first Latina to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Suzanne Gamboa in NBC News. CLARK: The American dream is an illusion. VINIK: GOP not threatening another shutdown. Science interlude: 3. Why Time Warner's service outage Why Time Warner's cable service outage matters to merger talks. Outage also brings up issue of infrastructure redundancy. Comcast's generosity wins support for merger. Explainer: What New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and others want from the Comcast-Time Warner merger. Chart: Other tech reads: Cable group hits airwaves to overhaul TV. Julian Hattem in The Hill. FBI probes hack into computers of JPMorgan Chase, other U.S. banks. Ellen Nakashima and Andrea Peterson in The Washington Post. Broadcasters: Senate TV plan would cripple emergency alerts, journalism. Julian Hattem in The Hill. Batman interlude: 4. Is the Obama administration really sidestepping the Senate on climate? State Dept. denies sidestepping Senate, but Dems spooked. Actually, State Dept. has sought climate treaty alternative since 2009. Tons of power-plant CO2 emissions already locked in, paper says. Other environmental/energy reads: Why abundant coal may have "cursed" the Appalachian economy. Ryan McCarthy in The Washington Post. Feds protect 20 species of coral as threatened. Seth Borenstein in the Associated Press. U.S. fracking surge picks up slack for global disruptions. Ben Geman in National Journal. Alaska referendum upholds tax system for oil companies. Kirk Johnson in The New York Times. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge interlude: Wonkblog roundup Americans strongly agree: You shouldn’t stop people from reclining on planes. Christopher Ingraham. In 30 states, a child can still legally own a rifle or shotgun. Roberto A. Ferdman and Christopher Ingraham. The obscure part of Obamacare that takes on executive pay. Jason Millman. Why abundant coal may have ‘cursed’ the Appalachian economy. Ryan McCarthy. CBO: Deficit falls to $506 billion in 2014, but debt continues to rise. Lori Montgomery. Can Mario Draghi save the euro again? Matt O'Brien. Why immigrants weathered the housing bust better than the U.S.-born population. Dina ElBoghdady. Et Cetera Long read: Mental-health disorders keep thousands of homeless on the streets. Rick Jervis in USA Today. Farm bill has become midterm flashpoint. Kristina Peterson in The Wall Street Journal. Accidental fatal shooting of instructor by girl sparks gun age-limit debate. Sheila V. Kumar in The Wall Street Journal. Big Food to divulge chemical info. Helena Bottemiller Evich in Politico. Police departments weighing use of body cameras.


Market Basket employees fought for weeks to bring back their former chief. They won.

Market Basket meat manager Bob Dietz, of Methuen, Mass., front right, hugs cashier Mary Olson, of Chelsea, Mass., after watching a televised speech by restored Market Basket CEO Arthur T. Demoulas at a store location, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014, in Chelsea. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) The two sides in Market Basket's epic grocery battle have finally reached a deal. And in a historic turn of events, it's the employees who won. "I am in awe of what you have all accomplished," reinstated Market Basket leader Arthur T. Demoulas said to a cheering crowd of workers on Thursday. "It's great to be back together again." Employees had been protesting for six weeks to bring back Demoulas, their beloved former president, after he was ousted in June by the company's board. The rallies were extraordinary for how many management-level and front-line workers came together to protest, for how many customers and even suppliers joined in their fight, for how two governors got involved in the resolution, and — most of all — for how the workers ultimately changed the course of a multi-billion dollar company with 71 stores in three states. "This was an unprecedented protest, but the fact that they have been successful is historic," says Daniel Korschun, a marketing professor and fellow at Drexel University's Center for Corporate Reputation who is writing a case study about Market Basket. "They have really defied what the textbooks say is possible. This is the only time to my knowledge that employees, customers and suppliers have ever joined together and successfully challenged a board of directors." Just before midnight on Wednesday, the New England company's shareholders announced they had entered into an agreement for Demoulas and his relatives to purchase the 50.5 percent of shares that had been held by a rival faction of the family. Demoulas (known as "Arthur T.") had been fired essentially by his cousin, who previously controlled the board of directors. Employees rallied on Arthur T.'s behalf this summer in one of the business world's most remarkable and unusual labor battles. They launched huge protests for his return and walked off the job, convincing customers and even suppliers to join their fight, which resulted in empty store shelves, millions in losses and lost hours for many employees. Arthur T. will return with "day-to-day operational authority" of the company "effective immediately," the statement from shareholders said. He will work with the current


This is your federalism on drugs

In 2014, voters in Colorado and Washington state voted to legalize marijuana possession within their states. This November, voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia will get the chance to follow suit. Voters in Florida will also decide whether to join the approximately 20 states which allow marijuana possession and use for medicinal purposes. Whatever these states decide, however, marijuana will remain illegal under federal law. Conservative Republicans often talk about the need to constrain the power of the federal government. On everything from environmental regulation to education policy, Republican officeholders argue that individual states should be able to adopt their own policy priorities, free from federal interference. Yet many of these same people are silent when the question turns to marijuana. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives voted to cut off Drug Enforcement Administration funding for raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states where medical marijuana is legal. The measure passed with the support of 49 Republicans. This is a significant increase over the last time such a limitation on the DEA had been proposed, when only 28 Republicans supported respecting state choices on medical marijuana, but it still represents less than one-quarter of the GOP caucus. So many Republicans who believe it’s federal overreach when federal law regulates health insurance or power plant emissions think its just fine when the federal government prohibits the possession of a plant, even where authorized under state law. Some prospective Republican presidential candidates appear to be more supportive of state prerogatives over marijuana policy than are Republican members of Congress. Texas Gov. Rick Perry opposes outright legalization of marijuana (although he supports partial decriminalization of some possession). Nonetheless, he has endorsed the right of each state to make this decision for itself. As Jacob Sullum notes, this could make Perry more “liberal” on marijuana that President Obama. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush also opposes legalization, and has come out against the Florida medical marijuana initiative. Yet he has also made comments suggesting that this should be a state issue. Though he has some concern about potential spillover effects — i.e. what happens to neighboring states if marijuana is legal next door — he seems to recognize the virtue of federalism when it comes to marijuana. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), while running for vice president, also expressed support for letting states decide whether to legalize medical marijuana, at least temporarily.