How can Colombia stop former FARC rebels from turning to crime?

unemployment. Others suggest it results from psychological factors such as post-traumatic stress syndrome. Our new research strongly supports an alternative theory: Former fighters who stay close to one another — and, especially, to their former commanders — are at a significantly higher risk of turning to crime. Here’s how we investigated this question In 2013-2014, we measured the percentage of ex-combatants that committed crimes in Colombia using two instruments: first, confidential administrative data from the Colombian attorney general’s office, and second, a survey of 1,158 ex-paramilitaries and guerrillas in 47 municipalities of Colombia. For the survey, we randomly sampled these ex-combatants both in and out of prison with support from the Colombian government and the Organization of American States. The survey is an important complement to the administrative data because many who resort to crime are not detected by the criminal justice system. We used sensitive question techniques and a self-administered survey to elicit honest responses about engagement in crime, generating a wealth of information on criminal activity. For details on the methodology, see our research paper. This is what we found. We found a gap between the two sources of data. The attorney general’s data suggest that 11 percent of ex-combatants get involved in crime. But when we put the attorney general’s data together with our survey data, we found that 24 percent of ex-combatants had committed crimes. We didn’t find any evidence that ex-combatants turned to crime because they couldn’t find work. Nor did depression or trauma appear to tip someone into behaving criminally. What we did find, quite strongly, is that when former fighters stayed closely tied with their former comrades and commanders, they were more likely to commit any type of crime, and violent crime in particular. It didn’t matter whether we were studying ex-paramilitary fighters or ex-guerrillas: What made the difference between law-abiding civilians and criminals was whether they stayed closely tied to their brigade. Here’s why. Wartime networks work like gang networks: They exert social pressure to go along with what everyone else is doing; they make criminal behavior seem normal and acceptable; and they bring status, esteem and a sense of belonging. And this is key: The top and mid-ranking commanders are the ones who lead the rest to crime. What do our findings mean for demobilizing FARC rebels? If the referendum passes, the FARC rebels will hand over their weapons and attempt


Man unwittingly attempts to rob big-time college runners. A big mistake.

the team, watching from a window at the restaurant, saw the heated interaction. Once the two started running, all five members of the team took off, flying through the door like a pack of cheetahs. The man kept running but found himself in an alley that ended in a chain-like fence. He was trapped. “He was terrified. He was so scared. He knew he was caught and just wanted to get away,” Arizona junior Patrick Leary told Runner’s World. The runners said Clinton did everything he could think of to get away. He slashed his knife in the air. He begged, saying, “Let me go, man” and “I have kids. Let me go,” according to Bailey Roth, an Arizona junior. In a total reversal of the situation, the man who had just robbed the team pulled his own wallet from his pocket and threw it at the team’s feet, the runners said. Inside the wallet was his Social Security card. Then, in a last-minute act of desperation, Clinton scaled the 10-foot chain link fence, according to the Star Tribune. That’s when Bailey Roth took center-stage. He missed the Olympic trials in steeplechase by a second, and his mile is seconds away from four minutes. A steeplechase is a race in which the runners have to bound over obstacles. In other words, Roth and the suspected burglar were now engaged in a steeplechase. As Roth gave chase, another member of the team called the police. Meanwhile, two of the runners split around the sides, hoping to head Clinton off. Eventually, Clinton reportedly ran across Interstate 35W and up an entrance ramp. There, Minneapolis police officer Jim Walker was waiting. “They caught the perfect guy,” Walker said, pointing out that Clinton has a long rap sheet. “He has four cases against him right now for assault and burglary. He’s been doing this for years.” He told the Star Tribune that Clinton was breathing heavily and looked exhausted, while the runners hadn’t broken a sweat. Added Walker, “It’s never a good idea to get in a foot chase with cross-country runners.” “I chased him for about three-quarters of a mile in total,” Roth said, adding that this might help the team, which didn’t have a great weekend. “We were pretty hyped to be honest,” Roth told Runner’s World. “We didn’t have a great race, and we have been working on our team dynamic.


Sanctuary cities do not experience an increase in crime

the results for changes to violent crime in the year immediately following a change in laws for sanctuary cities that have available crime data in the year after the city became sanctuary. Some cities – such as San Francisco and St. Louis — did see increases in crime immediately following passage. Other cities, such as San Jose, saw no change in crime. Still others — such as Baltimore and Washington — saw a reduction in crime. Taken together, the average change in crime is not statistically significant. The same results hold for property crime and rape crime. Our second method is more comprehensive. We matched each sanctuary city to a similarly situated non-sanctuary city based on relevant census and political variables. This creates a scenario in which two cities are as similar as possible – with the exception of sanctuary policy – on a variety of features associated with crime rates. If the two comparable cities systematically differ in crime rates, then we can be quite confident that the difference is attributable to the sanctuary designation. The graph below presents our results for violent crime. It compares violent crime rates among sanctuary and non-sanctuary cities from when no cities in our data set were classified as sanctuaries to after all cities had passed their sanctuary policies. Violent crime is slightly higher in sanctuary cities than non-sanctuary cities. However, judging by the error bands — which capture the uncertainty underlying these estimates — the relationship is not statistically significant before or after a sanctuary policy is passed. We find similar results for property crime and rape. That is, a sanctuary policy itself has no statistically meaningful effect on crime. These results make sense if sanctuary city policies have countervailing effects. Given lower crime rates among immigrants, crime rates in sanctuary cities should drop, if those cities do attract new immigrants. At the same time, sanctuary policies are typically designed to increase trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement. Thus, crime reporting — but not crime itself — might actually increase in these locations if undocumented immigrants are more likely to work with police and local authorities. Taken together, these explanations may explain what we observe in these data: a sanctuary city designation does not produce a significantly higher crime rate. Loren Collingwood is an assistant professor of political science at University of California at Riverside whose research interests include American politics,


How the world’s poorer countries breathe worse air, in charts and maps

countries. Nearly 2 million of the deaths brought on early by pollution are in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific region, according to the report, compared with 333,000 in Europe and the Americas. High-income countries went through a phase of industrialization that heavily polluted their cities, too. A century ago, the major manufacturing centers of the United States and Europe were plagued by smog, belched out by the largely unregulated factories and industries on which nations built their economic power. In the "developing world," countries such as China and India are now industrializing in similar ways. On their way to lifting millions, if not billions, out of poverty, and in their quest to provide jobs, electricity and infrastructure for booming populations, regulations on industry are lax, and the mining of coal, for instance, remains a main source of power — and pollution. In the following maps, concentrations of particulate matter in the air — tiny bits of chemical and dust and smoke that are microscopic — are shown across different regions of the world, using WHO data. Dozens of scientists contributed to the WHO study, which took place over 18 months and used data from satellites, air-transport models and ground monitors in more than 3,000 urban and rural locations. The study focused on particulate matter of 2.5 microns or less in size, which in high concentrations can be very unhealthy, but it did not measure other potentially harmful elements in the air such as ozone and nitrous oxide. “Air pollution is a major cause of disease and death. It is good news that more cities are stepping up to monitor air quality, so when they take actions to improve it, they have a benchmark,” said Flavia Bustreo, WHO assistant director general for family, women and children's health. “When dirty air blankets our cities, the most vulnerable urban populations — the youngest, oldest and poorest — are the most impacted.” The pollution concentrations shown in the maps above are caused by a variety of factors, some human-made and others not. For instance, in the map of the Middle East and North Africa, much of that pollution is caused by dust storms that are common in the deserts that make up much of that region. In the map of the Eastern United States, it is clear that urban centers as well as regions with large manufacturing and mining industries suffer from the


The Daily 202: Inside Clinton’s struggle to win over college students in Ohio

with FARC following a plebiscite. (Nicolo Filippo Rosso/Bloomberg) -- Colombia voted to reject a peace deal with FARC rebels by a razor-thin margin of 50.24 to 49.75 percent, throwing years-long negotiations into chaos and threatening to prolong the country’s half-century war. Kim Kardashian, seen yesterday during Paris Fashion Week, was tied up and robbed at gunpoint overnight in Paris. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) -- Five thieves in ski masks robbed Kim Kardashian at gunpoint in Paris, tying her up in the bathroom of her luxury residence before making off with millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry. Yoshinori Ohsumi, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, reacts to winning the Nobel Prize. (Kyodo/via Reuters) -- The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi for his work on a fundamental process for autophagy, or “cell recycling.” -- First in the 202 – New Ann Kirkpatrick ad ties John McCain to Trump: -- The Clinton campaign is going on the radio in Miami today with an ad highlighting Newsweek’s report that Trump violated the Cuba trade embargo. Cora Faith Walker (Raquita Henderson/Courtesy of Cora Faith Walker) GET SMART FAST: - An incoming state representative from Ferguson, Mo., who is set to begin her first term in January, has publicly accused a soon-to-be colleague of rape. The two would soon be the only black lawyers in the Missouri legislature and they had set up a meeting to discuss how they might work together, Cora Faith Walker told the St. Louis Dispatch. She says they had two glasses of wine, and she woke up the next morning in a bed at the same apartment, with no memory of what happened. The alleged perpetrator has not been arrested or charged. (Amy B Wang) - The GOP nominee for Oregon governor told incumbent Democrat Kate Brown that educated women are “less susceptible to abuse” following Brown's revelation during a debate that she had been a victim of domestic violence. "A woman that has great education and training and a great job is not susceptible to this kind of abuse by men, women or anyone," said Bud Pierce, a practicing oncologist. (Amber Phillips) - The New Jersey transit agency was under scrutiny for “dozens” of safety violations before last week’s deadly train crash in Hoboken. The violations, uncovered by a federal audit in June, were described as “operational,” meaning they dealt with train


10 things to do in the D.C. area the week of Oct. 3-7

Boqueria is hosting a debate viewing party this week, serving such tapas as tortilla española and patatas bravas. (Photo by Joseph Victor Stefanchik for The Washington Post) Monday, Oct. 3 World Architecture Day at Hirshhorn Museum: Tuesday, Oct. 4 'Big Talk, Small Plates' debate viewing party at Boqueria: Band of Skulls at Black Cat: Wednesday, Oct. 5 James Beard Foundation's Celebrity Chef Tour at Del Campo: 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' at the Kennedy Center: Thursday, Oct. 6 The Shaw Bijou pop-up bar at Central Michel Richard: Chance the Rapper at EagleBank Arena: Friday, Oct. 7 Mike Birbiglia at the Strathmore: 'Ghostbusters' at Union Market: VelocityDC Dance Festival at Sidney Harman Hall: - Emily Codik, Macy Freeman, Rudi Greenberg, Becky Krystal, Lori McCue, Savannah Stephens, John Taylor Read more: - The Hotlist: 13 things to see, eat, drink and do in October - 8 new restaurants you probably haven’t tried yet - 6 new brunches to try this weekend


Gravitational wave detection is a favorite for the 2016 physics Nobel Prize

Science Foundation produced the hundreds of millions of dollars to build LIGO — two giant detectors, one in Louisiana and one in Washington state. In February, the leaders of LIGO announced in Washington that they’d detected the elusive waves, generated by the collision of two black holes more than a billion light-years from Earth. Among the many ridiculous features of the Nobel Prize is the Rule of Three, which states that no more than three people can be laureated for a single discovery. LIGO doesn’t seem to have a major problem there, as Drever, Thorne and Weiss have long been known as the Troika. They’ve already received a load of major physics prizes since the February announcement. (Thorne and Weiss were on stage at the February announcement; Drever has suffered from dementia for many years and could not attend.) Already, though, there is some controversy about the Rule of Three as it relates to LIGO. A story in the journal Science argues the case for Barry Barish. Barish was the second director of LIGO and the one who effectively rescued the project when it was on the verge of termination in the 1990s. Barish oversaw the upgrade [correction: he oversaw the proposal for the upgrade] in the detectors that made the discovery possible. “Barry Barish is the most skilled manager of large-scale projects we’ve ever had in the world,” Thorne is quoted as saying in Levin's book. To do something as big as LIGO required not only science at its best but also engineering at its most heroic. But the Nobel favors theorists, not experimentalists. We saw this several years ago with the Nobel for the Higgs boson: The two people who won the prize were theorists who worked out the ideas in 1964. And the Nobel arguably should have gone to six theorists, not two. (One of the un-laureated physicists would have won but for his crucial mistake of dying before the discovery; the Nobel Prize can go only to living scientists.) No one who actively worked on the Large Hadron Collider or the two major experiments searching for the Higgs — that is, the people who actually found it — were honored with the Nobel. So it may be with LIGO. The paper announcing the gravitational wave discovery carried the names of about 800 authors. And the Nobel does not have a Rule of 800. Further Reading: Eric


Bees were just added to the U.S. endangered-species list for the first time

compromised by diseases transmitted by nonnative insects. "The small number of remaining [yellow-faced bee] populations limits this species’ ability to adapt to environmental changes," the agency wrote in its Sept. 30 final ruling. "The effects of climate change are likely to further exacerbate these threats." Magnacca told the AP that there are a lot more rare insects that deserve protection. "It may not necessarily be appropriate to list them as endangered, but we have this huge diversity that we need to work on and protect here in Hawaii," he said. "There's a huge amount of work that needs to be done." The designation is considered a victory for conservationists and echoes a broader effort, made in recent years, to recognize the contributions and importance of bees. That effort may be paying off: In May 2015, the White House released its National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honeybees and Other Pollinators in a bid to protect such critters across the country. “I have to say that it is mighty darn lovely having the White House acknowledge the indigenous, unpaid and invisible workforce that somehow has managed to sustain all terrestrial life without health-care subsidies, or a single COLA, for that past 250 million years,” Sam Droege, a U.S. Geological Survey wildlife biologist and one of the country’s foremost experts on native bee identification, told The Washington Post in May 2015. Much of the publicity so far has been focused on honeybees because their work in pollinating crops makes them economically valuable to humans. But in a research paper published in the journal Nature Communications last year, scientists contended that wild bees may deserve just as much attention, even if fewer wild species are responsible for crop pollination. “There’s more than just economic reasons to protect nature and the species in it,” Taylor Ricketts, a co-author of the paper and director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, told The Post last year. Wild bees are important to the larger ecosystem, likely integral to maintaining the habitat for other species that indirectly affect humans, Ricketts said. The designation of these seven bees as endangered species is a start, conservationists say. In the same ruling, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also designated the band-rumped storm petrel, the orangeblack Hawaiian damselfly and the anchialine pool shrimp as endangered species. The designations take effect Oct. 31. Read more:


Colombia’s shock referendum may pull the plug on a Nobel Peace Prize

Colombia, on Oct. 2 as she follows on a giant screen the results of the referendum. (Ariana Cubillos/AP) The stunning victory of the "no" camp in Sunday's referendum has put Colombia's historic peace deal with leftist rebels in jeopardy. The vote, which opponents of the pact won by a razor-thin margin, flew in the face of expectations and upended years of diplomatic efforts and negotiations with the leftist FARC rebels, who have waged one of the world's longest insurgencies. “Now we have to decide what path to take so that peace will be possible," said President Jose Manuel Santos, who has staked his political legitimacy on the peace process. "I won’t give up.” As he and his counterparts from the FARC, known formally as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, struggle to chart a way forward in a moment of profound uncertainty, the vote has made another unwelcome development more certain. It is likely to have scuppered the chance for Santos and the FARC leadership to win this year's Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced Friday. "Colombia's off any credible list," Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo and a prominent speculator on possible contenders for the prestigious annual award, told reporters on Monday. The Nobel committee frequently rewards the architects of peace processes, including in Northern Ireland in 1998, the Oslo Accords between the Israelis and the Palestinians in 1994, and veteran Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari, who won the award in 2008 for a career in peacemaking. Colombia's war with the FARC has lasted decades and killed more than 220,000 people. The landmark resolution to the conflict, and an agreed road map to bring the rebels out of the jungle, was considered so historic that both Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, were front-runners to win the prize. "It's now out of the question," Asle Sveen, a historian who has written several books on the Nobel Prize, told Reuters. According to the news agency, he had earlier tipped the Colombian government to win. Other candidates for the prize this year include the lead Western negotiators of the nuclear deal with Iran, former National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, Pope Francis and a Russian human rights advocate. Read more: Why war-torn Colombia didn't vote for peace Biggest obstacle to Colombia peace may not be FARC, but an ex-president


Report offers stark picture of how Africa has stagnated over the last 10 years

the past decade, rank near the bottom on similar surveys worldwide. The cumulative index for Africa at large, scoring for overall governance, went up by one "point" over the past 10 years. Almost half of Africa's 54 countries scored worse than ever on safety and rule of law in at least one of the past three years, which measures personal safety, national security, accountability and the judicial system. The index was founded by Mo Ibrahim, a retired Sudanese-British telecom magnate. Ibrahim is perhaps most famous for his philanthropic foundation, which annually awards African leaders who step down peacefully within two terms with a generous cash prize meant to incentivize continued public service. In the 10 years of the prize's existence, it has been awarded five times. "Where I'm a little bit concerned — actually more than a little bit," said Ibrahim in an interview with WorldViews, "is with leaders who want to rule simply because they want to take the money from their countries. They want to be president for life, come what may, even civil war. It's heartbreaking." This year alone, a slew of lifelong dictators have retained power in questionable elections across the continent, including in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The picture above is of Gabon's parliament, which was torched by protesters following a disputed vote in September. Perhaps the most startling finding in the Ibrahim Index report was the decline of South Africa. South Africa is the continent's most industrialized country and exerts major regional influence. But its economy has lagged far behind the other BRICS (an association of emerging economy nations), and chronic power shortages have added to those woes. Unemployment is massive, with roughly a quarter of the working population jobless. Along with students protesting fee hikes, voters have been increasingly likely to abandon the ruling African National Congress, which has been in power since the end of apartheid in 1994. Other significant findings: Six of the 10 highest-scoring countries in the index's rights category have registered deterioration in the past 10 years. And two-thirds of the countries on the continent, representing 67 percent of the African population, have shown deterioration in freedom of expression over the past decade. Nevertheless, Ibrahim says that improvements, however minor, in education, gender equality and health infrastructure are reasons to hope the next generation will bring better governance. Part of the battle is creating wider consciousness of African leaders


Amid an abuse scandal, Sarah Silverman asks the Marines: Will my nephew be okay as a recruit?

so will we! See you at his graduation.” @SarahKSilverman We appreciate and understand your concerns and thank you for sharing them directly with us. Rest assured, the recent (1/5) @SarahKSilverman circumstances regarding recruit training in the media are not indicative of the manner we transform young men & women (2/5) @SarahKSilverman into Marines. We are actively engaged in ensuring every one with a loved one or family member (3/5) @SarahKSilverman working hard to earn the title Marine is assured and informed. We remain committed to your nephew's success, and when (4/5) @SarahKSilverman he's earned the title Marine, he'll be proud and so will we! See you at his graduation. (5/5) Attention on the scandal increased last week after several newspapers, including The Washington Post, published interviews with a Marine veteran who reported his platoon’s experience late last year after he faced suicidal thoughts and depression and refused to continue training. Former Pvt. Thomas Jacob Weaver said that he was hazed the entire three months he was at Parris Island and that he was there the night a Muslim recruit was called a terrorist and put in a dryer. Other followers weighed in after seeing Silverman’s tweets. Some attempted to reassure her that her nephew will be safe, while others suggested that her speaking up may make him a target. @SarahKSilverman @USMC You must really hate your nephew because now he's sure to have it much harder than it was already going to be ,Auntie Members of Congress also have taken interest in the cases. At least two members of the House have made recent visits to Parris Island and two officials with knowledge of House Armed Services Committee deliberations said there are active discussions about whether it is appropriate to have hearings to examine what has occurred and when. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and concerns that being named could jeopardize any criminal prosecutions. “The challenge that these kinds of situations present to us is that it’s difficult for the witnesses to give us anything helpful while the criminal prosecutions are ongoing,” one official said. “Once you can have a hearing that is productive, that’s where you consider having one.” Related on Checkpoint: Following a recruit’s death, a culture of hazing is exposed on a storied Marine base Marine Corps ousts Parris Island recruit training commander after death of recruit


Federal hiring remains a work in progress after many fixes

tend to have low percentages of millennials in the workforce.” This only exacerbates personnel shortages in critical areas like cybersecurity, which the GAO said, “are threatening the ability of agencies to carry out their missions.” One problem that doesn’t get much attention is the government’s human resource staffing shortage. “Over the years it’s been decimated to the point where we don’t have the number of folks actually on board to do the work that they need to do,” said Angela Bailey, the Department of Homeland Security’s chief human capital officer and a former OPM official. “They are not well-trained anymore.” The focus of the hearing was young adults, but that didn’t stop senators from exploring troubles with a federal hiring process that afflicts people regardless of age. One of the first problems job seekers face is the application process. That begins with USAJobs.gov, the government’s online jobs board. “That website is not a good first introduction,” Heitkamp said by phone. She called it a cumbersome site that leaves candidates thinking their applications fell into an abyss. “I never met anyone,” she added, “who felt that website was number one, welcoming or number two, very efficient.” That must be discouraging to OPM, which last month launched a new version of USAJobs to make the service “more user friendly.” Reinhold said user satisfaction over the last year increased from 72 percent to 79 percent, an all-time high. Making the entire hiring process more user-friendly is a subject the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that examines federal management issues, has long studied. “With only about one percent of the federal workforce under the age of 25 and just over six percent of the federal workforce under the age of 30, agencies must do better at attracting, hiring and retaining millennial employees,” said Max Stier, the Partnership’s president and chief executive. He did not testify at the hearing. The time for doing that better job is now, Heitkamp said. “It is essential that the federal government be prepared to recruit and retain the top talent from this generation of workers as effectively as possible,” she said, “and as soon as possible.” That preparation remains a work in progress. Read more: [Relaunched USAJobs is aimed at making it easier to apply for federal work] [Why is it so hard to get a federal job? Here’s one reason] [Federal hiring, fixed before, needs fixing again]


Why wealthy drivers with DUIs get to pay less for car insurance

higher income worked as a bank executive, had a master’s degree, was married and owned her home. The driver with the middle income worked as a bank teller, had a high school degree, was single and rented her home. “We were looking at all the factors that tend to be affiliated with people making less money,” said Bob Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America. The requests were sent to five large car insurance providers: Allstate, Farmers, Geico, Progressive and State Farm. The researchers’ findings show how insurance companies can use traits that are not obviously connected to a person’s driving habits when determining insurance quotes. Industry representatives say that while companies do not request income information when issuing car insurance quotes, they look more broadly at a person’s risk level by evaluating a range of characteristics. (The higher the risk, the higher the quote). That could include a driver’s job status, age, education level, credit history, marital status and gender, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group. Some economic traits can be linked to a higher rate of accidents, says James Lynch, chief actuary for the Insurance Information Institute, though he declined to provide specific research. For example, some insurers claim that drivers who pay their bills late tend to get into more accidents than people who pay on time, he said, adding that insurance companies are not required to publicly disclose the statistics they use. Another example is that families facing tough budgets are more likely than higher-earning families to put their car insurance on hold during times when money is short, Hunter said. (In the eyes of the insurance company, those gaps are associated with being a riskier driver, because it suggests that the person has been off the road for a while, Lynch says.) Insurers also look at more-traditional characteristics such as a person’s driving history, the type of car they drive and their location. When deciding what traits to factor in, they need to prove that the factors are associated with higher or lower rates of accidents, but are not required to show that one factor causes the accidents, Lynch says. (The exact formula changes from one insurer to the next.) Stronger regulations that limit the kinds of factors that insurers can take into account may help to lower insurance costs for some families who face financial challenges but still


2016 Nobel Prize in physics awarded for revealing ‘the secrets of exotic matter’

a pretzel are distinguished only by the number of holes they contain. If an object changes from having one hole to two, it is said to have undergone a topological phase transition. Member of the Nobel committee for physics explains topology using a cinnamon bun, a bagel and a pretzel https://t.co/gORO04UYam "In the world of topology, changing from a normal conductor to a superconductor might be the equivalent of a bagel transforming into a bun," The Guardian reports. To be perfectly honest, the bagel metaphor doesn't make it all that much easier to understand. But in essence: It's a phase change, but one far more intriguing than the simple snap from liquid to solid. By finding an area of mathematics that can explain the state changes behind these strange qualities, the laureates make those properties easier to predict and study. We could have the laureate's findings to thank for the next generation of electronics. Scientists are starting to get excited about topological insulators, which are materials that – through the mysterious states explored by the 2016 laureates – are able to block electrons from passing through them while allowing electrons to travel over their surfaces. Usually, a material is either an insulator – keeping electrons out – or a conductor, easing them through. The idea of a single material that can accomplish both turns a lot of what we used to "know" about physics on its head. Some researchers hope that materials with these oddball properties could be used to build quantum computers, which would be much more powerful than conventional computers. "Today's advanced technology — take, for instance, our computers — relies on our ability to understand and control the properties of the materials involved," Nils Mårtensson, acting chairman of the Nobel committee, said Tuesday. "And this year's Nobel laureates in their theoretical work discovered a set of totally unexpected regularities in the behavior of matter, which can be described in terms of an established mathematical concept — namely, that of topology." Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences sit under a screen showing pictures of the winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics. Top from left: David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via Reuters) "This has paved the way for designing new materials with novel properties and there is great hope that this will be important for many future technologies," Mårtensson said.


a screen showing pictures of the winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics. Top from left: David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via Reuters) "This has paved the way for designing new materials with novel properties and there is great hope that this will be important for many future technologies," Mårtensson said. In the early 1970s, Kosterlitz and Thouless modeled the existence of superconductivity and suprafluidity in thin layers, overturning the prevailing theory that such configurations of matter could not exist. They demonstrated that superconductivity could occur at low temperatures and also explained the mechanism, called phase transition, that makes superconductivity disappear at higher temperatures. In the 1980s, Duncan Haldane discovered how topological concepts can be used to understand the properties of chains of small magnets found in some materials. Haldane spoke to the press gathered in Stockholm for Tuesday's announcement, having been reached on the phone around 4:30 a.m. Eastern time. "I was, as everyone else is, very surprised," Haldane said. "And very gratified." "It was a long time ago," he said of his own research, "But it’s only now that lots of tremendous new discoveries based on this original work have extended it in many ways." Last year's Nobel Prize in physics was shared by Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo and Arthur B. McDonald of Queen’s University in Canada. Kajita and McDonald were honored for their work on neutrinos, some of the subatomic particles that make up our universe. The two men contributed to research showing that neutrinos, once thought to be massless, indeed have mass. The award, which was established by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel in 1895 and first awarded in 1901, comes with a prize worth 8 million Swedish krona, or about $937,000. According to the Royal Swedish Academy, the prize is being split two ways — Thouless will receive half the 8 million krona, or around $464,000, because he made "crucial contributions" on multiple fronts. Haldane and Kosterlitz will split the remaining $464,000. This post has been updated. Read more: Ask a MacArthur ‘genius': Who owns science? Gravitational wave detection is a favorite for the 2016 physics Nobel Prize Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to Japan’s Yoshinori Ohsumi for work on ‘cell recycling’ 2015 Nobel Prize in physics goes to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald for neutrinos 107 Nobel laureates sign letter blasting Greenpeace over GMOs


Kyirisan’s Tim Ma to oversee menu at Asian street-food lounge in Petworth

Chef Tim Ma, seen here at Kyirisan in Shaw, is planning an Asian street food menu at the upcoming Ten Tigers Parlor in Petworth. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Chef Tim Ma made his debut in the District with Kyirisan earlier this year, and now he's preparing for a second project. Ma is creating an Asian street-food menu for Ten Tigers Parlour, a bar and lounge from Scott Herman and brothers Ian and Eric Hilton, the restaurateurs and bar owners behind Chez Billy Sud, the Brixton and the Gibson. Occupying the old Chez Billy space in Petworth, the project is expected to open in early November. With dishes ranging from about $6 to $14, the opening menu will focus on Chinese and Southeast Asian fare then expand into a more pan-Asian approach, Ma said. Expect such dishes as bao, satay, dumplings and rice and noodle bowls, ordered dim-sum-style off a checklist. The idea is for diners to have a drink and a few shareable plates, the chef said. His day-to-day work will primarily remain with Kyirisan in Shaw, though he'll be in charge of the kitchen at Ten Tigers, with help from his chef de cuisine, Nyi Nyi Myint. By day, Ten Tigers will operate as a coffee and tea house, with pastries and baked goods spearheaded by Ma's pastry chef, Mollie Bird. Ian Hilton said the team is still working out the details of the coffee program as to whether it will be managed by people who set up shop inside the space or serve as consultants instead. Hilton said Herman, a former general manager at U Street Music Hall, had been thinking about an Asian-inspired lounge for years and was looking at various properties in the Hiltons' portfolio. The space vacated by Chez Billy seemed like a perfect fit. (Chez Billy Sud in Georgetown remains open) Unlike Chez Billy, which was considered more of a special-occasion place, Ten Tigers is a spot for customers to gather on a more regular basis, Hilton said. Petworth's dining scene continues to grow, despite several high-profile departures, including Chez Billy and the long-time eatery Domku, which closed earlier this year. Recent additions include Homestead, Timber Pizza, Little Coco's and Slim's Diner, along with Tchoup's Market in nearby Park View. "Petworth is still in an upward trend," Hilton said. Read more: - The month of September in restaurant openings and closings -


Chef Tim Ma, seen here at Kyirisan in Shaw, is planning an Asian street food menu at the upcoming Ten Tigers Parlor in Petworth. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Chef Tim Ma made his debut in the District with Kyirisan earlier this year, and now he's preparing for a second project. Ma is creating an Asian street-food menu for Ten Tigers Parlor, a bar and lounge from Scott Herman and brothers Ian and Eric Hilton, the restaurateurs and bar owners behind Chez Billy Sud, the Brixton and the Gibson. Occupying the old Chez Billy space in Petworth, the project is expected to open in early November. With dishes ranging from about $6 to $14, the opening menu will focus on Chinese and Southeast Asian fare then expand into a more pan-Asian approach, Ma said. Expect such dishes as bao, satay, dumplings and rice and noodle bowls, ordered dim-sum-style off a checklist. The idea is for diners to have a drink and a few shareable plates, the chef said. His day-to-day work will primarily remain with Kyirisan in Shaw, though he'll be in charge of the kitchen at Ten Tigers, with help from his chef de cuisine, Nyi Nyi Myint. By day, Ten Tigers will operate as a coffee and tea house, with pastries and baked goods spearheaded by Ma's pastry chef, Mollie Bird. Ian Hilton said the team is still working out the details of the coffee program as to whether it will be managed by people who set up shop inside the space or serve as consultants instead. Hilton said Herman, a former general manager at U Street Music Hall, had been thinking about an Asian-inspired lounge for years and was looking at various properties in the Hiltons' portfolio. The space vacated by Chez Billy seemed like a perfect fit. (Chez Billy Sud in Georgetown remains open) Unlike Chez Billy, which was considered more of a special-occasion place, Ten Tigers is a spot for customers to gather on a more regular basis, Hilton said. Petworth's dining scene continues to grow, despite several high-profile departures, including Chez Billy and the long-time eatery Domku, which closed earlier this year. Recent additions include Homestead, Timber Pizza, Little Coco's and Slim's Diner, along with Tchoup's Market in nearby Park View. "Petworth is still in an upward trend," Hilton said. Read more: - The month of September in restaurant openings and closings -


‘Brain-training’ games train you in only one thing: Playing brain-training games

studies to back up their claims. Some of those studies were the same ones that skeptics of brain training cited to cast doubt on the technique. "How could two teams of scientists examine the same literature and come to conflicting 'consensus' views about the effectiveness of brain training?" Simons and his colleagues write. Hoping to bring some clarity to the debate, they analyzed all 132 studies and tried to apply some objective standards. To definitively prove that brain-training results in vertical transfer, studies should have a good control group, one that was assigned a comparable task to brain training to prove that it is really the specific technique that led to the improvements. They should test a large number of participants to weed out the possibility of results that are a statistical fluke. And they should account for expectations and biases — people who play training games are likely to expect to become smarter, much as people who take a placebo pill expect to feel better. According to Simons and his colleagues, nearly every one of the brain-training studies they looked at failed to meet these standards. The studies that subscribed to psychology's best practices suggested that brain training made participants better at the specific task being tested but did not lead to any generalized improvements. The review was lauded by several of the 70 scientists who co-signed the 2014 letter casting doubt on brain training and was, perhaps predictably, criticized by advocates of the technique. Speaking to the Atlantic, Henry Mahncke, a neuroscientist and chief executive of the training company Posit Science, accused Simons’s team of bias: “They twisted every one of those studies to fit their theories that cognitive training can’t work,” he said. But brain-training programs have already suffered a financial blow. In January, the Federal Trade Commission announced that the creators of the brain-training game Lumosity would pay $2 million to settle charges of deceptive advertising. The company has since scaled back its claims — instead of promoting the game as a way to get smarter, Lumosity's website describes it simply as "designed by scientists to challenge core cognitive abilities." Training games may someday prove to boost the brain, Simons and his colleagues write. But they haven't yet. Read more: 2016 Nobel Prize in physics awarded for revealing 'the secrets of exotic matter' Ask a MacArthur 'genius': Who owns science? Bees were just added to the


How medical marijuana could help boomers get the most out of retirement

men were 5 percent more likely to say they were in “very good” or “excellent” health. And part of the reason men rated their health better is because they were in less pain: the passage of a medical marijuana law led to roughly a 10 percent drop in the percent of men saying they experienced pain. The health effect on women, however, appeared to be more mixed. “Surprisingly, among women we find evidence that passage of [a medical marijuana law] that provides legal access to the product increases the probability of reporting pain in the full sample by 1.3 percentage points (3.8 percent)." Nonetheless, the study found that like men, older women were about 5 percent more likely to report “very good” or “excellent” health after the passage of medical marijuana. While the difference between men and women is puzzling, a recent Columbia University study offers a clue: Smoking marijuana provides more pain relief for men than for women, for reasons not yet fully understood. Much of the debate around marijuana legalization centers on the potential effects on young people. This makes a certain amount of sense, as young, still-developing brains are at the highest risk for adverse effects from the use of any drug. But a surprising amount of new research suggests that older Americans will be much more affected by changes to marijuana law than previously thought. Middle-aged Americans are now more likely to use marijuana than their teenage children, and the fastest increases in marijuana use are being seen among Americans age 55 and up. The research is also starting to suggest that older marijuana users may benefit from better quality of life in their golden years. A study earlier this year found that Medicare prescriptions for a variety of drugs, including painkillers, anti-anxiety medications and anti-nausea drugs, fell significantly in states that adopted medical marijuana laws. Research has also shown As with any drug — recreational or medical — there are risks associated with marijuana use. Driving while under the influence of marijuana is particularly dangerous, and marijuana use does carry a risk of dependency. But researchers generally agree that, overall, there are fewer risks associated with marijuana use than there are with alcohol. And as the latest working paper shows, there are benefits to more widespread availability of medical marijuana that could result in a significant improvement in quality of life, particularly for older Americans.


Lawmakers say SpaceX rocket explosion investigation should not be ‘politicized’

A Falcon 9 rocket set to take a satellite into space on Labor Day weekend exploded during testing days before. Courtesy of http://www.uslaunchreport.com/. Less than a week after a group of 10 House Republicans urged the federal government to take over the investigation into the recent explosion of a SpaceX rocket, another group of lawmakers on Tuesday expressed support for the way the company was handling the review. In a letter to the heads of the Air Force, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration, 24 members of Congress said that it was proper that SpaceX was leading the investigation. “Accidents are unfortunate events, and accident investigations should not be politicized,” wrote the bipartisan group led by Rep. Bill Flores (R-Tex.). “We encourage you to reject calls for your organizations to abandon established, well-considered and long-standing procedures.” SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket exploded Sept. 1 as it was being refueled on a Cape Canaveral launch pad ahead of an engine test fire. It’s still not clear what caused the rocket to ignite, but the company has said there was a large breach inside a liquid oxygen fuel tank. It’s not known what caused the breach, but SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the company has “eliminated all of the obvious possibilities for what occurred there. So what remains are the less probable answers.” He did not say what those could be. Since there was no loss of life or injury and no outside property was extensively damaged, federal regulations call for the launch providers to conduct the investigations with oversight from the FAA. NASA and the Air Force are also helping with the investigation. The lawmakers said they supported this approach in their letter Tuesday. “We are pleased that FAA is maintaining a strong and prudent oversight role that appropriately draws upon private sector insight in ensuring a robust investigative process and safe return to flight for SpaceX,” the lawmakers wrote.


Marijuana legalization is leading in every state where it’s on the ballot this November

A view of cured and finished buds as well as growing medical marijuana plants propagated at Josh Gender's medical marijuana operation in D.C. in September. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) Marijuana advocates are heading into the final weeks of the 2016 campaign with the wind at their backs as the latest polling shows legalization measures currently favored by voters in all five states where they're on the ballot. This is something of a reversal from just a month ago, when the most recent polling had shown voters wary of legalization measures in Massachusetts and Arizona. But the margins of support aren't huge in any state, meaning that the contests could still swing either way. Polling ballot issues is a tricky business, all the more so with marijuana-related issues, where responses can be heavily influenced by particular question wording. So in the same state, different polls with different question wording can yield radically different results even if fielded at similar times. Those caveats aside, here's what the latest numbers show. In Arizona, a late-August Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll of 784 registered voters found that 50 percent supported marijuana legalization, 40 percent opposed it, and 10 percent remain undecided. That result is sharply at odds with a July poll of likely voters showing that only 39 percent said they favored the measure. Voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada just approved recreational marijuana use. Here's what they can learn from Washington, Colorado and Oregon, states where marijuana use has already been legalized. In California, a post-debate SurveyUSA poll of 751 likely voters found that Proposition 64, which would legalize, tax and regulate the sale of recreational marijuana, is supported by 52 percent of the electorate and opposed by 41 percent, with 6 percent undecided. This is a lower margin than some other recent polls there, which have pegged support at 60 percent or more. Across the country in Massachusetts, the marijuana legalization measure there enjoys 53 percent support among likely voters, according to a recent WBZ-UMASS Amherst poll of 700 likely voters. Forty percent oppose it, while another 7 percent are unsure. That's also a turnaround from an earlier poll of 900 registered voters, which found only 41 percent supported the measure. Up the coast in Maine, a late September poll of 505 likely voters found 53 percent support for the legalization measure, 38 percent opposed to it and 10 percent undecided. This


Nobel Prize in chemistry is awarded for molecular machines

Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa win the Nobel chemistry prize for work on molecular machines that may lead to the development of new materials, sensors and energy storage systems. Jean-Pierre Sauvage, James Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa were awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for their work on molecular machines. Operating on a scale a thousand times as small as the width of a human hair, these “machines” are specially designed molecules with movable parts that produce controlled movements when energy is added. They may one day be used to build new materials, operate microscopic sensors and create energy-storage mechanisms too tiny to be seen with the naked eye. “These three laureates . . . have opened this entire field of molecular machinery and shown us that you can make machine-like function at the molecular level,” said Olof Ramström, a member of Nobel chemistry committee. He compared Sauvage, Stoddart and Feringa's breakthroughs to the invention of the first crude electric motors. Scientists in the early 19th century could not envision the countless ways that their spinning cranks and wheels would be put to use. But they had already “created a revolution,” he said. Biology produces molecular machines all the time — they power our organs and allow our bodies to function. The motor protein kinesin is a model example: It literally walks along microtubules in the cell to transport cargo from one end to the other. Humans made molecular machines. Nature came up with kinesin https://t.co/DPjCDXwT6A But since the 1950s, researchers have dreamed of manufacturing an apparatus that could function in the same way. The physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman gave a seminal lecture on the subject in 1959, envisioning a “great future” in which “we can arrange the atoms the way we want; the very atoms, all the way down.” Sauvage (Johan Jarnestad/Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) In 1991, Stoddart reinvented the wheel on a microscopic scale. He created a ring of molecules that moved along an axle in a controlled manner when heat was added. This shuttle zipped back and forth between two sites, powered only by the collisions of the molecules around it. The machine was eventually used to build a “molecular abacus” that could store information. Northwestern University professor J. Fraser Stoddart, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry with two European colleagues on Oct. 5, said the


Theresa May bragged about Britain being world’s 5th-largest economy. After her speech, it dropped to 6th.

Speaking July 10, British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would trigger the process to leave the E.U. by the end of March 2017. LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly said that “Brexit means Brexit.” But among economists, fears are rising that things might be a bit more complicated. In its Wednesday edition, the Financial Times newspaper pointed out just how worried markets have been in reaction to May's recent announcements. On Sunday, May held a major speech in Birmingham in which she announced that the official process to leave the European Union would begin by March 2017 at the latest. She also said Britain has the world's fifth-largest economy. It was an attempt to reassure markets and voters that the country's economy was strong enough to withstand the risks associated with taking the momentous decision to leave the European Union and to persuade other nations to strike trade deals quickly. But in an ironic twist, that argument soon turned into an embarrassment, as markets reacted to May's determination to pursue Brexit. The British sterling lost so much value against the euro that Britain dropped to the sixth spot in international rankings, falling behind France. After May's speech, the sterling had fallen to a 31-year low against the dollar. British Prime Minister Theresa May gives a speech on the final day of the annual Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham on Oct. 5. (Toby Melville/Reuters) The Financial Times calculation is based on market exchange rates, which are considered imperfect by some economists. However, the exchange rate-based drop in economic size is only one of many indications that Britain's economy could suffer under the fallout from Brexit. Most international institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, have repeatedly emphasized the economic risks of the referendum. More recently, some banks and international companies have publicly said they were considering moving their headquarters to other E.U. nations. May has tried to steer the public debate away from the Brexit negotiations and toward other, more domestic issues. However, some statements by members of her cabinet have achieved the opposite. Associations representing British companies reacted with anger and confusion to an announcement Wednesday by Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who had proposed to force companies to publish the number of foreign workers they employed. Relying on a sense of dark British humor, many commentators on social media later wondered whether mandatory armbands for foreigners might


Theresa May criticized the term ‘citizen of the world.’ But half the world identifies that way.

British Prime Minister Theresa May gives a keynote speech as she closes the 2016 Conservative Conference at the ICC Birmingham on Oct. 5 in Birmingham, England. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images) In defense of the Brexit decision she now must implement, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Sunday that no "divisive nationalists" would hold up the process of exiting the European Union, and she firmly asserted that all four of Britain's constituent "nations" — England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — would Brexit together. But the Brexit decision was fueled in many ways by nationalist sentiments, centering on perceived threats to Britain's sovereignty and many of its citizens' desires to prevent the supposed dilution of their national identity by immigrants crossing the European Union's open borders. Just three days after her comment about "divisive nationalists," at her Conservative Party's annual conference, May espoused her own brand of nationalism — one that seems to encompass all of Britain, but excludes those who may feel as though they have multiple nationalities, or identities. "Today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass on the street," she said. "But if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship means." As it turns out, about half of the people "down the road" or whom one might "pass on the street" identify with the very phrase May disparaged — being a "citizen of the world" or global citizen. In an 18-nation survey conducted by GlobeScan in conjunction with the BBC World Service that was released just over a month ago, 47 percent of Britons said they somewhat or strongly agreed that they considered themselves more as global citizens than citizens of the United Kingdom. That number is just slightly below the 51 percent of all respondents who felt the same way. Below is a look at how respondents from each of the 18 surveyed countries responded. It is worth noting that "urban-only" samples were used in Brazil, China, Indonesia and Kenya. A screenshot of a graphic produced by GlobeScan to accompany a 14-nation survey on global citizenship it released in August, 2016. (GlobeScan) The poll surveyed 20,000 people between December 2015 and April 2016, which coincides with the lead-up to


Prepaid card users are finally getting some of the same protections as credit card users

the rules were too broad and would confuse consumers. “Instead of fostering financial innovation and inclusion, the CFPB’s rule will ultimately limit access to an essential mainstream consumer product that helps millions of Americans participate in the digital economy, affordably manage funds, and safely hold money,” Brad Fauss, president and chief executive of the trade group Network Branded Prepaid Card Association, said in a statement. The rules will also make it more difficult for prepaid cards to offer overdraft services. The vast majority of prepaid cards don’t charge overdraft fees, but after the rules go into effect any cards that can go negative by more than roughly $10 will generally need to be treated as credit. Card companies will need to evaluate consumers to see if they can afford to pay back that credit, and there will be a cap on the fees consumers can be charged in the first year. Consumer advocates mostly praised the rules for improving disclosures and limiting overdraft charges. Nearly three-quarters of unbanked consumers said they use prepaid cards to avoid overdraft fees, according to a 2015 survey by Pew Charitable Trusts. But consumer groups also said they fall short in a few ways. The bureau did not require prepaid card companies to insure funds with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, a move that some consumer groups had requested. (Many prepaid cards already offer FDIC insurance to consumers who register their cards, but they are not required to do so.) Instead, card issuers are required to caution people when funds will not be FDIC insured. The rules also may not do much more to prevent the kinds of outages seen over the past year with RushCard and Walmart branded prepaid cards that locked consumers out of their accounts for days or weeks. “Unfortunately, no amount of rule making can create a force field around providers’ systems and products to categorically prevent this from happening in the future,” said Kristine Andreassen, senior counsel for the office of regulations for the CFPB. She added that the bureau was going to have more “tools” in place for taking action when a problem does happen. For instance, greater access to account history could help consumers spot issues earlier. More than $100 billion is expected to be loaded onto general purpose reloadable prepaid cards this year, up from about $40 billion in 2010, according to estimates from Mercator Advisory Group,


NCAA technicality will keep decorated Army veteran from playing college basketball

of Brock’s eligibility comes even as Brock managed A’s and B’s in online college classes he took last year. “I don’t want to speak for the NCAA, but I think they put an emphasis on Isaiah Brock in 2011 and what his credentials at that time would suggest,” Konya told CBS Sports. “But Isaiah Brock in 2016 is a different person. He’s taken college classes and passed them with a 3.0. So if the issue is that he’s not prepared academically to do college work, I’d argue the proof is in the pudding.” Part of the reason the NCAA has ruled Brock ineligible isn’t even solely because of his high school grades (Brock averaged about a 2.0, according to the Detroit Free Press) but because of the state of the high school itself, CBS Sports reports. He attended Baltimore’s Forest Park High, which, according to U.S. News and World Report, scores just a six out of 100 possible points in its ability to prepare students for college-level academia. This means that even if Brock had graduated in the top 10 percent of his class, his “college readiness” could still fall short of the NCAA’s freshman-eligibility requirements. “The idea that he’d be judged from a college-readiness perspective based off of 5-year-old transcripts from a substandard high school is nonsensical,” CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish opined Wednesday. “[Brock] never even thought about getting eligible out of high school,” Oakland Coach Greg Kampe told CBS Sports. “He was always just going to join the Army.” And Brock flourished as a soldier in the 54th Quartermaster Mortuary Affairs Company, an assignment he recalls proudly. “When a solider dies on the battlefield, we’ll go retrieve them, and they’ll come to us,” Brock told the Free Press. “We’ll process their remains, search through their belongings, search through their body, annotate all their wounds and everything that happened. You see all the ramp ceremonies with the flag draped over their body? That’s what we do, then we send them home.” For his service, he won the Army Commendation Medal, a National Defense Service Medal, a Global War on Terrorism Medal, an Army Service Ribbon and a Certificate of Achievement, but still those awards, along with a qualifying standardized test score, have not persuaded the NCAA to look past the high school transcript. As it stands, Brock, who remains eligible for an OU scholarship, won’t be able to play


Your doctor is probably more worried about your weight than your marijuana use, study finds

times a year as the most problematic behaviors on the list. The doctors rated alcohol use, tobacco use and obesity as significantly more pressing issues, health-wise, than marijuana use. The findings add some empirical heft to a Scientific American essay written by physician Nathaniel Morris, in which he argued that "for most health care providers, marijuana is an afterthought. ... In medicine, marijuana use is often seen on par with tobacco or caffeine consumption — something we counsel patients about stopping or limiting, but nothing urgent to treat or immediately life-threatening." Although polls show that significant majorities of doctors approve of medical marijuana use, most mainstream medical organizations have been cautious when it comes to changes in marijuana policy. The American Medical Association opposes marijuana legalization, for instance. But as more states liberalize their marijuana policies, some doctors' groups are adopting an official pro-legalization stance. The California Medical Association supports the ballot measure that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana there. Earlier this year, a group of physicians calling themselves Doctors for Cannabis Regulation formed with the explicit goal of supporting marijuana legalization on public health grounds. As for the political distinction that was the reason these questions were posed in the first place, the PNAS study found that marijuana use was one of the more polarizing topics among the doctors they surveyed. Republican doctors were, on average, much more concerned about marijuana use than their Democratic colleagues. "Republican [physicians] are more likely to discuss health risks of marijuana [with their patients], urge the patient to cut down, and discuss legal risks," according to the study. The doctors were also polarized over the relative seriousness of previous abortions (Republican doctors more concerned) and of the presence of guns in the home (Democratic doctors more concerned). Overall, doctors' mild concern about marijuana use is not terribly surprising, given what the research shows about the health risks of marijuana use relative to the use of other common drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco. Public health-wise, most researchers aren't worried about marijuana use per se, but rather heavy marijuana use -- the people who use marijuana daily, or multiple times a day. Those people are at a greatest risk for dependency and various health problems associated with heavy use -- even if those problems don't appear to be as severe as the debilitating conditions associated with long-term heavy tobacco or alcohol use.


Soldier killed in Afghanistan was a Green Beret fighting against the Islamic State

U.S. Army) The death occurred in Achin district, which is a few miles from the Pakistan border and considered the Islamic State’s base of operations in Afghanistan. Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the senior U.S. commander in the country, said the death occurred during a “larger United States-Afghan counterterrorism mission targeting the Islamic State, Khorasan” — a reference to the group’s Afghan branch. “On behalf of all of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, we are heartbroken by this loss and we extend our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of the service member,” Nicholson said. “Despite this tragic event, we remain committed to defeating the terrorists of the Islamic State, Khorasan Province and helping our Afghan partners defend their nation.” An investigation has been launched to determine what occurred. Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, a senior U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said that the U.S.-led military coalition will continue to carry out operations against the Islamic State and has carried out multiple airstrikes in Nangarhar within the last week. Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said it is believed that no other U.S. or Afghan troops were wounded during the operation. “This was a combat situation,” Cook said. “Clearly this was a service member who faced risk alongside Afghan partners and we offer our condolences to the family.” The death occurred as the U.S. military assisted Afghan forces with offensives in two other parts of the country. In the northern city of Kunduz, Afghan troops pushed out insurgents late Tuesday in an operation backed by U.S. air power. In southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province, fighting was underway in both Nawa and Khanashin districts between Afghan troops and Taliban fighters. The death Tuesday marks the third U.S. combat fatality in Afghanistan this year. It follows the Aug. 23 death of Army Special Forces Staff Sgt. Matthew V. Thompson in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Thompson, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, was killed by an IED during a dismounted operation. In January, Army Special Forces Staff Sgt. Matthew McClintock was killed by gunfire while fighting alongside Afghan commandos in Marja, a farmland district in Helmand that has seen fierce combat on and off for years. Five U.S. troops were wounded in Afghanistan in fighting against the Islamic State in July, Nicholson disclosed at the time. This story was originally published Tuesday and updated after the identity of Thomas was released. Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed to this report.


Who will win the Nobel Peace Prize? We don’t know, but here are some possibilities.

Mukwege, a leading gynecologist, has aided thousands of victims of rape and played a key role in publicizing the brutality of the violence to the outside world. "By awarding the trio’s local, grass-roots and on-the-ground actions with a Nobel Prize," Harpviken notes, "the Nobel committee has a chance to strengthen the visibility of sexual violence in war as a global problem." U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (right) and the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, meet for the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna on July 9, 2015. (Carlos Barria/AFP/Getty Images) Ernest Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi Harpviken believes that among all the politicians and diplomats involved in negotiating Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, the U.S. secretary of energy and the head of the Iranian atomic agency perhaps deserve the greatest recognition. They played lead roles as negotiators over the pact that has quieted fears over Iran's nuclear capabilities. Harpviken refers to their collaboration as a "fine example of science diplomacy — the activation of scholarly competence to build bridges between people and nations." A woman walks past a banner displayed in support of U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden in Hong Kong on June 18, 2013. (Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images) Edward Snowden The former National Security Agency whistleblower may be a bête noire in Washington, but he commands tremendous respect around the world. His nomination by a pair of Norwegian academics this year triggered fevered speculation over whether Russia, his current host-in-exile, would let him leave to receive the award — and what would happen once he lands in Norway. Other options Pope Francis arrives to celebrate the Vesper prayer in the Church of San Gregorio al Celio in central Rome on Oct. 5, 2016. (Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images) Pope Francis: The Aegean Islanders: “Let’s hope they do win,” Nikos Xydakis, Greece’s deputy foreign minister for European affairs, told the Guardian. “What we saw was ordinary people, with no order from above, respecting tradition and acting out of sheer hospitality and solidarity. What they did shows the best of humanity in the simplest way." Angela Merkel: Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (left, center) and the head of the FARC guerrillas, Timoleon Jimenez, a.k.a. Timochenko, during the signing of the historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in Cartagena on Sept. 26, 2016. (Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images Juan Manuel Santos and Timochenko:


Swedes are calling up women to help fend off threats like Russia

promoting equal rights and opportunities, the recruitment of women is supposed to strengthen the military. "Operational demands and high levels of specialization and sophistication dictate the need to recruit as widely as possible. We cannot afford to exclude half of the population in the recruitment process," Spange Brekke said. "It is widely acknowledged that a more even gender balance changes the work environment in a positive way," he said. But Spange Brekke acknowledged that difficulties remain: Sexual harassment is among the main reasons women leave the army. Sweden introduced gender-neutral conscription in 2010 but never actually drafted women because the country abolished conscription altogether the same year. "The armed forces were not prepared to compete on a free market. For instance, the salary they offered was simply not comparable to most other jobs," said Johan Wiktorin, a fellow at the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences. "The gender-neutrality approach has not even been discussed that much here in Sweden. To us, it is clear that people should have equal opportunities and duties," Wiktorin said. In a recent survey, 70 percent of Swedes expressed support for the planned return of conscription. In other E.U. countries, public agreement with such a model has been on the rise. In terrorism-hit France, for instance, 80 percent recently said they would support a draft-based service to secure the country. A soldier takes part in a 5,500-large NATO troop exercise in Estonia. (Dmitri Beliakov for The Washington Post) "Sweden is responding belatedly to the new security situation in Europe. Its government has just started to reverse course, after running down the country's military for 20 years," said Keir Giles, an associate Russia and Eurasia fellow at Chatham House in London. "There has been a slow realization that the country has relied on a lightweight force for too long." Although Giles said that the likelihood of Sweden being attacked by Russia was extremely low, he emphasized that the perception of a threat had probably been the deciding factor for the reversal on conscription. "Its impact of the country's defensive preparedness will be small," Giles said, referring to the small number of recruits in comparison with Russia. "But it also provides a unifying factor for the country." Read more: Some E.U. countries got rid of the draft years ago. Now, they’re thinking about bringing it back. Sweden is about to add a gender-neutral pronoun to its official dictionary


The really secret lives of bees: Ingenious experiment shows they learn like we do, from each other

Scientists taught bumblebees to pull a string to get a food reward, and then those bees spread the learned technique to others. The groundbreaking study is the first to show that insects have the ability to learn and pass on knowledge and skills. The bumblebee brain is puny, at least compared with the massive and fatty organ locked in your skull. At about 0.0002 percent the volume of yours, bee brains are close in size to the seeds stuck on a hamburger bun. Thinking about insect brains in terms of size alone, however, is a trap. The intelligence of sesame-brained bugs should not be underestimated. A study reported in the journal PLOS Biology on Tuesday, for instance, takes bee smarts in a surprising direction: Scientists from the Queen Mary University of London suggest that the “insects possess the essential cognitive elements for cultural transmission,” as they wrote in their new paper. It is possible to teach a single bee a new trick, in other words, and a different bee can learn that behavior from her peer. That ability is not the only ace found up the clever bee’s sleeves. A recent experiment published in the journal Science, for instance, suggested that bees have their own version of optimism, as The Washington Post reported at the end of September. (Unless they were just buzzed on sugar.) Bees are also capable of an intricate form of communication called a waggle dance, with which they signal the location of nearby food. Every 75 milliseconds a waggle lasts, roughly speaking, indicates to other honeybees that a nectar source is an additional 330 feet further from the colony. “Bees have some amazing cognitive abilities,” wrote Clint Perry, a behavioral ecologist at Queen Mary University and an author of the paper, in an email to The Washington Post. They can count, he pointed out, at least up to four. It has long been understood that some animals can teach their peers to perform new tasks. But the most famous examples involve stereotypically brainy critters, like primates or ravens: Japanese macaques show other monkeys how to wash sweet potatoes in streams. A certain group of chimps knows to fish for insects by prodding termite mounds with sticks, nibbled into brushes for maximum scoopage. In their paper, the researchers demonstrate for the first time that a new skill can pass from bee to bee. To that end, they


Why we ignore thousands of killings in the Philippines: The victims were drug users

better marksmen, producing a “race menace.” That is the kind of logic that supported the first state laws prohibiting the drug — and then federal prohibition. In fact, our drug laws — with the exception of those involved in the creation of the Food and Drug Administration — were passed on the basis of racist myths related to fears about minority groups, not accurate health data. The first anti-opium laws were pushed with stories of police finding “white women and Chinamen side by side under the effects of the drug — a humiliating sight to anyone who has anything left of manhood,” according to a source cited in one respected history. Alcohol prohibition was heavily favored by the Ku Klux Klan — and also linked to fears about German and Irish immigrant drinkers. Marijuana, according to Harry Anslinger, the man who promoted and secured its prohibition, needed to be stopped because it “makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” Drug criminalization has never been about protecting people from the ill effects of substances — there is no medical reason as to why marijuana is illegal while tobacco is legal. There is only this racist history. Instead, the purpose is to suppress feared minorities. Or as Nixon aide John Ehrlichman told reporter Dan Baum in a 1992 interview, “By getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them. … Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” And unfortunately, the dehumanization of drug users is not just a thing of the distant past. In the 1980s and ’90s, crack-cocaine users were routinely described as “fiends” — and police described routing users and dealers as a way to “sanitize” a community. In 1990, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, the founder of the DARE anti-drug program, said that users should be “taken out and shot.” Crack was said to “destroy the core of what it is to be human.” Even today, language used in drug stories itself is stigmatizing and dehumanizing, rarely using the “person first” wording that is now typically used to describe people with other psychiatric disorders and often describing formerly addicted people as “clean,” which implies that active users are “dirty.” Indeed, just


Michelin announces its first D.C. honors: the Bib Gourmand list of affordable restaurants

Staff members prep the dim sum bar at China Chilcano, recently named a Bib Gourmand selection by Michelin. (Photo by Kate Patterson for The Washington Post) D.C. restaurants are anxiously awaiting the Oct. 13 release of the city's first-ever Michelin Guide, but 19 of them received good news today: Michelin announced its Bib Gourmand list, a rating of the best cheap-eats in the city. Bib Gourmand restaurants have been deemed a good value by Michelin inspectors, who frequent them “when dining off the clock,” said a press release. These are restaurants where you can get two courses and a glass of wine or a dessert for $40 or less, excluding tax and tip. You won’t be surprised to see Bad Saint on the list. “Oh my God! How exciting!” said co-owner Genevieve Villamora of the news. “It’s just really thrilling to be among the recognized restaurants.” The Filipino restaurant has had a phenomenal year. In August, Bon Appetit named it the second-best new restaurant in the country. Her team probably won't do anything special to celebrate, though: “I think we’ll just prepare for service as we usually do, maybe have an extra hurrah before we open the door.” Thip Khao, another Bib Gourmand, made Bon Appetit’s list in 2015. Four restaurants in the José Andrés empire — China Chilcano, Jaleo, Oyamel and Zaytinya — make an appearance, as well. Such newcomers as Kyirisan and Ottoman Taverna are included, along with crowd-pleasers like the Red Hen, Maketto and Doi Moi. “I never expected any of that. I didn’t think we would even be considered because we opened so late,” said Kyirisan chef Tim Ma. “To be included in anything Michelin is an honor.” 🙉🙉🙉. Never in our wildest dreams! So thrilled for the many deserving #dcrestaurants recognized by @MichelinGuideDC https://t.co/BAAlopx32B Some selections were more popular with Michelin inspectors than with local critics. Bidwell, the restaurant at Union Market, got a lukewarm write-up from Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema, who also knocked Two Amys for “rest[ing] on its laurels” in his most recent Spring Dining Guide. Because Michelin-reviewed restaurants tend to be more upscale, the guide’s definition of cheap eats may not align as closely with the view of some diners. Many of the Bib Gourmand restaurants serve tapas or small plates, making it possible to pay less than $40 for two dishes and a glass of wine — but you might


Walmart to pull back on new store openings

A Walmart store in North Kingstown, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Walmart said Thursday that it plans to significantly slow its efforts to open new U.S. stores, a strategic shift by the world’s largest retailer as it works to claim more of the shopping dollars that are rapidly moving online. At a meeting with investors, Walmart executives said the chain will open about 35 supercenters next year, sharply lower than the 60 it expects to open by the end of the current fiscal year. It aims to open just 20 of its smaller, grocery-oriented Neighborhood Markets, a pullback from the 70 it is to open this year. Instead, Walmart said it would work to increase sales by ramping up growth in its online division and squeezing more business out of its roughly 4,600 U.S. stores. The goals executives laid out for its digital business were ambitious: They say they expect to deliver 20 to 30 percent annualized growth in a segment that lately has not shown nearly that level of momentum. For example, last quarter, Walmart’s global e-commerce sales were up 11.8 percent over the previous year. In the last full fiscal year, the company’s online sales were up 8 percent. [Is the retail industry ‘overstored’?] “This company, over time, is going to look like more of an e-commerce company,” Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, said at an event at corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. The big-box chain recently moved to boost its e-commerce firepower by acquiring upstart shopping site Jet.com and by installing that company’s founder, Marc Lore, as the head of Walmart’s online shopping strategy. Lore and McMillon spoke repeatedly of a focus on “basket economics.” This means that they want to find ways to incentivize customers to bundle their online orders, scooping up several items at a time. This behavior would slash shipping and fulfillment costs for the retailer, thus allowing sales in this channel to be more profitable. This tack would be different from the one that e-commerce leader Amazon.com has taken: That company has instead focused on getting shoppers to pay $99 a year for Prime memberships. Because shipping is free for members, these shoppers sometimes place several orders a day, one item at a time. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.) Investors sent Walmart’s stock down about 2.5 percent in afternoon trading, apparently disappointed by the financial forecast the


want to find ways to incentivize customers to bundle their online orders, scooping up several items at a time. This behavior would slash shipping and fulfillment costs for the retailer, thus allowing sales in this channel to be more profitable. This tack would be different from the one that e-commerce leader Amazon.com has taken: That company has instead focused on getting shoppers to pay $99 a year for Prime memberships. Because shipping is free for members, these shoppers sometimes place several orders a day, one item at a time. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.) Investors sent Walmart’s stock down about 2.5 percent in afternoon trading, apparently disappointed by the financial forecast the retailer offered for the year ahead. Walmart said it expects earnings per share in the next fiscal year of between $4.29 and $4.49, about flat compared to what it anticipates for the current year. In the year after that, it expects 5 percent growth in earnings per share. Walmart expects to put $11 billion toward capital investments in the coming year. The company plans to remodel about 500 stores, and will add its grocery pickup capabilities to 500 additional locations. As it aims to boost sales in its existing stable of stores, the retailer will continue efforts to spiff up its fresh food offering and to lower prices on certain merchandise. It is also trying to build a healthier business by moving its inventory more efficiently. “Our goal is pretty simple,” said Greg Foran, chief executive of Walmart’s U.S. business. “We only want to touch an item once from when it hits the backroom to getting into a customers’ basket.” [How Walmart plans to transform the way you buy groceries] Walmart’s plan to ease up on new store openings comes in the same year that it moved to close 154 locations and to do away with its small-format Express stores. Taken together, these moves suggest the retailer is thinking hard about just what kind of bricks-and-mortar presence it needs in the digital era, especially given that about 90 percent of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store. Similar re-evaluations are happening across the wider retail industry, with Macy’s, for example, working to close 100 of its 675 stores after determining it had too many stores at a time when many of its customers are shopping on smartphones and laptops.


WorldViews Who will win the Nobel Peace Prize? We don’t know, but here are some possibilities.

The Nobel Prize for Peace will be announced Friday in Oslo. It’s awarded by a committee of five appointed by the Norwegian parliament. There’s no shoo-in candidate this year, but a think tank in Norway has issued a shortlist of front-runners. This is a developing story. It will be updated.


Dozens of Afghan soldiers have gone AWOL in the U.S. in the past two years

been disclosed, but most reports focus on individual cases. Last month, the Pentagon disclosed that seven Afghan troops recently disappeared from five locations: Little Rock; Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; Fort Lee, Va.; and Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia. The disappearances also come as the Afghan military and police continue to face significant problems of attrition in Afghanistan. Thousands of soldiers and police officers are believed to desert each year, frustrated by everything from the Afghan government not paying them in time to the violence they face from the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Afghan troops have been included in a variety of training programs in the United States. Pilots, for example, receive instruction how to fly the A-29 Super Tucano aircraft at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. A handful of Afghan officers also have gone through the Army’s grueling Ranger School, and Afghan troops regularly receive English-language training through the Defense Department in the United States. Before coming to the United States, Afghan trainees are screened to ensure that they are not affiliated with any known terrorist or insurgent groups, and must complete apply for and receive a U.S. visa. They also must first go through vetting required by the so-called Leahy Law, Evans said. First introduced in 1997 by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the law calls for the U.S. government to avoid providing training to people who have a history of human-rights abuses. “If at any time they fail one of these steps, they are ineligible to go to this training or any future U.S.-funded training,” Evans said. Pentagon officials said Thursday they were researching the total list of locations from which Afghan soldiers have gone AWOL in the United States. The Defense Department referred questions about the current status or whereabouts of the 45 who have gone AWOL to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In one case last year, three Afghan officers who were on Cape Cod in Massachusetts for a training exercise disappeared and were stopped at the border trying to cross into Canada. The Boston Globe reported that at least one of them eventually received political asylum in the United States after arguing that deportation to Afghanistan would be akin to a death sentence. More on Checkpoint: U.S. widens war in Afghanistan, authorizes new action against the Taliban In Afghanistan, a series of


Can you answer these 9 questions about the Nobel Peace Prize?


Every boxing referee and judge from the Rio Olympics has been suspended

day after the group held a three-day meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, to reflect on the Rio Olympics and work toward a better way of handling the tasks at Tokyo 2020. “Rio 2016 was a watershed moment for AIBA,” President Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu said in a statement. “Boxing was in the spotlight for positive reasons, but occasionally also for the wrong ones. As an organization, we have pulled together and I am extremely happy with the work that has been done this week by highly experienced members of our commissions, whose expertise and council will allow AIBA and its community to develop further throughout this next Olympic cycle.” The bitterness of this year’s Olympic cycle, however, has yet to wear off. In an interview published on Wednesday, Conlan, who lost a shot at the bantamweight medal after his controversial unanimous-decision loss to Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin, recalls the outcome as a “travesty.” “Nothing has changed in my eyes,” he told Ireland’s 7 Days, referring to the colorful remarks he made after the match on live television when he called the AIBA “[expletive] cheats.” “Everything I said I would say again even though it was out of hand,” he said. “Because it was what I was feeling at the time. I spoke my true emotion and if I haven’t said it, I would be sitting here with a lot of regret. I stand by it still, and I mean what I said.” https://twitter.com/mickconlan11/status/784171715022716928 Boxers in other weight classes also took issue with some of the decisions made during the Olympics. For example, when American light welterweight Gary Antuanne Russell lost to Uzbekistan’s Fazliddin Gaibnazarov, Russell’s father said, “I didn’t have the money to buy the judges.” By the end of the competition even the audience appeared to question the judges’ and referees’ decisions. The Rio Olympic arena filled with boos after Kazakhstan’s Vassiliy Levit lost to Russia’s Evgeny Tishchenko in the heavyweight gold medal bout. The unprecedented controversy during the games led to the removal of a group of unnamed judges midway through the competition. Those judges remained suspended as part of the group of 36 on Thursday. Before any of the suspended group might be reinstated, the AIBA said it will await the results of “a specific R&J investigation” that’s currently underway. The organization offered no further details into what exactly the investigation would entail or how long it’s scheduled to take.


a day after the group held a three-day meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, to reflect on the Rio Olympics and work toward a better way of handling the tasks at Tokyo 2020. “Rio 2016 was a watershed moment for AIBA,” President Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu said in a statement. “Boxing was in the spotlight for positive reasons, but occasionally also for the wrong ones. As an organization, we have pulled together and I am extremely happy with the work that has been done this week by highly experienced members of our commissions, whose expertise and council will allow AIBA and its community to develop further throughout this next Olympic cycle.” The bitterness of this year’s Olympic cycle, however, has yet to wear off. In an interview published on Wednesday, Conlan, who lost a shot at the bantamweight medal after his controversial unanimous-decision loss to Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin, recalls the outcome as a “travesty.” “Nothing has changed in my eyes,” he told Ireland’s 7 Days, referring to the colorful remarks he made after the match on live television when he called the AIBA “[expletive] cheats.” “Everything I said I would say again even though it was out of hand,” he said. “Because it was what I was feeling at the time. I spoke my true emotion and if I haven’t said it, I would be sitting here with a lot of regret. I stand by it still, and I mean what I said.” Boxers in other weight classes also took issue with some of the decisions made during the Olympics. For example, when American light welterweight Gary Antuanne Russell lost to Uzbekistan’s Fazliddin Gaibnazarov, Russell’s father said, “I didn’t have the money to buy the judges.” By the end of the competition even the audience appeared to question the judges’ and referees’ decisions. The Rio Olympic arena filled with boos after Kazakhstan’s Vassiliy Levit lost to Russia’s Evgeny Tishchenko in the heavyweight gold medal bout. The unprecedented controversy during the games led to the removal of a group of unnamed judges midway through the competition. Those judges remained suspended as part of the group of 36 on Thursday. Before any of the suspended group might be reinstated, the AIBA said it will await the results of “a specific R&J investigation” that’s currently underway. The organization offered no further details into what exactly the investigation would entail or how long it’s scheduled to take.


Five years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, her nation is riven by war

We accomplished a peaceful, great revolution in February 2011, followed by a transitional consensus government. . . . We drafted a new constitution that ensured all values and principles that we fought for — values of freedom, justice, equality, democracy and rule of law . . . and just before the referendum on this new constitution that was to be followed by general elections . . . everything turned upside down. War has caused unprecedented economic crisis and deteriorated humanitarian situation in Yemen, where all basic services — electricity, health, education and others — have collapsed, rendering majority of population in dire need for immediate humanitarian aid! What went wrong? Let’s be honest, all have committed mistakes, nobody can deny that. . . . The first and foremost mistake is granting ousted president Saleh impunity against all crimes he committed in the past, and allowing him [to be involved] in political activities. . . . The other serious mistake is allowing the Houthi militia to expand control over other territories with force and oppression. What are you doing these days? I’m still continuing my peaceful struggle to end war in Yemen and to reinstate pre-coup positions . . . move forward to achieve the peaceful revolution’s values. Who is behind the crisis in Yemen? The major and principal responsible is ousted president Saleh and military units loyal to him, and the Iran-backed Houthi militia allied with him. Secondary responsibility lays with the international sponsors, and poor performance of the transitional power. What can the international community do to stop Yemen's bloodshed? The international community can do everything, and in fact bears prime responsibility for rescuing the transitional process in Yemen, and in building sustainable peace. When you received the Nobel Peace Prize, how did you think it would affect Yemen and its people? I do believe that Nobel Peace Prize and our peaceful revolution, our dreams for freedom, democracy and social welfare, will bring good to our country, and will lead us to countries that have achieved such values. We’ve been trying to achieve these objectives, and we are still struggling for that. We are not responsible for the failures, neither me nor the youth of the peaceful revolution. Are you disappointed by the turn of events and current situation five years later? I feel very disappointed, and deep sadness about the turn of events. Yet I’m confident that we


D.C.-area forecast: Gray with showers likely, but conditions improve by Sunday

Crescent moon and Venus over the African American History Museum. (Jim Havard) TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 6/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: FORECAST IN DETAIL We are all watching Matthew severely affect the Southeast, with likely little to no impact on our region directly. However, we do have indirect effects, such as clouds and showers, to deal with until a cold front can clear us out — hopefully, Sunday — paving the way to a pleasant Columbus Day. Today (Friday): Tonight: For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast into next week. Tomorrow (Saturday): Tomorrow night: A LOOK AHEAD Sunday: Sunday night: Sunny with 60s probable for Columbus Day and into Tuesday as stable high pressure continues its attempt to stay in control of our atmosphere. We may even have fairly calm winds. Check back in later this weekend, since we’re keeping an eye out for small tweaks to the forecast, as we get closer. Confidence: Low-Medium