Want to be neighbors with the Obamas, Ivanka Trump and Jeff Bezos? Here’s what it will cost you.

The French Embassy is selling off the 0.58-acre lot on Kalorama Circle. (HomeVisit) Want to become neighbors with the Obamas, Ivanka Trump and Jeff Bezos in one of the District’s hottest and most exclusive enclaves, Kalorama, but don’t want the hassle of modernizing a historic home? You are in luck. The French Embassy is selling off part of the land where its ambassador lives for $5.6 million. The 0.58-acre lot at 2221 Kalorama Road is roomy enough to build a grand mansion or up to five homes. It’s the first time in decades a parcel of land with no home on it has been for sale on the open market in this tony neighborhood. “What makes this land so unique is the zoning, R1B, which allows for a plethora of things you can build there,” said Alex Venditti of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, who is co-listing the property with the Morrell-Roth team from Compass. The French Embassy acquired the 1910 Tudor Revival residence in 1936. Additional lots that overlooked Kalorama Circle were purchased in 1941 to expand the parcel to 3.6 acres. This sale will reduce the lot size to closer to three acres, but it will remain the largest tract of land in Kalorama. The lot is part of the tract of land where the French ambassador lives in Kalorama. (HomeVisit) “This sale is part of the overall strategy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to free up resources for future investments,” Emmanuelle Lachaussée, press counselor and spokesperson for the Embassy of France, said in a statement. “This is the case for this piece of land, which is not essential to the activities and prestige of the French ambassador’s residence.” Located behind the ambassador’s home, the lot hugs Kalorama Circle. It is just down the street from where Ivanka Trump lives and around the corner from the Obamas’ residence. “The changes brought on by Obama have made the neighborhood feel a bit more exclusive,” Venditti said. “It’s like a small gated community with secret service patrolling between his house and Ivanka’s house.” An artist’s rendering of a house on the land. (Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage) Venditti said the opportunity to build a new house is appealing to many would-be buyers. “We’re seeing a huge upswing in people who want new and want modern and there are just very few opportunities to have that in the District,” he said. “I’ve


The Endangered Species Act may be heading for the threatened list. This hearing confirmed it.

continued human expansion into the habitats of hundreds of species as their numbers dwindle. Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) tried to make the point with a question to five members of a panel called to testify about the act: Former Wyoming governor David Freudenthal, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission Executive Director Gordon Myers, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation President James Holte, Defenders of Wildlife chief executive Jamie Rappaport Clark and Association of Zoos and Aquariums chief executive Daniel Ashe. Referring to research published in the journals Science and Conservation Biology that the rate of extinction across species is 1,000 times the rate before human expansion, Carper asked the panelists whether they believed the finding that Earth is on the verge of a sixth mass extinction. Each panelist who testified the act should be significantly changed — Freudenthal, Myers and Holte — said they weren’t qualified to answer such a question. Rappaport and Ashe, the most recent directors of Fish and Wildlife under presidents who are Democrats, emphatically answered yes. Monarch butterflies fly at the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary on a mountain in the Mexican state of Michoacan in 2013. Monarch butterflies may warrant U.S. Endangered Species Act protection because of farm-related habitat loss. (Edgard Garrido/Reuters) Amid the din of criticism of the act, Carper asked why it was needed in the first place: Weren’t states that manage their individual animal populations aware that some species were disappearing? Why didn’t they act faster to save them before federal officials brought regulations? Freudenthal took a stab at a reply. “Only in the last 15 years have state game agencies shifted to species management,” he said. “Now agencies have a much broader mission.” In the years that states were less engaged, according Freudenthal, the total number of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, among others, have declined by half, Ashe said. He added that the act could use tweaking, but hardly needs an overhaul. “The Endangered Species Act is the world’s gold standard” for government conservation, Ashe said. “It’s not perfect. It can be better. Your goal is to make it … stronger and better.” More from Energy and Environment: Antarctic sea ice used to be the darling of climate change doubters. Not anymore. Hundreds of current, former EPA employees urge Senate to reject Trump’s nominee for the agency The West’s largest coal-fired power plant is closing. Not even Trump can save it. For more,


Trump gets his trademark in China. But he won’t be reaping the benefits.

acted on his behalf. “It is not possible that President Trump got favors from Chinese government,” she added. Trump’s pending trademark claims may also benefit from a tightening of China’s trademark laws that has long been in the works, and mirrors a broader, steady improvement in the protection of intellectual property rights here. As part of that process, the Supreme People’s Court issued guidelines in January on the handling of trademark cases specifically outlawing the use of the names of public figures in areas including politics, economy, culture and religion. The new rules state that trademarking public figures’ names is forbidden, due to the “negative influence” on the public interest and social order that it could cause, state news agency Xinhua reported, adding the decision underlined the court’s determination to “foster an honest business environment and deal with malicious trademark infringements.” Trump is far from the only foreign public figure to have fought trademark battles in China, a country where faking foreign brands has long been a profitable business practice. Nevertheless, times are changing. In December, Michael Jordan won a victory of his own here, when the Supreme Court revoked the right of sportswear-maker Qiaodan Sports to use his last name written in Chinese characters, ruling that Jordan’s name is “well-recognized” here and that he should have the legal right to it. Similarly, it would be wrong to suppose the guidelines issued in January were “tailored for Trump,” said Bao Zhongdong, a trademark infringement lawyer with the Longan Law Firm in Shanghai, explaining they had been through a long drafting and review process. “It is not possible they were drafted, reviewed and announced just because of Trump,” he said. “It is possible that the frequency of name infringement trademark lawsuits in recent years, like Michael Jordan’s case and Trump’s case, garnered more attention and signaled the urgency for more functional legal guidelines. But the new guidelines were not determined by one or two people’s cases, no matter who they are.” In an email to the Associated Press, Alan Garten, chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, said Trump’s trademark activity in China predates his election and added that Trump has turned management of his company over to his children and a team of executives in order to remove himself from his business and its trademark portfolio. “The only mark we were seeking was one in the related class of construction


D.C.-area forecast: Chilly breezes mar mostly sunny day; mild air rushes back for holiday weekend

A windy day on the Potomac on Feb. 13. (chasingmailboxes via Flickr) 9:00 a.m. update: @capitalweather Picked up a bit in Rockville (Shady Grove) https://t.co/h3a0pvTEH0 The flurries may briefly reduce visibility but won’t amount to much. TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 3/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: View the current weather conditions at The Washington Post headquarters. FORECAST IN DETAIL Today is but a brief reminder that it is still winter. But fear not. With 60s galore this weekend and crocuses and daffodils already in bloom, we can return to our springtime delusion. Add in plenty of sun and the long weekend is that much better. The only wrinkle is the risk of a shower Saturday night. Today (Thursday): Tonight: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest updates. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast through the weekend … Tomorrow (Friday): Tomorrow night: A LOOK AHEAD Saturday Sunshine gradually increases on Sunday as clouds fade away. Highs should at least make low-to-mid 60s, and possibly upper 60s downtown and points south. Overnight lows hold in the 40s. Confidence: Medium-High Presidents’ Day (Monday)


Trump suggests Obama was too soft on Russia, but Putin’s friends would disagree

Traditional Russian wooden dolls depicting President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP) On Wednesday, President Trump suggested that the Obama administration had been too soft on Russia. Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration. Was Obama too soft on Russia? The timing of that observation struck observers as somewhat odd. It came just days after the president's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, stepped down after potentially illegal contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States were revealed and his misleading senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President Pence, over the nature of those conversations. It's strange, too, because President Barack Obama was tough on Russia. In 2014, the United States and the European Union joined forces to punish Russia for annexing Crimea. At first, those efforts mostly targeted officials. The assets of Russian government leaders in Putin's inner circle were frozen, at least within the United States, and travel bans were imposed. Included on that list were longtime Putin friend Gennady Timchenko and his former judo partner, Arkady Rotenberg. Since then, the United States and the E.U. have steadily expanded the restrictions, targeting major businesses and central parts of Russia's energy, financial and military industries. Russian state banks were forbidden from receiving loans from the E.U. The country could no longer export military equipment or a wide range of oil industry technology. Three major state oil firms were also targeted: Rosneft, Transneft and Gazprom Neft. Taken together, these policies severely curtailed the amount of money flowing into Russia, and it had an impact. At the time the sanctions were imposed, Russia's economy was already struggling financially because of the plunging oil prices. According to PBS's “Frontline,” by January 2015, oil prices has fallen so much that Russia’s total export revenue was expected to drop by a third that year. The financial sanctions made it nearly impossible for the country to mitigate that crisis by borrowing money. On Jan. 9, a credit ratings agency dropped the country's credit rating to BBB-, one step above junk. It remains there today. The sanctions made it harder for Russia's elite to live the life of luxury to which they'd grown accustomed. “A lot of Putin's billionaire friends can't travel abroad because they're under sanctions,” former Guardian Moscow correspondent Luke Harding told NPR's “Fresh Air.” “I've heard that … one oligarch [has] been complaining he can't go to Switzerland anymore


4 things to do in the D.C. area Feb. 16-20

Marina Franklin (Jennifer Graylock/Getty Images) Thursday: Friday: Friday and Saturday: Marina Franklin Monday: George Saunders,


You’re about to see a big change to the sell-by dates on food

typically indicate one of two things: a message from the manufacturer to the grocery store, telling the store when the product will look best on shelves, or a subjective measure — often little more than a guess — of when consumers will most “enjoy” the product. Methods for setting those dates have been left to manufacturers, rather like the phrasing of the labels themselves. But when consumers see a date labeled “use by” (or, even worse, not labeled at all) they often tend to assume that it's a food-safety claim, regulated by some objective standard. Both the Department of Agriculture and a coalition of environmental groups have been urging the industry to clear this up. In addition to costing average Americans, in the form of prematurely tossed groceries, the waste represents a significant use of landfill space and source of greenhouse gas emissions. “I think it’s huge. It’s just an enormous step,” said Emily Broad-Leib, the director of Harvard’s Food Law and Policy Clinic. “It’s still a first step — but it’s very significant.” Advocates and environmentalists have been warning for years that many people interpret date labels as a sign that food is no longer good to eat. As a result, one industry survey found, 91 percent of consumers have mistakenly thrown away past-date food, when the label only signals the manufacturer's guess at its peak quality. Shoppers shouldn’t expect to see the new labels the next time they buy groceries; the change won’t be immediate. While FMI and GMA are urging manufacturers and retailers to make it now, they have until July 2018. Even then, the standards are voluntary, so there’s no guarantee that they’ll be adopted by every single company. Some states also have labeling regulations that preempt the industry standards. In Montana, for instance, milk must come with a “sell by” label. That means milk in the state will still say “sell by,” even if every other product gets the new labels. Still, a number of major manufacturers have already signaled their enthusiasm, including Walmart, the largest seller of American groceries. And both FMI and GMA are expecting to see widespread adoption, in part because the standards were written by a working group comprised of representatives from large food companies. The voluntary standards are also a way to influence, or preempt, pending federal regulation; there has been growing interest in a federal standard for label dates,


The Daily 202: What killed Andrew Puzder’s nomination to be labor secretary

- Scientists have detected a decline in the amount of dissolved oxygen in oceans around the world, according to new research in the journal Nature. It’s a long-predicted result of climate change, and one that could have severe consequences for marine organisms. (Chris Mooney) - Survival rates for extremely premature infants have improved slightly, and those who survive are also somewhat less likely to suffer from neuro-developmental impairments. Researchers cite better health care — as well as the use of steroids for women at risk of preterm birth — as factors in the improvement. (Jia Naqvi) - India just launched a record-breaking 104 micro-satellites atop a single rocket, carefully executing a complicated maneuver that one space analyst likened to dropping children off at different bus stops. It’s the latest success for the Indian Space Research Organization, which has rapidly gained international prominence for its effective and low-cost missions. (Annie Gowen) - The UAE appeared at the World Government Summit this week to unveil plans for an ambitious new city-planning project — on Mars. Slated for completion in the year 2117, developers presented a concept city the size of Chicago and touted it as the “first” to be developed on the Red Planet. It could be a little early to tell... (Adam Taylor) - Seattle Mayor Ed Murray will deliver his State of the City address next week at a mosque. A press release says he’s giving the annual speech at Idris Mosque to show solidarity with the Muslim community “in their house of worship as we fight state sanctioned discrimination by the Trump Administration.” - A 1,100-pound woman left her house for the first time in 25 years on Wednesday, boarding a flight to India to undergo a risky but potentially life-saving surgery. Her travel required months of preparation and government intervention on her behalf. (Amy B Wang) - The late Little Caesars founder and Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch was known most widely for his impact in the restaurant world — but he also changed the life of Rosa Parks. After learning the civil-rights icon was robbed in her home at the age of 81, he worked to find her a new, safer apartment — and quietly paid her rent for more than a decade. (CNN) - The youngest person ever to win the lottery in Britain wants to sue after discovering an uncomfortable age-old adage: money doesn’t buy


Red Planet. It could be a little early to tell... (Adam Taylor) - Seattle Mayor Ed Murray will deliver his State of the City address next week at a mosque. A press release says he’s giving the annual speech at Idris Mosque to show solidarity with the Muslim community “in their house of worship as we fight state sanctioned discrimination by the Trump Administration.” - A 1,100-pound woman left her house for the first time in 25 years on Wednesday, boarding a flight to India to undergo a risky but potentially life-saving surgery. Her travel required months of preparation and government intervention on her behalf. (Amy B Wang) - The late Little Caesars founder and Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch was known most widely for his impact in the restaurant world — but he also changed the life of Rosa Parks. After learning the civil-rights icon was robbed in her home at the age of 81, he worked to find her a new, safer apartment — and quietly paid her rent for more than a decade. (CNN) - The youngest person ever to win the lottery in Britain wants to sue after discovering an uncomfortable age-old adage: money doesn’t buy happiness. “I thought it would make it 10 times better but it’s made it 10 times worse,” she said recently. One of her biggest challenges? Finding a romantic partner who isn’t just using her for money. (Peter Holley) - A South Carolina woman who was chained in a metal container by a real-estate agent and suspected serial killer — who killed her boyfriend, and is believed to be connected to at least six other murders — has spoken publicly for the first time since her traumatizing ordeal. “I’ll recover from this,” she told Dr. Phil. “He cannot destroy who I am. And I won.” (Sarah Larimer) - A popular German grocery chain, Lidl, is readying to make its American debut. The chain is slated to open 20 stores across the United States this summer — and while the grocer will likely be a major boon for consumers, experts say it could disrupt the markets. (Sarah Halzack) - Want to be neighbors with the Obamas, Ivanka Trump and Jeff Bezos, but don’t want to be saddled with the pesky upkeep of maintaining a historic home? You’re in luck — if you’re willing to spare a cool $5.6 million. The French Embassy


Dumplings served at National Zoo in honor of Bao Bao ahead of giant panda’s departure

Bao Bao, the giant panda, chews on leaves at the Smithsonian National Zoo. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) The Chinese Embassy served farewell dumplings Thursday at the National Zoo to mark the departure next week of the zoo’s female giant panda, Bao Bao, who is moving to China. The dumplings, prepared by embassy chefs, are traditionally served when a loved one leaves home, the zoo said. The zoo invited its staff to taste the dumplings, made by chefs at the embassy. The 600 dumplings were filled with pork and vegetables, but Bao Bao wasn’t eating them. She is getting presented with a box of panda treats that has a dumpling painted on it. Chefs at the Chinese Embassy made dumplings to honor Bao Bao, the panda. The animal is leaving Tuesday for China. (Courtesy of the National Zoo) Bao Bao leaves Tuesday from the Smithsonian National Zoo to go to China. The zoo put out a roughly one-minute-long video showing some of the panda’s top — and cutest — moments. The video shows scenes from the panda’s naming ceremony to her early exams — with cute squeaks from the cub at a one-month checkup — and snapshots of her climbing and falling off rocks, rolling and tumbling in snow and eating bamboo. It ends with the hashtag #ByeByeBaoBao. The panda is due to go to China as part of a long-term breeding program with the China Wildlife Conservation Association. All cubs born at the zoo move to China by the time they are 4 years old, according to the zoo. Over the next five days, the zoo has several events planned at its site and online to celebrate and say farewell to Bao Bao. Bao Bao the panda is leaving the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Go behind the scenes to see how a 3-year-old panda gets ready for a flight to China. Now 3 years old, Bao Bao leaves the zoo where she was born for a facility in China’s Sichuan province. Bao Bao’s mother, Mei Xiang, had a second cub about 26 hours later, but it was stillborn. Bao Bao’s name means “precious” or “treasure” in Chinese. Mei Xiang had given birth in 2012 to a cub, but it died six days later. Zookeepers have described Bao Bao as a “miracle.” The bear, which weighs 203 pounds, will travel in a specialized crate and have ice cakes and bamboo treats


We’re about to suffer a worldwide olive oil shortage

a Spanish and Italian tapas restaurant, told Bloomberg that he buys about 100 liters (26 gallons) of olive oil a week, to top grilled flatbread, mix into aioli and prepare luscious olive oil cakes. He now pays about 13 percent more, 26 pounds ($32.70) for five liters (1.3 gallons). And things are only going to get worse. Experts are predicting a worldwide shortage in the next couple of months, jacking up prices around the globe. The problem is several terrible years in the making. Erratic weather in Spain, Italy and Greece, where the bulk of the world's olive oil is produced, has decimated crops. In Italy, unseasonably hot and muggy temperatures have attracted fruit flies and bacteria, damaging groves. Farmers say their yields will be cut in half this year. In Greece, a heat wave could cost growers more than a quarter of their crop. Flooding in Spain's most fertile regions has decimated its harvest. Overall, experts say, global production is set to fall about 8 percent. These shortages come as demand for the product has skyrocketed around the world. China has recently become enamored with the stuff, consuming nearly $200 million worth of olive each year. The country's nouveau riche see the product as a healthier alternative to other fatty oils. They import nearly 99 percent of what they use. With increased demand and less supply, prices are climbing. Since October, the cost of extra-virgin olive oil has jumped 30 percent in Italy, to $6.15 a kilogram. In Spain, the cost is up about 10 percent, near a seven-year high, according to the International Olive Council in Madrid. In Greece, it's 17 percent. And forecasters say the worst is yet to come. Brits may be particularly hard hit, paying a third more by the end of the year. It's a big extra cost, especially since the British pound is quite volatile in the wake of the Brexit vote. So far, American consumers have been immune to the impact of the rising price of olive oil, courtesy of the strong dollar. And farmers in California have begun producing olives and pressing out oil. Their profits have jumped 10 percent in the past five years. The United States, however, produces only 2 percent of the world's olive oil. As Walter Zanre, head of the United Kingdom's best-selling olive oil brand, told the Telegraph, "2017 will be very bad for olive oil.”


8 things to do in the D.C. area on Presidents’ Day Weekend

Here are this holiday weekend's best bets in nightlife, comedy, music and much more around the Washington area. - A quiet place: Bars with conversation on the menu - New in Shaw: Shop, snack at Union Kitchen Grocery - Pizza, shots, craft beer: It’s a Rockville bar crawl Thursday: Maren Morris sold out the 9:30 Club long before performing and winning best country solo performance at last weekend’s Grammy Awards. The 26-year-old singer is blowing up: Most of her other concert dates over the next two months are sold out as well. 7 p.m. Sold out, although tickets are available on the secondary market. Through Saturday: Sam Jay, playing Drafthouse Comedy this weekend, will make you think … but also double over laughing. The rising star’s humor deals in sexuality (she identifies as queer), race and gender. Shows Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 and 10 p.m., Saturday at 7 and 9 p.m. $20. Through Monday: With the Wizards off for the NBA All-Star break and the Capitals on the road, Disney on Ice takes over Verizon Center with “Dream Big,” a Tinker Bell-guided journey through Disney’s many animated worlds. (Think “Frozen,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Cinderella” and more.) Times vary. $20-$85. Friday: The signature event of Maryland Craft Beer Lovers Month is Love Thy Beer: Winter Warmer Showcase at the Silver Spring Civic Building, a new festival focused on seasonal ales. Twenty-four Free State breweries, such as Heavy Seas, Evolution, Peabody Heights and Brookeville Beer Farm, are offering a selection of stouts, porters and other cold-weather beers, Mission BBQ is bringing the food and blues bands provide entertainment. 7-10 p.m. $50-$65. Friday-Monday: Alexandria Restaurant Week Monday: Off on the federal holiday? Lucky you. Spend it outside on this Free Entrance Day from the National Park Service. Parks, battlefields and the like open Visitors pose for photos with reenactors dressed as George and Martha Washington at Mount Vernon in 2014. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Monday: For Presidents’ Day, Mount Vernon holds an Open House to close out Washington’s Birthday Weekend, welcoming visitors with free admission. There will be military demonstrations and other performances, a hickory syrup tasting, a public wreath-laying and more throughout the day. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. Monday: No one has been holding parades in honor of our first president longer than Alexandria. The George Washington Birthday Parade, a mile-long procession through the streets of


Donald Trump’s combative, grievance-filled news conference, annotated

to a record in the time of approval of a Cabinet. I mean, the numbers are crazy. When I'm looking, some of them had them approved immediately. I'm going forever, and I still have a lot of people that we're waiting for. And that's all they're doing, is delaying. And you look at [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer and the mess that he's got over there, and they have nothing going. The only thing they can do is delay. And, you know, I think that they'd be better served by, you know, approving and making sure that they're happy, and everybody's good. And sometimes — I mean, I know President [Barack] Obama lost three or four, and you lose them on the way, and that's okay. That's fine. But I think it would — I think they would be much better served, John, if they just went through the process quickly. This is pure delay tactics. And they say it, and everybody understands it. Yeah, go ahead, Jimmy. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) TRUMP: Well, I had nothing to do with it. I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there, I have no anything. Now, when WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they're not giving classified information. They're giving stuff — what was said at an office about Hillary [Clinton] cheating on the debates. Which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates. Can you imagine — seriously — can you imagine if I received the questions? It would be the electric chair. Okay, he should be put in the electric — you would even call for the reinstitution of the death penalty, okay. Maybe not you, John. Yes? We'll do you next, Jim, I do you next. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) clarify — TRUMP: Yes, yes, sure QUESTION: Did you direct Mike Flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador — TRUMP: No, I didn't. QUESTION: — prior to your — TRUMP: No, I didn't. QUESTION: — inauguration. TRUMP: No, I didn't. QUESTION: And then fired him — TRUMP: Excuse me. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) TRUMP: No, I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence. Very simple. Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries and his counterparts. So, it certainly would have been okay with me if he did


A ‘wild’ label aims to help find and preserve rare cacao sources in the Amazon

Women along Brazil’s Purus River split open harvested cacao pods to collect the seeds or beans for fermentation. (Kin Dias) Mark Christian doesn’t mince words when it comes to chocolate. Biting criticism is stock and trade for the New Yorker who seven years ago launched the C-Spot, an independent online guide to premium chocolate that boasts it is “the most hated voice in the industry.” Yet after 2,500 reviews, Christian now wants consumers to take a flavor journey. He is eager to find and preserve pockets of wild chocolate flavor in the Amazon rain forest, where cacao originated, before they disappear. “These are the primary colors of cacao, the originals,” he explained. Christian, who in the 1990s founded a discount airfare website, developed his obsessive taste for chocolate during extensive travels through cacao-growing countries. His fixation — and enough studying for what he calls a chocolate doctorate — yielded a user-friendly atlas of cacao genetics based on the research of famed cacao scientist Basil Bartley and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. By factoring in those genetics, the three broad cocoa varieties — Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario — explode into a panoply of nine primary strains and 37 cultivar strains. Now Christian has developed a label, the Landmark Wild Chocolate Reserve, that uses genetics to identify wild beans. So far, the label has been placed on chocolate emanating from the Beni River Valley in northern Bolivia and the Purus River Valley in northwestern Brazil. But with hopes of securing more wild-harvested cacao, he is negotiating with additional Amazon communities. The goal is to build a network in the region that can help fuel the specialty chocolate boom with the rarest flavors on Earth — and offer incentive to protect them. Christian said he knows it is a daunting undertaking. “Craft” chocolate-bar makers already compete for a steady supply of unique beans. The majority search for farmed cacao in Central and South America, and bars that deliver superlative flavor may cost up to $300. Fine-chocolate aficionados have said “wild” bars have incredible marketing potential because they tie flavor to conservation. “People are hungry for authenticity in what they are eating,” said Matt Caputo, president of A Priori Specialty Foods based in Salt Lake City. Wild beans, however, add challenges to the already complicated cacao supply chain. Identifying novel, untapped strains with proven flavor characteristics is difficult enough because they often grow in


Government watchdog says SpaceX, Boeing delays could imperil NASA’s presence on the space station

from Russia, the report said. “In order to avoid a potential crew transportation gap in 2019, the contracting process would have needed to start in early 2016,” the GAO said. It added that if “NASA does not develop a viable contingency plan for ensuring access to the ISS in the event of further Commercial Crew delays, it risks not being able to maximize the return on its multibillion dollar investment in the space station.” Relying on Russia has come at considerable cost for NASA — and for a country that won the Apollo-era space race to the moon. Last year, a report issued by NASA’s inspector general found the cost Russia charges jumped from $21.3 million in 2006 to $81.9 million in 2015. In its report, the GAO said that in 2015, SpaceX identified “cracks in the turbines of its engine.” NASA informed SpaceX that the cracks amount to “an unacceptable risk for human spaceflight,” the GAO said. “SpaceX officials told us that they are working closely with NASA to eliminate these cracks in order to meet NASA’s stringent targets for human rating.” The GAO said that SpaceX’s biggest risks stem from it constantly upgrading its rocket to make it more efficient and robust. The GAO said there “may not be enough time for SpaceX to implement these changes and get them approved prior to the first uncrewed flight test in November 2017.” The company has already had two catastrophic failures of its Falcon 9, the rocket that it would use to fly astronauts to the station. In 2015, a Falcon 9 exploded while it was carrying cargo — but no crew — to the station. Then last September, another one blew up while it was being fueled on a Cape Canaveral launchpad ahead of an engine test fire. The company has since returned to flight and plans to launch another cargo mission to the station Saturday. Unlike other rockets, which are fueled before astronauts board, SpaceX plans to fuel the rocket while they are in the vehicle. And that, the GAO said, is another “potential safety risk.” SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The risks with Boeing’s offering — a Starliner capsule that would launch aboard an Atlas V rocket — are related to the rocket’s Russian-made engine. While the rocket is viewed as highly reliable and has been certified by the Pentagon to launch


Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch for first time from historic Apollo-era launch site

flag. Boeing, which along with SpaceX is under contract by NASA to fly astronauts to the space station, has revamped Launch Complex 41, and has taken over a former shuttle processing facility. After competing unsuccessfully against SpaceX for pad 39A, Jeffrey P. Bezos’s Blue Origin is leasing another launch site here. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Moon Express, which is vying to land a spacecraft on the moon as part of the Google Lunar X Prize, has also had a partnership with NASA to test its lunar lander at the Kennedy Space Center. “We have four active human spaceflight programs here at Kennedy Space Center at this point in time: Orion, SpaceX, Boeing and now Blue Origin that are all going to be in the next few years taking humans to space,” said Tom Engler, of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “If you put that in context of the history of human spaceflight only three countries have ever flown humans into space: U.S., Russia and China.” In a statement, NASA said that SpaceX’s launch from 39A will “mark a turning point for Kennedy's transition to a multi-user spaceport geared to support public and private missions, as well as those conducted in partnership with NASA.” About 10 minutes after the launch, scheduled for 10:01 a.m. Saturday, SpaceX will once again attempt to land its booster on a landing pad it had built here. Traditionally, the first stages of rockets were ditched into the ocean. But SpaceX has been able to successfully recover several of its boosters. Later this year it plans to re-fly one of its used boosters, which it calls “flight proven,” for the first time. This year, it also plans to launch the maiden flight of its Falcon Heavy, a much more powerful rocket that has been under development for years. SpaceX plans to use the Falcon Heavy to launch its Red Dragon spacecraft to Mars by as early as 2018 in an uncrewed mission. Launchpad 39A is also where the company plans to fly NASA astronauts to the station. While that was initially supposed to happen by 2017, both SpaceX and Boeing have faced delays that could push certification of their vehicles to 2019, the Government Accountability Office recently reported. SpaceX has another launch site here, pad 40. But it was damaged significantly when a Falcon 9 rocket exploded in September while being fueled ahead of an engine test.


Go on a Rockville bar crawl for local beers, vodka shots and old-school pizza

Troeg's (Feb. 23) and Southern Tier (March 30), with flights, samples and games. World of Beer aims to be friendly to beer geeks and accessible to everyone else, but sometimes it gets a little silly. Take the signature “infusion tower,” which allows for draft beer to be run through a chamber filled with food or spices — maybe a draft IPA that's been “imparted with the flavors” with of vanilla beans and orange peels. On one occasion, I found a cask of Jailbreak's easy-drinking Infinite Amber “finished with pretzels and peanuts.” Why would you do that to a perfectly good craft beer? Thankfully, I had a few dozen other options to choose from. 196 E Montgomery Ave. Dawson's Market I love this crazy new world where we don't just buy beers to take home at the neighborhood market, but we can sit down and drink fresh local beers at the supermarket. Dawson's Market is centered around the ideals of local and organic products, which also extends to the taps at the far end of the store. The five beers are always regional selections — I've seen DuClaw, Franklin's, Manor Hill and 7 Locks — available for $5 per pint or between $15 to $17 for a 64-ounce growler to go. From 4 to 7 p.m. on weekdays, glasses are $2 off, making this an even more affordable pit stop. (Grab some soup, barbecue or vegetarian fare from the hot bar if you're feeling hungry.) A full beer selection, including local cans and six-packs and bombers from all over, is also available. 225 N. Washington St. Finnegan's Wake Irish Pub might look like a chain, but it's a locally-owned business that pours a great pint of Guinness. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) Finnegan's Wake Irish Pub “Finnegan's Wake” is a very important piece of Irish literature, but it's not a very original name for an Irish pub. Walking past the storefront on Gibbs Street, festooned with Guinness-logoed flags, you might think this is some sort of Ye Olde Chain Pub, decorated with stained glass from an old chapel in County Clare, or a bar salvaged from some village shop in County Mayo. Except it's not. Finnegan's Wake is owned by Terry and Vanessa Laurin, a local couple who met while working at the now-shuttered Montgomery's Grill in Bethesda; Vanessa also managed Fado Irish Pub. Their own place is a simple,


The Daily 202: The price of loyalty to Trump is high and rising

Benjamin Netanyahu this week. At a White House event, Feb. 16, President Trump vowed to find the sources of leaked information regarding his administration. Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost's morning newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter. Programming note: In observance of President’s Day, we won’t publish a 202 on Monday. MORE WEST WING INTRIGUE: Mike Pence and Michael Flynn shake hands one week ago today in the White House. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) -- -- The House Intelligence Committee is potentially expanding the scope of its probe into Russian activities in the presidential election -- Six more White House staffers have been dismissed after failing FBI background checks -- After struggling for nearly two months to find a communications director, the White House has finally found someone willing to take the job. Robert H. Michel stands in his office after he was elected House minority leader in 1980. (James Thresher/The Washington Post) WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: -- Robert Michel, the longest-serving minority leader in the U.S. House, has died at 93. David Plouffe huddles with Barack Obama in 2012. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) GET SMART FAST: - Former Uber executive and Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was fined $90,000 by the Chicago Board of Ethics after illegally lobbying Mayor Rahm Emanuel on behalf of the ride-sharing app. Officials said he breached city ethics rules by failing to register as a lobbyist before contacting Emanuel to help the company on certain regulations and problems at the airports. (Chicago Tribune) - Nevada’s chief gaming regulator secretly recorded a conversation with state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who approached him about interceding in a lawsuit on behalf of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Adelson is also his biggest campaign donor, and Laxalt is considered the leading GOP candidate to run for governor next year. The gaming regulator turned the tape over to the FBI, which decided no crime was committed. (Jon Ralston/The Nevada Independent) - D.C. health officials botched Zika testing for hundreds of residents in 2016, including two pregnant woman who were incorrectly told they did not have the virus when in fact they were infected. The mistakes were blamed on a mathematical error by lab workers and have prompted retesting for more than 400 people in the region. (Lena H Sun) - A suicide bomber detonated a bomb inside a famed Sufi shrine in Pakistan, killing at least 73 people and leaving several


Museums and libraries fight ‘alternative facts’ with a #DayofFacts

#DayOfFacts at The Field Museum First the National Parks went rogue, sharing climate change data on Twitter. Now museums and libraries have taken up arms — or at least typing fingers — to fight on behalf of facts. Using the hashtag #DayofFacts, more than 280 scientific and cultural institutions are devoting Friday to dropping 140-character truths on Twitter. Many of the facts seem pointedly political — like the National Museum of American Jewish History's tweet about a George Washington letter affirming religious freedom in the country, or a placard held up in a video by Chicago's Field Museum that stated “Climate change is accelerating the extinction of plants and animals.” The political undertone is the goal, according to Alli Hartley, a museum educator from Virginia who helped organize the campaign with her colleague Mara Kurlandsky. “We're using facts to illustrate truth about the present moment,” Hartley said. By midmorning Friday, the hashtag was trending in the United States. The greenhouse effect: Sunlight is reflected by Earth’s atmosphere & surface but most is absorbed, warming the surf… https://t.co/GB8XAhEb9n Chimpanzees are humans' closest living relatives. They share 99% of their DNA with us. #DayofFacts ℹ… https://t.co/93NI3xJKjb #NYCFacts By 1910 immigrants accounted for 40% of the city’s population. #DayofFacts #FactsMatter https://t.co/Ysw9xcvFdU The idea for a “Day of Facts” came to Hartley a few weeks ago, just after President Trump took office. The National Park Service Twitter account had been temporarily shut down after it retweeted an image comparing inauguration crowd sizes. Then senior adviser Kellyanne Conway tried to explain the dust-up over the attendance by saying the administration had “alternative facts.” Then an ex-employee at Badlands National Park briefly took control of the park's twitter account to fire off a series of factual tweets about climate change. The missives were quickly deleted, but other parks (and a cadre of “alt” twitter accounts) took up the cause. That's when Hartley saw a post from Death Valley National Park noting that the park had hosted interned Japanese Americans during World War II. During WWII Death Valley hosted 65 endangered internees after the #Manzanar Riot. #JapaneseAmericanInternment “I thought it was brilliant in that there was no way an administration or anyone could question it, because on one level it wasn’t political, it was just sharing factual content. But on another level it really resonated with the political moment,” she said. She reached out to Kurlandsky, who


The evidence for vaccine safety is abundant. That will be $100,000, please.

off chance that my word alone isn’t sufficient to collect the $100,000, I’m happy to proffer lots of studies that support the safety of vaccines. Studies never seem to settle the question for anti-vaccine activists, but they are the best evidence we could ever have, based on millions of people and using many different types of comparisons, that vaccination is safe for kids. It's actually not that much money when you split it between 7 billion people who don't have polio https://t.co/Y3sUFyioie The explanation for the bogus vaccine-autism link is a constantly shifting target. As noted, both the MMR vaccine and thimerosal have been blamed, and the anti-vaccine movement happily gloms onto both explanations despite the fact that they are completely unrelated. That the various theories never really cohere doesn’t seem to give the movement pause. Blurring dark but vague threats, anti-vaccine activists blend them into a miasma through which no given study can hope to penetrate. Uncertainty is good for stoking fear. When studies show that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and when the original study suggesting a link is exposed as a fraud? It must be thimerosal! Other studies show no association between thimerosal and autism, and thimerosal isn’t even used anymore? The combination of all the vaccines at once is the problem! Produce evidence to support the safety of the current vaccination schedule, and the boogeyman simply adopts another form. Here are some of the most common arguments for and against vaccination. Because much of the evidence in support of vaccines comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, detractors seize on corruption as an explanation for studies with findings contrary to their beliefs. The anti-vaccine movement affords the CDC roughly as much respect as you’d typically give cardsharps and second-rate grifters, and anything the CDC produces is dismissed out of hand. But even if the CDC were a hotbed of malign pharmaceutical industry influence, that doesn’t explain why large studies demonstrating the safety of vaccines come from places like Denmark or the United Kingdom, where the CDC doesn’t have a lot of pull. All of this information is readily available to anyone who chooses to look for it — 350 health organizations recently reaffirmed the safety of vaccines and highlighted more than 40 of the most respected studies in an open letter to President Trump — and yet still Kennedy and De Niro are


Just how mainstream is marijuana? There’s now a “Congressional Cannabis Caucus.”

with the growing number of state laws that allow for medical and recreational use. "Because of the conflicts between Federal and State law, marijuana-related issues are no longer theoretical — they are real, and they are affecting real people in Alaska and across the country," Young said in a written statement. "I look forward to working with the Congressional Cannabis Caucus to educate my colleagues in the House on the issues we are facing in Alaska, and hopefully to also develop solutions to these problems." Earlier this month, Rohrabacher introduced a measure called the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2017, which would protect people from marijuana-related prosecutions under the Controlled Substances Act, provided that they were acting in compliance with state laws. The bill has drawn bipartisan co-sponsorship. Voters and lawmakers in many states have been liberalizing their marijuana laws since the 1990s, sometimes drastically so. Most have opted to scale back the strict marijuana prohibitions of an earlier era, adopting regulatory structures that allow for everything from limited access to certain marijuana-derived chemicals for medical use all the way up to full-blown commercial legalization and regulation. But at the federal level, marijuana policy remains essentially unchanged from the early 1970s. The plant is considered a Schedule 1 controlled substance, with what federal authorities call a "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use." Under President Barack Obama, the administration reaffirmed this stance as recently as last summer. The disconnect between state and federal laws leaves many marijuana users, patients, businesses and researchers stuck in an uncomfortable gray area between the two. Federal authorities could technically sweep in at any minute, shutting down businesses and arresting marijuana users even in places where it's legal under state law. That this hasn't happened on any significant scale since Colorado and Washington state legalized marijuana in 2012 is partly because federal authorities lack the manpower to do so. Most drug enforcement is handled at the state level, by state and local police. This fact was explicitly acknowledged by Obama's Justice Department in what came to be known as the Cole Memo, which laid out a federal policy of noninterference with state marijuana laws provided certain guidelines, like preventing underage people from using marijuana, were adhered to. But a memo is just a voluntary statement. It doesn't have the force of law, and the new administration could choose to adhere to


Amid outcry, some animal welfare documents are restored to USDA website

take weeks, months or years. It’s not clear what exactly prompted the inspection service to take the records offline early this month. In a statement, the agency said that it was reviewing all records so it could remove information on cases that had not yet been decided by a judge. Among a community of show-horse trainers, many believed that this was a response to a lawsuit by Lee and Mike McGartland, two lawyers who enter Tennessee Walking Horses in competitions. Their names had been posted on a list of “violators” in the USDA database after a government veterinary officer determined that they had used an illegal practice called “soring” to produce their horse’s high-stepping gait. The McGartlands sued the agency, arguing that the enforcement program denies due process to those accused of violations and breaks privacy laws by publishing personal information. The records removal sparked an outcry from animal rights groups, and some saw it as an assault on transparency by the Trump administration. Those critics soon had unlikely allies among the very industries that are regulated by APHIS, including zoos and animal research labs. Members of Congress from both parties signed a letter to President Trump calling for the reversal of the decision. In a statement on the APHIS website, the agency noted that it was involved in litigation about what information was posted online. It said that the decision to review the database was made “well before” the change of administration. “The agency is striving to balance the need for transparency with rules protecting individual privacy,” the statement read. “While the agency is vigorously defending against this litigation, in an abundance of caution, the agency is taking additional measures to protect individual privacy.” Justin Goodman of the White Coat Waste Project, which advocates against taxpayer-funded experiments on animals, said he is “thrilled” that the inspection reports for research facilities have been restored. But he noted that some of the records on government labs are still missing, as is information on exhibitors, such as zoos and circuses, as well as breeders and transporters. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) called the partial restoration of the database “not good enough.” Other groups, including PETA and the Humane Society, issued statements demanding that the rest of the deleted records be restored. Brittany Peet, PETA’s director of captive-animal law enforcement, said that the group will continue its litigation against the USDA until that happens.


Saving a beer for a special occasion? Brewery wants you to ‘Drink It Now.’

For Drink It Now Day 2016, I opened a bottle of Westvleteren 12, a rare Trappist beer that was a gift from a friend in Belgium. (Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) Many beer lovers have a bottle in the back of their fridge that they just can’t bring themselves to open: A Cantillon lambic picked up at the Brussels brewery; a Three Floyds Dark Lord imperial stout from the brewery’s annual festival; the Russian River barley wine that’s a souvenir from a Napa Valley honeymoon. They’re being saved for just the right occasion, though that “right time” never seems to arrive. Last year, Allagash Brewing Company decided to do something about it. The Portland, Maine, brewery launched a beer event called “Drink It Now,” encouraging beer lovers to pick a bottle or two and open it on a designated Sunday afternoon in February. The hashtag #drinkitnow spread on social media, shared by breweries, beer writers and craft beer legends such as Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman. Allagash marketing director Jeff Pillet-Shore says Drink It Now, which returns this Sunday, was inspired by former Wall Street Journal wine columnists Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, who push the idea of an “Open That Bottle” night. “The idea is to pick an arbitrary date and open a bottle that you’ve been saving for a special occasion,” Pillet-Shore explains. “We’re all guilty of saving something for just that right moment, but then no point is special enough.” Beer lovers bought into the idea. Instagram and Twitter were flooded with images of vintage bottles of Stone Old Guardian, Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout, Westvleteren 12, Ommegang Three Philosophers and Dogfish Olde School. “The level of stuff I saw people bring out is so exciting,” says Pillet-Shore, whose personal Drink It Now 2016 sips included Lost Abbey’s Isabelle Proximus wild ale and “a bottle of Brooklyn Brewery’s Black Ops that a friend had given me.” However, he adds, the Allagash team doesn’t want this to turn into a day when beer geeks try to one-up one another by opening the most rare and expensive bottles. “It’s not about how impressive the beer is” on social media, he stresses. “The core is about having the chance to reconnect with a great experience that this bottle is tied to. It’s more than just a beer, at this point. Chances are you saved this bottle because it’s part


Florida man wanted to make Target’s stock drop, so he hatched a bomb plot, authorities say

the source that it could happen if the source delivered the packages for him. Barnett would visit the source’s home again on Feb. 9, with a cardboard box in his car. Inside that box were 10 boxes for food items — stuffing mix, breakfast bars, pasta — which Barnett warned to not let bounce around, the documents state. The confidential source asked if the boxes would kill him. “No, they’ll just take your hand off,” Barnett responded, according to the affidavit. Barnett put the boxes in a trailer, and told the source to put them on the shelves of Target stores in Florida, New York and Virginia. “He explained that the [confidential source] would need to remove a rubber band on the exterior of each of the boxes in order to activate a triggering device that was inside,” the affidavit states. “Once the boxes had detonated inside of Target stores, Barnett theorized that the company’s stock value would plunge allowing him to cheaply acquire shares before an eventual rebound.” Barnett gave the source money for the trip, and gear that was supposed to make an investigation more difficult for law enforcement. But instead of visiting the Target stores with the devices, the affidavit states, the source turned them over to law enforcement. Each of the devices had been constructed using a “small food box” and contained a power source, the affidavit states. The power source was connected with a switch to an aerial shell and “model rocket motor igniter.” According to the documents, an ATF explosives officer determined that once the switch flipped, “an electrical current would flow causing the rocket motor to ignite the explosive powders contained within the shell. This act would result in a violent explosion capable of causing property damage, serious injury, or death to nearby persons.” On Tuesday, the confidential source again met with Barnett, this time wearing a recording device that captured their conversation in a local restaurant. The source told Barnett that four devices were already in place in Target stores that were located in states just north of Florida. “Barnett responded by telling the [confidential source] to ‘get as far north as you can go’ because ‘we didn’t want to make it a localized thing,’ ” the documents state. “The [confidential source] assured Barnett that he planned to go as far as Syracuse, New York, for that purpose.” Barnett suggested that the


Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches for first time from historic Kennedy Space Center pad

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off on Sunday, Feb. 19 from a historic NASA's Kennedy Space Center launch pad which had not been used in nearly six years. The launch was successful despite concerns a day earlier that stopped the rocket from its initial takeoff. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Elon Musk’s SpaceX christened historic Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center here Sunday morning with the first launch from the pad since the shuttle last flew more than five years ago. About eight minutes after the 9:39 a.m. liftoff from what NASA calls the “great American gateway to space,” the rocket’s first stage returned to Earth and touched down safely on a massive landing pad the company has constructed here at Cape Canaveral. The launch, which carried no passengers, was to deliver 5,500 pounds of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station aboard a Dragon spacecraft. But its significance was broader. Launch Complex 39A is the site from which many of the Apollo astronauts — including the Apollo 11 crew of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins — took off on their trips to the moon. It also hosted many shuttle missions, serving as the stage for dozens of fiery blastoffs along the Florida coast. But after the shuttle was retired in 2011 and interest in the United States' space program waned, 39A sat dormant as NASA contemplated an uncertain future. NASA officials decided to lease out the launch site and found a willing tenant in SpaceX, the hard-charging venture founded by Musk, whose goal is ultimately to put humans on Mars. If not for the arrangement, the towering pad of concrete and steel “would have wasted away in the salt air,” said NASA’s Robert Cabana, the director of the Kennedy Space Center. Sunday’s flight, then, was an important resurrection of the site, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For SpaceX, the use of 39A reinforces its status as a leader among a group of commercial space ventures that are trying to lower the cost of space travel, and revolutionize an industry that has been stagnant for decades. And the mission represented another successful launch — and landing — after suffering two explosions in the last two years. “Every launch for me is a significant emotional event. There’s not one launch where I feel comfortable and calm,” Gwynne Shotwell, the president of


All that traffic near the National Zoo is for Bao Bao

Born at the National Zoo in 2013, Bao Bao leaves her parents and little brother to move to China as part of a breeding program. Don’t be alarmed if you hit a standstill in portions of Northwest Washington this weekend. It’s likely the back up from everyone wanting to say bye bye to Bao Bao. Traffic cameras Sunday morning show heavy traffic along Connecticut Avenue NW near the National Zoo as scores of people were paying a final visit to the zoo’s 3-year-old female giant panda before she leaves Tuesday for a new home in China. (screenshot of Zoo traffic Sunday morning). No, there are no crashes reported, D.C. police said. No calls about stranded cars either. And, with temperatures in the mid-60s and sunny, certainly no weather-related troubles on the road. “People are just trying to get into the zoo,” a National Zoo police spokeswoman said. “Everything is good. It’s a lot of traffic due to Bao Bao leaving.” The traffic was slow in both directions Sunday morning between Van Ness Street NW and Calvert St. NW. The traffic app Waze was telling drivers in the area to add up to 30 minutes to their drive. Remember that if you are driving in that area, portions of Beach Drive near the Zoo remain closed for a reconstruction project. UPDATE: Connecticut Ave NW still jammed. Will add 34m to your drive #DCTraffic https://t.co/BYtVe2Kor3 https://t.co/pIYl50jNFR The 3-year-old panda is leaving Tuesday morning for the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. She leaves her family behind, including younger brother Bei Bei, but she has older brother Tai Shan waiting for her. Drivers in the area should expect delays Sunday and Monday near the zoo. With spring-like temperatures in the area, the crowds are expected to be even bigger.


Bao Bao’s farewell to bring thousands to the zoo; expect heavy traffic

Bao Bao eats a piece of bamboo. The 3-year-old giant panda who was born at the zoo and will be leaving February 21st for China. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Scores of visitors are expected at the National Zoo Monday for one last chance to say bye bye to Bao Bao. If you are planning to go to the sendoff, or have business to conduct near the area, you should expect delays and heavy traffic throughout the day along the Connecticut Avenue NW corridor. “It is a farewell weekend for our giant panda Bao Boa. People are going to be coming out to see her,” Zoo spokeswoman Annalisa Meyer said. “If you live here and can take Metro that is always the best way. Our lots can fill up quickly.” Because Monday is Presidents Day, parking is free on most city streets, but officials are still encouraging zoo-goers to take transit to avoid the gridlock. In general, Metro trains are scheduled to operate every six to 15 minutes Monday. The Metrobus system will operate on a Saturday supplemental schedule, providing extra service on certain routes. As part of the celebratory events, Bao Bao will take on a Chinese pagoda-inspired ice cake at 10 a.m. Visitors will also be able to sign commemorative Bao Bao postcards that will go with her to China, zoo officials said. The 3-year-old panda is leaving Tuesday morning for the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. She leaves her family behind, including younger brother Bei Bei, but she has older brother Tai Shan waiting for her in China. Visitors planning to see Bao Bao eat her cake should plan to be at the zoo between 9:15 and 9:30, Meyer said. But if you can’t make it, you can watch it on the Giant Panda Cam, which will be on Bao Bao all day Monday. The Zoo will also do a Facebook live broadcast of her eating her ice cake. The zoo has been celebrating Bao Bao over the past few days. On Sunday, thousands of people visited the bear, creating heavy traffic for hours along Connecticut Avenue and side streets in Woodley Park. Visitors filled the zoo’s parking lots. Drivers Monday should anticipate slowdowns in both directions of Connecticut, between Van Ness Street NW and Calvert St. NW. The traffic app Waze on Sunday was telling drivers in the area to


If you want to land Tony Romo, you better be one of these two teams

unlikely at this point that the matter will be resolved next month. But it all depends on whether Raiders owner Mark Davis can put what the owners regard as a viable stadium deal in Vegas in front of them, and if the league and owners are convinced that nothing can get done in terms of a new stadium in Oakland. 7. Chip Kelly’s future: The departure of Patriots tight ends coach Brian Daboll to be the offensive coordinator at Alabama leaves Chip Kelly, the former head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, still without a job. Kelly had been linked to the offensive coordinator vacancy at Alabama after Steve Sarkisian left the school for the Atlanta Falcons’ coaching staff, although such speculation quickly was followed by a report that Kelly was not interested. Kelly is said to be intent on remaining in the NFL. But with jobs scarce at this point, there is the possibility that he will not be coaching during the upcoming season. He is friendly, however, with Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, and Daboll’s departure might give Belichick a chance to juggle some responsibilities among his offensive assistants if he wants to create a spot for Kelly. It will be interesting to see if Kelly coaches anywhere in 2017, and especially interesting to see if he lands in New England at any point. 8. Franchise tags: The two-week window in which NFL teams can apply the franchise tag to players opened last Tuesday. But franchise-tagging usually is a last-minute exercise. So don’t expect much to happen this week, either. Teams probably will begin applying the tags in the final days or final hours before next Tuesday’s 4 p.m. ET deadline. 9. Albert and Thomas: First it appeared that the Miami Dolphins would release left tackle Branden Albert. Then it appeared that the Dolphins would trade him to Jacksonville for Jaguars tight end Julius Thomas. Now it seems likely that Albert will be traded from Miami to Jacksonville and that Thomas will be dealt from the Jaguars to the Dolphins, but in separate deals each involving a draft pick. People familiar with the deliberations confirmed reports Monday that the two trades are expected to be completed separately. But no trades leaguewide can be official before March 9. So there remains time for things to shift again, potentially, if anyone is not pleased with how things are


The Daily 202: Trump’s new national security adviser literally wrote the book on Vietnam

News) - Far-right populist and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is gaining in the polls. The National Front leader now leads a pool of first-round contenders, 27 to 20 percent. And she’s narrowed her gap in a runoff with front-runner Emmanuel Macron — in the last two weeks, his lead has been sliced in half. (Bloomberg) - The Pentagon is deploying U.S. troops closer to the front lines in Iraq, joining Iraqi military forces in an attempt to wrest back control of Mosul from the Islamic State. U.S. advisers in the area are said to number about 450 and this is the first time the U.S. military has acknowledged how close Americans are to the front-lines in that country. (Dan Lamothe) - Pakistani forces continued cross-border shelling with Afghanistan, ramping up tensions as the government targets an Islamic State affiliate responsible for a blitz of deadly bombings. U.S. officials have asked Pakistani military leaders to cooperate with Afghanistan in going after the militants, but Pakistan has threatened to take further unilateral action. (Pamela Constable) - Parts of war-ravaged south Sudan are officially suffering from famine, putting some 100,000 at risk of starvation. Local officials said the famine is “man made,” blaming the civil war raging there for more than three years. (Rael Ombuor) - Teen suicide attempts in the United States have declined since same-sex marriage became legal, according to a new study, with the biggest impact reported among gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens. While the results do not prove causation, researchers are urging lawmakers to be cognizant of the changes' potential benefits to young people — suicide is currently the second-leading cause of death for all U.S. teens, and is even more common among the young LBGT community. (CBS News) - Uber hired Eric Holder to conduct an independent probe of sexual harassment and discrimination claims made by four former female employee in a highly circulated blog post over the weekend. (Steven Overly) - Virginia Democrats are planning to challenge 45 GOP incumbents in the deep-red House of Delegates in November, seeking to capitalize on a wave of progressive activism that began after Trump’s election. GOP lawmakers hold 66 of the 100 seats in the House, and GOP leaders say many districts — including those won last year by Hillary Clinton — remain Republican strongholds at the state level. (Patricia Sullivan) - A Utah Republican Party official resigned


9 things to do in the D.C. area the week of Feb. 21-24

The Washington-based dance troupe Furia Flamenca is performing Thursday at Sidney Harman Hall. (Stan Peters.) Tuesday, Feb. 21 Presidential Barleywine Festival at Pizzeria Paradiso: Alexandria Restaurant Week at multiple locations: Lol Tolhurst Book Reading at Songbyrd Music House Wednesday, Feb. 22 Showcase of Academy Award-Nominated Documentaries and Short Films at National Archives: Thursday, Feb. 23 Lisa Hannigan at U Street Music Hall: Furia Flamenca at Shakespeare Theatre’s Sidney Harman Hall: ‘Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors’ at the Hirshhorn Museum: Friday, Feb. 24 Atlas Intersections Festival at Atlas Performing Arts Center: ALB's Rock the Stacks at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library: -- Fritz Hahn, Maura Judkis, Lori McCue, John Taylor Read more: - A guide to eating and drinking in Petworth - These happy hours offer fantastic food at great prices - The Hotlist: 12 things to see, eat, drink and do in February


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Left Right??? Left WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 13:
Keshini Ladduwahetty, chair of DC for Democracy, is one of the many longtime local DC activists playing an active role in anti Trump protests like the one protesting congressional control over the District’s laws and money February 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. Because they live in DC many of these local activists feel a responsibility to ensure there are large crowds at protests at visible locations like the Capitol, White House and Trump Hotel.
(Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) Finished


Two-thirds of Americans aren’t using this easy way to save for retirement

people are living longer, which means they’ll have to save up that much more to help support themselves in their post-work years. She added, “Layered on top of both generations is the specter of student loan debt, which has now eclipsed credit card debt.” Indeed, the number of older Americans taking on student debt on behalf of their children and grandchildren has quadrupled in the past decade, with consumers older than 60 now holding $66.7 billion in student loan debt, according to a recent report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The skyrocketing cost of college has placed a particular burden on older Americans, many of whom are struggling to pay back growing debts in their retirement years, according to the report. Nearly 40 percent of federal student loan borrowers older than 65 are in default, the highest rate for any age group, the data show. That problem is likely to grow even worse as the next generation of workers hits retirement age, experts said. Many Americans are playing it safe when it comes to investing their savings, which may mean fewer returns in coming years. “Younger Americans, in particular, are not investing nearly aggressively enough — and that is a huge consequence of the Great Recession,” said McBride of Bankrate. “A lot of individuals got scared out of the stock market at that point because it was the second market meltdown they’d seen in an eight-year span.” But there could be one bright spot: Employers — whether public or private — are increasingly turning to automatic enrollment when it comes to retirement plans, said George Papadopoulos, a financial planner in Novi, Mich. Studies have shown that people are more likely to save for retirement when they have to opt out of a savings program than when they have to take the initiative to sign themselves up, he said. In recent weeks, though, Congress has moved to repeal Obama administration measures that allow states to automatically enroll workers in retirement programs. “I’m all for giving people the choice to do what is best for them,” he said, “but sometimes you just need to force them to save.” Read more: This $143 billion deal could bring together the makers of Velveeta and Vaseline Facebook wants to help you find a job — even if you’re not looking for one This beloved grocery chain is the latest company to face Trump-related boycotts


Russia hawks won the personnel battle, but they need to do more

responses. Then there is Congress. The two parties are outdoing each other on who can be tougher on Russia, aside from the issue of investigating Trump’s ties to the Kremlin. Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) announced support on Tuesday for the Russian Sanctions Review Act. His statement read, in part: Vladimir Putin’s aggressive actions in Ukraine and the repeated cyberattacks that Russia has carried out against U.S. government entities and individuals constitute a real threat to the democratic ideals that have long been held by the United States and our allies. … Russia must earn sanctions relief through clear and definitive actions such as ceasing their occupation of Crimea, their aggression in Ukraine, and their malevolent activities directed at our government and our nation’s election system. Until that time arrives, we must remain vigilant in our commitment to upholding the rule of law through any means necessary, including targeted sanctions. He noted that both the House and Senate bills — introduced by Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) — would require a 120-day review period before the president could alter sanctions currently applied on Russia. “Additionally,” Dent’s press release explains, “the bill would codify a number of existing executive orders that impose sanctions on Russian affiliates, including those involved in the recent hacking of the United States.” Dent joins four Democrats and three other Republicans — Reps. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) — in sponsorship of the bill. In other words, even if Trump wanted to move ahead with sanctions relief, he’d run into blowback from his Cabinet and from both parties in Congress, not to mention our NATO allies. Aside from Bannon and Miller, Trump has no pro-Russia comrades in the administration and only a few in Congress. Moreover, “the accumulating pile of noxious stories about Russian connections and influence makes it harder to pivot our policy,” Cohen says. Well, Trump might not be able to peel back sanctions without causing a ruckus or strike a grand bargain that sells Ukraine and Eastern Europe down the tubes, but he could refuse to act, for example by declining to deploy serious counter cyber-measures, failing to act forcefully to halt further Russian aggression, remaining mute while Putin interferes in European elections and ignoring Putin’s kleptocracy and domestic repression. In


The Daily 202: House Republicans, facing heated town halls, get some air cover on Obamacare repeal

the weekend with a series of bizarre messages – including the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial. -- The threat of war starting during Trump’s presidency looms large in the minds of many Americans. -- Trump’s broadsides against the media are resonating with his base: PUNDITS WEIGH IN ON MONTH ONE: -- “He is an authoritarian by instinct. He displays the classic traits of an authoritarian personality — a man obsessed with domination and humiliation, and unable to tolerate cognitive dissonance,” New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait writes. “If Trump has a plan to crush his adversaries, he has not yet revealed it," Chait concludes. "His authoritarian rage thus far is mostly impotent, the president as angry Fox-News-watching grandfather screaming threats at his television that he never carries out. The danger to the republic may come later, or never. In the first month of Trump’s presidency, the resistance has the upper hand.” U.S. Special Operations Forces inspect a drone used by Islamic State militants to drop explosives on Iraqi forces in Mosul, Iraq, last month. (Muhammad Hamed/Reuters) WAPO HIGHLIGHTS: -- “Use of ‘weaponized’ drones by ISIS spurs terrorism fears,” -- “Amid storms and fears about dam, Oroville residents are unsure who failed them — if anyone,” Beto O'Rourke (D-Tex.) stands in the middle of the international bridge between the U.S. and Mexico in El Paso, Texas. (Ivan Pierre Aguirre/For The Washington Post) -- “Beto O’Rourke is a Mexico-loving liberal in Texas. Can he really beat Ted Cruz?” -- “ SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ: Bao Bao, the panda who has been living at Washington's National Zoo, is saying bye bye to the U.S.: Bao Bao is flying to China. Fellow passengers include a bunch of tiny toy pandas, safely strapped in… https://t.co/xN7fUFecWM We’re transporting @NationalZoo panda Bao Bao to her new home in China! 🐼 #ByeByeBaoBao https://t.co/pZg42SgQPc Trump had this to say about the images emerging from Republican lawmakers' town halls while Congress is on recess this week: The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad! Notably, he posted it eight minutes after Fox News did a segment on the protests: Fox News runs segment at 6:15 about protestors organizing against Trump Trump tweets at 6:23 https://t.co/IzDcPaVpRM Some response: "lol you're organized," he said to his enemies, owning them forever https://t.co/9FN2MILdIk Congratulations to all


Ryan’s tax plan is headed for failure

the U.S. are exempt from the Japanese VAT but the Japanese company is still paying U.S. corporate tax on its U.S. profits. And you know what? In that sense, the Japanese export is treated exactly like the U.S. goods sold in the U.S. In other words, the playing field is even! I repeat: Japanese goods in the U.S. are taxed like U.S. goods in the U.S. How about U.S. exports in Japan? Well, it gets hit by the Japanese VAT in Japan and by the Japanese corporate tax but so are Japanese goods sold in Japan. Again, the only disadvantage faced by U.S. companies selling tape recorders abroad comes from the U.S. tax system, which requires that income earned in Japan be taxed by Uncle Sam at 35 percent after benefiting from a tax credit for tax paid in Japan. If the U.S. company decides to keep its Japanese income outside the U.S., the U.S. rate won’t apply. The plan will raise the cost of consumer goods. (Not even Fed Chairman Janet Yellen buys into the notion that the U.S. dollar will instantly and sufficiently rise in value to offset higher prices.) And it will hurt a whole bunch of businesses that rely on imports, whether they are sold directly to U.S. consumers or, in many cases, incorporated into U.S.-manufactured goods. De Rugy concludes: “The way to fix the U.S. disadvantage is not to create a new expansive tax that would penalize imports in the U.S. — including imports for the benefit of U.S. domestic companies — and would penalize U.S. consumers. The solution is to reform our corporate-tax rate by lowering the rate and moving to an origin-based territorial-tax regime.” The problem is that such an approach won’t raise sufficient revenue to offset revenue losses from Ryan’s underlying tax plan, raising the question as to whether the tax plan is the real culprit here. (Maybe a smaller tax cut, or one that does not reward upper-income taxpayers at all, would be wiser? Nah, that would rain on the parade of the right wing, which for years has been pining for a huge Ronald Reagan-style tax cut, although our current debt, tax code and economic situation bear no resemblance to the factors Reagan faced in the 1980s.) This is no small or esoteric policy debate. Without the border adjustment tax, the GOP tax plan will be (rightly) excoriated for blasting


How regulators can make smart devices more secure against hackers

One of the factors enabling such hacking is that users don’t use sufficiently complex passwords and thus leave the front door unlocked. It could also stifle innovation, with the big players avoiding the possibility of extreme penalties by becoming averse to innovations, and small players avoiding entering the market because they lack the resources to handle possible litigation. Duke School of Law researcher Jeremy Muhlfelder says that copyright law has a history of Supreme Court cases that have ruled on this exact principle, of not wanting to curb the “next big thing” by holding innovators liable for their innovations. Innovators themselves wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, be liable for how carelessly their innovations are incorporated into new products. But imposing strict liabilities on manufacturers, since it would lead indirectly to canceling the rewards of innovation, might not be legally realistic either. A more reasonable solution may be along the lines of what attorney Matt Sherer recommends in a paper on regulating artificial intelligence systems that was published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology: Impose strict liability but with the potential for pre-certification that removes the liability. I.o.T. devices would be deemed inherently dangerous, and thus the producer would be strictly liable for faults unless an independent agency certifies the devices as secure. This would be similar to the UL certification provided by Underwriters Laboratories, a government-approved company that carries out testing and certification to ensure products meet safety specifications. Equipment certification is also one of the recommendations that former Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler made in a letter to Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) regarding the government’s response to the October 2016 attack on the Internet. He proposed a public–private partnership that creates a set of best practices for securing devices, the certification or self-certification of products, and labeling requirements to make consumers aware of the risks. Wheeler proposed “market-based incentives and appropriate regulatory oversight where the market does not, or cannot, do the job effectively.” As Wheeler also noted, addressing I.o.T. threats is a national imperative and must not be stalled by the transition to a new president. This is beyond politics. It is a matter of national security and consumer safety. Read more from The Washington Post’s Innovations section. Why Uber is turning to Eric Holder in a moment of crisis The big moral dilemma facing self-driving cars Facebook plans to use AI to identify terrorist propaganda


Scientists discover 7 ‘Earthlike’ planets orbiting a nearby star

Earth. Though 39 light-years would be a long way for humans to travel, it's practically next door when you consider that the Milky Way galaxy alone is 100,000 light-years across. The closeness of TRAPPIST-1 puts it within the reach of the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be able to detect atmospheric components and thermal emissions from the planets after it launches in 2018. In the meantime, telescopes on several continents have been trained on the system to search for signs of life. Last summer, the scientists published an early analysis of the atmospheres of planets b and c using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. “This is direct exploration of another solar system that is happening right now,” Gillon said. Planets e, f and g are the most intriguing targets for astrobiologists because of their position in TRAPPIST-1's habitable zone. But even if they turn out to be warm and wet, these worlds might not be great places to live. The planets' proximity to the star and one another means that they are probably tidally locked, like Earth's moon. One side of each planet always faces the sun; the other is stuck in constant darkness. This would make for a dramatic temperature gradient that could generate powerful winds — not exactly an earthling's idea of a cozy home. And Adams, of the Planetary Science Institute, cautioned that it's very hard to tell whether a planet is habitable from a distance. An observer outside our solar system might look at Venus, Earth and Mars and reason that the sun hosts three habitable worlds. The alien would need to travel here in person to discover that Venus is a cloudy hell-scape with a runaway greenhouse effect, while Mars is a barren, frozen desert with a defunct internal dynamo. “There are a lot of ways in which a planet could be like Earth, but not enough,” Adams said. Another major caveat, she added, is that the very idea of a “habitable world” is purely theoretical. Scientists have only one source of data on habitable planets, and that's Earth. “We don’t actually know the parameters that are needed for life on another world,” Adams said, “h Still, even if no life is discovered on them, the TRAPPIST-1 planets present an unprecedented new window on how solar systems work. Though the planets are more or less Earth-size, their varying densities and distances allow for


Getting others to get tough on Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (European Pressphoto Agency/Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool) The Financial Times reports: The UK will have its own version of the US Magnitsky Act, with measures allowing the government to freeze the assets of human rights violators from anywhere in the world. A vote by MPs to approve the powers is a breakthrough for a group campaigning for the memory of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was beaten to death in a Moscow jail after exposing a $230m fraud from the state budget involving a criminal gang and corrupt officials. The US Congress in 2012 passed the “Magnitsky Act”, allowing visa bans and asset freezes to be imposed on Russians connected with that case or found to have profited from other human rights abuses. Congress extended the scope of the legislation late last year to cover human rights violators in any country. The UK will become only the third country to adopt similar measures. Estonia passed a Global Magnitsky Act in 2016, while Canada and the EU are considering their own versions. Security Minister Ben Wallace Not only cutting off but also exposing the flow of money outside Russia, the result of widespread graft, should be part and parcel of our countermeasures to check Russian assault (physical and otherwise) on democracies. “The passage of the Magnitsky Amendment to the Criminal Finances Bill has been a major victory for a broad coalition of campaigners pushing to highlight the national security threat, and the threat to the integrity of the UK housing market, posed by kleptocrats liberally laundering their assets,” says Ben Judah, a British author and expert on Russian financial corruption. He cautions, however, that there is more to do. “The amendment gives British courts the powers they need to seize assets if they are highlighted as human rights violators by the Home Office but it doesn’t pierce the cloak of anonymity these kleptocrats usually use to conceal their assets,” he says. “Therefore for the law to actually be effective we need the British Parliament to pass the more radical version of a law currently planned to go under a vote later this year, which would severely curtail the anonymous companies so favored by criminals and kleptocrats.” While Congress considers further sanctions regarding Russian meddling in our election, its invasion and continued occupation of Ukraine and human rights crimes in Syria, one can imagine President Trump trying to delay


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Trump’s hiring freeze leads some Army bases to suspend pre-K and other child programs

(Evan Vucci/AP) President Trump’s federal hiring freeze is forcing at least two U.S. Army bases to indefinitely suspend prekindergarten and other programs for young children. Military.com reported Although the memorandum includes exemptions for the military as well as public safety and national security, the bases still said they did not have enough personnel to continue the programs. Military.com reported: Officials at Fort Knox, Kentucky, notified families Feb. 17 of the suspension to the on-base part-day child development center (CDC) programs, its hourly care program and the enrollment of new families into the CDC. “Effective immediately, no new children will be enrolled in the CDC,” states the letter, signed by Fort Knox garrison commander Col. Stephen Aiton. “Also, effective 27 February 2017, the CDC will no longer accommodate childcare for our hourly care and part day families until further notice.” The CDC’s part-day programs include its part-day preschools. Many military families, including some CDC workers, rely on hourly care for child care during part-time jobs or school hours, or when the full-time day care program is full. One Army spouse at Fort Knox reported that the wait list for her 1-year-old is estimated through July. The U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden in Germany sent out a letter Wednesday signed by Todd J. Fish, a colonel who commands the base, explaining its program suspension. As taxpayers paid $10m for 3 #Trump weekends in Florida, a Trump hiring freeze ended pre-K, daycare for US military… https://t.co/yoDxQkgkxq Military.com also reported: As of Jan. 17, the Army’s Child and Youth Services program had 12,000 positions systemwide with 2,657 vacancies, according to Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM) officials. The Army child development center program has historically had problems keeping positions filled due to high turnover and a sluggish background check system through which all workers must be vetted.


Here’s what you should know about the newfound TRAPPIST-1 solar system

distance between the sun and Mercury. This is what lets them stay warm by their star's dim light, but it also puts them at risk. Solar flares could damage their atmospheres (if they have atmospheres), radiation could blast away any nascent life (if life even emerged). Michael Gillon, the lead author of the study, said that TRAPPIST-1 is a relatively quiet star, and the level of radiation the planets probably receive doesn't look totally hostile to life. But it's still something to worry about. The planets don't have days and nights. Because the planets are close to the sun, and to one another, the astronomers believe that they are “tidally locked.” This is what happens when the amount of time it takes a body to orbit matches the length of one rotation on its axis. The result is that the same side of the body always faces the object it orbits around. The moon is tidally locked with Earth, which is why we always see the same face of our satellite when we look up at night. For the planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system, this means that one side of each body is constantly blasted with their sun's heat, while the other sides are perpetually in darkness. This … doesn't sound very homey. It could create huge temperature gradients that drive powerful winds. It could mean that half of each planet freezes while the other half burns. No, it won't. Sorry, Annie. (tumblr) We can't see the planets directly. Scientists were able to detect the planets using the “transiting method,” in which they use tiny dips in light from the star caused by the planets passing across its face. With the Hubble Space Telescope, the soon-to-launch James Webb Space Telescope and ground-based observatories, astronomers can also analyze the light that passes through the atmospheres of the planets to figure out what molecules those atmospheres contain. But we won't be able to directly image the solar system with current technology, Gillon said. Because the planets are so close to their star, they will be impossible to distinguish amid its glare. Just because some of the planets are in the habitable zone doesn't mean that they're actually habitable, let alone inhabited. The “habitable zone” is kind of a squishy concept. Astronomers define it as the range of orbits around a given star at which planets are warm enough to sustain liquid water


Budapest withdraws from 2024 Olympics consideration

Activists collect signatures to force a referendum on Budapest’s bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games. (REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh) There will be no bronze medalist among the cities vying to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Budapest is reportedly dropping out of the running, leaving just two cities in contention and an International Olympic Committee that’s finding it increasingly difficult to find viable and interested hosts. Without Budapest in the mix, the 2024 Games will be awarded to either Los Angeles or Paris when the IOC meets this September in Peru. While the IOC will have one fewer candidate to consider when making its selection, the shrinking field highlights a bigger problem facing the Olympic governing body: The huge price tag of hosting a Summer or Winter Games has spawned civic disinterest and led several cities to drop recent bids or decide against entering the race at all. The 2024 selection process once included cities such as Rome, Hamburg and Boston, and they all pulled out of the running early, largely because they lacked public support. Los Angeles and Paris have been considered the front-runners for months, and Wednesday’s news will only sharpen the race. The LA2024 committee has put forward a cost-effective bid that it hopes will impact the future of the Olympic selection process, helping shape bids well beyond the 2024 Games. The bidding process for the 2022 Winter Olympics also was hampered by waning public interest. Before Beijing was awarded those hosting rights in 2015, four cities dropped out of the process: Oslo, Norway; Stockholm, Sweden; Lviv, Ukraine; and Krakow, Poland. Hungary’s governing party Fidesz said Wednesday the decision to drop the bid came to avoid “a loss of international prestige” for the country, according to the Associated Press. Budapest’s bid appeared in jeopardy in recent days. Last month a local group began circulating a petition for the city to reconsider its bid, a movement that found the support of several political parties. More than 260,000 signatures were collected, and earlier this week, the head of the Budapest 2024 organizing committee said moving forward with the bid appeared to be futile. “This ship has sailed, it seems,” Balazs Furjes told Inforadio in Hungary. The final decision was reportedly made Wednesday during a meeting that included the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, Budapest Mayor Istvan Tarlos and the Hungarian Olympic Committee. There has been speculation that two of the finalists


How a blogger in Ohio discovered a runner in Florida cheating in a half-marathon

was on the up-and-up. Her second place finish stood. Someone, though, wasn’t convinced and tipped off Derek Murphy, an independent marathon investigator. Murphy, a former distance runner himself, has dedicated his time away from work trying to bust cheating road warriors by using the 21st century’s best tools: data collected in our interconnected world. He posts his findings to his blog, Marathon Investigation, which he maintains from his home in Ohio. The work has real world consequences, too — he has caught several runners who qualified for the Boston Marathon by cheating, taking spots from honest runners. “I think most people aren’t aware of how much cheating goes on in marathons,” Murphy told NBC last month. Murphy began investigating and quickly learned that Seo had, indeed, cheated by skipping about a mile and a half of the race. As a result, she has been retroactively disqualified from the half-marathon and was expelled from the Dashing Whippets, the team with which she raced. “As some of you may be aware, one of our members intentionally cut the course at a Half Marathon this past weekend. The member in question has admitted to cheating, has been officially disqualified from the race, and has apologized to the DWRT Board,” the organization said in a statement. In a lengthy blog post, the sleuth explained how he exposed the runner. Murphy began by examining the official results from the race tracker — a small electronic chip runners wear that incrementally tracks their time during a race — that caught Stern’s attention. Her pace during the first 10 kilometers was 7:09 per mile. During the last 11.08 kilometers, it increased tremendously to 5:25 per mile. Seeking further data, he turned to her account on Strava, a social media app where runners and cyclists post their times. She had posted but rather than let the app pull her info from GPS data, she manually entered just her time, distance and pace. (Screengrab from Marathon Investigation.) Stranger still, later that day, she posted the full entry showing more information: her path, splits, cadence and heart rate. Though it showed that she completed the entire course, something struck Murphy. He wrote, “She had this labeled as a run, and the total time *almost* matches her original time for the 1/2 marathon. The cadence data is more consistent with what you would expect on a bike ride, not a run.”


Air pollution affects preterm birthrates globally, study finds

are among the other factors that also can raise the likelihood of preterm births.) “This study highlights that air pollution may contribute to a health effect, which contributes substantially to infant mortality as well as lifelong health effects in survivors,” institute researcher Christopher Malley, the study's lead author, said via email. It also underscores that comprehensive action is required to reduce levels of particulate matter, said the institute's policy director, Johan Kuylenstierna, another study author. Although natural sources of PM2.5 are implicated in preterm births, the study found human-produced sources play a much bigger role. In South and East Asia, for example, such sources were responsible for more than 80 percent of that pollution, and those two regions had the largest proportion of PM2.5-associated preterm births, according to the study. Pregnant women there are frequently exposed to indoor air pollution because of the wood and other biomass fuels they use in cooking. Fine particulate matter from natural sources, such as dust storms, contributed more to preterm birthrates in the Middle East, North Africa and West sub-Saharan Africa. While maternal exposure is more acute in developing countries, PM2.5 in developed countries also affects preterm birthrates, the study noted. The United States had around 50,000 PM2.5-associated preterm births in 2010; each cost about $51,600 in medical care, special education services for the infant as well as lost household and work productivity associated with the child's neurological or physical disabilities, according to a report referenced in the study. The study builds on previous research showing the significant harm that air pollution causes among all ages. The World Health Organization has estimated that there were 7 million premature deaths globally in 2012 because of exposure to air pollution. The WHO also said the data showed “a stronger link” between exposure, both outdoors and indoors, and heart disease, stroke, cancer and respiratory diseases. “Estimates of impact from this analysis indicate the importance of also considering pregnant women as a vulnerable population and further support the need to rapidly address air pollution as a global health threat,” said Michael Brauer, a professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, who was not part of the study. Read more: Survival rate improves for extremely premature infants Fine-particle pollution linked to wider number of cancers, premature births You're more likely to die from air pollution in India than China, study says