Mercury will stroll in front of the sun on Monday, and you can watch it

The next Series 7 Mercury transit will be May 10, 2062, and the series ends on May 13, 2154. Where to watch Online - Slooh.com: If you’re stuck at work, pinned in a meeting or frowning from cloudiness, the sun always shines at slooh.com. Live coverage — using telescopes from all over the world — begins at 7 a.m., with astronomers Paul Cox and Bob Berman calling the play-by-play and offering color. Featured guests include: 10 a.m. — Bart Thomas, teacher, Naples High School, Florida. Thomas’s school will be projecting the transit throughout the day, and he will speak on inspiring youth about space. 11 a.m. – Lisa Kaltenegger, Cornell professor of astronomy and director of Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute. She will discuss how using events similar to transits can teach us about exoplanets (planets beyond our solar system). Noon — Angela Fritz, deputy weather editor of The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, will explain Mercury in retrograde and what it means. - NASA: Launched in 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite will observe a Mercury transit for the first time. From about 6:30 a.m. Eastern time, the SDO will follow the planetary black dot across the sun for about nine hours. NASA is providing a near-live feed here. The images will be delayed a few minutes, as the website provides self-updating movies. The movies will include a visible channel and channels for the extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. Pick your perfect wavelength. Additionally, NASA will stream a live program on NASA TV and the space agency’s Facebook page from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Jim Green, NASA’s planetary science director, Lika Guhathakurta, the agency’s heliophysics program scientist, and Nicky Fox, project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, will discuss the science behind the transit. Viewers can ask questions via Facebook and Twitter using #AskNASA. Viewing parties in the Washigton area - Air and Space Museum: Transit viewing with properly filtered telescopes at the Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory on the museum’s eastern side, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lectures: Geologist Jim Zimbelman on “The Transit of Mercury: What’s the Big Deal About a Planet in Front of a Star?” at 11 a.m. Space historian David DeVorkin on “Explaining the Mystery of Mercury’s Motion,” at 1 p.m. For both talks, meet at the museum’s Great Seal, at the building’s Mall entrance. - Montgomery College: Safe telescopes will be set


similar to transits can teach us about exoplanets (planets beyond our solar system). Noon — Angela Fritz, deputy weather editor of The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, will explain Mercury in retrograde and what it means. - NASA: Launched in 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite will observe a Mercury transit for the first time. From about 6:30 a.m. Eastern time, the SDO will follow the planetary black dot across the sun for about nine hours. NASA is providing a near-live feed here. The images will be delayed a few minutes, as the website provides self-updating movies. The movies will include a visible channel and channels for the extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. Pick your perfect wavelength. Additionally, NASA will stream a live program on NASA TV and the space agency’s Facebook page from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Jim Green, NASA’s planetary science director, Lika Guhathakurta, the agency’s heliophysics program scientist, and Nicky Fox, project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, will discuss the science behind the transit. Viewers can ask questions via Facebook and Twitter using #AskNASA. Viewing parties in the Washigton area - Air and Space Museum: Transit viewing with properly filtered telescopes at the Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory on the museum’s eastern side, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lectures: Geologist Jim Zimbelman on “The Transit of Mercury: What’s the Big Deal About a Planet in Front of a Star?” at 11 a.m. Space historian David DeVorkin on “Explaining the Mystery of Mercury’s Motion,” at 1 p.m. For both talks, meet at the museum’s Great Seal, at the building’s Mall entrance. - Montgomery College: Safe telescopes will be set up in the parking lot adjacent to the Montgomery College planetarium from 7:15 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. If cloudy, participants are invited into the planetarium at 7611 Fenton St., Takoma Park. - David M. Brown Planetarium, Arlington: Friends of the Planetarium volunteers will guide you with Sunspotter telescopes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Parking is at a premium during school hours; paid parking is nearby. The planetarium is near the Ballston, Virginia Square and Clarendon Metro stations, at 1426 N. Quincy St., adjacent to Washington-Lee High School. - University of Maryland: Telescopes, binoculars and other safe ways to observe will be at the Computer & Space Science Building (Building 224) front patio on the College Park campus, from 9:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., weather permitting.


A SpaceX rocket just stuck its landing on a barge

An unmanned SpaceX rocket successfully launched a satellite into orbit that quickly returned to earth, landing on a platform in the ocean May 6. The rocket stuck the landing — but even the man who owned it hadn’t felt good about its chances. As the primary stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fell back toward the Atlantic early Friday morning, it came down toasty. The rocket’s powerful engines had blasted into sub-orbital space, depositing the second stage and a Japanese satellite that now sits some 23,000 miles up. Despite the heat, the first stage did not blow up when it landed on a robot barge, named “Of Course I Still Love You,” which floated in the dark off the coast of Florida. Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of SpaceX, had previously put the odds of not crashing at a coin toss, at best. This brings SpaceX’s total sea landings to two, following the private spaceflight company’s successful mission in April. (Four previous sea landing attempts went down in flames.) Because this particular rocket was traveling farther and faster than the prior success, a landing was “unlikely,” SpaceX wrote on YouTube before the successful sea landing. Landing confirmed. Second stage continuing to carry JCSAT-14 to a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. https://t.co/HfHI5cwoYX SpaceX is part of a larger push toward commercial spaceflight, which includes Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin. (Bezos also owns The Washington Post.) Blue Origin has landed rockets as well, though its efforts are focused on lower passenger flights rather than orbital payloads like SpaceX. By reusing the primary rocket stage, SpaceX hopes to slash the price of delivering payloads to space, which currently costs NASA about $10,000 per pound. The first reused Falcon rocket stage is set to launch later this year, part of an ambitious flight schedule that’s supposed to culminate in a rocket aimed at Mars in 2018. Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018. Red Dragons will inform overall Mars architecture, details to come https://t.co/u4nbVUNCpA In the meantime, as Musk wrote on Twitter, he “may need to increase size of rocket storage hangar.” More from The Post about the push for commercial spaceflight: Bezos pulls back the curtain on his plans for space In the race for space, sorting out the tweets from Musk and Bezos Clash of the billionaires: Musk and Bezos are duking it out


Today in 10: North Korea holds a congress, Ryan rebuffs Trump, SpaceX sticks the landing

North Korea kicks off its much-hyped congress: Speaker Paul Ryan has backed away from his pledge to support whoever becomes the nominee, saying he's "not ready" to endorse Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Other GOP heavyweights, including the Bushes, are also not giving endorsements. Paul Ryan holds off on Trump endorsement: North Carolina faces Monday deadline on bathroom law: It’s not looking good for Obama’s big promise on jobs: Nearly 400 death sentences could be reduced in Florida: Booming e-cigarette market set for regulation: ‘Grim Sleeper’ serial killer convicted: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket returns to land. (Joe Skipper/Reuters) SpaceX rocket sticks the landing: What you should see — and not see — in theaters this summer: London may be set to elect first Muslim mayor: Sign up here to get Today in 10 delivered straight to your inbox.


How co-hosting Baroque concerts in her living room helped a World Bank retiree reinvent herself

Carolyn Winter (right) retired from the World Bank and decided she wanted to take up harpsichord. She then teamed up with her neighbor, Jessica Honigberg (left). who teaches piano, to create the Aberfoyle Baroque series that they host in Carolyn’s Northwest DC living room. They hire well-known players, both international and local. (Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) It’s 3:55 p.m. and Elena Mullins, a Baroque dancer, is twirling in the center of a living room of a home surrounded by overhung trees in the Northwest DC neighborhood of Barnaby Woods. A group of guests form a circle around her as she holds out her arms in a noble stance. “In Baroque dance, you want to be able to freeze frame,” or pose, in effect, for the audience, the dancer says, demonstrating a frozen gesture with her hands up. She cues a Jordi Savall recording of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.” “UP step step. UP step step,” she instructs. Next, the guests are given a packet of dance notation. Hairline strokes briskly twist to form an umbrella on a large piece of paper. “I call this one the mushroom dance,” one woman whispers, pointing to the Feuillet choreography for the “Bourée d’Achille.” She introduces herself as Carol Marsh, a noted dance historian and musicologist, who in her retirement moved to Washington, D.C. after teaching music history, viola da gamba, and early music notation in North Carolina. This Friday, Marsh is one of the nine guests at a Baroque dance lesson that is part of Aberfoyle Baroque, a living room series started by two DC women that has drawn artists and guests from all over the globe for concerts and other programs featuring music of the courts, churches and opera houses of 17th and 18th-century Europe.. Carolyn Winter spent 23 years in international development at the World Bank before joining forces last year with her musician neighbor Jessica Honigberg, to create the series, which stemmed from a love affair with the harpsichord. Both women simultaneously fell for the instrument after long-standing relationships with the piano. Now, with their non-profit L.L.C., they seek to promote the harpsichord, and other Baroque music, through performance and education in the greater D.C. area. [It’s not OK to be racist or sexist. She asks why it’s still OK to be ageist] “If you had told me while I was at the World Bank that I was


Joint Afghan special operations raid frees 60 hostages from Taliban

A member of U.S. Special Operations forces climbs down from a compound wall during a joint patrol with Afghan National Army soldiers in Shewan, a former Taliban stronghold, in Afghanistan’s Farah province. (Maya Alleruzzo/AP) Afghan special operations forces freed 60 prisoners from a Taliban prison in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, according to a statement from the U.S.-led mission there. The rescue mission took place in Now Zad, a restive district in Helmand province that has changed hands numerous times over the course of the 15-year-long war. Three Afghan special operations units — including an army commando unit, an elite aviation detachment and elements of Afghanistan’s counterterrorism forces, known as the Ktah Khas —participated in the nighttime helicopter assault, according to the statement. The statement said Afghan units were supported by “coalition forces” operating in a “train, advise and assist role,” shorthand for Western Special Operations forces operating along side their Afghan counterparts. Despite Western involvement in the rescue, 75 percent of all Afghan security forces operations are conducted without coalition support, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, a spokesman for Resolute Support, the name of the U.S-led mission in Afghanistan, told reporters Thursday. Two members of the Taliban were killed and a number were wounded or detained, according to the statement. There were no Afghan or coalition casualties. The rescued prisoners were transported to Kandahar. The Pentagon did not specify whether they were all Afghan. Afghan-led prison rescues have been a somewhat regular occurrence in Helmand province in recent months and have been subsequently broadcast by Resolute Support, in an effort to seemingly showcase the prowess of Afghan security forces. Despite the United States spending more than $35 billion on the Afghan military since 2001, the Afghan army is still plagued with defections and equipment shortages. Afghan special operations forces, however, are a little more polished, boasting additional resources, training and spirit de corps. In turn, the commandos provide a much needed spine for the regular forces. Operating similarly to Iraq’s counterterrorism service, Afghan commandos act more like shock troops than anything else. Afghan special operations units, alongside U.S. Army Green Berets, were instrumental in spearheading the advance that helped retake the city of Kunduz from the Taliban last fall, and have also buoyed floundering Afghan army units fighting across the country. The Taliban currently controls large portions of Helmand province and is expected to start a concerted offensive there


Why former felons may be good employees

in periods of war or military expansion--such as between 2006 and 2008, the years surrounding the Iraq surge--but fall significantly, if not altogether, when recruiting drops and the armed forces contracts. "Now with downsizing it’s harder and harder to even get in the military," Lundquist said in an interview. The Army is currently taking no applicants from felons, an Army spokesman told National Public Radio, which first reported the research. The military has conducted internal studies on the question of how those who receive conduct waivers perform over time, according to the authors, leading to mixed results. But Lundquist and her co-authors say their paper examines not just whether they leave the service early but why, as well as the pace of their promotions. Their paper also differs by including more recent data from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, they write. One potential explanation for their results could be that people with criminal records who entered the military simply end up in an environment where they're removed from their friends, communities and day-to-day struggles that could tempt them to commit more offenses. At the same time, the military's hierarchical, responsibility-focused, discipline-driven culture could keep employees from future bad behavior. Lundquist admits those things may have an effect, but also argues that deployment could lead to more stress and greater surveillance--making for more chances to get caught. The military's strict hierarchy could also be challenging for those who already have issues with authority figures, Lundquist says. In other words, "the military setting could do just the opposite." A more likely explanation is that the military's "whole person" screening process, Lundquist says, weeds out people more likely to get in trouble again, and may actually find people who can perform better. It takes into account how old applicants were when they committed the crime, what it was and the context surrounding it, personal references and recommendations, and a qualitative interview, steps many employers never get to when they discount people with records from the start. "Our main argument is that the 'whole person' criteria ... is something we think employers should explore as a possibility," Lundquist says. By not using a comprehensive screening process, " Lundquist also believes another factor could be at play. "The screening process clearly works, there’s no question," she says. "But I also suspect there may be something else going on here, which is the interesting social question."


People think that economic sanctions hurt Putin and helped undermine apartheid in South Africa. They’re wrong.

Russia’s Bank Rossiya has been targeted by U.S. sanctions. (Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters) Lee Jones, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, has just published “Societies Under Siege: Exploring How International Economic Sanctions (Do Not) Work.” In it, he evaluates the use and success of sanctions in three key cases — South Africa, Iraq and Myanmar — and finds that sanctions rarely achieve their stated aims. He is wary of drawing general conclusions, arguing that the success of sanctions depends on a host of country-specific factors, including the independence of a country’s civil society. We spoke to Jones via Skype about the history of sanctions, their track record and why, if they so rarely succeed, leaders still rely on them. Nikita Lalwani and Sam Winter-Levy: Why did sanctions emerge as an instrument of statecraft? Lee Jones: NL SW-L: So how are sanctions supposed to work? How exactly is economic pain supposed to translate into political gain? LJ: A classical liberal understanding is that sanctions will work in one of two ways. The first is by provoking an immediate response on behalf of the targeted government by changing its cost-benefit analysis. The second is that sanctions will cause economic suffering among the population, which will lead them to turn against the government, and the government will have to change course as a result. In practice, both of these mechanisms rarely, if ever, trigger. NL SW-L: In what percentage of cases have sanctions been successful? LJ: NL SW-L: People point to South Africa as an example of when sanctions provoked political change. Is that not a fair assessment? LJ: And in terms of what sanctions actually did on the ground, they had quite a modest economic impact. If you look at the economic data, the apartheid economy actually expanded significantly under sanctions. The impact it had was only a modest addition to the pressure that was being brought to bear on the regime by a highly mobilized black-led coalition. That was what ended apartheid in South Africa, not sanctions. The regime was faced with widespread domestic insurgency and engaged in [a foreign] war. It was spending quite heavily on coercion to try to suppress the insurgency. It was also trying to spend heavily on welfare programs to undermine the reasons for the insurgency. All of this was very costly. When you add in the cost of sanctions, then something has to give.


Mercury is about to pass in front of the sun, and it should be incredible to watch

A satellite image of one of Mercury's previous transits. (NASA) It happens around 13 times a century: From our perspective, Mercury – the smallest planet in our solar system – will pass in front of the sun. On Monday, most of the world (including the United States) will be able to see the planet as a tiny black dot passing slowly in front of its host star. You shouldn't stare directly into the sun (ouch), but by watching online or using a telescope with a special filter, you can see Mercury in all its tiny glory. The spectacle should be on view from around 7 am eastern until just before 3 pm. NASA video shows Mercury crossing the face of the sun in 2006. The planet is set to cross again on May 9, 2016. If you have your own telescope, you can watch the event using a safety filter to protect your eyes from the sun. If you don't have a filter handy, you can use a sheet of paper to rig up a safe viewing method – you can project the image of the sun (in the form of a white disk) onto a sheet of paper, then watch the black dot of Mercury crawl across it. You can also check out NASA's websites and social media accounts for live image updates. If you live near an observatory or science center, you should check out their plans – you may be able to pop in and take a peek on their telescopes. Here are some viewing parties in the Washington area. And if you absolutely can't make it outside, you can watch this live stream: Transit of Mercury 2016 But why should you care? Because it's a very special event for a very cool little planet. Mercury has an orbital period of just 88 days, making it by far the fastest orbiter in the solar system. And while Mercury is orbiting, so are we – at a completely different pace. So for our planets to line up just so for us to see the other world sweep over the sun is an uncommon event. This is the first Mercurian transit since 2006, and we won't see another until 2019. Wait, you say – that's a lot of transits to have in just over a decade. How do we average out at just 13 for every 100 years? Mercury


Romanian soldiers killed in apparent insider attack in southern Afghanistan

A soldier stands watch over colleagues in eastern Afghanistan in 2011. (Staff Sgt. Charles Crail/Army) Two coalition service members died Saturday morning in southern Afghanistan in an apparent insider attack in which two men wearing Afghan security forces uniforms opened fire at an Afghan compound, coalition officials said. Coalition troops returned fired and killed the shooters, according to a news release. Few additional details were immediately available about the shooting, but the soldiers killed were Romanian, according to the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest and a defense official in Kabul. The shooting occurred in Kandahar province, the official said. “Afghan and Resolute Support officials are conducting an investigation into the incident and further information will be released as available and appropriate,” the coalition said in a statement. “We continue to train, advise and assist the [Afghan forces], and do not view this incident as representative of the positive relationship between our forces.” Casualties in the war in Afghanistan have plummeted since 2014, as the U.S.-led military coalition pulled back almost entirely onto a few large installations. The last coalition service member killed was Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Q. McClintock, a Green Beret, who was hit with enemy fire in Helmand province’s Marja district on Jan. 5.


5 facts about Metro’s ‘SafeTrack’ plan

around-the-clock single tracking or days– even weeks– of shutdowns on segments of most rail lines. The first such project would start June 4 and last 15 days, affecting Metro’s Blue line riders in Fairfax County. Continuous single tracking between Franconia-Springfield and Van Dorn Street will impact as many as 18,000 trips daily, and would mean trains every 24 minutes. Even tougher will be the complete shutdowns planned at five portions of the system. The first of the shutdowns, starting July 5th, will also impact Blue and Yellow line riders in Virginia, and will be especially rough for people traveling to Reagan National Airport. A 7-day shutdown of the tracks between the National Airport and Braddock Road stations will be followed by another week-long shutdown between the National Airport and Pentagon City stations. The projects will also affect the Green, Orange and Red lines. Find the details of all 15 projects here. 2. Extended weeknight track work To get the work done, Metro wants to accelerate maintenance by giving workers more time in the system. One way to do that is by extending the weekday work periods and closing the system at midnight on weekends. For those traveling after the evening rush, that would mean earlier-than-usual track work. Maintenance crews will start work at 8 p.m. on weeknights– two hours earlier than usual. 3. Early closings on weekends System closing will be midnight on Friday and Saturday instead of 3 a.m., starting June 3. 4. No more extended Metro hours for special events Forget the early openings for 10-mile races or the late closures for Nats games. 5. Expanded bus service The transit agency will have 40 to 50 buses dedicated to providing alternate service during the disruptions such as the segment shutdowns. For example, shuttle buses will serve closed stations and connect riders to the closest open station. Buses will also be on standby in the event of a service disruption in areas with single-track zones and the authority will add bus trips on some regular routes. It is still unclear what the additional service will be, but for example, during the 7-day period of single tracking between Takoma and Silver Spring, Metro said it plans to add more service on the S9, 79, 80 and 60 bus lines. Some officials in the region, including Montgomery and Fairfax, have said they would work to add suburban bus service where needs.


’60 Minutes’ report details extensive Russian doping, thanks to whistleblowers

Russia has been accused of covering up positive doping tests at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. (EPA/HENDRIK SCHMIDT) In an interview that aired Sunday on “60 Minutes,” a married Russian couple leveled extensive doping allegations against the country’s athletic program, saying that the FSB — Russia’s answer to the FBI — handled the country’s doping tests at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and that at least four Russian gold medalists in Sochi were on steroids at the time. Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanov, currently living in an undisclosed location in the United States because they fear for their safety, appeared on camera with CBS’s Armen Keteyian. Vitaly Stepanov was a low-level worker in Russia’s anti-doping agency (RUSADA). Yuliya Stepanov was formerly known as Yuliya Rusanova when she competed in the 800 meters as a member of Russia’s track and field team. She admits to taking anabolic steroids for five years as directed by her coaches until she was injured just before the 2012 Olympics in London. Stepanov decided to come clean after she lost the protection of Russia’s doping program and faced a two-year ban for a positive test. Urged by her husband, Yuliya Stepanov decided to begin secretly recording her coaches, teammates and the track and field team’s medical director using her cellphone. Among her targets was Mariya Savinova, who won the 800-meter gold medal at the London Olympics. “My coach helps to cover up the tests. There is no other way to do it. Everyone in Russia is on pharma,” Savinova says on one recording. In November, the International Association of Athletics Federations banned Russia’s track and field team from international competition after a World Anti-Doping Agency investigation uncovered “a deeply rooted culture of cheating.” WADA also recommended that five Russian coaches and five middle-distance runners — including Savinova and Ekaterina Poistogova, the 800-meter bronze medalist in London — be given lifetime doping bans. A significant number of Russian athletes also have tested positive for meldonium, a performance-enhancer that was added to WADA’s banned list at the beginning of the year. However, WADA may relax its stance on the use of that drug after questions arose over how long the drug remains in an athlete’s system. Vitaly Stepanov also recorded 15 hours of conversations with Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran Russia’s drug-testing lab but was fired after the WADA report. Rodchenkov — who also has taken refuge in an unnamed


Photos and live stream: Mercury’s transit across the sun

The highest-resolution solar telescope in the world, Big Bear Solar Observatory's New Solar Telescope, captured images of Mercury crossing the sun on May 9. There’s a little black spot on the sun today. Mercury is transiting the sun today and, where clouds aren’t in the way, it’s visible from Earth. The planet’s trip across the sun spans the period from 7:12 a.m. to 2:42 p.m. Eastern time. This is the first Mercury transit in a decade. The next will occur Nov. 11, 2019 — Veterans Day. (NASA) Where clouds could be a problem for viewing AccuWeather (AccuWeather.com) Eye protection and viewing Do not try to view the little black spot with your naked eye. You need to use binoculars or a telescope with a solar filter to safely view the spectacle and avoid eye damage. If you don’t have the right equipment or if it’s cloudy where you are, consider viewing online. In addition to the stream above, Slooh.com and NASA are streaming the event. (CWG’s Angela Fritz will be appear on Slooh.com’s broadcast at 1 p.m.). Sweet view of #mercurytransit from SDO via @NASASunEarth Don't miss it, it only happens about 13 times a century! https://t.co/5FUeLH47z9 Photos Check out photos we’ve received through our social media network below. #MercuryTransit, from #DC at 8:05am EDT. @capitalweather https://t.co/nfEp8EJm5d #mercurytransit 8:34am Williamsburg VA. CanonT5i 300mm lens, solar filter https://t.co/8HBtdWy7cw #Mercury Transit (lower left) from Elkridge, Md as clouds moved in (AGAIN!) @capitalweather @TerpWeather @footsmdwx https://t.co/eOwjJv379j Transit of Mercury from S Reston this AM before clouds moved in. iPhone thru small scope.@capitalweather @Reston https://t.co/le2RXZpXSU


You can now search the Panama Papers — the secret accounts of the global rich — yourself

politicians, and dozens of tax evaders, drug traffickers, money launderers and other criminals. The revelations have sparked protests, triggered arrests and led to high-profile resignations, including the prime minister of Iceland. The searchable database below includes nearly 214,000 entities from the Panama Papers spanning 40 years, from 1977 through 2015. Where available, the database reveals the names of the real owners — called the "beneficial owners" — of offshore companies, trusts and foundations. This information is usually kept hidden from the public by the anonymity that offshore structures provide. The database also includes information on the intermediaries, such as banks and law firms, that were typically the point of contact between Mossack Fonseca and the real owners of offshore companies. The data shows registered addresses for companies and the connections between corporate entities, owners and intermediaries, and allows you to filter by country or jurisdiction. The database also includes information on more than 100,000 additional offshore entities, which were revealed in another leak of offshore documents covered by ICIJ in 2013. This searchable database actually contains just a fraction of the material in the Panama Papers; it excludes the company emails, financial transactions, scanned passports, and other raw documents that make up the bulk of the leak. Not every owner of a company in the Panama Papers appears in the public database, ICIJ says, since some of that information is contained only in Mossack Fonseca's emails and internal documents and cannot be systematically extracted. ICIJ says it is publishing the database in the public interest. The anonymous leaker who first gave the documents to journalists also described the leak as an effort to fight against inequality and injustice in a manifesto issued last week, which argued that shell companies are used to carry out a wide array of serious crimes. Find something worth digging into? You can email The Washington Post with tips by clicking on the blue envelope icon that appears at the top of this article. You can also download the full data set here. The Panama Papers consist of 11.5 million documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The papers apparently implicate a number of high-profile global figures in potentially illegal financial activities. See also: U.S. tightens checks on anonymous companies following Panama Papers release How the U.S. became one of the world’s biggest tax havens For U.S. tax cheats, Panama Papers reveal a perilous new world


Budweiser seeks approval to be called ‘America’ this summer

brand). After his Super Bowl victory on Sunday, Broncos' Peyton Manning brushed off a question about retirement plans with a shout-out to Budweiser, and it wasn't the first time he's plugged the beer on live television. Lately, the company’s been injecting enough patriotism into their ads to make a Donald Trump-supporting bald eagle blush. One of the cans the beer comes in features stars and stripes in the classically American red, white and blue color palette. Limited-edition packaging included the Statue of Liberty. In this Super Bowl commercial from 2016, titled “Not Backing Down,” the beer is boldly announced as “NOT IMPORTED.” Budweiser's ad emphasizes the company's pride in its brewing methods. And it’s not the only beer that uses American patriotism in its advertising. After news outlets began reporting that Pabst would be sold to the Russian company Oasis — a sale that never actually happened — people around the Internet were outraged, prompting Pabst to tweet this image: There are a lot of rumors about us out there right now... This is the real story—> http://t.co/N1NEFIJjWR via @nypost http://t.co/JsFLu4AHnk Beer’s origins are certainly important to some drinkers, a lesson Anheuser-Busch InBev learned the hard way. American beer drinkers who thought the company’s Beck’s Beer was made in Germany received $20 million in a class action suit against Anheuser-Busch InBev, according to the Associated Press. The beer’s packaging stated that it originated in Bremen, Germany. That’s true, but the label did not mention that it’s now brewed in St. Louis. The company was also forced to reimburse customers who thought that Kirin Ichiban was imported from Japan. Anheuser-Busch InBev U.S. Marketing VP Jorn Socquet declined to comment on the packaging but did tell AdAge that the Fourth of July and the Olympics will play a role in brand’s summer advertising. “You have this wave of patriotism that is going to go up and down throughout the summertime,” Socquet said. “And we found with Budweiser such a beautiful angle to play on that sentiment.” So, if approved, we might be asking picnic guests to grab a case of “America” come this July 4. More from Morning Mix This sweet 7-year-old gave his hair to cancer patients, then life took a devastating turn The chemsex scene: An increasingly popular and occasionally lethal public health problem ‘I screamed in my hotel room’: Meghan Trainor pulls music video after realizing she was photoshopped


Let them drink cognac: A famous French restaurant auctions off pre-revolutionary booze

delighted diners for centuries. To pave the way for a scheduled renovation, the age-old establishment with unparalleled views of the Seine and the gothic majesty of Notre Dame is now auctioning off more than 3,000 pieces of its silver, glassware and china. It’s also selling certain bottles from its legendary wine cellar, whose catalog rivals the length and byzantine intricacy of Marcel Proust’s "In Search of Lost Time," in which, as it happens, the restaurant itself appears. The undeniable star of show: a bottle of cognac from 1788. This particular cognac — a Grande Fine Clos du Griffier, to be exact — dates from the year before the French Revolution began and is expected to sell for no less than $23,000. That would make it the perfect thing — and perhaps the only thing — to pair with that cake Marie Antoinette already told you to eat. Also on the docket are a bottle of Madeira from 1850, a bottle of Armagnac from 1875, and a silver Christofle contraption used to make pressed duck, which has always been the Tour d’Argent’s signature, a dish it claims to have invented in the 19th century. All said and done, the sale — organized by Artcurial, a Parisian auction house — is expected to bring in as much as $569,000 on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Proceeds will assist with a rebranding of the restaurant. “We’re going to turn a page of our history together,” André Terrail, whose family has owned the Tour d’Argent since 1912, announced in late November. The proposed change comes as the restaurant has slid in ratings over the years. Once the proud holder of three Michelin stars, the most prestigious rating a restaurant can have, the Tour d’Argent was demoted to two stars in 1996 and then — in a true French scandale — down to just one in 2006. In a sense, Proust was the first to predict this. As the character Madame Verdurin remarks at one point in his multi-volume novel: “The Tour d’Argent is not nearly as good as they make out.” Truth be told, a demotion is not an altogether uncommon fate to befall a restaurant where what matters are the classics instead of the latest culinary fashions that tend to wow the critics and more adventurous clients. In the rarefied world of French cuisine, there can even be a sense of honor


In Japan and America, more and more people think Hiroshima bombing was wrong

of polls about public attitudes to the bombings in America and Japan. Bells tolled and thousands bowed their heads in prayer in Hiroshima on Thursday at ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing. In the first Gallup poll from 1945 just after the bombings, a huge 85 percent of Americans approved the bombings. However, figures from 2005 show a significant decline to 57 percent. Meanwhile, another poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press in the United States and Japan in 1991 found that 63 percent of Americans thought that the bombings were justified in a bid to end the war, while just 29 percent of Japanese did. When Pew followed up on that question in 2015, they found that the numbers of people who thought the bombings were justified had dropped in both America and Japan — to 56 percent among Americans and just 14 percent among Japanese. The total percentage of people who thought the bombings were unjustified stood at 79 percent in Japan, up from 64 percent in 1991. In America, those who thought they were unjustified rose to 34 percent, from 29 percent in 1991. The difference in viewpoints between the United States and Japan is obvious — one country dropped bombs on the other, after all — but there are also some more subtle things going on. Last year, WorldViews took a look at how the bombings were taught in countries all over the world. They have long been a major topic of study for Japanese and American children. But, in recent years, the way the bombings are taught to Americans has shifted, with more emphasis put on the bombs' human toll and not just the strategic value. "The textbook has walked away from this idea that it speaks with this omniscient voice and it tells you facts," Christopher Hamner, a history professor at George Mason University, told WorldViews. "Textbooks will have documents from both sides. They acknowledge that there are multiple perspectives." This change may have contributed to a generational shift seen in Pew's research: Just 47 percent of Americans 18 to 29 years old said the use of atomic weapons was justified when asked last year, compared to 70 percent of those 65 or older. John Kerry became the first U.S. secretary of state to pay his respects at Hiroshima's memorial to victims of the 1945 U.S. bombing. Ministers from


Invasive insects are ravaging U.S. forests, and it’s costing us billions

the American Chestnut Foundation. Such is the devastating power of a species invasion, and yet, the issue gets relatively little attention or resources. “The government responds to crises, like a forest fire, for sure,” Lovett says. “This is more of a slow-motion crisis. It’s probably the biggest threat to forest health in the country, but it unfolds very slowly, so it doesn’t get the attention that it deserves.” The highest concentration of invasive pests and diseases assails forests of the eastern and northeastern U.S., the research finds — where the chestnut once dominated, and where, more recently, an insect called the hemlock woolly adelgid is busy taking out hemlock trees. This, in turn, imperils bird habitats and clears the way for sometimes invasive plants to take root. And that’s still just the beginning — hemlocks extend their growth over streams, providing cooling from the sunlight, which in turn creates fish habitat. So in a classic case of cascading negative effects within an ecosystem, fish like trout are also damaged by the loss of hemlock. But it’s not just the east. The invaders are everywhere — white pine blister rust, for instance, kills a high altitude western species, whitebark pine, which is now in need of endangered species protection. The study also finds that the most economically impactful damage often occurs in cities, not in the countryside, when invasive pests and diseases take out urban trees, damaging home values and triggering large repair and replacement costs. And Lovett notes that these estimates don’t even include many of the less tangible forms of damage that occur in cities whose trees are killed by invaders (trees have been repeatedly shown to have beneficial effects on human physical and mental health). An accompanying report issued by the Cary Institute cites just one example of this type of urban impact. The city of Worcester, Mass., it notes, lost some 34,000 trees to the Asian longhorned beetle between 2008 and 2015. This, in turn, eroded at least five separate benefits provided by trees, the report suggests: Lowering energy costs (through shading), stowing away carbon, pulling pollution out of the air, cutting down on runoff of pollution-laden water during storms and increasing the value of homes. The research notes that the single most devastating insect invasion, so far, appears to be the Emerald ash borer, a colorful green beetle native to Asia that does exactly what its


The top 10 new restaurants in the D.C. area

So many great places to eat debuted in Washington over the past year that Tom Sietsema decided to rank them. Here are his favorite newcomers. The complete 2016 Spring Dining Guide publishes Wednesday. A fennel and absinthe bonbon at Pineapple and Pearls. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) 1. Pineapple and Pearls. Torchon of white mushroom at Kinship. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) 2. Kinship. Chef Cedric Maupillier greets little diner Colin DiZinno at Convivial. (Dayna Smith for The Washington Post) 3. Convivial. A few seats in the tiny Bad Saint overlook the open kitchen. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) 4. Bad Saint. Masseria is the first solo outing by chef Nicholas Stefanelli, foreground, facing right. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) 5. Masseria. A mezcal flight at Espita Mezcaleria. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) 6. Espita Mezcaleria. Salt cod fritters at Tail Up Goat. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post). 7. Tail Up Goat. Chef Jeremiah Langhorne preps food during dinner service at the Dabney. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) 8. The Dabney. Causitas (baked whipped potatoes with a variety of toppings and sauces) at Nazca, the upstairs portion of Nazca Mochica. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) 9. Nazca Mochica. Goat cheese and beet plin at Hank's Pasta Bar. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) 10. Hank's Pasta Bar. Related items: 2015 Fall Dining Guide Tom Sietsema's 2015 Fall Dining Guide, by the numbers $250 actually isn't bad for an all-inclusive tasting menu Hank's Pasta Bar makes 13 types of fresh pasta. Every. Single. Day. Why chefs are burning your food intentionally


The changing face of women’s political participation in the Middle East

and Alice Kang, has demonstrated the efficacy of gender quotas. Not only do quotas increase political representation, but, per Benstead’s argument, they also improve female citizens’ access to governmental resources. And although some argue that Western pressure for such quotas would only undermine their prospects, Sarah Bush and Amaney Jamal found little evidence for such an effect on popular perceptions. Although cynics might assume that women in Arab parliaments are merely a form of window dressing, Marwa Shalaby notes that while women make up 17 percent of the Moroccan parliament, they asked 58 percent of the total questions there. However, female MPs in Jordan, Kuwait and Morocco focused very little attention on issues explicitly related to women’s and children’s rights, instead prioritizing issues such as the economy and education. Given the significant limitations on women’s rights within the family, especially in Jordan and Kuwait, how do we explain female MPs’ relative lack of attention to this issue? Perhaps female MPs, like their male colleagues, have made a rational decision that they are best served by using their positions to work in areas where they can deliver services to their constituents. Mona Tajali shows how – often despite rather than because of their leaders’ intentions – Islamic parties in Iran and Turkey have actually created space for women, who may not otherwise be politically engaged, to rise to political office. In Iran, the political networks established by women during the 2009 Green Movement contributed to their electoral success in the 2016 parliamentary elections. There are now more women than clerics in the Iranian parliament, and it will be interesting to track how these representatives’ agendas compare with their Arab counterparts. Women’s rights and political aspirations are inextricably interwoven with other political struggles, shaped by local context more than by supposedly immutable cultural patterns. The research highlighted in POMEPS Studies 19 demonstrates the vibrancy of new scholarly efforts to examine the changing political horizons of women in the Middle East. Vickie Langohr is an associate professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross. Marc Lynch is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, where he is the director of the Project on Middle East Political Science. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Program and the co-director of the Blogs and Bullets project at the U.S. Institute of Peace.


Bison are our new national mammal. Here’s what you can and can’t do with them.

of hunting and eating bison. Calvelli said they've identified about 1 million acres of reservation land they want to bring bison onto for this purpose. Can't: Save all of them either National Park Service workers prod bison to load them onto a trailer at Yellowstone National Park for shipment to slaughter. (Matthew Brown/AP) Caretakers in Yellowstone, one of the largest U.S. habitats for bison, have to follow strict rules about keeping bison population in check. And, yes, that means they kill bison or send them to the slaughterhouses. From January to August 2015, some 200 bison that wandered off park grounds were rounded up and shot by hunters, reports The Post's Joby Warrick. Another 500 during that time frame were chased onto trucks by government workers and shipped to slaughterhouses, he writes. "It is hard to watch,” acknowledged Rick Wallen, Yellowstone’s lead wildlife biologist for bison, to Warrick. “But we do it as quickly and efficiently as possible.” There is an effort to rewrite the rules of how many bison can live where, but it's likely that culling will continue to be a regular part of the process to keep bison populations healthy. Can: Eat them Speaking of healthy, bison meat is apparently quite good for you. It's filled with iron and has a lower fat content and calorie count than other meat. And it's nearly universally declared delicious, even by some wildlife conservationists. "Biology did them a solid. They are incredibly resilient, and they taste good," said Calvelli, who copped to eating a bison steak. (Clay said he's had them before but prefers ground beef and turkey burgers.) In restaurants, grocery stores and at bison ranches across the nation, you can buy bison meat and cook it the way you would other meaty delicacies. Here's a listicle of the best bison meat recipes from Nebraska Bison. Can: Go see them After being hunted to the point of near extinction, Bison made a historic return to the Smithsonian's National Zoo in 2014. Animal keepers and curators discuss the animal's comeback. You can go visit Yellowstone, or you can just go to your local zoo. Bison are in zoos in 49 out of 50 states, including in Washington. For the first time in more than a century, the National Zoo welcomed back bison in 2014 — Wilma and Zora. Can't: Selfie with them Or more accurately, you most definitely should not.


Unraveling spiral: The most compelling global warming visualization ever made

animations that present an unmistakable picture of a warming world. But I’ve seen no visual as striking and effective as the infographic posted to Twitter Monday by climate scientist Ed Hawkins. (Ed Hawkins) Hawkins illustrates the warming in a series of circles, each one portraying a year in the historical climate record spanning 1850 and the present. As time passes and the planet warms, the circles expand outward. Together the circles are part of one unwinding spiral, which serves as a fitting metaphor for the long-term course of the Earth’s temperature. Individually, the circles behave somewhat erratically. At times, especially early in the record, the circles contract, conveying periods of cooling. There are also periods when the circles are packed close together, signifying little temperature change. But as time wears on, especially over the past few decades, you see more outward leaps, when climate warming is speeding up. Of particular interest is the most recent burst coincident with the temperature increase of 2016. It is clearly warmer than anything preceding it by some distance and approaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above the baseline average. The graphic plainly illustrates how unusual this year is in a long-term context, and it’s not difficult to see why climate scientists believe it is nearly certain to be the warmest year on record. Hawkins also created a more conventional chart, shown below, which is also extremely effective at showing how anomalous 2016 is. (Ed Hawkins) But the motion of the spiral animation makes it stand out among climate warming visualizations. It unambiguously shows the planet’s relentless march toward higher temperatures, but without losing the interesting complexity seen in the year-to-year movements. “The animated spiral presents global temperature change in a visually appealing and straightforward way,” Hawkins wrote on his blog, the Climate Lab Book. “The pace of change is immediately obvious, especially over the past few decades.” The animation uses global temperature data from the Hadley Centre of the United Kingdom’s Met Office. Below are some other visuals which, in my view, also do a good job illustrating global warming: Global warming in motion Earth's Long-Term Warming Trend, 1880-2015 (via NASA) Global warming in one chart NASA Produced by NASA, the chart illustrates how temperatures have compared to “normal” (or the 1951-1980 average) from 1880 to present, from pole to pole (-90 latitude to 90 latitude). Global warming in one bar graph (World Meteorological Organization)


NASA’s Kepler telescope confirms a record-breaking 1,284 new planets

This artist's concept depicts select planetary discoveries made to date by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. (W. Stenzel/NASA) NASA scientists announced 1,284 new exoplanets at a news conference on Tuesday — candidates found by the Kepler Space Telescope that have now been confirmed with 99 percent certainty. This is the largest dump of new planet discoveries in history, and it more than doubles the count of confirmed planets for the intrepid space telescope. On Monday, earthlings watched as Mercury passed between our planet and the sun, all three celestial bodies lining up in just the right way for Mercury to appear as a small black dot creeping over our bright host star. That phenomenon — one planet passing in front of its star, from the visual perspective of another planet — is known as a “transit.” And that’s how Kepler finds new, alien worlds. This animation shows how NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has been able to detect more than a thousand new planets. Kepler (which is technically broken, but still finds new planets in its second life as “K2”) tracks the subtle dimming of distant stars to detect possible planets that orbit them. It’s our best method for detecting exoplanets, even though it can only hunt down worlds that are set up to “transit” from Earth’s perspective. Even though the data collection of the K1 mission is over (W. Stenzel/NASA Ames) In a paper published Tuesday in the Astrophysical Journal, a team led by Princeton University’s Timothy Morton presents a new statistical method for calculating the likelihood that a given candidate is, in fact, a planet. Their analysis yielded 1,284 confirmations. Another 1,327 planets from the Kepler catalogue are almost certainly planets, according to the researchers, but these worlds don't reach the 99 percent probability threshold — so more study will be needed to adequately confirm their existence. The other 707 potential worlds are likely nonexistent, according to the analysis. Of the newly confirmed planets, nine are thought to be rocky planets (like Earth, as opposed to gas giants or tiny worlds made of ice) in the habitable zone — meaning that they’re the right distance from their host stars to potentially host liquid water, a necessary ingredient for life as we know it. “Planet candidates can be thought of like bread crumbs,” Morton said in a statement. “If you drop a few large crumbs on the floor, you can pick


Leesburg’s Crooked Run wins gold medal at World Beer Cup, plans new brewery

Crooked Run Brewing's cozy Leesburg taproom is open Wednesday through Sunday. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) Two Washington-area brewers won medals last week at the 2016 World Beer Cup, an international blind-tasting competition with almost 6,600 entries from 1,907 breweries representing 55 countries. Crooked Run Brewing "I had a reasonable amount of confidence we'd do well," Jake Endres, the co-founder of Crooked Run, says. "A lot of competition is figuring out which category to enter your beers. … We don't brew to style very much, so it's hard for us to enter beers." The catch-all "Other Belgian-Style Ale" category seemed a good fit for Supernatural, a bright-pink imperial saison whose tart white wine character hides an ABV over 10 percent. It was created by Brad Erickson, who is 26 and the youngest member of the Crooked Run team. Endres says Crooked Run will be brewing another batch of Supernatural soon, and will have it on tap at the brewery and in large bottles to go by July. (It will hit taps before bottles, he says.) [Like beer? You'll love Leesburg] But Supernatural's victory is only one piece of good news for the Crooked Run team: Endres and his partner Lee Rogan plan to open a new 10-barrel brewery facility in Northern Virginia this fall, which will more than triple their capacity. Endres says they've been looking around Sterling, and hope to have a lease finalized in the new few weeks. Right now, Crooked Run can only brew batches of three barrels, or the equivalent of six kegs at a time. Stepping up to a 10-barrel system will allow Crooked Run to send more beers out to bars, as well as focus on bottling. "We want to go big on bombers and bottles," Endres says. "Distribution for us is more advertising than where we'll do a majority of our sales." Starting in early 2017, he predicts, more Crooked Run beers will be on tap around Northern Virginia and into D.C. The current Leesburg brewpub, in Market Station, will remain intact, and be used exclusively for making sour beers. While 10 barrels is a step up, it's still small compared to other breweries – especially those who sell their beers in supermarkets or beer stores, so Endres says that Crooked Run might continue to contract brew certain beers at a larger facility; Crooked Run has used Beltway Brewing Company in Sterling,


Greg Jaffe wins Gerald R. Ford Prize

From Deputy Political Editor Terence Samuel, Senior National Political Editor Steven Ginsburg and National Editor Scott Wilson: We are thrilled to announce that Greg Jaffe has won the 2015 Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, among the most prestigious awards given for Washington reporting. The judges cited Greg’s “even-handed, analytical coverage” and his ability “to muster a variety of sources inside and outside the White House, both critical and admiring, to explain the President’s evolving view of the proper role for American intervention in world conflicts.” Greg’s entry included some of the most ambitious work produced by the National staff last year and the result was a revealing portrait of the Obama presidency. Whether exploring the president’s obsession with America’s war dead or assessing his meditations on the nation’s racial history, Greg found ways to tell the big story about the person and his presidency. “These well-sourced reports gave his readers remarkable insight into the president’s inspiration and unique approach that often disrupted conventional political thinking,” the judges said. All the more remarkable, Greg receives the award after just his first year on the White House assignment. Winning this year’s prize puts Greg in rarefied company. He is now a three-time Gerald Ford Prize winner. In 2002, Greg won the Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal and again in 2009 as a Pentagon reporter for The Post. The prizes are administered by the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation “to recognize and encourage thoughtful, insightful, and enterprising work by journalists covering the presidency and national defense.” Please join us in congratulating Greg on this well-deserved honor.


Video shows smoldering, burst of sparks on tracks at Court House Metro station

Video posted to Snapchat showed what appeared to be a smoldering rail joint at the Courthouse Metro station on Tuesday. Footage from the Court House Metro station Tuesday morning shows a smoldering piece of rail equipment, followed by a burst of sparks, the latest in a series of electrical incidents in the system. Tony Lyons, 22, said he was waiting for an Orange or Silver line train to take him to Federal Triangle at 6:48 a.m. when he noticed a “red-hot piece of rail” near the end of the tracks. Lyons’ footage shows the smoldering red equipment followed by a small burst that shoots sparks onto the tracks. As you can see in the video, Lyons jumps as sparks burst from the equipment. “I was freaked out,” said Lyons, who lives in Arlington and works for a construction firm in D.C. “It was kind of weird watching infrastructure fail before my very eyes.” Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said repairs were made to address the problem during the midday hours. He said trains were single-tracked around the Courthouse area from noon to 3 p.m. The issue was related to a rail joint, he said. During the repairs, Orange Line trains shared a track between Clarendon and Foggy Bottom while Silver Line trains terminated at Ballston. Late last week, an arcing insulator and fire prompted the shutdown of Federal Center SW station and disrupted service on three lines. In that incident, footage showed a fireball erupting from the third rail. On Saturday, the Federal Transit Administration — citing the agency’s botched response to that fire — issued emergency safety directives to the agency, including requiring that all employees be trained in proper procedures for handling such incidents. Footage from a security camera at the Federal Center SW Metro station captured a fire that happened on the tracks. The fire was caused by an arcing insulator.


Foxx: We aren’t afraid to shut down Metro for safety

Footage from a security camera at the Federal Center SW Metro station captured a fire that happened on the tracks. The fire was caused by an arcing insulator. At least twice in the last month, federal officials have threatened to shut down the Metro system if the transit agency failed to take action to keep passengers safe. The most recent incident to elicit that threat came last Thursday after an arcing insulator exploded near a platform at Federal Center SW. The explosion, a fireball followed by a shower of sparks, was captured by Metro’s security cameras. On Tuesday, at a sit down with reporters, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx described his reaction to the video. “It was a scary video,” he said. But even more worrisome was Metro’s conduct following the incident, Foxx said. In addition to returning that stretch of track to regular passenger service, Metro officials blocked federal inspectors from examining the damage for several hours. Metro officials only shut down that stretch of track, closing two stations, after a second smoke incident, caused by debris along the track, at the same station later that afternoon. The incident prompted Federal Transit Administration officials on Saturday to issue a series of emergency directives to Metro, once again threatening to shut down all or parts of the nation’s second-busiest subway system unless it took urgent action. Foxx said he would not hesitate to take such action if Metro officials fail to heed basic safety practices. “I could go on for a long time detailing Metro’s problems,” Foxx said. “The culture of safety is not where we want to see it.” In April, acting FTA Administrator Carolyn Flowers also threatened to shut down Metro down after a track fire on the Red Line near the Friendship Heights station sent smoke pouring into a Metro tunnel Apr. 23. Two days later, officials blamed the problems on a “foreign object” that made contact with the electrified third rail. “Following FTA’s track integrity blitz and a series of recent incidents since April 23, FTA identified numerous safety defects along a segment of the Red Line,” Flowers said in a statement to The Post earlier this month. “Those included multiple locations of water intrusion, track structure and traction power issues, which we determined needed immediate attention. I conveyed to General Manager Paul Wiedefeld on April 27 that if WMATA did not take immediate action, FTA was


Why Budweiser is the last beer that should call itself ‘America’

demand for beer in a nation best known, libation-wise, for whiskey. Second, beer tastes best fresh, and shipping it all that far just wasn’t an option before innovations such as the aluminum can, refrigeration and the interstate highway system, never mind the preservatives now used by macro-producers. America lost this focus on freshly made, locally distinct beer beginning with Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s. The picture became even fuzzier after repeal, which launched an arms race among the biggest surviving breweries, including Anheuser-Busch. By the 1970s, it and four other breweries produced more than half of the nation’s beer. Analysts were predicting that only one or two American breweries would remain by 2000. That, of course, did not happen. Right around the time AB and its nearest competitors were starting to carve up the national beer market like a game of Risk, much smaller operations (call them craft or micro) began arising — first in California, then in Colorado and New York state, then everywhere. Some of this happened because of a sharp per-barrel excise tax cut in 1976, some because of the legalization of home-brewing two years later. A lot of breweries also appeared because pockets of Americans were simply getting fed up with the tepid fizz that AB and its rivals were cranking out. Many a home-brewer has turned pro since the 1970s. Today, there are more breweries in the United States than ever before — more than 4,100 — making a kaleidoscope of styles and style iterations. The vast majority brew fewer than 6 million barrels annually (a barrel equals about two full-size kegs). Even larger micro or craft breweries such as Yuengling and the Boston Beer Co., which makes Sam Adams, produce far less each year than the tens of millions of barrels AB InBev produces just for the United States. Many beermakers brew only for their surrounding markets, a return to the local focus AB InBev did so much to dismantle (it is still doing so, with a recent spate of craft-brewery acquisitions and subsequent expansions of those brands’ reach). All brew using more traditional ingredients and techniques. More often than not, the resultant beers are bold, distinct and strong. In other words: American. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post stated that SAB Miller had taken over Molson Coors. In fact, they formed MillerCoors, a joint venture limited to the U.S. market.


Some thoughts on the Brexit debate

also depends on what the EU and Britain might do if Brexit is defeated. The European Union has gone through some very difficult crises in recent years, and it is hard to say how it will develop in the future. Like most other federalism and international relations scholars, I am struck by the fact that the EU is in so many ways different from other political institutions that exist today, or in the recent past. It is neither a fully sovereign federal state like the US or Canada, nor a conventional alliance or international organization, like NATO or the UN. That makes it very difficult to predict its future course, since there is so little relevant comparative evidence. Such a unique institution could end up following a path that not even the most sophisticated experts can foresee. Another source of uncertainty is that British withdrawal from the EU could potentially lead Scotland to secede from from the United Kingdom. The consequences of that are also highly uncertain, for reasons I outlined during the runup to the 2014 Scottish secession referendum. II. A (Very) Tentative Case Against Brexit. As a libertarian and free market advocate, I tentatively lean against Brexit, siding with the pro-EU libertarians against their critics. For all its genuine flaws, the European Union (and the European Community before it) has two great achievements to its credit: establishing free trade and free migration over a vast area. That has made many millions of people freer and vastly better off than they might be otherwise. Brexit would significantly imperil both accomplishments. Some British free market advocates contend that a post-Brexit Britain could simply sign bilateral agreements on trade and migration with the EU, thereby preserving the beneficial aspects of the status quo, while freeing Britain of EU-imposed regulations. This could indeed happen. But there is reason for skepticism. In the aftermath of Brexit, nationalist public opinion, interest group pressure, and other forces could easily undermine any potential agreement, or at least make the flow of people and goods far less free than it was before. Especially when it comes to migration, many Brexit advocates regard increased barriers between nations as a feature rather than a bug. It is one of the main reasons why they want to leave the EU in the first place. A successful Brexit campaign would probably strengthen these forces, and make it harder to reestablish free


Main Street Morning: Uber piloting wheelchair-accessible vehicles

Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images Welcome to Main Street Morning, The Washington Post’s daily collection of news affecting entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses with a special focus on policy and government. Here’s what’s affecting my small business, my clients and other entrepreneurs today. Washington - GOP members of the Senate launch an inquiry into Facebook’s news curation. - The U.S. Transportation Secretary says he seriously considered shutting down the DC metro last week. - Obama will be the first sitting President to visit Hiroshima and officially makes the American bison the national mammal of the United States. - What the new trade secrets law means for U.S. companies. The Economy - This is what Janet Yellen’s favorite indicator is saying about the economy. - Small business sentiment rises to halt a three-month slide, according to a monthly index. - Wholesale trade showed mixed sales and inventories data in March. The Elections - Peter Thiel is backing Trump – and he’s a delegate. - Cruz may be leaving the door open to re-entering the White House race. - This is the one big problem none of the candidates are talking about. - Most small business owners are still undecided on a Presidential candidate – but many have a thing for Trump. - A dating site is pairing Americans fleeing a possible Trump presidency with single Canadians, People - Small business owners like Gen-X employees twice as much as Millennials, according to a survey. - Why Uber is doing something halfway decent for its drivers. - These restaurant employees should probably stop mocking customers on their tabs. - What to do about the over-use of non-compete agreements. Management - JC Penney surpassed its quarterly profit target and expands its appliance business. - The independent bookstore business grows for the seventh straight year. - Why another plunge in sales for Gap could be bad news for Banana Republic and Old Navy. - How Stripe’s CEO turned his daily frustrations into a billion-dollar business. - Dean Foods announces it will buy Friendly’s ice cream. - The premium cigar industry plans a fight against new U.S. tobacco rules. Entrepreneurs - This company makes fake human eyeballs an art form. Restaurants - Joe’s Crab Shack cuts back on its no-tipping test. Sales Marketing - Budweiser says it will rename its beer “America” through the election. Finance - Wells Fargo launches a new small business loan program. - This


Tom Sietsema’s 2016 Spring Dining Guide now available

Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post The Washington Post Magazine today released its seventh annual Spring Dining Guide, in which food critic Tom Sietsema revisits 20 restaurants he’s previously taste-tested and rates them anew. New to this year’s guide is a list of Sietsema’s top 10 favorite newcomers in the Washington-area. Readers can browse through restaurant reviews, star-ratings, prices and locations. The Spring Dining Guide is online and will be available in the May 15 issue of The Washington Post Magazine. Reviews from the 2016 Spring Dining Guide: - Lunch arrives, and I take a bite of food capable of creating lines outside the place on weekend nights. The chili half-smoke at Ben’s Chili Bowl is, alas, just as I remember it: awful. - A sure path to happiness at owner Youssef Eagle Essakl’s Bistro L’Hermitage is to ask for an order of escargots served with velvety mushrooms in a copper pan; segue to herbed roast chicken flanked with thick housemade fries; and linger over something sweet. - There’s no more arresting seafood carpaccio in the city than Fiola‘s pink brick of Himalayan salt carpeted with sliced Maine scallops, pansies and a smear of ramp pesto. And I can’t stop dreaming about winey osso buco tucked into tender tortellini and garnished, grandly, with glazed sweetbreads. Number one on the list of the year’s 10 best new restaurants is Pineapple and Pearls by Aaron Silverman, who recently won a James Beard Award for his work at Rose’s Luxury. The complete list of new restaurants is available here.


Why scientists are making polar bears’ poop glitter

(Carmen Jaspersen/Reuters) Stephen Petersen, head of conservation and research at the International Polar Bear Conservation Centre, hadn't done much work with glittery poop before working with the Assiniboine Park Zoo. "I'm fairly new to the zoo world," he told The Post. "Zookeepers are all familiar with this idea, but I was like, 'Wow, this is awesome.' " Indeed, glitter is often used to make animal scat easier to keep track of, especially in zoo settings. At Assiniboine Park Zoo, Petersen and his colleagues use it to help them tell whose poos are whose. Each juvenile bear that arrives at the zoo gets assigned a color, and zookeepers mix the glitter into their meat patties. That way, when they examine the resulting poop, they can connect it to a bear. "With food colorings, you know, it was either red, which made it look like the animals were eating beets or had some kind of internal problem, or it just got metabolized," Petersen explained. But even glitter that's safe to eat will stay intact in a polar bear's digestive system. This might already be done with animals at your local zoo. You probably wouldn't know it, because (disappointingly) the practice doesn't turn enclosures into glittering rainbows. "People aren't usually close enough to see poo sparkling in the sunshine," Petersen said with a laugh. But in this case, all that glittering poop yields a goldmine of data: Researchers start by analyzing the stress hormones of young bears during their first few months at the zoo, looking for spikes that might indicate they should treat the cubs differently. "We can see how the things we do affect stress hormones that appear in the scat, and that tells us what we can do better the next time we get new cubs," Petersen explained. Petersen and other scientists track the bears' hormonal levels using the scat. It's much less invasive than collecting the same information using blood draws – and easier to accomplish when studying wild bears. By monitoring hormonal levels and fluctuations in bears living in captivity, the scientists can figure out what benchmarks to look for when they collect scat from bears in the wild. "We could look at progesterone and see if they’re pregnant females, or look at testosterone to see if it’s a young or mature male," Petersen said. One of his long-term projects involves collecting hair and scat from wild bear


Susan Rice condemns those who ‘deride our diversity,’ says immigrants are essential to U.S. security

President Obama talks to National Security Adviser Susan Rice last month in Washington. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Susan Rice, the president’s national security adviser, spoke out Wednesday against those in American politics who have called for barring refugees based on their religion and said the United States needs a more diverse foreign policy workforce to address the national security challenges facing the country. Rice, who previously served as President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, addressed the graduating class at Florida International University in Miami. Her remarks offered insight into the case the White House will make this fall against Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. “To those who deride our diversity, my answer is: I see why it matters every day, in those who protect this country and grapple with the toughest global issues we face,” said Rice, who didn’t mention Trump. The likely GOP nominee has called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants to the United States. Rice spoke briefly of the innovative spirit that immigrants bring. “We see it in America’s businesses, where many of our most successful companies were started or grown by immigrants — think Apple, created by Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant from Homs,” she said. But much of her address focused on the need for a more diverse foreign policy workforce to defend and represent the country abroad. Minorities account for nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population but make up only 20 percent of the country’s senior diplomats, she said. Even in the military, which has long been praised for the diversity in its ranks, less than 15 percent of senior military and senior intelligence officers are minorities. Obama recently has spoken with concern about the lack of minorities among the top ranks in the military. “The U.S. military, interestingly, has probably done as good of a job as any institution in our society when it comes to integration and bringing diverse people in, but, as you go up the ranks, you start seeing that it becomes less and less reflective of the broader population and the troops, the men and women in uniform who are coming in,” Obama said last month at a speech at the University of Chicago. Obama’s remarks followed a meeting with his senior commanders in the White House, all of whom are white. “We had a really interesting conversation about what’s happening?”


Elon Musk’s most ambitious idea is taking one step closer to reality

that levitates on a small cushion of air. Then, when the car closes, all or most of the other air is taken out of the tunnel, reducing the drag and friction that would otherwise build up in front of the car, slowing you down as it traveled. One of the most important parts of this notional machine is the electric motor that sucks excess air from the front of the car and transfers it to the rear. In a test run lasting just a matter of seconds, Hyperloop Technologies — one of the leading groups competing to make Musk's open-sourced idea a reality — is expected to demo its linear electric motor, which will propel a rail-mounted train car roughly 1,500 feet down a track. According to Hyperloop Tech chief executive Rob Lloyd, the motor was custom-designed and tailored specifically for the project. "The amount of energy it uses, the way we control the pulses, the copper coils, everything is unique," Lloyd said in an interview. "There's no other motor in the world that uses this amount of energy in an instant fashion, turning it on and turning it off." Of course, the real Hyperloop won't have tracks at all. But as a proof of concept, Hyperloop Tech says the demo represents a taste of what's to come. "This is a full scale component. This is the technology," Lloyd said. Hyperloop Tech is one of several companies trying to build the first functional Hyperloop. For instance, it's in a race against Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which is doing its testing in California and on Monday unveiled its "passive levitation" technology, which allows the transportation pod to float only while it's moving, theoretically improving safety. (Hyperloop Tech runs its testbed in Nevada). Conceding that the two companies are often confused for each other, Lloyd said that his firm will now be known as Hyperloop One. Hyperloop One said that GE Ventures, the venture capital arm of General Electric, will become an investor. Also investing is SNCF, France's state-owned rail company, which wants to study Hyperloop technology for applications in Europe. "I anticipate building many Hyperloops in Europe," Lloyd said. First, the company will have to pass its biggest test yet: producing a fully functioning demo by the end of the year that includes not just the motor, but also the tubes, levitation and the car that travels inside it. No pressure. Literally.


This scientist just changed how we think about climate change with one GIF

levels stay high. Clearly, the 1.5 degree threshold is even closer. If global warming appears to burst outward toward the end of the animation, that’s for two reasons, says Hawkins. The first is that from the 1950s through the 1970s, scientists believe that sulfate aerosols from air pollution helped counter the warming effects of carbon dioxide and keep the planet, temporarily, cooler than it might have been otherwise. But when that pollution was cleared away, around the 1970s, a sharper warming trend began. “The warming from the greenhouse gases emerged, and you can see that in the animation, you can see the sudden increase in the rate of change, around that point,” says Hawkins. And then there’s the second pulse — the 1998 El Nino, followed by this year’s powerful El Nino, seem to have represented a kind of step change, in which temperatures burst upward (or in this case, outward) and then stay at or around a new plateau. “Because there was quite a large change in 1998, with the big El Nino event, that was the first year that steps outside the previous boundary, and that was quite a large spike that year,” Hawkins says. “And you see a similar step outwards now in 2016.” It certainly doesn’t hurt that, as a researcher and blogger, Hawkins is somewhat of a stickler for really good visual representations of scientific results. He even previously wrote a letter to the editor to Nature criticizing rainbow color scales, which he considers not only misleading, but also “illegible to the 8% of the male and 0.4% of the female population who are colour blind.” “Accurate graphics are key to clear communication of scientific results to other researchers and the public — an issue that is becoming ever more important,” he wrote then. Those words, although written in another context, now seem to presage what Hawkins would later create. Images of consumption are the theme of the book, “Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot.” It addresses environmental deterioration through subjects including materialism, consumption, pollution, fossil fuels and carbon footprints. Read more at Energy Environment: WHO: Global air pollution is worsening, and poor countries are being hit the hardest Invasive insects are ravaging U.S. forests, and it’s costing us billions Scientists say chemicals from fracking wastewater can taint fresh water nearby For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.


Tom Sietsema’s 2016 Spring Dining Guide, by the numbers

Chestnut tiramisu at Fiola, the highest-rated restaurant in Tom Sietsema's Spring Dining Guide. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Tom Sietsema's 2016 Spring Dining Guide is here. In this year's roundup, The Post's food critic revisits 20 previously reviewed restaurants and also ranks his 10 favorite new restaurants of the previous year. [2016 Spring Dining Guide] We've analyzed and re-analyzed the guide in search of interesting facts and patterns. Here's what we found: // // 0 4 // // 4 6 4 8 // // 87 64 14 4 1 Related items: 2016 Spring Dining Guide The top 10 new restaurants in the D.C. area 2015 Fall Dining Guide Tom Sietsema's 2015 Fall Dining Guide, by the numbers 2015 Spring Dining Guide


Watch kids’ toys explain why killing wolves might be a bad idea

threat to human safety,” which, he said, is “exceedingly rare.” The study is likely to fuel debate over wolf management in the United States, which is already a very controversial topic involving federal and state wildlife managers, scientists, conservationists, Native Americans, ranchers and even pet owners. L. David Mech, a wolf expert and biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said he has heard ranchers and farmers say “over and over again” that having permission to defend livestock from wolves would lead to a decrease in poaching. That’s anecdotal evidence too weak to build a policy on, he said. But Mech said he was not convinced that the new study is stronger, because it didn’t base its conclusions on poaching data but rather by eliminating other possibilities for lower wolf population growth. He added that wolf culls have not harmed populations in other states. “On one side, we have this information that’s anecdotal but weak, and on the other side we have some inferences that are based on some data but not direct empirical data, and that’s weak,” Mech said. “So we’re left with nothing really definitive yet.” Jeremy Bruskotter, an associate professor at Ohio State University’s school of environment and natural resources, said he thought the authors did “due diligence” in considering and dismissing other potential reasons wolf population growth dropped. The study’s conclusions appear to be strong for Wisconsin and Michigan, he said. But it’s not clear that culling would have the same effects elsewhere, Bruskotter said. “How applicable is that to Norway or Spain or another country or another animal?” said Bruskotter, who studies human-wildlife conflict and wildlife management. “The government is going to be perceived differently, the policy is going to be perceived differently, even predators are going to be perceived differently.” Bruskotter agreed with the authors, however, that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has often failed to deeply evaluate the effects and public perceptions of their policies. “They don’t have psychologists and sociologists and anthropologists on their staff, and I think what we’re seeing increasingly is that the threats to species ultimately reside with human behavior,” Bruskotter said. “What goes on in people’s minds is very relevant.” Read more Death at Yellowstone: Feds probe killing of ‘Scarface,’ the park’s most famed grizzly One man’s wild idea for saving rhinos: Airlifting them to Australia The government just made it harder to buy a tiger in America


Google to ban payday loan advertisements

Google search. But the ads that appear on the top and right-hand side of a search results page will not show marketing from the payday lending industry beginning on July 13. "We’ll continue to review the effectiveness of this policy, but our hope is that fewer people will be exposed to misleading or harmful products," Google global product policy director David Graff said in a blog post about the change. Washington regulators, as well as a handful of states, have been trying to limit the activities of payday lenders by capping how much they can charge consumers in an interest rate. But the decisions by tech giants Facebook and Google – the two biggest websites on the planet – might have as much impact as any single regulation in restricting access to payday lenders. Industry officials, speaking generally of advertising restrictions placed on payday lenders, called the policies “discriminatory,” adding that some consumers may need access to the short-term loans if they can’t get credit them through a traditional bank. “Facebook and others are making a blanket assessment about the payday lending industry rather than discerning the good actors from the bad actors,” the Community Financial Services Association of America, a payday lending trade group, said in a statement. “This is unfair towards those that are legal, licensed lenders.” Millions of low-income Americans use the short-term loans to get cash quickly while planning to repay their balance once they get their next paycheck. But all too often, borrowers get caught in a vicious cycle where fees quickly mount and annual interest rates can be in the triple-digits. In many cases, this debt drama plays out online -- and starts with a search query. "You search the internet when you need help -- and as a result you may give search engines some really sensitive information about your finances," explained Alvaro Bedoya, the executive director of Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy & Technology. When those desperate searches return targeted ads for payday loans, lenders end up profiting from the weaknesses those people have shared, he said. But once a borrower has committed to an online payday loan, they may end up facing unexpected financial risks. According to a recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau analysis, half of borrowers who took out online payday loans were later hit with an average of $185 worth of bank fees or penalties when a lender submitted


Watch the first-ever public demo of Elon Musk’s crazy transportation idea

(Joshua Caldwell / Cryptic Butterfly Photography / Hyperloop One) Engineers working for Hyperloop One have just tested a key technology that could someday help us travel as fast on the ground as airliners do in the air. At a sneak peek in the Las Vegas desert Wednesday, Hyperloop One showed off a newly designed electric motor that's capable of propelling a sled down a track for hundreds of feet. Here it is in action: WATCH! Test successful! #hyperloop #8NN pic.twitter.com/sN7uFxmGQe That spray of sand you see at the end there is meant to help slow the vehicle down. The real Hyperloop won't be using sandbeds or rails, of course. The final product — a small version of which will be tested by year's end, according to Hyperloop One — will feature a levitating car inside a tunnel. Changes in air pressure inside the tunnel will help reduce drag, making it possible for the car to travel hundreds of miles per hour — covering the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco, say, in roughly 30 minutes.


Deadly Texas fertilizer facility fire, explosion in 2013 intentionally set, ATF says

crater left behind was 93 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Doors and roofs were blown off homes Federal investigators later said that the fire and explosion were preventable and that the company, as well as local, state and federal agencies, had failed to identify and avoid a potential hazard. According to preliminary findings from the Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency that investigates chemical accidents at industrial facilities, volunteer firefighters from West were unaware that the ammonium nitrate stored at the facility constituted another explosion hazard, and that meant they were placed in harm’s way during the blast. A dozen of the people killed in the explosion were emergency responders. “These individuals were people serving their community in a volunteer capacity,” Robert Elder, special agent in charge of the ATF’s Houston field division, said at the news conference Wednesday. “They are true community servants. They lost their life serving their community and they deserve the best that we can give them.” "It is our highest priority to give victims of this tragedy an accurate explanation of what happened that day" in West, ATF Houston SAC The explosion in West, about 80 miles south of Dallas, was devastating. In a final report issued earlier this year, federal investigators said the blast demolished the facility and sent more than 260 people to nearby hospitals for treatment. They also said that as of January, three possible causes for the fire and subsequent explosion were still being considered: Intentional arson, a short circuit in a golf cart and faulty wiring. A timeline laid out by federal investigators indicated that someone had called 911 to report a sign of fire at about 7:29 p.m. The explosion followed at 7:51 p.m., and most of the people killed in the episode died from blunt force trauma, blast force injuries or fractures, officials said. One of the people killed lived at the nursing home, while two of the people killed lived at an apartment complex; the other 12 people killed were emergency responders. The people who survived the blast emerged with cuts, traumatic brain injuries, eye injuries and a variety of other wounds. Further reading: Investigators said the fire and explosion were preventable This developing story has been updated. It originally referred to the West facility as a plant, which is how the ATF referenced it today, but we have amended it to call it a facility.


SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth

A SpaceX Dragon capsule headed back to Earth on Wednesday filled with more than 3,700 pounds of experiment results and cargo from the International Space Station. SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft landed softly in the Pacific Ocean at 2:51 p.m. eastern time, returning 3,700 pounds of cargo from the International Space Station. SpaceX launched Dragon to the station in April in a mission that saw it land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a ship at sea. But the real intent was to ferry supplies to and from the orbiting laboratory. In the thimble-shaped capsule, SpaceX returned several science experiments, including the final batch of research samples from NASA astronaut Scott Kelly's nearly one-year mission in space. The science will show how humans react to long durations in space. Dragon recovery team on site after nominal splashdown in Pacific. https://t.co/824c3YpaYG The Dragon also carried the spacesuit worn by astronaut Tim Kopra during a spacewalk in January. The spacewalk ended early after Kopra discovered a small water bubble inside his helmet. The Dragon splashed down about 261 miles southwest of Long Beach, Calif.


Researchers document troubling rise in strokes in young adults, starting at age 25

boy last year. “Three months later, I was back at the gym training with a client when I suddenly began to feel a numbing sensation,” she says. “My words began to slur, and I quickly realized I was having another stroke — but I couldn’t get the words out.” Luckily, the manager of her gym noticed the warning signs and called 911. Within an hour she was given the clot-busting drug tPA. Because of the early intervention, her recovery this time was quick. She was back at home and resuming her normal routine within a week. While doctors still don’t know the cause of her two strokes, Zalewski says she believes it has to do with her pregnancies. “My advice to young mothers is to pay close attention to your own health, too,” says Zalewski. “As women we often take care of everyone else ﬁrst — let my story be the lesson of the devastating consequences that can come from putting yourself last.” May is National Stroke Awareness Month. As Catherine Zalewski’s story shows, strokes are highly treatable if you act fast. The American Stroke Association teaches the acronym FAST to help you quickly spot a stroke and take quick action: - Face drooping. Does one side of the face droop or is it numb? Ask the person to smile. Is the person's smile uneven? - Arm weakness. Is one arm weak or numb? Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward? - Speech difﬁculty. Is speech slurred? Is the person unable to speak or hard to understand? Ask the person to repeat a simple sentence, like "The sky is blue." Is the sentence repeated correctly? - Time to call 911. If someone shows any of these symptoms, even if the symptoms go away, call 911 and get the person to the hospital immediately. Check the time so you'll know when the ﬁrst symptoms appeared. Read more: IN DEPTH: Sean Parker, Silicon Valley’s bad boy genius, wants to kick the *!$% out of cancer $250 million, 300 scientists and 40 labs: Sean Parker’s revolutionary project to ‘solve’ cancer There’s a new sheriff in town in Silicon Valley — the FDA Researchers: Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States Teen birthrate hits all-time low, led by 50 percent decline among Hispanics and blacks ‘Looming catastrophe’: These 7 emergency surgeries account for 80 percent


Chinese media to British media: Learn some manners, you narcissistic barbarians

Shrugging off Queen Elizabeth II's complaints about the rudeness of Chinese officials, an influential Chinese newspaper responded by attacking the British media for making such a fuss about the story. The queen was caught on camera at a garden party this week lamenting how Chinese officials had been “very rude” to the British ambassador last year — walking out of a meeting to discuss arrangements for President Xi Jinping’s state visit. The nationalist state-owned Global Times newspaper said relations between the two countries would not be damaged by the incident, arguing that a new "golden era" in ties was unshakable. But it said some frictions were only to be expected as ties deepened. "It is not a big deal to complain in private," the newspaper said. "Chinese diplomats surely also complained about British officials privately." The British media, though, had blown the incident out of all proportion, it argued, treating the story like a “precious treasure.” "The reckless gossip-fiends in the media there, narcissistic and baring their fangs, seemingly retain vestiges of the inelegance of barbarians," the paper said. "But with constant exposure to 5,000 years of continuous Eastern civilization, we believe they will make progress," it said in an editorial published in Chinese, but not in the paper’s English-language edition. On Chinese social media, users argued that the queen was also rude to have complained, while some recalled a less rosy era in relations. "Don't you remember how your ancestors invaded us rudely?" one asked. Britain is still remembered here less than fondly for the 19th century Opium Wars that forced China to accept opium imports from British-ruled India and to cede Hong Kong to Britain and many treaty ports to foreign powers. "Yes we're rude, but we're rich," another wrote. Coverage of the queen's remarks was initially blacked out on BBC World, the British broadcaster reported, although it was easily available online. Writing in Britain's Guardian newspaper, Mary Dejevsky said it was clear that the incident involving British Ambassador Barbara Woodward still “rankled” the queen. “Was this (a) a diplomatic gaffe, (b) an attempt to send a message to the Chinese or (c) a statement of fact? Perhaps all three,” she said. “But it is hard to argue, as some have tried to do, that it was of no importance.” “For the rest of us, there is some satisfaction to be drawn perhaps from the glimpse behind the


The Daily 202: Jack Kemp’s ghost haunts Paul Ryan as he agonizes over Donald Trump

PowerPost's morning newsletter.With contributions from Breanne Deppisch (@b_deppy) and Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) Sign up to receive the newsletter. WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: -- Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff was impeached this morning and will be suspended from office after senators voted overwhelmingly to put her on trial for allegedly breaking budget laws. Pitcher Max Scherzer (right) celebrates with catcher Wilson Ramos last night after matching a significant MLB record. (Photo by John McDonnell/The Washington Post) -- Max Scherzer last night gained admittance to an exclusive three-man club of pitchers to strike out 20 in a nine-inning game. -- A U.S missile defense site in Romania aimed at protecting Europe from ballistic missile threats is going to become operational in the next few hours. Chinese military vehicles ferry DF-26 ballistic missiles. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool) -- A U.S. government report warns that the Chinese military is expending an increasing amount of resources on ballistic missiles in order to hit U.S. assets on Guam in the event of a conflict. -- The federal government has reportedly launched an investigation into gender discrimination in Hollywood, George Zimmerman (AP Photo/Orlando Sentinel, Joe Burbank, Pool, File) -- George Zimmerman is auctioning off the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old unarmed black teenager, in 2012. A Beijing woman looks at her phone as Chinese Paramilitary police wear masks to protect against pollution as they stand guard in a smoggy Tiananmen Square. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) GET SMART FAST: - Fresh World Health Organization data reveals a spike in global air pollution, hitting poor city dwellers hardest. (Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis) - The middle class is shrinking almost everywhere in America. A new Pew report shows middle-income declines are playing out across virtually all communities, including major cities such as Washington, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. (Emily Badger) - Delegates at theTexas GOP's upcoming convention will vote on whether the official party platform should call for the state to secede. A plank calling for independence passed a special committee yesterday. “It is not expected to pass (on the floor), but represents a substantial achievement for proponents of a Lone Star nation.” (Houston Chronicle) - The ex-South Carolina cop who fatally shot Walter Scott as he fled a traffic stop was indicted by a federal grand jury. The officer was charged with multiple civil rights violations and obstruction of justice. (Mark Berman and