Your online guide to Jim Webb

A conversation with my editor: And so: Part 18 in a series: Your online guide to the presidential candidates. Each time someone decides to run, we'll do something similar, helping you navigate the online world around each candidate. (Part 1: Ted Cruz. The basics Full name: Top Google hits for searches for "Jim Webb": Google autofill for his name: Jim Webb (age 69) has written a number of books. However ... Google autofill for his name plus "is": ... "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress" is not one of them. That is a book by the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein. But that's not why it comes up in the search. The search "Moon's a Harsh Mistress" refers to the song that took the name of the book, a song by one Jimmy Webb. Jimmy Webb THE MOON'S A HARSH MISTRESS Here is the thing about Jim Webb. "Jim Webb" is a very common name, and Jim Webb, the candidate, doesn't not have the heaviest online footprint. So we're going to see a lot of "oh, wait, wrong Jim Webb" for the next few minutes. Enjoy! Campaign Web site: Oh, wait. Wrong Jim Webb. That's the website for Jim Webb, "web developer and educator," who based on the typography of the candidate's announcement page, is not affiliated with Jim Webb, presidential candidate. (But that Jim Webb made a neat inter-neighborhood portal in D.C. last September.) Actual campaign Web site: Webb isn't in on the "have a 'funny' 404 page" thing among presidential candidates. His 404 (page not found) page actually serves a 503 (server error) response. That's either super-meta or just a mess. (Given that the site seems to be down half the time, it's probably the latter.) He's had the JamesWebb.com site since the late 1990s, using it as sort of a one-stop-shop for his books and speaking gigs, etc. At right is the quote of the day from 16 years ago. First Wikipedia entry date: First Wikipedia entry: Pretty strightforward. A native of St. Joseph, Missouri, James Webb is a best-selling author, filmmaker (Rules of Engagement), Emmy Award-winning journalist, and literature professor. One of the most highly decorated Marines of the Vietnam War, he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy during Ronald Reagan's administration. First substantive Wikipedia addition: Social media On Twitter: Oh, wait. Wrong Jim Webb. That guy is the other Jim Webb


The world’s most anti-Russia country? Canada, says Moscow lawmaker

a day after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced additional economic sanctions against 14 Russian entities and Crimea, plus a personal travel ban against three Russians. Those moves, which would upset Russian authorities coming from anybody, appeared to strike Pushkov as especially uppity coming from Canada. “The government of that country is trying to bolster its rather low profile in international affairs and the objective shortage of weight and authority through high activity in the field of the sanctions,” Pushkov said. Ouch. Apparently the bad blood has been boiling up for a while. In his excoriation of Canada, Pushkov recalled comments Harper made in early June about how Russia would never be allowed back in the Group of 7, a consortium of major economic powers that ejected Russia after it annexed Crimea last year. Pushkov warned that Russia would respond to this ill-treatment and that Canada’s sanctions “will not pass unanswered.” Canada is already subject to the counter-sanctions through which Russia has banned the import of fresh produce, meat, fish and dairy products from it, the United States, the European Union, Australia and Norway. Pushkov didn’t spell out what the new counter-measures would be, though Russia in the past has made a point of responding tit-for-tat when it comes to individual sanctions. It is worth noting, as well, that Canada and Russia are natural rivals when it comes to exploration of the Arctic, an area into which Russia has been pushing militarily, attempting to claim expanded national boundaries. But not everything Pushkov said appeared intended to deepen the East-West divide. He also suggested that both sides lift sanctions imposed on lawmakers, as a good first step toward resolving the standoff. In the United States, members of Congress who have been sanctioned by Russia since the annexation of Crimea have mostly taken the designation as a badge of honor. The list includes Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), among others. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) doesn't seem to have made the list since he became majority leader in January. In Russia, many lawmakers have also reacted with pride at being sanctioned by the West, despite it being more common for Russian lawmakers to take vacations or own property in Europe or, say, Miami than it is for U.S. lawmakers to summer in Russia. Pushkov is currently under both U.S. and Canadian sanctions.


PM Update: Showers around through Friday, clouds keeping it on the cool side

2-hour radar loop. Refresh page to update. Overcast skies put a lid on temperatures today, with highs only in the upper 70s. It was the coolest day locally since June 5! Tomorrow is similarly cool and, like today, expect waves of showers to ripple through the region. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Friday): [D.C. July 4 fireworks forecast: Slight chance of showers and storms, mild] See Matt Rogers’ forecast through the holiday weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter Washington, D.C., July 1, 2015 (Jarrett Hendrix via Flickr)


D.C. area forecast: Showers mainly this evening into tonight; Independence Day rain risk wanes with time

Radar loop of rain over our area. Refresh page to update. 9:25 p.m. update: [D.C. July 4 fireworks forecast: Probably dry, just outside chance of a shower] 6:20 p.m. update: 12:15 p.m. update: The forecast is more or less on target, but precipitation may be running a little behind schedule given how things have played out thus far. It currently seems that much of the widespread rain risk comes this evening through the overnight, and perhaps into tomorrow. A few front-running showers are still possible this afternoon. Below are model simulations for the NAM and HRRR for 8 p.m. Both show showers and rain advancing in from the southwest during the evening. HRRR model simulated radar for 8 p.m. tonight. (Weatherbell.com) NAM model simulated radar for 8 p.m. tonight. (Weatherbell.com) The best odds of rain prior to the hours around sunset should mostly be southwest of D.C., with raindrops tending to spread over the rest of the region in the near sunset to near midnight range. At least periodic showers then continue for a good portion of the night, and possibly into portions of tomorrow. It does seem things should wind down by mid-to-late day on the 4th. We’ll have an update to the forecast for Independence Day this afternoon. From 5:00 a.m… TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 4/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: FORECAST IN DETAIL Umbrella toting is recommended today, and perhaps through the weekend. Fortunately for the 4th, today is looking like the wettest day of our (extended) weekend. Rain and storms become more likely this afternoon. But, as those who have been around the past few weeks know, we can’t discount even scattered showers/storms dropping a quick downpour here and there this weekend. Next week looks calmer and drier. More standard summer weather to resume. We just need to dry out a bit! Please! Today (Friday): Tonight: For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast into next week… [D.C. July 4 fireworks forecast: Slight chance of showers and storms, mild] Tomorrow (Independence Day): Tomorrow night (fireworks!): Sunday: Rain Shaft – taken on June 30, 2015 by Nathan Jones (via our CWG Flickr group). A LOOK AHEAD Sunday night: Our workweek starts off in a usual July manner: warm and slightly muggy; but not oppressive on Monday and Tuesday. High temperatures in the mid-80s to near 90 and dew points in the mid-to-upper 60s (moist


Burt Shavitz, cantankerous hippie co-founder of Burt’s Bees, dead at 80

The man whose bearded visage adorns one of America’s best known natural brands — and the co-founder of a multimillion-dollar company who missed out on a large part of its good fortune — is gone. Burt Shavitz, the face of Burt’s Bees, has died at 80. “Burt Shavitz, our co-founder and namesake, has left for greener fields and wilder woods,” the company said in a statement posted to its Web site. “We remember him as a bearded, free-spirited Maine man, a beekeeper, a wisecracker, a lover of golden retrievers and his land. Above all, he taught us to never lose sight of our relationship with nature. Thanks for everything, Burt. You will live in our hearts forever.” [Meet Burt’s Bees co-founder — a passive-aggressive Zen master who missed out on millions] Though Shavitz may live in the hearts of Burt’s Bees forever, it hasn’t been his company in a long time. Shavitz was pushed out 15 years after Burt’s Bees founding for, he said, having an affair with an employee. Burt’s Bees was sold in 2007 to Clorox for more than $900 million, making Shavitz akin to the McDonald brothers — the name of a small-town product mostly cut out of its enormous success. Born in Great Neck, N.Y., in 1935, Shavitz was a news photographer turned free spirit who came upon his first bees swarming around a fencepost after a rainstorm. He credited the Almighty. “The year before, a guy that I’d been buying honey from, who was a beekeeper, had given me everything I needed to be a beekeeper except the bees — a hive, a mask, gloves, a smoker, a hive tool, everything,” Shavitz said. “So, there was this fencepost, and I said, ‘My lord, this is an act of God! I can’t turn this down.’” Shavtiz in an undated image. (Burt’s Bees) After inheriting a bit of money, Shavitz relocated to Maine, where he met his future business partner — and rival. Here’s the version of the fateful encounter posted to the company’s Web site: It was the summer of ’84, and Maine artist Roxanne Quimby was thumbing a ride home (back when you could still do that sort of thing). Eventually a bright yellow Datsun pickup truck pulled over, and Roxanne instantly recognized Burt Shavitz, a local fella whose beard was almost as well-known as his roadside honey stand. Burt and Roxanne hit it off,


How Japan’s shortcomings can trigger its next burst of innovation

and services through automation. Japan is already at the cutting-edge on many aspects of robotics and automation. The Galapagos Syndrome may help it become an early incubator for solutions with universal applications. Already Abe intends to more than quadruple the nation’s robotics industry to 2.4 trillion yen ($19 billion) by 2020 as part of a state-led push for a “robot revolution.” In addition, Japan is developing an innovation cluster, including talent (e.g. at Tokyo’s JSK Robotics Laboratory), increased venture funding and corporate investment (e.g. Google’s acquisition of Schaft Inc.), in cutting-edge robotics. 2. Sustainably Japan Japan imported 94 percent of its energy in 2012. It is the world’s largest importer of coal and liquefied natural gas. It is also the world’s fifth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Energy-efficiency, sustainability and limiting environmental impact are essential challenges for the resource-poor country. A pioneer in innovating in energy security — its 54 nuclear reactors used to cover a third of its electricity needs — Japan still suffers from the aftershocks of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor disaster. With its nuclear program stalled, Japan has fallen way behind its targets: Carbon emissions from Japan’s electricity industry were 39 percent higher than it was before Fukushima, with greenhouse-gas emissions second highest on record in the year that ended in March 2014. The Japanese government has backtracked on its sustainability targets; the recently announced target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 18 percent less than 1990 levels are a giant step down from bolder pledges in the past. There are several opportunities for re-establishing Japanese leadership in this area. One is to innovate in reducing the high cost of renewable energy in Japan relative to the falling prices elsewhere. The second is to consider options for more ambitious target-setting and getting to the targets. Consider, for example, scenarios outlined by research from the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and WRI’s Open Climate Network, which offers ideas for reducing Japan’s emissions 25-30 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 through additional investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. 3. Neighborly Japan While Asia promises to be the world’s most dynamic region — by 2050, half the world’s output is expected to be from Asia — it is also a region stymied by poor infrastructure and poor processes. While China has led in mobilizing to close these gaps, Japan has receded in importance. This is a missed


Main Street Morning: NASCAR parts ways with Trump

the new CEO of McDonald’s decided to increase the size of the Quarter Pounder. - Eight trends that food franchises are watching right now. - Higher egg prices are hitting both shops and consumers. Start-ups - After a startup raises a record $13 million on Kickstarter, some wonder if its unexpected success is a blessing or a curse. Technology - How version 2 of Google Glass could change the enterprise. - A global energy management company recently launches a product which it says is the only energy monitoring and control solution for small businesses on the market. Sales and Marketing - How growing up with the Internet made Millennials different. Online - A start-up that promises its members the best prices on the Web thanks to a complex system of discounting by stripping costs out of the order fulfillment and shipping process of e-commerce maybe be getting some unwanted attention from Amazon.com. - Reddit moderators shut down parts of the site over an employee’s dismissal. - A Palo Alto company is trying to sue anonymous Yelp trolls for millions of dollars. Social Media - A former gun store owner’s standoff over social media passwords charts new legal territory. - Jesse Jackson blasts Twitter for the lack of Black and minority employees. Around the Country - A town that chased away Starbucks sees its identity being endangered again. - A proposed tax hike in a Florida town could pack a blow to businesses that see the proposal as yet another expense piling on to a growing list of fees required by local government. - A northern Michigan county has launched a contest that will give away $50,000 to one lucky new company. - In Seattle, some are fretting over Amazon’s growth. - A struggle within the Republican Party is putting Michigan’s export business at risk. - Washington state has earned $70 million in taxes after a year of legal pot. - A South Dakota town is experiencing an economic uptick with new businesses. Around the World - Six Chinese workers are killed in a shoe factory collapse. - How Greece created hades for entrepreneurs and crippled its economy. - The Greek government’s imposition of capital controls means that its citizens can’t buy a €0.99 song from iTunes or grab new apps. - Seven myths about doing business in Sub-Saharan Africa. - China is panicking over a market bubble, but what would


Russian space craft delivers much-needed cargo to International Space Station

The International Space Station. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images) After flying for two days, an unmanned Russia space craft docked with the International Space Station Sunday morning, delivering supplies that were much in demand after two consecutive attempts to deliver cargo failed. The Russian Progress 60 mission was laden with 1,940 pounds of propellant, 106 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water, and 3,133 pounds of spare parts, supplies and scientific experiments, according to NASA. The launch was the first since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded last month.That followed the Russian Progress 59 mission, which spun out of control after reaching orbit. [Another major rocket failure for a space industry out to prove itself] Last October, an Orbital ATK rocket blew up shortly after take off. None of the flights carried passengers, but they were loaded with tons of food and supplies for the station, the orbital laboratory that flies about250 miles above Earth. With the string of recent failures, there was a lot of pressure on Russia's Progress 60 mission. But the launch early Friday morning was flawless, and it docked with the station successfully early Sunday morning, NASA said. Meanwhile, SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday that the investigation by SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration into the Falcon 9 explosion is "expected to reach preliminary conclusions" by the end of the week. Expect to reach preliminary conclusions regarding last flight by end of week. Will brief key customers & FAA, then post on our website. Later this month, a Russian Soyuz rocket is scheduled to fly three more astronauts to the station. The passengers include NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, who worked as a flight surgeon at Johnson Space Center before becoming an astronaut. He would join Scott Kelly, who is spending a year on the space station in an effort to see how the body reacts to long periods in space. [Past coverage: Scott Kelly, half of a pair of twins, leaves for a year in space. Here’s why that’s awesome.]


Philippines confirms second MERS case: How serious is the threat?

event of a Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak, in Tangerang, Indonesia, on July 3. (Rivan Awal Lingga/Antara Foto via Reuters) Health officials in the Philippines reported Monday that the country's second case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome was diagnosed in a 36-year-old foreign man who had flown in from Dubai. The country has stepped up surveillance and quarantine measures at ports of entry and in the city of Muntinlupa, south of Manila, the country's capital. Patients at the hospital where the man is being treated were donning face masks, according to the Philippine Star. Janette Garin, secretary of health of the Philippines, told reporters that the man began showing symptoms July 2 and was admitted July 4 to a hospital, where he tested positive for the virus. Garin urged the public not to panic and said that the man had a low amount of virus in his body and that officials had located and are monitoring eight people he had come into contact with. The government has declined to release any additional information about the man, including his nationality, occupation or the reason for his trip to the Philippines. “[W]e appeal to the public to respect the privacy of the patient," she said in a media statement. "What is important now is for us to continue practicing proper hygiene, having adequate rest, balanced diet, all leading to a good resistance; allow us to emphasize that vigilance is still needed." The Philippine government has emphasized that the World Health Organization does not recommend any type of travel or trade restrictions related to MERS but asked anyone entering the country to report to a hospital if they experience signs of a flu such as a fever with cough that are very similar to symptoms of MERS. The first case of MERS was in February when a nurse who came from Saudi Arabia tested positive for the disease. She recovered and was declared free of the virus within a few weeks. South Korea is still grappling with an outbreak of MERS within its borders, and as of Monday 185 cases have been confirmed. Thirty-three of those patients have died, according to the WHO. Read more: This is what drinking too much water during exercise does to your body Theranos blood test: The insanely influential Stanford professor who called the company out on its 'stealth research' Diabetes drugs' happy side effect: Weight loss


A company that sells hacking tools to governments just got hacked

-- regardless of their human rights record. If authentic, the cache released online seems to support those claims: Among the documents is a list of Hacking Team customers featuring countries including Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, along with others, according to multiple media reports. For Sudan, the subject of a United Nations arms embargo, the documents include a $480,000 invoice for Hacking Team's Remote Control System -- the company's signature spyware tool, which it says allows governments to "take control" of their target's devices -- according to Wired. "The list of customers overlaps with a lot of what we found," said Bill Marczack, a researcher who has worked on reports about Hacking Team's products for Citizen Lab at University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. One Citizen Lab report from earlier this year appeared to show that the company continued to provide service to Ethiopia even after reports that its tools were being used by that government to target U.S.-based journalists. [Spyware vendor may have helped Ethiopia target journalists, researchers say] Hacking Team has historically declined to identify its clients and will continue to abide by that policy in the wake of the hack, Rabe said. Hacking Team has said it has internal procedures to address human rights concerns about prospective customers. But researchers say that if the documents floating around online now are authentic, that claim appears dubious. "There doesn't seem to be any sort of human rights due diligence in what we've seen right now," said Collin Anderson, an independent researcher who has investigated the commercial surveillance market. The documents also reportedly show several U.S. agencies among the company's clientele. That lines up with previous reporting by Motherboard that appeared to show the company using shell companies to sell its products to the the Drug Enforcement Administration. The leak comes amid an ongoing debate in the United States about how to enforce an international arms control agreement that places new rules on the export of hacking tools. The revelations about Hacking Team may bring new urgency to the discussion and raise questions about U.S. reliance on companies like that, said Christopher Soghoian, a technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union and a critic of the commercial surveillance industry. The release is the second breach at a company that sells commercial surveillance tools in recent years. Last August, a separate attack against Gamma International resulted


Yes, there are some things pro athletes aren’t allowed to do

Jason Pierre-Paul was injured in a fireworks accident. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File) On a late December day in 1967, after the best season of his young career earned him the Cy Young award and a $30,000 raise, Boston Red Sox pitcher Jim Lonborg went skiing at Lake Tahoe. On his last run, Lonborg formed a ‘V’ with his skis to slow himself down. Rather than braking, he tumbled down the mountain. The crash resulted in torn ligaments in his left knee, a very unhappy baseball team and a new kind of sports contract provision that resonates today. In undertaking an activity away from their playing field, professional athletes face the same risks as an average person, just with higher stakes. This weekend, Rory McIlroy ruptured an ankle ligament playing soccer and New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul badly damaged his hand in a fireworks accident, two more reminders that the maladies that afflict usual weekend warriors can befall athletes with serious, and sometimes contractual, consequences. McIlroy could miss the British Open next week As an individual athlete, McIlroy will have to grapple with the debate himself. In team sports, contracts include stipulations that govern which activities athletes are responsible for, should an off-the-field injury strike. Every league’s uniform player contract includes a description of banned activities, and teams can add their own touches to all or individual contracts. The clauses began showing up in baseball contracts, which were guaranteed thanks to the sport’s strong union. After Lonborg’s injury – which led indirectly to a shoulder injury and a series of wayward seasons – the prohibitions became baked-in to contracts. For example, the standard NBA contract specifically prohibits boxing, professional wrestling, motorcycling, moped-riding, auto-racing, sky-diving and hang-gliding. How should a hang-gliding enthusiast bide his time until his NBA career expires? Well, the contract expressly permits golf, tennis, handball, swimming, hiking, softball and volleyball. The NFL’s uniform player contract is vaguer, disallowing players from “any activity other than football which may involve a significant risk of personal injury.” Baseball teams tend to be more specific. The New York Yankees once banned log-rolling in their standard contract; the Washington Nationals prevent players from piloting a plane. “Before Jim Lonborg fell off his skis,” sports agent Ron Shapiro said, “I don’t think there was a bunch of awareness.” In the 1990s, Shapiro negotiated to give Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken the right to


A scientist discovered a new insect species living in New Jersey. He’s already worried about its survival.

one that is usually widespread, Andrew Hicks of the Museum of Natural History at the University of Colorado writes in his study, published last week in Zookeys. Leafhoppers are dependent on that species over the course of their lives - if something happens to the plant, they lose their home and their food source. [Uh-oh: One of the world’s worst invasive species just showed up in the United States] Most leafhoppers tend to take up in grassy regions that aren't densely populated by humans, Hicks writes, such as in the prairie or even in some parts of the American desert. So it's kind of unusual to find a leafhopper living in a crowded state like New Jersey, right on the corridor between New York City and Washington, D.C. If the leafhopper is unique to the Pine Barrens, there's a particular reason for concern, even though its food source is still relatively abundant there. "The Pine Barrens are already suffering the effects of a warming climate, as evidenced by the recent irruption there of the Southern Pine Beetle," Hicks writes in the study. "Should the effects of climate change or other anthropomorphic pressures cause the local extinction of the host (as has apparently already occurred elsewhere in its range), there will be little opportunity for the survival of this Flexamia," Hicks continues, "But that might be said of most species described today." Although Hicks isn't certain about the future of the new leafhopper species, he was concerned enough about its circumstances to conclude his description of the F. whitcombi with the following gloomy note: "The description of any new species may serve as a catalyst for additional research, and this will be best accomplished while the species still can be found in nature––something that can no longer taken for granted. To delay the publication of a species description until the time of a genus revision is to deny the pace of change in the natural world in the 21st century and may consign said new species to a future status of 'known from a single collection', or, 'presumed extinct, life history unknown.'" Read More: The monarch butterfly might end up on the endangered species list this year On the verge of extinction, female sawfish resort to ‘virgin births’ to survive Say hello to the dementor wasp. It turns cockroaches into zombies. These newly discovered marsupials basically sex each other to death


Jewish rituals and the U.S. Patent Office

A very amusing article by David Zvi Kalman on the hundreds — perhaps thousands, inasmuch as nobody knows for sure exactly how many there are — of patents covering devices or processes relating to Jewish ritual observance, from the KosherSwitch (“the clever brainchild of Rube Goldberg and Erwin Schrödinger,” according to Kalman, which (ostensibly) allows observant Jews to flick switches without violating Shabbat by interposing a laser and laser detector, programmed to “malfunction” at random intervals, between hand and light bulb) to my personal favorite, “Elijah’s cup” (a novelty cup that creates the illusion that the contents of the cup are slowly disappearing — perfect for your next Seder!). Great stuff for your inner intellectual property nerd.


Main Street Morning: U.K. protesters claim to have shut down a drone factory

widely misunderstood technology that underpins Bitcoin could profoundly affect our relationship with the digital world. Start-ups - How to survive as an unsexy B2B start-up. - This start-up allows people to donate to charity without clicking off of Facebook. Technology - Elon Musk gives $10 million in grants to study safe artificial intelligence. - These numbers reveal New York’s tech boom. - How the digital wind farm will make wind power 20 percent more efficient. - Some thoughts on getting your app noticed…and installed. Online - How and why several companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, are trying to bridge the gap between mobile browsing and desktop purchasing with a simple “buy” button. - These are five ways to generate low cost website traffic and three ways to boost your affiliate commissions overnight. - Redditors revolt, its CEO apologies. These are the challenges of harnessing community volunteers. Social Media - A proposed bill could make social media companies report terrorism-related content. - Twitter starts a new service to capitalize on live events and officially launches its mobile ads manager. Opportunities - New customers? Scientists might have discovered alien life on a comet. - These new trends are steadily giving some in the publishing industry the upper hand. Around the Country - An Oregon city’s municipal employees are allowed to smoke pot if it doesn’t affect their work. - Women entrepreneurs in Michigan sought for pitch competition. - A federal judge has ordered workers at dozens of New York City construction sites to return to work after their union staged an illegal citywide strike. - These are the coolest and most powerful people over 40 in Silicon Valley. - A small business owner in Queens imports 85 percent of his store’s products from Greece, but has not received a shipment in two weeks. - Businesses along the Long Island coast report a successful holiday weekend. Around the World - Three ways the Greece crisis could affect Americans personally. - U.K . protesters claim to have shut down a drone factory. - This article explains everything that’s going on in Greece. - A privately owned Internet bank in China is set to challenge traditional banks. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


Fascinating photos show the best and worst office designs for employees

Commercial Design, Shelly Lynch-Sparks, photos by Claire Esparros. Now, about 70 percent of offices in the United States have low or no partitions, according to the International Facility Management Association. That includes many famous companies and offices, from Google to Goldman Sachs. Facebook’s new building The role of technology and cost The way we think about working has had a huge influence on office design: Whether companies are trying to encourage collaboration, preserve employee privacy, or reward their upper-level managers. But there are other factors that have guided the shifts in office design – namely, technological development and cost concerns. Janet Pogue McLaurin, a principal at architecture and design firm Gensler, points out that the changing size and shape of technology has had a huge influence on office design. When computers first started to appear in offices, they were big enough that they needed their own rooms. But as computers shrunk down enough to fit onto individual desks, employee work became tied to the desk and the computer. A part-timer, working at a New York City health insurance firm Aug. 8, 1978. (AP Photo/Jerry Mosey ) Eventually, technology became more mobile, allowing employees to work from various places in the office, including conference and break rooms, McLaurin says. “But we were still tethered to the office, because we were on a network,” she says. Today, many companies use cloud computing and VPNs, making working remotely much more common. “People used to think about their personal workspace as their individual desk. And now people realize the entire building or campus is my workplace. And so choice and autonomy and having control over when and where you work is a key driver,” says McLaurin. Beyond technology, another major consideration in office design has been cost. Companies can save huge amounts of money by reducing the amount of commercial space they rent per worker. A survey in 2012 Of course, this is not without consequences. “We’re gone through several recessions, and over time it became how many people can we pack into a space, vs. thinking about the effectiveness of space,” McLaurin says. Both technology and cost concerns have propelled a shift toward flexible work spaces and “hoteling,” where employees reserve publicly shared work space on a need-to-use basis. Adopted by IBM, Deloitte and EY, hoteling works best in big companies that have employees who travel frequently. Working in public spaces at Google


Meet the NASA astronaut who is still excited to fly after 3 rockets exploded

him to the station, he said he is “confident in the vehicle we are going to fly on.” [A search for answers after Antares rocket explodes during liftoff] But despite his scheduled departure being two weeks away, top NASA officials still haven’t given him the official green light, as they work with their Russian counterparts to fully understand what caused a previous flight to go awry two months ago. The officials have said they need to be confident that any problems have been resolved before Lindgren is allowed to fly. In April, the unmanned Progress 59 mission, carrying cargo to the station, started spinning out of control once it reached orbit. It eventually crashed to Earth, scorched and scattered in pieces. [Watch an unpiloted Russian spacecraft spin out of control in space] Official crew photograph of U.S. astronaut Kjell Lindgren (NASA), Flight Engineer with the International Space Station Expedition 44 (NASA) It was part of a string of recent failures. Last year, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket blew up seconds after liftoff. Last month, a SpaceX Falcon 9 exploded two minutes into its flight. [SpaceX’s rocket just exploded. Here’s why that’s such a big deal.] But those rockets were carrying food, water and supplies — not people. The mission on July 22 would ferry three astronauts to the station: Lindgren, Sergey Volkov of Russia and Kimiya Yui of Japan. Last week, the Russians successfully launched the unmanned Progress 60 to the station. It delivered some much-needed supplies on Sunday morning and gave NASA a measure of confidence. In an interview from Russia's Star City, Lindgren said he is aware that the Russians "have been conducting a very comprehensive review of the Progress mishap, trying to identify the root cause. … We have a couple more flight readiness reviews. We expect that those should go fine.” He said U.S. and Russian officials were meeting about the investigation on Tuesday and that there are more reviews next week. And while he waits for the official go, he said he’s preparing as if he already has it. “The posture I’ve adopted is, we’re confident,” he said. But he added that “flexibility is the name of the game.” If everything goes as planned, Lindgren, a flight surgeon and father of three, will join the three astronauts already aboard the station. That includes Scott Kelly, the U.S. astronaut who is spending a year in space.


Twinkies are not just back from the dead. Their baker may now be worth billions.

11 bankruptcy in January 2012 and was liquidated. The Hostess Brands of today, launched in 2013 under an Apollo-Metropoulos holding company, owns sweets and cakes under the Hostess and Dolly Madison brands, including Cupcakes, Donettes, Snoballs and Zingers. But it looks and operates very differently than the chain from whence it came. The newer, thinner bakery giant kept only five of the 14 original dessert plants: Of those five, one was sold and another, an eight-decade-old bakery in suburban Chicago with 400 employees, closed in October. The investment helped bring the classic American snack food into the 21st century. One 500-worker Kansas bakery outfitted with a $20 million Auto-Bake system, according to Forbes, now spits out more than a million Twinkies a day, doing 80 percent of the work once done by 9,000 workers across 14 plants. An automated snack-cake machine. (Courtesy of Auto-Bake) Other changes were less robotic but just as important. Spending millions on chemical research, the new leaders rolled out a new Twinkies recipe that would allow the cakes to sit for weeks longer on warehouse shelves before going stale: about 65 days. Delivery costs plummeted, and the available shelves on which the cakes could be sold — from dollar stores to convenience marts to vending machines — skyrocketed. Andy Jhawar, a senior partner at Apollo, told Forbes, “There is no reason why Hostess can’t be sold in any place that sells candy bars.” Hostess has not yet regained the American baked-goods throne — McKee Foods, lord of the Little Debbie empire, now holds the most market share — but its rise has been impressive nonetheless, and has allowed its leaders to flirt with offers of a potential bake sale. In March, the Standard & Poor’s ratings agency commended "Hostess’ successful execution of its re-launch of the snack cake business and substantially improved profitability." And in May, the New York Post reported Grupo Bimbo (the Mexican maker of Sara Lee and Entenmann's), Flowers Foods (the Georgia-based maker of Tastykake) and Aryzta (the Swiss-based owner of Otis Spunkmeyer) had submitted as-yet-unsuccessful takeover bids. Just how quickly Apollo and Metropoulos could move to extend Hostess's shelf life remains the billion-dollar question. But if it's anything like the leaders' past turnarounds, the next step could happen fast. “We move quickly,” Metropoulos's son Daren told Time magazine in 2013. “We don’t like to be slowed down with analytics or bureaucracy.”


Sequencing the genome creates so much data we don’t know what to do with it

1,000 petabytes, or about 1 million times the amount that can be stored on a home computer. In other words, that aforementioned stack of DVDs would easily start reaching into space. [The triumph of genomic medicine is just beginning] The study gives a good illustration of how the microscopic details of human genetics rival the complexity of the far-reaching science of the universe. The mountain of data used to analyze human DNA is so large that Schatz jokes people will eventually have to substitute the term "astronomical" with a more appropriate word: "genomical." "With all of this information, something new is going to emerge," he said. "It might show patterns of how mutations affect different diseases." IBM's Watson Genomics initiative, for example, is crunching data on the entire genomes of tumors, with the hope of generating personalized medicine for cancer patients. [Personalized cancer vaccines have already helped treat three patients] At some point, scientists might be able to save space by not storing sequences in full, similar to the way data is managed in particle physics, where information is read and filtered while it is generated. But at this point, the study says, such data cropping isn't as practical because it's hard to figure out what future data physicians will need for their research — especially when looking at broader human populations. Right now, most genome research teams store their data through on-site hard drive infrastructure. The New York Genome Center, for example, is generating somewhere between 10 to 3o terabytes of data a day and storing it in an on-site system. They move old data they don't regularly use to cheaper and slower storage. "At this point, we're continuously expanding file storage," said Toby Bloom, deputy scientific director at the center. "The biggest hurdle is keeping track of what we have and finding what we need." Organizations like Bloom's are eyeing the possibility of moving the data to cloud storage, but she said that's currently not as cost effective as expanding their physical storage infrastructure. But size is not the only problem the field faces. Biological data is being collected from many places and in many different formats. Unlike Internet data, which is formatted relatively uniformly, the diverse sets of genomic data makes it difficult for people to use them across datasets, the study says. Companies like Amazon and Google are developing the infrastructure to put genomic data on


How one weeping man put a face on Greece’s debt crisis

in front of a crowd and cried last Friday after he waited for hours in front of numerous banks to withdraw cash but was unable to do so. Chatzifotiadis was among many pensioners who aimed to take out money on the fifth day of the bank closures, after hundreds of branches had reopened for those without bank cards to withdraw 120 euros. AFP photographer Sakis Mitrolidis recalled the scene in a blog post on Tuesday, writing that he and reporters from a TV channel approached the man and began to chat. After the 77-year-old explained his story, the journalists accompanied him to talk to a bank employee. “Fortunately,” he said, “they were able to help him.” "I see my fellow citizens begging for a few cents to buy bread,” Chatzifotiadis told the photographer at the time. “I see more and more suicides. I am a sensitive person. I cannot stand to see my country in this distress. That's why I feel so beaten, more than for my own personal problems.” It wasn’t until later that Mitrolidis understood what he had captured. “Back in my office, when I saw the pictures on the monitor, I understood this was a powerful series,” he writes. “The composition, the papers scattered beside him, the policeman coming to help, the people watching as they queued, and the old man himself.” The reaction came shortly after he filed the images. The image above, in particular, was shared widely on social media, serving as a snapshot of a nation's wider turmoil and anguish. It also reinforced the plight faced by Greek pensioners. More than 20 percent of Greece’s population in 2014 was 65 or older, according to the European Union’s statistics office, up 2.5 percent from a decade earlier. Mitrolidis worked to find Chatzifotiadis the next day, but wound up speaking with his daughter, who said her parents went to Germany decades earlier but in recent years had returned to be closer to family. Acknowledging the largely positive feedback, Mitrolidis writes that he doesn’t think of the picture as the signature image of the chaos in Greece. “I don’t see it that way,” he writes. “I think it tells part of the story.” More on WorldViews Greece fails to offer new bailout plan at summit In crisis, Chanel bag becomes more valuable than cash 7 key things to know about Greece's debt crisis and what happens next


How technology could kill the art of lying

But your phone isn't the only device watching: Smart thermostats and security systems know when you're home. And, of course, your fitness tracker could betray you: If you tell someone you're heading to the gym, but end up laying around watching bad reality television instead, the data it collects will reflect your laziness -- or, as the Pennsylvania case suggests, perhaps even more serious deceptions. Some sort of legal process is generally needed to access the non-public of these data troves, Mayer said -- so there's a limit to how much they can be used to force honesty at the moment. "If the price of invalidating a lie is starting a lawsuit -- I think it's safe to say we won't be invalidating a lot of lies," he said. But there are less than legal ways to get around that: "One of the most common fact patterns in federal hacking cases is folks with some sort of relationship -- be it business, or other personal -- stealing another person's password," said Mayer. And some have envisioned a world where technology changes social norms so radically that people are constantly broadcasting their lives in such a way that lies and secrets become practically impossible -- as in Dave Egger's 2013 novel "The Circle." That dystopia, where a tech giant pushes an Orwellian mantra "secrets are lies, sharing is caring, privacy is theft" seems a little far-fetched, but there may be a kernel of truth. "Now, when you are about to say or do something, we can think, do I want this to be part of my legacy, part of my personal record? Because in the digital age we live in now, in the networked age, we are all leaving a record," Hancock said in his TED talk. Still, even though almost everyone fibs from time to time, they may not have too much to worry about, according to Levine: His research suggests that a huge proportion of lies are told by small number of truly prolific liars. "Basically, we lie when the truth is a problem," he explained. "For most people, the truth doesn't pose that much of an issue -- so they don't have a reason to lie all the time." In theory, he said, the web of data collection that surrounds us might help shine a light on those bad actors. "The bad thing is that it invades all


It’s hard to say how much helium is really worth

in quantum computers, among all other kinds of experiments. It's fantastically light, but it won't explode (unlike hydrogen, for example). Doctors use it to help some newborn babies breathe. And the world is running out of it. Known supplies on earth will last another 40 years or so, by some estimates. Meanwhile, the federal government has been selling off its stockpile of helium over the past two decades at Congress's insistence. An auction of gas from the national reserve outside Amarillo, Texas, didn't go as expected last year, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. The government made a lot of money at the sale, but the winners may have been able to afford to pay higher prices only because they had special access via pipeline to the reserve. As Colby Bermel reports in National Journal, A House committee will be hearing from people who are dissatisfied with the results of the auction on Wednesday. On the one hand, if the complaints about last year's auction are accurate, the sale could be a classic example of the risks involved in privatizing a public resource. Those with the best access can corner the market on what the government is selling and turn a profit, which seems unfair. At the same time, it's hard to say what price really would be fair when it comes to a crucial and limited natural resource that no one knows how to replace. The good news: at least there's plenty of helium on the moon. Welcome to Wonkbook. To subscribe by e-mail, click What's in Wonkbook: 1. Top story: A deadline for Greece Greece has until the end of the week. Frustrated German politicians and voters oppose a deal. President Obama spoke by phone with Tsipras and Merkel Tuesday. What if the International Monetary Fund gave Greece a break? PORTER: Europe is forgetting about Germany's debt, forgiven in 1953. 2. Top opinions Poultry corporations are curtailing farmers' rights, The recycling industry has failed to change with technology, KIMMELMAN: The Hudson River needs new tunnels. 3. In case you missed it The Obama administration issues major new rules on housing segregation. Will Congress extend bankruptcy protections to Puerto Rico? Republicans could use spending bills to attack Obamacare. Women are saving money on birth control because of the law. Hillary Rodham Clinton gave an interview. The Obama administration has resolved the border crisis -- for now.


The feds suggest they won’t interfere, but Indian tribes are still wary of marijuana farming

of the entire federal government. It’s very complicated,” said tribal attorney Lael Echo Hawk, of the GSB Indian Law group based in Seattle. “Tribes interested need to get some written assurance from their district attorney because possessing a Schedule I controlled substance carries serious penalties and is not something to be taken lightly.” “If tribes don’t do this right, their situation could get a lot worse,” said Robert Williams, director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “The stakes are high and the consequences could be disastrous.” Domestic violence, substance abuse and suicide rates on Native American reservations are many times higher than the national average. Additional problems include poor housing and education systems. While some tribal leaders believe legalizing marijuana could exacerbate some of these problems, others view marijuana as an economic opportunity to reclaim financial independence and improve the quality of life for their people. “From a social standpoint, Natives have some of the highest percentages of the worst categories in this country in terms of suicide, drug abuse, child mortality… indicators of a society in decline,” said Brandon Cornelison, of the Facebook group Native American Cannabis Coalition and a member of the Sac and Fox of the Mississippi in Iowa. He supports legalization, saying, “Something has to change.” Tribes that favor legalization believe they could generate much-needed revenue — with sales on reservations not subject to federal taxes — through innovative business and pharmaceutical ventures. Multiple companies have expressed interest in working with tribes in developing large-scale marijuana operations. The Pinoleville Pomo Tribe in California plans to build a medical marijuana grow operation in Mendocino. And the Santee Sioux Tribe of South Dakota has decided to legalize and start selling marijuana by next year. Neither tribe would comment on their plans. Matt Bear, a member of the Meskwaki tribe of Iowa, said legalization presents an opportunity because Iowa currently has no outlets for medical marijuana. “Patients need to travel four to twelve hours, to Colorado or Minnesota, to gain their medication,” Bear said. “The tribe could take advantage of this opportunity for economic development and also provide a very stable and much needed pharmaceutical.” Medical marijuana, its supporters say, is safer than using opiates for chronic pain. Shondel Barber, of the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe in Wisconsin, said she would rather see people taking medical marijuana for pain than


Flying Dog’s Dead Rise Summer Ale is now hotter than ever

spicy-sweet Mango Habanero IPA, which marries habanero peppers with tropical fruit; and, as of last month, a Sriracha Pale Ale, which has a solid-but-not-overpowering burn in the finish, though the heat sneaks up on you. "With Sriracha, we're priming the public's palates [for Double Dead Rise]," Weston says. "It's funny that it comes out right after." The Double Dead Rise is a very limited release brewed on Flying Dog's 15-barrel pilot brewing system, a small brewery-within-a-brewery that has produced a series of experimental beers known as the Sub-Rosa Series. They include House Rules, a dry pale ale with dank Citra hops, and the fruity Kerberos Tripel. The pilot system is used for "anything cool the brewers want to do," Weston explains. The challenge of brewing both Dead Rise and Double Dead Rise, Clark says, is that "you want to be true to the spice, but you want to be true to the beer." It took eight to 10 batches on the smaller system to perfect the original Dead Rise recipe. "We felt like we got the Old Bay [flavor] down pretty quickly," Clark says, but the challenge was tweaking the hops to bring out the dry, lemony nose of the beer, "while getting that balance between the spice and the hops." Once Double Dead Rise is released this week, it will only be available on tap in Flying Dog's Tasting Room, which began selling beers by the glass last month. (Previously, it was only open for growler sales and small tasters of beer, which could only be consumed by people who'd been on a brewery tour.) Due to its limited run, Double Dead Rise won't be available for growlers and probably won't make it to D.C. bars. But it will be available to taste alongside regular Dead Rise and 18 other beers from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. Double Dead Rise's release party runs from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, July 10. Admission is $40, which includes beer samples; a menu of blue crab deviled eggs, croaker ceviche and snakehead summer rolls; music spun by DJ Landis Expandis. A VIP ticket costs $60 and comes with a Dead Rise Old Bay Cookbook, a Dead Rise apron, and Flying Dog crab mallets. Tickets are available from www.flyingdogbrewery.com. Flying Dog Brewery, 4607 Wedgewood Blvd., Frederick. 301-694-7899. www.flyingdogbrewery.com.


The Container Store and the challenge of building a business for neatniks

A Container Store location in New York. (Jin Lee/Bloomberg News) The Container Store has been on a decades-long push to get shoppers to spruce up their closets and cupboards and convince them that a fastidiously arranged home can save time and ease stress. But recent weakness in sales and sluggish traffic to its stores suggests a hard truth: It’s not easy to build a business on getting America organized. Now, it seems the company sees drawing in more big spenders as their best shot at getting a sales jolt. The Container Store Group reported Tuesday a net loss of $5.2 million during its most recent quarter, a significantly deeper loss than the $3.6 million seen during the same period last year. The company said the loss reflected headwinds from the strong U.S. dollar, but also reported a 0.9 percent slide in sales at stores open more than a year. While these results pleasantly surprised investors who had been girding for an even gloomier quarter, the lackluster sales figures underscored one of the retailer’s critical challenges: It has had a hard time luring shoppers to its stores. The company has said its average customer visits the store only 2.5 times a year, and even its best customers visit about four times a year. While the Container Store declined to disclose its traffic numbers for this quarter, executives have said in recent quarters that a drop-off in store traffic was the culprit for slower sales. It’s a sign that the Container Store has had trouble making the case to all but the most obsessive neatniks that home storage and organization is a category worth spending on routinely. Since its public trading debut in 2013, the company’s stock has declined about 50 percent, suggesting that investors have cooled on the chain’s potential. So where does the Container Store go from here? The company says it is thinking of 2015 as an “investment year,” and one of its major efforts is the introduction of a luxury product called TCS Closets that is designed to appeal to a more affluent shopper. While the Container Store has long sold Elfa modular shelving systems, TCS Closets is a more high-end organization system made with finer materials and finishes. On an April conference call with investors, chief executive Kip Tindell said he imagines a typical TCS Closets buyer is older, wealthier and “will use this in her master


People substitute alcohol for marijuana at age 21, study says

A jar of cannabis at a Good Meds medical cannabis center in Lakewood, Colo. (Photo by Matthew Staver/For The Washington Post) Alcohol seems to act as a substitute for marijuana when people hit the minimum legal drinking age, a recent study found. The study, published in the Journal of Health Economics, found — perhaps not surprisingly — that alcohol consumption spikes among people just over the age of 21. But it also found that marijuana use experienced a substantial drop at the same age. The finding is important to the debate about public policy to regulate the substances. As economic substitutes, how strictly marijuana laws are enforced would affect alcohol use — and vice versa — because people will tend to use whichever substance is cheapest or more available. [Oregon celebrates with free weed as recreational marijuana becomes legal] Previous studies found murky evidence about whether the two act as substitutes or complements. This study, which looked at five years' worth of survey data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, looked directly at the drinking age as a threshold for comparison between the months before and after people's 21st birthdays. It found the probability of having consumed alcohol in the past 30 days increases by about 16 percent just as young people have legal access, whereas marijuana decreases by 10 percent at the same time — indicating that it is, in fact, a substitute. The phenomenon is also more pronounced among women, according to the study. Although men had higher rates of alcohol and marijuana usage, the frequency of marijuana use decreased 7.5 percent at the drinking age for men, compared to a decrease of 15 percent for women. For Ben Crost, a co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Illinois, the results of the study means there's a trade-off in what illicit substance policy can be enforced. [Alcohol use, binge drinking continues to fall among underage] "If you think alcohol is much more harmful to people's health, then you should probably restrict alcohol use," Crost said in a statement. "If you think marijuana is more harmful, then you might want to consider loosening the restrictions for alcohol." Public opinion polls have shown that Americans view alcohol as far more dangerous than marijuana, by a nearly 5-to-1 margin. Studies have padded this opinion, showing that alcohol poses a greater danger both to users


PM Update: Downpours roam the area through the evening, more storms around Thursday

2-hour radar loop. Refresh page to update. 8:50 p.m. update: 7:35 p.m. update: Radar around 7:30 p.m. (Weatherscope) Everything is generally trending a little lighter as we head into sunset, and that trend should continue as well. But, showers may persist into the early overnight at this rate. 6:55 p.m. update: 6:42 p.m. update: Flash flood warning for central Fairfax County until 9:30 p.m. Flooding has been reported in this area. http://t.co/97Fgudr9g0 6:15 p.m. update: Very heavy rain in and around DC to the southern Beltway. Also moving into zones already under flash flood warnings. http://t.co/bFi9j2RpQe This line of more consistent rainfall, though over a relatively small part of the area, is high-impact and only slowly drifting south. Additional showers out over western suburbs and to the west need to be watched as well for the risk of more rainfall into and through the evening. The Nationals game has been delayed as this rain continues to move through. The start of tonight's #Nats - #Reds game has been delayed due to weather. Stay tuned here for updates as soon as they are available. 5:40 p.m. update: A flash flood warning is still in effect for southeast Arlington and eastern Alexandria (neighborhoods around the Airport and the cemetery), and another flash flood warning extends to the southeast on the other side of the Potomac in Prince George’s County, including areas around Hillcrest Heights in the southern Beltway, as well as Camp Springs, Andrews Air Force Base and Clinton. Please don’t do this, by the way (at the very least you’re just going to stall your car out): @capitalweather Flooding earlier on Martha Custis Drive in Alexandria. http://t.co/aos0Y3JnCy Nice new "fountain" at Reston Metro! @capitalweather @RestonNow http://t.co/muLWK6MA39 5:15 p.m. update: @capitalweather Another line headed towards downtown #DCweather http://t.co/iDxT7q3kFT 5:04 p.m. update: Remember: A flash flood warning is in effect when flash flooding on roads and low lying areas is already happening or imminent. If you come across water on the road or on a trail, turn around and find a drier route. A new flash flood warning for eastern Alexandria and southeast Arlington in effect until 8 p.m. 4:30 p.m. update: Flash flooding warning extreme S part of DC and central PG co til 7:30p. 1-2" rain already, more coming. http://t.co/qi26wm4bJ4 4:20 p.m. update: Original post from 3:55 p.m. Summer’s back to sending us heat! That means another 90-degree day got added


D.C.’s favorite panda celebrates 10th birthday in China

Beloved panda Tai Shan, born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, now lives in China. On July 9, he turned 10 years old and celebrated with a frozen treat. DUJIANGYAN, China — What happens when a panda turns 10? You get cake. And if you're famous like Tai Shan the giant panda, your human friends come and give you well wishes. On Thursday at the almost-new Dujiangyan panda base in China's Sichuan province, Tai Shan had a party. There were balloons and panda-shaped signs under misty, drizzly skies. The centerpiece: a frozen concoction of apples and carrots. Tai Shan was the first panda born at the National Zoo in Washington to survive for any length of time. His birth and playful antics captured the hearts of a city. (Can we agree he likes mugging for the camera?) Under an agreement with China, he was sent to that country in 2010, a moment that broke hearts and brought tears to many Washingtonians. [Goodbye to Tai Shan] Tai Shan, D.C.'s favorite giant panda, returned to China in 2010. Tai Shan was the first panda born at the National Zoo in Washington to survive for any length of time. Undoubtedly the next life moment for Tai Shan: the possibility of fatherhood. Breeding pandas is complicated, and officials here say they need to find Tai Shan the right mate. But on this day, all Tai Shan had to do was deconstruct his birthday present and shoot glances at the cameras of onlookers. Tai Shan has seemingly adapted to life in China — even becoming a bilingual panda. His handler says Tai Shan has learned the Sichuan dialect of Mandarin. But also responds in English. So "Happy Birthday" was first sung in Mandarin, followed by the English version. Tai Shan nibbled at the carrots on his cake and clawed at the fruit encased in ice. But this show of panda force proved too much: the frozen cakes skittered across the grass and down the hill in his enclosure. So Tai Shan went to take a birthday nap. Such is a panda's life. Read more - Bao Bao’s birthday, and how she compares to Tai Shan - Fans of Tai Shan say goodbye before he flies to China - For Tai Shan, voyage to China is a trip to obscurity and sex - VIDEO: Panda fans visit Tai Shan in China


Bumblebee habitats are shrinking at an alarming rate, and scientists are blaming climate change

might not shift well in response to climate change: Either it has problems actually moving from one place to another, or it has problems building its population up once it gets to a new place. “Clearly bumblebees are pretty good at getting around,” Kerr said at the press conference, since they can fly. Rather, the scientists suspect that they’re having trouble growing their populations at their northern range limits. The reason remains unclear. More research is needed into the bees’ behavior and the biological and environmental factors that may be causing them problems. In the meantime, there are some actions humans can take to try to help out their struggling populations. The obvious course of action is to keep up with efforts to mitigate climate change so that rising temperatures don’t continue to drive the bees out of their historical southern ranges, Richardson said. But there are some other strategies conservationists can try in the meantime. One fairly drastic solution is assisted migration, which is when humans physically relocate bumblebee populations to a new area. “It’s certainly a possible solution on a case-by-case basis or a site-specific basis for bumblebees,” Richardson said. “However, it will be expensive to do this, and it’s not really a solution to what is probably a global problem for many hundreds of species.” Simply trying to protect local populations is another option. Stricter policies on pesticide use can help keep minimize declines. And citizens can even help out by diversifying the plants they grow in their own back yards to attract more pollinators, said Laurence Packer, another author on the study and a professor of biology at York University, at Wednesday’s press conference. “The way you plant your garden can make a very big difference,” he said. With concern over the health of pollinators at an all-time high, this study highlights the impact of climate change on an already vulnerable (and economically important) organism — and underscores the fact that its consequences are already noticeable. “The impacts are large, and they are underway,” said Kerr. Also in Energy Environment: Scientists have discovered that living near trees is good for your health Why the Earth’s past has scientists so worried about sea level rise Many Americans still lack access to solar energy. Here’s how Obama plans to change that For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.


Army details how it will cut to its smallest size since before World War II

U.S. soldiers drop into a pond from a helicopter at Fort Benning, Ga., on Sunday, April 12. (Photo by Patrick A. Albright for the U.S. Army) The Army will shrink to its smallest size since before World War II by cutting soldiers from nearly every installation, most notably in two full-sized brigade combat teams with thousands of soldiers each that will become much smaller battalion task forces. The service provided new details Thursday on how it will eliminate about 40,000 soldiers between now and 2018, falling to an overall size of 450,000 soldiers. The most significant cuts will occur at Fort Benning, Ga., and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richard, Alaska, where the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, and the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, respectively, will be targeted. Each brigade combat team has about 4,000 soldiers, and will be reduced to a battalion of about 1,050, Army officials said. Fort Benning will drop from 12,655 soldiers to 9,040, and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson will drop from 4,603 to 1,895, according to briefing slides released by the Army. Fort Hood in Texas won’t have any brigade combat teams eliminated, but nonetheless will drop from about 37,475 soldiers now to about 34,125. The Army unveiled a plan on Thursday to reduce troop levels by 40,000 soldiers, and cut civilian jobs by 17,000 by 2018. The budget-driven reduction will touch nearly every Army installation in the United States and overseas, according to the Pentagon. [Army officials on ‘pink slip’ controversy: We didn’t have a choice] “The decision to make these cuts is not easy, and will affect just about every Army installation,” said Brig. Gen. Randy George, the Army’s director of force management. The 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, of Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, also will face significant change, converting from a mechanized unit using the Army’s Stryker combat vehicle to an infantry unit. Those vehicles will be sent to the Pacific Northwest and incorporated into the Army National Guard’s 81st Armor Brigade Combat Team, saving the active service money. An additional 17,000 civilian jobs also will be cut across the Army by fall 2018. The service is still determining from where they will come, George said. Soldiers are shown here with Stryker vehicles in Bialystok, Poland, on March 24. (Photo by EPA/ARTUR RESZKO) The cuts come as the Defense Department pivots following more than a decade of


PM Update: Showers diminish this evening, not as hot on Friday with patchy sun

2-hour radar loop. Refresh page to update. 7:30 p.m. Update: Original Post Another 90-degree day for the books at Reagan National — the 22nd so far in 2015 — and a heat index up to 100 degrees if you factor in the humidity. Rain and storms are on the way again, and a flash flood watch is in effect for the D.C. metro from around Dale City to Baltimore. Friday is looking dry and less humid with a wedge of high pressure moving in. [Updates on tonight’s possible storms] Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Friday): See David Streit’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter The full moon rises above the Capitol dome on July 2. (Jim Havard via Flickr)


New photo shows Pluto and its strange moon Charon in living color

Pluto (right) and Charon (left) photographed on July 8. (NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI) Yeah, yeah, another picture of Pluto and its moon Charon. We're still excited (again). Because for the next few days, as we get ever closer to the July 14 Plutonian flyby that NASA's New Horizons has spent a decade speeding toward, every picture we get of the mysterious dwarf planets and its motley crew of moons will be exponentially better than the last. [Why did NASA spend 9 years getting to Pluto only to fly right past it?] The above image was taken just a day later than the one that revealed Pluto's big heart. On July 8, at 3.7 billion miles away from Pluto, NASA's New Horizons snapped the latest pic, capturing Pluto and its largest Moon Charon. Charon is funny. It's huge -- at least compared to its host planet, which it's closer to in size than any other moon in the solar system is. And the pair doesn't really act like they're a moon and a host planet. Instead of orbiting around Pluto, Charon orbits around a spot next to Pluto -- and Pluto orbits that same spot. They're tidally locked, with the same side of Pluto always facing the same side of Charon, spinning around a fixed point while Pluto's smaller moons struggle to keep up. [New images of Pluto’s moons hint at unusual behavior] But while they may be close, they don't seem to have much in common: Scientists have known for a while that Pluto is way brighter than Charon, and New Horizons' photos have only confirmed that. Pluto (in black and white). Many of the bright spots are remnants of image processing, but that sliver of white on the bottom is real. (NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI) In addition to being different colors -- Charon a moony gray and Pluto a reddish, peachy tan -- they also have different variations in their terrain. Pluto seems to have tons of different kinds of features -- that big dark whale, a big bright heart, and a series of dark spots, just to name the most prominent features waiting for closer observation. Charon as seen on July 8. (NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI) Charon is expected to be interesting too -- probably pock-marked with craters -- but except for a dark region at the pole, it doesn't have much variation in reflectivity. We can expect even better pictures of Pluto and Charon -- as


Still too early to tell if zoo’s giant panda is pregnant

Mei Xiang, the giant panda, got her second ultrasound Friday to try to figure out if she is pregnant. The results? They can’t tell. (Courtesy of the National Zoo.) Don’t break out the cigars quite yet. Zoo officials said it is “still too early to tell” if the giant panda — Mei Xiang — is pregnant or not. They did an ultrasound Friday morning on her at the National Zoo, as they try to figure out whether she is pregnant. Mei Xiang, the mother of the zoo’s hugely popular panda cub, Bao Bao, was artificially inseminated in the spring with semen from China. Friday will be her second ultrasound. [Hoping Mei Xiang becomes a panda parent again] The zoo’s public relations team has tracked the panda’s pregnancy using the hashtag #PandaStory on social media. But Friday’s ultrasound didn’t show much. Officials said they couldn’t tell if she was pregnant or experiencing a pseudopregnancy. It's still too early to tell if Mei Xiang is pregnant or experiencing a pseudopregnancy, but we'll keep sharing updates #PandaStory Devin Murphy, a spokeswoman for the National Zoo, said Friday after the ultrasound that Mei Xiang “willingly participates” in the exam. “She lies down and allows the vet to touch [the ultrasound equipment] to her belly.” Her reward — pieces of apple and pears and honey water. “She’s a pro at ultrasounds,” Murphy said. The panda’s next ultrasound is scheduled for Tuesday. In half an hour go behind the scenes with our panda team and see what a giant panda ultrasound is like #PandaStory http://t.co/AOx1sfwqKG Unlike in humans, where the egg is fertilized and the fetus starts to grow and can be measured, it isn’t so obvious with a panda, zoo officials said. A female panda has what’s known as “delayed implantation.” She can have a fertilized egg, which can float in her uterus for weeks before it attaches to the wall of her uterus, according to zoo officials. And there’s another complicating factor — a mama panda’s hormones and behavior are the same whether she’s pregnant or not. That is known as a “pseudopregnancy.” Mei Xiang’s first ultrasound in June didn’t show much and that’s what zookeepers expected. It is still too early to determine if there is a fetus, zoo officials had said. But it did show she was healthy in the examination. In June, zoo officials said Mei Xiang did well during the


implantation.” She can have a fertilized egg, which can float in her uterus for weeks before it attaches to the wall of her uterus, according to zoo officials. And there’s another complicating factor — a mama panda’s hormones and behavior are the same whether she’s pregnant or not. That is known as a “pseudopregnancy.” Mei Xiang’s first ultrasound in June didn’t show much and that’s what zookeepers expected. It is still too early to determine if there is a fetus, zoo officials had said. But it did show she was healthy in the examination. In June, zoo officials said Mei Xiang did well during the ultrasound, willingly lying down for the exam as she was fed honey water — a favorite of giant pandas. She also “had some fun scent-anointing herself with the ultrasound jelly after the vets finished.” In late May, zoo veterinarians tried to do an ultrasound on Mei Xiang, but she “did not want to participate,” officials said. Zoo officials said one reason they do the ultrasounds is to check on the panda’s health and to get her comfortable with having them done as they will become more frequent in her possible pregnancy. Ultrasounds are the only way to confirm — definitively — if she is pregnant. If she’s pregnant, the fetus only starts to develop a few weeks before birth. The gestation period for a female giant panda is between three and six months. This would be Mei Xiang’s third cub if she is pregnant. Her first surviving cub was Tai Shan, who was born in 2005 at the National Zoo and now lives in China. Tai Shan’s father is Tian Tian, the 18-year-old giant panda at the D.C. zoo. The couple’s second surviving cub is Bao Bao, a female panda who turns 2 in August. When Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated in the spring, it was the first time frozen panda semen had made such a long journey to the zoo for breeding, according to officials. [D.C. finally gets that long-awaited shipment of frozen panda semen from China] The semen sample belonged to Hui Hui — a 9-year-old panda who lives at the China Research and Conversation Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong, Sichuan Province. RELATED: Beloved panda Tai Shan, born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, now lives in China. On July 9, he turned 10 years old and celebrated with a frozen treat.


The war on drugs just lost the support of 600 churches. So what’s next?

of thousands of churches, but they're not alone. In 2014, Christian leaders in Tennessee and Indiana also called for an end to the war on drugs. Churches would be a significant loss for the war on drugs, which has already been losing ground among all Americans -- and increasingly politicians too. Since the early 2000s, the percentage of Americans who who think the country has made progress coping with the problem of illegal drugs has dropped. At the same time, mass incarceration and racial disparity in the justice system have become major political issues, and acceptance of marijuana has increased. It's a perfect storm of sentiments that could lead to an abandonment of some drug-enforcement policies and a search for a new solution. In some states, it's urgent. California faced a federal court-order to reduce its jail population, and in November, voters there passed a measure that downgraded drug possession cases from felonies to misdemeanors, making thousands eligible for release. Current and former Republican governors have also looked into sentencing reform -- if not specifically on drugs -- including Rick Perry (Texas) and Chris Christie (New Jersey), who spoke on the topic at CPAC. Georgia's Nathan Deal, Indiana's Mitch Daniels, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and Ohio's John Kasich have also signed legislation or supported programs aimed at lowering prison populations. Given the prevalence of drug-related arrests, those are often cited as a way to quickly shrink the prison population. According to FBI data, an estimated 13 percent of all arrests in the United States in 2013 were drug-related, the highest percentage for any category, and 47 percent of all drug abuse violations were for marijuana sale, manufacturing or possession. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who have tried marijuana has slowly risen to 38 percent in 2013, as a few stats have legalized recreational use of the drug. That's still a minority of the U.S., but even those who have never used pot are more comfortable with it. Since 2013, a majority support legalizing it. Those who support legalization are more likely to be liberal (73 percent who support it) or moderate (58 percent), while only 31 percent of conservatives do, according to Gallup. For that reason, GOP presidential candidates and churches seem to be the next logical supporters of rolling back the war on drugs. And as they continue to trend in that direction, it spells bad things for the decades-old


A tiny monkey is recaptured after two nights of freedom at the Memphis Zoo

“Zimm,” a 3-year-old Sulawesi macaque. credit: Memphis Zoo A busy day at the Memphis Zoo this week was a little more eventful than expected, after Zimm, a 3-year-old Sulawesi macaque, climbed out of her enclosure and evaded capture by zoo staff members for two nights. The Memphis Zoo announced on Saturday that Zimm, who weighs a formidable 10 pounds, had been recaptured at about 9 a.m. that morning. “She’s an extremely spirited, athletic animal,” Matt Thompson, Director of Animal Programs, said in a statement. “This is a very rare occurrence.” “Zimm had a very big day yesterday, and she’s safe and secure now,” Thompson added. Zoo spokesperson Laura Doty told The Post on Friday that Zimm remained out of reach of zoo workers, in a closed culvert system after her Thursday afternoon escape. She spent Thursday night sleeping under the watchful eye of a group of zoo staff members. “We are enticing her with some fresh produce,” Doty said of the efforts to recapture Zimm on Friday. Zookeepers laid out a smorgasbord of Zimm’s favorites – strawberries, apples, bananas, and peanuts – at a culvert opening to try and lure her out. The zoo was open for business as zoo workers tried to recapture her. She’s now under observation at the zoo’s hospital, for what zoo officials described as a “brief stay” before she’s returned to her enclosure. We have you in our sights, @Zimm901. Sleep well, little macaque. We’ll have you home soon. A group of visitors were the first to notice Zimm running free on Thursday afternoon, Doty said. They alerted zoo officials, who quickly launched a search for the young macaque. Zookeepers, armed with large nets, ran through the zoo on the search for Zimm. “If you’ve ever seen a Border Collie corral sheep that is an excellent analogy to talk about how we kind of get her back in,” Doty told WREG. Officials temporarily shut down some sections of the zoo to expedite the process of safely locating her. Now that Zimm is recaptured, the zoo will set about the process of figuring out how Zimm escaped in the first place. [This post, originally published on Friday, has been updated multiple times]


Why the July 14 Pluto flyby will be a spectacular event for all of us

also expected to be helpful: They shouldn't have changed much since the early days of the solar system, so scientists can use them to calculate how many impacts the moon experienced back then -- when some suspect the Kuiper Belt had 100 times as many objects in it as it does now. These images are from a Hubble Space Telescope survey to find Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) in support of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. The Kuiper Belt is a debris field of icy bodies left over from the solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago. (NASA) This exploration need not end with Pluto and its moons. If NASA extends the New Horizons mission, its team can use the last of the probe's fuel to direct it towards one of several other objects they've detected in the Kuiper Belt. So there's a lot more to the mission than Pluto itself, even if the dwarf planet is by far the most famous character featured. "I have no doubt that when we look at Pluto up close and personal we’re going to see things that we never could have seen before from earth," Parker said. "There are going to be things that make us have to revise our models, and that’s why we do this. It’s that next step in understanding the universe." Parker is especially excited to find out more about Pluto's relationship with Charon, its largest moon. The two form an odd pair: Charon is half the size of Pluto at 750 miles across, making it the largest known moon relative to its host planet. And instead of following the traditional courtship of a moon orbiting around its host, Pluto and Charon orbit in sync around a fixed point between them. Pluto and Charon in orbit. (NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI) They act more like a binary planetary system, with Pluto's smaller moons struggling to stay stable around the pair's strange cosmic dance. But their compositions seem to be radically different, and pinning down what they're made of could help scientists understand how they formed -- and why they act so strangely. Pluto's atmosphere is particularly interesting, as well: Scientists already know that it escapes, seemingly evaporating off into space. But it keeps coming back. Something on the surface of the planet must replenish that atmosphere, but they aren't sure what. [Latest images of Pluto may show a polar ice cap] Christopher T.


Why it matters that Eritrean cyclists are wowing the Tour de France

Eritrea's Daniel Teklehaimanot celebrates his polka dot jersey of best climber at the end of the seventh stage of the 102nd edition of the Tour de France on July 10, 2015. (Jeff Pachoud/AFP) Eritrea isn't a big place. The East African country has a population of 6 million or so. Recently it has come under some serious international criticism: A damning report released by the United Nations last month suggested that the country's one-party government might be guilty of crimes against humanity. While the government disputes the findings, the huge numbers of migrants risking their lives to escape the nation contribute to a poor international reputation for life in Eritrea. This week, however, even Eritreans critical of the government may be feeling a sense of pride in their nation. Eritrean cyclists Merhawi Kudus and Daniel Teklehaimanot have made history by becoming the first black Africans to compete in the Tour de France. The Eritrean riders are making their presence felt in the race, with Teklehaimanot winning the coveted King of the Mountains jersey on Thursday. "This is a day I will never forget," Teklehaimanot said. "It is a big step for African cycling." In a sport still dominated by white Europeans, the success of two black Africans is a big step. And while Eritrea may be a small nation with a troubled history and serious economic and political problems in the present day, few are surprised that Eritreans are Eritrea's cycling culture is intertwined with its colonial history. According to Eritrean academic FikreJesus Amahazion, the first bicycle was introduced to the country by the Italians in 1898, and by the 1930s Eritreans were organizing their own bicycle clubs. Amahazion notes that even under the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini, the prowess of the Eritrean cyclists was undeniable: Eritrea’s Ghebremariam Ghebru beat a number of Italian cyclists in a special race organized in 1939 by the colonial administrators, in turn shattering "colonial myths about Eritrean inferiority," Amahazion writes. From 1961 to 1991, Eritreans were locked in a bloody war for independence with Ethiopia. Despite the chaos, cycling remained a part of daily life in Eritrea. Dan Connell, a journalist and expert on Eritrea, says he can recall seeing bicycles in Eritrea regularly when he first traveled there in the mid-1970s. "At that time it was just common to see people riding bikes," Connells said, noting that often he saw "older men


What it took for Ethiopia to lose access to hacking tools it used against journalists in the U.S.

faced pressure from the United Nations and the Italian government over business relationships with repressive regimes. Last fall, the company briefly faced a ban on the export of its products by the Italian government, according to the e-mails. Around the same time, the company's chief operating officer wrote in an e-mail that it had suspended Sudan as a client and that it was a "sensitive" time for the company. But e-mails sent in the aftermath of a March report about Hacking Team tools being used by the Ethiopian government to target journalists based in the United States appear to show that the sloppiness of their Ethiopian customers, which exposed the use of the company's technology, was a bigger concern for the company than potential human rights violations. And later, the company tried to secure a new contract with the country. Researchers with Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs discovered traces of Hacking Team's tools on the computers of U.S.-based Ethiopian journalists, as reported in a front-page story by The Post in February of 2014. The Ethiopian government has a notoriously poor track record on freedom of the press, and Ethiopians living abroad play a significant role in providing independent news coverage of the country's domestic situation. At the time, Ethiopia denied using Hacking Team's products. The government did not respond to a request for comment for the story. This March, Citizen Lab published evidence that Hacking Team spyware had again been used to target Ethiopian journalists in the United States — and the software appeared to have been updated since the earlier attacks were disclosed, suggesting that the company had continued to support the Ethiopian government as a client even after reports of abuse. Hacking Team declined to confirm its relationship with the company at the time, telling The Post that "assertions that may seem perfectly obvious to some can be extremely difficult to actually prove." But internally, there was little debate about the accuracy of the Citizen Lab report. "[T]hey know they are right," wrote one software architect for the company, according to the e-mails. "[E]very technician reading the report will come to the same conclusions." The "infrastructure" supporting Ethiopia was shut down after Hacking Team reviewed the report, according to the e-mails. But the ensuing internal investigation appeared limited. The company did send an inquiry to their contact with Ethiopia's Information Network


All 54 stingrays died at Chicago-area zoo following habitat malfunction

Stingrays. (iStock) Staff at Brookfield Zoo outside of Chicago are working to determine the cause of a malfunction in the stingray habitat that ultimately killed all 54 animals housed in their tank. A post from the zoo’s Facebook page announced Sunday that the oxygen in the stingray tank dropped to dangerously low levels Friday for an unknown reason. Bill Zeigler, the senior vice president of animal programs for the Chicago Zoological Society, told the Chicago Tribune that an alarm at the tank went off around 1:45 p.m. Veterinarians arrived to find the stingrays acting strangely and took immediate action. The staff used an air bubbler and submerged air pumps and were able to restore safe oxygen levels within 20 minutes, Zeigler told the Tribune. [This massive stingray might be the largest freshwater fish ever caught] Unfortunately, it was too late for the 50 cownose rays and four southern stingrays, which all ultimately died. “We are devastated by the tragic loss of these animals,” wrote Bill Zeigler in the Facebook post. Zeigler is the senior vice president of animal programs for the Chicago Zoological Society. “Our staff did everything possible to try and save the animals, but the situation could not be reversed.” The zoo will close the exhibit for the remainder of the season as staff try to determine the source of the malfunction. “They are taking it apart piece by piece to see what went wrong,” Zeigler told the Tribune. Brookfield Zoo lost 16 stingrays in 2008 when a malfunction with the tank’s water heater raised the temperature by 10 degrees, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. At Fresno Chaffee Zoo in 2007, 18 rays died from a similar issue after a power outage. Additionally, 11 freshwater stingrays died at the National Zoo in 2009, and 41 died in Calgary Zoo in 2008, all due to insufficient oxygen. Brittany Peet, deputy director of captive animal law enforcement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), told the Sun-Times that the stingray tank at Brookfield is a “death trap.” “At this point, 70 animals have died at the Brookfield Zoo as a result of malfunctions with their tank and it’s time for them to close down their tank for good,” she told the Sun-Times. “Their lives are worth more than the cheap thrill of touching one of the these animals.” “Seeing wild animals in captivity teaches people nothing about the true


New photo of Pluto’s moon shows a chasm deeper than the Grand Canyon

stable around the pair's strange cosmic dance. But their compositions seem to be radically different, and pinning down what they're made of could help scientists understand how they formed -- and why they act so strangely. Indeed, Charon's moon status doesn't make it less important than Pluto: Scientists are interested in Kuiper Belt objects (such as Pluto and Charon) because they were formed at the very beginning of the solar system and have been kept extremely cold for the 4.6 billion years since. Chances are good that many of these objects contain pristine samples of the materials available when our solar system first formed. But Pluto -- being a planet and all -- has been pretty active since those days. So it won't have kept those materials quite as pristine as its buddy Charon has. [Why the July 14 Pluto flyby will be a spectacular event for all of us] And Charon's craters will be a more direct record of ancient impacts than those on Pluto -- because geological processes on the dwarf planet will have reshaped its surface over the past few billion years. Scientists think the Kuiper Belt once had 100 times as many objects as it does now (which is impressive, as they estimate that it's currently full of a trillion comets) and by counting the impact craters on Charon they can confirm how highly trafficked the area used to be. The latest image of Charon (NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI) The largest chasm looks to be miles longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon. The largest crater is 60 miles across, and seems to have a floor darker than the surface surrounding it. This could mean that the ice exposed by the impact is of a different composition than the ice at the surface. A dark polar region spans 200 miles across, but we'll have to get a closer look to know what makes it different from the rest of the moon. [This is the last picture we’ll see of Pluto’s mystery spots for a long time] “This is the first clear evidence of faulting and surface disruption on Charon,” Read More: Why did NASA spend 9 years getting to Pluto only to fly right pas The inside story of New Horizons’ ‘Apollo 13’ moment on its way to Pluto Why the U.S. Postal Service is excited about NASA’s mission to Pluto Now Pluto has a heart on it Why


The misguided and muddled attack on the president’s new overtime rule

are not currently getting paid anything for overtime. Thus, under the new rule, this potential impact means that they would be working fewer unpaid hours. In other words, their implicit hourly wage — their salary divided by their weekly hours — would be higher under the new rule, and they’ll have more time outside of work. Obviously, this group of workers would be better off. A second critique is that the new rule won’t help its intended beneficiaries because employers will just lower their base wage so that an employee’s total earnings — straight-time plus the now-required time-and-a-half pay — will be the same as it was before the rule change. We noted this response in our original analysis of the need to update the OT salary threshold, but we also pointed out a number of dynamics that critics have largely ignored, factors that lead us to expect such base-wage adjustments to be partial. To be clear, a partial adjustment means that newly covered workers who work overtime end up earning more under the new rule then they do today. First, empirical research shows that it is very unusual for employers to lower the nominal pay of incumbent workers. The story critics are telling implies that the day the rule goes into effect, employers of affected workers will lower their pay, a scenario we are certain is highly unlikely. As time progresses, some employers may allow inflation to erode the base wage, and others may offer lower base pay to new workers who fall in the affected range. But once the salary threshold rises, we’re confident that millions of incumbent workers will be better off. Next, we see no evidence in the literature suggesting a full adjustment to the point that newly covered workers would not end up with at least somewhat higher pay. In fact, earlier literature, as Bernstein discusses here, was explicit on this point (incomplete base-wage adjustment) and later work finds the adjustment to be less than half (meaning workers benefit from more than half of the benefits of overtime coverage). It is worth noting that the literature on this base-wage-reduction impact is quite limited. Compared to say, the minimum wage, far less evidence exists regarding how employers will react to the higher salary threshold. We agree that some wage reductions will occur, but those who blithely assert that full adjustment will occur for all affected workers


Arepa Zone is getting a spot at Union Market after winning the Launch Pad competition

consideration in the contest. They were narrowed down to a pool of 10, followed by a cull to the five finalists: Arepa Zone, Whisked!, Half Smoke, Bao Bar (which just yesterday changed its name from Bao Bros Bar) and Bene Ristorante. The finalists had about an hour to serve tastes of their fare to the attendees as well as judges Goldberg, Lacoste, Katsuya Fukushima of Daikaya, Patrick O'Connell of the Inn at Little Washington, Aaron Silverman of Rose's Luxury, Nora Pouillon of Restaurant Nora and David Hall of investor Revolution. Each finalist then made a five-minute pitch to the judges about their business and why they'd be the best candidate for the stall. Ali Arellano and Gabriela Febres's Arepa Zone will move in to the Ris stall at Union Market. (Joy Asico/Asico Photo) "We wanted to fill the void" of Venezuelan food in Washington, said Arepa Zone's Gabriela Febres, who owns the business with Ali Arellano. "We wanted to bring something new to the city." [The Sifrina from Arepa Zone is worth a good look] Febres said Arepa Zone is currently working on building out a commercial kitchen, which will serve the truck and Union Market stall, as well as a second truck and brick-and-mortar they hope to launch within two years. After all the pitches, the judges reconvened to pick their winner. The criteria included the branding impact and company story, market opportunity, taste of the food and financial understanding. The audience vote also factored into five percent of the overall score. Bao Bar won the afternoon's people's choice award. (Joy Asico/Asico Photo) Bao Bar won the people's choice award. At the end of the event, Goldberg made a surprise announcement: Both Mess Hall and Edens, the developer behind Union Market, were interested in working with the fast-casual Asian bun venture founded by Louis Grayson and Nelson Wong. That may include free membership at Mess Hall, as well as a potential opportunity at a spot owned by Edens. As Lacoste told all the aspiring food businesses, "We're here to help you. This business is not easy." Related items: These 5 food entrepreneurs are vying for a slot in Union Market The Sifrina from Arepa Zone is worth a good look Mason Dixie Biscuit Co. shifts to Union Market Union Market: Eccentric bites to savor — if you can find a seat Plate Lab: Venezuelan arepas, stuffed, savory corn cakes