The D.C. area’s most dog-friendly bar and restaurant patios

In search of an al fresco cocktail with your cocker spaniel, or some wine with your Weimaraner? These are some of the most pooch-friendly in the area. [How restaurants are making room for man's best friend] Dogs are welcome guests during Monday happy hours at Cantina Marina. (Megan McDonough/The Washington Post) Dog happy hours Jackson 20 480 King St., Alexandria. www.jackson20.com. Doggy Happy Hour is held Tuesdays at 5 p.m., with water bowls and complimentary dog treats. Humans can order off of Jackson 20’s bar menu. Cantina Marina 600 Water St. SW. www.cantinamarina.com. Every Monday, a different rescue group will make an appearance at this waterfront bar, accepting donations and showcasing adoptable dogs. There are happy hour specials for humans, and a dog biscuit buffet for their furry friends. Servers will bring dogs water bowls and treats. Helix Lounge 1430 Rhode Island Ave. NW. www.hotelhelix.com. Dog happy hour is held daily at this Logan Circle hotel from 5 to 6 p.m. There are wine specials for owners. Stetson’s 1610 U St. NW. www.stetsons-dc.com. Mondays feature “Puppy Patio” night, with drink specials and half-price burgers outdoors, where dog owners and their friends can mingle. Town 2009 Eighth St. NW. www.towndc.com. Yappy Hour is every Tuesday at 6 p.m. on the patio. Specials include $3 drinks and drafts. Special snacks for your pup: Art and Soul 415 New Jersey Ave. NW. www.artandsouldc.com. The Capitol Hill restaurant’s “Pooch Patio” menu would be a good place to spoil your dog: You can buy $10 sliced steak or $8 Bowser Beer, a non-alcoholic brew made of chicken broth and malt extract. Dairy Godmother 2310 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. www.thedairygodmother.com. “Puppy pops,” frozen yogurt popsicles for your dog, come in banana and pumpkin flavor, at $1.39 apiece. The popular custard shop also offers baked “Squirrel” treats made from malted barley. Each treat is 60 cents; a bag of six is $3.50. Shake Shack Multiple locations Get your dog a “Pooch-ini” custard studded with dog biscuits ($3.95, only intended for large dogs) or some Shake Shack-branded artisanal dog treats ($7.95). Dog-friendly patios While there’s no specified dog happy hour at these bars and restaurants, they have a reputation for welcoming well-behaved dogs at any time. Bardo Brewpub Dacha, Le Diplomate, Medium Rare Mio, Qualia Coffee, 3917 Georgia Ave. NE. www.qualiacoffee.com. Room 11,3234 11th St. NW. www.room11dc.com. Vinoteca, Redwood, 7121 Bethesda Lane, Bethesda. www.redwoodbethesda.com. Liberty Tavern, Lyon Hall,


Guess the D.C. restaurant … emojis edition!

When we learned that Food & Wine magazine had released a keyboard app — complete with a set of restaurant-inspired emojis like Milk Bar’s birthday cake and a Cronut — we wanted in on the fun. Using the common emoji set found on your phone, we created these puzzles that spell out well-known restaurants in the D.C. area, minus any the’s and and’s in their names. How many can you guess? Answers are below. Answers: 1. Rose’s Luxury; 2. Pizzeria Paradiso; 3. The Red Hen; 4. Honey Pig; 5. Cake Love; 6. ChurchKey; 7. American Ice Co.; More fun and games with D.C. dining: Can you guess these D.C. restaurants from just a snapshot? D.C.’s top dining stories of 2014: the board game


Kindergarten teacher: My job is now about tests and data — not children. I quit.

world, “I can’t do this! Look at me! Know me! Help me! See me!” I have changed my practice over the years to allow the necessary time and focus for all the demands coming down from above. Each year there are more. Each year I have had less and less time to teach the children I love in the way I know best—and in the way child development experts recommend. I reached the place last year where I began to feel I was part of a broken system that was causing damage to those very children I was there to serve. I was trying to survive in a community of colleagues who were struggling to do the same: to adapt and survive, to continue to hold onto what we could, and to affirm what we believe to be quality teaching for an early childhood classroom. I began to feel a deep sense of loss of integrity. I felt my spirit, my passion as a teacher, slip away. I felt anger rise inside me. I felt I needed to survive by looking elsewhere and leaving the community I love so dearly. I did not feel I was leaving my job. I felt then and feel now that my job left me. I asked her to explain exactly what had changed in preschool and kindergarten classes since she started teaching and she sent the following, which by any measure is disturbing. Following this is the complete text of her resignation letter. By Susan Sluyter When I first began teaching more than 25 years ago, hands-on exploration, investigation, joy and love of learning characterized the early childhood classroom. I’d describe our current period as a time of testing, data collection, competition and punishment. One would be hard put these days to find joy present in classrooms. I think it started with No Child Left Behind years ago. Over the years I’ve seen this climate of data fascination seep into our schools and slowly change the ability for educators to teach creatively and respond to children’s social and emotional needs. But this was happening in the upper grades mostly. Then it came to kindergarten and PreK, beginning a number of years ago with a literacy initiative that would have had us spending the better part of each day teaching literacy skills through various prescribed techniques. “What about math, science, creative expression and play?” we


Lunch wars: How fast casual took over D.C., and why the boom is fading

casual development, because it's educated and working," says Peter Nolan, chief branding officer of Roti, which is shooting to be the Chipotle of Mediterranean. Sitting at one of the dark wooden tables in his K Street location, Nolan pointed out the "racetrack" that funneled people in towards the assembly line, the beautifully photographed new catering menu for offices that wanted to order in bulk, the "micro-upscaling" touches that make people feel like they're treating themselves well. He even describes Roti as part of something bigger. "I would say we're part of the healthy real food movement," Nolan says. It's not just a D.C. phenomenon, though. The sector is now worth $31 billion, according to research firm Technomic. That's only 14 percent of the overall limited-service restaurant business, but its sales are growing by double digits every year (it now even has its own magazine). With Chipotle's stock up 80 percent in 2013, and the wildly successful initial public offerings of Potbellys and Noodles & Co. over the past several months, Wall Street has been clamoring for more fast casual concepts to invest in. That, in turn, has fueled even more growth. "I think the Noodles IPO woke people up to this space," says Brett Schulman, CEO of the Rockville, Md.-based Cava Mezze Grill chain. "It's not as sexy as a tech company, but a well-run business in this category can be really profitable if it's executed well. It's not an overnight kind of thing. It can be this nice, steady, long-term growth vehicle if you do it right." Just today, tech-centric venture capitalist and AOL co-founder Steve Case put $22 million into the Sweetgreen, which has opened 22 locations in six years. So what does it take to build a replicable restaurant in this kind of market? And is there ever a point where D.C. will have enough? There's a reason for this! (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) —— The story of the past several decades of chain food service has been one of two categories: Fast food or "quick service," with highly mechanized preparation and prices as low as possible, and "casual dining," with outlets like Denny's and Ruby Tuesday offering a sit-down experience that won't break the bank. Casual dining outlets over-expanded and took a big hit in the last recession. The last few years have seen a convergence: Higher quality food without the wait. Nick Marsh, who's engineered


several fast casual concepts and is now the CEO of Chop't, traces the trend back to Starbucks. They commercialized high-end coffee, and made it popular. "They were trying to be better, and they were specialists," he says. "I think the way the consumer has pointed, they're really only willing to believe in this day and age that you're able to be good at a narrow set of things." It's one thing to find a concept that people like. It's another to put it into hyperdrive. Chipotle had a somewhat unique advantage, having been purchased by McDonald's back in 1998, when it was just 14 locations. With the resources and purchasing power of a gigantic multinational company — everything from buying soda to finding real estate, not to mention $360 million in capital — it expanded to 460 locations by 2005, when McDonald's decided to spin it off. (Fast food brands such as Sbarro and sit-down ones like Red Lobster have since tried to reach into fast casual, with decidedly limited success.) Unlike many smaller chains that were gobbled up by larger ones — like Baja Fresh, which Wendy's bought in 2001, and turned into run-of-the-mill fast food — Chipotle managed to stick to its core concept. It never franchised, allowing it to maintain quality standards. With a less mechanized preparation method and no need for the infrastructure of a drive-through, the build-out costs are lower, at around $750,000 per location to over a million dollars for a free-standing fast food restaurant. But with simple ingredients and a customer that cares more about quality than price, the profit margins are fairly high, and growing fast with scale. And thus, a model was born, with hundreds of new chains molding themselves in its image. "Do they want to be the next Chipotle? Sure," says Peter Saleh, an analyst with Telsey Advisory Group. "Investors are looking at these and saying, if these are real concepts that can double, triple, quadruple in size if not more than that, they're great investments people can make." What does the new breed look like? Fast casual restaurants tend to have most of their technology in the front of the house, with customer loyalty apps and online ordering rather than complicated food preparation systems. They're very often "all natural" and organic, and build advertising around where their ingredients come from ("Food with integrity," is how Chipotle puts it).


Punting on pit bulls

The Aug. 11 editorial “Pit bull politics” was right on target in supporting legislation to reverse the Maryland Court of Appeals decision that singled out pit-bull-type dogs for special liability rules in the state. How unfortunate that, despite broad public support and a professed political will to act, lawmakers in Annapolis were unable to come to an agreement on even a stop-gap measure to alleviate the tragic unintended consequences of the ruling. There is no question that thousands of Maryland families, businesses and dogs will suffer because of their inaction. My organization does want to set the record straight about an incorrect reference in the editorial to a “pit bull’s classic locked jaw.” The “locked jaw” is a myth. Any dog can be dangerous or can be a beloved family member. Tami Santelli, Gaithersburg The writer is Maryland state director of the Humane Society of the United States.


Bars vs. grocery stores: Mapping America’s beer belly

Drive down the street in Milwaukee or Madison or Marinette, Wis., and you’re more likely to pass a bar than a grocery store. In fact, in most Wisconsin counties, you’re almost three times more likely to find a place to down a beer than you are to find a place to stock up on groceries. That’s according to this great new map worked up by FlowingData.com, a Web site that specializes in all kinds of nifty visualizations: Map courtesy FlowingData.com As you can see, the darker the brown, the higher the ratio of bars to grocery stores is. The darker the blue, the more grocery stores there are. The map shows what another group of cartographers dubbed the “Beer Belly of America,” the region around Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas where bars outnumber grocery stores by wide margins. Wisconsin has eight bars per 10,000 people, the data show, coming in third place behind North Dakota, with 9.9 bars per 10,000 people, and Montana, with 8.6. Grocery stores still outnumber bars across much of the South, where blue laws stayed on the books for years. Statewide, Delaware, Maryland and Mississippi all have fewer than 1.5 bars per 10,000 people, the lowest rates in the country. Wisconsinites do tend to drink more than the national average. Residents consumed an average of 1.46 gallons of beer and 1.16 gallons of spirits in 2012, according to a report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, far higher than the 1.13 gallons of beer and 0.78 gallons of spirits consumed by the average American. New Hampshire residents drink by far the most beer and spirits, averaging 1.9 gallons per capita. Residents of Idaho and the District of Columbia drank just over a gallon of wine each, more that twice the national average. But fewer bars don’t equate to less drinking. Mississippi and Delaware, two of the states where it’s hardest to find a bar, both consume more beer than the national average. How do we compare with other countries? Well, it depends on the country. You’re a lot more likely to find bars in France and grocery stores in Germany, FlowingData’s maps show. Courtesy FlowingData.com Courtesy FlowingData.com Internationally, more bars don’t always equate to more drinking. Despite the fact that there are so many more bars in France, the French consume 12.6 liters of alcohol per capita, compared with 11.7 liters consumed by


Offensive photo ‘shows the ignorance about Asian culture,’ chefs say

apologize for the inappropriate representation of race that took place at our recent ‘Late Nite Asian Speak-easy’ event in Atlanta. This demonstrated a lack of sensitivity and poor judgment, and it is not something we are proud of in any way. The celebration of global food cultures has always been at the core of our mission, and we will continue to strive to bring people of all backgrounds together in celebration of safe, honest, and authentic eating.” Lowe later issued a video apology on YouTube. Mussman also issued a statement: “I would like to say I’m sorry for my inappropriate and thoughtless actions during the recent Cochon Late Nite Speakeasy event at Muss & Turners. While it was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone or any culture, by wearing the tasteless costume, I did exactly that: I offended, hurt and disappointed many people. I am embarrassed and deeply sorry for my lack of sensitivity and my ignorance.” Erik Bruner-Yang of Maketto It’s not the first time that allegations of racism against Asians have made headlines in the restaurant industry. In 2014, Michelin-starred chef Cesar Ramirez of Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare was accused of using an epithet to refer to Asians by a former server. The server also alleged that Ramirez would give Asians the worst cuts of meat. Ramirez has denied the allegations. In Washington, ice cream company Milk Cult ran into trouble by naming a coconut milk ice cream “Bangkok Brothel.” Critics said the company was making light of sex trafficking and prostitution. The company kept the name, and donated a portion of its profits to organizations that aid sex workers. Restaurant patrons are part of the problem, too: They’re more likely to accuse immigrant restaurants of giving them food poisoning than restaurants that serve conventional American or European food. Bruner-Yang said he had a productive conversation with Lowe about how to move forward and start a dialogue about racism in restaurant kitchens. The organization’s response will inform how he views his affiliation with Cochon in the future. “Everyone has the opportunity to turn a wrong into a right,” he said. As for Lee, he is severing ties with the organization. “I cannot see myself supporting it,” he said. “My hope is that this starts a conversation. I don’t care if it’s Asians, African Americans, Latinos. You cannot do this and think it’s funny.”


Two Americans killed in attack on base in Afghanistan

Then-Lt. Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. during his confirmation hearing in January 2016 before becoming commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. “Anytime we lose a member of our team, it is deeply painful,” he said Wednesday. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) KABUL — A gunman fired on international advisers at an ammunition depot near Camp Morehead, a training site for Afghan commandos, about six miles south of Kabul. The attack, which took place near the entrance of the base, killed one U.S. service member and injured another. One U.S. civilian was also killed, and two more were wounded in the assault, a statement from the NATO-led coalition said. The gunman, who according to the Afghan Defense Ministry was wearing an Afghan army uniform, was killed after international troops responded with gunfire. The injured Americans remained in stable condition, NATO said. “It happened near an arms depot. The attacker opened fire on his [coalition] friends,” Defense Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said. Elite Afghan commandos crouch during a lesson at Camp Morehead in Afghanistan in February. (Tim Craig/The Washington Post) A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the situation was still developing, said the Americans were at the depot as part of the NATO training mission for Afghan security forces. The United States supplies the NATO mission with about 6,800 troops to advise and assist Afghan soldiers who are battling a fierce Taliban insurgency in key areas across the country. An additional 3,000 U.S. troops are dedicated to Operation Freedom Sentinel, a separate counterterrorism mission focused on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The U.S. official said it was not clear Wednesday whether the assailant was in fact a member of the Afghan National Army. But Wednesday’s shooting appeared to be what is known as an “insider” or green-on-blue attack, where Afghan allies turn on their U.S. and foreign mentors. At least 150 coalition troops have been killed in such attacks since 2008, according to data compiled by the Long War Journal, which is published by the D.C.-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The assaults — which have been attributed both to Taliban infiltration and cultural differences between Afghan and foreign troops — surged from 2011 to 2013. But the attacks became more infrequent as the bulk of U.S. and NATO troops withdrew from the country. U.S. forces have suffered only two combat casualties in Afghanistan this year, both of


Butterfly count reveals stable numbers — and some surprises

On a hot August afternoon, dozens of people prowled through trails, fields, meadows and gardens in central Loudoun County, hunting for butterflies. Seventy people turned out for the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy’s 16th annual butterfly count Saturday, said Nicole Hamilton, president of the organization. Divided into seven teams, the butterfly counters combed through separate sectors of the “count circle,” an area with a seven-mile radius centered on Waterford, Hamilton said. This year, the group spotted 3,475 butterflies, representing 49 species, she said. “That number is pretty much on par with what we’ve seen in past years,” Hamilton said. “We’ve had some years where we’ve seen in excess of 5,000 [individual butterflies], but our maximum number of species has only ever been 55, so we’re pretty much on target with what we’d usually see in an average year.” The conservancy was particularly interested in whether there might be any indication that the mild winter had an effect on the local butterfly populations, and some surprises were revealed in the count, Hamilton said. Certain species, including the Cloudless Sulphur, the Eastern Tailed Blue butterfly and the Variegated Fritillary, had particularly high numbers. “The Eastern Tailed Blue butterflies, we had the highest number we’ve ever seen,” Hamilton said. In past years, butterfly counters usually spot only about 200 of the species. This year, the number more than doubled, to more than 400. The Variegated Fritillary had an even more dramatic jump, Hamilton said, from 63 last year to 216 this time. Such dramatic shifts in a butterfly species population can be a powerful indicator of other changes in the environment, Hamilton said, and often reflect the health of the butterflies’ host plants and nectar sources, as well as changes in weather patterns. Butterflies have different “overwintering” strategies, Hamilton said. Some live out the cold months in a chrysalis, while others are still in eggs or in caterpillar form. Other species, such as the famed monarch butterfly, will migrate to a warmer climate. “They require their host plants and their nectar plants,” Hamilton said. “When you look at climate change, when you have something like this drought in the Midwest, there’s a huge impact on the plants. Then you look at the butterflies, and they’re an indicator of how much the drought is affecting the environment.” The conservancy conducts the count within the same area every year, to minimize variables that could affect results. Other


butterfly counters were also focused on the number of monarch butterflies sighted. Last year, the monarch population was devastated by a drought in Texas during its southern migration, and the population that arrived in Mexico in November was the lowest number ever recorded, Hamilton said. When the surviving monarchs started their journey north this spring, they benefited from unusually strong winds that helped propel them up into the eastern United States, Hamilton said. “Thank goodness that happened — those winds actually pushed the monarchs past Texas and past a lot of the drought areas faster than they would have otherwise traveled,” she said. “The numbers were actually kind of decent. Last year, we had 52; this year, we had 57.” The results of Loudoun’s butterfly count will be sent to the North American Butterfly Association. The organization compiles similar data from across the entire country. “Using their protocol and the same type of count circles across the nation, they’re able to aggregate the findings at that macro level,” Hamilton said. “This year will be particularly interesting to look at, given the massive drought that’s happening in the Midwest.” Hamilton said she was relieved to see the resilience of the local butterfly populations, despite changing environmental variables and the threat posed by pesticides. Many Loudoun farms spray pesticides to protect their crops, and the chemicals can have the unwanted side effect of killing butterflies and their host plants. Also, the county this year instituted a controversial approach to spraying a pesticide designed to kill ticks, with the aim to prevent the spread of Lyme disease. “With the farming aspect, that’s such a part of Loudoun’s culture and history, that when we do our count, I think that’s just one of the stable, known quantities,” Hamilton said. “But something that’s new, like spraying for Lyme and ticks, that’s above and beyond.” Hamilton said that the conservancy is opposed to broad-based spraying but that the localized nature of the county spraying program appeared to minimize its effects on the environmental. A bigger concern, she said, was what might happen if the county actively promotes pesticide spraying to homeowners to help combat Lyme-carrying ticks. “If homeowners start spraying all of their areas, that would be really bad,” she said. “Especially if it’s encouraging [homeowners associations] to start spraying across communities — that would be really horrible. The insecticide kills all insects, not just ticks.”


Here’s how we should regulate brain enhancement devices

Or a few extra IQ points. As we’ve already seen with the reaction to pop culture offerings like the new Johnny Depp sci-fi film “Transcendence” the ethical and philosophical lines start to blur very quickly once we start toying with the cognitive properties of the brain. “The most important ethical question will arise if or when it becomes clear that they in fact confer significant cognitive benefits,” says Maslen. “That’s because non-universal access to these devices would create or exacerbate inequality: Those who are informed and wealthy enough to obtain and use cognitive enhancement devices would, if effective, be in a position to privilege themselves further.” In other words, wealthy parents might buy these things for their kids if it will help them get into a prestigious university. Despite these risks, in the “Mind Machines” paper the Oxford researchers argue for a liberal approach to the regulation of CEDs: “ In other words, technologists are facing another Collingridge Dilemma when it comes to regulating these cognitive enhancement devices. Attempt to regulate them now before they’ve entered the consumer mainstream, and you’re dealing with a lot of unknowns. Wait too long, though, and it could become impossible to ever regulate these devices properly. As David Collingridge noted back in 1980, “When change is easy, the need for it cannot be foreseen; when the need for change is apparent, change has become expensive, difficult and time consuming.” So, for now, the basic regulatory framework is to create as much freedom of choice for consumers in a way that keeps them away from the particularly dangerous stuff. Safety comes first, but you still need to leave room for innovation. While most people would think twice about wrapping a metal coil around their head or zapping their brains with magnets, what about some types of fairly innocuous-looking devices that gamers already buy that might have negative side-effects? Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) devices, for example, pose the greatest safety concerns due to the heightened risk of seizures, says Maslen. Could you upload Johnny Depp's brain? Oxford Professor on Transcendence So will brain enhancement devices ever go mainstream? And if they become powerful enough, could they conceivably lead to a “Transcendence”-type scenario, in which the line irreversibly blurs between human intelligence and machine intelligence? Nick Bostrom, director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, has actually considered the potential implications of the


America’s most iconic beer brands are being bought by foreign investors. So what?

of SKYY Vodka and Italian liqueur.) There are online communities and detailed guides on how to find out whether a beer is American-made. And drinkers can still buy beers from big American brewers such as Yuengling, based in Pennsylvania, and Samuel Adams, from Massachusetts’ Boston Beer Company. But American beer drinkers today boast “increasingly global palates,” analysts at Euromonitor International said, and that’s leading them to turn away from light Americana domestics such as Old Style, once advertised as “pure brewed in God’s country.” 1979 Old Style Beer TV commercial Pabst Blue Ribbon has surged among the hipster set, and sales have doubled since 2004, but the broader Pabst brand is still weak in sales. Last year was Pabst’s slowest for beer shipments in at least a decade, according to data from Beer Marketer’s Insights. Constellation Brands, the New York alcohol giant and parent of Mexican cervezas such as Corona, Pacifico and Modelo, saw shipments more than triple over the same time period. Mexican beers, as Euromonitor analysts wrote, “have an aura of vacation and relaxation that appeals to many US consumers.” Pabst’s losses are tied to the larger trend of light domestic lagers losing ground to wines and spirits. Even darker brews are looking better: Americans drank more than 1 billion liters of dark beer last year, making it the nation’s fastest-growing type of alcohol. U.S. drinkers also are opting against buying from big brewers and instead turning to a growing flood of craft breweries. The country had 2,822 running breweries last year, up 39 percent from 2011, and more than 1,000 new craft breweries are in planning nationwide. The United States is far from losing its status as a brewing heavyweight: About 85 percent of the lager Americans drank last year was made in the United States. (For brewers, that’s less a patriotic strategy than a logistical one: Americans drink more lager than nearly every other country, so brewing it here helps keep shipping costs low.) Not many consumer favorites can boast such a high made-in-America share. So why do some drinkers show such a feeling of loss when an American brand extends overseas? “I buy an iPhone even though it’s made in China, but it’s designed in California. I buy Fords even though the parts are made globally but still assembled in the U.S. But there’s just this historic, iconic value to a can of beer,” said


After covering Flight 370 for 3 weeks, this is what I think happened

occur during landing more so than during takeoff. But you’re talking about something that’s so statistically rare that you’re in the 8th or 9th decimal place looking for where to tell that there’s a difference.” In general, if you want to look for a place where an aviation hazard may lurk, look at the cockpit. The common failure mode, he said, “is humans figuring out ways to crash perfectly airworthy airplanes. That’s the area that we really need to be focusing in on.” To be clear: He was not making a statement about Flight 370. We were speaking about aviation safety in general. But the broad picture right now of civilian aviation is that it is extraordinarily reliable and really one of the great achievements of civilization. When you get on a plane you can rationally expect to get where you’re going (if, perhaps, hungry and cranky). It’s possible there’s a failure mode that would cause the pilot and co-pilot to divert back to the nearest airport while losing all ability to communicate — no transponder, no ACARS, no radio — and then that failure mode would knock them out so that the plane flies on its own. Invent your own narrative: There’s no evidence for it, but you can’t rule anything out. Still, the fact that the plane deviated from its flight path, and turned back, just as the plane left Malaysian airspace and was not yet in touch with Vietnamese air traffic controllers, raises suspicion that this was a consciously timed event. The plane was cruising: The safest point in the flight. Usually in these cases, the simplest explanation is the best one. You look for explanations that don’t require too many moving parts or extraordinary occurrences or coincidences. You want the parsimonious theory. Generically, this is why most conspiracy theories aren’t correct. They’re too elaborate and require too many assumptions. Conspiracy theories are Swiss watches; when trying to solve a mystery, first look for a sundial. Let me throw in the JFK assassination just to keep things hopping here: As I wrote a few months ago during the 50th anniversary of the assassination, the conspiracy theories are innately elaborate, whereas the Oswald-did-it scenario is simple. Oswald’s motivations remain the subject of much intriguing investigation — see Ron Rosenbaum’s exhaustive discussion in Slate a few months ago of Oswald’s contacts with Cubans in Mexico City (channeling the author


SpaceX finally launches rocket, makes history

SpaceX finally launched its rocket Tuesday morning, making a mark for itself in spaceflight history, the Associated Press reports The SpaceX company made history as its Falcon 9 rocket rose from its seaside launch pad and pierced the pre-dawn sky, aiming for a rendezvous in a few days with the space station. The unmanned rocket carried into orbit a capsule named Dragon that is packed with 1,000 pounds of space station provisions. It is the first time a private company has launched a vessel to the space station. Before, that was something only major governments had done. “Falcon flew perfectly!!” SpaceX’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, said via Twitter. “Dragon in orbit ... Feels like a giant weight just came off my back.” Musk later told reporters: “I feel very lucky ... For us, it’s like winning the Super Bowl.” This time, the Falcon’s nine engines kept firing all the way through liftoff. On Saturday, flight computers aborted the launch with a half-second remaining in the countdown; a bad engine valve was replaced. The White House quickly offered congratulations. “Every launch into space is a thrilling event, but this one is especially exciting,” said John Holdren, President Barack Obama’s chief science adviser. “This expanded role for the private sector will free up more of NASA’s resources to do what NASA does best — tackle the most demanding technological challenges in space, including those of human space flight beyond low Earth orbit.” Although the launch was a success, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said there is still a lot of work to do, The Post’s Emi Kolawale Members of NASA and SpaceX staff convened for a press conference Tuesday morning, including William Gerstenmaier, Alan Lindenmoyer, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk. Lindenmoyer is the manager for Commercial Crew & Cargo Program at NASA, while Gerstenmaier is the associate administrator, human explorations and operations, also at NASA. Both Lindenmoyer and Gerstenmaier had glowing praise for the SpaceX team, while Shotwell and Musk started the press conference with thanks to the SpaceX staff, NASA, the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration. “We do have a lot of work left to do,” continued Shotwell, “and we’ll keep everybody informed as to the progress.” “We could not have started SpaceX nor could we have reached this point without the help of NASA,” said Musk, who also expressed appreciation for the


Edward Snowden has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize

(Barton Gellman for The Washington Post) Edward Snowden spent the last year revealing some of the government's most tightly held secrets, kicking off a massive debate about the proper role of America's intelligence services. Now, a pair of Norwegian politicians have nominated the NSA leaker for a Nobel Peace Prize. In their nomination letter, Baard Vegar Solhjell and Snorre Valen, who hail from the Socialist Left party, said Snowden's revelations "contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order." Nominations — which are generally secret but sometimes announced by those submitting the paperwork — must be filed by Feb. 1. Snowden likely has dozens of competitors, so there's no guarantee he'll get anywhere. Still, it'd be ironic if Snowden and Obama each wound up winning the same honor just a handful of years apart.


The 15 percent of American adults who are offline, in charts

(Pew Internet & American Life Project) You're reading this on the Internet right now, but some 15 percent of American adults aren't online -- and the Pew Internet and American Life Project just released new data on them. So who are these people? Unsurprisingly, they tend to skew towards the elderly, the poor, and those with less academic attainment. The age disparity is particularly marked, with 44 percent of those aged 65 and older being offline compared to only 2 percent of those aged 18-29. And if you look at the G.I. generation, those currently 77 or older, 62 percent are offline. People over 65 make up almost half of offline adult Americans. Similarly, 41 percent of adults without a high school diploma are offline compared to just 4 percent of people with a college degree or more. The household income divide is less extreme, but still substantial with 24 percent of adults in households making less than $30,000 per year being disconnected from the Internet compared to 4 percent of adults in households with annual above $75,000. But being offline currently doesn't mean ignorance of the Internet. Some 14 percent of offline adults surveyed were online in the past, but have since stopped for some reason. Plus, 23 percent of them live in households where someone else uses the Internet. (Pew Internet & American Life Project) The two major reasons American adults cite for being offline are relevance and usability, with 34 percent and 32 percent, respectively, of offline respondents citing those issues. While some 7 percent say they lack access, cost is a more major concern with 19 percent of those surveyed citing it versus the 7 percent who cited availability. (Pew Internet & American Life Project) Fears about usability are also reflected in how offline adults report they would need help if they decided to go online in the future. Some 63 percent say they would need assistance, while only 17 percent say they could figure it out on their own. Only 13 percent of all offline adults answered that question by saying they would not want to use the Internet. But interestingly, elsewhere in the Pew report it says only 5 percent of adults aged 65 or older say they would like to start using the Internet or e-mail. (Pew Internet & American Life Project) But many offline adults see the Internet as a valuable resource


Coywolves, coyote-wolf hybrids, are prowling Rock Creek Park and D.C. suburbs

Stony Brook University in New York. Regular coyotes, which are native to the American Southwest and the Great Plains area, tend to be tawny-colored and weigh around 25 pounds. Coywolves run upward of 45 pounds and come in an array of hues, including gray and black. “We’ve known for a while that most Eastern coyotes are hybrids to some degree, and now we’re finding a greater degree of hybridization than anyone expected,” Monzon says. In lay terms: The coyotes in Rock Creek Park are probably coywolves. Just a few hundred years ago, coyotes stuck to the plains between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. As humans killed off wolves, coyotes took over their territory. The coyotes that pressed north into Canada came across the remnants of wolf populations and interbred, creating a hybrid creature that’s small enough to live undetected among humans, but large enough to feast on fawns (though perhaps not full-sized deer). In other words, they are perfectly adapted to the I-95 corridor, Monzon says. “The more deer there are around, the more wolf-like the coywolves tend to be,” he says. Coywolves are about 62 percent coyote, 27 percent wolf and 11 percent dog, according to a 2013 paper by Monzon published in Molecular Ecology. Researchers have found them as close as Quantico, Va., and surrounding Prince William County, and game-management officials have confirmed their presence in Laytonsville, Md., in Montgomery County. A Rock Creek Park spokesman denies their existence in D.C., however. “We don’t have any evidence to suspect that our coyotes here in Rock Creek Park are anything other than just normal coyotes,” says the park’s acting deputy superintendent, Jeremy Sweat. Game officials tend to shy away from the term “coywolf,” since it sounds scary, like “werewolf,” says Megan Draheim, a professor at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources, National Capital Region. “It’s not my favorite term either,” she says. “To be a coywolf sounds like half-coyote, half-wolf, and that’s not really what we’re talking about. We are talking about coyotes that have interbred with timber wolves and have some wolf genes in them. It can be fairly negligible or it can be more,” she says. Wolf genes seem to be spreading quickly and thoroughly through the Eastern coyote population, Monzon says. His 2013 study found that even Ohio coyotes had wolf genes, a surprising finding that suggests coywolves are moving south from New England


pretty wolf-y to D.C. resident Gareth Wishart. The 28-year-old conservationist, who’s tracked coyotes in Montana and wolves in Spain, says he’s seen coywolves in Rock Creek Park on two different occasions, most recently in January. “It came to within about 8 yards of us,” says Wishart, who took a friend to the park for some wildlife spotting one evening. “Their size is really noticeable — how much bigger they are than coyotes out west. They are much stockier and you can notice the difference in the size of their skull.” Wishart, who wrote about an earlier coywolf encounter for Gizmodo.com, was thrilled to find the apex predators in such an urban park. “It’s a presence you can really feel when you’re out in the woods I think,” he says. “It’s one that I appreciate, at least, and I hope others do as well.” Farley has a different perspective. Though Kai escaped with just two puncture wounds on his hindquarters, both dog and human are wary of the woods these days. “I liked it better when I was growing up in D.C., and we didn’t have any coyotes or coywolves or whatever,” she says. “But they’re here now, so what are you going to do?” Are they dangerous? Not to humans, though outdoor cats and unattended dogs have reason to be concerned. The most important thing is to walk your dog with a leash, says Rock Creek Park’s acting deputy superintendent, Jeremy Sweat. Coyotes have been living in Rock Creek Park since at least 2004, and there have been only two reported attacks, both on dogs that were running through the woods off-leash, he says. “Especially in the spring and early summer, a lot of these coyotes might have dens in the park. They might have young pups. If a dog approaches them off leash, they are much more likely to act aggressively to protect their young or protect their territory,” Sweat says. If the presence of coyotes or coywolves makes D.C. slightly scarier for pets, that goes double for rodents, says Megan Draheim, a professor at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources, National Capital Region. “They eat a lot of rats and mice,” she says. “That’s something we can all appreciate.” More stories about animals in D.C.: There’s more to wildlife in D.C. than street rats Bao Bao’s going to be big in 2014 Rusty vs. Bao Bao in song


Burma victory caps a decades-long battle for opposition leader Suu Kyi

The Washington Post's William Branigin talks about the difference between Burma in 1990 and now. RANGOON, BURMA — “She’s very strong,” Nyan Win said with a broad smile. Friday marked a historic moment for the 72-year-old lawyer and other pro-democracy activists in Burma, also known as Myanmar, as Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy clinched a victory in last Sunday’s general elections with enough seats in parliament to form a government and elect a president. Votes are still being tallied in the country’s first competitive national elections in more than 25 years. The milestone came on a hot Rangoon day at noon, but there was no celebrating, no fireworks, no dancing in the streets as there had been earlier in the week. The NLD headquarters was quiet, with the newly elected candidates stopping by to do their paperwork. Only the T-shirt seller on the sidewalk was doing brisk business in Suu Kyi memorabilia — remarkable, considering that her photo was still banned from public display just five years ago. The Burmese pro-democracy leader spent 15 years under house arrest, at the order of a military junta, before her release in 2010. As the Nobel laureate’s National League for Democracy party hopes for a historic win in this year’s elections, here is a look back at key moments in her political career. Suu Kyi, 70, the revered leader known here simply as “the Lady,” had come earlier in the week to give a short speech to her supporters, asking them not to gloat over their landslide victory. Five years after the country’s generals launched a process of democratic reform, the joy of victory is tinged with fear. “Everything in our country is still under the generals’ control,” said Aung Thein, 82, an NLD member and the party’s internal auditor. “Will they let her form a government or not? That is the question.” Daughter of Burma The generals have gone back on their word before. In 1990, two years after a student uprising and brutal military crackdown launched Suu Kyi into politics, her pro-democracy party won 80 percent of the seats in parliament. The military, in power since a 1962 coup, simply ignored the results. Nyan Win was in prison at the time of the 1990 elections, and Suu Kyi, who would win the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, was under house arrest. She would spend 15 out of 21 years


Masseria review: A dining room that transports with flavors and scenery

EXCELLENT Dinner at the tucked-away Masseria near Union Market places patrons in an Italian fashion show. First there’s the stroll from luxe gravel courtyard to stone-and-wood dining room, followed by cocktails that demand your undivided attention even as a server sets down a plate of snacks, including impossibly thin sesame grissini tinted with squid ink. The food is described in the barest of terms on the menu, which lets guests pick from three to six courses, depending on the night. Ask for the “spring vegetable salad,” and out comes a garland of Instagram-ready vegetables and flowers set off with dots of sauces in pink (chioggia beet) and two shades of green (pea and artichoke). Request the “capretto,” or goat, and what follows is an arrestingly roseate rack of meat plus confit poised against verdant spinach and mellow yellow garlic puree. Now bite. The food lives up to its looks. The guy behind the style is Nicholas Stefanelli, adding dash to the District. -- The following review appeared in The Washington Post’s 2015 Fall Dining Guide. A banner year of cooking in Washington has been matched by one of transporting interiors. Consider Masseria, modeled after the country houses in Puglia, Italy, and the first stand-alone restaurant amid the warehouses outside Union Market. Masseria feels like a secret. A plain wood wall keeps its charms out of sight until you enter a courtyard of ornamental grasses and pools of gravel leading to a dining room that blends rusticity (concrete floors, industrial ceiling) with refinement (leather seats with mohair backs, Frette napkins). It’s a far cry from Nick Stefanelli’s previous post, the a la carte Bibiana downtown. These days, the chef is offering tasting menus of three or five courses; tripe paired with lobster and squab with Italian plums should make the cut. If you don’t want to commit to a full dinner, the bar menu lets you sample the chef’s range with fried whole prawns tossed in a house-made XO sauce and calamari tossed with radicchio in saffron mayonnaise. They’re snacks best consumed at the inside-outside bar with drinks that send the message that Washington’s mixologists are second to none. That’s your cue to order Hennessy Jed, a snifter of cognac and bitters to which a server adds plum-infused glycerin smoke. The animated elixir is unlike any you’re apt to find in the Italian countryside, although the scenery channels just that fantasy.


Hope gave me children and cured my cancer. Now I’m in Iraq praying the same faith will heal people here.

one week after my radiation was complete, back in northern Iraq, with communities of Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities struggling to consider how they will bring hope to their own cancer: Their total lack of trust in one another. The Islamic State is not the cause, but rather an accelerator of the disease. And as news comes that security forces are about to chase the Islamic State from Mosul, the question of how the region will face its illness is looming large. And having seen the power of prayer with my children and my disease – situations that seemed intractable – I turned again to God this week, considering the hope of Easter against the hopelessness of the region’s cancer. Sunni Arabs do not trust Shiite Arabs or Shiite Persians. Sunni Kurds do not trust Sunni Arabs. Christians and Yazidis do not trust the Kurds. And while some can escape the region, the overwhelming majority cannot flee this cancer. Their only choice is how to respond in how they treat one another. So far the pessimists have the upper hand. And so this cancer metastasizes: between and among all the groups as each becomes defined against the other. It is as natural as it is understandable, and those of us from outside the region cannot judge those in it. Everyone, especially the ethnic and religious minorities against whom the Islamic State is waging genocide, is vulnerable, with no control of or hope for the future. This destruction of trust also exists between those in the region and those who can help, from the outside. It seems that the rest of the world can barely tolerate dealing with the symptoms of this crisis—refugees—while having no stomach for its roots. The West is indicted twice – we refused to defeat the terrorism at its point of origin and now refuse the refugees who have resulted. The refugees don’t trust us, we don’t trust them as the disease – lack of trust – deepens and spreads around the world. I’ve watched Iraq up close for the last few years through my organization, the Institute for Global Engagement, and our initiative The Cradle Fund. Its goal is to help rescue, restore, and return Christians and other ethnic and religious groups to their Islamic State-occupied homes such that they can practice and live their faith, free from fear. We work with both grassroots


Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos awarded Nobel Peace Prize for bid to end half-century conflict

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end a 52-year-old war with Marxist rebels, a surprise choice and a show of support after Colombians rejected a peace accord last Sunday. BRUSSELS — The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it made the decision because of Santos’s landmark attempt to stamp out one of the world’s longest-running conflicts, which has killed more than 220,000 people and driven at least 7 million from their homes since 1964. The award was a surprise because Colombians voted Sunday against Santos’s peace accord, which many viewed as too generous to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Santos was considered a leading candidate for the prize prior to the referendum, but his chances seemed to fade after voters sunk the deal by a narrow margin. Offering a window into Nobel deliberations, the committee said its members were conscious that the Colombian peace efforts were imperiled and wanted to offer a boost. “There is a real danger that the peace process will come to a halt and that civil war will flare up again,” said Kaci Kullmann Five, a former Norwegian politician who is now chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. “We hope it will encourage all good initiatives and all the parties who could make a difference in this process in Colombia.” Juan Manuel Santos was recognized for his work to end a half-century conflict with Marxist rebels in his country. Santos’s award was celebrated in Colombia, whose only previous Nobel winner was the late novelist Gabriel García Márquez , recipient of the 1982 prize in literature. Santos dedicated the prize to the Colombian people and the millions who have suffered from the bloodshed. “This is for the victims,” he said in a nationally televised address Friday morning. “So that there won’t be one more victim, nor one more death. We must come together and unite to complete this process, and begin to build a stable and lasting peace.” Among the surprises of the award was that it was bestowed on Santos alone, rather than the president and his main partner in the peace efforts, FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, who goes by the alias Timochenko. But the FARC leader was never considered as strong a candidate for the honor. Like other guerrilla commanders, he is wanted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges, and he leads a rebel army that


Cloud computing sets stage for a global privacy battle

and technical requirements have the potential to crush innovation. When the customer is a government, these legal issues are confounded by political concerns. If government data is stored overseas, it may be subject to legal control by another nation. The question is made more acute by Congress’s move in December to require some federal agencies, such as the Defense Department, to use commercial cloud services instead of in-house, or private, clouds. Now we will need to ask when European privacy laws may apply to Defense Department data held in the commercial cloud — hardly a question that U.S. policymakers are eager to answer. Rather than confront such scenarios across multiple issues, another option should be developed. The globalized nature of the Internet and the distributed nature of cloud architecture suggest the need for a universal set of rules to protect privacy; rules that apply to cloud services everywhere on the network. But there is little reason to be sanguine about the prospects for a satisfactory global privacy regime. A set of global rules will be difficult to achieve. International structures are notoriously cumbersome and slow-moving; this is a particular challenge in the context of quickly developing cloud technology. And international organizations’ governance structures are often universally inclusive, which means that countries with little interest in Internet freedom or accessibility may have a disproportionate influence on the rules adopted. The alternative, however, is equally problematic. If development of privacy rules and regulations is left to individual countries, one of three scenarios is likely to result: Heralded by E.U. actions, more fragmented regulation may emerge as non-European countries try to impose their own privacy views on an unruly network. As a condition of access to a market, they will hold hostage providers who use cloud services — in effect, trying to balkanize the Internet. Another possibility is a rush to the bottom as countries compete to attract commercial cloud services by minimizing privacy protections. The most likely result, however, is a privacy clash as the United States and the European Union compete to impose their will. This is the worst possible outcome, pitting natural allies against each other. U.S. diplomacy should urgently focus on dissuading Europe from unilateral action while developing a comprehensive “Western” approach to cloud privacy. That type of agreement on privacy principles would drive favorable policy development and set the stage for safe and effective expansion of cloud services.


Wal-Mart’s self-interested shot at reviving the American factory

they don’t have a massive volume of new U.S. sales, they do have plenty of projects that show what’s possible. Like Emilia PC, a cosmetics company that was able to buy a near-death factory in Mississippi and get bank loans to purchase productivity-boosting systems, with the help of a longer-term purchase commitment from Walmart. Or Ferrara, a candy company company that, when asked to produce more of Wal-Mart’s private-label sweets here, transferred some jobs from Mexico to Chicago. In some cases, the “Made in USA” product might cost marginally more than the imported one. Wal-Mart’s own consumer base, which used to skew lower-income, now represents more of an economic cross-section of America — potentially allowing them to offer products that are higher quality and higher cost. But the company has doubled down on its suppliers to cut prices in recent months. And usually, Walmart asks the company to stretch and deliver at the same price domestically what they would by going overseas. "There are skeptics that say, 'if you make it in the U.S., it’s going to cost more.' And our customers even say, 'I’m willing to pay more,'” said Michelle Gloeckler, who is leading Wal-Mart’s U.S. manufacturing initiative, on a stage set with U.S.-made goods. “But that’s the thing. We don’t think they should have to pay more.” For some products, with smart management, economic fundamentals now support that principle. Energy costs in the U.S. are at historic lows. Extensive supply chains, with the risk of intellectual property theft, are now seen as more of a liability than an asset. Smaller, more productive machines are able to churn out inventory closer to the consumer, allowing for faster turnaround times. Most important for the American worker, though, is the part that has to do with labor costs. Average wages in China — which were 17.5 percent of U.S. wages in 2000 — are now 61 percent of U.S. wages, according to an analysis by the Boston Consulting Group. And above all, cutting-edge manufacturing technology — in which Wal-Mart has directly invested $10 million in grants — are able to cut out much of the labor that made U.S. production more expensive in the first place, closing the last of that gap. “We can make those products cheaper than anybody in the world,” said Rocky Casteel, president of Mohawk Home, which produces rugs and mats for Walmart in Georgia. “And we


CES 2012: Tablets, ultrabooks and smartphones take center stage

and entertainment devices that actually play nice together. As our houses and gadgets get more and more connected, companies all over the globe are dreaming up ways to make everything talk to one another. I expect 2012 will be the year that jumpstarts the wired (or rather, wireless) home revolution. Some companies, including HP, have gotten a jumpstart on the CES action. Hayley Tsukayama reports: Hewlett-Packard is making a big push to keep PCs in the mix as buzz for ultrabooks and tablets dominate the conversation ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show. Sure, the company is also prepping the release of what appears to be its own new ultrabook, the Spectre, but it’s also showing off some great desktop hardware ahead of the big show next week. On Wednesday the company unveiled two desktops, the 27-inch Omni All-in-One and the Pavilion Phoenix h9 desktop. The all-in-one computer appears to be aimed at the family office. It’s expansive screen is good for watching video and its “one cord” setup is clearly aimed at people who want a computer that can move around the house, easy to get going and want to share movies, pictures or other media with a crowd. The Pavilion Phoenix, on the other hand, is clearly aimed at power gamers, at least the ones who don’t want to build their own machines. The computer has nearly all of the bells and whistles you could want, from 2 TB of storage to a highly effective (but scary to DIY) liquid cooling system. It even has room for up to three hard drives. One offbeat item that could debut at CES? A waterproof tablet, writes Nathan Ingraham: We're expecting to see a wide variety of Android tablets next week at CES, but the Pantech Element is one of only a few we've heard of that claims to be waterproof.According to BGR, the Element will be "waterproofed for real life," which translates to splash-resistance as long as all the ports are closed. The waterproof rating is reportedly IP57, which means that you can't submerge it like other ruggedized devices on the market like the Motorola Defy; it sounds similar to the splash-resistant coating Motorola's Xoom 2 / Xyboard. More from The Washington Post: Android Market is catching up to Apple's App Store Google punishes itself after Chrome dustup iPhone 4S heads to China iPad presents a quandary for corporate IT departments


Baby orangutan on public view at National Zoo

Mama orangutan with her baby at the zoo. (Courtesy of the National Zoo) About a week after her birth, the National Zoo’s baby orangutan and her mama are back for the public to see at the facility’s Great Ape House. The new orangutan, named Redd, had been cared for by his mother, Batang, in a quiet area that was not in public view so that they could bond. The Great Ape House had been closed since Redd’s birth Sept. 12. The Great Ape House reopened this week, and the two made their debut to the public area. But zoo officials warned that they might not always feel like being watched. The zoo said in a statement that mother and child may still wish to spend some time “away from the public viewing areas.” Still, a few videos from the zoo give peeks into how the two are doing. In one, Batang is seen caring for Redd. National Zoo visitors get their first chance to see Redd, the male orangutan born Sept. 12, when the zoo re-opens the great ape house exhibit on Sept. 21. Zookeepers said Batang and her baby are doing fine. Zoo officials said infant orangutans communicate with their mothers by using vocalizations, gestures and touch. In a Twitter message, zoo officials said, “She’s attentive, holds him gently & nurses him: all encouraging signs!” Redd was born Sept. 12. He is the first Bornean orangutan born at the National Zoo in 25 years. His mother and his father, Kyle, are 19 years old. The two were bred in January. Batang’s pregnancy was announced in June after an ultrasound. She had a record-setting four-minute labor. The staff at the zoo chose “Redd” because orangutans are known as the “red ape,” officials said. The word “orangutan” means “person of the forest” in Indonesian. Orangutans are considered a critically endangered species, and they have lost their habitat in the wild as land has been cleared for plantations, experts said. Meredith Bastian, the zoo’s curator of primates, had called Redd’s birth “a very big deal.” She also said the animals are “critically endangered in the wild. The next step is extinction.” Their main predators are pythons, clouded leopards and humans. The animals can live into their late 50s in the wild and in captivity. At D.C.’s zoo, there are now seven orangutans. The zoo prepared Batang, and two potential female surrogates, Bonnie


When driverless cars crash, who’s to blame?

responsibility for a collision involving two human drivers, let alone a crash involving a driverless car, let alone a car that's only autonomous some of the time. If a driver begins drifting out of his lane but the computer assist fails to kick in, who's to blame? Villasenor acknowledges these are tricky questions, but ones our legal system is mostly equipped to deal with. Whether it's classifying a slip-up as a design defect, a breach of warranty, negligence or some other mistake — all of which have concrete definitions under the law — we've at least got a vocabulary for talking about errors when they happen. The trickier challenge is for the manufacturers to decide how to teach autonomous vehicles to make "good" decisions. Does a driverless car have an ironclad obligation to protect its occupants, even to the point of putting non-passengers at risk? Framed that way, it sounds like a no-brainer. But when the non-passengers happen to be cyclists or pedestrians, it gets a lot more complicated. The future also promises to turn car manufacturers into software companies, as automated systems will need periodic upgrades and programming changes. Maybe driverless cars will come plastered with all sorts of alerts about what could happen if you're not paying attention, too. "Manufacturers tend to err on the side of being very conservative in issuing such warnings," writes Villasenor. "As manufacturers introduce new forms of vehicle automation, they will no doubt include copious warnings about the attendant risks." Or maybe driverless cars might actually suggest when a human should take over for certain stretches of roads it knows to be dangerous — something that could be easily implemented given all the data we collect about car crashes. That way, the car manufacturer wouldn't be liable in the event the driver gets in a fender-bender. The prospect of having to grapple with this legal gray area — not to mention the thought of putting your life in the hands of a machine — just might be enough to turn you off of self-driving cars forever. But the big picture is also important. In light of how many people get injured or killed every year as a result of mistakes they or other humans made behind the wheel, self-driving cars could be a huge step up in terms of safety. If self-driving cars cause a handful of crashes every year but prevent thousands,


New technique may prevent the gruesome deaths of billions of male chicks

sex of chicks before they hatch at their lab in Dresden. (John MacDougall/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) Vital Farms’s work with Novatrans, however, had not been publicized until now. Paul Knepper, president of a subsidiary called Ovabrite that Vital Farms has launched to market its method, said it is different from other technologies in development because it does not involve puncturing the egg and is used on the day eggs are laid, keeping them viable for human consumption. Knepper said it traps an egg’s metabolic byproducts — which he described as volatile organic compounds “given off by an egg as it ‘breathes'” — that carry a distinct, measurable male or female signature. The two-second-per-egg process is carried out by a device that Knepper said is about the size of a boardroom table. “You destroy a lot of the economics to the hatchery if you have to put the egg in the incubator at all,” Knepper said. “Whether or not you cull them before there’s a chick that can feel pain, there’s still waste.” Paul Shapiro, who until recently was the Humane Society of the United States’ vice president for farm animal welfare, said he was “overjoyed” to hear of Vital Farms’s investment in the technology. Shapiro, now the organization’s vice president for policy, said as many as 65 percent of eggs laid to U.S. laying hens are wasted, because the half that are males end up killed, and as many as 15 percent are infertile. “This is very promising, both because it can prevent the killing of male chicks but also because it can reduce the need for battery-caged hens,” he said, referring to the small, stacked cages most commonly used to house hens today. “If those eggs can enter the market, it reduces the demand on having battery-caged hens. This would be a win-win both for male chicks and for laying hens.” Vital Farms, based in Austin, sources its eggs from 100 small farms that O’Hayer said are all located in the nation’s “pasture belt” — states from Georgia to Oklahoma that don’t have long periods of cold and allow chickens to roam outdoors year-round. O’Hayer, a longtime entrepreneur, said he was astonished to learn about male chick culling in 2008, one year after starting his egg company. He spent years “trying to find a way to get homes for the male chicks,” he said, including by exploring exporting


Reacting to sanctions, Russians ban Reid, Boehner and four other lawmakers

(Associated Press) The Russian government Thursday announced sanctions against several advisers to President Obama as well as a number of lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- retaliation after President Obama announced economic sanctions against Russia. The sanctions ban Boehner, Reid, and Sens. Mary Landrieu, Daniel Coats, Robert Menendez, John McCain, as well as Obama advisers Caroline Atkinson, Daniel Pfeiffer and Benjamin Rhodes from entering Russia. The announcement came after the lower house of the Russian parliament voted Thursday to admit Crimea and the metropolitan region of Sevastopol into the Russian Federation, putting some of the final procedural touches on Moscow’s controversial takeover of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. In Washington, Obama said he was ordering new sanctions against Russia in response to what he called Russia’s “illegitimate move” to annex Crimea. Not long after Obama spoke, the Russians announced the ban on these U.S. lawmakers. Several of them responded almost immediately -- taking pride in their inclusion on the list of U.S. officials banned from Russia. “The Speaker is proud to be included on a list of those willing to stand against Putin’s aggression," said Michael Steel, Boehner's spokesman, in a statement. McCain, who has been outspoken in his calls for tougher action against the Russians, declared, "I'm proud to be sanctioned by Putin - I'll never cease my efforts & dedication to freedom & independence of Ukraine, which includes Crimea," in a tweet Thursday morning. The Arizona senator later added: “I guess this means my spring break in Siberia is off, my Gazprom stock is lost, and my secret bank account in Moscow is frozen. Nonetheless, I will never cease my efforts on behalf of the freedom, independence, and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea.” Menendez, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, issued a statement just after noon in which he stood by his previous criticism of Russia's annexation of Crimea. "President Putin's military invasion and annexation of Crimea is brutal, totally unacceptable, and sadly returns us to a period of Cold War aggression and hostility," Menendez said in the statement. "It doesn't have to be this way, but if standing up for the Ukrainian people, their freedom, their hard earned democracy, and sovereignty means I'm sanctioned by Putin, so be it." Coats injected some humor into his response, and also said that he would continue his efforts to


Chronic fatigue syndrome may be a human version of ‘hibernation’

a worm by altering a single gene that regulates the dauer state. When it comes to CFS, this theory appears to explain some of the mysteries of the condition, such as why many people seem to come down with it after a trigger event such as an infection or exposure to chemicals. In a Q&A to the CFS community, Naviaux described this theory of humans having a cell-danger response in more depth: “Historical changes in the seasonal availability of calories, microbial pathogens, water stress and other environmental stresses have ensured that we all have inherited hundreds to thousands of genes that our ancestors used to survive all of these conditions.” When faced with adversity, cells go into defensive mode, he explained. “In most cases, this strategy is effective and normal metabolism is restored after a few days or weeks of illness, and recovery is complete after a few weeks or months.” But with CFS, it’s that possible the body got “stuck” in that state. He said that although he does not believe that CFS is actually hibernation and although humans do not, in fact, hibernate, he said the “metabolic signature” is similar to that of animals in hibernation. Stanford Professor Ronald Davis called the work — if it can be replicated and validated — a “game-changer” for people with CFS. For the first time, it presents a possible biomarker for diagnosing the condition and provides a target for possible treatments. “What they found is that there may be an ancient pathway, and maybe in humans it’s not working very well. Or maybe people have gotten themselves too far down into the state and can’t get back out,” Davis said in an interview. If that were the case, he explained, curing people of CFS may be akin to waking the body up. Davis said it’s possible that the treatment may not be anything radical; it might involve putting the body back in balance with the right mix of diet and supplements. But even Davis cautioned that however alluring the paper’s implications are, “it is only a hypothesis.” Davis, a professor of biochemistry and genetics, who was not involved in the original study, is collaborating with other scientists on a larger study to try to replicate the PNAS findings. Read more: Ebola stayed in the semen of one man for 565 days These futuristic contact lenses dispense drugs while you wear them


‘Poetry for the ear’: Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in literature

tradition. And for 54 years, he’s been at it, reinventing himself, creating a new identity.” She suggested that people unfamiliar with his work start with “Blonde on Blonde,” his album from 1966. “Bob Dylan writes poetry for the ear,” she said. “But it’s perfectly fine to read his works as poetry.” She drew parallels between Dylan’s work and poets as far back as Greek antiquity. “It’s an extraordinary example of his brilliant way of rhyming and his pictorial thinking,” Danius said. “If you look back, far back, you discover Homer and Sappho, and they wrote poetic texts that were meant to be listened to. They were meant to be performed. It’s the same way with Bob Dylan. But we still read Homer and Sappho. He can be read and should be read. He is a great poet in the grand English tradition. I know the music, and I’ve started to appreciate him much more now. Today, I’m a lover of Bob Dylan. Dylan will receive an 18-karat gold medal and a check for about $925,000. Tributes for Dylan — as well as the Nobel’s unconventional choice — came from across the world and spanned from the worlds of politics to letters. “Dylan is the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition. Great choice,” said a Twitter message from British novelist Salman Rushdie. Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, called the honor for Dylan a “joy” and recalled “many fond memories from my adolescence are associated with his music.” Just after 7 a.m., songwriter Rosanne Cash was in her New York home when her husband John ran down the stairs “like an elephant.” “Dylan won the Nobel Prize,” he shouted. “No,” said Cash, “that can’t be true.” Cash, whose legendary late father, Johnny, was a friend and sometime collaborator with Dylan, spent the rest of the morning beaming. She also received a flurry of text messages, everyone from songwriter Marc Cohn to her literary agent. “The chatter is this pride and that finally he gets recognized in this way that equates songwriting with great literature,” said Cash. “I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me, because I also write prose, ‘Oh, you’re also a real writer.’ It’s so offensive. Like songwriting doesn’t require the same discipline. So the fact that he’s recognized lifts all of our boats.” But at last one prominent writer, however, took issue with the Nobel selection.


2015 was a tipping point for six technologies that will change the world

its use by criminals and hackers and the fall of its price from a peak of about $1100 to $250. Yet, in 2015, it gained acceptance by retailers such as Overstock.com. And the technology that underlies it, blockchain, became the basis of hundreds of technology-development efforts. The blockchain is not useful just for finance. It is an almost incorruptible digital ledger that can be used to record practically anything that can be digitized: birth and death certificates, marriage licenses, deeds and titles of ownership, educational degrees, medical records, contracts, and votes. It has the potential to transform the lives of billions of people who lack bank accounts and access to the legal and administrative infrastructure that we take for granted. (Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images) 4. Engineering of life Another technology that came into the mainstream was CRISPR gene modification. Discovered by scientists only a few years ago, CRISPRs are elements of an ancient system that protects bacteria and other single-celled organisms from viruses, acquiring immunity to them by incorporating genetic elements from the virus invaders. Via CRISPRs, DNA can be edited, either removing unwanted sequences or inserting payload sequences, the genetic and chemical components necessary costing as little as $100. CRISPR modification introduces many new risks if used wrongly—to edit human embryos, for example. But it could also be used to correct faulty DNA that’s responsible for genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle-cell anemia, and Alzheimer’s, and to edit the genes of plants to produce more-nutritious food and require less water. Labs all over the world are working with this technology to solve a wide range of problems, and we will see breakthroughs. (Francois Lenoir/Reuters) 5. The drone age It is estimated that Americans will have purchased nearly half a million drones during this holiday season. With the cost of these flying machines falling to less than $100, the drone age has officially begun. We will see them everywhere. As the technologies advance, these will carry increasing amounts of weight and travel over longer distances. You can expect Amazon and Walmart to deliver your groceries and Starbucks to bring you your morning latte via drone. And they will monitor traffic and crime, perform building inspections, and provide emergency assistance in disasters. These are an even bigger deal for the developing world. Large sections of Africa don’t have roads; remote towns and villages can’t get medical supplies; and large cities are


The President’s sanctions program for hackers

The executive order allowing the President to impose OFAC sanctions on hackers is good news. I’ve been calling on the government for several years to go beyond attribution to retribution. See, for example this post from 2012 (caution: cleavage is involved), this Foreign Policy article (sadly, no cleavage), and this recent podcast with Juan Zarate (again no cleavage, you’ll be relieved to hear). Similar sentiments were express in a 2013 report by the American Bar Association. The good news from the Sony case is how much better and faster we’ve gotten at attributing network espionage and network attacks. But that won’t do much good until we can also punish those we identify. This order offers a real possibility that we can. Even the hackers don’t want to work for government forever; they hope to run startups just like everybody else, but that will be hard with an OFAC sanction hanging over their heads. And the companies that benefit from stolen trade secrets could also find themselves sanctioned, since the order extends to them as well. Sanctions can be applied to any company that is: responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, the receipt or use for commercial or competitive advantage or private financial gain, or by a commercial entity, outside the United States of trade secrets misappropriated through cyber-enabled means knowing they have been misappropriated, where the misappropriation of such trade secrets is reasonably likely to result in, or has materially contributed to, a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States. The program is a bit of an empty shell right now: it authorizes but doesn’t apply sanctions to any hackers. But if it’s used wisely it could be a game changer — the first real deterrent to cyberspying and cyberattacks.


We interrupt 2016 election coverage to inform you of the small possibility that there might be intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy

The search for intelligent life on other planets will get a boost when the first stage of a new telescope is completed in Hat Creek, Calif. Michael Davis, director of projects for the SETI Institute, inspects the new antennas in May 2005. (Ariana Eunjung Cha/The Washington Post) I woke up this morning to see this on my Twitter feed: 5 things to know for Tuesday: - Gene Wilder - Migrant crisis - Space - Abedin-Weiner split - Terrorism https://t.co/qT2MvWDLZu On a typical day, these are all interesting (or sad) stories, and Gene Wilder will be missed, so — wait, what was the “Space” one again? An international team of scientists from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is investigating mysterious signal spikes emitting from a 6.3-billion-year-old star in the constellation Hercules — 95 light years away from Earth. The implications are extraordinary and point to the possibility of a civilization far more advanced than our own. Let’s check out the Search for Extraterrestrial Life in the Universe (SETI) Twitter feed: They’re not saying it’s aliens, but signal traced to sunlike star sparks SETI interest https://t.co/Q5Lk42lA18 https://t.co/dox1218NIs SETI explains further HD 164595, a solar system a few billion years older than the Sun but centered on a star of comparable size and brightness, is the purported source of a signal found with the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, at the northern foot of the Caucasus Mountains. This system is known to have one planet, a Neptune-sized world in such a very tight orbit, making it unattractive for life. However, there could be other planets in this system that are still undiscovered. The signal seems to have been discussed in a presentation given by several Russian astronomers as well as Italian researcher, Claudio Maccone, the chair of the International Academy of Astronautics Permanent SETI Committee. Maccone has recently sent an email to SETI scientists in which he describes this presentation, including the signal ascribed to star system HD 164595. Could it be a transmission from a technically proficient society? We’ll get to the probability of that being the case in a second. But can we pause in the interim and acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, THIS IS A BIGGER STORY THAN HUMA ABEDIN AND ANTHONY WEINER??!! All I’m saying, CNN, is that Michael Grunwald’s sense of perspective is better than yours: Today's news: 1. Ex-pol still pervert 2. Trump quasi-pivot on immigration


May vows to stay course on Brexit, but resignation pressure builds after stunning loss

can reach a deal with European leaders over the next two years. Without an agreement, Britain would crash out of the bloc and face giving up all the privileges of membership. Some lawmakers have pushed for Parliament to be allowed an emergency brake that would keep the country in should the talks fail. At least, May could be forced to rethink her objectives in the negotiations, perhaps pushing for a softer break than the one she had sold to the public this spring. Late Friday, May suggested she could be considering a course change, telling broadcasters that she would take time to “reflect” on an election that left her authority in tatters and tipped the scales in favor of her political opponents, including the once-hapless far-left Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Final results in every district nationwide put the Conservatives at 318 seats — eight short of what they would need for a working majority in the 650-member Parliament and well down from the 331 they won just two years ago. The Labour Party won 262 seats — an unexpected gain of dozens of seats under Corbyn. For May, those results were precisely the opposite of what she had hoped. May called the snap election seeking to strengthen her hand in the E.U. negotiations and to further sideline her political critics. But with her slender majority having vanished overnight, May was put in the humiliating position of having to woo Northern Ireland’s right-wing Democratic Unionist Party — with 10 seats it is Parliament’s fifth-largest — into a deal just to have any hope of mustering the majority needed to keep the Tories in power. Even that could prove difficult. May said outside 10 Downing Street that the DUP would back her government. But a deal is not yet sealed. The leader of the Democratic Unionists, Arlene Foster, said Friday afternoon that talks were still underway. When asked whether May would be able to remain as prime minister, Foster told the BBC on Friday that she was unsure, adding, “I think it will be difficult.” Foster’s party is likely to strike a tough bargain with the Tories. The Democratic Unionists backed leaving the E.U. but have opposed elements of May’s line in the divorce proceedings — especially provisions that could affect trade and movement on either side of the border separating Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland. The political wreckage


An astronomical rarity: Venus moving across the sun in May

proportions. May starts with super bright Venus extraordinarily high in the western sky, but the planet falls out of view by month’s end, leaving us earthlings positioned for one of nature’s rarest of events: A transit of Venus across the sun on June 5 and 6. Venus is high in the western sky at sunset. The negative fourth magnitude object is bright enough to fool airplane pilots into thinking it’s another plane. Right now, it sets around 11:30 p.m. The young, crescent moon approaches Venus on May 21. It creeps closer to Venus on May 22 and then moves away May 23. On May 24, Venus hangs low in the western sky, and it sets around 10 p.m. Enjoy the bright evening planet while you can, because its nights are numbered. In the evenings late in May, Venus is lost in the sun’s glare, as both the sun and Venus together retreat below the horizon. The reddish planet Mars, a close cosmic friend these past few months, flashes less brilliance. Our neighboring planet is high in the southern sky at nightfall, while Monday and Tuesday evenings, the waxing gibbous moon pays a visit. It’s a zero magnitude object now, bright enough to see from urban skies, but it becomes a little more dim as May progresses. By month’s end, it starts the evenings in the southwestern sky. Saturn The sun’s glare obscures Jupiter now. In late May, an annular solar eclipse starts in the future and ends in the present. An annular version is different from a total eclipse. The moon is too far from Earth to make a total, tight fit to completely obscure the sun. Thus, the sun forms a fatter ring around the moon. Unfortunately for the Eastern and Central United States, it won’t be visible. The May 21 eclipse path starts along southern, coastal China, crosses Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, then skates along the Pacific before crossing the International Date Line, where it is still May 20. The eclipse visibility path approaches the Aleutians; the path makes landfall at the California and Oregon line, and ends passing through Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Down-to-earth events ●April 29: ●May 5: ●May 5: ●May 5: ●May 5: ●May 6: ●May 12: ●May 12: ●May 12: ●May 16: ●May 19: ●May 19: ●May 20: ●May 24: ●May 26: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr. can be reached at postskywatch@gmail.com.


We aren’t doing enough to help veterans transition to civilian life

education and skills to be competitive in today’s job market; 81 percent thought their skills would translate well to the civilian job market; and 62 percent thought employers would see military service as an advantage. These high expectations contrast with what many post-9/11 veterans are experiencing: Whereas the jobless rate for all U.S. veterans was just 6.9 percent in October 2013 — slightly lower than for the overall population — the unemployment rate for veterans who have served since 9/11 stood at 10 percent. The truth: It is not easy for a service member who has conducted hundreds of patrols in a combat zone to translate that experience into skills that a civilian employer can understand. And with less than 1 percent of Americans having served in the military, misconceptions abound, such as the assumption that every veteran has PTSD or that service members are trained only to take orders, not to lead. The Obama administration has sought to increase veterans’ employment with its “Joining Forces” campaign. In August 2011, President Obama challenged American businesses to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans or their spouses by the end of 2013. Since then, U.S. companies have hired and trained more than 380,000 veterans and military spouses, and have also committed to hire or train an additional 435,000 veterans and their spouses by the end of 2018. In addition, in June 2012, the administration announced the Military Credentialing and Licensing Task Force — setting a goal that by the end of 2015, all 50 states will have taken legislative or executive action to help veterans get the credentials they need to successfully join the civilian labor market. Meanwhile, nonprofit groups, such as the Mission Continues and Team Rubicon, are helping post-9/11 veterans find a new sense of mission through serving their communities. Such efforts are critical to addressing the needs of transitioning veterans. But even more needs to be done. First and foremost, the government must partner more effectively with private and nonprofit sector institutions that are employing and supporting veterans. In practice, this means navigating complex federal ethics regulations to enable these partnerships to work, and sharing information between the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs on one side, and private companies and nonprofits on the other. The president has rightly highlighted the many military skills that meet the needs of employers, for instance in accounting, materials management and health care. What’s


The not-so-secret place on the Web that sells drugs, uranium and a guide to texting girls

clever packaging. They are scrupulous about not discussing the specifics of these measures online -- for fear of tipping off law enforcement. They have the option to use Evolution's escrow service, in which the site holds payments until both buyer and seller agree the transaction has been completed. More than 12,000 drugs for sale Here's what the main page for drugs looks like -- featuring 3,064 listings for cannabis, 2,177 for ecstasy, and 1,125 for psychedelics. Evolution market Buyers can submit reviews of vendors and individual items. As one reviewer said of a popular listing for one ounce of "Blue Dream" marijuana: "very clean and potent weed, smell is sensational, 28 grams on scale ;)" And as it turns out, the user reviews are a big part of the darknet's allure. Buyers use them to rate the quality and purity of the drugs they purchase. Similar to eBay, sellers are heavily invested in keeping their review scores positive, and tend to place a high premium on customer service -- a lot more than you might get down at the street corner. The "Blue Dream" weed is currently the most popular item on the site, with over 2,800 reviews. The seller, "TopShelf420," has a 99.9 percent positive feedback rating. Recent reviews for TopShelf420's Blue Dream weed (Evolution market) On Evolution, drug listings account for about 54 percent of all items sold. Within the "drugs" category, marijuana is by far the most popular item, accounting for a quarter of all listings. Ecstasy and stimulants, like cocaine and speed, show 2,000 and 1,800 listings, respectively. There are 448 listings for heroin, and over a thousand for prescription pills, primarily painkillers and stimulants like adderall and ritalin. Psychedelics like LSD and shrooms are well-represented with over a thousand listings in total. The interactive chart below shows all the drug-related subcategories, and the number of items listed in each. A guidebook on how to text a girl Far from the "wretched hive of scum and villainy" invoked by the darknet's critics in law enforcement and politics, however, you're likely to be most struck by the sheer banality of so much of the stuff on Evolution. There is an astonishingly high number of e-books and how-to's on everything from computer hacking to "how to get free pizza in the U.K." Many are simple guides purporting to tell you how to convert a stolen credit card or


Patrick O’Connell’s long road to Michelin stars

Patrick O’Connell at the Inn At Little Washington, which was awarded two Michelin stars. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) There is a French adage Patrick O’Connell, chef-owner of the Inn at Little Washington, repeated several times last Thursday, the day he earned two Michelin stars. “It takes three generations to get three stars,” he began. The first comes from the grandfather, who buys an old country inn and cooks superb food for travelers. The second star comes from the father, who expands the kitchen, and takes the food to the next level. And the third star goes to the son, who trains in the best restaurants in the world and brings that talent back to his family’s village. In America, “we have to move much quicker,” said O’Connell. That was certainly true for some of the local restaurants that received stars, such Tail Up Goat and Pineapple and Pearls, which have been open less than a year. But for O’Connell, patience has been a virtue. Ever since he founded the restaurant in a former garage in Washington, Va., 38 years ago, he’s had Michelin on his mind. His entire restaurant is modeled from starred restaurants in remote villages throughout Europe. After the inn’s first summer, when O’Connell was “cooking on a wood-burning stove and an electric frying pan” and paying $200 a month in rent, “We decided to take all of our pennies and go on a trip to Europe,” he said. William Rice, then-editor of The Washington Post food section, made O’Connell a list of all of the best restaurants in Europe, and he set off on his culinary journey throughout Michelin’s Europe. “It was very very intimidating, but we were welcomed so warmly with open arms, and formed friendships and relationships,” he said. Not only that, but the restaurants gave him a model of excellence for the inn. He “instantly began using the measurement of where we were in relation to where they were,” he said. “I’ve spent so many years visiting them, using them as a measuring stick.” Patrick O’Connell and Michelin Guides International Director Michael Ellis at the French ambassador’s residence during last week’s launch event. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP) Years ago, when the D.C. Michelin Guide was not yet a glimmer in an inspector’s eye, O’Connell began lobbying the organization to come to Washington. As president of Relais & Chateaux North America, an organization of


Where is the next Alibaba? A look at six contenders.

leading Chinese solar companies, which include Trina, Canadian Solar, Shunfeng and Hanergy have taken similar paths and diversified their businesses abroad. Search: Baidu Baidu is virtually unknown in the United States, but it is the dominant search engine in China. Google has never had much success in China, partially because it has focused elsewhere and partially because it was never welcomed into the Middle Kingdom. NASDAQ listed Baidu has a market capitalization of only 20 percent of Google, but it is starting to look more aggressively at global markets for growth and to explore areas such as machine learning that are at the leading edge of technology development. Traditional energy: PetroChina China’s fast-paced growth requires serious amounts of energy and natural resources. Unlike the U.S., the traditional energy sector in China is dominated by state owned enterprises, with PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC leading the way. While Sinopec focuses largely on “downstream” refining and marketing, China National Petroleum Company’s listed PetroChina is a major “upstream” player involved in exploration and production. PetroChina has operations globally and is already a major competitor to the U.S. and European oil majors. You will find PetroChina operating in places as diverse as Canada, Iraq and Venezuela. The company, like its Chinese brethren, has largely stayed out of the United States for political reasons. PetroChina is valued at 60 percent of Exxon Mobil, and is a formidable challenger to its U.S. competitors. Social media: Tencent Social media is one area where China is neck and neck with America. In areas such as mobile payments and mobile commerce, the PRC has arguably leapfrogged the United States and taken the lead. Hong Kong listed Tencent is one of main reasons why. Initially known for its QQ instant messaging platform, Tencent has created another hit with its Weixin or WeChat platform. A cross between Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging, WeChat has more than 350 million active users. Tencent has been making a push to expand WeChat’s user base in the United States. Given its operating margins over 40 percent and a market capitalization that is approximately the same as Facebook, expect to see an increasing Tencent footprint on this side of the Pacific. Electric vehicles: BYD While Elon Musk basks in the adulation of Wall Street, China’s BYD continues to build a formidable electric vehicle and battery technology leader. BYD made headlines several years back with an investment from


The Disneyland measles outbreak and the disgraced doctor who whipped up vaccination fear

rigorous, and there was no real proof for the hypothesis.” Soon after, as the Sunday Times later found, Wakefield connected with a United Kingdom lawyer named Richard Barr, who was working on litigation against a producer of MMR. The contact would prove very beneficial and lucrative for Wakefield. First, Barr set Wakefield up with some candidates for a study that would raise concerns about the vaccine. “He has deeply depressing views about the effect of vaccines on the nation’s children,” Barr told a group of MMR clients and contacts in a letter reported by the British Medical Journal. “He is also anxious to arrange for tests to be carried out on any children … who are showing symptoms of possible Crohn’s disease. The following are signs to look for. If your child has suffered from all or any of these symptoms could you please contact us, and it may be appropriate to put you in touch with Dr. Wakefield.” Wakefield had what he needed to publish a study. It was based on 12 kids. And it broadcast concern that MMR could cause a bowel disorder and autism. Nine of the immunized children were found to be autistic. “If there is a causal link between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and this syndrome, a rising incidence might be anticipated after the introduction of this vaccine in the UK in 1988,” he wrote. The news rocketed across the globe; the media ran hot with the story. “A controversial study has suggested that autism may be a side effect of immunization against measles, mumps and rubella,” New Scientist reported weeks later. The effect was immediate. Large swaths of people resisted immunization. According to a 2002 BBC survey, nearly 50 percent of doctors reported parents were less willing to allow medical professionals to give vaccinations to their children. (In 2012, southwest Wales was hit with an unprecedented measles outbreak that infected 1,219 people, the Wall Street Journal reported.) Then the wheels fell off on the paper. Wakefield had several undisclosed conflicts of interest. He had applied for measles-related patents while doing the research, journalists found. And attorneys trying to prove the vaccines were unsafe had paid him $600,000. The British Medical Journal finally said he had manipulated the numbers to imply direct vaccine culpability. “Junk science,” Nature called it. On Feb. 2, 2010, more than a dozen years after it was published, Lancet retracted