A 12-year-old was fatally shot. Now his brother, 13, has been charged with murder.

said, and on Wednesday morning, a suspect was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the fatal shooting. That suspect is the 13-year-old brother of the deceased child. The names of the children were not immediately released. “This is a terrible tragedy,” Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero said at a news conference. “And I think it is hard for any of us to imagine or to understand the pain that this family is going through right now.” Citing the ongoing investigation, Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch said he could not comment on a possible motive for the fatal shooting. He said the two young boys were the only ones home at the time of the incident. A phone call was made from the home to the parents, and the parents contacted police, Rausch said at the news conference, a video of which was posted on WBIR’s site. The gun used in the fatal shooting was a “firearm in the home,” Rausch said. When asked whether the parents might face a charge themselves, he responded: “The investigation continues.” The 13-year-old was taken to a juvenile detention center, according to a Facebook post by the department. His attorney, Gregory Isaacs, told The Washington Post that it is against Tennessee law to comment on juvenile prosecutions that involve adolescents under the age of 14. Isaacs said he intended to ask for a gag order for the case at the first available hearing. Rausch told reporters that both boys attended the same school, Northwest Middle School. “We are deeply saddened by the tragic event that occurred Tuesday night involving two of our students,” Karen Loy, principal of Northwest Middle School, said in a statement. “Our hearts are heavy as we offer our thoughts and prayers to the family during this very difficult time.” At Wednesday’s news conference, the police chief said, “Our hearts, our prayers go out to the family.” “They do have two other children,” he continued. “So our hearts, prayers, just the sadness of this, goes out to them. We also — to the folks at the school that know these young children — our thoughts are with them as well, and to the many that are involved in this case.” Read More: Walmart to stop selling “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter” shirts after police protest A state worker deemed a toddler ‘fine’ in a welfare check. A month later, he was found dead.


Medical detectives raced to save a man from a rare, ‘universally lethal’ disease

show extreme or unusual results. Wilson realized that Burger had African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness — a deadly disease spread by the tsetse fly. It was 10:55 a.m. This slide shows the parasite, in dark blue, in Burger's blood. The parasite causes African trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness, which is fatal within months if not treated. (Courtesy of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center) Among infections, African trypanosomiasis is in a special category. “Unlike almost any other infection, this is a death sentence if it’s not treated,” said Theresa Shapiro, a clinical pharmacology professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who has spent much of her career studying the disease. Along with HIV and rabies, sleeping sickness is one of the few “universally lethal” diseases: they are always fatal without treatment. The disease has two forms, both transmitted by the tsetse fly, which lives only in rural Africa. The parasites for both forms look identical. West African trypanosomiasis accounts for virtually all reported cases of sleeping sickness, according to the World Health Organization. A person can be infected for months or years without major signs or symptoms of the disease. Initial symptoms include fever, headache, and muscle and joint aches. But left untreated, the disease progresses to the central nervous system after one to two years, leading to personality changes, daytime sleepiness and progressive confusion, according to the CDC. Death usually occurs in about three years. East African trypanosomiasis is more rare but kills within months. Nearly all cases are reported in parts of eastern and southeastern Africa, including Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia. People at greatest risk are tourists, hunters and others working in or visiting game parks, where hoofed animals are the main reservoirs for the parasite that causes the disease and tsetse flies are common. Sleeping sickness is a fatal and much neglected disease that plagues parts of Africa. Over the past century, the disease has caused several epidemics in Africa, and those hardest hit live in the most remote parts of the continent. In the United States, most cases of sleeping sickness have been in travelers such as Burger, on safari in East Africa. Within seconds of Wilson's panic alert, the information popped up in Burger’s electronic medical record. Vitberg and the rest of Burger’s medical team happened to be in his room during their daily rounds. “I think I said, ‘Holy cow, I’ve never


Almond drink? Soy juice? Some lawmakers want to crack down on what can be sold as ‘milk.’

other beverages and a declining share of children in the population.” On average, Americans drink nearly 40 percent less milk than they did in 1975, according to the latest data from the USDA. Forty years ago, per capita consumption was nearly 1½ per day,” The Post previously reported. “Total per capita consumption of fluid milk has declined because of competition from other beverages and a declining share of children in the population.” A CoBank study In 2015, sales of almond milk continued to grow while those for cow milk fell. A Nielsen survey in March filled with nutty puns and titled “Americans Are Nuts for Almond Milk” said almond milk makers have seen a sales growth of 250 percent over the past five years. “So why is almond milk growth going nuts? While this beverage could have a dairy godmother watching out for it, the uptrend in sales is more likely the result of current health and wellness trends,” the report says. " . . . Consumers rated back-to-basics food attributes like “all natural,” “no artificial colors or flavors” and “made from vegetables or fruits” the most important. This isn't the first time the labeling of plant-based 'milks' have been contested. In 2000 and 2010, the National Milk Producers Federation wrote the FDA to argue for a more exclusive use of the word “milk” on labels. At the time, federation spokesman Christopher Galen told USA Today, “We had to do something,” which included creating a Facebook page: “They Don't Got Milk.” Nothing changed. Even if the FDA did institute a crackdown on the makers of plant-based “milks,” it's unclear whether it would do any real good for consumers, said Bruce Friedrich, the chief executive of the Good Food Institute, which supports companies and policies that promote clean meat and plant-based foods. The institute plans to send a letter to the FDA protesting any restriction on the labeling of plant-based milk products. “Americans are savvier and they are better able to digest nutritional information,” he told The Post. “No consumer buys a carton of almond milk and thinks that there’s cow’s milk in the package.” Read more: A lobster boat captain said a freak storm killed his crew. Then doctors found drugs in his system. Ronald Reagan nearly died before he became president. The Heimlich maneuver saved him. Was Anne Frank’s family betrayed? After 72 years, historians have a new theory.


France’s National Front faces funding shortfall before the 2017 election

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, arrives at the Elysee Presidential Palace for a meeting with French President Francois Hollande in November 2015. (Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images) PARIS — In the final months before the French elections, the National Front — the country’s far-right populist party — is struggling financially. But the reason for the party’s newfound woes has shed new light on an issue that extends far beyond France’s own borders. The issue is Vladimir Putin's Russia and its apparent interest in interfering in election campaigns abroad. While the fact that both the FBI and the CIA agree that Russia intervened to help elect Donald Trump has shocked the American political establishment, in France the idea hardly makes headlines anymore. By now, the ties between Russia and the country’s own far right are well known: Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, has long accepted millions of dollars in cash transfusions to fund her party, while in recent years she and other party officials have frequently been seen in Moscow on a series of unofficial visits. Now, however, that relationship seems less bulletproof than it once did. Earlier this year, Le Pen requested a loan of approximately $29.3 million from a Russian bank to fund her presidential campaign in the upcoming election: French banks typically refuse to finance the National Front. In any case, in July, the Central Bank of Russia revoked the license of the First Czech Russian Bank, which had previously loaned the National Front $9.8 million in 2014. Now, the party has to find another lender — and fast. “The loss of the FCRB was a hard blow for us,” the party’s treasurer, Wallerand de Saint Just, told Bloomberg on Thursday. “The Russian loan was a stable resource. Now we are still searching for loans.” Barring political fallout, Le Pen and the National Front could likely find another Russian lender in the run-up to the French elections in April and May 2017. But the failure of this one particular deal only served to underscore how important Putin’s Russia has become in keeping afloat far-right parties across Europe. Earlier this week, Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, traveled to Moscow and signed a so-called cooperation agreement with Putin’s United Russia Party, according to a statement from the Freedom Party. Strache also recently met with Michael T. Flynn, Donald Trump’s


This crowdsourcing government contest hopes to nail long-range forecasting

like ocean temperatures, El Niño and a steadily-warming planet. But then forecasters then need to assemble those pieces of knowledge in a way that generates something useful. An accurate long-range forecast would be invaluable to water and land management bureaus. Cities could conserve water prudently before a dry spell instead of scrambling to reduce usage during a drought. It’s of particular interest to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, whose mission is to “manage, protect and develop” water and hydroelectric power in the West — a challenge after five years of extreme drought. This is where “sub-seasonal” forecasting comes in — the time between a 10-day forecast and an entire season. The forecasts are a few weeks into the future, and if they’re accurate, they could be a drought-management game changer. “There’s been a lot of collective interest in this topic,” said Ken Nowak, a research scientist at the Bureau of Reclamation, “Groups across the west have begun to prioritize it more. It seemed like a ripe opportunity for us to make a contribution to the field, being a water management agency.” The traditional grant process can weed out an applicant that doesn’t have the “correct” background or credentials, Nowak explained. It can prevent out-of-the-box ideas from breaking onto the scene. The bureau’s contest crowdsources the problem, utilizing more brains and perhaps some that come from different backgrounds and ways of thinking. They expect graduate students and university research groups to participate, but they hope to cast a wider net into fields that may not be directly related to weather, Nowak said, like signal processing, physics and electrical engineering. “This [competition] awards on performance and not on potential,” Nowak went on. “Whoever gets the best idea will be the one rewarded.” The forecasting challenge “seeks to improve on existing sub-seasonal forecasts and asks Solvers to develop systems that perform demonstratively better than an existing baseline forecast for temperature and precipitation over a 15-42 day time frame,” according to the Innocentive website hosting the event. The Bureau of Reclamation is partnering with NOAA — specifically the Earth Science Research Lab and the Climate Prediction Center — to evaluate the methods and results. The rules require winners to hand over their application and its code to the government agencies. Furthermore, the prize money may only be given to a U.S. citizen, permanent resident or corporation, though the contest will accept programs from anyone.


In Tunisia, Anis Amri’s family implores its youngest to turn himself over to German police

Nour Amri, the 60-year-old mother of Anis Amri, the suspect in the Berlin Christmas market bombing, at her home in central Tunisia. (Naveena Kottoor/The Washington Post) OUESLATIA, TUNISIA – The day Anis Amri became Europe’s most-wanted man was also his 24th birthday. His 4-year-old niece, Zeineb, was running puzzled from the doorstep outside her grandmother’s simple one-story home in his home town in central Tunisia, to the bare room where the family – Anis Amri’s mother, Nour, 60, five sisters and two brothers – sat, their heads in their hands, not knowing whether to doubt or despair over the news they were being confronted with. Zeineb seemed clueless but intrigued by the constant trickle of strangers – journalists, camera crews and Tunisian police were taking turns at entering the house to speak to the family. The women’s eyes were red, their faces swollen from crying. Anis Amri's 4-year-old niece, Zeineb, in his home town in central Tunisia. (Naveena Kottoor/The Washington Post) Anis's 30-year-old brother, Walid, wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, looked pale and distraught as he offered apologies to the families of the victims in Berlin. Zeineb’s mother, Sayida Amri, still believed in her brother’s innocence, but called on him to turn himself over to the police, to prove that he was the wrong guy. “If it’s true what we are hearing, he has brought shame on the family, and shame on this country," she said, her voice breaking. To console them, Zeineb, her hair braided tightly, huddled up to her mother, her aunts and her grandmother. Anis Amri had spoken to Zeineb and Nour on Sunday, the day before he allegedly launched the deadly attack on a packed Christmas market in Berlin. Amri's old ID card shows a fresh-faced 17-year-old.(Naveena Kottoor/The Washington Post) Nour pulled out Anis’s old ID card: the passport-size picture shows a fresh faced, 17-year-old young man who, according to his mother, used to check in with her and the rest of the family on a regular basis, and took an interest in knowing about the hobbies of his nieces and nephews. Outside the house, Tunisian and international camera crews swarmed the neighborhood to report on the man who has become Oueslatia’s most famous son – for all the wrong reasons. Oueslatia lies in a remote, underdeveloped part of central Tunisia. Driving from the capital, Tunis, the route leads through mountainous terrain, past pine


‘Chilling’: A serial animal killer may be on the loose in Canada, mutilating pets, wildlife

to see in our community.” On a Friday morning in mid-September, one local resident was taking out her trash when she found 10 dead snakes arranged in the grass outside her co-op housing complex. “It’s like the stuff of nightmares,” the woman, Kate Fowler, told CBC News. “The snakes weren’t bagged. It looks as though they were put there intentionally to get attention.” Foster said she doesn’t know whether the mutilations are the work of one person, a group or even copycats, the Canadian Press reported. Local police said that an investigator has been assigned to the case but that they were made aware of only two incidents — two dead coyotes found near a grocery store in February and the beheaded dog last week. “The disturbing part is you don’t know when the animals died — at the start, halfway through or as a result of what was done to it,” Foster said. “It’s impossible to forget what we’ve seen.” Michael Arntfield, a criminology professor at Western University in London, Ontario, is convinced that one person is responsible for all of the killings, the Canadian Press reported. About two years ago, Arntfield said, he received a tip that someone was going to the London Humane Society claiming to be a rescuer and asking to adopt animals with the purpose of torturing them. Since the mutilated goose was dropped off at the humane society, Arntfield is led to believe the person had been there before. He told the London Free Press that he’s been sent photos of a group of geese with their beaks broken and placed in a semicircle. Another person contacted him replicating a group of snakes that were killed using pieces of plastic. The fact that the animals are often left posed — for example, the coyotes in a circle, the geese in a semicircle — indicates “increasingly elaborate fantasies that are playing out with a wider variety of species,” he told the London Free Press. Foster said the humane society staff is so scarred by the gruesome discoveries that counselors are coming in soon to help staff members grapple with their findings. “The longer we talk about this, the hair on my arms are standing straighter and straighter,” Foster said. “It’s chilling.” More from Morning Mix: ‘I was astonished ‘He died of a broken heart Four sentenced in ‘almost indescribable’ kidnapping, torture of N.Y. college students


Where to find free New Year’s Eve parties in the D.C. area

branches of the Capitol City Brewing Company will be open with no cover charge on New Year's Eve. In downtown Washington, look for beer specials from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. and a midnight champagne toast; the Shirlington brewery has dancing with DJ Lyric, dinner specials and a midnight beer toast. 1100 New York Ave. NW; 4001 Campbell Ave., Arlington. Dew Drop Inn DJ Ameer Dyson (of Oddisee's Good Compny touring band) provides the tunes at the low-key Brookland bar, where there's a free midnight toast. 2801 Eighth St. NE. Dogfish Head Alehouse The Fairfax location of Dogfish Head features a 9 p.m. performance by the Joint Chiefs, a local group that covers Steely Dan and the Allman Brothers. An optional dinner with beer pairings is available, and everyone receives a free Dogfish Head champagne glass at midnight. 13041 Lee-Jackson Memorial Hwy., Fairfax. El Camino DJs CorTzu and Stevie A -- veterans of the long-running Lemur Lounge and Soul Monkey nights -- spin underground hip-hop, soul and funky breaks beginning at 9 p.m. The full menu will be available until 11:30 p.m., followed by special late-night burritos and tacos. 108 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Jack Rose Dining Saloon While Jack Rose is offering an early all-you-can-eat-and-drink barbecue fest on the roof and a $125-per-couple cocktail tasting in the basement Dram & Grain bar, the main floor will be open as usual with no cover or minimum. Expect special menus with tasting flights of vintage spirits and whiskeys. 2007 18th St. NW. Miracle on Seventh Street The end is near for the three wildly popular Christmas-themed bars, which close for the year on New Year's Day. Brave the crowds one last time between 3 and 9 p.m. for drink specials and general post-holiday fun. 1843 Seventh St. NW. Nellie's Sports Bar DJs Lemz and Vodkatrina provide pop dance music from 8 p.m. on, with a free midnight champagne toast for all. 900 U St. NW. The Passenger Arrive before 9 p.m. to avoid the $20 cover, then spend your night drinking special cocktails -- think Manhattans made with fancy rye whiskeys -- or dancing to a DJ in the upstairs bar. 1539 Seventh St. NW. Petworth Citizen The final Literary Cocktails night of the year finds veteran bartenders Chantal Tseng and Dan Searing creating drinks inspired by post-apocalyptic fiction, including Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and Margaret Atwood's "Oryx & Crake." Many


Why don’t more Americans vote? Maybe because they don’t trust U.S. elections.

is similar to that employed by Transparency International’s widely used Corruption Perceptions Index. The Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index has been rigorously validated. To examine the 2016 U.S. election, last month we surveyed 726 political scientists who evaluated electoral integrity in their own states using 49 core indicators, such as whether district boundaries were fairly drawn, elections were well managed, the electoral register was accurate, votes were counted fairly, and newspapers provided balanced election news. None of this mentioned anything about political parties or levels of voter participation. The indicators were then summed into an overall 100-point PEI index. Figure 2: The Perceptions of Electoral Integrity index for November 2016. (Source: The Electoral Integrity Project) The figure above shows how experts evaluated the 2016 elections across all 50 states and D.C. The patterns show that experts assess the South as the region with the worst PEI Index — dragged down especially by problematic district boundaries. The Supreme Court may have ruled that the days when Southern states tried to restrict voting are over, but these expert evaluations suggest otherwise. Some of the Rust Belt states were also assessed as poor. By contrast, experts assessed the quality of elections more positively in the Pacific West and New England. But state performances varied even within major regions. Overall, states scoring worst in electoral integrity were Arizona (ranked last), followed by Wisconsin, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Mississippi. Several of these states had also been poorly rated previously in the 2014 Pew Election Performance Index. By contrast, the states rated most highly in the PEI Index were Vermont, Idaho, New Hampshire and Iowa. Did electoral integrity matter for voter turnout? For many decades, political science has understood that policies and practices about registration and balloting can either boost or reduce turnout. When it’s easy to register and convenient to vote, more people are likely to cast a ballot. But many other factors matter as well in each state, including its socioeconomic characteristics, patterns of party competition and the intensity of the campaign ground game. Electoral integrity predicts higher U.S. voter turnout. (Source: U.S. Elections Project) We found that electoral integrity has an effect as well. As you can see in the figure above, in states with a high PEI Index — such as New Hampshire, Iowa and Minnesota — more citizens showed up to vote. Where the PEI Index was low — as in


This won’t hurt a bit: Good news about health that was overshadowed in 2016

(Food and Drug Administration via AFP/Getty Images) In a year of birth defects from the Zika virus, lead contamination of the water of Flint, Mich., a startling decline in life expectancy and the ever-rising death toll from opioid overdoses, there was, in fact, some good news about health. In keeping with the holiday spirit and in recognition of the vast sums of money devoted to our well-being, please consider some of the bright spots from last year. • The number of people who smoke continued to decline to record lows. This partly contributed to the lone bright spot in the life-expectancy report: Cancer rates are down, although the disease remains the No. 2 killer of Americans. Teen pregnancy rates also continued their record-setting slide. • Another reason cancer rates have dropped: New immunotherapy drugs are having a significant impact for a longer period of time against a wider array of cancers. 8-year-old Ava Christiansen has been battling cancer for half her life. Now a new specialized cancer treatment may be able to keep her in remission. • There's new hope for an HIV vaccine; it’s being tested right now. A vaccine against Ebola proved 100 percent effective in a study in Guinea. And more boys are being vaccinated against HPV. A lot more. • A woman received the first uterus transplant performed in the United States in February. (It soon failed, however, because of infection.) Lindsey and her husband, Blake, appear with Cleveland Clinic medical staff as they announce she is the nation's first uterus transplant patient, on March in Cleveland. Lindsey did not want her last name used to protect her family's privacy. (Marvin Fong/Plain Dealer via AP) • Some outside-the-box thinking may expand the pool of available organs for transplant. • And another innovative project gave a paralyzed man a sense of touch. • Scientists found a new antibiotic in an unlikely place: inside the human nose. • A new way of safeguarding children from potentially lethal peanut allergies appears to provide lasting protection. • A sharp-eyed lab tech, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and two good hospitals saved a Baltimore man from certain death when he picked up a rare parasite. The parasite, in dark blue, in Erich Burger's blood. The parasite causes human African trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness, which is fatal if not treated. (Greater Baltimore Medical Center) • And at age


The restaurants Tom Sietsema loved the most in 2016

Minibar was among the restaurants honored by both Post food critic Tom Sietsema and the Michelin Guide. (Goran Kosanovic for The Washington Post) Post food critic Tom Sietsema awarded almost 120 starred restaurant ratings in 2016. They ranged from the absolutely dismal — remember Founding Farmers? — to the totally scintillating. Many of these spots have also caught the eye of the larger food world. Bon Appétit's crowning of Bad Saint as the second-best new restaurant in the country has made getting a seat there even more difficult. (The fact that the New York Times awarded the Filipino spot a glowing three stars doesn't help, either.) The Michelin Guide swooped into town for the first time this fall, awarding two out of three stars to the Inn at Little Washington, Minibar and Pineapple and Pearls, all of which received four stars from Sietsema. His most highly rated restaurants are a mix of reliable standbys and relatively young upstarts. Here's a gathering of the best of this year's best as determined by Sietsema, featuring restaurants that earned three stars and above. 4 stars Inn at Little Washington: Komi: Little Serow: Minibar: Pineapple and Pearls: Rasika: Bad Saint's signature ampalaya (bitter melon) dish. (Jennifer Chase for The Washington Post) 3.5 Bad Saint: Fiola: Métier: Rose's Luxury: 3 stars All-Purpose: Central: Clarity: Japanese octopus at Conosci. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post). Conosci: Convivial: The Dabney: Fiola Mare: Jaleo: Johnny's Half Shell: Kinship: Le Diplomate: Chef Nick Stefanelli, left, at Masseria. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) Masseria: Rasika West End: Sushi Taro: Tail Up Goat: Woodberry Kitchen: Read more: - The family-style restaurant dinners that are perfect for big groups - 2016 Fall Dining Guide - The most scathing restaurant reviews Tom Sietsema has ever written - No three-star restaurants in Washington’s first Michelin guide. But these earned two. - Bon Appétit names Washington its 2016 restaurant city of the year


From food to fashion to toys, what’s expected to sell big in 2017

strongly? She said a burst of new brands and new products helps. Make-up sellers, Grant said, are “being rewarded by all the innovation coming into that category.” At left, the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot. At right, Google Home. (both photos via Associated Press) Gadgets: “As the ownership rates move up, the exposure increases,” DuBravac said. In other words, more of us are going to encounter these devices in real life — say, when we go to a friend’s house and watch him use Echo to cue up the party tunes, or visit a sister who tells Google Home to add milk to her grocery shopping list. Once more consumers start to experience these use cases, they may be compelled to buy one of their own. Also, it’s worth noting that adoption of these gadgets is poised to increase in part because the technology that powers them has gotten vastly better. DuBravac said that back in the 90s, the “word error rate” for voice-activated assistants was near 100 percent, meaning they almost never understood the user correctly. Fast forward to 2013, and that rate had come down to about 25 percent. Now, though, in the last three years, he said it has fallen to about 5 percent. “We’ve had more progress in that technology in the last 30 months than in the previous 30 years,” DuBravac said. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.) A Spider-Man action figure is seen at the International Toy Fair in 2007. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News) Toys: “Disney, probably among all the studios, is really good at building franchises and leveraging those” into a merchandising strategy, said Marty Brochstein, senior vice president at the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association. It’s worth noting, Silver says, that the toy industry could benefit from the way these movie releases are positioned on the calendar. Instead of just a crush of toy-friendly movies at Christmastime, there’s going to be a steady trickle of flicks all year long that could have kids dragging their parents to the toy store. Looking beyond toys with a Hollywood connection, keep an eye on the re-launch of Teddy Ruxpin. Laurie Schacht, co-publisher at review site The Toy Insider, said she expects the new, souped-up version of the 80’s-era talking bear to be a big hit. Its manufacturer, Wicked Cool Toys, is betting that it will strike a serious note of


It wasn’t entirely bad news. Here are five positive environmental stories from 2016.

Deepwater Wind’s five-turbine project off the coast of Block Island, R.I., the nation’s first offshore wind farm, began operations this fall. (Michael Dwyer/AP) When it comes to the environment, 2016 brought a steady stream of grim news. The year will almost certainly hold the prize for the hottest in recorded history, eclipsing the records set in 2015 and 2014. Researchers tracked how Antarctic ice sheets continue to melt and how the Arctic continues to warm. Coral reefs are dying. Air and water problems keep surfacing around the globe. Some scientists are predicting that sea levels will rise even more than expected in coming decades, while others are linking extreme weather events to the changing climate and detailing how environmental and climatic factors are fueling the spread of Zika and other devastating diseases. So, yeah, pretty dismal. At the same time, it’s not all bad news out there. The year saw some clear signs of environmental progress, too. Rare though they were, these five environmental stories were true bright spots: 1) Global carbon emissions appear to have stopped increasing. A picture is beginning to emerge of a world where the increase in emissions of carbon dioxide seems to be flattening, despite countries’ continuing use of fossil fuels. In the United States, emissions are actually going down. Data from the Global Carbon Project suggests that global emissions have not changed for three years straight. Moreover, the cause has not been a global recession — growth has continued. What appears to be happening is a “decoupling” of economic growth from carbon emissions, thanks to more clean energy and other lower-emitting sources of energy like natural gas. From the perspective of the climate system, it isn’t enough for emissions to flatten; they actually have to go down (and down and down). But this plateau is a very good start. 2) Worldwide, wind and solar are booming. That growth shows few signs of slowing. A report this fall from the International Energy Agency said renewable energy products surpassed all other sources of new electricity in 2015, with wind and solar leading the way. Renewables still account for only about 23 percent of the electricity produced worldwide, according to the report. But the agency predicted that will increase to 28 percent by 2021, as the costs of building wind and solar farms continue to decline. 3) World leaders seem determined to combat global warming (well, most


2016’s super warm Arctic winter ‘extremely unlikely’ without climate change, scientists say

what you might expect from our supercharged, artificially warmed climate. Such is the upshot of a recently published “detection and attribution” analysis of November’s and December’s Arctic warmth by a group of scientists who are not waiting around for the peer review process — they are increasingly releasing these documents in near real time. And they find that “it is extremely unlikely that this event would occur in the absence of human-induced climate change.” The analysis was conducted by a World Weather Attribution, a consortium of researchers who are perfecting the study of how a changing climate affects local weather conditions, or conditions in a specific place. It came out last week, but the researchers say that in light of another burst of Arctic warmth since, the analysis holds up. If anything, the ensuing temperatures were slightly hotter than they’d expected. “We probably slightly underestimated the temperature as a whole for November-December, but not by much,” says Andrew King, a researcher at the University of Melbourne who worked on the study. An “attribution” analysis of this type uses a variety of techniques in order to determine the odds of a particular event occurring with or without human interference in the climate. In this case, the scientists used three methods that all came to the same broad conclusion, King said. One was simply to look how far outside of past temperatures these Arctic temperatures were. But the researchers also used climate change models, including and excluding human caused greenhouse gas emissions, to try to determine the odds of this event occurring with or without human interference in the climate. The event under study was the Arctic extreme temperatures of this winter, especially around the North Pole, which the researchers describe, in part, as follows: Mid-November saw an early winter “heat wave” with the temperature on November 11 reaching -7 ºC (19 ºF) – that is 15 ºC (27 ºF) above normal for the time of year. The monthly mean November temperature was 13 ºC (23 ºF) above normal on the pole. Temperatures in this region declined slightly after that but remained well above normal. So how unusual is this? The analysis found that the temperatures above 80 degrees North latitude were “unprecedented in the satellite era from 1979 onwards.” It also found that these temperatures would be highly unlikely in a climate that is unperturbed by human influences and that even


Fox News wonders whether we should cancel food stamps because 0.09% of spending is fraudulent

Maggie Barcellano sits down for dinner with her daughter, Zoe, 3, at Barcellano's father's house in Austin, on Jan. 25, 2014. Barcellano, who lives with her father, enrolled in the food stamps program to help save for paramedic training while she works as a home health aide and raises her daughter. (Tamir Kalifa/Associated Press) A bit over 44 million Americans participate in the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly referred to as food stamps. That's a higher number than in most years past, representing about 13.7 percent of the U.S. population, but it's down from the high of 47.6 million in 2013, 14.9 percent of the population that year. What's incensing Fox News, though, is that 2016 saw a record-high level of fraud in the system, with $70 million wasted. The network hosted a discussion Tuesday morning with a simple conceit: Should the program therefore be ended? Update: As it turns out, that figure itself doesn't appear to be accurate, with the USDA telling The Post's Erik Wemple that they aren't sure where it came from. In December 2013, a poll conducted by United Technologies with the National Journal asked Americans whether they thought that changing the rules to limit food stamp availability should be approved, even if it kicked 4 million people off the support system. Two-thirds of Americans said that was acceptable. How many would accept booting all 44 million isn't clear. But it's useful to consider the broader context of the question before we consider scrapping the program in its entirety. For example, the amount of fraud Fox said was reported in the SNAP system is a tiny fraction of overall spending. The cost of providing nutritional assistance to those 44 million people (on average each month) is $70.8 billion. In other words, the amount of fraud is about 0.09 percent of all of the money spent. Visually, that looks like this. (The Washington Post) There is a slice representing the fraud in that graphic. It's just not very big. There's no question that fraud should be rooted out and eliminated, of course. There's also no question that the $70 million at issue could have gone to more useful purposes. But in the scale of government waste, that $70 million is peanuts. In April, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, compiled a report looking at places where the government could save money.


Fox News wonders if we should cancel food stamps since 0.09 percent of spending is fraudulent

Maggie Barcellano sits down for dinner with her daughter, Zoe, 3, at Barcellano's father's house in Austin, on Jan. 25, 2014. Barcellano, who lives with her father, enrolled in the food stamps program to help save for paramedic training while she works as a home health aide and raises her daughter. (Tamir Kalifa/AP) A bit over 44 million Americans participate in the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly referred to as food stamps. That's a higher number than in most years past, representing about 13.7 percent of the U.S. population, but it's down from the high of 47.6 million in 2013, 14.9 percent of the population that year. What's incensing Fox News, though, is that 2016 saw a record-high level of fraud in the system, with $70 million wasted. The network hosted a discussion on Tuesday morning with a simple conceit: Should the program therefore be ended? In December 2013, a poll conducted by United Technologies with the National Journal asked Americans if they thought that changing the rules to limit food stamp availability should be approved, even if it kicked 4 million people off the support system. Two-thirds of Americans said that was acceptable. How many would accept booting all 44 million isn't clear. But it's useful to consider the broader context of the question before we consider scrapping the program in its entirety. For example, the amount of fraud reported in the SNAP system is a tiny fraction of overall spending. The cost of providing nutritional assistance to those 44 million people (on average each month) is $70.8 billion. In other words, the amount of fraud is about 0.09 percent of all of the money spent. Visually, that looks like this. There is a slice representing the fraud in that graphic. It's just not very big. There's no question that fraud should be rooted out and eliminated, of course. There's also no question that the $70 million at issue could have gone to more useful purposes. But in the scale of government waste, that $70 million is peanuts. In April, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, compiled a report looking at places where the government could save money. It found billions and billions in potential savings in a variety of agencies and programs. The chart below isolates solely the proposals that would save a specific amount of at least a billion dollars —


Maggie Barcellano sits down for dinner with her daughter, Zoe, 3, at Barcellano's father's house in Austin, on Jan. 25, 2014. Barcellano, who lives with her father, enrolled in the food stamps program to help save for paramedic training while she works as a home health aide and raises her daughter. (Tamir Kalifa/Associated Press) A bit over 44 million Americans participate in the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly referred to as food stamps. That's a higher number than in most years past, representing about 13.7 percent of the U.S. population, but it's down from the high of 47.6 million in 2013, 14.9 percent of the population that year. What's incensing Fox News, though, is that 2016 saw a record-high level of fraud in the system, with $70 million wasted. The network hosted a discussion Tuesday morning with a simple conceit: Should the program therefore be ended? In December 2013, a poll conducted by United Technologies with the National Journal asked Americans whether they thought that changing the rules to limit food stamp availability should be approved, even if it kicked 4 million people off the support system. Two-thirds of Americans said that was acceptable. How many would accept booting all 44 million isn't clear. But it's useful to consider the broader context of the question before we consider scrapping the program in its entirety. For example, the amount of fraud reported in the SNAP system is a tiny fraction of overall spending. The cost of providing nutritional assistance to those 44 million people (on average each month) is $70.8 billion. In other words, the amount of fraud is about 0.09 percent of all of the money spent. Visually, that looks like this. (The Washington Post) There is a slice representing the fraud in that graphic. It's just not very big. There's no question that fraud should be rooted out and eliminated, of course. There's also no question that the $70 million at issue could have gone to more useful purposes. But in the scale of government waste, that $70 million is peanuts. In April, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, compiled a report looking at places where the government could save money. It found billions and billions in potential savings in a variety of agencies and programs. The chart below isolates solely the proposals that would save a specific amount of at least $1


The most exciting restaurant and bar openings planned for 2017

dining room, scheduled to open by March, will be something between a bistro and fine dining destination. Restaurateur Hakan Ilhan (Alba Osteria, Ottoman Taverna) is behind the project, and Ruta will be joined by his longtime pastry chef, Aggie Chin. Mike Isabella projects Chef and restaurateur Mike Isabella is rapidly approaching mogul status. Among what’s on tap for 2017: Arroz, a southern Spanish spot with Portuguese and North African accents in the Marriott Marquis in Mount Vernon Square; the Greek Kapnos Taverna in College Park; and a multi-concept food court in Tysons Galleria. Chef Daisuke Nakazawa will be opening a branch of his New York restaurant in the Trump International Hotel in Washington. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) Nakazawa The Washington spinoff of the New York restaurant helmed by chef Daisuke Nakazawa, who appeared in the documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” will open in the Trump International Hotel this summer. Expect an omakase menu of around 20 courses. Also expect continued chatter about the restaurant’s location, given the political climate surrounding President-elect Donald Trump and his ongoing lawsuits with José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian over the celebrity chefs’ decisions to pull out of the hotel. Nobu Another swanky sushi spot, this chain started in 1994 in New York, overseen by chef Nobu Matsuhisa — with actor Robert DeNiro as one of its founders. The Washington location, in the West End, joins almost three dozen others of a worldwide collection. The massive 11,000-square-foot restaurant will include a bar, lounge and private dining. Qijian Acclaimed Chinese chef Peter Chang has plans to open Qijian in Bethesda sometime around May. The fine-dining restaurant will include two concepts under one roof: an a la carte option and an ambitious tasting-menu experience, which Chang's business partner, Gen Lee, has compared to José Andrés's Minibar. Wahlburgers The popular burger chain from the Wahlberg brothers — actors Mark and Donnie and chef Paul — makes its Washington-area debut with not one, but two locations. Restaurants are slated to open in Dupont Circle and Ballston. The menu has burgers, of course, but also sandwiches, salads, frappés and such dishes as sloppy Joes and mac and cheese inspired by the brothers’ mom, Alma. The Wharf The $2 billion project remaking the Southwest Waterfront will feature 20 to 22 restaurants and bars, including seafood establishments run by chefs Fabio Trabocchi, Cathal Armstrong and Jamie Leeds; a music venue from 9:30 Club


Staycationer year in review: The best and worst D.C. tourist spots I’ve visited so far

have to live out my days as a mole person in this giant concrete waffle iron? - Wait a minute, Dulles airport is nowhere near D.C.? Honey, it looks like we’ll be spending our vacation in Chantilly. - That’s the White House? It looked a lot bigger on “Scandal.” These are knotty problems, so let’s consider an easier one instead: What are the best tourist spots for locals to visit? Out of the 14 places I’ve visited so far for this column, here are my top three: - Natural History Museum: Animal lovers will enjoy the insect petting zoo and the live butterfly pavilion. Animal haters can hang out with the creepy taxidermy in the Hall of Mammals, which includes a rhino that was personally shot by Teddy Roosevelt. - Air and Space Museum: The most exciting artifacts — the Spirit of St. Louis, the moon lander, the USS Enterprise — are conveniently on display right by the entryway. But don’t stop there: Poke around the museum’s dusty corners and you’ll find strange and wonderful things, like a video of Scott Hamilton skating across the universe. - The monuments at night: The huge, ghostly structures we’ve built to honor America’s founding fathers turn downright otherworldly in the moonlight. For a truly trippy experience, try visiting after a fresh snowfall. Of course, not all the places tourists love are worth visiting, I’ve found. Here are a few spots locals should continue to skip: - Madame Tussauds: The wax figures run from uncanny to just plain wrong. If you want fake pics with B-list celebs, learn how to use Photoshop instead. - ‘Shear Madness’: This interactive whodunit at the Kennedy Center is an unintelligible mess to everyone except eighth-graders, who — perhaps due to hormone-inflicted brain damage — love all puns and topical references, no matter how randomly deployed. - U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing tour: Have you ever seen a printer work? Well, imagine a really big one churning out sheets of money. Now you don’t have to stand in line to get tickets for this bore of a tour. Of course, I’ve barely scratched the surface of the D.C. tourism scene. I look forward to further exploring the city’s many world-class attractions and terrible tourist traps in 2017. Is there a place you want me to check out? Drop me a line at sadie.dingfelder@washpost.com, leave a comment or vote


There’s a medical term for dying of a broken heart. Is this what happened to Carrie Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds?

Actress Debbie Reynolds, second from right, and her daughter Carrie Fisher, right, chat with actress Maureen O'Sullivan, left, as actor Gary Merrill listens on Sept. 8, 1980, backstage at Broadway's Lyceum Theater. (AP) In 1990, Japanese physician Hikaru Sato wrote a thought-provoking paper describing an unusual set of sudden, life-threatening symptoms he and his colleagues were seeing in their patients. They included chest pain, shortness of breath, an elevated electrocardiogram and elevated cardiac enzyme levels. It looked very much like a heart attack. But when they delved deeper into what was going on, the doctors found that they were not signs of a heart attack and that their patients’ arteries were clear. The condition was almost exclusive to women, and the women, as it happened, had recently undergone tremendous stress due to the loss of a loved one or other emotional event. In delving further into the mystery, they theorized that the left ventricle of the heart, which has the main responsibility for pumping, was weakened and mimicking the symptoms of a heart attack. Sato dubbed the condition Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, a name derived from an octopus trap because of the left ventricle’s shape, which has been described as similar to a kind of fishing pot in Japan that has a round bottom with a narrow neck that makes it difficult for a catch to escape. But since then, the illness has become more popularly known by a different name: “broken-heart syndrome.” Researchers now accept that this condition is a real one and not just one of soap operas and myths. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine published in 2005 is among those that confirmed that a flood of stress hormones may be able to “stun” the heart to produce heart spasms in otherwise healthy people. Another in 2011 in the journal Coronary Artery Disease described how the condition appears to be more common in post-menopausal women and suggested that their lack of estrogen may make them more vulnerable. In most patients, the symptoms go away after a few weeks, and they recover fully. Others can face more serious complications, such as heart failure. Death is rare, but possible. Over the years, doctors have documented numerous cases of pairs of husbands and wives and parents and children dying shortly after one another. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy may be partly to blame. Earlier this month, Trent and Dolores Winstead, a Nashville


What happened in Washington state after voters legalized recreational marijuana

(Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) The nation's first recreational marijuana shop opened nearly three years ago in Colorado. Since then, a growing body of research has shown that the availability of recreational marijuana — in Colorado and elsewhere — is having little to no effect on teens' propensity to smoke weed. That's the conclusion, at least, of the official statistics out of Colorado through 2015. It's what federal data shows nationwide through this year. And it's also backed up by other federal surveys of drug use in the states where marijuana is legal. The data on this point has been consistent enough that longtime skeptics of the merits of marijuana legalization, like Nora Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, are expressing surprise at the findings. “We had predicted based on the changes in legalization, culture in the U.S. as well as decreasing perceptions among teenagers that marijuana was harmful that [accessibility and use] would go up,” Volkow told U.S. News and World Report earlier this month. “But it hasn’t gone up.” However, a study out Tuesday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics flies somewhat in the face of the new conventional marijuana wisdom. Examining marijuana use among high school students in Washington state two years before and after the vote to legalize in 2012, it finds that rates of marijuana use increased by about 3 percent among 8th- and 10th-graders over that period. The authors posit that reduced stigma about marijuana use is one factor leading to the results that they observed. “Our study suggests that legalization of marijuana in Washington reduced stigma and perceived risk of use,” said lead author Magdalena Cerdá of the University of California in Davis in a news release, “which could explain why younger adolescents are using more marijuana after legalization.” The findings are something of a puzzle. The study found no change in marijuana use among 12th-graders in Washington state, which the authors said could be because the 12th-graders in the study were old enough that “they had already formed attitudes and beliefs related to marijuana use” before the legal change. The study also found no change in use among students at any grade level in Colorado. The authors write that Colorado had a robust medical marijuana industry in place well before full legalization, which may have affected youth attitudes and behaviors there before the study period. Here's a summation of what they found in chart


How to be declared ‘persona non grata’ and get yourself kicked out of the United States

Russian President Vladimir Putin (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) In response to Russian hacking of American political organizations, President Obama announced a number of retaliatory actions on Thursday, including the expulsion of nearly three dozen Russian citizens from the United States. “Today the State Department declared 35 Russian government officials from the Russian Embassy in Washington and the Russian Consulate in San Francisco 'persona non grata,'" the White House announcement read. “They were acting in a manner inconsistent with their diplomatic status. Those individuals and their families were given 72 hours to leave the United States.” The phrase persona non grata is a powerful one in international diplomacy. Meaning “unwelcome person,” it's a declaration that someone is effectively banned from a country. A 1980 memo prepared by the Department of Justice for President Jimmy Carter in consideration of actions to be taken against Iran outlines the legal authority for ousting foreign agents, tracing it back to the earliest days of the American Republic. Shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War, President George Washington faced a diplomatic quandary. The French were at war with the British — again — a tension that had been helpful to the colonists a few years prior. At this point, French politics were tumultuous, after the monarch was overthrown in 1792. In 1793, a French minister named Edmond Genêt was using the United States as a base of operations to launch raids against British naval vessels. The U.S. was officially neutral in the conflict, forcing Washington to demand that Genêt be recalled to France. He was not expelled from the country, largely because he would likely face execution on his return thanks to a shift in power in his home country. This incident, though, established that the executive branch had the right to reject foreign envoys as it saw fit. “The President has inherent constitutional power to declare foreign diplomatic personnel persona non grata and to expel them forcibly from the United States,” the 1980 analysis reads. "[T]he exercise of this power is consistent with international law, including specifically the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations." (The applicable portion of the Vienna Convention is Article 9, Section 1: “The receiving State may at any time and without having to explain its decision, notify the sending State that the head of the mission or any member of the diplomatic staff of the mission is persona non grata or that


After Obama sanctions Russia, Trump says it’s time ‘to move on to bigger and better things’

President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday played down the ramifications of any Russian interference in the U.S. election, saying it is “time for the country to move on to bigger and better things” in a statement issued just hours after President Obama announced sweeping sanctions against Moscow. Trump, who has for weeks voiced skepticism about Russia’s role in the hacking of Democratic email accounts and other hostile actions, said he would seek to learn more about the situation next week. “Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation,” the president-elect said in his statement. The announcement culminates months of vigorous internal debate over whether and how to respond to Russia’s unprecedented election-year provocations, ranging from the hacks of the Democratic National Committee to the targeting of state electoral systems. Trump’s posture put him at odds with Republican congressional leaders, who have condemned Russia for its actions, with some suggesting tougher measures than what Obama detailed Thursday afternoon. The president’s retaliation included the removal of 35 Russian government officials and sanctions against state agencies and individuals tied to the hacks. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) greeted the sanctions as an “overdue” gesture, while still jeering at the Obama administration over the timing, noting that the imposition of punitive measures was “an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with Russia.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called the sanctions “a good initial step, however late in coming.” He also hinted an interest in imposing more punitive measures against Russia if Congress’s investigation into allegations of election-related hacking yields further evidence, “to ensure that any attack against the United States is met with an overwhelming response,” he said. The Post's Karen DeYoung looks at the implications of the latest measures taken by the Obama administration against Russia and its interference in the U.S. election. Several leading senators have already pledged to conduct such investigations in their committees next year, and some of them have already expressed an interest in slamming the Kremlin with stiffer restrictions. “We intend to lead the effort in the new Congress to impose stronger sanctions on Russia,” Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.)


Nine great news stories about animals in 2016

and human urine, and they apparently see no reason why they shouldn’t amble around in search of it in a large parking lot at the pass. They’re a charming sight but also a potentially dangerous one, because people love to take selfies with wild animals and these particular wild animals have sharp horns. Enter Gracie, a border collie who was deployed this summer to herd the sheep and goats away from the parking lot. Her job title: “bark ranger.” (AP Photo/Star-Telegram, Joyce Marshall) The FBI starts taking animal cruelty seriously When local law enforcement agencies report crime statistics to the FBI, they put the offenses in categories. And for years and years, animal abuse crimes were simply classified under “other.” But that changed this year. The FBI now has four distinct categories for animal cruelty, which it uses to track animal abuse the same way it does homicide and other crimes. In a somewhat related development, more local jurisdictions have begun registering animal abusers like sex offenders. A male jaguar known as “El Jefe” has photographed by remote cameras in the Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) Jaguars may be settling in Arizona It’s been a long time since jaguars, the spotted and stocky big cats that roamed much of the western United States before being hunted to death, made their home here. But this year, we got two signs that a couple cats from northern Mexico may have decided to start a new life in the Arizona desert. The first one to be caught on camera was a sleek male who was dubbed El Jefe. Several months later, a second male cat was photographed at an army installation, also in Arizona. At best, the United States is now home to just two jaguars who can’t breed with one another, and Arizona wildlife officials noted that the closest breeding population is 130 miles south. But their presence is exciting nonetheless. A school of mobula raysl off Isla Mujeres, Mexico. (Photo: Shawn Heinrichs/Pew Charitable Trusts) Tough new measures to protect the world’s most endangered animals This year’s conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, ended in regulations against killing endangered animals and trading their remains. Among the species with new protections: African gray parrots, pangolins and manta rays. Read more: The most memorable animals of 2016 (yes, including Harambe) This woman offered


These were the top military stories on Checkpoint in 2016

the time of the June 12 attack. Northrop Grumman features its conceptual sixth-generation fighter jet of the future in a new commercial likely to air during the Super Bowl. (YouTube image) 12. This futuristic fighter jet was just unveiled to America during the Super Bowl The plane is expected to carry laser guns for weapons, but analysts have noted that one of the most complicated parts of development will be incorporating them in a way where the gun’s heat does not give it away on radar. 11. Drill instructors accused of running a dryer with a Muslim recruit inside The allegation is part of a broad scandal at the recruit training center that could result in 20 Marines facing court-martial or administrative punishment. It emerged after Raheel Siddiqui, 20, a recruit with Pakistani roots, died after leaping from a stairwell landing at Parris Island in March after a drill instructor slapped him, the investigation found. Court proceedings in the scandal are expected to begin in January. 10. Citing cost, Trump says Boeing contract for Air Force One should be canceled Within weeks, Trump met with the chief executive for Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the main contractor for the F-35 fighter jet. He said that Boeing had promised to keep down the costs on Air Force One, but that it was too soon to know if that would be the case with the F-35. The USS George H.W. Bush, an aircraft carrier, was used to launch F/A-18F Super Hornets to carry out airstrikes in northern Iraq. (Navy) 9. U.S. aircraft carriers’ ‘unchallenged primacy’ may be coming to a close The report discussed potential countermeasures to the threat, including the Navy’s railgun project, but also suggested the Pentagon putting money into other systems such as submarines and long-range carrier-based drones. 8. The story behind the ‘American Dream’ photo at U.S. Military Academy that went viral Idrache, a Haitian immigrant, worked his way through one of the nation’s most prestigious military schools after immigrating to the United States from Haiti, earning his citizenship and serving for two years as an enlisted soldier with the Maryland Army National Guard, according to Army records. He reported to flight school at Fort Rucker, Ala., shortly afterward. 7. The gun the Orlando shooter used was a Sig Sauer MCX, not an AR-15. That doesn’t change much. Within days, Orlando police clarified that the rifle used wasn’t actually


A moment of truth on Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson shake hands at a signing ceremony of an agreement between state-controlled Russian oil company Rosneft and ExxonMobil in Russia in 2012. (RIA-Novosti/Associated Press) The Post reported The new measures include sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies, three companies that are believed to have provided support for government cyber operations, and four Russian cyber officials. The two agencies named are the GRU, Russia’s military spy service, and the FSB, the civilian spy agency that grew out of the KGB. The administration has also ordered 35 Russian operatives to leave the United States and will shut down Russian-owned facilities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and on Long Island in New York believed to have been used for intelligence purposes. It is not, however, sufficient. The executive branch has acted, but it is imperative the legislative branch now pick up the ball and move it forward. Congressional sanctions can complement and strengthen these new executive sanctions. Therefore because of Russia’s attack on us, their destabilizing and murderous role in Syria, and their illegal annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, I continue to believe the United States must go further and that is why I am introducing two bills next month – the first which would establish an independent, nonpartisan commission to further examine the attack and Russian’s efforts to interfere in our election. The second bill will frame our policy on Russia to include comprehensive enhanced sanctions in response to Russia’s interference in our election and its ongoing aggression in Ukraine and Syria. The bill will also increase assistance to bolster democratic institutions across Europe.


After helping a fraction of homeowners expected, Obama’s foreclosure prevention program is finally ending

step in the right direction, but it didn’t [reach its goal] and a lot of people ended up falling through the cracks.” HAMP is one of the last remnants of the $700 billion taxpayer bailout effort, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP, put in place during the financial crisis. Some of that money, about $28 billion, was carved out to help distressed homeowners by paying banks to lower their interest rates and monthly payments. It was launched in the midst of one of the deepest housing crises in U.S. history. Millions of people had taken out subprime loans that they could no longer afford, sending foreclosure rates to record levels. The Obama administration set out to save more homeowners from foreclosure, but the effort has been bedeviled by complaints that banks repeatedly lost homeowners’ paperwork or incorrectly told them that they didn’t qualify for help. The Treasury Department didn’t act quickly enough to force banks to abide by the rules of the program, housing advocates have said. Nearly 70 percent of the homeowners who applied for the program were rejected, according to government data. A 2014 report examined the record of four large mortgage servicers and found that black and Hispanic borrowers were denied entry into the program at a “significantly higher” rate. “Borrowers in substantially minority areas had at least 3 percent higher denial rates than their comparison populations of borrowers in nonsubstantially minority areas,” according to the Government Accountability Office. “Statistical differences in outcomes among population groups might suggest potential fair lending concerns that merit further examination.” The banking industry has defended its performance, noting that some of the money it receives through HAMP is passed on to investors and borrowers, who receive incentives for paying their mortgages on time. HAMP was a complicated program, industry executives have said, and it took time to develop a protocol for judging when a borrower should qualify and how much help to give them. Many of the program’s early problems reflect its complexity, said Justin Wiseman, director of loan administration policy at the Mortgage Bankers Association, an industry group. “It’s incredibly difficult to design a program in the midst of a crisis,” he said. In the end, HAMP “did help millions of homeowners and created awareness” about the availability of loan modifications. Even critics of the program note that despite falling short of expectations HAMP forced the banking


Our favorite letters to the editor of 2016

Elliott, Arlington Giant panda cub Bei Bei at the National Zoo in January. (Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press) He was born in the USA Regarding the Jan. 17 Metro article “Hey, Bei Bei”: As Bei Bei makes his public debut, I am inspired to propose a Panda Platform for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, perhaps the most consistently vociferous critic of China. Bei Bei and his sister Bao Bao — and their big brother Tai Shan — were born right here in the District, of parents born in China. Mr. Trump would certainly agree that, in this sense, the young pandas are “American.” Mr. Trump should demand that the baby pandas stay here permanently and that China fly Tai Shan here to live out his years and order China to forfeit the $1 million annual fee that the United States has to pay for the privilege of keeping the pandas for breeding and research. These are very modest demands for China, considering its deceitful ways: reported currency manipulation, Internet hacking and ongoing harassment of several Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines (the land of my birth), over the Spratly Islands. On a personal level, it would be a great comfort not to have to go through more separation issues when these little ones grow up a bit and then have to be shipped back in cages to their so-called “homeland.” The United States is their home. To lose them again would simply be too much to bear. Evelyne McFeaters, Falls Church The Jan. 11 Mark Trail comic strip. (James Allen/North America Syndicate) The saguaro cactus grows in the Sonoran Desert, not the Chihuahuan Desert “Mark Trail’s” current storyline is supposedly taking place in southwest Texas, yet the Jan. 11 strip showed saguaro cactuses. I am from Texas and have been to Big Bend National Park, in the Chihuahuan Desert, many times. I also lived in Tucson. The saguaro cactus does not grow in the Chihuahuan Desert. It grows in the Sonoran Desert. The cartoonist needs to take some geography lessons. Casey Dowell, Alexandria [The Mark Trail comic strip is a hot topic for Post letter writers on the Saturday Free for All page. Read more here and here and here. The artist, James Allen, responds here. Oh, and here’s another letter about the geography of the saguaro cactus.] Have skinny jeans bottomed out? The Feb. 9 Economy & Business article “Skinny


What it’s like to be expelled from Russia with your toddler and dog

People walk across Red Square. (AFP/Vasily Maximovvasily/Getty Images) In February 2001, when the street corners and sidewalks of Moscow were still piled high with dirty, gray snow, FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested near his Virginia home and charged with espionage, accused of passing secrets to the Russians. His arrest made the news, as did the U.S. government’s decision to expel 50 Russian diplomats from the United States in retaliation. For most Americans, the news of the expulsions was a brief blip in their day, something they heard on the radio en route to the office. For me, it was life-shattering. I was living in Moscow at the time, with my dog, a toddler son and my husband, a Diplomatic Security Service special agent who was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The Diplomatic Security Service is the law enforcement arm of the State Department, charged with threat analysis, cybersecurity and protection. As soon as we heard of the expulsions, we knew what was coming. And this week’s news that Washington would expel 35 Russians in retaliation for alleged election hacking brought those memories flooding back. (Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that no U.S. diplomats would be expelled despite the U.S. move.) Moscow was our first post in the Foreign Service. As Russian speakers with graduate degrees in Slavic literature, we mostly loved living there. (Though, as a Los Angeles native, there was no way I could learn to love Russian winters.) We spent our free days exploring the city with our small son, wandering through Gorkii Park, visiting museums around the city, and learning to make Georgian khachapuri, bread stuffed with salty cheese that Russians universally adored. We didn’t have many Russian friends — Russians didn’t typically associate with American diplomats — but within the embassy, we had a tight-knit group. And we knew that 50 of us were about to be kicked out. We just didn’t know who. One friend hoped to make the list. He was tired of living in Russia and ready to move on to a place where the work relationship was easier. He joked that he was going to make a big sign that read “I AM A SPY” and hold it up across the street from the embassy, in front of the abandoned church we called Our Lady of Perpetual Observation. We didn’t want to make the list. We still had


2017 will be different, I promise

hands. Traffic will be routed around them. Their children will not be allowed to tell them disturbing personal news without careful coaching from a team of experts. In 2017, all clowns will be collected from the woods. There will be no more reports of sylvan clowns beckoning children into the woods with dollar bills. In short, there will be no more nonsense. Any Wild Improbabilities that suggest a rip in the fabric of time will no longer be allowed. For instance, if there is a rap musical written about a Founding Father, it will close promptly after three days to no fanfare at all. Similarly, the Cubs will win no more World Series, and the Nobel Prize in Literature will return to the staid, plaid-covered arms of traditional authors. Justin Bieber’s music will go back to being bad. The kind of Eldritch magic required to summon up these Bizarre Occurrences has too great a cost, and requires the sacrifice of too many other unrelated hopes and dreams. The portal will be sealed, and the Order of Things will be restored. In 2017, there will be an end to Hitler comparisons. There will be an end to all behavior that invites Hitler comparisons. The nonsense horse race of 2016 is over, and everyone will focus, together, on crafting sound policy that is beneficial to all. The talking heads on television will actually know what they are talking about. When Experts make predictions, they will be respected and obeyed. Also, there will be no more countdowns. We will live in the present. America will be great again. Everyone will be issued a festive hat. Britain will quietly ignore the fact that it is supposed to be leaving the European Union, and things will return to normal. If someone makes a movie about good-natured ghost hunters, it will not become a Giant Political Fiasco. There will be no more profiles of sexy fascists with dapper haircuts who held neo-Nazi rallies. “Neo-Nazi,” people will say to themselves. “That sounds, by definition, bad. No more of that, please!” In general, politics will be entirely free from scandal, corruption and hate. All Hunger Games analogies will cease forthwith. Donald Trump will acknowledge that being president of the United States is a serious responsibility and will slough off his cocoon to reveal a wise and benevolent man who will govern with temperance. He will accidentally delete his


Distinguished non-politicians of 2016

won 61 medals, including 27 gold. Their extraordinary showing prompted us to take a look back at a government initiative that has paid off handsomely — Title IX. 2. Katherine Johnson. The African American mathematician and NASA trailblazer finally got her due — the Medal of Freedom and a movie, “Hidden Figures,” which told her story and that of two other women who played a central part in the space program. If you want a lesson in perseverance, you won’t find one better than hers. 3. Lin-Manuel Miranda. His Web site reads: Lin-Manuel Miranda is an award-winning composer, lyricist, and performer, as well as a 2015 MacArthur Foundation Award recipient. His current musical, Hamilton – with book, music and lyrics by Mr. Miranda, in addition to him originating the title role – opened on Broadway in 2015. Hamilton was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and earned a record-breaking 16 Tony Nominations, winning 11 Tony Awards including two personally for Mr. Miranda for Book and Score of a Musical. The Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hamilton won the 2016 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. Both Mr. Miranda and Hamilton won the 2016 Drama League Awards for Distinguished Performance and Outstanding Production of a Musical, respectively. He also probably saved Alexander Hamilton’s place on the $10 bill. More important, he introduced millions to Hamilton’s story and, more generally, to the history of America’s founding. His work is among the greatest teaching successes in decades. 4. Lonnie Bunch. The director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened his masterpiece to the public, and it has become the hottest ticket in town. (Advanced tickets are sold out through April, daily tickets can be purchased online now.) As a museum it is a stunning accomplishment, one more contribution to the study of American history. The opening ceremony provided an uplifting moment of unity at a time the country is so badly divided and so angry. 5. Craig Sager. The much beloved sideline basketball reporter, renowned for his psychedelic jackets, passed away after a 2½ year battle with cancer. He received the “Jimmy V” award and delivered a memorable, uplifting speech. He exemplified the best in sports — courage, joy and humility. “I will continue to keep fighting, sucking the marrow out of life as life sucks the marrow out of me,” he said. That’s fine advice for everyone.


An emotional car, smart beds and other things to expect from the CES

way. “The specs are easier to point to and say, ‘it’s 20 percent faster,’ ”said Accenture analyst John Curran. “But the end-to-end innovation is perhaps more exciting in the long-run because they can transform how they’ve gotten things done and create some new experience that was never before possible.” There still will be some eye-popping gadgets to note, even if the top trends that analysts say to watch this year are much like in years past — Internet-connected appliances, drones, robotics, artificial intelligence and wearable devices. LG already previewed a levitating speaker that’s supposed to stay floating for up to ten hours. Under Armour is showing off a new line of smart shoes, which will track your steps and also offer some insight on muscle fatigue. There are also new areas of the floor devoted exclusively to smart energy tech and sleep tech. Sleep Number will be showing off its new smart bed that continuously adjusts itself to make your sleep more comfortable. A lot more car news is also expected to be coming out of the show, with many automakers showing off their latest ideas for ways to make our vehicles into rolling living rooms — complete with entertainment options, self-driving technology and Internet connections. Ford will use the show to debut its new autonomous driving system. There even will be a car by Honda that is supposed to understand our emotions and develop its own emotions too. The increased presence of automakers and other nontraditional tech companies illustrates how the show itself is growing, said Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association — the trade group that hosts the convention each year. The CES is also highlighting more nontraditional companies, he said. For example, Carnival Cruise Line chief executive Arnold Donald will talk, in a keynote speech, about how his firm is using connected devices to run its ships like self-enclosed smart cities. While there aren’t that many new types of products to talk about, there’s a lot of growth within categories people already know. Wearable technology exhibitors are up 100 percent, Shapiro said, while virtual reality, smart home, drones and robotics companies have upped their space on the show floor by more than 30 percent. And, he said, each of those types of technologies also open the possibility for more accessories and other companies to build on their platforms for future gadgets down the line.


Elon Musk’s SpaceX says it has found cause of rocket explosion and plans to fly again Sunday

Video captures an explosion that destroyed a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and its payload in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Elon Musk’s SpaceX said Monday that it has discovered the cause of a September rocket explosion and plans to return to flight as soon as Sunday. The conclusions of the company’s investigation have yet to be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, and the agency has yet to provide it a license to launch. But SpaceX’s statement means that it has confidence that federal agencies will approve its remedies for the problem and that it will soon receive the green light. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket exploded while being fueled on a launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station ahead of an engine test firing on Sept. 1. No one was on board the rocket, and there were no injuries. But the blast touched off a massive fireball and caused extensive damage, including the loss of a commercial satellite. In its statement, SpaceX said it traced the cause to a pressure vessel in the second-stage liquid oxygen tank. The tank buckled, the company said, and supercooled liquid oxygen pooled in the lining. The fuel was ignited by breaking fibers or friction. The company said that in the short term, it plans to change the way it loads fuel. Eventually, it plans to change the design of the pressure vessels to prevent buckling. SpaceX led the investigation, which was overseen by the FAA, the Air Force, NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board. Shortly after the explosion, Musk had said it was “turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have had in 14 years” and asked the public for help. Over the past four months, the investigation took several bizarre twists and turns. Musk said there was a mysterious “bang sound” that may have come from “the rocket or something else” seconds before the explosion. And at one point, SpaceX officials asked for access to the roof of a nearby facility used by rival United Launch Alliance, implying sabotage. The explosion was a major setback for SpaceX, which has a significant backlog of commercial satellite launches. The company is also under contract to fly cargo and, eventually, astronauts to the International Space Station. But the accident — the company’s second failure in less than two years — touched off concerns about its ability to fly safely and reliably. In June


What Trump and his nominees must acknowledge about Russia

line for U.S. foreign policy and for confirmation of national security nominees: Acknowledge Russia’s unacceptable behavior and provide Putin with a clear choice. He can have better relations with the United States if he changes his behavior (Trump seems to offer better relations by denying his behavior), or he will face robust, forceful action from the West if he does not. Initial hearings on Russian hacking this week should be accompanied by wall-to-wall, bipartisan agreement that Putin has been trying to interfere with Western elections and, therefore, consequences for this and other violations of international norms are required. A package of sanctions against Russia coupled with a resolution condemning Russia for international aggression and domestic repression — akin to near-unanimous agreement on Iran sanctions and objection to abstaining at the United Nations on a virulent anti-Israel resolution — would reaffirm to the international community the United States’ determination to stand by friends and confront adversaries. In the case of Russia, such action would also lay down a marker for the new administration. There is a rare moment of bipartisan agreement on Russia and Israel. While Democrats and Republicans may disagree on the merits of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, a.k.a. the Iran deal), they share a common concern about Iran’s non-nuclear conduct, its human rights record and its compliance with the strict letter of the deal. Trump, if he plays this right, might lead this bipartisan consensus. If, however, he decides for personal reasons to move to Obama’s left on Russia, he will have wasted a golden opportunity and set his administration on a collision course with Congress — and with voters, who still agree Russia is no friend of the United States’. (The Post recently reported: “Russia’s popularity among Americans has again dropped to Cold War-era depths, according to a poll from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. … The poll found Americans giving Russia an average rating of 32 when asked to rate their feelings toward Russia from 0 to 100. That score is down from an average of 40 in the organization’s June survey and marks the lowest score on this measure since 1986, when Russia’s rating stood at 31.”) Trump can stand with either an unrepentant Russia, or with our allies, the vast majority of Americans and their lawmakers. Bolton’s formulation provides Trump with a road map, one he would be wise to follow.


PM Update: Cool and damp tonight. Moderate to heavy rain for the morning commute.

Venus, the moon and Lincoln. WolfpackWX via Flickr It feels like Mother Nature might be suffering from a hangover of her own. A pretty nasty day will turn into a nasty night, with periods of drizzle and areas of patchy fog spread across the region. The mass return to work, school and life tomorrow morning won’t be made any easier with a large swath of heavy rain moving in just in time for the morning commute. Through Tonight: View the current weather conditions at The Washington Post. Tomorrow (Tuesday): See Jason Samenow’s forecast through the week. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Climate numbers for 2016: Overall, 2016 will go down as a (very) warm and mainly dry year for much of the area. #DCwx #MDwx #VAwx #WVwx… https://t.co/xsfmthvgw8 Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email inbox? Subscribe here.


The U.S. doesn’t have a problem with Russia. It has a problem with Vladimir Putin.

The Post's Karen DeYoung looks at the implications of the latest measures taken by the Obama administration against Russia and its interference in the U.S. election. When the entire U.S. intelligence community united to accuse Russia of tampering in the 2016 presidential election, it seemed redundant to later add that Vladimir Putin was directly involved. Nothing significant happens in Russia, and no action is taken by Russia, without the knowledge of the man who has held total power there for 17 years, first as president and later as unchallenged dictator. Having steadily eliminated every form of real political and social opposition in Russia, Putin turned his attacks on the foreign powers that could — should they decide to act — weaken his grip. The United States, in other words, doesn’t have a problem with Russia — it has a problem with Putin. And instead of deterrence, President Obama continues the policy of belated responses that has enabled Putin’s steady escalation of hostile acts. The sanctions against Russian intelligence assets that the White House announced last Thursday, while welcome, left me searching for a Russian equivalent for the proverb “closing the barn door after the horse is gone.” With Putin’s background as a career KGB officer, he takes a particular interest in operations dealing with that organization’s specialties of disinformation and manipulation. The KGB is called the FSB these days, a makeover that made sense after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but under Putin it is as aggressive as ever in its mission of infiltrating and destabilizing the West. More aggressive, in fact, because Putin is not constrained by national interests or global alliances the way the Soviet leadership was. There is no consideration of what is or is not good for Russia, or for Russians, only what is best for him and his close circle of oligarch elites. The 2012 U.S. adoption of the Magnitsky Act, targeting Russian officials tied to criminal repression, was answered by banning the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans. Western sanctions over Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea were met by boycotting many foreign goods, harming Russian businesses and consumers — to the perverse point of physically destroying thousands of tons of smuggled food in a country where many millions are battling hunger and poverty. Putin’s strategy is to get Russians to blame the free world by further punishing Russians himself. This can be countered


The Daily 202: Key dates to put on your calendar for 2017

that drove Saban totally bonkers. (Adam Kilgore) - A baggage handler was accidently locked in the cargo area of a United Airlines plane during a 1.5-hour flight on Sunday from Charlotte to Washington. A spokeswoman did not say whether the cargo hold was temperature controlled or pressurized, though records indicate the plane rose to 27,000 feet during the trip. Asked for comment, the employee said only, “I thank God. He was with me.” (Shawn Boburg and Aaron C. Davis) - South Carolina state Rep. Chris Corley (R), who made headlines for his staunch advocacy to keep the Confederate flag flying on statehouse grounds last year, was charged with first-degree domestic violence for allegedly beating his wife and threatening her with a handgun. In a heart-wrenching 911 call, his young children can be heard screaming and pleading for him to stop. (Kristine Guerra) - A Texas lawmaker said he is “lucky to be alive” after a stray bullet hit his head during a New Year’s celebration and lodged itself into his brain. It’s unclear where the bullet came from, but it stopped just short of doing more serious, or fatal, damage. (CNN) - SpaceX is ready to resume rocket launches again. Four months after the explosion of its Falcon 9 rocket – which touched off a massive fireball and took down a $200 million commercial satellite – officials are confident they’ve remedied the cause of the blast. They hope to return to orbit as soon as this Sunday. (Christian Davenport) - France enacted a new “right to disconnect” law, granting employees the legal right to ignore work emails outside of typical working hours. It’s part of a national initiative designed to prevent employee burnout, but it's a pretty heavy-handed way to ensure some down time in a global economy that never stops. (Amy B Wang) - DHS reports a 15 percent surge in illegal immigration, reflecting continued failures by the Obama administration to deterthe flow of immigrants along the country’s southwestern border. (Abigail Hauslohner) - Chicago ended 2016 with a total of 762 homicides. It's the city's deadliest year in nearly two decades and surpasses the totals of New York and Los Angeles (both larger cities) combined. (AP) - The ex-wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is being accused of racial discrimination by a former African-American chef, who claims she asked him to prepare “black people food,” including fried chicken


The reason Amazon won’t kill the mom-and-pop convenience store

An Amazon employee holds a bag with goods outside the Amazon Go brick-and-mortar grocery store without lines or checkout counters, in Seattle last month. (Reuters/Jason Redmond) A block from where I live is a popular grocery store. It’s not big enough to be considered a supermarket, but it has more than just the basics. I shop there a few days a week, buying everything from milk and produce to frozen food and meats. According to data from the National Association of Convenience Stores, there are more than 154,000 such places across the country. Almost two-thirds of them are owned by single-store operators and 81 percent also sell gas. It’s an enormous industry made up mostly of small business owners. And it’s about to undergo a huge change that will challenge their survival. Just last month, Amazon announced that it would be soon opening a first of its kind, fully automated grocery store called Amazon Go. (Amazon.com chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post). Using sensor technologies, items pulled from a shelf will be automatically detected, tracked and paid for without a shopper having to stand in line or deal with another human being. Amazon’s not alone. Come this February, certain Lawson stores in Japan will be testing new machines from Panasonic that can automatically scan multiple items placed in a basket so shoppers can exit a store quickly. We’re just getting started. Self-service automation is quickly becoming the status quo for the grocery and convenience store industry. East Coast chains like Wawa and Sheetz have been using automated kiosks for years that accept orders for their takeaway sandwich counters. Food stores have installed un-manned stations socustomers can scan and pay for their own items without human interaction. Automated restaurants, like the one I wrote about a few weeks ago, are popping up in cities. Convenience and grocery stores operate on very thin margins. According to data provided to me by the research firm SageWorks, the typical convenience store averages a net profit of just two-percent on its sales. Compounding this problem is the demand by many customers, armed with smartphones and mobile payment services, for a quicker and better customer experience as well as the challenges posed by CVS, Rite Aid, Walmart and other big-box operators who are selling food and similar items in direct competition. Many believe that self-service technology will go a long way towards helping


What 6 wacky CES gadgets tell us about the future

track your movements and the position of your body. Elmoji (Courtesy of WowWee) What it is What’s wacky about it What it tells us This year, we’ve already seen Apple launch an app — Swift Playgrounds — aimed at teaching kids to code. Smart coding toys were on plenty of retailers’ shelves this holiday as well, such as the Fisher Price Code-a-Pillar, which indicates that more major companies will probably get in on the act. AvatarMind iPal Robot The AvatarMInd iPal Robot for Children What it is: What’s wacky about it: What it tells us: Aiming this product at children, of course, also makes the robot an interesting focus of discussion about how much we want to rely on such machines as nannies. This is a social discussion we’re already having about screen time, and it’s going to grow only more complicated. Catspad Catspad - Your new amazing cat feeder What it is: What’s wacky about it: What it tells us: The Catspad is also a particularly good example of how new tech can build on old tech. One intriguing part of the Catspad is that it can distinguish between multiple felines using the same bowl. How? By reading the microchip often implanted under a cat’s skin when it gets a new owner. Mars by Crazybaby Mars by crazybaby: The Levitating Bluetooth Hi-Fi Speaker #ElevateYourAudio What it is: What’s wacky about it: What it tells us: The mere existence of the levitating speaker (and Crazybaby is not the only one showing off this type of product) can tell consumers a couple of things. For one, there is obviously still some appeal in having something that just looks cool, even for technology as established as the speaker. And consumers can expect companies to continue tweaking mature forms of technology — making small improvements that may not always blow your mind but are incrementally better than those that came before. Kerastase Hair Coach Kerastase Hair Coach Powered by Withings What it is: What’s wacky about it: What it tells us: It also gives us a pretty good clue about how companies are going to be sneaking in through everyday objects to build more of a relationship with customers over time. This hairbrush will recommend a care plan for your head — using Kerastase products, of course. Robots and virtual-reality headsets are among the devices being showcased at the annual Las Vegas event.


Mysterious radio burst came from a galaxy 2.5 billion light years away, astronomers discover

of an FRB: the high frequency radio waves arrived first, followed by successively lower frequencies, which get stretched out and slowed down as they travel across space. The signal, called FRB 121102, was definitely repeating, and it certainly traveled a long way to reach Earth. The dishes of the Very Large Array telescope in New Mexico. (National Radio Astronomy Observatory/Associated Universities Inc. via Reuters) But where did it come from? To answer that question, Chatterjee and his colleagues turned to the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, a network of 27 radio telescopes spread over a 20-mile-wide area in the high grassland of New Mexico (Jodie Foster works there in the movie “Contact”). Each of the telescopes making up the VLA has a smaller diameter than the one at Arecibo, meaning they don't take in very much of the sky. But combining the data from all 27 gives a very high-resolution glimpse of one small swatch of space — exactly what Chatterjee needed. He applied for 10 hours of telescope time, thinking that would be plenty to catch FRB 121102 flaring. But he saw nothing. He applied for 40 more hours. Nothing again. Finally, he asked for 40 more hours at the VLA, scheduled to coincide with 40 hours of time at Arecibo. During a trial run, the team caught its first flash from FRB 121102. Then it got eight more. “Nine pulses captured with two telescopes — now we have enormous resolution,” Chatterjee said. “We've Next, scientists at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii trained their optical telescope on the speck nailed down by Chatterjee. Their scan of the sky revealed that FRB 121102's source is 2.5 billion light years away, within a very faint dwarf galaxy with about 1 percent of the mass of the Milky Way. The discovery allows researchers to rule out some proposed explanations for FRBs. They can't be cataclysmic, since their source needs to survive whatever causes them in order to repeat, and they definitely don't originate within our galaxy. Observations from the European VLBI network — an array of telescopes spread all over the globe — offered an even more precise snapshot of the FRBs' origin point, which seems to coincide with another, more persistent source of radio waves. Those signals resemble the radio emissions that come from supermassive black holes. But those types of black holes are typically found only in bright galaxies