The case for marijuana legalization just got stronger

(Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post) America's high school students are using drugs and alcohol at or near the lowest levels on record, according to federal data released Wednesday. The 2015 Monitoring the Future Survey, conducted by the University of Michigan and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) since 1975, found that past-year use of alcohol and illicit drugs other than marijuana continued their two-decade-long decline among America's 8th- , 10th- and 12th-graders. Teen marijuana use has fallen slightly over the past five years, at a time when four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana and 23 others allow medical use. “We are heartened to see that most illicit drug use is not increasing, non-medical use of prescription opioids is decreasing, and there is improvement in alcohol and cigarette use rates,” NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow said in a statement. In 2015, teen use of both alcohol and cigarettes reached their lowest levels since the study began 40 years ago. And use of especially dangerous drugs, like heroin, amphetamines and so-called synthetic marijuana, also declined this year. The Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey poses questions about substance use to more than 40,000 8th- , 10th- and 12th-graders at public and private high schools in the United States. The sheer size of the survey, and the fact that it was conducted in the spring of this year, make it an invaluable tool for understanding trends in teen drug and alcohol use. The other major federal barometer of substance use, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, has a one- or two-year lag compared to MTF. The immediacy of the data makes the survey particularly useful for understanding how the national conversation on marijuana legalization is affecting teen pot use, if at all. This, after all, is a primary concern of legalization opponents. Rep. Andy Harris (R.-Md.) summed up this mind-set during a speech at the Heritage Foundation last year when he said that "relaxing [marijuana] laws clearly leads to more teenage drug use. It should be intuitively obvious to everyone that if you legalize marijuana for adults, more children will use marijuana because the message that it's dangerous will be blunted." But the data from MTF and other federal surveys contradict this claim. Though more adults are smoking pot, the MTF data suggests that teens aren't following suit. Teen marijuana use at the national level has


Scientists find the secret to panda procreation: Love

the mood. Zoos across the globe have tried to rectify this dire situation — baby pandas are at stake here, people! Not to mention the possible future of a species — with strategies that would make even your most interfering relatives blush. Some screen “panda porn” videos to encourage the bears (or at the very least to demonstrate proper technique). Others, such as the National Zoo, resort to artificial insemination. No one has yet tried couples therapy that we know of, but it may only be a matter of time. Meanwhile, panda matchmakers — this is a real job — scour a database of all of the world’s captive pandas to find the most genetically “suitable” pairings. But in their eagerness to play yenta, zoos may be missing out on one crucial factor, scientists at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research say: Love When bears are given the opportunity to choose their own mates, researchers reported in the journal Nature Communications, they were far more likely to copulate and produce a cub. Couples in which both members showed an interest in one another had an 80 percent chance of becoming parents. Even when only one partner showed outward signs of affection, the likelihood of reproductive success was about 50 percent. But when neither animal was interested in the other, zero babies were made. [When pandas squeak and make other noises, what are they saying?] The results probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever been set up — or, you know, has a heartbeat. Attraction is a complicated, fickle thing, and it can’t be boiled down to some zookeeper’s judgment of genetic compatibility (the panda equivalent of your mom saying, “Nancy’s son is the nicest boy, and he’s in medical school”). But apparently this is news in the bizarre world of panda breeding. “Incorporating mate choice into conservation breeding programs could make a huge difference for the success of many endangered species’ breeding programs, increasing cost-effectiveness and overall success,” Meghan Martin-Wintle, conservation biologist at the San Diego Zoo and a co-author on the study, told Reuters. [Why giant panda cubs are so incredibly tiny] The study examined more than 40 pandas at a conservation center in China’s Sichuan province. The bears were kept in open-air concrete enclosures with barred “howdy” windows and gates on either side, allowing them a peek at adjacent bears. This enabled


signs of affection, the likelihood of reproductive success was about 50 percent. But when neither animal was interested in the other, zero babies were made. [When pandas squeak and make other noises, what are they saying?] The results probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever been set up — or, you know, has a heartbeat. Attraction is a complicated, fickle thing, and it can’t be boiled down to some zookeeper’s judgment of genetic compatibility (the panda equivalent of your mom saying, “Nancy’s son is the nicest boy, and he’s in medical school”). But apparently this is news in the bizarre world of panda breeding. “Incorporating mate choice into conservation breeding programs could make a huge difference for the success of many endangered species’ breeding programs, increasing cost-effectiveness and overall success,” Meghan Martin-Wintle, conservation biologist at the San Diego Zoo and a co-author on the study, told Reuters. [Why giant panda cubs are so incredibly tiny] The study examined more than 40 pandas at a conservation center in China’s Sichuan province. The bears were kept in open-air concrete enclosures with barred “howdy” windows and gates on either side, allowing them a peek at adjacent bears. This enabled researchers to conduct dichotomous choice tests on each panda. The bears were then monitored for signs that they were interested in their neighbors. For example, a female panda might signal her interest by sticking her tail in the air and walking backward toward the male. The dude might signal back by scraping his foot or performing a handstand against a vertical surface and urinating. (Guys, please don’t try this at your next party.) All in all, there’s a lot of bleating, chirping, rolling around and splashing of water, as well as some more R-rated behaviors that may be best left to the imagination. A recent visit to panda bases in China found the bears in all stages of life, from pregnant to infant to a baby getting love from mom. During the females’ short fertility period, the animals were paired up according to genetic recommendations from the panda species survival plan (these plans help direct captive animal breeding to preserve genetic diversity and a healthy population as a safeguard against extinction in the wild). Some bears got matched up with their preferred partners, others did not. Male bears were introduced to females’ pens for anywhere from three to 75 minutes,


D.C. to pay cost overruns for Wizards facility

the time, through Wizards practices, Mystics games and games from a NBA D-League franchise that has not yet been created. Events DC, the city’s convention and sports arm, would be responsible for booking events the rest of the time and would pay for any overruns beyond $55 million. Mendleson said since Monumental’s contribution of $4.5 million equated to the rent the company would pay over the 19-year lease it expects to sign, the mayor had committed to paying for the entire bill even though ticket sales will go to Monumental. “How will we make any money off of this?” Mendelson asked. Council member Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) asked the most pointed questions about the plans at the round table, questioning why the city needed to subsidize another entertainment venue. D.C. owns the Lincoln Theater on U Street, put $12 million into the Howard Theatre and provided hundreds of millions in support for the Wharf, the Southwest Waterfront development, which will include another concert hall. The MGM casino and hotel under construction at National Harbor in Prince George’s County will bring another venue across the Maryland line. Silverman said it was “unforgivable” that the District had not done more to previously develop the Ward 8 neighborhood where the venue would be built, Congress Heights, but questioned whether $50 million could be better spent supporting existing businesses or bringing in a college or university. “Why not just give the money directly to small businesses that are in Ward 8?” she asked. Deputy Mayor Brian Kenner said the District envisioned the project as an anchor for the site that would generate private development around it, bring in new tax revenue and create jobs. Greg O’Dell, president and chief executive of Events DC, is overseeing construction and operation of the facility and is setting aggressive goals for contracting small, disadvantaged and District-based businesses and for hiring D.C. residents. “This is something that we think is going to be much larger than just something for the Wizards and Mystics,” Kenner said. Monumental Sports did not send a representative to testify. Mendleson raised concerns about a deadline in the term sheet agreed to by Kenner and O’Dell with Monumental stipulating that a development agreement and lease would be complete by Nov. 16 or Monumental was free to negotiate a deal elsewhere. Kenner said those agreements were still not complete but would be soon and that he


Main Street Morning: Facebook quietly tests a business review feature

Cross is being destroyed by a corporate takeover. Entrepreneurs - The founder of a company navigating the future of drones amid an industry anticipating explosive growth during the next decade has been named USA TODAY’s Small-Business Innovator of the Year. - Howard Stern renews his deal with Sirius XM for another five years. Retail - Amazon Prime now reaches one of every four American households. - The unusually warm weather is making a serious mess for clothing retailers. Sales Marketing - Pepsi launches “healthy” vending machines. - Pinterest narrows its ad focus to match users’ interest. - The founder of a digital marketing firm explains how to close outbound sales leads. - A 115-year-old cigarette maker plans to rebrand itself by dropping the word “tobacco” from its name. - Rolls Royce launches a $26,000 cocktail kit. Finance - Biz2Credit, a small business financial technology platform, launches a new tool to help small business owners to capture a personalized snapshot of their business health. - This is a great (and growing) list of 104 small business grants. Start-ups - A start-up that looks to produce 3D image sensors raises $22 million. - These start-ups are taking a bite out of food poisoning. Technology - IBM opens up its artificial mind to the world. - These are the top five automotive technology breakthroughs in 2015. - Universal remote desktop is coming to Windows 10 soon. - A computer society predicts the top nine technology trends for 2016. Online - Why passphrases are more user-friendly than passwords. - This is what Netflix is doing to reduce the amount of bandwidth it consumes online. - LinkedIn rolls out a new tool to prepare people for their dream jobs. - One million drones could be flying after the holidays. Social Media - Facebook quietly tests a new way to find local businesses – and Yelp’s stock plunges. Ideas - If you Google “bubble level” on your phone, it turns into one. - A study finds that vegetarian and other healthy diets may be worse for the environment. On This Day in 1773 - The Boston Tea Party occurred. Around the Country - Comcast holds its first diversity and inclusion summit in Philly. - Santa Claus helps put out an aquarium fire in Utah. - The clock is ticking for the city of Anchorage to finalize clear rules for what kind of marijuana businesses will be


The calendar says December, but these flowers could not care less

The autumn cherry blossoms have been blooming on the National Mall since November.(gypsybug via Flickr) We don’t have to tell you — it’s been an exceptionally warm December. Highs in D.C. have exceeded 50 degrees every day this month except for two, and last weekend we saw highs in the 70s. Overnight lows have not hit the freezing mark, and since Dec. 10, they’ve all been above 40 degrees. It’s no wonder the flowers are confused. When we wrote about the autumn-blooming cherry blossoms in November, we were impressed. But it was a very warm month– the second warmest November since 2000 — and it’s not uncommon to get a big second bloom on this species during a particularly mild fall. But to have them last so far into December is a little more surprising. [More exceptional warmth on the way for Eastern U.S. next week] But it’s not just the cherry blossoms these days — it’s the roses, the irises, the azaleas and even the vegetables(!) that are making this month feel like the twilight zone. The bees and butterflies are out pollinating and there are little green leaf buds on some of our bushes and trees. At Reagan National Airport, D.C.’s official climate monitoring station, the average temperature through Dec. 14 was 50 degrees, more than eight degrees above average. The record warmest December was 45.6 degrees, which was tied between 1889 and 1984. Even with the weekend cool-down,this month will challenge that record thanks to the very warm head-start and the potentially extreme temperature rebound next week. The roses It's December Bowie me 77 @TenaciousTopper @hbwx @capitalweather @suepalkafox5dc https://t.co/qoZ6gFZuRX (Dennis Dimick via Flickr) (Joe Flood via Flickr) https://twitter.com/eternallystoked/status/676861440876224512 The irises @capitalweather an iris in Columbia Heights. It's December, right? https://t.co/yf0iJ53ZGW The vegetables People in my neighborhood are having their eggplants and tomatoes coming back. In December. @capitalweather https://t.co/qQYFnjUJoo The azaleas Weather has been so warm here in DC the azaleas are blooming for the 2nd time this year @ChuckBell4 @capitalweather https://t.co/BBtF8B7ZRE The clematis Not quite in bloom yet, but close. The cherry blossoms Of course. (John Sonderman via Flickr) (Angela Pan via Flickr) (Joe Flood via Flickr) I do not recall ever seeing this in mid-December @capitalweather @ABC7Devon #Decembercherryblossoms on @nationalmall https://t.co/n7kv6i7ziM Buckeye, one of many in Richmond, VA at #Maymont Park enjoying warmth. #RVA @capitalweather @ZachDanielCBS6 https://t.co/peLbim82fz More from the Capital Weather Gang November was the


The not-so-secret history of the U.S. military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command

U.S. generals and spokespeople stressed when they talked publicly about special operations night raids, had veto authority over all of the counterterrorism task force’s missions. “Technically they do,” a senior staff officer in the task force explains to the investigators. “They don’t exercise it, but technically they do have authority.” The vagaries of hostage rescue missions in particular are laid out clearly. The Army colonel who approves the 2010 mission to rescue Norgrove judges there is a 75 percent chance the captured aid worker is at the target compound, 8,000 feet up in Kunar’s jagged mountains. The next officer below him, the SEAL commander at Jalalabad, thinks the mission has a 65 percent chance of success. 50-50 that she’s there, say two senior enlisted SEALs and an intelligence officer. Norgrove was there, it turned out, but a grenade thrown by the SEAL assault force’s junior member killed her. “The moment that it came crashing down on me that she had died on our hands was when we watched this feed,” the operator in question tells investigators with apparent anguish, referring to an aerial video feed that recorded the raid and captured the movement of his arm as he threw the grenade that killed the hostage. “That’s when I could look at it and be like that grenade that I threw took Ms. Norgrove’s life. Until that point, there was doubt as to what had actually taken her life.” Since the crash of “Extortion 17,” books, articles, and some family members of the fallen SEALs have proffered a theory that the shootdown was an inside job, arranged by Afghan officers with knowledge of the raid and white-washed by the Obama administration. Retired special operators have taken to the Internet to dispute that theory, and the declassified documents do not appear to offer any evidence to support it. Indeed, in the Norgrove investigation, nearly a year before the shootdown, a one operator presciently remarks on how easy it would be for a lucky rocket-propelled grenade shot to bring any JSOC mission to grief in an instant. “All it takes, and I’ve seen it, is [for] one guy [to] come out with an RPG or something and that whole bird is going to start rolling down the hill,” the SEAL, a chief petty officer on his eighth combat deployment, tells investigators. Asked why he thought the two investigations into normally secretive missions were


Meet the world’s fastest half-marathoner (in a business suit)

6:29 per mile pace. The record is pending verification, but Amarasiriwardena is confident that he has met all the requirements. He provided video and drone footage of the race to Guinness World Records. “The certificate will definitely be going up in the office,” Amarasiriwardena said. Born and raised in Amherst, Mass., Amarasiriwardena started running in middle school and competed in cross-country and track through college. He remembers wearing heavy cotton T-shirts when he first started running in the early 2000s and how he would be completely soaked in sweat after workouts. It was around the same time that Under Armour, launched in 1996, began popularizing performance material in athletic clothes. To save money, Amarasiriwardena started experimenting with his own athletic apparel. “Growing up in New England, the weather changed so much that I became very aware of how performance apparel made a big difference,” he said. “I started kind of hacking my own materials. I would go to construction sites and dumpster diving to get Tyvek … to make my own waterproof rain jackets, sleeping bags out of shredded up space blankets.” That curiosity brought him to MIT, his dream school, where he majored in chemical and biological engineering and had the opportunity to conduct research for the Sports Technology Institute at Loughborough University in England. After graduating from MIT in 2011, where he ran on the cross-country and track teams all four years, Amarasiriwardena wanted to bring the same level of performance in athletic clothing to those in a business setting. “You want to look sharp and you don’t want to wear running clothes all the time,” he said. “If you’re leading an active, urban life, it’s always a compromise.” To prepare for the half marathon in a suit, Amarasiriwardena did some training runs in his company’s Apollo shirt and several different garments to anticipate his race experience. He said it didn’t feel much different than wearing running pants and a running jacket. During the out-and-back race course, Amarasiriwardena’s dapper appearance confused some fellow runners. With his race bib pinned ever so discretely on the left jacket pocket, Amarasiriwardena would hear fellow racers yell, “Looking sharp!” or asking him if he was late to work on the way to the finish line. As mentioned in Runner’s World “If it comes up, I might give it a shot again,” he said. “In case I need to take the record back.”


John McCain blasts senators for acting in ‘dark of night’ on Russian rockets

use of Russian rocket engines for national security launches. In a blistering 26-minute speech on the floor of the Senate floor Wednesday, McCain (Arizona) said that the lawmakers lifted the restrictions in the appropriations process instead of offering amendments to the bill that would have been publicly debated. For months, McCain has been pushing to restrict the use of the engines, which he said directly benefits the Russian government at a time when the U.S. has imposed sanctions over tensions in the Ukraine. The restrictions were put in place, he said Wednesday, “not only because our nation should not rely on Russia to access space, but because it is simply immoral to help subsidize Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and line the pockets of Putin’s gang of thugs who profit from the sale of Russian rocket engines.” The engines are used by the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture known as the United Launch Alliance, which for years had a monopoly on launching Pentagon and intelligence satellites into space. The company has said that the limit on the engines would inhibit its ability to bid on launch contracts, and it recently backed out of a competition, saying it couldn’t offer a bid in part because of the engine restriction. That left the Pentagon’s only other certified launch provider, SpaceX, with a sole source contract. In a statement, Shelby (R-Ala.) defended the decision, saying the engine restriction was “reckless” because of the importance of delivering national security satellites. “While I strongly believe that we should not be dependent upon any foreign power for access to space, it is far too risky to ban the RD-180 until we have a domestically-produced engine that has the same capabilities.” Durbin (D-Ill.) said he was concerned that ULA would not be able to compete without access to addition to the engines,leaving the Pentagon with a single launch provider, this time SpaceX. “They don’t have an alternative engine,” he said in a speech floor Wednesday. And that would mean that “we’re getting back to the days again of a sole bidder.” McCain and others have denied that, saying ULA has enough RD-180 engines already in stock to be able compete. While ULA has said that the engines it does have are assigned to other missions, McCain has called that a “manufactured crisis,” designed to generate support for its call for additional engines. ULA declined to comment, as did SpaceX.


D.C. area forecast: Soggy today, then brace yourself for a chilly weekend

Two hour radar loop of rain and storm movement through the area. Refresh page to update. TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 5/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: FORECAST IN DETAIL Today is a wet one, though the heaviest activity may conveniently fall between the two commutes. Many areas should have rainfall totals push close to the one inch mark. This weekend, behind today’s strong cold front, we should finally have a December day that is cooler than normal, Saturday (but no guarantees in this barn burner of an El Niño winter). Not to worry, however, mild weather is back in full force early next week. Today (Thursday): Tonight: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest updates. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast through the weekend… Tomorrow (Friday): Tomorrow night: Sunrise at the Jefferson Memorial, December 16, 2015. (George Jiang) A LOOK AHEAD Saturday Sunshine dominates Sunday, appropriately, and makes better progress at warming the area with highs in the mid-40s to near 50 likely. Clouds are likely to begin filtering into the region by evening helping to keep readings from falling off as much overnight. Lows range through the 30s. Confidence: Medium-High Monday


The year in Google searches: Lamar Odom tops terror and Trump

Google - Year In Search 2015 When faced with any sort of conundrum these days, our first instinct is often to “Google it.” Why do dogs wag their tail? How to do the Kylie Jenner lip challenge? What is a Lunar Eclipse? These are questions were among the queries most frequently typed into the search box that has become the great oracle of digital information. Google’s annual round-up of trends from the past year not only offer an album of the biggest stories of 2015 — they give an intimate glimpse into our preoccupations, our hopes and our worries. Among the questions featured in Google’s promotional video for the compilation were: “How can I help refugees?” “Why can’t women be army rangers?” and “What does the Confederate flag stand for?” And of course, how could we forget — “What color is the dress?” (For those who somehow missed it, “The Dress” was a viral phenomenon stemming from a wedding dress that appeared blue to some and white to others. There’s a scientific explanation for why it looks different to different people, but chaos and fervent debate nevertheless ensued.) Worldwide, the most searched item was Lamar Odom, the former Los Angeles Lakers star and Kardashian husband who was found unconscious at Nevada’s “Love Ranch” this October. Searches for Odom eclipsed those for Charlie Hebdo and Paris, as well as for another Kardashian relative — Caitlyn Jenner. Just behind Odom in the U.S. were two movies: “Jurassic World” and “American Sniper.” [Fighting for his life: The downfall of basketball’s Lamar Odom, also starring the Kardashians] There have been 897 million searches for Paris, the target of deadly terrorist attacks in November. The year also saw 23 million searches about the migrant crisis. According to Google senior vice president Amit Singhal, users in Italy asked “How to adopt a Syrian orphan child?” while those in Germany wondered, “Where are the refugees coming from?” (Screen grab from YouTube) “Guns in America” were the subject of over 160 million searches, prompting questions such as “what is gun control,” “why do we need gun control” and “why won’t gun control work.” In the most-searched people list, Donald Trump was probably disappointed that he ranked fourth, below Odom, Jenner and Ultimate Fighting Champion Ronda Rousey. After a hiatus that was excruciating for her numerous fans, Adele came back with an album, “25,” that topped both the musical


Report: Navy SEALs covered up accusations of deadly abuse

naval support personnel, four soldiers and an interpreter hired through a private contractor. In interviews, service members at the base and Afghans living nearby told the Times that the arrival of the SEALs changed the atmosphere of the base; their relationships with Afghans became strained and discipline issues emerged among the soldiers. When Afghan Local Police arrived at the base on May 31, three SEALs took the lead in interrogating the detainees, soldiers said in sworn statements included in the Navy investigative report. U.S. Army medic Specialist David Walker and staff Sgt. David Roschak, the Army squad leader at Kalach, were standing on the roof of the outpost’s meeting room for security, which gave them a view of the questioning. Other witnesses had different vantage points. At first, the SEALs stood back as the policemen hit the men. Such mistreatment is not entirely uncommon for Afghan police militias, the Times reported. Previously, the newspaper has reported that U.S. troops were ordered to ignore sexual abuse of children by top Afghan militiamen. Afghan Local Police have also been accused of rape, murder and theft in their villages, The Post has reported. The heads of police militias hold enormous sway in parts of Afghanistan, where they essentially operate as judge, police chief and tax collector. As the policemen attacked the detainees with sticks and antennas at the base near Kalach, one SEAL allegedly said “Enjoy the show!” according to a statement. The soldiers told investigators they then saw the SEALS kick prisoners, fire handguns near their faces, stand on top of the men’s heads, and throw rocks at their chests and groins. One soldier said he saw an American pour water on a prisoner who looked like he was choking. At one point, the SEALs told the soldiers to stand down, they said in their statements. The men complied, in part because they didn’t want to see anymore, several people told the Times. The detainees were allowed to leave that afternoon, but the three scrap merchants struggled to make it up a hillside where they were ordered to walk. One of the men, Muhammad Hashem, collapsed a short distance from the base; he was bleeding from his skull and his back was injured, according to the Times. One of the other men, Assadullah (like many Afghans, he goes by only one name), said that some Americans came over with water and a


Vladimir Putin won’t stop until Sepp Blatter gets the Nobel Peace Prize

(Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA) Instead of attending the Women’s World Cup in the highly extraditable country of Canada this summer, outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter visited the safe haven that is Russia, where he was feted by President Vladimir Putin. He said this: “We all know the situation developing around Mr Blatter right now. I don’t want to go into details but I don’t believe a word about him being involved in corruption personally. “I think people like Mr Blatter or the heads of big international sporting federations, or the Olympic Games, deserve special recognition. “If there is anyone who deserves the Nobel Prize, it’s those people.” Blatter, as you may have heard, is the subject of a corruption investigation on two continents and likely faces a lengthy — if not lifetime — FIFA ban when that organization’s Ethics Committee issues a final ruling on its investigation into various dodgy-seeming schemes next week. But that hasn’t stopped Putin from his quixotic Nobel campaign. He doubled down on that Thursday during a news conference. “Whether there are signs of corruption in FIFA, the investigation must show. As for Joseph Blatter, he is a very respected person, he has done a lot for the development of world soccer. … That’s the one to be awarded Nobel Peace Prize,” Putin said, per Reuters. There’s a Nobel Peace Prize for Awarding the World Cup to Russia now? Such an oddly specific award.


The two most interesting and beautiful space weather events of 2015

A phenomenal aurora was seen deep into the Lower 48 on the night of June 22, seen here at Cape Cod, Mass. (Chris Cook via spaceweather.com) Looking back on the most interesting and beautiful space weather events of 2015, two large storms stand out: one in March that coincided with St. Patrick’s Day, and another in June, which fell on the summer solstice. But most interesting often means most troublesome for technologies, so it makes for a double-edged sword. Space weather events can be ranked using NOAA’s three scales, which quantify the severity of radio blackouts (R-scale), solar radiation storms (S-scale) and geomagnetic storms (G-scale). All of these things affect our technology and skies here on Earth. One way to rank the activity is to use the NOAA Space Weather Scales. Similar to meteorological rankings, they go from category 1 (minor) to 5 (extreme). A sizable space weather event with impacts to critical technologies will likely register on all three scales. Heuristically, the event includes an eruption at the Sun (R scale), followed quickly by energetic protons near the earth (S scale), and then finally the Geomagnetic Storm (G scale) when the CME launched during the initial solar eruption turns earth’s magnetic field “head over heels.” The time sequence of the whole thing ranges from a few minutes after the solar burst for the radio blackout, to days later for the magnetic storm. [This is still the hardest space weather problem, and it’s a huge threat to infrastructure] There was just one event that rang the bell on all three scales in 2015 — June 22. Multiple eruptions from the surface of the sun contributed to this event. It registered an R2-moderate radio blackout, an S3-strong solar radiation storm and a G4-severe geomagnetic storm — the second-highest severity on the 5-point scale. Another way to look at it, this event was characterized as a nine out of 15, the sum of all three scales. An S3-strong solar radiation storm fills the polar caps with charged particles. In storms of this magnitude, high-latitude flights may make the decision to use a more southerly route to avoid any impacts. [June 22: Solar eruptions trigger severe geomagnetic storm on Earth] The solar wind was streaming fast toward our planet June 22, and contained a southward-oriented magnetic field, which tends to product the largest geomagnetic storms — and most intense auroras — on Earth.


Inside the controversial culture of using dogs to hunt coyotes

Hunter Todd Fritz fires his .22 pistol into a shelterbelt in hopes of flushing out a coyote. (Scott Squire/Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi) Guy Martz and his dogs scan the prairie for coyotes during a hunt. (Scott Squire/Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi) With the swift release of a cable, the metal box flips open with a hollow bang: The hounds are liberated. Like fish overlapping in a stream, they pour out of the truck. Muscles undulate like crude oil under velvet. They sweep across the prairie with sights locked on their prey, shrinking quickly into dots. On any given day in the winter, just as a rim of orange light scrapes the horizon, custom-rigged trucks with these dogs inside radiate across the Great Plains. They bump along the prairie searching for coyotes. Though they do it to reduce livestock loss, hunters always speak of the experience of seeing these dogs—some of the fastest on earth—streak across the plains. “I love the jumping, leaping, baying right out of the box. But mostly I am in it to see them run. I’d follow them anywhere they go,” hunter Todd Fritz said. The culture of coyote coursing is the subject of a book written by Eric Eliason and photographed by Scott Squire, “To See Them Run.” Guy Martz fires his .22 revolver across a gully as his dogs scan the prairie for coyotes. (Scott Squire/Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi) Hunter Todd Fritz’s dogs launch out of his truck box in pursuit of an (out of frame) coyote. (Scott Squire/Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi) Coyote hounds are engulfed by the expanse of a prairie. (Scott Squire/Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi) A shag hound and the results of a successful hunt. (Scott Squire/Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi) Eliason and Squire reveal a community that has grown around coyote coursing, complete with a dog auction every October in Loomis, Neb. Here the men and women are traditionalists. They seal business with a handshake instead of a receipt, and a good hunting story about a dog can fetch a higher price for its pup. But coyote coursing and this way of life have come under fire by animal activists. The Humane Society condemned it as a “blood sport.” Although it has been banned in a few states like Colorado, step over the border into Utah and a hunter can collect a


This star totally does look like a lightsaber (even though we’re sick of ‘Star Wars’ already)

A newborn star shoots twin jets out into space as a sort of birth announcement to the universe. (NASA and ESA) Ugh, I'm so sick of all the "Star Wars" tie-ins. Not everything has to be about "The Force Awakens"! But okay, space agencies. You win! I admit it. That star looks a lot like a lightsaber. Good job orchestrating the perfect cosmic event to catch the wave of "Star Wars" excitement. Ugh. Celestial Lightsabers: The Stellar Jets of HH 24 The image (from the Hubble) shows a newborn star swathed in a cloak of gas and dust. The molecular hydrogen circling the star is still feeding it and helping it grow, resulting in the escape of the superheated excess material forming the "lightsaber" in the image. These so-called Herbig–Haro (HH) objects form when the super-hot gas hits other gas and dust at super-high-speeds. The small fry was born in the Orion B molecular cloud complex, an active star factory just 1,350 light-years from Earth. That's not very far (far) away - it's actually in our own galaxy. Ugh, I'm sorry. "Science fiction has been an inspiration to generations of scientists and engineers, and the film series Star Wars is no exception," John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement. “There is no stronger case for the motivational power of real science than the discoveries that come from the Hubble Space Telescope as it unravels the mysteries of the universe." Read More: Real life ‘Death Star’ caught in the act of destroying a planet Make your own Star Wars character This is what it looks like when a black hole tears a star apart Scientists just caught a black hole swallowing a star — and burping a bit back out This tiny star has a massive storm raging on it – just like Jupiter’s Do stars have a sound?


The Syrian military has thousands of deserters. New research tells us why they left.

lower-ranking personnel described barely getting by on their military benefits. One noncommissioned officer stated that he had secretly picked up a second job due to his low military salary. In contrast, interviews with officers exposed the substantial material benefits their positions conferred. High-ranking officers described generous salaries, multiple cars, vacations abroad and real estate as privileges lost when they deserted. Not a single respondent reported being offered money to desert his unit or defect to an opposition group. Yet many expressed that financial considerations following desertion played a role in their decision to join a rebel group, and subsequent decisions regarding whether or not to stay with that group. Still, these individuals described great variation in the financial benefits gained by joining the rebellion. One low-ranking officer who served under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) umbrella for more than a year explained that, at a time, FSA recruits made a salary of 50 USD/month, which he did not find enough to live on. Other interviewees related that some higher-level officers had a greater incentive to join well-funded rebel groups if they have an opportunity to command, and that there were greater incentives generally to join the better-funded rebel groups. What can be done? Insubordination has been rampant within the Syrian military. An estimated 100,000 Syrian soldiers and officers have left their positions since the beginning of the crisis in 2011. While many have deserted to flee the conflict and take refuge abroad, a smaller number of military personnel have defected to the opposition. However, despite massive insubordination — especially throughout 2012 — desertions have failed to significantly weaken the military’s command structure. International strategies have so far aimed at strengthening belligerents through financial support or direct military intervention. This has contributed to a vicious cycle of violence rather than to conflict settlement. Moreover, dire economic circumstances among Syrian refugee communities have made these groups susceptible to recruitment efforts. Better funded than other rebel groups, jihadist militias and particularly the Islamic State have an edge in such efforts. In contrast, encouraging desertions without bolstering recruitment could weaken the regime without strengthening actors such as the Islamic State. Given what we know about the dynamics of desertion from the regime army and recruitment into the rebellion, improving the fate of the large Syrian refugee communities in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere could go a long way toward addressing both issues. Holger Albrecht


After it was charred by a rocket explosion, NASA has a new launchpad

it is now ready to host another launch, Dale Nash, the authority’s executive director told reporters during a tour of the facility Thursday. “The pad probably looks better than it’s ever looked,” he said. “We are ready to roll.” That won’t happen until next year, when Orbital ATK, under contract by NASA to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, test fires its new rocket on the pad in March. In May, it is slated to fly its Antares rocket, outfitted with new RD-181 engines, for the first time since the explosion in October 2014. Earlier this month, the Dulles-based company took a significant step forward, when its Cygnus spacecraft delivered cargo and supplies to the International Space Station. But that was aboard an Atlas V rocket it contracted from the United Launch Alliance. Now Orbital ATK is getting ready to fly its new Antares rocket, which was sitting in a massive hangar here on the tip of Virginia’s Eastern Shore about 175 miles southeast of Washington. It expects to fly one more cargo mission with an Atlas before its new Antares is ready. “We’re up to full operational tempo,” said Mike Pinkston, Orbital ATK’s vice president and general manager of the Antares program. “We can’t wait to get out on the pad.” The October explosion, attributed to a problem with the engines, sparked a massive fireball that could be seen for miles and charred much of the launch pad here. The crater itself was 50 to 60 feet wide, Nash said, and two of the lightening towers came down. The mishap was a blow not just to the company, but to NASA, which had placed a big bet on the private sector. The agency had retired the space shuttle in 2011, and decided to contract out flights to the space station to commercial space companies so it could focus on other missions, such as deep space exploration. It was all going smoothly until Orbital ATK’s rocket blew up. Then eight months later, SpaceX, NASA’s other cargo supplier, saw its rocket explode. Both companies vowed to return to flight quickly, and NASA said its confidence in them never wavered. It was a huge relief for the agency when Orbital ATK’s Cygnus space docked with the station last week and successfully delivered its cargo. SpaceX’s return to flight could come this weekend when it is scheduled to launch a commercial satellite.


Former Trump aide collects money to promote a Rubio-Kasich conspiracy theory

America’s Greatness on Thursday and plans to file another complaint with the Federal Election Commission. Stone writes on the super PAC's website -- as was first noted by the Wall Street Journal -- that while Trump needs to "run a campaign of ideas" and use his campaign funds to explain his vision for the country, there's a need to match the attack ads against Trump and educate voters on "the real Marco Rubio, his liberal voting record and limited experience." Stone writes that the super PAC "will not accept any corporate contributions from those trying to buy influence," and Stone told the Wall Street Journal the super PAC will be funded by "small contributions from average people." A contribution page on the group's website suggests donations ranging from $20 to $500, along with this option: "Or you can enter any amount!" Stone is frequently on cable news and is prolific on Twitter, sometimes offering fashion tips amid streams of speculation. Stone's personal web page features a 6-minute reel of his 2015 television appearances that begins with several James-Bond-style photos of himself, including one in which he wears a white suit with a black bow tie and red carnation while holding a small handgun. Stone has written several books detailing some of his more elaborate conspiracy theories, including that Lyndon B. Johnson was a driving force in the murder of President John F. Kennedy. Stone published a book about the Clintons in October that alleges, among other things, that Chelsea Clinton is not Bill Clinton's daughter. Stone has passionately supported and defended Trump, while skewering many of his rivals. Earlier this week, Stone tweeted: "That voice ! If @CarlyFiorina was my wife- i'd kill myself #screechy #shrill #ugh #CNNDebate." The super PAC's website is highly simplistic and riddled with typos. Its homepage features photos of Trump and Rubio beneath this headline: "THE WASHINGTON DC INSIDERS, SPECIAL INTERESTS, LOBBYISTS AND A HANDFUL OF SELF INTERESTED BILLIONAIRES PLAN AN ALL-OUT PAID MEDIA ASSAULT TO DESTROY THE CANDIDACY OF DONALD TRUMP. WILL YOU HELP US STOP THEM?" The site states that the "Republican establishment, the billionaires, the hedge fund managers, and the Wall Street interests" have abandoned former Florida governor Jeb Bush as their chosen nominee in favor of Rubio, who is described as "a wheel-dealer, who has played ball with the Obama administration on numerous issues such as immigration and trade." The site


How little ‘Just Mayo’ took on Big Egg and won

makes Just Mayo and other egg-less products. (Courtesy of Hampton Creek) Though Just Mayo started out on the shelves of places that catered to the tree-hugging San Francisco crowd, it soon spread beyond that. Now it can be found at Costco, Safeway, Walmart, Oh, and about that “Just” in the names — it doesn’t mean “exactly” or “only.” It’s “just” as in, “guided by reason, justice or fairness,” as explained on the product’s label. This is moral mayo, Tetrick argues in a soaring manifesto on Hampton Creek’s website, spoken in somber tones and set to a stirring soundtrack. This mayo that will “fundamentally change the world.” It’s a bold claim, but it’s attracted a lot of attention since Tetrick began manufacturing Just Mayo in 2013. Bill Gates has backed the company, as has Peter Thiel of PayPal. Plant-based substitutes are part of the “future of food,” Gates wrote on his website in 2013, “By 2050, the world’s population will grow to more than 9 billion and our appetite for meat will grow along with it. … That’s why we need more options for producing meat without depleting our resources.” But Tetrick also drew attention from the people he’s hoping to supplant: traditional mayonnaise makers. In October 2014, Unilever, which manufactures Hellmann’s Mayonnaise (America’s No. 1 condiment, according to Bloomberg), sued Hampton Foods for false advertising and unfair competition. [Big Food’s weird war over the meaning of mayonnaise, America’s top condiment] “The Just Mayo false name is part of a larger campaign and pattern of unfair competition by Hampton Creek to falsely promote Just Mayo spread as tasting better than, and being superior to, Best Foods (the name for Hellmann’s west of the Rockies) and Hellmann’s mayonnaise,” the suit read. “… Hampton Creek’s literally-false name and its unsubstantiated superiority claims have already caused consumer deception and serious, irreparable harm to Unilever and to the product category the industry has taken great care to define in a way consistent with consumer expectations.” It was an unusually defensive attitude for the world’s largest producer of food spreads (including one called “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”), which makes more than $64 billion a year to Hampton Creek’s measly $50-or-so million. “It’s not about using the (mayo) word,” Michele Simon, a public health attorney who wrote about the suit, told The Post last year. “It’s about the fact that this company is taking market


Meet some of the newest babies born this year at the National Zoo and Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

Lizzie is a female red panda cub. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) A false water cobra. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) The cheetah cub looked supremely irritated as the animal biologist put it down on a soft black cloth to have its portrait taken. It recoiled, hissed and bared its teeth at Washington Post photographer Matt McClain, who had prepared the outdoor backdrop at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in rural Virginia this month. As the photographer moved in with his camera, the seven-pound carnivore, born Oct. 16, reared up and spat. McClain jumped, but continued taking pictures. And over the course of a 20-minute session he captured the majestic cub in the photo presented here. It is one in series of portraits McClain set out to make of animals born this year at the Smithsonian’s conservation biology institute and the National Zoo. Of course, the zoo’s giant panda cub, Bei Bei, born Aug. 22, was the most famous. This week, TV cameras and photographers swarmed around the cub during its four-day media debut in the giant panda house. But overlooked amid the arrival of Bei Bei was the advent of, among other creatures, a long-whiskered, long-tailed porcupine named Charlotte. Her premature birth on Oct. 5 was attended by problems, and she needed a feeding tube, for a time, to be kept alive. She’s fine now, and portrayed here. Her keeper says her giant nose feels like a marshmallow. Last spring came the lively red pandas Lizzie, Smitty and Hoppy, whose mother had terminal bone cancer and was euthanized days after they were born. The cubs were bottle-fed by keepers. Shown here is the Lizzie. There were also spider tortoise twins and a false water cobra, which has fangs in the back of its mouth. It has to chew on its victim to inject its venom, which can be painful to people but not usually fatal. Tiny Madagascar hedgehogs called Tenrecs were born Aug. 31. Harmless-looking, they kept gnawing on the fingers of zoo biologist Kenton Kerns, who brought them out to be photographed. Hatched on Aug. 8 was an aggressive but critically endangered Cuban crocodile, a predator in miniature with with big green eyes and a mouth full of translucent teeth. Cuban crocs are among the most ferocious of crocodiles. The baby is being fed bugs, for now. Later it will get rabbits, mice or rats. And April brought a somber


How a Navy SEAL controversy shows the limits of U.S. Special Operations strategy in Afghanistan

A Navy SEAL is shown at sunset. (Photo courtesy U.S. Navy) The war in Afghanistan has always been a collection of tiny wars fought from tiny outposts that have their own heroes and villains, pitched battles and murky outcomes. These miniature conflicts are formed by the character of the troops sent to fight in them, Afghanistan’s austere terrain and the country’s multitude of tribes. Often these wars exist separate from one another, only to be found under the larger umbrella of The War in Afghanistan. Some of these scattered battles have household names, such as the Korengal and Sangin, while others are so small that they are rarely mentioned except by those who have traversed their machine gun-raked fields and explosive-laden valleys. The village of Kalach was one of those almost-forgotten places, and it bore little significance to the world until Thursday, when the New York Times released an exhaustive two-year-long investigative report on Kalach’s terrible little war and the men who waged it in spring 2012. [Report: Navy SEALs covered up accusations of deadly abuse] The Times report details a long spell of boredom and frustration within a dusty military outpost outside of Kalach. That spell ended with a group of Navy SEALs from SEAL team 2 allegedly beating unarmed men — and facing little consequence for doing so. And while it is unclear what brought some of America’s best special operations troops to the verge of killing detainees, it’s possible that it was the demands of a broader special operations strategy in Afghanistan that thrust units, such as the SEALs, into roles they had not been designed to carry out. In 2009, Gen. Stanley McChrystal took command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and soon implemented a widespread initiative that would task special operations troops to carry out “village stability operations,” or VSOs, and to help train Afghan local police. VSOs were sporadic during the early phases of the war (2002 onward) but became the cornerstone of the United States’ Afghan strategy from 2009 onward. VSOs were meant to be built around an Army Special Forces team known as an Operational Detachment-Alpha or ODA. The ODAs were to provide some reinforcement to a particular village in order to help that village develop and provide security for itself. McChrystal’s strategy, however, called for so many ODAs that there simply were not enough of them to fulfill the newfound


Goodbye, good old Greek yogurt

possibility of luring Americans into eating the protein-heavy food at other times of the day. For some companies, that has meant expanding flavor offerings (Yoplait's Greek yogurt lineup, for instance, now runs 16 flavors deep). For others, it has involved selling smaller, calorie-controlled portions (100 calorie packages have proven wildly popular), or doubling down on ingredients associated with wellness and health. For Chobani, the approach has been a combination of bolstering its staples, which are eating up more and more of the Greek yogurt market, and introducing new products to see what sticks. The largest seller of Greek yogurt has looked out for its bottom line by launching new products and iterations. Flip, the company's new offering, is evidence that the strategy can work surprisingly well, even when the tweak is comparatively tiny. The snack food, which comes in a two-part plastic container (one part for Greek yogurt, the other for what Chobani calls "real, delicious ingredients"), mimics formerly popular yogurt products, which came with a separated topping of granola, nuts, and other goodies. When you fold the malleable container in half, the toppings spill into the yogurt. "People have absolutely loved them," said Koerten, who admitted that the success of Flips has been somewhat surprising. "From what I've heard, sales have been up ever since they launched in June. They might even flatten out as a result by the end of the year." But just because minor tweaks seem to be working today doesn't mean they will tomorrow. If Chobani is going to convince Americans to eat Greek yogurt all the time—at breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as throughout the day as a snack—it will likely have to introduce a few weird things too. Enter the soon-to-come iteration of Flips, which Chobani is launching early next year. The new line, which will include flavors like Sriracha-Mango, is meant to challenge American palates in ways previous taste profiles have not (mango yogurt, for example, will come paired with sriracha roasted rice crisps, mini sesame sticks, and salted cashews). If all goes well, it will also get people to think about Greek yogurt as less of a stubborn, single purpose food, and more of a staple that can serve all kinds of different cravings throughout the day. This story has been updated to reflect that Euromonitor's estimates were calculated earlier this year. Chobani expects its business to grow—not shrink—in 2015.


The new anti-refugee fences of Europe are killing wild animals

A razor wire fence on the Slovenian side of the Slovenian-Croatian border near Gibina, about 120 miles northeast of Ljubljana, Slovenia, on Dec. 3. Slovenia has installed a nearly 62-mile-long fence in the past three weeks along its common border with Croatia. (Gyorgy Varga/EPA) This year, a number of European countries did something that only a few years earlier would have been unthinkable: They built fences on their borders in a bid to prevent large groups of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa entering their countries. These fences may have provided a temporary solution for the countries that put them up, although in most cases the flow of refugees and migrants was only diverted to their neighbors. The barriers are having other, unintended consequences, however: According to a letter filed to the European Commission by the government of Croatia, wild animals are being killed by the fence constructed by its E.U. neighbor Slovenia. Croatia's letter argues that Slovenia's barbed-wire fence is obstructing the migration of animals, violating European legislation about the conservation of natural habitats. According to the Associated Press, deer are the animal most commonly getting caught in the fences, and hunters have been documenting the dead animals they find on the border with social media. The New Scientist reports that while the death of deer is gaining attention, experts are perhaps more concerned about the effects of the fences on migrating or roaming animals who already have small and endangered populations. Magda Sindicic, a researcher at the University of Zagreb who helped pen the letter from Croatia, told the publication that the effect on the remaining population of the Dinaric lynx could be dramatic. “Lynx use habitats in both countries and cross the border daily to search for food and partners to mate,” Sindicic told the New Scientist. “The population is primarily endangered through inbreeding, so mating and producing fertile offspring is already a challenge for this population, and this fence will make it even harder as it will stop animals from migrating freely across the border.” Among the other species that could be hurt by the fence are wolves and bears, Sindicic explained. And while Croatia's complaint focuses on the fence along its border with Slovenia, dead animals have also been documented on the fence built by Hungary along its border with Croatia. The potential for problems has been known for a while, with


Legal weed having little effect on teen marijuana use, federal data shows

A marijuana poster is on display at the High Times Gala at the W Hotel in Washington, D.C (Photo by Ben Terris for The Washington Post) Federal data released this week The latest state-level data, which asks participants if they used marijuana in the past month, is particularly useful, as it covers the first year of legal recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington. While the rate of monthly teen marijuana use did tick upward in those states, the change wasn't statistically significant, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which released the data. In Colorado, 12.6 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds used marijuana monthly in the combined years 2013 and 2014, up slightly from 11.2 percent in 2012-2013. (SAMHSA combines years for state-level estimates to increase the sample size.) Similarly, in Washington, the monthly teen marijuana use rate was 10.1 percent in 2013-2014, compared with 9.8 percent in 2012-2013. Proponents and opponents of marijuana legalization gave different interpretations of the changing teen use rates. "This data, combined with other federally-funded research released this week, shows that what our opponents say about legalization leading to skyrocketing youth marijuana use just isn't true," Tom Angell of Marijuana Majority, a pro-legalization group, said in an email. Another recent federal survey of drug use among high school students found marijuana use was flat nationwide this year. But legalization opponents pointed out that due partly to decreases in use in other states, Colorado now leads the nation in monthly adolescent marijuana use. "Now that Colorado has legalized and widely commercialized marijuana, their children use marijuana regularly more than children in any other state," said Kevin Sabet of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, an anti-legalization group. Public health experts say the latest numbers are not particularly suggestive one way or another. "Most of the legal changes have pertained only to those 21 and over, so the absence of a big increase in teens is exactly what you’d expect," said Jonathan Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon University. "So it seems to me that the non-response of teens to the non-legalization for teens really tells us very little about the effects of legalization." Like the national survey that came out earlier this month, the state-level data show significant decreases in the percentage of teens who say there's a "great risk of harm from smoking marijuana once a month." This has traditionally been understood as a risk


Deaths from opioid overdoses set a record in 2014

people who died with both heroin and prescription drugs in their systems. But even if some individuals were counted twice, he said, "It's clear that the opiate epidemic from 2013 to 2014 got worse, not better." In the past few years, local, state and federal agencies have devoted additional resources to cracking down on illegal drug traffic, more widely distributing the drug naloxone, which reverses overdoses, and sending users to treatment instead of jail when possible. And in recent months, the Obama administration announced new "public health-public safety partnerships" in areas plagued by drug overdoses, moved to increase access to treatment and took steps to better train doctors who prescribe prescription painkillers such as OxyContin, which have proven to be addictive. CDC is scheduled to propose new guidelines Monday for doctors who prescribe those drugs. But the new numbers suggest that efforts to date have not stopped the tide of drugs washing through parts of the country. The Midwest, Great Lakes region and the Northeast have been particularly affected. Deaths from prescription drug overdoses had leveled off at about 16,000 annually until 2014, the data show. Heroin deaths, however, rapidly escalated starting in 2010. Authorities have said that government crackdowns on illegal pills pushed users to turn to heroin, which became cheaper and more widely available as drug cartels greatly increased their trafficking in the eastern United States. Now, Frieden said, authorities are grappling with a rise in illegally manufactured fentanyl, which is 25 to 40 times more powerful than heroin. The drug is used legally to provide relief from severe pain caused by cancer and other diseases, but authorities say dealers are now lacing heroin with fentanyl to improve its potency, leading to more overdoses. David J. Hickton, U.S. attorney for western Pennsylvania and co-chair of the Justice Department's National Heroin Task Force, said Friday that fentanyl and more potent heroin appear to have contributed to the 2014 spike in fatal overdoses. The government must do more to tighten prescription of legal opioids, provide treatment and crack down on illegal drugs, especially heroin, Frieden said. "We have to have a much greater respect for how dangerous opiates are," he said. Read more: Thousands of drug users are rescuing one another with antidote naloxone When life begins in rehab Maternal exposure to anti-depressant SSRIs linked to autism in children Global cancer hotspots: Burden of disease is shifting to developing world


Transcript: President Obama’s end-of-year news conference

population. We have a review process for those who are eligible for transfer. We locate (ph), in countries that have accepted some of these detainees, they monitor them, and it's been determined that they can be transferred. And my expectation is, by the early (ph) -- by early next year, we should have reduced that population below 100. And we will continue -- continue to steadily chip away at the numbers in Guantanamo. There's gonna come to a point where we have an irreducible population -- people who pose a significant threat, but for various reasons, it's difficult for us to try them in an Article III court. Some of those folks are going through the military commission process. But there's going to be a challenge there. Now, at that stage, I'm presenting a plan to Congress about how we can close Guantanamo. I'm not going to automatically assume that Congress says no. I'm not being coy, David. I think it's fair to say that there's gonna be significant resistance from some quarters, to that. But I think we can make a very strong argument that it doesn't make sense for us to be spending an extra $100 million, $200 million, $300 million, $500 million, $1 billion, to have a -- a secure setting for 50, 60, 70 people. And we will wait until Congress has said definitively no to a well thought out plan with numbers attached to it, before we say anything definitive about my executive authority here. I think it's far preferable if I can get stuff done with Congress. QUESTION: It's an election year. You know they're not gonna do it (ph). (inaudible) on your own? OBAMA: David, as -- as I said -- you know, and I think you've seen me, on a whole bunch of issues, like immigration, I'm not gonna -- I'm not gonna be forward-leaning on what I can do without Congress before I've tested what I can do with Congress. And every once in a while, they'll surprise you, and -- and this may be one of those places, because we can make a really strong argument Guantanamo continues to be one of the key magnets for Jihadi recruitment. You know, to Roberta's (ph) question earlier about how do they propagandize and convince somebody here in the United States, who may not have a criminal record or a history of terrorist


SpaceX scheduled to return to flight Sunday and attempt another dramatic landing — this time on land

The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket, launched by SpaceX on a cargo resupply service mission to the International Space Station, lifts off on Jan. 10 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (Mike Brown/Reuters) Six months after one of its unmanned rockets exploded, SpaceX is expected to return to flight Sunday evening in a highly-anticipated launch in which the company will also attempt to land the first stage of its rocket. Elon Musk's SpaceX had to delay the launch of commercial satellites after a series of technical issues with its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket. But Musk, the tech billionaire who has sought to disrupt the space industry, said in a tweet early Saturday that it was “currently looking good for a Sunday night (~8pm local) attempted orbital launch and rocket landing at Cape Canaveral.” While the unmanned launch will be tense — another explosion would be disastrous for the company, which has a NASA contract to fly astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017 — many will also be watching to see if Musk is able to stick the landing of the Falcon 9’s booster stage on a landing pad the company has built on the Florida Space Coast. Typically, rocket boosters are used once, burning up or crashing into the ocean after liftoff. But Musk, the co-founder of PayPal and Tesla, has been working on creating reusable rockets that act like airplanes—fly, land, then fly again. “Imagine if aircraft were single use — how many people would fly?” Musk said at a forum last year at MIT. “Nobody’s paying half a billion dollars to fly from Boston to London.” Wondering how Falcon 9's first stage will attempt to fly back to Earth on our next launch? Image courtesy of SpaceX. Last month, Jeff Bezos, another billionaire with huge ambitions to colonize the cosmos, landed his space company’s rocket after it had flown to the edge of space, becoming the first to do so from such a great distance. (Bezos also owns The Post.) Being able to reuse a rocket, he said, is the “holy grail” of space flight because it would dramatically lower the cost. [Jeff Bezos sticks rocket landing, stakes claim in billionaires' space race] After Bezos’ Blue Origin landed the first stage of its New Shepard vehicle at its remote West Texas launch facility, Musk congratulated the company. But he also seemed miffed that one


D.C. area forecast: A typical December chill today and tomorrow, then temperatures head back up

11:30 a.m. update: (NASA) From 5:00 a.m… TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 6/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: FORECAST IN DETAIL There was no mistaking the fact that December is back if you were out and about yesterday and last night. We do it again today in particular, but with perhaps a touch colder temperatures. In a December where warmth just won’t quit we already see signs of transition in another cool one tomorrow. As we head into the work week we’ll begin to wonder where winter is again, this time while it officially arrives. Today (Saturday): Tonight: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest updates. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast through the weekend… Tomorrow (Sunday): Tomorrow night: Sunrise at the Jefferson Memorial. (Angela Pan via Flickr) A LOOK AHEAD It’s mostly cloudy for much of Monday as that weak front continues this way. We could see a few showers around as soon as the midday but it seems the best bet is for the most legitimate chance of showers to try to hold off till after dark. Highs make the near 50 to mid-50s zone. Maybe on the warm end if we manage more sun. At this point, any rain potential seems quite light even into the night, and it may mainly stay west. Confidence: Medium The front pushes into and perhaps through the area for Tuesday. It’s getting held up by warm air building to the south and it’s also falling apart. But there are hints a wave of low pressure may try to form on it across the region. We saw that happen just a few days ago and it ended up a rainy time. For now, it seems rain tries to stay mainly south and east with highs around 60. But we’ll need to watch it. Confidence: Medium-Low


In the war against sexual assault, the Army keeps shooting itself in the foot

actually a sign of progress. They say troops are more likely to report assaults than in the past because they have more faith in the military to properly investigate such crimes. That assertion, however, has been undercut by a rash of scandals. In March, a sexual-assault-prevention officer for an Army battalion at Fort Hood, Tex., pleaded guilty to acting as a pimp by luring cash-strapped young female soldiers into a prostitution ring. Last year, the Army disciplined its former top sex-crimes prosecutor after receiving a complaint that he had kissed and groped a female officer — while attending a conference on sexual assault. Other branches of the armed forces haven’t been immune. Members of Congress publicly excoriated the Air Force two years ago after the officer in charge of its sexual-assault-prevention programs was arrested outside a bar for allegedly grabbing a woman’s buttocks. The officer was acquitted in civilian court, but he received a reprimand from the Air Force and was removed from his job. Still, the Army has a particularly spotty record on putting the right people in such sensitive roles. Last year, the service fired or reassigned 588 people from their jobs as victim counselors, military recruiters and “positions of trust” after background checks revealed a history of sex crimes, child abuse, drunken driving and other offenses. Army leaders declined interview requests for this article. In a statement, Lt. Col. Ben Garrett, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said the service “has refined and enhanced its screening and selection processes to ensure that only the most qualified people are assigned to provide support and assistance to the victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment.” “When these individuals engage in misconduct or fail to meet the Army’s exacting standards for these critical positions,” he added, “the Army takes appropriate action to hold them accountable.” Don Christensen, president of Protect our Defenders, a victim-advocacy group, said the armed forces have hamstrung themselves by filling sexual-assault-prevention jobs with poorly trained personnel. Just as people start to gain experience, they typically rotate to new assignments within a year or two as part of the military’s “revolving-door mentality,” he said. The system shows that the military “doesn’t really take sexual assault seriously and just plugs somebody in without vetting them,” said Christensen, a retired colonel who served as the Air Force’s chief prosecutor. “You keep churning people through the program and eventually you’re


The Daily 202: Are some Trump supporters ashamed to admit it when a pollster calls?

of the savings (about $300 million per year) to programs that will help the next generation, including more prekindergarten classes, school construction and a scholarship fund for community college students.” - “Raimondo, who is backing Hillary Clinton for president, doesn’t try to sell voters on fiscal responsibility for its own sake. She says she wants the Democratic Party to be the party of growth and innovation, to be pro-business and pro-government.” - “Rhode Island is tiny (just over 1 million people), and maybe politics that work there can’t work on a larger stage. Still, you can’t help wishing that a bit of her philosophy might rub off on Washington: ‘Don’t ignore big problems,” she says, “and don’t try to pretend that problems are smaller than they are.'” SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ: — Pictures of the day: Post sportswriter Dan Steinberg chided Redskins general manager Scot McCloughan “for being so damn buttoned up all the time.” McCloughan was celebrating the Redskins 35-25 victory over the Buffalo Bills: (@dansteinberg) Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker (R) shows off the Victorian Christmas festival in Canton: (@senatorwicker) Blaine Boyd, the first lady’s director of correspondence,will be showing how FLOTUS “shares holiday cheer” around the country for the next 12 days: The Hubble Space Telescope sends back this image of a “globular cluster” known as Terzan 1, a “home for old stars.” About 20,000 light years away from Earth, its one of 150 such clusters in the Milky Way. (@nasa) — Tweets of the day: 59 rears ago today, the 381 day #MontgomeryBusBoycott, protesting segregated #PublicTransit, successfully concludes. https://t.co/9aXJF84Y5K “These are the people that Big Men Donald Trump and Chris Christie are afraid of,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) tweeted with this: Post political editor Dan Eggen found a video spoof of Trump talking with a British accent: This is amazing - Donald Trump if he had a British accent and perfect elocution: https://t.co/f5GhI0VIvQ — Instagrams of the day: White House photographer Pete Souza has a moment with some Star Wars friends: Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) cuts off Chris Christie’s green wrist-band now that the former is free of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The two campaigned together in New Hampshire this weekend: (@chrischristie) GOOD READS FROM ELSEWHERE: — New York Times, “Ted Cruz sharpens tone while on tour, in nod to Donald Trump,” by Matt Flegenheimer: — New York Times, “Hospitality and gambling interests delay


Six U.S. troops dead, others wounded in apparent suicide attack in Afghanistan

U.S. soldiers are shown in Afghanistan as the sun sets behind them. (Photo released by the U.S. military) The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan suffered one of its worst days in 2015 on Monday, as six U.S. service members were killed and three more people were wounded when a motorcycle laden with explosives detonated near them in Parwan province in an apparent suicide attack. A U.S. military official in Afghanistan confirmed that the slain troops were all Americans. The incident occurred north of the capital, Kabul, at about 1:30 p.m. in a province best known for Bagram air base, a sprawling military complex from which U.S. forces fly F-16 fighter jets and other aircraft. While the U.S. military no longer carries out offensive operations in Afghanistan following the end of its formal combat mission, it patrols around the base daily to protect it against the Taliban and other enemy groups. Three Afghan police officers also were wounded in the blast, an Afghan official said. “We’re deeply saddened by this loss,” said Brig. Gen. Wilson A. Shoffner, the top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan. Gen. John Campbell, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and the rest of the military coalition said that “our heartfelt sympathies go out to the families and friends of those affected in this tragic incident, especially during this holiday season,” Shoffner added. [In Afghanistan, a series of attacks on Americans during ‘non-combat’ operations] In emailed statements and tweets Monday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on American soldiers near Bagram and said its forces had successfully overtaken the strategic Sangin district of Helmand province in the south. A statement from the insurgents said a “self-sacrificing attacker” named Zahidullah, riding a motorbike, targeted American soldiers patrolling in Bagram. The statement also said that 19 American “occupiers” were killed and “a huge number” wounded. The Taliban often exaggerates enemy casualty numbers. Following several days of intense fighting in Helmand, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid tweeted Monday night that its fighters had “conquered” the Sangin bazaar and police headquarters and were entering the district center. Muhajid also said that 13 Afghan forces were killed in Marja, another critical district of Helmand. But spokesmen for the Afghan defense and interior ministries asserted Monday that Sangin had not fallen to the Islamist militants, although they acknowledged that fighting was taking place in many areas of Helmand. One day earlier, officials in Helmand


Bad news: Scientists say we could be underestimating Arctic methane emissions

to understand if this time of the year is important.” Currently, most of the models that scientists use to predict future methane emissions only factor in warm-season methane emissions, assuming that the vast majority of permafrost emissions will occur when temperatures are at their highest. These models are important because they allow scientists to make projections about how severe global warming will be in the future and help policymakers make decisions about how much — and how quickly — global carbon emissions need to be reduced. So Zona, along with a group of nearly 20 other scientists, decided to investigate whether cold-season methane emissions were really as negligible as the models have assumed. They examined data collected from five different sites in Alaska between June 2013 and January 2015, as well as data collected from aircraft in the same region. “Donatella and her team are to be commended for making the first year-round measurements of [methane] in the Arctic,” said Stan Wullschleger, an environmental scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in an email to The Post. “…The fact that this was done not just at one site, but multiple sites, is a breakthrough in our ability to quantify [methane] budgets for tundra ecosystems.” The researchers found that cold-season methane emissions are not only not negligible — they’re pretty significant. While emissions varied somewhat from one site to the next, Zona said that, overall, emissions from September to May accounted for about half of all the methane emitted from those sites throughout the entire year. This might seem a little baffling when you consider the fact that methane is generally released as Arctic soil thaws — a process that should be most pronounced during the warmest part of the year. Zona said the key to understanding where cold-season emissions come from lies in the way Arctic soil is structured and how it reacts to changes in temperature. Arctic soil layers are structured kind of like a sandwich in the winter, Zona said. There’s a top layer (the very surface of the soil) and a bottom layer that both freeze as temperatures drop. In between them, there’s a layer of soil — found just below the surface — that can remain unfrozen for months, even as the temperature drops. This period of time is known as the “zero curtain” period, because temperatures in the unfrozen middle layer tend to hover right around


Florida pill mill crackdown also may have curbed heroin deaths, researchers find

A drug addict fills a syringe with heroin. (AP) This post has been updated. Law enforcement and public health authorities have said that attempts to curb the illicit use of prescription opioids may have fueled increased use of heroin, which is generally cheaper and widely available on the street. Some even believe that drug cartels have taken advantage of government efforts to crack down on "pill mills" — which dispense prescription narcotics with few controls — by flooding the eastern United States with heroin. But a study released Monday shows that one state, Florida, was able to slow the rise in reduce deaths from both prescription opioids and slow the rise in heroin deaths, at least for a couple of years in the case of the street drug, by enacting laws to regulate pain clinics and enforcing them rigorously. However, if that effort did help, it may have had only a temporary impact. Florida figures show that the number of fatal heroin overdoses surged in 2014 and that there were a substantial number in 2013 as well. In 2010 and 2011, Florida passed laws that restricted pill mills' ability to dispense medications on site and followed up with the arrest and prosecution of people who violated the laws, according to the research, which was published online Monday in the American Journal of Public Health. That led, predictably, to fewer opioid prescriptions, less diversion of the pain-killing drugs to illicit use and fewer physicians who purchased medications like oxycodone. But when researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University compared Florida with North Carolina, which passed no new laws, they concluded that Florida's effort had also slowed the growth in fatal overdoses caused by heroin. In 2011, the rate of heroin overdose deaths rose by 18 percent per month in North Carolina, but just 8 percent monthly in Florida. In 2012, North Carolina death rates rose 10 percent per month, while Florida's increased by 6 percent. By late 2012, Florida's death rate had leveled off to about the mean for the period 2003 to 2012. "By strengthening the regulation of pill mills and by targeting providers whose practices contributed to prescription opioid misuse, Florida may have prevented overdose deaths from heroin as well as from prescription opioids," the team wrote. The research was led by Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, an assistant scientist in the Department of of Health Policy


Elon Musk’s SpaceX to try to launch again Monday evening

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket sits on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral ahead of a launch scheduled for Dec. 21. (Photo courtesy SpaceX) Cape Canaveral, Fla.—Elon Musk’s SpaceX is scheduled to return to flight here Monday during a five-minute launch window beginning at 8:29 p.m., a day after the mission was postponed. The launch of an unmanned rocket would be the first time the company has flown since its rocket exploded in June. SpaceX is also debuting an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket, and it would be the first time the company has attempted to land the booster stage on land. Specifically, SpaceX is hoping to land the rocket vertically at the landing pad it has built at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here. First look at our massive new Landing Zone 1 https://t.co/cABp3IYmcl On Sunday, Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur, tweeted that the reason the company delayed the flight to Monday was because there was a 10 percent better chance of successfully landing the rocket. Orbcomm, the communications company that has hired SpaceX to fly 11 of its satellites to orbit, said in a blog post that the delay would allow “for more analysis and time to further chill the liquid oxygen in preparation for launch.” Musk has a lot riding on the launch, the first since a Falcon 9 carrying supplies to the International Space Station for NASA blew up. Two consecutive failures could be devastating for the company. But if Musk is able fly successfully and pull off the landing—a historic first for an orbital rocket--he'd regain his momentum and solidify his status as a darling of the commercial space industry. Last month, Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com founder and owner of the Washington Post, landed a suborbital rocket, that flew just past the boundary of space. But Musk is attempting a more difficult feat—landing a larger, more powerful rocket designed to send objects into orbit. Being able to recover rockets is considered a big deal in the growing commercial space industry because it could dramatically lower the cost of space flight. Now, the first stages of rockets are typically dropped into the ocean, after they’ve delivered their payload to space. SpaceX previously attempted to land the first stage on floating platforms at sea. The stages hit the platforms in both attempts, but exploded. Now, it’s trying to land the booster at what it calls Landing Zone 1,


Deadly attack on U.S. forces shows the Afghan war is far from over

Afghan National Army soldiers walking in Helmand this month. (Noor Mohammad/AFP/Getty Images) A Taliban attack killed six U.S. service members near Kabul on Monday, U.S. officials said, in the latest sign of deepening violence across Afghanistan and the risks facing President Obama’s plan to leave the most intense fighting to local forces. U.S. military officials said the attack, the most deadly insurgent assault on American forces in at least three years, took place a few miles from Bagram air base, when a motorbike rigged with explosives detonated and hit a group of U.S. troops attending a meeting with local figures. The attack comes as the Afghan government struggles to beat back a series of large-scale Taliban offensives and contain a nascent campaign by militants linked to the Islamic State. The latest casualties also serve as a reminder that although most American forces have gone home, Afghanistan’s long war is not yet over. The Pentagon said the blast wounded two other U.S. service members and a contractor. Three Afghan police officials were also injured, an Afghan official said. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter called the attack “a painful reminder of the dangers our troops face every day in Afghanistan.” He said American troops would continue to work with local forces to secure the country. Just three days ago in a brief holiday visit, Carter touched down at Bagram, the site of a sprawling military complex that has been the primary U.S. air base in Afghanistan since U.S. troops arrived in 2001. During his visit, Carter met with Afghan and U.S. military officials at a base in eastern Nangahar province, where local forces are grappling with a variety of militant groups arrayed along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. In recent months, Afghan security forces have been overwhelmed by a series of militant offensives revealing the government’s vulnerability when it doesn’t have substantial foreign firepower to support it. A Pentagon report released this month found that insurgents are improving their ability to “find and exploit” Afghan government vulnerabilities. This fall, it took local forces several weeks to reclaim Kunduz, a major city that was overrun by Taliban forces. In December alone, militants have mounted a deadly siege on an airport in southern Kandahar province and launched a suicide assault on a diplomatic complex in Kabul. On Monday, just as the Taliban claimed the Bagram attack, the group also said it had taken Sangin, a


Elon Musk’s SpaceX returns to flight and pulls off dramatic, historic landing

spunky start-up to a mainstream space company, it remains focused on its main mission: one day flying to Mars, which Musk hopes humans will eventually colonize. While it has raised revenue by flying for NASA and commercial satellite companies, SpaceX has continued to push toward developing the technologies that eventually would make humans a “multi-planet species,” as Musk says. To do that, the cost of space flight, now prohibitively high, would have to come down significantly. And the ability to reuse rockets ultimately will make space travel more accessible, he has said. As Musk said during a forum last year, there are “no runways on Mars,” meaning rockets would have to land using the thrust in their engines. “You really have to get good at propulsive landing if you want to go somewhere other than earth,” he said. Musk is part of a class of billionaires inspired by NASA’s Apollo era and moon landings, who have sunk vast amounts of their great fortunes into their space companies. Early next year, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is slated to unveil a new spacecraft that’s designed to take tourists just past the boundary of space, where they would be able to view the curvature of the Earth and float around the cabin weightlessly. Bezos has a similar ambition and likes to talk about the day that “millions of people will be living and working in space.” In a sign of the growth of the industry, Musk and Bezos have taken over significant parts of Florida’s Space Coast as their companies become more experienced. SpaceX is rehabbing the historic launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center from which the space shuttle flew. And it has also built Landing Zone 1, which looks like a massive helicopter landing pad, 282 feet in diameter. The site was last used as an Air Force missile and rocket test site until 1978. Bezos has taken over a launch pad at the cape, just down the road from Musk’s landing site. For every step forward, though, there have been setbacks. Branson’s SpaceShipTwo crashed last year, killing one of the pilots. And SpaceX had been grounded since June, when its Falcon 9 rocket blew up a couple minutes into flight. The company determined that the explosion was caused by a faulty strut that broke, and it since has upgraded its Falcon 9 rocket. On Monday, it appeared to perform flawlessly.


China rights lawyer gets suspended sentence for ‘picking quarrels’ online

A pro-democracy protester holds a portrait of Chinese human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, demanding his release during a demonstration outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong on Dec. 15, 2015. (REUTERS/Tyrone Siu) For seven tweets, a three-year sentence, suspended for three years. That was the verdict Tuesday in the high-profile case of Pu Zhiqiang, the Chinese rights lawyer accused of "picking quarrels" via social media posts. The sentence could have been worse — he faced up to eight years for the series of social media posts —but is still drawing criticism from lawyers and rights groups that see Pu's almost 19-month detention, and Tuesday's sentence, as a move to use vague, catch-all charges to stifle free speech and the Chinese lawyers who seek to protect it. "He never should have been prosecuted in the first place," said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. "It's a shot across the bow, as if another one was needed, for the entire community." There is only one acceptable verdict in the #China case against #PuZhiqiang: tossing out the charges, freeing him. https://t.co/9Mqy87ksLt Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, a former client, called the case and the verdict "totally unacceptable." "From the beginning this is a case where people do not know whether to laugh or cry," he said. The conditions of Pu's releases are not yet clear, however under the "suspended" three-year sentence, Pu may not be able to practice law, experts said. "This guilty verdict effectively shackles one of China’s bravest champions of human rights," said William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, in a statement. Pu's case has been closely watched by Chinese lawyers and activists, as well as foreign rights groups and embassies. To the former, Pu is a homegrown hero, the man who took on some of China's toughest cases — and won. He defended survivors of forced labor camps, journalists and artists like Ai. He was featured on the cover of a respected Chinese magazine as "person of the year in legal affairs" and has been praised by the state-backed press. Many saw Pu's case as a test of China's commitment to legal reform. China's top leader's say the country is ruled according to the law and have made "the rule of law" a cornerstone of their tenure. But they have also waged a crackdown on lawyers and legal workers, jailing more than a hundred this year. When


Scientists spot a galaxy with a gassy tail twice as long as the Milky Way is wide

An extraordinary ribbon of hot gas trailing behind a galaxy like a tail has been discovered. (NASA/CXC/University of Bonn/G. Schellenberger et al; Optical: INT) There are a lot of things in space that should make you feel small. The latest is a cosmic ribbon spotted using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This ribbon of gas was found streaming out of the tail-end of a galaxy 700 million light years from Earth. It's either really beautiful or really hilarious, depending on whether or not you make the obvious association with farts. (Sorry.) But whether or not the idea of a trail of gas makes you giggle, it should definitely make you feel tiny: At around 250,000 light years long, the tail alone is more than twice the diameter of the Milky Way. The tail, which is described in a paper published recently in Astronomy and Astrophysics, is probably made of gas stripped away from the galaxy it seems to stream from. The galaxy is part of a cluster of galaxies, which are held together by gravity and have hot intergalactic gas between them. The pressure exerted on a galaxy as it crashes through this external gas could pull its own gas out into space. The 10 million degree gas glows bright blue in the above image, captured in X-rays. The "head" of the ribbon is its brightest point, and researchers believe this spot may be made of cooler gas than the rest of the stream. It may also contain heavier elements than the end of the tail. These heavier elements might be used to form new stars -- ones that would trail out behind the original galaxy. That may be the galaxy's best hope for new stars: Calculations suggest that the source galaxy was once one of the cluster's most active star factories, but has ceased making new stars. That might be because all of the galaxy's star-making materials have been drawn out into intergalactic space. In addition to being the longest tail of this nature ever spotted before, the newly discovered feature seems to be unusually far away from its source galaxy. "The large separation between the galaxy and the tail might be telling us that the gas has been completely stripped off the galaxy," study co-author Thomas Reiprich of the University of Bonn said in a statement. "In effect, the tail has been cut off from the galaxy."


Accused Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl arraigned at Fort Bragg, defers jury decision

on his plea and the kind of jury, Bergdahl left the courthouse in a cold rain without taking any questions. [Disillusioned and self-deluded, Bowe Bergdahl vanished into brutal captivity] The case will progress in 2016, with the next hearing scheduled for Jan. 12. Another Army judge, Col. Jeffrey Nance, has been assigned to oversee the remainder of the case, Fredrikson told the court. Nance has overseen a number of high-profile criminal cases, including the court-martial and conviction of Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who killed sixteen civilians in a rampage in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province in March 2012. Bergdahl has been accused of walking away from his platoon’s tiny combat outpost in eastern Afghanistan in 2009, and was charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. His disappearance spawned a months-long manhunt that jeopardized the lives of other U.S. troops searching for him after he was captured by the Taliban within hours of leaving. If convicted, Bergdahl faces up to life in prison. U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl leaves the courthouse after an arraignment hearing for his court-martial in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, December 22, 2015. Bergdahl, who spent five years as a Taliban prisoner after leaving his combat outpost in Afghanistan in 2009 to bring attention to alleged poor leadership, will be arraigned on Tuesday on charges spurred by his disappearance. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake Bergdahl was recovered in May 2014 by a U.S. Special Operations team in Afghanistan after being held captive and tortured repeatedly for five years by the Haqqani network, a militant group affiliated with the Taliban. His freedom was obtained as part of a controversial swap approved by President Obama in which five Taliban officials were released from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and moved to Qatar, where they are under strict supervision by the government there. Notably, Bergdahl did not wear the red, white, blue and black ribbon that goes with the Prisoner of War Medal, signaling the Army has reserved judgment in awarding it to him. It was developed by President Ronald Reagan in 1985 to recognize troops who were held captive, and acted honorably while imprisoned. Interesting to see Bergdahl not wearing POW Medal https://t.co/iH2CPOjWxQ on his blues https://t.co/woveVdRDSW https://t.co/Rwwuq1yB5h Related coverage: U.S. soldier held captive released in exchange for Afghan detainees: June 1, 2014 Mixed reaction to Bowe Bergdahl’s recovery among those who consider him a traitor: June 1, 2014 War-zone deserter?


Space race one-upmanship, billionaire style

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.--Elon Musk’s space company had just pulled off a momentous feat: landing the first stage of a rocket on a landing pad at the Air Force Station here Monday. And Jeff Bezos was among the first to offer congratulations on twitter. “Welcome to the club!” It was a backhanded compliment in an ongoing rivalry between two billionaires who are now engaged in their own space race. Last month, Bezos’s Blue Origin launched a rocket just past the boundary of space, and then landed it vertically in rural West Texas. That was celebrated as a historic achievement since no rocket had ever traveled that far before coming back to land. Being able to reuse rockets was the “Holy Grail” of space flight, Bezos said, an accomplishment that would dramatically lower the cost since rocket boosters are usually discarded in the sea after one use. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Triumphant, Bezos tweeted a photo of the recovered first stage, calling it the “rarest of beasts—a used rocket.” “Not quite ‘rarest,’” Musk tweeted back, pointing out that SpaceX has previously launched test rockets a few hundred feet into the air and landed them. @JeffBezos Not quite "rarest". SpaceX Grasshopper rocket did 6 suborbital flights 3 years ago & is still around. https://t.co/6j9ERKCNZl In a series of tweets, he continued to needle Bezos, saying that what SpaceX was now attempting—landing a much larger and more powerful rocket capable of sending a payload into orbit—was a far more difficult feat that the landing of Bezos’ suborbital rocket. Bezos, in his tweet Monday, couldn't resist noting the landing involved a "suborbital" booster stage. Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club! The pair, both billionaires with the goal of opening up space to the masses, have clashed repeatedly over the years. A few years ago, when SpaceX and Blue Origin were both bidding to take over historic launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX won the lease, and Blue Origin protested to the Government Accountability Office, but lost, and Musk rubbed it in. “If they do somehow show up in the next 5 years with a vehicle qualified to NASA’s human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs,” Musk wrote in an email published at SpaceNews.com. “Frankly, I think we are