may include lemon-flavored olive oil, red pepper flakes and smoked salt. The fast-casual spot lets diners build their own plates centered on a protein (veggie patty, tofu, chicken, salmon, steak) and sides, or just sides. Most still go the protein route, but if that's not your groove, know you can have a bowl of well-prepared veggies without feeling deprived. Nothing overly ambitious -- the vegetables are still called sides, after all -- but that's kind of the point. Staples such as sweet potato and broccoli appeal to even beginner palates. 1212 18th St. NW. 202-796-5100. thelittlebeet.com. Convivial’s squash vadouvan, inspired by the French take on Indian curry, features a slice of acorn squash atop an olive cake, with mustard greens and coconut. (Photo by Lavanya Ramanathan/The Washington Post) Convivial Expect artfully plated and composed dishes, in which a vegetable is given the reverence that a chunk of protein might receive in another setting. "I have to look at it as if it was a piece of meat or fish," Cedric Maupillier said. His produce-based fare is built on layers of flavors and textures -- a sizeable wedge of acorn squash atop an olive cake, above, a pudding-like cauliflower blanc-manger showered with herbs, pomelo, almonds and tabbouleh. Maupillier admits that given a choice between a carrot and slice of prosciutto, he'd go for the meat, but you'd never guess given how accommodating his restaurant is to veg-heads. Cauliflower-flavored pudding? An entire dish built around leeks? We're getting into advanced territory here. 801 O St. NW. 202-525-2870. convivialdc.com. Gilfeather turnips and rutabaga play well together at Garrison in Barracks Row. (Jennifer Chase for The Washington Post) Garrison Rob Weland acquires a lot of his vegetables from a single farmer, Michael Protas of One Acre Farm in Boyds, Md. "I treat them pretty simply," the chef said of the prized produce. That doesn't translate to simple flavors, though. Recently, we enjoyed cider-glazed turnips and rutabagas (are there two other vegetables with such an un-sexy rap?) showered with hazelnuts, above, as well as grilled and pickled mushrooms whose zing is balanced by a bed of creamy grits. Anything garnished with Weland's romesco sauce deserves attention, too: So far we've lapped it up alongside such fleeting dishes as stuffed squash blossoms and an eggplant terrine. A nice mix of accessible and enterprising. If your veg level hovers around roasted cauliflower, you're set. If you're ready


If we’re going to fix climate change, we’ll have to get creative

Geographic’s “ The developing world deserves reparations from wealthier nations as compensation for the harmful climate change effects that are mostly our fault. It’s us who have tainted our global commons by emitting vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and us whose actions have led to extreme weather and other disasters in the world’s most vulnerable regions. But a strictly financial [Other perspectives: Pope Francis was right on climate change] According to Yet the At the recent United Nations climate change conference in Paris, where 196 nations agreed to reduce their carbon emissions to keep global temperature rise less than 2 degrees Celsius, another decision was reached that calls for developed countries to scale up their level of financial support to less-developed countries for mitigation and adaptation activities. The goal is to provide $100 billion annually by 2020 and to further provide appropriate technology and capacity-building support. “Some of the impacts of climate change can’t be reversed,” said Secretary of State John F. Kerry in Preparation plans and strong infrastructure can only go so far, and even the best may not hold up each and every time a disaster strikes. Mitigating the source of these disasters through geoengineering, or artificially modifying the Earth’s climate, is a different breed of mitigation tactic that can and should go hand in hand with natural defense plans. While eccentric designs have been proposed — Take Weather modification also has its place. Drought-stricken populations could benefit from [America has been duped on climate change] Carbon sequestration methodologies To be sure, geoengineering has its risks. No one knows what the unintended results of tinkering with the global water cycle by cloud seeding or what effects unnatural carbon reduction schemes might unleash. The National Research Council Still, it is by human hand that our environment has been degraded, and it is up to humans to innovate and devise a modified world that is safe for all. There may be no turning back to pre-industrial times, but that does not mean we have to turn our backs on those trapped by industry’s offenses. Tangible solutions are necessary to address the needs of those affected by climate change. Strategic options have timed out. Explore these other perspectives: Daniel Farber: Inaction on global warming is as reckless as drunken driving Robert Brulle: America has been duped on climate change John Nagle: Pope Francis was right on climate change


Scientists say humans have now brought on an entirely new geologic epoch

did not reach 2 billion until 1927 and 3 billion until 1960. Over the same broad period we managed to design nuclear weapons and warm the climate. And along with technological leaps and the population boom has come dramatically more uses of resources and transformations of natural environments — which, in turn, has affected the sediment layers that have been formed recently, or are being formed right now. These are likely to feature unprecedented levels of aluminum, concrete, plastics, and black carbon, the study asserts. Humans have also dramatically changed the sedimentary processes of river systems — look what we’ve done to the Mississippi River and its wetlands, for instance. Soil levels of nitrogen and phosphorous have also exploded, the study asserts, from use of fertilizers. Perhaps the most distinctive change of all, however, may be the unmistakable signature of thermonuclear weapons testing, which began in 1952, and leaves a clear geological record of plutonium 239 that, the paper said, “will be identifiable in sediments and ice for the next 100,000 years.” And then, well, there’s the record of human caused climate change. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have grown at an extraordinarily rapid rate, roughly 2 parts per million per year of late, and this will be distinctly recorded in the air bubbles contained in polar ice cores, one key type of geologic record. “Modern rates of atmospheric C emission … are probably the highest of the Cenozoic era,” or the last 65 million years, the study says. An ice core is seen at the Vostok camp in Antarctica in this April 5, 2010, photograph. (Alexey Ekaikin/Reuters) Atmospheric methane levels have shown a similar rapid burst. And sea levels are surging rapidly upward, at least when viewed in geological context. They are probably higher now than they have been in the past 115,000 years, the paper said. It’s all of these changes, at roughly the same time, that mark the onset of the Anthropocene, the authors suggested. “It’s not just carbon dioxide, and it’s not just in Europe and the United States,” said Harvard’s Oreskes. “It’s this whole set of things that reflect human economic activity basically since World War II.” Previous reasons for geological demarcations, the researchers note, include changing solar cycles or major volcanic activity — but also sometimes stark and sudden events. For instance, the famous K-T event or K-T boundary, which marked the end of the


The red pandas are finally back in D.C.

After a two-year absence, red pandas are returning to the National Zoo. Tusa, a 1-year-old male, and Asa, a 1-year-old female, will live in a newly built red panda habitat. Rusty, who made headlines in 2013 when he escaped from the zoo, will remain at a facility in Virginia. The rather implausibly exciting lives of D.C.’s red pandas are starting a new chapter — and this one will be in D.C. The National Zoo announced that, after a two-year hiatus, two new red pandas have moved to its main zoo in Woodley Park. Red pandas made headlines in 2013 after one named Rusty captivated the Twittersphere when he escaped from the National Zoo. The media covered the story intensely, police got involved and it seemed the whole city was searching for the renegade. Hours later, he was found in Adams Morgan and returned to the zoo. But Rusty didn’t stay at the zoo for long, and in January 2014 he was transferred to the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va., so he could mate with a fellow local red panda, Shama, in private. Shama gave birth to three cubs, but she died shortly after. Since 2014, there have been no red pandas at the National Zoo. The two new red panda residents are Tusa, a 1-year-old male, and Asa, a 1-year-old female. Tusa came from a zoo in Illinois and Asa was born at the Smithsonian facility in Virginia where Rusty was transferred. Visitors can see them in the Small Mammal House before they move to the red panda exhibit on the Asia Trail when upgrades are complete in the spring.


Gilt joins forces with Saks — and adds to evidence that online flash sales may be losing their luster

The Gilt Groupe Inc. distribution center in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg) Back in 2011, online flash-sales pioneer Gilt Groupe was flying high with a $1 billion valuation and was hoovering up millions in venture capital from investors who believed it was poised for a big, industry-shaking future. And yet, on Thursday, Gilt said it has agreed to be acquired for $250 million, a price far below its earlier valuation. And the buyer? It’s Hudson’s Bay Company, the parent of Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor that is not exactly known as a bastion of innovation. Gilt’s slide from sizzling hot to lukewarm is an emblem of how fast-changing our shopping habits are in the online era. Gilt built an early following for its deeply-discounted designer clothing and accessories, and quickly branched out from women’s apparel to offering deals on men’s and children’s clothing, home goods and more. The deal with Hudson’s Bay adds to evidence that the flash-sales model seems to be losing its luster. “There’s a little bit of consumer fatigue around these concepts,” said Liz Dunn, chief executive of retail consultancy Talmage Advisors. “It’s hard to continue to make it feel special.” Just last year, the parent company of home-shopping giant QVC paid $2.4 billion for Zulily, a mom-oriented deals site that briefly soared after its initial public offering but soon found itself struggling to build repeat customers. One King’s Lane, the website that is something like a sample sale for home furnishings, slashed 15 percent of its staff last year. LivingSocial and Groupon — two other businesses that made their names on daily deals that had to be snapped up quickly — have been reducing their workforces and trying to pivot to different business models. For Gilt, in particular, it hasn’t helped that brick-and-mortar off-price players such as T.J. Maxx have moved to be a more forceful presence online and that a bumper crop of resale shops such as the RealReal and ThredUp have flooded the Web with gently-used designer goods at low prices. Hudson’s Bay hopes that in joining forces with Gilt, it will be able to take advantage of the deals site’s tech know-how. “We see tremendous potential to enhance our mobile and personalization strategies by leveraging Gilt’s advanced capabilities,” said Jerry Storch, the chief executive of Hudson’s Bay, in a statement. In that way, the acquisition would have some parallels the tie-up of


NSO brings Noseda to the neighborhood

wife, Lucia, after lunch at the Kennedy Center on Thursday. (Margot Schulman/The Kennedy Center) In the evening, the newly-appointed heir apparent to the music directorship went out into the community with the orchestra in what may have been yet another of the NSO’s ideas that look better on paper than in practice. His first stop was at a concert by a trio of musicians — French hornist James Nickel, harpist Adriana Horne, and flutist Julianna Nickel (not an NSO member) — in the lobby bar of the Renaissance Hotel, an event that felt very much like music in hotel lobby bars the world over, though, to be sure, of better quality than your usual lounge music. Noseda, though, was game, and said a few words at the end of the evening. “Classical music is nothing to be afraid of,” he told the smallish but appreciative crowd: a mantra for an orchestra in the 21st century. He then signed a couple of autographs. The next stop was Busboys and Poets, where the Last Stand Quartet, made up of four NSO musicians, performed in juxtaposition with the Drawbridge Collective, a group of six striking poets whose range of ethnicities and heritages — African-American, Samoan, rural West Virginian, and more — is integral to their work. The poetry was so vital, so raw, and so much of our time that it made classical music seem briefly effete and distant in comparison, although the quartet certainly put thought and fine playing into their performances, which included a piece by Gabriela Lena Frank and a Lullaby by George Gershwin. It’s laudable to try to reach out to different performance traditions, and the NSO seems to be showing increasing awareness of them in its various outreach projects, but it’s hard to say what it really adds up to, and whether such gestures mean anything at all until they start having some bearing on the orchestra’s performance culture. At the very least, one can meet one form of searing vitality with another: I wonder if a movement of a Shostakovich or Beethoven quartet might have seemed a more equal response, though less culturally sensitive. [Last year: NSO hits the club, and scores.] Noseda sat attentively through the whole thing, though the poetry must have been hard for a non-native English speaker to understand, and at one point was somewhat incongruously introduced to the packed room, to good-natured


The government closed its offices in Oregon days before the armed takeover due to fears of violence

not providing the support some of them hoped for.” The threats were reported to federal law enforcement authorities in the area who appear content right now to monitor the situation and wait out the protesters. Local planning for the closures, in consultation with senior officials in Washington, D.C., started weeks ago, officials said. The Bureau of Land Management made the decision to close as early as Dec. 28, concluding that the environment around Burns was not safe for its employees, who issue permits to ranchers for grazing and other uses. The U.S. Forest Service, with about 35 employees and the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Farm Service Agency followed suit. The U.S. Postal Service stopped delivering mail to homes and business in the area last week, although the post office in Burns has stayed open. The displaced employees are either teleworking at home, working from remote locations in other counties or on paid administrative leave if they are not set up to do either, costing the government thousands of dollars a day, officials said. The Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge 30 miles south of Burns where the armed occupiers have been since Saturday, sent its 23 employees home nine days ago, spokesman Jason Holm said. “We love our refuge,” Holm said. “But at the end of the day, these are our buildings, and our first priority is for the safety of our employees.” He said the protesters “were contacting and talking to a lot of employees at the refuge, and making a lot of people uncomfortable.” The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the other agency with a large federal presence in the area because it serves the Paiute Native American tribe, has stayed open because its offices are in a neighboring county. Officials who have spoken with the employees say many of them are frustrated that they have been forced from their offices. “It’s hard to band a bird via telework,” Holm said, describing the work of Malheur refuge employees, who track migrating birds nesting in the sanctuary. As of Thursday night, no one could say when the federal buildings in Harney County would reopen. The armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge ended after 41 tumultuous days, as the final occupants surrendered. Cliven Bundy, father of the group’s leader and himself a veteran of armed standoffs, was arrested as he arrived in Portland.


Five ESPN ’30 for 30′ films we’d like to see

Duke University lacrosse players threw a team party that ended up changing lives, ruining careers, tarnishing a university’s reputation and even jeopardizing the future of the sport at the school.” Big #30for30 news: In just 2 hours, we officially announce upcoming films. What topics would you like to see? https://t.co/o6ZTqh1eWO But ever since the question was posed, that got us thinking. What should be the next topics that we haven’t seen yet. Here are five that come to mind. 1. Tiger Woods His fall from grace was nothing short of completely epic, following the 2009 Thanksgiving incident that felt like something straight out of a soap opera. There was the confrontation at his Orlando home that involved a car accident possibly fueled by a golf club attack from his wife, then the intimate details of his sex life coming to light, followed by the wooden apology that made the once affable star seem like a broken man. The sequence forever changed the course of his legacy and he hasn’t won a major since. Clearly, it’s a great story. 2. Alberto Salazar Before he became the most famous track coach in America, Alberto Salazar’s ability to fight through pain and his notoriously intense training habits transformed him into one the best marathon runners of his era. Salazar, a quiet, skinny kid born in Cuba – his father was a former ally of Fidel Castro – went on to star in college at Oregon. From there, he won numerous high-profile marathons, including three straight New York City Marathons from 1980-1982 and the memorable 1982 Boston Marathon against the unheralded Dick Beardsley, a race that was chronicled in John Brant’s book, “Duel in the Sun.” In 2007, Salazar collapsed on a practice field at the Nike campus and his heart stopped beating for 14 minutes. He was back coaching at the Nike campus nine days later. Most recently, Salazar was at the center of a doping controversy, alleged by former members of the Nike Oregon Project – claims he vehemently denies. It remains to be seen what kind of legacy Salazar, a towering figure in track and field, will leave on the sport. 3. Lawrence Phillips In 1995, the Nebraska Cornhuskers running back was on top of the world. He was a Heisman trophy candidate and his team was a national championship contender. He’d had quite a few issues stemming from eligibility, but


Cricket kick: Newest health food craze is bugs

we’d walk into a store like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s and the vast majority of people we’d speak to wouldn’t have cared about cricket protein. Now, whenever I do a demo or a trade show, everyone’s already sold on the concept,” Lewis said. Cricket entrepreneurs like to cite the U.N.’s report on edible bugs, which touted the potential of insect protein to help feed a resource-challenged planet and reduce carbon emissions as the world population edges toward 9 billion by 2050. Crickets, just one of some 2,000 edible insects worldwide, get high points for nutrition: They’re low in fat, high in protein and rich in B vitamins, iron, magnesium, calcium and other nutrients, proponents say. From an environmental perspective, crickets and other insects are even more compelling. It takes about 100 pounds of feed, usually from corn and soybeans, to produce 5 pounds of edible beef protein. That same amount of feed can produce 60 pounds of edible cricket protein. Water conservation is another big benefit to farming crickets. It takes about 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef protein, but just one gallon to grow a pound of cricket protein, said Megan Miller, co-founder of San Francisco-based Bitty Foods. “We could even say that crickets are on the cusp of becoming trendy,” she noted in a TEDx Manhattan talk last year. Are insects the future of food? | Megan Miller | TEDxManhattan Proponents of entomophagy often joke that crickets are the “gateway bug” because they are easier to stomach, culturally speaking. “I felt from the get-go that the creepy-crawly factor would have to be eliminated,” said Miller, who co-founded Bitty with her friend Leslie Ziegler in 2013. They later enlisted Food Network celebrity chef Tyler Florence as the brand’s culinary director. They sell three flavors of cookies made with crickets, as well as a gluten-free flour blend with cricket protein for adventurous home cooks. “We wanted to make insects invisible and a part of foods that were already familiar. Our main priority is getting Americans used to the idea of eating insects at all,” Miller added. They plan to expand into other carbohydrates like pasta in the future. In Austin, Tex., Leah Jones and Megan McDonald met while interning for the Sierra Club on clean energy projects during their senior year in college. They were so taken with the environmental advantages of crickets that they


China just destroyed this 120-foot-tall gold statue of Chairman Mao

Entrepreneurs in Henan province spent nearly a half-million dollars to build the gold-painted statue, according to villagers. It was certainly an audacious project. The 120-foot-tall statue of Mao Zedong, the much-loved and much-feared Communist revolutionary who built modern China, was said to have cost entrepreneurs half a million dollars to build. That the statue was built in the rural Henan Province, one of the areas worst hit by famines during Mao's radical industrialization and collectivization projects, led some to feel that it was inappropriate. When photographs of the golden statue appeared online this week, they quickly spread through social media – prompting some outrage, but mostly mockery. Many social media users suggested that the fearful Chairman Mao had been depicted on the toilet, for example. Apparently, Beijing wasn't too happy with the attention. On Friday, new photos began to spread on social media that suggested the statue was being torn down. That giant Golden Mao statue? They've killed it. Killed it to death. https://t.co/b20wSVWQ9H State media confirmed the destruction of the statue, citing local officials who said that the site was built without permits. Photographs taken for the New York Times on Friday seemed to suggest only rubble remained. It seems likely that the international attention placed upon the statue had helped cause its downfall – according to reports in Chinese state media, construction on the project had begun months ago and continued with little incident until this week. Mao is still widely respected in China, and his image has become something of a kitsch icon, sold on T-shirts in tourist areas. However, there have been signs that the state has become concerned about his continuing sway over people in the nation. In late December, state newspaper Global Times published an article that warned that Mao was being worshiped "alongside other folk deities like the Jade Emperor and the God of Wealth," with people in rural areas building temples and praying that he will help them "get rid of ill fortune, bear a baby boy or get rich quick." More on WorldViews After mysterious disappearance, Hong Kong publisher claims he is in China ‘cooperating with authorities’ China expels French journalist for terrorism coverage Why critics are not satisfied with the end of China’s one-child policy


In China, pandas have reasons to perk up. And it’s not just for bamboo.

In China, perhaps no animal is more beloved than the panda. Take a journey into their natural habitat in southwest China, where the endangered animals roam. From the land of pandas, some new numbers on the crushingly cute animals swathed in black and white. China says Last year saw the birth of 43 cubs. Of those, 40 survived and 28 were twins, says China’s state forestry administration. Washington had its own birth in 2015, when Bei Bei arrived at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. He’s making his public debut Saturday, Jan 16. Panda births, of course, get celebrated not just for doses of cuteness – but because the animals are notoriously fickle in the baby making department. China says it wants to up its captive panda population to 500 by the year 2020. The most recent count had 1,864 pandas living in the wild. Lee Powell is a video reporter at The Washington Post.


This broken space telescope keeps spotting new planets

An artistic rendering of Kepler-452b, one of the planets found using Kepler. (EPA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle) NASA's Kepler space telescope just keeps raking in the exoplanets, 1,930 of which have now been confirmed (and 4,696 that haven't). These include an impressive 234 new exoplanet candidates discovered by Kepler in 2014, which were announced at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society this week. Kepler monitors over 150,000 distant stars, allowing scientists to detect exoplanets by measuring the way they seem to dim from Earth's perspective. We can use those variations in light to infer the existence of planets orbiting the observed stars, and even to measure the size, mass, and atmospheres of the orbiting worlds themselves. In this way, scientists can figure out whether a planet is the right size and mass to be rocky (like Earth) and whether it's the right distance from its host star to hold liquid water. You got this, buddy. (NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T Pyle) But the coolest thing about Kepler is that it's broken – and has been since 2013, just four years after its mission began. Kepler used three of its reaction wheels to keep it centered precisely on its target, and one of them failed. Without it, the spacecraft was unstable, and any outside force could knock it totally out of position. Instead of calling it quits, the mission scientists transitioned into a second wave of observation called K2, which started in 2014. K2 uses the power of the sun to keep Kepler from being unwieldy. The light from the sun acts as a virtual third reaction wheel, physically pushing against the craft's solar panels as the three physical reaction wheels push back. The tension keeps the telescope in place, but it has to be repositioned every 80 days to keep the solar forces hitting it in just the right place. It's an ingenious fix, to say the least – but one that dramatically changed the way Kepler could operate, the stars it could look at, and how long it could investigate them. So it's incredibly exciting that K2 has been so successful, resulting in over 100 confirmed exoplanets so far and bringing in droves of candidates to investigate. Read More: After a hardware failure, the Kepler spacecraft finds a second life — and an important new exoplanet Looking for alien civilizations? Check these star clusters, scientists say. NASA estimates 1 billion ‘Earths’ in our


PM Update: Clouds and shower chance persist ahead of rainy Saturday night; becoming breezy and mild Sunday

Two hour radar loop of rain and storm movement through the area. Refresh page to update. The damp and drearies have taken over the D.C. area and are here to stay through early Sunday, with some light showers possible through tonight and a more significant rainfall likely tomorrow night. The rain may linger early Sunday, but we should dry out for a mild and breezy Sunday afternoon. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Saturday): Sunday: [Redskins vs. Packers weather forecast: Drying out, breezy, and turning cooler] See Camden Walker’s forecast into next week. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email in-box? Subscribe here. A fog-covered Potomac River today near Chain Bridge. (Fritz Myer via Flickr)


These 6 technologies will define 2016

laser tag with friends who are thousands of miles away. And, rather than watching movies at IMAX theatres, we will be able to be part of the action, virtually in the back seat of the car chase. An exhibitor demonstrates the Ashley Chloe Helix Cuff Smart Wireless Headphones during this month’s Consumer Electronics Show. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg) 5. Internet of Things Mark Zuckerberg recently announced plans to create his own artificially intelligent, voice-controlled butler to help run his life at home and at work. For this, he will need appliances that can talk to his digital butler — a connected home, office, and car. These are all coming, as CES, the big consumer electronics tradeshow in Las Vegas, demonstrated. From showerheads that track how much water we’ve used to toothbrushes that watch out for cavities, to refrigerators that order food that is running out, they are all on their way. Starting in 2016, everything will be A long exposure photograph shows the SpaceX Falcon 9 lifting off, left, from its launch pad and then returning to a landing zone, right, at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. (Mike Brown/Reuters) 6. Space Rockets, satellites, and spaceships were things that governments built — until Elon Musk stepped into the ring in 2002, with his startup SpaceX. A decade later, he demonstrated the ability to dock a spacecraft with the International Space Station and return with cargo. A year later, he launched a commercial geostationary satellite. And then, in 2015, out of the blue, came another billionaire, Jeff Bezos, whose space company, Blue Origin, launched a rocket It took a race, in the 1960s, between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to get man to the Moon. For decades after this, little more happened, because there was no one for the U.S. to compete with. Now, thanks to technology costs falling so far that space exploration can be done for millions rather than billions of dollars, and the raging egos of two billionaires, we will see the breakthroughs in space travel that we have been waiting for. Maybe there’ll be nothing beyond some rocket launches and a few competitive tweets between Musk and Bezos in 2016, but we will be closer to having colonies on Mars. This surely is the most innovative period in human history, an era that will be remembered as the inflexion point in exponential technologies that made the impossible possible.


Main Street Morning: SBA wants to train businesses on cyber-security

to make poverty an issue. The Economy - 2016 brings more pain to U.S. shale companies as crude sinks and the plunge in oil is sparking calls for Congress to act. The Elections - A poll finds that 20 percent of Democratic voters would defect for Donald Trump. - Another poll finds that Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are in a dead heat in Iowa and Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. - Sanders vows to spend $1 trillion to fight the jobs “crisis.” - “The Donald” sandwich fails to sell at a Vermont deli. People - How companies accommodate transgender employees – and their colleagues. Management - “The only people less ethical than business executives are telemarketers, lobbyists, and members of Congress” was the most common response received in a recent Gallup poll. - Here’s how the Better Business Bureau works. - Why some businesses last 100 years while others fail after only a few. Entrepreneurs - How author Stephen King excelled as an entrepreneur when he was younger. Finance - This guy has 1,497 credit cards. Start-ups - How these start-ups are solving a decades-old problem in education. - Uber is trying to edge into public transit with new partnership. - Behind Y Combinator’s re-organization. Technology - CES 2016 drew more than 170,000 attendees last week. - How wearables are inching towards a purpose in 2016. - Are unlimited data cell-phones making a comeback? - Virtual reality is giving doctors a chance to practice life-saving surgery on infants. On This Day in 1964 - The U.S. Surgeon General reported that smoking may be detrimental to health. Around the Country - Many Rhode Island business owners are worried that a plan to charge tolls to trucks will also be expanded to cars. - All New York City subway stations will have Wi-Fi by the end of 2016. - Local politicians discuss the growing anger in Flint, Michigan over the state’s handling of the contaminated drinking water after the city changed its water supply to save money. - The Powerball jackpot has now grown to $1.3 billion. - Powerball sales are helping many local businesses. - Shoplifting has increased 24 percent in Bismarck, North Dakota. - Joplin, Missouri has rebounded strongly after a destructive tornado in 2011. - Fort Bend County, Texas commissioners are among those bemoaning a new state law that they worry only adds more bureaucracy


UK Athletics proposes resetting track records after doping scandals

A view of the track and field at the London 2012 Olympic Games. (Michael Steele/Getty Images) The governing body of British athletics has a suggestion for restoring trust to track and field in the wake of doping and corruption allegations: Reset all the records in the sport and ban any British athlete found to have cheated for life. “The integrity of athletics was challenged as never before in 2015,” said Ed Warner, the chairman of UK Athletics. “Clean athletes and sports fans the world over have been let down. Trust in the sport is at its lowest point for decades.” Among the 14 steps proposed in UK Athletics’ “A Manifesto for Clean Athletes,” is a proposal to “investigate the implications of drawing a line under all pre-existing sport records … and commencing a new set of records.” The proposals come after a scandal in which Russia has been banned from international athletics and the IAAF, track’s world governing body, has been accused of taking money to cover up positive tests from Turkish and Moroccan athletes. The organization also proposes changing the current punishment of four-year suspensions for British athletes found guilty of doping to a lifetime ban. “Greater transparency, tougher sanctions, longer bans — and even resetting the clock on world records for a new era — we should be open to do whatever it takes to restore credibility in the sport,” Warner said. The organization also suggests withholding sponsors’ support for athletes who are caught doping, extending the minimum bans for serious offenses to eight years (to miss two Olympics and Paralympics) and criminalizing the supplying or obtaining of performance-enhancing drugs.


The surprising way that huge icebergs slow down climate change

these huge icebergs are not just made up of ice — frozen in the ice are minerals like iron, and as the iceberg slowly melts, those too flow into the ocean. The Southern Ocean is actually an iron-poor environment, so that means that infusions of iron lead to more growth of tiny marine organisms, called phytoplankton, which float in the upper layer of the ocean and engage in photosynthesis, pulling carbon out of the air. When these organisms then die and fall to the bottom of the ocean, that carbon goes with them — and is sequestered there. In other words, huge icebergs are performing a task similar to what some would-be planetary “geoengineers” have proposed — fertilizing key parts of the ocean with iron in order to enhance photosynthesis and store carbon. Iron is found in these huge bergs, Bigg says, because they scrape across land at some point on their way to the ocean, and gather it up in the process. “It’s basically from erosion of the underlying surface, or rubbing against mountainsides as the ice goes down,” he says. This isn’t the first time that iron from melting glaciers has been found to enhance Antarctic marine life. Previous research has shown that in Antarctic coastal “polynyas” — open water areas ringed with sea ice — more oceanic life blooms in areas where melting glaciers are pouring more fresh water, and iron, into the sea. Scientists have often found so-called “positive feedbacks” that will make global warming worse, with a classic example being Arctic permafrost. As the planet warms, the permafrost thaws and emits more carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere — causing the planet to warm still more. The new iceberg process, however, would appear to be a negative feedback that would enhance the so-called carbon “sink” of the Southern Ocean, allowing it to pull in more carbon than before. And the loss of ice from Antarctica into the Southern Ocean (in icebergs of all sizes) has already increased by 5 percent over the last 20 years, the new paper asserts. That trend should continue under climate change, Bigg suggests. However, there is no salvation here – although it seems to be real, the iceberg feedback is relatively small in the grand scheme of things. The Southern Ocean overall sequesters about 0.2 gigatons of carbon every year, according to Bigg, out of about 10 gigatons emitted


This video of Mexican marines raiding El Chapo’s compound shows the intensity of urban combat

Soldiers escort drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman into a helicopter during a presentation to the media in Mexico City, January 8, 2016. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido A video, aired on Monday by Televisa, a Mexican station, and since posted to YouTube, purportedly shows Mexican marines involved in last week’s raid that led to the recapture of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. The operation, known as “Black Swan” took place in the Mexican city of Los Mochis near the country’s Pacific coast. According to the report, Guzman escaped as the marines arrived, only to be caught at a nearby motel. Though Guzman eluded the marines, some of his men stayed behind and in the ensuing gun battle one marine was wounded and five suspects were killed. Six others were arrested. Operativo "Cisne negro". The released video is chaotic and shows a dozen or so marines wedged into extremely close quarters. One marine is wounded early on, though he appears to be conscious for the short time the camera is trained on him. [Did Delta Force help capture El Chapo? The secretive history of U.S. manhunts in Latin America] The camera-wearer appears to be one of the higher-ranking members of the unit as he maintains a central location and does the majority of the shouting and pointing — often telling marines to get into the myriad of doorways. Room clearing is a tricky and nasty business and is a scenario that many troops train for extensively. The marines in the video obviously have some training, though the chaos and confusion of the close quarters battle adds an amount of friction to the situation that obviously shows: marines bunch up in doorways (known as the fatal funnel or fatal front) and have a hard time coordinating movements. The amount of nervous adrenaline is apparent at around the 6:25 mark, when the marine on the left takes around 15 seconds to open up a pouch on his vest and remove a grenade of some sort. His loss of fine motor skills is ignored as the other marines forego whatever is in the pouch and press into the adjacent rooms. During a sweep through the house towards the end of the video, some of the defender’s equipment is strewn across the floor. Notably, in one of the rooms, is a .50 caliber anti-material rifle pointing down the long axis of a hallway. The marines equipment


This refugee was stuck in legal limbo for 25 years. Then he died.

Chancellor Angela Merkel – who was named Person of the Year 2015 by Time Magazine – is now under pressure for her decision to adopt one of the most open policies on the continent. But even in less chaotic times, a case like Teferi's can test a nation's priorities. “I have seen no reactions from the [Norwegian] authorities at all," Berglund Steen said of Teferi's death. “But on social media, there is sadness and shame.” “As long as no one would show him mercy, his death was predictable. In short, he suffered an injustice that can no longer be rectified,” said Berglund Steen. Teferi was provided with a small government stipend. But because of his status, he was not allowed to have a job or full access to health-care services. An autopsy will be performed to determine his cause of death, said Berglund Steen. The Norwegian Appeals Board, which considered the matter closed, declined to comment on the case Monday. However, last summer, Ellen Kveine Evensen, who is on the board, explained to me in an email: "The central issue in Teferi’s case is that he originally gave different asylum explanations to authorities in Sweden and Norway. He also operated under two different identities.” “Despite numerous requests for reconsideration of his case, the Norwegian Immigration Appeals Board still believes he doesn’t qualify for protection." The refugee's lawyer and his supporters were recently in the process of preparing a new court case to review earlier decisions. The events of Teferi's life cannot be independently verified. But last summer, he told me that he had fled Eritrea at the age of 17 and had been involved with a guerrilla group that is now a rival of the current government. Human rights campaigners said his affiliation with the group could have endangered his life if he returned to Eritrea; according to the Norwegian anti-racism center, the country's Immigration Appeals Board disagreed. "If [Teferi] dies like this, he will finally -- for the first time -- have a plot of ground in Norway where he can stay legally," Berglund Steen said last fall. A date for Yemane Teferi's funeral has not yet been announced. Also read: This refugee has been stuck in asylum limbo for 25 years Over a million refugees and migrants arrived in Europe this year. Here is what you need to know. Denmark wants to seize jewelry and cash from refugees


Main Street Morning: Wework to start “co-living” apartments

with “coliving” apartments. Sales and Marketing - Uber drops its prices in many markets. Entrepreneurs - How a creative gum entrepreneur is “sticking it” to the industry giants. Retail - Kohl’s weighs its next steps as its woes mount. - A shoplifter bites off the finger of a Walmart worker who confronted her for stealing. - A man is caught on camera in a pet store shoving a python down his pants. Restaurants - Denny’s expects its highest annual same-store sales growth in decade. Travel - Hotels’ “deceptive” resort fees are getting more attention from the government. Finance - Why big brands are offering big funds to small businesses. - How David Bowie changed Wall Street. Start-ups - America’s biggest group of doctors launch a start-up aimed at solving a growing problem with healthcare. Technology - How Microsoft may be on the brink of something amazing. Online - A new Ford service promises to help customers get around town, whatever they drive. Social Media - More than 800,000 people shared this mathematically inept Powerball post. - A Yelp survey finds that 75 percent of small businesses are on social media and focused mostly on new customers. Ideas - A simple blood test that can detect all kinds of cancer may be coming soon. - Audi’s hydrogen concept car fuels up in four minutes. - Soon, Tesla customers will be able to summon their car from their phones. Around the Country - Store owners in a Virginia town are worried about business as Macy’s stores in the area close. - Hawaii’s last sugar plantation is getting out of the sugar-growing business, signaling the end of an industry that once powered the local economy and lured thousands of immigrants to the islands. - A vigil is held for a Cincinnati business owner who was killed during a robbery. - The debate over Kansas’ struggling finances is moving back to the local grocery store. - Businesses on the Utah-Idaho border are bracing for a Powerball bonanza. - Why one business owner is giving up on Illinois. Small Business, Big Impact - A-34-year old real estate developer in Chicago passes away after a year-long battle with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


Why is this famous physicist tweeting rumors about gravitational waves?

follow curved paths influenced by the bowling ball. Just picture the way a handful of marbles would act on a stretchy sheet held taut, vs. their behavior on one that was sagging with the weight of a bowling ball. Space ripples and warps are like that, too, and we call these ripples in spacetime gravitational waves. Gravitational waves could theoretically help us study mysterious objects, such as black holes, but their effects are so tiny that we haven't been able to detect them yet. There's a lot of noise to cut through. 3. Are the rumors true? Maybe! It's not crazy: Krauss is referring to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a collaboration between physicists at MIT and Caltech. And yes, gravitational waves are really hard to observe – but LIGO did just get an upgrade. In fact, Krauss first tweeted his suspicions just about a week after the observatory had officially reopened. Sometimes rumors turn out to be true – like when months of hype about a Chinese team editing the genes of human embryos ended in an actual announcement. There's one obvious way this gravitational wave rumor could have been falsely planted. Because gravitational waves are so tiny, and it's easy to get false positives, the LIGO team includes three individuals capable of injecting false signals to test the group's ability to weed them out. This has happened twice before, and, in one instance, the group was ready to publish the data by the time it was revealed as false. Krauss has said on Twitter and elsewhere that his source knows for sure this isn't a blind-injection test, but that seems unlikely unless he has an in with one of those three researchers. On the other hand, plenty of well-regarded physicists had predicted that 2016 would be the year we finally saw evidence of gravitational waves. It's just that no one hoped we'd be confirming them in the first weeks of the year. But that's the thing: No one is confirming these rumors anytime soon. The folks at LIGO haven't responded to our request for comment yet, but they've told other outlets that they won't confirm or deny Krauss's tweet. They're working through their data, which may or may not include evidence of gravitational waves, and they'll release it when they're good and ready. Which brings us to our next point: 4. Is it a good idea to


Does Bowe Bergdahl deserve a POW Medal and Purple Heart? His lawyers think so.

on behalf of his client. But a prosecutor, Capt. Michael Petrusic, said that a senior official with the ability to classify and declassify sensitive information should be consulted for approval before information is released to the defense through discovery, and before the defense interviews witnesses who may have access to classified information. He also noted that there are more than 25,000 classified documents, each with an average length of 13 pages, associated with the case, underscoring the complexity of the proceeding. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, right, arrives for a pretrial hearing at Fort Bragg, N.C., with his defense counsel Lt. Col. Franklin D. Rosenblatt on Tuesday. Bergdahl, who was held by allies of the Taliban for five years after he walked off a base in Afghanistan, faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. (AP Photo/Ted Richardson) Bergdahl has said that he walked away from his base to cause enough of a commotion to get an audience to air gripes he had about his unit’s leaders. His disappearance sparked a months-long manhunt that endangered troops and drastically altered the way the war was waged as they resources were devoted to finding the soldier, Army officials say. Nance said he will decide in coming days how information in the case will be handled. Nance said four individuals, who were not named, may have already disclosed classified information about the case in public. He did not describe the information. “The bottom line,” he said, “Is everybody who wants access to classified information has to have the appropriate security clearance.” The protective order also is expected to set out guidelines for public affairs, logistics and security for the court-martial. Nance said he needs the prosecution to submit a detailed plan for each issue. Unless security professionals suggest otherwise, he said, he doesn’t see a reason why armed military police will be needed in the courtroom, relying instead on a variety of other security measures in place. [In podcast, Bowe Bergdahl says he compared himself to action hero Jason Bourne] Rosenblatt asked Nance to consider intervening on Bergdahl’s behalf to find out why he has not been allowed by the Army to wear the POW Medal, the Purple Heart, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal and the NATO Medal. The service not doing so, Rosenblatt said, is prejudicial to Bergdahl’s case because he is required to walk in public while wearing a uniform that shows


People weren’t rushing to buy this ‘Silence of the Lambs’ house, for some reason

A for-sale sign stand in front of the house used as Buffalo Bill’s home in the 1991 film “The Silence of the Lambs” on Monday in Perryopolis, Pa. (Keith Srakocic/AP) Hey, everyone, check out this extremely charming home in Pennsylvania. Doesn’t this house look great? I mean what possible reason could there be for this property to languish on the market? Just take a gander at the listing it has everyth— Oh Hmmmmm, yeah, okay. The property featured in this listing happens to have been a shooting location for “Silence of the Lambs.” It served as the home of psychotic killer Buffalo Bill, who, well … you know. We all saw the movie. He was a bad man. The house was put up for sale in August 2015, and, months later, is still waiting for a buyer, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. And, actually, the property’s cinematic history has attracted loads of attention, said Realtor Dianne Wilk of RE/MAX Select Realty. “Nobody really died there; Precious didn’t die there,” Wilk told The Washington Post. Sorry for kidding around, Dianne. [‘Murder houses’: The haunting final chapter in true-crime stories] The more likely reason Scott and Barbara Lloyd’s three-story home remained unsold for months after it was listed was probably because the initial price was too ambitious, Wilk said. (And just between you and me, the one-bathroom situation probably didn’t help either, right? I’m no expert on these things, but I have watched a lot of “House Hunters.” So.) Scott Lloyd stands on the front porch of his home. (Keith Srakocic/AP) But anyway, the home, about an hour from Pittsburgh, has been reduced from that $300,000 price, according to the Tribune-Review. Since that happened, the property has attracted more serious interest, Wilk said. As of Tuesday morning, it was still available for sale, she confirmed, so there’s still time to get those offers in. The home features a wrap-around porch, high ceilings and pocket doors, according to the listing. And, you know, just so we’re clear here: There never was any big, scary pit. That horrifying part of the movie was shot on a sound stage, according to the Tribune-Review. “They were looking for a home in which you entered the front door and had a straight line through,” Barbara Lloyd told the Tribune-Review last year. “They wanted it to look like a spider web, with Buffalo Bill drawing Jodie Foster into the


Scientists just found an unexpected factor that could be driving Greenland’s ice loss

A UCLA-led study reported that melt-prone areas on Greenland's ice sheet use a drainage system of streams and rivers that carry meltwater into the ocean. However, the the study also found that measurements at the ice's edge show that climate models alone can overestimate the volume of meltwater flowing to the ocean because they fail to account for water storage beneath the ice. There’s been another breakthrough in the study of the Greenland ice sheet, whose increasing melt rate and growing contribution to global sea-level rise has captured the attention and concern of climate scientists in recent years. While changes in air temperature, water temperature and precipitation are known to influence melting events on the ice sheet, a new study has identified another, perhaps less obvious culprit: clouds. It’s a finding that should be reflected in current climate models to help scientists make more accurate predictions about future Greenland melt — and could become even more important in the coming years if cloud cover over the ice sheet were to increase as a result of climate change. The study Currently, “even the best models out there disagree on cloudiness over Greenland and its effect on the ice sheet,” said the new study’s lead author, Kristof Van Tricht of the University of Leuven in Belgium, in an email to The Post. Until now, few studies have managed to address the effects of clouds on a Greenland-wide scale. There are a number of difficulties that have prevented such research until now, said “Over the last couple of years, there have been new observation techniques using RADAR and LIDAR,” Bennartz said. “They give us a much clearer view. That is really what this article is using, these new and very accurate types of observation.” The new study combines satellite measurements with on-the-ground observations of clouds over Greenland. Then, the researchers put all the data into models to run simulations of how the ice sheet responds to different types of cloud cover. The models suggest that both ice clouds and clouds containing liquid water have similar effects in that they both reduce heat loss over the ice sheet, causing a local warming effect when they are present. However, they also found that the amount of meltwater produced during the day is essentially the same whether it’s cloudy or clear. It’s what happens at night that really counts. At night, when temperatures cool back down,


Afghan war grinds on, but it’s mostly absent from Obama’s final State of the Union

U.S. President Barack Obama waves at the conclusion of his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington January 12, 2016. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Pool In his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Obama highlighted his administration’s efforts to address a host of threats overseas: the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, even climate change. But he gave only glancing mention to America’s longest war, one whose conclusion Obama once touted among his chief foreign policy accomplishments. Obama, who made the Afghan war his own when he surged the number of U.S. troops there, outlined plans in May 2014 for putting a definitive end to the conflict. In Afghanistan, U.S. officials said, American and allied forces had built up a credible local military and beaten back an entrenched Taliban militancy. Today, it is far harder today for Obama to claim victory. In recent months, the Taliban has proved its strength in a series of offensives that have put local forces on their heels and even surprised American military leaders. Late last month, six U.S. troops were killed in a Taliban attack, the most deadly insurgent assault on American service members in year. Just last week, a U.S. soldier was killed during a joint special operations mission in southern Afghanistan. There are now around 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, three times as many as are now stationed in Iraq to combat the Islamic State. As in Iraq, each of those deadly incidents are a reminder of continued American military involvement in the wars that Obama took office promising to end. As the conflict grinds on, U.S. military commanders are also employing their troops in ways that challenge the administration’s assertion that America’s combat role has come to an end. Since he announced two years ago that he planned to withdraw the last American troops by the end of 2016, Obama has adjusted his Afghanistan withdrawal plan several times, each time leaving a larger force longer to reflect the vulnerability of local forces to Taliban attack. U.S. officials now suggest their may be further revisions to come, meaning the next U.S. president will make his or her own decisions about how long American military involvement will last.


In pitiful animal die-offs across the globe — from antelopes to bees to seabirds — climate change may be culprit

New York Times last year. “I’ve worked in wildlife disease all my life, and I thought I’d seen some pretty grim things. But this takes the biscuit.” Back in the U.S., the Los Angeles Times The smelt numbers had diminished to “the last of the last,” UC Davis professor emeritus Peter Moyle, a leading authority on California’s native fish, told the LA Times. “It would be a major extinction event.” A bumblebee. (David Goulson, Stirling University/AP) And last July “Bumblebee species across Europe and North America are declining at continental scales,” Jeremy Kerr, a biodiversity researcher at the University of Ottawa in Canada, told the scientific journal. “Our data suggest that climate change plays a leading, or perhaps the leading, role in this trend.” It’s not only animals that are at risk. Researchers believe that the western drought killed 12 million trees in California’s forests, and estimated 58 million are so dry they’ve reached the brink of death, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A study released that last month predicted that climate change would cause massive die-offs of the American southwest’s coniferous trees, like junipers and pinon pines, within the next half century. Not every die-off of the past year can be blamed on climate change. Two “unusual mortality events” involving endangered Guadelupe fur seals — which were being stranded at eight times the normal rate on California’s central coast — and large whales in Alaska — where scientists have found the decomposing carcasses of more than 30 unlucky animals — have been loosely linked to that weird warm “blob” out in the Pacific. And the causes of other incidents — the recent whale stranding in India, for example — remain undetermined. Typically mass strandings are linked to toxic algae blooms, disease and trauma, and changes to the animals’ habitat, marine mammal expert Darlene Ketten told Scientific American in 2009. In many ways, die-offs are an inevitable aspect of life on Earth. The ebb and flow of species’ success is part of the background noise of existence that drives evolution. Populations have risen and declined long before humans existed. They’re likely to continue to do so long after we’re gone. But a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year suggests that the number of animal die-offs has gotten worse in recent years. And the researchers weren’t talking about small scale problems like the


Control of CRISPR, biotech’s most promising breakthrough, is in dispute

still years away -- of CRISPR drugs and treatments. Business has been booming for CRISPR companies. Editas Medicine, a Cambridge-based company that previously raised $163 million, announced last week that it planned a $100 million initial public offering and hoped to begin clinical trials in 2017 for a rare genetic disease that causes blindness. CRISPR Therapeutics has raised $89 million and recently announced major partnerships with two drug companies, Bayer and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Another company, Intellia, has raised $85 million and is working with Novartis. Caribou Biosciences has partnered with DuPont and raised $11 million last April. If the patent contest ends with a winner-takes-all sweep, it will mean several things: a significant revenue stream for the victorious institution, and in the interim a bit more uncertainty for the many companies trying to push the technology forward into the clinic. The companies are not directly a party to the current patent dispute, but each has entered into different licensing agreements. Caribou, for example, licenses intellectual property from Berkeley and the University of Vienna; Intellia licenses its technology from Caribou. Editas has licensed the Broad's technology. CRISPR Therapeutics says on its website it has licensed its technology from Charpentier. "It may chill investment in the competing companies," said Jacob Sherkow, a law professor at New York Law School who has been closely following the issue. If "you don't know what the patent situation is going to be, why plunk down $100 million... [if] you don't know who is going to be the last man standing?" But people aren't just considering traditional drugs and therapies. Church is spinning a company out of his laboratory called eGenesis that will use CRISPR to make genetic changes that would humanize pig organs and make them safe for transplant -- potentially creating a large supply of organs for transplant. In fact, due to the ease of deploying the technology to alter the human genome, scientists have widely called for restraint, too, before it is used to make genetic tweaks in people that are permanent and can be inherited by the next generation, such as by altering human embryos. While the science rushes forward, the issue of who gets credit continues along its slow, legalistic path. The U.S. has moved to a system in which patents are awarded based on who files the application first. But because Doudna filed her patent before that change, this case is


Arrest of Swedish rights worker raises questions about the future of foreign NGOs in China

for both Wang and her husband, Bao Longjun, although the charges were not immediately clear. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) Those charged include Wang Yu, China's most prominent woman rights lawyer, and her husband, Bao Longjun, who have both spent months in detention. This fall, their 16-year-old son tried to flee the country, but was forcibly returned from Myanmar. [She was a quiet commercial lawyer. Then China turned on her.] "It's a big surprise to all of us that they were charged with "subversion" which is even a stronger and more serious charge than [Nobel Peace Prize winner] Liu Xiaobo’s "inciting subversion" and could get them 10 years to life," said fellow lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan. It is not yet clear if Dahlin worked directly with any of the detained lawyers. However, the group does the type of grassroots legal work that the state seems eager to stamp out: Training lawyers to take on rights cases, from demolition and eviction to arbitrary detention. Caster said China Action suspected Dahlin was in trouble because police asked Chinese rights defenders about him during interrogations. Draft NGO law The detention also comes as China prepares to pass a new law to regulate foreign non-governmental organizations and their local partners. The law, which emanates from President Xi Jinping's National Security Commission and was reportedly inspired by similar rules in Putin's Russia, puts foreign aid groups under the supervision of the China's vast security apparatus. According to Chinese authorities, the law aims to protect the “legitimate interests” of foreign NGOs while safeguarding China’s “national security and social stability.” [Chinese law would bring civic groups under state security supervision.] Though many countries have NGO laws, China's draft law has been widely criticized for treating non-profits as threats to Party rule instead of partners in development. Many fear it will be used to silence critics. “The draft Foreign NGO Management Law seems to be based on the assumption that civil society organizations are serious threats to national security, and unfortunately, this sort of logic seems to be at play in this case as well," said William Nee, a Hong Kong based researcher for Amnesty International. "This seems to be another case in which peaceful and legitimate work is being suppressed in the name of protecting national security.” "You look at the draft NGO law and there’s definitely a concern that the Chinese government is probably looking to send a signal with


Can Japan and Korea ‘resolve’ the question of Japan’s Korean sex slaves during WWII?

South Korean students stage a protest against a recent agreement between South Korea and Japan near a statue of a teenage girl symbolizing former “comfort women” who served as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II, in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Jan. 6, 2016. (Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images) Last month, Japan and South Korea announced a historic agreement that’s supposed to “finally and irreversibly” settle grievances about the sexual enslavement of Korean women in Japanese military brothels before and during World War II. Both governments hope they’ve resolved what Korean President Park Geun-hye called “the biggest obstacle” in bilateral relations, and can move on. That’s highly unlikely, as my research suggests. The survivors and their backers have spent decades creating a powerful movement for redress — and the latest deal falls far short of their goals. What Japan and Korea agreed to In the agreement, Japan apologized and offered 1 billion yen (about $8.5 million) in taxpayer money to support the 46 surviving comfort women through a foundation run by the Korean government. Japan and Korea also pledged to cooperate on unspecified “programs to restore the honor and dignity and to heal the psychological wounds” of the former sex slaves. The Japanese government has gotten a commitment that neither state will criticize the other on the issue, including at the United Nations. They’ve also won an acknowledgment from the Korean government of the Japanese government’s concerns about a statue of a young girl that has become a symbol of the global movement to address wartime sexual slavery; in 2011, civic groups installed the statue opposite the gates of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. The Korean government agreed to discuss this statue with activists. Both governments urgently want to put the so-called comfort women issue behind them so they can restore political and economic ties. As Jennifer Lind notes, Japan has a strategic need to cooperate more closely with Korea and the United States to cope with the threat from China, which may help Japanese conservatives stomach the prime minister’s apology. Park pushed for a deal for the aging survivors in 2015, the 50th anniversary of normalized Japan-Korea ties and 70th anniversary of the end of the war. How did powerless former sex slaves make this happen? Activism by and on behalf of the former sex slaves helped turn this issue into the main sticking point


Baby carrots are not baby carrots

Americans in the 1980s, and it's even more precious now. As people have found themselves with less time to sit down at restaurants or even cook at home, convenience has guided all sorts of decisions about food, especially when there is an option that requires little more than opening a packet. "Baby carrots have transformed the way people think about carrots," said Just, the behavioral food economist. "The fact that you don't have to peel them, that it involves so little prep, is key." "Baby carrots are also small enough to fit in your mouth," he added. "They're bite-sized and ready to be eaten. They're easy." The fuzziness about the baby carrot's origins may have also helped their success. Recent marketing efforts to further boost their popularity have positioned them as an alternative to junk food, rather than a different way to eat carrots. The packaging was changed to mirror that used for potato chips. "Eat ’Em Like Junk Food," the 2010 TV, print, and digital ads suggested, likening the vegetable vehicle to Doritos and other snack foods. The campaign was a hit, boosting sales by 13 percent, succeeding, at least in part, by further disassociating baby carrots from their parent. "This is a common theme now," said Just. "We are more and more disconnected from what we eat." The truth is that it probably doesn't matter all too much whether someone understands that the smooth little 2-inch carrot cut-outs they're devouring didn't grow in the ground. Just maintains that knowing this probably wouldn't change anyone's consumption patterns, save perhaps for a small group of hardcore naturalists, since the processing involved is comparatively minimal. But that doesn't forgive the disconnect. Baby carrots, the ones that don't grow in the ground, have done more than simply boost the sales of carrot producers around the country—they have turned the carrot industry into a much more efficient and much less wasteful endeavor. At a time when most ugly vegetables go to waste in the United States, ugly carrots are carved and sold at a premium. What's more, moving the peeling process to the factory has allowed the carrot industry to make use of the scraps that used to end up in people's trash bins. "It's something pretty amazing about baby carrots that I'm sure people don't appreciate," Just lamented. "The same people probably think selecting only for regular carrots is more environmentally friendly."


No, the credit Card Act is not a free lunch

in access to credit cards by higher-risk borrowers and offsetting impact on other fees disappears. We discuss several studies in our article that do actually include the effects of the Federal Reserve regulations and which uniformly find an adverse effect on access to credit cards from the combined effect of the regulations and Card Act, especially for higher-risk borrowers: This failure to consider the anticipatory effects of the Federal Reserve’s regulations turns out to be important, as shown by Jambulapati and Stavins. [1] Examining data from the Consumer Financial Monthly survey, Jambulapati and Stavins reviewed the effect of the CARD Act on the supply of credit card credit and credit card terms. Moreover, they examined not just the period preceding the effective date of the CARD Act’s rules (February 2010) but also the earlier period of the Federal Reserve’s rulemaking. Between May 2009, when the CARD Act was signed, and February 2010, they found that banks reduced credit limits but did not close accounts at a higher rate than previously. When they expanded their inquiry to consider the possible preemptive effects of the Federal Reserve’s earlier rulemaking, however, they found that a higher fraction of accounts was closed immediately following adoption by the Federal Reserve of its rules in 2008. They also found evidence that the reduction in credit lines began during that period as well. Thus, once the Federal Reserve’s earlier rulemaking is taken into account, the two waves of regulations were associated with a reduction in both access to credit cards and credit lines, as would be predicted by the standard economic model. In addition to identifying a reduction in lending, Jambulapati and Stavins found that average interest rates rose almost two percentage points in the period preceding the effective date for most of the CARD Act’s rules. Taking into account the market responses to the Federal Reserve’s regulations as well as the Credit CARD Act, they also found reductions in credit supply, both in terms of fewer accounts and lower credit limits. Santucci also examined the effect of the CARD Act on credit limits, comparing initial credit lines for new credit card accounts in 2005 versus 2011. [2] Santucci found that the average initial credit line for a new card fell by 60% (from $5,000 to $2,000) and fell even further for the riskiest quartile of accounts, by 66.7% (to $500). Thus, as predicted by standard economics,


This is a global threat as big as climate change

A health worker prepares to remove her medical gloves at the medical centre of Doctor Without Borders (Medecin sans Frontiere (MSF) where people infected with the Ebola virus are treated in Monrovia on September 26, 2014. AFP PHOTO / PASCAL GUYOT Lawrence H. Summers This morning, I delivered keynote remarks at the release event for the Global Health Risk Framework Commission report on “The Neglected Dimension of Global Security: A Framework to Counter Infectious Disease Crises." The commission, sponsored by the National Academy of Medicine and chaired by Peter Sands, has delivered a very important report on what I think is the issue with the highest ratio of seriousness to policy preparation in the global system. Indeed, for reasons I sketched in my remarks, I believe the threat to global well-being from pandemics over the next century is comparable to the threat from global climate change. I began by expanding on why I think pandemics are such an important issue. The global mortality rate from the flu pandemic of 1918 was 7,000 times as large as from the recent Ebola outbreak. AIDS profoundly changed the human experience in Africa. No one knows the probability of a recurrence of these kinds of disasters. History is too short to permit reliable estimates and in any event conditions are rapidly changing because of scientific improvements on the one hand, and huge increases in global interconnection on the other. In the context of the Global Health 2035 report that Dean Jamison and I developed, we considered the economic benefit of mortality reduction using approaches derived from economic theory. We noted that the well established fact that people demand higher pay to accept riskier jobs demonstrates that reduced mortality risk has economic value. And we further showed that these benefits are very large relative to standard estimates of the economic impact of health interventions. In related work, Dean, Victoria Fan and I calculate the potential cost of a 1918 flu recurrence, discounted by its chance of happening. We expect to publish this work soon. On plausible assumptions, we find an expected flu cost approaching $1 trillion a year going forward into the 21st century. This underscores the urgency of doing all that can be done to counter pandemic risks. Eisenhower famously said that “in preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.” So also with the pandemic threat,


Scientists say human greenhouse gas emissions have canceled the next ice age

what might otherwise be another ice age “by at least 100,000 years.” This NASA animation shows Greenland's ice mass loss from January 2004 to June 2014. The new research is based on the idea that there are two key factors that shape whether the Earth goes into an ice age (or glacial period) or not. There’s one that humans can influence, as well as one they really can’t. The factor out of our control is the Earth’s Milankovitch cycles, which describe the erratic way in which the planet orbits the sun and spins on its axis over vast time periods. The Earth’s orbit grows slowly more and less elliptical, even as the angle of the planet’s axial tilt, and the wobble of the poles as the planet spins (much like what you see with a spinning top), also change slightly over thousands of years. All of this can affect the delivery of sunlight over different parts of the Earth and the nature of the seasons — for instance, causing summers to be colder — and thus, whether it’s possible to build up huge ice masses on land. Critically, how much sun the Earth’s northern hemisphere high latitudes receive in summer shapes whether ice can build up there over long periods, the new study says. But there’s also a second factor that’s in our control — how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. We are able to turn this knob by how many forests we cut down and how many fossil fuels we burn, both processes that transfer carbon from the land (or beneath it) into the atmosphere. An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe. Atmospheric carbon dioxide traps heat and so causes an overall warming effect, and this will happen no matter where the planet is in its various orbital cycles. And if there’s enough of it, it can counteract the tendency of these cycles to make and then unmake ice ages. “We wanted to understand what is really triggering glacial inception, and what we found is an amazingly simple function, which is the ratio between insolation around 65 north latitude and the CO2 content of the atmosphere,” Schellnhuber said. “And this is more or less summarizing the two key factors in the development of glacial cycles over the last at least 800,000


How Bowe Bergdahl’s disappearance created ripple effects in the Afghanistan war

of Green Berets took part in dangerous search operations, including one in neighboring Ghazni Province that nearly ended in disaster when his men raided a building that was rigged with explosives. Waltz suspected that the Taliban had lured his team into danger with a false tip about Bergdahl. “There wasn’t any time to check on [the tip], we just went, and I can’t over-emphasize how dangerous that us,” Waltz told Koenig. [Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to face most serious kind of court-martial in Army desertion case] Besides the physical risk to troops participating in the search missions, the recovery effort also incurred “risk to the mission,” as Bergdahl’s former battalion commander, Col. Clint Baker, testified at the September 2015 Article 32 hearing — in other words, opportunity costs. Waltz made that point last week in an interview with the web site Task and Purpose, noting that the cost of his Green Berets having to abandoned their normal duties for the Bergdahl search were impossible to calculate. The Afghanistan-based task force of the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, felt those opportunity costs too, according to a source who was part of the counterterrorism task force at the time and spoke to Checkpoint on the condition of anonymity because many aspects of JSOC’s activities remain classified. Normally responsible for planning and launching raids against insurgent and terrorist leaders, the JSOC task force in Afghanistan included Bissonnette and Owen’s SEAL Team 6 squadron, a battalion of Army Rangers, and a panoply of intelligence assets usually used to help locate and track potential targets. “Every DUSTWUN is the same — everything gets spun up,” the former JSOC source said in an interview. “We had operations cancelled that first night. I had to immediately re-task several assets to cover down on rumors and tips about Bergdahl’s location. Anything that could look at the ground was looking for Bergdahl.” “It wasn’t just intelligence assets, either,” the source added, “it was helicopters and strike forces and everything else. Preparations for HAFs [helicopter-borne raids by Rangers and SEALs] that night in the east had to be put on hold, and then for days in and days out after that, probably two to three weeks, until the intelligence began to point to him already being in Pakistan.” For 1st Battalion and the other conventional Army troops looking for Bergdahl, the opportunity costs went on much longer. Every day his


H Street’s Vendetta is swapping bocce courts for brewing equipment

Bye-bye bocce: Vendetta will replace its indoor bocce courts with a three-barrel brewing system later this year. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) H Street NE's Vendetta is swapping bocce and prosecco for house-brewed beer and Nashville hot chicken, according to chef Teddy Folkman, one of the four partners in the new venture. Most of the other details at this point, remain murky. The name of the brewpub will hopefully be announced "within the next two months," Folkman says. And as for the identity of the person manning the brewing equipment, "It's an established D.C. brewer. That's all I can say for now." Folkman has plenty of experience with good beer – he's known for his work at the Belgian beer bar and restaurant Granville Moore's – but this is his first involvement with a brewpub. "D.C.'s craft beer scene is booming right now," Folkman says. "With all the production brewers, we thought it would be fun to do something on a smaller scale." That "smaller scale" will include five house-brewed beers, including "something hoppy," a brown ale or porter, and "maybe even a light beer," Folkman says, pointing out that none of D.C.'s established breweries are making one. The final decision on styles and recipes will be left to the as-yet-unnamed brewer, he adds. Folkman expects the brewing equipment to be a central feature in the two-story building, with brew kettles and fermenters taking the place of Vendetta's two bocce courts. Folkman is planning on having eight to 10 taps at the bar, with up to five house beers, and the remainder coming from local breweries. The brewpub's non-liquid menu will be based around the Maison-Dixon Hot Chicken pop-ups that chef Adam Cox has been hosting at Capitol Lounge, which have featured super-spicy chicken, pimento grilled cheese, pickled eggs and shrimp and grits. (Folkman and Cox still have plans to turn Maison-Dixon into a standalone fast-casual concept, in addition to the brewpub menu.) Don't expect this to happen overnight, though. Folkman expects Vendetta to close later this year for the installation of the brewing equipment and redecoration, and reopen before the end of 2016 with the beer lineup and new menu in place. "The bocce courts will stay through the spring," Folkman says. "We have a bocce league here, and they've been loyal to Vendetta for years." Until the closure, Folkman will be cooking "Long Island red sauce dishes,"


The Daily 202: Should the Republican establishment worry more about Trump or Cruz winning the nomination?

laughingly: “I think she’s beautiful so I’d be happy if she’s the face of the party.” NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.: — Expect seasonable sunshine today, but we could get snow on Sunday. “Clear skies allow great views of the bright winter constellations and temperatures for evening viewing will actually not be bad (upper 30s to lower 40s),” the Capital Weather Gang forecasts. “Winds are mainly calm and lows bottom out in the upper 20s suburbs to mid-30s downtown.” — The Wizards beat the Milwaukee Bucks 106-101. (Jorge Castillo) — In his State of the State address, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) painted an upbeat picture while also making a last-ditch effort to save his Supreme Court pick and threatening to use his veto pen. In a nearly hour-long speech, “he zigged and zagged between the two seemingly incongruent roles he has alternately played since assuming his first elective office two years ago: bipartisan fence-mender and Democratic stalwart.” (Laura Vozzella and Jenna Portnoy) — For all the talk about building a new Redskins stadium at RFK, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has never met team owner Daniel Snyder. “City officials said he hasn’t even returned their telephone calls,” Jonathan O’Connell reports. “She won’t say the club’s name because she considers it offensive to Native Americans.” — People bought 50,528 homes in DC in 2015, the most in any year since the 2006 peak of the housing boom. (Kathy Orton) — Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker will be Martin O’Malley’s spin-room representative at Sunday’s debate in South Carolina. (Arelis R. Hernandez) — The Maryland General Assembly’s 90-day session began. (Ovetta Wiggins and Josh Hicks) — DC’s infrastructure received a C-minus grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. (Luz Lazo) — A piece of a rocket-propelled grenade was found in the backyard of a home in northwest D.C., causing several nearby homes to be evacuated for two hours. (Peter Hermann) — 43 percent of DC’s homeless youth are LGBTQ, according to a census for the city. (Tara Bahrampour) VIDEOS OF THE DAY: Rand Paul and Trevor Noah drank Kentucky bourbon together on “The Daily Show.” Jimmy Fallon named the pros and cons of Obama’s final SOTU: Historians discover the site of the Salem witch hangings: (@washingtonpost) A lion cub and a tiger cub are being raised together at a wildlife park in New Jersey: (NJ.com)


Main Street Morning: European court rules businesses can access employees’ private messages

operating costs, Amazon buys its own shipping company in France, and a U.S. shipping acquisition may follow. Cash Flow - Four things every small business owner should know about taxes. Entrepreneurs - An entrepreneurial sperm donor has sold so much semen that he’s made $57,000, has over 800 children and becomes a dad once a week. - A VC-backed clothing consignment start-up with 1.5 million users shuts down. - Why it costs almost nothing to open a Chick-fil-A. - An Arlington, Va.-based cyber-security start-up uses its VC money to buy out a competing start-up. - Stephen Colbert shares the secret to winning the Powerball jackpot. Retail - A supermarket will be getting rid of candy in their checkout lines. Travel - Three cards that every business traveler should have in their wallet. Finance - This is the big mistake that entrepreneurs make when meeting with investors. - How the recession affected entrepreneur financing in the best way possible. Online - Uber receives a nearly $2 billion investment from Chinese firms. - Google now has a boss for its virtual reality business. Social Media - Shares of Twitter fall to new all-time low. - Seven Instagram tools your business needs in 2016. Opportunities - The first working Hyperloop could arrive by the end of 2016. - Uber to open its platform to felons whose crimes have been reduced to misdemeanors. Around the Country - A group of small businesses in Minneapolis is pushing for citywide sick-leave policies. - An Illinois gas station has agreed to voluntarily close for 21 days and pay a fine after city inspectors were denied access to the store safe on several occasions. - Police in Sioux Falls, South Dakota see no rhyme or reason to a series of business robberies. Around the World - Canada plans to use free national parks to lure visitors and new citizens. - General Electric is cutting as many as 6,500 jobs in Europe. - A European court rules employers can read private employee messages. - A war between Saudi Arabia and Iran could spike oil prices. - Amazon will open its first cloud data storage centers in Canada. Small Business, Big Impact - A successful entrepreneur in microscopes and neckwear dies at 65. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on


This suspected supernova is 570 billion times as bright as our sun

it might be fueled by the death of a magnetar, which is a neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field that could theoretically magnify the power of an explosion. But ASASSN-15lh's brightness pushes the upper physical limits of that theory, coming dangerously close to upending it entirely. Pseudo-color images showing the host galaxy before the explosion of ASASSN-15lh taken by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) (Left), and the supernova by the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) 1-meter telescope network (Right). (The Dark Energy Survey, B. Shappee and the ASAS-SN team) In fact, during the first four months since the supernova's discovery it's released as much radiation energy as our sun would release in 90 billion years of shining. "It proves very challenging for one of the most popular models for the engine of superluminous supernova – the magnetar model – to explain," lead study author Subo Dong, an astronomer at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University, told The Post. In addition to being unusually bright, the supernova comes from a neighborhood off the beaten path: Most superluminous supernovae come from galaxies smaller and dimmer than the Milky Way with high rates of star production. But ASASSN-15lh seems to sit in a galaxy more luminous and massive than our own. Paolo Mazzali Because ASASSN-15lh is so unusual, astronomers will have to continue to study it in the hopes of pinning down its identity for certain. It could turn out to be a totally new phenomenon. Vital clues will emerge as the explosion fades out. "How ASASSN-15lh fades will reveal much more about this event and many groups of astronomers are intensely observing this object," study author and Ohio State alumnus Ben Shappee, now at the Carnegie Observatories, told The Post just after finishing a round of observations using the Magellan telescope in Chile. "There are many ground-based and space-based observatories following the evolution of ASASSN-15lh at many wavelengths, all the way from the radio through the X-rays." As the light from ASASSN-15lh fades, Shappee explained, scientists will have a better chance of seeing the object at its core. They'll also be able to figure out where it's positioned within its host galaxy. If it's in the galaxy's center, it might not be a supernova at all, but rather the result of some kind of unusual black-hole activity. "Supernovae shape the universe we live in


But ASASSN-15lh seems to sit in a galaxy more luminous and massive than our own. Paolo Mazzali Because ASASSN-15lh is so unusual, astronomers will have to continue to study it in the hopes of pinning down its identity for certain. It could turn out to be a totally new phenomenon. Vital clues will emerge as the explosion fades out. "How ASASSN-15lh fades will reveal much more about this event and many groups of astronomers are intensely observing this object," study author and Ohio State alumnus Ben Shappee, now at the Carnegie Observatories, told The Post just after finishing a round of observations using the Magellan telescope in Chile. "There are many ground-based and space-based observatories following the evolution of ASASSN-15lh at many wavelengths, all the way from the radio through the X-rays." As the light from ASASSN-15lh fades, Shappee explained, scientists will have a better chance of seeing the object at its core. They'll also be able to figure out where it's positioned within its host galaxy. If it's in the galaxy's center, it might not be a supernova at all, but rather the result of some kind of unusual black-hole activity. "Supernovae shape the universe we live in and there are still many unanswered questions about these explosions, even for the common ones," Shappee said. "Most of the elements in the world around us that are not hydrogen or helium were either created in supernovae explosions or distributed by them. Supernovae also fundamentally change how galaxies evolve when they explode by ejecting energy and momentum into their surroundings." So the study of supernovae – especially one pushing at what the laws of physics will allow – can help scientists understand why the universe looks like it does today. "The good news is that ASASSN-15lh is bright, so it is relatively easy to get high-quality observations," Dong said. "Not only us, but many other groups of astronomers are using some of the most advanced telescopes, ground and space-based, to study ASASSN-15lh. I am sure that in the near future, we will understand much more about it." Read More: Looking for alien civilizations? Check these star clusters, scientists say. Why is this famous physicist tweeting rumors about gravitational waves? This beautiful cosmic bubble is actually a dying star Scientists just smashed the distance record for quantum teleportation The new biggest thing in the universe, and why it’s a headache for scientists


Going to see the baby panda? Here’s where to eat near the National Zoo.

Walking to the National Zoo to see Bei Bei. Waiting in line to see Bei Bei. Watching Bei Bei eat bamboo. It's enough to work up an appetite. If you find yourself in need of food in the Woodley Park or Cleveland Park neighborhoods, here are some recommendations to consider, whether you want sweet or savory and whether you have kids or are just kids at heart. Cake pops from Baked by Yael. (Dayna Smith for The Washington Post) Baked by Yael Kids begging for a sweet treat? Head to this bright and cheerful bakery across from the zoo's Connecticut Avenue entrance. Lawyer turned baker Yael Krigman is the woman behind the nut-free kosher shop that serves cake pops, which are just the right size for a satisfying but not overwhelming sugar hit. You'll also find cookies, bars and bagels (baked fresh on the weekend), not to mention coffee, if you're looking to avoid the nearby Starbucks. 3000-F Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-234-9235. bakedbyyael.com. Brisket, spare ribs, pork and chicken at Fat Pete's. (Kate Patterson for The Washington Post) Fat Pete's This Cleveland Park joint sits in the upper echelon of Washington-area barbecue, with brisket, ribs, turkey, chicken and pork available on sandwiches or platters. (Vegetarians, fear not: There's smoked tofu, too.) For a bit of genre-crossing, check out the grilled cheese sandwich made with burnt ends, and where brisket bits are accompanied by an onion-bacon jam and American and Swiss cheeses. 3407 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-362-7777. fatpetesbbq.com. Chicken and waffles at Open City. (Megan McDonough/The Washington Post) Open City If you skipped breakfast during your pre-dawn rush to beat the crowds, head down Connecticut Avenue to this bustling coffee shop, bar and diner, where the morning meal is served all day. You'll find everything from omelets and chilaquiles to pancakes and waffles. Also highly recommended: the biscuit basket, with such flavors as cheddar-and-chive and honey-glazed buttermilk, available after 10 a.m. Bagel mavens will appreciate the chewy rounds provided by local purveyor Bullfrog Bagels. 2331 Calvert St. NW. 202-332-2331. opencitydc.com. Ripple For something on the casual, early end of the dinner spectrum, plop down at the bar of this Cleveland Park restaurant. From 5 to 6:30 p.m., the space doubles as a build-your-own grilled cheese bar. Bonus: You may get your second celebrity sighting of the day should you encounter executive chef Marjorie Meek-Bradley, appearing this season on Bravo's "Top Chef."


Sierra Nevada Corp. joins SpaceX and Orbital ATK in winning NASA resupply contracts

ATK, then known as Orbital Sciences, had its rocket blow up, incinerating the supplies destined for the space station. The explosion of the Antares rocket caused $15 million in damage to the launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, including a 50 to 60 foot crater. Then about eight months later, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blew up a couple minutes into flight, destroying yet another delivery to the station, and calling into question the ability of the commercial sector to deliver. Both companies vowed to fix the problems and return to flight. And in December, they both had successful launches that restored confidence in their efforts. Flying with an Atlas V rocket contracted from the United Launch Alliance, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft successfully resupplied the station. Then, just before Christmas, SpaceX launched commercial satellites into space, and also pulled off the landing and safe return of its first stage at Cape Canaveral, potentially allowing it to be re-used. [Elon Musk's SpaceX returns to flight and pulls off dramatic, historic landing.] Since the Obama administration moved to contract out the space station missions, commercial companies have flown 35,000 pounds of cargo there, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote in a blog post Thursday. “Despite critics who may have said this was a pipe dream just five short years ago, we continue to transform the way NASA does business and as a result, today we’re able to mark another significant milestone that will carry President Obama’s vision further into the future,” he wrote. He added that the agency is “firmly on track to return launches of American astronauts to the [International Space Station] from American soil on American commercial carriers.” Orbital ATK said it has delivered 16,000 pounds of cargo since 2013. “We are grateful for NASA’s continued confidence in our ability to provide reliable and affordable commercial cargo transportation services to the International Space Station,” said David W. Thompson, Orbital ATK’s president and chief executive, in a statement. Sierra Nevada is a more than 3,000-person outfit headquartered in Nevada that was one of three finalists competing to fly astronauts to the space station, known as the commercial crew program, only to be edged out by Boeing and SpaceX. Mark Sirangelo, the director of the company's space program called the loss of the commercial crew contract the company's Apollo 13 moment. The company was down, but not out and would find a way to


6th Republican debate transcript, annotated: Who said what and what it meant

on that tariff -- here's what I'm saying, China -- they send their goods and we don't tax it -- they do whatever they want to do. They do whatever what they do, OK. When we do business with China, they tax us. You don't know it, they tax us. I have many friends that deal with China. They can't -- when they order the product and when they finally get the product it is taxed. If you looking at what happened with Boeing and if you look at what happened with so many companies that deal -- so we don't have an equal playing field. I'm saying, absolutely, we don't have to continue to lose 505 billion dollars as a trade deficit for the privilege of dealing with China. I'm a free trader. I believe in it but we have to be smart and we have to use smart people to negotiate. I have the largest bank in the world as a tenant of mine. I sell tens' of millions of (inaudible). I love China. I love the Chinese people but they laugh themselves, they can't believe how stupid the American leadership is. CAVUTO: So you're open to a tariff? TRUMP: I'm totally open to a tariff. If they don't treat us fairly, hey, their whole trade is tariffed. You can't deal in China without tariffs. They do it to us, we don't it. It's not fair trade. KASICH: Neil, Neil -- can I say one thing about this. I'm a free trader. I support NAFTA. I believe in the PTT because it's important those countries in Asia are interfacing against China. And we do need China -- Donald's right about North Korea. I mean the fact is, is that they need to put the pressure on and frankly we need to intercepts ships coming out of North Korea so they don't proliferate all these dangerous materials. But what he's touching -- talking about, I think has got merit. And I'll allow putting that tariff or whatever he's saying here... TRUMP: I'm happy to have him tonight... (LAUGHTER) KASICH: For too long -- no, for too long, what happens is somebody dumps their product in our country and take our people's jobs, and then we go to an international court and it takes them like a year or two to figure out whether they were cheating us. And guess