How the Soviet Union could make a comeback

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting in the Kremlin. (Mikhail Klementev/EPA) The downing of flight MH17 has caused attention to shift once again to the prospect of even harsher penalties being imposed upon Russia by Western countries. Up to this point, sanctions have been limited to individuals within or close to Russia’s ruling elite, as well as a few associated companies. While these sanctions may weaken support within Russia’s elite for the current course of foreign policy, the effect on economic activity in Russia has been relatively muted. The most recent discussions among European leaders led to an expansion of the existing list of Russians subject to asset freezes and visa bans. But a decision on whether to apply so-called “third tier” sanctions – that is, sanctions applied to whole sectors of the Russian economy, or export bans on technology that might be used in Russia’s defense or energy sectors – was once again postponed, although this may change if Western countries lose patience with what they consider to be Russian intransigence in Ukraine. With these discussions ongoing, it is useful to consider what might happen if Europe and the U.S. were to impose an enhanced package of economic sanctions. Aiming high A useful starting point is to consider the objectives of Western policy makers in applying sanctions in the first place. The “surgical” nature of sanctions imposed so far suggests that Western governments do not intend to seriously harm Russia’s economy or its people. Instead, the array of measures so far chosen – focused as they are on individuals and entities with close ties to President Putin, his inner circle, and those with direct ties to the conflict in Ukraine – has likely been selected to inflict pain on key members of Russia’s ruling elite, in the hope that this will force them to pressure Putin to change his foreign policy. This strategy is based on certain assumptions about the nature of Russia’s political system. By focusing sanctions on the elite, Western policy makers are showing that they think it is those at the top, and not the wider electorate, who determine the direction of foreign policy in Russia. Any future escalation of sanctions to encompass Russia’s strategic sectors – defense, energy and finance – might be viewed as a logical step in ramping up pressure on the elite. Strengthening the regime But what if “”third tier” sanctions


Medical marijuana opponents’ most powerful argument is at odds with a mountain of research

buying any of this, though: Medical marijuana currently enjoys nearly 90 percent support in the state. More to the point, the notion that medical marijuana leads to increased use among teenagers is flat-out wrong. A new study by economists Daniel Rees, Benjamin Hansen and D. Mark Anderson is the latest in a growing body of research showing no connection -- none, zero, zilch -- between the enactment of medical marijuana laws and underage use of the drug. The authors examined marijuana trends in states that passed medical marijuana laws. They tracked self-reported pot use by high school students in the years leading up to and following the enactment of these laws. They conclude that the effects of medical marijuana on teen use are "small, consistently negative, and never statistically distinguishable from zero." The chart above shows the trend in teen marijuana use, as measured by state Youth Risky Behavior Surveys, in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico and Vermont. The x-axis is standardized to track the three-year periods before and after each state passed its medical marijuana law. The lines are essentially flat. I asked study co-author Daniel Rees if there were any significant changes within individual states. He told me that "no single state stood out -- the effect of massing a medical marijuana law on youth consumption appears to be zero across the board." These results are consistent with earlier research showing little change in youth pot consumption in Los Angeles after marijuana dispensaries opened there. The authors verified their work by running a number of regression tests and examining youth drug use data from other sources, too. They found that, if anything, passage of medical marijuana laws had a slight negative effect on teen use. In a forthcoming paper, Rees and Anderson hypothesize that this might be because "legalization allows suppliers to sell to adults with some assurance of not being prosecuted, while selling marijuana to a minor is still a risky proposition even with the legalization of medical marijuana." There's little doubt that, like alcohol or tobacco, marijuana use can potentially be harmful to teens, particularly to heavy users. But this paper, like others before it, provides straightforward evidence that there is no link between medical marijuana laws and teen marijuana use. If Florida's concerned citizens are truly worried about teen drug use, according to this paper they'd be better off advocating


Mayfly swarm – or “bug derecho” – signals cleaner environment

Mayflies cover everything in La Crosse, Wisc. on July 20, 2014. (Joey Hulett via NWS) The millions of mayflies that lit up the La Crosse, Wisc., weather radar on July 20 are a sign that the water of the Mississippi River is markedly cleaner than just a few decades ago. In the 1980s, the Mississippi was so polluted that the bugs virtually disappeared according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency: For the delicate mayfly — which is sensitive to chemical pollutants, increases in sediment and decreases in oxygen levels in the water — pollution ensured the collapse of their populations. By the 1980s, mayfly hatches had disappeared from rivers and streams in Minnesota. The collapse of mayflies from the aquatic food chain also meant the disappearance of stoneflies, caddis flies and even some species of fish from the Mississippi River. The mayflies suffered a similar fate in the 1950s and 1960s in portions of the Great Lakes. Lake Erie, the smallest and shallowest was in the worst shape. Erie was often described as “dead” with piles of stinking, dead fish regularly found along its shores as green, algae scum covered large parts of the lake and weeds choked many areas along the shore. Commercial and recreational fishing nearly disappeared as the algae and other pollutants killed pike, whitefish, sturgeon, and other fish. When Lake Erie’s regular spring and early summer mayfly swarms vanished, few missed them. At the time most people saw may flies as no more than a nuisance. Decomposing piles of mayflies smelled like rotten fish. Cars ran over piles of mayflies on roads, making the roads slick. Few realized that mayflies, which are about an inch long, are part of the food web for both fish and many birds. When mayflies emerge from the water for a day or so of life they are too busy mating to bite or sting. In fact, adult mayflies don’t even have mouths or digestive tracts. After depositing eggs on the water the flies die. The naiads that hatch from eggs on the lake bottom spend four years or five years there growing before leaving for their day or two of swarming and mating. By the late 1960s concern about Lake Erie’s sad shape was increasing when on June 23, 1969 oil and other waste floating on the Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland. The flames that leapt as high as


Many D.C. streets closing for U.S.-Africa summit next week

14th St. SW 12th St. SW between Independence Ave. and Maine Ave., restricted to visitors with official business and business owners and employees 13th St. SW between C St. SW and D St. SW Starting Tuesday The southbound curb lane on 15th St. NW will be closed between H St. NW and E St. NW\Pennsylvania Ave. NW The northbound curb lane on 17th St. NW will be closed between C St. NW and H St. NW Wednesday Constitution Ave. eastbound ramp from E St. (exit off the Roosevelt Bridge) to 23rd St. will be closed. All traffic must exit onto Independence Ave. and proceed to the Tidal Basin to 17th St. NW, continuing on Independence Ave. eastbound or Ohio Dr. eastbound. The two outermost lanes on the westbound side of Constitution Ave. will be closed from 19th St. NW to Henry Bacon Dr. till 6:30 p.m. The eastbound side will be open with lane restrictions to Henry Bacon. Westbound traffic on Constitution Ave. will be forced onto Henry Bacon Dr. and over the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Arlington Memorial Bridge and Rock Creek Parkway will funnel through Lincoln Memorial Circle to Henry Bacon Ave. to Constitution. From noon to 2:30 p.m., Constitution Ave. will be closed in both directions between 17th St. NW and 23rd St. NW. Traffic southbound from 18th/19th St. will be allowed to flow eastbound on Constitution Ave. NW during this time. Virginia Ave. will be eastbound only between 23rd St. NW and 18th St. NW from noon to 6:30 p.m. Virginia Ave. westbound will remain open. C St. NW will be closed between Virginia Ave. NW and 23rd St. NW from till 6:30 p.m. D St. NW will be closed between the E St. Expressway and Virginia Ave. NW till 6:30 p.m. The southbound curb lane on 19th St. NW will be closed between E St. NW and Virginia Ave. till 6:30 p.m. 20th St. NW between C St. NW and Constitution Ave. will be closed till 6 p.m. 21st St. NW between C St. NW and Constitution Ave. NW will be closed till 6:30 p.m. 21st St. NW between E St. NW and Virginia Ave. NW will be closed till 6:30 p.m. 22nd St. NW will be closed between C St. NW and Constitution Ave. till 6:30 p.m. 23rd St. NW will be closed between Lincoln Memorial Circle NW and E St. NW till 6:30 p.m.


D.C.’s ‘Chipotles of …’

With today's announcement that Venti Tre, a Chipotle-style take on Italian food, will be coming to Gaithersburg's Downtown Crown development in September, it's time to update our annual list of Chipotle wannabes. Where can you get a fast-casual, assembly-line flatbread/rice bowl/pita/pizza/salad? Pretty much everywhere. A vegan bowl from ShpopHouse with, from upper left, rice, organic tofu, sauteed minced kale, and pickled vegetables and pulverized garlic chips. (Lavanya Ramanathan/The Washington Post) The Chipotle of pan-Asian food: The Chipotle of Thai food: The Chipotle of Greek/Mediterranean food: A beef and lamb "Yeero" at GRK (Maura Judkis/for The Post) The Chipotle of Indian food: The Chipotle of Korean food: The Chipotle of Middle Eastern food: (Courtesy of &pizza) The Chipotle of pizza: The Chipotle of Italian food: The Chipotle of Chipotle: * indicates Chipotle copycats submitted in the comments and on Twitter.


PM Update: Incredibly comfortable temperatures; Space alien communication?

- Temperature Map - Temperatures: Latest D.C. area temperature map. See interactive map on our Weather Wall. We promised feel-good weather today, and the atmosphere delivered. After Baltimore airport tied a record morning low, temperatures stayed in the cool 70s across the region. If you stepped outside today to enjoy the fall-like weather, you probably would have seen folks cruising the sidewalks in sweaters and light jackets bracing against the strong breeze. 17 mph winds were recorded at Reagan National today, with gusts around 25 mph. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Wednesday): Pollen: See Matt Rogers’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter Old town on April 5, 2014 (jzhill via Flickr) Space alien communication? Alien enthusiasts are excited, but researchers are more level-headed, about bursts of radio activity that have popped up at the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. Various burst-y events have occurred at telescopes in the past, but scientists thought they might have been just a technological fluke until this recent activity at Arecibo. No one knows yet what the bursts mean, or where they’re coming from, but that also means nothing can be ruled out. Including extraterrestrials. So take this moment to imagine the unlikely possibility that aliens are trying to communicate with us Earthlings from galaxies far, far away. Arecibo Observatory Aerial View (H. Schweiker/WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF)


Why China’s investigation of Zhou Yongkang is such a big deal

as an upcoming October meeting of party leaders? “If you look carefully, the announcement says the fourth plenum will be focus on law and rule of law and process. It’s a signal being given that this time the anti-corruption campaign is different. We are looking at institutionalization of process.” —Robert Kuhn, a businessman who has personal ties with many senior Chinese leaders “It’s a way to steer the narrative away from this criticism of Xi as an authoritarian, megalomaniacal Mao figure, and casting his actions, including (the investigation of ) Zhou, as moves toward saving and changing the party.” – Chris Johnson, former top China analyst for CIA, now at Center for Strategic and International Studies What does this mean to Xi Jinping and his rule? “For Xi, it will build up his personal authority. But honestly it’s difficult for any political alliance to be formed now. And every official is worried about his own fate and they are very passive in fulfilling their duties.—Li Datong, political commentator and former editor of Freezing Point, a weekly supplement of China Youth Daily “It means that Xi gained the upper hand in this duel within the party. It is a significant victory for him and the crack-down on tigers will continue."–Zhang Lifan, an independent historian and son of a former minister in China What does it mean for the anti-corruption campaign? “No matter what the leadership’s intention was with the anti-corruption campaign, the movement has gathered its own momentum and might be difficult for anyone to control where it goes. The decision [to bring down Zhou] will only get Xi more support than opposition. But it would be dangerous for Xi to stop here, because people will be discontent, and it would look like a political maneuver rather than genuine effort to weed out corruption.”—Bao Tong, former secretary of the late premier Zhao Ziyang “Anti-corruption is a dead-end. Because the soil is bad. The system is bad. It’s not the officials who are corrupted, it’s the system. Sure, you can get rid of some corrupted officials, but more corrupted ones will come up. And it’s impossible that the authorities would change the system, because it would mean giving more power to the people to oversee those in power. We’ve reached the end of the anti-corruption campaign, bringing down a [former] standing committee member. The public is not stupid.”—Li Datong, Chinese political commentator


It isn’t just sanctions. A landmark $50 billion ruling will isolate Russia further.

on the region, explains. Russia has already balked at the ruling, with the Russian finance ministry accusing the arbitration court of being “politically biased” and questioning its jurisdiction. Fix says it is "highly unlikely" such a tactic would work. “The repercussions could be catastrophic for Russia and hurt much more than the sanctions already imposed on the country," she says. “In order to restore confidence among foreign investors, Russia would therefore be well advised to pay the award now." For one, Russia's state energy companies would likely suffer. “Both Rosneft as well as Gazprom have lots of debts abroad," Fabian Burkhardt, a PhD researcher at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at LMU Munich says. "The ruling as well as the new sanctions will make it difficult for them to refinance their credits.” But the worst-case scenario for Russia would be the seizure of its assets abroad. In an opinion piece for the Kyiv Post, Peterson Institute fellow Anders Aslund spelled out how serious that would be: “Should Russia reject the ruling, operations of Russian state companies will suffer from major disruptions, with their bank accounts, commercial ships, and cargo seized around the world. […] In fact, the economic impact of the tribunal’s judgment is likely to be greater than the cost to Russia of the sanctions.” The ruling comes at a sensitive time in Russian relations to the west, following months of heightened tensions over Ukraine and the recent Malaysia Airlines crash. On Tuesday, the European Union and the United States announced expanded sanctions mainly targeting arms deals with Russia. “It is very likely that Russians who know about this award will link it directly to the current confrontation between Russia and the West, not realizing that these legal judgments have their own independent timetables,” Angela Stent, Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University says. In the end, the arbitration award may well be seen from two very different viewpoints: While the West may accuse Russia of failing to accept its defeat in the settlement, Russia may well view the decision as part of a political game. Either way, it looks like more isolation. “Russia’s loss in the Hague was certainly not a complete surprise to Russia," Burkhardt says, "However, the unexpected sanctions in combination with the ruling will create a momentum with repercussions that are hard to predict.”


The spreading Ebola crisis is on today’s cover

Ebola is a highly infectious disease with fatality rates up to 90 percent, according to the World Health Organization. Almost 700 people have died from Ebola since February, a number of West Africa countries are in lockdown to prevent the spread of the disease, and the doctors treating the virus have begun contracting and even dying from it. Should you be worried? Read more on the Ebola outbreak here, here and here. More cover story previews from Express: The battle between D.C. cyclists and motorists is today’s cover story America’s growing issue with the mentally ill flooding jails is today’s cover story Everything you need to know about the Silver Line’s debut is today’s cover story


Blunt forces: How marijuana is changing America

weed. The data: The story: “In any case, these first curious months of the legal recreational market have laid bare a socioeconomic fault line. Resentment bubbles in the neighborhoods where marijuana has always been easy to get, where the tenant grows his weed and one of his middlemen plans his own operation and says ‘everyone wants to be a weed man now.’ The sentiment goes something like: We Latinos and African Americans from the ‘hood were stigmatized for marijuana use, disdained and disproportionately prosecuted in the war on drugs. We grew up in the culture of marijuana, with grandmothers who made oil from the plants and rubbed it on arthritic hands. We sold it as medicine, for profit and pleasure. Now pot is legalized and who benefits? Rich people with their money to invest and their clean criminal records and 800 credit scores. And here we are again: on the outskirts of opportunity.” 2. Policy decisions that liberated pot smokers in Colorado are filling rural jails in Kansas. The data: The story: “In Goodland, Kan., 20 miles from Colorado, four of the 18 men in Sheriff Burton Pianalto’s jail are there because they brought marijuana across the state line. By the end of April, Pianalto already had spent half his meals budget for the year. He’s not sure how he’ll pay for enough Lean Cuisine boxes to make it to December. It runs him $45 a day to house some kid from Minnesota or Illinois who bought weed legally in Colorado and started driving it back east on Interstate 70 to sell to friends.” 3.Those green-scrubbed “doctors” on the Venice boardwalk? They’re staying busy. The data: The story: “Captain Blue is a pot broker. More precisely, he helps connect growers of high-grade marijuana upstate to the retail dispensaries that sell marijuana legally to Californians on a doctor’s recommendation. Since 1996, when a referendum known as Proposition 215 was approved by California voters, it has been legal, under California state law, for authorized patients to possess or cultivate the drug. The proposition also allowed a grower to cultivate marijuana for a patient, as long as he had been designated a “primary caregiver” by that patient. Although much of the public discussion centered on the needs of patients with cancer, AIDS, and other diseases that are synonymous with extraordinary suffering, the language of the proposition was intentionally broad, covering any medical condition


Wonkbook: After the VA deal, Congress is back to bickering about the border crisis

costs of inaction on emissions. When should we factor in the social cost of carbon? General Mills unveils climate policies, citing impacts on bottom line. Climate change could make your next train ride a bumpy one. Chart: Other energy/environmental reads: Energy Department takes steps to plug methane leaks. Jennifer A. Dlouhy in the Houston Chronicle. Feel-good story interlude: 5. These new Russian sanctions could bite more than just Russia Sanctions target Russia's ability to develop oil resources but could cause friendly fire. ...along with expanding sanctions on the banking sector. Quotable: Russia sweats Putin's tactics. Other economic/financial reads: Export-Import Bank watchdog finds no proof of systemic corruption. Krista Hughes in Reuters. Path for avoiding U.S. taxes widens with REIT blueprint. Zachary R. Mider and Richard Rubin in Bloomberg. Ending "too big to fail" could rest on contract language. Jesse Hamilton and Silla Brush in Bloomberg. Why the economy has done better under Democratic presidents. Brad Plumer in Vox. U.S. home prices down in May, but consumer confidence strong. Chuck Mikolajczak in Reuters. Baby interlude: Wonkblog roundup Fast food workers score a big win against McDonald’s. Lydia DePillis. More guns, less crime? Not exactly. Emily Badger. Nearly three quarters of Americans think the U.S. should shelter (not rush to deport) unaccompanied minors. Roberto A. Ferdman. Democrats want to ban government contracts for companies that leave the U.S. to avoid taxes. Danielle Douglas. Medical marijuana opponents’ most powerful argument is at odds with a mountain of research. Christopher Ingraham. The U.S. spends $15B a year to train doctors, but we don’t know what we get in return. Jason Millman. IMF: Rising rates, emerging market slowdown could dampen global growth. Ylan Q. Mui. Where the biggest beer, wine, and liquor drinkers live in the U.S. Roberto A. Ferdman. The middle class is 20 percent poorer than it was in 1984. Matt O'Brien. Et Cetera Moms are winning the Common Core war. Stephanie Simon in Politico. Billions in GI bill funds go to for-profit schools. Kimberly Hefling in the Associated Press. House passes bill to speed FDA sunscreen approvals. Michelle Hackman in The Wall Street Journal. Transit agencies are getting creative. Chelsey Dulaney in The Wall Street Journal. Can better technology save the VA? David Pittman in Politico. Appeals court upholds meat-labeling rule. Benjamin Goad in The Hill. Got tips, additions, or comments? Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams and Ryan McCarthy


Winners of the 2014 PEN Literary Awards

Poet Frank Bidart (Photo copyright by James Franco). Poet Frank Bidart, cultural critic James Wolcott and playwright David Rabe are among the winners of PEN Literary Awards announced this morning in New York. The prizes from the PEN American Center, founded in 1922, also include a number of fellowships and grants totaling almost $150,000. Bidart, whose most recent collection, “Metaphysical Dog,” received a National Book Critics Circle Award in March, won the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, a $5,000 prize that recognizes an American poet’s “distinguished and growing body of work.” In their citation, the PEN judges said, “No poet of our time has so embodied conflict, creating living expressions of a consciousness moving through guilts and unmastered desires without resorting to easy resolutions.” In The Washington Post earlier this year, Elizabeth Lund wrote, “ ‘Metaphysical Dog’ is both a singular and a shared journey, one of Bidart’s strongest collections.” Wolcott, a writer for Vanity Fair, won the $10,0000 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for his most recent collection, “Critical Mass.” The PEN judges praised his sentences “that can be Swiftian in their tendency to go on and on and be chock-full of names, places, put-downs, bric-a-brac, all wrapped in a contagious pleasure in the fecundity of language, or Wildean in their concise and wicked performance of precision bombing.” While practicing a form that seems increasingly endangered, Wolcott refused to cede any ground. On the eve of the PEN award announcement, he wrote via e-mail, “Everybody bemoans the current state of literary affairs (which I guess beats going out and mowing the lawn), but I read terrific pieces all the time that don’t get talked about much because they’re in literary quarterlies or magazines that don’t have a noisy online presence, but they’re there, like little chapels off the main road, resurrected in collections such as Dave Hickey’s recent “Pirates and Farmers.” The health of the essay form might be rosier if concern trolls stopped crowding around the hospital bed wringing their hands and worrying about its future; let the patient get some air. But that also could be said about the bedside vigils over the fate of the novel, the short story and literary criticism. Writing that gives pleasure will never be lonely.” Rabe, who received a Tony Award in 1972, won the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for Master Dramatist. The judges — John


Struggling homeowners wait to get mortgage relief. And wait. And wait.

available to borrowers who ask for help. That means someone applying for HAMP must also be considered for other programs. Complying with the new rules may help explain some of the delays, industry officials said. “We have been working with servicers and other stakeholders over the last several months to get a better understanding of underlying causes of trends noted in our monthly program data," Timothy Bowler, the department's acting assistant secretary, said in a statement. "Treasury remains committed to maintaining the standards HAMP has set while the industry implements new servicing regulations so that those households facing a hardship receive the best and most timely outcome.” The new regulations were also cited in a statement provided by JPMorgan Chase, which said: "We are confident that when analyzing our HAMP pipeline with an understanding of these requirements, our performance would reinforce Chase's efforts to keep families in their homes." Other changes are underway in the industry. Several traditional lenders have scaled back their mortgage servicing operations, which collect mortgage payments. They've sold their troubled loans to less-strictly regulated specialty servicers such as Ocwen and SPS, which may be why those two firms top the list in terms of volume of unprocessed loans. Industry observers say it's taking time for specialty servicers to get up to speed on the new mortgages they've purchased. (Some federal and state regulators are closely scrutinizing these transfers, including New York's top banking regulator, Benjamin Lawsky.) Funding for HAMP came from the $700 billion that the Treasury Department used to bail out banks and other firms considered vital to the nation’s financial stability. SIGTARP, which produced Wednesday's analysis, oversees the bailout money and has consistently criticized the administration's handling of HAMP in its regular reports to Congress. HAMP was to expire at the end of 2015, but Treasury has extended it for another year. Initially, the administration projected it wold help 3 million to 4 million struggling borrowers. But only 1.4 million homeowners got a permanent modification, or about 1 out of 6 who applied for one. Many of those who entered the program during the darkest days of the foreclosure crisis were forced to drop out. Nearly 30 percent redefaulted. Of those who joined the program in 2009, about half redefaulted. The redefault rate was 40 percent for borrowers who came to the program in 2010. And it may get worse. As we reported in


How different parts of the world are responding to West Africa’s Ebola outbreak

This photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows an Ebola virus. U.S. health officials are monitoring the Ebola outbreak in Africa but say the risk of the deadly germ spreading to the United States is remote. (CDC via AP) Following news that a Liberian man with Ebola had flown to Nigeria while symptomatic with the virus, international health officials have been forced to reckon with the possibility — however remote — that Ebola could travel outside of West Africa by flight and spread the outbreak to other regions of the world. This current outbreak, which began in March, has killed nearly 700 people. As The Post explained earlier, there are some good reasons to be worried about this particular Ebola outbreak outside of the immediate region. In particular, the news that Ebola reached the densely-populated city of Lagos in Nigeria is of concern — outbreaks of the disease are usually seen in more remote areas, and this is the first time we've seen a confirmed instance of the virus traveling by air. Although there are no additional confirmed cases in Lagos beyond Liberian citizen Patrick Sawyer's death of Ebola in a now-quarantined Nigerian hospital, officials estimate that he came into contact with 59 people on his travels. Ebola -- transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person -- is incurable, and it can kill up to 90 percent of those who contract it, according to the World Health Organization. Once symptoms appear, a patient is contagious. That state can last from days after infection up to three weeks. WHO has said Here are some of the ways officials across the world are contending with the possibility of a more mobile Ebola outbreak: West Africa: Suspended flights; Ebola checks The Togo-based African airline ASKY has suspended all of its flights to and from the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone as a "precautionary measure" after Patrick Sawyer's death of Ebola in Nigeria. As the Guardian explains, Sawyer flew ASKY from Liberia to Lagos, with a stop in Togo. In Guinea, the airline will screen passengers boarding departing flights. West African health ministers met in Ghana to discuss how to respond to the deadliest ever Ebola epidemic. Doctors in Sierra Leone say some infected patients are fleeing. Hong Kong: Ebola scare prompts quarantine Although the patient eventually tested negative, Hong Kong went on high alert


Sierra Leone say some infected patients are fleeing. Hong Kong: Ebola scare prompts quarantine Although the patient eventually tested negative, Hong Kong went on high alert after the media there reported on a sick passenger with possible symptoms of the virus. According to the South China Morning Post, the passenger had recently traveled to Africa, although not in a region of the continent currently affected by the outbreak. The passenger was reportedly suffering from symptoms similar to those found in newly-symptomatic Ebola patients. Those symptoms, it should be noted, are also similar to those of the flu — dizziness, muscle pain, a sore throat and a fever, for instance. Britain: Another scare as officials warn health-care workers to be on alert A man in Birmingham, England, who showed Ebola-like symptoms after a recent trip to Nigeria was cleared of the disease. However, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has called an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss how to stop the outbreak from spreading. "At the moment we don't think any British nationals [abroad] are affected and we are fairly confident there are no cases in the U.K.," he said, adding that the virus "is a threat, it is something we need to respond to and we will be doing so," Hammond said to the BBC. The statement follows an earlier warning from Public Health England to all British doctors urging them to be aware of the symptoms of Ebola. The U.S.: Preparations for "remote" outbreak possibility underway Stephan Monroe, deputy director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters this week that "the likelihood of this outbreak spreading outside of West Africa is low,” but added that “the CDC has to be prepared for the remote possibility" of an outbreak in the United States. The agency issued a Level 2 health alert, asking health-care workers to watch for symptoms of the virus in their patients. Officials are concerned, in part, because two Americans working in Liberia have contracted Ebola. And as it turns out, Stewart (the Liberian man who succumbed to the virus in Nigeria) was planning a trip to the United States for later this month, where he has relatives. Correction: This post initially referred to Lagos as the capital of Nigeria. It isn't -- Abuja is the capital. This post has been changed to reflect that.


How patent reform’s fraught politics have left USPTO still without a boss

now enormous, with patents — which under the Constitution give creators time-limited rights to their inventions — crucial to the fates of two of the largest, best performing sectors of the U.S. economy. For bio-pharmaceuticals companies like Pfizer and Merck, a single patent can protect a hugely lucrative investment. When, for example, in 2011 the 20-year patent expired on Lipitor, sales of the cholesterol-fighting drug dropped from $8 billion a year to about a quarter of that. But in the tech world, patents are often attached to obsolete inventions and used to squeeze money from innovators. In 2012, Etsy, a site that allows people to trade homemade and crafted goods, was slapped with a "troll" lawsuit for allegedly infringing upon an obscure electronic messaging patent, shortly after completing a $40 million fundraising round. The plaintiff has also gone after AT&T, Google, Twitter and Facebook. "It really just feels like a tax on innovation," said Althea Erickson, Etsy's policy director. Those situations, to many in tech, highlight the absurdity of a patent system that seems to reflexively rubber-stamp the most trivial applications. "Twenty years ago," says John M. Whealan, the Associate Dean for Intellectual Property Studies at the George Washington University, "patent law was a tier three issue. It was niche. Now you see not just company patent lawyers get involved, but it's their CEOs, their heavy hitters." Johnson, as a leader of a group called the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, was seen by many as unduly resistant to upending the way patents are issued and enforced. When his name was floated, Johnson's opponents in the tech world responded with a tally of complaints. Johnson could be personally prickly, some tech advocates said. Moreover, Johnson might even be a Republican; in 2012, the Pennsylvania-based lawyer gave $2,500 to the Romney campaign. But mostly Johnson was seen as insufficiently committed to smashing "patent trolls," or people or companies who hold patents simply so they can extract money from those who allegedly infringe upon them, critics said. In public, he was carefully calibrated. "The innovation ecosystem in the country is extremely sensitive to changes in our patent system," testified Johnson in Congress last winter, added that it would be "best to table" a proposal pushed for by Senator Chuck (D-NY) Schumer that would expand challenges to the sort of "business method" patents common in the software-reliant financial services sector. But Johnson,


En banc D.C. Circuit upholds USDA country-of-origin labeling rule

requirements. Under Central Hudson, the government must identify a substantial governmental interest in order to regulate commercial speech. Disclosure or labeling requirements that serve to prevent consumer deception or prevent unwitting harms easily meet this requirement. Indeed, Central Hudson makes clear that commercial speech is only protected if it concerns lawful activity and is non-deceptive. So understood, most SEC financial disclosure rules, FDA and USDA food labeling requirements, consumer safety warnings, and the like are likely constitutional. The sorts of disclosure requirements put at risk by such a rule are only those, like conflicts mineral disclosure, that seek to force producers or retailers to stigmatize products so as to discourage consumers from buying them. If the government wants to influence consumer behavior in this way, it can do so with its own speech — such as through advertising campaigns and consumer education. Thus, for me, the real question in these sorts of cases is whether the government can identify a substantial interest beyond consumer curiosity or a generically asserted consumer “right to know.” If that threshold is met, straightforward and factual disclosure requirements post little problem. And why is that threshold important? Because, as I wrote before: forcing the disclosure of facts about goods or services is rarely a value-neutral act. There are always a near-infinite number of facts about a good or service that may be of interest to consumers, and yet there is only limited space to communicate such information. Label space is limited, as is the attention span of consumers. There can be too little information about a product, but also too much. When the government mandates the disclosure of specific information it is declaring that such information is more important — and is entitled to greater consideration — than other potentially relevant information about the good or service. So, for instance, when the government mandates conflict mineral disclosure, it is suggesting that consumers should care more about this than, say, the sustainability of the products, the source of labor used, the company’s environmental record or charitable giving, and so on. This is not a neutral act, and thus should be subject to constitutional scrutiny. To say that consumer curiosity, by itself, is enough to justify mandated labeling or disclosure is to greenlight mandatory disclosures on any subject under the sun. After all, if a statute or regulation mandates disclosure, this is itself evidence that somebody, somewhere,


Scottish independence vote is too close to call

Scottish actor Sean Connery waves in 2008 as he promotes his new book, “Being a Scot,” at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in Charlotte Square gardens, Edinburgh. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images) The following is a guest post from social scientist Arkadiusz Wiśniowski of the University of Southampton. ***** On 18th September, Scottish residents will go to the polls to decide whether Scotland should become an independent country. Despite a great deal of column inches and political debate the outcome of the independence referendum remains uncertain as the Yes and No campaigns enter the closing stretch. The result could have far-reaching repercussions for policymakers and citizens on both sides of the border. Polling companies regularly ask representative samples of the Scottish population how they would vote in the referendum if it “were held tomorrow.” While the polls have fluctuated quite a lot, and there has been intense debate over polling methods producing different results for the Yes and No camps, the No campaign has been in the lead in the vast majority. As part of the ESRC funded project The Future of the UK and Scotland at the ESRC Centre for Population Change, we have collected all polling data about the referendum so far. The main focus of our project is predicting levels of Scottish migration until 2021, but political forecasting has proved to be a crucial component of our task. The full context and some of the underlying methodological details are available in a recently-published paper. To forecast the outcome of the independence referendum, we use a statistical model that combines a time series model of changes in public opinion over time, which takes into account variable spacing in the timing of the polls, with another model that accounts for the percentage of responses for Yes (independence), No (status quo), and those undecided or not intending to vote. The parameters of our model are estimated by using a Bayesian approach. This provides probability distributions for all unknown parameters of the model, in particular for the shares of votes for or against independence on referendum day. Probability distributions have a great advantage over point estimates (such as means and standard deviations), or even confidence intervals, because they describe the complete uncertainty of the unknown outcome. In the figure below, the blue line indicates the time trend in the percentage of responses favoring independence (excluding undecided and those not voting) in the polls.


The federal government’s incredibly poor, misleading argument for marijuana prohibition

week. In general, the authors found a "small" IQ effect for people who had used marijuana heavily at some point in their lives, with the exception of those who showed consistent heavy use over a period of 20 years, for whom the negative effect was "medium." Again, a solid argument for a minimum age and moderate use. Substance use in school age children has a detrimental effect on their academic achievement. Students who earned D’s or F’s were more likely to be current users of marijuana than those who earned A’s (45% vs. 10%). This comes from a CDC fact sheet. ONDCP doesn't report that students who earned D's or F's are also more likely to be current drinkers of alcohol than those who earned A's (62 percent vs. 32 percent). Setting aside that there's zero causality implied in these findings, the only argument here is, again, for keeping marijuana and alcohol out of the hands of minors. Marijuana is addictive. Estimates from research suggest that about 9 percent of users become addicted to marijuana. This number increases to about 17 percent among those who start young and to 25-50 percent among people who use marijuana daily. This is from a 20-year-old paper on the addictiveness of various substances. Taking these findings at face value, the important thing to note is that the 9 percent addiction rate for marijuana users is substantially lower than the 15 percent addiction rate for alcohol drinkers and the 33 percent addiction rate for tobacco users. This comports with more recent research showing that marijuana is a relatively non-addictive substance. Or, to put it another way, marijuana is about as addictive as video gaming. Drugged driving is a threat to our roadways. Marijuana significantly impairs coordination and reaction time and is the illicit drug most frequently found to be involved in automobile accidents, including fatal ones. Undoubtedly true There are plenty of things that it is stupid to do behind the wheel, from being tired to texting. But that's a case for not doing stupid things when you drive — not a case for outlawing those things altogether. Addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco, which are legal and taxed, already result in much higher social costs than the revenue they generate. The cost to society of alcohol alone is estimated to be more than 15 times the revenue gained by its taxation. This is a


Alcohol sales in Utah have increased by more than $20 million this year

(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File) Alcohol sales in Utah have increased by $20.4 million since last year, according to data released by the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. The increase isn’t unusual, said Vickie Ashby a department spokeswoman, but it does show consumers are spending more since the recession. Year-to-date retail sales have increased 5.88 percent, from $346 million in 2013, to $367 million in 2014, according to data the department released last week. “People are back to buying more expensive products,” Ashby said, citing the growing popularity of craft beer and whiskey. Under Utah’s liquor laws, most alcohol can only be purchased from one of its 41 state liquor stores, a licensed bar or restaurant, or a packing agency, some of which are located at hotels or resorts. Beer, however, is legal to purchase from supermarkets and convenience stores as long as has less than 3.2 percent alcohol content by weight. Utah also prohibits the sale of alcohol at restaurants unless a customer has also ordered food, unless the restaurant has a “club license.” The increase in sales for more expensive products is also happening nationwide, said Jim Sgueo, president and CEO of the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association. “While we’re not selling more, we’re selling more expensive product,” he said.


The Taliban ‘waiting game’ in Afghanistan, mapped by media since 2009

Sgt. Adam Letnom, 28, of New Jersey has been deployed to Afghanistan four times. He says he is pessimistic about the future of the country as U.S. troops draw down. “I don’t think there was ever a strong hope for change in Afghanistan,” he said. Ernesto Londoño/The Washington Post The Washington Post published a strong story Tuesday out of Afghanistan, where my colleague Ernesto Londoño recently spent time with paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. The unit he embedded with has been assigned to drop into contested areas to see how Afghan troops are holding up against insurgent groups as the U.S. pulls thousands of troops of Afghanistan this summer. The story hits on a central theme: The Taliban’s perceived waiting game. “If I was an insurgent, I would wait until the Americans left and try my luck with the ANSF,” Capt. Michael Wallace told Londoño, using the acronym common for the Afghan National Security Forces. “When we’re with them, they can make us have bad days, but they’re never going to win.” American troops have long questioned whether the Taliban is planning, or able, to launch a massive offensive against Afghan troops once the coalition has pulled almost entirely out of the country. Even Gen. Joseph Dunford, the outgoing top commander in Afghanistan, expressed some uneasiness this month about the speed with which U.S. Special Operations troops will be pulled out of the war zone in coming years. That the Taliban is waiting for U.S. troops to withdraw is a long-held narrative of the Afghanistan War. It has especially been the case since late 2009, when President Obama announced a surge of tens of thousands of U.S. troops, while at the same time setting a timetable to begin withdrawing forces. Consider this an attempt to illustrate the varying ways it has come up, drawing on media reports over the last five years that hit the “waiting” theme: “Washington’s hint of an Afghanistan endgame in saying U.S. troops won’t still be there in 2017 might help win over a war-weary public, but there is no guarantee a notoriously patient Taliban won’t just wait the Americans out.” That’s the lede of an analytical piece published by Reuters shortly after Obama’s surge announcement in December 2009. The announcement had been less than 24 hours earlier, but there already was significant concern that setting a timetable was going to be an issue. “Will


Where do the latest U.S. sanctions leave Russian oil?

technically challenging future projects." The U.S. sanctions have been tailored to gradually ramp up pressure on the Russian economy — without raising the international price of oil by taking any oil production off the market. J. Robinson West, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it would be best to use sanctions as "a scalpel not a meat ax." He said it would be best to force companies to defer projects and to "avoid any impact on existing production." Exxon Mobil said Tuesday that it was still trying to figure out whether it will be forced to halt its Arctic venture. Analysts are expected to press the company in its quarterly earnings conference call Thursday. The new sanctions could also affect the business of oil service companies such as Halliburton, Schlumberger and Technip and oil giants such as Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell, which use their services. These companies have been involved in a wide array of highly technical activities. Schlumberger, for example, said in April that it had helped Russia locate oil in complicated reservoirs in western Siberia by dropping its sophisticated sensors down a well hole. To some extent, Rosneft has already been girding itself for sanctions. Just a couple of days before the U.S. sanctions announced in mid-July, Rosneft completed a deal to buy the Russian operations of Weatherford, a major international oil services firm. Pavel Molchanov, an oil analyst at the investment firm Raymond James, believes the sanctions will have "minimal" impact. "Even from a multiyear perspective, the new rules are highly unlikely to be game-changing," he said. "This is partly because of how narrow the rules are, but also because Russia has fairly well-developed capabilities in energy technology/infrastructure (though admittedly not much when it comes to unconventionals)." He says that oil service companies will be able to continue to do business as long as their equipment had been previously contracted. That might protect Exxon's Arctic exploration and drilling in Russia's massive Bazhenov shale region. Molchanov also says that it is ironic that the new U.S. sanctions on technology apply only to Russia's oil sector, leaving the natural gas sector alone. It is the natural gas weapon that Russia has used to pressure Ukraine, yet the E.U. is still reluctant to target the gas sector when Europe relies on Russia for 30 percent of its gas needs. The new sanctions could


What the rapidly urbanizing Southeast could look like come 2060

PLOS ONE, researchers with North Carolina State University and the U.S. Geological Survey have modeled some answers to at least the first question. From their work, this is what urban land cover in the region looked like in 2009: "The Southern Megalopolis: Using the Past to Predict the Future of Urban Sprawl in the Southeast U.S" by A. Terando et al. in PLOS ONE They then simulated how the picture might appear in 2060, if we assume a "business as usual" scenario in which future growth in the Southeast continues to look a lot like the recent past, with the same policies, living preferences and growth rates: A. Terando In those scenarios, land used for urban (and suburban) purposes would increase by anywhere from 101 percent to 192 percent over the next 50 years. And a completely connected megalopolis would stretch from Raleigh all the way to Atlanta: A. Terando Without "significant changes to the status quo," Adam Terando and co-authors write, we can expect the same type of growth to continue into the future, creating a picture like this one. Why might that be cause for concern? Urban sprawl increases the connectivity among urban habitats while simultaneously fragmenting non-urban habitats such as forests and grasslands. These changes have a variety of effects on species and ecosystems, including impacts to water pollution, disturbance dynamics, local climate, and predator-prey relationships [2]– [5]. Urban sprawl will also, almost certainly, influence the ability of species to respond to climate change, in as much as it creates barriers to the movement of species that cannot survive in cities and corridors for those who can. That's the ecological argument against the status quo. There are others, as well: Low-density living can come with higher energy and transportation costs for local residents, not to mention higher societal costs in building utilities and roads. It can consume rural land otherwise devoted to farming (or to people who prize rural settings). Sprawling development may also have economic consequences, for instance for social mobility. The researchers don't sound too optimistic about our chances of getting off this course: Given that urbanization has many consequences for how both humans and other species live, optimizing such growth could become a key national and regional priority, where optimization includes providing for biodiversity as well as economic development and cultural desires. However, history suggests humans, in contrast to ants and slime molds (e.g.


How Whole Foods came to be

Welcome to CapBiz A.M., your morning primer on business news with a focus on Washington. Organic growth: Growing pains Holding steady: Cooling off Global boost Up and down Spring surge Poker face Bye Bye Ballston: Opening the door: On Wall Street Investors cheered the stream of good economic news, and stocks remained largely unchanged. (Get the latest updates here) What’s on tap today Weekly jobless claims (8:30 a.m.) DC+Acumen’s Unseen Leaders event Help: Follow: Extra: Thoughts?


Egyptian media reveals just how isolated Hamas is

would "be standing next to our Palestinian martyrs as we have always done," some have called him out for his lack of criticism of Israel. Sissi may be circumspect in what he says publicly, but the shift is particularly stark when you look at Egypt's media. A video, compiled and translated by the Washington D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), shows some other criticisms of Hamas from Egyptian TV hosts: It should be noted that MEMRI is criticized for a pro-Israel stance, though it's hard to deny the power of these clips. Here's one particularly passionate segment from the popular Egyptian TV Host Osama Mounir, who, while not exactly sympathetic to Israel, says that the Hamas' demands are "deranged" and that they belong in an "asylum." Over at the Beirut-based Al-Akhbar newspaper (sometimes criticized as pro-Hezbollah by critics), Rana Harbi argues that not only is the media's anti-Hamas rhetoric clearly evident, it sometimes comes across as more broadly anti-Palestinian. Harbi zeroes in on a variety of recent comments in her post, but those made by Toufic Akasha, the owner of the pro-government Faraeen TV channel, stand out: “Gazans must rebel against Hamas today. If they don’t, then they deserve to be bombed. If Gazans revolt against Hamas, Israel will stop bombing them and the Egyptian army would support them militarily to eliminate this terror movement.” The comments have spread on social media too. For example, there's a tweet from Azza Sami, co-editor of the partially state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram, which thanks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for taking on Hamas: كتر خيرك يا نتانياهو ربنا يكتر من امثالك للقضاء على حماس اس الفساد والخيانة والعمالة الاخوانية وقسما بالله الى... http://t.co/tDfS8Ew3cA The scale of the Hamas' isolation in the Egyptian media really does seem quite remarkable. As David Kirkpatrick has noted at the New York Times, the televised criticism of Hamas has been so fierce that Israel has been broadcasting them into Gaza. And it's certainly a change from 2011. For example, just months before the chaos at the Israeli embassy in 2011, Al-Ahram was publishing photographs of the arrested Israeli-American Ilan Grapel and touting him as a "Mossad officer who tried to sabotage the Egyptian revolution" (Grapel was later released and many disputed the allegations against him). Even Mubarak, whose tolerant attitude to Israel was a source of anger by many ordinary Egyptians, put up a more critical front: He


Tennis star Caroline Wozniacki will run New York City Marathon

supposed to marry golfer Rory McIlroy in November. That plan got nixed when McIlroy broke off the engagement in May, shortly after wedding invitations were sent out. Instead, come Nov. 2, Wozniacki, a former world No. 1 and currently the 13th-ranked female tennis player, will run in the New York City Marathon. Wozniacki, 24, made the announcement Thursday on “CBS This Morning” alongside Boston Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi. “It’s always been on my bucket list to run the New York City Marathon,” she said on the show. “And kind of November opened up for me and I thought, ‘Why not tick that off?'” .@CaroWozniacki & Boston Marathon winner @runmeb at the #photobooth. They'll be running @nycmarathon w/ @NYRR! http://t.co/ztfWPTqcgi The tennis star will be running as a member of the New York Road Runners Team for Kids and has a donation page set up. “I can’t wait to trade my tennis racquet for a pair of running shoes on Sunday, November 2 and join the Team for Kids runners at the Marathon,” she wrote. “I grew up in a family where sports were a huge part of our lives, and I learned from a young age the importance of being active. I strive to inspire others to do the same. That’s why running for Team for Kids is so important to me.” Several professional athletes have run in marathons, but it typically happens after they have retired. Wozniacki won her 22nd career WTA title in early July at Instanbul and while it’s a long shot, Wozniacki still has a chance to qualify for the WTA finals held mid-October for the top eight women’s singles players in Singapore. The last notable professional tennis player to run the New York City Marathon was Amelie Mauresmo in 2010. Mauresmo, who currently coaches world No. 10 Andy Murray, retired in 2009 and finished with a very respectable time of 3:40:20. Former top 70 ATP player Justin Gimelstob crossed the finish line in 4:09:58 in the same race. Excited to get my New York on as a 1st time marathoner @nycmarathon! #TCSNYCMarathon! Support me @TeamforKids http://t.co/2TTBgg1Gc8 It's on! No turning back now!! Getting ready to run @nycmarathon. Thanks for the prep @adidasrunning #boostnyc http://t.co/kVFLomOGgZ Fellow tennis player Laura Robson of Great Britain, who is currently rehabbing from wrist injury, is clearly impressed. Athletes Meb Keflezighi and Caroline Wozniacki announce plans to run 2014 NYC marathon


Poverty consolidated and spread to the suburbs during the 2000s, report finds

or above 40 percent. Kneebone finds the number of such areas and their population rose by about three fourths. And not only did the number of such high-poverty neighborhoods rise, but so too did the share of the nation’s poor living in them. In 2000, 9.1 percent of the poor lived in neighborhoods with such concentrated poverty. By the end of the decade, 12.2 percent lived in distressed neighborhoods, with all the negative consequences associated with such living. “Various researchers have found that living in communities with a large concentration of people in poverty adds burdens to low-income families,” the Census Bureau noted in a report on poverty last month. “Problems associated with living in poverty areas, such as higher crime rates, poor housing conditions and fewer job opportunities, are exacerbated when poor families live clustered in high-poverty neighborhoods.” That report found that roughly 1 in 4 Americans live in communities with poverty rates at or above 20 percent, a lower cutoff than Kneebone’s. The South, as the census map below shows, saw some of the biggest increases in people living in such areas from 2000 to 2010. Change in people living in poverty areas from 2000 to 2010. (Census Bureau) Using a similar 20 percent cutoff, Kneebone found that while concentrated poverty is still largely a big-city problem it’s increasingly becoming a suburban one, too. The share of the suburban poor living in “high-poverty neighborhoods”—those where at least 1 in 5 are poor — grew from 27 percent to 38 percent. In other words, concentrated poverty in the suburbs rose by 11 points over the decade, as the chart below shows. The share of the suburban poor living in high-poverty neighborhoods. (Brookings) Southern suburbs saw some of the largest increases in concentrated poverty, with large increases in such neighborhoods in the suburbs of the Winston-Salem, N.C., Augusta-Richmond County, Ga., Greenville, S.C., and Atlanta metropolitan areas. While the concentration of suburban poverty worsened in most of the 100 largest metropolitan areas, a few saw declines in concentrated poverty. Those were El Paso, Tex., Baton Rouge, La., Jackson, Miss., McAllen, Tex., Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif., and Harrisburg, Pa. The analysis also finds that the character of such high-poverty suburban neighborhoods changed, too. Homeownership rates were higher, teens were dropping out of high school less and men were working more. Such populations were also more white than before, though still disproportionately minority.


The Hubble found a galaxy so huge, it acts like a magnifying glass

The massive red galaxy reveals a small spiral galaxy (in blue) behind it. (NASA and ESA) "Lensing" galaxies Now, scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have unexpectedly found the most distant lensing galaxy to date. Its light has taken 9.6 billion years to reach us (200 million light years closer than the previous record holder), and the obect it's magnifying - a tiny spiral galaxy that we can now see undergoing a surge of star formation - is 10.7 billion light years away. Kenneth Wong, one of the researchers to announce the discovery, said in a NASA press release that these cosmic magnifiers aren't all that rare. But to find outside of our stellar backyard is a special treat. "There are hundreds of lens galaxies that we know about, but almost all of them are relatively nearby, in cosmic terms," said Wong, first author on the team's science paper. "To find a lens as far away as this one is a very special discovery because we can learn about the dark-matter content of galaxies in the distant past. By comparing our analysis of this lens galaxy to the more nearby lenses, we can start to understand how that dark-matter content has evolved over time." Dark matter The lens galaxy has presumably spent the past 9 billion years bulking up on dark matter as it grew up, and today it probably looks a lot like the massive galaxies we find closer to home. But because it's so far away, the image we see of it provides a fascinating lens into the past.


The federal government’s own statistics show that marijuana is safer than alcohol

Opponents of marijuana legalization return to one particular number over and over in their arguments: the number of emergency room visits involving marijuana. This ONDCP fact sheet breathlessly reports that "mentions of marijuana use in emergency room visits have risen 176 percent since 1994, surpassing those of heroin." The Drug Enforcement Administration's "Dangers and Consequences of Marijuana Abuse," a 41-page tour-de-force of decontextualized factoids, reports that marijuana was involved in nearly half a million E.R. visits in 2011, second only to cocaine. The problem, of course, is that these numbers are meaningless without knowing how many people are using those drugs to start with. When you consider that there are approximately 70 times more marijuana users than heroin users in the United States, it makes sense that more of the former are going to the hospital than the latter. Since the government doesn't provide these comparisons in a meaningful way, I've done it myself below. The raw numbers behind the chart are in a table at the end of this post. The methodology is important here, so I hope you'll forgive a few paragraphs on where these numbers came from. For 2010, the latest year for which complete alcohol data are available, I grabbed the number of regular users from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. "Regular," in this case, means people who report using a given substance in the past month. I then grabbed 2010 E.R. visits involving these substances from the Drug Abuse Warning Network. This is a hospital reporting system that collects detailed data on all E.R. admissions involving a given drug. These E.R. visits can involve the use of multiple substances, so the numbers for each drug involve all visits for which that drug was listed as a contributing factor. Since the Drug Abuse Warning Network doesn't provide information on alcohol-related visits, I obtained the numbers for all E.R. visits involving alcohol from a 2010 National Institutes of Health report. The figures clearly show that on a per-user basis, marijuana is considerably less likely to send you to the E.R. than heroin, cocaine or meth. Marijuana users are also 75 percent less likely to face an E.R. visit than prescription drug abusers. But most surprisingly, marijuana is significantly safer to use than alcohol. For every thousand regular alcohol drinkers there are eight more trips to the E.R. than for every thousand marijuana users. Or


Families are finding alternatives to student loans

from 27 percent for the previous two school years, the report found. As the graph below shows, most of that borrowing is being done by the student. Source: Sallie Mae Ipsos Public Affairs, the market research company that conducted the survey for Sallie Mae, polled 1,601 people over the phone between April 4 and May 15. Roughly half of them were parents of 18 to 24-year-old undergraduate students, and the other half were randomly selected 18 to 24-year-old undergraduate students. College borrowing increased during the recession when some families saw their incomes cut by a job loss or savings depleted during the market crash. Many of those families may have been locked into their school choices when the market crashed, forcing them to stretch their budgets to afford the schools, Ducich says. The survey showed that high income families, those earning more than $100,000 a year, paid for 51 percent of college expenses during the latest school year by using their own savings and income, up from 45 percent the year before. Lower income families, those earning less than $35,000 a year, saw the share of costs covered by grants and scholarships increase to 45 percent from 37 percent. Of course, many graduates, and people who took out student loans but never earned their degrees, are still struggling with debt. A report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that the average student loan debt held by 25-year-olds increased to $20,926 in 2013 from $20,326 in 2012, double the average debt load from 2003. Still, a separate study released this week shows that some people with college debt are being smarter about paying them back. Delinquencies for private student loans declined to their lowest level since 2008, according to a report released Tuesday by Measure One, a data firm that looked at private loans outstanding from the six largest private student lenders. The share of private student loans in early delinquency, between 30 and 89 days late, fell to 2.97 percent in the first quarter of this year from 3.59 percent a year before. The share of loans that severely delinquent, or more than 90 days late, fell to 2.55 percent from 2.92 percent over the same time period. That may not be reflective of the greater student loan market, however, since private loans make up less than 8 percent of the $1.18 trillion student loan market.


Will sanctions work against Russia? Iran’s experience offers a few clues.

Russia's largest banks seek to reassure investors over E.U. moves that cut off access to capital markets, while Moscow announces bans on certain E.U. food imports. When the United States first threatened Russia with sanctions in April, Iranian officials reportedly cautioned the Kremlin against ignoring the American warnings. Having experienced the effect of such restrictions on their own country, the Iranians apparently advised Russia not to underestimate the possible impact. This week, the United States and the European Union imposed their strictest sanctions yet on Russia. Nevertheless, Russian officials seem confident that their nation would weather the storm. The most important questions now are: How long and how many measures will it take for Russia to feel the pressure? And even if the effects become visible — how much pressure will it take for Russia to change its policy on Ukraine? The Iranian example could be illuminating. There are some obvious similarities between Iran and Russia: Oil is an important source of revenue for both countries, and they behaved similarly confident when the danger of tougher sanctions loomed. In 2009, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called U.S. sanctions "childish"; Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the United States earlier this year, saying that sanctions would be "harmful to the national long-term strategic interests of the American state, the American people." When international pressure on Iran increased in 2009, the country could already look back at decades of experience with U.S. sanctions that had been imposed after the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979. “There was a sense of overconfidence. The Iranians did not expect that major international sanctions could be imposed without a serious backlash on the West,” says Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow on Iran at the Brookings Institution. But the Iranians had underestimated the power of concerted international sanctions. While OPEC’s oil production got back on track after the 2008 crisis, Iran’s exports and revenue declined. Sanctions took about half of Iran’s oil exports offline and cut off Iranian banks from the rest of the world. (Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration, International Energy Statistics Database and Iran Country Analysis Brief) The shock waves were massive: Iran’s economy contracted in 2012 and 2013, with the inflation rate topping 40 percent. Consequently, political debates began to emerge that led to the current negotiations on Iran’s disputed nuclear program, though their outcome is still uncertain. Could the same strategy work


How someone stricken with Ebola virus makes it back to U.S.

contracted the virus. At least one of them, CNN reported, will be moved to Emory University Hospital. Officials have not verified the information. Still, what would the journey home be like for two people who are listed in “stable but grave condition” with a virus that is said to have killed more than 700 in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since March? “There is the potential that the actual movement of the patient could do more harm than the benefit from more advanced supportive care outside of the country,” CDC director Thomas Frieden said during a press call. That’s why, according to the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, patients must be evaluated and stabilized before such a flight. The journal article, published in 1999, details the Aeromedical Isolation Team’s role and the evacuation process. It first deployed teams in 1989 when Ebola seized monkeys imported from the Philippines. The animals were quarantined and then killed in Reston, Va., according to the article. Though it’s not certain how medical teams will transport the patient, he or she will likely be accompanied on the plane by a physician, nurse and four to six medics, according to U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases protocol. Medical personnel may wear impervious suits, hoods and vinyl boots, and communicate with the patient on two-way radios. On the jet, the patient will likely be put on a stretcher inside the sealed isolation tent with a HEPA-filtered ventilation system. Drugs or fluids are administered using a needleless IV to avoid popping the plastic walls. For the same reason, no sharp tools are allowed. Within days, at least one patient will arrive at Emory where the isolation unit is “physically separate from other patient areas and has unique equipment and infrastructure that provide an extraordinarily high level of clinical isolation,” according to the hospital. CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds told Reuters she does not know of another Ebola patient treated in the U.S. There is no known cure for Ebola, according to reports. Christopher Mores, associate director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Experimental Infectious Diseases, told CNN doctors can only give IV fluids to prevent dehydration and shock as well as blood or platelet transfusions and oxygen therapy. The body’s immune system must do the work. Brantly and Writebol contracted the virus in Liberia while working with Samaritan’s Purse and Serving in Mission, according to reports.


Met Opera, unions extend contract talks

The Metropolitan Opera is always dark in summer; ongoing negotiations will determine whether a lockout of its union employees may keep it dark into the coming season. Photo credit: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri Today is the day the classical music world has been braced for all summer: the day after the Metropolitan Opera’s contracts with 15 of its unions — the musicians’ union, the stagehands’ union, the ticket takers’ union — expire. The Met, which says it faces bankruptcy if it can’t reduce its ballooning budget, threatened to lock out employees if they don’t accept the company’s proposed salary cuts. On Thursday, at the 11th hour, a federal mediator named Allison Beck was brought in to oversee negotiations that, until that point, seemed to have been conducted largely in the press. Late that night, the Met announced that the lockout deadline had been extended by 72 hours, after three unions — representing ushers, ticket takers, cleaning staff, call center workers and building engineers — managed to negotiate contracts. The talks continue. This is the most heartening progress yet in a negotiation period that has been conducted, throughout the summer, in the public eye. With blog posts, calls to the media, and a steady stream of press releases, both the unions and the Met have done their best to steer the discussion. The Met — in the person of its controversial general director, Peter Gelb — says that opera audiences are steadily declining, donations are down, and cutting salaries is the only way to stave off disaster. (This argument evokes the terms of the Minnesota Orchestra’s 16-month lockout, which started in much the same way.) The unions retaliate by saying that they are experts in their field, work punishing hours, and that their salaries alone are not to blame; the Met should take a long hard look at the cost of its new productions — many of which have not been very good. Both sides are partly right — this is why negotiation is so difficult. But the discourse in the media has amounted to a dust-cloud of response focused on a few constantly rehashed points: Peter Gelb’s statement that opera audiences are declining; the union members’ high salaries; and the idea that Peter Gelb’s expensive and supposedly bad productions are to blame for this mess. The most hysterical response is reserved for Gelb’s statement that opera audiences are declining. In recent weeks,


Colorado’s marijuana rollout has been ‘largely successful,’ Brookings report finds

successful implementation of the law, he said: - Creation of the Marijuana Inventory Tracking Solution, a system that tracks every plant grown for sale via barcode. - Vertical integration, at least initially, of cultivation, processing and manufacturing and sales. “This system initially limits the complexity of the market—in size, scope, and activities of participants—in ways that reduce the early regulatory challenges,” Hudak wrote. - Early barriers to entry, by mandating that a period of time when only existing medical marijuana businesses could sell the drug for recreational use. - Purchase limits. - Video surveillance requirements. - Using revenue to fund oversight of the industry and using the extra funds to sustain other governmental functions. Key groups across the state underwent sometimes-dramatic cultural changes necessary to the law’s implementation. Law enforcement officials, for example, are acculturating officers to legal marijuana. And the threat of federal intervention facilitated playing by the rules and communication between industry and regulators. The problems Sam Walsh, a budtender, sets up marijuana products as the 3-D Denver Discrete Dispensary prepares to open for retail sales on January 1, 2014 in Denver, Colorado. (Theo Stroomer/Getty Images) The implementation has been mostly successful, but there are some issues that need work, Hudak writes. Edibles were a common concern in Hudak’s interviews. Serving sizes and naive users can easily facilitate overconsumption. In my own trip to a retail marijuana dispensary, I observed a couple interested in purchasing a marijuana brownie. The “budtender” explained in detail to the buyer that the brownie contained six servings and that proper consumption involved dividing the brownie or biting off a small chunk. The information was correct and clear, but who eats a sixth of a brownie or a quarter of a candy bar? Moreover, people who smoke, dab, or vape marijuana experience the effects quickly. However, edibles can take 30 to 60 minutes before the consumer feels a “high.” As a result, an individual—particularly one unfamiliar with marijuana edibles—may overconsume, believing the product is ineffective. Overconsumption can have negative consequences. The state has taken steps toward fixing the problem, but more needs to be done, he writes. The act of growing pot at home needs to be better regulated, too, he says. And some incentives need to be ironed out. Higher taxes on legal pot drive users toward the medical market, defeating part of the purpose of legalizing recreational use. And tourists are driven


Feel free to Instagram the Oval Room’s revamp (and new menu)

with others, too." Among those photo-worthy new additions: a series of bar snacks (fry bread, duck confit tater tots), a new Asian-inspired menu with char-grilled octopus, ginger-saffron marinated lobster, and crab salad with peach cocktail sauce, and a list of cocktails that reads like a Lou Bega song (They're named Monika, Rosalie, Alejandra, and Scarlett, among others). That's in addition to the sleek and modern new lighting fixtures, a marble bar, and bold abstract and representational art that now covers the walls, thanks to Martin Vahtra, who designed sister restaurants Rasika West End and NoPa. And to the commenter on Tom Sietsema's chat who inquired about the ladies' room -- yes, it's gotten a facelift, too. The goal, said Knightsbridge Restaurant Group owner Ashok Bajaj, was to update the dated space so that both millennials and power lunchers would feel at home. A glimpse of the dining room at the Oval Room. "Even the power diners ... everybody wants a little more relaxed restaurant," said Bajaj. But the new look doesn't mean that the proper service from the old version of the restaurant will go away: "We’re not compromising on what our goals are here at all, in a fine dining way." The first step towards bringing in a younger crowd was revamping the bar, which used to be an afterthought. "Before, there was no real bar, it was just something in the way of getting to the dining room," said Stilwell. "Now the bar is very much a focal point of the restaurant." It will also host the restaurant's first-ever happy hour, from 5-6:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, when diners can get 20 percent off of all drinks. The deal applies to the patio, too. Bar snacks will be an affordable $4-$7 and fine-dining deals abound: A four-course tasting menu is $60 ($90 with beverage pairings), and an entree-drink-dessert deal for lunch at the bar is $20. Beet salad with wasabi and blackberry vinaigrette at the Oval Room. Now that the renovation is complete, Bajaj says he's contemplating his next restaurant and scoping out locations. He offered no hints as to where it will be located, but said that it will likely be an Asian concept. Check out the Oval Room's new menus, below. The Oval Room, 800 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. 202-463-8700. (Metro: Farragut West). Opening Monday, Aug. 4. Oval Room Dinner Menu Oval Room Dessert Menu Oval Room Lunch Menu.


Former Va. senator James Webb to headline Democratic event in Iowa

Then-Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) poses for a portrait in 2012. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) To the long list of politicians dipping their toes into the presidential waters of Iowa, add James Webb. The former Democratic senator from Virginia will visit Iowa this month, home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. Webb is slated to headline an evening event for the Linn Phoenix Club, a Democratic group in Cedar Rapids, on Aug. 20, according to an invitation obtained by The Washington Post. Tickets for what's billed as "a very special" event, to be held at a local union hall, are going for $50 for club members and $100 for non-members, according to the invitation. Webb, a Vietnam War veteran and former secretary of the Navy, made headlines in May when he said in a radio interview on WAMU that he is considering a presidential run in 2016. "My wife and I are just thinking about what to do next," Webb said. "I care a lot about where the country is, and we'll be sorting that out." Webb, a prolific author, has been promoting his recently published memoir, “I Heard My Country Calling."


Europe envies how the U.S. procures tech, but it may lack the military might to mimic it

innovation, such as between the public sector, including the military, and the private sector, as well as between organizations devoted to research and those focused on products. But that free flow is supported by formal structures for information-sharing, and those are far more lacking in Europe, says Lember. He points to a case study on Denmark included in the book. That country, he says, practices "very informalized cooperation" that has made it difficult to foster those more structured exchanges. Meanwhile, as other countries rush to learn from the United States, this country has evolved. The historic examples of government-funded innovation, says Lember, involved "developing technology for some sort of mission: putting a man on the moon, or creating the Internet." But that approach led to the flourishing of all sorts of accidental, tangential innovations -- the online economy, telemedicine, the Space Pen. The focus now in innovation circles is, he says, on "how we can redesign our institutions so that these spillovers are intentional." There, too, the United States is ahead, says Lember. In recent years a pack of venture capital-like firms have spun off from the defense and intelligence sectors, such as the CIA's In-Q-Tel, the U.S. Army's OnPoint Technologies and the Department of Defense's Rosettex Venture Fund. Those entities serve as a first customer for new innovations and also help push them into the broader market. Keyhole, for example, started as an In-Q-Tel-funded company and later formed the basis for Google Earth. The "CIA model," says Lember, "may be the answer" to Europe's procurement challenges. But if so, it's a complicated one. Software and hardware flowing from an intelligence industry pipeline look different in light of the Edward Snowden revelations, he points out, especially in Europe, where many have recoiled from those National Security Agency disclosures. And Lember suggests an additional wrinkle. Despite the focus on opening the process here in the United States post-HealthCare.gov, innovation procurement has seemed to flourish in secrecy, he argues. One reason? "We tend to think the government doesn't have the right to fail, but innovation is all about failures," he says. "That's one reason why success cases have emerged from the security and defense sectors: a lot of their procurement happens out of public sight." Procurement is a difficult job, Lember says his research has taught him. In governments all over the world, people are forced to learn it on the job.


Why you’re not going to get Ebola in the U.S.

As the worst Ebola outbreak in history unfolds in West Africa, The Post's Joel Achenbach explains how the deadly virus wreaks havoc on the human body. The plan to bring two Americans stricken by the Ebola virus back to the United States for treatment has sparked a backlash on social media from some people terrified that the incurable disease will spread here as it has in western Africa. “Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S.," Donald Trump tweeted Friday. "Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!” This mystifies infectious disease experts, who consider the viruses that cause Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and bird flu much more contagious — and therefore more dangerous to the public. Transmission of Ebola requires direct contact with an infected person's blood, vomit or feces during the period that he or she is contagious, something that is extremely unlikely for anyone but health-care workers. The virus is not spread by coughing or sneezing. Nor do Americans bury their own dead family members or friends, as some residents of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea must do with Ebola victims. "There is zero danger to the U.S. public from these [two] cases or the Ebola outbreak in general," said Amesh Adalja, a member of the public health committee of the Infectious Disease Society of America and an infectious disease doctor at the University of Pittsburgh. "People who have Ebola are not walking around on the street. They are very, very sick and pretty much confined to a hospital and to a bed," he added. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at the daily briefing on Thursday that the Centers for Disease Control does not expect the Ebola virus to spread if it reaches the U.S. but are still taking precautions. But what if you find yourself on an airplane, or in a hospital waiting room, with a symptomatic carrier of Ebola? What if you shake hands with an infected person whose hygiene is not perfect? Couldn't you contract it that way? Theoretically, yes, Adalja acknowledges, but here he quickly notes something that most Americans don't realize: Lassa fever, another horrifying hemorrhagic disease that kills about 5,000 people in West Africa every year, has been imported into the United States by travelers seven times in recent years, with no known case of transmission. The most recent case: 2014 2004


Coalition runs full-page New York Times ad to dispute pro-marijuana editorial

the newspaper’s editorial board advocated for an end to the federal ban on the drug. The ad, pictured below, features a businessman with the pasted-on head of a hippie, a visual metaphor for what the groups warn is the disconnected perception and reality when it comes to legalization. “The legalization of marijuana means ushering in an entirely new group of corporations whose primary source of revenue is a highly habit-forming product,” the ad reads. “Sounds a lot like another industry we just put in its place. Many facts are being ignored by this and other news organizations. Go to GrasslsNotGreener.com to see why so many major medical associations oppose marijuana legalization.” The website, which contains resources about the dangers of marijuana, is affiliated with Project SAM, which stands for Smart Approaches to Marijuana. The nonprofit was co-founded by former congressman and former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Patrick Kennedy and former Obama administration drug policy adviser professor Kevin Sabet. It advocates against legalization, but in favor of dropping mandatory minimum sentences and removing criminal penalties while expunging records for low-level users of the drug, and pushes for better access to treatment, education and prevention. The group contends that legalization risks the creation of a predatory industry “In the marijuana business, the values of the flower children have been quickly replaced by the values of Wall St. power brokers,” Sabet said in a statement. “We’re on the brink of creating the next Big Tobacco. We feel like this is an important message most Americans have not considered.” The implementation of legalization by Colorado officials–some of them at least initially opposed to it–has been described as a success, though it’s too early to assess the public health impact of the law itself. In Washington, the only other state to also legalize pot, the drug went on sale this month. Legalization is on the November ballot in Oregon and Alaska. The coalition behind the new website includes: - The American Society of Addiction Medicine, a group that boasts more than 3,000 addiction physician and professional members - The National Association of Drug Court Professionals, a nonprofit whose members include judges, attorneys and clinical specialists - National Families in Action, a group dedicated to getting state laws passed to prevent marketing of drugs and drug use to children. - Parents Opposed to Pot. Full-page New York Times ad. (Grass is Not Greener)


For perspective on FBI race, look to other federal properties

Let the competition begin. The federal government last week said it is considering three sites for a future FBI headquarters, all of them in the Washington suburbs: Greenbelt and Landover in Prince George’s County in Maryland and Springfield in Fairfax County in Virginia. The project is a rare economic development prize in a region suffering from the slowdown in federal spending, a chance to claim a high-profile tenant to anchor a new mini-city somewhere in the metropolitan area. But before anyone gets too excited about the 11,000 federal employees heading their way, it’s useful to remember big federal redevelopment programs rarely move quickly. Uncle Sam’s landlord, the General Services Administration, is bound by legal constraints every time it has to sell or lease a structure. There are historical preservation rules to be considered. Local stakeholders who should be involved. And public opinion that must be gathered. Lawmakers have long criticized the GSA for not being more efficient at managing property disposal. An audit of all federally owned assets during the George W. Bush administration identified at least 14,000 empty buildings and 55,000 more that were under-used nationwide. President Obama followed up by issuing a memo that required civilian agencies to slash $3 billion in real estate costs by 2012 — kickstarting a recent rush to downsize and sell off properties agencies no longer need. The GSA disposed of 213 properties for the government in 2013, generating $97 million in proceeds, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Overall, the government has reduced its office and warehouse footprint by more than 10 million square feet. This year, government leases expire on 10.7 million square feet of space, pitting current landlords against potential new ones. Here’s a look at several major local properties put in play in recent years that lend some perspective to the race for the FBI, and what happens when space reverts to the private sector. Old Post Office Pavilion The Old Post Office Pavilion (Tracy A. Woodward/The Washington Post) The Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, a Romanesque Revival-style building, was built in the 1890s. The 315-foot tower with sweeping views of the nation’s capital was home to the postal department’s headquarters until 1914. The structure was nearly demolished in the 1960s. But Nancy Hanks, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts under presidents Nixon and Ford, led an effort to save the building.


Report details sexual assaults, drug use and cheating by Air Force athletes

athletes in recent years. (David Zalubowski/Associated Press) On Thursday, Air Force football Coach Troy Calhoun was buying lunch for Colorado Springs residents. However, in the wake of a report today by the Colorado Springs Gazette, folks there may have lost some of their appetite for cheering on Calhoun’s Falcons. The report lists a number of actions by Air Force Academy athletes that would violate any university’s code of conduct, and certainly that of an institution whose stated mission is to train young people not just to be soldiers but exemplary citizens and leaders. The Gazette story — parts of which were substantiated by AFA documents obtained through the Freedom of Information act — includes the findings of a probe by the academy’s Office of Special Investigations into a December 2011 party. Students, including a number of athletes, gathered in the woods near the school and, according to the OSI report, a bottle of rum was passed around that was specifically meant to be consumed by women. The bottle was allegedly laced with “roofies,” a drug associated with date rapes. According to the report, a student cooperating with OSI told investigators that “four or five females did not recall what occurred the following day after the party.” At one point the party moved to a bedroom, where “multiple male cadets had sexual intercourse with other unknown females.” As a result of the probe, 32 Air Force cadets, including 16 members of the football team, received closer investigation. Ultimately, three football players and two basketball players were dismissed; of the 16 football players, seven wound up graduating from the academy. Between 2012 and 2013, two football players and a “recruited athlete” were given jail terms for sexual assaults. Documents released to the Gazette story also pointed to usage by athletes of the synthetic marijuana-like substance called “spice.” A raid by OSI investigators into dorm rooms resulted in the departure of 26 cadets, but it was unclear how many were athletes. The report also listed allegations of academic malfeasance, including cheating by cadets on exams and preferential treatment given to athletes. AFA superintendent Michelle Johnson, a former star basketball player at the academy, announced that she had asked the Air Forces’ Inspector General’s office to review the school’s athletic department. AFA Athletic Director Hans Mueh told the Gazette, “From here on, the recruiting process will be much more intensive in terms of character.”


What ordinary Africans might want prioritized during U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit

President Obama participates in a joint news conference with President Macky Sall of Senegal at the Presidential Palace in Dakar, Senegal, on June 27, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) Monday marks the official start of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the first event of its kind. The White House outlines what President Obama and his advisers hope the summit will cover: Discussions will center on how to encourage progress in key areas that Africans define as critical for the future of the continent: expanding trade and investment ties, engaging young African leaders, promoting inclusive sustainable development, expanding cooperation on peace and security, and gaining a better future for Africa’s next generation. Who is coming? Most African heads of state will be in attendance. Important exceptions are the leaders of Liberia and Sierra Leone, who have said they’ll skip the summit so they can devote their attention to the Ebola outbreak in their countries. (Guinean President Alpha Condé is expected to attend.) Also absent will be those leaders who weren’t invited, including a few notorious autocrats: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea. But as Jeffrey Smith and Todd Moss point out in an op-ed for Al Jazeera America, being a long-standing dictatorial ruler does not necessarily exclude you from the invite list. Below is a table of African leaders invited to attend the summit, sorted by their country’s most recent Polity IV scores, measures that some political scientists rely on to characterize how democratic or autocratic a state is. (Countries scored as “democracies” were excluded for brevity.) Data: White House and Polity IV. Table: Ryan McDaniel/The Monkey Cage Will the people’s interests be represented? Since the summit was announced, there have been calls to broaden the agenda. Non-governmental organizations lamented that civil society leaders weren’t originally part of the event. Analysts and activists have called for expanding discussion to include human rights and democratization issues. Given the number of leaders expected to attend who govern countries not rated by Polity IV as “democracies,” we might expect that few of the attendees will actively represent their citizens’ interests during the summit. Political scientist and executive director of the Afrobarometer E. Gyimah-Boadi implored that the U.S.-Africa Summit “listen to voices of the people.” The problem is, the people have a lot to say – even if we limit ourselves to only that which we’d


What the Ebola virus dreams about

[Been a little busy with Ebola in recent days. An American doctor has been evacuated from West Africa to Atlanta for treatment of Ebola virus disease — see our story from Saturday. The outbreak is the worst in history. We’ll stay on top of the story this week. In any case, I vaguely recalled that, a while back, I paid a visit to Fort Detrick, where scientists work on scary pathogens. My story ran Oct. 5, 1994 in the Style section. Here’s the link, but fyi it has an incorrect date. ] As the worst Ebola outbreak in history unfolds in West Africa, The Post's Joel Achenbach explains how the deadly virus wreaks havoc on the human body. As you head up I-270 toward the Blue Ridge this time of year, you will see the first suggestions of autumn: the dogwoods skewing to orange, the sycamores sprinting toward brown and gold, the maples thinking about dropping the green in favor of red. The trees seek survival, unconscious that another species might find their tactics lovely. This is a good time for a walk in the woods, to reenter the natural world, to see and smell and hear its aesthetic delights. But it’s also a good time to visit USAMRIID, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. USAMRIID is at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, at the foot of the Blue Ridge. Here, nature is small, mindless and horrifying. If USAMRIID were a store it would be called House O’ Microbes. It has a world-class inventory of bacteria and viruses. When the USAMRIID scientists and soldiers encounter nature, they do so in spacesuits in negative-pressure laboratories. If there were such a thing as the Andromeda Strain, this is where the Army would keep it. The Washington area has experts in almost everything imaginable; USAMRIID has experts in stuff we don’t even want to think about. My strict policy when it comes to viruses is to avoid them like the plague, but viruses and bacteria are big news these days. There have been recent cover stories in the newsmagazines, there’s a pneumonic plague outbreak in India, there are Hollywood producers running around with contracts for microbe disaster movies. Biosafety Level 4 positive pressure work suits hang on hooks inside the Patient Containment Lab at U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) on the grounds of Fort Detrick in Frederick,