Federal research seeks alternatives to addictive opioids for veterans in pain

home – the magnitude of the problem is huge,” Briggs said. “We believe this research will provide much-needed information that will help our military and their family members, and ultimately anyone suffering from chronic pain and related conditions.” Chronic pain disproportionately affects those who have served or are serving in the military. A June 2014 report in JAMA Internal Medicine showed an alarmingly high rate of chronic pain — 44 percent — among members of the U.S. military after combat deployment, compared to 26 percent in the general public. “Many of them are at risk for a lifetime progression of increasing disability unless the quality, variety, and accessibility of evidenced-based ‘self-management’ skills are improved,” the report said. “Without more effective and less costly approaches to pain management, the estimated costs of care and disability to the country will approach $5 trillion.” Prescription opioids are one tool for managing pain, but their greater availability and increased prescribing may contribute to their growing misuse, said Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “This body of research will add to the growing arsenal of pain management options to give relief while minimizing the potential for abuse, especially for those bravely serving our nation in the armed forces,” Volkow said. The new studies under the joint initiative include: * Jeffrey Borckardt, Ph.D., Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston. The project will evaluate the efficacy of combining transcranial direct current stimulation (constant low current delivered to specific brain areas via small electrodes placed on the scalp) with cognitive behavioral therapy (a type of psychotherapy that helps patients understand thoughts and feelings that influence behaviors) for the treatment of pain, opioid use, and related health issues. (NIDA-funded). * Helen Burgess, Ph.D., Rush University Medical Center, Chicago. The pilot study will use and test the feasibility of the use of a bright morning light treatment to reduce and help manage chronic low-back pain and improve post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, mood, and sleep in veterans to the use of chiropractors and self-hypnosis and mindfulness meditation to reduce pain. * Eric Elbogen, Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Elbogen has a joint appointment at the Durham VA Medical Center. This project will test the feasibility, acceptability, utilization, and effectiveness of using mobile devices that display real-time brain activity that veterans with PTSD and traumatic brain injury can use to induce relaxation and reduce


The FTC was built 100 years ago to fight monopolists. Now, it’s Washington’s most powerful technology cop.

its wings." The FTC no longer writes many regulations. These days, it's focused once again on its principal job — using its unfair-and-deceptive-practices authority to bring lawsuits against companies. The FTC also offers guidance to industries through reports to Congress and public workshops. The FTC in the Internet age One of the agency's first modern lawsuits dates to the dawn of the commercial Internet. In 1998, a little site known as GeoCities had amassed a user base of 1.8 million people, all of whom were busy creating personal home pages. They didn't realize that GeoCities was selling their personal information to advertisers, in violation of its own privacy policy. The FTC stepped in, forcing GeoCities to post a "clear and prominent privacy notice." Today, tech companies are a routine target. This year alone, the agency accused Amazon of wrongfully charging parents millions of dollars for in-app purchases their children made; the movie-ticket site Fandango, of failing to properly encrypt credit card transactions; and Yelp, the app for crowdsourced reviews, of collecting children's information without permission. As of August, the FTC had brought 57 cases against companies over data security. "Part of the reason the FTC has gotten heavily into Internet technology, smartphones , Internet of things, algorithms," Vladeck said, "is that's where the consumer issues are migrating." (dcjohn) As the actions pile up, agency critics worry about government overreach again. For instance, consumers may value easy in-app purchases as a feature rather than a bug. "One of the threats to the commission going forward is that there are very few people left that went through the trauma of the 1970s," said J. Howard Beales, who led the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection under President George W. Bush until 2004. "The people that went through it are universally more cautious about expansive notions of unfairness." Even when the FTC has investigated, however, the firms in question tend to get off lightly unless they're a repeat offender. Instead of a fine, many settlements involve a consent agreement that legally commits a company to certain behaviors or restrictions. Violating the consent order could trigger fines. With provisions lasting a decade or more, agency critics say the consent orders may become a form of overregulation themselves in light of how quickly today's technology can change. The flip side, of course, is that a company that's harmed its customers in the past might not


Think you drink a lot? This chart will tell you.

Drink icons via Gabriela Muniz, The Noun Project Do you drink a glass of wine with dinner every night? That puts you in the top 30 percent of American adults in terms of per-capita alcohol consumption. If you drink two glasses, that would put you in the top 20 percent. But in order to break into the top 10 percent of American drinkers, you would need to drink more than two bottles of wine with every dinner. And you'd still be below-average among those top 10 percenters. The top 10 percent of American drinkers - 24 million adults over age 18 - consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week. That works out to a little more than four-and-a-half 750 ml bottles of Jack Daniels, 18 bottles of wine, or three 24-can cases of beer. In one week. Or, if you prefer, 10 drinks per day. These figures come from Philip J. Cook's "Paying the Tab," an economically-minded examination of the costs and benefits of alcohol control in the U.S. Specifically, they're calculations made using the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) data. I double-checked these figures with Cook, just to make sure I wasn't reading them wrong. "I agree that it’s hard to imagine consuming 10 drinks a day," he told me. But, "there are a remarkable number of people who drink a couple of six packs a day, or a pint of whiskey." As Cook notes in his book, the top 10 percent of drinkers account for well over half of the alcohol consumed in any given year. On the other hand, people in the bottom three deciles don't drink at all, and even the median consumption among those who do drink is just three beverages per week. The shape of this usage curve isn't exactly unique. The Pareto Law states that "the top 20 percent of buyers for most any consumer product account for fully 80 percent of sales," according to Cook. The rule can be applied to everything from hair care products to X-Boxes. But the consequences of the Pareto Law are different when it comes to industries like alcohol, tobacco, and now marijuana. If you consume 10+ drinks per day, for instance, you almost certainly have a drinking problem. But the beverage industry is heavily dependent on you for their profits. "One consequence is that the heaviest drinkers are of


Why U.S. Bank might owe you money

bank never received authorization but started billing customers for the service anyway, according to the CFPB order. Consumers were misled into believing their credit was being monitored for fraud and identity theft, when they were not receiving all, if any, of the services. Problems with the program came to light two years ago through regulatory exams. Since then, U.S. Bank has ended the illegal billing practices, according to the CFPB. “We regret that errors occurred when our customers purchased credit monitoring and identity theft products from Affinion and its subsidiary Trilegiant,” said U.S. Bank spokesman Dana Ripley. “As soon as we became aware of the issues with Affinion, we took swift action to protect our customers, and ultimately, discontinued our relationship with Affinion approximately two years ago.” Affinion has been involved in other enforcement actions against banks, including Capital One, accused of duping customers into buying costly and unneeded services when they signed up for credit cards. The company claims the problems, at least in the U.S. Bank case, stem from a delay in the authorization process that has since been fixed. “We proactively built and implemented a solution over two years ago to obtain the required authorizations upon enrollment to our service, which allows consumers immediate access to their credit reports and credit monitoring,” said Affinion spokesman Michael Bush, in an e-mail. “This solution addresses the concerns outlined by both the CFPB and the OCC.” The CFPB hit U.S. Bank with a $5 million civil money penalty, which will go to the agency’s fund for victims relief and financial literacy. The watchdog agency is also requiring the bank to submit a new plan for complying with consumer protection laws around the marketing and sale of credit protection products. In coordination with the CFPB, the OCC levied a separate $4 million penalty against U.S. Bank. The agency also is requiring the bank to take a number of corrective measures, including developing a better risk-management program for consumer products marketed or sold by U.S. Bank or its vendors. Thursday’s order against U.S. Bank marks the seventh action the CFPB has taken against financial firms peddling credit card add-ons. Previous cases involved JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Capital One. “We have consistently warned companies about practices related to add-on products and we will do what is necessary to prevent further harm to consumers,” said CFPB director Richard Cordray, in a statement.


Mail and milk: Struggling Postal Service wants to deliver groceries

After nearly six years of multibillion-dollar losses, the U.S. Postal Service has developed a new plan to help turn its finances around: Daily grocery deliveries. The Postal Service sent its proposal to the Postal Regulatory Commission on Tuesday, seeking approval from the panel. The agency wants to begin testing on Oct. 24, with the process lasting up to two years, although it could choose to make the program permanent at a sooner date. Under the plan, USPS would work with retail partners to deliver “groceries and other prepackaged goods” to homes between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. at locations designated by consumers. Participating grocery stores would have to drop off their orders at post offices between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. If the Postal Service has its way, trucks like these will haul groceries in addition to the usual packages and letters. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) “Ultimately, the Postal Service expects this will generate more package deliveries that do not currently move within the postal system,” the agency said in its proposal. “Grocery deliveries are expanding across the nation, with several different types of companies beginning to offer this service in recent months.” USPS has not specified what its delivery prices would be, or which cities and retailers would be involved in the program. The Postal Service has already tested the program, toting groceries for Amazon.com in the San Francisco area. According to the proposal, USPS averaged 160 deliveries per day in 38 Zip codes. USPS has partnered with several retailers over the past year in an effort to generate new revenue for the cash-strapped agency. In November, the Postal Service agreed to a partnership with Amazon that allows the online retailer to ship packages on Sundays at regular rates. Previously, the agency charged an extra fee for delivering on Sundays. Also in November, USPS announced that it would team up with the Staples office-supply chain to open postal centers at 82 of its stores nationwide.


PM Update: Drizzle lingers in spots this evening before a better Friday; Four fireballs in one night

- Temperature Map - Temperatures: Latest D.C. area temperature map. See interactive map on our Weather Wall. Misty, drizzly rain is still hanging out around the region, and it will probably stay though the evening hours as the nor’easter that never was pushes away from the Mid-Atlantic. While the airports didn’t report anything more than an inch of rain, quite a few locations around the D.C. region topped one inch. Southeast D.C., totaled 1.23 inches, northern Arlington accumulated 1.58 inches, and West Falls Church, Va., saw 1.61 inches. However, Fairfax came out the big winner in the rainfall category, with a total of 2.13 inches. A lingering band of heavy rain around 5 a.m. put them over the top. Hopefully this rain watered the gardens well, because we’re looking at some nice, sunny days to come. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Friday): See David Streit’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter A gorgeous sunset on Tuesday evening. (Jim Havard via Flickr) Hey, did you see that fireball? The American Meteor Society received reports of FOUR separate fireballs on Wednesday night, over Michigan, New York/New Jersey, Tennessee, and Florida. The American Meteor Society writes: It is rare that multiple significant fireball events occur and are reported to the AMS in the same evening. After analysis of the time, proximity of witnesses and pointing data gathered, it was determined that each event was unique. It is likely that several of these fireball events were captured on camera by the NASA fireball network. Trajectories for all four events were plotted and are displayed below. Location of reports of the four fireballs on Wednesday night. (AMS)


What does it look like when children might have Enterovirus 68?

Will Cornejo, recovering at Denver's Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children on Sept. 5. (Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post) A total of 220 people in 32 states have been diagnosed with Enterovirus 68, a viral infection that can cause symptoms such as wheezing and low blood oxygen levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The respiratory illness — which is also known as Enterovirus D68 or EVD-68 — has been particularly challenging for children, many of whom are being swept into emergency rooms by frantic parents. What has mothers and fathers so worried? Here's what a few of them reported: 'Like a goldfish gasping for breath' Rachel and Rodney Nash's young son started to develop cold-like symptoms in late August, according to CNN. His condition worsened a few days later, they said. The parents told CNN "You could see him trying to pull the air in," Rachel Nash recalls. "His nostrils flared as he inhaled, and you could see the muscles in his neck and collarbone working extra hard." Rodney Nash adds, "I remember as a kid my goldfish jumped out of the bowl. That's how he looked to me -- like a goldfish gasping for breath." 'I was really scared' Maryland mother Brandi Ratajczak told WBAL-TV that she grew concerned after her son started to have difficulty breathing. "I heard these kids ending up in the ICU with it, and I was really scared," Ratajczak said. Her son, who also has asthma, made two trips to the ER, and was eventually tested for entrovirus, she said. It was unclear if the boy was battling the D68 strain, although the symptoms seemed to match, according to Ratajczak. "He was wheezing and coughing so bad he was turning blue around the mouth," she told the station. "We had some great paramedics who helped him out." 'He just passed out' Jennifer Cornejo of Colorado told Denver's ABC affiliate that her 13-year-old son, William, had cold symptoms that developed overnight into a life-threatening illness. "He was in really bad shape," she told the station. "He came really close to death. He was unconscious at our house and white as a ghost with blue lips — he just passed out." Here is how William Cornejo described it: "My head started hurting. And after that my lungs started closing up. It felt different." 'It came on very, very fast' "This was a lot more


Rising sea levels threaten Maryland’s Eastern Shore

Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, killing trees and drowning the land in its path. Greg Kahn Water spills onto Hoopers Island Road, up the coast from Crisfield, during high tide. This road, the only one connecting Hoopersville to the mainland is now washed out regularly with high tide and wind out of the south a result of a higher Chesapeake Bay. Greg Kahn Water spills onto Hoopers Island Road, up the coast from Crisfield, during high tide. The bay is a foot deeper than it was at the start of the 20th century, meaning that storm surges are higher, and land in the region is sinking. Greg Kahn Deep grooves in the sand on a beach in Crisfield show where the tide had gone out, scraping out pieces of land with it. As the sea level continues to rise, more sediment from marshes along the Eastern Shore end up polluting the Chesapeake Bay, throwing off the environmental balance. Greg Kahn A dead tree inundated with salt water, is covered by high tide in the Kent Narrows on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Greg Kahn Percy Purnell, mayor of Crisfield, MD. shows officials from the Department of Natural Resources, areas most affected by sea level rise during an emergency meeting. Tidal gates and maintenance of barrier islands are potential stop gaps for Crisfield to mitigate sea level rise in the immediate future, but few, if any solutions exist for the long term. Greg Kahn Dying Sorghum in a field destroyed by salt water. High tides are killing thousands of acres of farmland along the Eastern Shore in Maryland. Greg Kahn Phil Jackson, a longtime muskrat trapper, heads out to set traps in Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Jackson says the number of muskrats have declined since the salinity of the water in the marsh has climbed, a consequence of sea level rise. Greg Kahn A worker, caked in mud, shucks oysters from 4 – 11am weekdays in Crisfield, Md. at MeTompkin Seafood. The more oysters he cracks open, the more money he makes. Some workers can shuck 5,000 oysters a day. Greg Kahn Watermen clean crab pots and nets in Fishing Creek, Md., just north of Hoopersville. As property values plummet from sea level rise and stiffer regulations on what can be caught, young watermen on the Eastern Shore are becoming more of a rarity. Some try to continue


‘Scandal’ season 4 premiere recap: Gone Girl

her erstwhile boss proud. Huck’s maintaining a decidedly lower profile, getting his Geek Squad on over at a local, nondescript tech repair shop. Cue the PopCopy jokes: Looks like Huck went back to what he knows best. #ScandalThursday http://t.co/DV1BQghwiT When Olivia visits him to tell him she’s planning Harrison’s funeral, he makes it clear that he wants nothing to do with her unless she’s staying for good. Huck may have mastered the art of torture, but Abby throws down the gauntlet when Liv informs her that Harrison’s body has been found. “Did you fly all the way back from wherever Daddy sent you to tell me that?” Abby asks, echoing the hostility in their previous conversation. “Because you wasted a trip.” In addition to her “associates,” Liv has another person on her must-visit list: Papa Pope. Rowan knows that Olivia is in town and keeps their weekly restaurant date just in case. Despite all of the extravagant wine she had imported to her and Jake’s isle of love, she’s delighted by the glass her father’s ordered for her and sips it before she even sits down at the table. Maybe it’s the wine’s heady effect that makes her think she has any chance of getting the truth out of Rowan when she asks if he had anything to do with Harrison’s death. Rowan looks her straight into the eyes and denies any involvement. Remember, this is the same guy who promised not to harm a hair on Fitz’s head and “keeps” that promise by attacking the president’s son instead. He goes a step further and tells Olivia that he “took care” of her mother, who Olivia believes to be behind Jerry’s murder. It’s a convenient assertion — that Olivia’s international terrorist mother was responsible –but last season’s finale proved that theory wrong. Rowan even has the nerve to offer his condolences. I will allow that this is Scandal and we never actually saw Rowan (or Tom) pull the trigger. So a twist isn’t altogether out of the question. Liv does not visit her old cohorts at The White House, but news of her return reverberates there as Mellie and Fitz are still reeling from the loss of their son. During a particularly emotionally charged scene, Mellie alludes to Fitz attempting suicide after Jerry’s death. Mellie’s grief has seeped into her wardrobe. It’s a series of bathrobes and Uggs and this


Takorean, Curbside Cupcakes and other food trucks make the move to brick-and-mortar

Sam and Kristi Whitfield opened Curbside Cafe following the success of their Curbside Cupcakes truck. (Jason Hornick/For Express) Shortly after Josh Saltzman and his business partner Trent Allen rolled out their PORC food truck in 2011, Saltzman was driving the converted UPS van — loaded with brisket, pulled pork and coleslaw — down Georgia Avenue when he pressed on the brakes at a stop sign. “My foot went straight down,” Saltzman says. “The brake lines had burst and it wasn’t stopping.” Thinking quickly, he yanked the emergency brake and miraculously avoided a porktastrophe. Earlier this year Saltzman sold the truck (affectionately named Murphy, after Murphy’s law) to focus on his newer projects, including Kangaroo Boxing Club, a barbecue restaurant in Columbia Heights born from the success of PORC. “It’s bad enough I’m a plumber and a bus boy and do all the paperwork at the restaurant,” says Saltzman, who could smoke an entire brisket in the time it would take to share the stories of all the mechanical mishaps he’s endured. “I didn’t want to be a mechanic, too.” As D.C.’s mobile vending scene continues to grow (with more than 180, the District has the second-highest concentration of food trucks in the country, behind Los Angeles), food truckers are looking to brick-and-mortars as the next frontier. Today Josh Saltzman serves BBQ classics at Kangaroo Boxing Club, above, his restaurant in Columbia Heights that started out as the PORC food truck.(Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) Since D.C.’s first food truck launched in 2009, nearly 20 local food truck owners, like Saltzman, have morphed their mobile concepts into brick-and-mortar operations. Other spots include SOL Mexican Grill, Far East Taco Grille, TaKorean, Pleasant Pops and Popped! Republic. “Food trucks have provided a great stepping stone to brick-and-mortar,” says Che Ruddell-Tabisola, executive director of the DMV Food Truck Association and co-owner of the BBQ Bus, which opened a permanent outpost at Denizens Brewing Co. earlier this year. “You have assets when you go to the bank. You have Twitter followers. You have Yelp reviews. You’re less of a risk for investors.” Kristi Whitfield’s hand cramps when she thinks of the number of cupcakes she’s iced since she and her husband, Sam, launched the Curbside Cupcakes truck in 2009. Last October, the two opened Curbside Cafe in Southeast D.C., where they serve sandwiches, salads and coffee alongside their namesake confection. “If it weren’t for the food


Astronaut Chris Hadfield explains to a worried 5-year-old that Voyager is ‘brave’ and ‘happy’ all alone in space

real question is,” Hadfield tells the boy, “Is Voyager happy or not? Is Voyager a happy machine, or a sad machine?” How would you have answered this 5-year-old's question? I did my best. http://t.co/IJI6eD1HaF “And I think about that,” Hadfield says, “because I grew up on a farm, and I used tractors and machines my whole life. And then I was a pilot, and so I flew airplanes my whole life. And I really like the machines that I’m working with to be happy. And what I was thinking, Timur, was, machines really like to do something. They like to do what they’re built for.” “To me, Voyager is so happy, because it’s the bravest satellite of all. It has gone the furthest. And it’s not lonely, because it’s talking to us. It phones home. And it tells us all about the wonderful things that it’s seeing.” But Timur has follow-up questions. “What happens if it gets lost?” he repeats to Hadfield (Answer: It can always figure out where it is based on where the Earth and sun are, along with other stars). “Who would fix it if it gets broken down?” Timur asks though his mom, who sat with him for the interview. “It’s a very tough little spaceship,” Hadfield says, adding that Voyager isn’t worried about breaking but about exploring. “It’s like when I was living up on the spaceship,” Hadfield says. “I didn’t spend all my time worrying about things breaking down or myself getting sick. I was so thrilled and excited to see new things…and to be able to tell people about it.” Voyager is “loving life,” he says. “Does it make you happier?” Hadfield asks Timur at the end of his explanation. “Not really,” Timur says. But Hadfield doesn’t give up there. “Think about yourself a little bit like Voyager,” Hadfield tells the boy. “What makes you laugh? It’s not just just hiding underneath your bed safely at home.” You should definitely listen to the whole thing, here. Now, the satellite itself (or at least its NASA-run Twitter account) has taken up the task of trying to reassure Timur that Voyager is doing OK: Thanks @Cmdr_Hadfield @TheCurrentCBC for letting Timur know I'm happy & healthy. Keep exploring, my friends! http://t.co/FmE8t99R9e I'm alone, but not lonely. I talk to the Deep Space Network & carry a Golden Record of greetings from Earth http://t.co/Mott7GcAk6 (h/t Morning Edition)


The Redskins are selling World Cup beer, and Budweiser says it has ‘passed its freshness date’ (UPDATED)

Mmm not sick yet so not to skunky... I hope http://t.co/FI8WluCEJm Then I typed that code into Budweiser’s “Track Your Bud” feature on its Web site. “Your Bud has passed its freshness date,” the site told me. “Dan Westmoreland would like to buy you a fresh Budweiser. Please contact us.” (Via Budweiser) Expect 80,573 e-mails, Budweiser! Or at least 65,000, anyhow. UPDATE: “It tasted fine,” he said. “I didn’t even notice anything until my buddy said ‘Look, the World Cup.’ My buddy said ‘it’s gotta be old.’…I love the team and I’ll still support them no matter what, but it’s disappointing when you spend so much money on beer and it’s old.” UPDATE: Brewmasters around the world will tell you the fresher the beer the better the taste. This is because beer is a food product, made of all-natural ingredients. Freshness is one of the most critical elements affecting the taste of beer and its drinkability. At Anheuser-Busch, we work hard to ensure our customers receive the freshest beer available. We have strict policies of quality throughout our brewing processes and our distribution network. Additionally, we have significant product quality and tracking efforts and use “Born On” date coding and a 110-day shelf life for our major brands, including Budweiser and Bud Light. The ‘Track Your Bud’ app was created as a way for consumers to interact with the origination of their beer. We work closely with our 600-plus wholesaler network to ensure beer is handled and distributed to our product quality standards. Our wholesalers adhere to strict inventory and product rotation guidelines, using temperature-controlled warehouses and a first-in, first-out, inventory system at retail. We are working closely with the wholesaler and retailer regarding this instance. And so Washington’s defense wasn’t the only thing stale at FedEx Field on Thursday night. How many ways did the Redskins get skunked against the Giants? I mean, that was a flat performance, from the field to the fridge. The era of good feelings is rapidly reaching its expiration date. Etc. Etc. Still, there was some symmetry here. Perhaps the bottle was sold in tribute to popular teams suffering humiliating losses in front of international audiences on their home fields. (Also, at least there is no history of selling outdated concessions at FedEx Field. I mean, besides that time when the Redskins were selling peanuts from an airline that had gone out of business.)


Traffic tips for weekend events in D.C. area

at Nationals Park for the final weekend of the regular season, and D.C. United has a game in RFK Stadium at 3 p.m. Saturday. Fans should check those Metrorail schedules. Here are some tips about the other weekend activities that could affect your travels. Tour de Cure D.C. police suggest that these alternative routes for traveling into the city: Constitution Avenue NW from the Roosevelt Bridge, Interstate I-395 to the Third Street Tunnel and the Seventh Street corridor from Maine Avenue SW to Constitution Avenue NW. Because Metrorail opens at 7 a.m. on weekends, that’s not a good choice for participants. One parking area near Freedom Plaza is the Reagan Building, using the 14th Street NW entrance. That will cost $13. Sponsors say event participants will be able to park for $5 at One Parking, 1401 New York Ave. NW. D.C. police plan to close these streets between 12:01 a.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday: Pennsylvania Avenue NW from 14th Street to 12th Street and 13th Street NW from E Street to Pennsylvania Avenue. The event features routes of varying mileage. Streets along the 13-mile route are scheduled to be closed between 5 and 10 a.m. Saturday. The 33-mile and 50-mile routes include open roads and bike lanes. See route descriptions and maps on the sponsor’s Web site. Clarendon Day Clarendon Boulevard and Wilson Boulevard will be closed between Washington and Highland streets starting at 5 a.m. Saturday. North Highland will also be closed from 11th Street to the Views at Clarendon. Wilson Boulevard will be closed between Highland and North Lynn streets from 5 to about 9:15 a.m. Southbound Route 110 will be closed from 8 to 10:30 a.m. See a map showing the street closings. The nearest Metro station is Clarendon, on the Orange and Silver lines. See bus route information. Bay Bridge traffic 16th Street NW This will create a work zone allowing DDOT crews to replace concrete bus pads along 16th Street. Frontage Road SW The I-95/395 HOV lanes will again be shut for weekend work. (Robert Thomson/The Washington Post) I-395 HOV lanes The closing is partly for continued work on the 95 Express Lanes, scheduled to open early next year. But crews also will be working on the project that will add an HOV ramp at Seminary Road, near the Mark Center. Seminary Road bridge The new ramp is scheduled to be completed in fall 2015.


Verizon Center introduces new concessions, including crab cakes, fish and chips, expanded canned beer and bottomless souvenir sodas

(Photo by Jenn Rubenstein) With the Caps in the middle of their preseason schedule and the Wizards nearing the start of theirs, local fans finally are returning to Verizon Center. And they will find that Barry Trotz and Paul Pierce aren’t the only new attractions. (That’s a professional introduction, people.) As some fans already began noticing, there are a host of new concession items inside the downtown arena this season. We will have more on this story in the coming days, but for now, here’s a brief summary. Main concession food The non-premium sections, which are run by Aramark, will have several new food items. The Power Grill stands are now offering grass-fed cheddar burgers, a “Monumental” signature burger (with Monterey Jack, chipotle ranch, bacon and avocado spread on a brioche bun) and a crab cake sandwich. The Sandwich District stand in section 110 will have New York-deli-style corned beef or pastrami with coleslaw, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing or spicy mustard on rye, and also will have a build-your-own-salad feature. And a Captain Ahab’s stand in section 120 will have fish and chips, fried shrimp and chips, and a crab cake sandwich. The fish and chips and shrimp and chips are also available as Po’ boy sandwiches, with lettuce, tomato and pepper relish. There are new bottomless refills for the collector’s-edition souvenir soda cups, too. The Braden Holtby model is pictured here. (Via Monumental Sports) Main concession beer This is always a heated topic, and I don’t have all the details, but Monumental Sports says its draft beers this season will be approximately 50 percent local or seasonal. There will also be expanded-package beer options, with 15 types of canned beer at 90 percent of the arena’s stands and portable locations. I obviously will attempt to get more specific information in the near future. Club level concessions Levy Restaurants runs the premium-seating concessions, and there are also a bunch of developments on that front, including many new menu items at the Acela Club and in executive suites. For people more in my social circle, there is a new concession stand in the club level called Burger & Brews; here’s a rendering. (Via Monumental Sports) Among the new club-level concession items: a Stackhouse Burger, a grilled chicken club, Hoffman’s Big Smoke, a D.C. Smokehouse Burger, a Turkey Grind House Burger and pretzel dippers. Here’s the grilled chicken club and the


READ IN: Langley Buzz Edition

on cups. Employees at the Starbucks at the agency's Langley headquarters go through background checks and get escorted when they leave the store, and no one has a frequent-customer card because data generated by their purchases could mark them as CIA agents. Perhaps not surprisingly, it's one of the busiest Starbucks locations in the country. -- What a great kicker: "I have no idea what they do," one barista says of her customers. "I just know they need coffee, a lot of it." (Washington Post) B1: -- Large banks generate more than $1 billion a year by helping hedge funds reduce taxes, a practice that's drawn the attention of U.S. authorities. London-based banks practicing "dividend arbitrage," wherein a bank temporarily transfers ownership of shares to a low-tax jurisdiction when a dividend is expected, though U.S. regulators have questioned Bank of America about the practice. (Wall Street Journal) -- Wall Street is headed for a lower open today as futures start out down more than half a percent. Most world markets are trading lower today across Asia and Europe. (CNN) C1: -- Speech therapist Fabi Hirsch visits former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) three times a week, though Giffords still struggles with basic sentences. She rides a recumbent bike, but her right leg is still in a brace and she walks with a cane. When she was shot in 2011, Giffords was undergoing IVF treatments in hopes of getting pregnant. Now, she says, her hopes of having children are gone. "That ship has sailed," said Mark Kelly, Giffords' husband. A moving look at Giffords' life after the shooting, from USA Today. -- The RNC refused to allow former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) speak at its 2008 convention. The committee is now soliciting donations under Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) signature. The only thing standing in the way of Paul's possible presidential bid is his wife, Kelley. "Unless Kelley says no, he's running," said Douglas Stafford, Paul's top political advisor. A deep dive into the life, times and ideology of Rand Paul, from The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza. Attn Matt Drudge: -- Pro tip for journalists looking for a Drudge hit: Write about NASA's X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, which has been orbiting Earth for almost two years. This weekend's offering courtesy the New York Post. Attn HuffPo: -- Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) want an investigation into the New York Federal


CDC probing reports of paralysis in 9 Colorado children, including some with Enterovirus 68

District of Columbia and all but 10 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it has sickened more than 277 people, mostly children. The CDC said it is investigating the cases in Colorado and has called on health officials nationwide to be on the lookout for similar symptoms. They do not believe that the symptoms are related to polio, which is caused by a viral infection that leads to paralysis, because most of the children -- eight out of nine -- are fully up to date on their polio vaccinations. Of the eight that were tested by the CDC, four tested positive for Enterovirus 68, and two others were positive for different unidentified strains of an enterovirus. "This is a very small number of patients," Larry Wolk, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment told the Denver Post. "That's why we're asking if there are other cases. People shouldn't panic." The children are from the Denver area and are being treated at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, Colo., and they all reported symptoms of fever and breathing problems two weeks before developing limb weakness, according to the CDC. None have fully recovered from their symptoms, Wolk said. Outbreaks of enteroviruses and rhinoviruses, which cause the common cold, are common in the fall, and the often go undiagnosed if the symptoms are not severe. But this year, the outbreak has been worse than usual and children with asthma or other pre-existing breathing problems have been particularly hard hit. The CDC said that it expects the number of cases to wane later in the fall. The CDC's advisory asked doctors to be watchful for any acute onset of limb weakness and evidence an magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test of the spinal cord that shows large lesions on the gray matter of the spinal cord. None of the children experienced seizures or an altered mental state. While it isn't necessarily common for non-respiratory symptoms to occur with Enterovirus 68 infections, Wolk told the Denver Post that myelitis, or the infection of gray matter of the spinal cord, can occur as a complication of viral infections. "We've seen this in the past and have studied these kinds of clusters in the past," Wolk said. Earlier this year, health officials in California investigated 25 cases of polio-like symptoms in children, some of whom tested positive for Enterovirus 68.


Some good news about Ebola: It won’t spread nearly as fast as other epidemics

case of measles created 17 new secondary cases, with transmission spreading like wildfire in schools, especially. It was lethal in one in every three to four cases. At this rate, becoming infected with measles during childhood was inevitable and so were deaths. Of course, this reproductive rate isn’t the whole story of epidemics. Each case of the Spanish flu – which caused the pandemic of 1918 to 1920 that many call the worst in recent history – produced two to five additional victims. Although that’s much lower than measles, Spanish flu was still able to spread worldwide because of the speed at which it moved, also known as its generation interval. Only two to three days elapsed between the first case and a generation of secondary cases. In other words, it doesn’t take long for the flu virus to settle into a new host and a substantial number of transmissions can occur even before a person realizes that he or she has the flu. An estimated 30 to 50 million people worldwide died from the Spanish flu. 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 good news is that Ebola has a lower reproductive rate than measles in the pre-vaccination days or the Spanish flu. Our 2004 work, which produced the first estimates for Ebola’s reproductive rate by using mathematical modeling and epidemiological data from the Central African outbreaks, found that each case of Ebola produced 1.3 to 1.8 secondary cases on average. This ongoing outbreak, a colleague and I recently found, has a reproductive rate that is about the same as the last one. It hasn’t become more transmissible in the more than 10 years it was lying low — and humankind has experience in dealing with it. And the time that elapses between the first Ebola case and the generation of secondary cases is about two weeks. This should allow plenty of time to identify those who are sick and protect people who might come in contact with them. People with Ebola are contagious and able to transmit the virus only when they are showing symptoms, which occurs about a week after they are exposed to the virus. To break the chain of the current Ebola epidemic, our numbers show that health-care workers need to stop about 50 percent


U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx gets a sneak peek at Metro’s new railcars

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx speaks to workers at the Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corp. plant in Lincoln, Neb., where the next generation of Metrorail cars is being built. (Don Farrall) U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx spent a little time on the road this month touring facilities like this Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corp. plant in Lincoln, Neb., to tout the importance of investing in transportation infrastructure. Here’s a bit of what he said about his Lincoln trip on Fast Lane, the Department of Transportation’s official blog: I met some good people yesterday. Yerimi Felipe and Roxana Espino work building rail transit cars at the Kawasaki Plant in Lincoln, Nebraska. That’s 1,000 miles from Washington, DC, and it’s probably safe to say that no one in Washington knows Yerimi and Roxana. That includes the DC-area commuters who will someday be riding in the new Metro cars built in Lincoln. And that includes the Members of Congress whose decisions on transportation funding in the coming months will have a profound impact on Yerimi, Roxana, and their co-workers in Nebraska. Now why is it we here in the D.C. region might care about this factory in Lincoln? There’s a big hint in the background of this photo. Yes, those are the new 7000-series rail cars that — fingers crossed — you’ll soon be sitting in if you’re a Metro rider. Metro officials have said the first of the cars will be ready for passenger service in January. We’ll see.


Waiting for Joshua Bell at Union Station

A crowd gathered early at Union Station for the free concert by Joshua Bell. (Jessica Contrera/The Washington Post.) Seven news cameras, three velvet ropes and dozens of people are waiting for the arrival of Joshua Bell at Union Station. Two hours before the famed violinist is set to grace the makeshift stage for his free “In case you missed it” concert, white-haired ladies and moms with strollers were positioning themselves for the best possible view. The last time Bell played near a D.C. Metro — incognito, in an experiment for The Washington Post — only 27 people stopped to listen. Today at 12:30, he is scheduled to play a program of Mendelssohn and Bach. Nine students whom he mentored through the National YoungArts Foundation will be accompanying him. He is playing today to promote his new album and with the hope that this time, the beauty of the music will be the focus of the event. Regina Verow left her home in Annapolis, Md., with enough time to arrive just before 10:30 a.m. with her two daughters. She pulled the older daughter out of school just to be here. “School is important,” she said. “But this is a different kind of education.” Forty-five minutes before the show began, the students who are performing with Bell came out to play for the crowd, which had grown to more than 100 people. By the time they finished around 20 minutes later, the main hall of Union Station was so packed that the people in the back were clapping for a musical recording, not realizing that the musicians had left the room. The pre-concert crowd grew shortly after noon. (Jessica Contrera/The Washington Post.) Acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell played an incognito concert at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station in 2007 as part of a Washington Post experiment, and the world has not let him forget it. He returned to the Metro on Tuesday for a free concert at Union Station.


Alleged White House intruder Omar Gonzalez is a veteran. Does it matter?

out of his car recently, a family member told The Washington Post. Gonzalez served in Iraq as a cavalry scout, leaving the Army as a sergeant, said Wayne Collins, an Army spokesman. The soldier joined in July 1997 and was discharged in September 2003. He rejoined the service in July 2005 — not uncommon, especially at a time when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were underway — and was retired due to an unspecified disability in December 2012, Collins said. As a cavalry scout, Gonzalez likely conducted patrols in Iraq and served as the eyes and ears of his commander while observing enemy movement.He deployed at least once, from October 2006 to January 2008, and earned a Combat Action Badge, Army officials said, indicating he was engaged by enemy fighters at some point. But there are some uncertainties about his background. The New York Times reported last week that his former neighbors in Texas said he complained about a foot injury, and believed he sustained it in Iraq. The Army does not list a Purple Heart among his awards, though, raising questions about whether it occurred due to enemy action. At least one other media report has suggested the foot was injured by an improvised explosive device, attributing the information to an unnamed family member. That would qualify for the Purple Heart. Gonzalez’s case hits themes explored recently by The Post’s Greg Jaffe in a story out of Alaska: How much should Gonzalez be held accountable for his alleged actions if he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? As Jaffe’s story notes, the condition has been linked regularly to criminal behavior, especially when combined with family problems, anger and alcohol. Still, the vast majority of veterans with post-traumatic stress commit no crimes, and many have expressed frustration when PTSD is cited as a reason for other veterans who have committed crimes. Numerous pieces to that effect were written by veterans following the mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, in April that killed three people and wounded 16 more. The circumstances of Gonzalez’s case will be released over time. Until then, it may be best to reserve judgment. RELATED: During his opening remarks at a House oversight committee hearing on Tuesday, former Secret Service director W. Ralph Basham called the Sept. 19, 2014, security breach at the White House "unacceptable," but maintained that perspective was important in evaluating the incident.


Spread of enterovirus D68 takes an alarming turn with reports of paralysis: What we know and don’t know

Since doctors in Denver reported last week that several children who tested positive for the respiratory virus experienced limb weakness or paralysis, there’s been a lot of confusion about what that means. Here’s the latest on what we do and don’t know about the mystery symptom: *Ten children at Children’s Hospital Colorado who were admitted between Aug. 9-Sept. 28 have experienced “paralysis-like symptoms,” according to the Denver Post. The affected children were ages 1 to 18 with the average age being 8. *None of the children are completely unable to move but have “varying degrees of muscle weakness, difficulty swallowing, difficulty breathing, weakness in the neck and trunk, and difficulty walking,” Joyce Oleszek, a pediatric rehabilitation specialist, told the Denver Post. *It’s too early to say whether the symptoms are permanent," hospital officials said. *Four of the children in Colorado tested positive for enterovirus D68. *Their symptoms are probably not related to polio. Eight of the 10 children affected were up to date on their polio vaccinations. (D68 is related to the virus that causes polio but D68 and other viruses in the enterovirus family typically do not cause these types of symptoms.) *They don't seem to be due to West Nile either. Tests of the children’s spinal fluid came back negative for the mosquito-borne virus. *Doctors at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. are investigating three cases of children with similar symptoms, according to Bloomberg. *The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labs are backlogged with samples, but so far at least 443 people in 40 states and the District of Columbia have been confirmed as having been infected with the virus. It’s unclear how many of the children in that group are experiencing muscle weakness or paralysis symptoms as the CDC is still in the process of collecting that data. *There have been no deaths definitively linked to D68 although the New Jersey Department of Health on Monday said the CDC took samples from a four-year-old who died at home with suspicious symptoms. *A cluster of five children in California who also experienced paralysis-like symptoms was identified last year, and two of those children tested positive for EV-D68, according to CNN. *A similar cluster was reported in Victoria, Australia in 2013. The Age reported that the enterovirus they were infected with was EV71, which is different from D68 but related to it. *Since 2012, Stanford University researchers


Man fired over medical marijuana use takes case to Colorado Supreme Court

An employment discrimination case involving a former Dish Network employee fired for his medical marijuana use reached the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday. Brandon Coats, who is a quadriplegic and licensed to use medical marijuana, was fired in 2010 by Dish after testing positive for marijuana in a drug test. Coats said he was never under the influence of marijuana at work and never used it on company property, according to court documents. Still, Dish said Coats’s marijuana use violated their drug policy. Coats filed a lawsuit alleging that Dish was guilty of employment discrimination. State law protects employees from being fired for “engaging in any lawful activity off the premises of the employer during nonworking hours.” Dish filed a motion to dismiss, saying using marijuana was not “lawful activity.” A trial court found that Coats’s marijuana use was not considered “lawful activity” under Colorado law because, although medical use has been legal in the state since 2000, it’s still prohibited by federal law, court documents state. “There’s a lot of people out there like me who would like to have a job but cannot, because their impairment requires them to use marijuana, and because marijuana’s looked down on for employment, they’re not able to get jobs,” Coats told Colorado Public Radio News. Colorado allows licensed residents to obtain up to two ounces of usable marijuana for medical use, and recreational use became legal in January. However, it does not require employers to “accommodate the medical use of marijuana in any workplace.” “We’re looking for something that both employers and employees can find a reasonable, working, practical solution,” Coats’s attorney, Michael Evans, told Colorado Public Radio News. “I think we can find a way to live together and not terminate these people.”


PM Update: Chance of rain tonight, mostly cloudy on Wednesday; Fall colors seen from space

Radar lightning: Update at 10:30 p.m.: Update at 9:30 p.m.: Update at 8:30 p.m.: Original forecast: Low pressure will continue to dominate our weather tonight and Wednesday. Thunderstorms have begun to form this afternoon in far western Maryland, extending north into Pennsylvania. These storms could be a catalyst for showers in the D.C. area overnight, though the western and northern suburbs have the highest chance of seeing rain. If they do occur, showers should be limited, though a rumble of thunder cannot be ruled out. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Wednesday): See Matt Rogers’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter “Fog starting to roll across the reflecting pool just after the Washington Monument lights were turned off,” on September 28. (Richard Barnhill via Flickr) Fall colors seen from space The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite picked up this image of fall color on September 26. Vegetation can be seen turning color around Lake Superior and north of lakes Huron and Ontario. Click the image to see a larger view! Fall colors are visible from satellites around the Great Lakes on Sept. 26, 2014. (NASA)


9 attempts to explain the crazy complexity of the Middle East

Syria's civil war dragged on and the Islamic State extremist group became everyone's worst nightmare, the desire to try to explain the Middle East – in a bid to help solve its daunting problems – has grown. There have been a number of increasingly complicated attempts to illustrate the web of relationships in the Middle East. Below are nine of our favorites. Last summer, a reader of the Financial Times tried to make sense of the Middle East with a widely shared letter to the editor: A short guide to the Middle East from @FT. Mind = Blown. http://t.co/kfzJ9b1NM8 That letter seems to have sparked a trend. Within days, Egyptian blogger The Big Pharaoh made a graphical guide for "complete idiots": (Courtesy The Big Pharaoh) Not long after, Radio Free Europe made its own interactive attempt, which it updated this year (please click through to see the interactive options): (Courtesy of Radio Free Europe) Slate interactive editor Chris Kirk turned the original letter to the editor into a graphic last year. Then, a few months ago, Kirk teamed up with foreign affairs writer Joshua Keating to create an interactive "friendship chart." Again click through to see the interactive aspects of this graphic: (Courtesy of Slate) Adam Peck of Think Progress also made a chart, which he and (now former) Think Progress World editor Hayes Brown acknowledged was "terrifying": (Courtesy of Think Progress) One of the most all-encompassing (though perhaps overwhelming) attempts came from Blaise Misztal at the Bipartisan Policy Center. You can take a closer look on the center's Web site: (Courtesy of the Bipartisan Policy Center) The Economist recently presented another option: a "mosaic." This particular graphic is useful to gauge how much everyone hates the Islamic State: (Courtesy of The Economist) Perhaps the most audacious attempt yet is this graphic from British designer David McCandless. The interactive nature of this one is particularly interesting: When you click on an actor, the graphic shifts to show you that actor's specific relationships: (Via Data is Beautiful) Sometimes things come full circle. After a year of increasingly complicated and ambitious attempts to explain the Middle East's intricate web of relationships, it perhaps seems appropriate that a letter to the editor (perhaps cribbed from elsewhere) would be used to explain the Middle East. This letter ran in the Daily Mail this month: It's all here, folks RT @MrStuartLodge: Gulf War 3.0 http://t.co/Q8i9v2v1wr


So you wanna raise the minimum wage? Here’s what you need to know about the economics.

This is what the fight for $15 looks like in Los Angeles. (REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni) Every once and a while a politician or political organizer or just a concerned citizen asks me what they can do to raise the minimum wage. I’ve been thinking and researching that question for a long time, so allow me to offer some thoughts/guidelines to contemplate, based both on the economic literature evaluating the impact of past increases and my own experiences over the decades. I’ll break this into two parts, the first on the economics and the second on the politics. –Federal or sub-national: I don’t see that changing anytime soon. On the other hand, wage initiatives can still gain real traction at the state and city level. The “fight for $15” lives on, and according to the National Conference of State Legislators, “38 states introduced minimum wage bills during the 2014 session,” and “Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and D.C. have enacted increases during the 2014 session…23 states and D.C. have minimum wages above the federal [level].” Eventually the national wage floor will be increased, as it has been numerous times since its introduction in 1938. And not just when Democrats were in charge: the national minimum wage went up under both of the Bush presidencies. But for now, I’d focus most of my energy in this space on the sub-national level. –The level While opponents always claim that any increase in the minimum will lead to large numbers of job losses among affected workers, the evidence consistently belies the claim. History is quite clear on this: the vast majority of those affected by minimum wage increases benefit from them, though some analysis finds job losses at the margins. For example, in their recent analysis of the impact of the proposed increase to $10.10, the Congressional Budget Office finds that 24.5 million workers would get a raise from the proposed increase, while employment would fall by 500,000, implying that 49 low-wage workers get a pay boost from the proposal for every one job lost. And other research suggests CBO may have high-balled the job loss number. Instead, most of the increase is absorbed through the three p’s: prices, profits, and productivity. There’s a small price bump (economist Arin Dube finds that a 10 percent increase in the wage is associated with a 0.7 percent increase in prices).


READ IN: Don’t Panic Edition

moderates to the polls in higher numbers. (Kansas City Star) -- Colorado: The state Supreme Court on Tuesday considered whether use of legal medical marijuana is a "lawful" activity for which employers cannot fire employees. Justices heard arguments from lawyers for a quadriplegic man who was fired by Dish Network for using medical marijuana. Justices at times seemed perplexed: One asked attorneys what "lawful" meant; another asked for a definition of "use." Dish Network has a zero-tolerance policy on employees using illegal drugs; medical marijuana is legal in Colorado but illegal under federal law. (Denver Post) DC Digest: -- President Obama meets Secretary of State John Kerry this morning before welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House (We're sure they're both looking forward to it). This afternoon, President Obama welcomes Kansas City's Major League Soccer team, the 2013 league champions. And tonight, he flies home to Chicago before a bunch of campaign events tomorrow. Interesting aside: Air Force One will land in Gary, Ind., because the Chicago airports are still dealing with last week's fire that delayed so many flights. -- Vice President Biden attends the bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu before lunching with President Obama in the Private Dining Room. On Thursday, Biden will head to the Harvard Institute of Politics to give a foreign policy address. -- A Maryland law decriminalizing possession of a small amount of marijuana took effect at midnight. Anyone caught with marijuana in Maryland will be issued a ticket, rather than criminal charges. State troopers will use their best judgement in determining the weight of marijuana in someone's possession; fewer than 10 grams will warrant a civil citation. (Washington Post) -- The number of D.C. residents who commute to work by bicycle has doubled in the last five years, according to new Census Bureau data. For the first time in recent memory, the percentage of D.C. residents who commute by public transportation (38.5 percent) is greater than the percentage who drive to work (37.6 percent). (Washington Post) TV Time Out: -- Air Wars: House Democratic candidates and their outside allies have run more advertisements than Republican rivals in the past two weeks, but Republicans have run more ads in gubernatorial and Senate races, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. More than a quarter of Democratic ads talk about taxes; more than a quarter of Republican ads are blasting the Affordable


92% of patients say medical marijuana works

In this Friday, Oct. 15, 2010 file photo, Susan Recht holds up a bud of marijuana she purchased at the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Clinic in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) A 2013 survey in the New England Journal of Medicine found that nearly 8-in-10 doctors approved the use of medical marijuana. Now, a wide-ranging survey in California finds that medical marijuana patients agree: 92 percent said that medical marijuana alleviated symptoms of their serious medical conditions, including chronic pain, arthritis, migraine, and cancer. The data come from the California Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a representative health survey of 7,525 California adults produced by the Public Health Institute in partnership with the CDC. Researchers found that in total, five percent of California adults said they had used medical marijuana for a "serious medical condition." "Our study’s results lend support to the idea that medical marijuana is used equally by many groups of people and is not exclusively used by any one specific group," the authors write. There were similar usage rates among both men and women. Adults of all ages reported medical marijuana use, although young adults were the most likely to use it. There were some small differences in medical marijuana use across members of different races, although the authors stress that "the absolute difference in prevalence between the racial/ethnic groups is less than three percentage points, which may not have much importance in practical terms." The full survey results from the report are below - click for a larger version. Public Health Institute Despite being used in 23 states, medical marijuana still faces a considerable amount of skepticism. In an interview last year former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg called it "one of the great hoaxes of all time." California narcotics police lobbyist John Lovell said earlier this year that "California’s medical marijuana law is a giant con job.” This study refutes these notions. "Our study contradicts commonly held beliefs that medical marijuana is being overused by healthy individuals," the authors write. "The most common reasons for use include medical conditions for which mainstream treatments may not exist, such as for migraines, or may not be effective, including for chronic pain and cancer." In considering the efficacy of any kind of medical treatment, we should listen first and foremost to the patients. The debate over medical marijuana has largely been dominated by vested interests and advocacy groups


California’s next big political fight: Plastic grocery bags

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the first-ever statewide ban on plastic bags (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Go to a grocery store in California and buy all the milk, eggs and vegetables you want. But there’s one thing you won’t find at the checkout line, beginning July 1, 2015: Plastic bags to carry your stuff home. Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Tuesday signed into law a ban on single-use plastic bags, making California the first state to prohibit stores from using the ubiquitous carry-alls. Shoppers will be charged 10 cents for every paper bag and heavy-duty plastic bag they use. “This bill is a step in the right direction,” Brown said in a press release announcing his approval. “It reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself.” It is also a step toward what is likely to be an expensive electoral fight pitting the plastics industry against environmentalists who support the ban. The American Progressive Bag Alliance, an industry group of plastics producers, said Tuesday it will mount a campaign to collect enough signatures to put an initiative repealing the measure on the ballot in 2016. “The approval of SB 270 by the California legislature and Governor Jerry Brown could serve as a case study for what happens when greedy special interests and bad government collide in the policymaking process,” Lee Califf, the group’s executive director said Tuesday. The “bill was never legislation about the environment. It was a back room deal between the grocers and union bosses to scam California consumers out of billions of dollars without providing any public benefit – all under the guise of environmentalism.” Ballot initiative sponsors have 90 days from enactment, which begins next July 1, to gather enough signatures to qualify a referendum. They will need about 505,000 valid signatures; in practical terms, that means they will have to collect upwards of 700,000 or so to ensure they have enough valid signatures to make up for the inevitable number of ineligible signatures. If backers succeed in collecting the requisite number of signatures, the law will be suspended until a vote takes place. The fight will begin costing plastics makers almost immediately. California has a long tradition of expensive ballot initiatives, starting with the signature gathering: Paid operatives charge several dollars per signature collected, meaning proponents must spend millions of dollars just to qualify the measure for


New evidence says the ‘man in the moon’ came from lunar plumbing, not an asteroid impact

The moon as observed in visible light, left, topography (where red is high and blue is low) and the GRAIL gravity gradients. (NASA/Colorado School of Mines/MIT/JPL/Goddard Space Flight Center) The giant basin on the near side of the moon might not be the result of a run-in with a massive asteroid, contrary to what some scientists believed. Instead, this blemish on the lunar surface — nearly as wide across as the United States — could have been formed by ancient magma flows. The Oceanus Procellarum region of the moon has fascinated humanity from the beginning: The so-called "ocean of storms" forms a cheek of the "man in the moon" (or, in Chinese culture, the hindquarters of the "moon rabbit"). Like other dark spots on the moon (called lunar maria), Oceanus Procellarum was once thought by astronomers to be an actual body of water. But the moon turned out to contain neither water nor cheese, and a modern theory was formed: These dark spots are the result of dried lava flow. But Oceanus Procellarum, the largest of the moon's such spots, seemed to exist within a large crater. The prevailing theory was that this sizeable smudge was sitting in an impact crater -- one of the scars left by asteroid impacts on the moon. According to research Previous studies were missing vital data, according to study co-author and MIT professor of geophysics and vice president for research Maria Zuber. When Zuber and her colleagues used data from NASA's GRAIL mission — two probes that orbited the moon in 2012 — to get images of what was going on beneath the surface of the moon, they found that the "crater" supposedly sitting under Oceanus Procellarum wasn't the right shape for an asteroid impact. The full Moon as seen from the Earth, with the Procellarum border structures superimposed in red. (Kopernik Observatory/NASA/Colorado School of Mines/MIT/JPL/Goddard Space Flight Center) "It's remarkably rectangular in shape," Zuber said, "not circular." Previous studies had "rounded out the corners" of the valley where data were missing, according to Zuber. "When you have the full picture, it's clearly a rectangle," she said. The angles seen in the edges of this valley are consistent with rift valleys on Earth. Zuber and her colleagues believe that as the moon was cooling in the early days of its development, a rogue plume of magma shot up in this region. Because the lava


The ability of monarch butterflies to migrate may hinge on a single gene

It's a complex process, but migration may have one vital genetic component. (Jaap de Roode) For monarch butterflies, the ability to migrate may rely on a single vital gene. Every year, millions of North American monarchs make a single migration to Mexico for winter — a seemingly grueling trip for the delicate-looking insects. According to a study published Wednesday in Nature, one gene may be central to their long-distance flying abilities. By comparing the genetic information of North American monarchs with non-migratory monarchs from other regions (as well as some other closely related butterfly species), the researchers identified more than 500 genes that had some sway in the insects' ability to migrate. But one gene — one that makes monarchs into long-distance fliers instead of sprinters — seemed to show the sharpest difference between butterflies that migrated and those that stayed put. Monarchs cluster in their winter home in Mexico. (Jaap de Roode) "Migration is regarded as a complex behavior, but every time that the butterflies have lost migration, they change in exactly the same way, in this one gene involved in flight muscle efficiency," senior study author and University of Chicago Prof. Marcus Kronforst said in a statement. "In populations that have lost migration, efficiency goes down, suggesting there is a benefit to flying fast and hard when they don't need to migrate." Based on the changes they saw in this gene and others in non-migratory populations, the researchers believe that all monarchs were once migratory, and originated in Mexico or the southern United States. After dispersing to different regions — Central and South America, across the Atlantic and across the Pacific — the three populations all lost their ability to migrate long distances. Monarch migration is on the decline, with only 35 million travelers estimated last year compared to about 1 billion in 1996. While the butterflies, who've lost a lot of their primary habitat (milkweed) to herbicide use, aren't in danger of extinction, it's troubling to see just how fragile their migratory habits might be. "You used to see huge numbers of monarchs, clouds of them passing by," said Kronforst. "Now it looks quite possible that in the not-too-distant future, this annual migration won't happen."


The great disconnect: A big chunk of the world’s offline population actually lives in the U.S.

of all places, is one of them. (McKinsey & Co.) Admittedly, the United States contributes far fewer people to the global offline pool than do much larger countries, such as India and China, or even smaller, less developed countries, such as Nigeria. Still, it’s a striking reminder that problems of Internet access and adoption are by no means solved in this, the capital of tech innovation. It’s extra striking, given that the report was sponsored, in part, by Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet.org — you know, the starry-eyed “global partnership” dedicated to bringing the riches of the Web to the deprived foreign masses. A great deal of research has been dedicated to America’s offline population already, of course. We know that roughly 20 percent of Americans don’t use the Internet — and per the Commerce Department, almost half don’t really want to. (McKinsey & C0.) But McKinsey suggests the gap is about more that mere interest. While the United States, like Russia and South Korea, has a large population of people who just don’t care to go online — a preference that, frequently, relates to age — there are serious issues of affordability and infrastructure, too. America’s disconnected tend to be literate, low-income women living in rural areas, where Internet access is either difficult or expensive to come by. In fact, America’s Internet divide can be seen primarily as a class divide: 80 percent of the country’s offline population falls below the poverty line, the highest proportion in any other country except Mexico. Take a minute to think about that, dear Internet-enabled reader: In the country with the world’s highest GDP, the country that brought you Google, Keyboard Cat and the iPhone, more than 50 million people do not have access to the Internet — often, though not always, because they can’t afford a computer, smartphone or data plan. To whit, the Pew Research Center estimates that roughly 99 percent of U.S. adults in high-income households use the Internet; meanwhile, in low-income households, only 77 percent do. (McKinsey & Co.) To be clear, these numbers are still pretty good, particularly relative to a country such as India, the host of Internet.org’s first summit — where only 15 percent of the population is online. But as McKinsey notes, based on raw numbers, a big chunk of the world’s offline population actually lives in developed countries — where they are easily, even casually, forgotten.


Is it really possible for someone to drink 10 drinks per day?

In this photo illustration, bottles and cans of beer that are products of SABMiller and Anheuser-Busch InBev are shown on September 15, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo Illustration by Scott Olson/Getty Images) 10 drinks a day For more of the backstory, here's a clip of Philip J. Cook's appearance last night on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes." He discusses his methods, the policy implications, and how many people under-report the true extent of their drinking habits. "People in the top decile probably don't have a very good idea of how much they're drinking," he said. "When they say they have a drink, what they might mean is they take a water glass and pour it full of whiskey and put a few ice cubes in it. The rest of us would call that three drinks - or four drinks." Watch the full clip below.


Rhode Island child dies of infection associated with rare respiratory virus

who have died so far this year, but it is not known how much of a factor the infection was, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The role that EV-D68 infection played in these deaths is unclear at this time,” Karen Mason of the CDC’s viral diseases division wrote in an e-mail. She said that state and local health departments are still investigating what happened. There have been more than 470 cases confirmed across the country so far this year, almost all of them affecting children. The likely number of actual cases is much, much larger, as health officials in many states suspect that there are many cases that have not been formally diagnosed yet. (One hospital in Kansas City, Mo., told us that they believe that up to 450 children with this virus were treated there last month.) Still, the CDC says that since enteroviruses are more common in the summer and fall, the number of infections is expected to drop later in the fall. The official cause of death in Rhode Island is the staph infection associated with the enterovirus, said Christina Batastini, a spokeswoman for the department. But again, the precise role the enterovirus played in this child’s death is not settled, she said. “As of now, it’s unclear which one caused the death,” she told The Post on Wednesday. The child’s age and hometown have not been released yet, Batastini said. A child in New Jersey died last week of an undetermined respiratory illness, according to the Times of Trenton, but it is not known if the enterovirus strain played a role. The New Jersey Department of Health said Tuesday that it is awaiting test results seeing if this child had the rare EV-D68 strain. Doctors in Colorado reported last week that several children who tested positive for this strain have experienced paralysis or limb weakness, causing the CDC to ask health officials nationwide to watch for similar symptoms. A report authored by neurologists earlier this year found that up to 25 children in California may have suffered from a polio-like illness that caused the paralysis of some limbs. Some of these children were found to have had the rare enterovirus 68 strain. [This post has been updated to note that the virus has been found in four deaths, rather than three; the CDC had said three deaths and increased the number Wednesday.]


Obama’s reckless aversion to ground troops

deprive the country of adequate ground troops that would be needed for easily foreseeable conflicts. Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute explains: As we look to the future, while it is possible that the Army can decline a bit more in size than present plans would counsel, we have to be wary about rushing to major change. Already, the Army is headed towards an active-duty strength of no more than 450,000 soldiers, 10 percent less than in the Clinton years and 20 percent less than in the late Bush/early Obama period. Some Pentagon options investigated in 2013 would have cut it back much further, to 380,000 or so. These options may rear their head again if sequestration really returns in 2016. My own research on the future of land warfare, after examining American alliance relationships, and strategic interests around the world, is leading me to examine ten scenarios in some detail, as one thinks about the long-term future of the Army. Not all would require American ground forces, or even an American military response of any kind, necessarily. Some might benefit from substantial allied help. And some are less in the category of wars we might really fight, than of scenarios that we need to keep unthinkable for would-be aggressors (such as the first two on the list below) . But to my mind, none can be dismissed lightly, as possible concerns for future U.S. Army, Army Reserve, Army National Guard, and Marine Corps planning in the years ahead. . . His scenarios include potential Russian invasion of the Baltic States, a “major international peace operation in Syria after a negotiated peace,” Iran’s threat to use WMD’s against a neighbor and other entirely plausible threats. As he says, “most seem considerably more imaginable than what we saw in 2001—a major terrorist strike on the United States originally conceived and organized in one of the most remote and seemingly strategic unimportant countries on Earth, Afghanistan.” Moreover, O’Hanlon does not even consider the additional risks posed by our cuts in land forces, a development that may well increase bad actors’ appetite for aggression. The notion that we should not have sufficient ground forces even as a viable options suggests either recklessness or an ideological aversion to use of ground forces no matter what the circumstances. In essence it is a philosophy of “If we don’t build a ground capability we cannot have


MLB postseason: Playoff results and schedules through the World Series

an odd spot. You see, Amy has been dating Gerrit Cole for a couple of years. Cole also plays major league baseball … as a pitcher for the Pirates. Having a brother on the @SFGiants and a boyfriend on the @Pirates can get awkward. http://t.co/pzVjbQDIUB http://t.co/p1h6uBQXZT Amy Crawford herself put it this way on Twitter: Welp... That's my brother. The Giants move on to face the Nationals, while the Pirates go, well, they were already home, so they’ll just stay there. Here are the complete MLB playoff results and schedule: Wild-card games American League: at Kansas City 9, Oakland 8 (12) National League: San Francisco 8, at Pittsburgh 0 National League Division Series Best-of-five; x-if necessary; all times EDT; remaining game times to be announced Washington vs. San Francisco Friday: San Francisco at Washington, 3:07 p.m. (Fox Sports 1) Saturday: San Francisco at Washington, 5:37 p.m. (FS1) Monday: Washington at San Francisco (FS1 or MLB Network) x-Tuesday: Washington at San Francisco (FS1) x-Thursday, Oct. 9: San Francisco at Washington (FS1) St. Louis vs. Los Angeles Dodgers Friday: St. Louis (Wainwright 20-9) at Los Angeles (Kershaw 21-3), 6:37 p.m. (FS1) Saturday: St. Louis (Lynn 15-10) at Los Angeles, 9:37 p.m. (FS1 or MLBN) Monday: Los Angeles at St. Louis (Lackey 3-3) (FS1 or MLBN) x-Tuesday: Los Angeles at St. Louis (Miller 10-9) (FS1) x-Thursday Oct. 9: St. Louis at Los Angeles (FS1) American League Division Series Baltimore vs. Detroit Thursday: Detroit (Scherzer 18-5) at Baltimore (Tillman 13-6), 5:37 p.m. (TBS) Friday: Detroit (Verlander 15-12) at Baltimore, 12:07 p.m. (TBS) Sunday: Baltimore at Detroit (Price 15-12), 3:45 p.m. (TBS) x-Monday: Baltimore at Detroit (Porcello 15-13) (TBS) x-Wednesday, Oct. 8: Detroit at Baltimore (TBS) Los Angeles Angels vs. Kansas City Thursday: Kansas City (Vargas 11-10) at Los Angeles (Weaver 18-9), 9:07 p.m. (TBS) Friday: Kansas City (Ventura 14-10) at Los Angeles (Shoemaker 16-4), 9:37 p.m.(TBS) Sunday: Los Angeles (Wilson 13-10) at Kansas City (Shields 14-8), 7:37 p.m. (TBS) x-Monday: Los Angeles at Kansas City (TBS) x-Wednesday, Oct. 8: Kansas City at Los Angeles (TBS) League Championship Series Best-of-seven; x-if necessary National League Saturday, Oct. 11: (Fox) Sunday, Oct. 12: (FS1) Tuesday, Oct. 14: (FS1) Wednesday, Oct. 15: (FS1) x-Thursday, Oct. 16: (FS1) x-Saturday, Oct. 18: (Fox) x-Sunday, Oct. 19: (FS1) American League Friday, Oct. 10: (TBS) Saturday, Oct. 11: (TBS) Monday, Oct. 13: (TBS) Tuesday, Oct. 14: (TBS) x-Wednesday, Oct. 15: (TBS) x-Friday,


A vote for Pluto’s reinstatement as a planet

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows Pluto and three of its moons in 2006. (AP Photo/NASA,File) There were once nine planets. Everyone learned them, sometimes aided by a mnemonic: “My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas.” But back in 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), arbiter of what is and what isn’t a planet, stripped Pluto of its status, saying it was too small to pack sufficient gravitational punch. It was downgraded to a new, second-class status: “dwarf planet.” So then there were eight: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, or “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos.” The decision did not sit well with the public. Some amateur stargazers and some astronomers thought it rather arbitrary. As the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics put it in a press release, “a dwarf fruit tree is still a small fruit tree, and a dwarf hamster is still a small hamster.” But recently the Harvard-Smithsonian Center did something about it: It held a debate — pro and con — and let the audience vote. The result: “Pluto IS a planet.” The debate centered around the IAU’s demands of a planet — that it must: - be in orbit around the Sun, - be round or nearly round, and - be shown to have “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit, be gravitationally dominant in its area — the big kid on the block. Pluto was originally kicked out because it did not “clear the neighborhood.” It is indeed small. It has a radius of about 750 miles — less than 20 percent of the Earth’s radius. Its circumference is about 4,500 miles, which makes it smaller than the moon. You could fly around its equator faster than flying from Washington, D.C., to Hawaii. According to a release from the center, Owen Gingerich, who chaired the IAU planet definition committee, presented the historical viewpoint. He said Pluto is a planet, and “a planet is a culturally defined word that changes over time.” Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center, presented the IAU’s viewpoint — that Pluto is not a planet. And Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, “presented the exoplanet scientist’s viewpoint.” Sasselov argued, among other things, that the criteria for planethood was sun-centric, excluding planets beyond our solar system, or so-called “exoplanets.” He offered an alternative definition: A planet, he argued, is “the


The space elevator: Extreme science fiction that’s still a long way from science fact

We live in a day and age when people raise money for space elevators on a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter and give talks about it at TEDx conferences. We’re still a long way from concept to reality, but we’re getting closer. In 2012, a Japanese company, Obayashi, claimed that it could have a space elevator ready to go by 2050 for the low, low cost of $8 billion. In this Japanese version of the concept, the space elevator is really more like a really skinny railroad track extending horizontally out of the equator tens of thousands of miles into outer space. (If that sounds too insane, watch the Obayashi video.) Using magnetic linear motors, 30-passenger train cars traveling at 124 mph would take 7.5 days to make the trip. While many have dismissed this as just pie-in-the-sky thinking and a hyped-up marketing promotion, there is now a Japan Space Elevator Commission that hopes to make Japan a global leader in developing a space elevator. Which brings us back to the extreme science fiction nature of the space elevator — that’s perhaps why it resonates so much with so many people, not just space geeks. The whole idea of the space elevator dates back to 1895, when a Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, was so excited by the recent construction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1889 that he dreamed up what many now credit as the classic conception of the space elevator – a super-tall tower that would be tethered to a “celestial castle” by way of a spindle-shaped cable. (Keep in mind that a real space elevator would be taller than 100,000 Eiffel Towers stacked end-to-end). It’s since been expanded upon, dreamed about, iterated on and written about to the point where technological visionaries like Arthur C. Clarke (who famously wrote about a 24,000-mile-high space elevator in “The Fountains of Paradise” back in 1979) are tempted to talk about the space elevator as if it might actually happen one day. That’s often the way science fiction concepts become science fact — there is so much passion for an idea that it bubbles into the technological mainstream, where people decide that a half-baked technology concept might actually have real-world business implications. Using a space elevator would be 95 percent cheaper than using conventional rockets to get a payload into geosynchronous orbit. That’s why space industry innovators such as Elon Musk


We explored the Smithsonian’s ‘secret’ research and conservation facilities

says. The biology department keeps the bulk of its treasures — dead animals floating in alcohol — in humble Mason jars. Jeff Williams, manager of the fish collection, plucks a lumpy, frowning fish out of a jar with his bare hands. “I caught this stonefish myself,” he says. “It’s the most poisonous fish in the world.” Elsewhere in the pod are tanks holding gorillas, pandas and other large animals. “Alcohol is a great preservative,” says Darrin Lunde, the mammals collection manager. “The whole animal is there. You can study the internal organs, the gut contents, any parasites.” Every year, researchers pull jars off the shelves and discover new species. Williams has described 54 species of fish, and Lunde has more than a dozen rodent species to his name. He and his colleagues recently found a genus of bat from South Sudan. Black and white, it looks a bit like a tiny flying panda. They dubbed it Niumbaha superba. “It means small and beautiful in the local language,” Lunde says. Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute Front Royal, Va. Cheetah mom Amani gave birth to five cubs at the SCBI. As far as cheetahs, red pandas and clouded leopards are concerned, Virginia really is for lovers. At the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, on 3,200 acres of land at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, these at-risk species (plus 29 others) have been hooking up like crazy. Ten cheetah cubs, seven baby red pandas, 47 black-footed ferret kits and one clouded leopard cub are among the conservation center’s successes within the past year. In addition to increasing the populations of these species, scientists at SCBI study the animals and collaborate with groups that are reintroducing them into the wild. Cheetahs have been particularly difficult to breed in zoos, says biologist Adrienne Crosier. Ninety percent of cheetah births in North America occur in dedicated breeding facilities. The peace and quiet helps, she says, but the main advantage is variety: SCBI is home to 27 cats. “Female cheetahs tend to be picky,” Crosier says. Each year, Crosier and her staff set up a round of cheetah speed dating. One by one, they bring male suitors to a female cheetah’s yard. If the female isn’t interested, “she usually lets us know pretty fast,” Crosier says. “If she’s interested, she rolls around and engages in rubbing behavior.” The SCBI cheetahs’ first cubs were born in 2010, and


Don’t let old people decide the election, says a new ad campaign

And that the data predict that a whole lot of Uncle Garys are going to be voting this November. But who is going to vote on issues young people care about -- like student debt, the environment, unemployment and the unfairness of trend pieces? (Editor's note: Jaime is 25 but acts much, much older.) After this new #CareLikeCrazy ad campaign, which is basically 1984 for the Thought Catalog set, Rock the Vote! hopes the answer will be, "young people." "They aren't meant to be typical ads, says Rock The Vote President Ashley Spillane. "Young people have tuned out typical campaign ads." Indeed they are not, with their slow ten-second reveal, where the upstanding voters doing upstanding voter things suddenly transform into campaign ad villains. These voters don't care about women's rights or voting rights, the ad alleges. But they vote. Why don't you? It's a bold pitch, one that would surely make the voters being made fun of less than pleased. However, Rock the Vote! isn't focused on making sure those demographics see them. The nonpartisan organization, which has been trying to get young people interested in voting for decades, is launching a $250,000 ad buy in college towns across the country on Thursday, beginning with Gainesville, Florida; Tallahassee, Florida; Greenville, North Carolina; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Madison, Wisconsin; East Lansing, Michigan; and Ann Arbor, Michigan. On Monday, the ads will begin airing in Columbus, Ohio; State College, Pennsylvania; and Atlanta, Georgia. They're planning on running the ads through the election, moving to new towns and targeting diverse populations as November gets closer with the help of partner organizations like 18 Million Rising, Color of Change and Voto Latino. They're trying everything. On National Voter Registration Day they debuted a new online voter registration app, and have more celebrities yet to unload in "to be announced" ways. The #CareLikeCrazy Web site invites visitors to "Take a selfie. Shoot a video. Tell us —— What do you #CareLikeCrazy about?" And, they are making sure to only run the ads where they'll get the most bang for their buck. Twentysomethings aren't watching much TV, at least on TV. They're on YouTube and Hulu, where the ads will be playing. Rock the Vote! is also going to run ads on Facebook, Pandora and Spotify. When the ads do run, they're going to be on channels like Comedy Central. This post has been updated.


Who’s afraid of an ‘Islamic state’?

Screenshot from World News Online (Creative Commons/YouTube) Trying to make sense of the patterns of alignments in the Middle East, especially since the Iraq war that began in 2003, is not easy. Allies and enemies line up in shifting coalitions of support and opposition across any number of conflicts – from the Syrian civil war, to the Iranian nuclear question, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although much ink has been spilled on the role of sectarian rivalry and the balance of military power, one reliable predictor of how political coalitions shake out in any given situation remains one of the least explored: The ideological threats presented by non-state or quasi-state actors such as Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State and other Islamist regimes may be just as, if not more, potent than the military challenges they pose. Shifting alliances in the Middle East and North Africa are difficult to understand, but if seen through the lens of ideological threat perception, the landscape becomes more intelligible. Put simply, ideas matter, and they can be serious national security threats. One example is the recent Gaza war, in which many observers were surprised by a number of Arab states’ silent backing of Israel’s efforts to crush Hamas. Saudi Arabia blamed Hamas for the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza because of Hamas’s reckless behavior. Egypt, similarly, said Hamas could have prevented the deaths of Palestinian civilians had it accepted the terms of a cease-fire much earlier, a message echoed by its state-sponsored media, which was harshly critical of Hamas and its supporters. This peculiar alignment of interests and policies certainly isn’t driven by a need to stand by Israel. Cairo and Riyadh’s staunch anti-Hamas stances did not preclude Saudi Prince Nawaf from accusing Israel of “crimes against humanity” and it didn’t keep Egyptian officials from accusing Israel of using unjustified, excessive force in Gaza. However, both regimes stopped far short of endorsing Hamas, a group that has broad support among Arab people for its resistance against Israel. Why do these states condemn Hamas? My research shows the answer may lie in how states perceive ideology as a national security threat. The Islamist regimes that seized power in Iran in 1979 and Sudan in 1989 were regarded by neighboring states, including Muslim-majority countries, as national security threats even though these “Islamic states” did not have significant military capabilities when they came to power and


The saga behind Washington’s most infamous hole in the ground nears a close

The Half Street hole, outside Nationals Park. (Photo by Jacqueline Dupree, courtesy of JDLand.com) In the summer of 2004, executives from Monument Realty, a high-flying D.C. real estate developer, sat down to a meeting in the offices at 1100 New Jersey Ave. SE to decide whether to bet big on the neighborhood outside. The 10-story building had been completed less than a year prior, and its location made it something of trailblazer. Built a few blocks from the Washington Navy Yard by another local firm, it was cut off by the Southeast Freeway from Capitol Hill and downtown, and it was surrounded by vacant lots, abandoned buildings and auto repair outfits. But it was less than a mile from the Capitol. And there were growing signs that Major League Baseball would move the Montreal Expos to Washington. One of the four stadium sites was a few blocks from the New Jersey Avenue building. Monument decided to go all in on the neighborhood, buying dozens of properties and planning a bold, mixed-use Half Street project on the doorstep of Nationals Park. Not a penny was spared marketing it. But at the center of the project, all Monument ended up creating was a hole in the ground, one that came to signify much of how badly the real estate industry had gone astray during the bubble, laid bare for thousands of baseball fans once the Nationals arrived. Only recently did the financial mechanisms that allowed it to lie fallow — fenced off with trees growing in the bottom — finally become unwound, when Washington’s most infamous hole in the ground went up for sale. *** The first property Monument went after was a vacant lot surrounded by a sagging barbed wire fence at the corner of of N and Half Streets. Over the next three years, the company completed more than 20 transactions for more than 50 lots in the area. The Northeast corner of Half and N streets SE in 2006, shortly after Monument bought it. (Photo by Jacqueline Dupree, courtesy of JDLand.com) “It was anything from a single townhouse, very small lots, to some of the bigger ones, some land from Pepco, some land from families that had owned properties there for generations,” said Russell Hines, Monument president. Monument was founded in 1998, and three years later, under the direction of principals Michael Darby and Jeffrey Neal, had become a


The last stage in Secret Service training

You are in Colombia– COLOMBIA — and some prostitutes want to drink and carouse with you. Brad: No, see, I got that, I just don’t think it’s– Manager: Brad, you seem like a nice kid. But you need to THINK. Okay, next question: “You realize there’s a guy in the elevator with President Obama who has a criminal record and a firearm. What do you do? And you wrote, “D: Definitely not, immediately remove him and tell your superiors about the mistake.” Brad: I have to confess that by that point I was convinced that none of these were real questions. Manager: The correct answer was “C: It’s not cool, but definitely don’t tell anyone in management about it because it will just make us nervous and some of us have weak hearts.” Brad: But I thought that we were required to have fitness certification — which reminds me, when is fitness testing? (Manager laughs a long time.) Manager: You just certify yourself. (He pulls out a sheet of paper.) What seems like a good number of pushups to be able to do? I’m behind on mine. Brad: In what time frame? Manager: I’m just going to put 800. No, 801. Round numbers are less believable. Brad: Wait, were all of these serious questions — Manager: (picking up the 40) Look, if you’re not going to drink this, I will. Now, this question says, “Should the Secret Service be run ‘more like Disney World‘? and you wrote “No” and then next to it you wrote “What is this question, some kind of joke?” The correct answer was Yes. Brad: Okay. Wow. In the sense that Disney is a very tight ship where few accidents are allowed to occur? Manager: (eating more of his sandwich) No. In the sense that Disney is friendly and open and welcoming. (hiccups) And sometimes people are drunk there. Brad: Okay. Wow. Manager: Just think of this as an awesome chance to make new friends, see the world, get drunk in it, and sometimes the president of the United States is there! How cool is that? Brad: What about “protect and serve”? Manager: (sighs) See, you’re new to this whole thing. Some people still say that. Those people are lame and nobody wants to drink with them. Don’t be like them. That’s why we wanted to go over these, so we were on the same page.