Traffic, transit tips for Presidents’ Day weekend

Spectators enjoy the lion dance on Chinese New Year 2015 in Chinatown. There will be some street closings for Sunday’s parade. (Pete Marovich for The Washington Post) [This post has been updated.] As with the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, Presidents’ Day weekend is not a big getaway time in the D.C. area, though travelers may see some extra traffic in the evening. Pay special attention to the Friday evening forecast. The Capital Weather Gang is warning about the possibility of show showers. With the temperatures so low, the scenario is similar to the Wednesday night before the blizzard, when a light dusting extended drive times by many hours. It looks like 5 to 11 p.m. Friday is the time period to be concerned about. The rest of the weekend looks okay for travelers — as long as they are prepared for the cold — but watch for a storm that could develop Monday into Tuesday. Folks heading for Disney on Ice at the Verizon Center this weekend or to the Chinese New Year celebration Sunday should pay special attention to the Metrorail schedule below and its impact on service to and from the Gallery Place station. The Metrorail schedule below is quite complicated, and has some unusual changes in service. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said it’s not a change in the overall strategy for weekend work. “As always,” he said, “it has to do with where the work is happening and where trains can be turned around with efficiency.” Long-distance travelers should note the closings scheduled for the I-395 HOV lanes this weekend. Metro Red Line. Metro has used this regular service/shuttle train pattern several times recently. Stessel said the pattern “allows regular weekend service between Shady Grove and Silver Spring, while impacting only three stations, served by shuttle. That’s only possible in a few places — we just happen to be working there.” What’s your experience with the pattern? Orange Line. Silver Line. Blue Line. Green Line. The shuttle buses will operate on two routes. An express will travel between Gallery Place and Navy Yard with no stops in between. That should take about 20 minutes. A local will make all the station stops in between, with 12 to 15 minutes of travel time between each stop. The last northbound trains of the night from Branch Avenue will leave 11 minutes earlier than normal. So on


Cruz, Trump want to secure the border to keep out heroin. But will it work?

major producer of heroin, but heroin comes in in all different ways to the U.S. It comes in planes, on ships, any way you can possibly think of, in condoms in people’s bodies," Carey said. The supply chain, she said, is like a water balloon — if you squeeze one part the water goes somewhere else. Mexican cartels started pushing heroin after U.S. decrminialization and legalization of marijuana changed the market. Mexico is also producing a number of other drugs, including methamphetamine and illicit Fentanyl, a potent synthetic painkiller often used to treat pain in cancer patients. Fentanyl is now being mixed into heroin, with deadly results. At least 23 people died of overdoses in Erie County, N.Y., from Jan. 29 to Feb. 10; 19 of those deaths are believed to be from a batch of heroin laced with Fentanyl. In New Hampshire, 151 of the approximately 399 drug overdose deaths in 2015 came from Fentanyl. Robert L. DuPont, who served as White House drug czar in the 1970s and was the first director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said some of the people ferrying drugs from Mexico to the United States are American citizens traveling on legal documents. "Anybody who thinks that these guys who are swallowing those packets of heroin like that and going through the border with an American passport are going to be easily detected and deterred is crazy," DuPont said. But the problem, for many, started inside the United States. Many heroin users first got hooked on prescription opiate medication used to treat pain — pills that were was procured in the United States. They are still a major problem and component of the opiate epidemic — each day 44 people die from overdosing on painkillers, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Pills are expensive, and a flood of cheap heroin entered the market, leading many who are addicted to opiates to turn to heroin. In recent years, law enforcement officials and politicians on both sides of the aisle have come to the consensus that the country will not arrest its way out of the heroin epidemic, and are turning away from more punitive measures used against drug users during the War on Drugs in the 1980s and 1990s. Now prosecutors around the country are trying to go up the supply chain, attempting to prosecute drug dealers and people higher on the


In new advisory, WHO warns pregnant women against travel to Zika-affected countries

consider delaying their trips — is similar to language used by U.S. officials and represents a recognition of the mounting evidence of a link between the mosquito-borne virus and birth defects in newborns. The WHO guidance also included strong language regarding the possible risk of sexual transmission, advising all travelers but especially pregnant women and their partners returning from an area where Zika is circulating to use condoms. The group said that there's no reason to recommend any travel or trade restrictions at this time. "Countries reporting sporadic Zika infections in travellers arriving from affected countries pose little, if any, risk of onward transmission," the WHO said in a statement. Speaking at a panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Friday, the WHO's Chris Dye said that the evidence regarding a link between microcephaly — a congenital issue in which babies are born with shrunken heads — and Zika is mounting and that at this point they are proceeding as if "Zika is guilty until proven innocent." Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that pregnant women should "seriously consider postpoining your travel until this situation gets sorted out." The WHO guidelines caution travelers to stay alert about the latest news about Zika and to take steps to protect themselves against mosquito bites during their trip. The WHO is advising travelers to: - use insect repellent: repellents may be applied to exposed skin or to clothing, and should contain DEET. Repellents must be used in strict accordance with the label instructions; - wear clothes (preferably light-colored) that cover as much of the body as possible; - use physical barriers, such as screens, closed doors and windows; - sleep under mosquito nets, especially during the day, when Aedes mosquitoes are most active; - and identify and eliminate potential mosquito breeding sites by emptying, cleaning or covering containers that can hold even small amounts of water, such as buckets, vases and flower pots. Read more: Miscarriages reported in 2 U.S. women with Zika virus, CDC says NIH officials accelerate timeline for human trials of Zika vaccine, saying they will now begin in the summer Why Zika is a ticking 'time bomb' for Latin America Beyond Zika: The map of things that keep NIH’s infectious diseases director up at night For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter


Congress sends Obama North Korea sanctions bill

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif. , says sanctions the House is poised to pass on North Korea will hopefully bring the country back to the negotiating table on nuclear weapons. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP) The House gave its seal of approval to a bill Friday that would slap punishing sanctions on North Korea, after a series of aggressive moves by the rogue regime. The measure now awaits President Obama’s signature. The overwhelming 408-to-2 vote came as world powers are still grappling with how to respond to a series of bellicose North Korean moves in recent weeks: First, a nuclear test in January – the country’s fourth, despite international prohibitions against such testing – and then, a satellite launch into space, which many saw as a move to better enable the country to fire long-range ballistic missiles. Congress’s measure is a combination of direct, mandatory moves against money launderers, human rights abusers, weapons and raw minerals traders and perpetrators of cyberattacks. It would also impose secondary sanctions against the outlets that support and finance North Korea’s aggressive tactics. Obama is allowed, under the bill, to waive the application of certain sanctions on a case-by-case basis if it is in the national security or law enforcement interest of the United States. The bill before the House already passed the Senate 96 to zero on Wednesday. An earlier version of the bill, which included slightly less robust sanctions, passed the House last month by a vote of 418 to 2. Lawmakers hope the measure deals such a punishing blow to the North Korean regime that it is forced “to make a choice,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) told reporters Friday morning, “between coming back to the table and ending its nuclear weapons program, or to cut off the funding for that program and for his regime.” [Senate passes North Korea sanctions bill as nuclear worries grow] A significant amount of North Korea’s support comes from China, and that has posed a critical stumbling block to the international community’s efforts to censure its recent moves. While the United States and China agree that North Korea’s actions deserved to be condemned, they haven’t been able to agree on tangible punitive measures against Pyongyang – leaving the U.N. Security Council powerless to issue a response. Many of the secondary sanctions would likely squeeze Chinese institutions that do business with North


LIGO’s success was built on many failures

in this space a few weeks ago. It was true of New Horizons, the intrepid NASA probe that flew by Pluto last summer, as we noted at the time. And it’s true of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), the findings of which were reported in a paper with 1,004 authors. A look at the best photos of space. That’s not to take away from Einstein at all. He earned his glory the hard way. But even Einstein needed help with the equations at the core of his General Theory of Relativity, and many others played important roles in discovering the implications of the theory. Their names are well known among physicists but unlikely to wind up in a headline in 2016. For example: Karl Schwarzschild (whose name I just misspelled on first try). [A brief history of gravity, gravitational waves and LIGO] Schwarzschild, a German theorist, was literally on the Russian front during World War I when he saw the first iterations of Einstein’s theory. He somehow found time to scribble out some implications of the theory, one of which is the existence of black holes (a term not used until John Wheeler coined it half a century later). From Wikipedia we unashamedly lift this translated sentence from a letter written by Schwarzschild to Einstein in December 1915, just weeks after Einstein gave his lectures revealing General Relativity: “As you see, the war treated me kindly enough, in spite of the heavy gunfire, to allow me to get away from it all and take this walk in the land of your ideas.” Schwarzschild died just months later from an illness contracted on the Eastern front. “All this happened in the midst of the devastating war in Europe,” Dr. Hanoch Gutfreund, director of the Einstein Archives at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told me by phone this morning. I asked him if Einstein and his colleagues understood how monumental General Relativity would prove to be. “I don’t think they anticipated the big impact that it would have over the years,” Gutfreund answered. He noted that Einstein wrote to Schwarzschild in February 1916 [not 2016 as I originally wrote — even Einstein couldn’t swing time travel] saying he didn’t think the gravitational waves were real. Then four months later he published a paper in which he revealed that he’d changed his mind. But in that paper he made an error, not


Production of Metro’s new rail cars remains behind schedule

By 2018, Metro intends to buy 748 of the cars, commonly known as “7Ks,” in a $2 billion modernization of its rail fleet. The production slowdown is delaying one of the agency’s most important safety measures: Scrapping 270 cars that date to the opening of the subway in 1976. Though still in use, those cars are not considered “crashworthy” by current standards. Hours before Wiedefeld made his frustration known Thursday, nine members of Congress from the Washington area weighed in with a letter to Kawasaki executives in New York and Tokyo. “Unfortunately, we are becoming increasingly concerned about quality issues that have arisen,” the letter says, referring to brittle door bolts, loose seats and balky computer software in the 7Ks. “It is imperative that Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. work expeditiously with Metro to resolve any outstanding issues with the 7000-series rail cars so that production can resume and the delivery of the cars can return to the anticipated schedule,” the letter says. “We share the frustrations of our constituents who have long expected the 7000-series railcars to increase Metrorail reliability and safety.” A lot of the money being paid to Kawasaki comes from U.S. taxpayers. “The federal funding is appropriated annually, and our delegation has led efforts to protect those dollars in the face of recent attacks from Members of Congress who do not support this critical transit investment,” the letter says. “Any delay in delivery of the cars would undermine our efforts to keep this funding on track.” On Thursday, his final day of working for Metro, the agency’s former deputy general manager, Rob Troup, said he was “very pleased” that eight new cars were delivered in January, an increase over the monthly rate in the latter part of 2015. However, “we’d like to see 12 to 16 a month,” Troup said. “The production problems are being worked through,” he said, but “we have not caught up.” He declined to predict when Kawasaki will get back on schedule, saying, “Mr. Wiedefeld will be going out to Lincoln, Nebraska, to make a determination” about the status of production. “I’ll let him speak to that.” After a half-decade of design work, engineering tests and wrangling over funding for the 7Ks, Metro approved the start of mass production last spring. Wiedefeld said his visit to the factory will be less about viewing the production process than about emphasizing Metro’s concerns. “I’ve seen


CDC: Puerto Rico seeing mounting cases of Zika virus infection

An Aedes Aegypti mosquito, the primary vector for spreading Zika virus. (Reuters/Jaime Saldarriaga) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday detailed a sharp rise in Zika virus infections in Puerto Rico, from a single case involving an 80-year-old late last year to nearly 30 confirmed patients by the end of January. One case involved a woman in the first trimester of pregnancy, and another occurred in a patient hospitalized for Guillain-Barré syndrome, a potentially paralyzing condition that has followed Zika infections in some patients. The CDC said the commonwealth has not reported any Zika-associated cases of microcephaly -- the congenital defect, characterized by abnormally small head size and brain damage, that is suspected in hundreds of newborns at the outbreak's epicenter in Brazil. Public health officials expect the prevalence of the virus to only increase in Puerto Rico in coming weeks and months. One big reason: The mosquito that most commonly transmits it, Aedes aegypti, is present throughout the island. “The risk to Puerto Rico is significant,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said recently. The U.S. territory has experienced previous widespread outbreaks of dengue fever, another virus spread by the same type of mosquito. Most of the people infected with Zika so far live on the the eastern side of the island or around the populous capital of San Juan, according to the CDC. Four patients have been hospitalized, but most have reported only minor symptoms, such as rash, joint pain or eye pain. CDC officials said the first case there involved the elderly man whose symptoms -- diarrhea, abdominal pain, chills -- began in late November. He was hospitalized in intensive care and underwent a battery of tests before he was diagnosed, with officials finally confirming he had Zika in December. Another case in mid-January involved a 37-year-old man who developed a rash, followed by weakness in his upper and lower limbs, as well as his facial muscles. He eventually was diagnosed with a Zika infection as well as Guillain-Barré. Days later, a blood test confirmed a Zika infection in a woman in her first trimester of pregnancy. She had sought care after days of eye, body and joint pain, a rash and nausea. Officials said her doctor counseled her on the potential risks of microcephaly because of the virus and recommended close monitoring based on recent CDC guidelines issued for pregnant women. Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro Garcia


Endangered tiger killed by her would-be mate in a California zoo

Baha, a Sumatran female tiger, in Feburary 2015. (Tonja Candelaria/Sacramento Zoo via AP) Sacramento Zoo officials said they had high hopes that two rare Sumatran tigers would begin courting this week. Mohan, a 12-year-old male, already had plenty of visual contact with 15-year-old female tiger Baha since his arrival at the zoo in December. The idea was to get Mohan and Baha to reproduce as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan. Sumatran tigers are considered critically endangered, with fewer than 400 still alive today, according to the World Wildlife Fund. “Both tigers’ behavior indicated that this was the proper time for physical introductions,” the Sacramento Zoo said in a statement. “Based on knowledge and experience from past successful introductions, staff decided to physically introduce the tigers on Wednesday morning.” The two tigers were placed inside of an enclosure, and staff watched from outside as what was supposed to be one more step to keeping the species alive ended in tragedy. Mohan became “aggressive,” according to the zoo, and attacked Baha within a matter of minutes, the Sacramento Bee reported. Staff used a water hose and fire extinguishers to intercede, the Associated Press reported, and secured Mohan elsewhere. But by the time veterinarians got to Baha and tried to resuscitate her, it was too late: She had already died from the attack, according to the zoo. “We are truly devastated at the passing of Baha,” the zoo’s animal collection director, Matt McKim, said in a statement. “Not only was she a wonderful ambassador and a truly attentive mother, she was also a one-of-a-kind tiger that inspired many.” Sacramento Zoo’s director and chief executive officer Kyle Burks told the Bee that although it’s rare, aggression between tigers does happen in captivity. Mohan has since been removed from public viewing, the paper reported. Baha had been living at the Sacramento Zoo since 2002 and leaves behind five living offspring, all bred through successful zoo introductions, according to the zoo. READ MORE: This lady shark needs a man like she needs a good meal, apparently Grim news for bears, tigers under proposed new wildlife law in China The ‘peculiar’ history behind science’s race to bring extinct tortoises back to life


Why Elizabeth Warren thinks legalizing marijuana could help end America’s opioid addiction crisis

the American Medical Association found solid evidence that marijuana is effective at treating chronic pain. The researchers noted “30% or greater improvement in pain with cannabinoid compared with placebo.” Marijuana is safe when used to treat pain A Canadian study published last year in the journal Pain found no evidence of serious side effects among medical marijuana users after a year of treatment. Users did report some incidence of “non-serious” side effects, such as coughing and dizziness, however. Medical marijuana users are less likely to drink or take other painkillers Research published last year in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review found that 80 percent of medical marijuana users reported substituting pot for painkillers, and 52 percent said they drank less when taking medical marijuana. “The high rate of substitution for prescribed substances, particularly among patients with pain-related conditions, suggests that further research into cannabis/cannabinoids as a potentially safer substitute for or adjunct to opiates is justified,” the researchers concluded. States with medical marijuana laws have fewer painkiller overdose deaths In 2014, a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that states with medical marijuana laws saw a 24.8 percent reduction in opioid overdose deaths, compared with states without such laws. That worked out to about 1,700 fewer deaths in 2010 alone. Medical marijuana availability decreases the rate of opioid dependency and death An NBER working paper published last year found that the presence of marijuana dispensaries was associated with a 15 percent to 35 percent decrease in substance abuse admissions and a similar drop in opiate overdose deaths. “Our findings suggest that providing broader access to medical marijuana may have the potential benefit of reducing abuse of highly addictive painkillers,” the researchers concluded. One important thing to note: All of the studies above were published in the past 18 months or so. This is a fairly new angle of inquiry, and the results suggest it is a highly promising one. The CDC could play a leading role in fostering more of this type of research in the future, and the need for it is critical: Nearly 20,000 people died from prescription opiate overdoses in 2014, according to the CDC. More from Wonkblog: This Super Bowl ad proved just how much America loves its opioid painkillers Why hardly anyone dies from a drug overdose in Portugal The dramatic shift in heroin use in the past 50 years: Whiter, more suburban


Northwest D.C. condo lists for $269,900

(TruPlace) When home buyers in the District begin their property search they often start by looking near a Metro station. Transportation options and walkability are priorities for most city dwellers, but buyers quickly find that proximity to a Metro station usually adds to the desirability of a property and, therefore, to the price. Buyers who choose to walk a little farther to a Metro station or rely on bus service instead of the subway can sometimes find their money goes a little farther. One example of this is the condo at 5551 Illinois Ave. NW #304, a two-bedroom, two-bath residence priced at $269,900. According to realty agent Brian Cusick with the Cusick Group Realtors LLC at Keller Williams Capital Properties, the residence is the lowest-priced two-bedroom, two-bath condo currently listed in Northwest Washington. Located in Brightwood Park, nestled between Brightwood and Petworth, the residence is within walking distance of grocery stores, bars, restaurants, a CVS and a RiteAid. More development is planned for a nearby stretch of Georgia Avenue, which is likely to increase the value of homes in the area. As to Metro, the Georgia Avenue-Petworth station, with Green and Yellow Line service, is 1.4 miles from the condo or about a 20-minute walk. Bus routes also traverse Georgia Avenue. The condo has 850 square feet and has been fully renovated. The top floor residence has 20-foot-high ceilings and oversized south-facing windows that fill the rooms with sunlight. Other features include hardwood flooring, an open floor plan with granite counters and stainless-steel appliances in the kitchen, an in-unit washer and dryer. The master bedroom has a walk-in closet and a private full bath. The second bedroom is on the opposite side of the living area and adjacent to a full bath. The condo fee is $265.72 a month. For more information, contact Cusick at 202-276-3413 or visit www.thecusickgroup.com. To pass on a tip or news item, contact us at realestate@washpost.com and put “Town Square” in the subject line.


Jonathan Aberman: Greater Washington’s ‘nextistential’ threat

a more product-oriented technology community. And there’s another challenge for our region. The national security establishment is not just a customer, it is also a funder and driver of new industries. Our national economic growth can be explained as a series of cycles of creation, exploitation and commoditization of industries. When an industry is young, and its products novel, customers pay a premium. Employees and owners of these new businesses benefit with higher paying jobs and equity values. This is true locally and nationally. Being ahead of an industrial wave is the path to high-value added jobs and opportunity. This cycle of growth and industrial commoditization is at the very core of our economy. For years, we led the development of new industries and other nations caught up to commoditize them. The talent and drive that made us leaders are part of our identity as a nation. We benefited by being at the crest of the wave, riding it to prosperity. But right now, we find ourselves on a hiatus between a new industrial cycle we can lead, and the commoditization of what we have already done. Which brings us to our region’s challenge. National security agencies continue to spend billions to foster and create the next industrial waves; they are investing in robotics, artificial intelligence, artificial life, outer space and material sciences, to name a few. These dollars are being allocated in our midst to researchers and entrepreneurs our government officials believe are best-suited to advance these new areas. We in greater Washington are perfectly suited for those tasks, but we are not a shoo-in for the investments. Into which regions of the United States is that money flowing? Which universities are doing this work? Which businesses and entrepreneurs are working on the challenges? We need to find out where and how our region is participating — and fast. We are talking about what I think of as a “nextistential threat” to our region. We need to participate in the next industrial wave because failure to do so will slowly crush our ability to create opportunities for growth— and that will hit us harder than any budget sequestration ever could. There will be new industrial waves to come in the United States. That is inevitable. The research is being done, and breakthroughs are occurring. We need to be ahead of those waves. Proximity to the federal government will only


Were there irregularities in Turkey’s 2015 elections? We used this new forensic toolkit to check.

November illustrates the kind of multimodal pattern that is characteristically produced by frauds. Each point in the scatterplot shows the turnout proportion and the proportion of votes for AKP at a polling station. Instead of a central mode of polling stations around which other polling stations are scattered, there are three modes. Especially concerning is the mode that occurs for turnout and AKP vote proportions that are greater than 0.8. Such modes can occur if a combination of faked turnout and votes taken from other parties benefited AKP. Data: SEÇSiS. Figure: Walter R. Mebane Jr. Estimates of frauds probabilities from the finite mixture model that detects the occurrence of such patterns show that more than 1 percent of polling stations are affected. In eastern Turkey, the rate of occurrence is sometimes two or three times that. Mapping hot spots shows that higher than average frauds probabilities occur in eastern Turkey. Towns where these signs of frauds occur significantly more often than average are red and significantly less often than average are blue. The high probabilities of AKP-favoring frauds occur not merely in eastern Turkey but in areas where the party that supports Kurdish interests (HDP, Peoples’ Democratic Party) is the dominant party. Hotspot Analysis: Fraud Probabilities, June. Note: Overall fraud probability averages: June, 0.0188; November, 0.0146. Data: SEÇSiS, GADM. Figure: Walter R. Mebane Jr. Hotspot Analysis: Fraud Probabilities, November. Note: Overall fraud probability averages: June, 0.0188; November, 0.0146. Data: SEÇSiS, GADM. Figure: Walter R. Mebane Jr. Many districts have anomalous features. The currently ruling AKP is the party that by most measures benefited from the extensive frauds that we detect, especially in eastern Turkey. The Toolkit is still in development, but it is possible for anyone to analyze election data if the data is in proper form. The help button on the website has a tutorial. Detecting election frauds using published results will continue to get easier as we improve this prototype and continue to develop new techniques. Walter R. Mebane Jr. is a research associate at the Center for Political Studies, professor of political science and professor of statistics at the University of Michigan. Allen Hicken is a research associate professor at the Center for Political Studies and an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Ken Kollman is director of the Center for Political Studies and professor of political science at the University of Michigan.


Will Britain vote to leave the EU? These six factors will make the difference.

succession of moderate politicians and business leaders start warning voters of the fearful unknowns associated with leaving the E.U. British voters are among the most Euroskeptic in the E.U. But except for a few diehard Europhobes, the vast bulk are what Sussex University’s Paul Taggart and Aleks Szczerbiak dub “soft eurosceptics.” They don’t much like the E.U., but neither is it high on their priority list. Much may depend, therefore, on how well the “remain” campaign is able to mobilize lukewarm voters on referendum day. 5. ‘Events, dear boy, events’ When asked by a reporter what was the biggest challenge facing him, a former Conservative prime minister, Harold MacMillan, is reputed to have said, “events, dear boy, events.” Given how fluid public opinion can be, the result may depend on any number of outside events. Another large influx of migrants into Europe, a terrorist attack, a downturn in the world economy, a sharpening of the euro-zone crisis, even bad weather on polling day: Any of these could prove decisive. If the referendum is on June 23, as now widely expected, the fate of Britain’s membership in the E.U., as Sussex University’s Dan Hough noted, could even depend on how well England perform in the European soccer championships: They face a potentially decisive game against Slovakia just three days before. England’s departure from the European championships could increase the chance of Britain’s departure from the E.U. 6. Timing Timing could be crucial. Cameron is keen to hold the referendum sooner rather than later. He wants his government to devote more time to other issues and to put to bed the divisions in his party. The later the referendum, the more Euroskeptic Conservatives will develop the habit of criticizing their leader publicly — and the more likely an unexpected event might derail the campaign. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has criticized the possibility of a June referendum. She complained that a June vote would interfere with the elections to the Scottish parliament in May, essentially arguing that the U.K. isn’t giving Scottish elections due respect. That’s a strategic move. Here’s why. Scots will vote to remain. If the rest of the U.K. overwhelms them and votes to leave, she can argue that London doesn’t really care about Scotland — and then push the case for another referendum on Scottish independence, which the nationalists would almost certainly win. Cameron’s decision to make his


As bees vanish, bee heists multiply

The bee industry is vital to California’s massive almond production. Watch how hives are moved between orchards and just how thieves can swoop in to steal them. Jay Freeman is a run-of-the-mill detective in Butte County, Calif. He spends most of the year investigating robberies and homicides. “Just general felonies,” he said. But that all changes during pollination season. Every February, his caseload turns to a different kind of grand theft. One that has a very low recovery rate and ends up costing business owners hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Detective Freeman starts chasing bee thieves. The bee economy in California is immense. Eighty-two percent of the world’s almonds are produced within a 400-mile stretch in the state. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of un-gated almond orchards in California, all of which need to be pollinated in the span of a few weeks in February — by an ever-dwindling bee population. Beekeepers come in from across the country to fulfill contracts with farmers and brokers, moving hives to and fro on forklifts and flatbed trucks. And they come with a steep price that’s getting steeper every year. At the start of pollination season in 2010, the average hive cost $130 to rent. Rental fees are $200 this year, and will continue going up as hives continue to die off. The industry is becoming increasingly volatile, increasingly expensive and thus, increasingly criminalized. A bee collects pollen from a crocus. (AFP/Getty Images) Detective Freeman can tick off hundreds of hives stolen since the current season began — 240 in Colusa County, 64 in Butte, 280 in Sutter County, 100 more in Butte. The list goes on. “The numbers – the 240 and 280 is a little unusual,” Detective Freeman told The Washington Post. “In the past few years when I’ve been investigating hive thefts, it’s been 20 here, 40 there. There was one that was 128, but it seemed to be significantly lower in number than the ones this year.” Two hundred eighty “They could be large-scale beekeepers or just a smaller hobbyist or sideliner who’s trying to make a few bucks in the almond pollination,” the detective said. Hives are normally grouped together on large pallets, so it takes forklifts and trucks to move them – things beekeepers all have. And with so many beehives on the road this month, it’s near impossible to tell when a


Ancient, unknown species of flower found locked away in amber

much as 45 million years old. The flower, dubbed Strychnos electri by Rutgers botanist Lena Struwe, is described in a study published Monday in Nature Plants. Because amber – which is incredibly useful for preserving bugs and plants alike – is difficult to date, it's possible that the flower is as little as 15 million years old. "These flowers looked like they had just fallen from a tree," Oregon State University entomologist George Poinar said in a statement. Poinar, who studies insects trapped in amber and brought the fossil back from an amber mine in the Dominican Republic in 1986, is a co-author on the study. "I thought they might be Strychnos, and I sent them to Lena because I knew she was an expert in that genus," he said. The new fossil flower Strychnos electri in its original Dominican amber piece. (George Poinar) By looking at the centimeter-long flower's morphology and comparing it to hundreds of years' worth of dried flower samples, Struwe was able to find its place on the floral family tree: It's most likely an asterid – a member of the clade of plants that includes potatoes, honeysuckle, coffee plants and about 80,000 other species. About one third of all flowering plants are asterids, but this is the first time one has been found preserved in amber in the New World. Strychnos electri "This fossil turned out to have particular significance for our understanding of the evolution of plants in the Caribbean and the New World tropics," Struwe said in a statement. In the paper, she writes that the discovery suggests that many of our more familiar astrids may have begun to emerge in the area during that time. "The discovery of this new species in a 30-year-old amber collection highlights that we still have many undiscovered species hidden away in natural history collections worldwide and not enough taxonomic experts to work through them," Struwe said in a statement. "Strychnos electri has likely been extinct for a long time, but many new species living and, unfortunately, soon-to-be-extinct species are discovered by scientists every year." Read More: 40 million years before butterflies existed, this creature evolved with strikingly similar looks Oldest ever fossilized grass has psychedelic fungus hitching a ride New cricket discovered in long-neglected amber collection This brilliant plant pretends to be poop Scientists say humans certainly caused the spread of the virus that’s killing honeybees


Main Street Morning: Two-man Alabama tractor company gets approval for factory in Cuba

rates herald a new danger for the world. People - A brilliant bakery gives immigrant women a “kneaded” boost. Management - These are three key business metrics to look at every day. - A financial expert shares the five things your business dashboard must do. - This is why your brain actually works better in the winter. - How big airlines’ profits are benefiting their customers…and their employees. - The owner of an indoor market explains how a constant turnover of vendors keeps his business fresh. - A bee-farmer looks to diversify as threats to his stock grow. People - From airport hangars to bowling alleys, how today’s business functions are being held everywhere. Entrepreneurs - A viral ultrasound video shows a baby punching himself in the head. Cash Flow - Saying he’s $53 million in debt, Kanye West pleads for help from Mark Zuckerberg. - These are eight U.S. Presidents who started as entrepreneurs. Sales and Marketing - Here’s what it’s REALLY like to be one of the 24 greeting card writers at @Hallmark. Start-Up - A start-up raises nearly $45,000 in less than a day to become most-funded Jewish campaign on crowdfunding site. Online - I bet you didn’t know these ten surprising things your business can do on the USPS.com website. - Comcast’s nationwide outage causes a nationwide outrage on Twitter. - Three reasons nobody comments on your content. Technology - A 3-D printer creates human muscles and tissues that could actually replace real ones. Around the Country - Small Business Week begins in Georgia. - A report says that Google is seeking a Michigan research site for its autonomous cars. - An Arizona bi-national eatery traces its history to humble roots. - An Oklahoma business owner cleans cars for a children’s charity. - A fishing tackle store in Baltimore celebrates a century in business. - The Southern Illinois University Small Business Development Center faces closure. Around the World - A massive $14 million diamond is found in southern Africa. - Flights from London to New York may get longer, thanks to climate change. - The first train to connect China and Iran arrived in Tehran, reviving the ancient Silk Road. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


WHO: Countries must ramp up mosquito control measures to fight Zika

mass release of male insects that have been sterilized by low doses of radiation. When they mate with females, the resulting eggs are not viable, leading the insect population to die out. The approach has proven effective in controlling agriculturally important pests, the WHO said. In addition, another method includes using male mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia bacteria, which are found in roughly 60 percent of insects. The bacteria do not infect humans or other mammals, but when female mosquitoes mate with males carrying the bacteria, their eggs do not hatch. Some countries are using different techniques altogether. In El Salvador, for instance, the government is introducing larvae-devouring fish into water storage containers to combat mosquito breeding, the WHO said. The WHO repeatedly has said that a well-executed mosquito control plan can reduce the transmission of mosquito-borne viruses. But the agency acknowledged Tuesday that such efforts are "complex, costly, and blunted by the spread of insecticide resistance" among mosquitoes. In addition, few countries have dedicated, well-funded programs for mosquito control. WHO officials said that while the use of fogging to kill adult mosquitoes provides the most visible evidence of governmental action, the difficult work of eliminating mosquito breeding sites is more effective for protecting people from bites. The Aedes mosquito can breed in minute amounts of water, such as a bottle cap, a plant container, a pet water bowl or a bird bath. It's eggs can survive for long periods in a dry state, only to hatch once submerged in water. All of that makes the Aedes difficult to control. Health officials have said that while government actions are essential in combating mosquito populations, individuals in Zika-affected areas also must take measures to avoid being bitten. That includes using mosquito repellent, wearing long sleeves and pants and placing screens on windows and doors. Everything you ever wanted to know about the Zika virus and its spread across North and South America. Why the United States is so vulnerable to the alarming spread of Zika virus Beyond Zika: The map of things that keep NIH’s infectious diseases director up at night Zika and sex: Seven key things you need to know about the case in Dallas FAQ: What is Zika, and what are the risks as it spreads? ‘Zika isn’t important': The infuriating case of a scientist’s search for funding. For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter


Scientists just analyzed the atmosphere of a ‘super-Earth’ for the first time

For the first time ever, scientists are sniffing out the secrets of a "super-Earth" — the type of planet thought to be the most common in our galaxy. In a study published Tuesday in the Astrophysical Journal, a team led by scientists from University College London report on the atmosphere of exoplanet 55 Cancri e, also known as Janssen. Transit of 55 Cancri e Super-Earths are planets larger than our own (in this case, twice as big and eight times as massive) but not as large as the towering gas giants. While these planets may be more Earth-like than others, most of them are totally uninhabitable. Janssen is no exception: Because of its close proximity to its host star, Janssen boasts a surface temperature of over 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, thanks to data from the Hubble, scientists have confirmed that this rocky hell-scape lacks water. They detected signs of hydrogen and helium in the atmosphere but no water vapor to speak of. Hints of hydrogen cyanide could indicate a carbon-rich atmosphere, according to the scientists. That would make sense, since Janssen's mass and radius led scientists to believe it might be carbon-rich — earning it the nickname of "diamond planet." This is the first time scientists have successfully detected an atmosphere in a super-Earth, though they've tried to use the same method a couple of times before. Janssen was more forthcoming because of its super-close proximity to its host star. I mean, super close. A year on Janssen lasts only 18 hours. Scientists can determine the makeup of a planet's atmosphere by watching as it transits in front of its host star. The way the passing planet changes the light of the star behind it — light that's passing through the planetary atmosphere on its way to our line of sight — can reveal what molecules are clinging to it. Because Janssen is still tied to those stellar apron strings and passes in front of the alien sun so frequently, researchers were able to collect lots of data in a short amount of time. With its burning-hot surface and its toxic hydrogen cyanide, Janssen definitely isn't an exoplanet worth visiting. But as researchers improve techniques for puzzling out planetary characteristics, we up our odds of stumbling upon a super-Earth that's actually super Earth-like. Read More: Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the


What’s really scary about the Zika virus are the things we don’t know

North and South America. What's actually concerning about Zika isn't what we know, however. It's what we don't know. These "known unknowns" reveal just how little we really understand about this Zika outbreak so far. And while the international community has moved quickly into action – quicker than it reacted to Ebola, experts say – the scale of what we don't know is still a huge cause for concern. “This emergency is because of what’s unknown,” David Heymann, an infectious-disease professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told The Washington Post's Lena Sun and Brady Dennis recently. “The Ebola emergency was because of what was known.” It's a complicated and shifting picture. Here is some of what we still don't know. *** Whether there is a link between Zika and microcephaly One reason this latest Zika outbreak is causing so much concern is because its arrival in Brazil appears to have coincided with a surge in the number of cases of microcephaly, a rare neurological condition which leaves children with unusually small heads. In many cases of microcephaly, the child's brain may not develop properly. In Brazil, there has been an abundance of more severe cases, including a number of cases where the child died shortly after birth. Brazilian doctors say they have seen around 4,000 cases of suspected microcephaly since last fall, a huge surge considering that they reported 147 cases total in 2014. Many suspect that there is a link between the Zika outbreak and the rise in cases of microcephaly. Albert Ko, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at the Yale University School of Public Health who spent time in the Brazilian city of Salvador last December, recently told The Washington Post: "We strongly believe that the cases of microcephaly we are identifying during this outbreak are due to Zika virus." The evidence for a link between Zika and microcephaly has become more and more compelling. Evidence of the virus has been found in amniotic fluid of pregnant women carrying fetuses with microcephaly, in the brain tissue of infants with microcephaly who died shortly after birth, and in the placenta of women who have miscarried fetuses with the condition. There are still some wrinkles, however. Some studies say that the rise in the microcephaly cases in Brazil may actually predate the Zika outbreak. And as The Post reported late last month, there have been


some signs that there may actually have been fewer microcephaly cases in Brazil than first suspected. Whether there is a link between Zika and other health issues, including one rare syndrome that can lead to paralysis Another big worry for health officials is whether there is a link between the Zika outbreak and a growing number of cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) – an immune syndrome that can lead to paralysis, and, in rare cases, even death. In El Salvador, for example, there appears to have been a surge in the numbers of cases of GBS: In a little over a month there were 46 cases recorded, while usually there is an average of 169 a year. Notably, while a surge in the cases of microcephaly appears to be limited to Brazil so far, a large number of countries have reported a rise in the number of GBS cases. According to a recent WHO report, French Polynesia, Brazil, El Salvador, the French territory of Martinique, Colombia, Suriname, Venezuela and Honduras have all seen an increase in GBS cases. This isn't the only other issue that may be linked to Zika. Doctors have observed a large number of major eye defects in babies born with microcephaly. Speaking to The Post, epidemiologist Ko suggested that he was seeing a whole "spectrum" of birth defects. "It seems like microcephaly may just be the tip of the iceberg,' he said. How Zika can be transmitted We know that the virus is spread primarily through bites from the aedes aegypti mosquito, though the aedes albopictus mosquito is also capable of spreading the virus (this is of particular concern in the United States, where the aedes albopictus has a far larger geographic footprint). But mosquitos may not be the only culprit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently confirmed that sexual transmission of the Zika virus was "possible" and Dallas health officials have said that one local resident was infected with Zika after having sex with a person who had contracted the disease while traveling. Exactly how this works is unclear. Recent CDC guidelines note that in the cases where the disease was sexually transmitted, the men had developed the symptomatic illness. It is unknown, the CDC guidelines say, whether "infected men who never develop symptoms can transmit Zika virus to their sex partner." There have been no reports of infected women transferring the virus


The ‘Mad Men’ era of drinking is upon us

(Amy Cavenaile/The Washington Post; iStock) If it seems like everyone at the bar these days is trading in beer for bourbon, it's not just in your imagination. In 2015, hard liquor continued its decade-long onslaught against the supremacy of beer, according to numbers released this month from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. For the sixth straight year, distilled spirits' market share rose while beer's declined. Beer now accounts for less than half of the total U.S. alcohol market, down from 56 percent in 1999. Liquor's share, meanwhile, has risen from 28 percent to 35 percent of the market over the same period. Wine sales are almost flat. Since these numbers come from a trade group representing distilleries, you might view the overall narrative with some skepticism. For instance, we know that craft beer production is exploding. The Brewer's Association points out that the number of American breweries is approaching all-time highs, closing in on 4,000 last year. But if people are drinking many more kinds of beer, they're not drinking more of it overall. Per-capita consumption of Budweiser, for instance, has dropped by nearly half since 2005. Some of that consumption is going to smaller craft beers, but some of it is shifting toward hard liquor, too. The official domestic alcohol production numbers from the U.S. government tell an even more striking tale. Below, I've charted the percent change in domestic beer, wine and spirits production since 2003. Anything stand out? In 2015, spirits production was up 70 percent since 2003 levels, a healthy amount of growth. Wine production is up 31 percent. But total domestic beer production is down 4 percent. There are a lot of factors driving these trends. It appears that the shift from bland mass-market beers to craft brews has been great for smaller breweries, but detrimental to the bigger brewing companies. You also can't overlook the impact of "Mad Men" on Americans' drinking preferences. The spike in liquor production largely mirrors the trajectory of the AMC show featuring glamorous, hard-drinking ad men which ran from 2007 to 2015. AMC Part of the reason so many Americans drank so much bland beer for so many years has to do with public health campaigns — as the prohibitionist movement gained steam in the late 1800s, drinking light, watery beer was seen as the responsible thing to do. Those attitudes persisted for a long time,


Morning links: Apple fights feds over encryption

- Apple, federal government face off over encryption. - Head of multi-jurisdictional anti-drug task force says forfeiture reform may spell the end of these roving, self-funded teams of drug-fighting cops who aren’t answerable to any local authority. He makes a good argument, but not the argument he thinks he’s making. - More stories of debtors’ prisons, this time in Oklahoma City. - Austin PD plans to roll out body cameras soon, but the city has yet to establish most of the policies governing how they’ll be used. So far, cops will be allowed to see videos before making a statement, but not citizens. And the videos will be secret, except when the police agency wants to release them. That’s not a recipe for transparency. - Police department embraces openness, transparency, real community policing . . . and complaints against cops drop 40 percent. - This recent ruling from an Illinois appeals court appears to embrace the “missing video presumption.” The ruling blocked police officers from testifying in a DUI case because the state failed to produce video from surveillance cams that should have captured the traffic stop. - University of Colorado study is the latest to debunk the so-called “Ferguson effect” on crime rates. - Photo of the day: Clarksdale, Miss.


Washington chefs and restaurants make a good showing as James Beard Award semifinalists

Rasika is a semifinalist in the Outstanding Restaurant category for the James Beard Awards. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) The James Beard Foundation showed Washington some love today, when it announced the semifinalists for its 2016 Restaurant and Chef Awards. The operative word: semifinalists. The semifinalist list was culled from an open call that netted about 20,000 submissions. From those, the foundation's Restaurant and Chef Awards Committee (critics, writers and editors) created the semifinalist list. The next step will see five semifinalists from each category advance as the nominees, after former Beard Award winners, committee members and other regional panelists vote. The nominees (the finalists, if you will) are set to be announced March 15. The ultimate winners will be honored May 2 in Chicago. Here are the nominees from Washington and environs that are in the running: Best New Restaurant The Dabney Kinship Outstanding Baker Mark Furstenberg Outstanding Bar Program Barmini Mockingbird Hill Outstanding Pastry Chef Aggie Chin, the Grill Room Outstanding Restaurant Jaleo Rasika Outstanding Restaurateur Ashok Bajaj Outstanding Service Komi Marcel's Outstanding Wine Program Red Hen Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional Sam Calagione, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Rutger de Vink, RdV Vineyards Diane Flynt, Foggy Ridge Cider Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic Victor Albisu, Del Campo Erik Bruner-Yang, Maketto Hari Cameron, a(MUSE.) (Rehoboth Beach, Del.) Peter Chang, Peter Chang Tarver King, Restaurant at Patowmack Farm Cedric Maupillier, Convivial Aaron Silverman, Rose's Luxury Cindy Wolf, Charleston For the complete list of semifinalists, head on over to the James Beard Foundation's site. Related items: 2015 Fall Dining Guide D.C. restaurants are all over the list of James Beard Award semifinalists Mark Furstenberg and Erik Bruner-Yang were nominated for James Beard Awards, but other locals were shut out Rasika chef Vikram Sunderam wins James Beard Award


Middle-class minorities are most at risk of falling behind on student loans, report says

Steinbaum, a research economist at the center, which partnered with Generation Progress and the Center for American Progress’s Higher Ed, Not Debt campaign on the study. He added: “The fact that, among minorities, the middle class is most strongly affected by delinquency implies the problem is structural racism within the U.S. higher education system, credit and labor markets, and the distribution of wealth — not poverty.” African American and Hispanic households have a fraction of the wealth of whites and have for decades been shut out of traditional ladders of economic opportunity such as homeownership. Even when credit flowed through minority communities, after years of banks denying mortgage financing, blacks and Hispanics were often steered into high-cost loans that many could not afford once the housing market crashed. Those who managed to avoid foreclosure still watched the value of their properties plummet, especially if they lived in minority neighborhoods. And because so much of African Americans’ and Hispanics’ wealth is concentrated in their homes, the losses crippled those communities. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that college-educated Hispanics were hit particularly hard by the collapse of the housing market, with their net worth plummeting 72 percent between 2007 to 2013, compared with African American graduates with 60 percent declines. As a result of having limited savings or other assets to cover the cost of college, African American families borrow heavily to pay for it. Researchers at the liberal think tank Demos found 4 out of 5 black graduates take out loans to attend public colleges, compared with less than two-thirds of whites. African American students who borrow come out with more debt than their peers, often facing dismal job prospects. College-educated blacks have twice the unemployment rate of their white counterparts. Economists at the St. Louis Fed said state and federal government jobs have historically offered African Americans entrance to the middle class, but budget cuts have put pressure on those sectors and eroded wage gains. In contrast, high-tech jobs have almost exclusively created wealth for white and Asian men. A growing body of research suggests African American students are overrepresented in studying fields that lead to low-paying jobs. Although the findings reflect personal choice, researchers at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce say it is also the result of black students being concentrated at open-access colleges with a limited menu of majors.


Hollywood-style condo/hotel planned for D.C.’s Mount Vernon Triangle

(SBE) The Peebles Corporation, a national real estate development and investment firm, was selected in May 2014 to acquire and redevelop city-owned land at 901 5th St. NW, also known as “5th and I.” The corporation recently announced that SBE, a Los Angeles-based luxury lifestyle and hospitality company, and its subsidiary, Dakota Development, will develop, manage and operate the development, the first SLS Lux Hotel & Residences in the District. While the District already has condos associated with hotels at two Ritz-Carltons and of course at the famous Watergate complex, this new development is anticipated to provide an ultra-luxurious lifestyle for condo owners. SLS is rolling out similarly upscale combined hotels and condos in Miami, Philadelphia and Atlanta. The D.C. development will include 198 hotel rooms and 59 condominiums. Condo owners will have access to concierge services, a spa, club areas and executive meeting spaces. The company has yet to announce which restaurant will be in the hotel, but one possibility would be another Jose Andres restaurant, since the chef and restaurateur has already partnered with SLS in other locations. For more information, visit www.peeblescorp.com or www.sbe.com. To pass on a tip or news item, contact us at realestate@washpost.com and put “Town Square” in the subject line.


After computer hack, L.A. hospital pays $17,000 in bitcoin ransom to get back medical records

Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. (REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni) Not too long ago, putting online the nation’s wild, messy, unreliable system of medical records seemed like a worthy goal. “To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that, within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized,” President Obama said in 2009. “This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests.” While the shift that Obama and many others pushed may have improved care, electronic medical records led to quite the unique hostage situation in Los Angeles this week. There, a hospital fell prey to a cyberattack — and the hospital has escaped its plight by paying hackers a $17,000 ransom. Allen Stefanek, president and chief executive of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, explained the situation in a statement Wednesday. “On the evening of February 5th, our staff noticed issues accessing the hospital’s computer network,” he wrote. “Our IT department began an immediate investigation and determined we had been subject to a malware attack. The malware locked access to certain computer systems and prevented us from sharing communications electronically.” What communications needed to be electronically shared? As Stefanek got around to pointing out a few paragraphs later, medical records. As reports emerged of the hospital being forced to resort to the prehistoric days of paper charts, at least one patient was feeling the pain. “I wasn’t feeling very well, went in for a checkup and they said their computers were down,” patient Melissa Garza told Fox 11 last week. “I asked, ‘What’s going on here?’ and they said, ‘We were hacked.'” But all was now well, Stefanek said Wednesday. “All systems currently in use were cleared of the malware and thoroughly tested,” he wrote. “We continue to work with our team of experts to understand more about this event.” Stefanek also said that reports of the ransom payment were greatly exaggerated. “The reports of the hospital paying 9000 Bitcoins or $3.4 million are false,” the statement said. “The amount of ransom requested was 40 Bitcoins, equivalent to approximately $17,000.” Bitcoin is virtual money that cuts out banks and credit card companies. Here's what you need to know about the original cryptocurrency. For a 434-bed hospital with more than 500 doctors that’s generated as much as $209 million in yearly revenue,


Being a journalist in Mexico is getting even more dangerous

Photos of slain journalists and cameras outside the Veracruz state office during a protest by journalists in Mexico City on Feb. 11, 2016. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images) Anabel Flores, a 27-year-old mother of two toddlers, was kidnapped by armed men who stormed her house in the early hours of Feb. 7 in the Mexican city of Orizaba, state of Veracruz. The facts are dramatic, but it’s also an old story: Flores was a reporter, and her fate was similar to that suffered by more than 100 journalists in the past 15 years. Her body was found two days later, on the evening of Feb. 9. Like many of her slain colleagues, Flores covered the crime beat. And in the state of Veracruz, one of the most violent in Mexico, fraught with violence by drug cartels, this is a high-risk job. Her death was another chilling reminder that a kidnapping almost surely means death for a Mexican journalist. It is a trend that Mexico shares with Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq and Syria, also among the world’s most dangerous places for journalists, where the murder of American reporters Jim Foley and Steve Sotloff at the hands of the Islamic State let the world know that a kidnapping is more likely to end in death than release. In Mexico, this has been the case in more than half of the 17 murders of journalists since 2014, as documented by the Journalists at Risk project supported by ICFJ and Freedom House. Nine of those 17 reporters, editors or news anchors were kidnapped before being killed. Their bodies were found after their abductions had been reported, and in all cases the authorities launched search operations. But the final, tragic outcomes prove that the government’s response, at both the local and national level, is woefully inadequate. Journalists have been missing for days before their bodies are found. When Flores was kidnapped, the Veracruz state government announced an operation to look for her. It didn’t work, and she was found dead two days later. The authorities can be even more clueless, as evidenced by the case of Moisés Sánchez, also in Veracruz. He was kidnapped in the town of Medellín on Jan. 2, 2015, and according to police reports, he was killed the same day. However, authorities took 22 days to find his body — even though they had several suspects in custody who had admitted


Will the Navy test its futuristic rail gun at sea this year? Not so fast.

month. Matt Leonard, a spokesman for Navy Sea Systems Command, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that the service is “studying the pros/cons of forgoing a 2016 at-sea demonstration” of the rail gun. [The Pentagon’s electromagnetic rail gun makes its public debut] The shift, Leonard said, is under consideration with an eye toward accelerating testing of the rail gun and the “hypervelocity projectile” it fires, which also might be fired from conventional five-inch and 155mm naval guns. Fanta told the independent Defense News newspaper late in December that he favored pushing back at-sea demonstrations rather than testing this year on an Expeditionary Fast Transport ship, the Navy’s new name for the Joint High Speed Vessel class. But the Navy won’t yet say whether that idea has won out. “What I’m finding is if I go ahead with the demo it will slow my development,” Fanta told Defense News. “I would rather get an operational unit out there faster than do a demonstration that just does a demonstration.” This screen grab of a video released by the U.S. Navy shows its new ‘rail gun’ in action. (YouTube screen grab) The Johnson has long been considered a front-runner to carry that operational unit. More than a year ago, the commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, Vice Adm. William Hilarides, told USNI News that engineering studies were underway to make sure the ship had enough power, space and cooling to carry a rail gun. The first two ships in the class, the USS Zumwalt and the USS Michael Monsoor, were considered less likely homes for it because of the testing schedule for all three ships, which combined will cost at least $12.3 billion. The Zumwalt class itself is just beginning to find its footing after a long period of research and building. The first ship, named after Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, former chief of naval operations, went to sea for the first time in December for initial sea trials. It was considered a first step toward showing how the 610-foot-long, 15,480-ton destroyer can perform afloat despite having an unconventional pyramid-shaped hull that slopes out at the bottom with a stealthy “tumblehome” design. That should make the ship harder to find on radar but also has long raised questions about how stable it will be when facing rough seas. [The Navy’s new $4 billion destroyer just went to sea. A lot is on the line.]


Newsletter: Kanye West: Help, I need $53 million

I paid off all of my debts (except my mortgage) I vowed never to get in debt again. We are living in a world of immediate gratification. Believe me, it gets you nowhere fast. Look down the road and imagine living with the stress of debt in your later years on a fixed income. I’m approaching retirement with a plan for living on a fixed income, and it doesn’t include one penny of debt. If people don’t agree with me that’s fine. I just hope your memories of Beyoncé and other things you just had to have give you comfort when you can’t make ends meet.” Tiffany Beeler Beeler continued: “A few years back Prince came to the Bay Area on one of his ‘surprise tours’ and I went to all five nights of his show, which were in two different cities. When my mom asked me if I had lost all touch with reality as I had used my American Express to finance the excursions, I told her that because he is so sporadic that when he came again I may not be able to see him due to money, child care, job situation, etc. It turns out I now have a 14-month-old baby, and when he did another round of ‘surprise’ shows last year, I was reminded of what was most important — paying my bills on time so that I could provide food and shelter for my daughter and politely played ‘Purple Rain’ on repeat.” Lois Berkowitz Joyce Turner There is a dream team that Lorna Gilkey of Alexandria, Va., says she’d splurge on: “There is only ONE concert that I would agree to forgo paying my bills to see. If Luther Vandross and Michael Jackson came back to life for one night only, and Richard Pryor was opening the show for them, then — and only then — would I skip a bill to see it. Otherwise, I’ll pay my bills and just watch YouTube.” Color of Money Columns • Our Valentine to you: Singletary vs. Brooks, in the love and money debate Readers may write to Michelle Singletary at The Washington Post, 1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C., 20071, or michelle.singletary@washpost.com. Personal responses may not be possible, and comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer’s name, unless otherwise requested. To read previous Color of Money columns, go to washingtonpost.com/business.


IAAF prepared to suspend Kenya from Rio Olympics if anti-doping measures are not met

IAAF President Sebastian Coe. (Bertrand Langlois/AFP/Getty Images) IAAF President Sebastian Coe announced Thursday that the organization is prepared to suspend Kenya’s track and field program from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio if it is deemed to be non-compliant with the code of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Kenya failed to meet a deadline set by WADA for last week to supply the agency with substantial proof, both legislatively and physically, that it was combating doping. The nation’s anti-doping agency said Thursday that it was granted $3 million by the government to go toward anti-doping equipment, according to The Associated Press. This comes nearly four years after the nation made promises to WADA to establish the body and pass legislation to combat the issue. The IAAF’s ethics commission is investigating alleged extortion and doping cover-ups in Kenya involving top officials. According to Reuters, throughout the past three years, the country has had more than 40 athletes banned for doping-related offenses. Per The Guardian, Coe told The Clare Baldin Show it was because of this that the federation would consider a ban: “We know a disproportionate amount of reputational damage is caused by a relatively few countries and we have to be much more proactive,” Lord Coe told BT Sport’s The Clare Balding Show. “Yes, if it means pulling them out of world championships or Olympic Games then we will have to do that.” The nation’s track and field federation president told the AP that given the country’s recent pro-active anti-doping actions the IAAF’s warning is not overly concerning at this point. “It does not worry me now that we may face an Olympic ban, since ADAK (The Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya) is working out a policy bill which will be taken to parliament to be made into law,” said Jackson Tuwei, the acting president of Kenya’s track and field federation. “I am confident we will succeed. And since we have been given another two months we will work day and night to conform with the rules.” The IAAF has already come down hard on one country for doping issues, banning Russia from track and field competition after the program was found guilty of state-sponsored doping in November. However, further reporting from the AP showed that the organization had known of the issue in Russia since 2009 and in 2012 attempted to work with the country to help Russia hide the issue


Outside the Lines report: Rio water will still be polluted for Summer Olympics

venues. “The USOC has ongoing concerns over possible existing viral and bacterial contaminants in the water. … The USOC remains hopeful, but we do not expect to anticipate major reductions [italics are the USOC’s] in bacterial or viral pathogen levels at the competition venues. In speaking with Olympic athletes — including both those who have competed in the Rio water previously and those with no prior exposure — Ford deduced that athletes’ leading train of thought is currently that the water, while polluted and unfit for use on a massive scale, as the citizens of Rio do every day, they are willing to sacrifice a fever or upset stomach for the chance to compete in the Olympics. U.S. triathlete Sarah True spoke with Ford and provided the vantage point that turned out to ring true with other interviewed athletes: “From everything I understand, the worst that can happen with the race is that a couple of days later, I might get a little sick,” says True, who finished fourth at the 2012 Olympics. “In the very large scheme of things, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’m far more concerned for the people who live there, who were made these grand promises to improve their environment. “They could have made some really huge changes. That was supposed to be one of the net benefits. For those promises not to be delivered on is appalling to me.” Like True, most of the athletes interviewed by Ford shared the common thought that competing in the water was only fractionally as terrifying as the thought of having to drink, swim, and bathe in said water each day. The negative possibilities, while still there for athletes, is exponentially higher for the local citizens surrounding the various bodies of water. Ford pins some of the blame on the International Olympic Committee, whose executive director Christophe Dubi told her that while the majority of the expectations had not been met, the improvement was better than nothing, a sentiment that the IOC held both in Sydney and Beijing and one that has harmed its global reputation as a result. The 2016 Summer Olympics are currently scheduled to take place in Rio and the bodies of water in the initial plans — despite outcries from the former CEO of World Sailing — are still the ones that the Olympic Committee plans to use for the upcoming games.


This strange little sea snail uses water wings to ‘fly’

Sea butterflies are microscopic snails that swim in Arctic waters using wing-like structures from their shell opening. David Murphy from the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, explains how he and his colleagues have discovered that the molluscs probably have more in common with insects than other snails. Original link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR0qisNUbro Guys, look at this thing: (David Murphy) Is it a butterfly? A bee? An alien? Nope! It's a sea snail. A sea snail. From the sea. This aptly-named Arctic "sea butterfly" (Limacina helicina) is the subject of a new study in the Journal of Experimental Biology. It turns out that its way of swimming doesn't just look like flying – the mysterious creature really does use the same biomechanics as animals that fly through the air. "In a remarkable example of convergent evolution, we show that the sea butterfly Limacina helicina ‘flies’ underwater in the same way that very small insects fly in the air," the authors write in the study. Convergent evolution is when the same trait evolves more than once in unrelated organisms. "Both sea butterflies and flying insects stroke their wings in a characteristic figure-of-eight pattern to produce lift, and both generate extra lift by peeling their wings apart at the beginning of the power stroke," the study states. Gelatinous save for their shells, helicina snails sprout their "wings" where most snails grow feet. Most other zooplankton drag themselves through the water using a paddling technique. But the 3mm long helicina manages an "insect-like figure-of-eight wing stroke." The mechanics of its "flight" are quite similar to that seen in a fruit fly. A time lapse picture of a sea butterfly at different stages of a wing beat. (David Murphy) To analyze their swimming patterns, the researchers used a complex system of 3-D cameras, lasers and light-reflecting particles to trace the flow of water as the creatures moved. "The more we looked into it, the more we found that the sea butterfly is an honorary insect," study co-author David Murphy of the Georgia Institute of Technology told Live Science. The snails even use a common insect trick to get extra lift: It's a maneuver called the "clap and fling," where a creature slaps its wings together at the end of a stroke, then snaps them back apart. "This sucks fluid into that V-shaped gap as the wings open up, and creates tiny vortices at the tips of


A harrowing image of migrants wins World Press Photo’s top prize

also very nuanced. We’ve seen thousands of images of migrants in every form of their journey, but this image really caught my eye. It causes you to stop and consider the man’s face, consider the child. You see the sharpness of the barbed wire and the hands reaching out from the darkness. This isn’t the end of a journey, but the completion of one stage of a very long future. And so, for me, this had to be the photo of the year.” Awards for photos in this year’s competition were given in a variety of categories that included daily life, sports, portrait and nature photography. Here are some of the other category winners. And to see all of this year’s winning images, head over to the World Press website here. General News, first prize, singles:. A doctor in Hasaka, Syria, rubs ointment on the burns of a 16-year-old Islamic State fighter named Jacob in front of a poster of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey. Aug. 1, 2015. (Mauricio Lima) General News, first prize stories: Refugees arrive by boat near the village of Skala on Lesbos, Greece. Nov. 16, 2015. (Sergey Ponomarev) Spot News, first prize stories: Smoke rises from a building following reported shelling by Syrian government forces in Douma, Syria. Oct. 30, 2015. (Sameer Al-Doumy) Sports, first prize singles:. Czech Republic’s Ondrej Bank crashes during the downhill race of the Alpine Combined at the FIS World Championships in Beaver Creek, Colo. Feb. 15, 2015. (Christian Walgram) Sports, first prize stories: Hockey match between junior teams from Vetluga and village Sharanga in Vetluga, Russia, Feb. 19, 2015. (Vladimir Pesnya) Contemporary Issues, first prize singles: A city in northern China shrouded in haze, Tianjin, China, Dec. 10, 2015. (Zhang Lei) Contemporary Issues, first prize stories: Abdoulaye, 15, is a talibe imprisoned in a room with security bars to keep him from running away. Thies, Senegal, May 18, 2015. (Mario Cruz) Daily Life, first prize singles:. Chinese men pull a tricycle in a neighborhood next to a coal-fired power plant in Shanxi, China, Nov. 26, 2015. (Kevin Frayer) Daily Life, first prize stories: A Chilean scientist, supported by logisticians from the Chilean Antarctic Institute, are battered by waves on their way back to base after having taken sea-water samples; Fildes Bay, Antartica, Dec. 2, 2015. (Daniel Berehulak) People, first prize singles: A child is


It’s all fun and games until you crash an airplane

and house cats since at least the 1990s. But the laser pointer has become a potential menace as advances in technology transformed the dinky little PowerPoint companion into handheld monsters. Yet they’re still marketed as toys for Star Wars enthusiasts and others who fancy themselves swashbucklers with a light beam. As usual, the law has been trying to keep up with technology. Let’s visit Wicked Lasers, for example. The Seoul, South Korea-based firm markets its Krypton green laser (you know, the stuff that turns Superman to jelly) as the “world’s most powerful green handheld laser.” The laser, with 900-plus milliwatts, goes for a cool $999.95, according to the firm’s website. This video — produced by WorldScott.com “to popularize cool science and tech topics — shows a Krypton laser with a lot less juice can do igniting a bunch of bottle rockets: Laser Lit Alcohol Rocket Bottles with 100mW Spyder III Krypton Laser by Wicked Lasers * IMG * To its credit, the Wicked Lasers company website carries an advisory urging people not to point them at aircraft, and it warns that doing so is a felony in the United States. But the disclaimer is tucked away in an obscure spot on the site and in such itty bitty print that you’d be forgiven for thinking that you must have been zapped in the eyes and missed it. Meanwhile, over at BigLasers.com, you can pick up a “GX” Green Laser System with at least 500 milliwatts for $379.95 or a “GX3” with at least 100 milliwatts for $89.95. Yet the FDA and the American Academy of Ophthalmology say that anything over 5 milliwatts is potentially dangerous to the eye, and that higher power lasers should not be available to the general public. Emails to both companies seeking comment weren’t immediately returned. Lots of people have raised concerns about what this new generation of powerful handheld lasers can do on the ground, too. Rahul N. Khurana, an ophthalmologist and spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, said lasers have been used at sporting events to target players, and they’ve shown up in children’s hands as playthings, not always to happy effect. The right burst of light from a powerful laser can scorch a hole in the retina, he said. “I think a lot of people have a romanticized view of what a laser is,” Khurana said. “They can be quite dangerous.” The


Hoverboard fires are no joke: Two kids almost died as their house burned down

the ground, including the Foxes’ home. The Nashville fire department blamed that blaze on a hoverboard. Thursday the commission warned manufacturers, importers and retailers of hoverboards that it would seize or recall faulty hoverboards. The commission believes that many of these incidents would be prevented if hoverboards were manufactured in compliance with existing safety standards. The fateful Saturday morning in January had started innocently enough. Fox and his wife, Megan, picked out two chocolate cakes from a favorite bakery for their son Matthew’s birthday party. It was scheduled for that evening. At home, Matthew had ridden his hoverboard and then tucked it between two living room couches, following his parents instructions to not leave toys out in the open. Then he’d gone to play video games above the garage. His eldest sister soon returned home and headed to her room. Then the hoverboard caught fire. Both children initially confused the sounds of the blaze for someone breaking into the home. They thought they heard arguing, according to their parents, but were confused by the sounds of their pets and the vocal warnings of the downstairs fire alarms. When they realized what was really happening the fire had spread, and getting out wasn’t easy. Their father circled the home, screaming. He tried to enter through two doors, but the home was dark, hot and thick with smoke. The family dog and two cats burst from one door, but no children. Then Fox heard a noise on the side of his house. He raced over and watched as a shoe burst through a storm window, shattering the glass. His 16-year-old daughter Hailey poked her head out. “Baby you gotta jump!” yelled Brian. She stepped out the second-floor window and leapt to her father. They tumbled to the grass, Hailey’s leg twisting. She would need 20 stitches in her ankle, but was alive. Fox hopped up quickly, knowing his son was still somewhere in the burning house. As he circled the home he heard noise from above the garage. Matthew had retreated there earlier in the morning to play Xbox. Firefighters respond to the fire at the Fox home in early January. (Nashville Fire Department) Now he was pounding on the glass window. In a stroke of luck, Fox happened to have a ladder at the base of the garage. He grabbed it and propped it against the wall. He neared the top


Transcript: Hillary Clinton’s Nevada caucuses victory speech

so every American can go as far as your hard work can take you. And, to the thousands of volunteers and organizers who worked so hard in this state. (APPLAUSE) To the more than 750,000 people who've gone to Hillaryclinton.com and contributed what you could, the vast majority giving less than $100 dollars, and to the millions of people across our country who are supporting our camapaign. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. (APPLAUSE) We hear you, we see you, we're incredibly grateful to you because we're in this together. We look at our country and see so much that isn't working the way it should. We see grandparents forced to choose between paying rent and buying medicine because a prescription drug company has increased prices 5,000% overnight. We see African American families denied mortgages are nearly three times the rate of white families. We see small towns and rural communities hollowed out by lost jobs, and lost hope. We see a rising generation of young people coming of age in a world where opportunity seems out of reach. And, worst of all, we see children growing up in poverty, or pain, or fear. Here in Nevada, a brave young girl told me how scared she is that her parents could be deported. In South Carolina I met kids trying to learn in crumbling classrooms and neglected communities. And, then there's Flint, Michigan where children were poisoned by toxic water just because their governor wanted to save a little money. Americans are right to be angry, but we're also hungry for real solutions. (APPLAUSE) In the campaign, we've heard a lot about Washington and Wall Street. We all want to get secret unaccountable money out of politics. That starts with appointing a new Justice to the Supreme Court. (APPLAUSE) Who will protect the right of every citizen to vote, not every corporation to buy elections. (APPLAUSE) And, we also agree that Wall Street can never be allow to threaten Main street again. No bank can be too big to fail, no executive too powerful to jail. But, if we listen to the voices of Flint, and Ferguson, if we open our hearts to the families of coal country, and Indian country, if we listen to the hopes and heartaches of hardworking people across America, it's clear there is so much more to be done. The truth is we


Zika has been linked to birth defects. Now it may be causing paralysis.

quick test for Zika, and the virus remains in an infected patient’s blood only for about a week. So it’s difficult to test for Zika in patients hospitalized with Guillain-Barre symptoms. “The hypothesis is that Zika may be a more efficient trigger of Guillain-Barre, but we can’t say that at the moment,” said Anthony Costello, director of maternal, child and adolescent development at WHO. “The detective work is starting, but it takes time.” In Turbo, patients diagnosed with Zika – whose symptoms include rash, joint pain, headaches and bloodshot eyes – are typically given acetaminophen and sent home to rest. But they may share their homes with the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that pick upthe disease from infected people and spread it. They breed in stagnant water. Wilfrido Manuel Molinares looks out on a sewage canal to arrive at his home in Turbo on Feb. 17. His daughter, Paula Molinares, 10, is being treated for Guillain-Barre in Montería. (Dania Maxwell for The Washington Post) In a squalid neighborhood at the edge of a town known as El Bosque, the streets are unpaved and motorbikes weave around chickens and kids playing in the streets. Occasionally a truck rumbles through blaring advertisements on giant speakers, with an occasional public-health message urging residents to dump out standing water. What can be done to prevent Zika? There are no health inspectors or fumigation crews to be seen. A foul, black bisque of sewage and trash oozes through a canal right in front of the home of Wilfrido Molinares. Children and horses walk through the muck; a frayed sofa sits half-submerged, rotting. Molinares’s daughter Paula, 10, has been hospitalized with Guillain-Barre for nearly two weeks in the nearby city of Monteria. She had Zika symptoms before that. He’s had Zika, too, and was laid up from his construction job for two months last summer with chikungunya, which causes fevers and joint and muscle pain. Zika seemed mild compared with that, he said, until his daughter couldn’t stand on her own. The window from Wilfrido Manuel Molinares’ bedroom looks out into a puddle of stagnant water in Turbo, Colombia on February 17. (Dania Maxwell for the Washington Post) In their neighborhood, everyone stores drinking water in tanks, jugs and empty bottles. “There are a lot of mosquitoes here,” Molinares said. “I bought mosquito repellent and spray it all over. But when the sun goes down, sometimes you


Punishing North Korea: A rundown on current sanctions

the National Committee on North Korea has produced an excellent, readable summary of the legislation here. Essentially, the law: - Requires the president to sanction entities found to have contributed to North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program, arms trade, human rights abuses or other illicit activities. - Imposes mandatory sanctions for entities that are involved in North Korea’s mineral or metal trade, which contribute to a large component of the country’s foreign export earnings. - Requires the Treasury Department to determine whether North Korea should be listed as a “primary money laundering concern,” which would trigger tough new financial restrictions, and - Imposes new sanctions authorities related to North Korean human rights abuses and violations of cybersecurity. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has repeatedly taken action since President George W. Bush signed an executive order in 2008 that declared the North Korean threat to the United States. The sanctions have targeted specific North Korean institutions and people who are alleged to be involved in developing or financing the North’s weapons programs. They ban these companies and people from doing business in the United States and American companies and people from doing business with them. The OFAC has produced a helpful summary of all its actions to date here. UNITED NATIONS The U.N. Security Council has passed four resolutions against North Korea since Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. The kind people at the Arms Control Association have compiled a comprehensive summary here. An even more succinct summary looks like this: 2006: Resolution 1718 banned North Korea from conducting further nuclear tests and prohibited supplying North Korea with technology and training related to nuclear weapons development. 2009: Resolution 1874, imposed after the second nuclear test, tightened sanctions on specific people and companies and expanded the crackdown on arms exports and imports. Member states were encouraged to inspect and destroy any cargo on ships suspected of violating the arms embargo. January 2013: Resolution 2087, which followed a successful satellite launch, strengthened previous sanctions by clarifying a state’s right to seize and destroy material suspected of heading to or from North Korea for purposes of weapons development or research. March 2013: Resolution 2094 came after North Korea’s third nuclear test. It imposed new financial sanctions aimed at hindering money transfers and shutting Pyongyang out of the international financial system. SOUTH KOREA South Korea imposed unilateral sanctions against


ships suspected of violating the arms embargo. January 2013: Resolution 2087, which followed a successful satellite launch, strengthened previous sanctions by clarifying a state’s right to seize and destroy material suspected of heading to or from North Korea for purposes of weapons development or research. March 2013: Resolution 2094 came after North Korea’s third nuclear test. It imposed new financial sanctions aimed at hindering money transfers and shutting Pyongyang out of the international financial system. SOUTH KOREA South Korea imposed unilateral sanctions against North Korea following the 2010 attack on a Southern naval corvette, the Cheonan, that killed 46 sailors. These sanctions, known as the May 24 measures, included: - Banning North Korean ships from using shipping lanes in South Korean territory. - Suspending inter-Korean trade other than at the Kaesong industrial complex. - Prohibiting most cultural exchanges. President Park Geun-hye has now ordered the Kaesong complex shut in retaliation for the January nuclear test and February rocket launch. JAPAN Japan had lifted some of its direct sanctions on North Korea as the two countries embarked on discussions about a decades-old abduction program run by North Korea. But as the talks stalled, Japan reimposed some of the measures and then added new ones after the recent provocations. These are the latest measures, as reported by the Japan Times. - Banning remittances to North Korea, except those made for humanitarian purposes and less than $880 in value. - Renewing the ban on North Korean ships entering Japanese ports and extending it to include ships carrying other countries' flags that have called in North Korea. - Banning North Korean citizens coming to Japan. - Banning nuclear and missile-related engineers who have been to North Korea from coming to Japan. EUROPEAN UNION The European Union has imposed rounds of sanctions on North Korea over the last decade. These include: - An embargo on arms and related materiel. - A ban on the export of certain goods and technology. - Banning the trade in gold, precious metals and diamonds with the North Korean government. - A ban on exports of luxury goods. - Prohibiting government-backed financial support for trade with North Korea that might contribute to its weapons of mass destruction-related programs. - Tighter inspections of and advance information requirement of cargoes to and from North Korea - Restrictions on access to E.U. airports for certain flights. The full list can be viewed here.


Science confirms it: Denial of climate change is all about the politics

skepticism are more likely to be old, white and male – but the effects are so tiny you have to squint to see them. What really popped was people’s ideologies, political values, worldviews.” Indeed, political affiliation was the demographic variable most strongly correlated with people’s beliefs about climate change, with people who vote for more liberal political parties being more inclined to believe in climate change. Notably, political ideology — that is, a person’s overall general set of political beliefs along a continuous scale (a related, but different measure than the party a person intends to vote for) — was less of a predictor, although still a significant factor. “This suggests that acceptance of climate change is more aligned to specific identification with political parties than to underlying political ideologies,” the authors wrote in the paper. It’s a finding that was particularly interesting to sociology professor The most significant psychological variable — and indeed, the strongest predictor out of all the variables together — was a construct known as the New Ecological Paradigm, or NEP. This is a scale used to essentially measure people’s levels of environmental concern. It does not deal specifically with climate change, as the authors point out — but it is a strong predictor of people’s belief in global warming. The paradigm, in fact, was developed by Dunlap and his colleagues. “The NEP scale is designed to measure an ecological worldview,” Dunlap noted. “So it’s not surprising that people who endorse such a worldview express very high concern about climate change.” Belief in the trustworthiness of scientists and the idea that there’s a scientific consensus surrounding climate change were also strong predictors of a person’s belief in climate change. Other somewhat less significant predictors included characteristics such as a person’s scientific knowledge, their level of individualism versus communitarianism, and demographic variables such as age, race or sex. All of that said, the analysis also points out that people who believe in climate change are not always quick to support every climate-friendly policy that’s proposed. In general, the study’s authors note, the link between belief in climate change and support for a policy grows weaker the more specific and concrete the type of policy support being measured. For instance, people who believe in climate change are highly likely to say, generally, that they support policies that prioritize the environment over the economy. But it’s less likely that


The full ‘snow moon’ rises Monday night, joined by very bright Jupiter

The snow moon rises over Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3, 2015. (Richard Barnhill via Flickr) A beautiful snow moon rises in the eastern sky Monday night, with a very bright Jupiter close on its heels. The moon turned full at 1:20 p.m., though it will still look full Monday night. In Washington, the moon rises at 6:02 p.m., on Monday, and Jupiter will accompany the moon by early evening and stay close through the rest of the night. On Tuesday, Jupiter will be just two degrees away from the moon. Jupiter will appear bright in the sky, providing a good photo opportunity for sky watchers, if clouds cooperate. Clouds are expected to increase through the night in Washington, so if you want to catch the snow moon, you’ll have better luck earlier in the evening than later. We might also see some breaks in the clouds through the night for those interested in doing some photography. Naming full moons is a Native American tradition. February’s full moon is called the snow moon because it tends to be the coldest, snowiest month of the year in North America. However, individual tribes have their own names for each full moon moon — the Comanche call the February moon the “sleet moon,” and the Lakota call it “the moon when the trees crack because of the cold,” roughly translated. Interestingly, every 19 years, February has no full moon. A lunar cycle is 29 days, so February sometimes misses out since the month is usually only 28 days long.