Should the 2016 Summer Olympics still be held in Rio?

ongoing political turmoil (though that doesn’t exactly help inspire confidence that the Games will be run smoothly) and a lot to do with the Zika virus. Though Zika has been around in various forms for more than a half-century, study after study of its current iteration confirms that it’s a nasty piece of work. There is increasing evidence that this particular strain not only affects pregnant women but puts adults at risk for Guillain-Barré Syndrome. And the epicenter for this outbreak is — wait for it — Brazil. This week, in the Harvard Public Health Review, immunologist Amir Attaran makes the case for either postponing or moving the 2016 Olympic Games from Rio. Simply put, Zika infection is more dangerous, and Brazil’s outbreak more extensive, than scientists reckoned a short time ago. Which leads to a bitter truth: the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games must be postponed, moved, or both, as a precautionary concession …. Rio de Janeiro’s suspected Zika cases are the highest of any state in in Brazil (26,000), and its Zika incidence rate is the fourth worst ( 157 per 100,000). Or in other words: according to the Brazil’s official data, Rio is not on the fringes of the outbreak, but inside its heart…. [W]hile Brazil’s Zika inevitably will spread globally — given enough time, viruses always do — it helps nobody to speed that up. In particular, it cannot possibly help when an estimated 500,000 foreign tourists flock into Rio for the Games, potentially becoming infected, and returning to their homes where both local Aedes mosquitoes and sexual transmission can establish new outbreaks. By all means read the whole thing. Attaran is not the most uncontroversial guy in the world, so maybe he’s overreacting. And I don’t think his suggestions for hosting the Olympics in a different city this summer are at all feasible — the required logistical U-turn would be too massive for this kind of event with this kind of short time window. Furthermore, because the Olympics will be held during Brazil’s winter, and because mosquitoes will be less populous then, the situation should improve. Still, there are two reasons why I suspect that Attaran is not overreacting. The first is that a big global gathering like the Olympics seems tailor made to spread the disease. Normally when an epidemic breaks out, the concern is that people will travel from the infected area to


The brilliant way ‘The Americans’ used its time-jump

make the right decision. . . . Nobody needs this.” And even if the darkest scenarios are possible and America is planning to use the fever as a weapon rather than developing vaccines for it, William confesses, “I don’t trust us with it,” because the Soviet Union’s scientific infrastructure is crumbling. Once he’s back in touch with his moral sensibilities, William can’t help but see a whole new set of realities. The same thing is happening to Oleg Burov (Costa Ronin), a once-arrogant KGB agent who has been ground down by his brother’s death in Afghanistan and the execution of his lover (Annet Mahendru), who was killed though she had been told she would have a chance to redeem herself. Having lost his illusions about the Soviet Union’s moral authority, Oleg is acknowledging its technical weaknesses, telling his colleague Tatiana (Vera Cherny) about a false alarm that nearly resulted in a Soviet nuclear launch: “It turns out it was sunlight reflecting off clouds that the detection system registered as missiles.” Oleg, William and the Jennings grew up inside of the Soviet system. They devoted their lives to it. And whatever disillusioning experiences they’ve had along the way, they have deep foundations for their beliefs and years of investment in that system to try to justify if that belief seems to falter. It might have seemed last season, when the Jennings told their daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) what they really did for a living, that they were setting off a bomb that would make it operationally impossible for them to continue their work. But as “The Day After” reminds us, “The Americans” is always playing a longer game than that. Instead of immediately blowing their cover and forcing the family to flee, Paige’s attempts to be a good daughter — if not a good Soviet spy — have stretched the Jennings’ already-tenuous moral justifications of their work to a breaking point. “That’s why your mother and I do what I do, to keep things like that from happening,” Philip tries to reassure Paige after they watch “The Day After,” the television movie from which the episode takes it name, which depicts a nuclear apocalypse. “Do you really think it makes a difference?” Paige asks, hope flickering briefly. “I don’t know,” Philip tells her, honestly, unable to quell Paige’s fear of nuclear war. “I just hope we’re all together when it happens.


More evidence emerges that Tokyo Olympic organizers may have bribed IOC members

These rings are tarnished again. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File) Earlier this year The Associated Press reports the amount to be $2 million. According to the AP, French officials have been told that the payments — marked “Tokyo 2020 Olympic Game bid” — were sent in July and October 2013 from a Japanese bank to an account controlled by the Black Tidings company in Singapore. That account was overseen by a close friend of Papa Massata Diack, the former IAAF marketing consultant and Lamine Diack’s son. Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Olympics in September 2013, beating out Istanbul and Madrid. Lamine Diack already had been arrested by French authorities in November over allegations that he accepted more than $1 million in bribes to cover up systemic doping by Russian track and field athletes. The native of Senegal was an IOC member from 1999 to 2013, stepping down soon after the Tokyo vote to become an honorary IOC member. An investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency into Diack’s involvement with Russian doping noted that he had switched his 2020 vote from Istanbul to Tokyo after a Japanese sponsor signed a deal with the IAAF. The IOC instituted sweeping rule changes after the bidding scandals that tarnished the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. In 1999, six IOC members were expelled and four resigned after it was determined that Salt Lake City Olympic organizers had given them more than $1 million in cash, gifts, trips and scholarships. Candidate cities are no longer allowed to have direct contact with IOC members, and the allegations against the Diack and his son would seem to suggest that some in the IOC are seeking to circumvent that rule. In January Papa Massata Diack is thought by authorities to be in Senegal. According to the AP, he is being sought by Interpol. Despite the reforms, the Olympic bidding process still is seen as ripe for corruption. In a 2004 investigation into the bidding process for the 2012 London Games, the BBC uncovered agents who are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to act as middlemen between the contending host cities and IOC members. Questions also have been raised about the bidding for the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy. “The IOC’s chief ethics and compliance officer will continue to be in contact with all interested parties to clarify any alleged improper conduct,” an IOC spokesman told Owen.


WHO: Global air pollution is worsening, and poor countries are being hit the hardest

and are not improving (in some cases getting even worse). Globally the burden of air pollution is focused on countries like India and China due to combination of high pollution levels and large population.” Among global megacities – which WHO defines as any city that’s home to more than 14 million people – the Indian capital of Delhi received the worst ranking, with PM10 levels of 229, representing larger particles than PM2.5 (where levels stood at 122). “The WHO data illustrates just how immediate the problem of air pollution is and that we need radical and rapid action to tackle the twin issues of air pollution, which is killing urban citizens, and climate change, which threatens people’s lives today and in the future,” said Mark Watts, executive director of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, which focuses on local level ways of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Particulate air pollution in cities emerges from many sources, ranging from smokestacks to automotive tailpipes. Public health officials say that as urban air quality declines, people living in cities face increased risks of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and acute respiratory illnesses, such as asthma. There also are other worries. In a study published earlier this year, researchers found that air pollution in the United States could be contributing to thousands of premature births each year. That study and others are part of a growing body of evidence about the dangers air pollution to human health. A study published last September in the journal Nature concluded that poor air quality contributes to more than 3 million premature deaths around the globe each year. Exposure to minuscule, toxic particles in the air is the central concern. “They’re so small that they can actually get deep into the lungs, into the alveoli, and get into your bloodstream,” George Thurston, a professor of environmental medicine and population health at New York University’s School of Medicine, told the Post at the time. The news isn’t all grim, though. Recently published research found that despite growing air pollution levels in many places, in the vast majority of cities around the world, it’s still more beneficial to bike, walk and enjoy the outdoors than to remain clustered inside, regardless of the pollution in the air. Read more at Energy Environment: This scientist just changed how we think about climate change with one GIF Invasive insects are ravaging U.S. forests, and


D.C.’s diner boom shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same

eats he curates with his ex-wife, Jane Stern. "You go to a diner to eat a square meal." "Their appeal has always been that, for one thing, they don't depend on any kind of culinary trend whatsoever," Stern said. "Their menus are kind of in memorial." To the extent that they pushed the edge, it was with ethnic-lite interpretations of such cuisines as Greek, Jewish and Italian, Stern said. You can't quite call it a paradigm shift, but changes are afoot. Everything old is new again -- again Diners are "an ever changing yet ever constant thing," said Richard Gutman, the director and curator of the Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., and author of "American Diner Then and Now." He's been studying them since the 1970s. "Everything gets repeated and revived and reinterpreted," Gutman said. "The building and the concept can be a chameleon to produce whatever the market or customer in combination with the restaurateur want to do." For Bucher, that means injecting a more "urban hip" vibe to Community, which he hopes to open this summer. Expect pancakes, omelets, fried chicken, burgers and huge desserts, but "it'll morph into a lounge a night," he said. Petersan, who grew up going to diners in her native New York, is basing Fare Well, opening soon, on a concept that some may consider an even more radical departure. As you might guess based on her first venture, the dairy-, meat- and egg-free Sticky Fingers, Fare Well's offerings will be entirely vegan, though Petersan eschews the label in favor of "plant-based." Like a number of her colleagues, including Bucher and Ruppert, Petersan is cutting back on the size of her menu, at least compared to the pages-long affairs you can find elsewhere. Fare Well will serve food such as veggie burgers and pastas. Some dishes will include vegan cheese made with almonds, coconut or cashews. The Silver Diner in Greenbelt. (Kevin Clark/The Washington Post) Silver Diner, the locally-based chain founded in 1988 with a straight-out-of-doo-wop environment, started trying to adapt the diner for 21st-century customers in 2008, said co-founder and vice president of culinary operations Ype Von Hengst. The chef said efforts included adding heart-healthy items, removing trans fat from all dishes, creating a more nutritious kids' menu and emphasizing "fresh and local" ingredients, two of the most en vogue words in the industry today. Von


night," he said. Petersan, who grew up going to diners in her native New York, is basing Fare Well, opening soon, on a concept that some may consider an even more radical departure. As you might guess based on her first venture, the dairy-, meat- and egg-free Sticky Fingers, Fare Well's offerings will be entirely vegan, though Petersan eschews the label in favor of "plant-based." Like a number of her colleagues, including Bucher and Ruppert, Petersan is cutting back on the size of her menu, at least compared to the pages-long affairs you can find elsewhere. Fare Well will serve food such as veggie burgers and pastas. Some dishes will include vegan cheese made with almonds, coconut or cashews. The Silver Diner in Greenbelt. (Kevin Clark/The Washington Post) Silver Diner, the locally-based chain founded in 1988 with a straight-out-of-doo-wop environment, started trying to adapt the diner for 21st-century customers in 2008, said co-founder and vice president of culinary operations Ype Von Hengst. The chef said efforts included adding heart-healthy items, removing trans fat from all dishes, creating a more nutritious kids' menu and emphasizing "fresh and local" ingredients, two of the most en vogue words in the industry today. Von Hengst said Silver Diner now refers to its offerings as "flexitarian," with more options for vegans and vegetarians. Silver is Silver Diner's spinoff in Bethesda. (Greg Powers) The brand took its update a step further when it opened Silver -- "the heart of a diner and style of a brasserie" -- in downtown Bethesda in 2015. The menu at Silver is about an even division between Silver Diner staples (caramel french toast), updates on those staples (the reuben with aged gruyere, applekraut and house remoulade) and totally new dishes (hanger steak with chimichurri), Von Hengst said. Silver takes its design cues primarily from 1920s art deco style rather than the '40s or '50s feel of its sister restaurants, with sleeker fixtures, less neon and more wood than chrome. Olivia's Diner in Dupont Circle. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post) Olivia's Diner, which opened last summer in Dupont Circle, adopted a similarly muted approach to its decor. There are booths, but they are tan, sleek and modern, situated under pendant lighting and across from a marble-topped bar. Still, on a recent afternoon you could look around and see many people were not feasting on entrees such as fish and chips or steak frites


U.S., China hold cyber talks; measures would limit police use of cellphone trackers; Dem rips fantasy sports operators

A stream of binary coding, text or computer processor instructions, is seen displayed on a laptop computer screen. (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg) TALKING IT OUT: NOT SO FAST: IF IT QUACKS LIKE A DUCK:


Where to eat, drink and play on the water in the Washington region

water notwithstanding, Red’s Table pulls off a nifty trick: It takes prosaic dishes and refines them to the point that even unadventurous diners will embrace them. The $17 buttermilk fried chicken is a prime example: In chef Adam Stein’s hands, this Southern staple takes on new life with an application of black-garlic-miso aioli, adding a level of complexity not seen since a certain colonel developed his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices. The bar staff is just as sly. They devote most of their taps to Virginia beers and prepare cocktails with spirits produced nearby. There’s no word if they use Lake Thoreau water for ice. — Tim Carman A crab cake sandwich from the Maine Avenue Fish Market. (Emily Codik/The Washington Post.) Try a crab cake sandwich at the Maine Avenue Fish Market 1100 Maine Ave. SW. Come next year, you might not recognize the area surrounding the Maine Avenue Fish Market. A massive mixed-use development, called the Wharf, will cocoon the historic barges with shiny things, including piers, a plaza and a rum distillery by Todd Thrasher. All the more reason to visit now, while the market, one of the oldest of its kind in the country, maintains its low-key charm. At the Wharf food stand — not to be confused with the eponymous construction site — you can order combo seafood platters or sandwiches stuffed with the likes of oysters and croaker. The crab cake variety ($8.95), served bare on a pillowy bun, is more slider than sandwich, and the rickety, standing-room-only wood dining barge doesn’t exactly encourage lounging. But there’s something wistful about looking out at the Washington Channel, amid the sour ocean funk, when you know change is arriving soon. — Emily Codik Visit a Maryland crab house without an hours-long wait Harris Crab House: 433 Kent Narrow Way N., Grasonville. 410-827-9500. harriscrabhouse.com. The Point Crab House and Grill: 700 Mill Creek Rd., Arnold. 410-544-5448. thepointcrabhouse.com. This year’s harvest of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs may be one of the biggest in decades, which is great news for those craving Old Bay-steamed crustaceans. The best-known waterside destinations, such as Cantler’s Riverside Inn, can have hours-long waits on weekends. If you’re looking for a faster crab fix, head to the Point, located at the Ferry Point Marina in Arnold, which has a large, covered deck perfect for picking through crabs or enjoying burgers, as well as


11 things to do in the D.C. area on the weekend of May 13-15

This just might be the weekend when the rain finally stops. (Maybe. At least by Sunday.) With that in mind and our fingers crossed, here are this weekend's best bets in nightlife, festivals, music, theater and much more around the Washington area. - Best and brightest: D.C.'s top 10 new restaurants - Washington on the water: Eat, drink and play with a view - Capital Weather Gang forecast: Rain Saturday but a clear Sunday Spooky Action Theater worked with the German company machina eX to bring "Happy Hour," a video-game style interactive stage performance, to D.C." (machina eX) Through Sunday: Friday-Sunday: Friday-Sunday: [Eight of the best tiki drinks in the D.C. area] Saturday-Sunday: [Where to watch Eurovision 2016’s grand final on Saturday] Saturday: Sweetlife Festival 2015 Recap Saturday: [A busy D.C. weekend for Grimes: Friday at 9:30 Club, Saturday at Sweetlife] Saturday: Sample food from familiar restaurants and hot new names at the Taste of Arlington street festival in Ballston. (Taste of Arlington) Sunday: [More music this weekend: Darrell Scott at the Hamilton and Rams Head On Stage] Sunday: [$20 Diner: A taste of nostalgia at Stoney’s Seafood House] Sunday: KFOG Private Concert: Avett Brothers - "Ain't No Man" Sunday:


The politics behind the ad George Zimmerman wrote to sell the gun used to kill Trayvon Martin

and the operators of gunbroker.com are likely well aware, nothing posted online can truly disappear. A cache version of the page lives right here, in all it's mercenary glory. And, by Thursday afternoon, Zimmerman told The Washington Post he had identified a new web site willing to auction this weapon. But the text of the ad, well that's unchanged. Yet for all the uproar, online and off-, related to Zimmerman's ad, not much has been said about it's actual contents. The ad is, quite frankly, chock full of self-aggrandizement, allusions to right-wing conspiracy theories and mainstream conservative political ideas. There's also some hints of militia rhetoric in there too. So, The Fix pulled and annotated a key section of Zimmerman's ad below. Take a deep breath; there's a lot in there. Prospective bidders, I am honored and humbled to announce the sale of an American Firearm Icon. The firearm for sale is the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin on 2/26/2012. The gun is a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm. It has recently been returned to me by the Department of Justice. The pistol currently has the case number written on it in silver permanent marker. Many have expressed interest in owning and displaying the firearm including The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. This is a piece of American History. It has been featured in several publications and in current University text books. Offers to purchase the Firearm have been received; however, the offers were to use the gun in a fashion I did not feel comfortable with. The firearm is fully functional as the attempts by the Department of Justice on behalf of B. Hussein Obama to render the firearm inoperable were thwarted by my phenomenal Defense Attorney. I recognize the purchaser's ownership and right to do with the firearm as they wish. The purchaser is guaranteed validity and authenticity of the firearm. On this day, 5/11/2016 exactly one year after the shooting attempt to end my life by BLM sympathizer Matthew Apperson I am proud to announce that a portion of the proceeds will be used to: fight BLM violence against Law Enforcement officers, ensure the demise of Angela Correy's persecution career and Hillary Clinton's anti-firearm rhetoric. Now is your opportunity to own a piece of American History. Good Luck. Your friend, George M. Zimmerman ~Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum~


The bodies of these shorebirds are actually shrinking, and global warming is the cause

should be because they started small. So there is some generation-to-generation effect in there as well.” Animals shrinking as a result of warming is not a new observation, but it was attributed largely to “a universal response to climate change,” as survival mechanism that allowed them to more easily dissipate heat. But the hypothesis that animals are shrinking, along with developing other changes in morphology, because climate change keeps them from getting “enough of the right food at the right time, leading to malnutrition during the juvenile life stage,” is new. The outlook for red knots with smaller bodies and beaks is grim, a statement that announced the study said. “The poor survival of shrunken first-year birds clearly contributes to the current population decline seen in red knots nowadays.” Global warming hurts red knots that nest in Nunavut, Canada in another way. That group winters on the southern tip of Brazil and mistimes its 9,000-mile trip back to the Arctic at its breeding ground because of faulty climatic cues. They take off too late to catch the peak of a horseshoe crab spawn, where they gorge on eggs and double their weight during a layover in Delaware. Biologists knew from past events that the crab feast is crucial. In the 1990s, horseshoe crabs were overfished for shellfish bait. As the crabs went, so went the red knot. By 2000, a population of about 100,000 had fallen to about 44,000, a stunning decrease, said wildlife biologists for the Delaware Bay Estuary Project. Larry Niles, an expert on shorebirds, at one of the beaches on the Delaware Bay where red knots stop to feast on horseshoe crabs. (AP/Wayne Parry) The researchers for the current study said their work is to the first to examine the entire annual migration to piece together the puzzle to why red knots were declining. As a student, Rahimberdiev said, he actually fought with other researchers over the reason for the red knot decline. Some attributed it to mysterious causes during migration. But researchers in Africa said there was no problem there. “We thought that the problem was at the breeding grounds,” he said. “Now it becomes clear that all these parts are interconnected.” Read More The gruesome price birds in the Everglades pay for using gators as bodyguards Amtrak train strikes eagle in rare encounter There’s a reason why some birds don’t fly south for winter anymore


We have the technology to build the Hyperloop. It still won’t happen anytime soon.

have to do with the frailty of the human body. Acceleration, braking and banking all subject you to g-forces that only intensify the faster you go. Push beyond your limits, and you could suffer a stroke or completely black out. Actually solving these issues is simply a matter of physics, and not really all that hard. What makes them so thorny is what the solutions would imply for politics, which arguably pose the Hyperloop's biggest challenge. You see, in order to avoid putting undue g-forces on passengers, the Hyperloop has to travel in a straight line. It can't really make turns, and when it does, the turns would have to be very gradual. "When you're going 600 miles per hour, you can't really go around curves, and you'd have to be very flat," James Powell, a physicist who helped invent the superconducting maglev train, told Livescience in 2013. That means in order to get anywhere efficiently, the Hyperloop might have to cut across lots of different people's land. Musk's original proposal budgeted $1 billion for acquiring permits and land rights. And, he said, the Hyperloop will require less access to land than high-speed rail, because the pylons that support the Hyperloop's elevated track are "comparable to a tree or telephone pole." It's possible, even, that the Hyperloop could fit within the median of a major highway. Building it there would reduce the cost of having to buy private land, but it would increase the need to get something called rights-of-way — essentially, government permission to build infrastructure on public land. This could amount to a very big, very complicated knot of policy and regulation. It's a bit like the problem facing Google Fiber, which carefully selects which cities to go into based on the costs of acquiring rights-of-way. But the Hyperloop can't pick-and-choose quite so easily: It has to go with the straightest, most direct route possible between cities. What if some town refuses to let the Hyperloop through? Does it have to go around? If so, the train would have to slow way down to make the turn, or else the turn would have to start incredibly early — potentially requiring the Hyperloop to deviate from its intended path, calling for even more land acquisition or adjacent permits. In this respect, the Hyperloop faces even greater constraints than high-speed rail projects. Where physics doesn't thwart the Hyperloop, NIMBY-ism might.


Russia went to absurd lengths to subvert Olympic anti-doping efforts, report finds

combined three steroids and dissolved that mixture into liquor — Chivas whiskey for men, Martini vermouth for women — in order to speed up absorption and shorten the detection window. “The athletes were instructed to swish the liquid around in their mouths, under the tongue, to absorb the drugs,” the Times writes. Even with this subterfuge, WADA found that Russia had the highest number of athletes who were caught doping in 2014. Rodchenkov blamed that on athletes who took drugs that he had not approved. — At the Sochi Olympics, Rodchenkov spearheaded a clandestine, late-night effort to swap out Russian athletes’ dirty urine with clean urine provided months earlier, before the athletes began doping. With the assistance of Russian intelligence officers — who, the Times alleges, were able to develop a replacement for the tamper-proof caps used on the specimen bottles — Rodchenkov would exchange dirty urine samples with athletes’ clean samples provided by a colleague, who was stationed in what nominally was a storage closet next door. The urine samples were passed back and forth through a hole that had been cut into the wall near the floor. Four years after a disastrous sixth-place medal finish at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Russian athletes led the medal count in Sochi with 33, 13 of them gold. A third of the medals went to athletes “whose names appeared on the spreadsheet outlining the government’s doping plan that Dr. Rodchenkov said was provided by the sports ministry before the Games,” the Times writes. Alexander Zubkov (two bobsledding gold medals), Alexander Legkov (gold and silver in cross-country) and Alexander Tretyakov (skeleton gold) were among the names on the spreadsheet. Rodchenkov also told the Times that Russia’s entire women’s hockey team also was doping, though it finished sixth. The Times report follows Sunday’s “60 Minutes” expose in which a married couple — the husband a former low-level Russian anti-doping employee, the wife a former middle-distance runner for Russia’s track and field team who admitted to doping in the past — alleged that the FSB (Russia’s version of the FBI) handled the country’s doping tests at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and that at least four Russian gold medalists in Sochi were on steroids at the time. Yuliya Stepanov, the former runner, began to surreptitiously record her fellow athletes and Russian athletic officials after she lost the protection of the country’s sports ministry because


A bit of debris chipped the International Space Station. That’s just one piece of a much bigger problem.

The hole in the space station is superficial but a little unsettling for Earthbound folk. (ESA/NASA) When you sit around imagining life aboard the International Space Station (we all do that, right?) one thing you probably don’t want to think about is space junk slamming into your vessel. And you almost certainly don’t want to imagine a piece of that junk taking a chunk of your spacecraft’s window with it. Especially But that’s exactly what happened last month in the space station’s Cupola, a European-built 2010 addition that you’re sure to recognize — it’s where those great pictures and videos showing stunning shots of our planet are taken. “I am often asked if the International Space Station is hit by space debris,” British astronaut Tim Peake, who took the freaky photo of the damaged window, said in a statement. “Yes — this is the chip in one of our Cupola windows, glad it is quadruple glazed!” Um, yeah. You can say that again. NASA released an animation depicting space trash in motion around Earth. The astronauts, of course, are perfectly safe — they generally don’t tweet photos during life-threatening station crises. And the views are safe, too — the chip is less than a centimeter across. According to the European Space Agency, the damage was likely caused by something as unassuming as a flake of paint or a metal fragment just a few thousandths of a millimeter across. A FLAKE OF PAINT. Let that sink in. Because of the incredibly high speeds of these orbiting pieces of debris, something 1 centimeter across could disable critical instruments on the space station, and anything larger could penetrate the sturdy shields that protect crew modules. Debris 10 centimeters across could shatter the spacecraft into pieces. In 2013, experts estimated that there were at least 29,000 objects of this size orbiting Earth. The danger posed by errant space debris were dramatized in the 2013 film “Gravity,” in which astronauts on a shuttle mission are terrorized by speeding chunks of space junk. GRAVITY Extended Trailer Space junk is definitely a real concern. Mashable reports that NASA tracks more than 500,000 pieces of defunct satellites and old rocket bits orbiting Earth, some no larger than marbles, so that the space station can be maneuvered away from close encounters — but many small pieces, like the one that hit the space station, are too difficult to keep


Caboose Brewing will be the Mosaic District’s first brewery

expand our distribution capacity, but we didn't have a whole lot of space for putting [the beer] in bottles," explains co-owner Matt Greer. Greer and partner Tim McLaughlin looked at various sites in Fairfax that they thought might be suitable for a larger brewery, but Greer says the county told them that "what you're looking at isn't zoned correctly." It turns out that a warehouse owned by Edens, the developers behind the Mosaic District, would fit the bill for industrial use. The new brewery, which will be located at the intersection of Lee Highway and Eskridge Road, should be able to produce about 15,000 barrels a year, similar to the output at the existing Vienna location. The difference is that it's big enough to hold either a commercial canning or bottling line. ("We're still making our mind up about that," Greer says.) Caboose's Vienna and Mosaic District locations will sell similar beer in their tasting rooms, at least at first, Greer says. "Because our system in Vienna is so big, we're still selling quite of our beer out of the door" by way of growlers and pints, and they don't want to disappoint regulars. Eventually, though, if the Mosaic brewery becomes more of a production facility, the beers in Vienna might become "more playful." Beer's not the only attraction at the original Caboose, where the menu includes crispy Virginia pork belly, line-caught Atlantic salmon, sliders with grass-fed beef and sweet red onion marmalade, and butcher boards filled with local meats and cheeses – a far cry from the usual fried brewpub food. The new brewery does not yet have a license to serve food, however, and if it does get one, Greer thinks "it will be more brewpub oriented," such as pizzas and flatbreads. Caboose celebrates its first anniversary this weekend, and is marking the occasion with a tasting in the Mosaic District's Strawberry Park on Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. "It's really about introducing the Mosaic District to us," Greer says. "Mosaic has so many great restaurants and great retail, and no one on the street knows we exist." By this time next year, there shouldn't be many people in the neighborhood who don't recognize Caboose's beers. Caboose Brewing: caboosebrewing.com. The brewery's anniversary party takes place on Sunday, May 15, in Strawberry Park at the corner of Strawberry Lane and Yates Way. More information is available at mosaicdistrict.com.


PM Update: A stray shower possible this evening; showers and storms likely on Friday

Two-hour radar loop of rain and storm movement through the area. Refresh page to update. Admit it — now that we’ve reached a record-shattering 15 days of measurable rain in D.C., you’d kind of like to go for 20, right? As it turns out, this seemingly endless streak of sogginess may come to an end Thursday, although there’s an outside chance it doesn’t. Either way, more rain is likely Friday. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Friday): See David Streit’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email in-box? Subscribe here. Waterfall at the Merrifield Garden Center in Fairfax. (Bruce Sorrell via Flickr)


Why a staggering number of Americans have stopped using the Internet the way they used to

that their personal information will be secure and their privacy protected." The survey showed that nearly 20 percent of the survey's respondents had personally experienced some form of identity theft, an online security breach, or another similar problem over the year before the survey was taken last July. Overall, 45 percent said their concerns about online privacy and security stopped them from using the Web in very practical ways. Here's the data broken down for each individual category: When asked to list their biggest concerns, nearly two out of three respondents cited identity theft, while nearly half brought up credit card or banking fraud. About one in five listed data collection by the government. The NTIA survey also showed that the more connected devices people owned, the more they experienced a breach of data. For those with only one laptop or computer or smartphone, 9 percent reported a security incident. That number more than tripled for those with at least five devices. Other surveys have shown that privacy concerns have become more common. A Pew Research study last year found that people overwhelmingly want to control their digital data, but had little confidence that information could stay protected. Pew also found that a significant number of Americans tried a number of different ways to protect their privacy online. Almost 60 percent said they had cleared their cookies or browser history, and nearly one in three said they had deleted or edited something they previously posted online. But very few said they had considered using more advanced methods to protect their privacy, such as encrypting their emails. And other Pew research has shown that the majority of Americans find it difficult to figure out the right tools and strategies to meaningfully enhance their privacy. The new NTIA data suggests a significant number of Americans have embraced at least one strategy: Opting out of online activities. That trend could have major consequences for banks, online retailers, and the broader Internet economy. "NTIA’s initial analysis only scratches the surface of this important area, but it is clear that policymakers need to develop a better understanding of mistrust in the privacy and security of the Internet and the resulting chilling effects," wrote Goldberg, the NTIA analyst. "In addition to being a problem of great concern to many Americans, privacy and security issues may reduce economic activity and hamper the free exchange of ideas online."


Going for $65 million: George Zimmerman’s gun is up for auction again

the listing on our web site or in any of the publicity it is receiving.” UnitedGunGroup.com accepted the controversial auction soon after. “Unfortunately, Gun broker was not prepared for the traffic and publicity surrounding the auction of my firearm,” Zimmerman said in an email to The Washington Post on Thursday. “It has now been placed with another auction house.” Todd Underwood, owner of UnitedGunGroup.com, confirmed that the gun was listed on his site, which Underwood called a “pro-Second Amendment community” that was created this year after Facebook banned private gun sales. “I talked to George Zimmerman earlier today and told him that as long as all laws are being followed, he can list the gun on our site,” Underwood told The Post on Thursday. “I don’t support it, I don’t condone it, I don’t have anything against it. It’s his property, it’s his decision.” But UnitedGunGroup.com took down the listing Thursday night because, it said, the auction did not reflect the organization’s mission, according to USA Today. “Our mission is to esteem the 2nd amendment and provide a safe and secure platform for firearms enthusiasts and law-abiding citizens,” the site said in a statement. “Our association with Mr. Zimmerman does not help us achieve that objective.” The auction, however, was back on the website Friday morning, apparently without explanation. The listing features the pistol Zimmerman said he used more than four years ago to shoot and kill Martin, an unarmed black teenager, in Sanford, Fla. “I am honored and humbled to announce the sale of an American Firearm Icon,” Zimmerman wrote for the description of the gun. “The firearm for sale is the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin on 2/26/2012.” By Friday morning, the auction had more than 1,000 bids — including one for $65,039,000. That bid followed another one for $65 million from “Racist McShootFace,” who was later removed from the website, according to the Associated Press. A second online auction of the gun George Zimmerman used to kill Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012 is canceled, after protesters barrage the site with fake multi-million dollar bids. (Unitedgungroup.com) Other bidders included one going by the name “Tamir Rice,” a reference to the 12-year-old African-American boy who was fatally shot by police in Cleveland in 2014. Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the fatal shooting of


How we get energy is changing fast — and it’s sparking a huge fight over forecasting the future

rolled into the projections. But others have not yet been implemented or enforced, he said, and those will have to be addressed in later projections. Additionally, he noted, the outlook addresses much of the world by region rather than by country, meaning that each nation’s specific policies or commitments cannot be addressed. Jonathan Cogan, a spokesperson for the EIA, reiterated those points in an email to The Washington Post, affirming that the outlook generally reflects existing policies and does not incorporate regulations that are not already in place. “Within the context of international modeling, incorporating existing policies and regulations and interpreting announced country targets can be complex,” he said. According to Cogan, analysts at the EIA also factor in assessments of the likelihood of certain nations to meet the goals described in their own policies based on their previous track records. An even deeper issue, though, is that the Paris agreement isn’t expected to be the end of things — it is already known that the world will have to adopt more ambitious climate goals, and fast, to hold warming below 2 degrees Celsius. So the EIA not only doesn’t take into account current levels of ambition, but also possible future ones. “The EIA’s Reference Case is a recipe for disaster, and indicates that we need a new set of ingredients to create the clean energy economy necessary to solve the climate crisis,” Turnbull of Oil Change International said in his statement. “The time is now for the Obama Administration to implement a real climate test and require the EIA to chart the course of climate action rather than plot the status quo of climate failure.” But the EIA has countered that its report shouldn’t be taken as a prediction at all, but rather a set of scenarios that policymakers can use as a baseline to see how changing certain assumptions might affect the future. “It’s hugely valuable to the public to try to understand what doing things or what changing assumptions means to the numbers,” Sieminski said. “You might find that you change an assumption and it doesn’t change very much, and that tells you something. Or you change an assumption, it makes a big difference, and that gives you another story.” However, the risk of misunderstanding on this front has worrisome policy implications, according to some experts. “There is a large risk of confusion, and some of that


Therapeutic music program for the homeless was robbed of its instruments

(Courtesy of Thrive DC) A D.C. homeless services center canceled its music jam sessions this week after someone broke into the building and stole the group’s instruments. An unknown number of people on Monday night broke through a basement window of Thrive DC in Columbia Heights and took two guitars and a ukulele, according to a police report of the incident. A laptop and earphones also were stolen. Thrive DC, in the 1500 block of Newton Street NW, has security cameras, but the center’s director, Alicia Horton, said they are struggling to reclaim the relevant portion of the tape. The center serves about 150 to 200 people each day and provides homeless people with services to help them live independent lives. Horton said the music sessions serve as therapy to many of the clients and help bridge culture gaps between community members. Participants put on public concerts throughout the year. “This has been a terribly enriching program for so many people, and to have someone come in here and violate that space and take that from them is sad,” Horton said. “When people take from us, they are taking the resources that are meant for some of the most vulnerable people in the community. It’s so unfortunate that folks who have so little now have even less because of this kind of violation.” Horton said the stolen instruments were donated, and the theft accounts for the bulk of the center’s musical inventory. A keyboard and a few tambourines are the only instruments that remain, Horton said.


More bad news for honeybees: Beekeepers lost nearly half their colonies in the past year

numbers come out to about a 44 percent loss of all colonies managed between April 2015 and March 2016. A Scientists say they think the losses stem from a variety of factors, some of which may be more prevalent than others. “What we think from other surveys is there are three major drivers,” VanEngelsdorp said. “Pesticides, poor nutrition and, most importantly, parasites.” In fact, VanEngelsdorp was involved with “Especially in the fall, over 50 percent of the colonies sampled had levels higher than we think [will] damage colonies,” VanEngelsdorp said. He noted that backyard beekeepers, in particular, who typically keep fewer than 50 colonies at a time, sometimes fail to treat their hives for mites — and this can contribute to the parasite’s spread. “When those colonies die, they spread their mites to all the neighborhood bees,” he said. He added that the mite’s role in commercial beekeeping operations — which are larger and typically stay on top of their parasite treatments — seems to be “a little more complicated,” and is more likely to combine with other factors that may contribute to the demise of colonies, including the effects of pesticides or poor nutrition. At the end of the day, scientists generally believe that no single factor is causing the demise of honeybees in the United States — and recent efforts to help the insects recover reflect this view. Last year, for instance, the White House released its first The strategy set a goal of bringing winter honeybee colony losses down to 15 percent within the next 10 years — although, as this week’s surveys suggest, summer losses are now deserving of equal, if not greater, attention. In the coming weeks, the Bee Informed Partnership will continue to break down the results of the most recent survey in order to analyze whether any particular regions or types of beekeeping operations seem to be more affected than others and to examine the causes of death most suspected by beekeepers. Gaining a greater understanding of these kinds of trends is a matter of immense importance to agriculture, and therefore national food security, VanEngelsdorp said. “One in every three bites we eat is directly or indirectly pollinated by bees,” he said. “Without honeybees we would not be able to produce apples and almonds and a lot of other berries and fruits, so it’s really important to understand the drivers of these losses.”


The Hubble captured rare images of a comet’s close encounter with Earth

(NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute)) Even though it was more than 3 million miles away from Earth when it zipped past us back in March, 252P/LINEAR made one of the closest encounters of any comet in recorded history. And it has the distinction of being the closest celestial object — other than the moon — ever observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. These images were taken on April 4 (around two weeks after 252P/LINEAR made its closest sweep past our planet) when the comet was about 8.7 million miles away. The comet, which is 750 feet across, actually has a "twin" that flew about a million miles closer to the Earth a few days behind it. But at half 252P/LINEAR's size, the little sibling wasn't large or bright enough for a good close-up. The time-lapse above uses frames taken between 30 and 50 minutes apart. The bright light — rotating like the beam of a lighthouse — is a jet of dust being emitted as the comet is warmed by the sun. Comets are made up of a core called a "nucleus" made of dust, ice, and dirt — basically a dirty snowball — that sublimates into a fuzzy aura called a "coma" under the warmth of the sun. What we're seeing is the resulting jet of material, shooting out in a narrow streak and illuminated by sunlight. Scientists believe that the comet's nucleus is spinning in the time-lapse, causing the jet to sweep around like a beacon. Unfortunately, the comet was too small for the Hubble to resolve the nucleus itself. Comet 252P/LINEAR is now more than 25 million miles away from Earth. Its orbit will return it to the inner solar system in just five years, but it won't come anywhere near as close as it did this time around. Read More: This is what it looks like when a black hole tears a star apart This strange, tailless comet could teach us about Earth’s origins Comet Lovejoy pretty much spews sugar and booze, study finds NASA’s Kepler telescope confirms a record-breaking 1,284 new planets The new biggest thing in the universe, and why it’s a headache for scientists


Puerto Rico reports first Zika-related case of microcephaly

health officials, who informed the attending physician and the family. An agency statement did not provide any additional details, and CDC officials declined to comment. "This case of Zika virus disease in a pregnancy saddens and concerns us as it highlights the potential for additional cases and associated adverse pregnancy outcomes," the agency said. Cases of the virus are expected to rise on the island in coming months. And that raises the likelihood of transfer to the mainland. Last month, the CDC definitively concluded that the virus causes severe fetal abnormalities. The most pronounced is microcephaly, a rare condition marked by an abnormally small head and a lack of brain development. With rising temperatures in the weeks ahead, U.S. health officials and organizations are warning about expected local outbreaks in the south and southwest. "Sadly, this is not likely to be the last case of Zika-caused microcephaly in the United States," said Edward R.B. McCabe, chief medical officer for the March Of Dimes, in a statement. "As summer approaches, there is a very real threat that Zika virus could gain a foothold in the United States. If that happens, great numbers of pregnant women and women of childbearing age will be at risk for Zika infection." Puerto Rico health officials are reporting 925 confirmed Zika cases, including in 128 pregnant women. Unlike the 503 cases reported in the U.S. mainland, virtually all of the island's cases involve local transmission. One person, a man in his 70s, died of complications related to his Zika infection. U.S. health officials estimate that at least 700,000 Puerto Ricans — about 20 percent of the population — could be infected by the end of the year based on previous outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya. Both are related viral diseases. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this week that Puerto Rico “is on the precipice of a really serious disaster.” With days of rain drenching the D.C. area, fears of zika-carrying mosquitoes are growing among many. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says it's only a matter of time before the U.S. experiences outbreaks. Read more: Why Zika cases in Puerto Rico raise the risk for rest of U.S. Zika outbreak: "The more we learn, the worse things seem to get" Zika funding battle steals states' public health emergency money


Ravens player donates $80K toward research to lift NFL ban on medical marijuana

Baltimore Ravens tackle Eugene Monroe is the first active NFL player to openly advocate the removal of marijuana from the league’s banned substance list. (Michael C. Weimar/Freelance Photo) Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Eugene Monroe is on a mission to remove marijuana from the NFL’s banned substance list. He’s so passionate about the topic that he donated $80,000 to Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania to study how cannabis affects football players, according to a press release issued Thursday by The Realm of Caring and CW Botanicals. According to Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic, the press release stated Monroe “cannot use cannabinoid products and is instead prescribed opioids to manage his chronic pain from sports-related injuries. He recognizes the benefits of cannabidiol (CBD) for pain management and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and fully supports this research that could help professional and amateur athletes as well as anyone suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. Eugene hopes that his actions will influence the NFL in changing their policy on cannabis and recognize it as a viable treatment option. The NFL has strict policies when it comes to marijuana use. A first offense requires a player to enter an intervention program for up to 90 days and escalates to fines and then suspensions with further violations. “Due to the NFL’s strict anti-cannibas policies, it’s difficult for current players to speak in support of the plant and its potential therapeutic uses,” the release continued. “Despite the risks, on March 9 Eugene became the first active NFL player to call on the NFL to remove marijuana from the banned substances list; fund medical marijuana research, especially as it relates to CTE; and to urge the NFL to stop overprescribing opioids.” Monroe recently launched his own website advocating for the use of marijuana for pain management, as well as information about the “opioid crisis” and CTE. “On March 9, 2016, I became the first active NFL player to openly advocate for the use of cannabinoids to treat chronic pain and sports-related injuries,” Monroe wrote on his new website. “It’s time for the NFL to change its archaic standards to better protect its players and set an example for our young athletes (high school athletes are more commonly using drugs than their peers and football players are most likely to use drugs). For too long, I’ve watched my teammates and good friends battle with opioid addiction and leave the game


Key Senate panel endorses women in the draft, making policy change more likely

Maj. Lisa Jaster, center, embraces 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, left, and Capt. Kristen Griest after an Army Ranger School graduation ceremony on Oct. 16, 2015, in Fort Benning, Ga. (Branden Camp/Associated Press) Young women are one step closer to the draft after the Senate Armed Services Committee voted late Thursday to require women to register for Selective Service. The committee, in a statement, cited the Defense Department’s recent policy change opening up all combat roles to women as the reason they felt “there is no further justification in limiting the duty to register under the Military Selective Service Act to men.” The committee also noted that it was persuaded by the heads of the military services’ support for including women in the potential draft pool. The military draft was suspended in the United States in 1973. But the Selective Service System has remained in place, requiring registration for a potential draft for those ages 18 to 25. The proposed change is part of the Senate’s annual defense authorization bill, which the full Senate will likely vote on later this month. While there is growing support to including women in the draft, a vocal opposition remains. The recent push to change the draft actually began with a measure that was designed to fail. Last month, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), who opposes opening all combat roles to women, offered an amendment during the House Armed Services Committee’s consideration of the annual defense policy bill to include women in the draft in order to start a “discussion” about the issue. Hunter voted against his own amendment – but to his and others’ surprise, the committee ultimately approved it when a handful of Republicans joined nearly all committee Democrats to support of the proposal. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and other members spoke positively about including women in the draft the next day. But some Republicans are still bitterly opposed. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), cited that provision as one of two reasons he voted against the defense bill in committee on Thursday, arguing that such a “deeply controversial” change “deserves to be resolved by Congress after a robust and transparent debate in front of the American people, instead of buried in an embargoed document that is passed every year to fund military pay and benefits.” Lee offered an amendment during the committee markup to strip


The real refugee crisis is in the Middle East, not Europe

Syrian refugees await approval to enter Jordan at the Hadalat reception area on the Syrian-Jordanian border, Wednesday, May 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh) The Syrian conflict has reached its fifth year, but the European aspect of the refugee crisis it generated has dominated news headlines since the summer of 2015. Numerous academic panels have been convened to discuss how the European Union is (not) coping with its increasing numbers of asylum seekers. A supra-national entity of 500 million, the E.U. is up in arms at the 1 million Syrian refugees who entered its borders last year. To put this in perspective, that’s about the same number of Syrian refugees currently in Lebanon, a country of just 4.5 million. While the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region currently hosts around 4.8 million Syrian refugees alone (not to mention Iraqi, Palestinian and many others), they are treated more as passive refugee-hosting vessels than as actors with their own interests. Hosting refugees is not easy, logistically or politically; the E.U. has made this abundantly clear. MENA host communities are already struggling with myriad challenges including recent regime upheaval and ongoing ethnic and sectarian conflict. Foisting the responsibility of hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees onto states such as Jordan and Egypt with the assumption they are intrinsically willing and able to care for them is a seriously misguided case of passing the buck. Shoving money at states such as Turkey in the hopes of making the problem go away while turning a blind eye to how that money is spent is equally thorny. Because refugee displacement has largely been framed as a European challenge by European actors, major MENA refugee-hosting states have fallen outside conversations on durable solutions. When the E.U. does give MENA states a seat at the table, such as in recent negotiations with Turkey, its strategy involves pledging money and making impracticable promises in the hope the problem will disappear without adequately considering the challenges the states and the refugees they host will face. Based on our fieldwork conducted in Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, we argue that MENA host states must be taken seriously as actors with specific stakes in the refugee system. Acknowledging these stakes, and the complex internal dynamics that shape them, will help develop a more broadly international refugee regime that addresses the needs of refugees and host communities alike. Turkey: Turkey has taken responsibility for


The bizarre thing that happens when grocery stores can’t sell booze

Cold beer in the cooler of a Portland, OR grocery store in 2011 (Ewan Munro/Flickr) Nothing drives home the fact that we live in a federalist system like moving to a new state and trying to figure out where and when you can buy alcohol. In some states, like California, you can buy beer, wine and liquor at the grocery store. In others, you can buy beer at the supermarket but need to make a separate trip to the liquor store to buy wine and hard alcohol. In still others, like Utah, alcoholic beverages can only be purchased at state-run facilities. A good way to get a bird's-eye-view of the legal booze landscape is to look at what types of alcohol you can and can't buy at your local supermarket. Using information from the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association (NABCA) and other sources, I put together the following map. Let's take a look at the big national trends. The Southwest is a free-for-all Perhaps reflecting the region's Wild West roots, you can buy pretty much anything you want, alcohol-wise, in grocery stores running from northern California, through Nevada, and all the way into Arizona and New Mexico. So is the Midwest — with one big exception The situation in most of the Midwest is similar, with beer, wine and liquor available in supermarkets all the way from Indiana to Wyoming. But Minnesota is a notable outlier — no booze in grocery stores in the North Star State. Supermarkets in Minnesota (and in four other states -- Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Utah) are allowed to sell beer with a low alcohol content — 3.2 percent alcohol. By contrast, your typical can of Budweiser America has 5 percent alcohol, and Bud Light has 4.2 percent. Most people don't consider low-alcohol "near-beer" to be quite the same as actual beer, and if you live outside of the five states that sell only low-alcohol beer in grocery stores, you've probably never even come across it. So I'm considering these states to be in the "no alcohol sales" category in the map above. Sales are tightly regulated in the Mid-Atlantic states Regulations on supermarket sales are generally very strict from southern New England through Maryland. There are some odd exceptions: in New Jersey, each grocery store chain is allowed a total of two liquor licenses to sell alcohol. Given that the bigger grocery


New planets, artificial skin and other science news you may have missed

From a load of new planets to technology that could erase wrinkles, the science world had some pretty great news stories this week. Here are our top picks. Mercury passed in front of the sun, and it was awesome. Mercury passed in front of the sun this week. The phenomenon, which happens only 13 times each century, was visible around much of the globe. From Earth it looked like a tiny black dot passing slowly in front of its host star, the sun. This is the first Mercurian transit since 2006, and there won’t be another until 2019. If you didn’t have your telescope ready, you can see pictures here and watch it here. Space junk is causing problems. The International Space Station had a run-in with space debris last month, and it damaged the space station’s Cupola, the section where all those extraordinary picture and videos are taken from. British astronaut Tim Peake took a picture of the clipped window pane and said in a statement that he was “glad it is quadruple glazed!” That’s an astronomical understatement. Read more and watch swirling space junk here. The hole is superficial, but a little unsettling for us Earthbound folk. (ESA/NASA) NASA has found new planets. A lot of them. NASA announced its Kepler space telescope has confirmed 1,284 new planets, the largest find of new planets in history. Kepler finds planets by tracking their transits, like the one Mercury made May 9. When a planet passes in front of a star like the sun, the star dims slightly. Kepler detects that change and measures it, and scientists can use that information to figure out whether there is an undetected planet there. What makes these discoveries especially neat is that nine of these new planets have conditions that could potentially support life. Read more here. New ‘second skin’ could help a lot more than wrinkles. Science announced a doubly attractive breakthrough this week. Researchers from MIT and Harvard revealed they’ve developed a material that can make wrinkles and sagging undereye skin look smoother. The “second skin” known as the “Strateris platform” has more than superficial benefits, though. It can lock in moisture really well and can be effectively worn for at least 24 hours. So it could help soothe the symptoms of conditions such as eczema and psoriasis. Read more here. John Oliver is seriously funny about science. And, finally, if


Surfer lands first ever back flip in a competition, can’t believe it either

Standing up on a surf board is hard, and falling off is a lot easier. Saturday afternoon in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian professional surfer Gabriel Medina made it all look so simple. The 22-year-old dropped in, gained speed, took off from the wave’s crest, and completed a back flip like a skateboarder in a half pipe. Flipping brilliant. @gabriel1medina #OiRioPro https://t.co/UvAzNCgHY0 https://t.co/KDteEhVQD3 The move was the first back flip landed in a surfing competition. By the looks of it, Medina can’t believe it either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://t.co/u4Xaf0z28f In 2014, Medina became the first Brazilian to be crowned World Champion of surfing. On his way to Rio de Janeiro for this competition last week, he carried the Olympic torch for 200 meters.


Runner Ida Keeling turns 101 today. She has no plans to slow down.

herself in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in New York City, was named the USA Track and Field Athlete of the Week, and her story continues to resonate. But don’t think that the great-great grandmother is slowing down any time soon. “I feel that I’m still at it,” she said. “I’m still picking up speed. I just go with the flow, go with what I have. That’s all I can do: take care and do the best I can with what you have. And I think I’m doing pretty good.” Olympic gold medalist Sanya Richards-Ross embraces Ida Keeling at this year’s Penn Relays. (Courtesy of USATF) Keeling exercises every morning before even getting out of bed. She’ll kick her legs up, twist and lift her back up while reaching over her head, displaying a level of flexibility that many people a quarter her age can only imagine. Afterward, Keeling will eat a breakfast of oats with raisins and a touch of cinnamon. She’ll occasionally drink orange juice with cod liver oil or blend her own vegetable juice. Her approach to food is “eat for nutrition, not for taste.” She still cooks her own meals (lamb is her favorite dish) at her studio apartment and avoids food with lots of salt, grease or sugar. “I have to keep my body healthy,” said Keeling, who stands at 4 feet 6 inches and weighs 83 pounds. “I try to eat as plain as possible.” Depending on the weather, Keeling will either train on the track at the nearby Fieldston School, where her daughter, Shelley, is the track and field and cross country coach, or stay in and exercise on her stationary bike, while adding in weight training with dumbbells. Keeling estimates that she gets on the track about twice a week. Running was not always a part of her life, though. In the late 1970s, Keeling, whose husband passed away from a heart attack in 1958 at age 42, learned that her son, Donald, had died, as detailed in a recent New York Times article. About two years later, her other son, Charles, was also killed. Both incidents have been suspected to be drug-related, and neither has been solved. Keeling started running at age 67 to cope with her losses and joined Shelley for what she called a “mini-run” — a 5K race through Brooklyn. “When I got back, I felt like


Plan to allow open transgender military service tripped up by internal resistance

different hair length for men and women and have different physical fitness requirements for men and women. For example, the Marine Corps requires pull-ups for men but not for women. The Army requires push-ups instead of pull-ups, but fewer for women. Some transgender service members also have had transfers to new units put on hold while the Pentagon sorts out its plan. They are also waiting to see how the military will address health-care coverage. The Pentagon does not currently cover hormone treatment for gender dysphoria, the medical term for wanting to transition gender, but it published a notice in the Federal Register in February that it is considering covering nonsurgical care. “People are certainly suffering,” said Belkin, who met with Pentagon officials to discuss his group’s research. “It’s really unconscionable that they would leave 12,800 in limbo like this.” The transgender issue is part of a larger set of reforms Carter tapped a former naval officer and Iraq War veteran, Brad Carson, to carry out as acting undersecretary of personnel and readiness. But Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, faced a surprisingly difficult confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February, at which Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), the chairman, and other members attacked Carson and his proposed changes. Brad Carson, then the undersecretary of the Army, speaks to an Afghan service member in 2014. (Sgt. Antony S. Lee/Army) The main target was his so-called Force of the Future plan, which promised to shake up the military service by, for instance, eliminating the military’s structured “up-or-out” promotion rules, which typically force someone who has been bypassed for a promotion to eventually leave the service. “This initiative has been an outrageous waste of official time and resources during a period of severe fiscal restraints,” McCain fumed. Carson and his top adviser, Morgan Plummer, announced their resignations a few weeks later. Carson declined to comment for this article, and Plummer could not be reached, but there are indications that they considered nearly all their work on the new transgender policy finished when they left. One of Carson’s last accomplishments before leaving was delivering an implementation plan to Carter on transgender policy, Politico reported last month. One issue Carson did not consider settled was how long the Defense Department should require transgender people to wait after transitioning their sex before being allowed to join the military, according to a defense


‘An amazing way to go’: Jane Little, world’s longest-serving orchestra musician, collapses and dies performing ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’

and I named a few small instruments like the clarinet and the violin. She said, “Actually, we really need bass players.” I was five-foot-three and weighed all of 98 pounds at the time, but she asked me to try it. She gave me lessons, and within a month, I was hooked. I loved it. It was awfully difficult to push those heavy strings down, and to carry the instrument around, but I just loved it. According to her profile on the website of the American Federation of Musicians, “She struggled at first to hear the lowest pitches and could barely press down the thick E string — not to mention, even just carrying the bass around was no easy task. ‘I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to be a challenge!’ she says. ‘But I was back for the next lesson, and the next, and the next.’ After just a couple months of private lessons, Little was ready to join the orchestra — and not only did she join, but she was quickly appointed principal bass.” While playing in the symphony, she met the man who would become her husband, Warren Little, who played the flute. Their first date was a performance by the legendary violinist David Oistrakh. “’I must say that when I met Warren, I was very impressed that he played a small instrument,'” she commented in the profile, “‘so he could carry my bass around!'” He retired in 1992 and died in 2002. There was no Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at that time. But there was an Atlanta Youth Symphony, for which she auditioned and joined in 1945. Three years later, that youth symphony became the Atlanta Symphony. “It’s just mind-boggling,” Timothy Cobb, the principal bassist with the New York Philharmonic, told The Post in February. “It takes a tremendous amount of physical power, frankly, and just brute force to play in a big orchestra. I have had friends who have made it into their 70s but to be pumping it out in the orchestra is really something.” Little took a fall last August, cracked a vertebra and was so weak and in such pain she could only practice for minutes at a time during her recovery. She was taking prescribed steroid pills to help her through performances. Little, according to the ASO, played under all four of the orchestra’s music directors, as well as guest conductors


Apple’s big bet on China is also a bet on driverless cars

Through the deal, Apple is expected to gain access to highly valuable data on the 11 million trips a day made through Didi. That information will be immensely useful, not only for Apple's traditional business selling phones and computers in China, but also for its attempts to design a vehicle that could someday appeal to drivers around the world, analysts say. "This valuable data is critical to all manufacturers interested in developing a fully autonomous future," said Tony Lim, an analyst at Kelley Blue Book. "The learnings from China can be applied here in the U.S. and other industrialized nations." The car industry, along with tech companies such as Google and ride-hailing firms such as Uber, believes that taking human drivers out of the equation will reduce congestion and save lives. By shifting to fleets of automated vehicles, executives argue, drivers can cut down on the human error that accounts for well over 90 percent of car crashes. Virtually every major car manufacturer is researching self-driving capabilities, and some are striking partnerships with ride-hailing firms to study new forms of car usage. In the United States, General Motors has invested half a billion dollars in Lyft as part of its research into vehicle automation. Chinese officials in business and government are embracing driverless cars, too. In April, the country performed its first long-distance test of two self-driving cars made by a local company, Chang'an Automobile. The cars ran on public highways, covering the nearly 1,250 miles from Chongqing to Beijing in four days. That same month, Volvo announced it would soon put as many as 100 of its prototypes on Chinese public roads. Some of China's biggest and most popular indigenous firms, such as Baidu and Alibaba, are investing heavily in self-driving car technology. Baidu is expected to begin testing its own prototypes in the United States this year, in a challenge to Google. Chinese car companies have also been hiring engineers from Western companies, siphoning talent from the likes of Google and Daimler AG. Ambitious and multifaceted as China's plans may be, it's still not enough for some Chinese automakers who want to see Beijing's regulations loosened more. "China must take the lead from the European Union, Japan and the U.S.," said Li Shufu, chairman of the Hangzhou-based automotive conglomerate Zhejiang Geely (which also owns Volvo), in a recent op-ed. "And it isn’t just a matter of commercial advantage."


Another possible benefit of going to church: A 33 percent chance of living longer

the findings,” VanderWeele said. He said they found a long list of positive effects: “Service attendance is increasing social support. Through social norms, it’s also decreasing the likelihood of smoking. Perhaps through some of the messages of hope, it’s decreasing depressive symptoms. Perhaps self-discipline, a sense of meaning or purpose in life — it’s not just one pathway.” He continued, “I don’t think it’s one single reason that this effect is emerging. I think it’s that service attendance affects so many different aspects of life.” Richard Sloan, a Columbia medical school professor who has expressed skepticism of similar studies in the past, said these latest results should not lead doctors to talk about faith in the examining room. “Physicians threaten to compromise the religious freedom of patients to make decisions about religious practice on their own,” Sloan said. “It’s perfectly reasonable for physicians to make medical recommendations which they expect patients to follow…. When physicians stray from a medical agenda to some kind of social agenda, it’s a violation of the patient’s autonomy.” But VanderWeele said doctors should be aware of the apparent benefits of religious attendance. One of the team’s most striking findings was on breast cancer. Women who attended services were no more or less likely to contract breast cancer. But those who attended services were substantially less likely to die of it. “We were quite struck by that,” VanderWeele said. “Maybe it is a sense of hope or of faith, even in the face of illness and disease. A capacity to try to find meaning in the disease experience. Or feeling supported by a community even while struggling with illness. That would be my speculation as to those results. But I do agree it was surprising.” Daniel Hall, a University of Pittsburgh medical professor not involved in this study who trained as both a doctor and a minister, said that pious people might see this study as affirmation that there is a God listening to the prayers at those worship services, and others might see non-faith-based explanations. “Human beings are so religious in their behaviors. Quite apart from a truth clam in whether there is a God or not, it’s just anthropologically one of the strongest ways human communities are held together,” he said. Hall said that just as doctors learned in recent decades to be less squeamish about asking about patients’ sex lives, since the information


Main Street Morning: U.K. government is working on an app-based driver’s license

help drug dealers use their business skills for good, not ill. - How a two time all-American hurdler overcame obstacles in both sports and business. Retail - A bargain-hunting frenzy is threatening traditional department stores. - Only Amazon can open a college bookstore with no books. - A Chinese e-commerce giant is luxury retail’s worst nightmare. - Sears will open a standalone appliance store and some ask: what took so long? - This is the bizarre thing that happens when grocery stores can’t sell booze. Restaurants - Why Krispy Kreme may need more than doughnuts. Travel - Phoenix’s airport may call it quits with the TSA. Finance - How not to let taxes kill your new business. - Why new crowdfunding rules may trigger unintended tax consequences. Start-ups - How this Mexican start-up is turning mango scraps into nutritional gold. - What start-ups are saying about raising cash in Latin America. Technology - If you’re starting a business here are some great software options to handle HR and payroll. - New software predicts the lifespans of machines by “cloning” them. - These are five things you need to know about data exhaust. Online - Amazon gets a big win in the Internet of Things market. Social Media - How SMBs are using Instagram to connect with customers. - How this company used Facebook to grow to 50 million users in under three years. Ideas - Scientists have finally figured out why socks keep getting lost in the wash. Around the Country - A Kansas business is a victim of a counterfeit money scam and a business in Ohio gets scammed for thousands in long distance charges. - A report finds that 76 percent of the Indiana Legislature voted in line with the state chamber’s desired result at least 70 percent of the time. Around the World - Why it’s clear that Beijing is Silicon Valley’s only true competitor. - The U.K. is developing a digital driving license stored in the Apple Wallet app. - Why Britain is beating the U.S. at financial innovation. - U.S. concerns grow over a possible Venezuela meltdown. - China says a Pentagon report “severely damaged” relations with the U.S. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


Why even the people who worry the most about climate change often take little action

record since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA scientists. Citing previous research, the study notes that “during a 12-month period, only a third of the alarmed group donated money to organizations working to reduce climate change, and a mere 29 percent contacted government officials about climate change.” This has important implications for the future of climate policy, Doherty noted. “Without a concerted national policy effort, private individual behavior can only go so far,” she said in a follow-up email to The Washington Post. “Governments possess greater leverage for mitigation because they can implement policies that restructure choices available to millions of people and organizations, but it is unlikely that the U.S. will adopt future ambitious climate policies without public demand.” So what’s the problem here? Building on this theory, the researchers accounted for several additional social and psychological factors in their model. These included people’s beliefs about their capability of taking action and the ability of their actions to effect change — what’s known as “efficacy beliefs” — and their perceptions of what kinds of actions are being taken by the people around them. To test the model, the researchers plugged in data from a survey including more than 700 “alarmed” participants, all living in Vermont, an area chosen specifically for its generally high levels of civic engagement. They divided survey respondents into two categories: “more active,” or people who had contacted government officials in the past 12 months, and “less active.” The more active segment was generally more likely to take public action of any type across the board — for instance, 57 percent of them volunteered with climate organizations, as opposed to 27 percent of the less active group. It turns out the biggest predictor for climate action involved — that’s right — other people. Significantly more people in the active group reported that their friends and family members were willing to take part in public-sphere climate action. On the other hand, more people in the less active group reported that people who weren’t close to them — groups described as “most Americans,” for instance — were willing to engage in these kinds of actions, b In other words, “individuals who are geographically closer and more similar to the respondents were stronger social influences than those who were unfamiliar or distant,” Doherty said. It’s not totally clear why this is the case, but Doherty theorized that the


The next frontier for vegan restaurants? Not calling yourself a vegan restaurant.

speak for itself." Nussbächer grew up in Israel, which he said exposed him to a diet that naturally leans toward fresh produce and legumes -- the stars of the pitas, rice and lentil bowls and salads at Shouk. A mushroom pita and house-made almond drink at Shouk. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post) "It wasn't about being a vegan business," Nussbächer said of his offerings. "It wasn't about veganizing dishes." The only thing that comes close to imitating a dairy product is the cashew labneh, a Lebanese yogurt cheese, made here with only cashews, water and salt. "We're not using any quirky ingredients to make it taste like cheese," Nussbächer said. Sticky Fingers bakery proprietor Doron Petersan knows something about vegan cheese, too. She'll be incorporating cashew, coconut and almond variations into some dishes at her pending diner, Fare Well, on H Street NE. She's taking a similar approach to marketing as Nussbächer. "I'm not using the term vegan at all," she said. "I really want people to focus on the veggie- and plant-based aspect of what we're doing." "I think that while people are becoming more and more open to trying plant-based foods," she said, the vegan label "does a disservice." Nussbächer said he thinks D.C. is particularly receptive to these kinds of concepts, and "there's no question that the market is right and the time is right," for him to be opening Shouk, especially following the success of such establishments as José Andrés's vegetable-focused, fast-casual Beefsteak. Nussbächer said the key was not to just put his food on a level playing field with non-vegan dishes, but make it better to counter any skepticism. (Allow us to chime in: No need to be skeptical of the food at Shouk, which is, overall, well-executed.) The occasional diner will ask where the chicken is, but "I feel that we have been very, very warmly received," Nussbächer said. "I didn't know what to expect." Some of the reaction is best described as "pleasant surprise," he said. No matter the label, Petersan said, "People are really just looking for good food." Shouk, 655 K St. NW. 202-652-1464. shouk.com. Related items: Can vegetarians dine in meat-centric D.C. restaurants? Why this chef is turning mushrooms into 'bacon' and tofu into 'blue cheese' What D.C. restaurants have finally changed about the way they treat vegetables Vegetables: Are they the new bacon? José Andrés and other chefs think so.


Mired in controversy, a famous Indian guru tries to set the record straight

it because it’s my passion. I’ve been misquoted actually." The question of whether the Art of Living Foundation, or people associated with it, lobbied for Sri Sri to get a Nobel is actually quite fraught. In April 2010, an anonymous "whistleblower" alleged in a blog that an entire team of people was aggressively mobilized, with Sri Sri's blessing, to get as many prominent public figures as possible to nominate him for the award. The post contains emails that are supposedly copied verbatim by someone who was privy to the "project." A post two years later says that the blog was frozen after an injunction by a U.S. court on behalf of the Art of Living Foundation. I told Sri Sri that misquotes usually mean that you've been attributed words you didn't say. He said that his words were warped and that he means no disrespect toward any award winners. In much of the rest of the interview, Sri Sri went on to describe his radically simple yet optimistic philosophy, centered on stress relief. He used the words "harmony," "diversity," "stress" and "happiness" at least half a dozen times each. "The root cause of violence is stress. Until you can teach someone how to relieve themselves of stress and gain harmony with themselves, you cannot expect a very nonviolent or harmonious atmosphere around them. Family violence and violence need to be eliminated, and the root cause of all that is stress," he explained, when asked about his work promoting world peace. "No one teaches us in school how to get rid of stress even though it is completely normal to have stress. My main mission is to relieve people from stress and bring happiness into their lives. We bring together communities and encourage diversity everywhere — to come together in a sense of celebration." That bright message was similar to the one he said resonated at a recent interfaith conference in New Delhi, which was even graced with the presence of Syria's grand mufti. "Syria today is the most troubled part of the world. So we invited him to share his feelings and his experience," Sri Sri said. "He gave us a new taste of what could be a better world, or society, in harmony and celebration." The words kind of blend into one another, like watercolors. Veering back toward his relationship with the media, I wondered aloud whether he thought


Judge orders Mississippi school district to desegregate, 62 years after Brown v. Board of Education

Linda Brown Smith, date and location unknown. Smith was a third-grader when her father started a class-action suit in 1951 in connection with the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., which led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision against school segregation. (AP) A federal judge has ordered a school district in the Mississippi Delta to desegregate its middle and high schools, capping a legal battle that has dragged on for more than five decades. The Cleveland School District is divided by railroad tracks that separate white families, who largely live west of the tracks, from black families, who largely live to the east. Its secondary schools reflect that division: There is one all-black middle school, for example, and one all-black high school. Just over a mile away are a historically white middle school and high school. As the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi put it, Cleveland — a town of 12,000 — has been running an illegal dual system for its black and white children, failing year after year to reach the “greatest degree of desegregation possible.” Now Cleveland must consolidate its schools, integrating all its students into one middle school and one high school. The order, written by Judge Debra M. Brown and released late Friday, comes 62 years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling on school desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education. And it comes a half-century after Cleveland families first sued the district for continuing to operate racially segregated schools. “The delay in desegregation has deprived generations of students of the constitutionally-guaranteed right of an integrated education,” Brown wrote. “Although no court order can right these wrongs, it is the duty of the district to ensure that not one more student suffers under this burden.” District officials had argued that the Justice Department’s consolidation plan would trigger white flight, making it all the more difficult to achieve integration. They had put forth two alternative plans that would have kept the two high schools open, relying on choice and magnet programs to try to create diversity. The court found both of those plans unconstitutional. The district had already tried to use choice as an engine for integration, and it hadn’t worked at the secondary level. “This decision serves as a reminder to districts that delaying desegregation obligations is both unacceptable and unconstitutional,” said Principal


Gay pastor admits he faked homophobic slur on Whole Foods cake

An openly gay pastor who claimed that a grocery store bakery wrote a homophobic message on his cake has dropped his lawsuit against Whole Foods, claiming he made up the story, according to news reports. “I apologize to the LGBT community for diverting attention from real issues,” Pastor Jordan Brown said in a statement, according to the ABC affiliate in Austin and other news reports. Brown normally preaches about love and acceptance, with a particular focus on outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Christians, at the church he leads in Austin. But after he picked up a cake in April that was supposed to say “Love Wins,” he turned to preaching in the media, and in court. His allegation was widely reported Pastor Jordan Brown said that this was the cake he received from Whole Foods. (Court documents) Whole Foods denied the accusation, answering Brown’s lawsuit against the grocery store with a countersuit and releasing a video that purported to show Brown buying a cake with the label on top of the box, not the side. Brown said he had not opened the box before he took the photo of the cake. Whole Foods posted this security footage online after a man claimed he was given a cake with a homophobic decoration at a store in Austin, Tex. The grocery chain denies the accusation and says this footage proves Jordan Brown tampered with the cake after purchase. The company’s response to Brown’s statement on Monday was brief: “We’re very pleased that the truth has come to light. Given Mr. Brown’s apology and public admission that his story was a complete fabrication, we see no reason to move forward with our counter suit to defend the integrity of our brand and team members.” Brown apologized to Whole Foods, “especially the baker associate who I understand was put in a terrible position because of my actions,” according to the ABC report. He said he was “wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story.” Want more stories about faith? Follow Acts of Faith on Twitter or sign up for our newsletter. Another possible benefit to going to church: A 33 percent chance of living longer In their 80s and 90s, three women finally become bat mitzvahs Pope Francis calls for study on ‘reinstating’ female deacons


The secret pact that became a scapegoat for all of the Middle East’s problems

sources following the Bolshevik revolution. And the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, subsequent treaties and shifting colonial interests all led to a map of a region with borders very different from what the diplomatic duo first agreed to in 1916, as a graphic published by the Economist shows. .@TheEconomist's daily chart on Sykes-Picot, 100 years later https://t.co/FMOiVOtkzO https://t.co/RINaOvigsJ But the template for a century of crises and dysfunction was, in a sense, set. The great desire for an independent Arab nation was first encouraged, then betrayed. The British eventually installed kings to govern the new, fledgling countries of Iraq and Jordan; they also sped the advent of a Zionist state, much to the ire of the Palestinians living in its midst. French colonial planners baked in sectarian divisions when they established modern Syria and Lebanon. And the Kurds, a stateless ethnic minority, went ignored. Even if its lines didn't correspond to the region's political borders after World War II, the Sykes-Picot agreement, hatched in the corridors of colonial power, came to represent something far larger in the minds of many in the Arab world. "'Sykes-Picot' became shorthand not only for the sense of betrayal created by the post-war settlement, but also for the region's vulnerability to foreign interference," writes James Barr, author of "A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East." Arab demagogues steeped their nationalism, justifiably, in grievance against the West, which had for decades controlled and meddled in the region's affairs. And to this day, those who want to reshape the Middle East point to the seeming artificiality of the pact as grounds for creating a new status quo. “Hundreds of thousands have been killed because of Sykes-Picot and all the problems it created,” Nawzad Hadi Mawlood, an ethnic Kurd and governor of Iraq’s Irbil province, recently told the New Yorker's Robin Wright. “It changed the course of history — and nature.” Another top official in Iraq's Kurdistan regional government echoed this line in a tweet that hinted at growing calls for greater Kurdish autonomy and statehood. One hundred years of failure & bloodshed is enough reason to try a new path. For #Kurdistan it's time to undo the injustice- mb. #SykesPicot Yet the supposed legacy of Sykes-Picot was also fertile propaganda for the extremists of the Islamic State, who have been locked in deadly battles with Kurdish militias in Iraq


Monogamy was failing me. Was polyamory the answer?

(iStockphoto illustration) I wasn’t sure what I was looking for the first time I attended a Meetup for polyamorous people. But when the group leader asked me if I wanted to hang out sometime, I knew that I did. So I said yes. He already had three girlfriends. But he was “always open to more love in his life,” he told me. I’d never heard the term “polyamory” when my high school boyfriend suggested we stay together but also sleep with other people. After cheating on me just weeks after we’d lost our virginity to each other, he apologized with tears and gifts and proclamations of true love. Soon after, he suggested that he continue to sleep with other people — and that I do the same. He was starting his first year of college, while I was a lonely senior, missing him. Couldn’t I understand that he needed to explore? Perhaps it would be selfish to deny him that. We went back and forth between cheating and allowing each other to stray, but it never hurt any less. I’d shrug to my friends. “It’s cool,” I’d say. But it wasn’t. Later in life, there were other men who cheated. There were also men who cheated on their girlfriends with me. And there were committed boyfriends from whom I strayed. I learned how to let things slide, for myself and my partners. I made fewer and fewer demands of people and relationships but continued to be disappointed. Monogamy was failing me — again and again. So I decided to try something new. Polyamory is the practice of having “many loves.” Polyamorysociety.org defines it as a “nonpossessive, honest, responsible and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously.” Honest, ethical — these things sounded good. They emphasized respect for yourself and for others and acknowledging each person’s needs. After neglecting my own for so long, I desperately wanted someone — or multiple someones — to care. A quick Google search led me to a polyamorous Meetup group in Portland, Ore. I’d recently moved to the city, and through browsing online dating apps, I discovered a surprising prevalence of polyamory. So I decided to learn more. In a room full of pillows and erotic paintings, I found myself in the middle of a refreshingly honest conversation. “I don’t want to muscle through commitment,” one woman said as her partner rubbed her


Pentagon recruitment advertising needs a few good ideas

War poster with the famous phrase “I want you for U. S. Army” shows Uncle Sam pointing his finger at the viewer in order to recruit soldiers for the American Army during World War I. The printed phrase “Nearest recruiting station” has a blank space below to add the address for enlisting. (James Montgomery Flagg/Library of Congress) The picture of a stern-looking Uncle Sam, finger pointed forward, casts a lasting image above the words: “I want YOU for U.S. Army.” The poster, originally published during World War I, marks one of the more memorable advertising campaigns in American history. But now, a century later, a government review of Defense Department recruitment advertising finds Pentagon efforts lacking. A report by the Government Accountability Office says “better coordination, performance measurement and oversight [is] needed to help meet recruitment goals.” As GAO previously has found in a number of other government activities, “unnecessary duplication, overlap and fragmentation” in Pentagon recruitment efforts “may result from the absence of coordination,” according to the report. “For example, the Air Force has three advertising programs that contract with three advertising agencies, but officials could not provide a rationale for requiring separate programs.” And, unlike the Marine Corps, which can assess the impact of its advertising, the Army does not have data to evaluate whether its advertising is effective. “Without fully measuring advertising performance, especially at the local levels,” GAO said, “DOD may be unable to ensure advertising dollars are used efficiently to help meet recruiting goals.” The lack of oversight can lead to controversy. Last November, Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Arizona Republicans, released a report critical of the Pentagon practice of paying sports teams to honor service members. “In 2013,” the senators’ report begins, “a roaring crowd cheered as the Atlanta Falcons welcomed 80 National Guard members who unfurled an American flag across the Georgia Dome’s turf. Little did those fans — or millions of other Americans — know that the National Guard had actually paid the Atlanta Falcons for this display of patriotism as part of a $315,000 marketing contract. … This kind of paid patriotism is wholly unnecessary and a waste and abuse of taxpayer funds, and it must end.” Noting this type of practice was “later deemed unacceptable by DOD,” GAO said “the absence of DOD oversight may have contributed to some activities of questionable appropriateness. …Without a department-wide policy that