Celebrity-tinted Wahlburgers coming to Dupont Circle later this year and Arlington next year

The Our Burger from Wahlburgers, coming to Washington this year. (Nicoletta Amato Photography) Update: Original post, June 17: Wahlburgers The restaurant is moving into 6,500 square feet at One Dupont Circle. In addition to the eponymous burgers, Boston-based Wahlburgers also offers a variety of sandwiches, salads, frappes and dishes such as sloppy Joes and mac and cheese inspired by the brothers' mom, Alma. The Dupont shop is the first of several planned locations in the Washington area. In addition to its home state, Wahlburgers also operates in Orlando, Toronto and New York, with pending openings in Las Vegas and Philadelphia. In the meantime, you can binge-watch the five available seasons of the A&E series "Wahlburgers," which, of course, follows the family and its growing restaurant business. Season 6, timely enough, premieres July 6 at 10 p.m. [h/t Eater DC]


Six beer festivals and parties you should really go to in August

one of the Ashburn brewery's most successful beers, winning a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2013 and picking up a silver medal at the World Beer Cup in May. Though the actual Oktoberfest is weeks away, Rhin O'Fest makes its debut in cans on Aug. 3 – the perfect excuse for a party with German food and free Oktoberfest-style glassware. 4 p.m. 21730 Red Rum Dr., Ashburn, lostrhino.com. Free. Thursday: National IPA Day Celebration at ChurchKey To celebrate National IPA Day, ChurchKey is putting 11 IPAs on draft, including three from the Veil, an outstanding new brewery in Richmond, and two from Commonwealth, which is making waves in Virginia Beach. Other treats includes Bell's Double Two Hearted, an imperial version of the Michigan brewery's signature IPA, and Raised on Promises, a collaboration between D.C.'s Bluejacket and Dulles's Ocelot. 7 p.m. 1337 14th St. NW. churchkeydc.com. Free. Saturday: Second Anniversary Party at Old Bust Head Brewing Company To mark two years of beers, the Vint Hill brewery is doubling up its offerings: two bands (Mink’s Miracle Medicine and Offstarr Band); two food trucks; two cornhole tournaments; two raffles per hour; and a second outdoor bar. More importantly, they’ll have six beers on tap for the weekend, including the new Extra Extra Ordinary Double Dry-Hopped IPA and a Margarita Gose Sour Ale. The family-friendly event also includes a petting zoo with baby goats from 1 to 4 p.m. Noon to 9 p.m. 7134 Lineweaver Rd., Warrenton. oldbusthead.com. Free. Aug. 8: DC Brau’s Crabfest Monumental Extravaganza at the Quarterdeck DC Brau’s crab feast has been a wildly popular staple of the last four DC Beer Weeks, and they weren’t going to let a change of festival dates postpone the fun. The event, which has sold out every year, includes all-you-can-eat crabs on the patio at the Quarterdeck, plus $1 drafts and $5 pitchers of DC Brau. 5 to 10 p.m. 1200 N. Fort Meyer Dr., Arlington. dcbrau.com. $50. Aug. 13: Workhouse BrewFest at Workhouse Arts Center The Workhouse Arts Center’s first beer festival will focus on the arts, with 12 bands on three stages and open studios and galleries. Alongside the food trucks and lawn games, it will also include plenty of beers from Virginia breweries, including Blue Mountain, Adroit Theory and Fair Winds. (Organizers promise “nearly 100 craft brews by 30 breweries”; 22 of them have been announced


Rio’s long-delayed Olympic metro line opens in the nick of time

A man rides a new Line 4 subway train linking the Ipanema and Barra da Tijuca neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro during a media tour on Saturday. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) RIO DE JANEIRO — To the relief of organizers, the government and the tens of thousands either working on the Games or planning to watch them, Rio finally began operating its new Olympic metro line at 6:07 a.m. on Monday. It came in the nick of time, just days before the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday. After security worries, plumbing and electricity complaints at the Athletes' Village, and the destruction of a ramp at the sailing marina by waves last weekend, something finally went right. The Olympic waters may still be dirty, but the metro link is shiny and new. The new line’s first passengers, a dozen or so Rio 2016 volunteers and staffers, were happy to see their commuting time slashed. “It is a legacy for the population,” said Elizabeth Murta, 60, a former gymnast from the city of Belo Horizonte and one of the many pensioners volunteering at the Games. She said the line will help a dream come true — working at the gymnasts' training area. “There are many positive things that people don’t see,” Murta said of the Games. The new line, originally promised for 2014, had caused increasing nervousness as its opening was repeatedly postponed. Further frazzling nerves, the Rio state government, responsible for its construction, declared a state of “public calamity” over its finances in June, forcing an $870 million bailout from the federal government. The state is running a $6 billion annual deficit. Adriano Melo, 37, a food and drink manager at the Olympic Park, said the new line’s 17-minute journey to the Jardim Oceanico bus terminal in Barra da Tijuca had slashed his daily commuting time. “It’s very quick,” he said. “I liked it very much.” Even so, Melo had a 15-minute wait before he could embark on the 20-minute, eight-mile trip on a new bus rapid line that took him on to the Olympic Park. And the first metro station he tried, called Nossa Senhora da Paz and one of five on the new line, was closed when he got there at 6 a.m. A security guard told him that it hadn’t been inaugurated — even though interim president Michel Temer officially opened the new line on Saturday. During the Games,


More American high school students smoke pot than binge drink, report says

people to alcohol and drug addiction treatment resources. The report culled data from state and national agencies to determine drug usage rates in each state and the District. In 2014, the Department of Health and Human Services released data showing that drug and alcohol use among high school teens has dropped steadily over the past decade, with the rate of regular alcohol use among those ages 12 to 17 declining from 17.6 to 11.6 percent between 2002 and 2013. The rate of marijuana usage, despite legalization in some states, also declined. So just how much are high school students drinking and smoking? Here are the five jurisdictions with the highest percentage of high school students who report smoking marijuana in the past 30 days: - D.C., 32.2 percent - New Mexico, 27.8 percent - Washington, 26.7 percent - Connecticut, 26 percent - Vermont 25.7 percent Here at the five states with the highest percentage of high school students who reported binge drinking in the past 30 days: - West Virginia, 24.4 percent - Montana, 23.5 percent - New Jersey, 23 percent - Iowa, 23 percent - Arkansas 22.9 percent The District, which had the highest marijuana usage rate, had the second-lowest binge-drinking rate — 12 percent — and the lowest rate for prescription drug abuse, at 7.3 percent. New Mexico high school students had the highest rate of cocaine usage in the past 30 days, at 10.3 percent, and Arkansas had the highest rate of prescription drug usage, at 21.5 percent. Project Know didn’t provide an explanation as to why D.C. had such a high marijuana usage rate, although states along the coasts and some Southwest and Midwest states generally had higher marijuana use rates than binge-drinking rates. The District is an urban area, and because the report only looked at states, it’s hard to see how drug usage among high-schoolers in the District stacks up against drug usage in other cities. The report used data from before marijuana was legalized in the District, so no link between the D.C. marijuana law — which makes it legal for adults 21 and older to possess or consume marijuana — can be drawn to teenage usage rates. Furthermore, a recent study looked at rates of marijuana use among Colorado’s teenagers since it was legalized there in 2012, and found that marijuana use is essentially unchanged among teenagers. Read the full report here.


How Apple’s latest earnings reveal the quiet genius of iTunes

main driver for the company. But with sales of phones, tablets and computers softening, that relationship is starting to turn on its head. If fewer people are planning to rush out and buy a phone every year -- as has been the trend for the past year or so -- Apple needs to keep making money off the phones it's already sold. That doesn’t mean that Apple should pass on hardware altogether, nor is that something one would ever expect to happen. But it does help explain a shift consumers may have noticed. Take, for example, the evolving rumors around Apple’s as-yet-unconfirmed (but totally believed-to-be-true) car program. Now, reports suggest Apple's more interested in making car software. That differs drastically from years of reports that we would see an Apple-made car, or iCar, designed and produced by the company itself. But that’s a lot of investment that would not make it nearly as much money as it’s used to seeing -- certainly not at first. Apple would presumably make just one or two models of car, as a competitor to companies such as Tesla. Well, it's not a perfect comparison, but Tesla made just over $4 billion in revenue last year. That's less than Apple makes off the iPad. For further proof of a shift, look no further than Apple's commercials. Apple spots always centered its advertisements around what you can do with a device -- less “Isn’t this phone pretty?” and more “Look at how much you can get done.” Dating from the App Store's first commercials, it's shifted further to “Look at what you can do here that you can’t do anywhere else.” It used to be that Apple hooked you with the device and locked you in with the ecosystem. Now, the ecosystem has become a device selling point itself. That’s only going to expand. Apple has already started an interesting foray into original video programming. Most recently, Apple announced that it’s picking up a standalone series of “Carpool Karaoke,” based on the celebrity sing-along segment from “The Late Late Show With James Corden.” When it comes to apps and mobile software, the company is opening up Siri and Messages to other developers to create other services platforms. Most tellingly, it's gunning hard to reclaim its heritage around music -- despite the fact that the very thing that drove it to that status, the iPod, has declined


Congress’s four female combat veterans are speaking up on military issues

such as wars, weapons systems and persistent reports of sexual assault in the military. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) stands in her office on Capitol Hill with her daughter, Libby Ernst, right, and staff members on July 7. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) Congress’s female veterans rarely agree unanimously on any major military issue other than the role of women in combat, now playing out in the debate over the draft. All favor instituting standards and policies that would help recruit and retain more female troops. But they differ over how to address the scourge of sexual harassment in the services, and the extent to which the government should shoulder the cost of more parental-leave and fertility-assistance options for enlisted soldiers. On the question of fertility assistance, Duckworth, Gabbard and McSally support a new Pentagon pilot program to help service members continue to have children even if injured in combat. But Ernst says it’s not always feasible to pay for such measures — desirable as they may be — while the Defense Department is in a budget squeeze. They are also divided on how to respond to sexual assault in the military, an issue of heated debate in the Senate, where Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) – neither of whom served in the military – have been driving the standoff over whether cases should be prosecuted outside the chain of command. [Women are finally breaking into the top tier of donors] Democrats Duckworth and Gabbard support Gillibrand’s approach to take such cases out of the chain of command and hand them over to a military prosecutor. Gabbard has led that legislative effort in the House. But Republicans McSally and Ernst – who has dealt with a situation in which a soldier under her command was accused of rape – both said they are seeing enough progress to allow commanders to consider the issue. Still, both took deep breaths before answering this question, adding that they reserved the right to change their minds if the military does not continue to significantly improve in this area. Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), left, and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) speak about a bill during a House Democratic Caucus meeting in Washington in May. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) The four have, however, found common cause in less politically divisive initiatives, such as McSally’s bid to secure burial rights for female World War II pilots at Arlington


Researchers have figured out the one thing not to do in your online dating profile

published study To perform the experiment, the researchers created four different profiles that differed along two basic dimensions. One of those dimensions was what they call "selective self-presentation," or the degree to which people emphasized the best parts of themselves and minimized the worst. The second dimension they looked at was “warranting” -- basically, backing up any written claims by including some kind of evidence, such as detailed personal information that could be verified online, or links to a third-party professional site that could verify their biography. Meet 10 incredible couples and hear the fascinating stories behind the start of their relationships. The researchers asked a group of 316 nationally representative online daters to review one of the four sample online dating profiles, which had some combination of high or low selective self-presentation and high or low warranting. Then they looked at whether the reviewers saw these people as more or less socially attractive (i.e., whether they wanted to spend time with them) and trustworthy, and whether that influenced their desire to date them. Selective self-enhancement is very common online. (How often have you detagged unflattering photos on Facebook?) And the reasons people engage in selective self-enhancement when creating their online dating profiles is clear: They want to highlight their best qualities for any potential suitor. But the study suggests that, when it comes to online dating, this approach may backfire. The researchers found that people with high selective self-presentation were seen as bragging about their looks and their accomplishments -- and were in turn seen as less socially attractive and less trustworthy. And that translated into fewer contacts and fewer dates. For some of the profiles, giving the kind of concrete information that could be fact-checked helped, but not for all. "Warranting" did not help when people were seen as bragging or trying too hard (i.e. having high selective self-presentation). In these cases, adding in the supporting information made the profile owners seem like the most arrogant of any group. But the combination of low selective self-presentation and high warranting – i.e., no braggy language, just specific, checkable details, or a link to an outside website that would verify who they were -- was a combination that did work. People appreciated those who seemed humble but also specific, and especially those who had other sources do their bragging for them. These people were thought to be honest but also


Here’s the academic evidence on cheating in post-communist countries

cheating is prevalent throughout Eastern Europe. Despite the differences among Eastern Europe countries, they appear to share a distinctive culture and similar norms about academic integrity. Why? And what can be done about it? Post-communist countries are suspicious of informers — and skeptical about official rules Much academic cheating requires cooperation. Let’s think about why that cooperation might differ in the east and west. Consider a survey by Jan R. Magnus, Victor Polterovich, Dmitry Danilov and Alexei Savvateev that asked students to evaluate the behavior of three students. Here’s the hypothetical scenario: Two of them cheated during an exam. Student A copied answers from Student B, with B’s consent. Student C reported this to the department. Russian college students and American college students evaluated A, B, and C quite differently on a scale from -2=Strongly Negative to 2=Strongly Positive. The Russian students were pretty indifferent about student A, the cheater, rating that behavior as .02; they approved of student B, the “abettor” at .85; and they condemned student C, the “informer,” at -1.74. Contrast this with attitudes in the U.S., where students disapproved of the whole group, but in a different order — rating the cheater at -1.27, the “abettor” at -. 87, and the informer at -.34. Why the Russian recoil from the “informer,” student C? The region’s experience in the communist era left behind a profound social condemnation of informers, or anyone who would collaborate with authorities. That sabotages any effort to detect and sanction academic dishonesty. Perhaps widespread academic cheating grew out of a culture in which survival required disdain for — and collectively circumventing — the official rules. This is also visible in policies these countries have adopted to reckon with its communist past. Among a range of such transitional justice policies, spanning truth commissions, compensation and apologies to victims of communist persecutions, and trials against those who committed human rights violations, the most popular and widespread policy was lustration, uncovering and banning from holding public office clandestine informers to the notorious communist secret police. The shifts from communism to capitalism and from authoritarianism to democracy have been gradual, requiring practice at new behaviors and norms. Plagiarism and cheating may respond to policies of deterrence, but that cultural change may be so gradual as to require years or even generations. Monika Nalepa is an associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Save Save


Farming on the moon and meat grown in a lab. Six thoughts on the future of food.

He hopes the next generation of food growers and manufacturers take a different approach. “If I were these guys, I would be thinking very much about transparency. What is the true impact of their product? What is the true nutrition of their product? Even if they have to use some futuristic ingredient, for lack of a better word, they’re very clear about what it is rather than hiding it from the consumer.” 5. Community impact requires entrepreneurs to go deep, not broad. You don’t often meet entrepreneurs who think local. Take Musk’s older brother, who is trying to send people into space and eliminate their need to drive cars here on Earth. Musk said he, too, had a mind for global domination as a tech entrepreneur, but the same broad approach does not work in food. Shopping for groceries and dining at restaurants are still inherently local, and having an impact on the food people choose to consume has to be local as well. That’s why when Musk builds school gardens in a city, he constructs dozens of them at a time. He’s slated to open 50 in Pittsburgh and 100 in Indianapolis, for example. “When I look at a community and think about how we can bring this community to a real-food culture and get them thriving again, you have to go deep,” he said. 6. Our taste for meat will force us to look beyond animals. The beyond burger from Beyond Meat aims to replicate the texture, color and taste of a beef burger. Successful efforts have been made to engineer meat in a laboratory or replicate it using plant-based ingredients. These aren’t frozen veggie burgers; we’re talking about an innovation beyond that. “Meat” that doesn’t come from cows, pigs and chickens could one day be more widely eaten, a shift that both animal welfare advocates and environmentalists would likely celebrate. After all, the increasing number of livestock that is necessary to sate the world population’s meat consumption has had a well-documented, negative impact on the environment. For his part, Musk is much more enthusiastic about plant-based meat products, questioning whether the lab-grown variety is something consumers will ever trust. He also says simply eating less meat is one path forward. “I am a fan of less and better meat rather than replacing meat,” he said. “That’s just me personally.” Read more from The Washington Post’s Innovations section.


Australia’s bad luck continues with four Olympic water polo players in quarantine

Rio de Janeiro is hosting the summer Olympics. Here’s why there’s reason to celebrate – and worry in Brazil. At this point, Australia’s Olympic experience can only improve. Nearly a third of the women’s water polo team, which arrived Monday in Rio de Janeiro and is considered a strong contender for a medal, is in quarantine because of a gastrointestinal illness players picked up in Rome. This comes on top of a series of unfortunate events — and the Games haven’t begun yet — in which: one of the country’s Paralympians was the target of an attempted robbery, athletes found that toilets in the Olympic Village could not pass a stress test, Andrew Bogut ripped the Olympic Village accommodations and, as they were learning that fire alarms in their building did not work, laptops and clothing were stolen from their quarters. On Monday, Australian officials kept four of the squad’s 13 members isolated from the rest of the Australian Olympic team. “David Hughes [Australian chief medical officer for the team and the country’s sports commission] will keep a close eye on them, and they will stay in there for 48 hours until after they’re all cleared,” Kitty Chiller, Australia’s chef de mission, told reporters (via the Sydney Herald). “There will be no interaction between them and anyone in the village for the next 48 hours.” Known as the Stingers, the team opens with a match Aug. 9 against Russia. The country’s water polo team won gold at the Sydney Olympics and bronze in the London and Beijing Games. The first competition for Australia’s athletes comes Wednesday, when the women’s soccer team plays Canada in Sao Paulo. Chiller has been outspoken about the athletes’ difficulties and earned a sarcastic rebuke from Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, who said he almost felt “like putting a kangaroo in front of their building to make them feel at home,” after the toilets’ failed stress test. She was joined by Bogut on Monday, who tweeted a photo of him constructing a makeshift shower curtain so as not to “flood the place.” Chiller has come under some criticism for the frequency of her press updates, with some in Australia calling for her to chill out after her advice for boaters on polluted Guanabara Bay. “Coming out of the water, it’s trying to not fall out of the boat and if they do fall out of the boat,


D.C. has three nominees on Bon Appetit’s best new restaurants list

Tail Up Goat is one of Bon Appetit's 50 nominees for this year's list of the best new restaurants in the country. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) We know Washington is a great food town these days. Perhaps we don't need anyone else to tell us that, but it sure is nice to hear. This time, the validation comes -- again -- from Bon Appetit, which has included Bad Saint, the Dabney and Tail Up Goat among its 50 nominees for the food magazine's annual list of the best new restaurants in America. (As it happens, all three were also part of Post critic Tom Sietsema's list of best new restaurants included in the 2016 Spring Dining Guide.) The Hot 10, and ultimate winner, will be announced Aug. 16. In 2014, Bon Appetit named Rose's Luxury the country's best new restaurant. In 2015, Thip Khao was one of the 50 nominees but did not make it through to the Hot 10 finalists. In researching this year's list, Bon Appetit deputy editor Andrew Knowlton and senior editor Julia Kramer ate at more than 400 restaurants around the country. Now that they've done the hard work for you, you can start with these 50. Read more at bonappetit.com/top50. Bad Saint's signature ampalaya (bitter melon) dish. (Jennifer Chase for The Washington Post) - Bad Saint - Bar Goto: - Bar Melusine - Baroo: - Boeufhaus: - Bread the Butterfly - Buxton Hall: Grilled spicy lamb breast at Cassia in Santa Monica, west of Los Angeles. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) - Cassia: - Coquine: Chef Jeremiah Langhorne preps food during dinner service at the Dabney. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) - The Dabney: - Death Taxes: - Drifters Wife: - The Durham: - Emmer Rye: - Foreign Correspondents: - Hotel Emma: - Josephine Estelle: - Juliet: - Little Uncle: - Longoven: - Lord Stanley: - Mimi: - Monteverde: - Morcilla: - N7: - Oberlin: - The Perennial: - Pizza Jerk: - Pop's Poboys: - Pub Royale: - RiceBar: - Roister: - Shepard: - Short Grain: - Sister Pie: - South Philly Barbacoa: - St. Genevieve: - Staplehouse: The famed vegan burger at Superiority Burger in Manhattan. (Yana Paskova for The Washington Post) - Superiority Burger: - Cala and Tacos Cala: Lamb ribs from Tail Up Goat. (Jennifer Chase for The Washington Post) - Tail Up Goat: - Té Company: - Trois


Main Street Morning: Poop-themed restaurant to open in Toronto

work environment. Management - How Lululemon equipped Canadian Olympians for Rio. - How Amazon’s already-large distribution empire keeps expanding. - A real estate firm navigates the tricky business of succession. - A hospital chain’s CEO faces a lawsuit over its business practices. - The company involved in last weekend’s deadly hot air balloon crash suspends business. - Here are nine tips for licensing in China. Entrepreneurs - A teen uses a converted pontoon boat for an ice cream business. - A millennial duo ditch a digital path for old-school success. Retail - The “Retail Doctor” explains how employees buying with their own wallets are killing your retail sales. Restaurants - A restaurant spurns those who are O.K. with AR-15s. Sales Marketing - Try using this simple technique to increase sales with almost every buyer. - A branding expert lists 20 motivations that drive brand loyalty. Travel - Southwest CEO’s compared the airline’s recent major outage to a “once-in-a-thousand-year” flood. Start-ups - Rural tech start-ups are seeing success across the U.S. - An Alabama-based company raises $20 million to challenge Instacart, Amazon, and Google in fresh food delivery. - A year-old start-up is now Southeast Asia’s largest online Korean beauty market. - Uber suffers its largest setback – and why start-ups should take note. - Food is changing and venture capital firms are showing an appetite for it. Technology - Disney obtains a patent to track theme park guests through their feet. - Waze is adding a feature to remind drivers that someone is in the back seat. - Google partners with GlaxoSmithKline on a $700 million “bioelectronic” venture. - Peter Thiel is very, very interested in young people’s blood. Online - Uber is planning on investing $500 million to map the world’s roads. - Google is ramping up its 2016 Olympics features for search, Maps and YouTube. Social Media - Instagram plans new comment controls to stop trolls and the company’s CEO joins the ranks of billionaires. On This Day in 1892 - Charles A. Wheeler patented the first escalator. Around the Country - Indiana is working with businesses to improve the state’s employee education levels. - An affordability crisis in the Bay Area is causing small businesses to lose valued employees. - An entrepreneur is growing saltwater shrimp in central Ohio. - Road work is putting a big hurt on local businesses in Tulsa, Oklahoma. - After a night


The added cost of eating red meat — a quicker death, scientists say

10 percent increase in proteins from animals resulted in a 2 percent increase in mortality overall, and an 8 percent rise in death risk from heart disease. But a 3 percent increase in protein from plants led to a 10 percent decrease in mortality and a 12 percent drop in risk of death from cardiovascular-related mortality. A popular burger served at a D.C. restaurant (Lavanya Ramanathan/The Washington Post) The findings are clear, said Song, a research fellow at the hospital's Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit: Plant-based proteins from sources such as beans, nuts, quinoa and seeds are a healthier choice than steaks or beef products such as hot dogs. That said, "I wouldn't suggest that everyone switch to vegan," Song added. That's because certain meats — chicken and fish, for example — also carried a much lower mortality risk overall and from heart disease. But the traditional American diet, rife with animal products such as burgers, meatballs, meatloaf, steaks, eggs and dairy, "is associated with a variety of bad outcomes," Song said. The research of the two studies started in the 1980s and totaled what the study called "3.5 million person-years." In that time, there were 36,000 deaths among the participants — 13,000 from cancer, 9,000 from cardiovascular disease and 14,000 from a mix of causes. "After adjustment for lifestyle and other dietary risk factors, a high consumption of protein from animal sources ... was weakly associated with an increased risk of death, while high consumption of protein from plant sources — breads, cereals, pasta, beans, nuts and legumes — was associated with a lower mortality rate," the statement said. Matt Stonie consumes hot dogs during the 2015 Fourth of July Nathan's hot dog eating contest in Brooklyn, N.Y. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters) In some cases, it's not just that meat is bad and plants are good. Processed meats are filled with potentially unhealthy additives such as sodium, nitrites and nitrates. Song said he embarked on the study because while others have suggested health benefits from a plant-based diet, none looked at the source of protein. "We were able to link information over the years," he said. The data from the two large, long-term studies "provided a unique opportunity to look at long-term health outcomes." Read More Why this popular company deleted a tweet about meat eating and the environment The profound planetary consequence of eating less meat Five myths about vegans


Why you might want to be skeptical of McDonald’s latest food changes

appease to consumers who want healthier fare with fewer artificial products. “More than ever, people care about their food — where it comes from, what goes into it and how it’s prepared,” Andres said. Monday's announcement followed a report on July 26 that sales during January, February and March were up a paltry 1.8 percent from the previous quarter. Analysts had expected a 3.2 percent bump, Bloomberg News reported. The stock proceed to tumble from $127.40 to $121.71 the day that the sales report was announced after a month of steady increases, and it's now at $117.82. Compared to 2015 during the same period, McDonald's sales sank 2 percent. To combat losses like these, McDonald's has been trying to appeal to customers who increasingly prefer fast-casual chains. Stephen Dutton, who analyzes the food industry at Euromonitor International, said McDonald’s is aiming to be more like these newer brands to appeal to health-conscious consumers who like to know what's in their food and where it came from. “McDonald’s wants to make their image more premium fast-casual,” Dutton said. “It's trying to present itself to be a modern premium burger chain while still winning on value.” Many McDonald's is mimicking that. Its Its iconic burgers, McNuggets and breakfast foods are increasingly aligned with that image. McDonald's spokeswoman Becca Hary told USA Today on Monday that McNuggets, for instance, will have "ingredients that sound more familiar to people." The chicken product no longer has sodium phosphates and will be made with pea and rice starch. It also now lacks chicken skin, safflower oil and citric acid. Despite the changes, it’s not clear that food lacking artificial preservatives or high-fructose corn syrup is indeed healthier. Dutton said, "It's more about perception about the actual healthfulness of the product rather than its nutrition value." *AlenD/Shutterstock) Since Steve Easterbrook became the chief executive of McDonald’s in March 2015, the chain has undergone a slew of changes to make up for its suffering sales. Dutton highlighted the chain’s expansion into self-serve kiosks to expedite food ordering and more aesthetically pleasing Other fast-food chains are exploring more caloric methods to combat falling sales. Taco Bell and Burger King, for instance, have rolled out mash-ups like the Waffle Taco and Artificial components are used because they’re cheap, Dutton said. Nixing them will likely drive up production costs, but McDonald’s said it won’t be raising the costs of its food.


Tasting menus don’t have to cost a fortune. These new ones are all under $50.

are here to stay or on their way out, Drewno said, with one of the knocks against them being that guests have no control over the food. That's why the Source lets diners choose their second course from its menu of such smaller bites as dumplings and bao. The main course is a family-style protein meant for sharing. Drewno started out with pork butt served with moo shu pancakes and has moved on to Chinese barbecue ribs served with bao buns. Future offerings may include a whole fish or roast chicken. A month into offering the menu, "The feedback has been amazing," Drewno said. The chef said he likes that people can enjoy a meal in the lower-level bar and lounge, which had become mostly a spot for diners to drop in for a cocktail and dumplings. 575 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. A tomato salad at Hazel started on the Chef's 7 menu before moving into the regular offerings. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post) Hazel The popular "Chef's 7" menu at Hazel, the new Shaw restaurant, was designed so that diners could have an option "where we could just take care of them" and "create that dinner party vibe for them," chef Rob Rubba said. The $46 meal is a combination of dishes currently on the menu -- barbecued carrots, crispy tofu with Szechuan lamb sauce, sticky-crunchy ribs -- and others getting a trial run. (A tomato salad previewed on the tasting menu went on to get into the regular rotation.) Rubba said he doesn't like to think of the "Chef's 7" as a tasting menu in the traditional sense, where each course is formally presented and explained, interrupting the flow of conversation at the table. He wants his to be more relaxed -- "a really good mixtape where every song blends into each other." 808 V St. NW. Conosci Michael Schlow has been doing tasting menus for years, but he recognizes "there may be some price resistance for the expensive ones." At Conosci, there are three tiers: $45, $85 and $135. Depending on the season and dishes, the frequently changing $45 menu will consist of 5 to 7 courses. "We want to give the people their money’s worth when they put their trust in us," Schlow said. Like Hazel, the meal includes current menu highlights -- "I'm not supposed to have favorite dishes, but we all do," Schlow said -- and


Anthrax spreads from reindeer to humans in an outbreak at the ‘end of the world’

Nenets herders are seen with reindeer at a camping ground in far-northern Russia on Aug. 2, 2015. (Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters) The Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug is not a place that gets much media coverage. This subdivision of Siberia — made up mostly of flat, lake-pocked tundra — is the size of California, Texas, Montana and both Dakotas combined, with tens of thousands of square miles to spare. The nomadic people of the region call themselves the Nenets, and they call their remote, windswept land Yamal, which means “the end of the world.” They move seasonally with herds of reindeer through the endless expanses of lichen and dwarf shrubs that extend as far as the southern forests. For most of the year, it is frigid. Since July, however, something unusual has been afoot in Yamal: Temperatures have soared, reaching 95 degrees. In the ensuing thaw, the once-frozen carcasses of reindeer have attracted bacteria, including one that causes anthrax. So, for the first time since 1941, there is an anthrax outbreak. One child has died, and almost 100 other Nenets have been hospitalized, with dozens of confirmed cases. More than 2,300 reindeer have succumbed to the disease. “There is no epidemic in Yamal. Only a small area was quarantined,” the region’s governor, Dmitry Kobylkin, told the Associated Press. Anthrax can be caused by bacterial spores commonly found in herbivorous mammals. Contact can lead to infection, which is characterized by fever, stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting. For the Nenets, living alongside reindeer carries this risk, but anthrax bacteria normally can’t survive in the region’s climate. The Nenets’ culture and mode of survival are largely built around coexistence with reindeer. Thick coats are made from their hide and sewn together with their sinew. The hides are also used to cover the tents in which the Nenets live and provide extra protection from the wind. The animals’ meat is served raw, frozen or boiled, and often eaten with a cup of their blood, which is rich in vitamins. According to Survival International, an organization that aims to preserve endangered indigenous peoples, “Every Nenets has a sacred reindeer, which must not be harnessed or slaughtered until it is no longer able to walk.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that anthrax bacteria are exceedingly rare in the United States, with few or no cases reported in the country in recent years. Read more: Climate change is


From now on, every government agency will have to consider climate change

a way that could help prepare the U.S. better for a warming climate. “From the public standpoint, we are now going to know what all of our decisions add up to in terms of impacting climate change,” said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the Council on Environmental Quality. “You can think of all the different federal decisions, and how they all add up. We have numbers where we can actually say, ‘this is a huge decision, given the amount of greenhouse gases coming out of it.’ “And that gives the public a chance to really weigh in on decision-making,” continued Goldfuss, whose office was actually established by the original NEPA . “This will really embody the climate change analysis of this administration, where we say the federal agencies have to consider this over time.” The final guidance released Tuesday is preceded by draft versions released in 2010 and 2014. Those garnered hundreds of comments from environmentalists, industry, and agencies themselves. Early reactions to the new policy from the environmental community were quite favorable. The Natural Resources Defense Council’s president Rhea Suh called it a “game changer.” “Simply put, this is a commonsense step that underlines the Administration’s commitment to addressing climate change. Federal land management agencies should implement this guidance without delay, and use cutting-edge science to make climate-smart decisions,” added Chase Huntley, senior director of the Wilderness Society’s energy and climate campaign. When it comes to quantification, the new guidance suggests trying to calculate how many carbon dioxide emissions a new project, permit, or other agency action would cause — or, alternatively, how much carbon it may sequester. Replanting trees or other land use changes affecting agriculture, for instance, could lead to more storage of carbon in the U.S.’s soils and its vegetation, rather than in the atmosphere. The guidance also directs agencies to consider not only direct emissions of a project but also the “indirect” emissions. So, building a new road might encourage more people to drive, leading to more vehicular emissions. If agencies really can’t quantify the carbon consequences of their actions — if, for instance, there simply isn’t a legitimate scientific way of doing so — then the guidance recommends that they conduct a more “qualitative” analysis instead, and explain their reasoning. Notably, the final guidance doesn’t prescribe any cutoff level, below which an amount of greenhouse gases would be considered insignificant. “A statement that emissions


Generals have waded into presidential elections for decades. Their colleagues still hate it.

Gen. John F. Kelly, who said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine last month that he thought domestic politics have become a “cesspool” and are no place for him and other retired officers. “To join in the political fray, I don’t think it convinces anyone,” Kelly told the magazine. “It just becomes a talking point on CNN.” Some service members think that endorsing political candidates breaks the spirit of a Defense Department directive: No partisan politics allowed while on active duty. The current Joint Chiefs chairman, Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., has declined to express an opinion on whether retired senior officials can get involved, but has underscored the need for active-duty troops to remain quiet. “Importantly, as an institution, the American people cannot be looking at us as a special-interest group or a partisan organization,” Dunford said Monday, according to a Defense Department account. “They have to look at us as an apolitical organization that swears an oath to the Constitution of the United States — not an individual, not a party, not a branch of government — the Constitution of the United States.” In 1992, Crowe wasn’t even the first retired senior military officer to wade into the election cycle. Earlier in the year, retired Gen. P.X. Kelley, the Marine Corps commandant from summer 1983 to summer 1987, criticized Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan in a television ad for Bush for being an “isolationist” who was opposed to Operation Desert Storm. Separately, Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who oversaw Desert Storm before retiring shortly afterward, questioned if Clinton was fit to be commander-in-chief if he had avoided serving in the Vietnam War. Four years prior, Kelley campaigned for the elder Bush against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. He’d been out of uniform about a year at the time. A 15-page paper published in 2010 in “Parameters,” an Army War College professional journal, laid out other examples of endorsements, raised questions about the potential effects and noted that even when retired Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to run for president, his colleague George Marshall — architect of the Marshall Plan — counseled him against doing so. “The public endorsement of presidential candidates by retired general officers reflects a disturbing trend toward the politicization of the American military, and concomitantly, a gradual departure from the nonpartisan professional military ethic,” wrote authors Steve Corbett and Michael J. Davidson. “This modern


Want more Olympic medals? Here’s what nations need to do to win.

domestic product that is 17 times lower? The answer, I’ve found in my research, is policy. In “Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games,” I propose the “WISE” formula that helps explain Olympic success. WISE stands for promoting women in sports; institutionalizing national sports promotion; specializing in particularly promising sports; and early adoption of such trends as newly added disciplines. Let’s examine how each of those can affect a country’s Olympic fortunes. 1. Promoting women in sports helps nations excel at the Olympics. Why? Because having few women in an Olympic delegation means that a country cannot bring home many medals in women-only events. That’s one reason China has been winning more medals recently than any country other than the United States. China’s Olympic athletes have been 51.1 percent women, giving it the highest female participation rate in the world. Many Muslim nations, by contrast, have much lower female participation rates. Brunei, Qatar and Saudi Arabia included women in their Olympic squads for the first time at the 2012 Games in London. Iran has 60 medals in the history of the Olympic Games 2. Nations that “institutionalize” the promotion of Olympic sports tend to be more successful. Such nations create a centralized system for identifying talented athletes, supporting them financially and with first-class training facilities, coaching and scientific expertise. Soviet bloc countries pioneered such institutionalization in the 1960s and 1970s. Two contemporary examples are the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the Norwegian Olympiatoppen (OT). The AIS and OT have such high-performance sport policies that scholars even called these agencies “medal factories.” South Korea established a “Ministry of Sports” in 1983 However, a nation can succeed at the Olympics without a dedicated government ministry. The United States relies on the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), a nonprofit organization that doesn’t receive federal funding, as the main body to promote elite sports. 3. Specializing in the sports (or adopting them early) in which the nation is most likely to medal. Nations that focus on promoting sports where they’re most likely to win are more likely to bring home medals. Toward this end, countries have generally taken two strategies: Either promote sports in which the nation has long excelled or support sports newly added to the Olympics. For instance, Australia has focused on its historic strengths, winning more than one-third of its Olympic medals in swimming. Meanwhile, since the Olympics added


A new reason we haven’t found alien life in the universe

wicks that burn for roughly 10 trillion years. (A yellow dwarf, by comparison, has a measly 10 billion years of fuel in the tank.) Crucially, what red dwarf stars also have going for them is strength in numbers. The Milky Way is chock full of the little slow cookers. Of the roughly 100 billion stars in the galaxy, some three-quarters are red dwarfs. Our sun is not a red dwarf. It is a rarer thing, a yellow dwarf, a star 10 times more massive but one that will flare out much sooner. That we exist around a yellow dwarf, per the scientists’ equation, makes us the true space oddities. “If it turns out that low-mass stars are able to support life, then we are special because we are one of the early forms of life,” as Loeb told Smithsonian Magazine. All things being equal, the sheer amount of time a planet could tick around a red dwarf gives those solar systems the astrobiological edge. “Our conclusion is therefore that the most conservative estimate put the probability of our existence before the current cosmic time at 0.1 percent at most,” the authors write. To say that another way, in the far future they believe the chances of life — on a dim red dwarf — increases by a thousandfold. “Many more stars that all last much longer than our Sun ensures there’s simply more opportunity for life to arise in the future on a small dwarf star than in the last 13 billion years of cosmic time,” as Alan Duffy, an Australian astronomer at Swinburne University of Technology, who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email to The Washington Post. But let us deflate that warm fuzzy feeling with a deep space chill. Namely, most experts do not believe all stars are created equally. “One possibility is we’re premature,” as Loeb admitted in the news release. “Another possibility is that the environment around a low-mass star is hazardous to life.” To Charley Lineweaver, an astrobiologist at the Australian National University, the belief that life could equally appear on a yellow dwarf or red dwarf is a “crazy assumption.” He told The Washington Post as much by phone early Wednesday. Around red dwarfs, “it’s much more believable that life is suppressed,” he told The Post, “b “There’s a lot of papers that say that life may be suppressed around


The ‘missing 28 pages’ from the Congressional report on 9/11 won’t stop conspiracy theories. Here’s why.

Obama administration reiterated the 9/11 Commission’s conclusion that it was unable to find evidence that the “Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” al-Qaeda. To demonstrate how withholding information can fuel conspiracy belief in cases like this, we examined a different conspiracy theory that the government has sought to debunk — the unsupported claim that the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800 resulted from an accidental Navy missile strike rather than the ignition of a flammable fuel/air mixture. In our studies, we showed a convenience sample of online participants in the United States a brief article about the controversy over the cause of the crash. Respondents were then assigned to see three documents that supported the official account of the crash, or to a control condition. Participants in one condition simply saw documents with text, while others were randomly assigned to instead see a version of the documents that appeared to have been redacted. Although no text was actually obscured — people in both conditions were shown the same information — the second group saw black lines over parts of the documents. After reviewing the documents, respondents were then asked about their belief in both the official explanation and the conspiracy theory surrounding the TWA Flight 800 crash. Across two separate studies, what we found was striking. Compared with the control group that did not see official documents, participants in the unredacted treatment were significantly more likely to believe the official explanation and less likely to agree with the conspiracy theory about the crash. On the other hand, there was a limited or null effect on individuals who were shown what appeared to be redacted versions of the documents. The presence of redactions appears to undermine the effectiveness of corrective information. The magnitude of these effects was substantial. For instance, we found in our first study that 26 percent of control-group respondents could be described as conspiracy adherents. On average, these respondents did not believe the official explanation and endorsed claims that the government was involved in the crash, that the flight was shot down by a missile and that the government was covering up the true cause of the crash. Exposure to the unredacted documents significantly reduced the prevalence of conspiracy adherents, which declined to 18 percent. By contrast, 24 percent of respondents exposed to otherwise identical redacted documents were conspiracy adherents — almost one-third


Business Rx: Their ‘super coffee’ looks to wake up energy drink market

shelves of an area Whole Foods. The early success prompted oldest brother Jim to join business, too. The pitch Jim DeCicco, chief executive, Sunniva Caffe “Our mission is to inspire healthy, productive living. All three of us brothers were college athletes and our mom raised us on organic foods, preaching the powerful effects of nutrition and real food on our health and performance. Most food companies focus on the function of flavor, compromising the authenticity and health of their ingredients. The market is saturated with energy products that are loaded with sugars, artificial flavors and harmful amounts of caffeine. All we’re doing is taking the beloved commodity of coffee and making it better – better taste, better energy, better for you. “Each bottle of Super Coffee has 10 grams of protein and 4 grams of MCT oil from coconuts. We offer four varieties: vanilla, cinnamon, mocha and black. “We’re based in D.C. We currently are in 21 Whole Foods stores from Northern Virginia to Baltimore and we sell our coffee on our website. We’re doing a case study with 7-Eleven in D.C. and we’re carried at Georgetown University and Philadelphia University. “The bottled coffee industry is booming, but a lot of that is growth in cold-brewed coffee. Ours is a functional beverage – coffee fortified with protein and coconut oil – so it’s unique from the other options out there. Right now, we are a refrigerated product, but we’ve grown sales volumes large enough to hit the tipping point for a production contract with a shelf-stable manufacturer. This transition opens the door to new distribution and partnership opportunities. “We’re currently in the middle of a seed financing round to propel our growth from the Washington region up to New York City. We’re targeting college campuses, natural food channels and select convenience stores. We want to be the healthy bottled coffee beverage that you can buy anywhere. “We’re halfway to our fundraising goal. We’re hoping to bring on some strategic investors who also have connections in the food and beverage space that can help us with distribution and new accounts. “As we go about that process, how do young brands convey with transparency their benefits? Food marketing often fools consumers. We are a truly healthy option, but how do we stand out?” The advice Elana Fine, managing director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H.


This company’s one small step may be a giant leap for private space travel

MISSION 2 - MX-1 Micro-Lander with ILO Telescope at Moon's South Pole (Moon Express) For years, the only entities with the power and resources to visit the moon were governments, such as the United States, China and India. But that's all about to change: On Wednesday, a private spaceflight company announced it will be the first of its kind to conduct an independent moon landing. The launch by Moon Express Inc., a Florida-based firm started in 2010, marks the first time a commercial entity will be granted permission to leave Earth's orbit for a destination in outer space. Moon Express — or MoonEx for short — plans to send a robotic lander to the moon, where it will drop scientific instruments that will help researchers study the mysteries of space. For example, the lander will be carrying several retroreflectors designed to reflect light back to earth; in the past, these devices have led to discoveries about relativity and quantum mechanics and in the future, could yield insights into dark matter, said MoonEx co-founder Bob Richards in an interview. While on the moon, MoonEx's lander will also try to win a $20 million bounty being offered by Google as part of the Lunar XPRIZE competition. In order to win, a private entity must land on the moon, take off again, land more than 1,500 feet away from its original position, and send high-definition video and images back to earth. Wednesday's announcement marks a turning point for the rapidly growing commercial space industry. Firms such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have pioneered private space launches in hopes of making it much cheaper to fling heavy payloads into orbit. But MoonEx said it is the first company to obtain clearance from the U.S. government to venture beyond. Moon Express MTV-1X Test Flights @ KSC [Dec 2014] MoonEx secured permission from the Federal Aviation Administration — which oversees space launches that don't involve NASA or the Pentagon — on July 20 after roughly three months of meetings with all three agencies, along with the White House, the State Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Because no commercial application process yet exists for visiting the moon, MoonEx had to persuade the government to grant it special permission. Promising to obey all the same space-related obligations governments must adhere to under international law, MoonEx also agreed to steer clear of any historical moon landing


‘You should never hurt a dog’: Abuse cases rile China’s growing animal rights movement

woman who volunteers at a local dog shelter arrived at the man's house with police and fellow volunteers. She told Shenzhen News that the man, Wang Moping, had previously inquired about adopting a dog from them. At his house, they found a bleeding German shepherd with missing teeth and rushed it to a veterinarian. The screenshots of Wang's messages, and photos of the subsequent rescue, were shared thousands of times. Netizens widely condemned the people behind both acts of abuse. "He should be the one tied to a car and dragged," one Weibo user said of the Shandong driver, whose photograph, license plate number and phone number were shared online. "Death to the driver, death to his whole family," wrote another. "It's sick!" Chen Yan, a 52-year-old Shanghai resident, told the Chinese website Sixth Tone. "You should never hurt a dog, even if you don't love it." These responses point to China's growing animal rights movement, which has become increasingly mainstream in recent years even as other forms of activism are being suppressed. As Peter J. Li, a China policy adviser with Humane Society International, noted in Foreign Affairs in March, animal rights activists are beginning to "get their way" in a country that issued a protocol for humane slaughter techniques in 2009. Although implementation has been "spotty," Li regards such moves as telling progress. "In many ways, animal welfare movements fall in line with China's goal to modernize, both economically and culturally," he wrote. Like the activists that called on the Chinese government to change farming practices, netizens are now asking for laws that would punish alleged animal abusers such as Wang. Commenters on Weibo and WeChat said anyone who tortured dogs should be put in jail. China's first animal protection law was drafted in 2009, but it has yet to be adopted. Outside of legal recourse, activists have won a spate of smaller victories recently. Earlier this week, a group rescued a truckload of dogs likely bound for slaughter in Hebei. Ahead of the Yulin Dog Meat Festival this June, activists gathered 11 million signatures against the fringe tradition, claiming that many of the dogs used for meat were pets that had been snatched from their owners. Read more: The Forbidden City's 600-year-old plumbing keeps it dry as the rest of China floods Jailed Chinese lawyer reappears to deliver a 'confession,' but the script seems familiar Save Save


Chinese company tests giant bus that drives over cars

China began testing a "bus-way" that drives on rails over cars in traffic. Each one can carry 1200 people. Every urban commuter laments the twice-a-day headache of traffic congestion and the often disappointing alternatives that mass transit offers. A Chinese company has officially rolled out one potential solution: the TEB-1, or Transit Elevated Bus. The giant “flying” bus, as some have called it, straddles two lanes of traffic and stands nearly 16 feet tall so that it can pass over cars on the roadway below. While still a long way from mass production, the TEB-1 could one day alleviate major traffic woes in China and other countries with crowded metropolitan areas. The concept of an elevated bus was first floated in 2010, and a model was debuted in May of this year, the New York Times reported. The company behind the project, TEB Technology, conducted a road test and opened its doors to prospective passengers in the Chinese city of Qinhuangdao on Tuesday, according to the Xinhua News Agency. People try the TEB-1 during the test run Tuesday. (Luo Xiaoguang/Xinhua via AP) The Transit Elevated Bus piloted in China’s Hebei province rolls along a designated track, making it similar in some ways to a commuter train or tram — the key difference, of course, being that it runs on top of the existing roadway without the need to construct a separate overpass. Images distributed by Chinese media show a spacious passenger compartment — measuring 72 feet long by 26 feet wide — capable of holding up to 300 riders. Surprisingly, there are not very many seats. That would probably have to change should an American model ever come to fruition. Indeed, it’s unclear whether the idea of an elevated bus could gain traction in the United States. The model piloted by TEB Technologies appears to clear midsize sedans with ease, but the large SUVs and trucks that clog U.S. roads may present a greater challenge. What’s more, laying a track for the elevated bus on highways with few twists and turns is perhaps practical, but the crisscross pattern and narrow streets common in most cities may be more difficult. The hulking bus maneuvering its way around Washington’s infamous traffic circles, for example, seems problematic. Adie Tomer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, also sees roadblocks to bringing elevated buses to the United States. For one, they’re not particularly appealing visually,


Several airlines change travel policies for areas hit by mosquito-related Zika virus

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes rest on the forearm of a health technician in a lab conducting research on preventing the spread of the Zika virus in Guatemala City. (Josue Decavele/Reuters) Several major airlines are changing their policies on refunds and changes to travel plans for those headed to areas affected by the mosquito-related virus Zika. At least a dozen infections have been reported in part of Miami, according to health officials. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a recent travel advisory to parts of Florida. Spirit Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines and Delta all have made changes to how passengers can adjust their travel plans because of warnings about the virus. The dates vary on when travelers have to meet deadlines to make the changes without facing penalties. Travelers are advised to check with their individual carrier.


NIH to begin testing Zika vaccine in humans

Stella Guerra performs physical therapy on an infant born with microcephaly at Altino Ventura Foundation in Recife, Brazil. (Mario Tama/Getty) As the Zika virus continues its spread, infecting people in more than 50 countries and threatening fetal development in pregnant women, scientists have been racing to develop an effective vaccine for the disease. Federal researchers on Wednesday announced a milestone in that effort: their first clinical trial in humans. The trial will involve at least 80 healthy volunteers between ages 18 and 35 at three locations around the United States, including at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda. The main goal of the study will be to evaluate the vaccine's safety and to see whether it generates an immune-system response in patients. If those early results are positive, researchers hope to began a larger-scale trial in Zika-affected countries in early 2017. "A safe and effective vaccine to prevent Zika virus infection and the devastating birth defects it causes is a public health imperative," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. "NIAID worked expeditiously to ready a vaccine candidate, and results in animal testing have been very encouraging. We are pleased that we are now able to proceed with this initial study in people. Although it will take some time before a vaccine against Zika is commercially available, the launch of this study is an important step forward." Fauci told The Washington Post in a previous interview that government scientists have been able to leverage research done on two similar viruses — West Nile and dengue — to quickly create vaccine candidates that target Zika, which currently has no cure or effective treatment. Various private efforts are underway to create Zika vaccines, part of a global effort by scientists to better understand and fight the mysterious virus. In June, Pennsylvania vaccine maker Inovio Pharmaceuticals and South Korea’s GeneOne Life Sciences announced plans to start testing a DNA vaccine, known as GLS-5700, on humans. Inovio chief executive J. Joseph Kim said the company, which is also working on vaccines for other devastating global viruses such as Ebola and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), hoped to report results later this year. The experimental vaccine that NIH researchers are testing includes a small, circular piece of DNA, known as a plasmid, which scientists engineered to contain genes that code for proteins of


Who needs the corpse flower? Check out these 4 other weird blooms

inside, you might catch a glimpse of the hairs that line the flower’s tube, which keep insects from backing out before they come in contact with the pollen at the flower’s bulbous end (the hairs relax after the pollen is released). Sacred lotus flowers at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens v Kenilworth’s sacred lotus plants originally came from 1,000 year-old seeds found in China. (John Boggan) Standing 6 to 8 feet tall, a forest of pale pink flowers greets visitors at D.C.’s last remaining tidal marsh. “Sacred lotuses are magical; they are like water lilies floating on air. And at Kenilworth, there are acres and acres of them all blooming at once,” says naturalist Melanie Choukas-Bradley, author of “A Year in Rock Creek Park.” The park’s lotuses were originally cultivated from seeds found in a dry Manchurian lake bed — seeds that had lain dormant for 1,000 years. Crape myrtles at the National Arboretum The National Arboretum has cultivated several disease-resistant varieties of crape myrtle. (John Boggan) A rare tree that blooms midsummer, the crape myrtle produces voluminous pompoms of pink, purple and white. You can find these trees shedding confetti-like flowers on sidewalks all around D.C., but for the greatest concentration and variety, check out the National Arboretum. Botanists at the facility have bred several special, disease-resistant cultivars of the popular ornamental plant, which can be seen in the gardens surrounding the visitor center and sprinkled throughout the conifer collection. “In addition to the flowers, their bark is really cool — they have a cream color striped with cinnamon or mahogany,” Arboretum horticulturist Scott Aker says. Joe-Pye weed everywhere Joe-Pye weed can grow to be 8 feet tall. (Melanie Choukas-Bradley) These towering wildflowers grow all over D.C., but you can find particularly robust stands along the Potomac and in Olmsted Woods. “They have these clusters of beautiful pink flowers that attract all sorts of pollinators,” Choukas-Bradley says. Some claim that Joe-Pye weed (sometimes called “boneset”) was named after an American Indian who used the plant to cure a variety of ailments. One of the best ways to see them? “Rent a kayak at the Key Bridge boathouse and head upriver toward Chain Bridge,” she says. (Or join her kayak wildflower tour this Saturday.) More stories from Express Can you handle D.C.’s most intense workouts? What you know before putting your apartment on Air B My boyfriend isn’t taking my medication seriously


Ali Lights Up the Night as Games Open

the lap around the track and carried the torch up the ramp to the base of the cauldron tower. There, she was joined by Ali, whose appearance brought a roar from the crowd. Ali, who suffers Parkinson’s syndrome, lit the cauldron by torching a wick on the end of a pulley, which was raised to the cauldron itself, 134 steps above. Ali’s appearance marked the final link in a momentous torch run through the United States, which spanned 15,000 miles and 43 states, and today wended its way through surburban and downtown Atlanta to the stadium itself. Although the sites and scenes in downtown Atlanta have been rife with corporate logos and grand displays of commercialism, Olympic Stadium was a welcome oasis this evening, where the international grandeur of this event settled gently on this city. On a stage unadorned by a single corporate logo, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games staged a lavish production, sprinkled with vibrant music, graceful dancing, and — as demonstrated by a number that included cheerleaders, marching bands and pickup trucks — a few true slices of Americana. There were a couple of glitches — some spectators waited for more than an hour in packed lines to make their way through entry metal detectors, and the parade of nations was disrupted when the athletes were not released from the waiting area at adjacent Atlanta Fulton County Stadium at proper intervals, forcing many to run to the entrance to Olympic Stadium, where the march turned haphazard before it reached Gabon and the “G” nations. One of the most compelling moments this evening came when a ring of white curtains rose from the floor in the center of the stadium, and, in the light of a soft glow within, a series of actors posed their bodies to create silhouettes depicting the classic poses of Greek athletes. As the images floated gracefully before them, there was a palpable sense of the crowd’s enchantment. Barely had the spectators recovered from that moment, when a woman bearing a flag reading “Atlanta” ran up the long ramp that stood beneath the cauldron tower, disappearing almost at the same moment as the flag for Greece came into view. With Greece leading the procession and the Americans ending it, the infield became a flood of color and unity, one amazing assemblage before the athletes disappeared to their separate venues, competitors once again.


Obama’s Iran debacle looks worse and worse

went to in order to accommodate the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.” Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who has been involved in virtually every Iran sanction bill, released a statement saying, “We were right in January 2016 to describe the Administration’s $1.7 billion transfer to Iran as a ransom payment. Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk. While Americans were relieved by Iran’s overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House’s policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages, including Siamak Namazi, his father Baquer Namazi, and Reza Shahini.” Experts emphasize just how peculiar this arrangement was. “The White House sent pallets of cash in an unmarked plane to pay off a state sponsor of terrorism. This is what we call ‘bulk cash smuggling’ in the terrorism finance business,” Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies remarks. “Until recently, this kind of activity could result in punitive sanctions. Now, the Obama administration is trying to tell us that this is statecraft.” Other than outrage it is not clear what Congress is willing to do. Democrats have stalled on meaningful sanctions legislation, either to extend the existing sanctions due to expire at the end of the year or to authorize new sanctions. Hillary Clinton has talked tough during the campaign, but critics of the deal are skeptical she will have the nerve to pass new sanctions that the Iranians will claim “threaten the deal.” That is the problem, of course. Iran managed to get a deal out of Obama that required no permanent changes; preserved its option down the road to go nuclear; alleviated economic pressure; delivered cold, hard cash; and gave it ongoing leverage to defend its ongoing defiance, aggression and human rights abuses. If Clinton is elected, it will be incumbent on Republicans to work with her, pushing Democrats in the direction of a much tougher line on Iran. Passage of sanctions, a zero-tolerance policy for illegal missiles (shoot one down, perhaps) and purchase of banned materials, and renewed efforts on the ground to oust Iran’s partner Bashar al-Assad are needed. Most of all, however, it will be up to the next administration to figuratively and literally stop Iran from holding us hostage. After years of acceding to Iran’s behavior, the United States will need to convey forcefully and promptly that a new U.S. policy is in effect.


Here’s what many journalists missed when covering the Brexit vote

A Brexit flotilla of fishing boats sailed up the River Thames into London on June 16, 2016, with foghorns sounding, in a protest against EU fishing quotas by the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union. (NIKLAS HALLE’N/AFP/Getty Images) The Brexit vote surprised many observers. Most pollsters and financial analysts incorrectly predicted the final outcome. Since the vote, we’ve seen two main media narratives about what happened. On the one hand, some reported that the pro-Brexit vote was driven by factors such as xenophobia, racism, and misinformation about the economic costs of leaving the EU. Others suggest that the vote reflects anxiety about jobs and the loss of British identity and autonomy that comes with European economic, political, and cultural integration. In addition to emphasizing different information about voters’ decisions, these two narratives usually imply different political positions: one critical, the other positive. Which of these two narratives did the New York Times emphasize? We ask because, despite the fragmented media landscape, the Times is unquestionably one of the most influential newspapers in the U.S. Here’s how we analyzed the New York Times’ point of view — and what we learned To answer these questions, we analyzed the content of all articles, editorials, and op-eds published in that newspaper between June 24 (the day after the vote) and July 7, 2016 (the day that the Dallas shootings diverted public attention). We found 161 relevant articles, editorials, opinions, or news items that mentioned “Brexit.” For each we looked at: - How articles portrayed the concerns and motivations of voters - What sort of information they provided on the consequences of Brexit for the UK, the EU and the world - How they portrayed key politicians, such as anti-Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson. We used this information to sort articles into the following categories: - Anti-Brexit: highlighted voters’ xenophobic and racist views; how the U.K., E.U., and the world would suffer from Brexit; or criticized pro-Brexit politicians. - Neutral on Brexit: These articles noted that financial markets went back to normal after the initial shock; presented Brexit’s both positive and negative effects on the British economy; or highlighted the views of citizens who voted on both sides of the issue. - Pro-Brexit: These articles treated the case for exit as sensible; wrote respectfully that Brexit suggests that the EU or world needs policy reform; or reported ordinary people’s concerns about globalization, without


The DEA warns marijuana grow spots are the ‘new meth houses’

DEA, a provision in the law allows people to "assist" others in their grows — essentially giving growers cover to produce a near-unlimited amount of plants and claim that they belong to other individuals. There's also a provision in Colorado's medical marijuana law that allows so-called caregivers to grow up to 99 plants on behalf patients that they assist. According to the Colorado Department of Health, there are fewer than 2,000 people in the state authorized to grow between 50 and 99 plants. The DEA report says that under the cover of these laws, unscrupulous growers can produce large quantities of marijuana to be shipped and sold out of state at high prices. But the report doesn't quantify how much weed is actually being shipped beyond Colorado's borders. Nationwide, marijuana smuggling offenses have been falling in the era of legal weed. The report says that "since 2014, there has been a noticeable increase in organized networks of sophisticated residential grows in Colorado that are orchestrated and operated by drug trafficking organizations." The report says there are currently "hundreds" of these operations in Colorado. These operations "harm communities, including residents, first responders, service providers, and the environment in multiple ways, from reduced quality of life, reduced property values, and physical harm from mold, fires, and even explosions," said DEA spokeswoman Barbara Carreno in an email. "When you add home-situated butane hash oil labs to the mix, residential marijuana grow and processing operations truly do have an impact on neighborhoods similar to that of home-based clandestine meth labs." Marijuana advocates are skeptical of the DEA's claims. In an email, Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), said that "it may be argued that unregulated grow operations will become less prevalent under marijuana regulation, since cultivators of larger grows will be able to engage in legally regulated, commercial endeavors and because consumers will be able to legally purchase products at retail facilities." In its report, the DEA paints a grim picture of Colorado's future: "The proliferation of large residential grows is taxing local police and fire departments, consuming power and water resources, and potentially affecting home values in communities throughout the state." But NORML's Armentano says the DEA is employing "sensational and ineffective scare-tactics." He adds, "the DEA’s 'flat earth' position toward marijuana lacks credibility and is out of step with public and scientific consensus."


The Daily 202: Why is progressive frustration with Hillary Clinton not boosting the Green Party?

Officials said all of the infections happened outside of the continental U.S. (Carol Rosenberg) - Meanwhile, the Obama administration warned it is “rapidly” running out of funds to fight the mosquito-born virus, urging action from House Democrats as officials acknowledged existing funds could be depleted by the end of August. (Kelsey Snell) - Bizarrely, Brazil’s army may have the mosquito repellant market cornered: Troops are given a sticky repellant that can reportedly stave off mosquitos in the harshest of Amazonian conditions (one New York Times reporter was lucky enough to try it.) But good luck getting your hands on a tube – the country spent 20 years developing the formula in a military lab, and has no plans to commercially produce its secret forumula. - Obama commuted the sentences of 214 inmates on Wednesday, far surpassing his single-day clemency record as he seeks to end “unduly harsh” terms of federal inmates. (Greg Jaffe) - The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a Virginia transgender student from using the bathroom of his choice, giving his school district additional time to file an appeal on the issue. The move is an indication that the justices will likely rule on the case in the fall. (Moriah Balingit and Robert Barnes) - The Pentagon blocked $300 million in military assistance to Pakistan, delivering a potential blow to U.S.-Pakistani ties. The decision also comes as a sign of ongoing tensions with an ally that some have accused of “double-dealing,” and failing to act against militants fueling violence in Afghanistan. (Missy Ryan) - Texas agreed to weaken its voter identification laws, following a federal appeals court ruling that the state’s current restrictions discriminate against minorities. The state was also ordered to spend at least $2.5 million on voter outreach initiatives before November, which will be subject to approval of the court. (AP) - Nepal’s parliament elected a former communist rebel leader as its new prime minister, a move that will likely portend further political instability in the nation. (AP) - New research found that carriers of the gene for sickle cell anemia do NOT have an increased death risk. The study, conducted on nearly 50,000 active-duty soldiers, counters widespread concerns that those with the trait are more likely to die from intense training. (SF Gate) - Exposure to microbes from farm animals can reportedly help lower asthma and allergy rates, according to newly-published research from Amish and Hutterite


Watch giant baby panda Bei Bei play in the water from a hose

The Smithsonian's National Zoo posted this video of baby panda Bei Bei playing in the water from a hose as keepers clean his enclosure. What toddler doesn’t like to splash in water? Clearly, Bei Bei — the National Zoo’s giant baby panda — does. The zoo put out a video on social media showing the almost 1-year-old baby panda playing in the water from a hose as keepers clean his area. In the video, Bei Bei appears rather relaxed and holds up his feet as he is sprayed with water. Zookeepers wrote in their post (and you kind of have to agree) — “And it’s adorable.” Bei Bei turns 1 this month. He has also been doing regular training sessions with his keeper where he follows simple commands to lie down, put his paw under the cage door, and “stand,” moving on his hind legs. The baby panda’s name means “precious” or “treasure” and he was named by U.S. and Chinese first ladies Michelle Obama and Peng Liyuan. The zoo has planned birthday celebrations on Aug. 20 for three of its pandas. Bao Bao will turn 3; Tian Tian will turn 19 and Bei Bei turns 1. The pandas will get frozen birthday cakes and zoo visitors will get complimentary tasting of Dandan, a dish of noodles. Bei Bei was born on Aug. 22, 2015. His mother is Mei Xiang and his father is Tian Tian. His twin died four days after they were born. Save Save Save


To save Darwin’s finches from devastation, scientists breed hordes of blood-sucking maggots

The Galapagos finches have a problem – and breeding maggots is the solution. (Rosemary Grant/Science via Associated Press) Nobody keeps maggots in little plastic farms, like they do with ants. Nor do they reminisce about catching maggots in a Mason jar on a warm summer night, as they might with lightning bugs. And I have yet to hear of anyone tucking their kids into bed with a sweet tale of maggot metamorphosis, though these creatures go through the same four-step transformation as other insects with pupal stages, like very hungry caterpillars. Indeed, the maggot may be one of the least liked creatures on planet Earth. But what if raising maggots was the key to saving a critically endangered species? Might you be able to look past their plump, repugnant little bodies and their squirmy-wormy writhing? Paola Lahuatte has. In fact, you might call her the Mother of Maggots. As a junior researcher at the Charles Darwin Foundation in Ecuador, Lahuatte has spent the last few years conducting painstaking research into the life cycle of Philornis downsi, a nasty, parasitic fly that’s on its way to killing off the last few dozen mangrove finches left on earth. Mangrove finches First, an adult P. downsi seeks out a bird nest where it deposits up to 200 eggs. In a few days, the eggs hatch into the fly’s larval form — tiny maggots smaller than a grain of rice, but similar in appearance. A medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis) nestling that was killed by Philornis downsi larvae. (P. Lahuatte) The maggots wriggle up to the unfortunate chicks in residence, crawl into their nostrils and auditory canals, and use special hooks in their mouths to tear through the chicks’ tender tissues. Then the maggots simply suckle at the wounds like creamy-white chupacabras. // // “When the larvae get older they move to the bottom of the nest and emerge at night to feed on the nestlings, leaving puncture wounds,” says Lahuatte. And all this blood-sucking takes a toll. A particularly bad P. downsi infestation can kill all the chicks in a nest — even before the maggots are done developing. When this happens, the larvae shift from stealing the blood of live chicks to simply feeding on their carcasses. At this point you may be wondering why anyone would want to create more of these ravenous hell spawn. But to put these parasites out


Rich homes come with a greater variety of everything – including bugs

A spitting spider (Matt Bertone/North Carolina State University) Rich people have more square footage and more money. But it turns out they've got more of something else, too: bugs living in their homes. Not a greater abundance of bugs, necessarily, but a more diverse bunch. That's the word from a study published in the journal Biology Letters — one that proves that homeowners in affluent neighborhoods play host to more species of arthropods than their poorer counterparts. Armed with kneepads, headlamps and glass vials, the research team collected samples of arthropods — think insects and spiders — from 50 urban homes in Raleigh, N.C. They also took notes on the homes' sizes, nearby vegetation and locations. Back in the lab, they used microscopes to identify each kind of bug and note its species. They identified each dwelling's mean neighborhood income using publicly available information, then ran the numbers to see whether they could tease out possible biological connections between the factors. A paper wasp (Matt Bertone/North Carolina State University) The team, led by California Academy of Sciences postdoctoral researcher Misha Leong, thought that arthropod biodiversity — the number of types of species found within a given dwelling — would increase based on a home's square footage and the density and diversity of plants outside. But another factor ended up being almost as predictive of a large number of bug species types: neighborhood income. The signal was so strong that Leong ran the numbers again and again just to be sure. "We wound up analyzing the data a bunch of different ways," she says. "I kept asking myself, 'Is this a fluke?' " But even homes with relatively light ground cover outdoors had more diverse arthropods inside when they were in wealthy neighborhoods. The finding seems to point to what is known in biodiversity circles as "the luxury effect" — the more affluent the area, the more diverse its animals. (Last year, for example, biologists found that the higher a household's income, the higher the number of lizard species that could be found there.) "We've known about this effect," Leong says. But both Leong and Michelle D. Trautwein, a curator of entomology at the academy and co-author of the paper, say they were surprised at just how strongly luxury and diversity correlate when it comes to arthropods. Your immense library might attract diverse book lice. (Matt Bertone/North Carolina State University) Though


inside when they were in wealthy neighborhoods. The finding seems to point to what is known in biodiversity circles as "the luxury effect" — the more affluent the area, the more diverse its animals. (Last year, for example, biologists found that the higher a household's income, the higher the number of lizard species that could be found there.) "We've known about this effect," Leong says. But both Leong and Michelle D. Trautwein, a curator of entomology at the academy and co-author of the paper, say they were surprised at just how strongly luxury and diversity correlate when it comes to arthropods. Your immense library might attract diverse book lice. (Matt Bertone/North Carolina State University) Though Leong admits that more thorough studies of high-density households in lower-income neighborhoods are needed to complete the picture of indoor bug diversity, her findings fly in the face of a lingering perception of poorer homes as places with bug problems. Many existing studies on income and bugs focus only on pests such as cockroaches or arthropods as disease vectors. That's important work, Leong says, but it can skew the public's perception about bugs. "It's a bit of a humbling fact that no matter how impervious you think your house is to the outdoors, it's very easy for tiny things to find their way in," she says. That's especially true for wealthy homes and houses in ritzy neighborhoods filled with parks, flowers, trees and other havens for nature-loving arthropods. Those habitats are the direct result of the investment and political clout of the wealthy, who can turn their attention to green space instead of focusing on the bare basics. "There are untold benefits of wealth that aren't necessarily noticed but that somehow translate to enhanced environments and ecosystems," Trautwein says. "Even if we can't really pinpoint what those benefits are, we can see that bugs and plants and birds and plants and lizards all respond to affluence." Even bugs, it seems, like a bit of luxury. Erin Blakemore (@heroinebook) is a freelance journalist from Boulder, Colo. She is the author of "The Heroine’s Bookshelf" (Harper). Read More: To save Darwin’s finches from devastation, scientists breed hordes of blood-sucking maggots New Yorkers don’t know their rats well enough. One ‘rodentologist’ wants to change that. Scientists just solved a 100-year-old art mystery — with a particle accelerator A molecule called ‘Sandman’ could help solve the ‘mystery of sleep’


India launches its most sweeping economic reforms in a generation

Workers load grain onto a truck at a railway goods yard in the southern port city of Chennai, India, on Aug. 3. (Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images) The term "united states" has always been most apt for describing India, a nation of unparalleled variety of peoples and climes, 23 official languages and thousands of dialects. Some villages have been home to particular lineages for so long that residents claim their own dialect is discernible from what's spoken in a town two miles down the road. Over centuries — millennia even — ruling classes carved out principalities across the Indian subcontinent through war and alliances, fusing early forms of union out of linguistic and geographical affinities. And when India won independence from the British Empire in 1947, most of those "princely states" acceded to India's union, creating one modern nation-state with a population greater than any continent other than Asia. But India remains loosely united politically and economically. While the country has two large national political parties, almost every state has one or more powerful parties of its own, and ruling coalitions in state capitals, as well as in New Delhi, are often cobbled together by unlikely coalitions. Each state also has its own tax laws, and interstate goods transport is highly regulated. Trucks line up at state borders as if entering another country. The tax chaos creates a huge headache for Indian businesses, scares off foreign investment and keeps prices for consumers high. On Wednesday, the upper house of India's Parliament passed a landmark bill to streamline 15 goods and services taxes across the country. The law represents the biggest reform to India's economy since it was massively deregulated in 1991, leading the country away from decades of socialist policies. It is also the next step in the unification, for better or worse, of the Indian state. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came into power two years ago on pledges to bring sweeping economic reforms, and this is the only one his government has managed to get passed so far. Major initiatives on labor and land reform have stalled in parliament, and job growth is stagnant. His Bharatiya Janata Party, known by its initials B.J.P., even opposed a single, federal goods and services tax while in opposition. But an economic legacy has to start somewhere, and despite some minor disagreements, there has been near unanimous political support for a unified tax code


Those Olympic athlete videos that make you cry? NBC started work on them more than a year ago.

required travel to Cuba, Japan and Ukraine. Even deciding who to profile among the thousands competing is quite an undertaking. NBC will produce profiles of about 50 people this year. That includes profiling more than 10 international athletes, which Levy said was important in the broader Olympic context of highlighting commonalities across cultures and countries. “Yeah, facilities might be different in Cuba, or in some spots in some of the African countries we went to. But the way they’re trained, coached and strive to achieve their dream of participating in the Olympics is quite common,” he said. More than a year before the Games, staff began combing through nearly all Olympic sports (although prime-time sports get more consideration), determined who had been performing well in world championships and created a list of potential people to feature. While some of those profiled will include incredibly well-known veterans like Michael Phelps, “the last time a large majority of Americans may have heard about many of these athletes was four years ago in London,” Levy said. Expect to see features on competitors such as American wrestler Jordan Burroughs, English diver Tom Daley, Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura, American swimmer Katie Ledecky. Production also has to take into consideration the unique lifestyle of these premier athletes, whose calendars are packed with competition and training. “That’s why we begin so early, because it’s not something we would say to them, either two weeks before trials — sit you down for a conversation — or a week after trials,” Levy said. For instance, with Ledecky, “we began early to speak to her, her parents and coaches to determine what would work best in her schedule.” These profiles tend to zero in on a particularly compelling aspect of an athlete’s Olympic journey. Sometimes there’s narration, or just the athlete’s own voice. And don’t forget the music, usually selected with competitor, story line and country of origin in mind. But beyond those features, there isn’t a particular tried and true formula that’s been used throughout the decades, Levy said, “because, like anything, production and story-telling and creativity evolve.” This year, the Games will be live and the broadcast will quickly switch from event to event, meaning there could be a tighter window for these profiles to air. But no worries: It should only take a couple of minutes to get you to root for a wrestler from New Jersey.


Tommie Smith and John Carlos kicked off U.S. Olympic Team

to respect the American Flag and the National Anthem that was being played in salute to their capture of gold and bronze medals. Throughout the Star Spangled Banner the two athletes cast their faces to the ground. In contrast, the silver-medal winner, Australia’s Peter Norman, on the stand with them, was at erect attention during the anthem. When Smith and Carlos marched down from the stands and across the track toward their quarters in the stadium it was with their black-gloved fists still held high and resolute in protest. If it was unpatriotic in the view of most observers, the courage and dignity of their revolt-gesture was inescapable. The mild revolutionists are rare. By finishing first and third they had won their chance to exploit their protest. Worldwide television cameras and news services do not tune in on losers. Even those who would deplore the time and the place of their demonstration will concede that a right of protest was theirs. Passage of the Civil Rights Act by the American Congress affirmed the Negroes’ complaint of 300 years of injustice. This, then, was the chance of Smith and Carlos to tell the world of their military and protest with an impact never before offered a Negro, athlete or otherwise. They took that chance, took the consequences, took their medals and were going home. It was not nice that they did not give full attention to the American Flag but their sin otherwise was less than horrible. These is reason for thinking the Olympic panjandrums blundered in dealing out the ultimate punishment to Smith and Carlos. They thus trebled the impact of the entire episode and also the martyrdom of those two militants, who now are better able to carry their cause to more places. Actually, there was reason to believe the U.S. committee was prepared to ignore the incident until the International Olympic Committee stuck in its oar with a statement processed through Avery Brundage, protesting the U.S. athletes’ “deliberate violation of the accepted principle by using the occasion no advertise domestic political views.” The statement deliberately put the U.S. committee on responsibility to the other Olympic nations. The U.S. committee did not react late Wednesday when the black-power revolt occurred. Not until the IOC made the suggestion did the U.S. committee take action. The expulsion of the pair had quick effects in the American compound in Olympic Village, splitting


The mysterious case of Sochi’s double toilets and other Olympic memories

accumulation," Amy Shipley wrote from British Columbia just before the Games began. Athletes and fans were alarmed by the unseasonably mild winter weather as organizers rushed to to arrange a tremendous effort to haul snow into the area. "Before the massive snow-hauling began last week, the freestyle skiing course that will feature gold medal competition in moguls on Saturday sported little more than grass and mud, giving a double meaning to Vancouver's environmentally conscious effort to put on the greenest Games in history." A truck dumps snow to Cypress mountain, the venue for snowboarding and freestyle skiing, ahead of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics on February 9, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) "So I didn't need to bring the foot warmers, hand warmers, leg warmers, head warmers, heavy-duty winter coat with liner, snow boots, wool socks, scarf, double-lined gloves, Bunsen burners and firewood. I should have just packed an umbrella. Rats," Tracee Hamilton wrote on arrival. Three of the four arms of the Olympic cauldron emerge from holes in the ground during the opening ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, February 12, 2010. It was not clear what caused the malfunction of the one of the arms. (REUTERS/Mike Blake) Beijing 2008: The views Time was running out, and the athletes were still deeply concerned about the city's pollution problem. "American runners are trying out face masks. Dutch cyclists will train in South Korea. Fearful of the effects of air pollution on their performance," Ariana Eunjung Cha wrote from the scene. Smog shrouds Beijing in May 2008. The International Olympic Committee warned that some outdoor events could be postponed because of Beijing's poor air pollution. (Guang Niu/Getty Images) China was also faced criticism about human rights, including concerns about the jailing of dissidents. The Olympics will return to China in just a few years. "Despite concerns about the geography and climate — not to mention the toxic air — Beijing sold itself as the safe bet, an expert in infrastructure with a population big enough to fuel a boom in the niche business of winter sports," Emily Rauhala and Michael Birnbaum explained. What to expect at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Bejing? Possibly perfect: “No mountains? No problem.” Read more: Gunmen ambush Swedish tourists in Rio during photo stop Six words that tell you everything you need to know about Brazil Beijing quietly celebrates Olympic win