Clean energy is at a critical turning point, and wind and solar may not be enough

sent some to the grid — but it seems poised to end up with roughly the same or perhaps less nuclear generation overall in 2025. Whether the situation worsens even further for nuclear will depend on economic factors, like the price of natural gas, that will be hard to forecast. And then there’s carbon capture and storage — which basically refers to techniques to keep the carbon emissions from coal- or gas-fired electricity generation, or other industrial processes, from reaching the atmosphere and instead channel them into reservoirs in the ground. Sometimes, that also involves using the carbon dioxide to make a little extra income along the way through enhanced oil recovery. CCS is still a fledgling and quite variable technology, with only a small number of projects around the world operating in the electricity generation sector. Yet it plays a key role in many scenarios that scientists and analysts consult to study how the world can solve its carbon problem while still providing electricity to a growing global population. “The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] models show that CCS is critical to keeping our global temperature increases within 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels,” notes Fatima Ahmad, a fellow at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) who has focused on the CCS space. Indeed, agreeing with this perspective, the International Energy Agency recently found that “CCS needs to increase by an order of magnitude in the next decade” if we are to keep global warming below 2 degrees C. What’s more, CCS is one key element in a technological combination dubbed “bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage,” or BECCS, that is the leading contender right now for how the world will someday achieve “negative” carbon emissions — or, in other words, pull carbon dioxide back out of the air. We’re already so far gone in the climate change arena that many realists believe a technology like this will be a future necessity. And yet for CCS, if anything, the story is even more challenging than it is for nuclear. Last year, the Obama administration cut funding for the FutureGen 2.0 project in Illinois, which was supposed to be a key demonstration of the technology. This year, meanwhile, the Energy Department reportedly decided to suspend funding for another CCS project in Texas. And now, the New York Times is out with a highly critical report about the


A transcript of The Washington Post editorial board’s meeting with Gary Johnson and William Weld

steps that have been taken recently by the FDA and others to tighten the distribution of opioids and pain medication? JOHNSON: Well, what it leads to is abuse. I mean, tightening leads to abuse. And having been involved in the marijuana industry for a year and a half as the CEO of Cannabis Sativa, marijuana products, as an example, directly compete with these opioids that statistically kill 100,000 people a year—now I’ve seen where that’s a lower number—but marijuana products don’t kill anybody. Statistically, they don’t kill anyone. So the tightening of these restrictions by the FDA ends up criminalizing the activity and these products do kill people. WELD: You’re referring to trying to get less Oxycontin flooding the market? DIEHL: Yes. WELD: That’s a good idea. DIEHL: Do you agree that’s a good idea? JOHNSON: Well, it’s a good idea, but the reality is, is that you end up depriving some people of the real need to relieve their pain so they have to go out into the black—I mean, it ends up criminalizing a lot of activity. I wish there were alternatives to the opioids, which marijuana does fill that role, and that would be a safer [way]. WELD: Maybe that’s your answer. I think what Gov. Charlie Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey have been working on in Massachusetts is a good model. It’s along those same lines. HIATT: It sounds like you don’t think it’s a good idea as policy. JOHNSON: A good idea as policy? Well I think it ends up criminalizing activity that’s going to take place anyway, and I wish there were alternatives to the opioids which are recognized, and right at the top of that list would be marijuana products. HIATT: And just to circle back on the heroin —so philosophically you would be in favor of legalizing, but you’re saying as a pragmatic political matter, not going to happen, so let’s start with— JOHNSON: I don’t even want to say, ‘Legalize,’ I just don’t, because people take– HIATT: Why? JOHNSON: Well, because people misunderstand that. Harm reduction strategy – -if Washington, D.C., for example, wants to reduce heroin death due to overdose, what they would do is, they would open up clinics that would test heroin for anybody that came in with their dose of heroin. ‘Here, test it, tell me what the quality consistency of this is’ — and I


Republicans ask for another probe of Clinton over her statements about private email server

there are two standards: One for 'We the People,' and one for the politically connected." Second, Republicans have searched Comey's Tuesday statement, and his answers to the oversight committee, for evidence that Clinton misled Congress and can therefore be probed again. "From what Comey said the other day, I think she's done for," said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), who is retiring this year but is trying to create a new independent counsel to investigate Clinton's use of a private server. "She said time and time again, while she was being investigated: 'I never sent any classified information on that server.' Well, that's been found to be a lie. He said in committee today that she wasn't sophisticated enough to recognize the markings. So being stupid is better than being a liar?' Just as the existence of Clinton's "homebrew" server became known as a result of the long-running Benghazi investigation, the evidence Republicans now point to for their perjury claim consists of quotes Clinton gave to the Select Committee on Benghazi. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) also asked Comey to consider whether Clinton had misled about the server during a Democratic debate. At Thursday's oversight hearing, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the Benghazi committee, made what Republicans saw as the strongest case for going after Clinton again. After repeatedly asking Comey to confirm that Clinton had made false statements, Gowdy argued that those statements could have been weaved together in a strong case. "In your old job, you would prove intent . . . by showing the jury evidence of a complex scheme that was designed for the very purpose of concealing the public record, and you would be arguing in addition to concealment the destruction that you and I just talked about or certainly the failure to preserve," Gowdy said. "You would argue all of that under the heading of intent. You would also be arguing the pervasiveness of the scheme, when it started, when it ended and the number of emails, whether they were originally classified or up-classified. You would argue all of that under the heading of intent. You would also, probably, under common scheme or plan, argue the burn bags of daily calendar entries or the missing daily calendar entries as a common scheme or plan to conceal." Republicans are divided on what to do with that information, and that argument. Chaffetz's referral was one idea; the


Zoos are built for people. Animals need sanctuaries instead.

An orca leaps during a show at SeaWorld in San Diego in 2014. The theme park operator has said it will stop breeding killer whales. (Mike Blake/Reuters) U.S. zoos and aquariums draw many millions of visitors a year, and no one thinks those numbers will drop sharply very soon. But Americans’ post-“Blackfish” discomfort with SeaWorld and incidents like the recent shooting of a Cincinnati zoo gorilla have sparked new questions about how the destinations will evolve. This week, we’re publishing pieces on the future of zoos by zoo and animal experts. You can read essays by a zoo director here, a zoo designer here and a sociologist who wrote a book on zoos here. Today’s submission comes from Lori Marino, a neuroscientist and marine mammal expert who is president of the Whale Sanctuary Project. Over the coming years, zoos and aquariums will have to come to terms with three indisputable facts. First, most of the animals that people pay money to see — like elephants, big cats, and dolphins and whales — cannot thrive in these facilities. Second, most zoos and aquariums have failed when it comes to conserving endangered species and populations. And third, despite claims that they are educating visitors about conservation issues, there remains no compelling evidence that seeing animals on display promotes conservation values and behaviors. Zoos and aquariums are under growing pressure to make a choice between adopting a new model and becoming an endangered species themselves. That new model is to be found in sanctuaries. And what distinguishes a sanctuary from a zoo is that its priority is the well-being of the animals, not human amusement or diversion. Some progressive zoos have already started making the change from entertainment and spectacle to restoration, education and conservation. In 2005, the Detroit Zoo closed its elephant exhibit and sent its two elephants to the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary. The National Aquarium has relieved its eight bottlenose dolphins from performing in shows and is planning to retire them to a sanctuary. And the Whale Sanctuary Project has recently been formed to create seaside sanctuaries for formerly captive dolphins and whales, as well as injured or sick wild ones. As they continue to face mounting pressure to shift their way of relating to the other animals, zoos and aquariums will eventually transform into sanctuaries — that is, centers of authentic advocacy and conservation, public education and engagement.


Delicious new Hubble photo cracks open the Crab Nebula

(NASA and ESA) It's Friday. You need a pretty picture of space. The latest offering from the Hubble should help carry you through to the weekend: Feast your eyes upon the majestic Crab Nebula. Located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus (not Cancer, as one might expect — it gets its name from the crustacean-looking sketch astronomers first made of it) the Crab Nebula is the remnant of an ancient exploded star. Chinese astronomers recorded that supernova on July 4, 1054. The resulting nebula itself was discovered about 700 years later. Edwin Hubble connected the "new star" found by Chinese astronomers to this gorgeous celestial object in 1928. At the heart of the Crab Nebula lies an incredibly dense neutron star — one with the same mass as our sun, but packed into a space the size of a small town, just a few miles across — left over from the star that exploded. It pulses like a beating heart, spinning 30 times a second and shooting out blistering pulses of radiation like clockwork. These rapidly spinning stars are known as pulsars, which are such accurate cosmic timekeepers that astronomers can use them to measure other phenomena. Interruptions in the pulses can be used to detect gravitational waves, for example. "The neutron star is a showcase for extreme physical processes and unimaginable cosmic violence," a NASA statement reads. The Crab pulsar is pictured in the center of the new image (it's the upper right star in that bright center pair). It's surrounded by the gaseous outer layers of the nebula, blasted into space when the dead star went supernova and left its dense core behind. The wispy trails forming an expanding ring around the star are moving at half the speed of light. The Crab Nebula is one of the most frequently imaged objects in our galaxy, but this is the first photo to showcase its violent, pulsing heart. Read More: This is what it looks like when a black hole tears a star apart The seasons on this triple-sun planet last a lifetime Saturn’s moon Titan could have the right chemistry for life Why scientists are so excited about the Juno probe that is finally orbiting Jupiter


House, Senate at odds over preference for veterans in federal hiring

for veterans of the Armed Forces.” The amendment, offered by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is a response to several provisions in the Senate-passed version of a defense-spending bill to limit the advantage veterans have when applying for federal jobs. The more far-reaching of the two would apply hiring preference only for an initial federal job being filled on a competitive basis, and not for any afterward. “While this change might seem innocuous, it could have serious negative implications for the men and women who served our nation in uniform,” Gallego said during House consideration of his amendment. ”Under the Senate proposal, if a particular federal job isn’t a good fit, or if a veteran wants to move up the ladder at a different agency, he or she will be deprived of this benefit.” “Simply put, the Senate language is a step in the wrong direction. After years of painful progress in combating economic distress and homelessness among our veterans, now is not the time to dilute a system which has proven highly successful in promoting veteran employment,” said Gallego, himself a veteran of the Marines. The other Senate provision would reinstate a general policy that military retirees cannot move into civil service jobs within six months of their retirement, ending an exception that has been in effect since 9/11 and that has been commonly used. The House vote comes in advance of a conference between the two chambers on the defense-spending bill. The amendment was added to an unrelated spending bill passed by the House on Thursday but effectively stakes out the House’s position going into that conference. Veterans preference does not guarantee veterans a federal job, but it generally moves them ahead of non-veterans for positions being filled competitively. Most such positions are filled through a process called category rating, in which candidates are grouped according to their qualifications; veterans are listed first at each level, and hiring managers generally must select them over non-veterans. Some other positions are filled through a points-based system in which veterans receive extra points, boosting their standing. In the 2014 budget year, veterans accounted for 33.2 percent of total new hires by federal agencies; excluding part-time, seasonal and temporary positions, the percentage was 47.4. Preference does not apply to actions such as promotions, transfers and reassignments, however. There are separate preferences in more limited circumstances for jobs being filled on a non-competitive basis.


India’s Environment Ministry appears to have thoroughly plagiarized a U.S. document

precondition to getting on board with Paris. Without India, it becomes far less likely that the Paris Agreement will come into full force this year, as hoped. Here are some instances of alleged plagiarism from the Indian Express investigation: 1. US (Introduction A): Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) is an environmentally beneficial project or activity that is not required by law, but that a defendant agrees to undertake as part of the settlement of an enforcement action. India (Clause 1): An Environmental Supplemental Plan (ESP) is an environmentally beneficial project or activity that is not required by law, but that an alleged violator of Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006 agrees to undertake as part of the process of environmental clearance. 2. US (II D): SEPs provide defendants with an opportunity to develop and demonstrate new technologies that may prove more protective of human health and the environment than existing processes and procedures. India (4 iii): Innovative Technology: Environmental Supplemental Plan will provide the proponent and the Expert Group with an opportunity to develop and demonstrate new technologies that may prove more protective of human health and the environment than existing processes and procedures. 3. US (IV A III): The project must demonstrate that it is designed to reduce: a. The likelihood that similar violations will occur in the future; b. The adverse impact to public health and/or the environment to which the violation at issue contributes; or, c. The overall risk to public health and/or the environment potentially affected by the violation at issue. India (5): The project must demonstrate that it is designed to remediate the ecological damage caused due to violations and it will reduce, a. The likelihood that similar violations will occur in the future; b. The adverse impact to public health and the environment to which the violation at issue contributes; c. The overall risk to public health and the environment potentially affected by the violation at issue. A secretary in India's Environment Ministry told the Indian Express that "we borrowed the idea [of ESP] from the U.S. Most Western countries follow this practice. But the language of our draft is different. Nothing was copied." Read More: Chinese and Indian media compete over which country is more ‘self-righteous’ India’s most controversial minister gets shifted in a sweeping government reshuffle This Islamic preacher might have influenced one of the Dhaka terrorists. Now Indians want him banned. Save Save


Main Street Morning: U.S.-Havana flights tentatively approved for 10 cities

Entrepreneurs - How this entrepreneur is turning a profit in developing countries. - Kylie Jenner learns a harsh business lesson that you already know. Retail - The first half of 2016 has been positive for a majority of C-store retailers. - A shoe store employee is injured after confronting thieves. Restaurants - McDonald’s says it will expand its all-day breakfast menu. Sales Marketing - A PR executive shares his cheat sheet to getting media coverage. Travel - Cuba flights are OK’d from 10 U.S. cities. Finance - Indiegogo is expanding beyond crowdfunding to be a “springboard” for entrepreneurs. - This credit score guide can help you save thousands on a loan. Start-ups - There are questions as to whether the delicious (and illegal) “food-sharing” economy will survive. - A new food waste fund will provide $75 million to start-ups and technologies that reduce waste. - A start-up raises $8.2 million to help IT pros avoid network outages and breaches. Technology - Samsung unveils the world’s first UFS memory cards – the successor to microSD. - Alibaba’s new Internet-connected car can pay for gas and control your home appliances. - John Deere’s self-driving tractors may sow the seeds for future high-tech farming. - These Windows 10 apps are actually worth installing. Online - A new crowdsourcing app promises to drag help wanted signs into the Internet age. - Yelp is looking to make the availability of data and analytics even more accessible with the launch of Yelp Knowledge. Social Media - Instagram’s new feature will let business profiles block nasty comments. Around the Country - Seattle’s mayor proposes more paid leave for city employees with newborns and ill family members. - San Francisco’s old-school gay bars are disappearing as the city changes. - Dallas tells a garage owner it’s time to go. Around the World - Rear- and side-view mirrors could become a thing of the past in Japan. - Uber switches to Bitcoin in Argentina. - Britain will have its first female prime minister since Margaret Thatcher. - How building a tech start-up in Putin’s Russia is like being on the highway without a map. - Women-owned businesses are on the rise in Afghanistan. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


Google’s plan to keep your Web browsing safe from the cyberattacks of tomorrow

was taking the first step toward protecting user's browsing data against it. The search giant is testing out a Web encryption method called "New Hope," which is designed to help fend off potential quantum attacks for a small number of Chrome browser users when they connect to Google's servers. To understand why quantum computing could be such a big problem for encryption, we'll have to talk a little bit about how it works. Normal computers rely on bits, the smallest units of data, represented by either a zero or one, to store and process information. But quantum computer bits or "qubits" can encode more complex pieces of information. That means that quantum computers have the potential to solve certain kinds of problems much, much faster than regular computers — including guessing the digital keys that are used to lock up the encryption techniques that are common today. Basically, that means quantum computing has the potential to turn into a kind of master lockpick that could help governments or cybercriminals open up everything from your email to your online banking account. Luckily, that kind of attack would require much larger quantum computers than what exists today, so it's still a theoretical problem. But it's a problem Google wants to head off by figuring out how to deploy "post-quantum" encryption algorithms, those designed to be more difficult to crack with the type of processing quantum computing uses, sooner rather than later. The algorithm they're testing now, New Hope — and yes, that is a Star Wars reference — was created by cryptography researchers Erdem Alkim, Léo Ducas, Thomas Pöppelmann and Peter Schwabe. In Google's experiment, the New Hope-based system is used alongside current industry standards to ensure that data remains protected for now, even if the test is unsuccessful. If the experiment works, the information it protects will be safe from the prying eyes of hackers or governments who may deploy sophisticated quantum computers sometime down the line — and that future-proofing is one of the reasons Google is doing this now. "A hypothetical, future quantum computer would be able to retrospectively decrypt any Internet communication that was recorded today, and many types of information need to remain confidential for decades," Google software engineer Matt Braithwaite wrote in a blog post revealing the experiment. "Thus even the possibility of a future quantum computer is something that we should be thinking about today."


The terrifying track of how one ‘super-spreader’ was responsible for nearly half of MERS cases in South Korea

South Korean elementary school students wear masks as a precaution against the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus as they go to school in Seoul in 2015. (Ahn Young-joon/AP) The outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the huge megalopolis of Seoul from May to July last year was among the most chilling examples of how fast infectious diseases can spread in our modern world. From a single businessman who acquired the virus abroad, the disease jumped rapidly from person to person until 36 were dead, 186 infected and thousands were quarantined -- leaving huge swaths of the South Korean capital region, where 25 million people live, paralyzed with fear. Schools closed, department store sales tanked, and tourist visas were canceled. The economic toll was so severe that the country's central bank had to cut interest rates. Now, doctors involved in the care of the first patients have gone back and documented in exacting detail the geography of MERS as it spread in one hospital. In a paper published Friday in the journal the Lancet, Sun Young Cho and colleagues reconstructed the transmission of the virus through a series of maps, tables and diagrams that would have made Michael Crichton shudder. First identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012, MERS has since made its way around the world and infected people in 27 countries. The illness is severe, with patients developing fever, cough and respiratory distress. The death rate is believed to be more than 30 percent. One of the most revealing details in the analysis is its finding that the traveler, dubbed Patient 1, wasn't the "super-spreader" as previously thought. Patient 1, who was 68, transmitted the virus to another man early in his illness and before he knew he had MERS. It was this other man, 35-year-old Patient 14, who exposed so many others. Both men first were seen at Pyeongtaek St. Mary's Hospital, a regional facility that had opened months earlier, for what appeared at the time to be pneumonia. They were treated on the same floor, according to health investigators. Both recovered enough to be released. When their conditions worsened, Patient 1 and Patient 14 separately sought help at one of Seoul's premier health centers -- the Samsung Medical Center, a massive university-affiliated hospital with 1,982 beds and a staff of 9,000. Patient 14's story at Samsung began when he arrived in the emergency department and


Biggest story you missed: ‘Welcome to hell’

Body parts washed ashore near the volleyball area at Copacabana Beach. The Summer Olympics begin in less than a month, and Rio’s mayor said Tuesday that the city will be ready. But there might be room for doubt. Even the mayor offered a few words of caution, the Wall Street Journal noted. To recap all that has gone wrong for Brazil: The president, Dilma Rousseff, was suspended in May and now faces an impeachment trial. Investigations into a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal continue to snare suspects. Unemployment is rising. Crime is rising, too. “Welcome to hell,” a banner at the airport read this week. Then last month, the state government declared a financial crisis that could cause a “total collapse in public security, health, education, transport and environmental management,” the acting governor said. Soldiers who will be deployed during the Olympic games are presented during a ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Silvia Izquierdo/AP) There’s more: A “super bacteria” was detected in waters near Rio’s beaches, CNN reported this week. That comes after concerns about sewage-filled waters. And a growing number of athletes have decided to stay home because of Zika fears, even though the government says visitors have “almost zero” chance of catching the disease, The Washington Post’s Dom Phillips reported. But there have been a few bright spots: Most of the venues are complete, officials say, and a safety plan is in place: 85,000 soldiers and police will be deployed. And on Thursday, the company staging the opening ceremony told the BBC that the event will cost less than London’s show in 2012, which came in at $42 million (and even that was considered a bargain: The ceremony for Beijing 2008 reportedly cost an estimated $100 million).


Dustin Johnson withdraws from Olympics citing Zika concerns

Dustin Johnson holds the U.S. Open championship trophy after winning the 116th U.S. Open Championship at Oakmont Country Club in June. (Tannen Maury/EPA) Dustin Johnson is the latest athlete to back out of the opportunity to compete in the Olympics because of concerns surrounding the Zika virus. The No. 2 golfer in the world and recently minted U.S. Open champion said in a statement Friday that he is making this decision for he and his family. “As an athlete, I can think of no greater honor than representing the United States in the Olympic Games,” Johnson said through a statement from his agent, David Winkle. “However, after much careful consideration and discussion with both my family and my team, I have made the decision to withdraw from the 2016 Olympic Games. This was not an easy decision for me, but my concerns about the Zika Virus cannot be ignored. Paulina and I plan to have more children in the near future, and I feel it would be irresponsible to put myself, her or our family at risk.” Johnson is the first American golfer and the seventh player in the Official World Golf Ranking’s top 20 to back out of participating in this year’s Olympics. No. 1 Jason Day, No. 4 Rory McIlroy and No. 8 Adam Scott have also chosen to skip this summer’s Games. Patrick Reed is expected to take Johnson’s place on the U.S. team.


NATO will expand security patrols in Mediterranean in response to ISIS threat

with our NATO forces, and we’ll just get specific policy guidance and then put out the appropriate orders,” he said. “We will go to nations within NATO and either use the forces we have now or … if we need more go to countries that have those capabilities.” Scaparrotti spoke to reporters during the second day of a biennial NATO summit attended by President Obama and other world leaders. He said he did not know yet whether the United States will have a role in the new maritime mission, but it could involve both U.S. ships and aircraft. Presently, the USNS Grapple, a salvage ship, is deployed in the Aegean Sea for the migrant mission. The new mission emerged after NATO leaders at the summit firmed up support for deployments in Afghanistan in 2017 and met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. U.S. administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said they expect about 5,500 NATO troops will be there next year in addition to 8,400 U.S. service members that Obama announced recently will deploy. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani arrives for the Warsaw NATO Summit on July 8. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Obama’s decision deviated from a previous plan to have 5,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2017. The 8,400 troops will include about 6,700 devoted to the military advising mission known as Resolute Support, with most of the rest devoted to counterterrorism operations through a separate mission known as Freedom’s Sentinel. Army Gen. John W. Nicholson, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, said during a media briefing Saturday in Kabul that Obama gave commanders “all the capabilities” they requested to transition American forces back into more offensive posture in America’s longest war. He referred to authorities granted by the president in May to directly target the Taliban, which had been prohibited in recent years unless there was an immediate threat to U.S. troops. “While the American forces would not be in an offensive role per say, if the Afghan forces are conducting offensive operations, we can support them,” Nicholson said. “Previously, we would support them primarily when they were on a defensive role, so as a commander, working closely with my Afghan comrades, this is a big difference.” Scaparrotti said he agreed with the new plan and that it will allow the U.S. military to continue training the Afghan air force and commandos in a similar


After the Brexit fallout, Europeans are suddenly not so eager for more referendums

A British flag hangs from a window in London. (Reinhard Krause/Reuters) LONDON — The past two weeks in Britain have been described as the country's most chaotic since World War II, and Europe has taken note. As both the value of the pound and consumer confidence have fallen to record lows, pro-European Union politicians elsewhere have argued that such repercussions would be disastrous for smaller countries than Britain. And after all major male pro-Brexit politicians had resigned or been forced out of the Conservative leadership race, commentators from continental Europe could hardly hide their schadenfreude. This is what you get when you vote for Brexit, the underlying message appeared to be. There are likely to be more developments in coming days, as dozens of Conservative members of Parliament vowed Sunday to form a new party should their colleague Andrea Leadsom — a longtime Brexit supporter — become prime minister. The news coming out of Britain indeed seems to have been so negative that many Europeans are now suddenly no longer so eager for referendums in their countries. Opinion polls from all over Europe suggest that the Brexit fallout has weakened nationalists and strengthened many mainstream pro-E.U. parties — at least for now. Denmark, for instance, was originally considered among the most likely countries to follow Britain out of the bloc. In a separate referendum in December, Danes already decided against handing over more powers to the political and economic union headquartered in Brussels. Particularly following the influx of refugees into their country last year, Danes have grown more opposed to the E.U. and to politicians such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Moreover, Denmark had long relied on Britain to represent its interests as a country outside the eurozone. But while more than 40 percent of Danes wanted an E.U. referendum before Britain decided to leave the union, support for such a vote has now declined by nearly 10 percentage points. In another Nordic country, Finland, the appetite for a referendum dropped rapidly, too. Days after Britain voted "leave," support for the country's membership in the E.U. rose by 12 percentage points. That development has come as a surprise to many analysts and politicians: Ahead of the Brexit vote, there certainly had been no lack of doomsday rhetoric. For instance, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, had warned that a Brexit could seriously threaten "Western political civilization." But two weeks


Ethiopian-born Jews on life in Israel: ‘It was always my dream to come to Jerusalem’

said. The family then spent nine months in a refugee camp, where he became so malnourished that his “belly was really swollen.” “I spent my first few weeks in Israel in a Jerusalem hospital,” he said. What shocked the young Ethiopian boy most, Sahalo said, was suddenly learning that there were white Jews in the world. “We were so isolated. I thought all Jews were black,” he said. In Israel, Sahalo also was sent to a boarding school and later studied international relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He now works for the Ethiopian-Israeli jewelry-making company Megemeria. Mintamy Ameha, 18 Mintamy Ameha arrived in Israel from Ethiopia three years ago. She and her family had been living in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, where they had been struggling with their Jewish identity, until their departure for Israel. Mintamy Ameha, a high school student, arrived in Israel three years ago. (Ruth Eglash, The Washington Post) “In Ethiopia, we could not keep the Sabbath, but here you are free to keep it if you want to or not keep it if you don’t want to,” said Ameha, who is beginning her last year of high school. She would like to become a doctor. “I miss life in Ethiopia, I especially miss my aunt who had to stay behind, but I can buy everything I like here, we can make injera [an Ethiopian bread], and we can listen to Ethiopian music here,” she said. At first, she said, fitting in and meeting other Israeli girls her age was difficult. But she now attends a boarding school and has many Israeli-born friends. Speaking fluent Hebrew without any detectable accent, Ameha said she feels as if Israel is her home. Melisa Alahey, 76 Melisa Alahey grew up in a farming village in northern Ethiopia, near the city of Gondar. Melisa Alahey at the Absorption Center of Mevasseret Zion, outside of Jerusalem. (Ruth Eglash/The Washington Post) “It was always my dream to come to Jerusalem, and everything here is even better than I expected,” said Alahey, who does not speak Hebrew and communicated via a translator. Alahey said that when he thought that his family had a chance to come to Israel, they sold their home and belongings and moved to Gondar to wait to immigrate. But the process took six years. “We really suffered during that time, we had no work and no help,” he


Pokémon Go craze sweeps nation: Players find monsters — and injuries, robberies and worse

The fountain on the White House’s North Lawn, digitally accessible from the civilian side of the fence, is a prized location.) Is Pokemon go as fun as everyone says “Poké stops” along K Street NW, Washington, D.C. (Screen grab Pokémon Go) To make this virtual world tick, Niantic Labs borrowed heavily from the digital map master, Google. As Niantic chief executive John Hanke told Mashable: “A lot of us worked on Google Maps and Google Earth for many, many years, so we want the mapping to be good.” It was Niantic’s Google DNA that enabled its previous game, “Ingress,” to map out points of interest. When “Ingress” launched in 2011, it asked players to tag specific locations. “This is classic Google,” Georgia Tech augmented-reality expert Blair MacIntyre told the New Scientist at the time. “They may get information about new monuments, and that actually helps them generate more interesting search results, because these are the things that local people say are interesting.” Pokémon Go uses the geographic information from “Ingress” to populate its world with Pokémon, so that water creatures are found near the shore, for instance. Public points of interest that give players items are called Pokéstops. Some of the most popular “Ingress” landmarks became gyms. But this is where Pokémon Go takes an explosive turn — Pokémon Go is far more popular than “Ingress.” Niantic’s servers have crashed repeatedly over the past week, and it paused its global rollout. Some international players have attempted to find third-party routes into the game, only to be infected with viruses. The popularity also means that certain points of interest, manageable in “Ingress” because of a much smaller player base, have been swarmed. What was a church prior to 2015 — and therefore an “Ingress” locale — became a home when Massachusetts designer Boon Sheridan bought it and converted it into a space to live. Now it is also a gym, which has been swamped by players. There is currently no option on Niantic’s website for Sheridan to remove or alter the gym, prompting him to note the point on Twitter. Interesting to note Niantic’s support page says nothing about disputing/removing locations. Ditto the TOS. https://t.co/nUuUAuL2m0 Despite the increased foot and car traffic — including some at odd hours of the night — Sheridan said he is not upset. “I’m not angry — it was more surprise than anything else,” he told


The Daily 202: Vetting a pro-choice general for V.P., Trump walks into another abortion mess

to make either unwanted advances or inappropriate comments. The allegations come after ex-Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit last week. (New York Magazine) - Iraqi government forces seized a key militant-held air base near Mosul, raising the prospect of the Pentagon escalating its military presence in northern Iraq. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who is in Iraq to meet with senior U.S. military commanders, said the newly-claimed base will serve as a “logistics and air hub” from which both Iraqi and U.S. troops can operate. (Dan Lamothe and Loveday Morris) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling bloc won a two-thirds majority in yesterday’s parliamentary elections, opening the door for revisions to the country’s constitution for the first time since it was enacted in 1947. ( Associated Press) - A leaked police document suggests that more than 1,200 women were sexually assaulted across Germany's major cities on New Year’s Eve – drastically raising the number of victims and suspects originally believed to be involved. An estimated 2,000 men took part in the assaults. (Rick Noack) - The Navy corrected the official medal count for “American Sniper” Chris Kyle, indicating that he earned one Silver Star instead of his previously claimed two. An internal investigation confirmed that the late SEAL embellished his military record. (Thomas Gibbons-Neff) - A 23-year-old homeless man in San Diego died after being attacked and set on fire, the latest victim in what police believe is a series of connected murders of homeless people. (41 NBC) - Police in St. Louis said four men used the new “Pokémon Go” app to commit multiple armed robberies in the area, using the game’s location-based features to find their next targets. (Andrea Peterson) - Rep. Corinne Brown (D-Fla.) stepped down as ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee after being indicted on two dozen charges related to a college scholarship fund that, authorities allege, became a "personal slush fund" for the congresswoman and her longtime chief of staff. (Kelsey Snell) - Protestors raised the Confederate flag – briefly -- at the South Carolina statehouse Sunday, one year after it was taken down. Men dressed as Civil War soldiers cheered and sang. (Katie Mettler) - Eight Texas inmates broke out of their holding cell to assist an armed security guard who was having a heart attack. Their action likely saved the life of the jailer. (NBC News)


This little green bug is wreaking havoc on our ash trees

Agrilus planipennis, commonly known as the emerald ash borer, is a green jewel beetle native to eastern Asia that feeds on ash trees. (Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources – Forestry) The emerald ash borer conjures up images of a majestic little bug, but the invasive species from Asia is in the process of doing big-time damage to ash trees. It is boring its way through tens of millions of ash trees, leaving huge gaps in forests and neighborhoods alike. The emerald ash borer was discovered in Michigan in 2002. Entomologists believe the bug made its way into the United States via wooden shipping crates from overseas. With no natural predators, it quickly spread through the Eastern hardwood forests. Making matters worse, climate change has reduced the number of cold nights, which is the ash trees’ best defense against the bug. Temperatures below 30 degrees can kill the ash borer larvae that live in bark during the winter, but very cold days have decreased by more than 30 percent in the past century, NOAA reports. Although warmer winters will accelerate and increase the spread of the emerald ash borer — commonly referred to as the EAB — it cannot match the force of human activity, which is the main culprit in the bug’s dispersion. People have been either unaware of or ignoring quarantines on the transportation of firewood and other untreated wood products made of ash. To make matters worse, an adult EAB can fly. An illegal shipment of ash trees from Michigan to Prince George’s County brought the accursed beetles to Maryland in 2003. Biologists have been fighting the pest ever since. (Maryland Department of Agriculture) There are multiple species of ash trees and many of them were planted in urban areas such as Washington, D.C., because of their broad, shady canopies. In Indianapolis, they make up 30 percent of the urban forest. Thus, the loss of ash trees can exacerbate the urban heat island effect by exposing more concrete and asphalt to sunshine, which will radiate more heat into the surrounding environment. It will also drive up air conditioning use by exposing homes to direct sunlight, increasing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. My expensive relationship with the invader started this spring when I noticed some branches on a large green ash tree in my back yard weren’t forming leaves. I called an arborist, and he took


The first water clouds are found outside our solar system — around a failed star

An artist's rendering of WISE 0855 as it might appear if viewed up close in infrared light. (Joy Pollard/Gemini Observatory/AURA) For the first time, on the dimly glowing remnants of a failed star mere light-years from Earth, scientists have found evidence of water clouds beyond our solar system. The clouds belong to a brown dwarf called WISE 0855, a celestial body five times as big as Jupiter and 7.2 light-years away. It formed the way a star does, from gas and dust that collapsed in on itself. But it lacked the mass required to set off nuclear fusion, so it became cold and mostly inert — more like a planet than a sun. On the planet-star spectrum, Jupiter sits just in the middle: big for a planet but not quite as big as a sun. “It’s very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close,” Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, said in a statement from NASA when the brown dwarf was discovered two years ago. “And given its extreme temperature, it should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures.” In a study accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters (and currently available online at the research sharing site arXiv), astronomers say they have achieved the first spectroscopic study of WISE 0855, allowing them insight into its chemical composition. “Now that we have a spectrum, we can really start thinking about what’s going on in this object,” lead author Andrew Skemer, an astronomer at the University of California at Santa Cruz, said in a statement. According to Skemer, WISE 0855 is the dimmest object ever detected with this method, which separates light into its component wavelengths to find the signatures of various molecules. At roughly minus-10 degrees Fahrenheit (about the same temperature as the North Pole in May), the brown dwarf is too cold and dark to be analyzed with normal spectroscopy. Instead, Skemer and his colleagues used infrared measurements from the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to interpret WISE 0855’s faint glow. With that data, the astronomers detected water vapor in the brown dwarf’s atmosphere. Skemer’s team had suspected as much, based on photometric analysis he helped publish in 2014. “We would expect an object that cold to have water clouds, and this is the best evidence


Humans are at war with nature, and zoo animals are the ‘refugees’

Tai Shan has a snack at the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwest China’s Sichuan province. There are about 1,600 giant pandas in the wild, and 290 more are in captive-breeding programs worldwide, mainly in China. (Associated Press) Here are a handful of things that happened at U.S. zoos over the weekend: A python briefly escaped in Atlanta. A tiger died in North Carolina. A baby elephant splashed in a kiddie pool in Dallas. A snow leopard, an endangered species, was born in Idaho. That’s a pretty common mix of zoo news — some heart-warming events and some sad or frightening ones. And it’s one reason zoos inspire debate: Many work hard to provide good homes to animals that, in many cases, are losing any sort of home in the wild. But there’s no way around the fact that zoos house wild animals in enclosures, where bad things sometimes happen to them in a very public way. Against the backdrop of that debate, we’ve been publishing for the past week pieces by zoo experts on how the institutions will evolve in the future — and whether they’ll continue to exist. You’ll find links to the previous submissions at the bottom of this post. Today’s comes from Australian zoo designer Jon Coe, who has worked on zoos from Dubai to Indonesia to Germany. In the United States, he has designed or partially designed the Los Angeles Zoo, Detroit Zoo, Zoo Atlanta and others. Any opinion of zoos depends on what lenses viewers are using. If you view zoo animals as refugees from humans’ war to conquer nature, as I do, you will think of zoos very differently from those who see them as animal prisons. No matter what, as our knowledge of zoo animal needs grows, so does our obligation to meet and exceed them. But which zoos are we talking about? Do we judge zoos based on the remarkable progress in the wealthy global communities or the abuses of thousands of zoos in poor communities around the world? And what is the future of private exotic animal collections, some of which are models of humane care, while most are Victorian in spirit? All zoos are embedded in local, regional and global geopolitics and interlinked economies, as well as overpopulation, overconsumption and resulting climate change. It is unlikely the world’s governments will succeed in holding global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, as


in the uncertain times ahead. Climate change-induced droughts, famines, floods and sea level rise and resulting social conflicts will make existing national parks, protected areas and wildlife refuges highly vulnerable, greatly increasing the flood of both human and wildlife refugees. Elite zoos will be forced to focus on captive breeding and management as wild populations are lost forever. Future zoos will use cloning, “frozen zoo” collections — cryo-preserved genetic material from endangered species — and other biotechnical means to maintain small populations. Research scientist Budhan Pukazhenthi opens a tank containing frozen animal sperm at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. The National Zoo maintains a living repository of specimens from rare and endangered species in the Genome Resource Bank. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post) Elite zoos will maintain far fewer species and will become specialized, with increased emphasis on species that are indigenous or adapted to the local climate. Orcas and other large marine mammals that cannot be released in the wild will be managed in vast natural bays and viewed from boats. Elephants will be kept in large family groups in specialized open-range sanctuaries and simulated safari parks, along with many other large species unsuited to the close confinement of urban zoos. Zoo education will become more experiential, using virtual reality technologies to see inside mini-ecosystems of insects and microbes. Mass audience zoos and theme parks will specialize in Web-based “virtual reality zoos” and robotic animals. Circuses and animal combat events will reappear in economically and politically stressed communities around the world as civil society degenerates to traditional norms. Zoos, like other organisms and organizations, will evolve not in a linear fashion toward “progress,” but rather like a branching plant. Old forms will persist. Royal menageries existed in ancient Egypt, exist today and will exist in the future. Humane animal parks and sanctuaries existed in ancient China and India, exist today and will exist in the future. And new forms, such as biotech-enhanced conservation parks, robo- and virtual zoos, are emerging. The zoo as we know it today is also likely to persist on some evolutionary branch or another. Read more: Zoos will ‘look and act radically different in 20 years’ ‘We are at a precipice of a major evolution in zoos’ Zoos are too important to fail. But they can be much better than they are. Zoos are built for people. Animals need sanctuaries instead.


The world’s clouds are in different places than they were 30 years ago

Global cloud patterns (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) In a new study published in Nature on Monday, scientists say they have for the first time thoroughly documented one of the most profound planetary changes yet to be caused by a warming climate: The distribution of clouds all across the Earth has shifted, they say. And moreover, it has shifted in such a way — by expanding subtropical dry zones, located between around 20 and 30 degrees latitude in both hemispheres, and by raising cloud tops — as to make global warming worse. “As global warming occurs, there’s the expectation that the storm track will shift closer to the pole and the dry areas of the subtropics will expand poleward,” said Joel Norris, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and the study’s lead author. The work was conducted with scientists at Scripps, the University of California at Riverside, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Colorado State University. The study observed this change, but a northward shifting of storm tracks was not the only effect. The tops of clouds are also now reaching higher into the atmosphere, Norris explained. “An increase of CO2 leads to cooling of the stratosphere, so it’s cooling down, the troposphere underneath is warming up, and so that means, as the clouds rise up they can rise up higher than they did before,” Norris adds. That these things would happen in theory, based on our understanding of the physics of the atmosphere, has long been expected. The physical reasons for the expectation get complicated fast, involving factors like the atmospheric “Rossby radius of deformation,” and how the Earth’s rotation bends the path of winds — the so-called Coriolis force, Norris explains. But all of this has long been an expectation based on runs of sophisticated climate simulations that embed within their coding the fundamental equations that govern the behavior of the atmosphere. However, the study painstakingly pieced together images from weather satellites between the years 1983 and 2009 — correcting for the numerous known quirks of these satellites that have also made their measurements of atmospheric temperatures a messy affair — to line up pre-existing theory with observations. “We’re seeing what the climate models think the pattern of cloud change would be,” Norris said. Here’s a graphic the researchers provided with the study, showing the changes, and how they


23 pro Pokémon Go tips, from people who spent the whole weekend playing it

one “candy” for that type of Pokémon, which you need (along with stardust) to feed to the Pokémon to upgrade them, or evolve them. It doesn’t matter how strong that Pokémon is, you just get a single candy. So when you get new candy, feed it to the highest CP Pokémon — there’s no point spreading it around. — Gene Park - You should power-up your Pokémon *after you’ve fully evolved them. You don’t want to get stuck investing stardust and Pokémon candies in a Pokémon that evolves and ends up with a bad moveset. — Tim Wong [This originally said before instead of after. My bad! That was a poor Slack transliteration, and had nothing to do with Tim’s Pokémon prowess.) - You might also want to wait until Level 9 to evolve your Pokémon. Once you hit Level 9, you’ll get something called a Lucky Egg, which gives you double experience points and evolves all your Pokémon like crazy. — Oleg Gogovykh Hacking ‘Lures’ - If you enjoy meeting new people and making new friends, start a Lure module at a pokéstop! — Darpan Shah - If you pop a Lure at a pokéstop, Pokémon will just show up there as opposed to you having to walk around. So yeah, Lures are basically people here at work wanting to catch Pokémon while they’re stuck here. — Gene Park - Work in an office where there are enough nerds to coordinate a Lure placement schedule. — Abby Ohlheiser Preventing battery and data drain - You can enable Battery Saver mode in the settings. Once it’s on, hold your phone facing down while you’re walking. It turns off your screen and slows down GPS refresh, but it still vibrates when a Pokémon appears. — Chris Nguyen - Turning off AR can also save battery a bit. But it’ll be less fun. — Oleg Gogovykh - Stay on WiFi as much as possible. — Jason Wong Do you have good tips that the #pokemon_go hivemind missed? Email them to caitlin.dewey@washpost.com, and we’ll keep updating this. In a few days since its launch, the smartphone search for cartoon critters has become a global sensation.. Liked that? Try these! - The first Pokemon game for smartphones is not what I expected - Pokémon Go craze sweeps nation: Players find monsters — and worse - The non-gamer’s guide to playing Pokemon Go Save Save


Republican leaders want more money to support Obama’s plan to add troops in Iraq

to modernize their equipment and support their training.” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), McCain’s House counterpart, stressed that Obama must send Congress a formal budget request because his recent announcements concerning troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan mean “the United States will now be deploying thousands more troops than we have budgeted for.” But budgeting more for defense alone, even to support an expanding campaign against the Islamic State and other extremist groups, is a recipe for discord in Congress. Democrats insist military spending cannot increase without boosting funding for domestic programs by an equal amount. Republicans defense hawks contend the current budget does not provide enough spending to keep the military strong. “It better not be a rule that we are only going to support the people who serve our country, risk their lives, we’re only going to support them if we put an equal amount of money into these domestic things,” Thornberry said during a talk at the Heritage Foundation last week. “To connect the two and basically hold the military hostage in those political battles is wrong at every level.” Democrats accuse Republicans of repeatedly trying to undermine a bipartisan two-year budget agreement struck last year that boosted spending for both defense and domestic programs and last week Senate Democrats blocked a Pentagon spending bill to highlight their complaint. A similar fight is playing out over the annual defense policy bill, where the argument is about whether Congress should use a war funding account to pay for programs that are part of the Pentagon’s regular budget. Using the war funding effectively allows Republicans to get around budget caps to find more money for military priorities. Last year, Obama vetoed the first version of the annual defense policy bill to land on his desk when Republicans tried the same maneuver. A similar situation could play out this year. The House’s version of the defense bill uses an extra $18 billion in war funds to pay for regular Pentagon programs. House and Senate negotiators haven’t finalized this year’s defense policy bill, but with both McCain and Thornberry insisting on more funds to support the administration’s policy changes, it is highly likely Congress is heading for a veto showdown with the White House. “The President has the authority to request increased defense funding to meet emerging national security requirements,” McCain said in his statement Monday. “It is time he use it.”


Are most job-related deaths of police caused by traffic incidents?

of hate toward government and police on social media. The FBI publishes an annual report, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, using information on officer deaths reported by its field offices, law enforcement agencies and nonprofits. The FBI breaks down the figure in two ways: accidents and “felonious incidents,” or deaths as a result of a criminal act. Accidental deaths include aircraft accidents, being struck by vehicles while directing traffic, drownings and being shot accidentally in a crossfire. Felonious incidents include ambushes, traffic pursuits and responding to domestic violence or barricades, hostage-taking or arrest situations. The most recent FBI data from 2014 show 96 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. Of them, 51 died as a result of felonious acts, and 45 died in accidents. There were 48,315 other officers who were victims of assaults while on duty. Of the officers who were feloniously killed during that time, the two main circumstances were during an arrest situation (18.8 percent) and traffic pursuit or stop (18.4 percent). The rest were during disturbance calls, unprovoked attacks or ambush (entrapment or premeditation, similar to the Dallas shootings). (FBI, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted Report, 2014) The total number of deaths is higher when looking at data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit that tracks officer deaths in real time. One factor contributing to the higher number is the memorial fund’s count of job-related illnesses, such as heart attacks. The memorial fund found that traffic-related incidents were the leading cause of death for officers in 15 of the past 20 years. According to the fund’s count, 124 law enforcement officers were killed in 2015. Traffic-related incidents were the leading cause, comprising 52 of the deaths. Of the 52, 41 died in automobile or motorcycle crashes and 11 were struck and killed outside their vehicles. Of the total number of officers killed in 2015, 42 were shot and killed. The tweets we found also claimed that farmers, truck drivers, fishermen and construction workers have a higher death rate on the job than police. This comes from the 2014 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the most recent one available. BLS maintains police data slightly differently and doesn’t encompass off-duty officers in the way that FBI and the memorial fund do. But BLS data show the injury and fatality comparison


Jordan Spieth says Zika was just one concern he had about Rio Olympics

Spieth says he wanted to play in the Olympics and it will be hard to watch from home, but had to consider health concerns and risks. Spieth, No. 3 in the world rankings, joined No. 1 Jason Day, No. 2 Dustin Johnson and No. 4 Rory McIlroy in skipping the Games over fears of the Zika virus, though Spieth intimated Tuesday that he had other worries: Spieth says that health concerns are not limited to Zika. "You guys put that without me saying that." #TheOpen Spieth: "Do I think it looks bad on golf? Maybe. ... But I don't feel like I have to carry the torch." Adds quickly, "See what I did there?" In all, seven of the world’s top 15 golfers and 18 eligible players will be skipping the Olympics. The women’s competition, however, will have each of the world’s top nine players, with No. 10 Ha-Na Jang missing out because there are four South Korean golfers ahead of her in the rankings (countries are limited to four golfers). Matt Kuchar, who moved to No. 15 in the world rankings thanks to a 12-foot birdie on the final hole of a World Golf Championship in Ohio two weeks ago, will take Spieth’s place on the U.S. side. He’ll be joined by Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler and Patrick Reed in the 72-hole stroke-play format. With golf guaranteed to be played at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo but not past that, the game’s leaders will now have to come up with some way to put a positive spin on the sport’s further inclusion. If Zika is a perfect excuse for golfers who don’t want to take time out of their lucrative pro schedules to play in a zero-prize-money event, what will the excuse be four years from now, when Zika is unlikely to be a concern? Perhaps changing the competition’s format away from a standard 72-hole stroke-play event is the answer, or giving golfers some sort of added incentive besides representing your country (as if that’s not good enough). In any case, the sport’s return to the Olympics looks to be short lived, if we’re taking bets right now. And if you want to know how pro golfers really feel about Olympic golf, here’s McIlroy on Tuesday: Rory McIlroy: "I'll watch the Olympics, but probably not golf. I'll watch track and field, swimming, diving -- you know, ones that matter."


11 new restaurants you should try right now

Alta Strada bar and restaurant offers Italian cuisine and drinks. (Photo by April Greer For The Washington Post) The Washington dining scene continues to grow at an almost dizzying clip. Which newcomers are worth visiting? We've rounded up some of Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema's most recent reviews and previews. These are the 11 spots you should visit now. Pan-seared scallops with coconut risotto and basil ice cream. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Kyirisan Japchae (glass noodles with assorted vegetables) at Zannchi. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Zannchi Morel and king trumpet mushroom salad at Métier. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Métier Whaley's chef Daniel Perron rethinks clams casino by substituting chorizo for the traditional bacon. (Dayna Smith for The Washington Post) Whaley's Chef Michael Schlow behind the counter at Conosci. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Conosci: The original EatBar was in Arlington, but the new version opened on Barracks Row on Capitol Hill. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) EatBar The Ferraro pizza with artichokes, ramps, stinging nettles and pistachio pesto at All-Purpose. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) All-Purpose Kayseri mantisi, dumplings stuffed with ground beef, at Ottoman Taverna. (Dayna Smith for The Washington Post) Ottoman Taverna Quail drumettes at Requin. (April Greer for The Washington Post) Requin Crunchy meatballs at Alta Strada. (April Greer for The Washington Post) Alta Strada Fish tacos at Drift on 7th. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) Drift on 7th: Related items: - 2016 Spring Dining Guide - The month of June in restaurant openings and closings - The 40 most essential D.C. restaurant dishes of 2016 - The month of May in restaurant openings and closings - The month of April in restaurant openings and closings


Main Street Morning: Kroger wants to limit egg sales to cage-free options

Steve Jobs. - A tire company is ready to play ball in the upcoming MLB all-star game. - A company creates a mental health guide for small business. Entrepreneurs - Why being very boring will make you very rich. - Teens set a “Pokémon Go” trap – and then use it to rob people. - What was once a tribute to a deceased friend is now a global business. - The behavior of a “Real Housewives” star is ruining her latest business venture. Retail - Amazon’s rivals plan big discounts on its Prime Day and Wal-Mart rolls out free shipping deal ahead of the day. - Kroger commits to buying only cage-free eggs. - Amazon reaches 63 million U.S. Prime members – surpassing half of its customer base for the first time. Restaurants - How to tackle unconscious bias in restaurants. Sales Marketing - A seasoned digital marketing expert explains why your visual advertising is failing. Finance - Why some banks are holding back credit to small businesses. - What millennial millionaires are getting wrong about personal finance. Start-ups - The backers of open-source chips launch a start-up. - Why South African start-ups have an equal number of male and female founders. - eBay acquires a predictive analytics start-up to boost its machine learning. - Two LivingSocial alums cook up a fresh recipe in the foodie business space. - These are 10 low tech businesses you can start. - A veteran business consultant sees an improved climate for start-ups. - Airbnb emphasizes “long term rental” options. - If you’re not sure how to name your start-up, this company will crowdsource it for $199. Technology - Computers for faces are slowly finding their place in business. - Revenues from Internet of Things devices are expected to climb 16% by 2019. Online - YouTube is plotting an online TV service with ESPN, CBS, and ABC to launch next year. - A credit report company is launching a service to help small businesses manage their sales pipelines. Social Media - Facebook rolls out a secret conversations feature in Messenger. - Twitter shuts down a site that archives tweets. - A group of Israelis and Americans file a lawsuit seeking $1 billion in damages from Facebook for allegedly facilitating deadly Palestinian militant attacks on their loved ones. - How this seed farmer succeeded on social media. On This Day in 1982 - The last


Okay, so this flower looks a lot like a horrifying demon

in the area. It's likely that the orchid's gorgeous (and creepy) coloring is the result of natural selection. Patterns emerge thanks to lucky mutations; then they're reinforced and become more common — and specific — in the population as those with start to outlive those without. The orchid probably wasn't seeking favor from the underworld, but from some species of insect (like an orchid bee) that pollinates it. Orchids have a long history of evolving to look attractive to various insects. They can so closely mimic specific species that males will land on them and attempt to mate, unwittingly pollinating the bug-like blossoms. And seeing faces in things is just what humans do. We spot mice on Mars, Jesus on toast and demons in our flowers. Pareidolia — seeing a pattern or shape where none exists — is so common that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of websites dedicated to documenting "faces in things" like buildings and power outlets. Some experts think that the phenomenon is prevalent because we're hardwired by evolution to go looking for human faces. Without that tendency, we might have trouble recognizing the complex marriage of features that mark a human individual. It might also have something to do with the way we process new information in general. We like to look for familiar things, because that way we can adapt to new situations more quickly. Sometimes that means "recognizing" a familiar thing that isn't actually there. "We've evolved brains that think in these quick, dirty ways that are usually right, but at times can lead us to systematically be biased," Christopher French of the British Psychological Society told the BBC in 2013. "A classic example is the Stone Age guy standing there, scratching his beard, wondering whether that rustling in the bushes really is a sabre-toothed tiger. You're much more likely to survive if you assume it's a sabre-toothed tiger and get the hell out of there — otherwise you may end up as lunch." And as we frequently say on the Internet, you just can't ever unsee it. Read More: This praying mantis is terrifyingly good at pretending to be a flower Watch incredible microscopic video of corals kissing, growing, and fighting The Hubble spotted this smiley face in space The seasons on this triple-sun planet last a lifetime Dear Science: If I drink coffee before giving blood, will recipients get a buzz?


All zoos must become ‘firewalls against extinction’

Cheetah cubs born at the Cheetah Science Facility at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va., in 2014. (Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post) What will zoos look like in the future? That’s a question several experts have tackled on Animalia during the past week. We’ve heard from a zoo director, an American zoo designer, an Australian zoo designer, a neuroscientist and a sociologist. The final submission comes from Steve Monfort, a veterinarian who is director of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. Zoos must focus on becoming effective conservation organizations while sustaining excellence in providing for the health and well-being of wildlife in human care. Next-generation zoos must invest large amounts of money in what’s known as “conservation infrastructure,” including much more space (on or off zoo property). These steps are essential for effectively managing genetic diversity over the long-term, and for positioning zoos as vital players on a conservation continuum that spans from intensively managed populations in human care to free-living animals in nature. Today, zoos around the world invest more than $350 million per year in field conservation. But the majority of that money is provided by a minority of zoos. Moving forward, all zoos will increasingly be held accountable for their contributions to conservation. Make no mistake: As the biodiversity crisis worsens, the world will look even more to zoos as firewalls against extinctions and as leaders in partnerships to prevent the extinction of species in nature. This represents both a daunting responsibility and a huge opportunity for zoos to ensure a steady, diverse supply of animals — not only to to fill exhibits, but also to ensure the availability of animals for efforts to restore, exchange or bolster wild populations. Modern zoos already form creative alliances and partnerships to run programs including conservation and breeding centers or managed reserves in species’ range countries. With a lot of effort, collaboration — and, yes, expense — species that have been extinct in the wild can be successfully reintroduced. Earlier this spring, a consortium of zoos working in partnership with the Sahara Conservation Fund and the governments of Abu Dhabi and Chad repatriated 25 scimitar-horned oryx to their ancestral landscape in Africa’s Sahel region. It took 30 years, but we are working toward a goal of achieving self-sustaining herds of more than 500 animals in five years. This and a growing number of


Business Rx: Drink this juice and your landfill will thank you

that is, fruits and vegetable that are the wrong size, shape, color to be commercially sold – and turns them into cold-pressed juice. We also work with trimmings and top waste, so when companies make fresh-cut products like watermelon cubes and carrot sticks, a lot of waste is generated that we can turn into juice. We are trying to chip away at the 20 billion pounds of fruits and vegetables that go unharvested or unsold every year in the U.S.” Philip Wong, co-founder “We source our ‘misfits’ from a variety of farmers, distributors and fresh-cut producers. We work with a lot of local and regional farmers to take their surplus or the things they can’t sell to retailers. We do pay for the produce because this food has real value and we want to make sure we are getting produce that reflects that. We are aligning incentives and we want to support actors at all levels of the food system.” Yang “We launched in November 2014 at a salad shop on Georgetown’s campus and then more broadly in D.C. in January 2015. Our five flavors are now available in about 50 locations in this region. In April 2016, we expanded to New York City’s Eataly [an Italian food hall] and other retailers in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. “Our biggest challenge is figuring how to tell our social mission on our label so customers can immediately understand that our cold-pressed juice is made with misfits and what that means. We want to show how drinking our juice is literally sipping away at produce waste. But there is so little real estate on our bottle packaging to tell that story. We have played around with different types of copy and messaging, as well as telling the story visually. How do we differentiate our social mission on our bottle almost immediately when you look at it?” The advice Sara Herald, associate director of social entrepreneurship at the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business “Like with all social enterprises no matter the industry, there are no ‘free passes’ just for being a company that also does good. You have to compete with all the other options in the market on things like taste, flavors, health factor, price, etc. When social enterprises are at least as good as all the other options available, millennials in particular


Why Italy is facing a looming crisis

French President Francoi Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (Kay Nietfeld/European Pressphoto Agency) Europe's crisis has entered its phony war phase. Markets are rebounding, fears are fading, and people are wondering whether Britain will really leave the European Union after all. While incoming Prime Minister Theresa May claims that "Brexit means Brexit," she originally opposed it. And, more to the point, it still is not clear when she might actually get around to initiating Britain's divorce proceedings with Europe. The longer she waits, though, the more the uncertainty might hurt their economy — in which case, staying might start to look a lot better than going. Britain's exit, then, might end up being much ado about a non-binding referendum. But that doesn't mean all is quiet on the financial front. Even if it doesn't happen, Brexit has reminded us that Europe might have done enough to stop economics from pulling at its seams, but not politics. And it is not just investors who have noticed; voters in other countries have, too. They have seen Britain put the European Union to a metaphorical show of hands and want to do the same. So if it's not Brexit — or especially if it is — then it will just be another portmanteau. Maybe "Italeave" or "Itexit." Whatever it is, though, it'll be a lot more serious if it's a country that, unlike Britain, uses the euro. Then we won't be talking about just renegotiating some trade deals. We'll be talking about what economist Barry Eichengreen has called the mother of all financial crises. That's because everyone would try to get their euros out of the banks before they could get turned into, say, lira that wouldn't be worth anywhere near as much. And that's why Britain's vote actually pushed Italy into a deeper hole than any other country. This is where the battle for the euro, the European Union, and maybe even a united states of Europe won't be won, but might be lost — regardless of the state of the Standard and Poor's 500-stock index. The question you have to ask yourself is cui bono from the euro. And the answer sure isn't Italy. Its economy has only grown 5.5 percent, in total, in the 17½ years it has used the common currency. Of course, the euro isn't the only reason for this, but it is


NASA’s Juno probe beams back its first images from Jupiter’s orbit

at upward of 125,000 mph, managed to slow down and enter orbit within a second and a centimeter of its target — Juno's instruments are back online. Juno is on a 53.5-day orbit of Jupiter, and right now it's swinging out and away from the planet's surface. On Sunday, when these images were taken, Juno was 2.7 million miles away from Jupiter's swirling clouds. That's about 11 times as far as the moon is from Earth. But at the closest approaches of its orbit, the basketball-court-size spacecraft will come within 2,600 miles of the planet — just about as far as New York is from Los Angeles. This first image shows Jupiter's Great Red Spot, an ancient, mysterious storm that has started to shrink. It also shows three of Jupiter's four largest moons. Io, Europa and Ganymede are all present, from left to right. Io is a moon with marvelous volcanic activity that may contribute to Jupiter's stunning aurora light shows. Europa and Ganymede are both thought to contain subsurface oceans that could potentially support life. A look at the best photos of space. The Junocam is a color, visible-light camera that will help scientists study Jupiter's polar regions and cloud cover. But it's actually not considered a scientific instrument: It was put onboard as part of a public engagement effort. The Juno team is working to put captured images online for public consumption, and it will continue to share them during the spacecraft's 37 orbits over the next year. Juno's data collection will start in earnest at the end of August, when Juno gets a little closer. We'll start to see high-resolution images of the planet Aug. 27, when Juno makes those first close passes. "This scene from JunoCam indicates it survived its first pass through Jupiter's extreme radiation environment without any degradation and is ready to take on Jupiter," Scott Bolton, principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. "We can't wait to see the first view of Jupiter's poles." Read More: Why a tiny Lego version of Galileo rode on NASA’s Juno probe all the way to Jupiter How NASA’s Juno mission could help tell us where we came from Okay, so this flower looks a lot like a horrifying demon The surprising science of why a curveball curves Watch incredible microscopic video of corals kissing, growing and fighting Save Save


Why NASA’s new photos of the moon look super fake (even though they’re not)

is nothing but an optical illusion. "The Moon is much closer to DSCOVR than Earth, thus it appears to move fast," he said. "The EPIC field of view is very narrow . . . So a very little movement of the Moon will result in the lunar disk completely crossing our full field of view." Another question that I get a lot is why images of the Earth and the moon never have stars in them. Yes, stars are bright, but we're actually way brighter — at least from the perspective of a camera sitting a scant million miles away. The exposure time you need to capture the Earth and the moon doesn't capture distantly sparkling stars. "A noteworthy thing is how much darker the moon is relative to Earth," Szabo said. "Many people complained that it is self-evident that the Moon is very bright as we see it most of every night. The answer is that the Moon is indeed bright relative to the dark sky, but Earth is even brighter. And, of course, few of us have seen the bright disk of Earth relative the background of the dark sky." This, coupled with the fact that photos taken in space have no atmospheric blur — and that the lack of atmosphere on the moon gives it an edge that looks sharper than Earth's — makes it appear to pop out, like something Photoshopped onto the picture. It doesn't help that the moon doesn't rotate, because it's tidally locked to have one side facing Earth at all times. The moon, all dark and sharp, scoots across the rotating Earth like a cardboard cutout in front of a video that seems hazy in comparison. There's no denying that the result looks a little off. In fact, this EPIC animation of the moon would probably do less of that ostentatious popping if NASA had Photoshopped it. The scientists didn't retouch the images at all, and that left this artifact: (NASA) The green and red bands on the right side (and less visible ones on the left) formed because the camera takes images with red, green, and blue filters separately and combines them to make living color. Because the wavelengths are snapped with a 30-second time delay among them, overlaying the resulting shots leaves a bit of a rainbow trail around the moon's edge. That bright-green contrast makes the dark edge of


One striking chart shows why pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana

(Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) There's a body of research showing that painkiller abuse and overdose are lower in states with medical marijuana laws. These studies have generally assumed that when medical marijuana is available, pain patients are increasingly choosing pot over powerful and deadly prescription narcotics. But that's always been just an assumption. Now a new study, released in the journal Health Affairs, validates these findings by providing clear evidence of a missing link in the causal chain running from medical marijuana to falling overdoses. Ashley and W. David Bradford, a daughter-father pair of researchers at the University of Georgia, scoured the database of all prescription drugs paid for under Medicare Part D from 2010 to 2013. They found that, in the 17 states with a medical-marijuana law in place by 2013, prescriptions for painkillers and other classes of drugs fell sharply compared with states that did not have a medical-marijuana law. The drops were quite significant: In medical-marijuana states, the average doctor prescribed 265 fewer doses of antidepressants each year, 486 fewer doses of seizure medication, 541 fewer anti-nausea doses and 562 fewer doses of anti-anxiety medication. But most strikingly, the typical physician in a medical-marijuana state prescribed 1,826 fewer doses of painkillers in a given year. These conditions are among those for which medical marijuana is most often approved under state laws. So as a sanity check, the Bradfords ran a similar analysis on drug categories that pot typically is not recommended for — blood thinners, anti-viral drugs and antibiotics. And on those drugs, they found no changes in prescribing patterns after the passage of marijuana laws. "This provides strong evidence that the observed shifts in prescribing patterns were in fact due to the passage of the medical marijuana laws," they write. In a news release One interesting wrinkle in the data is glaucoma, for which there was a small increase in demand for traditional drugs in medical-marijuana states. It's routinely listed as an approved condition under medical-marijuana laws, and studies have shown that marijuana provides some degree of temporary relief for its symptoms. The Bradfords hypothesize that the short duration of the glaucoma relief provided by marijuana — roughly an hour or so — may actually stimulate more demand in traditional glaucoma medications. Glaucoma patients may experience some short-term relief from marijuana, which may prompt them to seek other, robust treatment options from their doctors. The


Three big mistakes Americans keep making with their money

continue using costly services, such as cash advances. (FINRA Investor Education Foundation) Another bad habit that many people still maintain is making only the minimum payment on their credit cards. Thirty-two percent of respondents said that they did this last year, potentially increasing the amount of interest they would pay on their debt over time. “When you think about behaviors that are better for your finances, you want to reduce the amount of interest you’re paying on revolving credit,” Walsh said. “And you want to lower the overall cost of borrowing by reducing exposure to costly fees.” But some consumers are being smarter about the way they use their cards. The share of people who said they pay off their cards in full each month grew to 52 percent in 2015 from 41 percent in 2009, making it easier to keep their debt levels low and to avoid interest charges on their purchases. Spending more than they earn As Americans recovered from the recession, many landed jobs with stable income. But despite the added financial security, Americans are still making one common error when it comes to their money — they spend all of it. “They’re either spending every penny that they make or they’re spending more than they make,” Walsh said. Some 18 percent of consumers said they spent more than what they earned in 2015, down only slightly from 20 percent in 2009. The percentage of people who spent less than what they earned, meaning they had cash left over to save, declined slightly to 40 percent in 2015 from 42 percent in 2009. That shows that even though consumers are overall more likely to have jobs and are less worried about falling behind on bills, they don’t feel much more of an urgency to set their extra money aside, Walsh said. Despite improvements in income, Americans are no more likely to live within their means than they were in 2009. (FINRA Investor Education Foundation) But overall, people are having a better time making ends meet. The share of people who faced unexpected drops in income fell to 22 percent in 2015 from 40 percent in 2009. And the portion of consumers who said they had no trouble paying their bills rose to 48 percent from 36 percent. Not planning enough for retirement Only 39 percent of people surveyed said they had done the math on how much


Ethiopia shuts down social media to keep from ‘distracting’ students

Ababa University who writes on the socio-legal aspects of the Internet in Ethiopia, the move damages both the economy and the country’s aspirations for a leadership role on the continent. Ethiopia hosts a hefty United Nations presence and is home to the African Union headquarters. “I think it is a huge embarrassment, and even gives additional ammunition to some states that are unhappy about Addis Ababa being Africa's diplomatic capital,” he said. While Ethiopia likes to present itself as an up-and-coming economic powerhouse, it has to grapple with a low Internet penetration rate of just 3.7 percent, according to a 2015 World Bank estimate (though the government places the number closer to 12 percent). Neighboring Kenya is believed to have a penetration of around two-thirds. The Internet is entirely in the hands of Ethio Telecom, the monopoly telecom provider, and it has remained expensive and hard to get for most people. While the mobile 3G network is now widely available in the countryside, few can afford the service. But observers say this allows the government to keep tight control on the Internet. Social media in the vast Oromo province has been periodically shut down during the unrest there of the past few months, likely over fears that it was being used to coordinate protests. According to a 2014 report by Human Rights Watch, the government has armed itself with sophisticated software from Chinese and European countries to spy on the computers of not just those in the country, but an increasingly vocal opposition living abroad. In May, Yonatan Tesfaye, spokesman for the opposition Blue Party, was charged with inciting violence for statements he made on his Facebook page, criticizing the government response to the Oromo protests. It has also been noted that the total Internet shutdown coincided with unrest in the northern Gondar region, where activists say police clashed with protesters on Tuesday resulting in several deaths: https://twitter.com/befeqadu/status/752867340748926977. A statement from security forces, however, said the clash was between a foreign-funded criminal group and police, resulting in the deaths of three officers, a suspect and a bystander. Ethiopia’s shutdown, which spokesman Reda has not ruled out could be implemented again next year at exam time, comes just a few weeks after the United Nations Human Rights Council condemned “unequivocally” countries disrupting access to the Internet as a “violation of international human rights law.” Ethiopia is a member of that council.


ESPN hosts call on athletes to boycott Olympics, NBC exec vehemently disagrees

Protesters in Rio call for an Olympic boycott, and demand better education and health systems. (Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images) Amid the controversies over polluted waters, the Zika virus and Brazilian political tumult, there’s another question looming in the run-up to the Rio Olympics next month: Should U.S. athletes boycott? Some say yes, including ESPN’s “His and Hers” host Michael Smith. “If I were [an Olympic athlete], I would have serious reservations and conflicting emotions about representing the United States in Rio,” he said on Monday’s show. “I would seriously consider boycotting the Olympics, withdrawing from the Olympics.” Smith said, while there are plenty of reasons not to go to Rio, including Zika, pollution and other issues, the recent police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn., should be at the top of the list for athletes like Carmelo Anthony and other NBA players, who have spoken out against the violence on social media and whose careers don’t depend on Olympic success. “I’m not going to put the USA on my chest and bring honor and glory to a country that is not respecting my fellow citizens as human beings with equal protection under the law,” he said. “People are hungry for athletes to speak out and embrace their citizenship.” Smith’s sentiment was seconded by his ESPN colleague Mike Greenberg, although not necessarily for the same reasons. Greenberg has repeatedly noted his frustrations over Brazil’s lack of readiness for the event, including failures to clean up the waters where the sailing events are to be held. Greeny sums up his frustration with the Olympic Committee and Rio. https://t.co/jwsgzSJvQ0 Executives at NBC, the network that owns the television rights to the Games and would stand to lose the most because of a boycott, are firing back, however, labeling any calls to boycott the Olympics in particular opposed to American sporting events as “hypocritical.” “So should they not play in Dallas? Should they not play in New Orleans?” NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus told SportingNews.com on Tuesday. “I mean, there’s a lot of horrific things all over the world — including in our country. We’re not perfect. And other countries say the same thing about us. I think it’s a little hypocritical for anybody to say we should try to affect the politics or the culture of another country based on sport — and a peaceful


‘It’s a cutthroat business’: Why new restaurants often serve only dinner at the start

Chef and co-owner Michael Friedman in the dining room at All-Purpose, which opened serving only dinner in May. (Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post) Opening a restaurant can take months, if not years. When it does open, chefs and owners are obviously hoping to start making money as soon as possible. But in a move that seems contradictory, many of them hold off on offering certain meals for weeks or longer. Why not debut full service when the buzz is still high? "You want to put your best foot forward," said chef Michael Schlow, who recently opened Casolare in the Kimpton Glover Park Hotel, his fourth restaurant in the District, with dinner service. Breakfast, lunch and Sunday brunch will follow. It's a smart play to stagger the debut of meals, Schlow said, because nailing down one service is hard enough: "Obviously we'd all like to enjoy the revenue of being open." But many restaurant owners believe they owe it to guests, not to mention staff, to perfect one meal before rolling out the rest. That's the way Michael Friedman, who opened All-Purpose in Shaw in mid-May along with his partners, sees it. Only now is the team beginning discussions about lunch service. You have to "walk before you run," Friedman said. Dinner service typically precedes lunch because the former generally has more guests and thus more revenue. The additional months have given All-Purpose time to analyze what's selling well and what needs to be tweaked before debuting an additional seven meal slots. It has also given them an opportunity to do a wider market analysis and check out what's going on in other neighborhoods between the hours of 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. "What does the community need?" Friedman said. "What is the community not being offered now?" Pizzeria Vetri will begin offering daily lunch by the fall. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post) Jeff Benjamin, chief operating officer of Vetri Family, which recently opened Pizzeria Vetri on 14th Street NW, agreed. Lunch is available Friday through Sunday only, meaning the remaining afternoon slots can be used for training staff and addressing diner feedback. He anticipates launching daily lunch by the fall. For Cheesetique owner Jill Erber, who last month opened a third location of the restaurant in Ballston, staggering meal debuts gave her time to overcome the new space's physical challenges. In a layout dramatically different than her other restaurants,


Four countries face the highest risk of Zika virus from the Olympics

countries at risk for importing Zika virus solely from "introduction by a single traveler" to the competitions. As many as 500,000 international visitors and athletes from 206 countries are expected to travel to Rio for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, according to Brazilian tourism officials. But overall travel volume to the Olympics represents a very small fraction -- less than .25 percent -- of the total estimated 2015 travel volume to Zika-affected countries, the analysis said, highlighting "the unlikely scenario that Zika importation would be solely attributable to travel to the games." "The real bottom line message here is that globalization is the main driver for the spread of emerging infectious viruses, including Zika, and the relative contribution of the Olympic Games in Rio during their winter of 2016 is a proportionately very, very small part of that risk," said Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, who oversaw the analysis. The CDC based its assessment on several risk factors: evidence of ongoing or previous Zika virus transmission; the presence of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the primary vector; climate conditions in August and September; the potential for epidemics of dengue, a related virus that is often used as a proxy for Zika; and the absence of a history of Zika virus. Of the participating countries, 19 had all of the above criteria. But to figure out the likelihood that the spread could be the result of travel to the competitions alone, researchers also ranked countries by the estimated air travel during the Olympics and otherwise. For 15 of the countries, travel to Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics is not estimated "to increase substantially the level of risk above that" incurred by the usual air travel for these countries, the report said. But the four countries "have an additional, unique factor: Apart from projected travel to the games, these countries do not have substantial travel to any country with local Zika virus transmission," the report said. The four countries are estimated to have a total of about 60 people -- athletes and others -- attending the competitions. The CDC made several assumptions to create its model for worst-case scenarios. Researchers assumed that Zika transmission would be ongoing during the winter months of August and September in Rio de Janeiro, typically a low season for mosquito-borne disease transmission. They also assumed that many visitors would


not take preventive measures, such as wearing long sleeves and pants or using insect repellent, or that those would be ineffective, and that all visitors would have an equal risk for exposure to the virus. They also assumed that visitors who were infected would return immediately to their home countries with no extended stays elsewhere, that they'd have enough virus in their system to spread the disease once they got home, and that the travelers wouldn't take precautions to prevent mosquito bites at home. Cetron said the CDC has shared the risk assessment with the World Health Organization, which is working with the four countries to emphasize the importance of prevention measures and safe sex practices. Zika is transmitted primarily through the bite of an infected mosquito but can also be spread through sex. The CDC is also providing Zika diagnostic kits to countries to help them test people for the virus. More than 100 countries now have the kits, but it's not clear whether these four nations have received them, Cetron said. "This is an ongoing process to focus on the gap areas," he said. "We're still in the scale-up phase. Even if the individual country doesn't have them, many are part of regional lab networks where they can send a specimen and get a test result." As the little-known disease's risks have become more understood, some experts have called for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to be moved or postponed because of health concerns. Nearly a dozen athletes, many of them golfers, have said they aren't going to compete in Rio because of concerns about Zika. There is no treatment or vaccine for Zika virus disease. About 80 percent of people who get infected have no symptoms, while the rest tend to only have mild symptoms that last for several days to a week. In rare cases, though, the virus has been linked to a nervous system disorder that can cause muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis. It poses its biggest danger during pregnancy, when infection can cause a range of severe fetal abnormalities, including the condition known as microcephaly, where the brain is often underdeveloped. Zika has also been linked to an increasing number of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, which causes muscle weakness and, sometimes, paralysis. Everything you ever wanted to know about the Zika virus and its spread across North and South America. Read more: WHO: