A cheating public employee is caught in the act, and Brazil can’t stop watching

Edinair dos Santos Moraes, a government worker who fled from a reporter investigating public employees who shirk their jobs. (TV Globo) It began as a news report on how some government workers got paid for doing nothing in the legislature of Goias, a state in Brazil’s interior. But the clips of an employee running away from a TV reporter have sparked a national uproar — going viral and inspiring a cellphone game that has been downloaded more than 600,000 times. In the TV Globo exposé, a reporter attempted to interview a woman who had punched in for work at the state legislature two days running and then headed home via a bakery. On the third day, the program revealed, the woman punched in, then went out for coffee and spent a few hours lazing in a nearby park. As she left the park, the woman, later identified as Edinair dos Santos Moraes, was approached by a reporter. The interview went like this. Reporter: “Where do you work?” Moraes: “Where do I work? At the moment I am unemployed.” Reporter: “But we have already seen you coming here twice and for the third time this week, Senhora, you go to the assembly, punch in and leave.” Moraes: “No. I never did this.” Moraes began hurrying away from the reporter, who followed. Reporter: “Senhora, you did. We filmed it. Senhora, you were filmed.” Moraes broke into a run, followed by the reporter. Reporter: “Senhora, excuse me! Senhora! Are you an assembly employee?” Moraes: “No!” Reporter: “Senhora, if you don’t have a problem, why are you running?” The reporter pursued Moraes down the street — but she escaped. And when the anchors in the studio frowned in disapproval, Brazilians howled with laughter. The scene quickly became an Internet phenomenon. (Here's the full report; the fun with Senhora starts at the two-minute mark). (G1) Mulher corre de repórter ao ser perguntada se é funcionária da Assembléia Moraes worked in the offices of Goias state deputy Marlúcio Pereira. She and one of the two other employees featured in the report have subsequently been dismissed. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians have watched clips of the interview/chase, as well as a version set to rock music, a dramatic re-creation, even a computer-generated version of the scene. More than 600,000 people have downloaded the free Android game, in which Moraes attempts to flee the reporter and cameraman, its


Dwell Direct brings a food-truck concept to D.C.’s rental market

Dwell Direct uses a food-truck concept to advertise apartments at farmers markets, festivals and other places renters might be. (photo courtesy JBG companies) If you’ve strolled through any of the D.C. area’s farmers markets over the past few months, you might have gone home with fresh peaches, ripe tomatoes, crisp apples or a new apartment. That’s because since April, a bright blue truck called Dwell Direct (@DwellDirect) has been rolling up to local farmers markets, festivals and street corners. The JBG Companies, the real-estate developer behind the truck, call their creation a “mobile real-estate experience.” From a distance, it looks like a food truck, but there’s no food. Inside, where a kitchen might be, there’s a swanky interior replete with a 60-inch touch screen that shows off JBG-owned apartment buildings — and some JBG condos — nearby. If your feet are tired from wandering through the market or festival, you can sit on a couch-bench hybrid and grab one of the available iPads to scroll through details about each community. JBG staffers are on hand to answer questions about the buildings, give you free Dwell Direct sunglasses or put you in touch with a leasing agent. The idea, says Tiffany Butcher, JBG’s head of residential asset management, is to take a food-truck concept and apply it to the apartment market to create “a mobile one-stop shop for apartment hunting.” Like many innovations, this one came from employees. In April 2014, teams of JBG employees participated in an in-house competition to come up with an innovative new idea. The winning team pitched Dwell Direct. “Their pitch was it was a creative way we could make a real splash in the apartment market,” Butcher says. The mobility wasn’t just a gimmick. In D.C.’s hyper-competitive apartment market, the team was trying to find a way to meet potential renters outside of their leasing offices. Since large apartment buildings are notoriously difficult to move around town, they turned to a truck. “It allows us to go to farmers markets. It allows us to festivals. It allows us to go all these places and engage with people who might not otherwise have had this opportunity,” Butcher says. The mobility means that JBG can show off its properties in specific neighborhoods. So, just as an ice cream truck rotates flavors, Dwell Direct rotates the properties it highlights. At the Pike Central Farm Market in Rockville, the


How the “Wal-Mart effect” squeezes workers in the vast infrastructure behind your groceries

assuming the warehousing and shipping operations of large grocery chains, and then working with the grocers to lower labor costs, even if it means moving operations elsewhere. “As we have over the years, C&S serves our supermarket customers from where we can meet their needs most effectively and efficiently,” the company said through spokesperson Wade Gates of the international PR firm Burson-Marsteller. "Safeway made and was subject to real estate decisions necessitating the relocation of this work.” Safeway offered little further explanation. "The decision to sell is part of our long-term strategy to support our retail stores more effectively,” said spokesman Craig Muckle. (It owns one of the warehouses and is a tenant in the other, which Muckle says the landlord wanted to use for another purpose.) UPPER MARLBORO, MD- OCTOBER 16: Quartz Taylor has been an employee with Safeway since January he attends at the rally with a friend Shannon Holland who was there to support him. Safeway employees, elected officials, community and faith leaders rally against the announced closure of Safeway's two distribution centers located in Upper Marlboro and Landover. The rally took place just outside the Collington Distribution Center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland on October 16, 2015 (Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) The drama unfolding in Prince George's County has repeated itself dozens of times over the past few decades, as struggling grocery chains in the highly competitive industry have sought to cut costs by taking a two-step process to shake off their unionized workforces. “People have been selling off their assets, to let the wholesaler take care of it. And then the wholesaler moves away," said Mark Wulfraat, president of the Montreal-based logistics consulting firm MWPVL, which tracks openings and closings of distribution centers. "It kind of puts an arms-length relationship between the retailer and the union. This is definitely a labor strategy that’s unfolding.” Nationwide, Teamsters officials estimate that 6,700 union jobs have disappeared over the past two decades at grocers like A&P, Stop & Shop, and Giant Foods as a result of the downsizing and relocation of C&S-run facilities. Some of that is due to C&S’s use of technology; the company invests in robots that are able to pick up and deliver boxes, which can render the majority of positions in a warehouse obsolete. (It’s not the only one; Amazon and Kroger have also been leaders in automating their fulfillment.) In the Maryland


Will anyone ever run a marathon in less than two hours? It’s a matter of time.

distance to two hours is just 177 seconds, the length of a short pop song. But it’s also a gap that would require an unprecedented combination of physical gifts, mental fortitude, pain tolerance, training techniques, weather conditions, and perhaps new shoe technology and nutritional advances to surmount — if it ever happens at all. Caesar thinks it could. “The feat appears to be within the range of human possibility, in terms of physiology,” he writes. “But understanding physiology is only one aspect of understanding running. Human beings are more than hearts and lungs and legs, and the quest for virgin territory more than a battle of swift feet.” The author describes that quest through the story of Geoffrey Kiprono Mutai, winner of the 2011 Boston Marathon (in a course record 2:03:02) and two-time winner of the New York City Marathon (including a course record 2:05:06 in 2011). Mutai is a member of the Kalenjin tribe in the Rift Valley region of Kenya, which has produced an extraordinary crop of distance runners that dominatethe sport. Caesar chronicles Mutai’s childhood, his training, his races, his burdens and his obsession with owning the marathon world record. Mutai endured an abusive father and backbreaking work cutting trees and digging holes for the state power company before committing to running full time. He joined a training group — 40 or 50 other men, running three times a day — in the village of Kapng’tuny, an area the runners call “Skyland.” He was broke, and his parents urged him to give up running, but after two years of training he finished second in a prestigious local race, the Kass Marathon, in two hours and 12 minutes, fast enough to earn the interest of a Dutch manager who booked him for his first “outside” race, meaning beyond Kenya’s borders. He won the Monaco Marathon in March 2008, earning 4,000 euros for his effort. “His life as an international athlete had begun,” Caesar writes, a life that would bring him professional success, wealth and enormous scrutiny. Discussions of race times overpower everything among Mutai’s competitors and training partners. The runners know one another by their personal bests, Caesar writes. “That guy is a two-oh-eight. This one is a two-oh-five.” Mutai’s goal, however, is less about the two-hour race that so animates Caesar and more about just running faster, setting a new record, being not only the swiftest but


Lab-developed ‘skin’ could give artificial limbs a sense of touch in the future

Model robotic hand with artificial mechanoreceptors. (Bao Research Group, Stanford University) Scientists at Stanford have developed a flexible skin-like material that can has the ability to "feel" touch. The technology uses flexible organic circuits and specialized pressure sensors that are translated into digital signals that vary depending on how much force is applied. The skin, which has been put on a robotic hand, can tell whether it has received a light touch, for instance, or a firm handshake. Writing in Science this week, researchers said that it was challenging to be able to mimic the sensitivity of human skin which is designed by nature to be able to feel everything from a light breeze to the ouch of a flying ball. After experimenting with numerous materials, they found that carbon nanotubes molded into pyramidal microstructures appeared to respond to a wide range of pressures. [New prosthetic arm can restore lost sense of touch, DARPA claims] "Our skin provides us with a flexible waterproof barrier, but it also contains a sensor array that feels the world around us. This array provides feedback and helps us to avoid a hot object or increase the strength of our grip on an object that may be slipping away," researcher Benjamin C.K. Tee, Zhenan Bao and their colleagues wrote. In an interview, Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, said the first applications of the technology could be very simple involving "skin-like sensors for wearable health monitoring applications." "Our devices can be mounted on skin like a piece of bandage and measure vital signs, such as heart rate and blood pressure," she said. In the future, she said, the technology could be used with prosthetics -- allowing people with artificial limbs to feel sensation -- or even robotics. Artificial mechanoreceptors mounted on the fingers of a model robotic hand. (Bao Research Group, Stanford University) The second component of the Stanford research involved how to get a mouse to recognize those digital signals. They found that by applying some specially engineered proteins to a part of the mouse brain called the somatosensory cortex -- which is the main sensory receptive area for touch -- the animal's neurons fired in accordance with the digital stimulation pulse. "These results indicate that the system may be compatible with other fast-spiking neurons, including peripheral nerves," they said. Stretchable skin with flexible artificial mechanoreceptors. (Bao Research Group, Stanford University) Read


Celeb chef Guy Fieri dines in D.C.

Hey isn’t that… Celebrity chef Guy Fieri dashing around D.C.? The “Mayor of Flavortown” pulled up to DuPont sandwich shop sensation Bub and Pop’s around 3 p.m., Friday to a welcoming crowd of fans who had caught wind of his expected visit. First the @Pontifex, and now @GuyFieri! #DDD @BubandPops http://t.co/e9nGlrLe5R Fieri is in town filming episodes of his Food Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” Bub and Pop’s listed on their Facebook page that they would be closed for a private event on Friday and Saturday. The District’s Office of Cable Television, Music, and Entertainment Web site posted early Friday morning that Fieri would be filming at various locations around D.C., including H St. NE between 12th and 13th street, 4th St. NW between G and H and M St. NW between 18th and 19th, as originally reported by Borderstan. Fieri’s signature platinum blonde spiked hair and red cruiser were also allegedly spotted Friday morning at H Street spot Toki Underground (1234 H St. NE), as reported by Hill Now. Fellow famous restaurateur and D.C. local José Andrés welcomed Fieri to his city on Twitter. Welcome @washingtondc my friend @GuyFieri ! Just another normal day with Guy Fieri http://t.co/6dK8eIoIj3


$5.1 million historic home in Georgetown sells in five days

(Marlon Crutchfield) The 217-year-old home at 1319 30th St. NW, known as Hyde House from its days as the home of Thomas Hyde, an early merchant in Georgetown, was recently renovated and went under contract in just five days despite its steep $5.1 million price tag. The Federal-style home, one of the oldest in Georgetown’s east village, was built in 1798 for Col. Charles Beatty, a leader in the American Revolution and owner of a ferry between Georgetown and Rosslyn. Linda Battalia [Historic Georgetown home lists for $2.295 million] Several rooms feature exposed brick walls to complement the modern features. The home now has more than 6,100 square feet on five levels with an elevator, an expanded lower level for casual entertaining and an English garden and brick terrace. Natural light filters through multiple windows and skylights which also provide views of Georgetown and the D.C. skyline. While the buyer remains unknown, the listing agents are Kelly Williams and Loic Pritchett of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty. The selling agent is Eileen McGrath of Washington Fine Properties. Michele Lerner is a freelance writer. To pass on a tip or news item, contact us at realestate@washpost.com and put “Town Square” in the subject line.


This is what you need to know about xenophobia and this Sunday’s elections in Côte d’Ivoire.

This photo taken on October 27, 2000 shows Ivory Coast’s then-newly inaugurated President Laurent Gbagbo (R) sharing a laugh with his key political rival former prime minister and leader of the Rally for Republicans (RDR) Alassane Ouattara. (JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK/AFP/Getty Images) With presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire scheduled for Oct. 25, few doubt that incumbent Alassane Ouattara will win another five-year term. The main question is whether he will win in the first round against a fragmented opposition or require a run-off. With the economy booming and thousands of newly-naturalized citizens supporting him, the election is Ouattara’s to lose. The context is dramatically different from that of October 2010, when elections were finally held after nearly a decade of conflict between Côte d’Ivoire’s predominantly Muslim north and largely Christian south. After the polls closed, then-President Laurent Gbagbo, a southerner, and challenger Ouattara, a northerner, both claimed victory. Violence between their supporters left 3,000 dead before Gbagbo was arrested in April 2011 and turned over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face charges of crimes against humanity. Ouattara was inaugurated as president and has received considerable international support, even as opponents argue that his side should also be brought to justice for their role in the violence. [Who are Ouattara and Gbagbo?] The roots of the conflict go back to the 1990s, when the transition to multiparty competition unveiled deep divisions over questions of nationality and citizenship in a country with a long history of migration, both internally and from neighboring countries. In this context, anti-immigrant rhetoric became pervasive among Ivorian politicians. In “Playing the immigration card: the politics of exclusion in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana,” I (Whitaker) posit three conditions under which politicians are likely to exploit the immigration issue: when the costs of immigration become concentrated for key interest groups; when embracing anti-immigration rhetoric will divide the support base of an opponent; and when the backing of anti-immigration groups is necessary to assemble a winning electoral coalition. These factors help explain the 1990s climate of xenophobia in Côte d’Ivoire. After years of impressive growth, the Ivorian economy crashed in the 1980s, generating frustration among southern cocoa farmers who found themselves competing with migrant farmers from northern Côte d’Ivoire and from neighboring countries. When opposition parties were legalized in 1990, Gbagbo’s Front Populaire Ivorien (FPI) seized on this frustration and called for the return of land to Ivorians. Such messages


The true story behind the U2 shoot-down in “Bridge of Spies”

Soviet Union was minimal. In response to Powers’ detection, the Soviets grounded civilian air traffic over large swathes of the country and scrambled 13 interceptor aircraft. After four and half hours of flight time, an SA-2 surface-to-air missile exploded behind Powers’ U2 at roughly 70,500 feet. Though U2 reconnaissance flights were usually charted to avoid SAM sites, mission planners had not known about the one that fired the three-missile burst that shot down Powers as well as a Soviet aircraft sent up to intercept him. According to the CIA documents, the centrifugal force of the now-spiraling aircraft threw Powers against his canopy, ruling out the use of the ejection seat. Instead, Powers released the canopy and prepared to jump out of the aircraft manually. Powers was also prepared to activate a destruction switch for the aircraft’s camera but was unable to because after he released his seatbelt, he was immediately thrown out of the aircraft, where he proceeded to dangle by his oxygen hose until it snapped. The aircraft crashed largely intact and Powers was recovered by Soviet forces in a field on the outskirts of Sverdlovsk shortly after. [‘Bridge of Spies’ is an engrossing account of a real-life Cold War case] In response to the shoot-down, U.S. officials initiated their response based on the “best-case scenario”: one in which the plane that was shot-down, and neither the film in the on-board camera nor the pilot survived. The concocted story was that a high-altitude weather plane’s pilot went unconscious due to a malfunction causing the plane to drift off course and crash into Soviet territory. Powers’ crash however, was a worst-case scenario, and the Russian’s played directly into this, releasing only small tidbits of information about the crash which lured the Americans into sticking with their cover story. On May 7, 1960, almost a week after the crash, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev revealed that Powers was in fact alive and had admitted to spying on the Soviet Union for the United States. Soon after, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower took full responsibility for the incident, and subsequently all future U2 overflights were canceled and overseas detachments of U2s were either withdrawn or mothballed. Powers, who was sentenced to 10 years at the hands of his Soviet captors, was released in exchange for captured-KGB agent Rudolf Abel on February 10, 1962, Read the full set of CIA documents on the U2 here


The trains won’t stop running, despite dire warnings about federal deadline for safety equipment

Emergency personnel work at the scene of a deadly train wreck, Wednesday, May 13, 2015, in Philadelphia. More than 200 people aboard the Washington-to-New York train were injured in the derailment that plunged screaming passengers into darkness and chaos Tuesday night. Federal investigators said the crash might have been avoided if automatic braking equipment had been installed on the tracks. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) The railroad industry on Monday held a conference call with reporters to raise the possibility that commuter rail lines nationwide might shut down on Jan. 1 unless Congress steps in to extend a deadline for the installment of new safety equipment. As representatives from three commuter lines — Virginia Railway Express, Chicago’s Metra system and California’s San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission — told it, a shutdown would send millions of commuters onto the highways, causing the ultimate gridlock. Edward Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads, joined the call to say that if the freight railroads also shut down those additional cars on the highway would be joined by every truck that was able to roll. It is more likely that Christmas will come in October. A discussion with leaders on Capitol Hill Friday made clear that Congress has every intention of doing what the railroad industry wants done, and doing it as expeditiously as possible. At issue is something called positive train control (PTC). Put simply, in 2008, after a California rail disaster than killed 25 people, Congress said that railroads should install a complex automatic braking system that would have prevented it — and other accidents, like the Amtrak derailment in May that killed 8 and injured upward of 200 — by the end of this year. The railroads haven’t accomplished that. They’ve told Congress that they won’t make it, and Congress intends to extend the deadline by at least another three years. An extension already is in a big transportation bill that was passed by the Senate. The House has introduced a stand-alone PTC extension bill. The most likely plan, staff members said Friday, is for the House to pass its bill and send it conference committee. There, since the Senate already passed a bill with that provision in it, the Senate action can be carved out of the larger transportation bill, merged with the House bill and sent to the floor for final action. It may not pass unanimously, but everyone agrees


D.C. has three chefs in the running for the next season of ‘Top Chef’

If the roster of contestants for this season of "Top Chef" is any indication, Washington is getting some more respect as a food city. Bravo announced the 17 people vying for the Top Chef title on the 13th season of the series, and the nation's capital is the home of three of them: Marjorie Meek-Bradley, Garret Fleming and Kwame Onwuachi. Chef Marjorie Meek-Bradley of Ripple and Roofers Union will compete on this season of "Top Chef." (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) Meek-Bradley is the executive chef at Ripple in Cleveland Park and Roofers Union in Adams Morgan. In 2014, she was named a James Beard semifinalist for rising star chef of the year, as well as a contender for Food & Wine's best new chef for the mid-Atlantic region. [Marjorie Meek-Bradley: The Ripple chef finds her groove and makes a splash] Fleming is the executive chef at Barrel, a bourbon bar on Capitol Hill. His resume also includes Lincoln and the Pig. [Barrel rolls out the bourbon on Capitol Hill] Onwuachi, who has spent time in the kitchen at New York's Eleven Madison Park and Per Se, has yet to open his Washington dining spot. The Shaw Bijou is scheduled to debut on Ninth Street NW at the end of November. [The Shaw Bijou, from rising New York chef Kwame Onwuachi, is coming to a Ninth Street rowhouse] Boston, Miami, New York and Los Angeles each claim two chefs among the chef-contestants, but no city other than D.C. has three. For a complete list of contestants, head over to Bravo. This season, which will begin with a two-night premiere Dec. 2 and Dec. 3, finds the chefs taking a coastal road trip through California. Padma Lakshmi and head judge Tom Colicchio (did you know he's getting "roasted" at Union Market next week?) return, alongside judges Gail Simmons, Richard Blais and Emeril Lagasse. If you keep track of such things, George Pagonis, executive chef and partner at D.C.'s Kapnos and Arlington's Kapnos Taverna, was the only local contestant in Season 12 of "Top Chef." He was eliminated in the season premiere before making a surprise reappearance in episode 9, eventually going out in episode 12. "Top Chef" premieres Dec. 2-3 at 10 p.m. on Bravo. After that, it airs at 10 p.m. Thursdays.


Another D.C. neighborhood now has $1 million homes

block of Otis Street NE sold for $1 million this month. It appears to be the first home in the Northeast neighborhood to pass that threshold, the Brookland Bridge blog first noted. The approximately 3,000-square-foot home is within walking distance of the Brookland Metro station and has five bedrooms and four full bathrooms, including two full master suites. The home sits on a 7,500-square-foot lot. Eric Bernstein, a real estate agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, who was the listing agent for the home, said the house originally was put on the market for $999,750. Within 10 days, he received multiple offers, and it sold for exactly $1 million. “It’s got everything you look for in a home,” Bernstein said. According to property records, Bernstein’s family’s company, Bradbern Construction Co., purchased the home in 2014 for $390,000. Bernstein said the company paid a hefty consulting fee to someone who helped scout the property and spent about $300,000 in renovations. [Brookland Hardware, a neighborhood gem, is closing shop] Photo Courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens A number of homes in the area have come awfully close to $1 million. In March, for instance, a Brookland home had a listed price of $1,050,000, but property records show it sold in September for $900,000. Other homes are currently listed for more than $1 million. The house on Otis Street originally was owned by John Diggs, who worked from about 1912 to 1950 in the maintenance department at Trinity College, which is now known as Trinity Washington University. Diggs was the first African American to own property in Brookland, according to Ann Pauley, a spokeswoman for the university. Employees at the university say Diggs owned three properties in the neighborhood and Bernstein said that Diggs built this “solid all brick” home. He raised his eight children in the neighborhood and his youngest son, Thomas Diggs, born in 1922 in Brookland, lived in the home as an adult. Thomas Diggs, according to his obituary, died in 2013 at the age of 90. Bradbern Construction Co. purchased the home from the Diggs’s estate, Bernstein said. In the Brookland ZIP code, the median price for a single-family home in 2003 was $295,000. In 2013, it jumped to $450,000. Last year, a large mixed-use development project, Monroe Street Market, opened, ushering in trendy restaurants, pricey condos and art studios. Photo courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens


The government is stifling medical marijuana research, major think tank declares

Section grower Jeremy Strother, left, and production assistant Dan Brennan prepare to move marijuana plant clones into a growing room at Tweed Marijuana in Smiths Falls, Ontario, on Feb. 20, 2014. (Blair Gable/Reuters) In a strongly worded new report out Tuesday, researchers at the Brookings Institution call on the federal government to eliminate roadblocks to medical marijuana research in the United States. "The federal government is stifling medical research in a rapidly transforming area of public policy that has consequences for public health and public safety," the report, written by John Hudak and Grace Wallack, says. "Statutory, regulatory, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers have paralyzed science and threatened the integrity of research freedom in this area." Noting that medical marijuana is already legal in dozens of states, the report argues that conflicting and contradictory federal policy is "interfering with the relationship between doctor and patient." Even in states where medical marijuana is legal, doctors, patients and researchers often find themselves caught in a murky gray area between state and federal policy. Since 1972, the Drug Enforcement Administration has classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, meaning it has "no medically accepted use" and a "high potential for abuse." Updating federal marijuana policy would probably need to start with rescheduling the drug. Changing it to Schedule 2 would acknowledge a potential for medical use. "Moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II would signal to the medical community that FDA and NIH are ready to take medical marijuana research seriously, and help overcome a government-sponsored chilling effect on research that manifests in direct and indirect ways," Hudak and Wallack write. In the past, anti-pot advocacy groups have argued against rescheduling, calling it "a symbolic victory for advocates who want to legalize marijuana." But academic researchers have long complained that federal restrictions on Schedule 1 drugs, including onerous registration and application requirements, make legitimate research "difficult and in many cases almost impossible." In short, federal policy has created a "circular policy trap that hinders scientific research," according to Hudak and Wallack. Research into medical applications of marijuana is constrained by the Schedule 1 designation. And the plant is designated Schedule 1 because there isn't enough research into medical applications. Marijuana could be rescheduled via a complicated petition process. Since marijuana was added to Schedule 1 in 1972, the government has been petitioned four times to remove or reschedule the drug. The DEA


Why the Nike store in L.A. looks so different from the one in Tuscaloosa

some of the originality and charm of a homegrown shop. Chains hope it will help them ring up greater sales and attract new shoppers — particularly millennials. “[Millennials] are communal by nature, they embrace locally-owned businesses, so large chains must find ways to incorporate a sense of local ‘belonging’ to each new location,” said Jorge Lizan, managing director of Lizan Retail Advisors, in an e-mail. Mega-retailer Target says that after it began adapting the merchandise and displays in some of its Chicago stores to reflect the demographics in those neighborhoods, it saw stronger sales at those outlets than at other Target stores in the same market. Local artisans will build each new store for trendy upstart Kit + Ace. Even McDonald’s is striving to bring some localization to its thousands of U.S. restaurants, by changing its menu pipeline so that local restaurants can tailor their menus to regional tastes. [What a new shopping hub in D.C. shows us about the future of retail] Experts say that the localization trend reflects a desire to connect more deeply with consumers at a time when competition within the retail industry is growing fiercer. And it is also likely a play for coveted millennial shoppers, a group that research often finds craves authenticity from their shopping experience. Localization also may be gaining more traction now because sophisticated algorithms and other technology is making it easier to execute, said Dick Seesel, head of consultancy Retailing In Focus. “All these national retailers with thousands of stores coast-to-coast realized that they were missing business at the same time the technology was improving to let them learn what customers wanted,” Seesel said. Nike says its effort is about more than store decor. At its store at major Los Angeles shopping center The Grove, they’ve found that soccer is big business. So they’ve tailored their clothing line-up to appeal to soccer enthusiasts and have added a trial zone where a shopper can put on cleats and practice kicking a ball on a strip of fake grass. “Consumers expect you to be relevant, they expect you to know them and they expect you to serve them,” Shi said. Nike’s push comes as its retail industry counterparts experiment with similar strategic changes. Kohl’s has said that some 40 percent of its merchandise will be localized by the end of this year. Its full range of merchandise should be locally tuned by


Wall Street: A winning presidential punching bag — for both sides

Pedestrians walk past a Bank of America Corp. branch in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 5, 2015. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg If there's one common enemy among a divided American public, it's Wall Street. And 2016 hopefuls know this. According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 67 percent of Americans would support a president who favors stricter regulations of financial institutions on Wall Street (compared to 24 percent who want someone who opposes stricter regulations). And that stance is near-universal; there's no large variation by gender, race, age and education level. Even a majority of Republicans say they'd approve a politician willing to get tough on the banks. Wall Street has been a bogeyman since the 2008 recession and the federal government's subsequent bailout of several banks. According to Gallup surveys tracking Americans' confidence in the banks over time, financial institutions' reputations dropped off a cliff in 2009 and haven't picked back up to anywhere near pre-recession levels. One reason could be Americans feel they haven't seen any good-faith attempts from the banks to make sure another financial crisis and federal bailout doesn't happen. A 2013 Post-ABC News poll Presidential candidates seem to be well aware of this reality and are using it to their advantage. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is certainly the most vocal among 2016 hopefuls decrying the banks. But Republicans have also noticeably taken a step back from totally defending the free market -- and by extension, the banks -- in favor of calling for regulations on the largest of them. [Raising taxes on the wealthy? Calling out income inequality? Meet the new GOP] Front-runner Donald Trump is leading the way with a brand of economic populism that has even earned praise from liberal leader Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). He wants to cut "disgraceful" CEO pay and eliminate some tax breaks for the wealthy (while, it should be noted, cutting other taxes in a way that would benefit the wealthy). But it's not just the unorthodox former Democrat Trump calling out the big banks. In a speech in Berlin before announcing his presidency, former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) said big banks are still a danger to America's economy: " Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who once worked as an investment banker for Lehman Brothers, supports the post-recession Wall Street regulations Congress enacted, known as Dodd-Frank, for the biggest banks. " Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee


The electricity innovation so controversial that it’s now before the Supreme Court

the cost has not been, traditionally, passed on to us everyday consumers — so most of us are blithely unaware of the rapid, complex and constantly changing electricity transactions upon which we and the entire grid depend. The whole situation has created an economic opportunity for “demand response” companies, like Massachusetts-based EnerNOC, to provide software to big companies that use a lot of electricity, helping them manage when they do so. These big users can then potentially shift around how much electricity they use at certain key times when the rest of the grid needs it — for instance, changing the temperature in a building or dimming lights somewhat — and their willingness to use less at these moments has an economic value because it can blunt the amount of peak demand that there is. The product that demand response companies are selling has sometimes been called “negawatts” — they give a value to not using electricity at a particular time. Demand response companies then sell these “negawatts” in auctions where grid operators like PJM Interconnection are constantly matching supply with demand to keep the lights on, and return some of the proceeds to the actual companies cutting usage — and overall, it’s been a pretty successful business model. EnerNOC, for instance, said last May that it had received about $ 1 billion in revenue in the prior three years. The Empire State Building towers over the skyline of a blackout-darkened New York City just before dawn in August 2003. (George Widman/AP) Demand response defenders argue that this technology makes the whole grid work better, helping to avoid blackouts, lowers everybody’s bills, and probably also ultimately saves electricity and thus, greenhouse gas emissions. “During the polar vortex, at least here in Maryland, it was demand response that kept our lights on,” says Malcolm Woolf, a senior vice president at Advanced Energy Economy, a corporate consortium that includes several companies involved in demand response, like EnerNOC and Opower. “The demand response providers were able to send a signal to their customers, and they reduced their load, and they were able to keep the overall lights on in our region.” Enter the Supreme Court. And the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, has let demand response providers do just that. In 2011, FERC set up rules to ensure that grid operators compensate demand response in the same way that they would compensate


As Maryland prepares for Penn State, Mike Locksley lightens the mood

Offensive coordinator Mike Locksley. (Doug Kapustin for The Washington Post) Maryland “And they got excited about that,” Locksley said later, grinning about the uncoiled energy the team has released in recent days. The past 10 days have been difficult for the program in the wake of Randy Edsall’s firing, which has led to one of the most difficult tasks in Locksley’s long career as football coach: rally a stunned group of players who have lost three straight games by 21 points or more and prepare them for this weekend’s game against Penn State in Baltimore. Tuesday’s red-zone drill was simple, but it also conveyed the type of coaching Locksley intends to do these next six weeks. He plans to use his outgoing and competitive personality to add wrinkles to Maryland’s daily approach, which has included playing music in the team facility before meetings to lighten the mood. Locksley said Tuesday that he does not feel as if he is auditioning for the team’s permanent job and that he refuses to campaign for the opening. He also noted at least three times during his news conference that he wants his players to play football in its “purest form” over the second half of the season. That he is encouraging his players to have more fun on the field shouldn’t be misconstrued, he warned. “All the things that this generation likes to do, we’re just trying to make sure it’s more of a mood than it’s something we’re doing necessarily on the field. I think it starts with me having a high energy about how you go about doing things like practice, and I think we’ve seen a little bit of a change,” Locksley said. Locksley has already made a number of personnel moves as the interim coach, which included naming Perry Hills the starting quarterback shortly after he was promoted last week. He also moved sophomore Shane Cockerille from fullback to quarterback on Monday, adding Tuesday that senior Daxx Garman is “banged up” and thus not listed on this week’s two-deep. The move could also spell the changes Locksley wants on offense, which will focus on Hills’s dual-threat ability at quarterback. Cockerille has the same type of mobility, although Locksley said Tuesday that whoever is under center will have to provide a lift in the passing game. Locksley also made slight shifts at tight end and along the offensive line, all


In defeat, Jim Webb gets strange new Republican respect

and anti-God. https://t.co/X6SxDCnInz If you're FOR capitalism, there's no place for you in the Democratic Party. Some conservative praise for fallen Democrats is tongue-in-cheek, a way to goad the party's liberals. The Webb-philia is rooted in some sincere respect for the former senator. That started to crest last week, after CNN's Anderson Cooper asked every Democratic presidential candidate which "enemy you are most proud of." Hillary Clinton rattled off a list that ended with "the Republicans," a remark conservatives saw immediately as a gaffe. Webb named "the enemy soldier that threw the grenade that wounded me," then, with a grin, added that "he's not around right now to talk to." [Meet the other three guys in Tuesday’s Democratic debate] That drew many rounds of social media mockery — and conservatives got Webb's back. "Regardless of how you feel about his politics, Jim Webb served valiantly in combat," wrote Sean Davis in The Federalist. "He did his job. He willingly sacrificed his own safety and comfort in order to protect the men who served with him." "It is a disgrace that to so many of our elites Webb should seem like a figure from another era, and for that matter an ancient and bygone and slightly disreputable one," wrote Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard. These encomia for Webb mentioned his domestic politics only in passing — perhaps because his politics rarely jibed with the modern GOP. In 2006, Webb ran for Senate as a "fighting Democrat," pushed back into public life because he'd warned against invading Iraq again. In the Senate, he was a reluctant star who spoke and wrote occasionally about the need for a more populist Democratic Party — one focused on economic fairness. In his 2008 book "A Time to Fight," Webb compared the United States to the Roman Empire, sliding away from greatness. "The whole body of government, Emperor and Senate alike, turns its eyes away from the forces that are bankrolling its tenure while selling off the Empire for personal profit," he wrote. "The citizens, alternating between disgust, apathy, and fear, know that their way of life is unraveling before their eyes and see that their leaders ar eeither powerless or disinclined to act." [In uphill 2016 bid, Jim Webb brings conservative bent to Democratic field] During President Obama's first term, Webb provided reliable votes for the Democratic agenda, breaking only when his vote was


Wal-Mart is betting big on ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ So why was the label scrubbed from its Web site?

A Wal-Mart distribution center in Bentonville, Ark. (Reuters/Rick Wilking/Files) Wal-Mart is making a big deal out of the fact that much of its merchandise is "Made in the U.S.A." The company is two years into a 10-year plan to spend some $250 billion more on products from U.S. factories and even hosts an annual summit on domestic manufacturing. But the "Made in the U.S.A." label has all but disappeared from the mega retailer's Web site after accusations emerged that Wal-Mart was misleading customers about the origin of some of its merchandise. The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that Wal-Mart fixed the problem. In a report issued over the summer, the nonprofit Truth in Advertising said it found more than 100 examples of items labeled with a "Made in the U.S.A." logo on the retailer's Web site that misled consumers. Some items on the Web site that claimed to be made in America actually weren't, the group said, or Wal-Mart didn't clearly indicate what the label actually meant. After that report, the FTC, which has strict rules on what can be advertised as made or assembled in the U.S.A, launched an investigation. According to an FTC staff letter sent Tuesday, the inquiry was closed after the retailer removed "Made in the U.S.A." logos from all product listings on its Web site, removed country-of-origin information from all product specifications on the site except when required by law, removed U.S.-origin claims from product descriptions and titles, and implemented new procedures to flag and take down such claims in advertising copy from suppliers. Wal-Mart also redesigned the "Made in the U.S.A." logos that appear on its private label products to include a larger disclosures about just how much U.S. content is in its products and to clarify that those claims are self-certified by manufacturers, according to the FTC letter. In the wake of those changes, the FTC decided not to continue the investigation. Wal-Mart sounds happy about that. "We are pleased with the FTC’s decision and appreciate its thorough review of our program," the company said in a statement. "We’re committed to reviewing and strengthening our processes to help ensure customers have a great experience on our website and can find the products and information they are looking for."


PM Update: Chilly tonight, gorgeous on Wednesday; Orionid meteor shower peaking

October keeps delivering nice day after nice day. So let’s keep it going! Wednesday is yet another winner, practically flawless. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Wednesday): [Textbook ‘Indian summer’ to embrace D.C. region Wednesday and Thursday] See Matt Rogers’ forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, _http\"" href="http://www.facebook.com/capitalweather">join us on Facebook Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email in-box? Subscribe here. Capitol view, October 18, 2015. (Joe Flood via Flickr) Orionid meteor shower:


A heroin addict begged his jailers for an IV. They refused. Six hours later, he died of dehydration.

Tyler Tabor with his youngest daughter (Courtesy of Bridget Tabor) It was a few minutes before midnight on May 16 when Tyler Tabor’s body began to break down. He had arrived at the Adams County Detention Facility near Denver two days earlier. The circumstances of his arrest were almost comical. Tabor had three open misdemeanor warrants to his name, most of them relating to minor driving offenses. He had been apprehended at a McDonald’s parking lot when a stranger mistook cigarette smoke and a child’s dirty diaper for heroin, according to his wife. It was true, however, that Tabor was a heroin addict. He announced as much when he arrived at Adams. And there was nothing funny about the pain he was going through now. Tabor had spent two days vomiting up just about everything he ate or drank. The jail doctor had Tabor on a cocktail of Gatorade, Pepto Bismol, painkillers and anti-nausea pills, but his heroin withdrawal was getting worse by the hour. By the time the jail nurse called for him to come get his medications at 11:38 p.m. on May 16, Tabor was unable to stand. A cellmate helped him to his feet, but when the nurse handed him his pills, Tabor’s hands cramped so badly he spilled them on the floor. His heart was racing. His blood pressure was dropping. An Adams County Sheriff’s Office deputy literally caught Tabor before he could fall. But when Tyler Tabor asked for intravenous fluids, the nurse said no. “She told him that they try not to use IV’s unless it’s absolutely necessary,” according to a report from the district attorney’s office. Tyler Tabor was dead by dawn. The official cause: dehydration. Tabor’s death has caused outrage in Colorado and beyond. He is at least the second young man to die in jail from dehydration linked to heroin withdrawal in as many years. In both instances, the charges against the men were relatively minor. In both instances, surveillance cameras recorded the inmates’ slow, agonizing deaths, fueling complaints from the dead men’s families. [On jailers’ watch, Mich. man imprisoned for ticket died from ‘excruciating’ drug withdrawal] And in both instances, prosecutors have declined to press charges against jail officials. On Friday, Dave Young, the district attorney for Adams and Broomfield counties, released an 11-page report on Tabor’s death. It found no “abuse, mistreatment, or maltreatment that rises to a level


Most Earth-like planets have yet to be born, study suggests

An artist's impression of future Earths. (NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)) A new study presents an interesting explanation for our failure to find intelligent life elsewhere in space: We might be on a planet that got to the party too early. The study, published Tuesday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is purely theoretical in nature. But it's an interesting thought experiment. [Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the next decade] Researchers Peter Behroozi and Molly Peeples, both of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), used data from the Kepler and Hubble space telescopes to estimate Earth's position on the timeline of habitable world evolution. While the question of what form other life might take is a big philosophical quandary (read more on that here), most scientists agree we should look for life that looks like us: Something that formed on a rocky planet with the right size and star distance to host liquid water. The researchers found [Is there a Planet X, a ‘massive perturber,’ hidden beyond Pluto?] Based on Peeples and Behroozi's calculations, only about 8 percent of the planets of this type that the universe has the potential to create had been created when our own planet was born. That leaves a whopping 92 percent that are trailing behind us. Considering the fact that it took hundreds of millions of years for the very simplest forms of life on Earth to show up, and another few billion years for us and our animal friends to evolve intelligence, there's a good chance that the brunt of potentially habitable worlds won't have their day until ours is long over. Then again, there are already an estimated 1 billion rocky, Earth-sized planets in our galaxy alone, many of which may be in the habitable zones of their host stars. So even if the odds are bound to be better in a few trillion years, they're not so horrible today. Read More: Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the next decade NASA estimates 1 billion ‘Earths’ in our galaxy alone Ancient crystals might rewrite Earth’s early history New photos of the ocean-filled, potentially habitable moon Enceladus How the Earth is shaping our shrinking moon Now you can see new photos of Earth from space every day


Gallup: Support for legal marijuana at an all-time high and likely to grow

Nearly two years after the nation's first recreational marijuana shop opened in Colorado, American support for legal pot has tied an all-time high and is likely to increase, according to new numbers released today by Gallup. Fifty eight percent of Americans say that the use of marijuana should be legal, a seven-point year-over-year increase. The poll finds steady increases in support of legalization across all age cohorts. For instance, in 1969 only 20 percent of those born between 1935 and 1950 supported making marijuana legal. Today, 40 percent of that age group — who are now 65 or older — support legal pot. Similarly, in 1985 only 32 percent of boomers born between 1951 and 1965 supported legal marijuana. Today, 58 percent of them do. Support is highest among young adults born between 1981 and 1997, 71 percent of whom support legalization, according to Gallup. "Americans' support for legalizing marijuana is the highest Gallup has measured to date, at 58%," the survey concludes. "Given the patterns of support by age, that percentage should continue to grow in the future." This comes after Colorado and Washington state opened their recreational marijuana markets in 2014, and voters in the District of Columbia, Alaska and Oregon approved legalization measures last fall. With Ohio voters considering legalization in just a few weeks and a number of other states planning to vote on legalization next year, it seems that marijuana reform proponents are enjoying a strong tailwind in support. "These days it’s not especially exciting to see yet another poll showing majority support for legalizing marijuana, but 58 percent is very strong share of the American people calling for change, and elected officials should listen," said Tom Angell of the pro-legalization group Marijuana Majority. "We’re seeing an increasing number of national politicians saying that it’s time to at least let states implement their own laws without federal interference. And we’re also seeing a growing number candidates endorsing legalization outright, which shows how mainstream this issue is now." Indeed, at the recent Democratic presidential candidate debate Sen. Bernie Sanders indicated he would support a marijuana legalization measure to be put before Nevada voters next fall. Hillary Clinton recently reaffirmed her support for letting states chart their own course on marijuana reform. And just across our border to the North, the incoming Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has promised he would start work on legalizing marijuana in


Staff News: Niraj Chokshi joins General Assignment News

Announcement from General Assignment Editor Josh Freedom du Lac and Director of Audience Engagement and Development Ryan Kellett: We are thrilled to announce that Niraj Chokshi is joining General Assignment News. As one of the founders of GovBeat, Niraj closely covered state politics and policy for The Post, breaking stories about the introduction of a historic federal medical marijuana bill and the last unchallenged state same-sex marriage ban. He covered marijuana sales in Colorado and traveled to Utah to write about a compromise on gay and religious rights. He also ran a data project on school police and excess military weapons and gear. Before joining The Post, Niraj was a policy reporter for National Journal. He previously served as a morning editor in charge of NationalJournal.com and reported on technology and business for the Atlantic’s Web site. Niraj is a graduate of Bates College and a native of West Hartford, Conn., where he worked on the high school newspaper, the Pow Wow, with his future Post colleague Abby Ohlheiser. Though the GA team often writes for Speaking of Science, Niraj will not be covering cephalopods. “Nothing scares me more than the thought of a giant squid,” he says. “The thing has eyeballs the size of my head.” Please join us in congratulating Niraj on his new role, which he will begin this week.


With 46 billion pixels, this is the largest ever image of space

A small section of the Milky Way photo showing Eta Carinae (© Lehrstuhl für Astrophysik, RUB) Above, you can get a tiny taste of the biggest astronomical image ever. The image of the Milky Way, which is made up of photos of 268 individual sections, contains 46 billion pixels. [Real life ‘Death Star’ caught in the act of destroying a planet] It's so massive — the file is 194 gigabytes — that researchers at Ruhr University Bochum had to build a Here's another slice: The M8 nebula. (© Lehrstuhl für Astrophysik, RUB) The researchers at Bochum weren't just trying to make a pretty picture. They study what are called variable phenomena — the way star brightness changes over time. Studying the way stars wink and fade can help scientists detect planets or other stars passing in front of them. Most of what we know about planets in other solar systems comes from the way their orbit changes the brightness of their host stars. Studying brightness variability means taking and comparing a lot of pictures of the sky, and now the rest of us can enjoy them, too. Using the special Web site that hosts the image, you can explore the galaxy at your leisure. You can even search for specific features to check out your favorite stars. Read More: Real life ‘Death Star’ caught in the act of destroying a planet Time travel movies to quench your #BackToTheFuture thirst Most Earth-like planets have yet to be born, study suggests Why NASA’s top scientist is sure that we’ll find signs of alien life in the next decade Now you can see new photos of Earth from space every day Check out this gorgeous space opal that NASA found


Marijuana use more than doubles in just 12 years

(Anthony Bolante/Reuters) The number of adults using marijuana more than doubled in recent years, according to new research culling data from two massive surveys. In 2001, just 4.1 percent of adults said they used marijuana. That increased to 9.5 percent by 2013. The findings were published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers also found that marijuana abuse or dependence increased during that 12-year time frame, likely because the overall number of adults using increased so much. [Why college students are now smoking more pot than cigarettes] Increased marijuana use came during roughly the same timeframe that Americans' attitudes about legalizing the drug shifted; less than one-third of Americans were in favor of legalizing marijuana in 2002, while a majority favored legalization in 2013, according to the Pew Research Center. Starting in 2012, states began legalizing small amounts of marijuana for adult recreational use; it's now legal in four states and the District of Columbia. And medical marijuana is now legal in 23 states and the District, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Lead study author Deborah Hasin, a professor of epidemiology in psychiatry at Columbia University, said she's been particularly interested in tracking usage trends "given all the changes in attitudes and changes in laws." The coverage of marijuana in PSAs, politics and pop culture has evolved quite a bit since the 1960s. See how the messages about pot have changed as much as the faces delivering them, from Sonny Bono to Barack Obama. (Gillian Brockell contributed to this video) But it's unclear what's behind such a dramatic increase in marijuana use. "We showed that it happened," Hasin said. "Now, the thing that really needs to be researched is the why." "You can speculate that Americans are increasingly viewing marijuana as a harmless substance... or laws are changing," she added. "But we don't really know until you do good, empirical studies on what factors are really influencing it." [One surprising downside of marijuana legalization: major energy use] Researchers analyzed two rounds of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions; in the 2001-2002 round, 43,093 people participated, while 36,309 participated in the 2012-2013 round. In addition to marijuana use, participants answered other questions that helped determine whether they also experienced use disorder, such as: did they continue using marijuana despite it causing trouble with friends and family, or physical or psychological problems; did they try and fail to


Real life ‘Death Star’ caught in the act of destroying a planet

In this illustration, a rocky asteroid is slowly disintegrating as it orbits a white dwarf star. (CfA/Mark A. Garlick) That's no moon! At least not anymore. A white dwarf that scientists are playfully comparing to The Death Star — a spacecraft in the "Star Wars" franchise capable of planetary destruction — has been caught in the act of chewing up a small, rocky world. This real-life Death Star is actually a dead star. White dwarfs are the dense, dead remnants of stars that were once like our own sun. One day, the sun will expand into a huge, cool red giant — then lose its outer layers and shrink into a shriveled white dwarf, its mass cut in half. [Only 5 billion years until The Milky Way gets gobbled up] In a study published Wednesday in Nature, researchers report the first ever "planet" (it's really only about the size of an asteroid) found orbiting a white dwarf some 570 light years away from Earth. It's very close to its dead host — about twice the distance that the Earth is from the moon — and orbits once every 4.5 hours. According to the scientists studying the object, this proximity has been its undoing. By observing the passage of the planetoid in front of its host star using the Kepler telescope, the researchers found signs of a rocky world torn asunder. Kepler (now called K2) works by showing scientists variations in the brightness of stars, which can reveal the transit of planets between the stars and the telescope. The pattern of this white dwarf's dimming indicated an irregular shaped object, like a comet with a trailing tail. The researchers believe this unusual signature is caused by a cloud of dusty debris from the disintegrating object, which is being pulled apart by the dense star's strong gravity. [This beautiful cosmic bubble is actually a dying star] "This is something no human has seen before," lead author Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in a statement. "We're watching a solar system get destroyed." The findings help explain an unusual phenomenon that's been observed previously. Because a white dwarf has such strong gravity, any heavy elements (like calcium, silicon, and iron) should get pulled down into its core, leaving just the lightest elements like helium and hydrogen on its surface. But some white dwarfs are found to have surfaces polluted with


Climate change is not under siege in Utah middle schools. Evolution is.

with permission: “Science Denial in Utah?” This past week my e-mail in-box has been filling up with messages about Utah. “Have you seen what’s going on there?” people are asking me. “They are trying to write climate denial into the standards!” If you believe the media (Newsweek, The Salt Lake Tribune, and even my most beloved gossip blog, Jezebel), the state of Utah is considering the adoption of middle school science standards that would teach sixth graders that the Earth’s climate is staying relatively constant, thus denying climate change. People are alarmed about the possibility. Understandably so, since there was reportedly pushback against the inclusion of climate change in a previous draft of the standards. People want to know what National Center for Science Education is going to do about it. What’s going on in Utah sounds terrible. And it would be terrible. If it were true. But guess what? It’s not true. Someone—preferably a reporter—should have read the standards and carefully obtained expert opinion about them before getting in a lather. Fortunately, that’s what we do here at NCSE, and so let me share with you what the standard actually says: 6.3.4 Construct an explanation supported by evidence for how the natural greenhouse effect maintains Earth’s energy balance and a relatively constant temperature. Emphasize how the natural greenhouse effect is necessary for maintaining life on Earth. Examples could include comparisons between Earth and the moon or other planets. What this says, in effect, is that the “natural greenhouse effect” helps Earth maintain temperatures hospitable for life, as compared to, say, Venus or Mars, where the greenhouse effect is just no help at all. (NASA has a pretty good explanation of this.) So let’s have a quick Q&A. Is what the standard says wrong? No. Is the standard claiming “Earth’s Climate Maintains a ‘Relatively Constant Temperature’” (as the Jezebel headline describes it)? No, it’s not. Climate and the greenhouse effect are two distinct but interacting phenomena. For a refresher, see the EPA’s video explaining how the greenhouse effect relates to climate change. Does the standard promote the idea that the climate is not currently changing? No. Could the standard be misused to promote climate change denial? Probably, although it would be a stretch. But there’s probably no way to write a standard that couldn’t be misused. So, if the coverage of climate change is mostly okay in these middle school


The new app that serves as eyes for the blind

buildings or outdoors. The magic happens when algorithms are able to help the blind identify in near real-time where they are, which direction they are facing and additional surrounding environmental information. The computer vision navigation application tool turns smartphone images of the surrounding environment into a 3-D space model that can be used to issue turn-by-turn navigation guidance. The NavCog project, which is a joint collaboration between IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. and Carnegie Mellon, has particular meaning for one of the lead researchers on the project, IBM Fellow and visiting CMU faculty member Chieko Asakawa, who is visually impaired herself. It will soon be possible for her to walk across the CMU campus with the help of the NavCog app – and look just like any other person traversing the campus, listening to a smartphone with white earbuds in her ear. Cognitive Assistant for the Visually Impaired That’s just the beginning, as Kris Kitani of the Robotics Institute of CMU told me. One major goal, of course, is to extend the coverage beyond just the buildings on the Carnegie Mellon campus that have been retrofitted with beacons. To encourage this, the scientists working on the project have made the entire NavCog platform open source by making it available to developers via the IBM BlueMix cloud. That makes it possible for other developers to develop other enhancements for the system and speed the rollout to other physical destinations. The other primary goal, says Kitani, is to make the system possible for any environment, even one that does not include Bluetooth beacons. To make that possible, the university hopes to build on advances in computer vision as well as new work being conducted in the field of cognitive assistance, which is a research field dedicated to helping the blind regain information by augmenting missing or weakened abilities. By using cameras for computer-aided vision, for example, it might be possible to develop a more accurate system that doesn’t require the presence of Bluetooth beacons. Moreover, this computer-aided vision, when combined with other localization technologies, potentially could make it possible to recognize everyday landmarks — such as a set of stairs or a barrier on the road — that might not be picked up with today’s sensors. “From localization information to understanding of objects, we have been creating technologies to make the real-world environment more accessible for everyone,” said Martial Hebert, director


This is what it looks like when a black hole tears a star apart

According to NASA, when a star gets too close to a black hole, intense tidal forces rip the star apart. This animation shows how some of the stellar debris is flung outward, while the rest falls toward the black hole causing a distinct X-ray flare that can last for a few years. Is there any death more beautiful than a star's? They form colorful, glowing nebulae, they explode into supernovas, and sometimes they get torn apart by black holes. You can see an animation approximating that last event in the video above, courtesy of NASA. In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, researchers reported evidence of an event called a "tidal disruption," observed using X-ray telescopes. Basically, when a star comes too close to a black hole, the massive gravity of the latter pulls the former apart. In this case, the black hole in question had a mass a few million times greater than that of our sun. [Real life ‘Death Star’ caught in the act of destroying a planet] “We have seen evidence for a handful of tidal disruptions over the years and have developed a lot of ideas of what goes on,” lead study author Jon Miller of the University of Michigan Here's what we're seeing: The gravity of the black hole pulls most of the star's material down in a filament, heating it to millions of degrees and creating an X-ray flare that astronomers are able to catch via telescopes, such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. But then something interesting happens: As the material falls into the black hole's event horizon — from which no light can escape — this flare disappears. So it appears to form a hot, smooth disk as the gaseous star remnants orbit the point at which the black hole will overtake them. Because the center of the disk is so hot, it expels some of its material outward as wind. The tidal disruption event they observed — known as ASASSN-14li — occurred about 290 million light years away from Earth. But it's still the closest tidal disruption seen in a decade, according to NASA. A look at the best photos of space. Read More: An unexpected asteroid will fly surprisingly close to Earth on Halloween Only 5 billion years until The Milky Way gets gobbled up This dense white star is ‘cannibalizing’ its companion Most Earth-like planets have yet to be born,


Orchestra concerts aren’t patriotic. Stop opening them with the national anthem.

part of Oklahoma City Philharmonic concerts since 1990, after a group of patrons signed a petition for it. Sporting events aren't the only places where you're likely to hear the national anthem. It's become a standard performance at the symphony. We go to a symphony concert to be transported to another world, away from our daily concerns and frustrations — and away from narrow nationalism. Almost by definition, symphonic programs are international. They celebrate the musical genius of great composers from around the world, with many of the biggest names hailing from Austria, Germany and Russia. In August, for instance, the anthem made for an awkward opening to the Fort Worth Symphony’s three-concert “Classical Masters Festival,” featuring music by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. And in March, it preceded Richard Strauss’s tone poem “Don Juan,” about the legendary lothario. American patriotism was a strange bedfellow to German portrayal of sexual exploitation. The sounds and tone of the American anthem have nothing in common with the great symphonic works of 18th- and 19th-century Europe. Sticking “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the beginning of a carefully designed program of global artistry feels arbitrary and out of place, the proverbial bull in a china shop. [Why a musician’s life expectancy depends on what kind of music she plays] If orchestras are so eager to display their nationalistic pride, they would do better to add more American composers to their repertoires. U.S. orchestras are far too neglectful of our own concert-music heritage. Audiences get the occasional Copland, Gershwin, Barber and Bernstein, along with token works by contemporary composers. But the performance of important American legacy composers — including George Whitefield Chadwick, Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Walter Piston — is rare. This is just the latest collision between American nationalism and classical music. During World War I, a number of American orchestras banned performances of German music. No Beethoven! Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Karl Muck and the Cincinnati Symphony’s Ernst Kunwald were jailed for being from Germany and Austria, respectively. In Muck’s case, his problems started when a rumor spread that he refused to include “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the orchestra’s fall 1917 program. Orchestra concerts are not the only place we should reconsider how we’re using the national anthem. I’ll grant that there’s an argument for opening baseball and football games with the tune. Our rah-rah national pastimes are about pride and triumphing over adversity, in


Religion doesn’t necessarily influence Americans’ attitudes about science, but there are two big exceptions

A blood red moon lights up the sky during a total lunar eclipse on April 4, 2015, in Auckland, New Zealand. (Phil Walter/Getty Images) Attitudes toward different scientific issues like climate change and space exploration are usually driven by politics, race and other factors, not necessarily religion, a new analysis from the Pew Research Center finds. The study’s findings show only a few areas where people’s religious beliefs and practices have a strong connection to their views about science-related issues. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the two big exceptions to the rule would be human evolution and the creation of the universe. What is surprising, however, is that Pew finds there is little connection between science and religion in other scientific debates. There are multiple topics where people’s religious differences do not play a central role in explaining their beliefs, including climate change, experimental drug and medical treatments, artificial organs for human transplant, the safety of genetically modified foods, space exploration and long-term payoffs from government investment in science. Earlier this year, Pope Francis issued a major church document urging a focus on issues related to the environment, including pollution, climate change and global inequality, raising the discussion about the connection between the environment and faith. Those who don’t identify with a religious tradition are particularly likely to say the Earth is warming because of human activity. Hispanic Catholics, like other Hispanics, are more likely to say the same thing while white evangelical Protestants are least likely to share the same view. But after taking politics and demographics into account, religious affiliations and practices have little connection to most attitudes toward the environment, Pew finds. Pew’s finding contrasts with an earlier report from Yale’s Dan Kahan, who found a modest correlation between religiosity and less worry about climate change. In a paper earlier this year, David Konisky of Georgetown University and Matthew Arbuckle of the University of Cincinnati found that faith was an important factor in shaping environmental stances. And Josh Rosenau, an evolutionary biologist who works for the National Center for Science Education, created a chart comparing U.S. faiths and denominations based on their members’ views on human evolution and how much they favor “stricter environmental laws and regulations,” finding the two topics overlapping quite a bit. But Pew’s analysis finds that attitudes on issues like climate change are heavily driven by political partisanship and there is no independent effect of religious


A surprising factor that may increase voter turnout: a cancer diagnosis

respond differently to the experience of these chronic diseases. For blacks and those with lower education — two groups who bear a greater burden of disease — a cancer diagnosis was associated with even higher turnout, almost 4 percentage points. This is larger than the cancer-related boost in turnout among whites and those with more education. Notably, this pattern didn’t occur for every disease. Asthma was linked to higher turnout among the higher educated but lower turnout among the less educated. Why would cancer be associated with higher turnout? Perhaps the experience of having cancer gives patients and cancer survivors more social resources and richer social networks, in contrast to the experience of heart disease. These factors may be especially consequential for groups — like ethnic minorities or those with less formal education — who typically have less access to these participation-boosting assets. Here is one possible explanation, although we have no direct evidence for it: in 2008, the American Cancer Society (ACS) worked to mobilize people around health-care reform. The chief fundraising event for the Society is its annual Relay for Life, which involves millions of participants and volunteers in thousands of local communities across the nation. In 2008, people who attended the Relay for Life also might have had the opportunity to board the “Fight Back Express,” a cross-country bus tour organized by ACS-CAN, the American Cancer Society’s political arm to register voters and recruit activists for the ACS’s policy agenda. According to ACS-CAN, the “Fight Back Express” went to 512 events in 480 different communities. A similar effort, Cancer Votes, was directed by ACS-CAN in 2012. Most other disease-related nonprofits, in contrast, have neither the long history of grass-roots involvement nor the local visibility of the ACS and other cancer-related advocacy or support groups. Of course, our study has identified correlations, not necessarily evidence that chronic diseases, including cancer, cause people to vote at a higher or lower rate. That is an important task for future research. Nevertheless, as we look forward to the 2016 election, our findings suggest the importance of examining the inequalities inherent in both voting and in health. Some chronic illnesses, even cancer, may help to mobilize sufferers and heighten their political power, while other illnesses may have the opposite impact. Sarah Gollust is Assistant Professor of Health Policy Management and Wendy Rahn is Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota.


Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe wins China’s version of the Nobel Peace Prize

prize was awarded to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whom prize co-founder Liu Zhiqin praised for not using "military force or violence to resolve controversies and disputes." In 2011, when Russian leader Vladimir Putin was awarded the prize, the prize committee paid tribute to Putin's actions in Chechnya in 1999. In the past, the organizers of the Confucius Peace Prize have explained that they set up their prize to "promote world peace from an Eastern perspective." Notably, the prize appears to have been hastily launched after Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. In a Nov. 17, 2010, editorial in state newspaper the Global Times, Chinese businessman Liu Zhiqin suggested that China create its own peace prize in response. Such a prize could be a "weapon in battle of ideas," Liu wrote. That weapon hasn't necessarily worked all that well. The very first recipient, Taiwanese politician Lien Chan, told journalists he knew nothing about the award until reporters asked him about it and that he had no plans to accept it. The next year, China's Culture Ministry announced that the award would not be given out anymore and that the prize committee was abandoned. It was later awarded to Putin anyway. The prize's relationship with the Chinese state remains unclear. This year's award is murky, as well. It appears to have first been announced last month but seems to have drawn attention only after Zimbabwean outlets noticed this week. Prize co-founder Liu told the Guardian that he himself had concerns about the award being given to Mugabe, noting the leader could "easily be labeled a dictator, tyrant or despot.” It remains unclear if the Zimbabwean leader will actually travel to China to collect his prize, which includes a check for 500,000 yuan ($78,000). Few, if any, other winners have made the trip. Still, the awarding of the prize to Mugabe does make some sense. The Zimbabwean leader is known for his personal ties to Hong Kong, and China is a key investor in the Zimbabwean economy. It's also among a number of prizes that have been set up in a bid to rival the Nobel. From 1988 to 2010, Libya gave out the Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. Previous winners included Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the children of Palestine and "the libraries of Timbuktu." And Mugabe is not the most surprising peace prize winner we've seen so


A nation on the Internet, but disparate in speed and skill

you’re going online for the first time, it’s as if you’re completely ignorant. You’re taking a lot of social risk. What we do at OATS is work with creating small group environments with older people in classes that are designed to be maximally relevant to somebody who’s over 60. We find that once people learn the basics, they really take off and begin exhibiting the same characteristics online as the rest of the population. But that on-ramping process, particularly for older people, is really critical. Cliff Missen We don’t lack technology solutions. We’ve got plenty of technology out there and more things are being developed every day. In the case of people with a disability, they’re disproportionately unemployed or underemployed and they can’t afford a lot of these solutions. I think what we’re really missing is a community commitment – a social contract – that says everybody should be connected and should have the devices that they need. The countries where — and there’s a couple dozen of them – where people are better connected than we are here in the U.S. — they have made that social commitment. Scott Grosfield of the Housing Authority of the Choctaw Nation, Chattanooga EPB chief operating officer David Wade and Don Williams, senior program specialist for broadband at the U.S. Department of Commerce explore the economic impact of building ultra-fast Internet in communities across the country. Scott Grosfield We face a lot of barriers [at Choctaw Nation rental sites]. We have no infrastructure to a lot of our sites. When we say “rural,” we mean remote. Eighty-five percent of our tenants have smartphones, and less than 20 percent have [tablet and computer] devices. A lot of the schools are going paperless and a lot of the kids do their homework on their parents’ smartphones, and you know how hard that is. We are trying to partner with our tribal I.T . . . so that these people complete their digital-literacy training. They get a device and we get them connected. They can apply for jobs. They can continue their education. David Wade Chattanooga [Tenn.] has seen a lot of innovation [and] growth. We’ve seen venture capitalists grow, entrepreneur activity grow, tech companies move to Chattanooga, and larger businesses say that what will happen with our smart grid and with our communications is part of their decision to locate in Chattanooga. In the six


Is the federal pay system flexible enough to recruit and retain the best?

and reward the best, while not giving slackers a pass? Critics say no. Federal unions say yes. Portal gets at some of that. Here is how Linda Jacksta, an assistant CBP commissioner, described the situation there: “It has harsh weather in both summer and winter months, and lacks housing, educational and spousal employment opportunities, and easy access to amenities and services. While there is limited government housing, it often takes years for a unit to become available. The nearest hospital is 42 miles away; pediatric and specialty care are over 100 miles away. The nearest large, commercial retailer is 75 miles away and the closest large metropolitan city, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, is a 2.5 hour drive in good weather.” [Read the Senate testimony] But the lack of amenities, not to mention necessities, is not reflected in the region’s cost of living. Rent is almost as high as in New York City. Jacksta continued: “Portal is in the middle of the Bakken Oil Field region, where the cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years. The oil boom drastically increased demand for labor in Western North Dakota; the result was that the addition of thousands of oil workers created a housing shortage, which in turn significantly increased rental costs and home purchase prices in the surrounding areas. For example, in Williston, North Dakota, the average renter pays $2,200 a month and in Watford City, North Dakota rent averages $2,800 a month. For comparison, average monthly rent in New York City is $2,895 and $1,800 in Denver. The result is a location that, at current Federal General Schedule [GS] compensation rates, becomes too expensive for CBP personnel to live. These factors threaten our Agency’s ability to maintain necessary levels of manpower required to execute our mission.” The economic situation along the Northern Border presents “real roadblocks in recruiting and retaining federal workers,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on federal management. “That results in a less efficient and effective federal government and hurts our families, business and communities.” Those roadblocks are found in federal workplaces well beyond the Northern Border. A Defense Department proposal to revamp its civilian workforce says the General Schedule “is wholly inflexible and ill-suited to attract critical skills or motivate high performers.” [New ways to hire, pay, promote and fire federal employees considered by Obama administration] Labor leaders


Fannie Mae puts headquarters up for sale, could fetch more than $200 million

Paul Hanafin, corporate managing director at the real estate firm Savills Studley. “What makes it unique is just architecturally, it’s not everyday that someone tries to recreate Williamsburg in downtown Washington,” Hanafin said. Employers today are gravitating more urban neighborhoods downtown. “If you look at an office building being designed today, it’s pretty fair to say it’s not going to be that design,” he said. Hanafin and other experts said all three of the buildings are likely to be eyed by schools and universities. Sidwell Friends is located across the street from 3900 Wisconsin and announced last month that it was buying the Washington Home hospice center next door and would consolidate onto a single campus in D.C. [Sidwell Friends consolidating to single D.C. campus, lower school to leave Bethesda] Universities or colleges may also consider the main property, assessed at $92.1 million, a rare shot at acquiring a leafy D.C. campus. That may hold true for the other properties as well. The building at 4250 Connecticut Ave., for instance, is adjacent to the University of District of Columbia and the Van Ness-UDC Metro station. “Washington is one of the only markets in the country where empty building often sell for more than occupied buildings because there is such a dearth of opportunities,” Hanafin said. The main building’s location sandwiched between sought-after neighborhoods in D.C. and Maryland, also could make it attractive to housing developers. One question for potential buyers is whether there is a creative way to turn the building’s 228,000-square-feet of office space into the kind of high-end housing capable of attracting top prices. Bill Prutting, senior managing director at the real estate adviser JLL, was skeptical that most prospective buyers would consider re-using the building, in part because its depth didn’t lend itself well to being re-configured into apartments or condominiums (which require windows). There are 280 parking spaces. “You certainly could put condominiums in that building,” Prutting said. “I just don’t think it lends itself very well to that kind of conversion.” The alternative is building more housing on the site, which zoning could allow but neighbors may oppose, given the traffic congestion already in the area. “We have seen interest from mix-use developers, educational users, institutional occupiers, embassies, nonprofits and corporate users,” said one of the brokers handling the sale, Ned Goodwin of the services firm Cushman & Wakefield. Follow Jonathan O’Connell on Twitter: @oconnellpostbiz


Army recruiting scandal nets new indictments as long probe of kickbacks continues

(i-Stock) The scheme was as simple as the system was porous. Army National Guard soldiers signed up as assistants to help recruiters, getting paid a referral fee each time someone enlisted and another bonus if they went to basic training. If someone joined as an officer, the payment jumped as high as $8,500. But the assistants didn’t wait that long. According to federal court documents, they simply entered the potential recruit’s name, date of birth and Social Security number into an online account, then told the company under contract with the National Guard that they had signed up another soldier when they had not. When the bonuses was wired to their bank account, they gave half the money to the recruiters, who were barred from getting payments themselves. [Army probes allegations of fraud by recruiters in enlistment recruitment program ] These fraudulent bounties were collected for seven years by recruiters and “recruiters assistants” for the Puerto Rico National Guard. The arrangement was laid out in federal indictments Thursday of 25 current and former guardsmen on charges of conspiracy to defraud the government, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Officials said close to $1 million was stolen. The charges, in 14 separate indictments, are the largest at one time in a probe by the Justice Department and Army into a national scheme that went undetected for years. Investigators have said the fraud spread across several states could cost taxpayers up to $100 million. A criminal enterprise in every state that military officials say included hundreds of officers and enlisted soldiers has led so far to 108 prosecutions in civilian courts; another 70 soldiers and officers have been fired, reprimanded or demoted, Army officials said Thursday. The National Guard Recruiting Assistance Program, established at the height of the Iraq war to boost enlistment in the guard, was shut down by the Army in 2012 when the scale of the fraud was discovered. The indictments returned this week by a federal grand jury in Puerto Rico are unlikely to be the last, an Army official said. “The Army is participating in a multi-agency task force to investigate and resolve fraudulent actions associated with the Recruiting Assistance Program and has had a sizable task force investigating other instances of fraud [in the program] for more than three years,” Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, an Army spokesman, said in an e-mail. The recruiting program was open


spread across several states could cost taxpayers up to $100 million. A criminal enterprise in every state that military officials say included hundreds of officers and enlisted soldiers has led so far to 108 prosecutions in civilian courts; another 70 soldiers and officers have been fired, reprimanded or demoted, Army officials said Thursday. The National Guard Recruiting Assistance Program, established at the height of the Iraq war to boost enlistment in the guard, was shut down by the Army in 2012 when the scale of the fraud was discovered. The indictments returned this week by a federal grand jury in Puerto Rico are unlikely to be the last, an Army official said. “The Army is participating in a multi-agency task force to investigate and resolve fraudulent actions associated with the Recruiting Assistance Program and has had a sizable task force investigating other instances of fraud [in the program] for more than three years,” Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, an Army spokesman, said in an e-mail. The recruiting program was open to guardsmen who were not on active duty, retirees, relatives and some other civilians. These informal recruiters were paid as contractors of Docupak, an Alabama-based company the Army hired to run the program. The bonuses helped the Army meet its recruitment goals during a crucial period when the military needed to boost its ranks, paying out more than $300 million for roughly 130,000 enlistees. The first sign of trouble came in 2007 when officials at Docupak reported a few cases of suspected fraud to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command. Army officials substantiated those suspicions. By 2011, the Army’s audit agency had begun investigating the entire program. Those indicted this week in Puerto Rico were almost all active National Guard soldiers. “It was the object of the conspiracy for defendants and their co-conspirators to unlawfully enrich themselves by stealing and obtaining …. program bonuses under the false and fraudulent pretense that they were responsible for referring and recruiting soldiers into the Puerto Rico National Guard, when in fact they did not refer or recruit these potential soldiers,” one of the indictments said. At a Senate hearing last year, military investigators said the fraud came to at least $29 million and went as high as $100 million. As of last spring, civilian courts had ordered $1.4 million in restitution, official said, and the Army has identified approximately $3.9 million in actual fraudulent payments.


Maryland open houses Oct. 24-25

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Traffic, transit tips for marathon weekend

Runners pass the Lincoln Memorial at about the 10-mile mark during the 2011 Marine Corps Marathon. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post) The dominant event in local travel this weekend is Sunday’s Marine Corps Marathon, which also affects the Metrorail schedules. The Washington International Horse Show is at Verizon Center all weekend. Here’s the event schedule. See below for some traffic impacts. The football game at FedEx Field in Landover is at 1 p.m. Sunday. Street closings and extra traffic for the marathon could affect some routes to the stadium and Verizon Center, so check the marathon information and map below before you head out Sunday. The Maryland Terps college football game is at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore. [See more listings of weekend events in the Going Out Guide] The Capital Weather Gang gives this weekend a good review for local travel, but there’s a chance of showers Sunday morning. Marine Corps Marathon Start/Finish. Metrorail. Metrobus. Taxis. Parking. 95 Express Lanes. Metro weekend schedule Red Line. Silver, Orange, Blue lines. Yellow Line. Green Line. Washington International Horse Show Walk to End HIV Street closings along the route: Pennsylvania Avenue NW between Freedom Plaza and Third Street NW, Third Street between Pennsylvania Avenue NW and D Street SW, D Street SW between Fourth Street SW and Third Street SW, Fourth Street SW between Independence Avenue SW and D Street SW, Independence Avenue SW between Seventh Street SW and Third Street SW, Constitution Avenue NW between Pennsylvania Avenue NW and Third Street NW. See a route map.


The Hubble takes a peek at galaxies from the dawn of time

The galaxy cluster MACSJ0717.5+3745. (ESA/NASA) The Hubble space telescope has been used to spy galaxies that formed just 600 million years after the big bang. These represent the faintest, most ancient galaxies ever spotted by the Hubble. [This distant galaxy looks like a flaming ring in space] The results The 250 dwarf galaxies spotted were there just 600 to 900 million years after the big bang, and the light from those galaxies took 12 billion years to reach the Hubble. Read More: Astronomers saw the same star explode four times in four places because of a rare cosmic phenomenon The Hubble spotted this smiley face in space Pluto finally shows off Kerberos, its tiniest moon How the Curiosity rover uses drills to tap into the secrets of Mars