Image from video shows explosion at the launch site of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Sept. 1. (U.S. Launch Report via Reuters) The investigation into the explosion of SpaceX's rocket has only just begun, and last week Elon Musk tweeted that it was "the most difficult and complex failure" the company has ever had. But SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Tuesday that the company would return to flight by November, in what analysts said would be an exceedingly fast time frame. "We're anticipating getting back to flight, being down for about three months ... in November, the November time frame," she said at a conference in Paris. The explosion occurred earlier this month as a Falcon 9 rocket was being fueled for an engine test fire. It damaged the launchpad that SpaceX uses at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. But SpaceX leases another one nearby at NASA's Kennedy Space Center that it has been rehabbing. SpaceX also has a launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. SpaceX is leading the investigation into the cause of the blast with help from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Air Force and NASA. The company lost another rocket last year, and it took the company six months to fly again. Typically, it takes six to nine months for companies to recover after a failure, depending on the particular circumstances, said Phil Smith, a senior space analyst at the Tauri Group, a consulting firm. But returning to flight after just three months is "surprising because that's actually very quick," Smith said. Last week, the company was asking the public to turn over video or audio of the explosion that might help investigators determine what went wrong, he said. The short timeline "would imply that they must know something about the nature of the incident, that maybe it isn't the vehicle — that it was a procedural problem," Smith said. The explosion has also pushed back the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy, the more powerful rocket the company had planned to fly in November. That flight is now scheduled for early 2017, according to a person familiar with SpaceX's plans. Meanwhile, United Launch Alliance, one of SpaceX's competitors, announced Tuesday a service that would allow customers an expedited schedule to get their payloads into orbit. "The priorities of all of our customers include ensuring their spacecraft launches


World Anti-Doping Agency confirms Russian hack of Rio Olympic drug-testing database

(Matt Slocum/Associated Press) The World Anti-Doping Agency said Tuesday that a Russian government hacking group had gained access to a database containing drug-test results and confidential medical data from last month’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. On Monday, the group began posting confidential information about noteworthy U.S. Olympic athletes — tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, four-time gymnastics gold medalist Simone Biles and women’s basketball standout Elena Delle Donne — and promised more leaks would be forthcoming. WADA said in a statement that the hacking group was able to access passwords to its Rio Olympic database via spear-phishing, the practice by which computers are infected after a user opens an email that is thought to be from a trusted source. “WADA deeply regrets this situation and is very conscious of the threat that it represents to athletes whose confidential information has been divulged through this criminal act,” Director General Olivier Niggli said in the statement. “We are reaching out to stakeholders … regarding the specific athletes impacted.” The data release comes as the FBI is conducting a broad investigation into Russian government hacking and influence operations in the United States, including a possible effort to undermine confidence in the U.S. elections. The latest incident appears to be part of a larger campaign of strategic releases of hacked material by the Russian government to embarrass victims or raise doubts about their integrity, analysts said. It comes after nearly every member of that country’s track and field team was banned from this year’s Olympics after numerous investigations uncovered a widespread, government-run doping scheme that dated back years. “They’re trying to sow doubt over the integrity of the individual athletes and the various Olympic bodies and watchdog groups,” said Rich Barger, chief information officer at ThreatConnect, a cybersecurity company. “It’s just ultimately sour grapes. What we’re seeing here is a digital temper tantrum.” The information released mostly involves Therapeutic Use Exemptions, situations in which WADA allows athletes to take certain banned substances if they’re used to treat legitimate medical issues. In a statement to Newsweek “The IOC strongly condemns such methods which clearly aim at tarnishing the reputation of clean athletes,” the organization said. “The IOC can confirm, however, that the athletes mentioned did not violate any anti-doping rules during the Olympic Games Rio 2016.” The hacking group, which is known as Fancy Bear or APT28, works for the military intelligence service GRU.


Clutching his tiny American flag, Redskins lineman becomes a U.S. citizen

Arie Kouandjio, Tuesday morning in Washington. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) The latest story about an NFL player and a flag began Tuesday morning just after 11, in the great hall of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins building. All 45 candidates for naturalization held miniature American flags as they sat in plastic chairs and listened to government officials deliver paeans to the power of immigration. Those included the first two candidates in the front row, perhaps the smallest and the biggest of the 45. There was tiny Dahlia Lyons, a native of the Philippines and the only military spouse in the ceremony. And next to her was the 6-foot-5 and 325-pound Arie Kouandjio, a native of Cameroon and a reserve guard for the Redskins. Kouandjio caressed his little flag as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas described the United States as a country “like no other, a country that always has been and forever will be a nation of immigrants.” He held it as U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez praised the assembled teachers and custodians and engineers and housewives (and professional athletes) for “adding such tremendous value to our nation.” He held it when the candidates were asked to stand by their country of origin, 38 in all. (Cameroon came after Cambodia and before Canada.) And when Perez read out some of the comments the candidates had written down, Kouandjio heard his own words quoted. “I’m the one who said that I can finally call myself an American,” he said after the ceremony. The 24-year-old came to this country with his family at the age of 6 and has spent three-quarters of his life here, mostly in the Washington area. His brother Cyrus, who plays for the Buffalo Bills, also plans on becoming a citizen, and Kouandjio talked about the new rights he now enjoys: He can get a passport, he can vote, he can run for office. “Before, all I could do is just watch CNN or just watch Fox or just watch; I wasn’t a participating member in all decisions,” he said. “I [still] can’t be the president, which is something that I’ve always wanted to do, but I can do other things, so it’s awesome.” Arie Kouandjio and Dahlia Lyons take the oath of allegiance during a naturalization ceremony at the Department of Labor. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) If you’ve ever seen clips of


Kuwait plans to create a huge DNA database of residents and visitors. Scientists are appalled.

Kuwaiti security forces check Shiite Muslim men as they arrive to perform the morning prayer of the Eid al-Adha holiday at the al-Sadeq mosque in Kuwait City on Sept. 12. (Yasser Al-Zayyat/Agence France-Presse) It sounds like an idea from a bad science-fiction novel. Kuwait is planning to build an enormous DNA database that would compile the genetic makeup not only of citizens living in the Persian Gulf state but also of other residents and even temporary visitors. Such a database would be the first of its kind in the world. It requires a huge amount of effort to make this idea a reality. It would mean that more than 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million expatriates would be entered into the database, plus many more visitors. The cost of the project has been estimated at $400 million. There would be serious punishments for those who resist: Refusing the compulsory testing could mean a year in jail or a $33,000 fine, while anyone caught providing fake samples risks seven years' imprisonment. It all raises a question: Why would anyone actually want all that DNA? Kuwait's government says the database could be used to fight terrorism and crime. The proposal was adopted last July, just a week after a suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque in Kuwait City killed 27 people and wounded many more. The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State's Saudi affiliate. "We are in a state of war," Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammed Khaled al-Sabah said at the time. However, with the law now expected to be implemented soon, some scientists and advocacy groups have expressed their doubts and pleaded with the Kuwaiti government to rethink its plans. In the New Scientist this week, geneticist Olaf Riess argued that the law was a "huge attack on genetic privacy" that seriously risks Kuwait's international reputation. "Compulsory DNA testing of all citizens and visitors sounds like an Orwellian nightmare, but this is the new reality in a wealthy Gulf state," Riess wrote. A number of groups have reached out to Kuwait to ask it to amend the law. The European Society of Human Genetics, of which Riess is president, has also penned a letter to the prime minister and the Council of Ministers of the State of Kuwait urging them to amend the law. The United Nations' Human Rights Committee and the advocacy group Human Rights Watch have also voiced


Recently listed for nearly $7 million, White House doppelgänger in McLean up for auction

McLean’s “mini White House,” at 8907 Georgetown Pike, will be auctioned to the highest bidder Oct. 6. (Sean Sheppard/TRUPLACE) McLean’s “mini White House,” which closely resembles the president’s home from the outside, will be auctioned to the highest bidder Oct. 6. The home at 8907 Georgetown Pike, built in 1898 and renovated in 2004, has 12,500 square feet of living space and sits on a gated and fenced two-acre lot. The grounds don’t have a rose garden or vegetable garden to rival the White House, but they do include a fountain, a swimming pool with a hot tub, two outdoor kitchens, a poolside bar, several patios and a four-car garage. The mansion has six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. The main level includes a formal dining room and a formal living room, each with a fireplace. It also has a two-story music room, a two-story family room, a library, a game room, a parlor and a kitchen with a breakfast area and sunroom. The kitchen has granite counters, two sinks, a gas oven and range, an electric cook top, a wine cooler, a refrigerator and two dishwashers. The master bedroom suite has a fireplace, a wet bar and an indoor balcony overlooking the music room. The lower level includes a dance room, a recreation room, a game room, a theater room and a gym as well as a wine cellar and guest suite. The property was most recently listed for sale at $6,899,000 in August 2014. Its current value is estimated between $3.8 million and $3.9 million by Zillow and Redfin. Buyers will need a $50,000 deposit and to pay a 5 percent buyer’s premium added to the amount of the winning bid. Preview dates are Sept. 18 and 25 and Oct. 1 from 1 to 3 p.m. Click here To pass on a tip or item, contact us at realestate@washpost.com and put “Town Square” in the subject line.


I treated kids in a Syrian hospital. We have no idea how to heal their trauma.

the siege and lack of food.” In a report, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has said that “the most prevalent and most significant clinical problems among Syrians are emotional disorders, such as: depression, prolonged grief disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and various forms of anxiety disorders.” According to Save the Children, “the repercussions for the future mental health of an entire generation could be catastrophic.” * * * I spent some of my time in Syria at the SAMS-supported underground hospital M10. It is the main trauma facility in east Aleppo. When we arrived, the orthopedic surgeon changed into his scrubs and went to work in the emergency room. I headed to the intensive-care unit, where two children were being treated for head and chest wounds. They had been struck by a barrel bomb while playing outdoors. One of the boys, about 10, died three days later. Later, I moved to a different hospital, M2, where there was a pediatric ward and clinic. Each day children would be brought by their families or ambulance. They suffered from the physical injuries you would expect in a war zone: head injuries, limb amputations and a myriad of cuts and bruises. Many were also suffering from the trauma of living in a war zone. I remember one patient, an 8-year-old named Zaira, brought in by her parents because she had stopped eating. Zaira would get hysterical if her parents left the room. In addition, she had begun to wet her bed on a nightly basis. When I talked to the child with a female interpreter, she would not make eye contact with me. Instead, she looked blankly into the distance, what psychologists call “the thousand-yard stare.” [They terrorized my daughters and killed my baby. That’s why we’re Syrian refugees.] I also saw another family with three children, ages 3, 5 and 7. Their original apartment had been destroyed by a barrel bomb; they now lived with cousins. The two older children were too afraid to sleep indoors at night, so their father set up a makeshift tent in the alley. He slept there each night with them. They could not be convinced that sleeping indoors was safer. The stunned and wounded 5-year-old boy in Aleppo, Syria, has been treated for his wounds, but the trauma will stay with him and his family for years with few treatment options in the


‘Yo, don’t get sick with Zika’: Biologist battles mosquitoes through hip-hop

The lyrics include simple steps for personal protection against the Zika virus. Andy Lima is a Fairfax County mosquito biologist by day and MC Bugg-Z online. He doesn’t flex his lyrical muscles often, but mosquitoes, Lima says, are too deadly to let run free. He’s written just four songs in the past 15 years: one about Brood X, the cicadas that emerge every 17 years in the Mid-Atlantic, and three about the importance of eliminating what he calls “the most important animal in the world” because of their ability to inflict harm. The latest addition to his limited oeuvre, “Zika 101 (Vector Control),” addresses the threat mosquitoes pose head-on with the power of hip-hop. “Don’t get sick with Zika from the bite of a mosquito/Prevention is easy, relax and I’ll teach you,” Lima raps. “Empty water from containers and dress to protect/When you feed ’em you breed ’em so wear approved repellents.” It’s advice that anyone — particularly anyone who’s pregnant — has heard in the past year after Zika’s appearance in Brazil and that country’s epidemic of microcephaly. But as Zika fatigue sets in, Lima thought music would be an effective means of reinforcing best practices. “It’s not necessarily the sexiest message,” he said. “I tried to find a way that’s fun to jazz it up and get it to a wider audience.” Lima’s lighthearted look at Zika offers lesser-known, juicy tidbits about the disease — were you aware conjunctivitis is a symptom? — and practical tips on defeating the dreaded Aedes aegypti, the primary mosquito species that transmits the disease. (Lima documented last year in a published academic paper a previously unknown community of the critters that stick around Capitol Hill through the winter.) His focus is “vector control” — a “vector” being entomologist-speak for something that spreads a pathogen from one organism to another. “Vector control refers to actually first and foremost educating people,” said Lima, who calls himself a fan of “nerdcore” hip-hop that tackles academic themes. “Personal behavioral change is the best chance of avoiding contracting an illness like Zika.” Though Lima produced the video on his own time, Fairfax County smiled upon the effort. “We think it’s a clever way to engage the community with our Zika prevention message,” said John Silcox, spokesman for the Fairfax County Health Department. Read more: Woman arrested for stealing a D.C. police officer’s french fries ‘Not a matter


Slow train stops Pa. marathoners in their tracks, dashing dreams of qualifying for elite race

A slow-moving freight train stopped marathon runners in Lehigh Valley, Pa., on Sept. 11. To qualify for the Boston Marathon, one of six elite races known as the Major Marathons, runners need to prove their mettle. An average 26.2-mile run through the park will not do. To enter your name into consideration for the 2017 Boston Marathon, you must first run a qualifying marathon at an impressive clip: A 35-year-old man would have to run each mile of his race in no more than 7 minutes 15 seconds — and this, depending on how fast other 35- to 39-year-old registrants are, does not guarantee he will be at the starting line in April. The last chance to run such a race is typically mid-September of the preceding year. For runners looking to qualify late in the season, the Allentown, Pa., marathon offers an attractive option, as the course is largely flat; the marathon’s website boasts that it is a quicker race than many more popular Boston Marathon qualifying runs. Sunday’s Lehigh Valley Health Network Via Marathon race course, as planned, crossed over a section of train tracks. The train, though, was not supposed be crossing the tracks at the same time as the runners. But there it was. About 8 a.m. Sept. 11, a “slow-moving” Norfolk Southern train cut through the marathon at the seven-mile mark, Sara Satullo at Lehigh Valley Live reported. Video of the incident shows dozens of racers milling about while the boxcars trundled by. For up to 10 minutes, runners watched as their chances of qualifying for Boston shrank. (There is some evidence that quick walking breaks may in fact be beneficial during a long run, but a 10-minute pause would be a problem for most competitive runners.) A few marathoners reportedly jumped between the moving train near Allentown, Pa., but the rest were out of luck, and time. “This is the tenth anniversary of this race, and all 10 races have crossed the Norfolk Southern rail tracks on Albert Street to enter Canal Park in Allentown,” Gerry Yasso, vice president of the nonprofit social services organization Via, said in a statement. “The incident is especially regrettable and was quite unexpected.” The railroad knew about the race and agreed to halt any trains, coordinators for the marathon said. A representative for Norfolk Southern told Lehigh Valley Live it was “actively looking into who said what to


Israel’s budding cyber warriors find out winter is coming with ‘Game of Thrones’-themed training

Israeli army cadets are learning about cyber defense with a "Game of Thrones" simulation. (Courtesy Israeli army) RAMAT GAN, Israel – Fans who are up to date with "Game of Thrones" will know there’s not much future for the Bolton clan. Although the cruel Ramsay Bolton may have gone to the dogs in the fantasy fiction series based on George R.R. Martin’s popular novels, in Israel he lives on — albeit inside a computer screen, inside a small shack on a military base, as part of a week-long cyber defense training exercise. The Boltons, Lannisters, Starks, Targaryens and Martell families are all part of the exercise designed to teach young cyber recruits how to work together in teams to battle the enemy online, this time using state-of-the art military technology in this particular scenario. Each day for a week, White Walkers (aka the cyber trainers) send an evil computer-born virus to each family. The quicker and better each house defends itself, the more points they receive. Eventually, one house will win and, like in the series, will be the ones to sit on the Iron Throne. By day three of the exercise, House of Targaryen is in the lead but the Lannisters and Starks are following closely. Also like in the series, each house has its magic — think some kind of military or cyber metaphor for the dragons, lions, wolves that are the house symbols — and together in teams of four or five they must combat every challenge. The television series' theme song plays loudly in the background. The atmosphere is dramatic. “We know every note of the song by now,” quips one young soldier. None of the soldiers can be named in keeping with military protocol for intelligence units. “The goal is for them to learn how to protect their house, or basically their network, from a cyber attack,” said Cadet A. “We use all types of viruses, some that have been used in the past to attack networks around the world.” Cadet A, who designed the training program, said that using themes such as "Game of Thrones" — last time it was "Harry Potter" — keeps up morale and gets the young recruits interested in the program. "Game of Thrones" is popular in Israel and most of the young trainees acknowledge being fans of the series. Just over a year ago, Israeli army chief Lt. Gen.


Doctors say ex-Israeli leader Shimon Peres in ‘serious but stable’ condition after massive stroke

Former Israeli leader Shimon Peres during a 2015 interview. (Dan Balilty/AP) JERUSALEM — When former prime minister and president Shimon Peres suffered a massive stroke late Tuesday, Israelis braced for the worst. Peres is 93. Reporters camped at the doors of the Tel Aviv hospital where the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was undergoing treatment. Media in Israel began to post early eulogies and photographic retrospectives. His doctors administered heavy sedatives. Peres was unconscious. His son urged prayers. Twitter and social media exploded with wishes for his recovery — and debate over his legacy. On Wednesday morning, his medical team announced that it was “cautiously optimistic.” His condition is now listed as “serious but stable.” Peres is being sedated but is responsive. Peres is a remarkable nonagenarian. On the morning of his stroke, he gave a one-hour speech. On his birthday, he opened a Snapchat account. This week I turned 93, and it seemed like just the right age to join @Snapchat. Add my snapcode! shimon_peres https://t.co/8JdyT27xhU His son-in-law and personal physician, Rafi Valden, said Wednesday that doctors briefly reduced Peres's sedation to evaluate his condition. “We were happy to see he was responsive,” Valden said. “I talked with him. I asked him to squeeze my hand and he did so vigorously. He was listening and reacting.” Zeev Feldman, a member of the neurosurgical team treating Peres, said the examinations were encouraging. “This indicates that his cognitive functions are working and that he is capable of comprehending words and translating them into actions,” Feldman told reporters. “Regaining consciousness and following basic instructions are definitely an important phase and indicates an improvement.” Valden said “there is no longer an imminent threat to his life” but cautioned that it was too soon to know what toll the stroke took on his brain and body. They are keeping Peres deeply sedated so that his brain can heal. Twitter was filled with well wishes and prayers. I'm SO sorry to hear #ShimonPeres suffered a stroke. Hope he recovers quickly. He &the lovely people of Israel were so kind &gracious to me. Get Well Shimon Peres, Man of Peace There was also debate over his legacy. Peres is one of the last surviving members of the founding generation of Israeli leaders. As foreign minister, Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 with Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat for their efforts to


Gaia space telescope reveals the most complete 3-D map of our galaxy ever

Research who works on the mission, told the AFP news agency. "But never have we achieved anything so complete or precise — it is a massive undertaking." Gaia orbits the sun, following a trajectory that keeps it about a million miles beyond Earth's orbital path. It holds two telescopes that support a billion-pixel camera. Inside Gaia's billion-pixel camera Gaia will observe each of its billion-plus targets around 70 times, allowing scientists to chart changes in brightness and position over the course of several years. Gaia can measure a star's position 200 times more accurately than its predecessor, a satellite called Hipparcos launched by the ESA in 1989. Hipparcos produced a primary catalogue of just over 100,000 stars, with another 2 million stars charted with less certainty. By helping scientists puzzle out more precise measurements of stellar distance, Gaia's data could help confirm just how quickly the universe has expanded since its inception. By studying stellar trajectories, the satellite could help scientists figure out where particular clusters of stars came from – and perhaps how mysterious forces like dark matter influence their motion today. Astronomers also expect to uncover lots of new objects, including previously unknown planets that will produce tell-tale "wobbles" in some of the observed stars. “It seems like a good bet that the mission will reveal thousands of new worlds,” Gregory Laughlin, an astronomer at Yale University, told Nature. An annotated map labeling known objects. (ESA) Because Gaia's first map is only based off of a small portion of its planned observations, the scan isn't uniformly complete across the sky. But already, we can see bright patches dense with starlight across the galactic plane – the 100,000-light-year-wide disc in which most of the Milky Way's stars reside. “Gaia is at the forefront of astrometry, charting the sky at precisions that have never been achieved before,” ESA director of science Alvaro Giménez said in a statement. “Today’s release gives us a first impression of the extraordinary data that await us and that will revolutionize our understanding of how stars are distributed and move across our galaxy. Read More: Gaze into the heart of the Milky Way in the Hubble’s latest image Astronaut Chris Hadfield on aliens, the Arctic and his fear of the dark Rosetta orbiter will soon crash into its comet and die When it comes to science, Trump and Clinton have common ground — but not much


These strange, subterranean cities are eerily like our own. But they’re ruled by ants.

colleagues follow the soldier back to its colony, pinpoint the entrance and begin to dig. It's not till they've burrowed through several feet of earth that they find what they're looking for: a massive, white, sponge-shaped fungus swarming with ants. A farming ant caring for its fungus. (Ted Schultz/NMNH) "A lot of non-biologists are attracted to things like butterflies or ladybugs — certain charismatic insects — and ants are not among those," said Schultz, back in his office in the entomology department at the National Museum of Natural History. "But actually I think if people could see what ants look like really close up they would change their minds." In front of him sit several of the ant colonies he's collected over the course of his 26-year career. The communities inside the clear plastic boxes are miniature cities teeming with tiny life — the rare specimens in the museum's 145-million-item collection that are still alive. Schultz's ants are farmers, and that white fungus he pulled out of the ground is their crop. Between 55 and 60 million years ago, an ancient insect evolved the ability to feed a fungus and live off of its spores. Now there are some 250 ant species that farm fungi — tending to them, weeding them, ensuring that they have the nutrients they need. They depend on the fungus for food, and in turn, the fungus depends on the ants to grow. "It was immediately like, 'holy moly,' just a light bulb going off," said Peter Peregrine, an anthropologist at Lawrence University, recalling the first time he heard about these ants. "That's agriculture. That's really interesting." For years, Schultz has been tracking these ants in the tropics and scrutinizing them in the lab in an effort understand how the creatures evolved into farmers millions of years before Homo sapiens even existed on the planet. But recently he's teamed up with anthropologists like Peregrine to look for parallels between people and ants. If they can find them, perhaps the history of human agriculture will help illuminate how farming insects evolved. And in return, Schultz believes, perhaps the ants can teach us humans something about ourselves. It's a high calling for a tiny bug with a trifling brain. But Schultz has long known that ants are not to be underestimated. When he was 8, his mother gave him a book called "The World of Ants" (he still


Wall Street’s new way of making money from public education — and why it’s a problem

sector finance produces this market discipline because governments do not monitor and measure the services provided by contractors. Liebman said, “(Government) Programs that don’t produce results continue to be financed year after year, something that would not happen in the business world” (Overland, 2011). This is an odd claim from one of Obama’s leading economic advisors at the time that Obama was sworn in as president and proceeded to have the public sector bail out the private sector. The 2008 financial bailout of the banks by the U.S. federal government represents a repudiation of the neoliberal logic of the natural discipline of markets and of deregulation. The private sector including banks, insurance companies, and the automotive industry needed the public sector to step in and save unprofitable businesses and businesses that had invested in the deregulated mortgage backed securities markets. More broadly, some of the largest sectors of the economy such as defense, agriculture, and entertainment rely on massive public sector subsidies to function. Specifically, the financial crisis and consequent recession was a result first of neoliberal bank deregulation and a faith in markets to regulate themselves. But it also demonstrated the illegal activity, fraud and lies of some of the same banks that now seek profit through Pay for Success. Pay for Success proponents claim that the financing scheme is necessary because there would otherwise not be the political will to do projects such as early childhood education in Chicago for a couple of thousand children or recidivism reduction programs in Massachusetts. Third Sector Capital Partners, a non-profit that relies on Pay for Success expansion as a cornerstone of its business, claims that Americans do not support state spending and hence Pay for Success is necessary (Von Glhn and Whistler). However, Gallup shows that 75 percent of Americans favor expanded public spending on infrastructure (Newport, 2016a) and 58 percent support replacing the Affordable Care Act with a universal federal healthcare system (Newport, 2016b). Indeed, as longstanding studies — and more recently the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign of 2016 — indicate that a large percentage of Americans support a range of increased spending on progressive social programs. Parents and community members are not the ones who lack the political will. Myth 2: Transfer of Risk from the Public to the Private The elaborate involvement of banks, lawyers, profits, and non-profit coordinating companies appears more than superfluous when one takes a


Target explains how it will spiff up its struggling grocery business

A Target store in Dallas. (Stan Olszewski/AP) MINNEAPOLIS — When you head to a Target store to buy groceries these days, here’s what the chain hopes you’ll see: More organic and gluten-free foods. A wider selection in snack products such as yogurt. Fresher-looking fruit. What you shouldn’t expect to see any time soon? A butcher, a deli counter or a sushi chef. Brian Cornell, the retailer’s chief executive, spoke to reporters here Wednesday about his vision for Target’s grocery department, an area of the store in which sales lately have been disappointing. Cornell made clear that Target won’t be looking to solve its grocery problems by taking a page from the Whole Foods playbook and investing in flourishes such as sushi counters and rotisserie ovens that send shoppers home with prepared meals. Instead, Target will be sticking with a convenience-oriented, self-service format, centering its efforts to engage more customers on offering better product in a more appealing presentation. “We’ve got to get our guests, while they’re shopping our stores, to walk down that aisle that, perhaps two or three years ago, they stopped shopping, because we didn’t have the selection and the assortment they were looking for,” Cornell said. “Or they bought tomatoes or berries in our store and were disappointed.” One way Target has been aiming to combat this is by conducting individual assessments of produce items such as avocados and tomatoes to figure out how the supply chain can be sped up to get those goods in stores faster. Target is also working to spruce up the grocery department by bringing more expertise to it. For example, hundreds of its stores now have a dedicated team of employees that only staff the grocery aisles. Just two years ago, those same employees might have divided their time between apparel and other departments. And in seven major markets, they’ve added a grocery director who focuses on spotting food trends and making sure stores are always in-stock on key items. The retailer’s efforts are not just about product: Target is also experimenting with new presentation of its grocery products to help drum up sales. This is a tactic that has worked in other departments: For example, it has added mannequins to its apparel departments and Pottery Barn-like room displays to its home section, and it believes those tactics are driving sales. Target has been testing some of the grocery presentation efforts


its efforts to engage more customers on offering better product in a more appealing presentation. “We’ve got to get our guests, while they’re shopping our stores, to walk down that aisle that, perhaps two or three years ago, they stopped shopping, because we didn’t have the selection and the assortment they were looking for,” Cornell said. “Or they bought tomatoes or berries in our store and were disappointed.” One way Target has been aiming to combat this is by conducting individual assessments of produce items such as avocados and tomatoes to figure out how the supply chain can be sped up to get those goods in stores faster. Target is also working to spruce up the grocery department by bringing more expertise to it. For example, hundreds of its stores now have a dedicated team of employees that only staff the grocery aisles. Just two years ago, those same employees might have divided their time between apparel and other departments. And in seven major markets, they’ve added a grocery director who focuses on spotting food trends and making sure stores are always in-stock on key items. The retailer’s efforts are not just about product: Target is also experimenting with new presentation of its grocery products to help drum up sales. This is a tactic that has worked in other departments: For example, it has added mannequins to its apparel departments and Pottery Barn-like room displays to its home section, and it believes those tactics are driving sales. Target has been testing some of the grocery presentation efforts in several of its Los Angeles area stores, including different lighting and an enhanced display of craft beer and wine. Executives are pleased enough with the response from customers that they revealed on Wednesday they’ll begin rolling out the changes to stores in the Dallas area this fall. Target’s turnaround efforts have recently hit a speed bump, with the retailer reporting disappointing second-quarter earnings in August and lowering its forecast for the full year. Cornell suggested that there’s plenty of opportunity for Target to perform more strongly in the current retailing environment. “You can’t blame the consumer,” Cornell said. “They’re still spending, there’s still a huge pool of dollars out there.” Cornell spoke to reporters as part of what the company calls National Week, a multi-day blitz of events for some 14,000 Target employees who descend upon Minneapolis from stores across the country.


75,000 Syrians are trapped near Jordan’s border. Satellite images show some are dying.

Shelters at the Jordan-Syria border by the Rukban crossing, in September 2016. (CNES 2016 Distribution AIRBUS DS) Over the past five years, Jordan has become one of the biggest recipients of refugees fleeing its war-torn neighbor, Syria. Almost 700,000 Syrians have been registered as refugees in the country, which has a population of just 6.5 million. Those are just the ones who have registered; Jordanian officials say the real number is far over 1 million. But Jordan's hospitality may have hit a limit. In the past year, as the trickle of new refugees entering the country slowed to a crawl, thousands of Syrian refugees have become trapped in an isolated no man's land between Syria and Jordan known as "the berm." Current estimates suggest more than 75,000 people are stuck in this area, but Jordanian authorities refused to allow access to the site for journalists and only limited access for aid groups. A report from Amnesty International published Wednesday evening shows just how dire the situation on the berm has become. Using information from satellite images, video footage and a number of first-person accounts, Amnesty was able to show not only a dramatic growth in the size of the settlement at the border, but also what may be evidence of death and disease at the site. The satellite imagery appears to show a dramatic growth in shelters at Rukban, one of two border crossings between Syria and Jordan, over the past year. While there were just 363 shelters at the site one year ago by Amnesty's count, by July 2016 there were 6,563. The most recent imagery released by Amnesty shows 8,295 shelters in September 2016. Graphic showing the approximate number of shelters at the Syria-Jordan border in September 2016. (CNES 2016, Distribution AIRBUS DS. Data via UNOSAT) A growing population that is increasingly isolated from food and medical treatment is creating serious health problems, the report noted. Sources told Amnesty researchers that poor hygiene and sanitation problems at Rukban had led to an outbreak of hepatitis that had killed at least 10 refugees, many of whom were children, since the beginning of June. Aid workers also say that there have been nine childbirth-related deaths since June 21. Video footage released by Amnesty appears to show graves and burial mounds. The organization also pointed to two separate sites in satellite images that look to be makeshift grave sites at the


This Harvard professor explains why we were born to resist working out

tended to exercise less than those who didn’t have that experience. Still, Cardinal, as well as Lieberman, think this idea that our penchant for rest is an evolutionary trait humans must fight continually may actually improve people’s relationships with exercise. There is so much self and societal shame associated with not working out, that going to the gym, or for a run, can often feel like a chore. If they can stop berating themselves and accept that wanting to skip a workout is a completely normal human response, they might begin to untangle the negative associations with exercise. “People are often made to feel bad [for not exercising] and I think that’s just as pernicious and wrong and irresponsible as shaming people for being overweight,” Lieberman said. It’s not our fault that we are physically inactive, we live in a world that encourages that. They shouldn’t be made to feel bad. We need help and we’ve created a world where we don’t have to do it anymore.” Educating people on the health benefits of exercise and movement is not enough to override this basic instinct, he said. There needs to be a cultural and environmental shift in how our physical activity is prioritized in schools, work and society in general. There need to be incentives to move. And although we’re not going to return to chasing our dinner, there might be monetary incentives through health insurance, for example, that could encourage people off the couch, he said. He is also an advocate for making physical education a required course in college. There’s also the element of play. One way adults have always done this in many cultures is through dance, he said. But after their 20s, how many American adults go out dancing anymore? People are more inclined to be physically active when it’s done socially. It’s no coincidence that some of the biggest fundraising events in the world are marathons, he said. Lieberman does set his alarm for 6 most mornings to go for a run. But what gets him out of bed is not excitement for the activity, he said, it’s that he meets a running partner and doesn’t want to let him down. “We tie physical activity to community,” he said. “I think that has ancient and deep roots. It’s a communal issue, so we have to help each other. This individualist attitude we take, it doesn’t


The best of readers’ elaborate catios, or patios for cats

In our recent piece exploring the rise of the outdoor “catio,” we put out a call for readers to submit photos of their own. They pounced. Several readers said they built the screened-in enclosures to protect their cats from predators and other hazards. Many, though, confessed to creating catios purely to give their pets pleasure. Below are some of our favorite submissions. Carol Anderheggen “Last year, after I put down the last of a tribe I had for years, I found these two young ones on Craigslist. I can tell you in one word why I built my catio: coyotes. Lost more than one outdoor cat to those creatures but I could never make a cat just an indoor cat.” (Courtesy of Carol Anderhegge) David Clem “We had our catio built because we wanted our cats to be able to experience the outdoors, but our area has raccoons, opossums, coyotes and other predators. The catio gives our cat family the opportunity to spend an unlimited time outside without supervision.” (Courtesy of David Clem) David and Laura Webber “We recently adopted two cats from a local shelter. It was important to us to allow our cats some freedom to enjoy the outdoors while keeping them safe from cars and predators. (Even convicted felons get to walk in the yard.) A cat coop seemed the answer and a catwalk out to a tree seemed a natural extension.” (Courtesy of the Webbers) Amy Richards “Because of the drought, there are many many coyotes in my neighborhood, at all times of the day. So to keep the cats safe but give them the stimulation of being outside, I had a friend design and build the catio. They love it!” (Courtesy of Amy Richards) Julian Donahue Where: “The catio in Los Angeles was built at [our previous home], The Pilot House, in 2014. Our cats learned to scale the chain-link fence we erected to exclude coyotes, and [one cat] became a victim of one before we built the catio. Even after building the Los Angeles catio, we allowed our cats out in the daytime. Tiger-Toes did not come home one afternoon in February 2015, and had been killed by coyotes. “The catio in Tucson was built in 2016, seven months after we moved here. It was imperative that our cats must be 100 percent indoor because here there are not only coyotes, but bobcats and


The Daily 202: Debate moderators get advice on how to avoid clashing with Trump and becoming the story

McGinley) - The ACC announced it will move its championships out of North Carolina this year in retaliation for the state’s “bathroom bill." The decision follows announcements by the NCAA and the NBA. (Ava Wallace) - SpaceX is cooperating with NASA and FAA probes into what founder Elon Musk calls the company’s “most difficult and complex failure” to date. Despite last week's rocket fire, the company wants to return to flight by November. (Christian Davenport) - An elderly gunman opened fire at a senior living home in Wyoming, leaving one dead and injuring three others before turning the gun on himself. He was a resident at the facility. (Sarah Larimer) - The British man who attempted to grab a police officer’s gun at a Las Vegas Trump rally earlier this year pleaded guilty to firearm and disruption charges. The 20-year-old, who reportedly suffers from autism and a range of mental health issues, will spend up to two years in prison. (Derek Hawkins) - Ford reiterated its decision to move all U.S. production of its small cars to Mexico. Trump called the decision a “disgrace.” (Max Ehrenfreund) - Efforts to bring humanitarian aid to Syrians amid the nationwide cease-fire stalled for a second day in a row, challenging a key part of the U.S. and Russian-backed deal aimed at curbing violence. (Erin Cunningham and Heba Habib) - France will open 12 “de-radicalization centers” across the country, seeking to confront the rise of home-grown jihadist violence among young people. (James McAuley) - Starving residents in Venezuela can be arrested for buying too much food. The new law is part of a national crackdown aimed at preventing people from buying desperately-needed food on the black market. (Mariana Zuñiga and Nick Miroff) - Brazilian prosecutors filed new charges against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, accusing the charismatic politician of controlling a “multibillion-dollar corruption ring” centered around state oil company Petrobras. (Dom Phillips) - An ex-mayor in Ohio claimed that a four-year-old girl he raped was a “willing participant,” according to court records. (Kristine Guerra) - Several SWAT officers were hospitalized after being exposed to fentanyl during a drug raid. Raw powder – up to 50 times more potent than heroin -- became airborne during the drug seizure, forcing officials to continue through a cloud of the hazardous substance. (Lindsey Bever and J. Freedom du Lac) - A New Jersey kindergarten was confronted


with an unexpected and baffling disciplinary issue after a five-year-old was caught carrying packets of heroin in his lunch box. The student was rushed to the hospital, and investigators are working to determine how the young child came in contact with the opioid. (The Trentonian) - A thousand runners who hoped to qualify for the Boston Marathon in Philly last weekend could not because a slow-moving freight train cut through the middle of the course. Runners were stalled for 10 minutes, all but disqualifying many participants from earning a spot in the more elite Boston race. (Ben Guarino) - An 18-year-old Austrian woman is suing her parents for refusing to delete embarrassing baby photos from Facebook, saying the more than 500 childhood images shared violate her right to privacy. The case is the first of its kind in the country and could set national precedents. (The Local) - Residents in St. Petersburg, Russia, are questioning the city’s commemoration of controversial figures such as Kim Jong-il and Akhmad Kadyrov, the Chechen leader who led an anti-Russian militia and urged the killings of “as many Russians as possible.” The murderous tyrants are being honored with bridges and placards across the city. (New York Times) The Kremlin (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP) A NEW COLD WAR HEATS UP: -- U.S. intelligence agencies are expanding spying operations against Russia on a greater scale than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Seniors officials acknowledge that they were caught flat-footed by Moscow’s aggression over the past two years, and they insist that they are now playing “catch-up, big time”: From Obama's former U.S. ambassador to Russia: Our laws, strategic doctrines & norms for dealing with cyber hacking (is that even right word?)are way behind the technological capabilities Colin Powell appears to be the latest victim of the Russian effort to manipulate our elections. (AP/Carolyn Kaster) -- The latest target: More than two years of Colin Powell's private emails were posted online. - On Hillary: The former secretary of state is "a greedy, not transformational” figure. “Everything she touches she kind of screws up with hubris,” he said. As for Bill? Powell wrote that the former president is busy entertaining "bimbos" while she is away. - On Trump: “A national disgrace and an international pariah” who gave voice to a “racist” movement by questioning President Obama’s citizenship." Powell also said Trump takes black people “for idiots"


Jeff Bezos on nuclear reactors in space, the lack of bacon on Mars and humanity’s destiny in the solar system

Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, inspects New Shepard’s West Texas launch facility before the rocket’s maiden voyage. (Photo courtesy of Blue Origin) It’s become increasingly clear that Jeffrey P. Bezos, who in the last several months has been talking much more openly about his once secretive space company, has some really big ambitions in space. As Blue Origin moves toward its goal of having “millions of people living and working in space,” the company has launched and landed the same rocket four times in a row, an unprecedented feat aimed at ultimately lowering the cost of space travel. By 2018, it plans to soon fly tourists on short jaunts past the edge of space in capsules designed with large windows. And earlier this week, Bezos announced plans to fly a new massive rocket, capable of getting to orbit, by the end of the decade. For his achievements, Bezos, the founder of amazon.com and the owner of The Washington Post, was awarded the prestigious Heinlein Prize Wednesday evening at an event at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The honor came with a $250,000 award that the multi-billionaire pledged to donate to Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, a nonprofit. During a half-hour-long question-and-answer period, he offered some additional insights into his vision for how humans will eventually spread out into the solar system, what he hopes his legacy will be and how he competes against other billionaire space enthusiasts such as Elon Musk and Richard Branson. He also talked briefly about what it's like to go back to his high school reunions, and the day The Post opens a bureau on Mars. He didn’t mention whether an assignment there would be a promotion or a banishment. Here's an edited transcript of his remarks. On humanity’s future in space: “I wish there were a trillion humans in the solar system. Think how cool that would be. You’d have a thousand Einsteins at any given moment—and more. There would be so much dynamism with all of that human intelligence. But you can’t do that with the resources on Earth or the energy on earth. So if you really want to see that kind of dynamic civilization as we expand through the solar system, you have to figure out how to safely move around and use resources that you get in space.” On what new technologies are needed


This newborn panda really wants to turn over, but can’t quite make it

This video shows a 5-week-old female panda in China's central Sichuan province lying on its back and crunching repeatedly, trying to turn itself over. The cub does not have a name yet, but many at the base call her "Xidou's baby" in reference to her mother, whose name translates as "Little Bean." It isn’t one of D.C.’s pandas, but it sure is cute. A video shows a 5-week-old female panda trying to turn over in China’s central Sichuan province. In the video, the little black-and-white furball lies on its back and then crunches several times as it tries to roll over. The cub doesn’t have a name yet, but she’s been called “Xidou’s baby,” which refers to her mother, according to NBC 4. Closer to home, D.C.’s youngest panda cub, Bei Bei, recently celebrated his first birthday. He got cold feet, though, when it came to eating his frozen birthday cake. But he recently enjoyed some sugar cane, zookeepers said. https://twitter.com/NationalZoo/status/773544303780036608


Why is the Navy’s largest shipbuilder looking for a subcontractor in China?

Consulate in Shanghai from Ingalls to the State Department. As for whether there is a security concern about having a Chinese company help build U.S. Navy ships, Gallegos said, “Senator Cochran expects all security precautions to be in place to protect U.S. national security.” According to its public filings, Huntington Ingalls spent $4.8 million on lobbying in 2015. One of Huntington Ingalls’s in-house lobbyists, Carolyn Apostolou, spent 26 years as a professional staffer on the Senate Appropriations Committee before joining Huntington Ingalls in 2013, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets project. Gallegos said Ingalls employees have also supported Cochran financially. “Ingalls is the single largest private employer in Mississippi. Given Senator Cochran’s strong record of support for industry in Mississippi, I suspect many Ingalls employees have supported his campaigns,” he said. Some Asia experts believe that there’s a real security risk in having a Chinese company build a dry dock for U.S. Navy ships because all large Chinese companies have deep ties to the Chinese government. “Any time you have an entity like that working on U.S. military systems, common sense tells you there’s likely a security risk,” said Michael Auslin, Asia scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “We know that there are connections, we know there is influence, we know there is government assistance. The Chinese government will have the plans.” The Chinese government could use the project to implant surreptitious recording devices or other surveillance equipment near where sensitive U.S. Navy operations are ongoing, he said. U.S. intelligence agencies suspect that China uses projects of its largest telecom company, Huawei, as a means of spying on foreign countries. Moreover, the Ingalls project would be a boon to the Chinese defense industry at the expense of the defense industry of U.S. allies, Auslin said. The money is essentially coming from the U.S. taxpayer because the U.S. government is Ingalls’s only client, he said. “Wouldn’t it be better to go with an ally like Japan or South Korea?” Auslin said. “In an environment like this, you are basically subsidizing the Chinese defense sector. Is that something we want to do?” It’s a shame the United States can’t handle 21st-century shipbuilding with its own domestic industry. But if U.S. defense contractors have to go abroad, they might want to think twice before subcontracting to America’s biggest naval competitor. It’s either a security risk or an economic subsidy that


17 things to do in the D.C. area on the weekend of September 16-18

Here are this weekend's best bets in nightlife, festivals, music and much more around the Washington area. - Oktoberfest starts Saturday: Here are 12 ways to celebrate - A tip from insiders: Do it, and be generous - Lunch, piled high: Smoked and Stacked is a star Dave Attell - Mayan Apocalypse Friday through Sunday: Dave Attell, at the at D.C. Improv this weekend Friday: Friday: Friday: Saturday: There will be two of this giant aircraft at the Dulles Day Plane Pull on Saturday. (2015 photo by J. David Buerk) Saturday: Saturday: Clarendon Day Saturday: Neil Young + Promise of the Real - Workin' Man (Live at Farm Aid 30) Saturday: Saturday: Saturday: Snallygaster Saturday: Axl Rose, left, and Angus Young of AC/DC perform at Nationwide Arena on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. (Amy Harris/Invision/Associated Press) Saturday: Saturday-Sunday: Saturday-Sunday: Saturday-Sunday: Sunday:


Why ‘basic’ is bad for Starbucks

Starbucks, founded 45 years ago in Seattle, has grown to include 24,000 locations around the world. (Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images) With 24,000 locations across the world, Starbucks has become an everyday stop for millions. But that ubiquity could now be its problem. “Starbucks is now competing with chains like Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s,” Business Insider proclaimed this week. “It has gotten, in a sense, too basic.” “Basic,” according to Urban Dictionary, is a pejorative term used to describe anything “involving obscenely obvious behavior, dress, action.” Other examples of brands deemed basic: Lululemon, Michael Kors and Ugg Australia. So what’s an overexposed company to do? Starbucks in recent years has begun looking for ways to restore its luster. In December 2014, it opened a Roastery & Tasting Room in Seattle, where $10 cold brews are the norm. The high-end concept is soon to expand to New York and Shanghai, with nearly a dozen other locations in the works, according to Business Insider: “The premium coffee experience of the Roasteries is intended to have the trickle-down effect. The chain plans to open roughly 500 Reserve stores, which offers premium Roastery beverages and artisanal Princi food, and 1,500 stores with Reserve bars, which will serve drinks made in a wider variety of styles such as pour-over and siphoning.” It’s all part of an effort, analysts say, to reinvent itself as a luxury brand. But can a brand that’s gone mainstream turn high-end again? It’s a quandary that brands like Apple, Michael Kors and Coach have also faced in recent years, as they look to balance widespread popularity with upscale cache. “I’ll just say this: It’s much harder to go up-market than it is to do the opposite,” said Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a New York-based market research firm. “What Starbucks has to do at a higher level is to be personal, like when you go to Hermes and the salesperson knows your name, or when you buy a Tesla and you’re in a high-street showroom.” When it was founded in 1971, Starbucks was a premium brand, offering a higher-priced but also a better-quality cup of coffee than most Americans were used to. In the decades since, Americans have taken to it in droves, making the Seattle-based brand a commonplace staple, as ubiquitous as McDonald’s or Wal-Mart. “They’ve set the bar high, and now they have to keep moving to an


The DEA wants to ban another plant. Researchers say the plan is ‘insane.’

became addicted. Relatives said he showed no signs of being sick. Balancing the benefits Still, advocates for the drug say the research that has been done shows that kratom's effects are mild compared to opiate painkillers, and say that the plant has helped many people kick dependencies on hydrocodone, oxycodone and other powerful prescription painkillers. Kratom has helped "millions of people suffering chronic and acute mental and physical conditions," the American Kratom Association says. A fact sheet published by the group says that "today Americans use kratom for things like fatigue, pain, depression, anxiety, PTSD, to ease themselves off opiates and to help manage addiction." Much of the evidence for this comes from testimonials from the group's own members, as published research into kratom use is rare. Domestically, kratom is often sold online by vendors based in the United States and overseas. Some deal in kratom exclusively, while others sell kratom along with other so-called natural supplements. The drug is also commonly found in brick-and-mortar smoke shops across the United States. Because there's no regulation, the quality and purity of the product can vary widely. Government surveys do not ask about kratom use, so there's no official tally of the number of users. Susan Ash, director of the American Kratom Association, estimated that between between 3 million and 5 million Americans have used the drug at some time in their lives, based on information from retailers. "We are your neighbors," she said. "We are your everyday people. We are not people who should be turned into felons for consuming a plant." On Tuesday, Ash and hundreds of advocates demonstrated at the White House in protest of the upcoming ban. More than 120,000 people have signed a petition asking the White House to stop the DEA ban. Aaron Walker was one of them. He's a U.S. Navy veteran who now works for a kratom company called Eden's Ethnos. He began using the drug to deal with the symptoms of a back injury suffered while he was in the service. "I went to the VA a year ago for my back. I couldn't walk," he said. "They gave me dilaudid, hydrocodone and oxycontin, and they gave me x-rays and then sent me on my way. That's all they do is just give you pills." Walker says he prefers to self-medicate with kratom, which he calls "the only thing that mitigates the pain."


The ‘harvest moon’ rises Friday. And it might be a supermoon. And there’s an eclipse.

September's full moon is known as the "harvest moon." In this video, NASA explains its origins. The “harvest moon” will rise on Friday — the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, which occurs Sept. 22 this year. In Europe, Africa and Asia the full moon will also be a little bit darker, thanks to a penumbral lunar eclipse that begins around 1 p.m. Eastern time. The moon officially becomes full at 3:05 p.m. on Friday. In Washington, the sun sets at 7:14 p.m., and the moon rises at 7:22 p.m. If you need more than a full moon to get you outside with your eyes on the sky, this full moon is also a supermoon. Maybe. It’s kind of a controversy. Astrologer Richard Nolle Long story short, Nolle has a list of all supermoons, and so does the former NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak, but their lists disagree. Espenak’s list includes an extra supermoon in 2016 — this month’s harvest moon. EarthSky has a great explanation on why these lists differ. Strangely enough, Espenak’s list seems to meet Nolle’s original definition more than Nolle’s list does. Go figure. If you need even more of a reason to go sky-gazing, check out the bright Venus (-3.9 magnitude) early in the evening. Look to the west-south; the bright star Spica is under Venus, to the planet’s left. In the same neighborhood, the reddish Mars and the ringed Saturn in the south-southwestern sky. Both are bright, about 25 degrees up from the horizon, around 7:45 p.m. Europe won’t need any more reason to look up at the Friday night sky than the penumbral lunar eclipse. For those in North America, you can still catch all of the shadowy eclipse action on slooh.com, with play-by-play and commentary Friday afternoon. Officially, the eclipse starts at 12:54 p.m. Eastern time and ends at 4:54 p.m., notes Espenak. The deepest part of the eclipse will be at 2:54 p.m. Eastern Time (6:54 p.m. GMT). This is a deep penumbral eclipse, he said, as it has a strong penumbral eclipse magnitude of 0.9080. It will last about a half-minute shy of four hours. What is a penumbral lunar eclipse? It occurs when the moon appears to scoot through the lightest portion of Earth’s shadow. Earthlings must remember that our own planet casts a shadow into space. The center of the shadow is the umbra, so when the moon


White House: ‘Graphic’ reports of violence against Marine recruits are ‘disturbing’

a Muslim recruit in an industrial clothes dryer last year and turned it on multiple times while calling him a terrorist. His arm and neck began to burn, and he started to cry, the recruit later told investigators. Details about that case emerged after a different Muslim recruit — Raheel Sidiqqui, 20, of Taylor, Mich. — died at Parris Island on March 18 after running away from the same drill instructor, jumping over a railing and falling nearly 40 feet. Siddiqui’s death has been ruled a suicide, although Marine Corps documents acknowledge that his abuse could have been a factor. The drill instructor struck him in the face shortly before he jumped, the documents said. Earnest, asked Thursday whether the White House is worried that these incidents reflect broader problems of Islamophobia in the military, said that Obama is cognizant that those who join the armed forces are “in many ways placed under his care.” Earnest added that Obama takes seriously the responsibility he has to make sure recruits are not subjected to hazing or abuse “even as they undergo the kind of rigorous training that’s required to meet the high physical and mental standards of serving in the United States military.” Marine Corps recruits salute the American flag during a ceremony Sept. 10, 2016, on Parris Island, S.C. (Lance Cpl. Carlin Warren) The Marine Corps has carried out at least three command investigations into separate abuse allegations over the past year. Last week, service officials announced that 20 members of Parris Island’s staff could face criminal charges or administrative discipline. Some of those cases are expected to begin moving through military justice hearings this fall. Marine Gen. Robert B. Neller, the service’s commandant, said last week in a statement that recruit training will remain physically and mentally challenging, but the manner in which it is conducted also is as important as the final product: Marines. “When America’s men and women commit to becoming Marines, we make a promise to them,” he said. “We pledge to train them with firmness, fairness, dignity and compassion.” Parris Island trains about 20,000 recruits a year, including all enlisted women who enter the service and all men who enlist while living east of the Mississippi River. A separate boot camp in San Diego trains men born west of the river. David Nakamura contributed to this report. Related on Checkpoint: Marine Corps sidelines Parris Island


The origins of pumpkin spice and how it became the flavor of fall

The secret behind the success of Starbucks's pumpkin spice latte, and other seasonal products, is less in the flavor and more in the type of marketing the company uses. Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte turns 13 years old this year, and it can be partially credited for the massive amount of pumpkin and pumpkin spice-flavored products on the market. America’s obsession with the flavor — and some people's hatred of it — grows with the amount of pumpkin items offered each year. The PSL, as the latte is affectionately called, is Starbucks’s most popular seasonal beverage. More than 200 million have been sold since its inception, and Forbes estimated the company earned around $100 million in revenue from the drink alone last fall. It has a heavy social media presence, and its own verified Twitter account, @TheRealPSL. No matter what the weather is from this point on, it is now officially #fall. #PSL #Starbucks @TheRealPSL https://t.co/QQBJfvFyhh Food manufacturers and grocery stores bet heavily that pumpkin products will help sales during the fall. At Trader Joe’s, the amount of pumpkin products has steadily increased since the grocery chain began offering them in the mid-1990s, according to a company spokesperson. This year, Trader Joe’s shelves will be stocked with more than 70 pumpkin items, up from around 60 items in 2015. Pumpkin spice is a combination of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger and sometimes actual pumpkin. It’s a polarizing flavor, mainly because of the variety of pumpkin-spiced foods on the market each year gets a little more weird. The food news site Eater has been chronicling them in a list of “65 Pumpkin Spice Foods That Have No Business Being Pumpkin Spiced.” Liquor company Pinnacle makes a pumpkin pie flavored vodka, and at one point, Mediterranean food company Cedar’s manufactured a pumpkin spice hummus. Still, the nostalgia surrounding the return of fall and pumpkin spice is hard to beat. Combine that with the ultimate marketing tool — the limited-time offer (LTO) — and you’ve just created a must-have product. Tying an LTO to a season or a holiday associated with indulgence ratchets up excitement for the product too, says Brian Wansink of the Cornell University's Food & Brand Lab and author of “Slim by Design.” “There’s a halo of enthusiasm around that product,” Wansink added, which drives consumers to purchase the product before it's gone. Most customers buy only one, though. Despite all the


New study finds that medical marijuana may be helping to curb the opioid epidemic

A medical marijuana plant grows in Washington, D.C. (Linda Davidson / The Washington Post) After states pass laws permitting medical marijuana, drivers in those states become less likely to test positive for opioids after fatal car accidents, a new study from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health has found. Researchers analyzed federal crash data in 18 states over the period from 1999 to 2013. States that passed a medical marijuana law during this period saw a reduction in opioid involvement in fatal car accidents, relative to states without such a law. The reduction was greatest among drivers aged 21 to 40, the age group most likely to use medical marijuana where it's available. "We would expect the adverse consequences of opioid use to decrease over time in states where medical marijuana use is legal, as individuals substitute marijuana for opioids in the treatment of severe or chronic pain," said June H. Kim, a doctoral student at the Mailman School of Public Health, and the study's lead author, in a press release. The study, published today in the American Journal of Public Health, is the first to look at the relationship between medical marijuana laws and individual-level laboratory measurements of opioid use. The results suggest a fairly straightforward conclusion that "in states with medical marijuana laws, fewer individuals are using opioids," the authors write. It adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that chronic pain patients may substitute marijuana for prescription painkillers in states where the option is available. One paper published earlier this year found that Medicare Part D prescriptions for painkillers declined significantly in states that passed medical marijuana laws. Other studies have shown that medical marijuana states see fewer painkiller overdose deaths than states without medical pot, and that access to medical marijuana dispensaries is also linked to declining rates of opiate overdose and death. In a sign some drugmakers might be worried about marijuana's impact, the company behind the powerful painkiller fentanyl recently poured half a million dollars into the campaign opposing full marijuana legalization in Arizona, one of the biggest-ever single donations to an anti-legalization cause. Medical marijuana is currently legal, with varying degrees of restriction, in 25 states plus the District of Columbia. Still, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration earlier this year refused to relax restrictions on marijuana, claiming that the drug has no medically accepted use. The DEA is also moving to


What it’s like to be high on kratom, according to the people who use it

16 percent of users. A number of others reported chills and sweats. Of particular interest to public health researchers were the reports relating to dependency — both on kratom itself, as well as reports detailing how people used kratom to wean off other substances. Ten percent of users reported problems with withdrawal after nonuse, while close to 11 percent reported using kratom as a substitute for other drugs, mostly opioids. "In sum," the study concludes, "our findings suggest that the subjective effects of kratom are generally mild and pleasant, with some important negative physical side-effects, including what appears to be a mild (i.e., relative to opiates) dependence syndrome." How do these self-reported effects compare with those of other drugs, legal and otherwise? It's tough to say. Swogger et. al. didn't run the same analysis for other substances on Erowid. But it's possible to get some sense of the range of site users' experiences for different drugs by looking at the ratio of negative to positive experience reports for each drug. For each substance listed on Erowid, there are a number of experience categories that are unequivocally negative -- "difficult experiences," "bad trips," "health problems," "train wrecks and trip disasters" and "addiction & habituation." Similarly, other categories indicate positive reports: "glowing experiences," "mystical experiences," "health benefits" and "medical use." Still other categories, like "first time" and "retrospective/summary" don't denote any positive or negative experience. For a handful of common drugs, legal and illegal, I tallied the number of reports falling under the positive and negative categories. Then, to correct for the fact that some drugs, like marijuana, generate many more experience reports than others, I expressed the numbers as a ratio: For each positive experience reported for the drug, how many negative experiences are there? Here's what that looks like. The first thing that stands out is that for all of these substances, negative experiences outweigh positive. This is somewhat surprising, as drug users are often characterized as irresponsible thrill-seekers careening through life from fix to fix, and looking to entice others to do the same. But these numbers suggest that the users who visit Erowid are offering unvarnished assessments of their drug use, the good AND the bad. Among the handful of drugs I looked at, kratom users had the lowest likelihood of reporting negative experiences, followed by users of marijuana and oxycodone. Heroin users reported five bad experiences for


Scientists caught black holes swallowing stars — and burping energy back up

study, said in a statement. Van Velzen's study caught three black holes in the act of star swallowing; researchers in China documented a fourth. The technical term for these celestial phenomena is "stellar tidal disruption events." When a star gets too close to a black hole's event horizon (the "point of no return," at which not even light can escape), it gets stretched and torn apart by variations in the black hole's gravitational pull. Scientists call the process "spaghettification" for the way that it elongates everything that has the misfortune of enduring it. As it devours the star, the black hole emits an enormous amount of energy, including ultraviolet and X-ray light, that destroys everything in its immediate neighborhood. "It's as though the black hole has cleaned its room by throwing flames," van Velzen said. But beyond the reach of the most intense radiation, a patchy web of dust swirls. At this distance — a few trillion miles from the black hole — the dust particles can absorb the light released during the death of the star without being destroyed by it. The particles then re-emit the light at longer, infrared wavelengths. Scientists recently detected several X-ray emissions from black holes that seemed to be signatures of this phenomenon, but the new studies are the first to catch the event in infrared. The WISE telescope, which is attuned to infrared radiation, can capture these "echoes" of the star's destruction; by measuring the delay between the original light flare and the subsequent echoes, scientists on the ground can figure out how much energy was released as the star got consumed. The studies also let astronomers figure out the exact location of the dust web and understand some of its most basic characteristics. This material isn't only the outskirts of black hole — it represents the nucleus of the galaxy for which the black hole forms the center. That makes observations of tidal disruption flares doubly interesting: They can help scientists understand not just the dark, dense mysteries of black holes, but also the bright, swirling places that surround them. Read more: This is what it looks like when a black hole tears a star apart The 'blue' for blue jeans was first made 6,200 years ago in Peru This cute, colorful dinosaur wore brilliant camouflage Meet the scientist who dreams of fixing your sleep How Pluto paints its largest moon red


This illustration shows a glowing stream of material from a star as it is being devoured by a supermassive black hole in a tidal disruption flare. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) Supermassive black holes are voracious beasts. Their tremendous gravitational pull sucks in everything that gets too close, including stars. For the first time, astronomers have clearly observed at infrared wavelengths what happens after a black hole eats a star: it burps back up a brilliant flare of light that echoes through space. Two studies published this week — one by scientists at NASA, the other by researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China — describe these "tidal disruption flares" using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a space telescope that has photographed the entire sky in infrared light. statement The technical term for these celestial phenomena is "stellar tidal disruption events." When a star gets too close to a black hole's event horizon (the "point of no return," at which not even light can escape), it gets stretched and torn apart by variations in the black hole's gravitational pull. Scientists call the process "spaghettification" for the way that it elongates everything that has the misfortune of enduring it. But beyond the reach of the most intense radiation, a patchy web of dust swirls. At this distance — a few trillion miles from the black hole — the dust particles can absorb the light released during the death of the star without being destroyed by it. The particles then re-emit the light at longer, infrared wavelengths. Scientists recently detected several X-ray emissions from black holes that seemed to be signatures of this phenomenon, but the new studies are the first to catch the event in infrared.


Dr. Gridlock’s weekend travel tips

Competitors drag a jet during the 2015 Dulles Day Plane Pull. (J. David Buerk) There’s plenty to do in the D.C. region during the Harvest Moon weekend. There’s the annual Dulles Day Plane Pull, the H Street Festival and the Fiesta D.C. Parade on Saturday, Virginia and Maryland wine festivals through the weekend and football at FedEx Field and the Navy-Air Force Half Marathon and Navy 5 Miler on Sunday. The Capital Weather Gang forecast suggests that Saturday will be the better of the two days. Sunday is likely to be cloudy, hotter and very muggy. Saturday’s H Street Festival will lead to a suspension of service on the D.C. Streetcar, and Sunday’s run is going to delay the start of the D.C. Circulator’s Mall route. But the main thing that transit users should check is the Metro schedule below. Metrorail has quite a few maintenance disruptions this weekend. Riders on four lines may pass through zones where they have to change trains to complete their trips. The event likely to have the biggest effect on traffic is the Sunday morning run. Metrorail Red Line. Orange Line. Silver Line. Blue Line. Yellow Line. Green Line. Dulles Day Plane Pull H Street Festival The District Department of Transportation will suspend D.C. Streetcar service Saturday to clear the way for the festival. Service will resume Sunday, the first day of Sunday operations for the streetcar, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Several street closings are planned in connection with the festival. H Street NE will be closed between 3:30 a.m. and 11 p.m. Saturday. On F Street NE between Fourth and 14th streets, no northbound traffic will be allowed. On I Street NE between Fourth and 14th, no southbound traffic will be allowed. Wine festivals Fiesta D.C. Parade These streets will be closed from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.: Constitution Avenue from Pennsylvania Avenue to Ninth Street NW, Seventh Street from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to Independence Avenue SW. These locations will be closed from about 12:30 to 6 p.m.: Ninth Street from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to Constitution Avenue; 10th Street from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to Constitution Avenue; 12th Street from Pennsylvania Avenue NW to Madison Drive NW, including the 12th Street Tunnel. The fiesta, which sponsors say could draw 25,000 people, is Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Pennsylvania Avenue NW between Third and Seventh streets. Navy-Air Force Half Marathon


Is the ModeloZone a harbinger of change for the H Street Festival?

for local skateboarders, and a stage providing a showcase for up-and-coming hip-hop, rock and electronic acts. But this spring, Gray says, he got a letter from Anwar Saleem, the executive director of the non-profit H Street Main Street organization, informing him that a corporate sponsor had made a large guarantee for use of the AutoZone lot during the festival. The sponsor would handle its own programming, and as part of the deal, no "competing" products -- such as local beers -- would be sold in the ModeloZone. (The AutoZone lot is owned by WestMill Capital Partners, but it is the organizers of the festival who determine what goes in that space each year.) Saleem says the corporate sponsorship is necessary. "It's going to help us pay for the festival," he says. "That's a big expense." But Gray sees it differently. "The epitome of gentrification is local business being displaced by more monied interests," he says. "I understand that there are hard costs associated with productions at the magnitude of H Street Festival, but it’s disheartening to see integral pieces of the festival sold off to brands that seek to exclude local businesses. Those of us who have invested in H Street Festival over the years employ dozens of local residents, students, bands, artists and local creatives, as well as showcase local businesses." Gray has taken sponsorship money in the past to pay for programming in the AutoZone lot, including funds from Red Bull and AB InBev. But he says last year's deal with Budweiser and Bud Light didn't include a non-compete clause to prevent local beers from being served alongside the country's best-selling beers, for example. The ModeloZone won't be the first branded drinking area at the H Street Festival: Last year's event featured a branded Patron Tequila garden, and this year there will be a Diageo Liquor Garden at 11th and H, where festival-goers will be able to purchase drinks made with Ciroc, Crown Royal and Tanqueray -- all brands owned by the international spirits conglomerate Diageo. But this is the first time a company from outside the neighborhood is displacing what had been a locally organized part of the festival. The question is, can the H Street Festival keep that neighborhood focus as it expands and its costs increase? H Street Festival: Saturday from noon to 7 p.m. H Street NE between Fourth and 14th streets NE. Free.


Explosion that injured 29 in New York ‘obviously an act of terrorism,’ governor says

sky.” After the explosion, she said her “ear was ringing for 15 minutes.” Just kicked out of the diner due to explosion next door #Chelsea #23rdstreet #nyc https://t.co/PtnfCT0YJD When Keith Salomon of Delaware felt the explosion, he was having dinner a block and a half from the site of the blast. His chair and table shook, he said, and he saw people being taken away in ambulances. “We didn’t know what it was and so, at first, we just kept eating,” said Salomon, 52, who was visiting his son in the city. “But then we realized something was wrong.” #ChelseaExplosion https://t.co/F9z55WXIAw Others did not hear the explosion but saw the aftermath. When Jacob Schulman left his apartment a few blocks away shortly before 9 p.m., he saw people running and screaming. “I didn’t know what was going on, but everyone looked so panicked. I started running. too,” said Schulman, 26, who has lived in the neighborhood since 2014. Two blocks from the blast scene, a group of people emerged from a screening of the animated movie “Beauty and the Beast” and saw the flashing lights. One man who came out of the theater said he could not hear anything and had no idea about the explosion not far from where he was sitting. Our whole high rise building shook.23rd St & 6th Ave. More response vehicles arriving: https://t.co/IgbjXgy9JD President Obama was briefed on the situation in New York and will be updated as more information becomes available, a White House official said late Saturday. Speaking in Colorado not long after the explosion, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump quickly commented on the situation before much information was known. “I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly what’s going on,” said Trump shortly after getting off of his plane. His comments were made before authorities confirmed the nature of the explosion. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said it was "wiser to wait" for information on the blast in New York City September 17, before reaching any conclusions about the situation. Late Saturday, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said it was important to “know the facts” before drawing conclusions about such incidents. Scene of the explosion this morning. https://t.co/cohpujnr5j Early Sunday, posts on social media from people in New York showed the area of the explosion to be


Pipe bomb explodes along Jersey Shore charity 5K racecourse, officials say

are investigating the pipe bomb. As of Saturday afternoon, the Ocean County Sheriff’s Department was advising people to avoid the area. About 11 hours later, around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, an explosion shook the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, injuring at least 29 people in what New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called “an intentional act.” Also around 8 p.m. Saturday, a man armed with a knife reportedly stabbed eight people inside a Minnesota mall before he was killed by an off-duty police officer. “We don’t believe at this time that there’s any evidence connecting [the New Jersey pipe bomb] to the attacks in New York or Minnesota,” Christie said on CNN. He added that the FBI is leading the investigation in Seaside Park, along with the New Jersey State Police and the Office of Homeland Security. “We’re continuing to work with the authorities to make sure that we bring whoever is responsible for this to justice as quickly as possible,” Christie said. As in New York, New Jersey investigators still have made no determination as to a motive behind the pipe bomb explosion. “We’re out there. We’re working hard,” said special agent Michael Whitaker, a spokesman for the FBI office in Newark. “We’re going to make sure we find out who’s responsible.” Law enforcement officials said they will examine the detonated explosive material, video surveillance tapes and social media. As of Sunday, the beach in Seaside Park was open and there were no travel restrictions in the area, Whitaker said. Those who may have credible information about the New Jersey bomb are asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI, and select option 1. In 2013, two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and injured 264. Since then, security at that race — as well as at other major marathons and large-scale running events — has tightened. A pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey shore town shortly before thousands of runners were to participate in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors, authorities said. This post has been updated. Ellen Nakashima in Washington contributed to this report. Read more: Stray dog wins hearts — and new home — after following man through 155-mile ultramarathon Slow train stops Pa. marathoners in their tracks, dashing dreams of qualifying for elite race A U.S. sailor fighting ISIS said she just had stomach pains. Then she gave birth at sea.


Former NFL player says he played his best games while stoned

Eben Britton, who spent six seasons in the NFL, claims that he often played his best games after smoking marijuana. “NFL games I played stoned were some of the best games I ever played. Cannabis cements your surroundings,” Britton, who spent four years in Jacksonville an two in Chicago, told the New York Post. “A lot of people say they’re useless when they smoke weed. But hell, I played NFL games [while stoned], dude. My performances were solid and I felt really good after.” Britton, who turns 29 next month, said he estimates “over 50 percent and it could be as high as 75 percent” of NFL players smoke weed. The NFL tests for it, but less frequently than for performance-enhancing drugs. Britton was suspended by the NFL in 2015 and has not played in the league since. Attitudes about marijuana are changing in the league, with a number of former players urging that its medicinal use be allowed as a safer alternative to painkillers. In May, Eugene Monroe, who was cut by the Baltimore Ravens in June, pledged $80,000 to further the study of marijuana use in professional football players in an effort to reduce reliance on addictive opioids and anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce the pains of playing in the league. “There’s enough anecdotal evidence already to say, ‘Hey listen, we know it’s not toxic. We know it’s safer than what we’re already doing,’ ” he told The Post’s Adam Kilgore. Twenty-four states plus the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana, with more likely by the end of the year. Four states and D.C. have fully legalized. In contrast, overdoses related to prescription pain medication caused 19,000 deaths in 2014. For Britton, the drug offered more than therapeutic uses. “Right after practice, me and one to three other [players] would go to somebody’s house [to get high],” the former offensive lineman said. “Smoking helped me to socialize with teammates. We let our guards down . . . But a lot of the time [stoned talk] wasn’t even about football. Cannabis took us out of football. We were hanging out and just being people. It brought us closer together as teammates.”


Here’s what ordinary Arabs think about the Syrian refugee crisis

The text of the tweet translates to “#Drowning_of_a_Syrian_Child #200_Syrian_Muslims_Drowned_in_the_Sea #Syria #Forever #Tweet_picture and tell the #Truth of this terrible world.” The United Nations will convene its first ever Summit on Refugees and Migrants in New York on Monday, to be followed Tuesday by President Obama’s Leaders’ Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis. The hope is that these meetings will foster concerted action to address the highest levels of forced displacement since World War II. But in the Middle East — the center of the current refugee crisis — such lofty international efforts seem far removed from realities on the ground. The MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region is a key point of transit for refugees from Somalia, South Sudan, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Syria. Neighboring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan have absorbed the vast majority of Syrian refugees. How do Arab citizens view this crisis? And how do different actors leverage the refugee issue? Quantitative and qualitative analysis of 1.6 million Arabic tweets (translated into English when quoted below) about Syrian refugees collected at New York University’s Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) Lab between February 2015 and July 2016 offer three preliminary insights: 1. The Arab twittersphere sees the refugees as victims, not threats In Europe and North America, online discourse on the refugee crisis has been characterized by a great deal of anti-refugee and Islamophobic rhetoric. But by far most MENA-based tweets about Syrian refugees portray them as victims in need of support. Indeed, qualitative coding of the most retweeted tweets in our dataset using the Crowdflower data enrichment platform suggests that 59 percent of the most popular tweets characterized refugees as victims or deserving of sympathy, while only 3 percent portrayed refugees as threatening or undesirable. (Coders found that fewer than 1 percent identified refugees as traitors to their country or religion, 3 percent portrayed refugees in some other way and 33 percent used the term “refugees” but communicated no opinion about them.) Quantitative analysis of the full dataset reveals a similar pattern. As the figure below demonstrates, Twitter interest spiked after the drowning of Alan Kurdi, a Syrian refugee child. The photo of his body washed up on a Turkish beach went viral on online and via traditional media channels worldwide. As a result, some of the most popular hashtags in our dataset highlight the danger facing refugees heading to Europe, including #Drowning_of_a_Syrian_Child, #Mediterranean_Sea_of_Death, and #200_Syrian_Muslims_Drowned_in_the_Sea. Daily


Hubble catches a comet disintegrating into oblivion

The slow migration of building-size fragments of Comet 332P/Ikeya-Murakami. (NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt, UCLA) Comets are fantastic targets for scientific study. They stay chilly in their far-flung orbits, and the ancient masses of dirt, ice and rock contain relatively pristine materials from the earliest days of the solar system. But these dirty snowballs can't last forever. When their orbital path brings them close to the sun, they begin to warm up and break apart. A comet's icy core, or nucleus, sublimates from solid to gas under the sun's hot rays, creating a "coma" of vapor around and behind it. Eventually, after enough trips around our star, a comet will either totally disintegrate or turn into an iceless, rocky husk of its former self. Now scientists have captured the most detailed images of a comet's self-destruction, revealing an ancient space rock's tumble into crumbled oblivion. “We know that comets sometimes disintegrate, but we don’t know much about why or how they come apart,” David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles said in a statement. “The trouble is that it happens quickly and without warning, and so we don’t have much chance to get useful data." But over the course of three days in January, images from the Hubble Space Telescope revealed the destruction of a comet called 32P/Ikeya-Murakami, or Comet 332P. The telescope was able to show faint bits of comet, capturing some 25 chunks in action as they ambled away from the comet at about the walking speed of a human adult — forming a trail 3,000 miles long. “In the past, astronomers thought that comets die when they are warmed by sunlight, causing their ices to simply vaporize away,” added Jewitt, one of the authors of a study on Comet 332P published in the Astrophysical Letters. “Either nothing would be left over or there would be a dead hulk of material where an active comet used to be. But it’s starting to look like fragmentation may be more important. In Comet 332P we may be seeing a comet fragmenting itself into oblivion.” Comet 332P's nucleus, the bright object on the left, followed by a trail of debris 3,000 miles long. (NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt, UCLA) Comet 332P is thought to be 4.5 billion years old, which puts its birthday just 100 million years or so after the formation of our solar system. That's roughly the same


Astonishing time-lapse satellite imagery shows rapid growth of refugee camps

On Monday, member countries will convene at the United Nations headquarters in New York City for a summit on the global refugee crisis. They will try to agree on a more humane, coordinated response. The crisis has reached unprecedented proportions. There are upward of 65.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. A third of them are in countries other than their own. Ten million of them were born as refugees and remain stateless, which gives a sense of the intractability of many conflicts. International institutions have scrambled to provide food, medical treatment, shelter and safety. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees plays a leading role in setting up camps, both for internally and externally displaced people. Countless other organizations, big and small, lead and bolster that push, depending on the location. New time-lapse satellite imagery of the burgeoning camps from above, shot and compiled by a private company called Planet, provides a remarkable visual of the crisis. The images give a sense of the need for a quick response from the international community as conflict arises so as to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. Above, images taken from February to August demonstrate how quickly a camp in northern Uganda grew after fighting raged in neighboring South Sudan in July. The change in ground color shows how starkly different the region's landscape is between wet and dry seasons. "These kinds of images give us a way to visualize the invisible," said Christoph Koettl, a senior analyst at Amnesty International who uses satellite imagery to monitor refugee crises. "By looking at them, we can also better extrapolate on the shifting conflict situations in a given country." The image above, from the border between Syria and Jordan, depicts the situation near an area known as "the berm," which is a reference to a raised portion of ground that serves as a no man's land along the border. More than 75,000 Syrians are stuck there now, in an interminable wait to enter Jordan, which is carrying out thorough security clearances. My colleague Adam Taylor wrote about the situation at the berm last week. A report from Amnesty International published Wednesday evening shows just how dire the situation on the berm has become. Using information from satellite images, video footage and a number of first-person accounts, Amnesty was able to show not only a dramatic growth in the size of the settlement at