Tom Sietsema’s 2014 Spring Dining Guide Now Available

Including behind-the-scenes videos of how chefs prepare signature dishes at six featured restaurants Washington, DC – April 16, 2014: Goat cheese cheesecake with sunny surface (proper name to come) was photographed on Wednesday April 16, 2014 at Graffiato restaurant in Washington, DC. (Photo by Joseph Victor Stefanchik for The Washington Post) The Washington Post Magazine released its fifth annual Spring Dining Guide where food critic Tom Sietsema visits 19 previously reviewed restaurants. In addition to restaurant reviews, star-ratings, prices and locations, readers can view a sequence of high-speed still photographs in a stop motion movie form of dishes being prepared. The Dining Guide is available online here and in The Washington Post Magazine Sunday. Sietsema now awards Jose Andrés’s Minibar four stars for “intense rethinking of common textures and flavors.” Here are highlights of how some of the other restaurants across the region have improved or not: • Graffiato by Mike Isabella In 2011: Italy meets New Jersey Again: “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” • The Classics In 2006: A good case for cloning Now: Trimmed ambitions • Bayou Bakery In 2011: Where’s the heat? Now: A truer taste of Crescent City A round up of spring cocktail creations by some of the area’s top bartenders is also featured in this edition of the Magazine.


‘THE FLASH’: Judging by this full trailer, DC lightning may strike twice for the CW

ED. NOTE: A bolt of lightning provides not only an instant six-pack of abs, as our newest incarnation of Barry Allen says. It also provides a jet-pack of programming liftoff, as The CW today unveils a full trailer for “The Flash,” the fall spinoff to the DC hit “The Arrow.” As DC Entertainment works to go all-in on the small screen, the studio hope is that lightning will strike twice for its comics characters. Comic Riffs contributor David Betancourt breaks down the new, five-minute-plus trailer. –M.C. Grant Gustin IS the Flash. (courtesy of the CW 2014.) AFTER GETTING So judging by the first full trailer, here’s what we can expect from the Scarlet Speedster this fall: 1. Classic villains and a heavy Geoff Johns influence: Within the first 30 seconds of the trailer — as Gustin provides a Barry Allen voice-over, we view not only the origin-story basics (Barry’s mother was murdered when he was a child, right in front of him, and he’s determined to find out who did it); we also glimpse the murderer, running at blazing speed in a yellow suit. So far, the tagline for “The Flash” is “don’t blink,” but if you did in the trailer, you might have missed what looked to be legendary Flash bad guy the Reverse Flash. And is that the Weather Wizard causing a lot more than humidity issues in the streets of Central City? DC exec/writer Geoff Johns’s involvement in this show is obvious. And if his critically acclaimed run on Flash comics is going to inspire this series, fans should be in for a good ride. 2. Iris West We get a first look at Candice Patton as Iris West, the love interest for Barry Allen for those of you familiar with the Flash universe. There’s clearly some chemistry, but they are far from a super couple to start. Iris is the girl Barry referred to when he made his CW debut, in a guest appearance on an episode of “Arrow” this season. And what about those sparks with the Arrow’s top tech-gal, Felicity? But what we really want to know is: Does Iris have a nephew named Wally? 3. Superhero help A particularly fun aspect of these trailers is the universe that the cast of “The Flash” shares with “Arrow.” How great it is to see the Green Arrow and the Flash chatting it up on a


The first advertisement on the moon’s surface

A Japanese beverage maker and pharmaceutical company, Otsuka, is planning to send a specially designed canister of its powered sports drink, Pocari Sweat, to the moon. This marketing ploy is “the first commercial product delivered to another world for marketing purposes,” according to The Verge. The press release The sports drink is to be delivered to the moon in specially designed titanium, The Wall Street Journal reported: The drink will be packed in powder form inside a special titanium can containing about 70 items. While it will look like a regular can of Pocari Sweat, it will be designed to endure the impact of launch and landing, temperature shifts, and higher levels of electromagnetic radiation from the sun, the company said. The titanium canister will hop a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Huffington Post: Plans call for the dream capsule to be carried into lunar orbit in October 2015 by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and then deposited on the lunar surface by the “Griffin” lander designed by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology. Otsuka declined the Journal’s request to reveal the cost of shipping the canister. But according the company’s press release, the project hopes to inspire children’s dreams. The Atlantic reports: According to Otsuka, the Pocari Sweat’s presence on the lunar surface won’t be so much about lunar ion supply as it will be about dreams. Because exploration is thirsty work! As with so much about our tentative steps into space, the drink-on-the-brink, Otsuka says, is meant to inspire young astronauts. Who one day, apparently, will travel to the moon, open up a can of Pocari Sweat, and finally feel that it has all been worth it.


The scary reason Saudi farmers are kissing camels

their camels have been accompanied with comments disparaging MERS: الله يستر من فيروس كورونا ولكن ما نقدر نصبر عن الابل لها محبة خاصة والصورة تغني عن الكلام . http://t.co/urHIUzlr5J الزراعة تحذر ملاك الابل من #كورونا عملنا هذه التجربة قبل اسبوعين وننتظر النتائج! http://t.co/8EhT0BGoV6 It seems a strange protest, but there's something behind it. Earlier this week, the Saudi government began a campaign to stop people from eating raw camel meat and liver or drinking unpasteurized camel milk. Experts argue that Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS' full name) or traces of it have been found in a large proportion of the camels tested in Saudi Arabia, and antibodies from the virus have even been found in camel populations in Spain's Canary Islands, thousands of miles away. Camels may not be the main source of MERS (many experts point the finger at bats), but they certainly seem like one big possibility. For some in Saudi Arabia, avoiding camels is not such an easy task. One study from 2008 found that there were almost 900,000 camels in Saudi Arabia alone, with almost 15 million across other Arab states. The animals are a source of income for a large number of people, and popular too. "Camels in the kingdom are like dairy cows, beef cows, racehorses, pulling horses, beloved Labradors, and living daily reminders of holy scripture, all in one," Cynthia Gorney wrote for the National Geographic this week, noting that camels are featured honorably in the Koran. Partly due to this fondness for camels, and partly due to a perceived lack of transparency from the Saudi government about MERS, a lot of people aren't totally convinced by the warnings about camels. Reuters reported from a Saudi camel market on Sunday and noted that only one person was wearing a mask as recommended. Some farmers are pointing out they have worked with camels for decades with no ill health. Whether it's transmitted via camel or not, MERS is still a worrying situation for Saudi Arabia. It's a coronavirus like SARS, which is believed to have infected 8,273 people and led to 775 deaths in 2002-2003, and while its hard to say for sure at present, MERS may well be deadlier than its predecessor. Given that millions of Muslims are expected to travel to Mecca this October for Hajj, even officials in Saudi Arabia are beginning to wonder if the country is doing enough.


Morning Plum: Scott Brown’s epic anti-Obamacare buffoonery

Republican governor proposed a way of accessing billions of federal dollars to expand Medicaid in Indiana, he’s still opposed to President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and thinks it should be repealed. But states have an obligation to lead the way on health care reform, Pence said in announcing his alternative to traditional Medicaid. And that means showing Indiana can get better results for taxpayers and the poor. So the Medicaid expansion is good for taxpayers and the poor, but Obamacare should be repealed! And the profound philosophical conundrum remains unsolved: Is the Medicaid expansion actually Obamacare? * THE LATEST GOP EXCUSE ON IMMIGRATION: This report aside, the issue here is very simple: Can Republicans offer a serious proposal of their own that confers legal status on the 11 million, on terms that they find acceptable? How many House Republicans are willing to support such a proposal? Reform can’t move forward until that bridge is crossed, and whether Republicans can cross it has nothing to do with Obama. * THE ISSUES WON’T SAVE DEMOCRATS IN 2014: First, the midterm electorate is not representative of the American public. The public’s preferences for Democrats on the issues may diminish or disappear once you look at registered voters or those who claim they are “absolutely certain” to vote…In addition, the importance of the issues in congressional elections is typically overstated. Structural factors like presidential approval, the state of the economy, the type of election (midterm or presidential year) and the composition of the seats that are up for election tend to matter more. I agree, but Dems know all this. Dems need to limit their losses to five Senate seats. It may not prove to be enough, but the focus on the “fair shot” issues agenda is all about limiting the damage on the margins. It’s not as if Dems have their heads in the sand about the difficulties they face. * AND OBAMACARE MAY SAVE LIVES, BUT IT STILL SUCKS: It’d be great to come up with some honest way of tallying all of these numbers, to get a true sense of the costs and benefits and Obamacare. But there’s no obvious, straightforward way to construct such a ledger. Many of these variables are impossible to measure accurately, while others require drawing conclusions that are based more on philosophy than empircal data. About the only thing that seems absolutely clear is that


Replicate it! A proposal to improve the study of political accountability

mission, focuses on supporting experimental work on governance and politics, and this particular funding round aims at supporting field experiments in the substantive area of political accountability. With the backing of a $1.8 million grant, EGAP is now soliciting proposals on a focused question from researchers around the world, with a goal of making four to six awards, each within the $200,000-$300,000 range. Specifically, EGAP is calling for proposals that fall broadly within the area of political accountability, and that are motivated generally by the following questions: Why do people elect poor or underperforming politicians in developing countries? Is it because voters lack the information they need to make informed choices? If they are given better information, do they select “better” politicians, or are many vote choices driven instead by loyalty or fear? Or do alternative causes better explain failures of political accountability? Numerous researchers have investigated these questions, but findings about the effects of information provision are mixed. Such conflicting results may indicate that key factors function differently across different contexts — for example, the effect of informing voters about politicians’ malfeasance or corruption may depend on what voters already know or believe. But it might also stem from distinctions of study design, from interventions and outcomes that differ across contexts, and from the expectation that researchers demonstrate “novel” results in each published study. EGAP’s initiative builds on existing reforms related to the credibility revolution in development research, including transparently randomized research designs and preregistration of experimental studies to guard against publication bias and “fishing.” The EGAP regranting model requires harmonization of questions, interventions, and outcomes, to some degree, across the four to six studies that we plan to fund. Each study will have at least two treatment “arms,” in addition to a control group. In the first arm, which will be harmonized across all studies and thus will build in replication across contexts, studies will provide voters with credible information about politician performance and assess effects on electoral behavior. This replication of interventions across studies is critical: Too often, major conclusions are drawn from only one study on a given topic. The second arm encourages researchers to develop distinctive interventions and encourages comparability by attempting to answer the question: If the common informational intervention is not effective, what is? The second arm thus allows for analysis of comparative effectiveness, by asking which type of intervention most powerfully shapes


Why the death of net neutrality would be a disaster for libraries

Internet services. Post tech reporter Hayley Tsukayama explains the idea of net neutrality and why its future could affect every Internet user. We’re interested in network neutrality for consumers at the home end, but also because it's key to serving our public. And that means the public libraries, the academic libraries from two-year community colleges to advanced research institutions, as well as school librarians in the K-12 community. Network neutrality issues must be resolved, and we hope to preserve as much of an open Internet policy as we possibly can. The public cannot risk losing access to important services provided by our libraries, our schools and other public institutions. And what specifically do you see as the role of the ALA in the debate over the FCC chairman’s net neutrality proposal? ALA is working with the Association of Research Libraries, EDUCAUSE, and other tech-oriented higher education organizations, as well. We'll participate in these proceedings in the coming months, pointing out the needs of library and our users as well as the unique role that public institutions in particular and education entities in general serve for the American public. We'll explain how we use the Internet and why the risk of bring slowed down or, worse yet, being denied access is going to be a real problem for our institutions and for the people we serve. We can't afford to pay more [to ISPs]. As public institutions, we're being threatened with limited resources and are trying to provide the best possible service we can given the access we currently have. Being slowed down hurts the American public because our institutions will not be able to compete, if you will, and the American public will not have comparable or equal access to the resources that are provided by libraries or other public institutions. We'll be participating in the rule-making, working with other organizations and working with our members to figure out how any reports of slowdowns can be reported and determining the best way to proceed. Who are the types of consumers who rely on libraries for online access or services? We find in library land that we are one of the main places that the public who does not have access to the high-speed Internet in their homes can go online. Use has been growing for many years, and now our online services rival more traditional services like book lending. Access


Outbreaks of disease may not boost vaccination rates. Here’s why.

(AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) When an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable infectious disease hits, how might people in the affected area respond? You might think once parents become aware of vaccination's benefits, they would choose to get their children fully immunized. As it turns out, at least in one case, that conventional wisdom didn't hold. Washington state's 2011-2012 whooping-cough outbreak didn't increase the number of infants who were fully up-to-date with their whooping cough immunizations, a new study suggests. In recent years the U.S. has experienced a number of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases such as pertussis (whooping cough) and measles, both previously rare in the United States. Vaccination rates have actually grown nationally over the past couple of decades. But health officials in recent years have reported increases in the fraction of parents who don't have their children fully vaccinated or who seek vaccination exemptions for their children. Often, large numbers of non-vaccinated or under-vaccinated children are clustered together, particularly in areas or states where it's easier for parents to get exemptions from school vaccination requirements. The rareness of such diseases might have reduced public awareness of the benefits of the vaccinations that are so crucial to preventing their spread. But it's also clear that the anti-vaccine movement has gained more traction. And rising proportions of non-vaccinated or under-vaccinated children very likely played at least some role in past whooping-cough outbreaks. Research has linked clusters of non-medical exemptions in California to the state's whooping cough outbreaks in 2010. With whooping cough, another factor may be at play. For reasons researchers still are trying to understand, a relatively new formulation of the children's whooping-cough vaccine doesn't appear to work as well as its predecessor. Although the vaccine still protects most people who get it, that protection may wane faster than before. That doesn't mean we should stop administering the vaccine; rather, it means that the public-health risks of not vaccinating become magnified. But Washington state has had a strong anti-vaccine movement, and it shows in how many parents received non-medical vaccination exemptions for their kids in recent years. In the late 2000s, the percentage of kindergarteners who received at least one exemption from a vaccination surged, peaking at a whopping 7.6 percent in the 2008-2009 school year. The state went on to suffer an epidemic In the epidemic's immediate aftermath, did vaccination rates rise for whooping cough? To answer this question, Elizabeth


‘Days of Future Past’ X-Men movie shows RFK Stadium getting destroyed

X-Men: Days of Future Past Back in March, a trailer for the latest X-Men movie, “Days of Future Past,” included a brief shot of Magneto “wreaking some sort of havoc” in RFK Stadium. A new clip released last week provides an extended look at Magneto’s destruction. “Can I help you?” a groundskeeper laying down the foul line between third base and home plate asks Magneto after he appears out of nowhere on the infield grass. “No, you can’t,” Magneto says before using his powers to levitate the stadium, causing signage, seats and light fixtures to crumble. X-Men: Days of Future Past | "Stadium Levitation" Clip [HD] | 20th Century FOX It’s a good thing the Nationals moved to Nationals Park before Bryce Harper arrived because RFK’s outfield walls appear to be made of concrete. X-Men: Days of Future Past “Days of Future Past” hits theaters on Friday. (Thanks to Business Insider for the GIF and @PetFed for the tip.)


Morning Links: The sky hasn’t fallen since Colorado legalized pot. But crime has.

- Another isolated incident: A California family sues after they were subjected to a violent, mistaken drug raid. - A Georgia woman sues over a town’s ban on sex toys without a doctor’s prescription. - The sky still hasn’t fallen since Colorado legalized pot. But crime has. - The ridiculous federal government lawsuit against the creator of Buckyballs ends with a settlement. - In other settlement news, the city of Durham, N.C., has finally resolved its lawsuit with the wrongly accused Duke lacrosse players. The city concedes that the players were innocent but admits no wrongdoing by Durham police. - Another death from the “non-lethal” Taser: A Baltimore teen died after police stun-gun him at a hospital. The U.S. Supreme Court will have another chance to take up a wrongful death case related to Tasers. So far, the court has declined to consider the issue. - A wonderful piece in the Boston Globe describes the city’s role giving America the Fourth Amendment. I wrote a similar series last year on the city’s unique role in policing, privacy and police militarization.


Minnesota’s legislature approves medical marijuana. Could New York be next?

(Rick Wilking/Reuters) Minnesota is poised to become the second state to legalize medical marijuana this year, but it may not be the last. The legislature and governor there struck a deal last week that would allow medical marijuana by the summer of 2015. It was approved by wide margins in the House and the Senate, putting the state on track to become the 22nd nationwide — and third in the Midwest — to allow marijuana for medical use. Maryland approved marijuana for such uses in April, and New York could be next. The New York state Senate plans to take up the measure Tuesday, and the bill’s sponsor says she has more than enough votes to secure passage — a first for that chamber. The state Assembly has passed similar measures four times, according to the Syracuse Post-Standard, and voters overwhelmingly support the idea. A February poll found that voters in New York supported legalizing medical marijuana virtually 10 to 1. Nine percent opposed the idea, while 88 percent supported it, according to Quinnipiac University, which conducted the poll. Voters in Florida, where medical marijuana is on the November ballot, support the idea by a virtually identical margin. Bills to legalize medical marijuana have been proposed in at least 15 states this year, according to an April count by the Marijuana Policy Project, a pot advocacy group. But not all medical marijuana laws are created equally. Most, but not all, allow personal cultivation of plants for approved medicinal use. Minnesota would be among the few that do not. The measure there would also allow only two manufacturers to operate in the state and restricts the use of the drug — it cannot be smoked. The New York measure includes that limitation but only for patients under 21.


Vincent Gray and Rushern Baker in Las Vegas, courting retailers

the D.C. Economic Partnership, the District’s marketing and business development arm, here are some of the more interesting retailers set to meet with D.C. officials: — Chillbox Frozen Yogurt and Juicy Spoons — The former is located mostly in Europe at this point and describes itself as “the largest Greek Frozen Yogurt chain of stores around the world.” Here is an ad (in Greek): chillbox - Αγνό... αλλά και λίγο κολασμένο! — Bass Pro Shop — The closest locations to D.C. are in Hanover, Md. and Ashland, Va. Hecht’s Warehouse on New York Avenue, the Navy Yard Car Barn and Shaw (Parcel 42) are listed as possible locations. — Books-A-Million — A book store expanding? The schedule calls for discussions of stores downtown or in Chevy Chase Pavilion. — Chipotle — The chain that made big business out of fast-casual burritos has been expanding quickly in the area and city officials are scheduled to pitch the chain on sites east of the Anacostia River. Gray has some big ticket land deals that will require retail. He and members Another top priority for Gray will be Skyland Shopping Center, where Wal-Mart is expected to sign a lease shortly. Gray and Wal-Mart are scheduled to meet Monday afternoon. Other priorities are finding stores for Hecht’s warehouse, on New York Avenue, Shops at Dakota Crossing, Skyland Shopping Center, the Wharf (Southwest Waterfront) Capitol Gateway and ART Place at Fort Totten, a project of the Cafritz Foundation on South Dakota Avenue off of Riggs Road in Northeast. It’s a big year for Capitol Rivefront, the business improvement district that oversees the area around Nationals Park. The neighborhood now enjoys a handful of new restaurants, a Harris Teeter is under construction and Whole Foods is on its way. Now the neighborhood has a chance to land bigger stores like Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Sports Authority — the sort of retail that wound up in the center of Columbia Heights with the DC USA project at 14th and Irving streets. Of course, there are parties as well. This year, the schedule included three events Sunday night at the Palazzo Hotel: a “We Choose DC Reception” and an invitation-only dinner by the law firm Reed Smith. On Sunday night, Prince George’s County was also scheduled to host a reception at the Palazzo Hotel pool. Arelis Hernandez and Mike DeBonis contributed. Follow Jonathan O’Connell on Twitter: @oconnellpostbiz


Martin Baron gave a commencement speech today. Talked about tough decisions as an editor.

reassigned him from one parish to the next. We decided to get at the truth. Beyond this one case, we needed to know whether the Church had repeatedly failed to disclose abuse, reassigning priests who had been credibly accused. The Church was the most powerful institution in Boston. And yet we went ahead with an investigation. And we went to court. We argued that the law and public interest demanded that documents kept secret by the Church be made public. Thankfully, we prevailed. Church files that had been locked away would be made public by court order. And, with independent reporting, we documented a pattern of cover-up lasting half a century. That did not win us universal acclaim. In 2002, a future ambassador to the Vatican declared — quote — “awarding the Pulitzer Prize to the Boston Globe would be like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Osama bin Laden.” Well, we were later awarded that prize. More important, the public won the truth. Truth changed the way the Church — and other major institutions – now deal with sexual abuse. Victims were given a voice – and the hearing they’d long been denied. And one of the world’s most powerful institutions was held accountable. No one should be immune from responsibility, least of all the powerful. No one should be denied a hearing, least of all the powerless. We owe them a duty to listen and help. * * * * There is nothing more powerful in our society than the federal government. It has the power to tax. To wage war. To investigate and prosecute and imprison. Those who founded this country were wary of that power, fearful that it might subvert our civil liberties. They sought limits, writing them into the Constitution. This power of government came to occupy me shortly after I became executive editor of The Washington Post. So, story No. 3, my final one. * * * * A year ago, an unidentified individual sent a journalist named Bart Gellman an encryption key and instructions to create an account on an anonymous computer server. The two began an almost daily encrypted conversation. And then the source claimed to possess information about secret programs at the National Security Agency, programs he viewed as deeply troubling. The source was Edward Snowden, now a fugitive in Moscow. Over time Snowden would transmit documents containing the government’s most


BICEP2’s cosmological conundrum

that everyone has to keep looking. New data from the Planck telescope should clarify the picture in the months ahead. In the meantime, scientists are debating whether the BICEP2 scientists overstated their conclusions. My reporting suggests that they could have been more cautious in how they framed their result, particularly in the last line of the paper: “The long search for tensor B-modes is apparently over, and a new era of B-mode cosmology has begun.” They may yet be proved correct as the Planck data come in. But even so, there’s a lesson here: When you report huge results, it’s always best to understate. When Edwin Hubble reported the red-shifting of the galaxies in the late 1920s, he didn’t say that he had discovered that the universe was expanding (I covered that as a cub reporter, you know). [Got it right here: Hubble had detected this nice, linear relationship between the distance to a galaxy and the extent to which it was red-shifted, and this was a clear sign of an expanding universe. But he wrote that he awaited new data to provide confirmation of this distance-velocity relationship, and “it is thought premature to discuss the obvious consequences of the present result."] The BICEP2 results were the subject of a meeting this weekend at Caltech. The PowerPoint presentations and graphs etc. are available on the Web and are coming out via Twitter. There was a fair bit of skepticism in the air, is my impression from what I’ve seen so far. A number of scientists have told me they are quite concerned that a retraction would be deeply embarrassing for the field of cosmology. When I attended a luncheon at the Institute for Advanced Study, one scientist mentioned “cold fusion” as an analog. Another asked if it would have been possible for The Post to have held off on publishing our initial story on the BICEP2 announcement at Harvard on grounds that the associated scientific paper had not yet been peer-reviewed or published. I replied that I could have told my cat that it had not been peer-reviewed, but that this was going to be a big story in the paper given the significance of the result and the competitive nature of the news business. This is not actually a cold fusion scenario. These are top-notch scientists doing excellent, if difficult, work. It reminds me more of the case of


Marc Andreessen: Tech companies are still fuming over the NSA

Marc Andreessen at The Washington Post. (Cecilia Kang / The Washington Post) Almost a year after he released a flurry of documents showing the National Security Agency was collecting data on everyone from foreign leaders to U.S. citizens, Edward Snowden is still the predominant Washington story in the minds of tech executives who believe the controversy has caused damage to their businesses. That's according to the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who said in a wide-ranging interview Monday that Silicon Valley's repeated meetings with the Obama administration were mostly for show and have produced "not even a little" progress on privacy and surveillance issues. Chief executives from leading companies including Netflix, Google and Facebook met with senior White House officials in December, and again in March. While the Obama administration said at the time that the meetings helped clear the air on intelligence reforms, Andreessen argued Monday that the White House has not done enough to mitigate the NSA's impact on tech companies' reputations, particularly overseas. "The level of trust in U.S. companies has been seriously damaged, especially but not exclusively outside the U.S.," said Andreessen. "Every time a new shoe drops — and there are 10,000 of them — it serves a blow to the U.S." Some estimates suggest the news about the NSA's surveillance practices may have cost tech companies tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue. In January, Obama announced a series of proposed changes to the NSA's surveillance practices. They included requiring the spy agency to seek permission from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court every time it wants to investigate U.S. phone records. They also put limits on what the NSA is allowed to do with the results. But it was Congress, not the White House, that voted recently to allow companies to talk more openly about the data requests they receive from the government, and to end the practice of bulk phone records collection altogether. Meanwhile, a major privacy study that the Obama administration announced in January, along with the other NSA reforms that came out earlier this month, only seemed to gloss over the controversy that led to to study's creation. Consumer advocates were quick to criticize the report's focus on commercial data gathering at the expense of government surveillance. "Although the report may have been silent on government use of big data for intelligence gathering, we won’t be," the Electronic Frontier Foundation


Brendan Brazier’s new ‘Thrive Energy Cookbook’ urges athletes to consider a vegan diet

be better at it.” By choosing the right ingredients, such as leafy greens, legumes and quinoa, it’s possible to alleviate stress, boost energy levels and improve mental clarity, he says. “Athletes once thought it didn’t matter what they ate because they wouldn’t get fat. And that was true,” Brazier says. But now they’ve learned, he adds, that there’s more to fueling up than calories alone. Just because Brazier has scaled back his personal athletic pursuits, it’s still a lot of work to keep up with him. He’s created Vega (myvega.com), a line of plant-based protein snack bars, shakes and supplements. He and Karan have teamed up to open Thrive Energy Lab (thriveenergylab.com), a juice bar and cafe in Waterloo, Ontario, where customers can enjoy several of the dishes featured in the new cookbook. Two more Canadian locations are in the works, and Brazier hopes to bring the concept to the U.S. soon. And in March, he launched Thrive (mythrivemag.com), a quarterly magazine with vegan recipes and celebrity interviews. “It’s written for a type of person: high achievers,” says Brazier, who notes that American soccer star Landon Donovan is on the cover of the June issue. Brazier is also thinking about goals: Last month he met in D.C. with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and “Let’s Move!” executive director Sam Kass about piloting a fitness and nutrition program in Gabbard’s district. That sounds like a much better idea than seed-crust pizza. CUCUMBER, AVOCADO & MINT SOUP Ingredients 1 ripe avocado, peeled 1⁄4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice 1 small clove garlic, chopped Small handful of fresh mint leaves, torn, leaving some for garnish 1⁄2 teaspoon cumin powder Small handful of fresh cilantro leaves, torn 1⁄4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1⁄2 teaspoon sea salt 1 cup coconut milk Pinch of chili powder 1 teaspoon green onion, for garnish Fresh mint leaves, for garnish Makes Six Servings Combine cucumber, avocado, lime juice, garlic, ¾ of the mint, cumin, cilantro, pepper and sea salt in blender and puree. Add coconut milk and lightly blend, adjusting salt if needed. Serve chilled in bowls and top with a pinch of chili powder and green onions. Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint. Drizzle with coconut milk for a beautiful contrast. Reprinted with permission from “Thrive Energy Cookbook” ($23, Da Capo Press) by Brendan Brazier You might also enjoy: Celadon Spa owner suggests sunscreens for summer exercise


The Switchboard: Mt. Gox is being investigated for possible ties to Silk Road

Bitcoin trader Kolin Burges, right, of London and American Aaron (only his first name was given) hold protest signs as they conduct a sit-in in front of the office tower housing Mt. Gox in Tokyo Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014. (AP Photo/Kaori Hitomi) Published every weekday, the Switchboard highlights five tech policy stories you need to read. Bitcoin exchanges probed over shuttered drug market. For Do Not Call violations, Sprint will pay FCC $7.5M in largest ever settlement. AT’s lobby force seeks redemption. Weather forecast: WiFi storms make meteorologists look mad. Why you shouldn't freak out about AT buying DirecTV.


Morning Links: NYPD civilian review board to investigate citizens-recording-cops incidents

- The National Security Agency is exploiting Drug Enforcement Administration exemptions to foreign wiretapping laws to collect the phone calls made by entire countries. - The founder of Lavabit encrypted e-mail explains how the FBI and federal government forced him to shut down his company. - More small towns will join the MRAP parade: Brimfield, Ohio (population: 3,200); Mission, Tex. (population: 80,500); Caldwell, Idaho (population: 47,700); Christian County, Mo. (population: 80,000); and Sumter County, S.C. (population: 108,000). Note that though police officials in each article cite mass shootings and other emergency situations as justification for acquiring the vehicles, the last article notes that the first mission for the sheriff’s department’s new toy was a drug raid. - It now seems certain that the Justice Department lied to the Supreme Court. It also seems certain that little will come of it. - New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board will look into incidents in which NYPD cops have interfered with a citizen’s right to record them. - Baltimore police officials “freeze out” a reporter after a series of critical stories. - From the files of “I can’t believe this needs to be said”: Attorney General Eric Holder criticizes the routine use of solitary confinement on children.


Management issues at VA, other agencies draw response from Congress

spurred by government management controversies. The House bill originally was designed as a response to concerns about the quality of care and the backlog of veterans disability claims at the VA but gained new backing with the recent investigations into whether the department’s reporting practices hid delays in care. The House earlier voted, as part of a veterans benefits bill and more recently as an amendment to a broader spending bill, to disallow senior executive bonuses at VA for five years. Also gaining new impetus after recent revelations — in this case, a report finding that the IRS had paid bonuses to some of its own employees with tax compliance problems — is a bill to require the firing of current federal employees who are seriously delinquent on their tax debt, as well as to bar such persons from being initially hired. That bill, up for a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, would apply to those who have had a tax lien placed against them, unless they are making required payments under a settlement or if they have requested relief as an innocent spouse. The House last year passed a similar bill, although not by a wide enough margin under the special rules the House used to vote on measure. Also before the Senate panel is a bill to overhaul overtime practices at Customs and Border Protection, following investigations into payment of “administratively uncontrollable” overtime, worth up to 25 percent of salary, as a routine practice even if the job apparently did not demand additional hours of work. Under the bill, Border Patrol agents could annually choose to work 80, 90 or 100 hours per biweekly pay period as a regular schedule, with eligibility for overtime or compensatory time off for additional work varying with the option chosen. A third measure before the panel would address procedures for granting and maintaining security clearances for both federal employees and contractor employees, a response to incidents that raised concerns about the quality of background checks and about the high number of clearance holders. The measure would mandate new guidance on whether a position requires a security clearance, determinations that would have to be reexamined at least every five years. It also would require the firing of any employee whom the Office of Personnel Management determines was intentionally involved in misconduct affecting the integrity of a background investigation.


‘Hobby Lobby, corporate law, and the theory of the firm’

manage the corporation “in a manner consistent with Biblical principles” they unanimously share. Courts and commentators have often characterized such a closely held corporation as a “chartered partnership,” “incorporated partnership,” or “a corporation de jure and a partnership de facto.” [Moreover,] corporate law now provides methods for contracting around the potential separation of ownership from control that characterizes large publicly held corporations. Far from excluding shareholders from control of an artificial entity, these tools grant shareholders the same prerogatives as owners of noncorporate enterprises like partnerships…. Indeed, Delaware expressly empowers shareholders to employ these devices to “treat the corporation as if it were a partnership…. To be sure, shareholders of such “incorporated partnerships” would still retain limited liability… and the firms themselves would continue to enjoy entity status…However, any claim that these attributes preclude use of the corporate form to further shareholders’ religion does not withstand analysis… Many synagogues, churches, and mosques are also incorporated. Like for-profit corporations, they are “artificial legal entities.” Many also have members who, like shareholders, enjoy limited liability… [E]ven the Obama Administration admits that non-profit “religious corporation[s]” could be RFRA persons. … Nothing in the rationale for limited liability, furthermore, provides a reason for limiting the ability of a firm’s owner to use the corporation as a vehicle for religious activity. … Metaphors aside, whether a particular shareholder’s personal assets (if any) are available to satisfy the firm’s creditors seems normatively irrelevant to shareholders’ ability to infuse corporations with their religious values…. [L]imited liability is economically indistinguishable from other institutions that limit a debtor’s liability… [and should not]…deprive shareholders and corporations of rights under RFRA. What about the corporation’s status as an artificial entity? As others have explained, entity status is simply a legal fiction that facilitates transacting and the assertion of legal rights by an enterprise that aggregates the capital of multiple investors. Thus, entity status mimics any number of institutional mechanisms that reduce transaction costs and thus facilitate commercial activity. … [T]he state’s creation of a useful institutional device does not forestall individuals from employing that device to exercise religion…. [T]he scholars’ [amicus] brief raises the specter of corporations manufacturing fictitious religious identities to obtain regulatory exemptions. They write, “Companies suffering a competitive disadvantage will simply claim a ‘Road to Damascus’ conversion. A company will adopt a board resolution asserting a religious belief inconsistent with whatever regulation they find obnoxious ….” This concern


‘Dancing With the Stars’ finale: Everyone’s favorite couple wins the trophy

the same question. “I want to ravage her and have ice skating, big, Russian, mean babies. We’ll call them Boris and Oleg,” he deadpanned. “Their nicknames are going to be ‘Bear.’ Just have one nickname for both.” Apparently Maks wasn’t aware those weird comments would be televised because he was several shades of red when the camera showed him and Meryl standing near co-host Erin Andrews. “I want to go on the record I have no desire to name my kids Boris and Oleg,” he protested. “No disrespect to Borises and Olegs.” But Andrews wasn’t going to let awkwardness go to waste on live TV. “I love this idea, what do you think of it?” she asked Meryl. “Having babies with Maks?” “I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Meryl muttered as Maks tried to escape. Andrews changed the subject to their upcoming fusion dance (fox trot and cha cha), but Maks couldn’t help himself when asked if he had ever done a fusion dance before. “I fused other things together, but never two dances,” he said, eyebrows raised. Poor Meryl tried to run away before Andrews could ask any more questions. “Be looking for Maks in our special summer series, ‘The Blushin’ Russian!'” co-host Tom Bergeron chimed in. Anyway there were lots of other moments packed in the finale, with random performances (Iggy Azalea, Adriana Grande, Christina Perri) in addition the Top 3 couples final dances. Candace Cameron Bure, Mark Ballas (Adam Taylor/ABC) Third place finishers Candace and Mark have had a bit of a rocky journey (plagued by injuries and emotions running high), and the judges seemed less than enthusiastic about their samba/quickstep. So many backhanded compliments! “You have been truly the dark horse of this whole competition,” Len told Candace. “Sometimes not top of the leaderboard, but I tell you, you’re top with the fans.” Meanwhile, the judges raved as runners-up Amy and Derek went out on a high note with an impressive cha cha/tango fusion. “You are a fantastic dancer,” Len told Amy. Bruno agreed: “Your dancing is right up there with the best — and your unbreakable spirit, determination, has been a lesson tonight for us all and all of America.” RELATED READING Amy Purdy’s bionic grace on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ ‘Dancing With the Stars’ finale, plagued with injuries, turns into Meryl and Maks lovefest ‘DWTS’ premiere: Ranking the contestants (and Erin Andrews)


Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams to open a dog-friendly store in Tysons this week

Bob Williams and Mitchell Gold plan to open a flagship store in Tysons Galleria. Furniture retailer Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams is heading to Tysons Galleria, where the company plans to open a 10,000-square-foot, dog-friendly location on Friday. The flagship store will be near the mall’s Macy’s entrance. Treats will be on-hand for four-legged visitors, and pet owners can pick up matching sofas for themselves and their dogs. Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams has a store on 14th Street NW, but executives say the newest outpost will help nab business from upscale shoppers in Fairfax County and the suburbs. “This is a very important location for us,” Mitchell Gold said in a statement. “Being able to secure a location in the Tysons Galleria is like getting accepted to the finest Ivy League university in the country.” In the meantime, Tysons Galleria is getting at least one more highly-anticipated brand: Saint Laurent makes its debut at the mall Wednesday.


Marc Andreessen: In 20 years, we’ll talk about Bitcoin like we talk about the Internet today

(Joi Ito) The investor and Web browser pioneer Marc Andreessen thinks we'll all look back in 20 years and conclude that Bitcoin was as influential a platform for innovation as the Internet itself was. He says that tech companies think their meetings with President Obama on privacy are a waste of time. And he calls net neutrality a "lose-lose." In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post this week, Is there anything that Washington has built a wall against in terms of progress? Well, the big thing right now for the tech industry is the Snowden revelations, and the consequences of that for the American tech industry. Specifically, in two areas: One is that the level of trust that customers have [in] American tech companies has been seriously damaged. And that is especially — but not exclusively — true outside the United States. Every time another revelation comes out, like the one this weekend about hijacking the routers on their way out of the country, or the one about hacking into the Internet companies' backbone networks — every time one of these shoes drops, and apparently there is just an unlimited number of shoes — every time one of these things happens, it's a serious blow to the credibility of these companies, especially outside the U.S. And so there's a really big, I mean very, very, very high level of concern in the Valley that the American tech industry is in trouble outside the U.S. And then, two is this balkanization of the Internet that's happening now. As more revelations happen, more and more countries are saying: "Okay, if we can't trust the Internet, if the NSA is going to watch everybody on the Internet all the time, we're going to have to break off and have our own Internet. Have our own firewalls, do what the Chinese do, have our own private Internet or whatever the hell it's going to be." This issue is being used as political cover for what these countries want to do anyway. That brings us to, "Okay, how is the American government getting in front of this?" And the answer is, "Not even a little bit." The view in the Valley is that the White House has hung the NSA out to dry. Just like, "You're on your own." And there's basically no effective communication right now that I'm aware of between the


Twitter recap: #AftertheWars panel discussion exploring the effects of recent war

David Finkel, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Caitlin Thompson, Todd Bowers and Greg Jaffe discuss the issues facing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at The Washington Post. Earlier tonight, The Washington Post hosted a Behind the Headlines panel discussion about its multi-part After the Wars series. The discussion was moderated by National Enterprise Editor David Finkel and featured reporters Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Greg Jaffe, as well as Todd Bowers, Military and Veteran Affairs Manager at JP Morgan Chase’s philanthropy office and formerly of the IAVA, and Dr. Caitlin Thompson, Deputy Director in Suicide Prevention at the Department of Veteran Affairs. We captured tweets from the discussion, and video will be available later this week. @DanLamothe while following the #AfterTheWars tweets and reading the WaPo piece I received an email from an employer looking to hire a vet! "Recent wars are challenging to cover...People don't feel a connection...More options for TV viewers, etc." -@rajivwashpost #AftertheWars . @GregJaffe says it was moving watch a VA employee work through list of wounded veteran's injuries w/ compassion. #afterthewars Nearly half of all #GWOT #veterans applied for disability in some way. More than any of our prior conflicts. #AfterTheWars @washingtonpost . @elisaslow describes spending time w/ isolated vet in Wyoming. "You make sure you're not regurgitating stereotypes." #afterthewars Large % of war wounds are not what we would typically think of - knees giving out, hip replacement, etc. - Finkel #AfterTheWars With social media, veterans of these conflicts cannot escape their connection to war. @ToddBowers #AfterTheWars @washingtonpost @WashPostPR @MFarenger @KaiserFamFound Heartbreaking– the vets I've known/know seem to be pretty adept at hiding such wounds too. =/ "I got lucky. I don't have a college degree, I was enlisted!" @ToddBowers #AfterTheWars @washingtonpost .@ToddBowers: Transition to civilian life should begin while in service #AftertheWars .@DeptVetAffairs noticing an uptick among 18-26 yr old vets struggling w/suicidal feelings -Dr. Caitlin Thompson #AfterTheWars .@rajivwashpost says he was skeptical #AfterTheWars project would be worth it. When he saw the numbers, though, he changed his mind. MollyAnn Brodie, Sr. Vice President at Kaiser Family Foundation, gave a presentation of poll findings: More than half of the 2.6 million service members who fought in Iraq & Afghanistan struggle with physical or mental #health #afterthewars #AfterTheWars event begins w/ rundown of stats. Major point: Despite stresses, 9 in 10 vets are proud of the service, would do so again. Almost half female #ServiceMembers say DoD isn't doing enough


The Switchboard: Google Fiber: We don’t do ‘fast lanes’

(AFP PHOTO / PHILIPPE HUGUENPHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images) Published every weekday, the Switchboard highlights five tech policy stories you need to read. At 11 a.m. Eastern Friday, join us in our weekly livechat, Switchback, where we'll be talking about the week's top tech news. The comment box is open, so submit your questions now. Who’s behind the last-minute push to thwart patent reform? Meet Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC swing vote. Obama backs new surveillance legislation, but tech companies reject. Google Fiber: we don’t charge for peering, don’t have fast lanes. Marc Andreessen: In 20 years, we'll talk about Bitcoin like we talk about the Internet today.


The shocking season finale of ‘The Americans’

off, a little bit. The routine beats are there, too, of course. While waiting for Fred to complete his mission, Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) share forbidden stories of their childhoods in the Soviet Union, anecdotes that serve as grim reminders of the failed promise of a socialist paradise. In disguise as Clark, Philip continues his slow filleting of Martha’s (Alison Wright) heart by reaffirming for her that he can never have children, one gesture of many this year that seems designed to persuade her to end this facade on her own. And Andrew Larrick (Lee Tergesen), when he confronts the couple, tells them bitterly that “I didn’t start it. You forced me to do all of these things. Then, when it’s finally over, you take the last thing that I give you and use it to kill my brothers.” But there are two clear major plot lines that “Echo” spends most of its time on. In the first, Stan (Noah Emmerich) decides that he cannot save Nina (Annet Mahendru, hopefully not gone from the show for good), knowing that she will be sent back to the Soviet Union, tried and probably executed. All season, the show has shot Nina’s Rezidentura lover Oleg (Costa Ronin) with portraits of Lenin in the background of their conversations, and that motif occurs again in a beautifully filmed, but wordless, sequence. That same portrait of Lenin is framed in the door as Nina prepares, showing great dignity as Oleg averts his eyes from her. This time, it’s Nina framed facing the same direction as Lenin, this image of the ideals of the Soviet Union acting as a terrible echo of the reality in front of him. When Oleg rises for a last glimpse of Nina, she pauses, this time in front of a poster of Lenin, with the man looking in the opposite direction that Nina is headed. We see Oleg framed against the picture of Lenin, both men facing in the same direction, before Oleg turns away. All season, Oleg has been portrayed as a very particular sort of hard man, someone whose connections and skills in service of the Soviet Union meant that he could afford a certain laxness, a fondness for bad American hockey and great American pop and soul music. But this is the fall of his belief in the system in a single sequence, the parallels between


Would an ICC referral have helped Syria?

Vitaly Churkin (C), Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, votes against a resolution calling for the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged war crimes in Syria (Justin Lane/EPA) Russian and Chinese vetoes this morning foreclosed the possibility that the United Nations Security Council would refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. This was not a surprise. Russia had announced earlier this week that it would veto the resolution. But although the likelihood of an ICC investigation was always slim, its mere possibility triggered another round of discussions about the Court’s role in ongoing conflicts worldwide. The ICC was created to ensure that the architects of mass atrocity do not escape punishment. Over time, the Court became associated with other goals, in particular, prevention. Its first prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, often emphasized this role, saying explicitly: “My mission is to end impunity for these crimes in order to contribute to the prevention of future crimes. So the goal is prevention here. That is the mission.” How exactly prosecuting a handful of abusive leaders might reduce the rate of atrocity crimes is unclear. One frequently cited possibility is that trials will produce general deterrence; in this scenario, potential committers of mass atrocity, observing the convictions of others, will decide that war crimes don’t pay. In my 2013 International Journal of Transitional Justice article, I argue that this is not plausible; deterrence depends on the certainty and severity of punishment. ICC prosecutions are too infrequent and the punishments too mild to affect the decision calculus of perpetrators who use violence against civilians for tactical advantage. But deterring possible war criminals is not the only way the ICC might positively affect situations of ongoing violence. Cheerleaders for the Court say that prosecutions can remove offenders from the field of combat and stigmatize those who might otherwise secure support for abusive behavior. Even if accused war criminals like Omar al-Bashir escape arrest, this argument goes, their marginalization, through travel restrictions and “naming and shaming,” is a verifiable effect of the issuance of ICC warrants. Skeptics question the operation of these mechanisms and suggest that exercises of international criminal justice can actually prolong violence. As Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri point out in “Trials and Errors”, prosecutions may foster perverse incentives to cling to power or avoid the negotiating table. For the last decade, these “peace vs. justice” debates have played out in the


New meteor shower may burst into meteor storm Friday night

Near Earth Asteroid Research telescope – hence LINEAR – run by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. The telescope is located in Socorro, New Mexico and funded by the United States Air Force and NASA. It’s a serious mission – to find asteroids that threaten to hit the Earth. Cooke explained that astronomers calculated Comet 209P/LINEAR’s orbit and found that it returns about every five years in an orbit between the sun and Jupiter. Astronomers have traced it back to 1703. “We don’t know what the meteor shower’s intensity will be,” he says. “If Comet 209P/LINEAR was a poor producer of debris, we’ll see nothing. But if the comet was more active 200 or 300 years ago, we’ll see a decent show. What happens this Saturday morning was determined a few hundred years ago.” On Comet 209P/LINEAR’s current orbit, the comet passed the sun (perihelion) on May 6 and it will pass within about 5 million miles of Earth on May 29 – at a substantially dim 11th magnitude, beyond the visible range of the human eye. It will be a telescopic object. Why hasn’t the Earth run into these meteors before? Cooke explains that thanks to the planet Jupiter’s gravitational pull, the comet’s debris trail is intersecting the Earth’s orbit for the first time. Cooke says there are new meteor showers found fairly often, but with falling star rates so low “that even an experienced observer would not notice them. New showers with rates of tens or hundreds per hour are very rare,” he says. Video overview of shower from NASA: ScienceCasts: NASA on the Lookout for a New Meteor Shower The Naval Observatory’s Chester explains that photographers with a digital SLR camera can capture the shooting star glory. On a tripod, aim the SLR to the northern sky, above Polaris. Use a wide-angle lens, set the ISO to its highest rating. Set the shutter for a long exposure. The best part of this kind of cosmic light show is no experience is needed, only the willingness to step outside. “You don’t have to be an expert to enjoy the meteor shower,” says Greg Redfern, an astronomer with the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. “This shower favors North America – the one time when we luck out. We’re in a primetime burst window.” Live online guided tours Mostly clear skies are forecast for the D.C. area overnight Friday, but if the weather doesn’t


How New York used Yelp to find unreported cases of food poisoning

because most symptoms are usually not life threatening — the Centers for Disease Control report only 3,000 deaths out of 48 million food-related illnesses each year — many cases go unreported. In this case, only 3 percent of the 468 reviewers that indicated recent illnesses had actually been reported to the city using the “311” hotline. Yelp reviews may not always be the most timely – users are typically reviewing their experiences days or even weeks after their visit— but the system makes it easy to follow up, which proved to be a key component of this experiment. Using Yelp’s internal messaging system, epidemiologists reached out to about 129 suspected cases of scombroid poisoning, which typically results from eating bad seafood, or severe neurologic illness, which come with symptoms like numbness, tingling or hallucination. Most of those people never responded to requests for phone interviews, but after analyzing the ones who did, officials found evidence of three separate outbreaks that has never been reported. Sixteen people had gotten sick from contamination in either house salad, shrimp and lobster cannelloni, or macaroni and cheese spring rolls at city restaurants. That may not sound like a lot, but on average, health officials receive 3,000 calls a year to the 311 tip line, reporting potential outbreaks. They follow up with all of those people, and identify on average about 30 outbreaks a year, Balter said. With this pilot program, Yelp becomes the latest company to use its massive stores of user provided data to aid public health officials in tracking down unreported outbreaks of illnesses and disease. Google’s flu tracking service offers the promise of using its search data to estimate flu activity across the country — though that program is far from perfect. And researchers at Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University found that Twitter offers the same promise of helping public health officials estimate the concentration of a flu outbreak, as its happening. The technology is already improving. Each time the software successfully identifies a potential outbreak, that information is used to make the search more accurate. Yelp is now providing data to New York health officials on a daily basis, which can speed up the investigation process and increase the likelihood that reviewers will participate in the process. And they are also exploring using other sites like Twitter to collect data on potential outbreaks. [This post has been updated.]


Craft beers crash the party at Maryland, Delaware beaches

produced at Baltimore's Peabody Heights Brewery, but the five on tap at Hooper's still come from the nanobrewery. Our favorites included the Jackspot, an amber ale with caramel and nutty flavors, and the Blackfin Black IPA, where the roasted malt gets some citrus flavor from the hops. Hooper's has been a fixture in West Ocean City for more than three decades; its barnlike structure has an airplane hanging from the ceiling, an authentic NASCAR racecar in the dining room and life-size statues of the Blues Brothers on a platform above diners' heads. The all-you-can-eat crabs are a big draw, and this isn't really the sort of place to get a flight of beers. But don't miss the "Stadium Cup Special": Buy a 22-ounce plastic cup of Fin City beer for $6, and subsequent refills are $2.50. That deal proves tough to beat at any bar, unless you're a big fan of the 75-cent Natty Light drafts at Fish Tales on Wednesday nights. 7. Backshore Brewing Co. 913 Atlantic Ave., Ocean City, Md. 443-373-1224. www.facebook.com/Backshore. Best for Beer to drink on your beach house porch Beer to impress your beer-snob friends Hours You're not going to beat the view from the patio at Backshore Brewing: Situated right on Ocean City's boardwalk, the place offers a broad expanse of umbrella-studded beach and the Atlantic Ocean. The most in-demand seats are in a booth fashioned from an old VW bus - it's a great Instagram photo-op that provides a prime vantage point for people-watching. I enjoy the funky nature of this cramped storefront brewery: The half-dozen barstools are fashioned from old kegs, and the wooden boards on the bar top were once part of the boardwalk. Order a flight of four beers and you'll receive a vintage plastic skateboard with holes drilled into it to hold the glasses containing 5-ounce pours. Order all six of the rotating beers and the flight arrives in a wooden surfboard. But Backshore's beer is wildly inconsistent. When friends and I stopped in last summer, shortly after its April 2013 opening, our assessment was that the beers were okay - inoffensive, not particularly memorable, but a step up from the ubiquitous Miller Lite or Landshark. A trip in early May, though, was a disappointment. One of the six beers we tried was a Maerzen called Novemberfest, which tasted like it had been sitting in the tap lines all


Finding local beers at beach bars and growler stations

Sip a Burley Oak beer at the 45th Street Taphouse while enjoying the sunset views over Isle of Wight Bay. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) Breweries are the only places selling fresh local beer at the beach: You can find it at an increasing number of craft-focused beer bars, as well as liquor stores that fill growlers. • A guide to breweries in Delaware and on Maryland's Eastern Shore • Gallery: Look inside three cool brewpubs Beer bars Some people might want to try a few samples before leaving the beach to visit one particular brewery. Fortunately for those folks, a growing number of craft beer bars along Coastal Highway offer local brews on tap, allowing visitors to decide whether they'd get more bang for their buck by driving to Salisbury, Delmar or Milford. 45th Street Taphouse Bar Grille The Abbey Burger Bistro Pizza Tugo's Gary's Dewey Beach Grill Rehoboth Ale House The Pickled Pig Pub Growler stations Breweries aren't the only places where you can fill a growler at the beach: Delaware and Maryland both passed legislation in 2013 that allows certain liquor stores or bars to set up their own draft lines for beer to go. Regulations vary by county. Ocean City has no places filling growlers other than brewpubs. In the resort area of Delaware, only three liquor stores have the required licenses, and all three regularly update their draft lists online, so take a look before you go. Banks Wines and Spirits Beach Liquors


Why the world needs (and may get) a hoverbike

problem through the use of a bottom platform designed to blow out air through small strategically-placed vents. The drawback is that this tends to limit lift to no more than a few inches off the ground, particularly with smaller models. De Roche wouldn’t go into detail with how he resolved the issue, due to patent reasons, but explained that the latest version features a number of field-tested modifications, such as a shroud around the bottom of both front and back rotors, to ensure greater stability. It’s also designed to respond intuitively to shifts in the rider’s body positioning to precisely execute turns and changes in direction — all without the assistance of computer software, he says. “We wanted to build something where riders can fly without hesitation and worry, where it feels like you’ve been on it before the moment you hop on,” he adds. “So you’ve got a control interface that includes familiar components like handle bars and a seat that allows you to lean and tilt to navigate, so it’ll feel mostly like riding a motorcycle.” There are a few notable exceptions, however. For instance, braking requires the rider to pitch toward the back. And since the vehicle is floating on air, it’s more sensitive to the ebb and flow of wind forces. “You’ll have to develop an intuitive sense and learn to make little adjustments like lean harder into a turn if you’re going against the wind,” De Roche says. “For me, it’s rather thrilling because steering the vehicle this way feels like you are moving with the air.” Now before any joy riders who happen to have cash to burn get the itch to put down a deposit, De Roche stresses that the Aero-X is not street legal. And to avoid coming under the jurisdiction of the Federal Aviation Administration, which would require riders to obtain a pilot’s license, the bike’s altitude is limited to 12 feet or less. A commercial version, once ready, should fall into the same category as ATVs, which enables the aircraft to be operated in many states without restrictions, so long as it stays on private property. Currently, the company’s plan is to initiate flight tests by 2016 as they prepare to deliver the first units the year after. But as with many such futuristic endeavors, don’t be surprised if it never gets off the ground, despite evidence to the contrary.


VA problems a political issue in military-rich North Carolina

Veteran Affairs said that two Durham VA Medical Center employees have been put on administrative leave during investigations into a report that “some employees at that facility may have engaged in inappropriate scheduling practices at some point between 2009 and 2012.” Hagan also mentioned her efforts last year to address the backlog of disability claims at the Winston-Salem regional office, which brought VA Undersecretary of Benefits Allison Hickey there. The Tillis playbook has been and looks as though it will continue to be trying to link Hagan with Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, policies such as the Affordable Care Act, and problems like the current VA headlines. The latest Public Policy Polling survey shows the race, which could determine control of the U.S. Senate, a toss-up, with Tillis, Hagan and Obama all having higher unfavorable than favorable numbers. Much like Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is fighting Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, Hagan emphasizes her independence and home-state authenticity. Hagan, though, is an incumbent in a year when there is voter discontent. She so far has not called, as Grimes and the American Legion have, for the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. Hagan’s Website bio is more North Carolina than Washington. Besides mentioning her visits to the states’ bases and travel to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait to meet with North Carolina troops, it prominently features personal connections to the military, including a father-in-law who was a two-star Marine general, a father and brother who served in the Navy, and her husband, a Navy Vietnam veteran, who “attended Wake Forest Law School with help from the G.I. Bill.” In February of this year, Hagan sent a letter to Shinseki, requesting an update on the investigation into a breach of personal information on the VA eBenefits site. In the present, however, the VA investigations are progressing and citizens are looking for improvement and accountability. Politicians won’t be shy about weighing in or pointing fingers. For Tillis, nationalizing the election is his best hope, as the return of “Moral Monday” demonstrations have highlighted dissatisfaction with state policies on health care, education and voting restrictions. At the state legislature, recently initiated rules against any group making enough noise to interfere with conversation – which would include the clapping and singing common at past demonstrations – have been criticized as undemocratic. Will the VA investigation


New Horizons: On to Pluto! [Updated]

This post has been updated. I went to the 30th Space Symposium this week in Colorado Springs, which was quite the shindig, with lots of military brass and much talk of “disaggregation” and “resilience” and “hosted payloads” and so on — terms I’ll need to explain in future stories. One highlight was Alan Stern’s talk on New Horizons, the NASA probe going to Pluto. It’ll fly by the planet* on July 14, 2015. Stern is a former associate administrator at NASA for science, and he’s a great salesman for New Horizons, for which serves as principal investigator. Basically this is a better, smarter, faster version of Voyager, only it costs two dimes on the dollar in comparison, and there’s just the one probe instead of Voyager’s two. The modest price of New Horizons is important, because NASA is facing a future of constrained budgets, and you’re not going to be seeing many Cassinis anymore (Stern boasts that the entire New Horizons spacecraft suite of instruments weighs less than Cassini’s camera). The target is a planet that we’ve barely glimpsed. No one knows what it looks like up close. I know this may come as a shock to anyone who has Googled “Pluto” and seen all the high resolution images there. Sorry, those are illustrations (and in most cases not clearly labeled as such). The Hubble’s images of Pluto show a pixelated blob. New Horizons will begin achieving better-than-Hubble imagery of Pluto next April. I learned from Stern a bunch of Pluto facts: It has five moons — at least. They’ve found a couple of new ones just recently while keeping an eye out for hazards that may face New Horizons when it flies through the Pluto system. It has an atmosphere and is 70 percent rock, with an ice crust. Its eccentric orbit — which is at an angle to the orbital plane of the rest of the planets and brings Pluto at times within the orbit of Neptune — is normal for objects that far from the sun. We don’t know much about Pluto: “What we know about Pluto is what we knew about Mars before Mariner 4,” Stern said, referring to an early robotic fly-by of Mars in July 1965, precisely 50 years before the New Horizons encounter with Pluto. *Now to touch on the eternal question about Pluto: Is it a planet or a “dwarf planet”? The


Marc Andreessen came to chat with us this week. So should you.

He thought we were lovely. (Cecilia Kang / The Washington Post) It's been a big week in tech, and we know you want to talk it over. Join The Switch team today at 11 a.m. for a live discussion of the week's news -- USA Freedom Act, new Facebook features, Microsoft's Surface launch and any other burning tech questions you have before you head off for the long weekend. Submit you questions now and we'll be back to chat at 11 am: http://wapo.st/1lIEquv


Thanks to budget cuts, we may never know for sure why the universe is expanding

holes will soon find it just a little more difficult to do so. Bad news: The funding that supports such advanced particle physics research is drying up, threatening America's leadership role in international science. A series of budget scenarios laid out by the Department of Energy finds that if funding for high-energy particle experiments were frozen for the next three years, before it's then allowed to rise 3 percent a year thereafter, DoE would have to scale back some of its most important projects. These are studies that can potentially teach us about the most basic workings of the universe. The picture gets even grimmer under an alternative scenario that has DoE's budget for high-energy physics frozen for three years and rising for 2 percent every year after that. The difference, when you account for the various budgetary starting points for each scenario, amounts to about half a billion dollars over the next decade. Spread out like that, $500 million doesn't sound like much. But the constraints would be "precarious" for future energy research, warns the agency's Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5), which wrote the report. It would mean layoffs. It would mean scientists wouldn't be able to launch a next-generation study of dark matter, the stuff that's thought to be causing the universe to expand. The United States might even have to give up on the experiments that make it a leading contributor to science: It approaches the point beyond which hosting a large ($1B scale) project in the U.S. would not be possible while maintaining the other elements necessary for mission success, particularly a minimal research program, the strong leadership position in a small number of core, near-term projects, which produce a steady stream of important new physics results, and advances in accelerator technology. Without the capability to host a large project, the U.S. would lose its position as a global leader in this field, and the international relationships that have been so productive would be fundamentally altered. The situation may be even worse than P5 says. President Obama's proposed 2015 budget for high-energy physics doesn't keep funding flat but actually slashes it by 6.8 percent, according to the journal Nature. Budget fights are eternal, and everyone stands to lose something important when their funding gets cut. But high-energy physics is the kind of final-frontier stuff that inspires people to go into science in the first place.


After destroying Washington’s baseball team, Andrew McCutchen takes aim at Washington’s panda

(Justin K. Aller/Getty Images) Honestly, I’m not sure exactly what Andrew McCutchen is saying in this promo spot for MLB 14 The Show. “My wood-eating friends here may not know, but we’ve got players from all over the globe, and that’s why we call it the World Series,” McCutchen says while staring down one real panda and several stuffed ones.. “And since animals are in the world, I’m strongly suggesting they get their act together if they want to compete. It’s one thing to be on the Panda Cam; it’s a whole other thing to be in The Show.” And so on. Whatever. He can insult pandas. MLB 14 The Show I Andrew McCutchen Tells Pandas How It Is But then, in the video, the reigning NL MVP points his bat at the camera says this: “Baseball is better than Bao Bao.” You’re going to go after Bao Bao? After torching the Nats for 5 million games in a row? Sheesh. You can destroy our baseball team if you have to, but leave our poor panda alone. Death, taxes and Andrew McCutchen killing the Nats. McCutchen in 31 career games vs #Nats: .397/.459/.828. Plus, you know, 2 highlight-reel catches every night. (Via @therealSamWow)


The beverage curve: How to get the most buzz for your buck

honor of the long weekend, I think it's time to look at another metric for efficient drinking: the cost of a good buzz. Let's say you're hosting a Memorial Day barbecue for a bunch of your neighbors. You like most of them well enough to want them to have a good time. But let's be honest. You're not about to break out the Patron for that guy down the street who's always mowing his lawn at 5:30 AM. How do you maximize the overall buzz, while minimizing the impact on your checking account? Here's how: I took current liquor pricing data from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which sets prices for booze (excluding beer and wine) sold in the state's liquor stores. Their data file handily includes price, volume, and proof. I set a standard "shot equivalent" volume of alcohol, equal to the amount of pure alcohol in a 1.5-ounce shot of 40-proof liquor (roughly 17 ml). I then expressed the total pure alcohol amount in each product in terms of shot equivalents. So a 2 liter handle of 40-proof vodka contains about 45 shots' worth of alcohol, for instance. Divide this by the total cost to arrive at the measure of "shot equivalents per dollar" which I use throughout this piece. I treated beer and wine similarly, although for them I had to turn to online price listings maintained at totalwine.com. I excluded all seasonal, sale and out-of-stock items. I assigned each item's alcohol content according to standard ABV listings maintained at winefolly.com and beeradvocate.com. Beers were tricky in this regard--there is a wide variety of alcohol content in craft beers. I manually entered ABV for about 100 craft bears, and omitted all 750ml and 22oz beer packages from my sample, since these showed the highest amount of ABV variation. In sum, I ended up with a data file of about 5,000 alcoholic beverage products--2,000 wines, 800 beers, and roughly 2,200 liquors--with shot equivalents per dollar values for all of them. Plotting this measure against total price, as below, yields a nice-looking curve with the most cost-efficient beverages in the upper-left hand corner. Click through for an interactive version. Click for interactive version » per dollar Three for the road: Wonkblog: The Wonkblog guide to efficient drinking GovBeat: Alaska and Alabama are taxing booze hard GovBeat: What your favorite drink says about your politics, in one chart


Boom or bust? Brand new, buzz-worthy meteor shower tonight (FAQs)

will originate near the constellation Camelopardalis, which is near the North Star, but they could show up all over the sky. People in North America will have the best view. Why has no one seen it before? Jupiter’s gravity just recently pulled the comet’s debris into Earth’s orbit for the first time. The comet itself is so small and unobtrusive that astronomers didn’t see it until 2004, when a new, high-tech telescope detected it while scanning the skies for asteroids. Will clouds get in the way? For sky watchers in the D.C. area, we may have some partial interference from high clouds overnight, especially in the pre-dawn hours. Weather models suggest partial cloud cover at times (as much as 33 to 50 percent). Fewer clouds may be found just to our south into central Virginia. Simulated cloud cover at 2 a.m. Saturday morning from high resolution NAM model (WeatherBell.com) Nationally, viewing conditions should be good in the Southwest, Southeast, and Northern Plains. Viewing may be more challenging in the Northeast, Northwest, Southern Plains, and parts of the Rockies. Will light pollution get in the way? Only if you let it. Try to get away from city and street lights if you can. Rural locations will offer the clearest views. But even urban dwellers should be able to see some meteors by going to a nearby park or some place where stars are normally visible. Fortunately, the moon phase is waning crescent (just 18.6 percent illuminated) and it won’t rise until 3:14 a.m. – greatly reducing the amount of light from that source. Will these fall and hit us? According to NASA, the particles are sand-sized to begin with and will be vaporized long before they reach Earth. What if I blink? As meteors go, these are not in a hurry. They will be bright and will travel at about 12 miles per second — pedestrian compared to Perseid showers at 25 miles per second, and downright sloth-like compared to Leonid showers at 45 miles per second. Any tips for photographing the meteor shower? We don’t, but photographer Noel Chenier has some great tips on his blog here: NEW CAMELOPARDALIDS METEOR SHOWER FRIDAY NIGHT! Here’s how to photograph them! Sources: NASA, astronomer Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory; Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. CWG’s Jason Samenow contributed to this post.


Morning Plum: Afghanistan, the soon to be forgotten war

President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan yesterday, telling American troops that while “Afghanistan is still a very dangerous place,” they can take pride in what they’ve accomplished. “More Afghans have hope in their future, and so much of that is because of you.” As we honor the service members who gave their lives in all of America’s wars, it’s a good time to ask how we’ll look at the longest one we’ve ever fought. By the time we wind down our mission there at the end of this year, the Afghanistan war will have lasted over 13 years. Here’s a prediction, one I make with no pleasure: when we pull most of our troops out of the country later this year, most Americans will quickly try to forget Afghanistan even exists. Consider this: How much have you thought about Iraq lately? When the last U.S. troops left there in December 2011 after nearly nine years of war, the public was relieved that we could finally wash our hands of what was probably the worst foreign policy disaster in American history, with over 4,000 Americans dead (not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqis) and a couple of trillion dollars spent, all for a war sold on false pretenses. But unless you’ve been paying attention to the stories on the inside pages, you may not have noticed that Iraq is not exactly the thriving, peaceful democracy we hoped we would leave behind. The country is beset by factional violence; according to the United Nations, 7,818 Iraqi civilians were killed in attacks in 2013. No country in the world saw more terrorism. I’m not arguing that there’s much we can do about it now, or that we should have stayed. But as far as Americans are concerned, Iraq’s problems are now Iraq’s to solve, and most of us would rather just not think about it. We’ll be keeping troops in Afghanistan after the end of this year, to do targeted counterterrorism and training of Afghan forces. The number hasn’t yet been determined, but it will be small enough that we can say we’re no longer at war there. And for all we know today, things could turn out great. Perhaps the Afghan government will manage to clear itself of the corruption with which it has been infected, and perhaps the country will not be riven by factional violence. Perhaps we


What should the tea party do now?

Yesterday I noted that the tea party Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) addresses a crowd during a rally at the Western Republican Leadership Conference on April 25 in Sandy, Utah. (Rick Bowmer/Associated Press) As we will see tonight in Texas, in electoral politics the tea parties may still have victories in state elections in red states. That’s not a big sandbox, but it isn’t nothing. Reuters reports, “In the race for Lieutenant Governor, Tea Party favorite State Senator Dan Patrick took 41.5 percent of the vote in the four-candidate March primary, and is favored to win on Tuesday. The three-term incumbent, David Dewhurst, finished with 28 percent. The run-off race for state attorney general features a similar showdown, after Tea Party-backed State Senator Ken Paxton took 44 percent of the primary vote and State Representative Dan Branch won 34 percent.” Alternatively, the tea party might transform itself into a single-issue group. Whatever you think of one-issue politics, the right has a number of successful groups. On the right, the National Right to Life Committee and the National Rifle Association have been influential for years. Likewise, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform has reinforced the right’s no-tax-hike policy in election after election and in key budget standoffs. What issue could the tea party adopt? The ideal movement, missing on the right, would be one devoted entirely to anti-cronyism. It is a popular position on the right and among all voters. The removal of special goodies in the tax code and budget that distort the market and reward entities that can manipulate big government is sorely needed. And although Republicans talk a good game, there has been comparatively little progress on issues such as too-big-to-fail bank subsidies, energy tax breaks and ag subsidies. Moreover, the original issue that lifted the tea party to prominence was the mortgage bailouts, a prime example of favoritism (not only for irresponsible borrowers but also for the lenders). Devising a pledge as stringent as the no-tax-hike pledge to stop new crony capitalism endeavors and to begin rooting out existing ones would be one way to approach the issue. The worst-kept secret on the right is that the tea party doesn’t have issues or positions distinguishable from the GOP. An anti-cronyism crusade would be distinct, a counterweight to the influence of big business and a contribution to fiscal discipline and limited government. It is already a key issue for


Otters play keyboard at National Zoo

Forget about Keyboard Cat - the Smithsonian National Zoo released video of Asian otters banging away at a keyboard like pros as part of a program to give the animals stimulating environments. A handful of Asian small-clawed otters brushed up on their music skills as they played keyboard at the Smithsonian National Zoo. In a video, put out by the Smithsonian National Zoo, the critters reached their small paws through their cages to reach the keyboard. Zoo officials said playing music helps the animals to work on their sight, touch and hearing. It is part of the “enrichment program” for animals at the zoo that involves apes playing with apps on iPads and pandas painting. Zoo officials said the enrichment program is meant to give animals “physically and mentally stimulating activities and environments.” The otters have access to the keyboard about twice a month. Young lions get “husbandry training” as part of their enrichment program. The cubs are “trained to open their mouths, show their paws and practice receiving vaccinations on cue,” zoo officials wrote in an e-mail. This Saturday, May 31, from 10 a .m. to 2 p.m. is “ Enrichment Day” at the zoo, when visitors can see animal demonstrations up close. How did the otters sound on the keyboard? Lots of squeaking, and it was hard to make out exactly what they were playing.


We’re finally leaving Afghanistan. Soon, anyway.

Obama will make a statement about the American future in Afghanistan. According to a description from a senior administration official, Obama “will announce that our combat mission will be over by the end of 2014.” If a Bilateral Security Agreement is signed with the winner of the upcoming Afghan election, “at the beginning of 2015, we will have 9,800 U.S. service members in different parts of the country, together with our NATO allies and other partners. By the end of 2015, we would reduce that presence by roughly half, consolidating U.S. troops in Kabul and on Bagram Airfield. And one year later, by the end of 2016, we will draw down to a normal Embassy presence with a security assistance office in Kabul, as we have done in Iraq.” Nine thousand eight hundred troops is still a substantial number; we didn’t reach that much troop strength until we had already been in Afghanistan for nearly a year, and the most we’ve had there at any one time is 100,000 (I detailed that and some other relevant facts on things like spending and casualties here). It’s clear that one way or another, we’re leaving. President Obama seems determined to bring all our troops home before he leaves office. He’s no doubt acutely aware that even though he campaigned in 2008 on shifting resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, the American public lost their taste for this war some time ago. However, this will be a gradual departure over the course of a couple of years. Hopefully the troops that remain will be able to help the Afghan government reach the point where it can provide security and stability without us. Hopefully. But Afghanistan is already the longest war in American history. Come October, Americans will have been fighting and dying there for 13 years. What’s more, we don’t know what will happen if there’s a bloody struggle for power as we begin drawing down. Are the Taliban or some other faction going to target American personnel, on the theory that if they raise the cost of our presence, it will make us more likely to leave completely, thereby making it easier to overthrow the government? It’s always possible. Perhaps we’ll look back and call the end of this year the end of the war, but with thousands of troops remaining there for another two years, it might still look like a war.


Zapping tumors with electric current: This sci-fi therapy works as well as chemo, with few side effects

field through the tumors, have somewhat better survival rates, according to the study that will be presented at the conference. But the major benefit for people with this form of cancer is that the therapy has few side-effects, in contrast to the debilitating problems associated with chemotherapy and radiation, according to Eilon Kirson, chief scientific officer for NovoCure, which markets the device. It "allows them to live at home, to continue normal, daily life," Kirson said. "They don't have to be in the hospital. They don't have to be connected to it all the time." The current interferes with the replication of the cancer cells, which die when they can't divide and grow (cell mitosis, for those of you who remember high school biology.). Patients can take the laptop-sized device home and wear it as much as they want — even 24 hours a day, Kirson said. Eighteen hours a day seems to be the critical threshold that helps extend lives, he said. The current, one to three volts per centimeter at a frequency of 200 kilohertz, is delivered through wires that are taped to the patient's head. The most common side-effect was skin irritation, though about 10 percent of the 457 patients studied experienced neurological disorders and smaller groups had sensations of heat, electricity or a headache, according to a summary of the research. Animal studies showed no long-term side-effects, Kirson said. Perhaps more promising, Kirson said, 14 percent saw their tumors shrink by half, and in 3 percent, the tumors disappeared. Twenty percent survived for a year, he said. This has led the company to begin experimenting with use of the device in newly-diagnosed glioblastomas and a common form of lung cancer, both in combination with chemotherapy. The use of electric fields on tumors is the brainchild of Yoram Palti, a former physiologist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, who founded NovoCure to market the device. Palti theorized that at a critical time in cell division, the electric field could interrupt the process without harming healthy tissue or stimulating nerves, Kirson said. Recurrent glioblastomas were a good choice for the first application of the device because those cancer patients have no other options besides surgery, the cancer rarely spreads beyond the brain and regulatory agencies like to try out new therapies on diseases that will otherwise soon result in death. "The aim," Kirson said, "is to lengthen life."


Krakow withdraws 2022 Olympic bid after residents vote ‘no’

very important for the development of the whole region.” The Polish city’s decision to end the bid also dashes the dreams of the country’s neighbor, Slovakia, which was slated to also host some of the events, as well. It seems likely one of the big reasons for the voters’ objections was the idea of corruption, an issue that already reared its head in the Eastern European town. The AP writes: “The candidacy was rocked in April when bid leader Jagna Marczulajtis-Walczak resigned following allegations her husband offered money to journalists in return for favorable stories. Majchrowski said that under the leadership of Marczulajtis-Walczak the previous bid team had ‘squandered’ the popular trust and backing for the project, while the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk did not show sufficient enthusiasm.” No doubt, recent experiences of widespread allegations of corruption in both Sochi, Russia, which hosted this year’s Winter Olympics, and Rio de Janeiro, which is slated to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, may have also weighed heavy on voters’ minds as they went to the polls. This means there are just four remaining cities in the running for the 2022 games: Oslo, Norway; Lviv, Ukraine; Almaty, Kazakhstan; and Beijing. But some of those cities, too, are facing their own problems. Lviv’s problem is obvious. Lviv is located in Ukraine, which is currently in political turmoil. Oslo’s bid is also not without issue. A large number of that city’s residents have voiced their opposition, including one of the two political parties that make up the country’s coalition government. The problem is money, said Atle Simonsen, the head of the dissenting party’s youth wing, via Norway’s The Local last month: “Believing that the Oslo Olympics would cost under 50 billion kroner ($8.4 billion) is like believing in Santa Claus, when the Sochi Olympics cost 500 billion [kroner or $84 billion, an exaggeration — Sochi’s costs hovered around $50 billion]. NPR writes “The International Olympic Committee pits one city against another. In each city, construction and architecture firms that stand to profit from the games push local leaders to make higher bids and more ambitious plans.”You have cities putting out their enormously complicated and elaborate plan to do everything and more than the IOC ever asked for,” says Andy Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. “And so the cards are stacked against any host city.” Good luck, Almaty!


Covering only a part of war

Afghan security forces investigators are pictured through the wreckage of a burnt car at the scene of a suicide bombing in the Sarobi district of Kabul province Feb. 21, 2014 (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images). Most of what we know about today’s wars we learn from the media. Conflict and violence are a firm part of the daily stream of information we consume. No incident, wherever it occurs, is too small to be reported straight to our screens at home. For conflict researchers, the advent of the information age should be good news: It has now become possible to produce detailed data collection on violence at unprecedented levels of detail and speed. If we believe this, we flatly ignore generations of media research that attest to the strong presence of bias and selectivity in media-reported information. So, is this really the data source we as researchers should be relying on? Can we assume that the event lists we generate are anywhere close to what is happening on the ground? With a growing number of event data projects in political science, this is a question scholars cannot ignore. There are two potential issues. First, reporting in the international news may be selective, in the sense that it covers some events but not others. Second, information in news reports may be inaccurate or simply false, making the coding based on these reports unusable for scientific analysis. My recent paper in the Journal of Conflict Resolution addresses the latter question by taking advantage of the rare chance to compare media-based conflict events with another data set from a non-media source. The recent availability of detailed military reports from conflict regions provides this unique opportunity to conduct a comparison between media-reported accounts of violence and versions of these events as recorded by military forces. For the latter, I use data from 2008 to 2009 from the Significant Activities (SIGACTS) military database for Afghanistan, which was collected by U.S. and Coalition forces. These incidents were matched with a set of events extracted from international news media by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s Georeferenced Event Dataset (GED) project. The GED usually relies on more sources than news media, but the preliminary Afghanistan coding that was made available to me only includes news media reports. For the years 2008 and 2009, the matched dataset contains 1,077 pairs of events of lethal violence between Taliban militants and Coalition forces. I