One of the most expensive homes in D.C. sells after less than six months on the market

(Photo credit: Long & Foster/Christie’s International Real Estate) Sticker shock? What sticker shock? After just six months on the market, the Fessenden House — Giant Food heir Samuel Lehrman’s 20,000-square-foot Forest Hills manse — has gone under contract. The home was listed in March for $22 million, making it one of the most expensive in the area. Calls to listing agent Nancy Itteilag of Long & Foster Real Estate, an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate, have not been returned, but back in March she said the home appealed to multi-generational families (think Kennedys) who want privacy. Often home buyers with pockets this deep like to remain anonymous until the sale is final, and the luxury moving trucks pull into the driveway. [Textile Museum sells historic Kalorama properties for $19 million] In the past few months several of Washington’s highest priced homes have sold. The Textile Museum, which was also listed for $22 million, sold in May for $19 million to an undisclosed buyer. The two S Street buildings that housed the museum had previously sat on the market for two years. $22 million seemed like an impossibly aspirational sticker price. In July, philanthropist Adrienne Arsht bought her friend, the late venture capitalist Melvyn J. Estrin‘s Massachusetts Avenue Heights home for $15.5 million, $1 million below asking. The Estrin house, which sits just a block away from the British Embassy, was the second most expensive listing in the area, ranking third behind Fessenden and the Textile Museum.


Beefsteak is now open in Dupont Circle

Nearly as soon as he opened the doors to his first fast-casual restaurant this spring, José Andrés revealed that a second Beefsteak location was in the works. And true to the chef-restaurateur's word, the Dupont Circle outpost of the vegetable-driven -- not strictly vegetarian -- spot marks it grand opening Tuesday. [Beefsteak review: Making vegetables bright, beautiful — and fast] The Frida Kale salad at Beefsteak. (Scott Suchman for The Washington Post) The new Beefsteak follows the same formula as the original that opened in March in Foggy Bottom: Composed or build-your-own grain and vegetable bowls topped with a variety of sauces and other garnishes. Omnivores can choose to add chicken, salmon or an egg to their meal as well. A new fall menu is in the works. [Are vegetables the new bacon? José Andrés and other chefs think so.] Beefsteak's next location will be outside of the District, following in the footsteps of homegrown quick-service chains such as Cava Grill, Sweetgreen and ShopHouse. Beefsteak at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is scheduled to open in the spring of 2016. But that's not all for the peripatetic Andrés, whose ThinkFoodGroup portfolio also includes restaurants in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and Miami. As the Washington Business Journal reported, Andrés will be opening a new concept in October in Mexico City. So, you know, not much going on for him these days. Beefsteak, 1528 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-986-7597. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. beefsteakveggies.com. Related items: Beefsteak review: Making vegetables bright, beautiful — and fast José Andrés is already planning to open a second Beefsteak Beefsteak's tomato 'burger' is summer in sandwich form Are vegetables the new bacon? José Andrés and other chefs think so. Chipotle wannabes find D.C. the perfect place for have-it-your-way cuisine


GOP figures out key to handling Ted Cruz

side — you had Leader McConnell, you had Whip Cornyn, you had Senator Alexander, you had Senator Cochran — those four senators voted no.'”(As an aside, Lee’s inability to break from Cruz’s hold should concern his Utah constituents, as should his continued opposition to tough anti-terrorism measures such as the National Security Agency. Surely Utah Republicans can find a challenger who would promote the state’s interests, not Cruz’s.) This raises the question: What took them so long? McConnell and his troops have learned that Cruz’s no-endgame plans are designed to make him into a martyr and them into the subject of his venom. They are not going to indulge him any longer. The result was a pathetic spectacle — Cruz alone, trying desperately to get attention. The Texas Tribune observed: “In an hour-long speech on a nearly empty Senate floor that ended when he could not gain permission to continue, the state’s junior senator and presidential hopeful expanded his usual criticisms of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to include outgoing House Speaker John Boehner. Cruz also lambasted fellow Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, spoke of the recent lunar eclipse and boasted of a puzzling personal role in law enforcement.” The act is growing stale in the Senate while his presidential campaign for now is stuck in single digits. The problem, in part, is that Cruz’s act reaches a narrow segment of the base, not enough to impress his colleagues or win a presidential primary. That has been the case for some time, but it has taken a while for Republicans to figure out he is a paper tiger. As Politico observed: Republicans have grown tired of Cruz pushing proposals that he knows McConnell and other Republicans will never back, like defunding Planned Parenthood in a spending bill, then criticizing McConnell for not taking up the plan even as he uses the fight to bolster his presidential campaign as Washington’s consummate outsider. Cruz’s internal criticism of his leadership is what animates his presidential campaign, but his colleagues appear to be no longer listening. One wonders whether the House Republicans might adopt a similar posture toward their own destructive elements.As for Cruz, you do wonder what he will do if and when his presidential campaign ends. Returning to the Senate would seem unappealing. It is one thing to be disliked, but quite another to be ignored. Maybe a Fox TV show?


Tuesday’s Sketchpad: Drug sellers create a new disease


Saudi royal writes letters calling for regime change

President Obama meets with Saudi King Salman in the Oval Office on Sept. 4. (Evan Vucci/AP) An anonymous Saudi royal has made a remarkable move and signaled the need for a potential changing of the guard in Riyadh. The royal, identified as a "senior Saudi prince" by the Guardian, has penned two letters in Arabic that the British newspaper published on its Web site. The royal, who is apparently a grandson of Saudi Arabia's founder, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, has his identity protected for security reasons. The current Saudi monarch, King Salman, 79, is a son of ibn Saud, who is reputed to have sired dozens of offspring. The prince decries Salman's handling of the country since coming to power in January and is clearly opposed to the ascension of Salman's 30-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman, as the country's deputy crown prince and putative heir to the throne. The Guardian claims the letters "are unlike anything that has happened since King Faisal deposed King Saud in a palace coup in 1964." "The king is not in a stable condition and in reality the son of the king [Mohammed bin Salman] is ruling the kingdom," the prince told the Guardian. "So four or possibly five of my uncles will meet soon to discuss the letters. They are making a plan with a lot of nephews and that will open the door. A lot of the second generation is very anxious." "The public are also pushing this very hard, all kinds of people, tribal leaders," the prince goes on. "They say you have to do this or the country will go to disaster." The Guardian cites a number of factors roiling Saudi Arabia at present and fueling the disquiet that surrounds Salman's rule. Critics say last week's grisly stampede in Mecca showcased the mismanagement and corruption among Saudi elites; the custodianship of the mosques in Mecca and Medina — the holiest sites in Islam — are central to the monarchy's political legitimacy. Saudi Arabia has also been hit by slumping global oil prices, which have forced the Saudis to withdraw billions of dollars in overseas funds to buttress their domestic position. The economic unease is compounded by internal dissent over the Saudi-led war in Yemen, an extended operation that has come to define Salman's tenure and is overseen by Mohammed bin Salman, who is also the Saudi defense minister. "This is a


Ikea may have stumbled into one of North Africa’s most intractable land disputes

The opening of the Ikea store in Mohammedia near Casablanca, Morocco, has been blocked. (AFP/Getty Images) On Tuesday, furniture giant Ikea was due to open its first store in Morocco near the port city of Mohammedia. According to a report in Retail Week, about 300 workers had been hired and the 270,000-square-feet store was prepped for shoppers. However, the grand opening has not taken place. Instead, Morocco's Interior Ministry released a statement on Monday saying that the store's opening had been blocked as IKEA needed a "conformity permit." Moroccan authorities haven't elaborated on the last-minute decision, but according to Le 360, a news Web site perceived as close to the Moroccan royal court, the real reason for the closing may be geopolitical: Ikea, a company founded in Sweden and deeply associated with the country, is being punished over Swedish support for the Western Saharan independence movement. Western Sahara is a disputed territory in North Africa that shares its northern edge with Morocco. From the late 19th century onward, the area was controlled by Spain, but in 1975 the Spanish relinquished control of the area — in part because of a growing insurgency led by the nomadic Sahrawi people indigenous to the land. That year, the International Court of Justice rejected territorial claims by Morocco and Mauritania on the land, but Spain backed down and reached a settlement that granted two-thirds of the land to Morocco, which, in turn, annexed more. An Algerian-backed Sahrawi group called the Polisario Front fought a guerrilla war against Moroccan authorities, declaring the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in 1976. In 1991, the United Nations brokered a cease-fire and made plans for a referendum on independence. However, the referendum never took place, and attempts at further negotiation have stalled despite U.N. condemnation. While the SADR is recognized by a number of states and is a member of the African Union, no Western country has formally recognized it, and activists have accused a number of states — including France and Spain — of backing Morocco in the dispute. However, in Sweden, there has been a serious debate about recognizing the independence movement in recent years — in 2012, the center-right Swedish government vetoed a parliamentary motion that called on Sweden to support the SADR. A center-left coalition came into office last year, leading to speculation that recognition of Western Sahara may be imminent — speculation that only


MacArthur ‘genius’ Gary Cohen: Health industry’s epiphany creates science opportunity

now taken root," he said. In what he labels a "coming-to-Jesus" moment, Americans now recognize that the nation spends more money on health care than any other country on the planet, and yet often has worse health. "Everybody is seeing that, and it creates an opportunity in health care to re-evaluate what we're doing," Cohen said. That means hospital executives and others are more willing to address fundamental issues that make people sick in the first place, such as poor housing, poor food and a polluted environment. Lorenz Studer, a stem-cell biologist working on Parkinson's disease at Memorial Sloan Kettering Labs in New York City, is a MacArthur genius grant recipient. (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) Hundreds of hospitals around the country are now using their purchasing power to support local farmers, which benefits their employees, patients and the local economy, he said. In California, his organization is working with 55 hospitals and five school systems to link their combined purchasing clout. There's also been a big change in hospitals' attitudes on climate change. "Three years ago, you couldn't talk about it," Cohen recalled. But hospitals and health systems now are realizing they can lock in better energy pricing by using renewable sources and "that's happening in a dramatic way." The organization has created a health-care climate council, with participation from 15 of the country's largest hospital systems, which represent 400 facilities. Cohen said he's not sure what he'll do with his $625,000 MacArthur grant, which he'll receive in four, no-strings-attached installments. He'd like to support a medical clinic in Bhopal, India that provides free care to survivors of the Union Carbide pesticide plant explosion. His 17-year-old daughter, Asha Densmore, jokingly offered a different suggestion: paying for college. Yet he's also considering his first sabbatical in 20 years. He would like to go to Italy for a few months with his wife, Carol Densmore, and "think about the next phase of our transformative work." Beth Stevens, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Children's Hospital in Boston, received a MacArthur genius grant. (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) Read more: Scientists find way to disarm deadly bacteria without destroying the good ones in your gut Most Americans will get a wrong or late diagnosis at least once in their lives The bacteria-fighting super element that's making a comeback in hospitals Why Asian Americans have diabetes but don't know it


The surprisingly high number of people who are behind on their student loans

the federal government and private lenders to not only handle payments but also to answer questions and help people avoid falling behind or defaulting on their loans. Defaulting on student debt can severely damage a person’s credit score, making it much harder to buy a car or a house. The Obama administration has instituted broad initiatives to give students more options for repaying their federal loans, expanding programs that cap monthly payments to a percentage of earnings. Yet at least 11 million people with federal and private loans are past due or have not made a payment in nine months, signaling that servicers are not doing enough to make people aware of their options to stay current, the report says. [Not enough people know of a critical way to manage student debt. And it’s the government’s fault, GAO says.] The bureau received more than 30,000 comments from borrowers, servicers and other stakeholders through a public request for experiences with and solutions to improve loan servicing. People reported their servicers spreading out payments across multiple loans and triggering late fees. Others said that they ran into trouble trying to lower the interest on their private loans, a charge confirmed by accounts from refinancing companies that received inaccurate payoff statements. Many borrowers accused servicers of losing paperwork, processing payments too slowly or sending inaccurate billing statements. All of those practices are reminiscent of the problems that arose out of the housing foreclosure crisis, Treasury Deputy Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin said. “Servicers were supposed to play a critical role in helping people avoid foreclosure, and I see similarities in the student loan space,” Raskin said in an interview. “The rigidity and complexities of the system are things I’d like to see improved upon as we redesign the student loan finance system.” Treasury, alongside the CFPB and the Education Department, issued a set of general principles to guide the servicers as they overhaul servicing practices, as President Obama directed earlier this year. [Obama plans to make it easier to pay your student loans] The agencies said that they will make sure borrowers have access to the information they need to responsibly repay their loans, to protections that will be treated fairly and to assurances that servicers will be held accountable for their behavior. Ultimately, the CFPB has the authority to institute marketwide servicing standards, which several servicers, including Navient and the Pennsylvania Higher Education


All this scientist wants for his 101st birthday is funding for his research lab

began in the 1950s when he convinced a local hospital to let him examine the arteries of people who had died from heart disease. He soon realized that the tissue contained massive amounts of trans fat, which had become a common ingredient in processed foods throughout the United States. Despite Kummerow's growing body of research and repeated warnings throughout the years, artificial trans fats remained a staple of processed food. Well into the 1980s, many scientists and public health advocates insisted that partially hydrogenated oils were preferable to more natural saturated fats. The food industry liked that trans fats were relatively cheap, extended the shelf life of food and helped created ideal tastes and textures. Eventually, the tide turned. More studies began to show the role trans fat was playing in the soaring rates of heart disease in the United States. Researchers and public health experts agreed people should cut back on the consumption of trans fats, if not avoid them entirely. In 2006, after years of urging by consumer advocates, the Food and Drug Administration finally required that the substance be listed on nutrition labels. Food companies subsequently began removing trans fat from many products, though it lingered in a broad array of foods, from baked goods to ice cream. [The 100-year-old scientist who pushed the FDA to ban artificial trans fat] In 2009, frustrated by a lack of more action, Kummerow filed a 3,000-word citizen petition with the FDA, citing the mounting evidence that trans fat was harming public health and requesting that it be banned from the U.S. market. In 2013, he sued the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, asking a judge to compel the agency to respond to his petition, which had gone unanswered. Months later, the FDA announced its plans to effectively eliminate trans fats by saying that the substance no longer would be assumed safe for use in human foods. In June, the FDA made good on that promise, saying it would give manufacturers three years to reformulate products or to petition the agency for an exception. (The industry already is seeking a number of exceptions). "Science won out," Kummerow told The Post on the day of that announcement. [FDA: Foods that might have trans fats in them] He said in his letter Tuesday that he looks forward "to the day I can go to a grocery store, read labels,


PM Update: Periods of heavy rain, possible thunderstorms tonight; Drier tomorrow

Two-hour radar loop. Refresh page to update. 9:15 p.m. update: 9:15 p.m. radar image. Areas within the green box are under flash flood warning until midnight. 8:15 p.m. update: Rain pivoting through the region http://t.co/kbWwvJeLLL While rain is already winding down over far southwest parts of the area and it should continue to shift northeast out of the region into the overnight, it could continue a while, especially D.C. and east or northeast. Since it has been so dry, flooding has not been reported yet, but some localized flooding remains possible. Additional showers are possible behind this batch as well. From 4:30 p.m… Rain sweeps across the D.C. region through the evening. In our forecast this morning it looked like this rain was going to fall mostly in the overnight and then into Wednesday, but now it seems we’re going to get it all over with tonight. That means Wednesday is looking much drier, with a low chance of scattered light showers. Through Tonight: [Details on tonight’s rain] Tomorrow (Wednesday): [Tropical Storm Joaquin could bring torrential rainfall starting Friday] See Matt Rogers’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email in-box? Subscribe here. The moon through trees and clouds. (Richard Barnhill via Flickr)


Big breweries are trying to fend off craft beer by getting bigger

continue the rapid rates of growth demanded by their shareholders. Their other main options for increasing profits include cutting costs and raising prices. And that’s where we get to consolidation’s negative impact on consumers. In recent years, the prices for beer have increased much faster than those for wine and spirits, coinciding with the greater market power of the big four brewers. In Europe, price fixing has often been to blame, while in the United States, the tactics have been more subtle, though the result has been the same. In 2007, for example, Heineken, Grolsch and Bavaria were accused of holding secret meetings in the 1990s to divvy up markets and fix prices in the Netherlands, leading to $370 million in fines by European Union regulators. In the United States, no such meetings were even needed. In a classic example of “price signaling,” AB InBev, which controls about half the beer market, would regularly lift its prices, and SABMiller and other brewers quickly matched those increases. This behavior got the attention of officials at the Department of Justice, which took the rare action of blocking AB InBev’s bid in 2013 to take full control of Mexican brewer Modelo, maker of Corona and Pacifico. A deal later emerged that allowed the acquisition to go through, but Modelo’s business interests in the United States had to be sold to a rival company to prevent AB InBev, which reported $47 billion in sales last year, from having even more market power to control prices. Most analysts Regardless, the economic power of AB InBev will increase substantially on a global level. One example of this increased power is the ability to dominate shelf space at retailers. Many retail chains give either AB InBev or SABMiller direct control over the placement of all the beer they sell, including competitors’ products. This gives them power to place their own brands in the most visible locations, and allot them the most space. This strategy is aided by offering numerous slightly different versions of the same product, such as the dizzying number of varieties of Bud Light that fill the refrigerator cases. The acquisition could leave AB InBev as the only “category captain” left. And that means your impulse choices would be strongly steered toward this firm. While the big brewers consolidate, a countervailing trend is happening on the other end of the spectrum and shaking up the


beer’s market share doubled to 19 percent last year from 9 percent just three years earlier. This means that as ownership has concentrated at one end of the supermarket beer aisle, it has diversified at the other end. Although the prices of craft brews tend to be higher, the number of options for beer drinkers has never been greater. At the end of 2014, there were 3,418 craft brewing companies, up 42 percent since 2012. Big brewers have responded to the fast growth of craft with two strategies. The first is their conventional tack of acquiring selected craft brewers to offset the falling interest in their own top brands, such as Budweiser. The other involves imitating their smaller rivals’ consumer-winning styles with “crafty” beers that hide their corporate parentage. Just this month, for example, AB InBev purchased Los Angeles-area brewer Golden Road (news you won’t find on the company’s Web site), and SABMiller acquired a majority interest in San Diego-based Saint Archer Brewing Company. AB InBev has also created less mainstream brands that include Shock Top, Landshark and Wild Blue, while SABMiller developed Blue Moon, Batch 19 and Third Shift. Even the firm Blue Ribbon Intermediate Holdings, which has a “virtual monopoly on American heritage brands,” such as Pabst, Schlitz, Stroh’s, Old Milwaukee and Heileman’s Old Style, outsources most of the brewing to SABMiller. AB InBev and SABMiller have found some success with these strategies, but they have so far failed to compensate for declining sales of their more mainstream brands. The growth in craft and independent brews — and their multitude of distinct flavors and styles – shows no signs of slowing down. Each year, for example, the Great American Beer Festival adds to the number of styles that are judged in its competition — currently 92 plus a number of subcategories. This trend, toward local and independent and away from mass-produced products, is a challenge the dominant players are facing in other industries as well, such as fast food, groceries and soft drinks. Although these huge companies are unlikely to disappear in the near future, the challenge of continuing to satisfy investors as well as consumers has encouraged defensive strategies that could be viewed as either bold or desperate. Acquisitions are a temporary means of maintaining growth rates, but the success of smaller firms suggests that the bigger “MegaBrew” gets, the harder it may fall in the future.


Watch more than 1 million angry bees swarm an Oklahoma highway

A deputy's vehicle was swarmed by millions of bees in Oklahoma Sept. 29, after a semi truck carrying millions of bees overturned on a highway. Here's what it was like inside the cruiser. A truck loaded with honeybees rolled over on an Oklahoma roadway Tuesday, unleashing a black cloud of more than 1 million angry insects that swarmed vehicles and endangered drivers. The accident occurred on Interstate 35 in Garvin County, south of Oklahoma City, Fox News reported. Images from the scene showed the bees enveloping police vehicles and trapping at least one deputy in the back of his Highway Patrol cruiser, according to NBC affiliate KFOR. [Beekeepers try to keep bees — and livelihoods — from going extinct] Experts said the bees represented a legitimate threat to the public — and not just at the crash site. “The bees will swarm up to 10 miles away, some of them in groups,” Bud Ramming, the county’s emergency management coordinator, told Fox News affiliate KOKH. Ramming said the accident clogged traffic for four hours on Tuesday afternoon. Bees swarm Oklahoma highway after semi-truck overturns http://t.co/d7IVNRWVPi #NBCNightlyNews http://t.co/7Zp7JR1ctI This was the scene today on I-35 and MM 72 southbound, when a semi carrying honey bees rolled over on the interstate. The honey bees swarmed and covered the patrol cars. Posted by Oklahoma Highway Patrol (The Official FB Page) on Tuesday, September 29, 2015 Deputy Carl Zink, who was stuck in his vehicle, told KFOR that he received a single sting, but was able to safely drive away once the bees cleared. Scott Woods, a local man who pulled the driver from the overturned truck, was not so lucky. “I got stung on the lip, on the end of the nose, mouth, the side of the eye and then the back,” he told KOKH. The driver of the overturned vehicle was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the station reported. Jim Stinson, a local beekeeper, said he and other keepers were called to the scene to help save as many bees as possible. “There’s a bee shortage,” he said. “When they started talking about killing these bees here tonight, I [threw] a fit and said, ‘You don’t do that till I get there.’ As long as people go to fighting them, they go to swatting at them and they’re gonna get mad.” By nightfall, that’s exactly what happened, according to KOKH. The


Main Street Morning: Ikea is testing movable walls

grocery pickup with expansion to more cities. - Are your gift cards mobile-ready? Restaurants - Domino’s third quarter sales rose 10.5%. Finance - Small businesses think they’re getting the short end of the stick on subsidies. - Seven ways to be debt-free for the rest of your life. Start-ups - A start-up bids farewell to its $15,000 a month desert mansion. Technology - On Apple’s strategy, Tim Cook says the company has “no intention” to merge iOS and OS X and that “life is short, it’s better to have friends.” - Apple’s business-related revenue hits $25 billion. - Google says Android has 4 billion users and introduces a new tablet to take on Microsoft and Apple. - Google is also aiming for its self-driving cars to operate more like people. - Keurig sells a machine to make Coke at home. Online - Few lawyers say they have cyber liability insurance. - Eight tips to prepare your business for an inevitable cyber attack Social Media - Facebook will provide free Internet for refugees living in U.N. camps. - Steve Jobs’ advice to Mark Zuckerberg may have saved Facebook. - Twitter is reportedly ditching the 140 character limit and is still trying to teach advertisers how to tweet. - Edward Snowden makes a grand entrance on Twitter. - Why YouTube is a lousy place to make money. - The top seven social media marketing trends that will dominate 2016. Around the Country - Texas’s Governor touts the success of female business owners. - The nation’s first marijuana “resort” will soon open in South Dakota. - Los Angeles is home to the country’s largest population of homeless residents. - What it’s like to go high-end dumpster diving on New York’s Upper West Side. - How California is showing the rest of the country how to make college accessible to everyone - These photos reveal early 20th century businesses. Around the World - A London mob attacks a trendy cereal café. - Why Sweden is shifting to a six-hour work-day. - A 17-year-old built a bridge in Mumbai so that underprivileged kids could get to school safely. - A Brazilian referee pulls a gun during a soccer dispute. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


Russia’s airstrikes in Syria mark a huge departure for Moscow

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting outside Moscow on Wednesday. (Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti/Kremlin) We've become surprisingly accustomed to Western powers, such as the United States, Britain and France, intervening militarily in the Middle East. The confirmation on Wednesday that Russian warplanes have begun carrying out airstrikes in Syria is something different. These strikes are an exceptionally rare example of Russia using its considerable military might outside its traditional sphere of influence. In fact, to find a Russian military action that is as brazenly open and as far out of Moscow's back yard, you may well have to look deep into the Cold War period. That is not to say that Russia hasn't used that might in recent years. Russian troops are currently accused of fighting alongside rebels in eastern Ukraine. In 2008, Moscow sent troops into Georgia and its air force bombed the capital, Tbilisi. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia fought in two bloody wars in Chechnya and carried out airstrikes during Tajikistan's civil war. However, almost all of Russia's international military action in recent years has taken place in the "near abroad" — a term used in Russia and elsewhere to describe post-Soviet states that Moscow still considers strategically vital. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has only rarely and indirectly been involved in conflicts outside this sphere of influence — Russian soldiers were in Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s but functioned as peacekeepers. (Russia continues to send a small number of military experts and troops to participate in the United Nations' peacekeeping missions). [Kerry warns of "grave concerns" about Russia's intent with airstrikes in Syria] Even when you delve further into the Soviet era, it is hard to find Russian military action comparable to the airstrikes in Syria. Soviet troops fought a brutal war in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, but at the time the country was a direct neighbor of the Soviet Union. Soviet troops were involved in uprisings in Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, but — again — all of these countries were clearly within Moscow's sphere of influence. Soviet troops were stationed in Vietnam during the war there and Soviet planes flew during the Korean War, but the Soviet Union did not play an official role in these and other proxy conflicts at the time (one of the more significant examples of Soviet military support in this


Get ready to dip, not swipe, your credit cards

them more secure? Basically, chip cards are credit cards or debit cards with a computer chip embedded in them. Instead of sending retailers and card companies the same information each time they’re used, the way the magnetic stripe on cards works now, the chip sends out a unique code for each transaction. (The official name for the technology is EMV, which is short for Europay, MasterCard and Visa.) The idea is that any thief who is able to intercept the code won’t be able to use it again to make a fraudulent purchase with a fake version of the card later on. (Essentially making it more difficult for someone to go on a shopping spree at a mall in Texas while you are physically in New York.) Anyone who would try to use a fake magnetic stripe version of the card at a chip terminal would be prompted to insert the card into the chip slot, said Stephanie Ericksen, vice president of risk products at Visa. The transaction would then fail, she said. Excerpted from a Washington Post graphic on credit cards from January, 2014. Click here for the full graphic. So what should I do at the register? Unless you are told otherwise by the cashier, you should swipe your card as usual. Some terminals will recognize the chip and ask you to dip the card into the slot underneath the key pad, said Deborah Baxley, a principal in Capgemini Financial’s Cards & Payments unit. Swiping is typically a flick of the wrist movement, but when you are using a chip reader, you don’t want to remove the card quickly. You’ll need to leave the card in place for a few seconds until the transaction is complete, Baxley said. Will these cards stop fraud completely? Unfortunately, thieves are fast learners. As more and more in-store purchases are completed with chip technology, it will get harder for thieves to make fraudulent purchases inside stores. But security experts say they widely expect credit card fraud to move online, where thieves can still use the card number and expiration date to make fraudulent purchases. That’s what happened in Europe when retailers installed the technology there years ago, with online fraud doubling in some countries, said Rurik Bradbury, chief marketing officer for Trustev, a company that helps retailers catch online fraud. Retailers are moving to catch fraud online by scanning for


Wal-Mart expands its grocery pickup offering

Wal-Mart’s pickup grocery facility in Bentonville, Ark. (Sarah Halzack / The Washington Post) Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest grocer, so it’s no surprise that the retail giant is piloting a variety of ways to make online ordering part of your routine for stocking your pantry and fridge. The company is testing home grocery delivery and even an option in which you can pick up pre-ordered groceries from a temperature-controlled truck in, say, your office park or neighborhood. But of all these experiments, the retailer says it’s gaining particular traction with an option that allows customers to place orders online and then pick them up curbside at a nearby Wal-Mart store. That’s why the retailer announced this week that it is expanding that store pick-up program to eight additional markets, a bet that this hybrid digital-physical shopping experience is one of Wal-Mart’s best paths for competing in the crowded online grocery business. In fighting for shoppers’ dollars with the likes of Google Express, Amazon Fresh and several smaller start-ups, Wal-Mart is trying to take advantage of its massive network of 4,597 U.S. stores to gain an edge over the online-only efforts. Wal-Mart’s free pick-up program is rolling out in Atlanta, Nashville, Tucson, Charlotte, and other metropolitan areas in the coming weeks, and the company pledges that it will add even more markets soon. The prices shoppers pay for their curbside groceries will be the same as what they’d pay in a Wal-Mart brick-and-mortar store, and orders placed before 10 a.m. are eligible to be picked up the same day. Michael Bender, Wal-Mart’s global e-commer chief operating officer, says that the option has been especially popular with busy moms. “It allows the customer to engage with the brand along the pattern of the way that they live their lives,” Bender said. “You contrast that to a delivery model where you’re essentially tethered to your home for whatever period of time that’s attached to that delivery window,” Bender said, and some customers might find picking the order up themselves to be more efficient. Wal-Mart stores will employ workers it calls “personal shoppers” who will be tasked with packing these orders. In many cases, that won’t increase the store’s staff, but instead will change the responsibilities of some Wal-Mart workers. Wal-Mart will face plenty of challenges as it aims to build its grocery pickup business. This category has been notoriously hard to crack on


DuPont Brass is done busking at Metro stations

Members of DuPont Brass play for commuters outside Union Station as the city prepares for Pope Francis on Sept. 23 in Washington. (Marlon Correa/The Washington Post) The Dupont Circle Metro station is about to get a whole lot quieter. DuPont Brass — a brass band of mostly former and current Howard University students who have long performed outside Metro stations to raise money for tuition — says it’s leaving the busking profession to focus on bigger musical stages. The classically trained group of musicians, which has grown to 15 men, has been busking at Metro stations during rush hour since 2011, displaying a sign saying donations would go straight to tuition bills. They started busking the Dupont Circle Metro station — hence the group’s name — and soon started playing at Metro stations throughout the city. But now, many of them have graduated from school and are looking to make a career of their music beyond the city’s Metro stations. “When we started we were just looking for tuition money, and it spun out of control in a good way. We didn’t even expect it to last this long,” said Jared Bailey, 24, one of the original members of the group who is now in graduate school at Rutgers and commutes on weekends to play with DuPont Brass. “We are trying to elevate ourselves, and in order to do that we need to take risks.” [Driven mostly by Howard U. musicians, DuPont Brass hits its stride on D.C. streets] DuPont Brass will be sticking together and are looking to book professional gigs, including at weddings, festivals and lounges. A few weekends ago, DuPont Brass played at the popular H Street NE festival. Bailey said the group is planning a college tour, performing on campuses throughout the country and talking to students about how to form a successful musical ensemble. “We want to put on seminars explaining exactly the steps we took to making DuPont Brass what it is today,” said Bailey. “We just accidentally made our own way. We put out that tuition sign and slowly developed a business plan without even meaning to. Now everything is intentional.” Bailey wouldn’t disclose how much money DuPont Brass collected from busking, but said the money helped everyone pay for their Howard tuition. “It helped all of us, it definitely helped me graduate, and it’s helping me pay for graduate school now,” he


Everything you need to know about sour and wild beers

get turned on to these tart, acidic or funky “off” flavors. In celebration of all things sour and wild, Denizens Brewing Co. is holding its first-ever Make It Funky Fest on Saturday, with more than 60 sour and funky beers from about 20 breweries in the District and beyond. Lest something you try there has you wondering if it’s gone bad, here’s a primer on what you need to know about these once-niche styles. Beers can sour in several ways, but most often the acidic flavor is the result of a bacteria called lactobacillus. While early brewers tried hard to keep this out of their beer, eventually others embraced it. Lactobacillus is what gives yogurt its tanginess, and it creates the distinct flavor of German sour beers like gose (pronounced GO-zuh) and Berliner Weiss. “It’s a beautiful bacteria,” Engert says. “It’ll give you a really clean, delectable tartness.” Some bacteria, such as pediococcus, are used in lambics, which can taste like a sour cider. Other wild beers contain a yeast called brettanomyces, commonly referred to as “brett,” which produces a touch of acid and other funky flavors during brewing. Though beer was once considered spoiled if brett got into it, brewers are now introducing the wild yeast intentionally. “These sort of fruity, peppery … fresh citric zest, spicy, earthy flavors … those are flavors we’re actually looking for in our beers,” says Nathan Zeender, head brewer at Right Proper Brewing Company, which regularly offers a couple of wild or sour beers on tap. Jeff Ramirez, co-founder and director of brewing operations at Denizens, hopes Saturday’s Make It Funky Fest will highlight the spectrum of flavors that can be achieved with wild yeast and bacteria. And he wouldn’t mind converting a few drinkers who have had a bad experience with funky beers in the past. “The goal is to see that a lot of people are doing it, a lot of people have different approaches to it, and just to have fun with it,” he says. “I mean, beer is fun.” Local sour beers to try Wild beers will abound at Saturday’s Make it Funky Fest. You’ll also find them around town at bars and breweries. For those intimidated by the complex flavors, we recommend these local sour brews for a range of drinkers. Novice Intermediate Connoisseur You may also like: Why some bartenders and sommeliers rely on gross beverage descriptions


What you need to know about the cyberspying deal with China

these companies is found to have engaged in commercial espionage, it could raise tricky questions. Is the business responsible or the state? Quasi-formal agreements also have limits. While the deal might conceivably help a global norm against commercial spying to take root, it is uncertain how well other states will be able to evaluate whether China and the United States are living up to commitments. If, for example, the United States believes that China is cheating on the agreement, it will have a tough time releasing the kind of detailed information that might convince other states. Hence, it will more likely have to rely on unilateral action. Figuring out how to respond to cheating is itself a tough problem. As Tobias Feakin argues in a recent Council on Foreign Relations Cyber Brief, we have no good framework for figuring out what a proportionate response might be to various cyber-attacks. Spying is particularly problematic, since it has been a tolerated behavior for a very long time. When a country catches another country spying in peacetime, it may, if it wants, signal its displeasure, by expelling diplomats whom it believes to be spies. The target of its actions may expel diplomats in turn. Overly strong responses to cyber spying may be seen by other states as disproportionate (especially because many other states, including US allies, spy for commercial reasons too). Robert Knake, who has spent time working in the administration on cyber issues, suggests that the United States will employ sanctions against businesses that it believes to have engaged in espionage. This provides the U.S. administration with some flexibility. However, it is not clear how strong a deterrent U.S. primary sanctions will be against Chinese firms that do not have a significant exposure to US markets. U.S. sanctions have usually been most effective when they involve both primary and secondary sanctions (e.g. sanctions against non-U.S. firms that facilitate transactions with the targets of the sanctions) and when they are accompanied by sanctions from U.S. allies. Secondary sanctions are likely to be highly controversial with other countries (especially because some key US allies are looking to build strong economic relationships with China, even when it annoys Washington). There’s probably even less appetite among third countries for issuing sanctions themselves. The United States faces the danger that sanctions against some Chinese firms might work better as symbolic expressions of disapproval than as active displeasure.


Burned by flaming water-skis? Bitten by a squirrel? There’s a medical code for that.

it. Some experts worry that coding errors could result in claims getting denied and delayed. And some doctors' practices are taking out short-term loans to ensure steady cash flow. [When squirrels attack! There's a code for that!] The updated designations, officially known as the 10th version of the International Classification of Diseases, or ICD-10, are supposed to help the health care system more quickly identify warning signs of epidemics like Ebola or potential flu pandemics. The new codes are also supposed to improve the accuracy of payments to providers, reduce fraud and assist researchers in better understanding and treating complex medical conditions. For example, doctors will now document whether surgery was done on the left or right side of the body. They'll indicate whether a patient is making a repeat visit, which could suggest more serious health issues. Yet the massive expansion of codes, a response in part to doctors' demands for greater accuracy in describing conditions, strikes many as another very thick layer of red tape. And some circumstances seem so far-fetched that web sites and twitter hashtags -- including #theresacodeforthat -- have sprung up just to make immense fun of the more bizarre. Some places are selling illustrations and playing cards. At least one twitter handle, @everyicd10, is tweeting out every single code. Among the most popular: • Bitten by macaw: W61.11 • Prolonged stay in weightless environment: X52 • Unspecified balloon accident injuring occupant: V96 •Injured in a prison swimming pool: Y92.146 Pick up a copy of #StruckByOrca - likely the only time the words "totally hilarious" will come before "ICD-10 codes" http://t.co/N9xUDsdiOd Good news! Books are back in stock! Get yours while supplies last. http://t.co/znEOKV0l8h #icd10matters #icd10 http://t.co/0x3hM7Kc9h Many of the codes fall into optional fields and aren't likely to be used. Most doctors rely on a narrow set for conditions they see on a regular basis and won’t need to learn new ones that aren’t associated with their practice areas, said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But it's not exactly clear how this will all play out. Emergency department doctors, for example, say it won't be that much of a burden to specify where someone is having abdominal pain and whether it's the first time the person has been seen. "The only place it's really annoying is when they want a lot of data about some types


Watchdog report finds numerous problems with Pentagon-led Iraqi army training program

Soldiers assigned to 3rd Brigade Combat Team deployed instruct Iraqi soldiers how to properly use an M2 machine gun during training at Besmaya Range Complex, Iraq, June 16, 2015.<br />(U.S. Army photo by Cpl. Nelson Rodriguez, CJTF-OIR Public Affairs) As the battles to retake the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Baiji have stalled, the U.S.-led operation to train and assist the Iraqi Army is facing its own internal problems, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report released Wednesday. The 48-page report is critical in its observations of the day-to-day workings of Operation Inherent Resolve’s Iraqi train and assist program. The issues involve miscommunication between coalition training personnel and their command, delivery of incomplete equipment, unknown supply warehouse contents and inadequate billeting for Iraqi Army personnel. [The battle to retake Ramadi is going nowhere] When the program started in Oct 2014, just a few months after the Iraqi army was routed from Mosul by the Islamic State, approximately $1.6 billion was allocated to help train 12 Iraqi brigades. As of June 2015, $316.8 million had been spent to do so, according to the report. While the money was primarily for shoring up the Iraqi military, it has also been used to enable local partner forces such as the Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq. Here are the four issues raised by the report. (While there were two additional recommendations in the report, both were classified and subsequently redacted.) Living Conditions At a number of coalition training sites, living conditions for Iraqi Army forces were abysmal. The report indicates that this is because of improper funding from the government of Iraq. At the site in Besmaya, the Iraqi brigade commander noted that his forces had no running water. Housing units that were built to house two or four soldiers had 14 soldiers living inside. At the facility at Taji and Al Asad trainees had no access to running water and limited power, and at Al Asad Iraqi troops were responsible for getting their own food. According to the report, these living conditions have contributed to low morale among Iraq trainees. Supply Depots The report indicates that U.S. and Iraqi personnel “did not have accurate knowledge of the contents of individual supply warehouses under Iraqi control.” This was due in part to Iraqi forces keeping U.S. troops from inspecting the depots. Without proper access, the report says that keeping a proper inventory has been


enable local partner forces such as the Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq. Here are the four issues raised by the report. (While there were two additional recommendations in the report, both were classified and subsequently redacted.) Living Conditions At a number of coalition training sites, living conditions for Iraqi Army forces were abysmal. The report indicates that this is because of improper funding from the government of Iraq. At the site in Besmaya, the Iraqi brigade commander noted that his forces had no running water. Housing units that were built to house two or four soldiers had 14 soldiers living inside. At the facility at Taji and Al Asad trainees had no access to running water and limited power, and at Al Asad Iraqi troops were responsible for getting their own food. According to the report, these living conditions have contributed to low morale among Iraq trainees. Supply Depots The report indicates that U.S. and Iraqi personnel “did not have accurate knowledge of the contents of individual supply warehouses under Iraqi control.” This was due in part to Iraqi forces keeping U.S. troops from inspecting the depots. Without proper access, the report says that keeping a proper inventory has been impossible and the coalition could be purchasing supplies and equipment that are already available. One of the problems is that the Iraqi army keeps inventory with small, unreliable pieces of paper, according to the report. The report also says that the United States’ inability to keep a proper inventory of Iraqi supplies might mean that weapons and equipment are going to militias that the U.S. forces in Iraq had not agreed to support. Miscommunication One of the first issues noted in the report involves the dissemination of a campaign plain to advisers helping train Iraqi soldiers. According to the report, the advisers knew of their current mission—to train Iraqi counter attack brigades—but many were not aware of any follow-on or future operations. “None of those we spoke with appear to be fully informed,” the report read. In response to the IG’s claim, Operation Inherent Resolve’s command said it would communicate the campaign plan better. Equipment According to the report the “pseudo-foreign military sales” program utilized by Operation Inherent Resolve and the Defense Security Operation Agency purchased and requested numerous pieces of equipment that arrived incomplete. For instance, 300 M-16s were issued to Iraqi training forces but only included seven cleaning


A cry in the dark but no answer. This is how millions of little bats are dying from a lethal fungus.

spread too far," he said, "and it’s too late." Pause for a second to see the big picture, the awesome devastation biologists have witnessed now for nearly a decade. In the spring, they've visited caves in Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma and other states to find hundreds of thousands of bats lying dead or flopping about in the late stages of agonizing deaths. Bats are preparing to reenter caves and abandoned mines in late October for a four-month hibernation. “I’m terribly, terribly concerned,” Katie Gillies, a conservation biologist for Bat Conservation International, said when they were about to hibernate last year. “I don’t think the disease will run its course. There is no way to save our bats from white nose without intervention. The situation is . . . absolutely dire.” White-nose syndrome is basically Ebola for bats, an animal pandemic. Gray bats, big brown bats, Northern long-eared bats and tri-colored bats are also affected. Ninety-percent of little brown bats in the northeast are dead. Here's how the research paper describes it: "White-nose syndrome is the most devastating epizootic wildlife disease of mammals in history, having killed millions of hibernating bats in North America since 2007." Sometimes it drives bats mad before they start to sleep. Consider this 2013 incident Great Smoky Mountain National Park that straddles North Carolina and Tennessee. Bats that were supposed to be sleeping were out and about, acting crazy in many cases. [Bats hit hard by deadly one-two punch: windmills and white-nose syndrome] Seemingly coming out of nowhere, they launched their mouse-sized bodies at unsuspecting tourists, who tried to shoo them off with walking sticks, fishing poles and their bare hands. One bat flew smack into a trail walker’s forehead. This might seem funny if you don't know what bats mean to the world. They pollinate everything from bananas to peaches to agave plants from which tequila is extracted. It's a good bet that people who dislike bats dislike gypsy moths and other moth species even more. Moths are like a tater tot for bats. Bats that eat bugs by the metric ton are worth about $3 billion per year in pest control for U.S. agriculture, according to a separate report by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2011. “People often ask why we should care about bats,” said Paul Cryan, a USGS research biologist who helped write the report. “Bats are saving


House adopts defense conference report, but can’t override veto

Libya, Syria, Yemen, or Somalia – or transferred anywhere within the United States. Democrats argue that this basically ties the administration’s hands not allowing the transfer of detainees to facilities within the country effectively means that Obama can’t close Guantanamo. But Republicans say that’s Obama’s fault – he never presented them with a plan they could have tried to incorporate into a final deal. Firearms at military installations This summer’s shootings in Chattanooga, Tenn., put a spotlight on an issue conferees were planning on tackling anyway: How to get firearms into the hands of security and other personnel at military installations apart from bases. Under the bill, commanders are allowed to give a member of the armed forces the right to carry firearms as deemed appropriate – a change that moves the policy away from the current one-size fits all approach and allows commanders to make decisions that fit the security requirements and functions of the installations in question. Acquisition reform The legislation seeks to put more of the purchasing and procurement power in the hands of service chiefs, by allowing them to take the reins on acquisition – provided they are also willing to take the responsibility for cost overruns. But the idea is that this change will save time and costs by removing extraneous steps in the process. There are at least six different reporting requirements under the current system, according to the conference committee, and the bill attempts to streamline them into one. Sexual assault Adequately prosecuting and reducing the incidences of sexual assault in the military has been a challenge that has dogged Congress for years. Lawmakers wade into this arena once again, seeking to establish better protections for whistleblowers and good Samaritans who intervene on behalf of victims. The bill also pushes the Defense Department to improve prevention activities for assaults of male members of the Armed Forces, who often face additional stigma in reporting rapes and sexual assault. Cybersecurity Finally, the recent spate of cyber hacks against large government and financial institutions, including the compromised personal data of more than 22 million individuals held by the Office of Personnel Management, have everyone thinking about cybersecurity. The NDAA lists a set of measures to enhance information sharing within the Defense Department, especially by giving U.S. Cyber Command more authority to hire and acquire the people and elements they need to improve the department’s safeguards cyberattacks.


The Daily 202: Oregon shooting injects gun debate into Democratic primary

struggling to recruit new soldiers because of an improving economy and slashed budgets, the Army narrowly met its goal for the year ending Sept. 30. For fiscal year 2015, officials said they recruited 59,170 new soldiers, exceeding its goal of 59,000. (USA Today) - The government will reach its borrowing limit around Nov. 5, the Treasury Department said, meaning the debt ceiling will need to get raised in the next month. (Kelsey Snell) - Senior executives at the VA manipulated the hiring system to coerce two managers to accept job transfers against their will — then stepped into the vacant positions themselves, keeping their pay while reducing their responsibilities, according to a new IG report. They also allegedly manipulated the moving-expense system. (Lisa Rein) - The Supreme Court agreed to hear another dozen cases for next term, including a challenge from Iran’s central bank over a law that makes it easier to distribute nearly $2 billion to terrorism victims, a Pennsylvania death row inmate’s complaint that a judge in his case was also his prosecutor; a European Union case against R.J. Reynolds for alleged money-laundering; and a determined hunter’s challenge that the federal government can’t keep him from boarding a hovercraft on an Alaskan river to hunt moose. (Robert Barnes) - “Alone among European Union members, Britain has opted out of a quota system for distributing 160,000 refugees who have already arrived on the continent’s shores,” Griff White reports from London. “Britain instead runs a parallel program under which it plans to take, over five years, 20,000 people who have fled Syria but remain in camps or other shelters in the Middle East.” - “Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli couple travelling in a car with their four young children in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said, vowing reprisals for the ‘barbaric attack’ amid a spike in tensions,” per AFP. - Bahrain recalled its ambassador to Iran, a day after it said security forces had discovered a large bomb-making factory and arrested a number of suspects linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also declared the Iranian charge d’affaires in Bahrain a “persona non grata” and gave him 72 hours to leave the country. (Reuters) POWER PLAYERS IN THE NEWS: - A tracker for Jeb Bush’s super PAC was removed from an Iowa event for Marco Rubio last night, a sign of growing tensions between the


Don’t worry. Matt Damon won’t get stuck on Mars. NASA can’t get him there.

of a plan for actually getting there," Cooke said. “You can’t have a flat-line budget indefinitely and think you’re going to put all of this together by 2030.” John Grunsfeld, NASA’s top official for science and an astronaut himself – he fixed the Hubble Space Telescope several times in orbit -- doesn’t see a problem with the Mars-centric media relations. NASA astronaut & #TheMartian movie actress hope to inspire the next generation of astronauts on our #JourneyToMars https://t.co/T6T1pGaTKr “Sure, ‘JourneytoMars’ is a slogan. There’s no question about that. But it does capture the excitement of the various activities that we’re doing. Each individual piece does have traceability to future missions to Mars," Grunsfeld said. He added, “One of the reasons I wanted to be an astronaut was to go to Mars. So I’m very impatient.” Mars is far away, inhospitable, and due to the orbital dynamics of Earth and Mars, any mission to the red planet's surface would take at least two years round-trip (a fly-by, without landing, theoretically could be done in about 500 days). The technical challenges are significant, but NASA's engineering prowess is legendary, and this may be a case where the impossible simply takes longer. The most serious challenge may be budgetary. When President George H. W. Bush proposed a human mission to Mars in 1989 as part of a massive new push in outer space, sticker shock sank the plan. Estimates put the cost in the range of $400 billion. The consensus among space policy analysts is that a NASA mission to Mars with astronauts would require a political mandate that currently does not exist. This is not the 1960s, when the agency’s budget spiked in a race to beat the Soviet Union to the surface of the moon. Today there is limited geopolitical competition in human spaceflight. [Special report: NASA's Mission Improbable] “We don’t have a mandate by Congress or the president to go to Mars in any time frame and budget that is anything like Apollo,” Garver said. In recent years, the agency has had to build its strategies around flat budgets. "Budget is mission-critical" is a catch phrase at headquarters. NASA retired the space shuttle program in 2011 not because the hardware was old or dysfunctional, but to free up several billion dollars a year to build new rockets and capsules that could go beyond Low Earth Orbit. The agency has been


United Launch Alliance under pressure from Elon Musk’s SpaceX upstart and Congress

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Morelos-3 spacecraft lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral on Oct. 25. (Courtesy of ULA) It was, as usual, a spectacular display of fire and force, a rocket blast lighting up the still dark sky shortly before dawn. The launch from Cape Canaveral Friday was historic, too— the 100th for the United Launch Alliance, a milestone that the company cheered as a symbol of its long heritage in space. But it came at a perilous time for ULA, the joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which for years has had a monopoly on launching Pentagon payloads to space. ULA is facing a challenge from SpaceX, the hard-charging upstart founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, which just won certification by the Air Force that would allow it to compete against ULA for the next Pentagon launch contract. And ULA faces an even bigger problem: the Russian-made rocket engine it relies on has been entangled in a messy political fight that could threaten its ability to compete at all. [ULA ready to compete against Elon Musk’s space startup, CEO says] As a result of the tensions with Russia, Congress banned the use of the RD-180 engine, which powers ULA’s Atlas V rocket, for national security launches starting in 2019. ULA is working with Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, to develop a U.S.-made engine. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) But that engine, the BE-4, won’t be ready for another few years, and to bridge the gap, ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno said the company needs at least 14 RD-180 engines. In its most recent spending bill, Congress has proposed allowing the company to use four. In a call with reporters Friday, Bruno said that was “a good start” but ultimately “insufficient” to allow the company to compete. While ULA had five other RD-180s it could have used, Bruno said those were allocated to other missions. “Those five are gone,” he said. He declined to comment on Aerojet Rocketdyne’s recent $2 billion bid to acquire ULA, which was rebuffed. The restriction on the Russian engines is also causing concern at the Pentagon, which wants to introduce competition into the contract and bring down the cost. Claire Leon, the Air Force’s launch enterprise director, told reporters Friday that, “it is critical to the Air Force


‘The Martian’ isn’t just a great movie. It’s an important movie.

The planet Mars is seen in an image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (NASA via Reuters) I rarely go to big movies on opening weekends, but having loved the book (by Andy Weir), my family and I donned our 3-D glasses and went to see “The Martian,” starring Matt Damon, on opening night. It’s often a disappointment to see the movie version of a book you really enjoyed, because when you read, the characters and settings you create in your mind’s eye are not the same ones you’ll see on the screen. Because of that, there’s often some unsettling cognitive dissonance — “That’s not how I envisioned the Hab!” (the astronauts’ dwelling on Mars). But the movie smartly hewed closely to the book, and was — trust me, I did the math — 89 percent as good. It’s the story of Mark Watney, abandoned on Mars after his crew members mistakenly conclude that he died during a violent storm that forced them to cancel their exploratory mission and leave the planet (this much is in the trailer; I’m no spoiler). It has thus been called “Robinson Crusoe on Mars,” but I don’t think that’s such an apt comparison. Unlike Crusoe, Watney is the only person on the planet on which he finds himself. (Crusoe remains on Earth, where he eventually befriends an escaped captive, whom he calls “Friday.”) In this sense, Weir sets himself a huge storytelling challenge: how to engage readers when there’s literally no one for Watney to fall in love with or fight against. The usual sources of conflict and character development are 35 million miles away (and that’s when Mars and Earth are closest to each other). True, folks back on Earth are trying to help him get home and the rest of his crew plays an important part in the action, but the core of the movie is Watney alone on the planet. [Author of ‘The Martian’: There could be life on Mars. Of course we should go look for it.] What makes the book and movie so uniquely interesting is how the story meets that literary challenge. In fact, there’s an extremely compelling relationship at the heart of the story: the one between Watney and survival. Watney’s relationship with survival completely absorbs him (as well as us), tapping his deep knowledge as a scientist, astronaut and botanist (“the greatest botanist on this planet!” as


The strongest weapon to shift geopolitical balances isn’t nukes or missiles, it’s technology

on This seems hard to believe, given that solar production provides less than one percent of the Earth’s energy needs today. But this is how exponential technologies advance. They double in performance every year or two and their prices fall. Given that California already Anyone tracking the exponential For decades, manufacturing was flooding into China from the U.S. and Europe and fueling its growth. And then a combination of rising labor and shipping costs and automation began to change the economics of China manufacturing. Now, robots are about to tip the balance further. Foxconn had China is aware of the advances in robotics and plans to take the lead in replacing humans with robots. Guangdong province is constructing the world’s first “ The problem for China is that its robots are no more productive than their counterparts in the West are. They all work 24×7 without complaining or joining labor unions. They cost the same and consume the same amount of energy. Given the long shipping times and high transportation costs it no longer makes sense to send raw materials across the oceans to China to have them assembled into finished goods and shipped to the West. Manufacturing can once again become a local industry. It will take many years for Western companies to learn the intricacies of robotic manufacturing, build automated factories, train workers, and deal with the logistical challenges of supply chains being in China. But these are surmountable problems. What is now a trickle of manufacturing returning to the West will, within five to seven years, become a flood. After this, another technology revolution will begin: digital manufacturing. In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by humans using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, to physically remove material to obtain the shape desired. In digital manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on 3D models — adding materials rather than subtracting them. The “3D printers” that produce these use powdered metal, droplets of plastic, and other materials — much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers. 3D printers can already create physical mechanical devices, medical implants, jewelry, and even clothing. But these are slow, messy, and cumbersome — much like the first generations of inkjet printers were. This will change. In the early 2020s we will have elegant low-priced printers for our homes that can print


Main Street Morning: Doctors are getting a pay raise from Obamacare

Bank says that giving money to entrepreneurs might be the best jobs program. - Ahmed, the teen arrested for homemade clock, is raking in the crowdfunding dollars. - How a teenageer made $80,000 without getting a job. Retail - Wal-Mart is making cuts to be more agile. - L.L. Bean still can’t keep up with the demand for its duck boots. Travel - A hotel housekeeper makes a once-in-a-lifetime discovery while cleaning a room. Finance - A chip-card maker plans an IPO. - A regional bank is challenging the industry belief that American credit-card users can’t deal with one more thing to remember. Start-ups - Two producers turn their curiosity about start-ups into a business TV show. Technology - The heads of two of America’s biggest companies said almost the same thing about what personalized technology would mean for the future of business. Online - Some tips on how to choose a domain name for your business. - Twenty-two ways to drive traffic to your website. Around the Country - An appliance repair shop celebrates 25 years of service in Northwest Indiana. - A Wisconsin cheese plant closes, eliminating 300 jobs. - This Minnesotan shapes antler-art into a business. - These New Jersey manufacturers are combatting a skills shortage with an innovative program. - Deer-mating season means a boost in business for some Maryland auto repair shops. - Johns Hopkins University has announced that it will respond to the Baltimore riots by hiring 60 workers from destitute neighborhoods. - A wife sues a Pennsylvania pork company after her husband lost his job due to flatulence. - More and more small business owners in New York City are bearing the brunt of property tax reassessments. - Young businesses in Southern Illinois are making big things happen. - The U.S. has more guns than people but San Francisco’s last gun store just closed its doors. - Roads are swamped in South Carolina as rescuers go door-to-door. Around the World - Some of the world’s largest ship owners are abandoning Greece ahead of a major tax hike. - Pacific Rim trade deal reached and Sanders isn’t happy about it. - Coast Guard: Missing U.S.-based cargo ship sank. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


Bowe Bergdahl’s Army investigation just proceeded to the next step, lawyer says

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, left, and defense lead counsel Eugene Fidell, center, look on as Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl is questioned during a preliminary hearing last month to determine if Bergdahl will be court-martialed. He is charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. (AP Photo/Brigitte Woosley) The Army’s desertion case against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has progressed a step, with an investigating officer who oversaw a hearing last month sending a report with his recommendations on what the service should do next to a four-star general’s command, Bergdahl’s lawyer said Monday. Eugene Fidell, Bergdahl’s lead defense counsel, said that an Army lawyer, Lt. Col. Mark A. Visger, submitted his recommendations to U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Monday afternoon. Visger oversaw a two-day hearing last month probing the case against Bergdahl, who faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in connection with his 2009 disappearance from a small Army outpost in southeastern Afghanistan. [Disillusioned and self-deluded, Bowe Bergdahl disappeared into brutal captivity] The case has been closely scrutinized because of what happened afterward. Bergdahl was taken by insurgents affiliated with the Taliban, and held captive until the White House approved a deal last year that freed him in exchange for the release of five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Army launched a massive manhunt to find him that lasted months, and altered operations across Afghanistan. Gen. Robert B. Abrams will decide whether the Army court-martials Bergdahl. He is commanding general of Forces Command and has been named the convening authority for the case. (He also is the son of Gen. Creighton Abrams, a towering figure who commanded operations during the Vietnam War and is the namesake of the Abrams battle tank.) A spokesman for Forces Command (FORSCOM), Paul Boyce, said the organization continues to “maintain careful respect” for the legal process and Bergdahl’s rights. More information will be released when it is possible, he said. [Bowe Bergdahl, once-missing U.S. soldier, charged with desertion] Bergdahl’s legal team has pressed the service to release numerous documents in recent days, including Visger’s recommendations. Bergdahl’s defense teams received copies of it Monday, Fidell said in a statement released to the media. “Colonel Visger’s report is unclassified and we believe it should be made public immediately,” Fidell said in a statement. Fidell declined further comment, citing a respect for the Army’s legal process and motions that have


U.S. military struggles to explain how it wound up bombing Doctors Without Borders hospital

Speaking at the Pentagon, Gen. John Campbell, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Afghan troops under fire in Kunduz requested air support from U.S. forces. The airstrikes killed 22 in a Doctors Without Borders hospital. A heavily armed U.S. gunship designed to provide added firepower to Special Operations forces was responsible for shooting and killing 22 people at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, over the weekend, Pentagon officials said Monday. The attack occurred in the middle of the night Saturday, when Afghan troops and a U.S. Special Forces team training and advising them were on the ground near the hospital in Kunduz, the first major Afghan city to fall to the Taliban since the war began in 2001. The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said Monday the airstrike was requested by Afghan troops who had come under fire, contradicting earlier statements from Pentagon officials that the strike was ordered to protect U.S. forces on the ground. [Afghan response to hospital bombing is muted, even sympathetic] The new details, and the continuing dispute over what exactly happened, heightened the controversy over the strike. In the two days since the incident, U.S. officials have struggled to explain how a U.S. aircraft wound up attacking a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders. On Monday, the medical humanitarian group said the United States was squarely responsible. “The reality is the U.S. dropped those bombs,” Christopher Stokes, general director of Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement. “With such constant discrepancies in the U.S. and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical.” The weekend’s disastrous airstrike reinforces doubts about how effectively a limited U.S. force in Afghanistan can work with Afghan troops to repel the Taliban, which has been newly emboldened as the United States draws down its presence. The strike also comes as the Obama administration is weighing whether to keep as many as 5,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2015, according to senior officials. Obama has not made a final decision on the proposal, but the recent advances by the Taliban have certainly complicated the president’s calculus. Army Gen. John Campbell, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told reporters Monday at a news conference that Afghan forces “advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. forces.” Campbell made


The four small chambers of the heart

of seven children — the only girl. On the wall beside her bed are photographs of Hydeia in better times looking like a normal, happy, smiling, goofy teenager. The Harts are from Waldorf, Md. Hydeia has idiopathic pulmonary hypertension. With this condition, the vessels that carry blood to her lungs from her heart have very high resistance, causing the right side to strain. Hydeia has lived with this condition — and has been treated by this hospital since she was six. She gets medications continuously through a permanent IV. This has allowed her to live a relatively normal life at home and to go to school. Hydeia has been admitted 16 times in the last decade. This time she was admitted with symptoms of vomiting, sudden unconsciousness and a low heart rate – all signs that her right side is now acutely failing. “She has done this before where she comes in, and her right heart is failing. Her heart really is doing the best it can but it hardly moves. Anything that makes the lungs sicker will bring her in – like pneumonia or a little virus — and make her right heart struggle, and she’ll almost die. Then we’ll treat her lungs, and slowly she’ll get better, but she doesn’t seem to be bouncing back as quickly as she has in the past, and so we all have some concerns that this is not going to happen — and that her heart is just going to stop, and we won’t be able to restart it,” Schwartz said. Hydeia’s ventilator beeps a warning every few minutes, and the nurse has to come in and adjust the oxygen mask over her nose again, making sure of a proper seal. While the mask is off, her mom helps her spread Vaseline around her nose to protect her skin. After this, Hydeia closes her eyes and goes back to sleep, and Sherian returns to her seat by the window at the end of her bed to wait. In room M365, eight-month-old Abigail (Abby) Rose Moore is wrapped, burrito style, in a hospital blanket. Two small feet with striped pink socks stick out. Her mom, Alejandra, is busy pumping milk for her nearby. Abigail did manage to spend some time at home in Herndon, Va., before her initial operation, which was expected to keep them in hospital only a week. It has now


In the eerie emptiness of Chernobyl’s abandoned towns, wildlife is flourishing

replaced humans in the villages’ empty streets. Within ten years, every animal population in the exclusion zone had at least doubled. At the same time, the kinds of species that were flourishing in the exclusion zone were vanishing from other parts of the former Soviet Union, likely due to increased hunting, poorer wildlife management and other economic changes. By 2010, the last year of the on-foot census, the populations for most species were as large as in any of Belarus’ four national parks. For one species, the wolves, the population was seven times bigger. This indicates to researchers that chronic exposure to radiation from the explosion has had no impact on overall mammal populations. Whatever fallout may have come from the initial explosion was completely offset by the benefits of life without humans. This doesn’t mean that the zone isn’t dangerous, Hinton stressed. He and his colleagues didn’t study the individual- and molecular-level damage caused by lingering contamination. While whole populations aren’t dying out, individual animals might be getting sick. And surveys have shown that the soil in areas close to the reactor site still exude radiation. But, “the environment is very resilient,” Hinton said. The presence of wolves is particularly telling. As apex predators, they are a sign of the health of the entire ecosystem — if they’re flourishing, that means that every other level of species, from elk and deer on down to insects and plants, must also be healthy. (TREE project) Another team of researchers is currently using camera traps to count wildlife on the Ukrainian side of the exclusion zone. Nick Beresford, a radioecologist at the National Environment Research Council in the U.K., said that their work won’t be done until the end of the year, but he expects to reach the same conclusions as those working in Belarus. Beresford praised the Current Biology study and its findings: “People have said before that wildlife in the zone is flourishing, but those accounts were rightly criticized as anecdotal,” he said. “This is the first study to really back it up with science.” Walking around the exclusion zone is like being in “a national park without the people,” Hinton said. The forests are nearly pristine, the animals abundant. What relics of human presence do remain have been almost entirely reclaimed by nature. Even the Soviet city of Pripyat in Ukraine, which once housed tens of thousands of workers


Find out which beer is made closest to you with this crazy map

below. If you're not on a mobile device, you can mouse-over to get details about a region's "home" brewery, and you can click on the map to zoom in for more detail in dense urban areas. The little white dots when you zoom in are the actual brewery locations. Want to just see a giant image of the map instead? Here you go. Every brewery in the lower 48 The first thing you'll notice is that the pattern of breweries typically follows population patterns -- more densely populated area have more breweries, hence the cells "belonging" to each brewery are smaller. Check out, for instance, the crazy-quilt of breweries in the San Francisco Bay area, below. But in far-flung rural areas, breweries (and people) are spread farther apart from each other. In Southwestern Utah (below), for instance, the Zion Canyon Brewing Company is the only one for hundreds of miles around, according to poi-factory's crowdsourced data. Whether you live in say, Panaca, Nev., (pop. 963) or 236 miles away in Page, Ariz., (pop. 7,326), you can think of Zion Canyon as your home brew. Conversely, if you live in a city, there are probably any number of breweries within a few blocks of you. If you live on one side of Baltimore, for instance, Full Tilt Brewing is probably the closest to you. On the other side, Union Brewing is probably close. And so on. But in some places you find geographic clusters of brewing in places where you wouldn't expect it based on population alone. Check out Western New York (below), for instance. The many breweries there are a reflection of the region's rich beermaking history with breweries like Genesee in continuous operation since the late 1800s. If nothing else, these maps should give you a good sense of what people are talking about when they talk about the "craft beer revolution" in the United States. The number of American breweries has risen sharply in recent years — up over 70 percent since the late 1990s, according to business statistics maintained by the Census Bureau. The Brewers Association, a trade group for craft beer makers, estimates that over 1,000 craft breweries, microbreweries and brewpubs popped up between 2012 and 2014 alone. "The majority of Americans live within 10 miles of a local brewery," the association wrote last year. "That percentage is only going to climb in the coming years."


The Hotlist: 10 things to see, eat, drink and do in October 2015

Thievery Corporation and Farid on the patio, 95 North and Thomas Blondet in the Gold Room and Chris Brooks in the Main Room while trumpeter Donvonte McCoy leads an all-star jam upstairs. But all three nights are worth hitting. Advance tickets are currently on sale; we don't recommend trying to buy them at the door. Doors open at 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 9 p.m. Sunday. 1212 18th St. NW. www.18thstlounge.com. $21.15 per night; $59.17 weekend pass. Oct. 10: Rock the Red and make some noise After a bummer of a baseball season, Washington sports fans should be eager to welcome back Verizon Center's two professional tenants. Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals enter the NHL season with high expectations, and they'll open the 2015-2016 campaign Saturday at home against the New Jersey Devils. Saturday at 7 p.m., Verizon Center. www.washingtoncaps.com. $36-$313. The Washington Wizards, meanwhile, start the NBA season this month on the road; the first home game for John Wall, Bradley Beal and Co. is Halloween against the not-at-all-scary New York Knicks. Oct. 31 at 7 p.m., Verizon Center. www.washingtonwizards.com. $27-$4,287. Oct. 15-17: VelocityDC Dance Festival More than twenty ensembles and individuals will take to the stage for this seventh annual event hosted by the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Expect performances to span genres including ballet, flamenco, Southeast Asian, percussive dance and more. There will also be several free performances in and around the theater throughout the weekend. 8 p.m. Oct. 15-16, 2 and 8 p.m. Oct. 17. Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F. St. NW. www.shakespearetheatre.org. $18. Oct. 17: 'Banned in D.C.' Downtown Walking Tour of the D.C. Punk Underground Minor Threat performs at dc space in January 1980. The landmark club is now a Penn Quarter Starbucks. (Photo by Susie Josephson Horgan/Courtesy of Dischord Records) Years before the area around the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library was filled with J. Crew, Starbucks and chain restaurants, the neighborhood was ground zero for the D.C. punk scene, home to some of the most important punk venues in D.C. history: The 9:30 Club, DC Space, the Lansburgh Center. To celebrate the first anniversary of the library's D.C. Punk Archive, author and photographer Cynthia Connolly, who curated the book "Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes of the D.C. Punk Underground," will lead a virtual walking tour of the area's important sites, augmented with vintage film clips. Free tickets will be


Jason Pierre-Paul could be back for Giants by the end of the season

(Bill Kostroun /Associated Press) We’re starting to get some clarity over the status of New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, who had his index finger and portions of his thumb and middle finger amputated after a July 4 fireworks accident. A league source is telling Newsday’s Bob Glauber that the Giants are “cautiously optimistic” that Pierre-Paul can return before the end of the season, possibly for the team’s final four games or even before that. “If he gets back for four games, that would be good,” the source told Glauber. “If it’s more, that would be a bonus.” The source also told Glauber how Pierre-Paul would play with a damaged hand. “If Pierre-Paul does play this season, the source said he could decide to tape his middle finger, ring finger and pinky together to make up for any weakness caused by the damage to his middle finger,” he writes. Pierre-Paul is currently rehabbing in South Florida. Last month, he posted an Instagram video that showed him working out and provided a quick glimpse of his hand. The next day, the New York Daily News published photos of his hand. The Giants’ $14.813 million franchise-player tender to Pierre-Paul is still on the table, but the defensive end has yet to sign it over fears that the team would put him on the non-football injury list, meaning he might not get paid. If he doesn’t sign his franchise offer by Nov. 17, his season officially will be over and he’d become a free agent heading into 2016. Here’s the Giants schedule for their final six games: – Nov. 29 at Redskins – Dec. 6 vs. Jets – Dec. 14 at Dolphins – Dec. 20 vs. Panthers – Dec. 27 at Vikings – Jan. 3 vs. Eagles


The Islamic State is growing in Afghanistan, and has its eyes on a specific city

is concentrated most significantly in Nangarhar province, in the southeastern corner of the country along the Pakistan border. The group is growing by recruiting members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a branch of the Taliban that is focused primarily across the border in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. [Pentagon: Islamic State looking to expand in Afghanistan] “The issue right now is that the Taliban and Daesh continue to fight each other, and so they’re going at it… inside of there,” Campbell said, using one of the alternate names for Islamic State fighters. “A lot of the Daesh, as we see, continue to be disenfranchised Taliban that maybe see Daesh as a way to gain more media, more resources, so they kind of changed T-shirts, raised a different flag.” The general’s assessment marks a change from what he told the Senate in February, as Campbell acknowledged Tuesday. Testifying on Capitol Hill early this year, Campbell said the Islamic State had a “nascent” presence in Afghanistan. Other U.S. military officials in Afghanistan said earlier this year that the Islamic State’s presence was “aspirational at best.” A Pentagon report to Congress released in June also addressed the issue, saying that the Islamic State was looking to expand in Afghanistan, but had so far launched only limited recruiting efforts. An Afghan soldier stands guard outside Jalalabad Airport on Oct. 2, 2015. Campbell said Tuesday that the Islamic State has shown up in provinces ranging from Helmand in the south to Sari Pul in the north. But the group is focused primarily in Nangarhar, and wants to make the city of Jalalabad there its capital, he added. Strategically located at the intersection of the Kabul and Kunar rivers about 90 miles east of Kabul, it is also home to a major military installation at the Jalalabad Airport. Citing interviews with refugees, Reuters reported in June that the Islamic State had seized substantial territory in Nangarhar, with hundreds of people pledging to join the group and burning poppy fields that finance the Taliban’s military operations. More recently, the Islamic State released a video in which it beheads a man in the province, claiming that he is a spy. The Afghan army announced last month that it was launching a broad operation in Nangarhar to flush out insurgents. It is expected to target both Taliban and Islamic State militants, who continue to fight each other.


What should the labor movement look like in the age of Uber?

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gives the daily press briefing. Are we entering our first “Uber election”? A number of writers have speculated that the 2016 election may turn in part on the question of how we should adapt to the economic changes known as the “gig economy,” or the “on demand” economy, which are increasing flexibility for employers, employees, and consumers, but also threaten to further erode stability for middle class workers. Underlying this question is another one: How can workers retain a voice amid these economic changes, particularly since unions are already seeing their clout eroded and their structures may not be well adapted to these changes to begin with? Tomorrow President Obama convenes what the White House is calling a “Summit on Worker Voice” that will be devoted in part to grappling with these questions. The summit, which will convene a range of workers, union leaders, organizers, employers, and experts, is designed to deal with the whole range of challenges labor faces right now, which are pressing indeed: declining membership; stagnating wages; a largely successful ongoing conservative attack on bargaining rights; and changing conceptions of what “work” means. “Given the fact that the workforce is changing, what are creative ways to make sure that workers are able to come together and be the agents of change that are driving forward what the nature of work is going to be?” asks Cecilia Munoz, a senior White House domestic policy adviser, explaining the central challenge the Summit is designed to address. The Summit was Obama’s idea, Munoz says. Representatives from Uber and other “gig economy” companies will be on hand at the Summit. “The gig economy is a classic example of something which is changing the nature of work,” Munoz says. “Increasingly, workers are less likely in this generation, and certainly in the next, to be spending their careers working for a company or a series of companies. And they’re more likely to be working in this kind of structure. That raises all kinds of questions: What are the right policy structures to protect workers? What are the right organizing structures to protect workers?” “We have invited labor unions and workers themselves, along with companies that are engaged in the on-demand economy,” in order to “lift up what is a really challenging set of issues” and “get out in front of something that’s changing,” Munoz continues. How


From ‘collateral damage’ to ‘deeply regrets’: How the Pentagon has shifted on the Afghan hospital attack

hospital. The use of the military term “collateral damage” immediately inflamed the situation as Doctors Without Borders saw the classification of the strike as a dismissal of the incident. Under the Law of Armed Conflict, collateral damage is legal as long “as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack.” Sunday, Oct. 4: I think our current understanding, again, understanding that an investigation is going on and early facts can be misleading, is that yes, there was American air action in that area, and that American forces there were engaged in the general vicinity. And at some point in the course of the events there did report that they, themselves, were coming under attack. That much I think we can safely say. —Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter to reporters while enroute to Spain The day after the attack, with criticism mounting, Carter insisted that U.S. forces were essentially acting in self-defense. The Pentagon would only say that the attack was conducted “in the vicinity” of a Doctors Without Borders medical facility. Monday, Oct. 5: We have now learned that on October, 3rd, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. Forces. An air strike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. —Commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Campbell to reporters Campbell appeared to be pointing the finger at Afghan forces for requesting the airstrike, and he said specifically that he was correcting earlier reports that indicated U.S. forces were directly engaged with the enemy when they called in the airstrike. Doctors Without Borders immediately responded to Campbell’s comment. “The reality is the U.S. dropped those bombs,” Christopher Stokes, general director of Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement. “With such constant discrepancies in the U.S. and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical.” Tuesday, Oct. 6: Army General John Campbell clarified that the decision to provide air support to Afghan forces in Kunduz, which hit a hospital, was a U.S. decision. "We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility," Gen. Campbell said while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Oct. 6. A hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility. —Gen. Campbell in testimony


Happy Hour Roundup

* Afghanistan, the forever war: The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan recommended on Tuesday that President Barack Obama revise his plan and keep more than 1,000 U.S. troops in the country beyond 2016, just days after a deadly U.S. airstrike “mistakenly” hit a hospital during fierce fighting in the north. Gen. John F. Campbell told Congress that conditions on the ground have changed since Obama announced his plan in 2014 to cut the current U.S. force of 9,800 to an embassy-based security contingent of about 1,000 in Kabul post-2016. Obama has vowed to a war-weary nation to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan and get American troops out by the time he leaves office in January 2017. Campbell said, however, that Afghanistan remains engaged in a violent battle against the Taliban, military operations in Pakistan have pushed fighters, including those linked to al-Qaida, into eastern and northern Afghanistan and the emergence of Islamic State fighters has further complicated the conflict. Who knows, maybe Obama will just shove this mess off to his successor, who can pass it off to his or her successor, who can in turn… * Looks like the movement to rethink harsh prison sentences is resulting in some real action: The Justice Department is set to release about 6,000 inmates early from prison — the largest one-time release of federal prisoners — in an effort to reduce overcrowding and provide relief to drug offenders who received harsh sentences over the past three decades. The inmates from federal prisons nationwide will be set free by the department’s Bureau of Prisons between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2. Most of them will go to halfway houses and home confinement before being put on supervised release. The early release follows action by the U.S. Sentencing Commission — an independent agency that sets sentencing policies for federal crimes — which reduced the potential punishment for future drug offenders last year and then made that change retroactive. What’s amazing, particularly for anyone who lived through the 1990s, is that no one is calling anyone “soft on crime” for supporting actions like this one. * Ari Melber notes a fascinating fact about the GOP primary: For a guy who always talks about how rich he is, Donald Trump has spent almost nothing on his presidential campaign so far, though that may have to change soon. * Stephen Stromberg makes the case that Hillary Clinton