MoneyBeat: The Dow Jones was down more than 500 points for a while yesterday on worries about the depressed price of oil and the Chinese economy, before settling down a bit and closing off by 249. Oil dropped to $26.55 a barrel. US stocks are down more than 11 percent so far this year and futures indicate the markets will be down again today.

Education Beat: The Detroit school system has asked a judge to issue a restraining order against public school teachers who staged a walkout in protest over the dilapidated condition of the buildings in which they teach. Almost all the Detroit schools were closed for lack of teachers yesterday.

The teachers released pictures of water stains on ceilings, peeling paint, buckling floors, and even mushrooms growing in the bathroom of a school building. There’s water on the floors but none in the swimming pool. They say rodents come to class.

For years the indebted schools have been under the direction of emergency managers who have done little more than push the problems to their successors. For obvious political reasons the teachers say they staged a sickout for the benefit of the school children. What they can’t say is that the working conditions are just as deplorable.

Winter on the Way: The first major storm of an oddly un-wintery winter is moving to zero in on Washington DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia over the weekend, causing the National Weather Service to issue a blizzard warning. Starting tomorrow, one to two feet of snow is expected all the way up the Atlantic coast from Virginia to north of Boston.

Getting Warmer: Last year was the warmest around the globe since temperature records have been kept, according to meteorological data. The year 2015 was 1.2 degrees warmer than the average temperature for the 20^th Century. In the United States, 2015 was the second hottest year on record.

Scientists say global warming slowed, beginning in 1998, but these last two years may indicate that the speed of warming is picking up again.

Spy vs. Spy: A British investigation has concluded that the murder by poisoning 10 years ago of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London “was probably approved” by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of the country’s spy service. Litvinenko had become a whistleblower speaking up about corruption in Russia’s security services. Somebody slipped him a mickey of polonium and he took three weeks to die. Shortly before he died he told his wife that Putin had done it.

Planet Nine: Some of the same scientists whose analysis resulted in the demotion of Pluto from planet to dwarf say there’s evidence that there may be an unseen 9^th planet out there orbiting the sun. They say they’ve seen “planetoids” orbiting around an object they estimate to be five and ten times the size of Earth, although they can’t see the planet itself that they’ve dubbed “Planet Nine.” Which, by the way, is a little close to the title of an Ed Wood Sci-Fi movie.

Really, She Said It: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Plain, critiquing President Obama while endorsing Donald Trump for president: “And he, who would negotiate deals, kind of with the skills of a community organizer maybe organizing a neighborhood tea, well, he deciding that, ‘No, America would apologize as part of the deal,’ as the enemy sends a message to the rest of the world that they capture and we kowtow, and we apologize, and then, we bend over and say, ‘Thank you, enemy.’ ”

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