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c2b2e87c-3170-11e1-b034-d347de95dcfe_2 | Chantilly-based firm aims to take a bite out of cybersecurity concerns | — Danielle Douglas New York Ave. developers duel for tenants Both projects have the same developer, Rick Walker, and Walker had long pitched the plan of building the Wal-Mart store on top of a home improvement big box on New York Avenue at the corner of Bladensburg Road, just as he planned to build a Wal-Mart store above a Lowe’s in Baltimore. Walker is no longer marketing his New York Avenue project, called the Pointe at Arbor Place, as having a home improvement store. He says he is juggling his tenant mix and is attempting to attract a national pet supplies chain to his project. Wal-Mart says it is still committed to the site. — Jonathan O’Connell Booz bias The Department of Veterans Affairs’ inspector general said in a report released last month that the agency showed a potential bias toward incumbent Booz Allen Hamilton, the McLean-based contractor, in its acquisition of support services for its information security and privacy programs. The acquisition, which was awarded in late September 2010, favored Booz Allen by making knowledge of VA procedures and practices a significant selection factor without making clear in the solicitation it would be important. Though Booz Allen’s proposal cost the most, its knowledge and experience helped it win the decision, said the IG memo, which was first reported by NextGov. The VA’s acquisition office generally disagreed with the inspector general’s findings. In a statement, Booz Allen said the report “was not directly focused on actions by Booz Allens itself, and we have no comment on its conclusions.” — Marjorie Censer Honors for pro-bono work Malika Levarlet, a Washington-based associate at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, is getting kudos for being the first lawyer at the firm’s D.C. outpost to take on a political asylum case through the human rights nonprofit Human Rights First. The firm awarded Levarlet, a corporate lawyer and American University law alumna, its Pro Bono Attorney of the Year award, an annual honor recognizing attorneys’ community service work. Levarlet worked closely with a woman who was forced to flee her native Cameroon after advocating for transparent elections and equal access to health care for prisoners to gain political asylum in the United States. Her efforts helped Sheppard Mullin nab the Frankel Award from Human Rights First, which goes to law firms taking on asylum cases on behalf of clients from dozens of countries. — Catherine Ho |
5057141e-3261-11e1-825f-dabc29fd7071_3 | NASA’s lunar probes will test theory of why one side of the moon is lopsided | the infant Earth was a molten ball. Long before life appeared, rocky debris ricocheted around the early solar system. Something the size of Mars plowed into the Earth, sending huge globs of molten material hurtling into space. The largest glob coalesced into the moon. This catastrophic-impact theory of moon formation is widely accepted by scientists. To that, Asphaug and Jutzi threw in a twist: What if a second, smaller glob of Earth-stuff also got blasted free? If it launched at a particular angle, the glob would have coalesced into a second body and drifted behind the moon in roughly the same orbit. After a few million years, the pull of the sun would have drawn the smaller moon closer to the bigger moon. Eventually, the two bodies collided — in slow motion. A fast collision would have excavated a giant crater. But a slow collision — just the type predicted by the computer simulations — would have pancaked the small moon onto the surface, leaving evidence for GRAIL to spot. It’s a quirk of happenstance that GRAIL will be able to test the theory at all. Zuber proposed the $400 million mission five years ago, long before Asphaug and Jutzi published their idea. Zuber wanted to probe other, more general questions: Does the moon have a solid core? How long did the moon take to cool after it formed? And did the moon once have a magnetic field? “You might think we already know all there is to know about the moon,” said Zuber. ”Of course, that’s not the case.” The twin GRAIL probes arrived in a high lunar orbit this weekend, but they won’t begin collecting data until March. By then, thrusters will have dropped the pair to just 35 miles above the surface. Flying in formation — one ahead of the other — the probes will map minute fluctuations of the moon’s gravity over its entire surface. This new gravity map will be 100 to 1,000 times as accurate as current maps. From it, scientists will infer the internal structure of the moon “from crust to core,” Zuber said. Asphaug said there’s an even better way to test the long-shot idea, though it’s one that GRAIL can’t carry out: Study rocks from the far side of the moon. The Apollo astronauts collected hundreds of pounds of moon rocks — but all of them came from the Earth-facing side. |
489869a6-357e-11e1-ac55-e75ea321c80a_0 | In Mexico 12,000 killed in drug violence in 2011 | MEXICO CITY — More than 50,000 people have been killed during President Felipe Calderon’s U.S.-backed military confrontation with organized crime and drug trafficking, which began in 2006. The Calderon government, after promising to update figures regularly, has not reported its own death count, perhaps because the trend line does not look good. A government spokesman said new figures would be released later this month. The ruling party is facing national elections this summer, in which the main opposition party threatens to retake the presidency. The daily newspaper Reforma, one of the nation’s most respected independent news outlets, reported 12,359 drug-related killings in 2011, a 6.3 percent increase compared with the previous year. There were 2,275 drug killings in 2007, Reforma said. Other media reported similar numbers. Daily Milenio recorded 12,284 drug-related deaths last year. La Jornada counted 11,890 deaths in 2011, which it says is an 11 percent decrease from the previous year. Regardless, in its annual tally La Jornada featured a cartoon that showed Father Time 2011 lying in the desert with his head chopped off. In the Reforma count, the number of bodies that showed signs of torture grew to 1,079. Beheadings reached almost 600, up from 389 the year before. Reforma also found that women increasingly were victims of drug violence, with more than 900 slain last year. More world news coverage: |
c0c1198c-146d-11e1-9048-1f5352187eed_3 | Flu’s lethality is attributed to immune systems overreacting to the virus | developed that will provide protection against cytokine storms,” Hugh Rosen, Oldstone’s colleague at the Scripps Institute who also worked on the cytokine study, said in a statement. The findings “could potentially change the way the flu is treated,” Oldstone said, and could even have implications for lung infections, HIV and other viral diseases, though Perl notes that the research on how cytokine storms function in these other diseases is still very unclear. ‘Getting under the hood’ Rosen, Oldstone and their team, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, examined this exaggerated immune response in mice. For a third group of flu-infected mice, the researchers used an experimental cytokine-blocking compound instead of Tamiflu. Only 20 percent of these mice died. And when the scientists gave a fourth group of mice both Tamiflu and the compound, the death rate dropped to 5 percent. Cytokine-blocking drugs could be more effective than antivirals, Oldstone said, because they target the flu effects that cause the most damage to the body. Also, a problem with many antiviral drugs is that they can cause viruses to mutate into drug-resistant strains. Oldstone said that probably wouldn’t be an issue for cytokine-blockers because they don’t affect the virus itself. Jeff Dimond, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Oldstone and his colleagues went deep into the cellular level to figure out how cytokine storms function. “This is really ‘getting under the hood and tinkering with the wires’ research,” he said. Dimond said CDC scientists are also looking at links between the immune system and flu fatalities. Oldstone said there’s still much that scientists don’t understand about cytokine storms. For example, he said, it’s unclear why the flu virus causes a life-threatening storm in some people while for others it produces nothing more than a few miserable days at home. While Oldstone’s findings may lead to better flu-fighting drugs, it will probably be many years before those drugs reach the local pharmacy. He said the next step for his team is to try to replicate the mouse study using ferrets, then primates and then, finally, humans. In the meantime, Perl said, scientists now know much more about how the immune system functions and, more important, how it malfunctions. “It’s even more complicated than what we were taught in med school,” she said. Schultz is a freelance writer and graduate student in journalism at American University. |
5dfa7e94-358b-11e1-836b-08c4de636de4_2 | Iowa caucuses: One day out. | have had the candidate to themselves — were pressed out of the restaurant and stood in the cold. “I’m actually from Polk City,” one said to another as he was unable to squeeze his way inside. “Yeah, we don’t count,” the other responded. Despite the fire-hazard nature of the crowd, Santorum followed a pattern established through 360 previous Iowa events. He took every question voters asked. “One more question,” he said after speaking for about 30 minutes. “No?” he said, spotting more hands. “Two? Three more questions.” For limping candidates such as Perry, Gingrich and Bachmann, a dismal showing Tuesday could set off a chain reaction of bad news. Lower fundraising totals. Less advertising. Disappointments in the upcoming primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The mix of contenders may also shift. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr., another lagging candidate hoping to catch fire, did not compete in Iowa so that he could focus on New Hampshire. In Sioux City, Perry — whose weak debate performances demolished the high expectations that had greeted his candidacy — drew on his experience as an avid runner to frame the race ahead. “This is the first, let’s say, Mile One of the marathon, and I’ve run a marathon before,” he said Monday at a meet-and-greet at the Stoney Creek Inn. “We’ll see who’s still running at Mile 21. I finished my marathon, and I expect to finish this marathon as well.” A Des Moines Register poll over the weekend indicated that four out of 10 caucus-goers are still open to changing their minds about whom to support. For some, that decision could come down to the final appeals they hear from their neighbors during the quirky, quadrennial exercise that will take place in 1,774 precincts across the state — in schoolhouses, libraries, churches and homes. “It’s hard. You hear good and bad about them all,” said Marilyn Walker, 75, a retired farmer from Indianola who attended an event for Santorum on Monday evening at a Pizza Ranch in Altoona. “We probably won’t make up our minds until the very last moment.” She said she and her husband had ruled out Romney, calling him “a waverer.” They were considering Santorum, Paul and Bachmann. “We’re going to decide based on integrity and morality.” After hearing Santorum, Walker said she remained undecided. “It’s food for thought,” she said. Staff writers Amy Gardner, Philip Rucker, Nia-Malika |
faaec2b8-325c-11e1-a274-61fcdeecc5f5_2 | Spaceship Earth: A new view of environmentalism | influential thinkers argue for a managerial approach to the planet that is short on sentiment and long on science and technology. Ecologists, for example, have long bemoaned the invasive species that, stowing away amid the human cargo of the global economy, are reworking entire landscapes and overpowering many native species. The old approach would be to try to eradicate the invaders. The new approach argues that “novel landscapes” are here to stay and that humans may have to take direct action to relocate native species to stay ahead of climate changes. Brand’s philosophy was pro-technology amid a counterculture movement that often saw technology as an evil — as the source of pollution, industrial-scale warfare and nuclear weapons. Early on, Brand saw the personal computer as a source of individual empowerment and resistance to authority; he sponsored an early convention of computer hackers. “It has to be done in a spirit of cautionary respect. There has to be some rueful recognition that the spirit of managing things has gotten us where we are. That same sort of arrogance — we control it all — can’t continue,” Borgmann says. Beyond the philosophical questions are nuts-and-bolts issues about how people could intelligently manage something as complicated as the natural world. We might not be good at it. Investigators said that The tsunami knocked out the backup power generators at the plant, which in retrospect were located too low. Without electricity, the Fukushima plant couldn’t cool the nuclear fuel rods and fuel tanks, and a series of explosions and meltdowns released large amounts of radiation into the environment for months. “The future should belong, and could belong, to the small and many, not the big and few,” McKibben says. Decentralization would help prevent small problems from expanding into societal catastrophes, he says. Successful management of global environmental issues would require political leadership that McKibben, Brand and others say hasn’t materialized. Dealing with climate change, for example, “involves a level of global cooperation that has never happened, and the mechanisms for that are not in sight,” Brand says. Nonetheless, he’s an optimist about human beings in general. “We’re getting better,” he says. “We are getting far less violent, less cruel and less unjust, steadily for the last millennia, centuries, years and days. It’s a remarkably human accomplishment in basically domesticating ourselves.” Brand would amend the famous “We are as gods” inscription of his 1968 book: |
54f02a74-2b45-11e1-a53a-0ab7ddbf97ca_1 | Smarter Food: A farmers market with a difference | has grossed about $750,000 and is making a profit. The founders have added a small cafe and soon will build a community kitchen, where producers and entrepreneurs can preserve and can seasonal foods. This month, Local Roots helped to open a second market — what it calls a “sprout” — in Ashland, about 25 miles away. Wooster is not an obvious place for a local-foods co-op. The city is home to just 26,000 people. And this is not, say, Vermont or Northern California, where local food has become a cause. But Wooster does have two big advantages. The rolling hills that surround it are dotted with small farms; the county is home to one of the largest Amish populations in the country. And it has a small, dedicated group of residents who wanted a different kind of place to shop. Local Roots’ founders are a diverse group, including farmers, agricultural researchers, teachers, a banker and an architect. In 2009, the group began meeting weekly to figure out how to build a co-op without a lot of capital — which, co-founder Betsy Anderson says, “none of us had.” That ruled out traditional retail models, where the store sources and buys all of the food up front — and loses money on whatever goes to waste. “From the beginning, we were looking at how this would all fit together so it was environmentally and economically sustainable,” Anderson says. Local Roots’ solution was to develop a hybrid grocery store-farmers market. There are sections for meat, dairy products, bread, produce and specialty items such as gourmet popcorn and sorghum syrup. Each department carries offerings from a variety of producers, who come each week and stock the shelves themselves. That allows customers to buy grass-fed milk from Hartzler’s Dairy, eggs from the Shepherd’s Market, walnut bread from the Grain Maker bakery and turnips from Martha’s Farm but still check out at a single cash register, using a check, a credit card, even food stamps as well as cash. For tracking sales, each product in the store has a bar code, created with free, open-source software. Every week, each farmer gets an inventory report of what sold and when. Every two weeks, each farmer gets a check for 90 percent of his or her total gross sales. The other 10 percent goes toward operational expenses: rent, utilities and the salary of the co-op’s market manager, its |
54f02a74-2b45-11e1-a53a-0ab7ddbf97ca_2 | Smarter Food: A farmers market with a difference | of the food up front — and loses money on whatever goes to waste. “From the beginning, we were looking at how this would all fit together so it was environmentally and economically sustainable,” Anderson says. Local Roots’ solution was to develop a hybrid grocery store-farmers market. There are sections for meat, dairy products, bread, produce and specialty items such as gourmet popcorn and sorghum syrup. Each department carries offerings from a variety of producers, who come each week and stock the shelves themselves. That allows customers to buy grass-fed milk from Hartzler’s Dairy, eggs from the Shepherd’s Market, walnut bread from the Grain Maker bakery and turnips from Martha’s Farm but still check out at a single cash register, using a check, a credit card, even food stamps as well as cash. For tracking sales, each product in the store has a bar code, created with free, open-source software. Every week, each farmer gets an inventory report of what sold and when. Every two weeks, each farmer gets a check for 90 percent of his or her total gross sales. The other 10 percent goes toward operational expenses: rent, utilities and the salary of the co-op’s market manager, its only full-time staffer. Farmers also sell to the co-op’s cafe. On most days, the three chefs buy food just like any other customer and turn it into homey, delicious dishes such as leek-and-feta quiche or a curried cauliflower, apple and arugula pesto sandwich on locally made bread. Producers also sell the cafe their excess produce, the stuff that won’t sit another week on the shelves. The cooks prep and freeze it or use it for soups and sauces. The setup has been a boon to farmers. Marion Yoder, who sells pastured meats, cheese and homemade bagels, says the co-op helps keep her business running all year, with no need for customers to drive out to the farm after the farmers markets close for the season. (She is now selling about half of her meat through Local Roots.) Shoppers benefit, too, because the co-op makes it convenient to source most of their food locally. “It’s as easy as the grocery store,” says Trevor Dunlap, the head of a local nonprofit group, who stopped in to pick up some grass-fed milk and butter on his lunch hour. There has been much to learn, of course. Jessica Eikleberry, the co-op’s market manager, has |
dd7f0408-2fde-11e1-8c61-c365ccf404c5_0 | The year of eating better starts here | Cauliflower and Roasted Red Pepper Flatbread (Matt McClain/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) Are you one of the 67 percent of Americans who, according to one recent survey, will greet the new year with food-related resolutions? Whatever your answer, it’s hard to ignore the push for healthier eating that’s dominating food news. The message is clear: We should eat more vegetables, less meat and fewer processed foods. Meat eaters, relax. You don’t have to swear off your favorite meals, but you’ll want to learn how to build a dinner plate with vegetables at the center instead of on the side. Here are some strategies you can handle: Pack your pastas or rice dishes or alternative pizzas with vegetables and/or beans. You also can kick off your new virtuous-eating plan by using whole-wheat pizza dough as the basis for creating flatbreads (trending now in restaurants). Steam or saute your favorite vegetables, all cut into bite-size pieces, then deepen the flavor with sauteed garlic, browned onions or roasted peppers. Top small, rolled-out pizza dough circles or ovals. Sprinkle with fresh herbs and grated Parmesan or Romano cheese, and season with pepper and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Bake until beautiful. You’ll hardly miss the meat or gobs of melted cheese on a pizza. Transform your favorite dishes. Look to old favorites that happen not to have (much) meat. And don’t forget the stir-fry, a classic vegetarian main course. It’s a method just about every vegetarian cook learns. You can stick with the ginger-soy-sesame trio of greatness or expand into Thai peanut sauces and Vietnamese lemon-grass-infused choices; the seasoning is up to you. Be sure to include something substantial, such as thick slices of mushrooms or small cubes of tofu. If you’re adding meat, a minimal amount of lean ground pork or chicken can go a long way. RECIPES: Cauliflower and Roasted Red Pepper Flatbreads Orzo With Sweet Winter Vegetables Spinach and Feta Bowties Bok Choy and Oyster Mushroom Stir-Fry Sweet Potato and Chickpea Shepherd’s Pie |
6330752c-357b-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_0 | Brace yourselves for John Kelly’s upcoming film about zombie pandas | According to the BBC story, “A wild panda has been caught on camera gnawing at the bones of a dead gnu, a type of wild cow, in China’s Sichuan Province.” There was a video, too. Grainy footage from a hidden camera showed a giant panda casually gnawing on what looked like a rack of barbecued ribs. In other words, so much for the panda as a gentle, roly-poly bamboo-eater. The beast’s true nature will be revealed in my new movie, which as I mentioned earlier is called “Zombie Pandas of the Apocalypse.” I know what you’re thinking: Why “Zombie,” John? Why can’t the pandas of your movie be alive — as opposed to undead — and just hungry for some gnu flesh, as opposed to hungry for human brains? Well, for starters, my movie takes place in Washington, where gnus are thin on the ground. It would be a pretty short film if my pandas broke free from the National Zoo and went in search of wild Chinese cows. You can’t even get them at Fuddruckers. But there are brains everywhere, even in Washington. As for the last part of the title, once you’ve got “Zombie” and “Pandas,” “of the Apocalypse” rolls off the tongue like a morsel of masticated cerebellum. People waiting in line to see the pandas must pass by the rockhopper penguins. Several of the penguins have starting squirting their guano onto the crowds below. “We were queuing to see the pandas when a man in front shouted out in surprise that his jacket had been hit by a big dollop of penguin poo,” a 41-year-old man told the BBC. “It just missed me and my family and it was really oily and stank of fish.” There is speculation that the penguins are jealous of the attention lavished on the pandas. I think something else is afoot. The penguins are trying to warn us. Well, which is it? Something fishy is going on here. And so my movie begins: BRADY: Cass, come here! Comely graduate assistant Cass Ortiz enters. ORTIZ: What is it, doctor? BRADY: I accidentally knocked some neurological samples from a rhesus monkey into a petri dish containing giant panda stem cells. The results are amazing! Rapid cell growth at a rate I’ve never seen before! It’s what we’ve been missing all these years. Our female pandas simply need primate brain matter to become fertile! |
9092a906-3687-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_0 | Occupiers’ new foe: freezing cold in D.C. | More news from PostLocal: Capital Weather Gang: Small chance of flurries ahead Bandaged bandit robs Maryland CVS Sources: Harry Thomas in plea talks with U.S. prosecutors Metro work will affect all lines this weekend Technology claims another victim: D.C. record shop to close |
c870fb2c-2b2c-11e1-bbb4-584e01ef538d_0 | Salsify, a root vegetable that does double duty | I figure being adventurous in what you grow makes gardening more fun and can lead to new favorites. And the reason many of these foods are obscure may have more to do with the needs of long-distance shipping than whether they are good to eat. This is what gives the home gardener or local grower such an advantage. It might seem like the supermarkets have everything, but here’s the big secret: Potentially, you have a much wider repertoire. When you do this, don’t be dismayed by the way those roots look. They are tan and shaggy with coarse side roots. They make me think of the tabloid headline “Movie Stars Without Makeup.” Just wait till they’re all dolled up. The dolling-up consists of peeling them with a vegetable peeler to reveal the snow-white flesh, then placing them into a bowl of water acidulated with lemon juice, to keep them that way. Or not. If you’re going to brown them in butter it won’t matter, right? And that’s just what I do with them after I’ve steamed them for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on size. Salsify roots don’t look like much till peeled to reveal white flesh (Eisenhut & Mayer - Wien/GETTY IMAGES) I also use the greens, which look like tall, wide grass blades. The light-colored part of the leaf, the bottom six inches or so, is tender and delicious, like the bottom of a leek, so it gets a thorough washing and then a quick butter saute, along with the roots. The most surprising thing about salsify, the first time you eat it, is its flavor. Traditionally it is called “oyster plant,” a name as inaccurate as it is unappetizing. The roots taste nothing like oysters, and nothing like parsnips either. They taste like artichoke hearts — unlike the so-called Jerusalem artichokes that are said to taste like artichokes but don’t. This is a great two-in-one crop. Greens and roots tend to nourish us in different ways, and the role of roots is to bring up minerals from deep below the soil, especially a taprooted plant such as salsify. That’s why it’s important to give these crops a deeply cultivated soil with plenty of compost dug in. And by the way, have you ever tried two of salsify’s even more obscure taprooted cousins, scolymus and scorzonera. Are you curious? Read more Read more |
c39e12d4-3328-11e1-8c61-c365ccf404c5_1 | Anne Arundel County and Howard County crime report | hit the space key before writing the crime tip. If the text is received, you will receive an acknowledgment. ANNAPOLIS AREA ASSAULTS Westfield Mall, THEFTS/BREAK-INS Hudson St., BROOKLYN PARK AREA ROBBERIES Camrose Ave., Church St., CROWNSVILLE AREA ASSAULTS Summerhill Trailer Park, FELONY TRESPASSING Hawkins Rd., GLEN BURNIE AREA ASSAULTS Harold Ct., ROBBERIES Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd., Carolina Ave., Glen Ridge Rd., Old Stage Rd., Old Stage Rd., LAUREL AREA ASSAULTS Old Annapolis Rd., LINTHICUM AREA SEXUAL ASSAULTS Winterson Rd., ROBBERIES Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd., PASADENA AREA ASSAULTS Mountain Rd., SEVERN AREA ASSAULTS Robin Ct., Annapolis These were among incidents reported by the Annapolis Police Department. For information, call 410-268-9000. Call 410-280-2583 to anonymously report non-emergency crime or suspicious activity. INDECENT EXPOSURE INCIDENTS Cherry Grove Ave. S., ASSAULTS Bens Dr., Madison St., ROBBERIES Clay St. and Berina Nick Way, Forest Dr. and Thom Ct., Madison St., Pleasant St., President St., Washington St. W., Yawl Rd. and Cutter Ct., THEFTS/BREAK-INS Bay Ridge Ave., Burnside St., Edgewood Rd., Forbes St., Hawkins Lane, Main St., Main St., McKendree Ave., Mills Way, Monument St., President St., Spa Creek Landing, West St., West St., West St., West St., West St., West St., MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS Thom Ct., Howard County These were among incidents reported by the Howard County Police Department. Call 410-313-2236 for information. To anonymously provide information, call the Stop Crime tip line at 410-313-7867. ANNAPOLIS JUNCTION AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Pump House Rd., CLARKSVILLE AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Simpson Rd., MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS Auto Dr., COLUMBIA AREA INDECENT EXPOSURE INCIDENTS Tamar and Phelps Luck drives, ROBBERIES Wind Rider Way, THEFTS/BREAK-INS Devon Dr., Dobbin Way, Harpers Farm Rd., Harpers Farm Rd., Iron Frame Way, Kilimanjaro Rd., Old Tucker Row, Phelps Luck Dr., Phelps Luck Dr., Stevens Forest Rd., Sweet Clover, MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS Bridlerein Terr., Hickory Log Cir., Kathleen Ct., Majors Lane, Morning Wind Lane, ELLICOTT CITY AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Brightstone Pl., Mount Ida Dr., Old Frederick Rd., Royal Ascot Ct., ELKRIDGE AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Linden Ave., Main St., Merrymaker Way, Old Washington Rd., Washington Blvd., GLENWOOD AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Hobbs Rd., HIGHLAND AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Isle of Skye Dr., JESSUP AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Iron Bridge Rd., Jacqueline Ct., LAUREL AREA ROBBERIES Covered Wagon Dr., Riverbank Ct., Thamesmeade Rd., THEFTS/BREAK-INS Hitching Post Lane, Riverbank Ct., Riverbank Ct., Washington Blvd., Washington Blvd., Fifth St., MOUNT AIRY AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Frederick Rd., WOODBINE AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Carrs Mill Rd., Frederick Rd., MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS Woodbine Morgan Rd., — Compiled by Carrie Donovan |
412090a0-3492-11e1-ac55-e75ea321c80a_4 | Iran intensifies efforts to influence policy in Afghanistan | of dialogue with the Taliban. Iran and Afghanistan nearly went to war when the Taliban was in power in the 1990s, and relations have long been strained. But members of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, which is tasked with brokering talks with the Taliban, say Iran recently began allowing Taliban representatives to operate openly in Tehran and Mashhad, an Iranian city close to the border with Afghanistan. Arsallah Rahmani, a member of the council who was a deputy minister during the Taliban regime, said Taliban contacts have told him that Iran has courted the militant Islamist movement in an attempt to derail its exploratory talks with Washington. “Iran will not let [the Taliban] join the peace process,” Rahmani said. “Bringing the Taliban to the Islamic Awakening conference took great courage and was a sign to the international community,” said Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a member of the peace council. He said Iran and the Taliban are being pragmatic because they have a common goal of ensuring that the Americans withdraw fully from Afghanistan. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Mujahid said. “Both sides are using this logic.” Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said he could not confirm whether the group has dispatched envoys to Iran, but he noted that the Taliban wants constructive relationships with all of Afghanistan’s neighbors. The Iranian Embassy in Kabul did not respond to requests for an interview. U.S. diplomats and military officials in Kabul said they had no information about reports that Taliban representatives have an active presence in Iran. The United States has accused Iran of funding and arming certain Taliban commanders and playing a spoiler role in the war. ‘Iran is a cancer’ Iran has sought to keep a low profile in its efforts to influence policy in Afghanistan, though not always successfully. Karzai acknowledged in 2010 that presidential aides regularly received bags of cash from the Iranian government; he characterized the money as routine aid. Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan lawmaker who chairs the defense committee in parliament, said Iran has spent millions of dollars expanding its influence in Afghanistan. “Iran is a cancer,” she said. “It has affected all the Afghan government and nongovernmental bodies. They are everywhere: in the higher-education system, working with the media, working with civil society.” Another lawmaker, Fauzia Kofi, said Iran has strengthened its influence over Afghan institutions in the past year. Key among those |
e5c7ff1e-371f-11e1-b32c-a37ca28b472a_1 | Researchers report the best-yet AIDS vaccine in monkeys | the production of rare protective antibodies that some people make after exposure to HIV. The new research points to another candidate vaccine and sheds some light on how a successful one might work. The best-performing vaccine — which used two different strains of adenovirus that normally causes colds — reduced a monkey’s chance of becoming infected by 80 percent (although with enough exposure, infection was inevitable). (SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES) Barouch and his collaborators at 10 institutions tried out four real and one sham vaccine on rhesus monkeys. The vaccines used modified cold or herpes viruses to either carry the immunogens or boost the immune response, and sometimes for both purposes. Previous vaccine studies in monkeys used weak versions of the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that were identical to the components of the vaccine being tested — an arrangement that stacks the deck in favor of the vaccine. These researchers exposed the animals to a highly virulent strain somewhat different from the vaccine, which is a more real-world test. The best-performing vaccine — which used two different strains of adenovirus that normally causes colds — reduced an animal’s chance of becoming infected by 80 percent (although with enough exposure, infection was inevitable). Furthermore, once a vaccinated monkey became infected, there was less virus replicating and circulating in the bloodstream than was the case in unvaccinated animals. That is evidence of a more robust immune response fighting the infection. “This type of protection, and the extent of protection, in non-human primates has not been previously seen,” Barouch said. When a piece of the SIV’s envelope, or outer shell, was removed from the vaccine, the animals had no protection — confirming previous suggestions that envelope proteins will be an essential component of any AIDS vaccine likely to work. The researchers also tested the animals that were best able to suppress the growth of SIV after infection. They identified nine components of the immune response (of about 35 measured) that correlated with control of the virus — information that will also be useful in future studies. The study was partially funded by the Ragon Institute, a Boston charity that has committed $10 million to further testing of the vaccine, Barouch said. Physicists’ new creation: A ‘time cloak’ Police: Texas teen killed by officers had pellet gun The Gatorade shower: A victory ritual that makes a splash Celebritology: 10 anticipated pop cultural comebacks for 2012 |
dcf8fc28-3727-11e1-b32c-a37ca28b472a_0 | Afghan President Karzai supports direct U.S.-Taliban talks | A statement issued by Karzai’s office couched his blessing in the government’s desire to “eliminate the foreigner’s excuses for and actions to continue war and bloodshed in Afghanistan.” The implied criticism of U.S. military forces, which Karzai has accused of killing innocents in air attacks and night raids on Afghan villages by Special Operations troops, was something “he had to issue for internal reasons,” an Obama administration official said. “We get that.” In the past, Karzai has also complained that the United States was working behind his back in informal talks with the Taliban that began in the spring. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive relationship, said the Obama administration was prepared to ignore Karzai’s “digs” in exchange for the statement’s positive elements. “The best way to deal with this is to pocket the good stuff and ignore the other stuff,” the official said. “He said yes, and we’re going to take yes for an answer.” U.S. officials hope to see the Qatar office opened within the next several weeks and full-fledged negotiations established, with Afghan participation, by a NATO summit in May. Although the office now appears set to go forward, the rest of the terms of the agreement remain uncertain. The administration official said that the prisoner transfer, which would require congressional consultation and a waiver by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, has not come up for discussion again. The five detainees were originally requested by the Taliban early last year, according to a former administration official. They are among the most prominent remaining Afghans at Guantanamo Bay, and all held senior positions before their capture, according to military documents released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. Mohammad Fazl, a former deputy minister of defense in the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, and Noorullah Nori, a former interior minister and governor, surrendered to the Northern Alliance. They were among the first detainees to arrive at Guantanamo Bay 10 years ago this month, and both have declined legal representation or to file cases in U.S. district court challenging their detention. The two have been implicated in the slaughter of thousands of noncombatants, principally Shiite Muslims, during Taliban rule. When asked about the killing, Fazl and Nori “did not express any regret and stated that they did what they needed to do in their struggle to establish their ideal state,” according |
76da5d18-37bf-11e1-b32c-a37ca28b472a_1 | what you want or need for the year, and begin planning to save to get it. I know. The advice sounds super simple. And yet, so many people are in debt because they didn’t save and instead turned to credit to get what they wanted. --Track your spending. For 30 days, track every penny you spend. Write down everything. After the 30 days are up; then look back at your spending and start cutting. Once you know where you are wasting your money, you can develop a better budget. On the Web site for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants you will find a number of online tools to help you get started, such as an emergency savings calculator. Moving Financially Forward And since we are on the topic of new financial beginnings, there is one question I consistently get asked by people seeking financial freedom: “How do I get a handle on all my bills?” The short answer is you’ve got to get organized, or better yet, go electronic. I think it’s a great idea to use any one of the free sites to aid your mission to get your money straight. Living for Free Research by LPS Applied Analytics found that many homebuyers going through foreclosure are managing to remain in their homes for free long before they are forced out. Nationwide, the average time it takes to process a foreclosure -- from the first missed payment to the final foreclosure auction -- has climbed to 674 days from 253 days just four years ago, according to the data. In Florida, it can take up to 1,027 days -- nearly three years. “Most people do everything in their power to maintain these homes,” said David Berenbaum of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), a community activism group, who refutes the claim that homeowners are taking advantage of the system. “They take in relatives, get second jobs and even rent out rooms,” Berenbaum said. “What really needs to be done is for lenders to work harder to find solutions that allow delinquent borrowers who can afford to make reasonable mortgage payments to keep their homes.” Playing the Money Game Got Financial Issues? Tia Lewis contributed to this e-letter. You are welcome to e-mail comments and questions to singletarym@washpost.com. Please include your name and hometown; your comments may be used in a future column or newsletter unless otherwise requested. |
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6050543c-2511-11e1-a95c-9c59e68f8d88_1 | Even men need work-home life balance | providing more options and more individual control by featuring co-working spaces, huddle rooms, hoteling, mobile (plug-and-play) connections. But today fewer people commute on a daily basis to a physical workplace. Aided by technology, shrinking budgets, the popularity of telework and a radical shift in the tasks that people actually perform, work is no longer primarily defined as a place you go but something you do. Since we have done just about all we can to the worker and the workplace, let’s turn our attention to work itself. The way work is done in many organizations isn’t serving us very well in the global, highly technological, fast-changing conditions of the 21st century. Many policies, systems and practices look in the rear view mirror, rooted in antiquated attitudes about the nature of people (are they costs or assets; lazy or self-organizing?) and the nature of work (is it designed to be drudgery or endlessly fascinating?) Given this triple context, what, specifically, can companies do to increase productivity and its sidekick, profit? They can increase current levels of job autonomy. All of us like having choices and feel more comfortable when we have a sense of control over what’s happening to us. At work this is called “job autonomy” and it is the core task of leaders to optimize this comfort level for every contributor. Why? Research shows that workers who do achieve optimal levels of job autonomy work with significantly more focus than others and are therefore more productive. Autonomy is a fundamental component of drive and drive is what delivers measurable results. So, make sure everyone who manages people is providing adequate levels of individual control over how, when and where work gets done. A universal power tool for doing this is the implementation of workplace flexibility, which includes a host of work scheduling options and usually some aspects of creating more flexible careers (providing for people to enter and temporarily exit the workforce throughout the career life cycle, either at the request of the employer during economic downturns or at the request of the employee in response to predictable life events). Flexibility is a management philosophy, so it has no direct costs. Small businesses can change their flexibility quotient much faster than large ones because of the clear line of sight across the entire organization. And the best news is that workplace flexibility toolkits abound, the techniques are well-tested and, |
7cd036c2-37cc-11e1-ac55-e75ea321c80a_0 | Karzai demands transfer of U.S. military prison near Bagram to Afghan control | KABUL — Karzai said Afghan government investigators had found violations of the Afghan constitution and international human rights conventions at the prison, which houses about 2,600 inmates near Bagram Airfield. He did not provide details of the alleged violations, but he said in a statement that they constituted a “breach of Afghan sovereignty.” The transfer of the prison, called the Parwan Detention Center, and its burgeoning population of detainees is regarded by Afghans and Americans as a critical marker in the war’s endgame — a sign that Afghan officials are ready to inherit institutions essential to the nation’s future. U.S. officials said in a public memorandum two years ago that they expected the prison to be transferred in early 2012. Karzai interpreted that timeline as being firm, but U.S. officials point to the document’s caveat that the transfer is subject to “demonstrated capacity.” “At this point, the Afghans don’t have the legal framework or the capacity to deal with violence being inflicted on the country by the insurgency,” a U.S. official said then. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. On Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in response to Karzai’s comments: “We’re going to continue to work with the Afghan government to implement the transition that we have both agreed needs to happen of detention operations in Afghanistan. We need to do this in a manner that is maximally responsible.” She said she could not comment further on the timeline for the transfer. The existence of the U.S. military prison about 30 miles north of Kabul has long been seen by Afghans as a sign of imperial overreach, and for years Karzai has singled the prison out for criticism. The U.S. military has detained suspected insurgents at facilities in the area for about a decade. Most have been held without trial, and fewer than a third of the detainees have been handed over to an Afghan-run court for prosecution. Still, the number of Afghan judges and guards has risen steadily, and, as of July, the Afghan-run court at the prison was hearing about 50 cases a month. Karzai has made bold claims in the name of Afghan sovereignty, and his insistence on a rapid prison transfer ranks among the boldest. But although he craves a more active role for Afghan institutions, he has also made repeated appeals for international support for the |
969ee54c-372e-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_0 | Why a one-war posture for the U.S. military will work | Michael O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and most recently the author of “The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity.” For six decades the United States has planned for the capacity to conduct two nearly simultaneous major ground-combat operations. During the Cold War, one of those campaigns was assumed to be an all-out struggle against the Warsaw Pact in Europe, the other a conflict in Asia. Since the Cold War, defense secretaries Dick Cheney, Les Aspin, William Perry, William Cohen, Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates have adopted some variant of this framework as well. It is time for a change. The case for scaling back is strong. Let’s consider the major concerns: Saddam Hussein is gone, and whatever threat Iraqis may one day pose to themselves and the region, they are unlikely to invade anyone. Farther from home, North Korea has acquired nuclear capabilities, but its conventional forces have weakened, and South Korea’s army is greatly strengthened. Russia remains problematic on multiple issues but not because of its military menace to NATO territory. Threats from Iran or China, at least in the short term, are much more likely to involve U.S. naval, air and special forces (which should retain a capacity for handling more than one major operation at a time). The uncertainty and instability from Syria to Yemen to South Asia, however potentially worrisome for American interests, are unlikely to again require large-scale U.S.-led action. All that said, budget hawks should beware of pushing this argument too far. The one-war paradigm is not a prescription for cutting the Army and Marine Corps by a third or more. Cuts in force structure and personnel should not exceed 15 to 20 percent, relative to current levels, and could be made only gradually, after the Afghanistan campaign winds down. Ten-year savings would reach perhaps $150 billion. That is much of the roughly $400 billion mandated by the August provisions of the Budget Control Act but hardly a dent in the (ill-advised) nearly trillion-dollar target required by sequestration. To carry out this approach responsibly, the United States would still need an active-duty Army and Marine Corps almost as large as those of the Clinton years. Then, we thought we had a two-war capability, a fallacy underscored by events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Within a one-war paradigm, we could no longer rely on the force package intended |
a43d204a-2051-11e1-87d1-5e5448f415de_4 | Filling the empty spaces in Guangzhou, China | of narrow aisles branching off streets wide enough for delivery trucks. I trail Brian past tanks of all sizes filled with every imaginable kind of fish — from teeny neon tetras to stingrays and sharks — and shops overflowing with such fishy accoutrements as aquariums, gravel, filters, live plants, decorative plastic castles, coral, lights, turtles, live bait, frozen food, dried food and more. Eyeing one particularly crowded, narrow aisle, I take the helm of the stroller, in which Lulu, improbably, is sound asleep. As Brian plunges through the throngs to find one particular vendor, he shouts: “I’ll meet you in the plant store. Go to the end and turn left!” Thirty minutes later I’m cursing, walking round and round the perimeter of where I think I’m supposed to be, passing dozens of vendors selling bright green ferns and grasses, detouring down an outdoor dirt pathway filled with garden plants, then back to the main fish aisle where motorcycles honk and clatter past. Lulu is stirring, and it dawns on me that I have no cellphone, no idea where I am, and I don’t know my family’s street address. The good news, I realize, as people gather to ogle the sleeping blond child wearing a pink and white ruffled dress with matching shoes and hair ribbons, is that I’m not hard to spot. Cellphones and cameras aim our way: Click, click. “Gu gu,” I say. Aunt. “There you are,” says Brian. In China, nothing is possible, unless it is. One sunny day, when the often-smoggy air is almost clear, Jenny and I drop the kids at school and drive to Dong Shan Hu, a 33-acre public park with fishing, boat rentals, kiddie amusement rides and an outdoor exercise area for adults. But first we have to park the minivan. “The most important phrase to learn is ‘Tin bu dong,’ which roughly translates to, ‘I hear you are speaking to me, but I have no idea what you’re saying,’ ” explains Jenny. “Then you smile, wave and add, in English, ‘Bye-bye!’ ” We lock the van and are approached by a man in an official-looking uniform who speaks rapidly while gesturing and pointing. He wants us to park over there, farther down the road. We want to park here. Jenny pays for two hours, and we stroll away. “Tin bu dong! Bye-bye!” In the park, people are dancing. It’s not tai chi |
77b7f060-2509-11e1-ba51-99a2b27f6305_2 | “Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals,” by Ken Ballen | blocks. ’Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals’ by Ken Ballen (The Free Press) “In what seemed like a matter of seconds, perhaps twenty at most, he made it. His first mission of jihad completed, he could return to the safe house and call home. That was the last thought in his mind as he stopped before the concrete. A powerful explosion, remotely triggered, then turned the back of the tanker, filled with twenty-six tons of liquid explosives, into a powerful fireball that could be seen miles away. . . . ‘I see the world melt,’ Ahamd said. ‘Everything turns black. My hands disappear in more black. My throat leaves me in screams. Hell fire is licking up everywhere. My mind is dead numb. The flames are shooting at me from every direction.’ ” Ahmad miraculously survived and was taken to a hospital by U.S. medics. Eventually, he became a spokesman for the Saudi ministry to warn young men against the evils of violent jihad. “God has saved me for a purpose,” he says today. Abdullah al-Gilani, a young Saudi, was motivated by lost love. “Abby,” as he prefers to be called, first glimpsed Maryam through a window, and it was love at first sight. After weeks of discussions through intermediaries, they eventually meet. They talk, and kiss, and name the many children they will have together. But their future is hobbled by finances. Abby can only raise $8,000 of the $20,000 that is Maryam’s bride price. The story then takes an O. Henry-like twist. Maryam is forced to marry a rich old man. Abby is inconsolable. Maryam runs away and goes in search of Abby. Abby goes to Iraq in search of a suicide mission that , he is sure, will entitle him to reunite with Maryam in heaven. She disappears; his suicide mission goes awry; and he eventually ends up in a Saudi rehabilitation center — lovelorn, but alive. Ballen uses these two stories and four others to argue that what all these Islamic radicals have in common is a dearth of love on earth. As he sees it, they turn to God to provide a new, otherworldly love for themselves in heaven. The young men radicalize in an attempt to be good Muslims who can reach that ideal. While Ballen’s unifying theory for violent jihad falls short, that doesn’t diminish the contribution the book makes |
7ce15250-3302-11e1-8c61-c365ccf404c5_0 | Details matter in understanding photos | Your Dec. 30 World Digest photo of a Peruvian shaman spitting “flower-infused water on a poster of Spain’s new prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, in a ritual for good luck for 2012,” raises questions about whether providing a “five W’s” summary is always sufficient in telling a story. Further explanation of why a holy man in South America would be engaged in this activity would be appreciated. An explanation of why The Post decided this deserved more space than Kim Jong Eun’s appointment as supreme leader of North Korea, or a Turkish air strike that killed 35 people in Iraq, would also be of interest, though your exercise of editorial discretion is not especially news in itself. David Culp, Fairfax |
960a186e-3566-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_0 | Steven Pearlstein: Steering the region from .gov to .com | Local economic boosters love to remind anyone who will listen that the Washington region boasts the greatest concentration of technical or knowledge workers in the country. The implication, of course, is that we’re right out there on the technological edge alongside Silicon Valley, Austin and Boston. It makes for a wonderful marketing story, but it’s fundamentally misleading. What the numbers don’t tell you is that almost all of this high-tech work is done for the government — and therein is the problem. For even with this impressive ecosystem of firms, workers and advanced technology, the region hasn’t yet spawned a critical mass of companies providing technology products and services for consumers and private businesses. There was a brief moment, in the mid- to late ’90s, when the commercial tech sector looked like it might be taking off, with hot, fast-growing companies such as AOL, MicroStrategy, Nextel and scores of other entrepreneurial startups supported by a burgeoning network of venture capitalists. But as a result of failed mergers and the dot-com bust of 2000, most of that faded away, along with the commercial-tech sector’s momentum and swagger. Very little was made of this disappointment during the ensuing decade, if for no other reason than the government-contracting sector was growing so fast it didn’t seem to matter. Now that the region faces the prospect of a decade-long decline in federal spending, however, it has taken on some urgency. That doesn’t mean that the Washington region can never develop a thriving commercial-tech sector — as I’ll explain in a moment, we can and must. The challenge is that we’ll have to do it with different companies and different workers operating in a different business culture. You can feel the difference in the two cultures the minute you step into any of the District offices of LivingSocial, the daily deal site that has become one of the hottest tech startups in the country, with 5,000 employees and $175 million in fresh funding in its coffers. Everything about LivingSocial is young, hip, playful, full of entrepreneurial energy and possibility, which is to say it feels nothing at all like walking into Booz Allen in Tysons Corner. Not surprisingly, LivingSocial has its roots in the Washington of the dot-com bubble. Its founders, Tim O’Shaughnessy and Val Aleksenko, were barely out of college back then, but they got their start, along with some of their initial funding, |
384c71a8-36fc-11e1-ac55-e75ea321c80a_0 | What humanity can do to save the planet | Over the past two centuries, population growth, industrialization and increased consumption, along with poor natural resource management practices, have imperiled nature. Rapid climate change is just the latest manifestation of man’s activities, forcing environmentalists to reevaluate what their objectives should be and how to achieve them. The traditional response to environmental degradation has been to protect what is left and restore what is damaged. This is no longer a viable paradigm in a warmer world. Instead, we must proactively make our cities and our ecosystems more resilient to the impacts of climate change and take steps to ensure that nature can provide the services that people and other species rely on. Drought-resistant crops, mangrove forests, rainfall-absorbing green spaces and urban pavement materials that absorb less heat are just a few examples of measures that are now required. We don’t live on our parents’ planet; the world has already been changed irrevocably. However, there is still an amazingly vibrant and diverse world worth saving. Shaun Martin, Washington The writer is director of the World Wildlife Fund’s climate change adaptation program. ● ● ● |
9f865fb2-19d0-11e1-8983-57acc26169b1_3 | Va. prisons’ use of solitary confinement is scrutinized | prison officials told them that 173 inmates in solitary there were considered mentally ill. State officials said they do not keep statistics on the length of isolation stays, but they told Hope in a recent memo that Red Onion inmates have been isolated from two weeks to almost seven years, with an average stay of 2.7 years. Inmates in solitary for disciplinary purposes are held for 30 days before receiving a 15-day break if they have additional isolation time to serve, Traylor said. Those isolated for administrative reasons have their cases reviewed every seven days for the first 60 days and every 90 days after that, he said. Dennis Webb, 47, has been in solitary for more than 14 years. He is serving a 75-year sentence for armed robbery and malicious wounding. After stabbing a warden, he received an additional 30-year sentence. Webb was found to have mental illnesses as a child, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, although for many years the state listed him as needing no treatment, Turner said. 23 hours a day Prisoners held in isolation spend 23 hours a day alone in an at-least-80-square-foot cell with a bed, prison officials say. They eat alone and have no group activities. They are moved in shackles and handcuffs. Their only interactions with other people occur when prison employees slide meal trays through a shutter on the cell door or crouch down to speak through the slot. Three times a week, they can shower. Five times a week, they are moved for recreation to a 96-square-foot cell with metal wiring. “They are turned back into society with no benefit of transition. Are we doing anything to help them transition?’’ she said. James Reinhard, who was mental-health commissioner under Democratic governors Timothy M. Kaine and Mark R. Warner, said those with significant and chronic illnesses have been put behind bars ever since the nation began moving away from long stays at psychiatric hospitals in the 1960s. “It’s out of sight, out of mind,’’ he said. “I don’t think society has a lot of sympathy for them.’’ Traylor said the state does not know how many inmates are released from isolation into society or the portion of the budget spent on mental health. He told Hope that 30 mental-health counselors lost their jobs in 2002 because of budget cuts but that those positions have since been restored. Six positions were cut |
c8b00e9c-3a3c-11e1-bd99-502c7f894ebd_0 | Saving the lives of patients with rare blood diseases | When Princeton University football star Jordan Culbreath was diagnosed in 2009 with the rare and potentially deadly blood disorder known as aplastic anemia, his prospects looked bleak. The life- threatening disease was wiping out the cells in his bone marrow, including red blood cells that carry oxygen, white blood cells that fight infection and platelets that help clot the blood. Culbreath was fortunate to have found his way to the National Institutes of Health and a team of expert physicians led by Dr. Neal S. Young, where he received immune suppressant therapy and made a full recovery. He returned to the gridiron for the 2010 season and later graduated from college. “I’m very lucky, I know that,” Culbreadth said last February when he received an award from an organization that seeks to raise awareness about rare diseases. Culbreath’s recovery, however, was more than luck. It was the result of years of painstaking research and clinical testing led by Young and his colleagues, who are widely credited with pioneering the development of the treatments for patients with aplastic anemia and related syndromes. The therapies tested by Young, the chief of the Hematology Branch of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes at NIH, have resulted in a dramatic increase in survival rates for those suffering from aplastic anemia. When Young graduated from medical school in 1971, for example, almost all patients who developed severe aplastic anemia died within just a few months. Today, the survival rate is more than 70 percent. (Ernie Branson/NIH) Because of Young’s efforts, his clinic at NIH is considered one of the world’s major referral centers for bone marrow failure syndromes, including aplastic anemia. This disease strikes about 600 to 900 people a year in the United States. “Neal Young is a great scientist and he has done an enormous amount of good in terms of aplastic anemia,’ said Dr. Arthur Nienhaus, a prominent physician at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee and Young’s former boss at NIH. “He is truly one of the great investigators of our generation in terms of hematology,” said Nienhaus. At NIH, Young combines direct patient care and clinical trial research with basic science laboratory work in cell biology, molecular biology, virology, immunology and population-based epidemiologic studies. Young said the NIH gives him great “intellectual freedom” to follow the science, undertake a wide range of investigations and engage in “transformative work” |
93b2b728-37a6-11e1-b32c-a37ca28b472a_3 | CES 2012: The perils of ubiquity | laws and regulations hinder the retention of highly educated immigrants, prevent government officials from attending trade show mixers, create tax uncertainties for companies and don’t provide incentives to create jobs. Some of those policies were in place before Obama took office. “It used to be that the purpose of government was to help create jobs and support business, now the purpose of government is to stop and block business from doing its job,” Shapiro said. “We’ve gone off the deep end as a country in my view.” Though CEA counts many of the biggest names in business among its members, including Apple, Ford and Wal-Mart, Shapiro said its annual trade show and recent focus on innovation are really aimed at small business. Peter Corbett, co-organizer of Washington’s Digital Capital Week, said his digital marketing firm, iStrategyLabs, did some early work with CEA on its efforts to reach start-ups. The organization could benefit entrepreneurs, what with its lobbying might and annual gadet showcase, he said. “CEA certainly has the heft and reputation to actually do that,” Corbett said. “I think you’d have to drill down on what their policy points are and are they really aligned with what the interests of a small business are or are they aligned with the big companies.” Future of technology Though CEA has aggressively redefined what qualifies as a consumer electronics company, in many ways its membership is indicative of a broader transformation taking place in the industry. More products than ever tout an Internet connection that allows them to collect and share information. The result is a society in which home thermostats can sync with smartphones, cars can cull traffic updates and fitness monitors log workouts. “This paints a picture of a world where we’re interacting with all of this stuff constantly without knowing it and the computation becomes more like a service,” said Patrick Tucker, deputy editor of The Futurist, a magazine published by the World Future Society. Like the name suggests, WFS takes modern-day trends and extrapolates how they might shape society in the coming decades. Tucker predicts nearly all consumer products will soon transmit information back and forth without the need for direct human involvement. “In the year 2020 or 2030, computation is more like a utility,” he said. “Like water that comes into your house, it’s there and we just expect it to be there.” A stroll along the show |
d941eee6-3623-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_0 | Delta: Shopping centers with grocery stores poised to grow this year | Grocery-anchored shopping centers continue to perform reliably compared to other retail property types, according to Delta’s annual year-end survey of over 300 Washington area grocery-anchored shopping centers. Of the total retail inventory in the Washington metro area, 57.6 million square feet is located in 340 grocery-anchored shopping centers. The metropolitan area-wide vacancy rate for grocery-anchored shopping centers edged down to 5.5 percent at the end of 2011, from 5.6 percent at the end of 2010, matching the vacancy rate for the region’s overall shopping center market. The grocery-anchored shopping center vacancy rate in suburban Maryland declined to 5.6 percent at the end 2011, from 6.0 percent one year ago. Northern Virginia vacancy was 5.5 percent at year-end 2011, up from 5.3 percent one year ago. The District, Arlington and Alexandria experienced no change in vacancy compared with a year ago, remaining at 5.0 percent at the end of 2011. The large inner suburban counties of Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George’s experienced a slight decline of 30 basis points during 2011, to 4.8 percent. This compares favorably to outer ring areas such as Loudoun and Prince William counties, where vacancy rose to 7.9 percent. Rental rates at grocery-anchored centers increased 2.1 percent in 2011, after declining 2.4 percent in 2010. The region’s average in-line tenant rents were $31.65 a square foot at year-end 2011, compared with $31.86 for suburban Maryland and $31.15 a square foot in Northern Virginia, up 1 percent from 2010. The District, Alexandria and Arlington experienced a healthy rise in asking rates at 6.8 percent during 2011, as tenants sought to remain in the urban core, with only 200,000 square feet of available space. The inner and outer rings experienced rent increases at a less robust pace, at 2.1 percent and 0.5 percent respectively. Overall, newer grocery-anchored shopping centers outperformed market averages during 2011. Centers built after 1999 in the Washington metro area hold a 6.5 percent vacancy rate at year-end 2011, a 70 basis point decline during the past year. Centers built in 1999 or before hold a 5.2 percent vacancy rate at year-end 2011, remaining unchanged from one year ago. We expect the retail market in the Washington metro area to gradually recover during 2012. Consumer spending will be muted compared to prior expansion periods, but we expect shoppers to focus spending at wholesale merchants as economic uncertainty persists. However, luxury retailers should continue to experience |
1d40235c-3722-11e1-b32c-a37ca28b472a_1 | Frozen peas inspired doctor, patient to create hot-cold pack | placed our first order of 5,000 packs, and really, we just wanted to sell those.” In the four years since, TheraPearl has become profitable and has expanded to include 15 full-time employees. Revenue has grown 200 percent in the past year, according to Daniel Baumwald, a senior vice president at TheraPearl. He estimates that the company had sales between $12 million and $15 million in 2011. “We cannot believe how people have embraced the product,” Dubbé said. Along the way, the company has scrapped many of its earlier notions about TheraPearl, which was originally being marketed exclusively to spas and beauty salons. “We got the occasional mom at the spa, but for the most part the packs got lost in the hair and beauty products,” Baumwald said. “Now we’re fishing where the fish are.” TheraPearl products now are sold in 10,000 pharmacies and stores across the U.S. and Canada, including Duane Reade in New York and Meijer stores in the Midwest. Tschiffely Pharmacy on K Street in the District has been carrying the packs for about two years. “It’s pretty much one of the top sellers because it’s hot and cold, instead of just one or the other,” said Colpon Jones, a technician at the pharmacy. The line of products, which began with one rectangular pack, has evolved to include more than a dozen shapes and sizes, including neck and back wraps, eye masks and packs for nursing mothers. TheraPearl also has a children’s line that includes packs in the shape of frogs, pigs, puppies and pandas. Before he quit his job at Vitamin Water in May 2009, Baumwald stood outside the food court at Columbia Mall. He had samples of TheraPearl and spent a few hours asking passers-by what they thought of the product. “I just asked them, ‘Do you think this is cool?,’ ” Baumwald said. “And when every single person said yes, I knew this had legs.” The company is evolving. It plans to introduce shin and knee wraps this year, and hopes to expand into sporting goods stores. There are more superficial changes, too, such as changing to vertical packaging to take up less space on the shelf. “Most of us are from the beverage industry, so we’re not only learning a new brand, but we’re also learning a new industry,” Baumwald said. “But the thing is, when you think of soft drinks, you think of |
1d40235c-3722-11e1-b32c-a37ca28b472a_2 | Frozen peas inspired doctor, patient to create hot-cold pack | to Daniel Baumwald, a senior vice president at TheraPearl. He estimates that the company had sales between $12 million and $15 million in 2011. “We cannot believe how people have embraced the product,” Dubbé said. Along the way, the company has scrapped many of its earlier notions about TheraPearl, which was originally being marketed exclusively to spas and beauty salons. “We got the occasional mom at the spa, but for the most part the packs got lost in the hair and beauty products,” Baumwald said. “Now we’re fishing where the fish are.” TheraPearl products now are sold in 10,000 pharmacies and stores across the U.S. and Canada, including Duane Reade in New York and Meijer stores in the Midwest. Tschiffely Pharmacy on K Street in the District has been carrying the packs for about two years. “It’s pretty much one of the top sellers because it’s hot and cold, instead of just one or the other,” said Colpon Jones, a technician at the pharmacy. The line of products, which began with one rectangular pack, has evolved to include more than a dozen shapes and sizes, including neck and back wraps, eye masks and packs for nursing mothers. TheraPearl also has a children’s line that includes packs in the shape of frogs, pigs, puppies and pandas. Before he quit his job at Vitamin Water in May 2009, Baumwald stood outside the food court at Columbia Mall. He had samples of TheraPearl and spent a few hours asking passers-by what they thought of the product. “I just asked them, ‘Do you think this is cool?,’ ” Baumwald said. “And when every single person said yes, I knew this had legs.” The company is evolving. It plans to introduce shin and knee wraps this year, and hopes to expand into sporting goods stores. There are more superficial changes, too, such as changing to vertical packaging to take up less space on the shelf. “Most of us are from the beverage industry, so we’re not only learning a new brand, but we’re also learning a new industry,” Baumwald said. “But the thing is, when you think of soft drinks, you think of Coke and Pepsi. When you think of sports apparel, it’s Under Armour and Nike. When you think of hot-and-cold packs — well, it’s nothing. It’s been an asleep, mundane category for all these years. We want to bring it back to life.” |
05cb1ea4-388d-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_2 | In Manchester, flinty tradition meets real poverty | no names by the doorbells, and two of them are broken anyway. There’s a jumble of small sneakers on a mat outside her door. Inside her home are five little boys tumbling around a mostly empty room or doing their workbooks, and the baby and a young girl. Four belong to Bilal, 25, and three belong to her sister, Rukia, 21. Bilal has been watching the children while her sister works. She has two jobs as a nurse’s aide and is in college. It will be great when Romney is president, Gatsas said, because he has been fighting the Obama administration over testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act. “We shouldn’t be testing those children when they haven’t had a chance to learn in their own language, let alone in English,” the mayor said. Adan, who is a junior, didn’t hear that. Only the seniors were permitted to attend the rally. He’ll take any test they give him, and yes, in English. He spoke only a Mai dialect when he came from Kenya at 10; his family lived in two refugee camps after fleeing Somalia, and the State Department resettled them in Manchester. He graduated from an English Language Learners program a while ago, although he still attends after-school sessions on Monday “just because it’s very interesting what they teach. You learn about important people who made change — Gandhi and Martin Luther King. And you learn how to do PowerPoint, because it is very important to make good presentations.” He does know that Gatsas asked the State Department a few months ago to stop sending refugees here — “he doesn’t want more people” — because the mayor argues that the city can’t provide for the 2,100 who arrived in the past decade. But this family is part of what once was celebrated, although never by everyone, as the striving immigrant class. And the fathers of the Bilal children are not in the picture, a missing piece of the family structure that has generated much dialogue in the presidential race. Adan says “it’s been great” to grow up in Manchester, where he made friends at the park playing soccer and picked up English easily. He gets As and Bs, is on the state championship soccer team, takes an AP art class and hopes to become a graphic artist after college. “What’s so great about my school is that |
60d1b764-3aad-11e1-9d6b-29434ee99d6a_0 | Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, alleged U.S. spy, sentenced to death in Iran | TEHRAN — Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine of Iranian descent, was handed a death sentence for a list of alleged crimes that included spying for the CIA, state media reported. U.S. officials said the charges were false and politically motivated, describing them as the latest in a series of provocations by Iran’s clerical rulers. “We strongly condemn this verdict,” said Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the State Department. Iranian authorities accused Hekmati, 28, of receiving special training at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before being dispatched to Iran on a spy mission. Hekmati, who was born in Arizona and holds dual citizenship, was given 20 days to appeal the verdict. U.S. officials and Iran experts view the charges against Hekmati as further evidence that Iranian leaders are feeling pressure and are looking for ways to regain advantage. One analyst described the former Marine as “another hostage of the U.S.-Iran cold war.” “The Iranian regime is desperate for any leverage it can get vis-a-vis the United States,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “For that reason, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll execute Mr. Hekmati, for he would then cease to be a bargaining chip.” President Obama signed a bill on the last day of 2011 that placed the Central Bank of Iran under unilateral sanctions, setting off a steep slide in the Iranian currency. Since then, Europe has indicated that it will impose stiff sanctions of its own. The signs of strain in Tehran have encouraged U.S. officials in their belief that Iran’s leaders will eventually come around to negotiations over their nuclear program. But Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, said the international action may instead be prompting Iran to become even less cooperative. “The Iranians feel a need to push back with every apparent application of pressure by the international community, for domestic political reasons and to maximize their leverage,” Thielmann, a former State Department official, said in e-mailed comments. Precisely when and where Hekmati was arrested is unclear. Iranian news reports have said that he was detained in late August or early September, according to the Associated Press. Iranian media have also reported that Hekmati was spotted by Iranian intelligence operatives while visiting Bagram air base, 35 miles north of Kabul. Hekmati’s family members, who live in Michigan, reportedly said that he was in Iran |
a4a31768-3322-11e1-a274-61fcdeecc5f5_0 | Polar bear cub is unbearably cute | All together now: This baby polar bear was born November 22 at the Scandinavian Wildlife Park in Kolind, Denmark. But because his mother couldn’t produce milk to feed the cub, zookeepers had to decide whether they would let the animal die or take over feeding him themselves. It turned out to be a pretty easy decision to make. The cub weighed less than two pounds when he was born. He evidently likes what the keepers are feeding him; when they showed him off late last month, the bear was more than seven pounds and was packing on more. Keepers named the cub Siku, which means “sea ice.” They hope the bear will make people more aware of the effects that the shrinking of polar ice has on the bears in the wild. This adorable little cub won’t stay this size for very long. Fully grown male polar bears can stand 10 feet tall and weigh as much as 1,400 pounds. Until then, the cub is doing pretty much what all babies do: eating, sleeping and being unbearably adorable. |
4891f15e-3586-11e1-836b-08c4de636de4_1 | Book review: ‘The Orphan Master’s Son,’ by David Ignatius | failure leads to his seeming ruin. When he returns home, he is sent to a mine that works prisoners to death and then drains their blood for shipment to Pyongyang. As in any bildungsroman, the hero is driven onward by a quest — in Jun Do’s case, for his lost mother and the elite world in which she has come to reside. To achieve his goal, he must take on the identity of another man and inhabit his uniform and authority, even his house atop Mount Taesong. It’s far-fetched, you might think, but Johnson’s vivid writing and comic sense make these plot details work. You don’t want to put the book down at night; you want to see where the ingenious Jun Do will go next. But this is not a perfect novel. The subplot in Texas was, for me, a detour that didn’t pay off. It foreshadowed a spy story that never entirely materialized. And Johnson’s Pyongyang seemed much more real than his Abilene. I haven’t liked a new novel this much in years, and I want to share the simple pleasure of reading the book. But I also think it’s an instructive lesson in how to paint a fictional world against a background of fact: The secret is research. Johnson spent six years working on “The Orphan Master’s Son,” reading everything he could about North Korea, ingesting the oral histories of defectors and eventually visiting the country. He had to investigate the actual place with enough care that he could begin to invent his own version. It’s this process of re-imagination that makes the fictional locale so real and gives the novel an impact you could never achieve with a thousand newspaper stories. Kim Jong Il is such a madly compelling figure in these pages that when his death was announced last month, I initially worried that it might limit the audience for this book. But I hope for just the opposite. Johnson has painted in indelible colors the nightmare of Kim’s North Korea. When English readers want to understand what it was about — how people lived and died inside a cult of personality that committed unspeakable crimes against its citizens — I hope they will turn to this carefully documented story. The happy surprise is that they will find it such a page turner. THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON By Adam Johnson Random House. 464 pp. $26 |
08d7294e-3aea-11e1-9ff8-fab9392b31bf_0 | California’s high-speed rail to nowhere | If only the president and his political ally, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), would follow that advice regarding their pet project for the Golden State: high-speed rail. No matter how many times they tout the mega-project as the job-creating wave of the future, they can’t change the mountain of evidence that high-speed rail is, in fact, a boondoggle. Thanks to federal policy, if California does not start work on the rail line by Sept. 30, it will lose an additional $3.3 billion in federal money — possibly dooming the system. And that’s not to mention the risk to U.S. taxpayers, most of whom do not live in California. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has declared that “we will not be dissuaded by the naysayers and the critics,” told me to discount the PRG report. He said its lead author, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) erstwhile transportation chief Will Kempton, used to support building a high-speed line in the San Joaquin Valley — until he “switched allegiances” and became CEO of transportation for Orange County. Kempton denies it. But enough of the inevitable pork-barrel politics. On the merits, high-speed rail would be a questionable investment even if California could afford to build it. LaHood and other boosters marvel at bullet trains in Europe and Japan, insisting simplistically that we need them, too. But the sprawling, decentralized cities of the United States do not make convenient destinations for train travelers. International experience shows that high-speed rail entails expensive debt service and large operating subsidies. This would likely be the case here as well, since, for better or worse, rail must compete with well-established air and car options. Business travel is one ostensible purpose of bullet trains in California, but increasingly people meet via video conference. For these and other reasons, high-speed rail in the United States would lower carbon emissions and reduce traffic far less cost-effectively than would alternative solutions. It’s especially odd for a Democratic president and governor to saddle California with the cost of bullet trains when the state is facing chronic deficits, tax increases and social spending cuts. Maybe this is why polls show that a majority of Californians have turned against the project. It’s still not too late to hit the brakes. lanec@washpost.com |
5bb6ab5c-37b7-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_3 | Beers for champagne tastes | said. Boston Beer enjoyed much greater success with its Infinium, introduced in winter 2010 and repeated last year. This one-of-a-kind brew is the result of a three-year-collaboration between Boston Beer Chairman Jim Koch and Josef Schradler, managing director of Bavaria’s venerable Weihenstephan Brewery, which traces its founding to 1040. The challenge was to create an entirely new style within Germany’s Reinheitsgebot, or purity law, which limits the ingredients in beer to four basics: barley malt, hops, yeast and water. Koch envisioned “a champagne style of beer: strong but not cloying or thick, dry but not thin, highly carbonated.” The catch was that he couldn’t use sugar, enzymes or high-fructose corn syrup to boost the alcohol. Adding more malt would simply produce a rich, heavy brew in the style of a German doppelbock. Eventually, Koch and his partners devised a unique, patent-pending brewing process featuring an extremely long, slow mash that converts a much greater percentage of the starches into simple sugars that the yeast can munch on, creating alcohol. After primary fermentation, the beer is shipped to Pleasant Valley Wine (maker of Great Western Champagne) in Hammondsport, N.Y., where re-fermentation takes place. The original 2010 Infinium underwent riddling and disgorgement. For the 2011 version, Koch tried an alternate process called Charmat, in which the re-fermentation takes place in steel tanks and the beer is gently drained off without stirring up the yeast sediment on the bottom. Unlike DeuS, Infinium is readily identifiable as a product of grain rather than grape. It has a brisk effervescence, a light and sherbet-y fruitiness (less noticeable in the 2011 vintage) and a sweet, sugary malt backbone (more pronounced in the 2011). It’s a pleasant beer (and it hides its 10.3 percent alcohol well), but it might disappoint extreme-beer junkies who expect a full-scale assault on the palate when they pay $20 for a fancy 750-ml bottle. Infinium might have some competition for the next holiday season. Ben Howe, a bartender and former brewer at Cambridge Brewing in Cambridge, Mass., plans to open a nanobrewery next summer called Enlightenment Ales, specializing in strong, golden champagne-style beer. He’ll brew out of Lowell, Mass., and self-distribute locally to keep costs down. “I want it to be accessible to people in my socioeconomic status,” he laughs. Will we see any here in Washington? “Maybe in a few years,” he answers. Kitsock is the editor of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. |
b4bdb3c0-37bd-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_2 | Sourced: Lettuce that doesn’t mind the cold | Taylor says. She got involved in hydroponics serendipitously. While she reminisced with an old friend at her 20th high school reunion 13 years ago, the two women’s husbands got into a conversation about hydroponic gardening and set a plan in motion to start up a project. The friend’s husband, David Lentz, had the vision and the land in Purcellville; Taylor’s husband, Wallace Reed Jr., had gardening knowledge, as he was and still is a grower at the U.S. Botanic Garden. The enterprise started off as a weekend gig, with Lentz and Reed acquiring equipment from American Hydroponics, a supplier in Arcata, Calif., and a greenhouse from a vendor in Canada. They scrapped an initial idea to grow tomatoes and opted for lettuce. “About 11 years ago, we noticed clamshells of hydroponic lettuce showing up in grocery stores, and our research indicated that 90 percent of Americans eat lettuce,” said Taylor, adding that, unlike tomatoes, lettuce grows well in cold weather, takes only 30 to 40 days to grow and isn’t prone to pest infestations. Also at that time, Taylor was laid off from her job as a national sales director for a security consulting firm and turned her energy to growing Endless Summer Harvest’s business. They started selling at the Purcellville farmers market, then begged to get into the Arlington and Takoma Park winter markets. Persistence paid off. At one time, Endless Summer Harvest was in 12 markets. Now it sells in five plum locations, including FreshFarm Market’s Penn Quarter (not open in the winter) and Dupont Circle locations, where a loyal clientele consistently snatches up the greens. “We are either riding the wave of demand for pesticide-free products or we are helping to create it,” Taylor says. “We would not have had this kind of success 10 years ago.” They added the second greenhouse in 2006. Taylor, who bought out Lentz in November of 2010, loves to rattle off three-letter designations to explain hydroponics. She uses a nutrient film technique (NFT) to grow her crop and a computer system to maintain a controlled agricultural environment (CAE), and she plans to implement a raft floating technique (RFT) in the new greenhouse. The NFT, in layman’s terms, is this: Seeds are germinated in petroleum-based cubes, one seed per cube. They then spend 10 days under lamps in an on-site nursery, after which time they are large enough to transfer to the |
7a54054e-366a-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_1 | Puree Artisan Juice Bar in Bethesda | LEED-certified space with electric-green wheat grass sprouting here and there. A few tables and a bar round things out. The produce is locally sourced, from growers such as Edrich Farms in Randallstown, Md.; the bee pollen comes from Thurmont, Md. Juice might be just the ticket for those who want nutrition in a hurry. Puree’s “Juice & Go” cooler holds refrigerated, glass-bottled elixirs (16 ounces, $9) freshly pressed each morning. (Waldman had expected customers to be able to bring the glass bottles back for reuse, but she is still working to persuade Montgomery County to allow that.) Waldman says the thick glass bottles preserve the juice longer and keep it from tasting like plastic. Her favorite is the Mean Lemon-Aid, a spicy lemon purifying tonic with a shot of kale that looks like a mad scientist’s experiment. It definitely tastes healthful, and not in an entirely unpleasant way. Waldman and chief operating officer/chef Steve Mekoski, 25, collaborated on the design of two cleanses, or regimens to detoxify the body (one-day, $65; three-day, $180) that come with lots of tips and information, and on the fruit-based purees and creamy shakes (16 ounces, $10). All of the shakes are customizable and vegan, getting their creaminess from almonds, bananas and coconut — and eventually avocados, when organic ones are more reasonably priced, Waldman says. All fruit is frozen after purchase, so no ice is needed. The orange lassi shake (one of several “signatures” from the bar), blended with almond, vanilla, coconut and a heavy hit of cardamom, is a really lovely combination, although I found the coconut was a bit too coarse. We liked the banana butter cup shake better, with its almonds, bananas, cinnamon and bitter cacao nibs. But our favorite was the cacao berry puree of strawberries, banana, coconut and cacao (unprocessed) powder. It’s the ideal way to get your New-Year’s-resolution juices flowing. — Rina Rapuano Puree Artisan Juice Bar Amy Waldman had intended to open her organic juice bar well before the start of 2012, and permit problems nearly derailed that resolution. But when many of us awoke Jan. 1 with a renewed commitment to health, Waldman wanted to be at the ready. “I was very adamant about being open for the new year,” she says. She squeezed in right under deadline, launching Puree Artisan Juice Bar on Dec. 29 in a slip of a space in Bethesda next to |
2a61f7ee-3bb5-11e1-9ff8-fab9392b31bf_0 | Public ire one goal of Iran sanctions, U.S. official says | An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that a U.S. intelligence official had described regime collapse as a goal of U.S. and other sanctions against Iran. An updated version clarifies the official’s remarks. The Obama administration sees economic sanctions against Iran as building public discontent that will help compel the government to abandon an alleged nuclear weapons program, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official. In addition to influencing Iranian leaders directly, the official said, “another option here is that [sanctions] will create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.” The intelligence official’s remarks pointed to what has long been an unstated reality of sanctions: Although designed to pressure a government to change its policies, they often impose broad hardships on a population. The official spoke this week on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration assessments. A senior administration official, speaking separately, acknowledged that public discontent was a likely result of more punitive sanctions against Iran’s already faltering economy, but said that is not the direct intent. “We have a policy that is rooted in the notion that you need to supply sufficient pressure to compel [the government] to change behavior as it’s related to their nuclear program,” this official said. “The question is whether people in the government feel pressure from the fact that there’s public discontent,” the official said, “versus whether the sanctions themselves are intended to collapse the regime.” A Western diplomat familiar with the policy said that it was “introducing in the cost-benefit analysis a new parameter in the calculus” of the Iranian government. “To the extent we have done that, it is not because we want to collapse the government. It is because we want the Iranian government to understand that is a possible cost in continuing the way it is,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the intent of the policy. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed international concerns about an Iranian nuclear weapon this week, calling it “a joke.” Obama’s Iran policy, which began with an attempt to engage that nation’s civilian and clerical leadership, has come under withering criticism from Republican presidential candidates eager to cast him as weak abroad. The GOP front-runner, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, has said that “if we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon.” The |
2a61f7ee-3bb5-11e1-9ff8-fab9392b31bf_3 | Public ire one goal of Iran sanctions, U.S. official says | the official said that obtaining a nuclear weapon “actually might temper [Iran’s] behavior,” enabling the United States to warn that it, too, has nuclear weapons. “It puts them on an even playing field, where they might not want to be,” he said of the Iranians. Although Obama has declined to rule out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites to prevent the Islamic Republic from building a nuclear weapon, the president has emphasized international diplomacy, which has helped build broad allied support for stringent economic sanctions against Iranian officials, key businesses and now the nation’s central bank. Although Iran has continued to develop its nuclear infrastructure — including a recently revealed second uranium-enrichment facility — the “pause” in the nation’s direct march toward a weapon continues, the intelligence official said. “Our belief is that they are reserving judgement on whether to continue with key steps they haven’t taken regarding nuclear weapons,” he said. “It’s not a technical problem,” he said, adding that Iran already has the capability to build a bomb. Israel, the intelligence official said, has “a different opinion. They think [Iran] has already made the decision. The possibility that Israel will take action on its own to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions is “a very serious concern,” the intelligence official said. If the Israelis attack, he said, “it is very clear that Iran will retaliate” against Israel and ultimately hold the United States responsible. “The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device,” the nuclear agency said in its report. “The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still be ongoing.” Although different countries and agencies are looking at the same evidence, U.S. officials have tended to be conservative in their interpretation, in what some of the European counterparts regard as a reaction to the U.S. intelligence missteps before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. “It is clear to everyone that, early in the last decade, a decision was made by Iran to close the ‘formal’ program,” said one European diplomat involved in internal IAEA discussions about Iran. “The question is whether the work is still being carried on, and to what end. It is harder to pin that down with exactitude.” Staff writer Joby Warrick contributed to this report. More world news coverage: |
6a89199c-3b1f-11e1-9ff8-fab9392b31bf_0 | Paul W. Plank, 94, who retired from the Pentagon in 1976 as chief manpower officer for Air Force operations, died Dec. 17 at his home in Alexandria. The cause of death was cardiac arrest, his son Douglas Plank said. Mr. Plank worked at the Pentagon for 25 years. He joined the Air Force Directorate of Manpower and Organization in 1951 and used early computers for logistics planning. Paul Wiley Plank was born on his family’s farm near Brady, Mont. During World War II, he served in the Army Medical Corps and helped build military hospitals in Iceland and Panama. In 1950, he received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Benjamin Franklin University, which became part of George Washington University. Later in his career, he attended the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Mr. Plank was a member of the Kena Shriners in Fairfax County and played alto saxophone in the group’s band for more than 50 years. His wife, Martha Senft Plank, died in 2006 after 60 years of marriage. Survivors include two sons, Jeffrey Plank of Scottsville, Va., and Douglas Plank of Charlottesville; and three grandchildren. — Emily Langer |
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3cb86200-3bbc-11e1-9958-657538129602_1 | Hospital fountain linked to Legionnaires’ outbreak | Decorative water fountains and water walls can be soothing and calming, so many hospitals and clinics included those amenities as a way to be more patient-friendly, said Jan Patterson, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. But the problem is, even with regular cleaning and testing, “it’s possible for legionella to accumulate,” said Patterson, who is also president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. “I guess the takeaway here is that if you have any underlying conditions, you should avoid walking by them or stay as far away as possible.” As for hospitals and other health-care facilities, “they should avoid having these in their facilities altogether,” she said. When the fountain was first suspected as the source of the Wisconsin outbreak, the hospital shut down the water wall and turned it into a planter. No known additional cases of Legionnaires’ disease occurred after that. Many other health-care facilities in Wisconsin shut down or removed their decorative fountains, the study said. Some of the most common symptoms, such as shortness of breath, cough and severe fatigue, are also associated with pneumonia, she said. The Wisconsin study, she said, is a “good reminder that in settings where you have people with increased risk of getting Legionnaires’ disease, you should be considering carefully the management of any of your water systems that these persons could be exposed to.” CDC experts have been working with a professional organization, the American Society for Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers, to come up with a standard practice for building managers and owners to prevent the disease, she said. Inpatient facilities with fountains, or any center that takes care of people with weakened immune systems, such as nursing homes, should be conducting regular assessment for Legionnaires’ disease, she said. The water in fountains or water walls is often an ideal breeding ground for bacteria because it is warm or at room temperature and because the recirculating water can stagnate. In addition, fountains develop scum, “and the bacteria like to live in that slime layer that forms on fountains, in whirlpools, even in your shower,” Hicks said. Fountains can also create bacteria-bearing aerosols as water sprays or cascades down walls or rocks. The fountain at the Aurora St. Luke’s South Shore hospital was installed in 2008. All visitors using the hospital main entrance passed by |
af6f95b2-37c4-11e1-81ef-eaf2bd09c8a2_0 | For most-hurting Americans, Fed remedies limited | In the most difficult economy in a generation, middle-income and poor Americans are hurting the worst. Congress is tied in knots, barely able to pass even the most basic measures to help. That has put pressure on the one arm of government with the power and the flexibility to try to boost ordinary Americans’ fortunes: the Federal Reserve. But the limited policies the Fed has at its disposal mostly put money in the hands of the affluent, at least through their direct effects. The affluent, in turn, are less likely than most to spend that money in the wider economy. That may be a key reason that a series of dramatic steps by the central bank has not done more to raise living standards for American workers. The Fed has aimed to strengthen growth and lower joblessness by pumping cash into the economy, buying vast amounts of government bonds using newly printed money. The bond purchases have pushed up the stock market, in which the wealthy are much more heavily invested than the poor and the middle class. The bond purchases also have helped lower mortgage rates, and the affluent are more likely to buy a home — and have bigger homes to refinance — than those of lesser means. At the same time, Fed bond purchases tend to weaken the dollar, driving up the cost of imported oil — and the poor spend a higher proportion of their incomes on gasoline than the rich. If Fed policies succeed in invigorating the economy, millions of people looking for work — or worried about losing it — would be among the big winners, and leaders of the central bank see a need to do whatever they can to try to get the overall economy back on track. Obstacles to success But the success of those policies are limited by their very nature. The Fed, as a central bank, largely acts through bond market purchases and interest rate changes that do not equally affect segments of society. A wide range of research shows that the poorer people are, the more likely they are to spend any new money they get, which keeps it circulating through the economy. Wealthier people are more likely to save it, which does little to foster economic activity. In 2010, middle-income families — those making about $46,000 a year — spent 91 percent of their after-tax income. The |
af11fae8-3ade-11e1-9ff8-fab9392b31bf_0 | Md. man charged in killings is sentenced to 100 years in separate robberies | The man charged in the 2009 slayings of a mother and daughter in Largo was sentenced to a century in prison Tuesday in a separate, federal case in which he was convicted of orchestrating home invasion robberies, molesting a teenage girl and burglarizing a Maryland gun shop. Messitte had significantly more to say. As he delivered the sentence — three years above the mandatory minimum for the crimes — the judge called Scott a “bad man” who showed “no indication that you would ever rehabilitate, at least not in this life.” “You were not just a one-man crime wave, you were a tsunami of crime,” Messitte said. Jason Scott (Pr. George's State's Attorney) But the home invasion robberies, authorities say, are where Scott perfected his criminal craft. His operation was as sinister as it was professional, authorities said. He cut phone lines and listened to a police scanner. He generally picked homes of people he thought were wealthy and vulnerable. He told investigators that he was inspired by the movie “Bullet,” starring Mickey Rourke and Tupac Shakur. In a meeting with authorities, Scott admitted to burglarizing at least 28 homes and invading nine while residents were there, court records show. He also admitted to molesting a 17-year-old girl during one home invasion and burglarizing a Woodbine, Md., gun shop, so he could sell the weapons. The burglary of the gun shop first put federal investigators on Scott’s tail as a suspect in the slayings. Before that, police barely knew he existed. He was living quietly in a modest suburban colonial in Largo, and public records show just one breach of the law: a speeding ticket. But soon after the slayings, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents caught him trying to sell weapons from the gun shop burglary to an informant. That allowed police to raid his home and pull back the layers of his life, revealing what authorities allege was a rapid escalation from burglary to home invasion to murder. In court Tuesday, Scott wore an orange jail jump-suit. He had grown a patchy beard and had lost significant weight. When he spoke, he did so in a soft voice. Kobie Flowers, Scott’s attorney, said his client is gay and exaggerated his criminal behavior to investigators because he was struggling with his personal identity. Scott’s family members declined to comment. In letters written to the judge, they said |
f6e0c7c6-3ad6-11e1-9ff8-fab9392b31bf_3 | Far from Moscow, a harsh sentence and political overtones | the right bank of the Dnieper River. Her husband, wary of the police, had left for Moscow in 2009. Investigators claimed to have found heroin while searching her house, which they did after three witnesses, all from Kremlin-related youth groups, allegedly saw her dealing drugs on the street. One of them, Olga Kazakova, says she was summoned by a Young Guard leader and asked to act as a witness for a sting the police were setting up — a typical Russian practice. Investigators from the anti-extremism unit drove her to Osipova’s neighborhood, where at 9 p.m. one night, she says, she saw the transaction take place — from a distance of 200 to 300 yards, along a winding, dark, steep street. Cellphone records place Kazakova in another part of the city at that hour. But to this day she insists she saw the deal go down. At the time, Kazakova thought this was a straightforward case about drugs, and she thought she was doing her duty as a citizen. But now she understands that it was about politics and that Osipova was ensnared as a way of getting at her husband. Osipova’s conviction is under appeal, and Russian law prohibits prosecutors and investigators from making public comments. Mushrooming support Although Smolensk, like most of Russia’s smaller cities, doesn’t have many local news organizations, the Internet has started to pay attention to Osipova’s case. A Web site champions her cause. YouTube videos, some of them obscene, call for her release. Dozens of well-known figures, including the anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, have lined up to back her. In Moscow on Tuesday, five people were detained after a series of one-person demonstrations were held at subway stations in support of Osipova, the Interfax news agency reported. Russian law permits one person to demonstrate without obtaining a permit beforehand. Osipova is in ill health. Svetova calls her a political prisoner. By all accounts, she is angry rather than demoralized. The authorities threatened to take Katrina away from Fomchenkov but backed down in the face of negative publicity. The 6-year-old now spends half her time in Moscow with her father and half with his sister in Smolensk. “They are ready to go to jail for their ideas,” Mikhail Yefimkin, a 25-year-old reporter who has written about the case for a weekly supplement, said of Osipova and her husband. “It’s worth admiring.” More world news coverage: |
6423000a-3bc3-11e1-9958-657538129602_1 | Prince George’s woman runs for recovery after losing husband to cancer | and several of her cousins to raise money for cancer research and overcome her loss. “I couldn’t think of a better way of honoring John on the one-year anniversary of his passing than to be committing ourselves to raising money for LLS while challenging ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally,” she said. Since the beginning of February 2011, Blattner has been involved in charity races through a program called Team in Training, an LLS charity group that’s aided her in raising more than $15,000 toward cancer research through sponsorships she’s obtained from family, friends and supporters. She said running has been a great way to honor her husband, raise money for the cause and get in shape, noting that she has lost about 40 pounds since joining TNT. While John Blattner was undergoing treatments, which included chemotherapy, radiation and bone marrow transplants, the couple became involved with LLS by participating in a yearly charity walk called Light the Night, she said. When he became too ill to work, LLS provided financial aid. About 1 million people in the United States are living with a form of blood cancer, while every four minutes someone is diagnosed, said Lisa Iannarino, an LLS spokeswoman. Iannarino said Blattner’s motivation and ability to be so involved shortly after losing her husband has been an inspiration for their organization. “For us, to see someone who has lost someone so close to them to give back and do something right away reminds us of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Iannarino said. “Katie is a reminder to us of the work we still have to do.” Blattner’s sister, Jennifer Moshier, said they run each Saturday to train and said running has been a great way to overcome the hardship. “My sister is one of the strongest people I know,” she said. “Her ability to prove to herself that she is capable of achieving anything is going to show her son, Isaiah, what it truly means to battle and overcome obstacles, in the long run.” Blattner said she was never a runner prior to joining the TNT program, but said it has helped with her healing and helped her push herself to do more than she thought she could. “It’s a constant reminder that no matter how bad I’m feeling during a run, it’s nothing compared to what John went through during his 3.5-year battle with cancer.” |
24e23ca6-3c6f-11e1-a72c-c808ebbd31f5_0 | Hit with rising food costs, indie restaurant owners cope creatively | Sweetgreen often uses local produce in their stores. “Going local” is one way independent restaurant owners say they’ve been able to manage rising food costs. (Marvin Joseph/WASHINGTON POST) When Jeremy Ashby, executive chef of the restaurant Azur in Lexington, Ky., noticed food prices creeping up over the past year, he was initially stumped. He couldn’t save by buying in bulk, because his 3,500-square-foot business didn’t have enough storage space. He couldn’t cut down on staples like butter, the price of which soared at various points last year, because doing so would sacrifice taste. He eventually found the answer in his neighbors’ back yards. “I found that turning to local sources really helped: We use local cheese makers, farmers and the aquaculture programs of local research universities,” he said. Ashby said he found that by going to local farmers, he could buy fresher foods in smaller quantities and promote the locally sourced flair in his dishes. “I pay a premium per pound, but to buy tomatoes from (distributor juggernaut) Sysco, I have to buy a case. From a local farmer, I can buy two pounds and only pay for what I need.” Squeezed by rising commodity costs, independent restaurant owners are trying to shave pennies off of their food bills any way they can, including by sourcing locally, haggling with their vendors, or serving smaller portions. In many cases, these efforts are an attempt to avoid passing the costs along in the form of menu price increases, which some owners fear will scare off customers in a still-fragile recovery for the dining industry. In a survey of its members, the National Restaurant Association found that 20 percent said food costs were their “top challenge” in November 2011, while only 8 percent said so the year before. “The independent restaurants really have to out-compete the chains,” said Howard Cannon of Restaurant Consultants of America. “It’s the great shaking-out. The ones that are strong financially will do even better, the ones that struggle will be dead.” And while the U.S. Department of Agriculture says it expects there will be some abatement this year, the agency predicts food prices will increase 2.5 to 3.5 percent in 2012. Independent restaurant owners are especially affected because they lack the economies of scale that chains have, so they can’t command the same low prices on basic goods. That can put them at a disadvantage in a fiercely |
ef84d356-37e2-11e1-ac55-e75ea321c80a_0 | Southern Maryland community calendar, Jan. 12-19, 2012 | Thursday, Jan. 12 “Calvert Conversations,” Preview and reception for used-book sale, Zumba classes, Archaeological Society meeting, Friday, Jan. 13 Overnight adventure camp, E-books workshop, “Jeopardy!” tournament, Saturday, Jan. 14 Used-book sale, Decorative painters meet, American Association of University Women meeting, “Bayside Chats,” Country dance, Tuesday, Jan. 17 Tai chi for people with arthritis, Gentle yoga class, Résumé and cover letter workshop, “Yes: You Can Use a Computer!” Wednesday, Jan. 18 Book discussion, “Yes: You Can Use a Computer!” Career starters open house, Thursday, Jan. 19 Book discussion, Computer class for job-seekers, Photo-editing workshop, Career starters open house, Autism-Asperger Association meeting, Book discussion, Civil War lecture, — Compiled by Bonnie Smith To submit an event E-mail: |
774fa246-3c81-11e1-a72c-c808ebbd31f5_0 | Olivia Burdick, Pentagon receptionist | Olivia Burdick, 93, a Pentagon receptionist during World War II, died of renal failure Dec. 28 at Montgomery General Hospital in Olney. The death was confirmed by her son Gregory Burdick. Olivia Felicia Scopi was born in Philadelphia and raised in Washington, where she was a 1937 graduate of the old Central High School. She attended Strayer College and George Washington University, then worked for the federal government until marrying in 1951. For many years, she had homes in Englewood, Fla., and Ocean City. She was most recently a Dickerson resident. Her husband, Ralph S. Burdick Sr., died in 2004. Their daughter Joan McCabe died in 2006. Survivors include seven children, Ralph Burdick Jr. of Chiang Mai, Thailand, Felicia Difato of St. Augustine, Fla., Jean Burdick of Germantown, Bernard Burdick II of Satellite Beach, Fla., John Burdick of Montgomery Village, Robert A. Burdick of Ventura, Calif., and Gregory Burdick of Dickerson; a sister; 15 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. — Adam Bernstein |
dd42755a-3c9b-11e1-9d6b-29434ee99d6a_0 | Syria opposition, government trade blame for attack that kills French journalist | BEIRUT — The death of Gilles Jacquier, 43, who worked for the France-2 television network, was quickly seized on by both sides in the conflict as evidence to support their dueling narratives. Jacquier, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was traveling with a group of journalists on an official government tour when three mortar rounds or rockets exploded near their vehicle in the staunchly pro-regime Ikrima neighborhood of Homs. The victims were among 28 people killed across Syria, 13 of them in Homs, according to the Syrian Revolution General Commission, an opposition group that both organizes and monitors anti-government protests. Homs has emerged in recent months as the violent epicenter of the uprising, a patchwork of pro- and anti-regime neighborhoods in which residents on both sides have taken up arms. Hundreds have died there since the revolt erupted last March, including protesters shot dead by security forces at anti-government demonstrations, civilians killed in government shelling of opposition strongholds and, in recent months, security forces and government supporters attacked by armed members of the opposition. But the circumstances and timing of Tuesday’s attack highlighted the murky complexities of the escalating violence, with both sides trading accusations of responsibility. The Syrian government said the attack offered proof that the opposition is armed and dangerous. According to the official SANA news agency, nine people died when an “armed terrorist group” fired the mortars as the journalists were interviewing residents and inspecting damage caused by previous attacks. Opposition groups said it would have been impossible for the rebels to stage such an attack in the pro-regime neighborhood, which is populated mostly by members of the same Alawite minority as the president. A statement by the Homs Revolutionary Council accused the government of firing the rockets to “serve its own interests” and tarnish the reputation of the protest movement. The grim aftermath was captured by the pro-government Al-Dunia television network, which showed cameramen rushing to the scene of one explosion when another mortar explodes, leaving at least three people crumpled on the ground. The footage then shows the body of the French journalist stuffed into the back of a taxi. Few Western journalists have been granted access to Syria since the uprising began, but in recent days, the government has begun issuing visas, in part to comply with the terms of an Arab League peace initiative that calls for the media to |
261d2c80-37cd-11e1-ac55-e75ea321c80a_0 | Anne Arundel County and Howard County crime report | Anne Arundel County These were among incidents reported by the Anne Arundel County Police Department. For information, call 410-222-8050. Rewards for information Metro Crime Stoppers will pay up to $2,000 for information leading to an arrest and indictment in connection with these and other felonies. Visit metrocrimestoppers.net, call the hotline at 866-756-2587 or text 274637. For text messages, type the letters “mcs” without the quote marks in the text field, then hit the space key before writing the crime tip. If the text is received, you will receive an acknowledgment. CROFTON AREA ROBBERIES Eastham Ct., CROWNSVILLE AREA Summerhill Trailer Park, GLEN BURNIE AREA ROBBERIES Americana Cir., Ritchie Hwy., LAUREL AREA ROBBERIES Laurel Fort Meade Rd., Russett Green E., LINTHICUM AREA SEXUAL ASSAULTS Winterson Rd., ODENTON AREA ASSAULTS Cowman Ct., PASADENA AREA ROBBERIES 231st St., SEVERN AREA ASSAULTS Richfield Dr., SHADY SIDE AREA ASSAULTS Holly Ave., Annapolis These were among incidents reported by the Annapolis Police Department. For information, call 410-268-9000. To anonymously report non-emergency crime or suspicious activity, call 410-280-2583 . INDECENT EXPOSURE INCIDENTS Forest Dr., ASSAULTS Marcs Ct., THEFTS/BREAK-INS Bay Ridge Ave., Bywater Rd., Madison St., Melrob Ct., Taylor Ave., Taylor Ave., Sixth St., MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS Greenbriar Lane, Severn Island Ct., Howard County These were among incidents reported by the Howard County Police Department. Call 410-313-2236 for information. To anonymously provide information, call the Stop Crime tip line at 410-313-7867. CLARKSVILLE AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Pindell Chase Dr., COLUMBIA AREA ROBBERIES Little Patuxent Pkwy., THEFTS/BREAK-INS Brook Way, Dobbin Rd., Harpers Farm Rd., Honey Laden Pl., MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS Little Patuxent Pkwy., ELKRIDGE AREA ROBBERIES Washington Blvd., THEFTS/BREAK-INS Deep Run Pkwy., San Tomas Rd., MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS Dorsey Run Rd., ELLICOTT CITY AREA INDECENT EXPOSURE INCIDENTS University Blvd., THEFTS/BREAK-INS Ashbrook Dr., Court Ave., FULTON AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Fulton Ridge Dr., HIGHLAND AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Mink Hollow Rd., JESSUP AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Washington Blvd., LAUREL AREA MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS Washington Blvd., WOODSTOCK AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Woodstock Rd., — Compiled by Carrie Donovan |
7c7c05dc-3c92-11e1-af18-7ec0de5907e2_0 | Career-surfing? Cybersecurity seems a very good bet, according to Defense budget document. | Tough choices. Okay, I picked up the Defense Authorization Act. It isn’t Charles Dickens or a “34th Street” delight, but I did find some interesting stories. For example: Cybersecurity is going to be a dominating factor in years to come. In Subtitle D — Cybersecurity Matters SEC. 931, you will find a section titled “Strategy to Acquire Capabilities to Detect Previously Unknown Cyber Attacks.” I’ll save you all the government bureaucratic language and get to the nitty-gritty: There are likely to be more jobs in this field. The news gets better. In SEC. 1076 is a section on the “Study on the Recruitment, Retention, and Development of Cyberspace Experts.” It says the Defense secretary shall conduct an independent study examining the availability of military and civilian personnel for Department of Defense defensive and offensive cyberspace operations, identifying any gaps in meeting personnel needs, and recommending available mechanisms to fill such gaps, including permanent and temporary positions. Now, this report can take up to a year, but once completed it will include the following: ●A statement of capabilities and number of cyberspace operations personnel required to meet the defensive and offensive cyberspace operation requirements of the Department of Defense. ●A description of the obstacles to adequate recruitment and retention of such personnel. ●A description of incentives that enable and encourage individuals with cyberskills from outside the Department of Defense to affiliate with the Armed Forces and civilian employees of the Department of Defense. ●Identification of legal, policy or administrative impediments to attracting and retaining cyberspace operations personnel. ●Recommendations for legislative or policy changes necessary to increase the availability of cyberspace operations personnel. It sounds as if there’s a serious effort underway for the Department of Defense to ramp up the staffing required to deal with the cyberthreat. Since this report will be a year in the making, we can forecast that the recommendation will be to hire more personnel. The focus is not only in DoD, either. The authorization act discusses collaboration between DoD and the Department of Homeland Security. I’m predicting that cybersecurity hiring will be strong for the next three to five years — and across the government for some years to come. This is good news if you’re already in the cybersecurity field. And if you are considering a career to pursue, this one sounds like a good bet. It wasn’t Dickens, but it was still good reading. |
6a500f70-3300-11e1-a274-61fcdeecc5f5_6 | Washington can be a frontline for international combatants | so shocking, because it was happening on a Washington campus,” said radio host Abebe Belew, who covered the event and is known as “Ethiopia’s al-Jazeera” for his hard-charging political broadcasts for an Ethiopian diaspora show called “Addis Dimts” (the Ahmaric word for voice) on Centreville-based WTNT. “The police came out. The university had to cancel the whole meeting,” said Belew, who lives in Silver Spring. “It just shows you how important these meetings in Washington can be.” Seeking a voice Perversely, many of these combatants are drawn to Washington for the same reason: Its proximity to the U.S. government makes it an ideal base for lobbying efforts. “Our arsenal is not weapons,” said Nick Larigakis, president of the American Hellenic Institute, which promotes U.S. relations with Greece and Cyprus and is often at odds with Turkey’s goals. “It’s having a voice in Washington where we can use the rule of law to provide credibility to our arguments.” Sometimes there are victories. Turkey was allegedly denying religious freedom to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who is head of the Greek Orthodox minority in Istanbul but also the spiritual leader of all Orthodox Christians. But steady lobbying by the Greek community here to recent administrations helped pressure Turkey to improve religious freedoms there, said Andy Manatos, who, along with his father, Mike Manatos, runs one of Washington’s most powerful lobbyist firms. “Washington is far and away the most effective place if you want your issues addressed,” said Manatos, who focuses on international issues and also does pro-bono work for the Greek Orthodox Church. “If you can convince the most powerful people in the world of the truth of your cause, I know of no place in the world better for advocating your issue.” Protesting, but warily Sometimes there are further divisions. On Branch Avenue in Prince George’s Country, an Ethiopian church recently opened soon after an Eritrean one — religious outposts of longtime rivals and two of the poorest nations on Earth. “How can you make politics when you are praying to God?” asked Imru Zelleke, a retired Ethiopian ambassador to Germany who lives in Arlington County and heads a civic group that’s trying to bring immigrants from the countries together. In his Pentagon City apartment, amid books about Africa’s tribal divisions, Zelleke shook his head. “It’s the same religion. It’s just absurd and a waste of money,” he said. “We could be sending |
74358734-3c5d-11e1-9d6b-29434ee99d6a_5 | India advances in battle to eradicate polio | is mind-boggling. Last year, 2.3 million vaccinators administered 900 million oral polio vaccine doses in India to 172 million children younger than 5. Taking into account the constant migration of millions of Indians, vaccination booths were set up at train and bus stations, railway crossings and border posts, and 150,000 migrant settlements and slums where workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar could have ended up were covered. The monitoring is constant. Health centers, doctors and even faith healers are conditioned to report the first sign of symptoms that might indicate polio. Doctors and volunteers fan out every day to examine babies and collect stool samples for testing. But the campaign has also been enormously controversial. Throughout its history, experts have said that the goal of eradication was simply not feasible or that far too much money and effort was being spent on the single-minded pursuit of polio eradication to the detriment of other, more pressing public health goals. There were setbacks, too. Just as the disease seemed to be coming under control, a fresh epidemic would send program leaders back to the drawing board and scientists back to the lab to design new, more effective forms of the vaccine. Despite India’s success, the battle is far from won. The virus is still endemic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. In Africa, Angola, Chad and Congo seemed to have won the battle against polio, but the virus was re-imported from abroad and person-to-person transmission restarted. A model for success India’s success is serving as a template for others. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are states that have become bywords in India for misrule, corruption and a dysfunctional public health system. Yet, in the midst of this chaos, the polio campaign set up an all-seeing network of health workers and volunteers who provided reams of data, constant surveillance, instant feedback and accountability. For Jafari, the successful campaign belies the notion that the health system and bureaucracy in India are rotten. With the right management system in place, he said, officials and volunteers proved to be motivated and innovative. The polio campaign has helped boost routine immunization coverage, and Jafari said the next step could be to tackle other killer viruses such as those causing measles or rubella. It will take two more years to declare India completely free of the virus, but even a setback would not derail the program. More world news coverage: |
4468d72a-3c87-11e1-8843-a6ed6c75c14c_0 | Amtrak buying new locomotives, rail cars | Amtrak The new equipment will be a major upgrade for a system that now operates with locomotives that are 20 to 30 years old and some sleeper cars that are 60 years old, Amtrak President Joe Boardman said in announcing the federally subsidized passenger rail line’s plans for 2012. Though the new locomotives will be somewhat faster and the new cars will be able to travel at higher speeds, Boardman said the more significant improvement would come in reliability. New equipment breaks down less frequently That $450 million project and a $72 million investment to replace track in four tunnels under the East River into New York were described as initial steps toward building a high-speed rail system in the United States. “We’ve got to go faster, we’ve got to be more reliable, we’ve got to be more on time,” Boardman said, “and we’ve got to coordinate all of that together in an investment in infrastructure for the Northeast corridor for the benefit of regional commuter and high-speed services.” The Obama administration’s ambitious proposal to build a national network of high-speed rail service has been caught in the maw of Congress amid budget-cutting and the aversion of some Republicans to the $1.5 billion annual Amtrak subsidy. Unions and other Amtrak advocates have said that would rob the rail company of its only profitable route and leave it saddled with money-losing lines that span the rest of the country. The House has proposed reductions in Amtrak’s subsidy. “While some of our detractors expect us to fold our tent, we’re not going to do that,” Boardman said. “Uncertainty in federal funding and budget cuts are not new to Amtrak. Things are different now because of the financial difficulties and the pressures that are on absolutely everybody, from Amtrak all the way through every program.” |
174e5ca8-3d34-11e1-8843-a6ed6c75c14c_0 | Study: Simple measures could reduce global warming, save lives | Simple, inexpensive measures to cut emissions of two common pollutants will slow global warming, save millions of lives and boost crop production around the world, an international team of scientists reported Thursday. The climate-change debate has centered on carbon dioxide, a gas that wafts in the atmosphere for decades, trapping heat. But in recent years, scientists have pointed to two other, shorter-term pollutants — methane and soot, also known as black carbon — that drive climate change. Previous studies have noted the benefits of reducing methane and soot. But the new study looked at the specific effect of about 400 actions policymakers could take. Of those, just 14 interventions — such as eliminating wood-burning stoves, dampening emissions from diesel vehicles and capturing methane released from coal mines — would offer big benefits. “They’re all things we know how to do and have done; we just haven’t done them worldwide,” said Shindell, who works at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. But simple changes can be difficult to implement globally, Shindell acknowledged, even when the ultimate benefits dwarf the upfront costs. Reducing methane and soot would slow global warming dramatically — by almost a degree Fahrenheit — by the middle of the century, according to computer simulations run by the 24-member international team. At the same time, the simulations show that better air quality would prevent lung and cardiovascular diseases, saving anywhere from 700,000 to 4.7 million lives annually. The wide range reflects uncertainties in the number of deaths caused by air pollution. Global crop yields would also rise, by 30 to 135 metric tons annually, as rice, corn, wheat and soybean plants would have an easier time absorbing the nutrients they need from the air, according to the report. About 3 billion people in the developing world rely on stoves that burn wood, dung and other fuels that throw off soot. Switching to cleaner-burning stoves would help reduce short-term global warming while quickly improving local air quality. Soot particles fall out of the air in less than a week. Many of the measures would be inexpensive, Shindell said. For instance, farmers in the developing world often burn agricultural waste, but plowing it under instead would cost almost nothing. Other interventions, such as capping landfills to trap methane, would be more costly. Several policy experts said that in the absence of a global treaty to reduce carbon |
9eea2fb4-3d59-11e1-af18-7ec0de5907e2_0 | Officer recommends court-martial for Bradley Manning in WikiLeaks case | An Army investigating officer recommended Thursday that accused leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning face a court-martial for his alleged role in providing massive amounts of classified information to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. The investigating officer, Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, found that the charges presented at the preliminary hearing offered reasonable evidence that Manning had committed the offenses alleged. Manning, 24, worked as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad and was detained in May 2010 and charged that July. Manning is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks. They include State Department cables, daily field reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, detainee assessments from Guantanamo Bay, and a 2007 Army video of an Apache helicopter firing on civilians. Manning, a native of Crescent, Okla., was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer near Baghdad in November 2009. Manning first contacted Assange the same month he deployed to Baghdad. Investigators recovered a memory card from Manning’s aunt’s home in Potomac, Md., that contained Afghanistan and Iraq field reports. He had left the card there in January 2010 during home leave. In the preliminary hearing, more than 20 of Manning’s associates testified about his mental state, work product and training. The prosecution presented evidence showing that Manning had been well trained on the handling of classified information and would have been aware of the military regulations restricting the dissemination of classified documents. Coombs did not reply to requests for comment on Thursday. Another military body, called a convening authority, will make the final decision of whether to refer the case to general court-martial. More national security coverage: |
13f6f690-3d17-11e1-8843-a6ed6c75c14c_2 | U.S. acts quickly to tamp down Afghan video scandal | the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is underway. It was unclear where or when the video was made. It was posted on the Internet on Wednesday and began to circulate quickly as news sites reported on its existence. Pentagon officials said that they were still trying to confirm the video’s authenticity but that they had no reason to believe it was a fake. “It certainly appears to us to be what it appears to be to you guys,” Capt. John Kirby, a Defense Department spokesman, told reporters. Gen. James F. Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said he asked the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to “pull together a team of their very best agents and immediately assign them responsibility to thoroughly investigate every aspect of the filmed event.” He also said he would assign a Marine general and a senior lawyer to conduct a parallel inquiry. Marine officials said that probe would be led by Lt. Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, head of the Marine Corps Forces Central Command. “Rest assured that the institution of the Marine Corps will not rest until the allegations and the events surrounding them have been resolved,” Amos said. U.S. military law and the Geneva Conventions prohibit the desecration, mishandling or exploitation of bodies of people killed in war. Digital dilemma of war Battlefield videos and photography have become a common hobby among deployed troops. Many amateur productions wind up on the Internet. On occasion, the trend has caused severe embarrassment for the U.S. military, or, in rare cases, such as the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, triggered international controversy and legal action. Some military analysts praised the Pentagon for its prompt condemnation of the Marines’ apparent behavior but said that such incidents are hardly new in the history of warfare. The Taliban, which has a long-standing reputation for brutality and beheadings, sought to exploit the Marines’ actions. “It was inhuman and despicable, an unforgivable act,” said Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi. At the same time, the Taliban did not indicate that it would use the video as an immediate excuse to walk away from the negotiating table. In a statement Thursday, the group said it would continue to pursue a political solution to the decade-long conflict in Afghanistan. Jaffe reported from Fort Bliss. Correspondent Kevin Sieff in Kabul contributed to this report. More |
f41a9baa-3d30-11e1-9d6b-29434ee99d6a_0 | Karzai faces criticism over prison demand | KABUL — The fracture comes in response to Karzai’s claim that troubled Afghan institutions are prepared to bring to trial and detain thousands of suspected militants. “We’re simply not ready. The conditions in Afghan prisons raised serious concerns, and the prison system is not ready to take responsibility for such a large facility,” said a top commission official who has examined the Afghan detention system and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. “Karzai thinks it’s easy. He thinks the prison is a little 20-room facility. He has never been there. He has no idea how complicated it is.” The commission is preparing this month to release a report that details the widespread problems in Afghan-run prisons, including physical abuse and a legal system that detains prisoners for 10 months or more without trial. On Tuesday, the Interior Ministry issued a scathing critique of the prison system, pointing to the infiltration of insurgents and drug use inside prisons as well as general security concerns. A number of international groups have documented abuses in the country’s detention centers in recent years. But officials on Afghanistan’s human rights panel have gone a step further in not only identifying abuse in more than a dozen Afghan prisons but also linking their findings to what they see as a flaw in the president’s decree: Those who would inherit Parwan have not yet proved themselves competent. Commission members said they also worried that the Afghan government would be unable to finance the costly detention operation without assistance. Karzai’s demand is seen by many here as an attempt to assert his independence after agreeing to diplomatic talks with the Taliban at the United States’ behest. Karzai has vacillated in recent months between compromise and confrontation with Washington. At a conference last month in Bonn, Germany, he pleaded for U.S. assistance beyond 2014 — when the United States is due to remove all combat troops — before condemning the United States for its night raids. Karzai supported the opening of a Taliban diplomatic office in Qatar last week and then days later made his demand about the Parwan detention center. Members of the human rights commission found that conditions at Parwan were better than any Afghan prison they visited — a blow to Karzai’s advisers, who claimed that problems with the U.S.-run detention make its transfer to Afghan control all the more important. |
2837a52c-3def-11e1-9d6b-29434ee99d6a_2 | Taiwan elections stir hope for democracy in China | question for a leadership that rejects elections as an alien and chaos-prone Western import, said Zhang Ming, a professor of politics at Renmin University in Beijing. “Why do all the neighboring countries and regions have direct elections but not China?” Zhang said. Taiwan, he added, “shows that Chinese people can handle democracy, although it’s not perfect” and has “vigorously refuted a fallacy that democracy is not suitable for Chinese.” Unlike previous elections in Taiwan, which have often been marred by violence or extensive cheating, this year’s poll has been far more orderly, although a weekly magazine uncovered evidence of what it described as government spying on the opposition. Wang, the former Tiananmen student leader who is now 42, believes that the Internet and a rapid expansion in the flow of information through it will eventually allow today’s youth in China to succeed in bringing about change. “Everyone thinks young Chinese today aren’t interested in politics. This is a myth,” Wang said. “They might feel helpless but they still want change.” An example to follow At the end of Wang’s three-hour lecture, mainland students rushed to pose for a souvenir photograph with the man reviled by Beijing as a “counter-revolutionary” agitator. Public discussion of the Tiananmen Square protest movement and the massacre that ended it on June 4, 1989, is taboo in China. A 22-year-old electrical engineering student from Fujian province, which lies just over a 100 miles away across the Taiwan Strait, said he’d heard vaguely about Wang as a high school student but didn’t know much about what happened in 1989. He decided to attend Wang’s lecture so that “I can see what a student leader is really like.” China, which has more than 1.3 billion people, can’t jump to democracy in a single bound, he said, but it can “step by step” follow the example of Taiwan, an island with a well-educated and wealthier population of just 23 million. Before the lecture, Wang joined other Chinese exiles for a seminar. Li Hengqing, a Tiananmen-generation activist who, like Wang, got thrown in jail after the 1989 military crackdown, said that China, though much bigger than Taiwan, has already started on a path traced by the island nation. Taiwan’s own modern political awakening began, he noted, with a KMT massacre in 1947 and took decades of struggle. Hong Kong-based publisher Bao Pu, whose father was a senior Communist Party official |
1e38e620-00d8-11e1-b9f6-5c1603e61c4a_8 | Is poetry dead? Or, in the age of the Internet, does it offer us what nothing else can? | the point I need to die any way How many people feel like me I wish I can see these people How many times have you heard people say what I say— Can you find my soul? No you can’t, under all this heat *** When Rashad was allowed to return, King walked over to his desk. “That was a good line in your poem, Rashad, that last line was really good,” he said, leaning over him. Rashad flicked his hand as though swatting a fly. “Shush,” he said, staring past King. “Shush.” *** What is happening at Hart Middle School is also what is happening, on a larger scale, around town. The District is particularly well-placed for such a movement. It has always had its luminaries: Whitman, of course, who worked for a time in the Attorney General’s Office; Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell and Maxine Kumin, who each spent time in town as poet laureate, when that post required a year in Washington. But to an unusual extent, poetry here has lived in the community at large, where small gatherings — of writers, readers, listeners — have tended their own flames. The scene flared up in the 1920s (the Harlem Renaissance had a branch here) and exploded in the 1970s (with a wave of new publications and groups such as Dupont Circle’s Mass Transit poets) and again in the 1990s, as spoken-word poetry and open mikes proliferated. The drawback to this pluralism is that it can be hard to hear any one voice above the rest. Quantity does not equal quality, of course. And the scene is so fractured, with so many small journals and venues, that the best voices may go unheard by a wider audience. “Poetry today has many different constituencies,” says poet Michael Collier, who teaches at the University of Maryland. “This makes it incredibly vibrant, but it also makes it difficult to describe, and to cohere.” With fewer gates come fewer gatekeepers — the reliable publishers and reviewers who select the best for the rest to read. To the reading public, this can make the scene impenetrable, or simply invisible. But this “ferment,” as District poet Kim Roberts calls what is happening in the scene today, also encourages a cross-pollination of forms — the traditional with the radical, the formal with the ordinary — is new for contemporary poetry. Whatever this new poetry’s politics or |
679ca4b6-2b51-11e1-b030-3ff399cf26f3_2 | ‘Crunch time’ at troubled nuclear fuel plant | at least forcing this out in the open,” said Henry Sokolski, a former Pentagon official and executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington-based nonprofit group. “So let’s have a debate, because I think if we have a debate this could look foolish.” “The U.S. government sold USEC to the private sector and should now treat USEC like it treats other private-sector companies,” said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert and associate professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “I think USEC shouldn’t be given any special preferences.” But the Tenex deal will provide a fraction of the uranium USEC obtained from dismantled nuclear weapons. Under the new agreement, USEC will essentially act as a broker for Russia’s commercial enrichment firm, which has been seeking access to the U.S. market. USEC will also explore the possibility of a joint Russian-American enrichment plant in the United States. Fuel from the USA “If Areva has decided it doesn’t pay, why are we throwing money at it?” Sokolski said. “If Areva is inclined to say no, why is Congress inclined to say yes?” “Completion of the new facilities poses a significant threat to USEC’s competitive market position because both facilities plan to use the lower-cost centrifuge technology, and both have applied to double the capacity of their U.S.-based facilities,” an S&P report said. Nonetheless, USEC and its supporters argue that a U.S. company with commercial U.S. technology is needed. “We do believe that having more suppliers is going to be helpful from a competitive supply standpoint,” said Marshall Murphy, spokesman for Exelon’s nuclear power business, a USEC customer. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that the United States also needs “indigenous” enrichment technology to provide enough tritium for nuclear weapons and highly enriched uranium for U.S. naval reactors on submarines and warships. The TVA uses about 2 percent of USEC’s enriched uranium to power a process producing tritium, a hydrogen isotope with a half life of 12 years. U.S. agreements with foreign-owned enrichment facilities in the United States bar them from doing anything to promote military purposes, the Energy Department says. “As President Obama has said, while we envision a world without nuclear weapons, until that day comes we must ensure that our deterrent is safe, secure and effective,” Chu wrote in a Dec. 1 letter to Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). But Bunn said — |
679ca4b6-2b51-11e1-b030-3ff399cf26f3_4 | ‘Crunch time’ at troubled nuclear fuel plant | and the Energy Department concedes — that the United States has the ability to make enough tritium for many years and fuel for naval reactors to last several decades. “I don’t see it as a huge issue,” Bunn said. Markey has argued that USEC could produce, within a few months, enough tritium to meet U.S. needs for another half century. Sokolski adds that the limits on foreign suppliers are largely set by the U.S. government, which could alter agreements to allow European-owned facilities in the United States to provide the military with whatever small amounts of uranium might be needed. In addition, the government has its own uranium stockpiles. Chu said that U.S.-origin fuel also gives the United States greater clout in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the multilateral organization that tries to limit enrichment and reprocessing technology. As a senior Energy Department official put it: “They don’t listen to us because we’re charming, but because we’re a big player.” However, USEC’s effort to wave the American flag could run into opposition because of the firm’s agreement to explore a venture to open the U.S. market to a Russian enrichment plant. Many lawmakers oppose such a move, citing Russia’s aid to Iran’s nuclear program despite U.S. and European sanctions. Decades-old technology All these would be moot points if USEC were thriving. But it isn’t. Its Paducah, Ky., facility, leased from the government, uses a decades-old method of enriching uranium known as gaseous diffusion. USEC has been planning for years to build a more efficient American Centrifuge plant in Piketon, Ohio. It broke ground in 2007 and has a couple of dozen commercial-scale centrifuges operating there. Its initial plan was to have 11,520 of them arrayed in 96 “cascades.” In each centrifuge, gaseous uranium hexafluoride is fed into a rotor that spins at high speed. Centrifugal force pulls the heavier U238 molecules closer to the wall of the rotor. Since one centrifuge can’t do the job alone, they work in cascades so that the final product contains about 5 percent enriched uranium. Other companies use centrifuges, too, but USEC’s version, developed at an Energy Department laboratory, has not been used commercially. An independent engineer’s report conducted for the Energy Department’s loan program and obtained by The Washington Post also cited problems with cooling water pumps, valves, vacuums and centrifuge controls as well as “inadequate training.” It said that a key cooling water |
98a3a9b2-3e05-11e1-861f-2c3eff5ce2df_0 | Incoming space junk: Failed Russian Mars probe expected to crash this weekend | What went up is going to come down — and soon. Experts expect the 11 tons of fuel on board to explode high in the atmosphere as friction eats through the craft’s aluminum tanks. But predicting when and where space objects will fall is tricky. Solar flares and other “space weather” expand and contract Earth’s atmosphere, altering the drag on falling objects. That means the spacecraft, called Phobos-Grunt, could plummet back to Earth over North America, South America, Europe, Asia or even Australia. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, expects 500 pounds of the nearly 15-ton craft to survive reentry, with the rest incinerating. The agency’s latest prediction shows it crashing into the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of South America. But that prediction can change — and most likely will. As the craft drops lower and lower, its path will become more certain. By late Saturday, Klinkrad said, the ESA will begin crossing out large areas of the world that will not be hit. The ESA’s latest predictions peg the plunge for Sunday morning, Eastern time. But reentry could occur as early as Saturday night or as late as Monday morning, Klinkrad said. The U.S. Strategic Command, the wing of the military tasked with tracking space debris, is also eyeing Sunday and Monday for the uncontrolled reentry. “Unfortunately, we are not 100 percent definite until we don’t see it anymore” on radar screens, said Rodney Ellison, a spokesman for Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. A joint statement issued Friday by NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the agencies are “closely monitoring the situation and are taking all necessary precautions and preparations to be ready to support our federal, state and local partners in the unlikely event that there are impacts to the United States.” The statement urged anyone who finds space debris to contact local law enforcement. Shortly after the Nov. 8 launch of Phobos-Grunt, a booster rocket failed to fire, stranding the probe. Repeated efforts by Roscomos and the ESA to control the craft were unsuccessful. The craft has been slowly dropping, and by Friday, it was just 115 miles high and descending more rapidly as the wispy upper atmosphere tugged on it. Klinkrad said he and his staff will be “working day and night” to refine the craft’s reentry point. If Phobos-Grunt appears headed for land, the ESA will issue bulletins |
84beb868-3d35-11e1-8843-a6ed6c75c14c_3 | At Olympic marathon trials, Desiree Davila seeks to validate Boston performance | breakout performances in major meets, Davila toiled quietly and improved gradually. A native of Chula Vista, Calif., she earned all-America recognition with the Sun Devils but never was considered the top runner on her team. During her senior season in 2004, she placed 23rd in the 5,000 at the NCAA championships. Still, she loved the sport and believed she could get better after college. In 2005, she joined the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, a group of post-graduate athletes that trains under brothers Kevin and Keith Hanson in Detroit. In 2006, she finished 43rd in the IAAF World Road Running Championships 20-kilometer race in Debrecen, Hungary. A year later, she ran her first marathon in Boston, finishing 19th in 2:44:56 on a rainy, blustery day. The time was good enough to qualify Davila for the 2008 Olympic trials, which turned out to be a pivotal — albeit disappointing — event. A virtual unknown entering that race, Davila found herself about eight seconds out of third place at Mile 18. She admitted that she panicked, surprised that she was in the hunt. She did not drink enough water. At Mile 20, she said, “I completely hit the wall. It was like a death march” to the finish. Davila stumbled home in 2:37:50. She would never again make the same mistake. “That was probably the race that got me where I am now,” she said. “It was a learning experience.” Despite that setback, Davila believed she had found her calling and that success would eventually come. She liked the length, the road, even the long, painful training mileage marathons required. She entered the 2008 Chicago Marathon that fall, finishing fifth in 2:31:33. At the same race two years later, she finished as the top American and fourth overall in 2:26:20. In Boston last spring, she did not emerge among the leaders until nearly two hours into the race. Then, she began passing the top women. With six miles remaining, the race had become a duel between her and Kenyan Caroline Kilel, who eventually prevailed in 2:26:36 Davila said she hopes the pace Saturday isn’t too slow. She said she wouldn’t be afraid to take the lead to keep the field honest. She would rather work hard for 26.2 miles than allow the race to become a sprint over the last third. And unlike in 2008, she’s ready to prove that to the running world. |
7c2471e8-3d7b-11e1-861f-2c3eff5ce2df_2 | As a Marine and Afghan war vet, I’m insulted by the desecration video | the men in the video, because desecrating the dead goes against every custom and value that the Marines hold dear. When the enemy is dead, they’re no longer treated like combatants. Despite the mortal conflict you’ve just engaged in, their humanity is revealed by their death. And in Afghanistan, you often have to look their family members in the eye as you hand over the body of their dead father, brother or son. My mission with the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines Regiment was to make our sector of northern Helmand province safe for Afghan civilians through a combination of state-building, political development and security operations. The fight was tough and the enemy frustrating, but we were successful because of our commitment to winning over the local populace. During our deployment, we worked to make the roads safe, strengthen the local economy, and befriend villagers and our Afghan army and police counterparts. We knew that building trust required thousands of cups of chai, countless meals sitting cross-legged on mud hut floors and a deep respect for the local culture and traditions. Five Marines in my company died in Afghanistan doing just this. After returning to the United States, we stood at a memorial for them and told their families that their sacrifices weren’t in vain. It was true then. But is it now? Marines and all other service members understand intuitively the effect that this video will have on the war. Whatever comes of an investigation, this is a significant blow. Already, some are saying that this will affect peace talks. But the consequences for the Marines on the ground will be felt in the increase in bombs under their feet and bullets flying by their heads. Before I left Afghanistan, we worked with the local government to install cellular towers in the area where this video was shot. Now, with a basic cellphone from the local bazaar, members of the Taliban can show villagers at every shura in the district what Marines do to Muslims when they’re dead. That’s why my fellow Marines and I are infuriated by this video. We know there’s no moral gray area when it comes to dealing with the dead. When you’ve killed your enemy, the fight is over — and in Afghanistan, you hand the bodies over for a Muslim burial. If we can handle Osama bin Laden’s body with respect, we can do |
baf16430-3df8-11e1-861f-2c3eff5ce2df_2 | We’re all guilty of dehumanizing the enemy | but we remain oddly unfazed by the fact that, presumably, those same Marines just put high-caliber rounds through the fighters’ chests. American troops are not blind to this irony. They are very clear about the fact that society trains them to kill, orders them to kill and then balks at anything that suggests they have dehumanized the enemy they have killed. But of course they have dehumanized the enemy — otherwise they would have to face the enormous guilt and anguish of killing other human beings. Rather than demonstrate a callous disregard for the enemy, this awful incident might reveal something else: a desperate attempt by confused young men to convince themselves that they haven’t just committed their first murder — that they have simply shot some coyotes on the back 40. It doesn’t work, of course, but it gets them through the moment; it gets them through the rest of the patrol. There is a final context for this act in which we are all responsible, all guilty. A 19-year-old Marine has a very hard time reconciling the fact that it’s okay to waterboard a live Taliban fighter but not okay to urinate on a dead one. When the war on terror started, the Marines in that video were probably 9 or 10 years old. As children they heard adults — and political leaders — talk about our enemies in the most inhuman terms. The Internet and the news media are filled with self-important men and women referring to our enemies as animals that deserve little legal or moral consideration. We have sent enemy fighters to countries like Syria and Libya to be tortured by the very regimes that we have recently condemned for engaging in war crimes and torture. They have been tortured into confessing their crimes and then locked up indefinitely without trial because their confessions — achieved through torture — will not stand up in court. For the past 10 years, American children have absorbed these moral contradictions, and now they are fighting our wars. The video doesn’t surprise me, but it makes me incredibly sad — not just for them, but also for us. We may prosecute these men for desecrating the dead while maintaining that it is okay to torture the living. I hope someone else knows how to explain that to our soldiers, because I don’t have the faintest idea. outlook@washpost.com Sebastian Junger |
b4936b90-3e1d-11e1-861f-2c3eff5ce2df_2 | DHS monitoring of social media worries civil liberties advocates | nation,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained a copy of a contract and related material describing DHS’s social media monitoring through its FOIA suit. According to the documents, the department’s Office of Operations Coordination and Planning awarded a contract in 2010 to Fairfax-based General Dynamics’ Advanced Information Systems. The company’s task is to provide media and social media monitoring support to Homeland Security’s National Operations Center (NOC) on a “24/7/365 basis” to enhance DHS’s “situational awareness, fusion and analysis and decision support” to senior leaders. “The language in the documents makes it quite clear that they are looking for media reports that are critical of the agency and the U.S. government more broadly,” said Ginger McCall, director of EPIC’s open government program. “This is entirely outside of the bounds of the agency’s statutory duties, and it could have a substantial chilling effect on legitimate dissent and freedom of speech.” But John Cohen, a senior counterterrorism adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said that in his three years on the job, during which he has received every social media summary the NOC has produced, he has never seen a report summarizing negative views of DHS or any other governmental agency. Such reports, he said, “would not be the type of reporting I would consider helpful” in forming an operational response to some event or emergency. “What I generally get are reports regarding hazmat spills, natural disasters, suspicious packages and street closures, active shooter situations, bomb threats,” Cohen said. “That is the type of information being pulled off social media.” There is one sense in which reports of “adverse” publicity might be useful, he said: for example, alerting senior officials to the arrest of an off-duty officer for discharging his weapon. The $11.3 million General Dynamics contract began in 2010 with a four-year renewal option. It states that the firm should provide daily social network summaries, weekly data reports and a monthly status report.The work is being done for DHS’s Office of Operations Coordination and Planning. General Dynamics referred a request for comment to the department. A year ago, the department released a report describing privacy guidelines on its social media monitoring program. For instance, information that can identify an individual may be collected if it “lends credibility” to the report. Officials said that would generally be provided to operational officials responding to an emergency. More national security coverage: |
cf0570f6-3e20-11e1-861f-2c3eff5ce2df_0 | The U.S. must decide: More money and forces for Afghanistan? | Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Burke chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has written extensively on the Afghan war. It may be fair to argue that the last thing the nation needs at the start of an election year is yet another budget crisis and another decade of war. Yet this is the path the United States appears to be taking in Afghanistan. U.S. officials are talking about removing all American troops from Afghanistan and about massive cuts in military spending as part of the “transition” to Afghan control of combat and civil governance operations in 2014. Given the lead times involved in funding and implementing such massive changes within two to three years, Washington really has only a few months in which to decide whether we will take on the burden of funding the Afghan government through 2014 and beyond, and whether we will provide most of the funds, advisers and partners that Afghan forces will need until 2020 and beyond. There has been near silence about these issues from the Obama administration and every Republican presidential candidate. Yet working studies from the U.S. and British governments, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank show that the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan could plunge that country into a recession or depression by the end of 2014 unless Kabul receives a massive new aid package. Afghanistan would need major assistance to compensate for the phaseout of U.S. and allied military spending that has kept its economy alive during the past 10 years of war, to pay for the services its government must provide to win and retain the loyalty of its people, to pay for the military and security forces it must develop, and to sustain the government until the Taliban and other insurgents are defeated or accept a political settlement. The Afghan government paper tracked closely with World Bank studies showing just how critical such aid will be, given that U.S. and allied forces are due to leave in 24 to 36 months and that an Afghan presidential election is to be held in 2014. The Karzai government estimated that the cost of continued spending on development and governance would equal 14 percent of the Afghan economy in 2015 and that at least 9 percent of its gross domestic product would have to come from foreign aid. The government |
6a4f4832-3e3c-11e1-b362-2b7f6df5e075_0 | Marines questioned in connection with video | Maryann B. Cummings, a spokeswoman for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said the Marines are in the United States. They have not been arrested, and authorities have not decided whether to press charges. In a statement, Cummings said investigators are “still tracking down information on the individual(s) who created and posted the video as well as initiating computer forensic techniques on the video itself.” The caption asserts that the Marines are part of a scout sniper team with the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, an infantry unit from Camp Lejeune, N.C. Marines from the unit were deployed to Afghanistan’s Helmand province last year and returned to the United States in September. The decision on whether to discipline the Marines will rest with Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the head of the Marine Corps Forces Central Command, who was appointed to review the case by Gen. James F. Amos, the Marine Corps commandant. U.S. military law and the Geneva Conventions prohibit desecration, mishandling or exploitation of bodies of people killed in war. More national security coverage: |
a78f130a-3ca5-11e1-8843-a6ed6c75c14c_1 | CDC expands ‘bush meat’ testing for viruses | in the worst case, an AIDS-like pandemic. After all, the virus that causes AIDS jumped from chimpanzees to humans at least three times early in the 20th century, sparking a worldwide crisis that has killed at least 25 million people. And in 2003, an unknown virus leapt from bats to civet cats to people in southwest China. The virus then spread to 29 countries and killed at least 774 people. It was dubbed SARS, for severe acute respiratory syndrome. Infectious-disease experts are convinced those two viruses moved into humans via the butchering, handling and eating of infected meat. And they’re all but certain that other scary viruses lurk in the world’s wildlife. Beginning in 2008, Smith, a wildlife health expert, aided the CDC on a pilot project to test bush meat confiscated at Dulles International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, and airports in Houston and Atlanta. The effort netted heads, arms and other pieces of two chimpanzees (members of an endangered species), seven monkeys and 35 rodents, mostly giant cane rats. It is illegal to bring any of those animals into the United States. Also found were three exotic viruses, although they do not appear dangerous to humans. Two of the viruses are in the same broad family as the viruses that cause herpes in humans. The third virus, simian foamy virus, was found in seven monkeys and one of the chimpanzees. That virus has been on CDC’s radar for a few years because, like HIV, it is a retrovirus. It insinuates itself into the host’s DNA, where it persists, perhaps for a lifetime. To date, there are no signs that simian foamy virus makes people sick, the CDC’s William Switzer said. But the agency has estimated there are 130 people infected with it worldwide. The agency is tracking only about 15 of those cases. Most are laboratory or zoo workers who handled monkeys and apes, or blood or tissue from the primates. “We’re looking at whether these viruses are transmissible to close contacts, spouses, children, and so on,” Switzer said. “So much of this is smuggled in, we can’t find it, can’t track it,” Marano said. “We’ll never get a complete picture.” “African rodents are very common,” Ocana said of some packages that arrive in his office. “Sometimes you have to put the pieces together like a puzzle to find out what you’re dealing with.” |
94316308-3ee4-11e1-934a-2f8ab90f81c8_3 | U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials: Meb Keflezighi and Shalane Flanagan win races, spots in London | and took the men through opening miles of 4:50 and 4:51, then pressed even further with several miles in the mid 4:40s. “I was just being me,” Hall said. “I wasn’t thinking, ‘This is the Trials, I need to be conservative.’ I just wanted to air it out . . . I get excited running fast, so that’s what I decided to do.” The women’s race began with a slow 6:11 mile, but the slugglishness got stamped out quickly as Hastings and Davila took charge. The lead women ticked through the second mile in 5:49; the third in 5:34; and the fourth in 5:30. By mile five (5:22), a massive pack after the first mile had shrunk to nine. Neither Flanagan nor Goucher, who did not compete in 2010 because she had a baby, appreciated the aggressive tactics and the hard, fast early miles. Goucher said she had hoped for a slow pace early; she lacked confidence that she could be competitive in a faster one. Flanagan said she, too, would have preferred some slow, easy miles at the start. Davila, however, had something else in mind. “I thought the slower it is, the longer Kara and Amy and everyone else are going to be in it,” Davila said. “I figured, ‘Let’s get this thing going.’ ” Goucher and Flanagan said they benefited from their new relationship as training partners, an arrangement that came about when Goucher left Alberto Salazar after seven years to join Jerry Schumacher in Portland, Ore. “I felt very comfortable knowing Kara was in the race,” Flanagan said. “It just made it feel like we were at home working out. It kind of had this calming effect for me.” Abdirahman enjoyed himself so much he waved his arms to try to generate noise from the crowd at around mile 18; he might have paid for that expression of enthusiasm as he fell back over the last 1.5 miles — but not enough to endanger his Olympic slot. Keflezighi, who took three weeks off at last fall’s New York City Marathon because of bad blistering of one of his feet after accidentally leaving a breathing strip in his shoe during the race, looked fresh and ready to race Saturday. “With about five miles to go, we were together and Meb said, ‘Hey, let’s work together to make this team,’ ” Abdirahman said. “And that’s what we did.” |
c2418b04-3adb-11e1-9ff8-fab9392b31bf_2 | Retail vacancies beg a question of identity | Location, location On paper, Friendship Heights seems like the ideal location for any retailer: it’s home to one of the Washington area’s wealthiest populations, resides along the main thoroughfare of Wisconsin Avenue, and is centered around a Metro station and bus terminal. A who’s who of department stores — Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdales — anchor the district. Yet the area is never quite as bustling as Georgetown or Tysons Corner Center. The closing of Borders bookstore, Filene’s Basement and Pottery Barn in the past 12 months has left a few dark storefronts along Wisconsin Avenue. Farther up the street at the Wisconsin Place development, the Whole Foods welcomes a steady stream of customers, much like the Clyde’s restaurant across the street at Chevy Chase Center. The former Borders store, which is temporarily housing a warehouse sale of inventory from Roche Bobis, a neighboring store in Chevy Chase. (Jeffrey MacMillan/Capital Business) The center, however, is peppered with vacancies, which may soon be filled, according to David Smith, president of Chevy Chase Land Co., owner of the project. He said there are “leases out for signature” to fill three spaces along Wisconsin Circle, but declined to offer any details. Smith noted that his company is also in talks with restaurateurs to replace Famoso and M Cafe, which closed last April, at the Collection at Chevy Chase, which is next to Chevy Chase Center. A need for more eateries Restaurants are in short supply in the shopping corridor, said Jonathan Bender, a neighborhood commissioner for Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3E. “You get some cross-fertilization on foot traffic with restaurants, so they become kind of an anchor in the evenings,” he said. “The folks moving into this neighborhood have disposable income, eat out and want a walkable space.” Later this month, Rosa Mexicano is scheduled to open a 7,304-square-foot restaurant at 5225 Wisconsin Ave. NW. “Rosa will add a new dynamic to the area. It has a thriving bar scene and could become a popular hang out,” said Perry Reith, senior asset manager at Grosvenor, which owns the site. Reith said he believes Friendship Heights, where Grosvenor owns more than 153,000 square feet of mixed-use space, “matured and stabilized during the last economic cycle.” He said, “New tenants will take all of the vacant locations in time because the area, despite the turnover in tenants, has attractive demographics. ” |
c14db4d6-3c6e-11e1-a72c-c808ebbd31f5_1 | Three local banks reach five-year milestone | is concerned about the squeeze on net interest margins — the difference between what banks earn on loans and pay out on deposits — brought on by the low-rate environment. Still, he remains bullish on the bank’s prospects. “We’ve been able to grow mostly by stealing market share,” he said. “We’re able to take good quality deals from players who aren’t as interested, aren’t as creative in terms of structure and credit philosophy.” Starting out, Revere had the advantage of being unencumbered by troubled loans. Established banks saddled with nonperforming assets were reluctant to lend, giving the new kids on the block an easy way to gain market share. New banks, or de novos, without an existing portfolio of high-interest earning loans also did not suffer as much as their older counterparts when rates fell and reduced earnings. To avoid making the same mistakes as some of its peers, Revere has been conservative in underwriting loans, Flott said. The bank held $184 million million in loans, of which less than a half percent were nonperforming, at the end of September 2011. Flott said the bank closed out 2011 with $270 million in assets on the books. Similar to Flott, John Brough, chief executive of Chain Bridge, said the lack of legacy assets positioned the bank to take advantage of the dysfunctional market. “People at that time were looking for a bank that didn’t have any legacy problems, and we benefitted from that,” he said. Technology helps Chain Bridge, he noted, also benefitted at the time from emerging technology. Rather than incurring the expense of opening multiple branches, the bank relied on remote deposit capture, whereby customers can scan and transmit check images to a bank for deposit. Brough said that allowed the bank to maintain low operating costs. To this day, Chain Bridge, with $250 million in assets, only has one branch. “Banks have a lot more costs they have to absorb because of compliance-related expenses,” Brough said. “And with margins being stressed, finding a way to maintain acceptable profitability is a challenge. That makes controlling costs even more important.” Investing in technology allowed First Virginia Community to have the capabilities of a bigger bank and attract large clients, said the banks’ chief executive, David Pijor. Last year, the bank won a bid to provide the Circuit Court of Prince William County with online cash management services. Pijor said the |
ca487f20-3fb2-11e1-bd99-09de6f1a68d4_0 | Itzhak Perlman joins BSO at Strathmore | No one attends an Itzhak Perlman concert expecting to hear historically informed performances of baroque and classical repertoire. True to form, the violinist delivered well-upholstered, old-school readings of the “Winter” and “Summer” concertos from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” at Strathmore Hall on Saturday, playing the solo parts and leading the Baltimore Symphony from his violin. He then conducted the orchestra in a comparably traditional rendering of Mozart’s Symphony No. 25. Despite the reduced size of the orchestra (roughly two dozen players), string tone was silken and vibrato-rich in the Vivaldi, and Perlman’s playing possessed all its accustomed sweetness and warmth (although a handful of less-than-immaculate notes were surprising from a violinist known for flawless finish). The overall tone of the readings was decidedly beefy and larger than life, leading Perlman to have the harpsichord amplified, an unfortunate choice that resulted in a distractingly outsize keyboard part with the canned sound of a poorly amped electric guitar. Players were added, and the harpsichord jettisoned, for a moderately paced, neatly proportioned performance of the Mozart work. This is a symphony that comes to fizzing life when period-instrument ensembles rip through it at lickety-split tempos. But with Perlman’s modern sonorities and comfortable, middle-of-the-road approach (and his observing of repeats in the score that stretched the music’s youthful inspiration to the breaking point), this perfectly respectable reading outstayed its welcome. The concert concluded with Perlman conducting Brahms’s Fourth Symphony. If he found little new to say in this warhorse piece, his interpretation was poised and affectionately molded, with a balance of glowing, saturated string tone and character-rich work from the BSO’s winds. Banno is a freelance writer. |
25568ac8-3e29-11e1-934a-2f8ab90f81c8_0 | Plans for high-speed rail are slowing down | PALO ALTO, Calif. — Obama set a goal of providing 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail within 25 years. But that lofty vision is yielding to the political gravity generated by high costs, determined opponents and a public that has grown dubious of government’s ability to do big things. Virtually none of the projects has gotten off the ground, and the one that has is in trouble. For Obama, the political stakes are high going into the 2012 election. Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has accused him of putting too much faith in government to build the economy. The president, Romney says to the delight of Republican partisans, “does not know” how business, or the economy, works. The plan that envisions bullet trains trains zipping between the nation’s major cities at speeds up to 220 miles per hour, was one of the few transformative projects included in the $797 billion stimulus program enacted early in Obama’s presidency. “Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination,” Obama said in announcing his vision for high-speed rail in April 2009. “Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America.” So far, Obama has wagered more than $10 billion in federal money on high-speed rail, only to see his plans diminished, one after another. House Republicans were also among those who dug in against Obama’s high-speed rail vision, saying that outside of select regions, it did not fit a sprawling, car-loving nation served by nearly 50,000 miles of interstate highways and an extensive air travel network. Now the nation’s only pending true high-speed rail project is facing a crisis moment in California, a Democratic stronghold known for its innovation. Few places would benefit more from the trains. California’s urban areas are notorious for hair-raising traffic jams. The skies between San Francisco and Los Angeles — the country’s busiest route — are so packed that 25 percent of the flights between the two cities are at least one hour late, according to state officials. And with the state’s population projected to soar by 50 percent over the next four decades, the congestion is expected only to grow more dire. Meanwhile, California’s fast-growing Central Valley, where cities such as Fresno, Merced and Bakersfield struggle with unemployment rates in the mid-teens, would benefit economically from |
b56da416-3ba9-11e1-9ff8-fab9392b31bf_0 | Environmentalists celebrate long-shot victory at Mattawoman Creek | Even in cold January, when the woods are stripped bare, it’s clear why so many Maryland environmentalists compare the Mattawoman Creek to Eden. Eagles alight from barren trees and glide over serene waters, flocks of ducks darken the winter sky, and fish leap in the muddy shallows. Yellow perch will soon make their annual run to spawn by the tens of thousands in the Mattawoman, a feast for raptors. They release milky strands with 60,000 eggs each, bolstering the Charles County creek’s status as “the most productive tributary to the Chesapeake Bay,” according to state fishery biologists. And for years, the county planned to build a highway right through the watershed. But recently a strange thing happened. Local environmental activists actually won a fight against a development that they said would harm wildlife. The state said no to the road in a rare denial of a development permit after the activists relentlessly picked apart the county’s arguments for it in an application. The demise of the half-built $70 million Cross County Connector is being held up as a victory over urban sprawl that could be duplicated throughout the fragile Chesapeake Bay watershed. Early in the fight over the connector, opponents were a huge long shot to win. Like a boxer who takes a multitude of jabs to land one solid punch, they acknowledged suffering a series of defeats in failed efforts to get county planners to propose development designs that were friendly to the creek. The proposed 16-mile connector was designed to start at Route 5 and cut through small winding roads and the Mattawoman and end at Indian Head Highway. Eleven subdivisions with more than 2,000 homes were proposed, and were seen as likely to lead to more storm-water runoff laced with sediment and nutrient pollution — and foul the Chesapeake. Mattawoman Creek is like many of the bay’s tributaries. It’s good looks are only skin deep. Below its emerald tree canopies in Mason Springs are waters with shrinking populations of yellow perch, white perch, herring and largemouth bass. Walking through the area last week, Mason Springs Conservancy board member Ken Hastings explained how storm-water runoff from development, floods and sewage overflows have eroded and reshaped its banks, widening them, slowing the current, making the area less attractive for fish. Yellow perch disappeared from a part of the creek near Route 225 in the 2009 spawning season, and the |
05ca2040-3d5f-11e1-84a4-02de40db9b91_2 | Pentagon interest in cybersecurity may ease contractors’ pain from cuts | $11 billion, Howard Rubel, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in New York, said in an interview. That spending may increase faster than many other military programs, he said. Increased reliance on satellites and drone aircraft may raise vulnerability to hackers and other disruptions that are expanding with technological sophistication. The United States will “invest in new capabilities to maintain a decisive military edge against a growing array of threats,’’ Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said in introducing the plan. The National Counterintelligence Executive, an advisory panel of senior U.S. intelligence officials, blamed China and Russia in a Nov. 3 report for stealing sensitive U.S. economic and commercial data. The report said that the pace of cyberespionage is accelerating and threatening an estimated $398 billion in spending on research and development. Northrop chief executive Wes Bush said during an Oct. 26 conference call that the Falls Church-based company considers cybersecurity important “because of the just ever-growing recognition of the threat and the ever-growing magnitude of the threat.” Northrop is the Defense Department’s largest supplier of unmanned systems and the government’s biggest cybersecurity provider, spokesman Randy Belote said in an e-mail. Both sides of the coin Linking cybersecurity and space systems is “encouraging because it reflects reality that we need to be doing more on both sides of the coin,” said Roger Cressey, senior vice president for Booz Allen Hamilton, a McLean-based security and intelligence consulting firm. The Pentagon requested about $10.2 billion this fiscal year for its space initiatives, including about $5.8 billion for satellites and $2 billion in launch costs. Two of the space programs are being developed by Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin: the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite and the Space Based Infrared System, a network of satellites. Another is the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, a satellite system using medium- and heavy-lift rockets that the Pentagon requested about $1.7 billion for this year. It’s run by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Chicago-based Boeing. Increases in space-defense expenditures may lag behind those in the faster-growing cybersecurity area, said Mark Gunzinger, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington and former deputy assistant secretary of defense. NeuStar’s Joffe agrees, saying the United States should create “what our enemy already has, really good offensive cyber capabilities. We should be able to get enormous leverage from investments in offensive cybersecurity.” — Bloomberg Government |
3b84a9a2-3617-11e1-afdf-67906fc95149_3 | An achy calf and shortness of breath points a traveler to deep vein thrombosis | going into Mexico City. He was seemingly doing fine, and as he was going through the passport line, he had a pulmonary embolism, and it essentially killed him right then and there.” Fauci, one of the country’s premier AIDS scientists, said he walks a lot on flights, even if he clogs the aisles. “I have always been extremely attentive to the dangers of flying, so I spend a lot of my time walking down the aisle and getting in people’s way,” he said. He explained how sitting in a cramped airplane seat for a long time could cause clotting: “If you are sitting down and the under part of your knee is constricted, when you bend the femoral vein, it creates more blood statis,” or stagnation, which causes blood platelets to clump up and form clots, he said. But Victoria Day, a spokeswoman for Airlines for America, a trade association, said in an e-mail that there’s “no specific link between air travel and DVT. The risk of developing a DVT during air travel is about the same as being seated for the same period of time at a desk, in a movie theater, on a bus or in a car.” Bussey said that the few studies on DVT showed that long-distance flying could be a “substantial risk.” But he also said that those who had a tendency toward clotting were older people with poor circulation, women who were on hormonal medicine and people with a genetic condition that allows clots to form more easily, not necessarily people who frequently travel long distances. He suggested that my DVT could have been caused by a genetic disorder that made me predisposed to clotting. So what does this mean for me? I can’t say just yet. After I’m off my anti-clotting medicine this spring, my doctor will test my blood to see if I have a genetic disorder. The result matters. And what will I do when I need to fly to Manila or Addis Ababa or some other distant city? I will probably shoot myself up with an anti-clotting medicine before each flight that is longer than six hours. I’ll wear knee-high compression socks to prevent my blood from pooling in my legs. And I’ll walk up and down the aisles, drink lots of water and avoid beverages that dehydrate me. I dodged a bullet twice. No need to do it again. |
276819fc-2da4-11e1-8af5-ec9a452f0164_1 | D.C. cardiologist develops mobile app to speed diagnosis of heart attacks | compatibility issues. Each hospital has its own electronic information system. These systems are currently designed to work with a mouse, keyboard and monitor, and don’t adapt easily to touch-screen tablets, said John Moore, managing partner of Chilmark Research, which analyzes health-care information technology. Among early-adopter hospitals, applications have focused more on easing access to hospital information systems than on tools for direct care, he said. “Hospitals and [chief information officers] are hesitant to adopt a new technology platform for fear of information leakage,” said Joe Smith, chief medical officer for the West Wireless Health Institute, a nonprofit medical research organization. At the same time, he added, technology is changing so quickly that hospitals are afraid “they’ll spend a couple thousand man-hours to bring one piece of technology online, only to find it lapped in a year.” Multiple approaches In cardiac care, many hospital systems have already invested heavily in commercially available systems that use dedicated hardware and software to perform one of the same functions as CodeHeart: Send ECG results from the field to the hospital via a secure digital file. Montgomery County began using one in June. Doing so has resulted in faster diagnosis, officials said. That, in turn, has allowed some patients to bypass emergency rooms and go directly to a hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab for the artery-opening procedure known as angioplasty. District ambulance crews and three D.C. hospitals plan to test the same commercial system, Lifenet, in a few weeks, said David Miramontes, medical director for the city’s emergency medical services department. The first year’s cost is about $100,000, funded by a grant from George Washington University Hospital, which received a donation from the nonprofit CTIA-The Wireless Foundation. Unlike that system, the CodeHeart mobile application requires no dedicated software or hardware but does require a device with camera and Internet access. The app is portable and versatile, according to Lowell Satler, the Washington Hospital Center cardiologist who has been developing it with wireless carrier AT&T. And unlike the commercial system, he said, the application has potential for use in emergency situations beyond cardiac care. The live video can let a neurologist evaluate a possible stroke patient or a dermatologist assess a mysterious skin rash remotely. The application allows an authorized user to send a secure video and audio stream. The results are immediately accessible to consulting cardiologists on designated smartphones, tablets or desktop computers. Doctors can look |
7e2c3914-4062-11e1-a19a-cfb2335d5efa_0 | Dan Evins, founder of Cracker Barrel highway empire, dies | Dan Evins, the Cracker Barrel founder who turned his eatery into a highway empire, offering millions of hungry motorists a down-home alternative to traditional fast food, died Jan. 14 at his daughter’s home in Lebanon, Tenn. He was 76 and had cancer, said his daughter Betsy Jennings. “Nostalgia Sells” was the headline of a 1992 Forbes magazine article that chronicled the rise of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store. The chain began in 1969 as a single shop in Lebanon, Mr. Evins’s boyhood home, and expanded across the southern United States before becoming the national grits-and-biscuits behemoth that it is today. The chain went public in 1981 and employs 67,000 people at 600 locations in 42 states. Cracker Barrel stores, with their barn-style, weather-beaten wooden architecture, stand like mile-markers along American highways. For fans, part of their draw is that no matter the location, the eating experience is almost always the same. Before being seated, visitors walk through a “country store” stocked with wares such as rock candy, marmalades and wooden toys. Once at their table, they open a brown-paper menu listing trend-resistant American dishes — hickory smoked country ham, “chicken n’ dumplins,” and meatloaf — and fare such as the catfish platter, turnip greens and country-fried steak. Dan W. Evins, the founder of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, died Jan. 14 in Lebanon, Tenn. He was 76. In this image he is shown standing on the front porch of one of his stores. (Courtesy of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store) After the meal, a porch lined with rocking chairs awaits. Mr. Evins owed his success in large part to two insights about American life in the second part of the 20th century. The first was that the interstate highway system, whose construction began in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration, would forever change the way people traveled and, therefore, ate. His second was that some things never change, among them the appeal of a home-style meal, especially to someone who is on the road. “Most people perceive tourists on the interstate as being mostly one-time customers,” he told the publication Restaurant Business in 1987. “We knew that tourists were just creatures of habit.” In the 1960s, Mr. Evins was working at the oil company founded by his grandfather as a jobber, or wholesaler, with Shell. He dealt primarily with small gas stations in rural areas whose roads had become less |
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Dataset Summary
This dataset contains the FollowIR TREC News 2021 dataset, to be used in FollowIR.
The format was designed to be the same as the mteb datasets: it contains the corpus, queries, and qrels in separate folders. For more information see the above code link or paper.
- Repository: orionw/FollowIR
- Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.15246
Citation
@misc{weller2024followir,
title={FollowIR: Evaluating and Teaching Information Retrieval Models to Follow Instructions},
author={Orion Weller and Benjamin Chang and Sean MacAvaney and Kyle Lo and Arman Cohan and Benjamin Van Durme and Dawn Lawrie and Luca Soldaini},
year={2024},
eprint={2403.15246},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.IR}
}
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