The tyranny you haven’t heard of

ship military supplies through Uzbekistan to reach Afghanistan. And as Russian President Vladimir Putin has become increasingly hostile, the West has competed with him for the favor of neighboring nations. Thus the tenor of this White House summary of a telephone call between President Obama and Karimov in 2011, unimaginable if Kim Jong Un had been on the other end of the line: “President Obama congratulated President Karimov on Uzbekistan’s 20 years of independence, and the two leaders pledged to continue working to build broad cooperation between our two countries. The President and President Karimov discussed their shared desire to develop a multi-dimensional relationship between the United States and Uzbekistan, including by strengthening the contacts between American and Uzbek civil societies and private sector.” Never mind that Karimov has virtually eradicated Uzbekistan’s “civil sector.” It’s hard to read of such a phone call without thinking of, say, Muhammad Bekjanov, 60, possibly the world’s longest-imprisoned journalist. Uzbek security agents kidnapped Bekjanov in 1999 in Ukraine, where he was living in exile. He has been beaten, shocked, subjected to temporary suffocation (the “bag of death”) and tortured in other ways. He has contracted tuberculosis, and beatings have cost him most of his teeth and much of his hearing. When his term was set to expire in 2012, he was sentenced to another five years for unspecified “violations of prison rules.” Bekjanov’s crime was to have served as editor of an opposition party newspaper. “There may be legitimate national security concerns that the U.S. needs to engage on,” Sarah Margon, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, told me. “That doesn’t mean you have to shove everything else under the rug.” There are some encouraging signs that Congress, at least, may be lifting a corner of that rug. In October the congressional Helsinki Commission, which is chaired by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and co-chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), held a briefing on political prisoners in Uzbekistan. Last week eight senators, including Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), sent Karimov a letter urging the release of five prisoners, including Bekjanov. These are small steps, but they shine some light on Uzbekistan’s crimes. Karimov cares about his reputation, his access to Western weaponry and his officials’ freedom to travel to Europe and the United States. If Obama also would take some small steps, it might make a big difference to the inmates of Uzbekistan’s


Efforts underway to improve Pentagon’s procurement system

who was either fired or got a letter of reprimand or didn’t get promoted. . . . No one is held accountable.” Military leaders tack on all sorts of new requirements to programs that blow budgets and schedules, he said. “If they could have a nuclear-powered tank that could fly itself to the battlefield, they’d want one,” he said. “They’d have a 38-page requirement to buy a chocolate-chip cookie.” The NDIA also proposes to more intimately involve the secretaries of the various service branches in the acquisitions process and better connect the people who create the requirements for programs with the people in charge of buying them. Government officials also acknowledge they could be part of the problem. The massive bureaucracy and red tape have scared off large technology companies and have made it difficult for smaller firms that are driving innovation to break into the federal marketplace, they say. The private sector — and not the Pentagon — largely drives innovation, Thornberry said during the Reagan forum, adding that “if we make it too hard, Google just says, ‘It’s just not worth messing with you people.’ ” Hagel has pursued a Defense Innovation Initiative to help the U.S. maintain its technological superiority. As part of the program, Hagel has said, the Pentagon “will actively seek proposals from the private sector, including those firms, and from those firms and academic institutions outside DOD’s traditional orbit.” Even though he is resigning, the plan will continue, officials said. One of the main themes that ran through the compendium of essays commissioned by McCain and Levin was the lack of training and resources for the acquisitions workforce. In his essay, Daniel Gordon, the former administrator for federal procurement policy, wrote that the size of the workforce was “slashed” after the Cold War. Then spending on federal contracts more than doubled between 2000 and 2008, meaning that the “Army’s contracting personnel faced a 600 percent increase in workload since 1992,” Gordon wrote. In the armed services, contracting is not always perceived as the sexiest job, or one that can get you promoted as fast as those fighting in war. And that makes the reform efforts all the more difficult. Throughout the federal government, Gordon wrote, the acquisitions workforce work in “a demoralizing environment of sequestration, pay freezes and furloughs, and they often feel that their contributions are neither respected nor appreciated, including by Congress.”


Police: U-Md. student reports off-campus sexual assault

A female student from the University of Maryland reported she was sexually assaulted Sunday near campus, according to police. Police said the incident occurred at an off-campus apartment building in College Park. The incident took place between midnight and 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 30, when a man allegedly followed the victim into a room at a gathering and closed the door, police said. “The suspect then placed his hand over the student’s mouth and told her to stay quiet,” according to a safety alert issued by University of Maryland police. “The student bit the hand of the suspect, who then slapped the student in the face.” The student was then held down and groped, according to the alert, but fled after someone tried to enter the room, and the suspect was interrupted, authorities said. Police are asking anyone with information to call 301-772-4908 or, to remain anonymous, call 1-866-411 TIPS (8477).


New defense secretary would inherit old tensions

over the course of decades. He is also likely to be seen as a more effective advocate for the military inside the White House than Hagel, who some senior defense officials have criticized as unprepared and, at times, lacking as deep a knowledge of the issues facing the military as his predecessors. Carter’s selection, though, won’t address the perception among some senior military officers that the president often lacks passion for their mission. In Afghanistan, Obama has placed a high priority on cutting U.S. troop numbers during his final two years in office. The timelines, largely imposed by the White House, are intended to cap his generals’ ambitions and make good on his repeated promises to end the longest stretch of conflict in U.S. history. White House officials say the limits reflect the president’s concern for the troops and their families. “One of the most difficult decisions the president has to make is the decision to send our troops into harm’s way,” said a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the president’s thinking on policy. “No one takes that responsibility more serious than President Obama. . . . The sacrifices that thousands of military service members and their families have made during the past 13 years serve as a constant reminder to the president that war takes a disproportionate toll on a courageous few.” To many in the military, though, the long battles over exactly how many troops will remain in Afghanistan can smack of micromanagement. The repeated references to “exit paths” and “responsibly ending wars” can seem like evidence of a lack of presidential resolve. “When did it become normal to announce years in advance the precise number of troops you are going to have in a conflict and think that gives you an advantage?” asked one Army general who has served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss administration policy. In Iraq and Syria, where U.S. attack helicopters are striking Islamic State insurgents and where soldiers are advising Iraqi forces, the president has mandated that American troops should not take part in combat. On a recent trip to Iraq, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, fielded a question from a soldier asking why troops in the country didn’t qualify for combat patches and awards reserved for other war


What you need to know to care for holiday greenery

parasite that is toxic, especially its white berries, but it had been ascribed magical powers long before the Victorians reinvented it as a Christmas ornament. But a plant that at times was said to open the doors to the underworld and, later, bring smooching couples together at Yuletide seems to have become a generational dinosaur. Or so I thought, until I found a music video of Justin Bieber with a Christmas song named “Mistletoe.” The song lasts an excruciating 3 minutes and 10 seconds and is capped with Bieber and his lucky date kissing under what appears to be a sprig of boxwood, but hey ho. Brion Domman, a mistletoe supplier in Austin, thinks that most mistletoe consumers today are over 40, and they are influenced by the traditions they grew up with. “For my folks’ generation, mistletoe was a time-honored family tradition,” he said. “We always had a piece of mistletoe for Christmas.” Younger people buy it for weddings, he said. Whether you place it alone under an arch or make it part of a wreath or other greenery, it’s important to know that it doesn’t hang around for a month. “Once it’s harvested it begins to die, so it will last anywhere from seven to 14 days before it starts to dry up,” he said. He harvests the Southern species of mistletoe — which can be seen as a large shrubby ball high in the boughs of its host trees. Traditionally, folks would collect it by shooting branches out of trees. On the West Coast, mistletoe producers such as Ryan Saunders harvest another species, with smaller leaves and berries that have a pink glow. He collects the mistletoe from ranches near his home in Woodburn, Ore., but his harvesters tend to use pole clippers rather than shotguns. He says he can’t shoot them down because “I’m working with ranchers; two, you’re going to go through a lot of ammunition; and three, you’ll get a lot of holes in the leaves.” Amaryllis and paperwhites A paperwhite. (BIGSTOCK ) I’m a fan of both of these indoor bulbs for the holidays, though a lot of people dislike the pungent fragrance of the paperwhite narcissi. The problem with these bulbs is that they take several weeks to grow and bloom, and unless you bought them already forced and in bud, or started them when they first hit the market earlier in


D.C. news in brief

Meeting on Ward 2 transportation projects The D.C. Department of Transportation is having a public project update meeting for Ward 2 residents from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1313 New York Ave. NW. The meeting will include an overview presentation and updates on the rehabilitation of four bridges (Pennsylvania Avenue, Theodore Roosevelt, 31st Street and Francis Scott Key), the Dupont Circle Tunnel Plaza, D.C. Streetcar, traffic improvements, asset management, tree work, low-impact development and other projects. A question-and-answer session will follow the updates. For information, go to ddot.dc.gov, call 202-741-8528 or e-mail brandon.cooper@dc.gov. Volunteers needed for homeless clothing drive Gifts for the Homeless, a nonprofit group that serves the homeless in the District, needs volunteers for its clothing drive from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday in the D Street side lobby of the Portals III office complex, 1201 Maryland Ave. SW. The group, primarily made up of staff from local law firms, has gathered used clothing and purchased new blankets and winter clothing for local shelters. Helpers will sort clothes and clean up the work area and should anticipate getting dirty and possibly some heavy lifting. Food will be provided. For information, go to www.gfth.org or e-mail gfthdc@gmail.com. D.C. project promotes neighborhood history Humanities D.C. and the D.C. Historic Preservation Office are presenting the D.C. Community Heritage Project, an annual showcase of film, photography and oral history projects documenting District neighborhood history through its residents, from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at Wilson High School, 3950 Chesapeake St. NW. Topics include Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan and the women of the Piscataway and Nacotchtank tribes that lived in present-day Anacostia. Washington Post columnist John Kelly will give a keynote address. Refreshments will be served. Humanities D.C., formerly known as the Humanities Council of Washington, is a nonprofit group that funds work devoted to Washington history. For information, go to www.wdchumanities.org. To register, go to dcchpshowcase.eventbrite.com. Market will spotlight arts and crafts The annual Downtown Holiday Market will be open daily from noon to 8 p.m. through Dec. 23, in front of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery on F Street NW between Seventh and Ninth streets. The market will include more than 60 daily rotating exhibitors selling items including jewelry, pottery, paintings and textiles. For information, go to www.downtownholidaymarket.com. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


Stricken with Ebola, a family runs away from treatment — and into the jungle

Kumala is grappling with the deadly virus, and its people’s distrust of modern medicine is proving a daunting obstacle. KOINADUGU, Sierra Leone Kalma, 43, couldn’t bear it. He had already lost his wife and mother-in-law to the disease. Suddenly, to his astonishment, 6-year-old Fatmata jumped out of the ambulance. She dashed to where he was standing with her two siblings. That’s when Kalma made a split-second decision that would rattle the region’s medical establishment: He gathered his kids and bolted for the jungle. Another family of possible Ebola carriers was on the run. Six months after the world’s largest Ebola outbreak began, experts say one of their biggest challenges is persuading people to trust the medical system. Families still hide suspected Ebola victims or refuse to take them to health facilities. The problem exists in Liberia, but some foreign health officials say it’s even more daunting in Sierra Leone, where the transmission rate continues to climb even as it declines in the neighboring country. In rural areas like Koinadugu, a district bordering Guinea, the problem is especially severe. There is no electricity or running water, let alone a modern hospital. Medicine usually means local herbs, generic malaria pills or the advice of a local healer. People whisper that disinfectant spreads the disease rather than kills it. The influx of foreign health workers in moon suits has terrified residents. Recently, a villager arrived at the district’s Ebola isolation center and demanded that his daughter “be taken away from the white people.” Another man with Ebola symptoms climbed a tree to escape a team that wanted to bring him in for treatment. “He’s going to starve out there,” said John F. Koroma, one of the “contact tracers” who had been trying for nearly a week to bring him in. Every day, teams of officials plunged into the jungle, searching for people exposed to Ebola who had fled medical treatment. Officially, 1,583 people have died from the disease in Sierra Leone since May. But authorities suspect entire families have perished in the wilderness, before Ebola tests were even taken. Kalma and his children could be next, officials feared. In Koinadugu, a medical team mobilized. “We need to get that family back,” said Konjo Marah, a contact tracer. The search begins Koinadugu is Sierra Leone’s largest district, blanketed by thick rain forest. The roads are so bad that blood samples must be flown from


Number of U.S. troops filing reports of sexual assault rises 8% in past year

Senior military officials at the Pentagon and officers in command positions in the services have opposed a Senate proposal to strip commanders of the power to decide which sexual-assault complaints are taken forward to trial. (AFP/Getty Images) The number of military service members who reported that they had been sexually assaulted rose by 8 percent over the past year, according to a new Defense Department report that is sure to add fuel to a debate in Congress over whether the military is effectively prosecuting sex crimes. Despite the climb, the Pentagon cited progress on a number of fronts in its report, an annual assessment of its efforts to prevent sexual assault. For instance, on the basis of an anonymous biannual survey of service members, the military estimated that 19,000 troops were victims of “unwanted sexual contact,” a definition that includes a wide variety of offenses. That figure was down sharply from an estimated 26,000 two years ago, but back at roughly the same level that was reported in 2010. While most sexual-assault victims are apparently still unwilling to come forward, the report found improvement there as well, estimating that 24 percent of victims filed reports with a military authority during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up from 11 percent two years earlier. The Pentagon has been under pressure to show it has made progress in preventing and prosecuting sex offenses, amid threats by lawmakers to overhaul the military justice system and strip commanders of their power to oversee such cases. People on both sides of the debate had been awaiting the results of the Pentagon’s report, which Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is scheduled to unveil Thursday. A copy was obtained in advance by CNN, which posted it online Wednesday night. Overall, the military received 5,983 sexual-assault reports last year, compared with 5,518 the year before. That came on top of an even sharper increase in 2013, when the Pentagon reported a 50 percent jump that shocked many lawmakers and advocacy groups. Military leaders and some lawmakers said the rise is not necessarily evidence that crimes have become more prevalent, but rather that victims are more willing to trust the system and file reports. “Reporting of assaults being up and incidents of assault being down are exactly the combination we’re looking for,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. The Pentagon


Too busy to shop for groceries? Pick them up at your Metro station.

Forget that trip to the grocery store after work. Soon, you may be able to order your groceries online and pick them up as you exit the Metro. The transit agency is negotiating an agreement with Giant Food to allow the chain’s in-house delivery service, Peapod, to set up distribution areas at the Fort Totten, Glenmont and Van Dorn Street Metro stations. The six-month pilot program, which will be discussed at Thursday’s Metro board meeting, could begin as soon as next spring, and if successful would be expanded to more stations. The service would add an amenity for commuters and a potentially lucrative revenue source for the transit agency. If expanded beyond the pilot, Peapod, or another provider, would pay Metro a fee. Metro and Giant officials said they are not aware of any other transit agency in the country offering such a service. “It basically saves you a trip,” said Stan Wall, director of real estate and station planning at Metro. “As part of your daily routine, you can exit the station and pick up your bags of groceries and either walk, hop on a bus, or hop in a car to go home. It saves a trip and it is a big convenience for customers.” To use the service, Metro riders would place and pay for their order through Peapod’s online service with pickup options of 4 to 7 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Peapod would deliver the orders to special lockers at each station. An on-site attendant would distribute the groceries to customers. No money would change hands and no food would be stored overnight. Metro riders also would have the option of pulling their vehicle into the station’s Kiss and Ride area and calling the Peapod attendant, who would then deliver the groceries to their car. The Metro was a natural place to expand Peapod’s service, said Peg Merzbacher, a spokeswoman for Peapod by Giant. The Washington area also is a good test site for the initiative, she said, because of the large number of residents who use transit and who are pressed for time. Grocery delivery and pickup services have grown exponentially in the Washington region in the past two years. Peapod has opened 52 pickup locations in the region, including one at a Chevy Chase gas station. Other services also have popped up, including Instacart, which delivers from Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, Costco and


Uber raises $1.2 billion in funding for new investments

said the gold medal won by James Watson was purchased Thursday by a buyer who wished to remain anonymous. The New York City auction house said it’s the first Nobel medal to be offered at auction by a living recipient. Watson made the 1953 discovery with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, known to many as the “fathers of DNA.” Watson said part of the proceeds will go to the University of Chicago, Clare College Cambridge, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Long Island Land Trust and other charities. Crick’s Nobel prize sold last year at Heritage Auctions for $2.2 million. He died in 2004. — Associated Press ALSO IN BUSINESS ● The U.S. Marshals Service received more than two dozen bids for 50,000 bitcoins seized from the alleged owner of Silk Road, an Internet black-market bazaar on which authorities say drugs and other illegal goods could be bought. Lynzey Donahue, a Marshals Service spokeswoman, said the government had 11 registered bidders and 27 resulting bids. Winning bidders for the bitcoins, valued at $18.6 million, will be notified Friday. It was the Marshals Service’s second such auction following one in June for almost 30,000 bitcoins seized during a raid on Silk Road in 2013. ● Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits fell by 17,000, to a seasonally adjusted 297,000, the Labor Department said. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose 4,750, to 299,000. ● Mortgage company Freddie Mac said the nationwide average for a 30-year loan declined to 3.89 percent this week from 3.97 percent last week. The average for a 15-year mortgage, a popular choice for people who are refinancing, declined to 3.10 percent from 3.17 percent last week. ● Bookseller Barnes & Noble said it is ending its commercial agreement with Microsoft for its Nook e-book reader ahead of a planned Nook spinoff. In 2012, Microsoft paid $300 million for a 17.6 percent stake in Barnes & Noble’s college bookstores and Nook business. On Thursday, Barnes & Noble said it will buy out Microsoft’s stake in the business for $125 million. The company also said the spinoff could occur by the end of August 2015. ● Starbucks said it will add beer, wine and evening snacks to thousands of domestic cafes, widen lunch offerings and roll out mobile ordering. Starbucks plans to reap about $1 billion in new sales from the addition of evening menus, including beer, wine


Capital Buzz: Tex-Mex chain Chuy’s plans more eateries here

Chuy’s chief executive Steve Hislop says homemade sauces and fresh produce are the secrets to the restaurant’s D.C.-area success. (Chuy's) The Buzz never passes up a chance to dish with the Big Enchilada of any company. So when the chief executive of Chuy ’s (pronounced “Chewey’s”) called, we took the call. Steve Hislop, the guy who runs the quirky Austin-based Tex-Mex restaurant chain, which has 50-some restaurants across the United States and a passionate following, was in town to open his second store here. The first Washington-area Chuy’s opened earlier this year in Fairfax, and the second opened in Springfield Town Center in November. All of Chuy’s stores are corporate-owned. The two local stores are on track to gross $4.9 million each for their first year, with a profit margin before taxes and interest of around 20 percent. It costs a little more than $2 million to open a restaurant, including some fit-out help from the landlord. Hislop said his homemade sauces, fresh-squeezed limes and fresh produce is a differentiator in an already crowded market. “We are exceeding our expectations in that market,” said Hislop, adding that the Springfield store is averaging around 7,000 customers a week. “That’s very high for casual dining.” Hislop, 54, said he is looking to open a bunch more Washington-area Chuy’s in the next several years. Try Arlington, Woodbridge, Bethesda and Tysons Corner for starters. He expects to open two to three more restaurants in 2015, three in 2016 and another three in 2017. “I see 12 to 14 more stores,” said Hislop, who joined Chuy’s in 2007 from O’Charley’s. “We will look at the whole market.” He said the company’s affordable price point ($14.25 average check) and house-made approach (no walk-in freezers on premises) sells in the Washington/Baltimore area. The region already is crowded with similar chains, including homegrown California Tortilla, Uncle Julio’s and Chipotle. So what does he — and other restaurant chains — like about Washington and Baltimore? “Its sophistication,” he said. Chuy’s needs customers who know the food, like to explore new cuisines and try its 10 homemade sauces. “It’s really, really important for us to have a highly educated population.” Factoid of the week -6.2% The Buzz hears: Glenmede Voice of the investor Vox Media At current multiples, the investors must estimate Vox’s worth at around $380 million, a sign of increasing values among Web publishers. Most equity firms tend


Review: ‘The Quantum Moment,’ by Robert P. Crease and Alfred Scharff Goldhaber and ‘Island of Knowledge,’ by Marcelo Gleiser

Us to Love Uncertainty’ by Robert P. Crease and Alfred Scharff Goldhaber (W. W. Norton) With one exception. Since the dawn of the 20th century, when scientists began exploring the inside of the atom, it has become increasingly clear that the brain is simply not designed to be comfortable with what goes on at that level. I don’t mean that we can’t calculate or control things inside the atom — cellphones, laptops and GPS systems are all fruits of our ability to deal with the subatomic realm. I mean that what goes on inside the atom isn’t like anything in our familiar world. While I can use the properties of electrons to produce these kinds of devices, I can’t draw you a picture of what an electron looks like. This is important, because we are primates whose main mode of interaction with the world is visual — we say “I see” when we mean “I understand.” There just seems to be something inherently unknowable about the basic structure of matter. The science that developed to deal with the atom and its constituents is called quantum mechanics — “quantum” from the Latin for “heap” or “bundle,” “mechanics” for the science of motion, hence the science of motion of things that come in bundles. Quantum weirdness, I suppose, began in the 1920s when German physicist Werner Heisenberg enunciated his famous uncertainty principle. Quantum objects are different from familiar objects like billiard balls, for which we can specify a position and velocity at any point in time. In contrast, we cannot simultaneously know both the position and velocity of something like an electron. If we know exactly where that electron is, we can have no idea of how fast it’s moving and vice versa. It’s not so much that we don’t know these quantities for an electron, it’s that we can’t know them — they will remain forever what former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld called “known unknowns.” The uncertainty principle was followed quickly by Austrian physicist Erwin Schroedinger’s version of quantum mechanics, which implied that the only way to understand events in the quantum world was in terms of probabilities. (This, incidentally, was what caused Albert Einstein, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, to get off the quantum train.) In the ensuing years, weirdness piled on top of weirdness, and it became obvious that in probing the atom, we were entering a


The marijuana industry is following the trail blazed by Big Tobacco

DENVER - APRIL 20: A woman holds a joint at a pro-marijuana "4/20" celebration in front of the state capitol building April 20, 2010 in Denver, Colorado. (John Moore/GETTY IMAGES) Samuel Wilkinson is a resident physician at the Yale School of Medicine. Last month, people voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Oregon, Alaska and the District. As the movement toward marijuana legalization continues, lawmakers and policy experts are looking to the experiments in Colorado and Washington for guidance. We should not overlook, however, valuable lessons from our experience with another legal drug: tobacco. In the late 19th century, the landscape of tobacco consumption was very different than it is today. Tobacco use was much less prevalent, and cigarettes accounted for a tiny portion of consumption. Yet by the mid-20th century almost half of U.S. adults smoked, with major consequences for public health. Despite important health policy achievements since, cigarette smoking remains a major contributor to the top causes of death in the United States, including cardiovascular and lung diseases, as well as cancer. This drastic rise in the prevalence of smoking can be attributed to a number of successful business strategies. Hand-rolling of cigarettes, a technique that limited production potential, was supplanted by machine manufacturing. Changes in the chemical composition and curing process of cigarettes made them more flavorful as well as more addictive. Aggressive marketing techniques sought to build a larger consumer base. Advertisements often featured doctors in an effort to quell public fear over smoking-related health concerns; other campaigns targeted children or adolescents, who represented potential lifetime customers. Finally, the industry created powerful lobbying groups to protect their profits from regulations aimed at curbing consumption. Alarmingly, marijuana businesses are now mimicking many of Big Tobacco’s successful strategies. New methods of consuming marijuana (such as vaporization) are said to represent a healthier way to get high — though little research supports this claim — encouraging individuals to consume more marijuana in one sitting. The percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol (the euphoria-inducing compound associated with many adverse health effects) in marijuana is much higher than it was a few decades ago. Just as tobacco companies featured doctors in advertisement campaigns, marijuana advocates have appealed to medical authority by successfully lobbying in many places for the approval of “medical marijuana” for a plethora of conditions, even when little or no scientific evidence supports its use. While it is laudable that Colorado


Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Step Afrika team up for a fun ‘Nutcracker’

Dancers from the Step Afrika! dance troupe perform with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Strathmore Music Hall in Bethesda, MD. (Kyle Gustafson/For The Washington Post) It was a holiday experiment that, like a new favorite cookie recipe in an old cookbook, someone should have tried to make many Decembers ago. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra offered its first family concert at the Music Center at Strathmore on Saturday, featuring music from “The Nutcracker” and other seasonal favorites, and the result was a sell-out, a hall filled with well-dressed fans of all ages and races. Sharing the stage with the orchestra — and helping to sell tickets — was Step Afrika, a 20-year-old dance troupe that is based in the District but tours globally, spreading the art of “stepping,” a percussive form of dance that combines tap-like footwork with clapping and call-and-response chants. You would think that, given Step Afrika’s popularity in the region, another local orchestra might have asked the troupe to perform during a holiday show long before now. It took the interlopers from Baltimore to smartly pair them up with music by another Washington export: Duke Ellington and his jazzed-up, liberal arrangements of movements from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker.” The resulting performance did not go off without glitches. After an 11 a.m. run of the 55-minute show at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, the musicians and dancers boarded two buses, one of which broke down en route to Strathmore. The 4 p.m. concert got underway at 4:28, so kudos to the many patient kids (and parents) in the audience. Transportation nightmare aside, this collaborative rendition of sugar-plum visions felt undercooked. C. Brian Williams, artistic director of Step Afrika, has admitted that he’d never heard Ellington’s “Nutcracker” before this project, and the choreography was not as connected to music and storyline as it could be. The rather silly — and at times factually inaccurate — narrations read by Step Afrika’s Shannan Johnson were also in dire need of an editor. The most clever number, by far, was Ellington’s swinging nonwaltz arrangement of “Waltz of the Flowers,” featuring three of the troupe’s male dancers as dancing toys: a stepping clown, a tapping penguin and a calf-slapping fireman doing a South African gumboot dance. Joe Murchison showed off his ballet training as the pajama-clad brother in a stocking cap who leapt from his onstage bed to do split jumps in front of


Aging marathoner: Still running, but at a much slower pace

the back of the race. Finally I could see the finish line at the top of a long hill. I lifted my head up to take in the sight as it got closer and closer. I ran those last few hundred yards, thrilled as my name — and age — was announced over the loudspeaker. It was the slowest marathon I’d ever run — 6 hours, 21 minutes and 52 seconds — but I finished, and 1,170 runners finished behind me. I was 39th among the 50 women in my age group (65-69). As it turns out, 109 runners did not reach the bridge in time and had to ride the bus to the finish. If I had been just a touch slower, had walked just a bit more, I might have been on that bus. Reaching another stage Looking at the clock at the finish line, I realized I had reached the state of acceptance: My younger and faster running self was gone for good. But then it hit me. There is another stage: exhilaration. I feel it each time I finish a marathon, and this time it was no different. My friend Amby Burfoot, 68, former editor of Runner’s World magazine and the 1968 winner of the Boston Marathon, expresses it very well. A 2:14:29 marathoner at his best, he now runs them for fun, finishing Boston last spring in 4:40. “It’s very hard adjusting to the fact that the stopwatch and the calendar don’t lie,’’ he says. “You can’t win the race against time, so you have to win it emotionally and be okay with it. Anyone can be fast and healthy in his or her 20s. The real challenge is to be slow and healthy in your 60s and 70s.’’ He is right. You never know what life is going to hand you. In recent years, I have reconnected with many friends from high school and college. Some have gained weight or are having knees and hips replaced. Another struggles with a spinal disorder and can’t even walk to her mailbox. But I still go out every morning and run, these days with Watson, the beautiful black Lab mix I adopted recently. And I look at every mile as a gift, regardless of how fast I run it. Cimons is a former columnist for Runner’s World magazine who frequently writes on health issues for The Post.


Sam Kass, chef to the Obamas, is leaving the White House

friendship gave Kass rare access and influence beyond his titles: He vacationed with the Obama family, is one of Barack Obama’s golfing buddies and may be the only man who can boast that a sitting president was a guest at his bachelor party. Kass, 34, has similarly been a confidant of the first lady and dogged promoter of her Let’s Move campaign, which the president also praised. This April 2 file photo shows first lady Michelle Obama and Sam Kass walking towards the White House Kitchen Garden to plant vegetables with local students at the White House in Washington. (Susan Walsh/AP) “From constructing our kitchen garden to brewing our own honey brown ale, Sam has left an indelible mark on the White House,” Obama said. “And with the work he has done to inspire families and children across this country to lead healthier lives, Sam has made a real difference for our next generation.” The move from chef into food policy was a leap for Kass, who sometimes found the impasses between major food corporations and anti-obesity activists frustrating. Before coming to Washington with the Obamas, he had traveled the world cooking and has said it was then he began thinking about the lack of attention paid to nutrition. But he was relatively unknown among nutrition advocates. Marion Nestle, an author and professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, recalled meeting Kass on his 30th birthday. “I remember thinking at the time, ‘He’s just a kid. What is he doing with food and nutrition policy?’ ” The president later named Kass the first White House senior policy adviser on nutrition, and Michelle Obama gave him an outsize role in directing her signature issue. Nestle may have thought Kass was green when he started, but she changed her mind over the years. He became “far more sophisticated politically,” she said in an interview. She admired his promotion of local produce using the White House garden and his efforts organizing advocacy around the nutrition guidelines for the National School Lunch and National School Breakfast programs. Michelle Obama also credited Kass — who was a presence at her side during nearly all of her healthy-eating events — with helping to bring more nutritious options to grocery stores and working to improve the way healthy foods are marketed to children. Kass positioned the first lady and her office as


Good-for-you foods may not really be good for you

Products labeled “organic” are not permitted to include ingredients that contain genetically modified organisms. (Ty Wright/Bloomberg News) Gluten-free. Non-GMO. No high fructose corn syrup. These days, it can feel as if you need a PhD in nutrition to navigate the supermarket. And those terms don’t necessarily mean that the food is actually good for you. Here’s how to decipher some of the most common claims: If the label says “gluten-free,” Because gluten — a protein found in wheat, barley and rye — adds texture to foods, manufacturers often load up gluten-free products with extra sugar and fat to compensate, says Dawn Jackson Blatner, a dietitian in Chicago. In addition, many gluten-free products are made with rice flour, which Consumer Reports’ tests found may contain worrisome levels of arsenic. Consumer Reports’ advice: If the label says “Non-GMO Project Verified,” Almost 40 percent of people incorrectly assume that gluten-free foods are helpful for everyone. (Jon Elswick/AP) The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require the use of GMOs to be disclosed on food packaging. But concerns about the potential health and environmental risks recently led Vermont to pass a law requiring mandatory labeling. Consumer Reports’ advice: If the label says, “No antibiotics/organic,” Consumer Reports’ advice: Any claim about antibiotic use accompanied by a “USDA Process Verified” label is reliable. “Animal Welfare Approved” is another good label. It means that the animal was raised in a healthy way, and healthy animals aren’t given antibiotics. “Antibiotic free” and “no antibiotic residues” are unapproved claims, and you can’t count on them. “Natural” is also misleading. On meat, it means that the product was minimally processed and has no coloring or artificial ingredients, not whether the animal was given antibiotics. If the label says “No trans fat,” That’s not the case yet, though. A recent analysis of more than 4,000 packaged-food products by the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that 9 percent contained PHOs and that 84 percent of those foods listed zero grams of trans fat on the label. Keep in mind, too, that products that don’t contain PHOs aren’t necessarily better for you. Some use so-called “healthy” saturated fats such as palm oil, palm kernel oil or coconut oil, which can be just as bad for your heart, if not worse. Consumer Reports’ advice: If the label says “No high fructose corn syrup,” Consumer Reports’ advice: Correction: In Tuesday’s Health Science


Maryland casinos pumped $1.4 billion into the state’s economy, industry study says

goes to the state education trust fund, but an analysis by the Capital News Servicefound that in fiscal 2014, more money went to the casino operators than to the trust fund, and that the trust fund dollars have been used to free up money in the general fund for other uses. Based on its tax revenue estimates, the Oxford report said the average household would pay an additional $252 in taxes each year if not for the casinos. About $1.5 million is diverted from gaming revenue to pay for programs to address problem and pathological gambling. However, the Oxford report does not include any estimates on the fiscal impact of problem gambling and gambling addiction. A 2011 state-backed study estimated that about 3.4 percent of Marylanders were at risk for a gambling addiction. “This study shows that gaming is driving big results in Maryland,” Geoff Freeman, president and chief executive of the American Gaming Association, said in a statement. “However, given increased competition and changing consumer demands, our future success depends on strong partnerships with policymakers that allow us to innovate, reinvest and create more jobs.” State lawmakers may take comfort in the AGA-funded report’s findings since revenue figures have so far fallen short of initial projections. In 2008, the year Maryland voters approved slot machines in a referendum, state lawmakers projected that casino revenue would top $1.36 billion in fiscal 2013. That estimate assumed that five casinos would be operating by then and the state would have 15,000 slot machines. Instead, there were four casinos with a total of about 9,000 slot machines and more than 350 table games that together generated $608 million in revenue. The discrepancy may have more to do with the state’s expectations. Since it opened in August, Horseshoehas been raking in about $23 million a month, compared with the $27 million projected by a state-backed study done last year. That study suggested that Horseshoe would primarily cannibalize business from Maryland Live near the Arundel Mills mall. But the suburban casino has performed better than anticipated. Its revenue held steady in November, compared with a year earlier. “We’re pleased with the results we’re seeing,” general manager Rob Norton said. “The state had their expectations. We had ours. They didn’t necessarily line up. It seems to have played out the way we believed. There are two distinct markets, one for Baltimore City and one for us.”


Will Japan’s habit of rewriting its history affect its future?

Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), gestures as he speaks during an election campaign rally in Tokyo, Japan, on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014. (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg) Japan is working hard at forgetting. Its prime minister, Shinzo Abe, suggests in code-talk that Japan was the victim of World War II — no war criminals at all, thank you — and its influential conservative press, with a wink from the government, is determined to whitewash the country’s use of sex slaves during the war. This sort of thing can be catching. Maybe others will forget why they consider Japan a friend. Certainly the task will be harder when the film “Unbroken,” directed by Angelina Jolie, hits theaters on Christmas Day. The movie, like the book by Laura Hillenbrand , is the story of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic runner whose plane crashed in the Pacific during World War II and who wound up spending two and half years as a prisoner of the Japanese. He was horribly brutalized by his captors — starved, tortured physically and psychologically, worked nearly to death, and so often beaten viciously and capriciously that the sickening thud of a kendo stick on a human skull will trail you for days. Men died from such abuse, but not Zamperini. He lived long enough to cooperate with both the book and the movie, dying just this year (July 2) at the age of 97. He reconciled with the Japanese. That’s more than what Japan has done with its past. The country has much to atone for. Japan mistreated prisoners of war and even established a medical research team — the infamous Unit 731 — that conducted experiments on captured enemy soldiers, most of them Chinese. Among other atrocities, the unit performed hideous vivisections without anesthetic on living men, removing organs or limbs for some concocted medical purpose. Dr. Mengele might have turned away in horror. It is not my purpose here to revive anti-Japanese sentiment, which in war-time America commingled with racism to produce the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps. But certain important Japanese figures seem intent on reviving the past by revising it. With an implied nod from Abe, they have put enormous pressure on the Asahi Shimbun newspaper to retract stories exposing Japan’s conscription of thousands of women to serve as sex slaves for the military during the


Three American teens, recruited online, are caught trying to join the Islamic State

Zarine Khan, right, and Shafi Khan, parents of Mohammed Hamzah Khan, listen to a reporter’s question after a Oct. 9 hearing in Chicago for their 19-year-old son, who is accused of trying to join Islamic State militants in Syria. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP) CHICAGO — When they returned home just before 6 a.m., the father went back to bed and the Khan teens secretly launched a plan they had been hatching for months: to abandon their family and country and travel to Syria to join the Islamic State. While his parents slept, Khan gathered three newly issued U.S. passports and $2,600 worth of airline tickets to Turkey that he had gotten for himself, his brother and their 17-year-old sister. The three teens slipped out of the house, called a taxi and rode to O’Hare International Airport. Khan was due at work at 6:30 a.m. at a local home-supply store, so he knew his parents wouldn’t miss him when they woke up. The two younger siblings bunched up comforters under their sheets to make it look like they were asleep in their beds. Their plan was to fly to Istanbul, then drive into Syria to live in the Islamic homeland, or caliphate, established by the Islamic State, the militant group that has massacred civilians in Iraq and Syria and beheaded Western journalists and aid workers. This undated passport photo presented as evidence at a detention hearing at federal court in Chicago shows Mohammed Hamzah Khan, a suburban Chicago man accused of seeking to join Islamic State militants in Syria. (AP Photo/U.S. attorney’s office) The Khan teens, U.S.-born children of Indian immigrants, each left letters for their parents explaining their motives. “An Islamic State has been established and it is thus obligatory upon every able-bodied male and female to migrate there,” Khan wrote. “Muslims have been crushed under foot for too long. . . . This nation is openly against Islam and Muslims. . . . I do not want my progeny to be raised in a filthy environment like this.” His sister wrote: “Death is inevitable, and all of the times we enjoyed will not matter as we lay on our death beds. Death is an appointment, and we cannot delay or postpone, and what we did to prepare for our death is what will matter.” In their letters, all three teens, who had grown up playing basketball and watching “Dragon Tales”


World Digest: Dec. 8, 2014

AFGHANISTAN NATO mission closes combat command U.S.-led NATO troops closed their operational command in Afghanistan on Monday, lowering flags in a ceremony to mark the formal end of their combat mission in a country still mired in war 13 years after the ouster of the Taliban regime. The closing of the command, which oversaw the day-to-day operations of coalition combat forces, is one of the final steps in a transition to a support and training role that begins Jan. 1. But with President Obama’s recent move authorizing U.S. forces in Afghanistan to carry out military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets, America’s longest war will continue for at least two years. Obama’s decision to give U.S. forces a more active role than previously envisioned suggests that the United States is still concerned about the Afghan government’s ability to fight a resilient insurgency. As the International Security Assistance Force’s Joint Command lowered its flag in Kabul, the Taliban carried out yet another attack, killing a police officer and four civilians at a police station in southern Afghanistan. — Associated Press CHINA 8 sentenced to death in Xinjiang attacks A Chinese court on Monday sentenced eight people to death on charges of leading terrorist groups and setting off explosives in two attacks that left 46 people dead in the far-western region of Xinjiang, home to many minority Muslim Uighurs, state media said. The court also handed out suspended death sentences to five others, China Central Television said, without mentioning when the trials were held. In a separate case, the court jailed seven minority students of prominent Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti for three to eight years after convicting them of separatism, rights lawyer Li Fangping said. Violence linked to Xinjiang has killed about 400 people in and outside the region in the past 20 months. Beijing has blamed the attacks on radical separatists with foreign ties, although critics and human rights advocatessay Uighurs have chafed under the repressive rule of the Han Chinese-dominated government. Most of the attacks have been mounted against state targets, such as police stations and military checkpoints, but assailants also have struck at civilians. — Associated Press EGYPT 25 men arrested in Cairo bathhouse raid Egyptian security forces raided a bathhouse and arrested 25 men suspected of homosexuality, dragging them naked out of the Cairo building, an official said Monday. The raid was part of an ongoing crackdown on


Asian supermarkets offer a produce bonanza at prices that can’t be beat

Third in an occasional series At Great Wall in Falls Church, shoppers can find a bounty of Asian grocery items. Typically, the area’s Asian markets keep prices low. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) Kaz Okochi of Kaz Sushi Bistro in the District is a regular at H-Mart, the Korean supermarket that Washingtonians know well. That’s no surprise. Many Asian-restaurant chefs frequent the chain, which, like others of its kind, carries goods from all over the Far East. What was surprising for Okochi was to run into his friend and fellow restaurateur Michel Richard at the Asian market, the French chef’s hands full of groceries. “He had no idea what they were,” Okochi told me by phone recently. “He just bought them to experiment.” For me, that anecdote captures the spirit of this series. It is about curious food lovers wishing to enrich their pantry and their cooking vocabulary and being willing to break with convention and rules. Yes, we were all taught which specific ingredient goes into which specific cuisine. Now it’s time to shuffle them around. And there’s no better place to do that than the Asian supermarkets in the Washington suburbs. Especially the grand ones, such as Chinese-owned Good Fortune in Centreville and its new location in the Eden Center; Chinese-owned Great Wall in Falls Church and Rockville; and any branch of Korean-owned H-Mart and Lotte in Maryland and Virginia. These establishments provide food adventures (foot-long okra! live snails!) and eye-opening bargains. At Great Wall: colorful dragon fruit. . . (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) . . . and longan in the produce department. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) The variety of sauces and jarred pastes is truly wondrous, not to mention the entire aisles devoted to dried mushrooms and noodles. Whether imported from China, Korea, Thailand or Japan, all the Asian goodness on the shelves seems to coexist in perfect harmony. It also can be confusing. Janet Yu, chef and owner of Hong King-style Hollywood East Cafe in Wheaton; Aulie Bunyarataphan, chef and owner of Mama Rouge Southeast Asian Bistro in Georgetown; and chef Okochi all shop at the Korean or Chinese supermarkets for ingredients that suit their own cuisine. As your Ethnic Market Scout, I decided to include all those different cuisines under one rubric, as “Asian supermarkets.” The following items and ways to use them are just a start. You’ll find thousands of other exciting


supermarkets.” The following items and ways to use them are just a start. You’ll find thousands of other exciting foods on your visits. Do as chef Richard does: Grab a few mystery ingredients and start experimenting. Fermented bean pastes I’ve found the white miso to be especially versatile, with a nutty flavor that complements dressings and highlight nuts and chocolate even in desserts, as in a hazelnut, chocolate and miso cake. When experimenting with miso, add it spoon by spoon, tasting along the way to discover what works for you. Mix a little miso with mayonnaise for a more flavorful sandwich spread. Blend it with butter to brush on fish or vegetables. Use it to glaze chicken, and stir it into mushroom soup or any stew. Typical of the area’s Asian supermarkets, Great Wall in Falls Church carries enough varieties of soy sauce to fill several shelves. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) Soy sauce. Japanese soy sauce is mild and has a rounder taste than Chinese-made soy sauce. Okochi prefers the Japanese brand Yamasa. Chef Bunyarataphan recommended using Thai black soy sauce (not to be confused with the Chinese dark sauce), which adds a nice dark color even to quick stir-fry dishes. Seaweed. Gluten-free noodles. For the adventurous palate: fresh Chinese tofu noodles, Korean sweet potato noodles, Vietnamese tapioca noodles and black fern root noodles (the last is a vegetarian answer to squid ink noodles). All have a delicate texture that will work best in salads and soups or with a light sauce. Rice cakes. Tofu skin. Japanese rice seasoning. Individually wrapped Asian pears await shoppers at Great Wall. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) Fruits and vegetables. Fresh turmeric root. Soybeans. Licorice root. Do you have questions about ethnic markets in the Washington area? Guttman will join Wednesday’s Free Range chat at noon: live.washingtonpost.com. She writes the Modern Manna food column for Haaretz.com and is chef and owner of Cardamom & Mint Catering. Recipes: (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) Hazelnut, Chocolate and Miso Cake (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) Parsnip, Carrot and Turmeric Root Soup With Goat Cheese Dumplings (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) Roasted Eggplant Noodles With Seaweed and Tahini More from Food: Ethnic Market Scout: Mediterranean around D.C. How to shop at a Middle Eastern market Ethnic Market Scout: Go for the cured meats and fish at Eastern European stores How to shop at an Eastern European market


Why go to the store, when the groceries can come to your doorstep?

Google Express began deliveries in New York in May and expanded to Washington in October. (Philip Montgomery/Google) Call me lazy. No, wait: Just call me very busy. That sounds like a much better explanation for why I love having groceries delivered to my front door instead of wasting time dealing with the crazy parking lots, crowded aisles, long checkout lines and heavy supermarket bags myself. And I’m not the only one. Online grocery shopping service — from in-store pickup for pre-ordered items to same-day home delivery — is booming among convenience-hungry customers. Granted, it’s still only a tiny part of the $600 billion food-and-beverage business, but some huge companies are betting that we lazy/busy people are a profitable niche that’s about to grow even larger. The market research experts at Packaged Facts estimate that online grocery sales will top $23 billion this year and quadruple to nearly $100 billion by 2019. National behemoths like Amazon, Wal-Mart and Google have thrown their weight and money into the game, as have regional companies including Relay Foods, which began four years ago in Charlottesville and now serves eight Virginia cities, the Washington metro area, Baltimore and North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham. Even Washington’s Metro system sees grocery delivery as a potentially lucrative source of revenue. The transit agency reportedly is considering a six-month pilot program in which riders could order groceries online from Giant, and Peapod would deliver them to one of three Metro stops, three days a week. Not that getting groceries delivered is a brand--new idea. Established companies like Peapod and FreshDirect have been doing it in a limited number of cities for a decade or more. And there was e-grocery company Webvan, which debuted with a splash in 1999, only to crash and burn two years later. But this time around, companies are taking a different tack. Some, like Google Express and Wal-Mart, are delivering only nonperishable items, doing away with the hassle and expense of having to keep foods safely chilled. AmazonFresh, which tested its delivery system for several years on the West Coast and just recently expanded to Brooklyn and Philadelphia, delivers groceries from its own network of warehouses. A Postmates bike messenger rides past the White House earlier this year. The service uses a smartphone app and couriers to offer one-hour delivery of groceries. (Willis Bretz/For The Washington Post) Others, like Instacart and Postmates, partner with such chains as


sees grocery delivery as a potentially lucrative source of revenue. The transit agency reportedly is considering a six-month pilot program in which riders could order groceries online from Giant, and Peapod would deliver them to one of three Metro stops, three days a week. Not that getting groceries delivered is a brand--new idea. Established companies like Peapod and FreshDirect have been doing it in a limited number of cities for a decade or more. And there was e-grocery company Webvan, which debuted with a splash in 1999, only to crash and burn two years later. But this time around, companies are taking a different tack. Some, like Google Express and Wal-Mart, are delivering only nonperishable items, doing away with the hassle and expense of having to keep foods safely chilled. AmazonFresh, which tested its delivery system for several years on the West Coast and just recently expanded to Brooklyn and Philadelphia, delivers groceries from its own network of warehouses. A Postmates bike messenger rides past the White House earlier this year. The service uses a smartphone app and couriers to offer one-hour delivery of groceries. (Willis Bretz/For The Washington Post) Others, like Instacart and Postmates, partner with such chains as Whole Foods, Harris Teeter andCostco to provide the groceries, which are purchased and then delivered by a fleet of couriers - often in an hour or two. Even the ride-sharing company Uber is offering a 10-minute delivery of what it calls “essentials” for your medicine cabinet or pantry, including batteries, Tylenol, chips, soda, contact lens solution and condoms. Who uses these services the most? For Relay Foods, it’s “families with younger children who want to skip going to grocery store with toddlers,” says Sarah Yates, the company’s vice president of marketing. Erika Hard, Instacart’s DC manager, says the service is popular with young professionals in the city and single parents and busy families in the suburbs. Plus, “a lot of businesses use us to make Costco runs for parties.” There are some obvious advantages to paying for someone else to schlep your groceries. Aside from saving you time, gasoline and aggravation, it keeps you from making impulse buys that can drive up your grocery bill. It also can be worth it if it’s hard for you to get around or to manage those heavy shopping bags, as an 80-year-old friend reminded me. And you don’t have to pay for a


Red Truck is rolling out another bakery — and thousands of holiday baked goods

grueling schedule, and it’s about to get even more hectic. After plans for a second location in “Little” Washington, Va., fell apart, Noyes is aiming to open a larger Red Truck Bakery in nearby Marshall. “I toyed with the idea off and on for a long time,” he says. “I didn’t want to make a move just to get more space, though. It had to make sense, so I was very cautious.” The newest bakery will take over a pair of conjoined historic buildings on Main Street that were once home to the Old Salem restaurant. The 4,000-square-foot space is being transformed into a cafe, commissary kitchen (to serve both locations) and shipping center, since Noyes estimates that 40 percent of the bakery’s sales are from online purchases. (During the Christmastime frenzy, Noyes has to wheel cartloads of baked goods over to an ancillary packing and shipping center down the street from the Warrenton location.) The menu will expand beyond what’s offered in Warrenton. Noyes intends to serve breakfast sandwiches, pre-made meals he has dubbed RoadFood — such as wild mushroom lasagna and chicken potpie — a slew of house-made spreads and dips, and coffee and espresso from Counter Culture. After he finishes outlining these plans, all the while rolling out pie crusts, he pauses for a moment. “I kinda wish I started my career as a baker a little earlier,” he admits wryly. “There’s so much ahead of us, moving on to a second location and whatever’s after that. I wish I was in my 30s doing that, instead of at the other end of the spectrum.” With so little space in the bakery, owner Brian Noyes had to set up his mail-order operation in a nearby building. Here, he and Darby Carlson roll out trays of baked goods to be packed and shipped. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) Noyes grew up in Monterey, Calif., and later moved south to Corona del Mar in Newport Beach, Calif. His first forays into baking were in his 20s, when he engaged in a cross-country bakeoff with his Clearwater, Fla.-based uncle, Stan Noyes, as they worked to perfect a pair of bread recipes. Brian would send his uncle the latest bread and its recipe; his uncle would respond with comments on the recipe marked in red pencil and a new loaf. They ultimately nailed a sunflower wheat, plus a harvest wheat punctuated with


Sen. Saxby Chambliss — Boehner friend and critic of CIA report — retiring after 20 years

but they did it under legal authorities they were given.” Appearing Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Chambliss again defended the CIA’s tactics, saying that in the years after 9/11, “Americans were scared to death. They were frustrated. And they were in mourning. And they were scared to death that something else like this might happen again. And that’s when this program was initiated.” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) in November 2012. (Cliff Owen/AP) Before joining the Senate, Chambliss served on the House intelligence panel, so he has been in the loop on some of the nation’s deepest secrets since before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. These days, he said, he’s most concerned about the rise of “homegrown terrorists,” such as the brothers who set off backpack bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013. “There is no stereotype for a homegrown terrorist,” he said, using the Islamic State as an example. The extremist group is inviting would-be members to travel to the Middle East, but Chambliss said it’s also encouraging supporters to stay in the United States to attack from within. “If we’re not able to go out and pick up on these people through tips or some other means, then the potential for them to do that and slip through the cracks is pretty good,” he said. When Chambliss came to Congress, he grew close with Boehner, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) — another former House lawmaker — and Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), who is also retiring. Compatible politically, they became close socially, are frequently spotted together at Capitol Hill restaurants and have vacationed together with their spouses. Boehner in a statement recalled meeting Chambliss when they served together on the House Agriculture Committee. “We’ve been buddies ever since,” he said. “He’s a great friend, and — more importantly — he always, always does what he thinks is the best interest of our country.” Chambliss has been known to urge Boehner to quit smoking — in part because it’s unhealthy but also because he said the smell of cigarette smoke bothers him. “John likes being speaker. He’s good at it. I don’t think there’s any other member of the House of Representatives that could have been speaker and be as effective as John has been in the last couple sessions of Congress,” Chambliss said. “Going forward, I think he’s going to have more juice because of the experiences he’s had


Beer, breakups and babies: Six stories of the Ikea coffee-table phase of life

The coffee table is as popular as moving in DC. On Craigslist, it lives beneath “for sale: furniture.” Next to a listing for a never-used chafing dish, beneath a “Modern White Leather Couch,” a few scrolls away from “RUGS RUGS RUGS” — it always seems to be there. In the real world, it lives with people newly accustomed to the real world. Those who are a long shot away from leather couches and are shopping for RUGS RUGS RUGS at Target. So they search D.C.’s beloved online repository of used treasure, and they find it: “IKEA — Lack coffee table” “New Lack IKEA coffee table — dark brown” “Black Ikea LACK coffee table” Lack tables are some of the Swedish furniture powerhouse’s most popular items. At Ikea, “most popular” also means “most boring.” Plain. Simple. Shapeable to everyone’s decor. And only $19.99 or $39.99 for the coffee table, depending on the size. It is purchased at a time when life is as unstable as the cheap table will eventually become. More than half of residents rent their homes, and according to 2013 Census data, 59 percent of those renters have been in their place three years or less. The District is packed with the millennials who gave the city its population boom. They’re the ones who are the most likely to change homes again and again, rotating through group houses, upgrading to bigger places, shacking up and breaking up, packing up all their stuff again and thinking there’s no point in bringing this coffee table with me; it only cost $19.99. And that’s how tables well-worn and nearly new end up on Craigslist. In October alone, there were 6,969 posts that included the word “Ikea” in the furniture-for-sale section. Billy bookcases and Brusali bed frames, Malm dressers and Magnarp floor lamps, and nearly every day, a few Lack tables. Described as sparsely as it is designed, the Lack table is discarded on Craigslist for $10 to $20, as if its companionship during the disorienting time of 20-something-ness gave it no additional value. As if it hadn’t been such a reliable foot rest during sessions of scrolling on Facebook, silently comparing the new lives of college friends. As if it hadn’t been such an adequate plate holder for food that was a real, cooked meal, and thus, a victory. Behind each dull post — “fair condition” and “Please call, text, or


National Wine Tourism Conference is heading to Loudoun

in the world by Wine Enthusiast Magazine. More than 1.6 million tourists visited Virginia wineries last year, according to the Virginia Tourism Corporation. The arrival of the fifth annual Wine Tourism Conference in Leesburg in November will mark the first time that the event has been on the East Coast. Loudoun winemakers and tourism officials will be able to mingle with industry tastemakers from around the world, organizers said. The conference, organized by Zephyr Adventures, is open to winery owners, journalists, wine associations, wine destination marketing organizations and tour operators. Previous conferences have been in popular wine destinations on the West Coast, including Napa and Sonoma in California and Portland, Ore. “Taking a very successful event from the West Coast and bringing it to the East Coast really speaks to the acknowledgment of what is happening here,” Erickson said. Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Todd Haymore noted in a statement that sales of Virginia wines have hit an all-time high, with more than 520,000 cases sold in the past fiscal year. The conference, which will be at Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, will also boost the local economy. Guests will “hopefully stay a few days, go to our wineries and go to our restaurants,” said Jennifer Sigal, Visit Loudoun’s media relations manager. But the bigger impact will be from the connections made at the event, Erickson said. “Our winemakers will be able to partner with winemakers from throughout the country. . . . It elevates the work that they’re doing,” she said. Erickson also said Loudoun tourism officials hope to explore the potential to operate more specialized wine tours among the county’s 40-plus wineries. “We have local companies that do tours, but now there are tour operators that are currently running tours in Sonoma or in the Finger Lakes, and they are most excited about coming to see the tours that they can start running in Loudoun County,” she said. Tourism officials think that the conference will elevate and help to popularize other wine and culinary-focused events in the area, such as Epicurience Virginia, an upscale food and wine festival that marked its second year over Labor Day weekend. “With festivals like Epicurience, and what’s happening with our farm-to-table movement, what’s happening with the growing breweries and cideries and distilleries, Loudoun is truly becoming known as a culinary destination,” Erickson said. “This is another building block in that continued development.”


’Tis the season to treat yourself with sumptuous holiday indulgences

with a quenelle of whipped cream spiked with harissa, the Middle Eastern chili pepper paste. The white tuft doesn’t take long to melt into the steaming soup, infusing every spoonful with a jolt of fire, along with hints of caraway and coriander. Go for the upgrade — and watch the bowl go white. 1190 22nd St. NW. 202-974-4900. www.westendbistrodc.com. Now that’s Italian! Chef Anderea Pace's “hometown” ravioli, rabbit-stuffed quail and veal, at Villa Mozart in Fairfax. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) Villa Mozart Chef-owner Andrea Pace comes from Northern Italy, a cue to order anything from his point of origin, maybe an artichoke salad set off with smoked prosciutto and grilled tomino cheese, or half moons of rye ravioli stuffed with mountain cheese and fresh spinach and finished with butter. But, really, you can roam the whole of his menu with confidence. Quail stuffed with rabbit sausage and presented with lemony risotto and carrots cooked in duck fat may be first among equals. Civilized service turns a school night into a night to remember. The best time for budgeteers to reserve: Monday through Thursday, when Villa Mozart offers a three-course dinner for as little as $39 — close to the price of some entrees at comparable venues back in the big city. 4009 Chain Bridge Rd., Fairfax. 703-691-4747. www.villamozartrestaurant.com. Let it snow, man The Snowman dessert by pastry chef-partner David Deshaies at Central Michel Richard. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) Buches de Noel, gingerbread people and even fruitcakes have their place this time of year, but to my mind, no dessert sums up Christmas as sweetly as the simply named Snowman ($10) featured throughout December at Central Michel Richard downtown. Frosty has nothing on Snowman. To build the four-inch-tall confection, chef-partner David Deshaies fills hollow globes of crisp meringue with house-made vanilla ice cream. Rich. Then he dresses it to order with the requisite top hat, fashioned from chocolate, and carrot nose, shaped from almond paste. On the plate: raspberry sauce, and drifts of whipped cream standing in for snow. At the table, a server dusts the creation with powdered sugar and lights a sparkler. You’d have to be a grinch not to crack a smile. 1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. 202-626-0015. www.centralmichelrichard.com. For stories, features such as Date Lab, Gene Weingarten and more, visit WP Magazine. Follow the Magazine on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. E-mail us at wpmagazine@washpost.com.


Alexandria and Arlington Animal Watch

ALEXANDRIA These cases were just a few of the calls handled by the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, which provides animal control services to the city. For information or to report emergencies involving animals 24 hours a day, call 703-746-4774. The league’s Web site is Bat trapped: Two related runaways: Whisker Wonderland adoption event: ARLINGTON These cases were handled by the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, which operates the county animal shelter and provides animal control services to the county. For information or to report emergencies involving animals 24 hours a day, call 703-931-9241 or go to www.awla.org. Coyote dies: Slithering visitor: Scavenger tracked: Lost visitor: Mating calls: Let them be: Bedroom visitor: — Compiled by Ria Manglapus


Orbital Sciences chooses ULA rocket for resupply missions

The unmanned rocket that was to resupply the International Space Station blew up after liftoff from Wallops Island, Va. Orbital Sciences has selected United Launch Alliance’s rocket to ferry its Cygnus spacecraft to the international space station, two months after the Dulles satellite company’s own rocket exploded seconds after take-off due to engine problems. The company will use ULA’s Atlas V rocket to launch its next mission, scheduled for late next year, Orbital said Tuesday. ULA — a veteran NASA contractor — is a joint venture of aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing. “The Atlas rocket’s greater lift capacity will allow Cygnus to carry nearly 35 percent more cargo... than previously planned,” Orbital said in a statement on its Web site. Orbital has five missions left in a $1.9 billion NASA contract to resupply the orbiting space lab through 2016. The company had to cut down on one mission after the explosion. To compensate, Cygnus will carry increased payloads. Since the October mishap, Orbital executives have laid out contingency plans, including the selection of a launch partner and the accelerated introduction of a new propulsion system for its Antares rocket. The new system is expected to arrive at the company’s launch facility in Wallops Island, Va. by the middle of next year, Orbital said. “The greater payload performance of the upgraded Antares will permit Cygnus spacecraft on each of these missions to deliver over 20 percent more cargo than in prior plans,” Orbital said. The company is planning to merge with the aerospace and defense arm of Alliant Techsystems, an Arlington contractor, early next year. The $5 billion merger received clearance last week from the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department. More from Capital Business: For a daily rundown of Washington area business news, sign up for the “CapBiz A.M.” e-mail newsletter.


Malala, 17, receives Nobel Peace Prize

Malala Yousafzai is the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner ever. She received her award Wednesday in Olso, Norway. (Vegard Wivestad Grott/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India received the Nobel Peace Prize on Wednesday for risking their lives to support education and protect children from slavery and child labor. Yousafzai, 17, the youngest Nobel winner ever, and Satyarthi, 60, accepted their awards at a ceremony in Olso, Norway. Saying that all children have a right to childhood and education, Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said, “This world conscience can find no better expression” than through this year’s winners. Yousafzai was shot in the head and critically wounded two years ago by a gunman for the Taliban Islamic extremist group. She was targeted for speaking out about girls’ right to education. Upon accepting the award, Yousafzai thanked her parents. “Thank you to my father for not clipping my wings and for letting me fly,” she said. “Thank you to my mother for inspiring me to be patient and to always speak the truth, which we strongly believe is the real message of Islam.” — Associated Press


USGS study says Chesapeake tributaries are warming, and pollution may increase

Watermen occupy the slips at St. Michaels, Md. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) A slight increase in air temperature over the past half-century has caused waters to warm more than two degrees in tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay, a change that could reduce the expected benefits of the multibillion-dollar bay cleanup plan and eventually alter the behaviors of marine animals, a new study says. The mean temperature of the bay’s tributaries is about 2 1/ 2 degrees higher now than in 1960 as a result of climate change, according to the study by two U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists. Although that doesn’t seem like much, warmer water allows phosphorous, a type of nutrient pollution, to rise from sediment in the bay at a faster rate. “We expected that we’d find a link between rising air temperature and water temperature,” said John Jastram, who co-wrote the study with Karen Rice. But they were surprised to find that even in the northernmost parts of the 64,000-square-mile watershed, such as Pennsylvania near its border with New York, temperatures in brooks and streams increased significantly. The effect can lead to “a chain reaction that can occur in different ways,” Jastram said. The oxygen-depletion events called “dead zones” are well-known. A lesser-known impact could be a change in the movement and behaviors of sport-fish species that drive local economies through lucrative yearly fishing events. USGS staff measure water temperature during a flood on the Appomattox River near Matoaca, Va. (Douglas L. Moyer) USGS hydrologist John Jastram collects a water-quality sample from a cableway over the Rappahannock River. (Douglas L. Moyer) “As waters warm, species of fish that prefer warm water can move into the habitats of species that prefer cooler water,” Jastram said. For example, smallmouth and largemouth bass that swim in warmer streams could stray into the habitat of brook trout that enjoy cooler water tributaries, he said. Bass flourish in water warmer than 80 degrees, but the trout cannot survive in waters with temperatures higher than 68 degrees. Between spring and the early days of summer, female bass seek warm waters of up to 90 degrees to lay thousands of eggs that males fertilize. Trout juveniles would not survive those conditions. The study, published in the journal Climatic Change in mid-November, was announced Monday by the USGS. Jastram and Rice analyzed data collected by USGS stream gauges at about 125 sites in bay watershed states


U.S. closes last detainee site in Afghanistan as troop pullout advances

it fell into a field and caused no casualties, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the police chief in Parwan province, north of Kabul. The Afghan capital has been on edge since last month after a series of attacks killed several foreigners, including a South African aid worker and his two children as well as two U.S. soldiers. Taliban insurgents unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Kabul’s then-police chief and an outspoken women’s activist. Thursday’s attacks, which occurred after a brief lull in the violence, came a day after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani publicly expressed shock at a U.S. Senate report’s scathing revelations about the CIA’s interrogation tactics, allegedly also employed against many Afghans. At a news conference, Ghani stressed that a recent bilateral security pact between Kabul and Washington did not allow Americans to run prisons or arrest people in Afghanistan. On Thursday, American officials said the last remaining U.S. prisoner facility at Bagram has been shut down, severing another link to post-9/11 sites detailed in the Senate report. At one point, hundreds of detainees from different countries were held there. The officials said the decision to close the facility did not stem from the CIA report but was part of the effort to scale down the U.S. military mission by the end of the year. “The closure of our detention facilities was an explicit provision of the Bilateral Security Agreement, which states the United States shall not maintain or operate detention facilities in Afghanistan,” said Col. Brian Tribus, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. “The recent transfers of detainees was due to this legal requirement and was not linked to the release of the Senate committee report on detention and interrogation.” The closure of the prison came after the transfer of detainees to other countries or into Afghan custody, including Tunisian Redha al-Najar. He was captured in May 2002 on suspicion of being a bodyguard of Osama bin Laden. Najar and another Tunisian were held at one of the secret CIA facilities described in the Senate report, which was released Tuesday. It’s unclear whether the last detainees transferred from the Bagram facility will face trial before an Afghan court. In his remarks to journalists Wednesday, Ghani noted that some of the Afghans who were abused while in detention and had their rights violated “were proven to be entirely innocent.” Mohammad Sharif contributed to this report.


Montgomery County community events, Dec. 11-18, 2014

Thursday, Dec. 11 Holiday air plant terrarium Montgomery Hospice Bereavement Workshop Animal training lecture Medicare information session Strathmore Art and Wine Night “Coffee and Critique Exposed” exhibit Fine Arts and Crafts Holiday Gift Show Bethesda Essay and Short Story Contest Coalition for the Homeless gift drive Friday, Dec. 12 Gaithersburg Winter Lights Festival Rockville Town Square skating A 7,200-square-foot ice rink. Visit the Web site for hours and information on skating school and youth hockey lessons. Open daily through March 31, with extended holiday hours. Rockville Town Square, 200 E. Middle Lane. 301-545-1999. www.rockvilleiceskating.com. $8 for up to two hours, children and seniors $7. Skate rental, $3. DC Blues Society New Year’s Eve party Saturday, Dec. 13 eBird Walk Student used-car and used-computer sale Ladies Hike Out: Northwest Branch Germantown Library used-book sale Ukrainian Christmas Bazaar “The Mini-Nut” dance Strathmore art tour Chocolate factory tours Violinist Kimberly Fisher Sunday, Dec. 14 Ladies Trek: Seneca Creek Greenway Trail AARP Widowed Persons Service JCC ARTsy Holiday Boutique and Craft Show Central Maryland Chorale Divorce, families and the holidays Monday, Dec. 15 Silver Spring outdoor ice skating Montgomery Hospice Bereavement Workshop Tuesday, Dec. 16 Holiday centerpiece workshop Wednesday, Dec. 17 Druid Hill Park Senior Connection volunteer open house The group is seeking volunteers to help county seniors, such as driving them to medical appointments and assisting with grocery shopping. 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Contact Mary Murphy. Holiday Park Multiservice Senior Center, 3950 Ferrara Dr., Wheaton. 301-962-0892. mary.murphy@seniorconnectionmc.org. Free. Thursday, Dec. 18 Songs and stories “Glaucoma: Facts and Myths” — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton To submit an event E-mail: Details:


Montgomery County Animal Watch

This case was received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Pit bull attacks dog, owner Cat behavior lecture Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt or foster rescue dogs: Rockville — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


With massive data increase, scientists complete the bird family tree

Scientists from 80 institutions world-wide collaborated to provide new answers to key evolutionary questions about birds and dinosaurs. It’s a fine-feathered week for science. On Thursday, the journal Science published eight papers on birds, with an additional 20 appearing in other journals over the next few days — and for good reason. The flagship study of the bunch announces that 48 birds (at least one from every major bird lineage) have had their entire genetic code uncovered. Until now, scientists only had a handful of common birds to work with. This massive increase in data has allowed researchers to uncover new information about the origin of birds, the genes and brain mechanisms that drive their behavior, and their relationships to each other — findings described in the additional papers. In other words, scientists essentially completed the bird family tree. That’s a tricky tree to plant. Birds, the most species-rich class of four-limbed vertebrates, are the surviving descendants of dinosaurs. But understanding why birds survived while other dinos didn’t (and how they grew so diverse) has been a mystery. Modern birds split into different species millions of years ago, so it’s difficult for scientists to pinpoint when and how they diverged from common ancestors. The collection of new studies is the first solid step in answering those questions. In one paper, for example, scientists used modern genomes to reconstruct the genome of an ancient organism — the last common ancestor of crocodiles, birds and dinosaurs. Crocodiles, which have evolved slowly, are more closely related to dinosaurs and birds than to other living reptiles. Once researchers had the new genome information from birds, they were able to piece together what a common ancestor would have looked like — or what its DNA would have looked like, anyway. This will help scientists study past and present animals from that branch of the tree of life. And the new genetic information helps tell the story of how birds survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs: Some have suggested that birds separated into many different species about 10 million years before the mass extinction that killed dinosaurs, but these studies suggest that the species boom occurred after. It’s likely that only a small number of birds survived the extinction, the researchers report. With so many evolutionary niches left empty by newly extinct animals, birds were able to evolve into a wild collection of different species.


Brew and beach time warm the soul in Delaware’s Dogfishland

On a chilly Friday afternoon in November, my friend Devon and I cozied up to the bar at the Dogfish Head Brewery tasting room in Milton, Del., and each jotted with a golf pencil a list of four beers we’d like to sample. We had just finished a free tour of the brewery. A chalkboard listed the beers on tap and the percentage of alcohol in each. A bartender, Dwane, with long blond hair held back with a Dogfish bandana, brought us three-ounce samples, one at a time, in eco-cups made from corn. He stood a good beer bottle taller than his co-workers and looked as though he could have descended from Vikings. I wasn’t courageous enough to admit to him that I didn’t like beer (and that I was most excited about the 0 percent alcohol Beach Beer, Dogfish’s version of birch beer). But he must have noticed that after I sipped each, Devon finished off my samples. By this point, she had become quite chatty. “I’m the designated drinker,” she told Dwane, by way of explanation. And then she challenged him to guess how long we’d known each other. It’s a good story: Four decades ago, our pregnant mothers met in maternity class, and we were born a week apart. But that’s not what makes Devon a good friend. It’s that she knows how I feel about beer and still didn’t miss a beat when I invited her to join me for a last-minute Dogfish getaway. She was keen on a respite from her family, and I was ready to flee my writing deadlines. Plus, the new Dogfish Inn was calling. The new Dogifsh Inn in Lewes, Del., holds chats every Saturday around the fire cauldron. If you're lucky, Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione will host it and offer samples of new suds. (Melanie D.G. Kaplan) Just a month before, I’d been camping at Cape Henlopen State Park on Delaware’s coast with my guy and my beagle, and we wandered over to the historic town of Lewes (pronounced “Lewis”). I saw a sign for the Dogfish Inn, a new-looking, old-style motel building, and I went to investigate. I knew enough about the nearly 20-year-old brand to understand that the beloved craft brewery is a quirky company with wacky beers. Its motto is “Off-centered ales for off-centered people,” and it’s not unusual to find oysters in the stout or


American University student sexually assaulted in residence hall

Washington campus, according to a public safety alert issued by the school. The alert said the victim knows the person involved in the incident. Few details were released. The school said the assault occurred Wednesday. The crime alert did not identify the residence hall nor the time the incident occurred. University officials said that D.C. police were called and are investigating. No arrest has been made. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Nurse exposed to Ebola admitted to NIH The National Institutes of Health said it admitted an American nurse on Thursday who had been exposed to the Ebola virus while volunteering in Sierra Leone. NIH did not identify the person to protect his or her privacy. In a statement, NIH said that the patient was transferred from overseas via a private charter aircraft and was isolated during the flight. NIH spokeswoman Renate Myles said the person would be the third person who was exposed to or had Ebola to be admitted to NIH Clinical Center’s special clinical studies unit. Another nurse, Nina Pham of Dallas, was diagnosed with Ebola and treated at the same facility. Lewis Rubinson, a doctor at the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center, also was treated at NIH’s special facility. He had been exposed to Ebola while working for the World Health Organization at a hospital in Sierra Leone but ended up not having the virus. — Dana Hedgpeth and Julie Zauzmer VIRGINIA Man who shot officer sent to mental hospital The man who shot and wounded Alexandria Police Officer Peter Laboy — but was found not guilty by reason of insanity of the criminal charges against him — was ordered Thursday to be committed to a mental health hospital for at least a year. Alexandria Circuit Court Judge James C. Clark ordered 29-year-old Kashif Bashir committed to the hospital until at least Dec. 10, 2015, when there will be another hearing in the case. Bashir, though attorneys, has acknowledged he shot and wounded Laboy in a random attack in February 2013. The incident forever altered the officer’s life, and he is still undergoing therapy to learn how to live with the traumatic brain injury he sustained. Clark found in October that Bashir was not guilty by reason of insanity after mental health experts testified that Bashir had long suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was insane at the time of the shooting. — Matt Zapotosky THE REGION


Mexicans’ search for bodies reveals a history of hidden deaths

wondering if my son is eating. If I’m cold, I can cover up. But can he? I’ll be going to bed, and my son?” said Guillermina Sotelo Castañeda, whose son, César, 30, disappeared in August 2012. “I don’t know if he is suffering, if he is hungry. I imagine many things.” With little faith in their government, parents, volunteers and human rights workers have taken the initiative to catalogue the crimes. Medical volunteers are drawing blood from parents’ fingers to use as DNA evidence to compare against the remains in the 18 graves they have discovered, some of them holding multiple bodies. More than 400 people from this part of Guerrero state have come to give testimony about their missing relatives. “All the authorities were participating, and that’s why nobody could come forward to report the crimes,” said Miguel Ángel Jiménez, a coordinator for the local group that is leading the work at the church. He says many more remain too scared to reveal themselves. “We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of disappeared.” By the official government count, about 22,300 people are missing in Mexico, a figure human rights officials think understates the problem. In September, when police drove away with 43 students from the teachers college in this state, it was a particularly brazen example of a trend that had raged for years. Authorities have suspected that the students were handed over to a drug cartel, and then shot and burned in a trash dump in the hills outside Cocula, a farming town to the south. That narrative had been dismissed by the students’ relatives and supporters, as a protest movement demanding their return swept the country. But last weekend, Jesús Murillo Karam, Mexico’s attorney general, said that DNA evidence confirmed that at least one of the students had suffered that fate. “Our movement continues,” said Omar García, 24, a student at the teachers college who survived the police attack the night his classmates disappeared. “Because to us, we’re not interested if the attorney general’s version is true or false. What has been demonstrated is that they committed extrajudicial assassinations in a more brutal way than we have ever seen.” In Guerrero, that is more than many parents know. The collaboration between local authorities and drug cartels meant that many victims were killed and their bodies discarded without anyone coming to look for them. Sotelo, 54, is sure


Capital Buzz: Enlightenment Capital has big-name backers

we had some conversations about it, and he was gracious enough to invite me to be an adviser. “Historically, my investments have been real estate-related. These were solid individuals who were investing into a different market segment,” he said. Growing it out Washington’s Grooming Lounge, which began as a Web site in a Bethesda basement, is going national. The upscale men’s barbershop on L Street NW in downtown Washington is looking to expand beyond its two Washington-area stores next year. The company has developed a top-to-bottom operations manual and will begin recruiting franchise partners next month with the ultimate goal of adding up to 20 stores across the U.S. over the next four years. ”We think we have come close to perfecting how an upscale barber shop should be run,” said Grooming Lounge founder Michael Gilman, 43. “And we want to expand out of our current geography and grow the brand nationally, and offer our services to guys in other cities.” The company plans to start on the East Coast, and then head west from there. The first five franchise applicants can buy a Grooming Lounge franchise for $25,000, with that increasing to $30,000 in the future. Depending on real estate and finishes, Gilman said opening a new store should cost between $350,000 and $600,000. The Grooming Lounge began as an e-commerce site in 2000. The first store opened in the District two years later. The company’s second store, in Tysons Galleria, opened in 2007. The company’s bread and butter is haircuts, hot shaves and manicures. But the Grooming Lounge also caters to guys who want to tackle unmentionable stuff such as nose hair trimming or bags under the eyes without having to visit a woman’s salon or approach a brightly lit counter at Bloomingdale’s. One of the big drivers is the 12-item product line, which includes tools and products sporting such names as Super Powder, the Shavior and Mug Moisturizer. The Buzz hears: Hollywood scion Casey Wasserman joined District-based Vox Media’s board of directors. Wasserman, grandson of famed agent Lew Wasserman, founded Wasserman Media Group, a Los Angeles sports and entertainment agency, in 2002. The company’s global practice encompasses athlete management, corporate consulting, media rights, global partnerships and sponsorships. Rockville-based Kendall Capital Management hit $160 million in assets under management, up from $115 million a year ago. That’s what more clients and a growing stock market does for you.


Congress has a responsibility to uphold federal drug laws in the District

federal district is not one of them. If the city were allowed to proceed, it would create legal chaos. The classification of marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance was made through a legal and scientific process established by Congress and administered by the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency. This classification means that the drug has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use and cannot be used safely even under medical supervision. Marijuana use is far from benign, and the effect the drug has on users can ripple through a lifetime and touch both their families and society at large. Many studies have shown that use of marijuana can have a wide range of negative effects on an individual’s brain, body and behavior. This includes short- and long-term effects on functions such as brain development, memory and cognition, motivation and lung health. Persistent marijuana users have shown a significant drop in IQ between childhood and midlife. Marijuana is the illicit drug most frequently found to be a factor in car accidents, including fatal ones. Both emergency department visits involving marijuana and treatment admissions for abuse have increased in recent years. In 2011, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), there were 128,857 emergency room visits related to marijuana use, about the same as for heroin use and almost double the number of marijuana ER visits in 2004 (65,699). Legalization in some jurisdictions has led to increased marijuana use by teenagers. According to officials in Nebraska, areas of the state that border Colorado, where recreational marijuana is legal, have seen an increase in the number of teens ticketed for possession of marijuana and a spike in the drug’s potency. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, in a statement approved just this year, maintains that: “Marijuana use is not benign, and adolescents are especially vulnerable to its many known adverse effects.” The group opposes efforts to legalize the drug even for adult use. There is much we still don’t know. NIDA is doing important research into the impact of marijuana use. We need more investigation into the health effects of recreational consumption, its effect on teen educational achievement and the economic impact of using the drug. We also need to look closely into chemical components of marijuana, such as THC and CBD, that could have medical indications and figure out ways