Southern Maryland crime report

Calvert County These were among reports received by the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office and the Maryland State Police. Anyone with information about these crimes is asked to call the Criminal Investigation Division, 410-535-2800 or 301-855-1194, or the Crime Solvers line, 410-535-2880. Residents can also call the Prince Frederick Barrack of the state police at 410-535-1400. LUSBY AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Coyote Ct. PRINCE FREDERICK AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS N. Solomans Island Rd. West Dares Beach Rd. Charles County These were among reports received by the Charles County Sheriff’s Office and the Maryland State Police. For information, call 301-932-2222 or 301-870-3232. The sheriff’s Web site, www.ccso.us, has news releases, local crime statistics, crime prevention programs and career opportunities. REWARDS FOR INFORMATION Crime Solvers will pay a reward for information leading to an arrest and an indictment in connection with these and other crimes. Call the 24-hour hotline at 866-411-8477. Callers may remain anonymous. INDIAN HEAD AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Ann Harbor Dr. WALDORF AREA SEXUAL ASSAULTS Waldorf Market Pl. ASSAULTS Caroline Dr. and Cedar Ct. THEFTS/BREAK-INS Dorchester Cir. Leighland Ct Ridge Grove Estates VANDALISM Smallwood Dr. W., St. Mary’s County These were among reports received by the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office and the Maryland State Police. For information, call 301-475-8008. To submit a tip, call the Crime Solvers line at 301-475-3333. The Leonardtown Barrack of the Maryland State Police also has a 24-hour anonymous tip line at 301-475-2936. CALIFORNIA AREA THEFTS/BREAK-INS Worth Ave. LEONARDTOWN AREA ASSAULTS Sue Dr. LEXINGTON PARK AREA ASSAULTS Morningside Lane THEFTS/BREAK-INS Great Mills Rd. Great Mills Rd. Midway Dr. — Compiled by Bonnie Smith and Terence McArdle


First Person: Rory Riley, 31, Washington, Special Olympics gymnastics coach

(Joshua Yospyn/For The Washington Post) I took my The gym was my life. The Special Olympics practice started right when mine ended. Someone at the gym said, “We think you’d be a good fit. Would you mind staying an extra hour?” I was 14. I was putting in about 40 hours at this point. Staying there an extra hour — why wouldn’t I? It was just the most natural progression: I love gymnastics, and here were these people who wanted to learn more about gymnastics. I want them to experience what I experience. My role, when I first started, was to bring the technical expertise. I didn’t have any experience working with athletes with disabilities. But because I was so young, I didn’t let that trip me up. When I was applying for colleges much later, I remember people saying, “Oh, that’s going to look so good on your application.” I had never ever thought of it like that. I wanted to be there. I blew my knee out. That’s what ended my career. With one bad landing, I broke my leg, had four surgeries. I went through this couple-week period of depression. Everything I’d worked for was gone. I didn’t know what to do. I was always on the move. That’s who I was. I’d coached before then, but Special Olympics became something much deeper when I could no longer compete. Sports, in any context, are about pushing yourself to the limit. In the Special Olympics context, we have athletes, through no fault of their own, who have had so many limitations placed on them. If you expect instant results, this is not for you. On the flip side, you are coming into a family. For example, right now I have a voice mail from Mandy, an athlete in Texas, just talking about how much she’s looking forward to seeing me. My parents don’t leave messages this nice. I get to pick up my phone and listen to that. It pulls me right out of whatever silliness or cynicism is trying to bring me down. I bounce right back to what’s happy in my life, what’s important. My athletes keep me balanced. 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.


Trump announces that he will ban transgender people from serving in the military

leaders. It also was a surprise to many on Capitol Hill. Trump’s decision comes two weeks after the House rejected an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would have blocked the Pentagon from offering gender transition therapies to active-duty service members. Twenty-four Republicans joined 190 Democrats voting to reject the measure. But conservative lawmakers — many of them members of the House Freedom Caucus — had threatened to withhold support for a spending bill if Congress did not act to prohibit the Pentagon from paying for the procedures. The impasse broadly threatened government spending, but most importantly for Trump, it potentially held up money that had been appropriated for the border wall between the United States and Mexico, a key promise he had made during the campaign. A White House official and a House GOP official confirmed that Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.), all Freedom Caucus members, were in talks with the White House and House leadership on the issue. Despite the repeal of "don’t ask, don’t tell" in 2011, there are still military personnel serving in silence. Landon Wilson was a dedicated sailor in the Navy serving in Afghanistan until his leadership learned that he was born biologically female. (Editor's note: This video was originally published in April 2014.) They were willing to accept a Defense Department or White House provision that addressed paying for procedures — well short of a ban on transgender people serving in the military, according to the House official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue. Trump went well beyond what they had requested. Earlier this year, Trump’s military leadership had signaled that they needed more time to fully assess the implementation of the last significant piece of the Obama administration’s approach, delaying the entry of transgender military recruits until the end of 2017. The policy in place would have allowed them to begin serving July 1, but Defense Secretary Jim Mattis delayed it just before the deadline, citing a need for more study. The six-month delay Mattis noted that the delay “in no way presupposes the outcome.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s decision, saying it was purely focused on military readiness. Yet when pressed by reporters on how the new policy would be implemented and how it would affect


Three strikes — music lovers are out

in 2011. It emerged from bankruptcy in 2012, but not even the arrival of a popular and aggressively populist music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, has been able to significantly boost ticket sales and donations, and there was still a budget deficit of several million dollars. Musicians, who have taken a number of pay cuts and freezes, have been playing without a contract for a couple of weeks, trying to negotiate a new contract to replace the temporary one-year contract they signed last year, which expired in mid-September. In a public statement, the musicians said they were concerned that the decline in their base pay was compromising the orchestra’s ability to attract top talent. “Over the past nine years, we have endured multiple cuts to our wages, pension, and working conditions in the hopes that our sacrifices would give the Association time to rebuild and restore us to our proper status,” the statement said. It later added, “We can no longer remain silent while we continue in a downward spiral.” Pittsburgh, too, has been facing long-term challenges, including a decline in ticket sales and the threat of a growing deficit. With a gifted but micromanaging music director in Manfred Honeck, the orchestra has seen significant administrative changes in the last couple of years; when the new management assessed the orchestra’s current situation, it discovered, the orchestra’s board chair told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “that we were facing an imminent financial crisis.” The musicians argue that the situation is not as bad as management claims. Given that running one of these large nonprofits is always a slightly seat-of-the-pants enterprise, and that a lot of large classical music institutions are increasingly dependent on the kind of financial bailout known as “heroic giving” from a handful of loyal donors, one can see both sides of the argument: The money is there but harder and harder to get. It’s common, in these labor disputes, to see management and some members of the public demonize the musicians for their cushy salaries and alleged greed. The Pittsburgh Symphony’s base salary is $107,000 a year, according to the Post-Gazette; the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians’ base salary, about $128,000. Well-paid, yes; but also, as musicians point out, demanding high-pressure jobs that require years of training and experience, with irregular hours including night and weekend work — and, in both these cases, an attendant chipping away at their incomes. These are two of


The future of sustainable packaging is beautiful … and edible

Who needs traditional packaging? (Original Unverpackt) The recently-opened Original Unverpackt store in Berlin’s hip Kreuzberg district should look vaguely familiar to many. Desired quantities of rice, pasta and other dry goods, kept in overhead gravity bins, are dispensed with a simple push of a lever. Spices are scooped out from smaller bulk containers and weighed. The set-up isn’t unlike what you’d find in many candy shops, actually. And while similar outlets also operate in Italy and Austria, the entrepreneurs behind Germany’s first packaging-free supermarket are touting this particular enterprise as something much more ambitious. Through a wide selection of more than 600 specialty products, the store hopes to be about as complete as any one-stop shop. Toothpaste, for instance, can be purchased as single-use chewable tablets. And liquids, whether it be milk or shampoo, are dispensed from the tap. The unconventional approach is what enables every item – from produce to hygiene products – to go from supplier to consumer without generating a hint of landfill waste along the way. Yet it’s what the store doesn’t sell that shows the extent in which plastic has become an integral part of our lives. There are no meats or cheese, which both require tightly sealed containment. And more notably, doing your grocery shopping there also means compromising staple conveniences like frozen pizza. But rather than scratching off packaging altogether, a new wave of eco-conscious designers have started to experiment with the novel notion of putting food in packaging and containers that you can, well, eat. Some concepts have already shown to work surprisingly well, as you will now see. (WikiFoods) (WikiFoods) 1. Food wrapped in food WikiCells made its mark last year by showing that edible packaging can be as safe, tasty and commercially viable. Created by David Edwards, a Harvard professor, the gelatinous skin is comprised of actual bits of food, such as fruit, nuts and coconut flakes, along with small amounts of fibrous chitosan, algae extract and calcium ions. With the tensile strength to hold everything from coffee to ice cream, the protective layer shell is engineered to lock in moisture as well as prevent oxidization. Edward’s company, WikiFoods, recently partnered with Stonyfield to put out line of organic yogurt balls called “Frozen Yogurt Pearls.” Sold at select Whole Foods locations, consumers can choose from strawberry, peach and coconut. (Tomorrow Machines) (Tomorrow Machines) (Tomorrow Machines) 2. The beauty of pairing


The hunt for the D.C. area’s best cheap-eats hotbeds: Eden Center

FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA - DECEMBER 2015: Corridor of restaurants specializing in Asian cuisine at Eden Center in Falls Church, Va. (Photo by Farrah Skeiky for The Washington Post) (Farrah Skeiky/Farrah Skeiky for The Washington Post) A corridor of restaurants specializing in Asian cuisine at Eden Center in Falls Church. (Farrah Skeiky/For The Washington Post) Fourth in an occasional series. Previously: Van Dorn Station, Laurel, Md., and the Ritchie Center. No matter what hallway or sidewalk I roam at the Eden Center, I can’t find the entrance to Thai Spoon, even though the restaurant’s signage glows brightly on the side of the Falls Church shopping center, which is dedicated largely to Vietnamese food and culture. One side door, identified with the Thai Spoon logo, leads only to a cramped kitchen with a large mirrored wall, where I run straight into . . . myself. Frustrated, I charge into a door marked Nhà Hàng Chay Vegetarian restaurant. With a little too much attitude, I ask the poor dude near the counter: Where in the name of Hussein’s spider hole is Thai Spoon? The guy says he heard the restaurant had moved. “Moved to somewhere else inside Eden? Or to some other location?” I ask, with the hard-headedness of a woodpecker. The guy has no clue. He clearly wants nothing further to do with this awkward interrogation. What the guy should have said is that Thai Spoon has morphed, not moved. The owner recently changed his concept to . . . Nhà Hàng Chay Vegetarian restaurant, the very place where I had sought answers. “I guess it just wasn’t working as a Thai restaurant,” says Alan Frank, senior vice president and general counsel for the center. The restaurant owner apparently is in no rush to alter the sign, which is the tenant’s responsibility, Frank adds. It’s tempting to turn the Thai Spoon story into a parable about the Eden Center, a place that seems to court both chaos and culinary thrill seekers. When the place isn’t impressing us with its Vietnamese cooking, it’s scaring us with its apparent gang activity or depressing us with the charges leveled against the center’s operators. The Eden Center is homey. It’s homely. It’s inviting. It’s off-putting. My ongoing search for the best cheap-eats destinations would be incomplete without an accounting of the Eden Center, where, as the old saw goes, change is the only constant. The recent


We must protect men from leggings at all costs

Not pants. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) Men are astoundingly fragile, delicate creatures. It is incredible. You would never guess it. But they are so vulnerable, so beautiful. They are like butterflies, with gossamer wings. Their psyches are flimsy and frangible as bird-bones. We must do all we can to protect them from this world. It is not enough to shield their bodies. It is their minds that are most vulnerable. At least, that is what one Christian blogger recently concluded. There were certain blizzards that these frail, delicate flowers could not possibly withstand. Namely: the sight of a woman wearing leggings as pants. (She wasn’t saying that all women had to do this, of course. Just that she, personally, had chosen to do this, to make it easier on them.) She writes that, when faced with Women In Leggings: If it is difficult for my husband who loves, honors, and respects me to keep his eyes focused ahead, then how much more difficult could it be for a man that may not have the same self-control? Sure, if a man wants to look, they are going to look, but why entice them? Is it possible that the thin, form-fitting yoga pants or leggings could make a married (or single) man look at a woman in a way he should only look at his wife? (Italics mine.) What a verb, that is. “Entice.” What a sneaky, handy, devious verb. That’s what it is, when you wear leggings as pants. You’ve enticed. You’ve incited. The men in question were mere butterflies crushed on the wheel of your outfit. It was inevitable. They could not contain themselves. What were you wearing? It was up to you to wear something different, not up to him to think something different. And at that moment, I made a personal vow to myself and to my husband. I will no longer wear thin, form-fitting yoga pants or leggings in public. The only time I feel (for myself) it is acceptable to wear them, is if I am in the comfort of my own home or if I am wearing a shirt long enough to cover my rear end. I also want to set the best example of how to dress for my daughter. I want her to know, her value is not in the way her body looks or how she dresses, but in the character and personality


To limit climate change, think worldwide

James E. Hansen’s Aug. 5 op-ed, “Climate change is here — and worse than we thought,” presented a compelling argument that climate change is driving extreme weather. Mr. Hansen’s prescription for a gradually rising carbon tax that is rebated to residents makes sense. Unfortunately, one result of a sufficiently high carbon tax in the United States is that it would put its producers at a substantial competitive disadvantage unless other major trading nations adopted similar policies. My proposal, based on my long experience at the World Bank in the energy sector before I retired 10 years ago, would be to address the problem on an international basis and differently from current approaches. The large and complex U.N. system and international climate gatherings are too unwieldy and achieve little. The most logical and manageable forum for doing this probably would be the Group of 20 (G-20), whose 20 member nations account for well over 80 percent of global energy consumption and carbon emissions. Unlike the G-8, the G-20 includes such important energy-consuming nations as Brazil, China, India and Russia. Each nation should agree to carry out an in-depth study that would project the changes in its energy consumption and production patterns with various levels of carbon taxes. The study results would form a basis for negotiating a global carbon tax framework, together with other policies designed to incentivate reliable energy supplies and the needed reductions in carbon emissions. One or more of the G-20 members needs to get this pressing global issue on their agendas and proceed. Maybe increasingly searing summers and damaging weather events will eventually create the public and political realization that something needs to be done. If not for us, then for our grandchildren. Harold Wackman, Washington


Despite this mysterious theory, world survives supermoon eclipse

good prophecies, frustratingly vague and only gradually revealed over time. John showed her things that “were meant to be,” she said in a radio interview earlier this year. And one of the things meant to be was an apocalypse of sorts — “battles,” “tempests,” “manna” from above. She talked about “blood moons.” She talked about U.N. troops on American soil — a familiar right-wing fear. She talked about a coming earthquake in Salt Lake City. She talked about a bomb being launched from Libya into Israel — “Iran will take credit,” she said. She talked about “tent cities” — perhaps a reference to the Syrian refugee crisis? The bottom line: “It won’t be long before we meet our maker.” “We’re getting closer,” Rowe said. “I’m rarely given dates and I’m not to talk about dates. Any dates that I have are for me and I don’t even share them and I won’t.” Why not? “That’s not how time is kept in the eternities,” she said. Stargazers were treated to a rare astronomical phenomenon on the night of Sept. 27 when a total lunar eclipse combined with a "supermoon," the closest full moon of the year, to create a "blood moon." Despite the ambiguity of what Rowe said was coming, her following was numerous enough for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to issue a statement ahead of Sunday’s lunar bonanza — the confluence of a supermoon (when a full moon comes as the moon is closest to Earth in its orbit), the Northern Hemisphere’s harvest moon (or the closest full moon to the fall equinox), and a total lunar eclipse, sometimes called a “blood moon.” Some, Mormon and not, thought this astronomical phenomenon — the fourth blood moon in two years to fall on a Jewish holiday — meant the end of days. [Apocalypse now? “Blood moon" prophet explains what’s behind the doomsday predictions] “Although Sister Rowe is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, her book is not endorsed by the Church and should not be recommended to students or used as a resource in teaching them,” the church wrote. “The experiences she shares are her own personal experiences and do not necessarily reflect Church doctrine or they may distort Church doctrine.” A lunar eclipse over the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple in Salt Lake City. (Lennie Mahler/Salt Lake


These gorgeous new Alaska maps could transform our understanding of the Arctic

of images. Wolverine Glacier is a valley glacier in the coastal mountains of south-central Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. For climate change monitoring, satellite imagery can be collected and elevation models produced at regular intervals — weekly, monthly or annually — to observe and document changes as they occur. Elevation transitions smoothly from dark blue (low elevations) to light blue (medium to higher elevations) to red (highest elevation). (Paul Morin, PGC) Computing power is what made this possible. “We calculated that if we were to try to do this on a very powerful desktop gaming computer, it would take you about 20,000 years to run the same data through,” said Morin. And the Alaska maps are just a beginning. An elevation mapping of the entire Arctic, based on the same technique, is slated to be released by the close of 2017. “The highest resolution for publicly available maps of the Arctic region is 30 meters, compared to less than 1 meter for the rest of the United States and the rest of the industrialized world,” says Mark Brzezinski, executive director of the Arctic Executive Steering Committee at the White House. As the Arctic comes into high resolution, Morin and Laurier said scientists will be able to study the impacts of climate change by satellite. As glaciers melt, they slump. As permafrost thaws, the ground collapses. As wildfires rage, trees vanish. And all of these types of changes can, increasingly, be quantified remotely. “If you’re trying to figure out the amount of carbon in a stand of trees, you can actually more precisely estimate that now, because you’ll know the height of the trees, and if you can tell what type of trees they are, you can tell what carbon’s in there,” said Morin. Brzezinski added that, at a time when numerous Alaskan native villages are either contemplating, or on the path towards, relocation in the face of rising seas and declining sea ice, digital elevation mapping can tell you where it might be a safe place to relocate. In sum, at a time of dramatic Arctic change, a sinking of just a few meters will now be something that scientists can document from afar. Expect a wealth of research to result. We can’t stop the dramatic transformation of the Arctic, perhaps, but we will be able to observe it at extremely high resolution. “By the end of 2017, all of us, with


Chart | How a shutdown would impact federal agencies

A view of the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial. (Alex Brandon/AP). A government shutdown next week would interrupt certain services and force agencies to furlough many of the nation’s 800,000 federal employees. The Office of Management and Budget has asked agencies to make contingency plans in the event that Congress and the White House fail to reach a deal to fund the government after Sept. 30. Follow the link below to find out what some agencies have said about their plans this time around. The Post will update that chart as more details become available, so be sure to check back periodically. To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed or e-mail josh.hicks@washpost.com. For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics.


The search for America’s best food cities: Washington, D.C.

Komi and Little Serow, respectively. Worlds and price ranges apart, both restaurants enjoy four-star recognition. And in the Districtâs back yard, no less an authority than British wine maven Jancis Robinson has sipped Virginia wines and dubbed some âthrillingly good,â comparing the output of RdV Vineyards in Delaplane to the nectars of Bordeaux. Iâm including Washington on my list despite its singular disadvantage compared with the other cities I visited: Because I cover the District and its environs on a weekly basis, Iâm as familiar with its weaknesses as its strengths. But this exercise has me more convinced than ever that many of those frailties â including our expense-account-steakhouse and âpower lunchâ obsessions â have more to do with an obsolete reputation and myopic reviews from national media than with reality. Some argue the city has no culinary identity; 15 years ago, the closest thing Washington had to a signature dish, according to The Post Magazine, was a half-smoke, famously featured at Benâs Chili Bowl on U Street NW. I counter that Washington, a mighty global metropolis, is a melting pot of well-seasoned ideas, and has been for a long time. (The finest Chinese restaurant ever in this country: arguably Sichuan Garden, the â80s-era showpiece staffed by Chinese master chefs.) Washington will forever be linked to power and status, but the days when where you sat was more important than what you ate are blessedly long gone. Ahead of his time The chef credited with having put a fusty Washington on the food map, Jean-Louis Palladin, died too young at age 55 in 2001. Heâd left France in 1979 â the youngest chef ever to win two Michelin stars â to helm a restaurant in the Watergate hotel. Right from the start, the rangy Gascon native had observers on the edge of their seats. In a novel move at the time, when the chef of Jean-Louis couldnât find ingredients he liked, he introduced himself to conscientious farmers and growers, going on to sing their praises to his peers and having servers announce them as the sources of his delicacies. A Frenchman was swooning over American lamb and scallops! (Among Palladinâs underlings was a 20-something cook named Eric Ripert, who went on to open what may beÂ the most acclaimed seafood restaurant in the country, Le Bernardin in New York.) âHe made my career,â says another institution, Phyllis C. Richman, who


FDA requires new warnings on danger of combining opioids, benzodiazepines

deaths nearly tripled, the FDA said. In a call with reporters, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf implored doctors “to heed these new warnings” and to carefully evaluate, on a patient-by-patient basis, whether the benefits of using opioids and benzodiazepines together outweigh the serious risks involved. Current labels on the drugs warn of potentially dangerous interactions. But FDA officials said the tougher warnings, sometimes called “black box warnings,” are designed to catch the attention of physicians and patients and to underscore the seriousness of the threat. Califf said the FDA move was partly in response to pleas from state and local health officials dealing most immediately with the damage caused by the national opioid epidemic. In February, several state and local officials petitioned the FDA for action, saying that “a strong black box warning will provide a clear general message to improve care and save lives.” Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen, who was a leader of the petition effort and participated in Wednesday’s FDA call with reporters, said the tougher warnings are needed because it’s “routine practice” for physicians to prescribe the two types of drugs together. For example, someone who has been in a car accident might be prescribed opioids for pain and benzodiazepines, which include such drugs as Xanax and Valium, for back spasms. She said that nearly one in three unintentional overdose deaths from prescription opioids also involve benzodiazepines. Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said that the agency will require manufacturers to update their medication guides, which are given out by pharmacists when consumers get prescriptions filled. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned doctors in the spring against prescribing opioids with benzodiazepines, except for patients battling diseases such as cancer. But the CDC has no power to mandate changes. Califf said the boxed warnings are part of the agency’s Opioids Action Plan, which is designed to try to reverse the prescription opioid epidemic. Earlier this year, the FDA required new warnings about the risk of addiction, abuse, overdose and death for short-acting opioid medications. The agency has been criticized by some for failing to move earlier and more aggressively to counter the epidemic. Read more: FDA adds new warnings on addiction, overdose risks for opioids White women have been dying prematurely at higher rates since the turn of the century CDC warns doctors about dangers of opioid painkillers


James Foley’s last message to his family: ‘I am going to need your help to reclaim my life.’

James Foley wasn’t allowed any communication with his family during his captivity. So he devised what his family called a “better approach.” He asked a fellow hostage to memorize what he had to say. In June, months before her son would be executed by an Islamic State militant, Diane Foley’s phone rang. It was the former hostage, identified by the Daily Mail as Danish photojournalist Daniel Rye Ottosen, who was released after spending more than a year alongside her son. The hostage, said he had a message from her son. As it turned out, it would convey Foley’s last words to his family, which posted them to Facebook on Sunday night: Dear Family and Friends, I know you are thinking of me and praying for me. And I am so thankful. I feel you all especially when I pray. I pray for you to stay strong and to believe. I really feel I can touch you even in this darkness when I pray. Eighteen of us have been held together in one cell, which has helped me. We have had each other to have endless long conversations about movies, trivia, sports. We have played games made up of scraps found in our cell…we have found ways to play checkers, Chess, and Risk… and have had tournaments of competition, spending some days preparing strategies for the next day’s game or lecture. The games and teaching each other have helped the time pass. They have been a huge help. We repeat stories and laugh to break the tension. I have had weak and strong days. We are so grateful when anyone is freed; but of course, yearn for our own freedom. We try to encourage each other and share strength. We are being fed better now and daily. We have tea, occasional coffee. I have regained most of my weight lost last year. I think a lot about my brothers and sister. I remember playing Werewolf in the dark with Michael and so many other adventures. I think of chasing Mattie and T around the kitchen counter. It makes me happy to think of them. If there is any money left in my bank account, I want it to go to Michael and Matthew. I am so proud of you, Michael and thankful to you for happy childhood memories and to you and Kristie for happy adult ones. And big John, how


Savor week events: Beer dinners, tap takeovers and the hop vaporizer

(Thinkstock) Savor is the kind of event Washington craft beer fans dream about. The beer and food festival features breweries that are rarely, if ever, represented in the D.C. market, with many of the beers poured by the brewers themselves. Unfortunately, Savor sells out almost instantly, and this year’s event — at the National Building Museum on June 5 and 6 — is no different. Thankfully, the week leading up to Savor is almost as impressive as the event itself. On Monday, many of Savor’s 74 participating breweries start descending on Washington for tap takeovers and events across the area. Here’s just a small sample of the weeklong beer madness. Beer dinners Take me to ChurchKey A beer and … Read more stories from Weekend Pass: Britney Spears and Katy Perry celebrated in new National Portrait Gallery exhibit, but not a Kardashian in sight The owner of Daikaya shows you how to eat ramen — the right way By “destroying” Whistler’s Peacock Room, artist Darren Waterston forged new friendships Meet one of the Washington National Opera’s giant dancing rats


Terminally ill 14-year-old fills final summer with friends, family and a ‘last dance’

every cell in my being,” her mother, Jen Bolen, told the newspaper, “and no one in their right mind would let someone suffer like she was.” When Jerika was 8 months old, she started losing her strength and mobility; she could no longer crawl or hold up her small body, her mother told the Post-Crescent. Doctors diagnosed her with Type 2 spinal muscular atrophy. The condition, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, is “a genetic disease affecting the part of the nervous system that controls voluntary muscle movement.” Most of the nerve cells that control muscles are located in the spinal cord, which accounts for the word spinal in the name of the disease. SMA is muscular because its primary effect is on muscles, which don’t receive signals from these nerve cells. Atrophy is the medical term for getting smaller, which is what generally happens to muscles when they’re not active. SMA involves the loss of nerve cells called motor neurons in the spinal cord and is classified as a motor neuron disease. Muscle weakness in the respiratory system is the most common cause of death with the disease, according to the association. “When the respiratory muscles weaken, air doesn’t move into and out of the lungs very well, with subsequent adverse effects on general health,” it said. “Signs of weakening respiratory muscles are headaches, difficulty sleeping at night, excess sleepiness during the day, poor concentration, chest infections and, eventually, heart damage and respiratory failure.” Jerika’s mother, a nurse, said that her daughter’s diagnosis broke her heart. “I refused to listen to that doctor tell me I was going to lose the best thing that ever happened to me,” Bolen wrote in June on a GoFundMe page for Jerika. “Despite the fact that Jerika never crawled, walked, rode a bike or did many other things most children can she was a very happy girl,” Bolen added. “Creativity allowed for our own way of fun and we enjoyed many wonderful moments together and I couldn’t begin to put words to the gift my girl has been to my life.” The single mother tried to keep her daughter in school — first at Janet Berry Elementary School in Appleton, then at Valley New School, according to the Post-Crescent. Recently, Jerika finished her eighth-grade studies online, according to the newspaper. At the same time, Jerika was plagued by a life that kept her


Classical music: dead or alive?

fan, it’s as if I were a traitor. Meanwhile, yesterday the Metropolitan Opera actually admitted, in the New York Times, that ticket sales are declining. This is one of our flagship institutions, and Peter Gelb, its general manager, was supposed to be reversing the downward trend in ticket sales. Yet: he’s not (and if he’s saying it in print, you can imagine that the picture is pretty bad). Many people will take this as a reason to blame Gelb, but that’s not the whole story. This is a general, nation-wide trend among large classical music institutions. Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, savvy stewardship is helping some organizations weather the storm. But in general, classical music institutions are facing a pretty challenging future. I can say this and still love Verdi, and Britten, and all the other composers whose work continues to enrich my life. I don’t think that facing facts amounts to a betrayal — indeed, I think the organizations that are doing best are the ones that are most clear-eyed in their assessment of what’s really going on. To those who spend time refuting the Slate piece and making a logical case for the idea that classical music continues in ruddy good health: emotionally, that probably feels great, and I agree that it’s wonderful that there are more CDs than ever, and more performances than ever. But the economic model is at question here: are people going to be able to earn a living playing classical music the way they could two and three decades ago? Yes, plenty of musicians have always struggled and pieced together freelance work to build a life in music, and orchestra jobs have always been hotly contested, but now we’re talking about the biggest institutions, the wealthy ones, that are reporting trouble. (The parallels to journalism are strong all the way down the line.) I have no doubt that classical music will continue, and prevail: Beethoven and Mozart and Brahms will be heard and played and loved fifty years, a hundred years hence, and young musicians will continue to be drawn to their work. But those young musicians, more and more, are the ones asking questions about what kind of careers they can hope for — and coming up with new answers. Just as young journalists are. (I even go so far as to question whether the goal should be to keep all of


For Muslims in the U.S. military, a different U.S. than the one they swore to defend

Ibrahim Hashi, a Muslim veteran of the U.S. military. U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Emir Hadzic was a Muslim refugee. “The way Americans welcomed us made such a huge impression on me that I felt like I owed something back,” said Hadzic, a Bosnian-Muslim who fled Sarajevo in 1995. Shortly after arriving in the United States, Hadzic joined the Marine Corps as an infantryman — hoping to help peacekeepers deploying to his homeland. “I thought I would sign up and pay my debt and on behalf of my family,” he added. Eight deployments later and still in the Marine Corps, Hadzic has become disturbed by the rising anti-Muslim sentiment in this country after the recent Islamic State attacks in Paris and last week’s San Bernardino shootings. GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, a candidate Hadzic used to support, has called for barring Muslims from entering the United States. Republican presidential contender Donald Trump said on Dec. 7 that he was in favor of a '"total and complete" shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. “We used to be a balanced people. We used to be true to our values, but now we’re willing to betray our values because of a sense of fear? That’s not American,” said Hadzic. “What the hell happened to that America I immigrated to?” Many American Muslims say they are living through a difficult time in this country. For the Muslims who are former and current service members, the prejudice and anti-Muslim rhetoric is particularly painful. Those interviewed for this story said that hateful comments have driven a wedge between them and the country they swore to defend. There are roughly 5,900 U.S. service members who self-identify as Muslims — just 0.27 percent of both active and reserve components of the military. In many units, they number in the single digits and often find themselves acting as representatives for the religion in their platoons, answering basic questions about the tenets of Islam. Now they are finding a climate that is significantly worse than anything they experienced after the Sept. 11th, 2001, attacks. “The rhetoric is definitely different, it’s very alarming,” said Cpl. Ibrahim Hashi, a Marine who left the service in 2011 and now attends American University in D.C. “And I’m concerned for myself and my family’s safety.” Hashi said he has seen anti-Muslim postings on Facebook — often on informal military-themed pages set up by current and


Metro moving forward with plan to use Uber, Lyft for paratransit services

have said that expanding options and lowering costs are inevitable as demand for service increases with the population continuing to age and disability rates on the rise. “We are trying to leverage a network that is more pervasive in the community than just a couple of cab companies,” Kent told a group of advocates at an Accessibility Advisory Committee meeting on Monday. “You have asked us to get creative, you have asked us to find ways to serve the community better and you are starting to see us trying new things.” It is unclear what Metro will be seeking from bidders, but some officials say it may not be much different from an informal request for proposals issued earlier this year in which the transit authority said it was looking for service providers that can connect customers to drivers via an online platform, a system that mirrors Uber’s. The agency said then that it would pay up to $15 per trip to the contracting company and cover a $12 surcharge applied to trips in wheelchair-accessible vehicles. Customers would be restricted to four trips daily. Metro has also said it will ask the chosen provider to facilitate the reservation process through a traditional phone call. And it may ask the companies to spell out their policies for vetting drivers and training them to serve people with disabilities. Officials have also said they would want the service to be available to customers traveling with service animals, and to have at least 50 wheelchair-accessible vehicles to compliment the service. The AAC also urged Metro not to set restrictions on the number of trips customers will be able to take. “People with disabilities are interested in having the same level of access and quality of life as the non-disabled peers. A limit on trips will diminish that option,” the letter said. The group asked that “any alternative service must be fully compliant with the [Americans with Disabilities Act],” a request more difficult to meet given that most transportation companies don’t have ADA accessible vehicles. MetroAccess provides about 2 million trips annually at a price of about $121 million, of which more than 90 percent is paid with local subsidies. Metro projects the service could add at least a million trips and more than $50 million in operating expenses in the next decade. Partnering with other transportation services, however, could potentially lower costs by half.


Astrologer Susan Miller on 2014: The year ahead

up the ladder, and your work environment should be quite pleasing too. If you need to hire recruits, you will find unusually well qualified candidates. All this is no small advantage; your chances of succeeding in your profession have never been better. In love, your marriage sector will glitter once Jupiter enters your marriage and committed partnership sector July 16, to continue in this sector for commitment for twelve months. You may get engaged or wed in late July or August, your most joyous months for an engagement or marriage. If single, romance will be brightest after the new moon May 28—watch the week that follows for a possible fateful meeting. PISCES (Feb 19-March 20) Love can be brilliant for you while Jupiter, giver of gifts and luck, will open you up to the most enchanting phase. Jupiter will take on the role of Cupid until July 16 of your New Year, so look your best and stay optimistic. Married and attached Pisces will enjoy great happiness together and may decide to welcome a baby this year. The first half of 2014 will give you the right setting in which to show your creative talents to best advantage, especially while Jupiter remains in Cancer until July 16. You will have strong VIP support, allowing you to take the creative risks you need to take to make a name for yourself. After Jupiter leaves Cancer, Jupiter in Leo will help you enjoy all kinds of projects that will encourage you to express yourself in new, compelling ways. You may be starting a new business or undergoing a lifestyle change, because you appear to be focused intensely on cash flow from January through July, due to Mars in Libra. You may be spending more than usual during this time, but it will be a temporary situation. Keep an eye on finances at the lunar eclipse of April 15. After July, you will see an increasing demand for your goods or services. It seems everyone will be beating a path to your door. Watch for the full moon June 12 to bring a culmination to your career, with plenty of publicity resulting. Later, from September through December, you will see many more exciting developments surfacing. Watch, too, the new moon in your honors, awards, achievement, and fame sector, Nov. 22, when, in the days to follow, your name will be on everyone’s lips.


2020 Olympic golf venue amends membership policy to fully include women

Organizers threatened to rescind the Kasumigaseki Country Club’s right to host the 2020 Olympic golf tournament if it didn’t amend its membership policy to fully include women. (Oh Hyun/Reuters) This post has been updated. The executive board of Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki Country Club voted Monday to amend its membership policy to fully include women after organizers for the 2020 Olympics threatened to strip the club of its right to host the Olympic golf tournament. The decision, which was reported by the Associated Press, was urged by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike and came three days after International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach issued another warning that a failure to lift the ban on female members could result in relocation of the event. (It’s been a big week for equal rights on the golf course. Monday’s vote came six days after Muirfield, the venerable Scottish golf club, voted to allow women to become members for the first time in its 273-year history, thereby restoring the club’s eligibility to host the British Open.) “I’d like to extend my gratitude to the members of the club for their understanding and cooperation,” Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, said in a statement after Monday’s vote. Kasumigaseki Country Club, which is located about 30 miles outside of Tokyo and founded in 1929, had barred women from becoming full members that would give them various rights to the club, including playing on Sundays. “We made quite clear that there has to be gender equality,” IOC Vice President John Coates said last month in an interview (via the Australian Broadcasting Company) at the Asian Winter Games in the northern city of Sapporo. “If they can’t achieve the gender equality then we have to get another course.” Currently, about 1,000 men are full members of the club. To become a member, applicants must be referred by a current member, as well as pay more than $100,000 for full membership status. The club didn’t reject women entirely before Monday’s vote. While women couldn’t become full members, which would allow them to golf on Sundays, they could become junior members, a status that gave them some access to the club’s courses. “We have always believed our policy has been very open, so we were caught by surprise,” Kasumigaseki General Manager Hiroshi Imaizumi told the AP in January. He added: “We welcome all female players and we have no intention


In Salt Lake City, a dynamic neighborhood with small businesses and room to stroll in

than 15 years, the couple moved their store to the neighborhood four years ago, enticed by the low-key, friendly and communal feel. Their clientele is a mix of regional homeowners and event planners who use the vast array of orchids for weddings and fundraisers in town. Walk diagonally across the intersection and you’ll find Fresh, featuring stylish urban wear with a distinctive Salt Lake City feel. This being Utah, many of the store’s customers like to play outdoors. Fresh does its best to blend Patagonia attire with more cutting-edge design, such as a streamlined black spring jacket selling for $88. Other pieces of clothing include men and women’s jeans, colorful women’s blouses, baseball caps, shoes and Brixton T-shirts. The young brother-and-sister team of Ian and Helen Wade, who own the shop, hit tradeshows in Las Vegas and across the Southwest to keep the merchandise, well, fresh. They look for independent labels not very well known outside London, New York and Los Angeles. On the same block as Fresh, I stop at Coffee Garden to take advantage of the free WiFi along with a crowd of predominantly college and high-school students. The place serves the usual assortment of coffee, lattes and teas along with such enticing desserts as a vanilla bean cheesecake and a rich Black Forest cake. But I’m saving my appetite for more intriguing fare. There’s no shortage of dining options in the neighborhood. One day at lunch, I visit Thai Garden & Noodle House and order a spicy chicken stir-fry, loaded with crunchy veggies such as broccoli and snow peas. Other diners are digging into bowls of soup and pad Thai noodles. The next day, I sample the Middle Eastern fare at nearby Mazza. It’s far more spacious and stylish than Thai Garden, and every table is taken. A friend and I share a citrusy baked eggplant salad along with a tasty roasted tomato and red lentil soup. Our main dishes, chicken shawarma and lamb kafte, which arrive on a bed of lettuce with a basket of warm pita, are also satisfying. The restaurant serves only locally sourced beef and lamb. I needed a reservation well before arriving in Salt Lake City to snag a coveted table at Pago, one of the city’s most famous restaurants. We saunter past the small open kitchen to a two-top next to a brick-lined wall, ready to try the innovative kale Caesar


Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo taken from prison for treatment of liver cancer

an empty chair, which later became a symbol of China’s repression. “Adding injury to insult, Liu Xiaobo has been diagnosed with a grave illness in prison, where he should never have been put in the first place,” said William Nee, China researcher for Amnesty International. “The Chinese authorities should immediately ensure that Liu Xiaobo receives adequate medical care, effective access to his family, and that he and all others imprisoned solely for exercising their human rights are immediately and unconditionally released.” Liu was arrested in 2008 for his role in the writing of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for China’s democratic transition that was signed by thousands of people inside the country. His publications have since been banned in China. When the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded him the prize in 2010, it cited “his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” Beijing condemned the award, and relations with Norway suffered for years. Rose Tang, who was a student participant in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, said Liu was one of the last hunger strikers in the square on June 4 when Chinese troops killed or arrested thousands of protesters, and he played a key role in negotiating safe passage for students out of the area. Liu was a fellow at Columbia University when the protests erupted and flew back to be with the students. Tang, who now lives in New York, recalled how Liu sent a fellow protest leader to negotiate with troops to allow the students to leave, potentially saving the lives of up to 2,000 people. “Bullets were flying over our heads and some students (including me) wanted to stay and fight till the end,” she said. “Student leaders were disputing among themselves. Liu and his fellow hunger strikers made the crucial decision.” Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch, said that while Liu’s release for treatment came as a relief, she feared that little has changed. “That he was ever in prison at all says all one needs to know about Chinese leaders’ profound hostility toward peaceful expression and the rule of law,” she said. “It appears highly unlikely that his release will equal real freedom — for him, or for all others who simply seek peaceful, positive change in China,” she said. Denyer reported from Seoul. Luna Lin in Beijing and Paul Schemm in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed to this report.


Pentagon: 2015 strike on Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan was not a war crime

A Pentagon investigation into a 2015 airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan found that the failures that led to the disaster did not amount to a war crime because they were not intentional, Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, said Friday. The Pentagon said it disciplined 16 service members involved in the attack, which killed at least 30 people, including medical staff and patients. The U.S. troops involved did not know they were striking a medical facility, Votel said, and their punishments ranged from formal counseling to letters of reprimand. “They were trying to do the right thing. They were trying to support our Afghan partners,” said Votel. “Unfortunately, they made a wrong judgment in this particular case and ended up targeting this Doctors Without Borders facility.” Five service members, including a general officer, were removed from Afghanistan. None of the 16 service members have faced court-martial. The Oct. 3 incident, which Votel called a “tragedy,” illuminates the downsides of the U.S. strategy of fighting at arm’s length, rather than committing a large ground presence. Teaming up with local counterparts, backed by U.S. air power and Special Operations troops, still presents pitfalls. In this case, the Pentagon investigation showed there was a widespread breakdown in procedures and communication. And according to the investigation, in the days leading up to the attack, some Special Operations troops felt they had no sense of what they were trying to accomplish as they fought to retake the northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz, which had been unexpectedly seized by the Taliban. One officer, whose name, rank and unit were redacted from his witness statement, blamed senior leaders for the fiasco, saying there was a “profound lack of strategy” during the multi-day battle. Army Green Berets on the ground in the city at the time asked for guidance “no fewer than three times” during the battle and heard nothing but crickets — “though those were hard to hear over the gunfire,” he alleged. The officer also questioned the U.S. strategy of pulling most U.S. troops back almost entirely onto large bases that they rarely leave, rather than taking a more active approach as in years past. “If someone must be held accountable,” he concluded, “let it not be the man who was ordered to sky-dive without being given a parachute.” According to investigation documents released Friday, the Oct. 3


New evidence of geysers erupting from Europa’s icy ocean

it means that we’re sampling material that might be part of a habitable environment," Lunine said. NASA already has a mission to Europa in the works, scheduled to launch in 2022 and arrive a few years after that. That probe won't land or even orbit the icy moon — Jupiter's radiation makes the area too dangerous for a robot — but it will orbit Jupiter and make a few close passes of the watery world. If Europa does indeed shoot geysers into space, the spacecraft could use those plumes to sniff out the chemical composition of an ocean without needing to get too close. But unless follow-up observations from home find more definitive geyser evidence, a probe hoping to dive through the spray might not know where to go looking for watery eruptions. Unlike Enceladus – where certain geological features make it obvious where the frequent plumes will occur – Europa has a complex surface with many potential hot spots. “Whereas on Enceladus the geology makes it a little bit obvious where the activity has been, on Europa there’s activity everywhere that could lead to plumes or could muddy the interpretation,” Georgia Tech’s Britney Schmidt said at Monday's news conference. If any areas of the moon show particular promise in ground-based observations or during the upcoming flyby, a future mission could land on the surface and drill into the ice. But don't hold your breath for that subsurface dive. Scientists think Europa has about 60 miles of ice in its crust, compared to the half mile or so that we have to drill through to study subglacial lakes on Earth. It's going to take a lot of work to create a spacecraft that can survive Europa's radiation levels, land on an icy surface, operate at temperatures of minus-180 degrees Fahrenheit and tunnel down through the massive layer of solid ice before it even starts collecting data. In the meantime, scientists are hopeful that the powerful James Webb Telescope, launching in 2018, will paint a better picture of Europa's possible plumes, pushing past the limits of Hubble's line of sight. This post was originally published on September 26. It has been updated. Read More: More about Europa Water bears’ latest superpower: Proteins that protect them from radiation Scientists finally figured out the source of this bizarre, glowing space ‘blob How scientists read an ancient and fragile biblical scroll without unrolling it


Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon to seek second independence referendum

United Kingdom. “Brexit now clearly raises questions not only about the future of the U.K., but whether the U.K. has a future,” said Andrew Blick, a constitutional expert at King’s College London. It will fall to Prime Minister Theresa May to not only negotiate the most complex and consequential change in Britain’s global role in decades but also to persuade Scots to come along for the ride. In her response to Sturgeon on Monday, May could barely contain her irritation, accusing the Scottish leader of “playing politics with the future of our country.” “The tunnel vision that the [Scottish National Party] has shown today is deeply regrettable,” May said in a statement to broadcasters. “It sets Scotland on a course for more uncertainty and division.” May and the U.K. government technically have the power to block another referendum if they choose. But crucially, May did not threaten to do so, perhaps wary of further stoking separatist passions. A second independence vote raises the possible scenario of British leaders finalizing their E.U. split while also figuring out how to handle their internal breakup with Scotland, which then would probably seek E.U. membership as Europe’s newest nation. Normally, that is a years-long process, and it is not clear whether Scotland would be given an accelerated path. Scottish independence advocates lost a vote in September 2014 by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent. At the time, pro-independence leaders suggested there would not be another such chance for 20 or more years. But Sturgeon, who holds the title of first minister in Scotland, said Monday that Britain’s E.U. exit against Scottish wishes represents a “change in material circumstances” that justifies a second vote far sooner. In a referendum in June, voters across the United Kingdom — England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — favored leaving the European Union by 52 percent to 48 percent. But a substantial majority of Scots — 62 percent — voted to remain. A majority of voters in Northern Ireland also wanted to stay in the European Union. Sturgeon’s announcement came as speculation mounted that the British prime minister would soon invoke Article 50 — the never-before-used mechanism for leaving the 28-nation bloc — probably by the end of the month. Sturgeon said she was forced to seek a new referendum after months of negotiations with the British government aimed at softening the impact of Brexit — talks


Here’s how The Post covered the ‘grand social experiment’ of the Internet in 1988

Cray's enormous processing power to simulate the tests with mathematical models. Spafford, the Purdue professor, reached an impasse in his attempt to write an operating system for a minicomputer called the Vax 11/750. Two weeks of inquiries at the Digital Equipment Corp., which manufactured the Vax, proved fruitless -- until two strangers on the network told Spafford that Digital's manual was wrong. "It never occurred to me," Spafford said. Jerry Nelson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, needed engineering data on the massive Keck Telescope under construction in Hawaii that specified precisely the shape of its reflecting mirror. Stoll, the Harvard astronomer, transmitted the file within two minutes to Nelson's computer. There is more to life than science, and the network publishes hundreds of special-interest forums known as news groups. They have no exact counterpart in traditional media, but seem to combine most of the functions of hobby magazines, radio talk shows, classified advertisements and singles bars. "It's like being able to subscribe to any magazine instantly, read back issues, contribute to it as an author and unsubscribe whenever you want -- all at no cost," said Kenneth R. van Wyk, a senior consultant in user services at Lehigh University's computer center. Together the news groups produce about 4 million characters of new material a day, the equivalent of about five average books. "You couldn't possibly read it all," said James E. Cottrell III, a networking guru at the National Institute of Science and Technology. Then again, said Harvard's Stoll, you wouldn't want to: "90 percent of it is complete and utter trash." But which 90 percent? Browsers have their choice -- among many others -- of gardening, high fidelity, science fiction, firearms, jokes, model trains, the Beatles, Celtic culture, a running debate between evolution and creationism, Esperanto, ferrets, martial arts, folk-dancing, "things equestrian," and a catch-all forum for "political discussions and ravings of all kind." Pierre Malraison, in San Diego, sparked a lively colloquy in the folk-dancing forum by wondering playfully whether a branch of mathematics known as group theory could do as good a job as a human caller in running a square dance. Sean Smith, in Pittsburgh, reported that his usual partner "thought such a project would be completely antithetical to the spirit of dancing." Brian K. Reid, a big name in computer science, is best-known to some network users as the moderator of


Zika: More than 2,500 babies born with microcephaly in Brazil, WHO predicts

General Director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, gives an update on the Zika virus in Geneva, Switzerland. (EPA/Salvatore Di Nolfi) The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it expects Brazil will have more than 2,500 babies born with a severe birth defect known as microcephaly if current trends continue in the Zika virus outbreak. Data from Brazil, the epicenter of an epidemic that has hit more than three dozen countries and territories in the Americas, show that about 39 percent of 2,212 investigated cases of microcephaly are already confirmed for the rare congenital condition. To date, that's 863 babies born with the characteristic abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains, WHO detailed at a news conference in Geneva. "If that rate continues, we expect more than 2,500 cases will emerge of babies with brain damage and clinical signs of microcephaly," said Anthony Costello, who heads WHO's department of maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said new evidence is becoming clear daily about the mosquito-borne virus. A pattern seems to be emerging: Initial detection of Zika is followed within about three weeks by an unusual increase of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare condition that can cause paralysis and sometimes death. Detection of microcephaly and other fetal abnormalities typically comes about six months later, WHO officials said, as pregnancies of infected women come to term. The mosquito-borne disease suspected of causing serious birth defects is expected to spread to all countries in the Americas except Canada and Chile and remains a global health emergency, according to the World Health Organization. Brazil and Panama are now reporting cases of microcephaly -- including 6,480 suspected cases in Brazil. Panama has one reported case. Colombia is investigating many cases for a possible link. A WHO team is currently in Cape Verde to investigate that country's first reported case of microcephaly, Chan said. A total of 12 countries and territories have now seen an increase in the incidence of Guillain-Barré or actual lab confirmation of Zika among cases with the syndrome, she said. Although Zika has hit countries in Latin America and the Caribbean the hardest, Chan warned that no one can predict if it will spread to other parts of the world and trigger the same pattern of health complications. In other affected countries, the virus has not been circulating long enough for pregnancies to come to term, she said.


The blood-red ‘harvest moon’ rose over D.C. on Saturday. It was amazing.

The harvest moon rises over Washington, D.C., on Sept. 17, 2016. The harvest moon rose blood red behind the D.C. skyline Saturday evening. For a brief moment, from my vantage point at the Netherlands Carillon, the moon appeared to sit on top of the Capitol dome. The harvest moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. It rose above the horizon due east, which lines up well with the orientation of the Mall. It makes for a wonderful opportunity to shoot the moon with the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and Capitol. The red harvest moon rises over the Capitol on Sept. 17. The photo was shot at f/8, ISO 800, 1.6 seconds. (Kevin Ambrose) I made the poor choice of taking Metro’s Orange Line from Vienna to Rosslyn for my photo shoot at the Netherlands Carillon. Delays from single-tracking between Vienna and West Falls Church almost caused me to miss moonrise, which was at 8 p.m. But I arrived at the Carillon just in time, and I found more than 50 photographers already set up with cameras and tripods waiting to shoot the rise of the harvest moon. The photographers were arranged in three rows facing east. I quickly chose the left end of the middle row and set up two cameras with tripods. I had just enough time to take a few test shots to verify focus and exposure. My primary camera is a Sony a7rII, which I set at f/8, ISO 800, 1.6 seconds. My backup camera is a Sony a99, which I set at f/7.1, ISO 400, 3.2 seconds. I used my Sony a99 to construct a video by locking down the cable release button for continuous shooting and then arranging and compressing the still images into a 1080p time-lapse clip. It’s easier to shoot video in the camera’s movie mode, of course, but I like to have the sequence of high-definition images to go with the video. The moon begins to emerge from between the Washington Monument and Capitol. This photo, taken at 8:03 p.m., was shot at f/8, ISO 800, 1.6 seconds (Kevin Ambrose) At 8:02 p.m., the moon became visible on the horizon between the Washington Monument and Capitol. “That’s beautiful,” a nearby photographer exclaimed. It really was a beautiful sight. Of the many moonrise photo shoots I’ve done over the years, this one was my favorite. In my opinion, a moonrise


Britain’s Supreme Court rules Parliament must have a say on Brexit

Party — which holds a majority in the House of Commons — is likely to line up solidly behind her. In a partial victory for May’s government Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the individual states in the United Kingdom — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — will not have a veto over Brexit plans. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted against an E.U. departure. Had the court ruled that the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Irish and Welsh assemblies get their own say in Brexit planning, it could have imposed a far more serious obstacle to May’s plans than any she is now likely to face. Tuesday’s decision was considered one of the most constitutionally significant for Britain in decades, with important legal precedents regardless of which way the court ruled. A summary of the judgment was read by the court’s president, David Neuberger, in a short hearing at the court’s neo-Gothic chambers in central London, just across the street from the iconic towers that mark Parliament’s home at Westminster. May signaled in a speech last week that she intends to seek a clean break from the E.U., with Britain leaving behind Europe’s single market for goods and services and its customs union for trade. Despite the country being closely divided on the question of whether Britain should get out of the E.U. at all, polls have shown that May’s approach — regarded as a “hard Brexit” — has been well received. Her Conservative Party has a wide lead over the opposition Labour Party, which has struggled to develop a unified position on Brexit. “While this is a major decision in U.K. constitutional history, the political dynamics may mean that the substantive outcome of the U.K. exit from the E.U. is not altered,” said Andrew Blick, who teaches history at King’s College London. The November High Court ruling elicited a strongly negative reaction from pro-Brexit politicians and newspapers. The Daily Mail, a leading British tabloid, ran photos of the court’s judges on the next day’s front page along with the headline “Enemies of the People.” Miller has said she was personally threatened as a result of her role in bringing the Brexit case to the court. She said Tuesday that she was “shocked by the levels of personal abuse that I have received from many quarters over the last seven months, for simply bringing and asking a legitimate question.”


Readers respond to leaner defense spending

In his Jan. 6 Washington Forum column, “Benefits of a one-war posture,” Michael O’Hanlon stated that events in Iraq and Afghanistan illustrated the “fallacy” that the United States maintained a two-war capacity during Bill Clinton’s presidency. It is difficult to understand how too small an armed force led to our problems in these wars. On the contrary, our invasion of Afghanistan was initially a smashing success, with early triumphs over the Taliban. We were prepared to fight that war. Rather than size of forces, our difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan were related to (1) not being able to protect against the use of improvised explosive devices and other tactics of the insurgencies, (2) ignorance of the political, religious, and ethnic divisions within these countries, and (3) the killing of innocent civilians. These failures were brought about by our politicians’ beliefs and assurances that citizens in those countries would welcome us openly. If our politics is wrong and our understanding of countries we invade is faulty, the size of our forces is irrelevant. Darrel Nash, Bowie ● ● ● ●


Seven secrets to becoming a runner and sticking with it for life

your imagination. So find a way to fall in love with running, and don’t be distracted by people who try to convince you that you’re doing it wrong. There are many standards of success -- run a mile in less than 10 minutes, break 30 minutes in a 5K, run a marathon, finish a sub-4-hour marathon, qualify for Boston, run 40 miles a week. They’re perfectly fine goals, but if they’re not within reach, or they don’t personally matter to you, ignore them. And ignore anyone who tries to convince you that you must run a certain pace or number of miles to be a real runner. If you run, you’re a runner. Want to race? Great. Hate to race? Who cares? Running requires precious time and energy that you could otherwise spend with the people you love and your life’s work. If you’re not enjoying it, it’s a complete waste of time. 2. Don’t undo your roadwork at the dinner table It takes some strategizing to get your dieting and running efforts in sync. If you let hours pass between eating and running, you'll lose the energy you need to run fast and burn calories. Overeat before you head out, and you’ll be sidelined by GI problems. 3. Follow the 10 minute rule. After 10 minutes, you can call it quits with the satisfaction of knowing that your mission is accomplished. But more often than not, your muscles will feel warmed up, your heart rate will be elevated and you’ll start to feel energized, even excited to exercise. However good or bad you feel beforehand, a workout will make you feel better. Even if that workout is a 10-minute stroll. 4. Learn the difference between good pain and bad pain. Any pain that persists or worsens as you run, or after you’re done, is something that deserves at least two days of rest and possibly a call to the doctor. Same goes for any pain that’s sharp, makes you change your gait to compensate (which can cause more injury), or is located on one side of the body but not the other. Seeing a doctor is an investment of time, energy and money that few people have to spare. But it is much better than wasting sleepless nights worried about worst-case scenarios, or running through pain and turning a small irritation into a full-blown injury. Learn more about the


D.C. news in brief

for hazard mitigation. For information, go to www.dchealthyhomes.com. Electric car rally to be held Saturday An electric car rally is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Woodrow Wilson House, 2340 S St. NW. The event will include an 11 a.m. parade of electric vehicles down Massachusetts Avenue to Dupont Circle. Vintage and modern electric cars will be on display, including a 1921 Milburn Light Electric Opera Coupe, the model driven by Woodrow Wilson’s Secret Service entourage. Admission to the Wilson House museum will be free during the rally. For information, go to woodrowwilsonhouse.org. Center to offer support to gay, transgender Latinos Casa Ruby, a resource center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Latinos, will have its grand opening at 2822 Georgia Ave. NW, Suite B, from noon to 8 p.m. June 6. The center will offer job training and referrals; health, law and immigration counseling; HIV and STD testing; assistance with homelessness, intimate partner violence and substance abuse; and hot meals and clothing. The open house will feature music, food and beverages from different countries. D.C. Office on Latino Affairs Director Roxana Olivas will speak during the opening ceremony from 4 to 6 p.m. Casa Ruby will be run by the nonprofit community service organization Latinos-as En Accion. For information, go to www.casaruby.org or call 202-355-5155. DDOT to discuss Winkle Doodle bridge study June 6 The District Department of Transportation has scheduled a public meeting on the Winkle Doodle Branch Bridge Planning Study and the Southern Avenue corridor (South Capitol Street SE to 23rd Street SE) from 6 to 7 p.m. June 6 at United Medical Center, 1310 Southern Ave. SE. The bridge covers the Winkle Doodle channel and spans between Southeast Washington and Prince George’s County. The study team seeks input on pedestrian safety improvements, neighborhood aesthetics, lighting and visibility, and ways to reduce traffic speeds and improve the environmental conditions. For information, call 202-563-5033 or e-mail malia@thecsmi.com. District opens outdoor pools for summer season Outdoor pools in the District have opened for summer swims. The 19 pools operated by the District Parks and Recreations department are open Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 6 p.m. until June 17. After June 17, the outdoor pools will be open six days a week. Swimming is free for all city residents at D.C. Parks Department aquatic centers. For information, go to www.dpr.dc.gov. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


Zika virus: WHO declares global public health emergency, says causal link to brain defects ‘strongly suspected’

alone are enough to declare a public health emergency because of its heavy burden" on women, families and the community, Chan said. The World Health Organization declares the Zika virus to be a global health emergency as the disease linked to thousands of birth defects in Brazil spreads rapidly. In addition, she noted, there is significant concern given the lack of vaccines and rapid, reliable diagnostic tests, as well as the absence of any viral immunity in the population since the Americas are being affected for the first time. A potential link to Zika is also suspected in adults who have been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare condition that can cause paralysis. According to the latest figures on the epicenter of the outbreak, Brazil has 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly, with 270 confirmed with evidence of an infection. The WHO declaration represents its highest level of alert and is only invoked in response to the most dire threats. The first time was in 2009 during the H1N1 influenza epidemic that is believed to have infected up to 200 million worldwide; the second in May 2014 when a paralyzing form of polio re-emerged in Pakistan and Syria; and the third in August 2014 with Ebola in West Africa. Identifying a global public health emergency now allows the WHO to help coordinate surveillance efforts, such as recording and monitoring cases of Zika, microcephaly and other neurological complications. Officials said countries need to standardize their surveillance for microcephaly, in which an abnormally small head signals incomplete brain development. Zika’s emergence as a major concern has taken infectious disease experts by surprise. The virus has been popping up in various parts of the world for decades, but individuals have typically only suffered mild symptoms such as a rash or body aches. Nearly all those infected in the past recovered fully, though there were rare cases of complications. In recent months, however, as reports about brain-damaged newborns began increasing, health officials have worried about Zika's impact on fetal development and have focused on trying to protect pregnant women from the virus. In January, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel advisory urging pregnant women to avoid travel to areas where the virus is actively spreading. That advisory has been expanded repeatedly and now lists more than two dozen countries and territories in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The


Everything you need to know about the ‘blood moon’ apocalypse debate

Time-lapse video captures a total lunar eclipse, also known as a "blood moon," which was visible from the U.S. as it dipped into Earth's shadow. For a very brief time on Saturday, the moon will turn an orangey-red, depending on conditions, during an Easter weekend lunar eclipse. Although the east coast of the United States will be shut out of this particular “blood moon” in the sky, it’s just the third of four such eclipses spanning a period of a couple years — an event known as a tetrad. The phrase “blood moon tetrad” is a wonderful phrase that seems to demand its own apocalyptic mythology, which it, in fact, has. A total lunar eclipse on April 15, 2014, marked the beginning of a remarkable series of eclipses all visible from North America. Although not every full lunar eclipse turns a blood red color earning its colloquial name, the current tetrad has become the focus of speculation in some circles about its relationship to the coming end of the world. Something, the theory goes, simply must be coming with the tetrad. [Pass the jelly: How to watch the ‘breakfast’ lunar eclipse Saturday morning] So, are we two blood moons away from the End Times? Let’s find out! What does the Bible say about blood moons? As Sarah Pulliam Bailey has previously noted, there are two major blood moon references in scripture. They are pretty similar, but in different books: - “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord,” – Joel 2:31 - “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord.” – Acts 2:20 So, potentially not a good day for humans. But the authority on what the blood moon means for those who believe really has more to do with a little cottage industry of blood moon-themed books promoting the theory. Okay, so what do those blood moon books say about blood moons? The books are built on a Dan Brown-esque imposition of coded messages and signs on biblical history and the Bible itself, with titles, such as, “Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change,” and “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs.” Root Source’s Gidon Ariel has explained why he thinks a tetrad is particularly worth paying attention to: “Not only does


Will the Supreme Court save us from software patents?

to soar as well: Number of patent lawsuit filings involving software patents (James Bessen) A landmark 2008 book found that software patents are more than twice as likely as other patent categories to become involved in litigation. And "business method" patents like the one the Federal Circuit approved in the State Street case were six times as likely to lead to patent lawsuits. The Supreme Court pushes back At first, the Supreme Court let the Federal Circuit shape patent law with minimal interference. But by the time John Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the Federal Circuit's patent-friendly jurisprudence had produced record levels of patent litigation and an avalanche of bad press. So the Supreme Court began to give the Federal Circuit closer scrutiny. The high court didn't like what it found. The first few patent rulings of the Roberts era were unanimous or near-unanimous reversals of the lower court's decisions. Roberts became exasperated by the Federal Circuit's casual attitude toward Supreme Court precedents. During a 2009 oral argument, he commented that lower courts "don't have a choice" about following Supreme Court precedents. "They can't say, I don't like the Supreme Court rule so I'm not going to apply it." Then, he added wryly: "other than the Federal Circuit." Of course, the Federal Circuit is supposed to follow Supreme Court's rules. But it hasn't done a very good job. In 2012, the high court unanimously overruled a Federal Circuit decision allowing patents on medical diagnostic techniques. Last year, the high court rejected patents on human genes, which the Federal Circuit had previously approved. Alice in patentland On March 31, the Supreme Court will finally return to the software patent issue after a 33-year hiatus. The case focuses on a patent that claims the use of a computer to eliminate "settlement risk," the risk that one party will renege on a deal, leaving the other party holding the bag. The patent is owned by a financial institution called the Alice Corporation. Like the mutual fund patent the Federal Circuit upheld in 1998, the process described by Alice's patent takes place entirely inside the computer, and isn't tied to any specific machine or industrial process. Alice argued that the fact that the patent required the use of a computer was sufficient to make it a patentable invention. When the case reached the Federal Circuit, the court agreed in a 2 to


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. Rainy day trouble: Volunteers needed: Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Putin orders cut of 755 personnel at U.S. missions

dacha, or country house, in a leafy neighborhood in Moscow and a warehouse — following the decision by the Obama administration in December to take possession of two Russian mansions in the United States. The move comes as it has become apparent that Russia has abandoned its hopes for better relations with the United States under the Trump administration. “I think retaliation is long, long overdue,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal,” Ryabkov said. “After the Senate . . . voted so overwhelmingly on a completely weird and unacceptable piece of legislation, it was the last drop.” Hours later, Putin said during his evening interview that he expected relations between the United States and Russia to worsen and that Russia was likely to come up with other measures to counter American financial sanctions, which were passed by the House and Senate last week and which President Trump has said he will sign. The reduction in U.S. diplomatic and technical staff is a response to President Obama’s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats in December in response to the alleged Russian hacking of the mail servers of the Democratic National Committee. The United States also revoked access to two Russian diplomatic compounds on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and on Long Island. American officials said they were used for intelligence collection. It is not yet clear how the State Department will reduce its staff in Russia. Some of the local staff were hired to help with a significant expansion of the U.S. embassy compound in Moscow. After the State Department, the next largest agency presence in Moscow in the 2013 review belonged to the Defense Department, which had 26 employees working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (20 of them U.S. nationals) and 10 working for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (of whom nine were U.S. nationals). The Library of Congress had two U.S. staff and two foreign staff, and NASA had eight U.S. staff and four foreign staff members. There were 24 Marine security guards. The move increases the likelihood of new, perhaps asymmetrical reprisals by the United States in coming days. Michael McFaul, former ambassador to Russia, tweeted Sunday: “If these cuts are real, Russians should expect to wait weeks if not months to get visas to come to US.” Ashley Parker in Tallinn, Estonia, and


Here are the 30 questions the White House doesn’t seem to want to answer

People site. While the White House site shows petitions that are accumulating signatures and responses, in between, Dourado says, there is "a purgatory" where petitions that the Obama administration doesn't want to answer can disappear. According to the We The People FAQ, the White House "plans to respond to each petition that crosses the signature threshold" that complies with the Terms of Participation. Those terms note the White House may decline to respond if a petition addresses "certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government." Considering some of those exiled petitions, leaving some of them unanswered might be understandable. Many seem as if they're driven by signers outside the United States, like "Persuade South Korea (The ROK) to accept Japan's proposal on territorial dispute over islets" or "Provide necessary assistance to prevent Taiwanese people from being murdered by Philippines and rebuild friendship." But it's curious that the White House responded to a joke Death Star petition, while these serious and successful petitions haven't received even a perfunctory nod: End the Military’s Discrimination against Non-Religious Service Members. 23,549 signatures "The US military fails to provide Equal Opportunity for non-religious service members. We are forced to participate in religious rituals during official ceremonies. This is not free exercise, this is forced exercise. Worship belongs in voluntary services, not in mandatory formations. This is unconstitutional establishment of an official preference for religion over non-religion. We are forced to take an unconstitutional religious test for “Spiritual Fitness”. Those who fail the test are forced to take remedial training instructing them to go to church and pray. This proselytization by the US military is forced onto us against our will. These policies create a hostile environment, division, and resentment within the military, destroying morale and threatening national security." Not Allow The FDA To Regulate Premium Cigars. "Dear Mr. President: The FDA is considering the creation of regulations for the premium cigar industry. These regulations will jeopardize over 85,000 American jobs, destroy America’s “mom & pop” premium cigar retailers & manufacturers, and risk over 250,000 jobs in Latin American that produce cigars, impacting the economic/political stability in the region. We hope you will stand up for small businesses that dot Main Street America & recognize that premium cigars are enjoyed by adults, are not addictive and therefore do not conform


2013 was a year for American rule breakers

take notice. Bitcoin startups announced a series of fundraising successes, culminating in Coinbase's $25 million fundraising round earlier this month. Policymakers, too, began taking the currency seriously. A pair of November Senate hearings were Bitcoin lovefests, with federal regulators stressing their commitment not to hamper development of the fledgling payment network. Bitcoin's decentralized structure was essential to winning the blessing of regulators. If there were a Bitcoin Inc. that owned the network, federal regulators would likely have demanded that it make changes to facilitate enforcement of federal regulations, and shut it down if it didn't comply. But the Bitcoin community pointed out that no one had the authority to change the Bitcoin network. They argued that excessive regulation would simply push Bitcoin-related commerce overseas, where U.S. regulators would have even less influence. The gambit worked. Regulators interpreted U.S. law in a way that's relatively hospitable to the development of Bitcoin-based businesses on American soil. Aereo's service uses thousands of tiny antennas to help it stay within the bounds of copyright law. (Aereo) Rule-breaking start-ups Bitcoin wasn't the only technology to push the legal envelope in 2013. A number of start-ups pursued similar strategies, jumping into new markets in the face of significant legal uncertainty. Aereo is one example. The start-up allows New Yorkers (and more recently users in other select cities) to stream broadcast television content over the Internet. Instead of paying licensing fees to broadcasters, Aereo relied on a clever interpretation of copyright law. In Aereo's server room are circuit boards with thousands of tiny antennas. When an Aereo customer wants to watch television, he's assigned a distinct Aereo antenna for his personal use. Aereo argues that its service amounts to a virtual television set with an extremely long cord between the antenna and the display. No one was sure if the courts would buy this crazy-sounding argument. But this year they did. Appeals courts in New York and Massachusetts rejected the arguments of broadcasters that Aereo's service violated their copyrights. The legal battle isn't over — Aereo has encouraged the Supreme Court to take the case — but the TV streaming service is on much firmer legal footing than it was a year ago. 2013 was also a big year for Uber, which raised $361 million from investors in August. Like Aereo, Uber's business strategy has been to enter new markets first and worry about the legal niceties


U.S. strike believed to have killed ‘Jihadi John,’ Islamic State executioner

person pulled up at a two- or three-story building, a business, around 11 p.m. local time Thursday. Emwazi went inside the building for a short time, came out and got back in the car. At that moment, the American missiles destroyed the vehicle. The Syrian activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which monitors events in the city, reported that a drone strike targeted a car near the Islamic court in downtown Raqqa shortly before midnight. It was among a dozen blasts heard during an intense wave of airstrikes, the group said on its Twitter feed. Emwazi appeared in a video in August 2014 as the unknown masked man with an English accent who beheaded American journalist James Foley. Emwazi subsequently beheaded Steven Sotloff, another American journalist, and appeared in a video in which American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig was decapitated. He also killed David Haines and Alan Henning, both British aid workers, and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto. “It is a very small solace to learn that Jihadi John may have been killed by the U.S. government,” Foley’s parents, John and Diane Foley, said in a statement. “His death does not bring Jim back. If only so much effort had been given to finding and rescuing Jim and the other hostages who were subsequently murdered by ISIS, they might be alive today.” Art and Shirley Sotloff, the parents of Steven Sotloff, said Emwazi’s death would change nothing for them. “It’s too little too late. Our son is never coming back,” they said. “More importantly, today, we remember Steven’s remarkable life, his contributions and [others who have] suffered at the hands of ISIS.” The Obama administration attempted to rescue the Americans during the summer of 2014, when Delta Force commandos stormed a prison where they were thought to be held. Officials later concluded that the prisoners had been moved days before the raid. U.S. officials have said that confirmation of Emwazi’s death will probably require information gleaned from intercepted militant communications. They say it is probably impossible to obtain a DNA sample, making it more difficult to establish his death conclusively. “We could potentially never know” with certainty, another defense official said. Emwazi is the best-known militant the United States has killed in more than a year of airstrikes against the group in Iraq and Syria. Emwazi was born in Kuwait but grew up in London. He studied computer programming before


Ireland becomes a test for E.U. crisis remedy

the Irish people would put any future bailouts in jeopardy. Under a 2010 deal, Ireland is scheduled to receive rescue funds through next year. But analysts say that, like Greece, Dublin may require another rescue package — one it could effectively be barred from getting if the treaty is voted down. Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, who strongly backs the treaty, described the referendum on Tuesday as an “opportunity to reaffirm Ireland’s commitment to membership of the euro.” “The Irish people can confirm our commitment to responsible budgeting and ensure that the reckless economic mismanagement that drove our country to the brink of bankruptcy will not be repeated,” he said, laying the blame on the previous government. Polls: Vote too close to call European and Irish government officials had desperately hoped to avoid a referendum. Irish voters have twice rejected key E.U. treaties — in 2001 and 2008 — although both accords were ultimately approved in second referendums after Dublin won a number of concessions. Recent Irish opinion polls have shown that a vote on the new European fiscal pact would be too close to call. But a ruling by the Irish attorney general indicated that under the national constitution, Ireland could not ratify the accord without a referendum. Although a date has not been announced, the vote is expected to take place by June. The campaign to pass the treaty in Ireland, experts say, is likely to be aided by the growing realization in European capitals that the accord amounts to a paper tiger, with any harsh penalties for violators coming only after a laborious, bureaucratic process. But in Ireland, the referendum on the treaty is also likely to be seen as a proxy vote on the tough austerity imposed on Ireland by its lenders at the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank as part of a three-year bailout deal struck in 2010. Always different from the one in Greece, the Irish crisis was sparked not by runaway government spending and faked economic figures, but by a U.S.-style property bubble that led to the near-collapse of the banking system. In sharp contrast to the Greeks, since being bailed out, Ireland has been portrayed by its lenders as a model, with the Irish so far succeeding in cutting the deficit, improving competitiveness and restoring their country to growth. Demands ‘just aren’t fair’ But many in


What’s in your wallet? Probably not cash

percent of Americans carry $20 or less each day, including nine percent who don't carry any cash at all. And only 7 percent carry more than $100 each day. "Consumers prefer to pay with plastic, debit or credit or some other type of mobile technology," says Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate.com. The findings aren't too surprising at a time when most consumers are able to swipe their debit cards to buy a pack of gum and scan their phones to buy an afternoon latte. Purchases made with cash aren't as easy to track as those detailed in credit card and checking account statements, and some consumers may worry they'll break their budgets by spending any cash they withdraw. But there could be more at play than the rising popularity of paying with plastic. Some people don't carry cash because they don't have that much of it to spare, McBride says. Some 27 percent of Americans do not have any emergency savings, meaning they are pretty much living paycheck to paycheck, according to a separate Bankrate.com survey conducted last June. "In that situation, not only is money very tight, but you need every bit of it to pay the bills," McBride says. "So you can’t afford to be tucking away a spare 20 in your wallet." Indeed, the amount of cash people could access easily declined after the recession, especially for minorities, according to an analysis of Census data by the Center for Global Policy Solutions, a D.C.-based nonprofit that focuses on social change. The organization found that the amount consumers have in liquid wealth, defined as assets that could be easily turned into cash, declined during the recession and hasn't fully rebounded. In 2011, the latest year for which data was available, median liquid wealth was $10,000 , up slightly from $9,961 in 2009 but still lower than the median $11,518 in liquid wealth that consumers enjoyed in 2005, according to the center. But in some cases, not stashing cash could get costly. Consumers who find themselves at a cash-only restaurant or in a cab that doesn't accept plastic may have to pay fees after stopping at an out-of-network ATM. The combined fees charged by banks and ATMs in those scenarios now average more than $4 for each cash withdrawal, according to Bankrate.com. Suddenly that $20 bill you didn't carry in your wallet is now worth only $16.