Santa Muerte’s promise of prosperity

of La Parca — a Spanish female Grim Reaper — to evangelize Mexico’s indigenous people more than a century after the conquest of the Aztec empire by Hernán Cortés. By the 1950s, evidence of people worshiping her was noted in Mexico City, where altars were dedicated to her in homes in Tepito, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Today, she has hit the mainstream as an icon commodified. In Los Angeles, you can pick up Santa Muerte candles in the same aisle where you find laundry detergent in stores such as Food 4 Less. It’s a niche market for Walmart.com, the e-commerce site of the world’s largest retailer, which sells a dozen white Santa Muerte candles for $25.60. “We want to have an endless aisle of products, and that includes having millions of products that serve a diverse base of customers,” spokesman Bao Nguyen said. The cyber marketplaces of Amazon and Sears seek those customers, too, with candles, statues, pendants, T-shirts, lamps, apps and iPhone case covers bearing her bony image. In an attempt to capitalize on her mysterious and foreboding allure, Hollywood has given the Holy Death saint a star turn. For years, it has been reported that the Santa Muerte has followers in Mexico’s criminal underworld. So it was only a matter of time before she made an appearance on “Breaking Bad,” the acclaimed TV series that dealt in part with the sale and manufacture of illicit drugs. Her image appeared on billboards and trailers to advertise “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones,” a Paramount Pictures film released this year about a possessed Latino teenager. Social media has also helped make her a fashion icon among young people who share Santa Muerte tattoos, art, clothing, jewelry and more through Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. The global business ranges from the mass production of statues in China and Mexico to a Salvadoran seamstress working out of her Los Angeles home making $1,000 dresses to order for Santa Muerte statues of ardent followers. “On one level, she’s very Mexican, culturally,” Chesnut said. “But on another level, she represents death, right? And death knows no borders or frontiers, and so that’s also why she has a universal appeal, and why we’re seeing devotees as far away as Japan and the Philippines.” Distributors and manufacturers of spiritual and esoteric products have known of the Santa Muerte’s marketability for years, but suppliers on the West


Capital Buzz: Sterling Capital moves into government contracting

Tom King of CrossRiver Capital. The Sterling team takes a long-term perspective in the development of its portfolio companies and seeks to invest in opportunities with immediate growth potential where Sterling’s founding partners can offer operational expertise and strategic insights. Factoid of the week $25,000 That’s the amount Christophe and Michelle Poteaux, owners of Bastille restaurant in Old Town Alexandria, hope to raise in the next 45 days of a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. As of Friday noon, they had raised $10,709 to help move Bastille to a new home at 620 N. Fayette St. The Buzz hears: Herndon-based In Case of Crisis, formerly a division of Irving Burton Associates of Falls Church, announced the formation of RockDove Solutions. The new company will expand its mobile offerings to help organizations create a safer workplace and remain operational in the event of a crisis. In Case of Crisis, a mobile emergency app, will continue to serve as RockDove Solutions’s flagship product. RockDove Solutions, a privately held company, expects to grow its client base by more than 500 percent, year over year. Anna Ryan is chief executive and founder of RockDove. Catching up with Mom’s The Buzz recently caught up with Scott Nash, founder and owner of Mom’s Organic Market, a chainlet that is opening its 12th grocery store — and first one in the District — on Nov. 14. “We are the local guys who have been trying to get in forever, and we finally got it,” said Nash, 49, who started Mom’s in his mother’s Beltsville garage in 1987. The 16,000-square-foot store, with a 10-year-lease plus options, is in the old Hecht’s warehouse on New York Avenue NE, now owned by uber-developer Douglas Jemal. The new store will have two charging stations for electric vehicles and will face New York Avenue. Nash said he loves the location because New York Avenue is a main artery between the city and points west and northwest. “To give you an idea of the traffic, the billboards cost $50,000 a month on New York Avenue. Just having a store there is worth about that.” Mom’s grosses more than $100 million a year and plans to double to 25 stores in the next 18 months. It has one market in Philadelphia with two more planned. And Nash is trying hard to break into Manhattan’s midtown, where Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have been making headway.


D.C. police arrest suspect in January double slaying

District police on Friday arrested a suspect in the shootings of two people who were found dead in a Southeast Washington apartment in January, according to a department spokesman. Tyrron Lamont Sweeney, 22, of Southeast, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder while armed. He lives near Fort Dupont Park, about two miles from the victims’ apartment in the 1600 block of 17th Street SE, in Fairlawn. Police said the victims, Ervin Phillip Ingraham and Ronnetta Hurley-Brown, both 21, were found the afternoon of Jan. 30. Both were pronounced dead on the scene. Police said two children, ages 2 and 1, were also in the apartment at the time. Both were unharmed. Authorities on Friday declined to discuss a possible motive or describe what led them to the arrest. Additional details will be made public when Sweeney has his initial court appearance. At the time of the slayings, D.C. Police Lt. Anthony Haythe said that it appeared the victims had been targeted. He did not comment on the relationship of the children to the victims. A caregiver discovered the bodies during a routine visit.


New at the top: Marvin Richardson is chief executive officer at Mirixa

open our own pharmacies there. I’ve always been sort of an entrepreneur. We started with one location and ended up with four. We look back very fondly on those 11 years when we were in the business together and basically bootstrapped the business and then sold it, but it was a challenge. It was really there that I began to look at pharmacies differently. It sort of hit me that we had drug distribution in this country backwards. Once a patient is institutionalized . . . then their adherence to medication therapy goes way up. But when they’re at home, which is where they have the highest quality of life, we throw them a bag of pills and say, “Good luck, figure it out.” That’s really when the concept of DailyMed struck me. [DailyMed is a system that organizes a patient’s monthly prescriptions, over-the-counter medications and even vitamins into presorted packets.] After I sold the businesses, I got an opportunity to work for Rite Aid and oversee their pharmacy operations. In the back of my mind, I always held the premise that if I had the opportunity to launch a packaging solution, that was something that I’d like to do. In 2003, there was a grocery retailer in Minneapolis that wanted to put pharmacies in its grocery store locations. It gave us the opportunity, through those 21 pharmacies, to launch DailyMed. The product grew very, very quickly. We caught the eye of several insurance companies who were looking for solutions for their chronic patients living at home. It became obvious over time that DailyMed was going to be a product unto itself, so we sold off the retail stores and primarily focused on DailyMed for a number of years, growing that business. Arcadia eventually acquired DailyMed, and it gave us a platform to really expand it. We sold the company to Walgreens . . . which led to the Mirixa opportunity. They were looking for a CEO. The more I learned about Mirixa, the more I got involved — it was really a good fit for me. Mirixa is really focused on making sure that we are working with payers to improve the quality of care for their members, improve the quality of life for the patients that we work with and then reducing overall medical costs. — Interview with Kathy Orton Marvin Richardson Position: Career highlights: Age: Education: Personal:


John Shields, who turned Trader Joe’s into a nationwide grocery chain, dies at 82

store. New outlets could not open fast enough for many of its devoted shoppers. In some places, people voted to change local zoning ordinances to allow the store into a neighborhood. Trader Joe’s carried many one-of-a-kind items, with low-priced wines and a wide selection of cheeses, olives, nuts and other products. The stores were much smaller than most supermarkets, and the narrow aisles were packed with boxes and barrels to give the feel of an outdoor bazaar. Clerks wore brightly colored Hawaiian shirts and were encouraged to be chatty with customers. The store sold many items under proprietary labels, sometimes called “Trader Jose’s” or “Trader Ming’s.” Its Charles Shaw brand of wines became known in California as “Two-Buck Chuck” for its longtime sale price of $1.99 a bottle. “Trader Joe’s is a store for well-educated people — people who are overeducated and underpaid,” Coulombe told Supermarket News in 2008. The company was sold in 1979 to a German conglomerate owned by the Albrecht family, which also operates the Aldi grocery chain, but it retained the style and culture fostered by Coulombe. When Mr. Shields became chief executive in 1988, there were 27 Trader Joe’s stores, all along the West Coast. If the business were to grow, it would have to move east, he said. “After a serious study,” Mr. Shields said in a 2002 interview with the Graziadio Business Review, a publication of the Pepperdine University business school, “we became convinced the 500-mile corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C., was truly Trader Joe’s country. It has more colleges and universities than any other area” in the United States. In 1996, two Trader Joe’s stores opened in Boston, launching an eastward expansion that has continued. One of the most difficult things for Mr. Shields, though, was to preserve the casual California feeling that Coulombe had instilled. A look at those who have died this year. “I still had real reservations whether we could transfer the company culture 2,500 miles away,” Mr. Shields said in the Graziadio Business Review interview. “We finally decided if we could move a cadre of about 25 existing employees to the East Coast, we could do it.” One employee transplanted to New York told the Los Angeles Times in 1997 that people on the East Coast were suspicious of the outgoing and friendly demeanor of the store’s California staff. “They look at me,” he said, “like, ‘What’s


Navy war games face suit over impact on whales, dolphins

permit the Navy needed to conduct the exercise, failing to consider the full impact on numerous species under its protection. That animals should die for the common good is not in dispute, the lawyers said, but the current exercise will take too many. “The more we look at the Navy’s activities, the more we’re finding the potential for harm,” said Michael Jasny, the director of NRDC’s marine mammal protection project. Citing the Navy’s estimates, he said the impact of the current exercise on animals will “increase more than 11 times over the previous five-year period.” The fisheries service declined to comment, citing the pending lawsuit. But the Navy emphatically denounced the activists’ characterization of their operations. In an environmental impact statement that the fisheries service requires as part of the permitting process for the exercise, the Navy estimated that the exercises would result in 155 deaths of marine mammals, 2,000 permanent injuries and nearly 10 million instances of temporary hearing loss and disruptions of behavior. An adult, female beaked whale swims off the Kona coast in Hawaii. These and other marine life are at the center of a dispute over the Navy's use of sonar, missiles and machine guns. (Robin W. Baird/Cascadia Research Collective/Associated Press) Conservation lawyers seized on those numbers to describe the harm, but the Navy called that unfair. They “are not annual numbers but actually cover a five-year period” and “represent worst-case scenarios,” said Kenneth Hess, a spokesman for the Navy. “Despite decades of the Navy conducting very similar activities in these same areas, there is no evidence of these types of impacts,” Hess said. Permits the Navy requires for the training “can only be issued if our activities will have no more than a negligible impact on marine mammal populations,” he said. That assessment was backed by Brandon Southall, a former fisheries service researcher who researches at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “I think the numbers” citing potential harm presented by the Navy and NMFS “are overestimates,” he said. “Overall, I think the concerns are being amplified because the conservation groups are interested in getting people’s attention, and they get it by saying these animals are all going to die,” Southall said. “This is where the Navy is kind of damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” he said. “If you assume the worst-case scenario, using models that have different levels of


Neighbors are on display when a house goes on the market on your street

only ever sold one house — I’ve only ever bought two — and I remember it as a fairly tension-filled process. At least the “for sale” sign planted out front didn’t say “Must see inside!” Have you seen those? They strike me as the real estate equivalent of “She’s got a great personality.” Express lane, Part 1 The other day, My Lovely Wife sent me to the mom-and-pop grocery store in our neighborhood. We were one ingredient short for a dish she was planning to make. That ingredient was a hot pepper. I plucked a single jalapeno from the pile in the produce department, carried it to the checkout and put it on the conveyor belt. The little green pepper looked a bit silly sitting there all by itself. “I don’t need a bag,” I said to the cashier, an older lady, as she rang it up. “Do you want me to get someone to help you carry it out?” she asked. “No,” I answered. “I’ll just bring the car around.” Express lane, Part 2 When I’m grocery shopping for just a few items, I try to avoid unfortunate combinations. Throw a tub of Vaseline, a pair of rubber gloves and a box of mouse traps on the conveyor belt, and you’re liable to raise the eyebrows of the people in line behind you. You may have perfectly innocent and legitimate reasons for purchasing the products. Just because you’re buying a pack of hearing-aid batteries, a bottle of Kaopectate and a Swanson Hungry-Man popcorn chicken with spiced rum BBQ sauce frozen dinner doesn’t mean you’ve got a weird evening planned. Help a District school Speaking of grocery shopping, have you linked your store loyalty card to Ketcham Elementary yet? That’s the D.C. public school I’m hoping you’ll support, if you aren’t already supporting your own child’s. For Giant’s A+ School Rewards program, go to www.giantfood.com/aplus, put in your 12-digit Giant card number and the first three letters of your last name, then enter the Ketcham identification number: 00247. If you shop at Harris Teeter, go to www.harristeeter.com and click where it says to re-link your VIC card. The school’s number is 3066. For Safeway, go to escrip.com and click on “My eScrip” at the bottom of the page. Sign in and search for Ketcham. (You must have re-registered your card by Nov. 1.) Twitter: @johnkelly For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.


Governments, groups striving to become as agile as the Ebola virus

Archie C. Gbessay, coordinator of the Active Case Finders and Awareness Team in West Point, a slum in Monrovia, Liberia, discusses efforts to combat Ebola with his team in a school classroom Sept. 20 . (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post) Archie C. Gbessay, coordinator of the Active Case Finders and Awareness Team in West Point, a large slum in Monrovia, Liberia, discusses efforts to combat Ebola with his team in a school classroom in September. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post) The news out of West Africa in recent days — good and bad — has demonstrated a fundamental challenge in the fight against Ebola: The virus is more nimble than the human response to it. The landscape of infection and disease has changed dramatically in recent weeks, even as institutions have largely stuck to blueprints drafted months ago. The looming question now is whether governments and other organizations can find a way to become as agile as the virus, which has vanished suddenly in some hard-hit places while erupting just as quickly in new locations. The first Ebola treatment unit built in Liberia by the U.S. military is expected to open in the coming days, about two months after President Obama announced that he would send troops to supplement the civilian effort against the disease. But even before that first ETU has become operational, Liberia has seen a sharp drop in new infections and has empty beds in Ebola wards. The new ETUs, temporary structures that can’t easily be used for anything else, may not treat many patients. Up the coast of West Africa, Sierra Leone has made far less progress in the fight against Ebola. The country had three times as many new infections as Liberia in the most recent three-week monitoring period, according to the World Health Organization. The United States has sent troops to Liberia but not to Sierra Leone. Thousands more U.S. soldiers are to join the American mission to fight Ebola in Liberia, as a ship loaded with aid arrives at the sea port of Buchanan. Guinea, the third West African country hit hard by the virus, is another landscape entirely. It is bigger than Liberia and Sierra Leone combined. There was a drop in cases in the capital, Conakry, over the summer, but the virus recently surfaced again in some neighborhoods. In addition, hot spots continue to pop up in remote places, and health


Prescription narcotics are potent painkillers, but they can be deadly

of overdoses occur in people prescribed the drugs by a single physician, not in those who “doctor-shopped” or who got the drugs on the black market. And a third of those were taking a low dose. Used properly, opioids can ease severe short-term pain from, say, surgery or a broken bone. But people run into trouble when they inadvertently misuse the drugs — combining them with alcohol or other drugs (such as sleeping pills), taking them in too high a dose or for too long, or using them while driving or in other situations when they need to be alert. The general public and health-care providers harbor outdated and dangerous notions about opioids. Here are three of the biggest misconceptions and the facts you need to know to stay safe: ●Misconception: Opioids work well for chronic pain. People who take opioids for more than a few weeks often develop tolerance, so they require higher doses, which breeds dependence. And although higher doses can ease pain, they commonly cause nausea and constipation, disrupt your immune system and sex life, and leave you feeling too fuzzy-headed to participate in things such as physical activity that can speed your recovery. And in a cruel twist, the drugs can make some people more sensitive to pain. The safer approach: ● Misconception: Opioids are not addictive when used to treat pain. Between 5 and 25 percent of people who use prescription pain pills long-term get addicted. Fewer women are dependent on prescription painkillers than men, but they may become dependent more quickly and are more likely to doctor-shop. The safer approach: ● Misconception: Extended-release versions are safer. Opioids such as hydromorphone (Exalgo), oxycodone (OxyContin and related generics), morphine (Avinza, MS Contin and generics), and the newly approved Zohydro ER stay in the body longer and are usually stronger than short-acting opioids. They should be reserved for patients who need round-the-clock relief. But doctors sometimes prescribe them for convenience — patients need to take fewer pills — and because they believe that long-acting drugs are less likely to cause a drug high and lead to addiction. But there’s no evidence those drugs work better or are safer than short-acting ones. The safer approach: Copyright 2014. Consumers Union of United States Inc. For further guidance, go to www.ConsumerReports.org/Health, where more detailed information, including CR’s ratings of prescription drugs, treatments, hospitals and healthy-living products, is available to subscribers.


California teenager earns funding for his low-cost Braille printer for blind people

project for a science fair has morphed into a family-run start-up, with mom Malini Banerjee the president and chief executive and dad Neil Banerjee on the board of directors and also serving as Shubham’s chauffeur and chaperone to press events, interviews and business meetings. The money from Intel will allow the Santa Clara, California, family to hire engineers and product designers, allowing Shubham to return his focus to school. “It’s a classic Silicon Valley story, isn’t it?” said Neil Banerjee, who works as director of software operations for Intel. “Everyone else started in a garage, but [Shubham] started at the kitchen table.” The investment also earns Shubham a place in history. He is two years younger than British entrepreneur Nick D’Aloisio, who was previously the world’s youngest tech entrepreneur with venture-capital backing when he received an investment for his start-up Summly, a news-reading app, in 2011, according to business groups and media organizations that track venture investments. Yahoo later bought Summly for a reported $30 million. Braigo includes software that Shubham created using Intel’s new Edison chip — an inexpensive development platform to power wearable devices and other gadgets built by hobbyists — and a printer. Shubham published the code for the software on the Web so other developers can use it, but the family has a patent pending for the printer. Intel engineers, including his dad, helped Shubham build the prototype. Organizations for the visually impaired welcome the prospect of an affordable Braille printer, which they say could give blind people better access to literature and news. The device also could improve Braille reading rates, which are about 8.5 percent among the 60,000 blind schoolchildren in the country, according to the American Printing House for the Blind. Braille printers start at about $2,000 for personal use and go up to at least $10,000 for schools and businesses. Braigo plans to sell its printer for about $350. “We had no idea that someone could reinvent a Braille printer and bring the cost down by an order of magnitude,” said Mike Bell, Intel vice president and general manager of the company’s New Devices Group. “We think this has big potential to help a lot of people.” In five to 10 years, Shubham could be done with school, with Braigo perhaps a distant memory. But whether or not the company survives, the experience is almost certainly something his parents will long hold


Washington-area obituaries of note

Obituaries of residents from the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia. Beverly E. Coleman, education officer Beverly E. Coleman, 75, an officer of the U.S. Department of Education who specialized in programs for the gifted and talented, the at-risk, historically black colleges and educational research, died Oct. 6 at a hospital in Annapolis, Md. She died of complications of bladder cancer and an infection of the aorta, said a brother, Richard K. Bowden. Dr. Coleman, a resident of Bowie, Md., was born in Memphis. She was principal of an elementary school in southern Illinois and a specialist in Chicago in equal educational opportunities for the former Office of Education before moving to the Washington area and joining the Department of Education in 1980. She retired in 2006. Doris B. Wallace, Army wife Doris B. Wallace, 98, an Army wife and homemaker, died Oct. 15 at a nursing home in Alexandria, Va. The cause was cardiac and respiratory arrest, said a son, Scott Cairns. Mrs. Wallace, an Alexandria resident, was born Doris Brougher at an Army base in the Panama Canal Zone, where her father was serving. Mrs. Wallace, who was widowed three times, accompanied her husbands, two of whom died in military aircraft accidents, on Army assignments throughout the United States and Europe before settling in Alexandria in 1958. A look at those who have died this year. Charles S. Springate, pathologist Charles S. Springate, 82, who retired in 1994 as a staff pathologist at the former Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, died Oct. 16 at a nursing care center in Gaithersburg, Md. The cause was pneumonia, said a daughter, Grace Leonard. Dr. Springate was born in Manchester, Iowa. He was the chief deputy medical examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia and an assistant pathology professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, before he moved to Silver Spring and joined AFIP’s aerospace division in 1981. There, he conducted about 130 investigations of fatal aircraft accidents around the world. His cases included the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. Robert T. Watson, Commerce Dept. physicist Robert T. Watson, 92, a physicist at the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration from 1971 until his retirement in 1987, died Oct. 19 at a medical center in Annapolis, Md. The cause of death was pneumonia, said a son, Todd Watson. Dr. Watson, a resident of Crofton, Md., was born


Meryl Streep, John Dingell and 17 others to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

Americans tapped to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (AP) President Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom this month to 19 recipients ranging from actress Marlo Thomas to physicist Mildred Dresselhaus. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor. It is awarded to people who have made “especially meritorious contributions” in a variety of areas, including U.S. security, national interests and the arts, according to the White House. The actors, songwriters, activists, public servants and others who will be honored in the Nov. 24 ceremony include actress Meryl Streep; journalist Tom Brokaw; former professional golfer Charles Sifford, who helped desegregate the Professional Golfers Association of America; economist Robert Solow; composer Stephen Sondheim; and outgoing Rep. John D. Dingell Jr. (D-Mich.), the longest-serving member of Congress in U.S. history. A number of recipients will receive the award posthumously, including choreographer Alvin Ailey and Edward R. Roybal, the first Mexican American to be elected to the House of Representatives. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, civil rights activists who were killed while working to register black voters in Mississippi during “Freedom Summer” 50 years ago, will also receive the award. “I look forward to presenting these nineteen bold, inspiring Americans with our Nation’s highest civilian honor,” Obama said in a statement. “From activists who fought for change to artists who explored the furthest reaches of our imagination; from scientists who kept America on the cutting edge to public servants who help write new chapters in our American story, these citizens have made extraordinary contributions to our country and the world.” The Presidential Medal of Freedom was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Since then, more than 500 people have received the award. One of those receiving the award this year will be Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy. Obama will also present the award to Stevie Wonder, who received the Library of Congress’s Gershwin Prize in 2009. At that ceremony, Obama said that Wonder’s “You and I” was his wedding song. “I think it’s fair to say that had I not been a Stevie Wonder fan, Michelle might not have dated me. We might not have married,” Obama said. “The fact that we agreed on Stevie was part of the essence of our courtship.” Wonder still wows Stevie Wonder, a medal recipient, signed, sealed and delivered a fine D.C. show Sunday. C2


From 1789 to the Hamilton: Chef Anthony Lombardo likes getting back to the rush

year, ranks third on Restaurant Business magazine’s list of the top-grossing 100 independents nationwide. The Hamilton, at just shy of $18 million, ranks 15th. They are two of only three D.C. restaurants on the list; the third is Sequoia, on the banks of the Potomac, at No. 34. There’s always competitive pressure, though, some of it nearby. One source is Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab, which entered the market in January as part of a group that has three outlets in the top 12. Is that why Meyer decided to shake things up this year, moving Sal Ferro from the Hamilton to Old Ebbitt and Lombardo to the Hamilton? He demurs when asked. Clyde’s chief executive John Laytham “told me he never believed ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ ” Meyer says. “He said you always have to go forward and do new things. I feel very fortunate to have two guys who are based in fine dining and willing to take on saloon concepts and execute very well in a larger format.” The Hamilton’s House Mustard. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) Lobster and Farro With Lobster Beurre Rosé. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) Saved by cooking One reason Lombardo gives for wanting to make the move to the Hamilton is his appreciation for “organization and structure,” but that wasn’t always something he possessed. Now 32, Lombardo was born in Detroit and raised outside the city in Sterling Heights, a melting-pot community of Chaldeans, Lebanese, Greeks, Albanians, Macedonians and other Italians. Food was important to his family, “as it is in all Italian families: Sunday dinners, the whole bit,” Lombardo says, but it was not a particular interest of his. Neither was school. He fell in with a rough crowd and “was basically a hoodlum,” he says. At the end of his rope, Lombardo’s father, Tom, drove his son to the Lone Star Steakhouse and told him to get a job, any job. “I said I’d either see him in the morgue or in prison if he didn’t change, and I think that really shook him up,” Tom Lombardo said in a phone interview from Detroit. “The restaurant business saved my life,” Lombardo says. He started as a dishwasher. Then one line cook beat another up one night, and the police carted them off. There was no one to cook, so Lombardo stepped up. He loved the


Don’t ignore military suicides

Regarding the Nov. 9 Outlook article on five myths about military suicides : Author Yochi Dreazen said that military suicides are “background noise to many Americans, unpleasant reminders of wars most of us have forgotten about,” and it is crucial we pay attention to them. One night, when I was less than a year into military service in Israel , word and sirens spread through the big base that a recruit had shot himself in the head in a bathroom stall. The military should not wash its hands of suicides. The military and the Defense Department should offer mental help to veterans and soldiers as much as needed and, most important, allow discussion so military suicides won’t stay in the background. Daniel Farber-Ball, Washington


NTSB: Pilot unaware of co-pilot’s mistake that may have caused Virgin Galactic crash

On Nov. 1, Virgin Galactic pilot Todd Ericson talks with National Transportation Safety Board acting Chairman Christopher Hart and investigators at the SpaceShipTwo crash site in Mojave, Calif. (National Transportation Safety Board via AP) The pilot of the Virgin Galactic rocket that crashed in California last month told investigators he was unaware that his co-pilot prematurely triggered a system that may have caused the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday. The investigation has focused on a special “feathering” system on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo that is intended to slow the craft as it prepares to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere. Working much like the flaps on an airplane, the twin tails rotate up at an extreme angle to create wind resistance. In keeping with the traditional nature of the agency’s preliminary reports, the NTSB outlined the facts of the crash without drawing conclusions about its cause. A detailed investigative report that may reveal the likely cause is many months away. The co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, 39, died in the Oct. 31 crash in the Mojave Desert. Pilot Peter Siebold, 43, ejected from the rocket at an altitude of about 50,000 feet and parachuted to safety. Wednesday’s report said Siebold “was extracted from the vehicle as a result of the break-up sequence and unbuckled from his seat at some point before the parachute deployed automatically.” Photos appear to show the dramatic midair explosion of the Virgin Galactic passenger spaceship before its deadly crash. Speaking from the crash site three days later, acting NTSB chairman Christopher Hart said that it appeared Alsbury prematurely unlocked the “feathering” system. Hart said the feathers are not designed to engage until the spacecraft reaches a speed of Mach 1.4, or more than 1,000 mph. According to Wednesday’s NTSB report, Siebold “was unaware that the feather system had been unlocked early by the copilot.” Working from cockpit video and data, the NTSB investigators on the scene said they believed that when the feathers unlocked early at a speed of 760 mph, “aerodynamic forces” caused the feathers to rotate. Within a few seconds, the craft began to disintegrate. The NTSB said Wednesday that it “continues to examine the aerodynamic and inertial forces that acted on the vehicle during the launch.” Investigators also continue to examine the wreckage. Videos and other cockpit data are under review at the NTSB Recorders Laboratory in Washington. A contractor working for Virgin Galactic, Scaled


Review: At the NSO, a composer in delightful dialogue with Mozart

the second-movement cadenza, in particular, the return of the Mozart seemed too pat to paper over the immediacy of the vision that had rent it. In the third movement, though, her music played off Mozart’s antic humor, picking up on a little stutter that he had written for the flute and amplifying it so that the flute twice seemed to lose its way before reassuring the ear, with a little lilting wink, that it was only kidding. Auerbach then took Goldman through the same theme bounced up over three octaves, just in case anyone was doubting his control. The main focus of the evening was supposed to be Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” — Friday night’s program, in fact, will be entirely devoted to the piece, with a “Beyond the Score” presentation about the work replacing the Mozart and Auerbach before the intermission. (The Mozart and Auerbach will return on Saturday night.) I wasn’t sure what Eschenbach would do with this piece — and I found myself surprised by what I found to be one of his most intriguing performances. I think of Eschenbach as a conductor prone to big gestures and big emotions. What he brought to the “Rite,” though, was a sense of refinement — not something one would think of as necessarily desirable in a piece usually conceived in terms of searing rawness, but in practice quite compelling. Conducting this fiendishly difficult piece entirely from memory, Eschenbach was more focused and precise than I’ve seen him, and kept everything contained, so that the principal impression was of the beauty of the instrumental timbres; even when the strings were violently slashing their bows in unison, there was a mellowness to the sound. And even in forte passages, the conductor held something in reserve until, finally, unleashing the bass drum and then the orchestra in an explosion in the second half of the work. I could quibble about balances between brass and strings, but it didn’t seem important against the fact that I had gotten a new impression of a much-played piece. I might not want to hear “Rite” played with this sense of majesty and stateliness all the time, but on Thursday, it made a thought-provoking conclusion to a thoroughly engaging evening. The program repeats Saturday night; on Friday night, the “Rite of Spring” will be the focus of a “Beyond the Score” presentation followed by a full performance.


A photo exhibit at the Embassy of Switzerland depicts victims of war

his subjects, who are seen engaged in activities that include learning carpentry, distributing food, and even dancing. Other shots focus on vistas — a destroyed road; temporary structures in refugee camps. And there are contemplations of people waiting — enduring. “He very much respects [his subjects]; he does not expose them,” the ambassador said, calling the subtlety of Mohr’s approach “the interesting element that distinguishes him from most other photographers I have met who are dealing with people in armed conflicts or violence.” All in all, a Mohr shot is “not a kind of photo where you see within two seconds what it is about,” the ambassador said. Rather, these war-themed images are more subtle. “The photos invite a discussion, a reflection,” Dahinden said. They are “photos that start to tell you the history surrounding victims — and you have to think, by yourself, how the story will continue.” A star is reborn Hailu Mergia still drives a taxi — but he spends less time behind the wheel. “I almost drive part-time now, because I have to practice a lot,” the Ethiopian-bred musician said, describing the balance between his career as an internationally renowned keyboardist-arranger-composer and his longtime day job as a Dulles Airport cab driver. As The Washington Post’s Chris Richards reported in June 2013, Mergia was a star in his native land, performing with Walias Band, a mainstay of the Addis Ababa popular music scene in the 1970s. The group relocated to D.C. for a club residency in the early 1980s, and Mergia stayed in the area. The Fort Washington resident kept away from live performance for decades. But, even while working as a cab driver, he played music for himself, regularly. His discipline would stand him in good stead. Last year, the label Awesome Tapes from Africa gave a new release to “Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument,” a 1985 solo album that featured Mergia playing the accordion and a number of electronic instruments. The reissue, giving broader availability to an album that had attained hit status in Ethiopia, seems also to have jump-started Mergia’s performance career. He toured Europe, and has performed at locales such as Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right and the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. On Nov. 22, Mergia will perform at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, where he will appear with Low Mentality, a world-music-inflected group that has served as his collaborating backup band.


Two Andean bear cubs born at the National Zoo

Andean bear Billie Jean gave birth to two cubs this week at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. (Mehgan Murphy/Smithsonian Institution) The biggest news from the National Zoo this week came in two very tiny packages — a pair of cubs born to the Andean bear Billie Jean. So far, Billie Jean has been an excellent mother to her new cubs, zoo officials say. After all, she has been through this before — the 8-year-old bear has had two previous litters. The cubs’ birth is especially significant because Andean bears are very rare. Only four litters of these bears have been born in North American zoos in the past nine years. In the wild, Andean bears are a threatened species. The first year after Andean bears are born is a risky one — baby bears are vulnerable to disease and other dangers — so zookeepers are doing everything they can to make sure that Billie Jean is able to care for her newborns in peace and quiet. She and her cubs will be in a private enclosure until spring. Not even zookeepers can visit her; instead, they are monitoring the three bears via a video camera. “When it comes to her cubs she is very protective,” curator Craig Saffoe said of Billie Jean. “We want things to be very quiet right now so she feels comfortable.” But two of Billie Jean’s other offspring, as well as the new cubs’ father, Cisco, can be seen at the lower entrance to the zoo’s American Trail. Saffoe hopes that the birth of the new cubs will get visitors more interested in the exhibit. If you decide to visit and can’t find the bears, Saffoe recommends looking up. “These are mountain bears, so they love climbing,” he said. “They make nests up in the tree like giant birds.” — Sarah Kaplan More from KidsPost: U.S. zoos welcome baby animals GALLERY: New life at zoos worldwide In the hunt for food, bats seem to bug one another


Plate Lab: Karaage is like Japanese fried chicken

marinated in soy sauce, mirin, salt and pepper, and coated in wheat flour before frying. Daikaya marinates its thigh pieces in soy, scallions, ginger and garlic before dusting them with potato starch and finishing them off in the deep fryer. The preparation differentiates the dish from tempura, in which items aren’t marinated but are battered before frying. The crispy karaage bites come with a dipping sauce. Japanese Kewpie Mayonnaise, a beloved brand that Fukushima says “has a twang to it” is traditional. Daikaya’s dip — the mayonnaise mixed with Japanese chili peppers, pureed garlic and ginger and a bit of lemon juice — is “an ode to McDonald’s,” he said. That familiarity and the newfound popularity of izakaya-influenced restaurants may have helped karaage take off locally. “It’s one of our most accessible dishes for anybody who is unfamiliar with Japanese food, so it’s fairly popular,” Seki said. Karaage is so revered in Japan, that there is an official karaage association, which issues standards and ratings of restaurants that serve it. The association names the city of Nakatsu in Oita Prefecture as the “holy land” of karaage, according to Seki’s translation. In addition to Izakaya Seki and Daikaya, you’ll find karaage on the menu at Donburi in Adams Morgan, where it is available as both a side dish and a featured ingredient in the restaurant’s Karaagedon rice bowl (pictured here, with nori and egg). At Daikaya, it also can be ordered at brunch, served with a fish-shaped, red-bean-paste-filled waffle, wasabi butter and maple syrup — a Japanese version of chicken and waffles. Karaage pairs particularly well with beer. “I prefer Orion beer,” said Fukushima, and not only because it’s brewed in his home prefecture, Okinawa. “It comes in a big bottle, which is fun because you can share and pour it for everyone. It’s a little more social.” As with chicken nuggets here, karaage is both bar food and kids’ food in Japan. The dish therefore reminds Fukushima of nights at izakayas as well as lunches at school. In fact, the karaage he serves tastes the same as the karaage that was packed in his bento box. “It is my mom’s recipe,” he said. “She gave me the nod of approval.” More Plate Lab 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.


Commentary: Richmond Fed president says it’s time to end the era of “too big to fail”

Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. On Aug. 5, the Fed and the FDIC announced the completion of reviews of the second round of resolution plans submitted in 2013 by the 11 banks that make up the first group of filers. These firms submitted their original plans in 2012. In a joint announcement, the agencies noted the banks had made some significant improvements from their first submissions. But the agencies also outlined several shortcomings, including, to quote the announcement, “the failure to make, or even to identify, the kinds of changes in firm structure and practices that would be necessary to enhance the prospects for orderly resolution.” Clearly, substantial work remains to be done. Market participants must have well-anchored expectations that government-funded rescues will not be forthcoming. Ideally, policymakers would act in a manner that is consistent with those expectations. But in turbulent times, as we’ve seen, it may be tempting to put seemingly urgent short-run considerations ahead of the goal of establishing and preserving a record of precedents that keep market expectations well anchored. This is a particular danger for central banks, whose independent balance sheets place their fiscal actions beyond the scope of the legislative appropriations process. Credible commitment to orderly unassisted resolutions thus may require eliminating the government’s ability to provide ad hoc rescues. This would mean repealing the Federal Reserve’s remaining emergency lending powers and further restraining the Fed’s ability to lend to failing institutions. And once robust and credible resolution plans are in place, we would be able to responsibly wind down the FDIC’s orderly liquidation authority and related financing mechanisms. We must make resolution via the Bankruptcy Code a viable option for large complex financial institutions. That means doing the hard work of making living wills credible, and it means policymakers and regulators must commit to using them. This is a daunting task. But I find the alternative dismaying — the specter of an ever-increasing share of the financial sector effectively guaranteed by taxpayers. That outcome is not in the best interest of our country. Jeffrey M. Lacker is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. This commentary is excerpted from remarks he delivered during a Nov. 5 forum hosted by George Washington University’s Center for Law, Economics and Finance. More from Capital Business: For a daily rundown of Washington area business news, sign up for the “CapBiz A.M.” e-mail newsletter.


Washington-area business diary for week of Nov. 17

Short takes on the week's announcements and deals. Acquisitions McLean-based Cvent, a developer of cloud-based event management software, said it has acquired Atlanta-based Decision Street, a developer of hotel sale intelligence software. Terms were not disclosed. Waltham, Mass.-based defense giant Raytheon said it has acquired Herndon-based surveillance and cybersecurity technology company Blackbird Technologies for $420 million. Fairfax-based technology and management contractor ICF International said it has completed its previously announced $295 million acquisition of Minneapolis-based digital marketing company Olson. Awards Junior Achievement of Greater Washington Expansions The owners of Ellicott City restaurant China Village plan to open a second restaurant, called Chinese Gourmet Bistro, at Cabin John Shopping Center in Cabin John. The restaurant is expected to open in mid to late December. Johannesburg-based restaurant chain Nando’s Peri-Peri has opened a location at 6802 Springfield Mall, Springfield, VA 22150. The owner of Fairfax restaurant Pizzarella’s has opened a second location at 700 Field Stone Dr. NE, Leesburg, VA 20176. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines said it plans to add weekly service between Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport and San Jose del Cabo/Los Cabos, Mexico, starting June 13, 2015. San Diego-based pet retailer Petco has opened a store at 7609 Crain Hwy., Upper Marlboro, MD 20772. Reston-based home builder Comstock Homes of Washington said it has expanded into Stafford County with the acquisition of 24 developed building lots at the Estates at Leeland in Fredericksburg. Funding Tysons Corner-based WidePoint, a cloud platform developer, said it has raised $11.5 million through a public offering of common stock. Start-ups & new businesses Edgewater-based Brick Cos. has opened co-working space Launch Workplaces at 9841 Washingtonian Blvd., Gaithersburg, MD 20878. — Compiled by Shawn Selby


No sign of an explosion on SpaceShipTwo

A photo caption accompanying the Nov. 6 Economy & Business article “Spacecraft crash shows test-pilot dangers” stated that an “experimental rocket plane” exploded. SpaceShipTwo did not explode; its fuel tank and rocket engine were both found intact at the crash scene. Flight-deck video shows a premature unlocking of the deceleration “feather” mechanism while the craft was still accelerating, rather than during a free-fall descent with the rocket engine off. Accident investigators have not issued their final report, but an accidental feathering during powered ascent would make SpaceShipTwo aerodynamically unstable and perhaps tear the craft apart. Bill Edwards, Frederick


U.S. weighs expanded CIA training, arming of Syrian allies struggling against Assad

5,000 fighters a year — roughly the same output that Pentagon officials have said they aim to achieve. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel testified this week on Capitol Hill that preparations for the Pentagon training program are now “complete,” and that “Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other partner nations have agreed to host training sites.” But recruiting and vetting will not begin until Congress authorizes funding, Hagel said, adding that it would take eight to 12 months “to begin making a difference on the ground.” Acceleration of the CIA training program could help compensate for that delay. It could also address an imbalance in Obama’s strategy that involves thousands of U.S. military personnel in Iraq to help that country’s military regroup but no comparable ground force to work with in Syria. U.S.-led airstrikes began early in the summer after major Iraqi cities including Mosul were overrun by the Islamic State, a group that severed ties with al-Qaeda last year, declared a border-straddling caliphate and made propaganda videos of its executions of U.S. and British citizens. The group’s haven in Syria is seen by U.S. intelligence officials and military planners as one of the main obstacles to Obama’s declared aim to “degrade and eventually destroy” the Islamic State. Months of airstrikes have slowed the Islamic State’s momentum but have not dislodged it from strongholds in the Syrian city of Raqqah and elsewhere. U.S. defense officials have outlined a goal of assembling a force of up to 15,000 whose main objective will not be fighting Assad but gradually prying territory away from the Islamic State. U.S. officials said their vetting efforts will focus on identifying recruits who are willing and motivated to fight the Islamic State, but they acknowledge that enforcing that agenda may prove difficult once the fighters leave CIA and U.S. military camps. “There’s going to be fighting in Syria that we cannot necessarily predict,” retired Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, the administration’s coordinator for the Syria and Iraq coalition, said in an interview with Al Jazeera last month. The hope, he said, is that U.S.-trained forces will be able to hold their own against Assad’s military, al-Nusra and other groups but will focus their offensive operations against the Islamic State. “We are dealing with that component first because we must,” Dempsey said. “They’re a threat to our allies. They are a threat to us.” Missy Ryan contributed to this report.


Local digest: A roundup of D.C.-area news briefs

THE DISTRICT Man dies after Thursday shooting A man wounded Thursday in a shooting in Southeast Washington has died, D.C. police said. They said Tyrone Lee Lewis, 27, of Southeast was shot in the 300 block of 37th Street SE. — Peter Hermann Judge dismisses suit over health exchange A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit that threatened funding for the District’s online health insurance exchange. The decision came two days before the start of the second enrollment period under the federal Affordable Care Act. D.C. Health Link’s $28 million budget is funded in part by a 1 percent gross-receipts tax on health insurers. The tax is applied not only to plans sold through the federally mandated exchange but also to long-term care, disability, vision and dozens of other health-related plans not available on the exchange. The decision to tax plans not sold on the exchange prompted a lawsuit by the American Council of Life Insurers, which argued on behalf of member companies that it was improper to do so under the terms of the Affordable Care Act, which authorized state-based exchanges, as well as on constitutional grounds. U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell granted the city’s motion to dismiss the case, writing that Congress “intended in the ACA to encourage States to operate their own Exchanges and to give the States broad authority to provide adequate funding for those Exchanges when federal funding ceased.” — Mike DeBonis VIRGINIA 4th teen suspect in killing surrenders Deion Moses, 17, who was wanted in connection with the killing of a Woodbridge High School student, surrendered Friday, Prince William County police said. Moses is charged with conspiracy in the slaying of Brenden Wilson, 16, who was shot near the school Monday. Moses was the last suspect taken into custody of the four people police have described as linked to the death. While searching for Moses, police publicly identified him, although he is still a juvenile. They said a court order authorized release of his name. maryland Bank vault allegedly targeted in theft According to the adage, banks are targets for crime because “that’s where the money is.” But in banks, the big bucks are usually kept in the vault. Still, it appears that the cash is not always safe, even in the vault. Rockville said Friday that an recent audit at the a Columbia Bank branch on Research Boulevard found the vault


Animal Watch: Pets rescued from hot SUV at National Zoo

National Zoo, Among cases received by the Washington Humane Society.


More veterans press VA to recognize medical marijuana as treatment option

ask, don’t tell,” said Michael Krawitz, a former Air Force staff sergeant and the director of Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access. VA medical staff have warned that this culture is making for a dangerous situation, especially as more states legalize medical marijuana, because doctors do not know about all of the medications their patients are using. Patients are not routinely given drug tests, but those who are prescribed large amounts of opiates and risk overdosing can be asked to undergo screenings, which can turn up marijuana use. In 2011, VA issued a directive that said patients who were participating in state marijuana programs for pain cannot lose their VA benefits. VA added that it is up to individual patients to craft their “treatment plans” in consultation with their doctors. Some patients say their VA doctors are making them choose between their prescription drugs and marijuana. “Doctors and administrators wrongly assume that the use of marijuana along with opiates is unsafe,” Krawitz said. A study published last month in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine reported that “people already taking opioids for pain may supplement with medical marijuana and be able to lower their painkiller dose, thus lowering their risk of overdose.” The study, written by Marcus A. Bachhuber, a researcher at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and several colleagues, found that “medical cannabis laws are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality rates.” Scott Murphy, a retired Army specialist who is the head of Veterans for Safe Access and Compassionate Care, has been compiling a petition asking that marijuana no longer be classified as a Schedule I drug. “Veterans in states without medical marijuana laws feel they need to lie to their physicians for the justifiable fear of losing their earned benefits,” Murphy writes in the petition. To counter widespread perceptions about pot users, Murphy makes sure to wear a suit when he lobbies on Capitol Hill and in his home state of Massachusetts, where medical marijuana is legal for some uses. “I won’t wear a tie-dyed shirt with a marijuana leaf,” he said. Murphy served in Iraq for more than a year, working in field artillery and training Iraqi police officers. He said the physical stress of lugging heavy military equipment contributed to degenerative arthritis and bone pain in his leg, hip and wrist, and he began taking morphine, muscle relaxers and Oxycontin. “It never took away the


Islamic State beheads American Kassig; Obama condemns ‘act of pure evil’

that our son, Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig, has lost his life as a result of his love for the Syrian people and his desire to ease their suffering. Our heart also goes out to the families of the Syrians who lost their lives, along with our son.” Kassig’s family His family said Kassig, who was raised in Indiana, converted to Islam last year while sharing a cell with a devout Syrian Muslim. The family said the conversion process started before he was taken hostage. “ISIL’s actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own,” Obama said in his statement about the killing, using another name for the Islamic State. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in a statement that Kassig “was a young American who personified the values of altruism and compassion which are the very essence of his adopted religion of Islam.” Before he was killed, Kassig’s family released a letter he had written earlier this year that a freed hostage had brought with him. The family also received an audio recording of their son before the Islamic State revealed that it was holding him hostage. “I am obviously pretty scared to die but the hardest part is not knowing, wondering, hoping, and wondering if I should even hope at all,” Kassig wrote. “I am very sad that all this has happened and for what all of you back home are going through. If I do die, I figure that at least you and I can seek refuge and comfort in knowing that I went out as a result of trying to alleviate suffering and helping those in need.” The Islamic State is also holding a 26-year-old American woman and another woman. The American woman was kidnapped while doing humanitarian work in Syria. Her family and the FBI have asked that her name not be released for fear of putting her in greater danger. In addition to two British aid workers, the Islamic State has killed American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. Kassig traveled to Lebanon while on spring break from Butler University in March 2012 to work as a volunteer emergency medical technician. Then, several months later, he founded Special Emergency Response and Assistance (SERA), a nongovernmental organization. In summer 2013, he moved its base of operations to Gaziantep, Turkey. Kassig enlisted as an infantryman He was with the Army’s


Putin leaves G-20 summit early, as world leaders turn on the heat over Ukraine

MOSCOW — President Obama said Sunday that the West would maintain sanctions against Russia for having “not abided by the spirit or the letter” of a cease-fire agreement in Ukraine, while stopping just short of directly accusing Putin of having invaded Russia’s beleaguered neighbor. The United States is “very firm on the need to uphold core international principles,” Obama said at a news conference, “and one of those principles is that you don’t invade other countries or finance proxies and support them in ways that break up a country that has mechanisms for democratic elections.” British Prime Minister David Cameron said world leaders sent Putin a “very clear message” that “if he continues to destabilize Ukraine, there will be further sanctions, further measures.” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper greeted Putin on Saturday with a simple admonition — “You need to get out of Ukraine” — according to a Harper spokesman. Putin shrugged off suggestions that he had felt pressured by any of the world leaders who had challenged him on Ukraine and encouraged reporters not to speculate as to why he was leaving early, beyond wanting to be ready for work in Moscow on Monday. (Obama’s trip home to Washington by way of Honolulu was 500 miles longer than Putin’s to Vladivostok and Moscow.) But the tense G-20 exchanges — “businesslike and blunt,” as Obama characterized his meeting with Putin — highlighted how the divide between Russia and the West is becoming all but entrenched. At the heart of the standoff is Russia’s continued involvement in the months-long conflict between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine, during which more than 4,000 people have died — including 298 passengers and crew members on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which crashed over eastern Ukraine in July. Dutch investigators and officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe began the collection and transfer of plane fragments from the wreckage site on Sunday. The collected fragments are being sent from the crash area in the Donetsk region to the government-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv for further examination. The United States and the European Union have imposed several rounds of sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, beginning when Russia moved to annex Crimea and increasing in the wake of the Malaysia Airlines crash. The United States and the European Union have pegged any rollback of sanctions on Russia living up to


State Department shuts down its e-mail system amid concerns about hacking

The State Department scrambled over the weekend to secure its unclassified e-mails, shutting down the entire e-mail system after finding evidence suggesting a hacker may have been been poking around. A senior State Department official said technicians recently detected “activity of concern” in portions of the system handling unclassified e-mail. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the breach, said that none of the department’s classified systems were compromised. The shutdown affected the State Department’s unclassified e-mail traffic and access to parts of its public Web site, the official said. The breach is the latest of a series of electronic intrusions first detected last month on government computer systems at a variety of agencies, from the White House to the U.S. Postal Service to the National Weather Service. The suspected hackers of the White House’s computer network were believed to be working for the Russian government. The State Department did not seek to publicize that it had been hacked. On Friday, it announced that “maintenance” would be done to the unclassified network during a routine, scheduled outage. But on Sunday, after the Associated Press first reported the breach, officials acknowledged they had found traces of suspicious activity in their system and were updating security in the middle of a scheduled outage. In a sign of how complete the shutdown was, duty officers were using Gmail accounts. The senior State Department official declined to say how many of the department’s e-mail accounts were affected, or whether personal information on employees may have been exposed. The official said the system is expected to be working normally again “soon.”


Outrage in Mexico over missing students broadens into fury at corruption, inequality

spread far beyond the rural towns and villages where they started. Tens of thousands of marchers have descended several times on Mexico City’s main Zocalo plaza. At minute 43 — the number of Ayotzinapa students missing — of the Mexican national soccer team’s game in Amsterdam against the Netherlands last week, a stadium full of fans chanted “Justice! Justice!” The trouble began on the evening of Sept. 26, when police stopped the students as they traveled on buses in the town of Iguala. Authorities accuse Iguala Mayor José Luis Abarca of ordering police to prevent the students from disrupting a speech given by his wife. According to the government version of events, police then handed over the students to a drug gang, Guerreros Unidos. In the ensuing weeks, 10,000 Mexican soldiers and police officers scoured the region and uncovered various graves. Last week, Mexico’s attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, announced that charred remains, probably of the students, had been found at a dump and in a river in Guerrero. He presented videotaped confessions of drug gang members talking about how they carried out the killings. Authorities are working to identify the remains through DNA testing. The night after Murillo Karam’s presentation, protesters threw molotov cocktails at the door of the national palace in Mexico City. On Friday in Chilpancingo, thousands of people marched through the streets, led by masked men from the teachers union carrying riot shields and metal pipes. With no police or soldiers in sight, they stopped along the way to spray-paint government buildings, newspaper offices and the storefront windows of Oxxo convenience stores, part of a national chain. The march ended at the town square, which protesters have occupied for weeks, with people living in tents surrounding a statue hung with a cardboard sign that reads: “We are going to disappear the narcostate.” “If the state doesn’t return our students, this could get out of control,” said Walter Añorve, a teacher from Acapulco who is one of the protest leaders. “It’s a peaceful struggle so far, but it might not remain so.” A history of uprisings Thousands protested against Mexican government inaction in missing student case by marching through the streets of Mexico City on Sunday. The state of Guerrero, rural and poor, has a history of anti-government mobilizations. The Mexican military fought leftist guerrillas here in the 1970s, and government security forces have killed villagers in


Loudoun board backs potential legislative bait-hunting study

As Loudoun County grapples with a problematic population of white-tailed deer, the county’s Board of Supervisors recently signaled that it would support a legislative study of bait hunting, a controversial practice involving the use of bait to make deer easier targets for hunters. The use of bait to attract deer is outlawed in Virginia. Bait-hunting supporters say that the method offers a more effective means to cull a herd. Opponents say that gathering deer in a concentrated area promotes the spread of disease, alters natural migration movements and might cause other health and environmental problems for the animals and their habitat. During this year’s General Assembly session, Sen. Frank M. Ruff Jr. (R-Mecklenburg) introduced legislation to study the potential effects of lifting the state’s prohibition on baiting, with a focus on nearby North Carolina, where bait hunting is permitted. That legislation was passed over, but there could be a renewed interest in the upcoming session, county officials said. At a Board of Supervisors meeting this month, Supervisor Janet Clarke (R-Blue Ridge) proposed a motion to support any potential state-level study to examine whether deer baiting could be a safe and useful practice. “I think we’ve all seen increased accidents on the road. We are all interested in reducing the amount of Lyme [disease] from the deer population,” she said. Loudoun reported 360 deer-related car crashes last year, the highest number of all jurisdictions in Virginia, according to a report by AAA Mid-Atlantic. The county also has the highest rate of Lyme disease infection in Virginia, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Loudoun typically schedules multiple managed hunts per year, allowing archery and shotgun hunting. Clarke said that several hunters had spoken to her about the challenge of bow-hunting, and mentioned bait hunting as an easier alternative. “They have had the experience elsewhere and it was successful,” she said. Supervisors Eugene A. Delgaudio (R-Sterling) and Suzanne Volpe (R-Algonkian) voiced support for a possible state study, pointing to the prevalence of the animals even in densely populated neighborhoods. “All you have to do is . . . get on my Facebook page and scroll through and see the people taking pictures of a deer lying in their 20-by-30-foot back yard, lounging,” Volpe said. Clarke’s motion to support a possible study passed in a split vote. Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott K. York (R-At Large) and Supervisors Matthew F. Letourneau (R-Dulles), Ralph


Your boss lost an election, you lost a job — but Tom Manatos is here to save the day.

interregnum any less chaotic. “I remember driving back from Michigan feeling completely defeated,” Carranza said about her boss’s loss in 2010. “I took it personally. And the same day we got back, staffers were already coming in to check out our office to move in. We needed to start packing, we were out of our jobs, and we were out of the majority. It was like salt in the wound.” ‘Perfect storm’ of lost jobs John Davis, Rep. Bruce Braley’s chief of staff, can attest to this. His boss, a Democrat, lost his race to be the next senator from Iowa earlier this month. Davis has a tradition of heading to Key West after an election. For the past few election cycles it’s been celebratory, but this time it was an escape. Last week he returned to the “odd process of shutting down the office” and the task of helping his staff find gainful employment. “For a lot of folks, it can be a discouraging and scary time,” he said, noting that a lot of his energy now will be devoted to using connections to help out his team. “It’s not the easiest thing in the world to find a new job. Even after 2008, a lot of the Obama campaign staffers had a tough time finding a job after the election.” Presidential years make midterms — even the wave elections — look like small beer. Brian McCormack, a former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, acted as an informal recruiter for his own staffers during the period before Barack Obama was inaugurated. There were thousands of people on the hunt for jobs. “A presidential year is the perfect storm of losing jobs on the Hill, the campaign and a few thousand people in the administration,” McCormack said. “And being a Bush alumnus didn’t make you the most popular person in town.” ‘I love lobbying, I love it’ But one staffer’s garbage week is another man’s golden opportunity. “My public service bug gets filled by this. I love it,” Manatos said about helping guide people through the churn. Already, he says, he has talked with more than 20 people about finding new jobs. “I love the networking, the chess pieces moving. A lot of it is lobbying for jobs, and I love lobbying, I love it.” A young-looking 35, with trusting gray eyes and a constant smile, Manatos somehow


Baltimore Symphony Orchestra deftly tours two eras of musical Russia

Boris Giltburg. (Sasha Gusov) The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Marin Alsop, offered up a finely honed double portrait of musical Russia at Strathmore on Sunday afternoon. One portrait depicted late Imperial Russia, represented by the unofficial composer to the czarist court, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and his protege, Sergei Rachmaninoff. The second evoked Soviet Russia at the height of the 1930s Stalinist terror, represented by Dmitri Shostakovich. Baltimore’s orchestra is a pleasure to hear, both for the warmth of its string sound and the purity of its brass. After seven years at the helm, Alsop’s bonding with the ensemble sounds secure, and every musician on stage seems fully engaged. The Slavonic March is Tchaikovsky’s response to the Balkan conflict that precipitated the 1877 Russo-Turkish War. The piece is a bombastic war horse if ever there was one, but Sunday’s rousing performance emphasized instead the wealth of rhythmic vitality and vivid colors of the score. Boris Giltburg, a Russian-born Israeli, has the singing line, variety of touch and broad dynamic palette capable of great surges of energy that characterize the most gifted Rachmaninoff pianists. He communicates with the audience effortlessly, without fuss or ostentation. His performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 was as natural and eloquent as speech, and the touching simplicity of utterance he brought to the exquisite slow movement was breathtaking. Alsop and her musicians provided an accompaniment as subtle as it was sympathetic. After intermission came Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, by far the most popular of the 15 he wrote, and one of the emblematic orchestral works of the 20th century. Alsop clearly loves this music, a fact reflected in the weight and authority of her interpretation. If the second movement seemed a bit deliberate and heavy handed, overall the symphony sounded as fresh and emotionally gripping as it must have at its premiere, 77 years ago this month. The orchestra acquitted itself magnificently. style@washpost.com Rucker is a freelance writer.


Webb Space Telescope promises astronomers new scientific adventures

says Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who helped plan Webb’s science mission. “We are digging deep into the universe. But as the sources of light become fainter and farther away, you need a big telescope like the James Webb.” A view inside the Helium-cooled shroud that takes the telescope’s Integrated Science Instrument Module, ISIM, to its flight operating temperature of 35 kelvins and above. (Chris Gunn/NASA) Named for a former NASA director, the 21-foot-diameter Webb telescope will be 100 times as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in 1990. Although Hubble wasn’t the first space telescope, its images of far-off objects have dazzled the public and led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as determining how fast the universe is expanding. The Webb will be both bigger and located in a darker part of space than Hubble, enabling it to capture images from the faintest galaxies. Four infrared cameras will capture light that is moving away from us very quickly and that has shifted from the visible to the infrared spectrum, described as red-shifted. The advantage of using infrared light is that it is not blocked by clouds of gas and dust that may lie between the telescope and the light. Webb’s mirrors are covered in a thin layer of gold that absorbs blue light but reflects yellow and red visible light, and its cameras will detect infrared light and a small part of the visible spectrum. As objects move away from us, the wavelength of their light shifts from visible light to infrared light. That’s why the Webb’s infrared cameras will be able to see things that are both far away and moving away from us. The cameras will also probe the atmospheres of planets that revolve around nearby stars, known as exoplanets, for the chemical signatures of life: water, oxygen and maybe even pollution from alien civilizations. But before any of that dazzling science happens, there’s a lot of testing to do at Goddard, in the clean room and a nearby “cryo-chamber.” An overhead view of engineers working with the ISIM inside the thermal vacuum chamber at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. (Chris Gunn/NASA) The five-layer sun shield for the James Webb Space Telescope is tested in July at the Northrop Grumman facility in Redondo Beach, Calif. (Chris Gunn/NASA/EPA) Various tests will squeeze, shake, freeze and twist thousands of individual parts in an effort


U.S. commander weighs decisions that will shape Afghan war’s final chapter

U.S. Army troops load a truck with their luggage as they prepare for the end of their tour on Nov. 14 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The top American commander in the nation must decide how much and how quickly U.S. troops will withdraw. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images) The United States is planning to base about 1,000 security personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul after the formal end of the military mission in Afghanistan and may retain the ability to use attack planes to support local forces until then, according to the top American commander in the country. Gen. John F. Campbell is weighing several major decisions that may determine how quickly U.S. troops will withdraw next year, how far they will go in helping Afghan forces fight and how many Americans will remain on the ground when President Obama leaves office. The final size of the stay-behind presence at the embassy, expected to be far larger than a similar civilian-led office established when U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, provides possible hints about the scale of the military and financial support that U.S. officials believe Afghanistan’s forces will require well into the future. “What I owe my senior leadership is to come out here and take my own look and then provide that perspective back,” Campbell said in a phone interview from Afghanistan. “I’m doing that now.” The U.S. deliberations reflect the scale of the challenges that remain in Afghanistan, where Taliban militants have been able to mount large-scale attacks and, in some instances, reverse hard-fought military gains. Campbell spoke about seven weeks after the inauguration of new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, which ended months of political wrangling and accusations of fraud between the Western-trained Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister who agreed to join a national unity government in a U.S.-brokered political deal. That long period of uncertainty held up a troop agreement needed to finalize the U.S. force after this year. But there are already signs that Afghanistan’s grand political compromise may not last as Ghani struggles to quickly form a cabinet. Campbell suggested that the political disputes may force him to ask the Obama administration for permission to slow the timeline for pulling remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Under a plan that Obama announced in May, the American troop presence will fall to 9,800 by Jan. 1 and to about 5,000 by the end of


Death of second Ebola patient in U.S. shows need for early, accurate tests, experts say

virus to be, that in its very advanced stages, even the most modern techniques we have at our disposal aren’t enough to help these patients once they reach a certain threshold,” said Jeff Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the hospital’s academic partner. “We are very, very sorry the outcome wasn’t the one we all wished for.” In Freetown, one of Salia’s colleagues, Alhali Osman Smith, got a call from Salia’s wife, who was in Nebraska. Martin Salia’s friends hugged him when his first test showed he was free of Ebola. Now he has died, and questions remain. “He’s gone,” she said. Smith broke down immediately. Salia had been his mentor in the years they worked together in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital. Like Salia’s other colleagues and former students, Smith remembered him as one of the country’s hardest-working doctors, a man who always craved more knowledge about the profession he loved. “He taught me that, as a doctor, you never stop learning,” Smith said Monday evening in Freetown, where news of Salia’s death was broadcast on the radio. Salia’s death highlights what experts say is a critical need in the ongoing fight against the worst Ebola outbreak in history: the ability to quickly and accurately diagnose the disease in order to halt its spread and give patients the best chance for survival. Salia, whose wife, a U.S. citizen, and two children live in Maryland, had tested negative for the disease shortly after developing symptoms, and he celebrated with colleagues in Freetown. That joy turned to anguish when a confirmatory test came back positive three days later, on Nov. 10. By the time he arrived in Nebraska, it had been 13 days since he started showing symptoms, hospital officials said. “As we have learned, early treatment with these patients is essential,” said Phil Smith, medical director of Nebraska’s biocontainment unit, where Salia was treated. The hospital’s two surviving Ebola patients arrived on day six and day eight of their illnesses. The Ebola virus typically can be detected in blood only after the onset of symptoms, usually a fever. It may even take several days after symptoms appear for the disease to show up in a commonly used blood test that looks for the genetic core of the virus. If an initial test is performed less than three days after symptoms appear and is negative, experts recommend a later


Cider, fit for Thanksgiving feasts old and new

old-fashioned artisan cider from heirloom apple varieties when it opened in 2005. Today, Virginia has 10 cideries, including the popular Potter’s Craft and Albemarle Ciderworks. Castle Hill Cider, northeast of Charlottesville, draws on ancient winemaking techniques to age some of its ciders in kvevri, or clay amphorae buried in the ground. Cider is also hip: Blue Bee in Richmond is Virginia’s only urban cidery and probably one of very few in the country. Virginia wineries are joining the fun, with Cobbler Mountain Cellars in Delaplane and Corcoran Vineyards in Waterford recently offering ciders. Virginia cider also can apparently slow the passage of time: Virginia Cider Week runs 10 days, through Nov. 23, with restaurants and retailers across the state featuring local ciders. Blue Bee makes Hopsap Shandy, a delightful cider flavored with hops. Think India Pale Ale without the weight or excessive bitterness. Millstone Cellars in Maryland also infuses some ciders with hops, as well as fruits and spices. Great Shoals Winery in Maryland produces Spencerville Red from an apple variety discovered a quarter-century ago in eastern Montgomery County and grown by Heyser Farms in Colesville. You can’t get more local and creative than those. Many of these local ciders have good regional distribution. The national market growth, however, is being driven by large brands produced by beer companies. Today’s highest-selling brand in the United States is Angry Orchard, owned by Boston Beer. MillerCoors acquired the popular Crispin brand in 2012 and introduced Smith & Forge cider this year. Last year, Anheuser-Busch InBev introduced Stella Artois Cidre to the U.S. market, and this year launched its own domestic brand, Johnny Appleseed. Woodchuck Cider is owned by Irish beer giant C&C. According to Crain’s Chicago Business, the beer companies were determined not to let the hard cider bandwagon pass them by the way craft brewing did. The dominance of big brands can skew the public’s view of cider. “There’s a misconception about ciders,” says Sherman Outhuok, owner of Thally restaurant in the District’s Shaw neighborhood. Outhuok features 30 ciders, meads and “cysers” — a mead and cider hybrid — on his list. “Most of the popular brands are sappy and sweet. I tell people these are bone dry, funky, even sour, and when they try some, they’re surprised,” he says. “Cider is catching on, and it’s great that the big companies are jumping in,” says Ed Addiss, who with his wife,


Second suspect arrested in 2011 killing of Derrick Ragland in Northeast

D.C. police on Monday arrested a second suspect in the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old man who was killed on a residential street in Northeast Washington in 2011. Officer Araz Alali, a police spokesman, said Jarod Yorkshire, 21, of Northeast, was charged with first-degree murder and obstruction of justice. He was arrested by the National Capital Area Fugitive Task Force. Yorkshire is charged with killing Derrick Ragland, of Northwest, who was shot shortly before 6 p.m. on Dec. 19, 2011, in the 1000 block of Taylor Street NE. Police in March 2012 arrested Faunteroy is scheduled for retrial in May 2015. According to the Internet site homicidewatch.org, which tracks killings in the District, prosecutors attributed the motive to revenge from an earlier robbery.


ATK to move ahead with Orbital Sciences merger plan

A rocket that was to resupply the International Space Station blew up Tuesday night a few seconds after lift-off from Wallops Island, Va. The proposed merger of Alliant Techsystems and Orbital Sciences appears to be back on track. Orbital’s Antares rocket exploded seconds into its flight to the International Space Station last month. The failure raised questions about the potential impact on Orbital’s finances and its reliance on Soviet-era rocket engines, which caused the explosion. Orbital has said it was insured against the loss and will not suffer a significant financial hit. The incident also left the fate of Orbital’s $5 billion merger with ATK’s defense and aerospace groups unclear. But in a statement issued Monday, ATK executives said they had reviewed Orbital’s response to the disaster and expressed confidence that going ahead with the union was a good plan. “During the course of the last two weeks, both companies have diligently evaluated and analyzed information relating to the Antares incident and Orbital’s go-forward plan,” Mark DeYoung, ATK’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “As a result of our findings, management and our board of directors continue to endorse the previously announced transaction.” Both companies have pushed back the date of a special stockholder meeting in which investors will vote whether to approve the merger. The meetings were originally scheduled for December, but will take place Jan. 27. The transaction, if approved, is expected to close in February, ATK said. Orbital executives announced a contingency plan earlier this month to fulfill the company’s $1.9 billion NASA contract to resupply the international space station through 2016. Those plans include choosing another company’s rocket to launch Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft, as well as speeding up the selection of an upgraded engine for Antares. Orbital also will cut out one mission in its contract and increase the Cygnus payload on each flight to make up the difference. Both companies’ stock prices closed higher Tuesday. More from Capital Business: For a daily rundown of Washington area business news, sign up for the “CapBiz A.M.” e-mail newsletter.


Sweetgreen plans to take salad chain to West Coast with $18.5 million investment

restaurateurs Danny Meyer and Daniel Boulud. Founded by Georgetown University graduates Jammet, Nathaniel Ru and Jonathan Neman, Sweetgreen applies the fast-casual restaurant model popularized by Chipotle Mexican Grill to leafy greens. Customers can choose from a menu of house creations, or make their own salad with both garden variety vegetables and more unique options, including roasted curry cauliflower, roasted sweet potatoes and spicy quinoa. Those customers, which the company refers to as “conscious achievers,” are pegged as educated, culturally curious urbanites who care about fitness and the environment. They’re also willing to pay $10 to $15 per salad. Sweetgreen’s evolving menu reflects their tastes. The company endeavors to source its vegetables and meat from a stable of local farmers and, as a result, has begun only serving vegetables that are in season. “We want customers to not just understand, but embrace this idea of eating with the season and where you live in the country,” Jammet said. “For us, that means food is going to taste different in different parts of the country.” Evan Morgan, an investor at Revolution Growth who sits on Sweetgreen’s board, said he hopes to see the chain add at least another 15 establishments next year. That includes expanding into California and increasing its footprint in existing cities. But as other fast-growing establishments have learned, perhaps most notably Starbucks, expansion has to be smart if it’s going to stick. “You want to make sure you nail the real estate, you want to make sure you nail the people, and you want to make sure you nail the operations,” Morgan said. Revolution Growth first invested in the company last December when the venture fund, which is helmed by former AOL executives Steve Case and Ted Leonsis, funneled $22 million into Sweetgreen’s coffers. In that time, Revolution has helped Sweetgreen to round out its leadership team with a slate of executives that includes Karen Kelley as president and chief operating officer, and Joel Chrisman as vice president of technology. “Since we got involved with it a year ago, everything has trended better than our wildest expectations, in terms of the financials of the company ... consumer loyalty and our ability to attract and retain great people to work at the company,” Morgan said. The latest funding will also allow Sweetgreen to invest in a new online ordering system, part of an effort to cut down on long lines


Family struggles to explain girl’s death, among 3 teen suicides in Fairfax since Sept.

24 years old. Marc Leslie, who oversees the state’s Violent Death Reporting System, said that between 2003 and 2013, males ages 10 to 19 had a suicide rate of 5.5 per 100,000. During that same span, females ages 10 to 19 had a suicide rate of 1.8. He said that each case is multifaceted, which makes investigating the root causes of suicides particularly frustrating for data scientists and families. “It’s often a mystery,” Leslie said. Golias said his daughter’s death shocked her family members and left them with questions that might never be answered. “It’s like, ‘Cara, why did you do this? You were loved. You had a great heart.’ This is the question we all have,” her father said. “Her future looked so bright. . . . She was intelligent. She had great friends. She was part of the church group. She had loving parents and a loving family. She was involved with team sports. She was well-liked. But nothing that we saw could have led to something like this.” Cara was a soccer player and long-distance runner; she ran the Marine Corps Marathon at age 14 in 2011, one of three times she completed the race with her father. Last month, Golias ran the marathon again, a race he had planned to take part in with his daughter. Instead, he pinned Cara’s bib on his back and ran in her memory. Approaching the finish, he turned and ran backward so that Cara crossed the line two seconds ahead of his official time. The Marines handed Golias a finisher’s medal for himself and a second to keep for Cara. “You wouldn’t want to wish this on any other parent, because kids are such a big part of your life,” Golias said. “I’m sad for the loss of memories I would have made with Cara . . . and also I’m sad that Cara will not be able to experience some of the pleasures of this life. Graduating high school. Graduating college. Her first job. Getting married. Having a honeymoon. Having a child of her own. Celebrating her child’s first birthday. . . . Those are the things I’m going to miss with Cara.” Golias, who is divorced from Cara’s mother, encouraged parents to do whatever it takes to help their children if they are in distress. He said his daughter had been taking part in mental-health therapy in the


The U.S. can do more to support Japan’s economic recovery

measures such as a restart of Japan’s nuclear power plants, Mr. Abe, who was elected in 2012, needs a fresh mandate from voters. Despite his declining popularity, he is likely to get it. Japan’s friends in the United States should wish him every success. To be sure, support for Mr. Abe is an on-balance judgment. On national defense, he has tried to move Japan toward a more robust defense posture, which is necessary and serves U.S. interests in Asia; yet his efforts have been sometimes accompanied by excessive nationalist rhetoric. Even on economic reform, Mr. Abe has talked the talk without always walking the walk; for example, he has eschewed a shake-up of Japan’s sclerotic labor market for fear of a public backlash. Ditto for the country’s famously protected farms. Yet for now, Japan’s opposition parties are too weak and lacking in ideas to pose a credible alternative to Mr. Abe and Abenomics. The prime minister still represents the best available option to those who regard Japan’s recovery as indispensable to the global economy and, by extension, the U.S. economy. The Obama administration aided Mr. Abe recently with some good advice, in the form of a Nov. 12 speech by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that strongly hinted Mr. Abe should postpone the sales tax hike. The same speech contained some useful urgings to speed up Japan’s structural reforms as well. Washington can do more than offer words of wisdom, though. Nothing the United States can do or say would help Abenomics more than the swift conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, whose market-opening provisions could spur Japanese farms and businesses to change their uncompetitive ways. The Obama administration has yet to seek the authority it needs from Congress to propel that deal to a swift up-or-down vote on Capitol Hill, once it’s been fully negotiated. Fast-track authority would demonstrate that the U.S. government is determined to overcome domestic opposition to a deal, which would make it easier for Mr. Abe to overcome similar resistance from Japanese interest groups. The sooner it’s approved, the better, for both countries. Read more about this topic: The Post’s View: U.S. and Japan must seal the deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Lally Weymouth: An interview with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe The Post’s View: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched his third arrow The Post’s View: Japan’s economic reforms are too little, too slow


In food-crazed Lebanon, a war over tainted chicken and messed-up meze

A sweeping investigation led by the Health Ministry identified scores of Lebanon's restaurants, supermarkets, bakeries and butcher shops are tainted with not only bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella but also sewage and fecal matter. (Kate Brooks/For The Washington Post) When it comes to cuisines of the Arab world, perhaps none other is as internationally recognizable — and mouthwatering — as Lebanon’s. There is more than a little pride here over the tangy fattoush salads, delectable mezes and dishes of skewered chicken and lamb that have distinguished this tiny Mediterranean nation as a culinary powerhouse. Which helps explain the shock and furor that erupted over recent findings that food offered at scores of Lebanon’s restaurants, supermarkets, bakeries and butcher shops is tainted with not only bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella but also sewage and fecal matter. The revelations were the result of a sweeping investigation, led by the Health Ministry, into food-industry hygiene. Wael Abu Faour, the health minister, did not sugarcoat the findings when he announced them at a news conference last week. “The Lebanese don’t know what they’re eating, and it would only be worse if they knew,” he said. Malek el-Batata of "King Frites" eatery in Beirut was closed last week over hygiene issues, but the manager insisted that the eatery, popular for shawarma, falafel and hamburgers, was "absolutely clean." (Kate Brooks/For The Washington Post) In excruciating detail, he named and shamed popular eateries and supermarket chains as public-health offenders. Their infractions included selling expired meat and using rusty cooking utensils and months-old frying oil. Germs also abounded in restaurant kitchens and supermarkets, said Abu Faour, who singled out an unspecified business for selling food containing traces of human feces. “The Lebanese are eating food dipped in sweat and covered with diseases and microbes,” he said. The findings — which emerged from a 20-day campaign in which thousands of food samples from 1,005 businesses were tested — have proved explosive. “Lebanese consumers learn they are eating [s---],” read a headline last week in the newspaper al-Akhbar. Pop stars have weighed in. In apparent solidarity with one of the cafes found to be dishing out contaminated chicken breasts, one popular singer posted a photo on her Instagram account of a chicken burger and potato wedges from that eatery. One might expect the scandal to be a sideshow to Lebanon’s more pressing problems. The country’s economy


How to earn that Thanksgiving feast

began the following year. Indeed, the Buffalo Turkey Trot claims the title as the oldest continually held foot race in North America. The inaugural turkey trot, sponsored by the local YMCA, was a decidedly low-key event. There were few racers — only six of the 15 registrants showed up for the five-mile race — and not one of them dressed for laughs. The race, along dirt roads lined with a few spectators on bicycles and in carriages, proved formidable for a couple of the participants, according to an 1896 account. One runner dropped out after two miles; a half-mile later, another withdrew after his “late breakfast refused to keep in its proper place.” The winner, Henry A. Allison, finished the race in 31 minutes and 12 seconds, roughly a six-minute-per-mile pace. The YMCA Buffalo Niagara Turkey Trot is now one of the largest such races in the country, with registration capped at 14,000 runners this year. For many in Buffalo, the race is a family tradition. Marie Snyder, 76, has run the race since 1978 (women were forbidden to participate in the Buffalo event until 1972), when her husband drove beside her in the car; this year, she will run it with 12 grandchildren and later host a meal for 26. “It’s invigorating and fun,” she says, and a great way “to earn your dinner.” How did the turkey trot grow from a sleepy late-fall race in Upstate New York to the nationwide extravaganza it is today? One guess: “It’s a catchy name for a race,” says running guru Hal Higdon, who has won many trots himself, including several years in which the prize was a free dinner. “It’s a holiday, everyone has a free day, so you can have your run, burn the calories and make room for the turkey,” he says. Carla L. Larrick, who co-founded the YMCA Bethesda-Chevy Chase Turkey Chase in 1982, says that when the members of the Y’s board first discussed holding a race on Thanksgiving, they thought it would either “be a bust or everyone would come.” The latter turned out to be true, especially after the organizers eliminated swimming as part of the event after the first year. The race has raised more than $4 million for youth and families in Montgomery County, and attracts more than 9,000 runners, according to organizers. Among the participants in the Turkey Chase next Thursday will