The Pentagon sends a dispiriting message to its transgender troops

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. (Matthias Schrader/Associated Press) LAST JUNE, the Obama administration took a major step toward affording transgender service members the respect they deserve. After a year-long review, the Pentagon repealed its ban on transgender people openly serving in the military and planned to begin processing transgender recruits this July. But a day before the new rule was to come into effect, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced a six-month delay pending further review. This sends a dispiriting message to the estimated 12,800 transgender personnel who currently serve the country. Before the repeal last summer, many transgender troops were forced to conceal their gender identities to avoid dishonorable discharge. This shroud of secrecy made them less likely to come forward about health issues or report instances of sexual assault. Like the infamous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that discriminated against gay men and lesbians in the military until 2011, the ban damaged the safety, mental health and well-being of transgender military personnel. The repeal was overdue, and the final step in the process — allowing transgender recruits to join openly — is still sorely needed to provide transgender personnel with the same privileges as other troops, and to provide the military the services of these recruits. Mr. Mattis has said that that the postponement “in no way presupposes an outcome.” But questioning the impact of transgender personnel on the “readiness and lethality of the force,” as he did in his memo, undermines the service of thousands of veterans and current service members. It also discourages potential recruits and leaves transgender troops who have come out of the closet in the past year unsure of their future. Military policy changes on this scale demand study — and such study has been conducted. The Obama administration conducted an extensive review and found that concerns over troop readiness lacked substance . Coupled with precautions the military was planning — such as requiring transgender recruits to have been stable in their new genders for 18 months — the setbacks to the armed forces would likely have been minimal and the benefits large. If Mr. Mattis and the Joint Chiefs of Staff conduct their six-month review process fairly, it will come to the same conclusion as the previous one: that transgender troops are valued members of the armed forces and deserve to be recognized as such. Read more on this topic: Alexandra Chandler: I serve


Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr. has long history fighting sanctions

she represents “victims in many criminal cases involving economic crimes.” It was one of her most high-profile cases that brought her to New York City in June 2016, as the U.S. presidential campaign was underway. At the time, Donald Trump had sealed the Republican nomination but was trailing far behind his Democratic rival, Clinton. Veselnitskaya, meanwhile, represented Prevezon, which had been sued by the U.S. attorney in New York’s Southern District in a money-laundering case. It was while she was in that role that she also became an outspoken advocate for lifting economic sanctions imposed by Congress against Russia for human rights violations. Magnitsky connection The sanctions stemmed from the death of a Russian lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky. He worked for a U.S.-born businessman, William Browder, who runs a company called Hermitage Capital Management. The company once was one of the largest foreign investors in Russia, but Browder became critical of corruption under Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged reforms. He was banned from entering Russia in 2005 on grounds that he was a threat to national security. Two years later, Browder said, his company’s offices were raided, documents were seized and Hermitage companies were illegally taken over. Subsequently, those who arranged the takeover applied for a tax refund of $230 million, which was granted, Browder said. Browder hired Magnitsky to investigate. Magnitsky determined that fraud had occurred and testified against Russian officials in the matter, Browder said. Magnitsky was arrested by those he had testified against and was found dead in jail a year later. Russian officials said he died of a heart attack, but Magnitsky’s family said he had injuries consistent with a severe beating. Browder, who is now a British citizen, accused Russian officials of being culpable for Magnitsky’s death, and he said Moscow was trying to cover up corruption. He launched an effort to impose U.S. economic sanctions against Russia, and Congress approved them in 2012 legislation named the Magnitsky Act. Russian officials, in turn, accused Browder of colluding with the CIA and fabricating key pieces of his story. The passage of the act infuriated Putin, leading the Russian leader to retaliate by halting American adoption of Russian children. The adoption issue is frequently used as a talking point by opponents of the Magnitsky Act. As accusations flew and the Magnitsky Act took effect, Prevezon was accused by U.S. officials of buying real estate with laundered


Sick of buying mulch for the garden? The pros have a different idea.

stalk — in section it is triangular, giving rise to the adage “Sedges have edges.” But there is another significant difference that places sedges squarely in a modern approach to ecologically driven gardening. Many of them provide sustenance to the caterpillars of butterflies and other pollinators. The Pennsylvania sedge, for example, feeds as many as three dozen species of caterpillars. Traditionally, gardeners used Asian and New Zealand sedges as small ornamental plants; the shift in the past five to 10 years has been toward native species that are generally less decorative but when used in blocks and masses provide some of the finest textures of any garden plants. Replacing pachysandra with Pennsylvania sedge, for example, is like exchanging dumplings for angel hair pasta. “It speaks to a woodland setting that is very soothing and peaceful,” said Shannon Currey, marketing director of Hoffman Nursery, a wholesale grower of grasses and sedges in Rougemont, N.C. The nursery lists 35 sedge varieties, up from just two in 1991. Most of them are native species or their cultivated varieties. Today’s orders might contain thousands of plants for use in institutional settings or environmental restorations, but many are going to sophisticated, ecologically minded residential gardens, typically designed by professionals. Sales of sedges have tripled in the past decade, Currey said. The rise of the sedges mirrors the mainstream acceptance of ornamental grasses a generation ago, and just as some of the early grasses turned out to be inferior garden plants or invasive and fell from favor, the sedges are going through a similar period of introduction and experimentation. Some seem destined to last. Among the native species, by far the most popular is Pennsylvania sedge, which is apple green, finely textured and forms spreading colonies in the shade garden. Because sedges are found in a variety of habitats — there are more than 180 species in Virginia alone — the gardener is bound to find one that will be happy in a given site, except, perhaps, hot, dry beds with poor soil. For those areas that are in shade with many competing tree roots and constantly dry soil, the choices include Appalachian sedge, bristle-leaf sedge, blue sedge and Texas sedge. In difficult wet areas, the options include the palm sedge, Gray’s sedge, Cherokee sedge, Bowles’s golden sedge and tussock sedge. “This is the exciting part at looking at all these species,” Coombs said. “There’s a


The White House and lawmakers want to reinstate a 1930s law they don’t understand

Glass-Steagall Act are misplaced — because the GLBA did not cause the financial crisis. The financial crisis The largest failure during the financial crisis was of a stand-alone investment bank, Lehman Brothers, that did not have significant commercial banking operations. The largest commercial banks that failed, including Washington Mutual and IndyMac, did not have any significant investment banking activities. AIG, which received $182 billion in government support, was a thrift holding company, and thrifts had always been exempt from the Glass-Steagall Act’s restrictions. Which, finally, brings us to “Hotel California.” Oddly, while there are calls to mandate the complete separation of commercial banking from investment banking, there are no calls from Glass-Steagall champions to eliminate this Dodd-Frank provision, so dubbed for the well-known Eagles’ lyric, “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave.” Hotel California applies to commercial banking organizations that received Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) assistance and have more than $50 billion of assets. It prevents these banks from spinning off their investment-banking activities by deeming such an entity a “non-bank systemically important financial institution” subject to enhanced regulatory scrutiny, including significantly higher capital requirements. Currently, Hotel California applies to 65 percent of U.S. banking assets, so eliminating it could significantly reduce the concentration and complexity of U.S. banking organizations. Activist shareholders could once again press large commercial banks to simplify if they think this would enhance their overall profitability — on a “too big to manage” rationale. Senior management of former investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, might be inclined to separate their investment and commercial banking operations given the relative unimportance of deposit-taking to their overall operations. Fortunately, repeal of Hotel California passed the House in June as part of the Financial CHOICE Act. The Senate should follow suit. Congress should therefore seriously consider empowering the management and shareholders of the largest U.S. banks, rather than mandating a wholesale redesign of the U.S. financial system based on a misunderstanding of a 1930s law and its role in the 2008 financial crisis. Read more on this topic: Jim Millstein, Jane Vris and Jim Wigand: This law could prevent the next financial crisis. Lawmakers want it gone. The Post’s View: Trump promised to do ‘a big number on Dodd-Frank.’ That looks unlikely. Robert J. Samuelson: How are we preparing for the next financial panic? Christopher J. Dodd: Five myths about Dodd-Frank


Going Out Guide for Maryland, July 13-19, 2017

Canadian Brass, a Grammy Award-winning quintet from Toronto, will play brass standards and originals Saturday at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park. (Canadian Brass) Thursday Sunset music cruise Maritime duo Mike and Kelly Lange perform aboard a 74-foot sailing vessel. 6:30 p.m. Schooner Woodwind, 80 Compromise St., Annapolis. 410-263-7837. schoonerwoodwind.com. $29-$46. “Mean Girls” Friday “Nana’s Naughty Knickers” “Teresa” Saturday Priceless Advice Crabs in a Basket Summer Jam Blu Neffu JAPA kids show Rob Williams and Special Occasion Band “Last Night” U.S. Air Force Band concert Canadian Brass “Think Before You Holla” Sunday “Happy Feet” and “Frozen” The Electric Company Monday “Sharkabet: A Sea of Sharks From A to Z” Tuesday “One Year Later” Wednesday Prakriti Dance — Compiled by Jillian S. Jarrett from staff reports


Hospital: Jailed Nobel laureate’s condition life threatening

Members of the Australian Tibetan community stand together as they hold placards during a candlelight vigil for Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo on Wednesday outside the Chinese Consulate in Sydney. (Steven Saphore/Reuters) BEIJING — Liu, who has advanced liver cancer, is suffering from respiratory and renal failure as well as septic shock, the First Hospital of China Medical University said on its website. The hospital said doctors informed Liu’s family members of the need for a tracheostomy to keep him alive, but they declined. Liu, China’s most prominent political prisoner, received his diagnosis in May after his cancer had entered the final stages, and he was transferred to the hospital, in the northeastern city of Shenyang. Liu’s declining health has become the subject of international attention, with supporters and several foreign governments calling for him to be freed on humanitarian grounds. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seiberton, told reporters Wednesday that China should allow Liu to leave the country for medical treatment. President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan tweeted a similar appeal on Wednesday, joining a chorus of pleas made by the U.S., British, French and other governments. Two foreign doctors, one German and one American, reported Sunday after visiting Liu that he expressed a desire to leave for the West and said it would be possible to evacuate him safely — but that it needed to happen soon. Beijing has rebuffed those calls, saying Liu is too sick to travel and is receiving the best care possible. China has accused other countries of politicizing the writer’s case and interfering in China’s internal affairs. Liu was convicted in 2009 of inciting subversion for his role in the “Charter 08” movement calling for political reform and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later while serving his sentence. Although the Chinese government has repeatedly said it has given Liu first-rate care since his diagnosis, his supporters and international human rights groups have questioned whether he received adequate care during his imprisonment. Chinese prisons are notorious for their harsh conditions. China has in the past released high-profile dissidents on medical grounds and immediately exiled them to the United States, notably veteran democracy campaigner Wei Jingsheng in 1997 and a leader of the 1989 student pro-democracy protests, Wang Dan, in 1998. But President Xi Jinping’s government has adopted a considerably tougher line


He ran North Korea’s secret moneymaking operation. Now he lives in Virginia.

For three decades, North Korean Ri Jong Ho was one of many men responsible for secretly sending millions of dollars back to Pyongyang. He sat down with The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield to tell his story. Efforts to sanction North Korea into submission won’t work because there are too many ways around them, Ri Jong Ho says. He should know. For about three decades, Ri was a top moneymaker for the Kim regime, sending millions of dollars a year back to Pyongyang even as round after round of sanctions was imposed to try to punish North Korea for its nuclear defiance. “We were never in pain or hurting in our trade business because of the sanctions. Instead, we conducted our first nuclear test in 2006,” Ri said in an interview near Tysons Corner. The 59-year-old, whose job had been to raise money for the North Korean regime, and his family live in Northern Virginia, having defected to South Korea at the end of 2014 and moved to the United States last year. “I used to be sanctioned, as a North Korean who led trade at the front line, but I never felt any pain from the sanctions. The sanctions were perfunctory,” Ri said. He described being able to send millions of U.S. dollars to North Korea simply by handing a bag of cash to the captain of a ship leaving from the Chinese port city of Dalian, where he was based, to the North Korean port of Nampo, or by giving it to someone to take on the train across the border. In first the nine months of 2014 — he defected in October that year — Ri said he sent about $10 million to Pyongyang this way. For more than two decades, the United States has been trying to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, alternating between inducements and punishments. In both cases, American policy has relied on China, North Korea’s erstwhile patron, using its economic power over its cash-strapped neighbor. But Beijing’s implementation of sanctions, even those it backed through the United Nations, has been patchy at best. China’s overwhelming priority is ensuring stability in North Korea. President Trump has repeatedly called on China to support his policy of putting “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear and missile programs. Efforts have not changed North Korea’s behavior. This is partly because multilateral sanctions imposed


Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo is called ‘a monument to morality’

Chinese dissident and writer Liu Xiaobo has died at 61. He suffered from late-stage liver cancer. BEIJING — To many, Liu represented hope for a freer China with more room for dissent. Now that he is gone, they said, that dream looks more distant. “He fought for freedom and democracy for more than 30 years, becoming a monument to morality and justice and a source of inspiration,” said Wen Kejian, a fellow writer. “His spiritual legacy will never fade away,” he added. “The torch he carried high will be passed on.” A man walks in front of a poster of Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo at an exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, in 2010. Liu died July 13, 2017. (Odd Anderson/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) Liu, who passed up opportunities to leave China for a life in exile, had been in a Chinese prison since his conviction for “subversion” in 2009. In 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights.” Since he could not attend the ceremony, he was represented by an empty chair. The Nobel committee said in a statement Thursday that the Chinese government bears “heavy responsibility” for his death. “He was truly a prisoner of conscience and he paid the highest possible price for his relentless struggle,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in a statement. “Liu Xiaobo was a representative of ideas that resonate with millions of people all over the world, even in China. These ideas cannot be imprisoned and will never die,” Reiss-Anderson added. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Liu’s death a “tragic passing” and noted his work “promoting peaceful democratic reform.” Tillerson’s statement also urged Chinese authorities to allow Liu’s widow, Liu Xia, to be freed from house arrest and allowed the option to leave China. “In his fight for freedom, equality, and constitutional rule in China, Liu Xiaobo embodied the human spirit that the Nobel Prize rewards. In his death, he has only reaffirmed the Nobel Committee’s selection,” said Tillerson in a statement. On June 25, officials announced that Liu had late-stage liver cancer and was being moved to a hospital, starting a macabre battle about where and how he should be treated — and where and how he would die. His friends said that Liu and his wife wanted to


In Silicon Valley, dropping in at the GooglePlex, tech museums and the Jobs garage

soon Shockley’s hires became disgruntled with his management style and left to build their own semiconductors, naming their company Fairchild Semiconductor. “Fairchild becomes a powerhouse,” Traeger continued. “Not just for making money, but because it spins off lots of start-ups. These start-ups grew exponentially, and with steady customers like the U.S. space program, scientists moved in droves to San Jose.” Like a second California Gold Rush, engineers with big ideas partnered with academicians and venture capitalists. Then in 1977, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs debuted the Apple II, a groundbreaking personal computer. About 20 years later, two Stanford University students developed a querying tool for the World Wide Web called Google. We chose to visit the GooglePlex campus. Here, we snapped some selfies with plastic Android figures named after desserts, rode the colorful Google Bikes and bought Google merchandise. Self-driving robotic cars zipped by, and one of the Google Street View cars was on display. We didn’t make it to Facebook or lunch at the Samsung cafeteria, but we did stop by Jobs’s childhood home. Apple — as well as Hewlett-Packard and Google — began in a local garage. Traeger recommended that we visit two museums celebrating the digital age. Seasoned tech users will marvel over the world’s largest collection of computer-related artifacts, including the IBM 1401 Demo Lab and the historic Apple-1 signed by “Woz,” both on display at the Computer History Museum. We also toured the family-friendly Tech Museum, where visitors interact with 3-D printers, build robots and learn something about cybersecurity. My surgeon husband was fascinated with the 3-D interactive operating table. But the biggest draw is sure to be Apple Park, nicknamed the Spaceship, which will be open to visitors later this year. The 2.8 million-square-foot circular building, covered in panels of curved glass, will house 12,000 workers. “Apple is into design, and they want everything to be perfect. Inside and out, backwards and forwards,” Traeger noted. Jobs envisioned this 21st-century workspace to operate entirely on renewable energy. Tourists will be able to enter the stand-alone visitor center, Apple store and cafe. The best views are said to be from its rooftop terrace. That night we scored a table at Adega, the popular Michelin-starred Portuguese restaurant. Pastry chef Jessica Carreira longed to return to Little Portugal, her neighborhood in San Jose, and convinced her Portuguese fiance David Costa to open a restaurant. After one year, Adega


Murder indictments filed in killings of Maryland teens on eve of graduation

than the original statements of probable cause written by police. In those documents, detectives said that on the night the teens were killed — at 10:13 p.m. — Najjar sent a message to his girlfriend saying he was going to sell the commencement ticket to “Roger Garcia.” Najjar and Ziberov were shot at approximately 10:46 p.m., police have said. The detectives spoke to Garcia, who said he did not know Najjar or Ziberov, and did not buy graduation tickets from them, according to court records. Garcia said he had attended Northwest High School. Detectives were able to link Roger Garcia to his brother — Edgar Garcia-Gaona, who also goes by Edgar Garcia — and searched his brother’s home. They found a “partial box of ‘Blazer’ .40-caliber ammunition,” they wrote in court filings, adding: “It should be noted that, at the crime scene, 11 of the 30 shell casings recovered were ‘Blazer’ .40-caliber shell casings.” Outside the Montgomery County District Courthouse, homicide detective Paula Hamill stands next to Adi Najjar, holding a photo of his slain son Shadi. (Dan Morse/TWP ) Detectives said they connected the brother to a friend, Canales-Yanez. They learned that Canales-Yanez’s girlfriend had reportedly been robbed months earlier by someone in the passenger seat of a blue Honda Civic. Detectives said that it had been Najjar who committed the robbery, that he had stolen drugs, and that the June killings were an act of retaliation. It is not clear whether Ziberov knew about the earlier reported robbery. The court records filed Thursday show the conspiracy to commit murder counts relate only to the planning of Najjar’s death — and indication that Ziberov may have gone to the fake ticket sale and been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ziberov was hit by 10 bullets, police have said, and Najjar was hit by four. The attackers also took Najjar’s cellphone before fleeing the scene, according to court records. Najjar’s father, Adi Najjar, has said that any negative attention given to what his son may have done in the past misses the point. “My boy is a beautiful boy,” Najjar said last month. “We raised him right. We loved him. We still love him. He will be in our hearts forever and ever.” The Garcia brothers were both born in Maryland, according to court records. Canales-Yanez was born in Honduras, according to court records. Immigration agents have


Activists are trying to open a D.C. bookstore in honor of a slain journalist

Kymone Freeman, left, says goodbye to John Capozzi, who stopped by the radio station. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) The dark, dingy staircase leads to an even dingier basement. A basement with a maze of stacked boxes, dusty cleaning supplies, moldy walls and abandoned furniture. But Kymone Freeman has a vision for this 2,400-square-foot space in the heart of Southeast Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood. He sees a colorful room with couches, a stage and bookshelves — lots of wooden bookshelves stuffed with books of all genres. Freeman is spearheading an effort to transform the drab space into the only bookstore east of the Anacostia River, an area that includes many of the District’s poorest neighborhoods. As details of the project evolve, organizers have settled on this: It will be named the Charnice Milton Community Bookstore in honor of the 27-year-old journalist fatally shot two years ago in Southeast. Police say Milton was on her way home from covering a community meeting and wasn’t the intended target. No arrests have been made in the case. Freeman estimates that he’ll need to raise $180,000 for the project. “Books are the most transformative thing,” he said. “If you can match the kid with the right book, it can change them.” Freeman, who co-owns We Act Radio — a radio station on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Anacostia, blocks from Frederick Douglass’s historic house — said the bookstore will have a focus on African American authors and will incorporate a social justice mission. The exterior of We Act Radio is seen. Kymone Freeman, not shown, is leading efforts to open a bookstore in the basement in honor of Charnice Milton, a 27-year-old journalist who was shot and killed on her way home from an assignment two years ago. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) He said he hopes that the bookstore can reduce the city’s illiteracy rate and subsequently reduce violent crime, potentially preventing another death like that of Milton’s. In the District, 19 percent of adults lack the reading proficiency to read a newspaper, according to the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics. The illiteracy rate in U.S. prisons is 60 percent, according to National Assessment of Adult Literacy data. Milton’s parents said the bookstore’s social justice component would make it an ideal tribute to their daughter. Milton’s mother, Francine Milton, recalled her daughter reading 99 books in a single summer while in elementary school.


‘American runners have never been slower,’ a new report says — but why?

why the slow-down? American marathoning has changed dramatically over the past three or four decades, thanks in large part to the women’s running boom. In 1980, Running USA estimates that only 10 percent of marathon finishers were women. Last year, that figure reached 44 percent. Because women are, on average, 10 percent slower than men, more women participants will necessarily slow the average times. (Most marathon experts have tied slower marathon times to the increase in women and in less-serious racers.) The RunRepeat report, however, says that slowing men have contributed more to the decline (54 percent) than increased participation by women (46 percent). It also asserts that casual, back-of-the-pack runners have slowed only slightly more than those in the front of the pack. Ken Young, dean of worldwide road race statisticians, says those casual racers share more of the blame than the RunRepeat report shows. Young has been compiling race data since the mid-1970s, and serves as unofficial director of the global Association of Road Race Statisticians. “Average times are slowing because more and more races are emphasizing their social aspects,” Young says. “They seek to attract recreational runners and walkers. Look at the race websites. You can find all sorts of social media links, party details and merchandise for sale, but it’s hard to find the race results.” Young’s view is shared by Rich Harshbarger, chief executive of Running USA. “Events have become so much more social,” he notes. “Look at the races produced by Walt Disney World. You can meet a Disney character and get your photo snapped almost every half-mile. In today’s market, event producers position their races more as festivals than traditional races.” While average times are getting slower, American elites have continued to improve. In 1996, the American marathon records stood at 2:10:04 (men) and 2:21:21 (women). Today they are 2:05:38 and 2:19:36. Many of the best Americans enter the Boston Marathon each April. Due to Boston’s tough qualifying standards, rare among big marathons, only about 10 percent of all U.S. marathoners run times fast enough to enter Boston. Yet it has also gotten slower, on average, over the past two decades. In 2000, according to MarathonGuide.com, the average finish time at Boston was 3:41:39. Three months ago, in the 2017 Boston Marathon, the average finisher crossed the line in 3:58:03. “In recent years, the general emphasis among marathoners has shifted from performance to


Federal officials close civil rights complaint about Baltimore light-rail project

The U.S. Department of Transportation has closed a complaint alleging that Maryland officials discriminated against African Americans when they canceled a long-planned light-rail line in Baltimore in 2015, according to a letter sent to state officials Thursday. The federal agency will “administratively close the complaint without finding,” according to the letter sent to Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn. Federal officials have been investigating two complaints, which were consolidated into one, alleging that African Americans in Baltimore suffered “disparate impacts” when Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) canceled the Red Line project and diverted its funding to road projects in mostly white, rural areas of the state. The 14-mile light-rail line would have served lower-income, African American communities in the city. The complaints were filed in December 2015 by two African American Baltimore residents and civil rights groups, who alleged that the Red Line’s cancellation was part of a history of racial discrimination in Maryland transportation funding decisions. Hogan called the Red Line a “wasteful boondoggle” that would have cost far more than its estimated $2.9 billion construction budget. The letter signed by Charles E. James Sr., director of the U.S. Transportation Department’s civil rights office, did not say why the case was being closed beyond saying it was “the appropriate course of action.” Ajmel Quereshi, an attorney for one of the complainants, called the letter “extremely disappointing.” “With the stroke of a pen, this administration just killed the complaint without any finding or explanation at all,” said Quereshi, senior counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “This letter just says we’re going to close the complaint because we can. It’s brazen and disrespectful to the people of Baltimore and insulting to African Americans in Baltimore and throughout the state of Maryland.” James wrote that the agency will continue a broader review of the Maryland Transportation Department’s compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination in programs that receive federal aid. Quereshi said such reviews aren’t as thorough as the complaint investigative process and often only require states to show that they have a Title VI plan. Moreover, he said, the complainants will not have any say in the review, as they did in the complaint investigation. Rahn called the letter “self-explanatory.” “If there are any issues in the compliance review, USDOT will discuss those with us,” Rahn said in a written statement. “This


In Prince George’s County, canceled FBI deal means back to the drawing board

some way that could make Greenbelt viable, but he was not optimistic. “This thing could easily slip years,” he said. Although Renard and the county have spent more than $1 million on infrastructure improvements and set aside more revenue to make the property “shovel-ready,” environmental concerns and the need for a new highway interchange could push the cost of developing the area above what any business would want to pay. At the same time, the visibility of the site and its proximity to mass transit would make the property a tempting locale for a global or national corporation, or a cybersecurity firm seeking proximity to the state’s flagship university. “It really has to be something that is sizable enough to justify those expenditures,” Beall said. “The property is a blank slate.” Greenbelt Mayor Emmett Jordan said more than 1,000 people have moved into newly-constructed residential properties at the south end of the Metro station’s property. City officials and local business owners had hoped the FBI headquarters would help jump-start commercial redevelopment to serve those new residents. “I’m not sure people who are living there moved to be next to FBI, but to be near the Metro station,” Jordan said. “We are still open for business.” Landover is the 88-acre home to a demolished shopping mall owned in part by Lerner Enterprises, the real estate firm of Washington Nationals owner Theodore N. Lerner. The property has sat almost empty for nearly 15 years, a weeded-over parking lot with jersey barriers and chain-link fencing lining the perimeter. Lerner Enterprises, which partly owns 88 acres at Maryland Route 202 in Landover, was one of three finalists bidding on the FBI headquarters project. ( Arelis R. Hernández /The Washington post) Overgrown shrubbery partially blocks the property’s newest feature, a billboard reading: “Home to Future Development, Prince George’s County Continues to Grow.” The Lerners years ago pursued a regional hospital complex for the property — a project that is now being built in Largo. They have considered housing as well. Executives from Lerner Enterprises, which was also a finalist to build the now-canceled project, were not available to comment, a spokeswoman said. But former state delegate Jolene Ivey, who did community relations work for the Lerners’ bid, said the property remains a great value for any investor seeking a large parcel with access to major roadways and downtown Washington. “I can’t see why it can’t


Russian American lobbyist was present at Trump Jr.’s meeting with Kremlin-connected lawyer

testify at a House hearing that took place days after the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) rejected an attempt by the Russian team and its allies to screen a Russian-made documentary designed to undermine the arguments for a 2012 sanctions law, according to GOP congressional staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Russians argued that the Magnitsky Act, named for a lawyer who died at age 37 in a Moscow prison after accusing Russian officials of a massive tax fraud, was based on a false story. In retaliation for the passage of the law, Russia had halted the adoption of Russian children by American families. Veselnitskaya and her lobbying team would present their efforts in Congress and at Trump Tower as an emotionally powerful effort to end the prohibition on adoptions and help children. They found an ally in Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who has in recent years become an advocate for warmer U.S.-Russia relations. Rohrabacher attempted to organize a hearing featuring critics of the sanctions — an effort that was also thwarted by Royce, according to the congressional staffers. In a statement, Royce did not specifically address his efforts to block the anti-sanctions advocates but acknowledged that he and Rohrabacher have “sharp disagreements on policy.” Rohrabacher was not available for comment Friday, but a spokesman, Ken Grubbs, acknowledged deep differences on Kremlin-related policies between the two Republicans. “They are very good friends, and they have very strong disagreements on Russia,” Grubbs said. The events unfolding on Capitol Hill and at Trump Tower in June 2016 followed a series of interactions a few months earlier in Moscow that may have played a role in shaping the lobbying efforts. In April 2016, Rohrabacher led a small congressional delegation to Moscow. During the trip, Rohrabacher’s spokesman confirmed, Rohrabacher met with a top Russian prosecutor who provided him documents making a case that the Magnitsky story was a fraud. Akhmetshin said he became involved in the lobbying effort in late 2015 after he was introduced to Veselnitskaya by a Russian public relations manager he declined to identify. Veselnitskaya told the Wall Street Journal in Moscow on Friday that although she had exchanged information with the Russian prosecutor’s office, her efforts were not undertaken on the government’s behalf. Akhmetshin said that he thought her arguments had merit and arranged for a nonprofit


What climate change looks like, from the seat of a bike

Climate scientist David Goodrich encountered violent storms and a changing landscape — as well as skepticism of global warming — on a 4,200-mile bike ride across the United States. (Lukasz Ogrodowczyk/EPA/EPA) Allan Fallow is a freelance writer and book editor in Alexandria, Va. Climate scientist David Goodrich was riding his fully loaded Trek 520 touring bike along a desolate stretch of Wyoming’s Highway 287 when a storm boiled up from the west, catching him out in the open. “I was rapidly folded up in darkness, gusting winds, and lightning flashes,” he writes in his memoir “A Hole in the Wind,” a detail-rich chronicle of the half-dozen epic bike rides he has undertaken since 2000, including a 2011 cross-country trip. “There was nothing to do but ball up low on the side of the road, away from the metal bike, and get drenched. I comforted myself that the steel roadside reflectors were a little higher than me.” Though Goodrich makes no allegorical hay of the incident, it perfectly crystallizes his larger message: We live at the mercy of the elements — a dependency that should be motivation aplenty to combat climate change. “A Hole in the Wind,” by David Goodrich (Pegasus) After a post-college stint as a roughneck on a Gulf Coast drilling rig, Goodrich settled down to a scientific career, working for both the U.N. Global Climate Observing System in Geneva and at the Silver Spring, Md., headquarters of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In the early 1990s, he began commuting to work by bike from Rockville, Md., a daily round trip of 26 miles. On his retirement in 2011, he logically received not a gold watch but a Gore-Tex jacket. By then, writes Goodrich, “the notion of combining what I did in the mornings and evenings with what I’d learned in my day job [had become] entrancing.” A few weeks later, he was two-wheeling from Cape Henlopen, Del., to Waldport, Ore. — a 4,208-mile odyssey that would allow him to witness “what changes in the climate system looked like on the ground.” That may be a flimsy premise to light out for the territories, but show me the travel book with a truly bulletproof rationale. Happily, Goodrich is a good enough reporter — and a sufficiently gifted stylist — to make the miles fly by. And he must have propitiated the cycling gods at the start, for


The versatile D.C. investor with a buzzy nonprofit

willing to sell. He owned a farm a few months later. The honey from his beekeeping helps fuel his Sweet Virginia Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 2008. The foundation each year sells about 500 10-ounce jars of honey, packaged in sleek, custom wood boxes. Customers pay $100 a bottle for the liquid gold. Price said so far the foundation has sent around $100,000 to various charities, including Camp Sunshine in Maine. Children with life-threatening diseases and their families use the camp for recreation and support. “The idea was to make some good for the world come out of this very special farm,” the former accountant said. The farm is a menagerie. Thousands of dazzling, yellow sunflowers carpet the grounds down to a 900-acre lake. A birdhouse hotel buzzes with Purple Martins from Brazil. The Purples fly up from the Amazon so they can take advantage of the long Northern Hemisphere daylight to feast on bugs. “You come out one day in August, and they are gone. Just like that,” Price said. As we sip water on his porch, a “confusion” (that is the right word) of eight gobbling guinea fowl marches toward the woods. Price bought 40 of them as chicks for $3 each because they eat bugs and ticks. But the foxes have gorged, turning the confusion into a calm. Daniel Price is a bee nut. He can go on about honey bees forever. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Price is a bee nut. He can go on about honey bees forever. He told me when I visited last week that bees are the most studied creatures on earth, second only to humans. “I’m doing this bee thing,” the 59-year-old investor said. “I did it as a quirky lark. Bees are kind of quirky.” He guided me near — but not too near — one of his 26 hives housing about a million European honey bees. Price picked out the queen through the glass. (She had a dab of paint on her to make “Her Beeness” easy to spot.) I asked him if the amber goo that I drip on my fruit and walnuts every morning comes from bee guano. No, he said. It’s the juice from the flowers that the bees constantly visit every day. Then carry it back to the hive where they spit it up into the honeycombs or whatever they are. Price emailed me bee


5 wines — including reds! — to chill with this summer

Spirits. Available in Maryland at Cranberry Liquors in Westminster, Crescent Beer & Wine in Bowie, Fenwick Beer & Wine in Silver Spring, Wine Market in Baltimore, Friendship Wine & Liquor in Abingdon, Midway Discount Liquors in Joppa, Old Town Market in Kensington, Spin the Bottle Wine Co. and ’Ye Old Spirit Shop in Frederick, Wine Bin in Ellicott City. Available in Virginia at Culpeper Cheese Company in Culpeper, Planet Wine & Gourmet in Alexandria, Unwined (Alexandria, Belleview). Domaine Naturaliste Chardonnay 2015 Margaret River, Australia, $22 Here’s a case study in why we shouldn’t rely on snap judgments when tasting wine. My first sip of this Australian chardonnay, just liberated from under its screw cap, was a bit reductive and sulfury. But I could tell there was good fruit underneath. So I poured a glass through an aerator, a device designed to let wine breathe in a hurry. It tasted better, more fruity. Then after an hour or so, the wine showed tropical fruit and nice richness, with a savory acidity that called for rich seafood or poultry dishes. So if you do find a screw-capped wine tasting a bit off at first, give it some air — pour it in a decanter and slosh it around a bit. Liberate that fruit! ABV: 13 percent. Distributed by Artisans & Vines: Available in the District at Broad Branch Market, Cork & Fork, Rodman’s, Schneider’s of Capitol Hill. Available in Maryland at Cork & Fork in Bethesda, Fenwick Beer & Wine in Silver Spring, Takoma Park-Silver Spring Co-Op in Takoma Park, the Wine Harvest in Potomac. Available in Virginia at Unwined (Alexandria, Belleview); on the list at Lake Anne Coffee House & Wine Bar in Reston. GREAT VALUE Demba Garnacha 2015 Cariñena, Spain, $10 Spain has long been a source of good quality bargain wines made from garnacha (known as grenache in France). The Demba is another example: a juicy red with a hint of sunshine and dry earth. ABV: 14 percent. Distributed by Stefano Selections: Available in the District at Calvert Woodley, Connecticut Avenue Wine & Liquor, Potomac Wines & Spirits. Available in Maryland at Aloha Liquor in Baltimore. Availability information is based on distributor records. Wines might not be in stock at every listed store and might be sold at additional stores. Prices are approximate. Check Winesearcher.com to verify availability, or ask a favorite wine store to order through a distributor.


National study puts timeline on impact of sea-level rise in Maryland and Virginia

Ambrette said. That means mapping areas that are susceptible to flooding and directing new development to areas that aren’t as vulnerable. The findings of the study are in line with what Maryland officials have been predicting, said Catherine McCall, the director of coastal planning in the state’s Department of Natural Resources. “Sea-level rise is what the state has been preparing for. We understand what that risk is, and we’ve done a lot to prepare our communities for that,” McCall said. The state, which has a commission on climate change, has funded dozens of projects over the past five years through its CoastSmart program, which works on tasks such as mapping flood plains and building up natural buffers to help communities limit the damage and impact of the encroaching ocean. “If they have an immediate flooding need, we’re working with them on strategies to address that need,” McCall said. “And then there are other communities that may be thinking something 50 years from now, and they have different options available to them right now.” Projects have also been implemented in counties that aren’t on the Chesapeake or its tributaries, as they, too, have been affected by climate change. In addition to directing state and local dollars to address the rising sea level, Maryland has gotten help from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for technical and financial assistance to local communities. “These federal, state and local partnerships have allowed us to capitalize on the science and information that is out there, and has been very effective in making Maryland more resilient,” McCall said. Virginia is also facing short-range issues brought about by rising sea levels. The study identified three communities facing chronic inundation by 2035. And 21 more will be affected by 2100, including Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Hampton. “Many of these communities are home to people who have limited resources to move or adapt,” the study’s authors wrote. Virginia’s rising sea level received national attention last month when President Trump called the mayor of tiny Tangier Island,which is in the Chesapeake Bay and is shrinking by 15 square feet each year. “He said we shouldn’t worry about rising sea levels,” Mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge told The Washington Post. “He said, ‘Your island has been there for hundreds of years, and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more.’ ” Eskridge said he agreed


Marijuana sales give Nevada a taste of the green rush, but high demand outstrips supply

just days ago. “I feel like a college student with a fake ID and like my parents are going to bust me any minute,” said one woman, who declined to give her name because she teaches at a local university and is worried about what her students and employer might think. A line forms outside the Blüm Medical Marijuana Dispensary on July 13. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) Every 10 minutes or so a security guard comes out to get the next eight patrons. They show their identification at a glassed-in desk before gaining access to the interior wait room, which looks a bit like the lobby of a high-end medical office, earthy tones with chrome and white accessories. Inside, a dozen or so people wait to be called into the retail space — a long, backlit counter that resembles a jewelry display case but for its variety of cannabis products. Bud tenders, many of whom are recent hires to meet the demand, help customers pick out what they want, ring them up and send them on their way with large white child-safe pouches. Though off to a fast start, the Nevada marijuana industry is, like all others across the country, viewed as illicit in Washington. Marijuana sales and possession still remain federal crimes, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was in Las Vegas this week, is an opponent of recreational use. “He could shut us down at any time, and he’s very anti-weed,” said Mikel Alvarez, director of retail for Terra Tech, which operates the four Blüm dispensaries in Nevada. Alcohol distributors have cited reservations over federal regulations as one reason they’re hesitant to make the investments required to get marijuana distribution licenses. Dispensaries in Nevada and elsewhere largely shy away from using the U.S. banking system because of fears of a federal crackdown that could affect their funds. The regulatory fight — which alcohol distributors are committed to, having filed lawsuits against the state and alleging the emergency regulations are invalid — is just one example that opponents of the new law point to when arguing that Nevada was too quick to get into recreational marijuana. “Nevada stands alone with this six-month rush,” said Jim Hartman, an attorney and president of Nevadans for Responsible Drug Policy. “Why? What is the hurry here?” A bud tender displays cannabis at the Blüm Medical Marijuana Dispensary in Reno. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)


Put Yucca Mountain to work. The nation needs it.

People enter a portal of Yucca Mountain during a 2015 congressional tour of the proposed nuclear waste storage site near Mercury, Nev. (John Locher/Associated Press) ENERGY SECRETARY Rick Perry traveled to Capitol Hill last month , asking Congress for $28 billion in funding for everything from nuclear weapons to clean-coal research. Yet one of the most controversial elements in his department’s budget proposal was a request for a relatively tiny $120 million — to restart work on Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site. Congress decided in the 1980s that Yucca was to be the permanent home of the country’s large and increasing pile of spent nuclear fuel. In a forbidding desert landscape about 100 miles outside Las Vegas, the site would appear to be an ideal choice for an unbreachable underground vault. The federal government spent more than $15 billion studying the place. Just a couple of years ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that the facility would be technically sound, considering everything from seismic activity to accidental human intrusion, on time scales of up to a million years. Locals in Nye County, which would stand to benefit from employment related to the site, are on board. But practically everyone else in Nevada opposes the Yucca project, and state leaders have waged a so-far successful not-in-my-back-yard campaign, even though federal law is clear that the site is to be the nation’s nuclear waste storehouse. The state has denied the Energy Department the water rights it would need to build the depository. For years, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) successfully blocked funding for its development, with the help of President Barack Obama, who made an exception for swing-state Nevada from his pledge to run a science-based administration. With Mr. Reid and Mr. Obama both retired, the Trump administration and GOP leaders are trying to revive the project. Work is furthest along in the House, where a bill jump-starting Yucca’s approval is advancing quickly. Yet it faces a tough road: Nevada’s congressional delegation will fight it tooth-and-nail. It’s past time the opposition was sidelined for good. The nation’s nuclear regulators have found that technical hurdles can be overcome; the biggest barriers to developing the site are political. Congress should re-fund Yucca Mountain and finally end this gratuitous fight. But that is hardly all lawmakers need to do. No matter what happens with Yucca, the country should move its stocks


New music? For Baltimore, yes, please.

Marin Alsop conducts a performance with the Baltimore Symphony. (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) Since taking the helm of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra 10 years ago, music director Marin Alsop has continued to champion contemporary composers and their creations. By commissioning new works and performing them regularly, the maestra has also cultivated an audience that is growing more open to modern compositions. Still, devoting an entire program to new contemporary music and billing it as such can be risky business. Fortunately for Alsop, her followers are both many and devoted, and it was gratifying to see them turn out in solid numbers Saturday evening at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall for the BSO’s inaugural New Music Festival. For the second concert of the two-evening initiative, Alsop programmed four works written within the past two years, with only one that had been previously performed by the BSO. Together the compositions represented a cross-section of new music’s characteristics, and the orchestra presented them in the purest way possible, parsing and dissecting the musical elements as they would for any traditional classical work. Commissioned by the BSO, Syrian American composer Malek Jandali’s “The Silent Ocean” found a rapt audience at its world premiere. The 17-minute symphonic poem for orchestra depicts the story of a little girl who escapes her war-torn home in Aleppo, Syria, and embarks a small boat, taking nothing but memories of a bedtime melody sung by her grandfather. Above the pulsating bass drum and timpani, the BSO created a Mediterranean soundscape, with strings undulating as woodwinds and brass took turns in cascading runs and melodies that evoked the wind and wisps of a remembered tune. A dissonant chord marked a tragic turn of events before a final English horn refrain gave way to a plaintive but hopeful cello solo. Two works by Polish composer Agata Zubel received their East Coast premieres: “Chapter 13” (based on an excerpt from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novella, “The Little Prince”) and “In the Shade of an Unshed Tear.” For the former, Zubel herself joined nine BSO musicians onstage to perform the 10-minute composition. As she sang the roles of the Prince and the businessman in English, the assorted ensemble of violin, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, bass, piano and percussion buzzed, fluttered, tapped and punctuated Zubel’s vocal lines in kind. Those sorts of noises continued in Zubel’s latter work, a nearly 20-minute orchestral composition where BSO musicians could be seen


A vacant building, 70,000 bees and 100 pounds of inedible honey

revitalization program coordinators, and got the go-ahead to relocate the hive. On a scorching July 1, he and his wife Emily, both members of the Northern Virginia Beekeepers Association, donned full protective attire and approached the brick structure. They found tens of thousands of bees who did not want to move, and about 100 pounds of their honey. “The biggest issue was the heat,” Mueller said, describing the hive as the largest he and his wife have ever moved. “At 95 degrees, the wax is very, very soft and the honey is very, very heavy.” Getting to the hive required the couple to shatter a windowpane and remove the window. For six hours, they worked either on a ladder propped outside the building or inside the darkened, sweltering second floor. The electricity had been turned off. The couple took the hive down by hand, trying to keep it as intact as possible, and carried the pieces down in plastic bins before transferring them into traditional wooden beehive boxes. They were almost finished when they spotted the queen bee walking on the plywood that had boarded up the window. They plucked her up and put her on the hive with as many of the other bees as they could capture. The bees, who appear to had moved in after the building closed in March, “weren’t happy,” Mueller said. They made their vexation known by stinging him a few times through his old gloves, he said, and working their way beneath his wife’s pants, which were tucked into her boots. Honeybees can build “a very large hive in a very short time,” Mueller said, especially when the honey-making season of summer is approaching. The couple harvested armloads of honey, which Mueller said is not fit for human consumption because the building windows contained lead paint and unsanitary surroundings. They plan to strain it and return it to the hive, which they have moved to a community garden at 10th and Barton streets, for the bees to consume as they continue their work. “The bees will need it to get through the winter,” Mueller said. He warned residents not to attempt to feed beehives with honey they acquire from stores or farmers’ markets — each hive makes its own honey, and foreign honey can contain pathogens that can kill the bees. Mueller said he would like the hive to be on display at


See what is being called the astronomical event of the decade

This illustration from NASA of the Earth, moon and sun depicts what will happen on August 21. (Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) For less than two minutes on August 21, stargazers across the United States will ignore everything they’ve been taught and try to look directly at the sun. In what the science community is calling the astronomical event of the decade, a total solar eclipse will cross through the middle of the country. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon’s orbit comes between the path of the Earth and the sun. Solar eclipses themselves are not rare, but a visible total solar eclipse across the continental United States has not happened in 99 years. “The moon is way, way smaller than the sun — about 400 times smaller across than the sun and about 400 times closer than the sun,” says Geneviève de Messières, an astronomy education program manager at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. In a total solar eclipse, “the moon is at just the right distance to cover the sun.” Photographs show the beginning to the end of a total solar eclipse — from the top left to the bottom right — as seen from an island in Indonesia in 2016. (Beawiharta/Reuters) Where to see it At least two total eclipses happen on Earth every year, but they pass mainly over stretches of ocean. The upcoming eclipse is highly unusual because many people living in the United States will be a few hours’ drive from the path of totality. This path, a ribbon stretching in length from Oregon to South Carolina but only 70 miles wide, will be the only area to experience the full blockage of the sun. The eclipse itself will last a few hours, but during its peak, which will last about two minutes or less in a given location, the daytime sky will suddenly turn dark and have the brightness of a full moon. Only the sun’s corona, or glowing outer atmosphere, will be visible. In other parts of the country, including the Washington area, you can see a partial eclipse. In these areas, you will see the sun obscured into a crescentlike shape during the day. The spectacular total eclipse of the sun will be visible within a 70-mile-wide ribbon that stretches from coast to coast. Outside that path, such as in Washington, D.C., people can see a partial


America’s greatest eclipse is coming, and this man wants you to see it

total solar eclipse in Siberia. (Courtesy of Mike Kentrianakis) By the time he got back to Long Island, Kentrianakis was hooked. He subscribed to NASA’s annual eclipse circulars. He bought huge sheets of silver solar screens that can be fitted onto telescopes and camera lenses to let the user take pictures of the sun. Though Kentrianakis became a TV news producer after college, not an astronomer, he became a fixture in the tightknit community of eclipse chasers who track the movements of the sun and moon with nearly religious fervor. Their bible is NASA’s massive 50-year Solar Eclipse Canon, a compendium of every eclipse the world will see for decades. Every 18 months or so, the orbits of the sun, moon and Earth align for a total solar eclipse. The moon — 400 times smaller than the sun but also 400 times closer — perfectly blocks the light of our star, casting part of Earth into shadow. In between those events are annular eclipses, which occur when the moon’s orbit takes it slightly further away from Earth, so it can no longer completely cover the sun. Instead, a faint ring of light around the moon remains visible in a violet sky. A lunar eclipse happens when Earth passes between the sun and the moon, blocking out the sunlight we usually see reflected off the moon’s rocky surface (the effect is less dramatic than an eclipse of the sun, so Kentrianakis doesn’t chase after it). All the information from the Canon is available online, but Kentrianakis still hauls around the copy he purchased in 1987. “This is where I do all my planning for my lifetime,” he says. It’s where he first read about the eclipse that will cross the United States this year. Back then, August 2017 seemed so far away. Now, Kentrianakis flips through the yellowed pages and reads out the date of every event he’s witnessed. May 30, 1984 — An annular eclipse that crossed over North Carolina. He persuaded two college friends to skip school and drive 10 hours south watch it with him. May 10, 1994 — Another annular eclipse over Niagara Falls. He almost missed it, because he forgot that the spray from the falls would generate fog. Feb. 28, 1998 — A total eclipse in Aruba. Aug. 11, 1999 — total, in the U.K. Oct. 3, 2005, in Europe. Aug. 1, 2008, in Siberia.


U.S., Russian officials meet as Kremlin accuses U.S. of ‘robbery’ over dachas

U.S. attempts to set preconditions for the return of Russian diplomatic property seized in New York and Maryland are "daylight robbery," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said July 17. Senior U.S. and Russian diplomats met Monday at the State Department to discuss “irritants” between the two countries, as the Kremlin stepped up its demand that the White House return two diplomatic compounds seized last year as punishment for Moscow's interference in the 2016 election. The mansions, one on Maryland's Eastern Shore and the other outside New York City, were high on the agenda of Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov when he spent more than three hours in talks with under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon in Washington. In advance of Ryabkov’s arrival at Foggy Bottom along with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, angry Russian officials issued a litany of complaints about the property seizure in December and the continuing ban on Russian diplomats being allowed to visit the country houses they used as weekend retreats. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the seizure “absolutely in breach of international law,” and said it was unacceptable for the U.S. to set any preconditions for returning the mansions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov characterized the move as “robbery in broad daylight,” and opined that “Decent and well brought-up people do not behave in such a way.” “How can you seize property which is protected by a bilateral, intergovernmental, ratified document and, to return it, act according to the principle ‘What is mine is mine, and what is yours we’ll share’?” he added. Former President Barack Obama shut down two diplomatic Russian compounds in late December 2016 as punishment for interference in the presidential election. The Trump administration is now moving toward returning these compounds back to the Russians. As Ryabkov left the State Department at 5:45 p.m., a reporter shouted out asking whether the issue of the two “dachas,” as the Russians call them, had been resolved. “Almost, almost,” Ryabkov replied before getting into his waiting limousine. On Tuesday, the State Department said the talks were “tough, forthright, and deliberate, reflecting both parties’ commitment to a resolution.” “The United States and Russia seek a long-term solution that would address areas of bilateral concern that have strained the relationship,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. “The talks reflected a spirit of goodwill, but it is clear that more work needs to


Are our gardens the monarch butterfly sanctuaries we think they are?

In his new book, “Monarchs and Milkweed,” Anurag Agrawal explains how monarch caterpillars can eat the toxins in milkweed and become poisonous to predators without harming themselves. (Anurag Agrawal) The brutish common milkweed, not a choice garden plant, is setting its strange pods now that its muddy pink blooms are waning, but other milkweeds are still flowering, and in a prettier way. The vivid orange clusters of butterfly weed are lingering in the heat, and the swamp milkweed is erupting with its creamy white blooms. Both are native perennials that deserve a place in a sunny garden, the former for dry sites and the latter for tricky, moist to wet areas. The milkweed is linked in nature and in our imagination to one iconic insect, the orange and black-veined monarch butterfly. The caterpillar takes up the poisons in the milkweed, rendering the monarch unpalatable to predators. As miraculous as this is, the monarch can seem infuriatingly absent now for the gardener who wants to nurture this pollinator. This has to do with the monarch’s nomadic nature: As every schoolchild knows, each winter the monarchs cluster by the millions in the mountainous oyamel fir forests of central Mexico and then head north for summer breeding grounds in northern states and Canada. On their spring migration, they use the milkweeds not just for nectar but as a food plant on which to lay eggs. Many make the perilous journey to adulthood, grow wings, and then also head northward. By late summer, these magnificent butterflies notice the shorter days and begin their epic migration back toward Mexico. In our neck of the woods, they linger, sup nectar and may lay more eggs in the hope of getting another generation on the wing in time for winter south of the border. Gardeners love tropical milkweed for its beauty, but some observers fear it may be harming rather than helping the monarch. (Adrian Higgins/The Washington Post) I love to watch them in the garden in the clear blue light of September, when they seem to rise and fall with a single flick of the wings and with none of the mad frenzy of smaller butterflies. In spite of its familiarity, the monarch has become a poster insect for the decline and threats facing all pollinators in an age of climate change, pesticide-driven agriculture and habitat loss. The phenomenon of their winter assembly makes tracking their


A much-feared Taliban offshoot returns from the dead

part of the Afghan refugee community, there is “no truth to the allegations that any Taliban, including the Haqqani network, are being supported by Pakistan or living freely there.” In early June, the usually elusive Sirajuddin Haqqani posted a long audio message in Afghan Pashto on the Taliban WhatsApp account. In it, he condemned the May 31 bombing and said his fighters had been ordered to avoid attacks in public places where “innocent civilians” were likely to be harmed. Yet he accused Afghanistan’s foreign allies of trying to “occupy our land and take away the Islamic system from Afghanistan. How could we close our eyes?” he said. “Our aim is to free Afghanistan from their control and influence and enforce the Islamic system. We have lost thousands of lives, made thousands of widows and orphans in this jihad. So we have to take it to its logical ends.” Haqqani, believed to be in his 40s, has kept a low profile since succeeding his father as commander of the Taliban faction. With a $5 million U.S. bounty for his capture and a history of drone strikes killing his associates, he is said to be permanently on the move. Local supporters in Pakistan said they have not seen him in two years. But southeastern Afghanistan, especially Khost province along the Pakistan border, remains the Haqqanis’ wartime comfort zone. Sirajuddin Haqqani commands a guerrilla force of at least 5,000 motivated fighters who address him as “khalifa,” or Islamic spiritual leader. One civilian supporter said he had also met Afghan government soldiers and police who helped the Haqqanis carry out attacks in “highly sensitive zones.” A spokesman for the Haqqanis in Pakistan declined to answer questions by phone. Supporters and analysts said that the group maintains ties with Pakistan’s intelligence service from their anti-Soviet collaboration but that it no longer enjoys free rein, largely due to U.S. pressure. “Pakistan is no longer a safe place for the Afghan Taliban,” said Muhammad Israr Madani, an Islamic cleric and researcher in Pakistan. In the past, he said, “some got national identity cards, but now the government has blocked them. I can’t deny the presence of Afghan Taliban and Haqqanis still living in Pakistan, but now it is very difficult for them to live here in peace.” Maulana Samiul Haq, a cleric whose seminary near Peshawar has produced many Afghan Taliban fighters, said that the Haqqani network


Liu Xiaobo’s widow has suffered more than enough. China should release her from house arrest.

Liu Xia, center, wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner and Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, holds a portrait of him during his funeral in Shenyang, China, on July 15. (Shenyang Municipal Information Office via Associated Press) “EVEN IF I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with ashes.” So wrote Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo about his wife, Liu Xia, as part of a statement he composed for trial in 2009. Ms. Liu, a photographer, painter and poet, steadfastly stood by her husband as he called for democratic freedoms in China — and faced relentless persecution for it. Now, even after his death , it is becoming clear that this persecution is not at an end. Ms. Liu has been kept under unofficial house arrest since 2010. Though Chinese authorities have claimed she is “free,” she has been made to live under constant surveillance. She is rarely allowed to leave her home, and few visitors are permitted entry. Her mobile phone service was disconnected seven years ago, and she has had limited contact with the outside world ever since. These conditions, along with the deaths of both her parents and now her husband, have taken a toll: Ms. Liu is reportedly suffering from depression, and both her physical and mental health are deteriorating the longer she is held in isolation. Friends and family have been unable to contact her since her husband’s death, raising new concerns about her well-being. Is there no limit to the cruelty China’s rulers are willing to deploy in their unending quest to squelch and punish free speech and free thought? Surely Ms. Liu has suffered enough. She watched as her husband was imprisoned four times, eventually dying without the care he could have received outside of China. She saw her younger brother face harassment, too: In 2013, Liu Hui was sentenced to 11 years in prison in a clear attempt to pressure her. His arrest prompted Ms. Liu to make one of her few public statements since her forced isolation: She shouted, “I am not free.” She is not and will not be until China stops its hounding of an innocent family. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a statement on the day of Mr. Liu’s death calling on Beijing to release Ms. Liu from house arrest. And although President Trump came under heavy — and deserved — criticism for


Montgomery County Animal Watch

montgomery County The following case was reported recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Too free and aggressive: Cats at no-kill shelter Cats and kittens will be available for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County’s no-kill shelter at the following location. Call 301-740-2511 or visit awlmc.org. Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County no-kill shelter, 12 Park Ave., Gaithersburg. Hours: 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. Humane Society adoptions The Montgomery County Humane Society’s private rescue shelter has dogs, puppies, cats and kittens available for adoption. Call 240-252-2555 or visit mchumane.org. MCHS Adoptions and Education Center, 601 S. Stonestreet Ave., Rockville. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except holidays. Reduced FEES FOR CATS Cats and kittens will be available for adoption at the next open house of Friends of Montgomery County Animals at the following location. Call 301-977-4833, or visit fmca.org or facebook.com/fmcainfo. PetSmart at Milestone Center, 20924 Frederick Rd., Germantown. Hours: 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Trump suggests that more U.S. troops might not be needed in Afghanistan

has been a long and difficult policy review, said current and former U.S. officials. The meeting that Trump led in the White House did not focus on the size of the American force in Afghanistan but looked at America’s broader approach to the region and its strategy regarding Pakistan, which has provided a haven for the Taliban. National security adviser H.R. McMaster and U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have pressed for a more punitive approach to Pakistan aimed at forcing it to cut ties to the Afghan Taliban. But such an approach has been met with skepticism by senior officials in the Pentagon and the State Department, who said that Pakistan is unlikely to change its behavior and that efforts to pressure Islamabad would likely lead to greater instability in the region. Top U.S. officials have also been divided over whether to seek peace negotiations with the Taliban now or wait until the new U.S. strategy has begun to shift the momentum on the battlefield. “The McMaster view is that you should not negotiate with the Taliban while they are still ascendant,” said the former U.S. official. But the current U.S.-Afghan war strategy is built around a four-year plan to push back the Taliban that is not likely to yield significant results until its later stages, U.S. officials said. Earlier this week, Trump met over lunch with service members who had fought in Afghanistan and suggested that his patience with the war might be running out. “It’s our longest war. We’ve been there for many years,” Trump told reporters before the lunch. “We’ve been there for now close to 17 years, and I want to find out why we’ve been there for 17 years, how it’s going, and what we should do in terms of additional ideas.” One challenge for Trump is that there are not a lot of new options available to him that do not come with a big price tag. In recent months, Trump has loosened the rules governing American airstrikes, allowing U.S. forces to boost the air campaign against the Taliban to levels not seen since 2012, when the United States had 100,000 troops in the country. “I’m skeptical that the strategy can be dramatically improved,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “You can try to be tougher on Pakistan. You can try to make clear that we are there for a long-term


In the push to deliver on campaign promises, Interior’s energy drive looms large

Democratic governors. A rocky landscape surrounding the Fossil Quarry entrance of the Dinosaur National Monument, which is located in Colorado and Utah, reflects the geological forces that shaped the region. (John Kimble/For The Washington Post) Under Zinke, BLM already has scheduled lease sales in at least two areas in Utah and Wyoming identified as priority habitat for the birds. The agency is also moving ahead with a lease sale near Utah’s Dinosaur National Monument, although the National Park Service had in the past objected the project. “Leasing these lands, most of which do not even have high potential for development, according to the BLM’s own analyses, has a lot of risk and not a lot of benefit — except, presumably, to show that more leasing can be considered anywhere at any time,” said Nada Culver, senior counsel at the Wilderness Society. Recent developments in the energy market have made the federal government a less central player over the past decade, in part because of new oil and gas finds and easier leasing practices on private land. The federal share of crude oil production dropped from nearly 36 percent in fiscal 2010 to 21 percent in fiscal 2015, according to the Congressional Research Service, while its share of natural gas production dropped from nearly 33 percent in fiscal 2006 to just 16 percent in fiscal 2015. Federal land remains more central to coal production, accounting for about 40 percent of the coal that’s burned in American power plants each year. Zinke lifted a year-long moratorium the department had imposed on federal coal leasing, but it is unclear how many buyers there will be: Several companies privately informed department officials last year that they had sufficient supplies for the near term. Given the continuing retirement of coal-fired power plants, fresh interest in federal coal leases may reflect “a new period of speculation” rather than a rise in demand, Tom Sanzillo, finance director for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said in an email. And Mike Cantrell, co-chairman of the Oklahoma Energy Producers Alliance, noted that public equity offerings in the shale oil industry dropped significantly this year. Opening up more federal areas to drilling could depress current prices even further. Still, Erik Milito, who directs the American Petroleum Institute’s upstream and industry operations, said Interior is establishing the kind of “stable regulatory regime” that allows firms to make long-term plans.


Elon Musk says he has ‘verbal govt approval’ for D.C.-to-New York Hyperloop

Hyperloop, an idea for transport pods that could transport passengers across the United States in under an hour through steel tubes, conducted a test of its high-speed transportation prototype in North Las Vegas, Nev. on May 12. Transportation pioneer Elon Musk has been known to talk big and sometimes overpromise. But the Tesla chief and rocket builder took it up a notch Thursday, offering a tantalizing but so-far-undocumented announcement that his tunnel-boring company had received a verbal government green light to build a super-high-speed pod-and-tube transportation system, which he calls Hyperloop, for travel between Washington and New York. “Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins,” he wrote on Twitter. Questioners on Twitter asked one of the obvious ones: Who gave the permission? Musk did not offer details. But the Trump administration did not knock the notion down. Asked if it had given Musk verbal approval, a White House spokesman said, “We have had promising conversations to date, are committed to transformative infrastructure projects, and believe our greatest solutions have often come from the ingenuity and drive of the private sector.” The system would run from “City center to city center in each case, with up to a dozen or more entry/exit elevators in each city,” Musk said in a later tweet. His firm intends to build the system underground using an excavation machine. The futuristic concept envisions transporting sealed passenger capsules in a low-pressure tube at hundreds of miles an hour. Musk appeared to do a little moderating as the day wore on. “Still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly,” he wrote in a later tweet. Hours later, he followed with another tweet: “If you want this to happen fast, please let your local & federal elected representatives know. Makes a big difference if they hear from you.” Even if official federal permission is forthcoming, the need for local ones is a potential major complication. Leif Dormsjo, director of the District’s Department of Transportation, said, “I’m completely unaware of any request to the District government to permit or review anything related to an Elon Musk project.” “This is news to City Hall,” said a spokesman for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D). Musk has had “no contact” with city officials, a spokesman for Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney


This beer/soda combo you’re seeing everywhere is the perfect summer refresher

offerings from Boulevard, Victory, Narragansett and Leinenkugel, among others, and a growing number of canned German and Austrian radlers found on beer store shelves. Aaron McGovern, the co-owner of D.C.’s Biergarten Haus, introduced Schöfferhofer Grapefruit, a 50-50 mix of hefeweizen and grapefruit soda, to the city’s largest German-style beer garden two weeks before the 2014 World Cup, and sales have never slowed down. “It takes over a pretty substantial portion of our sales in the summer,” he says. “We have 12 beers on tap, and it’s probably 15 percent of sales alone.” (Biergarten Haus also offers Bitburger’s Lemon Radler in 16-ounce cans, and it’s another top-seller.) Sure, it’s easy to drink on a hot day, but McGovern thinks a secret to the style’s success is that both of the radlers sold at Biergarten Haus are just 2.5 percent alcohol by volume, less than half of the other beers on the menu. “Spend the afternoon in a beer garden, and it’s easy to go sideways after three or four hours,” he says. “It’s nearly impossible to do that with radlers.” Bitburger, one of the biggest breweries in Germany, spent more than a year working on its radler recipe — a 50-50 split between Bitburger Pils, the top-selling draft beer in Germany, and lemonade — before it debuted in test markets in last fall. A full-scale American release followed this year, timed to warm weather. Tobias Lehmen, the American brand manager for Bitburger Braugruppe, says in an email that “it was always clear that the brewery would go with the traditional lemon radler to give our consumers the most authentic German experience,” instead of a grapefruit version like those from Stiegl and Schöfferhofer. “The grapefruit radler segment seems a little saturated at this point.” That traditional formula is being followed at South Street Brewing in Charlottesville, albeit with a nod to American preferences. To create its Lemon Shandy, the brewery makes an ale with Cascade hops and California ale yeasts, and blends it with Maine Root Lemonade after fermentation. The 50-50 split knocks the alcohol by volume down from 8 percent to 5 percent, which is lower than most beers at South Street, but still double what you would find in a German version. “Shandy is fun,” says owner Taylor Smack. “It’s not deep, it’s not complex; it’s just kick-back beer, and there is a time and place for every beer under


Zoo panda Mei Xiang celebrates her 19th year

Mei Xiang, the female giant panda at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, eats breakfast. (Susan Walsh/AP) One of Washington’s best-known teenagers celebrated a birthday on Saturday, at a time of great curiosity about her. As it is often phrased in the gossip columns, the question is this: “Is she or isn’t she?” Mei Xiang, one of the National Zoo’s giant pandas, was artificially inseminated on May 25, and now it is a matter of wait and see. In time, keepers expect behavior changes, altered hormone levels and ultrasound testing. But for now, a keeper said, the animal celebrity was “doing her normal routine,” interrupted slightly on Saturday for her 19th birthday. To mark the occasion, the beloved bear received an elaborate frozen treat. Witnesses said it seemed to hit the spot on a sultry summer day. “It was amazing,” said Amy Russian, a panda enthusiast who went to the zoo specifically to observe the celebration of Mei’s birthday. Mei Xiang plays in her yard at the National Zoo. (Sarah L. Voisin/Post) “She spent an hour and 45 minutes on that cake,” Russian said. It was clear, Russian said, “that she was happy about it.” Another witness used Facebook to deliver comments directly to the birthday girl: “Mei, I have never seen any animal enjoy a birthday cake as much as you are enjoying your beautiful treat today. “Happy Birthday, and many more!” It was not just any cake that was offered to the panda. Atop and along the sides of a frozen rectangular block were a variety of custom-made adornments, including a swirling pink rosette and snowflakes. A partial list of ingredients for cake and decorations included apple juice, beet-tinted water, sliced apples and pears, plus fresh bamboo leaves — stems removed — in ice. But now, for a few weeks anyway, it is back to panda routine for Mei. Except that she is seeing the zoo and her many admirers through the eyes of a 19-year-old.


What does ‘natural flavors’ really mean?

(iStock) There is strategy behind why I seldom grocery-shop with my boys these days. They are hungry all the time and are invariably drawn to snack foods. As we recently walked the grocery aisles together, I attempted to fill our cart with real food, and they stuffed microwave popcorn and ice cream sandwiches under the arugula. We found ourselves amazed at how many unambiguously unhealthy products advertise the seemingly healthy label “natural flavors.” One of my boys asked me what natural flavors actually means, and I explained that the term is very vague. It definitely doesn’t mean that the food is nutritious or chemical-free. In the food and cosmetics industries, the term “all natural” is poorly regulated, so manufacturers may use it even when their products are full of chemicals and preservatives — not at all what we think of as natural. The FDA defines a natural flavor as a substance extracted, distilled or similarly derived from plant or animal matter, either as is or after it has been roasted, heated or fermented, and whose function is for flavor, not nutrition. Foods that should be vegetarian can include flavors that are derived from animals, and foods can have flavors that outwardly have nothing to do with the food involved. An example of these incongruities is wine that includes traces of eggs or fish. As we walked the aisles, one of my kids asked why orange juice would need any surplus flavor. There are a few reasons extra flavors are added to foods. They can replace flavors that food processing and pasteurizing removed (probably the case with the orange juice he spotted); they help food taste fresh even when it is not (again, perhaps the case with the orange juice); they create an appealing smell that will entice the consumer to eat the product (Cheetos have a distinct cheese smell, though very little actual cheese in them); and they create a more concentrated, short-lived flavor that will leave someone wanting more (as is the case with many chewing gums). My boys observed that the words “natural flavors” seemed to be on most of the food packages they spotted at the store. In fact, the Environmental Working Group found in its research of 80,000 food products that only salt, water and sugar are listed more often than natural flavors on food labels. We all know that we aren’t supposed to eat too


If you dig nature, you’ll want to check out these D.C. spots

be enjoyed. Let’s look at some lesser-known spots. At the Southwest Duck Pond, mallard ducks paddle about and mature trees shade comfy chairs. The gurgling sound of four small fountains muffles traffic noise nearby. It’s easy to imagine relaxing and reading a good book in this tiny urban park. On the “green roof” at the University of the District of Columbia, bees and butterflies enjoy the colorful pollinator garden, and vegetables thrive. First-grader Claire Winchell recently visited while her mom did volunteer work there. When around flowers, she said, “I feel happy and peaceful,” adding, “Echinacea is named after hedgehogs.” (It’s from a Greek word.) This past spring, Claire helped plant 100 zinnias at her school, Lafayette Elementary, one of 127 schools in the city that had active gardening programs as of last year. Tucked behind rowhouses and restaurants, Columbia Heights Green in Northwest Washington is a former junkyard that, through community efforts, is now a thriving garden where residents plant, tend and share organic vegetables such as kale, collard greens and tomatoes. Mockingbirds sang recently as people brought games, art supplies and a Hula-Hoop for an evening of picnicking, bonfires and music. As a toddler happily explored every inch of the garden, Charlie Youngmann, a visiting college student from West River, Maryland, said, “Watching things grow from an early age can have a positive effect on how you see the world.” Sophia Cannaday, 7, takes the wheel of a boat through Living Classrooms with Captain Tyler Fortune. (Ann Cameron Siegal) In Southeast Washington, resident Sophia Cannaday, 7, took her very first boat trip. Aboard Living Classrooms’ science and environmental studies boat, named the MV Half Shell, she traveled along the Anacostia River, saw several ospreys on a nest and learned about salamander habitats. Sophia noted that if you had pet salamanders, it would be important to know how to “make your home feel like their home.” Can you think of ways to help plants and wildlife feel at home in your neighborhood? Which native plants are best for attracting pollinators? Tarnay said, “Once you learn about plants and the animals that like them, you can find space for them.” If you go You can visit these sites where people have worked to bring nature into D.C. neighborhoods. All are free. University of the District of Columbia green roof tours: Southwest Duck Pond: Columbia Heights Green: Learn more livingclassrooms.org fws.gov/pollinators:


Congress seeks more power over sanctions with Russia bill

is an issue given more urgency by Trump’s recent attempts to cozy up to world leaders with questionable human rights records and his fluid foreign policy stances. “What we’ve seen to date is not a consistent policy,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has teamed up with Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) on a North Korea sanctions bill that includes a congressional review provision. “We’ve seen a series of tweets, but nothing that is consistent and clear, and that’s why this legislation’s important.” In recent years, sanctions have become a favored means of pressuring foreign nations to cease objectionable activities, including North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear warheads. Congress and recent administrations have clashed over the extent to which sanctions ought to be applied against adversary nations and individuals, with lawmakers urging harsher punitive actions and administrations angling for more latitude to leave diplomatic options open. But even amid these tensions, lawmakers traditionally have offered the president the ability to waive sanctions when he determines it is in the national security interest of the United States. That appears to be changing in the Trump era. The president’s affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin has been of particular concern for lawmakers, who worry that the president may try to dismantle sanctions put in place by President Barack Obama late last year, such as handing back Russian compounds in Maryland and New York, after his administration accused Moscow of trying to influence the presidential election. Leaders in both chambers have endorsed an approach to Russia sanctions that codifies and expands existing punitive measures, while giving Congress 30 days to review any changes the president wants to make to the policy. The White House insisted it has no problem with increasing mandatory sanctions against Russia but does not want Congress to tie its hands when it comes to limiting the president’s authority to roll them back. It would be politically difficult for the president to veto the legislation, and the White House said Trump has yet to make up his mind about the bill. “As I said, he’s looking over where it stands exactly at this point,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of Trump. “I think the important part of this is that the president very much supports sanctions on those countries and wants to make sure that those remain but at the same time wants to make sure that


Whole Foods has high standards for produce. So why does it let coffee get stale?

stores that offer its coffee, “to make sure it’s turning over.” The roaster will then conduct in-store brewing demonstrations two to three times a week to market its products. And, lastly, Swing’s doesn’t push its seasonal, single-origin coffees on Whole Foods, to better differentiate itself from the Allegro products. Some Washingtonians, after all, may have a lifelong relationship with Swing’s blends, some of which date back decades. This single-origin Dominican coffee from Cafe Kreyol is in a nitrogen-flushed bag, which means the beans will lose some flavor but are actually good for six months, not the three months listed on the package, says Joey Stazzone, owner of the Manassas, Va.-based roaster. (Goran Kosanovic/For The Washington Post) “We shy away from single-origins,” Warmuth says. “That’s intentional, just knowing what the Allegro brand is trying to represent and what’s going to move for us.” No one seems to have a clue whether Amazon’s ownership will change the coffee program at Whole Foods, even though the online behemoth is based in Seattle, the unofficial coffee capital of the United States. Polseno-Hensley of Red Rooster says he already thinks Whole Foods is “always trying to adapt to a changing market in coffee,” while Vigilante says it won’t matter to him what Amazon does. He doesn’t plan to sell to grocery stores again. They can never treat his product as well as he does. Rhinehart says he hopes Amazon lets Allegro, the Whole Foods subsidiary, focus on what it does best: source, roast and package great coffee. “They’ve underutilized this incredible resource that they’ve owned for all these years,” he says. “They’ve never managed to capitalize on what could be the value of that.” Beyond that, Rhinehart says he hopes Amazon will improve freshness in the coffee aisles at Whole Foods. “Amazon is extraordinarily good at distribution, and I don’t know if that will translate into something very positive for the consumer, a chance to use those distribution skills to move very good, very fresh coffee out very quickly,” Rhinehart says. “Or whether coffee will not rise to the level of importance for Amazon that it should.” More from Food: I thought cold-brew wasn’t worth a hill of beans — until I used the right ones How much better can coffee from a Keurig pod machine get? Swing’s Coffee: From old school to new-wave Have questions about cooking? Join our live chat Wednesdays at 12.


Blueberries are good for you. Don’t be afraid to grow them.

would have noticed the problem earlier, and also planted other blueberry bushes to improve pollination and fruit set. I don’t see many blueberry bushes in gardens I visit; I suspect their fussiness has worked against them. But while the home gardener may have cooled to this plant, farmers, breeders and growers have gone to town with the blueberry. In the United States, per-capita consumption grew by 50 percent between 2010 and 2015 as the blueberry became popular as a health food. Growers have responded by increasing the size and geographic range of blueberry plantations. Much of this is down to breeding efforts that have brought far more varieties into play in places with mild winters. The traditional highbush blueberry, the sort you might find in the blueberry fields of New Jersey or Michigan, doesn’t fly in states like Florida because it needs long, cold winters to set fruiting buds. Southern growers have a species called rabbiteye blueberry, which is generally a larger shrub than the highbush with smaller and sweeter berries. Hybridizers in southern agricultural schools, particularly the University of Georgia and the University of Florida, have been able to cross the highbush blueberry with rabbiteye and other species to create a type known as southern highbush. Many of them fruit in the spring, allowing growers in the Southeast to get premium prices for the first blueberries of the season, easily shipped to major markets along the East Coast. (These varieties have also helped fuel blueberry farms in Mexico and California.) Instead of fussy bird netting, some gardeners use tulle to cover bushes during harvest season. Catbirds are a major problem for the home blueberry grower. (Jon Traunfeld/Maryland Home & Garden Information Center) The raft of new varieties offers a potential boon to gardeners as well. In the Mid-Atlantic, the blueberry fancier has a choice of some classic varieties of northern highbush (Bluecrop being the standard-bearer), along with new, high-performing southern highbush types, which are hardy down to about 5 degrees. The southern version extends the harvest and, because it is a bigger bush, promises to increase it as well. And don’t forget rabbiteyes. They are on the tender side and risky north and west of Washington, but in favorable locations they are generally less fussy about soil and moisture. Newer rabbiteye varieties offer some tangible advances. From hybridizer Scott NeSmith’s breeding program at the University of Georgia come two