National Climate Assessment: 15 arresting images of climate change now and in the pipeline

in much of the West by several to 10-15 percent by the end of the century; how fast and how much depends on future greenhouse gas emissions Via the report: “Increased temperatures and changing precipitation patterns will alter soil moisture, which is important for agriculture and ecosystems and has many societal implications. These maps show average change in soil moisture compared to 1971-2000, as projected for late this century (2071-2100) under two emissions scenarios, a lower scenario (B1) and a higher scenario (A2). Eastern U.S. is not displayed because model simulations were only run for the area shown.” (U.S. Global Change Research Program) 14. The projected increase in the frost-free season, days without precipitation and hot nights will impact agriculture. Via the report: “Many climate variables affect agriculture. The maps above show projected changes in key climate variables affecting agricultural productivity for the end of the century (2070-2099) compared to 1971-2000. Changes in climate parameters critical to agriculture show lengthening of the frost-free or growing season and reductions in the number of frost days (days with minimum temperatures below freezing), under an emissions scenario that assumes continued increases in heat-trapping gases (A2). Changes in these two variables are not identical, with the length of the growing season increasing across most of the United States and more variation in the change in the number of frost days. Warmer-season crops, such as melons, would grow better in warmer areas, while other crops, such as cereals, would grow more quickly, meaning less time for the grain itself to mature, reducing productivity.1 Taking advantage of the increasing length of the growing season and changing planting dates could allow planting of more diverse crop rotations, which can be an effective adaptation strategy. On the frost-free map, white areas are projected to experience no freezes for 2070-2099, and gray areas are projected to experience more than 10 frost-free years during the same period. In the lower left graph, consecutive dry days are defined as the annual maximum number of consecutive days with less than 0.01 inches of precipitation. In the lower right graph, hot nights are defined as nights with a minimum temperature higher than 98% of the minimum temperatures between 1971 and 2000.” (U.S. Global Change Research Program) 15. Climate change significantly increases the risk of water supply stress by mid-century, especially in the western U.S. Via the report: “The effects of climate change, primarily


Savor week: Beer events for Tuesday, May 6

This weekend's Savor craft beer festival brings brewers and beer fans from across the country to the National Building Museum for two nights of tastings and seminars. But the real fun takes place at local bars in the nights leading up to the festival, with happy hours, brewer meet-and-greets and rare-beer events. Every day this week, we'll publish a list of that night's must-do events, which don't require RSVPs. Just show up and pay for what you drink. • Savor Week events you'll need tickets for Smoke and Barrel's Tuesday draft lineup features beers that rarely leave the Midwest. (Photo by James Buck/The Washington Post) The reason craft beer geeks love Savor week is because it offers an unparalleled chance to taste acclaimed beers from across the country that don't usually make it to Washington. The Best of the Midwest event at Smoke and Barrel tonight is a great example: You've probably had fantastic brews by Bell's, Founders and Schlafly, and might have seen a Perennial tap or two around town lately. But Sun King's beers don't leave Indiana, which means only frequent travelers have tried the acclaimed Fistful of Hops IPA, or the Batch 666: Sympathy for the Devil Black IPA. It's a similar story for Country Boy Brewing, a Lexington, Ky., brewery only sold in Kentucky and Tennessee, or Off Color, which stays mainly in the Chicago area. You can try multiple beers from all these breweries among the 24 drafts, as well as rare beers from Bell's, Perennial and Schlafly, beginning at 5 p.m. (Check out the full draft list.) Firestone Walker Looking for a good craft beer happy hour? Firestone Walker and Flying Dog – the two breweries that collaborated on this year's exclusive Savor beer, a blend of imperial porter and black rye IPA – are teaming up to put a dozen beers on tap at Pizzeria Paradiso in Dupont Circle. All beers will be half-price between 5 and 7 p.m. (The full draft list is online.)


Alibaba’s success story in four animal metaphors

a 2006 interview with the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce’s Bulletin. “There are so many opportunities in that you cannot catch all of them. Get one first, put it in your pocket and then catch the others.” That is exactly what Ma did, first getting businesses online to buy and sell from each other, then creating a payment platform for them to use and expanding into business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer sales. Today the Alibaba Group includes a ride-sharing business (Kuaide), a mobile-messaging service (Laiwang), cloud storage (Kanbox) and money-market funds (Yu’e Bao). “EBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I am a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose — but if we fight in the river, we win.” When Ma decided to take on eBay, the American online auction company dominated the market in China. People told Ma he couldn’t do it. When Ma started Taobao, Alibaba Group’s equivalent of eBay in 2003, he “quickly eroded eBay’s lead by relying on a simple, powerful advantage: Ma gave Taobao features that tapped into the nuances of the Chinese market,” as the New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo put it. Ma knew Chinese consumers better than eBay did and he used his knowledge to win on his own turf. When your own turf is China, focusing on winning at home is a smart move. Today, Taobao, Alibaba’s platform has 90 percent of the nation’s market share. “We are interested in catching shrimp, not the whales. When you catch shrimp, then you will also catch the whales.” Ma’s focus when he started Alibaba was attracting small and midsize private-sector businesses, not large corporate clients, because he saw potential for growth. “… [W]e created value first, then we thought about making money from them,” he told the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce’s Bulletin. “First you have to make your business good, useful and valuable. Then, if members believe it is good, more people will join, so bigger is a natural result. A lot of dotcom sites try to make their sites bigger and bigger, but in the end, they do not create the real value.” Ma’s shrimp-catching days had long since passed when plans for Alibaba’s U.S. initial public offering were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But with analysts predicting a second tech bubble, some may still wonder if Alibaba is being oversold as a


Nathaniel Mackey wins $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

(Photo credit Nina Subin. Courtesy of New Directions) Nathaniel Mackey has won this year’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. The $100,000 lifetime achievement award — one of the richest literary prizes is the world — is given annually by the Poetry Foundation, which publishes Poetry magazine. Mackey In a statement released Tuesday, Poetry magazine editor Don Share said, “The poetry of Nathaniel Mackey continues an American bardic line that unfolds from Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’ to H.D.’s ‘Trilogy’ to Olson’s ‘Maximus’ poems, winds through the whole of Robert Duncan’s work and extends beyond all of these. In his poems, but also in his genre-defying serial novel (which has no beginning or end) and in his multifaceted critical writing, Mackey’s words always go where music goes: a brilliant and major accomplishment.” Mackey described himself as “shocked” at the news. “I was at a skate park watching my 10-year-old son skateboarding,” he said. “The last thing I expected was to get news of winning a literary award. And then the surprise, a kind of disbelief, gave way to feeling very happy, of course, about the appreciation and the recognition of my work the award represents.” Leading poets and scholars in America were quick to celebrate Mackey’s recognition. U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey said, “It’s wonderful to see Nathaniel Mackey receive this award. It is evidence of the great diversity in American poetry — and a sure sign that it’s thriving.” The poet Edward Hirsch, who serves as president of the Guggenheim Foundation, called Mackey “a leading African American experimental writer, who has developed a dramatic improvisational style, a poly-vocal lyricism.” Praising the way he “blurs generic boundaries,” Hirsch said, “I would call him a poet of ongoingness involved in a kind of spiritualist or cosmic pursuit.” Robert Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress, described Mackey as “one of our country’s great lyric experimenters, able to weave a multiplicity of phrases and voices into a song of spiritual reckoning.” New Directions Jeffrey Yang, an editor at New Directions, said, “Mackey’s work is like putting a quarter in a jukebox, and the song that emerges is like nothing you’ve ever heard. His poetry feels like it exists in a parallel universe. The influence of the deep history and rhythms of jazz and world music jumps out at you immediately, but then the many other levels of his poems


Savor week: Beer events for Wednesday, May 7

RSVPs. Just show up and pay for what you drink. • Savor Week events you'll need tickets for ChurchKey will be pouring 50 beers Wednesday night. Stick to four-ounce tasters to try more beer. (Astrid Riecken/The Washington Post) Two of the finest breweries in Fort Collins, Colo., are bringing 10 drafts to Scion for an event cleverly called "Beer & Cheese: An Evening with Funkwerks, Odell, & Right Proper." The folks who run the cheese counter at D.C.'s own Right Proper Brewing Company will match Funkwerks' flavorful saisons and Belgian-style ales and Odell's brawny IPAs and malty Scotch ale with a variety of cheeses. (The private pairing class with the owners of Odell and Funkwerks is sold out, but cheese and beer pairings can be purchased a la carte at the bar while they last.) Scion has posted the full draft list on its site. It would be easy to make "War Between the States" jokes about ChurchKey's "North vs. South" night, which pits the beers of Maine's Allagash and New York's Ithaca against those of Georgia's Terrapin and North Carolina's Foothills, but really, all that matters is that all 50 taps and five casks will be pouring some truly excellent beers. My pick-only-one choices would be Allagash Midnight Brett, Ithaca White Gold Belgian ale, Terrapin Maker’s Mark barrel-aged Big Hoppy Monster and Foothills IPA of the Month, and then the cask of Terrapin Maggie's Peach with hibiscus, green cardamom, cinnamon and peach in the cask. All beers are sold in four-ounce glasses are well as full pours to help with sampling. You can see the full list on ChurchKey's Facebook page. Eugene, Ore.,'s Oakshire Brewing has been earning raves for its small-batch beers and aged seasonals, but since they distribute only within Oregon, most Washingtonians haven't been able to try them. Thank God for Savor, then: The brewery is taking over 10 taps on the roof of Jack Rose tonight, with local fixtures 3 Stars taking over the other 10. I'm most looking forward to tasting Oakshine, but 3 Stars is making sure they won't be overlooked: They're debuting a version of Southern Belle brown ale aged in a cask of Knob Creek rye whiskey, which Jack Rose boasts as "the only known Knob Creek Rye barrel to ever leave the distillery." All beers will be $5 between 6 and 9 p.m., and the draft list is posted here.


DEA raids synthetic drug manufacturers in a major nationwide crackdown

This Feb. 15, 2010, file photo shows a package of K2, a concoction of dried herbs sprayed with chemicals. (AP/Photo/Kelley McCall, File) The Drug Enforcement Agency raided synthetic drug manufacturers in 29 states Wednesday morning, in an effort to crack down on substances that are growing in popularity, particularly among teens. Synthetic marijuana (fake pot), and other chemicals referred to as bath salts, “molly” or “spice” are being manufactured by chemists to mimic the mind altering effects of other drugs like marijuana and ecstasy. The side effects can be dangerous and even deadly because users rarely know what to expect. The raids involved more than 45 DEA offices and nearly 200 search warrants were executed nation-wide beginning early Wednesday in states including Maryland, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Florida, and New Mexico. Agents arrested more than 150 people and seized hundreds of thousands of individually packaged synthetic drugs, hundreds of kilograms of raw product and more than $20 million in cash and assets, according to a press release. U.S. drug enforcement agents raided facilities in at least 29 states Wednesday morning as part of a massive crackdown on synthetic drug producers. “Many who manufacture, distribute and sell these dangerous synthetic drugs found out first hand today that DEA will target, find and prosecute those who have committed these crimes,” said DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart in a statement. Just this week in Texas, synthetic marijuana called K2 was blamed for nearly 120 overdoses in Austin and Dallas, which police believe were linked to the same Dallas supplier. Synthetic drugs are a fairly new entrant onto the drug scene; the first seizure of synthetic pot in the U.S. came in 2008. Users tend to assume the drugs are legal and safer. But in reality, they tend to be unpredictable because potency levels vary, and they can also be laced with other substances. The negative health effects can be severe, including seizures, loss of consciousness, vomiting, panic attacks and hallucination. (DC Department of Health’s Addiction Prevention & Recovery Administration) Last year, the D.C. government launched an anti-K2 ad campaign aimed at teens, which equated the potential side effects of the drug with becoming a “zombie.” Congress has already regulated 26 synthetic drug combinations but it is difficult for the law to keep up with the ever-changing combination of substances. And manufacturers are known to sell the drugs over the counter by labeling them


A Parent’s Muddle Over Saturated Fat

for my aspiration to counter my neighbor’s faith in a heavy meat approach with a Mediterranean-style diet blessed by the Harvard School of Public Health? With my head seriously spinning, I set out to ask some experts, including some of the study’s authors and one of its strongest detractors. Luckily, at least for my discomfort with uncertainty, they all seemed to agree the study was no green light to load up on saturated fat. I was reassured by the study’s lead author and others that it still made sense to look to recommendations like the ones I had found on Harvard’s Web site that favor something akin to the Mediterranean diet (with fats from olive and other vegetable oils, fish and nuts, as well as plenty of fruits and vegetables, some whole grains, beans, poultry and limited red meat). “What the findings mean is just knowing the saturated fat [content] does not give you information about the effect on health,” said one of the study’s authors, Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and epidemiologist at Harvard. He faults the type of dietary guidelines that focus only on lowering saturated fat, particularly if people replace the calories with refined carbohydrates and other processed food. Compared with refined carbohydrates, saturated fat has a neutral effect on the overall profile of cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood, he said. “White bread with low-fat deli turkey is not a healthy food. Low-fat frozen yogurt is not good for you.” I’ll keep that in mind. Sorry boys. Yet Stephen Daniels, chair of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, was less sanguine about the study’s impact on popular perception. “It is very difficult if people now think it’s fine to increase their level of saturated fat intake,” he said, pointing to decades of evidence that diets high in saturated fat increase LDL, the type of lipoprotein that has been considered a strong predictor of heart disease. The focus needs to be on the overall diet, rather than on one micronutrient, said Daniels, who also heads the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on nutrition. “An approach that increases fruits and vegetables, which are under-consumed by children and adults in this country, including whole grains, low-fat dairy, mostly low-fat meats and poultry and including fish has been shown over and over to be helpful.” But what about advice on the best fats to choose? Here’s where the


Why Japan builds the fastest elevators

prowess in elevator design was in part born out of its unique geological situation. Tokyo, for instance, rests along the immediate danger zone that surrounds the volatile Median Tectonic Line. After getting rocked by earthquakes back in 1992 and 2005, city regulators pushed builders to upgrade all of the city’s roughly 150,000 elevators with a number of safeguarding technologies, such as sensors that can detect the initial minute vibrations that signal that start of a major tremor. This allows the elevator to possibly pre-empt the risk of riders getting trapped by moving them to the nearest floor. Compared to the United States — particularly outside of California — lift systems are built using stiffer, thicker guide rails designed to withstand violent seismic activity, Nicholson explains. Japanese elevators also have a reputation for providing remarkably smooth rides. Nicholson attributes this to designers paying particular attention to the system’s alignment and subjecting their models through rigorous field-testing. Fujitec, which claims to make “the World’s Smoothest Riding Elevators,” ensures that their systems pass what’s called a “nickel test.” The test involves a technician putting a nickel on the floor, standing on its edge and running the elevator from the top to bottom. If the doors opens and the nickel is still upright, it passes. It’s precisely through having established such advantages that have enabled companies like Hitachi to level up and push for greater velocity. Among their latest version’s most notable innovative features: a powerful slim magnet synchronous motor that, when combined with a compact traction machine with thinner, yet stronger ropes, helps reduce overall weight; guide rollers that detects and corrects even the slightest vibrations; an air pressure adjustment system that minimizes fluctuations in air pressure that would otherwise cause people’s eardrums to rupture. While impressive, Nicholson points out that the record-setting “moving speed” applies only to the ascent. Going down is a different story, with speeds drastically reduced to a limit of 2,000 feet per minute, likely for safety reasons. Mitigating the rise in air pressure during descent is trickier, he says, and would require an air pressurization system almost akin to what’s used in commercial airplanes. Hitachi did not respond to a request for interviews. Nicholson predicts that we’ll likely see ultra high-speed elevators outfitted with such a system to best control air pressure during descent within the next decade. “The key isn’t just to develop it,” he says, “We


National Guard’s NASCAR sponsorship doesn’t pay off despite presence of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

that will investigate whether the Guard had wasted, as McCaskill put it, “a bunch of money on a very expensive sports sponsorship.” From USA Today: The Guard received 24,800 recruiting prospects from the program in 2012, documents show. In those cases, potential recruits indicated the NASCAR affiliation prompted them to seek more information about joining. Of that group, only 20 met the Guard’s qualifications for entry into the service, and not one of them joined. In 2013, the number of prospects associated with NASCAR dropped to 7,500, according to briefing materials for the Senate subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight led by McCaskill. The National Guard needs 1 million leads to meet its annual recruiting goal of 50,000 soldiers. Even though the Guard spent $88 million as a NASCAR sponsor from 2011 to 2013, it is unclear how many new recruits, if any, signed up because of it, according to documents. The Guard on Wednesday would not confirm the figures on prospects and recruits developed through its NASCAR sponsorship. The Guard has a highly visible presence on the car of the sport’s most popular driver and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Daytona 500 victory in February put the Guard front and center in the sport’s Super Bowl. Still, the Guard is the last of the armed forces still tied to NASCAR. “The Army, the Navy, the Marines and the Coast Guard all canceled their sponsorships with NASCAR due to cost, ineffectiveness and difficulty in measuring results,” according to the briefing document obtained by USA Today. “The Army specifically stated that NASCAR was declining against the Army’s core target audience and that NASCAR sponsorship had the highest cost per engagement in the Army’s portfolio of sponsorships — three times the next highest program.” The Guard is the primary sponsor of Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 88 Chevrolet for 20 Sprint Cup races and also has prominent brand placement during non-primary events. “NASCAR is a critical marketing platform for the National Guard,” said Lt. Col. Michael Wegner, marketing branch chief for the Army National Guard, said (via ESPN) when the sponsorship of Earnhardt’s car was extended through 2014. “NASCAR fans in our target demographic are twice as likely to consider the military as a career option, and the overall fan base strongly advocates for military service. It’s the right place for the Guard and has helped us recruit more than 400,000 citizen soldiers since 2007.” Related:


People who bought these Vibram FiveFinger shoes may be entitled to a refund

had bought a pair since March 21, 2009, according to Runner's World. Or as Deadspin put it in a snotty post Wednesday, Vibram acknowledged that the FiveFingers is nothing more than a "shoe foot-condom." (I'm sorry, that was unnecessary. "Deadspin" and "snotty" are redundant.) Technically, Vibram has admitted nothing, "expressly" denying "any wrongdoing" or conceding "any actual or potential fault...or liability," according to court papers. This is like Rosie Ruiz refusing to admit that she took the subway to her victory at the 1980 Boston Marathon, but agreeing to let someone else be declared the winner so we can all move on. It's not like this hasn't happened before. In 2012, Skechers agreed to pay a whopping $40 million in refunds to people who had spent $60 to $100 for a pair of their Shape-ups, swayed by the claim that they would promote weight loss and cardiovascular health better than other brands. Not long before that, Reebok agreed to pay $25 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misled people about the benefits of its toning shoes. I tried the FiveFingers in 2009 Does Vibram being caught flat-footed mean there's no merit to barefoot running? Absolutely not. There is conflicting research on the subject, but I've met dozens of people who gave up the sport because of leg injuries suffered in traditional running shoes, only to have their exercise regimens revived by the minimalist variety. In fact, I'm married to one. There's a niche for flatter-soled running gear, just as there's a market for people who prefer to drive Maseratis instead of Mazdas. Any shoe that gets you moving Read more: More To Your Health: 8 things you can do today to help stop the spread of killer superbugs GALLERY: 11 tips to help you eat better, live longer There are more than 40 synonyms for processed sugar on food labels. You don’t have to be a slave to potentially toxic sugar. Here are ideas from an expert, Dr. Robert H. Lustig, and his just-published “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease.” View Photo Gallery —There are more than 40 synonyms for processed sugar on food labels. You don’t have to be a slave to potentially toxic sugar. Here are ideas from an expert, Dr. Robert H. Lustig, and his just-published “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease.”


What kind of beer does the ‘Big O and Dukes’ show taste like?

with podcasts. “Virginia craft beer fans are die-hard Virginia craft beer fans,” Buettner told me. “If there’s Virginia craft beer available, that’s what they’re drinking before anything else. [Dukes is] quite a spokesperson for that. He’s got the voice, he’s got the ears, people are listening to him. He’s the perfect person to use not just for promotion for Mad Fox, but for promotion for Virginia craft.” “It’s a dream come true,” Dukes told me, and he was being completely serious. “It’s like if anyone was a sports fan and they had their own bobblehead; that’s what I compare it to. I love beer, and as big a part of my life as it is, this is going to be a very big thing for me personally. That’s not sentimental at all; it’s exactly what I feel.” Buettner made a full 30-barrel batch of the new beer, which comes out to just less than 1,000 gallons; he did that without any hesitation, based on his brewery’s following and the passionate fans of the show. It will be available exclusively at the brewpub for about a week before moving into beer-friendly bars in the District, and later in Virginia. The beer will be draft-only, and both Buettner and Dukes are confident that it will succeed. The boiling kettle. (Courtesy Charlie Buettner) “Our [insanely loyal listeners] will put a dent in that [large amount of beer],” Dukes said, except he used more colorful words. “Whenever these people come out, we drink them out of everything, which is why I’m planning on this being rather successful.” “Definitely,” Buettner agreed. “Not just because of the names that are on it, but the style, the way the beer came out. This [style] is kind of all the rage; regardless of the name, the style is actually fitting what’s popular right now.” But the names on it won’t hurt, either. If all goes as expected, Buettner and Dukes are already planning on another collaboration for a fall beer that could debut at the Northern Virginia Fall Brewfest; that could also be timed perfectly with the opening of Mad Fox’s planned outpost in Glover Park. And the concept does kind of make sense: associating a popular product with a popular media program that has an intensely dedicated fan base. That said, I wouldn’t expect to find a This Show Stinks beer at your local tavern anytime soon.


Market shift: How the farmers market became a dining destination

baker Rare Sweets. "I love a market that's very different every week." McIntosh has plenty of food-makers to choose from. Many businesses have emerged in past year from Union Kitchen, a shared commercial kitchen that opened in December 2012 as an incubator for pickle-makers, taco shops and kombucha-brewers. More than 50 producers now fry, cure and bake at the Northeast Washington hub. Rather than dealing with the hassle of renting and building out storefronts, many have gotten their start with a simple market stand. Reg Godin, director of markets for FreshFarm Markets, transformed its Thursday market near the White House into a kind of open-air food court in 2012, after seeing street food catch on at markets nationwide. "People weren't just coming to market to shop, but for the experience," he says. "We decided if we were going to save that market, it was going to be going after the most food dollars. And that meant lunchtime." A year ago, FreshFarm approached Suzanne Simon to launch her taco stand Chaia at the White House market. Now the line stretches a dozen deep, and the business has expanded to two other markets. "Now that all these outdoor markets are becoming these community hubs, it makes sense to have food," Simon says. "And the producers win because you get to come in and sell on a very small-scale basis, which allows you to grow gradually. It's a win-win for both parties." Hungry? We've hunted down some of the best bites from markets old and new: FreshFarm White House farmers market After a highly publicized kickoff in 2009 with first lady Michelle Obama, this weekday market re-thought its strategy, changing its hours to coincide with the hunger pangs of the office crowd. Offerings this season include vegan sandwiches, fired-to-order pizzas, dumplings and French-inspired baked goods from vendors who adhere to the FreshFarm ethos of using locally sourced ingredients. One of Chaia's Market Trios, made with fresh tortillas and seasonal, local vegetables. (Photo by Craig Hudson/For The Washington Post) What to try: Chaia tacos Westover Farmers Market Zach Ortiz of Rub N' Roost, a stand that serves prepared chickens for folks to take home -- and is so popular they regularly sell out of all their chickens -- helps prepare an order at the Westover Farmers Market. (Lavanya Ramanathan/The Washington Post) This tiny street market in northwest Arlington, run by Field to Table Inc.,


Savor week: Beer events for Thursday, May 8

Tonight is the biggest night of Savor week, with two dozen tastings, tappings and events on the official Savor calendar. It's a really difficult task to trim the list down to a few essentials, but here are the ones where we'd spend our money. One of the few Savor events to come to Virginia finds 20 beers from Richmond's Hardywood Park and Tampa's Cigar City Brewing Company at Rustico's Ballston tonight. (Photo by Evy Mages/For The Washington Post) Sister bars Twenty taps at Ballston's Rustico are being turned over to Richmond's Hardywood Park and Tampa's Cigar City breweries today. Hardywood is an up-and-coming brewery known for Belgian-style ales with funky aging techniques; Cigar City has a cult following for its IPAs, farmhouse saisons and imperial stouts. Cigar City beers are rare in these parts, which makes a chance to drink the Double Barrel Aged Hunahpu (an imperial stout with a perfect rating on Beer Advocate) and Jai Alai IPA a good reason to go to Ballston, beginning at 4 p.m. Click to see the beer menu. Jim Koch, the founder of Sam Adams, hosts a party at Jack Rose dedicated to the 30th anniversary of America's largest craft brewery. Twenty Sam Adams beers will be on tap (and $5 from 6 to 9 p.m.), and everyone who buys a beer can partake of a free clambake from 6 to 8. Minnesota's Surly Brewing Company has lots of fans, thanks to beers like the dry, hoppy Overrated West Coast Style IPA and the amazing Furious IPA. They'll pour 13 beers at ChurchKey tonight, including Schadenfreude Dunkel and Pentagram wild ale, and casks of Furious and Blakkr, a dark ale, beginning at 4 p.m. You might want to go on the early side: A Surly event at Pizzeria Paradiso during last year's Craft Brewers Conference ran out of beer pretty fast. One of the best brewery-vs-brewery events returns to Birreria Paradiso in Georgetown tonight: Washington vs. Washington. Eight taps will be devoted to beers from Washington State's Elysian, NoLi, Reuben’s Brew and Sound Brewery, while eight more will go to D.C.'s own DC Brau, Atlas and 3 Stars.


How to drink beer in a cemetery without getting arrested

"Most of the city's brewers were buried here or at Prospect Hill, the old German-American cemetery on North Capitol Street," Peck says. "I'm sure there were many more people who worked in breweries buried here, but we just don't know." The Brewers Tour brochure comes with a map and a number of illustrations, including the first known image of a brewery in Washington, the Washington Brewery. Peck's research established that the brewery was located near the Navy Yard, and a number of figures connected to that historic brewery are interred at Congressional. My favorite is the remarkably well-preserved slab marking the grave of John Collet, the second man to run the Washington Brewery. He died in September 1814, a month after the British burned Washington. On the western side of the cemetery are the graves of George and Theresa Beckert, German immigrants who ran a brewpub and beer garden called Beckert's Park a few blocks away on 14th Street SE, a site now occupied by a Safeway. Peck believes George Beckert was the first to brew lager in Washington. After he died in 1859, Theresa ran the restaurant herself, but sold the brewery to her sons-in-law, who are buried next to her. Of course, it's not all brewers: Peck's list includes the grave of Hattie Berkley, a 13-year-old girl killed in a collision with a National Capital Brewery delivery wagon in 1895, and George Rothwell Brown, a former Washington Post columnist Peck calls "the John Kelly of his day." Brown merits a place on the tour, Peck explains, because he wrote about beer, beer halls and breweries in his 1930 book "Washington: A Not Too Serious History." Some people might find the idea of drinking beer in a cemetery to be unseemly, or lacking respect for the dead, but it's not seen that way at Congressional. "In the 19th century, this was a public meeting space," says Lauren Maloy, the cemetery's program director. "People would come here and have picnics." She has been trying to increase the number of events at Congressional beyond the traditional Halloween events, such as the Dead Man's Run 5K and the "Ghosts and Goblets" costume party. May 17's Graveyard Grub will bring food trucks to the cemetery's chapel for an afternoon of snacking and free tours. Maibockfest, Saturday from 3-6 p.m. Congressional Cemetery, 1801 E St. SE. (Entrance on Potomac Avenue SE.) 202-543-0539. www.congressionalcemetery.org. $25.


Buy an ‘all-natural’ product that wasn’t? Line up to get paid.

Welcome to Vibram Five Fingers During the 1950s, the “casserole decade,” consumers wanted convenience. Americans couldn’t get enough canned goods. Food started to look less like food. Jell-O graced tables in wobbly Technicolor globs dotted with syrup-packed canned fruit. Home-cooked meals were replaced by fish sticks and TV dinners featuring frozen slabs of mystery meat. The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction in the decades since. Nowadays, “all-natural” is all people want, from their food to their shampoo to their shoes. But as it turns out, all-natural is often anything but. On Thursday, cereal giant Kellogg said it would drop the terms “all-natural” and “nothing artificial” from some product labels in its Kashi line as part of a $5 million class action settlement, the Associated Press reported. Kellogg bought Kashi in 2000 — around the time the organic, all-natural trend went mainstream — from the health-conscious California couple that founded it in 1984. The product, billed as wholesome and natural, did well in health food stores and expanded to mainstream grocery stores. By 2011, label-conscious consumers noticed Kashi products included ingredients such as pyridoxine hydrochloride, calcium pantothenate and soy oil processed with hexane, a component of gasoline. As unnatural as they sound, such ingredients do occur naturally – wheat germ and flaxseed contain pyridoxine hydrochloride, a name for vitamin B – but Kellogg used man-made versions in Kashi products, a practice common to food companies who wish to control cost and ensure a consistent supply, according to the New York Times. Consumers felt duped by the company’s “all-natural” claims and sued. In a statement, Kellogg said it stands by its advertising practices, but will change its formula or labels by the end of the year to comply with the settlement. Vibram, the maker of barefoot-running shoes, also wound up on the wrong end of a lawsuit over its efforts to capitalize on the all-natural craze. This week the Italian rubber shoe manufacturer agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging there’s no scientific evidence behind its claims that its FiveFingers shoes encourage a more natural running stride that reduces foot injuries and strengthens muscles. The company will pay $3.75 million in refunds — up to $94 to anyone who bought its barefoot running shoes after March 21, 2009. Vibram also has to stop making the controversial claims about its shoes until it can find scientific research to back them up.


House of the Week |Capitol Hill rowhouse for $539K

The Washington Post’s picks of local distinguished homes on the market. View Photo Gallery —The Washington Post’s picks of distinguished homes on the D.C. area market. Although it looks innocuous, this Capitol Hill rowhouse was once the home base of a bootlegging operation that supplied members of Congress with hooch. George L. Cassiday, a.k.a. the Man in the Green Hat, lived in this modest home during Prohibition. Unable to find work after World War I, the tank crew member supported his family by selling booze in the 1920s. Green Hat gin, a spirit sold by D.C. distillery New Columbia Distillers, is named in his honor. Cassiday had no trouble finding customers on Capitol Hill. Business was so good that one congressman suggested he set up operations in the House Office Building. Although the police occasionally raided his home and confiscated the liquor, he didn’t run into problems until he was detained bringing bottles in his briefcase into the House Office Building. Arrested wearing his signature green felt hat, Cassiday got his nickname, a nod to a popular novel about London socialites, Michael Arlen’s “The Green Hat.” Although barred from the House, he found plenty of customers in the Senate. After Prohibition ended, Cassiday worked in a Pennsylvania shoe factory and then at several Washington hotels. He died in 1967. Renovations to the 1924 home have done away with Cassiday’s likely hiding places for his alcoholic beverages. The first floor’s open floor plan lends itself to today’s living. The updated kitchen has stainless steel appliances and granite countertops. There’s also a first floor powder room. Both second floor bedrooms have en suite bathrooms. The master bedroom has skylights. A flagstone patio in the back is ideal for sitting and sipping your morning coffee. Bootlegging isn’t this home’s only claim to fame. Scenes from the 2002 movie “Minority Report,” starring Tom Cruise, were filmed in the neighborhood. The locals affectionately refer to the grass triangle that is kitty-cornered from the home as “Spielberg Park,” after the movie’s director, Steven Spielberg. The production company reportedly donated playground equipment to the park as compensation for the filming. The two-bedroom, three-bathroom house is listed at $539,000. Listing: 303 17th St. SE Previous House of the Week Twitter: @KathyOrtonWP, @PostRealEstate Like us on Facebook


Vermont just passed the nation’s first GMO food labeling law. Now it prepares to get sued.

now it doesn’t work anymore,” says Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, whose organization has for years worked with activists and lawmakers in Vermont on the issue. “I think they may go ahead and sue and do it rather quickly in the hopes that it may gather momentum,” he added, referring to biotech industry groups. Other states have pursued similar measures, but Vermont’s law will be the first of its kind. Connecticut and Maine passed labeling requirements, but with trigger clauses requiring multiple other states to pass labeling requirements before their own go into effect. At least 25 states have considered such legislation, according to a recent report on labeling requirements from the nonprofit Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. And advocates are hopeful they will get a measure on the Oregon ballot this year. Efforts to label GMO foods, 2013. (Council for Agricultural Science and Technology Issue Paper 54) Industry groups argue that such laws are costly and bad for consumers. But even some academics have questioned the reasons for implementing a labeling requirement. That recent report — authored by professors from the universities of California, Illinois and Missouri — found no science-based reason for singling out genetically engineered foods. They also suggested that such requirements could have possible trade implications — many of the labeling requirements in other countries violate World Trade Organization agreements, they write — and that food costs could potentially rise if companies decide to use non-modified ingredients instead of simply slapping a genetically modified organism (GMO) label on products. (If they opt to comply with labeling requirements instead, costs could be minimal.) A tomato breeder displays varieties grown at the Monsanto Co. facility in Woodland, California. Monsanto is the world’s largest producer of genetically engineered seed. (Noah Berger/Bloomberg) Proponents argue that the science behind genetically modified food is far from conclusive and ask why consumers should take risks without knowing what they’re eating. If companies truly stand behind the safety of GMO foods, they shouldn’t worry about having to identify them, advocates for labeling argue. Whatever the wisdom of labeling policies, though, Vermont is set to move forward with its requirement. Cummins and others are relatively calm about the prospect of lawsuits, though, because they’re prepared. Advocates expect industry will challenge the law on three constitutional grounds, none of which they expect to be successful (of course). Here’s how the food


How Wizards’ Bradley Beal got his ‘Big Panda’ nickname

(Michael Conroy/AP) For months, every die-hard Wizards fan has known that the team calls Bradley Beal “Big Panda.” Players even use the phrase in conversation; “C’mon Big Panda!” John Wall once screamed when beckoning Beal to a photo shoot. Garrett Temple said #wizards have given Bradley Beal the nickname, "Big Panda." Why? Beal: "Because I eat a lot, like a Panda bear." And yet Nexis has no “Bradley Beal Big Panda” hits, and if you search the Web for “Bradley Beal” and “Big Panda,” you don’t really come up with much. (Until now. Now you will come up with this story. For ever and ever, hopefully. You’re watching the hot dogs get made, even as you read to the end of this sentence.) Anyhow, a whole lot more people are suddenly paying attention to this team, and they might want to know more about this Big Panda thing. Which is why NBC Washington’s Dianna Russini asked John Wall to explain it. “Whenever we go out to eat, he might get the biggest meal, and he’s gonna finish it,” Wall explained. (Pandas also apparently eat a lot.) “Sometimes I’m gonna be honest and I’m like, ‘Man I can’t finish, I’ve got to take it to go,’ ” Wall continued. “He finds a way to be the only one to finish his meal.” “You got to get your second wind,” Beal chimed in. “He finds his second wind,” Wall agreed. “It’s like playing in Denver, he finds that second wind and he keeps going.” (Indeed, Beal is always hungry. Observe.) This Bradley "Bao Bao" Beal exclusive portrait goes out to @adammcginnis and @McCarrick. http://t.co/SnNNce0RBQ Russini also asked Wall what Beal’s favorite food is. “He’s a big pizza guy,” Wall offered. “Aw man, that’s right actually,” Beal agreed. Which reminds me, I asked Beal last week if he ate all the St. Louis pizzas he received in the mail during the Bulls series. “They sent like five; I ate two. I’ve still got three left,” he said then. “You’ve got to keep them frozen and then you just throw ’em in the oven.” I also asked Beal if he has any favorite D.C. foodstuffs. (Please say half-smokes, please say half-smokes.) “Not really, nah,” he said. “I haven’t really branched out here yet.”


Savor week: Beer events for Friday-Saturday, May 9-10

The Black Squirrel features rare Florida beers and an appearance by Great Lakes' head brewer this weekend. (Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) The Savor craft beer festival finally begins tonight, and whether you have tickets or not, the happy hours and late-night "Savor after-parties" continue though the weekend. Friday Meridian Pint Florida comes to Adams Morgan as Cigar City and Proof breweries take over 10 taps at the Black Squirrel, beginning at 4:45 p.m. Both breweries are promising to bring special brews that rarely leave their taphouses. On a more local note, the bar will also be pouring rare beers from Richmond's Strangeways brewery. All the beers from the three breweries are listed on the Black Squirrel's site. Once the fun at the National Building Museum ends, breweries will head to nearby bars to continue the party. The most exciting one is the Colorado Brewers' Night at City Tap House, which features 40 taps from Odell, Funkwerks, Great Divide, Left Hand, Avery, Oskar Blues, New Belgium and Boulder Beer Company, for $5 to $10 each, beginning at 10 p.m. (Take a look at the pretty epic draft list.) The brewers and staff from Ommegang and Boulevard will be at R.F.D. with a selection of rare and popular beers, including the first keg of Boulevard ESB to come to Washington. The Brooklyn Brewery team will host a tap takeover at the Big Hunt, while Smuttynose sponsors a party featuring DJ Dredd and $5 drafts at the Black Cat. Saturday The most star-studded event of the day isn't in Washington but Fairfax, where Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione will preside over Belgium on the Beltway, a day of tasting Belgian-inspired beers from eight of America's biggest craft breweries, at the Dogfish Head Alehouse. Beer celebrities in attendance include Kim Jordan of New Belgium, Steve Hindy of Brooklyn, Rob Todd of Allagash and Dick Cantwell of Elysian. A $30 ticket, which can be purchased in advance or on site, includes tastes of all 16 beers and live music all day. (The party runs from 10 a.m. to midnight, but the brewers will only be there from noon to 2 p.m.) Stone Cleveland's Great Lakes Brewing has a huge following in Washington, which should make head brewer Luke Purcell's afternoon appearance at the Black Squirrel very popular. He's pouring some of the brewhouse rarities that rarely find their way outside of the taphouse,


Is barefoot running better for you?

Tood Wheeler, of Navarre, Fla., runs the the 38th Marine Corps Marathon barefoot on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post) In light of the kerfuffle over Vibram's FiveFingers running shoe, one very important question remains: Is barefoot running, or running in the company's strange-looking minimalist footwear, better for you? I hate to answer a question with a question, but in this case I have to: Better than what? Thirty to 70 percent of runners suffer some kind of repetitive stress injury For everyone else, probably not. When the American Council on Exercise, a nonprofit that encourages physical fitness, enlisted a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin to study the Vibram FiveFingers Bikila in 2011, it concluded: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." "If you aren’t experiencing chronic injuries while running, don’t quit with your shoes just yet," the organization said in a lengthy article in its newsletter. "Going barefoot or wearing Vibrams will affect which muscles are used and how you use them, all the way up the kinetic chain...And the results of those changes are uncertain." Here's why: Only half of the 16 runners studied were able to make the transition from the traditional heel-striking running style to a forefoot-striking style. If you run in the barely-padded Vibrams, or barefoot, and bring the huge forces of running down on your unprotected heel, it's going to hurt, a lot. And you may end up injuring yourself worse. (Not to mention that the Bikilas -- named for the famed Ethiopian distance runner Abebe Bikila, who won an Olympic gold medal in the marathon running barefoot -- will set you back $90.) Or as Daniel Lieberman, the Harvard evolutionary biologist in the forefront (forefoot?) of the barefoot running movement, put it in a 2012 review of the research at the time: "How one runs probably is more important than what is on one’s feet, but what is on one’s feet may affect how one runs." If you missed the legal case that has riled up the running world -- and many others who think the Vibrams are just plain ugly -- the company has moved to settle a class action lawsuit that accused it of making health claims about the shoes that it can't back up. Vibram has agreed to set aside $3.75 million for refunds to everyone who bought a pair after March 2009, though


China may build an undersea train to America

Screengrab of China's proposed global train routes from Sina.com China is planning to build a train line that would, in theory, connect Beijing to the United States. According to a report in the Beijing Times, citing an expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Chinese officials are considering a route that would start in the country's northeast, thread through eastern Siberia and cross the Bering Strait via a 125-mile long underwater tunnel into Alaska. "Right now we're already in discussions. Russia has already been thinking about this for many years," says Wang Mengshu, the engineer cited in the article. The proposed "China-Russia-Canada-America" line would be some 8,000 miles long, 1,800 miles longer than the Trans-Siberian railroad. The tunnel that the Chinese would help bore beneath the icy seas would be four times the length of what traverses the English Channel. That's reason enough to be skeptical of the project, of which there are few details beyond what was attributed to the one official cited by the state-run Beijing Times. Meanwhile, a report in the state-run China Daily insists the country does have the technology and means to complete a construction project of this scale, including another tunnel that would link the Chinese province of Fujian with nearby Taiwan. In the past half decade or so, China has embarked on an astonishing rail construction spree, laying down tens of thousands of miles tracks and launching myriad high-speed lines. It has signaled its intent to build a "New Silk Road" -- a heavy-duty freight network through Central Asia that would connect with Europe via rail rather than the old caravans that once bridged West and East. A map that appeared on Xinhua's news site outlines the route below, alongside a parallel vision for a "maritime Silk Road." Screengrab from Xinhuanet.com While some of its neighbors watch China's rise warily, the main plank of Beijing's soft power pitch has always been its stated desire to improve economic ties and trade with virtually everyone. "China’s wisdom for building an open world economy and open international relations is being drawn on more and more each day," trumpets the Xinhua report that accompanies the map above, according to the Diplomat. To that end, Beijing has assiduously resurrected the narrative of the ancient Silk Road as well as given prime billing to the tales of China's famed Ming dynasty treasure fleets, which sailed all across the Indian


Wal-Mart banks, overdraft protection, and consumer rationality

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating story on the front page about the operations of banks located inside Wal-Mart—although not really for the reason that the reporters believe it is interesting. The authors think it is interesting because they see it as exposing nefarious practices by these banks, which generate large overdraft protection fees and (it is implied) exploit consumers. In fact, the real story is exactly the opposite–it is compelling evidence of how consumers use alternative credit products, and I suspect, compelling evidence of the unintended consequences of government regulation of consumer credit products. [See update below.] In an article that former Comptroller of the Currency Robert Clarke and I published in the fall, we discussed in detail how consumers use bank overdraft protection and payday lending and the competition between the two products. In particular, we note that available evidence strongly suggests that in choosing between the two products, consumers generally choose rationally. First, those who use these products (like all alternative lending products) are people who don’t have credit cards or would exceed their credit limits on their credit cards and trigger high fees. So they use these products because they are the least-bad alternative they have at the moment to meet pressing financial obligations. But even more striking, when choosing between payday lending and overdraft protection, consumers generally choose rationally. As we note in the article, the similar uses but dissimilar pricing of payday loans and overdraft protection provide an excellent natural experiment to examine how consumers use the two products. Payday loans have a fee scale tied to the size of the loan–typically $15 per $100 borrowed. Overdraft protection, by contrast, is a fixed-rate product (mostly)–an overdraft charges a flat fee, typically $27-$35 or so, regardless of the size of the overdraft. As a result, for a single loan, payday lending will generally be less expensive for loans of up to $180 (depending on a particular bank’s fees) and an overdraft will be less expensive beyond that level. This differential pricing gives rise to a natural experiment: if consumers are rational, they will tend to use payday loans to cover smaller bills and overdraft protection to cover larger bills. Sure enough, an ingenious study by Brian Melzer and Donald Morgan find exactly that result. And as a matter of anecdote, that is exactly what the WSJ reports today (emphasis added): CLEVELAND—On a rainy morning


First MERS victim has fully recovered

As we wait for details on the second case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in the United States, here's some good news about the first one: The patient was released from a hospital Friday and is considered fully recovered, according to the Indiana Department of Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has scheduled a 2 p.m. news conference on the new case, a patient in Florida. But health officials reported Saturday that the first case, an unnamed U.S. health-care worker who had been living and working in Saudi Arabia, is fine. “The patient has tested negative for MERS, is no longer symptomatic and poses no threat to the community,” said Alan Kumar, chief medical information officer at the Community Hospital in Munster, Ind. The hospital talked to the CDC before releasing the patient, the hospital said. MERS comes from the same family, coronavirus, The virus's incubation period — the time between exposure and development of symptoms — is about five days, similar to SARS. While experts do not know how the MERS virus is spread, the CDC advises Americans to protect themselves by washing their hands often, avoiding close contact with people who are sick, avoiding touches to their eyes, nose and/or mouth with unwashed hands, and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces. People who develop fever and cough or shortness of breath within 14 days after traveling from countries in or near the Arabian Peninsula should see a doctor. The Indiana patient traveled from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to London on April 24, and then to Chicago by air. He took a bus to the Highland, Ind. area and went to Community Hospital in Munster, Ind. after falling ill. He was kept in isolation until he recovered. Authorities contacted most of the passengers on the flights and the bus, and none are symptomatic, according to the Indiana health department. So far there has been no clear evidence that the virus can be transmitted by casual contact. Hospital staff who had direct contact with the patient are still off duty and remain in temporary isolation in their homes until lab results confirm they are not infected. Related: CDC confirms first case of deadly MERS virus in Indiana


How to kill stinkbugs like a wonk

concluded a two-year study of stinkbug eradication techniques and has found that a simple home-built method -- one weird trick! -- is both cheaper and more effective than several store-bought traps. John Aignar and Thomas Kuhar enlisted the aid of 16 Virginia households experiencing significant stinkbug infestations in 2012 and 2013. Over a 11-week period in the spring of each year, each household tested four different stinkbug traps -- two commercial traps, a homemade trap involving a 2-liter soda bottle made into a funnel, and a homemade trap consisting of a baking sheet full of soapy water left out on a countertop. All four traps operate under the same principle, using light to lure the bugs into the trap. And among the four, the pan of soapy water was the clear winner, killing 14 times as many stinkbugs as one of the store-bought traps. Best of all? Assuming you already own a lamp, a baking sheet and some dish detergent, the cost is essentially zero. The chart above shows the results from the 2012 season. While the Stube commercial trap performed admirably, it was still outshone by the water pan. The 2013 results show the same general distribution, although the Stube model was discontinued that year and was thus excluded from the analysis. "Although this trap may not remove every stink bug from a building," the researchers wrote, "it will provide a homeowner with some relief from their stink bug infestations, as well as a sense of satisfaction from removing large numbers of the bugs from their home." The trap is so simple the researchers were able to fit a complete "how-to" in the 22-second video tutorial below. While this technique works great at home, it won't scale well to the agricultural realm, where stinkbugs are responsible for millions of dollars' worth of crop damage annually. In 2010, for instance, mid-Atlantic apple growers lost upward of $37 million to the bug. Overall in the United States, roughly $40 billion of crops are susceptible to stinkbug losses. "We are only just beginning to realize the impact of this species because it has only recently spread to areas like the Pacific Northwest, with the tremendous acres of tree fruit production, and the high value specialty crops in California," co-author Kuhar wrote in an e-mail. The jury's still out on whether this year's harsh winter killed off more of the bugs than usual.


Weekend roundup: of the NSO, Revueltas, and others

Noelle Garcia Carmona (center) with members of the New Ballet Ensemble and NBE students LeAnthony Douglas and Justin Stewart in “Harlem,” commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra for their NEW MOVES festival and premiered on Saturday night. (Photo by Scott Suchman.) A tip to online readers of the Washington Post: the “Music” tab on the website is a way to find all of our music coverage, including recent classical music reviews that may not have made it into the print edition of the paper. Monday’s Post certainly included a lot of classical reviews; on-line, you can find others, including ones that will run in Tuesday’s paper, that round out the collage of snapshots of an eventful weekend. Concerts included the second of three programs in the National Symphony Orchestra’s NEW MOVES festival combining choreography and an orchestra concert (“to what ultimate end, I’m still unsure,” Robert Battey writes); a concert of 20th-century music by the violinist Joanna Kurcowicz; the finale of the PostClassical Ensemble’s celebration of Silvestre Revueltas (“the strongest possible argument for Revueltas as someone to be taken seriously in the concert hall,” says Joan Reinthaler); “Nabucco” at the Lyric Opera of Baltimore (“blemishes aside, a rousing evening of Verdi,” according to Tom Huizenga); what Stephen Brookes called the “distinctive poetic imagination” of the pianist Martin Helmchen; the Mendelssohn Piano Trio at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; and a return to the Kreeger Museum by the St. Lawrence Quartet. In addition, I enjoyed Andrew Lindemann Malone’s piece on DMV Classical on what it takes for the NSO timpanist Jauvon Gilliam to play eight timpani in the fiendishly difficult concerto he played with the NSO on Saturday night; and Charles T. Downey offered a supplemental view of Helmchen on IonArts. There were a number of other significant concerts we weren’t able to review – a reflection of the ever-increasing wealth of concerts in the Greater DC region. Feel free to weigh in with your impressions of anything we didn’t cover – or of anything that we did!


From the Ground Up: ‘Objects in cup may be hotter than they appear’

and sales representative Denise Gallion, lead the Compass duo on a tour of the factory. While many companies use cans made in China, the former Marines have vowed to buy American products whenever possible. "If you pay two cents more, you get an American can made down the street, and you know the quality's going to be great," Haft said. The tins will be used for wholesale clients, such as local markets or specialty shops, that want to sell Compass beans. Haft and Suarez prefer tins because they keep the coffee fresher and are recyclable. Once the roastery is in operation, Haft and Suarez will can their own coffee using a miniature assembly line in a workroom in back of their Seventh Street NW building. In January, Independent Can began work on a custom mold of Compass's logo for the lids, and Haft and Suarez arranged to be there on May 1, the day production began. DeFrancisco and the group popped in some gumdrop-like earplugs and walked amid the din of machinery, churning out containers for Zippo lighter fluid, Joyva tahini, decorative tins for Curve fragrance and, finally, Compass Coffee lids. Immediately, Haft and Suarez made a beeline for the end of the conveyor belt, where they picked up a still-warm lid and ran their fingers over the raised logo, amazed. The machine that embosses Compass Coffee's lids (Courtesy of Compass Coffee) The machine, DeFrancisco explained, takes pre-cut strips of metal and presses them into shape, curling the edge of the metal and "nibbing" the lid, or creating a slight indent in the side, to ensure that it will adhere to the can. Then, it makes its way up a conveyor belt and into a cardboard box that rests on a scale, counting the number of lids. Once it hits 625, a worker seals the box and replaces it with another one, over and over, until the run of 25,000 lids is complete. There is new technology in the factory -- cameras are programmed to spot defective products -- but much of it, including the machine that produced Compass's lids, is decades old. Walking through the factory feels a bit like stepping back in time, especially because employees use quaint tricycles to save time when traversing the broad factory grounds. It's not quite the busy season yet -- that will come at the end of summer, when makers of popcorn


Why society is failing to stop global warming, in one 90-second video

The sun reflects on downtown skyscrapers as it sets through the Los Angeles smog and haze in this October 22, 2006 file photo. California is set to unveil a new weapon in its fight against global climate change November 14, 2012 when it holds its first sale of carbon emissions permits - a landmark experiment that it hopes will serve as a model for other U.S. states and the federal government. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/Files When it comes to combating the heat-trapping greenhouse-gas emissions that are warming the globe, the United States has had something to cheer about lately. U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases have fallen enough that the country is more than halfway to meeting its 2020 greenhouse-gas emissions pledge. But here's the bad news: Even if the United States keeps up its trend (though it could soon hit some bumps), it's barely putting a dent in global greenhouse-gas emissions. And those global emissions have helped the Earth hit some new milestones recently for the amount of these gases in the atmosphere. This new video from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory not only shows the recent global carbon-dioxide trend, but it also shows that humans have increased carbon-dioxide levels rapidly, and to their highest levels in at least 800,000 years: Time history of atmospheric carbon dioxide, by CIRES & NOAA Our latest dubious carbon milestone Last year, for the first time in recorded history, the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide — the primary greenhouse gas that humans are emitting, mainly by burning fossil fuels — hit 400 parts per million. That may not seem like much, and 400 ppm doesn't represent a tipping point for our climate, but it's still nearly 50 percent higher than it was before industrial times began. Last year's 400-ppm breach was actually short-lived because it occurred in the spring at the peak of our planet's seasonal carbon-dioxide cycle. (Earth's plant matter is concentrated in the northern hemisphere, so global carbon-dioxide values peak in the spring, after which the summertime plant and leaf growth up north sucks out some of the carbon dioxide.) Once fall and winter come around, this trend reverses, and some carbon dioxide is let back out. Though that 400-ppm milestone was temporary last year, it’s a sign of things to come. This year, we hit 400 ppm two months earlier than last year. Not


How an Indiana hospital got it right when MERS showed up at the door

The exterior of Community Hospital in Munster, Ind., where a patient with the first confirmed U.S. case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was discovered. (Jim Young/Reuters) There are now two confirmed cases of deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in the United States, and neither was discovered at a big teaching hospital like Massachusetts General in Boston or Mount Sinai in New York. Which only emphasizes the need for all health-care personnel to be ready to respond to new crises the way medical authorities at Community Hospital in Munster, Ind., did when this country's first MERS case showed up at its emergency room April 28. Community Hospital is not some tiny facility in the middle of nowhere. It's in a bedroom community 30 miles from downtown Chicago, has 430 beds and sees 70,000 people in its emergency department annually. Still, MERS might not have been the first thing on the minds of doctors and nurses when a still-unnamed patient came into the emergency department with symptoms of what looked like a bad case of the flu. And that's the point, Alan Kumar, the hospital's chief medical information officer, told me Monday: Staff are drilled on proper procedures for handling infectious diseases regardless of what they might be, so if they ever face a situation like this one, the danger can be contained. "If they all know the protocols and standards, [and follow them]," he said, "when something like this comes in, the exposure is minimized." Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of Community's handling of the case is how it figured out who had been near the patient. Officials there reviewed security tapes, tracked the sign-ins required of everyone — from doctors to housekeepers — who entered the patient's room and tracked them via the RFID badges they wear, which show their locations at all times. About 50 were sent home and kept isolated there until the hospital could be sure they did not have MERS. They are returning to work Monday and Tuesday, Kumar said. The patient, a U.S. resident who had been working in a health-care facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, arrived in the Emergency Department on a busy Monday afternoon and was immediately taken to a triage room. (A bit of luck for the Community staff: The emergency room wasn't slammed with patients as


diseases regardless of what they might be, so if they ever face a situation like this one, the danger can be contained. "If they all know the protocols and standards, [and follow them]," he said, "when something like this comes in, the exposure is minimized." Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of Community's handling of the case is how it figured out who had been near the patient. Officials there reviewed security tapes, tracked the sign-ins required of everyone — from doctors to housekeepers — who entered the patient's room and tracked them via the RFID badges they wear, which show their locations at all times. About 50 were sent home and kept isolated there until the hospital could be sure they did not have MERS. They are returning to work Monday and Tuesday, Kumar said. The patient, a U.S. resident who had been working in a health-care facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, arrived in the Emergency Department on a busy Monday afternoon and was immediately taken to a triage room. (A bit of luck for the Community staff: The emergency room wasn't slammed with patients as it was when I talked to Kumar on Monday.) The room was private and equipped with a negative airflow system, so that even when someone opened the door, air flowed inward, not outward, containing the virus, Kumar said. The air is not vented through the hospital's regular ducts, but sent through a special system with filters designed to destroy bacteria and viruses. Three hours later, the patient, who needed oxygen and fluids, was admitted to the hospital's medical floor, where he was again placed in a private room with special ventilation and seen by a primary care physician. By Tuesday, when an infectious disease specialist interviewed him over the phone, everyone who came in contact with him was required to wear gloves, gowns, masks and eye protection, Kumar said. The patient was put on a course of intravenous antibiotics because doctors weren't sure whether his symptoms, which looked like pneumonia, were bacterial or viral. The specialist asked the patient about his recent travel — if that question was asked in the emergency department, it didn't trigger suspicions of MERS — and ordered a test for the virus, which has killed 145 people so far, the vast majority of them in


At the Met, 2013-14 goes out with a bang

Ending on a high note: Lawrence Brownlee as Arturo and Olga Peretyatko as Elvira in Bellini’s “I Puritani,” seen on the last night of the Met’s 2013-14 season, which concluded with a strong showing in three bel canto operas. (Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera) There have been two pieces of news out of the Metropolitan Opera in recent weeks, as the 2013-14 season has wound to a close. One is the imminent risk of a strike as the company and labor unions started contract negotiations in advance of the current contract’s expiration at the end of July. Signs of strike preparation these days include updatings to the musicians’ Facebook page and independent website (in this case, “Met Orchestra Musicians”), wearing buttons during performances as a show of support, and leafleting audience members afterwards. (On Monday, the musicians voted to formally support the negotiating committee in calling a strike should they deem it necessary, characterizing the Met’s contract proposals as “devastating,” and sending out a press release through an upscale publicity firm to spread the word.) The other piece of news had entirely to do with singing. Traditionally, the Met has not shone in the bel canto repertory – the operas of Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini – but in the waning weeks of the year, it hit two unlikely trifectas by presenting three different bel canto operas with some first-rate casts, and by getting audiences excited about three different tenors. I didn’t manage to see “La Sonnambula,” with Diana Damrau reportedly excelling in the title role and a Mexican tenor named Javier Camarena bursting onto the scene as a new star. But on Saturday, the final day of the Met season, I did get to two others, Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” with Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Florez in the afternoon, and Bellini’s “I Puritani,” with Lawrence Brownlee and a new Russian soprano named Olga Peretyatko in the evening. And indeed, both shows represented some of the best singing I’ve heard at the Met in a long time. “Cenerentola” was perhaps the least newsworthy of the three, in that DiDonato and Florez are already established superstars; the Met had already banked on this sure thing by scheduling it for an HD broadcast. Certainly neither singer disappointed. They are two of the most technically accomplished and reliable singers on the opera stage today, and they know this repertory, with its ornaments and runs and


Al Gore says GOP candidates ‘cowed into abandoning’ climate change

Former vice president Al Gore speaking at the Chicago University Institute of Politics voiced a skeptical and at times sarcastic response to Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) stances on climate change. Former vice president Al Gore said Monday night that GOP presidential hopefuls have "been cowed into abandoning" any talk of addressing climate change. Gore's comments, during a discussion with Democratic strategist David Axelrod at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, came a day after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) questioned scientists' predictions that human activities are the main driver of climate impacts such as sea level rise and more intense storms. "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it … and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy," Rubio said on ABC's "This Week." During Monday's discussion Axelrod played a video of an interview he had recently conducted with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), another possible 2016 contender. During that exchange at the institute, Paul said there was little evidence to suggest recent weather changes were anything but a normal part of the earth's natural cycle. "The earth's 4.5 billion years old, and you’re going to say that we had four hurricanes and so it proves a theory?" Paul said. "There is an enforced orthodoxy in the Republican Party," Gore said. "I don’t think it’s particularly complicated why they have all been cowed into abandoning that position. They will face primary opponent, financed by the Koch brothers and others who are part of their group, if they even breathe the slightest breath of sympathy for the truth about climate science." Gore noted that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) supported federal action to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change when he was his party's presidential nominee in 2008, and the GOP's nominee in 2012, Mitt Romney, had backed climate regulation when he served as Massachusetts governor between 2003 and 2007. But Rubio spokesman Alex Conant noted that the one political player spending money in Florida on the issue of climate change right now is billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, who is running ads attacking his boss. "That’s a ridiculous assertion by the Vice President," Conant wrote in an e-mail. "The only big money we’ve seen on this


Wonkbook: Regulator’s big change on Fannie and Freddie’s role in housing

Welcome to Wonkbook, Wonkblog’s morning policy news primer by Puneet Kollipara. To subscribe by e-mail, click here. Send comments, criticism or ideas to Wonkbook at Washpost dot com. To read more by the Wonkblog team, click here. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters) Wonkbook’s Number of the Day: Wonkbook’s Chart of the Day: Wonkbook's Top 4 Stories: 1. Top story: A big shift on Fannie and Freddie's role in housing In shift, regulator says Fannie and Freddie should stay in housing market. Explainers: 6 takeaways from Mel Watt's housing speech. Nick Timiraos in The Wall Street Journal. What economic considerations are at play? U.S. household debt is increasing, but so is aversion to mortgages. All this comes as Congress mulls phasing out Fannie and Freddie. Primary source: Geithner: We didn't have great options on housing relief. Background from 2012: Cautious moves on foreclosures haunting Obama. " Economic/financial data: U.S. economy did contract in first quarter, data show. Ben Leubsdorf in The Wall Street Journal. Small-business confidence is back at pre-recession levels. Reuters. Retail sales slow, but growth outlook still upbeat. Lucia Mutikani in Reuters. Import prices down in April, showcasing stubbornly weak inflation. Ben Leubsdorf in The Wall Street Journal. Other economic/financial reads: If debt caused the last crash, boosting risk for lenders might soften the next. Brenda Cronin in The Wall Street Journal. Drop in food-stamp enrollment picks up steam. Damian Paletta and Josh Zumbrun in The Wall Street Journal. Holder tightens squeeze on banks. Devlin Barrett in The Wall Street Journal. Fed says banks haven't implemented junk loan guidelines. Kristen Haunss in Bloomberg. THE WASHINGTON POST. Top opinion SUNSTEIN: Why worry about inequality? HARDING: Clarification needed from Yellen on rates. E. KLEIN: Millennials are losing faith in the presidency. Good. BERNSTEIN: No, millennials are losing faith in the president. PORTER: The politics of income inequality. PETHOKOUKIS: You can be a climate skeptic and still take action. SABHLOK: Forget net neutrality. What about those fees? Animals interlude: 2. News flash — the net has never truly been neutral Internet has never been truly neutral. Life in the 'fast lanes' is pretty tough for the FCC chairman right now. The FCC vote is just the beginning. Net neutrality protesters are being heard. Explainer: Did Wheeler reopen the door to reclassification? Other tech reads: How the Senate's feel-good moment on patent reform fell apart. Dustin Volz in National Journal. NSA director promises greater


NFL’s new policy would change marijuana discipline, report says

(Mark Duncan / AP) The rules that have snared a number of NFL players for positive marijuana test results may be changing, according to a new report. “When and if the NFL’s new drug policy is finalized and announced, it will include changes specific to marijuana and other drugs of abuse,” ESPN’s Dan Graziano writes. The threshold for a positive marijuana test would be increased and punishment for violations involving pot would be reduced. From Graziano’s report: The source said the NFL’s policy on marijuana is outdated, pointing out that the World Anti-Doping Agency has a higher threshold for a positive test than the NFL currently does. The NFL Players Association has expressed to the league an interest in studying the medical research that has led to the legalization of marijuana in many states for medicinal use, but it believes changes are needed in the meantime regardless. What is holding up the implementation and announcement of changes to the league’s drug policy is a continued standoff over arbitration of discipline. In cases of nonanalytical positives (i.e., an Alex Rodriguez-type case in which a player is found to be in violation of the drug policy by some method other than a failed test) or in cases of violations of law (i.e., a player getting caught trying to smuggle prescription drugs across the Canadian border), the NFLPA has asked that discipline appeals be heard by an independent arbitrator. The NFL has continued to insist that the commissioner have final say over discipline matters. A change wouldn’t help Josh Gordon, the Cleveland Browns wide receiver who is likely to be suspended for the season because of multiple positive tests over his two-year career, and other players, though. Marijuana use isn’t widespread in the NFL, Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman writes, but there are valid reasons a player might use it. Most players use marijuana to ease the violence of the sport. There are handful that use it as a sort of crutch, I’m told. It’s not addiction, these players say, but still there is heavy use. They use pot as more of a comfort blanket than a necessity. It helps them cope with not just the brutality of the sport but the every day stress it presents: dealing with coaches, the media, the pressure of winning, the pain of losing.


Big Agriculture wants to reach millennials, but it started a food fight in the process

than your competition, but when you start saying you're better than the competition, that's the challenge," Hockman explained at the post-conference reception, where industry reps grazed on cuts of specialty beef. "Fundamentally, people want to feel good about what they eat. Don't make me feel bad about my decision." The cleaner-and-better message is too much of a temptation for many farmers, though. And that's a tougher challenge than the one posed by anti-GMO activists, or even the Chipotles of the world. "It's the war we never saw coming: farmer vs. farmer," said Ben Wilson, video production manager for the FarmOn Foundation, which seeks to support young farmers. "We're picking a stance because we're being asked to take a position: 'The way we're doing it is better, and therefore every other way of doing it must be bad or worse.'" After showing a set of inspirational videos about the farming lifestyle, Wilson lodged an appeal for non-aggression. "If we want to make a difference in this industry, we're going to have to work together," he said. "Stop the fighting. It's not about us, anyway." There was perhaps no greater evidence that peace was possible than the interaction between Emily Zweber, who runs a 100-cow operation in Minnesota that produces organic milk, and Janice Person, who does corporate engagement for the oft-maligned seed company Monsanto. They professed friendship, despite representing different sides of the industry, which they say aren't incompatible. The key, they agreed, is giving the consumer a connection to the people producing their food. "People are buying meat, and they're looking for a relationship, or at least the feeling of a relationship," says Zweber, who notes that she mostly opted for organics because it's a way to increase the value of her product with a limited amount of land. She sells through the farmer-owned co-op Organic Valley, which gives her some price stability and puts the faces of its members on its marketing materials. Person thinks that can work for industrial food production, as well. "I think what's really been interesting over the past few years is, people can put Big Ag as a logo on a building, but when you personalize it, and you're part of agriculture, that's where barriers get broken," she said. "I don't think millennials are that interested in the labels. They're interested in understanding." If farmers can tweet their way to understanding, they're doing alright.


Pastry chef Tiffany MacIsaac to leave Neighborhood Restaurant Group

After nearly five years, Tiffany MacIsaac, one of the Mid-Atlantic's best-known pastry chefs, says she's leaving the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, probably to do something on her own. Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post "I'm 33, not sure what I want to do next, but I need to take a moment to reassess," MacIsaac said this morning. As executive pastry chef for the company, she was responsible for almost 20 restaurants and bakeries in the area. Her husband, Kyle Bailey, with whom she opened Birch & Barley in Logan Circle, plans to stay with NRG. "I support whatever she wants to do," said Michael Babin, the restaurant company's head. "She's a great friend, and always has been." MacIsaac, whose handiwork featured childhood favorites with a twist, gave her employer six weeks' notice. Babin says he plans to look for a replacement -- or two, depending on the skill set -- both inside and outside the D.C. area.


The Air Force’s ‘Space Fence’ plan to track orbital debris is on today’s cover

Today’s cover story details the Air Force’s efforts to build an updated “Space Fence” to better keep track of all the debris in orbit above the earth, including a lonely glove that an astronaut dropped in 1965 (illustrated on the right) and a spatula that escaped from a space shuttle in 2006 (on the left). All that orbital junk zipping around the globe can be a major threat. The Air Force hopes better tracking of the debris can warn of potential collisions with the trash, which can travel at speeds of up to 17,000 miles per hour. Read the full story here.


Flying Dog’s ‘Old Bay beer’ debuts in D.C. tomorrow

The ominous-looking crab on Dead Rise's label was created by illustrator Ralph Steadman, who provided the art for Hunter S. Thompson's work. (Photo by Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) After weeks of anticipation, Flying Dog's Dead Rise Old Bay Summer Ale – aka "that beer made with Old Bay" – makes its D.C. debut at ChurchKey tomorrow. Dan Steinberg has already written an extensive post about how this beer came to be, so I thought I'd offer my two cents on what it actually tastes like. (Caveat: I've had it poured from a bottle on three occasions, while the beer at ChurchKey will be on draft.) If you're expecting an Old Bay bomb, you might be disappointed. Dead Rise is a really nice German-style wheat ale with a crisp dose of floral hops. To me, the Old Bay notes come out in celery salt, white and black pepper, and a little garlic salt, rather than the cumin and cardamom that many people associate with Maryland's favorite spice. There's still mustard, allspice and other herby flavors there, but they don't beat you over the head. The result is a beer with a pronounced salinity – I compared it to a gose after my first sips – that would be refreshing on a hot summer day. Sure, it's ideal for sipping with a pile of blue crabs steamed in Old Bay (or, to be fair, J.O. Spice), but I'd be happy to drink this on its own on my patio. Thursday's party begins at 4 p.m. and features six Flying Dog beers on draft, including perennial favorites Bloodline Blood Orange IPA and Pearl Necklace Oyster Stout. Expect to see Dead Rise in bars all over the area by the weekend.


Rebellion brings even more bourbon to 18th Street

Are you tired of bourbon and rye whiskey yet? Rebellion, which officially opens Thursday in the former Zabb and Straits of Malaya space on 18th Street NW, certainly hopes not. The rooftop at Rebellion on Tuesday night. (Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) Rebellion, which takes its name from Pennsylvania's famous Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s, is the latest in a string of bars selling America's Native Spirit. So far this year, we've welcomed Barrel and Dry 85. 2013 openings included Copperwood Cafe and Southern Efficiency. They joined the whiskey-focused Jack Rose, the two branches of Bourbon, and Smoke and Barrel, and the increasing number of bars boasting stellar bourbon selections, such as the Passenger, Bourbon Steak, Boundary Stone and Acadiana. That's a lot of brown water splashing around, especially on 18th Street NW, where Jack Rose, Bourbon and Smoke and Barrel are already within a few blocks of each other. The newcomer has around 50 kinds of whiskey, including a dozen ryes, though it's clearly still a work in progress. The whiskey menus haven't been printed yet, so I had to pick my pours from what I could see from my barstool, and didn't find out the price of Catoctin Creek's Roundstone Rye ($7) or Russell's Reserve ($8) until I got the check. The four barrel-aged cocktails featured prominently on the menu and chalkboards behind the bar have just hit the wood, and won't be ready for a few weeks, according to my bartender. And while there's a fairly decent selection of bourbons and ryes on the back bar, ranging from 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle down to Col. E. H. Taylor Small Batch and WhistlePig 10 Year, the selection is still growing. It comes as no surprise that bourbon and rye feature prominently in six of the nine cocktails on the menu. I was most taken with the Legacy – the menu claims it was "Al Capone's Favorite Cocktail" – which featured a healthy pour of Buffalo Trace mixed with simple syrup and balsamic vinegar and topped with Fever Tree ginger beer. The vinegar offered a tangy counterpoint to bourbon and ginger beer. The dozen craft beers on tap are rather pedestrian – Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Brooklyn Lager – with Flying Dog's the Truth and Atlas's Rowdy Rye standing out among the locals. The menu, similar to Barrel and Southern Efficiency, is heavy on Southern comfort food: shrimp and grits,


Here are the five U.S. cities where most travelers from Saudi Arabia and the UAE arrive

There’s been a lot of attention to the deadly respiratory virus known as Middle East Respirator Syndrome (MERS), now that two confirmed cases have emerged in the United States. Both patients were travelers from Saudi Arabia. Most of the 571 confirmed cases worldwide are in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. With infections just a plane trip away, as experts like to say, here are the top five destinations in the United States for travelers arriving from Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the months of May and June, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The five accounted for 75 percent of the arrivals from those two countries; based on historical patterns, the CDC estimates that about 100,000 travelers will arrive in these cities in May and June of this year. The CDC is urging travelers to and from the Arabian Peninsula to take extra precautions, such as avoiding contact with sick people and washing hands frequently. Anyone who comes down with fever, cough or shortness of breath within 14 days after traveling to the region should consult a physician. The agency emphasizes, however, that there is no evidence that the disease is transmitted by casual contact. It appears to require close contact, such as patient to caregiver, for the disease to be communicated. 1. New York 30,680 2. Washington ~24,514 3. Los Angeles 15,070 4. Atlanta 14,567 5. Chicago 10,457 And let’s not forget our neighbor to the North. Toronto is also a big destination, with 14,889 travelers.


In ‘Chef,’ actor-director Jon Favreau tackles restaurant critics and Cuban sandwiches

For “Chef,” actor-director Jon Favreau, center, with John Leguizamo, left, got help from celebrity chef Roy Choi, right. (Merrick Morton) Judging from “Chef,” you might think that Jon Favreau has a problem with critics. In the film (which Favreau wrote, directed and stars in), he plays Carl Casper, a chef at a nice, safe restaurant who longs to do more innovative things but finds himself locked in a prison made of filet mignon and molten lava cake. When a powerful food critic (Oliver Platt) calls Carl out on his lack of creativity, Carl freaks out at him. It’s easy to see “Chef,” out locally Friday, as a metaphor for filmmaking itself, examining the struggle between wanting to pay the bills with crowd pleasers versus remaining true to oneself as an artist, as well as the newfound power of social media to build up or tear down nearly anything on the planet. Favreau says, though, that the expletive-laden spew of shout that comes from Carl isn’t a reflection of any distaste for critics. “Food and movie critics, especially the ones who are educated in the field, they care as deeply as the artist on the art form they’re commenting on,” says Favreau, who rose to prominence by writing and starring in the 1996 indie “Swingers” and lately is best known for helming “Iron Man” and “Iron Man 2.” “But with reviews, it’s all chefs have — it’s their Michelin stars that defines them because there is no box office.” For the film, Favreau learned how to live a chef’s life from Roy Choi, the founder of the Kogi BBQ food truck in Los Angeles, which is largely credited for starting the modern food truck craze. “I wrote [the script] and the people I worked with said, ‘You should talk to this guy.’ He basically lived out all the different steps” from a comfortable career as a chef to a big downfall to finding success in the back of a van, Favreau says. “He trained me, he came up with the menu, it’s all his food.” Choi’s personality shows through in the cubanos he made for El Jefe, Carl’s food truck in the film, but the chef had to restrain himself at times. “The hard part for him was making food that wasn’t supposed to look all that good,” like the rather pedestrian dishes Carl serves at the restaurant, Favreau says. “Those


What to expect from Flying Dog’s new beer, Dead Rise Old Bay Summer Ale

Flying Dog’s Dead Rise Old Bay Summer Ale doesn’t hit you over the head with Maryland’s most iconic spice. The seasoning adds a subtle bitterness and oceanic aroma to what is otherwise a golden-hued, crisp summer ale, developed to celebrate Old Bay’s 75th anniversary. It’s a very drinkable beer — perfect for a Memorial Day crab boil or an afternoon on the water. Brew Notes Style: Alcohol by Volume: Pairings: Available: On Tap ChurchKey will pour pints of Dead Rise for the beer’s official launch party, along with other Flying Dog brews, including: Bloodline Blood Orange Ale, Pearl Necklace Oyster Stout, and a rare cask of Mint Chocolate Stout. ChurchKey, 1337 14th St. NW; Thu., 4 p.m., free; 202-567-2576. (Dupont Circle)


‘The Americans’ recap: ‘Stealth’ and ‘Operation Chronicle’

Philip does him the honor of letting him meet Elizabeth, he agrees to take on a dangerous mission. But sometimes meeting the needs of lonely people only awakens a greater hunger in them. Philip thinks he scored a major coup when Martha (Alison Wright), the FBI secretary married to his alter-ego Clark, brings home classified files, irritated at the cavalier way they are left lying around. But in bed after their celebration, Martha raises the dangerous question of when they might be able to expand their family — and by implication, when they conditions that have governed their marriage might end. “Martha, that’s not for me. And I thought you understood that,” Philip, in his guise as Clark, tells her. “My life, my career … I’m sorry, Martha. Children aren’t in the cards for me.” Philip has been able to snow Martha into secrecy for a very long time. But he also turned her from an abandoned person into someone who was wanted, and now Martha wants things of her own. Those sorts of needs are hard to tame. In the Beeman house, Sandra (Susan Misner) gently explains to Stan (Noah Emmerich) that she is leaving him. Stan was initially caught flat-footed by the news of her affair, but there are few recriminations between them now. He was the first one to stray in their marriage, and long before that, his undercover work took his head and heart away from Sandra. “He a good guy?” Stan asks with a rueful smile, able to do Sandra at least the small courtesy of wanting to know she’ll be all right. “He’s able to be in the flow of things,” Sandra says, that simple level of engagement meaning the world to her. “Yeah, he’s a good guy.” Across the city, Oleg (Costa Ronin), worried that Nina (Annet Mahendru) cannot flip Stan effectively enough to avoid being put on trial, tells his lover to run, rather than urging her to stay. But even as he gives her money, Oleg gives Nina some affection to take with her, too, just as he found her a Young Pioneers pin. His language may be formal — “I know of no officer smarter or more capable. I believe your future is bright,” Oleg says — but it is deeply freighted with emotion. Even as Philip and Elizabeth seek to exploit loners, they are also trying to train Jared


Sheriffs and the posse comitatus

Most people familiar with American history know that in the late 19th century American West, Sheriffs would sometimes call out “the posse”–armed citizens–to assist the Sheriff in apprehending a fugitive, or providing additional support for community defense against violent criminals. What is less well known is that the institution of the posse comitatus thrives today in 21st century America. The law governing the posse comitatus has changed little since its origin in Anglo-Saxon England, around the time of King Alfred the Great in the ninth century. Northwestern University Law School’s Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology is producing a symposium issue on arms law and policy. My contribution is an article on Sheriffs and their posses. (Draft available here.) The article begins with a detailed history of the Office of Sheriff, from its origin in Anglo-Saxon England. The word “Sheriff” is a combination of the Anglo-Saxon words for “shire” (what we today call a “county”) and “reeve” (meaning “guardian”). The county guardians of Anglo-Saxon England were responsible for organizing communal defense. Often, they led the shire’s militia, as part of King Alfred’s reorganization of national defense which finally protected the nation from Danish invaders and marauders. By the time that the American Colonies were being settled, the Office of Sheriff was declining in England, but the move across the Atlantic brought new energy and importance to the Office. The Americans restored what they considered to be the ancient Anglo-Saxon practice of popular election of Sheriffs. The Americans also strongly reaffirmed the traditional common law understanding of the Sheriff’s powers and authorities, especially the Sheriff’s autonomy and independence. During the latter 19th century, elections and other common law principles were often formally constitutionalized in the new states. Legally speaking, the Office of Sheriff in most states has changed little since the 19th century. From Anglo-Saxon times until the present, a core power of the Sheriff has been the authority to summon posse comitatus–“the power of the county.” Like jury service, posse service is a mandatory duty of the citizen. When the Sheriff, in his nearly unlimited discretion, summons the posse, the citizen must respond. Traditionally, the group responsible for potentially serving in a posse was approximately the same as those responsible for serving in the militia–although the upper and lower age limits for the posse were wider, and the posse had fewer exemptions (e.g., certain professions) than did the militia. Posse


Bluejacket is ready to sell bottled beer to go

The creators of Bluejacket have long insisted that the Navy Yard operation is a brewery, and not just a brewpub selling beer for on-site consumption. The problem: Though the brewery has been open since October, it hasn't sold any beer for home drinkers. That changes May 16 at 4 p.m. when Bluejacket begins selling 10 large-format bottled beers. The 750-milliliter bottles, stopped with corks, are $8-$10 each. Sales will be limited to 12 bottles per person. (Scott Suchman) The selections include some of the bar's favorites: The spicy Mexican Radio stout, Cut Dry unfiltered pilsner and 9-Pound Hammer Imperial IPA. Bottles can be purchased at the bar, at tables in the Arsenal restaurant, or at the counter of neighboring Buzz Bakery, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The full list of beers, courtesy of Bluejacket: 9 Pound Hammer Clockwork Cut Dry Double Date Heavy Meadow Mexican Radio Parish Fair Reverie Stroppy Twit