2012 list of Washington area CSAs

$625 full share, 22 weeks; $400 half share, 11 weeks.; chicken and egg shares available Pickup in southern Calvert County and Alexandria, and at the farm. Lock Farm Woodsboro John Poffenbarger, 301-639-6988 poffmaj@earthlink.net www.lockfarm.net $130, 6 weeks (spring); $400, 20 weeks; $120, 6 weeks (fall). Pickup in Frederick, Walkersville and at the farm. Market Basket Annapolis Craig Sewell, 410-266-1511 csewell@acookscafe.com acookscafe.com $250, small spring share, $290 large spring share, 10 weeks; $550 small summer share, $640 large summer share, 22 weeks; eggs, dairy and meat shares available. Pickup at A Cook’s Cafe, 911 Commerce Rd., Annapolis. Norman’s Farm Market Potomac Eris Norman, 301-674-9929 info@normansfarmmarket.com www.normansfarmmarket.com $575 family share, $402.50 couples share, 24 weeks; $200 family share, $140 couples share, 8 weeks; egg shares available. Pickup in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac and Rockville. One Acre Farm Clarksburg Michael Protas, 301-503-3724 michael@1acrefarm.com www.1acrefarm.com $625, 22 weeks. Pickup in the District, Potomac, Rockville and at the farm. One Straw Farm Northern Baltimore County Joan Norman, 410-343-1828 csa@onestrawfarm.com www.onestrawfarm.com $520 (before March 1)/$570 (after March 1) full share, $270 (before March 1)/$295 (after March 1) half share, 24 weeks. Pickup at 45 Baltimore metro area locations and at the farm. Open Book Farm Mary Kathryn and Andrew Barnet, 240-457-2558 openbookfarm@gmail.com openbookfarm.com $500 (farm pickup) or $575 (pickup in North Chevy Chase), 20 weeks; pastured meats also available. Pickup in North Chevy Chase or at the farm. Our House Farm Brookeville Michelle Nowak, 724-840-4022; Stephanie Jones, 410-903-4943 ourhousefarmmd@gmail.com www.ourhousefarmmd.com $600 full share, $300 half share, 20 weeks. Pickup in Silver Spring and at the farm. Pheasant Hill Farm CSA Mount Airy Marjorie Satterlee, 410-215-7173 msatter195@aol.com www.localharvest.org/pheasant-hill-farm-csa-M20139 $550 full share, $400 half share, 18 weeks. Pickup in Damascus, Gaithersburg, Mount Airy and Wheaton. A Practically Organic CSA Harwood Shawn Sizer, 410-507-5917 practicallyorganic@hotmail.com www.practically-organic.com $1,330 full share, 38 weeks; $800 summer share, 20 weeks; eggs, herbs and other shares available. Delivery included in price of shares. Priapi Gardens Cecilton Vic Priapi, 410-275-9438 vic@priapigardens.com www.priapigardens.com $585, 32 weeks; $435, 24 weeks; organic. Pickup in Stevensville. Query Mill Hill Farm Darnestown Mark Israel, 301-926-8602 marksisrael1@hotmail.com $440 full share, $220 half share, 20 weeks; organic, though not certified. Pickup at the farm. Radix Farm Kristin Carbone, 202-744-0373 radixfarm@gmail.com radixfarm.wordpress.com $675-$700 full share, 22 weeks Pickup in the District. Red Wiggler CSA Germantown Kara Desmond, 301-916-2216 csa@redwiggler.org www.redwiggler.org $210 spring share, 7 weeks; $270 summer share, 9 weeks; $270 fall share,


Rethinking leadership in America’s schools

into collective power to implement change. New accountability laws, increased school funding, and a greater use of digital technology for instruction, among other proposed improvements, will only be successful with strong, collective leadership in our schools. While our principals and superintendents may have a clear idea of what needs to be done, they cannot implement change on their own. Principals must be trained and empowered to be able to drive collective action on the part of their faculty focused on shared goals of student achievement. Impending reforms will only have a lasting impact if superintendents can create a systemic leadership framework to support their principals and aspiring school leaders. This framework must be based on a defined leadership strategy that includes a variety of leadership development opportunities and is supported and reinforced through traditional talent management processes. Some of the key leadership development opportunities include: — Formal Learning: Principals and superintendents, like any effective leader, should have the opportunity to participate in formal leadership development learning programs to stay ahead of strategic and technological trends. — Mentoring: To complement formal learning, principals and superintendents could benefit from connections with those outside of their field, including members of the business community. Business leaders are an important stakeholder in our education system, and their active involvement in leadership mentoring could constructively bring another significant player in the “As One” pursuit for excellence in education. — Knowledge Sharing: Another piece of the puzzle is participation in communities of practice, which could include periodic “town hall” or public group meetings with principals, superintendents or subject matter experts from various areas, focusing on critical leadership skill gaps and targeted leadership challenges. This is the pinnacle of knowledge sharing and connecting with peers on what has worked and understanding where there might be opportunity for improvement. Principals and administrators can also learn from some select high-performing public schools. Take two public schools in Dallas as an example: The School of Science and Engineering Magnet (SEM) and School for the Talented and Gifted Magnet, both of which were named the top spots on Newsweek’s 2011 public high school rankings. Both schools also made it to the top of the national list for the Washington Post’s High School Challenge. SEM was rated 100 percent on college-ready student performance by U.S. News & World Report (a measure of the degree to which students master some college-level material). This can


D.C. charter school under scrutiny for lack of special-ed students

A Northwest Washington public charter school that has not enrolled a special education student in three years is under scrutiny by District officials. Roots Public Charter School Federal law requires that all public schools provide “a free and appropriate” education to students with disabilities. Charter schools, which are open to all families citywide on a first-come, first-served basis, are prohibited from inquiring about a prospective student’s special education status. About 10 percent of the city’s 29,366 charter school students were eligible to receive special education services in the 2010-11 school year, according to enrollment data. Roughly 13 percent of students in traditional D.C. public schools are in special education. The inquiry into Roots comes as charter school treatment of special-needs students has been called into question in the District and across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center is suing the Louisiana Department of Education on behalf of thousands of disabled New Orleans students. Last year, the Bazelon Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, filed a complaint with the Justice Department claiming that some of the District’s charters openly discourage parents from enrolling disabled children, especially those with significant needs. Traditional D.C. public schools serve the vast majority of “Level 4” students — those with the most profound emotional or physical disabilities. Most Level 4 charter students are concentrated at two schools, St. Coletta and Options. The Justice Department is gathering information about the complaint, which did not name Roots or other individual schools. Roots, tucked into a converted garage in the Lamond-Riggs neighborhood, opened in 1999 built around Nguzo Saba, the seven principles of African heritage: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. Part of its mission is to “prepare students to break the chains of psychological conditioning that attempt to keep them powerless in all phases of society,” its Web site says. School ranks in middle tier Class sizes are small, with a 1-to-10 teacher-student ratio. About 60 percent of Roots students read at proficient or advanced levels on the 2011 DC CAS. The charter board’s new performance rating system places the school in “Tier 2,” the middle of its three tiers. School officials said they have served special education students over the years, but just not in the past three. Parents wary of labeling Founder and Principal Bernida Thompson said the school often draws parents who don’t want their children labeled as


Christoph Eschenbach leads National Symphony Orchestra in emotional program

someone for getting so involved with a moving work of art, and for caring about his musicians so much, that he shook hands with every one of them when the piece was over? Anyone who bemoans how big symphony orchestras can fall into routines should come watch Eschenbach. There’s no routine in his work; he’s reinventing the wheel every time. That is the reason some big orchestras have looked down on him, thinking he doesn’t know better. It’s also the reason many musicians would follow him to the ends of the earth: Because this kind of sincerity and honesty is rare. Christoph Eschenbach, right, directs the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. (Bill O'Leary/For The Washington Post) There’s no right answer, only the way each performance happens to hit you — and the unevenness is a byproduct of the excitement. To me, “Metamorphosen” failed to come across well Thursday, but Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony had a lot of pizazz and energy, and it mostly kept me riveted. Eschenbach’s approach keeps the music fresh; it’s as if he were discovering it along with the listener — and were surprised a little, each time, at how it comes out. In the face of so much genuine excitement and feeling, in a field that desperately needs more of both, it can seem beside the point to single out things that didn’t work — especially in a performance that offered a lot to like. Yet the idea of excellence in music is traditionally about going beyond mere feeling. Eschenbach’s expressive points were blunted when the mystery of the strings’ quiet chords in “Eroica’s” first movement was answered by winds that sounded downright pedantic. Or when, in “Metamorphosen,” the lyrical solo line of the concertmaster, Nurit Bar-Josef, was submerged in a fuzzy sea of dark sound from the other surging strings. There’s an obvious connection between the two works: The theme from “Eroica’s” second-movement funeral march permeates “Metamorphosen,” emerging time and again in a gesture of sorrow like the beating of a breast. That referentiality made for an inward-turning program on an inward-turned night that featured Eschenbach and his orchestra, without the intermediary of a soloist. And if to my ear it offered too much of the musical equivalent of Method acting, it had virtues that too many orchestra concerts lack these days and appeared to delight the audience, which greeted it with warm applause.


Small business lending on the rise

(Creative commons licensed from Flickr user paalia) In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama urged Congress to help “tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow.” This raises the question: Is access to credit still one of the biggest issues facing entrepreneurs and small business owners? The answer is that the picture appears to be improving. Citibank recently reported a 30 percent jump in lending to small business. J.P. Morgan Chase said it boosted lending to small businesses (which it defined as businesses with less than $20 million in annual sales) by 52 percent in 2011. And Biz2Credit said its most recent monthly analysis of loan applications that ran through its online lending platform showed approval rates by credit unions, micro lenders and other alternative lenders topped 62 percent in December, compared with about 49 percent in January 2011. “With most major banks done reporting fourth-quarter earnings, one trend is clear: For the first time in a while, loan growth is back,” according to a Motley Fool report. Tim McPeak, Sageworks’ director of financial markets advisory services, said the tide may be starting to turn. “There are borrowers that are healthy — that are now looking to expand as opposed to the borrower who was approaching their bank [in recent years] just because they were trying to stay in business,” McPeak said. “And bankers always want to lend; that’s how they make money.” According to Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Northern Trust, the U.S. economic recovery hinges on banks getting money flowing to businesses again. “The good news is that we don’t have to worry about the fact that our federal legislators can’t seem to get anything done,” Kasriel said, “because it doesn’t matter what they do. It’s all about the banks.” And he thinks banks will continue to lend more this year, which will “get the ball rolling again.” Even so, McPeak and others say it’s still not an easy-credit environment. “It’s going to take a healthy balance sheet to borrow,” McPeak said. There can be no doubt that there are significant events and factors which may throw a wrench at businesses’ prospects for growth — namely, the deficit and tax policy. But apparently the lending environment is improving, which bodes well for businesses that need capital. Mary Ellen Biery is a research specialist at Sageworks, Inc., a Raleigh, N.C.-based financial


Corcoran exhibit helps viewers picture the horrors of the Civil War

Alexander Gardner. ‘Ruins of Confederate Armory, Richmond, VA.’ April 1865. Albumen silver print, 7x9 in. (Collection of Julia J. Norrell/Collection of Julia J. Norrell) Former lawyer and lobbyist Julia J. Norrell, 77, has collected art since she was a teenager in Arkansas. But she didn’t start studying and collecting Civil War images until she read Jay Winik’s “April 1865: The Month That Saved America” during a weekend at her farm in Virginia six years ago. The result is the exhibit “Shadows of History: Photographs of the Civil War From the Collection of Julia J. Norrell,” on view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Norrell, who shares a birthday with President Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12), discusses what she wants others to see: “I want them to see the horror of the war, I want them to see into the future, though. And I want them to see that role, of the African American regiments, because it’s not always depicted. Not because anyone is against depicting it — there’s not much that work that shows it. I would like it to be educational, because . . . what if I hadn’t had a National Gallery, a Corcoran and a Phillips to go to? “My life has changed because of the art I saw as a young person. I’d like to think that’s true in the nation’s capital, of all places, and it’s not if you don’t loan work or if you don’t have museums doing shows, and if you don’t have people interpret it. “If a child is told they can’t see anything, or they can’t relate to anything — well, the Civil War is more than just several birthdays of national figures. It’s more than Lincoln — it’s important, and it’s as relevant today, I think, in some ways, as it was years ago. Whitfield Lovell, ‘Visitation: The Richmond Project: Battleground,’ 2001. Charcoal on wood, found objects. (Collection of the artist, courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York/Collection of the artist, courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York) “I think I’ve always been sensitive to that, and have been educated about — I believe very much in what Lincoln accomplished. I’m a political child. My mother [Rep. Catherine D. Norrell (D-Ark.), 1961-63] served in Congress, too — she was elected after my father [Rep. William F. Norrell (D-Ark.), 1938-61]. So, basically, I’m very aware of the political process and have dealt with it


Calling all beer lovers

A bartender serves two mugs of beer at a tavern in Montpelier, Vt. (Toby Talbot/AP) The Food section’s sixth annual Beer Madness is practically around the corner, so you know what that means: We’re in need of a few tasters. This year, the bracketed taste-off will feature 32 all-American craft brews. ChurchKey beer director Greg Engert will help and host once again, and our tasting panel will include experts and readers. So take your best shot: Send an e-mail to food@washpost.com with BEER MADNESS in the subject line. To be considered for one of the four reader-designated slots, you must be able to attend tasting sessions on the evenings of Feb. 27 and March 5 (at ChurchKey). Other requirements: ■ Describe your qualifications and your passion for beer in a single, tightly constructed sentence. Humor’s always appreciated. ■List your three favorite domestic craft beers. The deadline for submitting your panel bid is Friday, Feb. 17. — Bonnie S. Benwick


Nicholas McGegan conducts Baltimore Symphony with energy

Conductor Nicholas McGegan was a bundle of energy on Thursday night. (Randi Lynn Beach/Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) Correction: Nicholas McGegan is a baroque specialist. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, not so much, so the first half of its concert at Strathmore on Thursday was a little uncomfortable. There was guest conductor McGegan, a small bundle of ferocious energy, motoring up the tempos and dancing through every phrase of the first of Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concertos, while the solo horns and woodwinds searched for an elusive sense of ensemble and violin soloist Qing Li (for three movements, a model of elegant agility) unveiled a harsh and heavy-footed overkill for the polonaise. Sure, McGegan was stomping around the podium (which he does charmingly), but hers seemed to be an overly literal response. The Orchestra Suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera “Nais,” full of martial sound effects, moments of light lyricism and general jolly scurrying about, fared better. McGegan drew crisp rhythmic shapes from an alert string section and splendidly pointed solos from the piccolo, even if the concluding percussion “bop” that McGegan promised in his delightful introduction to the absurdities of the “Nais” plot almost escaped unnoticed. The second half of the program, the Haydn Trumpet Concerto and Mozart’s Symphony No. 39, found McGegan and the orchestra more in sync. With BSO principal trumpet Andrew Balio as soloist, they fashioned a reading that was graceful and unsentimental. Balio seemed to revel in the lyrical and athletic opportunities that Haydn offered and tickled the audience with a couple of over-the-top cadenzas. The concluding Mozart was splendid, particularly the second movement’s grace and the momentum of the fourth as themes played a sort of operatic and superbly coordinated hide-and-seek with each other. Reinthaler is a freelance writer.


Government action needs to target microbusinesses

of Ms. Mills’s background in venture capital. Moreover, the other agencies with which it would be merged, according to Obama’s proposal, will pull it even further in the direction of supporting large businesses. We believe the SBA has largely ignored the needs of micro-businesses in America — despite the importance of such business in creating good local jobs. Access to capital is a place for the SBA to begin. The SBA provides a 90 percent guarantee to financial institutions that provide loans and other credit to small businesses. When the SBA increased the limit on the size of the loans they would guarantee, the banks responded by making loans to businesses on the larger end of the spectrum — almost exclusively. In addition, micro-businesses depend more on lines of credit than large loans. Lines of credit help medium and small businesses spend only what is needed for payroll and inventory. Owners can pay down the line of credit as money is earned. Yet banks are not extending lines of credit and, one major bank (Bank of America) is canceling these lines, even for solid businesses with steady financial performance. The banks claim the risk is too high, even though the SBA holds most of it. The SBA should address this and make lines of credit more available to small and micro-businesses so they can grow. In addition, if banks won’t lend to small businesses, then the SBA and others should support non-bank lenders like credit unions and community development finance institutions that do help micro-businesses. Yet even if access to capital is improved, another crucial piece of the puzzle needs to be put in place. In my 25 years of experience, the first step to success for these locally grown and start-up micro-businesses is business assistance: training and mentoring for new entrepreneurs. Then the businesses are ready to get a loan and grow. We need to fund the programs that provide business assistance so that the business owners can put together a credit-worthy loan application. That means they need a business plan, cash flow projections, a viable business model and a marketing plan. When the businesses receive this assistance and have done the necessary preparation, they have an 80 percent chance of success — which means eight of 10 of these start-ups will hire at least two other employees. Micro-business training programs have fought for crumbs in appropriations, compared with


New York sues big banks, local firm over foreclosure documents

the MERS system as an end-run around the property recording system, to facilitate the rapid securitization and sale of mortgages,” Schneiderman said in a statement Friday. “Once the mortgages went sour, these same banks brought foreclosure proceedings en masse based on deceptive and fraudulent court submissions, seeking to take homes away from people with little regard for basic legal requirement or the rule of law.” His lawsuit asserts that the MERS database is riddled with inaccuracies, misrepresentations and numerous “robosigned” documents, which together have “confused, misled, and deceived homeowners and the courts and made it difficult to ascertain whether a party actually has the right to foreclosure.” Schneiderman is seeking damages for homeowners who have suffered from the alleged abuses, as well as a court order forcing MERS and the banks to correct any flawed or deceptive documents that led to muddled titles or improper liens. The banks named in the lawsuit declined to comment Friday. On its Web site, MERS posted rebuttals to the allegations in the lawsuit and again argued that its practices “are in compliance with state and federal laws.” “We are confident that as people understand more about MERS and the role we play, they will see that MERS adds great value to our nation’s system of housing finance in ways that benefit not just financial institutions, the broader economy and the government, but — most of all — homeowners,” the company said in its statement. The new lawsuit comes as Obama administration officials and a coalition of state attorneys general are on the brink of a major settlement with the nation’s biggest banks over foreclosure-related abuses that sparked national outrage in the fall of 2010. That long-anticipated deal, expected to be finalized in coming days, could net as much as $25 billion in penalties that would go toward ongoing foreclosure prevention efforts and in restitution to troubled borrowers who lost their homes in the wake of the financial crisis. It also would force banks to overhaul the way they service loans. Until recently, Schneiderman had been critical of the deal, arguing that officials should hold off on a settlement until conducting deeper investigations into every aspect of the housing crisis. In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama announced a new task force of state and federal officials to further investigate mortgage misdeeds. The administration tapped Schneiderman to help lead that effort.


Afghan civilian deaths hit record high in 2011, U.N. report says

KABUL — The report Insurgents were responsible for the vast majority of the casualties, at least 2,332, according to the report. Most of the victims were killed by makeshift explosives or suicide bombers. The use of both tactics increased sharply over the past 12 months. The report describes a deteriorating security situation as NATO’s war effort begins to ebb, and as the United States pursues negotiations with an insurgency that shows no sign of relenting. Meanwhile, Western officials have described the Taliban’s power as waning, pointing to a 20 percent decrease in the number of coalition troops killed last year. But the U.N. report suggests that the number of foreign troops killed is a poor indicator of the Taliban’s ability to foment unrest. Even if the insurgents’ ability to fight conventional forces has diminished, they remain a major source of instability in the country’s southern and eastern provinces, where deadly attacks often target civilians. Suicide bombings killed 410 civilians last year, 80 percent more than in 2010. U.N. officials called such shifts “changes in the tactics of the parties to the conflict.” The report attributed about 400 of the deaths to NATO and Afghan forces, a small decrease from 2010, with aerial attacks responsible for about half of those casualties. NATO-led night raids, a long-standing source of tension between the United States and President Hamid Karzai, accounted for 63 deaths, down 22 percent from the previous year. “Afghan children, women and men continue to be killed in this war in ever-increasing numbers,” said Jan Kubis, U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan. “For much too long, Afghan civilians have paid the highest price of war.” Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, said the decline in NATO-related deaths was a validation of the coalition’s efforts to reduce civilian casualties. “Every citizen of Afghanistan must know [the International Security Assistance Force] will continue to do all we can to reduce casualties that affect the Afghan civilian population,’’ he said in a statement. “This data is promising but there is more work to be done.” The Taliban issued several public statements in 2011 related to its concern for civilian casualties, claiming at one point that “strict attention must be paid to the protection and safety of civilians during the spring operations.” As Afghan forces prepare to inherit the conflict, questions remain about their ability to minimize civilian casualties. In the last


Md. brewers, restaurant owners push for return of ‘growlers’

Once, Baltimoreans could stop by the corner tavern and take away a container of their favorite brew, straight from the tap. The sound those pails made as they slid empty down the bar for refills is said to be how they got their name. Growlers, which in recent decades have taken the form of 2-liter brown-glass jugs, have been experiencing a resurgence among beer enthusiasts looking for their favorite microbrews or those who just want fresh draft beer at home. But many Maryland brewers and restaurant owners are prohibited from selling growlers and are pushing for a change in state law. Statewide restrictions limit the sale of growlers to brew pubs that make their own beer on the premises and sell food, excluding bars and most restaurants. Only 15 establishments in Maryland have such a license, and lawmakers from Baltimore City and Howard County want to expand sales. Hugh Sisson, general partner of Heavy Seas Beer in Halethorpe, is working with state legislators to refine the growler law in Baltimore. He helped lead efforts in the 1980s to get laws changed to allow the first brew pub in the state, and now he’s hoping he can sell growlers of his Heavy Seas Beer at a new restaurant, Heavy Seas Ale House, which is scheduled to open Feb. 15. He said he doesn’t want Maryland to fall behind as other states move to more flexible laws for growlers. In Buffalo, for instance, Sunoco gas stations have had pilot projects allowing patrons to fill up their car and their growler in one stop. “It seems to be an evolving trend across the country,” Sisson said. While many bars in Maryland sell carry-out beer, wine and liquor, it is always in sealed bottles or cans. Though people in the industry say the law is not clear, the state considers growlers to be refillable containers, which require a different license. Two bills proposed in Annapolis would allow licensed restaurants in Baltimore City and Howard County to fill growlers intended to be opened at home. State Sen. William “Bill” C. Ferguson IV, a Democrat who represents Baltimore’s waterfront, has introduced what he terms a “very limited” bill that would create a “refillable container license” for restaurants in the city and would exclude bars that do not serve food. The bill requires General Assembly approval, as would a similar bill planned in Howard. At the Brewer’s


Lax U.S. gun laws enable killing in Mexico

DO AMERICA’S failed gun policies contribute to the terrible violence in Mexico? Alejandro A. Poire Romero makes a compelling case that the answer is yes. Law enforcement officials in both countries acknowledge that 70 to 80 percent of the traceable guns seized in Mexico can be tracked to the United States. Mr. Poire Romero, a top Mexican national security and criminal justice official, offers additional evidence that the United States has been an enabler of the violence. In 2005 roughly one-third of the seized guns were assault weapons. Today, according to Mr. Poire Romero, assault weapons represent 60 to 65 percent of the guns confiscated by Mexican authorities. The assault-weapons ban in the United States lapsed in 2004. “The significant rise in violence and the increase in the number of public officials killed in Mexico coincides with lifting of the assault weapons ban,” Mr. Poire Romero said. Mr. Poire Romero met with Post editors and reporters on the day that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was again being grilled on Capitol Hill about “Operation Fast and Furious,” during which U.S. law enforcement agents, in order to trace weapons to higher-ups in a criminal enterprise, failed to interdict guns bought by suspected straw purchasers. The operation, a version of which was undertaken during the George W. Bush administration, was deeply flawed; some 2,000 weapons are unaccounted for. Weapons traced to Fast and Furious purchases were found on the scene of the 2010 killing of a Border Patrol agent. These revelations led to the resignation of the U.S. attorney in Phoenix and reassignment of the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Mr. Poire Romero calls Fast and Furious “an issue of concern” for Mexico. “It’s clear that we did not know and would never have approved of an operation that let guns walk into Mexico,” he said, noting that the Mexican government — in addition to the U.S. Congress and the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General — is conducting its own investigation. Yet Fast and Furious was a well-intentioned, misguided response to — and not the cause of — the proliferation of illegal guns in Mexico. To stanch that flow, the Obama administration and Congress should heed the pleas of Mr. Poire Romero and his countrymen by reviving the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole that makes it far too easy to


Car bomb in Kandahar, Afghanistan, kills seven outside police headquarters

An Afghan police officer retrieves documents stained with blood after a car bomb in Kandahar. The attack killed at least seven people and wounded 19 on Sunday. (Ahmad Nadeem/Reuters) KABUL — An additional 19 people, six of them police officers, were wounded in the blast, provincial officials said. Children also were among the victims. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but a spokesman for the governor blamed Taliban insurgents. The southern Afghan city has been the scene of such attacks before, as violence grows in many parts of the country despite an influx of foreign troops. In a separate incident, Afghan officials announced Sunday that a U.S. soldier fatally shot an Afghan guard Friday night at a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan. The guard was on duty at the gate of a base in Sar-e Pol when the incident occurred. Provincial governor Sayed Anwar Rahmati said the U.S. soldier opened a door and saw the barrel of the guard’s gun. Feeling threatened, he fired. “It was a mistaken act and happened due to the threat the soldier had felt from the guard,” Rahmati said by phone. A spokesman for the NATO-led troops in Kabul said the coalition was aware of the report, but he would not provide further details, saying an investigation was underway. According to reports, a dozen foreign troops have been killed recently, some of them by rogue Afghan forces at joint operating bases. In the worst incident in recent months, four unarmed French troops were killed by an Afghan soldier northeast of Kabul. The incident followed a similar attack a few weeks prior against French troops by a man wearing an Afghan army uniform. After the deaths, French officials announced that the country plans to withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan by 2013, earlier than scheduled. Some of the attacks have been blamed on personal, cultural and religious disputes, while others have been in retaliation for civilian casualties during foreign operations. Taliban-led insurgents The attacks have caused distrust among international forces serving on joint duty or providing training for Afghan forces. Salahuddin is a special correspondent. More world news coverage: Russia and China veto U.N. resolution on Syria Afghan civilian deaths hit record high in 2011 U.S. assistance to Egypt in peril Russians rally en masse against Putin More headlines from around the world


Golfsmith opening multiple stores in Washington area

Golfsmith employee Pablo Gonzalez demonstrates the club-fitting studio at the retailer’s Tysons Corner location. (Jeffrey MacMillan/Capital Business) Barely a year has gone by since Golfsmith opened its first store in the Washington area, but the sporting goods retailer is teeing up to open three more. Austin-based Golfsmith plans to set up shop at Potomac Run Plaza in Sterling and Kamp Washington in Fairfax this May, and at Potomac Town Square in Woodbridge in August. Each location is roughly the size of the company’s existing 21,000-square-foot store at 8459 Leesburg Pike in Tysons Corner. Golfsmith stores carry golf equipment, apparel and accessories, and have in-store putting greens for customers to test out products. Stores also feature computerized swing analyzers and golf simulators. Customers at the Sterling location can sign up for golf lessons with third-party provider GolfTEC. “We’re not a sporting good store where it’s just self-service. Our people are highly trained to fit you with the right clubs so you’ll play better,” said Marty Hanaka, president and chief executive of Golfsmith. He noted the company is looking to hire 25 to 30 employees at each store: “We need a store that is big enough to allow the experiential model to come to life.” The Washington area is one of seven markets, including Atlanta, Baltimore and Cleveland, in which Golfsmith is moving to open a total of 10 stores this year. The retailer, with 79 existing locations nationwide, identified more than 100 locations for potential growth. “We targeted the ones we felt were underserved by off-course speciality stores,” Hanaka said. “Washington, the fourth largest golf market, was the most underserved.” Hanaka estimates the expansion effort, and relocation of four stores, cost about $30 million, funded by cash flow from operations. Golfsmith most recently reported a profit of $1.3 million in the third quarter of 2011, compared with a net loss of $1.1 million for the same period a year earlier. Sales rose 8.3 percent to $101 million. “We’re taking share in a struggling marketplace,” Hanaka said. “The experiential model is something that people really respond to, and we’ve put a lot of emphasis on hiring and training.” Specialty golf retailers, such as Golfsmith, endured sluggish sales during the recession as customers retreated from the market. The industry is the midst of a recovery, with total year-over-year sales up 3.2 percent to $3 billion as of November 2011, according to market research


Government loses second major technology official

Vivek Kundraleft his post. They served as the federal government’s first CTO and CIO, respectively. The two were also something of a pair, as they previously worked together in the state of Virginia’s technology office and are friends. “There was a great synergy between them,” said Bobbie Kilberg, president of the Northern Virginia Technology Council. “They made a subject exciting that many people find boring.” The two pushed for greater innovation and openness for government and commercial technology. Kundra, in particular, focused on moving to cloud — or Web-based — computing, consolidating federal data centers and developing federal IT programs in a more agile and iterative way, while Chopra encouraged making government data available and giving technology firms the chance to come up with innovative applications. Tony Ayaz, who heads the Bethesda-based federal unit of California technology firm Splunk, said his company is watching closely who will be selected to replace Chopra. Chopra’s advocacy for making data available to entrepreneurs made Splunk, which launched its data management business in the commercial world, feel more comfortable as it expanded into the federal government. Chopra pushed for government to look “at new technology as a good thing, not as a bad thing,” Ayaz said. “There’s a lot of pushback sometimes when you’re introducing new technology.” Kundra and Chopra helped define the roles of federal CIO and CTO, said Tim Hoechst, chief technology officer at Chantilly-based Agilex, and the next step will be continuing their efforts. “Both of the roles — of the CIO and the CTO — have created, I think, a good momentum of activity,” Hoechst said. The successors will need to make “sure that that momentum is not lost.” Still Kilberg and Olga Grkavac, executive vice president of the public sector group of industry association TechAmerica, said they don’t expect the priorities to change. Grkavac pointed to Steven VanRoekel, who has taken over for Kundra and “is really building on the foundation and expanding it.” She noted that the departures aren’t entirely unexpected, as political appointees commonly depart around the beginning of the year if they don’t expect to stay through the November’s election. “The fourth year going into a presidential election, [contractors] expect this to happen and they plan for it,” she said. “The impact ... is that in some areas it’s more of a holding operation. ... The programs are delayed because of the vacancies at the top.”


George Huguely’s trial in Yeardley Love’s death starts Monday with jury selection

lacrosse for her school in Towson, a Baltimore suburb, before going to U-Va. Her death had a profound impact on the circle of athletes closest to her, marked in memorial services and the creation of a foundation in her name that raised at least $500,000 toward an athletic field at her prep school alma mater and ongoing service projects with young people. But the response reached further. Last year, Virginia lawmakers invoked Love by name as they expanded laws to make it easier for people who are dating but not living together to obtain court orders to protect themselves from an abusive partner. Authorities say the change led to a substantial increase in such orders. At U-Va., administrators ratcheted up training for students, faculty and staff members on how to respond when they suspect someone might be in an abusive relationship or struggling with alcoholism or mental health issues. The university also says it is aggressively enforcing a policy that requires students to notify school officials if they are arrested or charged with a crime other than minor traffic infractions. It was only after Love’s death that U-Va. officials say they learned that Huguely had been convicted in 2009 in Lexington, Va., for public drunkenness and resisting arrest after an encounter during which a female police officer used a Taser to subdue him, according to court papers and interviews. U-Va. students now must report criminal incidents on a computerized form at the start of each academic year and risk expulsion under the university’s honor code if they are caught lying. U-Va. also now requires athletes to inform their coaches of a new arrest within 24 hours of the event. In fall 2010, the university received more than 600 reports from its more than 21,000 undergraduate and graduate students, said Allen Groves, the dean of students. The number fell to 350 last fall and included some duplicates from earlier years or reports considered frivolous. Of the roughly 100 relevant reports, most were first-time offenses involving alcohol or small amounts of marijuana, Groves said. In addition to helping the university evaluate threats, Groves said the reports have given him a clearer picture of what help a student might need. If the system had been in place and used by Huguely, “no one knows if that would have made a difference,” Groves said, “but I would have liked to have had that chance.”


Brig. Gen. Terence J. Hildner of Fairfax dies in Afghanistan of apparent natural causes

Hood. The U.S. Army says Brigadier General Terence J. Hildner, 49, died of apparent natural causes Feb. 3 in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Courtesy U.S. Army) As of last month, 1,850 American service members had died in Afghanistan since 2001, according to military records. About 375 of those deaths have been classified as “non-hostile,” which includes deaths from accidents and natural causes. Growing up in a military family, Hildner moved frequently. He was born in New Haven, Conn., and lived in Tokyo, Rome and Colorado as well as Chantilly, where he attended Brookfield Elementary School. Hildner graduated from Autauga County High School in Prattville, Ala., in 1980, and he joined the University of Notre Dame’s class of 1984. He began his Army career in Fort Bliss, Tex. His father described him as an ambitious and dedicated military man. “From the Irish side of the family, he inherited a sense of humor and exuberance about life,” Robert Hildner said. “And from the German side, a singularity of purpose and a very keen analytical mind.” Hildner was married twice and had four children, ages 17 to 22, from his first marriage. His second wife, Cindy Hildner, is a civilian employee for the military. He met her about seven years ago after she began monitoring the condition of one of his injured soldiers at what is now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Fairfax was what Hildner considered his home base, even as he moved from place to place in a nearly 30-year military career that included tours in Germany, Iraq and Kuwait. His parents lived in Fairfax near George Mason University from 1980 until last year, when they moved to Charles County. He also is survived by his mother, Susan, and a younger brother and sister, Steven Hildner and Elizabeth Edwards, both of whom live in the Washington area. Hildner commanded troops in Kuwait and during the Persian Gulf War in Iraq. He also conducted the last U.S. patrol along the East-West German border before reunification. His combat missions earned him various service medals, including two Bronze Stars. From 2003 to 2006, he was in charge of the 13th Corps Support Command’s Special Troops Battalion at Fort Hood. The battalion provided supplies to units stationed around Joint Base Balad and Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq war, and to troops responding to Hurricane Katrina. More recently, he was stationed at Fort Lee, Va., where


U.S. deals favoring blind draw scrutiny as rivals struggle

the organization’s annual report. An additional $221 million in uniform orders was set aside for small businesses, defined as those with no more than 500 employees. That left about $907 million, or 49.9 percent, available for unrestricted competition, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The squeeze on private uniform makers was evident in Alabama on Jan. 9, when American Apparel, which isn’t related to the publicly traded clothing retailer of the same name, announced plans to close its Fort Deposit plant and eliminate about 175 jobs. That meant Rachel Proveaux, 30, mother of an 8-week-old boy, returned from maternity leave to find herself out of a job. “I’m sending out résumés anywhere I can find,’’ she said in an interview. “They should not set aside so many contracts for small business. To me, that’s not fair.” While the company’s officials didn’t fault the program for the disabled in particular, they said the large share of contracts awarded through set-aside programs has left little work for competitive bidding. They also said the government ends up paying more than it should, sometimes for inferior products. “We are denying our troops the best if we do not allow competition,” C. Lash Harrison, chairman of American Apparel’s board of directors, said in a September letter to President Obama. U.S. Representative Terri A. Sewell, a Democrat from Birmingham, Ala., agrees. “While I fully support the Pentagon’s policies to assist various restricted sources,” the lack of competition in programs such as AbilityOne and Federal Prison Industries “has resulted in an increase in prices paid by the services for uniforms,” she wrote in a Sept. 8 letter to the Defense Logistics Agency, the biggest buyer of military uniforms. The agency paid as much as 17 percent more for AbilityOne-manufactured uniforms compared with those made by large commercial businesses, according to a Bloomberg analysis of $2.23 billion in uniform spending by the agency in the past decade. Before awarding orders, the government has to determine whether the prison workshops or organizations for the disabled can provide a “fair and reasonable” price, Nancy Heimbaugh, the senior procurement executive at the Defense Logistics Agency, said in an Aug. 18 letter to U.S. Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-Ala.), who has raised concerns about combat uniform orders going to favored groups. AbilityOne’s prices are “usually within the competitive market range of what federal agencies would pay for other, similar projects,” George Selby,


Butterflies help out scientists and the military

Butterflies are teaching scientists important lessons that could be used in designing flying robots. The military wants to be able to use bug-size robots to fly into areas without risking human lives. They call their robots MAVs, short for micro air vehicles. The problem is that the robots don’t do as good a job of flying in tight spaces with changing wind conditions as do butterflies. “Flying insects are capable of performing a dazzling variety of flight maneuvers,” said Tiras Lin, a Johns Hopkins University student who is doing some of the research. “In designing MAVs, we can learn a lot from flying insects.” Because butterflies move their wings far too quickly for the human eye to detect all the movements, Lin and other researchers have come up with a special camera that takes 3,000 images per second. (Your family’s video camera takes no more than 60 images a second!) Other universities are at work developing their own tiny fliers. Butterfly research is being used in the development of micro air vehicles such as this one. (Robert J. Wood and Pratheev Sreethara/Harvard University)


Going Out Guide: Nightlife Agenda

Every Tuesday, the Going Out Gurus highlight the week’s best DJs, bands, dance nights and parties. Find a longer list of events at www.goingoutguide.com . Home Brewers Match Up There’s been a lot of talk about DC Brau, 3 Stars and Chocolate City beers, but the truth is there are dozens of brewers in Washington, and Meridian Pint is offering the chance to taste their products for free. At the semi-regular Home Brewers Match Up, you can sip beverages made by two dozen amateur brewers — everything from hoppy IPAs to chocolate-chipotle stouts — and vote for your three favorites. (There’s a big tournament-of-champions showdown at the end of the year.) Admission and beer samples are free, but get to Meridian Pint’s basement bar on the early side, because the better beers tend to run out fast. Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. Meridian Pint, 3400 11th St. NW. 202-588-1075. www.meridianpint.com. Free. Assemble Here’s a concertgoing experience that promises to be different. Assemble is an aptly named event that brings together a handful of musicians for an improvised exercise that, we hope, will end with something cool. Saturday’s edition features Bob Boilen of NPR’s “All Songs Considered” (and former D.C. new wave star), Fugazi/French Toast percussionist Jerry Busher and Patrick Noecker of These Are Powers. They’ll sit in a circle and play their own micro-jams for a few minutes before passing the invisible baton to the next person. Eventually they’ll team up for a 10-minute jam. Video projections by Robin Hill will run continuously. After the experiment, get ready for loud music by Expensive [Expletive], a band that is percussive and funky enough to use a name inspired by Fela Kuti’s classic album. Saturday at 10 p.m. Comet Ping Pong, 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-364-0404. $10. Mad Fox Barleywine Fest In the aftermath of holiday party season, many people cut down on their drinking in January or give up altogether. But now that we’re into February, it might be time to cut loose again. This weekend, Mad Fox Brewing Co. in Falls Church will host its annual Barleywine Festival, celebrating the pumped-up beer style that goes over the top in terms of flavor, hops and alcohol level. (These beauties clock in between 9 and 15 percent alcohol by volume.) There will be about 30 barleywines to sample, including two from Mad Fox and others from Dogfish Head, Rogue, He’Brew and


A vegan queen’s cupcakes take the crown

a line of people out the door or do you have a line of just vegans out the door?” Both carnivores and vegetarians scooped up their sticky buns and brownies, and in 2006 the business moved to a bigger space in Columbia Heights. A retro oven and refrigerator were brought in to hold condiments and the cabinets were painted mint green to give the feel of a 1950s kitchen. By then, Petersan’s partner had moved on to tour with a rock band. The bakery’s menu expanded to include breakfast and lunch dishes, and the shop garnered interest from bakers in Korea who came to train with Petersan for several weeks before returning home to open an outpost of the Sticky Fingers franchise in Seoul. Sticky Fingers also launched a wholesale business, packaging its products for resale at Whole Foods and other local stores. Last year Petersan got a call from Food Network, offering her a spot on the baking competition “Cupcake Wars.” She was pitted against another vegan baker and two others who used dairy products. Petersan won. “I thought it was going to be a long shot. But also that we absolutely have to win this because we’re the underdog,” she says. “So we went in it with full guns blazing.” The secret, she says, is in using high-quality ingredients and knowing how to work with them. Instead of butter, she uses non-hydrogenated margarines and shortenings. Soy milk, coconut milk, fresh fruits and nuts “are imperative,” as is really good chocolate and the restraint to not overmix a cake batter. In her second time on the show, she was cut in the second round, but Petersan was invited back for an All-Stars lineup. That time she and an assistant won with a collection of rock-and-roll-inspired cupcakes that included the Salt-n-Peppa, a “chocolate bourbon smoked pepper cupcake” with salted caramel, vanilla bean frosting and a tiny pair of headphones made of fondant. Each time the shows aired, the line at the counter grew a little longer. Sticky Fingers now sells thousands of cupcakes each week. People have begun asking to have their pictures taken with Petersan. It’s an odd thing to be a semi-celebrity vegan, but she’s not complaining. “The bigger picture is to show that vegan food is not scary,” she says. “It’s not a bad word, and my mission — my passion — is to prove it.” Petersan


Barley wine’s not just for winter nights

made between 1968 and 2008. This strong ale (it could measure more than 12 percent alcohol by volume) was dosed with fresh yeast in the bottle, and as it continued to ferment, it developed enormous complexity over time. It was eventually deemed too expensive to make, but vintage-dated bottles continue to change hands on eBay. Some guidebooks refer to Thomas Hardy’s Ale as an “old ale,” and other terms such as “stock ale,” “stingo” and “malt wine” have been slapped on English strong ales as well. Beer taxonomists have drawn up guidelines to distinguish barley wine from similar styles, but they afford brewers a very long leash. Barley wines on the market range in color from honey-gold to deep mahogany. Alcohol can be as little as 8 percent, and as much as 15 percent in the case of Dogfish Head’s Olde School Barleywine, which incorporates dates and figs to add extra sugar for fermentation. Muddying the waters further is the fact that English and American brewers don’t always agree on what constitutes the ideal barley wine. English versions are malt forward, with sugary and toffeeish flavors dominating. American barley wines tend to be much hoppier. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine, with its immense resiny and fruity flavors, is a classic; six-packs and kegs of the 2012 vintage should hit the Washington market in mid-February. Hog Heaven Barleywine-Style Ale is dry-hopped with such an abundance of piney Columbus hops that it probably ought to be labeled an imperial IPA, except that the latter style didn’t exist in 1998 when Avery Brewing in Boulder, Colo., first released the brand. Dominion Millennium Ale, which survived the brewery’s move from Ashburn to Dover, Del., is getting a makeover this year, reports Casey Hollingsworth, vice president for sales and marketing. Specifically, the brewery has replaced East Kent Golding hops, a subtle, earthy English variety, with more aggressive strains Chinook and Apollo. “We’ve truly Americanized it,” says Hollingsworth. The brewery continues to add some Virginia honey to the brew kettle for “a nice, delicate, flowery aroma,” he adds. Hugh Sisson, founder and general partner of Clipper City Brewing in Baltimore, has been brewing his Below Decks Barleywine Style Ale for eight years, and is making no concessions to hop heads. “It’s very malt-driven,” he says of the 10 percent alcohol brew. “The West Coast barley wines are interesting, but to me, that’s not what barley wine is


Washington Post food calendar for Feb. 11-Feb. 21

SATURDAY SPARKLING WINE TASTING: WASHINGTON D.C. INTERNATIONAL WINE FOOD FESTIVAL: SUNDAY COCKTAIL CLASS: FOOD AND DRINK IN MEDIEVAL CYPRUS: MONDAY CHOCOLATE, CHEESE AND BUBBLY: WINE DINNER: TUESDAY TUESDAY TEA: RESERVE NOW FEB. 17 CHOPIN VODKA DINNER: FEB. 19 CELEBRITY SURF ’N’ TURF DINNER: FEB. 21 ST. JUDE GOURMET GALA: WINE DINNER: — Becky Krystal SEND NOTICES to: To Do, Food, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or e-mail food@washpost.com, 14 days in advance.


Roger Boisjoly, engineer who warned of Challenger shuttle danger, dies at 73

The 1986 explosion that destroyed the space shuttle Challenger and killed seven astronauts shocked the nation, but for one rocket engineer, the tragedy became a personal burden and created a lifelong quest to challenge the bureaucratic ethics that had caused the tragedy. Roger Boisjoly was an engineer at solid-rocket booster manufacturer Morton Thiokol and had begun warning as early as 1985 that the joints in the boosters could fail in cold weather, leading to a catastrophic failure of the casing. Then on the eve of the Jan. 28, 1986, launch, Mr. Boisjoly and four other space shuttle engineers argued late into the night against the launch. In cold temperatures, O-rings in the joints might not seal, they said, and could allow flames to reach the rocket’s metal casing. Their pleas and technical theories were rejected by senior managers at the company and NASA who said they had failed to prove their case and that the shuttle would be launched in freezing temperatures the next morning. It was among the biggest engineering miscalculations in history. A little more than a minute after launch, flames shot out of the booster joint, melted through the nearby hydrogen fuel tank and ignited a fireball that was watched by the astronauts’ families and much of the nation on television. Engineer Roger Boisjoly examines a model of the O-Rings, used to bring the Space Shuttle into orbit, at a meeting of senior executives and academic representatives in New York in 1991. Boisjoly died in January in Utah. (AP) Mr. Boisjoly could not watch the launch, so certain was he that the shuttle would blow up. In the months and years that followed, the disaster changed his career and permanently poisoned his view that NASA could be trusted to make the right decisions when matters came to life and death. Mr. Boisjoly, 73, died of cancer Jan. 6 in Nephi, Utah, his family said. The Challenger disaster and the resulting investigation pulled back the curtain on NASA’s internal culture, revealing a bureaucracy that had made safety secondary to its launch objectives and to the political support it needed to continue the shuttle program. “It was the end of the dream,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org and a longtime analyst of U.S. aerospace. “Before the Challenger, you could think about the idea of going boldly where no one had gone before. The accident ended it.” Mr. Boisjoly


D.C. news in brief

Affordable housing building opens in Ward 8 Matthews Memorial Terrace, a 99-unit affordable housing building at 2616 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE in Ward 8, opened Jan. 31. The apartments will house 32 families headed by seniors and 67 low-income families. Amenities include a meeting room with kitchen facilities, a community room and a terrace-level courtyard that functions as a green roof. Matthews Memorial Baptist Church provides child development and senior services in an adjacent property. The church and a nonprofit planner, Community Builders, developed the property with $22 million from a public-private partnership. For information and residence applications, go to www.matthewsmemorialterrace.com. Garrison needs school supplies, volunteers Garrison Elementary, 1200 S St. NW, is collecting donations for its school store and seeking volunteers for its Saturday school program. The school store, part of a behavioral incentive program, sells school supplies, games and snacks. Items are bought with “wildcat paws,” which are issued to students who demonstrate respectfulness, responsibility or safety. The store teaches students to operate a business. Garrison’s Saturday program help students prepare for the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment Test in April. To volunteer or to donate supplies, snacks, games or puzzles to the store, contact Darryl Webster at 202-207-4964. D.C. Circulator meeting rescheduled for Feb. 29 The District Department of Transportation is having a public forum on the D.C. Circulator bus lines from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Feb. 29 at the Columbus Club, Union Station, 50 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Topics will include route performance and future plans for the system. The meeting was originally scheduled for Feb. 7. Send comments to brooke.fossey@dc.gov or via a link at www.dccirculator.com. For information, go to ddot.dc.gov . National science camp seeks applicants Applications are open for the National Youth Science Camp from June 27 to July 21 in Charleston, W.Va. Two graduating District high school seniors who excel in science, engineering or math will be chosen to attend the camp this summer, all expenses paid. Activities include research work with career scientists, student presentations and hiking. To apply, go to www.sboe.dc.gov by March 16. AARP offers free tax counseling, preparation Free tax counseling and preparation are available to low- and middle-income taxpayers, especially those 60 and older. The AARP Tax-Aide program has IRS-certified volunteers working in senior centers, libraries and community centers throughout the city. Help is available on a walk-in basis or by appointment, depending on the site. Tax counseling


D.C. rat summit: Another day in the sun for city’s rodents

Lyme disease, rabies and other animal-borne ailments. “Like others, I want to ensure the humane treatment of animals, but when it comes to rodents and other animals that often carry diseases, human health must come first,” Cuccinelli wrote in an e-mail to The Washington Post. The law actually would allow “commensal rodents” — types of mice and rats that live in close contact with humans — to be destroyed. But critics of the law have argued that some other rodents are on the “protected” list, including the deer mouse and rice rat — two species whose stomping grounds include the D.C. area. That would make it difficult for pest-control workers to use lethal traps for rats, since those devices obviously couldn’t differentiate between the exempted and protected species. Officials in D.C.’s Department of the Environment, which will enforce the law, said they plan to consider all rodents exempt from the law’s protective provisions. Even if rats and mice weren’t exempt, it is unlikely that pest-control workers would release live rodents from their traps into the D.C. suburbs, said Bruce Colvin, a national consultant on rodent control issues who helped draft the District’s rodent control plan 12 years ago. “That just doesn’t happen,” he said. “Pest-control personnel usually end up handling dead rats, not live ones.” The controversy also has prompted Maryland Del. Patrick McDonough (R) to announce plans for an “anti-rat trafficking” bill that would make it illegal to transport vermin from the District into Maryland territory. Aides from McDonough’s Annapolis office said Tuesday that he still plans to go forward with the bill, but the state House of Delegates has not scheduled its introduction or assigned it to relevant committees. In the meantime, the Wildlife Protection Act awaits full implementation by the city. While restrictions on the handling of animals are in effect, the city has not identified funding to enforce a pest-control licensing regime included in the law. The environment department is in the process of drafting regulations setting prices and procedures for securing those licenses. Few concrete details of the upcoming rat summit have been set, according to Cuccinelli spokesman Brian J. Gottstein. There’s a historic precedent, however: D.C. previously hosted a rat summit in 1999, when then-Mayor Anthony Williams decided to declare war on the city’s rodent population. That summit eventually led to the plan Colvin helped craft, which remains the basis for D.C.’s current rodent


For owners of ’60s-era Carderock Springs house, renovation ordeal was worth it

the whole thing.” A quick decision David and Barbara Beers’s passion for maintaining their home’s original style makes them ideal Carderock homeowners. And in fact, this is their second house in the neighborhood. Barbara, who works for Microsoft, grew up in Carderock Springs, and the couple had been living in her old house, spending five years seriously renovating it. But then the atrium house went on the market. While almost all of Carderock’s houses have pitched roofs, developer Bennett took a chance in the mid-1960s and built seven flat-roofed homes, each clad in western red heartwood cedar siding and featuring a glassed-in atrium at its center. Distinctly more contemporary than anything else in the neighborhood, the houses were featured in House and Garden and Architectural Record magazines. But they weren’t particularly popular with buyers, according to Shannon, and Bennett stopped building them. These days, the homes are in demand among Carderock residents and fans. Barbara Beers had long her eye on them, but she and David figured it would be forever before one opened up. Still, a couple of years ago David added their name to a waiting list to be notified when an atrium home was about to go on the market. As luck would have it, one of the houses soon became available. The home, which had been owned by an elderly blind man, was in pretty bad condition, and the sellers had no interest in fixing it up before putting it on the market. So the agent in charge, Theres Kellermann, took advantage of real estate laws that give a seller 48 hours to find a buyer before publicly listing a property. She turned to the waiting list. The Beerses were second in the queue, and the family that was first passed on the home. “We had 24 hours to decide,” remembered David. The pair drove over and met with the home’s owner. “We didn’t have time to do an inspection; we just did a 20- or 30-minute walk-through. We had to believe that no one was hiding information about the place.” It seemed like a good investment. The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house was selling for $900,000 and needed serious repairs. But the same model up the street had recently sold for over $1 million. So they decided to jump. “Barbara really loved it,” said David. “I was less eager. I saw how much work there was.” Highlighting


Chinese official on leave amid defection rumors

a U.S. consulate. Chongqing officials posted a short, cryptic message on a microblog — the Chinese equivalent of Twitter — on Wednesday, saying that Wang Lijun was “receiving a vacation-style treatment” for overwork and mental stress. Several other Chinese microblogs speculated that Wang, a former city police chief, had sought to defect and posted pictures purportedly showing police surrounding the U.S. consulate in nearby Chengdu on Tuesday night. The episode drew unusual attention because Wang has close ties to Bo Xilai, Chongqing’s charismatic Communist Party chief and a rising star within the party who has been campaigning for a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. A key part of Bo’s appeal involves his high-profile crackdown on crime and corruption in recent years. Wang played an integral role in that effort, in which police arrested several alleged criminal leaders while confiscating drugs and guns. The U.S. State Department confirmed Wednesday that Wang had requested and attended a meeting Monday at the Chengdu consulate, but U.S. officials would not comment on whether he sought asylum. “He did visit the consulate, and he later left the consulate of his own volition,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. Responding to online reports that Wang was forced to leave the consulate or dragged out, she said, “He walked out. It was his choice.” At a news briefing in Beijing on Thursday morning, Cui Tiankai, the vice foreign minister in charge of U.S. affairs, declined to offer specifics about Wang’s visit to the U.S. consulate, but, he said, the upcoming visit to Washington by Vice President Xi Jinping would not be affected by the incident. Asked later to elaborate, Cui said, “This issue has been resolved, and resolved quite smoothly.” It was unclear whether Wang’s departure resulted from a falling out between him and Bo. It was also unclear how the episode involving Wang could affect Bo’s political aspirations. Bo has pursued the Politburo seat with the zeal of a Western-style populist, most notably through “red culture,” a revival of socialist songs and culture from Mao Zedong’s time. Staff writer Keith Richburg in Beijing contributed to this report. More world news coverage: - Architect of Egypt’s NGO crackdown is Mubarak holdover - Russia says Assad wants dialogue - U.S. seeks smaller embassy presence in Iraq - NATO, Pakistan and Afghanistan reportedly in border talks - Ex-Marine sentenced to death in Iran needs U.S. intervention, lawyer pleads


President’s next budget to cut Mars, solar system exploration

that have immeasurable benefit to the nation and inspire the human spirit of exploration we all have,” Rep. John Abney Culberson (R-Tex.) said. Last fall, NASA handed out $46 million to contractors to begin building instruments for the 2016 mission. But earlier this week, Alvaro Gimenez, top scientist at the European agency, told the BBC that NASA’s continued participation in the partnership was “highly unlikely.” “The impact of the cuts . . . will be to immediately terminate the Mars deal with the Europeans,” said G. Scott Hubbard, a Stanford University and former NASA planetary scientist who revived the agency’s Mars exploration program after the 1999 failures. “It’s a scientific tragedy and a national embarrassment.” The 2016 mission, called the Trace Gas Orbiter, was to sniff the Martian atmosphere for methane, which could signal the existence of microbes on the surface. The 2018 mission was to land a rover to gather rocks and soil for eventual return to Earth. An official familiar with deliberations at NASA said the agency is still hoping to launch a robotic Mars mission in 2018, although the goals and hardware would probably differ from those of the joint European project. With austere budgets expected across the federal government, NASA is finding itself squeezed. Last year, Congress ordered the agency to build a giant new rocket and a deep-space crew capsule. Congress also told the agency to finish the overbudgeted James Webb Space Telescope, now expected to launch no earlier than 2018. The executive branch’s budget request, unveiled every February, is used by federal agencies to set spending priorities. Details are often decided by officials in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. On Wednesday, planetary scientists accused the OMB of ignoring advice given to NASA by its scientific advisers. In May, planetary scientists told the agency they favored two big projects: the Mars missions, or, if those proved too expensive, a probe to explore Europa, an intriguing moon of Jupiter with an ice-covered ocean and, within it, conditions possibly favorable for life. “They don’t seem to be interested in finding life in the universe or letting the experts manage their own program,” Hubbard said of the OMB. “Low-level workers have substituted their judgment for 1,700 scientists and the National Academy of Sciences.” Culberson said the House committee would continue to push for the Europa mission, which Congress directed the agency to study this year.


China confirms its official stayed one day at U.S. Consulate

Chongqing Vice Mayor Wang Lijun is being investigated after visiting the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. (AP/AP) BEIJING — The official Xinhua News Agency reported late Thursday, citing the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman’s office, that “Wang entered the U.S. general consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6 and left after staying there for one day.” The report, on Xinhua’s Chinese- and English-language Web sites, was the Chinese government’s first acknowledgment that Wang — a former police chief renowned for tackling organized crime in Chongqing — had been at the consulate. On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington that Wang had gone to the Chengdu consulate to meet with U.S. officials and had left “of his own volition.” Reports throughout the day Thursday in China’s official news media said Wang was suffering from “depression” and had been placed on medical leave. But the Internet was rife with unconfirmed speculation that Wang had gone to the U.S. mission to request political asylum, perhaps fearing he was about to be targeted for corruption. The case of the vice mayor has taken on broader significance because of his close ties to Chongqing’s Communist Party chief, Bo Xilai, a colorful figure in the party hierarchy who has been widely tipped for elevation to a spot on the powerful nine-member Politburo Standing Committee. Bo made his mark in Chongqing in a controversial “hard strike” campaign against organized crime, with Wang as his top police enforcer. While the crackdown was popular with the public, human rights lawyers and others were critical, saying that the police ignored individual rights and targeted some innocent people. Bo also made headlines here — and some enemies — with his flamboyant style, including a “Red Culture” campaign in which he encouraged Chongqing residents to gather in public parks on weekends and sing old Communist Party songs. He also ordered the local Chongqing TV station to drop sitcoms and begin broadcasting “patriotic” programs. Some analysts saw Bo’s efforts as a means of self-promotion in advance of this year’s leadership transition. The mystery surrounding Wang — whether he actually tried to seek political asylum and if so, why — gave rise to speculation about a power struggle in the Communist Party’s top ranks. China’s Communist Party often uses corruption allegations to remove unwanted officials from prominent positions. According to the power struggle theory, if someone were determined to stop Bo’s rise, he or


NRC approves construction of new nuclear power reactors in Georgia

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday approved a construction and operating license for new nuclear power reactors for the first time since 1978, giving Southern Co. the green light to build two new units at its existing Vogtle site in Georgia. The commission voted 4-1 in favor, with NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko casting the sole vote against granting the license. Jaczko said later that he wanted binding assurances that the new reactors would be modified to meet recommendations made by the agency’s task force on the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last year. “I think this license needed something that ensured that the changes as a result of Fukushima would be implemented,” Jaczko said in an interview after the vote. “It’s like when you go to buy a house and the home inspector identifies things that should be fixed. You don’t go to closing before those things are fixed.” Jaczko said he did not believe that those changes would be onerous or time consuming or that they would delay construction. He said they involved issues such as how the reactors would deal with an extended blackout and the use of better instrumentation for measuring the amount of water in spent fuel pools in the event of an accident. “To me, it’s just common sense,” he said. Southern, which filed its license application in March 2008, said it expects the project to cost about $14 billion. It will use Toshiba’s AP1000 reactors, the design of which the NRC certified in December, and it hopes to bring them online in 2016 and 2017. The new reactors, however, are no longer seen as the start of what the industry once predicted would be a nuclear renaissance. Virtually all of the 31 plants that had been proposed by 2009 have been shelved as a result of cheap natural gas, high construction costs, weak electricity demand and safety concerns following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan. Ten anti-nuclear groups have vowed to file suit against the NRC if it approves the license as expected. The groups said they would argue that the agency broke the law by failing to consider the full lessons of the Fukushima disaster, in which a string of four reactors were badly damaged in an earthquake and tsunami. Southern, whose Georgia Power subsidiary owns 45.7 percent of the project, has already spent $4 billion preparing the site and


Pentagon to ease restrictions on women in some combat roles

The Pentagon will maintain bans on women serving in most ground combat units, defense officials said Thursday, despite pressure from lawmakers and female veterans who called the restrictions outdated after a decade of war. After taking more than a year to review its policies on orders from Congress, the Defense Department announced that it would open about 14,000 combat-related positions to female troops, including tank mechanics and intelligence officers on the front lines. But the Pentagon said it would keep 238,000 other positions — about one-fifth of the regular active-duty military — off-limits to women, pending further reviews. Virtually all of those jobs are in the Army and Marine Corps. Pentagon officials said that they were committed to lifting barriers to women but that it was difficult to make sweeping changes on the battlefield during a time of war. “Sometimes this takes longer than you’d like,” said Virginia S. Penrod, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for military personnel policy. “It may appear too slow to some, but I see this as a great step forward.” In the 1970s, Penrod recalled, she was one of the first women allowed to serve at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Female troops had previously been banned there because it was “too cold,” she said, adding that the military has come a long way since then. Advocates for women in the military, however, accused the Pentagon of dragging its feet and only belatedly recognizing the critical role that female troops have played in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They said many of the job openings announced by the Pentagon merely codify the reality on the battlefield, where commanders have stretched rules for years to allow women to bear arms and support ground combat units. Since 2001, about 280,000 women have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Defense Department statistics; 144 have been killed, and 865 have been wounded. The biggest previous advance for women in uniform came in 1994, when the Clinton administration removed restrictions on more than a quarter-million troop slots. Since then, however, the Pentagon has kept in place a prohibition on women serving in units whose primary mission is “direct” ground combat, such as artillery, infantry and tank units. “Since then, it’s been drip, drip, drip,” said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, expressing frustration with what she called incremental changes. “This is


GAO study looks at impact of highway tolls

Vehicles enter the toll plaza. Tolls for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge went up in 2011. (Michael S. Williamson/WASHINGTON POST) A new study by the Government Accountability Office finds that variable tolling can help reduce congestion on U.S. highways, while also focusing attention on the fairness of such transportation systems. So far, there are few examples of variable tolling in the D.C. region. But that is changing, and other urban areas already have built up some experience with them. The GAO report to Congress, released in January, addresses many of the concerns raised by people who drive along or live near Maryland’s Intercounty Connector and the privately built Dulles Greenway, as well as those awaiting the opening of the high-occupancy toll lanes on the Capital Beltway in Virginia. Tolling techniques Variable tolling takes several forms. Each is a response to congestion, and to the fact that limited space and limited revenue reduce the likelihood that new lanes will be built without toll financing. The new forms of tolling are used not only to pay for construction and to reward investors, but also to manage traffic through a technique known as congestion pricing. Congestion pricing in the United States comes in one or two forms, the GAO report said. High-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes vary the toll according to current demand. The varying toll moderates the number of drivers entering the lanes so speeds can stay at 45 to 55 mph. The 495 Express Lanes on the Beltway and the other HOT lanes planned for Interstate 95 will be examples of that. HOT lanes offer a free ride to those meeting the HOV requirements, but charge other drivers. The other format bases the toll on time of day, charging a pre-set premium price for travel during peak periods. The Intercounty Connector and Dulles Greenway follow that model. The traffic management goal is similar: The changing toll encourages drivers to use the highway when it’s likely to be less congested. History and future The first congestion pricing project in the United States was launched in 1995 in Orange County, Calif. The GAO report now counts 41 pricing projects either open or under development on highways, bridges, and tunnels. Tolls range from 25 cents to $14. It looks like the way of the future Performance So how are they doing? The report describes the results of its research and other studies that examined how variable


League monitoring mission on the ground in Syria offers the only possibility to directly affect the violence, administration officials said. The mission was suspended last month amid fears for the safety of the monitors, and the Arabs have shown little inclination to send the monitors back without some kind of protection. The Arab League is meeting in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the situation. On Friday, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, posted on the Facebook page of the U.S. Embassy in Damascus satellite images showing what he said were Syrian troops firing mortar and artillery shells at residential neighborhoods in several cities. Ford was recalled to Washington this week and the embassy was closed following a series of mysterious explosions in the capital in late December and early January in which at least 70 people died. The government blamed the attacks on al-Qaeda. Following similar explosions in Aleppo on Friday, the state news agency SANA said that two suicide bombers driving white minibuses struck within minutes of one another in separate neighborhoods shortly after 9 a.m. The first attack targeted a law enforcement department and killed 11 people, and the second struck a military security branch and killed 17, some of them children playing in a nearby park, the agency said. The residents of Aleppo, a mostly middle-class mercantile city, have largely refrained from taking part in the mass anti-government demonstrations that have swept much of the rest of the country. But in recent weeks there have been signs that the unrest is reaching into the city, with protests erupting in several neighborhoods and suburbs as unhappiness grows with the levels of violence being used by the government to suppress its opponents elsewhere. Free Syrian Army spokesman Col. Malik al-Kurdi denied that rebels had carried out the bombings, but he said they had staged attacks against Syrian security forces immediately beforehand. “While our soldiers were withdrawing, the explosions took place,” he said. “We don’t know what really happened. It could be that their bombs and ammunition blew up or that they staged the explosions to imply that the Free Syrian Army has sophisticated explosives.” Sly reported from Beirut. More world news coverage: - In Helmand, training local police is a challenge - Pentagon to ease restrictions on women in some combat roles - In Egypt’s bread, signs of economic weakness - Read more headlines from around the world


The National Zoo in winter offers special treats

Lelie, an 18-month-old cub, wants to play, but her brother John doesn’t seem so sure. These two won’t be playing much longer because the zoo’s three male cubs will soon be separated from the rest of the family. (Ann Cameron Siegal/For The Washington Post) “Where is everybody??” exclaimed Pearl Benjamin, 10, when she arrived at the National Zoo one Sunday afternoon last month. The walkways were empty. Welcome to the winter zoo. If you’ve ever gone there with your school on a spring field trip or tried to be patient as your parents hunted for a parking space there in the summer, you know how crowded the zoo can get. It’s sometimes hard to get close enough to really see the animals. Winter is different; it’s a time for quiet observation. Fifth-grader Simon Rosenthal of Chevy Chase was doing research for a school project on lemurs, primates that live on Madagascar, an island off the southeast coast of Africa. A red panda climbs a tree at the zoo. The adult red pandas are usually outside during the winter. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post) With room to spread out his notebook in the small-mammal house, Simon took notes as he and his dad observed how red-ruffed lemurs use their long tails for balance. “You really get to study animals up close,” he said. Some animals are more active Ivan Mallon, 9, visiting from North Carolina, saw two lion cubs squabbling. “First there was a low rumble,” he said. Then he heard a loud, ferocious roar from one of the cubs. Later, the 18-month-old cubs wrestled playfully in a dusting of snow as only six people watched. Another good reason for a trip to the zoo this month is that the male cubs are getting old enough that zoo officials expect to separate them from the rest of the family within the next few weeks. So this is a great chance to see the family together one last time. The lions are most likely to be outside when the temperatures are in the 50s. On colder days their outside time varies according to what zookeepers think is best. Ivan also visited the Great Ape House, where he watched orangutans use purple sheets to play peek-a-boo with one another and visitors. Without leaves to block your view, you can see how red pandas use their “false thumbs” to grasp bamboo. (Panda thumbs don’t have


Don’t throw us an Iraq victory parade

cheering and it’s back to business as usual. That’s what scares me. Less than 2 percent of Americans serve in the military, and for them, a parade would be just another superficial acknowledgment of a sacrifice that has not been shared and certainly not celebrated. Some people argue that it’s a way to show support for the troops, some argue that it’s premature since there’s still a war in Afghanistan, and others argue that Iraq and Afghanistan are different fights. While all this arguing is going on, veterans are struggling. In this country, an average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day. The jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is as high as 15 percent. They are trying to find work despite having been labeled ticking time bombs, unable to assimilate back into society, plagued with post-traumatic stress. Later this month, on an evening like any other in America, nearly 70,000 veterans will spend the night on the street while President Obama and the first lady host a special White House dinner to honor 200 or so hand-picked Iraq veterans from a war that produced more than 30,000 wounded in action. Across the country, on any given night, nearly 5,000 dinner tables have an empty place where a loved one who never came home from the war used to sit. But maybe a parade would be a nice, quick way to thank our troops for doing what so many chose not to do and for volunteering so that there wouldn’t be a draft. We’ve had a decade of war in which almost everyone received a deferment. The question, then, is when to throw the party. Will it be appropriate to have one when we finally pull out of Afghanistan, as expected, in the summer of 2013? Will there be a parade then? Who knows and who cares. The victory parades after World War II were iconic, and they were celebrations for a whole nation touched by the war. It made perfect sense to have them. If you think about it, in a twisted way, not throwing them for the Iraq war makes perfect sense as well. It reflects the attitude Americans have had toward this conflict. A parade honoring Iraq veterans would be nothing more than lip service to the very small minority of people who fought to keep the majority entirely unaffected by the war. We’ve gone from


Robert W. Roche, Africa specialist

Robert W. Roche, 61, a former Africa specialist with Catholic Relief Services, died Jan. 12 at Sanctuary Holy Cross Nursing Home in Burtonsville. He had been in a comatose state since 1997, when he was struck by an automobile while crossing a street in Columbia, said his son, Robert L. Roche. Since the accident, Mr. Roche had been cared for by his family at their home in Columbia until recently, when he was hospitalized for pneumonia. The family is awaiting results of a private autopsy to determine the exact cause of death. Robert Winslow Roche was born in Monroeville, Pa., and was an Eagle Scout while growing up. He graduated in 1972 from the University of Notre Dame and became a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English in Zaire. After the Peace Corps, he joined Catholic Relief Services and had assignments in Mauritania, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Burkino Faso, Benin and Ghana. In 1994, he settled in Columbia. At the time of the accident, he was working in Baltimore as an Africa specialist with Catholic Relief Services. Survivors include his wife of 31 years, Louise Kilombo Roche of Columbia; three children, Robert Lumengu Roche of Washington and Melissa Mupondo Roche and Annette Kubatuka Roche, both of Baltimore; his mother, Wanda Elizabeth Roche of Fort Myers, Fla.; three brothers; two sisters; and a grandson. — Bart Barnes


Economic weakness and policy gridlock

the housing sector showed some faint signs of life, with a decrease in the glut of houses that is keeping prices down. Builder confidence rose and climbed further in more recent weeks to its highest level since June 2007, well before the recession began. Notwithstanding these improvements, the unemployment rate has stayed above 8 percent for three years. Long-term unemployment has decreased but remains at a near-historic high. There are dangers beyond the hardships this imposes on those individuals directly affected. Skills erode as workers spend time unemployed, making it harder for them to find new jobs. Meanwhile, policymakers in Washington have limited options with which to support the economy. Between the political gridlock and the coming elections, it is very unlikely that significant legislation will be passed before November. Accordingly, the administration has focused on executive action, especially regarding housing. Last fall, Obama officials announced a ramped-up effort to allow more “underwater” borrowers to refinance their mortgages at lower rates. More recently, the administration’s foreclosure prevention program was expanded: Eligibility was broadened and incentive payments to banks that reduce the principal balance on loans to troubled borrowers were increased. Additional tools for foreclosure prevention — such as forgiveness of mortgage debt — are part of a settlement announced Thursday between state and federal officials and the largest U.S. banks involved with servicing mortgages whose borrowers subsequently defaulted. The Federal Reserve could take steps to further boost demand. Fed leaders indicated in January that they expect to keep the federal funds rate — its traditional policy tool — close to zero percent until late 2014. Given the Fed’s stated expectation that the unemployment rate will decline only gradually, combined with its expectation that inflation will remain at or below the desired target, the Fed could soon attempt to stimulate the economy through unconventional measures such as more purchases of mortgage-backed securities or Treasury bonds. This policy is designed to ease financial conditions in ways that stimulate investment, exports and consumer spending. But these complicated issues barely register in the dynamic of the 2012 election. In the Republican primaries, a surprising debate has emerged about the merits of capitalism — a narrative that temporarily eclipsed the discussion of whether President Obama’s economic policies have made the economy better or worse. Given the volatility of the Republican nominating process so far, several political surprises are likely along the road to Election Day.


In China, will transition bring real change?

decision to help consolidate the power of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang,” said Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution, “and to make the transition more orderly and prepared.” A vist to Washington by Xi next week will add to the choreographed effort. But beneath the top two jobs, little else seems settled, or at least is known publicly, about a shadowy selection process that takes place largely behind closed doors and involving the most senior of China’s Communist Party leaders and ex-officials. The continued jockeying is for positions on the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, considered the most powerful body in the country’s ruling structure. Seven of the current nine members are due to change — only Xi and Li will retain their positions. Who will occupy the remaining spots, or even whether the Standing Committee might be expanded to 11 seats, is subject to an ongoing guessing game. The fragility of the process was underscored by reports that Wang Lijun, vice mayor of the sprawling western municipality of Chongqing, was placed under official investigation, after visiting the U.S. consulate in nearby Chengdu on Feb. 6. Wang, with a reputation as an anti-crime fighter, was allied to Chongqing’s Party Chief Bo Xilai, considered a top contender for a Standing Committee seat, possibly inheriting the portfolio that would place him in charge of China’s security apparatus. But the loss of one of Bo’s top deputies — and unconfirmed rumors that Wang may have tried to seek political asylum — have thrown off all predictions about Bo’s future. Beyond the intrigue of who’s in and who’s out, there are larger questions over whether the new leadership team led by Xi will mean a change of course in China’s policy direction. Will the economy continue to open up, particularly to foreign competition? Will there be any change in China’s regional policy, including sometimes tense relations with some neighbors over territorial disputes in the South China Sea? Will there be a new détente with the United States, or more confrontation over bilateral and global concerns? How will the new leaders deal with growing social tensions — protests over land rights, worker strikes and mounting unrest in the Tibetan region and among ethnic Uighurs in western Xinjiang province? And, one question overhanging all: Will the new leadership prove any more willing to open up the country’s authoritarian political system to allow more pluralism, a more independent


Top general assassinated in Damascus

the capital to witness large-scale anti-government protests until they were suppressed there last fall. Kholi is not the first senior military official to be assassinated in recent months, as the protest movement has rapidly evolved in many parts of the country into an armed, if disorganized, insurgency. But the brazen attack in the center of the normally calm capital, coming a day after twin suicide bombings in the commercial center of Aleppo, heightened the building sense of vulnerability in the two major cities that have remained largely immune to the violence raging elsewhere. The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group, said 30 people were killed by security forces on Saturday as the government sustained its assault aimed at crushing the opposition in Homs, several rural suburbs of Damascus and a town in the southern province of Daraa, which are among some of the locations that have in recent months fallen under the sway of the rebel Free Syrian Army. The spreading violence has heightened concerns that militant groups linked to al-Qaeda may seek to exploit the growing chaos to project their own extremist ambitions onto an uprising that started out as a peaceful protest movement demanding change. The McClatchy news service on Saturday quoted U.S. officials as saying that al-Qaeda in Iraq was responsible for two suicide bombings that killed 44 people in Damascus on Dec. 23, and also, perhaps, Friday’s bombings in Aleppo, in which 28 people died. The al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan, ordered operatives of the Iraq-based al-Qaeda affiliate to carry out the attacks, McClatchy said. Intelligence officials told The Washington Post that while the recent bombings in Syria have the hallmarks of al-Qaeda operations, they have found no conclusive link to al-Qaeda or its Iraqi affiliate. The officials said, however, that it is plausible that al-Qaeda, marginalized by the recent uprisings across the Arab world, will attempt to insert itself into the effort to topple the Assad regime. “It wouldn’t be a surprise that al-Qaeda in Iraq — which has operational networks in Syria — would seek to join the opposition and attack the Assad regime,” a U.S. official said. Miller reported from Washington. More world news coverage: - U.S. sees few good options in Syria - Al-Awlaki led ‘underwear bomber’ plan - In Helmand, training local police is a challenge - Read more headlines from around the world


As wildfire season nears, the aging fleet of air tankers raises concerns

could be put down much sooner. During a routine maintenance check of one plane, a 12-inch crack was discovered near its left wing, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a directive Monday to ground the damaged plane and carefully inspect every plane in the government’s fleet. At least three large air tankers have crashed since 2002, killing eight people, according to a memorial posted by Associated Aerial Firefighters. “I don’t know yet if [the damaged plane] will be ready,” said Dan Snyder, president of Neptune Aviation Services, a Montana company under a five-year contract to provide nine air tankers at a cost of $10,000 a day for maintenance, flight and training. “My engineers are still looking at it.” Large planes take brutal beatings from wildfires. Snyder said temperatures reach 120 degrees in the cockpit, and repeated takeoffs and landings add to the pressure. An analysis found that the crack in Neptune’s plane was caused by stress from hard landings. Critics of the Forest Service wonder why the strategy released Friday was years in the making. Observers said that although it is a step forward, the plan falls short of Harbour’s promise in June that the agency would prepare a proposal for newer large, fixed-wing aircraft and take an appropriations request to Congress in August. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee spokesman Robert Dillon said the agency has not made a request to appear before the committee. Forest Service representatives came to the office for the first time Friday to deliver a copy of the strategy to staff, he said. “Trying to figure out the right attributes . . . the right specifications, and . . . working across the variety of land and . . . just coordinating with people takes a bunch of time,” Harbour said. “We’re happy it’s out. It’s a part of the discussion we have to have with Congress.” Money also played a role in the agency’s struggle to draft a proposal to modernize. Its pricey shopping list of planes was not acceptable to the Office of Management and Budget. The agency sought state-of-the-art C-130Js, at $80 million each, a price it cannot afford, according to congressional staffers and aviation experts. The head-turning cargo plane flies at nearly 400 mph and can deliver an optimal load of 4,000 gallons of fire suppressant. Harbour called the C-130J “an aircraft . . . designed for the kinds