Blue crab numbers climbed slightly this year from a near-catastrophic low

Blue crabs are a tropical species that originated in the Caribbean Sea and migrated south as far as Argentina and north to the Chesapeake Bay and beyond. They are established as far north as Massachusetts but are sensitive to cold. Last year, 28 percent died over the winter. This year’s winter was worse, killing 29 percent. Maryland and Virginia conduct the dredge survey at 1,500 sites in the bay watershed during the overwintering period, December through March. Waterman John Van Alstine harvests a meager take from one of many crab pots he'll check on the Chesapeake. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) Females that manage to survive release their eggs in spring and return to various rivers and creeks upstream. Microscopic hatchlings spend their early lives at the mouth of the Atlantic before starting a deadly trek upstream in fall, whenmost are eaten by predators, including adult crabs. Maryland and Virginia have two options that will likely hurt watermen who depend on the commercial crab fishery: continue to conserve females by reducing the number that can be taken in the March-to-November open crab fishery, and continue to conserve juveniles in the hopes that they reproduce in higher numbers in 2016. This year’s spawning female population is still well below the level of 160 million to 215 million that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says is needed to lift the overall population to its estimated strength of 828 million in 1991. Juvenile crabs jumped from 199 million to 269 million, a 35 percent increase, and now comprise the bulk of the crab stock. Crab populations naturally go up and down, but the number taken at harvest has an effect. The overall population reached 828 million in 1991, but dove to 367 million the next year after watermen harvested 90 million pounds. History repeated itself a few years later in 1997, when watermen caught 77 million pounds after the stock rebounded to 680 million. The next year, the population dropped by 327 million. A 21-year high of 765 million was reached in two years ago, then plopped to 300 million after watermen removed 56 million pounds. Management is key, said Rom Lipcius, a Virginia Institute of Marine Science researcher who participates in the annual survey. “It’s likely the collective management actions since 2008 enhanced the population’s resilience.” Without it, Lipcius said, “The winter’s impact on the crab stock could have been much worse.”


Paul Ryan: Japan’s massive trade opportunity

more jobs in the United States, we need to make more things in the United States and sell them overseas — to Asia, especially. But Japan may need the TPP even more than we do. In the past 20 years, its economic growth has been close to nil, for a number of reasons: an aging population, a shrinking workforce and a rigid, overregulated economy. When he ran for office, Abe promised to slay this stagnation with the “three arrows” of his platform, now known as “Abenomics”: fiscal stimulus, monetary expansion and structural reform. Abe has kept his promises — mostly. Last year, he approved a $29 billion stimulus package, big by Japanese standards. And the Bank of Japan has cranked up the printing presses: The yen is trading around its lowest level against the dollar since 2007. But the structural reform Abe promised has been slow to arrive. And no surprise, the lack of reform has meant a lack of results. Over the past six years, the United States has learned the same lesson: Spending and printing money can provide a sugar high, but only real reform can promote a healthy economy. Luckily, a solution is within reach: the TPP. This high-standard agreement will require all member countries to dismantle many of the trade barriers that hobble their economies. Japan is a prime example. The country lays huge tariffs on American foodstuffs and erects all sorts of barriers to keep out American autos; some tariffs can exceed 700 percent. Japan lobbied hard to join the TPP talks but still hasn’t committed to eliminating these barriers. To his credit, while campaigning for reelection last year, Abe pledged to complete the TPP. With his decisive victory, he can claim a mandate for closing the deal. But the world is still wondering whether he’ll make good on that promise. Abe has shown impressive leadership, but the farm lobby and car companies have a lot of sway in Tokyo. Japan will shake off its decades-long stupor only if it takes on the special interests and opens these crucial markets to its trading partners. Such change is always difficult, but the upside of removing these barriers far outweighs the downside. Completing the TPP would strengthen Japan’s economy and its national security. The U.S.-Japan alliance is the hub of the Asia-Pacific order. The United States has pledged to defend Japan in case of attack, and in


With Japanese leader’s visit, a chance to look back and move forward

to keep history in the spotlight during Mr. Abe’s visit. To an extent, this is unsurprising. Seventy years after the end of the war, commemorations are planned in several countries. The last surviving victims of Japanese aggression — Korean “comfort women,” American prisoners of war — want clarity before their generation exits the stage. Mr. Abe’s record gives reason to worry about his commitment to such clarity. In his speech Wednesday, and in a historical assessment he is preparing to deliver this summer, it is important that he reaffirm Japan’s understanding of and remorse for its wartime offenses. But if we’re looking at history, we ought not neglect the seven decades since 1945, either. Japan utterly transformed itself from a militaristic, imperialist society into a peaceable democracy, a reliable U.S. ally and a good neighbor to other Asian countries. To the extent it has regained influence, it is through economic prowess and development aid, not military might. Like Germany, in fact, it has been reticent to a fault in foreign affairs. Now, like Germany, Japan is gingerly moving toward a more assertive role in the world, in ways that other democracies in Asia ought to welcome. Mr. Abe is seeking to reinterpret Japan’s “peace constitution,” unchanged since Americans wrote it during the postwar occupation, to allow Japan to aid allies, including the United States and South Korea, in times of need. He has reached out to Australia, India and other democracies while China seeks to expand its influence in the service of a very different political philosophy. He also is negotiating a free-trade agreement with the United States and 10 other Pacific nations that, if he delivers and Congress does not torpedo the deal, could further open Japan’s lucrative markets to U.S. products. Ordinarily the United States finds itself pressing allies to increase their defense spending and play a larger role in maintaining peace and stability beyond their borders. Now comes Japan, already doing the former (if modestly) and offering to do the latter. Especially as other allies, such as Britain, retrench and turn inward, the United States should welcome the opportunity this presents. Read more about this topic: Fred Hiatt: Wartime ghosts shadow Japan and South Korea’s future Richard Cohen: Will Japan’s habit of rewriting its history affect its future? Lally Weymouth: An interview with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe The Post’s View: Shinzo Abe’s inability to face history


Maketto is many things, including weird and wonderful

over it. “There aren’t too many public spaces where you can just go and do nothing,” says Bruner-Yang of the deck, which is now the site for free yoga on Sundays at 4 p.m. The open-air setting will gain a regular Sunday farm market sometime in May, showcasing some of the same ingredients used at Maketto. Not since Rose’s Luxury began dishing out pork and litchi salad has a new place to eat garnered such broad exposure. “Look at you, on H Street!” one suit says to another in Maketto’s spare white-bricked dining room. The bar-of-soap-sized menu opens like an accordion. One side lists cocktails and drinking vinegars in flavors including hibiscus and pumpkin. The other divides dishes by small or large “format,” everything prepared in an exhibition kitchen beyond the courtyard. Maketto’s red curry soup is paired with a whole young chicken. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) A green salad with tamarind dressing is a modest pleasure. Pickled vegetables, on the other hand, deliver sparks: sour carrots, turnips fermented in buckwheat tea and butternut squash flavored with shrimp paste. Red curry soup swells with a whole baby chicken, shredded cabbage, a fistful of tropical herbs and julienned ginger. Waves of heat wash over the tongue as you take it all in. Whole fried red snapper looks like a float, festooned as the fish is with pickled peppercorns and both pickled and fried garlic slices. (Only local and sustainable fish are featured.) The most expensive entree, an American Wagyu bao platter, costs $32, not bad for a party of steamed buns presented in an arc with slices of rich beef, tangy shredded cabbage, hoisin and more. [At Maketto, selling sneakers, dinner and the highly curated life] At $35, the American Wagyu bao platter is the priciest item on the menu at Maketto. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) Instead of ordering dessert, I opt to shop. The wares — shoes and sharpies on street level, grooming supplies and backpacks on the second — are curious. The novelties include an outdoor vending machine with sundries ranging from lucky cat charms to condoms. This early fan of the restaurant can’t imagine anyone pushing the button for item A3, which issues . . . Pepto Bismol. 1351 H St. NE. 202-838-9972. maketto1351.com. Entrees, $12 to $32. More from Food: First Bite Other Tom Sietsema reviews/Ask Tom Smoke Signals Spirits Column Beer Column


Curfew lifts after calmer night in Baltimore

violence. “Every brick thrown is a potential roadblock to justice for Freddie Gray,” he said. “We’re fighting violence, not adding to it.” State officials said they planned to have 2,000 National Guard troops in the city by nightfall Tuesday, augmented by 400 state troopers and police from surrounding communities, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the District. Even with the heavy police presence, much of the city seemed in a mood to cleanse itself from the images and debris of Monday night’s violence. “We saw people coming together to claim our city, to clean our city and to help to heal our city,” Rawlings-Blake said. Hundreds of people wielding brooms, dustpans, trash cans and even small bulldozers took to the blocks around the epicenter of the rioting in an impromptu cleanup effort. Some handed out water and trash bags, while others plucked trash from vacant lots and picked up broken glass. Antoinette Rucker, 27, was typical. The woman from Baltimore County loaded a large, black trash can in her car and headed down to the city to clean up. “I didn’t have to work, so I wanted to do my part,” Rucker said. Activists shouted through bullhorns, a man registered people to vote, a woman burned incense and a group broke out in song with “Amazing Grace.” Monica Mitchell said she felt compelled to do something. “My mother always taught me to control the controllable,” she said. With gloves and garbage bags, she arrived at Pennsylvania and West North avenues, where much of Monday’s violence was centered, just after 5 a.m. A rake in her hand, she smiled as an orange sunrise cascaded over the city. Randy Howell, 55, nailed boards over the windows of the stone rowhouse near the corner of North Mount and Baker streets that has been in his family since the 1950s. He thinks looters torched the convenience store next door and that the flames spread to his roof. Howell estimated the damage to his house at $50,000. He said it would take a lot of work to keep it from becoming one more boarded-up home in West Baltimore. “We are going to make it into a project — a lot of tender love and volunteers,” Howell said. During the afternoon, a group of six musicians calling themselves the Baltimore Brass Factory played jazz near the burned CVS, breaking up the constant hum of crowd chatter with familiar


List of closures in Baltimore grows amid threat of violence

Residents clean up from the looting and fires that plagued parts of the city after the funeral for Freddie Gray. Baltimore closings in the wake of violence Baltimore partially shut down Tuesday amid the threat of violence following riots in the northwest area of the city. • Baltimore City Public Schools were closed. • Baltimore County Public Schools were open, but after-school and evening activities were canceled. • Johns Hopkins University canceled classes in Baltimore City. • Morgan State University canceled classes scheduled to begin at or after 4 p.m. • Baltimore City Community College was closed. • Baltimore City District and Circuit courts were closed. • U.S. District Court in Baltimore was closed. • Maryland Science Center was closed. • National Aquarium was closed. • Security Square Mall was closed. • Mondawmin Mall was closed. • Eastpoint Mall was closed.● • Some federal offices in Baltimore and its suburbs were closed, including the Department of Veterans Affairs’s regional office, the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, multiple Social Security Administration facilities and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Horseshoe Baltimore announced it would close at 9 p.m. to comply with the city’s 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.●


Baltimore’s former mayor on the city’s unrest--and its future

[there for the taking]. But there is a gap between the literacy levels and what is required for those jobs. I often remind people that when I got out of school in 1967, the largest employer was a steel company, Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point. And you could drop out of school and make a good middle-class living. Today the biggest employers are Johns Hopkins University and Health System, producing jobs that require a level of education and literacy that is higher than most people had to attain 40 years ago. You directly tried to solve some of the city’s problems in a part of the city known as Sandtown-Winchester, where Freddie Gray lived. What works? What doesn’t? We worked with the community leaders to improve housing, recreation programs and public safety and increase job opportunities by reviving a public market. It was all based on a design I saw in Jerusalem. The mayor took me around and said that if you are going to have improvement, you can’t just build nice new houses — you’ve got to have support services around those houses. We were able to make some progress. There are still difficult social problems that remain. It underscores the fact that there are no final victories. You have to continue to work in partnership with the community. You’ve come back to Baltimore from DC to be president of the University of Baltimore at a time of apparent urban renewal. I really do think all that progress over the last 12 years is real, that the good days outweigh the bad days. The Freddie Gray incident brought to life a problem that needs constant attention — and that is police/community relations. And when you have bad actors, whether police or non-police, you have to try to isolate them. On Tuesday, even as you decided to close the University of Baltimore early, you said you were “heartened” by the constructive messages you have received from students, faculty and staff. I think we will come together as a community and focus on solving these problems. We have to communicate the message to those teenagers that were leading the efforts [Monday] that there is a more constructive way to bring about change. What they did [Monday] night was clearly not honoring the memory of Freddie Gray. If they will join elected officials, we will try to make their lives better together.


In Baltimore, peaceful protest shifts focus back to death of Freddie Gray

D.C. police. “This isn’t a riot. It’s an uprising,” said Eugene Puryear, an organizer with a group that uses the hashtag #DCFerguson. In Baltimore, Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts said that six adults and two juveniles had been arrested in Baltimore on Wednesday, but he did not specify the charges. Police had said they would continue to review footage of Monday’s rioting and looting to identify those involved. He said that about 80 people arrested Monday were released 48 hours later because police had not been able to bring charges against them. Saucha Robinson, a Coppin State University student, stood outside the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center waiting for her boyfriend. She was released from the facility about 7 p.m. Wednesday after being detained for two days without being formally charged, and she described herself as one of the many “innocents” arrested. Robinson, 18, said she was arrested about 9 p.m. Monday as she was on her way to school. The education student said she was near Mondawmin Mall when she saw the police making arrests, so she ran from them, she said. “My initial instinct is to run from whatever is going on,” Robinson said. Batts said that those who had been released might be arrested again once the review of videos is complete. “We’re not giving up on them. We’re just going to follow up,” Batts said. He began an evening news conference by holding up a piece of rock. “This is one of the small ones” Batts said was thrown at his officers. “I think they are extremely courageous, and I think they’ve been standing tall.” Shaken by riot and riven by strife, Baltimore struggled to regain its feet Wednesday as schools again opened their doors, people returned to work and drivers passed without fear through streets that had been treacherous during Monday’s unrest. The aura of things back to normal was undone by things out of place: The Baltimore Orioles played a home game absent any fans; and the Baltimore Symphony played a free outdoor #BSOPeace Concert blocks from a neighborhood that had gone up in smoke 40 hours earlier. Meanwhile, thousands of police officers and National Guard members continued to patrol the streets, particularly in those areas “where people are known to gather,” as a spokesman said. Earlier in the day, many people gathered outdoors in West Baltimore’s Sandtown neighborhood, where Monday’s violence took


In parts of Virginia, backyard beekeeping is more popular than ever

she said. Edsall, who lives near Manassas, said that the Prince William club began having a surge of applicants for its classes five or six years ago. “We fill up before we even advertise,” she said. One year, about 100 people showed up for an open house promoting a class that had only 25 slots. Class members are assigned a mentor to help them during their first year of beekeeping, so the class size is limited by the number of available mentors, Edsall said. The Loudoun Beekeepers Association, which brings in 60 new beekeepers a year, also assigns mentors to families and individuals who take the eight-week Introduction to Beekeeping course, said Britt Thomas, association president. Members of both clubs credit the growing interest in beekeeping to reports of significant declines in the worldwide population of honeybees that started about 2007. The reports attributed massive die-offs of honeybees to “colony collapse disorder,” a phenomenon that is still not fully understood, club members said. Matt Gaillardetz, a former president of the Loudoun Beekeepers Association, said that honeybees, as pollinators, play a critical role in agriculture and the environment as a whole. “When bees are disappearing, there’s certainly a great amount of concern,” Gaillardetz said. In addition to colony collapse disorder, the honeybee population is also threatened by varroa mites and chemicals in fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, he said. Thomas said a healthy colony typically has 40,000 to 60,000 honeybees. Unless the hive is closed, the bees are free to forage and pollinate, and they can travel up to five miles. “They have an amazing homing sense,” he said. Thomas, of Purcellville, said he got started four years ago with two colonies of bees. This year, he will have close to 40 colonies. “I got into it because it was doing something right for nature. It’s kind of like this win-win-win thing,” he said, noting that one of the “wins” for successful beekeeping is a crop of fresh honey. The prospect of harvesting raw honey also appealed to Jennifer Del Grande of Purcellville, who attended a field day for beginning beekeepers in Loudoun on Saturday. “I have three kids, and I thought it would be a great way to help with seasonal allergies,” Del Grande said, citing reports that raw honey can help with allergies. “They love honey, and it’s a wonderful way to help the bees.” Barnes is a freelance writer.


D.C. Urban Greens brings fresh produce to city’s food deserts

group is planning a delivery service and will use D.C. Central Kitchen’s “Healthy Corners” program to distribute its salad mix to small stores more likely to sell chips, cigarettes and lottery tickets. The Fort Dupont site is not a community garden, Kirkwood said. “We do not have people growing their own food,” she said. “We manage the spaces. We don’t consider this a hobby. We consider it a production space. “The community we’re working is, like, 35 percent single mothers with kids,” she added. “They don’t have time to go out and garden themselves to get healthy food.” The group has partnered with Washington Parks and People to build a second farm, dubbed the Marvin Gaye Greening Center, on Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue in Northeast. It was also approached by the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation to create a third farm behind the Fort Stanton Recreation Center. “We don’t know if we’re going to build it, but we are going to manage whatever ends up there,” Kirkwood said. “And it’s all on our model and our design.” D.C. Urban Greens hires neighborhood residents to build the farms and manage them. “We do everything the first time ourselves,” Kirkwood said. “The way we need to do it in order to teach it. But then we try to hand it off to the folks in the neighborhood.” The group does rely on volunteers to do some of the farm work, drawing from local schools, government agencies and businesses such as Ben & Jerry’s. “In order to make volunteers productive, we need to have a plan,” Kirkwood said. “We write up instruction sheets, so people don’t have to sit there wondering what to do.” On Earth Day, members of the Endangered Species Coalition planted a pollinator garden designed to lure bees, butterflies and small birds to the farm. “Our model is to always put a pollinator garden in every space,” Kirkwood said, “because we’ve got food that needs pollination, and we know that lost habitat and chemicals are killing pollinators.” Inside the greenhouses, lettuces are already growing, and mushrooms are sprouting in bags that hang from the supports. Last year, many customers asked for fruit, so terraces are being built to cultivate melons outside the structures. “In the small spaces we work in, it would be more efficient to grow all the same thing,” Kirkwood said. “But that’s kind of not the


Black youth group demands D.C. mayor recall officers from Baltimore

A man sits on a bicycle in front of a line of police officers in riot gear ahead of a 10 p.m. curfew in the wake of Monday's riots in Baltimore. (David Goldman/AP) D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) is facing criticism from a black youth organization over her decision to contribute dozens of officers to a force that on Tuesday night numbered in the thousands on the streets of Baltimore. The District’s chapter of the Black Youth Project 100, whose members helped organize a series of traffic disruptions in the nation’s capital in December in solidarity with protesters in Ferguson, Mo., is calling on Bowser to recall 34 officers detailed to Baltimore. “The answer to finding a solution to the injustice in Baltimore is not sending more police, it is pressuring local and state leaders in the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland to hold officers accountable for the slaying of Freddie Gray,” the group said in a statement. It cautioned that the continued presence of a massive police force will only enflame the situation and infringe on residents’ rights. Several members of The Black Youth Project, or BYP100, plan to attend a rally and march being coordinated by another group, D.C. Ferguson, from Chinatown to the White House at 7 p.m. on Wednesday “in solidarity with the people of Baltimore.” Bowser sent out a tweet Tuesday morning saying D.C. would “help our MD neighbors” with police and fire support, but did not announce the deployment of 34 D.C. officers; the presence of District officers in the city was first disclosed by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R). They were among hundreds from across Maryland, Virginia and elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic region who responded to a request for mutual aid by Maryland emergency management and state homeland security officials. Bowser spokesman Michael Czin said the District anticipated keeping the officers in Baltimore, as requested. He said that after Maryland activated a 50-state agreement known as the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, the District felt obligated to help. “It is important that the District and states support each other during states of emergency,” he said. Speaking generally about the unrest in Baltimore Wednesday during a television interview, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said there was an obvious need for reinforcements. In the interview with Bruce DePuyt on News Channel 8, Lanier said the officers on Tuesday night served in


Montgomery County Animal Watch

These cases were received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Akita trouble: Not-so-neighborly incident: Second Chance Wildlife Center fundraiser: On Saturday, a “Wildlife Baby Shower” for orphaned wild animals will be sponsored by Second Chance Wildlife Center. Echoes of Nature will bring animals. Children will have a chance to plant milkweed seeds in a take-home pot for monarch butterflies (kits $3) or build a birdhouse or feeder (kits $5). For adults, there will be a native plant sale and bake sale. Noon to 3 p.m. Saturday. Second Chance Wildlife Center, 7101 Barcellona Dr., Gaithersburg. 301-926-9453 or www.scwc.org. Free; donations of cash or animal supplies are appreciated. Free workshop for dog owners: Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Adopt dogs and cats at MCHS no-kill rescue: Rockville Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt or foster rescue dogs: Rockville — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Chipotle’s GMO gimmick is hard to swallow

A customer carries a tray with his Chipotle food order, on the day that the company announced it will only use non-GMO ingredients in its food on April 27, 2015 in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) CHIPOTLE RESTAURANTS have earned billions of dollars by making indulgence wholesome, or seem so. As marketing materials endlessly repeat, your Chipotle meal consists of “real, whole foods” and are prepared “using classic cooking techniques.” If its centerpiece can be a foil-wrapped obesity bomb — a barbacoa burrito on a flour tortilla with rice, sour cream and guacamole contains 995 calories and 53 grams of fat, according to the company’s Web site — well, that’s the customer’s choice. The pork comes from free-range pigs! In this respect, Chipotle isn’t much different from other successful restaurant chains past and present. Its latest marketing campaign, however, takes righteous chowing-down to a troubling new level. On Monday, the chain announced that its entire menu is GMO-free — meaning it contains no ingredients derived from genetically modified plants or animals. Thus has a leading food company added its imprimatur to a global propaganda campaign that is not only contrary to the best scientific knowledge but also potentially harmful to vulnerable populations around the world. Men and women have been cross-breeding — genetically modifying — plants and animals since the dawn of agriculture. Modern molecular biology, however, enables them to do it with unprecedented precision and effectiveness; a single gene inserted into a naturally occurring sequence can render, say, a variety of eggplant impervious to pests. The promise of GMOs, already widely used in the United States, is that farmers in the developing world can use them, too, and thus feed their hungry populations at far lower cost than ever before. The peril, according to critics, Chipotle now included, is — well, disaster scenarios vary. Chipotle, in a news release, asserts that it’s holding out for “a consensus on the long-term implications of widespread GMO cultivation and consumption.” No matter that GMO-derived foods have been widely consumed for years and that a 2014 report by the World Resources Institute, while calling for continuing safety research, concluded, “There is no evidence that GM crops have actually harmed human health.” A related concern, according to the company, is that herbicide-resistant GMOs encourage overuse of herbicides. Wouldn’t the right response to that esoteric concern be to avoid products grown with herbicides? In nevertheless


Economic scars deepening by the day as Baltimore deals with unrest fallout

Residents clean up from the looting and fires that plagued parts of the city after the funeral for Freddie Gray. Baltimore has labored in recent years to transform itself from a hub of manufacturing and steel production to one known for trendy neighborhoods, growing tourism and Under Armour, the homegrown sports apparel empire. But since violent clashes Monday night after the funeral of Freddie Gray, the world has seen Baltimore’s businesses and attractions shuttered, conventions canceled and a few retail outlets looted and burned out. With each day, the economic scars deepen. The unrest has impacted more than 150 firms, the state’s top business official estimated on Wednesday, either because they suffered damage, were restricted by the curfew(10 p.m. to 5 a.m.) that began Tuesday or closed down in order to ensure the safety of employees. The city has already lost two conventions that would have brought a combined 2,500 people to the city this week, and a third is being postponed. On Wednesday afternoon, the Orioles hosted the Chicago White Sox, but fans were barred from the game — an unprecedented security step — and largely avoided the gaggle of restaurants, shops and bars outside Camden Yards. Disagreements over the unrest in Baltimore may have far-reaching effects on the Democratic mayor, Republican governor, and even a potential presidential candidate. The Post's Paul Schwartzman explains. A liquor store owner said sales had dropped 20 to 30 percent. “It all comes just as baseball season starts. This is an absolute disaster,” said Pete Rush, managing partner of the Goddess strip club on Eutaw Street. “We were expecting this would’ve been a record-breaking April.” State officials said they plan to seek federal assistance to temper the losses. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said he did not have an estimate of the financial impact on businesses, but added that Maryland would need more than federal dollars to recover. “It’s the reputation we’ve got to heal,” Hogan said. “We’ve got to convince people that it’s a great place to come. We’ve got to get the tourism dollars back, and we’ve got to convince companies that they need to stay here in Baltimore and to convince other ones to come.” The city’s top tourism official, Tom Noonan of Visit Baltimore, said he expected a three- to six-month hit to the bottom line of hotels, shops and restaurants, similar to what parts of New Orleans endured after


Estonian-Georgian ‘Tangerines’ is the anti-‘American Sniper’

Lembit Ulfsak plays the hero Ivo in “Tangerines,” a small but powerful Oscar-nominated tale that highlights war’s absurdity. (Samuel Goldwyn Films) Is Hollywood even capable of producing an unequivocal antiwar statement anymore? Among the recent Oscar nominees, the closest any American film came to an outright condemnation of killing was the blockbuster “American Sniper.” And that film was ambivalent at best, contributing to an already heated cultural debate about the film’s depiction of the necessity or futility of combat. But buried among this year’s foreign-language nominees was another film that almost no one had seen, but whose sense of resignation mixed with despair about battle was both unmistakable and deeply moving. Set in the 1990s, in a war-torn corner of the Caucasus Mountains, the Estonian-Georgian production “Tangerines” is that great antiwar film that fans of the genre have been waiting for. The film takes place in Abkhazia, a disputed region claimed by Georgia that is trying to separate from the former Soviet republic. Fighting against the Georgian army are Abkhazians, their Russian allies and miscellaneous mercenaries. As the film opens, almost every civilian has left the battleground, except for Margus (Elmo Nüganen), a tangerine farmer, and Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak), a man who builds crates for his neighbor’s produce. Both are ethnic Estonians, a people with deep roots in this part of the world, as an on-screen title explains at the start of the film. Into this no-man’s land wanders Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze), a Muslim Chechen soldier of fortune fighting on the side of the Russians and Abkhazians, and Nika (Mikheil Meskhi), a Georgian volunteer. When both fighters are gravely wounded in a skirmish outside Margus’s house, Ivo decides to take them in and nurse them back to health, while at the same time struggling to keep them from killing each other. Except for brief outbursts of violence, “Tangerines” is, like its hero Ivo, a stoic and introspective thing. The story moves slowly and methodically, tempering the expected — and only fleetingly heartwarming — rapprochement between enemies with a more acerbic outlook about human nature. Like a tangerine, it is a mix of sweet and acidic flavors. Georgian writer-director Zaza Urushadze avoids histrionics or moralizing, relying on a strong cast that expresses the film’s central argument about war’s absurdity largely through taciturn action, not words. Although there are moments of quiet humor, “Tangerines” is mostly a tragedy, told via looks exchanged


François Michelin, tire company CEO for nearly 50 years, dies at 88

François Michelin led the expansion of the reach of the French tiremaker Michelin & Cie. (Georges Gobet/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images) François Michelin, the grandson of Michelin & Cie.’s founder and head of the French tiremaker for almost half a century, has died at 88. The company, based in Clermont-Ferrand in central France, confirmed his death but provided no details. Under Mr. Michelin’s leadership, the 126-year-old manufacturer expanded its global operations, especially in the United States, opening 25 factories outside France from 1960 through 1979. The success of its radial tire, called the Michelin X, was crucial in boosting revenue outside Europe and helped the company become the region’s biggest tiremaker. Mr. Michelin ran the tiremaker from 1955 to 2002. “He was one of the greatest French industrialists in the postwar years,” President François Hollande said in a statement. “He understood the importance of innovation and of long-term industrial development. By developing the radial tire, he transformed a family and regional company into one of the biggest French groups and one of its best-known.” Mr. Michelin also took the strategic decision, in 1976, to withdraw from the car business by selling French automaker Citroen to Peugeot. The merger led to the creation of PSA Peugeot Citroen, now Europe’s second-biggest car manufacturer, after Germany’s Volkswagen. Mr. Michelin decided to buy Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Co. in 1990 to strengthen his company’s position in America. Michelin & Cie. is also the publisher of restaurant and hotel guides. One of the former Michelin chief executive’s notable hirings was Carlos Ghosn, now chief executive of both Renault and Nissan. Ghosn, who joined Michelin in 1978 and stayed with the company for 18 years, helped develop its activities in North America. Mr. Michelin gave interviews only to Clermont-Ferrand’s local newspaper and never chaired the company’s annual general meeting during his time as chief executive. He was the father of Édouard Michelin, who led the tiremaker with him from 1999 to 2002 and then on his own from 2002 until his death at age 42 in a boating accident in 2006. François Michelin was born June 15, 1926, in Clermont-Ferrand, a city in France’s Auvergne region. He married Bernadette Montagne, and they had several children. A complete list of survivors was not available. In later years, Mr. Michelin lived in a retirement home managed by the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious institute for women. — Bloomberg


Chaos in tower, danger in skies at base in Africa

carriers such as Air France, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways and Ethiopian Airlines. There has been one fatal accident in Djibouti involving a U.S. military aircraft, along with several drone crashes and dozens of close calls, records show. In February 2012, a small U-28 spy plane crashed a few miles from the airport, killing its four Special Operations crew members. Moments before, the Djiboutian controllers had denied the crew’s initial request to land and ordered it to circle the airfield. An Air Force accident investigation board determined that the controllers were not to blame, but it heard lots of complaints from Air Force personnel. “The air traffic control was dismal,” an unidentified U-28 pilot testified before the board. He said the controllers were “often aloof, sometimes asleep, sometimes hyper-aggressive.” “Every time I flew, I did not understand why I was having to do this for an African controller that my government was giving money to,” the pilot testified. “Why am I having to rush myself to the ground? And oh, why am I almost out of gas? Why am I in this situation?” In addition to the fatal accident, six U.S. drones based at Camp Lemonnier have been destroyed in crashes. Air Force investigators did not pin responsibility for any of the drone crashes on the flight tower. Again, however, Air Force drone crews fumed to investigators, saying the controllers were difficult to deal with. One drone crew member said he would often have to repeat himself four or five times on the radio before he would get a response. “You didn’t know from day to day what you were going to get,” he said. A drone unit commander said that the controllers were not sure how to direct remotely piloted aircraft and that the controllers often left them in limbo. “Now, we tend to hold a lot when we’re out of gas because they’re letting everybody else land ahead of us, just in case we have an accident.” The former FAA officials said the Djiboutian controllers considered the drones unreliable aircraft and malign weapons for killing Muslims. On multiple occasions, they said, the controllers abruptly issued edicts declaring that drones were forbidden from taking off or landing. The drone bans lasted no longer than a week but disrupted U.S. military operations. “The Djiboutians’ greatest fears were these drones,” said one of the former FAA officials. “They hated these drones with


New World Symphony crackles with energy

The New World Symphony consists of young musicians, conservatory grads selected through competitive auditions, who are given three-year “fellowships” to live and study in Miami. (Rui Dias-Aidos) The New World Symphony, a post-graduate training orchestra founded 27 years ago in Miami by conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, gave a thoroughly professional performance Wednesday at the Kennedy Center. Joined by superstar violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, the NWS flashed impressive chops in music of Schubert, Alban Berg, Norbert Moret, Debussy and (for an encore) Bizet. The NWS is a unique concept; its young musicians, conservatory grads selected through competitive auditions, are given three-year “fellowships” to live in Miami, and study and rehearse together at its Frank Gehry-designed campus. There is no fixed roster even within a season; everyone rotates through principal positions. Hundreds of top orchestra players have come through this elite program. Wednesday’s performance (its first here in 20 years) crackled with energy and discipline; the musicians bowed to the audience as one when they came onstage, the unanimity of attack in the strings outshone that of many professional orchestras, and the wind solos were characterful and expressive. The atmosphere was not unlike a sports team, where each player is striving hard to win but also understands the importance of teamwork. All of this is admirable and enjoyable, of course. But the concert also revealed the limitations of this approach. With such a fluid arrangement of principal players (everyone switched around at intermission) and in its roster generally over time, the NWS will never develop or retain the kind of artistic profile that one associates with any of our top orchestras. On a more mundane level, it could not play the opening tutti chords of the Schubert “Rosamunde” Overture perfectly together, nor even just the harp and clarinet at the beginning of the Berg Violin Concerto. Tilson Thomas is certainly a good conductor, but it takes years of relative stability for ensembles to begin to feel these things, and the group is not about that. Tilson Thomas is not an authoritarian; he invites rather than dictates, and his actual beat is so far in front of the music that you sometimes think you’re watching a bad YouTube video. This is fine as far as training his young charges to take responsibility and think for themselves, but, again, it does not forge the kind of music-making that lodges in one’s memory. I give him


The United States’ irresponsible praise of Ethiopia’s regime

Hailemariam Desalegn, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, speaks during the opening ceremony for the groundbreaking of the Ethiopia-China Dong Guan Huajian International Light Industrial Zone outside of Addis Ababa on April 16, 2015. (Zacharias Abubeker/AFP/Getty Images) ETHIOPIA’S ELECTIONS, scheduled for May 24, are shaping up to be anything but democratic. A country that has often been held up as a poster child for development has been stifling civic freedoms and systematically cracking down on independent journalism for several years. It was consequently startling to hear the State Department’s undersecretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, declare during a visit to Addis Ababa on April 16 that “Ethiopia is a democracy that is moving forward in an election that we expect to be free, fair and credible.” The ensuing backlash from Ethiopians and human rights advocates was deserved. Ms. Sherman’s lavish praise was particularly unjustified given Ethiopia’s record on press freedom: It has imprisoned 19 journalists, more than any other country in Africa. According to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, the country ranks fourth on its list of the top 10 most censored countries in the world. At least 16 journalists have been forced into exile, and a number of independent publications have shut down due to official pressure. Last weekend marked one year since six bloggers were arrested and jailed without trial. The “Zone 9” bloggers, who used their online platforms to write about human rights and social justice and to agitate for a democracy in Ethiopia, were charged with terrorism under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which has been used to clamp down on numerous journalists critical of the regime. Today, the bloggers remain imprisoned, awaiting what will likely be a trial by farce. As for the elections, opposition parties say the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front , led by Hailemariam Desalegn, has undermined their efforts to register candidates for the May vote. Since last year, members of opposition parties and their supporters have been arrested and harassed. In March, the sole opposition leader in Parliament said he would not run for reelection due to state interference with his party’s affairs. The EPRDF, which has been in power since 1991, was reported to have won the last elections in 2010 with 99.6 percent of the vote. The State Department released a statement last week urging Ethiopia to release journalists who have been imprisoned for doing their


In west Baltimore, sorrow and anger seem to mix in equal measure

nothing to do out here.” A short time later, 14-year-old Tiyon Turmon came up to the block and sat down. He said that some young people threw rocks because “they are mad. They didn’t have to do that to [Gray] that way.” Tiyon hopes that basketball will be his ticket out of Riggs Avenue, but it’s hard for him to practice. “The courts are six blocks away and by the time you get there, you are too tired to play,” he said. Tiyon’s mother, Lorenda Wallace, said she worries about her son walking so far to play ball. In the 1800 block of Riggs, a street sign warns: “No Ball Play.” *** With a little more than an hour left before curfew, about 100 people were milling about on each corner of the intersection of North and Pennsylvania avenues. Several dozen protesters chanted intermittently while walking into traffic and blocking the way for some vehicles. Some drivers honked at the group and squeezed their hands into fists and held up two fingers for peace. In one corner, demonstrators served free food someone who had bought from a nearby Olive Garden. *** Baltimore Police Capt. Bernard Douglas waded into the crowd of demonstrators at Pennsylvania and North avenues around 9 p.m. But unable to give the demonstrators any answers about Freddie Gray’s death and unwilling to raise his fist in a peace sign, he was quickly shouted down with chants of “No justice, no peace” and a few epithets regarding the curfew and law enforcement. “We just want clarity,” said Kenyetta Willis, 34, one of the group that surrounded Douglas. “He didn’t get through to anyone.” Douglas has experience dealing directly with the community after having worked with the department’s community partnership program. He started one-on-one with a few demonstrators, but soon he was surrounded by people peppering him with questions. Once the group started chanting loudly, he walked away. Ricardo Bains, a 32-year old with an old-fashioned camera around his neck, shook his head as Douglas was surrounded. “He’s over here by himself; he was trying to explain,” Bains said of Douglas. “They’re stressing him out ... It’s ignorant.” Douglas is one of several white-shirted Baltimore police brass who have been out in the protests engaging residents. He was the only member of the command staff at that moment that wasn’t behind a line of patrol officers. “My mandate is


At Nationals Park in Washington, Van Hoose hits all the right notes

Matthew Van Hoose, left, and Glenn Donnellan. (Courtesy of Glenn Donnellan) Playing to an audience of about 30,000 people at least 82 times a year, Matthew Van Hoose may be the most heard musician in Washington. Van Who? Matthew Van Hoose is the generally unseen organist accompanying every Washington Nationals home game. Although the ballpark’s resident DJ may get more attention for blasting walk-up music or seventh-inning stretch anthems, it’s Van Hoose who plays organ renditions of pop songs, comments on plays and revs up the crowd with his keyboard. But away from Nats Park, he’s Dr. Van Hoose — musician-in-residence at American University’s performing arts department. The classical pianist has performed with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the NIH Philharmonia, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. On May 9, Van Hoose will join forces with National Symphony Orchestra violinist Glenn Donnellan for “Beethoven at the Ballpark!,” two children’s concerts at the Kennedy Center Family Theater. He and Donnellan, known for his Electric Slugger fiddle made out of a baseball bat, will do what Van Hoose does all season: move from baseball to classical music and back. After a recent Nats home stand, we talked to Van Hoose about his musical career. When did you start playing for the Nationals? I’ve been playing for them since the start of the 2010 season. So this would be the start of my sixth year. It’s a great job because I also became a big baseball fan as I was growing up, so it was neat to be able to do this. There’s a great tradition, obviously, with organ playing, not only in baseball, but hockey and basketball, so it’s fun to be part of that. It seems as if recorded music is taking over a lot of games. Are there still a lot of organists? I’d say right now, out of the 30 teams, only half use them. It’s too bad that more don’t have it, but it’s nice to connect with others that do have the same thing. . . . I think we’ve been having a nice mix at Nats Park of things I do, but also the DJ playing a lot of music that fits whatever we need. That’s what we both do: try to fit music to the moment. Is there a lot of planning involved? The first season, I wanted to go


Transportation Dept. gets strict on rules for trains carrying flammable oil

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx delivers remarks at the 45th annual Washington Conference on the Americas on "U.S. Policy in the Western Hemisphere" at the State Department in Washington April 21, 2015. REUTERS/Gary Cameron (Gary Cameron/Reuters) Almost two years after a runaway tank-car train erupted in an explosion that killed 47 people in a Canadian town, the U.S. Transportation Department on Friday announced new standards for tank-car construction, new brake-system requirements and speed limits for trains. Three tank-car trains have derailed in the United States this year, two of them exploding in flames. With a boom in domestic oil produced in the Bakken oil fields, which straddle the U.S.-Canadian border, the number of rail-car loads carrying the flammable material in the United States has grown from 9,500 seven years ago to 493,126 last year. The trains make their way from the Bakken fields in North Dakota and Montana to refineries on the East and West coasts, regularly passing through major cities. “It only takes one accident to create a big problem for a community and a country,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, flanked by Canada’s minister of transport, Lisa Raitt. “This rule is recognition that we have growing risk.” He said that by April 2020, all tank cars will be manufactured to new design standards or upgraded to meet them. “We’re putting brand new tank-car standards in place,” Foxx said Friday. “We’re also requiring retrofitting to bring existing tank cars up to this standard.” In addition to requiring changes in design that would make tank cars less prone to leaking when trains derail, the new regulations require installation of new braking systems to prevent “accordion-like” pileups in derailments. The new rule also limits the speeds of trains with 70 or more tank cars to 40 mph in “high-threat” urban areas and requires railroads to take into consideration 27 safety factors — including the quality of track maintenance and the rail bed’s grade and curvature — in selecting routes for tank-car trains. The major derailments in the United States this year all have occurred in rural settings with few people nearby, but the trains routinely travel through major cities such as Chicago. Those derailments were: • Feb. 4: Fourteen tank cars carrying ethanol jump the tracks north of Dubuque, Iowa, and three of them burst into flames. • Feb. 16: Twenty-eight tank cars carrying crude oil derail and catch fire


In Freddie Gray’s neighborhood, some unease tempers celebratory moments

As Elton Hibbert stood on his North Avenue stoop with his year-old grandson, Amare, on his knee, he raised his fist in the air. Justice, he said, had been served. “I don’t want my little grandson to die like that,” Hibbert said. “It could have been me. It could have been my son, my grandson, my nephew. We can’t have little black kids be dying. That’s what we are fighting for.” Larry Johnson, who lives in East Baltimore, pointed to the need to spread prosperity to the city’s neglected neighborhoods. “If they can build these,” Johnson said, gesturing toward downtown office towers, “why can’t they fix those houses?” The celebratory response to the day’s news turned to civil disobedience Friday night as police began enforcing a curfew with protesters still on the streets. After repeated announcements that the curfew was about to start, police with riot shields moved into the crowd in front of City Hall shortly after 10 p.m. Dozens of demonstrators were pinned to the ground and handcuffed. In a matter of minutes, the arrests were completed and protesters were loaded into vans and driven away. Earlier, as night was descending, Renee Washington spoke to a crowd in front of City Hall beneath a banner calling for the end of police brutality. She claimed to know something about the subject. Her fiance, she said, died after an encounter with Baltimore police. “The same thing happened then is the same now,” Washington said. Her fiance, Joseph Wilbon, was arrested June 5, 2000, on a larceny charge and died at Mercy Hospital, sparking protests at City Hall that were covered in the local news. At the time, a police spokesman said there was no sign of trauma on the man’s body, but Washington said that when she first saw Wilbon’s body at a funeral parlor, “the makeup couldn’t even cover the bruises.” In its wrongful-death lawsuit, his family argued that delays in getting treatment for Wilbon led to his death. But a court case later determined that the police were not at fault and attributed the man’s death to cardiac arrest tied to cocaine use. Both police officers involved in his arrest remained on the force, according to news reports at the time. Justice may be hard to come by even after the arrests in Gray’s death, Washington warned. “Don’t think this case is going to be easy,” she said.


Military helicopter shot down as drug violence surges in western Mexico

Men stand next to the wreckage of a tractor-trailer set ablaze by members of a drug carte. Armed men shot at a Mexican army helicopter in the western state of Jalisco on Friday, killing three military personnel and injuring 12 others. (Stringer/Mexico/Reuters) MEXICO CITY — In recent months, the New Generation drug cartel has been ratcheting up attacks against the government, including an ambush last month that killed 15 state police officers. State authorities have worried that the federal government has left them ill-equipped to deal with an ascendant cartel trafficking heroin and methamphetamines. On Friday, the Mexican army announced Operation Jalisco to try to wrest control from the cartel. The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing when it came under fire while patrolling a rural road near the Pacific coast, according to the Mexican army. At least 10 soldiers and two police officers were wounded in the incident. “I lament the deaths of the members of the Mexican military in the fulfillment of their duty in Jalisco,” President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted. Firefighters work on a bus in Guadalajara, Mexico on Friday. More than a dozen vehicles were set on fire Friday across Guadalajara while a drug gang and authorities clashed in another part of the state. (Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images) In the state capital of Guadalajara, gunmen set vehicles ablaze and blocked roads in at least 20 areas, state officials said. Authorities declared a state of emergency and called on residents not to leave their homes. There were also reportedly fires in the coastal resort town of Puerto Vallarta. Jalisco’s governor, Aristóteles Sandoval, told a news conference that clashes in the state have killed seven people and wounded 15. Authorities have also made 15 arrests, he said. Security in Jalisco has been deteriorating steadily as the New Generation expands its reach. Luis Carlos Nájera Gutiérrez de Velasco, the state’s attorney general, described the group as the “least vulnerable, least attacked” of the major drug gangs and said the federal government has not been doing enough to help the state. In an interview this week, he said that the cartel has expanded to more than 10 states in Mexico and that much of the heroin being seized at the U.S. border is smuggled by its members. The cartel has also gotten rich from the methamphetamine trade and by stealing gasoline from a pipeline that runs from Guanajuato state.


A new energy on combating homelessness

homeless individuals often go beyond affordable housing and better job opportunities and can differ considerably from what is needed to help families in crisis. Homeward DC recognizes that homelessness is not a monolithic problem with one solution. The Interagency Council on Homelessness’s strategy makes critical distinctions in the kinds of services and support needed to address various kinds of homelessness, allowing for the most effective use of resources without pitting the needs of one group against another. Business improvement districts provide special services in areas of the District where the plight of the chronically homeless is most visible and can seem most intractable. Every day, business improvement districts’ staff and contractors connect homeless individuals with critical services and, when available, housing. Business improvement districts also provide employment opportunities to homeless or formerly homeless individuals. However, despite this important work and a number of success stories, the needs of this very vulnerable population far outstrip the resources business improvement districts can provide. Without the kind of long-term, solutions-focused approach embodied in the Homeward DC plan, the services that our business improvement districts support can go only so far. The D.C. Business Improvement Districts Council, an association of the city’s 10 business improvement districts, supports Homeward DC because it reinvigorates an approach to chronic homelessness that has worked in cities throughout the country, including the District. In 2007, the administration of then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) launched a permanent supportive housing program that used a “housing first” approach to reducing homelessness. Housing first makes obtaining a safe and permanent place to live the foundation for the social service work needed to help stabilize a chronically homeless person. The program kicked off with 300 units and grew to more than 1,200 units by 2011. Since then, progress has slowed, but gains continue, in part because of an infusion of federal and local dollars to end veteran homelessness. To move forward and reduce the number of individuals sleeping on the streets, new emphasis and new energy are needed. Homeward DC leverages federal government resources and benefits from the development of a streamlined screening process to ensure that resources are targeted and deployed more effectively. Fully funding Homeward DC makes human, business and taxpayer sense. It will improve the lives of people and reduce strain on places and services ill-equipped to adequately respond to the needs of homeless people. The District is poised to become


D.C.-area news briefs

THE DISTRICT Man found fatally shot in Northwest A man was found shot to death in Columbia Heights early Friday, D.C. police said. Officers on patrol heard gunshots at 12:52 a.m., police said in a statement. In the 1300 block of Harvard Street NW, they found Gregory McBryde, 21, of Northwest Washington suffering from a gunshot wound. He died at a hospital. Police said McBryde’s death was being investigated as a homicide. They have not released any information about a suspect or a motive. — Dana Hedgpeth and Julie Zauzmer VIRGINIA Man struck, killed on Leesburg Pike Fairfax County police said they are investing the death of a man who was struck by a car and killed Wednesday while crossing Leesburg Pike in front of the Crossroads Shopping Center in the Falls Church area. A Toyota Corolla hit Abdullah K. Sheikh, 36, about 10:18 p.m., according to police. Police released the victim’s name Friday. Sheikh was not wearing reflective clothing at the time and did not appear to be in a crosswalk, police said. A Crash Reconstruction Unit is investigating the incident. Speed and alcohol are not believed to be factors, police said. More than 400 pedestrians have been struck and injured in the past three years on Fairfax County streets, according to police. — Perry Stein Two plead guilty in sex trafficking case Two Iowa residents have pleaded guilty in a federal sex trafficking case in Virginia, authorities said. Laura Sorensen and Aldair Hodza entered pleas Friday in federal court in Richmond to charges of sex trafficking and transporting a person across state lines for prostitution. Court records show Sorensen and Hodza held a 20-year-old woman captive on a trip in December to Virginia and forced her to have sex with men who answered online ads. Prosecutors said the defendants tortured the woman with lit cigarettes and other heated objects, pierced her feet with nails and poured bleach into her wounds. Sorensen, 31, and Hodza, 36, were arrested Jan. 6 in New Kent County. The two defendants, residents of Clive, Iowa, face a minimum of 15 years in prison. Sentencing is set for Aug. 14. — Associated Press Maryland Three people shot in Prince George’s Three people were shot and wounded Friday night in the Capitol Heights area of Prince George’s County, police said. One of the three was in critical condition, they said. The shooting occurred about 9


Skywatch: Venus is a standout in May’s western evening sky

dusk to find it. Jupiter enjoys a negative 2.1 magnitude, very bright, and you’ll be able to spot it the heavily light-polluted city. Take a moment to observe Jupiter and Venus every night during May and June, as they aim for a romantic, planetary rendezvous in late June. In the late-night category, the ringed Saturn loiters in the east-southeastern sky. Saturn, bright at zero magnitude, rises about 9:35 p.m. now and crosses the meridian about 2:30 a.m. Take in the ringed planet pretty much all night as it reaches opposition May 22, rising around 8 p.m. at that stage. From our earthly perspective, we’ll get to see a “full” Saturn — as it will be opposite from the sun. While the Eta Aquarids meteor shower peaks May 6 with a normal 60 meteors an hour, according to the Royal Astronomical Society, these streaky meteors must compete with a fat, gibbous moon — two days past a full, according to the American Meteor Society. In other words, the meteors should be washed out, so you’ll be fortunate to catch a few strays. Down-to-Earth events ● Sunday — “Radio Astronomy with ALMA,” a lecture by Alberto Bolatto of the University of Maryland, at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com. ● Monday — “Stars Tonight,” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington. 7:30 p.m. $3. friendsoftheplanetarium.org. ● Tuesday — Undergraduate astronomy students explain their asteroid research at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Weather permitting, telescope viewing afterward. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● May 9 — “A Giant Storm on Saturn,” a talk by Brigette Hesman of the University of Maryland and Goddard Space Flight Center, at the regular meeting of the National Capital Astronomers at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. ● May 16 — Astronomy Day, hosted by the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club and the National Air and Space Museum at Sky Meadows State Park, near Paris, Va. Presentations in the daylight hours and viewing the heavens by the evening, 3-10 p.m. Information: airandspace.si.edu and www.novac.com. ● May 20 — “STEREO Mission”: Research scientist Lan Jian tells a tale of the two observing spacecraft (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Weather permitting, telescope viewing afterward. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● May 23 — “Exploring the


D.C.-area news briefs

THE DISTRICT Kitchen fire damages Georgetown eatery An electrical fire damaged a Georgetown restaurant Saturday morning, a restaurant official said. The fire at Good Stuff Eatery, in the 3200 block of M Street NW, began about 8 a.m. in the kitchen, said Jordyn Lazar, spokeswoman for Sunnyside Restaurant Group, which owns the restaurant. A regional manager tried to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher before firefighters arrived, Lazar said. Neither the manager nor two other employees there at the time were injured, she said. The incident closed parts of M Street between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., D.C. police said. Lazar said the fire, which she described as “small,” was contained to the kitchen, but other areas of the restaurant sustained water and smoke damage. She said the restaurant, which opened in 2013, will be closed for several days for repairs. “We’re so thankful [District firefighters] were here and able to take care of it so quickly,” Lazar said. — Katherine Shaver Man wounded by gunfire in Northeast A man was shot and wounded Saturday morning in Northeast, D.C. police said. The man, whose name was not released, was conscious and breathing when officers responded to the intersection of 51st Street NE and Cloud Place NE, said Officer Sean Hickman, a department spokesman. The man, who was shot outside around 9 a.m., was taken to a local hospital, Hickman said. Police did not have any suspect descriptions, Hickman said. — Katherine Shaver Maryland Driver, 18, killed after car leaves road, flips An 18-year-old man was killed Saturday morning in a single-car crash in Sykesville, Howard County police said. Garrett Raymond Bonin, 18, of Elkridge, Md., died when his vehicle left Old Frederick Road about 1:30 a.m. and overturned, police said. A preliminary investigation indicated that speed was a factor and the driver was not wearing a seat belt, according to police. — Martin Weil


As Baltimore mayor lifts curfew, National Guard begins pullout

BALTIMORE — “My goal has always been to not have the curfew in place a single day longer than was necessary,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) said. “I believe we have reached that point today.” Gov. Larry Hogan (R) declared, “The city is safe.” He said that troops had begun withdrawing Sunday morning but that it would take “a couple of days” to remove the 3,000 National Guard members and 1,000 police officers from across Maryland and neighboring states that joined Baltimore City police over the past week. Vans carrying National Guard troops and police officers could be seen heading out of the city Sunday afternoon. Anger that wracked Baltimore seems to have drained away since six officers were charged in Freddie Gray’s death. The 10 p.m. curfew started Tuesday as officials tried to stem violence that erupted after Freddie Gray’s funeral a day earlier. The 25-year-old died a week after suffering a severe spinal injury while in police custody. On Friday, the Baltimore state’s attorney, Marilyn J. Mosby, filed charges, ranging from second-degree murder to assault, against six officers connected with Gray’s arrest and transport. The union representing the officers has denied they are responsible for Gray’s death. Sunday was billed as a day of peace, prayer and reconciliation. “We will get better and we will get through this,” Rawlings-Blake said Sunday, standing outside the reopened Mondawmin Mall, scene of looting and violence last Monday. “A lot of the unrest has been settled, but that doesn’t mean the work doesn’t continue.” Hundreds of people gathered at City Hall on Sunday afternoon for a peaceful prayer rally organized by the faith community. Later, an impromptu celebration broke out. But the city remained cautious. Residents and officials acknowledged that recovery would not happen overnight. And they worried that a repeat of last week’s violence could reignite with the verdict in the trials of the officers charged in Gray’s death. As of Sunday, police had arrested 486 people during the week of violence and protests, Baltimore police spokesman Capt. J. Eric Kowalczyk said. Forty-six of those were arrested Saturday night for violating the curfew, he said. At Mt. Pisgah CME Church, in Freddie Gray's neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester, preachers called Baltimore's demonstrations a "wake up call" and pledged to take their worship out into the community. That started with including National Guard members stationed just across the street in their service. Kowalczyk said 113


Can quantum computing change the world? This start-up is betting on it.

was funded in part by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, which has sponsored several such efforts in the past. The team demonstrated a way to identify and detect arbitrary errors in a quantum computer simultaneously; until now, only one type of error could be detected at a time. They also showed that it was possible to detect errors on a design that could potentially be scaled up to create larger, more powerful quantum computers. For IBM, one commercial application of quantum computing lies in biochemistry. Theoretically, scientists could simulate natural molecules to gain a better understanding of their underlying chemistry by using quantum computing, said Jerry Chow, manager of IBM’s experimental quantum computing group. That could have the potential to improve drug design, he said. The research findings are a very important step forward, but scientists still have a long way to go toward building a stable and scalable system, said Daniel Lidar, a professor of electrical engineering and chemistry and the scientific director of the USC Lockheed Martin Quantum Computation Center. The advantage of a quantum computer over a classical computer lies in the way it performs big calculations. Traditional computers use bits — 0s and 1s — to perform calculations in a sequential manner. Quantum computers, on the other hand, use devices called “qubits” that can simultaneously exist as both 0s and 1s. Using this property, quantum computers can theoretically cut down the number of calculations required to solve a problem, quickly providing a potential solution or a set of probable solutions to a problem. This property is key to solving highly specialized problems such as codebreaking or crunching big data more efficiently than a classical computer. That’s why quantum computing has long attracted the interest of government agencies including the National Security Agency, which had plans to design its own computer to break encryption, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which has a request for information out on the potential uses of quantum computing. At QxBranch, Brett says he is confident that advances in quantum computing design are already paving the way for commercial applications. The company, which has four employees in Washington and 15 around the world, has raised capital from angel investors that it will spend to validate uses of quantum computing. A Series A financing round should follow at the end of the year, Brett said. Correction: An earlier photo caption


Making polio history

children to prevent and interrupt transmission. Last year, Pakistan recorded 306 cases, which was the highest in 15 years and 85 percent of all those in the entire world. A review of the program in October declared, “Pakistan’s polio programme is a disaster.” The review found inadequate political backing, poor public health programs and little engagement at the local level. “Something big has to change in Pakistan,” the review concluded. Then, Pakistan began this year with a terrible surge of attacks on vaccination teams in what looked like a new campaign by Taliban militants. Violence is a major disruption to the vaccination effort, tearing a hole in the prevention net and allowing the virus to spread For two years, children in North and South Waziristan could not be vaccinated because local leaders suspended the campaigns. Then a military operation in the North Waziristan and Khyber tribal areas in the last six months of 2014 displaced nearly a million people. The movement created risks of the virus spreading, but it also opened up a window of opportunity to vaccinate children who had been inaccessible. Outbreaks occur even in more stable areas in Pakistan, where there are clusters of unvaccinated children. Fortunately, research shows that parents have a high degree of acceptance of the need for oral polio vaccines, although suspicion and distrust still linger in some places. Pakistan is rallying. There have been only 22 cases so far this year, compared with almost 60 at this time last year. Violence has abated, at least in the past month. Emergency operations centers, an important innovation to help monitor the virus, have been set up. Experts also applaud another recent tactic, the recruitment of female volunteers to work on vaccination in their own communities with approval from local religious and tribal leaders. This approach seems to be making headway in previously inaccessible areas. Pakistan’s political leadership also has vowed a renewed campaign. In the end, the only metric that really counts with polio is getting to zero. The world has never been closer. Pakistan could do much to push this disease into the history books. Read more on this issue: The Post’s View: The United States should generously support Gavi’s immunization efforts Michael Gerson: The next epidemic Catherine Rampell: The story of the U.S. measles outbreak, as the rest of the world might see it Lawrence Summers: The world can’t hide from pandemics


A healthful legacy: Michelle Obama looks to the future of ‘Let’s Move’

what it could do to make the food it sold healthier. Dach had been a Democratic campaign strategist before taking the job atop Wal-Mart’s communications shop and saw Obama as someone Wal-Mart should court. Wal-Mart came to the White House with a set of goals, including opening stores in rural areas and city neighborhoods where there were no large grocers and adding a “great for you” label that would make it easy for customers to spot which of the company’s store-branded products were most nutritious. The label was placed on fresh and frozen vegetables; unflavored, low-fat or nonfat milk; and yogurt and foods with 100 percent whole grains. Nutritionists gave it pretty good reviews in terms of rigor but panned the inclusion of 100 percent fruit juice. But the idea that most excited Michelle Obama’s office was a pledge by the company to reduce the amount of sugar, salt and fat in the food it sold. Dach and Kass went back and forth for months on the salt and sugar goals, while also discussing how the company could push its suppliers to lower the prices of whole grains, fruits and vegetables. They finally settled on a goal of eliminating trans fats, reducing sugar across the store by 10 percent and reducing salt by 25 percent, compared with items stocked in 2008. The new goals applied to 67 food categories in the store, including yogurt, cereals, boxed meals, tortillas, ketchup and spaghetti sauce. Such changes have the potential to reverberate throughout the grocery industry because of the company’s massive scale. Wal-Mart’s decision to give its nearly 500,000 workers a raise started a minimum-wage race with other retail chains. Its opposition to Indiana’s religious freedom law, voiced directly by its chief executive to the state’s governor, helped force revisions to the act. When Wal-Mart required its suppliers to create tortillas with less salt, suppliers adjusted their recipes. Michelle Obama’s team saw the potential ripple effect: If suppliers were making tortillas with less salt for Wal-Mart, they wouldn’t make a separate, saltier batch for other grocers. The same thing happened when the company demanded less water in liquid detergent. Wal-Mart’s packages got smaller — and so did everyone else’s. “Taking sugar out of yogurt has been pretty easy for us,” Sinclair said. “I think [manufacturers] just put more in than they realized they had added in the first place.” Reaching the salt goal


Chipotle and the GMO debate

In 2013, Chipotle became the first restaurant chain to label items that contained genetically modified organisms. (Gene J. Puskar/AP) Chipotle’s decision to prepare only food that does not contain genetically modified ingredients is adding fuel to an ongoing debate about the health and safety of these foods. The Mexican-style restaurant chain cited three reasons for removing such foods from its menu, saying on its Web site that scientists are still studying the long-term implications of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs; that the foods can damage the environment; and that “Chipotle should be a place where people can eat food made with non-GMO ingredients.” But experts contend that GMO-containing foods being grown in the United States are no riskier than conventional foods. The “growing international consensus” among scientific organizations is that foods made from currently approved genetically modified crops are safe to eat, said Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington. “This is not an ultra-hazardous technology,” Jaffe said. Although every new food product must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, “all current applications are safe,” he said. How GM foods are made Genetically modifying an organism involves inserting genes from one species into the DNA of another, in order to produce desirable traits, such as being resistant to pests. Eight genetically modified crops are grown widely in the United States: corn, soybeans, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beets, zucchini, squash and papaya. In fact, more than 90 percent of the country’s total acreage of corn, soybeans, cotton and sugar beets comes from seeds that have at least one genetically engineered trait, Jaffe said. And foods containing GMOs are tough to avoid because genetically modified crops are found in processed foods such as high-fructose corn syrup, canola oil and soybean oil, he said. Chipotle previously used genetically modified corn and soy as ingredients in its tortillas and cooking oil. Now, the company says it has replaced these with ingredients that are not genetically modified, such as rice bran oil and sunflower oil. But people may not know that plant-based oils don’t contain any DNA or protein, Jaffe noted. That means that genetically modified soybean oil and non-genetically modified soybean oil are “biologically and chemically identical,” he said. At any rate, Chipotle’s menu will not be completely GMO-free. According to its Web site, the company will still sell soft drinks


Taliban open to peace talks, but only if all U.S. forces leave Afghanistan

Police arrive at the site of a suicide attack targeting a bus in Kabul on Monday. One person was killed. The bus was carrying government workers. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images) KABUL — The lengthy statement, posted on one of the group’s known Web sites, came after two days of informal meetings with Afghan government representatives in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, where both sides were swift to clarify that they were not holding peace negotiations. The discussions ended with no agreement except to hold a second meeting in the near future. The delegates, however, did agree that the Taliban should reopen a political office briefly set up in Qatar in 2013 in a step toward possible peace talks, according to the meeting’s organizer, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization dedicated to promoting peace. The insurgent group’s statement also reflected that intent. Bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table, and possibly into the government, has become a cornerstone of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s efforts to end the conflict in his country. Expectations were raised this weekend by the discussions in Qatar, the latest in a series of efforts over the years to jump-start a peace process. “First of all, America and its allies should put an end to their occupation, and that will facilitate the way to peace talks,” reads the Taliban statement, written in the Pashto language and posted on the Alemara1.org Web site. “The countries in the region also don’t want the foreign forces. The ongoing occupation means the ongoing fight will continue.” The Qatar talks come just days after the Taliban launched its spring offensive. Some observers view the ongoing fighting as a strategic move by the group to gain more influence in possible peace negotiations. But the Taliban’s insistence on a complete withdrawal of foreign troops raises questions about whether peace talks are a realistic possibility in upcoming months. On Ghani’s request, President Obama has slowed the drawdown of the roughly 10,000 U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Taliban shows no signs of stopping its attacks. On Monday, a suicide bomber in Kabul targeted a bus carrying government workers, killing one person. And late Sunday, Taliban fighters killed at least 18 police officers in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, said Shah Waliullah Adeeb, the province’s governor. On Monday, the Taliban also listed other “obstacles to peace talks,”


Report of officer-involved shooting Baltimore ‘unfounded’: police

Baltimore police spokesman Lt. Col. Melvin Russell said that a news report of a black man being shot by police in the city was not true. BALTIMORE — Members of a Fox News crew and at least one witness interviewed on the network Monday afternoon said they saw an officer fire at a man near Pennsylvania and North avenues. Fox News anchor Shepard Smith later retracted the report and said on-air that the network “screwed up.” Police said a man was arrested and his gun fired, but no one was hurt. The incident occurred near an intersection that was at the heart of looting and riots last week. With fears that a repeat of last week’s violence could erupt at any moment, police tried to calm the crowd that quickly formed. “Nobody got shot,” Deputy Police Commissioner Dean Palmere said as he walked the police line, telling anyone who would listen. “A gun went off. There is a misinterpretation in the community.” Lt. Col Melvin Russell said the incident started around 3 p.m., when a person with a handgun was seen on one of the department’s closed-circuit cameras. Officers responded and there was a brief foot chase, Russell said. A bystander captured the scene near Pennsylvania and North Avenues in Baltimore. In the video, people can be heard saying, "police shot a man." Baltimore police say the reports of a police shooting are untrue. The man “pulled or tried to pull a revolver,” and officers heard what sounded like a gunshot, Russell said. Officers arrested the man and recovered a revolver that contained three cartridges — with one spent cartridge indicating the weapon had been fired. Police did not say whether they think the weapon was fired accidentally or intentionally. “Police did not discharge their weapons,” Russell said. An ambulance arrived at the scene, Russell said, and the man refused medical treatment. The man was taken to the hospital, and authorities said it appears he was not injured. As word of the alleged police-involved shooting spread, a small but volatile crowd confronted a line of police officers in riot gear near the intersection. One man lunged at police but was held back by relatives as a preacher pleaded for order. Some insisted the man was shot in the leg because he was being taken away in an ambulance. Others recorded video. Many who gathered at the scene expressed continued distrust


Gov. Larry Hogan, National Guard leave Baltimore as city stays calm

Gov. Larry Hogan (R), meets with volunteers cleaning up after an evening of riots following the funeral of Freddie Gray. (Evan Vucci/AP) Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) closed down his temporary office in Baltimore on Monday and returned to the State House in Annapolis, as National Guard soldiers and police units called in last week to help quell violence continued to move out of the city. The departures were another sign of normalcy returning to Baltimore a week after riots erupted following the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who died after being injured while in police custody. Hogan’s spokesman said the governor’s staff monitored reports on Monday afternoon of a police-involved shooting in West Baltimore, but the reports proved false and the situation stayed calm. The governor moved himself and his cabinet to state office space in Baltimore last Tuesday, after declaring a state of emergency Monday night in response to the riots and activating the National Guard. On Sunday, after attending church in Baltimore, Hogan declared “the city is safe” and said he agreed with a decision by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) to lift a 10 p.m. curfew. Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Hogan, said the governor will rescind the state of emergency after the last guardsman pulls out of the city. The process will likely take a couple of days, Mayer said. He said the governor continues to monitor the situation in Baltimore. “We’re working in Annapolis now,” Mayer said. “But that doesn’t mean that we’re not still in contact with city police.” Hogan spent Monday in a host of meetings, including two security briefings, a session with his Cabinet and a brief sitdown with the U.S. ambassador to Korea. Hogan initially deployed 1,500 National Guard soldiers to Baltimore last week, but increased the number of troops to 3,000 as protests continued. Prior to Gray’s funeral, Hogan sent 500 Maryland state troopers to assist city police in dealing with demonstrations to protest Gray’s treatment by police and his death. After the state of emergency was declared, hundreds of other officers came from across the state and around the region, including from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the District. Hogan spent much of the last week visiting business owners and residents in West Baltimore, including the neighborhood where Gray lived, and moving back and forth between state offices in Baltimore and the Emergency Management Agency in nearby Reisterstown,


Girma Yifrashewa’s blend of European piano and Ethiopian music

Pianist Girma Yifrashewa performs at the Bethesda Blues and Jazz Supper Club. (Josh Sisk/For The Washington Post) “There is no place in Ethiopia where Girma could do this!” an immigrant from Addis Ababa explained during Sunday night’s intermission at Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club. “People there don’t pay attenton to classical music. It’s all cultural, traditional music.” Pianist and composer Girma Yifrashewa, then, is as unique in his homeland as he is in the United States: a man who has studied the European piano repertoire and has applied its devices to Ethiopian traditional music. At the club, he showcased both traditions in one of this year’s most mesmerizing concerts. Yifrashewa made headway in the States with the release of 2014’s “Love & Peace,” featuring five original compositions for solo piano. (NPR named one piece, “Sememen,” its song of the year for classical and jazz.) But with the exception of the opener, a somber new piece dedicated to the recent Ethiopian victims of the Islamic State, his first set on Sunday was all repertory. His choices, though, were very revealing: heavy on Chopin (who wrote three of the seven selections), with his static harmony and dense latticework, and nearly all waltzes, including Tchaikovsky’s “Autumn” and Liszt’s “Consolation No. 3,” as well as his own composition. This formed important context; waltz time (3/4 and 6/8) is very important in Ethiopian music, and Chopin, as became clear in the second half, is a major influence on Yifrashewa’s composing. They were also beautiful performances in their own right, Yifrashewa employing a tenderness of tone and light rhythmic touch that added heft to his more emphatic attack on pieces by Chopin and Schumann. The second half opened with another waltz, James Lee III’s “Memories of Axum.” Then came Yifrashewa’s pieces from “Love & Peace.” These, he explained, were based on Ethiopian folk songs, but the European development techniques were so firmly in place that it was often hard to hear the East African elements. The pastoral “The Shepherd with the Flute,” for example, was built on a set of right-hand trills that emulated the titular instrument but also drew on Chopin’s filigrees; those same trills occupied “Elilta,” in this case evoking a joyful Ethiopian yelp, in a melody that resembled a Protestant hymn with Beethovenian ornamentation. “Ambassel” made the Ethiopian tradition most apparent, with rumbling modal harmony and stately 6/8 time. Yet there was


Accurately charging people arrested in Baltimore proves to be legal challenge

Freddie Gray, who died from injuries suffered while in police custody. “Can I go this way to get home?” he recalled asking a police officer. Armstrong said that the officer said no. “So you’re telling me I can’t go home?” Armstrong recalled asking. He said that the response was immediate and was followed by his being placed in handcuffs: “How about we just lock you up for disorderly conduct?” Armstrong said that after being jailed, he was given charging papers, which went beyond disorderly conduct to two counts of fourth-degree burglary. Police alleged that he was part of a group of looters inside DTLR, a footwear and clothing store. Officer David Burch laid out his allegations in a two-page statement of probable cause, saying that he and other officers were on a riot detail at 5:30 p.m. near the store. “We observed a large group of individuals carrying an abundant amount of what seemed to be stolen goods,” he said. Burch then listed 14 people, including Armstrong, who the officer said “were seen either running outside the back door of the establishment or apprehended inside of the establishment.” Armstrong said he neither ran from the store nor entered it. He posted a $25,000 bail and was released, but he said part of his conditions, at least as he heard the judge say them, were that he abide by a 7 p.m. curfew. “When that stuff was going on, they were just locking you up. Zero tolerance,” Armstrong said. Attorneys and several people arrested said that the city’s booking facility was so overcrowded that many who were detained had to “sleep piled onto other people.” Some reported that they were crammed into a cell as water from a leaking toilet covered the floor. Although many denied in court last week that they had done anything wrong, prosecutors urged judges to keep bonds high or revoke them completely because they said many had committed crimes that roiled the city. “This was a choice that they made,” said prosecutor David Chu, arguing why one man’s bond should be revoked after police alleged that the defendant smashed the windows of a shoe store with a 14-year-old to steal merchandise. “This followed a week long of peaceful demonstrations.” In some charging papers, police laid out more detailed allegations — as they did against Allen Bullock, 18. He was still being held Monday on a $500,000


How Joint Chiefs nominee’s advice will be shaped by fight against the Taliban

President Obama walks with Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., his nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after speaking Tuesday in the Rose Garden of the White House. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) As the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. had plenty to worry about: unrelenting insurgent attacks, an untested local force and an Afghan president who openly accused foreign troops of plotting to kill civilians. But the Marine general earned favor from the White House in 2013 and 2014 as he shaped a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, one that struck a careful balance between the military priorities of field commanders and the political imperatives of leaders in Washington. President Obama’s nomination of Dunford on Tuesday to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff brings the general’s Afghanistan experience back to the fore. It is also certain to inform the advice he provides about how closely the United States should stick to that plan, which would end the U.S. military mission by the time Obama leaves office in 2017. “I don’t read his appointment as a signal to escalate or extend U.S. efforts there,” said one former official who worked with Dunford in Kabul, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a senior officer. “What it signals is that the White House trusts his opinions.” Obama, announcing the nomination in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, described Dunford as a tireless leader and strategic thinker. “He’s already proven his ability to give me his unvarnished military advice based on his experience on the ground,” he said. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, Jr. earned favor from the White House in 2013 and 2014 as he shaped a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) A former infantry officer who commanded a Marine regiment in the initial Iraq invasion, Dunford took over the international military mission in Afghanistan in early 2013. At that time, NATO forces were scrambling to ensure Afghan troops could fight on their own and the White House was continuing to drive toward a path for ending America’s longest war. James Dobbins, who served as the top U.S. diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan during the same period, said Dunford was “very disciplined” as he provided senior officials with recommendations for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. His selection, Dobbins said, was “undoubtedly based on


Montgomery County Animal Watch

This case was received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Dog owner surrenders pets: Partnership for Animal Welfare Adopt dogs and cats at MCHS no-kill rescue: Rockville Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt or foster rescue dogs: Rockville Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Wild animals in drought-stricken Western states are dying for a drink

“Just today, 20 minutes ago, four coyote cubs arrived” from Bakersfield’s outskirts, said Don Richardson, curator of animals for the California Living Museum, which has an animal shelter in the city. “We actually get everything from reptiles to mammals,” Richardson said. “We have 13 San Joaquin kit foxes, an endangered species. They were abandoned, orphaned. The kit foxes’ health was impacted by the struggle to make it with reduced resources. Then, of course, we see a lot of birds of prey — owls and golden eagles.” The animals are already suffering from the fragmentation of their habitat because of ranching and urban development. “It’s looking to be a very, very difficult year for wildlife,” Richardson said. Endangered San Joaquin kit foxes, coyotes and birds in the wildlands outside Bakersfield all rely on the giant kangaroo rat to survive. But those rodents are struggling themselves. “We fear that a semi-arid grassland is becoming a desert,” said Brashares. “The giant kangaroo rat can’t survive in desert.” A study by the university recorded a 95 percent population loss since 2010. Before the drought, 60 percent of their habitat was covered in grasses that they eat and seeds that they store for hard times in a network of underground burrows, Brashares said. Four years of little rain has reduced the cover to 18 percent. “They simply lack food, so they starve,” Brashares said. As the state wildfire season approaches, the remaining grasses could be wiped out. For a study, biologists caught a few kangaroo rats this year to study their condition. “They were skinny,” Brashares said. “We looked at females to see whether they had young, whether they were lactating.” They weren’t. In this reality, where food is scarce and births are few, kangaroo rats are still a top prey, further shrinking their numbers. The demise of this species would be unthinkable, Brashares said. There’s no overstating how important the rodent is in the ecosystem. Few others are around to feed snakes, badgers, weasels and animals already mentioned. Even the soil kangaroo rats dig for burrows creates moist habitat for insects. A worse situation is hard to imagine, said Stafford Lehr, chief of fisheries for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. But there is one. Chinook salmon are in great danger, he said. For two years, only 5 percent of their eggs have survived winter and spring migrations because the cold water their