American University investigating bananas hanging from string in ‘racist incident’

THE DISTRICT American University investigating ‘racist incident’ Bananas were found hanging from string “in the shape of nooses” on the campus of American University in what the school described Monday as a “racist incident” that is under investigation. The bananas were found at three locations at the private university in Washington, according to a statement from Fanta Aw, AU’s interim vice president of campus life. Aw said the fruit had been “marked with the letters AKA.” Those are the letters of the sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, whose membership is predominantly African American. “These racist, hateful messages have no place in our community,” the statement said. “The safety of our students is paramount.” An AU spokeswoman said the bananas were discovered early Monday at a shuttle bus stop, in front of the Mary Graydon Center, and near another building. “We have initiated efforts on multiple fronts to investigate the incidents, inform and support our community, and condemn the act,” the statement said. — Sarah Larimer MARYLAND Inmate suicide investigated A 30-year-old inmate committed suicide in a Prince George’s County jail over the weekend, corrections officials said. The man was found unresponsive in the bathroom of the medical unit shortly before 1 p.m. on Sunday, according to a statement from the countyDepartment of Corrections. Corrections staff performed CPR on the man, who was later pronounced dead, the statement said. Prince George’s police are conducting a death investigation and the Department of Corrections is conducting an internal investigation “to insure policies and procedures were properly followed,” the statement said. The man’s name was not released pending notification of his family. He was identified as a detainee who arrived at the jail on Saturday in connection with a first-degree assault. — Lynh Bui VIRGINIA Man allegedly hit officer with vehicle A 32-year-old man fled in a vehicle Sunday as police tried to investigate a reported dispute in Arlington, striking an officer and crashing into another vehicle before trying to flee on foot. The incident started just before 3 p.m. when police were called to the 4200 block of 2nd Road North and North Glebe Road for a “dispute in process” that possibly involved a firearm, according to Arlington County Police. Police did not provide details of the reported dispute. Officers found a man — later identified as Brian Williams, of no fixed address — sitting in a parked vehicle. Police said he reversed the


NFL players fight pain with medical marijuana: ‘Managing it with pills was slowly killing me’

Cannabis that is rich in cannabidiol (CBD) is being grown west of Colorado Springs, which proponents say could help NFL players manage pain without the risks presented by opioids. (Brennan Linsley/Associated Press) BOULDER, Colo. — “Every day, I wake up in pain, from my ankles to my neck,” said Ebenezer Ekuban, 40, who played defensive end for nine NFL seasons. “It’s part of the territory. I know what I signed up for.” Retirement is a daily exercise in managing pain, which is what brought the men to the unmarked CW Hemp offices on a recent Friday for a tour and a firsthand lesson on the potential benefits of the marijuana plant. As the country’s discussion on the drug broadens, state laws change and public perception shifts, there’s a movement in football circles to change the way marijuana is viewed and regulated within the NFL, which still includes cannabis on its list of banned substances. For decades, football players have treated pain with postgame beers, over-the-counter anti-inflammatories and powerful prescription painkillers. The sport’s overreliance on drugs for pain management is the subject of a federal lawsuit and has sparked an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Retired NFL players use opioids at four times the rate of the general population, according to one study, and marijuana advocates say there’s a safer, healthier alternative available. No professional sport has so many outspoken proponents of marijuana’s medicinal qualities, but then again no sport is as closely associated with pain and injury . “This pain is never going away. My body is damaged,” said Eugene Monroe, 30, who was released by the Baltimore Ravens last year three weeks after becoming the first active player to publicly call on the league to permit medical marijuana. “I have to manage it somehow. Managing it with pills was slowly killing me. Now I’m able to function and be extremely efficient by figuring out how to use different formulations of cannabis.” Since his release from the Baltimore Ravens, Eugene Monroe has emerged as the leading advocate among former players for change in the NFL’s restrictions on use of medical marijuana. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) There’s still no shortage of opposition to marijuana, and many on both sides of the debate agree that further research is needed. While many states have rolled back laws in recent years, early signs from the Trump administration suggest that the Justice Department isn’t


Military academy athletes shouldn’t get a break on their service, just time to do it

Roger Staubach won a Heisman Trophy at Navy, and then served a tour in Vietnam before playing in the NFL. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) Football players at Army, Navy and Air Force should be no less committed to their duty than, say, Prince Harry. That appears to be the reasonable position of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who has issued a new order blocking military academy athletes from entering pro drafts straight out of school. But Mattis is only half-right. He would be even more right to demand full terms of active service from them, without exception. No more class pets. Apparently admirals and generals can be as prone to athlete worship as the average college booster. The various military branches have been increasingly accommodating to athletes in recent years, culminating in a 2016 policy from the Defense Department that would have let academy prospects defer their service if they have a shot at the NFL or any other major league. A memo from Mattis canceling that policy Monday only partly restores the starch. Curiously, Mattis left in place a far more objectionable policy, one dating from 2008 that allows athletes to serve just two years of active duty, if they’re talented enough, while others serve five. The DOD’s rationale for this: “Exceptional personnel with unique talents and abilities may be released . . . when there is a strong expectation they will provide the Department with significant favorable media exposure likely to enhance national recruiting or public affairs efforts.” This is nothing more than a huge back-bending rationale, born of a need to excuse our captivation with games and great athletes. You can tell that it’s nothing more than permission for an indulgence, because it’s so inherently self-contradictory. Joe Ruzicka, a retired Naval officer and former legislative fellow for Sen. John McCain, points out: If athletes are so vital to “national recruiting or public affairs,” then “why make them serve immediately during their most valuable playing time?” Why deprive them of their prime in the spotlight? “The timing is off,” Ruzicka said. But most importantly, why is there any option at all “to serve less than one’s full-service obligation?” asked Ruzicka, who graduated from the Naval Academy and put in more than 2,000 hours flying F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets. Ruzicka has a better idea: Let them play pro ball first, and then fulfill their active duty commitment — all of it.


The key to a family farming renaissance? Niche crops.

agricultural standards but more than sufficient for today’s intensive specialty-crop approach. This includes crops virtually unknown to 19th-century homesteaders — including Chinese pears, hardy kiwi and Japanese heart nuts. As a home gardener fascinated by the growing techniques, and plant choices, of the pros, I found a visit to the farm full of instructive fun. The first stop was a large, plastic-covered framed greenhouse known as a high tunnel. High tunnels are popular today, but Gill’s is a bit different. It’s big — 200 feet long and, at 16½ feet high, some four feet above the norm. Its extra height and open, netted sides provide robust ventilation that prevents the buildup of mite pests. Gill uses a post-and-wire system for apple varieties grown as spindles. (Adrian Higgins/The Washington Post) He is growing sour-cherry varieties in rows, and he particularly likes a dark red variety from the Czech Republic named Balaton. “Big pit, excellent flavor.” The trees are naturally stunted by growing on a dwarf understock, but they are still some 10 feet high and as much across. They are loaded with blossoms. “A tree like this,” Gill said, “will produce around 40 to 50 quarts of cherries.” Beyond a pest named the plum curculio, the two big problems facing cherry growers in the Mid-Atlantic is the arrival of hungry birds at harvest time and the cracking of fruit caused by rain. The high tunnel fixes both; the nets exclude the birds but allow the free flow of pollinators. The plastic shields the rain, and the trees are watered with a well-fed irrigation system, fooling the cherries into thinking they are growing in a more arid climate. “I’ve re-created the Yakima Valley,” he said. Gill points out a broad, white cardboard box on the greenhouse floor that I should avoid — it contains four colonies of commercially raised bumblebees. They pollinate the cherry trees but also the blueberry bushes that he has squeezed between them. He said that by their sheer body mass, bumblebees do a better job of moving blueberry pollen around compared with honeybees, doubling or tripling fruit yields. (I remember, when I grew blueberries, bumblebees ripping the flowers to get to the early-season nectar.) Outside the high tunnel, he is growing a strange, small columnar tree adorned with white blossoms. He asks me what I think it is, and I suggest some tortured Amelanchier. Wrong, it’s a beach


Montgomery County Animal Watch

Montgomery county 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. Dog attacks dog Dog bite Regulation violation baby shower for orphaned wild animals Live animals, a native plant sale, birdhouse or feeder building with your kids (kits $5) and refreshments. Much-needed “baby shower gifts” include paper towels, unscented bleach, detergent, mixed tree nuts, newsprint, and gift cards to Giant Food and PetSmart. Saturday from noon-4 p.m. Second Chance Wildlife Center, 7101 Barcellona Dr., Gaithersburg. 301-926-9453. scwc.org. Bring supplies for our baby animals. Cash donations are also appreciated. Humane Society adoptions The Montgomery County Humane Society’s private rescue shelter has dogs, puppies, cats and kittens available for adoption. Call 240-252-2555 or visit mchumane.org.MCHS Adoptions and Education Center, 601 S. Stonestreet Ave., Rockville. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except holidays. Reduced FEES FOR CATS Cats and kittens will be available for adoption at the next open house of Friends of Montgomery County Animals at the following location. Call 301-977-4833, or visit fmca.org or facebook.com/fmcainfo.PetSmart at Milestone Center, 20924 Frederick Rd., Germantown. Hours: 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. Cats at no-kill shelter Cats and kittens will be available for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County’s no-kill shelter at the following location. For information, call 301-740-2511 or visit awlmc.org.Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County no-kill shelter, 12 Park Ave., Gaithersburg. Hours: 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


What’s new in D.C. dining? Well, here are the top 10 places to start

The attention to detail is impeccable at Mirabelle, which features gems like this Boudin Blanc appetizer - Chicken and Foie Gras Sausage, the restaurant's Lardons, Braised Red Cabbage and Poached Raisins. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post) [This story has been optimized for offline reading on our apps. For a richer experience, you can find the full version of this story here. An Internet connection is required.] 1. Mirabelle (Not yet rated) One of the many reasons you need to make time for Mirabelle, the new bauble from prolific restaurateur Hakan Ilhan: No Washington chef proves more meticulous than Frank Ruta. Take the vegetables in his dish of veal tongue; the carrots and spinach taste as if each had been pampered by their own kitchen minder. Equally impressive is the former White House chef’s boudin blanc, cloudlike in texture and whispering of juniper in its seasoning. The icing on the cake at one of the most fetching dining rooms in town (love the leather walls) is the presence of a dessert trolley outfitted by pastry chef Aggie Chin, whose butterscotch cremeux is the richest pudding in town, and gracious-as-it-gets attention, thanks to wine and service director Jennifer Knowles. The competition should be nervous. Prepare to drop some serious money, but also to be dazzled. 900 16th St. NW. 202-506-3833. mirabelledc.com. Open: Lunch Monday through Friday, dinner Monday through Saturday. Prices: Lunch entrees $27 to $29, dinner entrees $35 to $45. Sound check: 73 decibels / Must speak with raised voice. Piemontese 40 Yolk Hand-Cut Pappardelle Primavera with spring vegetables, is one of several standout pastas on the table at Sfoglina. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) 2. Sfoglina 3 stars I swear, “casual” to Fabio Trabocchi means wearing Ferragamo without socks in a Ferrari with the top down. Did anyone really think the chef behind the luxe Fiola and Fiola Mare was capable of delivering what he promised — a neighborhood pasta house — in Van Ness? Expect to see truffles and handblown crystal lights in the new place (pronounced sfoal-YEE-nah). The pastas are rolled out in the morning in a small room off the entrance that turns into a private dining room at night. Among the prizes is spaghetti alla chittara topped with an egg and tossed with pancetta and escarole. Before and after there are “nibbles” (grilled calamari with romesco) and “not pasta,” including wine-poached branzino with olive


The 2017 Spring Dining Guide

from his grandmother. A bath in brine followed by a roll in cake flour, seasoned with sage and paprika, leads to crisp golden chicken that’s lip-smacking good, especially when paired with tender biscuits. Come to think of it, the fryer is the source of the better dishes here: Rabbit fritters, rock shrimp tempura kissed with lemon and the “world’s best chicken nugget” (in truth made with sweetbreads and served with a swipe of Dijon-horseradish aioli). Not into fried food? Simple is the best strategy. Think crab cakes or veal porterhouse — but not whole fish (ours was dry and tasteless). The Black Forest cake for two is plenty for six to share, and it’s the fluff of dreams. The wine list is priced as if we’ve got money to burn. Delaplane Cellars for $200 a bottle? That’s one way to keep locals talking. 500 N. Pendleton St., Middleburg, Va. 540-326-4070. harrimansgrill.com . Open: Breakfast Monday through Saturday, dinner Wednesday through Sunday, brunch Sunday. Prices: Breakfast mains $12 to $20, dinner entrees $13 to $45, brunch buffet $45. Sound check: 74 decibels / Must speak with raised voice. La Piquette 2 STARS Then Again: “Is everything to your liking?” a server asks. Indeed it is. My cheese omelet is tender, its greens are sharply dressed, and a glass of Sancerre is keeping me company in a dining room that could pass for a neighborhood bistro in Paris. Fostering the illusion are chalkboard menus, blood-red banquettes and a chef with a French accent: Francis Layrle, a Gascon native who fed seven ambassadors during his tenure at the French Embassy. Lately, entrees have bested the starters. Focus, then, on crackling duck confit, lemony skate wing and lamb T-bone rather than the dreary leek Window watching at La Tomate. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) La Tomate 2 STARS Then (1996): Again: Natalina Koropoulos will be the first to tell you that her Italian restaurant isn’t as busy as it used to be, nor is Dupont Circle the dining destination it once was. La Tomate, she says, is “old news.” Koropoulos has a point: A lot of the action has moved east, to 14th Street NW and Shaw. Even so, La Tomate, poised to turn 30 in August, retains two valuable assets: visibility and consistency. The wedge-shaped restaurant juts out on a peninsula separating busy Connecticut Avenue from 20th Street, with windows capturing human


Principal at Md. school who created ‘smash space’ decides to step down

Principal decides to step down after coming under fire for creating a “smash space” at her elementary school in Montgomery County. (Photo by J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post) (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post) The Maryland principal who created a “smash space” at her elementary school so teachers could swing bats at broken furniture as a way to relieve stress is stepping down from her job. Principal Barbara Liess, who came under fire for the idea, told families at Kensington Parkwood Elementary School this week that she would be leaving her position in June and would seek another job in the Montgomery County school system. “Recent events have been a distraction from the positive things we have been able to achieve,” she wrote in a message Tuesday. The smash space came to wide attention last week after a parent relayed a rumor she’d heard about it to others in an online parents’ discussion group and asked if it was true. The school’s PTA president weighed in with details, saying that bats — wooden and metal — were used to hack at an old rocking chair that was headed for the trash. She said she did not know of any students who had seen or heard the clatter. The day after parents were buzzing about the idea, the principal wrote to families saying that the furniture-bashing had occurred in March in an outdoor area on the school loading dock — an idea inspired by business articles she’d read about companies “providing items to be smashed as a way to reduce stress.” Liess called the decision a “lapse in judgment,” noting that it did not come in response to a teacher’s comment or behavior but was “a misguided attempt by me to provide staff with an outlet.” She said she recognized that “this scenario is counter to what we teach students and has no place in a school” and offered her “sincerest apologies.” The notion of adults smashing things with bats in an elementary school stunned many parents, with some asking why it was necessary for school staff to use physical aggression when children are often reminded to “use their words.” Liess, in her message Tuesday, said she decided to leave her post — after 10 years as the school’s principal — out of concern for students, staff and community. She said she was proud of the work she and others


Howard County police take escaped prisoner into custody late Wednesday night

Howard County police took escaped prisoner David Watson into custody late Wednesday night, after searching for him since April 28. He had escaped Maryland’s maximum-security psychiatric hospital in Jessup, Md. Details were sparse, but police said that Watson pushed a guard to the ground late Wednesday and ran into the woods as he was being unloaded from a van, police said. Officials said Watson had somehow gotten out of handcuffs and a waist chain. Police said officials had received a report of a possible sighting Wednesday morning in the area in Jessup where Watson had escaped. About 9:30 a.m., someone called 911 , apparently after seeing a man behind a building near the railroad tracks in the 8200 block of Dorsey Run Road, police said in a statement. The caller said the man was wearing a white hard hat and a safety vest, and he ran, according to the statement. Soon afterward, officers found that a hard hat and safety vest had been stolen from a storage building about a mile away. This photo released by the Howard County Police Department shows David M. Watson. (Howard County Police Department) (AP/AP) About 9:40 p.m. Wednesday, a police team captured Watson in the woods near Dorsey Run Road. The officers, who were using night vision equipment, found Watson hiding in an 18-inch drainage pipe a few hundred yards from where he was sighted Wednesday morning, the police statement said. Officers said they had checked the pipe earlier in the day, but rechecked it after dark, and found Watson trying to hide inside. Police searched the area with helicopters, bloodhounds, tactical teams and the U.S. Marshals Service, Maryland State Police, Anne Arundel County Police and other resources. Police said Watson surrendered and was found to be in good condition. Watson is serving a sentence of more than 100 years in a correctional facility in Delaware for attempted murder. The statement said he also has been charged in Wicomico County, Md., for attempted murder of law enforcement officers, and in Howard County for escape. This story has been updated.


Anti-vaccine activists spark a state’s worst measles outbreak in decades

rates among U.S.-born children of Somali descent used to be higher than among other children in Minnesota. But the rates plummeted from 92 percent in 2004 to 42 percent in 2014, state health department data shows, well below the threshold of 92 to 94 percent needed to protect a community against measles. Wakefield, a British activist who now lives in Texas, visited Minneapolis at least three times in 2010 and 2011 to meet privately with Somali parents of autistic children, according to local anti-vaccine activists. Wakefield’s prominence stems from a 1998 study he authored that claimed to show a link between the vaccine and autism. The study was later identified as fraudulent and was retracted by the medical journal that published it, and his medical license was revoked. The current outbreak was identified in early April. As of Friday, there were 44 cases, all but two occurring in people who were not vaccinated and all but one in children 10 or younger. Nearly all have been from the Somali American community in Hennepin County. A fourth of the patients have been hospitalized. Because of the dangerously low vaccination rates and the disease’s extreme infectiousness, more cases are expected in the weeks ahead. Measles The ramifications already have been significant. A 2014-2015 measles outbreak infected 147 people in seven states and spread to Mexico and Canada. In California, high school students were sent home because of infected classmates. One patient who was unknowingly infectious visited a hospital and exposed dozens of pregnant women and babies, including those in the neonatal intensive care unit. Another adult patient was hospitalized and on a breathing machine for three weeks. Federal guidelines typically recommend that children get the first vaccine dose at 12 to 15 months of age and the second when they are 4 to 6 years old. The combination is 97 percent effective in preventing the viral disease, which can cause pneumonia, brain swelling, deafness and, in rare instances, death. State health officials are now recommending doses for babies as young as 6 months if there is concern for ongoing measles exposure. Minnesota’s Somali community is the largest in the country. The roots of the outbreak there date to 2008, when parents raised concerns that their children were disproportionately affected by autism spectrum disorder. A limited survey by the state health department the following year found an unexpectedly high number of Somali children


D.C. Council poised to block Bowser’s backyard chicken ban

game, sir,” he said. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) said he would vote to remove the chicken ban from the budget legislation. The other committee members, Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1) and Brandon T. Todd (D-Ward 4), have not taken a position. If the committee blocks the ban from advancing as part of the budget process when it votes on May 17, the measure could still be considered as a separate bill. However, Gray said he doubted the ban “will ever see the light of day” again as independent legislation. Chicken-raising has in recent years become a popular — and legal — agrarian pastime in American cities including New York, San Francisco and Portland, Ore. Kate Goettge feeds her two hens in her Washington yard on Thursday. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Residents in Arlington, Va., and Montgomery County, Md., have also fought in recent years for zoning changes that would allow them to keep chickens. The Rockville City Council in Maryland voted in 2015 to allow residents up to five hens. District officials have said little about their rationale for banning chickens. Last month, when asked about the ban, Bowser said she wanted to “keep neighborhoods safe, and clean and rodent-free.” (D.C.’s animal-control laws actually explicitly condone pet rodents.) “It’s not usually the chickens that are the problem but what they leave behind,” she said. Live poultry have been linked to salmonella infections. Last year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention traced eight salmonella outbreaks across the country to backyard fowl, resulting in more than 200 hospitalizations and at least one death. D.C. Department of Health officials said the language is meant to clarify what is actually an existing ban on chickens. Last year the city suffered defeat at the hands of a pair of chicken-raising antitrust attorneys who live in Chevy Chase and who sued the District when the Department of Health warned them to remove the birds. The litigation — which centered on ambiguities in D.C.’s Animal Control Act concerning the legal status of chickens — ended with the city beating a retreat and issuing Allison Sheedy and Dan McInnis a permit to keep their four backyard birds. Chicken owners said they were gratified that the outright fowl ban would not advance, but that the District needed to liberalize its existing regulations, which include the requirement — hard to follow for those without large properties


Science, Nike and a super-fast runner nearly pulled off a 2-hour marathon

Updated May 6 at 4 a.m. Missed it by 25 seconds. No one smashed the two-hour marathon barrier overnight, but, wow, Eliud Kipchoge came close. On a Formula One track near Monza, Italy, the 32-year-old Kenyan ran an astounding 2 minutes 32 seconds faster over 26.2 miles than anyone had before, finishing in 2:00:25. It was a seismic leap forward in an event where records fall by seconds rather than minutes, and it may reframe the way people think about marathon times from now on. It will not, however, rewrite the record books. Well before the race, organizers and athletes decided they would forego record consideration and simply try to find out how fast a human could run. So some of the strategies that created optimal running conditions made the results ineligible for a world record. The spectacle, more science experiment than road race, involved three world-class marathoners, a clock-carrying Tesla, a rotating cast of big-name pacers and all the engineering and marketing firepower shoe giant Nike could muster. The two runners besides Kipchoge were Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia and Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea, who holds the half-marathon world record of 58:23. The three skipped the lucrative spring marathon season to focus their training on this event. Plenty of people derided it all as a slick marketing stunt, and few thought it would work. Of 24 experts polled by Runner’s World before the race, just three thought any of the three participants could break two hours. For decades as the marathon world record has inched downward, people in the sport have speculated about a two-hour marathon for the simple reason that it is a nice round number. (That might sound silly, but hey, we still talk about the four-minute mile.) It seemed potentially doable when, in a 1991 paper, performance physiologist Mike Joyner calculated the theoretical limit of human physiology to be a 1:57:58 marathon. But most scientists and sages of the sport don’t expect to see a sub-two-hour marathon for years or even decades. The current world record is nearly three minutes slower. Why 2 hours is a big deal For decades as the marathon world record has inched downward, people in the sport have speculated about a two-hour marathon for the simple reason that it is a nice round number. (That might sound silly, but hey, we still talk about the four-minute mile — a barrier that was


Military policy toward pro athletes depends on who’s giving the orders

and an Army hockey goalie prepared to pursue pro careers after graduation — the Defense Department pulled an about-face, adding a new chapter to the U.S. military’s history of flip-flopping on pro athletes. In a memo signed April 29, Defense Secretary James Mattis wrote the academies exist to “enhance the readiness and lethality” of the military and that graduates will serve a minimum of two years of active duty. Fielding teams at the top tier of college sports — most prominently, football — has long been a point of pride for Army, Navy and Air Force. But over the past several decades, officials overseeing the academies have responded in starkly different ways when the pros have come calling. A Defense Department spokesman said the latest policy change does not apply retroactively, so Reynolds, a wide receiver on the Ravens’ practice squad, will not be affected. Neither will others who benefited last year: Reynolds’s teammate Chris Swain, a fullback on the New York Jets’ practice squad until he was released late last week; and Joe Greenspan, a 2015 Navy graduate who shifted from active duty to reserves to play for Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids. Pro prospects in the class of 2017 are still trying to determine if there’s any wiggle room in the new policy. Air Force wide receiver Jalen Robinette, expected to be a middle-round selection in the NFL draft, went undrafted as word of the policy change circulated, as did teammate Weston Steelhammer, a safety who had hoped to hear his name called in the later rounds. Robinette did not reply to a request to comment. Steelhammer’s agent, Peter Schaffer, said he’s trying to negotiate a compromise with the Air Force. “I’m not giving up, nor am I blinded by the competing issues,” Schaffer said. “I understand, as does Weston, that he voluntarily enlisted at the academy . . . He’s not trying to get over on anybody.” Air Force officials declined to comment, other than to send a statement about Robinette that also mentions another athlete apparently affected by the new policy — to the surprise of the MLB team that signed him last year. “Jalen Robinette and Griffin Jax look forward to graduation and commissioning in May . . . and should have an opportunity to pursue their professional athletic goals after serving two years as officers in the Air Force,” the academy said. Jax, a


We need more numbers on drugged driving

A marijuana delivery driver and customer in Washington state in 2014. (Ted S. Warren/Associated Press) Regarding the April 26 news article “In a first, drug use eclipses alcohol in fatal crashes”: The cited association of drugs and alcohol with fatal crashes is meaningless in the absence of comparisons with data from appropriate control groups, i.e., the percentages of drug and alcohol use in groups of drivers not involved in fatal crashes, and how such use has changed over time. As a point of reference, at least 50 percent of the population takes prescription drugs; adding to that the use of over-the-counter and illegal drugs would give a figure considerably greater than the 43 percent of drivers in fatal crashes who the article said tested positive for a “legal or illegal drug.” Likewise, the article stated that more than a third of the 43 percent had used marijuana, which gives a value for marijuana use similar to that in the general population. Additionally, stating that marijuana-related traffic deaths in Colorado increased 48 percent since legalization is meaningless without knowing by how much marijuana use increased since legalization in the general population or, more specifically, among drivers not involved in fatal crashes. Barry Rosloff, Garrett Park


America’s ‘Miracle Machine’ is in desperate need of, well, a miracle

A DNA double helix is seen in an artist's illustration released by the National Human Genome Research Institute. (Handout/Reuters) Eric S. Lander is president and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University. Eric E. Schmidt is the executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. For more than a half century, the United States has operated what might be called a “Miracle Machine.” Powered by federal investment in science and technology, the machine regularly churns out breathtaking advances. The Miracle Machine has transformed the way we live and work, strengthened national defense and revolutionized medicine. It has birthed entire industries — organized around computers, biotechnology, energy and communications — creating millions of jobs. It’s the reason the United States is the global hub for the technologies of the future: self-driving cars, genome editing, artificial intelligence, cancer immunotherapy, quantum computers and more. Our machine is the envy of the world. And yet, while other nations, such as China, are working furiously to develop their own Miracle Machines, we’ve been neglecting ours. Though historically a bipartisan priority, science and technology funding has steadily eroded over the past decade. One example among many: Adjusted for inflation, the budget for the National Institutes of Health, the federal medical research agency, has fallen since 2003 by nearly 25 percent . If the Trump administration and Congress want to ensure that the United States remains the most powerful nation in the world, they should embrace and support our Miracle Machine. The spending bill that Congress passed this week represents a good step, but there’s still a long way to go to recover lost ground and secure our leadership. The Miracle Machine can be traced back to a report during the closing days of World War II called “Science: The Endless Frontier.” The blueprint saw the power of bringing together two interlocking engines — the public sector and the private sector — to drive progress and innovation. The United States has the most dynamic private sector in the world, with entrepreneurs, investors, big companies and capital markets all eager to license technologies and launch start-ups. But those ventures are often driven by technologies that come from basic research. Few companies undertake such research because its fruits are typically too unpredictable, too far from commercialization and too early to be patentable. That’s where government comes in. While investing in basic research typically doesn’t


drugs to treat skin cancer. Academic ideas inspired by neurons ultimately led to the artificial-intelligence revolution that is transforming industry today. Building powerful tools without worrying about precisely how they’ll be used has also turned out to be a great public investment strategy. Fundamental physics studies, funded by public investment, gave us high-energy particle accelerators, which are now a mainstay in pharmaceutical drug development, and atomic clocks, which enable the Global Positioning System that guides travelers to their destinations. And we’ve witnessed firsthand that creating and sharing mountains of scientific data can drive both exploration and commercialization. The $4 billion NIH investment in the Human Genome Project, which one of us (Lander) co-led, dramatically accelerated the understanding of human disease — and unleashed roughly $1 trillion in economic activity. That’s like $5 in a savings account growing to $1,250. Finally, tackling novel engineering challenges has laid the foundation for new industries. In the late 1960s, federal grants to universities to explore message-passing among computers led directly to the Internet. A $4.5 million National Science Foundation grant to Stanford University in 1994, to explore the idea of digital libraries, helped contribute five years later to the creation of Google. Today, the U.S. taxes paid each year by the company and by its more than 40,000 domestic employees total in the billions — a good portion of the NSF’s annual $7 billion budget. Crucially, when scientific breakthroughs spawn new industries and jobs, those benefits occur right here in the United States — because companies want to remain close to the flow of new discoveries and experienced workers. The Miracle Machine has been astoundingly successful. The problem is that too few people — in government or in the public — know how it works. As a result, we’ve been letting it fall into disrepair. If we don’t change course and invest in scientific research, we risk losing one of America’s greatest advantages. To our lasting detriment, we may wake up to find the next generation of technologies, industries, medicines and armaments being pioneered elsewhere. Read more on this topic: Alan Townsend: Science might save my daughter. Don’t kill it. The Post’s View: If Trump keeps stoking vaccine fears, he will endanger children’s lives Lena H. Sun: Anti-vaccine activists spark a state’s worst measles outbreak in decades Charles Krauthammer: The myth of ‘settled science’ Katrina vanden Heuvel: Why slashing the NIH budget is indefensible


When will things stop catching on fire on Metro?

the ground. In both cases, it’s an issue of bad insulation, and electricity traveling to places where it shouldn’t. And in both cases, those problems are difficult to see with the naked eye. That’s why Metro plans to kick-start two strategies to help cut down on those incidents by detecting electrical leaks before they become full-blown arcing incidents or cable fires. The time-intensive process is one of the reasons Metro rallied so hard to roll back late-night service and launch the preventive maintenance program that is supposed to start July 1. In both processes — called “cable meggering” and “stray current testing” — technicians must first isolate individual sections of the track or the power cables. They have to turn off power to the tracks, and it’s not as simple as flipping a switch. Workers don protective outfits that look like spacesuits and pull out giant breakers from the power substations that surround the targeted section of the tracks. It’s a process that can take more than an hour. Workers then inject the cables or the third rail with electricity, measure the voltage and check for abnormalities that could indicate electricity is leaking. But that’s the easy part. If the tests indicate that electrical current might be straying from its intended circuit, workers have to track down the source of the leak. And that can take a while. Mason outlined the mathematical challenge of the endeavor: There are about 80 metal fasteners per 100 feet of track. The stretch of tracks that might be tested at one time is a couple of thousand feet. That’s 1,600 fasteners to check — and it just takes just one poorly insulated fastener to result in a smoke emission that could ruin a commute for tens of thousands of riders. “You quickly increase the number of components that you’re checking and measuring,” Mason said. Ultimately, she said, Metro’s goal is to get to a place where every stretch of the tracks gets tested for stray current once every four years, though more problematic sections of the system probably would receive more frequent treatment. That’s also why stray current testing and cable meggering were not performed frequently during SafeTrack. You can’t do the tests while you’re performing other repair work on the tracks. Metro officials thought that other work should take priority, rather than using up golden periods of round-the-clock uninterrupted track time to perform


Pakistan claims it killed 50 Afghan border troops

university in Kabul last August, which Afghanistan blamed on Taliban militants based in Pakistan. The atmosphere is especially tense along the conflicted, 1,400-mile border, where both countries have accused each other of staging attacks. Chaman, the densely populated Pakistani town that abuts the community of Spin Boldak in Afghanistan, is often cited by Afghan officials as a launching pad for suicide bombers and for other insurgent activities. The border line itself has been historically disputed, making confrontations more likely. Hundreds of miles north, near the other major crossing, at Torkham, both governments have recently traded attacks and accusations of harboring cross-border terrorists. In February, after a series of deadly terrorist bombings across Pakistan, the Islamabad government charged that the assailants had been based on the Afghan side. Pakistan shelled the area for days and shut the border down. It also accused its rival India of collaborating with Afghan intelligence forces in the area. Both the recent flurry of goodwill gestures and the outbreak of fighting came as Pakistan and Afghanistan are waiting uneasily for the Trump administration to define its policies in the volatile region. So far, it seems likely that the United States will send more troops to Afghanistan as top U.S. military leaders have urged, but Washington’s treatment of Pakistan may depend on how far it goes to rein in Islamist militants based there. In the past several days, analysts in both countries reflected the frustrations of their respective leaders. In Pakistan, an editorial in the News International newspaper Saturday declared, “Peace needs to be a two-way street and right now Afghanistan is not cooperating. . . . Refusing to visit the country or firing on civilians and security forces destroys whatever little hope there is for progress.” In Afghanistan, some observers expressed disappointment that Ghani had rebuffed Pakistan’s invitation. They noted that he had just cemented a peace deal with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the fugitive Afghan warlord who returned to Kabul last week, and said Ghani should also take the opportunity to see if Pakistan is now more willing to play a role in bringing peace. But Rahmatullah Nabil, a former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, said in a Facebook post that Pakistan’s diplomatic outreach had a “hidden agenda” and that its security establishment wants to “soften the new U.S. policy,” while continuing to support the Taliban, by “pretending to show that they are willing to work with


A pathbreaking conductor at U-Md. charts a new course

The U-Md. orchestra plays the “From sound to screen” concert. (Geoff Sheil) James Ross is leaving the University of Maryland. Many music lovers, I suspect, won’t understand the significance of that statement, and it’s a shame. While the classical music world talks about the future of orchestras — or the plight of orchestras — some of the most exciting work on the field’s future has been going on under the general audience’s radar in College Park, where Ross has been leading a pioneering orchestra program since 2001. On Friday night at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Ross led the U-Md. orchestra in a valedictory concert, the last of the season. The theme was “From sound to screen,” a relatively tame idea for Ross. It was Ross and his forces that brought you Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” with puppets and costumes in the orchestra — a project that went on to the New York Philharmonic — or the memorable “Afternoon of a Faun” for which the orchestra players memorized their parts and moved freely across the stage. (If you haven’t watched the video on YouTube, go do so now — it and the “Appalachian Spring” that the orchestra did in the same way a couple of years later are among the most remarkable performances I’ve seen from any orchestra, anywhere, ever.) For many orchestras, of course, Friday’s program, ranging from Bartok’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta” to a new piece by the young composer Henry Ross Wixon, might have been unusual enough. It culminated with Kodaly’s “Háry János” suite accompanied by the world premiere of a film called “Blind Date” by Doug Fitch, the director and artist who has become a leading figure in the area of alternative orchestral experiences since he first collaborated with Ross on “Petrushka” in 2008. It was a more conventional approach to boundary-pushing: a short film about a Tinder date-turned-fever-dream that had no actual relation to the subject of the piece — a perfectly amiable video, and the kind of thing that many other orchestras could pick up. For someone so committed to shaking up the status quo, Ross seems a quiet figure, and an underrated one, despite a starry résumé that began when, as a horn player, he became principal horn of Leipzig’s fabled Gewandhaus orchestra (Kurt Masur gave him some of his first lessons in conducting) and includes stints working with William Christie and


Hate flying? Take the train.

An Amtrak Acela train travels through Old Lyme, Conn., in October 2016. (Michael Dwyer/ASSOCIATED PRESS) In his May 3 op-ed, “If you hate flying now, just wait,” Dana Milbank rightly lambasted the sorry state of affairs of U.S. airlines. Perhaps he should have described an alternative means of transportation for short and medium trips: trains. In the proposed infrastructure overhaul, rail is supposed to receive extra, direly needed funds. The “iron horse” too often is left out of the picture, a picture that by default includes planes and cars. Relaxing certain rules could work in trains’ favor. When Amtrak’s Acela Express was first tested, engineers bemoaned the fact that, due to safety regulations on this side of the pond, locomotives had to be twice as heavy as their European counterparts (making them less efficient and less reliable). Even conservatives when visiting Europe, Japan or China marvel at a mode of transportation that enables one to see scenery, get from one downtown to another and that frees highways from traffic-jam producing cars, reduces pollution, stress, etc. California is forging ahead. It’s high time for other high-density areas in this country to catch up. We can make America’s trains great again. Michael Kent, Washington


Planting flowers among fruits and veggies is tempting but tricky

flower clusters it sends up are pretty in their own right. But the theft of heads for salad would leave empty spots. Maybe you could replace those with new lettuce plants, as do the dedicated gardeners who tend the legendary vegetable plots at the Chateau de Villandry in France. You, that is — not busy, overcommitted me. Years ago, my husband and I set out to plant a garden that would visually combine edibles and flowers. We put it in the middle of the lawn, between the food garden and the area where we grew most of our flowers — a bridge, so to speak. One trick we used was to plant in parallel beds, each of which had either flowers or vegetables, but not a mix. There were two plots like that, with a grass path between them. Each plot had a peach tree at the far end, framing a wooden bench. Our other trick in that little garden was to plant edible crops that would be in the ground all season and not harvested until fall. No need for replacements. They included storage carrots, celery root, beets, leeks, parsnips and red cabbage. There was a bed of strawberries, too, and although the fruits were picked when ripe, the foliage remained. We nicknamed our new effort Villandry. I can think of other ways to introduce a flowery effect into your edible garden without compromising good growth. A fence or trellis around it could be festooned with vines such as morning glories, clematis and, yes, climbing roses. Edible scarlet runner beans, beloved by hummingbirds, are a great choice, with their brilliant red-orange blossoms. Sunflowers are fun along the edges, too, though it’s best to stick to the north side to avoid shading crops — unless there are greens that need afternoon shade in hot weather. Even if you are trying to get as much food as you can out of a small kitchen garden, it’s tempting to tuck in a few blooms at the end of a row, especially if their petals are edible. Marigolds are a favorite. Their ability to repel pests may be overstated, but they sure can brighten up a salad. Here’s a radical idea: Allow some of your vegetables to bloom. Instead of yanking out the bolting broccoli, collards or dill, let them open their flowers to grateful bees, butterflies and other pollinators, for the good


A new Olympics reality: Fewer cities want to host the Games

Grass-roots opposition to hosting the Olympics led Boston to withdraw its bid for the 2024 Summer Games. (Charles Krupa/AP) As the International Olympic Committee embarks this week on tours of the two cities competing to host the 2024 Olympics, there’s growing sentiment that a consolation prize will be looming. To the victor: the 2024 Summer Games. And to the runner-up: Wait four years and host the 2028 Olympics. While the arrangement could be viewed as a testament to the strength of the bids put forth by Los Angeles and Paris, it also reveals a stark reality about hosting an Olympics in the 21st century: Costs are exorbitant, economic benefits are dubious, and fewer and fewer cities bother even throwing their hats in the ring. Chris Dempsey knows this better than most. He helped create a blueprint of sorts that in relatively short order has invited scrutiny of the process, helping galvanize skeptical populations, prompting cities across the world to pull out of consideration, and forcing the IOC to acknowledge and consider flaws. Thomas Bach, the IOC president, recently said the organization “cannot ignore that we have an issue with the candidature process.” Just 3½ years ago, Dempsey was debating with buddies whether Boston should pursue the 2024 Games and whether it would actually benefit the city. The Olympics’ recent track record isn’t great: cost overruns, empty stadiums left behind, corruption scandals. Dempsey helped lead the grass-roots movement No Boston Olympics that prompted the city to pull out of the bidding process for the 2024 Games. He then consulted with similar activists in Hamburg, Rome and Budapest, and those cities also eventually bailed. So pointed are his arguments that he’s also contributed to opposition research. Organizers in Calgary — which hosted the Games in 1988 — considering a bid on the 2026 Winter Games brought him in to hear the concerns and make sure they grasp the opposing viewpoints. Public support for hosting the 2024 Summer Games in Los Angles remains high. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters) “I truly believe the experience in Boston is and should be instructive for people on both sides of the Olympic debate,” said Dempsey, who this month released the book “No Boston Olympics: How and Why Smart Cities Are Passing on the Torch.” “I like to think that what happened in Boston really has been an example in other cities,” he said. “I think that really there is


Police arrest additional suspects in 2 homicides in Southeast and Northwest

D.C. police have arrested additional suspects in two fatal shootings, one in Southeast Washington last year and the other in Northwest in 2015, according to law enforcement authorities. The men arrested are the second suspects in both cases. The most recent of the shootings occurred about 4:10 p.m. on Nov. 27 in the 1300 block of Howard Road SE, in Anacostia. The victim, Orlando Donald Silver III, 37, later died at a hospital, police said. On the same day as the killing, police charged Marquette Tibbs, 24, of Southeast, with second-degree murder while armed. On Monday, police arrested Cinquan Cartledge, 22, of Southeast, and charged him with second-degree murder while armed. Cartledge could made an initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court later on Tuesday. Tibbs, who is being detained, has a hearing scheduled for July 14. An affidavit filed in the arrest of Tibbs does not describe a motive, but says police seized a gun and drugs when they arrested him last year. Police on Monday also arrested a second suspect in the Oct. 20, 2015, shooting death of Marcus Manor, 38, of Northwest. He was shot about 11:10 a.m. in the 2900 block of Sherman Avenue NW, near Columbia Heights. In October 2015, police charged Kevin Chase, 38, of Northwest, with first-degree murder while armed. He is scheduled for a jury trial in D.C. Superior Court on June 5. The second suspect, Demetrius Lavale Brandon, 29, of Temple Hills, Md., was charged with first degree murder while armed. He is being detained and has a court hearing scheduled for Friday. Manor’s shooting was one of four homicides that occurred in three months within a mile and a half on or near Georgia Avenue, 16th Street and U Street. Three of the four occurred during daylight, intensifying the concern in the neighborhoods. The shootings were not related, according to police. Manor was shot in the chest while in a vehicle a block west of Georgia Avenue and six blocks from the Columbia Heights Metro Station. An arrest affidavit filed in 2015 in connection with Chase’s arrest identifies Chase as the brother of the dead man’s girlfriend, with whom he was having a dispute.


These runners have autism, and that’s a quite good combination

from movies while running. (Laurent Edeline) When Tommy Des Brisay runs a race, his competitors take notice. It’s not just that the 25-year-old Canadian is fast, although he can zip through a 5K (3.1 miles) in about 15 minutes. It’s also hard to ignore his habit of singing Disney songs and reciting lines from his favorite movies. “They kind of look at him like ‘What the hell? Why aren’t you dying like the rest of us?’ ” says his father, Peter, in a special report from Runner’s World magazine that explores the connection between running and people — people such as Des Brisay — with autism. In the decade since Des Brisay’s dad first took him along on a daily run, he has gotten more involved in the sport. Along the way, he has become much less anxious, more social and not as dependent on medication. As writer Alison Wade lays out, research is starting to back up what Des Brisay’s family has seen firsthand: Running can really make a difference. She cites a 2016 study that showed students with autism who were in a running program improved their social awareness, cognition, communication and more. “Despite its benefits, no one is claiming that running is the equivalent of a magic pill that will eradicate the challenges that people with autism face,” Wade notes. And there are certainly extra hurdles that people with autism face when running. In Des Brisay’s case, for instance, his dad needs to tag along during road races to monitor whether his son is hydrating and following instructions. Also, starting guns and large crowds don’t jibe well with sensory sensitivities. But people on the autism spectrum may have an easier time with other aspects of running, Wade writes: “After all, some of the characteristics that would lead to an autism diagnosis — repetitive behaviors, strict adherence to a routine, highly restricted, fixated interests — are helpful for training.” Wade cites several other runners in addition to Des Brisay, including Grace Ling, a sophomore on an athletic scholarship at California’s Santa Clara University who credits Asperger’s syndrome for her motivation. There’s also 20-year-old Mikey Brannigan, who’s got a shot at making the U.S. Olympic team. His mother, Edie Brannigan, has advice for other parents of children with autism: “Get them moving. Get them swimming, get them running, get them walking, get them moving. Move, move, move, move, move.”


Players union complains to NFL about handling of opioids and other drugs

separate federal lawsuit filed by former Chicago Bears player Richard Dent. That case was dismissed in 2014 after U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the allegations were preempted by the CBA. The case is currently under review by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Alsup is also presiding over the Evans case, which names the 32 NFL teams as defendants and not the league. Alsup allowed that case to enter the discovery phase and is currently considering a dismissal motion filed by the NFL teams. In its filing Monday on the Dent case, the NFL said the union grievance is evidence that the allegations related to prescription medications are preempted by the CBA and there are more appropriate legal channels to adjudicate the matter. While the Dent lawsuit was filed by retired players, the union solely represents active NFL players and is not part of the litigation. The grievance’s allegations “underscore [that the] appellants’ negligence and fraud claims are preempted,” Paul Clement, an NFL attorney, wrote to the court. In its grievance letter, the union expressed concern that the NFL failed to punish any teams or personnel related to the administering of prescription drugs. Comparing the drug-related allegations with the “Deflategate” controversy, in which the league “punished the New England Patriots to the tune of forfeiting first- and fourth-round draft picks plus a $1 million fine for alleged conduct relating to taking a tiny amount of air out of footballs,” the union wrote, “it is incomprehensible that the League has taken no action whatsoever against Clubs.” The union charged the NFL and its teams with “egregiously” disregarding CBA requirements governing “the proper, legal, medically ethical prescription, dispensing, and transportation of prescription painkillers.” The complaint added that team medical personnel “considered the ‘competitive disadvantage’ their teams would face if they did not improperly dispense prescription painkillers to players.” The union requested several areas of relief, including an order that would require teams to regularly disclose data on “use and dispensing of painkillers,” biannual training for team medical personnel on compliance and ethical issues, and an order requiring teams to terminate employees who have violated the CBA’s health and safety provisions. More on the NFL and opioids Retired NFL players outline league’s abuse of painkillers The DEA warned NFL doctors about drug laws in 2011 More NFL players turn to medicinal marijuana to fight pain House lawmakers question NFL on drug


At Le DeSales, classic French cooking receives a creative jolt

A classic dish benefits from fresh twist with the Beef “Bavette,” dry aged with grapes, shallot and parsley. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post) Eat out a dozen meals a week for work and you, too, might relish the occasional breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner or bar stop with just your own company. As far as I’m concerned, the only downside to eating alone in a good restaurant now and then is not being able to taste more of the menu. Otherwise, I relish the chance to focus on a chef’s creatively, to see what makes him tick — to linger for as long as I want over, say, a tomato salad sparked with pepper and a tuft of whipped cream flavored with … can it be anchovy? Or morsels of warm cod on a bed of crumbled cauliflower and black rice, a vivid fish salad that could easily become a habit. That meal is for real, by the way, two courses for $27, glass of wine included. You’ll find it on the lunch menu at a new restaurant that might surprise you because 1) it’s in the Golden Triangle, not known for breaking food news of late, and 2) it doesn’t ask you to go to extremes (wait in line, enlist TaskRabbit, eat at 10 p.m.) to sample it. Have you met Le DeSales? You ought to. It’s a civilized dining room that shares an alley with the Mayflower hotel and replaces the Spanish-themed Panache, whose owners reimagined the interior and introduced a French accent in March. The chef, Raphael Francois, is easy to spot. He’s the guy with the bushy red beard and round glasses. French-Belgian, he comes to Washington from New York, where he served for two years as executive chef of the venerable Le Cirque. Before that, he worked in the same capacity at the Connaught in London. The résumé suggests something traditional. The restaurant trots out familiar dishes in fresh ways. Chef Raphael Francois, who previously worked as the executive chef of Le Cirque in New York, is interested in serving the food of his youth with restaurant flourishes. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post) You know that reaction when you encounter a friend you haven’t seen in awhile? That’s the way I feel every time I walk into the dining room, where I’m greeted not just with human warmth, but with an ambiance that says


What happens to a company that dopes its workers? If it’s an NFL team, not much

been equally gentle with the league, despite the fact that opioid abuse is a national health emergency — the state of Florida lost almost 4,000 people to overdose deaths last year. History shows the NFL owners simply will not govern their own conduct when it comes to protecting player health. We learned that when they ignored for years the well-founded evidence that their players were suffering serious brain injuries. The very same pattern is evident with painkillers: Depositions of league doctors show the league’s medical advisers knew of a prescription drug problem in 2014. According to the union, the NFL claims the committee is no longer “in existence” and that the players’ association is not entitled to so much as a sheaf of paper from it, because the committee was not about “health and safety.” Really? Seven doctors sat on it, and so did the league’s director of health and safety. Is anyone in power going to hold the NFL accountable and demand it behave like a decent citizen? Apparently not. Instead, NFL players have to hope for the luck of the draw and that their grievance is heard by a strong arbitrator. The union is requesting several “orders of compliance.” The arbitrator should grant them. First, order the league to fire club physicians and medical personnel who admitted misconduct with painkillers. Second, order the league to establish a specific disciplinary schedule of fines, suspensions and dismissals for club employees who fail to comply with painkiller laws and ethical standards. Third, order the league and its medical advisers to furnish every single document or communication relating to painkillers to the union. Fourth, order that all league medical personnel undergo mandatory training on laws relating to medications. Finally, and most important of all, order the league to answer to somebody on a regular basis. The arbitrator should demand ongoing periodic reports and records from the NFL’s medical advisers, showing painkiller distribution. It would be the first time someone actually made them, you know, obey the law. For more by Sally Jenkins, visit washingtonpost.com/jenkins. More on the NFL and opioids The DEA warned NFL doctors about drug laws in 2011 More NFL players turn to medicinal marijuana to fight pain House lawmakers question NFL on drug practices NFL tells Congress doctors were following DEA guidance Post editorial: NFL doctors are on the wrong team Archives: Pain and pain management in the NFL


Man fatally shot in Southwest Washington’s Bellevue neighborhood

A young man was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon in Southwest Washington’s Bellevue neighborhood, D.C. police said. The shooting occurred shortly after 2 p.m. in the 100 block of Irvington Street SW, near the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant and close to the Maryland border. Police said the victim, who was identified as 25-year-old Damonta Thompson of Southwest, died at a hospital.


Local digest: Man is shot to death in Southwest D.C.

Northwest. He was shot in the 2900 block of Sherman Avenue NW, near Columbia Heights. In October 2015, police charged Kevin Chase, 28, of Northwest, with first-degree murder while armed. He is awaiting trial. The second suspect, Demetrius Lavale Brandon, 29, of Temple Hills, Md., was charged with first-degree murder while armed. — Peter Hermann VIRGINIA Chain-reaction crash kills 53-year-old man A 53-year-old man from Fredericksburg was killed in a crash that involved four vehicles in Manassas, authorities said. Scott Allen Rutherford died Friday from injuries sustained during a crash two days earlier, Prince William County police said. The crash happened at about 8:30 a.m. on May 3 at Sudley Manor Drive and Sudley Road. Police said a 2012 Chevrolet Cruze that was headed west on Sudley Manor Drive struck another vehicle and that caused a chain reaction. The Cruze then struck a 2010 Chevrolet Silverado, causing it to overturn. And the Silverado then hit another vehicle. Police said Rutherford, who was driving the Silverado, was not wearing a seat belt. He was ejected from the vehicle. He was taken to a hospital. Two children, ages 8 and 7, were in one of the vehicles, police said. Information on how seriously they were hurt was not available. — Dana Hedgpeth One killed, two hurt in Alexandria wreck One person was killed and two others were injured in a crash in Alexandria, police said. Few details were available Tuesday. The identity of the person who was pronounced dead at the scene was not released, pending the notification of relatives. The crash happened at North Quaker Lane and Duke Street. Police said on Twitter that the other two people were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. — Dana Hedgpeth ‘Upskirting’ reported in Manassas store A 23-year-old woman said a man “upskirted” her in a Walmart store in Manassas. The incident happened just before 2 p.m. Thursday at the store on Liberia Avenue. The woman told police she was shopping when she “felt something touch her skirt.” When she looked around, she saw a man she did not know “holding a cellphone under her skirt,” police said in a statement. When the woman tried to confront the man, he fled the store. Police said he was last seen in a black Lexus SUV. The woman was not injured in the incident. Anyone with information is asked to call police


Pellet gun wounds cat that had once been rescued by officer

Lamentable as it may seem, stories of callousness and cruelty toward animals are not rare. But for reasons that will become clear, the events of earlier this month in southern Maryland, seem particularly reprehensible. A cat named Maximus was found May 2 in the 5200 block of Colebrook Street in La Plata, Md., with a wound from a high powered pellet gun, according to the Charles County sheriff’s office. The injury was so severe as to shatter the cat’s leg. Ultimately it required amputation, the sheriff’s office said. Even that does not tell the entire story of Maximus. Today, the animal weighs 12 pounds. But Maximus was found when a kitten weighing less than two pounds. The circumstances by which the cat was discovered seem only to add to the sense of dejection created by the cat’s ordeal. Maximus was wounded with a high-powered pellet gun in southern Maryland. (Courtesy of Charles County Sheriff's Office) Maximus was living with a police officer and her 10-year-old daughter, according to the sheriff’s office. The officer met Maximus one day when she was out on a call. The kitten jumped into the officer’s car, the sheriff’s office said. The officer did not put the kitten out. Instead, she waited to see if anyone claimed him, the sheriff’s office said. No one did, and, according to the sheriff’s office, the officer and her child “have cared for him ever since.” As of Tuesday, Maximus was still being treated at an emergency animal clinic. The sheriff’s office said it is trying to find who shot Maximus.


What home buyers can get for $300,000

of properties, from a studio condo in Adams Morgan to a four-bedroom house in Manassas. We also looked across the country to see what you can get at that price point. In Seattle, where the median sale price is $560,250, we found a one-bedroom condo. In Madison, Wis., and Asheville, N.C., where the median sale prices are $224,300 and $255,625, respectively, we found single-family homes. Wondering what you can buy for $300,000? Here’s what we found: District 1851 Columbia Rd. NW, Washington, D.C. (Photo by Jenn Verrier) 1851 Columbia Rd. NW No. 303 Washington, D.C. 20009 Price: 0 bedroom, 1 bathroom. Square footage: Features: Agent: 4322 Gorman Terrace SE, Washington, D.C. (Photo by Dwight Pearson) 4322 Gorman Terr. SE Washington, D.C. 20019 Price: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. Square footage: Features: Agent: 300 Oklahoma Ave .NE, No. 202, Washington, D.C. (Photo by BTW Images) 300 Oklahoma Ave, NE No. 202 Washington, D.C. 20002 Price: 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom. Square footage: Features: Agent: Maryland 10416 Montrose Ave., Bethesda, Md. (Courtesy of Rita Liptz) 10416 Montrose Ave. No. M-202 Bethesda, Md. 20814 Price: 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Square footage: Features: Agent: 7007 Sherrif Rd., Hyattsville, Md. (Photo by House Lens) 7007 Sheriff Rd. Hyattsville, Md. 20785 Price: 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Square footage: Features: Agent: 561 Melissa Ct., Arnold, Md. (Photo by HomeJab/Curt Ellis) 561 Melissa Ct. Arnold, Md. 21012 Price: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Square footage: Features: Agent: Virginia 1303 Walter Reed Dr., No. 3302, Arlington, Va. (Courtesy of Pat Shannon ) 1303 Walter Reed Dr. No. 3302 Arlington, Va. 22204 Price: 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Square footage: Features: Agent: 2 Briarwood Dr., Dumfries, Va. (Courtesy of Ryan Homes) 2 Briarwood Dr. Dumfries, Va. 22026 Price: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Square footage: Features: RyanHomes.com/Briarwood 9108 Amherst Ct., Manassas, Va. (Courtesy of Jill Long) 9108 Amherst Ct. Manassas, Va. 20111 Price: 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. Square footage: Features: Agent: National 305 Clemons Ave., Madison, Wisc. (Courtesy of Solidarity Realty) 305 Clemons Ave. Madison, Wis. 53704 Price: 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. Square footage: Features: Agent: 25 S. Haven Rd., Asheville, N.C. (Photo by Joseph Fluty/Asheville Real Estate Photography) 25 S. Haven Rd. Asheville, N.C. 28804 Price: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Square footage: Features: Agent: 756 N. 72nd St., Seattle, Wash. (Courtesy of the Go Knowles Team) 756 N. 72nd St. No. 101 Seattle, Wash. 98103 Price: 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom. Square footage: Features: Agent:


Charges dropped in nearly 50 cases after indictment of Baltimore police officers

officers. Others say city prosecutors knew or should have known of integrity issues with the officers before federal prosecutors swooped in, and should have reviewed their arrests or barred their testimony sooner. Gioia said prosecutors were unaware of the officers’ alleged misconduct until the indictment was announced. The seven officers — Sgt. Wayne Jenkins and Detectives Momodu Gondo, Evodio Hendrix, Daniel Hersl, Jemell Rayam, Marcus Taylor and Maurice Ward — are accused of shaking down citizens, filing false court paperwork and making fraudulent overtime claims. The officers have all pleaded not guilty. They are being held in federal detention pending trial. Harvey Bruner, an attorney for Hendrix, declined to comment on the specifics of his client’s case but said the effort by prosecutors to vacate convictions and withdraw guilty pleas seemed premature given that none of the allegations against the officers have been proved. “It’s kind of early,” he said. “They haven’t even been convicted of anything.” Mirriam Seddiq, Taylor’s attorney, said “everybody involved in the criminal justice system deserves a fair shake,” including her client and the people he helped arrest. She declined further comment. Attorneys for the other five officers either declined to comment or could not be reached. A scheduling conference has been set for May 16 in U.S. District Court downtown. The review of cases has been eased by the collaboration between prosecutors and defense attorneys, but has not been smooth sailing. For instance, on April 20, Judge Alfred Nance denied a joint motion to vacate the conviction against James Jackson, 58, who received a five-year sentence after pleading guilty in December 2015 to drug possession with the intent to distribute and using a firearm in a drug trafficking crime. Nance wrote in a one-page order that his decision was based on a “review of the court file, prior decisions of this Court, and full consideration of all the facts and circumstances.” Nance declined through a court spokesman to discuss the case. Finegar said Nance’s denial raised questions about whether she and Gioia were taking the best approach to clear the convictions in cases involving guilty pleas, and they “started reevaluating the legal theory behind what we wanted to do.” She and Gioia then tried a new approach with Circuit Judge Charles J. Peters, who is in charge of the court’s criminal division. Peters had granted two previous motions to vacate convictions in cases with plea


At Siren, Robert Wiedmaier lures diners on a jazz-filled seafood journey

Robert Wiedmaier wants to “demystify” caviar at his new restaurant, Siren, which features visually arresting dishes such as a grilled fish causa with potatoes and flying fish roe. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post) When the owner of the new Darcy hotel approached Robert Wiedmaier about creating a restaurant for the boutique property, the veteran D.C. chef asked, “What are you looking for?” “What do you want to do?” replied KHP Capital Partners, the San Francisco-based real estate private equity firm. “Seafood from around the world,” Wiedmaier told the company. And vegetables and jazz, he added, taking into account not just his personal taste, but what the chef says he hears from his customers. The result, introduced in Logan Circle in April, goes by Siren by Robert Wiedmaier and it finds John Critchley, formerly of Brine in Fairfax, as the chef de cuisine behind an eye-catching seafood bar. (Brian McBride, Wiedmaier’s corporate chef and business partner, helped write the menu and gave the restaurant its name, a nod to the mythological sea creatures who lured sailors to their deaths.) Located off the lobby of the 226-room hotel, which has erased any sign that it used to house a DoubleTree, the dining room is a cocoon awash in navy blue, decorated with mermaid art outfitted on one side with a row of booths set in curtain-framed alcoves. Siren, says Wiedmaier, hits a sweet spot between two of his best-known businesses, “not as expensive as Marcel’s,” his high-end French restaurant, nor as casual as Brasserie Beck, his modern European outpost. Chef de cuisine John Critchley plates a dish behind the raw bar, where diners can watch their dishes come together at the new Logan Circle restaurant. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post) Like a lot of places, Siren, Wiedmaier’s first new D.C. restaurant in 10 years, can’t resist a long introduction. “The chef wants to take you on a journey,” a server greeted us on a recent visit. Dishes in the new establishment are arranged not as appetizers or entrees but in categories that spell out how they’re prepared or where they come from. “Raw to slightly cooked,” for instance, includes ribbons of fluke and pickled vegetables in a puddle of yellow pepper juice shot through with horseradish, a small plate garnished with smoked trout roe. “Warm & Crispy” embraces two of my favorite combinations: fried soft-shell crabs served upright in a


Suspect arrested in April killing in public housing complex in SE Washington

A 31-year-old man has been arrested and charged in a fatal shooting that occurred last month in the Woodland Terrace public housing complex in Southeast Washington, according to D.C. police. Nyekemia Everett of Southeast was arrested Friday and charged with first-degree murder while armed. He is charged with killing Christopher Heard, 37, of Oxon Hill. The shooting occurred shortly before 4 a.m. in the 2300 block of Ainger Place SE, in a parking lot near Bruce Place. Police said Heard was shot several times and was pronounced dead at the scene. No motive has been divulged. Everett could make an initial appearance Saturday in D.C. Superior Court, and additional information could be made public when the arrest affidavit is unsealed. The neighborhood — near Suitland Parkway and Alabama Avenue — is in one of the District’s most violent areas. In summer 2015, the area was flooded by police officers in an attempt to quell an outbreak of shootings.


As SafeTrack enters its second-to-last stage, Orange Line riders rankled by surprise shutdown

maximize productivity — and to confine the service disruptions to east of Stadium-Armory, limiting the ripple effect felt by riders on the rest of the system. It’s the same decision officials made for Surge No. 14, when they decided to close the northernmost segment of the Green Line rather than single-track trains. Orange Line capacity west of Stadium-Armory is expected to be reduced by 20 percent. Capacity on the Silver Line west of East Falls Church will be cut by half, with 12-minute wait times between trains. Metro said that although Orange Line stations east of the Anacostia will be closed, riders will be adequately served by bus shuttles. But Lini said that in opting for a shutdown instead of single-tracking, Metro failed to consider the needs of residents. He noted that the surge is happening during the last month of the school year, when it’s vital that children arrive at school on time. A large percentage of the neighborhood’s students rely on Metro to get to school, he said. “The timing of this is abysmal,” he said. He said Metro should have communicated with residents and local leaders before changing plans — and that they should have done a better job of informing riders about how the service disruptions will affect their lives. He fears that relying on buses will mean more people stuck in traffic and big delays. “Already, on a good day, we can barely manage a rush hour or weekend traffic. The lack of accommodations for residents — it’s just stunning,” Lini said. “There’s no regard for the needs of the community here.” The issue was raised at last week’s Metro board meeting, where member Malcolm Augustine said he had received “a tremendous amount of negative feedback” from Prince George’s County residents who will be affected by the surge. Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld agreed the agency could have done more to inform riders of the changes and their options. “We could always do better,” Wiedefeld said. But he still believes a total shutdown is the best option. And, he added, experience from previous surges has shown that riders tend to ignore warnings until the last minute. “People focus on this literally when it starts,” Wiedefeld said. To assist riders displaced by the station shutdowns, Metro will run two shuttle buses during the course of the surge. One will run at 30-minute intervals throughout the


Seoul, a city ‘with no soul,’ builds its own High Line on an old overpass

Seoullo, or Seoul Street, is set to open May 20 in South Korea’s capital. The mile-long stretch of highway overpass that had been destined for demolition has cafes, trampolines, and 250 kinds of plants and trees. (Seoul Metropolitan Government) SEOUL — But the city has a new initiative to change that: Seoullo, or Seoul Street, an elevated urban walkway similar to New York’s famed High Line. Built on a mile-long stretch of highway overpass that had been destined for demolition, Seoullo 7017 is to open on Saturday. (It’s named for the year the overpass was built — 1970 — and the year the walkway opens.) It will link the Namdaemun market, a ramshackle tourist hot spot that has been in decline for a decade, with a neglected neighborhood on the western side of the railroad tracks that run into Seoul Station. The area around the station is not exactly salubrious either, with its underpasses and sidewalks having become a magnet for homeless people. “This will not only restore the overpass, but become a catalyst for the revival and regeneration of neighboring regions through the high number of visitors,” Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said during a recent visit to the site. After it emerged from the Korean War, Seoul was rebuilt almost in the blink of an eye as South Korea began its transformation into an economic powerhouse. Starting in the 1960s, city planners ordered the construction of dozens of elevated highways to keep traffic flowing through the capital. Fast forward a few decades, and these hulking overpasses became not only a blight on the landscape, but also a safety risk, as heavy use literally shook their foundations. In 1994, one bridge across the Han River, which bisects Seoul, collapsed, killing 32 people. In recent years, the overpasses have gradually been coming down. One in the center of the city was torn down to make way for Cheonggye Stream, a seven-mile-long artificial river that opened in 2005. With paths and bridges, it has transformed its environs, attracting locals and tourists at all times of the day and night. The sunken parts in the city center are also several degrees cooler than street level, providing welcome respite in the humid summer. The highway over the tracks into Seoul Station was found to have serious safety problems in 2006 and had also been slated for demolition. But it got a reprieve when city


Prince William County summary

THURSDAY, MAY 11 Special agent testiﬁes in MS-13 slaying trial FBI Special Agent Fernando Uribe testified Thursday that MS-13 gang member Venus Romero Iraheta stated her full name before plunging a knife into 15-year-old Damaris A. Reyes Rivas so the victim would know who killed her. Romero Iraheta, 17, blamed the Gaithersburg teen for the killing of her boyfriend, Christian Sosa Rivas, just a week earlier in Dumfries, and she wanted revenge. The testimony came before a judge in Fairfax County juvenile court certified Romero Iraheta to be tried as an adult in the slaying of Reyes Rivas. The preliminary hearing and two others offered new details about intertwined killings related to MS-13 that have resulted in the arrests of 18 teens and young adults across the Washington area and underscored the resurgence of the region’s biggest and most violent gang. What home buyers can get for $300,000 In this region, the average first-time home buyer is likely to spend about $300,000. According to D.C. real estate blog UrbanTurf, 1 in 4 homes in the District are priced above $1 million. So where does one find homes in the $300,000 range? A look at the region found a mix of properties, from a studio condo in Adams Morgan to a four-bedroom house in Manassas. A look across the country found a one-bedroom condo in Seattle and single-family homes in Madison, Wis., and Asheville, N.C.


Scientists from enemy nations create a beacon for peace in the Middle East

she became a supporter. She’s now the chair of the scientific advisory committee, and intends to use the light source for a project to study how a protein in a bacterium latches on toiron. More troubles lay ahead. The roof fell in during a snowstorm. Egypt’s support withered after the revolution of the Arab Spring. Rabinovici feared that the project was collapsing and went to the Finance Ministry of the Israeli government asking for a new infusion of money. The government pledged $5 million if other countries matched it. Turkey, Jordan and Iran then pledged the same amount each, although Iran so far has given only a fraction of its pledge, leaders of the project say. The E.U. has also provided funds. Conspicuously, the United States has not, to the frustration of project leaders. They suspect that one reason is the involvement of Iran. The scientists say that synchrotron technology has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. In Congress, two physicists, Reps. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) and Bill Foster (D-Ill.), pushed for authorization of money for SESAME, but got nowhere. “It’s a shame, an embarrassment, that the United States has not put, as far as I know, a dime into the SESAME project,” said Holt, who is now the chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “The suspicion is that, because Iran is a member, that’s a third rail that nobody wants to touch,” Winick said. “I am disappointed and embarrassed.” SESAME is not quite ready for experimental research. The most essential hardware is in place, but the two beam lines of the light source won’t be ready for research efforts for another few months. SESAME magnets spin particles and radiation “comes off like mud off a spinning tire.” (Dean Calma/International Atomic Energy Agency) Gihan Kamel, an infrared beam line scientist from Egypt, works in a SESAME lab. (Dean Calma/International Atomic Energy Agency) There ought to be many more beam lines for researchers, project leaders say. And among the immediate logistical challenges is the need for on-site lodging. But the backers of SESAME are exultant. Among those traveling to Jordan for the dedication ceremony this week will be Edward Witten, an acclaimed mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton — Albert Einstein’s old haunt. Witten says of SESAME, “It’s like news from another world in which there is peace in the Middle East.” A


‘Did you hear that?’: Amid Baltimore’s surge in killings, a faint cry in a locked car

March 27 in front of a West Baltimore carryout that, in contrast to its cheerful name, Rainbow, has metal bars over its windows. An area business owner drove by moments after the bullets flew. He slowed his car enough to notice the fade of the wounded man’s haircut and that he wore expensive-looking jeans. Strangers stared at the victim, Ernest Solomon, from the other side of the police tape, some shouting supportive words. Funeral program for 26-year-old Ernest Solomon. (Obtained by The Washington Post) Officers, too, focused on Solomon, walking past his car, which was surrounded by shell casings. More than an hour had passed since he’d been shot and taken to the hospital and still no one had opened the locked car. It was a key piece of evidence, and officers knew the less they touched it the better. Following protocol, they planned to tow it to a police lot, and then take it to a crime lab where a technician skilled in finding fingerprints would await a search warrant signed by a judge. It could take hours, or even a day. Then came a faint cry. “Did you hear that?” homicide detective Lee Brandt asked another detective and then yelled for an officer to bring keys that had been retrieved earlier from Solomon’s pockets. There, inside the car, he found Solomon’s 10-month-old daughter strapped in her car seat, wearing a pink and white onesie under a black sweatsuit. Brandt pulled her out and held her up, as other officers looked on, mouths agape. The moment was captured by a Baltimore Sun photographer in a picture that quickly spread across social media and that Brandt keeps close as a reminder. “We couldn’t be there for her father, but we were there for her,” he said. “We got her safe. We got her taken care of. We had one tragic death versus two.” ‘Don’t give up on Baltimore’ Ernest Solomon was the 71st person killed in the city. Beyond the other numbers were two boxers, a pregnant woman, and the son of a slain police officer who was shot to death a decade after his father died the same way. After officer Troy Chesley was killed while off duty in 2007, Sheila Dixon, then Baltimore’s mayor-designate, expressed hope that the death wouldn’t embitter his sons and declared, “We have got to stop these senseless killings.” After his son Trayvon Chesley,


Veteran journalist Javier Valdez killed in Mexico’s Sinaloa

Mexican journalist Javier Valdez, shown in November 2016, speaks during a presentation of his book “Huerfanos del Narco.” He was slain on May 15. (Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images) MEXICO CITY — Valdez is the fifth journalist to be killed in Mexico in just over two months and the second high-profile reporter to be slain in the country this decade. The first was Regina Martínez Pérez, who was killed in 2012. A Sinaloa state government official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and so spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Valdez was killed in the state capital, Culiacan, near the offices of the publication he founded, Ríodoce. Ríodoce confirmed Valdez’s killing on its Web page, saying he was driving about a block from its offices when he was intercepted by gunmen. Valdez was the author of the books “Narcoperiodismo” and “Los Morros del Narco,” the latter of which chronicled the lives of young people swept up in Mexico’s drug underworld. He was also a correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, unknown attackers threw a grenade into the Ríodoce offices in 2009, days after it published an investigation on drug trafficking. No one was hurt. “Living in Sinaloa is a threat, and being a journalist is an additional threat,” Valdez said in a 2011 interview with the CPJ, according to the group’s website. “We learned how to live in times when bullets are flying around us.” Sinaloa is a trafficking hotbed and is home to the Sinaloa cartel, led by the notorious Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is in a New York prison awaiting trial on multiple charges. According to the CPJ, 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992 for reasons confirmed as related to their work. An additional 50 were slain during the same period under circumstances that have not been clarified.


In new sanctions list, Ukraine targets Russian social-media sites

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko speaks during a news conference in Kiev on May 14. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) MOSCOW — The decision, signed by President Petro Poroshenko, was announced in an updated sanctions list, which included the Russian search giant Yandex, social media sites like Odnoklassniki, and a number of Russian state and private television channels. The spokesman for the Kremlin described the new sanctions as unfriendly and shortsighted and warned that there could be retaliation. The sanctions, which target the companies that run the sites, mean they cannot do business in Ukraine, but it is not clear if the country has the legal and technical means to totally block them. As of Tuesday afternoon, the sites were still available in Ukraine. But in a statement posted online, a representative for Ukrtelekom, the country’s largest internet provider, said it would voluntarily follow the ban, and work on blocking the sites in the coming weeks. In response to the ban, Mail.ru, an email service, posted an online tutorial in how to use Virtual Private Networks to access sites being blocked by the government. Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council said the sanctions were in part to protect people from companies “whose activities threaten information and the cyber security of Ukraine,” according to a statement cited by Reuters news agency. Ukraine, along with Western countries, has targeted Russia with sanctions because of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and material support for separatists in the country’s southeast, including with direct military means. Even before Tuesday’s additions, the sanctions list totaled more than 400 Russian entities. Some Ukrainian officials, particularly in the Interior Ministry, had called for a ban of VKontakte because it helped promote “Russian propaganda.” According to data put out by the market research agency Kantar TNS for April 2017, VKontakte was the third most visited site in Ukraine following Google and YouTube. Mail.ru, an email client also on the list and the owner of Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, was the fourth most popular site in the country, while Yandex, the Russian search engine, is the fifth most popular site. In a statement, Mail.ru said it regretted the move, adding that 26 million users would be affected by the sanctions but its operations in Ukraine only made up an insignificant share of its total revenue.


Mexicans mourn well-known journalist as risks to reporters skyrocket

Javier Valdez, shown in 2013, was the sixth Mexican journalist slain this year. (Fernando Brito/AFP/Getty Images) MEXICO CITY — Valdez, 50, on Monday published the last of his weekly columns in Ríodoce, the publication he founded in 2003. He was fatally shot that afternoon as he drove away from the newsweekly’s offices in the state capital, Culiacan — a city beset by a battle for control of the criminal empire of Guzmán, who was captured last year. Valdez was among Mexico’s most prominent journalists. His killing has shocked the nation, even as it experiences an upswing in homicides, with statistics showing Mexico on pace to experience one of its most murderous years in recent memory. Some media outlets decided to cease activities Tuesday in a show of solidarity with Ríodoce. Valdez was the sixth Mexican journalist slain this year. His death came amid a wave of attacks against media professionals, who frequently resort to self-censorship to avoid attacks by criminal groups. Journalists often receive little sympathy from police and politicians — some of whom are in cahoots with the cartels “The murder of Javier is one more link in a long chain of impunity,” said Javier Garza Ramos, former editor of El Siglo de Torreón, a publication whose offices have been shot at five times. Four of its reporters were kidnapped in 2013 and held for 10 hours. “Anyone who wants to silence the press can do it and have the confidence nothing will happen to them,” he said. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says that since 1992, at least 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico because of their work, while motives in the cases of 50 other reporters slain in the same period remain uncertain. Ríodoce reported that Valdez was pulled from his Toyota Camry and shot 12 times in a daytime attack made to look like a carjacking. Police have no suspects. The federal attorney general’s office announced that it would investigate. The gunmen “were going to kill him,” the newsweekly’s director, Ismael Bojórquez Perea, said in an interview. “There is no doubt about that.” Valdez and his colleagues — particularly those who reported on the illegal drug trade — knew the risks involved in their work. “We worked in fear, knowing that some day this could happen,” Bojórquez said. As word of Valdez’s killing spread, journalists rushed to the crime scene, crying, hugging and mourning


Family of slain Seth Rich says reports that he fed DNC info to WikiLeaks are untrue

Seth Rich was shot and killed July 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Democratic National Committee) The family of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich rejected Fox News reports that he had leaked work emails to WikiLeaks before he was fatally shot last year near his home in the District. The reports, which gained traction on social media, said that an FBI forensics examination showed that Rich transferred 44,053 DNC emails and 17,761 attachments to a now-deceased WikiLeaks director. Rich’s parents, Joel and Mary Ann Rich, said Tuesday through a spokesman that they do not think their son gave any information to WikiLeaks. Rich was shot July 10, 2016, in Northwest Washington’s Bloomingdale neighborhood. D.C. police have repeatedly said that they think Rich was killed in a random robbery attempt, but several conspiracy theories have emerged about his death. No arrests have been made. “As we’ve seen through the past year of unsubstantiated claims, we see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails and only learned about this when contacted by the press,” Rich’s family said in a statement. “We are a family who is committed to facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract law enforcement and the general public from finding Seth’s murderers.” Seth Rich came to D.C. to pursue a career in politics and last worked at the Democratic National Committee. Rich was shot dead on July 10, 2016. Here is what's known about the murder. Several federal and local law enforcement authorities also said Tuesday that they were not aware that Rich sent any DNC information to WikiLeaks. “There is nothing that we can find that any of this is accurate,” said Dustin Sternbeck, the chief spokesman for D.C. police, which is leading the investigation into Rich’s death. He would not be more specific. FBI spokesmen declined to comment, saying that the agency is not involved in the case, and referred questions to D.C. police. Law enforcement officials have said that Rich’s computer and email activity have been examined and suggest nothing that would connect him to WikiLeaks — which, 12 days after Rich’s death, published 20,000 emails that embarrassed former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the DNC, and forced the ouster of its chairwoman. The DNC said in a statement: “We know of no evidence that supports these allegations.” The