China’s leaders focus on overhauling the world’s second-largest economy

1998 to 2003, reform the country’s state-owned companies more than 10 years ago. “It was clear from the discussions that China has made a serious commitment to their reform agenda,” Lew told reporters at the conclusion of his two-day visit to China. “The dominant theme was what can be done to generate more domestic demand and more growth.” Transforming China’s economy is a gargantuan task but one that China’s leaders may think is necessary for their political survival. There are domestic pressures for reform. Unemployment among college graduates has become a chronic problem since China has plenty of low-paying manual labor jobs but few opportunities for skilled, white-collar workers. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs trying to build private businesses often complain about competing against state-funded firms that benefit from the support of corrupt local officials. Whether China’s current crop of leaders succeeds in the project could even determine how much longer the Communist Party stays in power and, in turn, what the United States’ relationship with the country will look like for years to come. Lew will presumably be studying up on China as he steps into his new Cabinet role. His two predecessors in the Treasury Department, Henry Paulson and Timothy F. Geithner, were known as China buffs. Lew’s trip this week was his first to the Middle Kingdom. He appears to be off to a good start. Lew’s squeaky-clean image in the United States seemed to translate well in China, where the country’s famously opinionated netizens weighed in on his lunch choice in Beijing. Lew and three colleagues ate at an ordinary dumpling place in Beijing where the bill totaled $17. The Chinese, who are used to seeing government officials eat like kings, were pleased with Lew’s pick, as they were with Vice President Biden’s similarly modest meal in Beijing in 2011 and U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke’s decision to fly to China in economy class. “After reading today’s news about Lew’s 109 yuan dumpling meal, I was reminded of Joe Biden’s 79 yuan meal in a small Beijing eatery, and Gary Locke’s flight to Beijing in an economy class cabin,” said scholar Xu Xin on Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, according to the South China Morning Post. “I also think of the hundreds of billions of yuan our public servants spend each year on meals, transport and overseas trips, and children in rural China who can’t afford clothes, food or school furniture.”


Foreign citizens making big investments in U.S. in exchange for green cards

Judith Dekker moved from the Netherlands to Denmark in 1990, bought a dairy farm and ran it for nearly a decade. But they yearned to move to a place with more open spaces, cheaper land, lower taxes and more adventure — Canada, maybe, or the United States. So in 1999 they flew to Texas to pursue their dream. Way too hot. Then they heard about Dutch farmers who had settled in central Michigan, in a place called the Thumb. On a map, Michigan looks like a mitten, and its thumb is a peninsula in Lake Huron. They visited. Cool breezes, endless pastures and rich soil. It felt like home. In 2000, they received a visa called an E2, which allows citizens of countries that have commercial treaties with the United States to move here to run a business, provided they make a “substantial” investment and run the business themselves. The E2 visa can be renewed every two years, but it does not offer a path to citizenship. Most significant for the Dekkers, children are covered only until they turn 21; after that, they must leave the country. The Dekkers sold their farm in Denmark and paid $250,000 for their farm in Ubly. They moved into their small white farmhouse in 2000 and started their new life with three young children, a couple of ramshackle barns and 70 Holsteins. Over the next decade they slowly built barns, added milking equipment, hired a dozen employees, and bought fields to grow corn and hay to feed their expanding herd. They paid their taxes and put their kids in public schools. And they grew their farm into a 1,000-acre operation that is one of the largest dairies in the area. But in 2011, worried that their teenagers would soon turn 21, they called an immigration lawyer in Detroit. She told them about EB-5 and referred them to a company that advises U.S. firms and foreign investors. That firm gave them a list of development projects that were seeking EB-5 investors, including a Florida shopping mall. The Dekkers have never been to Washington, but they chose the Marriott Marquis because they said they felt safe investing in a big-name hotel chain in the nation’s capital. They were then directed to Brunner, of EB5 Capital, who was working with Marriott. Brunner and her staff explained the project and led the Dekkers through the process. On July


Drone base in Niger gives U.S. a strategic foothold in West Africa

paved roads in the capital. Many people live in mud-brick shanties. Goats and camels are a common sight in the city center. U.S. and Nigerien officials had worried that the drones might spur a popular backlash in Niger, where about 90 percent of the population is Muslim. Extra security barriers were raised outside the U.S. and French embassies as a precaution. So far, however, reaction has been muted, and many people seem to favor anything that the U.S. and French militaries can do to prevent a spillover of violence from Mali. “Of course, we might have some narrow-minded Nigeriens,” said Marou Amadou, who serves as Niger’s justice minister and its chief government spokesman. “But people understand that the presence of these drones is very, very helpful. . . . What is happening in Mali could happen in Niger also.” Nonetheless, U.S. troops have kept a low profile. Americans with short haircuts and a military bearing occasionally surface at a couple of Niamey hotels to eat barbecue or drink beer, but most confine themselves to the base. The Africa Command did not respond to questions about how many U.S. troops are in Niger, but one U.S. official said the number of Air Force personnel had increased beyond the 100 troops Obama said last month he had deployed. “We just know there are drones; we don’t know what they are doing exactly,” said Djibril Abarchi, chairman of the Nigerien Association for the Defense of Human Rights, an independent watchdog group. “Nothing is visible. There is no transparency in our country with military questions. No one can tell you what’s going on.” Most Nigeriens are strongly opposed to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the terrorist network’s affiliate, and recognize that their country is vulnerable without foreign military help, said Boureima Abdou Daouda, an imam in Niamey who leads a regional council of religious leaders that advises governments on countering extremism. At the same time, as in many African countries, the presence of foreign troops is a sensitive issue given the history of colonialism in Niger. Daouda warned that the government could face trouble if it doesn’t shore up popular support and do a better job of publicly explaining why the American drones are necessary. “Someone with bad intentions could say, ‘They are here to cause strife with Muslims,’ ” he said. “People might demonstrate. They might riot. Big flames begin with little flames.”


J. Jefferson Looney seeks to decipher Thomas Jefferson’s writings

likely go under “S” for slavery. “We go a healthy amount of crazy,” said Ellen Hickman, one of Looney’s assistant editors. Those who have spent decades on mammoth documentary projects say Looney has an uncommon touch. “Many people do this work extremely well. But to do it at the very highest level takes a kind of gift,” said Ellen R. Cohn, editor of “The Papers of Benjamin Franklin.” It “takes extraordinary creativity, in that you’ve got to recognize clues in distant jottings and scraps of paper that can be the building blocks of a big story.” Jefferson was a loquacious correspondent on matters scientific, architectural, political and more. He used a primitive copy machine and kept a detailed log of letters. The era’s climbers often wrote him, testing ideas and seeking wisdom — and job recommendations, which didn’t always turn out. Jefferson sent a recommendation to President James Madison on behalf of a neighbor who wanted a post in Lisbon. Jefferson also enclosed another letter at the same time, noting that the neighbor “is not qualified by education or understanding for the duties of the office.” He didn’t get the job. ‘Ability to go into details’ Mail meant for J. Jefferson Looney at Monticello is often addressed to T. Jefferson Looney. But he was named for his great-grandfather in Missouri, not the father of American democracy. Looney’s father, Chesley, helped design a worldwide satellite tracking system for NASA. His mother, Ida Ruth, was an English major and homemaker who hooked the kids on books and has been Looney’s Scrabble partner for decades. One brother worked on software to repair the Hubble telescope, another with air traffic control systems. “All of them have an ability to go into details,” Chesley Looney said. J. Jefferson Looney would ride his bike from his boyhood home in Hyattsville to the University of Maryland, where he majored in history and math. Today, he often sounds like a Dashiell Hammett character, saying one of his main jobs is to “try to smell a rat.” He smelled one in a letter sent to Jefferson on April 23, 1812. At first it just looked like a bunch of numbers. 153.49.42.920 72.51.36.375 68.53.15.150 But Looney saw a story. Jefferson’s correspondent was calculating the longitude of the U.S. Capitol, trying to build a case that the young nation should reset its maps with Washington — not Greenwich, England — as


Big Bang’s afterglow reveals older universe

That ancient light has traveled for billions of years from the very early universe to reach Earth. The patterns of light represent the seeds of galaxies and clusters of galaxies seen today. The information released Thursday from the European Space Agency’s Planck space telescope “is the most sensitive and sharpest map ever” of that light, said Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics for NASA. “It’s as if we have gone from standard television to high-definition television; new and important details have become crystal-clear,” he said. By studying the high-resolution details of this map, he said, scientists can answer deep and fundamental questions about the history of the universe and its complex composition. The Vela pulsar, Cassiopeia A supernova, Martian rock and more. Using the first 15 months of data from the telescope, scientists created an all-sky picture of the afterglow — light imprinted on the sky when the universe was just a baby, about 370,000 years old. NASA contributed technology, and U.S., European and Canadian scientists analyzed the data. “The extraordinary quality of Planck’s portrait of the infant universe allows us to peel back its layers to the very foundations, revealing that our blueprint of the cosmos is far from complete,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency. The results suggest the universe is expanding more slowly than scientists thought. The data also show there is less of the perplexing dark energy and more matter — both normal and dark matter — in the universe than previously known. Dark matter is an invisible substance that can be perceived only by observing the effects of gravity, while dark energy is a mysterious force thought to be responsible for pushing the universe apart. The afterglow started out as a white-hot glow, but during 13.8 billion years, as the universe expanded by 1,100 times, it cooled. In a testament to its sensitivity, the Planck telescope measured it to be less than 3 degrees Celsius above absolute zero. The temperature typically varies by less than one 100 millionth of a degree across the sky. By matching the data to predictions from mathematical models, scientists can assemble a surprisingly detailed picture of the universe an instant after the Big Bang. But the new map raises questions: some features that don’t quite fit with the current understanding about the age, contents and fundamental characteristics of the universe, based on a simple model developed by


Silicon Valley faces tough use and piracy issues

and, depending on what happens in the courts, its open Internet rules [net neutrality]. I see those as very important issues. How about the FTC? The implementation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act will be very closely watched. There is some ambiguity on final regulations, and the industry will have to work with the FTC on how the rules apply to third-party plug-ins like social media and whether that really applies. Will SOPA, the controversial anti-piracy bill from January 2012, come back in some form? I don’t see another SOPA coming up in the near term, but there will always be tensions when you have the scale of the Internet and people doing unlawful things. There will be questions on the roles and responsibilities of conduits [Internet sites, for example] and what the responsibilities of those conduits should be. In Silicon Valley’s view, current law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is doing its job. But content and media firms don’t feel that way and would like to reopen the debate. But I don’t see another frontal assault like we saw with SOPA. How do you think companies and government leaders should deal with the problem of illegal piracy of Internet content? There is no one rifle-shot solution. Business models have to adapt and partnerships need to form between tech and content companies. That helps the whole ecosystem. There will be interesting issues around Internet television, and Aereo’s case in the 2nd Circuit Court in New York illustrates big questions that remain on this issue. I can see this case or similar cases going to the Supreme Court. It is a big issue because it impacts the roles and responsibilities of cloud computing for the storage of content. What are the Internet TV trends Washington policymakers will watch? There is a tremendous shift in viewing habits underway. Users are increasingly not satisfied with linear television. They want to be able to watch content at any time and place of their choosing. You’re seeing businesses try to challenge some traditional marketplace arrangements. The moves by Cablevision and Verizon to challenge programmers are very interesting. But there is not a massive amount of [cable] cord-cutting yet — it’s more like cord-shaving. Users aren’t satisfied with multiple tiers of content but are more satisfied with basic TV tiers and supplementing that with Netflix, Hulu or Apple. What is happening outside the U.S. that


Five myths about Chinese hackers

reasonable assessment would be that it costs the United States no more than $100 billion a year and perhaps much less — what some economists would describe as a rounding error in our $15 trillion economy. This is not death by a thousand cuts. It probably isn’t even slowing the U.S. economy. Even when China steals intellectual property, it can take years to turn it into a competitive advantage. The right technical skills and manufacturing base are needed to turn advanced designs into high-end competitive products. China is still lagging in many high-tech arenas, such as semiconductors. The one area where this is not true is military technology. Chinese espionage has led to rapid improvements in that country’s stealth, submarine-quieting, nuclear weapons and sensor technologies. While the economic risk from cyber-espionage is generally overstated, the United States has probably underestimated the damage to its lead in military technology. 5. America spies on China, too, so what can we complain about? Chinese officials portray their country as a victim of hacking. Meanwhile, some American scholars question whether the United States is in a position to criticize, since it also engages in cyber-espionage. “Perhaps the complaint is that the Chinese are doing better against our government networks than we are against theirs,” law professor Jack Goldsmith wrote. That misstates the issue. The Internet, poorly secured and poorly governed, has been a tremendous boon for spying. Every major power has taken advantage of this, but there are unwritten rules that govern espionage, and China’s behavior is out of bounds. Where Beijing crosses the line is in economic espionage: stealing secrets from foreign companies to help its own. China also outmatches all other countries in the immense scale of its spying effort, and the United States is far from the only nation to have suffered. The United States, by contrast, does not engage in economic espionage. As one Chinese official put it in recent talks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: “In America, military espionage is heroic and economic espionage is a crime, but in China the line is not so clear.” The United States and other countries need to make that line clearer and discourage China from crossing it. jalewis@csis.org Read more from Outlook, friend us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter. James Andrew Lewis is a senior fellow and director of the technology and public policy program at the


‘Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us’ by Michael Moss

toward healthier products and more responsible marketing. Jeffrey Dunn, a former president and chief operating officer for Coke, launched Dasani, a bottled-water company, and pushed to stop marketing Coke in public schools. In 2003, senior executives at Kraft took the unprecedented move of publishing the salt, sugar, fat and calorie content for the whole package, instead of the much lower single-serving figure, right on the food’s label. Kraft also stopped advertising unhealthy products to children. But most of these executives ended up quitting in frustration or getting fired for their unconventional views. Dunn, for example, now uses his marketing acumen to sell baby carrots. This is not a prescriptive book, and Moss offers no solutions — aside from encouraging readers to choose fresh fruits and vegetables over junk food. He hopes his book will serve as a wake-up call, “a tool for defending ourselves” when we enter the grocery store. Yet after 350 pages of indisputable proof of how Big Food — beholden to Wall Street but not to the public’s health — aggressively targets vulnerable populations such as children and the poor, it’s frustrating that he falls back on a “vote with your fork” refrain. Yes, it’s empowering to change your eating habits. But how can you choose healthy foods if your neighborhood bodegas sell only soda, chips and “fruit and yogurt” breakfast bars (which, as Moss points out, can have more sugar and less fiber than Oreos)? “An intervention by Washington would certainly seem to be in order,” he writes in his epilogue. But he stops short of offering a blueprint for how government should intervene. Should our elected officials take a page from Finland and require warnings on high-salt products? Should they subsidize fruits and vegetables, making fresh blueberries competitive with Snickers? Eliminate corn subsidies? Urge the FDA to remove fructose from “generally recognized as safe” status? Moss leaves these tough questions to public health advocates and organizations such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of the only groups brave enough to hold both the food industry and thegovernment accountable. But he does offer a hint as to how we can reverse our distinction of being the most obese country in the world. In the 1950s, he writes, an army of 25,000 home-economics teachers around the country “insisted on promoting home-cooked meals, prepared the old-fashioned way,” and thousands of federal outreach workers taught


Chinua Achebe, groundbreaking Nigerian novelist, dies at 82

what they should be.” In a literary and academic career spanning six decades and three continents, Mr. Achebe’s seminal book was his first, “Things Fall Apart” (1958), which has sold millions of copies in 45 languages and has become a staple of college reading lists. Taking its title from a line in William Butler Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming,” “Things Fall Apart” was a monumental rebuke to the Western tradition of portraying Africans as savages and whites as noble. Its hero, Okonkwo, is a champion wrestler and brave leader in a fictional Nigerian village who is unable to bend to the culture introduced by British colonizers and missionaries. His inability to assimilate ultimately leads to his suicide, a fate that results from Okonkwo’s own failings as well as the insidiousness of colonialism. Mr. Achebe considered the tragic ending “almost inevitable,” and also the beginning of the story of post-colonial Nigeria (which began in 1960). The novel won moderate praise from Western literary critics but was eventually considered among the most important works of 20th-century fiction, lauded by writers as diverse as Toni Morrison and Junot Diaz. Morrison said she found the work liberating, once telling the Guardian newspaper: “He inhabited his world in a way that I didn’t inhabit mine — the things he could take for granted — insisting on writing outside the white gaze, not against it.” Former South African president Nelson Mandela, long jailed during apartheid, once said he drew strength from Mr. Achebe as a writer “in whose company the prison walls fell down.” He added, “Both of us, in our differing circumstances within the context of white domination of our continent, became freedom fighters.” Mr. Achebe won literary awards throughout his career, including the prestigious Man Booker International Prize in 2007. The Nobel Prize — awarded in 1986 to a friend, Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka — eluded him. Mr. Achebe’s early success enabled him to devote considerable energy to championing the work of other African writers when he became editor of the British publisher Heinemann’s African Writers Series, a post he held for some 20 years from the early 1960s. “First of all, he is Africa’s greatest novelist, there is no question about that,” said Charles R. Larson, an emeritus professor at American University and a leading scholar of African literature. “He shaped the vision of Africa in the world by the books he accepted


Parwan prison to be returned to Afghans

opportunity for U.S. input will determine the disposition of detainees.” The United States, the official said, has received “private assurances from Afghan officials that the most dangerous of the detainees will not be released.” When Hagel, on his first overseas trip as defense secretary, visited Kabul the day after the turnover was canceled, Karzai publicly accused the United States of breaking an agreement on the facility and disrespecting Afghan sovereignty. He also charged U.S. forces with harassing and torturing Afghan civilians in the province of Wardak, west of Kabul, and accused the United States of colluding with the Taliban to prolong the war. The dispute disrupted negotiations over a larger bilateral security agreement that will set the terms for a continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after the final withdrawal of combat troops in December 2014. Karzai equated Afghan sovereignty over the prison to the United States’ insistence that the U.S. troops be given immunity from Afghan legal jurisdiction as part of a post-2014 security accord. The Obama administration considers completion of the accord by this summer crucial to timely planning of ongoing counterterrorism operations and long-term military and civilian assistance to Afghanistan. Afghan officials attributed Karzai’s public excoriation of the United States to domestic political constraints as Afghanistan heads toward elections next year and Karzai seeks to establish his legacy as an independent leader. U.S. officials expressed private outrage but said little. The Wardak issue was settled last week, when Karzai and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, announced that the American troops would gradually pull out of the province, along with U.S.-trained Afghan local police units. The Afghan Defense Ministry said they would be replaced with Afghan army units but set no timeline. The prison issue was more difficult. Afghan officials said Karzai would not be able to build public support for the bilateral security agreement, including U.S. troop immunity, unless he prevailed on the transfer. Last year, the United States turned thousands of battlefield prisoners over to Afghan custody at Parwan prison. Although many have been tried and convicted under Afghan penal code, about 100 have been released each month for lack of evidence. By December, only about 700 prisoners — including those newly detained on the battlefield — remained under American control. Among them are 30 to 40, some of them held for years, that the U.S. military considers “enduring security


Maryland pit bull owners left in limbo over liability

PIT BULLS ARE banned as pets in much of Europe and in some localities across the United States, including Prince George’s County, on account of their involvement in a disproportionate number of lethal attacks on people. A bitter debate has raged for years about whether they are an “inherently dangerous” breed, as Maryland’s highest court ruled last year, or simply spirited pets that tend to attract bad owners — those mainly interested in their prowess as fighters and guard dogs — as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals maintains. In either case, they aren’t likely to disappear from U.S. households anytime soon, meaning that state and local lawmakers are left to make rules governing liability for attacks. In Annapolis, legislators have tried for months to come up with rules, so far unsuccessfully. Their efforts are impelled by a ruling by the Maryland Court of Appeals last year that singled out pit bulls for special legal treatment, making their owners and landlords almost automatically responsible when a dog bites someone. Most lawmakers believe it’s unworkable to set a rule that applies uniquely to pit bulls, as the court did. We agree. Whether or not pit bulls are inherently dangerous, they’re hardly the only breed that might bite or maul. On top of that, it isn’t always easy to determine whether a dog can be classified as a purebred pit bull. Clearly, Maryland’s old rule, which excused dog owners from blame or responsibility for an attack if the pet was a first-time offender, was inadequate. As a matter of public safety, it makes more sense to expect owners to prove that their dogs are not dangerous. But in trying to set standards governing liability, the two houses of the General Assembly have reached what looks like an impasse. A bill in the state Senate would require a dog owner seeking to avoid liability from an attack to provide “clear and convincing” proof that he was unaware of his pet’s aggressive tendencies. The bill in the House of Delegates is similar but requires owners to show only that a preponderance of the evidence indicated that the dog would not harm someone. It’s fair to wonder if either is workable: After all, how would dog owners go about proving a negative in the first place? But as a matter of practical significance in the real world, lawmakers have to settle


National Cherry Blossom Festival daily highlights

Blossom Watch Cherry Blossom events Monday, March 25 ●Arts at the Center presented by Events DC at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center: Curator-led tours. Reservations required. Phone: 202-249-3200. E-mail: community@eventsdc.com. Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Pl. NW. 7-8:30 p.m. Metro: Mount Vernon Square/Seventh Street-Convention Center. ●Boat Tour Along the Blossoms and Monuments: 11:30 a.m., 12:40 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 3:10 p.m., 4:15 p.m. and 5:40 p.m. Cost: $24 for adults, $12 children ages 4 to 12 (Children younger than 4 are not allowed.) Tickets must be bought in advance at DC-Cruises.com. Washington Harbor, 3100 K St., NW. ●Blossoms by Bike: Bike around the pink and white blossoms that surround the Potomac Tidal Basin to East Potomac Park and beyond. From downtown: Tours held daily, noon-2 p.m. and 3-5 p.m. Departs from Old Post Office Pavilion, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Adults: $35, children (12 and younger) $25. For details on all events, visit nationalcherryblossomfestival.org. The Cherry Blossom hotline is 877-44BLOOM (442-5666). All events are free unless otherwise noted.


Transgender AU senior turns personal experience into political action

Sarah McBride poses in front of the White House in this undated family photo. Sarah established gender neutral housing on campus for every academic year, created an LGBTQ Studies Minor, increased accessibility of campus facilities for students with disabilities, and re-started a university scholarship fund to reward service to the AU and DC community. (Kevin Sutherland/Family Photo) At 22, Sarah McBride’s resume shows a passion for public service. Former president of American University’s student government. Intern with the White House Office of Public Engagement. Aide to Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D). Behind her narrative of aspiring politician aiming to fix the world, her resume doesn’t reflect the personal struggle she has faced her entire life. A year ago, McBride revealed that she had been living with a deep secret for 21 years. At the time, her name was Tim. In April 2012, on the last day of serving as the latest of AU’s many white, heterosexual male student body presidents, McBride revealed her inner struggle — she’s transgender. “Gender identity shouldn’t matter and doesn’t matter in my capacity as an employee, as a leader, as a person,” McBride said. “You can be true to yourself and still do what you want to do with your life . . . [T]hey don’t have to be mutually exclusive.” McBride channels her experiences to effect change at American. As president, she successfully lobbied for gender-neutral housing on campus and the creation of a Sexuality and Queer Studies minor. Her current efforts as a Class of 2013 senator include pushing for coverage of transgender transition care, such as medicine and surgery, in AU’s student health insurance policy. Though she said universities nationwide have become more effective at dealing with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, McBride challenged college campuses to constantly question how inclusive and accessible they are. “Universities should be havens, examples of where we want our society to go,” McBride said. “There is a need for universities to make sure that they’re not just addressing LGB issues, but addressing every issue in that spectrum.” But progress cannot be limited to “stereotypical” LGBT concerns like sexual discrimination and harassment, she said. “Unless we also address issues of racial inclusion and financial accessibility and issues that face students with disabilities, unless we’re talking about all of these issues, we’re really not truly addressing all LGBT issues because we’re not addressing all student issues,” McBride


Maryland farmers should report their use of hazardous pesticides

intersex fish in the area? — in part because they don’t know how much of which chemicals farmers are spraying. A bill in Maryland’s General Assembly would change that. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rates pesticides based on the risks they pose to people and wildlife, and only certified applicators are allowed to use restricted-use chemicals, the most concerning type. But these regulations can’t prevent runoff — and a recent EPA report on toxic contaminants in the bay found that they did not in the case of pesticides such as atrazine, with uncertain effects on the life that depends on the Chesapeake’s waters, including the humans who drink from it. So some Maryland lawmakers want to require those who spray restricted-use pesticides to report what they use and when to the state. Maryland law already obliges these farmers to keep records. All they would have to do is report their records to the state’s Agriculture Department. With access to the database, scientists would have a better sense of what chemicals to look for; they could better sort out which chemicals tend to flow into the bay at high rates and which stay on land; and they could construct geographically exact maps of chemical use and entry points into the water. That will help them tease out what’s disrupting the marine environment — not just intersex fish but also thin-shelled waterfowl eggs and tumor-ridden bottom feeders. Naturally, though, farmers aren’t excited about a new rule. They complain that it will cost money to computerize their records and send them to Annapolis. They also worry that a centralized database with information on the use of only one class of agricultural chemicals — not others used in homes — will lead some to jump to conclusions about pesticides’ effects on the environment. The Maryland Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, seems uninterested in collecting the data. But the EPA closely regulates the chemicals in question for a reason: They are the most dangerous. Therefore they are the first that scientists should study. If Maryland farmers are already putting in the effort to keep records, it’s hardly outrageous for state lawmakers to push its Agriculture Department to collect that information and then to provide it to scientists. It will then be on the scientists to use that information responsibly. Who knows: They might even find that pesticides aren’t to blame for some of the bay’s maladies.


Within mainstream environmentalist groups, diversity is lacking

in 1985. . . . White groups weren’t hiring black professionals, and when they did, it was a hostile atmosphere. There were a handful of black professionals in the environmental groups then, and there are a handful now.” Around the time that Tutman, now 54, was certified as a riverkeeper, the African American Environmentalist Association issued a report card for 26 environmental groups based on their diversity for 2003-2004. Eighteen declined to respond to the request for the makeup of their staffs, and most of the others received poor scores. The association hasn’t issued a report card since because it was an exercise in frustration, McDonald said. “We moved on.” They formed scores of smaller groups in low-income communities under the “environmental justice” banner and say they address issues that big groups do not: toxins leaking from power plants, urban food deserts where grocery stores don’t exist, efforts to pave over urban green spaces where children play. They operate on shoestring budgets. A 2001 report on the origins of the environmental justice movement found that it gets only 5 percent of the conservation funding from foundations, while mainstream environmental groups receive the rest. “We essentially have a racially segregated environmental movement,” said Van Jones, co-founder of the nonprofit Rebuild the Dream and a former adviser on green jobs to the Obama administration. “We’re too polite to say that. Instead, we say we have an environmental justice movement and a mainstream movement.” Wilderness protection The Sierra Club, billed as the nation’s oldest and largest grass-roots environmental organization with 1.3 million members, was founded in 1892. Like groups that followed, such as the Nature Conservancy in 1915 and the National Wildlife Federation in 1936, they were largely white, upper- and middle-class, and focused on the protection of wilderness areas. Two decades later, Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” alerted Americans to the impact of pesticides and toxic pollution on the environment. Acting on Carson’s revelations, the mainstream environmental groups helped to push chemical warehouses, pesticide companies and coal-fired power plants from rural and exurban areas, and many polluters migrated to low-income urban areas where people of color live. In the 1980s, the Government Accountability Office, the United Church of Christ and the Commission for Racial Justice each issued reports that established a direct link between race and the location of toxic-waste sites, according to a study on power plants and their proximity


Kerry and Karzai smooth over tensions as Afghans take control of detention center

prison agreement that both said ensures that Afghan sovereignty over its own affairs is respected. Officials withheld many details about the deal, including whether the United States will keep its veto power over the release of 30 to 40 detainees referred to as “enduring security threats,” who American officials say pose a serious danger to U.S. and Afghan troops. “It is important for the people of Afghanistan,” Karzai said of the prison, known as Bagram to Afghans, which has been a symbol of sometimes heavy-handed U.S. military control. “It is very closely linked to our sovereignty, and our sovereignty has to be respected.” Kerry said Karzai “agrees that there are certain people there who shouldn’t be out creating problems,” and Karzai described a process for reviewing cases about which the United States and Afghanistan disagree. He was vague about what would happen if that review did not resolve the differences. It is also unclear whether the U.S. mechanism of “administrative detention,” under which some detainees remain in custody without trial, will be continued under Afghan control. Kerry said the announcement of the transfer means the United States no longer holds prisoners in Afghanistan. At the end of last year, about 3,800 detainees were at Parwan, about 700 of whom were under American control. The rate of release was significantly higher in cases adjudicated by Afghans. Kerry’s trip also took him to Iraq. In both war-scarred countries, the secretary pushed a message of U.S. support while making clear that Washington won’t call all the shots. As a senator, Kerry traveled to Afghanistan during similarly tense moments. In 2009, he went to Kabul to urge Karzai to hold a runoff election after a victory that many saw as tainted by fraud. In 2010, Kerry accused Karzai of ignoring corruption in his government, warning the Afghan president that his poor leadership could embitter both American lawmakers and the families of U.S. troops. Kerry and Karzai said they had helpful discussions about the prospect of reconciliation with the Taliban, but they gave few specifics. The issue is complicated by Karzai’s demand that the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar sign a memorandum of understanding that would allow for the opening of a Taliban office in Doha. Officials in Qatar have refused to sign such an agreement, which would outline the purpose of the Taliban office and codify the Afghan government’s role in peace talks. Meanwhile,


Gulf War veterans show abnormalities in scans of their brains

Correction: When she returned from the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Air Force nurse Denise Nichols experienced sudden aches, fatigue and cognitive problems, but she had no idea what was causing them. They grew worse: Even helping her daughter with multiplication tables became difficult, she says, and eventually she had to quit her job. Nichols wasn’t alone. About a third of Gulf War veterans — possibly as many as 250,000 Americans — returned with similar symptoms. Now an imaging study has found that these veterans have what appear to be unique structural changes in the wiring of their brains. This fits with the scientific consensus that Gulf War Syndrome, or GWS, is a physical condition rather than a psychosomatic one and should be treated with painkilling drugs instead of counseling. Military authorities in various countries consistently denied in the past that there was a physical basis to GWS. Although the Department of Veterans Affairs now accepts that the disorder is physical, the issue has been mired in controversy. Steven Coughlin, a former senior epidemiologist at Veterans Affairs, testified this month before a congressional panel that the VA had suppressed and manipulated research data so as to suggest that the disorder was psychosomatic. Coughlin told the panel: “If the studies produce results that do not support the [VA’s] unwritten policy, they do not release them. . . . On the rare occasions when embarrassing study results are released, data are manipulated to make them unintelligible. . . . Anything that supports the position that Gulf War illness is a neurological condition is unlikely to ever be published.” In response, the VA said that the organization has a “long history of conducting world-class research studies that meet accepted and rigorous scientific standards.” They also note that “all allegations of malfeasance are taken seriously and are investigated fully.” Causes still sought Whatever the cause of GWS, it is certainly not psychological, says Bernard Rosof of Huntington Hospital in New York, although no single cause is known. Suggested causes include exposure to low levels of sarin gas when chemical munitions were destroyed, and a drug called pyridostigmine bromide, which soldiers were given to protect them from sarin. It’s vital to find an objective test that will allow physicians to make a diagnosis, says James Baraniuk, an associate professor at Georgetown University Medical Center and one of the co-authors of the new imaging study. To


Chinese citizen sentenced in military data-theft case

NEWARK, N.J. On Monday, Sixing Liu, a Chinese citizen who worked at L-3’s space and navigation division, was sentenced in federal court here to five years and 10 months for taking thousands of files about the device, called a disk resonator gyroscope, and other defense systems to China in violation of a U.S. arms embargo. The case illustrates what the FBI calls a growing “insider threat” that hasn’t drawn as much attention as Chinese cyber operations. But U.S. authorities warned that this type of espionage can be just as damaging to national security and American business. “The reason this technology is on the State Department munitions list, and controlled . . . is it can navigate, control and position missiles, aircraft, drones, bombs, lasers and targets very accurately,” said David Smukowski, president of Sensors in Motion, the small company in Bellvue, Wash., developing the technology with L-3. “While it saves lives, it can also be very strategic. It is rocket science.” Smukowski estimated that the loss of this tiny piece of technology alone could ultimately cost the U.S. military hundreds of millions of dollars. These six companies have fallen victim to major cyber attacks in recent months. In the past four years, nearly 100 individual or corporate defendants have been charged by the Justice Department with stealing trade secrets or classified information for Chinese entities or exporting military or dual-use technology to China, according to court records. A number of other cases involving China remain under seal, according to the Justice Department. The targets of all this theft are some of the biggest and best-known U.S. defense contractors and private companies, with household names such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, Ford, DuPont and Dow Chemical. “America is a global leader in the development of military technologies and, as such, it has become a leading target for the theft and illicit transfer of such technologies,” said John Carlin, acting assistant attorney general for national security. “These schemes represent a threat to our national security. The intelligence community has assessed China to be among the most aggressive collectors of sensitive U.S. information and technologies and our criminal prosecutions across the country reflect that assessment.” Earlier this month, a Chinese citizen who worked as a contractor at NASA’s Langley Research Center was arrested at Dulles Airport and charged with making false statements to federal agents about the laptop and SIM card he


Colorado pot growers gear up for ‘green rush’

Entrepreneurs who are hoping to cash in on the legalization of pot in Colorado are struggling with the unique challenges of conducting a business that the federal government still considers a crime. The pot industry in Colorado is undergoing a massive makeover as it prepares to begin selling marijuana for recreational use legally under state law. Businesses are ramping up production, and trade associations are cleaning up their image, anticipating what could be a billion-dollar industry. But the entrepreneurs who are hoping to cash in on the “green rush” starting next year are struggling with the unique challenges of conducting a business that the federal government considers a crime. The state’s pot producers and retailers are having trouble securing business financing because banks won’t give them loans — and most of the time, not even an account. State lawmakers are about to shake up the marketplace in unpredictable ways with regulations covering everything from the shape of containers to the labeling required for pot-laced brownies and other “infused products.” And business owners say they’re anxious about the intentions of the federal government, which could seize millions of dollars they have invested or even send them to prison. Irv Rosenfeld has received shipments of marijuana cigarettes from the federal government for more than 30 years. They’ve eased the impact of his rare illness and created some awkward moments at airport security. At a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that he would soon announce a response to the initiatives in Colorado and Washington last year legalizing pot for recreational use. The federal government, which deems marijuana a controlled substance, could upend the plans of Colorado entrepreneurs at any moment. Last year, the state’s voters approved a constitutional amendment to “regulate marijuana like alcohol” for adults to buy in small amounts, building on the state’s 13-year-old law allowing the sale of marijuana to medical patients. Under the new measure, marijuana stores, or dispensaries, must register with the state, but many of the other regulations governing pot sales are still being finalized. Kristi Kelly, 35, began selling medical marijuana three years ago and plans to grow the business when recreational sales become legal in 2014. Her Good Meds company includes three stores and two industrial indoor gardens. Wearing a blue blazer and knee-high leather boots on a recent tour of her operation, Kelly


Maryland House approves medical marijuana bill

Members of the Maryland House of Delegates debate a measure to ban capital punishment in Annapolis on Friday. (Patrick Semansky/Associated Press) The Maryland House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved a bill Monday that would legalize medical marijuana, although under such limited circumstances that it remained unclear how many distribution centers would open and when. The 108 to 28 vote sent the bill to the Senate, where lawmakers have passed separate legislation that would decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. Senators said they would give medical marijuana careful consideration during the final two weeks of the 90-day session. The action came on one of the General Assembly’s busiest days, as both chambers sent scores of bills to the other to meet a Monday “crossover” deadline. Other bills that advanced would allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, stiffen penalties on domestic abusers and help implement the federal health-care law in Maryland. The Senate also passed a bill that would make use of a hand-held cellphone while a driving a “primary offense” instead of a “secondary offense,” meaning that alone would be reason enough for a police officer to pull a motorist over and issue a ticket. Supporters of the House medical marijuana bill hailed it as a significant step toward a compassionate treatment option for people with illnesses such as cancer and multiple sclerosis. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar laws.California was the first, adopting its version in 1996. Maryland’s bill would limit distribution of marijuana to a small number of qualified academic medical centers. Legislative analysts say it’s unclear whether any of those would be eligible and interested in participating. Two of the state’s most prominent institutions — the University of Maryland Medical System and Johns Hopkins University — have indicated that, at least for now, they are not. Del. Dan K. Morhaim (D-Baltimore County), the bill’s primary sponsor, said he is confident that if the measure becomes law, qualified academic centers will come forward to take part. “I can understand them not wanting to be out front on this,” said Morhaim, who is a doctor. “They need to watch and see what the road map is.” Under the bill, the centers would be required to monitor patients and publish their findings, an approach that officials in the administration of Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) have characterized as cautious enough to win their support. Legislative analysts say the earliest


Wal-Mart and American Express prepaid card gets FDIC insurance

American Express announced Tuesday that its prepaid debit cards will now be backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the latest indication that a market once shunned by established financial institutions is gaining ground. The use of reloadable prepaid cards has exploded in the wake of the credit crisis that left millions of Americans outside the traditional banking system. But reloadable prepaid cards do not offer the same financial protections for consumers as checking accounts. They also operate with fewer regulatory constraints. Facing increasing scrutiny from consumer advocates, the vast majority of card operators have opted in the past few years to carry up to $250,000 in mandatory deposit insurance per customer offered through the FDIC. American Express is one of the last major providers to sign on to that government backstop. The coverage will apply to Bluebird cards sold at Wal-Mart stores. The card carries the American Express insignia and operates much like a debit or credit card, with features such as roadside assistance and mobile banking. Customers also can write checks with the account and load up to $100,000 a year. “This product is really designed to be an alternative to traditional banking,” said Dan Schulman, group president of enterprise growth at American Express. “Technology is beginning to blur the distinction between those lines.” This move could expand American Express’s customer base. Bluebird customers will now be able to have government payments, such as Social Security, military pay and tax refunds, deposited directly onto their cards. Government funds can be deposited only into federally insured accounts. Demand for the cards exploded as nearly 1 million households exited the banking system between 2009 and 2011. The industry is expected to reach nearly $202 billion in revenue this year, compared with $28.6 billion in 2009, according to consulting firm Mercator Advisory Group. In the six months since Bluebird debuted, more than 575,000 customers have signed up, placing more than $275 million into their accounts. Many of these customers either had no desire for a traditional credit or debit card or could not apply for such products because of their poor credit histories, Schulman said. But consumer advocates have warned that prepaid card operators are not always forthcoming about their fees, including charges to load money, activate the card, speak to customer service or check a balance at an automated teller machine. They worry that card operators are steering lower-income consumers


Helping turn teachers into gardeners

month the garden coordinators meet for lectures on subjects including basic carpentry (for making raised beds and garden signs), composting and practical ways to implement what’s known as an environmental literacy plan. Having one person in charge of the garden has been a blessing, says Jinny Choi, a second-grade teacher at Stoddert Elementary in Glover Park. After a renovation in 2010, the school, in collaboration with DC Greens, built a 4,000-square-foot garden with eight raised beds, an herb garden, a native plant area, a butterfly-shaped pollinator garden and a shaded teaching area. That first year, Choi tried to help teachers develop lessons for their students and to plant and water and weed. She even came in on weekends to stay on top of the job. “I did my best to get out there and help kids plant,” Choi said. “But I wouldn’t say the garden was the best it could be.” Choi’s experience was typical. “It takes a lot to run an effective school garden program,” says Bernardi. “You need to engage the community. You need materials and volunteers. You need to be an advocate within the school and build support among teachers for outdoor learning time in the garden.” In the fall of 2011, Stoddert hired a garden coordinator, who is now participating in the Growing Garden Teachers program. Bethany Hanna, a garden coordinator at two schools in Ward 5, the Mary McLeod Bethune Day Academy and John Burroughs, participated in the Growing Garden Teachers program last year and has joined again this year. She had always loved food and had kept a garden at her home for six years. But, she says, “I hadn’t been teaching to children. I needed to learn how to show them what I know in a language they could understand.” The training, she added, is invaluable: “It’s like they’ve given us this toolbox with everything we could need.” The first thing that teachers need is seedlings. DC Greens has hired a gardener to work with environmental science students at Wilson High School, which has a state-of-the-art greenhouse that went largely unused until now. The students are growing 1,200 seedlings, and teachers can request the plants they want and pick them up at various times in the spring, summer and fall. DC Greens tries to respond to teachers’ needs as they arise. Last year, even with the part-time coordinators at schools, the group realized


Beer Madness: Round 1 decides the Sweet 16

The Washington Post’s annual Beer Madness focused on selections from local craft breweries in the annual tournament pitting 32 beers against each other in a bracket-style tournament. Round One of Beer Madness, our blind tasting of 32 brews (this year, all from the Chesapeake Bay region), ought to provoke the deepest pontificating, the most serious soul-searching. The beers in these initial taste-offs, after all, are matched to resemble one another in style, strength and intensity of flavor. And yet, of the 16 contests in our opening salvo, only three resulted in 5-4 squeakers, while 10 matchups were decided by 7-2 — or even more lopsided — verdicts. The elegantly malty Devils Backbone Vienna Lager upended the roasty Chocolate City Cerveza Nacional de la Capital, 8-1. Dogfish Head Raison D’Etre (which for panelist Carolyn Stromberg evoked “Ethiopian coffee” and “burnt caramel, figs”) similarly routed Brewer’s Art Resurrection. And District ChopHouse Bourbon Stout (likened to the hazelnut-flavored liqueur Frangelico) toppled Blue Mountain Dark Hollow 8-1 in a battle of big, boozy, barrel-aged brews. The biggest blowout, oddly, involved two beers nearly identical in flavor, as Rock Bottom White Ale blanked Port City Optimal Wit, 9-0. No one claimed to detect any obvious faults in the Optimal Wit. (Panelist Peter DeFazio, in fact, circled the Port City entry on his score sheet before switching allegiance.) A few tasters commented that the Rock Bottom White Ale had a richer mouth feel. But the winning beer seemed to draw most of the brickbats. Chef Bryan Voltaggio noted a whiff of “emulsified sausage.” Mixologist Gina Chersevani commented, “Smells like Mike Isabella’s pepperoni sauce,” referring to the chef-owner of Graffiato in the District’s Chinatown. But they both voted for the meat beer. Go figure. A few pairings did divide our panel sharply. In a face-off for hometown bragging rights, Belgian Pale Ale from the Gordon B iersch brewpub on Ninth Street NW sneaked by DC Brau’s the Citizen, 5-4. Joe Wallace picked up hints of “taffy smell” and “model glue” in the Citizen, while Chersevani found “acetone,” “apple juice” and “lemon peel.” The same beer reminded Stromberg of Bazooka Joe bubblegum. Doris Dixon praised the Belgian Pale Ale for “rich depth of cognac undertones, beautiful color, hoppy aroma.” “Unique” is an overused word, but DeFazio — a.k.a. U.S. Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) — probably was justified in applying it to Stillwater Cellar Door, with its pungent


Protecting dogs, their owners and the public

The Post is correct that the Maryland General Assembly must take action on pit-bull legislation [“Beware of dog legislation,” editorial, March 24]. The failure of lawmakers to reach a compromise puts dogs and their owners at risk, as families are forced to face a painful and life-changing decision: move out of their homes, or give up their beloved dogs. As a result of this inaction in Annapolis, animal shelters are receiving more pit-bull-type dogs, and landlords are evicting renters. Without a legislative fix, such actions are sure to multiply and leave dog owners, landlords, property managers and others in limbo. The law must be corrected, because breed alone is not predictive of whether a dog is dangerous. A dog’s propensity to bite is a product of several factors, including early socialization, its living conditions and the owner’s behavior. For example, chained dogs and non-neutered dogs are much more likely to bite. Many dogs that merely resemble the pit-bull-type look will be punished, which will lead to expensive court battles over whether a dog is or isn’t a pit bull. The legal framework created by the Maryland Court of Appeals is not just an anti-pit bull policy, it’s an anti-dog policy. We can do better for dogs and public safety. Tami Santelli, Bethesda The writer is Maryland state director for the Humane Society of the United States. ● A few years ago, when my son was 3 years old, he was viciously attacked by two large, off-leash dogs as he played in the woods behind our house. If his grandmother had not been close to him at the time, these dogs might have killed him. He had to go through extensive therapy to get over his fear of dogs, including the sound of dogs barking, a ubiquitous feature of suburban life. He will bear the scars for the rest of his life. The dogs’ owners, meanwhile, got off scot-free because previous attacks by these dogs (there were several) had not been reported to the police and Virginia law does not properly place the onus of responsibility on dog owners. While the vast majority of pet owners are responsible, legislation must be strengthened to ensure that those who do not control their dogs by following local leash laws are held criminally responsible when their dogs are involved in attacks. Erland Herfindahl, Springfield


Military officers should be judged on their handling of assault cases, report says

provides advice about health and science to policymakers in the federal government and the private sector. The recommendation about sexual assaults was part of a broad look at the health needs of troops and veterans involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although most of the returning troops have adjusted well to life after deployment, 44 percent have reported some problems. The most common overlapping health problems are PTSD, substance abuse, depression and symptoms attributed to traumatic brain injuries. But the problems seen today are just the beginning, the report said. “Previous wars have demonstrated that veterans’ needs peak several decades after their war service,” it said. To prepare, the federal government should undertake long-term cost forecasts like those that Congress requires for Social Security and Medicare, the report said. It said those forecasts should be conducted annually, publicly released by the Department of Veterans Affairs and confirmed by an independent expert. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in the deployment of about 2.2 million American troops as of mid-December, the report said. Women have played a central role in the efforts. They make up 14 percent of active-duty troops and nearly 18 percent of National Guard and reserve personnel. The panel’s recommendations often focused on the needs of returning female veterans. It said recent research indicates that female veterans have a higher risk of developing depression than their male counterparts, though they are less likely to commit suicide. “For more than a decade, female military service members have been subject to repeat deployments, have endured prolonged separation from families, have served side by side with men and have been exposed to harsh wartime conditions, including witnessing death and destruction,” the report said. Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said the Defense Department will consider the study’s findings and recommendations, and she stressed that sexual assault is not tolerated at the department. “We are committed to taking care of our people, and that includes doing everything possible to develop the best programs for our service members and their families,” Smith said. The report also said the Defense Department’s support services for military families tend to focus on married heterosexual couples and their children. The panel said the military should ensure that these services also help single parents, same-sex couples and step-families. The Defense Department and VA are required to provide Congress with a joint response by June. — Associated Press


Chat Leftovers: Name that snack

Is there no end to the Madness? First came the March variety, then the Beer variety and now: doughnuts. Okay, we’re not calling it Doughnut Madness, but our 12-week taste-off starts today, and when the powdered sugar settles we’ll be choosing and crowning our favorite hometown doughnut. Read our first report here. Also in Food this week, writer Tim Carman introduces you to Erik Bruner-Yang, who launched the spectacularly successful Toki Underground on H Street NE and is poised to open a “food and fashion” project nearby before the end of the year. Southern food maven Virginia Willis presents five tarts for the Easter table, both sweet and savory, and as someone who got to taste all of them, I can authoritatively say: yum. And Jane Black digs into the subject of those school gardens that became instantly popular — in some cases before the schools had quite figured out how to make use of them. And, of course, there’s the aforementioned Beer Madness, in which we announce our Round 1 results. Turns out brews from Maryland are doing themselves proud, as we sip our way to picking the best beer in the Chesapeake region. That’s a lot to swallow, so if you can’t get it all read by noon, you’re allowed to take an hour off to join our Free Range chat. We have a treat today: Virginia Willis will be a guest. Get your questions ready, and be there at 12 sharp. To get you in the spirit, here’s a leftover question from a previous chat: I used to know an Indian woman who would bring back snacks when she went to visit her family. Among them were chickpeas that she said were boiled, flattened, fried, then spiced. So addictive! I never got the recipe and can’t find them at local Indian grocery stores. Any thoughts on what they are, and either where to buy them or how to make them? Wow; I’m a chickpea lover and those sound amazing. But I’ve never had them, so for this question I knew I’d need reinforcements, and who better to call in than Monica Bhide? Monica says your snack seems to be chana jor garam, a popular street food in India, and she sent this link to a photo of a bag of the commercially produced product. As you can see on the cover, it’s described rather inelegantly as “squashed


Bethesda family’s Bee America finds success

The USDA recommends that the public come to the aid of honeybees by planting nectar-rich plants and using pesticides more judiciously. Others take it further by creating homes for bees. And they not only create the hives, but also check on them, clean them and, when necessary, rid them of mites and other predators. George “Bee George” Meyer, president of the Montgomery County Beekeepers Association, said beekeeping has become increasingly popular. The association has about 200 members, Meyer said. Each year, the 80-slot beekeeping class fills up. Meyer, whose 100 hives are in Takoma Park and Trappe, produced about 5,000 pounds of honey last year. He sells the honey under the name “Bee George Honey” at local farmers markets and co-ops. “Bees are in trouble, and people are concerned,” Meyer said. He has watched as beekeeping has become downright trendy. Over the years, he said, it has moved from the domain of farmers into a suburban pastime. Now, urban beekeeping is the latest thing. “Chefs are putting hives on their roofs,” he said. In the past few years, blogs have been created, nonprofits have started and books have been written on the subject of urban and suburban beekeeping. Novices can turn to the nonprofit conservation organization Honey Love for advice or register at the Beesource Beekeeping Web site, which boasts an online community of more than 14,000 registered members. Dozens of books have been published on the subject, from “Beekeeping for Dummies” to “The Urban Beekeeper: A Year of Bees in the City.” But it’s not just bees who need us; we need bees. Honeybees are not native to the United States. They were brought over from Europe by early settlers and have become integral to the way we produce food. Without bees, we simply could not get the large fruit, nut and vegetable yields our modern food system depends on, according to the USDA. For example, around this time of year, more than 1 million beehives are loaded into trucks for a cross-country trek to California, where they are let loose among flowering almond trees to pollinate them. Then, they are loaded up again, and the process is repeated all over the country with other crops, such as apples, berries, cantaloupes and cucumbers, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. All told, bees pollinate more than $15 billion worth of crops a year. But Meyer, White and Zemlo don’t


Nigeria hopes for railways’ resurrection

a local company, splitting the $153 million government contract. Even given the train’s slow speed — a function of the curves, gradient and narrow-gauge track — a reliable freight service would boost the economy. The roads have become congested and degraded, with transport costs, times and the accident rate increasing. In 2007, the World Bank estimated that fixing the existing narrow-gauge lines could see rail freight jump to 4.6 million tons within four years and passenger numbers to 10 million. Northern Nigeria, home to half the population and a struggling economy, would especially benefit, because items including petrol and food come by road from the southern ports. The region’s produce, such as skins and hides for export, goes back the same way in containers. Bashir Borodo, a Kano businessman and former president of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, said the resumption of rail freight had already had a “dramatic” effect. “Rates for moving commercial goods on the train are much cheaper than by road,” he said. “It’s a saving grace for the northern economy.” At the rundown Iddo station in Lagos, the journey’s starting point, little appears to have changed since independence. A handwritten fare list is tacked to the notice board, ticketing is manual, and the plant pots have the date “1956” painted on them. But the trains reflect the new world economic order. When Kazeem was a child, the equipment was British. The sleeper carriage she boarded shortly before the noon departure from Lagos this month was made in China, and the locomotive in Brazil. During her trip, the sweltering second-class carriage was packed with families, with some forced to sit in the aisle. With no running water on the train, the toilet facilities were soon a mess. Farther back, passengers in the air-conditioned first-class section, which included four policemen to guard the train, watched a Nigerian film. ‘So much better than the bus’ By late afternoon, workers in the restaurant car were stirring semolina fufu in a large pot. Music flowed from the bar, where Emmanuel Okewu, a 21-year-old shoemaker, had a Turbo King beer in one hand and a bottle of gin in the other. “This is so much better than the bus,” he said. Kazeem paid $31 for a berth in a first-class sleeper cabin, which had two beds, air-conditioning and private toilet with a jerrycan of water to wash. She shared it with a


Veterans must learn to connect with American civilians

Leslie Herman for The Washington Post Rear Adm. John F. Kirby is the U.S. Navy’s chief of information. This article is adapted from commencement remarks given at the Naval War College last month. In more than 10 years of war, we in the military have gone to great expense and trouble to listen to the concerns of foreign peoples and cultures. We have learned Dari and Arabic and Pashto. We have sat cross-legged in shura and tribal councils. And yet I worry that we do not pay our fellow Americans the same courtesy. It’s time that we do a better job understanding and relating to the people we serve. We do not talk with them. Too often, we talk at them. We are the guest speakers, the first-pitch-throwers, the grand marshals. We show them the power of our capabilities through air shows, port visits and other demonstrations. This outreach is important, but it isn’t always a two-way street. And it doesn’t improve our understanding of the society we defend. We tend to focus on the fact that, because so few Americans serve in uniform — something like 1 percent — they don’t understand us. There’s some truth to that. But is it solely their fault? We are, after all, volunteers in a proportionally small military. Americans can choose to serve or not. Not everyone in the world has that option. Even among those who want to serve, there are only so many qualified to join our ranks. And those ranks are not likely to expand in this time of fiscal austerity. Being honest with ourselves, we would admit that we have been well-resourced and fully supported by the home front. From lifesaving force-protection gear to counter-IED technology to the finest in unmanned systems and much more, the American people have — through their elected representatives — given us the tools we’ve needed to fight two wars. They’ve also helped us find jobs when we come home. They’ve given us world-class education benefits. And they’ve helped ensure that returning troops get the physical and mental health care they richly deserve. Americans have built homes for wounded warriors and wrapped their arms around the families of our fallen. They have thanked us in airports, bus stations and parades. They may not know us. But they certainly support us. Of course, more can always be done to care for our troops and their


Marine Corps Marathon sells out in record time after computer problems

Runners pass the Lincoln Memorial at about the 10-mile mark during the 2011 Marine Corps Marathon. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post) The 2013 Marine Corps Marathon sold out in a record 2 hours 27 minutes Wednesday, but not before problems with its computerized registration process led to widespread complaints from people trying to sign up for the venerable 26.2-mile footrace. Runners trying to secure one of the 30,000 spots in the 38th running of the marathon next fall reported that they were kicked off during the registration process or received repeated “error” messages. The marathon’s Facebook page was awash in complaints from frustrated runners. Michael Murray of Silver Spring said in an interview that he was booted out of the registration process twice and reached a point when the system froze on a third try. “In the days of cloud computing, in the days of Google and Amazon, who deal with millions” of users, “there just has to be a better solution than this,” he said. Murray said he will try to enter marathons in Richmond or Baltimore instead. Race director Rick Nealis said the company that operates the system, Active.com, told him the demand for the $99 spots exceeded its capacity to process the requests. Nealis called the delays “an embarrassment for the Marine Corps Marathon as an organization,” which prides itself on organizational expertise. Nealis said he would review the registration process for next year. “What we experienced this year will not be what we will be experiencing in 2014,” he said. Demand for spots in big-city marathons across the United States continues unabated, despite price increases and larger fields. Some, like the Houston and New York marathons, have adopted lottery systems, and the Boston Marathon has tightened standards that runners must meet to qualify for the race. “The People’s Marathon,” as the Marine Corps marathon race bills itself, sold out in 2 hours 41 minutes last year, in a little more than 28 hours in 2011 and just under six days in 2010. It is one of the few marathons that offers runners the opportunity to secure spots from others who withdraw before the Oct. 27 race. It also reserves about 13,500 spots for runners who raise money for charities, active duty military personnel, runners who have deferred from previous years and others.


Autopsy report gives details in death of man with Down syndrome at Md. theater

state Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore ruled Saylor’s death a homicide as a result of asphyxia. Since then, the case has drawn national attention from parents of children with Down syndrome, and more than 1,000 angry messages fill the Facebook page of the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office. One simply reads: “Murderer.” Another: “I will no longer teach my children that the police are their ‘friends.’ ” The sheriff’s department conducted a criminal investigation into the actions of the deputies — Lt. Scott Jewell, Sgt. Rich Rochford and Deputy 1st Class James Harris — and turned over the findings to the Frederick County state’s attorney’s office. On Friday, State’s Attorney J. Charles Smith said a grand jury convened, hearing testimony from the three detectives and reading 17 witness statements. It concluded that no criminal charges were warranted. As of Monday, the deputies, who had been placed on paid leave, were assigned to administrative duties pending the outcome of a separate internal investigation, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department said. The autopsy report, which could not be released until the criminal investigation was closed, says Saylor “was already compromised by his Down’s syndrome, obesity, body habitus, and heart disease, making him more susceptible to sudden death in stressful conditions which would compromise his breathing.” It also details a series of cuts and bruises on Saylor’s body but does not discuss their origin. He had abrasions on his nose, back of the head, abdomen, back and left elbow. He also had bruising on his forehead. “The bottom line for me is no matter what the mechanism of death was, they should have just walked away,” said Joseph Espo, an attorney for the Saylor family. “He wasn’t bothering anybody until they tried to do something.” On Tuesday, four groups and representatives of the Saylor family met with the Justice Department for two hours. The discussion centered on the need for a training program for police departments across the country to “prevent another tragedy of this nature happening again in the future, in any town in the United States,” according to a news release from the National Down Syndrome Society on Wednesday. “Ethan deserved to be a welcomed member of his community,” Sara Weir, a vice president with the organization, said in the release. “We join the rest of the Down syndrome community in their sadness and outrage as we act for positive change.”


Local brews on tap at Ale House Columbia

can go toe-to-toe with any big-city drafthouse. While impressive, the Ale House doesn’t have the largest selection in Columbia; Frisco’s Taphouse, about a mile south on Dobbin Road, has 50 taps. But the Ale House makes a fine showcase for Oliver Ales, and it’s a good place to watch a game with a cold brew in hand. The Ale House itself is a barnlike space with slanting ceilings, a few industrial touches and flatscreen TVs hanging on every conceivable space. It’s worth taking a look at them occasionally, even if you don’t care about the game: Some serve as billboards for the bar, cycling through the names of beers on draft, a rundown of happy hour specials or a schedule of the weekend’s entertainment, which includes musicians performing at 10 p.m. on Fridays. I wish the layout was less confusing, though. The enormous main bar, featuring a minimalist row of tap handles with names chalked above them, boasts a wide counter and wide stools. But if the seats are full, and they generally are, there’s very little room to stand. A few feet behind the barstools is a row of four-seat high-top tables and, a few feet beyond that, a row of high-backed booths. It’s not clear to new visitors whether these are open on a first-come, first-served basis, or if you need to see a hostess to be seated. (The answer: It’s a free-for-all, although you can ask to sit there when you make reservations.) There are two smaller satellite bars in corners on the opposite sides of the building, but they’re frequently in use for private events. One notable thing about the beer menu: You get a choice of glass sizes, in addition to the usual 16-ounce pint. The 10-ounce pour is good for those who aren’t imbibing much or who plan to try a few different styles; the 23-ounce mega-glass is for those who know exactly what they want. Complimentary valet parking is offered after 5 p.m., which seems like overkill until you try to find a parking spot during happy hour. (The lot outside is shared with another restaurant, a gym and several stores, leading to tight competition for spaces.) Bribe a designated driver with a taco platter or one of the juicy burgers; it’s worth the trip. Ale House Columbia 6480 Dobbin Center Way, Columbia. 443-546-3640. www.thealehousecolumbia.com Open at 11 a.m. Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m. Sunday.


Mortar attack on University of Damascus kills at least 12

the early afternoon, when students were on campus. The attack recalled a double explosion at the University of Aleppo in January — thought to be caused by rockets or missiles — that left more than 80 dead. Government officials and rebel leaders also blamed each other for those deaths. Separately Thursday, rebels claimed to have shot down an Iranian plane carrying weapons and supplies for the Syrian military as it attempted to land at Damascus International Airport. Rebels have often accused Iran of supporting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with men and materiel, an assertion that the Iranian government has denied. Meqdad said rebel fighters planned the attack after receiving information about the plane’s arrival time and its cargo from an airport worker who is sympathetic to the opposition. A shaky video posted online by a rebel group called the Daraa al-Islam brigade shows a large aircraft descending near a grove of trees and bursting into flames. As the plane veers away, a man off camera shouts: “It’s burning! It’s burning! Allah is making us happy.” The plane crashed at the airport, destroying other aircraft and cargo, the rebel group said in a short statement posted with the video. Meqdad said the crash caused a large fire at the airport, as ammunition and weaponry aboard the plane exploded. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency denied reports of any irregularities at the airport and said flights were arriving and departing normally. The University of Damascus has been running on a reduced schedule during the recent fighting, with most classes ending by 4 p.m. to allow students to get home before dark. Photos Footage Despite the rebels’ denial of responsibility for Thursday’s attack, opposition fighters, in recent weeks, have carried out mortar attacks close to the university campus, which is in central Damascus. In particular, they have targeted nearby Umayyad Square, where the headquarters of the military chiefs of staff and the offices of Syrian state television are located. Still, activists say rebel fighters would not have carried out an attack at that time of day because of the high risk of hitting civilians. “These attacks happened in the peak of the rush hour in the city where a large number of civilians would be present,” an activist in Damascus who goes by the name Salahaldin said in a Skype interview. Suzan Haidamous and Ahmed Ramadan contributed to this report.


London picks up the pace on fast food

Meat Liquor is a popular place to catch a bite to eat and drink in central London. (Thomas Bowles) “I can’t believe people queue for that,” says a man in a suit and tie as he walks briskly past the mass of eager customers chatting outside Meat Liquor, a popular burger joint in central London. But after six months working in the British capital, I’m craving a taste of greasy, down-home American diner food, and no snide comment is going to deter me from trying what are rumored to be the best burgers in the city. It’s a Wednesday night, and as we approach the restaurant, which is a short walk from Oxford Circus, I mistake it at first for a nightclub. A line of trendy 20-somethings, waiting to score a coveted table, stretches down the street. My boyfriend and I file in at the end of the queue and huddle beneath the glowing heaters in an attempt to fend off the London damp. The crowd is buzzing, cold hands clinging to cans of cider. Details: London fast food The line moves relatively quickly, and soon we’re inside, where the scene is dark and chaotic. The look of the space is influenced by the squat bars of eastern Berlin, which co-owners Yianni Papoutsis and Scott Collins have both frequented. The Rococo-style domed ceiling is splattered with sinister red-and-black illustrations. But any unease we feel about the punk venue fades once the cafeteria-style tray comes out, piled high with chicken wings, coleslaw, messy and oozing cheeseburgers and proper fries — not the potato chunks the Brits call chips. Across the table, my boyfriend is already several bites into his double-patty Dead Hippie burger, which is starting to drip a mix of cheese and onions onto the table. My cheeseburger, stuffed with pickles, lettuce and red onions, is satisfying enough, but pretty soon I’m feeling burger envy. With its addictive special sauce and double-decker patties, the juicy Dead Hippie is our favorite, hands down. When I come up for air, the crowd around the cocktail bar has grown, and I remember my drink. I admit that the familiar old American favorites are much more thrilling when paired with an absinthe-based cocktail served in the ultimate hipster accouterment: a Mason jar. But despite the allure of my cold glass of Donkey Punch, my attention is still on the skinny, salty fries. “We worked


London picks up the pace on fast food

empire of Meat Market, Meat Mission and Meat Liquor. Even American restaurateur Danny Meyer, the owner of patty-chic purveyor Shake Shack, has caught on to the movement and plans to open his first British outpost in London’s historic Covent Garden market this summer. Fancy franks The fad doesn’t stop at burgers. Since it opened last August, Bubbledogs, a restaurant that pairs hot dogs with champagne, has swiftly become the darling of this city fixated on poshed-up junk food. Though it may be the age of austerity here, I couldn’t believe that Brits would ditch caviar for wieners. But they have. Instead of being scared off by the wait at Bubbledogs, which can be up to two hours on weekends, customers indulge in a pre-dinner street party outside. Fashionable media types from the local Fitzrovia neighborhood bring along cans of gin and tonic to sip while they brave the elements. (At the end of a Saturday evening, the sidewalk is strewn with empties.) After friends warn me about the long wait around dinnertime, I decide to pop in for a late lunch on a weekday. At 3 p.m., Bubbledogs is tame, and I easily grab a seat at a high wooden table. The restaurant is relatively small, and I can see how it could quickly get mobbed. The afternoon crowd is mixed, with a smattering of professionals, tourists and families. A few linger at the copper-topped bar, but for the most part, people seem to have come in for a quick bite. I know that it’s slightly early for alcohol, but I order a glass of Gaston Chiquet anyway. Bubbledogs’ owners — Sandia Chang, a California sommelier, and her husband, James Knappett, former chef at Michelin-starred restaurant the Ledbury — have created a concise menu featuring 10 dogs. After mulling the New Yorker, served street-cart-vendor-style with sauerkraut and onions, I decide on the Fourth of July, a bacon-wrapped hot dog with smoky barbecue sauce and coleslaw, plus a side of crunchy tater tots. The idea of contrasting a heavy hot dog with the crisp taste of champagne isn’t as sacrilegious as it seems when you consider other European pairings, such as Italian prosecco and lardo or Spain’s cava and Serrano ham. Despite my affinity for a cold beer with a traditional ballgame-style hot dog, the carefully selected grower champagne provides a refreshing contrast. Fashionable fried chicken The effort to offer glamorous


Federal government should stop subsidizing Wall Street

more difficult by the fact that the largest financial companies now combine traditional commercial banking with higher-risk activities such as trading so that both their banking and betting activities get access to these government protections and the multibillion-dollar subsidy that comes with them. Using subsidized money to finance the conglomerates’ bets encourages ever-higher levels of debt, risk and interconnectedness not attainable or sustainable in a truly free market. While some suggest that the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act removed all protections and subsidies for these largest firms, there is no evidence to support that assertion. Recently, Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the Senate that there is a reluctance to pursue legal actions against these firms for fear of destabilizing the markets. The subsidy and its effects remain entrenched and continue to distort the free market. This form of corporate welfare allows the protected giants — those “too big to fail” — to profit when their subsidized bets pay off, while the safety net acts as a buffer when they lose, shifting much of the cost to the public. For example, the conglomerates can cover — and even double down on — their trading positions for extended periods using insured deposits or discounted loans from the Federal Reserve that come with the commercial bank charter. The subsidy often allows them to stay in the game long enough to win the bet, but it supersizes the loss if the bet should finally fall apart. This system distorts the market and turns appropriate risk-taking into recklessness. The result is a more concentrated and powerful financial sector — and a more fragile economy. The way to return the financial services industry to the free market is by separating trading from commercial banks and by reforming the so-called shadow banking sector. Government guarantees should be limited primarily to those commercial banking activities that need it to function: the payments system and the intermediation process between short-term lenders and long-term borrowers. Non-banking financial activities such as proprietary trading, market making and derivatives should be placed outside of commercial banks and so outside of the safety net. Trading and investment companies would be free to engage in these activities; they would be subject to the forces of market discipline and have greater incentives to innovate and thrive. None of these reforms can be effective unless the shadow banking system is also removed from the safety net by ending


week by Maryland Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin, both Democrats. The funding will allow the Lanham-based organization to partner with the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center of Massachusetts and Jacquelyn Campbell, of The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, to expand its efforts to other parts of the country. “This pioneering approach to reducing domestic violence homicides protects women and families from abuse and possible death by helping local police identify a high-risk situation, and quickly connecting victims to shelters, counselors and other wraparound services that remove victims from harm’s way,” Mikulski said. — Lori Aratani Woman sentenced in disability fraud case A woman convicted of collecting federal disability benefits while operating a fitness center has been sentenced to five months in prison. Forty-eight-year-old Darlene Altvater of Mechanicsville was also ordered to pay restitution at sentencing Wednesday. According to evidence presented at trial, Altvater, who worked for the Postal Service, sustained on-the-job head and neck injuries. She began collecting federal workers’ compensation benefits in 2001. Prosecutors say from January 2005 through December 2011, Altvater operated a salon, day spa and fitness center. Witnesses testified that Altvater demonstrated the use of fitness equipment. She was still receiving disability benefits. — Associated Press VIRGINIA Cruise ship traveler died of heart disease Heart disease killed a 64-year-old passenger on a cruise ship out of Baltimore, the FBI said Thursday, ruling out foul play and ending a brief mystery as to how the Virginia woman died last weekend. “It’s considered a natural death,” FBI Special Agent Rich Wolf said. The FBI also identified the woman as Katherine Kennedy of Midlothian, Va. Kennedy and her husband were on a six-night, seven-day cruise that began March 18. They were onboard Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas, a 989-foot ship with 11 decks that had stopped in Port Canaveral, Fla.; Nassau and CocoCay, Bahamas. The ship was on its way back to Baltimore on Sunday when Kennedy fell dead in her cabin. Her husband, who was in the room, summoned ship officials. Because the death occurred miles from the mainland in U.S. waters off the coast of North Carolina, the FBI was the investigatory agency notified by the cruise ship. Kennedy had fallen in the cabin, sustaining a cut on her forehead, which caused the FBI to rule her manner of death as undetermined or “suspicious” until an autopsy could be performed. — Baltimore Sun


For federal workforce, the furlough terrain is uneven

the disruption that the furloughs will create. But tension is high at the Environmental Protection Agency, where the American Federal of Government Employees filed an unfair labor practice complaint this week after management said the union’s demand to bargain over some issues arrived too late and rejected it. An EPA spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. Labor has won some victories, though. Most agreements guarantee that an employee’s performance review will not be downgraded for project delays, for example. Telework has been protected. When possible, employees can choose their days off as long as their supervisor agrees, and seniority will determine who gets to take Mondays and Fridays. HUD reduced furloughs from 13 days to seven and then decided it would close the agency on those unpaid days. “The Department has over 9,000 employees,” Karen Newton Cole, the agency’s chief human capital officer, wrote in a memo to the AFGE, which represents HUD workers. “Multiplying the number of employees by seven days would mean that there would be 63,000 scheduling decisions that would need to be made over a 6-month period.” Allowing employees to choose furlough days is “not administratively feasible,” Cole wrote, and could lead to a “daunting” number of payroll errors. Agency managers have agreed to speed up the approval process for outside employment, though a request by an Air Force base in Minot, N.D., for separate weeks off so its employees could get temporary work in the nearby booming oil town was denied. Employees can donate days to ease their colleagues’ load, but they cannot choose which colleagues. Park Police woes Among the law enforcement employees who will not get a break are the Park Police. The department must slice $5 million from its $102 million budget and said it must furlough all 767 employees for 14 days. This is in contrast to the parks themselves, with the National Park Service freezing seasonal and permanent hires and making other cuts to avoid furloughs. Officer Dave Nichols, who patrols Washington’s monuments on horseback, said furloughs will cost him $5,000. Among his biggest concerns about losing pay is his wife, a teacher in Calvert County and two-time breast cancer survivor. He worries about another health scare. The couple are reassessing whether they can afford the family’s annual North Carolina beach vacation this year and still set aside money for their daughters’ college fund. “It’s extremely surprising


Deer shoot at Rock Creek Park spurs more protests

species, endangering the food supply of other animals in the park. Park officials, citing safety concerns, did not allow reporters to observe the sharpshooters working in a stretch north of the National Zoo that is bounded by 16th Street and Oregon Avenue. Some of the park’s neighbors are grateful that they will have fewer deer to contend with. Roy Bowman, who lives in Chevy Chase half a mile from the park, has woken up to find as many as 10 deer at once munching their way through his back yard. “They eat everything,” he said. “Don’t even think about tulips. They’ve eaten them down to the nub. They ate a little plant with red flowers that’s supposed to be deer resistent. It’s finished. They love it.” Bowman said he also worries about his grandchildren, who live even closer to the park than he does, being bitten by a deer tick carrying Lyme disease. “Deer are nice, graceful animals,” he said. “But there are too many of them. They carry disease. And you can’t control them by birth control. You have to cull them first. It’s unfortunate but necessary.” Such sentiments have made urban deer hunting increasingly common in metropolitan areas across the country, particularly in developing exurbs that bump up against farmland where deer roam more freely. In Missouri, which has about one deer for every four people residing there, the state licenses hunters for 88 managed shoots, including four in urban areas. The St. Louis suburb of Town and Country hired sharpshooters to control the size of a deer population that has caused traffic collisions and ruined lawns. The town turned to shooting the deer after an attempt to capture does and give them birth control proved expensive and ineffective, said Joe Jerek, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Meanwhile, voters in Cape Girardeau, in southeastern Missouri, will decide next week whether to allow deer hunts with bows and arrows inside city limits. The hunts almost always court controversy. “There are people who wish there were more deer, and people who wish there were less,” said Chris McCloud, a spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources in Illinois, which has urban deer hunts in Cook County, in suburban Chicago. But few cities have parks as large as Rock Creek running through them, creating what the Park Service officials say is an out-of-control deer population in the middle


Why is the International Criminal Court picking only on Africa?

Africa. The council has declined to do the same in Syria, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iraq, North Korea and other non-African states where violence and repression are endemic. Great-power politics are the key here. China has a veto over Security Council action and wants the court to stay well away from North Korea, for instance. Russia will not permit an ICC investigation in Syria. And when violence in Iraq was at its most intense, the United States would have blocked any move to give the court jurisdiction there. A stray comment by an Iraqi minister in 2005 suggesting that the country might join the ICC produced nervous phone calls from U.S. diplomats. They got the assurances they wanted: Baghdad would not become a member. Much of the responsibility for the court’s skewed caseload therefore falls outside the institution — but not all. The court has chosen not to open several non-African investigations that it could have taken on. As a senior Rwandan official has argued: “There is not a single case at the ICC that does not deserve to be there. But there are many cases that belong there, that aren’t there.” Afghanistan is the most glaring example. Thousands of civilians have been killed in that country since the court began operating, most by the Taliban and other extremist forces but also by NATO troops and aircraft. The court has not moved to investigate. The ICC also stayed out of the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict, which produced thousands of deaths and injuries and well-documented war crimes. It has not opened a full investigation of rebel and paramilitary violence in Colombia. The prosecutor’s office has moved extremely cautiously on accusations against Israel by the Palestinians, who attempted to give the court jurisdiction in 2009. Still fragile, the ICC has no desire to provoke Washington, Beijing or Moscow. A full-blown confrontation with a major power could threaten the court in ways that tussles with Sudan and Kenya do not. It’s not so much that the court is biased against Africa as that it is reluctant to meddle in cases in which the geopolitics are intense. But the result is the same: stricter justice for one part of the world. bosco@american.edu David Bosco’s previous Outlook essays include: Rwanda’s ex-U.N. ambassador, who vanished after genocide, resurfaces in Alabama Why Obama will learn to bypass the United Nations Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.