Snowy owl kept in cold isolation for healing after run-in with Metrobus and SUV

at the end of March. She bragged about a sick crow. “Crows are so smart,” she said. They feed it fruit, mushy dog food and vegetables, and each time, on its own, the crow separates the food into sections. When they give it a chicken egg, the crow grabs it in its beak, lifts it and lets it drop and crack, then starts to eat. DeMay also reached into a nearby cage to allow a peek at a flying squirrel brought in by a resident who had no idea what it truly is. City Wildlife opened July 1 after its space was renovated with $100,000 generated through fundraising, according to its Web site. Goldberg said Anne Lewis, now president of the board of directors for City Wildlife who also served as a board member of the Washington Humane Society, proposed creating the clinic after learning that half of the animals brought to D.C. Animal Control, operated by the Washington Humane Society, are wild. Animal Control isn’t equipped to deal with wild things. “A lot of it is people calling us saying there’s an injured wild animal — squirrel hit by a car, bird bouncing off a window,” said Scott Giacoppo, vice president of external affairs for the Humane Society. “We do discourage people from handling wildlife,” he said. “Even a baby raccoon. If you want to help that animal and he bites you, we have to euthanize that animal and check it for rabies. A baby deer will bite you. We approach each situation with extreme caution.” That includes the American alligator police found in the bathtub of a home that officers raided two years ago. Giacoppo ticked off a list of animals holed up in the city: a monitor lizard, black bear and, in 2007, a monkey. Wild animals are stressed out by the barking dogs and hissing cats that the society cares for at a facility at 1201 New York Ave. Locking them in cages and transporting them as far as Gaithersburg and Baltimore stressed out the animals so much that some died en route. “We would need to have a valuable officer to spend two hours driving that animal. We receive a few hundred animals every year, from birds to raccoons and squirrel and deer,” Giacoppo said. City Wildlife “provides us with a great resource without having to go all the way up to Baltimore,” he said.


Time for Three makes engaging debut in Fortas Chamber Music series

Music series Monday at the Kennedy Center, and throughout the evening, the musicians expressed their deep gratitude for being there. They are hardly strangers to mainstream concert halls; Kendall, in fact, is featured this season in many of the National Symphony Orchestra’s youth concerts, and De Pue, the other violinist, is concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Meyer, the bassist, has a jazz ensemble and a composing career, and the trio performed several of his original pieces Monday — a running gag through the evening concerned the titling of his works. (One piece was called “Don Don,” named for the sound that a bass makes descending the strings; “that was before the guys took away my right to name our pieces,” he quipped.) The group is trying to forge an alternate pathway for itself, establish a distinctive musical identity outside the classical music norm and, perhaps, make some money. From self-producing CDs when it started out, the ensemble has moved up the food chain of record labels (its first recording for Universal will come out later this year). But one reason that it remains so endearing — and it’s hard not to like this group — is that it doesn’t quite succeed at the level of glossy entertainment. The players — and the act — are not quite as polished as they could be. That is at once a handicap and a virtue. The group is trying to be cool, but it isn’t really as cool as it wants to be.. Therein lies its charm. The performance allowed plenty of room for meditation on classical convention and popular stylistic variants, starting with a tuning session that wanted to blossom into an actual improvised number but didn’t fully launch. Classical training traditionally focuses on clean, beautiful production, while popular styles sometimes place more of a premium on expression. The result, when classical players cross over, is a kind of deliberately muddy or hoarse tone — think of it as the Bob Dylan effect. That came out in an arrangement of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which was paired with Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” on the slow part of the program. The most striking moments, though, tended to be the fillips and snatches of singing tone, especially from De Pue, and the most effective slow song was an arrangement of a well-known Bach chaconne, presented in a mash-up with a song by the


One dead from new avian flu strain in China; older strain has infected more than 300 people

A worker disinfects cages at a closed poultry store in Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang province on Jan. 24. (AP/AP) BEIJING — In a study published Wednesday in the Lancet medical journal, Chinese researchers detailed the recent spread of the H10N8 virus, saying “the pandemic potential of this novel virus should not be underestimated.” China has struggled over the past year to deal with a previously detected avian flu strain called H7N9, which has killed about a quarter of those infected and led to large-scale culling of poultry markets and a drop in poultry sales. The Lancet study covers the first reported case of human infection by H10N8. In the report, Chinese scientists detailed the case of a 73-year-old woman in Nanchang who was admitted to a hospital Nov. 30. Within nine days of the onset of illness, the woman suffered multiple organ failure and died. Investigators determined afterward that the woman had visited a live poultry market four days earlier, but they couldn’t find the H10N8 strain at the market. Researchers also reported that a second woman in Nanchang, who is 55 years old, was infected and is still being treated. For years, various strains of avian flu have worried scientists because of the potential for the disease to be transmitted from human to human. While the two cases in Nanchang were the first proof that H10N8 could be carried by humans, there is no evidence thus far that the strain is being transmitted from human to human. “More surveillance will be needed to establish the origin of H10N8 and to monitor potential future transmission events,” the Lancet study said. According to the report, the new H10N8 strain is genetically similar to two other strains of avian flu, H7N9 and H5N1. After a temporary slowdown in the middle of 2013, the H7N9 strain has had a resurgence in recent months. Ten new cases of H7N9 infections were reported this week in China, pushing the total number of H7N9 infections to more than 300 since the outbreak began last year, according to an unofficial tally kept by the Center for Infection Disease Research and Policy. There have been 67 deaths.


Tom Sietsema’s Valentines to people and places he loves

recipe, his, taught to him at the Culinary Institute of America, uses egg, butter and milk; unlike the original, these rolls aren’t dipped in butter or folded over in the pan. Still, the result is feather-light, fragrant with yeast — and irresistible. As with the breads at Buben’s other establishments, the Southern-themed Vidalia and the French-accented Bistro Bis, the Parker House-style rolls are thoughtfully served “one per person, plus one for the table.” Woodward Table bakes its signature twice a day, serving between 500 to 1,000 rolls in that time. “You want to make me happy?” asks Buben. “Put hot bread on the table.” That makes a million of us. What could be more mundane than having your water glass filled at a restaurant? A reasonable question until you see it done at the Inn at Little Washington. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post) Pouring onthe charm The staff at the Inn at Little Washington (309 Middle St., Washington, Va.; 540-675-3800) prides itself on turning the mundane into the magical. Hence the garden tours offered to guests who show interest and the menus personalized with the name of the celebrants. Even the water service at chef Patrick O’Connell’s four-star dining destination is distinguished: Glasses are filled simultaneously. “It’s a bonus,” the director of dining service, Neil O’Heir, says of the synchronized ballet, which was instituted about a decade ago. “The key to it all: It doesn’t looked practiced.” Fast food with flair As everyone who has sunk their teeth into the hamburger or fried chicken at Central Michel Richard (1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW; 202-626-0015) can attest, few chefs glam up the basics as memorably as Michel Richard. Even his chopped salad, bright with fresh basil, is leagues better than the same-old. On a recent visit to the downtown bistro, I was tickled to spot a hot dog in the mix. At $14, it’s clearly not what you’d find on the street. But the “Roosevelt Island” hot dog exudes a master’s touch. The house-made beef sausage snaps; the house-baked bun fits the link like a glove. There’s chow-chow instead of neon-green relish, fine squiggles of Dijon mustard on the sausage and french fries — cut by hand — to the side. The bonus: a linen napkin to wipe up any ketchup stains. Coming in the Food section Feb. 12: The staff writes love letters to carbs, butter, an old refrigerator and more.


Passenger pigeons and canaries in coal mines

vision, reflexes and agility, it somehow avoided mid-air collisions while flying at 60 mph. You can get a sense of this avian acumen today with other species that flock in great numbers, even if their clouds are but a shadow of the passenger pigeon’s. The starling is a classic example. Its flocks seem to become living organisms in themselves as they bend and contort in the winter sky, often as a defense against a preying hawk. Certain shorebirds, including sandpipers, fly rapidly at low altitude, in mass and in perfect synchronization. We have become much better at understanding our effects on other species, but no ecosystem seems entirely safe with us around. Greenberg writes that we still permit 19th-century-style “profligate slaughter” in the oceans, where factory farming goes on with little state intervention: “Catches of the five most coveted species of tuna, for example, have increased from a million tons a year in the mid-1960s to over 4 million currently.” As for birds, you can look at the endangered species list to understand that some are still in peril, including certain cranes and woodpeckers. We can help protect all our birds in practical ways: Don’t let your cat wander unsupervised. Take part in an upcoming citizen science event called the Great Backyard Bird Count. Its organizers want participants to record birds in their gardens between Feb. 14 and Feb. 17 — spend at least 15 minutes tallying the number and species of birds in your location. Participants have to sign up online beforehand in order to submit their checklists. The checklists give the project organizers — the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society — valuable data on the movement and distribution of wild birds. The international count last year drew 121,000 participants in the United States. “We find it a very useful way to track birds,” said Agatha Szczepaniak, an Audubon spokeswoman. The top 10 by checklist included common backyard birds: cardinals, house finches, chickadees, mourning doves and crows. The most numerous birds were found flocked in Missouri, 5 million redwing blackbirds and 1.5 million robins. In recent years, Szczepaniak said, the counts have demonstrated the resurgence of the American crow, a species decimated by the West Nile Virus, which is spread by mosquitoes. “We were able to realize that the American crow was able to rebound. It’s still in the top 10 birds in the Un


Pioneer organic farmers look to the future

specialty organic salads in Marin County, Calif. Most were from non-agrarian backgrounds, but their stories trace the arc of organic farming’s history, from idealistic beginnings through years of insanely hard work to the takeover by industry and the current threat to diversity by GMO patents on seeds. What enabled these veterans to survive, thrive and advance the cause of earth-friendly farming? You’ve tasted the answer: It’s their food. Perhaps you’ve bought crops from Hiu Newcomb’s Potomac Vegetable Farms in Northern Virginia, or Jim Crawford’s New Morning Farm in central Pennsylvania; both sell at Washington farmers markets. Organic farmers succeed with the superior flavor and nutrient density. They also reach out to customers and educate them. “We are good at talking about what we do,” said Dru Rivers, who farms 400 acres at Full Belly Farm in Northern California with her husband, Paul Muller. “Our customers want a story,” added Jack Lazor of Butterworks Farm in Vermont. “Most of the [farm] stories you read are about organic people. Our governor says, ‘Local food is no longer just for hippies.’ ” It always comes back to the food. When California’s Bob Cannard first started, his outlet was a market mocked locally as the place where kooks and hippies sell vegetables. But soon he was supplying succulent greens to Alice Waters, the most famous restaurateur in his state. “We can’t influence through the head,” he maintains. “It has to come through the digestive system. Feed kids good nutrition for three generations and you have a decent human race.” The elders have passed on much of their accumulated knowledge to the thousands of apprentices who have worked with them. But they also voice hope in the wealth of insights yet to come — in the biological understanding of soil fertility, weed ecology, pest resistance, and more. Says Tom Willey, farming 75 acres in California’s San Joaquin Valley, “Organic agriculture will be able to do things with this information that conventional agriculture has been unable to do.” But many wonder who’ll succeed them when the elders retire. All are buoyed by the waves of youngsters now heading back to the land, but how will these new farmers afford that land? By renting? By using new cooperative models to replace ownership? If they do not find their way we will all be the poorer for it. Damrosch’s latest book is “The Four Season Farm Gardener’s Cookbook.”


More ways to sell, donate, dump or recycle household items

Two weeks ago, we brought you expert advice on how to sell, donate or dump six major categories of household stuff: china, rugs, books, furniture, technology and musical instruments. In addition to the resources recommended by local professional organizers in the story (including Scott Roewer, who also joined our weekly Home Front chat), Washington Post readers have chimed in with their own ideas. Here are some of their favorite Web sites, charities and national organizations that will take your household clutter. Have more? E-mail us at localliving@washpost.com. ● Community Forklift in Edmonston accepts used china that can be sold to artists. The Prince George’s County salvage warehouse also takes building materials to sell at low cost to home renovators. ● Scrap-DC in Washington will take used materials such as tape, clay, buttons from old clothes, small mosaic tiles and more. ● Amvets National Service Foundation accepts donations of household goods to sell in its thrift stores, with locations in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. ● Goodwill accepts donations of household goods and clothing, with locations in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. ● Freecycle is an online community in which members can post items to give away. Communities for Washington, Maryland and Virginia are available. ● Wonder Book in Frederick, Hagerstown and Gaithersburg accepts book donations. ● Friends of the Arlington Public Library accepts book donations for two annual sales to benefit the library’s programming, services and collections. ● Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda accepts books for an annual book sale. ● Turning the Page in Washington accepts books for its Carpe Librum bookstore. ● The Book Thing in Baltimore accepts book donations. ● Bookmooch.com is a worldwide online community in which you give away books in exchange for points that can be used to get books. ● The National Cathedral’s All Hallows Guild takes book donations for its annual Flower Mart book sale. ● 2nd and Charles in Woodbridge buys books, CDs and DVDs. ● ALIVE! in Arlington picks up and donates used furniture for needy families. ● Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore will accept household goods, furniture, appliances and building materials, with locations in Maryland and Virginia. ● OrchKids, a program sponsored by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, accepts instruments. ● Hungry for Music in Washington accepts instruments to distribute to children across the United States. ● PianoFinders.com and PianoAdoption.com are Web sites to list or buy a piano.


At Winter Olympics, there is pain to the Games

prepping for his Olympic debut. “The whole point is being confident, knowing you can do these things. . . . It’s one of those things where you have to get out of your head. You can’t really think of it that way.” But when an athlete has already suffered catastrophe, the injury can linger, not unlike the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Edward Chavez, a sports psychologist who runs the Colorado Springs-based Institute of Optimal Performance. Elite athletes already have experience navigating pressure, facing adversity, mentally preparing for competition. To block out fear, psychologists rely on visualization techniques and mental conditioning. “It’s building their belief system,” Chavez said. “If they can visualize it in their mind over and over again — working on that part of the brain that’s responsible for muscle memory — the more they do that visually, the more that part of the brain becomes conditioned.” Skier Hannah Kearney, who won a gold medal in moguls at the Vancouver Games, suffered the punctured lung and lacerated liver during a training crash in October 2012. She returned to the same Swiss mountain last fall and had no choice but to stare down the memory of her ill-fated run. In some ways, she says she needed to face it again to move past it. “I definitely had adrenaline going,” she said. “But it’s a trick I’ve literally done 10,000 times in my life. . . . I guess I assumed it’s probably unlikely it’ll happen again since it’s already happened once. That’s how I reasoned through it.” Most winter sport athletes began competing at a young age — before they were old enough to appreciate or fear the inherent dangers. Lindsey Van began ski jumping at age 18. Now at 29, the idea of launching off a ramp and shooting more than 300 feet through the air is just second nature. The rush Van feels flying she likens to an addiction. “The feeling outweighs the fear by a lot,” Van said. “I don’t feel it, really. I’m scared to drive. That’s scary. I don’t feel the same fear when I’m ski jumping as when I’m driving. Driving is terrifying. Ski jumping, I don’t really feel like something will come hit me. I’m in control. Driving, you’re not at all. Large animals, moose, avalanche.” Winter Olympians say they don’t dwell on what-ifs. Even if they’re all fully aware


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TopShop to open first Washington area store — but it’s not where you think

A rendering of the planned Topshop store in Springfield, Va. The 5,000-square-foot location is expected to open fall 2014. (Courtesy of Topshop) TopShop, the British fashion retailer, is coming to Washington. But the international chain isn’t opening its first area store in CityCenter D.C., as has been widely speculated. Instead, the company will open its first Washington area store in Springfield Town Center this fall, a spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday afternoon. The 5,000-square-foot Topshop store is one of four new locations planned for the United States. The others will be located in Houston, Atlanta and New York’s Fifth Avenue, where the company plans to open its second-largest flaship store. Springfield Town Center The mall, which is anchored by Macy’s, JCPenney and Target, will eventually house a mix of apartments, retailers and office space, as well as a movie theater and 700-seat food court, according to Vornado Realty Trust, which owns the development in Fairfax County.


Don’t poach tactics from the war on drugs

In their Feb. 2 op-ed, “Breaking the link between elephants and terrorists,” Johan Bergenas and Monica Medina argued that militarizing the effort to protect elephants would help the fight against poaching. Conservation groups, which have had to work hard to win the trust of governments and local communities, would do well to be wary. Poaching, like the drug trade and human trafficking, is best combated by law enforcement, asset tracking, demand reduction and public education — not by drones, weaponization of the elephants’ habitat or a vague new front in the war on terror. Ken Conca, Ellicott City ● I was with Natalie Jacewicz through most of her Feb. 2 Local Opinions commentary [“Bao Bao may be the big ticket, but what about the salamander next door?”], but then she made a hasty detour from the larger questions facing zoos today. How do zoos define conservation? Currently, it seems they have a narrow definition: preserving species. Presenting examples of species in exhibits that seek to mimic native ecosystems is a nice idea, but how will zoos motivate people to actually do something to save those animals where they should be living — in the wild? Zoos tells us they are creating an insurance population of certain animals (elephants, for one) in case they go extinct in the wild. But conservation happens where animals live. It means preserving ecosystems and all their inhabitants. It involves politics, economics, environmental concerns, the growth of human population. It’s a daunting challenge, and it needs all the champions it can get Zoos tell us they are doing what they can, but the actual amount they spend on conservation is a drop in the bucket compared with their marketing budgets. If zoos truly want to save animals, they must join the battle where it is actually happening — in Africa and Asia. Until then, the only thing zoos are saving is themselves. Amy Mayers, Washington More Letters to the Editor: Afghanistan’s Highway One points to development ills The death penalty is too good for the Boston bomber Move families from shelters to homes Planet equality doesn’t need Texas, Utah or Arizona The farm bill will create jobs and assist the hungry


Oregon offshore wind energy project given the go-ahead

Vantage Coupe, and coupe and convertible versions of the DB9, DBS, Virage, V-8 Vantage and Vantage S will all need to head to a dealership for a free repair. Good thing, since these cars ranged from about $120,000 to more than $300,000 when new — low-rent plastics or not. Aston is not aware of the issue causing anyone harm, the company said. — Los Angeles Times Also in Business ● U.S. service companies expanded at a slightly faster pace last month. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, said its service-sector index rose to 54, from 53 in December. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion. The survey covers businesses that employ 90 percent of the U.S. workforce, including retail, construction, health-care and financial services firms. ● A private survey shows that businesses added jobs at a modest pace in January. Payroll processor ADP said companies added 175,000 jobs last month. That is down from 227,000 in December, which was revised lower. But it was much better than the government’s official figure of 74,000 new jobs in December. The ADP numbers cover only private businesses and often diverge from the government’s more comprehensive report. ● Topshop, the British fashion retailer, is coming to Washington. But the international chain is not opening its first area store in CityCenterDC, as has been widely speculated. Instead, the company will open its first Washington area store in Springfield Town Center in the fall, a spokeswoman said. The 5,000-square-foot Topshop store is one of four new locations planned for the United States. The others will be in Houston, Atlanta and New York’s Fifth Avenue. ● Yelp, the consumer review Web site, reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue as it added more customers to cash in on the surging demand for local information on cellphones and tablets. Active local business accounts rose about 69 percent to 67,200 in the fourth quarter, Chief Financial Officer Rob Krolik told analysts. Yelp’s net loss narrowed to $2.1 million in the fourth quarter, from $5.3 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 72 percent to $70.7 million. ● Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, maker of the popular Keurig single-cup coffee brewer, said Coca-Cola bought a 10 percent stake in it for $1.25 billion. Under their 10-year agreement, Green Mountain and Coca-Cola will collaborate on the development and introduction of Coke products on Green Mountain’s planned cold beverage machine that will serve


David Ignatius: After Snowden, a diminished Internet?

such talk is just whistling past the NSA graveyard. “People in Washington don’t realize how serious feelings on this side of the Atlantic are,” argued one prominent European politician at a high-level private dinner here, hosted by the Atlantic Council to discuss technology issues. He predicted flatly that U.S. companies would lose an estimated $28 billion to $32 billion in revenues to European cloud-computing companies that will market “NSA-proof” data storage. A roundup of politicians and opinion-makers and their take on the controversial whistleblower. This boom for Euro-cloud companies is understandable, in terms of corporate opportunism. But it could build fences around European servers that might turn the global information superhighway into a series of bottlenecks and on-off ramps. The Internet governance issue is fraught, too. For the past several decades, basic standards and architecture have been managed by a private body known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. But this group, though passionate about privacy, is now seen as U.S.-dominated, and therefore contaminated. An alternative would give more oversight to the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union. The leading candidate to head the ITU next is a Chinese official, Houlin Zhao, the group’s deputy secretary-general. Protecting data networks may actually be harder in the post-Snowden environment, argued both Europeans and Americans. That’s because sophisticated cyber-protection involves cooperation between agencies such as the NSA (and its foreign counterparts) and private Internet service providers. Such contacts are now anathema. Another paradox is that indignation about U.S. snooping might make it easier for Russian and Chinese security services to spy on their own people and conduct cyber-espionage. “The Russians and Chinese will talk about sovereignty and non-interference in cyberspace, which is a proxy for their control agenda,” argued one technology expert. “The Snowden disclosures are being used to renationalize the Internet and roll back changes that have weakened government control of information,” argues Stewart Baker, a former NSA lawyer who writes an influential blog on cybersecurity issues. Many Europeans told me President Obama made a good start with his speech last month outlining new rules for the NSA, especially in his willingness to provide some version of a global Fourth Amendment. One European argued that privacy rights should be reciprocal — the United States should offer protections to countries that grant such rights to their own citizens, as well as Americans. But one senior European politician warned that if his


DARPA selects IBM to develop self-destructing electronics

FILE - In this Tuesday, July 16, 2013, file photo, an IBM logo is displayed in Berlin, Vt. (Toby Talbot/AP) The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency has awarded IBM a $3.4 million contract to design chips for electronics that can self-destruct when triggered. DARPA’s project — called “Vanishing Programmable Resources” — calls for development of materials and manufacturing capabilities for this new class of electronics. “[I]t is nearly impossible to track and recover every device resulting in unintended accumulation in the environment and potential unauthorized use and compromise of all intellectual property and technological advantage,” DARPA said in an Web site post outlining the project. IBM plans to use radio frequency signals to trigger a glass shattering, according to a government notice about the contract. DARPA announced the Vanishing Programmable Resources project in January of 2013.


Montgomery County Animal Watch

These were among the cases received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5054. That number provides recorded information on such topics as the Montgomery County Animal Shelter hours and location, adoption and licensing procedures, rabies clinics and low-cost neutering. German shepherd gets reprieve from cold Discussion on feline dental health Adopt-a-Lab event Montgomery County Humane Society: Dogs, cats and other pets will be available through the Montgomery County Humane Society at the following locations. To confirm the schedule, call 240-793-4201 or visit www.mchumane.org . Rockville Burtonsville No-kill shelter has adoptable cats: Gaithersburg Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


A new Rocky Mountain high: Colorado open for cannabis tourism

a cramped room southwest of downtown to a larger space by spring. The expansion may also include tour opportunities for small clusters of guests interested in learning about the culinary art and science of infused treats. For the uninitiated, the variety of items on the market can be dizzying. The sophisticated industry uses inscrutable terms that sound as if the products were concocted in a science lab run by Jeff Spicoli: indica, sativa, dabbing, butane hash oil, vaporizers, couch lock (when you melt into your furniture). Budtenders often meet with customers one-on-one, carefully explaining the different strains and their effect on the mind and body. At RiverRock, Verzura will introduce some visual aids when the shop launches its adult-use division on March 1. He plans to assemble a color-coded chart that will help visitors pair their desired experience (high-energy or low-key, creative flow or deep thoughts, functional or slothful) with the proper product. I challenged Verzura to a match: I hypothetically wanted to re-create the sensation of sitting in a flowery field beneath a blue sky and a warm sun. I didn’t want to sweat or experience an uptick in heartbeats. If possible, mandolin music would tinkle in the background. Verzura processed the information and minutes later produced a trio of suggestions: White Widow, Northern Lights and Jack Herer, which was named after the cannabis activist who died two years before Colorado passed Amendment 64. Maddalena, who carries a medical red card, purchased a gram of Jack Frost, another option that would transport me to my fairy-in-nature setting. He later handed me the container as a gift. I added it to my growing pile of untouched cannabis. The state had removed all the hurdles expect the one inside my head. Rolling on the cannibus “Do you want me to roll you a joint for the ride?” asked my host, Chastity Osborn, who runs Get High Getaways with her husband, Dale Dyke. Cannibus as a hotel amenity — how novel. As part of my bed-and-breakfast stay, the couple provided personalized car service in a black Mercedes sedan. But the perks didn’t stop there. Inside their Lakewood home, I had the run of the entire first floor, which included a living room with HDTV, the kitchen and a pair of guestrooms stocked with salty snack foods, candy and a mini-fridge full of beverages, hummus and veggies. A hot tub bubbled out back,


Case in Point: Testing an affordable alternative to payday loans in Mississippi

The big idea: The scenario: Southern Bancorp’s Mississippi market is home to more than 1,100 payday lenders operating out of storefronts in distressed communities. The payday lenders offer short-term, high-interest loans — typically $100 to $400 — that are marketed as a quick, easy way to tide borrowers over until the next paycheck. Those small loans, however, can morph into thousands of dollars of debt. How? The entire balance of a payday loan is due in two weeks. But borrowers already on shaky footing usually lack the funds to meet that deadline and are often forced to renew the loan. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, a North Carolina nonprofit that tracks predatory lending practices, only 1 in 100 payday-loan customers pays the balance by the original due date; on a $325 loan, borrowers end up repaying $793 on average. Mississippi payday lenders typically charge about $21.95 to loan $100 for two weeks, which translates to an annual interest rate of 572 percent. The resolution: Southern also offers financial counseling to help people select and manage appropriate and affordable credit products. The process takes longer than applying for a payday loan, but it helps borrowers improve their credit scores, develop better financial habits and achieve long-term financial security. The lesson: — Gosia Glinska Glinska is a senior researcher at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. More from Sunday Business: Downtonomics turn financial principles into high drama Singletary: Obama’s ‘myRA’ plan is a start, but it won’t save retirement Ritholtz: My motto: ‘Fresh mistakes, every year’ Russian oil giant helps Putin tighten his economic grip With new design, Facebook delivers the Paper Dragons Adventure app review: The next generation’s car trip game Looking for a previous Case in Point? Visit our archives.


Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death points to broader opioid drug epidemic

and then Sunday brought three more — 10 deaths in three days. Laboratory tests showed that all had taken a lethal 50-50 mixture of heroin and fentanyl. The overdoses from the fentanyl-laced heroin apparently have stopped, Williams and Hacker said — presumably because word got to users that they were in grave peril from heroin sold in plastic envelopes stamped “Theraflu” and “Bud Ice.” “One of the challenges, of course, with this is that there are people who hear that there is some particularly strong heroin, and they would like some of it,” Hacker said. But, she added, “most users don’t want to die. They’re not looking to overdose. They’re not looking to commit suicide. They’re looking to get high.” Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief who is director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said he is concerned that many young people simply don’t grasp how addictive heroin can be. “We see it in suburbs, among high school kids, and again it goes back to high school kids not being aware how dangerous it is. They think if they snort it or smoke it, they won’t become addicted — and within weeks they’ve become an injecting drug user,” Kerlikowske said. “This is really among the most debilitating of drug addictions that we historically know of,” said Hall, the Florida epidemiologist. “The heroin or opioid becomes the whole focus of the person’s life. Everything is centered on how are they going to take care of their need to have the opiate in their brain in the next 24 hours and what are they going to do to get that.” The White House is pushing more cities to follow the model of Quincy, Mass., where officers on patrol carry an anti-overdose medication called naloxone, which is sold under brand names such as Narcan. Lt. Patrick Glynn, commander of the Quincy police narcotics unit, said the program began after the city and neighboring jurisdictions had 99 overdose deaths in just 18 months in 2008 and 2009. “We realized we could not arrest our way out of this epidemic. Young people, middle-aged people were dropping on the street, overdosing on heroin,” Glynn said. In a recent three-year period, Glynn said, police administered 227 doses of nasal-spray Narcan and were able to reverse 216 of the overdoses. Related: 8 questions about heroin and the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman


Why ‘A Diamond Is Forever’ has lasted so long

diamond tradition.” There actually was no tradition, but the more they told the story, the more the public came to see it as fact. The tagline represents an ultimate (and ultimately impossible) promise: If you buy this object, your love will never end. Without a diamond, Gerety’s message seemed to warn, there’s no such thing as forever. The warning worked. In 1951, Ayer informed De Beers that “jewelers now tell us ‘a girl is not engaged unless she has a diamond engagement ring.’ ” The same year, eight out of 10 American brides got a diamond. That number has stayed relatively consistent ever since. Through the years, Gerety’s slogan has remained a constant as the copy and art have evolved to keep up with the times. Like old family photos, some ads speak to a specific moment: 1971: “My church may be a meadow. And my wedding won’t be my mother’s. But when it comes to my man and the diamond his love gives me, I want all things that women have always dreamed of. A Diamond Is Forever.” 1980: “I know she loves rock-n-roll. So I rolled out a magnificent rock. A Diamond Is Forever.” The line was sometimes tweaked to convey a particular message. In the ’60s, when De Beers wanted to persuade customers to buy a surplus of unfashionably tiny stones, Gerety’s campaign shifted the focus from “the bigger, the better” to “size isn’t everything.” Some ads during this period seemed a bit desperate. “The diamond is forever,” they said. “Even the small diamond.” Eventually, the slogan spread to television, in the much-mocked “Shadows” campaign of the 1990s. By then, Gerety had long since retired and De Beers had taken its business to the J. Walter Thompson agency. But the line lived on. Today, “A Diamond Is Forever” is studied in business and marketing classes at New York University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Pennsylvania, among others, as an example of innovative techniques, complexity of message and sheer longevity. (Another of Ayer’s major clients, AT&T, had 13 different slogans over the course of the 20th century.) One professor told me that many of her students were familiar with the phrase but never knew it was an advertising slogan. The best lines seamlessly blend into the culture, each reinforcing the other’s importance. “A Diamond Is Forever” gained elevated status in popular culture when


Editor’s note: W.R. Grace and my brief flirtation with a STEM career

W.R. Grace was in the news last week. The Columbia-based specialty chemical company emerged from Chapter 11 after more than 12 years of bankruptcy protection, during which it dealt with a legacy of asbestos liabilities. I was once a W.R. Grace employee. Back in my high school days, I spent part of a summer there doing agricultural research. Specifically, I was assigned to a project focusing on sugar cane. Grace wanted to figure out if it could make the plants produce more sugar. My parents were excited about this job because it seemed to be the kind of work that might lead to a productive career. And I was interested, too; here was science I understood, and the job paid a lot better than minimum wage at the time. During my orientation, I toured the W.R. Grace complex, where I met lab-coated scientists doing all kinds of fascinating experiments. At the end of the day, my mentor took me to my laboratory — a very large greenhouse. Inside were rows and rows and rows of sugar cane plants. My job? To water each plant daily. And not just splash them. No, no, this was science. Precision was required. I had to water each just so. Did you know that it can get pretty hot inside a Maryland greenhouse in the middle of August? I worked alone, and by noon, I was spent, limp from the heat. More than once, my boss stopped by at lunch to find me napping, still holding a wilted sandwich mid-bite. The highlight of my day was when the lab coats arrived, and I followed them from specimen to specimen, clutching a clipboard and recording measurements of how much the cane had grown. Usually, not so much. Science can be slow. I was thinking about that experience the other day, when the Northern Virginia Technology Council invited Linda Hudson, the outgoing chief executive of BAE Systems, to talk about the importance of inspiring students to pursue science, technology, engineering and math careers. Hudson talked about how many institutions of higher education go to great lengths to weed out underperformers when they should be trying to keep them in. A local business executive stood up and asked whether parents might share some of the blame for encouraging their children to follow their passion, instead of a profession with prospects. I think that lets the kids off easy.


How much do sex differences matter in sports?

reported in 2012, none of the women dropped out, only one fell at the finish while leaning for the line — not unusual for men or women — and three others bested the previous world record. It’s hard to believe that the Evening Post scribe even attended the race, as there were only nine women competing. The fallacies he promoted were stubbornly persistent. Women’s middle- and long-distance events were banned for 32 years. Not until 2008 did women have all the same events on the Olympic track as men. Before Kathrine Switzer became the first woman officially to finish the Boston Marathon in 1967, she was told that her uterus would collapse. It was only around the millennium that the guidelines for exercise during pregnancy flipped, and rather than something to be avoided it is now recommended. British marathoner Paula Radcliffe was celebrated for training well into her third trimester and then leading the 2007 New York City Marathon from gun to tape 10 months after giving birth. In fact, as women were given opportunities to participate, they began gaining on men. In 1992, the journal Nature published a paper by two UCLA physiologists with the title: “Will women soon outrun men?” The physiologists graphed men’s and women’s running records through history and saw that the improvement in women’s times was far steeper. By extrapolating the curves into the future, the authors determined that women should beat men in all running events in the first half of the 21st century. “It is the rates of improvement that are so strikingly different,” they wrote. “The gap is progressively closing.” In 2004, Nature featured another such paper: “Momentous sprint at the 2156 Olympics? ” — a reference to the projected date when women would outstrip men in the 100-meter dash. A paper the following year in the British Journal of Sports Medicine did away with the question mark and simply declared in its title, “Women will do it in the long run.” Could it be that male dominance of world records was all along an artifact of the discrimination that kept women from competing? Well, no. The papers predicting that women would overtake men implied that the progression of women’s performance from the 1950s to the 1980s was part of a stable trajectory. In reality it was a momentary explosion followed by a plateau — a plateau that women, but not men,


U.S. flag-bearer Todd Lodwick marches implausibly into sixth Olympic Games

if anything about his story jarred the mind. And in that instant – one nondescript click -- it became so much more difficult to chastise anyone else for forgetting to properly acknowledge the sacrifice, soul-eating defeats and, ultimately, the resiliency it takes over 20 years to get here by the Black Sea. Todd Lodwick was forgotten, too. Twelve years ago, in a makeshift tent in Salt Lake City, he was the one kneeling, sobbing, feeling as if he had let his teammates and country down after going out too fast in the 5 KM cross-country sprint and fading. And so went the quest to be part of the first U.S. Nordic combined team to medal in the Games. The Americans finished fourth, their best showing in Olympic history. But they and their peers had them pegged for silver, at least bronze. ‘There’s no consolation,’’ Lodwick said, the tears still coming from beneath his sandy-blond mop that day at Soldier Hollow outside of Salt Lake. How could you not remember that, a crestfallen 25-year-old already in his third Olympics? How many times had Lodwick gone back to that day, or the time he was just 7/100ths of a second from an individual medal in Vancouver? “Yeah, that one hurt too,” he said Thursday during a news conference here. Because few know what Nordic combined is – ski jumping mixed with cross-country skiing – Lodwick tells everyone for probably the umpteenth time in his life it is an original Winter Games sport, dating to 1924. He gives a snapshot of his bio – father of two kids, an 8-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old special needs boy that makes him see the balance of life, of “sacrificing.” He is still rehabilitating non-displaced fractures in his shoulder and one rib. He tore his labrum. Twenty years after he stepped out of the U.S. procession to hug his mother in Lillehammer at the age of 17, Lodwick will compete in Sochi at “90 percent.” Lodwick has something in common with Tretiak, much like so many others trying to recapture their form the next 16 days. These athletes of the XXII Winter Olympiad, like Russia itself, are on the precipice of being seen for what they once were: indomitable, important and unable to disregard as old, feeble and years past their primes. It remains to be seen whether they can all pull off resounding comebacks. mike.wise@washpost.com


takes over 20 years to get here by the Black Sea. Todd Lodwick was forgotten, too. Twelve years ago, in a makeshift tent in Salt Lake City, he was the one kneeling, sobbing, feeling as if he had let his teammates and country down after going out too fast in a cross-country event and fading. And so went the quest to be part of the first U.S. Nordic combined team to medal in the Games. The Americans finished fourth, their best showing in Olympic history. But they and their peers had them pegged for silver, at least bronze. “There’s no consolation,’’ Lodwick said, the tears still coming from beneath his sandy-blond mop that day at Soldier Hollow outside of Salt Lake. How could you not remember that, a crestfallen 25-year-old already in his third Olympics? How many times had Lodwick gone back to that day, or the time he was just 7/100ths of a second from an individual medal in Vancouver? “Yeah, that one hurt too,” he said Thursday during a news conference here. Because few know what Nordic combined is — ski jumping mixed with cross-country skiing — Lodwick tells everyone for probably the umpteenth time in his life it is an original Winter Games sport, dating from 1924. He gives a snapshot of his bio — father of two kids, an 8-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old special needs boy that makes him see the balance of life, of “sacrificing.” He is still rehabilitating non-displaced fractures in his shoulder and one rib. He tore his labrum. Twenty years after he stepped out of the U.S. procession to hug his mother in Lillehammer at the age of 17, Lodwick will compete in Sochi at “90 percent.” Lodwick has something in common with Tretiak, much like so many others trying to recapture their form the next 16 days. These athletes of the XXII Winter Olympiad, like Russia itself, are on the precipice of being seen for what they once were: indomitable, important and unable to disregard as old, feeble and years past their primes. It remains to be seen whether they can all pull off resounding comebacks. For more by Mike Wise, visit washingtonpost.com/wise. More Olympics news Photos from Opening Ceremonies Jenkins: Hotel complaints aren’t the half of it Wise: Lodwick marches into his sixth Games An American with a gun in Sochi Sochi alpine course is ‘a flying dream’ U.S.


Baltimore jail cracks down on contraband cellphones

jail and monitors all cellphone calls coming in and going out. It allows calls made on authorized, registered phones and calls made outside the jail walls. It also allows through all calls to 911. But it prevents any calls from unauthorized phones. It has taken Tecore and corrections officials weeks of testing to fine-tune system to identify any hidden pockets where phones would somehow work, while ensuring that people walking on the sidewalk outside the jail walls wouldn’t have their calls blocked. The Baltimore jail’s unique and sprawling architecture provided a series of challenges. The oldest part of the jail, constructed in the 1850s, looks like a blackened stone castle. It has dozens of fanciful torrents and narrow arched windows covered with bars, rising up from behind more modern yellow-brick buildings and reels of barbed wire. O’Malley described its style as ”early American Alcatraz architecture” and pointed out that it’s one of the largest jails run by a state. O’Malley announced the new system at a news conference inside the jail Friday morning. As reporters arrived, they were given the full BCDC treatment — a patdown, a walk (or two) through a metal detector and close inspection of their bags, coat pockets and inner compartments of wallets. Cellphones were strictly forbidden, and things like makeup compacts were taken away, as the glass could be broken and used as a weapon. Even a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services had her pile of folders holding press releases carefully scrutinized. After all of that, the media horde didn’t get to hang out with any inmates, let alone see one. The focal point of the news conference, held in a spartan visitors lounge lined with metal lockers, was a testing of the new system. Reporters didn’t have their phones to try the system themselves, so a corrections official hooked his iPhone up to the speaker system and tried calling his wife. Nothing happened. He tried calling a coworker. Again, nothing. That’s when one of O’Malley’s communications staffers — they got to keep their cellphones — tried to call her voicemail and got the recording. She put it on speakerphone and replayed it several times. O’Malley stood and listened. His political trajectory started here in Baltimore, where he was first an assistant state’s attorney and later served on the Baltimore City Council and was elected mayor. The jail corruption scandal


Metro grievances aired at public hearing over $2.86 billion budget plan

Sarles soon will begin the long process of meeting with government officials in the District, Maryland and Virginia whose jurisdictions provide subsidies that fund a big portion of Metro’s budget. Overall, Sarles said, the hearings “always remind me of how important public transportation is to people,” especially low-income and handicapped customers. “When I was growing up” — in northern New Jersey, in the 1950s — “we didn’t have a car, we didn’t have a lot of income,” he said. “The way we got to a movie, the way my mother would take us out to Sunday dinner at a very modest restaurant, we hopped the bus.” Now he commutes each workday on the Yellow Line, from Pentagon City to Gallery Place, and rides other subway lines on weekends, just to look around, he said. “Hearing people talk” on the transit system and in public forums “has more impact on me than looking at numbers,” Sarles said. “In many ways, it refreshes me.” Hard-pressed Not everyone at the hearings was opposed to his planned fare hikes. “If you’re upset about the increase, the place to go is not to these people, it’s to the federal government,” said Doctor, in defense of Metro. After rattling off a bunch of percentages regarding growth in the nation’s money supply, he said: “There are so many more dollars out there now. The Federal Reserve created this. . . . The fares actually are not going up. The value of our money has gone down.” Doctor, who manages an apartment building, said: “To put it in perspective, let’s say they charged one bottle of water for a fare. Then they increased it to two bottles of water. But then you find out the bottle only has 25 percent as much water as it used to.” He went on in this vein until a buzzer sounded, signaling his three minutes were up. To Martinez, an IT specialist for the State Department who commutes on the Blue Line, rail traffic is a huge aggravation. Specifically, he was in high dudgeon over the number of Virginia-bound Orange Line trains (too many) and Blue Line trains (too few) passing through the Foggy Bottom station during evening rush hours. The result: When a Blue Line train rolls in, Martinez informed the panel, usually it’s “packed to the wazoo.” Stalking toward the table of Metro officials, Martinez announced, “I got pictures of


On Winter Olympics’ first full day, Sochi problems aren’t gone but are partially forgotten

enjoy the sunshine in what one person says is "the safest place in the world right now." But after months of warnings about potential terror attacks, and after days of pointed questions about Sochi’s readiness, there was comfort in the fact the first full day of competition went off without major glitches. At Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, for example — where one top medal contender broke his collarbone during a training run earlier in the week, and where American snowboarding superstar Shaun White decided to withdraw rather than face a course he called “intimidating” — there were few wipeouts and plenty of praise for the softened course. “The slopestyle course worked really well,” said Norway’s Staale Sandbech, who won silver Saturday. “Today I think everything ran smoothly.” As for the omnipresent security — Putin’s so-called “Ring of Steel” around the Games reportedly features 37,000 security personnel — Kotsenburg said: “They’re definitely on a tight ship here, credentials out all the time and searched and everything. But it’s been very easy-going and mellow for the most part.” Most Olympic Games follow a similar pattern: weeks of concerns over infrastructure or terror or something else, which are quickly forgotten once competition begins. The 2008 Beijing Summer Games, for example, engendered many of the same issues being raised here, but most people only remember the historic performances of swimmer Michael Phelps and sprinter Usain Bolt. It is a point that has been made frequently this week by both Russian officials, who have grown more defensive and pugnacious as the questions have persisted, and by many veteran athletes. “It’s my fifth Olympics,” said American skiing star Bode Miller, who will compete in the men’s downhill Sunday, “and it seems like leading up to the Games everyone always has worries and concerns, and the speculation and all the focus is on everything but the sport and the athletes and . . . the ideal of the Olympics. I think this is no different. Certainly these issues were no more political than the ones in China, or Olympics as far back as you can remember.” Another flashpoint for these Games, gay rights, was scarcely mentioned as Saturday’s events played out. Worldwide scrutiny of Putin’s anti-gay policies, and local crackdowns on protestors this week in Moscow and St. Petersburg, had observers watching closely for medal-stand protests and rainbow-colored symbolism. But none was in evidence Saturday, at least


Civilian casualties are up in Afghanistan, a new U.N. report says

KABUL — The report, prepared by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, documents a spike in violence that is likely to exacerbate concern about the country’s security as most remaining U.S. and NATO troops prepare to withdraw this year. According to the United Nations, 2,959 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2013 and 5,656 were injured. The number of fatalities jumped 7 percent compared with 2012 and fell just short of the record 3,021 civilians killed in the Afghan war in 2011. Women and children appeared to be particularly vulnerable, with casualties up by about a third as clashes between the Afghan army and insurgents intensified in civilian areas. The report, which the United Nations has issued annually since 2007, comes amid growing uncertainty about Afghanistan’s future as the country prepares to elect a new president and the more than 12-year-long war draws to a close. At least 21 people, including two Americans, were killed Friday evening in a commando-style attack by Taliban insurgents on a popular Lebanese restaurant in the Afghan capital, local officials said Saturday. Despite efforts by the Obama administration to leave a residual force after this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign a long-term security agreement that would allow up to 15,000 foreign troops to remain into 2015. U.S. officials have said that up to 10,000 of those troops could be American. Many analysts contend that Karzai, whose relationship with the U.S. government has soured dramatically in recent years, is pushing the matter off to his successor, who will be elected this spring. But if an agreement is not signed soon, President Obama could opt for a full withdrawal this year. If that occurs, many analysts fear, the Afghan army will be unable to prevent even more bloodshed next year. Already, the fledgling national army and Afghan civilians are coming under increasing attack. The United Nations concluded that 74 percent of civilian deaths and injuries were caused by “anti-government elements,” including the Taliban and Islamist militant groups such as the Haqqani network. It also found that the militants’ weapon of choice remains roadside bombs and other explosive devices, which were responsible for 34 percent of all civilian casualties, including the deaths of 192 children. In a statement, the Taliban dismissed the report, suggesting that it was “drafted by the U.S. Embassy under the name of the United Nations.” But the international coalition released


From Georgetown to Adams Morgan, liquor license moratoriums face increasing criticism

autonomy from a congressionally mandated control board. “I could see why people wanted it,” said Constantine Stavropoulos, who opened the Diner just before the moratorium in Adams Morgan took effect. “We were not getting enough officers. We were not getting the streets cleaned.” Over the past decade, the crime rate in the city has dropped 19 percent and has been trending down in the police districts that are home to the moratorium zones, police data show. Neighborhoods have also found other ways to cope with crime, noise and trash, including dedicated cleanup crews and closer cooperation with police and city inspectors who oversee establishments with liquor licenses. Residents have also been able to impose their will on restaurants and bars through settlement agreements that give them a say over how late a patio can stay open, whether there is live music and even what kind of cups beer can be sold in. The most profound change, however, has been demographic. In the past several years, the District’s population has grown by more than 30,000, census data show, with people in their 20s and 30s accounting for a third of the newcomers. The population burst Some Adams Morgan residents are eager to put that theory to the test. Unlike the other moratorium zones, it has not managed to shake its reputation as a drunken weekend playland. On New Year’s Eve, five patrons at a club on 18th Street were stabbed, suffering minor injuries. Many of the persistent trouble spots are restaurants that operate more like nightclubs. Neighbors who live just off 18th Street NW have been underwhelmed with city enforcement of liquor license regulations that require restaurants to sell a certain amount of food, or prohibit live music. But the moratorium, not weak regulation, is what has allowed those businesses to stay, concluded a study commissioned by the Adams Morgan Partnership. That study, done by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, was limited by the unavailability of certain data, such as restaurant tax receipts, that could help show whether neighborhoods were cannibalizing business from each other. Instead, it relied on commercial real estate values, which have increased by a smaller percentage than they have in the District as a whole. A Washington Post analysis of restaurant and tavern licenses issued between 2008 and 2013 shows they have doubled in Columbia Heights and along H Street NE and soared by 70 percent in


Winter Olympics in Sochi are offering summer temperatures, challenging conditions

the Winter Olympics for the rich? See how income matters The warm weather is having real consequences for the competition. Several biathletes in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit event fell while skiing the softened course. Jean-Philippe le Guellec of Canada was leading the race when he crashed, breaking one of his skis. He dropped out of medal contention while waiting for a replacement and finished 26th. “Honestly, I want to punch a wall and hopefully break through it,” he told the Associated Press. A training session for the downhill portion of the men’s super-combined Alpine skiing event that had been scheduled for Tuesday morning was postponed for two days. At the RusSki Gorki Jumping Center in the mountain cluster, sun-softened snow in the landing area forced organizers to cancel the first of three daytime jumps for Nordic combined competitors Monday. A second jump was postponed after the first competitor fell while landing. Gold medal favorite Eric Frenzel of Germany was among those who chose not to make any practice jumps Monday, according to the Associated Press. “It’s not even slushy — it’s mushy and it’s very hard to ski on,” American Bill Demong told reporters. “There’s no structure to the snow, and the person who can float the best wins.” At the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, Austrian moguls skier Dale Begg-Smith also complained of soft snow, saying: “I wasn’t feeling it. . . . The course is a little too warm.” At the Sanki Sliding Center, also in the mountain cluster, luger Lukas Broz of the Czech Republic said flatly: “The weather is bad. It needs to be colder [because] we don’t have the right blades for this weather.” #graphics-jpt {height: 250px; display:block; width:100%; position:relative;} #graphics-jpt .background img {position:absolute; z-index:-1; bottom:0; right:0; width:100%;} #graphics-jpt .text {position:absolute; width:100%; top:30px; left:0;} #graphics-jpt h3 {font-family: FranklinITCProThin,Helvetica-light,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;float:left; padding:30px 0 0 10px; width:100%; margin-bottom:0;} #graphics-jpt ul.link {padding:0 10px 0 0; list-style-type:none !important; background-color: #4c4c4c; float:left; margin-left:10px;} #graphics-jpt ul.link li { font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0; position:relative; } #graphics-jpt ul.link li a { padding: 9px 15px; display: block; color: #d5d5d5; } #graphics-jpt ul.link li i {border: solid transparent; content: " "; height: 0; width: 0; position: absolute; pointer-events: none; border-left-color: #d5d5d5; border-width: 6px; top: 42%; right: -7px; margin-top: -4px;} Mountains of the Olympics See why altitude matters It isn’t unusual for host cities to be required to manufacture snow when Mother Nature doesn’t do her part.


In Sochi, snowboarders critical of Olympic halfpipe

the tricks and have everything that you need and not be able to get to the wall,” he said. “I just had a frustrating practice and I’m hoping tomorrow will be better.” #graphics-jpt {height: 250px; display:block; width:100%; position:relative;} #graphics-jpt .background img {position:absolute; z-index:-1; bottom:0; right:0; width:100%;} #graphics-jpt .text {position:absolute; width:100%; top:10px; left:0;} #graphics-jpt h3 {font-family: FranklinITCProThin,Helvetica-light,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;float:left; padding:30px 0 0 10px; width:100%; margin-bottom:0;} #graphics-jpt ul.link {padding:0 10px 0 0; list-style-type:none !important; background-color: #4c4c4c; float:left; margin-left:10px;} #graphics-jpt ul.link li { font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0; position:relative; } #graphics-jpt ul.link li a { padding: 9px 15px; display: block; color: #d5d5d5; } #graphics-jpt ul.link li i {border: solid transparent; content: " "; height: 0; width: 0; position: absolute; pointer-events: none; border-left-color: #d5d5d5; border-width: 6px; top: 42%; right: -7px; margin-top: -4px; } Evolving sports of the Winter Olympics See which sports have come and gone Practice Monday was originally scheduled for the morning but was postponed so officials could work on the pipe. Later in the evening, riders said as practice progressed, the transitions grew increasingly bumpy, and the flat surface area between the walls deteriorated. Teter likened it to a mogul field. Many riders had trouble staying upright and gathering momentum between tricks. “That’s not what halfpipe is supposed to be like,” Teter said. “People are supposed to be landing their tricks.” Snowboarders said the pipe was actually improved from Sunday, the first day of practice. The walls and curves received significant work. One U.S. coach said the warm weather Monday helped the snow stick earlier in the day, but riders said after a single practice run the pipe worsened and snowboarders began to fear what conditions would be like during actual competition. American Danny Davis stopped short of calling the course dangerous. “It's just not as fun,” he said. Riders say they’ve been told the course will receive further treatment and grooming overnight, but some were openly considering their options after Monday's practice. “If all of us got together, and we’re like, ‘We’re not doing it, let’s push it back,’ maybe they would,” Teter said. “I don’t know if that’s going to happen.” Teter acknowledged such a protest was unlikely, but she said White’s representatives have expressed concerns. White pulled out of the slopestyle competition last week, calling the course “intimidating” and saying he didn’t want to risk injury before his featured event. While he expressed frustration with the halfpipe course Monday


White House delays health insurance mandate for medium-size employers until 2016

Correction: For the second time in a year, the Obama administration is giving certain employers extra time before they must offer health insurance to almost all their full-time workers. Under new rules announced Monday by Treasury Department officials, employers with 50 to 99 workers will be given until 2016 — two years longer than originally envisioned under the Affordable Care Act — before they risk a federal penalty for not complying. Companies with 100 workers or more are getting a different kind of one-year grace period. Instead of being required in 2015 to offer coverage to 95 percent of full-time workers, these bigger employers can avoid a fine by offering insurance to 70 percent of them next year. How the administration would define employer requirements has been one of the biggest remaining questions about the way the 2010 health-care law will work in practice — and has sparked considerable lobbying. By providing the dual phase-ins for employers of different sizes, administration officials have sought to lighten the burden on the small share of affected employers that have not offered insurance in the past. As word of the delays spread Monday, many across the ideological spectrum viewed them as an effort by the White House to defuse another health-care controversy before the fall midterm elections. The new postponements won over part, but not all, of the business community. And they caught consumer advocates, usually reliable White House allies, by surprise, particularly because administration officials had already announced in July that the employer requirements would be postponed from this year until 2015. Congressional Republicans seized on the announcement as the latest justification for scrapping the health-care law. In particular, they renewed their opposition to the law’s requirement that most Americans have insurance, saying it is unfair to delay rules for businesses and not for individuals. “If unilateral delays were an Olympic sport, the White House would sweep the gold, silver, and bronze,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in a statement. “The White House is in full panic mode, and rather than putting politics ahead of the public, it is time for fairness for all.” Originally, the employer mandate — which affects companies employing 72 percent of all Americans — was to have gone into effect Jan. 1, at the same time the law began requiring most Americans to have health insurance. A senior administration official, who briefed


Carl Icahn gives up on Apple stock buyback plan

would continue indefinitely after it detected “unusual activity.” The price of Bitcoin tumbled as much as 21 percent to $535.55 before recovering to $664.75, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, which averages prices from exchanges. The index value was more than $780 before Mt. Gox announced the withdrawal halt. ● Kraft is removing artificial preservatives from its most popular individually wrapped cheese slices, the latest sign that companies are tweaking recipes as food labels come under greater scrutiny. The change affects the company’s Kraft Singles in the full-fat American and White American varieties, which Kraft says account for the majority of the brand’s sales. Sorbic acid is being replaced by natamycin, which Kraft says is a “natural mold inhibitor.” ● Commercial pilots have attempted to land at the wrong airport more often than most passengers realize or government officials admit, according to an Associated Press search of government safety data and news reports since the early 1990s. On at least 150 flights, including a Southwest Airlines jet last month in Missouri and a jumbo cargo plane last fall in Kansas, U.S. commercial passenger and cargo planes have landed at the wrong airport or started to land and realized their mistake in time. ● German tire and auto-parts maker Continental has agreed to buy U.S. private-equity investor Carlyle Group’s Veyance Technologies, which once belonged to its rival Goodyear, for $1.9 billion. Veyance, which employs 9,000 workers at 27 plants worldwide producing industrial hoses and belting, will be integrated into the German company’s Contitech division. ● A multi-agency government task force looking into cyberattacks against Target, Neiman Marcus and other retailers said that it has not come across evidence suggesting the attacks are a coordinated campaign to adversely affect the U.S. economy. In a two-page report, the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force saidthe global implications of the retail attacks and the economic impact on private business and individual citizens cannot be overstated. The report is the combined effort of the FBI, Secret Service, intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security. ● Apple, which faces as much as $840 million in state and consumer antitrust claims stemming from an electronic-books lawsuit, lost its bid to halt oversight by a court-appointed compliance monitor. A federal appeals court in New York denied Apple’s request that it temporarily block the activities of the monitor, Michael Bromwich, while the company appeals a July order


Grocery shopping with the tap of an app

copy of similar services that have cropped up in the District recently. Washio debuted last month with an app to pick up, wash and drop off your laundry. The month before that, Postmates came to the D.C. market with a promise to deliver anything to your home or office in under an hour. All of these upstarts see the same market opportunity in Washington: A ballooning population of young professionals who work long hours, collect sizeable paychecks and don’t own cars. That trifecta makes them more willing to spring for the convenience of someone else running their errands. “Ultimately it comes down to the value that they get out of it,” Shah said. “If you’re able to save one to two hours of your own time and have someone deliver groceries to you at a price that’s reasonable, that’s a huge value add to you.” Instacart charges a $3.99 fee to deliver orders worth $35 or more within as little as two hours. Customers who want an order worth $15 or less delivered in just an hour pay a premium of $14.99. Orders must be at least $10. The app will only offer deliveries from Harris Teeter at the time of its launch with plans to add additional stores every few weeks, Shah said. To help promote the app, the company will waive the fee for a customer’s first delivery. For some, grocery shopping can be a surprisingly personal endeavor. Consumers like to see or handle items, particularly produce and other perishables, before putting them in the shopping cart. Shah said Instacart shoppers are trained to be savvy scrutinizers, receiving lessons on how to pick a fresh avocado and pull milk with the latest expiration date. Shoppers are also trained to spot fake IDs when delivering orders containing alochol. What’s more, Instacart uses software that makes “hundreds of calculations a second” to determine the right time to dispatch a shopper, based on weather, traffic, sporting events and other factors, so that the groceries are still fresh when they arrive at the door. “It’s not different from you picking up the groceries and going back to your home,” Shah said. Instacart started in San Francisco a year and a half ago, Shah said. The company then expanded into Chicago and Boston after raising $8.5 million from Sequoia Capital. Capital Business is The Post’s weekly publication focusing on the region’s business community.


Al-Qaeda’s expulsion of Islamist group in Syria prompts U.S. debate

is worrying Western intelligence agencies. On Monday, more than 20 ISIS recruits were killed when a bomb exploded during a class on suicide bombings, Iraqi officials said. The unofficial list of al-Qaeda affiliates is now down to four: the powerful offshoots in Yemen and North Africa, Somalia-based al-Shabab, and Jabhat al-Nusra, an ISIS rival within the Syrian opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. Others think ISIS can still be targeted because of its long-standing al-Qaeda ties and parallel ambitions. Officials who spoke about intelligence matters on the condition of anonymity stressed that the administration has not made any ruling on the subject. What appears at first glance to be a legal debate over an arcane dispute among terrorists is largely theoretical, since the administration has no current intention of attacking in Syria or Iraq. But the answer has major implications for a far more important issue — what to do about the post-Sept. 11 law authorizing the use of force as the Afghanistan war winds down and an increasingly decentralized al-Qaeda becomes more of a shared ideology than an organized hierarchy. In recent years, as new groups have posed threats to the United States and to its overseas personnel, the administration has adopted an increasingly elastic definition of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, to include groups it says are associated with the al-Qaeda and Taliban organizations explicitly covered by the law. In a major national security speech in May Since then, however, most of the administration’s national security attention has been taken up by the leaks of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and the subject has languished. “The default position is to do nothing,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee who last year introduced legislation to sunset the law with the upcoming end of the Afghan war. Continuing to rely on the AUMF as the legal justification for counterterrorism operations “becomes increasingly strained when you’re not using it in the theater of war, you’re not using it against organizations that existed on 9/11,” and one of the most violent groups “is not even affiliated with al-Qaeda anymore,” Schiff said in an interview. The ISIS issue “rekindles the whole question” of revising the AUMF, one U.S. official said. “You can’t predict the future,” said Seth Jones, an analyst with the Rand Corp. who has advised the military


Researching “super dust” and other materials that could reduce the cost of air and space travel

to earth—keeping insects from gumming up airplane wings. Mashed bugs can create drag and drive up fuel consumption, leading to increased costs and added pollution. Siochi and her colleagues are experimenting with anti-stick coatings on wings to reduce residues that build up when bees, mosquitos or even gnats smash onto wings at high velocity. The “bug team” hopes to engineer surfaces to prevent bug remains from adhering and disrupting the smooth flow of air across the wings, creating turbulence. The team designed a test to evaluate the performance of the surface coatings on airplane wings. “We’re not finished analyzing all the data, but we know some surfaces have fewer visible bug splats versus uncoated ones,” she said. Another project involves self-repairing materials, a job Sochi said is turning what some see as science fiction into reality. For example, if a puncture could repair itself within microseconds, the damage to a gas tank that gets shot at in enemy territory would not lose fuel, but would self-heal. Astronauts would not have go out and repair damage from a micrometeoroid that strikes their spaceship if the material does so for itself, she said. “A lot of what we do are things that are more futuristic,” said Siochi. “We imagine what can be possible and we’re actually moving toward making that possible,” she said. “It’s like Star Wars or Star Trek.” Joining NASA was “a happy accident” that occurred when Siochi, who was finishing up her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech, gave a lab tour to a visiting speaker who was the head of the Composites and Polymers Branch at Langley. He offered to hire her as a contractor and eight years later, she was hired by NASA Langley. Siochi, who is of Chinese ancestry, grew up in the Philippines and was familiar with NASA and the moon landing, and had an inclination for math and science. She has five siblings but she is the only one in the family who entered a science field. “I’ve always been interested in science,” she said. “It’s the thrill of discovery.” This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Go to the Fed Page of The Washington Post to read about other federal workers who are making a difference. To recommend a Federal Player of the Week, contact us at fedplayers@ourpublicservice.org.


Whole Foods to use Square for store checkout

Square, a credit card reader made for smartphones, is plugged into an Apple Inc. iPhone for a photograph in New York, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 25, 2010. Square Inc.'s mobile-payment technology allows smartphone users to make credit card payments. (Jin Lee/Bloomberg) Whole Foods is partnering with Square to let customers pay for groceries through iPads and smartphones. The grocery chain plans to roll out technology from Square, a mobile payments start-up led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, at select stores, the companies announced Tuesday. Whole Foods’ sandwich counters, pizzerias and coffee, juice, wine and beer bars will soon be installed with Square Register, an iPad-based system through which cashiers ring up payments and swipe customer credit cards. Customers can also download Square Wallet, a smartphone app linked to their credit cards, and pay by scanning a QR-code (a unique, square-shaped black and white image) at the counter to instantly pay. This is Square’s second partnership with a large national retail chain — in November of 2012, Starbucks began accepting payments through Square Wallet at all of its approximately 7,000 locations.


U.S. tech startups: An endangered species?

Maryland, the Census Bureau and technology research group Engine. Using Census data, they found that the number of start-ups (firms age five years or younger) as a percentage of all companies has dropped steadily over the past three decades, from around 50 percent in the early 80s to about 35 percent in 2012. During the first half of that period, the same trend occurred in the high-tech sector (firms with a large share of workers specializing in science and math fields), with the ratio dropping from around 60 percent to around 50 percent in 1995. The Internet’s arrival turned the tide for a few years, lifting the start-up share of the high-tech sector back up to about 55 percent by the turn of the century. The dot-com bubble quickly burst, however, and since around 2002, the ratio has plunged at a faster clip than before the online boom “at a pace that even exceeds the decline in entrepreneurship for the private sector as a whole,” the researchers noted. The decline is not simply the result of an increase in older technology firms. Since 2000, the raw number of high-tech start-ups — which had grown consistently since the early 80s even though their share of the overall business population had fallen — has dropped off, too, falling at an even faster clip than the number of new firms overall. As a result, job creation by the high-tech sector, which had trended upward since around 1987, peaked about a decade ago and has declined steadily ever since. “Interestingly, the high-tech sector bucked the national trend by exhibiting rising dynamism until 2002,” the researchers wrote, later defining dynamism as the rate at which firms are launched, shuttered, expanded and contracted. “But even it has exhibited a trend decline since 2002.” That could spell trouble for an economy that is still struggling to find its footing in the aftermath of the recession. Studies have shown that new firms are responsible for creating nearly if not all of the nation’s net new jobs (job gains minus job losses), with new firms in the technology space contributing a significant share of those positions. “Consequently, a slowing in high-tech entrepreneurship could have disproportionate effects on the nation’s overall long-term economic growth,” Ian Hathaway, Engine’s research director and one of the authors of the study, said in the report. Follow J.D. Harrison and On Small Business on Twitter.


Hops: The beer ingredient (most) drinkers love

utility of hops: They add a little kick to the bland sweetness of the malt, and their antibacterial properties help preserve beer from spoilage. But for centuries, it was more a marriage of convenience than an affair of the heart. The Abbess Hildegard von Bingen, whose 12th-century pharmacopeia “Physica Sacra” was perhaps the first document to record the use of hops in brewing, didn’t exactly give them a ringing endorsement. She claimed that they induce melancholy and weigh down one’s insides. Nor were hops welcomed with open arms when they crossed the Channel. Henry VIII is reported to have given the royal ale brewer strict orders to use neither hops nor brimstone in the king’s libations. As late as the 1990s, centuries after the hop had become universal in commercial brewing, one major American brand proclaimed its lack of hops to be a virtue, using the tagline, “No more bitter beer face!” So how did the hop — essentially a seasoning, like parsley or black pepper — nudge barley off center stage and grab the limelight? How did Jim Koch, chairman of Boston Beer, come to the conclusion, solemnly intoned in his commercials, that “hops are the soul of beer”? Koch markets a “Hop-ology” six-pack containing a half-dozen variations on the IPA style. He’s rolling out still another: Rebel IPA. In terms of international bitterness units, this is the weakling of the bunch, registering only 45 IBUs. (Those units measure alpha acids, the main bittering chemical in hops. Claims of 100 IBUs and above are common in the industry.) And yet, this is Boston Beer’s most successful attempt to date to mimic the no-holds-barred hop character of West Coast IPAs, an explosion of pine resin, grapefruit, orange and peppercorns. The genius of American craft brewers — and hop growers — lies in the realization that “bitterness is just one component of hop character,” suggests Koch. Newer varieties are being bred to minimize that bitterness and to eliminate a defect called “cattiness,” the waft of unchanged litter box that emanates from some ales aggressively hopped with high-alpha American strains. At the same time, they’re emphasizing the volatile oils that give different hop varieties their distinctive perfumes. A little mystery can spice up a relationship. Sierra Nevada Brewing in Chico, Calif., as part of its new Harvest series, plans to introduce two IPAs this year hopped with strains so new and experimental


U.S. complains that Afghanistan is releasing dangerous prisoners

KABUL — The dispute over the prisoners at the Afghan National Detention Facility at Parwan, north of Kabul, is the latest spat between the United States and Afghanistan as the U.S.-led military coalition tries to wind down its presence here by the end of the year. The United States has contended that of 650 prisoners still in custody at Parwan, 88 are a threat to security and should not be released. Afghanistan has decided to release 65 despite “extensive information and evidence” against them, the U.S. military said Tuesday. “The release of these detainees is a major step backward for the rule of law in Afghanistan,” the U.S. military said in a statement. “Some previously released individuals have already returned to the fight, and this subsequent release will allow dangerous insurgents back into Afghan cities and villages.” The prisoner dispute has escalated in the past year, since the U.S. military handed control over the detention center at Parwan to Afghan authorities. Last month, the United States protested Afghanistan’s decision to release some of the 88 detainees, citing evidence that 30 percent of them had wounded or killed 60 international-coalition troops and that more had been responsible for Afghan civilian casualties. Afghan officials issued a sharp rebuttal, saying the Afghan attorney general’s office and the National Directorate of Security — Afghanistan’s CIA — had reviewed the U.S. information and found insufficient evidence to continue to hold the prisoners. “According to Afghan laws there is no information gathered about these detainees to prove them guilty, so they were ordered released,” Abdul Shakoor Dadras, head of the Afghan government committee responsible for the prisoner issue, said Tuesday night. The dispute comes as Afghan President Hamid Karzai continues to delay signing a security agreement that could provide for several thousand U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond this year to conduct counterterrorism and training operations. Karzai has indicated that he would not sign the agreement before the April 5 election to pick his successor, which could complicate the plans of the United States. James R. Clapper Jr., the U.S. director of national intelligence, told a Senate panel Tuesday that he doesn’t think Karzai will sign the deal, the first such statement from a senior Obama administration official. — Los Angeles Times


Anacostia residents want to preserve Victorian home, but developer has other ideas

A boarded-up house in the 2200 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast Washington is on a parcel called the “Big K site,” which is planned for redevelopment by Chapman. The developer wants to move the house and another one next door. What to do about the property has been an ongoing conversation. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post) Every time Kadija Bangura walks past a dilapidated Victorian house on a desolate stretch of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Anacostia, she imagines it was part of a neighborhood of proud African American families of yesteryear. And for her, preserving that history is a good enough reason to fight for the house to be redeveloped right where it is. Bangura is part of a group of community residents, many of them new homeowners, who hope that the city will encourage its redevelopment into a coffeehouse or bakery. Saving the house — and another one next door — will preserve the original feel of the neighborhood, they say. “I love that house,” said Bangura, a public relations executive who moved to the neighborhood in October. “I hope that they can preserve that house, but I have to make my coffee at home. We need more places to go to.” What to do about the Southeast property at MLK Avenue and Morris Road has been an ongoing conversation in Anacostia for years. Now a developer wants to move the houses off the site and tear down an adjoining vacant building that once had a liquor store so the land can be turned into a mixed-use development. For some residents, the houses are quaint, but not worth fighting over. Arrington Dixon, a longtime Anacostia businessman and community leader, who later became a D.C. Council member from Ward 8, said the house does not illustrate an African American past in Anacostia worth celebrating. Kadija Bangura walks down Martin Luther King Avenue in Anacostia and expresses her thoughts about what should be done to the two old houses that may soon be removed to build a high rise apartment. “What is the historical value to that house?” asked Dixon, who finds himself on the uncomfortable side of a historic preservation debate about what to do with the house and a boarded-up store in the 2200 block of MLK Avenue. He pointed out that many longtime African Americans in Anacostia remember a segregated community and


‘Soft lobbying’ war between sugar, corn syrup shows new tactics in Washington influence

A worker monitors a controlled burn at a U.S. Sugar Corp. field during harvest in Belle Glade, Fla. on Oct. 31, 2013. (Mark Elias/Bloomberg) A group called Citizens for Health recently began a campaign to encourage consumers to reduce high-fructose corn syrup in their diets, filing a petition with the Food and Drug Administration demanding stricter labeling on food items containing the sweetener. Yet the petition did not disclose that the organization, which bills itself as the “voice of the natural-health consumer,” received the bulk of its money at the time from sugar companies, which view corn syrup as a threat to their profits. Since 2011, the organization has received at least $500,000 from the industry. Sugar companies’ investments in this nonprofit group, detailed in newly released internal documents, are part of a growing strategy used by corporate interests seeking to influence Washington policymaking. No longer content to rely on traditional lobbyists, companies are investing in other messengers, such as nonprofit groups or academicians, that can provide expert testimony, shape news media coverage and change public opinion in ways that ultimately affect decisions in the nation’s capital. The new approach lacks the transparency that comes from traditional lobbyist registration rules that provide a visible trail of corporate contact with lawmakers and regulators. Nonprofit organizations, now playing an increasing role in lobbying and electoral politics, are not required to publicly reveal their donors. How the sweetener war turned sour Newly released documents show how intense, expensive and bitter a modern lobbying battle can be. The trend toward “soft lobbying” is clear in new data. Major corporations are hiring fewer registered lobbyists in the capital overall, with reported spending declining in 2013 to a five-year low, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. But the seeming decline is more than offset by increased unreported spending on other methods to shape laws and regulations. The new documents lay out in striking detail the extent to which two large and competing industry groups — the Sugar Association and the Corn Refiners Association — made use of these alternative influence tactics as they jockeyed to protect their positions in a health-conscious food market. Sugar and corn have been in intense competition since the 1980s, when corn syrup became one of the fastest-growing agricultural sectors as it was selected as a less-expensive alternative to sugar for the U.S. production of Coke, Pepsi and other soft drinks


Russian volunteers smuggle Sochi strays to a new life far from Olympics host city

four dogs in her own apartment. Over the past two years, she said, she has helped rescue 500 canines. “Mostly we rescue dogs in trouble — dogs who have been abused, or have been in an accident, or puppies without their mothers, or dogs in a dangerous place,” she said. In other words, dogs living in a place where someone might call in the exterminators. On the Moscow end, the indefatigable road warrior is Igor Airapetyan, 41. In January, he drove down from Moscow and took 11 Sochi dogs back with him. On Monday night, here in Tuapse, he and three co-conspirators took the six dogs from the Chrysler — one of them pregnant — and 18 others from four other cars. Airapetyan loads stray dogs into his car. (David Goldman/AP) “If somebody doesn’t do it, nobody will do it,” Airapetyan said, before he started hefting one mangy animal after another into the back of his Korean minivan. “This won’t solve the problem, but we’re trying to attract attention to it. And a life is a life. Saving even one life is important.” Dog advocates point out that the culling of strays in Sochi was happening long before the Olympics began to take shape. But they’ve been happy to exploit the publicity that comes with the Games. Nadezhda Mayboroda, 39, a private tutor who opened her own shelter on a steep hillside outside town, with more than 100 dogs in residence, agrees that neither dog-lifts nor shelters will solve Sochi’s dog problem, which requires a concerted sterilization effort. But the efforts do help. Stray dogs begin a new life at Nadezhda Mayboroda’s private shelter on a hillside in Sochi. (Will Englund/The Washington Post) Last week, Mayboroda’s shelter started to receive financial support from Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who had a hand in Olympics construction. Also, the city, taking note of unflattering news reports about killing dogs, is building its own small showcase shelter next to hers, and has asked the exterminating company to catch and deliver live animals to fill it. But Mayboroda wonders whether the effort can be sustained past the Olympics. “You won’t change the situation in one month or two,” she said. Mayboroda echoed a notion common among Russians: that dogs are innocent and shouldn’t be made to suffer because of the cruelties and negligence of human society. Caring for dogs can seem like an outlet