With 600 bottles of beer on the wall, how can a staff keep up? Taste, talk and learn.

lessons and questions take place, says ChurchKey’s Engert, the goal is not rote memorization of what a particular beer tastes like. “Even I haven’t necessarily tasted every single beer on the list today, and if I have, I haven’t tasted some of them for a while,” he says bluntly. “We have 600 bottles and then 55 drafts and casks. No one’s going to have that call-and-response of every beer they’ve ever tasted.” Instead, Engert tries to train the staff in the fundamentals of different styles and ingredients, to help customers “zero in” on what they might like if they’re trying to decide between two or more beers or wondering which ale will pair best with their meal. On a menu this month, for example, ChurchKey listed 17 IPAs and pale ales on draft and cask. Beer geeks might be excited when they read that Ballast Point’s Dorado is “dry-hopped with Crystal and Mt. Hood hops,” but for the average patron, that description might be as inscrutable as Latin. By asking customers what kinds of beers they usually prefer and using details gleaned from those pre-shift Q&As, servers could point out that some combinations of hops would provide bright tropical-fruit flavors to beer, while others will be more piney and resiny. Maris Otter malts provide a much richer body than typical pale malts, and a DC Brau imperial IPA made with local honey will have a different finish from a dry-hopped IPA from Foothills. Both ChurchKey and Pizzeria Paradiso require servers to pass beer knowledge tests before they can work their first floor shifts, but even then, Engert says, “it takes months and months for it all to sink in, and for them to gather the requisite knowledge.” That problem might be diminishing. Paradiso’s Fernands notes that as the reputation of the small chain’s beer program has grown, the aptitude of the applicants has increased. Of three new servers and bartenders just hired in Georgetown, he says, “one is about to take his Cicerone level two exam. Another is a home-brewer. . . . They have great knowledge already.” Hiring staffers with a solid background is a positive trend, but as every bartender knows, you never stop learning — and you never know what’s going on tap tomorrow. More from Food: Relaxed style of restaurant service blurs the line between staff and customer How ChurchKey’s servers learn all the beers When


A bargain cab franc plus 3 more wines to try

Recommendations ★ ★ ★Exceptional ★ ★Excellent ★Very Good Availability information is based on distributor records. Wines might not be in stock at every listed store and might be sold at additional stores. Prices are approximate. Check Winesearcher.com to verify availability, or ask a favorite wine store to order through a distributor. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) This week’s selections feature two affordable reds worth stocking up on, plus two intriguing whites worth seeking out. Diaz R. Cabernet Franc 2013 ★ ★ 1 / 2 San Juan, Argentina, $8 Wow. Wines this delicious are extremely rare at under $10. It’s big, deep, spicy and a bit on the sweet/ripe side. Fans of cabernet franc from the Loire Valley or Virginia will not find it familiar — in fact, this wine resembles an Australian shiraz in style and texture. At this price, stock up! Alcohol by volume: 14 percent. Kysela: Available in the District at Cairo Wine & Liquor, Magruder’s, Paul’s of Chevy Chase, Rodman’s. Available in Maryland at 3 Star Liquors, Beckley’s Country Store, DJ Liquors, Riverside Liquors, Trout Liquors and Ye Old Spirit Shop in Frederick; the Bottle Shop in Potomac; Cafe Liquor in Hagerstown; Capital Beer & Wine in Bethesda; College Square Liquors in Westminster; Country Spirits in Cascade; Dawson’s Liquors in Severna Park; Downtown Crown Wine and Beer and Finewine.com in Gaithersburg; Fairgrounds Discount Beverages in Timonium; Franklin Liquors in Ijamsville; Gilly’s Craft Beer & Fine Wine in Rockville; McHenry Beverage Shoppe. Available in Virginia at Beer Run, Foods of All Nations, Market Street Wineshop and Wine Made Simple in Charlottesville; the Caboose Wine & Cheese in Ashland; Classic Wines of Great Falls; Downtown Wine & Gourmet in Harrisonburg; In Vino Veritas in Keswick; Kroger (Short Pump) and Once Upon a Vine in Richmond; Timeless Wines in Middletown; Vino Market in Midlothian. Maximin Grünhäuser Riesling Feinherb 2012 ★ ★ 1 / 2 Mosel, Germany, $22 This is a delightful wine that has almost no availability. Perhaps it’s the ornate old-style German label. Perhaps it’s the strange “Feinherb,” which does not indicate that the wine is steeped with fines herbes but that it is “half dry.” Perhaps it’s the popular misconception that all Rieslings, especially those that are “half dry,” are cloyingly sweet. Whatever the reason, this wine and others like it need more daring retailers and consumers to try them. This is delicious Riesling, beautifully balanced. My only


‘Dynamic’ deceptions

proposals’ budgetary costs. If the economy were improved, the budget costs would drop, and vice versa. Sounds straightforward. It isn’t. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has just required dynamic scoring. It provides “a more . . . honest analysis,” House Budget Committee chairman Tom Price said in a statement. Wrong, countered Shaun Donovan, head of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Dynamic scoring risks “injecting bias” into budget estimates, he said in a blog post. It’s enlightened budgeting vs. cooking the books. Existing procedures, Republicans argue, are skewed against pro-growth policies. Democrats fear Republicans will push tax cuts based on over-optimistic projections of economic growth. What neither says is that it probably won’t make much difference. In theory, it’s hard to disagree with Republicans. We need budget estimates based on the best available information. But in practice, it’s hard to predict how most tax and spending proposals will move a $17 trillion economy. They’re too small, and there are too many other influences. Consider some: technology; management, good or bad; employees’ skills and work ethic; interest rates; foreign competition; the business cycle — and much more. Tax and spending changes are easily swamped. It’s hard to tease out their impact. Given these difficulties, the House plan requires dynamic scoring only for large proposals whose budgetary impact exceeds 0.25 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). In 2014, the threshold would have been $43 billion, according to the House Budget Committee. In the last Congress, the House considered only three bills that exceeded the threshold, the committee says. So Democrats are right? Not exactly. There’s a fair amount of hypocrisy in their opposition. As Keith Hennessey, a top economic official in George W. Bush’s White House, has noted, Democrats happily tout favorable economic forecasts for policies they support — the 2009 stimulus package and proposed immigration legislation being good examples. The truth is that both parties will summon forecasts, whether required by dynamic scoring or created on an ad hoc basis, to advance their agendas. But the effort is worth the trouble only for a few sizable proposals. This fight was mostly about symbolism: Republicans brandishing their tax-cutting credentials and Democrats boasting of being “responsible.” Meanwhile, the real budget issues are ignored. For Democrats, these would include cuts in Social Security and Medicare, whose growth is squeezing other programs. For Republicans, it would be recognition that, even after spending cuts,


A day after deadly Metro incident, few details on emergency response

irate, but as the time passed, people realized they had to focus and breathe.” Riders held scarves, hats and shirts to their faces. Litwin said he prayed and said to himself, “This would be a terrible way to die.” Still, the train did not move. Litwin said riders around him spoke of forcing open the doors and walking back to L’Enfant Plaza. “People were ready to go. People weren’t going to chance staying on that train too much longer.” Forty-five minutes went by, Litwin said. Firefighters did not arrive. Eugene A. Jones, the District’s interim fire chief, said there was an initial question over whether power to the third rail had been cut before firefighters went into the tunnel. He said some firefighters heard trains, apparently coming from a track on a lower level, and waited to confirm with Metro that no current was running through the third rail. Jones declined to say whether fans to vent the tunnel were working. The Office of Unified Communications, which runs the District’s 911 center, would not release the dispatch and arrival times of firefighters. The Fire Department also declined to provide a timeline of how the rescue unfolded. The NTSB said the incident had been caused by an electrical “arcing event” that occurred about 1,100 feet farther into the tunnel from where the train stopped. Louis Sanders, director of technical services for the American Public Transportation Association, said in an interview that “arcing” can cause a fire. Sanders, who is not involved in the investigation, said the third rail, which carries the electricity that powers trains, is mounted on “insulators” that keep the rail from making contact with the ground. The electricity flows into the third rail through power cables connected to the rail at various intervals. He said it is important to keep the electrical current, usually about 750 volts, contained within the power cables and the third rail. However, sometimes the electricity escapes, which is called “arcing,” which usually happens in a flash. There is also “a more insidious” problem: Stray current, Sanders said, which is when electricity escapes not just for an instant but continuously. Electricity could escape from deteriorated cables or from the third rail if the insulators keeping the rail off the ground are faulty. Once the electricity starts flowing uncontained, it would generate “tremendous heat,” possibly resulting in a fire. Such an electrical malfunction could be


Detention of African warlord raises legal questions for Pentagon

An African warlord with a $5 million bounty on his head unexpectedly fell into the lap of U.S. troops last week, presenting the Pentagon with a military victory but also a legal conundrum: what to do with the newfound prisoner? Dominic Ongwen, a senior commander with the Lord’s Resistance Army, the brutal militia led by messianic leader Joseph Kony, surrendered to Muslim rebels in the Central African Republic. The rebels, in turn, handed over Ongwen on Jan. 5 to U.S. Special Forces who are advising African soldiers as they search for Kony in thick jungle terrain across four countries. Since then, Ongwen has been sitting in U.S. military custody at a bush camp in the Central African Republic. Although U.S. officials and human rights groups have portrayed his surrender as a breakthrough in the hunt for Kony, the legal basis for keeping him in American detention is unclear. Ongwen is not wanted on criminal charges in the United States. And while the Obama administration has authorized about 100 U.S. troops to help African forces look for Kony, their role is supposed to be limited to giving advice and sharing intelligence — not capturing or killing people. In 2013, the State Department posted a $5 million bounty for information leading to Ongwen’s arrest or conviction. The justification for the reward was that Ongwen was wanted on war-crimes charges by the International Criminal Court, a judicial body based in The Hague that investigates mass atrocities. He is charged there with crimes against humanity for ordering massacres in Uganda. An undated photo taken from the Interpol Web site shows senior Lord’s Resistance Army leader Dominic Ongwen. (Interpol/Via AFP/Getty Images) On Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Ongwen would be handed over “soon” to an African Union military task force that has been searching for Kony and his fighters. The task force, which consists mostly of Ugandan soldiers who work alongside U.S. Special Forces, would then place Ongwen in the custody of the ICC to face trial. The United States, however, is not a member of the tribunal, and many members of Congress are vigorously opposed to how it works. Moreover, the U.S. government in recent days has been at loggerheads with the ICC on another front, opposing efforts by the Palestinian Authority to join the court and extend its jurisdiction to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.),


D.C. challenges Congress to halt marijuana legalization in nation’s capital

saying the pot law was a done deal before the federal spending bill was passed. In an interview this week, Mendelson played down the issue, saying there was “nothing special” about transmitting the measure despite warnings from Republicans in Congress. He also stressed that he wasn’t seeking a confrontation with Congress. “I have no choice,” Mendelson said. “The law says that I must transmit the measure. That is all I am doing.” The business-as-usual stance is key because in 1998, Congress similarly restricted the expenditure of taxpayer funds in order to block a ballot measure legalizing medical marijuana. Once Congress acted, D.C. election officials declined to spend even $1.64 to finish counting ballots, fearing retribution from Congress. The city’s medical marijuana law ultimately stalled for more than a decade. To underscore that the District was making no special expenditure this week to take the final steps to make Initiative 71 law, Mendelson did little to draw attention to Tuesday’s effort to get the measure to Congress. Legislative staffers bundled it in manila envelopes with 20 other acts of the D.C. Council that were due before Congress for a standard 30-day review. The city also did not alter the monthly schedule to send the package to Congress. Legislative staffers said they could not single out any particular cost for the envelope, printing or other packaging of the ballot measure. In a statement after the initiative reached Congress, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), a leading opponent of marijuana legalization, cautioned that the District was attempting to subvert the intent of Congress and to rewrite the definition of when a bill becomes law — in the District’s case, always following congressional review. “Despite attempts to misconstrue the language of the omnibus bill, it is clear that if D.C. chooses to proceed with enactment of marijuana legalization, they will be in violation of the law,” Harris said. The District faces a host of other challenges should its effort to implement the ballot measure succeed. Mendelson said there is no doubt that the federal prohibition on looser drug laws will prevent the District from adopting a system for legal sales and taxation of marijuana, like in Colorado and Washington state. Before she pledged to fight the congressional interference, Bowser, the new mayor, said she feared that moving forward with one but not the other could lead to open-air drug markets and tie the hands of police.


Food calendar: Learn about beer in early America at Mount Vernon

FRIDAY COOKING CLASS: SATURDAY COOKING CLASS: DATE NIGHT/CHEF’S TABLE: SPIRITS DINNER: MONDAY METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON RESTAURANT WEEK: TUESDAY WINE DINNER: RESERVE NOW JAN. 21 COOKING DEMONSTRATION: JAN. 23 BEER DINNER: JAN. 24 SIPS SUPPERS: JAN. 25 SIPS SUPPERS: — Becky Krystal Event listings can be submitted online only at washingtonpost.com/gog/talk-to-us.html, at least 14 days in advance.


Hooray for free credit scores

scores. Ally said its effort will begin with a pilot program in February and a full launch this summer. Scores will be available to Ally’s auto finance customers. USAA said it will fully implement its free credit score program to credit card holders by March and will provide the Experian VantageScore. As good as this news is, there is something missing: consistency. Not everyone is going to get a free credit score and, for those who get them, there will be variations. Scores provided to consumers — either ones they get free or buy — can vary from those generated for lenders. Even the scores under the FICO brand can vary. FICO has updated its scoring model several times. But this does not mean that lenders use the latest versions. So even within the FICO scoring system, the score you get free could be different from the one a lender eventually pulls when you apply for credit. Still, FICO — new or old — is the go-to scoring system for most lenders. If your score is excellent, small variations won’t matter much, if at all. I pulled my VantageScore credit score recently through Credit Karma. Then I got my Experian FICO score offered for free at the Dollars & Sense pavilion during a recent NBC4 Health & Fitness expo. The numbers were very close. If you’re teetering between a great and good range, the variations in scores won’t matter much. If you’re just barely hanging in a decent credit range, however, a drop down to subpar credit because of a different scoring model can have a big impact on what you pay for credit. Going forward, be sure to carefully review communications you receive from any lenders to see if they will provide free scores. And if they are not going to, ask why. This is an important enough feature that you might consider switching to a competitor that offers it. It’s a great move by the companies to provide free credit scores. But it shouldn’t be left to their discretion. The government should mandate, as it has for credit reports, that a standardized credit score be offered for free at least as often as people can pull their credit files. Readers may write to Michelle Singletary at The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 or michelle.singletary@washpost.com. To read previous Color of Money columns, go to wapo.st/michelle-singletary.


Blacks’ political muscle has gone soft

by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee leading up to the elections found that 67 percent of Obama’s base didn’t even know that an election was being held. No point in complaining about Republicans in Congress now. An Associated Press survey two years ago found that 56 percent of Americans have explicit “anti-black attitudes” — and the rest don’t love you all that much, either. Harvard University professor Michael I. Norton found last year that many whites now believe anti-white racism is a bigger problem than anti-black bias — the latter having been all but eliminated, they say. On the most important issues, an NBC News/Marist College poll found last month that 52 percent of whites have a “great deal” of confidence that police officers in their community treat blacks and whites the same, compared with only 12 percent of blacks. So whose “conscience,” exactly, are black people trying to prick? The answer ought to be our own. Black people have serious problems, to be sure — extraordinarily high incarceration and homicide rates, for starters. But the resources at our disposal are enormous, if not always used most effectively. “African Americans make more shopping trips than the average consumer,” reports Target Market News, an authority on black consumer habits. “They are more likely than average to buy beauty and ethnic products, children’s cologne, toiletries for both men and women, frozen meats, and fresh vegetables and grains.” We have sweet-smelling kids but no major black-owned publishing companies that can reflect their sweet little faces in children’s books. There are fewer than 30 black-owned banks in the country, according to the Federal Reserve, compared with about 130 such institutions at the turn of the 20th century. You’d think black people would be seeking more community-oriented banks as alternatives to the big Wall Street firms that ripped them off during the Great Recession. Black-owned businesses are the second largest employer of black people, next to the federal government. But only 7 percent of small businesses are owned by blacks. How unfortunate that the president must go hat in hand to Corporate America, asking for $200 million to help black men and boys stay in school and get jobs. The program is called “My Brother’s Keeper.” Better we start more businesses and hire these black men and boys. Let the brothers keep themselves. “As shoppers, African Americans are influencers and trendsetters whose purchasing habits affect


Richard Krause, science administrator in AIDS crisis, dies at 90

widely held belief that because of vaccines, the flu and other infectious diseases no longer constituted serious public health threats. “Is it any wonder, therefore, that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sometimes not taken seriously?” he told the New York Times in 1982. “It has a credibility problem. With all else there is to do, why on earth should we have an institute for sneezes and colds, flu and fluxes, itches and blotches?” He cautioned that many infectious diseases were becoming resistent to antibiotics. More worrisome, he said, the flu, with its evolving molecular structure, continued to kill hundreds and perhaps thousands of Americans each year. His lectures on these subjects were published in 1981 as “The Restless Tide: The Persistent Challenge of the Microbial World.” “Richard was among the first scientists in the modern era to sound a clarion call about the persistent threat of infectious diseases, and during his leadership he kept scientists and policymakers focused on the concepts of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases,” Anthony S. Fauci, who succeeded Dr. Krause as NIAID director, said in a statement. But that clarion call was not widely heard, said Jack Whitescarver, a top assistant to Dr. Krause at NIAID who is now director of NIH’s Office of AIDS Research. After Dr. Krause’s departure, NIAID’s budget increased significantly following the death of actor Rock Hudson from AIDS complications in 1985 and later because of an influx of counterterrorism funding, Whitescarver said. Dr. Krause presided over the institute at a time when AIDS, marginalized at first by many in the medical establishment as a “gay disease,” began to emerge as a national epidemic. In 1981, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a federal medical bulletin, published some of the first scientific accounts of what would soon become the AIDS crisis. In later interviews, Dr. Krause said it was initially unclear whether AIDS was a cancer — and therefore under the bailiwick of the National Cancer Institute — or a sexually transmitted disease and thus a matter for NIAID. Once it became clear that the NIAID had a role to play in responding to the disease, he organized high-level conferences to explore its possible causes, including one chaired by polio vaccine developer Albert Sabin. A look at those who have died. Over the years, AIDS activist Larry Kramer singled out Dr. Krause and other leading science administrators as


Montgomery County Animal Watch

These cases were received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Lab bites jogger: Trail contretemps: Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind: Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt or foster rescue dogs: Rockville Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Plate Lab: Shanghai-style soup dumplings. They’re not just in New York anymore.

The traditional Shanghai soup dumpling is different from the average dumpling -- in that there's actually soup on the inside. Restaurant owner Ivan Liang takes us into Bob's Shanghai 66 to show how it's made. Shanghai-style soup dumplings, long popular in other cities, where they enjoy almost cultlike followings, are now appearing in the Washington region. “A lot of people in this area used to go to New York to eat it,” said Amy Choua, manager and co-owner of House of Fortune in McLean, Va. “Now they can stay here.” The dumplings are listed on menus as xiao long bao (abbreviated as “XLB”), with a translation meaning “little basket of steamed buns.” They are thought to have originated in Nanxiang, on Shanghai’s outskirts, during the 19th century; the best-known version was popularized in the ’90s by the international Taiwanese restaurant chain Din Tai Fung, whose dumplings have paper-thin, almost translucent skin. Not to be confused with their horned or ravioli-shaped potsticker cousins, the dumpling pockets burst with hot, savory broth when punctured. “A good xiao long bao is very hard to make because you have to get the skin and meat filling just right,” Choua said. “Our chefs come to the restaurant at 7 in the morning to make 15 to 20 orders on a weekday and 30 to 40 orders on the weekends.” Choua’s chefs spend up to three hours kneading a refined flour dough that’s eventually smoothed into a skin to wrap around a meaty filling. The dumpling is then pinched at the top to form a swirled, pleated fold. After the dumpling is steamed, it will fill with liquid and “will almost look like a small balloon with broth,” Choua said. Shanghai-style soup dumplings, also listed on menus as xiao long bao, at House of Fortune in McLean. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) The secret to getting broth inside the dumpling is using aspic, or gelatinized meat stock. Once the dumpling is steamed, the heat melts the aspic and becomes what pastry maker Wei Sun, co-owner of Shanghai Taste in Rockville, calls “rich soup.” “The xiao long bao will be full of the juice after we steam it,” Sun said through an interpreter. The meat mixture is often combined with ginger, scallions and Shaoxing wine, chilled overnight for easier assembly and then folded into more dumpling meat. Sun prepares her soup dumplings with pork meat, skin


Timeline confirms Metro riders’ accounts of wait for rescue on dark, smoke-filled train

and the city’s emergency dispatch systems, said the details now unfolding, combined with the accounts of passengers about how long it took firefighters to respond show how many questions remain. “There are a lot of riders of Metro who are deeply concerned about what they don’t know occurred,” McDuffie said. “They have questions, and I have questions. . . . There has to be transparency in this process.” A mayoral official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, said a fuller timeline is being constructed but that it would not be done for several days. First responders to the train will be interviewed later this week, the official said. Their accounts will be needed to better understand what the official described as sometimes confusing “chatter” in radio transmissions from the scene. The official said a transcript of that radio communication was being vetted Wednesday. Authorities said earlier this week that they believe they know why the train, which had just left L’Enfant Plaza station, came to a halt about 800 feet into the tunnel. The NTSB said “an electrical arcing event” occurred about 1,100 feet in front of the train. The event filled the tunnel with smoke. A precise cause has not been determined. The passenger fatality was Metro’s first since the deadly Red Line crash in 2009 that killed eight passengers and the train operator. Authorities have declined to discuss what happened between the time the first firefighters arrived at L’Enfant Plaza at 3:31 p.m. and when they reached the passengers, and whether there was a delay in firefighters going into the tunnel. There also are questions of whether the exhaust fans were working to vent the tunnel of smoke. Fire union officials have also said some firefighters had trouble using new radios in the tunnel and on the train, though the problem might also be with Metro “repeater” systems that are used to help transmit radio calls. Two District officials said transmission from firefighters in the tunnel to the street was not working. The spotty transmissions meant that some firefighters moved from the tunnel closer to the platform. Edward C. Smith, president of the D.C. firefighters union, said the timeline shows what he considers a fast response. Even after the first firefighters arrived at 3:31 p.m., it took several more minutes for the others to arrive, collect gear and go down to the


Local Digest: Man fatally shot in D.C.; GWU to sell Corcoran site in Georgetown

THE DISTRICT Man is fatally shot; teenage girl is injured A man died and a teenager was injured Wednesday night in a shooting in Southeast Washington. D.C. police were searching for a teenage suspect. Police spokesman Sean Conboy said the teenager, a girl, suffered minor injuries. Spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said the man had died. The shooting was reported at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Randle Place, in the Congress Heights area, at 8:27 p.m. After the shooting, a crowd gathered at the scene, where people chanted in unison and appeared to confront police officers in video recorded by WRC-TV (Channel 4). Conboy said that the crowd had dissipated by 11 p.m. and that he did not know why it had formed. — Julie Zauzmer GWU to sell Corcoran site in Georgetown George Washington University plans to sell the historic schoolhouse in Georgetown that it took control of this summer as part of a court-approved breakup of the financially troubled Corcoran Gallery of Art. The agreement sent the museum’s art collection to the National Gallery of Art and allowed the university to absorb its College of Art and Design. The university said it has selected TTR Sotheby’s International Realty to list the historic brick building, known as the Fillmore, and its acre of property. The initial sale price is $14 million. The university received the Corcoran’s iconic 17th Street building, designed by Ernest Flagg; the Fillmore; and $43 million — including $8 million in restricted endowment funds – in the agreement signed in August that dismantled the private museum and school. The agreement mandates that proceeds from any sale of the Fillmore be used for renovations and operations of the 17th Street building. Total costs to renovate that building are estimated to reach $80 million. The university will continue to hold classes this semester in the 54,000-square-foot Fillmore, built in 1893 on 35th Street NW, school officials said. After that, it will move activities to the 17th Street building and to other GWU facilities. — Peggy McGlone VIRGINIA Guilty plea in killing of high school student A woman accused of fatally stabbing a Woodbridge High School football player pleaded guilty just before her murder trial was set to begin in Prince William County. Diandra Samuels, 20, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and robbery in the killing of Kenny Diaz, 18. Samuels, who would have faced a first-degree


Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’

“They’re a little bit more like danger warnings, like high-temperature gauges on your car.” Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Center, discusses "planetary boundaries" and the global challenges they present. Pierrehumbert, who was not involved in the paper published in Science, added that a planetary boundary “is like an avalanche warning tape on a ski slope.” The scientists say there is no certainty that catastrophe will follow the transgression of these boundaries. Rather, the scientists cite the precautionary principle: We know that human civilization has risen and flourished in the past 10,000 years — an epoch known as the Holocene — under relatively stable environmental conditions. No one knows what will happen to civilization if planetary conditions continue to change. But the authors of the Science paper write that the planet “is likely to be much less hospitable to the development of human societies.” The authors make clear that their goal is not to offer solutions, but simply to provide information. This is a kind of report card, exploiting new data from the past five years. Atmosphere aerosol loading: Emissions spew from smokestacks at a Kansas coal-fired power plant. (Charlie Riedel/AP) It’s not just a list of F’s. The ozone boundary is the best example of world leaders responding swiftly to a looming environmental disaster. After the discovery of an expanding ozone hole caused by man-made chemicals, chlorofluorocarbons, the nations of the world banned CFCs in the 1980s. This young field of research draws from such disciplines as ecology, geology, chemistry, atmospheric science, marine biology and economics. It’s known generally as Earth Systems Science. The researchers acknowledge the uncertainties inherent in what they’re doing. Some planetary boundaries, such as “introduction of novel entities” — CFCs would be an example of such things — remain enigmatic and not easily quantified. Better understood is the role of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. The safe-operating-zone boundary for CO2 had previously been estimated at levels up to 350 parts per million. That’s the boundary — and we’re already past that, with the current levels close to 400 ppm, according to the paper. That puts the planet in the CO2 zone of uncertainty that the authors say extends from 350 to 450 ppm. At the rate CO2 is rising — about 2 ppm per year — we will surpass 450 ppm in just a couple of decades, said Katherine Richardson, a professor


The Hire More Heroes Act is misguided. There is no veterans’ unemployment crisis.

CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS, PA - MARCH 20: A Retired soldier , who did not want to give his name, signs in at the, Hiring Our Heroes job fair. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post) Peter A. Gudmundsson, who was a Marine artillery officer, is chief executive of RecruitMilitary, a national veteran recruiting company. L The logic behind the bill is simple: Why not give small businesses seeking to avoid the ACA’s “employer mandate” an incentive to hire veterans, who can get health-care coverage through Tricare and the Department of Veterans Affairs? And like most initiatives aimed at assisting military veterans, the bill is well intentioned. But as a matter of public policy, it is based on a faulty premise, sets a counterproductive goal and, on top of it all, is poorly named. Americans may be shocked to learn that there is no veterans’ unemployment crisis. The unemployment rate in 2014 for post-9/11 veterans was 7.2 percent, the lowest level in seven years of tracking these veterans. Although post-9/11 veterans did have a higher rate of unemployment than the overall workforce last year — which was at 6.2 percent — the disparity is more attributable to the relative youth of those in this group rather than their military experience. In fact, compared with civilians in the same age ranges, post-9/11 veterans experienced lower rates of unemployment. Meanwhile, the considerable resources that federal and state governments expend on direct programs and incentives for veterans’ employment produce mixed results at best. That’s because proponents of initiatives such as the Hire More Heroes Act fail to understand why and how companies hire talent in the real world. Managers do not hire people to avoid costs or pursue incentives. The most powerful force motivating firms to hire veterans is the need to find the right employees. Although savvy companies may apply for tax benefits or other perks tied to hiring veterans, in most cases they do so for personnel they would have hired anyway. Companies live or die based on their ability to find intelligent, hard-working employees. It would be foolish to hire someone based on a financial incentive if that person were not likely to excel; the costs would outweigh the gains. Quality drives hiring, not a health-care head-count exemption. The irony is that one of the few topics that can unite both sides of the aisle in Congress is veterans’ affairs. Yet lawmakers are harnessing


Jason Alexander to revisit his musical-theater roots at Strathmore and Meyerhoff

We’ll always know him as George Costanza, the slow-boiling sidekick on “Seinfeld.” But before he stepped foot in Jerry’s apartment, Jason Alexander already had a successful career on Broadway — in Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” Kander & Ebb’s “The Rink,” Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” and “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway,” for which he won the 1989 Tony for best actor in a musical. Alexander, 55, returns to his musical-theater roots next week when he performs with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Pops conductor Jack Everly at Strathmore in North Bethesda and Baltimore’s Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. We spoke recently to Alexander, who was in Florida directing a play and about to head to the Bahamas to play in a poker tournament, about his musical-theater past, life after George and his hopes for returning to television. You’re on your way to a poker tournament. Is this something you do? It is something I do. I guess I’m considered a semi-pro, because I have a company that sponsors me to play. Am I good? I know how to play. . . . I don’t think anybody says, “Oh, my God, Jason Alexander just sat down — we’re in big trouble!” I have a reputation of being a good poker player, but I have yet to steal money from anybody in a major tournament. Jason Alexander (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) What do you do when you put together a performance with a Pops orchestra? Well, it’s an odd alchemy. I don’t have a signature song, so it’s not like the crowd is waiting to hear “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” So I decided to focus on the music that I’m most acquainted with, and that’s theater music. . . . It’s a mixture: It’s things that have been part of my career, it’s things that have never been part of my career, it’s some things the audience is probably not familiar with and others they will be. It’s also a mix because it’s me, and the expectation is that it’s going to be at least a somewhat comedic evening. Sounds like you’re not going to say what’s in the program beforehand. It’s all going to be a surprise. But if you Google my personal musical-theater history, you’ll have some inklings of what might be in the show. I’ll tell you this: The most fun thing I do is the end of the


Ivan Fischer leads Budapest Festival Orchestra where NSO couldn’t go

Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer nearly became the National Symphony Orchestra’s music director, but he was unwilling to commit to the limitations of an American orchestra. (Marco Borggreve) The Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer has the slightly nerdy enthusiasm of a very bright child: involved with his ideas, always up for a game. He turns 64 this month, but seems younger. He loves number games, memory challenges, mental chess. When he was principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra — a post he held for two years, until 2010 — he sometimes read the score of one piece on the podium while conducting the musicians in another. “He struck me as somebody who’s always operating on a different plane in a certain way,” says Nick Stovall, the NSO’s principal oboeist. “Totally in the moment, but thinking about something else.” In Washington, Fischer is the maestro who got away. He came within a hair of becoming the NSO’s music director, but he was unwilling to commit to the limitations of an American orchestra. “I don’t like the whole system, the way American symphonies are organized,” he said last week, speaking by Skype from Berlin, where he and his family (he has two young sons) are now largely based. He has made no secret of his views, telling interviewers that orchestras have to change or risk dying out. The rest of the world, increasingly, is hailing him as a visionary. A conductor who does not care about titles or prestige, who does not have a Web site or even a manager, he devotes himself mainly to the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which he founded 32 years ago, and to his new post as head of the Konzerthaus orchestra, one of the less-known orchestras in the former East Berlin. With these ensembles, he has been introducing all kinds of innovations — mixing up the players’ seating order, placing the audience onstage among the musicians, having the musicians break into song or even dance — resulting in performances that people describe as thrilling. Budapest Festival Orchestra. (Marco Borggreve) “You get a sense in Budapest of somebody like the Pied Piper of Hamelin,” says Katy Clark, the executive director of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York and a self-described Fischer fan. “People just follow him.” Washington Performing Arts is bringing the Budapest Festival Orchestra to Strathmore on Friday night. The program does not exactly look radical.


Arlington contractor CACI teams up with California firm to build mobile apps

Mobile devices CACI teams up to build federal apps CACI International, an Arlington IT and professional services contractor, is offering new services that could help government agencies develop applications for smartphones and tablets. CACI is forming a partnership with Mountain View, Calif., tech company Appcelerator to add its automated security and compliance testing and vulnerability testing to Appcelerator’s software platform for creating mobile applications. The partnership is particularly focused on Defense Department and intelligence community customers, according to CACI, which detailed the team-up agreement in the past week. The combined security-testing-and-design platform could help federal agencies develop their own mobile applications, said John Mengucci, CACI’s chief operating officer and president of U.S. operations. — Mohana Ravindranath Desktop computers PC shipments climb 1 percent in quarter Global personal computer shipments reached 83.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2014 — up 1 percent from the same quarter one year ago, a new report from Gartner said. Sales show the PC market slowly stabilizing, according to Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa. “Now that tablets have mostly penetrated some key markets, consumer spending is slowly shifting back to PCs,” Kitagawa said in a statement. Lenovo led the worldwide market, with 19.4 percent of market share, the report showed. Hewlett-Packard led sales in the United States, with 29.2 percent of market share, shipping about 5.2 million units. Sales in the United States totaled about 18.1 million, a 13.1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2013. — Mohana Ravindranath


Back to basics with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Günther Herbig led the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in works by Mozart and Bruckner. (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra went back to basics on Saturday. After the previous weekend’s program featuring revolutionary Stravinsky and the world music stylings of Osvaldo Golijov, the orchestra turned to two of the cornerstones of the Austro-Germanic repertory at Strathmore: Mozart and Bruckner. The basics are not easy, not least the sprawling grandiosity and lofty ramblings of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. The challenge of taming this longest (at 80 minutes) of Bruckner’s symphonies was left to veteran guest conductor Günther Herbig. The German-born eminence grise led a magisterial performance reflecting an intimate knowledge of the score and a vitality undimmed by age. Conducting a hybrid of the Haas and Nowak editions from memory, Herbig brought out the work’s large-scale drama, masterfully sculpting phrases and dictating the ebb and flow of tension. He did not shy away from the score’s rough-hewn transitions, instead emphasizing its abrupt shifts in mood through tempo and dynamic contrasts. Yet Herbig’s urgency and attention to craggy detail never came at the cost of overall architecture. He even sustained tension in the visionary Adagio, its climax all the more powerful for Herbig’s refusal to linger before reaching the heavenly summit. Only in the episodic-sounding finale did energy and focus start to wane before the orchestra regathered itself for the majestic coda. If Herbig’s command of the score was masterly, the orchestra’s execution, at times, was less exalted. The BSO’s strings were eloquent, lithe and ethereal, but the brass were often coarse and overpowering. But when called upon to blaze triumphantly, they delivered with unstinting authority. The concert opened with an elegantly understated account of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 from Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein. The playing was pretty and well mannered, but Goldstein’s restraint left Mozart’s richly expressive lines sounding a little meandering. With the monumental Bruckner yet to come, Mozart, for once, felt superfluous. Chin is a freelance writer.


Disoriented in space

Regarding the Jan. 13 Health & Science article “A new view of light fantastic”: The assessment of updated imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope could profit from the pioneering research of Elizabeth Kessler, who put Hubble imagery in the context of evolving presentations of 19th-century western North America, as painted by artists such as Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. Both bodies of imagery were constructed, in every sense, by humans. In the Hubble case, the “photographs” are not photographs at all, and they involve intricate imagery manipulation. There is no obligatory orientation in deep space, no “up” or “down.” If you turn “Pillars of Creation” upside down, you get “Cosmic Udders.” Hubble imagery says much more about humans than it does about the universe. John Cloud, Washington


Nationals complete deal with free agent pitcher Max Scherzer

Manager Mike Rizzo was the scouting director in Arizona when the Diamondbacks took him with the 11th pick in the 2006 draft. But the relationship that mattered more here is between Scherzer’s agent, Scott Boras, and Theodore N. Lerner, the Nationals’ principal owner. Boras has long described the pursuit of Scherzer as an “ownership decision,” and Boras did in fact meet with Lerner earlier this month. Boras has done many deals with Rizzo and Lerner — including Strasburg, Jayson Werth, Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon — and at 89, Lerner may sense the 2015 team represents his best opportunity to bring Washington its first World Series title since 1924. At various points over the past two months, the teams with baseball’s highest payrolls — the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Angels, Detroit Tigers, San Francisco Giants and Boston Red Sox — have denied they would pursue Scherzer. Tigers President Dave Dombrowski, who offered Scherzer the seven-year, $160 million deal he rejected last spring, reiterated that stance Sunday night in an interview with MLB.com. Rizzo, like most entrusted with constructing rosters, resists long contracts for starting pitchers. Indeed, the history of such $100 million deals is littered with far more busts than success stories. So this winter, two facts drove the idea that Washington wouldn’t pursue Scherzer: the excellence of its current rotation and the strong belief throughout the sport that the Nationals aren’t going to grow their payroll going forward. Washington expects to continue to be financially competitive, as it was in 2014, when the team’s opening day expenditures were a little more than $134 million, which ranked ninth in baseball. But the Dodgers and the Yankees both spent more than $200 million last season. This is territory where the Nationals won’t tread. But Boras is an expert at laying out how a lucrative deal for one of his clients can fit into the overall structure of a franchise’s payroll — now and in the future. Total compensation of $175 million contract — an average of $25 million a year, slightly less than his former teammate Justin Verlander — certainly isn’t out of the question, and the Nationals could figure out how to make it work in one of several ways. Before the deal, the Nationals had roughly $127 million in salary obligations for 2015, but that covers only 22 players (and estimates reliever Jerry Blevins at


Eating marijuana and suffering through chronic pain

out cookies to her cousins, including my son, who left them in the fridge. Before a Christmas concert, I ate half of a cookie. During the concert, I suddenly felt lightheaded and dizzy. By intermission, everyone’s voice felt distant. It didn’t seem to get worse, so I drove home before going to a holiday party. However, I couldn’t remember most of the drive home. At the party, I ate very little and sat in the corner. About a half-hour passed, and I suddenly felt nauseated. I ran into the host’s bathroom and vomited. I told my wife we needed to leave and she was going to drive. The next day, my son asked me if I had eaten a cookie. It was then that he told me the cookie had medical marijuana in it. William Guey-Lee, Arlington, Va. Dealing with chronic pain I have had chronic back pain for 30 years, and as the National Institutes of Health suggested in “Chronic pain: Not only does it hurt, it also can isolate” [Jan. 13], I’ve tried following the recommended proactive steps. I also took antidepressants and saw psychologists, physical therapists and psychiatrists. I even attended a class that met three times a week. We went to a pool where none of us swam because our backs hurt too much. We wanted to believe that if we just showed up and listened to the words of the staff, we would get better. We believed it so much that we continued to go to the pool in the dead of winter. Physical therapy just didn’t help; neither did relaxation and support groups. I take strong painkillers, which absolutely work. I also had a procedure to deaden the nerves in my back, which got rid of 90 percent of my lower back pain. I think you do a disservice to pain sufferers when you tell them to go to therapists and “move more.” It’s not as simple as that. Susan Stein, Bethesda, Md. I was diagnosed with recurring pancreatitis five years ago and have been suffering with pain ever since. For the last year, I have been in and out of the hospital. It was finally determined that I suffer from chronic pain. Thank you for bringing this issue to the forefront, educating people about the disease and treatment, and showing others what it’s like to live with chronic pain. Amy Flax, Potomac, Md.


Runners, here’s a way to protect your body in a marathon

(iStock) Think that slowing down and walking a little during a marathon will ruin your time? Maybe not: A new study finds that among amateur runners, those who walked for part of a marathon had times similar to those who ran the whole way. In the study, 42 recreational runners who typically ran between six and 12 miles per week volunteered to run a marathon. The participants underwent three months of training to prepare for the marathon (which is 26.2 miles) in Kassel, Germany, in May 2013. The participants were divided into two groups: a running-only group, who ran the full marathon, and a run/walk group, who stopped and walked for a minute every 1.5 miles. The participants in the run/walk group finished the marathon in about the same time as those in the running-only group: just over four hours. (Although the group that ran the whole time finished about seven minutes faster, on average, than the people in the run/walk group, the researchers found that this time difference was not statistically meaningful.) Both groups also had about the same average heart rate (between 154 and 158 beats per minute) and the same maximum heart rate (about 174 beats per minute) during the race. But people in the run/walk group reported less muscle pain and less fatigue than those in the running group immediately after the marathon: More than 40 percent of people in the running group reported extreme exhaustion, compared with less than 5 percent of those in the run/walk group. “Lower ratings of exhaustion and muscle pain after the marathon, despite similar finish times, suggest that the run/walk strategy reduces the load on the musculoskeletal system. Therefore, this pacing strategy can highly be recommended to non-elite runners, as similar finish times can be achieved with less discomfort,” the researchers write in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. Both groups also experienced similar increases in biomarkers of heart stress, which suggests that the run/walk strategy did not reduce strain on the cardiovascular system, the researchers said. For the people in both groups, levels of these biomarkers returned to normal four days after the marathon. — Live Science 7 Common Exercise Errors And How to Fix Them 9 Tips for Exercising in Winter Weather Outdoor Running: Avoid These Winter Threats


Tech entrepreneur Minh D. Nguyen charged in shooting of ex-wife’s husband

Authorities charged Washington area entrepeneur and start-up advisor Minh D. Nguyen with first-degree murder in connection with a shooting in Ashburn. (Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office /Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office ) Members of Washington’s technology community have begun to rally behind local entrepreneur and start-up advisor Minh D. Nguyen, who was arrested and charged late last week in connection with a domestic shooting that left one man dead. Nguyen’s lengthy profile on professional networking Web site LinkedIn shows a man who was well connected and broadly involved in the local start-up scene, serving as an advisor to several young companies and mentor in many business accelerator programs. Supporters briefly launched a donation page on Gofundme.com to raise money for Nguyen’s legal fees. The page, which was put up on Monday, was taken down by Tuesday. The site’s organizers did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment. “Many of us know Minh as a helpful and energized supporter in our local tech community, and loving father to his three children,” the funding page read. “He helped countless DC area startups get their start with invaluable advice and ideas, often taking his time to speak on panels and judging startup competitions requesting his counsel.” Investigators in the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office allege Nguyen, 38, shot a man after entering a townhome on the 44200 block of Sonora Lane in Ashburn at 9:30 p.m. Thursday. Spokeswoman Liz Mills identified the victim as Corey Mattison, who had married Nguyen’s ex-wife in recent months. Two children were also in the home, but were not harmed. Nguyen’s ex-wife and a third child returned to the home as the shooting occurred, a department spokeswoman told The Post. Neither were harmed. Nguyen was arrested at the scene and charged with first-degree murder and use of a firearm during the commission of a felony, according to the department. Mills said Monday that additional details may become available later this week. A separate fundraising site entitled “Denise Mattison Family Fund” aims to raise $100,000 to support Nguyen’s ex-wife and the family’s children. That campaign had raised more than $16,000 as of Monday afternoon. Nguyen may be best known as co-founder of Plaxo, an address book software company based in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company was acquired by Comcast Interactive in 2008, though Nguyen was no longer involved at that time. More recently, Nguyen’s LinkedIn profile lists him as an advisor to San


The threat of climate change

The Jan. 17 front-page article “Hot in . . . everywhere: 2014 breaks all records” was not a surprise, given that human activities are increasing the carbon dioxide level in Earth’s atmosphere. We’ve known for 150 years that CO2 is a heat-trapping gas. Over roughly the past million years, CO2 levels have never been above 300 parts per million (ppm). We are at 400 ppm, and with business as usual, some scientists estimate it will reach 600 ppm in 40 years. Earth’s oceans, forests and other carbon sinks aren’t able to absorb enough carbon, leading to increasing levels in the atmosphere. If we don’t begin dramatically reducing CO2 levels soon, worsening droughts, storms, flooding, heat waves and other extreme weather will pose a great challenge to humans in this century. A revenue-neutral fee on carbon emissions that would be returned to the American public and investment in clean renewable energy from wind and solar can help reduce carbon levels before it’s too late. Bill Brockhouse, Alexandria The writer is a climate leader for the Climate Reality Project. ● If the world did all right back around A.D. 1000, when Greenland was warm enough to support agriculture, then there is plenty of warming margin left before we have to worry. The cause of climate change is an extremely complicated issue. It cannot be as simple as anthropogenic carbon dioxide. Too many special interests profit from killing carbon for it to be anything but a gift to them. Which bridge are they selling? Frederick S. Holmes Jr., Annandale


Eugene Robinson: Republicans are stubbornly blocking the road on climate

scientists debate the sources, in their opinion, of that change. But I think the real question is that every proposal we see out of this administration with regard to climate change means killing American jobs.” As Boehner knows but finds inconvenient to admit, scientists have had their debate. It’s over. Among climate scientists, there is consensus approaching unanimity that climate change is being driven by the rapidly increasing concentration of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which, in turn, is being caused by the burning of fossil fuels. It is known through direct observation that carbon dioxide levels have risen an astounding 40 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The rise began after human society began burning coal and petroleum products on an unprecedented scale. To posit that this is some kind of coincidence is absurd. People begin pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases rapidly; and these two facts are supposed to be unrelated? Obama can, should and must make climate change one of the major themes of his remaining time in office. If he gets no help from Congress, he has the obligation to do what he can on his own. Fortunately, he is off to a good start. Last fall’s unexpected agreement with China on restricting carbon emissions gave new impetus to the quest for an international treaty on climate change, which had seemed on the verge of collapse. With the world’s two biggest economies — and biggest carbon emitters — now putting new focus and resources into alternative energy sources, new economies of scale and potential breakthroughs are possible. Domestically, Obama’s biggest impact will come not from whatever happens with the Keystone XL pipeline but from the Environmental Protection Agency’s rulemaking on carbon emissions from power plants. Reasonable limits will require a transition away from coal toward cleaner fuels. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who comes from the coal-mining state of Kentucky, will squawk. But the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon is well established. Instead of pretending there’s some kind of debate about climate change, Congress ought to be working on economic development alternatives for coal-mining regions that will inevitably suffer. “Hottest Year On Record” is a headline that encourages sanity on climate change. Break it to Sen. Inhofe gently. Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on


How to get a high-profile chef to cook in your kitchen

promising incarnation might be Kitchensurfing, a service offered in six cities across the country to date, including the District of Columbia. Its online roster of talent features profiles that detail the chefs’ work experience and cuisine strengths. Chief executive Jon Tien says that in New York, his company is piloting a weeknight program in which customers can book as late in the day as 3 p.m. and have a chef shop, cook and clean that evening for $25 per person. Kitchensurfing doesn’t deal in big names, though you can choose someone who might have worked at, say, the French Laundry. But now that chefs and their Michelin stars have become firmly affixed in pop culture, the public is hungry for dinner and a show, an intimate brush with celebrity. Food Network “Chopped” host Ted Allen sees that appetite growing. (“Top Chef” cruise, anyone?) He has been at enough private dinners cooked by celebrity chefs to understand who can afford them outright: the 1-percenters and corporations clued into the lure of high-profile cuisine on home turf. A chef who has earned name-recognition status might charge an appearance fee of several thousand bucks — on top of the cost of a private meal, a sous-chef or two, servers and any tableware rentals. “If you hire Mario Batali, of course you want to taste his food. But what you’re really after is his sparkling repartee, a few photos and being able to introduce him to your friends,” Allen says. Not all chefs want to be like Mike. Chef Eric Ripert, at right, and actor Richard Gere take the stage together during an auction for City Harvest in New York — the only time Ripert will allow himself to be hired to cook in a private home. (Ken Goodman/From City Harvest) “Dinners in private houses are not something I want to do,” says Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert. “It distracts me from my restaurants, and I want to keep that very high value for our guests.” Still, the super-luminary chef admits he was caught a few years ago when a very persistent woman asked him to do a private birthday dinner for 12 in Las Vegas. “It went on for three weeks,” he says. “I said no 20 times, and then I gave this crazy price, one that was absolutely irrational. And she agreed! Now, I won’t even give a crazy number.” Ripert makes one


Metro board chairman offers few public answers in D.C. Council briefing on L’Enfant

information for the public to feel safe on the subway system. The National Transportation Safety Board said there was a critical breakdown in communications and poor coordination among subway workers during the smoke incident in January. The NTSB also said the smoke in the Metro tunnel near L'Enfant Plaza was caused by electrical arcing, which occurs when electricity escapes its prescribed path. Here's how that happens. “We are asking people, thousands every day, almost a million in the entire system, to ride Metro. We encourage them to do that,” said council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5), chairman of the public safety committee. “At the very least, we could . . . make sure they have the information that arms them to make an informed decision.” It may take months for investigators to reach a conclusion on what caused the electrical arcing that, in turn, caused smoke to fill a disabled Yellow Line train. But more immediately, McDuffie and others said, it was time for Metro and investigators to talk openly about several safety-related questions raised by the incident: Do firefighters’ radios work in Metro tunnels? Does Metro have a system to share critical information with first responders? Can passengers self-evacuate? Do some Metro cars still require removing screws to release safety doors? Council members took turns posing questions that have not been answered in initial reports from the NTSB and District authorities, the latter detailing the emergency response to the incident at L’Enfant Plaza. Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) asked Downs why he couldn’t discuss repairs that need to be made or are being made to address what happened during last week’s incident. “This is of urgent concern to the public,” she said. “That, to me, should be something that is openly and immediately discussed.” Downs replied, “Council member, I would posit that the facts are actually important before jumping to conclusions about what needs to be fixed.” Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) asked Downs whether he could address questions raised by the city’s review of the emergency response to the disaster, including reports of radio difficulties. “I cannot speak to it,” Downs said. Anita D. Bonds (D-At Large) asked Downs to respond to reports that the operator of a train that had stopped in the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station had left his train at the platform, obstructing attempts to return the stranded Yellow Line train to the station. “Given


Web site to fund legal fees for murder suspect Minh D. Nguyen taken down

The Web site seeking to raise money for Minh D. Nguyen, the Washington entrepreneur and start-up advisor charged with shooting his ex-wife’s new husband, is no longer online. Supporters of Nguyen, who was active in local tech circles, set up the Gofundme.com page on Monday to help offset the cost of his legal fees. Organizers estimated the fees could be as high as $250,000 and sought to raise $95,000. The page’s creator declined to comment for this story. The reason the site was removed remains unclear. The Web site received at least some backlash. A commenter going by the name Brian Kelley wrote on the site, “He was taken into custody at the scene of the murder with the murder weapon. He is charged with FIRST-DEGREE murder of his ex-wife’s new husband while 2 of his 3 children were in the house. Why the hell would you want to help him? #DCTech.” The #DCTech hashtag is widely used by local entrepreneurs when commenting on the Washington technology community on social networks. The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office has charged Nguyen with first-degree murder and first-degree murder and use of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He was arrested at a townhome in Ashburn, where police allege he shot Corey Mattison on Thursday night. Mattison was married to Nguyen’s ex-wife. More from Capital Business: For a daily rundown of Washington area business news, sign up for the “CapBiz A.M.” e-mail newsletter.


Investigating the safety of the Metro system

The Jan. 17 front-page article “Rescuers say Metro didn’t relay severity of situation ” quoted D.C. Fire Lt. Stephen Kuhn, who led the rescue response unit in the fatal incident near L’Enfant Plaza, as praising passengers for being calm amid the rescue. He said, “There was no pushing, no shoving.” The article reported that Mr. Kuhn watched people put the interests of pregnant, elderly and infirm people first. As a daily Metro passenger, I hope that Metro managers are reading Mr. Kuhn’s words. Passengers are seldom the cause of Metro’s problems but often the victims. Safety of the system does not depend upon passenger compliance as much as passenger safety depends on Metro’s proper functioning. The area has been developed around the assumption of a functional transit system. Metro is not a luxury; it is a necessity. The area’s congressional representatives are right to demand that the hundreds of thousands of daily riders who depend on Metro are assured that the system is safe. I hope those assurances are possible. At this time, the safety of the system is not evident. Bradford Strickland, Alexandria ● A key point in the preliminary National Transportation Safety Board analysis of the fatal incident on Metro’s Yellow Line near L’Enfant Plaza last week was missing from the Jan. 17 front-page article on the accident. While a circuit breaker automatically opened because of electrical arcing, a second breaker didn’t open, which allowed the arcing to continue for 45 minutes until it was manually opened remotely. If Metro had opened the breaker sooner, we can assume that the situation might not have developed into a tragedy or at least not one of such great consequence. Paul D. Blumstein, Annandale ● The latest Metro accident easily could have resulted in many more deaths. A culture of safety at Metro can never occur as long as a culture of incompetence and indifference among employees is not addressed. Management is oblivious; the incident seems to be treated as a bizarre aberration rather than as par for the course for the system. Emergencies are inevitable, but foul-ups in response should not be. Metro cannot even learn lessons from previous similar events, let alone react appropriately to unanticipated events. When the next emergency occurs, passengers should assume that Metro is incapable of responding and that any communications from Metro are likely to be wrong. They should call 911 and be prepared


James L. Fowler, founder of the Marine Corps Marathon, dies at 84

James L. Fowler, a Korean and Vietnam war veteran who dreamed up the event that became the Marine Corps Marathon, the annual race that has drawn tens of thousands of athletes to the capital over nearly four decades, died Jan. 20 in Alexandria, Va. He was 84. The cause was congestive heart failure, said his wife, Betsy Fowler. The Marine Corps Marathon, which first took place in 1976, is one of the largest races of its kind and is widely known as the People’s Marathon for the open spirit in which it is conducted. It welcomes first-time marathon runners as well as experienced athletes, and participants have included servicemen and women, civilians, politicians and celebrities. The fastest finishers receive no prize money, but all runners are afforded a majestic view of Washington and its monuments across the 26.2-mile course. Mr. Fowler, a retired colonel in the Marine Corps reserve, was an infantry battalion commander in Vietnam, where he was wounded twice, including once in the leg. James L. Fowler, a principal founder of the Marine Corps Marathon, died Jan. 20 at 84. (Courtesy of the Fowler family) Following a months-long recovery, he returned to a professional life that included a position at the Marine Corps headquarters. There, his wife said, he began imagining an event that would showcase the corps and foster military-civilian relations during a time of national discord. “After the Vietnam War, popularity of the military services declined in the eyes of many,” said Mr. Fowler, according to an online history of the marathon. “At the same time, distance running was gaining considerable positive attention.” The word “marathon,” Mr. Fowler wrote in an Oct. 17, 1975, memo to Maj. Gen. Michael Patrick Ryan, chief of the reserve, “evokes military history and is the kind of event which the public finds in consonance with the image of the Marines.” Ryan and others helped rally support for the event, and the marathon was scheduled for Nov. 7, 1976. “I remember somebody asking, ‘Suppose we give this marathon and nobody comes?’ ” Mr. Fowler later told The Washington Post. “It seemed like a natural but . . . this was the first race I’d ever organized.” The marathon drew 1,175 runners to the inaugural event and became increasingly popular throughout the years. In 2012, there were 23,515 official finishers, according to the organization. Mr. Fowler directed the first two races, ran


3 million gallons of brine from oil drilling spills in N.D.

smaller of which will be drained. The saltwater, known as brine, is an unwanted byproduct of oil and natural gas production that is much saltier than sea water and may also contain petroleum and residue from hydraulic fracturing operations. The new spill is almost three times larger than one that fouled a portion of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in July. — Associated Press ONLINE RETAILing EBay to cut 2,400 jobs, spin off PayPal EBay plans to cut 2,400 jobs, or 7 percent of its staff, in the first quarter to simplify its structure and boost profit ahead of a planned separation of its business. The e-commerce company also reported Wednesday that its fourth-quarter net income rose 10 percent on the continued strength of its PayPal payments business, which it expects to spin off in the second half of the year. The e-commerce company said the job cuts fall across its marketplaces, PayPal and enterprise businesses. The San Jose-based company announced plans Wednesday to spin off or sell the enterprise unit, which develops online shopping sites for brick-and-mortar retailers. EBay has been under pressure to improve profitability from its largest activist investor, Carl Icahn, who has a nearly 8 percent stake in the company. Icahn has pushed eBay to sell off PayPal, which is eBay’s best-performing unit. Total payment volume grew 24 percent in the fourth quarter and revenue rose to $2.2 billion, about 45 percent of total revenue for the quarter. PayPal services $1 of every $6 spent online. It collects fees from more than 162 million users who send money to other users and pay for goods and services in more than 200 markets. Meanwhile, eBay said its net income in the October-to-December quarter came to $936 million, or 75 cents per share, from $850 million, or 65 cents per share in same quarter the year before. Revenue rose 9 percent, to $4.92 billion from $4.53 billion. — Associated Press Also in Business ● Standard & Poor’s agreed to pay the U.S. government and two states more than $77 million to settle charges tied to its ratings of mortgage-backed securities. In its first enforcement action against a major rating agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused S&P of fraudulent misconduct, saying the company loosened standards to drum up business in 2011 and 2012. The agreement requires S&P to pay more than $58 million to the SEC, $12 million


Metro ventilation systems scrutinized as Congress members are briefed on incident

media. Investigators have said the smoke was generated by an electrical malfunction 1,100 feet in front of the train involving cables that carried high-voltage power to the third rail. In an occurrence called “electrical arcing,” power escaped from those cables, causing heat, melting and smoke, according to the NTSB, which on Friday issued a short, sparsely detailed preliminary report of its investigation. “I think we got some answers, but I think a lot of questions remain,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said after the briefing. Among the unanswered questions is whether the arcing occurred because the cables had deteriorated as a result of not being properly maintained by Metro. “We know there was arcing,” Hart said Wednesday. “We don’t know why there was arcing.” Hart said NTSB would look to determine whether it was caused by aging equipment that needed repair. Questions also remain about technical problems involving communications equipment used by first responders in the tunnel and about Metro’s initial call to the D.C. fire department to report the smoke. Metro reported “heavy smoke at our L’Enfant Plaza Metrorail station” but did not initially convey that passengers were aboard a train stuck in the tunnel, according to a transcript of the 911 call. Earlier Wednesday, Bowser responded to comments by Downs, who told the D.C. Council that some publicly disseminated information about the incident — including the timeline of events — “is not accurate as it stands right now.” Bowser said: “We’re committed to a top-down review. We’ve released the first phase, and we’ll release the [next] phase later in the week.” Unlike Metro, which has declined to comment on specifics of what went wrong in the tunnel, Bowser’s office on Saturday issued a preliminary report on the incident. The report said D.C. firefighters in the tunnel could not clearly communicate by radio with commanders aboveground because signal-boosting equipment was not working properly. The equipment is maintained by Metro, and fire officials had alerted the transit agency to the problem in a Jan. 8 e-mail, four days before the emergency, the report said. Why Metro officials apparently did not act on the e-mail warning is unclear. As a result, with radio transmissions failing, firefighters in the tunnel had to resort to using cellphones and a system of personally relaying information to the outside. At the council hearing Tuesday, members grilled Downs on several issues related to the crisis, including


Metro officials clarify communication breakdown during L’Enfant Plaza incident

— the problem was easy to solve. “We went back and made the modifications that we needed to make to allow that system to work,” Requa said. “The fire department tested their radios and the system was up and running, and it’s running today.” Meanwhile, among the many aspects of the incident that are under investigation, the NTSB is trying to determine whether the tunnel’s ventilation system worked properly, There are two large ventilation shafts near where the train stopped. Ideally, the large fans in one shaft should have pulled smoke out of the tunnel and expelled it outside while the fans in the other shaft pulled in fresh air from above ground, said Christopher Hart, the NTSB’s acting chairman. But when tested after the emergency, Hart said, the fans did not function correctly. A big question for investigators is whether the fans did their job when the tunnel filled with smoke last week. “That’s why we need to find out what happened during the incident,” Hart said. “We don’t know yet. But we intend to find out.” As for the cause of the smoke, federal investigators said their inspection found “severe electrical arcing damage” to the rail and cables inside the tunnel. The electrical malfunction, known as “arcing,” occurred in a subway power line called a “jumper cable” and involved the electrified third rail, from which trains draw propulsion power. In a tunnel, there are gaps in the third rail where ventilation shafts are located so that during an evacuation, people can get out through a shaft without the danger of stepping on the third rail. The gaps, commonly about six feet wide, are bridged by jumper cables, which are insulated power lines the keep electrical current flowing along the third rail. If a jumper cable is deteriorated or damaged in some way, and electricity begins to escape, the phenomenon is called “arcing.” It can generate sparks, heat, melting and smoke. While the investigations continues, Troup said Thursday that Metro plans to begin installing new “low smoke/low halogen” jumper cables in the subway and also “mechanical protection on third-rail jumper cables that may be exposed to wear from vibration against other materials.” Photos released in a preliminary NTSB report showed jumper cables that were melted and burned. “We know there was arcing,” Hart said. “What we don’t know yet is why.” Mike DeBonis contributed to this report. Read more:


Patriots, Bill Belichick walk, sometimes cross, line between competitiveness and cheating

it is: fluid. “Think about it: There was a time we didn’t even have the forward pass,” said Shawn Klein, who teaches philosophy at Rockford (Ill.) University and runs the Web site SportsEthicist.com. “Someone had to push the boundaries [and] say, ‘Maybe this is the way it should be done.’ ” Different sports, competitors and fan bases regard their respective rule books with varying degrees of sanctity. Former pitcher Gaylord Perry cracked jokes during his Hall of Fame induction speech about his well-known rule-breaking involving doctoring the baseball. Sluggers such as Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, meanwhile, can’t get into Cooperstown without first purchasing a ticket at the door. The slam dunk was once illegal in college basketball and discouraged in the pros; today it’s a staple of the sport. Evolving technology, too, requires constant rule changes in auto racing, golf and many extreme sports. In more traditional sports such as baseball, adopting instant replay is akin to relocating a mountain one shovelful at a time. The common thread is usually a level playing field and agreed-upon terms of play. “I think people enjoy sports — and men in particular — because it gives order to the universe. Something is either fair or foul, either a strike or a ball,” said Randall Balmer, an author, historian and chair of the religion department at Dartmouth College, where he teaches a course on ethics in sport. “Nothing riles up a sports fan more than something that disrupts their orderly universe. It’s implicit in any athletic event that we are all going to play by the same rules, so any sort of transgression is taken pretty seriously by a lot of people.” As history might suggest, Klein says cheating might very well be ingrained in the nature of competition. But it’s also a part of human nature. He points to a young child challenging a parent. An artist thinking outside the box. An activist challenging authority. The Post Sports Live panel weighs in on how the NFL's investigation into whether the Patriots deflated footballs before their AFC championship game against the Colts affects the team's legacy. “It’s people asking, how far can we go? Asking questions, why is the line here? Maybe the line should be somewhere else? Let’s push and see,” Klein said. “That can lead us to innovation and important change. . . . Rule-pushers — and to an extent the


Crustacean found near planned Purple Line route not endangered, AU scientist says

A tiny shrimp-like creature found near the planned alignment for a light-rail Purple Line was not an endangered species, an American University professor said Thursday. The possibility that Rock Creek Park in Montgomery County could host the endangered Hay’s Spring amphipod has been a central argument for some opponents of the proposed 16-mile rail line between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. David Culver, a professor of environmental sciences at American, said the 7mm crustacean that two graduate students found in the muck of Rock Creek near Coquelin Run turned out to be of the Stygobromus tenuis species. That amphipod is rare but not protected under the Endangered Species Act, he said. Culver and his team were looking for the Hay’s Spring amphipod, which has been listed as endangered since 1982, and the Kenk’s amphipod, a candidate for federal listing. Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail, a nonprofit group that has filed a federal lawsuit aimed at changing the rail line’s alignment from its route along the wooded trail, funded Culver’s $10,000 study. Culver said his team found no other amphipods during 10 to 15 searches in the spring and fall. However, he said, the endangered type could still be in Montgomery. The Hay’s Spring amphipod has been found downstream in the District’s part of Rock Creek Park but so far not in Montgomery, he said. “Once you find habitat for a genus,” Culver said, “the rare species could occur there or be reintroduced there.” Even so, he said, he has no plans to continue searching. “You can keep looking, but we’ve looked hard,” Culver said. Ajay Bhatt, the trail group’s president, said the group will continue funding a $20,000 study into whether any DNA from the hard-to-find endangered amphipods can be detected in Rock Creek’s wetlands and streams. The Town of Chevy Chase donated the money to the trail group. “Clearly, it’s amphipod habitat, whether they found one type or another,” Bhatt said. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has questioned the $2.45 billion cost to build the proposed Purple Line but he has maintained some funds for it in his budget.


The Trans-Pacific Partnership can help the U.S. counter China’s expansion

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, and U.S. President Barack Obama, right, attend the opening session of the Nuclear Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on Monday, March 24, 2014. (Yves Herman/AP) WE’VE FAULTED President Obama for his less-than-full-throated support of free-trade agreements that enjoy the nominal backing of his administration. There was no such cause for complaint about his State of the Union address Tuesday night, however, in which he called on “both parties to give me trade promotion authority to protect American workers with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe.” In practical terms, that means Mr. Obama believes that his negotiators are close to cementing market-opening pacts with 11 Pacific Rim nations — most importantly, Japan — and with the European Union and that passing a bill that authorizes an up-or-down congressional vote on the final agreements will strengthen his hand at the bargaining table. What Mr. Obama couldn’t say openly is that his party’s loss of the Senate, and the resulting exit of trade skeptic Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as majority leader, greatly increased the chances that he will follow up his appeal for this legislation, unlike a milder one he offered in last year’s address — and that he will actually be heeded. Given the stakes, that omission was a permissible one. More interesting was the argument that Mr. Obama did deploy in favor of the trade deals: Anticipating the usual case against free trade, he recast the proposed pacts as measures to support U.S. jobs at the expense of China. “Today, our businesses export more than ever, and exporters tend to pay their workers higher wages,” he proclaimed. “But as we speak, China wants to write the rules for the world’s fastest-growing region. That would put our workers and our businesses at a disadvantage.” The president’s first point was both accurate and a welcome rebuttal to the zero-sum thinking that too often pervades the arguments of trade opponents. The second might have seemed a bit obscure — even conspiratorial. Did the president actually mean to suggest that Beijing’s bureaucrats are plotting to impose a whole new set of laws and regulations on East Asia’s economy? Not really: He was instead alluding to the wider strategic rationale for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would link North and South America, Australia and New Zealand more closely, and on more equitable terms, with Japan and other key Asian


Saudi King Abdullah’s death sets up complex succession process

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz will take over as the new king, but he is in poor health and his reign may not last long. (Yuya Shino/Reuters) RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The monarch, believed to be 90, was succeeded by his brother, Crown Prince Salman, according to state television. That put the region’s most important Sunni power and America’s closest Arab ally in the hands of a 79-year-old who is reportedly in poor health. [Read obit: Abdullah, a wily king who embraced limited reform, dies] Salman’s rise to the throne postpones the question of when the Saudi monarchy will turn to the next generation of princes to run their country of 28 million people at a crucial moment in a region mired in crisis. While observers in Riyadh widely predicted a smooth transition to Salman, his poor health means his rule could be relatively short. Should there be a power struggle to succeed him, it could leave a vacuum in the Middle East at a critical time. Saudi Arabia is a key member of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State and a major ally of the government that just fell in neighboring Yemen. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz has died Friday, according to state television. His brother Crown Prince Salman will succeed Abdullah, who was believed to be 90. “Despite so many people saying it will be a smooth transition, there’s every reason to believe that Saudi Arabia is heading for rough times,” Simon Henderson, an expert on the Saudi succession at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in an interview Thursday. [View: The Saudi royal family tree] “Yemen is falling apart, ISIS is knocking at the door . . . this is an extraordinarily dangerous Middle East from a Saudi perspective,” Henderson added. By Saudi tradition, the crown passes down among the sons of national founder King Abdulaziz bin Saud, who died in 1953. Salman would be the sixth son of Abdulaziz to be king, and few of his remaining brothers — out of at least 35 who were alive when Abdulaziz died — are believed to be healthy or qualified to assume the throne. In an apparent bid to preempt quarrels about succession — and also secure the line for his own favored branch of the family — Abdullah last year took the unprecedented step of anointing a deputy heir,


Before he was king, Salman was the family disciplinarian who put princes behind bars

Medina province; Abdulaziz, the deputy oil minister; and Sultan, who became the first royal and the first Arab in space when he flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1985. Salman had two other sons die of heart ailments within a year of each other in 2001 and 2002, which Lacey said “hit him very sadly” and had a lasting effect. Salman also has had back problems, for which he had surgery in the United States in 2010. In 2011, Salman was appointed defense minister. Henderson said that his record there was unremarkable, largely because of his deteriorating health. Salman has also been involved in private business, controlling the Saudi Research and Marketing Group, which publishes several influential newspapers. A son, Turki, runs his publishing enterprises for him. Analysts said they expected Salman, considered a moderate in the mold of Abdullah, to generally continue the policies of his predecessor, who was known as a modernizer but also oversaw a regime that was widely criticized for its human rights record. In the past two years, the Saudi government has cracked down hard on dissent, jailing human rights lawyers and activists, sometime for simply tweeting criticism of the country’s political or religious leaders. The Saudi government has earned international scorn for publicly flogging Raif Badawi, a rights activist in the southern port city of Jiddah. After the international criticism, Abdullah took the unusual step of referring Badawi’s case to the Supreme Court for review. Lacey said Salman is also known as a sort of unofficial historian of the royal family. “He’s a very central figure in the family,” Lacey said. “I’ve had many people tell me that he was the one who most resembled his father, in terms of looks and stature. When he goes, there will never be anybody else in the family like him.” Correction: This article has been amended to correct an earlier, unverified characterization of King Salman’s mental health. The article’s assertion that King Salman was “widely believed … to suffer from dementia’’ was too speculative and unsubstantiated to meet The Post’s standards for publication. The Royal Court of Saudi Arabia, through its lawyers, has asserted to The Post that King Salman is “most certainly not suffering from dementia or any other kind of mental impairment.’’ Related stories on Saudi Arabia: - How Saudi Arabia’s legal punishment compares to Islamic State’s - Flogging highlights Saudi crackdown on activists


Saudi ruler is buried as new King Salman moves younger generation closer to throne

the capital, Riyadh, Salman took part in prayers Friday with royal family members before the burial of Abdullah, whose body was wrapped in a simple shroud and placed in an unmarked grave in accordance with the kingdom’s conservative Islamic traditions. [View: The Saudi royal family tree] The ceremonies and burial were attended only by family members and an inner circle of aides and friends, who still numbered in the hundreds. Pallbearers from his family carried a litter holding the king’s shrouded body to the public al-Oud cemetery, a sandy field with small, undecorated marker stones within sight of shabby apartment blocks. The cemetery was guarded by soldiers stationed around the perimeter. Crowds stood for hours as military helicopters hovered overhead. Graffiti sprayed on the cemetery wall said in Arabic: “Death is a door through which everyone must pass.” “I’m so sad about this; he was a good king,” said Ibrahim al-Dosry, 29, a Saudi man who stood in a crowd near the cemetery entrance. “It is our duty to be with the king in his last moments.” Dosry and others watched as a steady stream of shiny black SUVs, Range Rovers, Bentleys and other luxury cars carrying royal family members and other dignitaries drove by, escorted by police cars with flashing lights. Tributes from around the world poured in for Abdullah, a key Western ally. The White House announced that Vice President Biden would lead a U.S. delegation to Saudi Arabia in the coming days to pay respects to the king’s family. Salman, meanwhile, took further steps to consolidate the ranks of Saudi leadership. He appointed his own son, Mohammad bin Salman, to succeed him as defense minister and to the position of head of the king’s royal court, replacing Abdullah’s longtime chief. While that does not place Mohammad bin Salman in the direct line of succession to the throne, it solidifies the power of Salman’s closest relatives inside a royal family that is riven by political maneuvering. Khaled al-Maeena, a columnist for the Saudi Gazette newspaper, said Saudi tradition sets aside three days for mourners to pay condolences and pledge support to the new king. That began Friday night as hundreds of top officials, tribal leaders and family members attended a ceremony at a Riyadh palace to offer their allegiance to Salman. Maeena said people outside Riyadh would go to regional governors’ offices to make that pledge. “It’s not


Abolish West Point — and the other service academies, too

recent times, Colin Powell, is a product of the ROTC, not West Point. This parity in skill has been slowly expressing itself in a rising number of promotions for ROTC officers over the past few decades. Thirty years ago, most Army three-star generals had graduated from West Point. As of 1997 (the last year for which data is available), only a third had. A study of naval officer ascension using data from 2003 concluded that, on average, there were no real differences in promotion rates between Naval Academy officers and ROTC officers. Of course, these arguments from statistics can’t be definitive, but they do indicate that ROTC officers are able to compete with their peers. Nearly half of the Joint Chiefs of Staff serving over the past decade bypassed the service academies. These days, too, a little thrift wouldn’t hurt. The F-35 fighter jet, the most expensive boondoggle in weapons history, is six years late, has already cost taxpayers nearly $400 billion and still doesn’t work; in the latest budget, Congress allocated $120 million for M1 Abrams tanks the Army says it doesn’t want or need; the Daily Beast recently called the 2016 budget a Christmas present for military contractors. According to the Project on Government Oversight, it includes billions of dollars in spending that the Pentagon didn’t request. Former defense secretary Robert Gates, who embodies bipartisan consensus, said at the Federal Innovation Summit last summer that “what is needed most of all are leaders who are prepared to challenge conventional thinking, break crockery, stop doing what doesn’t work well or at all, and set a new course.” Well, here’s our chance. Some arguments in favor of the service academies cite the rigorous selection process. But we really have no idea how elite their students are. Admittance requires a nomination from a member of Congress, the vice president, a secretary of the respective military branch or other high-level officials. These nominations are doled out in a process with vague guidelines and nonspecific criteria, making political patronage inevitable. The academies admit recruits according to Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 6954 — which, for guidance, merely says how many cadets can be admitted, who can nominate them and where they can come from. According to an investigation by USA Today, nepotism often governs the nominations, with many going to well-connected families or big-name donors. Fleming has complained in numerous media outlets about


Montgomery County Animal Watch

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


Celebrating 50 years of floating in space at Air and Space Museum

Ed White performing the first extra-vehicular activity (EVA) by an American during Gemini IV in 1965. Jim McDivitt took this photograph. (NASA) Spacewalking. Since the mid-1960s, astronauts have been popping the hatch and climbing outside, usually tethered to life support. Kathryn Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space, said it felt like swimming. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first spacewalks — by Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov in March 1965 and by U.S. astronaut Edward White that June. Those astounding feats led to an even more iconic one: moonwalking, after which NASA renamed the maneuver extra-vehicular activity (EVA). “Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity,” at the National Air and Space Museum, celebrates the half-century anniversary with a display of spacesuits, moondust-darkened boots, gloves and tethers, among other early equipment. We have the numbers: 12 Number of minutes Alexei Leonov spent outside his Voskhod 2 spacecraft to make the first spacewalk. 78 Number of days after that Soviet spacewalk that the first U.S. spacewalk occurred, by Edward White on Gemini 4. 21 Number of minutes White spent outside in his spacewalk, twice as long as planned and breaking the Soviet record. 195 Beats per minute recorded for the heartbeat of Gene Cernan during a two-hour EVA on the Gemini IX-A mission in 1966, a dangerously high rate. 6 Pairs of U.S. astronauts who participated in moonwalks over a three-year period starting in 1969. 30 Approximate degree of angle used to display spacesuits worn by White and Cernan, in order to take pressure off the fabric. 26 Number of various gloves worn by astronauts during EVA, which are exhibited in a revolving, tree-shaped display. 42 Number of years since the last American astronaut set foot on the moon: Cernan, on Apollo 17 in December 1972. 25th Anniversary this year of the Hubble Space Telescope launch in April 1990, which requires some EVA for repair, replacement of instruments and adjustment. 1984 Year that Bruce McCandless tested the untethered Manned Maneuvering Unit during the STS 41-B space shuttle mission. 205 Number of astronauts who have performed EVA to date, including 126 from the United States and 63 from Russia and the former Soviet Union. 1 Rank of the National Air and Space Museum and its Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., among America’s most visited museums, with eight million visitors combined last year. Catlin is a freelance writer.