Skywatch: Annual Perseid meteor shower and another supermoon

With a pair of planets in the evening and morning heavens, muted Perseid meteors and a fun full moon, these lazy days of summer feature a bustling night sky. The drama opens Sunday night with Saturn and Mars flanking the young moon in the southwestern heavens. Reddish Mars (zero magnitude, visible from the city) hangs to the right, and the ringed Saturn (zero magnitude, visible from the city) loiters to the left. Because the moon continually inches through the heavens, it will pass over Saturn — which will be seen in other parts of the globe — on Monday morning. You won’t see this from Washington, but you can catch it live online at Slooh.com. The online astronomy group dubbed this “The Moon ‘Photobombing’ Saturn from Australia.” See it at 7 a.m. Monday at live.slooh.com. On Monday night in Washington, the moon starts to distance itself from Mars and Saturn. The red and ringed planets form a tight partnership by Aug. 27 and are within a few degrees of each other. The moon returns Aug. 31 to form another trio with Mars and Saturn. In the middle of August, very low on the eastern horizon see Venus (-3.0 magnitude, very bright) ascend the morning sky. Jupiter (-1.0 magnitude, bright) begins to emerge in the same vicinity about 6 a.m. in morning twilight. On subsequent mornings, these planetary paramours appear to gravitate toward each other, but on Aug. 18, Venus and Jupiter conjunct. Like teen sweethearts holding hands, they remain close for several days until the lunar chaperone — the moon — breaks them apart on Aug. 23. The moon becomes full Aug. 10, at 2:09 p.m. Eastern time, after it reaches perigee (the moon’s closest distance to Earth in this cycle) minutes earlier, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Astronomical Phenomenon 2014. It’s colloquially dubbed a “supermoon,” and it is the second of three big and bright full moons this summer. The luminous moon will likely wash out most of this year’s normally robust Perseid meteor shower, which peaks Aug. 12-13, according to the International Meteor Organization. (The peak may happen after midnight on Aug. 13.) Bill Cooke, NASA meteor expert, says the Perseids usually flash a few more fireballs than other large showers. On the nights leading up to the meteor shower (before the Aug. 10 full moon) and on the nights after the lunar influence fades, you may


Paul George’s injury will force NBA players to weigh benefits of playing for their countries

veteran ensuring he cashes out in his final years — is entitled to have greater misgivings about donating their ligaments and bones in pursuit of a goal with a time commitment that works at cross purposes against their full-time job. It’s knee-jerk to assume George’s injury is going to dilute the Olympics of its star power. Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski, who have done more than anyone to rescue America’s international basketball reputation after a meltdown in Athens 10 years ago, had the right, wait-and-see tone afterward. But it is responsible to question how FIBA, the sport’s international governing body, can continue to enforce its agreement with the NBA that prevents teams from influencing their players to play or not play unless there is a pre-existing injury. “People are being irresponsible if they don’t think this type of play impacts franchises and careers,” an Eastern Conference team executive said, on the condition of anonymity. “Not just the catastrophic injuries, but the constant wearing down of joints and muscles that leads to burnout and these type of freak injuries. Many of us are just dreading the phone call and having to deal with all our plans blowing up.” The San Antonio Spurs can be thankful they were allowed to order 37-year-old sixth man Manu Ginobili to forego what would have been his last international competition with Argentina because he is rehabbing a stress fracture in his right fibula. No prominent player has put in more time playing basketball for his country than Ginobili. It’s also taken its toll. Ginobili was exhausted after playing in the London Olympics in 2012 and it clearly affected his performance down the stretch the following season. He was injured in the 2008 Beijing Games and required surgery, ruining much of his next season. Ginobili has played nearly 20 extra months of basketball during his international career, sometimes for six-week stretches after a full NBA season. Tony Parker’s French team won the European Championships last summer, but he was so physically spent when the NBA season hit its midpoint that Gregg Popovich shut him down for 20 days. Pau Gasol broke his foot in the 2006 World Championships, missing the first 22 games of his season with the Grizzlies. Within two years he was traded to the Lakers. “It’s hard because many of these guys who play for their countries, [it makes] them who they are as


Why we need 8-car trains on Metro

There hasn’t been this much excitement about a new arrival in the region since the birth of baby panda Bao Bao at the National Zoo in late 2013. The Silver Line enjoyed an impressive opening last month, with thousands of new riders enjoying a smooth ride and plenty of room. Unfortunately, most of the trains running on the rest of the Metrorail system still consist of six cars each. Too often, they are overcrowded and uncomfortable. The original design of the Metro system did not incorporate extra rail lines for express trains or more frequent service, which is often how capacity issues are addressed. While the new Silver Line adds new stations, much of the line runs along track already used by the Orange and Blue lines. The new trains can move more people — until they can’t. Metrorail is at capacity at the core of its system. No new tunnel, track or extension is able to fix this challenge. Professional “people pushers,” as they have in other countries, are not the preferred solution either. The best way to alleviate overcrowding on Metro is to extend all trains from six-car to eight-car lengths. Immediately the capacity of each train is increased by one-third. Well, “immediately” is disingenuous. More rail cars must be purchased to run all eight-car trains. The ability to power all eight-car trains throughout the system would need significant attention and upgrading of electric circuits. Storage, pocket tracks and additional operational requirements combine for a solution that is not inexpensive. But it is the most cost-effective, practical and immediate solution available. To achieve transportation improvements in this region will require collaboration among elected officials and business leaders in the District, Maryland and Virginia. This has been the case on the extension of rail to Dulles, the InterCounty Connector, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, the Capital Beltway express lanes and so much more. Joined by forward-thinking government officials, a group of business leaders have come together to advocate on behalf of riders and call for funding for eight car trains systemwide. All involved parties recognize that more capacity is gained when extending the trains by 33 percent. Less-crowded stations mean less discomfort and less waiting. People can get to work easier and get home faster. Metro will become more attractive to commuters and ridership will grow in numbers and improve in comfort. Best of all, we can accommodate the steady


The small cuts to U.S. clout

So many international crises are hammering the Obama administration this summer — Gaza, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan — that smaller but still significant blows to U.S. policy and prestige are easily overlooked. One came last week from Georgia, a former Soviet republic and once-close American ally. Bidzina Ivanishvili, an illiberal oligarch who has controlled Georgia’s government since winning an election in 2012, was warned repeatedly by the Obama administration not to pursue a criminal case against former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who led Georgia’s pro-democracy revolution a decade ago and peacefully handed over power after his electoral defeat. Yet last Monday the government filed transparently political charges against Saakashvili, as well as four other top leaders of his party. This flouting of a U.S. red line by a small country might seem relatively inconsequential — Saakashvili, after all, is not under arrest but in Ukraine advising its new pro-Western government. But it is part of a larger trend. Ally after ally of the United States, including regimes that, like Georgia, depend heavily on Washington for military and economic aid, have begun openly defying the Obama administration and, in a few cases, deliberately humiliating its envoys. Just in the last two months, Egypt sentenced three Al Jazeera journalists to long prison terms on flagrantly bogus charges the day after Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced that he had discussed their case with Cairo’s new strongman, Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. Bahrain, the Persian Gulf host of the U.S. 5th Fleet, expelled the assistant secretary of state for human rights after he met with members of a legal opposition party. Even tiny Aruba, whose foreign policy is run by the Netherlands, blindsided Washington by releasing a senior Venezuelan general it had arrested on a U.S. drug trafficking warrant. Apparently, it was considered easier to offend the Obama administration than the Chavista regime in Caracas. Then there is Thailand, a “major non-Nato ally” of the United States, where the army carried out a military coup against an elected government even though it knew U.S. law would mandate a cutoff of military aid; and Burma, which backtracked on political reform promises its president made personally to Obama last year. “It’s like a bank run,” one congressional foreign policy staffer told me last week. An international consensus seems to have gelled that the United States can’t be counted on to uphold its commitments and red


Some vaccines need to be repeated; others should be initiated during adulthood

What it wards off: Three potentially life-threatening viruses that are spread through the air. Who needs it: Adults born in 1957 or later without documentation of vaccination, and those vaccinated before 1968 who received the inactivated (killed) measles vaccine, which was later withdrawn due to inefficacy. Shot options: There is just one for adults, the MMR II. New vaccines for adults ● Zoster What it wards off: Shingles, a painful rash caused by the varicella zoster virus (the same one that causes chickenpox). Who needs it: People age 60 and older, except those who are taking immunosuppressive drugs or have medical conditions that make their immune system less effective. Shot options: Zostavax. ● Pneumococcal What it wards off: A bacterial infection that causes pneumonia and meningitis. Who needs it: All adults age 65 and older, along with anyone 19 and older who smokes, is undergoing chemotherapy or has asthma, diabetes, alcoholism, cochlear implants, conditions that compromise immunity, or heart, lung or liver disease. Shot options: Pneumovax, which is recommended for healthy adults, and Prevnar 13, generally recommended for higher-risk people because of its higher level of efficacy. ● Varicella What it wards off: Chickenpox. The vaccine was licensed for use in the United States in 1995 and is now routinely given to all children. Who needs it: People who never had chickenpox and haven’t already received the vaccine. They should get one or two doses depending on their age. Shot options: There’s just one licensed for adults, Varivax. Don’t remember which vaccines you’ve had? If you need official copies of your vaccination history or if you simply need to update your records, start with your doctors to see what they have on file. If your parents are living, ask if they have the records in baby books or files. Other possible sources include former employers (if they required immunizations) and your state’s health department. (Some agencies have vaccination registries.) Find out more at www.vaccineinformation.org/state-immunization-programs. If you can’t locate your records, your doctor might opt for blood tests to see if you’re immune to certain vaccine-preventable diseases. Or she’ll just give you the shot. It’s safe to repeat vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Copyright 2014. Consumers Union of United States Inc. For further guidance, go to www.ConsumerReports.org/Health, where more detailed information, including CR’s ratings of prescription drugs, treatments, hospitals and healthy-living products, is available to subscribers.


Tracking jaguars in Belize and coyotes in Virginia by camera and scat

the most interesting things is that there is a lot of turnover in the coyote population. They are really hunted a lot. They don’t make it too long after we put radio collars on them. A lot of people just shoot coyotes. There are only a couple left [of the 19 animals that her study collared]. When we first collared them in 2011, we only had two that made it through the hunting season. We collared six in the first year; four died in fall and one in winter — all from people. So actually only one survived. What are you doing with the jaguars in Belize? We are trying to get at basic information on how long they live and their population size. We also are looking at the impact of sustainable logging on large carnivores such as the jaguar, puma and ocelot. We are looking in areas where there has been selective logging, no logging and more-intensive logging. The idea is to assess the impacts on jaguar density. So how do you find them? We use a scat dog. We were interested in collecting DNA from the [jaguar] scat, so we hired a dog that gets trained to find it. They are mostly drug- or bomb-sniffing dogs that get retrained on a different smell. These ones smell puma and jaguar poop. It’s very effective. We also use camera traps [that snap photos when animals approach]. What are you finding that could impact conservation? The Program for Belize [a conservation group that owns the unlogged areas] contacted me and said, “We are claiming we are doing sustainable logging but don’t know if it really is.” That was the practical question: What were the jaguar numbers [on the program’s land]? After five years, we are finding that there isn’t any difference. That is a good thing. There are a lot of people who have given us a hard time [for that finding]. But I’ve changed my feelings about logging over time. I grew up in a time when a lot of clear-cutting was going on. Now that I’ve been [to Belize, I have learned that] it’s a bit of disturbance for a while, but the forest grows back pretty fast. For the jaguars, it really depends how well the areas are protected from poaching. That is the bigger issue than logging. Niiler is a freelance science writer in Chevy Chase.


Virginia mother who died after wasp sting lived a life worth remembering

quiet, safe exurb, far from the rat race of the city. In their home-schooled universe, there was no threat of schoolyard violence or even the risk of a crash during the commute to school. Sarah Harkins believed in natural foods, breast-feeding and a wholesome home. She took care of her family. And then it was all undone by a sting. “The Agony in the Garden is one of my favorite mysteries of the rosary,” she wrote on her blog last year, alongside pictures of the stunning, tiny clay beads she made depicting Albrecht Drurer’s Praying Hands. “The inner struggle between doing what’s right vs. doing what’s easy is pretty easy for me to relate to — every day.” But an insect in the garden? How can faith and planning overcome that? Maybe Sarah Harkins can remind us of how fleeting that gift of life is. We beat ourselves up for not being perfect enough. We sometimes walk around acting as though we have complete control over ourselves and our environments. The truth is that we have very little control over what life, ultimately, hands us. My 10-year-old son had that epiphany this summer. We were at an amusement park, and he got off the highflying chair-swing ride without his usual wide eyes and giddy adrenaline rush. He was pale and withdrawn, didn’t want to talk. When he finally opened up to me, it was this: “I looked up at that chain and I realized it could just break. And nothing lasts forever. Nothing. Is. Forever. Mom.” Yeah, an amusement park existential crisis. But he’s a child. And once we got to the log flume ride, he forgot his angst and went all gonzo in the front row. There is only so much fretting we can do before we stop enjoying the ride. I thought about this when I heard about Sarah Harkins. As inconsequential as they sound, insect stings can be fatal. An average of 40 Americans who are allergic to bees die after stings every year. Some people know they are allergic and carry an EpiPen just in case. Others don’t know and can die suddenly. Did Sarah Harkins know she was allergic? Could an EpiPen have saved her? In her case, it wasn’t just a sting that killed her, but the aneurysm. Undetected aneurysms are like heart attacks. There is rarely a warning that one is about to


Military services seeking innovative ways to attract highly skilled recruits

— need not be punitive in the advancement of our future airmen.” Maj. Gen. David W. Allvin, director of strategic planning in the office of the Air Force deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and programs, expanded on that in a New York Times interview. “What if you entered the Air Force knowing you could serve for a few years, then go to work for an innovative tech company, and then return to the Air Force?” he said. “We could enter into partnerships with cutting-edge companies and allow our workforce the opportunity of a more flexible retirement system that allows you to do two different jobs and still get to a 20-year retirement. It might take 35 years, but you would get here.” Another route in the Air Force’s “Call to the Future” report described “a career development model that provides those in specialized career fields with incentives and promotion opportunities on par with those in more mainstream disciplines.” The Defense Department has long had a few special programs to attract people who might otherwise not enlist for military service. Doctors have always been a special category. More recently, programs have been developed for foreign health-care workers and language and cultural specialists who have visas and work permits. Their time in service, which could be a mixture of four years active duty and four years in the reserves, would also lead to U.S. citizenship. One of the least publicized of such programs has existed for years with military bands, which recognized the need to recruit experienced musicians and start them at a higher rank. Take, for example, the U.S. Marine Band, “The President’s Own.” Its Web site recently advertised for a bassoonist. The notice says the “playing ability and expertise required are equivalent to those of any major professional musical organization.” The auditions, which will take place Nov. 1 in the John Philip Sousa Band Hall at Marine Barracks in Washington, “are conducted much like those of major symphony orchestras,” the Web site says. The person chosen will have the standard four-year enlistment, but unlike most other recruits it will be “for duty with the U.S. Marine Band only.” More important, the Web site says, “ ‘The President’s Own’ musicians are permanently assigned and may not be transferred to any other unit or location. Upon enlistment, new members are appointed to the rank of Staff Sergeant (pay grade E-6)


Reporters grapple with politics, erratic sources in reporting Israeli/Gaza death toll

Relatives of nine Palestinians from the Abu Nejim family mourn during their funeral in Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Aug. 4. Tallying the exact number of dead in the conflict has proven to be difficult. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters) How many people have been killed in Gaza and in Israel since the conflict between Hamas and Israel’s military began in early July? And who are the dead? As in any war zone, with its chaos and fast-moving events, the answers are difficult to know with precision. And as in any war zone, the answers emerging in Gaza are colored by charges of propaganda and media manipulation. Supporters of Israel say the raw casualty numbers coming from Gaza are suspect, both in size and in composition. They assert that the sources — the Hamas-controlled health ministry, pro-Palestinian groups, nongovernmental organizations — are partisan and have an incentive to inflate and distort the figures to influence international media accounts, and hence poison world opinion about Israel. Palestinian and non-state organizations counter that they are making a good-faith effort to account for the dead amid difficult circumstances. “There are always a small number of cases where we can’t be sure,” said Catherine Weibel, a spokeswoman for UNICEF in Jerusalem, which has been tracking the deaths of children in Gaza. “But we do not report [a death] unless we have verified and cross-checked.” The competing claims have left news reporters in the middle, as the wary arbiters of information that is virtually impossible to verify independently. Given that Israel doesn’t supply its own estimates, and the unlikelihood of conducting its own count, the news media has largely stuck with reporting the most readily available figures. Comrades cry next to the grave of Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin during a military funeral ceremony at the cemetery in Kfar Saba, Israel, on Aug. 3. (Abir Sultan/EPA) Media perceptions are critical in every modern war, but this has been particularly so in recent Israeli-Gaza conflicts. Israel is sensitive to international criticism that it has used its firepower indiscriminately, resulting in a disproportionate number of civilian casualties. Unlike conflicts in Libya, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, Israel’s current military campaign, Operation Protective Edge, is taking place amid intense Western media coverage, with reporters roaming relatively freely on both sides. As of Monday morning, the widely cited Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said that 1,888 Palestinians


Craft beer: Corn gets a new look from brewers, and not as a mere filler

It’s a tribute to his skill that he was able to lasso the alcohol content at a gentle 4.3 percent by volume. “I have no qualms about what I’m doing,” Clark says of brewing with corn. “Some of the macro guys make a product that’s exceptional for what they’re doing.” The Brewers Association, the trade group representing America’s small brewers, has never minded small-scale experimentation. But too much corn once could get you excluded from the fraternity. To qualify as a “craft brewer,” a beermaker has to be “traditional.” That term originally was defined as having either “an all-malt flagship” or “at least 50 percent of its volume in either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor.” Wheat, rye, pumpkins, chili peppers and raspberries were okay; corn and rice were not. In February, however, the association decided that its definition was overly restrictive in that it excluded old, family-owned brewers like August Schell and Yuengling. Those companies have been making flavorful beers since the 1800s but incorporate a small percentage of corn grits into their recipes. The BA’s new definition of “traditional” merely requires a brewer to have “a majority of its total beverage alcohol volume in beers whose flavor derives from traditional or innovative brewing ingredients.” No specific ingredient is verboten, although the revised definition does not consider flavored malt beverages like Four Loko or Joose to be beer. (Craft breweries still have to be independent and small, producing fewer than 6 million barrels a year. But even Yuengling, which will vault over Boston Beer as the country’s largest craft brewer the next time statistics are compiled, easily qualifies, having brewed about 2.7 million barrels last year.) “We wanted to get away from ‘this beer is better than that beer,’ ” says Paul Gatza, the BA's director. Noting that the guidelines define “craft brewer” rather than “craft beer,” he says: “It’s up to the drinker to decide what is a craft beer and what isn’t. Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder.” Kitsock is the editor of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. More from Food: When Samuel Adams was small Where the biggest drinkers live in the US Flying Dog makes the most Maryland beer ever Can this glass actually make beer taste better? Intern Guide: Beer for a buck Right Proper elevates the brew pub to new heights Beer Column archive


U.S. general killed in attack at Afghan military academy

institutions.” The senior United Nations official in Afghanistan issued a statement of condolence Tuesday night to the families and colleagues of “international and Afghan troops killed and wounded” in the attack. The statement from Jan Kubis, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, said international forces “continue to perform a critical role in Afghanistan’s security and are providing critical training for the country’s future and stability.” He called the attack a “tragedy.” The academy is a centerpiece of the coalition’s plan to train the Afghan military. U.S. military officials have described it as “the West Point of Afghanistan,” a reference to the U.S. Army’s military academy in New York state. The shooting Tuesday was one of a few major incidents of so-called insider attacks against Western forces in Afghanistan in recent months. Such attacks by Afghan trainees or soldiers against their Western instructors or colleagues grew in frequency over the past several years but tapered off as a result of stricter security and screening measures at military facilities. However, the number and scope of Taliban insurgent attacks has been increasing in recent months, with dozens of deadly incidents involving unusually large numbers of insurgents. Officials have said the Taliban is testing the strength of Afghan security forces as U.S. and NATO troops continue their withdrawal and prepare to place the nation’s defense largely in Afghan hands. Insider attacks have been a core concern of coalition troops in Afghanistan for years. As of June 24, there had been 87 there since 2008, killing 142 coalition troops and wounding an additional 165, according to a tally kept by the Long War Journal. The motives for the attacks have varied. In some cases, insurgents have infiltrated the Afghan military and police and waited for the opportunity to attack coalition troops. In others, Afghan troops have attacked the coalition troops training them after feeling personally offended, military officials have said. The worst year for insider attacks in Afghanistan was 2012, when 44 attacks killed 61 coalition troops, according to the Long War Journal. The rash of attacks that year prompted significant changes in the way Western and Afghan military service members interact. They included appointing “guardian angel” service members to stand guard while coalition troops and Afghans worked together. Insider attacks have been significantly down this year, with two recorded before Tuesday. Constable reported from Kabul. Karen DeYoung and Katie Zezima contributed to this report.


Putin says sanctions coming against West; new calls for Ukraine intervention, mission

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with local officials in Voronezh, Russia. (Alexei Druzhinin/AP) MOSCOW — The Russian Foreign Ministry also called for an international humanitarian intervention in Ukraine’s battle-torn east, a measure that some Western officials have worried may be a precursor to a unilateral Russian effort there as officials say Russian troops are again building up at the border. A U.S. military team of “about a dozen” personnel arrived Tuesday at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, said the Pentagon’s spokesman, Rear Adm. John F. Kirby. They were sent there to offer advice to countries that are working to investigate the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The combined efforts came in response to the latest round of Western sanctions and as pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine are increasingly on the defensive. Putin said in a meeting with regional leaders that “the political tools of economic pressure are unacceptable and run counter to all norms and rules,” and he said he had issued orders to take steps to boost domestic manufacturers at the expense of non-Russian ones, although he offered no details. Also on Tuesday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak signed an agreement with Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh to broaden the countries’ economic cooperation over the next five years, focusing on energy and infrastructure. United States and European Union officials last week expanded their sanctions against Russian economic sectors, businesses and individuals, targeting the energy, defense and financial industries after they said that Russia had failed to calm the increasingly violent conflict in eastern Ukraine. Pro-Russian rebels on Tuesday appeared to be getting pushed back further into their stronghold of Donetsk. Ukrainian forces advanced into the outskirts of the city in what appeared to be the beginning of a major push to oust the insurgents. Gunfire and loud explosions, apparently from rocket fire, were exchanged inside Donetsk’s western edge, the city government reported on its Web site. Artillery landed on a house, killing an elderly woman, along with her dog, according to the Associated Press. The military has been encircling the city for several weeks now, and officials have stated that their goal is to “liberate” both Donetsk and Luhansk, the other main rebel stronghold. Residents have been sleeping in basements to protect themselves from the shelling. The military has announced humanitarian corridors and urged all Donetsk residents to evacuate. Most buses and trains are still operating.


SBA’s former chief: Small business lending hasn’t recovered — and that’s a big problem

faster pace than they have for small-business borrowers. Meanwhile, the National Federation of Independent Business’s polling shows that both the percentage of small-business owners reporting that credit is getting easier to find and the percentage reporting that all of their company’s current credit needs are being met remain below levels reported before the recession began. It doesn’t end there. Mills highlights reports by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. revealing that commercial loans of less than $1 million (the amount often sought by small companies) are down about 20 percent from the years leading up to the recession, even as bank’s total commercial loan balances have continued to grow. Mills acknowledges that “for most banks, lending to small businesses, especially in the lower dollar range, is costly and risky.” Still, she says there appear to be other factors at play that “seem to be preventing banks, both large and small, from ever fully returning to the small business market.” In the short term, the lingering effects of the recession have left many small-business owners suffering from fewer sales (consumer spending still hasn’t fully recovered), poor credit (often, entrepreneurs finance their small operations with personal assets), or both. A number of reports suggest that small-business credit scores are lower now than they were before the economy took a nose dive in 2008. Naturally, that will prevent many of them who might otherwise take out a loan from getting the stamp of approval. Over time, though, those lingering effects will fade. However, other barriers, such as consolidation in the financial services sector, which has seen many community banks that often lent to small companies close down or get acquired, may leave small-business owners with fewer traditional bank loan options for the foreseeable future. The same goes with the more-strict regulations placed on banks following the recession, which, for instance, have forced financial institutions to increase their capital reserves and hoard deposits. That, Mills noted in her second paper, “undermines their ability to underwrite small-business loans.” “It appears unlikely that all the barriers to bank lending to small business will disappear,” said Mills, who took over the SBA during the depths of the recession in 2009 and resigned late last year. Should banks or more-nimble competitors fail to find solutions to these challenges — which she says surely will require the deployment of new technology — the broader economic rebound will likely continue to


Food calendar: It’s time for D.C. Restaurant Week

THURSDAY WINE TASTING: SUNDAY POP-UP DINNERS: TASTE OF LINGANORE: MONDAY D.C. RESTAURANT WEEK: MASON DIXON MASTER CHEF TOURNAMENT: TUESDAY COCKTAIL SEMINAR: — Becky Krystal Event listings can be submitted online only at www.washingtonpost.com/gog/talk-to-us.html, at least 14 days in advance.


U.S. policymakers gird for rash of corporate expatriations

by Americans for Tax Fairness, a union-backed nonprofit organization. On Wednesday, Walgreens announced it will in fact remain headquartered in Deerfield, Ill., where it was founded 113 years ago. Shares of Walgreens fell sharply in pre-market trading on Wednesday. At CVS, a Walgreens competitor, spokeswoman Carolyn Castel declined to comment on Merlo’s July 16 visit to Schumer’s Capitol Hill office. In an e-mail, Castel said: “Corporate tax reform that includes a significant rate reduction is urgent. The trends we now see in the market underscore the need for a corporate tax structure that allows U.S. companies to be competitive.” While technically complex, inversions are conceptually simple: A U.S. firm moves its tax home to a nation with lower rates, often by merging with or purchasing a foreign company. The new company is still subject to a 35 percent rate on its U.S. earnings. But profits earned overseas — previously subject to U.S. taxes upon transfer back to the United States — are subject only to the lower foreign rates. Ten years ago, inverted companies tended to flee to tax havens such as the Cayman Islands. These days, they are more likely to plant their flags in Europe, where many already have operations. Ireland, a popular destination, imposes a tax rate of just 12.5 percent. There are other benefits to inversion: In many deals, the foreign “parent” makes a big loan to its new U.S. partner, which in turn makes large interest payments that can be deducted from the company’s U.S. tax bill. Those interest payments often are not taxed in the foreign country, a double windfall. While the Treasury Department explores its options, Obama has called on Congress to make inversions more difficult by requiring that 50 percent control of the company shift overseas, rather than the current 20 percent. Many Republicans, and some Democrats, oppose that idea, saying it risks making the problem worse by forcing actual foreign takeovers. Schumer has proposed limiting the ability of inverted companies to write off interest payments to their foreign parents. Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), who has introduced separate legislation to deny federal contracts to inverted firms, is working on a similar proposal. That idea has garnered GOP support in the past, and Democrats say they are serious about assembling bipartisan legislation. But Schumer acknowledged that Democrats stand to gain a powerful political weapon if that effort fails because of Republican opposition.


Afghan troops’ rocky past offers clues into shooting that killed U.S. general

killed 142 coalition troops and wounded another 165, according to the Long War Journal, an online publication focused on counterterrorism and Islamic radicalism. The motives behind these attacks have ranged widely. In some cases, insurgents infiltrated the services and waited for the chance to attack foreign troops. In others, Afghan soldiers and police attacked their American trainers after taking offense at certain orders or perceived insults. Some have been angered by civilian bombings or reports of Korans being burned at U.S. bases. Others have professed Taliban sympathies or railed at U.S. foreign policy in the Islamic world. The fatal attack on Tuesday was an acute embarrassment to the Afghan military leadership, because it occurred inside the Afghan equivalent of the U.S. military academy at West Point, and was aimed at a Western VIP delegation that had come to assess the army’s progress in being able to defend the nation as Western forces prepare to leave. Afghan officials said the shooter, who used the single name Rafiqullah, had just returned from a patrol around midday and was still carrying his weapon when he concealed himself in a bathroom within close range of the delegation, then opened fire. His weapon, described as either an assault rifle or a machine gun, would have been issued by NATO. More than a dozen people were wounded, including eight Americans, a German general and a top Afghan commander of the training facility. Officials said there was no indication that he was part of a conspiracy or had Taliban sympathies. But the timing of the attack was particularly sensitive, with presidential elections derailed by charges of fraud and an audit of all 8.1 million ballots repeatedly suspended by disagreements. Afghans are hoping to have a new leader inaugurated in time for a NATO summit in early September, and a stalled bilateral security agreement between Afghanistan and the United States is on hold until a new government takes office in Kabul. The number and scope of Taliban insurgent attacks has been increasing in recent months, with dozens of deadly incidents involving unusually large numbers of insurgents. Officials have said the Taliban is testing the strength of Afghan security forces as U.S. and NATO troops continue their withdrawal and prepare to place the nation’s defense largely in Afghan hands. Several analysts in Kabul said the attack exposed deep flaws in the control and competence of Afghan military leaders, who


no indication that he was part of a conspiracy or had Taliban sympathies. But the timing of the attack was particularly sensitive, with presidential elections derailed by charges of fraud and an audit of all 8.1 million ballots repeatedly suspended by disagreements. Afghans are hoping to have a new leader inaugurated in time for a NATO summit in early September, and a stalled bilateral security agreement between Afghanistan and the United States is on hold until a new government takes office in Kabul. The number and scope of Taliban insurgent attacks has been increasing in recent months, with dozens of deadly incidents involving unusually large numbers of insurgents. Officials have said the Taliban is testing the strength of Afghan security forces as U.S. and NATO troops continue their withdrawal and prepare to place the nation’s defense largely in Afghan hands. Several analysts in Kabul said the attack exposed deep flaws in the control and competence of Afghan military leaders, who had apparently not prepared adequate security for the foreign visit. They also said it revealed ongoing problems with the army’s lax recruitment policies and faltering efforts to build a loyal, unified fighting force after more than a decade of foreign investment and training. “This sad event is a major blow to our international alliances, and it shows that we cannot build trustworthy and credible military institutions,” said Javed Kohistani, a military analyst, former Afghan army officer and former national intelligence officer. “Whoever was behind this attack has achieved their highest goal. It is no coincidence that a two-star American general was killed.” But Martine van Bijlert, of the Afghan Analysts Network, said she believed the shooting was an “act of opportunity” by a soldier who happened to be in the base and was not an indication of any broader conspiracy. A spokesman for the Taliban issued a statement praising the soldier for his “honorable” action in attacking foreign “occupiers” but did not claim any connection. “Symbolically this is very telling, but whether it is telling about the broader ability of the army and its international relations, I don’t think so,” van Bijlert said. Despite intensified screening efforts and other precautions, she pointed out, “you still can’t know the thoughts and moods of every soldier and recruit. It would be different if this had been a planned and targeted attack, but it looks like this was more a target of opportunity.”


D.C. voters to decide on marijuana use in November

but Congress continued to block funding to implement the program until 2009. Burnett said he was not sure how Congress would ultimately react to the new legalization effort, but he said the vote “will send a message that D.C. is serious about reforming its marijuana laws.” The ballot initiative, if enacted, would legalize the possession of up to two ounces of marijuana for personal use. Residents could grow up to six cannabis plants at home and give up to an ounce of marijuana to another adult without penalty. The initiative would also legalize the sale and use of drug paraphernalia. Should marijuana be legal in the District? Burnett noted that the initiative would not legalize the sale of marijuana, but he said he expected the D.C. Council to step in and pass legislation to regulate sales if voters approve the ballot measure. With marijuana legalization appearing alongside ballot lines for mayor, attorney general and D.C. Council seats, the issue could figure into this fall’s political campaigns. Candidates for mayor have staked out various positions on the legalization proposal. Independent candidate Carol Schwartz, a former D.C. Council member, said Wednesday that she supports medical marijuana but opposes the legalization push, saying there are “too many people that are drugged out” in the city. Muriel Bowser, the Democratic nominee and Ward 4 council member, said in a statement Wednesday that she will vote for legalization but wants to “ensure the appropriate education is in place so our young people know the effects of marijuana.” Independent candidate and council member David A. Catania (At Large), who played a leading role in establishing the medical marijuana program, will also vote for legalization, said campaign manager Ben Young. The legalization push has so far moved forward without much opposition. But Adam Eidinger, another leader of the D.C. Cannabis Campaign, said he is preparing for anti-legalization forces to emerge. “This is the Waterloo in the war of marijuana,” he said of the D.C. vote. “If they [those opposing legalization efforts] can’t win this battle here, it’s over for the whole country.” Despite the high stakes, Eidinger said he was not especially concerned about congressional intervention. “Overturning an election is a serious matter in the 21st century,” he said. “It is a moral issue. . . . I really don’t think Congress wants to pick this fight.” Victoria St. Martin and Aaron C. Davis contributed to this


Where have all the butterflies gone?

which caused major plant death in the Washington area. Some believe the cold, wet and delayed spring took its own toll on early broods of butterflies. Michael Patterson of the Clearwater Nature Center in Clinton said that “we are seeing some tiger swallowtails and great spangled fritillaries,” but he has yet to see, say, a red admiral or any monarchs even though a milkweed garden has been planted for their use. “I don’t have anything quantitative,” he said, “but it seems as if the populations are less than they were in the past.” Jennifer Frye, an ecologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said she saw her first tiger swallowtail only last week. “Maybe the first brood was just small, but that doesn’t mean that the numbers won’t pick up as the summer progresses,” said Frye, who works for the department’s wildlife and heritage service on the Eastern Shore. Monarchs are a special case because many of them migrate, and their numbers in overwintering Mexican forests have dropped precipitously in recent years. Much of this is attributed to the loss of habitat due to development and shifts in agricultural practices, including herbicide-tolerant, genetically modified row crops that have meant the eradication of sustaining stands of milkweed, the larval food plant. Although the migration as a phenomenon is threatened, the species is not in immediate peril. The gardener can help by raising plants that butterflies need. “Unlike many things, it’s actually easy for someone to increase the world’s population of butterflies,” said Glassberg. Nectar is only half the story, and many butterflies can get nectar from various sources. (Some of them sup from fallen fruit.) More important, perhaps, is the vegetation you provide for the caterpillars to munch on, because certain species are what we might call picky eaters. After 20 years in one suburban garden, I have pretty much run out of room for more woody plants. If I lived in the country I would plant a hackberry or two, which grows into a large but not necessarily majestic shade tree, is prone to leaf galls and has little off-season ornament. But it is the host plant of the mourning cloak, which has to be one of the most handsome of our butterflies, and the earliest to appear. The hackberry tree also feeds the hackberry emperor butterfly, the tawny emperor and the odd-looking snout butterfly. My imagined rural spread


Where have all the butterflies gone?

the eradication of sustaining stands of milkweed, the larval food plant. Although the migration as a phenomenon is threatened, the species is not in immediate peril. The gardener can help by raising plants that butterflies need. “Unlike many things, it’s actually easy for someone to increase the world’s population of butterflies,” said Glassberg. Nectar is only half the story, and many butterflies can get nectar from various sources. (Some of them sup from fallen fruit.) More important, perhaps, is the vegetation you provide for the caterpillars to munch on, because certain species are what we might call picky eaters. After 20 years in one suburban garden, I have pretty much run out of room for more woody plants. If I lived in the country I would plant a hackberry or two, which grows into a large but not necessarily majestic shade tree, is prone to leaf galls and has little off-season ornament. But it is the host plant of the mourning cloak, which has to be one of the most handsome of our butterflies, and the earliest to appear. The hackberry tree also feeds the hackberry emperor butterfly, the tawny emperor and the odd-looking snout butterfly. My imagined rural spread would also have whole orchards of pawpaw trees, which grow to the size of old pear trees and produce the largest fruit of any native tree, and one of the most delicious. The deciduous leaves are drooping and furrowed and resemble buckeye leaves. The foliage, moreover, is favored by the caterpillar of the zebra swallowtail, which is even prettier to my eyes than the tiger swallowtail. I was in Indian Head, Md., a month ago and saw many zebra swallowtails, which was a thrill. At my community garden, the butterflies (and skippers) have been slow to appear this summer, but I am biding my time. One gardener is growing the stinging nettle, a plant some consider a weed and others an herb with a broad range of healing qualities. Where I grew up, kids gave it a wide berth because we knew from the earliest age that brushing against that distinctive arrow-shaped, hairy and serrated leaf would induce, in sequence, pain, welts and a rash. If you squeezed the leaf forcefully, it wouldn’t sting because you thwarted the poisoned hairs. Hence to take bold action is to “grasp the nettle.” Given the choice, I would much rather grasp the nettle


Muslim clerics in Nigeria advocate for polio vaccination and mobilize community

report published Tuesday in PLOS Medicine. In six months of the pilot program, the number of immunized children younger than 5 went from 2,755 to 11,364. Researchers indicate the Nigerian states (gold) where polio cases were detected. (Nasir et al/PLOS Medicine) Aliyu said that when he was growing up in Jigawa state in northern Nigeria, he saw many children affected by polio, a crippling and potentially fatal disease. He believed, like many, that it was caused by a bad spirit. “The local community believed the disease was spread by a demon spirit and if you were unlucky you might come across it and it would strike you, and your limb would be paralyzed,” he said in a telephone interview. “We didn’t know this is something infectious, something you can get from the environment.” At medical school in Zaria, another northern state, he learned about polio and realized the bad curse was in fact a disease that could be protected against. In 1988, polio was endemic in 125 countries, according to UNICEF. Since then, through aggressive vaccination programs, the virus has been almost eradicated in most countries, with the notable exceptions of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Until two or three years ago, Nigeria, and particularly Kano in the predominantly Muslim north of Africa’s most populous country, was the epicenter of global polio infections, according to UNICEF. Opposition to the vaccine by some local scientists and rumors that the vaccines caused sterility and were a covert attempt to reduce the Muslim population in the north added to resistance. Incidents such as when a small number of vaccine-induced infections in 2006 led to outbreaks bolstered these fears. A milestone for the program was when it gained the support of the Sultan of Sokoto, a spiritual leader in Nigeria, who helped launch the Northern Traditional Leaders Committee for Primary Health Care and Polio Eradication in 2009. Maps show occurrence of cases of wild poliovirus and circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus in Nigeria from 2009 to 2013: The color scheme represents the increasing intensity of incidence from white (zero) to light yellow, gold, orange, red, and dark red. (Nasir et al/PLOS Medicine) In 2010, a team of experts consisting mainly of Nigerian Muslim scientists was formed to assist the committee, which included four of the authors of the new report. The team mapped the high-risk areas in the north within the 12 polio-prevalent states and set up


Russia bans some foods from U.S., E.U.

A woman shops at a supermarket in Moscow. In response to Western countries’ sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis, Moscow has returned fire with bans on food imports. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images) MOSCOW The decree — which left open what would be banned and limited — came in response to a fresh round of United States and European Union sanctions after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. U.S. and E.U. officials have accused Russia of providing the antiaircraft missile that shot down the jetliner, which Russia has denied. The order directed Russian government agencies to draw up lists of imports to be banned and limited. It was a significant step in a nation that produces only a portion of its food needs, though the immediate effect remained unclear without the details. Any ban had the potential to affect not only the chic Moscow boutiques that stock pricey imported cheeses and cold cuts but also food processors who sell products to ordinary Russian consumers around the country. The decree was being executed “with the goal of defending the national interests of the Russian Federation,” the order said. Imports from countries that have sanctioned Russia will be “banned or limited” for a year, although measures will also be taken to prevent “the accelerated growth” of food and agricultural prices. A Russian media report said Wednesday that the ban will extend to all U.S. agricultural imports and to fruits and vegetables from the European Union. “Everything that is produced and imported to Russia from the United States will be banned,” said Alexey Alekseenko, an aide to the head of Russia’s food regulatory agency, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency. The list of banned and limited products will be approved Thursday, a spokeswoman for Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told Vedomosti, an independent business newspaper. Vedomosti, citing an unnamed government source, said that the list would include different types of vegetable, fruit and meat products but that it would not include wine or baby food. Russia has been hit with sanctions from the 28-nation European Union, the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and Ukraine. Russian imports of U.S. agricultural products total about $1 billion a year. From the European Union, the figure was $15.8 billion in 2013. Imports include grains and other raw products that feed Russia’s 144 million residents. Part of Putin’s 14-year-long grasp on


DOT, VA reps discuss how the federal government could use Internet of Things

program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, along with Transportation Department chief information officer Richard McKinney and Veterans Health Administration special advisor Joseph Ronzio, mentioned cyber security defense, traffic management and health monitoring as possible uses for the network, among others. The representatives met at a conference organized by online government-focused social network GovLoop, and Herndon-based marketing communication firm ConnellyWorks. This is the first GovLoop event dedicated to the Internet of Things, according to founder Steve Ressler. Some parts of the public sector have been developing connected applications for years — for instance, the Defense Department has been using various sensor networks for situational awareness technology, said Michael Chui, a partner at McKinsey Global Institute, who delivered the conference’s keynote. Some municipal governments are using sensors to monitor water pipes and identify leaks, he added. “At the same time, there's a tremendous amount of work to be done.” Many public agencies are still in the “definition stage,” Ressler said -- learning what the Internet of Things is, and how it could be used, before actually building the applications. Ronzio described futuristic wearable sensors that could be used to predict cardiac events before they happen, allowing VA medical systems could dispatch paramedics preemptively. Or perhaps the Transportation Department could deploy a wide network of sensors to monitor traffic patterns, tolls and weather in a vision McKinney termed “vehicle-to-infrastructure” communication. Under such a scheme, sensors in individual cars could signal to sensors in roads and highways to collect more detailed data about traffic and road maintenance issues. “I think [the Internet of Things] will be evolutionary, and [will] take us into the era where a car will drive itself,” McKinney said. He added that the transportation department hired its first chief data officer two weeks ago, who will work on projects related to the Internet of Things. Though the term “Internet of Things” often connotes home automation technologies — such as Nest, the thermostat company Google bought in January for $3.2 billion — data from that same network can be used to help people and agencies make sure they’re making full use of existing resources, such as cars and energy, said Steve Fritzinger, public sector manager at data storage company NetApp, who spoke at the conference. The Internet of Things’ greatest potential is in efficiency, he added — “not from having a refrigerator that bothers me about my shopping list.”


GOP lawmakers follow the money — to California

across the globe, you might as well multitask. And Maloney has her eye on the cuddly, bamboo-eating bears that make anyone in their presence spontaneously say, “Awww.” The congresswoman plans to make a side visit (only a short 22-hour drive from Beijing) to Chengdu Research Base, which breeds giant pandas, to discuss options for bringing a pair to a New York City zoo. First lady Michelle Obama and her daughters also visited the panda enclosure on a visit to China in March. “New York City’s economy is Congresswoman Maloney’s top priority. That’s why she is traveling to China to discuss trade policy and what can be done to increase our exports to the second-largest economy in the world,” her spokesman said in an e-mail. “She will also take a few hours to visit a panda research base to discuss the possibility of securing a panda for New York City, which would help boost tourism.” This has apparently been on Maloney’s bucket list for years, and she told the New York Post in an interview that Chinese and New York officials are open to it. New York City last had giant pandas almost 30 years ago, when the Bronx Zoo housed two for six months on loan, according to a 1987 New York Times story. Pandas are an attraction at only a few U.S. zoos, including the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, which projected huge boosts in tourism when Bao Bao the panda cub was born there last August (Hey, congresswoman, the zoo is planning a first-birthday bash for Bao Bao if you want to come.). “Pandas are a symbol of good luck,” Maloney said in the New York Post interview. “New York needs some good luck and happiness. We’ve had 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, the housing crisis.” President Richard Nixon was the first to bring pandas from China to the United States after receiving them as a gift from the Chinese government. The Nixons donated the bears to the National Zoo. Hopefully the good panda karma would work out better for New York than it did for Nixon. Headline of the week This comes from The Washington Post’s new opinion blog, The Watch. The headline: “Since marijuana legalization, highway fatalities in Colorado are at near-historic lows.” Well, yeah, maybe that’s because they’re all driving 8 mph and eating chips? (Actually, it’s a serious analysis.) — With Colby Itkowitz Twitter: @KamenInTheLoop, @ColbyItkowitz


Obama praises U.S.-Africa summit as an ‘extraordinary event’

President Obama wrapped up a three-day summit with African leaders Wednesday, making a rare foreign policy advance even as his administration continues to face daunting challenges abroad. The massive gathering of nearly 50 African heads of state and government in Washington allowed top U.S. officials to broker deals between American companies and African dignitaries, as well as press privately for action on security and human rights concerns. And at a time when Europe and major economies such as China are expanding their foothold in Africa, the conference gave the United States a chance to reinforce its long-standing connection to the continent. While the summit yielded a handful of high-profile announcements — including new public and private investments in economic, agricultural and health development totaling $37 billion — it also featured the kind of behind-the scenes diplomatic interactions that could produce meaningful benefits later on. Elected U.S. officials and their African counterparts discussed issues ranging from tensions within the Great Lakes region to the ongoing conflict in South Sudan. In a press conference Wednesday evening, Obama called the meeting “an extraordinary event” that can be “a forcing mechanism for decisions and action, so we agreed that the U.S.-Africa leaders summit will be a recurring event to hold ourselves accountable for our commitments and to sustain our momentum.” The leaders agreed Wednesday to create a “new peace-keeping rapid response project” to enhance Africa’s ability to defuse conflicts, the president said, along with a security and governance initiative to professionalize security forces on the continent. The group is also exploring the idea of launching a partnership to combat illicit financing, he added. President Obama marked the end of the three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. Obama was asked if the experimental drug used on the two Americans infected with the Ebola virus will become available to African countries. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) cautioned in an interview Wednesday that the real value of the meeting will be best judged a year from now, “when the words on paper and the hours of talking are implemented and acted upon.” Symbolism and emotional appeals were integral to the administration’s pitch this week: As they have with issues ranging from gun control to education, the Obamas used their personal history to make their case for closer diplomatic and economic ties. Speaking at an event on women and girls along with former


Black, Asian residents unite to save low-income building near Chinatown

building is put up for sale, or a developer makes an offer to purchase it. Tenants, working either on their own or with another developer, get a chance to make a counter-offer at a similar price. Since 2002, according to studies and a city review, that law has been used to preserve at least 50 buildings and about 1,500 units of housing. Museum Square’s case exposes a “new glitch in the law,” said D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large). In this case, there is no sale — the property owners just want to repurpose their land. They are pricing it for its potential, in a changing neighborhood catering to more affluent residents. There is no surefire way to judge whether that pricing is reasonable. The two-acre Museum Square property is assessed at $36 million, records show. Around the Mount Vernon Square and Chinatown areas, real estate listings show houses and luxury condos being sold at about $500,000. The company’s asking price at Museum Square would amount to about $830,000 per existing unit. As neighborhoods transform, Catania is worried Museum Square’s property owners would set a precedent for others to value their land at out-of-reach prices for existing tenants, and simply demolish rather than sell. This, Catania said, would derail the intent of the law. “I don’t see any evidence to suggest that this [$250 million] number wasn’t just picked from the sky,” said Catania, who is running for mayor. After reading about the situation in the Washington City Paper, Catania began pushing for the D.C. Council to explore ways of lowering the price tag. “If we don’t do something to prevent this situation, demolishing a property could terminate any real right tenants have to purchase.” Michele Ball, treasurer of the Virginia-based Bush Construction Corp., which co-owns the property, thinks the criticism is unfair. Ball said the vision includes increasing housing density on the property, which the city is evaluating. She said the company “went through lots of calculations to determine how valuable the property was to us, and $250 million seemed very reasonable.” The building sits on a street that was once lined with prostitutes but now boasts al fresco dining and sparkling luxury condos. “We’re trying to maximize the value of the property,” Ball said. “We’ve had the building there for 30-plus years, and we think the building has run its course of usefulness. And everyone who


Russia bans food imports from U.S., E.U.

and would be a step back to an era when Western planes were enjoined from flying over the Soviet Union. The Russian government announced a ban on imports of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables and milk products from Western countries in retaliation for sanctions imposed over Ukraine. “We hoped until the very last moment that our foreign partners would realize that the path of sanctions is a dead-end and that nobody needs them,” Medvedev said. “They failed to realize it.” In Russia, the food measures promised to hit not just city centers, where the urban middle class has grown accustomed to visiting supermarkets overflowing with high-quality imported European cheeses, fish and sausages. Analysts warned that food prices also would increase and that a wide range of Russian industries, including food processing plants, shippers and retailers, would be affected. Even zoo animals may take a blow — the spokeswoman of the Moscow Zoo said Thursday that most of the animals’ food was imported and that certain products would not be easy to replace. The measures, which are effective immediately, were a harsh response to the E.U. and U.S. sanctions imposed last week that will cut financing for major Russian banks, restrict technology exports for the oil industry and end much defense-sector purchasing. Earlier sanctions, imposed after Russia annexed the once-Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula in March, froze the assets of many top Russian officials in the West and banned them from travel there. “If our partners demonstrate a constructive approach toward cooperation issues, the government will be ready to reconsider the time frame of these measures,” Medvedev said. A top Treasury Department official said Thursday that the agriculture bans would not hurt the United States. The Russian bans are “insignificant as an impact on the U.S. economy,” the Treasury official in charge of the U.S. sanctions program, David Cohen, said in a conference call with reporters Thursday. He said it was U.S. policy not to impose sanctions on food or medical sectors. Moscow restaurateurs and diners are worried about high food prices following a one-year Russian ban on food imports from the U.S. and much of Europe. European countries were more exposed, and individual sectors in certain nations looked particularly vulnerable. Dairy producers in Finland, an E.U. member, said they were taking portions of their production offline until the situation was resolved. The Norwegian fishing industry also was going to be hit hard, analysts


WHO to convene panel on use of experimental Ebola drugs in West Africa

Ebola treatment it has on hand. The company, better known for its development of a promising drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, began working on an Ebola drug a decade ago after a government researcher in Maryland accidentally pricked herself with an Ebola-contaminated needle. As the worst Ebola outbreak in history unfolds in West Africa, The Post's Joel Achenbach explains how the deadly virus wreaks havoc on the human body. Sarepta quickly worked to develop an emergency treatment, said Diane Berry, the company’s vice president for global health policy and government affairs. The scientist was not infected, but the episode led to a partnership between the government and Sarepta. In 2010, the company received a contract for nearly $300 million to develop treatments for Ebola and Marburg, a similar virus. In 2012, fiscal fights on Capitol Hill resulted in budget cuts that shelved the project. Sarepta had done nonhuman-primate studies with its drug, which is intended to prevent the virus’s spread within the body. Sixty to 80 percent of the primates survived. The company also did a small study in humans to make sure the drug had no safety issues. Sarepta said it has enough of the medication on hand to treat a couple of dozen patients. It has enough raw materials to produce treatments for an additional 100 people, but even that would take a couple months, Berry said. The WHO does not approve medicines and is not a regulatory agency. But it does set standards, and often provides guidance when a public health emergency arises. Agency officials said Wednesday that the WHO plans to convene the medical ethicists Monday or Tuesday and hopes to move as quickly as possible given the urgent nature of the crisis in West Africa. Also Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration said it had issued an emergency authorization for the use of an in vitro diagnostic test developed by the Defense Department to help detect the strain of the Ebola virus ravaging West Africa. The test is designed for use in individuals, including medical personnel, who may have been exposed to the virus. The WHO and FDA actions Wednesday underscored the urgency of the worsening situation in West Africa, where Ebola continues to spread in four countries: Liberia, Nigeria, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The WHO reported Wednesday that the death toll from the outbreak had risen to 932, with more than 1,711 total cases.


DARPA-funded IBM chip inspired by synapses in the human brain

IBM on Thursday unveiled a new computer chip designed to emulate the computing process and energy efficiency of the human brain. The size of a postage stamp, the chip uses the energy equivalent of a hearing-aid battery, according to IBM. IBM says its “neurosynaptic chips” can be tiled together to make a larger computing system. The project — called Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) — is fueled by about $53 million from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. (DARPA works closely with IBM on other projects; in February, for instance, the agency selected IBM for a $3.4 million contract to design chips for electronics that can self-destruct when triggered.) Eventually, the chips could be used in robots that roam around disaster regions and communicate with people, or in eyeglasses that process video and auditory input to help the wearer navigate a busy road, among other conceptual ideas, according to IBM. The computing system could be used for unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, said Gill Pratt, a program manager in DARPA’s defense sciences office. Robot systems that analyze input in real-time — comparing images from a camera to images stored in a database, for instance — typically use large amounts of power, Pratt said in an interview, noting that “warfighters and UAVs all have very limited amounts of power they can use . . . we are trying to improve the power efficiency of the computation as much as possible”. The neurosynaptic chips are mean to complement IBM’s other so-called cognitive computing technologies such as Watson, the system that won “Jeopardy!” in 2011. Watson uses natural language processing skills to interpret human speech queries, and mines large volumes of data to find the answer. Where as Watson represents humans’ “left-brain” — associated with analytical thinking — the neurosynaptic chips are meant to simulate pattern recognition and process sensory input, according to IBM. IBM is still working out how to commercialize the chips, lead research scientist Dharmendra Modha said in an interview. “This is really a research project. My job was to make impossible possible. . .now the possible has to become real,” he said.


Global success stories

In this file photograph taken on July 22, 2014, Indonesian presidential candidate Joko Widodo gestures following his victory address in Jakarta's port district of Sunda Kelapa after the General Elections Commission declared him as winner in the presidential race against opponent Prabowo Subianto. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images) Wherever you look these days, the world seems on fire. New hot spots like Russia-Ukraine are competing with old ones like Gaza. Festering conflicts like those in Syria and Iraq are getting worse. Even Afghanistan, which seemed in better shape than the other places, had a setback this week. Is there any good news out there? In fact, some of the most important countries in the world are making remarkable progress, affecting at least 1.5 billion people. Let me give you the good news. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. It has more Muslims than Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and all the Gulf states put together. It is also crucially located, in East Asia where great power politics and rivalries are heating up. Only 10 years ago, the fear was that Islamic militants were taking over the country and that it was an economic mess and an unreliable crisis spot in the region. The country has defied all skeptics and last month it took a big step forward. The election of Joko Widodo The other encouraging election this year has been in the second most populous country on the planet, India. First, there was the election, which is often taken for granted but should be marveled at. In one of the poorest countries in the world, 834 million registered voters got a chance to exercise their democratic rights (and 66.4 percent of them did). The elections were held without violence or controversy, using electronic voting that produced a result within hours. Compare that to the United States, which will again go to the polls this year with dozens of different kinds of ballots, many using paper, and with inefficiencies and inevitable controversies. India’s elections Halfway around the world, Mexico took a big, bold step this week. The Mexican Congress passed the ambitious energy reform proposals of President Enrique Peña Nieto, ending 75 years of state control of the energy sector. They have the potential to be a game changer, bringing investment, new technology and hundreds of thousands of jobs to Mexico. Since his inauguration in December 2012,


Ebola fever

our tenuous species feel most vulnerable: smallpox, malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, yellow fever, syphilis, polio. Bubonic plague carried off about half of Medieval Europe. The 1918 flu took about 50 million lives. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. Some of our Ebola obsession, however, is unnatural; it is manufactured for political reasons. A few conservatives — reaching for whatever stick lies handy in the immigration debate — have raised the prospect of Ebola-infected illegal immigrants crossing our porous southern border. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds this prospect remote. It is, in fact, fantastical and malicious. The incubation period for Ebola is from two to 21 days. It strains credulity that a sick West African would purchase a plane ticket for Central America and then travel to the U.S. border over an arduous land route while bleeding from various orifices. But credibility is not the goal here; it is the opportunistic incitement of fear. There is a long American history of equating immigration with infection. Fear of disease has always been bizarrely central to U.S. immigration policy. The filtering at Ellis Island and at the European ports where people left for America was almost entirely about disease and largely about rare conditions that weren’t much of an issue. (Only about 1 percent of immigrants at Ellis Island were turned away because of disease.) During a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing Thursday, CDC Director Dr.Thomas Frieden said the agency has activated its emergency operations center at the highest response level, but said he is confident there will not be a large Ebola outbreak in the U.S. The Ebola outbreak has also revealed, in some quarters, a deep distrust of institutions, including those dealing with public health. Infectious-disease experts are accused of withholding information or of being engaged in nefarious experiments. Some conservative commenters have accused public-health authorities of inviting an American Ebola crisis “so Obama can strut his stuff.” Mistrust of medical professions, of course, can be found on the left as well — the antivaccination movement is often a fringe-left phenomenon. But when medical authorities are also governmental authorities, right-wing populism inclines to turn against scientific elites. This is positively dangerous. It is one thing to criticize the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is another to cultivate distrust in the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. We are already seeing a corrosive, dangerous reduction in vaccination rates


Ukraine ready to impose sanctions on Russia

the measure is approved by parliament Tuesday. The people and firms subject to sanctions are accused of sponsoring “terrorism,” which is how the government describes the tactics of separatists battling government troops in eastern Ukraine. They also are deemed to have been supportive of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The government said 26 different types of sanctions would be employed, including freezing assets and the expropriation of property. Russia is Ukraine’s second-largest trade partner after the European Union. Russian-owned companies are deeply interwoven in the Ukrainian economy. Wealthy Russians own luxury hotels, cigarette distributors, malls, banks, insurers and cellphone providers, to name a few. Yatsenyuk estimated that the sanctions could cost the faltering economy up to $7 billion this year, and it will need Western aid and trade with European markets to survive. “We simply have no other choice,” he said of the decision to impose sanctions. “Ukraine is going to search the globe for the property of those who supported the annexation of Crimea.” Though the consequences were not immediately clear, they are expected to be far-reaching. “This includes the possible halting of all types of transit, from air flights to transit of resources,” Yatsenyuk told reporters. The impact will be felt by many ordinary Ukrainians and extend beyond the country’s border. The European Union imports about 15 percent of its natural gas through Ukraine’s pipelines. Gazprom, the Russian state-run energy company, also uses a northern pipeline that bypasses Ukraine. In a dispute over price and debt, Gazprom no longer sells gas to Ukraine, but the country has been using reserves and has considered importing gas through third parties in Europe. Many Ukrainian cities have stopped supplying hot water until winter arrives, and the government says its ultimate aim is to achieve energy independence. The U.S. government has been encouraging Ukraine’s government to impose sanctions, as the U.S. and Western Europe have done. Ukrainian officials have said they wanted to follow a similar strategy by targeting sanctions against Russia’s military, financial and energy sectors. Early in the day, the Culture Ministry announced that 14 Russian artists would be banned from exhibiting and performing in Ukraine. They include some popular singers whose concerts will have to be canceled. The ministry said the artists were blacklisted because they supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, though it was unclear what type of activity constituted support.


Santa Fe Opera’s sustained high note

Joseph Dennis as Sun Yat-Sen (center-left) and Corrine Wingers as Soong Ching-Ling (center-right) and the chorus in the Sante Fe Opera's "Dr. Sun Yat-Sen." (Ken Howard) SANTA FE, N.M. — Indeed, says Charles MacKay, the Santa Fe Opera’s general director, for some people, the setting outweighs the production. “People will say to me, I haven’t been to the opera for a few years, but I just loved it when I went,” he says. “I’ll say, ‘What did you see?’ and they say, ‘Well, you know, I can’t really remember, but I know there was a great sunset that night.” MacKay’s not complaining: He is eager to make opera an experience for everyone, whether it’s the sunsets or the music that bring people back. The great summer festivals lure you to a particular place with the promise that you will see things that are worth your while. Santa Fe, among the oldest opera festivals in America and certainly the largest and most important, has made its reputation as a distinctive company with a flair for the unusual. This summer brought “Dr. Sun Yat-Sen” by Huang Ruo, which had its world premiere in Hong Kong in 2011, and here became the first opera Santa Fe has ever done in Mandarin. But it was Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” in Stephen Wadsworth’s effective, detailed, insightful staging and conducted with a light strong touch by Harry Bicket, that was the real reminder — despite a so-so cast — of opera’s potential as a dramatic art. The times seem challenging for opera. The Metropolitan Opera is embroiled in negotiations with its trade unions, threatening a lockout that could jeopardize its season; the San Diego Opera nearly closed earlier this year; and this month has already seen problems everywhere from Sacramento (whose opera company is going on an indefinite hiatus) to Salzburg (the leader of Europe’s summer festivals is struggling with empty seats and declining income just like its American counterparts). But America’s largest summer festivals — St. Louis, Glimmerglass, and Santa Fe — are in better shape than most year-round companies; and Santa Fe leads the pack. It has the largest annual operating budget ($22.5 million dollars), the lowest rate of audience decline (only 3.5 percent since 2002, according to an Opera America study),and it’s never, in its 57-year-history, had a deficit. This last point, according to MacKay, keeps him awake at night — particularly since one of


National Zoo bomb threat forces evacuation

Parts of the National Zoo were briefly evacuated Friday after the complex received a bomb threat, a zoo official said. The threat was received about noon. The zoo was searched, and when nothing was found, the facility was opened, the official said.


New York law firm Lowenstein Sandler opens Washington office

Lowenstein Sandler has become the latest national law firm to open an office in Washington. The firm, which has about 330 lawyers in the United States, opened its D.C. office in Foggy Bottom on Monday with seven attorneys, including four from D.C. law firm Dickstein Shapiro. The firm represents investors and sponsors of hedge funds, private-equity funds, venture funds and technology companies, and also has offices in New York, New Jersey and California. Like many law firms that have opened offices in Washington over the past few years, Lowenstein Sandler plans to capture work advising corporate clients on how to navigate government regulations. “A clear trend in the world is toward larger government and more regulation,” said Gary Wingens, Lowenstein Sandler’s chairman and managing partner. “We’re seeing more of our clients who are subject to regulations that didn’t exist a few years ago, and we need to continue to broaden our regulatory expertise and go where the regulators are.” The attorneys from Dickstein are insurance litigators Andrew Reidy, Cathy Serafin, Joseph Saka and Courtney Alvarez. Reidy and Serafin are partners, Saka is counsel and Alvarez is an associate. They join, from Lowenstein, Jeff Blumenfeld, an antitrust and trade regulatory attorney, Matt Magidson, a derivatives attorney, and Miguel Pozo, a commercial litigator. Dickstein insurance attorney Michael McGaughey has joined the firm’s Los Angeles office. Wingens said he expects the firm to expand “substantially more” in Washington, and that one area of growth has been representing technology start-ups. “More and more, we’re representing the ‘disruptors,’ ” Wingens said. “The people and companies being disrupted, their defenses are going the legislative or regulatory route to try to find a regulator who will create a barrier of entry to a new company trying to change the business model for their industry. It’s important for us to continue expanding our regulatory capabilities to better representing our tech companies.” Capital Business is The Post’s publication focusing on the region’s business community. For a daily rundown of local business news, sign up for the CapBiz A.M. e-mail newsletter at wapo.st/capbiz. More from Capital Business: For a daily rundown of Washington area business news, sign up for the “CapBiz A.M.” e-mail newsletter.


On I.T. digest: IBM will offer HR consulting services; sales of computer chips strong

Big Data IBM consulting arm to offer HR help IBM is creating a new consulting practice to help businesses deal with organizational changes, the company announced last week. The Armonk, N.Y.-based tech giant unveiled several new technology services that would apply big-data and analytics processes to human resources problems. One service, predictive hiring, would use large volumes of behavioral assessments and other employee data to better understand the traits that characterize top performers, then comb through candidates to identify potential hires. A predictive retention service would analyze data such as exit interviews to identify those employees most likely to leave. These services were developed by Kenexa, a software company IBM acquired in 2012 for about $1.3 billion. — Mohana Ravindranath Semiconductors Global chip sales up strongly in quarter Global semiconductor sales reached $82.7 billion during the second quarter of 2014, up 10.8 percent from the corresponding period a year earlier, a new report said. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, a Washington-based trade group representing semiconductor manufacturers and designers, June saw the highest-ever monthly sales, totaling $27.6 billion. The figure was 10.8 percent above the $24.9 billion recorded for the month in 2013. The growth could be driven by large Internet cloud service providers investing in data centers, as well as tech companies using semiconductors in devices to create the network known as the “Internet of Things,” IDC analyst Abhi Dugar said in an interview. Global sales are on a pace to eclipse last year’s record numbers, the industry group said. — Mohana Ravindranath


23-year-old man fatally shot in Northwest Washington

A 23-year-old man was pronounced dead at a local hospital after being found with multiple gunshot wounds Friday night at Warder Street and Quebec Place in Northwest Washington. D.C. police arrived in the 3600 block of Warder Street NW about 10:52 p.m. after receiving a call reporting gunshots. Officers found Dondre K. Dyer of the District suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was transported to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, said D.C. police officer Hugh Carew. No suspects were identified as of Saturday afternoon, and detectives continued to investigate and await the results of an autopsy, Carew said. D.C. police are offering a $25,000 reward for information that could lead to a conviction. Those with information are encouraged to call the police at 202-727-9099 or submit an anonymous tip by sending a text message to 50411.


Extreme space weather threatens to leave the U.S. in the dark

which burned to the ground. In 1921, the planet saw a similar episode. But humans now rely much more on vast, interconnected electricity grids. A lesser solar event in 1989 knocked out electric power to millions in Quebec. Because humans don’t have extensive experience with large-scale geomagnetic storms in the age of ubiquitous electric power, predicting exactly how one would play out is tough. Still, a National Academy of Sciences study warned in 2009 that the costs could be staggering, ending electric power to millions, permanently damaging power-grid equipment, costing up to $2 trillion during the first year of recovery — and taking four to 10 years to fully rebuild. Even access to basic necessities such as potable water and toilet facilities could be limited because a big coronal mass ejection could knock out the electric pumps that drive public water systems. But maybe the probability of an extreme coronal mass ejection hitting Earth is low enough to allay concern? Alarmingly, the budding science of space weather tentatively suggests otherwise. A recent NASA write-up highlighted a huge, 1859-style coronal mass ejection that narrowly missed Earth two years ago. It instead slammed into a close-by sun-observing probe built to resist interplanetary stresses, which sent back reams of new data on these events. NASA cited an analysis concluding that the chances Earth will be hit by a similarly large event in the next decade are a too-high-for-comfort 12 percent. That’s higher than the probability that a major earthquake will strike the San Francisco area over the same time period. The world can and should do more to prepare, adapting satellite systems, toughening electric grids and, above all, ensuring that scientists have the tools they need to anticipate space weather. With some warning, for example, electrical grid operators can adjust the systems they control to avoid damaging “ground currents” induced by the geomagnetic disturbances from large coronal mass ejections. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintains the Space Weather Prediction Center, though with a tiny budget. Meanwhile, funding constraints perpetually threaten to erode the coverage of satellite-based sensors that monitor all sorts of phenomena on Earth and elsewhere — including the sun. Congress has a poor record of remembering to keep these sorts of important scientific tools in mind at funding time. For a variety of reasons — including the threat of severely inclement space weather — lawmakers must take a wider view.


Southeast could become an overdeveloped ‘megalopolis’ in the next half century

and Rob Dunn, researchers at North Carolina State. “The upshot is that . . . climate change isn’t the only story in the Southeast,” Terando said. “There are large-scale human impacts on our environment . . . the way we develop.” Numerous species of animals would be left with no habitat. The loss of woodlands that soak up rainfall would leave local waters more vulnerable to the storm-water runoff that washes nutrient pollution from lawns and motor oils from roads, in addition to increased garbage. Carbon from automobile traffic down a more crowded Interstate 85 corridor would add to the ills contributing to climate change. “The drawbacks are obviously things like more traffic,” Terando said. In Raleigh, there are a thousand miles of streets, and 2 percent to 3 percent must be repaved each year, according to the USGS, meaning more tax dollars will be needed to repair more roads. A megalopolis is pretty much what it sounds like — a giant city or sprawl that spreads over a region. It is described as an urban complex comprising many major cities. Between Raleigh and Atlanta along the study corridor are Greensboro and Charlotte, N.C., and Greenville, S.C. Nearby are Columbia, S.C., and Birmingham. Land cover change in patch metrics between 2009 and 2060. (Terando et. al/PLOS One) Over the past 60 years, the Southeast has grown 40 percent larger than the rest of the United States, the study said, with 77 million people living in a region where development has been suburban and highly dependent on cars. The biggest change will likely happen in what the study called the Piedmont eco-region between Atlanta and Charlotte, cutting through South Carolina. The largest proportion of change, where land will be noticeably transformed, is expected to be in the Southwestern Appalachian region. But models are rigid and do not account for uncertainty or change. They cannot predict how local leaders will plan to develop land or whether they will use more ecologically friendly methods of development. “Unless we change course . . . urbanization will have a more pronounced ecological impact in many non-coastal areas of the Southeast than climate change,” said Jennifer Costanza, a research associate at North Carolina State and another study co-author. “It’s impossible to predict the specific ecological outcomes . . . but so far, the projections are not good in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem health,” Costanza said.


2015 Expo Milan: At world’s fair, the U.S. pavilion is poised to address the big issues

Correction: The USA Pavilion at the 2015 Expo Milan will feature a 40,000-square-foot space and cost about $60 million in donated money. (Biber Architects/Via Baltz & Company) World’s fairs have long served as international display cases for innovation — show-stopping events that introduce us to architectural feats like the Eiffel Tower and culinary traditions like ice cream cones. The next international exposition, 2015 Expo Milan, will take on one of the globe’s most vexing questions: How do we feed a future of 9 billion people without destroying the planet itself? The expo, which runs from May through October, will bring together more than 140 countries to share possible solutions. At the helm of the USA Pavilion at the Expo is Dorothy Cann Hamilton, founder and chief executive of the International Culinary Center in New York. After persuading the U.S. government to have a presence in the expo, Hamilton agreed to organize the effort with the help of the James Beard Foundation and the blessing — if not the funding — of the State Department. And she is thinking big. The exterior of the 40,000-square-foot space, which Hamilton is raising $60 million in private donations to build, will feature a vertical farm harvested by acrobats and robotics, while two floors of exhibits and panel discussions inside will spark conversation on such topics as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and America’s obesity epidemic. The expo’s 30 million expected visitors also can get a taste of American cuisine at the pavilion, which will feature food trucks (think lobster rolls and po’ boys), a mini James Beard House and, yes, cocktail and burger bars. I spoke with Hamilton when she was in Washington recently for the pavilion’s fund-raising kickoff. Edited excerpts follow: Dorothy Cann Hamilton lobbied the United States to participate in Expo Milan, then was placed in charge of the U.S. presence there. (Helayne Seidman/For The Washington Post) The USA Pavilion will feature a vertical farm harvested by acrobats and robotics, among other features. (Biber Architects/Via Baltz & Company) What do you want to feature about America’s food system and solutions on this global stage? We want to show the full face of American food and responsibility. I think, outside America, people see us as a monolithic food country with industrial farming. Internally, if you go to our cities and some of our best restaurants, you’d think we’re all artisanal, eating two-inch carrots. Basically,


Kurds need more U.S. help to defeat Islamic State

great deal of U.S. heavy weaponry from the Iraqi Security Forces. With the addition of territory comes the ability to terrorize new populations, to indoctrinate and recruit military-age men, to raise revenue through taxation and control of oil resources and to extend their intelligence network. The stronger they become, the harder they will be to defeat. We are thankful to our friends on Capitol Hill and in the White House for the support that they have given us over the years. Only because the situation is absolutely urgent do we humbly ask our friends to help us again. This past week, the terrorists launched a new offensive directly targeting Kurdish-protected towns, including the Mosul dam area, the Sinjar district and the Rabia crossing into Syria. For centuries, this area of Iraq has been home to multiple religions and sects. Not anymore. As a first order of business, terrorists ordered Christians to convert to Islam, pay an exorbitant tax or suffer deadly consequences. Those not conforming have been killed in the most horrific of manners. For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is virtually empty of Christians. Hundreds of thousands of residents, including Christian and Yazidi religious minorities, are at immediate risk of being slaughtered. There can be no doubt that this fits the description of genocide. Meanwhile, as a result of the conflict in Syria and the terrorist advances in Iraq, the Kurdistan region has received more than a million refugees and internally displaced people. The pesh merga face an enemy that has vastly superior U.S. weaponry. It is essential that we receive military support from the United States and other friends immediately. Every day that the terrorists are able to operate freely brings more loss of life, a mounting humanitarian crises, destruction and horror. Every religion, state and community must voice its support for civilization and humanity. And those countries with capacity to help — first and foremost the United States — must understand that this is an urgent danger and act accordingly. We must stop the terrorists now. With air support and military equipment, we can. Read more about this issue: The Post’s View: Obama’s authorization of air strikes isn’t part of a coherent strategy Zalmay Khalilzad: To fight the Islamic State, Kurdish and Iraqi forces need expedited aid Bob Corker: Obama’s empty promises The Post’s View: Kurdish forces need help from the United States


City program puts fresh veggies on low-income residents’ tables

the sweetest cantaloupe or learned what the heck a purple pepper might be. “People always ask, ‘What is it? What’s it taste like?’ ” said Kip Kelley, who worked his Full Cellar Farm stand with his 9-month-old son, Otto, strapped to his front. Customers who had been curious about the purple peppers have returned a week later with inventive dishes incorporating the new vegetable, he said. Some had discovered that purple peppers turn white when baked. “They’re amazing, magical peppers,” Kelley joked. “I hope none of recipes are copyrighted, because I tell everybody the best ideas.” Produce Plus has benefited farmers by acting as an indirect subsidy for small farms. Kelley sometimes passes the largesse on to regular customers. If the produce weighs in at $7 worth, he sometimes throws in extra to top it off at $10 because customers can’t receive change. Toward the end of the market, he may give away some of the squash he didn’t sell. “It’s great for the farmers . . . and it’s become a significant portion of our revenue,” Kelley said. But there are a few improvements to be made to the program, Shweder Biel of DC Greens said. For one, the checks end with the city’s fiscal year at the end of September, while the markets are still bustling. Glass said the mismatch has encouraged users to save some of their other benefits for holidays like Thanksgiving and use Produce Plus to add more fresh produce for the summer. Glass said paperwork could be streamlined to increase the speed with which checks are dispensed at the bright orange food assistance tents, although she understood the importance of accountability for the money . The city has yet to approve its 2015 budget, Health Department officials said, so it is unclear how much money will be allocated to Produce Plus. Shweder Biel said that she and other food activists are waiting to see the effects of a national farm act that could bolster the program. The act, passed in February, decreased the amount of money for traditional food stamp-type assistance but increased the amount available to fund nutrition incentives at farmers markets. It’s exciting to see the local government commit to being a partner in making healthful food more accessible, Shweder Biel said. “In the city, there’s incredible need and incredible possibility, and we feel like anything is possible right now,” she said.