I.T. news in brief

Cloud computing IBM withdraws from disputed CIA deal International Business Machines abandoned its court fight with Amazon.com over a $600 million cloud-computing contract for the CIA, citing the government’s need to begin work on the project. IBM withdrew its bid for a stay of U.S. Court of Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler’s Oct. 8 ruling favoring Amazon after the Justice Department said in court papers that further delay would bring “harm to the United States” and create “significant challenges” for the CIA. Amazon sued the United States in July after the Government Accountability Office, the agency that makes recommendations on challenges to contracts, sided with IBM and agreed that the CIA had failed to properly evaluate prices and had waived a contract requirement only for Amazon. (Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.) — Bloomberg WIRELESS LinkedIn expects growth in mobile use LinkedIn, the professional-networking site with more than 238 million members, expects half its users to access the service from mobile devices next year, up from 38 percent today. To increase the mobile-user base, the company updated the design of its applications and added a feature that integrates LinkedIn with Apple’s mobile e-mail program, the company said at a news conference last week. Members who use LinkedIn’s mobile site and apps are more than twice as active as those who visit only from desktop computers, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Most users in Turkey, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates already access the service via mobile, the filing said. — Bloomberg


Dogfish Head turns student’s beer bus idea into reality

The Dogfish Head Ale Bus put in an appearance at the Epic Mountain Bike Rides & Festival in Boyd last month. (Evy Mages/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) Just don’t call it a party bus. The Dogfish Head Ale Bus, which made its debut in August, is about beer appreciation, not binge drinking, says 25-year-old Sam Petrella. In the past three months, the rolling pub has hosted events for local companies . But its origins are in the classroom: Petrella came up with the idea and perfected its business plan as a senior in a restaurant design course at the Universities at Shady Grove, a consortium of nine Maryland universities. As part of the school’s capstone program, groups of students team with local developers, such as the Peterson Cos., and restaurants, including Bold Bite in Bethesda and the 4 Corners Pub in Silver Spring, to create real business plans. In the case of Dogfish Head Alehouse, that meant finding a way to expand the company’s brand beyond the walls of the company’s three area restaurants. Dogfish Head, the Delaware-based company known for its specialty brews, has amassed something of a cult following since its opening in 1995. In addition to its brewery in Milton, Del., the company has a liquor distillery in Rehoboth Beach. Locally, three restaurants serve brews with names such as Midas Touch and Namaste, along with upscale pub fare. But there was something missing. “We wanted to expand, but since we are primarily a brick-and-mortar business, we are very restricted in what we can fit inside the restaurant,” said Joe Hospital, a founder of Dogfish Ale House. “We needed something new that also stayed true to the Dogfish brand.” Enter the Ale Bus. Petrella and two classmates spent 12 weeks putting together a business plan. They created budgets, sourced materials, researched local laws, created menus and came up with a plan for staffing the bus. “We try to make the project as real as possible,” said Susan Callahan, Petrella’s instructor. “It encompasses food, it encompasses business. It really shows the students that what they’ve been learning in the classroom for the past four years is real.” At the end, Petrella and his group pitched their idea to Hospital and a board of university officials. “A few minutes before the presentation, [Hospital] pulled me aside and said, ‘By the way, this is real. If you sell me on this, we’re


For Ridgewells Catering, business really booms during the holiday season

off River Road, the 50-person kitchen staff will cook, package and send off tens of thousands of meals, delivered on the company’s 30 purple trucks with its signature “Ridgewells” splashed across the side. “We are in the thick of our season,” says Susan Lacz, Ridgewells’s chief executive, co-owner and uber-saleswoman. “On a busy day, we can be doing 60 events.” Ridgewells expects to gross about $40 million this year. It is profitable, but Lacz, 53, won’t detail how profitable. The real miracle performed by caterers such as Ridgewells is the behind-the-scenes logistics. They don’t just cook food. They transform spaces, creating whatever ambience the customer demands, working with partners who supply the tents, lighting, flowers, decor — even the valet. Take the Container Store opening that Ridgewells catered in September for 1,200 in Reston. Long before the opening, three Ridgewells employees flew to Container Store headquarters in Dallas, where they visited a warehouse and selected dozens of store items that could serve as food vessels, whether it was a paper tray to carry cupcakes or a spice jar for salad. Then the Ridgewells operations team moved in, performing two walk-throughs of the store, building a special ramp to ferry the food in and out of four trucks. They had to contact the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to special-order wine. The company had 98 staffers working the event. The store’s Reston stockroom was turned into a full kitchen. On top of that, Ridgewells had to be out of the store within hours after the reception so the retailer could officially open for business the next morning. “It wasn’t just cooking the food,” Lacz said. Big events like the Container Store earn double-digit profits, but the smaller events are less profitable because they are harder to scale. The average Ridgewells event runs about $8,000. A contract catering the U.S. Golf Association’s annual U.S. Open, which includes the sponsors in the corporate village, brings in 10 percent of annual revenue and produces a profit margin of around 25 percent because the big scale allows better return on fixed costs. Ridgewells splits its business between corporate and social catering. Those two sectors are responsible for 60 percent of the company’s revenue. The rest comes from a business serving food in the U.S. Capitol, known as CapitolHost, and another catering union-only events arm called Haute Catering. There is also a division called Purple


Kepler space telescope finds Earth-size, potentially habitable planets are common

haven’t yet found Earth 2.0, but these statistics suggest that it should be forthcoming, and soon. When we can point to Earth 2.0 in the sky, it will seem completely natural to ask ‘Does anybody live there?’ and ‘Can we go there?’ I think Earth 2.0 will concretize SETI as nothing else has.” Kepler studied 150,000 stars in a small patch of the sky in the constellation Cygnus. The planets surrounding distant stars cannot be seen directly, because their faint, reflected light is swamped by the much brighter starlight. Thus Kepler looked for the periodic dimming of a star, which could be the signal of a planet passing across the star’s face. Ground-based telescopes, such as the Keck I in Hawaii, helped produce an estimate of the size of these transiting planets. Here’s a look back at some of the space telescope’s discoveries. The Kepler team has found amid the space telescope’s data 10 “candidate” planets that, while not confirmed, appear to be roughly one to two times the mass of Earth and orbiting at “Goldilocks” distances, neither too close nor too far from the stars. The scientists extrapolated in two ways. They know that most planets are unlikely to be in orbits that, just by chance, cause them to pass in front of the face of the star as seen from Kepler. That’s a 1-in-100 long shot. For every planet seen, multiply by 100. The scientists also knew that some planets would remain difficult to detect because of natural fluctuations in starlight — the “noise” in the signal. They found a way to test the accuracy of the algorithms for detecting planets by inserting 40,000 “synthetic” planets into the computer programs and seeing how many would be accurately retrieved by those programs. The analysis does not prove that any of these “habitable zone” planets resemble Earth. The report states only that they are roughly the size of our planet and are not too close or too far from the star for water — if it is present — to be liquid at the surface. Moreover, being in a star’s habitable zone does not ensure that life will spring forth. Scientists have limited understanding of the origin of life on Earth. The Earth has a number of features that are amenable to life and that might not be common, including a nearly circular orbit, a large companion moon and tectonic


Pulmonary arterial hypertension can be hard to diagnose, but it be fatal if left untreated

chest X-rays, chest CT scan and EKGs were all normal. Breathing tests showed no signs of asthma. At that point, the doctor sent him for a stress echocardiogram (a sonogram of the heart at rest and after exercise), which showed increased pressure in the right side of his heart, with thickening of the right ventricle. Suspecting pulmonary arterial hypertension — increased blood pressure in his lungs — Lipman referred him to an expert at a medical center. There he underwent right heart catheterization (insertion of a catheter into a groin vein and up into the right ventricle), which showed unequivocal pressure elevations in the right ventricle, a key to elevated pressure in the lungs. Normally, the blood pressure in our lungs is very low compared with the blood pressure in the rest of our body. But with pulmonary arterial hypertension, the lung’s arteries become narrowed, forcing the right ventricle of the heart, which supplies blood to the lungs, to work harder to force blood through the vessels. As a result, the ventricle’s muscle thickens and then weakens or fails in its pumping ability. That condition then causes a backup of blood in the veins of the abdomen and legs, the first sign of which is swelling of the feet. The symptoms mimic so many other diseases that it usually takes about two years from the onset of exertional shortness of breath (60 percent of patients) or fatigue (20 percent of patients) for the correct diagnosis to emerge. Without treatment, the condition gets inexorably worse, with death occurring in an average of three years. The mechanism behind the pulmonary hypertension is abnormal though not cancerous growth of cells lining the lungs’ arteries. There is no cure, but treatment can extend and improve the quality of life. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a rare, underdiagnosed disorder. About 10 to 15 of every million people develop it each year, women almost twice as often as men. The average age at diagnosis is about 36. It’s often a consequence of diseases that are known to affect the lung’s blood vessels, including some types of heart disease, HIV infection, sickle-cell disease, scleroderma and other collagen-type diseases such as lupus, multiple (often silent) blood clots in the lungs and the use of the now-withdrawn appetite suppressants dexfenfluramine and fenfluramine. There is also a possible link to antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as fluoxetine (Prozac


harder to force blood through the vessels. As a result, the ventricle’s muscle thickens and then weakens or fails in its pumping ability. That condition then causes a backup of blood in the veins of the abdomen and legs, the first sign of which is swelling of the feet. The symptoms mimic so many other diseases that it usually takes about two years from the onset of exertional shortness of breath (60 percent of patients) or fatigue (20 percent of patients) for the correct diagnosis to emerge. Without treatment, the condition gets inexorably worse, with death occurring in an average of three years. The mechanism behind the pulmonary hypertension is abnormal though not cancerous growth of cells lining the lungs’ arteries. There is no cure, but treatment can extend and improve the quality of life. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a rare, underdiagnosed disorder. About 10 to 15 of every million people develop it each year, women almost twice as often as men. The average age at diagnosis is about 36. It’s often a consequence of diseases that are known to affect the lung’s blood vessels, including some types of heart disease, HIV infection, sickle-cell disease, scleroderma and other collagen-type diseases such as lupus, multiple (often silent) blood clots in the lungs and the use of the now-withdrawn appetite suppressants dexfenfluramine and fenfluramine. There is also a possible link to antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as fluoxetine (Prozac and generics) and sertraline (Zoloft and generics), as well as to sleep apnea, chronic obstructive lung disease and interstitial fibrosis of the lungs. When no underlying cause can be found, the disease is called idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, which is what the track coach turned out to have. Most cases of pulmonary arterial hypertension can be treated with medication, oxygen and exercise. Tests done during the catheterization indicated which of the several available drug treatments might enable the coach to defer the need for a lung transplant, which is the option for advanced disease. Shortness of breath and undue fatigue in the absence of obvious disease are symptoms that require persistent medical investigation until a cause is found — even if that cause is a long shot. Copyright 2013. 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.


In Washington, darker days move in

Sunday and Monday were days of darkness in the Washington region, literally. When many people left work on Monday, daylight was suddenly gone. Also gone Monday was the once-brilliant illumination of the screen around the Washington Monument. On Sunday morning, a bit of the sun itself was blacked out, in a partial eclipse. Clouds reduced the view, but some people saw it. Three events joined to steal the light from the skies and skyline: the moon seeming to cross the sun’s face, the approaching end to repairs on the monument and the annual return of standard time. On Friday, the sun had set after 6 p.m. On Monday, the first workday on standard time, sunset was about an hour earlier. The National Park Service said Sunday was the last night of the decorative lights on the monument. They were to go off in preparation for removal of the scaffolding used to repair earthquake damage. Monday night, the obelisk looked pale and ghostly.


World Digest: Nov. 4, 2013

SYRIA Damascus promises polio vaccinations Syria said Monday that it will work with international organizations to ensure that all children in the country, even those in rebel-held areas, are vaccinated against polio amid an outbreak of the crippling and highly communicable disease. The World Health Organization last week confirmed 10 cases of polio among children in northeastern Syria. The U.N. health agency warned that the outbreak — the first in 14 years in the country — risks spreading among an estimated half-million Syrian children who haven’t been immunized because of the civil war. “We intend to vaccinate each Syrian child regardless of the area they are present in, whether it is a hot spot or a place where the Syrian Arab Army is present,” Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said. “We promise that we will give opportunity to humanitarian organizations to reach every Syrian child.” Syria announced last month that it had launched a vaccination campaign, while UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said his organization and the WHO planned to immunize 2.4 million children throughout Syria. Access to all areas of the country, however, remains a problem. Aid groups have called for cease-fires to allow immunization campaigns to reach zones affected by fighting. — Associated Press GERMANY Nazi-looted art was kept quiet for 2 years A Jewish group accused Germany on Monday of moral complicity in concealment of stolen paintings after it emerged that authorities failed for two years to report discovery of a trove of art seized by the Nazis, including works by Picasso and Matisse. Customs officials’ chance discovery of 1,500 artworks in a Munich flat owned by the reclusive elderly son of a wartime art dealer was revealed in a report by the newsmagazine Focus over the weekend. Officials in the southern state of Bavaria declined to comment on what could be one of the most significant recoveries of Nazi-looted art. The case poses a legal and moral minefield for authorities. The Nazi regime systematically plundered hundreds of thousands of artworks from museums and individuals across Europe. An unknown number of works are still missing, and museums worldwide have held investigations into the origins of their exhibits. Focus estimated that the works found among stacks of hoarded groceries in the flat of Cornelius Gurlitt could be worth well over $1.35 billion. Some, it said, could have been bought by his father, Hildebrand, from the collections of German


Cidermakers take a cue from craft beer brewers

Kyle Sherrer of Millstone Cellars in Maryland visits Black Locust Hops in Baltimore County. He has used hops as an ingredient in his hard cider. (Jeff Benzon) In late July, Kyle Sherrer and his father, Curt, the founders of Baltimore County’s Millstone Cellars, visited a nearby hop farm. At Black Locust Hops, they walked among trellises of bines — the vinelike creepers on which the pine-cone-shaped flowers grow — and crushed hops between their fingers, smelling the citrusy aromas that the ingredient often lends to India pale ales and other beers. Soon after, some of the harvest found its way into barrels of Millstone’s Hopvine cider, not kegs of IPA. With two years of commercial cider and mead production behind them, the Sherrers introduced the batch during a mid-October tasting dinner at Pizzeria Paradiso in Georgetown. They plan to distribute bottles throughout Maryland and the District this winter. The apple, it seems, has learned to love the hop — and not only hops but bourbon barrels and beer yeasts. As the American cider industry goes through a seemingly endless growth spurt — shipments during the first quarter of 2013 were nearly double those of the same period in 2012, according to the Beer Institute — it is diversifying, too, with artisans sometimes borrowing flavors and techniques from their craft-brewer cousins. “If you look at what’s popular, it’s really running the gamut,” Kyle Sherrer says. “There are the purists on one end, just caring about the apples. But then there are a lot of cidermakers, younger ones in particular, who are taking cues from craft beer.” In part, this blurring of boundaries can be attributed to the involvement of former home-brewers and beer professionals. Consider Greg Hall, the longtime Goose Island brew master who has launched Michigan’s Virtue Cider and who says he is in talks to sell his products in Maryland and Washington in early 2014. While Hall, who riffs on the ciders of England, France and Spain, is something of a traditionalist, he also makes a bourbon-barrel-aged cider that he calls “uniquely American,” an apple-y counterpart to Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout. Hall’s background also manifests itself more subtly, in an emphasis on the scientific aspects of fermentation. He says, for example, that he just hired Mary Pellettieri, a yeast and quality-control expert who helped develop some of the Goose Island beers that feature Brettanomyces, a rustic yeast that


Name of zoo’s giant panda cub is going to a vote

The zoo’s giant panda cub, Bao Bao, turns 1 year old. How does Bao Bao sound? That’s “precious” or “treasure” in Mandarin Chinese. How about Ling Hua — “darling” or “delicate flower”? These are two of the five names that the National Zoo said Tuesday are candidates for the name of its female giant panda cub, and, thus, entry into the annals of Washington panda lore for all time. Until Nov. 22, panda fans can vote for their favorite name at Smithsonian.com. The cub will receive the name that gets the most votes, the zoo said. The winning name will be revealed at a ceremony Dec. 1, when the cub is 100 days old. The National Zoo's giant panda cub has grown and passed several developmental milestones since the panda cams went dark because of the government shutdown, according to zoo officials. It is tradition in China to celebrate when a baby turns 100 days old, the zoo said. The other choices for the name are: ●Long Yun. Long is the Chinese symbol of the dragon, and Yun which means “charming.” Combined, the name represents a sign of luck for panda cooperation between China and the United States, the zoo said. ●Mulan, the name of the 1998 Walt Disney animated movie and a legendary 5th-century female Chinese warrior. The word also means “magnolia.” ●Zhen Bao, which means “treasure” or “valuable.” The names were nominated by Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the United States; U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke and his family; the keepers of the giant pandas at the National Zoo; the keepers at the Chinese panda center in Wolong; and Friends of the National Zoo. The cub, born Aug. 23, weighs more than eight pounds, the zoo said, and will make her public debut early next year. The cub’s father is Tian Tian, or “more and more,”the zoo said. The mother is Mei Xiang, which means “beautiful fragrance.” Their first cub, the male, Tai Shan, or “peaceful mountain,” got his name during balloting in 2005, when 200,000 votes were cast. After serving as the beloved prince of the giant panda compound for five years, he was sent to join a breeding program in China in 2010. The new cub will do the same once she turns 4, the zoo said. China owns all giant pandas in U.S. zoos.


Help name National Zoo’s baby panda

Does the new panda cub look like a charming dragon or a delicate flower? Or something else? (Abby Wood/Smithsonian Institution) The panda cub at the National Zoo won’t go nameless for much longer. The zoo is asking people to help pick a name for the female giant panda, who was born to Mei Xiang and Tian Tian on August 23. Panda lovers can go to www.smithsonian.com until November 22 to vote for one of these five choices: Bao Bao Ling Hua Long Yun Mulan Zhen Bao The zoo will announce the winning name on December 1, when the cub is 100 days old. The cub weighs more than eight pounds and has begun to crawl. She is expected to go on public view in early 2014, zoo officials said. — Staff reports


Whole Foods Market signs lease for H Street NE store and eyes another at Walter Reed

Whole Foods will open a store in this apartment complex planned for the 600 block of H Street NE. (Courtesy of Whole Foods) With the District adding thousands of new residents every year, grocery stores are prowling the city for opportunities, and Whole Foods isn’t above the fray. Not two weeks after reaching a deal to open a store in a $443 million development on New Jersey Avenue SE near Nationals Park, the grocer’s regional president said the chain has signed a lease to open another on H Street NE between 6th and 7th streets. The stores will be the high-end grocer’s fifth and sixth in the District. On H Street, the company plans a 39,000-square-foot store beneath an apartment complex targeted for a neighborhood that presently includes a Murry’s grocery store. Scott Allshouse, Whole Foods Market’s Mid-Atlantic regional president, said H Street was enjoying a boom and represented a lot of the demographics that the company values. The project is being developed by McLean-based Insight Property Group, which plopped down $10 million for the Murry’s store two years ago. “That neighborhood reflects a lot of what Whole Foods is about — diversity, passion for food, history. Things like that. That’s what we are too. We are so in tune with that. That sense of community and pride,” Allshouse said. Two brand new Whole Foods markets are coming to the District. D.C. Councilman Kenyan McDuffie (D) tells Nia-Malika Henderson how the stores might affect neighborhood residents with the so-called "Whole Foods effect." Allshouse said the company was willing to open stores on both H Street NE and New Jersey Avenue SE, sites that are about two miles apart, because he felt that each neighborhood could support its own store. The H Street store should open in the fall of 2016 and the Southeast store in the spring of 2017. “We obviously consider those things, but again they are uniquely different areas. You just don’t have the same feel on New Jersey Avenue that you have on H Street. . . . They are both really distinct,” he said. Whole Foods is far from done expanding locally. “We are just beginning, in my opinion,” Allshouse said. The company is planning its first store in Prince George’s County, in Riverdale Park, and another in the former Rouse Co. headquarters in Columbia. Its next destination may be the former Walter Reed Army Medical


That’s what we are too. We are so in tune with that. That sense of community and pride,” Allshouse said. Two brand new Whole Foods markets are coming to the District. D.C. Councilman Kenyan McDuffie (D) tells Nia-Malika Henderson how the stores might affect neighborhood residents with the so-called "Whole Foods effect." Allshouse said the company was willing to open stores on both H Street NE and New Jersey Avenue SE, sites that are about two miles apart, because he felt that each neighborhood could support its own store. The H Street store should open in the fall of 2016 and the Southeast store in the spring of 2017. “We obviously consider those things, but again they are uniquely different areas. You just don’t have the same feel on New Jersey Avenue that you have on H Street. . . . They are both really distinct,” he said. Whole Foods is far from done expanding locally. “We are just beginning, in my opinion,” Allshouse said. The company is planning its first store in Prince George’s County, in Riverdale Park, and another in the former Rouse Co. headquarters in Columbia. Its next destination may be the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center, for which D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) has just selected a development team led by Houston-based Hines Interests. Allshouse, who lives in a Whole Foods-anchored property in Friendship Heights, said the company had been talking about the Walter Reed site since early in the planning process. He said Whole Foods has been in touch with officials from Weingarten Realty, the retail developer based in Houston that is among the companies working with Hines. “Whole Foods is really interested,” Allshouse said. “We’ve been in communications with Hines and their retail development partner, Weingarten, and we’ve been in touch with them since early in that project.” Wegmans, the Rochester, N.Y.-based grocery chain, has long pronounced its affinity for the Walter Reed site, where there is a large underground parking garage that the company says would nicely accommodate its first D.C. store. Whole is opening a store in 2017 on New Jersey Avenue SE, near Nationals Park. (Courtesy of William C. Smith & Co.) Nothing prevents Wegmans from continuing to pursue a store at Walter Reed, but it declared in a letter to residents that its interest was as an “exclusive” partner of Roadside Development, one of the firms Hines beat


Bangladesh sentences 152 to death for 2009 mutiny

A Bangladesh court sentenced 152 people to death Tuesday for a 2009 mutiny by disgruntled border guards who killed dozens of military commanders during a brutal, two-day uprising. DHAKA, Bangladesh — The sentences followed a mass trial involving 846 defendants — a process that an international human rights group has said was not credible. The border guards, who belonged to a paramilitary unit known as the Bangladesh Rifles, say they revolted over demands for salaries to be in line with their commanders’ pay in the army; assignments on U.N. peacekeeping missions, which come with generous perks; and better facilities. The mutiny broke out at the border guards’ leafy Dhaka compound, an oasis inside the capital with its own rose garden and a small zoo. By the time the insurrection ended, 74 people were dead, including 57 military commanders. Corpses were found stuffed inside manholes and buried in mass graves. The case exposed deep tensions between the government and the military. The military was furious with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for negotiating with the mutineers instead of allowing the army to attack. In Bangladesh, a desperately poor South Asian nation with a history marked by turmoil and catastrophe, army leaders have attempted to overthrow the government 21 times, twice successfully. A judge in Dhaka’s Metropolitan Sessions Court announced the verdicts Tuesday in a packed courtroom under tight security. Besides those who were given death sentences, 161 people were sentenced to life in prison, 256 people received prison terms between three and 10 years, and 277 people were acquitted. Maj. Gen. Aziz Ahmed, director general of the Bangladesh Border Guards, said he was satisfied with the outcome. “It was a huge massacre,” he said. “We are glad that justice has been delivered.” The defense vowed to appeal. In Bangladesh, the death penalty is frequently carried out for crimes such as murder. New York-based Human Rights Watch has criticized the legal proceedings and called for a new trial. The group says that at least 47 suspects died in custody and that defendants had inadequate legal representation. “Trying hundreds of people en masse in one giant courtroom, where the accused have little or no access to lawyers, is an affront to international legal standards,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Oct. 29. — Associated Press


Chef Charlie Trotter dies at 54

Award-winning chef Charlie Trotter died Tuesday, a year after closing his eponymous Chicago restaurant that is credited with elevating the city’s cuisine and providing a training ground for some of the nation’s best chefs. He was 54. Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said rescue crews were called to the chef’s home in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. They found Mr. Trotter unresponsive. Langford said an ambulance crew took Mr. Trotter to a hospital, where he died after unsuccessful attempts to revive him. An autopsy is planned. Mr. Trotter is synonymous with gourmet cuisine. He earned 10 James Beard awards and trained such chefs as fellow Beard Award-winner Grant Achatz of Chicago restaurants Alinea and Next. He was also known for his charitable efforts, including his creation of the Charlie Trotter Education Foundation to provide scholarships for culinary students. Charlie Trotter’s earned two of a possible three stars when the respected Michelin Guide debuted in Chicago. A self-taught chef, Mr. Trotter wrote more than a dozen cookbooks and starred in a PBS series, “The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter.” He credited the development of his signature style to his wide travels and dining at the best restaurants. “His restaurant shaped the world of food,” said Dana Cowin, editor-in-chief of Food & Wine magazine. “He was so innovative and focused and intense and really brilliant. When he opened Charlie Trotter he was so original.” He was famous for his reverence for details and he insisted his staff also be sticklers for exactness. Such precision and military-style organization was on display a few days before his restaurant closed in August of last year. In a behind-the-scenes look for the Associated Press three days before closing night, the Charlie Trotter’s staff held a typically detail-laden pre-dinner meeting, discussing specifics down to the exact dates when diners last ate at the restaurant. Dishes from the final week of menus included poached white asparagus with charred broccolini, Manchego cheese and red pepper essence and root beer leaf ice cream with vanilla cremeaux and birch syrup-infused meringue. Staff members recited the evening’s menus, and Mr. Trotter — relentlessly demanding — took one employee to task. “You’re not reading, are you?” he asked. “When you go to the table, do you have a piece of paper?” Charlie Trotter — named after the jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, was born Sept. 8, 1959, in Evanston, Ill., and raised in Wilmette,


George Mason basketball: Story lines for the 2013-14 season

George Mason story lines Muscle up With an upgrade to the Atlantic 10, the Patriots will confront bigger and stronger players. Coach Paul Hewitt emphasized the importance of meeting physical goals in the preseason. “It’s one thing to play against teams that are physical every fifth or eighth game [in the CAA], but to do it every game can be a grind. We don’t want to turn them all into bodybuilders, but we realized we would need a little bit of a bump in strength and speed.” Copes coping? At 6 foot 8 and 250 pounds, Erik Copes (right) is well equipped for Atlantic 10 rigors. He will have to prove himself on two fronts: returning from a six-game suspension to start the campaign and establishing himself after a season marred by a hip injury. He blocked 90 shots in two years while playing an average of 20.6 minutes per game. Johnny Williams (6-8, 260) will complement Copes after missing last season with a shoulder injury. Back-court bliss Corey Edwards and Bryon Allen shared point guard responsibilities for much of the previous two years, but as he proved the second half of last season, Allen is best on the wing. He will remain there, leaving the playmaking responsibilities to the 5-11 Edwards, who isn’t much of a scorer but made 30 of 60 three-pointers in 2012-13. The third back-court starter, Sherrod Wright, averaged 16.6 points as a junior and is a preseason second-team A-10 pick. — Steven Goff


D.C. news in brief

who agree to water and monitor specific trees in their first two years as part of the office’s Canopy Keepers program will receive free watering bags and instructions for each tree they adopt. Current planting locations and tree species are plotted online. For information, go to www.ddot.dc.gov/trees or call 202-671-1533. Job fair scheduled Thursday at Arena Stage’s Mead Center A free job fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at Arena Stage’s Mead Center for American Theater, 1101 Sixth St. SW. Participating employers include Comcast, DC Water, Giant, Safeway, Specialty Hospital of Washington, Unity Health Care, UnitedHealthcare, Bank of America, Community Services Foundation, the D.C. government, Specialty Hospital of Washington, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and the U.S. Army. Representatives from the United Planning Organization, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Dress for Success and Strive DC will also attend. The job fair is sponsored by Arena Stage and D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6). Attendees should bring multiple copies of résumés and dress appropriately. For information, go to www.arenastage.org/jobfair. Heart Association to hold fundraising walk Saturday The American Heart Association has scheduled its 2013 Greater Washington Heart Walk for Saturday at 12th Street and Madison Drive NW on the Mall. The event helps raise funds and awareness for the prevention of heart disease and stroke. Activities begin at 8:30 a.m. with a health exposition and entertainment. Walkers will leave at 10 a.m. from Ninth Street and Madison Drive NW. A concert will follow the walk at 11 a.m. For information, go to www.greaterwashingtonheartwalk.org, e-mail stephanie.weiss@heart.org or call 703-248-1715. Public hearing scheduled on Twining Square project The D.C. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration will hold a public hearing from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Francis A. Gregory Library, 3660 Alabama Ave. SE on an environmental assessment of the improvements to the intersection of Pennsylvania and Minnesota avenues SE (Twining Square). To view the report, go to www.ddot.dc.gov/pennminnavesproject. Print copies are available at the DDOT office, 55 M St. SE, Fourth Floor; the Federal Highway Administration, 1990 K St. NW, Suite 510; and the Francis A. Gregory Library, 3660 Alabama Ave. SE. Comments, due Nov. 30, can be sent by e-mail to austina.casey@dc.gov or by mail to District Department of Transportation, Penn/Minn Avenues Improvement Project, Attn.: Austina Casey, 55 M St. SE, Fourth Floor, Washington, D.C. 20003. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


Montgomery County Animal Watch

These were among the cases received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5054. That number provides recorded information on such topics as the Montgomery County Animal Shelter hours and location, adoption and licensing procedures, rabies clinics and low-cost neutering. Prowlin' stallion produces fines: Martinsburg Rd., 19000 block, Dickerson, Oct. 23. An owner of horses reported a neighbor’s stallion regularly breaking out of its pasture and coming onto the property trying to mate with the owner’s horses. The investigation revealed that the stallion had previously attempted to breed with up to five of the complainant’s horses. As a result, the officer issued five citations for unwanted contact, at $500 each, plus a $100 citation for being loose, a $100 citation for damaging the neighbor’s fence and a $100 fine for animal tresspassing. The county planned to request a hearing for the courts to determine whether the stallion’s owner should relinquish ownership. Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Cats and kittens will be available for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County no-kill shelter at the following locations. For information, call 301-740-2511 or visit www.awlmc.org. Gaithersburg Montgomery County Humane Society Burtonsville — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


A successful first year for Loudoun’s monarch butterfly campaign

there’s a chance to make a difference.” Monarch butterflies, famed for their extraordinary annual migration between Mexico and the United States, have been increasingly threatened by several factors, including changing climate patterns, illegal logging in the Mexican forests where the butterflies spend the cold winter and the widespread use of herbicide sprays in the United States that kill the insects’ milkweed breeding grounds. Northern Virginia residents can’t do much about climate change or illegal logging, Hamilton said, but they can definitely help the butterflies by planting milkweed and creating much-needed breeding and feeding sites. Many of the campaign volunteers told her that they have often responded to calls for action to help threatened species that are far away, such as wolves or polar bears, Hamilton said. “But with this campaign, they felt like they could really make a difference that was tangible — they could see it,” she said. “And as they talked to their neighbors and friends, it really took off on its own.” At the beginning of the year, the campaign had 20 monarch way stations at schools and community sites across the county, Hamilton said. By the end of August, there were more than 60. About 3,000 milkweed plants were added to the community. Hamilton is planning to meet with Loudoun public school officials this month to discuss expanding the campaign. This year, 20 schools participated, she said, but she would love to see a way station at every public school in the county. “That would make Loudoun County the first school system in the United States with a way station at every school,” she said. “What a fine example to set.” Ultimately, Hamilton said, she would like to see the campaign spread beyond Loudoun. “This year was all about building that foundation and getting our materials and our handouts together, and we didn’t really have enough time to look beyond our county borders,” she said. Hamilton said she is confident that there is interest among wildlife enthusiasts in neighboring jurisdictions. Her observation was echoed by Kim Hosen, executive director of the Prince William Conservation Alliance, who said the organization has created a one-acre butterfly garden with host plants such as milkweed that will be waiting to receive the migrating insects in the spring. It’s only one garden, but it’s intended to deliver a message to residents across Prince William. “Please do this at home,” Hosen said.


Hazardous asteroids may be more numerous than previously thought, scientists say

energy of about 500 kilotons of TNT, making it more than 30 times as powerful as the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945, although the energy in this case was spread out over a much broader area. The shock wave blew out windows in nearly half the buildings in Chelyabinsk. It knocked people off their feet; dozens were sunburned by the blinding flash, which at its peak was 30 times as bright as the sun. About 1,200 people were hurt, most by broken and flying glass, but no one was killed. To study the meteorite fragment and its internal components (including mineral composition), a 0.53g fragment of the Chelyabinsk meteor, which exploded over Russia on Feb. 15, 2013, was imaged using X-ray tomography. This work was done by Douglas Rowland (Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging) and Qing-Zhu Yin (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences) at University of California, Davis. One chunk the size of a love seat landed in frozen Chebarkul Lake and left a cosmic bullet hole in the ice. That fragment, which weighed about 1,900 pounds, was retrieved months later, breaking into several pieces in the process. Thousands of smaller pieces have also been recovered. The scientific investigation relied to a great degree on video imagery obtained by “dash cams,” the cameras Russian drivers often use to document car crashes and potentially abusive law enforcement officers. Scientists visited 10 locations where the footage had been taken by stationary cameras and used landmarks to map the asteroid’s trajectory. The damage of the shock wave propagated perpendicularly to the rock’s path. “It’s incredible how well documented all this is,” said Peter Jenniskens, who is a meteor astronomer at the SETI Institute and a co-author of the paper in Science. Taken together, the new information on Chelyabinsk does not suggest that the sky is falling (no one has ever been killed by an asteroid in all of recorded human history). But it may shift the overall risk profile of asteroids, making Chelyabinsk-size events look more probable. That’s the conclusion of a new Nature report, “A 500-kiloton airburst over Chelyabinsk and an enhanced hazard from small impactors.” The scientific orthodoxy held that a Chelyabinsk-size event ought to happen roughly once a century. But Peter Brown, a professor at Western University in London, Ontario, and his collaborators reexamined decades of data compiled by government sensors. They saw several events that seemed


Nightclubs Prices listed where available. Pop|Rock|Folk|Jazz|Etc. The District BLACK CAT BLUES ALLEY DC9 THE DUNES GYPSY SALLY’S THE HAMILTON THE HOWARD THEATRE 9:30 CLUB ROCK ROLL HOTEL TROPICALIA TWINS JAZZ U STREET MUSIC HALL Maryland BETHESDA BLUES AND JAZZ SUPPER CLUB THE FILLMORE RAMS HEAD CENTER STAGE RAMS HEAD LIVE RAMS HEAD ON STAGE Virginia BIRCHMERE EMPIRE GALAXY HUT IOTA CLUB CAFE JAMMIN’ JAVA STATE THEATRE Concerts Prices listed where available. Pop|Rock|Folk| Jazz|Etc. THE LEGENDARY ARNOLD STERLING JOHN FOGERTY THE YALE WHIFFENPOOFS ALASDAIR FRASER AND NATALIE HAAS JAZZMEIA HORN JAZZ 4 JUSTICE MARC STAGGERS MAVIS STAPLES SCOTT BRANNON BAND AND THE HILLBILLY GYPSIES BAND JASON MORAN THE BANDWAGON LET IT BE DC MELISSA ERRICO PARAMORE, METRIC, HELLOGOODBYE TOBYMAC YO YO HONEY SINGH, DJ KUCHA AND MAFIA MUNDEER PROJECT NATALE JAZZ TRIO SAM MCCORMALLY BAY SIDE BIG BAND AMPLIFIED VOICES: A CONNECTION CONCERT MAGGIE SANSONE, SHARON KNOWLES AND PAT EGAN LYNYRD SKYNYRD NADINE RAE THE ALL STARS DESTROYER, PINK MOUNTAINTOPS WIDESPREAD PANIC CLIFF HINES AND SASHA MASAKOWSKI SHTREIML ISMAIL FENCIOGLU HESPERUS CYNDI LAUPER NIGHT BEATS VERONNEAU ANDY STATMAN TRIO CHRIS BOTTI ELTON JOHN THE HACKENSAW BOYS Dancing WEST COAST SWING DANCING WITH DANCE JAM PRODUCTIONS GLEN ECHO SALSA SOCIAL HOT BUTTERED NUGGETS ECB LATIN NIGHT WITH MR. MAMBO BITTER DOSE COMBO THE HOT SOCIETY ORCHESTRA OF WASHINGTON SOCIAL BALLROOM DANCE TK THE DJ TEXAS STATE SOCIETY TERLINGUA TWO-STEP WITH BONNIE BISHOP AND THE MODERN DAY PROPHETS BLUE SUEDE BOP SOCIAL BALLROOM DANCE TEA DANCE Orchestras UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND WIND ORCHESTRA NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: “OFF THE CUFF” BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: “OFF THE CUFF” BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ARLINGTON PHILHARMONIC AMERICAN UNIVERSITY CHORUS AND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Chamber Groups JENNIFER ELLIS KAMPANI AND MARK JANELLO NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MEZZO SOPRANO HELEN RUSNAK AND LYRIC SOPRANO ANNE KEMPSELL NATIONAL CHAMBER ENSEMBLE PILGRIM TRIO CLARINETIST MORAN KATZ AND PIANIST AMY YANG NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE CLARINETEST ROBERT DILUTIS AND COLLEAUGES EXCELSA STRING QUARTET LEVINE SCHOOL OF MUSIC FACULTY MEMBERS ENSO STRING QUARTET PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE LEA GILMORE U.S. ARMY BAND BRASS PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA YOUTH FELLOWS Choral Groups CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY CHAMBER CHOIR ANNAPOLIS CHORALE WASHINGTON SAENGERBUND DC A CAPPELLA FESTIVAL NEW DOMINION CHORALIERS CHORAL ARTS SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON CHORALIS DIVINE, THE BALTIMORE CHRISTIANAIRS, FIRST 1ST SAMUEL GOSPEL BAND BAND, REMNANT, JUST BEING BLESSED, SPIRITLFTERS VOICES OF THE HOLOCAUST: KRISTALLNACHT


A heartfelt reunion with an Irish, American and Canadian accent

female giant panda cub will be named after a cross-dressing, sword-wielding Disney princess. When I saw that Mulan was one of the choices in the National Zoo’s Name the Giant Panda online poll, I figured the fix was in. I liked the 1998 movie okay. Not as good as “The Little Mermaid” or “Aladdin” but better than “Pocahontas” and “The Emperor’s New Groove.” (I spent a lot of my 30s watching Disney cartoon musicals. Sometimes my daughters even watched with me.) As pleasant as the name is — Mulan was a fifth-century Chinese warrior; it’s also the name of the magnolia flower — I hope it doesn’t emerge victorious. The Mouse gets enough publicity. While “Mulan” — the movie is probably ancient history to today’s crop of panda cubs — besotted kids, I’m guessing their mothers (and fathers) will vote for it in droves. Resist the urge. Instead, I beg you to vote for Bao Bao. It may have the most uninteresting meaning — “precious, treasure” — but it’s the most fun to say: Bao Bao! Vote through Nov. 22 at smithsonianmag.com. Get ready to ‘Rumble’ Democracy isn’t always pretty. Also, people are idiots. How else to explain how the late, great D.C. guitarist Fred Lincoln “Link” Wray is hovering near the bottom of online fan voting for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When last I checked, Nirvana, KISS and Deep Purple held the top three spots. Fine, but Link was third from last, besting only Chic and the Meters and behind N.W.A., LL Cool J, and Hall and Oates. You are, I hope, wondering what Chic, LL Cool J and N.W.A. have to do with rock-and-roll. They may have done what they did very well, but I don’t think it was rock-and-roll. And Hall and Oates may have rolled, but they didn’t rock. Link Wray rocked like the San Andreas fault. Who can forget the great scene in “It Might Get Loud” when Jimmy Page — Rock Hall Classes of ’92 (Yardbirds) and ’95 (Led Zeppelin) breaks into a goofy grin after putting Link’s gritty instrumental “Rumble” on his turntable? Pete Townshend of the Who (inducted in 1990) once said, “If I had never heard ‘Rumble,’ I would never have picked up a guitar.” Rock fans of Washington, I implore you, go to rockhall.com and vote for Link Wray. For previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.


Dr., GAMBRILLS AREA Burns Crossing Rd., Highland Farms Cir., Snow Hill Lane, GLEN BURNIE AREA Archwood Ave., Braden Loop, Elizabeth Rd., Griffith Rd., Juneberry Way, Manor Rd., Norfolk Rd., Old Stage Rd., Pine Terr., Twin Ridge Dr., Winton Ave., GLEN BURNIE-MARLEY CREEK AREA Alview Terr., Binsted Rd., Fable Ct., High Oak Rd., Indigo Bunting Lane, Kimono Ct., McGuirk Dr., Point Pleasant Rd., Stone Haven Dr., Timbercross Lane, Warfield St., Third Ave., HANOVER AREA Amber Crest Rd., Amber Crest Rd., Crystal Brook Way, Dorchester Woods Lane, Ironwood Lane, Mount Blanc Rd., LAUREL AREA Brock Bridge Rd., Forest Haven Dr., Park Hall S., Water Lily Way, Woodfern Ct., LINTHICUM HEIGHTS AREA Baltimore Annapolis Blvd., Furnace Rd., Koch Rd., LOTHIAN AREA Old Solomons Island Rd., MILLERSVILLE AREA Brookwood Rd., Donner Way, Nathan Way, Sunnyview Dr., NORTH BEACH AREA Bay Front Ave., ODENTON AREA Colony Ridge Rd., Forest Edge Ct., Horse Chestnut Ct., Lions Gate Lane, Milk Glass Ct., Peach Leaf Ct., Seneca Dr., OWENSVILLE (WEST RIVER) AREA Sudley Rd., PASADENA-ROCK CREEK AREA Apple Orchard Dr., Beaver Brook Ct., Carnoustie Dr., Cutler Harbour, Dunlap Rd., Golden Fleece Dr., Hickory Nut Ct., Lake Dr., Main Ave., Melville Rd., Nature Walk Lane, Pine Haven Dr., Sagamore Ct., Sherman Bouyer Lane, Tower Bridge Dr., Wendover Rd., Woodlawn Ave., 12th St., SEVERN AREA Champlain Dr., Crossbay Dr., Jasons Landing Way, Reece Rd., Yearling Ct., SEVERNA PARK AREA Bethian Trail, Clarence Ave., Erin Garth, Karp Ct., Marba Rd., Old Pasture Lane, Scherer Lane, Valley Stream Rd., SHADY SIDE AREA Jordan Dr., Oak Ave., TRACYS LANDING AREA Deale Rd., Howard County These sales data recorded by the Maryland Department of Assessments Taxation were provided by Lender Processing Services. For information about other residential real estate transactions, visit www.washingtonpost.com/homesales. CENTENNIAL-BENSON AREA Buckskin Wood Dr., Century Dr., Cromwell Ct., Dorsey Hall Dr., Dorsey Hall Dr., Fawnwood Dr., Furrow Ct., Jonathan Rd., Kinsale Ct., McKenzie Rd., Mount Albert Rd., Plum Spring Lane, Rams Horn Row, Timber Trails Ct., View Top Rd., CLARKSVILLE AREA Chapel Woods Ct., COLUMBIA (EAST) AREA Barchink Pl., Burnt Mountain Path, Flamepool Way, Hickory Log Cir., Lasting Light Way, Majors Lane, Phelps Luck Dr., Sweet Clover, Weatherside Run, Wood Staff Way, COLUMBIA (WEST) AREA Avalanche Way, Cedar Wood Dr., Fortnight Ct., High Beam Ct., Lone Tree Ct., Oven Bird Green, Stonegate Lane, Trotter Ridge Ct., Wood Elves Way, ELKRIDGE AREA Autumn Spell, Blue Stream Dr., Dorsey Rd., Golden Fern Ct.,


In New Jersey vote, hope for supporters of higher state minimum wages

required labels on GM food and seeds sold within the state, with exceptions for a few categories, including alcoholic beverages and certified organic foods. Marijuana measures Tuesday was also significant for proponents of legalizing marijuana. Three Michigan towns removed penalties for possessing small amounts of the drug; Portland, Maine, overwhelmingly approved its legalization; and Coloradans, who did the same last year, agreed to tax it. Voters in Colorado handily approved a pair of taxes that amount to a 25 percent levy on marijuana. The potential tax revenue is a key part of the argument advocates make in favor of legalization. And with up to $40 million a year from one of the two taxes dedicated to school construction, Colorado legalization advocates can point to benefits to the economy and public welfare. Meanwhile, Coloradans rejected another tax proposal by the same margin. That measure would have replaced the state’s flat income tax with a two-tiered system, raising nearly $1 billion in its first full year of implementation, according to estimates, much of which would have been dedicated to school funding. Sunnyvale gun safety In the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, voters approved a gun-safety measure that both sides of the gun-control fight see as potentially important to the national debate. Residents of Sunnyvale, a mid-size city at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, passed a set of four gun-safety rules: Gun owners must report the loss or theft of a firearm within 48 hours of when they should reasonably know it is missing; guns must be locked when not in use; large-capacity ammunition magazines are prohibited, with some exceptions; and vendors will have to keep sales logs for two years. The National Rifle Association sees the measure as a great opportunity to bring a case challenging limits on high-capacity ammunition magazines. New York gambling In New York, voters approved the establishment of up to seven gambling resorts in the state. Colorado secession Five Colorado counties voted to secede from the state, and six rejected the idea. The effort was led by the Weld County commissioners, who said the Democrat-led state government was neglecting rural interests. But Weld was one of the six counties whose voters rejected the secession. Houston Astrodome Voters in Houston rejected a plan to convert the Astrodome, the world’s first multipurpose domed stadium, to a convention and events center. The stadium is expected to be torn down.


‘The Apple Family Plays’ come to Studio Theatre with ‘That Hopey Changey Thing’ and ‘Sweet and Sad’

Foucheux at Round House Theater in 2002’s “The Cherry Orchard.” “There are some very dear friends of mine in this company, and all that history that we have, we didn’t have to do family work,” Marshall says. “I’m comfortable in a way I’m not normally. I feel safe and I am freer to create, I suppose — say what I feel, move where I want, and I assume if they like it, they’ll let me know, and if they don’t, they’ll let me know.” Richard Rick Foucheux The lawyer finds himself at a crossroads politically and professionally during the first play. He wants to make the switch to the more lucrative private sector and seems to be swinging a bit to the right, which agitates some of his siblings. Rick Foucheux The two-time Helen Hayes winner calls these scripts a “treat for an actor,” given how naturalistic the scenes are and the way comedy is woven into occasionally tragic moments. He compares the play to extremely entertaining eavesdropping. “That’s what the theater is, the opportunity to do what your mother said was impolite,” Foucheux says. “Imagine if you could sit outside your neighbor’s window and listen to them having a family conversation around dinner.” But Foucheux admits that the Apples have something else going for them: “Some families are more interesting than others.” THE OUTSIDER Tim Jeremy Webb The only non-Apple at the dinner table, Tim is the outsider. In “Hopey Changey,” the actor is meeting the family for the first time and things are looking up. But in the second play, he has started waiting tables and is contemplating other careers. Jeremy Webb The New York actor doesn’t just play an outsider — he’s also the only cast member who has never worked with any of his co-stars. Of course, that has helped in its own way. “They all work so beautifully together, it’s lovely to watch,” Webb says. “Some of them have worked together so often that they seem to have a shorthand. I don’t have that with any of them, but I don’t need it,” he adds with a laugh. There was something about the hugeness of the project — mounting two plays simultaneously — that compelled Webb to come to Washington to take the role. “The main draw for me was the way that we’re doing it and the fact that it’s two full-length plays being


‘Spinning Plates’ movie review: Documentary looks at what it takes to run a restaurant

Breitbach’s Country Dining in Balltown, Iowa, one of three restaurants profiled in “Spinning Plates,” has been in owner Cindy Breitbach’s family for more than 150 years. (The Film Arcade) The restaurant business is the subject of “Spinning Plates,” Joseph Levy’s documentary about what it takes to keep a dining destination afloat. Featuring three very different restaurants, from a mom-and-pop Mexican joint in Tucson to the Michelin-rated Alinea in Chicago, the movie doesn’t always feel cohesive, but the stories are unexpectedly touching. The movie’s most high-profile subject is Grant Achatz, the culinary prodigy behind Alinea, a restaurant where food is more about art and science than mere sustenance. The tasting menu, which costs more than $200, features 25 courses with ingredients such as essence of pine needles and frozen olive oil drops. One course might take five people 12 hours to make, Achatz explains. That approach to cooking doesn’t really resemble what’s happening at Breitbach’s Country Dining in Balltown, Iowa. The 150-year-old family-run establishment is the town’s community center, though it’s famous beyond city limits for its fried chicken and pie. Then there’s La Cocina de Gabby, named for owner Francisco Martinez’s wife, who does all of the cooking. Only months old during filming, the Mexican restaurant is struggling to attract diners. Levy tries to bridge the gap in the stories of these very different establishments, and some of the restaurateurs share similar philosophies. For one, all are passionate about their work, and each subject mentions the grueling schedule. Running a restaurant is a seven-days-a-week kind of job, and you have to be okay missing weddings and baseball games, Mike Breitbach cheerfully relates. This is more than a vocation; it’s a way of life. Despite some of the common themes, the dramatic elements of the stories are quite divergent. While the dining room at Alinea is at capacity, down in Tucson, Francisco is struggling to pay his mortgage and worries about his young daughter, who spends her days at the restaurant rather than learning and playing with other children. Achatz, meanwhile, is stressing about getting a three-star Michelin rating. The chef has had other adversity, in the form of a terrifying health scare, although that detail isn’t revealed until quite late into the movie. Likewise, Levy doesn’t focus on a couple of unfortunate events that might have doomed Breitbach’s until close to the end of the film (which is why it


Federal government shutdown cost $2 billion in lost productivity, OMB report says

Richard Trott of the National Park Service puts up a sign announcing the closure of the Lincoln Memorial due to the government shutdown on Oct. 1. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) October’s 16-day partial shutdown of the federal government cost taxpayers about $2 billion in lost productivity from 850,000 furloughed employees, the White House budget office said Thursday in a report quantifying the ripple effects of the impasse in Congress. On top of those costs, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the shutdown set off a cascade of “negative ramifications on a number of fronts.” From $500 million in lost spending by visitors to closed national parks to stalled oil drilling permits, the first shutdown in 17 years disrupted private industries, slowed home buying and delayed crucial safety inspections, according to the OMB report. The Obama administration has said the shutdown and uncertainty about raising the government’s borrowing limit will slow fourth-quarter economic growth by 0.2 percentage points to 0.6 points, or $2 billion to $6 billion in lost economic activity. It also probably cost 120,000 new private-sector jobs during the first two weeks of October, White House officials have previously said. The effects of the closure were felt nationwide, the report said. Alaska’s crab-fishing season was delayed by three to four days, costing thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Nearly 6,300 children in the Head Start program lost services for up to nine days until private philanthropists stepped in. About 1.2 million people applying for mortgages faced delays because the Internal Revenue Service could not process paperwork needed to verify their incomes. Almost $4 billion in tax refunds to late filers was delayed, which will push back the start of the 2014 filing season by up to two weeks. Here's a look back at the main characters, events and oddities during the 16-day government shutdown. The number of small-business contracts with the Pentagon decreased by almost a third, and National Transportation Safety Board investigations of 59 airplane accidents were delayed. One of the biggest impacts was on the federal workforce, Burwell said. Furloughed employees missed a total of 6.6 million days of work during the shutdown. Congress agreed to give them back pay, which came to about $2 billion, the figure that budget experts used to measure the employees’ lost productivity. That number doesn’t include the thousands of hours that federal employees spent preparing


Obama picks bank executive as Commerce nominee

Model S electric car caught fire this week after hitting road debris on a Tennessee freeway, the third fire in a Model S in the past five weeks. The blaze Wednesday near Smyrna engulfed the front of the car. A spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol says the Model S ran over a tow hitch, which hit the undercarriage of the car, causing an electrical fire. It’s the second Model S blaze involving road debris. Last month, a driver near Seattle hit debris that pierced a shield and the battery pack, causing a fire. In the other fire, a driver in Mexico crashed into a concrete wall and a tree at high speed. Shares of the carmaker, based in Palo Alto, Calif., fell 7.5 percent to $139.77 Thursday. That is on top of Wednesday’s plunge of 14.5 percent, after investors were spooked by a battery shortage. The shares are still up 312 percent this year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it will contact Tennessee authorities to see if there are safety problems that need further action. — Associated Press Also in Business ● Walt Disney’s earnings climbed 12 percent in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter as parks revenue rose and its interactive division posted an operating profit on the surprising strength of its new video game, “Disney Infinity.” Disney also set the release date for “Star Wars: Episode VII” at Dec. 18, 2015, and said it would produce four original TV series for Netflix based on characters including “Daredevil” that would begin playing in 2015. ● The Internal Revenue Service issued $4 billion in fraudulent tax refunds last year to people using stolen identities, with some of the money going to addresses in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ireland, according to an inspector general’s report released Thursday. The IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai. In the United States, more fraudulent returns went to Miami than any other city. ● Marriott International on Thursday announced plans to buy Protea Hospitality Holdings, a Cape Town, South Africa-based hotel group with 116 properties. The deal would nearly double Marriott’s presence in Africa, making it the largest hotel company on the continent. The Bethesda-based hotel giant said it had signed a letter of intent with Protea, but did not disclose the terms of the proposed deal.


Economy added 204,000 jobs in October; unemployment rate ticks up to 7.3 percent

new jobs. But he added that worker training is also needed to ensure that businesses can fill open positions. “I’m heartened by the numerous conversations I have with employers who say, ‘I want to grow my business,’ ” Perez said. But they often add that “too many people coming through the door don’t have the skills that I need.” The bifurcated labor market has also complicated policymakers’ efforts to jump-start the recovery. The Federal Reserve has tied its multibillion-dollar economic stimulus program to the health of the labor market. But it has been frustrated by declines in the labor force participation rate and by the muddy outlook for jobs. Central bank officials have walked back statements suggesting they would begin dialing down the stimulus by the end of the year as higher interest rates, the fiscal crisis and conflicting labor reports have clouded the economic picture. Atlanta Fed President Dennis P. Lockhart said Friday that the data will likely remain murky through December and that he does not expect the recovery to improve until next year — if then. “There is a nontrivial chance that 2014 will look like 2013,” he said in a speech in Mississippi. Lockhart cited fiscal retrenchment in Washington as one of the greatest risks to faster economic growth. Analysts expect the government shutdown will shave half a percentage point from the nation’s gross domestic product during the fourth quarter. Economists had also been bracing for the shutdown to undermine employment in October. Not only were thousands of workers furloughed, but economists also worried that the political brinkmanship that led to the closure would devastate business and consumer confidence and derail hiring. But the data suggested surprising strength in the private sector. Retailers added 44,000 jobs last month, many of them at bars and restaurants. The hospital sector hired a net 53,000 workers, while the manufacturing industry gained 19,000 jobs. Speaking in New Orleans, President Obama acknowledged the improvement but lamented the “self-inflicted wounds” from Washington. “Our businesses are resilient,” he said. “But there is no question that the shutdown harmed our jobs market. “ The national unemployment rate ticked up to 7.3 percent as a result of workers who were furloughed during the federal government shutdown. The White House estimated that more than half a million workers were affected, but a technical quirk caused most of them to be classified as employed in the Labor


Correction: Closed everywhere Federal and local government offices. Most banks. Post offices (no mail delivery except for Express Mail.) Courts (except for adult arraignments and new juvenile referrals in the District). Traffic and parking Rush-hour restrictions lifted in the District. HOV restrictions lifted on I-66 and I-395. No parking fees in Montgomery and Prince George’s except at the New Carrollton garage and National Harbor. Meters not enforced in Arlington. Holiday parking regulations in Alexandria . Trash and recycling In the District, no pickups; collections slide one day to the end of the week. No city parking enforcement. In Maryland, regular collections in Anne Arundel, Howard and Prince George’s. No pickups in Montgomery; collections slide one day to the end of the week. Maryland landfills open except in Anne Arundel. Montgomery transfer station open. In Virginia, regular collections and landfills open. Schools In the District, closed. In Maryland, closed except in Anne Arundel, Frederick, Howard and Montgomery. In Virginia, closed except in Fairfax and Loudoun. Libraries In the District, closed. In Maryland, closed except in Anne Arundel. In Virginia, closed except in Alexandria. Liquor stores Open at owner’s discretion. Transportation services Metrorail runs from 5 a.m. to midnight on a modified Saturday schedule. On the Red Line, buses replace trains between Shady Grove and White Flint. Trains run every 20 minutes on the Orange, Blue and Yellow Lines. Metrobus runs on a Saturday schedule. MetroAccess has regular service but subscription calls are canceled. For information, go to www.wmata.com. Ride On runs on a special modified holiday schedule. DASH and The Bus have regular weekday service. CUE has modified weekday service. Fairfax Connector runs on a holiday weekday schedule. ART will run Routes 41, 42, 51, 77 and 87 only on a Saturday schedule. PRTC Omniride has limited service. Loudoun Bus runs on a reduced schedule. MARC and VRE are not running. MTA Commuter Bus will run Route 201 only on a weekeday holiday schedule


Military bases are our most exclusive gated communities — and that hurts veterans

domestic bases are the nation’s most exclusive gated communities. There’s restricted access, of course, and visitors are usually asked to provide multiple forms of ID and to submit to a car search before entering. Through the gates, there’s a remarkably self-contained world. Roughly a third of military families live on bases, with many more living just outside the wire in military enclaves. About 100,000 military children attend on-base schools. Military families shop at discounted grocery and department stores, see dedicated doctors and pharmacists, leave their children in military-subsidized child care, and play in base sports leagues. Many bases have their own golf courses, gyms and gas stations. Some have their own cemeteries, too. The geographic isolation of military bases further divides the services from society. The military increasingly concentrates itself on large bases nowhere near major population centers. Rural settings afford vast ranges and runways for training purposes, but they limit interaction with civilians. City-dwellers, including the nation’s political and business elites, may rarely see service members in uniform — perpetuating the military’s tendency to draw recruits from rural, Southern and Western populations. And when jobs are scarce in the communities surrounding bases, it makes the transition of veterans out of the military especially difficult. Finally, the paternalistic way the military trains, indoctrinates and advances its members plays a role in deepening the civil-military divide and frustrating transition. From their earliest days of service, whether at Navy boot camp or West Point, recruits must abandon their civilian habits and embrace new haircuts, clothing, routines and hierarchies. The military tells them where to live, whom to work for and what to do. Service members have little autonomy or choice — even more than a decade into their careers. And so, leaving the military, as more than 80 percent of service members do well before they reach retirement, may provoke serious culture shock, even for those who haven’t recently served in a war zone. For some new veterans, it is the first time they’ve had to find a house, pick a school for their kids and apply for a job, let alone interview for one. They have enormous experience and expertise relating to their military jobs, but they lack basic life skills and experience. We would not suggest that the military address these issues by allowing service members to choose their clothes each day. Uniforms, routines and hierarchies help instill and sustain


As high-speed rail project falters, Obama’s vision of government remains unfulfilled

1910 to 1996; Tower Automotive took over the plant in 1996 and built Dodge Ram trucks there for a decade before moving its operations to Mexico. “As a little boy, I remember driving by there with my parents, and it was row after row of car frames. . . . The stacks got smaller and smaller,” Barrett said. “You can see America’s history all in this one plot of land.” Talgo USA The company produced two trains that went to Oregon for service in the Pacific Northwest Cascades Corridor passenger rail line; the other two sit amid boxes of spare partshere in Milwaukee. Talgo filed a lawsuit against the state of Wisconsin this week seeking $66 million for unpaid bills, lost business and other damages. Talgo spokeswoman Nora Friend said the firm had envisioned the facility as a launching pad to supply high-speed projects across the United States. But a boom never materialized, as Obama’s stimulus rail initiative fell victim to political pushback. More than just rail cars Unlike those in Europe or Asia, existing U.S. rail lines are unequipped to handle high-speed trains and are expensive to upgrade. Oregon is the only state where high-speed trains have been manufactured and delivered with stimulus funding, but the line from Eugene, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C., can only accommodate speeds of up to 79 mph. Stimulus funding is also being used to upgrade tracks, build trains and improve electrification on four routes in the East and Midwest: Boston to Washington, Washington to Charlotte, Detroit to Chicago and Chicago to St. Louis. The Chicago-to-St. Louis route — where trains will run at 110 mph along 75 percent of the route by 2015, shaving an hour off the commute — stands out as one of the bright spots. The Japanese firm Nippon Sharyo, which won a $352 million federal contract to provide passenger cars to the Midwest and California, helped revitalize Rochelle, Ill., by opening up a factory there last year that now employs 330 people. The biggest project of all is slated for California, where a $68 billion line is envisioned to run from Los Angeles to San Francisco at up to 220 mph. But the effort has been beset with delays and a shifting price tag; engineering work has just begun on a 30-mile segment in Fresno, and officials project the full line won’t be open until 2029. “The problem is there’s


Tips for veteran job seekers and employers looking to hire more veterans

From the language to the customs, corporate culture and military culture can differ widely. Here is some advice from former service members and corporate recruiters for navigating those two worlds. — Sarah Halzack TIPS FOR JOB SEEKERS 1. 2. 3.Have a plan. Paul Elliott, who served in the Army from 2005-2012 and now works as a financial adviser, recommends beginning your job search before you separate from the military. “I’ve seen a lot of service members get out with the mentality that they’re going to wing it,” Elliott said. “Don’t let go of one branch until you have a firm grasp on the next.” 4.Be mindful of corporate culture. Zach Zimmerman, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he remembers an early foray into the corporate world when a managing director was leaning over his shoulder and pointing to the Excel document on his screen.“I’m standing up as he’s talking, and he’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Zimmerman recalls with a laugh. Because of his military training, Zimmerman’s instinct was to stand anytime someone senior spoke to him. He had to quickly adapt to the different protocol of his new setting. TIPS FOR EMPLOYERS 1.Engage your existing veteran workforce. When it comes to hiring veterans, “We’ll get referrals from our current employees who have already transitioned. That’s a terrific way to source,” said Arie Ball, vice president for sourcing and talent acquisition at Sodexo. 2.Realize small details might go a long way. “Our veterans are coming from an environment where they’re used to seeing people in uniform,” said Ed Crenshaw, chief executive of Destin Enterprises. “You can see their name tag, their specialty, occupation.” Accordingly, Crenshaw said you might make these employees more comfortable if you gave them a sense of what your company’s organization chart looks like and how they fit into it. 3.Remember that hiring is just the beginning. “You have a lot of organizations that really kind of tout themselves for having a high number of veterans that they hire, but it’s no indication of how many actually stay there,” Crenshaw said. He suggests measuring the success of your veterans’ program by how many of these workers you are able to retain over time. 4.Understand the importance of mentorship. In order to achieve those retention goals, many companies have established peer mentoring relationships to make sure the veteran has a sounding board


Afghan review panel to release 80 percent of high-security detainees, Pentagon says

examined 461 detainees and recommended prosecution in 77 cases, according to the report. The other detainees were recommended for release. A key problem, U.S. officials said, is the Afghan parliament’s unwillingness to pass legislation that would permit the government to detain individuals even if insufficient evidence exists to prosecute them in court. Most of the detainees were apprehended in military operations where the collection of evidence was not a priority; in other cases, information leading to their capture came from sources the U.S. government deems too secret to share with the Afghan government. “This is very disappointing,” said a U.S. official involved in Afghanistan policy who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss detention operations. “But it’s a risk we recognized when we handed these guys over. We couldn’t hold onto them forever.” Detentions have been a long-festering source of tension in President Hamid Karzai’s relationship with the United States. He and his advisers have maintained that U.S. and NATO forces have swept up many innocent Afghans in their raids. U.S. military officials have sought to persuade the board to reconsider some of its recommendations. The report, a semiannual Pentagon assessment of the war provided to Congress, also noted that the U.S. military now has fewer than 40,000 troops in Afghanistan. The military has shuttered 290 of 349 bases in the country and reduced its stockpiles of materiel by about 45 percent, the report said. Afghan security forces now conduct 95 percent of all conventional military operations in the country. The U.S. drawdown and the growth of the Afghan army has been reflected in combat injuries and deaths: Afghan casualties have increased by 79 percent over the past six months, while U.S. casualties have fallen by 59 percent, according to the report. The increase in Afghan casualties has helped to fuel a significant increase in the number of people leaving the Afghan security forces. One in three soldiers has quit or deserted over the past 12 months, the Pentagon found. The high rate of casualties “and their limited ability to evacuate their wounded adversely affects morale, retention and recruiting,” the report said. The report warned that Afghan security forces “are not yet fully self-sustainable, and considerable effort will be required to make progress permanent.” Even so, the Pentagon said, “the biggest uncertainties facing Afghanistan are no longer primarily military.” It cited questions about a


Companies look for creative ways to bring veterans into their workforce

Mike Mohr of financial advisory firm Edward Jones, talks with John Young, a member of the D.C. National Guard at Military MOJO, a career fair aimed at helping commissioned officers find work. (Jeffrey MacMillan/For The Washington Post) O Amid rows and rows of banner-bedecked booths, the goal was the same: To tap a talent pool that employers say often exhibits leadership, discipline, integrity and a team-centric attitude. But many companies said they faced a common obstacle in trying to bring these workers on board. Veterans, they said, sometimes don’t realize how their skills might be relevant to companies outside the defense or government sectors, and as a result unemployment rates for veterans remain stubbornly high. ●“A lot of people see the Microsoft brand and they say, ‘I’m not a computer programmer,’” said Sean Kelley, the company’s senior director of military recruiting. Philip Dana, who leads talent acquisition operations for Life Technologies, said he hears similar skepticism from service members. The perception, he said, is: “That’s a bunch of PhDs. That’s not me.” With this challenge in mind, companies across a broad cross-section of industries are trying to find creative ways to reach job-seeking veterans and help them navigate the transition into corporate America. The efforts comes at a time when, particularly in the Washington region, federal budget cuts have led to fewer job opportunities in government and at many contracting companies. Financial advising and real estate training Jeff Quesenberry, a principal at investment advisory firm Edward Jones, remembers well his own move to the financial sector from the military about 20 years ago. “I think if I had to transition into electronics — I worked on jets — that would’ve been pretty easy,” said Quesenberry. “The language would’ve been the same. This is like learning a new language.” Today, he oversees the Washington area component of Edward Jones’s Forces Program, an initiative designed to train those who have no prior experience in finance for careers in that industry. It is available to those who have left the military in the past 12 months or those who are active members of the National Guard or Army Reserve. For the first eight weeks, participants are paid at an hourly rate as they study for regulatory exams and learn basics such as presentation skills. Then, for about 5 1/2 months, they do advanced training and shadow an existing financial adviser. During this time,


In Afghanistan, interpreters who helped U.S. in war denied visas; U.S. says they face no threat

of his body was posted on the page of a Facebook group that interpreters use to exchange information about their visa applications. Since the program’s inception four years ago, 1,648 interpreters have received special immigrant visas, or SIVs, out of the 8,750 allocated by Congress. The program has been dogged by delays and other problems. The State Department was criticized this year for temporarily revoking one interpreter’s visa without explanation and for denying other applicants based on vague accusations that they were affiliated with terrorist groups. But the most recent spate of denials could affect a broader range of interpreters. They go to the core reason that the program exists — the threat facing Afghan men and women who worked for the U.S. government here. Supporters of the program in Congress expressed anger over the visa denials. “I am deeply concerned about recent reports that the threat posed to interpreters by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan is being downplayed or disregarded,” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a veteran of the Iraq war, said when asked for reaction. “The current process for approving visas threatens to undermine the commitment we made to stand with them.” Said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a member of the Armed Services Committee: “We have to keep our promise to individuals who risked their lives serving alongside our troops. Failing to act puts lives at further risk and hurts our credibility around the globe.” More than 6,000 Iraqis have received visas through an analogous program over the past five years. Immigration lawyers representing interpreters from both countries say the “serious threat” denials have been issued only to their Afghan clients. “For the past few months, we have been seeing an alarming number of Afghan SIV applicants denied by Embassy Kabul for allegedly ‘not facing a threat,’ ” said Becca Heller, director of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, which represents Iraqis and Afghans. “These are people being hunted down by Taliban forces because of their work with the United States,” she said. “Many of them have been shot at or kidnapped, and others have hard evidence in the form of death letters and death lists from the Taliban.” Some worry that the United States is denying the visas to prevent talented English-speaking interpreters from leaving Afghanistan. Those men and women would be assets to any long-term American presence in the country, some U.S. officials have said. “This act could drain


A wolf bounty? Not in N.C. In a switch, there’s a reward for a human killer of rare red wolves

Two Red Wolves in Durham, N.C. ( B. Bartel/USFWS) Wolves have a terrible public relations problem that dates back many centuries. In old fables, they’re constantly up to no good, stalking Little Red Riding Hood and blowing down the houses of the Three Little Pigs. Their storied reputation might explain why people are quick to put a price on their heads for killing livestock or simply showing their faces. But recently in North Carolina, wildlife biologists flipped the script. They are offering a bounty of sorts for information leading to the capture of whoever who shot to death two rare red wolves. That species of wolf is one of the world’s most endangered wild canids — a group that includes jackals, coyotes and dogs. The $21,000 reward was raised by animal rights organizations after the dead wolves were found Oct. 28 and Oct. 30 on the flat plains of Washington County, on the central Carolina coast. Accelerometers pinging in the wolves’ tracking collars informed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials that the animals’ hearts had stopped beating and led them to the dead bodies. The wolves were among 66 that authorities have tracked since they were old enough to wear collars. The animals are monitored as part of the government’s Red Wolf Recovery Program, to reestablish them in the Southeast after federally sanctioned bounties nearly wiped them out. Today, only 90 to 100 live in the wild, and each death is a major blow to the federal government’s effort to restore red wolves in their native habitat. Authorities said the dead wolves were of breeding age, making their demise especially upsetting since there are too few adults to produce enough litters to reestablish the species. “When we lose an animal, that obviously has an impact on a very small population,” said David Rabon, recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife program. While there are 90 wolves in the wild, that doesn’t mean 45 of them have coupled. “About 13 pairs are breeding,” Rabon said. Red wolves were once a lot more common in the Southeast, biologists say. Their numbers were reduced by predator control programs that put prices on the heads of native wolves as people encroached on their range. By the 1960s, they were on the brink of surviving only in zoos and museums. The Fish and Wildlife Service listed the wolves as endangered in 1967 and frantically attempted


New docudrama revisits the Challenger O-ring disaster; fractals are cooler than they sound

With the Frax app, the beauty of nature’s repeating patterns can come to the palm of your hand. (ITER9 LLC) Space shuttle The O-ring revelation ‘The Challenger Disaster,’ Science Channel Millions of Americans watched in shock on Jan. 28, 1986 as the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven astronauts aboard. Two weeks later, millions also watched the hearing of the presidential commission investigating the disaster. In a scene widely rebroadcast, commissioners were invited to handle some rubbery material from the shuttle’s O-ring — a gasket in the solid rocket booster. Then the maverick on the panel, physicist Richard Feynman, asked for some ice water and dropped the sample, gripped in a clamp, into it. After only a few seconds, the formerly flexible material lost its resilience and didn’t spring back. At a temperature far warmer than the depths of space, it had clearly lost its ability to seal. “I believe that has some significance for our problem,” Feynman said, with dramatic understatement. His accusation that NASA had failed to calculate the true risks of the mission has resonated for decades. The Science Channel re-creates the O-ring drama, with William Hurt as Feynman, in a new docudrama, “The Challenger Disaster.” Co-produced with the BBC, the movie portrays the flamboyant Nobel laureate as an independent investigator searching for truth amid the murkiness of Washington politics. The movie premieres Saturday on the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel. Fractals Left brain, meet right brain Frax: App for iOS It’s a cliche: Some of us are good at math and science and some of us are artistically creative, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But like most cliches, it’s an overstatement. A new iPhone app beautifully demonstrates how mathematics is present throughout the natural world. Called Frax, it puts something called fractals “in the palm of your hand,” in the words of its co-creator Ben Weiss. What’s a fractal? To oversimplify, it’s a repeating pattern found in nature: seashells, snowflakes, galaxies, crystals, fiddlehead ferns, oil spills. “There’s this moment of awakening where you understand that the natural patterns that you’ve been seeing your entire life are actually based on simple mathematical formulas. And once you’re aware of those patterns — be it the spiral shape of a galaxy or the whirl of a hurricane or the swirls of cream in your morning coffee — you’re able to recognize them anywhere,” Weiss wrote


Olympic torch goes on a walk in outer space

Cosmonaut Oleg Kotov holds the Sochi Winter Olympic Games torch during a space walk. (Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) An Olympic torch took a space walk for the first time Saturday, carefully held by two Russian cosmonauts outside the international space station as it orbited some 260 miles above Earth. Video streamed by NASA showed Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy carrying the unlit torch of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. The torch bobbed weightlessly at the end of a tether in a darkness that was dotted by stars. The two gingerly maneuvered to take photos and then returned it to the space station before continuing with other tasks on a six-hour space walk. The torch was launched into space from Kazakhstan, in central Asia, on Thursday morning. It returned to Earth on Monday with a three-person crew. The torch did not burn aboard the space outpost because lighting it would consume precious oxygen and pose a threat to the crew. The Sochi Olympic flame started its relay October 7, four months ahead of the Winter Games, and it is to cover some 39,000 miles. — Associated Press


The government’s human price scanners

a labor-intensive task, one that could seem like an anachronism in a high-tech age when anyone with a smartphone can scan a bar code and call up lists of products, prices and sales locations. And as the bureau looks for ways to modernize and go digital, this century-old job could be in jeopardy. Gaffney is on the front lines of collecting confidential data that are ultimately compiled for some of the nation’s most important economic measures, including the consumer price index (CPI). The CPI affects income tax rates, Social Security benefits, school lunches and food stamps. Landlords, labor unions and lawyers often use the CPI to determine rent hikes, wage increases and the value of divorce settlements. The prices she records also help inform some of the government’s most pressing economic debates, such as the Federal Reserve’s current discussions over whether its efforts to stimulate the economy are doing too much — or too little — to spur inflation. On this recent day, Gaffney will be on the road for nearly eight hours in her beat-up 2003 Honda Pilot, driving across vast stretches of Virginia, from county to county, on a mission to hunt down prices of three American staples: gas, sugar and beer. As Gaffney demonstrates at stop after stop, there’s more to price checking than tallying up numbers. “A good EA is face to face with the product, is picking things up, is looking at every label,” she says. “The tiniest mistake can throw off the data. You have to be on your feet mentally.” To ensure the integrity of the information, price checkers have to make sure they’re comparing not just apples with apples but also, for instance, organic Fuji apples with organic Fuji apples. The job takes charm, because Gaffney has to be able to wheedle her way into some businesses and get the managers talking. It also requires her to be demanding, even persnickety, to make sure she gets the detailed answers she needs. (She recently found herself chasing a food truck through the streets of downtown Washington to check the price of its trendy sandwiches. Was it $6 with vegetables or without? What is the difference between gluten-free organic and just gluten-free?) And she has to keep the information secret from everyone but the government, because businesses consider their prices to be proprietary information and are promised that the names of stores and brands


Time to take a fresh look at trimming defense

“We cannot allow that to happen again,” he said. But recall with each foreign engagement the number of U.S. ground troops sent to fight at any one time has decreased. The Iraq/Afghanistan experience was the longest stretch of American forces in overseas combat in U.S. history, and cumulatively, with repeated tours, involved substantial troops. Even Vietnam, no less Iraq/Afghanistan, should have taught us that such wars are unwinnable if the goal is to change foreign governments to a U.S. form of democracy. As former defense secretary Robert M. Gates said in a 2011 speech at West Point, “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General [Douglas] MacArthur so delicately put it.” Odierno linked the past to the future, noting the Army needed “a capability to do a multiphase, combined arms joint campaign that operates in a very complex environment that includes a conventional opponent, irregular warfare, [and] counterinsurgency. . . . So we have to train our forces to do that.” He worried that training for open-ended warfare, which was set in the United States for this year, had to be canceled because of budget cuts to training. The impact? “This means that if these units are called upon to defend South Korea, or to secure chemical and biological weapons in Syria, the commander in chief will be forced to send soldiers into harm’s way who have not trained as an integrated brigade combined arms team,” Odierno said. The likelihood of those things happening? North Korea did attack South Korea in 1950, but the United States now has a mutual defense treaty with Seoul and more than 20,000 combat troops there. And securing Syrian chemical weapons? A U.N. effort is handling that. Even the most ardent U.S. supporters of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are not calling for U.S. troops. And other threats? Terrorism is being met mainly with intelligence and Special Forces — both have gotten more funding. Meanwhile, U.S. forces are around the world. As Odierno noted, “As we sit here today, more than 70,000 U.S. Army soldiers are deployed to contingency operations, with nearly 50,000 soldiers in Afghanistan alone. . . . There are more than 87,000 soldiers foreign-stationed across the globe in nearly 120 countries.” One of Adm. Jonathan


Kohl’s, Target, Toys R Us add to early holiday shopping frenzy

Emma Howe, left, looks up at her mother, Laurie Howe, as they wait in line at a Kohl's store on Black Friday in Owensboro, Ky. Retailers are announcing earlier hours and bigger promotions to pull Americans into shops this holiday season. (Gary Emord-Netzley/AP) Retailers are turning up the volume on holiday promotions. Kohl’s, Target and Toys R Us joined the clamor Monday, announcing they would be opening earlier Thanksgiving Day and offering bigger promotions to pull shoppers in this holiday season. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, was set to announce Tuesday that it would kick off in-store specials at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, two hours earlier than last year. Kohl’s said Target announced that it would open at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, an hour earlier than last year, while Toys R Us said it would open at 5 p.m., three hours ahead of last year. Major retailers have announced earlier opening times and bigger sales in a bid to make the most of a short holiday season and in response to consumer interest, industry analysts say. With six fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, it is the shortest season in more than a decade, and could cost retailers as much as $1.5 billion, according to a report by Adobe Systems, which provides digital marketing tools. “Retailers are trying to create a sense of urgency with customers,” said Richard Jaffe, managing director of Stifel Nicolaus, an investment bank. Wal-Mart kicked off its holiday discounts On Thanksgiving Day, the retail giant said, it will begin online discounts in the morning. It is also offering 21 guaranteed items, compared with last year’s three, to customers standing in line during the first hour of discounts. “Black Friday is the Super Bowl of retail, and it’s very important to us,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising and marketing officer for Wal-Mart U.S. “We anticipate a very competitive environment.” Department stores such as Macy’s and J.C. Penney also said they would open on Thanksgiving for the first time. And most retailers — including Target and Toys R Us — are promoting pre-Black Friday deals. Kohl’s, which faced disappointing holiday sales last year, said that opening on Thanksgiving is an added convenience for its customers. The free-purchase offer was another way to make “the Black Friday experience exciting,” Kohl’s spokeswoman Julia Fennelly said in an e-mail. After Thanksgiving, the program will continue through the


Food calendar: Learn to make chocolate, cocktails and more

NOV. 14 BEER DINNER: BOOK SIGNING: COOKING DEMONSTRATION: PINOT NOIR TASTING: WINE DINNER: WINE DINNER: NOV. 16 BREW BOURBON CLASSIC: COOKING CLASS: COOKING CLASS: CULINARY EDUCATION CRAWL: CZECHOSLOVAK HOLIDAY BAZAAR: FALL HARVEST TEA: SATURDAY SUPPER: THANKSGIVING WINE FESTIVAL: WEST AFRICAN CELEBRATION: NOV. 17 COOKBOOK TALK: COOKING CLASS: NOV. 19 COOKING CLASS: WHISKEY TASTING: WINE DINNER: NOV. 20 SPIRITS TASTING: NOV. 21 BEAUJOLAIS TASTING: COOKING CLASS: WHITE TRUFFLES DINNER: NOV. 22 OYSTER RIOT: — Becky Krystal SEND NOTICES to: To Do, Food, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or e-mail food@washpost.com, 14 days in advance. To find more calendar items, go to www.washingtonpost.com/gog/dc-events.html and click on "Food Events."