Maryland Zoo lion dies after cubs are born

The Maryland Zoo’s twin lion cubs six days after they were born. They were the first lions born at the zoo. (Maryland Zoo/Via Associated Press) There was both happy and sad news from the Maryland Zoo last week. Two lions were born, but a few days later, the cubs’ mother died, zoo officials announced Thursday. Badu, a 31 / 2-year-old lion, gave birth to the cubs October 3. But veterinarians noticed the next day that she was having complications. Zoo veterinarians performed surgery on Badu to deliver two more cubs, but neither one survived, zoo officials said. Badu continued to have medical problems after the surgery and was having trouble caring for the cubs. She died October 7. “While we are deeply saddened by the loss of this spirited cat, we now must turn our attention to caring for her young cubs. They are only six days old and are just beginning to open their eyes,” zoo Senior Veterinarian Ellen Bronson said in a statement. The zoo said the cubs, a male and a female, appear healthy. They are the first lion cubs to be born at the Maryland Zoo, which was created in 1876 as the Baltimore Zoo. The zoo’s name was changed nine years ago. The cubs’ father, 6-year-old Hassan, and Cuma, a 16-year-old female lion, are on exhibit for the public to see. The cubs are not being exhibited now. “Ideally, they will be able to be introduced to the other lions, but that will be sometime in the future,” assistant zoo curator Margie Rose-Innes said in a statement. “For now, their continued health and well-being will be our focus.” The cubs’ mother came to the Maryland Zoo in July 2012 from the Racine Zoo in Racine, Wisconsin. — From staff and wire reports


NASA drama club doubles as support group for furloughed federal workers

"Into the Woods" may be the most unlikely government shutdown victim. The play by NASA-types is without a home. Yet rehearsals continue, as much therapy as theater. The Post's Lee Powell finds out if the show will go on. The furloughed NASA policy analyst peers out of her witch’s mask, brooding about the way her theater group’s production of “Into the Woods” has become a shutdown drama as well as a musical. “Theater people will generally do anything to make sure the show will go on,” explained Kathy Fontaine, who is among 100 cast and crew members in the production being staged by Goddard Space Flight Center’s Music and Drama Club. Ever since the government shutdown locked them out of their usual venue on Goddard’s Greenbelt campus, club members — many of them idled NASA employees and contractors — have been rehearsing at a Glenn Dale church a few miles down the road. Fontaine, who is playing the witch and is also the show’s producer, says everyone is worried about the loss of their paychecks and how long the shutdown may drag on. But they are also worried about opening night because the shutdown has closed Goddard’s Barney & Bea Recreation Center, where the club has staged plays for more than 40 years. Last week, the group was seeking an alternative venue for the performances, which are scheduled to run from Oct. 25 through Nov. 23. “We put so much work into the show already, I don’t think anybody wants to quit,” said Fontaine, 51, who has worked at Goddard since 1989. “We are going to do it.” The drama club is one of hundreds of social networks at federal agencies across Washington. There are softball teams, knitting groups, kickball teams, book clubs, ballroom dance groups, even a chamber orchestra made up of doctors and scientists at the National Institutes of Health. For the furloughed, those social ties are providing much needed camaraderie and support at a time of stress and uncertainty. In the case of Goddard’s drama club, rehearsals for Stephen Sondheim’s musical mash-up of Grimms’ fairy-tale characters also double as a welcome distraction and a form of group therapy. “It gives us something else to think about,” said the play’s co-producer, Linda Pattison, 49, a furloughed information technology ground security manager who is playing the part of Jack’s mother. “It also gives us a great deal of time


For Medal of Honor recipient Capt. William Swenson, a rocky path to the White House

The 34-year-old Army captain is credited with risking his life to help save his fellow troops and recover others’ bodies after coalition troops were ambushed in Afghanistan’s Ganjgal valley in September 2009. Four years after he survived a brutal firefight in a remote Afghanistan valley that claimed the lives of five Americans, retired U.S. Army Capt. William Swenson will be hailed as a hero at the White House on Tuesday. Swenson, 34, is credited with risking his life to help save his fellow troops and recover bodies, feats that President Obama will recount when he presents Swenson with the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration. But for Swenson, the award stands for more than his personal bravery during the seven-hour battle in the Ganjgal valley, near the Pakistan border, on Sept. 8, 2009. It is also a measure of vindication. After returning from the battlefield, Swenson engaged in a lengthy and bitter dispute with the military over the narrative of one of the Afghan war’s most notorious firefights. The questions he raised resulted in reprimands for two other officers and what he and others say was an effort by the Army to discredit him. His account also cast doubt on the exploits of another Medal of Honor recipient from the same battle, Dakota Meyer of the Marine Corps. The Battle of Ganjgal remains one of the deadliest in the Afghan war. Yet William Swenson, a former captain in the U.S. Army, managed to help fend off an onslaught of insurgents, saved lives, coordinated a rescue, and braved gunfire to retrieve fallen soldiers. This is his story. United in war, the two men have taken far different paths since. Meyer has found celebrity and success, with a book and a personal assistant, boosted by a story that Swenson considers an inflated and misleading account of that harrowing day. Swenson — the first Army officer since the Vietnam War to be awarded the medal — has been unemployed since leaving the service in 2011. He is single and lives in Seattle, growing a thick beard and long hair, in contrast to the clean-cut look of his military days, and escaping often to the mountains to find solitude in “my forced early retirement.” “Are you familiar with Pyrrhic victories?” Swenson said in a recent interview. “That’s what I specialize in.” Ganjgal remains one of the costliest battles of the 12-year Afghan


Starbucks to take on Juan Valdez in Colombia

Customers sit in a Juan Valdez cafe north of Bogota on Aug. 28. The Juan Valdez cafe chain, owned by farmers and beloved by Colombians, expects the imminent arrival of Starbucks Corp to help it boost surprisingly low consumption of the beverage in a nation that grows much of the world's tastiest arabica. Hernan Mendez, head of the chain, said the novelty of Starbucks could help turn more Colombians into coffee drinkers. (Jose Gomez/REUTERS) BOGOTA, Colombia — Its souvenir-filled stores number 170 nationwide. There are 68 in other countries, from Spain to Chile to the United States, where a store does business a few blocks from the White House. If anything, the chain named after the iconic coffee farmer — a creation of a Madison Avenue ad firm in 1959 — has faced just one main challenge: getting Colombians, more accustomed to exporting their best coffee beans, to sip white chocolate cappuccinos and iced caramel macchiatos. But now Juan Valdez has a serious competitor: Starbucks, which has 19,000 outlets in more than 60 countries. The Seattle chain, which in city after city has prompted cafes to close or remake themselves to survive, recently said that it plans to open 50 stores in Colombia in the next few years. Last week, Starbucks began scouting prime locales in Bogota for its first stores, set to open in mid-2014. The chain has more than 650 outlets in Latin America. Juan Valdez, which is run by an 86-year-old federation that markets the coffee of 500,000 growers, is putting the best possible face on the impending challenge. Its executives hope Starbucks will boost local consumption. And smaller chains say the move will open up a market dominated by Juan Valdez. “Starbucks created this concept, this business model,” said Hernán Méndez, president of Procafecol S.A., created in 2002 by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation as the parent company of Juan Valdez Café. “Its entry will be a challenge that will make us better. Right now, we’re working on becoming much better than we are.” Juan Valdez and Starbucks have a history. When Starbucks went public in 1992, Colombian investors rejected an invitation to invest in the growing company, said Luis Samper, a federation spokesman. When Starbucks sales slumped in 2008, then-federation head Gabriel Silva urged coffee-growing nations to buy the chain, telling El Tiempo newspaper that such a purchase would “reinforce our fight to defend the


Computer outage causes interruption in use of food-stamp benefits

People in 17 states, including Maryland and Virginia, who tried to buy groceries using electronic food-stamp cards were turned away from supermarkets Saturday as a result of a computer outage. The system failure affected low-income individuals and families who receive food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women, Infants and Children program (WIC). The outage occurred during a “routine test” of backup systems Saturday morning, Jennifer Wasmer, a spokeswoman for Xerox, which administers the program, said. By late Saturday, access had been restored. After the system failed, SNAP and WIC beneficiaries in the affected states were unable to buy food using electronic benefit transfers. “Beneficiary access to programs such as SNAP, TANF, and other programs has been restored to the 17 States where Xerox provides EBT service. Re-starting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality,” Wasmer said in a statement. Courtney Rowe, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told the Associated Press that the outage was not related to the government shutdown. Earlier Saturday, Brian Schleter, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Human Resources, which provides services to low-income residents, confirmed the problems with the electronic benefits system. He said Maryland officials were in “close communication” with Xerox and were working to restore service as soon as possible. More than 6,000 Maryland residents received food assistance last month, according to state data. It was unclear how many residents in Maryland were unable to obtain food Saturday. Virginia officials could not be reached for comment Saturday. Before repairs were made, Wasmer suggested that beneficiaries “work with their local retailers, who can activate an emergency voucher system where available.” “We appreciate our clients’ patience while we work through this outage as quickly as possible,” she said. Many people had to walk away from full grocery carts Saturday. Richard Elwell, who lives in Chevy Chase, said someone he knows went to two grocery stores, and was unable to buy food at either. His first thought when heard about the problem: the government shutdown. “I was wondering what was going [on],” Elwell said. But Wasmer said the shutdown was not the problem. USDA officials have said that food benefits were not in immediate jeopardy from the shutdown. Funds would be available through late October, officials said.


Tom Sietsema: Buck’s Fishing & Camping in Chevy Chase still charms at age 10

In a year with a lot of fresh new places to have a meal, Buck’s Fishing & Camping marks its 10th year of doing the basics as well or better than anyone. For those of us who live to eat, 2013 will go down as one of the most appetizing years in recent memory. Fourteenth Street NW has hogged most of the ink and the bandwidth, with the debuts of such standard-bearers as Etto, Le Diplomate, Doi Moi and Kapnos, but other neighborhoods share credit for burnishing the Washington dining scene as well. No sooner did it open its doors this fall than Rose’s Luxury became the best place to eat on Capitol Hill, and Daikaya improved the odds of getting a good meal near Verizon Center with two fine menus under one roof, one devoted to ramen, the other to upscale Japanese pub fare. By the time you read this, Iron Gate Inn should have made a comeback in Dupont Circle, with ace chef Tony Chittum at the stove. The crush of so many fresh subjects to write about means I’ve had less time to keep tabs on restaurants that have fed food fans for a while, which is a long way of congratulating Buck’s Fishing & Camping on the occasion of its 10th anniversary in October. A decade might not seem like a long time to most people; for those of us steeped in the industry, however, 10 years is practically middle age. Among the constants in its picture have been Buck’s signature blood-red walls; its (truly) prime dry-aged New York strip steak; and owner James Alefantis, 38. The restaurateur retains the boyish charm he has always had and mixes easily and gleefully with the many notables — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, White House Social Secretary Jeremy Bernard — who add sizzle to the American restaurant, a Cafe Milano for boldface names who care about good food. There’s probably nothing you haven’t heard of on Buck’s short menu, but there are few local kitchens that do its familiar dishes better. I’ve munched on fields of onion rings over the years, but few plates compel me to get to the bottom like the one at Buck’s. The snack appears too white to have been fried, but sure enough, the crisp rings in light coats of beer batter have been expertly cooked. They’re great alone, sensational after a dunk


Marriott’s Arne Sorenson on the hospitality business, government shutdown

Arne Sorenson, chief executive officer of Marriott International. (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg) W The no-frills chain offered a lower-priced option for those traveling for work. Courtyard hotels were mostly in the suburbs in close proximity to business centers, hospitals and highways. Today, Courtyard’s 900-plus hotels have shifted to accommodate a growing number of leisure travelers and families as well. Most recently, the Bethesda-based company spent nearly $1 billion sprucing up lobbies and adding bistros to keep up with changing demands. The brand, which turns 30 this week, has evolved throughout the years. The company’s anniversary comes at a time when Washington area hotels are looking for ways to stay relevant in the business world as the government shutdown continues to batter the local hospitality industry. During the first week of the shutdown, revenue per available room, a key industry measure, fell 12.1 percent in the Washington area, according to research firm Robert W. Baird and Co. (Nationally, revenue per available room increased 0.1 percent.) How the shutdown will affect Courtyard and other Marriott hotels is yet to be seen, said Arne Sorenson, Marriott’s president and chief executive. Sorenson sat down with Capital Business last week to discuss business travel, the government shutdown and how the hospitality industry has changed in the past 30 years. What follows are excerpts from that conversation. Courtyard by Marriott was the company’s first move toward creating a brand that catered to a new market. Today the company has more than 18 brands — ranging from the low-end to luxury. Why did the company initially make that move to branch out? When Marriott opened Courtyard, it was the first to say, ‘We actually think we can have an umbrella of brands in distinct places.’ Courtyard was very much designed by the book. We went out and talked to customers, studied what is it they really needed when they travel. It was built for business travelers but also, to some extent, to provide a hotel in suburban markets where choices were dramatically lower [than in urban areas]. How has the mix of business and leisure travelers changed over the years? If you look at the industry as a whole over 20 years, leisure travel has grown faster than any other segment of travel. When I was growing up, we didn’t really stay in hotels when we went on vacations. We would maybe stay with relatives, maybe we would get


Amazon Web Services wins court case over CIA cloud contract

then took the battle to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Judge Thomas C. Wheeler granted Amazon’s motion and restored the original contract in a ruling last week. The CIA “and AWS may immediately resume performance of the [commercial cloud services] contract,” the judge wrote. Amazon said in a statement that it looks “forward to resuming our work on this important contract,” but IBM said in its own statement that it plans to appeal. “This court decision seems especially inappropriate in light of the current times, since IBM’s bid was superior in many ways, including being substantially more cost-effective,” the company added. The CIA said in a statement that it’s “pleased that it can now move forward with procuring critical cloud services for the intelligence community.” CACI buys Six3 Systems Arlington-based CACI International said last week that it has agreed to buy McLean-based Six3 Systems from private equity firm GTCR for $820 million to boost its cyber and intelligence work. Six3 employs about 1,600 and its revenue for the year is expected to be about $470 million, CACI said. The acquisition is the largest in CACI’s history of 57 deals, said Ken Asbury , the company’s chief executive. “We’re taking the long-term view of where the market’s going to go,” Asbury said in an interview last week. “We think that the market’s shifting to capable companies that are affordable.” He said Six3 will become a business group within CACI and retain its name and its leadership team. “We sort of don’t want to mess with their success,” he said. Astrophysics opens Crystal City office Astrophysics The office is to be led by Mark Laustra , who previously led government sales at Smiths Detection, the company said in its announcement. The 140-employee Astrophysics also has a facility in Ontario, Calif. GAO denies SoBran protest The GAO has denied a protest filed by Fairfax-based SoBran against a Social Security Administration contract awarded to Silver Spring-based Financial & Realty Services for warehouse support services. SoBran, the incumbent, had argued that its past performance was not rated highly enough. The company had earned a “very good” rating while FRS earned “neutral,” but SoBran priced its proposal at $5.7 million, higher than the FRS price of just under $5.3 million. The GAO noted that the “contracting officer then determined that the protester’s superior performance was not worth the $425,000 price differential” and backed the agency.


5 take-aways from DC Entrepreneurship Week’s panel on “Creating a Loyal Brand”

Building a loyal following can be challenging for new companies. The organizers of D.C. Entrepreneurship Week convened a panel of brand experts to discuss common problems and provide advice for upstarts on how to connect with customers. Here are a few takeaways from that conversation: 1. Start-up founders often spend too much time focusing on a name or a logo, when what’s really important is the actual product and “how you’re going to get the most value” to customers, said Jeff Majka, founder of Honeycomb Consulting, a content marketing, public relations and consulting firm based in Arlington. 2. “People invest emotions before they invest dollars,” independent sports marketing professional LaRhonda Burley said, noting consumers often support teams they associate with childhood memories, for instance, instead of the team with a better name. 3. Today, “marketing is a relationship, and sales is a transaction,” said Eric Holtzclaw, founder and chief executive of Laddering Works, a Marietta, Ga.-based marketing and product strategy firm. It used to be the other way around, he said, but marketers today need to nurture personal relationships with consumers to learn about their behavior. One-on-one interviews can help companies understand why consumers aren’t buying their product. 4. Both qualitative and quantitative data are necessary to tell the customer base’s whole story, said Holtzclaw, who has interviewed thousands of consumers about their buying behavior. Some businesses are misled by broad trends suggested by data analytics, when a better strategy is “taking a metric that’s not working, and using it qualitatively” — using it to direct conversations with consumers. 5. Start-up owners should value their customer’s time as they would their friends’, said Michael Lastoria, owner of the “&Pizza” chain with locations on Northeast Washington’s H Street and Northwest’s U Street. “Sending out a survey is very arrogant,” he said.


Many athletes tout the gluten-free way. What’s the science behind the claim?

Anna Medaris Miller finds that wheat weighs her down when preparing for a marathon. (Juana Arias/For The Washington Post) Whoever said that running a marathon is mostly mental lied. That’s what I was thinking as I winced across the 14th Street Bridge during the 2010 Marine Corps Marathon. After 20-plus miles, it wasn’t a lack of energy or a bad attitude that was holding me back but troubles with, to put it politely, my gastrointestinal tract. Though I finished the marathon, my second, it took me nearly two more years and two uncomfortable half-marathons to come to terms with the likely source of my problem: gluten. I don’t have celiac disease, an autoimmune reaction to gluten (a protein found in bread, pasta and many other foods containing wheat, barley or rye), but my internist says I am probably gluten-sensitive, a less serious condition that nonetheless can come with such symptoms as diarrhea, bloating and joint pain. While there is no diagnostic test for gluten sensitivity, the Center for Celiac Research at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children estimates that about 6 percent of Americans fit the condition’s murky criteria: They don’t have celiac, but their symptoms are alleviated when they stop eating gluten. Gluten-free diets are gaining popularity, with U.S. sales of these foods “reaching $4.2 billion in 2012, for a compound annual growth rate of 28 percent over the 2008-2012 period,” according to a report by the market research company Packaged Facts. “The conviction that gluten-free products are generally healthier is the top motivation for consumers of these products,” the report states. Miller prepares a garbanzo bean salad after running. (Juana Arias/For The Washington Post) It’s a striking shift, particularly among endurance athletes, who come from a carb-loading culture where pre-race pasta and post-race beer are as essential as the bib number on your back and the sneakers on your feet. All that is changing now: The idea that an endurance athlete’s diet needs to include plenty of carbohydrates — whether gluten-filled spaghetti or gluten-free potatoes — is no longer gospel. “What we used to say to endurance athletes is that 60 to 70 percent of their daily intake should be from carbs,” says Leslie Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “Now, that’s unnecessary. If you’re getting 50 percent, that’s enough.” Since cutting gluten out of my diet in August of last year, I’ve


Climate change affecting North American forests, researchers find

Climate change is making North American forests more vulnerable to insects and disease but is helping some trees grow faster and increase their resistance to pests, a team of researchers from Dartmouth College said Monday. Researchers reviewed almost 500 scientific studies dating back to the 1950s to produce what they called the most comprehensive review of the affect of climate change on the forests that cover about one-third of North America. The effort was undertaken as part of the National Climate Assessment in 2012. The researchers said that warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are boosting tree growth, which could have a positive impact on economies that depend on timber and wood pulp, and could help pull carbon out of the ecosystem. “We need to also start focusing on what could be — I don’t want to say ‘benefits,’ but the opportunities here,” said Aaron S. Weed, a Dartmouth postdoctoral researcher in ecology. Researchers found 27 insects and 22 diseases that are “notable agents of disturbance” in North American forests, according to their paper, published in the journal Ecological Monographs. Some areas devastated by insects or disease may be restored because of continued warming, with insects dying off because temperatures are too high for them, Weed said. But warming also allows insects to flourish and exaggerates their natural role in keeping forests healthy, the researchers found. Various types of bark beetles, for example, are doing more damage than expected, they said. “It is now clear that the large extent and expanding distribution of recent outbreaks have been permitted or exacerbated by increasing temperatures during the last decades,” the paper said. “Mountain and southern pine beetles are attacking hosts farther north and at higher elevations than historic norms,” in part because warmer winters are allowing insects to survive. In addition to insects and disease, droughts and fires also have been linked to climate change, Weed said.


Rapid CDC response to meningitis outbreak from tainted steroid saved lives

(Sam Kittner/Kittner.com) In September 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began receiving reports from health officials in Tennessee about patients diagnosed with a rare form of meningitis. This worrisome information set off alarm bells at the CDC, which quickly launched an emergency response team led by Dr. Jonathan Todd Weber. Weber, chief of CDC’s Prevention and Response Branch, and his team ultimately linked the outbreak to injections of a steroid which had been produced by the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts and distributed to 76 facilities in 23 states. While the Food and Drug Administration and the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy investigated the firm and halted further shipments of what turned out to be contaminated medication, the CDC worked with state and local health departments and clinical facilities to notify, in record time, approximately 14,000 potentially exposed patients. They also helped identify the pathogen and developed tests to detect it; put an epidemiology team to work tracking the course of the outbreak; alerted doctors and health care facilities across the country to stop using supplies of the dangerous drug; provided guidance to physicians on the limited treatment options; and offered a steady stream of information to the public. “This was the most successful outbreak response we have ever conducted,” said Dr. Ileana Arias, the CDC’s principal deputy. “More quickly than ever before, the CDC team identified what the problem was and where the problem came from, and assured rapid, direct notification of thousands of people who were potentially affected.” Who is Dr. J. Todd Weber POSITION: Chief, Prevention and Response Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention RESIDENCE: Atlanta, Ga. AGE: 55 EDUCATION: Princeton University, A.B.; College of Physicians Surgeons, Columbia University, M.D. AWARDS: 2013 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal finalist; 2012 CDC Excellence in Leadership Award; 2012 CDC Domestic Excellence in Emergency Response Award (group award, leader) As of Oct. 1, there were 750 reported cases of patients with infections attributed to the tainted steroid, including 64 deaths in 20 states. Most of the deaths occurred early on during the outbreak, and dramatically decreased after Weber and his CDC colleagues intervened. Dr. Rima Khabbaz, the CDC’s deputy director for infectious diseases, said it is tragic that people died and were sickened because of the contaminated medication. But she added that the rapid response by Weber and his group made a big difference. “There


Montgomery County asks U.S. to reopen shuttered Glen Echo Park

Montgomery County has asked the U.S. Department of the Interior to reopen Glen Echo Park, where a community of nonprofit arts groups that take no federal money have sustained heavy losses as a result of the 14-day government shutdown. While Glen Echo is on federal park land, it is operated by the Glen Echo Partnership, a nonprofit created by the county. Among the activities it sponsors are two childrens’ theater companies, arts workshops and the 1921 Dentzel Carousel. “A shutdown at the federal level should not result in the shutdown of a community asset that, in fact, receives no federal funding,” council member Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda) said in a letter Monday to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. It is an example, Berliner said, of “how unnecessarily disruptive the shutdown has been.” The partnership has been able to move some activities to other locations. But Berliner said revenue losses over a two-day weekend total about $67,000, a significant sum for an organization that runs on a shoestring budget. “We cannot allow this to continue,” Berliner said. County Executive Isiah Leggett will join Berliner and members of the Glen Echo Partnership on Tuesday morning at the park entrance on MacArthur Boulevard to formally call for the reopening.


Government shutdown generates stories of misery around the country

As Congress and the White House try to find their way out of the bleak hole that is this partial government shutdown, the damage it has done is becoming increasingly clear. The pain grows each day workers remain idle and services remain closed. Even with many federal employees being called back to work, albeit with Uncle Sam’s IOU in place of pay, the lapse in appropriations continues to raise havoc for many across the land. This was demonstrated by an online project by my Washington Post colleagues that let readers tell how the shutdown affects their lives. In just two days last week, Thursday and Friday, more than 2,300 replies were posted. They were classified in four areas: “It doesn’t affect me” (450), “It affects me a little” (380), “It affects me on a daily basis” (525) and “It threatens my livelihood” (962). Almost two-thirds said the shutdown affected them daily or threatened their livelihood. A map of the replies illustrates that the shutdown’s distress reaches to every corner of the nation, though, unfortunately, the posted responses are identified only by state. Here is a sampling of the misery: GRAPHIC How the shutdown affects departments Ohio Kentucky California Virginia Alaska Louisiana Arizona Oregon Maryland Idaho Washington state No effect Even some who said the shutdown does not affect them personally are concerned about their neighbors. Others said the shutdown demonstrates government’s uselessness. Virginia Louisiana — It has not affected me yet. But I work for a library system which depends on federal funding for some of the services we are able to provide. Any reduction in these services will have a negative impact on my hard-working, but poor people in this community. Wisconsin District Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.


Some national parks reopen during shutdown

The National Park Service is shut down, so New York paid to reopen the Statue of Liberty. (John Minchillo/Associated Press) The government shutdown continues with some hope for those who would like to visit the United States national parks: The Obama administration said last week it would allow states to use their own money to pay for park operations. Utah was the first to accept the offer, and all five national parks in the state reopened Saturday. Colorado also reached agreement to reopen Rocky Mountain National Park, and tourists returned Saturday to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. In Washington, monuments along the Mall have remained closed, as have the Smithsonian museums, including the National Zoo. Claude Moore Colonial Farm in McLean reopened last week; the National Park Service owns the land, but private donations and fees pay for the farm. The Statue of Liberty reopened Sunday with New York footing the bill. South Dakota, helped by several donations, started paying the National Park Service to reopen Mount Rushmore on Monday. — Associated Press


Nightlife Agenda: Comedian Q&A and beer release

Every Tuesday, the Going Out Gurus highlight the week’s best DJs, bands, dance nights and parties. Find a longer list of events at www.goingoutguide.com. Bruce Vilanch Q&A Bruce Vilanch is one of the funniest men in America, even if most people know him only from his regular appearances on “Hollywood Squares.” Vilanch has been the head joke writer for the Academy Awards since 2000, starred as Enid Turnblad in both the Broadway and touring productions of “Hairspray” and made an indie comedy called “Oy Vey, My Son Is Gay.” Expect plenty of his trademark wit and encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture during a Q&A session at Cobalt this weekend. The event runs from 9 to 11 p.m., but you can skip the $10 cover charge if you’re in the door by 9. Friday at 9 p.m. Cobalt, 1639 R St. NW. 202-232-4416. www.cobaltdc.com. $10; free before 9 p.m. Port City Revival release party Fresh from winning four medals at the Great American Beer Festival, Alexandria’s Port City Brewing Company is set to reintroduce its Revival Oyster Stout. It’s a traditional British style of stout that uses oysters to add brininess and a smooth texture to the beer (trust us — it’s better than it sounds). Port City is again partnering with the War Shore Oyster Company on this beer, so it’s only natural that the tapping party pairs oyster stout with freshly shucked oysters. Head to the brewery tasting room Friday evening and grab a half-dozen War Shore oysters and a pint of Revival for $17 while supplies last. Each beer helps the environment, too: Five percent of all sales goes toward restoring the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster supply. Friday from 5-9 p.m. Port City Brewing Company, 3950 Wheeler Ave., Alexandria. 703-797-2739. www.portcitybrewing.com. Free. ’80s Dance Party 20th anniversary The ’80s Dance Party was nothing short of a phenomenon in the 1990s, drawing hundreds of people to Adams Morgan’s Club Heaven every Thursday for their fix of Madonna, Duran Duran, Wham! and Kajagoogoo. While DJs spun songs found only on “Totally Awesome ’80s” compilations, John Hughes movies played on projection screens and bachelorette partiers sporting jelly bracelets danced next to college students. The event lost momentum when it left Heaven a few years back, but it’s making a return to Black Whiskey for its 20th-anniversary celebration. DJ Neal Keller says the focus is more on alternative and new wave hits these


Craft launched from Virginia now orbiting moon

In this image released by NASA, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer observatory launches aboard the Minotaur V rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Sept. 6, 2013. (CARLA CIOFFI/AFP/Getty Images) NASA has largely been shut down, but not the spacecraft launched last month from Virginia. It is now flying around the moon. “Yes,” a spokesman for Orbital Sciences said Monday by e-mail. “It is in lunar orbit.” The spacecraft, known as LADEE, was carried into space from the NASA facility at Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore by a launch vehicle designed, built and operated by Orbital for the Air Force. The Sept. 6 launch was the first to send a spacecraft to the moon from Virginia. The fiery trail of the rocket that propelled LADEE upward was visible for hundreds of miles along the Eastern Seaboard. As the spacecraft orbited Earth in preparation for making its transition to lunar orbit, NASA issued regular updates on the mission. But with the partial shutdown of the government, those ceased. Attempts to find the Web site devoted to the mission received this response: “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.” However, the spacecraft, which is about the size of a small automobile, remained in operation. Just before the shutdown, it was reported that its mission was at a critical stage. At that time, it was approaching the point at which it was to end its orbits of Earth and be placed under the pull of the moon’s gravity. Its onboard propulsion unit was to add enough energy to start LADEE on its approach to the moon. Next, plans called for what was described as the critical maneuver that would insert it into orbit around the moon. This do-or-die maneuver, which was to determine the success or failure of the mission, was apparently successful. The idea now is for the spacecraft to make its passes around the moon and conduct the scientific experiments for which it was launched. These include studies of the minuscule number of atoms and molecules that make up the lunar atmosphere. Also to be scrutinized by the spacecraft are dust particles flung up from the lunar surface. The corporate headquarters of Orbital, which provided the launch vehicle, is in the Dulles area, adding to the mission’s Virginia associations. Related


Minotaur V rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Sept. 6, 2013. (CARLA CIOFFI/AFP/Getty Images) NASA has largely been shut down, but not the spacecraft launched last month from Virginia. It is now flying around the moon. “Yes,” a spokesman for Orbital Sciences said Monday by e-mail. “It is in lunar orbit.” The spacecraft, known as LADEE, was carried into space from the NASA facility at Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore by a launch vehicle designed, built and operated by Orbital for the Air Force. The Sept. 6 launch was the first to send a spacecraft to the moon from Virginia. The fiery trail of the rocket that propelled LADEE upward was visible for hundreds of miles along the Eastern Seaboard. As the spacecraft orbited Earth in preparation for making its transition to lunar orbit, NASA issued regular updates on the mission. But with the partial shutdown of the government, those ceased. Attempts to find the Web site devoted to the mission received this response: “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.” However, the spacecraft, which is about the size of a small automobile, remained in operation. Just before the shutdown, it was reported that its mission was at a critical stage. At that time, it was approaching the point at which it was to end its orbits of Earth and be placed under the pull of the moon’s gravity. Its onboard propulsion unit was to add enough energy to start LADEE on its approach to the moon. Next, plans called for what was described as the critical maneuver that would insert it into orbit around the moon. This do-or-die maneuver, which was to determine the success or failure of the mission, was apparently successful. The idea now is for the spacecraft to make its passes around the moon and conduct the scientific experiments for which it was launched. These include studies of the minuscule number of atoms and molecules that make up the lunar atmosphere. Also to be scrutinized by the spacecraft are dust particles flung up from the lunar surface. The corporate headquarters of Orbital, which provided the launch vehicle, is in the Dulles area, adding to the mission’s Virginia associations. Related news: SpaceX launches Falcon 9; Orbital’s Cygnus docks with international space station Successful launch for Antares rocket


Asia wants a piece of U.S. shale gas boom; Japan, South Korea seek lower-cost LNG

nearly that dramatic. The United States will not become a net exporter of LNG until 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Moreover, the export facilities need special government approval before they can send gas to non-free-trade countries. South Korea is the only major importer that has a free-trade deal with the United States. The Obama administration has allowed four terminals to export to non-free-trade countries, including permission last month for Dominion Resources to export from its Cove Point facility in Maryland. Such approvals are controversial because a major increase in U.S. exports could cause domestic gas prices to rise. In addition, environmental advocates say the process used to extract shale gas, known as fracking, can contaminate groundwater and cause other forms of pollution. Those who advocate exporting, though, say the United States is taking too long to sign off on larger-scale exporting and is losing ground to Canada. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said last month that Canada and Japan would cooperate more closely on gas deals. Japan is also involved in two of the four approved export deals in the United States. By the time U.S. or Canadian gas reaches Asia, it won’t cost the $3 or $4 per million British thermal units it does domestically. Investment and transportation costs will drive up the price. Speaking Monday, Shigeru Muraki, executive vice president of Tokyo Gas, estimated that the delivery price to Asia will fall between $10 and $11. Some U.S. energy officials said the price could be even higher — though below the current going rate in Asia. LNG is attractive because it burns cleaner than coal. Because it does not require pipelines, it also allows easier linkups between buyers and sellers, probably increasing competition. North American gas has become accessible in the past decade with technological advances that allow companies to access reserves in fine-grained sedimentary rock. The gas is extracted through fracking, in which water and chemicals are blasted at high pressure into wells. That pressure cracks rock and releases the trapped gas. Other countries have shale gas reserves but face obstacles because of remote geography, inadequate technology or insufficient financing for development. “The pace and scale of what we’ve seen in North America will not and probably cannot be replicated in the foreseeable future,” said Martin Houston, chief operating officer and executive director of the BG Group, an oil and gas company in Britain.


Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site to reopen, thanks to $25,000 donation

Holly Twyford (with background Right to Left: Craig Wallace, Kimberly Gilbert, Chris Stezin and Mitchell Hebert) in the Ford's Theatre production of The Laramie Project, directed by Matthew Gardiner. (Carol Rosegg) How much does it cost to override a government shutdown? For Ford’s Theatre, $25,000. That’s the amount of emergency funding that trustee Ronald Perelman donated to the Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site so it could reopen Wednesday. The site has been closed since Oct. 1. As other states have green-lighted funding for national parks to reopen in certain jurisdictions, Paul R. Tetreault, director of the Ford’s Theatre Society, spoke over the weekend with the National Park Service to determine whether Ford’s could sidestep the shutdown, as well. The society agreed to sponsor the park operations that NPS typically pays for in four-day increments; the $25,000 will last for eight days. “Once I heard that the Grand Canyon was going to open and they were opening Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty, I started thinking, ‘Wait a minute. If we’re opening national parks, that’s what we are,’ ” said Tetreault. Ford’s reached out to Perelman, “a great friend of Ford’s [and] a founding sponsor of the Lincoln Legacy Project,” Tetreault said, because “he’s someone who could operate quickly on something like this and someone who had the vision to understand the value of something like this.” Performances of “The Laramie Project,” which runs through Oct. 27, will begin again at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets for the rest of the run will be $25. The site will be open for daytime visits starting at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. Colin Cech and Maya Brettell in the Adventure Theatre MTC production of Goodnight Moon. (Mike Horan) The run of “Laramie” was scheduled to coincide with the 15th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death. “There’s sort of a poignancy to that, a milestone,” said Tetreault. “The thought that we would not be performing, after all this planning, was sort of tragic for me. So that poignancy has been, I think, not lost on anyone on staff. This is an important work . . . whose anniversary we’re marking, and I think it’s important for us to get that work seen.” Ford’s held a vigil for Shepard on Friday night at First Congregational United Church of Christ. “Dennis Shepard [Matthew’s father] was actually with us on Friday night at the vigil,” said Tetreault. “I’ve said throughout


Off to a great start at Rose’s Luxury

everything that follows the freebies gives us the sense that Washington is gaining another dining sensation along the lines of such personal statements as Etto in Logan Circle and Little Serow in Dupont Circle. The pork dish, in particular, is one of those combinations I expect to see on future Best of 2013 lists. The bowl brings together crumbled country ham sausage, juicy litchis, coconut milk, red onion and a bouquet of tropical herbs that together initiate that joy ride the waiter promised. There are peanuts for crunch, habaneros for fire and mint for a breeze; thrills aplenty. The backgrounds of the staff, led by chef-owner Aaron Silverman, 31, read like a list of hot spots from around the country. General Manager Andy Erdmann hails from the esteemed Uchi and Uchiko in Austin. Chef de cuisine Scott Muns comes to the project from the very good Volt in Frederick. Last but far from least, Silverman, a Maryland native who trained at L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, counts time at the beloved McCrady’s in Charleston and Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York. The top chef’s philosophy is simple: “I’m not in the restaurant business. I’m in the good times business.” Fun is in his blood; the restaurant’s name is a salute to the chef’s long-gone grandmother, Rose Silverman, revered in her time for her dinner parties, poetry and playwriting. “She enjoyed life and having fun,” says her grandson. Time for a course of cauliflower, which is deep-fried and served with goat’s-milk yogurt and golden raisins, one of a handful of dishes on the list to please those who avoid meat. The next dish, for two, is a heaping helping of sliced brisket that our waiter compelled us to get after sharing a personal story. Turns out he’s Jewish and had only ever had his grandmother’s brisket. She came in to Rose’s Luxury, tried the restaurant’s version — and made a face when her grandson came to the table. “I don’t like it,” she told him. “It’s better than mine.” Our verdict: Smoky slices of beef served with pickled sliced apples, pears and cabbage along with horseradish cream for slathering on white toast makes a super supper. Our waiter (can we clone the guy?) instructs us to turn the ingredients on the platter into sandwiches, or what he calls “Hebrew tacos.” Silverman says he decorated his two-story, 75-seat, no-reservations restaurant with items


Genetically modified foods: What is and isn’t true

Should foods made with GMOs be so labeled on store shelves? Former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman breaks down the debate, including the value of the "organic" designation that's becoming more and more popular. Editor’s note: Today we introducea monthly column by Tamar Haspelthat focuses attention on the factsbehind various food-policy debates. Welcome to Unearthed, an effort that will dig deep to try and figure out what’s true and what isn’t in the debate about our food supply. “Debate” is a nice name for it. Sometimes it’s more like a melee — a meme-driven, name-calling free-for-all. Hackles, and voices, are raised. Rotten fruit is thrown. And all kinds of things pass for fact. Did you hear that Monsanto doesn’t serve genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in its cafeterias? It’s not just genetic modification. We’re arguing about organics, honeybees, factory livestock, fishery depletion, aquaculture, yields, antibiotics, monocrops and chemicals. Some of these can be as polarizing as the most difficult social issues; there’s as deep a schism in the food community as there is in Congress. On the right, there’s the insistence that biotech is the only way to feed a growing population, and the reluctance to admit the shortcomings of industrial agriculture. On the left, it’s just the opposite. Monsanto, the avatar for Big Ag, is evil incarnate. Unearthed is an attempt to negotiate the schism and nail down the hard, cold facts. The challenge is that, too often, facts are warm and slippery; evidence has a maddening way of being equivocal. Look at any current scientific question — any at all — and you can cherry-pick evidence to support the position you happen to like. Case in point: the impact on human health of genetically modified crops, Unearthed Issue No. 1. Are they safe to eat? There’s a great deal of research on the subject, but parsing the hundreds of studies done on GMO safety requires more time and expertise than most of us have. Instead, we look to someone else, someone we trust, to do it for us. And so the question of whether GMOs are safe becomes a very different question: Whom do you trust? Most of us are already leaning one way or the other on GMOs, and it’s natural to trust the source we agree with. And there’s the problem. We talk to people who share our worldview (it’s a nicer word than bias), dig our heels


Tales from the Old Post Office. Plus: Holding it along the C&O Canal.

the fudge from dripping off the sides of the counter. And man, was it good!” Karen Gill Noted Karen: “The Old Post Office Pavilion has been a ghost town since the government shutdown began.” Please don’t call it a ‘John’ Once or twice a week, Zoltan Bagdy of Germantown walks his daughter and son-in-law’s yellow Lab, Oszkar, on the C&O Canal towpath. Recently, he went to walk the Calico Rocks segment. Because of the shutdown, the gate was locked. “Of course, all you have to do is take about four steps to the left of the gate, walk down the grassy knoll and you are at the towpath,” wrote Zoltan. “Which we did. We saw a few bikers, no hikers, a man and his son fishing. About halfway through our customary walk, there is a hiker/biker campsite, which includes a Jiffy John and an artesian well.” Both were victims of the shutdown: The well was dismantled, and the toilet was wrapped with a metal band so it couldn’t be used. Wrote Zoltan: “The impact of the shutdown ranges from the tragic — cancer patients not admitted to NIH trials, the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan not receiving the customary death benefits, etc. — to mildly annoying, to the ridiculous. Clearly, our experience with the shuttered toilet and the dismantled well falls in the last category. No harm was done — I didn’t have to go, and Oszkar doesn’t use the facilities anyway. Nevertheless, this experience pointed out that the shutdown pervades even the most trivial aspects of our daily life. “One day the shutdown will be over, politicians and pundits will declare that order is restored, the wellwater will be flowing. Oszkar and I will have a drink at the well, and keep our fingers crossed that indeed, order is restored.” Blowup After reading my Sept. 30 column about old cameras, Leslie Wilder of Alexandria wrote to say that she was a “PK,” too: a photographer’s kid. Her father even had a makeshift darkroom, though it occupied a critical room in their house. “God help anyone who needed to use the toilet while he was developing,” she wrote. In the 1960s, Leslie and her sister went on a trip to Europe with their dad. “[We] joked that we automatically put a hand out every time we stopped to hold a lens for him.” For previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.


Jackie’s, Montmartre and the Source: Good, but not always great dining

oil in the toss, merits a permanent place on the list. Chef Brian Wilson, formerly with Tallula in Clarendon, tends to serve American-style portions. This restaurant lacks the sweep of Le Diplomate in Logan Circle, my favorite French destination these days, or the elan of Et Voila!, the intimate dining room with a Belgian twist in the Palisades. But Montmartre serves those who live nearby well, and sometimes “good” is satisfaction enough. Scott Drewno aces dumplings. One of the most difficult decisions a diner has to make at the Source , the chef’s pan-Asian restaurant next to the Newseum, is which edible pouch not to order. Chicken- and mushroom-plumped purses are just as happy-making as supple wheat wrappers hiding pork belly and fresh ginger, after all. The latter dumplings are especially appealing, splashed as they are with Chinese black vinegar and chili oil. Of late, however, my affection for the one-time three-star destination has lessened. A racy base of chilies and tomato and a sprightly crown of julienned vegetables do their best to prop up an otherwise dull and mushy crab cake. Even the signature lacquered duck lacks luster; its mahogany skin is thick and stiff rather than sheer and snappy. The kitchen does better with accompaniments: the long, gravy-swollen noodles that ride to the table with that duck are good enough to star on their own. Wok-cooked steak au poivre gets its explosive flavor from Sichuan peppercorns, and as much as I like the main event, its charred corn salad is the dish that gets scraped clean from the plate (as well it should for $45). Tandoor-cooked tautog, or blackfish, perched on a mute mash of eggplant delivers an Indian misfire. Pass on the cheesecake, but find space for a slab of carrot cake, its many layers alternating white with spice (and enough for a party to share). The two-story, glass-wrapped Source remains as sleek as ever, and the hostesses couldn’t be sweeter, but the restaurant’s lofty tabs and occasionally indifferent food suggest you’ll walk, rather than rush, back. Read about the 40 restaurants that made it into Tom’s 2013 Fall Dining Guide. Next week: J&G Steakhouse in D.C. ★ ★ (Good) Jackie’s 8081 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring. 301-565-9700. PRICES: SOUND CHECK: ★ ★ (Good) Montmartre 327 Seventh St. SE. 202-544-1244. PRICES: SOUND CHECK: ★ ★ ½ star (Good/Excellent) The Source 575 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. 202-637-6100. PRICES: SOUND CHECK:


Great Stink Bug Count survives the shutdown

It looked as if one of the beneficiaries of the government shutdown was going to be the nation’s most wanted bug. We’re talking about a nasty insect here. Call it Notorious B.U.G. Some folks had bemoaned the fate of the Agriculture Department’s “Great Stink Bug Count,” a citizen-led census of the pesky brown bugs that was thrown into question because of the shuttered government. The count, which began last month and ends Tuesday, is aimed at fighting the brown marmorated stink bug, which the USDA this year named its “top invasive insect of interest.” That’s the entomological equivalent of the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Those dastardly little red-eyed scourges have gnawed through crops across the Mid-Atlantic region — and they have few natural predators. The project called on participants to conduct a daily count of the pests they spotted on the exteriors of their homes and to submit the information online. “By the end of October, scientists expect to have the raw numbers they will need to start compiling data,” our colleague Darryl Fears reported last month. “They plan to analyze the colors of homes, their sizes, location, elevation and surrounding vegetation to see what attracts the bugs.” But then came the shutdown. Web sites went down. Researchers were furloughed. The horror was that the bugs were going unchecked. But never fear. We’re told that the participants in the project — more than 300 people, from middle-school students to music professors — were already keeping records before the shutdown, and that the USDA’s university partners have stepped in to collect them after the government had to go dark. Eventually, there will be a pile of data for the government researchers. The government took pains to keep national security functions going. But the war on stink bugs? Good thing we’re not losing our edge there, either. Cruz control? Not that we’re likening the folks on Capitol Hill to evil dictators — or even hungry sharks. But when we spotted former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson’s new book, “How to Sweet-Talk a Shark: Strategies and Stories From a Master Negotiator,” we couldn’t help think there might be some parallels to the current stalemate. Richardson’s book offers lessons from the longtime political hand’s dealings with the likes of “Castro, Saddam, the Taliban, two generations of North Korean leadership, and many more of the world’s most infamous dictators,” according to


Seven reasons why the National Park Service closed the World War II Memorial

Hundreds of veterans frustrated with the government shutdown marched from the World War II Memorial to the White House on Sunday, protesting the closure of Washington’s monuments and memorials. Are some World War II veterans angry that the memorial created in their honor is off limits because of the partial government shutdown? You bet they are. The old warriors and their friends stormed passed barriers at the site Sunday, carried a few of the gates to the White House and tussled with police. Now, some Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of political theater — of deliberately keeping the memorial closed to punctuate the pain caused by the shutdown and federal worker furloughs. Administration officials deny that, and counter that the Republicans were largely responsible for the shutdown in the first place. As National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis prepares for a grilling before House Republicans on Wednesday, he and other officials say the Park Service has had no choice but to padlock the National World War II Memorial, one of the most popular venues on the Mall. Here, they say, is why: It doesn’t have the manpower to keep it open. The shutdown forced the Park Service to furlough about 20,000 workers, including the 300 who work at Mall and memorial parks sites. Jarvis said his skeleton crew is working “diligently to try and ensure” that visitors are allowed to assemble at the sites and even stage a protest if they want. But that’s not enough for some war veterans, who say they might not get another chance to thoroughly explore the memorials of their choice. WWII veterans who visit Washington aren’t the only veterans affected. The federal government is in the third week of a shutdown while Congress worked out a deal to fund its operations and to avoid a possible default because of the debt limit. Congress made them do it. The House and Senate “charged the National Park Service with the preservation and protection” of the sites, Jarvis said. He did not answer why a few rangers couldn’t be assigned to highly popular sites — especially ones for aging war veterans. Instead, he said, the workers have to protect the sites whether they’re open or not. And considering that a vandal splattered green paint on the Lincoln Memorial this summer, vigilance is a major priority, he said. Not all visitors can be trusted. Skeleton crews are


Where grass roots are really unhappy: White House garden goes untended amid shutdown

The White House garden, as seen from outside the fence, on Tuesday. (Bill O'Leary/Washington Post) Oh, Mrs. Obama, how does your garden grow? During the government shutdown, apparently wildly. The White House Kitchen Garden, planted with great fanfare by the first lady and the National Park Service in April 2009, is now gangly and weedy. The garden’s unruly state was first reported by Eddie Gehman Kohan, who blogs about White House food policy and has posted day-by-day updates of the garden during the shutdown. Wild mushrooms have begun to grow, she wrote. Weeds have sprouted. Sweet potatoes are unpicked. It is not the usual state of the picture-perfect garden, which had its own spread in Better Homes and Gardens two years ago. “National Park Service employees are only watering the kitchen garden as needed,” Jennifer Mummart, a spokeswoman for the park service’s National Capital Region said in an e-mail. “And, yes, this is consistent with how we are caring for other managed landscapes during the shutdown.” (Apparently, watering the garden is “essential,” otherwise the plants would die. Weeding is not.) The partial government shutdown has also effectively shut down Michelle Obama’s public schedule. Glimpses of the first lady outside the White House have been rare in the past 15 days. Her team, cut to the bone along with the rest of the White House staff, has announced no events. “We are hopeful the shutdown can come to an end soon so that we can be back up and running and executing the first lady’s various activities,” a White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said Tuesday. In bits and pieces, a picture of how Obama has spent her time during the shutdown has emerged. In a “West Wing Week” video produced by White House videographers, the first lady is shown walking through the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Day 9 of the shutdown. “Thanks for looking out for our folks,” she said as she shook hands with one worker after another, all on duty despite the furlough. On Day 11, the White House released a photo of the president, first lady and their older daughter, Malia, in the Oval Office with Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani school girl turned activist. On Day 15, the first lady joined the president and vice president at the Medal of Honor ceremony for William Swenson,


Federal workers seeking unemployment checks show harsh impact of shutdown

Federal worker protest outside the Department of Health and Human Services offices Tuesday in Cincinnati. (Al Behrman/AP) For federal employees, seeking unemployment compensation is one clear example of how the government shutdown is much harsher than a “temporary inconvenience,” as Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) recently declared. The District, Maryland and Virginia all report sky-high levels of unemployment claims from federal employees after the shutdown began Oct. 1. Since my colleague Luz Lazo reported on the increase in applications just days after that, the numbers have exploded. Unemployment claims from furloughed federal workers in the District numbered 15,500 as of Tuesday morning, according to Najla A. Haywood, a public information officer at the District’s Department of Employment Services. It usually gets 30,000 claims a year from all applicants. Maryland received more than 18,600 claims from federal workers from Oct. 1 through Oct. 10, compared with 3,000 in a normal year. “This is a pretty unusual situation,” said Maureen O’Connor, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. The story repeats itself in Virginia. More than 5,260 claims were filed by feds there as of Monday. Last week there were 3,500 more claims than the average of the four previous weeks. These numbers don’t include claims from federal contract workers and those indirectly hit by the shutdown, such as employees of snack shops that rely on the federal workforce. Congress might decide to provide back pay to furloughed feds. The House has voted to do so, and it’s under consideration in the Senate. If that happens, there will be no double-dipping. The workers will have to return the unemployment compensation. “If they get paid retroactively, then they will have to pay it back. That will be like any other overpayment that is made,” said Virginia Employment Commission spokeswoman Joyce Fogg. The District and Maryland also follow that policy. The fact that employees of the world’s most powerful nation must seek unemployment compensation while other staffers are continuing to work with no guarantee of pay should humiliate the government’s elected leadership — particularly House Republicans who led us into this briar patch. “It’s a terrible disgrace that so many federal employees who have a job and are desperate to be doing their jobs are forced to file for unemployment insurance to pay their bills. And it’s a further disgrace that so many more are going to work each day without


We all want what we want. So what makes the tea party any different?

with the crowd at Saturday’s rally at the World War II Memorial, at which Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin spoke, protesters carried “Barry-cades” from the Mall and dumped them in front of the White House, and one man waved a Confederate flag. No, at Glen Echo, nobody blames the president; on his way to the podium, the head of a pottery arts program joked, “We need a [Sen. Ted] Cruz puppet.’’ In presidential years, the local polling place typically goes 70-something percent Democratic — and then what everyone wants to know is who all those secret Republicans are. Glen Echo Park’s nonprofit groups serve some 450,000 people each year on a shoestring budget, said Boerner. In the past two weeks since the shutdown began, they say they have lost more than $300,000, with glassblowers and silversmiths furloughed, five weddings relocated and a show called “Wearable PINK: Cancer Journeys in Jewelry” on hold. With a 13-month-old at home, Jordan Bruns of the Yellow Barn can’t paint at home, so he has fallen behind in preparing for Art Basel in Miami in December. In a desperate effort to keep her drawing class together, one art teacher has had her students sketching a live model — not nude, alas — on a nearby sidewalk. And the Glen Echo shutdown even took out my fence the other day, when a dad with small kids in the car, befuddled by the barricades blocking the park entrance, tried to turn around, knocked down my nice white pickets and didn’t stop until he hit the rose bushes. (Sen. Cruz, are you on your way over, I hope, with a hammer and some nails?) My $480 problem is hardly on par with the pre-kindergartners who might soon be locked out of Head Start, or with the already struggling nonprofit arts groups across the way. They’re artists, not defense contractors. Still, I’m not sure asking for an exemption for the park is in keeping with a view of ourselves as upright upholders of a communitarian ethos, in a little town by the C&O Canal or anywhere else in America. Unless we put principles over puppets, I don’t know how that’s any different from the tea partiers who want the memorials they like opened, and the programs they favor funded, while the rest remain closed. But whether we’re agitating for veterans or zydeco, that’s not how “E pluribus unum” works.


Prince William County news in brief

House of Mercy to help feed furloughed employees House of Mercy, a faith-based humanitarian organization, is offering free food to federal employees and contract workers affected by the government shutdown. To receive food, bring an employee identification to House of Mercy, 8170 Flannery Ct., Manassas. For information, call 703-659-1636 or e-mail help@houseofmercyva.org. Police warn residents about coyotes in county, offer tips The Prince William County Police Department’s Animal Control Bureau advises residents to take precautions to avoid contact with coyotes. →When walking dogs, keep them on leashes at all times and stay on established trails in park areas to avoid possible coyote dens. →Coyotes generally hunt at night and will eat cats, small dogs and other small pets. Do not leave pets outside unattended, especially at night. →Do not leave pet food, including bird seed, outside. →Secure trash cans. →If a coyote appears sick, injured or aggressive, call Animal Control at 703-792-6500. According to the Animal Control, coyotes will approach humans only under unusual circumstances. Making loud noises, such as clapping and yelling, will typically scare them off. — Compiled by Sarah Lane


Montgomery County Animal Watch

This was among the cases received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5054. That number provides recorded information on topics such as the Montgomery County Animal Shelter hours and location, adoption and licensing procedures, rabies clinics and low-cost neutering. Tethered dog in distress Montgomery County Humane Society Damascus Olney Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Shelter has adoptable cats Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County no-kill shelter Gaithersburg 12 Park Ave. 6 to 8 p.m. FridayNoon to 3 p.m. Saturday 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday Wildlife Center open house — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


On the Hill, small business owners blast Congress for government shutdown

don’t have deep pockets where we can keep people on the payroll.” If the shutdown ends this week, she says it will likely take her a year to recoup all the losses and get back on track. If it continues for several more weeks, the damage could be far worse. “I’m really concerned that I will be forced to close my business if a resolution is not reached quickly,” Poole said, later calling the gridlock in Washington “disturbing.” “We have sacrificed, struggled and slowly made progress as a woman-owned small business, and the shutdown threatens to destroy all our progress, wiping away a decade of sacrifice,” she added. Keith Griffall, chief executive of TL Technologies in Salt Lake City, Utah “It would be pretty hard to overstate the adverse economic effects this shutdown of the government and the national parks have had on small businesses and entire communities,” said Griffall, whose firm operates group travel tours all across the western United States. It is not just the tour-operating firms, he said, but gift shops, restaurants and hotels that have all been hit hard by the closed signs hanging at the entrance to the nation’s 59 national parks. In total, the U.S. Tourism Association has estimated the shutdown is costing tourism firms approximately $152 million per day. “They are suffering, and many of their workers will not see the money come back. Those waiters, for example, they are not going to get back pay,” Griffal said. “It’s just one more devastating blow to small businesses throughout America.” Antwayne Ford, chief executive of Enlightened, Inc. in Washington, D.C. Enlighten is a cybersecurity and information technology consulting firm that services the federal government, and due to halted contracts, Ford says he has been “forced to say goodbye to some his best and brightest employees.” “We were forced to immediately furlough two employees due to a loss of work at the Department of Justice, and we have had to furlough 25 more in the 14 days since October 1,” he said. Even those not yet affected, he added, “live in real danger of losing their jobs, meanwhile, they watch their elected representatives battle one another in a war of uncompromising positions.” Once the shutdown ends, he worries it will be harder to attract talented individuals to come work in a contracting sector that appears less and less stable. In addition, if the shutdown lasts


D.C. region’s top leaders decry shutdown impacts, lambaste Congress for inaction

women could be affected. “Right now, our state and local governments are eating through reserves to keep these programs alive," she said. The District has not been so lucky. Gray also cited lost revenue, including taxes on a roughly $2 million decline in hotel bookings. But the city has seen more substantial service impacts. Because its local budget is uniquely appropriated by Congress, it has been forced to meet virtually all of its spending needs from a $144 million reserve fund. City employees have remained on the job and received their paychecks earlier this week, but other payments have been frozen, including a Metro subsidy transfer and reimbursements to Medicaid contractors. Gray renewed his calls for Congress to grant the city greater spending autonomy — and his regional neighbors joined in. The mayor said after the news conference that he had asked for their statements of support during the meeting: “I didn’t think I had to, but of course I did.” Baker and Leggett described losing significant income tax revenues during the shutdown period and expressed doubt that their counties would be made completely whole, even if Congress offers furloughed employees back pay as expected. Leggett said the $500,000 a day tax impact has placed a new burden on a county budget that was decimated in recent years by the global economic slowdown: “We thought we would see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “The light we’re seeing is an oncoming train.” The local leaders spoke not long after Senate leaders announced a bipartisan deal that promises to reopen the government as soon as Thursday. But none of the local leaders, all Democrats, expressed much optimism about the deal. And all were critical, to varying degrees, of the process that had produced it. “I think, frankly, this sends such a poor message to our own nation and to the world in terms of how our nation is doing business,” Gray said. “People are just shaking their head. Is this the same United States of America we have known for decades and centuries, because it just doesn’t seem the same.” Bulova called the shutdown “irresponsible,” while Baker expressed frustration that it was rooted in an effort by congressional Republicans to roll back the federal health-care overhaul. “This is self-induced,” Baker said. “That’s the thing that gets all of us as we look around here. Well, we didn’t


A large-scale climate experiment

Michael Gerson’s Oct. 11 op-ed column, “A difficult climate,” was one of the best articulations of the core problem with climate policy that I have encountered. He clearly established that the root of the problem lies not with the uncertainty of the data on climate change but with the unwillingness of politicians to address risks when such risks are unequally distributed and when policies show results only in the very long term. Even the straightforward climate problem of reducing the ozone hole, which was relatively easy to fix, ended up in a protracted political struggle when opponents either could not understand the risks involved or were unwilling, on ideological grounds, to act. At present, the least that can be said is that we are conducting a large-scale climate experiment by infusing the atmosphere with huge quantities of greenhouse gases. The results of this experiment are difficult to predict with great accuracy, but to simply ignore the risks is not enlightened policy. Paul Hundley, Batesville, Va.


Howard faculty group votes no confidence in key Board of Trustees committee

University’s Faculty Senate approved a resolution of no confidence in the executive committee of the Board of Trustees on Wednesday, slightly more than two weeks after the school’s president announced his abrupt retirement. The resolution passed 57 to 11, with 23 members abstaining, according to Gregory Jenkins, a physics professor who supported it. The Faculty Senate chairman, political science professor Lorenzo Morris, said he was awaiting for a final vote count but confirmed that the resolution was approved. The vote comes during a transition for the historically black university in Northwest Washington. Sidney A. Ribeau, its president for five years, is retiring Dec. 31 amid questions about Howard’s financial health and its recent decline in U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings. On Wednesday, the university’s interim president, Wayne A.I. Frederick, announced several changes in the school’s leadership team, including the appointment of former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke as interim provost. Schmoke, who has served as dean of the law school and as the university’s general counsel, will be the chief academic officer. Frederick also said the university plans to announce the appointment of a new chief financial officer soon, and he noted that student enrollment rebounded this fall after a decline in 2012. Morris said that Frederick received a standing ovation as he addressed the faculty. The no-confidence vote again focused a spotlight on a board that has had recent internal disputes. Renee Higginbotham-Brooks, the vice chairwoman, wrote a letter in April that raised alarms about Howard’s management and fiscal condition. Her letter surfaced publicly in June. The board chairman, Addison Barry Rand, replied that the university “remains academically, financially and operationally strong.” The board’s executive committee is tasked with, among other duties, evaluating the performance of the university president. Under the board’s bylaws, Rand is the committee chairman. After the Faculty Senate’s vote, Jenkins said in an e-mail: “We are hopeful that there will be positive change and reorganization of the executive committee and a new chair” of the Board of Trustees. Rand said in a statement: “While we have not received official notification of such action from the Faculty Senate, we remain committed to shared governance and engagement of President Frederick, the faculty, students, staff and alumni. Above all, the board is committed to effective governance as we make timely, appropriate and difficult decisions as all governing boards and universities must do from time to time.”


Congressional deal to end shutdown is met with cautious optimism from federal workers

The federal government is in the third week of a shutdown while Congress worked out a deal to fund its operations and to avoid a possible default because of the debt limit. They rushed back from out-of-town trips. They phoned relatives who were helping them pay bills, to thank them. And they started making mental to-do lists about work left on their desks 16 days ago. After nearly two weeks of what some federal employees described as an “unwanted vacation,” the congressional deal to raise the debt limit and reopen the government was met with a cautious optimism by a beaten-down workforce in Washington. The furloughed posted messages on social media that ranged from, “Thank God, it’s over,” to “Why in the world am I still working for the federal government?” From museum employees to those who work at the Peace Corps, the end of the shutdown had federal workers checking Web sites and watching news reports, waiting to see whether they would be back to work this week. “It was great spending time with my 6-month-old daughter, but the whole thing is just ridiculous,” said Jodi Hammer, who manages the career center of the Peace Corps in downtown Washington. “I wanted to work. I’m glad we are most likely getting back pay. But in the end, we don’t lose. But the whole country does.” Under the agreement, the government will be funded through Jan. 15, a fact that only added to the frustration of many federal workers. It was like taking back a partner who had cheated and hoping, skeptically, for the best. As the shutdown continues, young federal workers put their spare time to good use by volunteering at DC Central Kitchen. But with seemingly stable government jobs no longer a sure thing, these young feds voice their frustrations to The Fold’s Henry Kerali. Sitting at home in Alexandria, Grant Czubinski, a 28-year-old contractor for the National Museum of the American Indian, said he doesn’t plan on getting too excited until he sees his first paycheck. “I was fortunate enough to have my girlfriend’s parents in town the first week, so we had my mind kind of off of it. And they were taking us out to eat and things like that.” After the parents left and their financing dried up, it was “basically living like you’re a freshman in college again.” “It’s not the end of the


A Pentagon enemy: Uncertainty

puts at risk that entire, well-articulated, effective set of institutions that strive to squeeze that maximum amount of combat capability out of each taxpayer dollar. It’s doing enormous and untold damage to the institution.” Michael Lumpkin, slated to become assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, described the sequester — the across-the-board cuts required in fiscal 2013 discretionary defense spending — as endangering the projected slowly planned growth of Special Operations Command from 65,000 to 71,000 personnel. That’s accompanied by increases in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment and other support elements. “Special operations cannot be mass-produced. It’s not one of those things that you can just run it on and off, like a light switch. It takes time and there’s a significant process that goes to making a special operator,” said Lumpkin, a former Navy SEAL. “I have real concerns about the morale of both our armed forces and the federal workers, based on the current climate.” Jo Ann Rooney, nominated to be Navy undersecretary, had a different issue. Asked whether the Navy would uphold its legal obligation to meet financial audit deadlines set for 2014 and 2017, she said she couldn’t make that determination because there was “the inability to make sure that there is the appropriate hiring to fill those slots.” In addition, she noted, it’s “also the uncertainty with our people in being able to allow them to sit back and think on a time horizon that is longer term with certainty.” A personnel specialist, Rooney said so much uncertainty among key people could lead to many decamping for private industry because they “just can’t face that uncertainty.” It’s not as if the Pentagon was great at handling its budget over the past decade. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) started the hearing off, however, by criticizing Congress for providing “the government with precious little certainty about future funding, which has caused untold amounts of scrapped planning, administrative double work and waste.” He described the sequester as creating “budgetary instability that is causing well-performing programs to be cut, program officials to be furloughed and readiness accounts to be plundered.” He was just as tough on the Pentagon, referring to “systematic departmental shortcomings which contribute to a ‘culture of inefficiency’ that is robbing war fighters of reliable equipment and absolutely failing taxpayers.” No one is as good as McCain when he’s warmed up on Pentagon spending. “After


Government reopens after Congress passes budget deal, raises debt limit

and to avoid a possible default because of the debt limit. And he offered thanks and encouragement to federal workers as they returned to their jobs. “What you do is important, and don’t let anybody else tell you different,” he said. Top officials in his administration conveyed the same message. “Good morning folks, thank you for your service,” called out Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, as no-longer-furloughed civil servants streamed from the nearby Smithsonian Metro station through the doors of agency headquarters. Vice President Biden greeted employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough shook hands with returning workers at the guarded gate outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. At the National Zoo, officials turned the popular panda cam back on, revealing an older, fatter and more robust black and white cub than was last seen more than two weeks earlier. The cub, now nearly two months old, gained two pounds during the shutdown, the zoo announced Thursday. The Department of Veteran Affairs said it would issue benefit payments to about 5 million veterans, survivors and their families on Nov. 1 as scheduled now that funding has been restored. The VA had warned that if the shutdown continued to the end of the month, it would run out of funds and be unable to issue checks, a disclosure that caused major consternation among lawmakers and veterans. The bill passed late Wednesday ended a stalemate created last month, when hard-line conservatives pushed Republican leaders to use the threat of shutdown to block a landmark expansion of federally funded health coverage. That campaign, however, succeeded mainly in undermining popular support for the Republican Party. By the end, dozens of anxious GOP lawmakers were ready to give Obama almost exactly what he requested months ago: a bill to fund the government and increase the Treasury Department’s borrowing power with no strings attached. The Senate overwhelmingly ratified the deal Wednesday evening, 81 to 18, with more than half of Senate Republicans voting yes. A few hours later, the House followed suit, approving the measure 285 to 144. Eighty-seven Republicans joined a united Democratic caucus in approving the measure, allowing Congress to meet a critical Treasury Department deadline with one day to spare. [Related: How Congress voted] Obama signed the measure into law shortly after midnight,reopening parks and monuments across the nation, restoring government services and putting furloughed federal employees back


Shutdown’s end once again fills Washington with federal workers and tourists

show up with a box. “They always do,” she said. Rarely have so many been so happy to get up and go back to the mill. “I have 500 e-mails,” said a woman puffing on a cigarette in front of the Department of Education’s sprawling headquarters on Maryland Avenue SW. “I got through about a hundred of them before taking a break.” And there was Adam Schwartz, on the job at 6 a.m., scooping dirt and leaves out of the fountain at the World War II Memorial on the Mall, where monuments closed and barricaded for two weeks stood as symbols of Washington’s paralysis. “The key is to make it crystal clear again,” Schwartz said. “For the veterans.” The barriers came down Thursday, as did signs warning visitors not to enter, while federal programs serving veterans, cancer patients, seniors citizens and others started gearing up. So did cultural attractions, including national museums. And there was Mei Xiang, the giant panda, and her yet-to-be-named cub, back on the National Zoo’s popular online panda cams for the world to view — a fatter and more robust cub than panda-watchers saw earlier this month, before the cam went dark. After the Metrorail system opened at 5 a.m., commuters saw more eight-car trains than they had since federal employees were furloughed. With ridership down 20 percent during the government closure and fare revenue greatly diminished, the transit system had been running more six-car trains to save on electricity. Not everything went smoothly everywhere Thursday. The U.S. Park Service said that sections of Beach Drive along Rock Creek Parkway were closed during the morning rush as crews worked to clean fallen leaves after days of not being able to maintain the area. Officials said they expected the road to be reopened for evening commuters. At the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, shuttle buses that ferry employees on the campus and to other NIH facilities weren’t running normally early Thursday. Some employees had to scramble to find other ways to get to their offices. Glitches aside, for many government workers, there was a sense of relief, even as they wedged onto Metro trains again packed shoulder-to-shoulder. The shutdown had a far-reaching impact across the nation, with 450,000 federal employees furloughed and more than $20 billion in direct government spending and related economic activity siphoned from the economy. More than a million workers who stayed on


D.C. Animal Watch

These cases were handled by the Washington Humane Society, which operates its shelter at 7319 Georgia Ave. NW, and the District’s, at 1201 New York Ave. NE. For information or assistance, call 202-723-5730 or go to www.washhumane.org. Cat treated for abscess: Woman aids feral cats: Dead goat found in woods: Adoptable dog: Animal cruelty cases: Gorman Terr. SE, 4300 block, Oct. 2. Humane Society officers found a pit bull with severe bite wounds — consistent with having been in a dogfight — lying in an alley. The dog was euthanized because of the extent of its injuries. 26th Pl. SE, 600 block, Oct. 3. A pit bull that was severely injured in a dogfight was found lying on the grass in woods nearby. The animal, which had bite wounds and three cuts across the neck, was recovering. 46th Pl. SE, 600 block, Oct. 3. A dead cat was found outdoors with a crushed head. Later that morning, another cat with severe blunt trauma to the face was discovered in the same area. The animal was euthanized because of the extent of its injuries. To help support the Combat Cruelty Fund, visit www.washhumane.org/combatcruelty to make a donation. Adoption event: These cases were handled by the Washington Animal Rescue League, 71 Oglethorpe St. NW. For information, call 202-726-2556 or go to www.warl.org. Cocker spaniel too much for grandparents: Pet is prohibited at new residence: Elderly relative comes first: ASPCA Mega Match-a-thon: — Compiled by Ria Manglapus


Zoo panda cams mobbed as fans flock to see fatter, furrier 8-week-old cub

The zoo’s giant panda cub, Bao Bao, turns 1 year old. The pictures flickered briefly at 9:59 a.m., the images showing two furry black-and-white blobs snoozing, as usual. Four minutes later, the tantalizing feeds from the giant pandas’ compound at the National Zoo stopped. For about 30 minutes Thursday, the two panda cams were dark. Communications glitch, the zoo said. Anguished moments ticked by as hundreds of people waited. Then, at 10:36, the video resumed, showing the zoo’s celebrated and unnamed 8-week-old cub in fine fettle — fat and round, and looking like a gift-shop souvenir. Of all resumptions Thursday in rebooted Washington, that of the panda cams — which show a live feed of Mei Xiang and her cub — was perhaps the most eagerly awaited. 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. Within 10 minutes, the cameras were maxed out by the panda-starved masses, the zoo said, and connections were being intermittently rejected. From then on, repetitive mouse-clicking was required to grab one of the 850 viewing slots each camera can handle at a time, and then only for 15 minutes of oohing and aahing. The zoo said 100 people were on its panda-cam page at 7 a.m., waiting for the feeds to resume, and 400 were waiting shortly after 9. Later in the day, the zoo tweeted that because of the crush, “viewers may experience some difficulty streaming the cams.” The female cub, born Aug. 23, had last been seen on camera as the zoo went into hibernation, along with rest of federal Washington, two weeks ago. Just over a month old, she then resembled a large rodent, weighing about three pounds and having faint black-and-white markings. On Thursday, the cameras and a series of color photos and video, released by the zoo, showed a robust five-pound cub — a miniature copy of her mother — with her eyes and ears open, the zoo said, and what looks like a perpetual grin on her face. In a video of a medical exam, she also squawks loudly. But the cub cannot yet walk, although she can push herself across the floor of her den. The zoo said the cub is strong enough to push herself up on her front two legs and can roll over if she


went dark because of the government shutdown, according to zoo officials. Within 10 minutes, the cameras were maxed out by the panda-starved masses, the zoo said, and connections were being intermittently rejected. From then on, repetitive mouse-clicking was required to grab one of the 850 viewing slots each camera can handle at a time, and then only for 15 minutes of oohing and aahing. The zoo said 100 people were on its panda-cam page at 7 a.m., waiting for the feeds to resume, and 400 were waiting shortly after 9. Later in the day, the zoo tweeted that because of the crush, “viewers may experience some difficulty streaming the cams.” The female cub, born Aug. 23, had last been seen on camera as the zoo went into hibernation, along with rest of federal Washington, two weeks ago. Just over a month old, she then resembled a large rodent, weighing about three pounds and having faint black-and-white markings. On Thursday, the cameras and a series of color photos and video, released by the zoo, showed a robust five-pound cub — a miniature copy of her mother — with her eyes and ears open, the zoo said, and what looks like a perpetual grin on her face. In a video of a medical exam, she also squawks loudly. But the cub cannot yet walk, although she can push herself across the floor of her den. The zoo said the cub is strong enough to push herself up on her front two legs and can roll over if she is on her back, but she won’t be able to walk until she is about four months old. Meanwhile, Mei Xiang has been leaving her cub for longer periods to eat and drink as well as interact with keepers. Outside the zoo, the government may have been closed, but, inside, life went on. “Some animals do change dramatically,” zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson said. “When I think back to the panda cub, who was so tiny and pink, with just a minimal amount of hair” two weeks ago, she said. “And look at her today. Her eyes are open. She’s so healthy and beautiful.” “It’s remarkable,” she added. “She’s a perfect example of life continuing, and it’s precious and we have to care for it.” The cub will not make her public debut for several more weeks, but the zoo reopens at 10 a.m. Friday.


Despite reported progress in talks with Iran, skepticism persists over possible nuclear deal

GENEVA — “You need to allow us the space to move forward,” pleaded Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief. But Ashton had barely uttered the words when the first salvos landed from skeptics of a possible nuclear deal with Iran. Opponents in Tehran and Washington rejected the Geneva proposals even before the details were publicly known. Prominent U.S. lawmakers such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) declared their opposition to granting Iran any relief from sanctions, suggesting instead that economic penalties should be made even tougher. And an Iranian legislator suggested that a compromise on Iran’s nuclear capabilities will not be acceptable. “The West must accept our homegrown nuclear energy and enrichment in Iran and lift the sanctions for talks to have any hope,” said Mansour Haghighatpour, a member of the Iranian lawmaking body’s national security and foreign policy commission. The harsh reaction partly explains why many experts assess the chances of an Iranian nuclear deal as low, despite the progress reportedly made during two days of talks in this Swiss city. Diplomats from the United States and five other world powers praised Iran for engaging in serious discussions over a proposal to tighten restrictions on the country’s nuclear program in exchange for gradual easing of economic sanctions. “I’ve never had such intense, detailed, straightforward, candid conversations with the Iranian delegation before,” said a senior Obama administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the negotiations, which will reconvene early next month. White House officials insist that the administration will never accept a deal or agree to relax sanctions unless Iran commits to significant constraints that will ensure it can never use its nuclear facilities to make atomic weapons. But the efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran has stoked fears among key U.S. allies — including Israel and Gulf Arab states — as well as from key U.S. lawmakers. Congress has passed a series of ever-harsher economic sanctions on Iran with near-unanimous approval, and several senators have warned that they would oppose any deal that allows Iran to enrich uranium, even with restrictions to ensure that the nuclear fuel is used only to make electricity. “Even a limited enrichment program and possession of sensitive reprocessing technologies is unacceptable because it would keep the path to nuclear weapons open,” Rubio wrote in an op-ed published in USA Today on Tuesday, as the Geneva talks were getting


Ask the Builder: Cordless power tools show improved technology

I lead a group of volunteers who build new and maintain existing walking trails on a small mountain range in central New Hampshire. We have to drill into solid granite and chip away at it to create steps and other trail features. What are my options to do this in the field, where there’s no commercial electricity? Please don’t tell me we have to do it the way the laborers did it for blasting the old railroad tunnels — Hal G., Sanbornton, N.H. Back when I entered the construction industry, if you wanted to use a power drill or saw, you had to have 120 volts of electricity. Period. You could plug into a commercial power source, or you could start up a heavy, bulky portable generator. New technology has led to major advancements in both power tools and generators. You can now carry in a backpack an 18-volt cordless hammer drill that will easily bore holes up to 7 / 8-inch in diameter into solid granite. I’ve done it myself, and I know the tool works. That same cordless hammer drill, with the flip of a switch, can be transformed into a chipping hammer that will allow you to shape rock on the trail. These hand-held hammer drills are much smaller than the large pneumatic hammers you see workers use to break up concrete slabs, but they’ll get the job done eventually. The new cordless electric tools have seen major improvements in the motors. Many brands offer brushless motors that are more reliable. The Milwaukee cordless hammer drill that I’ve used offers longer life, 40 percent more run time and a hammer mechanism within the tool that is 35 percent harder-hitting. Those features will help you drill more holes faster. I’ve been impressed over the past few years by the enhancements to the battery power packs that cordless tools employ. Lithium-ion is now the industry standard, and tool engineers are constantly improving efficiency by installing miniature computers in the tools to maximize the available energy. These small computers also protect the motors and battery from damage if the operator tries to overwork the tool. It’s fascinating technology. In addition to Milwaukee, other manufacturers offer tools with lithium-ion batteries and onboard microcomputers. Your hardest task, in my opinion, will be selecting which tool to buy. Keep in mind that price is almost always the most accurate indicator of quality. The