The title of World’s Best Female Chef is ‘stupid.’ Just ask a woman who won it.

On Wednesday, British chef Clare Smyth was named the world’s best female chef, an honor bestowed each year by World’s 50 Best, a restaurant-ranking organization. And, as has happened the past few years, a chorus of voices arose to ask the question: Why does this award exist? Awarding a “best female chef” might seem on the surface as if it’s aligned with the cultural zeitgeist this year, given the restaurant industry’s recent and very public questioning of how it treats women, and why few of them have risen to the highest ranks. But the award has long been irksome to women in the business, some of whom say it’s a cover for the organization’s lack of women in the overall rankings. San Francisco chef Dominique Crenn, who won the award in 2016, has long expressed her frustration with the concept of gendered awards. “If you give a chef a female award, you’re going to alienate that gender to the other gender,” she told The Washington Post in an interview before her “Women in Food” dinner series at Petit Crenn in San Francisco, the day before Smyth won the award. “We are not a sport. They’re treating us as if we are a sport.” [Rape in the storage room. Groping at the bar. Why is the restaurant industry so terrible for women?] Based on her biography, it’s clear that Smyth has succeeded in cutthroat, male-run kitchens — she’s a protege of the constantly furious British chef and television personality Gordon Ramsay, and she spent 13 years in his restaurants. She was the only female chef in Britain to earn three Michelin stars when she ran Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. She went on to open her London restaurant, Core by Clare Smyth, with a tasting menu that showcases her modern take on French cuisine. She is the first British woman to win the award. “We still have a real lack of women recognized at the top of the industry and we have to do something about that — we’re not going to change it by ignoring it,” said Smyth in a blog post on the World’s 50 Best site. “Sometimes you have to go over the top by recognizing women and giving them a platform so that we can really start to change things and re-correct the balance. There are lots of young women coming through in top kitchens across the globe and


They’re on the lookout for malware that can kill

of publicly warning that Russia has targeted U.S. critical infrastructure systems, including energy, nuclear and manufacturing sectors, for potential cyber-sabotage. And Iran has targeted critical infrastructure companies in the United States and elsewhere. The U.S. government’s position is that nations in peacetime should not attack each other’s critical infrastructure — systems that provide crucial services to the public, such as water, electricity and transportation. For now, the ability to sabotage industrial equipment — as opposed to stealing information — remains a specialized mission available only to the most highly skilled, best-funded hacking groups. That generally means government-funded groups, though that is expected to change. Dragos recently has identified five nation-state groups outside the United States that are actively targeting industrial systems. In keeping with its policy, the firm is not naming them. “In any given year, the information security community usually sees one or two such groups,” Lee said. “In 2017, we saw five. So it’s an extremely worrying trend.” Lee has been watching the threat develop since 2010. At an NSA site in Germany, he was among the first to help the agency map the foreign cyberthreats facing the military’s critical infrastructure and U.S. industrial systems, including worms such as Stuxnet. The NSA didn’t have an industrial control system lab accessible there, he said, so Lee ordered his own equipment on eBay, set it up in his house and at night practiced hacking into it. He later was posted to U.S. Cyber Command, where he conducted offensive operations. He left CyberCom in 2015, and a year later, with close colleagues, formed Dragos. They received $1.2 million in seed money from DataTribe, a Maryland start-up incubator focused on companies that use spy technology. They got a further $9 million from AllegisCyber, a Silicon Valley venture fund, and Energy Impact Partners, a New York venture fund created by energy companies, and an additional $1 million from DataTribe. Their open office space features a mini gas pipeline and electric grid. There, Dragos staff, many of them former NSA operators like Lee, discuss technical analyses over beer and pizza and unwind by throwing darts and playing table tennis. Companies are willing to share their incident data with Dragos because the firm provides security in return, Lee said. As a result, he said, “I have more access to the industrial threat landscape today at Dragos than my entire time at the NSA.” ellen.nakashima@washpost.com aaron.gregg@washpost.com


Female athletes with naturally high testosterone levels face hurdles under new IAAF rules

5 nanomoles per liter of blood, the IAAF said. That’s half the amount previously allowed. The alternatives for female athletes who choose not to lower their testosterone levels include competing against men, being restricted to the national stage, switching to shorter or longer distances, or racing in events for intersex athletes (provided that category is available), the statement said. IAAF president Sebastian Coe said in the statement that the regulations are meant to “ensure fair and meaningful competition in the sport of athletics where success is determined by talent, dedication and hard work rather than other contributing factors.” “Our evidence and data show that testosterone, either naturally produced or artificially inserted into the body, provides significant performance advantages in female athletes,” Coe said. According to the statement, the regulations are not “intended as any kind of judgment on or questioning of the sex or the gender identity of any athlete.” However, people have called the rules sexist and racist. On Twitter one user wrote, “Make no mistake, this is the most sexist paradox in sports: a man with naturally high testosterone is gifted, but a woman with naturally high testosterone is a cheat.” Another tweeted that the IAAF is “being sexist, racist and certainly living in the 16th Century.” The new rules are the latest development in an ongoing effort by sports officials to create fair competition during a time when an increasing number of athletes no longer fit into traditional male and female categories. It is not the first time the IAAF has tried to enforce regulations on female athletes. The previous attempt was struck down in 2015 by the Court for Arbitration in Sport, sport’s “Supreme Court,” after a challenge from Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, who also has hyperandrogenism. The court ruled that the IAAF didn’t prove women with naturally elevated amounts of testosterone had a competitive advantage, The Washington Post’s Cindy Boren reported. The IAAF was given two years to collect new scientific evidence. In Thursday’s announcement the organization included documents and research to justify its decision. Most women, including elite female athletes, usually have testosterone levels ranging from 0.12 and 1.79 nanomoles per liter of blood, documents said. In men, the normal levels can be as much as 29.4 nanomoles per liter. Female athletes with hyperandrogenism can have amounts similar to men, 20 or 25 nanomoles per liter, according to a tweet from the IAAF. Women


FDIC vice chairman is stepping down

BANKING FDIC vice chair ends term after 6 years The vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will step down Monday, ending his full six-year term, the FDIC said Friday. The departure of Thomas Hoenig could accelerate efforts to ease regulations on banks that were introduced after the 2007-2009 global financial crisis. Hoenig, who was appointed to the banking regulator by President Barack Obama in 2012, was widely expected to leave after the appointment of President Trump’s pick to head the agency, Jelena McWilliams. Hoenig has opposed a move by Congress to loosen leverage and proprietary trading limits as part of a Senate bill. On Friday, he raised doubts about proposals being weighed by fellow regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that would permit further increases in bank leverage. “These proposals have the laudable goals of simplifying bank capital rules and boosting lending to the real economy,” Hoenig wrote in an opinion piece he co-authored for the Wall Street Journal. But he said he feared an unintended effect would be to make the financial system “less resilient” and crises “likelier and more severe.” — Reuters CYBERSECURITY Student loan company reveals data breach A student loan services company recently notified 16,500 borrowers that files containing personal data were released to a business that wasn’t authorized to receive them. Access Group Education Lending said in a letter to those affected that the breach occurred March 23 when a vendor sent out files — including borrowers’ names, driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers — to another business. Access Group said it learned of the release March 28 and that it was assured that Neltnet, a vendor that processes student loans for Access Group, had deleted the files and didn’t retain copies. Access Group did not begin notifying borrowers until three weeks later. The loan servicer said that exposure to personal data was limited and has been terminated. — Associated Press CRYPTOCURRENCIES CEOs warn about risks of digital currency The chief executives of Nasdaq and Bank of America rang alarm bells about the cryptocurrency market Friday, calling for regulation of certain trading and warning about the potential to abet criminal behavior. Initial coin offerings should be subject to securities laws, Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said at a conference in New York hosted by the MIT Sloan School of Management. She said retail buyers deserve


A mother was diagnosed with a deadly rodent-borne virus, family says. Months later, she died.

No one seemed to know what was wrong with Kiley Lane. For weeks, the 27-year-old had been suffering severe pain and swelling in her abdomen, telling doctors, nurses and loved ones that she felt as if she had a seat belt stretched across her stomach. Lane, from Aztec, a small town in New Mexico not far from the Four Corners, went to a nearby emergency room again and again and again. One doctor suggested that it might be the flu. One considered a blockage. Another wondered whether she might be faking it all, her mother said. Then in February, Lane tested positive for hantavirus, a rare rodent-borne virus that can spread to humans, causing a dangerous and sometimes deadly respiratory disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lane was airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, where she received treatment for hantavirus and other conditions. “We all had hope on top of hope that she was going to come through — even until the last minute,” Lane’s mother, Julie Barron, told The Washington Post on Friday. But, Barron said, on April 18, her daughter died. Barron said the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s illness remain murky. Doctors at the local hospital first determined that she had hantavirus, and then doctors at University of New Mexico Hospital confirmed the diagnosis, she said. But, she said, when the CDC ran a test a month later, it determined that she did not have an active virus. Since January 2017, there have been 728 cases of hantavirus infection reported in 36 states, with the highest numbers reported in New Mexico and Colorado, according to the CDC. As The Post’s Lena Sun reported The condition is characterized early on by flulike symptoms such as fatigue, fever and body aches but can also include headaches, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain, according to the CDC. Tione Buranda, an associate professor in the pathology department at the University of New Mexico, told The Post that there is no cure for the disease and the death rate is 30 to 40 percent. It’s unclear how Lane may have gotten the disease. Her mother said she was a “constant cleaner” and may have come into contact with mouse urine or droppings. She had also done some housesitting and traveled over the holidays, her mother added. Barron said they were


diagnosed Lane with hantavirus, and two days later she was taken to Albuquerque. Barron recalled that her daughter’s doctor said she probably wouldn’t survive the flight. But she did. And once she arrived at University of New Mexico Hospital, she was placed on an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine to help filter her blood and keep her alive. But despite doctors’ best efforts, her health continued to decline. Barron said that in all, doctors treated her daughter for shingles (a viral infection), pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), Clostridium difficile (a bacterial infection), kidney failure, sepsis and shock. “It was a roller coaster — up and down, up and down,” she said. Ultimately, doctors told her family that they had exhausted all possible treatment options. Barron said she asked her daughter’s doctor: “What made my daughter sick? What brought us here?” The mother said that the doctor responded, “the hantavirus.” For 66 days, Barron said family members and friends feared the worst while hoping for the best. Lane’s husband tried to tell their 2-year-old daughter that her mother was ill. The young child was taken to see her mom so she could hold her hand and say goodbye. In a Facebook post last week, Barron described the heart-wrenching moment her daughter died. “There were seconds ... watching those damn monitors ... I was waiting, and then, she was gone. No angels, no miracles, just a room, and my baby girl ... and gone,” she wrote. Barron said she is sharing her daughter’s story because she wants to raise awareness about hantavirus and the lack of much-needed medical technology and treatment in rural health-care systems. “There’s no reason for a 27-year-old woman to die because she didn’t get medical care in time,” she said. Barron said she also does not want those who prayed and rallied around her daughter to see it as a loss. “Something good is going to come from this,” she said. “Everybody makes an impact on the world,” Barron said, “and I think Kiley’s is going to be a bigger ripple than she knew.” Her memorial service will be Saturday in Cedar Crest, N.M. Read more: Why this adorable mouse is to blame for the spread of Lyme disease Why surgeons amputated a 7-year-old’s leg and reattached it the wrong way She read about a 4-year-old’s mysterious death. A year later, it saved her own daughter’s life.


Possible human remains found by construction crew in Southeast Washington

THE DISTRICT Suspected human remains found in SE D.C. police are investigating the discovery of what appears to be human remains at a Southeast apartment building Wednesday afternoon, officials said. A construction crew called police to the 100 block of Wayne Place about 3:30 p.m. where officers found what appeared to be human remains in a crawl space under the building, according to a D.C. police report. Police are awaiting the results of testing by the medical examiner’s office to determine whether they are human, officials said. — Clarence Williams MARYLAND Police make arrest in March fatal shooting A Maryland man suspected of fatally shooting his daughter’s ex-boyfriend has been arrested, Prince George’s County police said Friday. Price Grier, 50, of Glenarden, was charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Omar Wright, 39, of Largo, police said. Authorities said Grier and Wright had gotten into an argument before the shooting, which occurred about 11:05 p.m. on March 28 in a parking garage in the 600 block of Harry S. Truman Drive. Grier is being held in the Prince George’s County jail without bond. — Lynh Bui VIRGINIA Jury finds man guilty of 30-year-old slaying The two friends had gone on a beer run together in fall 1988. One of them ended up in a shallow grave in Loudoun County, and his death was a cold case for decades. But this week, the slaying of Henry E. Ryan came to a close with a jury finding Timothy Warnick, 59, guilty of first-degree murder. Prosecutors are asking for at least a life sentence for Warnick, who was also found guilty of robbery. Investigators said over the decades they were able to develop some leads on a possible suspect. Advances in technology and new techniques in investigations helped solve the case, authorities said. — Dana Hedgpeth


The great American supermarket lie

A meme has recently been circulating on social media, suggesting that supermarkets are the embodiment of American capitalism, concrete proof of the superiority of free enterprise over socialism. “I will never understand,” declares the meme, produced by right-wing activist organization Turning Point USA, “how a socialist can walk into a grocery store and think, ‘Man I hate capitalism!’ ” The meme is new, but the idea that American-style supermarkets can be “weapons” against socialism is dated. During the Cold War, American propagandists imagined supermarkets as ideological armaments: Abundant, affordable food stacked high on supermarket shelves was meant to illustrate the advantages of the American way of life, proclaiming that only democratic capitalism could provide for the basic needs of ordinary citizens. The notion made for effective anti-communist propaganda 60 years ago, as the American food system outperformed socialist food provisioning at the national level. But the American supermarket was built upon foundations of significant power disparities for both farmers and consumers, inequalities that in our contemporary food system threaten to undermine the merits of capitalism today. Cold War propagandists often turned to the American supermarket to celebrate the advantages of capitalism. One 1955 film aimed at high school students portrayed a British socialist wandering through the aisles, amazed at how ordinary American citizens could afford to stuff their shopping carts full of prepackaged produce. The result: The Brit instantly disavowed his left-wing politics. Such films were part of the U.S. effort to win the Cold War through economic and ideological warfare. In 1957, the U.S. Department of Commerce worked with a supermarket trade group to build “Supermarket USA,” a fully functioning 10,000-square-foot grocery store airlifted onto communist soil in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Millions of socialist citizens were invited to gape in awe at towering stacks of sugary breakfast cereals and frozen foods. Every hundredth visitor was given a free bag of groceries. American propagandists expected ordinary citizens and communist leaders, including Marshal Tito, to be visibly stunned by the power of American free enterprise to deliver abundance — no minor claim, given Yugoslavia’s repeated experience of famine during and immediately after World War II. “I can think of no better way in penetrating the Iron Curtain with our philosophy of life than the supermarket,” Max Mandell Zimmerman, founder of the Super Market Institute, informed Congress at a 1957 hearing. Militant rhetoric of the power of America’s food system to undermine communism


The great American supermarket lie

not intended as an indictment of state socialism, in later years it would seem prescient, as Soviet leaders repeatedly failed to deliver on the promise that collective farms could provide affordable, abundant food through state-owned shops. When Soviet factory workers declared “Use Khrushchev for sausage meat!” in a 1962 protest over rising food costs, they were directly challenging the economic legitimacy of communist rule. And so, supermarkets were effective weapons in the Cold War not because they made for effective propaganda but also because they provided abundant food when the Soviet state could not. Yet the United States’ food abundance came with costs. Supermarkets were the endpoint of an industrial agriculture supply chain that, over the course of the 20th century, came to rely ever more on monocropping, animal confinement and chemical inputs. Farmers in the United States and abroad lost autonomy as the demands of the supermarket-driven food economy narrowed their choices for how to grow their crops and raise their livestock. Consumers found an astounding array of affordable choices in supermarket aisles, but the easy availability of highly processed foods promoted obesity while branded packages obscured what was happening on the farms far removed from shoppers’ daily consciousness. U.S.-based multinational agribusinesses, from grain-trading firms to international supermarkets, grew in power during and after the Cold War, using market mechanisms rather than political institutions to govern and regulate food chains. Hyper-competition in the supermarket industry also pushed firms to lower retail worker wages, avoid locating stores in low-income neighborhoods and ignore American agriculture’s reliance on underpaid migrant farm labor. So while middle-class consumers enjoyed a bounty of cheap and convenient food, small farmers, farmworkers, low-income consumers and supermarket employees suffered to make it all possible. Instead of embodying the supposedly inherent superiority of capitalism, the supermarket demonstrated how it produced winners and losers. If modern supermarkets are to serve as symbols of the benefits of capitalist enterprise, meme-producing organizations might do well to devote their attention to how supermarket-driven supply chains continue to hurt or constrain the freedoms of farm laborers, smallholder farmers, low-income consumers and supermarket employees. If a socialist walks into a supermarket that fights modern slavery in American farm fields, supports decent incomes for small farmers, offers healthful food in inner cities and respects the human dignity of its employees, then indeed it would be hard to imagine her or him declaring “Man, I hate capitalism!”


‘It’s just not what people want anymore’: Subway to close hundreds of U.S. stores

through the sneeze guard.’ ” Adding to Subway’s woes is a long history of strained relations with its thousands of franchisees, who complain that the company’s deep promotions are nibbling away at already-shrinking profits. (All of Subway’s 44,000 locations worldwide are independently owned.) Sales have fallen for at least three years in a row, and foot traffic is down 25 percent since 2012. “This is a tired company in need of a major brand renovation,” said Joel Libava, an independent consultant in franchises. “Walk into any Subway, and everything looks exactly the same as it did 25 years ago.” Subway, founded 53 years ago in Bridgeport, Conn., as Pete’s Super Submarines, has expanded rapidly in the decades since, opening thousands of new locations in strip centers and suburban shopping malls. It earned a loyal following by pitching itself as a healthful alternative to fatty burgers and fries. But in recent years, the company’s recipe for success has faltered. In 2015, former spokesman Jared Fogle, who rose to fame after losing more than 200 pounds by eating Subway sandwiches, pleaded guilty to charges of child pornography and child molestation. The company has also struggled to keep customers coming back, as an ever-expanding selection of fast-casual eateries, food trucks, even grocery stores, offer freshly made meals at competitive prices. Subway’s market share among limited-service chains has also fallen steadily, from 6.4 percent in 2013 to 4.7 percent last year, according to market research firm Technomic. In January, Subway invested $25 million in a re-branding campaign aimed at boosting sales at its stores. The company’s newest ads, meant to appeal to younger consumers, are part of the company’s “aggressive revitalization plan,” says Don Fertman, Subway’s chief development officer. Subway is focusing on building up its international presence by opening 1,000 stores in countries like India, China, Germany and Mexico. But industry insiders said that while Subway may be able to successfully expand abroad — it is, after all, a well-known American brand — it doesn’t have an easy road ahead at home. “I don’t think there’s a clear path for Subway,” said Phibbs, the retail consultant. “It’s just not what people want anymore.” Read more: Amazon will now deliver to your car — but you might pay for it in privacy Upscale, downscale: Target draws customers with collaborations with high-end brands Kohl’s has a new plan to get you into its stores: Groceries


Sanctions, Syria hit home in Russia, but people aren’t turning against Putin

shopkeeper who knew one of the killed military contractors and voted against Putin in the election last month. She gave only her first name. “There’s just no point. . . . We have our own problems, our own cares.” As Putin continues to roll back democracy and Russia heads toward a new Cold War, the country’s industrial heartland, the Urals region, is feeling the consequences — and they could intensify. At least a half-dozen factories here belong to aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a Putin ally newly hit with sanctions. An entire town makes a living off titanium sales to Boeing. The mayor of the biggest city, Yekaterinburg, says the area depends on the economic relationship with the United States — but that many of his constituents are in a state of denial. “A huge problem is that not everyone can understand cause and effect,” Mayor Yevgeny Roizman said in an interview. “These most basic things — foreign policy and the quality of life today — very few people connect them.” Roizman said that a business executive recently complained to him that trade and demand were down. The only bright spot, the executive added, was Putin’s foreign policy, “because we’ve finally shown everyone.” Even as both sides speak of a new Iron Curtain descending between Russia and the West, life goes on. The Kremlin has deployed Russia’s financial reserves to cushion the blow on regular people, and rising oil prices are helping. Russian officials have said they are prepared to step in to aid companies hurt by the latest U.S. sanctions. And the region’s most prominent critical voice will soon lose his bully pulpit. Roizman, Russia’s best-known elected official who criticizes Putin, will leave his post in September because regional pro-Putin politicians recently canceled mayoral elections in the city. “People’s ability to get used to things, to adapt, is extremely high,” said Konstantin Kiselyev, a political scientist and local lawmaker who is critical of Putin. “There is little pushing people into the streets.” Just 6 percent of Russians told independent pollster the Levada Center last month that they would participate in political protests if they took place — the lowest level since at least 2010. To the extent protests happen, they are about calling on the authorities to fix specific problems, such as smelly landfills. In the former Soviet republic of Armenia, by contrast, street protests toppled the prime minister Monday.


Why are tens of thousands of Americans still driving around with explosive devices in their cars?

the massive recall came when Takata, then a seat-belt supplier but a minor player in the air-bag industry, came up with a cost-cutting way to make air bags. Just a few years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, they used the same material that caused that explosion — ammonium nitrate — to trigger the air-bag inflaters when vehicles collide. Ammonium nitrate — unlike the relatively stable chemical tetrazole used by other manufacturers — can become unstable, particularly when it is exposed to moisture. Takata found a ready market for its cheaper air bags, expanding rapidly to meet the demand of newly enticed automakers, including General Motors. GM’s air-bag supplier had been the Swedish company Autoliv, but Autoliv dropped out of the competition presented by Takata because it declined to use the volatile ammonium nitrate. Autoliv’s decision to abandon the GM contract was first reported by the New York Times, as was the scenario that ultimately led to the charges filled against three Takata executives. After a 2002 Honda Accord air bag exploded in Alabama in 2004, Takata assured Honda that the incident was an anomaly. But at the same time Takata began testing 50 air-bag inflaters it had collected from junkyards. Even though two of them malfunctioned, Takata shut down the testing and told technicians to wipe the data from their computers, the New York Times reported. The company denied to Congress that it had ever done the testing. Years later, NHTSA said Takata was not “being forthcoming with information” or cooperating with the “investigation of a potentially serious safety defect.” The Justice Department fined Takata $1 billion for that failure. “Takata has admitted to a scheme to defraud its customers by manipulating test data regarding the performance of its air-bag inflaters,” Barbara McQuade, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said in announcing the fine last year. “They falsified and manipulated data because they wanted to make profits.” McQuade also unsealed indictments against three Takata executives who were charged with manipulating test data to deceive the automakers they supplied about the safety of their air bags. The indictment said the three had known as early as 2000 that their air bags could explode. All three of the men indicted — Shinichi Tanaka, 59; Hideo Nakajima, 65; and Tsuneo Chikaraishi, 61 — are Japanese citizens and have not been extradited to the United States. Faced with spiraling debts estimated


Afghanistan is building up its commando force to fight the Taliban. But at what cost?

CAMP COMMANDO, Afghanistan — A major buildup of Afghanistan’s commando force, part of a strategy to fight insurgents who contest or control nearly half the country’s districts, could have a detrimental effect on conventional army units, already beaten down by years of combat, corruption and desertion. The plan, announced last year, calls for the number of commandos to nearly double, from about 11,700 to 23,300 by 2020. There will be at least 14,000 in coming days, after current classes complete their 14 weeks of training, said Army Col. Larry Niedringhaus, the U.S. Special Forces officer in charge of an advisory group involved in training. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani formed the plan with Pentagon backing in an effort to invest in units with a track record of success. While conventional Afghan military and police units have often struggled with the Taliban in combat, the commandos are generally seen as more prestigious and effective on the battlefield. But as more Afghan soldiers are sent to commando school after basic training, fewer of them are available to fill holes in the conventional Afghan army units. “It’s always a point of discussion over how many we can get from KMTC and how much the Afghan National Army gets from KMTC,” said Army Lt. Col. Karl Johnson, a U.S. Special Forces officer involved in training commandos, using an acronym for the Kabul Military Training Center. “That’s always a point of negotiation.” The shortage of soldiers has manifested in the Afghan National Army’s 215th Corps, with fewer than 10,000 soldiers serving in a force designed to have 18,500. The unit, based in Helmand province, is locked in a fierce fight with the Taliban in a region with no Afghan military presence in some districts. The top Afghan commander there, Maj. Gen. Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai, said he has been promised 2,000 more troops by the Afghan government, but it is not clear if or when they will arrive. He considers himself about 5,000 soldiers short. The plan to add commandos also includes sending existing units known as Mobile Strike Force vehicle brigades to commando school. Those soldiers are receiving better training, but their assignment as commandos does not increase the overall size of Afghanistan’s military. “I won’t say we cheated,” Niedringhaus said. “But the way we were able to rapidly double is by reflagging existing units.” Commando growth was one of four goals identified by Ghani last


Man fatally shot in Northwest D.C., police say

D.C. police are investigating the fatal shooting early Saturday of a man in the 700 block of Gresham Place NW, authorities said. The man’s identity has not been released, and no one has been arrested, said Brianna Jordan, a department spokeswoman. Officers were called for a report of a shooting outside a home just before 3 a.m., Jordan said, and the man was pronounced dead at a hospital about 3:30 a.m. katherine.shaver@washpost.com


Despite notable absences, President Trump honors U.S. Winter Olympians at White House

one of four Olympians busy taping “Dancing With the Stars,” which will debut Monday, while several other American figure skaters are in the middle of a “Stars on Ice” tour. They missed Trump seeming to take some of the credit — again — for the turnout at the Olympics during his remarks. (In March, Trump said South Korean President Moon Jae-in told him the Olympics would have been “a total failure” without his support.) “You had very good crowds, and I have to say, without certain backing, those crowds were not looking good,” Trump said Friday. “But all of a sudden, those crowds got very, very big, very powerful, and it became a very, very successful Olympics aside from everything else. They had a lot more people show up than they thought, and you think you know why, right?” At the end of the ceremony, Elana Meyers Taylor, who won silver in the two-woman bobsled; John Shuster, a member of the gold medal-winning men’s curling team; and Paralympic snowboarders Brenna Huckaby and Mike Schultz presented Trump with two flags signed by the members of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic delegations. “You come back here anytime you want,” Trump said, before departing to prepare for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We love you at the White House.” Meyers Taylor, who played softball at George Washington University, told reporters afterward that it was an honor to be at the White House representing her country, and described what it’s like to compete as an Olympic athlete in times of heightened partisanship. “As an athlete, I think it’s even more important to go out there and represent the best we can,” Meyers Taylor said. “We’re charged with this job of putting on our uniforms, representing Team USA, and when things are crazy politically, we want to be that inspiration, that hope for the entire country. In those times, it’s even more important for us to be the best representatives of ourselves, and just go out there and win as many medals as possible.” Read more from The Post: She ran from years in abuse in Ghana. Now she runs for the U.S. Naval Academy. Winners and losers from the NFL draft’s first round With the worst behind them, new manager Gabe Kapler and the Phillies are thinking big O.J. Brigance and wife Chanda continue to fight ALS, 11 years after his diagnosis


Remains of 140 children unearthed in Peru, the largest child sacrifice in human history

to the pre-Columbian Chimú civilization. The Chimú was the second-largest empire in Peru before Spanish colonization, next to the Incas, who were also known to sacrifice children during rituals. Until now, the largest incident of mass child sacrifice was believed to have occurred in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan — modern-day Mexico City — where 42 children’s bodies had been discovered. Ongoing scientific investigations into the Peru site, formally called Huanchaquito-Las Llamas, are being carried out by an international team funded by the National Geographic Society. The team is led by Gabriel Prieto of the National University of Trujillo and John Verano of Tulane University. “I, for one, never expected it,” Verano told the magazine about the magnitude of the discovery. “And I don’t think anyone else would have, either,” he added. Excavations at Huanchaquito-Las Llamas began in 2011, when the remains of 42 children and 76 llamas were found at a 3,500-year-old temple nearby. The excavations continued through 2016, and resulted in the discovery of more than 140 sets of child remains and 200 juvenile llamas, according to National Geographic. Items found in the burials, such as ropes, are radiocarbon dated to between 1400 and 1450, toward the end of the Chimú Empire’s rule, before they were conquered by the Incas. It’s estimated that the children ranged from about 5 to 14 years old, with the majority between the ages of 8 and 12, according to the magazine. The llamas were all less than 18 months old and were buried facing east, toward the Andes. The children’s skulls are stained with red, cinnabar-based pigment, evidence that they were sacrificed in ritual killings, as the pigment was used in ceremonies. Cuts to both the children and llamas’ skeletal remains — particularly to the sternum and rib bone — suggest their chests were cut open, likely so that their hearts could be removed, according to National Geographic. Researchers and anthropologists are now trying to understand the motivation behind the large-scale sacrifice, and why the burial pits combined children with baby llamas. “When people hear about what happened and the scale of it, the first thing they always ask is ‘why?’ ” Prieto told National Geographic. Read more: Mummies reveal coca and alcohol use in Incan ritual sacrifices Fossil footprints ‘unique in the world’ show a human chasing a giant sloth New Guineans carved human bones into ‘formidable, fierce-looking and beautiful’ daggers


Human remains found beneath apartment house in the District

Human skeletal remains were found this week in an apartment house crawl space and the D.C. police are investigating the death. The remains were found in a crawl space under a building at the rear of the 100 block of Wayne Place SE on Wednesday afternoon, the police said. A determination that the remains were human was made on Friday, the police said. They said further tests will be made. No information was available about the age of the remains or about any cause of death. The 100 block of Wayne Place is a street of two- and three- story brick apartment houses in the Washington Highlands area , near t e District’s southern tip. Clarence.Williams@washpost.com;Martin.Weil@washpost.com


Northeast man fatally shot near university campus

A man was shot and killed early Saturday in Northwest Washington, the D.C. police said. The shooting occurred outdoors just before 3 a.m. in the 700 block of Gresham Place. A second person was shot in the same incident, they said, describing his wounds as not life-threatening. The man killed was identified as Isaiah Harris, 23, of Northeast Washington. There was no immediate indication of the motive of the shooting, and no information on any suspect was released. The site of the shooting is a residential block northwest of the Howard University. The street is lined with duplexes, many of them with short flights of steps leading up to front porches. There was no immediate indication Saturday that the incident had any connection with the university. Martin.Weil@washpost.com


He walked along an Israeli beach as far as Gaza. Then he vanished.

the outpouring of concern for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held by Hamas for five years and eventually released in 2011 in exchange for 1,029 Palestinian prisoners. Mengistu comes from a family of immigrants, Ethiopian Jews who arrived in 1991. His parents, who barely speak Hebrew, live in a poor neighborhood of Ashkelon, barely nine miles from the Gaza border. His mother, Agarnesh, said it was an argument over his request to borrow 50 shekels, less than $15, that sent him marching off into enemy territory. “He’s the son of poor people, so no one comes to his aid,” Agarnesh said through tears on a recent day. “I don’t care who has him, I just want him back. I worry about him 24 hours a day.” In recent weeks, Mengistu’s family — his mother, father and an assortment of his 10 siblings and other relatives — have set up camp on the street outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem. It is an attempt, they say, to keep their brother’s plight in the public eye and apply pressure on the Israeli government to secure his freedom, or at least gain a sign he is still alive. “Avera’s story is completely different to the soldiers. He never held arms. He ended up there by mistake. He is mentally ill,” said Mengistu’s older brother, Ilan. “We know it’s complicated, we understand that, but at the end of the day, we are talking about an innocent man who is being held there against his will.” David Meidan, a former Mossad agent who headed the negotiating team that eventually secured Shalit’s release, agreed a year ago to help the Mengistu family. “Shalit was a very emotional event for Israeli society. He was a soldier on duty. He did not decide to cross the fence of his own free will,” Meidan said. “Everyone in Israel potentially saw themselves, their son or someone they know in the same situation, a very different story to someone who is not a soldier, not a hero and who decided to cross the fence for whatever reason.” Meidan added, “Mengistu is not an attractive person. He is a poor person who does not come from a strong Israeli family.” Meidan, together with a handful of other former security officials and diplomats among others are using their connections to press the case with European ambassadors. Israeli doctors are also


She ran from years of abuse in Ghana. Now she runs for the U.S. Naval Academy.

Amanda Agana always had an answer ready to go. She would slide off her track pants and knew her running shorts couldn’t hide her past. “Where are your scars from?” someone would inevitably ask. “Oh, well, I grew up in Africa,” she would say with a shrug. “I fell off a lot of trees.” She chuckles at it now. Last time she counted, there were more than 100 marks dotting her legs, arms, hands and back. “Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here,” says the 21-year-old Agana, a middle-distance runner for Navy’s track team, her index finger tracing a map of childhood pain along one leg. None of the marks and scars were from falling out of trees. “What am I supposed to tell these American kids that had never known true pain in their lives? ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I lived three years of my life being beaten every day and being taken advantage of every day,’ ” she says. Agana’s fingertips were smashed with rocks. Her knuckles cracked with rulers. Her arms and back whipped with sticks. Her skin singed with the smoldering end of a stick. But most of the abuse was saved for her legs. “My legs — isn’t that funny?” she says without laughing. “The place that endured the most pain is the place that’s helped me get to where I am.” Losing her best friend On a recent afternoon, Agana circled the track at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and was easy to spot. It’s not the scars but rather her long, graceful stride, looking almost like an ice skater gliding toward the finish line. The path to Annapolis can be circuitous for every midshipmen on campus, but Agana’s journey is among the most improbable. Her starting line was a village called Zaare in northern Ghana. She was the youngest of three, but her family grew to 20 when an uncle died and Agana’s father inherited his brother’s children. By time Agana was 7, her parents had separated and her mother, Bertha, had been sick for many years. She knew her mother wasn’t doing well — pneumonia that the family believes was linked to tuberculosis — but still thought little of it when she bounded home from school one day and climbed onto her mother’s bed, bragging about her score on a French test. Everyone else in the room remained quiet. Agana thinks


Trump’s Nobel prize secret sauce

If there's one thing that defines Donald Trump's presidency, it may be his never-ending thirst for validation, applause and credit — even when getting it strains credulity. When it comes to recognition, Trump is a dog after a bone. And political and world leaders have quickly learned the best way to win his favor and bend his ear is to lavish him with praise. The result is the nascent movement to award Trump the Nobel Peace Prize for his handling of North Korea. I'm old enough to remember when Republicans were wary of preemptive Nobel Prizes. When President Barack Obama was awarded one in 2009, it was met with laughter and derision on the right. “The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?' " asked the Republican National Committee. Added Rush Limbaugh: “This fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama.” Even Democrats acknowledged that it seemed a little premature. Trump has achieved more concrete progress on North Korea than Obama had more generally for his Nobel. (Even Obama acknowledged that the award, which was given less than nine months into his presidency, was not a “recognition of my own accomplishments,” but rather more about his aspirational rhetoric.) But we thus far have only handshakes, a hug and verbally expressed goals when it comes to peace between North and South Korea. North Korea's pledged actions — including one to dismantle its nuclear test site in public view — are still just that, but there is considerable optimism, even among Trump's critics. His administration's efforts to win unprecedented sanctions against North Korea have pretty clearly played a role; whether his tough talk about “Little Rocket Man” and obliterating North Korea did is less certain, as is what might come of his meeting with the country's leader, Kim Jong Un. But the Nobel talk is very much on. Trump's supporters chanted “Nobel!” at a campaign-style rally he held on Saturday night. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said Friday: “We’re not there yet, but if this happens President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.” Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.) has said he plans to formally nominate Trump for the award. And the effort got a nonpartisan push Monday from South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who responded to talk of his own potential Nobel by saying it should go to Trump instead. “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize.


A fire claimed a high school band’s instruments, but not their talent or spirit

he was wide-awake. He and Anthony Townes, the director of bands at Northwestern, saw the fire and made a quick agreement. “We’re not getting off this bus until all the kids are off first,” Townes said. So they tag teamed, getting all the kids off safely. Many left behind cellphones, laptops, even the instruments. This wasn’t the freshman band and their rented instruments. These musicians are some of the region’s most accomplished. A good number of them are going to some of the most prestigious music schools in the country when they graduate. Garcia, for instance, is heading to Berklee College of Music in Boston this fall. “Some of them have instruments that have been in their families for generations,” Townes said. Or they have specialized, high-end instruments their parents saved for years to buy, like the nearly $6,000 Buffet R13 clarinet that was still on the bus, the flames closing in on it, as the kids were running off and their teachers were telling them to “Move! Move! Move!” Garcia had been asleep when her friend nudged her awake. “She told me, ‘It smells like burned beans.’ And it did,” she said. Her saxophone, a Yamaha Custom Z, cost $3,500. It wasn’t something her parents — a maintenance man and an office worker — could afford. But her whole church heard her wail on that sax. And they bought it for her. As the kids jumped from the bus along a turnpike culvert, a familiar-looking man was standing on the side of the turnpike filming. “I saw the guy and told him, ‘Here, take these,’ and I handed him a trombone and a trumpet,” Renberg said. The guy was Mehmet Oz, known at TV’s Dr. Oz, who happened to be driving by and stopped to help. Oz took the instruments, assumed Townes was the bus driver and tried to help the kids get away from the flaming bus. (He later posted a video and said the kids were from Baltimore.) After they grabbed all the instruments they could safely get, they watched the bus burn all the way to its skeletal, metal frame. Dozens of instruments were charred, burned, melted, including cellos, violas, that $6,000 clarinet. Let’s be clear. This isn’t a fancy part of Maryland; it’s not the kind of school where kids who are phenomenally gifted get the kind of equipment to match their talents with the


Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize for North Korea talks, Moon says

TOKYO — If anyone were to win the Nobel Peace Prize for the current effort to solve the North Korean nuclear problem, it should be President Trump. That’s what South Korea’s president said Monday when it was suggested that he himself should be in line for the award. President Moon Jae-in has gone out of his way to flatter Trump and credit him for creating the environment that has brought about the remarkable diplomatic rapprochement now unfolding. But even by Moon’s standards, the latest remarks were really something. They came after Lee Hee-ho, the widow of late South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, sent Moon a message congratulating him for Friday’s summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un. The day-long summit was filled with warm encounters and ended with a joint declaration from the two sides pledging to bring about a formal end to the Korean War and work toward the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. Moon deserves the Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts, Lee wrote in her note. She would know a thing or two about this. Her husband organized the first inter-Korean summit, in 2000, and won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. Kim Dae-jung’s achievement was rather marred, however, when it emerged that he had arranged for the North Korean leader at the time, Kim Jong Il, to receive $500 million for participating. Lee traveled to Pyongyang in 2011 for Kim Jong Il’s funeral and met his son Kim Jong Un — briefly — at that time. Moon told his aides about her note during a meeting Monday. Then he added: “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. The only thing we need is peace.” The remark was reported by local media and confirmed by South Korea’s presidential Blue House. Moon’s approval ratings — already defying the South Korean tendency to fall off a cliff the moment a president is elected — have risen further after the summit. A Realmeter poll conducted over the weekend found that 70 percent of those surveyed approved of the way the president was managing state affairs. Meanwhile, a poll from lesser-known Hangil Research put Moon’s support at an astounding 86 percent. More than 88 percent of the respondents to that survey approved of the joint statement that resulted from Friday’s summit. At a rally in Michigan on Saturday, Trump demurred when he started talking about North


Man slain in Northwest D.C. early Saturday

THE DISTRICT Man is fatally shot, another wounded A man was shot and killed early Saturday in Northwest Washington, D.C. police said. The shooting occurred outdoors just before 3 a.m. in the 700 block of Gresham Place. A second person was shot in the same incident, police said. They described his wounds as not life-threatening. The man killed was identified as Isaiah Harris, 23, of Northeast. There was no immediate indication of the motive for the shooting, and no information on a suspect was released. The site of the shooting is a residential block northwest of Howard University. The street is lined with duplexes. There was no immediate indication Saturday that the incident had any connection with the university. — Martin Weil and Katherine Shaver MARYLAND Pedestrian killed in Pr. George's County A man was killed Saturday night as he walked across Route 301 in Prince George’s County, Maryland State Police said Sunday. The man, who died at the scene, walked “directly” into the path of a Chrysler that was heading south near Berry Street in Brandywine, police said in a statement. Authorities have not released the pedestrian’s name. The driver of the Chrysler, James Williams II, 28, of Clinton, had a child with him, police said. Neither Williams nor the child was injured in the crash, which occurred about 9 p.m. Investigators said they believe alcohol was a factor in the crash but did not elaborate. — Allison Klein Motorcyclist dies after colliding with car A motorcyclist was killed in Prince George’s County on Saturday in a collision with a car, Maryland State Police said. The victim was identified as Dontay Demus, 41, of Waldorf. Police said the crash occurred on northbound Branch Avenue at Moores Road, which is in the Brandywine area. A preliminary investigation indicated that a car heading west on Moores Road failed “for unknown reasons” to stop at a stop sign, entered the intersection and hit the motorcycle. — Martin Weil


Skeletal remains found in Southeast D.C. neighborhood unnerve residents

The woods behind Toia King’s house in Southeast Washington, once a playground for her children to hike, collect sticks and build forts, have become a scary place. Now, the area is roped off by hundreds of feet of yellow crime-scene tape tied to tree limbs and stakes pounded into the dirt, marking where D.C. police over the past four days found the skeletal remains of two females, along with a third set inside a crawl space of an apartment building. This residential neighborhood of apartments and single-family homes where Wayne Place meets Mississippi Avenue in Congress Heights, a half-mile from the Anacostia Freeway, is now a macabre crime scene that on Saturday was crowded with authorities in windbreakers with “homicide” and “forensic investigator” stitched on the backs. On Sunday, two police cruisers guarded the scene — quieter, but no less discomforting. “Nobody knows what’s going on,” said King, who works for the District’s Public Works Department and has lived in her house since 2006. Her concerns echoed the fears and chatter of her neighbors. The bodies, she said, “could have been there for years.” The first set of remains was found Wednesday by construction workers renovating a ground-floor apartment in the 100 block of Wayne Place SE. Andrea Stephens, 47, a nurse who rents the apartment, said contractors were working to fix several problems when they found the skull in a basement crawl space. Police then found the rest of the remains, also in the crawl space. “It just unfolded from there,” said Stephens, who has lived in the building for about a year. “I’m living there for now,” she said, “but I’m going to figure something out. It’s creepy. I don’t really want to be there.” On Saturday, authorities recovered two more sets of remains in the back woods. It’s now the job of the medical examiner to try to identify the remains, their age, how long the victims have been dead and the cause of death. LaShon Beamon, spokeswoman for the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said police and forensic investigators will be back on the scene Monday searching for additional clues. Beamon would not say whether officials are looking for more bodies. D.C. police, who did not respond to requests for comment Sunday, have not said whether any other evidence, such as clothing or personal items, was discovered. Roger Mitchell Jr., the District’s chief medical


Community deaths

cytogenetics as part of George Washington University’s adjunct faculty, died Feb. 26 at an assisted-living center in Potomac. The cause was coronary artery disease, said a daughter, Jennifer Leach. Dr. Leach, a resident of Silver Spring, was born in Pine Mountain, Ky. He taught at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville before moving to the Washington area and joining the Public Health Service in 1966. He retired in 1998 as associate director for science at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Barbara Dyke, museum docent Barbara Dyke, 91, a docent at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum from its opening in 1976 until 2016, died Feb. 23 at a hospital in Prince Frederick. The cause was encephalitis, said a son, Robert Dyke. Mrs. Dyke, a resident of Solomons, Md., was born Barbara Williams in the Panama Canal Zone and had lived in the Washington area for 54 years. At the National Air and Space Museum, she trained other docents and conducted special tours for guests ranging from schoolchildren to high-ranking government officials and foreign dignitaries. Eugene Skora, lawyer Eugene Skora, 94, a retired federal lawyer who in the 1980s and early 1990s organized golf and tennis tournaments and other sports opportunities for retired military officers and other senior citizens, died March 7 at a retirement community in Springfield. The cause was cardiopulmonary arrest, said a son-in-law, Bruce Martin. Mr. Skora was born in Berea, Ohio, and had lived in the Washington area for 68 years. From 1956 to 1973, he was associate general counsel to the U.S. Information Agency. He then spent six years as general counsel to the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and then was briefly general counsel to the National Association of Retired Federal Employees. Farid Srour, real estate investor Farid Srour, 99, a real estate investor, developer and home builder doing business as FS Peoples Realty, died March 4 at his home in Potomac. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, James Srour. Mr. Srour was born in Tartus, Syria, and settled in the Washington area 70 years ago. For about 20 years, he was a building maintenance man, lawn and garden worker, taxi driver and a life insurance salesman. He went into real estate investing and development 50 years ago and remained active in his business until three years ago, his family said. — From staff reports


Trump is claiming wins on North Korea before the game really starts

room before the coin is tossed to start the game,” said Thomas Weiss, a scholar at the City University of New York who has studied North Korea. As The Post's Anna Fifield notes, talks between Korean leaders in 2000 led to the South Korean president getting a Nobel Peace Prize. But it was later revealed that the meeting included a $500 million payoff to the North, and six years later North Korea detonated its first nuclear weapon. President Bill Clinton in 1994 prematurely declared a deal that a denuclearization deal meant “an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula.” And President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s floated a U.S. troop withdrawal from the peninsula before negotiations fell apart. Even the photo-op hug between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in is hardly unprecedented. In fact, it looked a lot like the one between Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, with then-South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung in 2000. None of which is to say today isn't significant or that Trump's posture toward North Korea — and the work toward tough sanctions at the United Nations — hasn't borne fruit. We could be on the precipice of a breakthrough, and even Trump's critics credit him for helping get to that point. But the combination of Trump's lack of diplomatic acumen and his apparent desire for a big, presidency-changing win have to be taken into consideration here. Trump has great latitude to handle this situation himself, and he has assured us he'll be tough and demanding — that he might even just walk away. And yet, at almost the same time, he has talked about the process as if he has already had a huge, measurable impact, and he appears enamored with the positive press he has received. In a Thursday appearance on Fox News, Trump was giddy about showing pictures of Kim meeting with now-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We have incredible pictures of the two talking and meeting which I'd love to release.” Later in the interview, he suggested North Korea had already made substantial concessions. “They've given up denuclearization, testing, research,” Trump said. “We're going to close different sites. And I'm saying to myself, wait a minute. All of these things he's given up, and we haven't even really that much asked them because we would have asked them but they gave it before I even


The search for a non-alcoholic beer that’s actually worth drinking

I love beer, always have. When I was young, I associated beer with my father. He was not a big drinker, but on sunny summer days, he’d ride his motorcycle home from his office in the suburbs of Boston to our home just to have lunch with me. He sipped his Heineken and ate pepperoncini straight from the jar while I prepared my special hot dog recipe (diagonally scored, poached in a quarter-inch of his Heineken) and talked about my day. In my 20s, beer was the magical trap door to extroversion I used to navigate high-rise college dorms and British beer cellars. In my 30s, my new husband and I learned how to brew beer. As we boiled, strained and bottled, we learned how to negotiate our new life together. My love affair with beer took a dark turn in my 40s, until finally, one summer morning, my father intervened. I was an alcoholic, he said, and I knew he was right. I’m approaching 50 and have been sober nearly five years. I’m profoundly grateful for each and every day, but boy, do I miss a good, cold beer. Beer has been a part of American culture since Europeans set up the first colonies, first as an English import and later as a home brew made from Indian corn or barley. The first commercial brewing equipment arrived on our shores in 1633, and within a year, every New England community was required by law to have an inn, or “ordinary,” which sold beer to the public at a fixed cost. Today, nearly 5,100 American beer producers sell about $111.1 billion in beer annually, much of it marketed as a means to celebrate with friends and quench our thirst. Various forms of nonalcoholic beer, or “small beer,” have existed since the medieval era as an alternative to contaminated water. Modern nonalcoholic beer, “NA beer,” or “near-beer,” was born during Prohibition, when alcohol levels above 0.5 percent were illegal. Despite the optimistic nickname, most “near beers” are a poor substitute for the real thing, and many are downright undrinkable. As the market share for nonalcoholic beer increases, however, some craft brewers are working to change the reputation of NA beer. Most fall flat, not because they’re missing the alcohol, but because the process most brewers use to remove the alcohol also removes volatile flavors. To make beer, water and a grain,


Does that baby bird on the ground need your help?

important thing — and sometimes the only thing — to do is to call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator for advice. “It is super important to first determine if the animal needs help,” he says. For a baby bird, the kind of help it might need depends on its stage of life. A nestling might simply need to be placed back in its nest with help from an adult human. But if the baby bird is slightly older (a fledgling that has left the nest but is still under parental care), it may be best to leave it alone. Fledglings are “like kids when they first start walking,” Mizejewski says. “They don’t do it very well, even though they are fully feathered.” In the Washington area, fledgling robins and cardinals hide on the ground near their nest while they learn to fly. Their parents keep an eye on them and feed them. Goldberg says baby birds are sometimes “kidnapped” by humans who have good intentions but perhaps not the right plan. Mizejewksi learned this lesson the hard way as a kid. “I found a baby bird on the sidewalk,” he says. “It was tweeting, and I thought it must be injured or orphaned. Being an animal lover, I wanted to help.” After taking the bird to a pet store for help, he fed it formula. The baby bird died not long after. His first mistake, he says, was not realizing that the baby bird did not necessarily need his help. “We love and care about wildlife,” he says. “So it makes sense that people want to help. But in most cases . . . trying to intervene only makes its chances of survival go down.” Some things kids can do to help birds this spring? Talk to your parents about setting up a bird bath in your yard, creating a wildlife habitat garden and keeping dogs on leashes and pet cats indoors. One of the best things kids can do to help all backyard wildlife is to think like a naturalist. A naturalist, Mizejewksi says, is anybody who loves the natural world and spends time studying it. The idea, he says, is to inspire others to want to learn about and protect wildlife. “Anybody, even a kid, can be a naturalist,” he says. “Just by sharing their passion and their knowledge, they can change how other people feel about wildlife.” kidspost@washpost.com


Are black or white offenders more likely to kill police?

population of less than 250,000. The FBI distinguishes the types of felonious incidents, so we looked further into ambushes, which include entrapment, premeditated attacks and unprovoked attacks. Many of the ambushes are the types of attacks Bratton originally referred to — ones incited by anger and hatred toward police. They include former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner’s rampage in 2013 to kill LAPD officers and their families, sniper attacks on officers standing outside their homes or barracks, point-blank assassination-style shootings of officers in a restaurant, coffee shop or patrol car, and attacks by “sovereign citizens” or members of militia groups. There were 304 officers killed in ambush attacks from 1980 to 2013, with 371 offenders involved in those deaths. The percentage of black and white offenders in ambushes were about the same: 44 percent were white, and 43 percent were black. Law enforcement fatalities have been declining since the 1970s. Felonious deaths also have declined since that time: Nearly 140 officers died in felonious incidents in 1973; in 2013, 27 officers were killed in felonious incidents. Ambushes accounted for 21.7 percent of felonious deaths from 2004 to 2013. The Fact Checker’s analysis has limitations. There is no ethnic breakdown in the FBI data, and it is unclear whether Hispanic or Latino offenders were included in the white category, the unknown category, or elsewhere. There is not enough information on each officer’s death and circumstance to understand what motivated the killings — who killed whom why, and whether there are identifiable trends. Those details would provide useful context — for example, how “sovereign citizen” attacks compare to members of gangs targeting police. But that is not readily available, other than manually cross-checking the 2,000-plus officer deaths through news clips, booking documents and other sources. The FBI provided the database without personally-identifiable information. More white offenders than black offenders killed police between 1980 and 2013. Police officers were killed in ambush attacks by just as many black offenders as white offenders in the past three decades. There are no simple conclusions or trends that can be gleaned from the database alone, but it provides context that based on the raw numbers, officers are no more likely to be killed by black offenders than white offenders. (About our rating scale) Send us facts to check by filling out this form Follow The Fact Checker on Twitter and friend us on Facebook


Korea is built to be unsolvable

Arguably no four words are better calculated to explode the heads of liberals the world over than “Donald Trump’s Nobel Prize.” That was reason enough for thousands of Trump devotees to chant “Nobel! Nobel!” at a weekend political rally in Michigan. His putative claim on the laurel had come days earlier, when the whole world saw North Korea’s Kim Jong Un attempt an awkward hug with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in at the conclusion of their summit. Kim is a third-generation despot known for ordering senior officials executed by shooting them at close range with antiaircraft fire. So any hug, no matter how awkward, is going to look like a momentous breakthrough, and President Trump’s team is of course going to credit his Twitter diplomacy. Liberal heads also went blooey back in 1906, when another brash, wealthy, self- promoting New York Republican president received a Nobel Peace Prize. According to keepers of the Nobel records, “the Norwegian Left argued that [Theodore] Roosevelt was a ‘military mad’ imperialist who completed the American conquest of the Philippines. Swedish newspapers wrote that Alfred Nobel was turning in his grave.” What is most pertinent about this parallel is not how much or how little Trump resembles this role model. (It’s possible Roosevelt wrote more books than Trump has read.) Instead, the key takeaway is that Roosevelt won his peace prize for mediating an agreement involving the future of Korea. More than a century later, the U.S. president is still working on the same problem. This simple fact ought to give the triumphalists pause. For all the focus on personality — “Little Rocket Man” and so on — Korea’s destiny as a global problem patch is dictated by its geography more than its leaders. It is the strategic peninsula where imperial powers converge. Korea shields China’s vital ports on the Yellow Sea; it lures Russia with the hope of warm-water access to the Pacific; it juts at the Japanese home islands “like a dagger pointed at the heart,” as one military strategist put it sharply. Dominated for centuries by China, Korea found itself at the crossroads of two wars in the decade between 1895 and 1905, and nothing afterward has resembled true peace. Roosevelt’s role in ending the second of those two wars, between Russia and Japan , led to his Nobel Prize and left the peninsula under Japanese sway. Over the next generation, that


On Iran and North Korea, Trump prepares to screw everything up

clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people.” After pretty much everyone cried “WHAT???”, they released a corrected statement saying Iran had a nuclear weapons program. Oopsie! It’s more than obvious that Trump wants to pull out of the nuclear agreement and always has. But up until now he’s been restrained by a group of sane senior advisers who have repeatedly insisted to him that the agreement is successfully restraining Iran and that if it disintegrated, there would be little to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, exactly the outcome Trump claims he wants to avoid and that the agreement was intended to forestall. Unfortunately, with the departures of Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster, that group has been reduced to one person: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Just last week Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “the verification, what is in there, is actually pretty robust as far as our intrusive ability,” because “it is written almost with an assumption that Iran would try to cheat.” Mattis now finds himself outnumbered, because Tillerson and McMaster were replaced by Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, two longtime critics of the deal who seem only too happy to see it collapse. Bolton in particular has long advocated military action against Iran. So right now you have one person, Mattis, who is trying to prevent Trump from doing what he really wants to do, and two people, Pompeo and Bolton, who are encouraging him to give in to his desires and walk away from the agreement. Who do you think is going to win that argument? But it doesn’t stop there. If you were Kim Jong Un and you saw the United States abandon a painstakingly negotiated agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program, how could you possibly trust that whatever promises were made to you in exchange for scrapping your own weapons would be kept? There, too, everyone is acting like Trump is a fool. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, when it was suggested that he be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to ease the conflict with North Korea, replied: “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize.” He said this knowing full well that nobody’s getting any prizes before any true agreement is reached, especially given the many times the North and South have briefly


A toddler orangutan learns to climb and a giant panda takes a pool dip

The little orangutan is learning to climb, and the giant panda took a dip. The two animals at the National Zoo on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington are being shown on video playing at the facility. For the 1½-year-old Bornean orangutan named Redd, the zoo said on Twitter, his climbing on a crate “builds strength & coordination skills that he will need” to use a line, known as the O-Line that the orangutans use at the zoo. In the short video, Redd climbs atop the black crate, huddles over and then pulls it down, rolling around with the crate at times. Redd is much like a toddler, zoo officials have said, as he learns coordination and climbing. He’s gradually becoming more independent of his mother, Batang. One of his — and his mother’s — favorite toys is a large rubber tub filled with pine shavings. And they’ve got lots of toys — a rake, shovel and castle molds. Zoo officials said Redd’s favorite foods are popcorn, grapes and bananas. As he is being trained with zookeepers, he often gets rewarded with those foods. Experts at the zoo expect that he’ll be climbing more on the outdoor features in his exhibit area. For now, he still clings to his mom when she goes across the O-line, although he has shown some interest in “reaching up toward the cables,” zoo officials said in a recent update on him. “Down the road, Redd will be independent and brave enough to cross by himself, if he wanted to,” zoo officials said in a recent article in their National Zoo News publication. “For now, though, he seems content to hitchhike on mom.” Redd wasn’t the only one having fun recently at the zoo. Another video shows giant panda Bei Bei taking a dip in a plastic pool. Several Twitter followers commented on Bei Bei, who will be 3 in August. ML Past wrote, “Splish, splash, I was takin’ a bath…”


From ‘fire and fury’ to peace prize? Some talk of a Nobel award for Trump on North Korea.

Early progress toward an agreement aimed at ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons has suddenly raised an idea that thrills many Republicans as much as it horrifies many Democrats: a Nobel Peace Prize for President Trump. “No-bel! No-bel! No-bel!” an appreciative crowd chanted in Michigan over the weekend, as Trump spoke of the possibility that he could help broker peace between North Korea and South Korea and an end to the nuclear threat hanging over the United States and its allies. “That’s very nice, thank you. That’s very nice,” Trump replied, smiling at the thought. “Nobel!” he then exclaimed with a chuckle, appearing to acknowledge the improbability. “I just want to get the job done.” Nearly nine years after President Barack Obama was awarded the prize, a growing chorus of Trump boosters argue that the current president should receive it, as well — in his case, for efforts to contain North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and woo him into diplomatic talks. But even the prospect of a Nobel Prize for Trump has set off a fierce partisan debate over whether such an honor is deserved so early in negotiations — especially given North Korea’s long history of dangling promises regarding its nuclear capability upon which it later fails to deliver. South Korean President Moon Jae-in — who has gone out of his way to flatter Trump and credit him for helping to lay the groundwork for a potential diplomatic breakthrough — added to the debate Monday by responding to a suggestion that Moon should receive the peace prize. “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize,” Moon replied, according to local news outlets. “The only thing we need is peace.” That goal, however, may still be far away. Negotiations with North Korea have a long history of failure, as the secretive communist country steadily progressed toward a nuclear arsenal that many say Kim will never give up. But Trump appears to delight in the prospect that he could collect the holy grail of statesmanship — and do it for fostering peace with a country he threatened months ago to “totally destroy.” Trump was asked about Nobel prospects during a White House event Tuesday. He replied only that it was gracious of Moon to have suggested him as a laureate. Trump added that the date and time for his summit meeting will be announced soon. Trump plans to meet directly


Spring sellers: Try ‘coming soon’ status

In the hot, early spring market of 2018, sellers in the Washington region have the upper hand on buyers, especially in more desirable neighborhoods closer to commercial centers, public transportation and other attractions, says Corey Burr, a senior vice president at TTR Sotheby’s International Realty in Chevy Chase, Md. To maximize the initial excitement of a new listing coming on the market, sellers should discuss with their agent the use of the “coming soon” status, Burr suggests. Simply put, this feature enables the agent to list the home in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and put a sign in front of the seller’s home well before it hits the market. Burr says the major benefit to this strategy is that buyer agents can contact their buyers to inform them of the new listing so that they are ready to aggressively pursue the house when it becomes active in the MLS. “This gives a seller the best opportunity to create an initial buzz about the property, which often results in increased activity right off the bat,” Burr says. The “coming soon” practice is used in many markets throughout the country, but it’s only just catching on in a more widespread way in the Washington area. “I just employed this strategy for a house in Bethesda and have received five calls from people who saw the sign and three calls from agents representing interested buyers,” Burr says. “This activity has resulted in four scheduled showings once the property is activated in the MLS. This seller is well on the way to getting a quick offer or more on the property.”


Has the medical device tax shipped jobs overseas and stunted innovation?

catastrophe for the industry, or that R&D spending on medical technology overall has decreased. The medtech industry and its domestic revenues are holding strong, and investment in R&D has remained constant since 2008, an Ernst & Young annual industry report found. R&D spending has been affected by increased regulations and other trends in the industry. But the total amount spent on medical technology R&D in the U.S. grew 7 percent in 2013. Venture capital investment in the industry has dwindled, but that reflects general trends among venture capital firms, the report said. The majority of commercial leaders have consistently invested in R&D. Venture capital investments in medical devices continue to fall, but start-ups still saw venture-capital backing; about 40 percent of all venture-capital medtech investment went to early-stage start-ups in 2013-2014, the report found. Lastly, the actual collection from this tax has been lower than estimated. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found the number of tax filings and the amount of revenue associated with this tax was lower than expected during the first two quarters after the tax took effect. So at least in the first two quarters, the tax did not create the anticipated impact on the industry, calling into question some of the estimates that have been touted. The medical-device industry has faced tough headwinds in recent years, such as pricing pressures and declining reimbursements. A new tax on top of that doesn’t help. Yes, some companies are creating jobs overseas. Some firms are cutting their investments in research and development. But what’s lacking is the direct causation between those decisions and the medical device tax. One could certainly argue that the tax, or anticipation of its impact,played a role in some business decisions.But there is no direct proof that the tax is the sole cause of their actions, or that it has fragmented the ability of the U.S. medical device industry to come up with innovative technology. We wavered between Two and Three Pinocchios, but for the moment will lean toward Two. Our analysis is constrained by not having access to company books, but foes of the tax are going to need to come up with more conclusive evidence that the woes of the industry stem directly from the tax. (About our rating scale) Send us facts to check by filling out this form Follow The Fact Checker on Twitter and friend us on Facebook


Kerry’s claim that Afghanistan’s U.S. forces deal is ‘under the same standard’ as Japan or Korea

while the individual is present in that country. Shared jurisdiction occurs when each party to the agreement retains exclusive jurisdiction over certain offenses, but also allows the United States to request that the host country waive jurisdiction in favor of the United States.” Generally, depending on how solid a country’s judicial system is, the SOFA is either tougher or weaker. Mongolia, for instance, can request that the United States waive jurisdiction in cases concerning criminal behavior unrelated to official duty but the United States is only required to give “sympathetic consideration” to the request. In the now-expired SOFA for Iraq, the United States offered the illusion of jurisdiction by saying it could be claimed if a soldier acted “outside duty status” but in fact service members always have duty status. By contrast, the NATO SOFA provides for shared jurisdiction, in which jurisdiction is granted in certain circumstances, such as an offense is punishable by a country’s laws. Japan and South Korea, two other countries Kerry mentioned as being equivalent to Afghanistan, have tried U.S. soldiers for criminal offenses, even though the service members sought refuge in the U.S. courts to thwart the legal actions; their efforts were rejected, including in one case by the U.S. Supreme Court. With these facts in hand, legal experts we consulted said Kerry’s statement was incorrect, though few were willing to go on the record, perhaps in an effort to preserve relations with the State Department. Karzai has said he would submit the issue of whether U.S. soldiers can be exempted from trials in Afghan courts to a traditional loya jirga meeting and the Afghan parliament, so the issue is not quite settled yet. “To the extent there is a general norm, in terms of countries with a significant U.S. troop presence, Europe, Japan and Korea, the structure is very different than that in the U.S.-Afghan security agreement,” said Christopher Jenks, director of the criminal justice clinic at SMU Dedham School of law, who defended SOFA cases while in the U.S. Army JAG Corps. “There is no country in the world in which the U.S. has 10,000 + service members and that country not have primary jurisdiction over those U.S. service members in the vast majority of crimes. Afghanistan would be the one and only.” In response to The Fact Checker’s queries, Kerry spokesman Alec Gerlach issued this statement: Essentially, the State Department is asserting


The ‘People’s Pulitzers’ salute those who give voice to the powerless

1950, the prize has been part of the wide-ranging legacy of legendary labor leader Sidney Hillman. The founding president of Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Hillman helped shape the New Deal as an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also believed that a free press was essential to a fair and equal society and recognized that public-interest journalism can help instigate powerful movements for change, from the labor movement to Black Lives Matter. Referred to by some as the “People’s Pulitzers,” the Hillman Prizes are awarded annually to journalism that illuminates the great issues of our time, including civil rights, economic justice and the search for lasting peace. Over the years, Hillman Prize winners have had a significant impact on the public debate. Individuals reporting on the water crisis in Flint, Mich., and local broadcast coverage of civil forfeiture laws in Tennessee are merely two examples of recent awardees whose work has influenced the national conversation and inspired a political response. The 2018 winners have made similarly essential contributions. (I served as a judge alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic, Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect, Alix Freedman of Reuters, and Hendrik Hertzberg and Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker.) For example, the prize for Web journalism went to reporters from Univision News and El Faro, an El Salvador-based digital news site, for their ambitious four-part special feature on the challenges facing refugees fleeing El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, from the proliferation of gang violence in their native countries to the difficulties they encounter as asylum seekers in Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica and the United States. Likewise, the prize for newspaper journalism recognized Brett Murphy’s in-depth investigation into the exploitation of thousands of port truck drivers in Los Angeles. An investigative reporter with the USA Today Network, Murphy revealed how trucking companies coerced drivers, many of them poor immigrants, into signing “lease-to-own” contracts that left them personally on the hook for business expenses such as tires and fuel. As a result, many drivers were paid starvation wages — in one instance, a driver’s weekly paycheck totaled a meager 67 cents — and were forced into crippling debt. Murphy’s report prompted major retailers to announce internal audits of their supply chains, while congressional Democrats introduced two bills aimed at protecting truck drivers’ rights. And in the magazine category, the prize was awarded to Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal for their


Rick Perry’s claim that he boosted the Texas vaccination rate by nearly 50 percent

“Our vaccination rate in Texas [in 2000] was 65 percent. When I left two weeks ago, it was 95 percent.” — Former Texas governor Rick Perry (R), in an interview with The Washington Post and the Texas Tribune, Feb. 5, 2015 This was an impressive boast made by the former governor and 2016 presidential aspirant — that during his term as governor from 2000 to 2015, he managed to boost the vaccination rate by nearly 50 percent. Our antennae went up. Is this even remotely possible? A quick search on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which lists annual vaccination rates for every state, found little basis for Perry’s assertion. So we asked Perry spokesman Travis Considine for the evidence. He quickly provided two documents. One was a 2008 news release from the Texas Health Department, stating the immunization rate for children under age 3 was 65 percent in 2002 and had climbed to 77.3 percent in 2007. The other was 2014 CDC news release showing the vaccination rate for kindergartners in Texas was over 97 percent. In other words, he was selling apples and oranges. There’s a huge difference between counting the rate for those under 36 months and counting the rate for children going into kindergarten. This was quickly discovered by digging into the CDC document and finding the data for Texas children between the ages of 19 and 35 months. “You are absolutely right about that,” said Anna C. Dragsbaek, president of The Immunization Partnership, a Texas-based nonprofit that aims to eradicate vaccine-preventable diseases. “Kindergarten immunization rates are not what the CDC or what public health experts look at. It’s the younger kids who really need the shots.” The comparisons are slightly complicated by the fact that since 2000, the recommended menu of shots has increased. The gold standard in 2000 was “4:3:1:3:3,” which means 4+ doses of pertussis-containing vaccine; 3+ doses of polio vaccine; 1+ dose(s) measles-containing vaccine; 3+ doses of Hib vaccine and 3+ doses of hepatitis B vaccine. But in 2013 (the most recent year with data), the recommended schedule is “4:3:1:4:3:1:4.” That translates to 4+ doses of pertussis-containing vaccine; 3+ doses of polio vaccine; 1+ dose(s) of MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine; the full series of Hib vaccine (3+ or 4+ doses depending on product type received); 3+ doses of hepatitis B vaccine; 1+ dose(s) of Varicella vaccine


Diseases spread by ticks, mosquitoes and fleas more than tripled in the U.S. since 2004

The warmer weather of spring and summer means the start of tick and mosquito season and the diseases they transmit, including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, West Nile and Zika. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that illnesses from mosquito, tick and flea bites more than tripled in the United States from 2004 to 2016. The report, released Tuesday, shows that the number of reported cases of these diseases jumped from 27,388 cases in 2004 to more than 96,000 cases in 2016. The data includes illnesses reported in U.S. states and territories. During that period, more than 640,000 cases of these diseases were reported to the CDC. Officials say the actual number of people who have become sick is much higher, in part because many infections are not reported or recognized. Some patients may experience mild symptoms and not seek medical attention, and not all diseases were reported for the full 13-year analysis period or from all states and territories. The data “substantially underestimate disease occurrence,” the report said. For example, recent data from clinical and laboratory diagnoses estimate that Lyme disease infects about 300,000 Americans every year, which is eight to 10 times the number reported in the CDC analysis. In 2016, the number of Lyme disease incidents reported for the United States was 36,429. As a group, these diseases in the United States are notable for their wide geographical distribution and resistance to control. Only one of the diseases, yellow fever, has a vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The increase in disease cases caused by the bite of an infected mosquito, tick or flea in the United States is the result of many factors. Mosquitoes and ticks and the germs they spread are increasing in number and moving into new areas. West Nile virus, for example, was introduced to New York City in 1999 and then spread across the country. As a result of these increases, more people are at risk for infection. Overseas travel and commerce are also increasingly common, and someone infected with a mosquito-borne virus such as Zika in one country can unknowingly transport it home. Climate change, which experts say can exacerbate many public health threats, also plays an important role, allowing mosquitoes and ticks to thrive in warmer temperatures, said Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, which produced


Local Digest: Four men shot early Monday in Northeast D.C.

Police said they arrested Marquette Jordan, 26, also of Hyattsville, and charged him with second-degree murder. The stabbing occurred about 2 a.m. in the Arthur Capper senior public housing building in the 900 block of 5th Street SE, near the Southeast Freeway. A police report says the victim was stabbed in the chest and died at a hospital. The apartment building is owned by the D.C. Housing Authority and is managed privately. It has 162 apartments. — Dana Hedgpeth, Peter Hermann Boy, man hurt by gunfire in Northeast A small boy and a man were shot and wounded Monday evening in Northeast Washington, D.C. police said. Both victims were conscious and breathing after being hit, said Brianna Jordan, a spokeswoman for the police department. The boy is 4 years old, she said. It was not known whether he was related to the man. The gunfire erupted about 6:10 p.m. in the 1800 block of M Street NE, Jordan said. It appeared that an investigation was also underway on nearby Bladensburg Road. The circumstances were unclear. It was not known whether either victim was an intended target. Police said they were looking for four attackers, but detailed descriptions were not available. According to police, the man was hit more than once in his lower extremities. The nature of the boy’s wounds was not immediately known. The area is just southwest of the National Arboretum and southeast of the Trinidad area. — Martin Weil MARYLAND Two hurt as vehicle jumps retaining wall A vehicle jumped a retaining wall Sunday and fell into a below-ground enclosure at the headquarters of an Islamic organization in Montgomery County, authorities said. Two occupants of the vehicle were trapped inside but were extricated and taken to hospitals with injuries described as not life-threatening. The incident occurred in the 15000 block of Good Hope Road in the Silver Spring area of the county, according to Pete Piringer, a spokesman for the county fire and rescue service. One occupant suffered what was said to be a serious injury. The building at that address houses the U.S. headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, according to the community’s website. According to the site, the community was founded in 1889 as a revival movement within Islam and emphasizes teachings of peace, love, justice and sanctity of life. It was not clear what caused the vehicle to jump the wall. — Martin Weil


Does your pooch really need Prozac?

help dogs suffering from separation anxiety or compulsive behaviors such as tail chasing. But several of these studies received some funding from the pharmaceutical companies marketing these drugs to veterinarians and pet owners. These studies also frequently showed mixed results or included behavioral therapies as part of the treatments for animals. Critics of giving pets psychiatric medications argue that owners should rely more on behavioral approaches, such as spending more time with pets, taking them outdoors and using training programs. Research supports the notion that environmental factors probably play a role in the development of behavioral issues in pets. Perhaps unsurprisingly, studies suggest that dogs who are walked only a few times each week or whose owners spend less time at home may be at greater risk for behavioral problems, such as excessive barking and destructiveness. Still, there are situations that seem to warrant treating pets with psychiatric medications. For instance, veterinary staff often suffer injuries such as lacerations and bites from agitated animals. Under these circumstances, veterinarians may turn to such medications as acepromazine — a medication similar to chlorpromazine, the first antipsychotic widely used in humans — to help sedate aggressive pets. Giving these kinds of drugs to pets isn’t risk-free. Just as with humans, psychiatric medications for pets can carry plenty of side effects, including gastrointestinal upset, weight changes and irregular heartbeats. The overlapping use of psychiatric medications among humans and animals also raises the specter of owners sharing drugs with their pets. Veterinarians have voiced concerns about owners using pets to obtain access to restricted drugs, including anti-pain opioids and anti-anxiety benzodiazepines. (Some states now require veterinarians to file reports to authorities when prescribing controlled substances for pets.) Veterinary organizations are establishing frameworks to guide the use of psychiatric drugs in pets. In 2015, the American Animal Hospital Association published practice guidelines for the behavioral management of cats and dogs, including recommendations regarding when medications may be helpful to these animals. Several academic institutions now offer specialized training in animal behavior for veterinarians, including board certification in the specialty by the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. Pets undoubtedly have mental-health needs that deserve our attention. But as a doctor specializing in mental-health care for people, I’ve learned that prescribing psychiatric medications often comes with a great deal of uncertainty. I can only imagine how hard it must be when the patients cannot speak their minds. health-science@washpost.com


Where to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in San Francisco

lines and astronomical prices, so locals have shifted their loyalties to spots a little farther out. Thus, I found myself at Hong Kong Lounge II ( hongkonglounge2.com, 3300 Geary Blvd., 415-668-8802) in the Inner Richmond District. HKLII was opened by Annie Ho in 2012 and was recognized with a Michelin Bib Gourmand Award in 2017 and 2018. By focusing on careful preparation and high-quality ingredients, Ho has built a loyal following in a clean, well-run spot on an unassuming suburban corner. Instead of dim sum carts, HLKII relies on knowledgeable staff and an extensive written menu, so food comes out hot and fresh, and diners can create a balanced meal without the frantic over-ordering one can easily succumb to when carts roll by. On the dim sum menu, try the shrimp dumplings ($7.95), baked pork buns ($5.95), Shanghai dumplings (soup dumplings) ($10), and sautéed pea shoots ($16). HKLII doesn’t take lunch reservations and waits can vary from 40 minutes on weekdays to up to 2 hours on weekends, so plan accordingly. An extraordinary dining experience is about more than an excellent meal. It’s when the staff works as a team and brings a palpable joy to their work that somehow seasons the food. It’s when the cocktail is a perfectly balanced sip of tangy, sweet and spicy. And even the bite of honeycomb bathed in white chocolate that comes with the check leaves just the right amount of lasting sweetness. That was the evening I had at Rich Table (richtablesf.com, 199 Gough St., 415-355-9085) in Hayes Valley. The market-driven, 50-seat restaurant, opened in 2012 by Sarah and Evan Rich, just earned its first Michelin star. The menu is tweaked daily by chef de cuisine Brandon Rice based on what inspires him at the farmers market. Don’t pass up the truly innovative sardine chips with horseradish crème fraîche ($2 each) and dried porcini doughnuts ($9) that are always on the menu. Try the aged beef wonton with chili oil and sesame ($5), and if in season, the roasted cauliflower with lardo, sweet onion and hazelnut ($27). On the cocktail menu devised by bar manager Tommy Quimby, try El Beso Rojo, with mezcal, blood orange, passion fruit and ancho reyes, or the popular persimmon Negroni ($12). If reservations aren’t available, some line up before 5 p.m. for a seat at the lively bar, which is packed with chatty diners until 10:30 p.m.