Southeast Asia could be a haven for displaced Islamic State fighters

in the lawless jungles of the southern Philippines, recruitment of new Islamic State volunteers in the Malaysian army and a jihadist push by released prisoners in Indonesia. Islamic State fighters from Southeast Asia proposed a Philippines caliphate in a video that was released in June. This region could be a haven for jihadists; a Muslim revolt against the Catholic-dominated government has been simmering there for a century. “Kill the disbelievers where you find them and do not have mercy on them,” Abu Abdul Rahman al-Filipini urged in the video, which was recorded in Raqqa and translated by SITE Intelligence Group . In Malaysia, the army has been a worrying source of recruits. The country’s defense minister told parliament last year that at least 70 former members of the military volunteered for the Islamic State. Malaysian authorities long wary of Western help have been working closely with the United States and Australia since last year to contain such jihadist activities. In Indonesia, police have campaigned aggressively against jihadists, killing or imprisoning many leaders. But as in Iraq and Syria, the prisons have been a breeding ground for extremism. Based on her research in Jakarta, Jones argued in a recent study: “The prison system — where plots are hatched, travel arranged and [Islamic State] supporters recruited — needs urgent attention.” Experts worry that as many as 200 former jihadists are due to be released from Indonesian prisons soon. For nearly 15 years, the United States has been quietly funding counterterrorism efforts in Southeast Asia. A study published last year by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point noted that the United States had provided $441 million in security assistance to the Philippines, mostly for its military, and $262 million to Indonesia, mostly for its police. Police efforts appear to be a better bet: Terrorist attacks increased in the Philippines by 13-fold between 2002 and 2013; attacks declined 26 percent over that period in Indonesia. The Islamic State may lose its caliphate in Syria and Iraq. But there could be a boomerang effect — a bigger jihadist threat in countries to which the fleeing fighters return. Read more from David Ignatius’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Read more on this issue: Kathleen Parker: Understanding the Islamic State Fareed Zakaria: Today’s new terrorists were radical before they were religious Charles Krauthammer: Interpreting the Islamic State’s jihadi logic


Ashton Eaton wins back-to-back decathlon gold

Matt coaches track at American University and was a two-time Olympian in his son’s event, the 1,500 meters. The younger Centrovitz, who grew up in Arnold, ran confidently in Thursday night’s semifinal, surging only when pushed, and advanced with a time of 3:39.61, third in his heat and third of the 12 qualifiers, just 19 hundredths of a second behind Kenya’s Ronald Kemoi. “Throughout these Olympic Games I’ve just been seeing a lot of tripping and falling, petitioning, and all that stuff — and with the trials as well,” Centrowitz said. “So it definitely puts in the back of your head just making sure you stay on both feet, and make sure none of that happens to you.” He did that without issue, and is one of a handful of medal contenders in what should be a fascinating final that includes both Kenya’s Asbel Kiprop, the gold medalist from 2008 in Beijing who qualified fourth, and Algeria’s Taoufik Makhloufi, the gold medalist from 2012 in London who qualified fifth for Saturday’s final. “These championships can go a lot of different ways,” Centrowitz said. “. . . The best the guys on paper made it through. It’s going to be, obviously, quite a final.” That could be true, too, of the women’s 800, but for different reasons. The favorite in that event — indeed, a contender to set a world record — is South Africa’s Caster Semenya, who is believed to have an intersex condition called hyperandrogenism, which could leave her with higher levels of testosterone, a potential advantage. Semenya won her heat, the third of three semifinals Thursday, posting the fastest time of the 24 competitors, 1:58.15, within five seconds of both the world and Olympic records, each of which have stood since the early 1980s. “There’s definitely not an easy solution,” said American Ajee Wilson, who finished third in her heat and did not qualify for the final. “There’s a saying that you shouldn’t really come hard at a problem unless you have a solution. I don’t, so at this point, it’s kind of just like go with the flow of things. You can’t change anything. So you just have to do what you have to do to try and win and do the best you can.” The best Eaton could do was that improbable tie. That, of course, was good enough for gold, good enough for history. He


Would Donald Trump make art great again?

— a chill had fallen over the sector. Business leaders who had previously delegated corporate giving strategies to trusted subordinates were now taking a much more personal interest in every decision. A new sense of caution was felt even in the most traditionally cautious parts of the arts world. A group of four opera companies that had planned a production of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” quietly dropped plans to stage it as a reference to the 2003 Abu Ghraib scandal, with prisoners in orange jumpsuits and guards in American military uniforms. No one said anything about it being potentially controversial. Rather, opera leaders merely said the production had to please a wide audience in several different cities, and should therefore be more traditional. After a grueling day of conference sessions at the 2017 Americans for the Arts convention, a group of executives compared notes, and all noticed something curious. Every one of them could cite at least one member of their board who had “come out” as an enthusiastic supporter of the president. The head of an important regional dance company described it this way: “I don’t think she had ever spoken in a meeting before, and then, out of nowhere, she asked why we were devoting funds to Black History Month. She gave a long speech about how all lives matter and even African Americans don’t want their history ‘ghettoized.’ ” The idea gained traction, and the company canceled plans for outreach events for February 2018. When Americans for the Arts gathered a year later, the mood had changed from worry to panic. A major arts presenter in the Midwest had been forced to cancel touring appearances by a Russian chorus, a Chinese folk ballet and the Orchestre National de France, after failing to secure visas in time. At Lincoln Center, in New York, a performance of a new concerto for oud — an Arab lute — was scuttled when the Arab American soloist was detained for several days by immigration authorities. He was released but too late to go forward with the performance. The head of the New York Philharmonic wrote a strong op-ed piece for the New York Times denouncing the outrage, but that only attracted protests outside of David Geffen Hall. Some longtime subscribers urged that he be fired for “politicizing music.” By the summer of 2018, the hottest on record, it seemed no part of the cultural


The inside story of how billionaires are racing to take you to outer space

were interpreted as barbs on Twitter over who pulled off the most daring feat in space, they have apparently entered a detente, with peace offerings, even words of encouragement. But there is something about the exchanges that still bothers Musk, who in a recent interview wanted to make it clear: Space is not orbit. That’s what he meant when he lit up Twitter after Bezos’s Blue Origin flew a rocket to the edge of space and landed it at its West Texas test range, a feat that NASA has never achieved. Bezos declared the reusable rocket “the rarest of beasts.” “Not quite ‘rarest,’ ” Musk shot back, pointing out that SpaceX has previously launched rockets in test flights and landed them after relatively short trips. In a series of tweets, he vowed something even more spectacular, and difficult — landing a much larger and more powerful rocket capable of traveling many times the speed of sound, which is required for going into orbit. Later, after SpaceX landed its Falcon 9 rocket, Bezos tweeted what many considered a backhanded compliment: “Welcome to the club!” Months later, Musk still was fixated on it. Bezos’s Blue Origin may have crossed the boundary into “space,” a somewhat arbitrary barrier generally agreed as starting at 62 miles above Earth’s surface. But Musk’s SpaceX spacecraft don’t just go up; they go up and out, following an arc and moving so fast — about five miles per second — that they stay aloft and can circle the Earth in less time than it takes to watch “Star Wars.” Reaching the threshold of space is a somewhat simple up-and-down endeavor — “like shooting a cannonball up and then the cannonball falls down for four minutes of free fall,” Musk said. Orbit and space “are different leagues,” Musk said. The tension began appearing in legal briefs in 2014. SpaceX challenged a patent held by Blue Origin that gave it the right to land rockets on floating barges at sea — a feat SpaceX has now pulled off multiple times. The point of landing the rockets, though, is to reuse them, which then would dramatically lower the cost of space flight. SpaceX has yet to refly any of its rockets, although it says it plans to this year. Blue Origin, by contrast, has flown the same booster four times in test flights, showing that recovering the rocket is not the


Natural-gas explosion blamed in deadly Md. apartment fire

backup regulator, the piping infrastructure and the bank of meters and positioned them on a piece of plywood — creating a mock-up of how the equipment was lined up when it was on a wall, which had been blasted out, according to Chhatre and investigators who were at the scene for seven days. The effort to locate the source of the leak also has been aided by information from tests Washington Gas conducted after the explosion and fire. Investigators of an Aug. 10 fire in Silver Spring have focused their attention on a basement utility room at 8701 Arliss Street – like the one pictured here, from 8707 Arliss Street. This photo was taken within the last week, and shows a bank of gas meters similar to the setup in the utility room that blew up. The gas comes in from the left, passes through a regulator that decreases the pressure, and is distributed to the meters linked to specific apartments. (Kay Apartment Communities) Washington Gas tested the service line leading into the utility room and found it sound, company spokesman Jim Monroe said earlier this week. That has helped lead investigators to believe the leak was probably inside the utility room and in the area of the regulator, according to several officials with direct knowledge of the case. Monroe declined to comment Friday. Chhatre said it’s too early to pin any blame on the regulators in the utility room. He said he expects to soon learn their age. “They’re quite old,” he said. The source of the ignition may never be definitively known, however one person familiar with the probe said investigators are looking at the role of a gas-fired hot- water heater in the utility room adjacent to the bank of meters. It provided hot water to 14 apartment units, so it could have been operating before midnight on Aug. 10, when the explosion erupted, according to Kay Apartment Communities. “It’s highly suspect,” said a law enforcement officer with direct knowledge of the case, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to discuss an ongoing investigation. Officials are looking at other possible ignition sources as well, including those in an adjacent room or even one floor above the explosion site. At a news conference Friday, Daniel Board, an ATF agent, said investigators conducted more than 100 interviews with witnesses and watched hours of


Happy birthday celebration planned for giant baby panda at National Zoo

diluted in water in a sports bottle with a straw on it. When they gave him some honey straight, “he was even wilder,” MacCorkle said. On Saturday, Bei Bei’s cake will be sprinkled with honey, as zookeepers said they wanted to make sure he likes it before the big event. Mei Xiang, Bei Bei’s mother, turned 18 on July 22 and got her own ice cake, zookeepers said. The cakes are made by the zoo’s nutrition department. At the media event Saturday, there will be a zhuazhou, a Chinese tradition for a baby’s 1st birthday. Several objects are put in front of the child and, based on what a child picks, it is meant to predict their future. Several banners will be put out for Bei Bei to choose, zookeepers said. The zoo won’t say what the banners will say or symbolize, wanting to keep it secret. When his sister, Bao Bao, turned 1, she picked a banner with a picture of a peach on it. A peach, zoo officials said, symbolizes fertility in China. At 70 pounds, Bei Bei is said to be one of the zoo’s larger giant panda cubs for his age, officials said. Over the past few months, trainers have worked with Bei Bei, teaching him to do tricks in exchange for treats of apple and sweet potato. He also is eating bamboo. The sessions last about five to 10 minutes and involve him following simple commands to lie down, put his paw under the cage door, and “stand,” moving on his hind legs with long, sharp-looking claws poking through a cage. He also likes to play with several plastic toys, including one that lets him work to get biscuits out of it. And in the summer heat, he’s enjoyed playing in a small pool filled with water. Bei Bei, whose name is pronounced “bay,” was born Aug. 22. His twin died several days after they were born after becoming ill. It was only the third time that giant panda twins had been born in the United States. The name Bei Bei means “precious” or “treasure.” He was named about a month after he was born by U.S. and Chinese first ladies Michelle Obama and Peng Liyuan. Bei Bei’s next big milestone, zookeepers said, will be weaning him at 1½ years old. “He’s definitely growing at a healthy and steady rate,” MacCorkle said. “He’s doing great.”


Chaunte Lowe, her priorities in order, hopes to high-jump to the medal stand

same money as an athlete, and her husband lost his job in the midst of the country’s economic crisis. He found out about the layoff the same day the couple closed on a house. Eventually, both of their homes — one was a rental property — went into foreclosure. “It broke me as a person, losing everything I had worked so hard for,” she said. Eight years later, her life is stabilized and her family has grown. She’s jumping some of her best marks and helping make ends meet by working as a day trader. After the Olympics, Lowe plans to resume accounting and financial management classes at DeVry University. She has been working with TD Ameritrade to put together a program that helps athletes explore their financial options and invest for life after the Olympics. “So they’re not ending up bankrupt or going into foreclosure — really finding that financial literacy for them,” she said. “These things you think are important now, they’re not in the grand scheme of things.” Even though she has been to three other Olympics, she feels especially focused entering Saturday’s competition. At each previous Summer Games, she was either a college student or still nursing a child. This time her life feels balanced, and she works her sport around her family. Back home in central Florida, Lowe will often wake up at 4:30 a.m. to squeeze in training before the kids wake up. After breakfast and seeing them off to school, she’s back to working on her jumps and fitness. This year has served as a huge rebound season. At the track and field world championships a year ago in Beijing, Lowe failed to hit a single jump and didn’t even make the finals. She feels much better entering these Rio Games, after clearing 6 feet 7 inches at the U.S. Olympic trials last month in Eugene, Ore., the best mark in the world this year. She explained that 2015 was one of her most difficult seasons. She relocated her family and moved her training base from Atlanta to Oviedo, Fla., because her 5-year-old daughter, Aurora, was showing signs of autism or Asperger’s syndrome and could receive specialized schooling in Florida. (Her daughter actually was moved out of a special-needs program last year and began kindergarten earlier this month.) “That’s what you guys were seeing last year,” Lowe said. “It wasn’t that I was


Bacteria found in infants has also been found in pipes of Maryland hospital

team of doctors, nurses, epidemiologists and building engineers test pipes to learn how the problem occurred. “We are doing everything possible to remediate this situation,” Moore said. The exterior of Prince George's Hospital Center. (Mark Gail/The Washington Post) Moore, along with Sherry Perkins, executive vice president of Dimensions Healthcare, and Anthony Harris, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said hospital officials were working to rectify the problem. Moore noted that two sinks within the adult inpatient care unit have been taken out of use and have been treated. Perkins talked about the other precautions that have been put in place since the discovery, including bathing newborns with sterile water and redirecting high-risk pregnant mothers to deliver at other hospitals. She said “bacteria-catching filters” have been installed in the NICU and the ICU and that there are plans to put filters through the entire hospital. “Caring for patients and families is what we do, and patient care has driven this investigation,” Perkins said. “We have taken care of 116 patients in our NICU. These patients are precious to us. It saddens us with their families to ever lose a baby.” Perkins said that since the beginning of the year, seven infants in the NICU have died. She noted that the infants were premature and had complex medical problems. “Some were as small as one to two pounds,” she said. But Perkins said she could not rule out whether the bacteria may have played a role in their deaths. “Our epidemiologist continue to investigate any links between the deaths of these babies and the presence of pseudomonas in our water supply, and we don’t have the answers to that yet,” she said. When found in tap water, the most common strain of pseudomonas is not harmful to most healthy people, experts said. But it is a bigger problem in hospitals, where it can be fatal in patients with weakened or immature immune systems. Perkins said that infection-control precautions used at the hospital center are the same as those used across the country. “It is not a gap in those practices that led to this,” she said. “What we are trying to understand [is] how there would be this transmission from our water to these babies.” “The best determination we can make from this, as we have done the investigation and mapped the plumbing,


The agony of Jordan Burroughs’s Olympic defeat

a lot, man. It hurts.” He ignored the gash on his left ear flap and kept talking through the tears. “It’s so long, man,” Burroughs said of the four-year Olympic journey. “It’s overwhelming to think about. In 2012, I was only one year out of college. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. This one’s been strategic. I’ve worked hard for four years, man. I’ve done everything right. I’ve spent time away from home. I’ve cut weight. I’ve ran. I’ve gotten up early. I’ve sacrificed so much to get here. And I just wanted to show people that. I didn’t want anything from this but for people to understand that wrestling is cool. We work hard. “And I wanted to be amongst the greats. I wanted to be a Simone Biles, a Michael Phelps, an Ashton Eaton. I wanted to be those guys. And it’s unfortunate. You watch the women’s soccer team and the women’s volleyball team and Serena [Williams] and all these amazing athletes, and you think, ‘That won’t be me. That won’t be me. I’m prepared.’ And then life shows you otherwise.” Burroughs will heal. He’ll realize that he is just 28 years old. For disappointed Olympians, the concept of waiting and training another four years is too hard to take right now. But Olympic history – heck, sports history – is full of athletes who faltered in what they thought was their moment, only to turn the setback into a better moment. In 1992, Michael Johnson suffered food poisoning and failed to reach the final in the 200 meters, his signature event. Four years later, he was obliterating the world record in gold shoes. Burroughs can’t see gold anymore, but let the tears dry. Please, let the tears dry. “This is revealing,” Burroughs said. “This is revealing, and it’s necessary. And I’ll get stronger because of it. It’s going to hurt, though, for a long time. I spent so much time this year promoting my personal brand, and I said that I was capable of being the greatest wrestler ever. God said prove it. I couldn’t.” Before his Friday turned dreadful, Burroughs read a note from his wife. Lauren, a former sportswriter, pens a message before all of his matches. In this one, she told her husband not to get so enraptured in each tree “that you forget the magnificence of the forest.” A


U.S. women’s water polo wins gold with dominant, emotional win over Italy

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - AUGUST 19: Adam Krikorian, coach of the United States, has gold medals placed over his head after winning the Women's Water Polo Gold Medal Classification match between the United States and Italy on Day 14 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on August 19, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images) (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images) RIO DE JANEIRO — Coaches do not receive Olympic medals, so Adam Krikorian watched from the side of the pool. He had led the United States on a dominant run, capped by its 12-5 demolition of Italy, under tragic circumstances. On Aug. 3, Krikorian’s brother, Blake, a renowned tech entrepreneur, died suddenly of a heart attack while surfing. Krikorian learned that night and flew home from Rio the next day. He returned in time for the United States’ first game Aug. 9. Blake Krikorian would have turned 49 on Thursday, the eve of the final. “The two days coming home, it was very therapeutic to be able to grieve with the family, and to have that time together,” said Anicia Mendez, Krikorian’s wife. “He had to come back. Everyone has sacrificed so much to get to this point. I know he wanted to be strong for those players and to not take away from their experience. He would never allow anything personal to get in the way of that.” Krikorian gathered his players at 7 a.m. the day after Blake died, before he flew home. They felt as if they had lost a member of their own family because that’s what they had become during four years of training. “We’ve opened up,” Craig said. “We’ve been vulnerable.” Here are some of the best photos of the day. Krikorian wanted to ensure his tragedy would not impede their dreams. “Don’t worry about me,” he told them. “You be you.” “We wanted to be strong for him, but he was strong for us,” captain Maggie Steffens said. “That’s why he’s the best coach in the world.” In Rio, the smallest things would make Krikorian think of Blake: listening to a certain song, sitting under a tree by the pond in the Athletes’ Village. He found solace in his players and believed it would be “selfish” to let his tragedy affect them. “I just keep coming back to how my brother, who was the coolest


Usain Bolt caps Olympic triple trifecta; U.S. women’s relay runs to 4x100 gold

Thursday evening on an empty track at Olympic Stadium to earn a spot in the final. The Americans had no problem with that, posting a time faster than any other relay team in the first round. While the United States enters the final full day of the track and field competition having won 27 medals at Olympic Stadium — including 10 golds — no one has had a tougher trip to Rio de Janeiro than pole vaulter Jenn Suhr. The defending Olympic and world champion had been sick for most of her time in Brazil, a respiratory infection that saw her vomiting blood Friday morning. She still made it to Olympic Stadium on Friday night for the women’s pole vault competition but was clearly hampered. In her third Olympic appearance — Suhr also won silver at the Beijing Games — she managed to clear 15 feet 1 inch on her second attempt. But she missed all three tries at 15-5, ruining her Olympic title defense. Her American teammate Sandi Morris managed to pick up the silver medal. Morris and Greece’s Ekaterini Stefanidi both successfully cleared 15-11, but Stefanidi was awarded the gold medal because she had fewer misses. “I told myself if I was able to get any medal today, I would just be extremely happy, and I am,” said Morris, the 24-year-old American record holder who had broken a bone in her wrist when her pole snapped in May. “I’m so, so happy and so blessed.” In the women’s 5,000 meters, Kenya’s Vivian Cheruiyot set an Olympic record, finishing in 14:26.17 and chasing down favorite Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia late. Ayana, who shattered the world record in the 10,000 one week earlier, helped set the fast pace but had to settle for bronze. American Shelby Houlihan finished 11th with a time of 15:08.89. New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin finished last in the race, 1:48 behind Cheruiyot. Hamblin was one of two runners who crashed in the first-round heat, along with the United States’ Abbey D’Agostino, and sacrificed any shot at a medal by helping each other up. They were both given automatic spots in the final, but D’Agostino tore an anterior cruciate ligament in the crash and was unable to race Friday. In the 4x400 first-round heats, both American squads advanced relatively easily. The women’s squad, which featured Courtney Okolo, Taylor Ellis-Watson, Francena McCorory and Phyllis Francis in the first


The fight over a shrine for a tyrannical Afghan king

official response within two weeks. Another supporter, university scholar Omar Ahmad Parwani, said settling the matter would help bring national reconciliation and resolve a historical grudge. He complained that Ghani had given the title of “national martyr” to an ethnic Hazara militia leader who died two decades ago but was not willing to honor “a Tajik [emir] who belonged to all of Afghanistan.” The cause is also being championed by some former Tajik militia commanders, especially in the Shomali Plain north of Kabul where Kalakani was born. In an email, supporters said they had been snubbed when they took their petition to Ghani’s office but were more sympathetically received by Abdullah. “Dr. Abdullah said this was high on his list,” said Tahir Qadiry, a spokesman for Attah Mohammed Noor, a powerful Tajik governor whose Jamiat-i-Islami party has been putting pressure on Abdullah to bring its demands to Ghani, including the Kalakani reburial. On Wednesday, Abdullah met with Ghani to discuss a number of issues that caused a public rupture between them this month. On Thursday, Kalakani’s portrait suddenly appeared on a wall in the Defense Ministry, where Ghani presided over a ceremony for Afghanistan’s independence day, marking a 1919 treaty with Britain. Visitors said it was hung next to a portrait of Daoud Khan. Kalakani’s supporters exulted over this sign of his official rehabilitation, but the issue has added a new source of ethnic vitriol to Afghan social media. Some Tajik websites call Kalakani a hero and juxtapose his images with those of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the iconic Tajik anti-Taliban commander who was assassinated in 2001. Some posts on these sites mock Pashtuns with vulgar slurs. But posts by some Pashtuns and others denounce Kalakani as a brute. “He was a misogynist and a backward criminal,” one critic tweeted, noting that he had shut down all girls’ schools during his brief reign. Others called him a “stain on our recent history” and compared him to the late Taliban leader Mohammad Omar. On Friday, on the hilltop crowned by the royal tombs of Nader Shah and his son, King Mohammed Zahir Shah, a guard described Zahir Shah’s reign from 1933 to 1973 as a time of peace and stability, and he dismissed the movement to memorialize Kalakani as a ploy by Tajik leaders to advance their own interests. “There is no difference between Kalakani and Mohammad Omar,” he said. Read more:


Olympians struggle to adjust to life beyond the rings

they don’t see coming: everyday life. “I remember waking up the next day after my last competition and feeling like I had run straight into a brick wall,” Johnson recalled. “As an elite athlete, you obsess; you’re a perfectionist over your field. And when you don’t have that to devote every ounce of energy to every day, it’s hard. Any elite athlete will tell you: The transition period from the Olympics into normal life is so hard.” Athletes and experts say this applies in both the near term and years later, both to Olympic champions and those who compete once and lose, both to competitors and coaches. On Sunday night, the 17 days of the Rio Games conclude. On Monday morning, most Americans will rise and go work. The athletes will do — what, exactly? Many don’t know. “It’s an emotional, psychological transition, and it’s very tough,” said Steven Ungerleider, a sports psychologist and author who has worked with both the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee for four decades. “. . . We’re always seeing a large number of athletes who win medals, or don’t win medals, and come home, the lights are turned out, the media is gone, and they go into a state of shock because they have been up on the pedestal and this emotional high for so long. And without their training regimen and support staff, it’s a tough transition.” Suddenly, a lot of free time In the months leading up to the Olympics, athletes are defined by their preparation and sacrifice. Katie Ledecky put off college for a year and swam 70,000 yards each week. Jordan Burroughs began days with pre-dawn runs and seemingly infinite sets of pull-ups and push-ups before even taking to the wrestling mat for practice sessions, eschewing time with his toddler son and infant daughter. Simone Biles chose home-schooling over her friends, and any semblance of a social life, to train more than 30 hours weekly and travel for gymnastics. All of those decisions were based on the cycle of the Olympics. The Games may enter the public’s consciousness only for 17 days every four years. For the athletes, almost by definition, they are an obsession. “It’s almost like Christmas,” Burroughs said. “It’s like, ‘I can’t wait until Christmas, I want to open my presents early. Mom, Dad, what’d you get me? I got to see it. The


‘Let’s dance’: Olympics ends in relief for Brazilians

events. Tens of thousands of families, a good number of them the poor in favelas, were evicted to pave the way for expensive Olympic projects. Half of Brazil is black or mixed race, and while black athletes such as judo star Rafaela Silva won medals for Brazil, blacks were conspicuous by their absence in the stands. “I have no time to follow [the Olympics],” said Jefferson Nascimento, 25, who was serving juices and snacks to the crowds flowing through Rio’s busy Central Station, some of whom were off to Olympic events. “I don’t think it’s a success.” The past few years have been difficult for Brazil: a painful recession, protests in the streets, violence on the rise, enough chaos and belt-tightening that many doubted whether it was worth hosting an expensive athletic event. “Rio already has difficulties with money, and this Olympics made it worse. It was good to have the Games, but this was not the right moment,” Paloma Resende, 16, said in the stands at the women’s field hockey final. “After the Olympics, it will get worse.” Brazilians showed wild enthusiasm for some Olympic stars. In these Games, Michael Phelps cemented his status as the most decorated Olympian in history, wearing more gold than anyone, besting competitors a decade younger and breaking a record set more than 2,000 years ago. Another coronation went to Bolt, the greatest sprinter who ever lived, capping his third straight Olympics with three straight golds and a stadium of fans chanting his name. And new superstars were born after the utter athletic dominance by a pair of 19-year-olds, swimmer Katie Ledecky and gymnast Simone Biles. The host city could claim some wins. Many praised the new subway line, the bus rapid-transit lanes that zipped fans from venues many miles apart, and the redeveloped port area, anchored by the new Museum of Tomorrow. But the bad and bizarre came in waves. A stray bullet here, body parts on a beach there. Whenever one problem was solved, another popped up. The green water in the diving pool was drained and refilled to its intended blue, just in time for an overhead television camera to crash into the park, the whiplash from its cable injuring fans. Suspicious backpacks were blown up, and a media bus was attacked. About 6 million people bought tickets, more than 90 percent of those available. But empty seats dogged events throughout


Track and field’s tall order: Deal with doping issues, and replace Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt maintains he’ll retire after the world championships next year, leaving a huge void in track’s pantheon of stars. (Dominic Ebenbichler/Reuters) RIO DE JANEIRO — As it enters a new four-year cycle, the sport is at a crossroads, in search of new stars, clarity on some rules and better enforcement on others. How things will stand when the Tokyo Olympics roll around in 2020 is anyone’s guess, and questions abound: the status of the Russian team that was barred from competing in Rio de Janeiro; controversial policies that govern testing for testosterone levels; whether countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia can improve their drug testing; and perhaps the one that resonates most with casual fans: Who becomes the face of a sport that Usain Bolt had carried on his shoulders through the past three Summer Olympics? “We’re in the era where Usain Bolt ends and the young kids who got inspired by him are just now starting,” said Ashton Eaton, the American decathlete who successfully defended his Olympic title here. “So we’ll see where the sport goes.” While Bolt says definitively that these were his last Olympics, the United States’ track and field team also will prepare to see some of its biggest stars cycle out. Eaton likely competed in his final Olympic decathlon. Sprinter Justin Gatlin will be 38 in four years. Allyson Felix will be 34. Neither rules out the 2020 Games, both saying they will take it year by year. Each expects to compete at next year’s world championships, which figures to be Bolt’s final major competition. “As long as I’m enjoying it and still passionate about it and able to compete at a high level, I’ll continue on,” Felix said Sunday. “This Olympics has made me hungry for world championships next year,” Gatlin said last week. “I’m going to rest well, start my process of training, getting stronger, hopefully getting faster. I’m 34 — you guys are like, oh, he can’t be this fast at 34. But 35, I plan on running even faster. That’s my plan.” The U.S. track and field team posted one of its best Olympic showings at these Rio Games. The Americans took home 32 medals, their highest total since they won 40 at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. The Rio haul is the most at a non-boycotted Olympics since 1932, and its 13 golds were the most for the United


Rio’s problems — and IOC’s hubris — were glossed over by brilliant athletic feats

was no real investment in this city. . . . Imagine where Rio would be today if this situation had continued.” But the question that will require months if not years to answer is whether the “Olympic movement” took more from this recession-wracked city than it ultimately gave, in demands, rake-offs and burdens. There were visible signs of Rio’s cash-strapped struggle to throw the Games. An open sewer just outside the Olympic Park reeked, and each morning helicopters hovered over polluted Guanabara Bay, checking it so that large debris and waste wouldn’t float into the venues. Inexperience caused the diving venue’s pools to turn so green you couldn’t see the bottom. A cable snapped and sent a giant camera crashing down on spectators in the Olympic Park. A boat ramp collapsed; a brush fire broke out. Still, Rio’s citizens and volunteers somehow brought off this massive undertaking, caring for and feeding 11,000 athletes and their entourages. The exalting performances of those athletes against the backdrop of green mountains plunging into bays made the breakdowns seem like glitches. It was arguably the most remarkable collection of champions ever collected in one place. “There you go; I am the greatest,” Usain Bolt crowed after winning his ninth gold in the 4x100-meter relay, but he had to share the claim with the dolphin-backed Michael Phelps, the epic sojourner Katie Ledecky, the human pinwheel Simone Biles and a titanic U.S. women’s basketball team that won its sixth straight gold medal. It’s not just great ones we will remember, either. Some will linger in the mind as much for what they did as what they said, for their eloquence. “Every time you beat someone, you’re crushing their dreams, so it’s a tough old process,” British boxing gold medalist Nicola Adams said. Wrestler Helen Maroulis said she “just didn’t want to look at Goliath and get scared” and produced one of the great gold medal upsets of the Games over three-time champ Saori Yoshida. Shakur Stevenson and wrestler Jordan Burroughs made defeat sound like soul-singing, to drown out the lame-drunk Ryan Lochte. But maybe no words were as affecting as those of Abbey D’Agostino to Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand after they stumbled in a 5,000-meter heat: “Get up, get up. We have to finish this.” It could have been the motto for the entire put-upon city, trying to throw a world-class event while burdened to


Galen Rupp takes marathon bronze, capping a U.S. distance running resurgence

off. But over the course of the Rio Olympics, there was a comeback — capped by Rupp’s own comeback from the devastation of his other event. On Sunday morning, through the soggy Rio streets, Rupp won a bronze in the marathon, the sixth medal won by the United States in races of at least 1,500 meters. “It’s fantastic,” said Alberto Salazar, the marathon legend who serves as Rupp’s coach. “It’s so exciting to see the U.S., the resurgence in distance running in this country. We’re back to where we were in the late ’70s or early ’80s, where Americans are competing to win medals again at all events.” Rupp’s performance Sunday wasn’t without a significant amount of pain. He ran with the lead group tightly packed over the first half of the race, and after the 18-mile mark, he and two others, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge and Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa, broke away. Rupp and Salazar expressed some relief that the risk they took in training for two vastly different races — the marathon is more than four times as long — didn’t wash out his entire Olympics. “You can always look back and say, ‘Well, if we hadn’t done [the marathon], would he have run better in the 10K and we should have done more speed work?” Salazar said. “But if we had done more speed work maybe he wouldn’t have run as well in the marathon. In the end, as long as you end up getting a bronze in one, you get a medal, then I know I didn’t screw it up completely.” The three-man pack eventually strung out, with Kipchoge surging for gold in 2:08:44. He left Lilesa more than a minute back, and though Rupp was constantly in touch with Lilesa — running about 10 seconds behind — he couldn’t catch him. “I was hurting,” Rupp said. “The last couple miles, I felt like I was walking.” The day would have been complete for the Americans with just that one medal, but there was a deeper satisfaction. Jared Ward finished sixth, reaffirming the depth that has developed for U.S. distance running. And then there was another sight: Meb Keflezighi stopping, starting, stopping but running on. “I’ve got to finish,” Keflezighi said he told himself. “I knew I was going to finish no matter what — for our country, for our kids.” If there is one figure who helped


Britons swooned over Majorca. Now they better learn to love Margate.

Manning’s Seafood Stall in Margate. On the eve of the Brexit vote, Michael O’Leary, head of the budget airline Ryanair, launched a 24-hour super-discount sale of 9.99-pound fares to European cities from Britain. The Irish executive was hoping Britain would vote to remain in the European Union. O’Leary warned that leaving the bloc could usher in an age of higher-priced jet travel to the continent. The possible uptick for British tourism is another in a long row of dominoes to fall in the post-Brexit world, where no one really knows what will come next. Will Britons really stay put this summer — and are they returning to resorts such as Margate, often derided in the British press as a seaside slum? “We’ve been ridiculed over the years, so it would be satisfying to see more visitors,” said Trevor Lamb, who rents affordable bouncy castles for kiddie parties in Margate. Tourists do a little fishing in Margate. The city has been struggling economically, but locals hope that the Brexit vote will mean more visitors on staycations. (William Booth/The Washington Post) By “ridiculed,” Lamb meant how the London press heaps scorn on also-ran cities in the east of England. The Guardian once wondered aloud if “Margate may be the saddest of all” Britain’s seaside towns. The Telegraph favors “Poverty-by-the-Sea” as a descriptor. As the English seaside towns withered, British social scientists said they became “dumping grounds” for the poor and welfare-dependent. The British resort towns essentially invented the modern seaside vacations. They also voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union. They thrived before they were abandoned by British tourists lured away by cheap international airfares and globalized package vacations to southern Spain and the Greek isles. Today, there’s a kind of Coney Island in the 1970s vibe to some of the resorts, with plenty of boarded-up shops, tattoo parlors and Chinese takeout. “We’ll see if it comes back,” said Lamb, who admitted he was skeptical. It seems too good to be true. He said he hadn’t voted in years but turned out to cast a ballot to leave the European Union. “It’s busy today,” Lamb said, pointing toward the yellow-sand beach packed with “DFLs,” local slang for “Down From London” weekenders who hop on the train for the hour-long trip. The beach was crowded with partygoers blasting reggae, grilling jerk chicken and competing in tug-of-war contests. The Tourism Alliance, a trade association,


Who will police Baltimore’s police?

A Baltimore Police Department uniform in March. (Patrick Semansky/Associated Press) IN 2013, a man contacted the Baltimore police with a complaint. As described by a recent Justice Department report, he said he had been hospitalized after two officers slammed him to the ground during an unjustified arrest. What happened next was a travesty of justice by any normal standards but par for the course for Baltimore’s police department. The case went uninvestigated for 13 months, shuttled between two commands and buried in the bureaucratic folds. An internal audit flagged it, at which point it languished four more months before being assigned to an internal affairs detective. Finally, the case was dismissed for “lack of cooperation” when witnesses failed to appear — 17 months after the incident. Incredibly, the accused officers were never interviewed. Impunity is so deeply ingrained in Baltimore’s police culture that this incident barely raises a ripple in the riptide of institutional arrogance, unaccountability and corruption. Elsewhere in the Justice Department’s report, one finds accounts that complaints of abuse and excessive force are shunted into oblivion for lack of a notarized form; of cases dismissed because the allotted time to investigate has “expired”; of a supervisor who refused to accept a complaint because she “could not go against” her own officers. In many cases, the police just couldn’t be bothered. Investigations, when they take place at all, are cursory; record-keeping ranges from shoddy to nonexistent. Of 1,382 allegations of excessive force between 2010 and 2015, the police deemed just over 2 percent worthy of disciplinary hearings; complaints of rude and abusive conduct by officers were also routinely ignored, despite abundant evidence that discourtesy is rife. Underlying the culture of impunity is a matrix of laws, rules and procedures that rig the system so thoroughly that discipline is rare, often reserved for cases that make a stink in the media. Under a state law known as the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, three-member trial boards pass judgment in cases of alleged serious misconduct. But the accused officers themselves are entitled to veto any or all members of a board, which to begin with includes a fellow officer of their own rank and no civilians. Officers are thus nearly assured friendly trial boards — no wonder discipline is so seldom imposed. When complaints are received by the police, justice is further impeded by endless and apparently intentional delays in


Women who run alone get a defiant thumbs up

(iStock) Watching the sheer gleeful power of so many women at the Olympics was pretty exhilarating and, for those of us who share that double-X chromosome, empowering. But writing in Runner’s World, Meghan Kita reminds us that out in the real world, female athletes are often harassed or worse. Earlier this month, she writes, the magazine reported on three women who in a span of nine days had been killed while out running alone — one in Detroit, one in New York City and one in a small town in Massachusetts. The apparently unrelated killings set off a spate of online cautions that women should always run with a friend. Kita has a problem with that response, which she makes clear in an essay headlined “The problem is not women running alone.” The warnings are a variation on blaming the victim, she says, and they’re both sexist and self-defeating. Let’s start with something that most RW readers already know: Running is great exercise. Its value in general physical fitness and weight loss is generally unquestioned. It’s also variously (and with varying degrees of proof) credited with relieving depression, improving sleep, building bone strength, alleviating menstruation-related mood swings, brightening the complexion, cutting the risk of breast or uterine cancer and increasing sexual satisfaction. Kita notes that women make up 57 percent of finishers in U.S. races as well as more than half the readership of Runner’s World. And anything that discourages them from running, she says, is a bad idea. “You can take your generic safety tips and shove ’em,” she writes. Every woman she knows understands that it’s safer to run in groups, she writes, but she rejects the idea that women just have to do so. Like some men, some women prefer to run alone — what they need to do is to be as smart while running on their own as they have to be in other aspects of their life. “The best practices of being aware of your surroundings, trusting your gut instincts, and staying within shouting distance of people who might be able to help in case of emergency are instilled in women from an early age, and they’re not just useful while running.”


This body is supposed to help Olympic athletes make ends meet. It doesn’t.

The Closing Ceremonies end the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. For most of the 554 U.S. athletes who competed in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday’s Closing Ceremonies marked the beginning of a rough transition back to life outside the warmth of the Olympic spotlight. For a select few, moments of glory in Rio will lead to lucrative endorsement deals. But most members of Team USA will face the same difficult decision: return to monk-like existences of training while living off charity, public assistance and meager stipends doled out by well-paid Olympic executives, or retire and pursue the full-time careers they’ve delayed while pursuing their dreams. The massive disparity between how well U.S. Olympic executives pay themselves and how little they pay their athletes likely won’t change soon, at least in part because the organization entrusted by federal law to fight for Olympic athletes’ rights has no interest in doing anything about it. There is no union for Olympic athletes, but there is an organization that is supposed to protect their rights: the Athletes’ Advisory Council, or AAC, a volunteer group comprising 61 active and retired athletes, representing all Olympic sports. Created in the 1970s, the AAC works “to communicate the interests and protect the rights of athletes,” according to its mission. But when it comes to the most important issue for many elite athletes — pay — the AAC is fundamentally unable to aggressively advocate for more money for athletes , according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former AAC members and other athletes and lawyers who’ve worked with the organization. The AAC is often filled with athletes uninterested — or unwilling — to engage in the confrontational tactics that are routine for regular union representatives, former members said. The volunteer organization is also rife with conflicts of interest, as it draws its travel funding from the U.S. Olympic Committee, and is often filled with athletes looking for employment or just a continued association with the Olympic movement. “It’s largely populated or staffed by really great individuals who most likely were great athletes, but most of those people use that position as a stepping stone to get into the Olympic movement,” said Adam Nelson, a retired Olympic shot put athlete who has tried to start a track and field union. “An internal athletes’ advisory council can’t negotiate with something it’s a part of . . .


Doctors thought it was a simple foot infection. They were so wrong.

to blunt the pain from flares and to help patients sleep, and of functional measures such as avoiding heat and elevating the legs. Numbers are imprecise, but EM is estimated to affect about 1 in 100,000 Americans, many of them white women who develop the condition in middle age, although some people are affected as children. “I thought, ‘I can’t believe that I’m that 1 in 100,000,’ ” Bogner recalled, fearing that in fact she was. Desperate for guidance, Bogner called the National Organization for Rare Disorders, a Connecticut-based clearinghouse and advocacy group that provides information about more than 1,200 conditions, including several of the possibilities Bogner had found. A staff member suggested she print out the information about EM, which most closely matched her symptoms, and take it to the neurologist she had seen over the years for treatment of her neuropathy. She was also advised to take pictures of her red feet during a flare to show the neurologist. Ahmed Kafaji, a neurologist who practices in St. Mary’s County, saw Bogner in early July. Her hands, he recalled, looked fairly normal but felt hot. When she showed him cellphone pictures of her feet, their appearance was consistent with EM, which he had seen previously once or twice in his career. Kafaji said he also noted that the skin on Bogner’s hands seemed somewhat coarse, which is consistent with EM. “If doctors haven’t seen a case, it’s often misdiagnosed as eczema or allergies,” he said. As a result, some patients go from doctor to doctor without an accurate diagnosis. Kafaji said he was concerned that Bogner might have an underlying blood or autoimmune disorder. So the following month, Bogner drove to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where she sought a second opinion and testing to rule out other abnormalities. Blood tests ruled out cancer, Lyme disease, various autoimmune or bone-marrow problems, and a genetic mutation known to cause EM. After seeing two neurologists, a rheumatologist and a hematologist, Bogner was told that she had primary idiopathic EM — meaning the cause was unknown. ‘A dreadful season’ The definitive diagnosis plunged Bogner into the despair that can accompany the wrenching adjustment required to live with a disabling, possibly permanent, condition. While EM can improve, or even largely disappear, that doesn’t happen often. A study of 168 patients treated at the Mayo Clinic between 1970 and 1994 found that 10 percent


The underrated beauty of moths

Deborah Davis’s paintings show the beauty and intricacies of the butterfly’s poor relation. The butterfly is universally loved, but its close cousin, the moth, is not. You don’t find grade-schoolers knocking on the Halloween door costumed as a moth. Schoolyards are not planted with moth pollinator gardens. One doesn’t ask for moth coloring books. To the extent that gardeners notice moths, it’s the moth species that are pests, which is usually in their caterpillar stage. The Eastern tent caterpillar, the tomato hornworm, the gypsy moth caterpillar, the fall cankerworm — these pests belong to the darker side of the order Lepidoptera. But most moths are benign, and some moths are unexpectedly beautiful. Consider Choristostigma, which is the shape of an arrowhead and patterned in yellow and violet, or the chocolate moth, a rich brown with slender beige stripes and a lacy fringe. It’s evocative of a frilly Victorian drape. Moths are furry in a way that butterflies are not, and the big species have plump bodies, thick, powdery coats and antennae shaped like fossilized ferns. Many people know the swallow-tailed luna moth of spring, a gentle giant with lime-green wings and eyespots. The cecropia moth is even larger — some are six inches across — and patterned like a medieval tapestry. Deborah Davis paints moths she finds outside her Virginia home. (Deborah Davis) There is another reason moths are not so well known: They tend to come out at night. While we slumber, dozens of species flit about our gardens, unseen, looking for mates and drawn to light. If you live in or near woodland, your chances of getting more species increase because trees provide food and shelter for the caterpillars. If you live on a deeply wooded 26-acre tract in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, as Deborah Davis does, you are in moth paradise. You may have to go miles in search of butterflies, but you can trick moths into coming to you. By day, Davis is a professional gardener, living in Albemarle County near the town of, appropriately, North Garden. By night she is the Pied Piper of moths, drawing them with her song or, more precisely, a cotton sheet strung with UV lights. “One night, I had nine luna moths on the sheet,” she said. There are plenty of other types to see when she examines the cloth in the pre-dawn darkness. She will gather one


Mystery remains in case of 13 dead bald eagles on Maryland’s Eastern Shore

One of 13 bald eagles found dead in a farm field on Maryland's Eastern Shore earlier this year. (Maryland Natural Resources Police ) They had the carcasses of the 13 bald eagles discovered on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. But federal wildlife experts say finding enough evidence to identify the culprit in the largest single die-off of bald eagles in the state in 30 years has so far proved too difficult for the mystery to be solved. The case of the dead eagles found six months ago in a field in Federalsburg drew national attention, and investigators from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been involved ever since in trying to figure out whodunit. The birds’ carcasses were sent to a lab in Oregon and analyzed. Tips came in, and a $25,000 reward was offered. But authorities now say they do not have enough evidence to prosecute anyone. “None of the leads have been fruitful,” Terri Edwards, a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman, said Monday. “We haven’t had any success with the leads.” The dead bald eagles in Maryland were sent for analysis to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Ore. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory) Many eagle experts speculated that the birds might have come into contact with a pesticide at a local farm. And federal investigators said that they received several leads and put in “considerable effort” in chasing them but that nothing turned up. Officials with the Fish and Wildlife Service would not detail this week any of the findings in their investigation. They also said they were not sure when the case would officially close. Neil Mendelsohn, a regional assistant special agent in charge at Fish and Wildlife, said in a statement that “although we conducted a very thorough investigation into the Maryland eagle poisonings, we are intending to close the case in the near future due to a lack of evidence linking anyone to the crime.” The federal agency was also investigating a case involving five dead bald eagles found in late March in Sussex County in Delaware. Mendelsohn said that investigation is ongoing, but said that “we can’t provide additional information at this time.” Those eagles were also examined at the lab in Oregon. Bald-eagle enthusiasts said they were “disappointed and frustrated” that the Maryland and Delaware incidents had happened at all but not entirely surprised by the outcomes. Ed Clark, president


The Olympics might be over, but the endorsement race is just getting underway.

2020. Bob Williams, chief executive at Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing, said the athletes likely to be most in demand for the 2020 Tokyo Games are Simone Biles, who won four gold medals in gymnastics, Katie Ledecky, who won four gold in swimming and men’s swimmer Nathan Adrian, who won a pair of golds. Ledecky, who is headed to Stanford University, may not immediately cash in. She still retains her amateur status, which would preclude a big deal. Gymnast Simone Biles may be among the athletes most in demand for endorsement and appearance deals, according to a marketing executive. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post) ”She has generated tons of interest, but you can’t talk marketability because you can’t take her to market,” said Peter Carlisle, who is head of Olympic marketing for sports giant Octagon. Carlisle represents Biles and perennial gold medalist Michael Phelps. Swimmer Phelps and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt have enough recognition from their multiple golds won over multiple Olympics that they likely will be in demand at Tokyo whether they compete or not. Phelps already retired once, only to come out of his respite to compete in Rio. “Phelps will be in demand whether he competes [in Tokyo] or not, as long as he stays incident-free and on a new path with his family, which he talked about in Rio,” Williams said. Arlington-based agent Jim Tanner, who represents two Olympians, including women’s basketball star Tamika Catchings, added decathlon champion Ashton Eaton to Biles as someone who is likely to get attention. “It’s a combination of their success and the American public getting news of who they are as people,” said Tanner. Under Armour may have taken a haircut when two of its biggest stars, golfer Jordan Spieth and NBA magician Steph Curry, both passed on Rio. U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte, shown here competing at the Summer Olympics in Rio, lost four endorsement deals after falsely claiming that he and three teammates had been held up by armed robbers. (Michael Sohn/AP) “That’s their own personal choice,” said Ryan Kuehl, Under Armour’s vice president for global sports marketing and sponsorship. “For us, it’s business as usual. Between our games and our level of investment, we feel we got a great return.” Without Curry, Under Armour rival Nike and its inimitable swoosh dominated the court as the U.S. Men’s Basketball team marched to another gold, squashing Serbia on Sunday. Under Armour


Sepsis is a medical emergency, CDC says. It can be stopped if caught in time.

elevated respiration and low blood pressure, said Henry Masur, chief of critical care medicine at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda. “We use these vital signs and supplement with a history and preliminary lab work [such as white blood cell count] to determine whether to admit and whether to go straight to the intensive care unit or a general medical floor,” he said. If he suspects sepsis, he will first address low blood pressure by administering fluids, ideally increasing pressure so blood will circulate to organs. If the fluids don’t work, he begins IV drugs to constrict blood vessels and raise blood pressure. He starts patients on broad-spectrum antibiotics that are likely to attack multiple organisms while he awaits culture results to reveal the actual offender. Then he narrows the drug arsenal to those most likely to target the problem. If he can identify the original source of infection, he drains that spot. “So basically, outcome depends on fluids, blood pressure, antibiotics and source control. But it also depends on what organs are affected and underlying health status. Some people turn around in a few hours; some in days, weeks or months. Some will, unfortunately, die,” Masur said. Knowing the symptoms A rapid pulse, fast breathing, and swelling and red tissue should put people on guard. The most troubling symptoms are a combination of intense pain and mental confusion that worsens within a few hours, Simpson said. “If you have these symptoms, ask the doctor in these words: ‘Is this likely sepsis?’ ” Practitioners also urge that people of all ages get vaccinated for the flu, that those older than 65 get vaccinated for pneumonia and that teenagers get vaccinated for meningococcal meningitis. These are among the infections that can lead to sepsis. For Megan Jones, “having one leg and the ongoing risk for serious infection changes how you live,” she says. “Everything has to be handicap-accessible; you need antibiotics for when you travel, just in case; I have all my doctors’ home and cell numbers.” After a fever triggered seizures last August, she gets post-sepsis headaches. Still, she calls life “stable and normal” overall. “I am doing my graphic design and writing. I get around well with crutches or a wheelchair, and I drive. I realize waking up is a good day when you know you came close to not being able to do that again.”


There’s a movement in Britain to build a post-Brexit trade wall

exactly what some fear Britain is being pushed to embrace. By breaking with the E.U., Britain is already moving away from the freedom of mobility that once made the bloc perhaps the most globalized region in the world. Moving to prop up domestic industry, critics say, could simply be repeating the errors of the 1960s and ’70s, when government attempts to bolster failing factories not only burned through public funds but also created deep economic inefficiencies and simply did not work. Tony Travers, a political expert at the London School of Economics, said May’s call for a new industrial policy felt like a flashback. “Once you start talking like that, you are indeed talking about picking winners, subsidies to companies in parts of the country, and that does have a very ’60s and ’70s ring to it,” he said. Yet even before Britain voted to leave the E.U., then-Prime Minister David Cameron — a strong free-marketeer — was taking fresh steps into the private sector. His government was moving toward a short-term injection of public cash to sweeten a deal for investors to take over a large but failing steel plant in Wales. Others argue that Britain has so much to lose from outright protectionism that it is likely to reject the most contentious proposals. Some point to the resurgent British auto industry as a model — with public-private cooperation, including millions of pounds of public cash pumped into research and training, helping to fuel a major recovery in the sector. Even some proponents of measures to help ailing industry say government support should go only so far, to avoid a throwback to the uncompetitive businesses that public aid wrought in the pre-Thatcher era. But farmers such as Martin are still waiting for long-term answers. Competition among British retailers, weak global commodity prices and cheaper, imported dairy products from Ireland have conspired to put more and more British dairy farmers out of business. Now, they say, they are facing another hit. Britain’s departure from the E.U. will rob British farmers of roughly $3.5 billion a year in annual subsidies — subsidies that made up about 10 percent of Martin’s annual revenue. Although he employs three British workers, many other farmers hire migrant workers from Eastern Europe who could face new visa hurdles to work in Britain once it leaves the bloc. Some activists are also calling for any national farm


Nine ways to tighten your family’s food budget without skimping on nutrition

Don’t forgo a weekly grocery list. Staying organized is a critical part of maximizing your grocery budget. (iStockphoto) As I’ve reflected on our summer months, the fun moments and the misses, I’ve noticed that the money we spent on activities skyrocketed — paddle-boarding has become a family obsession — and the amount we spent on food plummeted. Perhaps we ate out less frequently or loaded up on more vegetables and not as much meat, or maybe the seasonal produce was less expensive. Could we possibly stick to this financial food plan all year long, even when we return to normal bedtimes, daily lunchboxes and the inevitably hectic nature of fall? I believe we can. What I have to do is pay more attention when I grab items off the grocery store shelf, tighten my meal plans so we don’t buy any foods that go to waste, and admit that my kids just don’t like zucchini so that I stop buying so much of it. In any case, any time of year is a good time to pocket a few pennies on food savings. So here are some ways to eat healthfully on a budget: Eat seasonally. Get organized. Dietitian Ellie Krieger, Nourish Schools co-founder Casey Seidenberg and certified health education specialist Elaine Gordon offer picks for meals from breakfast to dessert. Set a food budget and stick to it. Be smart about leftovers. Be choosy about organics. Try Meatless Mondays. Get help from the store. Teach your kids to limit waste. Take a moment before meals or snacks to ask your children how hungry they actually feel and how much they might eat of each item, then encourage them to serve themselves accordingly. They can always have seconds, but it’s good for kids to observe how much they are scraping off their plates into the garbage. Take the pantry challenge. Seidenberg is co-founder of Nourish Schools, a D.C.-based nutrition education company, and co-author of “The Super Food Cards,” a collection of healthful recipes and advice. More from Lifestyle: Yes, your kids can and should pack their own lunches Sports drinks aren’t ‘recharging’ your kids. They’re just pumping them full of sugar. To save your kids from a lifetime of unhealthy takeout, teach them how to cook My 5-year-old refused to eat the healthy dinner I cooked. Here’s why I let her. The magic of making dinner every night in a


Save space in your garden by knowing which plants make good neighbors

Our plan worked fine that year, and it was typical of the kind of space-saving maneuvers we take advantage of whenever we can. For example, we once planted some small pepper plants fairly widely apart, knowing they eventually would grow large and bushy. But by broadcasting arugula seeds around them, we were able to feast on this cut-and-come-again green in the cool spring weather it so enjoys before it yielded the ground to the peppers. In the spring, we might also interplant early crops with a single row of Brussels sprouts, and they, too, would need the whole bed. In the meantime, there’s plenty of room to sow baby spring carrots, baby beets, salad greens or radishes on both edges. Could we have sown another crop under the trellised tomatoes as well? We sometimes put basil there because both plants do fine in hot weather, and a little shade for the basil might slow its tendency to bolt. Because they also taste good together, we pick them at the same time. But tomatoes do drop their fruits on the soil, and not everything would put up with that. Pole beans, on the other hand, would be extra kind to an understory crop, thanks to the nitrogen-fixing nodules that form on their roots. We’d strip off some of the lower leaves and then plant fall brassicas, such as Japanese baby turnips or zesty red mustard, because brassicas always appreciate nitrogen-rich soil. In the classic “three sisters” gardens planted by certain Native American tribes, beans provide nitrogen for companionable squash and corn. Another trick of plant cohabitation is to mix crops that occupy different strata of the soil. Shallow-rooted members of the allium tribe, such as onions, leeks and scallions, go well with the deep taproots of lettuce and carrots. These are all good schemes for the cozy little world of the vegetable garden, but it’s eye-opening to see how they can be practiced on a larger stage. Fruit growers will plant bands of diverse, nectar-rich flowers between rows of trees. Not only do they attract pollinating insects, but many insects lured by summer flowers will feast on the larvae of fruit pests as well. In the wild, plants find their niches as best as they can. The landscape may shift in time, not only in the course of a year, but also more slowly, as pioneering species are preempted, in stages,


Gaza’s last tiger leaves ‘the world's worst zoo’

visit Hebrew University’s Koret veterinary hospital and then continue on to Ben Gurion Airport to make El Al’s evening Flight 71 to Johannesburg. Laziz was traveling with 14 fellow survivors of the Khan Younis zoo. These were the lucky ones — out of 220 inhabitants at the zoo during its peak. In crates beside the tiger was a little ark: Two porcupines, which last week escaped but had been recaptured. Two long-legged buzzards. A pelican that had lived in a waterless world in his aviary. Two tortoises that barely had room enough to turn around in their enclosure. There was a mother deer, too. She had lost her fawn, which died of wounds sustained struggling to escape her cage a few weeks ago. And an emu, which finally went into his shipping crate after putting up a fight. Then there were the monkeys — two macaques and three vervets. The monkeys had to be sedated before they could be examined and placed in their dog-kennel-style traveling crates. It is not easy to hit an angry monkey in its cage with a syringed dart fired from a blowgun as a dozen journalists with cameras watch. Not easy at all. Two of the monkeys were discovered to be pregnant. The last to be loaded on the truck Tuesday night was the tiger. He weighs more than 400 pounds, plus his crate. Strong men could barely lift him. Finally, a local with a motorbike attached to a trailer arrived to help. As the animals were being subdued and put into their crates, the local Palestinians at the zoo joked that they would be happy to trade places to get out of Gaza, which suffers from a partial trade and travel blockade, enforced by Israel and Egypt. One guy said the Palestinians should strip off their clothes and pretend to be Tarzan so they could go along with their animal friends. There are almost 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza. There is no airport, no seaport and only limited access to the outside world. Israel mostly allows only traders, the sick and elderly to enter Israel — on limited permits. Egypt’s crossing at Rafah has been closed more than it has been open in the past three years. Before departing Wednesday morning, the animals and their new caregivers, from the international animal charity and rescue group called Four Paws, spent the night in the


Montgomery County Animal Watch

This case was received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Clash leads to bite marks: Adopt dogs and cats at MCHS no-kill rescue: The Montgomery County Humane Society’s private rescue shelter has dogs, puppies, cats and kittens available for adoption. Call 240-252-2555 or visit mchumane.org. Rockville Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


‘We hit the jackpot’: Astronomers say they’ve found a nearby planet similar to Earth

study co-author R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution for Science. It would take more than eight years for an energy pulse or radio signal traveling at the speed of light to go there and back. NASA’s New Horizons probe, the fastest spacecraft launched, left Earth hurtling toward Pluto at about 36,000 miles per hour. At that speed, it would take more than 78,000 years to get there. Earlier this year, an all-star team of scientists and business leaders including Stephen Hawking announced Breakthrough Starshot, a project to send out hundreds of light-powered space probes that would weigh about a gram, travel at one-fifth the speed of light and send pictures back to Earth. Breakthrough Starshot executive director Pete Worden, a former top NASA official, said organizers are hoping to include Proxima in their plans. Even at the hoped-for speed, it will take 20 years to get there and four more years for photos to come back. Worden said he hopes they will launch by 2060. Yet in the vastness of space, Proxima b is practically just over the fence, “like your next-door neighbor,” Butler said. Proxima b is more than 50 trillion miles closer than the previous closest potentially habitable exoplanet. The next step may be for a powerful Earth or space telescope to get an actual image of the planet, Butler said. But even when that comes, and it may be a decade or two away, it will only be a single dot: “You’re not going to see espresso bars at the beach. You’re not going to see aliens waving at us.” Outside experts praised the finding as rock-solid and thrilling. “It is inspiring to find a potentially habitable world on our cosmic doorsteps, around our next star,” said exoplanet expert Lisa Kaltenegger, director of Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute. “It is significant because if we needed inspiration to try to reach the next star, now we have it.” There are still many questions, especially the crucial one of whether the planet has an atmosphere. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who isn’t part of the discovery team but is advisory board chairman for Breakthrough Starshot, said Proxima might someday prove vital to humanity’s future. “A habitable rocky planet around Proxima would be the most natural location to where our civilization could aspire to move after the sun will die, 5 billion years from now,” he said in an email.


Baltimore cops pressured to police differently, but also begged to clear the corners

residents intent on curbing the abusive behavior of corner-clearing cops. Those attending included black youths long targeted by police. The organizers of each gathering didn’t know the other was taking place. As people showed up Aug. 18, a priest from St. Peter Claver Catholic Church hurriedly attached paper signs to metal railings to direct the flow. The meeting with the police community relations council to the right, the meeting with Justice Department lawyers to the left. The disconnect between those focused on crime and those focused on police reform looms large as Baltimore reaches an agreement with the federal government to restructure the department and end unconstitutional detentions, arrests and beatings. The Aug. 10 report came more than a year after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. His funeral touched off riots, an unsuccessful prosecution of six police officers and the Justice Department investigation. Many of the abuses that investigators found centered on the way police officers interact with black Baltimoreans, including people congregating on street corners. The report concluded that Baltimore officers had “nearly unfettered discretion to criminalize the act of standing on public sidewalks.” But for the residents gathered in the St. Peter’s basement, the shootings, robberies and assaults they live with are just as pressing as police abuses. One man wanted to know where the promised foot patrol officers were. Arlene Fisher, a social worker who has lived all of her 67 years in West Baltimore, said the corner stores that dot the sullen landscape are petitioning to stay open 24 hours. Residents in Baltimore respond to news that all charges have been dropped against the three remaining police officers in connection with the 2015 death of Freddie Gray. Three others were already acquitted. “They’ll become a gathering place causing problems,” Fisher predicted. “We’ll need more police to watch it.” Residents don’t like to call 911 when the corners fill, but Fisher said that without better places for young people to congregate, they have no choice. She looked down and whispered, “We have to.” At the front of the room stood Maj. Sheree Briscoe, who runs the police department’s Western District in the post-Freddie Gray era. She and other commanders are caught between competing forces — curtail crime as the residents want, and change the way policing is practiced as the Justice Department demands. “It’s not easy,” she acknowledged in an interview. On this night,


In a fight between environmentalists and farmers, the bees lose. And that stings.

the use of neonicotinoids, requiring that pests be found in the field before neonic seed coatings are permitted, a practice that Daynard says is great “in principle.” The question, he says, is whether you can test reliably. The pest you miss could cost you a lot of money. (Daynard is concerned about drift from planting, and he uses equipment that prevents it.) “Farmers are very angry” about the pesticide restrictions, he says. And he points out that a ban on one particular pesticide won’t make pesticides go away; it’ll only make farmers use a different one. Prophylactic use of pesticides is high on the list of practices Beranbaum would like to see changed, and it’s one of the many ag-related issues that pit the interests of farmers against the interests of environmental health. What do we do about situations in which farmers are expected — or required – to take a risk, or forgo profit, in order to protect the environment? A commercial beekeeper uses a lift to stack hives onto a truck near Columbia Falls, Maine. Having finished pollinating blueberry plants there, the insects will be transported to pollinate another crop. (Adrees Latif/Reuters) For Mark Floegal, research director for Greenpeace (and a beekeeper), the priority is clear. “I have a lot of sympathy for farmers,” he says, “but Greenpeace starts in a place where we ask what the environment needs to be healthy.” His group urges a neonics ban not because he believes that’s the only threat to bees but because that’s where he can instigate regulatory change. “In terms of public policy, we can protect habitat and we can control what chemicals are used in our agriculture. If there were some way that our supporters could take some action that could lead to the demise of the varroa mite, we would.” Floegal wants more testing of chemicals before approval. About risk to pollinators, he says, “I would need data that shows no effect” before a pesticide got the green light. He also wants “regulators not captured by the industries they regulate”: Corporate influence, he says, plays too large a role in the pesticide approval process. I asked him whether the kind of adversarial approach his group takes might further polarize the conversation and make compromise more difficult. “If we could find someone to collaborate with, we would,” he says. “We haven’t found anyone willing to partner with us


Five myths about mosquitoes

swamp to reproduce; some are more comfortable in human habitats. Aedes aegypti prefers the company of humans — so much easier to find blood. Female Aedes aegypti chiefly lay their eggs in artificial containers with vertical walls and a bit of standing water. They find the perfect incubators in those flower pots, tires, buckets, planters, toys, birdbaths, empty garbage cans and lids in our yards and on our decks. Once the eggs hatch, the larvae drop down into the water, where they mature into adult mosquitoes. This is why it’s so important to check your house, yard and neighborhood weekly for these kinds of containers. Empty and scrub them. Turn them over, cover them, dry them out or throw them out. Even mosquitoes born in swamps can pose a danger to humans who don’t live nearby. The species Aedes sollicitans prefers stagnant salt marshes along the ocean for its eggs and larvae. However, the insect can fly 10 miles or more inland to find animals or people to bite. Myth No. 4 Mosquitoes hate citronella candles, bats and Listerine. The Internet is awash in ideas for repelling mosquitoes. Websites sell wooden bat homes for back yards, promising that their omnivorous occupants will devour the pesky bugs. Emails circulate suggesting that a bowl of water with a few drops of liquid soap, a spray of Listerine or half a lemon stuffed full of cloves will keep the bloodsuckers away. Amazon even sells an “eco friendly” device that emits ultrasonic waves to fight the bugs. Unfortunately, most of these “natural” solutions provide little, if any, relief. Take citronella candles — Harry Savage of the CDC told CNN that they don’t do much. “To me,” he said, “citronella only protects the candle.” Ditto with mouthwash, bats (which don’t consume enough mosquitoes to make a measurable difference) and ultrasonic waves. Research shows that the best mosquito repellents are Environmental Protection Agency-registered sprays for use on the body, such as products that contain DEET or picaridin. (Groups like the CDC, Consumers Union and Environmental Working Group offer useful guides.) As one expert noted, “Many, many studies throughout the world have shown that botanical based repellents provide substantially less protection against biting mosquitoes than DEET or Picaridin.” Additionally, it’s not enough to take precautions only at night. Sure, mosquitoes such as those in the Culex genus, which can spread West Nile virus, tend to attack after


Hydroponics at home: It doesn’t have to be hard, or ugly

built a window system that uses the nutrient film technique, where the water is pumped up and trickles down over the roots of a plant. These systems cost more to create, but if they look nice, they can become a seamless part of a well-designed home or office. Beautiful doesn’t have to be expensive. Britta Riley is the founder of a social enterprise called Windowfarms, and its first designs used water bottles to create a similar window system. She started an open-source website, on hiatus for this summer, so designers all over the world could share their designs. If you’re interested in hydroponics but not ready to build your own system, there are plenty of ready-made ones to buy, Doherty said. Some are aquaponic systems, which put fish in the water to create the nutrients the plants need. Windowfarms has created a product to purchase, though the designs are available (at bit.ly/2b9kVhF) for those who want to take a DIY approach. Online, there are hundreds of instruction sets and designs, varying from low- to high-end. Doherty created a Pinterest board (pinterest.com/neufuture/designer-horticulture) where a hydroponics novice can browse and get inspired. One of the first projects by a social enterprise called Windowfarms used water bottles to create a hydroponic window system. (Britta Riley/Windowfarms) You don’t have to grow food plants in your system, though many people in the hydroponics community are part of a growing urban agriculture scene. “The past 15 years, I’ve seen this tremendous movement to locally grown food and an interest to know where the food comes from,” Giacomelli said. “They say, ‘Hey, I’ll grow it myself, and I feel more comfortable eating it knowing exactly how it’s grown.’ ” A ready-made hydroponic system designed by Windowfarms, based on its water bottle system. (Britta Riley/Windowfarms) Riley emphasized that using hydroponics in your apartment does not mean you will stop going to the grocery store. It won’t save you loads of money on food, but it will provide you with a small supplement to your diet and insight into the life cycle of a plant. Doherty said that if it’s your first time, take it easy. Try an herb, such as basil or mint. “Mint is a weed, and it loves hydroponics,” he said. “Just see how it works, and then once you’ve grown that mint and you’re happy and you understand a little bit about the system, then


Bees swarm to start new colonies, not to leave forever

A swarm of wild honeybees in Guwahati, India, in 2014. (STR/European Pressphoto Agency) Regarding the Aug. 20 news article about the impact of Brexit on honeybees, “Brexit could sting bees in unique ways”: The apocalyptic ending of the article described an impending swarm, saying, “Once they leave, there is no turning back.” Swarming is the normal way a hive handles overpopulation. The old queen takes about half the hive, leaving behind queen cells so the hive can raise a new queen and continue to thrive. She starts another colony elsewhere. One hive becomes two. Beekeepers try to manage their hives to avoid swarms not because swarming is bad, but to enlarge their colonies. Most divide their hives, creating a false swarm so they don’t lose half the bees. They also capture swarms to begin new colonies. Swarming signifies a healthy hive that is growing and expanding. The article treated a complex problem simplistically. Beekeepers managing hives face many challenges today, including pesticides, varroa mites, small hive beetles, genetically modified crops, diseases such as nosema, and overmedication of hives. I doubt many beekeepers see the European Union as the honeybees’ savior. Honeybees seem to have become one more tool in Chicken Little’s liberal toolbox. The people of Britain basically voted for national sovereignty. Good for them. I think the queen bee would approve. Mary Ann Kreitzer, Woodstock, Va.


How the Bible Belt got down with craft beer

and he waited eight years to finally turn a profit. Sierra Nevada and New Belgium had no such problems in California and Colorado. They grew into two of the largest craft brewers in the nation, expanded their reach to the East Coast and looked for ways to ease their path to customers there. This summer, New Belgium is ramping up production in its new 500,000-barrel facility that looms like a massive motorcycle (which the building is meant to evoke) parked along the French Broad River at the south end of downtown Asheville. Its brew tanks are cooking up batches of Fat Tire, New Belgium’s signature amber ale, and Ranger, its IPA. Last month, its tasting room was packing in visitors to watch the Tour de France on a projector screen and sip varietals at reclaimed-wood tables fashioned from the remnants of the livestock yard that once occupied part of the 18-acre site. On a recent weekday, landscapers were tilling the grounds and blue masking tape held temporary paper signs on conference rooms. Sierra Nevada’s facility is turning out hundreds of thousands of barrels of ale in a resort-style setting outside of Mills River, N.C. It is a working theme park of beer. (Jacob Biba/For The Washington Post) Sierra Nevada’s facility is turning out hundreds of thousands of barrels of ale in a resort-style setting outside of town. It is a working theme park of beer, complete with a full restaurant, outdoor concert amphitheater and a gift shop, in what appears from the outside to be part overstuffed hunting lodge, part steel mill. Brewing on the East Coast saves money for the Californians and the Coloradans, and it adds freshness to brews they would otherwise be shipping across the country. “Beer is heavy,” said Brendan Beers, New Belgium’s business support manager in Asheville. “The closer you can get your production facility to the end customer, the better.” Before construction began, New Belgium officials met with wary local brewers. They assured them that they weren’t trying to invade the Asheville craft scene — they were selling to the whole East Coast. Sierra Nevada officials say they told the locals that they would choose a different North Carolina location if there were objections to them moving to the outskirts of Asheville. Then they invited every brewer in town to an all-expenses-paid week of “beer camp” at their Northern California headquarters. Many local brewers


Can progress on climate change keep up with its quickening pace?

after rainfall of historic proportions to neurotoxic algae blooms choking Florida beaches. Even the beloved moose of New Hampshire have been decimated by ticks that thrive in a warmer world. It’s possible that these changes from typical outcomes may just constitute “noise” rather than reliable signals of accelerated change. But if the climate data continues to diverge from expectations, scientists eventually must revise their models to reflect real world figures. In fact, such a reassessment is already happening. Scientists are examining the complex interactions of several dozen variables to better understand the dynamic relationship between the oceans and the atmosphere. As scientists, they don’t put much stock in early drafts. They rightly insist on rigorous analysis. If the new analyses imply an unpredictable and riskier world, that will necessitate a more urgent, and more difficult, response. Based on initial data, it now appears possible that the climate will warm by 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels — an amount of warming that scientists consider the danger zone — not by 2050, as once predicted, but years earlier. If further analysis supports this conclusion, this would be an enormous, and scary, change. If we have as much time to act as we are currently assuming, then we can simply replace amortized equipment with new, clean-energy systems. Even in that scenario, any new fossil-fuel investment must be avoided, because it exacerbates emissions and delays solutions. Yet the disruption to our economy could be minimized, and the whole process should increase growth and reduce costs. But if scientists start to project a dramatically shorter timeline for the impacts of climate change, any comfortable replacement scenario becomes something much more daunting. If we don’t have the decades needed for the vast bulk of our productive capacity to be replaced in the normal course, we would need to replace assets that had not reached the end of their usable lives — and that would affect industries beyond purely oil and gas. Regardless of the scientific projections, we cannot afford to repeat the painfully slow and politically motivated dance of the past 10 years. As new data and analysis become available over the next year or so, we must be prepared to act decisively even though the cautious critics will want to wait for more definitive information. We will never have 100 percent certainty, except in hindsight. Over the past decade, the United States has struggled


Beer of the Week: Dogfish Head SeaQuench Ale

Dogfish Head SeaQuench Ale, a hybrid sour-gose brewed with black limes, lime peel and Chesapeake Bay sea salt. (From Dogfish Head Brewery) Dogfish Head has unleashed a torrent of new beers this year: Romantic Chemistry IPA; Beer to Drink Music to, a tripel; Flesh & Blood IPA; Bière de Provence, a saison; and Alternate Takes #1 and #2, kicking off a series of “R&D beers.” And that doesn’t count all the reissues, such as Squall IPA, or the one-off beers that are available only at Dogfish Head’s Rehoboth Beach brewpub. Until this month, the Chesapeake & Maine seafood restaurant in Rehoboth was the only place to find Dogfish Head’s SeaQuench Ale, an odd and delicious hybrid of a sour ale and gose. As Dogfish founder Sam Calagione tells it, SeaQuench Ale is made by brewing a relatively straightforward German-style kölsch and putting it in a fermentation tank. Dogfish then brews a gose with black limes and sea salt and adds it to the same tank. Finally, a Berliner weisse with lime juice and lime peel is added to the tank, and the three “threads” are blended during fermentation. The result is a thirst-quenching beer that doesn’t fit neatly into any category. It has the tart characteristics of a Berliner weisse, the mellow, wheaty body of a kölsch or hefeweizen and the briny finish of a gose. But there’s a strong lemon on the nose, and black limes and bitter citrus in the body, none of which are usually found in these beers. The flavors are bound together in a way that’s balanced instead of chaotic, and the citrus and moderately dry, tart finish make it easy to drink in the dog days of summer. — Fritz Hahn Dogfish Head SeaQuench Ale. www.dogfish.com. $11 to $12 per six-pack. More from Food: Beer Column archive


Skywatch: Jupiter, Venus are low on the horizon as September begins

Jupiter snuggle — both edging the horizon. The bright Venus is to the left of Jupiter and on Sept. 3, the new moon’s sliver loiters to the left of Venus. Saturn Bright Saturn, at zero magnitude, forms the top of the triangle and the scarlet star Antares maintains the bottom. The waxing, young moon approaches the Saturn-Mars-Antares cosmic clique on Sept. 7, and you can catch the first-quarter moon literally on top of Saturn the next evening, Sept. 8. Our lunar companion moves past Mars on the following night. If you’re walking the dog or jogging before sunrise in the last week of September, the morning sky features a visual treat: the bright, fleet Mercury in the east. The crescent, elderly moon lollygags under the nimble Mercury on Sept. 29. Thursday features an annular eclipse — when observers on the centerline in Africa can enjoy a ring of fire surrounding the moon, according to Fred Espenak, noted eclipse expert at EclipseWise.com. The greatest part of this fiery phenomena happens just after 5 a.m. Eastern time, and it’s not visible in North America, but you can catch the entire event on Slooh.com starting at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time. Much like a total eclipse, the moon slides between the Earth and the sun, but for an annular eclipse, the moon is slightly farther out in its orbit — so it does not fully block the sun. Two weeks later, the moon moves through Earth’s penumbral shadow, entertaining Earth’s sky gazers with a harvest moon penumbral lunar eclipse on Sept. 16. Sadly, it won’t be visible in North America either, but Europe, Africa and Asia should see it. Go online to Slooh.com, starting at 3 p.m. Eastern time. In this type of eclipse, the full moon appears with an slightly darker shadow. Bid adieu to summer, as the autumnal equinox on Sept. 22 officially starts fall at 10:21 a.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. That’s when the sun appears to tiptoe across Earth’s equator toward the Southern Hemisphere. Providing equal time, more or less: For Washington on Sept. 25, the official duration of daylight is 12 hours, one minute — and on the next day, Sept. 26, it’s a mere 11 hours, 58 minutes, says the observatory. Down-to-Earth Events: Sept. 3: Sept. 5: Sept. 10: Sept. 11: Sept. 17: Sept. 20: Sept. 23: Blaine Friedlander can be reached at PostSkyWatch@yahoo.com Twitter: @BPFriedlander


Maryland woman contracted Zika from sex partner with no symptoms, CDC says

A woman in Maryland contracted the Zika virus in a possibly unprecedented way: She apparently got it from a male sex partner who showed no symptoms of infection, according to a federal report. The most widely recognized source of the infection is through the bite of an infected mosquito. A section of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said only one other case has been reported in which a man without symptoms might have transmitted Zika to a female through sex. But in that case, the report said, she could have been infected by a mosquito while traveling. The report said it might be wise to expand the category of those considered exposed to include sex partners of people returning from areas with ongoing transmission of the Zika virus, even if the partners show no symptoms.


Islamic State attack on army recruits in Yemen kills 54

were going to different hospitals around the city. “The explosion took place at a local government school where new recruits were signing up to join the military,” he said. Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, has been wracked by a multi-sided battle pitting government forces against Shiite Houthi rebels in the north. Extremist Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, have taken advantage of the fighting to gain territory and launch attacks on both sides. Marwan Abu Murad, 38, a Customs Authority employee in Aden who lives about half a mile from the scene of the bombing, said area residents told him the attack occurred when a military food truck entered the compound of a government school that had been turned into a recruitment base. “Immediately after the food truck entered, a Toyota Hilux pickup truck stormed in and exploded,” Abu Murad said. Another local resident, Faisal Abdul Hafeth al-Doqm, a 30-year-old lawyer, said the Islamic State released a statement on local news websites saying it was behind the attack and identifying the suicide bomber as Ahmed Saif, a man of Somali descent who was born and raised in Aden. Yemeni security officials confirmed the identity of the attacker and distributed a photo of him smiling and holding an assault rifle next to a flag used by Islamist extremists, the Associated Press reported. In May, suicide bombers in Aden killed at least 45 army recruits lined up to enlist. Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab coalition that is backing the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and carrying out airstrikes against the Shiite rebels, whom it says are backed by Iran. An estimated 3,500 civilians have been killed in the fighting during the past 18 months and about 3 million people have been displaced, according to the United Nations and aid groups. Peace talks mediated by the United Nations in Kuwait were suspended in early August, and the fighting has continued unabated. On Thursday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein called for an international investigation into the serious allegations of abuses committed by “all sides” in the conflict. On Aug. 18, after the aerial bombing of one of its hospitals in the north of the country, Doctors Without Borders announced that it was evacuating its staff from hospitals in two northern provinces. Before the announcement, the group was active in 11