Hurricane recovery gave New Orleans reason to band together to offer more healthful food

June, city officials announced a new grocery store opening in Central City and a Whole Foods Market opened in the Mid-City neighborhood in February. That store is part of the ReFresh Project, an experimental initiative that links the store to programs that teach residents to cook produce available at Whole Foods, and how to manage health problems such as diabetes through nutrition. Opening on the site in July, the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University will serve as a first-of-its kind teaching kitchen for community members, medical students and medical professionals. “It speaks to the idea that food is the best medicine,” said Jeffrey Schwartz, founder of the neighborhood organization behind the project, Broad Community Connections. The notion is so promising that a nonprofit created by Whole Foods will study the initiative and whether it can be replicated in other places, said Meredith Smith, executive director of the Whole Cities Foundation. “Katrina really created this situation where people said, ‘You know, we have to pull together, to rely on each other,’ ” Smith said. “There’s this real spirit of collective action.” Johanna Gilligan, founder of Grow Dat Youth Farm, agrees. “After the storm, there was just this moment of, ‘How do we reimagine a city?’ because what we knew was forever changed,” she said. “So much didn’t come back.” Since it began in 2011, Gilligan’s farm has increased from 11 student workers to 41. This year, students are growing more than 10,000 pounds of food on the seven-acre site in City Park. Of that, 40 percent is donated to students’ families and other residents who need it. “Inner-city kids don’t have anything to do with farming or healthy eating — just football and McDonald’s,” Dubuclet said. “I didn’t know anything about vegetables before I farmed.” Now, he not only knows all the steps of growing plants, but he cooks, too. Dubuclet thinks these programs can help transform communities like his — pointing to the fact that he now gardens and prepares food with his family. “My grandmother is getting older, and working in the garden has helped me to get closer to her,” he said. “Really, farming has made me the person I am today.” Hasselle is a freelance journalist who lives in New Orleans. Related: Designs that make you feel better Experts speak: Improving our health without doctors or pills Streets are no longer just for cars


Kerry warns Russia that additional U.S., E.U. economic sanctions are possible

in the next days and weeks.” Russia has done nothing to comply with international demands to curtail its intervention in Ukraine, NATO’s chief said Wednesday. “I regret to say that we see no signs that Russia is respecting its international commitments,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters during a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Brussels. NATO suspended cooperation with Russia British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Wednesday that support for tougher European Union sanctions would increase if Russia fails to cooperate on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s peace plan. Sectoral sanctions are “in the drawer” for use if needed and will be a subject of the E.U. meeting Friday, said a European diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe behind-the-scenes efforts. “The Americans are forcefully lobbying Europe in recent days not to relent on sanctions,” the diplomat said, acknowledging divisions within the E.U. about whether more sanctions are necessary now. “The jury is still out” on any decision this week, the diplomat added. As he arrived for the NATO meetings, Hague said, “While there have been welcome words from Russia” about the peace plan, “we have not seen yet the actions to go with that.” He added, “We urge Russia to take the necessary action to stop the flow of arms across the border” and “stop supporting illegally armed separatist groups in eastern Ukraine, because in the absence of that action by Russia the case for stronger sanctions from European Union nations will, of course, become stronger.” In an effort to spur sputtering peace talks, Poroshenko and Putin spoke Wednesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande in a conference call. Poroshenko asked Russia to strengthen its border, his office said in a statement. He said he would be willing to allow Russian observers as part of a monitoring mission at the border during an ongoing but tenuous cease-fire. The leaders plan to speak again Thursday. President Obama had called British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday, and the White House said they had agreed that Russia must stop the flow of weapons and militants to separatists and encourage them to join the peace plan. “Should Russia fail to take these immediate steps to deescalate the situation in eastern Ukraine, the United States and the European Union would work to implement additional coordinated measures to impose costs on Russia,” the White House said.


D.C. news in brief

The District government is seeking proposals for the redevelopment of the historic Grimke School, 1923 Vermont Ave. NW, and an adjacent District-owned parcel at 912 U St. NW. The two parcels, in the mid-city U Street/Uptown neighborhood, are near major thoroughfares, multiple bus stops and the U Street Metro station. The District is looking for development plans compatible with surrounding neighborhood development, community preferences and the project’s proximity to mass transit. The Grimke School building is 52,000 square feet with about 14,850 square feet of lot area that houses the African American Civil War Museum and provides off-street parking. The U Street parcel, currently used as a parking lot, is about 5,900 square feet. The request for proposals is available at dcbiz.dc.gov. Responses are due by July 29. After a review process, which may include a further request for a best and final proposal, a developer will be selected by winter. Nominations sought for Mayor’s Arts Awards The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities is seeking nominations of artists, organizations, art patrons and arts teachers for the 29th annual Mayor’s Arts Awards. Categories are artistic discipline, emerging artist, service to the arts, contribution to arts education, innovation in the arts, and teachers in the performing arts, visual arts and language arts fields. Full-time arts teachers in the District and city residents and nonprofit groups are eligible for the teaching awards. Nominees must reside or have a street address in the District. Individuals and groups may nominate themselves or others. Nominations are submitted through the arts commission’s online grants application portal at wapo.st/artsgrants. Nominators will need to create an account and password. Work samples, support materials and a biographical résumé of the nominee are required. The deadline is July 11. There will be a fall ceremony to announce the winners. For information, e-mail steven.mazzola@dc.gov or call 202-724-5613. Group offers mentoring program for girls in grief Left Behind, a nonprofit group that provides grief support and mentoring services to girls in the Washington area who have lost a parent or sibling, is accepting students for its mentoring program in September. The mentoring programs and services are free. The program is open to girls in grades six through 12. To enroll, participants must submit a parent and participant form along with a copy of the most recent report card. For information, go to www.facebook.com/alegacyleftbehind, www.twitter.com/alegacylftbhind or www.instagram.com/alegacyleftbehind. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


Arlington-Alexandria news in brief

Free taxi rides to be available on the Fourth of July As part of its ongoing effort to curb drunken driving, the Washington Regional Alcohol Program will sponsor free taxicab rides on the Fourth of July The Independence Day SoberRide program is available from 10 p.m. July 4 to 4 a.m. July 5 in Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William and Eastern Loudoun counties in Virginia; the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas and Manassas Park in Virginia; Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland; the cities of Rockville, Bowie, College Park, Gaithersburg, Greenbelt and Takoma Park in Maryland; and the District. Those 21 or older who wish to use the service can call 800-200-TAXI (8294) and get a free ride home (with a $30 fare maximum). AT&T wireless customers may also call #WRAP (9727). For information, visit www.soberride.com. City plans to rename park, seeks comment Alexandria is seeking public comment on a proposal to rename the “pocket park” at the intersection of East Del Ray and Commonwealth avenues as the Judy Lowe Pocket Park. Lowe, known as the “First Lady of Del Ray” because of her involvement in numerous civic activities, was among the neighborhood activists who convinced the city to buy the land for the creation of a neighborhood park. The public may comment through July 25. Submit comments via e-mail to the Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities Division Chief Jack Browand at jack.browand@alexandriava.gov — with the subject line “Judy Lowe Pocket Park” — or via Postal Service to RPCA, Attn: Jack Browand, 1108 Jefferson St., Alexandria, VA 22314. Dedication set for Lenny Harris Memorial Fields Alexandria will hold a dedication ceremony for the Lenny Harris Memorial Fields at Braddock Park. The ceremony is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday. Lenwood “Lenny” Harris, a well-loved community activist in Alexandria, was the co-founder of Operation HOPE, a youth- and community-development organization based in the city. Harris was killed in Prince George’s County during a botched robbery in September 2011. Braddock Park is at 1005 Mount Vernon Ave. For information, visit www.alexandriava.gov. Early registration opens for the Senior Olympics Online registration for the 2014 Northern Virginia Senior Olympics will open Tuesday, the NVSO committee said. Participants may register at www.nvso.us or by regular mail to compete in more than 50 events. The olympics, running from Sept. 13 to Sept. 24, will be held at 19 venues in Northern Virginia, according


Montgomery County Animal Watch

This case was received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on such topics 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. Nephew’s dog bites aunt Free cat chat Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Montgomery County Humane Society: Potomac Burtonsville Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


AWS’ Teresa Carlson: The public market for cloud services has matured, but still needs work

president of global public sector said on Wednesday. During AWS’s annual symposium this week in Washington — aimed at attracting public sector and nonprofit customers — Carlson said she noticed organizations today using cloud services for more than just basic storage. Some are also using cloud services to help build completely new applications, she said. “In the early days of talking with a customer, they weren’t sure where to begin. Now they have a vision, they have a plan,” she said. The symposium drew more executives this year compared to past years, she said — a sign that the people responsible for organizations’ missions are now eager to learn about cloud applications, instead of just developers. In March, the company secured an authority to operate certain cloud services with the Defense Department. AWS secured FedRAMP certification — a federal security requirement— since May of 2013. Despite growing cloud adoption, there’s still work to be done, she said. “We’re far from done,” she said. “There’s still agencies [that] don’t have all [the] steps in place, so we’re still working with agencies and a lot of countries around the world” to help them understand how to acquire cloud services. To speed adoption, AWS spends plenty of time on Capitol Hill educating lawmakers about the cost-saving potential of cloud services, Carlson said — especially as compared to traditional data storage. The company has been marketing its services not only to federal governments for their internal use, but more recently, to state and local governments that might use Amazon’s cloud services to build applications that would help them connect with citizens, she said. “We also spend time on compliance and the security regime with compliance officers within those agencies,” Carlson added. The federal government is also adapting to the culture of cloud computing — especially the rapid process of so-called agile software development, where product improvements are made incrementally. “I think people are beginning to realize that on AWS you can try and fail fast without it affecting your system in a big way. Try things out in a testing and developing environment before you start deploying completely, and that’s really another benefit of true commercial cloud computing, is their ability to try these architectures out and fail really fast, and cheap, without having it really affect their application that’s up and running.” (Disclosure: Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)


Monarch butterflies navigate to Mexico with an internal magnetic compass, scientists say

Monarch butterflies use the sun to help steer them on their migrations. But how do they navigate when it’s cloudy? (Marjorie Miller/Associated Press) A new study suggests that monarch butterflies use an internal magnetic compass to help navigate on their annual 2,000-mile migrations to central Mexico. Scientists already knew that the butterflies navigate by the sun. But the insects do just fine on very cloudy days, leading to suspicions that they also use a magnetic compass, as migratory birds and sea turtles do. Earlier studies haven’t made a clear case for that, according to authors of the new study, from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The scientists put monarchs in a chamber with no outdoor light and showed that their flight patterns responded to changes in the magnetic field. Further work suggested that the compass is in their antennae. Millions of the black-and-orange butterflies travel each year from the eastern United States to spend the winter in Mexico. The new findings were reported Tuesday by the journal Nature Communications. — Associated Press


From ladies’ club to luxury apartments: The Washington Club bids Dupont Circle farewell

the over-the-top style of the Gilded Age: 36,470 square feet and four stories of white marble and terra cotta designed by White for Robert Patterson, editor of the Chicago Tribune, and his wife, heiress Elinor “Nellie” Medill Patterson, daughter of the newspaper’s owner. Like most new homes, it went over budget, costing an extravagant $200,000 (about $5 million in today’s dollars) when it was finished in 1903. Less home than showpiece, the house was built to impress and entertain: Grand salons, mirrored ballroom, 16 bedrooms, impressive art and antiques. Nellie kept a full staff but spent most of her time in Chicago, finally deeding the house to daughter Cissy in 1923. Four years later, Cissy loaned it to Coolidge while the White House was being renovated; the president and first lady hosted Charles Lindbergh there after his triumphant trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. Charles Lindbergh at Patterson House, June 12, 1927. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division) Patterson House, 15 Dupont Circle Northwest, Washington, DC, 1971 (J. Alexander/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division ) After Cissy’s death in 1948, the house went to the Red Cross, which sold the property and original furnishings to the Washington Club in 1951 for a reported $450,000. When club members began to think about selling, they knew they were sitting on a prime piece of real estate. But it was tricky: buyers had to preserve the exterior (a protected landmark) but could update the interior and remove an undistinguished 1956 addition. Embassies looked at but eventually passed on the property. A deal to turn the mansion into a boutique hotel was rejected by the Historic Preservation Review Board. Then SB-Urban, a company headed by local developers B.F. Saul III and Michael Balaban, submitted a proposal to turn the property into approximately 90 furnished micro-apartments: 400-square-feet luxury units, most located in a seven-story glass addition built behind the mansion. The home’s original two public floors would be preserved as common areas. Saul declined to comment on the project. All things considered, it’s the best option for Dupont Circle, says Mike Feldstein, ANC commissioner and chair of the community involvement committee. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t change a thing. I think it’s beautiful the way it is. But progress is progress.” Who gets the money from the sale? The 94 current members. After taxes, fees and expenses, they’ll split about $8 million


N.Y. state attorney general accuses Barclays of fraud in lawsuit

legs atop of a hive. Home Depot and other retailers plan to eliminate or limit neonicotinoid, a pesticide suspected of helping cause declines in honeybee populations. (Linda Davidson/THE WASHINGTON POST) Instead, the service “was essentially a sham,” Schneiderman said. “Barclays has never prohibited any trader from participating in its dark pool, regardless of how predatory or aggressive its behavior was determined to be.” The lawsuit asks the court to order Barclays to halt the behavior and pay unspecified damages. — Associated Press RETAIL Stores to control pesticide that may harm honeybees Home Depot and other American companies are working to eliminate or limit the use of a type of pesticide suspected of helping cause dramatic declines in honeybee populations needed to pollinate key crops, officials said Wednesday. The moves include requiring suppliers to label any plants treated with neonicotinoid, or neonic, pesticides sold through home and garden stores. Atlanta-based Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, is requiring its suppliers to start such labeling by the fourth quarter of this year, said Ron Jarvis, the company’s vice president of merchandizing and sustainability. Home Depot is also running tests in several states to see if suppliers can eliminate neonics in their plant production without hurting plant health, he said. Also on Wednesday, BJ’s Wholesale Club, a warehouse retailer with more than 200 locations along the East Coast, said it was asking all of its vendors to provide plants free of neonics by the end of this year or to label such products as requiring “caution around pollinators” such as bees. At least 10 other smaller retailers, with locations in Minnesota, Colorado, Maryland and California, have announced plans to limit or eliminate neonics from plant products. The class of pesticides known as neonics are sold by agrichemical companies to boost yields of staple crops such as corn. But the pesticides are also used widely on annual and perennial plants used in lawns and gardens. — Reuters Also in Business ● General Motors said it has told its North American dealers to stop selling new and used Chevrolet Cruze sedans from model years 2013 and 2014 because of a potential problem with the air bags. The automaker has not at this point recalled the cars and is investigating how many vehicles have a faulty part for the air bags in the sedans, a GM spokesman said. GM said it does not yet


D.C. community calendar, June 26-July. 3, 2014

U St. NW. $25/month. 202-483-8600 or www.smithcenter.org . Battle of the Crater? National Park Service staff members and volunteers in Civil War-ear clothing discuss the Battle of the Crater, part of the Siege of Petersburg, and the missed chance for the Union to win the war on July 30, 1864. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Lincoln Memorial, 23rd Street NW and West Potomac Park. Free. Call Mike Rose, 202-438-9667. U.S. Botanic Garden lunchtime tour, Summer reading kick-off party, Fizz, boom read! Magic show, Reptiles Alive!, Mental health and HIV confidential group, for people with HIV and mental-health problems, sponsored by MetroHealth. Transportation tokens and refreshments provided. 3:30 p.m. 1012 14th St. NW. Free. 202-638-0750. STEM Mondays, Chess club, instruction open to children and teens. 5:30 p.m. Mondays, Woodridge Library, 1801 Hamlin St. NE. Free. 202-541-6226. Shaw knitting and crocheting circle, all experience levels welcome, bring needles and yarn to create projects to take home. 6 p.m. Mondays, Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, 1630 Seventh St. NW. Free. 202-727-1288. Knitting and crocheting, HIV/STI testing, for ages 13-24, hosted by Metro TeenAIDS. 4:30 p.m., William O. Lockridge/Bellevue Library, 115 Atlantic St. SW. Free. 202-243-1184. Yoga for women cancer survivors, Zumba class, Yoga class, Aerobics for adults, Naughty Professor in concert, Tuesday, JULY 1 “Who Stole My House? ” Reptiles alive!, Guided garden tour: historic and growing, Yoga at noon, led by traditional yoga teacher and therapist Heather Ferris, bring a mat. Noon Tuesdays, Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, 1630 Seventh St. NW. Free. 202-727-1288. Classical piano recital, Maze buildout tour, Yoga for lunch, Cathedral tour and tea, a docent-led tour of the highlights of the cathedral, its history, architecture and artworks — plus a traditional English tea and a scenic view of the city from the cathedral tower. 1:30 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday, Washington National Cathedral, Docent Station at the Rear Nave, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. $30; reservations required. 202-537-8993, www.allhallowsguild.org or e-mail misbister@cathedral.org . Kids love karaoke! Blue Sky Puppet Theatre, Sketching workshop, bring pencils and a small sketchbook, work with objects on display in the Luce Foundation Center. 2:30-4:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center, Eighth and F streets NW. Free. 202-633-1000. Choral concert, Creativity and genius: inside the minds of Leonardo, Newton and Einstein, Bulent Atalay, scientist, artist and author of numerous papers in theoretical physics, explores what happens when an objective part of the mind intersects with the subjective part


When we were small: Samuel Adams

the early days at the company, including his pitch to investors, his run-in with a brick wall and the name he nearly settled on instead of Samuel Adams. What follows is a transcript of our interview, lightly edited for clarity. J.D. Harrison: Okay, let’s rewind. What were you doing before you started making beer? Jim Koch: Well, I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and went to public schools there, and then I moved to Boston for college. I went to Harvard and wound up getting my MBA and JD. I had a pretty good job as a manufacturing consultant for a place called Boston Consulting Group, but I had pretty much learned what I was going to learn, and I didn’t want to be a consultant for the rest of my life. So, I decided to leave, and I started thinking about starting my own company. Harrison: So why beer? Koch: I come from a long line of brewmasters. I’m the sixth oldest son in a row in my family to brew beer, and we had this old trunk in our attic filled with my dad’s course materials from brewmaster school and some other family recipes. He picked one out, what we called Louis Koch Lager, and I literally went down and made my first batches at home in our kitchen. Harrison: What pushed you to try to turn that into a career, rather than just a hobby on the side? Koch: I thought, ‘I would love to make beer for the rest of my life — that would be the coolest job in the world.’ It didn’t look like it was going to be easy, but I committed myself to making that happen. I never thought we would take off like this, or that the craft industry would take off like it has, for that matter. Harrison: How did you finance the company early on? Koch: I had $100,000 saved of my own money, and I raised another $140,000 from friends, relatives, and drinking buddies. It’s amazing how easy it is to raise money when you say, ‘Included in this is free beer for the rest of your life.’ People were immediately like ‘Wow, here’s three grand.’ It only took me about a weekend to raise the money. Harrison: Many of us have seen the commercials featuring your brewing facility up in Boston. What did it look like when


To bee or not to bee? That is the question pesticides pose for many colonies

In “We’re all getting stung” [Health & Science, June 24], The Post offered two ways that the average person can help bees: planting bee-friendly flowers and avoiding pesticides. However, if individuals are planting flowers that have been sprayed with neonicotinoid pesticides (also known as neonics), these flowers are poisonous to the very bees they are trying to help. While the suggestions for helping bees are certainly good ones, the best way we could help bees would be to cease the use of harmful pesticides. The beekeeping industry has teamed up with nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice to bring a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency for allowing the widespread use of sulfoxaflor, one of these harmful neonics. We believe that the EPA used inadequate science to approve its use. The EPA is meant to protect people and wildlife from dangerous chemicals under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, but it’s clear in this case its has failed to do its job. We’ve already killed off far too many of our nation’s bees, threatening the future of some of our most nutritious food options. The EPA needs to realize its mistake and stop the use of sulfoxaflor before it’s too late. Michele Colopy, Akron, Ohio The writer is program director of the Pollinator Stewardship Council. ● Pesticides are part of an ongoing conversation surrounding pollinator health. “We’re all getting stung” addressed this but failed to note the strong body of scientific research showing that neonicotinoid insecticides do not adversely affect bee colonies when they are applied according to label directions. Neonicotinoids are an incredibly precise form of crop protection. They are strictly regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and designed to have a minimal impact on beneficial species and the environment. The article correctly stated that bee health is being weakened by many different stressors. Scientific research points to the combined influence of inadequate nutrition and forage, parasites, diseases, poor management practices and lack of genetic diversity. In a recent memorandum, President Obama called on federal agencies to focus their efforts on addressing these stressors. When used haphazardly, insecticides can have negative consequences for honey bees and other insects. Strong regulations help prevent potential risks and make sure that farmers still benefit. We need both pollinators and effective crop protection products if we want agriculture to thrive. Jay Vroom, Washington The writer is president and chief executive of CropLife America.


American Riesling: 5 great bottles to try

the list at Oya, the Source by Wolfgang Puck. Available in Maryland at Fenwick Beer & Wine in Silver Spring; on the list at American Tap Room in Rockville. Available in Virginia at Planet Wine & Gourmet in Alexandria, Little Washington Winery; on the list at Tallula in Arlington. Sawtooth Riesling 2012 ★ ★1/2 Snake River Valley, Idaho, $15 Idaho wine: Why not? Sawtooth’s wines are excellent, and its Riesling may be the shining star of the lot. ABV: 13 percent Available in the District at Cleveland Park Wine and Spirits, Whole Foods Market (Foggy Bottom); on the list at Charlie Palmer Steak, Cities, Sona Creamery & Wine Bar, RedRocks Firebrick Pizzeria. Available in Maryland at Bradley Food & Beverage in Bethesda; Fenwick Beer & Wine in Silver Spring, Fine Wine of Wheaton, Frederick Wine House, Monterey Mart & Cafe in Rockville; on the list at a.k.a. Friscos and Firestone’s Culinary Tavern in Frederick, Cesco Osteria in Bethesda. Available in Virginia at Little Washington Winery, Unwined (Alexandria), Vienna Vintner, Whole Foods Market (Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Reston). Casa Larga Dry Riesling 2012 ★ ★ Finger Lakes, N.Y., $15 One of the best developments in the growth of eastern U.S. wines is the increasing availability of wines from the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York. This region produces delicate, citrusy expressions of Riesling with great finesse. ABV: 11.5 percent. Siema: Available in the District at Cleveland Park Wine and Spirits, Glen’s Garden Market; on the list at Oya, Sax. Available in Maryland at Fenwick Beer & Wine in Silver Spring. Available in Virginia at Cork & Fork in Gainesville, Little Washington Winery, Swirl & Sip in Fairfax. Chateau Ste. Michelle Dry Riesling 2012 ★ ★ Columbia Valley, Wash., $11 When this was priced below $10, I considered it the best white wine value produced in the United States. Even with the price creeping up, it remains a terrific buy. Ernst Loosen’s work on the Eroica has resulted in improvements throughout the extensive Ste. Michelle line of Rieslings. ABV: 13 percent. RNDC: Available in the District at 1 W Dupont Circle Wine & Liquors, Barmy Wines & Liquors, Circle Wine & Liquor, Giant (various locations), Harris Teeter (various locations), Rodman’s, Safeway (various locations), S&S Liquor; on the list at 1789, Acre 121, Le Diplomate. Washington Hills Riesling 2012 ★1/2 Washington state, $9 This is semi-dry, meaning it shows perceptible sweetness without being really


Ukraine signs landmark agreement with E.U.

new sanctions against Russia, but they gave Moscow until Monday to push rebels toward peace, suggesting they may impose sanctions if it fails to do so. They called for Russia to help implement Poroshenko’s peace plan, ensure that separatists hand back captured Ukrainian border checkpoints and release a final team of captured observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday that the Obama administration supports the E.U. demands. He would not say what would happen if those actions weren’t taken by Monday but said the likelihood of sanctions would increase. “We have signaled a clear willingness to act with partners and allies to further isolate Russia,” he said. “Additional unhelpful action will lead to additional economic costs.” Russia annexed Ukraine’s autonomous Crimea region in March after pro-Russian separatists there staged an independence referendum, and Kiev has accused Moscow of aiding the separatists in eastern Ukraine. The E.U. agreements are “milestones in the history of our relations and of Europe as a whole,” European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said at Friday’s ceremony. “In Kiev and elsewhere, people gave their lives for this closer link to the European Union. We will not forget them.” Russia has leaned hard on its neighbors not to sign the deals, called “association agreements.” It banned imports of Moldovan wine last year, cut off the flow of natural gas to Ukraine last week and said it would raise tariffs on imports from all three countries in response to the deals. Those steps are likely to impose major economic hardships on the countries, which remain closely tied to Russia as an export market. Armenia, another former Soviet republic that was due to sign the agreement, reversed course in September after intense Russian lobbying. Moldova and Georgia, like Ukraine, face pro-Russian separatist movements on their soil, and officials in all three countries have expressed fears that Russia will stoke tensions even further following the E.U. deal. Russia went to war with Georgia in 2008 in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, and Russian soldiers are stationed as peacekeepers in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria. “This is a civilizational choice,” said Oleksiy Haran, a professor of comparative politics at the National University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy, referring to Friday’s agreement. “Especially now, when you have Russian aggression against its strategic partner.” Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.


Heroin deaths spike in Maryland

system for tracking deaths, there were 464 — an 18 percent increase from the previous year. Both states began training programs this year to help family members or friends learn to administer naloxone, a drug that can sometimes prevent an overdose. In Maryland, 2,000 people have been trained already in addition to the first-responders, Sharfstein said, and by July 1 all ambulances will carry naloxone. Maryland saw a dramatic jump in the number of deaths from heroin spiked with non-prescription fentanyl. Typically they had seen two or three a month, Sharfstein said, “but in October we started to see 10, 15, 20 a month . . . and that has persisted, to a certain extent, into this year. That is a huge increase. Fentanyl is highly potent and definitely dangerous in combination with heroin. That is a huge challenge.” Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) created an interagency council to try to prevent overdose deaths, using some of the same techniques the state has used to understand and reduce the number of homicides. One of his main goals has been to reduce intoxication deaths by 20 percent by the end of next year. (A graphic of a meter on a state Web site shows negative 7.4 percent progress toward that goal, since all intoxication deaths increased from 799 to 858 in 2013.) Heroin-related deaths increased in western and central Maryland and on the Eastern Shore. And they more than doubled in Frederick County, from 10 in 2012 to 21 in 2013. Over the past five to 10 years, heroin, once mainly associated with urban centers such as Baltimore, has spread throughout the state, Sharfstein said. (Baltimore had a large increase in heroin deaths from 2012 to 2013, as well.) The state has launched a public-information campaign to counter opioid overdoses, trying to erase stigmas about treatment such as methadone and looping in the 211 call centers so that people can ask where to find help. Officials hope to provide everyone leaving detention centers with information warning about overdose deaths: Former inmates can easily overdose after being off the drug if they go back to their original dose once they're freed from incarceration because of lost tolerance. And officials will study cases, looking for common factors (such as certain doctors, in the case of prescription-drug overdoses), recent release from prison and so on. The governor is also asking the boards that oversee prescribers


At Texas festival, watermelon seed spitting is big sport

Elizabeth Camacho, 11, takes part in the 2012 seed-spitting contest at the Watermelon Thump festival in Luling, Texas. The town of 5,500 draws tens of thousands of people for its contest and other watermelon-themed events. (Mickie Bailey) Washington is known for many things: It’s home to monuments, the president of the United States and a baby panda named Bao Bao. Luling, Texas, is known for one thing: watermelons. The small town, which is about 1,500 miles from Washington, is home to a watermelon water tower, a watermelon queen and a festival called the Watermelon Thump. “It’s a big thing for us down here,” said Luling Mayor Mike Hendricks, talking by phone from Texas about the Watermelon Thump. (“Thump” is the sound you’re supposed to hear when you tap a ripe watermelon with your finger.) The event includes food, music, carnival rides and a parade. But what sets this watermelon festival apart from others is the World Championship Seed Spitting Contest. Robert Martinez, right, and Chris Power, driving, take champion melons to the auction during the 2011 Watermelon Thump. (Mickie Bailey) Annual tradition About 5,500 people live in Luling. But since 1954, the population has swelled on the last weekend in June. Now, tens of thousands of people come from all around to attend the four-day festival. Jake Coulter readies a spit at the 2011 Thump festival. The world record for watermelon seed spitting — 68 feet 91 / 8 inches — was set in Luling in 1989. (Mickie Bailey) Luling grows plenty of watermelons, so the festival started, Hendricks said, as a way to “honor the people who grew those melons.” But now seed spitting is the main event. Participants spit watermelon seeds out of their mouths as far as they can. “The seed-spitting crowds get into it,” said Edgar Camacho, who is father to four seed-spitting champions. “Parents from Luling take it seriously,” said Camacho, who grew up in the town but now lives in nearby Hondo, Texas. The competition is limited to about 50 kids and 50 adults. The kids are divided into four age groups. For the individual competition, everyone gets two spits, and judges record the better one. For the team event, judges take the sum of four spits from four participants. Spitters approach the contest line one at a time and choose a seed from a cut watermelon. The only rules are that the spitter


The National Arboretum needs to be able to receive its public

Why is the U.S. National Arboretum closed every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday? I recently visited the District for the three days that the arboretum is closed. This was my annual trip to Washington specifically to visit the arboretum. As I looked through the locked gates on New York Avenue NE, grounds personnel were doing their jobs, including mowing the lawns. When I went to the R Street entrance, two security guards in separate vehicles were visiting with each other and “guarding” the gate for staff. I drove up to this entrance at lunchtime and saw a man and his two young children eating lunch under a small tree outside the fence. The public owns this 446-acre gem, yet it is unavailable to walkers, runners, bikers, schoolchildren, families, D.C. residents and visitors from outside the city for more than 40 percent of the week. The voice message for the Friends of the National Arboretum, of which I am a member, indicates that the arboretum is closed three days a week because of the sequestration, but it appears as if most of the arboretum staff still is working. The arboretum’s Web site indicates that on some holidays the buildings are closed but the grounds are open to the public. Why can’t that model be used Tuesday through Thursday to allow the public access to the grounds? Our National Arboretum should not be locked up and unusable to the public for three days each week. Tony Beane, Canton, N.Y.


Sodexo reverses itself after bumping cafeteria workers from health-care plan

authorities say illegal drugs and other goods could be bought. An online auction took place over a 12-hour period Friday for the bitcoins, valued at nearly $17.7 million. It consisted of nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins. The Marshals Service has said it would notify the winning bidders Monday. ● Energy drinks firm Red Bull North America settled a potential civil liability suit for alleged violations of U.S. sanctions against Cuba, the Treasury Department said. The firm agreed to pay $89,775 for filming a documentary without authorization from the Treasury, the department said in a statement. ● The White House said the president will nominate a lawyer with a history in aviation and transportation safety to head the National Transportation Safety Board. Christopher Hart joined the board as vice chairman in 2009 and became acting chairman in April, when former NTSB chief Deborah Hersman resigned. Hart has held high-level posts in the Federal Aviation Administration, including deputy director for air traffic safety oversight and assistant administrator for system safety. ● The parent company of the Showboat Casino Hotel in New Jersey said it will close the Mardi Gras-themed casino Aug. 31. Caesars Entertainment chief executive Gary Loveman said in a statement that the “difficult decision” is necessary to protect the rest of the company’s business in Atlantic City, where it owns four of the 11 casinos. The closing will also shutter the casino’s House of Blues, one of New Jersey’s most popular concert venues. It will be the second casino to close this year in the nation’s third-largest gambling market. The Atlantic Club closed in January, taken down in a bankruptcy sale by Caesars Entertainment and Tropicana Entertainment, which closed it to reduce competition. ● The first launch of Russia’s new space rocket after two decades of development was aborted moments before blastoff, as President Vladimir Putin was watching via live feed. The Angara booster rocket has been developed to replace the Soyuz, a workhorse of the Soviet and then Russian space program, designed more than four decades ago. Angara’s development has dragged on since 1994. Its first launch had been planned for 2005 but has been continually pushed back. Space officials said an automatic safety system aborted the rocket’s blastoff from the Plesetsk launch pad in northwestern Russia for an unspecified reason. The launch was tentatively put off until Saturday. — From news services


Skywatch: Planetary action along with the fireworks

For the coming Independence Day weekend, in addition to watching spangled stars, consider wrangling planets and a moon. As the fireworks burst in the air — likely around 9:30 p.m. on July 4 — gaze into the southwest sky to spy the reddish Mars and the ringed Saturn with a bright, variable double star called Spica between them. A young first-quarter moon skids toward Mars and Spica. On the next night, the moon has joined Mars and Spica, which should be a cool sight in binoculars steadied by a tripod. On July 5 in other parts of world — chiefly western Mexico, Central America and northern South America — the moon occults (eclipses) the planet Mars. Here, skygazers will see the moon nuzzle Mars. By July 6, the chubby waxing gibbous moon strolls between Mars (defined by its red) and Saturn (with its white appearance.) Saturn and the moon nuzzle on the evening of July 7. People in the southern part of South America will see the moon occult Saturn. Here, they look like lovers embracing. Mars is a zero magnitude object (bright) right now and dims slightly as the month progresses. Our reddish neighbor moves closer to Spica in our heavens and they’re separated by about a degree on July 12. Then, Mars pulls away from Spica — and moves toward Saturn. In late August, Mars and Saturn cross paths. Meanwhile, Saturn is a zero magnitude object (bright), and it hangs out in the constellation Libra. Early in the month, the large gaseous Jupiter slinks into the northwestern sky, following the sun at sunset. The planet will reappear as a morning object in mid-August. The morning heavens feature Venus in the northeastern sky — ahead of the sun now — rising about 4 a.m. This negative 3.9 magnitude (very bright) object loiters in the eastern morning heavens throughout the month, perfectly placed for early rising East Coast beach-goers. Fleet Mercury joins Venus early in July. After the first week of the month, Mercury may be seen close to the horizon in the morning sky. In early July, the planet is a second magnitude object (dimmer than Saturn) that brightens into a zero magnitude object in the latter part of July. Unlikely though it may seem, since it is summer, the Earth is 94.5 million miles from the sun July 3 about 8 p.m. It’s an event called aphelion, the


Two bodies found at Shaw rowhouse are a continuing mystery

The exterior of a rowhouse in the 1800 block of Eighth Street NW in Washington, D.C. Police found the bodies of two people — one on July 12 in the attic and the other on June 16 partially buried in the backyard. (Peter Hermann/The Washington Post) The two-story rowhouse blended nicely into the leafy neighborhood, with its white facade, well-tended shrub and black wrought-iron fence. The three quiet roommates who lived there also melded into the block in gentrifying Shaw, hardly ever raising any concern from longtime neighbors. But the house on Eighth Street, between S and T streets in Northwest, has caused an uncomfortable stir on the street after two occupants were found dead there this month while the third is in police custody, charged with murder in connection with one of the deaths. Far from clarifying what happened, the arrest has only complicated a story line that might never be fully understood. Police cut through the roof of the house to reach a decaying body hidden under an air mattress in the attic crawl space. Later, the authorities found a second corpse partially buried in the backyard. A confession that one of the victims made just before he was killed, according to a statement the accused man gave police, has only added to the macabre intrigue. “It’s bizarre,” said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents the area where the slayings occurred. The victim of the first attack, found June 12, has been identified as Leon Young, 22. Police said he had suffered two blows to the head with a hammer. The second victim, exhumed from the makeshift grave on June 16, was Delano DeWhitt Wingfield, 23, whose grandmother had reported him missing June 3. Police said he had been beaten, and it took 10 days to identify his body. The third roommate — Jeffrey Bernard Neal, 21, who grew up in the house and whose family still owns it — is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Young. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in D.C. Superior Court on July 8. Court documents say that after Neal was arrested, he told detectives he hit Young with the hammer moments after Young threatened him with a ninja-style weapon and told him he had killed Wingfield. To add to the mystery, all three men were friends and classmates at McKinley Technology High School in


Kenyan musicians cancel Folklife performance in protest of their government

A group of Kenyan musicians scheduled to perform at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on Saturday in the District canceled a 2 p.m. show to protest their country’s Ministry of Sports, Culture and the Arts, alleging that their members were being denied payment. The artists decided to boycott after discussions with representatives of their government, dismaying dozens of audience members, some of whom had traveled from cities across the country specifically to support the Kenyan musicians. The group — which performs a range of Kenyan music — has been rehearsing for the performance for months. According to a statement members released Saturday, they are demanding payment for their travel and living expenses for the festival as well as respect from their government. Eric Wainaina, a famed musician in Kenya, said he and others wanted to play but also felt as though the ministry and the Kenyan government needed to receive a message. “This dispute is about us resolving sort of systemic malaise in the government, you know, it’s systemic rot. It’s happened before,” Wainaina said. “And that’s the reason this sort of drastic measure’s been taken.” Officials with the Kenyan embassy in the District did not respond to requests for comment Saturday. Sabrina Lynn Motley, festival director for the Smithsonian event, announced the closing of the stage until further notice Saturday afternoon and encouraged audience members to visit other exhibits at the 48th annual festival while the artists worked to resolve the dispute. This year’s festival The group said they deeply regret disappointing the Smithsonian as well as the American people. “Every artist you see here is a master of their craft who now stands slapped in the face by the Government of Kenya,” the Kenyan musicians wrote in a joint statement.


Even after sale to Coca-Cola, Bethesda-based Honest Tea ‘work in progress’

Goldman, then employed by Bethesda-based Calvert Investments, saw the paucity of health drinks after finishing a run one day. “I sent Barry an e-mail and asked him if we remembered our beverage chat. I said I think I’m going to do something about this now,” Goldman said. They raised about $500,000 together from friends and family. The company branded itself on three legs: less sweet, organic products and fair trade — reinvesting in the overseas communities it bought its ingredients from. They chose tea, in part, because it is the world’s second-most popular beverage (after water) and was highly affordable. Nalebuff, who is a competitive strategy expert, came up with the name Honest Tea. While Nalebuff helped raise cash from his network, Goldman trolled tea fields in rural China and India, learning about ingredients, creating relationships with growers and discovering recipes. They found an apple-juice plant in Buffalo that could bottle its recipes. Honest Tea wanted to stand out, so it started with 17 calories per serving, which was about one-sixth of the competition. “We wanted to be meaningfully different.” After mixing recipes in his kitchen, Goldman offered samples at Metro stops, road races and any place else he could corner a potential customer. Rejection was constant: investors, distributors, stores. “Distributors rejected us because we weren’t sweet enough, too expensive or just didn’t taste like what they were used to,” he said. When they needed money, they would both work their network. They gradually made inroads, including a commitment from Fresh Fields, which was later bought by Whole Foods, to buy 15,000 bottles, based on samples cooked up in thermoses. By 2006, they were selling about 1.5 million cases a year, which brought in $13.5 million in revenue. They lost a ton of money, not to mention time and energy, buying a share of a bottling plant for six years. They finally realized Honest Tea was a lifestyle brand, not a bottler. “The main lesson was make sure you know what business you are in,” Goldman said. Goldman said he will continue to evolve and steer the company into new expansion, including a new line of lemonades made exclusively for Whole Foods. It’s all part of his plans to grow his brand, which is good for the company, his customers and the value of his Honest Tea shares. “I feel very much this is a work in progress,” he said


National Orchestral Institute holds a wrap-up concert

Leonard Slatkin. (Steve Sherman) After a month of playing together, the young musicians of this year’s National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland have achieved an ensemble that many professional orchestras might envy. Saturday’s wrap-up concert at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center featured three big, showy, colorful pieces that were given big, showy, colorful performances, but in the end, it wasn’t splash but shape and subtlety that made these performances memorable. Leonard Slatkin was at the helm and at his best, his stick work clear and concise, his sense of architecture absolutely unambiguous. He seemed to be enjoying the physicality of conducting. In the midst of the busy exuberance of Roberto Sierra’s “Fandango,” he kept wind lines just within the bounds of brassiness, managed balances that allowed the cellos’ relentless ostinato to be a solid but almost subliminal presence, and shaped phrases that ebbed and swelled inexorably through a huge dynamic range. He sketched the very individual characters of the four movements of Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphosis” without making them caricatures and allowed the flutes and horns (which were wonderful all evening) just enough space to inflect their lines gracefully. Where Slatkin’s urging and ensemble spoke most forcefully, however, was in the huge organic crescendos of the first movement of the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony that emerged from silvery violin pianissimos, and in the weightlessness of the third movement, where time seemed almost suspended. Almost any orchestra can make big noises, but this one can speak eloquently in the quietest voice imaginable, and in this concert, it did both splendidly. Reinthaler is a freelance writer. NOI Chamber Rehearsals at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. (Geoff Sheil)


The Philadelphia Orchestra’s stirring Beethoven’s Ninth

Conductor Bramwell Tovey and Wolf Trap Opera soloist Speedo Green, bass-baritone. (Griffin Harrington) Even with the trucks going by on the Dulles toll road, the thick, oppressive summer heat, the usual congestion hassles getting out and, in this instance, problematic sound engineering, a concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra is well worth the trek out to Wolf Trap. On Saturday, the celebrated band joined with the Washington Choral Arts Society in a stirring Beethoven’s Ninth, led by Canadian conductor Bramwell Tovey. Despite a recent bankruptcy episode, the Philadelphia Orchestra remains one of the world’s great ensembles. The discipline and unanimity in the strings extend to the back stands, the winds and brass balance themselves properly, and unison passages between disparate instrumental groups are conspicuously in tune. Tovey, a fine, experienced musician (he is also a composer and pianist), imposed himself just enough. But he was well aware that he was driving a Maserati, and mostly just offered guidance at key moments rather than trying to drive the music along. To extend the metaphor a little, the engine under the hood — timpanist Don Liuzzi — was turbocharged, sometimes to a fault. He is a virtuoso, but at times one wondered who was actually in charge. The choral contribution was quite impressive, particularly since there was almost certainly only one joint rehearsal. But the two groups knew the piece well enough that all of the gear-shifts came off flawlessly. The four vocal soloists were all good, though they had more help than they needed from the amplification system. (And the performance had to pause briefly, mid-stream, when sound feedback ballooned loudly.) The concert opened with Beethoven’s “Egmont” overture and the Britten “Four Sea Interludes.” In the overture, Tovey’s heavy tempos brought out the foreboding but didn’t seem to leave room for the lighter episodes. The Britten was wonderful; from the shivering opening (perfectly blended violins and piccolo), to the yearning “Moonlight” section (the phrases building like waves lapping against one another), to the virtuoso closing pages (again, the brass properly balanced against the strings), the pleasures of hearing a great orchestra strut its stuff were almost physical. Battey is a freelance writer.


Big acquisitions show restaurants, retailers are latest to crave data analytics, mobile

moving that direction.” That’s in part because of the fact that up-and-comers have been clawing their way into the market. Companies that process payments on mobile devices, such as Square, have become popular with some merchants. Others, such as local players Venga and Lemur Retail, help with customer relations and inventory management, respectively. “They [Micros] do have a secure market position, but it would be foolhardy not to recognize that there are others out there in the market,” Lange said. “They’re always aware that anything that’s readily changing, something could come along that breaks into the market.” Software built by the D.C. start-up Venga, for example, keeps track of what individual customers order at a restaurant, how much money they spend and how frequently they dine there. That information allows restaurants, particularly high-end haunts, to learn what wine a customer prefers and that they’re a fan of the steak tartare. “The key is actually taking that big data and making it actionable,” Venga co-founder Winston Bao Lord said. “That’s why I think you’re seeing consolidation in the industry. People realize there’s a wealth of data out there, but restaurants need you to connect a lot of different dots to provide a complete, actionable picture.” Retailers aren’t much different, said Will Fuentes, founder of Lemur Retail. More stores are using iPads and other mobile gadgets to ring up customers or manage their shelves, but the device alone doesn’t provide much benefit, he said. “Mobile [point-of-sale systems] in and of itself offers some interesting information about the customer, but stand-alone it isn’t enough to justify the investment that’s being made,” Fuentes said. “You’re starting to see a lot more analytical tools being layered on top of the mobile” point-of-service. Lemur Retail, for example, tracks the items customers are interested in and the price they’re willing to pay, then feeds that information back to the retailer. They can then opt to run a promotion or stock-up on an in-demand item. Back at Tico on 14th Street NW, Uhr uses the restaurant’s Micros point-of-sale system to track which entrees are most popular or should be cut from the menu, as well as which servers bring in the biggest checks, turn tables over the fastest or sell the most desserts. Each of those data points, Uhr said, has a direct impact on the bottom line. “You can conclude a lot from your technology,” he said.


Study: Salamanders in the Appalachians are smaller

A black-bellied salamander (Desmognathus quadramaculatus) is seen in the Citico Creek Wilderness, Cherokee National Forest, Tenn. (Reuters) CHARLESTON, S.C. — “As their temperature rises, all their physiological rates increase,” said Michael Sears, a Clemson University biologist. “All else being equal, that means there is less energy for growth.” In a study earlier this year in the journal Global Change Biology, Sears and other researchers compared museum specimens of salamanders collected in the course of a half-century beginning in 1957 with those measured at the same sites in 2011 and 2012. In all, they measured almost 9,500 adult salamanders and found their bodies were, on average, about 8 percent smaller after 1980 than in the earlier decades. The change was not universal. While in six species salamanders were smaller, there was no change in eight other species, and salamanders in one species even increased in size. Samples were taken in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. “We point to climate change as our best guess of what we think is going on,” said Karen Lips, an associate professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Biology and a co-author of the paper. So if salamanders are smaller, why does it matter? It matters to the creatures throughout their forest habitat, Lips said. “Because they are so abundant, they are a food source for birds, snakes and small mammals, things like raccoons, possums and shrews,” Lips said. If salamanders are smaller, “other animals will have to eat more, it will take them more time to find food, and life becomes more difficult for everybody.” The study was also co-authored by Nicholas Caruso of the University of Alabama and Dean Adams of Iowa State University. Ecologist and author Paul Ehrlich, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, said climate change might be to blame. “The climate is changing more rapidly than we expected, and that’s a possible cause,” said Ehrlich, who did not work on the study. “But there’s a general loss of amphibians around the world with all kinds of reasons and all kinds of argument about it. Populations of amphibians are in bigger trouble than any other major group.” And Kenneth Dodd, an associate professor in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida who has worked in the Southern Appalachians for decades, has problems with the study,


West Africa can’t manage the Ebola outbreak

Ebola outbreak is “out of control.” That should shock the governments of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia into action. It marks a frightening moment for a disease that has been contained numerous times before. The outbreak Unlike some viruses — including the one causing Middle East respiratory syndrome — Ebola is not new. It was discovered in 1976, and small outbreaks have been recorded occasionally since then. No cure exists, but medical teams have always effectively segregated infected areas and stopped the virus’s spread. The method is understood: treat the patients, trace their contacts and isolate those people. But West Africa had not seen a major Ebola outbreak and was unprepared. Its public-health infrastructure is weak. There was no quick incident response system with a command-and-control structure, and no comprehensive public health plan for a mobile population. In the early stages of the crisis, Guinea buckled under economic and political pressure. To this day, the health ministries of the three countries lack effective ways to build public awareness. Among the biggest challenges is the public’s reluctance to cooperate. A stigma attaches to those who are infected, and so families hide the sick, making it more difficult to trace contacts. Some run away and in so doing spread the disease. A death can lead to a dozen more infections among those who clean and prepare the body for the funeral. International groups sometimes have difficulty discouraging these behaviors. In April, an angry crowd attacked a Doctors Without Borders clinic in a town in Guinea. The locals charged that the health workers were bringing Ebola to the villages. Mobs not infrequently have thrown rocks at medical workers. The WHO is convening an 11-country meeting this week to coordinate a regional response. It plans to recruit more village heads and local chiefs to participate in the public awareness campaign. This meeting is promising. But there is a real risk that Ebola will spread. Other West African countries must heed the lesson of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Deaths can be prevented if their leaders face the danger and implement complete, proven methods of control. Read more from Opinions: The Post’s View: Killer virus demands open accounting Holly Burkhalter: Curbing the child migration crisis begins with combating sexual abuse The Post’s View: As measles cases increase, a sharp call for vaccinations Stephen Lerner and Nelini Stamp: When heroin use hit the suburbs, everything changed


’Chups: Fruit ketchups stirred up by a couple with a passion for condiments

with walnuts, mushrooms or whatever fruit was plentiful, which might have included tomatoes. It wasn’t until the 1850s, when the tomato crop was queen of the American produce market, that ketchup became synonymous with the pulpy red fruit. “Tomatoes are a prolific plant,” says Andrew F. Smith, the New York-based author of “Pure Ketchup: The History of America’s National Condiment.” “You can only sell so many, so what do you do with the rest? You can plow them back under, or you can figure out something to do with them. And the obvious answer was to make ketchup.” What if a different fruit had been as prolific? “H.J. Heinz was the Google of his day,” says Matt. “He employed a lot of people and revolutionized international shipping.” Kori adds, “If he’d said, ‘I’m going to go with cherries,’ then cherry ketchup would probably be the thing today.” Matt and Kori spent a year testing recipes (all vegan and gluten-free) and gave away samples to friends and relatives. In January, they launched a Kickstarter campaign in hopes of raising $12,000. When it ended, more than 490 backers had donated $22,160. The Wallaces offer five varieties of the condiment: blueberry, mango, peach, plum and cranberry. “The ingredients by themselves don’t sound like they’d work, but the cooking process breaks everything down, and it stews together,” Matt says. They eschew high-fructose corn syrup for agave nectar and sugars that occur naturally in fruit. What results is an adaptable, piquant paste that works as a marinade, dipping sauce or salad dressing base. In addition to the online shop at Chupsitup.com, ’Chups is available for purchase in the District at Glen’s Garden Market and Smucker Farms of Lancaster County ($8 for six ounces). Food critic Tom Sietsema revisits 19 restaurants for this season’s guide. The condiment has also grabbed the attention of a rather influential force in the local food scene: chef José Andrés. Matt and Kori met him last year when they happened to be at the same holiday party. “It was fate,” Kori says. “When we first started researching for ’Chups, we came across the flavored ketchups he did at his America Eats pop-up,” referring to Andrés’s temporary restaurant serving classic American fare that opened in 2011 to coincide with a culinary exhibit at the National Archives. “We had to talk to him. We just had to.” They introduced themselves and told Andrés


Readers’ views on childhood vaccinations and the collapse of bee colonies

Corn syrup and bees Your recent article on bee colony collapse may have left readers with a misconception that the use of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) by some beekeepers could be the cause of the colony collapse disorder [“We all get stung by bee colony collapse,” June 24]. CCD has been observed in apiaries that do not use HFCS as a supplementary feed. No scientific study that we are aware of has shown this troublesome phenomenon to be caused by use of HFCS, which is nutritionally equivalent to table sugar. John Bode, President and CEO, Corn Refiners Association, Washington A picture offers more than words While I appreciate the comprehensive overview in “The value of a measles vaccine even if it sometimes fails” [June 24], more often than not is such valuable information illustrated with photos showing children crying and cringing while being vaccinated. Pictures like that send the wrong message. In her article, Tara Haelle rightly stresses that “the situation may become even more dangerous unless vaccination rates pick up again.” The use of realistic photos might support this goal much better than the lurid depiction of a distressed baby. Undine A. Nash, Washington


Dale Music, a D.C.-area fixture, closes its doors after 64 years

Elizabeth Rice of Takoma Park holds her daughter, Malaika Hyera, 4, as she looks at violin music at Dale Music. The Silver Spring music store opened in 1950 and closed Monday. (John Kelly/The Washington Post) If you visited Dale Music in Silver Spring on Monday afternoon, you would have witnessed an extremely polite feeding frenzy. After 64 years in business, it was the venerable sheet music emporium’s final day, and well-mannered customers riffled through Bach and Beethoven and Bryan Adams in search of bargains. Everything was on sale, not just music, but saxophone reeds, valve oil, cello bows, little folding foot rests for would-be Segovias. “We’re trying to see what we can grab,” said Elizabeth Rice of Takoma Park, who demanded to play the violin after seeing the 1984 movie “Amadeus.” She was 6 at the time. On Monday, she perused music for a Bach violin concerto as her 4-year-old daughter, Malaika Hyera, begged to be picked up. (“I play the drums,” Malaika said.) “I used to come here all the time,” said Elizabeth, 36, who grew up playing with the D.C. Youth Orchestra. She still picks up the violin three or four times a week. “It’s kind of like therapy. . . . I’m very sad to see Dale go.” It’s been going for months, ever since owner Carol Warden, daughter of founders David and Rhoda Burchuk, decided that the business world had changed too much — and that the Georgia Avenue building was pretty valuable. Carol Warden, left, and Joy Burchuk at Dale Music, the Silver Spring music store their parents founded in 1950. The store closed Monday. (John Kelly/The Washington Post) “I grew up here,” said Carol’s younger sister, Joy Burchuk, as she attempted to find a flute-fingering chart for a customer. “It’s my sibling. I love my sibling dearly, so it’s sad.” Up near the entrance, a pair of bulletin boards were studded with business cards and photocopied ads: French horn instruction available, harpist for hire, piano repair, classical singer, Lutheran church seeking organist, male “Steve Perry-style” singer looking for band . . . The sound of a flute floated over from somewhere. The instruments were for sale, too. Carol even had a box full of broken bits — bass bridges, tuning pegs — that she was saving for an artist. Some of Dale Music will live on in cubist collages. Dale Music is going —


Air Force engineer developed unique method to track space debris

(Photo: Sam Kittner) More than a half million pieces of space debris are orbiting the earth, at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour, causing safety concerns for astronauts aboard the International Space Station and threatening to damage or destroy spacecraft and critical military, intelligence, communications, weather and navigation satellites. Richard Rast, a senior engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory, created an innovative way to track this space debris to help reduce the risk of potential collisions—a system that could become a cost-effective supplement to the current processes used by the Air Force and NASA that rely on expensive telescopes, radar systems and considerable manpower for analysis. Rast’s invention uses a series of small telescopes developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory that capture the faint light signals entering the lens. Rast converts the camera photos into a movie, where he uses the human eye’s sensitivity to detect variations between frames to separate man-made objects from the star background and identify objects the size of just a few centimeters. “Richard Rast demonstrated that his small telescope approach can find and track space objects at a much lower cost than traditional methods and provide a quality of data previously assumed impossible for a small telescope system to achieve,” said Maj. James Thomas, the chief of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Satellite Assessment Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M. Rast’s small telescopes are portable, providing an added advantage to the large telescopes now in use that cannot be easily repositioned to capture critical images and therefore can potentially miss valuable information. “He is breaking new ground,” said Thomas. “We are on the cutting edge of being able to discover and track objects in the farthest orbit, the geostationary belt. Before that, they looked like blips. Richard’s techniques help identify these objects.” Air Force Capt. Stephen Bump, the assessment center’s acting deputy branch chief, said Rast’s ability to use small portable telescopes to see things in space, predict collisions and warn satellites to avoid them is “just now taking hold and it is going to continue to grow.” “This is the future of space situational awareness,” said Bump. A five-telescope version of Rast’s system is currently being tested by the Air Force in Hawaii. The Air Force is also evaluating locations for a 16-telescope system that will serve as a pilot project and, if successful, could become a component of


navigation, timing, weather, imagery and military systems. As satellites reach end-of-life and are replaced with new versions, the old equipment and the boosters often are not properly de-orbited or moved to safe disposal orbits, creating the growing hazard. The space debris currently orbiting the earth includes more than a half million objects, of which more than 20,000 pieces are larger than a softball and are traveling at extraordinarily high speeds. The risk was dramatically depicted in the recent Academy Award-winning film Gravity, in which high-speed debris strikes the space shuttle, sending a medical engineer aboard the orbiting laboratory hurtling into space and touching off a series of catastrophes. The real-life dangers of floating debris became evident in March 2014 when astronauts aboard the space station were forced to raise its altitude by half a mile in order to dodge a piece of an old weather satellite predicted to come within 1,900 feet of the station. Rast has used his experimental system on a number of occasions, including to locate a satellite that had drifted far from its original orbit and had been lost for a decade. The Air Force engineer also was able to use his small telescope to capture video of a laser beam fired from the CALIPSO, a joint NASA and French space agency satellite. The telescope’s portability and Rast’s ability to be in the right place at the right time helped enable the discovery. The result made NASA aware that CALIPSO’s laser is a potential eye hazard for people observing from earth. An avid amateur astronomer, Rast first experimented with his invention for a project some years ago and was startled that he could see the same satellites as much larger telescopes. After telling his boss about the discovery, his space debris project got underway. Rast said he sees his role as helping government organizations become aware of and embrace new technology and new ideas. Working at the Air Force Research Laboratory, he said, also gives him the “freedom to be creative and think outside the box” to help his country. This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Go to the Fed Page of The Washington Post to read about other federal workers who are making a difference. To recommend a Federal Player of the Week, contact us at fedplayers@ourpublicservice.org.


New laws take effect in Washington, Maryland and Virginia

Starting Tuesday, beauty salons in Montgomery County can apply for a beer and wine license so that customers can get buzzed while having their hair blown out — but liquor stores can no longer sell traditional grain alcohol because anything over 190 proof is now banned across Maryland. In Virginia, voters must now provide valid identification to vote, and electronic cigarettes will be regulated in ways similar to tobacco products and cannot be sold or purchased by minors. July 1 is the start date for a number of new laws in both states and in the District, with additional newly passed legislation taking effect Oct. 1. Here are just a few of the new rules to follow: • In the District, most employers must pay their workers at least $9.50 an hour, up from the previous minimum of $8.25. The change is part of a phased-in minimum wage increase approved by the D.C. Council last year. The minimum wage will reach $11.50 an hour in July 2016 and will then grow on a yearly basis based on the area’s cost of living. Montgomery Low-wage workers in other Maryland counties will have to wait even longer to see their pay increase. The Maryland Minimum Wage Act of 2014 goes into effect Tuesday, but the first wage increase, from $7.25 an hour to $8, will not happen until Jan. 1. The statewide wage will hit $10.10 on July 1, 2018, and stay there unless lawmakers again take action. • In Montgomery, the implementation of the “Drybar bill” means that salons can obtain a beer and wine license and serve their clients alcoholic beverages while coiffing their hair or painting their nails. St. Mary’s County tried to jump onto this bill — named for the upscale chain of salons that styles but does not cut hair — but lawmakers in Annapolis approved the law only for Montgomery. • Maryland liquor stores and retailers can no longer sell grain alcohol that’s 190 proof, or 95 percent alcohol, such as Everclear. University presidents and public health advocates fought for years to have this potent booze banned because it has long been a popular choice for college students who are looking to get smashed without spending much money — and who are not always well versed in their tolerance levels. Retailers who keep selling this juice spiker risk a fine of up to $1,000. • Maryland


Procurement troubles still dog Defense Department

Congress has held hearings over the past 30 years seeking ways to fix the Defense Department’s poor procurement system. Last Tuesday’s hearing offered interesting ideas. No headlines afterward about stopping F-35 costs from skyrocketing, keeping new production of nuclear aircraft carriers on schedule or halting the failure of billion-dollar computer programs — in fact, there was hardly any press coverage at all. Two worthwhile ideas that came from the four experienced procurement specialists who appeared before the House Armed Services Committee provided no silver bullets, but they made sense. ●Give the main contracting officer for major weapons projects “absolute cradle-to-grave authority and responsibility and accountability.” That was a recommendation from Ronald O’Rourke, the naval analyst at the Congressional Research Service. It’s a good idea but not new. Two years ago, the Defense Business Board recommended incentives “that attract, not disadvantage officers and NCOs [noncommissioned officers] who serve in acquisition” and award credit for such officers so it “does not impact their career timelines.” Why keep them in programs that often take a decade or more? Officials “with long terms of office understand they will still be in office years from now, and consequently that they will be held personally accountable for the results of decisions they make — at least those they make during their earlier years in office,” O’Rourke said. Short-termers, which most contract officers are, “might even feel an incentive to make decisions that achieve what they view as near-term success for a program” even if “those decisions increase the program’s risk . . . later,” O’Rourke added. Beth McGrath, former Defense Department deputy chief management officer with a focus on computer systems, said, “The idea that you will be held personally accountable for your decisions can be a powerful conditioning element for how people undertake the way that they do their jobs.” She noted, “People who do not have long tenures in office may feel less risk that they will face a situation of being held accountable for the results of their decisions.” She mentioned congressional hearings about failed defense programs in which the question was about who was responsible. “The answer came back from the witness saying, ‘Well, it was our predecessors one or two generations removed.’ ” Retired Vice Adm. David J. Venlet, a former head of Navy Air Systems Command who for two years was executive program officer for the controversial F-35 Lightning II


When Daniel Boulud calls, D.C. chefs come

Local chefs who gathered at La Piquette with Daniel Boulud, standing at center-right, included Mike Friedman of Red Hen, in blue shirt; Haidar Karoum of Proof, to his right; and “Top Chef” alum and “The Chew” personality Carla Hall. (Jean-Louis Atlan ) When he pulled out the blowtorch, they pulled out the camera phones, instantly reducing themselves to fan boys and girls as they scrambled for the best angles to capture the moment. The scene played out like a baby boomer fantasy come to life, as if Springsteen or Stevie Wonder had just pulled up a piano bench at a local club and started pounding out the hits. The rock star in this instance was chef Daniel Boulud, the Frenchman responsible for some of New York’s finest of fine dining. And his rapt audience was a crash of chefs, the finest the District has to offer, who in late June were invited to La Piquette for an intimate dinner ahead of Boulud’s long-awaited Washington debut this September with DBGB Kitchen and Bar at CityCenter. The camera phones flashed in the dim light of the dining room when Boulud grabbed a butane torch and began browning the peaks of ivory meringue atop his signature baked Alaska. Others watched the spectacle without the need to preserve it in pixels. These were men and women more accustomed to standing in the spotlight, not standing around its perimeter in awe. The official guest list numbered around 35, but more appeared at La Piquette on Macomb Street NW, as if the name Boulud had served as a magnet for every chef with a knife within a 10-mile radius. Some of these toques make their living on TV, some in restaurants; some even cook for the president. To pull any four of them together for a dinner would be a minor logistical feat, but Boulud attracted dozens of D.C. chefs. (Granted, it was a Monday, when many restaurants are shut tight.) Attendees included Frank Ruta, Ris Lacoste, Carla Hall, Mike Isabella, Mark Furstenberg, Eric Ziebold, Johnny Spero, Mike Friedman, Haidar Karoum, Robert Wiedmaier, Scott Drewno, R.J. Cooper, Tiffany MacIsaac, Kyle Bailey, Michel Richard, Aggie Chin, Victor Albisu, Cathal Armstrong, Bill Yosses, Kaz Okochi, Frederik De Pue, Cristeta Comerford, Roberto Donna and Jeffrey Buben, among others. The gathered chefs dined on not only baked Alaska but also blood sausages, boudin blanc, beets with yogurt, haricots verts with


Savings forecast: It will always rain

Saving for an emergency is supposed to be the key to establishing a financial safety net. Yet studies continue to show that people aren’t putting their money away. The latest evidence comes courtesy of Bankrate.com, which on a monthly basis takes the pulse of how secure people feel about their personal financial situations. Those of you who save and do it as easily as you breathe might not understand why having an emergency fund is still an issue for so many people. Twenty-six percent of Americans have no savings cushion, according to Bankrate.com. Most Americans don’t have the recommended six months of living expenses saved. Bankrate.com found people between 30 and 49 are more likely than any other age group to not have an emergency fund. Here’s something that surprised me about the latest savings results. Young adults are more likely to have at least five months of living expenses saved. But for good reason, said Greg McBride, Bankrate.com’s chief financial analyst. “They tend to have lower expenses,” McBride said. “They don’t have to put away as much because they are likely living at home with their parents or have roommates. People 30 to 49 are more likely to not have emergency savings because those are the years they have a house, two or three kids and a dog. But they need the emergency savings more than anybody.” It’s not that people don’t know they need to save, especially with the Great Recession a close memory. “There has been an attitude shift,” McBride said. “People recognize they don’t have enough savings and know they aren’t making progress. Savings is a consistent sore spot with consumers when it comes to financial security. But nothing helps you sleep better at night than knowing you have money tucked about in the event of unplanned expenses. Savings provides a critical buffer between you and high-cost debt or other financial distress.” Understandably, one obvious reason people don’t have enough money saved is because they are struggling to cover their basic expenses. But there’s another barrier to saving. “Americans have fallen out of the saving habit,” said a recent report by Oxford Economics sponsored by a group of financial and public-policy organizations. Even before the recession, the savings rate in America was pitiful. It’s better now at almost 4 percent but still not good enough. “Projecting the current rate forward and adjusting only for the aging


Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched his third arrow

Takeo Hoshi of Stanford and Jamal Ibrahim Haidar of the Paris School of Economics. The average Japanese firm makes 14 separate tax payments per year; those payments consume 49.7 percent of profits and 330 hours for paperwork. Last year, Mr. Abe produced only relatively tentative and vague reform plans — possibly because he needed to consolidate his political support in elections. Markets gave his proposals a thumbs down, as did we. Now he has unveiled a more detailed and much more convincing program that starts with a plan for reducing the crippling corporate tax burden, from a top rate of more than 35 percent to the high 20s, starting next year. In addition, the plan calls for more transparent governance of public companies, more productive use of $1.2 trillion locked up in risk-averse government pension funds and deregulation of Japan’s notoriously inefficient agricultural sector. Also significant is Mr. Abe’s proposal of measures such as expanded admission of foreign child-care workers to facilitate women’s participation in aging Japan’s shrinking labor force. Overall, it’s the credible outline that Japan’s investors, as well as its strategic partners — including the United States — have been hoping for. The challenge, as always, is implementation, which will be resisted by the usual interest groups that benefit from the status quo. Yet Mr. Abe’s latest plan reflects a growing sense in Japan that this may be the country’s last chance to heal its many long-standing economic ills. In part, that sense of urgency is because of Japan’s fear of a rising China. Also, though, it represents the impact of negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement with the United States and 10 other nations. The prospect of that deal has given Japan’s reformers powerful arguments for improving their country’s competitivenes. That is all the more reason for the Obama administration to continue pressing for a successful conclusion to the TPP talks as soon as possible. Read more about this issue: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a press conference at his official residence in Tokyo on July 1, 2014. (Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images) The Post’s View: Japan’s historical revision deserves clarification The Post’s View: More flexibility for Japan’s military? The Post’s View: U.S. and Japan must seal the Trans-Pacific Partnership Tom Donilon: Obama is on the right course with his reorientation toward Asia Joseph Nye and Kevin Rudd: How to navigate the East China Sea dispute


D.C. news in brief

drunken driving on the Fourth of July. SoberRide will operate from 10 p.m. Friday until 4 a.m. Saturday and is available in the District and in Montgomery, Prince George’s, Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William counties and eastern Loudoun County. Local taxi companies provide the service. Those in need of a ride can call 800-200-TAXI (8294) for a free ride home worth up to $30. AT&T wireless users can dial #9727. For information, go to www.soberride.com. District offers free summer meals to kids While school is out, the D.C. Free Summer Meals Program offers free meals to youths age 18 and younger. The program, administered by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, extends free school-year meals into the summer months, until Aug. 22. More than 300 meal sites will serve breakfast and lunch to D.C. children and teens. Meal sites include D.C. parks and recreation centers, select public schools and libraries, religious and community-based organizations, housing authorities and some summer camps. No application or identification is necessary. The program is part of a larger U.S. Agriculture Department summer nutrition program for children from low-income families. The D.C. program served more than 1.2 million meals last year. To find a meal site, call 211, text FOOD to 202-656-5328 or go to onecityyouth.dc.gov for an interactive map. Playable Art DC sites selected in NW and NE Three neighborhood sites were recently selected by the D.C. Office of Planning for Playable Art DC installations. The selected spaces include the small green space near Fifth and Kennedy streets NW; a section of sidewalk and a tree box near Fifth and K streets NW in the Mount Vernon Triangle, and an area along the Metropolitan Branch Trail between L and M streets NE. The Playable Art DC program builds art-based play space in underserved or under-utilized District park spaces — small areas constrained by space, topography or busy streets. The program seeks to create community landmarks and neighborhood gathering spots that promote fitness and exercise through input from community leaders and neighbors of all ages. The Kennedy Street Development Association, the Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District and the NoMa Business Improvement District were awarded the projects through a competitive application process. The initiative is funded through a grant from ArtPlace America, a collaboration of national foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. For information, go to playableartdc.co. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


D.C. police looking for man in connection with stabbing death of woman in Southeast

D.C. police are searching for a 33-year-old man in connection with Sunday’s stabbing death of a woman in Southeast Washington who authorities said was killed in a house occupied by her three young children. Michael C. Gayle, who has addresses in Northwest Washington and Hyattsville, is charged in an arrest warrant with second-degree murder. Police said he is the father of one of the victim’s three children; it was unclear whether he was a current or ex-boyfriend. The body of Eboni Domally, 31, was found about 4:15 a.m. Sunday near a basement door of the single-family home in the 5200 block of Queens Stroll Place. Authorities said she had been wounded in the abdomen and that a knife handle was discovered nearby. It is not clear whether the children witnessed the attack. D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier described the crime as “horrible” during an interview Tuesday on a rise in domestic-related slayings in the District. Domally was one of three women whose bodies were found inside residences in the past several days. Mary Anne Thomas, 53, was found fatally shot Friday in the 1200 block of Howison Place SW. Barbara Moore, 64, was found asphyxiated, also Friday, in the 4100 block of Gault Place NE. Police have said the slayings, coming amid a violent weekend, do not appear related, though motives have not been revealed. Police said that Domally was killed during a domestic argument, but no other details were released. Efforts to reach the victim’s relatives have not been successful. Michael C. Gayle, 33, is wanted in connection with Sunday’s stabbing death of a woman in Southeast Washington. (Courtesy of D.C. Police) Get updates on your area delivered via e-mail.


D.C. Council considers letting police use lights and sirens for ‘animal emergencies’

A D.C. Animal Control officer watches as goats are released to feed along Congressional Cemetery on August 7, 2013. The D.C. Council will hear testimony Thursday on a bill that would allow police and animal control officers to use lights and sirens to respond to “animal emergencies” in the District of Columbia. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) There are dozens of police departments operating in the District of Columbia — and between presidential motorcades, protests and everyday street crime — dozens of reasons for officers to fire up their lights and sirens Under a bill the D.C. Council will consider Thursday, maybe add another: “animal sirens” for animal emergencies. Mary M. Cheh, chair of the council’s committee on transportation and the environment, says she is concerned about stories of threatening and perhaps rabid animals remaining on the loose in the nation’s capital while animal control officers remain stranded in gridlock. “We definitely think it’s a good idea, it would help us get to where we need to be a lot quicker,” said Zenit Chughtai, a spokeswoman for the Washington Humane Society, which operates the city’s Animal Care and Control operations. “Sometimes we have reports of animals at large, and we can’t get there,” Chughtai said, “because we have to get through traffic or have trouble finding a place to park.” Never mind that D.C. already has a police force solely for the National Zoo (which ran lights and sirens last year for an escaped red panda), or that D.C. police officers recently arrived in time to shoot and kill two pit bulls attacking another dog on Capitol Hill. “This bill burst out of situations where animal control officers were needed but weren’t able to get there in time,” said Devin Ward, a spokesman for Cheh. When and where? More often than you might think, Chughtai said. The District’s Animal Control Field Services department responds to about 14,000 to 16,000 calls for service a year, she said. “Just this past month alone, we have dealt with calls about rabid raccoons in high-traffic public areas, deer that have been struck by cars during rush hour and left to die in the middle of the street, causing a traffic hazard and creating potential for more vehicle accidents,” Chughtai said. And aides to Cheh (D), who represents the city’s leafy upper Northwest Ward 3, have had two experiences in the last year waiting for animal


NHTSA: Chrysler must explain slow pace of repairs

Grand Cherokee and Liberty SUVs after initially resisting NHTSA’s request for the recalls. At the time, Chrysler said placement of a trailer hitch assembly would protect occupants in the event of low- or medium-speed rear-end crashes. Chrysler said that its suppliers are working six days a week to make the trailer hitches and that customers will be notified when it is time to schedule service of their SUVs. NHTSA has long maintained that the placement of the fuel tanks behind the rear axle has left them less protected in the event of rear-end crashes, and could cause fuel leaks and fires. At the time of last June’s recall, NHTSA had linked 51 deaths to the problem. — Reuters SPACE EXPLORATION NASA, Boeing sign SLS rocket contract NASA has reached a milestone in its development of the Space Launch System, or SLS, which is set to be the most powerful rocket ever and may one day take astronauts to Mars. After completing a critical design review, Boeing has finalized a $2.8 billion contract with the space agency. The deal allows full production on the rocket to begin. “Our teams have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the SLS — the largest ever — will be built safely, affordably and on time,” said Virginia Barnes, Boeing’s Space Launch System vice president and program manager. The last time NASA completed a critical design review of a deep-space rocket that could transport humans was 1961, when the space agency assessed the mighty Saturn V, which ultimately took man to the moon. The 321-foot SLS will carry the Orion spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, which can carry up to four astronauts beyond low Earth orbit on long-duration, deep-space destinations, including near-Earth asteroids, the moon and ultimately Mars. — Los Angeles Times ALSO IN BUSINESS ● A Senate subcommittee that is investigating the General Motors ignition-switch recalls said it will hold a second hearing July 17. The Commerce Committee’s consumer protection and product safety subcommittee will probably summon GM chief executive Mary T. Barra for a return appearance. Former U.S. attorney Anton R. Valukas, who investigated the problem for GM, also will probably appear. ● Payroll processor ADP said private employers added 281,000 jobs last month, up from 179,000 in the previous month. The improvement in the ADP figures occurred mostly in professional and business services, a category that includes many higher-paying jobs such as accountants and


have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the SLS — the largest ever — will be built safely, affordably and on time,” said Virginia Barnes, Boeing’s Space Launch System vice president and program manager. The last time NASA completed a critical design review of a deep-space rocket that could transport humans was 1961, when the space agency assessed the mighty Saturn V, which ultimately took man to the moon. The 321-foot SLS will carry the Orion spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, which can carry up to four astronauts beyond low Earth orbit on long-duration, deep-space destinations, including near-Earth asteroids, the moon and ultimately Mars. — Los Angeles Times ALSO IN BUSINESS ● A Senate subcommittee that is investigating the General Motors ignition-switch recalls said it will hold a second hearing July 17. The Commerce Committee’s consumer protection and product safety subcommittee will probably summon GM chief executive Mary T. Barra for a return appearance. Former U.S. attorney Anton R. Valukas, who investigated the problem for GM, also will probably appear. ● Payroll processor ADP said private employers added 281,000 jobs last month, up from 179,000 in the previous month. The improvement in the ADP figures occurred mostly in professional and business services, a category that includes many higher-paying jobs such as accountants and engineers, but also lower-paid temporary workers. That category gained 77,000 jobs. Goods producers hired 51,000 workers in May, up from 31,000 the previous month. ● Orders to U.S. factories fell in May, ending three months of gains. The Commerce Department reported that orders fell 0.5 percent, pulled down by falling demand for military and transportation equipment. That followed increases of 0.8 percent in April, 1.5 percent in March and 1.7 percent in February. Excluding military hardware, factory orders rose 0.2 percent in May from April. ● The Treasury Department said the government has received a total of $946 million in repayment from the Puerto Rican bank Popular as part of a federal bailout program. The Treasury said Popular was the largest bank that remained in the Capital Purchase Program under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Officials say the repayment means the government recovered $1.22 billion of principal and interest stemming from an original investment of $935 million in Popular. — From news services COMING TODAY ● 8:30 a.m.: June jobs report, weekly jobless claims, May international trade. ● 1 p.m.: Stock market closes for Fourth of July holiday.


D.C. man is charged in June 21 slaying in DC

A 20-year-old District man has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of a man on June 21, a D.C. police spokesman said Wednesday. Officers from the Third Police District responded at about 2:20 a.m. to a call of a shooting near the intersection of Fuller Street and Mozart Place NW, spokesman Hugh Carew said. Upon arriving in the 1600 block of Columbia Road NW, they found an adult male who had been shot. The victim, identified as Luis E. Avila Melendez, 27, of Northwest, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Manuel Antonio Garcia, of Northeast Washington, was arrested about 4:40 p.m. Wednesday by homicide detectives and members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, Carew said.