Board finds U-Md. regents broke open meetings law in Big Ten talks

A Maryland state board has concluded that the University System of Maryland Board of Regents violated an open meetings law “in multiple respects” when it met twice in private last fall to discuss plans for the state’s flagship university to move to the Big Ten athletic conference. In a report this week, the state Open Meetings Compliance Board rejected several arguments the regents advanced to justify unannounced meetings held by telephone on Nov. 18 and in Baltimore on Nov. 19. The meetings occurred at a sensitive time — just before the University of Maryland jumped from the Atlantic Coast Conference to the Big Ten. The switch, announced Nov. 19, had huge consequences for U-Md. athletics and finances and startled many fans. Critics said that state university leaders should have discussed most or all the issues related to the switch in public and that the regents failed to follow the state’s sunshine law for public boards. Regents and other university officials said that total confidentiality was essential to close the deal under what were “emergency” circumstances and that any legal lapses in meeting procedure were harmless or “at worst technical.” The three-member compliance board, appointed by the governor, sided for the most part with two Maryland residents who filed complaints, journalist Craig O’Donnell and political science teacher Ralph Jaffe. “The Board [of Regents] itself has an affirmative duty to comply with the Act,” the compliance board wrote. “Accordingly, we find that the Board of Regents violated the Open Meetings Act by failing to give public notice of its November 18 and 19, 2012, Special Meetings and by failing to follow the Act’s mandatory procedures for closing an open meeting. “We also find, even on the basis of the limited information that the Board has provided to us about those meetings, that at least some of the Board’s discussion should almost certainly have been conducted in open session. Lastly, we find that the summaries of the two closed sessions posted on the Board of Regents’ website are deficient in that both fail to name all persons present at those meetings as required by the Act.” There appeared to be no penalty for the regents other than the embarrassment of a public scolding from a state board. Board of Regents Chairman James L. Shea could not be reached Thursday. The university system said in a statement Wednesday that the Board of Regents “has


Cultural institutions preparing for federal budget cuts

Patrons walk through the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Friday, April 8, 2011, as Congress continues to debate in hopes of avoiding a government shutdown. (Alex Brandon/ASSOCIATED PRESS) Federally funded cultural institutions are preparing for the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts known as the sequester that are scheduled to take effect Friday. Most institutions have anticipated the cuts and will meet budget constraints through delaying maintenance and repairs to their facilities. Others, including the Library of Congress and the National Gallery of Art, are preparing for furlough days in the coming months, and the staff reductions would force the gallery to close for up to seven additional days. The gallery’s furloughs would begin in June and take place on up to seven Mondays, spokeswoman Deborah Ziska said Thursday. The furloughs would force the gallery, which is open every day except Christmas and New Year’s Day, to close its doors to the public for those days. The gallery is likely to have over $5.7 million cut from its $128.4 million budget for the fiscal year. At a House appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington testified that the library’s budget will be reduced by 5.3 percent, or more than $31 million. Seventeen percent of that reduction would come from four furlough days through the end of the year. Other library cuts include reductions in bookbinding and book preservation and a reduction in acquisition amounting to more than 400,000 collection items. There will be delays for information requests from the Congressional Research Service, an increase in the backlog of claims to the U.S. Copyright Office and cutbacks in basic operational services such as security, cleaning and food service, according to Billington. There will also be a reduction in the availability of reading material provided to the blind and physically disabled. Museums and arts institutions have not received official budget reductions from the White House Office of Management and Budget, but they are expecting reductions to their annual budgets for the fiscal year of between 5 and 6 percent. The Kennedy Center The center is expecting to delay some repairs, which “could have a negative impact on the condition of the building,” Dow said. “We’ve been proactive, and we don’t expect personnel reductions, but this will be a challenge for us in the long term.” The budget cuts will not affect the Kennedy Center’s recently announced $100 million


Washington Nationals to introduce smart card system for ticket holders

Fans cheer on the night the Nationals clinched the 2012 NL East title. The team will send details of its new “Ultimate Ballpark Access” card to season-ticket holders Friday. (Toni L. Sandys/THE WASHINGTON POST) The Washington Nationals’ vision of a new ballpark experience begins at an unmanned turnstile, where a plan holder waves her card over a reader and makes “contact-less” entry in less than a second. Within a few steps, an e-mail or text message arrives, thanking the fan for attending her 10th straight game and offering a free hot dog. Before arriving at her seat, the fan stops off at a team store, earning a 15 percent discount for being a plan holder, and debiting the cost from that same access card. She then heads for a concession stand, breezing through an “e-Cash” line, where transactions are processed seven times faster than in traditional cash or credit lines. The Nationals will send details of their new “Ultimate Ballpark Access” card to season ticket holders Friday, laying out what team chief operating officer Andy Feffer calls “a monumental change” in the plan holder-franchise relationship. The new cards — which employ the same radio frequency identification (RFID) technology used in Metro’s SmarTrip cards — will eliminate around 10 seconds from each person-to-person interaction with a ticket-taker, according to the team. The same card will, within a few months, serve as an “e-Cash” debit card at Nationals Park retail and concession stands. It could also give the team access to the ballpark habits of its supporters: Just how many hot dogs did that family in Row S of Section 138 eat last month, anyhow? The reigning NL East champion Washington Nationals are in Florida preparing for the 2013 season. The team ran a pilot program last season before instituting the switch for all 20-game, 41- and 81-game plan holders this season. And other sports executives believe the Nats could be leading the way for American sports franchises. “We think the Nationals are one of the forerunners in this space, which is why we’ve paid a lot of attention to what they’re doing,” said Tim Zue, the vice president of business development for the Boston Red Sox, who are launching a similar pilot program for approximately 700 season ticket account holders this spring and hope to expand the program in 2014. “At some point in the near future, I think many more


Deadline for benefits e-payments is here

he said. The agency didn’t reach its near 100 percent compliance without resistance from members of the check-cashing industry. People without bank accounts who use check-cashing services may also be hesitant to make the switch, said Edward D’Alessio, general counsel for the Financial Service Centers of America, a trade organization that represents financial-service-center providers. “The population in this country that is un-banked has concentrations in racial and ethnic minorities and the elderly,” he said. “These are people who may have never been into a bank before. We’re in the neighborhoods, we speak the languages and we’re open extended hours.” The industry will take a financial hit as paper checks disappear. “There’s not much that can be done,” said Robert Frimet, the president of a money-service business-consulting firm in Las Vegas. “We’re slowly working our way to a check-free society.” A check-free society might pose problems for seniors uncomfortable with technology, D’Alessio said, though there has not been much outcry from seniors. Cristina Martin Firvida, the director of financial security and consumer affairs at AARP, said, “To date, we have not yet heard from a lot of our members that this is a big area of concern or that they want more information or guidance.” The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare agreed. “Irrespective of age, it’s so much more secure than delivery of a paper check,” said Web Phillips, the senior legislative representative for the advocacy group. “If a problem comes up . . . it’s much easier to fix than if a check is lost in the mail.” Beneficiaries are 125 times as likely to have a problem with a paper check as with an electronic payment, according to written testimony from the Treasury at a Ways and Means Committee hearing in September. Some exemptions are automatic, Henderson said. People over 90 will automatically continue to receive paper checks without requesting a waiver. Others eligible for waivers include the mentally incapacitated, people in remote locations without access to banks or ATMs and people who cannot receive electronic payments for religious reasons. Check recipients can sign up for direct deposit or the Direct Express debit card by calling 800-333-1795. The Direct Express card was specifically designed for un-banked federal benefit recipients, Henderson said. There is no application or monthly fee. The card can be used to pay bills, make purchases and receive cash back. It is accepted anywhere


Amtrak carried record passenger traffic in 2012

Correction: Perhaps sparked by highway congestion or the hassle of air travel, Amtrak’s passenger rail service has been the nation’s fastest growing mode of transportation, according to a new report that urges Congress to push forward with a coordinated national rail plan. The government-subsidized railway carried a record 31.2 million people last year, a 55 percent increase since 1997, according to a study by the Brookings Institution. The study, released Friday, came a day after congressional leaders said they planned to craft a major funding reauthorization for railroads later this year. Amtrak For more than a year, Rep. John L. Mica (R.-Fla.), then chairman of the House Transportation Committee, repeatedly called Amtrak a “Soviet-style railroad” before saying that it might be acceptable if it could turn a profit. He suggested selling off the Northeast corridor service to private firms. Mica’s successor as chair of the influential committee, Rep. Bill Shuster (R.-Pa.), struck a more conciliatory tone in a speech to state transportation officials Thursday. “I think there’s a need for passenger rail in this country,” Shuster told the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. He said the Obama administration should narrow its plan to begin building a national high-speed rail system, focusing on the Northeast corridor first. Washington ranks behind New York and ahead of Philadelphia as the second-busiest Amtrak hub city, and the four profitable routes in the system serve that corridor. The Brookings study showed that nearly 90 percent of the ridership increase since 1997 has been trips of less than 400 miles, generating a positive operating balance of $47 million in 2011. Longer routes carried the rest of the passengers and lost $614 million, the study said. Amtrak receives a $1.5 billion federal subsidy each year. Almost two-thirds of the rail line’s ridership came from 10 major metropolitan areas, all but Chicago on the East or West Coast. The study concluded that while continued federal support and development of a national rail plan were vital to Amtrak’s continued success, the rail line must build stronger alliances with freight rail companies that own much of the track on which it operates, and turn to state governments for greater support and innovative funding sources.


Mobile banking happening in places where smartphones are rarely found

are capable of capturing data from a financial transaction,” said Yves Eonnet, the voluble chief executive of Tagattitude, showing off the clunky Nokia and several other handsets. “At the end of the day, there is no business model that is sustainable for NFC,” or “near field communication,” an advanced technology used for payments. From models of Les Paul guitars to toy robots, 3-D printers are churning out usable products. Not long ago, such assertions would have been apostasy in the mobile tech world. Google and many other companies have built elaborate wallet systems around NFC. But even in the United States, adoption has been slow. The iPhone doesn’t have NFC. Many newer Android devices contain NFC chips, but several wireless carriers have not activated them in the phones they sell. At least 150 different companies — most of them wireless providers — offer mobile financial services for people without traditional bank accounts in emerging markets, mostly in Latin America, Asia and Africa, according to a survey released this week by GSMA, the mobile technology trade group that hosts the Mobile World Congress. The same survey reported that 30 million active users of these services made 224 million transactions worth $4.6 billion in June alone. A huge majority used traditional phone technology such as text messaging. The Turkish wireless carrier Turkcell initially invested in NFC technology for its mobile banking system in a country where 40 percent of people do not have traditional bank accounts, said Emre Sayin, a top company official who spoke in Barcelona. The system gained far more popularity when the company began relying on text messages. “We learned this early,” Sayin said. “Don’t get hooked to payment methods like NFC. [Text messaging] works just fine in most cases.” The potential growth in mobile banking is enormous, experts and company executives say. About 3.2 billion people — nearly half the population of the Earth — have cellphones, according to GSMA. In many countries, there are far more people with cellphones than with bank accounts or credit cards. In the United States, Europe and parts of Asia, bank accounts and credit cards are nearly universal. Smartphones such as Androids and iPhones, meanwhile, have reached hundreds of millions of people. That combination has generated interest in mobile payment technologies that allow for more than the mere exchanging of money. A Google executive, Peter Hazlehurst, said his company’s mobile payment system,


At Strathmore, Ignat Solzhenitsyn leads BSO to breathtaking Part, bewildering Mozart

Vocalist Marietta Simpson (Courtesy of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Courtesy of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) It’s hard to believe that the conductor who had woven such a spell with a breathtaking performance of Arvo Part’s “Tabula Rasa” for two violins and orchestra was the same one who returned after intermission to slug his way through an aggressive and abrupt reading of the Mozart Requiem. Ignat Solzhenitsyn, at the helm of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for its concert at Strathmore on Thursday, allowed Part’s calculated silences to resonate with the same shimmer that violinists Madeline Adkins and Qing Li (both of the BSO’s violin section) brought to their icily thin, widely spaced duetting. Over the quiet measured march of the orchestra, the two engaged in increasingly complex imitation that grew in intensity through the first movement, “Ludus,” and then calmed to just a wisp of violin and bass as the second movement, “Silentium,” ended. Solzhenitsyn molded all this with a delicate restraint that preserved flow and lightness and a certain welcome emotional distance. Then what to think of the Mozart that followed? The Baltimore Choral Arts Society, prepared by its longtime conductor, Tom Hall, gave Solzhenitsyn exactly what he asked for and did it well. But what he asked for was angrily punched delivery, fugues that went much too fast (but that the chorus managed with accuracy and fine diction) and loud singing. There were some moments of relief from the aggression — a lovely “Lacrimosa” and a “Hostias” that floated weightlessly — but these did not offset the impression that Solzhenitsyn sees this piece more as a war against death than as an affirmation of death’s certainty. The solo quartet, placed behind the orchestra, did not have the presence it might have had at the front of the stage, and mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson didn’t seem as confident in her singing as the others (soprano Susanna Phillips, tenor Norman Reinhardt and bass-baritone Robert Gleadow) did, but the ensembles were well balanced and nicely phrased. The performance repeats Friday night at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick and Saturday night at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore. Madeline Adkins (Christian Colberg/Christian Colberg) Reinthaler is a freelance writer.


Signs point to increased federal adoption of cloud computing

agencies’ preliminary steps toward developing cloud strategies in 2012, this year should see a boost in agency action, translating into opportunities for contractors. Cloud computing has become the norm in federal technology since the Office of Management and Budget’s 2010 “cloud-first” policy was introduced. Now, the push to use the technology more is being spurred by the need to spend less, innovate and meet emerging requirements to support data storage, processing and analysis. The fiscal 2014 federal budget makes clear that cloud computing will be a long-term part of the government’s IT framework. The OMB has provided specific guidance to reduce IT budgets by 10 percent, and agencies will be required to address their cloud portfolios and identify annual spending by deployment and service model. Additionally, there are several policies and programs that make an ongoing shift to cloud computing more likely. Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel’s “Roadmap for Digital Government,” released last year, calls for building on the technologies agencies have already implemented — including cloud computing and shared services — to plan for future “innovating with less to deliver better digital services.” The General Services Administration’s Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program — known as FedRAMP — went into effect last year, but vendor certification has proven to be a daunting task. As of this month, only two companies have been accredited, with more than 70 companies still in line for approval. Industry officials anticipate that as vendors and assessors become familiar with the process, the wait time for certification will decrease. The Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), gained momentum after his re-election in November. The bill specifically supports the adoption of cloud computing and government-wide standards for “security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.” The bill also calls for government-wide contracting programs to buy IT “commodities,” including a centralized cloud service broker. The convergence of cloud computing and big data — massive amounts of data analyzed by computer systems — is another possible sign of growing cloud use. The cloud offers the storage space and elasticity needed to analyze these huge data sets. This convergence can also be extended to include mobile devices as well as the information assurance required to deliver more accurate data. Jennifer Sakole is principal research analyst at Herndon-based Deltek, which analyzes the government contracting market and can be found at www.deltek.com.


Too high to drive? Marijuana-friendly Colorado debates blood-level limits.

have to create some standards to protect public safety. Not doing so, in my opinion, is reckless public policy,” said John Jackson, the police chief in nearby Greenwood Village. “Any time you legalize things like this, you’ll have more of it on the roadway. If we had vending machines with Oxycontin, there’d be more people on Oxycontin driving on the roadways. And that’s not safe.” Since the passage of Amendment 64 in November, Colorado has been wrestling with the many questions of how to regulate the new marijuana reality, from how to tax it and monitor its growth to where people can buy it, sell it, smoke it and advertise it. But drugged driving looms as one of the most critical and controversial issues. The outcome of Colorado’s struggle to shape marijuana-related DUI laws could have far-reaching implications, as a growing number of states approve marijuana for medical use and others consider legalizing the drug altogether. State Sen. Steve King, a Republican who supports a THC limit, insists that driving high is no different than driving drunk. “You’re a threat and a hazard,” he said. “The consensus should be to err on the side of safety for the traveling public.” Michael Elliott and other marijuana advocates argue that marijuana affects different people differently, and that setting a THC limit would free prosecutors from having to prove their cases and could lead to wrongful DUI convictions. “When it comes to criminal law, we err on the side of protecting the freedom of our citizens and holding the criminal justice system to the highest standards of proof,” said Elliott, a lawyer and executive director of the Colorado-based Medical Marijuana Industry Group. Though research and opinions vary widely, studies have shown that smoking marijuana tends to affect spatial perceptions. Drivers might swerve or follow other cars too closely, as well as lose their concentration and suffer from slowed reaction times. Such findings have led some researchers to conclude that driving high doubles the chances for an accident, and that smoking pot and drinking before driving is a particularly dangerous mix. Every state bars driving under the influence. But convictions in drugged-driving cases generally rely on police officers’ observations rather than blood tests. The White House in a drug policy paper last year called on states to adopt blood-limit laws in an effort to reduce drugged-driving incidents by 10 percent by 2015. But different


Furloughs in personnel-heavy agencies could affect public services

overtime, Director John Pistole said this week. The longer the cuts drag on, the longer the airport lines, he said. The high-turnover agency also will not be able to backfill most jobs. Some officials have estimated that the equivalent of 7,200 of 45,000 jobs would disappear under the cuts. A third of the workforce are part-timers. About 300 officers shepherd passengers through security lines at Pittsburgh International and five smaller airports nearby. Three eight-hour shifts start at 4 a.m. Pittsburgh has two checkpoints with 10 security lanes, and anywhere from 50 to 70 officers to staff them, according to union officials. “We’re running good if all 10 lanes are open,” said Kimberly Kraynak-Lambert, president of the American Federation of Government Workers Local 332 in Pittsburgh. “But if people are furloughed and some are on vacation or sick days, we might have seven or eight lanes,” she said. “There will be less people on the floor. When there’s a push of passengers, you would feel that.” Marsha Catron, a TSA spokeswoman, said travelers “will likely not see immediate impacts” from the cuts. But if they continue, the hiring freeze would create 1,000 vacancies by Memorial Day and an additional 1,600 by September. During busy travel periods, passengers traveling at non-peak hours could spend 30 minutes getting through security. During peak times, the wait may hit more than an hour, she said. Agencies say they already have reduced travel and training, put off contracts and frozen hiring. At the National Park Service, the only thing remaining are people, spokeswoman Carol Johnson said. “It’s visitor service. We educate the public. There’s nothing left to cut.” The Mall will lose $1.7 million from its $32 million budget. This is unlikely to hinder the upcoming Cherry Blossom Festival, which is largely privately funded. But it will mean fewer portable toilets and park police and less grounds maintenance for thousands of other special events on the Mall, from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival to the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington in August, Johnson said. Many of these are staffed through seasonal employees and overtime, which hit $770,000 for the Mall last year and now will have to be scaled back. “We’re not talking about overtime for the sake of overtime,” Johnson said. “We do not have a lot of fat to begin with.” Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums.


Russian adoptee death ruled accidental

Demonstrators carry Russian flags and a huge poster reading "March in Defense of Children" during a massive anti-U.S. adoption rally in Moscow. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP) MOSCOW — Max Shatto, who was born Maxim Kuzmin in Russia, died Jan. 21 from a torn artery in the abdomen, officials said at a news conference Friday in Odessa, Tex. Four pathologists — three employed by the county medical examiner and one independent — agreed the death was an accident, Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland told reporters. Two weeks ago, Russian officials informed the public here about his death, saying Max had been abused and given psychiatric drugs. No evidence was presented, but that description quickly became an emotional element of anti-American rhetoric and colored the explosive question of adoptions. “The bruises disappeared, the drugs vanished, the adoptive parents have been cleared, the authorities backtracked,” Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s ombudsman for children, wrote on his Twitter account Saturday. “The 3-year-old boy fell victim to big politics.” Politics have been swirling around the issue of orphans since December, when Russia imposed a ban on adoptions by Americans, accusing U.S. parents of widespread mistreatment. In the past 20 years, Americans have adopted about 60,000 children, and 20 have reportedly died. Russia does not report figures on how many die in adoptive homes in Russia, but reports suggest that figure is much higher than in the United States. The ban has polarized the country. In January, more than 50,000 people marched through Moscow to protest the ban, saying orphans were being denied the opportunity to live a decent life. Saturday, about 17,000 marched in favor of the ban, asserting Russian children would be safer in their native country and arguing that the ban should be extended to all foreign adoptions. Anger arose over the Texas autopsy. “This is a slap in the face to our country and our people,” Irina Berset, coordinator of the Russian Mothers organization, said at the rally. She said Max’s 2-year-old brother, also adopted by Alan and Laura Shatto of Gardendale, Tex., should be immediately returned to Russia. Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, told Rain TV that the authorities were already working to accomplish that, although he cautioned that the adoption was legal and might be difficult to reverse. Max, who was adopted from the Pskov region of northwestern Russia, had a behavioral disorder characterized by self-inflicted injuries, the Texas district attorney said,


What’s at stake in Kenya’s presidential election

preserving the peace. Much of what caused the violence, however, hasn’t changed — starting with the political leaders who organized and led it. One of the leading presidential candidates, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his vice-presidential running mate, William Ruto, have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for their roles in the 2007-08 bloodletting; the other, Raila Odinga, probably should have been. Though a national human rights commission recommended more than 200 people for prosecution, only a handful of trials have taken place. Politics remains driven by ethnicity, and corruption is still rampant. Kenya’s new elections, scheduled for Monday, consequently have put the country — and its Western allies — on edge. A close vote is expected, with a second round likely in the spring. Though leading candidates have campaigned against violence, there are reports of militias forming and arms being distributed. Peace will depend on a transparently fair vote, a quickly reported result and its acceptance by the political leaders who chose to fight rather than concede five years ago. There are grounds for optimism. The electoral commission has adopted confidence-building tactics such as reporting results at each polling station and is credited by international observers with having performed relatively well in registering voters. It has promised final results in 48 hours, avoiding the long, inciting delay of 2007. Mr. Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president, and Mr. Ruto are from tribes that battled each other in the Rift Valley in 2008; now they are allied. Yet the two men face the prospect of commuting to the Hague for their trials on crimes against humanity, even if they win the election. Kenya could find itself, like nearby Sudan, headed by an ICC convict and international pariah. Given that the platforms of Mr. Odinga and Mr. Kenyatta don’t differ much — both favor pro-market economic policies — the tribunal factor gives the outside world reason to hope that Mr. Odinga’s narrow advantage in the polls will translate into a victory. But the most important outcome will be peaceful acceptance of the results by the defeated candidates. The United States, which has considerable leverage — including President Obama’s prestige as the son of a Kenyan — must press the losers hard. The violence of 2007 and its fudged resolution — a coalition government — created a bad model for Africa. This time Kenya should demonstrate that African democracy can work.


D.C. fire department disputes highlight serious issues of response time, staffing

D.C. Council’s public safety committee, Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), is taking a cautious approach. He said he has just begun to delve into a complex array of issues clouded by animosity between the union and the chief that renders virtually every detail subject to debate. During sworn testimony last month, Ellerbe and the union president, Edward C. Smith, could not even agree on how many paramedics left the department last year. Smith said 20; the chief said 12. Wells, who is contemplating a run for mayor, said he is focusing on issues with the greatest effect on the public. He has asked the D.C. inspector general to investigate the allegations of sexual harassment at the training academy and the circumstances under which fire engine mechanics earned as much as $97,000 in overtime in the past fiscal year. Ellerbe, testifying at a public safety committee hearing last month, said the overtime payments were made to 10 mechanics because managers allowed too many of their co-workers to take leave at the same time. He promised new protocols to keep it from happening again. “We weren’t paying as much attention to it as we are now,” he said. The chief said he reacted quickly to sexual harassment allegations in which two female recruits said an instructor’s inappropriate remarks made them feel uncomfortable. At the hearing, Ellerbe tried to win support for his plan to change the way firefighters’ working hours are scheduled. Firefighters now work a single 24-hour shift followed by three days off. He wants them to work shorter but more frequent shifts. He has also proposed taking advanced-life-support paramedics off the street from 1 to 7 a.m. to free up resources for later in the day. Union leaders are vehemently opposed to altering shift times, arguing that changes would disrupt the lives of 1,800 members. In his testimony to the committee, Ellerbe acknowledged that the department has difficulty keeping its paramedic ranks filled, and he described efforts to recruit military veterans with medical backgrounds. About response times, Ellerbe said that in 84 percent of cases, a firetruck or ambulance reaches a high-priority patient in less than 61 / 2 minutes, with the average being 41 / 2 minutes. But during the day, Ellerbe said, when demand is highest, “the number of ambulances available is reaching the limit of our department’s service capacity.” The chief said in 88 percent of high-priority daytime


Look for Comet Panstarrs this week — but look hard

The cosmos whets our sky-gazing appetite when Comet Panstarrs rises into view this week — albeit extremely low on the western horizon in the evening. Quite literally, it barely peeks above the western horizon just after sunset any day from March 6 through 8, where it could be a second magnitude object — a little hard to see from the urban and suburban areas near Washington. It’s so low, you’ll need a superb view of the horizon — perhaps a scenic rest stop along Virginia’s Skyline Drive, says Fred Espenak, scientist emeritus from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. (Check out his blog, Portal to the Universe, at www.astropixels.com/blog .) A building on an upper floor with a western horizon view might work, too. Comets are named for their discoverers. The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System in Hawaii found this comet in June 2011. Thus, considering the program’s acronym, we get Comet Panstarrs. In its first visit here, this comet makes its closest approach to Earth on March 5, at about 100 million miles away, Espenak says. It reaches perihelion — the closest approach to the sun — March 10. As the month continues, astronomers predict that Comet Panstarrs will be slightly dimmer, but higher in the sky. Espenak suggests that the best opportunity to spot it may be March 10-15. It will look like a fuzzy cotton ball against the dark, early-evening heavens in the western sky. Between March 9 and 18, the comet’s tail — if it sports a large tail — is expected to swing from south to north. The comet will also have moved to the west-northwestern sky in the latter half of the month. Still, find it after dusk. Another solar system intruder, Comet ISON, arrives this November, and it is predicted to be higher in the sky and very bright. As night falls, find Jupiter in the western sky still loitering near the Hyades and Pleiades. The large, gaseous planet hangs at -2.2 magnitude, bright enough to see from the Mall. A spirited young moon approaches the planet on the nights of March 15-16. The moon slides under Jupiter on March 17. The ringed Saturn rises in the east about 11 p.m. now, and it is visible around zero magnitude — bright enough to see from urban skies. It passes due south about 4 a.m. By late March, find it rising around 10


Monday in D.C.: 4 things to look for

Coming up today in the D.C. area: Cherry blossoms: Calm before the storm: Metrobus: A new program beginning today will allow D.C. students to buy bus passes closer to their neighborhoods. Bradley Beal:


Ernest Moniz, MIT physicist, nominated as energy secretary

endeavors. Moniz became director of the MIT Energy Initiative. In that role, Moniz has commented on almost everything. He warned Chilean leaders recently that mushrooming electricity demand could lead to a “catastrophic increase in the temperature” of the planet. Driven by concerns about climate, Moniz favors nuclear power despite the catastrophe that Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami inflicted on that country, in part by destroying its Fukushima nuclear power plant. “It would be a mistake ... to let Fukushima cause governments to abandon nuclear power and its benefits,” he wrote in a Foreign Affairs article in late 2011. “As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, finding ways to generate power cleanly, affordably, and reliably is becoming an even more pressing imperative. Nuclear power is not a silver bullet, but it is a partial solution that has proved workable on a large scale.” He has said that he favors federal assistance to build several new nuclear power plants this decade to give industry a better idea of economic costs. Moniz also served as a member of Chu’s Blue Ribbon Commission, tasked to figure out what to do with nuclear reactor waste after the Obama administration ended work on the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. Moniz said that moving spent nuclear fuel from pools to dry casks provided a relatively safe, compact solution that “buys time” to figure out something longer-lasting. In a video interview posted on the Switch Energy Project “What I believe is if we squeeze down on carbon, we squeeze up on cost, and it brings along a push toward efficiency; it brings along with it a push toward clean technology; it brings along with it a push toward security,” he said. Energy efficiency is also a priority, Moniz said. “The most important thing is lowering your use of energy in ways that actually save you money,” he said. “It sounds trivial, but putting out lights really does matter.” Moniz said that “I will admit to being very bullish on solar in the long term. It just has so many features, including the fact that even though it’s intermittent, at least it tends to be on when you want it.” But for the foreseeable future, Moniz said, oil and gas will remain dominant features of the world energy picture. In the introduction to a report on shale gas, Moniz wrote that “natural gas truly is a bridge to a


How many deer are too many in Rock Creek Park?

plant life brought deer back, and now deer are so plentiful that they are crowding out native plants and other species. Estimates vary, but most ecologists believe that there are now more deer in the eastern United States than there were before European settlement. Pennsylvania hunters kill more than 300,000 annually. In 2011, drivers in that state struck more than 100,000 deer with their vehicles. So now we’re trying to reduce the deer population. But how do deer management experts set a target deer density? In the past, it was pretty simple. “When the deer population in an area exploded, you simply watched how the vegetation changed,” says Karl V. Miller, a professor of wildlife ecology and management at the University of Georgia. The trouble with such before-and-after studies is the number of extraneous variables. Human encroachment on the land or the sudden introduction of invasive species made it difficult to isolate deer density as a cause of changes. Researchers then developed “exclosure” studies, in which they fenced an area off from the surrounding forest and compared changes between the areas outside and inside the fence over time. The current state of the art is the enclosure study. Scientists create a series of comparable, enclosed areas. In each plot, they control deer density to see how zero, 10, 20 or 40 of the animals per square mile affect a site. Researchers look primarily for changes in the density and composition of vegetation. A thriving over-story — the tree canopy high above the deer’s head — combined with dwindling understory and mid-story layers indicates that deer are harming the environment. A lack of vegetation within the reach of a deer is a clear indication that plant life is suffering. Effect on trees, songbirds Native trees tend to fare especially poorly when deer proliferate. The seedlings of hemlocks, maples and oaks grow slowly, remaining vulnerable to hungry deer through critical periods of their development. Invasive species, which grow quickly despite constant deer browsing, perform well. Many invasive species have another important advantage: Deer don’t like them. “We classify all plants as first-, second- and third-choice plants for deer,” says James Kroll, director of the Institute for White-tailed Deer Management and Research at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Tex. “When there is an overabundance of deer, the first-choice plants disappear, while the third-choice plants do well. Ferns, which deer do not prefer,


Key players in Afghanistan’s largest banking scandal sentenced to prison

litmus test for both the feeble Afghan judiciary and the government’s efforts to reduce rampant corruption. The bank’s former chairman, Sherkhan Farnood, and former chief executive officer, Khalilullah Ferozi, were found guilty of stealing $278 million and $530 million, respectively, and were ordered to pay back that money, the equivalent of about 5 percent of the country’s GDP. Nineteen other men were also found guilty of fraud; 18 were given short jail sentences. Farnood’s and Ferozi’s punishments, which could be altered in appeal proceedings, were considered light by Afghans and Western officials, many of whom were outraged at the scale of the fraud and the well-connected men associated with it. Close relatives of President Hamid Karzai and Vice President Mohammed Fahim owned shares in the bank. None of them were prosecuted. Afghan judges recast the charges against Farnood and Ferozi so the men wouldn’t be tried for money laundering, a crime that in Afghanistan typically carries a much longer sentence than the one the men were given. Without a money laundering charge, Afghan officials cannot order the confiscation of money held in offshore accounts, where much of the bank’s missing funds are thought to be. “Today was a disappointment for the resolution of issues resulting from the Kabul Bank fraud. International standards require sanctions that are proportionate, dissuasive, and effective. We feel that this is lacking in the judgment issued today,” said Drago Kos, chairman of the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee, an organization established by the Afghan government to report on graft. In 2010, The Washington Post reported that the bank’s bosses were offering influential Afghans multimillion-dollar loans that were spent on luxury villas in Dubai. “What I’m doing is not proper, not exactly what I should do. But this is Afghanistan,” Farnood said at the time. The more than $500 billion invested by the United States in Afghanistan since 2001 has been a boon to Afghanistan’s banking sector, which was nearly nonexistent under the Taliban, the radical Islamist movement that ruled from 1996 to 2001. Kabul Bank opened more than 60 branches during the first nine years of the war. It offered nearly $1 billion in loans and doled out more than $1 million in lottery prizes to its depositors. But the vast majority of its loans, investigators would later discover, went to fewer than two dozen people or companies, many with connections to the government.


Vegetarian dining in meat-centric DC restaurants

At Mintwood Place in the Adams Morgan, chef Cedric Maupillier builds his vegetable napoleon, a dish he created on the fly when confronted with an unexpected request for a vegetarian meal. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) We have just dropped a bombshell at the meat-centric Mintwood Place — we want a vegetarian meal — but the server doesn’t flinch. “Of course,” she says with a smile. “I’m vegetarian myself, so I totally know where you’re coming from.” She points out a few options on the menu, all of them appetizers except for the lone entree, a five-grain risotto topped with wood-grilled vegetables. When one of us mutters that it’s great but he’s had it before, she utters the words we were hoping to hear: “Would you like me to see if Chef wants to make you something special?” We look at each other, look at the server and nod, a little sheepishly. As The Post’s food critic and Food editor, we resist special treatment at restaurants, but tonight is different. We’re on a mission, and Mintwood is just one part of the hunt. One of us (the editor) is a new vegetarian, the other (the critic) would like to eat less meat, and so the two of us have decided to ask some of our favorite chefs two questions: Could you hold the meat, please? And is having more vegetarian options too much to ask? We’re not alone in this pursuit. According to a 2012 poll by Harris Interactive for the Vegetarian Resource Group, 4 percent of Americans qualify as vegetarian, but 47 percent eat at least one vegetarian meal a week. And in a 2008 VRG poll, more than 55 percent of respondents said they order a vegetarian or vegan meal in a restaurant at least some of the time. That was enough to prompt the National Restaurant Association in 2010, after surveying chefs, to include vegetarian and vegan dining on its list of top trends. Details: Vegetarian dining in meat-centric restaurants None of which makes finding good vegetarian dishes in area restaurants a no-brainer. The lofty places are easy: CityZen and Volt and Komi are among dining rooms with ambitious vegetarian tasting menus. Rasika reveres vegetables, with more than a dozen possibilities. (One new favorite: the wild mushroom uttapam, a rice-and-lentil pancake with beet chutney at Rasika West End.) And on the cheaper side, you’ve got falafel, pizza, Ethiopian.


A former omnivore comes out as vegetarian

harder for me to handle, physically and even philosophically. It all came to a head — a pig’s head, of course — at the Cochon 555 competition, a celebration of nose-to-tail pork cookery that I helped judge in Washington in 2011. As I sat around the judges’ table eating bite after bite of sometimes-delicious, sometimes-not concoctions of ears, jowls, loins and trotters, I started to see the nose-to-tail thing (“everything but the squeal”) a little differently. I embrace the philosophy that if we are going to eat animals, we should respect them enough not to waste perfectly edible parts. But that doesn’t mean we — or I suppose I should say I — need to eat it all in one sitting. Not if it sends me into a food coma, anyway. When’s the last time you went into a food coma from a vegetarian meal? I usually feel fabulous afterward, no matter how much I indulge. More important, over the past few years I’ve been falling for vegetables: learning more about them in their seemingly infinite varieties from farmers like Zach Lester at Tree and Leaf and from market managers like Robin Shuster at 14th and U, and then growing my own in a now-defunct community garden on 15th Street NW and during my year of homesteading at my sister and brother-in-law’s in southern Maine. And I’ve been tasting more and more dishes at restaurants that prove that vegetables can be the star of the plate — sometimes the only star, with no need of meat even to serve as a garnish, as fashionable as that has gotten, too. I plan to showcase those vegetables every week in this, a new recipe column for the Food section called Weeknight Vegetarian. (Cooking for One will become occasional rather than monthly.) First up: a five-grain risotto adapted from a version chef Cedric Maupillier serves at Mintwood Place in Adams Morgan. The recipes — mine and from others — will be vegetarian, not vegan, because I’m too enamored of cheese, milk and eggs, and I can’t imagine that changing. Although, come to think of it, that’s what I used to say about meat. Yonan is author of the upcoming "Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook” (Ten Speed Press, August 2013). More from Food: Vegetarian dining in meat-centric DC restaurants A meatless medley to sink your teeth into Recipes: Five-Grain Risotto


The beer with a Levant slant

pair nicely with a skewer of well-seasoned chicken or lamb. 961 Lebanese Pale Ale is available in kegs and 11.2-ounce bottles. Hajjar’s American importer, St. Killian in Kingston, Mass., carries four other 961 varieties in bottles only, all solid interpretations of classic European styles. They are a clean-tasting golden lager; a red ale balancing citrusy American hops with lots of caramel malt; a Belgian-style witbier incorporating wheat from Lebanese farmers; and a roasty porter full of mocha flavors. Many U.S. craft brewers like to talk about their baptism of fire in a highly competitive industry, but Hajjar literally was under siege when he hatched his grand plan. “I started in 2006,” he says. “Israel and Hezbollah were bombing . . . each other. The electricity was off; I was sitting on my balcony reading the first chapter of “Beer School” by Steve Hindy and Tom Potter. That’s when I thought, ‘Eureka!’ ” Hajjar took inspiration from Hindy, a former Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press. Like Hajjar, Hindy had to dodge bombs and bullets; he was sitting in the grandstand behind Anwar Sadat in 1981 when the Egyptian leader was assassinated. Like Hajjar, Hindy was led by the region’s lack of decent beer first to take an interest in home-brewing, then to turn pro. (He’s now president of New York’s Brooklyn Brewery.) “Pretty unremarkable” is how Hindy describes Middle Eastern beer in general. He remembers quaffing Stella, an Egyptian brand that had dubious quality-control standards: “I don’t think I ever got two bottles that ever had the same fill level.” The brewery, according to a persistent rumor, spiked the beer with formaldehyde to perk up the flavor. Hindy couldn’t verify that, but he said, “It did seem to have a kind of numbing effect after a few bottles.” The quality of Stella improved markedly after 2002, when Heineken took over the brewery, Hindy says. Likewise, Heineken controls Almaza (Arabic for “diamond”), a Lebanese light lager with no particular regional character. There are a few oases in that bleak beerscape. Israel has sprouted between 20 and 30 microbreweries and brewpubs, beginning with the Dancing Camel in Tel Aviv in 2006. Taybeh Brewing in Palestinian territory predates the Dancing Camel by a decade, brewing golden, amber and dark lagers, plus a non-alcoholic brew for observant Muslims. 961 Beer, however, might be the only Middle Eastern microbrewery that exports worldwide, from Spain


EPA, Energy Department can tackle climate change on several fronts

Now that President Obama has selected his top climate and energy policymakers, having nominated Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Ernest Moniz as energy secretary and Environmental Protection Agency air and radiation administrator Gina McCarthy to head EPA, the question still looms: how much can they get done using executive authority alone? The answer: quite a lot, but it will involve taking some political risks. So here’s a list of some of the options McCarthy and Moniz will take, assuming both of them win confirmation. Capping greenhouse gas emissions from power plants Stricter federal rules for natural gas methane emissions Tightening vehicle emissions from medium and heavy-duty vehicles, as well as off-road engines New energy efficiency standards Reducing global hydrofluorocarbon emissions Promoting clean energy. There are a handful of other smaller policies as well, including limits EPA could impose on greenhouse gas emissions from acid manufacturing, coal mining and landfills. No matter what, there is one dynamic that will likely change now that Moniz and McCarthy have been nominated: The Energy Department may play a more active role in formulating regulations than it did under Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “I think the policy development process in the second term will be much different from what we saw in the first term,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, who headed EPA’s air and radiation office under George W. Bush and is now a partner at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani. While the Energy Department handed out billions in federal funds during Obama’s first term, Holmstead said, it “was compeltely absent on any environmental policy” when it came to rule-making. Now, he said, Energy Department and EPA “are going to have a much more traditional relationship,” where Moniz will likely weigh in on any issue that could come to define Obama’s legacy on climate change.


Sibelius shines, new works falter in Iceland Symphony’s Nordic Cool concert

At the Kennedy Center, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra gave U.S. premieres of two works by young Icelandic composers. (Courtesy of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra) Sibelius certainly rocks. That is the takeaway thus far after the third orchestral offering of the Kennedy Center’s Nordic Cool festival. Monday night brought the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in the evergreen Grieg Piano Concerto, the very rarely heard complete “Lemminkainen Suite” of Sibelius, and U.S. premieres of two works by young Icelandic composers. The two previous programs (by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the National Symphony) also featured the Finnish master, but the ISO’s selection was a home run. Most music lovers know “The Swan of Tuonela” and “Lemminkainen’s Return,” but the suite comprises two more substantial pieces, of majesty and dark wonder. I’d never heard them before, and now I want to again. Of the two premieres, “bd” by Hlynur A. Vilmarsson left the better impression. It started unpromisingly, the composer attempting to make the orchestra imitate electronic music. Consisting largely of sound effects rather than notes, it evoked some titters from the audience at first. But gradually rhythmic patterns emerged, and the piece took on a sense of liveliness and even fun that is all too rare in this realm. Earlier, “Aeriality” by Anna Thorvaldsdottirwas similar to last week’s turgid “Orion” by Kaija Saariaho— a morass of slowly shifting textures but little else. The strain on the listener was compounded by her use of quarter-tones. This sort of thing might be tolerable as a sound track to an IMAX documentary about a distant galaxy, but its viability in the concert repertoire is almost nil. The ISO is a fairly strong group. The strings were slightly underpowered, but that was due more to numbers than quality of playing. The woodwinds had a loamy quality, but not unpleasantly so. The brass were mostly in tune and solid, if not always perfectly aligned in attack. Conductor Ilan Volkov offered clear, unfussy direction. I’ve heard more imaginative Sibelius performances, but he was on top of the music; the many transitions were well-controlled. As for the Grieg concerto and soloist Garrick Ohlsson, what can one say? I do not know a professional musician who doesn’t consider him one of the finest pianists alive today, and he continues to give unalloyed pleasure in everything he plays. Battey is a freelance writer.


Prince William County news in brief

Conservation Alliance lecture to focus on deer management Managing deer in the suburbs will be the topic of the Prince William Conservation Alliance’s first speaker series Thursday. Naturalist Charles Smith will discuss the science and politics of managing white-tail deer. The event will be at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the board chambers, McCoart Government Center, 1 County Complex Ct., Woodbridge. For information, call 703-499-4954, e-mail alliance@pwconserve.org or visit www.pwconserve.org. Naturalists to lead walking tour exploring Dove’s Landing Naturalists from the Prince William Conservation Alliance and the Prince William Wildflower Society will lead a walking tour through the county’s newest park, Dove’s Landing, 9113 Dove’s Lane in Manassas, from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. The 225-acre park with shoreline along the Occoquan River is slated for passive recreation such as bird-watching and nature walks. Free cab rides offered for St. Patrick’s Day To curb drunken driving, the Washington Regional Alcohol Program will be sponsoring free cab rides up to a $30 fare on St. Patrick’s Day. The St. Patrick’s Day SoberRide will be available in Prince William, Loudoun, Fairfax and Arlington counties, as well as the District and in Maryland, from 4 p.m. March 17 to 4 a.m. March 18. To use the service, call 800-200-TAXI (8294). AT&T wireless customers can also dial #WRAP (9727). Last year, 606 people used SoberRide to get home on St. Patrick’s Day. For information, visit www.soberride.com. Marines are fundraising for Battle of An-Nasiriyah reunion Marines of Task Force Tarawa are fundraising for their Battle of An-Nasiriyah 10-year reunion March 23 at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico. Organizers have partnered with the Marine Corps Association and Foundation to raise $25,000 for the reunion’s evening social, bus transportation and food. Funds raised above the cost of the event will help pay for veterans’ transportation. During the battle, 23 soldiers were killed, and Army Spec. Jessica Lynch was captured. To make a donation, visit www.mcafdn.org or contact LeeAnn Mitchell at l.mitchell@mca-marines.org or 703-640-0169. For information about the reunion, visit www.tftreunion.org. — Compiled by Sarah Lane


Tom Sietsema: Bryan Voltaggio’s Range deserves its hype

Chef de cuisine Matt Hill prepares the seafood station at Range. (Stacy Zarin Goldberg) Descriptions of Range, the latest creation from “Top Chef” alumnus Bryan Voltaggio, make the Chevy Chase Pavilion location sound more like an ocean liner than a restaurant. Three hundred seats! Thirty cooks! Nine food stations! Did you know Range also stocks two master sommeliers? The last detail is offered by one of the title holders, who proudly tells her customers the claim is shared only with the fabled French Laundry in Napa Valley. Few restaurants have been as eagerly awaited as Range, the first foray into Washington by Voltaggio, whose three establishments in Frederick — Volt, Lunchboxand Family Meal — draw food enthusiasts from across the region. Part of the fuss stems from the chef’s celebrity and part of the attention is explained by the reality: Despite all the money and the stomachs in the area, Friendship Heights is poor when it comes to choice places to dine. The big surprise after four dinners: The hype is justified. Range, backed by chef de cuisine Matt Hill from Charlie Palmer Steak, is a terrific restaurant much of the time. Its early problems with pacing appear to be solved, and while the setting overlooking several floors of office and retail space — including a 30-by-60-foot “synchronized LED wall” of changing art — suggest Las Vegas, this part of town could use the glitz. The restaurant benefits from an exceptionally strong cast in the open kitchens, behind the bar and patrolling the floor. Skeptics might point to the fact I was recognized as a critic every visit, but even civilians I know tell me how swell the service is here. The dining room staff read their customers like books, magically appearing just as you need them and fully versed in Range’s scores of dishes. The menu, no surprise, is long and varied. The left side of the script focuses on raw seafood, charcuterie, cheese, salads and pasta; the right column is devoted to pizza, grilled meats and fish, pan-roasted items and vegetable dishes. The paths are strewn with delights. The bakery rolls out what might be the best bread basket in the city. Actually, it’s less a basket than a fashion show of carbs, a pageant that crowds the table with homey corn bread, jalapeño-spiked biscuits, rustic multigrain and on, staged with coordinating spreads including bacon marmalade, pepper jelly


Kathy Walters, U-Md. employee

Kathy Walters, 46, who managed the jobs and employers database at the University of Maryland’s career center, died March 2 at the Hillhaven nursing facility in Adelphi. She had ovarian cancer, said her brother, David Walters. Ms. Walters joined the career center more than a decade ago and had previously done customer service work for companies including Bell Atlantic. She was a former College Park resident and lived in Laurel at the time of her death. Katharine Lulu Walters was born in Boston and came to the Washington area at 5. She graduated from Northwestern High School in Hyattsville in 1984 and attended the University of Maryland. Ms. Walters played and was a volunteer timekeeper for several adult hockey leagues in the Washington area, traveling with one team to a competition in Toronto. She also was active in online gaming communities. Survivors include her parents, William Walters and Barbara Sternaman Walters of College Park; and her brother, David Walters of San Diego. — Emily Langer


A special budgetary place for Defense

and heavy airlift,” according to the service. And Congress almost doubled to $200 million funds to develop prompt global-strike capability — the seeking of an advanced hypersonic weapon to deliver a conventional weapon anywhere in the world within an hour. There’s also repairs for the Navy’s 22-year-old USS Miami, the Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine that was in a fire. The first repair estimate was $450 million. This year the Navy said it needed $150 million more, which it got. On Tuesday at the House Appropriations Military Construction Subcommittee, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno — talking about the sequester — said the Army would have to delay some “top construction priorities.” Renovating cadet barracks and building new ones at West Point were among them. In a solicitation notice, the Corps of Engineers said the project provided barracks for 650 cadets. The primary facility would include, among other things, two-person rooms, plus a battalion support area; latrines and showers; laundry, trash/ recycling, storage, day and study rooms; building information systems; and offices for tactical officers, tactical noncommissioned officers and duty orderlies. Cost for “design, construction of base and all optional items,” the Corps said, was $170 million. To pay for barracks at West Point the Army asked for $192 million in fiscal 2013. No one appeared to balk. The conferees only agreed to provide “incremental” funds — $86 million, or half for a project engineers said would take nearly four years to complete once the design contract is awarded. Then there’s military health care: $273 million added to cover what would have been modest increased fees for Tricare. The White House had proposed working retirees pay the bump, but Congress blocked that. Congress also added to its peer-reviewed military research. The fiscal 2013 bill includes $623 million, though $135 million is for military-related studies on traumatic brain injury and psychological health research. But there’s also $12 million for Alzheimer’s and $6 million for autism. It’s as if the National Institutes of Health and others are not working on these issues. Maybe conferees have started seeing problems. They added $50 million under a general category of “Peer-reviewed medical research,” but at least they directed the defense secretary and military service surgeons general “to select medical research projects of clear scientific merit and direct relevance to military health.” That’s not much, but it’s progress. pincusw@washpost.com For previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/fedpage.


If you go: York, Pa., and the Mason-Dixon Wine Trail

if you go GETTING THERE York, Pa., is about 100 miles from Washington. Take Interstate 95 north to I-695 west to I-83 north. Take Exit 19 and drive about five miles into the city center. A good map or a GPS would be helpful for driving to wineries. WHERE TO STAY The Yorktowne Hotel 48 E. Market St. 717-848-1111 www.yorktowne.com Historic hotel built in 1925, with 121 rooms and within easy walking distance of downtown restaurants and shops. Rooms are $119 on weekend evenings in March. Grace Manor Bed and Breakfast 258 W. Market St. 717-542-0787 www.gracemanorbandb.com Also in the historic downtown, this Beaux-Arts home has 10-foot ceilings and themed rooms that include France, Asia and Mexico. Rates start at $129. WHERE TO EAT The Left Bank Restaurant Bar 120 N. George St. 717-843-8010 leftbankyork.com Fine dining. Entrees from $19 for artisan mushroom ravioli to $35 for filet mignon. White Rose Bar Grill 48 N. Beaver St. 717-848-5369 www.whiterosebarandgrill.com Wide-ranging menu with salads, sandwiches, burgers, seafood, pasta and chicken. Entrees start at $13.95. WHAT TO DO Tour de Tanks www.masondixonwinetrail.com Saturdays and Sundays in March (except Easter Sunday). Twenty-six participating wineries on the Mason-Dixon Wine Trail in south-central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland. Tickets ($25) may be purchased at any winery. We visited: Moon Dancer Vineyards Winery 1282 Klines Run Rd. Wrightsville, Pa. 717-252-9463 www.moondancerwinery.com Allegro Winery 3475 Sechrist Rd. Brogue, Pa. 717-927-9148 www.allegrowines.com Naylor Wine Cellars 4069 Vineyard Rd. Stewartstown, Pa. 717-993-2431 www.naylorwine.com Logan’s View Winery 4830 Hildebrand Rd. Glen Rock, Pa. 717-741-0300 www.logansviewwinery.com Royal Rabbit Vineyards 1090 Jordan Sawmill Rd. Parkton, Md. 443-721-6692 www.royalrabbitvineyards.com Basignani Winery 15722 Falls Rd. Sparks, Md. 410-472-0703 www.basignani.com E.P. More from Travel: Travel Guide Ski Guide Caribbean Guide


Defense Secretary Hagel visits Afghanistan

wearing Afghan army uniforms opened fire on NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan, killing a coalition contractor. The statement provided no additional details. Hagel’s first foray onto the international stage will no doubt be closely watched by supporters and critics of the veteran politician, whose lackluster and unsteady performance during last month’s confirmation hearing raised questions about whether he was the right person to take the helm of the Pentagon. Hagel told reporters traveling with him that the White House has not yet decided how many troops it would like to leave in Afghanistan after 2014, when the mandate that authorizes an international military coalition here would have to be replaced by a bilateral security agreement. “The president has not made a final decision,” he said. He stressed later, though, that while trying to help the Afghan people start a prosperous new era in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was a noble effort, “it was never the intention of the United States to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely.” Hagel last visited the country in 2008, when he was a senator from Nebraska, as part of a congressional delegation that included then-Sen. Barack Obama. Afghanistan received relatively little attention during Hagel’s confirmation process, which became fraught as Republican senators raised concerns about the nominee’s views on Iran, Israel and nuclear deterrence. Asked whether he was concerned that Afghanistan had become a “forgotten war,” Hagel said he would ensure war policy remains a priority. “I can’t speak for the American people or where we are on attention span,” he said. “I will tell you, now as secretary of defense who has some responsibility for assuring this transition be conducted responsibly, that we are still at war.” Hagel said he looked forward to talking to Karzai, who in recent weeks rankled American officials by issuing abrupt edicts. Karzai prohibited Afghan commanders from calling on the international coalition to carry out airstrikes and ordered U.S. special operations forces to abandon a key eastern province along the Pakistani border after accusing them of carrying out crimes. In a statement distributed to U.S. troops in Afghanistan after Hagel arrived, the defense chief said the campaign was “at a very important moment, with Afghan troops poised to play a leading role as a new springtime violent period dawns.” “As the 2013 fighting season gets underway,” the statement said, Afghan forces “will be doing more and more


F-35’s ability to evade budget cuts illustrates challenge of paring defense spending

feisty language lies an inescapable reality: The services don’t want to shrink their orders, and Congress doesn’t want to clip the F-35’s wings. For many legislators, the F-35 is as much about employment as it is about air superiority. Lockheed has repeatedly emphasized to legislators, particularly those who sit on appropriations committees, that the plane supports 133,000 jobs, many of them at 1,300 subcontractors and parts suppliers spread across 45 states. When full-rate production begins, likely in 2018, the company says the employment figure will grow to 260,000. A Web site established by Lockheed for the plane provides a sample letter for constituents to send to lawmakers. “The F-35 program is a win-win proposition for our national security and our nation’s declining manufacturing base,” the letter states. Despite the lobbying, a few members have spoken out. One of them was Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Navy pilot. In December 2011, he took to the floor of the Senate to lambaste the development effort. “In a nutshell, the JSF program has been both a scandal and a tragedy,” he said. The following November, the Marines established their first F-35 squadron in Yuma, Ariz. They invited McCain to the inauguration ceremony. “I am — after many years of frustration and setbacks — encouraged that the overall program is moving in the right direction,” McCain said at the event. He said the program was on track “to produce more achievable and predictable outcomes.” For the generals who lead the Marines, the F-35 is a must-win fight. There is no alternative fighter readily available to replace the service’s current jets, which will soon become too obsolete to fly. “It’s essential for us,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle, the Corps’ deputy commandant for aviation. “We don’t have another option.” Thus far, there has been little discussion within the Pentagon or on Capitol Hill about whether the Marines, which are organized to travel by sea and fight small wars, require such a sophisticated aircraft. Compared with the Air Force and Navy versions, the Marine variant has the most engineering challenges and the largest price tag. But the Marines, the smallest service, have long wielded disproportionate influence on the Hill and in the Pentagon. “Nobody wants to say no to the Marines,” a senior Army officer said on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the program. “Nobody around here is asking the fundamental question:


Metro to consider seeking development partners at properties near 11 stations

interested in making progress with them in terms of economic development, so we are trying to facilitate that as well.” Of the 11 sites, four are in the District, four are in suburban Maryland and three are in Northern Virginia. In D.C., Metro will consider developing 6.5 acres at the Anacostia station, 5.4 acres at Brookland-CUA, 4.6 acres at Fort Totten and a small chiller plant site near the station by Nationals Park that Wall said the agency would also consider selling once a replacement is provided. The four Maryland sites are 36 acres at the Morgan Boulevard Station, 25 acres at Branch Avenue, 7.3 acres at Grosvenor-Strathmore and 4.5 acres at Capitol Heights. The Virginia sites are 11 acres at West Falls Church, 5.1 acres at East Falls Church (part of which Wall said is controlled by the state of Virginia) and two small parcels at Huntington. Many of the properties were selected, Wall explained, so they could be developed in concert with other projects in the immediate area. In Anacostia, for instance, the Barry Farm public housing complex has been proposed for development near the Metro station. In Fort Totten and Capitol Heights, new Wal-Mart-anchored projects are in the works. Metro has developed properties at many of its stations in the past. Other projects, such as an apartment complex with a Harris Teeter in Dunn Loring-Merrifield, are under construction now. Metro has agreements in place for future projects in New Carrollton, Greenbelt and elsewhere. For deals to be struck, developers must agree to build Metro new parking and access facilities. “Any impacted facility has to be replaced, whether it’s a chiller or whether it’s commuter parking or whether it’s daily parking — it will have to be replaced by the developer,” Wall said. Metro’s real estate unit has sometimes been criticized for playing favorites, such as when the agency modified a development agreement in Greenbelt that allowed Prince George’s County to submit the site as a possible FBI headquarters. But a demographic return to urban, transit-accessible neighborhoods has increased the value of property in and around Metro stations and Wall said developers had approached the agency about its properties at the Navy Yard, Morgan Boulevard and Huntington stations, as well as others. Wall said he did not know how much revenue the deals might ultimately bring the agency. “It depends on what the market will bear,” he said.


U-Md. Symphony Orchestra tackles Mahler’s 7th with bravado, and some caution shows

With a huge dollop of bravado, James Ross and his University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra took on Mahler’s Seventh Symphony at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland on Saturday and did a pretty good job of it. It’s a sprawling work — five movements of excursions into the ecstatic followed by the tawdry followed by the serene followed by the playful, all demanding technical brilliance, concentration and, above all, endurance. (This performance, a comparatively quick one, clocked in at 75 minutes). Ross is not the most graceful of conductors, but he and his orchestra communicate well. The quick runs that zip from one section to another were beautifully coordinated. Most of the time, the moments of complex woodwind ensemble jelled beautifully and the horns had an outstanding evening, as did, in particular, the basses and the second violins. The orchestra as a whole sounded focused and powerful. This was an emotionally cautious performance, however, one that never seemed to revel fully in the possibilities of either the rapturous or the crude. Ross solved brilliantly the programming challenge of what to pair with the Mahler by opening with Benjamin Britten’s song cycle “Les Illuminations.” Scored for string orchestra and voice — here, tenor Gran Wilson (Britten had written it for soprano but also performed it with his partner, tenor Peter Pears) — the performance featured projections that morphed back and forth from the abstract to the almost concrete. I found them distracting, but, at the bows, a large contingent of the audience cheered them and their creators, Doug Fitch and Tim McLoraine. Wilson, singing from behind the scrim above the orchestra, has the classic Britten voice — a little edge, power from top to bottom, a clean sound (although he has a tendency to sing just under the pitch) and a fine sense of drama. He was skillfully and energetically supported by the orchestra. Joan Reinthaler is a freelance writer.


Metro’s rebuilding effort creates headaches for weekend riders

that tourists end up confused. “It’s inconvenient. It’s terrible,” said Shane Mallory of Southeast Washington as she tried to get to her mother’s house on trains and buses Saturday morning with her two nephews. “We pay more and more, and it seems like the system is never fixed. There’s always something going on.” On Thursday, the finance committee of Metro’s board of directors is expected to discuss the weekend shutdowns and their impact on riders and the transit agency’s coffers, important topics as the board prepares for the next budget cycle this spring. Metro officials said they understand that the weekend shutdowns can be a major inconvenience, but they argue that the work is crucial to rebuilding an ailing rail system that must meet national safety standards and is nearing its capacity of nearly 1 million rider trips each weekday. “We went through 35 years without paying much time or attention to renewing the Metro system,” said Rich Bradley, head of the Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District, a group that promotes business development. “Now they’re playing a massive game of catch-up. The consequences are there are going to be disruptions for riders.” The weekend disruptions come at the same time Metro is experiencing a drop in its ridership. Overall, Metro rail ridership from July to December was down about 5 percent, to 101.8 million trips, compared to the same time period in 2011. Weekend rail ridership is down 9 percent, to 13.4 million trips. Rail ridership at rush hours on weekdays is down 3 percent. Those drops, combined with a decline in bus ridership and lower parking fees, mean the transit agency’s revenue is $20.2 million below what it had budgeted for the fiscal year. The agency also might lose $12 million in revenue if federal workers are furloughed in coming months. Metro officials said they think the drops in ridership are caused by several factors. The system had to close for nearly two days because of Hurricane Sandy, and President Obama gave government workers a federal holiday on Christmas Eve, which last year was on a weekday. Metro also said riders were hit by a temporary drop in federal transit benefits and an across-the-board fare increase this past summer, and some riders are avoiding the system when there’s weekend track work. For Mallory and her nephews Saturday, the fact that Metro crews were working on all five lines in


In Japan, two years after Fukushima nuclear accident, work resumes on new plant

new work. Twenty-three cranes were disassembled and shipped out. Only a skeleton staff stayed behind in Oma. And for the next 18 months, J-Power waited to see whether Japan’s central government would reconsider its long-term commitment to nuclear power. Gradually the country’s 50 working reactors were shuttered, because of safety concerns or for routine maintenance checks. Two reactors in western Japan restarted in July, but others remain in limbo, requiring major reinforcement against earthquakes, tsunamis and other disasters. Oma, a fishing town of 6,200, had sought a nuclear plant since 1976, when an official with the chamber of commerce wrote to the mayor saying it was time to “reconsider the fundamental industry in Oma.” Decades passed before construction began, with delays caused by changes in reactor design and location, but during that time J-Power won support in the town. The company hired three or four local high school graduates every year. It helped fund a new community center with a library, an indoor sports complex and a swimming pool. It sponsored local fireworks shows. Those in Oma largely maintained their backing for nuclear power post-Fukushima, looking with detachment at 100,000-strong anti-nuclear protests in Tokyo and watching with concern as then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan, in July 2011, said nuclear power was a risk Japan couldn’t afford. Roughly 15 percent of the town’s annual budget comes from government subsidies handed down for its willingness to host the plant. Phasing out nuclear power would be a “sorry thing,” said Oma’s mayor, Mitsuharu Kanazawa. For its part, J-Power would sustain a “major financial blow” if it could not operate the Oma plant, spokesman Hiroshi Nakatani said in a February interview, though he refused to provide specifics. With its hydro and thermal stations, J-Power generates 6 to 7 percent of Japan’s power, which it sells to the country’s nine regional utility monopolies. That supply has become even more important post-Fukushima, as those monopolies have less generating capacity of their own. But J-Power has long coveted nuclear power, seeing it as potentially cheaper and more environmentally friendly than coal imports, and Oma is its first nuclear project. Their timing “was terrible,” said Hiroshi Takahashi, an energy industry expert at the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo. “If I can make some advice to J-Power, it is to get out of nuclear power right now before they encounter even more problems.” J-Power, two company spokesmen say, never considered


Music review: Beethoven Orchestra Bonn is a gem

George Mason University’s Center for the Arts has a long history of booking foreign orchestras on a wing and a prayer. Many we’ve never heard of, and some were making their U.S. debuts. There have been scrappy-sounding assemblages (if they were true, preexisting orchestras at all), worthy second-tier groups and, occasionally, diamonds. Over the weekend, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn was one of the gems. Formed more than a century ago in the city of Beethoven’s birth, this fine ensemble offered sleek, bracing renditions of an overture, a concerto and a symphony by its namesake on Saturday evening. Under music director Stefan Blunier, the BOB is a highly responsive instrument (at least the members who came over — about three-fourths of those listed in the orchestra’s roster). The strings have both bite and sheen, the basses and first violins fitting perfectly together. The two horns were fallible, but the woodwinds all offered colorful solos (particularly the principal oboe) and superb blend. For the most part, Blunier has instilled an admirable, natural sense of balance in the orchestra. By the end of the Seventh Symphony, the winds and brass were perhaps a little tired and began to overblow; until then, however, the textures were outstanding, the strings always audible, even in fortissimo tutti passages. In performance, Blunier can come across as a self-styled Byronic hero, but the posturing got results, and he knew when to simply get out of the way. The performance often felt like chamber music. In the G-major Piano Concerto, Louis Lortie didn’t always take full advantage of the detailed framework that the orchestra gave him. He put in unnecessary metrical accents (perhaps a holdover from working with other groups) and could have offered an even wider dynamic range. Still, he is a fine musician, and there were many original touches in the big cadenza. Battey is a freelance writer.


Tracking flu outbreaks nationwide

You may be seeing less sniffling and sneezing in your neighborhood these days, but flu season is never really over for Lynnette Brammer, who has been described as the “architect of influenza surveillance in the United States.” Each week, Brammer analyzes influenza data sent electronically from all around the country to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where she is an epidemiologist responsible for the development, ongoing maintenance and enhancement of the domestic influenza surveillance system. Brammer and her team publish FluView every Friday, providing influenza data to state public health officials, epidemiologists, clinicians and the public. “This is a lot of information that comes from a lot of different people — physicians, people at state health departments and state labs and in hospitals and vital statistics offices,” Brammer said. “Sometimes you step back and look at it and think it’s pretty amazing that this system keeps running week after week, and it always does.” In addition to patient information on viruses from 140 labs across the country, Brammer helps analyze data from vital statistics offices in 122 cities. Her team looks at death certificates that get filed to see how many people had flu or pneumonia — often a complication of flu— and compare them to a model baseline. Lynnette Brammer of the CDC. (Brett Brammer) “It gives us a way to tell fairly quickly when we’re seeing more deaths due to influenza circulation than we would expect to see that time of year,” she said. This year’s influenza surveillance system includes data from pediatric deaths related to flu and unusual flu cases. Brammer had a hand in creating nearly all of the systems to track these data. “Many of these systems are her own design,” said Lyn Finelli, chief of Influenza Surveillance and Outbreak Response and Brammer’s supervisor. “Most of these systems would not be where they are today without her.” Last summer, there was an unusual virus outbreak among people who had attended state fairs in Indiana and Ohio, where 4H members had been showing their animals. “We knew it wasn’t a normal human virus,” Brammer said. “We knew something was a little different.” Her team worked with the states to investigate and learn the extent of the transmission. If the majority of the cases involved transmission from pigs to people, it would be different than if the virus was going person to person, which


Tracking flu outbreaks nationwide

often a complication of flu— and compare them to a model baseline. Lynnette Brammer of the CDC. (Brett Brammer) “It gives us a way to tell fairly quickly when we’re seeing more deaths due to influenza circulation than we would expect to see that time of year,” she said. This year’s influenza surveillance system includes data from pediatric deaths related to flu and unusual flu cases. Brammer had a hand in creating nearly all of the systems to track these data. “Many of these systems are her own design,” said Lyn Finelli, chief of Influenza Surveillance and Outbreak Response and Brammer’s supervisor. “Most of these systems would not be where they are today without her.” Last summer, there was an unusual virus outbreak among people who had attended state fairs in Indiana and Ohio, where 4H members had been showing their animals. “We knew it wasn’t a normal human virus,” Brammer said. “We knew something was a little different.” Her team worked with the states to investigate and learn the extent of the transmission. If the majority of the cases involved transmission from pigs to people, it would be different than if the virus was going person to person, which could indicate a pandemic and the need to start vaccine production. It was determined that in almost all of the cases, people had been exposed to pigs. The surveillance system has grown over the years. In the late 1990s, the CDC was running it on its own with about 200 physicians calling or faxing in information from about 500,000 patient visits over the course of the flu season. States ran parallel systems. In 1996, the year after Brammer joined the epidemiology group, the idea of collaborating with states took hold. Now, the CDC gets information on 700,000 patients in a single week from about 2,000 physicians. Health care providers send specimens to state labs for testing and some of the positive samples are sent to the CDC for more testing by the Virus Surveillance and Diagnostics Branch to see whether a new vaccine component is needed. The information then goes into the weekly FluView. The seasonal process for discovering flu outbreaks and preparing a vaccine has changed dramatically since Brammer has been in the CDC influenza group, she said. It used to take from one to two weeks to grow viruses to determine if they were flu, and if so,


2 U.S. troops and 5 Afghans killed in ‘insider attack’

a truck after U.S. forces shot at an Afghan truck, killing two passengers and injuring another on the road between Kabul and Bagram, Afghanistan, Monday, March 11, 2013. (Ahmad Jamshid/AP) KABUL — The assault, one of the deadliest so-called “insider attacks” this year, occurred in Wardak province during a meeting between U.S. and Afghan troops ahead of a joint mission, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. The attacker seized a machine gun in the back of a police pickup truck and opened fire on the U.S. and Afghan forces in a police compound, according to a senior Afghan military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the incident. It was unclear whether the gunman was a Taliban recruit or acting out of personal enmity. The attacker was reported killed in the ensuing firefight. In addition to the men killed, about a dozen U.S. and Afghan troops were injured, including the district police chief, officials said. The attack came a day after a tense President Hamid Karzai accused the American military of colluding with the Taliban to justify a continued U.S. presence in the country. Karzai’s comment that “the Taliban are serving the foreigners” complicated an already tense weekend visit from U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, whose trip was marred by the Afghan president’s decision to call off a key prison handover from U.S. to Afghan forces and the cancellation of a joint news conference. The news conference was called off at U.S. insistence — ostensibly due to security concerns. Monday’s attack could further threaten the fragile relationship between the two nations. U.S. officials have long advocated the small-footprint approach exemplified by teams of Special Operations forces as a way forward during the American military withdrawal, but Karzai has been critical of those teams, particularly in Wardak. Responding to complaints from civilians, Karzai last month expelled U.S. Special Operations forces from Wardak, accusing them of “harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people.” The troops were due to leave the province Sunday, according to a presidential decree. It was unclear why they were still operating there Monday, but one Afghan official said the two sides were working on a compromise. Monday’s attack occurred in the Jalrez district of Wardak, a volatile part of the province from which U.S. troops had almost entirely withdrawn. Mohammed Sharif and Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report.


U.S. publicly calls on China to stop commercial cyber-espionage, theft of trade secrets

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi has rejected allegations that China's military is behind hacking attacks on U.S. targets. (Kin Cheung/AP) In an unusually direct appeal, the Obama administration on Monday called on China to halt its persistent theft of trade secrets from corporate computers and engage in a dialogue to establish norms of behavior in cyberspace. The demands mark the administration’s first public effort to hold China to account for what officials have described as an extensive, years-long campaign of commercial cyber-espionage. “Increasingly, U.S. businesses are speaking out about their serious concerns about sophisticated, targeted theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies through cyber-intrusions on an unprecedented scale,” President Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, said in a speech to the Asia Society in New York. Donilon said China must recognize the risk such activities pose to the reputation of Chinese industry, to bilateral relations and to international trade. Beijing, he said, must also “take serious steps to investigate” allegations of commercial hacking. The remarks were noteworthy because administration officials have been reluctant to call out China — or any other country — as a bad actor in cyberspace, to avoid antagonizing a major trade partner and world power. But since 2010, when Google disclosed that China had hacked its systems and stolen its source code, government officials and independent cybersecurity experts have begun to build evidence showing that China is systematically engaged in the theft of secrets through cyberspace. A recent report by the security firm Mandiant detailed how one unit of the People’s Liberation Army is responsible for hacking into a wide range of U.S. industries. China has routinely denied that it hacks into other countries’ computer systems and asserts that it is the victim of computer espionage. But over the past year, numerous U.S. officials have raised concerns privately with their Chinese counterparts. “From the president on down, this has become a key point of concern and discussion with China,” Donilon said. “And it will continue to be.” Experts differed on how China will respond. “It’s going to be hard for the Chinese to ignore this coming from Donilon,” said James A. Lewis, a cybersecurity expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The key is trade and investment, he said. “Before, people were afraid that speaking out would harm their ability to do business in China. Now they’re saying the costs are such that


Rabies death is first human case in Md. since 1976

Maryland health officials said Tuesday that an adult resident has died of rabies, the state’s first case of human rabies in nearly four decades. Health officials said they did not know how the person was exposed to the rabies virus. To protect the privacy of the family, they provided no additional information about the individual or location of death. In a statement, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said doctors and public health officials are assessing the risk of rabies exposure in people who had direct contact with the individual. When people are exposed to rabies, it is usually because of a bite from an infected animal, not from contact with another person. The last case of human rabies was in 1976, the statement said. Katherine Feldman, the state public health veterinarian, said the infection occurred in the past few weeks, and public health officials are trying to determine “who may have kissed the patient or anybody who had saliva contact” with the individual. “Thankfully, we don’t share saliva with a whole lot of people.” The rabies virus is transmitted through saliva. Human rabies is prevented with rabies vaccine and rabies immune globulin, or preformed antibodies. Preventive treatment is only recommended for people with specific types of exposure to the saliva, tears, respiratory secretions or to fluid from the nervous system of an infected person. During the past 10 years, on average fewer than five human rabies cases have been diagnosed each year in the United States. Among wild animals found to be infected with the virus are raccoons, foxes, skunks and bats. Unvaccinated dogs and cats can also become infected. Maryland law requires all dogs, cats and ferrets to be vaccinated against rabies. Last year, 320 animals with rabies were detected in Maryland, and about 1,000 people in Maryland receive the preventive treatment each year after exposure through an animal bite, Feldman said.


Maryland Senate and House again at odds on dog bite legislation

A tentative deal to change Maryland’s law on dog bite liability Last month, the House of Delegates unanimously passed a bill to address a Maryland Court of Appeals decision that declared pit bulls “inherently dangerous” and automatically held their owners responsible if they bit someone. The House bill removed from the law the breed-specific language that singled out pit bulls and shifted the burden of proof in dog-bite cases to the owner rather than the victim. At the time, it appeared the Senate was on board too. The bill was the product of negotiations between leading members from both chambers. But it seemed clear Tuesday that the deal wasn’t holding up. The Senate took up a separate version of the bill that included a new provision making it more difficult for dog owners to prevail in lawsuits. To do so, they would have to provide “clear and convincing” evidence that their dog was not dangerous before the attack. “It makes it virtually impossible for a defendant to prevail,” said an angry Del. Luiz Simmons (D- Montgomery), the House negotiator on the bill. Simmons said he felt betrayed by Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery), who negotiated the bill for the Senate. “He told me he agreed with the compromise, he told me not to worry about it,” Simmons said. “We had a deal.” Frosh, chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, said that he was in “an awkward position” but that events had taken an unforeseen turn. The new provision was proposed last week by Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Montgomery) and approved by a majority of members of Frosh’s committee, with Frosh voting against it. Still, Frosh said he didn’t think Zirkin’s amendment hurt the bill. After the bill arrived on the Senate floor Tuesday, Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin (R- Cecil) unsuccessfully tried to delete Zirkin’s provision. “I love dogs but if my dog bites a little kid, I should be responsible,” Zirkin said as he spoke in defense of his measure. Sen. Delores G. Kelley (D-Baltimore County) also spoke up in favor of strict liability for dog owners. “I am a victim of a dog bite,” she said. “I was four years old when I was bitten by a German Shepherd on the buttock. ... You may not see the scar, but emotionally it has affected me for the rest of my life.” The future of the legislation is now


Most Americans found to be unprepared for financial emergencies

It’s always good to have supporting documentation to back up the conventional wisdom. Using data collected during the Great Recession, the FINRA Investor Education Foundation has produced some compelling evidence of what happens to people who don’t have a rainy day fund for emergencies. “Households that experience an income shock and have emergency savings are predicted to have a 9 percent chance of making a late mortgage payment, compared to 28 percent for households that experience an income shock and do not have emergency savings,” wrote Gary R. Mottola, author of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority report. Not only that, you’re nearly twice as likely to be involved in a foreclosure if you don’t have an emergency fund. Some households are obviously more vulnerable than others. Those with incomes below $50,000 were 43 percent more likely to make late mortgage payments than their more affluent counterparts. Having dependents increased the likelihood of late mortgage payments by 48 percent. It’s not that any of this doesn’t make sense. If you aren’t making much money compared to the cost of living, it’s hard to save. If you have children, their expenses also make it difficult to save. There are a lot of organizations trying to assess how well people manage their money or make sound financial decisions. In a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Annamaria Lusardi looked at how financially capable Americans are. Not so much. “The findings from this survey paint a troubling picture of the state of financial capability in the United States,” Lusardi wrote. “The majority of Americans do not plan for predictable events such as retirement or children’s college education. Most importantly, people do not make provisions for unexpected events and emergencies, leaving themselves and the economy exposed to shocks.” We know that for many people, a drop in their income or an unplanned expense can hit hard. In its latest Assets and Opportunities Scorecard, the Corporation for Enterprise Development found that nearly half of households — equivalent to 132.1 million people — are “considered ‘liquid asset poor,’ meaning they lack the savings to cover basic expenses for three months if unemployment, a medical emergency or other crisis leads to a loss of stable income.” I know what you’re thinking. Really, they have to study that people need a rainy day fund. Isn’t that common sense? Don’t people know they should save in case


Wednesday in D.C.: 4 things to look for

Coming up today in the D.C. area: Maryland legislation: Interstate 66: Comet sighting: Basketball: