THE REGION THE DISTRICT Man found dead in park is identified A man who was found fatally stabbed Monday along a stream in Rock Creek Park has been identified as a 49-year-old resident of Northwest Washington, D.C. police said. Police said the body of Matias Molina was found about 7:50 p.m. along a creek bed in a wooded area near Beach Drive and Joyce Road NW. The site, just north of Military Road, is about a mile north of a U.S. Park Police station. D.C. police would not comment on a possible motive in the stabbing but said Molina was not wearing clothing consistent with outdoor recreational activities. Acting D.C. police Capt. Robert Alder of the homicide unit said police have not determined whether Molina was killed in the park or elsewhere. — Peter Hermann Council member’s home burglarized District police are investigating a burglary last week at the home of D.C. Council member David Grosso in Northeast Washington’s Brookland neighborhood, according to authorities. Grosso (I-At Large) said two computers and a camera were taken by someone who apparently put them in a suitcase and wheeled it through his front door. He said the burglar got in by prying open a kitchen window in the back of the house. D.C. police confirmed the Aug. 26 break-in and said no arrests have been made, although the investigation remains active. “Unfortunately, this is the tough part of urban living,” said Grosso, whose four-year term began in January. He estimated the items taken to be worth about $8,500. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Police seek vehicleof slaying victim U.S. Park Police are seeking a gold or tan Ford Explorer that was apparently taken from a person who was killed Tuesday on the grounds of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, according to authorities. Police released few details but said the incident occurred near Springfield and Powder Mill roads, which cross fields at the sprawling center in Prince George’s County. Police did not say whether the victim was male or female, or what time and how the death occurred. In a statement, police described the vehicle as a 1996 Ford Explorer XL. They also said that the victim used several different license plates and that the tags on the vehicle when it was taken are not known. Police said that the occupants of the vehicle “should be considered armed and dangerous.” Anyone with information is urged


that was apparently taken from a person who was killed Tuesday on the grounds of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, according to authorities. Police released few details but said the incident occurred near Springfield and Powder Mill roads, which cross fields at the sprawling center in Prince George’s County. Police did not say whether the victim was male or female, or what time and how the death occurred. In a statement, police described the vehicle as a 1996 Ford Explorer XL. They also said that the victim used several different license plates and that the tags on the vehicle when it was taken are not known. Police said that the occupants of the vehicle “should be considered armed and dangerous.” Anyone with information is urged to call U.S. Park Police at 202-610-7515. — Peter Hermann VIRGINIA Illegal drugs may be factor in teen’s death Illegal narcotics may be a factor in the death of a 16-year-old McLean girl whose body was found in the Vienna area last month, Fairfax County police said Wednesday. Officers discovered the body of Emylee Lonczak in the 8200 block of Madrillon Estates Drive on Aug. 23 after a search. At the time, the McLean High School student was reported as a runaway. Police now say she was voluntarily in the company of people she knew before she died. Police are waiting for the medical examiner to make a final determination of the cause and manner of Lonczak’s death. An investigation into the case is ongoing. — Justin Jouvenal Alleged members of gang are indicted Twenty-four people who authorities say were involved with a violent street gang known as the Nine Trey Gangsters were charged with numerous offenses including crack cocaine distribution, robbery and racketeering in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in federal district court in Alexandria. The alleged gang members and their associates — hailing from cities and towns across Virginia, D.C. and Maryland — are accused of criminal activity dating to 2008, authorities said. Prosecutors say the group moved prostitutes up and down the East Coast, sold drugs ranging from marijuana to prescription painkillers and dabbled in the use of counterfeit currency. Two alleged gang members are accused of following another’s orders to slash a woman’s face from mouth to ear because she had stolen drug profits, and others allegedly were involved in a 2010 dispute that sparked a shooting, authorities said. — Matt Zapotosky


It’s a girl! Baby panda’s father also revealed.

Mei Xiang has delivered two surviving cubs since 2005, Tai Shan in July 2005 and Bao Bao in August 2013. She gave birth to a stillborn cub about 26 hours after Bao Bao. In Septempter 2012, she gave birth to a cub with liver abnormalities that died days later. Two giant panda questions were pleasantly resolved Thursday. The National Zoo’s newborn cub is a girl. And her father is Tian Tian, of Washington, and not the guy from the San Diego zoo, Gao Gao. The answer to a third query was frustrating: Washington pandarazzi will have to wait four months before getting an in-person look at the cub. The first answers came early in a morning news conference outside the zoo’s giant-panda compound, where Tian Tian lounged about, stripping leaves from bamboo stalks and munching them by the pawful. “I’m glad to report that the panda cub is a female,” said Jesus Maldonado, a zoo research scientist. “We have another girl in our family.” He added that genetic tests showed that Tian Tian was the sire of both the surviving cub and its stillborn fraternal twin. The surviving cub was born Aug. 23, and the stillborn cub, which had severe physical deformities, was delivered Aug. 24. Brandie Smith, the zoo’s senior curator of mammals and giant pandas, said experts could not tell the sex of the surviving cub during a brief physical exam that was performed last month. “Their reproductive organs are not fully developed at that point,” she said. “Think about how little and underdeveloped they are,” she said. “You can’t tell.” But zoo experts did a mouth swab on the cub to extract DNA during its first exam. “Females have two X chromosomes,” Smith said. “Males have an X and a Y chromosome. So we actually look at the chromosomes. It wasn’t physical identification of gender. There is room for error with that.” “If you look at the chromosomes, there’s no mistake,” she said. “So that’s the way to go. Go to the cellular level.” The National Zoo's giant panda Mei Xiang dotes on her cub Thursday. Officials announced that the baby panda is female and that the cub's father was confirmed to be Tian TIan. Smith said keepers have gotten a close look at the cub. “I am happy to report that she is absolutely beautiful,” she said. “It’s got a fat little belly. It’s very active.


physical deformities, was delivered Aug. 24. Brandie Smith, the zoo’s senior curator of mammals and giant pandas, said experts could not tell the sex of the surviving cub during a brief physical exam that was performed last month. “Their reproductive organs are not fully developed at that point,” she said. “Think about how little and underdeveloped they are,” she said. “You can’t tell.” But zoo experts did a mouth swab on the cub to extract DNA during its first exam. “Females have two X chromosomes,” Smith said. “Males have an X and a Y chromosome. So we actually look at the chromosomes. It wasn’t physical identification of gender. There is room for error with that.” “If you look at the chromosomes, there’s no mistake,” she said. “So that’s the way to go. Go to the cellular level.” The National Zoo's giant panda Mei Xiang dotes on her cub Thursday. Officials announced that the baby panda is female and that the cub's father was confirmed to be Tian TIan. Smith said keepers have gotten a close look at the cub. “I am happy to report that she is absolutely beautiful,” she said. “It’s got a fat little belly. It’s very active. It’s very vocal.” Asked about the cub’s public debut, Smith said it’ll take place in “probably about four months.” Pierre Comizzoli, a zoo research veterinarian, said the zoo’s female giant panda, Mei Xiang, was artificially inseminated March 30, first with sperm from Tian Tian — some fresh and some frozen from 2003. Twelve hours later, she was inseminated again, this time with vintage 2003 sperm from Tian Tian and Gao Gao. Gao Gao has proved to be a successful breeder, fathering five cubs in San Diego, including one born last summer. Tian Tian, who was born in captivity in China, is a hefty 264 pounds but has been a relatively ineffective breeder with poor natural technique, zoo experts have said. He has managed to father only the zoo’s beloved Tai Shan in 2005 and a premature female cub last year that died after six days. The cub’s paternity is important because its lineage determines how common its genes are in the giant-panda gene pool. In captivity, inbreeding with common genes can pass along genetic mutations that could lead to potential health problems, the zoo has said. So the less common the genes, the better. “We would have been really happy


D.C. police identify man fatally shot in Southwest

District police have identified a 28-year-old man who was fatally shot Wednesday night in the alley of a Southwest Washington public housing complex. A juvenile girl also was wounded, according to police. Donald Ray Brown, of Northeast, was pronounced dead an at area hospital shortly after the shooting, which occurred about 9:15 p.m., in the 900 block of 3rd St. SW, in the Greenleaf Gardens development. The shooting occurred about three blocks north of the 1st District police station and offices of the homicide unit, and near the Waterfront Metro station. Police said they were first dispatched to the 300 block of K St. SW, but were then directed to an alley a block away on 3rd Street. Police said they found Brown unconscious and suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Police said the juvenile was shot in the hand and was treated and released from a hospital. Police are offering a reward up to $25,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. Anyone with information is urged to call 202-727-9099 or text the department’s tip line at 50411.


The food trucks of Los Angeles: Affordable destination dining

have time to formulate a theory about food trucks and lines, and how both are symbolic of a Los Angeles that practically invented the idea of celebrity. Without lines, I think, there would be a compromised sense of status. There’d be nothing for VIPs to cut as a way to flaunt their power. There’d be nothing to indicate which movies or which clubs have captured the public’s imagination. Even the lines of cars that clog Smog City’s famous freeways are an opportunity to express status: You need a sleek, eye-catching ride to help you suffer through the hours stuck in traffic Lines, of course, are far less sexy when you actually have to stand in one, and I stood in a lot of them over the course of a week in Los Angeles, a city with one of the oldest and richest food truck scenes in the country. Trucks have something of a celebrity status here, fueled in part by the city’s easy access to television cameras, its love of good food and its moderate climate, which lures chefs to launch ambitious projects that can feed the public year-round. Los Angeles County, with more than 80 cities within its borders, plays host to more than 220 gourmet food trucks, many with serious pedigrees. You’ll find one operated by a classically trained French chef who doubles as a judge on ABC’s “The Taste” (Ludo Lefebvre, who sells fried chicken from his Ludo truck). You’ll find another run by a pastry-arts graduate of the French Culinary Institute (Gigi Pascual of the Buttermilk truck). You’ll find one under the direction of a former Wolfgang Puck chef (Antonio Medina of the Gastrobus). You’ll even find the most famous food truck in all these United States (duh: Kogi BBQ). Trucks here don’t fight for a few precious parking spots around a public square, looking to feed a concentrated cluster of hungry office workers. They’ve integrated themselves into the L.A. landscape, squatting next to museums, camping out near beaches, parking at shopping centers, feeding community gatherings and maybe even catering a television production crew. “He’s trying to haggle for a couple hundred dollars,” Sumant Pardal, chef and owner of the India Jones Chow Truck, tells me right after negotiating a deal to cater a new TV show. “I’ll do it for $200 less, but why set my price wrong when I have a standard rate? We


Details, L.A. food trucks

Details GETTING THERE Virgin America, United and American offer nonstop flights from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles. WHERE TO STAY Shore Hotel 1515 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica 310-458-1515 www.shorehotel.com LEED-certified boutique hotel about a mile from the Santa Monica Pier and the Tuesday night food truck lot near the California Heritage Museum. Rooms from $279. Foghorn Harbor Inn 4140 Via Marina, Marina del Rey 310-823-4626 www.foghornhotel.com Near the Venice Boardwalk and within walking distance of the Thursday night food truck lot in Marina del Rey. Rooms from $169. WHERE TO EAT Kogi BBQ Twitter: @kogibbq kogibbq.com The Korean fusion truck that launched a thousand imitators, still rolling strong. About $2.29 to $8. Green Truck Twitter: @greentruck www.greentruckonthego.com A health-conscious operation that uses certified organic ingredients. About $4 to $10. India Jones Twitter: @IndiaJonesCT indiajoneschowtruck.com Its specialty is a Frankie, a street snack of griddled roti flatbread rolled up with your choice of ingredients. Think: a subcontinental burrito. About $2 to $13.50. Cousins Maine Lobster Twitter: @CMLobster www.cousinsmainelobster.com Rolls are dense with claw and tail meat that has been shipped fresh from Maine, all within 24 hours of the lobster being pulled from the water. About $4 to $12.75. Tacos el Gallito Twitter: @tacoselgallito www.tacoselgallito.com Has several trucks, but try the one at Venice Boulevard and South La Brea Avenue, where you’ll get a taste of Mexico in Los Angeles. $1.50 to $7.50. Ludo Truck Twitter: @ludotruck www.ludotruck.com Ludo Lefebvre, a French chef trained at Michelin-starred restaurants, puts his spin on American fried chicken. Béarnaise is an option — of course. $1.50 to $8.25. INFORMATION socalmfva.com T.C. More from Travel: Travel Guide Ski Guide Caribbean Guide


IOC meetings: Wrestling in Olympics, 2020 host, next president all at stake this weekend

homosexuality to minors. The breadth of the law has alarmed human-rights activists worldwide and raised concerns in the Olympic community over its application during the 2014 Sochi Games, which get underway Feb. 7. “We have received some oral and written assurances about the fact the Russian Federation will respect the Olympic charter and no negative effect will occur for people attending in or participating in the Games,” Rogge said. “But one should not forget that we are staging the games in a sovereign state, and the IOC cannot be expected to have an influence on the sovereign affairs of a country.” Pressed on whether the IOC did not have “moral authority” to adopt a stronger stance, Rogge insisted the IOC could not, and should not, intervene. “We have clearly on various occasions expressed our view on situations in countries,” Rogge said. “But we are restricted in our power and our action by the fact that we are the guest of a sovereign country where we hold the Games.” Regarding the sport that will be added, wrestling is believed to have the inside track after its international federation, known as FILA, responding swiftly and forcefully upon being kicked off the program six months ago. That decision, made by the IOC’s Executive Committee, represented a stinging rebuke of the sport’s leadership more than a rejection of the sport itself. FILA had largely ignored repeated signals from the IOC that wrestling needed to do more to broaden its audience. But once the IOC’s executive committee lopped it from the list of the 25 “core sports,” wrestling supporters sprang into action worldwide, and FILA executives replaced their president, simplified the sport’s convoluted scoring system, added new weight classes for women and launched initiatives to jazz up its marketing to reach a younger demographic. Baseball and softball were dropped from the Olympics following the 2008 Beijing Games. Its backers have waged a campaign for re-inclusion, too. But it faces a significant hurdle in being perceived as an American-dominated sport rather than a global one. Moreover, the United States has no special clout in the IOC, with only three Americans among its 104 voting members. “I’d be stunned if wrestling weren’t chosen,” said Olympic historian David Wallechinsky, noting that 29 countries won wrestling medals at the 2012 Games, a testament its multicultural reach. But for all his expertise, Wallechinsky wouldn’t hazard a guess about the vote


S. Korea expands ban on fish from northeastern Japan, citing radiation concerns

for its failure to provide clear information about the condition of the plant, site of three March 2011 meltdowns and an increasingly complex clean-up job. Japan emphasized that its seafood is safe and subject to “stringent” international controls, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo. But the South Korean ban deals a blow to Japan’s image ahead of a Saturday vote by the International Olympic Committee on the host of the 2020 Summer Games. Tokyo — located 150 miles south of Fukushima Daiichi — is one of the three finalists, along with Madrid and Istanbul, and Japanese officials have spent recent days assuring committee members that their country is safe. The South Korean import ban marks a major expansion of existing restrictions, under which 49 species of fish from Fukushima are blocked from the Korean market. A handful of other species from the broader region, mostly bottom-feeders, have also been banned. Now, all fish from nearly 600 miles of coastline are banned, “regardless of whether they are contaminated or not,” the Oceans and Fisheries Ministry said. The ban includes areas as far south as Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo. Suga said Friday that contamination was limited to an area of only several hundred yards around the plant. Although Japan’s central government said in December 2011 that its reactors had been stabilized and their core temperatures cooled to far safer levels, the decommissioning of the cracked and leaky plant has caused a new set of environmental concerns. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), which operates the plant, recently admitted after months of denials that water was still leaking into the ocean from trenches near the reactor buildings. Engineers have struggled to contain the toxic water, which is not only entering the sea but also flowing into critical buildings as it mixes with groundwater. So far, Tepco has tried to pump out that toxic water and store it in massive gray tanks on the outskirts of the facility. But one of those hastily built tanks has already sprung a leak. Others still might, regulators say. Japan’s government pledged Tuesday to spent nearly $500 million to contain the toxic water problem, in part by freezing soil around the reactors. Engineers would pump a coolant through pipes, creating a seal that prevents groundwater from entering the facility. But analysts say it’s unclear whether such technology, which is costly, can serve as a long-term solution.


Kashmir in turmoil over peace concert featuring Zubin Mehta

Indian workers carry a giant billboard as they work inside Shalimar garden, the venue for a concert by renowned Indian-born orchestra conductor Zubin Mehta, on the outskirts of Srinagar, India, , Sept. 3, 2013. Kashmiri separatists have called for a strike on Sept. 7 to protest against a concert by Mehta in Srinagar, accusing the event of distracting the public away from the problems that Kashmir faces. (Dar Yasin/AP) SRINAGAR, India — As workers rushed one recent day to screw new spigots onto fountains that had been dry for years, two gardeners got into a shouting match, with one throwing down his twig broom and walking away in disgust. Most visitors were frisked at the entrance. Things were worse outside the gates, however. Police and paramilitary forces were ramping up security in advance of the concert featuring internationally renowned conductor Zubin Mehta directing the Bavarian State Orchestra in an open-air performance. More than 1,500 invited guests are expected to sit among the beds of yellow roses and fiery salvia to hear works by Beethoven, Haydn and Tchaikovsky as the sun fades over Dal Lake. But what began as a nice idea by Mehta and some German diplomats to promote peace in this war-scarred region has instead wound up generating more animosity, a sign of the divisions in a land that has been bitterly contested by India and Pakistan since partition in 1947. Indian conductor Zubin Mehta performing during a free concert with Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 25. (SILVINA FRYDLEWSKY/EPA) Until a relative peace settled over the valley in recent years, violence by Muslim extremists and the military was a near-daily occurrence. Tens of thousands of people were killed in an insurgency that began in 1989 and was aimed at expelling India from the portion it controls of Kashmir, a mostly Muslim territory. In recent days, Kashmiri separatist groups have denounced the musical event, saying no concert for peace put on by outsiders should be held until Kashmir is free from India, which is predominantly Hindu. A general strike has been called by one hard-liner. Checkpoints have been set up around the city, and security forces are expected to patrol the lake in boats. “Kashmir is a disputed region under a military occupation,” said Khurram Parvez, who heads the human rights group Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. He was referring to the thousands of Indian


Case in point: Using design thinking

The big idea: The scenario: In 2009, the Danish municipality of Holstelbro realized that its ability to feed the growing number of seniors was faltering. The Hospitable Food Service (HPS), the municipality’s meal preparation and delivery organization, planned to revamp the menu to take advantage of easily prepared foods. Instead, it engaged the design firm Hatch & Bloom to examine options for an overhaul of its program. The resolution: The problems within the service were not as straightforward as the HPS had expected. They did not revolve around efficiency or maximizing the supply chain. The experience needed revamping from the both the employee and customer perspectives. The team set up prototyping workshops to teach employees how to use seasonal items and learn about meals popular decades ago. These new skills and improved relations with customers inspired the transformation from food service employees to restaurant chefs. The “new” chefs produced better-looking, more enticing food with the same ingredients. Over time, the chefs’ pride rose dramatically and customers were eager to engage with them when they delivered the food. The lesson: — Andrew King King is senior researcher at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. The original case was written by King; Kevin Bennett, a manager at Personal; and Jeanne Liedtka, a Darden business professor. Related: Looking for a previous Case in Point? Visit our archives.


Wall Street joins the peer-to-peer loan party

running, along with pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and family offices desperate for higher yields at a time when 10-year U.S. Treasurys generate less than 3 percent. They’ve offered to take over all of the loans the peer-to-peer lenders can gather in. The outside investors are now bundling the small loans into much larger pools so they can be more easily sold to big institutions. LendingClub runs a subsidiary called LC Advisors, which sells funds made up of LendingClub loans to high-net-worth individuals. LendingClub is also working with a Massachusetts-based investment firm called Arcadia, which has proposed to up the ante by applying leverage — that is, take bank loans to fund more loan purchases. “This is without doubt an emerging asset class,” says Andrew Hallowell, an Arcadia founder. Peer-to-peer loans can be high-risk. When they were first introduced, default rates topped 17 percent. The loans remain unrated because the asset class is still too new for Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s to take notice. “The big problem is the whole issue of credit risk,” says Bert Ely, a banking consultant in Alexandria. “To the extent the person putting up the money is relying on someone else to do the screening, you have to ask whether this is an appropriate investment for some.” Peer-to-peer lenders issue their loans through Salt Lake City-based WebBank. They’re regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although LendingClub and Prosper recruit borrowers in more than 40 states, in at least 20 of them lender-investors are not allowed to be part of the process. “If you are going to be a lender in this state, you have to be licensed,” says Ed Novak, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. That rule, he says, applies to banks and individuals. By 2016, peer-to-peer lenders in the nation will be originating $20 billion in loans annually, according to Jason Jones, an organizer of the LendIt conference and partner at Disruption Credit, an investment firm focused on online lending. That doesn’t include online loan programs not available to retail investors, led by Social Finance, or SoFi, which may hand out as much as $1 billion in education loans this year. CommonBond is also in the student loan business, while IOU Financial lends online to small businesses. David Schuette, a 50-year-old network engineer in Lakewood, Colo., took out a $10,000 LendingClub loan this year to


Review: ‘The Sports Gene,’ on the science of athletic performance, by David Epstein

against Finch, he had no database. He was “stripped of his crystal ball.” So he whiffed. In his fascinating book “The Sports Gene,” David Epstein — a senior writer for Sports Illustrated and a former college runner — comes to a compelling if not surprising conclusion: Nature and nurture are both essential ingredients for athletic achievement. “The truth is, even at the most basic level, it’s always a hardware and software story,” he writes. “Sport skill acquisition does not happen without both specific genes and a specific environment, and often the genes and the environment must coincide at a specific time.” Of course, software and environment can cover many factors — fair and unfair. Distance runners know, for example, that there’s a “sweet spot,” between 6,000 and 9,000 feet, “where the air is thin but not too thin.” Training at that altitude increases lung capacity in a legitimate way. But others, from cyclists to baseball players, have tried to enhance their “software” through drugs, not dedication, and policing those cheaters is a major problem for many sports. See Armstrong, Lance, and Rodriguez, Alex. Many researchers and writers are reluctant to tackle genetic issues because they fear the quicksand of racial and ethnic stereotyping. To his credit, Epstein does not flinch. He reviews the best scientific studies and reports that, on average, black athletes run faster and jump higher than white ones. But that’s not because of skin color. It’s because they are descended from tribes living in low, hot, dry climates. And over countless generations of natural selection, those Africans reproduced traits well adapted to their environment: long legs, short torsos, narrow pelvic bones. The same qualities also happen to make excellent power forwards and wide receivers. (Short-limbed Europeans and Asians, by the way, are better at weightlifting and gymnastics.) “So this is not strictly about ethnicity so much as geography,” Epstein writes. “Or latitude and climate to be more precise.” Many other factors mix with genetic propensities, but they are much harder to measure. One small region of Jamaica has produced “an extravagant number of the world’s top sprinters.” Many are descendants of escaped slaves from Africa who created a fierce warrior culture in a remote corner of the island. Nature or nurture? Obviously both. According to one researcher, Yannis Pitsilades, this is what happened. The “genetic stock” of those Jamaican sprinters started with the “strong people” seized and


Tokyo will host 2020 Summer Olympics, beating out Istanbul and Madrid

The Japanese capital beats out Madrid and Istanbul for the honor of hosting the international athletic spectacle. TOKYO — The Japanese capital easily beat out Istanbul and Madrid in an International Olympic Committee vote, having portrayed itself as the safer choice amid turmoil in the Middle East and runaway unemployment in parts of Europe. After two rounds of voting at a hotel ballroom in Buenos Aires, IOC President Jacques Rogge walked to a podium and opened a white envelope. His announcement — “Tokyo” — was drowned out by a howl of celebration when it was broadcast live to a city of partiers. “Tokyo!” several thousand chanted at an outdoor viewing party as gold tinsel rained down. “Tokyo!” hoarse twentysomethings screamed as they stumbled out of bars and toward the subway. Tokyo has hosted international events before, including the Olympics in 1964 and the World Cup — co-hosted with South Korea — in 2002. But this latest milestone comes at a particularly critical time as Japan’s population grays and shrinks and its younger generations grow more pessimistic and withdrawn. “These Games can be a turning point for Japan,” venture capitalist Yoshito Hori said at one early-morning viewing party, an Olympics-logo towel draped around his neck. “As a nation, we tend to underestimate ourselves — and we’ve lost confidence. This can be a chance to regain it.” Tokyo defeated Istanbul in the final vote by a 60-36 margin after Madrid was eliminated in the first round. Turkey’s largest city has never hosted an international sporting event of such magnitude — no World Cups, no Olympics — but was pursuing the Olympics for the fifth consecutive time. Organizers hoped to bring the Games to a Muslim-majority nation for the first time. The bid could have been hindered, in the minds of some of the IOC members, by the current strife in Syria, which borders Turkey to the south. Istanbul’s bid survived Saturday’s first round of voting, which eliminated Madrid. The Spanish city was bidding for the third straight time and pitched itself as the most prepared of the three cities to host the 2020 Games, with most of its infrastructure already in place. But Europe will have hosted two recent Olympics — the 2012 Summer Games in London and February’s Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Tokyo is one of the world’s most dense megacities and certainly its tidiest, famous for its neon signs,


Slowing the decline in the size of the labor force

THERE WASN’T much good news in Friday’s monthly labor market report from the U.S. government. Even what seems encouraging — a continuation in August of the slow downward trend in the unemployment rate, to 7.3 percent — actually gets worrying on close inspection. This superficially positive figure reflects the fact that the number of people 16 years old or older seeking work fell by 312,000, while the nation’s employers only hired 169,000 full- or part-time workers. That means only 63.2 percent of the working age population is considered to be in the labor force, the lowest percentage in 35 years. The shrinkage of the U.S. labor force reflects the U.S. economy’s current weakness — and threatens to perpetuate it. A waning labor force may decrease the country’s potential for growth over the long term; it raises the ratio of dependents (children, retirees) to active producers. Declining labor force participation is often attributed to an increase in “discouraged workers,” those so frustrated by the lack of jobs that they quit hunting for one altogether. But a May 2013 report by David Kelly and Brandon D. Odenath of JP Morgan Asset Management argues that, “discouraged workers” are a tiny and, since unemployment peaked at 10 percent in October 2009, a declining share of the population. More important are long-term demographics. The post-1960 surge of women into the labor force, which drove the participation rate to a peak of 67.3 percent in 2000, has crested. Meanwhile, the population is getting older, and thus more susceptible to early retirement, disability and other changes that lead to labor-force exit. According to Kelly and Odenath, there would be 4.2 million more people in the labor force if we still had the participation rate of October 2009 — and aging explains 57 percent of this “missing” cohort. Government can’t do much about demography (though sensible immigration policy would help). But it could do more to encourage work — beyond the obvious need for sound, pro-growth fiscal and monetary policies. Two areas cry out for reform. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is a necessary safety net for most of its recipients; but because of a combination of financial benefits and malleable eligiblity standards, it creates a perverse incentive to quit work for some. About 11 percent of labor force shortfall since October 2009 is due to workers going on SSDI, Kelly and Odenath argue. The current system of


Giant digital camera probes cosmic ‘dark energy,’ the universe’s deepest mystery

Now, after years of planning and construction, four new projects at telescopes in Chile, Hawaii and the South Pole are getting a handle on what, exactly, is doing this unseemly pushing. Leading the way is the world’s most powerful digital camera, constructed at Fermilab, the Energy Department facility in Illinois. The $50 million Dark Energy Camera took a decade to plan and build, and it sports a resolution of 570 megapixels — about a hundredfold more pixels than a smartphone camera. Technicians installed it atop a telescope in Chile last year, and after initial jitters — the camera was so heavy it made the telescope jiggle — the camera has been “tested, tweaked and fine-tuned,” said Joshua Frieman, the Fermilab scientist leading the project, which has enlisted 120 scientists from 23 countries. On Aug. 31, the big camera began snapping its way across a huge swath of the southern sky. Each click captures light from nearly 100,000 distant galaxies. Over the next five years, the project, called the Dark Energy Survey, will catalog some 300 million galaxies and thousands of exploding stars flung across distant space and time, in what Frieman called “the biggest galactic survey yet.” Every night, scientists will beam 400 gigabytes of camera data to a supercomputing center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where machines will build a giant time-lapse map of the universe going back some 8 billion years — or more than half way to the Big Bang that started it all. Frieman calls it “a movie of cosmic history.” Scrutinizing this movie will narrow down the possibilities for what’s causing cosmic acceleration. Because this acceleration can’t be measured directly, its nature can only be divined indirectly, by measuring, for instance, how clumps of galaxies coalesce across space and time. One possibility: Our understanding of gravity, explained by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, breaks down across huge distances. The theory marked the culmination of Einstein’s hardest thinking, and since its inception in 1916 it has withstood every test thrown at it. But general relativity may be incomplete. Another possibility: A mysterious repulsive force permeates every point in the universe. This dark energy, if revealed, would be instant Nobel Prize fodder, Kamionkowski said. “This is the one a lot of people would bet on,” said David Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton University. “It’s where I’d put most of my money.” Beyond these two possibilities,


Wrestling, IOC make right moves in getting sport back on 2020 Olympics program

as president of FILA, the sport’s international governing body. Nenad Lalovic of Serbia was named acting president, and the sport immediately turned its attention to problems with its rules, gender equity and the internal workings of FILA. On May 18, FILA met in Moscow to vote on the changes, and Lalovic was elected president, losing the “acting” from his title. Eleven days later, the IOC trimmed its list of eight possible sports for 2020 to three — and wrestling made the cut. The timing was no coincidence. Baseball-softball and squash also made it to Sunday’s final vote. The pairing of baseball and softball is not advantageous to softball, but that sport has not spread as far or as fast as organizers hoped when it was added to the Games. It’s a loss for U.S. fans, because the American team was always good and fun to watch. Wrestling got 49 votes; the baseball-softball bid got 24 and squash got 22. Karate, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu were on the original list of eight possible inclusions, and the idea that this was wrestling’s competition was pretty sad, but indicative of the problems the IOC perceived in the running of the international body and the rules of the sport. FILA changed some of its inner workings. It added two weight classes for women in time for the 2016 Games. And it adopted new rules that will make the action more aggressive. There will be less stalling and more scoring, and the winner will be decided on total points, not the best two-of-three periods. Stalling will be penalized. Offensive takedowns will earn two points. The matches will be faster and more exciting. Wrestling needed that. The sport had changed quite a bit since 708 B.C. but not so much since 1896 — at least not enough. The world is more fast-paced, and the Olympics are trying to keep up. Even creaky sports like modern pentathlon — which I love, by the way — have avoided the chopping block by shortening their formats and creating more action. The Committee for the Preservation of Olympic Wrestling moved quickly and boldly to improve the sport, at least by the standards of the IOC, and while the changes may not seem great to purists, the fact is wrestling needs the Olympics more than the Olympics needs wrestling. Sadly, the sport is still on trial; wrestling will


New at the top: Michael J. Pritchard named COO at Prototype Productions Inc.

to project with very little disruption because I was very comfortable taking on whatever role I needed to. When we conducted in-depth studies on political violence in South Africa, without training I was able to contribute significantly to the projects. Through an acquisition, I had the opportunity to support a space-based telescope that takes pictures of our universe, called the Hubble Space Telescope. That gave me an incredible opportunity to learn critical program skills in a highly complex and demanding environment. I managed my first team of 12 test engineers and supported human space-flight missions to the telescope. During that time, I also got my masters degree, which was a very important period for me that elevated my career. That is what opened up an opportunity for me to work at Lockheed Martin. When I moved there, I learned a significant amount about cost, schedule and technical operations and supported many engineering efforts. But my career really took off when I joined ARES. This was the first time in my career where I was given time to go out and grow the business on my own. We were part of a major proposal bid. We were confident that we would get it. To our surprise, we lost it. It was a big disappointment for us. But I was determined. So I went out and secured a place for ARES on the winning team, which was Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences. I got a group of engineers to support the contract. I grew a business out of that, and opened an office for ARES in Dulles and grew it to more than 25 people from nothing. That office was a significant contributor to the growth of the company, which was 40 percent year over year. That led me to manage the aerospace, defense and intelligence business unit, and eventually I became a partner in the company. When the opportunity at PPI came about, I saw that it required the ability to run a company that crosses manufacturing and the traditional services market, which is an element I am so excited about. I also really appreciated the leadership’s vision of the company. I am excited to apply my 25 years of industry experience at a company that believes and thrives on the ingenuity of its people. — From an interview with Vanessa Small Michael J. Pritchard Position: Career highlights: Age: Education: Personal:


Wrestling regains spot in Olympics, beating baseball-softball and squash in IOC voting

following the 2008 Beijing Games. Its sales pitch to IOC voters Sunday stressed a worldwide fan base of 200 million, softball’s global growth among girls and women and both sports’ youthful following on digital media. Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig voiced his support in a video but extended no promise of adjusting the MLB calendar to accommodate the Olympics. Squash, which has never been part of the Games, was formally seeking inclusion for a third time. Its defeat, said Kevin Klipstein, chief executive of US Squash, was sure to disappoint its 15 million to 20 million participants worldwide. “Squash overall has made a ton of progress in the last decades,” Klipstein said in a telephone interview. “We have an improved broadcast product in all five continents. Participation has doubled in the last five years. We have parity among women, not only in prize money but in participation. If and when the IOC is looking forward to including a sport that supports their ideals, we should be at the top of the list.” Klipstein called it “a head-scratcher” that the IOC’s process these last months had not resulted in any genuine “addition” to the 2020 Olympics but rather a restoration of a sport. It was a point that Canadian IOC member Dick Pound raised Sunday, as well. Troubled by the proliferation of Olympic sports and skyrocketing cost of staging the Games, the IOC voted in 2002 to cap the number of sports at 28, designating 25 as “core sports” and reserving three spots for sports to be added on a provisional basis. Sunday’s victory doesn’t mean wrestling’s work is done, Lalovic cautioned, noting that the sport must redirect its momentum into a campaign to gain “core sport” status. “Our rightful place in the Olympic family is being a core sport,” Lalovic said. But as wrestling remakes itself for the 21st century, Bender, the USA Wrestling chief, called for careful deliberation. “It’s somewhat of a balance,” Bender said. “Those of us that are in this sport feel pretty passionate about the fact that this is the greatest sport we’ve ever known. We can’t lose sight of what’s right with wrestling and assume it needs a complete reset button.” More coverage: Hamilton: An ancient sport saves itself Photos: Tokyo wins 2020 Summer Games Video: Tokyo reacts with joy Tokyo beats out Istanbul and Madrid for 2020 Olympics Relive the 2012 London Summer Games


World Digest: Afghan officials accuse NATO of civilian deaths

CHINA Dissident Shi Tao is released early China has granted early release from prison to a prominent dissident and journalist who was jailed in 2005 for leaking state secrets abroad after Yahoo was accused of helping authorities identify him, a rights group said Saturday. Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Yahoo defended itself at the time, saying it had to abide by local laws. The group PEN International said late Saturday that Shi had been released 15 months before the end of his sentence. “We welcome news of Shi Tao’s early release, at a time when there seem to be increasingly long shadows over freedom of expression in China,” the group’s Marian Botsford Fraser said in a statement. “Shi Tao’s arrest and imprisonment, because of the actions of Yahoo China, signaled a decade ago the challenges to freedom of expression of Internet surveillance and privacy that we are now dealing with.” It was not immediately clear why Shi had been let out early. — Reuters afghanistan NATO accused of civilian deaths Afghan officials accused NATO of killing civilians in an airstrike that left at least 10 people dead in the country’s remote east, while the Taliban on Sunday carried out a car-bomb and gun attack outside an Afghan intelligence office, killing four soldiers and wounding more than 80 people. Meanwhile, the Afghan government reacted angrily to a comment by a U.S. envoy, who said Afghanistan is experiencing “a civil war.” Aimal Faizi, a government spokesman, said in a rebuke that if James Dobbins’s assertion were true, then the United States had been an actor in a civil war instead of fighting a battle against terrorism. The airstrike and Taliban attack underscored the chronic insecurity in Afghanistan as U.S.-led foreign forces reduce their presence and hand over more responsibilities to Afghan troops. The car bombing occurred in Maidan Shahr, a city in eastern Wardak province just 25 miles from Kabul. Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said that the explosion occurred around 1 p.m. and that many of the wounded were Afghan government employees working in nearby offices. Soldiers guarding the compound killed the militants in the aftermath, he said. Khogyani said four soldiers and five attackers died, in addition to the car bomber. The Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile, conflicting reports emerged about the airstrike in the Watapur district of Konar, a province


Scientists studying solar radiation management as a way to cool planet

“I’m not in favor of doing it today. I’m agnostic about whether we should ever do it,” said Alan Robock, a distinguished professor of environmental sciences at Rutgers University. “We don’t have enough information and, in any case, we don’t have the technology.” But Robock said additional research should be conducted despite concerns that determining the feasibility of such “geoengineering” might encourage a government or wealthy individual to try it, and could lessen efforts to curb greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. “I don’t think you can just ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist, and sometime in the future, when someone becomes scared and wants to do it, they don’t even know whether they can do it,” he said. Mount Pinatubo’s eruption sent an estimated 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide and ash into the stratosphere, where the sulfur dioxide formed sulfate particles that reflected sunlight back into space. Some believe this could be done effectively and at relatively low cost by injecting an aerosol of sulfur dioxide or some other gas into the atmosphere over a period of time, either from aircraft or powerful missiles. Ken Caldeira, a senior investigator for the Carnegie Institution for Science, told a congressional committee in 2009 that such methods are inexpensive, can be deployed quickly, and probably would cool the Earth effectively. He stressed, however, that it is more important to address the root cause of global warming by reducing the production of greenhouse gases. Carnegie will host a panel discussion on the subject Tuesday evening. But Robock, in an interview, said the effort is “not feasible. No technology exists to do solar radiation management. There are no airplanes, or hoses or missiles that exist to get sulfur up into the stratosphere.” A more limited variation of the idea is to spray sea salt into clouds over the ocean, probably from ships, to form more water droplets in the clouds and make them whiter, said Lynn Russell, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, which is part of the University of California at San Diego. The brighter clouds would reflect more sunlight. That method would allow a single region of the Earth to be cooled and, if something went wrong, it could be halted more quickly, Russell said, adding that it would be less effective at cooling the entire planet. A 2010 Government Accountability Office report showed how


107-year-old killed in standoff with Ark. police

Shortly after the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft separated from its Minotaur 5 launch vehicle, its positioning system shut down because of what appeared to be a strong electrical current. Engineers quickly determined that there was no problem with the reaction wheels, which are needed to steer and stabilize the spacecraft. Rather, the glitch involved a fault protection system designed to safeguard the wheels. “The limits that caused the powering off of the wheels soon after activation were disabled, and reaction wheel fault protection has been selectively re-enabled,” NASA wrote in a statement posted on its Web site. Engineers will assess how to manage the fault protection system, said project manager Butler Hine, with NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. LADEE’s main mission is to analyze the thin shell of gases enveloping the lunar surface, a tenuous atmosphere known as an exosphere. It also will look for signs that the lunar dust is rising off the surface. Scientists believe the dust may be the cause of a strange glow on the lunar horizon spotted by the Apollo astronauts and NASA’s 1960s-era Ranger robotic probes. LADEE was the first deep-space probe to fly from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. — Reuters Connecticut 12 children hurt on fair swing ride Authorities say 12 children were injured when a ride at a Connecticut fair suddenly stopped, sending its riders crashing into one another. Norwalk police said a dozen children and one adult were taken to hospitals after the rotating swing ride at the city’s Oyster Festival came to a sudden stop Sunday afternoon. All but one were treated and released. The hospitalized person has non-life-threatening injuries. State police said a mechanical failure caused the ride to stop. They said no riders were ejected from the ride or fell to the ground. The festival’s organizer, the nonprofit Norwalk Seaport Association, said it directed the ride’s operator, Stewart Amusement, to shut down the ride area until a state inspection was completed. The other rides later reopened and the rest of the festival remained open on its third and final day. Stewart Amusement didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment. Its rides are inspected by its staff daily, by state and local inspectors weekly, and by engineers and insurance inspectors annually, the company’s Web site said. — Associated Press Conn. home-invasion killer says he ‘just snapped’: — Associated Press


Extreme weather: More to come?

One of the first questions asked in the wake of such an extreme weather event is: “Is this due to climate change?” In recent years, a brand of research called “climate attribution science” has sprouted from this question, examining the impact of extreme events to determine how much — often in fractional terms — is related to human-induced climate change, and how much to natural variability (whether in climate patterns such as the El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, sea-surface temperatures, changes in incoming solar radiation or a host of other possible factors). In a report published online last week in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tackled this question head-on. The report — the second such annual report — analyzes the findings from about 20 scientific studies of recent extreme weather events that occurred around the world, seeking to parse the relative influence of anthropogenic, or human-influenced, climate change. The overall message of the report: It varies. “About half of the events . . . reveal compelling evidence that human-caused change was a [contributing] factor,” said NOAA National Climatic Data Center Director Thomas Karl at a press conference accompanying the release of the report. In addition, noted climate scientist Peter Stott of the British Met Office, these studies show that in many cases, human influence on climate has increased the risks associated with extreme events. Some highlights from the report: In Union Beach, N.J., debris surrounds the front steps of a home destroyed in Hurricane Sandy last November. (Bloomberg News) December 2011 Conclusion: Total moisture available for this extreme event was up to 5 percent higher as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. September 2012 Conclusion: Global warming was primarily responsible, due equally to the thinning sea ice and warm atmospheric conditions. Summer 2012 Conclusion: A La Niña episode — long associated with wetter-than-normal conditions in Australia — in 2012 likely accounts for most, but not all, of the heavy rainfall. Sea-surface temperatures north of Australia — driven by global warming — could also play a role, increasing the chances of above-average rainfall by as much as 5 percent in the future. Hurricane Sandy Conclusion: The storm coincided with peak high tide in New York Harbor — but future sea-level rise will exacerbate this inundation, making a Sandy-level event more likely, even if the storm itself is less severe. ScienceNow


Federal hiring declines to six-year low point

who have post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions. The delays in treatment have alarmed many lawmakers and advocates for veterans, since these servicemembers are oftenat risk for suicide. Smaller agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hired new medical professionals last year. Sarah Meyer, a 31-year-old pediatrician and medical epidemiologist, was hired after completing a two-year training program researching global polio and meningitis. A native of Peoria, Ill., Meyer had practiced briefly as a pediatrician but realized she wanted to do something broader. Now in Atlanta, where the CDC is based, her research focuses on meningitis and pertussis. “Sometimes I miss seeing patients,” Meyer said. “But I feel like now I’m in the forefront of science that has a greater impact on the health of the country.” After the veterans agency, the Army, Navy and Air Force respectively did the most hiring last year. In the Air Force, with 8.4 percent of the hires, the vast majority replaced departing or retiring employees and were not brought in to fill new positions. Debra Warner, the Air Force’s director of civilian force integration, said the professions most in demand are scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses, medical technicians, security guards, police officers and cybersecurity experts to protect the service’s computer network. “Those are the critical occupations where we’re always trying to stay competitive,” Warner said. States with large military bases or research centers — and large populations — accounted for the largest number of new hires, with Virginia at the top with 10.8 percent, the District next with 9 percent, Texas third with 8 percent and California fourth with 7.1 percent. Other data culled by the partnership shows trends that hold steady from year to year: About 42 percent of new hires have a high school education, 32 percent a college degree and 16 percent an advanced degree. About 70 percent of new hires last year were white, 16 percent black and 5.2 percent Latino or Hispanic and 5 percent Asian. About a third of the new hires are ages 25 to 34, while just 2.2 percent of the newcomers are 60 to 64. See charts on the Federal Eye at washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye. At a glance 86,689 new government employees hired in 2012 44.7% are veterans, the largest number in recent years 3 out of 4 are filling jobs at defense and security-related agencies. 115,341 employees left the federal government last year


Riding an old train 3,000 miles, the millennial generation tries to put America back on track

the Bombardier aircraft company and the Norfolk Southern rail line. He used word of mouth and social media to sell his counterintuitive idea: A patient, retro mode of travel for an over-caffeinated cohort that dwells in an always-on digital cloud. But invoking rail-splitters from America’s Westward-ho era, as well as early industrial expansion, made sense. It reinforced his “new pioneers” theme and offered an intriguing anachronism: Who travels 3,000 miles by train nowadays? “Train travel is an incomparable way to experience our country,” Dowd said to a small group gathered on a punishingly humid evening last month in Georgetown. He spoke at a salon — yes, they still exist — at the august Evermay estate, owned by the wealthy Japanese scientist-inventors Sachiko Kuno and Ryuji Ueno. Their nonprofit foundation is among the train’s backers. Through a salon series called “Illuminate,” they aim to encourage forward-thinkers and give confidence to budding business leaders such as Dowd. He clearly has pep and moxie: He could have fit into those jittery old newsreels he stitches into his train promos. But Dowd also has New Agey, guru-like traits. Your belief flows from his belief. “Where does faith come from?” he asked his listeners, referencing the faith to pursue an idea. “A lot of good opportunities have already been set into motion. . . . There are things whose time will have come, but in a moment. And you need to sometimes just have faith that what the situation is today is not going be what the situation is tomorrow because the whole mechanics of the universe are just shifting all the time.” Okay, then. Afterward at a coffee-and-cookie reception, Dowd told me, “I think of this project as a campaign that is not trying to elect anyone.” A whistle-stop-style train pulling into Washington with no candidate on board was perfect symbolism, he said. It was impressive at first and then slightly confusing. But I ended the evening thinking: Here is a young man who is Onto Something. He might not save America, but at least he’s trying instead of tweeting drunken #YOLO pictures. The millennial riders didn’t have A typical day included “Idea Mornings” with local entrepreneurs and civic leaders at stops along the way; onboard mentoring with noted professionals; and six hours of free time for participants to spread and sharpen their ideas in meetings with business and community leaders. Travis Korte, who


Spacecraft launched from Wallops orbits Earth in preparation for moon mission

The spacecraft that was launched Friday night from Virginia is now thousands and thousands of miles away, NASA said Monday night. It is orbiting the Earth, in preparation for its mission of orbiting the moon. The robotic craft was sent on its mission of scientific exploration at 11:27 p.m. Friday from the space flight facility at Wallops Island. It was lifted by a rocket that left a trail of fire across the night sky, to be seen all over the East Coast. Known as LADEE, for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, the spacecraft is now in an elliptical orbit around the Earth, about 160,000 miles up, NASA said. It is going through the systems checkout phase, said Butler Hine, NASA’s LADEE project manager. The LADEE mission is run by NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. “Everything looks good so far,” Hine said by e-mail. At 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, the spacecraft will reach the farthest point from Earth on its current orbit. On Friday at 12:38 p.m., it will make its closest approach, Hine said. At that point, it will fire its on-board propulsion system to lift itself into another elliptical orbit. According to plans, it will orbit the Earth three times, then be captured by lunar gravity and eventually make its way into an orbit around the moon. The science missions to be performed there include studies of lunar dust, of conditions near the lunar surface and of the moon’s atmosphere. The moon does have an atmosphere, although it is far thinner than the Earth’s, NASA said. It is of interest in space exploration, NASA said, because similar atmospheres might be found elsewhere in the solar system. LADEE will determine its composition by using a spectrometer to analyze visible and ultraviolet light waves generated by its atoms.


FDA announces new labeling rules for opioid painkillers, including oxycodone

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced that it will require starker warning labels on OxyContin and certain other narcotic painkillers, known as opioids, as part of an effort to combat the rampant addiction and misuse that lead to thousands of deaths each year. The agency said the labeling changes would apply to all extended-release and long-acting opioid painkillers. The most widely used of those includes oxycodone, which can be found in OxyContin and similar drugs. “FDA is extremely concerned about the inappropriate use of opioids, which has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and has become a major public health challenge,” FDA commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg told reporters Tuesday. At the same time, she added, “We must also recognize the medical value they have for many patients living with pain. Therefore, the agency must strike a balance between their benefit in treating patients with pain and the risks associated with misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose and death.” Tuesday’s announcement marks the latest chapter in an ongoing, impassioned debate in the public health community about the proper role for opioids. For years, doctors typically prescribed them only to patients in acute pain, such as cancer patients. But over the past decade, in part due to research generated by drug companies and pain specialists downplaying the risks of opioids, the prescription and use of painkillers skyrocketed, as they became a relatively common treatment for everything from back pain to arthritis. With that increase has come an epidemic of addiction to the powerful painkillers, as well as a rise in their illicit use. A 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that about 2 million Americans were hooked on or abusing prescription pain relievers, numbers that eclipsed those for both cocaine or heroin. The balance the agency tried to strike on Tuesday involves requiring new labels stating that the drugs are intended for the management of pain “severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment and for which alternative treatment options are inadequate.” The warnings, which will take effect in coming months, will say that because of the risks of addiction, abuse and misuse — even for patients who use the drug as directed — opioids should be used only for patients for whom other treatments are not sufficient. That approach represents a departure from current labeling, which focuses more on the severity of patients’ pain rather than


India pale lagers, craft beer’s category stragglers

as a style today. Ratebeer.com lumps such beers under the heading “strong pale lager/imperial pils.” Nevertheless, these category straddlers are proliferating. “Everybody had the same idea at the same time,” says Favio Garcia, co-wner of Lost Rhino Brewing in Ashburn. Locally, the District ChopHouse in the District; Devils Backbone in Roseland, Va.; Wild Wolf in Nellysford, Va.; and Rock Bottom Brewery in Bethesda have experimented in making lagers with ale hops. Nationally, Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland, Ore., released its Hopside Down as part of its “Rotator” series of IPAs, and Boston Beer has promoted its Samuel Adams Double Agent IPL to year-round status. International examples include Mikkeller Hop Burn Low from Denmark and Nogne O India Pale Lager from Norway. Lost Rhino’s entry is Megafauna (translation: “large animal”). Twenty-five cents from the sale of every pint, growler and 22-ounce bottle sold in the brewery tasting room will be donated to Save the Rhino International, promises Garcia. The kettle hops for this strong lager (7.5 percent alcohol by volume) are the three “big C” strains — Columbus, Cascade and Centennial — commonly found in American ales, but brewer John Peters dry-hopped the beer with German Hallertau and Saaz. This result is a brew that starts out with a grapefruity tang, then segues into the long, dry, peppery finish that you’d expect to find in a first-rate Pilsener. Megafauna is available on tap in the District and Virginia and in 22-ounce bottles only at the brewery. The partnership of lager yeast and ale hops isn’t an equal one. In Great Lakes Brewing’s Silver & Gold IPL, “the IPA definitely overshadows the lager part,” says Lauren Boveington, the brewer’s District-Northern Virginia sales rep. The Cleveland brewery released the hybrid brew in June to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Brewer Luke Purcell fermented it with the same yeast he uses for Great Lakes’ Dortmunder Gold; the hop bill includes Calypso, a strain that contributes notes of apple, pear and tea. IPLs shouldn’t numb your palate with hops and alcohol the way many imperial IPAs do. Ideally, the clean lager finish should serve as a canvas to show off the subtleties of the hops. Boston Beer adds more than a half-dozen varieties to its Double Agent IPL. The centerpiece, says company chairman Jim Koch, is a relatively new strain called Mosaic, equal parts floral and fruity. Double Agent also contains American Citra (a variety with


Whole-diet CSAs offer food-and-farm connection

of options the CSA provides might or might not be enough to prevent a trip to the grocery store that week. In practice, the whole-diet subscription provides enough food not to eliminate all conventional grocery shopping but to reduce it to a supplement. At a minimum, most subscribers will still buy oils, vinegars, beans, nuts, seeds and some condiments from other sources. “I think if you wanted to eat exclusively from the program, you could,” says Bonnie Deahl of Sterling, who has subscribed to the Moutoux Orchard CSA since it launched three years ago. “But I think that’s veering into homesteading, and making your own ketchup isn’t for everybody.” The inherent limitations of the program — what might be seen as a crash course in strict seasonal eating — have freed Deahl, an avid cook, to push boundaries in the kitchen. “It’s been sort of an adventure and an education process,” she says. Each week, as she wrote on her blog last year, is a mission to find out how long she can go without a trip to the supermarket. The open-shopping format, common among whole-diet programs, provides flexibility not always found in other CSAs. “I didn’t like the limitations of just getting what you get in a box,” Deahl said, referring to the format employed by many vegetable CSAs. (Increasingly, though, vegetable CSAs are offering on-farm and in-town pickups at which subscribers can customize their own share.) On-farm pickups are standard for most whole-diet CSAs, but a significant urban customer base leads some farms to provide in-town deliveries, too. Margaret Evans and Kevin Brown, owners of Groundworks Farm in Pittsville, Md., moved their farm and CSA in Vermont to a plot of land they bought on the Eastern Shore early this year. They quickly acquired subscribers for their various CSA options, including produce, meat and whole-diet plans, but theirs is a geographically diverse membership, scattered throughout the Chesapeake region and the Washington area. Just a handful of people come out to the farm for pickup each Saturday, filling their shares using a point system, cutting flowers and picking their own if something is in abundance. But Groundworks also delivers shares weekly to Annapolis, Alexandria and Arlington, where they set up what amounts to a mobile farm shop. Whole-diet CSAs are designed to be more economical than shopping piecemeal in conventional outlets or through farmers markets, but the prices can


Germany’s Thomas Bach elected IOC president

Thomas Bach was elected president of the International Olympic Committee, succeeding Jacques Rogge. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images) The International Olympic Committee named Thomas Bach of Germany as its ninth president Tuesday, putting the Games in the hands of a former gold medal-winning fencer who was the presumed favorite among six candidates to succeed the outgoing Jacques Rogge. Bach, 59, takes over immediately for Belgium’s Rogge with significant challenges afoot. He will be asked to quell controversy already surrounding next February’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where President Vladimir Putin’s hardline stance against gays and lesbians already has disturbed some athletes and sponsors. Bach then will turn his attention to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where serious questions remain about organizers’ ability to deliver venues on time and provide a safe environment. “We have to work on the sustainability and feasibility of the games, take care of the credibility and integrity of the sports organizations and then give IOC members more possibilities to take part in the decision-making,” Bach said in Buenos Aires. While the election of Bach brought an important end to an active IOC meeting in Buenos Aries — a session in which the committee chose Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Games and voted to retain wrestling as part of the Olympic program — a more significant development for the United States may have come earlier in the day. Larry Probst, the chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, was elected to the IOC in what could be a signal of a thawing of the organization’s relationship with its American members. Probst becomes the fourth American IOC member, joining Anita DeFrantz, Jim Easton and Angela Ruggiero. The election of Probst, who received 71 votes in favor and 20 against, could be an early signal about the IOC’s willingness to consider an American bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The U.S. hasn’t hosted an Olympics, either winter or summer, since 2002 in Salt Lake City, and the most recent bid, Chicago for 2016, was soundly defeated in what was perceived, at the time, as a strong anti-American sentiment from the group. The Japanese capital beats out Madrid and Istanbul for the honor of hosting the international athletic spectacle. Probst, the chairman of the video game maker Electronic Arts Inc., could help boost American influence with the IOC. Washington is one of several U.S. cities that have pledged


Clarabridge receives $80 million investment

technology Clarabridge receives $80 million in equity Clarabridge, a Reston-based technology company that analyzes customer feedback for companies such as Wal-Mart, Marriott, Choice Hotels and PetSmart, has received an $80 million investment, one of the largest equity infusions in the Washington area this year. The investment, announced Tuesday, follows another significant investment a few months ago in a Washington area technology company: In June, Goldman Sachs invested $100 million in Ballston-based Advanced Predictive Technologies. It is the fourth fundraiser for Clarabridge, which was launched in 2006 by chief executive Sid Banerjee, one of the founders of MicroStrategy and a familiar presence on the Washington technology scene. Clarabridge employs about 170 people worldwide, including 140 at its headquarters in Reston. The company has an office in London. The $80 million came from Summit Partners, General Catalyst Partners and investor/entrepreneur Yuchun Lee. — Thomas Heath Also in Business ●The Canadian and Ontario governments sold nearly a quarter of their General Motors stock, which they acquired in 2009 when they helped the U.S. government bail out the automaker. The Canadian government said the 30 million shares were sold at the closing market price minus a small discount. GM shares closed at $37, putting the value of the stake at about $1.11 billion. ●Volkswagen would become a “laughingstock” if it goes through with a deal to have the United Auto Workers union represent workers at its Tennessee plant, Sen. Bob Corker said Tuesday. The Tennessee Republican told the Associated Press in a telephone interview that he was dismayed when VW sent a letter to employees last week regarding its discussion with the UAW about creating a German-style works council at the Chattanooga plant. ●Fresh & Easy, the neighborhood-style grocery chain owned by Tesco, said Tuesday that it had been sold to Yucaipa. The sale could leave up to 50 stores in the three states where Fresh & Easy operates — California, Arizona and Nevada — ownerless, forcing them to close. Yucaipa is run by billionaire Ron Burkle, who has snatched up floundering grocery stores across the country. ●Job openings fell 180,000 in July to 3.7 million, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That’s down from 3.9 million the previous month, which was revised lower. Overall hiring increased to 4.4 million, up from 4.3 million in June and 4.17 million a year ago. Layoffs dropped to 1.5 million, the lowest level on records dating back to


Planting for pollinators

Sharon Metcalf shows a monarch caterpillar on the underside of a swamp milkweed leaf in her butterfly garden in Bethesda. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) Consider planting a fe w host plants for butterfly caterpillars: Milkweeds Milkweeds are essential for supporting monarch butterflies. ●Swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, is a perennial that grows to about four feet, likes damp conditions, and blooms for much of the summer. ●Butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, is a prettier perennial, shorter and with bright orange flowers that appear in the late spring. ●Bloodflower, A. curassavica, is a particularly attractive milkweed, with orange and red flowers. It is not hardy in Washington but can be grown as an annual. Research has shown that most monarch larvae feed on the common milkweed A. syriaca. This is an upright, somewhat stiff, large-leafed perennial with pink blooms — considered a weed by some but good for wilder parts of the garden. It spreads by runners and should be planted where it will be allowed to wander. Many common trees and shrubs provide food for other butterfly larvae, including oaks, elms, ashes, hornbeams, tulip poplars, willows, cherry trees, redbuds and viburnums. Some lesser-used native trees and shrubs feed desirable larvae. Check the plant’s mature size before deciding where or whether to plant. Trees and shrubs ●Paw paw (zebra swallowtail) ●Hackberry and sugarberry (hackberry butterfly, snout butterfly, mourning cloak, question mark butterfly) ●Shadbush (tiger swallowtail) ●Spicebush (spicebush swallowtail) ●New Jersey tea (blues) ●Hawthorn (swallowtails, red-spotted purple) Herbs ●Parsley, rue, fennel and dill (black swallowtail) ●Nettles: wild stinging nettle or its ornamental stingless relative, Boehmeria (red admirals, commas, question mark and painted lady). ●Hop vine (red admiral, mourning cloak) Perennials ●Clover (blues) ●Penstemon (buckeyes) ●Violets (fritillaries) ●Asters (crescents) ●Baptisia (skippers and sulfurs) ●Lespedeza (blues, hairstreaks) The following trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals provide a rich source of nectar and pollen for butterflies and bees. Spring Maple ●Mahonia ●Flowering quince ●Redbud ●Cherry and apricot ●Apple and crabapple ●Hawthorn ●Viburnum●Sourwood●American holly ●Tulip trees ●Rugosa rose ●Azalea ●Lilac ●Wisteria ●Hellebores●Catmint ●Clover ●Creeping phlox ●Lamium Summer Lavender ●Liatris ●Rudbeckia ● Coneflower ●Garden phlox ● Buddleia ●Dahlia ●Verbena ●Joe-pye weed ●Cucumbers and squash ● Sunflower ● Zinnia ●Pentas ●Tithonia ●Lantana ● Borage ● Cosmos ●Hyssop●Summersweet ●Buttonbush ● Russian sage ●Mountain mint ●Boneset Fall Buddleia ●Zinnia ●Tithonia ●Aster ●Caryopteris ●Cosmos ●Lantana ●Ironweed ●Goldenrod ●Abelia ●Lespedeza ●Mexican bush sage ●Sedum


Montgomery County Animal Watch

This was among cases received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5054. That number provides recorded information on topics such as the Montgomery County Animal Shelter hours and location, adoption and licensing procedures, rabies clinics and low-cost neutering. Two dogs attack woman pushing grandson in stroller Doggie pool party canceled on flu fears: Montgomery County Humane Society seeks board members for the 2014-15 term. Interested applicants with experience in fundraising, capital campaigns, finance and governance should submit a letter of interest and résumé by Sept. 20 to Lisa Corbett, Montgomery County Humane Society, 14645 Rothgeb Dr., Rockville. 240-773-5973, www.mchumane.org or lcorbett@mchumane.org. The Partnership for Animal Welfare Shelter has adoptable cats: Cats and kittens will be available for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County’s no-kill shelter at the following locations. For information, visit www.awlmc.org or call 301-740-2511. Gaithersburg Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Montgomery County Humane Society Bethesda Olney Silver Spring — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Tips on beekeeping

A western bumble bee, Bombus occidentalis, is seen in this undated U.S. Department of Agriculture photo. (Reuters) Here are some thoughts from a beekeeper (me) on beekeeping. Beekeeping is a somewhat demanding hobby. The bees must be checked regularly to see that the colony is thriving and making honey. The enterprise also requires some money — the cost of hives, frames, equipment, a bee suit and the bees themselves can add up to several hundred dollars. But to be invited into their world is richly rewarding, even if the price is also a sting or two. My favorite book on beekeeping is “The Beekeepers Handbook,” by Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile. Local beekeeping clubs hold courses for beginners in late winter and early spring. This is in advance of the time you start a new colony. Registration is typically in December, though it may be earlier: Contact course registrants early because classes fill up quickly. Here are some links to local clubs: ●DC Beekeepers Alliance: www.dcbeekeepers.org ●Beekeepers Association of Northern Virginia: www.beekeepersnova.org ●Prince William Regional Beekeepers Association: www.pwrbeekeepers.com ●Loudoun Beekeepers Association: www.loudounbee.org ●Montgomery County Beekeepers: www.montgomerycountybeekeepers.com ●The Bowie-Upper Marlboro Beekeepers Association: www.bumbabees.com ●Howard County Beekeepers: www.howardcountybeekeepers.org ●Anne Arundel Beekeepers Association: aabees.org Laws governing beekeeping vary by jurisdiction. They dictate such matters as lot size, hive numbers and locations and other requirements. In Fairfax County, for ex — Adrian Higgins


Creating a haven for butterflies and bees

Sharon Metcalf relaxes in her Bethesda townhouse garden that she reworked as a habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) If you plan to renovate or rework parts of your yard this fall, your plan should include your hardest-working partners in the garden, the insect pollinators. They are not only industrious, fascinating and beautiful, they are up against it. Bees and butterflies are imperiled by habitat loss and pesticide use. Gardeners, collectively, can throw them a lifeline. “Basically, we have to convince the gardeners of this country to convert their gardens in some manner for pollinators,” said Chip Taylor, a scientist and educator who founded Monarch Watch to raise awareness of the plight of this wondrous insect. Successive generations of monarch make an annual journey from Mexico to Canada and back, but the butterfly is losing ground. Taylor, who is a professor of ecology at the University of Kansas , says that in the United States as much as 6,000 acres of open land is lost each day to development, territory that the butterfly relies on to feed and reproduce. In addition, he says, the widespread planting of genetically modified crops has allowed farmers to more effectively kill milkweed, the plant that monarchs need as caterpillars. In March, conservation groups reported the smallest overwintering population of monarchs since their colonies were discovered in Mexico by scientists in 1975. Taylor said he has so far persuaded about 7,000 gardeners to establish “waystations” for the monarchs. But with the loss of almost 200 million acres of monarch habitat over the past 20 years, he would like to see 7 million gardeners come to their rescue. Mace Vaughan, pollinator program director for the Providing nectar plants for monarchs, of course, will help other butterfly species. Other pollinators — notably honeybees and bumblebees — are facing problems of their own. Here, too, the gardener can make a difference by installing plants rich in nectar and pollen and by using pesticides carefully, if at all. Monarchs Sharon Metcalf lives in a cul-de-sac of townhouses in Bethesda, backing up to a grassy hillside and public woodland. She decided she would come to the aid of the monarch after watching the Imax film, “Flight of the Butterflies,” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. She planted a bank of swamp milkweed across the hillside and then converted her little patch of lawn,


Washington Post food event calendar

SEPT. 12 BEER DINNER: COOKING DEMONSTRATION: VIEWING PARTY: WINE CLASS: WINE DINNER: SEPT. 14 MARKET CHEF DEMONSTRATION: CIDER FESTIVAL: COOKING CLASS: SCOTCH AND OYSTER TASTING: UKRAINIAN FESTIVAL: VIRGINIA WINE FESTIVAL: WINE TASTING: SEPT. 15 DINNER IN THE GARDEN: DOCUMENTARY SCREENING: NO KID HUNGRY: SEPT. 16 WINE TASTING: SEPT. 17 BOOK TALK: SEPT. 18 DUCK, DUCK, GREY GOOSE: SEPT. 19 BEER TASTING AND DINNER: — Becky Krystal SEND NOTICES to: To Do, Food, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or e-mail food@washpost.com, 14 days in advance. To find more calendar items, go to www.washingtonpost.com/gog/dc-events.html and click on "Food Events."


Car bomb hits Libyan Foreign Ministry building in Benghazi

TRIPOLI, Libya — The early-morning blast, also on the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, caused no serious casualties, al though several passersby were slightly wounded, authorities said. No group immediately claimed responsibility. However, the bombing targeted a building that once housed the U.S. Consulate during the rule of King Idris, whom former Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi overthrew in a bloodless coup in 1969. The Foreign Ministry used the building to provide government services to Libyans and foreigners in the eastern region, which is hundreds of miles from the capital, Tripoli. The explosion came a day after authorities found and defused another bomb next to the Foreign Ministry in Tripoli, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said. Speaking to journalists hours after the explosion, Zeidan pledged that the government would track down those responsible and “cut off their hands.” “There is a force that wants no state and to turn Libya to a battlefield of terrorism and explosions,” he said. Gaddafi was killed after eight-month uprising that descended into a civil war in 2011. Since then, successive Libyan interim governments have failed to impose law and order. The country continues to be held hostage by unruly militia forces initially formed to fight Gaddafi. The militias, which have huge stockpiles of sophisticated weaponry, now threaten Libya’s nascent democracy. Zeidan acknowledged the challenge Wednesday, saying that “the security situation is tough.” On Sept. 11, 2012, al-Qaeda-linked militants stormed the U.S. mission in Benghazi and a nearby building, killing U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The attack sparked a wave of criticism of President Obama and his administration for its handling of the attack and its aftermath. The administration closed 19 diplomatic posts across the Muslim world for almost a week last month out of caution over a possible al-Qaeda strike, a move seen as a response to the Benghazi criticism. On Aug. 9, Obama told reporters that the United States was committed to capturing those who carried out the deadly assault and said his government has a sealed indictment naming some people suspected of involvement. — Associated Press


Vegan restaurateur’s truck aims to make Prince George’s ‘food desert’ a little healthier

This is good. I just finished beating cancer for my kidney. And I need to eat good food.” Over the next two hours, a stream of people approach the truck in Capitol Heights, one of the areas the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared a food desert earlier this summer. Some describe their battles with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gout, heart disease and other ailments that can be related to diet. But not everyone owns a car or lives within walking distance of a grocery store — which is how the USDA determines who resides in a food desert. “We define food deserts as areas that are low-income and low-access” to healthful foods, says Michele Ver Ploeg, economist for the USDA’s Economic Research Service. “Low access depends on the distance to the nearest supermarket or large grocery store and how many households do not have a vehicle and are at least half a mile from a supermarket or large grocery store.” About 5.7 million U.S. households live a half-mile or more from a supermarket and do not have access to a vehicle. But whether that actually affects people’s weight and health is a matter of debate. Last year a Rand Corp. study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found no link between the kind of food available near the homes of 13,000 children in California and whether they were overweight. The idea that supermarkets prevent obesity — a centerpiece of the “food desert” narrative — is “wishful” thinking, says the author of the study, Roland Sturm, senior economist and professor of policy analysis at the Pardee Rand Graduate School. “Supermarkets are extremely good at providing soft drinks, candy, cookies at low prices,” Sturm says. “Fundamentally, having supermarkets nearby isn’t going to make you thin. ” The government, however, still analyzes which communities have limited access to grocery stores. In July, the USDA identified 10 food deserts in Prince George’s County, one of the country’s most affluent majority-black jurisdictions. Parts of Berwyn Heights, College Park, Landover Hills, Seat Pleasant, New Carrollton, Capitol Heights, District Heights, Temple Hills and Forest Heights qualified. Elsewhere in the region, food deserts also exist in some parts of Northeast and Southeast Washington, some sections of Lorton and Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, parts of Washington Grove in Montgomery County, and sections of Dale City in Prince William County. In Prince George’s, county officials say


Four shot, one fatally, off New York Avenue in Northwest D.C.

A dispute at an outdoor dice game may have prompted a man to open fire on other players Wednesday night, killing one and wounding three in an alley near the Sursum Corda neighborhood in Northwest Washington, according to police and a neighborhood representative. Police said the game is one motive they are exploring, but cautioned that the investigation is in its early stages. Authorities said it was not clear whether the shooting stemmed from an internal dispute or if a gunman targeted people involved in the game. The shooting occurred minutes before midnight near First and Pierce streets, behind a Boys & Girls Club in an area known for drug dealing and violence. Delonta Hendrix, 32, of Northwest Washington, was killed in the shooting. The other victims, all men in their early 20s, were recovering from wounds to their legs and lower bodies at area hospitals, according to police. Alvin O. Judd Sr., a member of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6E and a community resident for 53 years, said he was home when he heard eight to 10 gunshots. He said he knows some of the victims and that he’d been talking to many people in the neighborhood who said the victims were playing dice. “They were gambling last night before all the shooting started,” Judd said. “And when they gamble, something always happens. I think some of the guys had words with another guy and it turned into a shootout.” The shooting occurred two blocks from Tyler House, a low-income apartment complex where 13 people were wounded in a mass shooting in March linked to a dispute between neighborhood crews. Police have made arrests in that case. In June, two people were shot in the 1100 block of First Place, near the site of Wednesday’s shooting. One of the two victims in the June shooting, 26-year-old Andre Wilson of Northwest, was killed. Judd said that each of those shootings appears to be an isolated incident. The Wednesday shooting occurred just outside Sursum Corda, on a street lined with townhouses and the Walker-Jones Education Campus. Police extended the crime scene into a courtyard and playground in Sursum Corda. The neighborhood is on the edge of a community now dubbed NoMa, short for “north of Massachusetts Avenue,” filled with recently built expensive apartments, high-end shops and businesses. There is new construction near the shooting scene as well, mostly new residential townhouses.


Where and when Wal-Mart will open in D.C.

What will the new Wal-Mart in your neighborhood look like? Browse through renderings of the planned D.C. stores. With Mayor Vincent Gray’s decision to veto legislation that would have required Wal-Mart to pay its workers in the District well above the minimum wage, the retailer is moving ahead with plans to open at least five stores in the city. Three stores are under construction already and two others are in advanced stages of planning. Wal-Mart still wants to open a store at the corner of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road in Northeast D.C., but a developer’s plan to build a shopping center there has fallen apart. Barring an overturn of the mayor’s veto by the council, here is where and when the D.C. Wal-Mart stores would open, along with some details about what the new stores would offer: •Georgia Avenue Location Status Store specs Offerings Developer • 77 H Location Status Store specs Offerings Developer • Fort Totten Square Location Status Store specs Offerings Developer • Capitol Gateway Marketplace Location Status Store specs Offerings Developer • Skyland Town Center Location Status Store specs Offerings Developer • New York Avenue Location Status Store size Developer Offerings Follow Jonathan O’Connell on Twitter: @oconnellpostbiz


Oktoberfest 2013: D.C. events bring beer, pork and polka to a beer garden near you

Melissa Rife and the Alt Washingtonia dance group perform at Biergarten Haus. The H Street NE beer garden will feature music on weekends from Sept. 21 through the end of October. (Evy Mages/For the Washington Post) Oktoberfest is the perfect way to transition from summer to fall. It’s all about enjoying the crispness of the air while spending time outside with friends, whether you’re clanking steins of beer, eating unhealthful amounts of pork products or dancing to a peppy accordion. We’ll have plenty of chances to savor beer, food and music over the next few weeks. Here’s a guide to the best the Washington area has to offer; you can find more celebrations, including family-friendly festivals, at goingoutguide.com. Weekend of Sept. 20-22 Biergarten Haus The District’s largest German-style beer garden kicks off its Oktoberfest celebrations Sept. 21, the same day the festival in Munich gets underway. Take your pick of nine draft Oktoberfest beers from Germany, served in giant one-liter masskrug mugs, while partaking of an outdoor barbecue and enjoying a German music performance. This date is also penciled in for the debut of Biergarten Haus’s new bar, the Ratskeller, which will open in a converted garage next to the back patio. As fate would have it, that Saturday coincides with the insanely popular H Street Festival, which means you should brace for long lines to get your beer and pork. If you’d rather not fight the crowds for a seat at a table under the chestnut trees or at an upended barrel for two on the rooftop deck, there will be more celebrations — complete with pig roast and live music — every weekend through the end of October. Remember: There’s never a cover during Oktoberfest, but you can make reservations only for groups of 15 or more. Sept. 21 from 11 to 3 a.m. 1355 H St. NE. 202-388-4085. www.biergartenhaus.com. The Old Stein Inn The Old Stein Inn is a survivor. The Edgewater restaurant and pub was almost destroyed by a December 2010 fire, but after $900,000 in renovations, it looks better than ever, just in time for its 30th anniversary. Expect entertainment every weekend through the end of October in the split-level beer garden, including strolling accordion players (Sept. 21 from 5 to 9 p.m.), music with alphorns and cowbells (Sept. 22 from 4 to 8 p.m.), and straight-up polka (Sept. 20 from 6 to 10 p.m.).


An ally of Syria, Iran also bears scars from chemical weapons attacks — by Iraq

Sardasht, the site of some of the worst Iraqi attacks, at least a quarter of the population of 20,000 suffers illnesses related to a 1987 strike. There is no indication that Iran responded by using chemical weapons of its own. Many Iranians, including many veterans, say they would not tolerate it if their government were to use chemical weapons in the future. “Anyone and any country that uses weapons of mass destruction or nuclear or chemical weapons must be punished,” Delshad said. Interviewed by telephone from his home in Shiraz, he is among about 100,000 Iranians who receive government-funded compensation or medical attention for wounds and illnesses resulting from the Iraqi chemical attacks. In his southwestern Iranian city, there are nearly 5,000 people receiving treatment for chemical-related medical conditions Another Iranian victim, Amineh Vahhab-zadeh, said, “I’m ready to protest against chemical weapons use anywhere in the world and by anyone.” Vahhab-zadeh, who was a medic on the front lines for nearly five years during the Iran-Iraq war, suffers respiratory, digestive and skin problems from the chemical weapons attacks. Seyed Hadi Kasaei-zadeh, a reporter for the state-run Mehr News Agency who is also an advocate for Iranians injured by chemical warfare, said the question of who was responsible for the Aug. 21 attacks is essential to answer. “It is important to know who used chemical weapons in Syria, because if it was Assad, which to me seems unlikely, then the Iranian people and our government have to reconsider our support for him,” Kasaei-zadeh said. Kasaei-zadeh has made repeated visits to the affected areas in Sardasht and suffers from skin problems that he says are related to exposure to high levels of toxins in the water supply. “You see many people coughing in Sardasht. Some of them do not have proper resources or enough money to pay for medical care, so they use narcotics for pain relief or become traffickers themselves to get money for treatment,” said Kasaei-zadeh, who thinks authorities are not doing enough to care for those harmed by chemical warfare. Iran’s strong denunciations of chemical weapons come as the United States and its allies continue to assert that the Tehran government is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has said its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes. Kasaei-zadeh and others interviewed say that Iran’s experience with chemical weapons and its Islamic values make it inconceivable that Iran would


Gov. O’Malley appoints commission to oversee Maryland’s medical marijuana program

Maryland moved a step closer to dispensing medical marijuana on Thursday with the appointment of a commission by Gov. Martin O’Malley to oversee the program. O’Malley (D) appointed 11 members to the Medical Marijuana Commission, as called for by legislation approved during this year’s session of the General Assembly. The commission will be chaired by Dr. Paul W. Davies, president of Advanced Pain Management Specialists, a practice with eight locations in Maryland. Maryland’s new law limits distribution of marijuana to a small number of qualified academic medical centers. Under the law, the commission has the authority to permit the centers to design and implement programs that make marijuana available to defined groups of patients. Legislative analysts have said the earliest that a center is likely to begin distribution is 2016. The new commission is scheduled to hold its first meeting in Baltimore on Sept. 24. Supporters of the new law say it is a significant step toward a compassionate treatment option for people with illnesses such as cancer and multiple sclerosis. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar laws. California was the first, adopting its version in 1996.


Krispy Kreme opens first Russia store

stores and elegant restaurants. A nearby McDonald’s dishes out one Big Mac after another to a stream of customers. Dunkin’ Donuts dot the city. “Russians are not opposed to what America produces,” Agababyan said. The store was brought here by Arkady Novikov, a Russian restaurant magnate who specializes in buzz. An original Krispy Kreme doughnut was about $1.60 Thursday. That’s about a third of the price of a small eclair at one of the city’s big coffee house chains. “He’s been wanting to do this for a long time,” said James Phillips, director of international marketing for Krispy Kreme, who was in town from his office in Dubai. “He first ate them about 10 years ago in London, and his children were always after him to bring some back to Moscow.” And so he did. Krispy Kreme has an agreement with Novikov to open 40 stores here over the next five years, Phillips said. Though the doughnuts are thoroughly American, the company tries to adapt to local tastes. A doughnut with caramel, chocolate and nuts was selling nicely Thursday. Eagerness to stand in line was whetted by the promise of doughnuts. While the first customer won doughnuts for a year, the second and third got a sixth-month supply. The next 37 got a free dozen. Sona Arzumanyan had heard rumors a year ago that Krispy Kreme was about to open and had been waiting impatiently ever since. “When it didn’t open,” she said, “I was very sad.” She and her friend Anna Volgina, both 29-year-old lawyers, had become devotees in London, where they had studied. Both had boxes to take home to family. Neither was surprised by the lines. “People like to have something new,” Volgina said. A sign outside offered a reminder of the Krispy Kreme heritage. “Since 1937,” it read. That was the year an entrepreneurial American bought a recipe from a New Orleans French chef and began making doughnuts in Winston-Salem, N.C. In the Soviet Union that year, Joseph Stalin’s terror and purges were at their height, with people being shot night after night in the basement of the Lubyanka. Those horrors are being forgotten. Moscow is a busy, modern city, looking forward rather than back. The young travel and develop cosmopolitan tastes. (“It’s globalization,” Volgina reminded.) And now a new red sign glows on old Nikolskaya as the aroma of doughnuts fills the air. Hot. Now.