17-year cicadas create a buzz in some Va. neighborhoods

said residents in some parts of those states can expect a surge. The cicada tracker Lake Ridge got the bugs early, and their behavior for the past two weeks has been strictly by the book, as entomologists describe it. They poked holes through the warm ground in mid-May, crawled out, shed their husks, crooned love songs and started hooking up. Husks are piled between the roots of a tree outside Lynch’s house, too many to count. Hundreds of cicadas are also stacked there — wings down, legs up, dead. Death comes quickly after they mate, not counting a few prolonged death throes, like a wounded character in a bad movie. Since the day cicadas arrived, most residents on Willowood Drive have been sweeping carcasses off their carports, driveways and porches. They’ve put in urgent calls to an agricultural extension expert, asking how to wash away a dull purple resin — bug juice — that crushed cicadas leave behind. Hot water, liquid soap and tons of elbow grease, they were told. On a hot Thursday afternoon, Lynch, 56, tiptoed down his driveway, careful not to step on the rigid bodies stretching its length. Up walked his neighbor Bob Lozier, 69, a bag of golf clubs hanging from a shoulder, crisp cicada bodies crunching underfoot. “I came out this morning about a quarter to 6,” Lozier said. “On my vehicle there were 40 or 50. My front screen door was covered.” Lozier was bewildered. The cicadas were also all over Bull Run golf course in Haymarket. They’ve been in the neighborhood for two weeks. He thought they would have shut up and died already. Not hardly. These Brood II cicadas, like most of about 12 different broods that emerge every 17 years, hang around for about six weeks, emerging in stages. Cicadas Not that everyone will see cicadas. The brood hopscotches towns, especially where woods became pavement in their 17-year absence. “It’s amazing that some people have them and some people don’t, the gaps between areas,” Lynch said, envious of bug-free communities. Along a 15-mile stretch between Lake Ridge and Manassas, where the Prince William Parkway splits dense woods, cicadas seemingly buzzed the entire length, crashing into windshields, like a basketball thudding on hardwood. Birds snatched them in mid-air. A Lake Ridge resident who wouldn’t give her name said she watched a squirrel pounce on her patio grill. “At first I thought


Music review: Pianist Markus Groh makes Washington recital debut

Pianist Markus Groh can play very, very loudly. If this observation were made about a younger musician, it might be understood as a euphemism for the excesses of youth. But Groh, who appeared at the Terrace Theater as part of the Washington Performing Arts Society’s Hayes piano series Saturday afternoon, is not wild or uncontrolled. He just happens to have the ability to crank up the volume, which makes his playing prone to outbursts, quickly flaring up and just as quickly folding back again into the mix. The blend of urbanity and swiftly damped passion was characteristic of the afternoon and may be a reason why such a supremely competent pianist is not, at least in this country, better known. The Hayes series is designed to showcase up-and-coming pianists, not necessarily young ones. Groh — entitled to be called young at 40 given that the title seems to persist later and later in the classical music field — has already had a considerable career, including a victory at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1995, nearly 20 years ago. He’s acquitted himself well in prior appearances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra, where he jumped in as a late replacement for Nelson Freire in the Brahms second concerto — something not every pianist is capable of doing. So it’s striking that he’s just now making his Washington recital debut. Groh projects an easy physicality: great power loosely kept in check. He’s also a smart player. Indeed, the first half of the program, particularly the Beethoven Op. 101 Sonata, sometimes gave the impression of being overthought. Take the arresting (and loud) opening of Bach’s fourth partita, which started the program with a signal that this was a pianist’s Bach, big and fluid, not early-music Bach. Groh isn’t a player to offer manifestos, though, and once he had staked out his territory, he turned to exploring the intricacies of the music, even thinning out the textures considerably in subsequent movements. The result was a somewhat equivocal performance, every idiosyncrasy tempered by something patently inoffensive. In Op. 101, though he put his stamp on many aspects of the music as he seesawed from one extreme to another, it didn’t necessarily add up to more than surface details. The second half of the program was markedly stronger than the first. It was supposed to open with a short piece by Osvaldo


World Digest: Iranian police detain aides of reformist presidential hopeful

attack or oppress them. In a message addressed “to the American nation,” Qassim al-Rimi, commander of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said, “Your security is not achieved by despoiling other nations’ security or by attacking and oppressing them.” The six-minute audio, subtitled in English and posted on a militant Web site late Saturday, implored Americans to “leave us with our religion, land and nations and mind your own internal affairs.” Rimi said the Boston Marathon bombing in April and the recent mailing of ricin-tainted letters to President Obama and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg “indicate that the control of your security has broken away.” — Associated Press iraq 3 Syrians killed by gunmen on highway Gunmen in Iraq killed three Syrian truck drivers Sunday morning on a main highway linking Baghdad to Syria and Jordan, police officials said. They said the gunmen stopped the trucks near the remote western town of Rutba, then killed the drivers and burned their vehicles. Iraqi security forces are struggling to contain the most relentless round of violence in their country since the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal. The bloodshed, fueled by rising sectarian divisions, escalated sharply after a deadly crackdown by security forces on a Sunni protest camp in April. The gunmen Sunday also kidnapped four Iraqis in the same area, according to the police. — Associated Press Quakes kill 2 in Taiwan, injure 33 in Philippines: 3 more die from SARS-like virus in Saudi Arabia: Three more people have died in Saudi Arabia from a SARS-like coronavirus, the Health Ministry said Sunday, bringing to 24 the number of deaths from the disease in the kingdom. France, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Tunisia and Britain also have reported infections. The World Health Organization said Friday that there had been 50 laboratory-confirmed cases of the MERS coronavirus, including 30 deaths. Palestinian leader Abbas names new prime minister: Taliban kill 4 in police checkpoint attacks: Taliban insurgents attacked two checkpoints in eastern Afghanistan, killing four police officers in the latest test of Afghan forces’ abilities as their NATO mentors withdraw. Mohammad Zahir Bahand, a spokesman for Nuristan province, said Sunday that the fighting in Kamdesh district began overnight with attacks on checkpoints manned by national and border police. The firefight, which left 13 militants dead, lasted hours and ended after reinforcements from the provincial capital, Paron, drove the Taliban away. — From news services


Bradley Manning court-martial opens

A courtroom sketch depicts Private First Class Bradley Manning, 25, (L) and his attorney David Coombs during the first day of Manning’s trial at Fort Meade in Maryland, June 3, 2013. (Reuters) A military prosecutor charged Monday that Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning “harvested” a massive trove of classified information from secure networks and made it available to America’s enemies knowing he would cause harm. “This is a case about a soldier who harvested hundreds of thousands of documents and dumped them on the Internet where they would be available to the enemy,” Capt. Joe Morrow said at the opening of Manning’s court-martial at Fort Meade. He said Manning “knew, based on his training,” that he “would put the lives of fellow soldiers at risk.” Detained by the military since his arrest in Iraq in 2010, Manning is the central figure in the latest and most prominent in a series of leak prosecutions under the Obama administration. After months of pretrial hearings, motions and disputes over the use of classified information and public access to proceedings, the trial began in a spare courtroom behind guarded gates at Fort Meade, an Army installation 27 miles northeast of Washington Manning, 25, is accused of passing more than 700,000 government and military files to the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history. The material, which was widely disseminated, included videos of airstrikes that killed civilians, sensitive diplomatic cables, and military reports from Iraq and Afghanistan. He faces 22 charges, including a count of aiding the enemy, which could send him to prison for life without parole. He is also charged with violating the Espionage Act, a 1917 law created to try spies and traitors, which carries severe penalties. The prosecutor said the judge would gain a sense of an intelligence analyst who was leaking documents to WikiLeaks almost from the moment he arrived at Forward Operating Base Hammer in Iraq in November 2009. He produced a slide show outlining “key evidence” that the prosecution intends to present, including information from an external hard drive of Manning’s personal computer and chat logs. Morrow said Manning would “package” information and transmit it within a “couple of hours.” The prosecutor concluded his opening remarks by saying that Osama bin Laden requested and received a copy of internal U.S. military logs of the war in Afghanistan from another member of al-Qaeda.


For a lot of us, there will be no cicadas this year

that in 2004 we basically got spoiled.” That was the year of “the big brood”: Brood X, which extends from the Mississippi to the East Coast. “Now we come up to Brood II,” Mike said. “It’s called the Eastern Brood. It extends from North Carolina to the Hudson Valley, but tends to be very patchily distributed. For example, in Lorton and St. Mary’s there are tens of thousands per square mile — millions down there. . . . When people hear cicadas are going to be in Maryland, the assumption is they’re going to be everywhere, like last time. But they’re disjunct spatially. Where you have them one year, it’s rare to have them in the same place in the next brood.” Some of the maps circulating on the Web have been suspect. Citizen scientists claim to have spotted cicadas in such places as Baltimore, which, like Washington, is not home to Brood II. Not long ago, Mike went to northern Anne Arundel County to chase down a report of tiny holes in the ground under a tree, a sign that could mean cicadas had emerged and were starting their brief, above-ground life cycle. The holes turned out to have been made by ground-nesting bees. “A lot of the early reports, frankly, could have been less than accurate,” he said. So, for many of us, no cicadas. As I spoke to Mike, I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice. “Christmas didn’t come this year for the cicadaphiles, I’m afraid,” he said. “Sorry, man.” What’s the buzz? Of course, not everyone likes cicadas. Tom Meagher lives between Dale City and Manassas, where the critters are currently whining away lustily. But even before they emerged, his bug-hating daughter, Megan, was concerned about them. Megan lives in New York City and when planning a trip home had called her mother to get the latest report on Brood II. Just when she rang, Tom stepped out of the shower. Hot, moist air from the shower sometimes triggers a smoke alarm that rings throughout the house. Tom said Megan’s first words were “Are those the cicadas in the background?!” Then she screamed that she wasn’t going to visit till winter. There may not be cicadas in your neighborhood, but there will be cicada poetry. Wednesday and Thursday I’ll print some of my favorite reader submissions about these mysterious creatures. For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.


The right worker mix

about 50,000 military slots were converted to civilians or contractors. In some cases, they were not military-essential jobs; in others, the jobs did support military operations but needed to be filled fast with qualified civilians or contractors. Offering on-the-job training for military personnel would have caused delays. The GAO found the Navy and Air Force cut their active military numbers when jobs were taken by civilians or contractors; the Army and Marine Corps turned such jobs over to civilians but “retained these military billets to be used in the operating force.” Because of the war, the active services increased by about 40,000, or 3 percent, from 2001 to 2011; but civilian DOD employees grew by 130,000, or 17 percent. Here’s the irritating factor in calculating contractors: The military services and other Defense Department components use “various methods and data sources” for their contractor number estimates, and the GAO found those estimates “do not accurately reflect the number of contractors providing services to DOD.” Before 2008, Defense had no requirement to keep records on contractor numbers so, the GAO found, historical data were not available. That’s where slow-walking the solution comes in. Since 2006, Congress has used legislation to press the Pentagon to develop a “strategic workforce plan.” Legislators have told the Pentagon to include information about contracted services. As the GAO puts it: “Two key aspects of DOD implementation of total management are an appropriate mix of its military, civilian, and contractor workforces and determining the functions that are critical for the department to achieve its missions.” That means including contracted services information in their budget submissions. Through 2017, the GAO said, the active forces will decline by some 7 percent, while the civilian level will shrink by 2 percent. That’s in part because some contractor jobs, such as in acquisitions and cybersecurity, are being transferred to DOD civilian posts. But where are those contractor estimates? One field with significant civilian growth has been the Defense Health Program, which saw a 57 percent rise in personnel from 2001 to 2011. Active-service personnel in the health field declined by 3 percent. Another GAO report, this one sent to the Armed Services committees last Tuesday, discussed DOD’s contracting of health-care professionals, which cost $1.14 billion in fiscal 2011. Here is another example of the fiction of military “jointness” wasting taxpayer dollars. The GAO points out that the Army and Navy each has


In Japan, new policy spurs solar power boom

Hideki Yoshida, an electrical engineer at Japan Asia Group Ltd., inspects solar panels at the Kushiro Hoshigaura SolarWay solar photovoltaic power plant in Kushiro. Japan is expected to become the largest solar market after China this year. (Yuriko Nakao/Bloomberg) TOKYO — Across Japan, technology firms and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up by the dozen, and companies are mounting panels atop warehouse and factory rooftops as part of a rapid buildup that one developer likened to an “explosion.” The boom is striking in part because of how simply it was sparked — by a little-noted government policy, implemented nearly a year ago, that suddenly guaranteed generous payments to anybody selling renewable energy, including solar power. Because of that policy, known as a feed-in tariff, Japan has become one of the world’s fastest-growing users of solar energy, investors and analysts say, a shift that comes as this resource-poor country tries to find clean and homegrown alternatives to nuclear power. This year alone, Japan is forecast to install solar panels with the capacity of five to seven modern nuclear reactors. Before the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan had all but neglected renewable forms of energy, instead emphasizing atomic power, which it hoped would provide half of the nation’s energy by 2030. But the accident at Fukushima forced the shuttering of the country’s 50 operable reactors, only two of which have been restarted. The remaining shutdowns could prove temporary, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledging restarts of reactors deemed safe. A majority of Japanese, though, remain opposed to atomic energy, and analysts say the solar takeoff highlights Japan’s appetite for other options. There is a downside: Renewables are several times pricier than nuclear power or fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. The rising use of solar power means energy bills will spike, potentially complicating Abe’s plan to jump-start Japan’s long-foundering economy. Most consumers think that sacrifice is worthwhile, and they say nuclear power has hidden cleanup and compensation costs that emerge only after an accident. Fossil fuels, meanwhile, release harmful greenhouse gases and must be imported from Australia, Russia, Indonesia and the Middle East. People here tended to support clean-energy projects even before the nuclear disaster, but now there is “more interest in natural energy,” said Moriaki Yoshikawa, the secretary general


Beer in cans keeps stacking up

in canning is the number of sizes available. Indeed, breweries can now peg the volume of the container to the strength of the contents. San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewerysells its potent Lower De Boom barleywine in 8.4-ounce mini-cans, perfect for a before-bedtime nip. Conversely, Oskar Blues in Longmont, Colo., and Brevard, N.C., recently released its lighter, more refreshing Mama’s Little Yella Pils in 19.2-ounce “stovepipe” cans, ideal for a hot summer afternoon’s quaff. Oskar Blues, which fomented the revolution 11 years ago by releasing its Dale’s Pale Ale in cans, is experimenting with a more radical package: a pint-sized metal bottle with a resealable screw-top cap. So far the brewery has released two beers in the container: Chaka, a Belgian-style pale ale, and the Deuce, a hoppy brown ale. (Both are collaborations with Sun King Brewery in Indianapolis.) Distribution has been limited to Colorado and Indiana, says Oskar Blues spokesperson Chad Melis, but the brewery would like to go national. The big obstacle is cobbling an assembly line to fill and seal the uniquely shaped cans. Oskar Blues has been packaging the metal bottles on a two-head manual filler, which can’t spit out enough liquid for the brewery’s 32-state territory. But that’s a problem even for many breweries sticking with the standard flat-top can. Heavy Seas is contract-canning its brands at F.X. Matt Brewing in Utica, N.Y., which possesses a higher-speed packaging line. Seven Virginia breweries have deals with Old Dominion Mobile Canning, an Ashland company with a portable cannery, which can package up to 60 barrels in a day, according to the company’s Web site. Owner Mike Horn says he hopes to line up 20 to 30 clients within the next two years. “They did their first run with us,” says Mitch Roessing, marketing manager for Wild Wolf Brewing in Nellysford, Va., which cans its Alpha Ale and American Pilsner. “We open the garage door, they slide the machinery in, we work six to eight hours. They pick it up, and the mess is gone with them.” “It’s an easy way to dabble in canning without going into debt to buy a high-speed line,” notes Josh West, operations manager for Devils Backbone. And it’s an avenue for even the smallest and newest microbreweries to join the rush to aluminum. Kitsock is the editor of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. More from Food: The Immigrant’s Table Smoke Signals Spirits Column Beer Column


Roundup of business news

could help them keep their homes,” the attorney general said. The suit underscores Schneiderman’s continuing scrutiny of banks’ foreclosure practices after all but one of the nation’s attorneys general reached a $25 billion settlement last year with five mortgage servicers, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo. HSBC was not part of that accord. Schneiderman said last month that he was prepared to sue Bank of America and Wells Fargo for allegedly violating terms of the nationwide settlement, which set requirements for servicing mortgages and provided financial relief for homeowners. Schneiderman said the lenders have failed to comply with standards for processing applications from homeowners for loan modifications. “HSBC is committed to compliance with all applicable laws, which includes those related to foreclosure,” HSBC said in a statement. “We will respond appropriately to the state AG in this matter.” — Bloomberg News Online retail Amazon.com eyes grocery industry Amazon.com is planning a rollout of an online grocery business that it has been quietly developing for years, targeting one of the largest retail sectors yet to be upended by e-commerce, according to two people familiar with the situation. The company has been testing AmazonFresh in its hometown of Seattle for at least five years, delivering fresh food such as eggs, strawberries and meat with its own fleet of trucks. Amazon is now planning to expand its grocery business outside Seattle for the first time, starting with Los Angeles as early as this week and the San Francisco Bay Area later this year, said the two people who were not authorized to speak publicly. If those new locations go well, the company may launch AmazonFresh in 20 other urban areas next year, including some outside the United States, said one of the people. Bill Bishop, a supermarket analyst and consultant, said the company was targeting as many as 40 markets, without divulging how he knew of Amazon’s plans. An Amazon spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Amazon is searching for new, large markets to enter as the company tries to maintain a growth rate that has fueled a 220 percent surge in its shares during the past five years. The U.S. grocery business, which generated $568 billion in retail sales last year, may be a ripe target. — Reuters Also in Business l l l l l — From staff reports, news services Coming Today l l l


Book review: Ron Charles on Colum McCann’s ‘TransAtlantic’

discomfort is dwarfed by a greater dilemma: Shocked by the ravages of the Potato Famine, should Douglass risk losing British support for abolition by objecting to the Crown’s mistreatment of Ireland? “The politics still confounded him,” McCann writes. “It was to his own known cause that he had to remain entirely loyal. Three million voices. He could not speak out against those who had brought him here as a visitor. There was only so much he could take upon himself.” Such delicate diplomacy is the theme of the final famous-man chapter, which follows former senator George Mitchell, called upon to mediate the Northern Ireland peace process that culminated in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. For this chapter alone, McCann had the benefit of consulting with his subject, but here, more than ever, he avoids the dramatic elements. IRA bombings and government assassinations are kept off in the margins. We see only “the old hieroglyphics of violence” and snatches of the byzantine negotiations among various parties — all aggrieved, all deadly. Like Douglass, Mitchell is a reluctant but wise celebrity, hyperaware of his image. “He wanted to make himself the smallest continent possible,” McCann writes. Every word he speaks, how he holds his shoulders, what color tie he chooses — it’s all deliberate in the exhausting calculus of these peace negotiations carried out in the shadow of 800 years of anger in front of a thousand journalists. The second part of the novel shifts registries from famous historical men to obscure fictional women. That’s a risk, of course. Can the story of the wife of an ice merchant in Grand River, Mich., compete with the remarkable history of Douglass in Ireland? Indeed. Maintaining the continuity of our interest is the essence of McCann’s talent. The women who slipped along the edges of the first three stories now emerge in their own chapters clothed in all the complexities and emotional intricacy of those famous men. The individual characters may be fictional, but the details of their lives, running from before the Civil War to our current Great Recession, are precise and telling. As we follow the women of this poor Irish family from one generation to another, back and forth across the Atlantic, they seem as true and as crucial as the former senator from Maine. “What was a life anyway?” one of them asks herself. “An accumulation of small shelves


D.C. news in brief

can be modified only through congressional action. NCPC and the District will submit final recommendations to Congress in the fall. For information, go to www.ncpc.gov/heightstudy. Fall and winter athletic field permitting ends June 21 The D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation is approving permits for its athletic fields and gyms during the fall and winter season, Sept. 2 through March 24, 2014. The window to apply for fall and winter permits ends June 21. Parks and Recreation issues permits with the following order of preference: DPR programs, D.C. public schools and public charter schools, organizations that have an ongoing partnership agreement with the department, private youth leagues and teams, and private adult leagues. Requests received after the permit window has closed will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis. Grass fields and outdoor basketball courts will be unavailable Nov. 25 through March 28, 2014, although artificial turf and indoor courts and gyms are available to be permitted year-round. Applicants will receive notifications between Aug. 5 and 9. For information, call (202) 671-2597, e-mail dprpermits@dc.gov or go to www.dpr.dc.gov. Consumer office holds restaurant business symposium The D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs is having its 2013 Small Business Restaurant Symposium and Expo from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on June 17 in the Kellogg Conference Center at Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Ave. NE. Admission is free. The symposium is designed for current or future restaurant owners, caterers or bakers interested in learning more efficient ways to operate their business. Topics will include opening a restaurant (in Spanish), financial management, trends in the food business, catering and pop-up restaurants, financing a new eatery, building leases and new development in the District. For information, go to www.dcra.dc.gov. To register, go to dcrasbrc.eventbrite.com. Office seeks feedback on four-year preservation plan The D.C. Historic Preservation Office has extended the public comment period on the draft of the District’s historic preservation plan, “Enriching our Heritage, 2016,” until June 24. The plan will guide how the city protects its historical and architectural resources for the next four years. The office has already received many comments on the plan, which have been transcribed onto a chart organized by topic on its Web site. To view the draft plan and comments, go to www.preservation.dc.gov. To comment, e-mail historic.preservation@dc.gov or write to HPO 2016 Plan, 1100 Fourth St. SW, Suite 650, Washington, D.C. 20024. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


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. Neighbor mistaken for a dog owner: Shelter has adoptable cats: Gaithersburg Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


U.S., Germany, Italy commit to training roles in post-2014 Afghanistan

but has not made a definitive pledge. There was no mention of a role for British troops, who have constituted the second-largest allied contingent in the war. The White House has been reluctant to specify how many troops it would be willing to keep in the country because it has yet to sign a security cooperation agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. That has made U.S. allies reluctant to make their own commitments to continue pouring money and troops into a deeply unpopular conflict. After meeting with his counterparts from allied nations at NATO headquarters, Hagel told reporters that the United States has an “unwavering commitment to the future of Afghanistan.” “We intend to be there for the long haul,” Hagel said. Rasmussen said international trainers would advise only at the highest levels, no longer at the brigade and battalion levels. That suggested that Afghanistan’s fledgling army will do without the critical capabilities that the international community has provided, including the ability to carry out aerial medical evacuations. U.S. military officials say the Afghan army is unmistakably in the lead, taking heavy casualties. In a recent two-week period, more than 200 Afghan forces were killed in fighting, the top commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., said this week. Despite the bloodshed, NATO officials say it is time to shift the burden. “Ultimately, it is for the Afghans to determine their own future,” Rasmussen said. “That is what transition is all about.” Retired U.S. Lt. Gen. David Barno, an expert at the Center for a New American Security who was a commander in Afghanistan during the early years of the war, said it was not surprising that few nations are expressing an interest in keeping troops in Afghanistan. “The vast majority of NATO nations and their populations are keen to exit Afghanistan as soon as possible and limit or eliminate future exposure to casualties,” he said. Rasmussen and Hagel said international support for Afghanistan after 2014 is contingent on responsible behavior by the Kabul government, a clear message to Karzai, who has been a prickly and often unpredictable ally. “Commitment is a two-way street,” Rasmussen said. “We also expect the Afghan government to live up to its obligations, including full respect for basic democratic principles and human rights.” Hagel said a “free and fair election” in Afghanistan would be an “essential part of any future commitment.”


News from around the region

THE DISTRICT Police seek suspects in NE burglaries Police are seeking two men in a series of burglaries in Northeast Washington, including one that ended early Wednesday with a sexual assault and a gunshot fired at the victim’s husband when he tried to intervene, according to authorities. Officer Araz Alali, a D.C. police spokesman, said the same two men, one with a gun and the other with a knife, are believed to have committed another break-in Wednesday morning. He said several similar break-ins have occurred in recent days. Alali said the one involving the sexual assault occurred about 4 a.m. in the 2400 block of 2nd Street NE. He said a man and his wife were awakened by two men inside their home. One of the men attacked the wife, and when the husband tried to stop him, one fired at least one shot but missed, Alali said. Also Wednesday, two men broke into a home in the 2600 block of North Capitol Street NE. Alali said the occupant yelled as they were coming up a flight of stairs, and the men ran and drove away in a dark vehicle. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Man fatally shot in Temple Hills A man was fatally shot overnight in Temple Hills, but no suspects or a motive in the slaying have been established, authorities said Wednesday. The shooting happened about 11:20 p.m. Tuesday in the 6500 block of Buckland Court, Prince George’s County police said. The victim, whose name and age have not been released, was pronounced dead on the scene. Anyone with information can call 301-722-4925 or 866-411-8477, send a text message to CRIMES (274637) or submit a tip online at www.pgpolice.org. — Maggie Fazeli Fard Another Republican joins governor’s race Ronald A. George (R-Anne Arundel) on Wednesday became the latest Maryland gubernatorial hopeful to make his 2014 bid official, promising supporters he would roll back a gas-tax increase and focus on job creation. George, a jeweler, also vowed to offer Marylanders a 20 percent sales tax credit on all in-state purchases as part of a “10-point promise” unveiled during a speech in Annapolis. George is among more than a half-dozen Republicans eyeing the race. Harford County Executive David R. Craig (R) announced his bid Monday. Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael S. Steele is also considering the race. — John Wagner Man charged in rape of federal worker A man


Military branches wrestle with cost-effectiveness of NASCAR sponsorships

and Navy also have bowed out of stock-car racing, while the Air Force this year renewed its deal to be Richard Petty Racing’s primary sponsor on two strategic races: those run on the Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends. The National Guard remains bullish about its $30 million backing of NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., although it’s pulling out of motorcycle racing (a $4 million annual expense) next season. For the most part, the military drawdowns in sports-sponsorship are the result of belt-tightening in the face of the nation’s trillion-dollar deficit. In the case of the Army, they also reflect a shift in thinking about the most cost-effective way of reaching young adults 17 to 24, the target demographic for military recruiters. And if some in Congress have their way, the military will be barred from spending money on sports sponsorships altogether. A move to do just that was narrowly rejected by the House of Representatives last July, which voted 216-202 against an amendment that would have banned military spending on NASCAR, NHRA drag racing , Ultimate Fighting, professional wrestling and bass fishing. “We’re in a fiscal crisis here,” Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) argued at the time. “Bass fishing is not national security.” A member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on defense and co-sponsor of the amendment, McCollum is expected to introduce the amendment again in the coming weeks, when the House takes up the 2014 defense bill. On the other hand, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), whose district includes Lowe’s Motor Speedway and the headquarters of many of NASCAR’s top race teams, believes stock-car racing is fertile and logical ground for military recruiters. “Who is our best target audience? NASCAR fans, who are some of the most patriotic sports fans,” Hudson said, citing a survey commissioned by Hendrick Motorsports that found 90 percent of Army National Guard soldiers who enlisted or re-enlisted from 2007 to 2013 said they had been exposed to the Guard through recruiting or retention materials that incorporated NASCAR. “When you’ve got a star like Dale Jr. who’s wearing ‘National Guard’ on his jumpsuit on TV, you can’t put a price on the return for your investment dollars.” Marcus Jadotte, NASCAR’s vice president of public affairs, said he is less concerned about the downturn in military sponsorship, which he views as part of a natural business cycle, than he is about efforts to single


Staff Sgt. Robert Bales admits to killing 16 Afghans

where appropriate. “I left the [camp] and I went to the nearby village,” he said when asked about one victim. “While inside a compound, I observed a male I now know to be Mohammad Dawud. I formed an intent to kill him and then did kill him by shooting him with a firearm. This act was without legal justification.” The military released the names of the nine adult victims — the men, Dawud, Khudai Dad, Nazir Mohammad, Akhtar Mohammad and Haji Mohammad Naim; and the women, N’ikmarga, Shah Tarina, Zahrah and Naazyah. The names of the children were not released. Bales also admitted to shooting and seriously wounding six Afghans, five of them children. “I did intend to kill them, but they survived,” he told the judge. In Afghanistan, the killings sparked widespread protests and led to a temporary suspension of combat operations. The plea agreement was greeted with dismay by the families of the victims and some Afghan officials. Human rights groups, while welcoming the prosecution of Bales, said the U.S. military needs to bring more cases to trial. “When a person who has committed a heinous crime is held accountable, that is a positive step,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. “Most Afghans know that a long list of other cases exists, over the last decade or more, involving alleged crimes and war crimes by U.S. personnel: homicides in detention, indiscriminate or excessive use of force, even torture. And they know that few of these cases have resulted in prosecutions, and of those that have gone to trial, even fewer have resulted in serious punishment.” Some of Bales’s friends and family members, including his wife, Karilyn, sat in the front two rows of the public gallery behind him. When he entered the pastel-colored, low-ceilinged courtroom, Bales hugged a number of them. But for most of the proceeding, he maintained a composed, stoic demeanor as he admitted, without faltering, to the burning of civilians — including women and children. Bales’s attorney said his client had wanted to admit his guilty publicly. “Sergeant Bales has been waiting for the day that he can accept responsibility for what he’s done, the day that he can hopefully give some sense of peace to the people who are the victims of this tragedy, to his own family and to the soldiers who are still serving in Afghanistan,” Scanlan said after the hearing.


As smartphone market matures, makers race to wow consumers

firm can continue its streak of groundbreaking hits — the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad — which transformed the company into the most valuable in the world. In recent years, Apple has released products that were largely updates of former models. Meanwhile, it focused some of its energy on pursuing lawsuits against rivals to prevent them from copying its designs. The next significant addition to the company’s iPhone line may be a cheap device that could boost sales overseas, where Samsung has become dominant, several Wall Street analysts have said. Technology analysts say Google has arguably taken the lead in developing cutting-edge innovations, generating buzz about its new head-mounted Google Glass computer, as well as its driverless car experiment in California. Earlier this year, it also unveiled a pair of talking shoes that try to “motivate” a person to exercise. Other tech companies may not be far behind. Samsung has said that it is working on a smart watch. Nike has seen some success with its wristband called FuelBand, which works with smartphones to track users’ movements. Other firms are starting to make clothes that measure a wearer’s heartbeat or running stance to warn against possible injuries. Apple rarely comments on products in its pipelines, but chief executive Tim Cook hinted at a technology conference last week that “the wrist is interesting,” sparking rumors that it could unveil some wearable technology at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference. “We’re standing on the edge of what wearable computing is going to be,” said Llamas, the IDC analyst. The wearable tech market could sell up to 9.4 million devices by 2016, analysts say. That doesn’t mean smartphones are going the way of the cassette tape player. Apple is still selling record numbers of its iPhone, though the growth rate of those sales is slowing. The Pew Research Center study found that 56 percent of all American adults now use mobile phones that run an operating system such as Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android or Microsoft’s Windows Phone. That’s up from 46 percent in 2012 and 35 percent in 2011. Google and Apple owners account for half of cellphone users, the report said, with 28 percent of respondents saying they use Android phones and 25 percent choosing an iPhone with iOS. The survey also found that despite the rising adoption of smartphones, BlackBerry users are dwindling — down to 4 percent of the population,


For Gov. O’Malley, Md. jail scandal caps years of trouble with Baltimore facility

Gov. Martin O’Malley talks to reporters about the indictment of 25 people, including 13 female correctional officers, in a federal case involving jail contraband at the Baltimore City Detention Center. (Brian Witte/AP) As a young city prosecutor, then a council member, then mayor and then governor, Martin O’Malley has had to contend with the crowded, mismanaged and ultimately corrupt Baltimore City Detention Center. On Thursday, the Maryland General Assembly will begin probing what federal authorities say has been a years-long failure of leadership under the Maryland governor. O’Malley (D) ran for governor on the promise that he would improve conditions in the Maryland prison system. Over more than six years as Maryland’s top elected official — a post he won in part with a crime-fighting reputation — he amassed a flurry of statistics, such as falling rates of violence behind bars. But according to a federal indictment unsealed this spring, O’Malley’s statistics of progress masked a broken state disciplinary system that allowed more than a dozen female corrections officers to go to work for a violent prison gang with little or no fear of reprisal. The corrections officers smuggled drugs, cellphones and money into the jail, according to prosecutors, and four of them even had children with a single incarcerated gang member. The largest state-run jail served not as a place of punishment, prosecutors said, but as a haven for members of the Black Guerrilla Family. And from inside the decrepit, 200-year-old jail, the gang amassed cash and cachet that allowed it to spread onto the streets of Baltimore. Aides said O’Malley does not plan to attend Thursday’s hearing. But lawmakers’ questioning of Gary D. Maynard, his corrections secretary, could shed light on how much O’Malley knew about the jail’s most recent troubles, and when. O’Malley announced late Wednesday several significant changes to jail security and the way prison investigations are handled. The state will increase the size of its internal investigations unit by 50 percent, adding eight sworn detectives and four intelligence technicians. The unit is responsible for investigating all crimes by inmates, as well as allegations of corruption among staff members. The Washington Post reported last month that the number of investigators in the unit had remained virtually unchanged since 2006, with fewer than one person per correctional facility, despite a caseload that doubled in that time. The governor also announced that he wants to require polygraph tests


Minority unemployment gap is still widening

lead to favorable rates when you are ready for a major purchase like a house.” Charlita Joseph Fail to Plan and You Plan to Fail The majority of Americans don’t budget, according to results from Gallup’s annual Economy and Personal Finance poll. In the survey, Gallup asked Americans about several types of financial management tools to gauge how they track their finances. Here are some of the findings: -- Only 30 percent of Americans prepare a long-term financial plan outlining their savings and investment goals in detail. -- People with some college education and those making $75,000 a year or more are most likely to prepare a long-term financial plan that outlines their savings and investment goals in detail. The failure to budget can lead to some pretty foolish things. Color of Money Question of the Week For this week’s Color of Money Question: What financial foolishness made you become money smart? Send your responses to colorofmoney@washpost.com, and put “Fail to plan and you plan to fail” in the subject line. You can also join the conversation on Twitter at #financialfoolishness. A La Carte Pricing There was an interesting story on why à la carte cable may not save you as much as you think by The Washington Post’s Wonkblog writer Timothy B. Lee. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants to require cable companies to offer cable channels on an a la carte basis, Lee reports. And customers love the idea. “Some people imagine that if they’re getting 50 channels for $50 per month, they should be able to get individual channels at a dollar or two each,” writes Lee. But cable companies would probably respond by increasing the price of individual channels, argues Matthew Yglesias on Salon. “Unfortunately, though à la carte sounds like common sense to many people, it’s unlikely to be a good idea,” writes Yglesias. “Everyone hates their cable company, and à la carte is a way to vent that rage in a way that would hurt cable companies’ profits. But it would do so in a way that would leave most consumers worse off, and generate meaningful savings for only a small minority.” Why you might say? Read Yglesias piece and find out. Tia Lewis contributed to this report. Readers may write to Michelle Singletary at The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C., 20071 or e-mail michelle.singletary@washpost.com. Personal responses may not be possible, and


Mexican soldiers free 165 migrants

MEXICO CITY — The U.S.-bound migrants, mostly Central Americans, had been held at gunpoint for two to three weeks, crammed inside a filthy home not far from the U.S. border city of McAllen, Tex., according to Mexico’s Interior Secretary. While it is not unusual for Mexican police and soldiers to announce similar raids on safe houses run by smugglers and trafficking organizations, the number of migrants found during Tuesday’s bust is among the largest in memory. It is also not uncommon for migrants who have hired smuggling guides to tell authorities that they were kidnapped, rather than admit to paying for the illegal trip to the United States. But Mexican officials said that the 165 were being held against their will and that they had been systematically handed over to the kidnappers while trying to sneak across the border. For years, southern Arizona has been the deadliest place to attempt an illegal crossing into the United States. But the changing economics and geography of illegal immigration are taking a grim new toll in the flat, barren scrublands of south Texas — especially Brooks County. Interior Secretary spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said soldiers responding to a tip Tuesday in the municipality of Diaz Ordaz spotted an armed man standing guard outside the dwelling with a rifle. He was the only suspect arrested. Inside the house, 165 people were being held in “precarious, unhealthy conditions,” Sanchez said. The dominant drug-trafficking organization in the area, Los Zetas, is notorious for kidnapping migrants and exacting ransom payments from their relatives in the United States or their home countries. One Zeta kidnapping gang massacred 72 migrants at an isolated ranch in August 2010 in the same state, Tamaulipas, where Tuesday’s bust occurred. The 165 migrants included 77 from El Salvador, 50 from Guatemala, 23 from Honduras, 14 Mexicans and a man from India, authorities said.


Security chief failed polygraph at embattled Md. jail, official says

The Baltimore City Detention Center is the site where scores of crimes allegedly were committed by a prison gang and correctional officers. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) Maryland’s top corrections official disclosed for the first time Thursday that the head of security at the embattled Baltimore City Detention Center failed a polygraph test aimed at weeding out corrupt members before she was fired. Secretary of Corrections Gary D. Maynard made that revelation on a day when he testified before a panel of lawmakers in Annapolis and when other details came to light about the scandal involving a violent prison gang able to control the state-run jail. An audit released Thursday detailed security breaches and unsanitary conditions in the Baltimore jail system, where the Black Guerilla Family gang allegedly colluded with 13 corrections officers to launder money and smuggle drugs and cellphones into the facility, according to a federal indictment unsealed in April. Four guards had children with one incarcerated gang member, according to prosecutors, who are continuing to investigate what they have described as an out-of-control jail. During the hearing, Maynard said it is possible that additional corrections personnel will be held accountable. Documents released under a public records request Thursday showed Gov. Martin O’Malley’s office was informed two years ago that guards were probably smuggling half of all contraband into state correctional facilities and were rarely facing criminal prosecution. E-mails also showed that O’Malley (D) was upset that he was abroad when the indictment was unsealed and unhappy about the “half-hammed” way the news was presented to the media. Legislative leaders cast Thursday’s hearing as the first step in a months-long process to determine what steps they might take in next year’s legislative session to address shortcomings in Maryland’s jails and prisons. “The good aspect of this situation is that the whole world is now aware of problems in the Maryland correctional system . . . and we are determined to fix those problems,” Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said at the outset of a joint hearing that he chaired with House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel). The two leaders suggested that their primary aim was to understand what legislative and budgetary remedies might help address problems at the Baltimore jail and elsewhere. Suggestions floated Thursday included stiffening penalties for smuggled cellphones and removing the Baltimore jail from the governance of the corrections department. Fourteen


Leticia Barr

Founder, Tech Savvy Mama Leticia Barr uses everything she learned from teaching children, providing professional development to teachers and principals, and serving as a technology magnet coordinator in her current roles as professional blogger, social media strategist, and freelance writer. Leticia founded her award-winning Tech Savvy Mama site based on personal and professional experience. She combines her knowledge of child development, psychology, education, technology, and parenting to provide useful advice for families about the technology tools that have become a part of their lives. Leticia educates families about online and mobile safety topics. She has her finger on the pulse of hot new apps and social media tools. Leticia enjoys sharing technology trends not only on her site but through her Tech Savvy Parents column on Parents.com and as a regular contributor to Scholastic Parents. She’s also often invited to share her perspective on technology and parenting at national education, technology, and social media conferences. Leticia enjoys the distinction of having been Parents Magazine’s Editors’ Pick for Best Tech Blog. She has been named to Babble’s Top 100 Mom Blogs, 50 Top Twitter Moms by Babble, Circle of Moms Top 25 Tech Moms two years in a row, and among Examiner.com’s Top 12 Technology & Parenting Experts to Follow on Twitter. Leticia lives in the DC Metro area with her two children, husband, and their overly enthusiastic Yellow Labrador and prefers to unplug in favor of family time. For more information about Leticia, please visit TechSavvyMama.com or tweet her @TechSavvyMama.


‘Dirty Wars’ movie review

U.S. forces that left several civilians, including two pregnant women, dead. Although the U.S. military initially denied involvement, it eventually admitted to its role and apologized for the deaths with the gift of a sheep to the villagers, who refer to the bearded commandos who stormed their home as “American Taliban.” Rather than summarize the facts in cut-and-dry hindsight, however, the film, via Scahill’s you-are-there narration, uncovers the facts in the same way that Scahill appears to have done so: with doggedness in the face of official stonewalling. When he gets to his “discovery” of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) — the once-little-known anti-terrorism force that only entered the spotlight after its role in the Osama bin Laden raid became known — it feels like a revelation. Scahill certainly knows how to spin a yarn. Not that “Dirty Wars” feels fabricated in any way. It is meticulously researched and documented, with Rowley supplementing Scahill’s meditations with archival footage and the standard complement of talking-head interviews. Much of it is damning of the U.S. military in general and JSOC in particular, which is presented as, if not an outright villain, at least operating outside of appropriate congressional oversight. Although Scahill has written a companion book, “Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield,” the film necessarily leaves some material out of its narrative, which takes Scahill from Afghanistan to Yemen and Somalia, where Scahill looks into other questionable operations. These include the 2011 missile attack that killed the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and the 2011 drone strike that mistakenly killed his 16-year-old son, along with several suspected militants. They also include the farming of some of our dirty work out to Somali warlords. It’s shocking stuff, even if much of it has already been in the news. That’s mostly because of the way that Scahill strings it together into a coherent, convincing argument. In truth, it’s more of a question: In an effort to minimize the loss of American lives while maximizing the neutralization of “high value targets,” has America lost its moral compass? If the implications of that question are hard to swallow, it isn’t because “Dirty Wars” feels like fiction. It’s because its facts seem to fly in the face of who — and how — we as a nation believe ourselves to be. ★★★½ Unrated. At Landmark’s E Street Cinema. Contains some violent, bloody images. 86 minutes.


retail industry sales. The list does not include big chains such as Wal-Mart Stores, Target and Macy’s. Among the best performers was Costco Wholesale, which reported that revenue in stores open at least one year rose 5 percent, although that fell slightly short of analyst expectations of a 5.5 percent rise. The measure rose 6 percent excluding changes in gas prices and the stronger dollar. Discount department store operator SteinMart had surprisingly strong results, with the measure up 8.2 percent, far above the 2 percent that was expected. Ladies’ casual and career sportswear were among its best categories for the month. L Brands, which operates Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body Works, said the figure rose 3 percent, slightly below analysts’ expectations of a 3.2 percent increase. In the teen sector, Buckle’s revenue at stores open at least a year climbed 4.1 percent in May, as teens snapped up spring and summer clothing. Results topped analyst expectations of a 3.3 percent rise. — Associated Press AGRICULTURE Farmers, group sue Monsanto over wheat U.S. wheat farmers and a food safety advocacy group filed a lawsuit Thursday against biotech seed developer Monsanto, accusing the company of failing to protect the country’s wheat market from contamination by its unauthorized wheat. The petition, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, seeks class-action status to represent other farmers it says were harmed by lower wheat prices as some foreign buyers have shied away from U.S. wheat. It names the plaintiffs as Clarmar Farms, farmer Tom Stahl and the Center for Food Safety . The suit follows a similar action filed Monday by a Kansas wheat farmer, alleging that he and other growers have been hurt financially by the discovery of an unapproved biotech wheat that Monsanto said it stopped testing and shelved nine years ago. Two other farmers lodged a similar lawsuit in the western district of Washington state. The lawsuits come after the Agriculture Department announced May 29 that a wheat farmer in Oregon had discovered Monsanto’s experimental wheat growing on his farm. Buyers in Asia and Europe shunned U.S. wheat purchases after the discovery of the rogue wheat in Oregon. South Korea and Japan have suspended some U.S. wheat purchases, while the European Union said it would step up testing. — Reuters Also in Business l l l l — From news services Coming Today l l Automobiles


Nostalgia is built into classical music. Not only is the bulk of the repertoire from the past, but audiences are full of people who are happy to tell you about superior past performances of the same works: The time they heard Kleiber, or Bernstein, or Szell. This spring, the National Symphony Orchestra has been doing a lot of looking back fondly on the tenure of the late Mstislav Rostropovich, the cellist-conductor who led the orchestra from 1977 to 1994. On Thursday night, it played “Alexander Nevsky,” Prokofiev’s bright and bombastic film score-turned-cantata, which Rostropovich brought to the orchestra for the first time in the first year of his tenure, and last played with it in 1993 on a tour to Russia. I didn’t hear Rostropovich perform it, but some of the musicians in the orchestra played it under him, and it was possible to convince yourself that you were hearing both vestiges of his involvement with this work and, in the hands of the capable young conductor Jakub Hrusa, a slightly paler performance. Of course, you didn’t have to look that far back to find a Washington-area performance of “Nevsky.” Marin Alsop led the Baltimore Symphony in a live accompaniment to a screening of the film this past January, and Yuri Temirkanov did the same thing with the same orchestra in 2003. It was altogether a meaty program, consisting entirely of works by big-name composers that slightly broke the mold — and giving the winds, in particular, a lot of work. It opened with Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G minor — dark and rangy, pushing at the conventions of symphonic writing with the brilliance of adolescence (Mozart was 17 when he wrote it). And it continued with Dvorak’s violin concerto, which resisted the cookie-cutter violin-concerto form of the day in a couple of ways: It called for the soloist to plunge in almost immediately — linking the two first movements together — and pulling the orchestra out of an accompanying role into a partnership that Hrusa took so much to heart that the soloist was sometimes at risk of being drowned out. Conductor Jakub Hrusa (Courtesy of the Kennedy Center) That soloist was Augustin Hadelich, in his NSO debut (though he has appeared with the BSO and has played here in recital). Hadelich, too, stands a little outside the mold of the instrumentalist raised in a virtuoso hothouse. He


Seven Georgian troops killed in Afghanistan

The Georgian national flag flies at half mast during a day of mourning day in Tbilisi, Georgia, after a suicide bombing aimed at international troops in killed at least seven Georgian soldiers in Helmand province. (ZURAB KURTSIKIDZE/EPA) KABUL — The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing in Nawzad district, saying in a statement that one of its fighters detonated a truck “laden with heavy-duty explosives” inside a base, killing several troops and damaging vehicles and equipment. Thursday’s attack was the second deadly bombing in recent weeks to target Georgian troops in Helmand, which has been the most lethal province for the U.S.-led NATO alliance over the past decade. Three Georgian troops were killed in a bombing May 13; at least 29 Georgian troops have been killed in Afghanistan in all. While several other U.S. allies with troops in Afghanistan have taken steps to shield their service members from the most dangerous assignments, Georgia has taken on tough missions. The former Soviet republic of 4.5 million people, which has a tense relationship with neighboring Russia, deployed soldiers to Iraq and has been the largest troop contributor per capita to the war in Afghanistan. Its burden during the two U.S.-led wars has emboldened its bid to join NATO, an aspiration Russia staunchly opposes. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the commander of international troops in Afghanistan, said in a statement that Georgia’s contributions to the mission have been “steadfast and tangible.” “Georgian soldiers have always stood out for their toughness and willingness to take on difficult missions,” he said. The Georgian government declared Friday a day of mourning. In a statement, the country’s Defense Ministry said the seven slain soldiers belonged to the 42nd battalion of the 4th Infantry, which began its deployment in April. Defense Minister Irakli Alasania cut short a trip to Brussels, where NATO members this week held a special session on Georgia, to travel to Afghanistan. “I offer my deepest condolences to the families of our fallen heroes and to all of Georgia,” Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said in a televised statement. “Our duty to their memory is to continue our path toward NATO membership.” Georgia has 1,500 troops deployed across three bases in Helmand. The province, which has been the hub of Afghanistan’s opium industry, has been aggressively contested over the past decade by the Taliban and foreign troops, particularly U.S. Marines and British troops. Thursday’s bombing was


Louis V. Gerstner Jr. lays out his post-IBM life

the Maldives, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam. This year we took a trip to Zimbabwe and Botswana. I’m planning a trip to Bhutan. Are your friends in retirement the same as your friends before retirement? My true friends, yes. My best friend is a guy I went to school with at Harvard Business School. He’s the guy that we take these trips with. He and his wife. Can you think of a lot of people you’d want to travel with for 17 days in a row? My problem is I’ve allowed the portfolio to grow a little bit. That’s portfolio creep. But you are keeping it at 35 hours, right? Well, the Broad thing is adding more time. That’s fine. It’s extraordinary. I don’t look back. I look forward. What am I going to do next? I enjoy the travel, the incredible amount of reading I’m doing, the time I spend with my family, working in the garden. What I have to do now is to make sure this creep doesn’t continue to grow. You are very active in the field of medical science. Where does that interest come from? I’ve just had this interest in biomedical activities. The thing I’m doing that is probably the most consumptive of my time and the most interesting is I am now chairman of the Broad Institute at Harvard and MIT. And this is just an evolutionary path of Sloan-Kettering, Bristol-Myers, National Cancer Institute. What is the most important thing happening at the Broad Institute? It’s discovering the underlying genetic causes of disease. We have an opportunity to understand the genetic and molecular pathways that go on in our body that cause certain diseases. Why didn’t you carry out your plan to study Chinese and archaeology at Cambridge after going to the trouble of being accepted? I discovered that I probably had to be at Cambridge for as much as six months at a time. They don’t have summer programs. I still may do it. I’m still an assistant professor and an associate professor at Jesus College. Are you just curious about archaeology and learning Chinese history? Yes. Just curiosity. China has been a big part of my life. [Grabs a framed photo of him and another person.] This is Jiang Zemin, who is a past president of China, and he’s a friend of mine. And about four years ago, many years after he retired,


When was Md. Gov. O’Malley told of jail scandal?

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) talks to reporters on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 in Annapolis, Md., about the indictment of 25 people, including 13 female correctional officers. (Brian Witte/AP) Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has told legislative leaders that had he known the unsealing of a federal indictment detailing widespread corruption in a Baltimore jail would happen while he was out of the country, he may have delayed the long-planned trip. But e-mails released Thursday show that his top corrections official had been told the day before the governor took off for Israel. And at a legislative hearing Thursday, that official, Corrections Secretary Gary D. Maynard, acknowledged that he had been aware for some time that the conclusion of the investigation would bring a “strong risk of embarrassment” to the administration. The federal indictment faulted a broken state disciplinary system at the Baltimore City Detention Center. It said 13 Maryland correctional officers had gone to work for a violent prison gang there, smuggling drugs, cellphones and money with little fear of getting caught. In jailhouse liaisons, according to the indictment, four female guards were even impregnated by a single incarcerated gang member. In the six weeks since the indictment was released, O’Malley and Maynard have blamed much of the bad publicity on how the announcement was made. O’Malley’s (D) administration was a willing, even aggressive, partner in the investigation, the two have told fellow lawmakers in private conversations trying to assuage the concerns of members of the General Assembly. The two have lamented that the state’s cooperation was a minor point when the FBI and U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein announced the charges against Maryland correctional officers and gang members at an April 23 news conference. Maynard indicated to lawmakers days after news conference – at which he spoke last, following Rosenstein and federal agents — that he had been somewhat blindsided. According to lawmakers and aides present for the conversation, Maynard said he was given a draft of a news release only shortly before the news conference. They said Maynard told lawmakers he unsuccessfully sought revisions to it before the news conference was held. O’Malley was only briefed then, hours before the news conference, in a phone call from Israel, according to senior aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the timeline. But the e-mails released in response to public records requests by The Washington Post and others


Gray wolf would lose endangered species protection under government plan

longer requires the protection of the Endangered Species Act,” Dan Ashe, the wildlife agency’s director, said during a telephone news conference. At the same time, Ashe’s agency proposed giving Mexican wolves protection as a distinct sub-species. Despite efforts to revive that population, there are only 75 Mexican wolves in Arizona and New Mexico to date. Publication of the new rule in the Federal Register will trigger a 90-day comment period. If the rule goes into effect, the wolves would be subject to the management policies of individual states. Some conservation groups criticized the proposal, saying the gray wolf has only begun to re-establish itself outside the northern Rockies and western Great Lakes. “There’s a significant amount of available habitat for these wolves to occupy, and with this rule, it’s almost certain they will never get to occupy it,” said Sylvia Fallon, director of the wildlife conservation project for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “What is ‘recovery’ for an endangered species if it now occupies less than 10 percent of its historic range?” Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a news release that “this is like kicking a patient out of the hospital when they’re still attached to life support. Wolves cling to a sliver of their historic habitat in the lower 48, and now the Obama administration wants to arbitrarily declare victory and move on.” Gray wolves were wiped out of the western United States by the 1930s and the western Great Lakes by the middle of the century, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The animal received endangered species protection in 1973, and in 1995, the Fish and Wildlife Service launched a program to introduce 66 wolves from southwestern Canada into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho. Ashe called the effort “one of the most remarkable successes in the history of wildlife conservation.” Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said in a written statement that the new rule would untangle “the ridiculous situation in Washington, Oregon and Utah, where wolves had been listed on one side of a highway and not on the other. Private landowners, local governments and states should not be subjected to federal wolf listings when wolf populations are thriving.” Last month, 16 scientists who conducted much of the research used by the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote to Ashe, claiming that


Five myths about legalizing marijuana

Doug Fine is the author of “Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution,” in which he followed one legal medicinal cannabis plant from farm to patient. With 16 states having decriminalized or legalized cannabis for non-medical use and eight more heading toward some kind of legalization, federal prohibition’s days seem numbered. You might wonder what America will look like when marijuana is in the corner store and at the farmers market. In three years spent researching that question, I found some ideas about the plant that just don’t hold up. 1. If pot is legal, more people will use it. As drug policy undergoes big changes, I’ve been watching rates of youth cannabis use with interest. As it is for most fathers, the well-being of my family is the most important thing in my life. Whether you like the plant or not, as with alcohol, only adults should be allowed to partake of intoxicating substances. But youth cannabis use is near its highest level ever in the United States. When I spoke at a California high school recently and asked, “Who thinks cannabis is easier to obtain than alcohol?,” nearly every hand shot up. In Portugal, by contrast, youth rates fell from 2002 to 2006, after all drugs were legalized there in 2001. Similarly, a 2011 Brown University-led study of middle and high school students in Rhode Island found no increases in adolescent use after the state legalized medical marijuana in 2006. As for adult use, the numbers are mixed. A 2011 University of California at Berkeley study, for example, showed a slight increase in adult use with de facto legalization in the Netherlands (though the rate was still lower than in the United States). Yet that study and one in 2009 found Dutch rates to be slightly lower than the European average. When the United States’ 40-year-long war on marijuana ends, the country is not going to turn into a Cheech and Chong movie. It is, however, going to see the transfer of as much as 50 percent of cartel profits to the taxable economy. 2. Law enforcement officials oppose legalization. It is true that many law enforcement lobby groups don’t want to end America’s most expensive war (which has cost $1 trillion and counting), but that’s because they’re the reason it’s so expensive. In 2010, two-thirds of federal spending on the drug war, $10


Climate science tells us the alarm bells are ringing

W. Corell, Jennifer Francis, Michael E. Mann, Jonathan Overpeck, Alan Robock, Richard C.J. Somerville and Ben Santer.) Man-made heat-trapping gases are warming our planet and leading to increases in extreme weather events. Droughts are becoming longer and deeper in many areas. The risk of wildfires is increasing. The year 2012, the hottest on record for the United States, illustrated this risk with severe, widespread drought accompanied by extensive wildfires. Last month, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million, approaching the halfway mark between preindustrial amounts and a doubling of those levels. This doubling is expected to cause a warming this century of four to seven degrees Fahrenheit. The last time atmospheric carbon dioxide reached this level was more than 3 million years ago, when Arctic lands were covered with forests. The unprecedented rate of increase has been driven entirely by human-produced emissions. Projections from an array of scientific analyses summarized by the National Academy of Sciences and most of the world’s major scientific organizations indicate that by the end of this century, people will be experiencing higher temperatures than any known during human civilization — temperatures that our societies, crops and ecosystems are not adapted to. Computer model projections from at least 27 groups at universities and other research institutes in nine countries have proved solid. In many cases, they have been too conservative, underestimating over the past 20 years the amounts of recent sea-level rise and Arctic sea ice melt. Much has been made of a short-term reduction in the rate of atmospheric warming. But “global” warming requires looking at the entire planet. While the increase in atmospheric temperature has slowed, ocean warming rose dramatically after 2000. Excess heat is being trapped in Earth’s climate system, and observations of the Global Climate Observing System and others are increasingly able to locate it. Simplistic interpretations of cherry-picked data hide the realities. In recent years, our understanding of the relationship between climate and extreme weather has sharpened, along with our appreciation of the vast damages such events cause. Contrary to Smith’s assertions, there is conclusive evidence that climate change worsened the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. Sea levels in New York City harbors have risen by more than a foot since the beginning of the 20th century. Had the storm surge not been riding on higher seas, there would have been less flooding and less damage.


Afghan soldier kills three Americans

KABUL — The confrontation marked the deadliest insider attack in the country this year and added to the death toll from an intense fighting season, which U.S. and Afghan officials are watching closely for indicators of the Taliban’s resilience as American troops accelerate their withdrawal. In a separate attack Saturday, an Italian captain was killed by a grenade in western Afghanistan. The insider attack occurred shortly after noon in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan, after an Afghan soldier got into a verbal dispute with an American service member, according to an account by the provincial governor’s office. The Americans returned fire, killing the Afghan gunman, provincial officials said. Afghan and American officials are investigating the incident, but provincial authorities said they had found no evidence that the Afghan soldier had links to the insurgency. The U.S. military said an Afghan was detained after the shooting, but it provided no details about the circumstances. Insider attacks became a paramount concern for the U.S.-led coalition here last year, when Afghan troops killed 64 foreign military personnel and civilians in 48 incidents. Far fewer have occurred this year. Before Saturday’s attack, five coalition members had been killed in so-called “green on blue” attacks. U.S. military officials went to great lengths to study insider attacks last year after their prevalence began to poison the military partnership at the heart of the U.S. strategy for winding down the Afghan war. Investigators found that relatively few such attacks could be traced to the insurgency, with a high percentage stemming from fights over cultural differences. Earlier Saturday, an Italian military training team was returning to its base in Farah province when it came under attack. One soldier was killed and three wounded in the blast, according to the Italian Defense Ministry. The Taliban did not assert responsibility for that attack but hailed it in a statement. According to local reports, its statement, which could not be corroborated, said an 11-year-old child had lobbed a grenade at the Italians. “This incident clearly shows the utter hatred of Afghans toward the foreign invaders who have occupied our land in the past decade,” the statement said. Saturday’s military casualties came two days after seven Georgian troops were killed in a truck bombing in southern Afghanistan. Julie Tate in Washington and Mohammed Sharif in Kabul contributed to this report.


Maryland could have acted quicker to prevent Baltimore jail scandal

account for their failure in allowing such malfeasance to occur at all. The dramatic alleged wrongdoing at the Baltimore jail was discussed at a briefing chaired by House Speaker Mike Busch (D-Anne Arundel) and Senate President Mike Miller (D-Calvert). It included presentations by Maryland law enforcement officials and national corrections experts. In April, a federal grand jury indicted 13 guards at the jail and 12 others for drug trafficking, money laundering and other crimes. The indictment said the head of the Black Guerilla Family in the detention center impregnated four guards. Nobody is pretending the state’s leaders learned of the problem just recently. Maynard told the briefing that a longtime colleague begged him in 2007 not to take the job as secretary of corrections because Maryland had “a dangerous system” with “a corrupt culture.” Both a 2009 investigation and a 2011 report suggested strongly that collusion was rife between jailers and jailed in the state, including at the Baltimore facility. Given all that, one would think the men in charge would use every available tool to keep the Baltimore jail secure. They didn’t. For instance, most states demand more hours of in-service training for corrections officers than Maryland does. It requires just 18 hours a year for almost all of its facilities, compared with the national standard of 40 hours set by the American Correctional Association. Maynard asked the General Assembly just this year to change the policy so Maryland would meet the training standard throughout it system. (The legislature did so.) The authorities decided just now, after the burst of publicity, to use the legal power they’ve had since 2010 to require guard applicants to take polygraph tests. They demanded such tests of the Baltimore jail’s supervisors after the indictment; the security chief failed and lost her job. The state is moving just now to expand the internal investigations unit by 50 percent, adding eight detectives and four technicians. Its caseload has doubled since 2006. “Why did it take them so damn long? It took them until after the FBI got involved,” said state Sen. David Brinkley (R-Carroll-Frederick) . O’Malley and Maynard need to answer that question fully and concede they could have done better. Meanwhile, they should mute the crowing about how they helped stop their own staff from allegedly breaking the law. Guys, it’s part of the job description. For previous Robert McCartney columns, go to washingtonpost.com/mccartney.


After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet

measure.” But when Mark began researching the bill on his computer in the days before the trip, what he mostly noticed was the addendum of exceptions. The bill proposed to make it illegal to possess high-capacity magazines of 10 bullets or more in the country’s second-smallest state — unless you only possessed those magazines at your house, which was okay; or on private property, which was also okay; or at a shooting range, which was fine; or if you were carrying a high-capacity magazine separately from a firearm, which would still be permitted; or if you were law enforcement or retired law enforcement or active military or a licensed firearms dealer, in which cases you were exempt. First-time violators would face a misdemeanor charge and a $75 fine. “Like a traffic ticket,” Mark told Jackie. The NRA had dispatched two lobbyists to the state Capitol in opposition of the bill. Markell did not want to schedule a vote until he knew he had the 21 votes necessary to pass it, and he was still three or four short. “Your heartfelt, personal stories might still help us make history,” one of the governor’s aides had written in an e-mail invitation to Sandy Hook families. At the moment, it was the only history there was to make, and the best invitation they had, so Mark and Jackie traveled with a group that included a public relations specialist, the director of Sandy Hook Promise and the parents of two other victims: Nicole Hockley, mother of Dylan; and Nelba Marquez-Greene, mother of Ana. They took a car to a train to another car to a hotel located alongside a commercial highway on the outskirts of Dover. “What brings you to Delaware?” asked a cheery 18-year-old at the front desk, and for a few seconds the parents stared back at him in awkward silence. “Life, I guess,” Mark said, finally. “Bad luck,” Hockley said, with a slight smile. “Is this personal travel or business?” the hotel employee said, looking at his computer. “Both. It is personal business travel,” Mark said, and the parents laughed. They went to the Capitol the next morning for a meeting with the governor’s staff to discuss their trip. “Basically, we want to make sure to maximize this visit,” the lieutenant governor told them, explaining that there would be a news conference, a lunch with lawmakers and dinner at the governor’s


Proposed Montgomery zoning rules look to a more urban county

spaces. They would also face requirements for bike space and shower facilities for both sexes. The zoning reboot was requested by the council in 2008, with a big push from Rollin Stanley, who was then the planning director and was a major proponent of mixed use and increased densities. A 23-member panel of community and business representatives worked with officials on the changes. County officials said that early drafts of the revisions were far more sweeping and were dialed back after Stanley’s departure last year. Builders and developers said that they were still studying the final draft but that their early view was favorable. They praised the consolidation of more than 120 zoning classifications into 12 “families” and simplified tables to determine legal uses for land and buildings. “We support the zoning rewrite,” said Miti Figueredo, a vice president of the Chevy Chase Land Co. “It modernizes and cleans up the very complex zoning code.” Robert Kaufman, associate director of public affairs for the Maryland-National Capital Building Industry Association, said he liked what he saw but lamented the apparent absence of provisions to accelerate the notoriously slow county approval process for development projects, which can take 18 months to two years. The changes that may draw the most heated debate involve animal husbandry. While small farm animals are currently permitted in many residential neighborhoods, the revisions would relax setback requirements for chicken coops and other animal housing. Many homeowners would, for example, be able to keep one miniature goat for every 2,000 feet and a hen, duck or rabbit for every thousand feet of land area, with a maximum of 8 animals per lot. The measure would add the county to a growing number of localities considering more “sustainable” policies to cut down the distances people must travel for basics such as food. Howard County is looking at easing restrictions on keeping chickens in urban or suburban settings. Annapolis recently allowed residents in single-family homes to keep up to five hens with the approval of adjacent property owners. Montgomery officials have received a wave of mail, pro and con. Some writers express alarm at the possibility of exposure to manure-born pathogens and unwanted noise. “What will become of the hens when they are no longer ‘productive’?” asked Ed Terry of Kensington. “Will they become someone else’s problem . . . or will we be talking about amateur backyard slaughtering too?”


Are you the 61 percent? Most Americans remain ill-informed about personal finances

correctly answer more than three of five fundamental financial literacy questions. That’s an increase from 58 percent in 2009. FINRA and other organizations produce these surveys not to make us feel ignorant. What they tell us is that consumers these days have to know so much more than did generations of the past. The better these organizations understand where you are lacking in competency, the better they can tailor financial education initiatives. “Managing one’s finances is a complex set of challenges in the best of times, requiring a combination of skills, judgment and resources,” FINRA says in its report. “In today’s volatile economic environment, the challenges are especially acute and the downside risks are great. Individuals and families must grapple with a bewildering variety of financial decisions, ranging from choosing a bank and managing various kinds of debt to planning for retirement and purchasing insurance. Even the simplest of these decisions requires at least some basic financial knowledge and competency, while the more complicated decisions are challenging even for experts.” In conducting the online surveys of more than 25,000 adults, FINRA focused on the following four areas: making ends meet, planning ahead, managing financial products, and financial knowledge and decision-making. In the 2012 survey, 40 percent of respondents said they didn’t have trouble covering their monthly expenses, up from 36 percent in 2009. That’s good. But people still aren’t planning for when things go wrong financially. Fifty-six percent of Americans said they didn’t have an emergency fund to cover three months of expenses. Only 49 percent of credit-card users said they pay their credit card balances in full. Nearly a third said they use costly financial products such as payday loans. (Such loans are debt a borrower promises to repay out of his or her next paycheck, typically in two weeks and typically at astronomical interest rates.) So, what do you know? Here’s one question from the financial capability quiz: “Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account is 1 percent a year and inflation is 2 percent a year. After one year, would the money in the account buy more than it does today, exactly the same or less than today?” For some of you the answer is easy. But the reality is that most people don’t really understand how inflation works. They may know it’s important but are fuzzy on the reason it’s so important. As FINRA


After closing mortgage branch, Access National shifts focus to commercial loans

In April, Access National Bank baffled its peers when it shuttered its very successful mortgage refinancing office in Denver. The branch — which had brought in nearly one-third of the company’s 2012 profits — had originated hundreds of millions of dollars in loans. “It was a difficult decision to make and an unpopular decision,” said Michael W. Clarke, president and chief executive of the Reston-based bank. “But we knew that eventually rates were going to go up, and our refinancing strategy was not going to work anymore.” Now, as interest rates begin to creep up, Access National is shifting its focus away from mortgages and back to its commercial lending business — particularly in niche industries such as federal contracting and dentistry. “We’re still in the mortgage business, but we have a laser focus on working with operating businesses in the D.C. metro area,” Clarke said. The bread and butter of the bank’s business, Clarke said, is working with companies that have $1 million to $100 million in revenue. Many clients have existing businesses and come from larger institutions such as Bank of America or BB&T looking for nuanced help from local advisers. “As their business grows and becomes more complex, they want to sit down and talk to a trusted adviser — somebody that understands local business matters,” Clarke said. “We fill some of their commercial lending requirements and then things emanate from there.” The bank, which has five branches and $876.3 million in assets, recently added four employees to its commercial lending staff, bringing the total to 22, and Clarke says he has plans to hire more. He has broader plans to expand, too. “We are likely to get involved in the coming wave of bank consolidations,” Clarke said. “Believe it or not, there are approximately 50 depositories in the D.C. market that are smaller than our bank.” During the first quarter of this year, the bank reported $3.7 million in earnings, a 6 percent increase from the same quarter last year. The quarter before that, it posted a 91 percent jump in year-over-year profits. Clarke says those gains were largely due to increases in deposits, commercial checking accounts and business loans. Commercial and industrial loans now make up about one quarter of the bank’s portfolio. “It’s not a real complicated strategy,” Clarke said. “We’re going to stick to what we know.”


Editor’s note: The search for intelligent life brings me back to Earth

This week we take a break from our usual programming to focus on two of the big technology trends shaking up businesses of all shapes and sizes — big data and cloud computing. It doesn’t seem all that long ago that the concepts felt like novelties. I remember loading a screen saver on my desktop that linked my tiny machine to countless others in an effort to scan the heavens in a search for extraterrestrial life. We never found anything. At least as far as I know. Now, big data and Internet-based computing seem very much part of daily life back here on Earth, revealing themselves in the weather maps, shopping offers, social media and traffic alerts that flow through apps and into our inboxes. I can’t say all these systems are perfect. We’re often better at explaining what happened than what’s to come. Amazon keeps offering me the same products I already considered and chose to pass up. I seem to find out about the accident ahead when I am stuck in the backup behind. But give it time. The data crunching is just beginning. The federal government, for one, is unlocking massive troves of information, and who knows what insights can be gleaned when data from one agency can be merged with another’s, or thrown into a mixer with privately collected bits and bytes. There’s plenty of policy implications. Can privacy be preserved? Can sensitive information be protected? For now, businesses are betting big bucks such issues will be sorted out. Just last week, cloud-based IBM inked a billion-dollar plus agreement for the Dallas data center services firm SoftLayer Technologies and announced plans for a cloud services division. Salesforce announced its own $2.5 billion deal to buy an Indianapolis outfit called ExactTarget, which helps companies manage Internet marketing campaigns and other business operations. Closer to home, it is difficult to find a firm not working on its big data or cloud strategy. Not too long ago, I met an attorney specializing in mergers and acquisitions who was assembling his own database of investor types, people he might match with a client. “This is my big data,” he quipped.


FedRAMP adds HP, Lockheed Martin

HP and Lockheed Martin are the latest companies to receive a seal of approval to sell their cloud-based technology to the government, the General Services Administration said last week. The companies were granted provisional authorizations as part of GSA’s FedRAMP program, which vets the security of cloud products and services to ensure they meet the government’s standards. A board of chief information officers from the GSA, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to clear the technology, allowing it to be more easily sold to agencies. The GSA said last week that Lockheed and HP’s cloud-based infrastructures join offerings from Autonomic Resources and CGI Federal, that are also provisionally approved. SAIC’s split could take place in August McLean-based contracting giant Science Applications International Corp. could separate into two public companies as soon as August. K. Stuart Shea SAIC reported last week that its revenue and profit dropped in its most recent quarter — in part because of the “significant” costs of splitting in two and in part because of contract losses and government spending uncertainty. Profit dropped about 30 percent to $81 million, down from $117 million in the same three-month period a year earlier. Revenue fell about 2 percent to $2.7 billion. “We’re not seeing any dramatic shift in terms of program terminations, cancellations, reductions,” Shea said of the contracting environment. “But we are seeing an absolute slowness in the award decisions.” New role at IBM federal unit IBM In the newly created role, Snowdon will be tasked with bolstering IBM’s work in emerging areas like big data, cloud computing and mobile. She has spent 17 years in IBM research, including leading its Global Technology Outlook, an exercise through which the company predicts coming technology trends and their implications. N orthrop CEO open to M&A Northrop Grumman “The fact that we have not done a lot of [acquisitions] over the last few years, I think, often times leads people to believe that we’re not even looking,” Bush said late last month. “And that is not the case.” He said Northrop would only make the purchase if it’s a better use of cash than, for instance, share repurchase.


Whole Foods’ newest proposed location a sign of confidence

Whole Foods Market, the first national certified organic grocer, has established an aggressive goal to increase its store count, setting a target of tripling its portfolio of stores to a count of 1,000 over the next decade. The company reiterated the goal, along with discussion about expansion through acquisition and organic growth, in its most recent update on earnings. There are currently 16 Whole Foods Market locations in the Washington area. The grocer has been known to employ stringent demographic requirements in selecting its locations, in particular seeking store locations in areas with a higher density of college-educated residents. This is apparent in the population profile within the three-mile trade area of its existing locations, which exceeds the region’s average for educational attainment, income, growth and density. However, the grocer’s newest proposed location in Prince George’s Riverdale Park, announced by Whole Foods Market the same year as the plans to rapidly multiply its store count, illustrates how the chain is eager to tap the strong demand for its offerings across more communities, and appears to reflect a broader set of site-selection criteria to meet its growth goal. The demographic profile for the proposed store illustrates the more expansive metrics the grocer appears to be using to size up a new location. The percentage of residents with at least a four-year college degree within three miles of the proposed location, for example, is lower than areas where it has existing stores, (although the new retail development is just a short car ride down Route 1 from the University of Maryland’s main campus.) Other demographic indicators for the site, including household growth and median income, also indicate the broader range of locations the grocer believes its stores can compete and pull in shoppers. All of these signs point to an organization that feels confident in a consumer adoption level that is no longer niche, but has gained a more broad-based mass consumer acceptance. That confidence could play a critical factor to achieving its aggressive growth goals. Erica Champion is a senior real estate economist for CoStar Group in Washington.


Baltimore Symphony Orchestra closes season with a shaky ‘Carmina Burana’

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra closed its season Wednesday at Strathmore with a somewhat shaky reading of Orff’s indestructible ear candy, “Carmina Burana,” preceded by two works for percussion ensemble by Christopher Rouse and “Sensemaya” by Silvestre Revueltas. It is easy for symphonic percussionists to feel underappreciated; the level of virtuosity and versatility they must demonstrate to win an orchestra position is far above what is required of them in 97 percent of the repertoire they end up playing. Thus the Rouse curtain raisers — the Hawaiian-inspired “Ku-Ka-Ilimoku” and the Haitian-inspired “Ogoun Badagris” — were an opportunity that the six musicians (only three are listed on the BSO’s official roster) devoured with relish, if not the last ounce of flamboyance. The two pieces were exercises in rhythmic layering over a steady pulse, played on exotic instruments, but the audience was transfixed. The full orchestra and Music Director Marin Alsop then rounded out the half with the Revueltas, a driving, Stravinsky-esque work in 7 / 8 time that was under-rehearsed. Orff’s visceral, pounding, secular cantata does “play itself,” as the saying goes, but it does not, unfortunately, sing itself. Any decent traffic cop can hold things together on the podium; few pieces are played as frequently, and orchestras know it backward. But “Carmina” is, in large measure, a showcase for the chorus, and the Morgan State University Choir could not fully carry its load. The group sang with fairly good intonation, but the blend, particularly among the women, was problematic; there were too many operatic voices sticking out. In the big washes of sound, such as “Ave formosissima” near the end, the youthful, lusty power was thrilling. But in quieter passages, flaws abounded. For their part, the men were defeated by the rapid-fire Latin in “In taberna,” which almost fell apart. Solo baritone Brian Mulligan began superbly, with sophisticated coloring in “Omnia sol temperat.” But in the louder numbers, the stress showed, as he held the score in front of his face like a shield. Kudos to tenor John Tessier, who sang his high notes in the “Roasting Swan,” and to soprano Robin Johannsen, who nailed “Dulcissime,” even if her pitch jumped around in “Amor volat.” Alsop continues to pace the iconic “O Fortuna” incorrectly, setting a tempo that leaves no room for Orff’s thrilling kick-start on the final “plangite.” Elsewhere, she seemed in too big a hurry between verses, causing unnecessary