Thor, god of beer?

first for Pizzeria Paradiso, and then for Robert Wiedmaier at Brasserie Beck. One of the importers we worked with called me one day and said I had been nominated by the committee, and it was unbelievable. There were six or seven months between that and learning that I got voted in. So I got to go there and participate in a big ceremony. It was really awesome. Did you get the sword on each shoulder? A mashing fork. Do you have a title now? Sir Thor Cheston, Knight of the Brewers’ Mash Staff. My God. Do you have a certificate or a little card you can keep in your wallet or something? Yeah, I have a certificate. And a medal. When do you wear your medal? Mostly in the shower and in bed. What has surprised you about D.C.’s taste in beer? That it seems to be ever-evolving. D.C. is just a wonderful community of very interested, educated consumers. They’re ready to absorb anything new or gain a greater understanding. Not just different styles and trends and things like that, but a real, fundamental, deep understanding of how beer should actually taste. That hoppy beers should be drunk fresh. And just because it’s sour doesn’t mean it’s good beer. Is there any food that doesn’t go with beer? Salad. There’re so many different beers out there, you can find a beer for pretty much anything. Blueberry pie? All the fruit beers. That’s a no-brainer. Toothpaste? Not food. Okay! Disqualified. I’m reading from your website menu beer descriptions. “This brett-IPA is medium bodied but light on your palate. A touch of acidity dances playfully amongst notes of tropical and citrus fruits and fresh cut flowers.” When did it become okay to talk like this about beer? As opposed to “tastes great, less filling”? When people started to realize that beer had more to offer. Wine has received this lofty position in the pantheon of alcoholic beverages. Garrett Oliver, in his book “The Brewmaster’s Table,” points out that wine only has one ingredient, but beer can be made with hundreds of ingredients. If you look at the spectrum of flavors that are possible in any recipe, beer is always going to win. More Just Asking For stories, features such as Date Lab, Gene Weingarten and more, visit WP Magazine. Follow the Magazine on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. Email us at wpmagazine@washpost.com.


Ethiopian marathoner who protested at Rio Olympics reunites with his family

Olympic marathon silver medalist Feyisa Lilesa hugs his wife, 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son while reuniting with them at Miami International Airport on Tuesday. He hadn’t seen them in more than six months after he protested Ethiopia’s government at the Rio Games and feared returning to his home nation. (Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press) Feyisa Lilesa knew when he raised his hands above his head and crossed his wrists at the Rio Olympics that there would be both consequences and sacrifices. For more than six months, he was separated from his family — his wife and two children — by nearly 9,000 miles of uncertainty. He missed birthdays, holidays, nightly dinners. Lilesa, 27, felt it was too dangerous to return to Ethiopia after protesting his country’s government at the finish line of the Olympic marathon. He was unsure when — or whether — he would see his family again. They remained in Addis Ababa, while he settled down in Flagstaff, Ariz. At least physically. His mind and his heart were always somewhere else. Late Tuesday afternoon, Lilesa, who won silver at the Rio Games, was at Miami International Airport, waiting for his family to clear customs, excited about a reunion that had been months in the making. “It’s been difficult,” Lilesa said through an interpreter as he waited for his family to arrive. “Not only to be separated from my family, but I’ve been separated from my country, my people.” Finally, Lilesa caught sight of his wife, Iftu Mulisa, alongside his 6-year-old daughter, Soko, and 3-year-old son, Sora. It was Valentine’s Day, a holiday that carries no special meaning back in Ethiopia and until Tuesday meant nothing to Lilesa. “I just learned this morning that this is actually a lovers’ day,” he said. “That made me really, really happy. It seems like I have more reason to celebrate this day going forward.” Lilesa made international headlines by crossing his wrists and speaking out against the Ethiopian government for its treatment of his people. Lilesa is part of the Oromo tribe, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. Human rights organizations say Oromos have been murdered, beaten and imprisoned, and Lilesa went to Rio de Janeiro intent on drawing more attention to the abuses. He knew by protesting, though, that he couldn’t return home. Lilesa is certain that if he returned to Ethiopia he would be imprisoned or possibly killed. “It was a personal


treatment of his people. Lilesa is part of the Oromo tribe, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. Human rights organizations say Oromos have been murdered, beaten and imprisoned, and Lilesa went to Rio de Janeiro intent on drawing more attention to the abuses. He knew by protesting, though, that he couldn’t return home. Lilesa is certain that if he returned to Ethiopia he would be imprisoned or possibly killed. “It was a personal decision I made, and I was ready to take the responsibility for whatever happened,” he said. “Yes, I was separated from my family, but I knew that my family felt they faced the same fate as all the Oromo people in Ethiopia. I knew I could potentially not see them for a long time.” Lilesa spent three weeks laying low in a Rio hotel room before flying to Washington in September, a temporary stop before eventually settling down in Arizona, where he can train at a high altitude. For more than six months, his worst fear has been that the government would retaliate against his family. When the Internet in Ethiopia allowed, Lilesa was able to chat with his family, assuring them that lawyers were working to bring them to the United States. Their visas were finally granted this month, he said. “I try to look at this as my family actually has this option and this opportunity to be able to leave,” he said. “But there are millions of Oromo people who are left behind, who don’t have the same opportunity my family has.” Lilesa has competed twice since the Rio Olympics, turning in a fourth-place finish at the Honolulu Marathon in December and finishing a close second at the Houston Half-Marathon last month as he and the winner finished with identical times of 1:01:14. He’s planning to compete in the London Marathon in April. Training, Lilesa says, has at times felt like an escape, but his family and the struggles Oromos face back in Ethiopia are never far from his thoughts. He’d hoped his family reunion would somehow take place back in Addis Ababa. He likes Flagstaff but says, “I don’t think it will ever feel like home.” “My heart is always back home. The situation in Ethiopia doesn’t allow me to rest,” he said. “I think part of the reason is because my mind is always preoccupied with what is going on back home.”


Sample a variety of Maryland beers at Love Thy Beer

Evolution Craft Brewing Co. from Salisbury, Md., is one of many breweries providing samples at Love Thy Beer on Feb. 17. (Jeffrey MacMillan/Jeffrey MacMillan ) FRIDAY ALEXANDRIA WINTER RESTAURANT WEEK 2017: LOVE THY BEER — WINTER WARMER SHOWCASE: RESERVE NOW FEB. 22 TURN UP THE HEAT: FEB. 23 WINE DINNER: — Kara Elder Submit event listings at events.washpost.com at least 14 days in advance.


D.C., Maryland and Virginia health code violations

These food establishments were closed because of health code violations. The list, compiled from health department reports, reflects actions taken by the departments. THE DISTRICT Dean DeLuca 3276 M St. NW Closed Friday because of insects, rodents and other pests. Reopened the next day. Mai Thai 3251 Prospect St. NW Closed Feb. 8 because of insects, rodents and other pests. Reopened the next day. Slim’s Diner 4201 Georgia Ave. NW Closed Feb. 8 because of insects, rodents and other pests. Reopened the next day. MARYLAND Cornerstone Grill and Loft 7325 Baltimore Ave., College Park Closed Friday because of mice. Reopened that day. Dollar City 6180 Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt Food services closed last Thursday for operating without a permit. Reopened that day. Hinode 134 Congressional Lane, Rockville Closed Monday because of rodents. Hunan To Go 12 Dawson Ave., Rockville Closed Feb. 8 because of unsanitary conditions. Reopened the next day. McDonald’s 6200 Annapolis Rd., Landover Hills Closed Feb. 6 because of low water pressure. Reopened that day. No. 1 China 7643 New Hampshire Ave., Takoma Park Closed Feb. 7 for operating without hot water. Reopened that day. VIRGINIA No new closings were reported. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


The career pivot is the ultimate test of self-reinvention

biostatistics course. “It was a revelation,” he said. He told his partners, who were dumbfounded, that he had been accepted at Hopkins and was leaving the firm. While his wife continued working, he found himself studying alongside people from all over the world, a young and idealistic group whom he found inspiring and refreshing after so many years in Washington. “I just cannot emphasize enough how fascinating I found epidemiology. “I would say, ‘Do it,’ ” he said, to anyone who asked. “If you’re really interested in something, you ought to pursue that interest. That’s certainly what happened to me.” It happened to Andrew Feinberg, too. Feinberg, a professor of medicine at Hopkins since 1994, was standing on Charles Darwin’s grave in Westminster Abbey a few years ago, surrounded by a crowd of other tourists looking at memorials of famous scientists, when an idea “just came flying into my head.” Feinberg had just looked at a plaque honoring the physicist Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum theory, when he had the insight: that there might be, in biology, a built-in variability that’s a little like quantum theory. He immediately sensed that could explain something that he had long been trying to understand. It could, perhaps, help predict who would get cancer or other diseases. It was an electrifying idea. But he needed to know more to explore it. “I knew that what I was really interested in was how randomness and noise, this variability, how that could cause changes in a system, and make it suddenly behave in a different way,” he said. “But I didn’t know how to do it.” Feinberg had studied math in college but left early to go to medical school. “And that’s the dark ages. I knew six programming languages, but they’re all dead now — there’s no way to code them.” So he went back to school for a year. He took graduate classes in systems biology, and engineering and biostatistics and computing, doing the homework and taking the tests, with the other students in the class staring at him wondering, he said, “What’s with this — this — geriatric person?” He never gave up his job. He kept running his lab. But he took a very big risk. His reputation as a pioneer in cancer epigenetics was somewhat on the line. And he gave up some funding, including a cancer research


Cultural and community events in the District, Feb. 16-23, 2017

Academy The National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellows concert “Everybody” yoga Yoga Immanuel Mifsud, poetry reading Brews and Banter: “As You Like It” Seeing Deeper: In Full Bloom Crossing the Rubicon: Battle for Black Public Education in the District of Columbia Spices 101: the basics of how spices improve health and make your food taste wonderful! “The Mark of Zorro” (1940) Yoga at Northwest One “Last Train to Nibroc” “As You Like It” “Roe” “Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies” “Watch on the Rhine” Friday, Feb. 17 Income Tax Assistance Conversation Circles Children’s safety seats and belts inspection Preschool story time Move, Dance, Create “Faik Konitza: Encounters of a Washington Diplomat and his Lost Library” Income tax assistance Commemorative textiles Classical piano recital National Symphony Orchestra: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Week “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993) Saturday, Feb. 18 Income Tax Assistance Citizenship classes “Babe” Saturday morning Yoga Family story time “Follow That Fiddle” Yoga at your library Presidential family fun day Dance Place gardening with Carla Perlo “F is for Fake” Second City Training Center wellness program Dance concert Sunday, Feb. 19 Palisades farmers market Shaw Knitting and Crochet Circle Blue Heron concert Conversation: “Islam in Washington: Then and Now” Portrait Gallery artist talk William Hooker, musician Monday, Feb. 20 Library of Congress “Blues for a Royal Flush” Tuesday, Feb. 21 Children’s safety seats and belts inspection “How Old Is a Hero?” Chair yoga Gentle adapted yoga that involves safely-performed seated and supported poses that promote deep relaxation and mental clarity; all experience levels welcome. Tuesdays at noon. Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, 1632 U St. NW. 202-483-8600. smithcenter.org. $10 per class, $25 per month. Tuesday yoga Sketching: draw and discover Pajama story time Avon Dews, harmonicist Kitchen 101: Knife skills Yoga classes ESL English conversation club Yoga at Northwest One ESL conversation circle Volunteers from the Washington English Center facilitate the practice of your conversational English skills. Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Shaw (Watha T. Daniel) Library, 1630 Seventh St. NW. 202-483-8600. wathashawlibrary@dc.gov. Free. Zumba Wednesday, Feb. 22 Gallery talk “A Vintage Evening: Whiskey and Rebellion” Andrew Earle Simpson, composer and musician National Symphony Orchestra Pops: Snarky Puppy Mason Bates’s KC Jukebox: Music Instruments of Victor Gama Thursday, Feb. 23 The National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellows concert “Harry T. Burleigh: From the Spiritual to the Harlem Renaissance” — Compiled by Gerri Marmer TO SUBMIT AN EVENT E-mail:


Wadada Leo Smith’s jazz is demanding, but emotionally cathartic

wrong. Trumpeter-composer Smith’s concert was a keynote of GDS’s Social Justice Days, and it followed a talk by Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery on the lessons he learned reporting out of Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. Perhaps it was this context that brought emotional impact to Smith’s music. Perhaps, too, it was the extraordinary musicians assembled for the night: a nonet featuring two tenor saxophonists (Brad Linde, a GDS teacher who organized the concert, and Patrick Booth), second trumpeter Ryan Frazier, guitarist Aaron Quinn, cellist Janel Leppin, pianist Erika Dohi, bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Jonathan Taylor. Individually and collectively, they played magnificently. But the power of Smith’s own expressiveness can’t be dismissed. The opening “Dred Scott: 1857” began with a maelstrom of cymbals, guitar, cello and bass (pianist Dohi was also playing, but inaudibly); the horns then entered, hard to distinguish in the whirlwind. But Smith stopped them all short with a series of piercing, painful shrieks. He went on, playing anguish on his horn with almost supernatural directness (amplified by the band’s silence). The catharsis continued. “Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 381 Days” found the ensemble droning softly in one key, Smith playing gorgeous figures in another. The piece was somber, but also an unmistakable call to arms. The sidemen shared in Smith’s passion, though perhaps none more than Stewart, whose look of concentration as he bowed the bass was complemented by a physical intensity that shook the wool hat on his head. “Democracy,” which began with the first true cacophony of the evening (Smith later explained that it was a metaphor for democracy: “a scattered dialogue about nothing”), gave way to the mad fingering and strong, unbending tone of Frazier’s trumpet; the leader’s trumpet would present the climax with a coarse, unaccompanied groan. The finale, “Malik Al Shabazz and the People of the Shahada,” was mainly a feature for Linde, who — before he was capped by a stunning diminuendo from Dohi — elevated his sax slowly from its lowest range to its highest, and, not coincidentally, from sorrow to hope. Speaking to the audience afterward (in keeping with the social justice theme), Smith emphasized the opening “Dred Scott” as “representing the first debate about race in our country. He opened up multiple cans of worms that are still happening today . . . we should do something about it. “I think we should wake up.”


Sick of loud bars? Here are D.C. haunts where conversation is on the menu.

spot Head to: Hank’s Cocktail Bar This cocktail bar from the folks behind Hank’s Oyster Bar is another destination that benefits from its almost-out-of-view locale. On a far corner of Upshur Street NW in Petworth, it can be easy to miss, but that’s what makes it ideal for a first date, particularly on weeknights: It’s bustling without being loud, attractive without being stuffy, and happy hour, with $5 punch and $5 Old- Fashioneds until 8 p.m. on weeknights, makes it easy to pick up the check. 819 Upshur St. NW. hankscocktailbar.com. The Punch Garden at the Columbia Room hums in the summer, but is open even in the winter, now with newly installed heaters. (Scott Suchman) You want: A patio that isn’t a mob scene Head to: Punch Garden at the Columbia Room If you’re trying to catch the Columbia Room’s Punch Garden in repose, a couple of quiet months remain. On warm days, tables can be hard to come by, but for now, the crowds are sparse, and you can order drinks from the same menu offered indoors while relaxing on the wooded, enclosed deck under newly installed heaters. The garden differs from the Tasting Room and Spirits Library in that no music is piped in; plus, because the Columbia Room is on Blagden Alley, even the outdoor space feels just far away enough from the world to make it an ideal escape. 124 Blagden Alley NW. columbiaroomdc.com . You want: An old-school joint that hits all the right notes Head to: Quill Walk through the ritzy Jefferson Hotel to find Quill, one of the city’s coziest hotel bars. It can feel snug inside, like half the main room is taken up by the piano. But for those who long for a former Washington, where there were classy places to hear piano music late into the night with barflies at least 20 years over the legal drinking age, Quill remains one of the city’s sweetest watering holes. The live music, offered several nights a week, is a bonus; if you prefer to sip in silence, go before 9 p.m. 1200 16th St. NW. jeffersondc.com/dining/quill. Anton and Sharon Korinek enjoy cocktails at Barmini. (2015 photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post) You want: To impress someone Head to: Barmini You have to make a reservation to imbibe at José Andrés’s cocktail lab, and the result is that you’ll often find yourself


His family fled the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now he’s one of Virginia’s most feared wrestlers.

was mostly a happy one. He played soccer, volleyball and video games and rolled around on the mats in the fitness gym owned by his father, a professional bodybuilder. But violence and fear became too normalized and too close to home for Mohsin’s family in Kabul. “You’re like, ‘Okay, this happened. Tomorrow again it will happen,’ ” Mohsin said. “. . . It’s like everybody got used to it.” By the summer of 2014, Zubair and his wife, Khatera, had had enough. They summoned their four children to deliver some news: They were all moving to the United States in two weeks. Zubair, now 36, had submitted his application for the Special Immigrant Visa — an expedited visa for Iraqi and Afghan nationals who worked with the U.S. Armed Forces or under Chief of Mission authority as a translator or interpreter — about one year earlier. Kabul’s security situation had been deteriorating, and Zubair had received threats from members of the Taliban. Zubair survived ambushes as a QRF interpreter working alongside U.S. coalition forces in 2002. In his ensuing 11 years as a manager for USAID Implementing Partners, he hid his face whenever he entered Kabul’s U.S. embassy, telling curious acquaintances he was a driver or a cleaner whenever they asked. “I said, ‘There is no hope in Afghanistan,’ ” Zubair recalled telling his devastated mother. “ ‘My kids are not safe. Maybe someday those bad guys will kidnap my kids.’ ” Zaki Mohsin, meanwhile, was equally stunned. He had been preparing for that fall’s Asian Games, where a medal would have made him Afghanistan’s first judo selection for the Rio 2016 Games. Zubair gave him the option to continue his preparation. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ” Zaki said. “ ‘Of course I’m coming.’ ” Edison wrestling coaches Don Dight and Scott Racek, center, talk to Zaki Mohsin, right, following a recent practice. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Racek said of Mohsin’s fast rise on the mat. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) Zaki Mohsin, top center, has found a home at Edison through the sport of wrestling despite never having competed before he arrived in Richmond in 2014. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) A quick study About five weeks after arriving in Richmond, Mohsin found himself at the center of a wrestling mat at J.R. Tucker High. Weeks of GPS searches for judo studios had proved fruitless,


After working for Trump’s campaign, British data firm eyes new U.S. government contracts

(R-Tex.). In the end, Cambridge’s work proved uneven, according to campaign officials, who said that while its data scientists were impressive, its psychographic analysis did not bear fruit. Company officials said they were still learning how to apply the approach in a tightly compressed primary environment. Cambridge then moved on to serve as the Trump campaign’s data-science provider. While company officials said they did not have sufficient time to employ psychographics in that campaign, they did data modeling and polling that showed Trump’s strength in the industrial Midwest, shaping a homestretch strategy that led to his upset wins in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Headquartered in a nondescript building on New Oxford Street in central London, SCL Group has the look of a staid insurance agency, with employees working at rows of computer screens. But along with project managers, IT specialists and “creatives” who design websites are psychologists and a team of data-scientists, many of whom hold doctorates in physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. SCL’s main offering, first developed by its affiliated London think tank in 1989, involves gathering vast quantities of data about an audience’s values, attitudes and beliefs, identifying groups of “persuadables” and then targeting them with tailored messages. SCL began testing the technique on health and development campaigns in Britain in the early 1990s, then branched out into international political consulting and later defense contracting. Emma Briant, who wrote about SCL’s work in her 2015 book “Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global Change,” said its approach can be used to manipulate the public, which is largely unaware how much of their personal information is available. “They are using similar methodologies to those the intelligence agencies use with openly available data in order to create a commercial advantage for themselves,” said Briant, a journalism studies lecturer at the University of Sheffield in Britain, who is on leave to conduct research at George Washington University. “They are exploiting our dependence on social media.” Nix, who serves as Cambridge’s chief executive, said that none of the information the company collects is “particularly intrusive,” adding that SCL’s data-science techniques were predominantly developed in the political space, not for military clients. “This is not medical data or health data or financial data,” he said of the U.S. data that Cambridge collects. “It’s what cereal you eat for breakfast and what car you drive.” SCL, which says it has worked in 100 countries, offers


This Russian threat cannot go unchallenged

President Ronald Reagan, right, shakes hands with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev after the two signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on Dec. 8, 1987. (Bob Daugherty/Associated Press) RUSSIA’S APPARENT violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty has moved a worrisome step forward. A ground-launched cruise missile that the United States has identified as a treaty violation is being deployed by Russia, according to a report in the New York Times. This threatens to upend an important treaty and poses a major challenge for the United States, especially since years of objections over the violation have been stonewalled by President Vladimir Putin. With a new U.S. administration taking office, it would make sense for President Trump to press Russia once more to adhere to the treaty, while holding out the possibility of military countermeasures if he does not. The treaty was a centerpiece of the cooperation between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War, eliminating an entire class of deployed land-based missiles in Europe with a range between 300 and 3,400 miles, and their launchers; prohibiting flight-testing and production of new missiles in the future; and including new, intrusive verification measures. Over the past decade, Russia stealthily developed a ground-launched cruise missile in apparent violation of the treaty, one of a number of asymmetric weapons programs developed by Mr. Putin to throw the West off balance. The new missile was first seen in a flight test in 2008; the Obama administration told Congress about it in late 2011, and State Department compliance reports formally called it a treaty violation in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Russia has repeatedly refused to acknowledge a treaty violation. A special commission set up in the treaty to resolve disputes met late last year without result. Now, Mr. Trump should raise the issue directly with Mr. Putin and make it clear that the United States will not tolerate behavior that undermines the very foundation of arms-control treaties — that they are binding and verifiable. Mr. Trump has described himself as a good negotiator and as a Mr. Fix-it. Certainly, the INF treaty needs repair. The military countermeasures prepared by the Pentagon, such as deployment of new U.S. missiles or active defenses, might, over time, coerce the Kremlin to change tack. But it would be far preferable for Mr. Trump, who has yet to meet Mr. Putin, to attempt


Police ID man found fatally shot in Northeast D.C.

D.C. police said a man who was shot Friday night in Northeast Washington has died. Department spokeswoman Rachel Reid said police responding to a report of gunshots in the 900 block of 12th Street NE about 9:20 p.m. found Eric Linnair Wright, 53, of Northwest D.C. Wright was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police are offering a $25,000 reward to anyone who can provide information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. Police urge anyone with information to call 202-727-9099.


Simply stated, Gorsuch is steadfast and surprising

will not be shouted down.” Gorsuch also promoted his conservative ideas by running for Columbia’s student senate. That year, the student newspaper asked every candidate whether the U.S. Marine Corps should be allowed to recruit on campus. While most candidates brought up the military’s discrimination against gays as a problem, Gorsuch cited the Marine recruiters’ First Amendment right to free speech. “The question here is not whether ‘the Marines should be allowed to recruit on campus’ but whether a University and its community . . . has the right or obligation to determine who may speak on campus or what may be said,” Gorsuch wrote. At Columbia, and in the years that followed at Harvard Law School and Oxford University, Gorsuch enjoyed engaging on the hot-button issues of the day. One issue in particular became a kind of laboratory for his conservative explorations: the sanctity of life and how to define it. At the time, Michigan doctor Jack Kevorkian was making national headlines by championing the right to die for terminal patients through physician-assisted suicide. This and similar controversies made a deep impression on Gorsuch. He was eager to debate assisted suicide with fellow law students at Harvard, and it became the subject of his PhD thesis after he won a Marshall Scholarship to Oxford. In his dissertation, later published as a book entitled, “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” he makes his legal case against assisted suicide and argues for the “inviolability” of human life. It is the closest Gorsuch has ever come to revealing his thoughts on abortion, in his academic writings as well as in his judicial opinions. But with abortion continuing to be one of the marquee issues confronting the Supreme Court, the book has been cited by Gorsuch’s conservative backers as reason to rally behind him, and by abortion rights advocates as the basis of their worst fears. Justice Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch in October 2014 on the Colorado River near Kremmling, Colo. (Glenn Summers/Gorsuch Family) Many of those who knew Gorsuch during his student days noted that he was as affable in person as he was fierce in his writings. As a member of a Harvard social club called Lincoln’s Inn Society, Gorsuch met a classmate named Phil Berg, sparking a friendship that has lasted 30 years. A few years after they met, Berg decided to come out as gay, and Gorsuch


Environmentalists propose strict new measures to curb Maryland forest loss

More than 14,450 acres of Maryland’s forests have disappeared to development in the past eight years, and conservationists say that’s the good news. Before the recession dampened the building industry, about 7,000 acres of Maryland’s tree canopy vanished every year. Now, as the economy rebounds, environmentalists are seeking a stronger state law to prevent further degradation of one of the best filters of Chesapeake Bay pollution — contiguous forests that once blanketed the state. “We’re still losing forest land, and this bill is asking someone who cuts down an acre of forest to plant one,” said state Sen. Ronald N. Young (D-Frederick), who sponsored the measure. Young said the stricter rule — a fourfold increase from the 1991 Forest Conservation Act’s original standards — is crucial to fulfilling the state’s “no net loss” policy on forest coverage. The proposal pits conservationists against the development community at time when Gov. Larry Hogan (R), a former real estate developer, has pushed other measures to strengthen his environmental record. “We’re focused on our environmental package, and we’ll see what other bills get to his desk,” Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer said. He declined to offer a position on the forest legislation. Developers say the one-for-one proposal is impractical and would drive development to farmland, promoting sprawl. It would also shift the focus away from preserving the most ecologically valuable forest land, they said. “Replanting acre for acre, there’s not enough land in the state, really, to do that,” said Lori Graf, chief executive of the Maryland Building Industry Association. “We’re not looking to cut down more trees than we have to.” Graf said that in many cases, development can improve the drainage and ecology of a site and “actually create a better environment.” An analysis of forestry records by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation found application of the existing forest law varies widely, with some Eastern Shore counties replanting less than 2 percent of the forested acres removed during development over the past eight years. Some jurisdictions rely heavily on a provision that allows developers to pay a fee instead of replanting the trees. Legislative analysts said most fees don’t cover the cost of replanting, and local governments often struggle to find ways to replant. Application of the law has also led to lawsuits that tangle up developments in court. A pair of proposed developments of wooded property in Annapolis prompted such controversy that the


Beer of the Week: A double IPA with more hops and malt than you can imagine

The Washington Post) India pale ales continue to dominate craft beer sales, with the Brewers Association noting in its 2016 recap that the hop-heavy style represents “roughly one-quarter of craft volume” in America. So when San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewery began discussing names for a new double IPA, says co-founder and brewmaster Shaun O’Sullivan, talk quickly turned to the style’s ubiquity: “There’s single IPA, there’s session IPAs, Black IPAs, Blah Blah Blah IPAs.” The cheeky name, originally used for an early version of the brewery’s Toaster Pastry hoppy red ale, stuck. If the IPA field is overly crowded — and it should be noted that 21st Amendment offers an IPA, a session IPA, a black IPA and a double IPA, with a blood orange IPA on the way — why add yet another to shelves and taps? “We wanted an accessible double IPA,” O’Sullivan says, noting that Blah Blah Blah is 8 percent alcohol by volume, and other double IPAs, such as 21st Amendment’s Hop Crisis, are 9 percent or higher. Blah Blah Blah stands out in another way: Although the trend in craft brewing is toward IPAs showcasing just one or two varieties of hops, this recipe involves nine, from the primary use of familiar Chinook and Cascade to late additions of Mandarina Bavaria, Idaho 7, Motueka and other hops at regular intervals. (“There’s a lot of running up and down the stairs” to throw more hops in the kettle every few minutes, O’Sullivan says, and the final result contains around two pounds of hops per barrel.) Just as important as the hops is the huge malt profile, with five styles of malt, including two kinds of pale malt, a honey malt to add sweetness and white wheat to add more texture to the body. With so many ingredients, it could have been overwhelming. Instead, it’s a beer that works in symphony: the orange marmalade and dank resin in the aroma; the sweet, toasty body full of honey and caramel, matched well against tropical fruit juiciness; and a piney bitterness. The mouth feel is rich and sticky, with lingering grapefruit hoppiness, and the lasting impression is of a well-rounded beer, especially given the amount of hops. It’s one you’ll be talking about for a while. — Fritz Hahn 21st Amendment Blah Blah Blah IPA. 21st-amendment.com. About $13 for a six-pack of 12-ounce cans. More from Food: Beer Column archive


Number of Maryland babies born with drugs in their system grows

born, they are screened and given a score based on the degree of their symptoms. This score determines how they are treated. “Every baby is a little bit different,” said Marie Kanagie-McAleese, director of the pediatric hospitalist program at the University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Medical Center. “It really depends on the type of medication mom is taking, how frequently and whether she is taking many drugs simultaneously.” Initial treatment for all addicted babies involves creating a calming environment with little stimulation. Babies are kept in quiet rooms with low lights. Some hospitals, including the University of Maryland Medical Center and University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake, have created cuddle rooms where volunteers rock and soothe the babies. Some hospitals also may use massage and music therapy. These calming techniques aren’t always enough for babies with higher exposure to opioids. About 60 to 80 percent of infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome need drug treatment to help with withdrawal, according to a December article in the New England Journal of Medicine about the syndrome. Most are given morphine or methadone, mostly to help relieve seizures, weight loss and other symptoms as they detox. But these drugs can lead to other health issues. For instance, use of morphine can lead to respiratory problems and a longer hospital stay for the baby. The University of Maryland Medical Center is studying whether the use of cuddlers can decrease the amount of morphine and other drugs these babies need to recover and decrease their hospital stay. “A nurse can’t always do this because they have to take care of other babies,” said Dina El-Metwally, medical director of the Baltimore hospital’s Drs. Rouben and Violet Jiji Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. At the Center for Addiction and Pregnancy at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, the focus is on treating the mother’s addiction and any underlying mental health issues while they also treat the baby. The idea is that the mother will most often be the best caregiver to help her child if given the right support. Among the things mothers are taught is how to address symptoms that may arise after the baby is home. “There are usually residual symptoms that can last over the first year — stiff muscles, feeding difficulties, trouble sleeping,” said Lauren Jansson, the center’s pediatric director. “All of these symptoms can be managed at home, but it can be difficult without support.” Doctors


For Kenyan kids, stargazing is a rare treat

A student looks up at the moon through a telescope at St. Andrew's School near Molo in Kenya's Rift Valley. Children in Kenya seldom study astronomy, but a program called the Travelling Telescope is bringing telescopes to even remote areas of the country. (Ben Curtis/AP) Thousands of schoolchildren in Kenya are getting a rare opportunity to look at the stars. The Travelling Telescope visits some of this East African country’s most remote areas, showing students the night sky and the describing the science of astronomy with telescopes and virtual reality goggles. One by one, the children in the Rift Valley town of Molo lined up to peer through the telescope. Fourteen-year-old Evie Clarke gazed into the sky. “Over there is Venus and just above it is Mars, and there are loads of suns,” she said, pointing. “You have such a nice picture of the moon, and you can see all the craters. Oh man, it was amazing, yes!” St. Andrew’s students raise their hands for astronomer Daniel Chu Owen, left, during the Travelling Telescope’s visit. (Ben Curtis/AP) Students also enter an inflatable planetarium to learn more about astronomy, and they look at constellations using virtual-reality goggles. Although Kenya lies on the equator and has dramatic nighttime skies in rural areas, children find it hard to name planets and other bodies as astronomy is rarely taught in schools. The telescope “has been around for more than 400 years and yet very few people have looked through one,” said Susan Murabana, who founded the Travelling Telescope project in 2013 with her husband, Daniel Chu Owen. They charge about $2 to $3 per child at international or private schools. They do not charge at public schools. They would like to expand the project across Africa. “There is something really powerful about seeing things for yourself and seeing those photons coming from a star or planet or whatever is going through the telescope hitting your eye, you know,” Owen said. “You are not looking at a screen, you are not looking in a book … It stays with you.” Tamara Lugonzo, 15, said she is considering a career in astronomy after her experience: “It’s so cool, yeah!”


Bye bye, Bao Bao

be accompanied by a veterinarian as well as a panda keeper who held her when she was a day-old cub. “The keepers who’ve been with her every day are going to miss her, but she’s going to be doing a positive thing, hopefully going on to breed new pandas and release some of them into the wild,” said Erin Kendrick, a clinical nutritionist at the zoo. Bao Bao gets a bear-size luggage allotment, and she’s allowed to carry plants and liquids. Her special “suitcase” will contain 50 pounds of bamboo, two pounds of cooked sweet potatoes, two pounds of apples, 10 gallons of water, and honey water and sugar cane. At 10 a.m., visitors let out a collective “Awww” as Bao Bao received a farewell ice cake in the shape of a Chinese pagoda, made of frozen apple juice, red “leafeater” biscuits and two kinds of bamboo. Adults and children crowded around a table to write postcards to the departing starlet and to her new keepers in China. Some added Chinese characters, to represent the journey to her new home, or the District’s stars and stripes logo, to remind her of her old one. Bao Bao captured the hearts of the D.C. region since her birth at the National Zoo in 2013. Take a look back at the giant panda's most adorable moments ahead of her departure to China on Feb. 21. Dear Bao Bao, I will miss you a ton. Why did you have to go? With hugs, kisses, and a lot of love, Beril Gunduzhan “Maybe she will miss us, too,” said Beril, 8, of Bethesda, who was there with her mother and older sister. Why are pandas so adored? “That expression,” said Blaine D’Amico of Arlington. “They seem more friendly and human, even though they are bears. . . . And they’re vegetarians. I mean, a vegetarian bear.” To Melinda Maldonado, an Arlington resident originally from Austin, the love is spiritual. “I think that when you see an animal with a pattern like that — a giraffe or a panda — you realize there’s a God, there’s the entity that created all this,” she said. “It also reminds us that we need to take care of our planet. It’s not just about materialism and greed and one-upping each other.” Although Bao Bao has been receiving ice cakes and extra visitors these past days, the panda probably didn’t


Bao Bao, the National Zoo’s giant panda, is off to China

made with frozen apple juice, bamboo and biscuits, in the shape of a Chinese pagoda. When Bao Bao’s truck arrived at Dulles early Tuesday afternoon, about 15 people with special passes waited on the tarmac outside. Jamie Levinson, 9, had skipped school with her dad to come say goodbye. Her advice to Bao Bao: “It’s going to be a fun and cool experience, and you’re where you should be.” Bao Bao’s flight to Chengdu, China, will involve a team of pilots, a veterinarian and another veteran panda keeper. Also aboard: 50 pounds of snacks and liquids. Her luggage includes the bamboo, sweet potatoes, apples, water and sugar cane. In China, she will go into quarantine at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province. Most giant pandas around the world are on loan from China, and cubs that are born abroad are sent to the Chinese breeding program before they turn 4. The National Zoo has had pandas since the 1970s. Bao Bao’s older brother, Tai Shan, moved to China in 2010. The National Zoo still has three other giant pandas, including Bao Bao’s 1-year-old brother, Bei Bei, and their mother Mei Xiang, 18, and father Tian Tian, 19. This spring, the zoo said it plans to breed Mei Xiang, who they believe has at least one more chance to produce a cub. Officials have said Bao Bao is special because she is only the second surviving cub born at the facility. Some keepers have dubbed her the “miracle” giant panda. The panda, whose name means “precious” or “treasure” in Chinese, was born in August 2013. Mei Xiang gave birth to a second cub about 26 hours later, but that cub was stillborn. Many members of the zoo staff were thoughtful as they helped prepare Bao Bao for her journey Tuesday. Brandie Smith, the zoo’s associate director for animal care sciences, said that after Tai Shan left, no panda cubs had survived at the zoo for several years. “A lot of people had given up,” she said. “So Bao Bao, to me, is the new beginning of the National Zoo’s panda program. “This is part of the journey we always expect her to take,” she said. “A lot of people expected me to be sad right now, but I’m so happy for her and proud of what we accomplished. I feel nothing but joy.”


Austrian court approves extradition of Ukrainian oligarch tied to Trump campaign adviser

Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash arrives for the start of his trial in Vienna on Feb. 21. A final decision on whether to hand him over to the United States will be made by Austria’s justice minister. (Ronald Zak/Associated Press) An Austrian appeals court on Tuesday approved the extradition to the United States of a Ukrainian oligarch with ties to a former senior Trump adviser on corruption charges. Dmytro Firtash, a billionaire who made a fortune as a middleman in Ukraine’s rough-and-tumble gas industry, has been indicted by U.S. prosecutors for allegedly bribing Indian officials to secure a titanium deal. An extradition request in 2015 had been denied by a Viennese court, which called the U.S. allegations “politically motivated.” A final decision on whether to hand over Firtash to the United States will be made by Austria’s justice minister. Firtash wielded significant political power in Ukraine under former president Viktor Yanukovych, who was overthrown amid street protests in 2014. Firtash was arrested in Vienna on an FBI warrant just weeks after Yanukovych fled to Russia and was succeeded by a vocally pro-Western government. Firtash’s lawyers say that he is being targeted by the United States as part of a political inquisition against Yanukovych’s former political allies. “It wasn’t for us to judge whether Mr. Firtash was guilty, but only whether the extradition is allowed,” Judge Leo Levnaic-Iwanski said in the ruling on the U.S. request Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported. “This decision only means that another country will make a decision whether he is guilty.” Lawyers for Firtash had sought to paint the allegations against Firtash as a strategy to limit Russian influence in Ukraine. The criminal investigation was initiated during the Obama administration. In a statement, Firtash’s U.S. legal team said it was “disappointed” by the appeals court decision and said he was innocent. “If and when Mr. Firtash is required to come to the United States, the team will fight to obtain dismissal of this unjust case by the Department of Justice or, if necessary, in U.S. courts, to clear Mr. Firtash's name,” the statement read. Firtash had previously weighed teaming up with American investors and political strategist Paul Manafort, who for a time managed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, to buy high-end real estate in the United States, including the famous Drake Hotel in New York. According to correspondence revealed in a 2011 lawsuit brought against Firtash by former Ukrainian


Giant panda Bao Bao on her way to China

Bao Bao (rhymes with now-now) examines an ice cake Monday, her last full day at the National Zoo in Washington. The giant panda left the zoo Tuesday morning for a breeding program in China. (Smithsonian's National Zoo) Bao Bao left for the airport Tuesday morning, the first part of the giant panda’s journey from the National Zoo to her new home in Chengdu, China. Shortly after breakfast, zookeepers called Bao Bao in from the panda yard and into a steel crate that she would ride in for the 8,500 mile trip, according to a National Zoo statement. Several staff members and Bao Bao headed to Dulles International Airport, where a special “Panda Express” jumbo jet was scheduled to take off at about 1:30 p.m. National Zoo staff members escort Bao Bao out of the zoo Tuesday. She is riding in a metal crate for the flight to China. (Smithsonian's National Zoo) A panda keeper and veterinarian will travel to China with Bao Bao, making sure she stays healthy and feeding her bamboo and leafeater biscuits. After the plane arrives in Chengdu, a team of Chinese panda keepers will take Bao Bao to Dujiangyan Panda Base, where she will stay for 30 days to make sure she does not carry any diseases. It’s not known whether the panda will stay at Dujiangyan after the 30 days are over, according to the zoo. Bao Bao, who is now 3½ , will join the giant panda breeding program after she turns 5. Giant pandas are no longer considered “endangered” but are a “vulnerable” species in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There are about 1,850 living wild in China, according to a 2014 survey. Three giant pandas remain at the National Zoo: Bao Bao’s father, Tian Tian (pronounced tee-YEN tee-YEN); her mother, Mei Xiang (may-SHONG); and her little brother, Bei Bei. In about two years, Bei Bei will travel to China to join Bao Bao and big brother Tai Shan, who was born at the National Zoo in 2005. Bao Bao captured the hearts of the D.C. region since her birth at the National Zoo in 2013. Take a look back at the giant panda's most adorable moments ahead of her departure to China on Feb. 21.


The right way to care for one of nature’s most neglected creatures: The houseplant

root soaking and returned after draining. By the way, the practice of placing a couple of ice cubes to melt on moth orchid roots is ill advised, in my view. Apart from the chilling effect, the cubes equate to an ounce or so of water, which isn’t enough to hydrate the growing medium of bark mix or moss. (Of those, I much prefer bark mix, which is almost impossible to overwater, though it should be changed annually.) For houseplants generally, a good watering will last at least a week. The books tell you to water less frequently in winter, to keep the plants in a resting mode, but heated interiors tend to be woefully dry. Check the soil with your finger and water again when the top inch or so is dry. Most houseplants are beginning to stir into life, drawn from their winter dormancy by the lengthening period of daylight. Some plants can go three or four years without repotting, but I find most benefit from an annual replenishment in advance of their spring growth spurt. We should do this for several reasons that all come down to the fact that plants were never meant to grow in pots, even tree dwellers such as moth orchids. After a year or two, the original light, fluffy potting mix breaks down and compacts, creating the risk of holding too much water and too little air. Fertilizer salts build up. In addition, the roots will fill the pot and need freeing. If they get too congested, they completely displace the soil. The plant cannot keep abreast of its needs for moisture and nutrient. How do you replenish the soil? It’s a messy process — I use a workbench, lots of newspaper sheets and a big trash can nearby. By removing the plant from its pot (not always easy), you will quickly determine the state of the root system. Tease the old soil from the roots, untangle them and remove dead or desiccated ones. Typically, you want to put a congested plant in a pot about two inches larger, using fresh potting mix (not topsoil). After a good soaking, I feed the plant with a weak solution of fertilizer as a tonic. Each plant is different — you can’t know how one is doing until you get a good look at the roots. A couple of recent repottings drove this home for me.


Montgomery County Animal Watch

Montgomery county These cases were received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Germantown Report of neglect Silver Spring Dog at large Volunteer puppy trainers needed The Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind needs volunteers for the puppy training program to help raise and train a 12- to 18-month-old puppy to become a guide dog for the blind or a service dog for a veteran. Call 866-282-8046 or visit guidedog.org. Humane Society adoptions The Montgomery County Humane Society’s private rescue shelter has dogs, puppies, cats and kittens available for adoption. Call 240-252-2555 or visit mchumane.org.MCHS Adoptions and Education Center, 601 S. Stonestreet Ave., Rockville. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except holidays. Reduced FEES FOR CATS Cats and kittens will be available for adoption at the next open house of Friends of Montgomery County Animals at the following location. Call 301-977-4833 or visit fmca.org or facebook.com/fmcainfo.PetSmart at Milestone Center, 20924 Frederick Rd., Germantown. Hours: 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. Cats at no-kill shelter Cats and kittens will be available for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County’s no-kill shelter at the following location. For information, call 301-740-2511 or visit awlmc.org.Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County no-kill shelter, 12 Park Ave., Gaithersburg. Hours: 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Kenneth Arrow, Nobel laureate and seminal economist with wide impact, dies at 95

Kenneth Arrow after receiving his Nobel Prize in economic sciences in Stockholm in 1972. (Associated Press) Kenneth J. Arrow, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and mathematical theorist who made seminal contributions to social sciences as varied as election theory and health economics and was one of the most influential economists of his generation, died Feb. 21 at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 95. His son Andrew Arrow confirmed the death, but he did not know the immediate cause. Dr. Arrow, who spent the majority of his career at Stanford University as an economics professor, was the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in economic sciences. He was 51 when he shared the Nobel with British economist Sir John Hicks in 1972 for their contributions to welfare economics and general equilibrium theory, a branch of economics that studies the behavior of supply and demand for multiple firms in a competitive market. Dr. Arrow came from a prodigious family of economists that includes his nephew Lawrence H. Summers, president emeritus of Harvard University, former treasury secretary and former director of the White House National Economic Council; and his late brother-in-law Paul A. Samuelson, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in economics, in 1970. His sister Anita and her late husband, Robert Summers, taught economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout his career in academia, Dr. Arrow was a mentor to scores of graduate students, several of whom became Nobel laureates: John C. Harsanyi, Eric S. Maskin, Roger B. Myerson, A. Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz. The evolution of economics in the post-World War II decades was “very inspired by Arrow’s results, his systematic thoughts, the understanding he generated, the questions he raised and the inspiration [his work] provided to young people,” the economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said in an interview with The Washington Post. He was widely respected for the breadth and depth of his research — including its impact on disciplines as diverse as political science, philosophy and statistics. “He is certainly one of the giants of 20th-century economic theory,” said Nobel laureate Robert Aumann, a mathematician. “More so, I think, in the second half of the 20th century, he absolutely had more of an impact than anyone else.” Dr. Arrow helped transform economic theory into a mathematical science. He used his statistical and mathematical background to develop theorems that better explained holes in


Suspect arrested in August killing behind recreation center in Northwest

past six months on a charge of second-degree murder. D.C. police on Wednesday confirmed the arrest. Cook is charged with killing Donald Stephen Johnson Jr., who lived in Mitchellville, Prince George’s County, about 7:10 p.m. in the 5700 block of Georgia Avenue NW. Police said the shooting occurred on a parking lot behind the Emery Recreation Center along the border of 16th Street Heights and Brightwood Park. An arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court says that the suspect was seen on surveillance video parking a 2005 Honda Accord on the lot, getting out and chatting with several people over the course of 45 minutes. The video showed Johnson’s vehicle enter the lot at 7:09 p.m. Hermann Lee Cook (D.C. police) The affidavit says the video shows Johnson standing by his vehicle with his back to Cook, who walks up to him, “removes a pistol from his right front pants pocket and shoots the decedent. No words appear to be exchanged between the defendant and the decedent prior to the shooting.” Police said in the affidavit that the gunman stood over the prone victim and continued to shoot before “casually walks out of the Emery Recreation Center parking lot.” Police said the suspect gunman left the Honda behind. Police using a K-9 dog were able to trace an escape route to a house on 13th Street Northwest, a six minute walk from the recreation center. It is where Cook lived, though he was not there when police arrived shortly after the killing. The victim’s father, Donald Stephen Johnson, Sr., an attorney who lives in Maryland, said his son and the suspect first met about two decades ago at Morgan State University in Baltimore and were friends until a falling out 13 years ago. Johnson said he never knew why the two men had argued, and police did not describe a possible motive. Johnson said he does not believe his son has seen Cook in years and that the two either met by chance at the recreation center or his son was lured there. “I’m sure the police are going to find out,” Johnson said. He said his son had recently gotten engaged, obtained a real estate license and worked as a personal trainer in Bethesda. Johnson said he is at a loss. “None whatsoever, none,” he said, when asked why if he had any idea why his son was killed.


She’s landed! Bao Bao, the giant panda, arrives in China.

Live: Panda Bao Bao returns to Chengdu in SW China She’s landed! Bao Bao, the giant panda that was born at the National Zoo and left Tuesday for its new home in China has landed there, according to the official Chinese news agency. A video shows the 3-year-old panda landing at an airport in Chengdu in Southwest China in the dark. There were hugs and tears on Tuesday as zookeepers, staff and well-wishers said their goodbyes to the giant panda that was born at the zoo in 2013. She and several zoo staffers flew on a FedEx plane on a 16-hour flight to China. Katharine Hope, the veterinarian who was aboard with Bao Bao, said the panda was happy and comfortable. She said Bao Bao ate, drank and slept the whole trip. The zoo staff will help the panda transition to her new home. Now that she’s in China, she will go into quarantine at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province. Bao Bao will enter the giant panda breeding program when she is about 5 or 6 years old. Most giant pandas around the world are on loan from China and cubs that are born abroad are sent to the Chinese breeding program before they turn 4. The National Zoo has had pandas since the 1970s. Bao Bao’s older brother, Tai Shan, moved to China in 2010. The zoo still has three other giant pandas. 🐼❤🌏Thank you for joining us to say #ByeByeBaoBao. Here's a look back. @FONZNationalZoo https://t.co/5uJb5e1VYR


Former Guantanamo Bay detainee said to have turned suicide bomber

Abu Zakariya al-Britani as the suicide bomber who attacked a military base in Iraq. Known more widely as Jamal al-Harith, he was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2004. (Remy De La Mauviniere/Associated Press) Born in Manchester, Harith was a Web designer who converted to Islam in college, where he studied computing and religious studies. Shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, he was kidnapped when crossing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and handed over to the Taliban, who accused him of being a British spy. According to his Guantanamo prisoner file, published by WikiLeaks, he was later transferred to U.S. forces’ custody and taken to Guantanamo a few months later because he was “expected to have knowledge of Taliban treatment of prisoners and interrogation tactics.” The file also said he traveled to Sudan in 1992 with “Abu Bakr, a well-known al-Qaeda operative.” He reportedly struggled to find work when he returned to the United Kingdom, and in 2014, he traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State. Shortly after he left, his wife, Shukee Begum followed him to Syria with her five young children in an attempt to persuade him to come home. She described her time in the so-called caliphate as “not my cup of tea.” Questions have been raised about how he slipped through the surveillance net and whether it was right for the British government to campaign for his release and then pay him compensation. Arthur Snell, the former head of Prevent, the government’s flagship counterextremism program, said that British authorities had failed to keep tabs on Harith. Speaking to the BBC, he said: “It's obvious that collectively the authorities — and obviously I have some personal responsibility there — we failed to be aware of what Fiddler was up to.” The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, took a swipe at Tony Blair, who was prime minister when Harith was released from the prison camp in Cuba. “Still Think He Wasn’t A Danger, Mr Blair? Fury at Labour government’s £1m compensation for innocent Brit,”a headline said. In a strongly worded statement, Blair called the Mail’s coverage “utter hypocrisy.” “It is correct that Jamal al-Harith was released from Guantanamo Bay at the request of the British Government in 2004,” he wrote. “This followed a Parliamentary and massive media campaign, led by the Daily Mail, the very paper that is now supposedly so outraged at his release


A District architect thinks old Metro train cars should be turned into tiny houses

Harbour was the fact that it was not a harbor.” Moore said his initial plans called for a small boat harbor, reachable by a low bridge, like the ones that span canals in Amsterdam. Still, it cheers him when he sees boats tied up to one another at the sea wall. “I’ve seen as many as 22,” he said. Moore is full of ideas. “I’m a kind of a recycler of sorts,” he said. “I like to see things repurposed if possible.” That’s why the Kennedy Center pains him. “That’s the largest flat roof in town,” he said. “Why wouldn’t that be the perfect place for solar panels?” Appeasing the baseball gods The Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, damning them for decades. A goat-owning Cubs fan was insulted at Wrigley Field, keeping that team out of the World Series for 71 years. Bob Hitlin His theory: In the year the team moved from Montreal to Washington — 2005 — the National Zoo had its first successful panda birth. But in 2010, Tai Shan was spirited off to China. Since then, the Nationals have lost in the playoffs three times: in 2012, 2014 and 2016. “We just sent another panda, Bao Bao, to China this week,” Bob wrote. “As spring training begins, fans may have other reasons for the curse, but this one makes sense to me.” He added: “Get Tai Shan back, and watch what happens.” The Nationals have had some great players recently, but it’s true Washington hasn’t been in a World Series since 1933. What do you think caused the curse? Smile and say ‘Squirrel’ Frankly, giant pandas are a lot of bother. Squirrels, on the other hand, have so many babies you never need to send them to China. My (seventh!) annual Squirrel Week is a-comin’ next month. So is my Squirrel Week Photo Contest. If you’d like to enter, compose an evocative image of the ubiquitous mammal and send it to me at squirrelphotos@washpost.com. Top prize is a $100 gift card. I’ll also publish my favorites online. The deadline is March 31. For complete rules, visit wapo.st/squirrelcontestrules. Root problem I mistakenly moved a tree in my Wednesday column. The tree I wrote about is on 13th Street NW — across from the Warner Theatre — not on 14th Street. Or it was: It was removed Wednesday. Twitter: @johnkelly For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.


The mortgage market is now dominated by non-bank lenders

the closing of many community banks, which particularly hurts communities that are geographically underserved. The entire ecosystem of the mortgage markets is fragile, says Burns, which has a chilling effect on the economy. “The lack of access to credit not only hurts consumers, but it hurts builders and therefore contributes to the lack of affordable housing,” Burns says. “That, in turn, has an impact on the broader economy, because housing construction impacts a lot of segments such as banking, construction workers, home-improvement businesses and more.” The pullback in lending from banks contributes to the overall decline in homeownership, says Burns, because people with a slightly risky credit profile are underserved. “The expansion of non-banks in response is a good thing, but we’re still missing a million or more homeowners, in part because many millennials are still not able to get credit through traditional means,” Wachter says. “For good or bad, consumers with marginal credit scores and unverifiable income are out of the market now.” Choosing a lender Rather than decide on a bank or non-bank, many borrowers focus primarily on the price of their loan or opt for a lender that provides them with other financial services or one recommended by a real estate company or builder they are using for a purchase. According to the J.D. Power 2016 U.S. Primary Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study, 27 percent of first-time buyers regret their choice of a lender and 21 percent of all borrowers regret their choice. The most common reasons for dissatisfaction include lack of communication, unmet promises or feeling pressured to choose a particular loan. But choosing one type of lender over another is no guarantee of satisfaction. The top 10 most highly rated mortgage providers in the survey are evenly split between banks and non-banks. Digital Risk’s Taylor says banks and non-banks are aware that customers who don’t feel as if they are well-served will find another provider, which is why so many financial institutions are investing heavily in technology. “It’s a race to improve the customer experience,” he says. “Borrowers realize that there’s not a lot of difference between loan providers on pricing, so they focus on the ease of the loan process and the service they receive.” Taylor says there are generational differences in the way consumers approach borrowing money. “Generation Xers and baby boomers have more loyalty to their financial institutions and tend to look first


Closing in on launch: NASA’s gold-mirrored, $8 billion Webb Space Telescope

the first stars and galaxies were forming. It will give scientists the deepest look into space and back in time. Cost overruns led to budget reviews, battles in Congress, near-death experiences, recrimination and, finally, to a reconfigured budget and timetable that lawmakers approved. The project devoured NASA money that might have gone to other science endeavors. It became known as the telescope that ate astronomy. The Webb, which includes major contributions from the Canadian and European space agencies, has long been seen as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The latter is still working fabulously but getting long in the tooth. There have been rumors that the Trump administration could somehow gin up a Hubble repair mission with astronauts on a new shuttle-like spacecraft, but officials at NASA Goddard say they haven’t been asked to plan for anything like that. The Webb is quite different from the Hubble, starting with the fact that it’s much bigger. The Hubble has a 2.4-meter mirror, but the Webb has 18 hexagonal mirrors that collectively are 6.5 meters — more than 21 feet — in diameter. It can collect seven times as much starlight. The new telescope can observe the universe in infrared wavelengths of light that are inaccessible to the Hubble. In deep space, shaded from the sun, the Webb is designed to operate under extremely cold conditions. That’s necessary for infrared astronomy because otherwise the heat from its instruments would block out the faint light from distant objects. As things turned out, the Webb’s problems with schedule may have been fortuitous. The original goal was to look at very faint objects in deepest space — the very first stars and galaxies, so far away that their light, emitted about 13.7 billion years ago, is only now reaching our solar system. But the Webb may play a key role in the search for habitable worlds that are relatively nearby, orbiting stars in our own galactic neighborhood. The very first “exoplanet” — a planet orbiting another star — was discovered 22 years ago, right about the time Mather began working on the Webb. Thousands of exoplanets have been found since. Earlier this week, astronomers announced the remarkable discovery of a system with seven Earth-size planets around a star named Trappist 1, some 39 light-years away. Several have orbits that might allow water, if present, to be liquid at the surface. There’s no way


At 80, America’s most famous composer remains a maverick. The man who’s conducted his 11 symphonies talks about why.

a major American orchestra was recently approached about performing Glass, the response was, “But he doesn’t write symphonies.” There’s no question that Glass’s symphonic music has undergone a considerable evolution since the first, “Low” Symphony, based on the David Bowie album of the same name. “When Philip started writing orchestral music, he wasn’t as skilled as he is now by a long shot,” Davies observes. “He had the sound, but practical things, like how to help instrumentalists get through long stretches of doing similar things,” took longer to emerge. But, he says, “Starting with the 2nd symphony, it’s a unique sound; he has his language.” “There’s a nice saying, similar to what used to be said about Mozart: It’s too easy for the amateur and too difficult for the professional,” Davies adds. “With Philip, [it’s] being able to play in tune accurately [and] be expressive with a minimum of virtuosic intention.” Philip Glass. (Raymond Meier) The rap on Glass, particularly from those who don’t know his music well, is that it simply repeats over and over, and verges on the banal — and is very hard to play. One musician has recently expressed how even the repetitions of the earlier work, approached with seriousness, can become revelatory. In her compelling, biting, and often painful memoir “The Skin Above My Knee,” published this month, the oboist Marcia Butler writes about her experience playing the opera “White Raven” in 1991. It “makes you start to think about how the whole world is one enormous repeat,” she writes. “And you begin to develop a fascination with fractals and perfect proportions and certain colors like red and the golden mean and even the universal elements of the solar system that seem to hold the whole earth up and simultaneously keep it spinning. And repeating feels fundamental and natural and a God-given right.” In a memoir that pulls no punches when it comes to unflattering portraits of musical figures, Butler reserves high praise for Davies, although she does not name him. “This maestro is God’s gift to musicians,” she writes. “He uses his body parts to guide you and the world through this music. . . . His fingers tell you one thing, and later his elbows tell you something else. And when he uses his whole arm, it shows you something completely different. And he can change it up at will. Somehow, you know


In Arlington, the opportunity to own a pet lion or crocodile may soon be caged

Lions and other exotic animals would be banned as pets in Arlington County. (Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images) Arlington County is one of the few places in the Washington area where residents can raise monkeys, crocodiles or other unusual pets — but that opportunity soon might be put on a leash. The County Board is considering whether to make it illegal to keep wild and exotic animals — including wolves, coyotes, panthers, bears, lynxes, hedgehogs, tarantulas and any snake longer than four feet — within the 26-square-mile confines of the rapidly urbanizing Northern Virginia suburb. Arlington residents who already own such critters would be able to keep them, but they would have to register them with the county government. The idea of tightening the regulations came from animal rights advocates, said county spokesman Kurt Larrick, and from animal control officers who still remember a 2008 incident when exotic snakes got loose in north Arlington and caused a “standoff” with an emergency first responder. There also was a 2010 incident involving animal control officers and a lemur, Larrick said. Since the 2008 standoff, the county code has barred poisonous reptiles and any type of pig. A Cuban crocodile, which would also be banned. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) Although there are bans on exotic animals in place in Fairfax and Prince William counties, the city of Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park, the District and the entire state of Maryland, ownership of such creatures is apparently big business in the United States. A 2014 National Geographic article said experts believe that more exotic pets live in American homes than are cared for in U.S. zoos. The magazine cited numerous tragic incidents that have resulted: a Texas 4-year-old was mauled by his aunt’s mountain lion; in Connecticut, a 55-year-old woman’s face was permanently disfigured by a friend’s pet chimpanzee; and in Ohio, an 80-year-old man was attacked by a 200-pound pet kangaroo. Chelsea Lindsey, spokesperson for the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, said her organization supports the proposed pet ban. “We want to keep the county safe, and there are certainly exotic animals that are not safe to own,” she said. “Rather than retroactively bringing in a law after an incident happens, this is a good idea.” No wild exotic animals have been surrendered to the league’s shelter in recent memory, she said, and it is not clear how many people in Arlington own


A childhood memory of the polio vaccine

Dr. Jonas Salk administers a trial polio vaccine to David Rosenbloom of Pittsburgh in 1954. (National Foundation March of Dimes/Associated Press) The Feb. 21 front-page article “Anti-vaccine movement gains strength in Texas” brought to mind a memorable time in my youth. I grew up in Baton Rouge in the 1940s and 1950s, when polio was rampant. The Baton Rouge General Hospital even built a wing for polio patients. Many of my friends and neighbors came down with polio. It was scary. My mother and father were very happy to learn about the polio vaccine. About a month after the announcement, Mother read a newspaper article saying some were criticizing the vaccine and urging people not to take it. Mother got so angry that she packed up all three children and rushed us to the hospital so our doctor could give us the vaccine. She then wrote a letter to Jonas Salk praising his development of the vaccine with its vast lifesaving potential. A few weeks later, she received a handwritten letter from Salk thanking her profusely for her support. We still have that letter. I find the anti-vaccine movement in this country disturbing and destructive to our citizens’ health. Richard Barton, Arlington


‘It’s fear, fear, fear’: As enforcement increases, more immigrants avoid public places

Julio Umanzor, a 45-year-old carpenter, has seen the number of immigrant day laborers awaiting work in Hyattsville dwindle since the inauguration of President Trump. “Everybody's scared,” he said. (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post) The number of day laborers waiting for work outside a Hyattsville shopping center has dwindled to a couple of dozen a day, from more than 100 a few months ago. Business is slow at markets and shops in immigrant neighborhoods, and fewer foreign-born residents are coming to food pantries. In some cases, adults are skipping English classes or keeping children home from school. President Trump’s promised clampdown on illegal immigration “It’s too hard, and people are too scared,” said Julio Umanzor, a carpenter and legal permanent resident from Mexico who comes to the shopping center off New Hampshire Avenue to find workers to put up drywall, paint or run wires for a day’s wages. Saqib Choubhry, part of a large Pakistani family that owns the Fair Price International Supermarkets in Northern Virginia, said not as many customers are coming in, and those who do are buying less. “We had a plan to open another location, but we postponed it,” Choubhry said last week, on a day when Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) visited the store in Alexandria to demonstrate his support for immigrants. “It’s very slow — just look around.” A trickle of customers approached the halal meat counters, but the grocery aisles, where large jugs of sesame paste, mango juice containers and bags of basmati rice were neatly stacked, stayed nearly empty. Kazi Del Hussain, a clerk at the immigrant-owned Fair Price International Supermarket in Alexandria, Va., talks with Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The governor visited the store Wednesday to show support for immigrants. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has rounded up hundreds of undocumented residents across the country in recent weeks, including some outside a homeless shelter in Northern Virginia and near a Walgreens in Baltimore. Trump’s executive orders — an expansion of who can be targeted beyond known criminals, as well as the travel ban that was blocked in federal court — have sparked what appears to be a new assertiveness in enforcement, and a rising wave of worry among immigrants in the Washington area and across the country. “It’s fear, fear, fear. That’s the language we are speaking,” said Theodore Ngatchou, a community activist within Washington’s French-speaking African


House Intelligence chairman says he hasn’t found evidence of Trump team’s ties to Russia

Trump was inaugurated. Flynn was asked to leave the White House this month after it was revealed that he misled Vice President Pence about discussing sanctions with Kislyak. Nunes, meanwhile, said that Flynn should be thanked for his service to the country and that the retired lieutenant general was only trying to prepare a new president for office in his discussions. He said that he has not seen the transcripts of Flynn’s call with Kislyak, which would have been “illegally leaked” if he had. Nunes described Flynn as having done a “big favor” by “keeping lines of communication” open with Russia after President Barack Obama expelled Russian officials from the United States in response to allegations that the country interfered in the U.S. elections. Nunes also took issue with the definition of “sanctions” — which were imposed on Russia in 2014 for the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s involvement in Ukraine — saying that in his view, Flynn was not discussing official sanctions in his conversations with Kislyak but rather the “petty” retaliation against the officials by Obama. He called a suggestion that Flynn could be charged under the Logan Act “ridiculous.” The 1799 statute has never been used to prosecute a U.S. citizen for interfering in foreign policy. Democrats are skeptical that FBI Director James B. Comey will be forthcoming in the course of their investigation, and they have called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who wielded considerable influence in Trump’s campaign effort, to recuse himself from proceedings. In a briefing with reporters Monday, Sessions would only say he “would recuse myself on anything that I should recuse myself on,” without specifying whether he intended to involve himself in Russia-related matters. Sessions also stated that he has “not examined” any contacts between the White House and the FBI over a New York Times story that reported frequent contacts between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials. Nunes also confirmed Monday that he was one of the lawmakers to whom the White House turned to combat the story. The report mentioned Flynn, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former campaign aide Carter Page, as well as Trump associate Roger Stone. Nunes described the White House giving him a phone number for a reporter. He said he did not see anything inappropriate with the request and his follow-up in calling the reporter. He was referring to a Washington Post story describing


The Trump administration’s nonsensical stance on marijuana

A marijuana leaf is displayed at Canna Pi medical marijuana dispensary in Seattle. (Anthony Bolante/Reuters) Sam Kamin is the Vicente Sederberg professor of marijuana law and policy at the University of Denver. Nov. 8 was both the best of nights and the worst of nights for marijuana law reformers. That night, four states approved medical marijuana laws and another four voted to legalize marijuana use for all adults. But for many advocates, Donald Trump’s election served a substantial blow to law reform. With Trump’s appointment of Jeff Sessions — one of the nation’s most outspoken anti-drug warriors — as attorney general, it seems the long-simmering tension between state marijuana law reform and federal prohibition is headed for a full-blown confrontation. It’s not surprising, then, that White House press secretary Sean Spicer attracted enormous attention last week when he appeared to presage a federal crackdown on marijuana law reform in the states — which would reverse the lax policy on marijuana set by the Obama administration. Spicer’s comments are a perfect encapsulation of both the complicated state of marijuana law in the United States and the frenetic first weeks of the Trump administration. He stated that while the president is sympathetic toward those who use marijuana for serious ailments, the recreational use of cannabis is a different issue deserving of federal attention. As a matter of federal law, this distinction between medical and recreational use of marijuana is nonsensical. Congress, in its wisdom, has classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. By definition, Schedule I drugs have no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse; as a result their production and sale are prohibited nationwide, regardless of state laws to the contrary. Thus, if the new administration is serious about making marijuana available to medical patients, it could reschedule marijuana to make its use legal by patients around the country. Currently, medical users of marijuana are in violation of federal law, putting their employment, access to government benefits and parental rights at risk even in the absence of a federal crackdown. Spicer also expressed the view that, in light of the opiate crisis facing the country, it would send the wrong message for the federal government to retreat from the enforcement of its own drug laws. But this grossly simplifies (and perhaps even inverts) the relationship between marijuana and more powerful drugs such as opiates.


How do we track climate change? It takes scientists on both ends of the Earth.

mainly from burning coal and other fossil fuels and from cutting down forests, and that as a result, the planet is warming and the climate is changing. In January, NOAA and NASA announced that 2016 was the hottest year on record, marking the third year in a row that the global temperature record has been broken. Using data from tracking stations such as Barrow, scientists have determined that the planet’s average temperature has risen about two degrees since the late 19th century, when scientists began making yearly calculations. “It doesn’t sound like much, but if you change the thermostat in your house by a couple degrees, it’ll change your experience notably,” says climate scientist Derek Arndt. “The climate that we share influences almost everything we do, from the crops we grow to the kinds of buildings that we build to the kinds of clothes that we need.” Caribou pass by the observatory in 2014. Thomas says the minus-40-degree days that used to be common in Barrow are now unusual. (Matthew Martinsen/NOAA) Arndt leads a NOAA branch in Asheville, North Carolina, that acts as a sort of “scorekeeper for climate,” as he puts it, tracking weather and the atmosphere to determine trends and even estimate what the planet’s climate might look like in the future. To do so, he relies on the work of people such as Thomas, who lives in one of the world’s remotest places. “The Arctic is important because there’s not as much development” as elsewhere in the world, Thomas says. The nearby town, once called Barrow and now known by its traditional name of Utqiagvik ( OOT-KAY-ah-veek), is home to 4,300 people. That makes it the largest community in a wilderness of 89,000 square miles. Barrow’s isolation, and a strong breeze that carries air from thousands of miles across the sea, means that the air Thomas collects is a good sample of the air in the atmosphere as a whole, he says. To get a complete picture of the Earth’s atmosphere, scientists take samples from 167 sites all over the world, including the South Pole. A NOAA lab in Boulder, Colorado, checks about 16,000 glass-bottle samples each year for carbon dioxide and other chemicals. Thomas arrived at Barrow in 2007. Since then, he’s noticed that “there are changes happening in the Arctic environment, and they’re happening fast.” Temperatures at minus-40 and below, once common in the winter,


Trump’s first D.C. dinner as president: An overcooked, $54 steak. With ketchup.

deal to open in the Trump hotel. News of Trump dipping into Jaleo, Oyamel or the futuristic Minibar would have been a shocker of Oscarian proportions. But Trump is already familiar with BLT Prime, having dined there before he became commander in chief. By booking at his own place, he demonstrated yet again his penchant for tooting his own horn, hawking his own brand. Bourbon Steak in Georgetown serves Japanese Wagyu three ways, with three sauces to match. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) He also showed a remarkable lack of curiosity. Typically competitive, Trump could have staked out another steakhouse, if only to see how similar establishments compared with his. (For future reference, sir: Bourbon Steak in Georgetown counts a superior meat program, and for homegrown charm, there’s the vintage Prime Rib downtown. Think of it as the poor man’s 21 Club in New York, another restaurant Trump visited without initially informing the press pool.) Bon Appétit loves Washington so much it called it “Restaurant City of the Year” in 2016, the same year Michelin deemed the District worthy of its own guide. So far, Trump seems stuck in a less-than-fresh way of thinking. Before he was elected to the highest office in the land, he denied the abundance of great eateries here. (“There aren’t that many in Washington, believe me,” he said in a deposition relating to another lawsuit, against New York restaurateur Geoffrey Zakarian.) What better way for him to score points with locals than to dine outside his comfort zone, that being anything with his name attached? On Saturday at BLT Prime, the president was initially joined for his favorite meal of the day by British politician Nigel Farage, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. More of an eater than her father, Ivanka Trump has shown an interest in both breakfast and Italian fare as first daughter, having been spotted by day at Open City, the Four Seasons and the Hay Adams and by night at RPM Italian and Tosca, all in Washington. If she’s sharing any dining intel with her father, however, it’s not obvious by where he’s eaten since Inauguration Day. Food is often referred to as a bridge, a form of communion, a way to connect with people. Trump, a Queens native known to eat pizza with a knife and fork, views food in tinier terms. Unlike


Man, 31, fatally shot in Northwest Washington

A 31-year-old man died after being shot late Monday in Northwest Washington, police said. D.C. police identified the victim as James Mace III of Northwest Washington. Officials said the “ShotSpotter” system, which uses sensors and other equipment to track the location of gunshots, alerted authorities about 11 p.m. When officers arrived, they found Mace suffering from gunshot wounds. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police said they have no suspects. There have been 38 homicides this year in the D.C. region, according to a tracking done by The Washington Post. Of those, 15 were in the District.


The St. Petersburg Philharmonic moves beyond cliches

Orchestras should not be locked into playing music of their country of origin. And yet great orchestras retain a special relationship to their national music. To hear the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra play a program of Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich is tantamount to a cliche. And yet that’s what they did, under the great Yuri Temirkanov, at the Kennedy Center on Monday night, thanks to Washington Performing Arts — and you’re not going to hear either of those pieces done much better. I can’t say that the orchestra made me feel as if I were hearing either for the first time. The sense I got, rather, is that they could play it in their sleep, could effortlessly illuminate its greatness, dazzle with rich colors and springy rhythms and a kind of enveloping warmth. For freshness in Rachmaninoff’s second Piano Concerto — known even to non-music-lovers as a staple of film scores and ice-skating routines — was left to the soloist, Nikolai Lugansky, who played the virtuosic music with the softness of spring rain, falling gently on the ears instead of thundering, even in its most intricate passages. It’s not really as easy or soft as he made it sound, buoyed by the orchestra’s lush strings. He followed up with an encore, a shimmering Rachmaninoff Prelude (Op. 32, No. 12). Temirkanov and Shostakovich and this orchestra have come through many chapters of history together. The orchestra premiered many of Shostakovich’s works, Temirkanov knew Shostakovich, and Temirkanov has led the orchestra through the end of the Soviet Union, when the music could be taken as victorious, into whatever era this may be. Now 78, perhaps a little battered by events, with some years as the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under his belt, the conductor showed in Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony that he has lost none of his mastery, even if the sounds around him are a little muted, the brass perhaps less gleaming and the familiar music perhaps less a fist shaking at the regime than a haven against the vagaries of world events. Or is it? Temirkanov, in music he knows like the back of his hand, left the question open in a vigorous performance that brought the audience to its feet in one of the warmest, most enthusiastic ovations I’ve heard in some time. The applause was rewarded with an encore, an excerpt of Prokofiev’s “Cinderella,” wafting by like


Many borrowers say the mortgage process is a major pain

of every six said their applications had been rejected. Fifty-two percent of those who were denied said they had been told their debt-to-income ratios didn’t meet current standards, and 39 percent had been told their credit reports or scores weren’t good enough for the loan program they sought. Thirty-one percent of those turned down said they were “surprised” at the lender’s decision. Not everybody was bowled over by the process, however. Forty-one percent of those surveyed found it “manageable.” In the Freeandclear survey, borrowers were asked to choose from a set of alternatives that would most closely describe the mortgage process. Forty-one percent said it was most similar to an annual physical. Thirty-four percent said it was like going to the dentist. Twenty-two percent characterized it more favorably, as akin to doing “business with a friend.” In an analysis accompanying the survey, Freeandclear said that with 75 percent of borrowers comparing the process to either a physical or a dental visit, it’s evident that most people put getting a mortgage in the “unpleasant but necessary” category. Fifty-six percent of respondents found excessive paperwork to be the most overwhelming aspect. “Although all the mortgage documents are intended to serve a specific purpose, usually legal or regulatory, the sheer amount of paperwork creates significant difficulties” for many consumers, Freeandclear said in its analysis of the survey results. The second-most-troubling issue for consumers: strict qualification requirements for loans, which “have definitely tightened since the mortgage crisis and . . . appear to pose a challenge for many borrowers,” according to Freeandclear. What to make of consumer sentiments like these? There’s no question that federal and state regulations, mandatory disclosures and penalties governing mortgage lending have become far more stringent in the wake of the financial crisis — and for good reasons. Between roughly 2004 and 2006, at the height of the boom, getting a mortgage too often wasn’t much of a hassle at all. As the saying went, all you needed was to be able to fog a mirror: No down payment necessary. No minimum credit requirements. No verification of income, taxes, assets. But no-hassle mortgage lending produced hundreds of billions of dollars in losses for lenders, and millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. More than a decade later, many families still have not recovered. Lenders generally agree that tougher standards and procedures are needed to avoid a repeat. I asked


SpaceX to fly two tourists to the moon

Elon Musk unveils a spacecraft like one that his SpaceX company plans to fly around the moon in 2018. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters) SpaceX said this week that it will fly two people to the moon next year, a feat not attempted since NASA’s Apollo heyday close to half a century ago. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, announced the surprising news Monday, barely a week after launching his first rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Two people who know each other approached the company about sending them on a week-long flight just beyond the moon, Musk said. He won’t identify the pair or the price. They’ve paid a “significant” deposit and are “very serious” about it, he noted. “Fly me to the moon . . . OK,” Musk said in a lighthearted tweet following the news conference. Musk said SpaceX is on track to launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA in mid-2018. The moon mission — which does not include a lunar landing — would follow about six months later using a Dragon crew capsule and a Falcon Heavy rocket launched from NASA’s former moon pad in Florida. If all goes as planned, the mission may happen close to the 50th anniversary of NASA’s first manned flight to the moon, on Apollo 8. The two people who asked to be shot into space know that there are risks connected with the journey. “They’re certainly not naive, and we’ll do everything we can to minimize that risk, but it’s not zero. But they’re coming into this with their eyes open,” said Musk, adding that the pair will receive “extensive” training before the flight. The paying passengers would make a long loop around the moon, skimming the lunar surface and then going well beyond, perhaps 300,000 or 400,000 miles altogether. It’s about 240,000 miles to the moon alone, one way. “This should be a really exciting mission that hopefully gets the world really excited about sending people into deep space again,” Musk said. — Associated Press


Montgomery County Animal Watch

Montgomery county These cases were received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Rockville Dogs allegedly confined with no shelter Montgomery village Alleged neglect Reduced FEES FOR CATS Cats and kittens will be available for adoption at the next open house of Friends of Montgomery County Animals at the following location. Call 301-977-4833 or visit fmca.org or facebook.com/fmcainfo.PetSmart at Milestone Center, 20924 Frederick Rd., Germantown. Hours: 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. Cats at no-kill shelter Cats and kittens will be available for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County’s no-kill shelter at the following location. For information, call 301-740-2511 or visit awlmc.org. Humane Society adoptions The Montgomery County Humane Society’s private rescue shelter has dogs, puppies, cats and kittens available for adoption. Call 240-252-2555 or visit mchumane.org.MCHS Adoptions and Education Center, 601 S. Stonestreet Ave., Rockville. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except holidays. — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Federal officials indict seven Baltimore police officers on racketeering

facing charges of robbery, extortion and overtime fraud. (Baltimore Police Department via AP/AP) All told, the seven officers Five federal cases that involved police work done by some of the accused officers already have been dropped, said Rosenstein, who is awaiting confirmation to become the next deputy attorney general, the second-highest position in the Justice Department. The indictments also will have an effect “on numerous active investigations and pending cases in our office,” said Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby. Local defense attorneys said the arrests could also result in appeals or upend the prosecution of an untold number of cases, as the officers charged will probably be considered unreliable witnesses. At a news conference, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis called the allegations “heinous acts” and said the officers charged are “1930s-style gangsters, as far as I’m concerned.” Davis said the acts the officers are accused of “erode trust with our community,” and that “reform isn’t always a pretty thing to watch unfold, but it’s necessary in our journey toward a police department the city deserves.” The indictments come during a period of uncertainty for Baltimore, which has been the subject of national news since 2015, when Freddie Gray died in police custody and some residents rioted over the case. Gray’s death prompted an extensive investigation of the department by the U.S. Department of Justice that demanded sweeping reforms after finding an entrenched culture of unconstitutional policing that discriminated against black residents in poor communities through arbitrary arrests and detentions. The seven officers charged under the racketeering statute all live in suburban Baltimore. They were identified as Momodu Bondeva Kenton Gondo, 34, of Owings Mills; Evodio Calles Hendrix, 32, of Randallstown; Daniel Thomas Hersl, 47, of Joppa; Wayne Earl Jenkins, 36, of Middle River; Jemell Lamar Rayam, 36, of Owings Mills; Marcus Roosevelt Taylor, 30, of Glen Burnie; and Maurice Kilpatrick Ward, 36, of Middle River. The president of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police, Lt. Gene Ryan, said in a statement that the union was “very disturbed over the charges” and that it would be “inappropriate” to make further comment until the charges are resolved. The case against the officers began to unfold after federal officials suspected misconduct by Gondo during a 2015 investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The 2015 case involved an investigation into the sale and distribution of heroin and cocaine, mostly at a shopping center