Soldier: Bowe Bergdahl lodged false war crime allegations against his unit

U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Berghdal lodged false allegations that his unit carried out atrocities while in Afghanistan, a fellow soldier told Congress on Wednesday. Photo via REUTERS/U.S. Army An Army veteran who served alongside Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the long-captive soldier was deeply frustrated with the mission and had lodged false allegations that their unit had carried out atrocities. Bergdahl “didn’t understand why we were doing more humanitarian aid drops, setting up clinics, and helping the populous instead of hunting the Taliban,” former Spec. Cody Full told lawmakers during a hearing on the exchange of Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “He wanted to hunt and kill.” The Taliban released Bergdahl to U.S. Special Operations forces May 31 after he had spent nearly five years in captivity. Bergdahl, the last American service member to be held captive in Afghanistan, went missing from his remote outpost in June 2009 and was seized shortly thereafter. In exchange for his release, the Taliban officials were transferred to Qatar, where they will be held for a year before being sent back to Afghanistan. Both the terms of the prisoner swap and the Obama administration’s failure to notify Congress in advance have been the subject of persistent criticism. Bergdahl has also been criticized by some former members of his unit who believe he sought to desert the Army. Full, who was honorably discharged and served with Bergdahl in the same fire team, the military’s smallest type of organized unit, railed against Bergdahl’s attitude during his deployment in 2009 and rejected media reports that he was a sensitive young man trying to define himself during a time of war. His handwritten journal, along with essays, stories and e-mails provided to The Washington Post, painted him as a soldier full of worry about his own mental health and the situation in Afghanistan. “Bergdahl was complaining to his parents that our platoon was committing atrocities instead of helping the local populous,” Full told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But he was telling our platoon that we needed to stop trying to win hearts and minds and focus more on killing the Taliban.” Full also dismissed suggestions that Bergdahl’s platoon had discipline issues. “It’s a ridiculous charge,” Full said. “Security was always in place. These acts of common sense survival did not jeopardize the security or put anyone in danger.”


Looks like that soldier will get his dog back — the one his ex-girlfriend sold while he was deployed

and sold him on the Internet.” The ex-girlfriend has not been named. The incident, which has gained national attention in the past week, ignited some outcry. It started when Gabbert learned his 3-year-old Shiba Inu had been sold and he posted a desperate plea on Craigslist: I am currently deployed and my ex sold my dog. I just found out and I am trying to find the people (person) who bought him. I will pay anything to get him back. His name is Baxter and he is an Shiba Inu. I do not have my phone with me. You can email me. The phone number is my mom’s she is helping me locate him. If you have any information PLEASE give us a call or an email. The note went viral and turned into a mission for Baxter’s safe return. Gabbert’s family found out the pooch was purchased by a military family. His mother, Karen, reached out to them. However, when she did, she said the new owners, who have not been identified, were reluctant to give up the pup. They said their children had become attached. “They keep saying they have children that are attached,” she told KOAA. “Well my child is attached to the dog. Just because he’s older doesn’t mean he’s not my child.” So strangers rallied together. Someone who saw Gabbert’s plea created a Facebook page called “Help Bring Baxter Home.” Supporters raised about $1,400 to pay the new owners in exchange for the dog. Even the Colorado Shiba Inu Rescue, a nonprofit organization, offered to find a new puppy for that family, ABC News reported. Then, earlier this week, KOAA reported the two families were working on an agreement. The Facebook page has since been removed. KOAA posted on its Facebook page: We just got word from organizers of the ‘Help Bring Baxter Home 2014’ Facebook page that they have the family’s word that Baxter will be returned to Robby. They are still reaching an agreement, but the Facebook page has been removed at the family’s request. “I think the people that bought the dog and read the stories and felt bad,” Gabbert’s father told the Daily Mail. “I guess, there has been so many people supporting Robbie, that the family came forward with the dog and they’re going to return it.” Neither Gabbert nor his mother immediately returned messages seeking comment early Thursday morning.


Morning Links: Even where legal, parents still risk custody with pot use

- A wrongly convicted New York man held in prison for 24 years plans a $162 million lawsuit. - Despite growing widespread acceptance, both medical and recreational use of pot is still often used against parents in custody and child endangerment cases. - Baltimore imposes once of the strictest youth curfew policies in the country. - GOP rich guy and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is spending $2.5 million to fight marijuana legalization in Florida. - An interesting article on the long fight for science-based arson investigation in Texas.


A requiem for the National Zoo’s invertebrate house

closing this weekend due to lack of funding. Your last chance to see the spiders, shrimp and other animals without backbones is this Saturday, June 21. Via my colleague Michael Ruane: Some of the animals — the hissing cockroach, the bird-eating tarantula, the peppermint shrimp, among others — may be sent to other zoos, the zoo said. Some may be moved to other locations in the zoo. Some may have to be euthanized if new homes can’t be found. (Update: A zoo spokesperson says the zoo will not euthanize any healthy invertebrates.) The exhibit has cost $1 million a year to operate, and needs an estimated $5 million in upgrades, the zoo said. Its five staff members will get jobs elsewhere in the zoo. In this 2008 photo, Julia vanReeven and Travis Harper look down at the zoo visitors as they make their way through the invertebrate exhibit. They had just finished feeding a Pacific octopus. (The Washington Post) There was never a line to get into the invertebrate house. It seemed to be a corner of the zoo that had been forgotten since the 70's -- the animals were cared for, of course, but the fishy-smelling building looked seriously shabby. I loved it anyway. Every time I went to the zoo, I'd glide past the neon tanks of anemone, the bobbing nautilus, the octopus, may she rest in peace. Then, over to the creepy-crawlies, where all of the visitors would collectively get a case of the shivers from those hissing cockroaches, the tarantula and the golden orb spiders -- especially when the visitors realized that no pane of glass separated them from the latter arachnids. Every visit to the tucked-away exhibit house felt like a secret discovery. Closing the invertebrate house presents a lopsided view of the animal kingdom to visitors. As the Smithsonian itself notes, invertebrates make up 99 percent of the world's known living species. The are "nature's unsung heroes, quietly playing vital roles in Earth's ecosystems," said a zoo press release about the closure. Some of the exhibits may return in a planned Hall of Biodiversity, eventually. To pay respect to these unglamorous animals was to cheer for the underdog. Unfortunately, this Saturday is your last chance to do so. The panda can wait. A peacock mantis shrimp peers out of its rock crevice in a tank at the National Zoo's Invertebrate Exhibit. (The Washington Post)


The Supreme Court has unanimously struck down a software patent that everyone agreed was terrible

(Supermac1961) The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that you can't get a software patent on a general business method just by claiming you've figured out how to do it on a computer. If this sounds obvious, the Court agrees. Something like holding money in escrow until both sides of a negotiation follow through on their commitments is a practice that's existed for hundreds of years. You can't patent that idea on its own because it's too abstract; adding "do it on a computer" doesn't make it any less so, according to the Court. "An instruction to apply the abstract idea of intermediated settlement using some unspecified, generic computer is not 'enough' to transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention," the decision reads. This outcome was largely expected; experts watching the case generally agree that the patent held by Australian company Alice Corp. was a bad patent and should be invalidated. But the bigger question is what this case means for software patents more generally. We're still reading through the opinion, but it's embedded below. Stay tuned for more.


What America’s changing bread preferences say about its politics

in the US, and now amounts to more than $2.5 billion annually. Not long ago, tortilla sales accounted for a mere fraction of overall industrial bread sales—roughly 12%—but now they contribute a sizable chunk—upwards of 17%. Why do changing American bread preferences matter? Well, they don't. Not really, anyway. And much less if you aren't part of the American Bakers Association, or aren't responsible for producing one of the top grossing national bread brands. But as silly as our shifting carb choices likely seem, they might actually tell us a bit about our country, its population, and, even, its politics. America's growing love for tortillas is both a story of carb consciousness and current immigration trends. On the one hand, consumers are opting for wraps instead of sandwiches. "Using wraps instead of sandwiches is something consumers have steadily started to adopt," Matt Hudak, an industry analyst at Euromonitor said in an interview. But a growing Mexican population is also playing its part. "Latinos have been responsible for an ever-increasing share of consumer buying power in the US," a 2011 report titled Tortilla's Triple Play said. Hudak agrees. "Many food and beverage projects targeted at this demographic have seen strong growth," he said. The thing about Hispanics is that there aren't merely that many more of them in the United States today than, say, thirty years back—they are more than three times as numerous as they were in 1980—they also offer one of the clearest signs of the current political headwinds in the country today. Our fast-growing Hispanic population skews left. And heavily so. In the last presidential election, 71 percent voted for Obama, while only 27 percent voted for Romney. Even the shift to whole wheat bread, which is no doubt driven by the growing health narrative about its nutritional benefits, carries with it subtle political implications. Flowers Foods, which sells Wonder Bread, Nature's Own, and a number of other highly recognizable brands, still earns more than a fifth (pdf p. 5) of its business from the sale of white loaves. The less white bread Americans buy, the more the company (and others like it) will have to scramble to replace its white flour proceeds. If Flowers Foods doesn't manage to, it will likely eat into its profits, and the company's political contributions—which are significant, and just so happen to skew Republican more than any other company in the country.


Why a guy making $100,000 a year can’t get a bank account

spokeswoman from Bank of America, Anne Pace, said, "We use multiple factors when considering opening an account, including their history with the bank and other institutions, fraud and industry-reported behavior." With no banks willing to work with him, Fields signed up for Bluebird, the reloadable prepaid debit card sponsored by Wal-Mart and American Express. The card functions like a bank account, with direct deposit and check-writing features, without overdraft or maintenance fees. But there are limitations. "Writing a check can be a hassle," Fields said. Bluebird customers have to log into their accounts online to authorize a deduction, then jot down the authorization code on the back of the check for the paper payment to clear. It's a way to protect customers from overdrawing their accounts. Still, Fields said, "It can be downright awkward when you're writing a check in public. It's not an ideal arrangement, he said, but for now, "Bluebird gets the job done." Fields said he worries about having a large expense come up and being locked out of his Bluebird account. The card has spending limits that vary depending on the transaction -- up to $2,000 a month on ATM withdrawals, $10,000 on purchases. There are banks and credit unions, including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and PNC Bank, that offer "second chance" accounts for people like Fields. These accounts often have higher fees and more restrictions than traditional accounts, but they are cheaper than using check-cashing or money order services, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. People with second-chance accounts are often required to open and manage a savings account for a period of time before they're allowed a checking account. And the FDIC says the accounts tend to have low daily withdrawal limits. Yet for millions of Americans this may be the best path to getting back in the banking system. There is no law or regulation that forces banks to reject people with checkered financial histories. All financial institutions have the discretion to evaluate consumers on a case-by-case basis, and some do just that. But advocates say many banks blindly discredit anyone listed in ChexSystems without reviewing the circumstances that may have landed them in the database. And as a result they are missing out on customers like Fields. Despite the initial round of rejections, Fields said he plans to try his luck again with a credit union in his area. Time has


Would you want to know if you’re likely to get Alzheimer’s disease?

aged 65 to 85 will be screened for the presence of amyloid plaque, clumps of a protein found in the fatty membrane surrounding nerve cells, that builds up in the brain as people age and seems to be connected to Alzheimer's. Researchers hope the drug could significantly curtail the disease, which currently afflicts 5 million Americans and is projected to affect 16 million by 2050. Over the past two months, researchers at 60 sites across the U.S., Canada and Australia began seeking as many as 10,000 volunteers to be screened for the 39-month trial, which is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the pharmaceutical company Ely Lilly & Co., and others. "Everyone's putting their bets on this horse," said Scott Turner, director of the Memory Disorders Program at Georgetown University, one of the participating sites. [For information on how to volunteer for the study, see the end of this post.] By September, all 60 sites will be screening volunteers until 1,000 are found who are eligible. But several sites have expressed concern about being able to find enough volunteers. So far, 500 people have expressed interest nationally and 50 are in the screening process. Despite intensive recruiting, just five people have been scheduled for screening at Turner's site and only one has begun it. "We're worried that we're not going to be able to recruit at the rate we're hoping to," Turner said. "People may not want to know, because there are just not good treatments out there now." The stakes are high. The disease, which by one estimate is now the third leading cause of death in the United States, is projected to cost $214 billion this year. Research is increasingly focusing on halting the debilitating symptoms of Alzheimer's before they begin, said Kevin Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs and outreach at the Alzheimer's Association. "This is becoming a very active area of research, to look earlier in the disease process," he said. "We're trying to get to the ... place with Alzheimer's where we don't wait for the onset of dementia." The A4 Study's requirements set a particularly high bar for volunteers. Those who have the plaque buildup must pass health and cognitive tests to qualify. The screening also includes efforts to ensure that participants are psychologically prepared to receive the news that they have amyloid buildup. An estimated one third of volunteers are expected to


Philly’s Federal Donuts scouts D.C. locations, prepares to open philanthropic restaurant

Three partners with Federal Donuts spent Tuesday scouting locations for a Washington outlet of the small Philadelphia chain known for its fried chicken, doughnuts and the daily angst of customers who don't arrive early enough to secure either. The owners toured spots in Georgetown, near the 9:30 Club and on the 14th Street corridor. If they preferred a spot, they were not immediately saying -- probably a smart move in a hungry real-estate market looking to hook a big out-of-town fish. "Georgetown is very swanky for us," says Felicia D'Ambrosio, co-founder of the relaxed chicken-doughnut-coffee concept, whose ownership also includes Steve Cook and James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Solomonov of Zahav. "The retail [space] that we were on was much fancier than any other neighborhood we're located in right now," D'Ambrosio continues. "I mean, it was a beautiful and lovely space, but I was kind of like, 'I don't know if this is our customer.' " Nor does the crew behind FedNuts — their informal handle — want to land in some nightlife district, like the U Street corridor, where the fry cooks would have to keep the oil bubbling well into the early morning hours. "I don't know if that's right for us," D'Ambrosio says. "We're more daytime. We haven't done a latenight yet." FedNuts had an eye on a property in Blagden Alley, D'Ambrosio notes, but La Colombe beat them to the space. "We wanted that space," she adds even though it "doesn't really have the daytime traffic we're looking for as it's all residential." If the property-hunting business is progressing slowly in Washington, the FedNuts partners are moving full steam ahead on a unique project back in Philadelphia, where they have partnered with the Broad Street Hospitality Collaborative to help feed the hungry. Federal Donuts and Broad Street are working toward the debut of Rooster Soup Co., where cooks will take leftover chicken bones from FedNuts (1,000 pounds weekly, all from naturally raised birds) and turn them into soups. (And, yes, Rooster plans to have a veg option, too, so chill.) Rooster Soup Co. is now in the process of raising money through a Kickstarter campaign, looking to generate $150,000 in start-up costs to cover building renovations, fixtures, fees and the thousands of other things necessary to open a restaurant. As of Thursday, the partners had raised $27,000-plus toward their goal. "It's going to operate just like


The Switchboard: House passes amendment to limit NSA funding

Radomes of the former monitoring base of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in Bad Aibling, southern Germany are pictured on June 6, 2014. AFP PHOTO/CHRISTOF STACHECHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images Published every weekday, the Switchboard highlights five tech policy stories you need to read. At 11 a.m. Eastern on Friday, join us in our weekly livechat, Switchback, where we'll be talking about the week's top tech news. The comment box is open, so submit your questions now. In surprise vote, House backs NSA limits: Sprint closer to $40 billion-plus T-Mobile deal financing: Most Americans oppose Comcast merger with Time Warner Cable: Google buys two tech start-ups in fresh deals surge: The Supreme Court has unanimously struck down a terrible patent:


New York will likely be the 23rd state to OK medical marijuana—just don’t smoke it

Senate co-leader Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, left, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, center, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, announced the deal on Thursday. (AP Photo/Mike Groll) New York lawmakers have reached an agreement to make theirs the 23rd state to approve marijuana for medicinal use. But there’s a significant catch: you can’t smoke it. The most common method of marijuana ingestion is banned under the deal announced on Thursday afternoon by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and state officials. The agreement would allow those with serious conditions access to marijuana, but with registration and consumption limits. It would expire after seven years. “Medical Marijuana has the possibility to do a lot of good for a lot of people who are in pain and who are suffering and are in desperate need of a treatment that can provide relief,” Cuomo said. “Some of these cases are the most heart wrenching cases you’ve ever heard. You’re dealing with children with epilepsy, babies, so there are certainly significant medical benefits that can be garnered The patchwork of state medical marijuana laws are dramatically different in their restrictions. Minnesota passed a restrictive medical marijuana law last month that similarly bans smoking of the drug, while Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Monday signed a very limited law, which — as in seven other states — only allows for products with low levels of its active chemical THC, according to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. (Florida and the seven others are not included in the overall count of those that allow medical marijuana.) States also differ greatly on the diseases that qualify a patient for access to the drug. Just three states allow marijuana for arthritis, anorexia or Parkinson’s disease, six for post-traumatic stress disorder, 20 for glaucoma and HIV and 22 for AIDS and cancer, according to LawAtlas, a project of Public Health Law Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. New York’s law would grant access to marijuana to those suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathies, Huntington’s Disease, and other diseases. Currently 41 percent of the U.S. population lives in states that allow medical marijuana. New York would be the second-largest state to approve the drug for medicinal use, behind California, bringing that total to nearly 47 percent. California became the first state to allow medical marijuana 18 years


The Supreme Court’s decision on software patents still doesn’t settle the bigger question

universally said to be a bad patent, it didn't do much to say what kinds of software should be patentable. In other words, the court decided the most basic conflict in the case, but more or less declined to offer guidance for other, future cases. "It was supposed to be the most important patent case of the decade," said Todd Dickinson, the executive director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association. "It turned out to be a little bit like fireworks that fizzled. It didn't really seem to move the needle much either way." What many were hoping for was some kind of legal test from the court that would help businesses determine what kinds of software could be patented. Designing such a test would have been complicated, and maybe even impossible. But at the very least, maybe the court would agree to clarify what, if anything, about software should be considered an "abstract idea"? No luck. Writing on behalf of the court, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly said he didn't need to deal with the abstract-idea problem, because the facts of the case were so obviously against the company with the bad patents, Australia-based Alice Corp., which had received a patent for a computer-aided process to protect the parties in foreign currency transactions. "We need not labor to delimit the precise contours of the 'abstract ideas' category in this case," Thomas wrote. That line quickly drew criticism from some legal observers on Twitter. Patent reform advocates said that in light of the court's limits, only legislation could really prevent the use of bad patents in litigation. "Unfortunately, neither today's ruling nor any single act by the court or the executive branch can do what is needed to make the business model of being a patent troll unprofitable and unattractive," said Matt Tanelian, executive director of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which represents tech companies including Google and Samsung. Others, such as the Chicago-based software company Trading Technologies International, pointed out that the ruling would have a limited impact "because very few patent claims are even arguably directed to a fundamental economic practice" like the kind at issue in the case before the Court. So while the court's decision doesn't rule out the possibility of narrowing the scope of patentability further down the road, it doesn't seem as though it's done much to settle the broader question of patentability this time.


Pope Francis slams drug legalization, but U.S. Catholics are mixed — at least on pot

of drugs for recreational use as a failed policy, but Catholics in the United States have complicated views on the subject — at least as it relates to marijuana. Francis dismissed the policies — like the ones in Colorado and Washington — as naive and ineffective, in remarks to the heads of world anti-drug agencies at the 31st International Drug Enforcement Conference in Rome. “Let me state this in the clearest terms possible: the problem of drug use is not solved with drugs! Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise,” Francis said, according to an English translation. “… No to every type of drug use. It is as simple as that. No to any kind of drug use.” Despite his official and absolute stance, American Catholics have mixed attitudes on drug use, especially marijuana. About 40 percent of Catholics favored forms of legalization in a January Washington Post/ABC News poll and an April 2013 poll from the Public Religion Research Institute. Both also found age correlated with views, with substantial declines in support among respondents over age 65 regardless of religious affiliation. (Francis is 77 years old.) Catholics also have mixed views on the dangers of marijuana use. About one in three say new laws legalizing marijuana are a sign of the nation’s moral decline, according to the PRRI poll. Catholics are split on the morality of the using the drug itself, with 46 percent saying it’s morally acceptable and 41 percent saying it’s wrong. (Just about one in three say they have tried marijuana, making Catholics the only religious group with a significantly lower rate than the general public.) More than half of all Catholics — 55 percent — disagreed with the idea that it is a gateway drug in an April 2013 Pew Research poll. They also represent a huge share of the national population and of the populations of states where recreational or medical marijuana is allowed. About 24 percent of Americans are Catholic, according to Pew Research Center estimates. The group also accounts for about 30 percent of the population of all states that allow medical marijuana, according to an analysis of 2007 Pew state religious breakdowns as applied to current Census population numbers. In Washington and Colorado, the two states that allow recreational use of the drug, slightly more than one in every six people are Catholic.


Dog-eating festival in China hounded by activists

An animal rights activist buys a dog from a vendor who threatens to beat the animals if the activists don't buy them in Yulin, China, on June 20. (Li Ke/EPA) The town of Yulin, near China's border with Vietnam, is like a lot of the country's other bustling regional cities, except for one thing: Every year at the summer solstice, it holds a festival where town residents quaff copious amounts of alcohol, slurp the juicy fruit of lychees and, yes, eat dog meat. The Yulin dog-eating festival is supposed to take place tomorrow — activists say as many as 10,000 dogs are slaughtered for the occasion every year. Growing international and domestic opprobrium, though, has made the annual event a controversy. Tens of thousands of vociferous netizens have launched petitions and online campaigns to get the event banned and the dogs rescued. Similar pressure has led to dog-eating festivals in other parts of China being canceled. The festival in Yulin is, as state news agency Xinhua puts it, "only a local folk custom, without official sanction." According to traditional lore, the consumption of dog meat yields good health and luck. But activists have pointed out how decidedly untrue those superstitions may be, citing a "black chain" of unethical, unsanitary practices that may mean that those eating dog meat are at risk of contracting rabies or other diseases. According to animal rights groups, many of the dogs netted for these festivals are strays and stolen pets, drugged or poisoned before being kept in ghastly conditions in pens and then later prepared for consumption. Rights group AnimalsAsia says local tradition can't be invoked as an excuse for these practices: The progression of civilisation requires culture and tradition to be continuously reviewed. Traditions and customs inconsistent with modern civilisation cannot be maintained. Looking back at history, we see that many inhumane “traditions” — slavery and foot-binding, for example, have been protested and outlawed by society. Their elimination encourages a harmonious and healthy society, and a positive national image, without causing harm to our rich culture. This way we can keep alive the valuable traditions that actually benefit society. “Traditional culture” should not be an excuse for corruption and cruelty. Beyond matters of public health, there's also the question of the treatment of the animals. China's legislature has yet to enact a proposed animal protection law. But a vocal lobby of animal rights advocates


The $15 billion bee in President Obama’s bonnet

A bumble bee collects in Berlin on July 11, 2011. (WOLFGANG KUMM/AFP/Getty Images) Honeybees have a sweet new ally: President Obama. Plans for a “Pollinator Health Task Force” to help save bees from their mysterious decline were announced Friday in a presidential memorandum. Why Obama’s worried: The decline of bees could sting the economy. “Honey bee pollination alone adds more than $15 billion in value to agricultural crops each year in the United States,” the administration said in the release. “Over the past few decades, there has been a significant loss of pollinators, including honey bees, native bees, birds, bats, and butterflies, from the environment. The problem is serious and requires immediate attention to ensure the sustainability of our food production systems, avoid additional economic impact on the agricultural sector, and protect the health of the environment.” Last winter, 23.2 percent of the country’s managed honey bee colonies died, according to a report by the Bee Informed Partnership, which is supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Deaths are fewer than during the 2012-2013 winter, but still higher than the “acceptable” rate of about 19 percent, the report said. The task force will have 180 days to create a strategy to prevent future bee loss. Specifically, the task force will investigate how to reduce pollinator exposure to pesticides found to harm bumblebees by interfering with their homing abilities, according to two studies detailed by Reuters. In a 2011 United Nations report, U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Achim Steiner said “the way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century.” Steiner said in the report that of 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world’s food, more than 70 are pollinated by bees. “Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature,” Steiner said in the release. “Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less dependent on nature’s services in a world of close to seven billion people.” The bee team will be co-chaired by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy. Related: “We all get stung by bee colony collapse”


Town Square | Classic and contemporary blend in Chevy Chase, Md., home

(Peter Evans Photography) The Chevy Chase, Md., Colonial-style home at 5501 Park St. has a split personality. The exterior matches the classic homes of the neighborhood, but the interior renovations completed in 2012 by architect Michael Bruckwick and designer Sarah Wessel resulted in an open floorplan that includes some dazzling features such as an accordion-style folding glass wall, a high-end open kitchen and a full home automation system with surround sound systems, music zones and insulated shades with electronic controls. (Peter Evans Photography) Listed for sale at $1.975 million, the 3,825-square-foot home has five bedrooms, four full baths and one half-bath. The master (Peter Evans Photography) The multi-level outdoor space includes a swimming pool. For more information on this Chevy Chase home, contact realty agent Foodies get a chance to live at Union Market While foodies already flock to Union Market for gourmet treats, in the future they’ll be able to roll out of bed for artisanal LCOR, a real estate company that specializes in property development, recently purchased Gateway Market at 340 Florida Ave. The project will incorporate elements of Union Market’s historic industrial design on the exterior and inside the apartments. Edens Gateway Market is anticipated to be complete in 2017. New condos to rise above Trapeze School The Yards, a mixed-use redevelopment project by Forest City Washington on the waterfront in Southeast Washington, will soon PN Hoffman, a developer of upscale condos and mixed-used developments, will build the 10-story, 130-unit residential building, The luxury condos will have a range of residences from studios to two-bedroom units, all with architectural details and interiors The Foundry Lofts apartments at The Yards are already fully leased and a second apartment building — with a grocery store, a When complete, The Yards will have 2,800 residential units, as much as 400,000 square feet of retail space and 1.8 million square feet of office space along with the waterfront Yards Park. More information about the condos will be available in 2015 at Financial instability hampering home sales A recent survey by RateWatch, a banking data and analytics service owned by The Street, revealed that among non-homeowners, While that’s expected among consumers with lower incomes, the survey found that 25 percent of all potential buyers, regardless The survey results show the following percentage of individuals who cited financial instability as a reason to avoid owning • 24 percent with an annual household income


Courtesy of Samer Jaber What can a dermatologist do in a Syrian refugee camp? We heard this question several times as we prepared for our medical mission to Jordan. After all, our patients had fled for their lives, leaving behind their homes, their jobs, their sons. They needed food, clean water, and obstetric care, not treatment for their acne. We are two busy dermatologists; we watched the Syrian crisis unfold from our televisions and smart phones. When we received an email request from Humam Akbik, a Syrian-American doctor leading medical missions through Salaam Cultural Museum, we felt compelled to answer. He was asking for help, of any kind. We wanted a fresh perspective; we signed up. We knew that refugee camps produce the kind of close, dirty quarters that allow minor diseases to flourish. We anticipated scabies, lice, and other infections associated with crowded living. We prepared for a parasitic infection called leishmaniasis, which causes skin lesions. We brought medicine for bacterial skin infections like impetigo. So it never occurred to us to prioritize Vaseline petroleum jelly as an item of high importance when we packed our supplies for the Syrian refugee camps. After all, it was heavy stuff, and the airlines were counting pounds. Syringes and gauze were lighter and more packable. It never occurred to us to prioritize Vaseline petroleum jelly. Then we met a man in Deir Alla. He stood in line quietly, waiting with dozens of others at dusk, in the sand outside, for an opportunity to talk to the American doctors. When he got his turn, he offered us the bottom of his feet and showed us their deep, painful cracks. His feet had literally been worn out from traveling hundreds of miles on hot sandy soil in rubber sandals. He told us that if he could fix his feet, he thought maybe he could find a job to support his children. He had been a civil engineer in Syria. Now, he is confined to a tent. Waiting. He asked us for Vaseline. Courtesy of Samer Jaber In Amman, we met a 12-year-old girl with a universally fatal blistering skin disease. She was malnourished because her mouth was full of blisters, making it impossible for her to chew solid food. Her wounds were infected and her bath was available only once a month with a hose and cup. She sat silently in front of us,


Wonkbook: What to do about America’s child-migrant crisis

list: Other health care reads: HHS’s Burwell makes management changes, including creating an Obamacare exchange CEO position. Amy Goldstein in The Washington Post. McAuliffe vetoes Virginia budget that bars Medicaid expansion, vows to expand it himself. Laura Vozzella, Michael Laris and Rachel Weiner in The Washington Post. Sanctions common against doctors with odd billing. Charles Ornstein in ProPublica and NPR. VA bill was easy sell, but some senators feel sticker shock. Laura Sullivan in NPR. Baby interlude: 4. What you need to know about the new round of financial reforms SEC head advocates bond-market reforms. How would big banks be affected? Banks speed up shift to foreign-exchange and rates trading automation. In splintered equity markets, manipulators find cloak. What does the looming BNP Paribas settlement hold for other banks? Probably not much. Just for good measure...ICYMI: Other financial reads: IMF seeks reprofiling middle ground between bailouts and defaults. David Wessel in The Wall Street Journal. How to fix a boring meeting interlude: 5. What's next for the NSA and software patents? House votes to curb NSA 'backdoor' U.S. data searches... ...as administration breathes new life into phone-data program. Supreme Court's software-patents decision doesn't answer a bigger question. Other tech reads: Limited wireless spectrum has connected-car advocates at odds with expanded-Wi-Fi supporters. Alex Brown in National Journal. 'Jurassic Park' interlude: Wonkblog roundup Taxi medallions have been the best investment in America for years. Now Uber may be changing that. Emily Badger. A guide to the Supreme Court’s upcoming birth control decision. Jason Millman. The mysterious case of America’s plummeting milk consumption. Roberto A. Ferdman. Meet the filmmaker taking on the "unsustainable" student loan system. Jonnelle Marte. Why inequality might make kids drop out of high school. Matt O'Brien. 10 maps that show how much time Americans spend grooming, eating, thinking and praying. Christopher Ingraham. Et Cetera Skeptics aside, Obama steams toward Pacific trade deal. William Mauldin in The Wall Street Journal. U.S. regulators in driver's seat over vehicle safety. Robert Wright in The Financial Times. Student debt takes its toll on some homebuyers. Josh Mitchell in The Wall Street Journal. Cities in South, West to grow faster. Kathleen Madigan in The Wall Street Journal. If you're going to the Grand Canyon this summer, leave the family drone at home. Mark Berman in The Washington Post. Got tips, additions, or comments? Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams and Ryan McCarthy


Neighborhood Restaurant Group wins three Rammy Awards, including Restaurateur of the Year

restaurant groups, he said. "Most restaurant groups tend to minimize the risk and all the variables," he said, the trophy still in hand. Chef Marjorie Meek-Bradley and Danny Fisher, GM and sommelier, were two of the reasons behind Ripple's Rammy awards. (Tim Carman/The Washington Post) Red Hen In accepting the award for new restaurant, co-owner and wine director Sebastian Zutant thanked one of his competitors, Aaron Silverman, chef and owner of Capitol Hill's much-lauded Rose's Luxury. Zutant thanked Silverman for not being a member of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, which made him and Rose's Luxury ineligible for a Rammy Award. Rose's probably would have won, Zutant suggested. Zutant's confessional acceptance speech underscored a fact that still irritates some local restaurant watchers: You have to be a member of the association to be nominated and win a Rammy. One attendee of the ceremony told me Sunday that it feels as if the Rammys don't capture the spirit of the city's current dining scene, because the awards don't include places like Rose's Luxury. Silverman seemed to be tickled by the Rammy drama from afar. He tweeted late Sunday that he was "enjoying my dinner at red hen tonight immensely!!!" Fiola Kuller is "grande in every sense of the word," Karoum said. "His belief in me is the only reason I'm standing here." The 2014 Rammy winners: Formal Fine Dining Restaurant of the Year: Fiola Upscale Casual Restaurant of the Year: Ripple Everyday Casual Restaurant of the Year: Toki Underground New Restaurant of the Year: The Red Hen Chef of the Year: Haidar Karoum, Doi Moi, Estadio, Proof Rising Culinary Star of the Year: Michael Friedman, The Red Hen Pastry Chef of the Year: Caitlin Dysart, 2941 Restaurant Wine Program of the Year: Ripple Cocktail Program of the Year***: Jack Rose Dining Saloon Beer Program of the Year***: Birch and Barley / ChurchKey Service Program of the Year***: Blue Duck Tavern Restaurateur of the Year: Michael Babin, Neighborhood Restaurant Group Regional Food and Beverage Producer of the Year***: Red Apron Butcher Favorite Gathering Place of the Year: Hank's Oyster Bar – Dupont Circle Upscale Casual Brunch***: Mintwood Place Everyday Casual Brunch***: Pearl Dive Oyster Palace Favorite Fast Bites***: Amsterdam Falafelshop Joan Hisaoka Allied Member of the Year: ProFish, Ltd. Employee of the Year: Stelios Alexandris, 1789 Restaurant Manager of the Year: Boo Young Kim, District Commons ***Denotes a new award in 2014


Do bees freak you out? Well, President Obama wants to keep them around.

(Patterson Clark/Washington Post) Not many White House fact sheets mention honeybees and Monarch butterflies. But one issued on Friday talked about them in detail, explaining why President Obama had signed a memorandum establishing the first-ever federal pollinator strategy. The memo creates a new inter-agency task force charged with developing a federal strategy to protect pollinators, which aims to stave off the declines that pollinators such as honeybees, butterflies and bats have suffered in recent years. Obama instructed all federal agencies to use their powers "to broadly advance honey bee and other pollinator health and habitat," and the Agriculture Department announced $8 million in incentives to farmers and ranchers in five states who establish new habitats for honeybees. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday "there is a clear economic incentive for us" to protect pollinators because the crops they pollinate "have an impact of about $24 billion a year on the United States economy." "And we’re going to continue to work in collaborative fashion with industry, with state and local leaders, with private landowners to address this problem," Earnest said, In fact, one-third of our food supply--the fruits, vegetables and nuts we eat--are pollinated by bees. But the current U.S. honeybee population is now less than half of what it was in 1945. The president's interest in pollinators is not simply economic, however: he has raised the issue with some of his top aides. White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said in an interview this spring with Politico's Mike Allen that Obama had mentioned an article to him that had to do with "the disappearing bees and the fact this is an issue that there are fewer bees, and this has to do with climate change." And the White House senior adviser for nutrition policy Sam Kass--who also cooks dinner for the Obama family most weeknights--has also discussed the issue in depth with the president. It's one of the reasons the White House vegetable garden expanded to include a pollinator's garden this year. And if the Democrats have their way, Washington will have one more high-profile bee advocate after the mid-term elections: Michael Eggman, who is hoping to unseat Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.). Eggman, a third-generation beekeeper and self-described member of the "beekeeper mafia," praised the administration for taking on the issue, "although until this point, not enough has been done." "Colony Collapse Disorder appears to be a crisis with


What Congress can learn from bees. Yes, bees.

Welcome back to Five Questions! Today, meet Michael Eggman, Democrat running against Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.). He's also a beekeeper. So what can Congress learn from bees? A lot, he says. Here's Eggman's Five Questions segment in video form, along with a transcript of the discussion, edited for brevity and clarity: 1. "I am the Walrus" by The Beatles -- great song or one you'd rather never hear again? That's referring to my last name, I take it. Eggman. That was a hard name to grow up with. My dad always told me growing up, "Son, Eggman -- that name builds character." So if you want a congressman with a lot of character, you have one right here. I am the eggman, I am the walrus. 2. What exactly is the "beekeeper mafia?" I'm a big "Godfather" fan so I put that on my Web site once upon a time. I'm a third-generation beekeeper, I have a lot of uncles and cousins in the beekeeping industry. 3. Can you draw any metaphors between beekeeping and serving in Congress? I think there's a great metaphor there. The beehive has many jobs and it relies on all the members of that hive doing their job. They all work together -- that's the point of the hive. And if they all don't work together and cooperate, the hive's not going to survive. We need a lot more cooperation in Congress. 4. Your opponent is one of the few House Republicans to wade into comprehensive immigration reform. Does he deserve credit for that? It's easy to make noise on immigration, but it's harder to show some true leadership. I know there are enough votes in the House to pass immigration reform right now, if someone would be a leader and call for a vote. 5. What kind of advice did you get from your sister, who serves in the state assembly? She's part of my inner circle. She really is concerned about the people of her district -- that's who she represents. I think here in Congress we could learn a lot from my sister.


Apple, Amazon have a dangerous obsession with the tech gadget du jour

smartwatches have had trouble gaining any traction to date. Or, for example, consider the new Amazon Fire phone. Do we really need another smartphone that helps us buy more products? Amazon’s decision to roll out a new smartphone when the entire smartphone industry is nearing its saturation point seems a lot like a lot of reactive strategy. In short, a big company reacts to what’s going on around it rather than really mapping out a strategy for the future. Yes, there are some features that sound innovative — but the bigger picture is that an Amazon smartphone sounds a lot like a Facebook smartphone, and we all know how that did. Not that there aren’t some big ideas out there in Silicon Valley. You have Google launching Internet balloons, building a fleet of driverless cars and developing quantum computers. But, oh, by the way, Google’s Nest plans to acquire Dropcam for more than half a billion dollars. A company that promises to change the world ends up buying a webcam company. Amazon wowed the world with its delivery drones last year, but followed that up with tepid adventures in innovation such as Fire TV and the Fire phone. No word yet if the Fire smartwatch is next. Facebook has its share of innovative concepts in the works — like a plan to use satellite drones to provide Internet access to the world – but on a day-to-day basis, Facebook seems more interested in carrying out little tweaks to its algorithms. Meanwhile the company rolls out ever more apps that seem like “me-too” plays in an effort to keep up with innovators around it. The latest is Slingshot, which sounds a lot like Snapchat. Apple has a futuristic new headquarters in the works and a vision to change the way we think about digital health. But it follows that up with the so-called iWatch — a smartwatch that reportedly comes in a variety of screen sizes and colors along with sensors for tracking health. The problem, quite simply, is that the recent moves by the likes of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google actually make too much sense. From a purely business and analytical perspective, the moves are designed to maximize market share, increase user engagement, and hit any of the various other metrics designed to measure their performance. Wall Street analysts, even if they’re not in love with the moves, have


Sunshine: As addictive as heroin?

least based on my six behavioral addiction criteria: salience (being the most important and preoccupying activity in the person’s life), mood modifying, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict and relapse. But it did at least alert me to the fact that some people thought sunbathing and tanning were addictive. On the show, people likened their excessive tanning to nicotine addiction, and there certainly appeared to be some similarities between the people interviewed and nicotine addiction, in the sense that the “tanorexics” knew they were significantly increasing their chances of getting skin cancer as a direct result of their risky behavior but felt they were unable to stop doing it, which you could argue is very similar to smoking despite knowing the health warnings. Since then, tanorexia has become a topic for scientific investigation. A 2005 study published in the Archives of Dermatology claimed that a quarter of the sample of 145 “sun worshippers” would qualify as having a substance-related disorder if ultraviolet light was classed as the substance they craved. The paper also reported that frequent tanners experienced a “loss of control” over their tanning schedule and displayed a pattern of addiction similar to smokers and alcoholics. A 2006 study Two years later, a study published in the American Journal of Health Behavior reported that 27 percent of 400 surveyed students were classified as “tanning dependent.” The authors claimed that those classed as being tanning dependent had a number of similarities to substance users, including a higher prevalence among youths; an initial perception that the behavior was image-enhancing; high health risks and disregard for warnings about those risks; and the activity being mood-enhancing. A just-published study in the American Journal of Health Promotion surveyed 306 female students and classed 25 percent of the respondents as “tanning dependent” based upon a self-devised tanning-dependence questionnaire. But the problem with this and most of the psychological research on tanorexia is that almost all of it is carried out on relatively small convenience samples using self-reporting and non-psychometrically validated “tanning addiction” measurement scales. Although some studies suggest that some of my addiction criteria appear to have been met, I have yet to be convinced that any of the published studies show that all of them have been met. In short, empirical research evidence demonstrating a genuine addiction to tanning that encompasses all the known and expected physical and psychological consequences of addiction has yet to be proven.


Is now the time to get Americans to save?

specifically retirement savings, people will be less likely to fall into poverty in old age, making them less reliant on government-funded programs like Medicaid. They might also have more money to pass on to their children or to invest in the market, reducing the need for American companies to rely on foreign capital. Indeed, the writers argue that raising the savings rate could add $7 trillion to the U.S. economy over the next 25 years. "The impact on the economy of savings is much larger than anyone would expect," says Bob Reynolds, president and chief executive officer of Putnam Investments. Still, Americans aren't saving. Even though many say they understand the importance of saving, especially in the wake of the recession. A separate survey from Wells Fargo released this month shows that roughly 80 percent of millennials said the recession taught them the importance of saving in order to weather economic downturns, but only slightly more than half are saving for retirement. And of those who are saving, almost half were setting aside only one to five percent of their income. The report from Oxford Economics notes that the average American household socks away 3.8 percent of its income. Of course, many families are struggling to save at a time when wages are flat and there are still 3.5 million people looking for work who have been jobless for six months or longer. Researchers suggest that trend can be reversed if employers and lawmakers make it easier for people to save. Employers might boost participation in retirement savings plans if they automated the process, the report notes. That includes automatically enrolling people and giving them the ability to opt-out, instead of requiring them to opt-in to a plan. It also includes automatically escalating their saving rates each year. "What we see is that folks who are automatically enrolled, they don’t opt out more frequently than those who are not automatically enrolled," says Gary Koenig, of the AARP Public Policy Institute. Companies may get more workers to sign up for a 401(k) plan if they nudge people through an e-mail or offer incentive to save, such as a matching contribution. But in order to meaningfully boost the savings rate, researchers noted, employers and lawmakers will need to increase access to retirement savings accounts. And lawmakers can broaden access to tax-advantaged saving vehicles by encouraging-- or requiring-- more employers to offer plans.


The word “natural” helps sell $40 billion worth of food in the U.S. every year—and the label means nothing

It's a food jargon jungle out there. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News) Nothing makes Americans buy a food product quite like the fabulously ambiguous word "natural." The top 35 health claims and food labels include words most anyone who has been to a supermarket in the past five years should recognize—ones like "natural," yes, but also "organic," and "fat free," and "carb conscious," and "100 calories." These phrases helped the food industry sell more than $377 billion worth of masterfully marketed food items in the United States during the past year, according to data from market research firm Nielsen. The list of lucrative food labels is long, and, at times, upsetting. Many of these labels are pasted onto food packages for good reason. It's imperative, after all, that consumers with celiac disease be able to tell which food items are gluten free, or that those with milk allergies be able to tell which are made without lactose. But some are utterly meaningless. Take food labeled with the word "natural," for instance. Actually, remember it, because it's probably the most egregious example on supermarket shelves today. The food industry now sells almost $41 billion worth of food each year labeled with the word "natural," according to data from Nielsen. And the "natural" means, well, nothing. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn't even have an official definition or delineation of what "natural" actually means. The only thing the FDA has regarding the word is this statement, on its website: From a food science perspective, it is difficult to define a food product that is 'natural' because the food has probably been processed and is no longer the product of the earth. That said, FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives. However, the agency has not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances. It's hardly the only misleading adjective the food industry is swinging around these days. The word organic, while a bit less nebulous, still means a good deal less than one might think. Several others, including ones that reference antioxidants, proteins, calcium and other vitamins and minerals, are confusing consumers by tricking them into believing certain food products are healthier than they actually are, a recent study found. And the trend is only likely to get worse. Many of the


Good news if you have student debt: It gets better

to their income appears to be falling. The authors of the paper, Beth Akers and Matthew Chingos, were not expecting these results, given the increase in debt. "The findings in this paper really surprised us," Chingos said. The median borrower's monthly payment on a student loan is the same fraction of her monthly income now as it was in 1992. The mean ratio is falling, suggesting those with especially high debt or low incomes are also in a better position. Source: Brookings Institution. Their conclusion contrasts with typical portrayals in the media of recent graduates getting by on part-time work and living with their parents in order to make their monthly student loan payments. The Brookings paper has already received some scathing criticism. Indeed, the unemployment rate among adults between 20 and 24 years of age was 11.1 percent last month, nearly twice the average for all workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While incomes have increased for graduates over the long term, they have stagnated since the financial crisis. Chingos is especially worried about those with student debt and no bachelor's degree, many of whom dropped out of school. Some 7 million borrowers are in default on a student loan, around 18 percent of borrowers, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "As debt has gone up, incomes for college graduates have remained flat or gone down," Rohit Chopra, the bureau's student loan ombudsman, told The Washington Post earlier this month. "The combination of higher [debt-to-income levels] and damaged credit is a recipe for a challenging path forward for young people who are looking to borrow or invest." Akers and Chingos's evidence suggests that many of those young people will be just fine in a few years, once they get a real job -- particularly in comparison to their peers who did not go to college. The authors also note that people with advanced degrees, who are much more likely to achieve financial security, take out a large proportion of debt (around 40 percent, by one estimate). To be sure, even if most borrowers eventually do figure their lives out, the huge amounts they owe are bound to influence their decisions on spending, with ramifications for the economy as a whole. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York wrote earlier this year that student debt could be keeping young borrowers out of the automobile and


according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While incomes have increased for graduates over the long term, they have stagnated since the financial crisis. Chingos is especially worried about those with student debt and no bachelor's degree, many of whom dropped out of school. Some 7 million borrowers are in default on a student loan, around 18 percent of borrowers, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "As debt has gone up, incomes for college graduates have remained flat or gone down," Rohit Chopra, the bureau's student loan ombudsman, told The Washington Post earlier this month. "The combination of higher [debt-to-income levels] and damaged credit is a recipe for a challenging path forward for young people who are looking to borrow or invest." Akers and Chingos's evidence suggests that many of those young people will be just fine in a few years, once they get a real job -- particularly in comparison to their peers who did not go to college. The authors also note that people with advanced degrees, who are much more likely to achieve financial security, take out a large proportion of debt (around 40 percent, by one estimate). To be sure, even if most borrowers eventually do figure their lives out, the huge amounts they owe are bound to influence their decisions on spending, with ramifications for the economy as a whole. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York wrote earlier this year that student debt could be keeping young borrowers out of the automobile and housing markets, leading to reduced consumer spending in general. Others, however, argue that going to college or graduate school is still a wise investment for most students, and that by broadening access to education, student loans improve the productivity of the workforce. "If you didn't go to college and you didn't acquire that debt, you’d also have lower earnings," said Sandy Baum, an economist at the Urban Institute. "To not go to college because you might acquire $30,000 or $40,000 in debt is a very shortsighted decision." Of course, whether college is worth it or whether tuition is unnecessarily high are important, long-running debates. Until they are resolved, anyone without a large savings account who wants to go to college has little choice but to take out a loan. The good news for those people from Brookings is that they can do so without destroying their financial future.


The Internet’s hobby photographers could forever change the way we see space

(Jason Carpenter/Flickr) The Internet is full of diehard hobbyists, all quietly plugging away at their beloved pursuits on niche forums and personal blogs. Take astronomy, for example. On Reddit, there are more than 100,000 “stargazers” posting and discussing their best snaps of the sky. In the Flickr group for astrophotography, users have uploaded more than 86,000 photos of distant planets and stars. This trove of images represents more than a few nerds’ online obsession, though. According to a new paper from researchers at three leading universities, those photos could be used — in theory, at least — to create an image of the night sky more accurate than the ones taken by the Hubble Telescope or the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In the words of the paper itself, harnessing the power of web hobbyists is “a holy grail” for astronomers. How scientists plan to uncover that holy grail is, of course, a bit technical (as these things often are). But in an e-mail to The Post, the paper’s lead author, Carnegie Mellon’s Dustin Lang, basically laid it out this way: Large, professional telescopes are really powerful, but they still have to make some trade-off between area (how much sky they capture) and sensitivity (how detailed the capture is). We have very, very detailed images of tiny tiles of sky … and we have semi-detailed images of much bigger swaths. Lang and his co-authors, however, have essentially developed an algorithm that can accurately combine hundreds of photos — even really amateur, point-and-shoot photos — into huge composite images that show large portions of the night sky in a high level of detail. To put it simply, Lang explains, “a bunch of small telescopes distributed around the world have capabilities that a single large telescope does not.” Lang is quick to point out that his paper doesn’t contain any astronomical breakthroughs; he and his colleagues didn’t discover “anything that wasn’t already known about the sky.” But they did essentially discover, or at least advance, a fascinating new vein of research — one that could, with enough time and photos, change the way we see the night sky entirely. Here’s Lang: In our paper we had to scrape the web for images, which means we didn’t get very many images, and we don’t necessarily even have the right to use the ones we found! But if we asked citizen-scientists to contribute to a


PM Update: Warm and humid Wednesday with likely late day showers and storms

Radar lightning: Today was more or less your typical D.C. late June day: on the humid side, with temperatures in the mid-to-upper 80s. Tomorrow strikes a similar chord, but we add some thunderstorms to the mix Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Wednesday): See Matt Rogers’ forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter Sunset landing, June 23, 2014 (Kevin Wolf via Flickr) Severe storms tomorrow?:


Should Tony Blair leave the Middle East alone?

Former British prime minister and member of the Middle East Quartet Tony Blair meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on June 17. (Haim Zach/Israeli press office via EPA) Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, can't seem to get enough of the Middle East. He was a leading proponent of a war in Iraq that many now consider an unnecessary and ill-fated adventure. He spent the seven years since he left office as envoy of the Quartet, the geopolitical bloc that's trying to steer the lurching Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He has both celebrated and condemned the Arab uprisings of 2011, all the while collaborating with myriad regional actors and governments through his lucrative Lond0n-based consultancy Tony Blair Associates. In short, Blair has nailed his legacy (and his purse strings) to the region's fragile, tattered mast. But to what end? Blair has been back in the news this past month, largely as the subject of criticism in his home country over comments made in the wake of the current crisis in Iraq. In a statement posted on his personal Web site in mid-June, he insisted the 2003 invasion wasn't to blame for the alarming gains made in Iraq by ISIS, a militant group whose origins can be traced back to the aftermath of the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime. "We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that ‘we’ have caused [the current crisis]. We haven't," Blair wrote. He added: "The fundamental cause of the crisis lies within the region not outside it." I explained in an earlier post the ways in which 2003 directly created the dilemmas now vexing Iraq. Blair himself appeared to backtrack this week, acknowledging in an op-ed in this weekend's Financial Times that "Iraq of 2014 bears, in part, the imprint of the removal of Saddam Hussein 11 years ago." But he went on in the piece to stress that doing nothing has its "own consequences" and suggested, hypothetically, that an Iraq with Hussein still in power could still experience the sort of upheavals and violence that we've seen in recent years. This has been met with scorn by Blair's detractors. Some, including former British ambassadors, signed a joint letter that was published this week, lambasting the former prime minister's record in the Middle East. Here are some excerpts: In order to justify the invasion, Tony Blair misled the British people by


‘Tyrant,’ FX’s Middle East drama, draws complaints of Arab and Muslim stereotypes

Ashraf Barhom as Jamal, Adam Rayner as Barry and Jennifer Finnegan as Molly in “Tyrant.” (Patrick Harbron/FX) It’s no secret that FX’s new drama “Tyrant” — about the son of a Middle Eastern dictator who leaves his comfortable California life to return to his troubled home country — has had problems since its inception. Ang Lee was supposed to direct the pilot, but dropped out. People criticized the hiring of a white lead actor to play the main Middle Eastern character. The Hollywood Reporter has a long story about the struggle of making the show, which involved lot of behind-the-scenes issues for its creators. Most notably, however, as the first episode aired Tuesday night, the series is getting many complaints for one particular issue: Arab and Muslim stereotypes. Set in fictional Middle Eastern country Abbudin, the series kicks off as the long-exiled son comes home after decades away (he couldn’t handle his father’s dictatorship). After a series of unfortunate events, he may be forced to now help his native country, which is going through “complex and turbulent growing pains of a nation straining to break free from dictatorial rule,” according to the network description. Before the show officially premiered, groups were already taking offense at its portrayal of the Middle East. After a pilot screening in Washington last week, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) fired off a release asking TV reviewers to address the cliches. “In the pilot of FX’s ‘Tyrant,’ Arab Muslim culture is devoid of any redeeming qualities and is represented by terrorists, murderous children, rapists, corrupt billionaires and powerless female victims,” said CAIR’s national communications director, Ibrahim Hooper. “In ‘Tryant,’ even the ‘good’ Arab Muslims are bad.” In the release, Hooper noted “the producers of the series claim that it is merely a reflection of the brutal actions of dictators like Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad and Muammar Gaddafi. Unfortunately, ‘Tyrant’ will be seen by many viewers as an indictment of an entire culture.” Previously, CAIR had requested a meeting with FX to address potential “Islamophobic stereotyping.” Hooper did say that a producer told him that future episodes will be more nuanced. THR reported that showrunner Howard Gordon (behind “Homeland” and “24,” also heavy on Middle Eastern themes) has talked with the Muslim Public Affairs Council and Muslims on Screen and Television in regards to the show. He also hired a Palestinian to serve as a consultant


Sweetgreen launches test kitchen at its Dupont location

Even as Sweetgreen opened its 20th D.C.-area shop in the Navy Yard last week and signed a lease to launch a West Coast outlet in Los Angeles next year, the owners quietly unveiled a test kitchen at its Dupont store that will eventually have an impact on the eco-friendly salad chain's locations from coast to coast. Mixed greens laboratory: Sweetgreen's renovated Dupont location offers a glimpse into the future of the organic salad chain. (Tim Carman/The Washington Post) The Dupont outlet, the chain's second store originally opened in 2009, underwent renovations about six months ago, but the refurbishment was merely part of a larger goal: to prepare the shop for its role as a test kitchen, which was officially rolled out earlier this month to curious and (sometimes skeptical) customers. As part of its new testing grounds, Sweetgreen has hired Michael Stebner, former executive chef for natural foods guru Andrew Weil's True Food Kitchen, to serve as culinary director for the chain. A large part of his job will be rolling out sort of experimental salads at the Dupont store to gauge customer feedback and sales, which will help decide whether the Sweetgreen owners should place them into the core rotation at its 26 other locations (and counting). "We have been really focused, historically, more on the sourcing of the ingredients, the farmers," says Nic Jammet, one of Sweetgreen's three founders. "But now, going forward, we want to focus not just on the supply chain, but really on the innovation, the flavors and the menu and make sure that as we go to different cities, different regions, the menu can evolve and make sense where we are." The Dupont store already offers a glimpse into the future of the chain. Just take a look at the menu above the counter, where there are 12 removable boards listing the salads available. Nine of them are "core" salads or, to be more accurate, wannabe core salads. Many are essentially auditioning for a place on the core menu all across the chain. The other three are seasonal bowls that will change five times a year, which is a significant shift from Sweetgreen's previous approach to its rotating salad options. The chain used to have a single bowl that would change once a month or 12 times a year. The new approach is designed to treat the rotating salads as a seasonal section of


rotation at its 26 other locations (and counting). "We have been really focused, historically, more on the sourcing of the ingredients, the farmers," says Nic Jammet, one of Sweetgreen's three founders. "But now, going forward, we want to focus not just on the supply chain, but really on the innovation, the flavors and the menu and make sure that as we go to different cities, different regions, the menu can evolve and make sense where we are." The Dupont store already offers a glimpse into the future of the chain. Just take a look at the menu above the counter, where there are 12 removable boards listing the salads available. Nine of them are "core" salads or, to be more accurate, wannabe core salads. Many are essentially auditioning for a place on the core menu all across the chain. The other three are seasonal bowls that will change five times a year, which is a significant shift from Sweetgreen's previous approach to its rotating salad options. The chain used to have a single bowl that would change once a month or 12 times a year. The new approach is designed to treat the rotating salads as a seasonal section of the menu, a rather novel notion for a budding national chain. Sweetgreen is, then, treating its 27 stores as if they were chef-driven restaurants, changing the menu, more or less, with the seasons, with a bonus fifth makeover. “Nobody’s really done what we’re trying to do: Scale seasonal fast healthy food that tastes good," says Jammet. “If someone comes in and it’s the first day of spring, they'll feel the difference here. People should feel that. The food should be different as the year changes.” The seasonal salads will vary per store, depending on the ingredients available from farmers and distributors in the area, but the core salads will be tested and tracked at the Dupont location exclusively. When customers buy a test salad, they will be given a card that lists a Web address, where diners can then leave feedback on their leafy experiment. In other words, Washingtonians in general, and Dupont Circle residents in particular, will now be the arbiters, helping to establish what salads appear on the core menu at all Sweetgreen stores. "I think Washingtonians have a very discerning palate," says Jammet. Plus, the Georgetown graduate adds, Washington "is where we’re from. This is where the


The legal case for drones is solid

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) speaks at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., on March 14, 2013. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press) On Monday, Barron’s 42-page memo was declassified and released, with some redactions. There actually is a whole lot of justification for the president to, for example, use a drone to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, the cleric who served as a recruiter and inspiration for terrorists including the Fort Hood murderer. One can disagree with his legal analysis — although I would be curious what precisely in the 42 pages Paul finds to be in error — but to declare that there isn’t any justification or that there is no precedent is flat-out wrong. The Post reported Awlaki’s relationship with al-Qaeda “brings him within the scope” of the 2001 congressional authorization of the use of military force, according to the document. Citing information provided by the CIA and Pentagon, the memo said Awlaki has “operational and leadership roles” with al-Qaeda and “continues to plot attacks intended to kill Americans.” In part because that authorization specified no geographic boundaries, it did not matter that Awlaki was based in Yemen rather than Afghanistan, where the bulk of the U.S. war effort against al-Qaeda was focused. The memo explores a range of other potential legal issues, finding, for example, that federal laws designed to prevent U.S. nationals from getting away with murder overseas “had nothing to do with the conduct of an authorized military operation by U.S. armed forces.” . . . The newly released document indicates that both the U.S. military and the CIA had assured the Justice Department that “they intend to capture” Awlaki but had made clear that doing so “would be infeasible at this time.” While acknowledging that killing a U.S. citizen carries “the risk of erroneous deprivation of a citizen’s liberty in the absence of sufficient process,” the memo argued that those considerations are overwhelmed when the target poses “a continued and imminent threat of violence or death” to other Americans. Moreover, there is ample precedent going back to World War II to treat U.S. collaborators with the enemy as enemy combatants. Benjamin Wittes [The] memo embraces a Mathews v. Elbridge balancing test for its Fifth Amendment analysis. And it concludes that “a decision-maker could reasonably decide that the threat posed by al-Aulaqi’s activities to United States persons is ‘continued’ and


Notorious Afghan district under siege, weeks after last Marines leave

were some 800 enemy fighters in the region, while the Wall Street Journal put the number at about 1,000 — essentially the same size as a full battalion of Marines. Coalition military officials in Kabul told Checkpoint that they provided various kinds of military support to Afghan National Security Forces over the last three days in northern Helmand province as a result, including helicopter support for medical evacuations, close-air support and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets. “All checkpoints in Helmand are currently under ANSF control and this remains an ANSF-led operation,” one official said in an e-mail. The violence may serve as an eye-opener for U.S. and Afghan officials, who have continued to proceed with the military drawdown in Afghanistan as the security crisis in Iraq dominates the news. Sangin, in the northeast corner of Helmand province, has long been considered one of Afghanistan’s most violent regions. It was among the last areas that Marines in Helmand have withdrawn from as they prepare for the next phase of military operations after 2014. Dozens of coalition troops were killed there, and hundreds were maimed by improvised explosive devices and other booby traps. Fighting was said to have spread to nearby Kajaki and Now Zad districts by Wednesday. The Taliban assault comes as Afghanistan copes with a political crisis over alleged fraud in the June 14 run-off vote to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai. Both candidates left in the running have pledged to sign an agreement that will keep some 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan next year, but the corruption allegations have stalled the process. The Taliban offensive also comes as three Marines were killed Monday in Helmand. They are Staff Sgt. David H. Stewart, 34; Lance Cpl. Brandon J. Garabrant, 19; and Lance Cpl. Adam F. Wolff, 25, Pentagon officials said. All three Marines were with 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, of Camp Lejeune, N.C., and died while patrolling near Camp Leatherneck, the Marine Corps’ major base in Afghanistan, Commandant Gen. James Amos said Tuesday. “It took the wind out of us. It was a rude awakening,” Amos said, according to The Hill. “There’s no question that the Taliban will probe and look for opportunity.” Afghan National Security Forces reported that they have maintained control of checkpoints in the northern providence of Helmand despite an ongoing battle with Taliban militants trying to gain control of several districts in the province.


Environmental groups, Chevy Chase residents plan suit over Purple Line

Three environmental groups and three Chevy Chase residents notified federal agencies Wednesday that they plan to sue over Maryland’s proposed light-rail Purple Line unless the agencies better study the project’s potential impacts on two rare shrimp-like creatures. A letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Federal Transit Administration said the agencies had violated the Endangered Species Act by not properly considering a light-rail line’s impacts on the Hay’s spring amphipod, which has been listed as endangered since 1982, and the Kenk’s amphipod, which is a candidate for federal listing. The groups — The Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail, and the Center For Sustainable Economy — requested a meeting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to discuss a more detailed analysis of the potential impacts. The letter also was signed by three Chevy Chase residents: John Fitzgerald, Christine Real de Azua and Deborah Ingram. The line would run behind some backyards in Chevy Chase. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found in January that construction of a 16-mile light-rail Purple Line between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties would have “no effect” on either animal. The agency said the Hay’s spring amphipod’s habitat in the District’s portion of Rock Creek Park — 4.5 miles downstream of the proposed rail line — would be too far away to be affected. Habitat for the Kenk’s amphipod near the Coquelin Run tributary in Chevy Chase also would not be harmed, the agency said. However, the groups’ letter said that their own expert, an American University professor, has found that the project’s potential impact on the two creatures “warrants further scrutiny.” The professor, David Culver, found seven freshwater springs and seeps and two small wetlands where the creatures could live near the proposed rail line’s path, the letter said. The groups also said the 24 acres of trees that would be cut for the line and the additional impervious surfaces it would bring would increase stormwater runoff into nearby streams, further degrading them. The groups have about 60 days to file a lawsuit. A Purple Line would run east-west, mostly along local streets, between New Carrollton and Bethesda. It would connect Metrorail lines with Amtrak and MARC commuter rail stations. Maryland officials have said they hope to begin construction in 2015 and open it to service in 2020. State officials are now seeking federal construction aid and


PM Update: Scattered to numerous storms this evening, warm and drier on Thursday

Radar lightning: 10:35 p.m. update: 9:55 p.m. update: It's a DC/I-95 special. Lots of lightning, stay inside, won't last too long. Radar @ 9:48pm http://t.co/Tosil9bBtt 9:10 p.m. update: From 5:30 p.m…. Through Tonight: Tomorrow (Thursday): See Dan Stillman’s forecast through the weekend. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter Sunset on Tuesday evening. (Dan Lawrence via Flickr) Pollen update:


Why a beer-flavored margarita found a place in customers’ hearts

The Lime-a-Rita was designed to be more portable and convenient than a traditional margarita. (Anheuser-Busch) The birth of Bud Light Lime-a Ritas started with curiosity. In parts of Asia, pouring beer over ice is common. Pat McGauley, vice president of innovation at Anheuser-Busch, wondered if his company could tap into the trend. He’s paid to help the company grow by delivering new products to consumers. So McGauley whipped up some prototypes to see what people thought of beer served on ice. The reaction? “Yuck, you’re messing too much with my beer,” McGauley recalled. It was time for a new plan. How about some sort of margarita that could be served on ice? That led McGauley to the Lime-a-Rita and a handful of related drinks, which have generated over $500 million in sales in two years since they launched. Nielsen has studied over 17,000 products since 2008, and named a new batch of winners in its Breakthrough Innovations Report, which was published this month. Here’s what helped Lime-a-Ritas make the list: No fear of failure. Anheuser-Busch tried selling a margarita mix previously. It wasn’t different enough from other offerings on the market, and never caught on. That attempt didn’t stop Anheuser-Busch from taking another stab at margaritas. Create a new ritual and experience. Anheuscher-Busch thought it could expand the situations in which people drink margaritas. The Lime-a-Rita was designed to be more portable, convenient and casual than a traditional margarita. Someone drinking a Lime-a-Rita can enjoy it straight from the can, or pour it over ice in a glass. There’s no need to lug around tequila, limes and a margarita mix. “People weren’t drinking margaritas at tailgate or just casually when people are coming over,” McGauley said. “We took the best of both worlds, what was good in pre-mixed drinks and what was good in beer and brought those two together.” He said that 60 to 70 percent of those who drink a Lime-a-Rita do so over ice. Embrace the co-ed element. According to Anheuscher-Busch, 50 percent of Lime-a-Rita drinkers are female, which is more than for traditional beers. “We wanted something that brought male and females together. The margarita brought females to our proposition. The Bud Light name kept males in the proposition. That combination is what’s driving that success, the co-ed element,” McGauley said. Pick the perfect size for the can. Anheuser-Busch tried out different size cans, ranging from


Extinct birds land at ‘Once There Were Billions’ at the National Museum of Natural History

The passenger pigeon. (Images courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library) Good news! The carrier pigeon is not extinct after all. You may have mourned the bird’s passage and our subsequent reliance on Comcast and Verizon to deliver messages, but as it turns out, the birds are quite abundant. “The carrier pigeon is just another name for a rock dove — the city pigeons that are everywhere,” says Helen James, head bird curator at the National Museum of Natural History. The same can’t be said for the passenger pigeon. (“Everyone gets the two species confused because it’s almost the same name,” James says.) The passenger pigeon has been extinct since 1914, when Martha, the last remaining bird, kicked the bucket at the Cincinnati Zoo. Martha is now on view in the exhibit “Once There Were Billions: Vanished Birds of North America.” She’ll be accompanied by taxidermy specimens of three other once-commonplace birds: the great auk, Carolina parakeet and heath hen. “Extinction is not just about rare species in far away tropical mountain ranges in distant times,” James says. “It’s actually happening here, today.” Passenger Pigeon Last seen: 1914 Great Auk Last seen: 1844 Carolina Parakeet Last seen: 1918 Heath Hen Last seen: 1932 Leaving Soon? The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker National Museum of Natural History, 10th Street and Constitution Avenue NW; through October 2015, free; 202-633-1000. (Smithsonian) More stories about animals in D.C.: There’s more to wildlife in D.C. than street rats Bao Bao’s going to be big in 2014 Rusty vs. Bao Bao in song


How the current food debate is failing America

America's health is on the table. (Valentin Flauraud/Bloomberg News) The United States is in the midst of a food identity crisis. The American diet, in many ways, appears to be failing the country's health. The obesity rate, although having plateaued, has settled at a preposterous 35 percent. More Americans suffer from diabetes than ever before. And there's little sign of abatement. That said, food has never been so widely available -- or so cheap. The average American family spends a smaller percentage of its income to eat than ever before. Few companies are as well positioned to influence our diets as Nestle USA, which sells food to 97 percent of U.S. households. The global food giant is one of the nation's largest food manufacturers, churning out popular brands that range from frozen pizzas (DiGiorno) and packaged meals (Hot Pockets, Lean Cuisine), to dairy products (Skinny Cow and Haagen-Dazs), baby food (Gerber) and chocolate confections (Crunch, Toll House, and Butterfinger). I sat down with Nestle USA's CEO Paul Grimwood to discuss how the company is perceived here, what it owes the public and how it's working to promote better food policy in the country. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Let's start with a pretty general question. From a consumer perspective, what is Nestle USA? In the U.S. if you ask consumers, what do you think of when you think of Nestle, 61 percent will say chocolate. Is that wrong? Actually chocolate is the smallest part of our business in the U.S. Is that something Nestle wants to change? Yes. We want to make sure people understand the breadth of our portfolio. We're the number one or number two supplier to all the key retailers in the U.S. The US is actually very much like the UK, because why we're known for chocolate is a jingle in an ad in the 1950s. That little diddy still caries today as what Nestle stands for. When people turn to the back of a packet and it says Nestle, we want that to be an endorsement of good quality, safety and reliability. Do you consider that part of the company's obligation to the public good? How does the fact that Nestlé is a food company, and therefore major player in the formation of the American diet, affect that obligation? You have a huge responsibility to the public as a food company,


What proceeded was a big discussion about whether we should go from our 3,500 milligram intake to 1,500. But there was no way consumers are going to be able to do that. Because in terms of the taste profile, consumers might be able to make that cut over, say, the next fifteen years, but certainly not over the next fifteen months. The conversation then should be about how to achieve incremental goals. And everyone needs to participate. It needs to be holistic. If everyone isn't participating, a consumer will walk into a restaurant that isn't curbing its salt use and say "hey, that's got a lot of flavor," and then shun the products on shelves with healthier portions of salt. So something like salt regulation could work like, say, price regulation, for competition's sake. Regulating sodium levels helps, on some level, ensure equal playing field. Theoretically, yes. Is there an arm of Nestle's U.S. business that is struggling amid current health narratives? The area that's challenged at the moment is the frozen category. The frozen category is not in growth at the current time. We've got to better understand that, because people are especially concerned with convenience and portion size, in terms of controlling the overall diet, and that's at the core of what you get with frozen foods and frozen meals. Do you think that has anything to do with a growing paranoia about processed foods? People want to look out for and understand their own health, so that's definitely part of it. But there's also an economic trend where people are looking to get more calories for their money. There are so many positives to frozen foods that the industry isn't currently articulating well enough. Like what? Well, there's a calorie benefit. But also, depending on whom you ask, 40 to 50 percent of food from farm to fork is currently wasted in the U.S. That doesn't happen with frozen food. There's a cost benefit to frozen food, too, since there is no inherent waste. Consumers might want more natural, fresher foods, but there are natural and fresh ways of preserving and freezing foods that aren't properly being articulated at the moment. So it's a casualty of consumer sentiment at the moment? Exactly. And we hope to see that sentiment shift over time, but fortunately, save for the frozen category, business is looking quite good at the moment.


Obama gambling with U.S. security

older, acquired, and temporary work facilities, its waivers and exceptions process has weaknesses. . . . GAO found that State has not fully developed and implemented a risk management policy for overseas facilities. Furthermore, State’s risk management activities do not operate as a continuous process or continually incorporate new information. Furthermore, State’s risk management activities do not operate as a continuous process or continually incorporate new information. The State Department apparently accepted some 13 GAO recommendations, raising the question as to why nothing was done about these glaring weaknesses, even after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack. Even high-risk facilities were not adequately protected. In short, security for State Department posts and personnel was not a problem addressed in any serious manner. In some respects, we are lucky there have been only two (Egypt and Libya) embassy assaults during Obama’s presidency. And finally, the idea that al-Qaeda is on its heels, that we need not keep up National Security Agency surveillance to detect plots and that American jihadists who go overseas to take up arms against the United States is discredited — as its promoters are — with each new revelation about the increasing threat from ISIS. The Journal again reports: “A Sunni jihadist group that has seized vast territories in Iraq and Syria is parlaying its battlefield successes into a recruitment drive that is attracting more foreign fighters, say Western and Arab officials. The message from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS: Join us in forming a Sunni-led religious state spanning from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. One recruitment video, released on Friday, shows gun-toting militants, speaking with British and Australian accents, extolling the virtues of jihad and inviting viewers to join their battle in Syria and Iraq.” In light of this, it would seem incredibly reckless to suggest trying and imprisoning foreign jihadists in U.S. prisons where they have a ready crop of recruits handy. It also seems to be an exceptionally poor move to make it more difficult to detect plots and disrupt them in advance. Suggestions to revise the successful NSA program, which has been found not to be abusive, should be reconsidered. And what of the Americans recruited to join the jihad in the Middle East? Lacking “boots on the ground,” it seems that drones are more necessary than ever when Americans can be operating in the vast ISIS territory. Otherwise, they


Go-Go Symphony adds a classical note to Washington’s unique sound

Liza Figueroa Kravinsky, 52, is the founder and director of Go-Go Symphony, a 20-member ensemble mixing classical music with the go-go sound. (Joshua Cruse) From country-pop to techno-rap, genre-bending has allowed musicians to be creative with their craft for decades. Can that same experimentation work for go-go, Washington's unique dance beat? Prince George's County native Liza Figueroa Kravinsky certainly thinks so. Two years ago, the 52-year-old composer and musician founded Go-Go Symphony, a 20-member ensemble that mixes classical music with go-go. It might sound like an odd combination, but audiences, critics and bloggers have been taking notice. "Everything's kind of happening very quickly for us, much more quickly than I expected it would," says Kravinsky, who trained as a classical musician but also has ties to the R&B and pop world (she toured with Stacy Lattisaw in the 1980s). "And I think it's because we have a unique idea that fits with our surrounding culture.” In advance of the ensemble’s show Friday at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, which Kravinsky describes as “a symphony you can dance and party to,” we spoke to her about how she got things rolling and her plans for the Go-Go Symphony. How did you come up with the idea for the G0-Go Symphony? I wrote a go-go symphony mixing go-go and classical because I was trying to be different ... and I wanted orchestras to play it. But I had been in the pop music world for so long, I didn't really have any connections in the classical world. ... I tried to have other ensembles play it and some people almost played it, but didn't do it because they had other priorities. But, not only that, you really have to have genuine go-go percussionists to play Go-Go symphony, so I had to start my own ensemble so that it would be played right. ... It didn't take long to get a small group together, and now … the Go-Go Symphony partners with other orchestras to perform go-go symphony and other works that incorporate classical and go-go. Who would you say makes up a Go-Go Symphony audience? Are there more classical fans or more go-go lovers? I think it's both. I think some hard go-go fans might not like it, because it's different from normal go-go, and then some hardcore classical fans might not like it either. But between one end of the spectrum


The District’s first Hyatt Place opens in NoMa

An exterior shot of the new Hyatt Place in Washington’s NoMa neighborhood. Photo by Carlington Barnett; courtesy of Hyatt Place Washington D.C./U.S. Capitol. Within an hour of its 11 a.m. ribbon-cutting Thursday, the restaurant at the District’s first Hyatt Place hotel was already abuzz with locals. About two dozen people stopped by for lunch, including a group from National Public Radio’s nearby headquarters. “The business community of NoMa has already shown us a lot of love,” said Stacy E. Smith, the hotel’s general manager. “We had a great lunch crowd.” The Hyatt Place Washington D.C./U.S. Capitol, located at 33 New York Avenue NE, is the third hotel to open in the District’s up-and-coming NoMa neighborhood. (The other two are Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn.) As of Thursday afternoon, 50 of the hotel’s 200 rooms had been booked for its first night. “Hyatt Place is the right product for this neighborhood,” said Smith, 43. “It’s inspired by the multi-tasking traveler.” To keep up with guests who may be up early and out late, the hotel offers a 24-hour gym, free WiFi and an around-the-clock menu with flatbreads, salads and cheeseburgers. A “coffee to cocktails bar” serves Starbucks blends, as well as premium beers and wines. An “odds and ends” program, meanwhile, provides guests with an arsenal of last-minute items, including nail polish, cotton balls and curling irons. Hyatt Place, which was founded in 2006, has also earned a reputation for its team of multi-tasking employees. “The same person who checks you in can make you a latte, pour you a glass of wine and also cook you breakfast,” said Smith, formerly general manager of the Sheraton Rockville Hotel. “It’s a more purposeful interaction.” The hotel currently has 37 staffers, with plans to hire about 30 more. “We are building opportunities for our community,” Smith said. Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels and Resorts has more than 550 hotels throughout the world, including roughly 190 Hyatt Place properties. Nearby Hyatt Place locations include hotels in Chantilly, Sterling, Herndon and in Linthicum Heights, near Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.