Firms turn to I.T. to track energy consumption, cut costs

always-on computers presented the biggest barrier to implementing the new software called Verdiem Surveyor, officials said. Plus, most of the agency’s 27 institutes have independent IT departments that must accommodate the unique needs of different scientific researchers and physicians. “There’s a high regard here for [the idea that] any dollar that can be saved is a dollar that can be put toward research,” said Daniel Lonnerdal, the agency’s acting chief information officer in the Office of Research Services and Office of Research Facilities. “Even if [changes] may seem daunting or difficult at first, the longer picture is what’s most important for most people.” The software is one of many measures NIH has implemented to curtail its energy use, including the purchase of light bulbs, computer monitors and other devices that are built to gobble less electricity, said Greg Leifer, head of the energy management team in the Office of Research Facilities. Software to manage energy consumption in commercial buildings has grown more sophisticated in recent years as individual lights, computers or air conditioners can be connected to and controlled from a larger system. “All of that instrumentation obviously generates a huge volume of data, so you have software that sits over top that utilizes that information so you make decisions based on it,” said Casey Talon, a senior research analyst at IDC Energy Insights. “The challenge where we’re at is there are very sophisticated solutions and it’s really a matter of seeing the business case for these solutions,” Talon added. Companies such as Arlington-based GridPoint already are making the sales pitch. The company can outfit commercial buildings and facilities with sensors and observe energy consumption patterns remotely. The firm’s software has proved especially popular in industries that have a large number of isolated locations such as grocery stores, chain restaurants, banks and convenience shops, said Mark Danzenbaker, vice president of product management. “We’ll typically start out with a pilot of a handful of sites and really boil this down to proving the value. . . . Then we transition to a larger deployment,” Danzenbaker said. Once all the locations are plugged into the network, property managers can view energy consumption in every location from one program and assess ways to reduce costs, such as regulating thermostats and lights or identifying faulty equipment. “It’s all about the analytics. That’s where the value actually is,” said Kim Bishop, vice president of data


At Bluetext, marketing in the language of Washington

also need to deliver a message that people can relate to,” Quint said. “How is your message to the market a little bit different so people understand the value you provide?” But in pursuit of creativity, Quint said, one message cannot get garbled in this economic environment: the technology’s ability to save the government money. That’s a marketing staple made all the more vital by the sequester. Bluetext crafted Web ads that played on the government’s cost-conscious nature when Adobe wanted to sell Acrobat X, a PDF software, to federal clients, asking, “Want to save up to $13,000 per government worker annually?” and “How Much are Better Productivity and Security Worth to Your Government Agency?” When data storage company NetApp sought help with its public sector marketing, the company first considered firms outside the Beltway. Ultimately, it narrowed the pool to just Washington-based agencies because they understood the ways of the federal city, said Patricia Davis-Muffett, director of U.S. public sector marketing. “You have to handle the customers differently,” Davis-Muffett said. “You have to understand those sensitivities and be conversant with public affairs offices and ethics and all those things that are [key] to being a professional in the public sector space.” Bluetext created a digital marketing campaign for Cisco, Intel and NetApp to market the trio’s services around data center consolidation — a topic that’s very Washington and, typically, pretty dry. The campaign features an IT manager — decked out in khakis, a short-sleeved button down shirt and a tie — competing in the “Data Center Decathlon.” What follows is an almost-ridiculous series of videos showing the IT manager preparing to throw a javelin or clear hurdles, overlaid with a voice explaining the connection to data center consolidation. “If you come in and are just talking like a technology company that doesn’t understand the context of the federal government in particular, they can tell from a mile away that you don’t understand their environment,” Davis-Muffett said. Davis-Muffett said the key selling features of software don’t differ greatly for commercial and public sector buyers — efficiency, cost savings and increased productivity. It’s just a matter of marketing. “They’re still relevant concepts in the federal government, but they’re communicated differently,” she said. “If you say something about greater shareholder value and you’re talking to a customer in the federal government, they’re going to look at you like you have three heads.”


Business Rx: Diagnostic anSERS

the market now. “And the market is very large — anyone who needs to test purity or detect chemical threats could use this. Our test provides on-the-spot, lab-quality analysis, without the hassle of testing a substance and shipping samples off to a lab to wait for results. “Right now, we’re in the final research stage to fully commercialize our product. We already have a customer and distributor lined up. Now, we have to figure out our manufacturing. We are grappling with whether we should line up contract manufacturing, or do it ourselves? We could handle producing our early orders in the lab ourselves, but is that how we should be spending our time? How much should we outsource? The advice Harry Geller, entrepreneur-in-residence, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship “In your nascent stage, I would argue that producing the chemical ink and paper sensors yourself is exactly where you need to be spending some of your time. “Specifically your technology is disruptive in the sense that it costs 1/20th of the price of the current product offerings, is easier to produce and yields equal or better results. “You already have a customer and distributor lined up, so the most important factor right now is quality control and proving out your model. This is best achieved by Diagnostic AnSERS controlling the first phase of the production. Once you have worked out the bugs in the production process, then will you have the proper specifications to take this out to the manufacturing market for mass production. “Regarding when to outsource to manufacturers, you can use basic production forecasting methods to determine this, starting with your current capacity to produce these in-house compared to the product forecasts your distributor is giving you. Using a reasonable growth projection plus pipeline sales, you should be able to predict within a few months when you will need to start outsourcing. Then you will have the experience and exact specifications to really drive down costs and produce a great product.” The reaction Virgile “That’s a great way to drive down costs. Initially, we will need to have multiple iterations of our product to nail down the manufacturing process, anyway. Also, it’s cheaper for us to do that rather than outsourcing it. After that, we’ll definitely have to decide whether we want to scale up our own production or outsource it so we can focus on research and development.”


Walgreens in Chinatown offers everything from manicures to sushi

mangoes, gluten-free cookie dough. Sausage cheddar quiche and creme brulee sell for $3.99 a pop. Even pre-made sandwiches have gotten an upgrade: chicken, apple and brie on a seven-grain baguette, and prosciutto, mozzarella and fig on cranberry ficelle. “It’s convenient for grabbing breakfast or lunch,” said Kevin Chapman, who stopped in last week to buy a smoothie and roast beef sandwich. “Sometimes while I’m here, I’ll go upstairs and also get whatever hair care product I need.” As the company’s seventh flagship location, executives say the 22,603-square-foot store — nearly double the size of a typical Walgreens — offers something else entirely: A testing ground for new ideas and innovation. It is one of the latest examples of the kind of tinkering retailers big and small are doing to customize stores for their particular communities. “It has become a great playground for us,” said Beth Stiller, vice president of strategy and innovation for the Deerfield, Ill.-based company. “We think of it as an exaggeration of our strategy — it’s where we try all kinds of new offerings, new products, new services.” When it’s clear that there is enough demand for a certain initiative — selling fruits and vegetables, say — the company finds way to roll out similar programs at all of its stores. “Our flagships have shown us that even in over-served communities, there’s a role for us [to sell produce],” she said. “As we go back into stores and renovate and open new stores, we take a good, hard look at how much of those fresh offerings we can bring into those locations.” Boutique feel The inside of the store near Gallery Place is airy, with exposed brick and a painted ceiling that evokes the Sistine Chapel. “It’s very high-end,” said Colleen Goldstein, who works in cosmetics. “Our customers come in and say ‘Oh my gosh, I feel like I’m in a department store or a specialty boutique.’” The large brick building, once a CVS drugstore, has stood vacant for several years. In 2011, Douglas Development and McCaffery Interests acquired the property out of bankruptcy. Today, the building, which will also house a Panera Bread and Yo! Sushi, commands one of the highest rents per square foot in the District. “The density around there makes it one of the top intersections in Washington, D.C.,” said Juan Cameron, a senior managing director at McCaffery Interests. “You’ve got a strong


sandwich. “Sometimes while I’m here, I’ll go upstairs and also get whatever hair care product I need.” As the company’s seventh flagship location, executives say the 22,603-square-foot store — nearly double the size of a typical Walgreens — offers something else entirely: A testing ground for new ideas and innovation. It is one of the latest examples of the kind of tinkering retailers big and small are doing to customize stores for their particular communities. “It has become a great playground for us,” said Beth Stiller, vice president of strategy and innovation for the Deerfield, Ill.-based company. “We think of it as an exaggeration of our strategy — it’s where we try all kinds of new offerings, new products, new services.” When it’s clear that there is enough demand for a certain initiative — selling fruits and vegetables, say — the company finds way to roll out similar programs at all of its stores. “Our flagships have shown us that even in over-served communities, there’s a role for us [to sell produce],” she said. “As we go back into stores and renovate and open new stores, we take a good, hard look at how much of those fresh offerings we can bring into those locations.” Boutique feel The inside of the store near Gallery Place is airy, with exposed brick and a painted ceiling that evokes the Sistine Chapel. “It’s very high-end,” said Colleen Goldstein, who works in cosmetics. “Our customers come in and say ‘Oh my gosh, I feel like I’m in a department store or a specialty boutique.’” The large brick building, once a CVS drugstore, has stood vacant for several years. In 2011, Douglas Development and McCaffery Interests acquired the property out of bankruptcy. Today, the building, which will also house a Panera Bread and Yo! Sushi, commands one of the highest rents per square foot in the District. “The density around there makes it one of the top intersections in Washington, D.C.,” said Juan Cameron, a senior managing director at McCaffery Interests. “You’ve got a strong residential presence, a strong business presence, and you’ve got the Verizon Center and a Metro station down the street.” Stiller said Walgreens, which posted $72 billion in revenue last year, has plans to open at least a few more flagship stores in 2013. “Our goal is to make sure going to the drugstore is no longer a chore,” she said.


minimum parking requirements and toward parking maximums in certain areas, but it’s unlikely the District would approve a project that includes 1,238 new homes to be built without adding some parking. Compare that to CityCenter DC, the mixed-use project under construction downtown, which will include 1,570 new parking spaces when it opens. MIT proposed only slightly more parking: 352 spaces for a 1.4 million-square-foot project. Ryan Butler, of the MIT team, said maximizing density on their project would have put its design principles at risk even if the opportunity for greater revenues was tempting. “We wanted to make sure that we’re adding the most value from a design perspective as well,” he said. On the other end of the spectrum, the Cornell team proposed 1.3 million square feet of development plus 1,588 spaces, about 675,000-square-feet worth. Still, the Cornell team said its plan allowed more than one-quarter of the site to remain publicly accessible. Value of Hoover sites Here is where Tangherlini might take greatest notice, as he is hoping to swap the Hoover building straight-up for a new FBI campus for as many as 11,000 employees. It’s unlikely the federal administrator would be impressed by the results. The finalists offered widely varying prices for the property, with perhaps none high enough to likely to generate the funds needed to build a 40- to 55-acre campus for the FBI, even without land costs. The Cornell students said it would be possible to earn an acceptable return even if they offered the cash-strapped GSA $600 million for the site — the highest of any of the teams. After looking for comparable sales data, the MIT team only offered half that, $300 million, for the property. That may not say much about the future of real estate values in Washington. “We make reasonable assumptions on the market and there is really a maximum amount you can pay and make a reasonable return on that commitment,” MIT student Jakob Von Trapp said. Lowest of all, however, was the Georgetown team, which offered the government only $110 million for the site, something Orobona said hurt his team’s chances of coming out on top. The same result would probably have occurred had Tangherlini and the GSA actually been evaluating his proposal. “In reality we wouldn’t have won the [Request for Proposal] because the other developers were offering a lot more for the site,” Orobona said.


Boston Marathon runner who fell in photo joins the ranks of history’s sudden icons

to terms with what has happened.” The image of the fallen runner reminds Shumard of other images. “The young woman kneeling over the body at Kent State. That image is just so riveting and heartbreaking — the disbelief and despair.” ‘Involved in something big’ The young woman at Kent State was Mary Ann Vecchio. She was a 14-year-old runaway from Florida when she joined some new friends for a Vietnam war protest that left four unarmed college students dead on May 4, 1970. An image of Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller won the Pulitzer Prize that year. In the black-and-white photograph, her left arm is outstretched, her right palm is upturned in a gesture of helplessness, and her mouth is an anguished, open wail. “Every time I see that image . . . it’s like an injury that reinjures itself,” Vecchio says. “It gets in the marrow of your bones.” Today, Vecchio is 57, a respiratory and massage therapist back in Florida. She works for the Department of Veterans Affairs. She comforts Vietnam veterans. She will always be the girl in the picture. Once a month, sometimes more, she gets letters. “School kids doing projects. They ask me my opinion on events, what I thought about the war. The Newseum has asked me for my autograph.” She is not a celebrity, not in the traditional sense. But she is one of those ordinary people snatched up into extraordinary circumstances, a totem for her time. Time marches on, and we look at photographs, yellowing around the edges, piecing together a scrapbook of history. Slide Bill Iffrig in next to Mary-Ann Vecchio. Or maybe next to Juan Romero, whose deep, rich voice is still slightly accented, despite living in the United States for more than 50 years. Romero was the 17-year-old busboy greeting Bobby Kennedy in the hotel receiving line just as the senator was shot and killed. That’s him in his white kitchen uniform in the photographs, kneeling over Kennedy’s crumpled body. After the senator died, Romero was taken to the police station and questioned as a witness. He was released the next morning and, not knowing what else to do with himself, immediately got on the bus to go to school. “I was looking at my hands, and I still had blood on my fingernails,” Romero remembers. A woman reading a newspaper tapped him on the shoulder.


In Jordan, tensions rise between Syrian refugees and host community

the country’s public-health-care system past this month. According to the Labor Ministry, about 160,000 Syrians are working illegally in Jordan, accepting lower pay to fill positions in bakeries, auto garages and cafes that were once held by Jordanians, about 20 percent of whom are unemployed. “You walk into a bakery, there are Syrians; you walk into a factory, there are Syrians,” said Mohammed Mashagbeh, 35, a Jordanian carpenter who said he left Mafraq after losing work to Syrians and now lives in the capital, Amman, where he earns half his previous wages. “There is no longer room in Jordan for Jordanians.” The kingdom has long served as an oasis for those displaced by the various wars that have wracked the region, and it is home to more than 1.8 million Palestinian and 500,000 Iraqi refugees. But unlike their Palestinian and Iraqi predecessors, the bulk of Syrians who have flooded Jordan hail from rural regions and are under-skilled and poorly educated, arriving with limited funds and placing an immediate burden on the government’s social services, economic experts say. “In many ways, while Iraqis came to Jordan with investments and were effectively job creators, Syrians are arriving as job-takers,” says Jawad Anani, economist and president of the Economic and Social Council. Many Jordanian business owners dispute that, saying that Syrians take work that Jordanians do not want and that they work harder. Syrian refugees, most of whom are not authorized to work in Jordan, say they are often left at the mercy of employers, forced to perform long hours of labor — sometimes back-breaking — for low salaries. Khaled al-Awad, who fled the southern Syrian city of Daraa, and his brother said they lay bricks for up to 18 hours per day in Zarqa, in northern Jordan, for about one-third of what Jordanian workers make in similar jobs. “In Jordan, Syrians are seen as little more than slaves,” Awad said, grimacing as he popped his eighth aspirin tablet of the day into his mouth. “But at the end of the day, we have to feed our families.” The reception was not always like this. In the early days of the Syrian conflict, Jordanians launched fundraising drives, hosted makeshift refugee camps and opened their homes to their northern neighbors. But as the war drags on and Syrians increasingly put down roots in Jordan, the strain on resources has transformed the goodwill to hostility,


Running away from jet lag: How exercise can help overcome travel fatigue

about losing my way.) I set out on a wide boulevard empty of cars. I kept on the map’s route for two blocks, and then, to my right, I saw a monument I recognized: India Gate. In the early-morning light, I turned up its long gravel pathway and joined a few others: a man running backward; a few men doing tai chi-like movements on the grass; and groups of men wearing identical windbreakers, pants and caps walking at a fast pace. I wondered about those groups — were they cricket players or old friends since childhood or members of some club, and what were they talking about? — as I ran up and down the pathway, to the parliament building and back to India Gate, and then to my hotel. I had seen the sun rise, I didn’t get lost, my mind was active and I didn’t feel tired. I had traveled more than nine time zones from Washington, but after a 45-minute run, my internal body clock told me it was morning: I felt refreshed and ready for breakfast. I also treasured two other things from the run: the feeling of calmness afterward, and the sense of discovery during. Every run, it seems, including those when I’m not traveling, brings some discovery. Just a couple of weeks ago, while staying at a bed-and-breakfast in Matlacha, Fla., on the Gulf Coast, I ran along a causeway and watched ospreys swoop over the water, snare fish in their talons, then bring the catch to their nests on platforms atop telephone poles. Near two nests, I stopped to watch the adult osprey tear apart the fish and feed the pieces to their chicks. When I arrived back at the B&B, I walked out to the dock to stretch. In the distance, I saw swirls of water. The swirls came closer and closer. I looked down into the clear, calm water and saw two huge gray masses — manatees — glide by. I followed them for an instant, and they were gone. I always feel fortunate after a run. I see little treasures. I get to know the lay of the land. Perhaps best of all, I feel ready for the day — whatever time zone I’m in. Donnelly, a former writer for the Boston Globe, is communications adviser to the president of the World Bank Group. His running blog is at john-donnelly.blogspot.com.


Lifelong exercise can help you maintain speed and fitness as you age

Sweat Equity: How exercise can stall aging and help overall health. (ALAMY) It’s inevitable: As you get older, you slow down. A 40-year-old runs more slowly than a 20-year-old. A 70-year-old can’t be expected to keep up with a 50-year-old on a bike or a hike. It’s only natural. Well, no, it’s not. While you can’t defy aging’s impact on your speed and fitness forever, research shows that you can push back, hard. You can markedly slow your decline and postpone tumbling off the fitness cliff that some people encounter in old age. And the gains may transfer from athletics to the tasks of daily life. The tonic, you won’t be surprised to learn, is regular, lifelong exercise to condition your cardiovascular and neuromuscular systems. At least one study suggests the amounts, types and frequency of the workouts necessary to maintain speed and fitness. You’ll benefit from regular, several-times-a-week exercise whenever you start, but beginning early in life and sticking with a program appears to hold the greatest value. When Scott Trappe, director of the human performance laboratory at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., and colleagues tested nine elite, lifelong athletes older than 80, they found their cardiovascular fitness to be “comparable to non-endurance-trained men 40 years younger.” The level of conditioning of these athletes — all had been top-flight cross-country skiers, and one had been an Olympic champion — was “associated with lower risk for disability and mortality,” according to Trappe’s 2012 paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology. A major reason for that is the strength of their well-conditioned hearts. “Once you get to late middle age, 45 to 60, the heart starts to shrink and stiffen,” said Benjamin Levine, director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. “And that makes it less able to expand when you start pumping blood back to it, and therefore you can’t send as much volume” to the muscles. “People who have trained their whole lives, they can prevent that from happening,” he said. Slowing a decline in fitness Dee Nelson of Gaithersburg, 69, started racing at age 34 and ran her first Cherry Blossom 10-miler in 76:55 in 1985. Ten years later, she ran the same race in 73:32, according to meticulous records she has kept of the 1,490 road races she has run. She has begun to slow in recent years


to be “comparable to non-endurance-trained men 40 years younger.” The level of conditioning of these athletes — all had been top-flight cross-country skiers, and one had been an Olympic champion — was “associated with lower risk for disability and mortality,” according to Trappe’s 2012 paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology. A major reason for that is the strength of their well-conditioned hearts. “Once you get to late middle age, 45 to 60, the heart starts to shrink and stiffen,” said Benjamin Levine, director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. “And that makes it less able to expand when you start pumping blood back to it, and therefore you can’t send as much volume” to the muscles. “People who have trained their whole lives, they can prevent that from happening,” he said. Slowing a decline in fitness Dee Nelson of Gaithersburg, 69, started racing at age 34 and ran her first Cherry Blossom 10-miler in 76:55 in 1985. Ten years later, she ran the same race in 73:32, according to meticulous records she has kept of the 1,490 road races she has run. She has begun to slow in recent years but has stayed ahead of most of her peers. She finished the 2013 Cherry Blossom April 7 in 87:11, good enough for third place in her age group. “I pretty much run to exhaustion, but I don’t feel any pain,” Nelson said. “My health is the most important thing I have, and I think that’s why I’ve been running all these years.” Nelson may be a genetic outlier — in 2009, she set an age-group record in the gold standard fitness test at Dallas’s Cooper Clinic — but she also has followed a training regimen developed by the clinic’s founder, Kenneth Cooper, that emphasizes the preventive power of fitness. Four or five workouts a week — one of them speedwork, one of them a long, slow distance run — appears to provide the optimal defense against declining speed and cardiac strength, Levine said. (Most experts also recommend two weekly strength training sessions to maintain muscle and bone fitness, but Levine did not study that.) Nelson trains only nine to 12 miles per week and races nearly every weekend. The competitions condition her heart, nervous system and the fast-twitch muscle fibers in her legs as if she were doing a tough


Patients with ICU syndrome sometimes behave like those with dementia

was because I was diagnosed with Sjogren’s two years ago after seeing an article about Venus Williams having this disease. Over the years, I have had many ailments, including polio and breast cancer (twice). I got shingles three years ago, and it took three doctors to diagnose it and various other health problems that just couldn’t be helped. So it is a relief to know what the problem is and what can help alleviate some of the pain. As my rheumatologist says, Sjogren’s isn’t fatal, but it is terribly annoying and frustrating. I will be 80 years old this July, and I hope to make it another 10 years or more. So keep printing articles like this one so people can get help and not feel like they are imagining things. Martha E. Strombotne, Gaithersburg Soothing aching bones Your article on minimizing arthritis symptoms After years of cortisone shots in my knees, which provided only a temporary solution as I attempted to ward off replacement surgery, I started going to a chiropractor for a neck and shoulder injury. He also recommended knee adjustments. I have been pretty much pain-free for 21 / 2 years now and am able to walk two to three miles a day. I’m 53, and it’s my hope that I can postpone surgery indefinitely, if not permanently. Mary Campbell, Arnold Treating dementia Regarding “When the Mind Starts to Go” [April 9]: I was an ICU nurse in the 1970s when researchers identified ICU syndrome, post-operation confusion with hallucinations related sensory deprivation and overload plus pain medications. The patients were very much like dementia patients. I find the validation method worrisome. We told people what we observed, validating reality. Then we could go into the feelings behind the disruption. I once had a patient who told me there was a nest of rattlesnakes on the foot of her bed and she was afraid to stretch out. I told her I did not see any snakes and she said they disappeared instantly. Later, she told me she had known there were no snakes in her bed in the ICU but she could see them; she was relieved when I confirmed that what her eyes were seeing was indeed not real. Had I asked her questions about the snakes, I think her fears would have increased because maybe she’d think the snakes were really there. Regina Carelli, Silver Spring


Neuroscientist will detail how humans pay attention; entomologist will discuss bees

A talk at the Koshland Science Musweum will shed light on the ecology of bees and their declining population. (JOE KLAMAR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE VIA GETTY IMAGES) This Week Get your nerd on at science events “Pay Attention!” at Busboys and Poets; “Beespotter” at Koshland Science Museum Local science buffs may be interested in two events this week. The D.C. Science Cafe convenes at the 1025 Fifth St. NW location of Busboys and Poets on April 23 to hear George Washington University neuroscientist Sarah Shomstein describe what it means to pay attention and how humans do it. Science Cafe organizers present the following situation: “There you are in the supermarket, tracking down the ingredients for making your famous chocolate-bottomed creme brulee, when your cellphone rings and stops you in your tracks.” Shomstein’s talk will dissect what’s happening in our brains when that cellphone rings and how people are able to stay focused on a task amid “utter sensory cacophony.” Of course, distracting stimuli are present beyond the baking aisle of the local grocery; Shomstein’s advice can be applied at work and in our personal lives, organizers say. For more information about the free event, visit www.dcswa.org or call 202-789-2227. On April 25 Since 2006, when colony collapse disorder was identified, the abrupt disappearance of honeybees across the country has confounded researchers and beekeepers. The die-offs have been blamed on a variety of factors such as pesticide use, but no one knows for certain what’s causing the decline. Berenbaum will also discuss the BeeSpotter program, in which nonscientists collect and share bee data. Snacks are included in the $10 ticket price ($7 for students). For more information, visit www.koshland-science-museum.org or call 202-334-1201. Marine Life Meet evolution’s ‘perfect fish’ “Swordfish: A Biography of the Ocean Gladiator” by Richard Ellis Fast. Strong. Fearless. Not words one would normally associate with a swordfish, an animal that many people prize only on a dinner plate or at the end of a fishing line. But Richard Ellis, a marine biologist and the author of more than 20 books on marine life, has written an ode to the long-billed creature, casting the swordfish in a majestic light. “Swordfish: A Biography of the Ocean Gladiator” looks at the evolution, biology and ecology of what it calls “one of the most spectacularly beautiful animals on earth; one of the largest and fastest, as well as the most heavily armed of all


Exercise and weight loss may have long-term benefits against sleep apnea

started with a very-low-calorie meal plan and included diet and exercise counseling, or to a comparison group that received only a few general diet and physical activity information sessions. The study initially showed that there were health benefits tied to the intervention, Tuomilehto said. But whether the effects would persist was unclear. For the new analysis, the researchers followed up with 57 of the initial participants four years after the experiment ended. They found that people in the exercise and diet group had generally succeeded in keeping some weight off. Those participants were 12 pounds lighter than they had been five years earlier, on average, while people in the comparison group were about one pound heavier. Six participants in the intervention group had seen their mild sleep apnea progress to moderate disease, and none had developed severe disease. Twelve members of the comparison group had moderate sleep apnea at their follow-up and two had severe sleep apnea, the researchers wrote in JAMA Internal Medicine. “If you’ve lost some weight four years later, even if you’ve regained some, there’s still some significant benefit in terms of your apnea,” said Gary Foster, head of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Foster, who did not work on the new study, said that the new finding is consistent with his own research in a larger group of patients with sleep apnea and diabetes. “Obesity is the single most potent modifiable risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea,” he said. “We should really think about weight reduction as a treatment for sleep apnea,” Tuomilehto agreed. According to the American College of Physicians, 4 to 9 percent of middle-aged men and 2 to 4 percent of middle-aged women have sleep apnea, but the majority of cases are not diagnosed. Continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP — which helps keep the airways open at night — allows people to sleep better, but it hasn’t been shown to prevent cardiovascular problems tied to sleep apnea, Tuomilehto said. So weight loss is important even among people who are receiving standard treatment. “Once you get some symptoms — even not that dramatic symptoms — then you should take the symptoms seriously, because in the early phases of the disease, if you change your lifestyle habits, you can cure the disease and prevent the progression of the disease,” he said. — Reuters


World’s carmakers woo Chinese consumers

of the action. McKinsey says China could pass the United States in 2016 and Europe in 2020 as the world’s largest luxury car market. “In China, if you have money, you sit in the back seat and have a driver,” said Ulrich Bez, chief executive of Aston Martin, which has 14 dealerships in China and sold about 250 cars last year for about $200,000 or more each. “To sit and drive yourself is new, to experience mobility and speed and dynamics.” Although urban congestion keeps traffic slow, the company is promoting its four-door Rapide S, which can go about 190 miles per hour. The recommended price: about $575,000. Socia said GM would introduce one locally made Cadillac model a year through 2016, with the average buyer 10 years younger than the U.S. luxury car buyer. With China’s huge appetite for new brands, big U.S. automakers are being pulled in a direction opposite to where they were headed just four years ago. In 2009, when GM went bankrupt and the fortunes of other car companies plummeted, many U.S. analysts put part of the blame on inefficiencies caused by having too many brands. The Treasury Department, after pouring money into GM, urged the company to kill its weakest brands, including Buick. But in China, Buick has a long history and an appeal to modern consumers, and GM argued successfully to keep it. Now, it’s one of the three best-selling makes here, after VW and Hyundai. It’s just one of seven GM brands, counting the company’s Chinese partners, giving the carmaker about 15 percent of the overall market. Spectrum of offerings Each nameplate appeals to a different niche: Cadillac is aiming for the luxury buyers, Buick for the young middle-class consumer, and Baojun for the low-end market where Chinese firms sell cars, including one called the Panda, for as little as $6,000. On Sunday, the show was teeming with those consumers, amid blaring music and flashing giant video screens. Many of the people, who paid $16 each and waited in long lines to get in, were young couples. Sophia Yu, who works in the service department of China Merchants Bank, and her husband, Zhen Ning, an airline employee, were looking for a car to replace their seven-year-old blue Buick Excelle. Noting that they have a 3-year-old child, Yu said she likes the safety features of their Buick and is eyeing the new Buick


Muslims have a problem. Uncle Ruslan may have the answer.

right. Another “Uncle Ruslan” meme reads, “If you can believe it I have had no media training.” Yet another, “First time public speaking. Nailed it.” “Uncle Ruslan” proved that folks can handle nuance. “It was wild, dramatic, angry, over-the-top,” wrote Washington Post blogger Alexandra Petri. She added: “People like Uncle Ruslan remind us that it’s the apples, not the barrel.” She concluded: “Thank you. This was a moment we all needed.” In this family lies the dichotomy of cross-cultural communication patterns confronting Muslim communities, just like other traditional societies. Many parts of Muslim society hold to traditional cultures which are shame-based; people “save face” to hide “shameful” acts. That’s what we heard from the brothers’ parents and aunt, Patemat Sulemanova. While her brother said the nephews had shamed their family, Sulemanova, in Canada, told reporters she didn’t believe her nephews were involved in the bombings: “Convince me,” she said. In Russia, Zubeidat Tsarnaev said her older son got involved in “religious politics” five years ago, but she refused to believe her sons were involved in the bombings, saying the FBI had visited her years earlier, troubled about Tamerlan’s activities, but that the FBI was in “the control” her older son’s activities. “He never told me he would be on the side of jihad,” she said. Typical of the failure of this posture of denial and conspiracy theories, a CNN reporter called it “a rant.” Also in Russia, the alleged bombers’ father, Anzor Tsarnaev, called his brother “a great attorney,” but said he couldn’t believe his sons were involved. “I’m always telling them study, study, study,” he said. “Someone framed them.” But back in America, Uncle Ruslan was winning in the court of public opinion. And it was stunning to see how he acknowledged the shame openly but didn’t allow it to silence his criticism. The bombing suspects, "put a shame on the entire Chechnyan ethnicity,” he said. Earlier, Tsarni had told the Associated Press: “When I was speaking to the older one, he started all this religious talk, ‘Insh’allah’ and all that, and I asked him, ‘Where is all that coming from?’” Insh’allah is the Arabic phrase that means “God willing.” What Tsarni is admitting is something true but politically incorrect to talk about: the increasing use of these phrases of religiosity are code inside the community for someone who is becoming hardcore. It doesn’t mean that they’re becoming violent


Fine Print: A game of overlap

home and abroad. But as the CRS report notes, “the difficulties involved in linking disparate systems together to serve a variety of consumers require different acquisition approaches.” Sampling the ISR-related contract proposals and awards by the Army, Navy and Air Force so far this month gives you a sense of the problem. ●On April 2, the Army announced it was seeking contractors to develop concept papers for technologies that “support the development of a mobile soldier sensor.” It was to be “cargo pocket sized” and support “both indoor and outdoor ISR missions.” ●On April 4, the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency required a contractor to supply Air Force Special Operations Command aircraft in garrison and at deployed locations with “all personnel, supervision, and related items” for threat warning, communications surveillance and situation awareness. ●On April 4, the Air Force was forced to extend contracted services supporting South Korea- and California-based, unmanned Global Hawk and manned T-38 and U-2 aircraft carrying out reconnaissance and intelligence missions. One reason for the contract extension, through the end of fiscal 2013, was because of the Air Force-wide civilian hiring freeze cause by the sequester of funds. ●On April 11, the Naval Special Warfare Group’s training detachment was seeking a contractor who would provide 20 hours of ISR aircraft that would supply full-motion video, close air support and call-for-fire training, plus intelligence and fire support officers on the ground. ●On April 15, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command sought potential contractors who could provide ground support elements for preflight, in-flight and post-flight data for the unmanned Navy version of the long-range Global Hawk, as well as the manned P-3C and P-8 aircraft, all used in anti-submarine warfare and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance missions. You see the problem, and it will only continue. With another $2.5 billion in the fiscal 2014 Pentagon budget for purchase of unmanned aerial vehicles, they will become “even more vital to the mission,” according to the Defense Comptroller’s backup material. That request is below the $4.1 billion in the fiscal 2011 budget, but a look at what is being sought continues to depend on the military service purchasing it and increased complexity of each aircraft and analytic system. The Army next year is continuing development and integration of a universal ground control station and ground-based sense-and-avoid system for its Grey Eagle, a more modern Predator. It is also


Beer Madness, Round 5: Hops rule!

perfected by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery). To that end, he bought a device that had been used to apply sprinkles to pastries. But the hops persistently jammed the auger, grinding the process to a halt. Brophy decided to compromise and add hops manually at 15-minute intervals. He uses primarily Warrior and CTZ hops, immensely bitter and resiny varieties loaded with alpha acids, the chief source of bitterness in the hop cones. (Some Cascade hops are also used in the finish.) If you include the additional bittering that the beer receives during fermentation (a process called “dry-hopping”), the final tally equals more than three pounds of hops per barrel. The beer’s simple grain bill consists largely of ordinary pale malt, with a little crystal malt thrown in for body and sweetness. It’s clear which ingredients are the stars and which are the supporting players. Double Dog was first planned as a one-time release, but “it was so popular, people kept asking it to return,” Brophy recalls. It joined the brewery’s regular lineup in 2009, two years after Flying Dog moved from its original cramped quarters in Denver to a spacious new brewery in Frederick. Brophy continues to experiment with hoppy beers. If you find the Double Dog a trifle overpowering, you might want to seek out Easy IPA, a draft-only release in Flying Dog’s Brewhouse Rarities series that should hit the taps in May. That one is virtually a session beer at 4.2 percent alcohol, and it includes hop varieties (Galaxy, Amarillo, Sorachi Ace) that impart a more gentle, complex fruitiness than the in-your-face grapefruit of the Double Dog. Due out this month is Bloodline Blood Orange IPA, which combines the much-in-vogue Citra hop (often described as having a tangerine-like flavor) with orange peel and pureed fruit. Look for Flying Dog beer to assume a high profile during Frederick Beer Week, May 11-18. Brophy said he wasn’t sure what the brewery would feature at the kickoff event, a May 11 beer fest at Stillpoint Farm in nearby Mount Airy, but the Beer Madness crown should put an extra strut in his step. Kitsock is editor of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. More from Food: Round 4: David and Goliath Round 3: The Final 4 Round 2: The Elite 8 Round 1: The Sweet 16 Announcing an all-local Beer Madness Meet this year’s panel Understanding beer styles See the entire bracket


Mike Elk: The Texas fertilizer plant explosion cannot be forgotten

plant? And what about experts being rolled out to discuss what caused the explosion and how those responsible for this disaster will face justice? After all, while it remains difficult to deduce the motives of the alleged Boston bombers, it is not so difficult to postulate what was behind the explosion at the West Fertilizer Co.’s plant: the failure to follow the science of workplace safety. The plant had 1,350 times the legally allowed amount of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, yet hadn’t informed the Department of Homeland Security of the danger. Likewise, the fertilizer plant did not have sprinklers, shut-off valves, fire alarms or legally required blast walls, all of which could have prevented the catastrophic damage done. And there was little chance that regulators would learn about the problems without the company reporting them: Not only had the Occupational Safety and Health Administration not inspected the plant since 1985 but also, because of underfunding, OSHA can inspect plants like the one in West on average only once every 129 years. So why did the media choose to cover around the clock a terrorist bombing that killed fewer people and is extremely rare while all but ignoring an industrial explosion that killed more people, is far more common and is far easier to prevent? Aaron Albright, who worked on failed mine safety legislation in the wake of the Upper Big Branch mine as an aide to Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), joked on Twitter that the media opted to focus almost exclusively on the Boston bombings because the two stories were like “CSI/Mission Impossible vs. [a] PBS documentary.” The story of alleged terrorists with Chechen links seems far more exotic and threatening than does the story of a workplace disaster that would have been preventable if the company followed the rules. Yet, death in the workplace is a much more real possibility for almost all Americans than is death at the hands of a terrorist. In 2011, 4,609 Americans were killed in workplace accidents while only 17 Americans died at the hands of terrorists — about the same number as were crushed to death by their televisions or furniture. One could argue that terrorists get more attention because they intentionally aim to kill people, but disasters like at Upper Big Branch are also the result of companies violating workplace safety laws. With so many lives at stake, it is the duty


13 corrections officers indicted in Md., accused of aiding gang’s drug scheme

who was appointed by Gov. Martin O’Malley in 2007, when the prison system was experiencing a spate of inmate violence and corrections officers’ complaints of staffing shortages. “We will move up the chain of command, and people will be held accountable.” A spokesman said late Tuesday that all of the officers have been suspended without pay and that the department will recommend that they be fired. In a statement Tuesday, O’Malley said the indictment arose in part from the efforts of a Maryland prison task force that includes state and federal officials. It comes at a sensitive time for the Democrat, who is weighing a 2016 presidential bid. Aides have said that part of O’Malley’s political pitch would be his record as a “performance-driven” manager of state government. “We have zero tolerance for corruption among correctional officers, and we will continue striving to make all correctional facilities as secure as they can possibly be,” the governor said. State Sen. Joseph M. Getty (R-Carroll), a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, said the revelations, coupled with a recent string of inmate killings at Maryland prisons, were “a pretty harsh indictment” of O’Malley’s prison policies. “This is frightening to us as legislators — the level of collusion that has existed between the correction officers and inmates,” Getty said. At the center of the investigation was an alleged leader of the Black Guerilla Family, Tavon White, who prosecutors said fathered five children with four of the corrections officers — Jennifer Owens, 31, of Randallstown; Katera Stevenson, 24, of Baltimore; Chania Brooks, 27, of Baltimore; and Tiffany Linder, 27, of Baltimore — since his incarceration on attempted murder charges in 2009. In one wiretapped cellphone call in January, White, 36, of Baltimore, told an acquaintance: “This is my jail. You understand that? I’m dead serious. I make every final call in this jail.” The prison guards were among 25 defendants, including inmates and outside suppliers, charged with racketeering and drug conspiracy. Twenty of the defendants are also charged in a money-laundering conspiracy. Defendants made initial appearances in court Tuesday; they face maximum prison time of 20 years on the racketeering and drug conspiracy charges. The online court docket did not list attorneys for the defendants. One of the defendants was killed in a robbery, prosecutors said, in the hours before the April 2 indictment was filed. Four years ago, federal authorities in Baltimore targeted


Casual restaurants try selling ‘stealth health’

a broader trend, dubbed “stealth health,” in the restaurant industry. Along with LYFE, there are vegan restaurants Veggie Grill and Native Foods Kitchen, Seasons 52 (from Darden Restaurants, which owns the Olive Garden and Red Lobster) and Energy Kitchen, which serves lower-calorie burgers and shakes and opened its first District store in January. The trend is based on an obvious truth. While most of us say we would like to eat healthfully, we really don’t want to give anything up, especially when eating out. According to research firm Technomic, about half of consumers go to restaurants to indulge or treat themselves. The sad fact is that in most people’s experience, healthful food — tofu, brown rice and low-fat whatever — is the opposite of delicious. I was particularly interested in LYFE Kitchen because its aim is to change that unhealthy and peculiarly American perception. (Only in the United States do people consider eating nutritious and nourishing foods an obligation.) Created by a team of former McDonald’s executives, LYFE sources mostly organic and local ingredients and serves them up in sensibly sized portions of, say, corn chowder and grilled barramundi with soba noodles. Art Smith, former Oprah chef and owner of Art and Soul restaurant on Capitol Hill, designed the menu along with vegan chef Tal Ronnen. There are some soy proteins; Gardein brand “beef tips” top the “ancient grain bowl” of whole-grain farro and quinoa. But for the most part, the dishes showcase real food — 100 percent grass-fed beef, fish such as mahi mahi and salmon, and lots of kale — and make good use of fresh herbs, coconut milk and cashew cream to deliver big flavors without excessive calories or sodium. I visited LYFE Kitchen this month at its first outlet in Palo Alto, Calif. It’s a beautiful space, with oodles of natural light, an herb wall full of lemon grass, lovage and marjoram and enough eco-friendly bamboo and recycled wood to cause it to be mistaken for one of those high-priced farm-to-table restaurants up the road in Berkeley. The messages on the menu are deliberately subtle. There is no preaching about organic or sustainably sourced ingredients, no justification for why you won’t find Coke or Pepsi. Instead, there is a list of options and, in small gray print underneath, the number of calories and total sodium in each. The Art’s Unfried Chicken that I tasted had 518


Smoke Signals: Del Campo’s char master

Char is a key ingredient at Del Campo, chef Victor Albisu’s new Penn Quarter restaurant. Much of the food — even dessert — is scorched, burned or blistered. (Amanda Voisard/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) Correction: Saunter through the kitchen of Del Campo, Victor Albisu’s new Penn Quarter restaurant, and you might think the chef is having a bad day. Over here is a blackened avocado. The halved fruit rests on its rounded bottom, skin still on, and its creamy green interior is barely discernible under a layer of black char. Tomatoes are blistered. Chilies are blackened. Broccoli rabe is charred. Pretty much all the other foods in sight are similarly discolored. But these are not mistakes. Albisu simply likes to play with fire, and his new restaurant celebrates a char-focused approach to South American cooking. “I feel it’s going to be familiar but almost revolutionary,” Albisu says. “Maybe revolutionary isn’t the right word. It’s more the elevation of simple cooking.” As a boy growing up in Falls Church, Albisu learned the techniques of Cuba’s fabled barbecue from his paternal grandfather. “My grandfather and I would dig a pit in the back yard and roast whole pigs, or we would just grill,” Albisu recalls. “He was just an amazing natural cook.” On Sundays, his family hosted giant asados, or barbecues. Friends, acquaintances and relatives flocked to the Albisu home to socialize while dining on crispy-skinned pig marinated overnight in sour oranges, garlic and oregano, then smoked all day on a section of fence over the hole they’d dug. Other grills were going at the same time, including a brick pit. “We were cooking every kind of steak you could imagine, and chorizo,” he rhapsodizes. “We also had empanadas, and put those on the grill.” Albisu sees Del Campo as a paean to those backyard gatherings. “This restaurant is kind of a desire to get back to that,” he says. “It’s kind of a trip backwards, to the kind of contentment I felt in my childhood.” The trip has been long. From age 12 through his adolescence, Albisu worked in the butcher shop of his Peruvian mother’s Latin grocery store in Alexandria. He went on to graduate from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. He has worked at Michelin three-star restaurant L’Arpege in Paris and, in Washington, the contemporary Latin restaurant Ceiba, the Belgian-influenced French restaurant Marcel’s and the American bistro and bar Ardeo


Beware of digital cons

after going through your profile and i felt convinced that you will be a good person to trust. I have a problem in which i think that you will be of good help to me but before sharing that problem with you i will like us to know each other very well and i will like us to build trust first.” The misspellings and poor grammar would warn most people, but such correspondence has worked, with the person, usually operating overseas, successfully soliciting money. Who falls for such schemes? Well, lots of people — millions, in fact. According to a Federal Trade Commission survey conducted in late 2011 and early 2012, an estimated 25.6 million American adults, or nearly 11 percent, have been fraud victims. Where do people get duped the most? Not surprisingly, the Internet. Specifically, e-mail, social media, Internet auction sites and Internet classified advertising. “The Internet was the most common way victims first learned about offers that turned out to be fraudulent,” according to the FTC report. People placed orders using the Internet in almost 40 percent of the fraud cases in 2011, up from 20 percent reported in the agency’s 2005 survey. The most frequent frauds involved weight-loss products, prize promotions, work-at-home programs and falsely billed buyer-club memberships or Internet services. You may smugly think that you couldn’t be conned, but the FTC found that there are circumstances and personal characteristics that make people more susceptible. Who are these victims? ●Risk-takers. The FTC says it used two measures to examine the relationship between risk-taking and the likelihood of becoming a fraud victim. The agency looked at the self-reported willingness of survey participants to take risks. The FTC also examined consumers who had engaged in risky purchasing practices such as buying a product after getting an unsolicited e-mail from an unknown company. Those who reported a high willingness for risk-taking were three times as likely to have been victims of fraudulent prize promotions. Those who met the definition of risky purchasing practices were almost four times as likely to have been victims of fake prize promotions. ●Grieving people. Folks who had recently experienced a bad life event — a divorce, death of a family member or close friend, serious injury or illness in their family, or job loss — were much more likely to be victimized. If someone had experienced a major disruption in the previous two


New-home sales point to sector recovery; Argentina asks for proof of bribery

phone company, posted first-quarter sales that missed estimates, dragged down by a lingering slump at its landline business. Sales dropped 1.5 percent, to $31.4 billion, Dallas-based AT&T said Tuesday. Analysts on average had projected $31.7 billion. Earnings climbed to 64 cents a share, excluding some items, matching the average estimate. AT&T’s landline revenue declined 1.8 percent, to $14.7 billion, hurt by sluggish demand for traditional phone connections, especially among business customers. The company’s wireless carrier added 296,000 contract customers, more than expected. The new customers brought a surge in subsidy payments, crimping earnings. The shares fell 2 percent to $38.20 in late trading after the earnings announcement. ●Jon Corzine was sued by the bankruptcy trustee liquidating MF Global Holdings, who accused the former chief executive of negligently pursuing a high-risk business strategy that culminated in the commodities brokerage’s destruction. The trustee, Louis Freeh, said in the lawsuit that Corzine and two top deputies breached their fiduciary duties to shareholders and failed to act in good faith, wiping out more than $1 billion in value by the time of MF Global’s Oct. 31, 2011, bankruptcy. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages that could be used to pay MF Global creditors. ●Netflix, vanquishing Wall Street skepticism about its growth prospects, became the best-performing stock in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index after signing up more than 2 million new U.S. customers. Netflix soared 24 percent Tuesday after U.S. subscriber gains beat analysts’ estimates and the Los Gatos, Calif.-based online video service added 1 million internationally. The stock’s rise of 134 percent this year is the highest among S&P 500 companies. Netflix rose to $216.99 at the close in New York, the highest since September 2011, after reporting first-quarter results late Monday. ●Yum Brands, owner of the KFC and Pizza Hut dining chains, posted first-quarter profit that topped analysts’ estimates as new menu items helped Taco Bell’s domestic sales. Net income fell 26 percent, to $337 million, or 72 cents a share, from $458 million, or 96 cents, a year earlier, the Louisville-based company said Tuesday. Chief executive David Novak is trying to lure U.S. consumers with new food at Taco Bell as the company’s China business struggles to recover from concerns about chicken quality. Sales at U.S. stores open at least 12 months rose 2 percent in the quarter. ●A judge said New York City can test its “e-hail” program allowing people to


Montgomery County Animal Watch

This was among cases received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5054. That number provides recorded information on topics such as the Montgomery County Animal Shelter hours and location, adoption and licensing procedures, rabies clinics and low-cost neutering. Tangled Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Shelter has adoptable cats Gaithersburg Montgomery County Humane Society Burtonsville Olney Paws in the Park: — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Japan’s rice lobby visits Capitol Hill to fight free trade pact

Yoshitaka Akimoto, a rice farmer, stands in his rice field in Kawauchi Village, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, on March 5, 2013. (Akio Kon/Bloomberg) Rice is a staple food in Japan, but it is also a cultural staple — so much so, say opponents of a 12-nation free-trade agreement, that the values learned through rice farming keep the streets of Tokyo safe and the nation stable. “Rice farming is the basis of our cultural norms. It is a collaboration,” Haranaka Katsuyuki, an organizer of the Citizen’s Congress for Opposing the Transpacific Partnership, said in the middle of a four-day U.S. lobbying tour against the proposed treaty. If an agreement forces down the expensive tariffs Japan uses to maintain domestic rice production, “it will be a tremendous cultural transformation,” he said. That deep-seated attitude about rice is perhaps the sharpest edge of a Japanese backlash against the proposed free-trade pact. Activists mustered a delegation to bring their case to Capitol Hill, warning that Japan’s decision to take part in the negotiations could sink the whole endeavor. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty is one of the top economic priorities of the Obama administration, and when Japan joined the talks earlier this year, the move represented a quantum leap in the trade pact’s importance. With Japan, the 12 nations around the table represent about 40 percent of annual world economic output. Japan’s participation also magnifies the potential political impact on the region — and potential pressure on China to open up its economy — if national economies as disparate as Vietnam, Australia, Peru and the United States agree on an extensive set of tariff, trade and regulatory rules covering areas such as biotechnology and Internet commerce. On Wednesday, the Obama administration formally notified Congress of its intent to include Japan in the negotiations, kicking off a 90-day review after the other nations announced their support for the inclusion earlier in the week. “The participation of Japan, a major U.S. trading partner as well as close ally, further increases the economic significance of a TPP Agreement,” Demetrios Marantis, acting U.S. trade representative, said in a news release. In meetings on Capitol Hill and with labor and industry groups, Katsuyuki said the delegation has emphasized that Japanese domestic politics are so tangled when it comes to rice, agriculture and regulation that the country probably cannot deliver on the extensive deal that U.S. officials say they want. Japan


Brown-Vitter bill seeks to end ‘too big to fail’

— money raised from the sale of common stock and retained from profit. That is a much stricter standard than the capital proposal of global banking regulators on the Basel committee , who include what is known as risk-weighted assets in their calculations. Risk weighting requires banks to hold more capital against assets deemed risky and less capital against those considered less risky. “We’re focused on truly loss-absorbing capital and moving away from this hyper-complicated, risk-weighted system that is very easy to game,” Vitter said. If he and Brown get their way, the United States would not adopt the Basel committee’s capital rules. The lawmakers are tapping into a popular sentiment among regulators and economists who say the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law did not go far enough to end the “ too big to fail” problem. The law gave the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. the authority to wind down failed firms and instituted so-called living wills, a blueprint for how banks could be resolved. Veteran bank regulators, such as FDIC Vice Chairman Thomas Hoenig and Federal Reserve governor Daniel Tarullo, are among those in support of stricter rules to ensure taxpayers are not left on the hook for another bailout.Hoenig wants to outright break up the banks, whereas Tarullo would prefer big banks hold more long-term debt to ward against losses. Even with those powerful allies, Brown and Vitter may have a difficult time getting their bill through Congress. The chairman of the Senate banking committee, Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), has said regulators should be allowed to finish implementing Dodd-Frank. A committee aide said the chairman looks forward to viewing the details of the bill. The ranking Republican on the committee, Mike Crapo of Idaho, recently told Bloomberg that regulators, not lawmakers, should set capital standards. On Wednesday, he declined to comment on the bill. Critics say Brown and Vitter are simply seizing on populist outrage with little regard for the detrimental impact the legislation would have on the financial industry. Increasing capital requirements to the level the bill suggests would significantly reduce the ability of banks to lend to businesses, said Rob Nichols of the Financial Services Forum, a trade group representing the largest banks. “It would be ill-advised to take any lending capacity out of the economy — and away from the customers and businesses banks serve — as it’s struggling to get back on its feet,” he said.


In Washington, restaurants are thinking big

have opened. “Restaurants of size go in and out of cultural fashion,” said Clark Wolf, a New York restaurant consultant. “You’re more matured as a restaurant city than you’ve ever been, which includes a mix of size.” Rustic pizzas, raspberry thyme bon-bons, and local brews whirl around Bryan Voltaggio’s bustling 295-seat restaurant in Friendship Heights. For some, growth can be attributed to the aftereffects of the financial crisis. The space claimed by Carmine’s was originally supposed to be a Balducci’s grocery store, but the funding fell through, giving the Italian restaurant chain a chance to create a restaurant even bigger than its locations in Atlantic City and New York (but not for long — the D.C. Carmine’s will soon be surpassed by a 28,000-square-foot location in Las Vegas). The Hamilton is a shuttered Border’s bookstore. Range, which opened last fall, takes up half of a floor in the rehabilitated Chevy Chase Pavilion Mall. When retailers bailed, restaurants got the chance to go big. “I wasn’t looking for a 14,000-square-foot restaurant; it came looking for me,” said Bryan Voltaggio, the former Top Chef finalist and owner of Range, who was presented the space by a real estate investment firm. “I missed that experience of an a la carte-style dining, but I wanted to do it in a new way.” So Range, with nine kitchens, about 300 seats, a private dining room and an adjoining cigar bar was born — and later described by Post restaurant critic Tom Sietsema as “more like an ocean liner than a restaurant.” Large restaurants play a specific role in the D.C. political, social and economic ecosystem. Washington’s need for private dining — for conferences, large groups of tourists, family functions and, of course, political fundraisers — are another reason for the increased square footage. Politicians, NGOs and advocacy groups are critical to the health of large restaurants, which are eager to host their events. Carmine’s caters to those groups so specifically that they built a private, Secret Service-approved entrance for VIPs. It has been used by such high-profile guests as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. In the height of the political season last year, Carmine’s was hosting so many events that managers had to be wary of the political balance of the restaurant at any given time. “Political parties are interesting because we get nervous about who’s going to be


The Gripe: Out-of-state drivers hog parking spots in D.C.’s Zone 6

It appears that few things rankle D.C. residents quite as much as out-of-state drivers hogging resident parking. (Yes, that includes you, Maryland and Virginia. ) According to the citizen reporting Web site SeeClickFix, a Washington Post partner site, one of the more common complaints in the District is that out-of-state drivers park their cars in resident-only zones. This issue is especially pervasive, gripers report, in Zone 6. “Out of state car is taking up parking space from tax paying dc citizens,” complained one SeeClickFix user. “Parked in zone 6, no zone 6 sticker,” wrote another. Zone 6 includes parts of downtown and Penn Quarter in Northwest Washington, the Southwest Waterfront, the Capitol Riverfront near Nationals Park, and Capitol Hill. The city describes this as the “heart of Washington, D.C.,” which explains why parking spots are at such a premium. But who, exactly, is allowed to park on zoned streets? Are out-of-towners in the wrong? Or are residents overly territorial in their neighborhoods? The answer: It depends. As Dr. Gridlock explained last year, “it’s very easy for a driver to misunderstand the signs” in D.C. Even well-intentioned drivers looking for a legitimate spot near Eastern Market or Nats Park may end up violating parking laws, risking a ticket and ticking off neighbors. That being said, it’s important to read signs carefully. If you’re a visitor parking in a zoned spot, make sure to move your car after the time limit. And if you’re a resident, you can log complaints with SeeClickFix at The Gripe. The free service works directly with city and state agencies to resolve parking and other civic issues, such as problems with trash pickup, potholes, graffiti, busted traffic lights, or wasps at your local park. We will continue to report on the problems you share. Tell us:


High-cost loans seeing tremendous growth

a population struggling to make ends meet. Given the price of such borrowing, it may also be a measure of desperation: The financing fees on the loans are often very high, with annualized percentage rates on common payday loans reaching more than 300 percent, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In the agency’s research, the median amount borrowed was $350. “This method of borrowing cannot be considered a ‘fringe’ behavior limited to a small segment of the population,” said Annamaria Lusardi, director of the Global Center for Financial Literacy at George Washington University, who wrote the paper with colleague Carlo de Bassa Scheresberg. “It is firmly rooted in the American financial system. The solidly middle class are using these methods of borrowing.” The research paper comes as U.S. regulators are preparing to issue new rules for banks offering the short-term, high-interest loans tied to direct deposits of salary or government benefits. The proposed regulation reportedly would restrict borrowers from taking more than one such loan a month. Those rules would not affect the loans offered by storefront vendors, pawn shops and other services, however. The research by Lusardi and de Bassa Scheresberg is based on the 2009 U.S. National Financial Capability Study, a large survey for the FINRA Foundation that asked whether over the last five years respondents had used any of five “alternative financing” methods. It was the survey’s inaugural year. Almost 12 percent had used a pawnshop, 9 percent had taken out a payday loan, 6 percent had taken an auto-title loan, 6 percent had used a rent-to-own store and nearly 6 percent had gotten a tax-refund anticipation loan. The survey said that overall, 24 percent of people had used one of those methods of financing. The researchers connected the use of these high-cost borrowing methods to consumers with low levels of education and financial literacy — not only the financial shocks inflicted by the financial crisis. Indeed, Lusardi said, there are signs that these methods of borrowing remain widespread after the recession. Lusardi suggested that high schools could add courses in financial literacy. “It might be the best way for people to borrow, but do the people really know what it means to borrow at such a high interest rate? Are people really understanding and fully aware of the terms?” Lusardi said. “If we want to prevent big mistakes, we have to invest in financial literacy.”


Week 1019: In for the long run

Eighteen minutes before the bombs went off, Style Section reporter David Montgomery poses with daughters Lily, 14, and Iris, 8, after a great run in his 13th marathon. He didn’t realize that perhaps his toughest workweek ever was about to begin. (Courtesy of David Montgomery) Before getting to this week’s Invitational, I’d like to take a moment to salute my Style section colleague David Montgomery, a reporter who’s especially dear to us in Loserland since he wrote a recent article about the phenomenon of the Greater Loser Community, as part of the Invite’s 20th-anniversary retrospective, going to such hardship in pursuit of a story that he actually endured an entire brunch in the company of 15 Losers. After an ordeal like that, you can understand why David needed a vacation, and so on April 15, he decided he’d relax in downtown Boston by running 26.2 miles down the local streets, with his parents, his wife, Susan, and their two young daughters there on Boylston Street to cheer him on. He was wearing the shirt he always wears when he runs marathons; this one was — I swear — his 13th. “The great Boston crowd cheered, ‘Go Iris-and-Lily’s daddy,’” David wrote on Facebook to accompany the photo above that he posted on his timeline. Fortunately, David, who’s 51, is a fast runner, and he crossed the finish line in 3:29:19, about an hour before the first bomb went off. The photo above, taken by his mother, Kate, “was taken about 18 minutes before the bombs went off and several blocks away. It was a great day til just about this moment.” Eighteen minutes later, David’s vacation was over — after running his first Boston Marathon, he sprinted into a six-day Reporting Marathon, joining fellow Post runner-now-reporter Vernon Loeb and two other staffers who were in Boston (Vernon’s account ran in The Post’s Outlook section last week). “I changed into my only street clothes. The girls made it to the airport,” David recalled on Facebook. His first dispatch for The Post, about children admitted to the hospital, appeared online within a few hours; the next day, in addition to the main stories about the bombing scene, his byline led this story about the horrific leg injuries that many of the victims sustained. And of course the reporting continued with many stories about the manhunt and the arrest. All of us at The


‘Over, Under, Next’ at the Hirshhorn: Art review

point in World War II, is seen near Alexander Calder’s 1944 whimsical “Fish,” assembled from metal rods, plastic, wood, glass and ceramic fragments. Jean Dubuffet’s 1953 “Butterfly-Wing Figure” returns to the subtle play with surface inaugurated by Braque. Using micro-thin butterfly wings to compose a primitive human figure, Dubuffet seems to recall the 16th-century Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s two-dimensional painted composite portraits made of found objects (fruits, shells, vegetables, flowers). Butterfly wings — almost a cliche for defining beauty in nature — are put in the service of grotesquerie and one is left with the troubling sense that this isn’t just a human figure, but Man in the larger sense, voracious and destructive in his tyranny over other beings. A decade later, experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage would sandwich insect wings and other natural materials between strips of film, then reproduce the image onto a single length of film. It recalls one of the most basic, and earliest of photographic techniques, the contact print made by exposing light sensitive paper with a thin object, such as a leaf, on top. But the 1963 short film was as radical when it was made as anything in the exhibition. Superficially it seems connected to Dubuffet’s “Butterfly-Wing Figure,” but is much harder, and sadder, as thin slices of organic material flit rapidly across the screen. The viewer can decide: A moth to flame is a figure of death, or a metaphor for how we relate to intoxicating media such as film, or both. Visitors emerge from Brakhage’s powerful film into a room of inorganic materials and sculpture, including an abstract form by John Chamberlain made in 1961 from enameled metal that looks to be part of a car. David Smith’s 1951-52 “Agricola,” a loosely anthropomorphic form, is made from painted steel, and its title — Latin for farmer — seems a deliberate provocation, underscoring the sharp contrast between a resistant industrial material and the age-old need of human beings to muck around in the dirt and humus. As one artist in the exhibition said, “I work with materials that are already charged with significance.” That could be said of almost every artist in the exhibition. By using found materials to assemble new forms, you inevitably import more meaning than you can control. Scraps of paper, newsprint, candy wrappers, pills, pins and other thoroughly quotidian objects carry with them both public and private associations. An 1989 installation


Prison scandal in Md. prompts calls for legislative hearing, commission

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) speaks to the press in March. (Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) Maryland lawmakers announced plans Thursday for a hearing and called for a blue-ribbon commission in response to the indictments this week of 13 corrections officers who allegedly helped a gang run a drug-trafficking operation behind bars in Baltimore. In an e-mail to members of the House Judiciary Committee, Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Prince George’s) relayed that his panel would have a hearing May 8 on “corruption at Baltimore City Detention Center.” “Obviously, it’s an embarrassing situation for everyone,” said House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel). “We need to get an accounting of how we got to this point. If you believe everything you read, it’s pretty incredible to imagine.” Meanwhile, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller (D-Calvert) said he would like to see a group of administration officials and legislators appointed to take a broader look at issues facing the state’s prison system and come up with proposals in advance of next year’s legislative session. “We’re not looking for scapegoats. We’re looking to solve the problems,” said Miller, adding that he thinks most lawmakers still have confidence in Gary D. Maynard, the state’s corrections secretary. The 13 guards were charged this week with helping the Black Guerilla Family gang by smuggling cellphones, prescription pills and other contraband into the Baltimore City Detention Center in their underwear, shoes and hair. Four of the guards at the jail allegedly became pregnant by an the alleged gang leader, Tavon White. Miller said he would like to see Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) make the issue a priority following his return from an eight-day trade mission to Israel and Jordan that began Saturday. “I expect as soon as he gets back for this to be issue No. 1,” Miller said. Among the issues the commission should examine are managing gangs, the vetting of prison guards and their staffing levels and compensation, Miller said. “In tough budget times, it’s not a priority, and our correctional officers are asked to do more with less,” he said. Miller noted that the jail was originally run by the city of Baltimore and taken over by the state years ago during the administration of Gov. William Donald Schaefer (D). At the time, it was a “hellhole,” Miller said. “It’s better now than it was, but some of the


White House should not ignore Russia’s human rights abuses

threat to Russian interests”; recriminalizing libel; the blocking of Web sites without a court order; and significantly expanding the definition of treason. “Skewed” elections in Putin’s favor and lack of due process in the courts were also noted. More than a dozen Russians are in jail or under house arrest, awaiting trial for their alleged roles in the Bolotnaya Square protests last May; two — Konstantin Lebedev and Maksim Luzyanin — have been sentenced to penal colonies for 2½ years and 4½ years, respectively, for their alleged roles. Former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has languished in prison for nearly a decade. An opposition activist seeking asylum in Ukraine, Leonid Razvozzhayev, was kidnapped in October by Russian agents and tortured into a confession; he remains in jail on trumped-up charges. Hundreds of NGOs have been raided across Russia in recent weeks; on occasion, a camera crew from Kremlin-friendly NTV was present to capture material used to condemn these groups as foreign agents. One group in Kostroma is being investigated because it hosted a round-table with a representative from the U.S. Embassy. Another, the respected election monitor Golos, has been fined for failing to register as a foreign agent. Meanwhile, Kremlin officials, including Putin, regularly spew anti-American invective. And the State Duma’s ugly response last year to the Sergei Magnitsky Act, which banned visas for and froze assets of Russian officials involved in gross human rights abuses, was to bar the adoption of Russian orphans by U.S. families. Aside from a State Department spokeswoman’s appropriate description of the NGO raids last month as a “witch hunt,” the Obama administration has voiced virtually no concerns about the crackdown — even when the victims are U.S. organizations or Russians who openly admire American freedoms. National security adviser Tom Donilon said nothing publicly about the human rights situation during his recent visit to Moscow. Instead, his trip seemed to signal U.S. eagerness to refocus relations on security and economic issues. Donilon delivered a letter from President Obama to the Russian president that Putin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said “is written in a constructive tone and has a number of proposals promoting bilateral dialogue and cooperation.” This is no time for business as usual. Instead, Washington needs to emphasize the deterioration in Russia’s human rights situation by pushing back against the crackdown and focusing attention on the regime’s corrupt, authoritarian nature while using the Magnitsky Act


Proposed KIPP DC high school stalls

KIPP DC’s controversial proposal to build a high school on public land in Southwest Washington stalled this week when officials with Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s administration announced that they will not consider leasing the site this year. The charter school operator had hoped to break ground at Randall Park this spring to open to students in summer 2014 — an ambitious timeline that would have required Gray (D) to accelerate efforts to lease the land. But the proposed school drew a mixed reaction from those with a stake in the neighborhood and, absent a consensus, Gray officials chose to put off a decision. They will not issue a request for proposals for the development of Randall Park until they complete a long-range strategic plan for the neighborhood. That “small area plan” will not be done until sometime next year. “The Small Area Plan will allow development decisions to be made with a clear sense of what the community wants,” Steve Glaude, the mayor’s director of community affairs, said in an e-mail to those in the neighborhood. “If, in the end, the community is open to redevelopment at the Randall site that includes a school, an open and transparent process will be implemented in which all will be welcome to compete.” KIPP DC runs one of the highest-performing charter networks in the city. Its leaders had promised to finance the project — including a recreation center, athletic fields and swimming pool for community use — with private funds. Five D.C. Council members and some residents heralded the proposal as an easy way to create a much-needed quality high school for the city. But there was fierce opposition in some quarters, including from the backers of a $200 million commercial development planned on adjacent property. They said their plan — for a museum, restaurants and apartments — would be incompatible with a school and its teenagers. “KIPP DC is disappointed that the timeline for the small area plan will prevent us from being able to open a high school at that location in school year 2014,” Susan Schaeffler, KIPP DC’s executive director, said in a statement. “We are hopeful, however, that through a public process we will be able to find a centrally located site that will meet the needs of our hard working KIPP DC students and their families in the near future.” (The chairman and chief executive of The Washington


Congress finds it hard to let Federal Helium Program run out of gas

passed a law that said it wouldn’t be. The law required the reserve to sell helium until it had paid off a more than $1 billion debt to other agencies. Then its time would be up, and the government would be out of the helium business. Time is almost up: The program — run by the federal Bureau of Land Management — is expected to make its final payment on that billion-dollar debt. Without action by Congress, that final payment would put a legal stop to the program, which still has about five years’ worth of helium in the ground. And that looks less like a victory and more like a disaster. “All of a sudden, you basically take away 40 percent of the supply” of helium, said Moses Chan, a professor at Pennsylvania State University and a de facto spokesman for scientists who use helium in their research. Scientists use liquid helium to conduct experiments at very low temperatures. “That would just be chaos,” Chan added. In recent weeks, Congress has heard a chorus of such worries. MRI machines and semiconductor plants, which both rely on helium, might be affected. And yes, balloons might cost more. “Imagine, Mr. Chairman, a world without balloons,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said Thursday, mocking Congress for spending time on this issue. He voted “yes.” There is an argument about how this whole thing happened. Congress says private industry didn’t step up to supply more helium, in part because the federal government was selling its helium so cheaply. In industry, it’s said that demand for helium has spiked and that finding new supplies isn’t easy. That requires drilling in a certain kind of natural gas field, where helium comes up along with the gas. All sides, however, seem to agree on the solution. The helium program can’t die. Both bills in Congress seek to alter the program as they save it, to raise more money by selling the gas closer to market price. And both anticipate closing down the reserve. They are confident the private sector will be ready soon (there is hope in particular for a new helium plant starting up in Wyoming). So, how much longer will it take? “Five years? We don’t know,” Hastings said in a telephone interview. “It could be shorter than that. It could be longer.” Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums.


Kitchen Table Economics: Nick Bourke

Nick Bourke of the Pew Charitable Trusts delivered the opening overview at Washington Post Live’s Kitchen Table Economics forum. This is part of the Post Live panel discussion ‘Kitchen Table Economics,’ held April 16 at The Washington Post. View other videos from the discussion here. Nick Bourke Director, Safe Small-Dollar Loans Research Project, the Pew Charitable Trusts Some research is showing that consumers are starting to spend more. They’re feeling more optimistic, and that is good for the economy. Let’s talk a moment about savings Nick Bourke of Pew discussed numbers about how much money Americans are saving. Our friends in the Czech Republic, Australia, Belgium and especially Germany, households there are saving a lot more of their disposable income than U.S. households. The German savings rate is about double what the U.S. rate is by the OECD’s measure. But our friends in Canada and Japan and the Nordic countries are saving a lot less of their disposable income. And interestingly, the trend in the U.S. seems to be that the recent peak in household savings was around 2010, and it’s starting to decline again. About one-third of all U.S. households lack enough liquid assets to be able to live for three months at the poverty line. Similarly, half of all U.S. households in the survey said that they probably could not or certainly could not come up with $2,000 within 30 days if they needed to. Almost half of households in this country. The phrase that has emerged to talk about this situation is financial fragility. And it is a real issue in this country, and it’s something that those of us who care about the consumer financial balance sheet are really watching. There’s some other interesting research out there that talks about how everybody makes mistakes. Everybody is a non-optimal financial decision-maker at one point . . . and a lot of people fortunately in this country do have the wherewithal to withstand those financial mistakes. But a lot of people don’t. How can we help address this situation? I think a lot of it does come down to helping consumers and households to understand and manage their risk. That means that they need more of an awareness of risk, an awareness of a need to protect against risk, and the importance and the benefit of developing even minor cushions to protect against risk. A mistake can be


U.S. military should put religious freedom at the front

US Admiral Jonathan Greenert (L), Chief of US Naval Operations, US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus (C) and US General James Amos, Commandant of the US Marine Corps, testify on the Defense Authorization Request for the fiscal year 2014 budget during a US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on April 25, 2013. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES) Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is worried about the Pentagon budget, but there are much more serious issues he must deal with. Religious proselytizing and sexual assault are at the top of the list. In late March, as reported in the New York Times, Hagel held a conversation with a group of sergeants and petty officers who were concerned about military issues. He told them, “Remember, you always have a friend in the secretary of defense.” Now is the time for Hagel to step to the plate and prove that friendship by eliminating all discrimination in the military. “The armed forces are on the verge of falling apart,” Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told me in an interview. Aside from proselytizing, he said, other problems include “sexual assault, suicides, lowering entrance standards and war weariness. They are in trouble, and the leadership is oblivious.” Sexual assault and proselytizing, according to Wilkerson, “are absolutely destructive of the bonds that keep soldiers together.” Wilkerson was speaking to me in an interview with former ambassador Joe Wilson and the head of the private Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Mikey Weinstein. They were on their way to a meeting at the Pentagon on April 23 where they would discuss religious issues in a group that included several generals and a military chaplain. The chaplain’s role, according to Wilson, “is to minister to spiritual needs. You don’t proselytize. It’s a workplace violation.” Weinstein told me after the Pentagon meeting that military leaders need to understand that “there is systematic misogyny, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the military.” He said it is all part of the same culture. “This is a national security threat. What is happening [aside from sexual assault] is spiritual rape. And what the Pentagon needs to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.” “The chain of command is compliant,” said Wilkerson. “Abuse of power is inimical to all military. Condoning of sexual assault or proselytizing is an abuse of command.” The idea of “zero


A roundup of news from the financial world

Novartis again sued by U.S. for civil fraud The U.S. government on Friday announced its second civil fraud lawsuit against Novartis in four days, accusing a unit of the Swiss drugmaker of paying multimillion-dollar kickbacks to doctors in exchange for prescribing its drugs. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said the government joined a whistleblower lawsuit filed against Novartis Pharmaceuticals in January 2011 that seeks triple damages under the federal False Claims Act. The government accused Novartis of causing the Medicare and Medicaid programs to pay millions of dollars in reimbursements based on kickback-tainted claims for medication such as hypertension drugs Lotrel and Valturna and diabetes drug Starlix. Twenty-seven states, the District of Columbia and the cities of New York and Chicago also joined as plaintiffs. On Tuesday, the government accused Novartis of inducing pharmacies to switch thousands of kidney transplant patients to its drug Myfortic in exchange for kickbacks disguised as rebates and discounts. Novartis spokeswoman Julie Masow said the company disputes the claims in both lawsuits and will defend itself. — Reuters manufacturing Dreamliner flights to resume in Japan Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is poised to resume flights in Japan, ending a more than three- month hiatus that grounded 24 planes owned by ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines. ANA said it will conduct the jet’s first test flight on Sunday, after Japan on Friday approved the restart of 787 flights with upgraded batteries. The government’s permission is for all flights, including test and commercial services, said Shigeru Takano, a director at the ministry’s Civil Aviation Bureau. The move will kick-start resumption of flights with 787s, which were ordered parked on Jan. 16 after lithium-ion batteries on two Dreamliners overheated and smoldered. ANA Chief Executive Shinichiro Ito and Ray Conner, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, will be aboard Sunday’s flight, the airline said. Boeing dispatched about 300 personnel on 10 teams to airlines to install the fix over five days while preparing to hand over the new 787s. Ethiopian Airlines Enterprise plans its first Dreamliner flight with the upgraded batteries Saturday, a trip from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. United Continental Holdings, the only U.S. carrier that has received Dreamliners, sent the first of its 787s to a Boeing facility in San Antonio this week to get the new system installed. — Bloomberg News Also in Business l l l l l — From news services Coming Next Week l l


Prison chief moves office to Baltimore jail for gang probe; lie-detector tests set

dire” and that he thinks “there is a lot of blame to go around.” Maynard has been grappling for years with problems at the Baltimore jail. The predecessor to Foxwell, the jail warden, was removed six months ago because of leadership concerns, according to Binetti, the department spokesman. Foxwell did not return calls seeking comment. Binetti said that 54 city jail guards have been fired since 2010 for fraternizing with detainees or smuggling in contraband. In the past three months, 25 inmates have been taken out of the detention center. Four more with ties to the BGF gang were moved Wednesday, Binetti said. He declined to identify them or say where they were taken. The alleged BGF leader, Tavon White, has been in the jail more than three years through two mistrials on an attempted murder charge. White was moved out of the jail in February. Documents filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore describe a broad scheme that allegedly unfolded behind the stone walls of the city detention center, a castlelike structure built in the early 1800s on what is now a campus of corrections facilities north of Baltimore’s downtown. In the 2009 scandal, federal authorities indicted a previous head of the BGF and four guards at a prison next to the city jail. At least three of the guards were convicted and sentenced to up to 18 months behind bars. Maynard implemented a series of changes after that incident and said in an interview Thursday that a task force set up to root out gang-initiated corruption resulted in an FBI investigation and the current charges. Authorities allege in the indictment that BGF members used cellphones to run drugs and commit violence on Baltimore’s streets, in essence controlling the gang from inside the jail. They allegedly had sexual liaisons with guards, even posting on a wall officers’ names and prices for sex acts. Some officers were heard on FBI wiretaps bragging about getting away with misdeeds because union rules made it difficult to fire them. Those arrested in 2009 voiced virtually the same sentiments in recorded conversations. Moran, the union leader, said guards who request it will have representation during the inquiry. But he also said officers who are clean will be relieved “that they aren’t going to be immersed in a dangerous situation anymore. Professionalism is going to prevail.” Paul Schwartzman and Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.


National Digest: Landing gear debris found in Manhattan is linked to 9/11

New York Landing gear debris is linked to 9/11 plane A 5-foot-tall piece of landing gear believed to be from one of the planes destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks has been discovered wedged between a mosque site and another building near the World Trade Center. The part includes a clearly visible Boeing identification number, New York police spokesman Paul Browne said Friday. The twisted, rusted metal part has cables and levers on it and is about 3 feet wide and 1.5 feet deep. The piece of equipment was discovered Wednesday by surveyors inspecting the Lower Manhattan site of a planned Islamic community center, about three blocks from Ground Zero. The medical examiner’s office will complete a health and safety evaluation to determine whether to sift the soil around the buildings for possible human remains, police said. — Associated Press Alaska EPA warns of mine’s impact on fisheries The build-out of a large-scale mine near the headwaters of a world-class salmon fishery in Alaska could wipe out as many as 90 miles of streams and alter flows in other waterways, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a revised assessment released Friday. The report said mining activity would claim at least 24 miles of streams in the Bristol Bay region, based on the scenarios evaluated, with the loss of wetlands ranging from 1,200 to 4,800 acres. The EPA initiated the review in response to concerns raised by tribes and others about the impact that large-scale mining could have on Bristol Bay fisheries. Critics of the EPA review — including the Pebble Limited Partnership, the group behind the proposed Pebble Mine — fear it could lead to the agency vetoing mining activity in the region. — Associated Press Man indicted in Las Vegas crash: Inmate surrenders in Oklahoma: — From wire services