Regional Memo: Hogan’s Purple Line choice could paint him as ideologue

for his role in handling the Baltimore riots in April. But it will be hard to avoid offending someone with a decision as large as the Purple Line. If Hogan kills it, he risks giving up the GOP’s chances to make inroads among independents and conservative Democrats in Montgomery County. It is the state’s biggest jurisdiction and one of only four in the state that Hogan did not win in November. Hogan also would be vulnerable to criticism that he gave up $900 million in federal funding recommended for the Purple Line — money that wouldn’t come to Maryland if the project dies. If Hogan builds it, however, he alienates voters in rural areas and outer suburbs who think the state already does too much for the Washington suburbs. They voted overwhelmingly for Hogan and crave increased spending for their roads and bridges. Then there’s the outstanding question of the Red Line, a proposed light-rail project in Baltimore that would cost even more than the Purple Line. If Hogan approved the Purple Line, there would be little money left over for the Red Line. Two recent developments have increased the political challenge for Hogan. It emerged Wednesday that Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn has endorsed building the project, providing that its $2.45 billion cost is reduced and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties kick in more money. (Rahn’s action was disclosed by two officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The governor’s office neither confirmed nor denied the report but suggested it might not be Rahn’s “final” recommendation.) State politicians and commentators said Rahn’s move had put Hogan in a box. “If Hogan moves forward with the project, he looks weak and pushed into it by Rahn, despite the strong opposition of many Republicans,” American University government professor David Lublin, a vocal critic of the Purple Line, wrote in his blog, Seventh State. “If Hogan nixes it, he looks like he has ignored the advice of the Secretary he charged with it and transit advocates will beat him over the head about it.” In addition, Hogan seemed to have forgotten his anti-spending philosophy during a recent trip to Japan, when he expressed enthusiasm for a high-tech, magnetic levitation (maglev) train that he rode there. He said he will request a $28 million federal grant to study building such a train between Washington and Baltimore, a link that would cost at


World digest: June 13, 2015

The World Health Organization says South Korea's outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was "large and complex" and more cases should be anticipated. SOUTH KOREA Emergency meeting on MERS outbreak The World Health Organization said Saturday that it would hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday to consider South Korea’s outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which it described as “large and complex.” The virus has infected 138 people in South Korea and killed 14 of them since it was first diagnosed May 20 in a businessman who had returned from a trip to the Middle East. The U.N. health agency said that more cases should be anticipated but that the disease was confined to hospitals, with no sign it was spreading in the community. There was also no indication that the MERS virus in South Korea had changed to become more transmissible, said Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s assistant director general, at a news conference at the Health Ministry in Sejong, south of the capital, Seoul. The meeting Tuesday of the MERS emergency committee, which comprises international health experts from WHO member states, will provide technical updates on epidemiology as well as advice on future actions to be taken, the agency said. — Reuters IRAN Nuclear deal is ‘within reach’ President Hassan Rouhani said a final nuclear deal is “within reach” as Iran and six world powers face a June 30 deadline for an agreement. The country has taken emergency measures to stop the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. Rouhani, speaking at news conference Saturday marking the second anniversary of his election, said negotiations between Iran and the six-nation group — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — are making progress, although gaps still remain. Rouhani said Iran will allow inspections of its nuclear facilities but vowed that the Islamist republic won’t allow its state “secrets” to be jeopardized under the cover of international inspections. — Associated Press YEMEN Houthi negotiators skip Geneva flight A plane meant to carry Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies to talks in Geneva left Sanaa International Airport without the delegates on board, airport officials said Saturday. The absence casts doubt on whether the U.N.-led meetings will be able to go forward as planned. A Houthi representative said that the Houthis objected to the idea of two separate delegations to the talks — one representing the embattled government, and one


Wait, wait ... It’s opera at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

“Welcome to EPR. Enlightened Public Rhetoric,” booms the voice of Peter Sagal welcoming the crowd to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s semi-staged production of Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide ” on Saturday night. What the BSO offered was engineered to delight a “Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!” listener: a pared-down, humor-filled take on the classic. Fans of Monty Python weren’t disappointed, either, with characters exchanging hats and accents to resemble a much larger cast. Hamming it up prevailed at times even when a little more continental reserve would have had more punch. Nonetheless, the audience ate out of the BSO’s hand. Music Director Marin Alsop was completely in her element. Getting panhandled by the bereft hero — the innocent Candide, with his cup out — she turns him away. When the frantic Candide tries to escape Don Issachar (Curtis Bannister), Alsop hands over her baton, with which Candide stabs his enemy. Alsop shrugs, takes the baton, wipes it on her coat and cues the music. Comic timing is one of her specialties. Keith Jameson as Candide brought all the innocent boyish antics to bear in his portrayal and matched his Cunegonde (Lauren Snouffer) with solid vocal chemistry. Snouffer’s bathos in “Glitter and Be Gay” took things a shade too far, but her Mozartian trills of a caged bird hit all the right notes. Keith Jameson portrays the title role of Candide. (Simon Pauly) The Choral Arts Society backed the action well and played the crowd of clowns you’d find at a World Cup match. While sometimes distracting from the main stage, it went down well with a Baltimore audience. The Baltimore Symphony did more than a pit orchestra’s duty. “It Must Be So” milked a very tender harp. Even the smallest instrument, the triangle, enjoyed delightful overtime as it heralded the lead couple’s finding themselves again after miles of ocean and multiple disguises. One only wishes that the orchestra hadn’t been on fast-forward through the famous overture, as if rushed to get on with the show. We’ve heard great things from the BSO as it has closed the season: an unforgettably rich Sibelius No. 7 from Christoph König and a wonderful mélange of Debussy and Strauss under the baton of Mario Venzago. Sunday capped off all in a winsome spectacle just as last season ended with a semi-staged “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” A welcome tradition of light, wonderful ending fare. You


National Festival Orchestra’s bright performance is a gift

The ambitions and hard work of the National Orchestral Institute, the training program for young musicians at the University of Maryland, continue to pay dividends. The concert of American music by this year’s National Festival Orchestra, heard Saturday night at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, was the first to be recorded in a new series for the Naxos label. Richard Freed, who writes the NOI program notes, made the suggestion to the leader of Naxos. Guest conductor David Alan Miller, who has long championed the music of Michael Torke, opened with that composer’s “Bright Blue Music,” an overture-length work of bold, ecstatic energy that showcased his ensemble’s vast sound. The piece is, by intention, in one style and harmonic area for its entire length, but Miller and the musicians shaped the work effectively around several thrilling climax points. When a professional orchestra plays the suite of music from Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” one sometimes senses a tired familiarity with the work. These younger musicians made it brim with optimism, although the exposed woodwind solos and multimetric dance rhythms in the fourth and fifth movements are hardly child’s play. John Corigliano’s sprawling, complex first symphony, subtitled “Of Rage and Remembrance” for its programmatic elements related to the AIDS epidemic, required even greater concentration. Other than a couple of stray entrances in the opening section, admonished with a shake of Miller’s head, this was an intense, polished rendition, with the second movement’s savage Tarantella sharpened into a Mahler-esque, neurotic deconstruction of dance, complete with the plink of a mandolin. The third movement was somber and ardent, led by beautiful cello solos and the unforgettable rumble of the contrabass clarinet at one point, and the fourth shuddered with the pitiless march of implacable, triumphant death. Downey is a freelance writer. David Alan Miller, guest conductor of the National Festival Orchestra’s program Saturday. (Gary Gold)


A failure of leadership in Burma

Regarding the June 11 op-ed “A laureate’s duty in China”: Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma is unlikely to speak up on behalf of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo of China. Her silence in the face of the atrocious, brutal and inhumane treatment of her compatriots , the Rohingya Muslims, as well as the persecution of other Burmese Muslims, has been a clear abdication of her role as a champion of human rights and has clearly demonstrated her transformation into an ambitious politician with a focus on her personal glory. This is truly a great tragedy for the Burmese people and a slight to the honored name of her great father, Gen. Aung San, the architect of Burma’s freedom. Bilal M. Raschid, Bethesda The writer is past president of the Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in Burma and the Burmese Muslim Association.


These plastic guns aren’t toys

Seized plastic handguns that were created using 3-D printing technology are displayed at Kanagawa police station in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, in 2014. (KYODO/REUTERS) IN THE 1993 thriller “In the Line of Fire,” a would-be assassin painstakingly builds a plastic gun that he could slip past magnetometers — and into a room with the president. Nowadays, all he would have to do is press “print.” Manufacturing plastic guns is no longer the stuff of Hollywood; it’s an easy and inexpensive process. The ever-wider availability of 3-D printers allows all sorts of people to create all sorts of objects, including firearms, given the right schematics. Defense Distributed, an early innovator in this field, created and distributed blueprints for a plastic handgun in 2013, before the federal government ordered the group to take them down. By that time, the information had already been copied, and it remains accessible. Since 2013, enthusiasts have created plastic revolvers and plastic rifles, and they have used 3-D printers to fashion gun parts that turn semiautomatic guns into fully automatic weapons. The 1988 Undetectable Firearms Act banned the production, transfer and possession of guns that magnetometers can’t detect, requiring at least 3.7 ounces of steel to be in every firearm created or carried in the United States. Congress reauthorized the law in 2013. That’s better than nothing, but it’s not enough. Legislators should have made the law stronger, as Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) proposed doing last week. Mr. Israel argues that the act contains a large loophole. A professional or amateur gun-maker can legally produce a plastic weapon with a removable chunk of steel in it and legally sell or give it to someone else, who could easily discard the metal element and carry a deadly weapon anywhere. Mr. Israel wants to require producers and sellers of plastic guns to include a metal piece that can’t be removed. If outfits such as Defense Distributed wanted to enable people to build legal firearms, they would have to create schematics for weapons that contain critical, functional elements made of steel. If, that is, the State Department lets them. State has moved to restrict online publication of “technical data” that can be used to construct weapons, demanding that federal officials give their approval first. The government claims that distributing, say, plastic gun schematics online is essentially an export of sensitive weapons information to foreign countries, and State has the authority


Drinking is central to college culture – and to sexual assault

A Washington Post-Kaiser poll released in June 2015 found that 1 in 5 women say they were sexually assaulted while in college. One of the poll’s findings was that students differ on what constitutes consent. We asked some other local college students to define the word. Beer pong, body shots and keg stands. Fraternity parties, house parties and bar crawls. College, for many students, is a generously spiked four years. And with all that alcohol comes an increased risk of sexual violence, according to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll that provides new evidence of the link between intoxication and sexual assault. Heavy drinking is one of the most significant predictors of sexual assault in college, according to the poll of 1,053 current and recent college students. Analysis of the results found that women who say they sometimes or often drink more than they should are twice as likely to be victims of completed, attempted or suspected sexual assaults as those who rarely or never drink. Several male victims also pointed to alcohol’s role in their assaults. Stuart Dunnings III, a county prosecutor in Michigan whose purview includes 50,000-student Michigan State University in East Lansing, said many of the rape cases that come across his desk involve two young people who had been drinking. “Alcohol is the date-rape drug,” Dunnings said. “That’s what I tell people.” East Lansing was awash in alcohol on the sun-soaked last day of final exams before graduation this spring. When a bar offering cheap pitchers of beer opened early, at 10 a.m., the line of students waiting to get in stretched down the block. Multiple house parties studded each block near the Big Ten campus; knots of students gathered on front lawns and porches, their plastic cups and beer bottles littering the neighborhood. Though the legal drinking age is 21, students say alcohol lubricates university social life from the beginning of freshman year. It is “liquid courage” that lowers inhibitions and makes it easier to meet people, including those who might be interested in hooking up — the ubiquitous term for casual sexual encounters. But the combination is combustible: The nation’s campuses are filled with concentrations of young people who are exploring their sexuality, inexperienced drinkers enjoying newfound freedom from their parents while gaining access to seemingly unlimited amounts of beer and liquor. “There is this idea in our college culture that alcohol and sex


Insect bites can expose you to Lyme and West Nile diseases

(ISTOCKPHOTO) What bothers you more about summer insects: annoying bites or the diseases that the bugs spread, such as Lyme and West Nile? For most people, diseases are more worrisome, according to a Consumer Reports survey. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shares that worry — especially for emerging threats such as chikungunya, which may be poised to spread quickly this season. Here are some smart steps to take: Mosquitoes West Nile, a virus that can cause fever, headache and joint pain, killed 85 people in the United States last year. Mosquitoes carrying the disease have been found in 47 states. Of the 2,492 cases of chikungunya reported in the continental states last year, only 11 — all in Florida — were from bites received in the United States; the others involved people who had been bitten in the Caribbean or elsewhere. None of the cases were fatal. But chikungunya, which causes fever and joint pain, is raising alarms. To get West Nile, you must be bitten by a mosquito that previously bit an infected bird. However, mosquitoes can catch the chikungunya virus from one person and spread it to others. Also, the mosquitoes that spread West Nile bite mainly from dusk to dawn, while those that spread chikungunya prowl all day long. And about 20 percent of people infected with West Nile develop symptoms, compared with about 75 percent of those with chikungunya. To avoid bites: If you are bitten: Ticks About 300,000 people get Lyme disease each year in the United States, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest. But it’s expanding, and doctors in new areas may be less familiar with the disease. Other tick-borne infections — anaplasmosis, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever — are found throughout the country. To avoid bites: If you are bitten: Need a repellent? Try these. ●Sawyer Fisherman’s Formula Picaridin. This product, which contains 20 percent picaridin, did better than all others in our tests, protecting against mosquitoes and ticks for more than eight hours. ●Repel Lemon Eucalyptus. Containing 30 percent oil of lemon eucalyptus, this product performed almost as well as the Sawyer against both mosquitoes and ticks. ●Repel Scented Family (15 percent DEET). DEET may pose health risks, especially in high concentrations and when used by children and older people. But this product has lower concentrations and still worked well in tests. Copyright 2015. Consumers Union of United


NTSB report gives indication of possible cause of Metro calamity

protective boot and reach the exposed current. When electricity manages to escape, following that path of low resistance, it can generate tremendous heat as it makes its way to ground. Electrical current flowing into the conductive steel walls of a tunnel, for example, can turn the walls into giant hot plates, creating an oven effect. Depending on the severity of the incident, the thermal damage to surrounding infrastructure can create a huge volume of smoke. The phenomenon is called “arcing.” Within hours of the Jan. 12 incident, the NTSB said that the heavy smoke in the L’Enfant tunnel had resulted from “an electrical arcing event.” In the document delivered to Metro last week, the safety board specified that the arcing involved uncontained current flowing “between the electrical power cables and the steel wall of the tunnel.” “The smoke in the tunnel was generated by thermal damage to about 16 feet of electrical power cables and insulation, portions of 4 fiberglass cable connector covers” — meaning four boots — “and about 5 feet of fiberglass third rail cover,” the document said. As for why the arcing occurred, the NTSB said investigators have yet to determine whether the electricity escaped because of missing sealing sleeves on the boots. “Extensive thermal damage to the electrical power cables and connector covers in the L’Enfant Plaza incident consumed evidence,” the document said, adding that “additional analysis is needed before the cause can be determined.” Still, there is circumstantial evidence. On Feb. 11, a few weeks after the L’Enfant calamity, a similar but less severe smoke incident occurred in a tunnel between the Court House and Rosslyn stations in Northern Virginia. The arcing in that case appeared to have been caused by moisture and particulates seeping into a cable-connection boot, according to the NTSB document. It said investigators “found that the failed power-cable connector assembly . . . was missing its sealing sleeve.” This apparently prompted the NTSB to conduct a wider examination of power-cable connections in the subway. “In what should be identical assemblies throughout the system, NTSB investigators found numerous power-cable connector assemblies that are not in accordance with [Metro’s] engineering design specifications,” the document said. “These assemblies are frequently missing sealing sleeves. . . . Even the post-accident repairs made to the power-cable connector assembly at L’Enfant Plaza did not include the sealing sleeves indicated in the [Metro] engineering design specifications.” In some


Following a national trend, farm-to-glass beers are growing in Md.

allow farm brewers to become wholesalers and sell their products directly to bars and restaurants rather than go through a distributor. Beneficiaries of the new rules include Red Shedman Farm Brewery & Hop Yard, which opened at the Linganore Winecellars in Frederick County in November and now distributes to restaurants and liquor stores in seven counties, and Manor Hill Brewing, which poured its first beers at Victoria in March. Atticks knows of “at least four more in the planning stages,” including the Brookeville Beer Farm, the first farm brewery in Montgomery County, which aims to be brewing in September. Virginia passed a similar law in 2014, easing the path for farm breweries to open on land zoned for agricultural purposes, because the act of brewing beer is considered manufacturing. Old 690 Brewing in Purcellville was one of the first breweries to take advantage of the new rules, with 300 hop plants in the ground before its opening last August. There are more in the works; the most prominent was to be Farmworks Brewery in Lucketts, run by Flying Dog, but the brewery canceled those plans last month. Nationally, the number of farm breweries is “certainly growing, mostly buoyed by the increasing number of states offering farm brewery licenses,” says Bart Watson, chief economist for the Brewers Association, a nationwide craft-beer trade group. (The group does not yet break out farm breweries from other craft breweries and so does not have definitive statistics on their growth.) An early adopter in the farm brewing category was Oregon’s Rogue Ales, which bought its first farm in 2008 and now owns two. At first, President Brett Joyce says, they bought farms to supply their own hops and avoid price fluctuations that were rife in the industry. “We loved it so much that, 12 months into it, we thought, ‘Why can’t we do barley? Why can’t we grow grain?’ Then we started planting other crops,” such as pumpkins, he says. Those crops allowed brewers to experiment with new products, such as pumpkin beer, and “we wouldn’t have done that before we had the farm,” Joyce says. Usually eight or nine beers are brewed each year, using only products from the farm and sold under the Rogue Farms label. More important, the Rogue farms now supply about 15 percent of the barley and 40 to 45 percent of the hops for all beers in the Rogue


Mastro’s Steakhouse review: A well-played rendition of a tired song

WASHINGTON, DC-June 5: A 20oz New York Strip Steak with sides creamed spinach and sautéed mushrooms at Mastro's Restaurant in downtown Washington, DC. (Photo by Scott Suchman/For the Washington Post) (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) The well-dressed staff and the appointments of the dining room give Mastro’s Steakhouse a classic, formal feel. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) GOOD Word that Washington added yet another unit to its steakhouse legion last month prompted more than a few yawns and eye rolls, my own included, around town. Of all the things a food lover could wish for in the city — a first-rate vegetarian restaurant such as Vedge in Philadelphia, a source for modern Moroccan food in the style of Mourad in San Francisco — another place to shell out a lot of money for legal vices is not one of them. Besides, it seems like only yesterday that I was telling you about the fabulous lamb chops and buttery “chateau” mashed potatoes at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle and the surf and turf possibilities at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab. Relative newcomers to the scene, they also happen to be within a well-aged tomahawk’s distance of the newest arrival, Mastro’s Steakhouse, whose two-level, 400-plus seat restaurant in sundry shades of beef follows M & S Grill on the corner of 13th and F streets Northwest. Mastro’s, part of a Houston-based collection of steakhouses, lacks the name recognition of its competitors. But it comes to the table with an arsenal of good ideas that set it apart from the herd. In fact, by writing about Mastro’s, I get to address some of the queries diners most frequently send my way: Shrimp cocktail is dramatically served on dry ice. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) The tuna roll makes a statement with heat and citrus. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) Where can I go for live music? My guest likes turf, but I prefer surf. Give me some glam. Maybe it’s because I spend so much of my life in restaurants, but is anyone else out there tired of being verbally walked-through menus that are as straightforward as Mastro’s? The first 10 minutes of a meal can be taken up by a waiter who wants you to know what’s most popular, how the beef is wet-aged for almost a month, cooked beneath a 1500-degree broiler and served on a 400-degree plate. (One imagines


Air Force struggles to keep pace with explosion in the use of combat drones

and retention, is crucial to maintaining the effectiveness of an overstressed force and would help the Air Force meet future demand for remotely piloted flight. The plan to reduce drone capacity to a maximum of 60 simultaneous combat flights by this fall, which the Air Force made public this spring, is the centerpiece of an effort to make the pace of Air Force drone operations more sustainable, and to help heal the stresses caused by a decade of frenetic expansion. But with renewed operations in Iraq against the Islamic State, a new campaign of strikes against the group in Syria and continued operations in Afghanistan, the demand for unmanned aircraft’s surveillance and combat powers is higher than ever. Col. James “Cliffy” Cluff, the top Air Force commander for remotely piloted aircraft, said the service had expected demand for drone flights to fall off as the United States wrapped up its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That plan “was overcome by the enemy,” he told reporters in a rare media visit to Creech Air Force Base, where Cluff commands 3,000 pilots and support personnel. Since last summer’s dramatic advances by Islamic State militants, U.S. aircraft have conducted 3,600 strikes in Iraq and Syria, many of them conducted by unmanned planes. The remotely piloted aircraft program burst into action in the decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In 2001, the Air Force was only capable of keeping two drones flying combat missions at a time. Behind every drone in the air conducting a combat air patrol, there are hundreds of personnel required to maintain active and reserve aircraft and amass intelligence and even special teams deployed overseas dedicated to takeoff and landing of aircraft. By 2010, during President Obama’s surge of troops to Afghanistan, the program’s flight capacity had reached 39. It peaked at 65 in 2014. The growth has complicated challenges the Air Force has faced in fielding and retaining pilots for the program, which has often been seen by pilots as an unattractive alternative to piloting manned aircraft. Today, the Air Force needs to produce 300 new drone pilots a year. Because of recruitment and training constraints, it is only producing 180.The Air Force also loses 240 drone pilots each year as airmen return to other duties or they leave the service altogether. The 500 pilots and 500 sensor operators at Creech, nestled among bare hillsides an hour’s drive


Police: Family hears from missing Britons feared to be in Syria

Akhtar Iqbal, left, husband of Sugra Dawood, and Mohammad Shoaib, husband of Khadija Dawood, — all residents of Bradford, England — appeal for their return during a news conference on June 16. (Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images) LONDON — Britons have been gripped by the story of the Dawood sisters — Sugra, 34; Zohra, 33; and Khadija, 30 — who went missing a week ago with their nine children, ages 3 to 15. Their brother Ahmed is reportedly fighting alongside the Islamic State militant group in Syria. West Yorkshire police said they had received information that one of the women was in touch with her family in Britain. Police also said in a statement: “There is an indication that they may have already crossed the border into Syria but this is uncorroborated.” An estimated 700 Britons, including at least 60 women, are thought to have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, raising questions about the government’s approach to countering radicalization. People walk along a street in Bradford, England. Three sisters from Bradford are feared to have travelled to Syria with their nine children after going on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. (Nigel Roddis/Getty Images) The three sisters, residents of the West Yorkshire city of Bradford, have been missing since June 9. Late last month, they traveled to Saudi Arabia for a pilgrimage. Instead of returning home, however, they reportedly boarded a flight to Istanbul, from where they may have attempted to slip across the border into Syria. Pictures and home video splashed across British media, including footage of some of the children building a snowman, give the appearance of a normal family life. It is unclear why the women left with their children. The BBC reported that the group was removed from an airplane bound for Saudi Arabia on March 19. Police confirmed that the women and the children were subject to security checks, causing them to miss their flight. They were cleared to travel. West Yorkshire police did not say which of the three sisters had made contact with her family. The three are among nine children — seven daughters and two sons — born to a couple who emigrated from a village in Pakistan near the Afghan border, British newspapers reported. All nine of the Dawood children were born in Bradford. On Tuesday, the husbands of two of the Dawood sisters made an emotional appeal, urging their wives


Adams Morgan mixed-use project pays homage to demolished movie house

Luxury condos emerge on the site of a former neighborhood movie theater in Adams Morgan. Luxury condos emerge on the site of a former neighborhood movie theater in Adams Morgan. The Ontario Theater in Adams Morgan is gone but not entirely forgotten. Nearing completion on the site of the demolished movie palace is the Ontario 17 condominium, whose design recalls parts of its 1951 predecessor. The theater’s triangular marquee, supported, in part, by a lone column at the apex, has been re-created to mark a retail entrance to the new building, at Columbia Road and 17th Street NW. And the underside of the jutting canopy will be covered by metal panels salvaged from the razed theater. Granite recycled from the movie house lines the base of the new structure. Construction of Ontario 17 is supposed to be completed this summer, and half of its 80 units already have been sold. The six-story building was designed by the Eisen Group of the District, and it is being built by Ellisdale Construction of Leesburg for the Peterson Cos., a Fairfax County-based developer. “The context was key to the design,” architect Jonathan Eisen says. “The building scale is in keeping with the neighborhood, and we used light-colored brick that is similar to some of the surrounding buildings.” Storefronts line the ground floor, including the retail space reached by way of the entrance under the marquee. Studios and penthouses (Benjamin C. Tankersley/For The Washington Post) There are four floor plans for studio units, ranging from 372 to 400 square feet and priced from $274,900 to $299,900. The other offerings range from one-bedroom units (most have been sold), at $418,900 for 680 square feet or $479,900 for 714 square feet, to a two-bedroom, two-bathroom penthouse for $849,900 (only one is currently available), with a spiral staircase leading to a private rooftop deck and a balcony that wraps around the living area. A parking space in the underground garage costs $40,000, and storage rooms can be purchased for $4,500 to $10,000. Compact with a spacious feel Kitchens have compact, German-made Blomberg refrigerators to save space. (Benjamin C. Tankersley/For The Washington Post) Open-plan living areas, nine-foot-high ceilings and large windows make the smaller apartments feel more spacious. Almost all the condo units have access to a balcony or a terrace. Standard finishes and fixtures include quartz countertops, custom cabinets and Bosch appliances in the kitchen. Efficiency units


Montgomery County Animal Watch

These cases were received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Lab mix bites girl Puppy on a balcony Free dog training workshop Hero Dogs Volunteer Appreciation Open House Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt or foster rescue dogs: Rockville Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Adopt dogs and cats at MCHS no-kill rescue: Rockville — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


McDonald’s, the ‘progressive burger company’

Suppose, however, you just want a burger and fries, not social purposes and relationships? You might prefer Five Guys or Shake Shack, where the burgers taste fine even without the condiment of community uplift. Five Guys and Shake Shack are pipsqueaks, with about 1,000 and 63 restaurants, respectively. McDonald’s, which has more than 36,000 — 14,300 in the United States — will open more than 1,000 new ones this year. Although McDonald’s burgers ranked 21st in a recent Consumer Reports survey of 21 brands, this $81 billion company will not founder because of the small but growing cohort of customers who like the burger equivalent of microbrews. But another behemoth, Budweiser, is experiencing McDonald’s-like difficulties. Budweiser’s problem is not just that the number of barrels it sells has declined for 25 years, from almost 50 million in 1988 to 16 million in 2013. (Budweiser has been partly cannibalized by Bud Light, which in 2001 displaced Budweiser as the United States’ top-selling beer.) The ominous fact is that 44 percent of 21- to 27-year-old drinkers have never tasted Budweiser. They prefer craft beers from microbreweries. A craft brewer is one that ships 6 million or fewer barrels a year. In 2013, craft brewers shipped more than Bud did. Budweiser’s response has included this truculent ad: “Proudly a macro beer. It’s not brewed to be fussed over. . . . It’s brewed for drinking. Not dissecting. . . . Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale.” This is an interesting approach to potential customers, calling craft beer drinkers (“them”) pretentious twits. If this is unavailing, Budweiser could try becoming a modern, progressive beer company with social purposes to deepen relationships with various communities, maybe even including people who just want a beer. McDonald’s has been serving burgers since Ray Kroc opened his first store in Des Plaines, Ill., in April 1955. Many billions of burgers later, however, it has had an epiphany: Henceforth it will toast the buns longer and sear the beef patties differently. Its 60-year learning curve bends imperceptibly, which helps explain sagging revenues — down almost 15 percent last year. Recently, McDonald’s (”I’m lovin’ it”) briefly instituted an excruciating policy of inviting randomly selected customers to “Pay with Lovin’ ” for their meals. Customers could call their mothers, ask another customer to dance, or perform some other act to enlarge the universe’s stock of love. Shortly thereafter, Starbucks, which


A dangerous and unnecessary struggle for ‘Every Last Child’

Medical workers struggle to combat polio in Pakistan, as documented in “Every Last Child.” (Zeitgeist Films) One of the most memorable characters in the documentary “Every Last Child” is a 31-year-old Pakistani man who contracted polio at age 9. Every small task is a major undertaking. To get around, he holds one lifeless leg folded into his body as he slides along the ground, using his other foot and one hand to inch himself forward. He also has a bike with a hand crank, but he doesn’t have enough strength to propel himself up hills. “I console myself knowing life is temporary,” he says. Polio has been eradicated from most countries, but it remains a stubborn epidemic in Pakistan. Documentarian Tom Roberts goes there to understand why it’s so difficult to get rid of the devastating disease. For one thing, being a polio vaccinator in Pakistan is a dangerous job. After the Taliban announced a ban on polio vaccinations in 2012, every worker became a target. One recurring character recounts how she witnessed her sister-in-law and niece get shot to death when they were going door-to-door vaccinating children. But even if gunmen aren’t around, some parents are wary of the aid workers and their little blue coolers. Mothers and fathers see the lifesaving drops as some kind of Trojan horse. Conspiracy theories abound, most of which go something like this: Americans and Europeans (or Catholics and Jews) are using the vaccine as an excuse to feed Muslim children poison that will cause girls to mature more quickly and make boys impotent. After all, they say, why would Westerners want to save Pakistani children when drones are killing them? The effects of the distrust are clear with the story of a tiny boy whose legs stop working after a bad fever. The documentary is more hopeful than most issue-based movies, which educate the audience about a major dilemma and then call it a day. In fact, it shows workers at the World Health Organization devising a plan to make the polio vaccine part of a larger health-care package, which is then endorsed by local politician Imran Khan. The movie is well shot (much of it by Roberts’s director of photography, Ali Zaidi), capturing the tense atmosphere of the vaccine deliveries. It also gives a powerful sense of day-to-day life in Peshawar and Karachi, where the murky rivers are routinely tested for


Goats battle the invasion of alien plant life

and eventually, the entire forest is gone.” “The goal is to give it a fresh start,” said Rushi Shah, president of the homeowners association. “Once new trees are there, once the canopies are there, a lot of these weeds won’t be able to grow anymore. But we’re worried about these trees actually dying because of these invasive species.” Shah said the association’s board of directors considered hiring a team of workers to remove the invasive plants by hand. Instead, they decided to go “outside the box,” he said. Enter the goats. In researching the topic, board members discovered that a herd of goats would serve two purposes. “The goats have an amazing digestive system,” Shah said. “They not only eat all the plants that are under these trees, native and nonnative, but . . . when they’re done digesting it, their remnants are also used as fertilizer.” The board voted to contract with a Maryland company, Eco-Goats, to remove the invasive plants on a seven-acre plot. Shah said the $9,200 fee was comparable to the cost of hiring a crew of people to do the job. On Friday, the goats arrived from Davidsonville, Md. They were herded down a ramp into a wooded area set off by a temporary electric fence. Within a few minutes, they were roaming around the enclosure, munching contentedly on the troublesome vegetation. Brian Knox, supervising forester for Eco-Goats, said that Maryland and Virginia have done “a really good job” in setting aside green space in new developments but that the regulations do not specify how to keep the green spaces thriving. “Because you’ve got the long, narrow pieces of the forest land with lots of light getting in there, it stimulates a lot of growth,” Knox said. “Unfortunately, mostly what it stimulates is nonnative invasive plants, which take over and kill the canopy trees, don’t provide much in the way of habitat and just overall don’t really serve the forest environment.” Shah said the goats have drawn a lot of interest in the community, particularly from children. “We definitely had a lot of people come out and look over the weekend,” he said in an e-mail. Knox said that when Eco-Goats started seven years ago, the goats would sometimes be distracted by the human onlookers. “The goats stopped eating and watched the people,” he said. “Now it’s business as usual.” Barnes is a freelance writer.


Local Digest: Victim of fatal shooting in Southeast D.C. is identified

THE DISTRICT Victim is identified in fatal SE shooting A 28-year-old man was fatally shot Wednesday night in Southeast Washington, according to D.C. police. The victim was identified as Antonio Lee Bryant of Southeast. He was pronounced dead on the scene. Police said he was found shot about 8:40 p.m. in the 3300 block of D Street SE, in the Greenway neighborhood. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND 3 charged in robberies involving online ads Two teens and a Bowie man have been charged in connection with armed robberies that Prince George’s County police say targeted people through Craigslist and other online classified ad services. Four people trying either to buy or sell phones through Craigslist or an app called OfferUp were robbed in the daytime over a six-day period this month, police said in a statement Thursday. In three cases, victims reported being robbed at gunpoint. Police arrested Alford Charles Wade III, 26, in connection with a robbery June 10 on Martin Luther King Junior Highway in Bowie. In that incident, a man reported that his cellphone was taken. Kemith Eugene Calvin, 17, was arrested in connection with a June 12 robbery of a man who was reportedly selling a cellphone in Bowie. Police charged Calvin as an adult. Police also charged a 15-year-old but did not name the teen. — Lynh Bui Couple charged with bilking nonprofit A high-ranking employee of Sheppard Pratt Health System and her husband have been charged with bilking the nonprofit provider of mental-health care out of $2.5 million. In an indictment unsealed Thursday, federal prosecutors in Maryland said that Lyneth Nyabiosi and Willie Evans III overcharged the Maryland-based company for services provided by a firm that they did not reveal that they owned. Nyabiosi wrote the checks to her own company as the director of the health -information management department at Sheppard Pratt, prosecutors alleged. Nyabiosi’s attorney declined to comment, and Evans’s attorney could not be reached. — Julie Zauzmer VIRGINIA Man pleads guilty to stabbing man, 84 A D.C. man pleaded guilty Thursday to stabbing an 84-year-old man during a burglary gone wrong in Alexandria and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, authorities said. Horace White The man was seriously wounded but survived. In a statement, Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter said the 25-year term “sends a strong message that violent crimes against seniors will not be tolerated in this community.” — Matt


Worried about MERS in South Korea? Visitors can (mostly) breathe easy.

Nurses wear masks as a precaution against the MERS virus as they attend an International Conference of Nurses in Seoul on June 19. (Baek Seong-Ryul/AP) The infectious disease du jour is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a viral respiratory illness that’s leaving some travelers hyperventilating about their vacation plans. For now, the month-old outbreak — the largest recorded outside the Middle East — is confined to South Korean health-care facilities, which aren’t exactly popular summer destinations for Americans. But, as usual, the fear is spreading faster than the disease. “My husband is worried,” reports a woman who plans to visit Seoul next month. “But I think if we wash our hands all the time and stay away from hospitals, we should be fine. What do you think?” Travelers can breathe easy: Their chances of contracting MERS in South Korea are minimal. “We do not recommend that people avoid traveling to Korea,” says Lisa Rotz, the associate director for global health and migration in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of global migration and quarantine. “So far, all transmission has been within health-care facilities, so the risk to most U.S. travelers is extremely low.” But medical professionals say it’s important to monitor the situation closely. And if you decide to cancel, it also helps to know your rights. The CDC publishes updates on the outbreak on its Web site, at wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/watch/mers-republic-of-korea. You can also find MERS information on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) site: www.who.int/csr/disease/coronavirus_infections. There is no evidence so far that this virus is spreading in the general community. Low risk doesn’t mean no risk, notes Robert Wheeler, chief medical officer at On Call International, a travel risk-management company. If you’re near the outbreak, he says, you need to take “serious” precaution, because there is risk of person-to-person transmission of the virus if you have close contact with an infected person. This could happen if someone provides direct care in the home of a person sick with MERS. “Those with weakened immune systems, chronic diseases and people of older age tend to be particularly at risk for more serious illness and fatality when infected, so it is vital for these groups to be conscious of their surroundings and those they are in contact with,” he says. The problem with MERS is the uncertainty surrounding it. It’s an infectious disease especially likely to be seen in travelers, says Joe


Chambers Bay: A course with a real attitude

after saying, “I hope I don’t fall this week.” The Swede also suggested that fans should “bring equipment” for spectating, by which he meant binoculars. Some holes are so inaccessible that no fans are allowed on them at all. From several spots on the course you can see almost every hole and, theoretically, almost every player — if you brought along the Hubble Telescope. “Honestly, I didn’t know what to think,” said Johnson, who has heard Chambers Bay described as “tricked up” by some and “ridiculous” by two-time Open champ Andy North. “There were a handful who liked it. And more than a handful of others that didn’t like it,” Johnson said. “I saw pictures. I like links golf, the British Open. Thought it looked great. Came and played it and loved it.” Just how controversial is Chambers Bay? The course is set in one of the more beautiful spots in the Pacific Northwest, an area that has never held a U.S. Open. Imagine an abandoned sand and gravel mine beside gorgeous Puget Sound with the Olympia Mountain range etched along one horizon and, over your shoulder, sparkling Mount Rainier in the distance. Everywhere, water vistas and deep emerald conifer forests. You have 1,000 acres to build a fabulous public golf course at the center of a vast recreational park. So what do you build? Answer: St. Andrews II. This is the U.S. Open, yet everyone from Phil Mickelson to Jones himself says that Chambers Bay was created to play exactly like a British Open course — in particular St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf, with all its humps, bumps, banks and bunkers so deep you need a ladder to enter. The real British Open will be played next month at the real St. Andrews. Remind me again why America had to have an ersatz version this month. “Chambers Bay and St. Andrews are very different,” Johnson said, referring to their geographies. “But they play the same.” Despite its idyllic surroundings — or perhaps because of the stunning contrast — Chambers Bay has been called a desolate moonscape or a post-apocalyptic vista on which it is impossible to discern any actual golf holes, even when you’re on the course. You might put a peg in the ground, aim in any direction, find a flag in the distance and, who knows, that might actually be the hole you’re supposed to play.


Police investigate fatal shooting in the Shaw neighborhood of NW D.C.

D.C. police said Friday they are investigating a homicide that happened just before midnight in the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest Washington. Authorities said they received a report of several shots being fired in the 1300 block of Fifth Street NW. Police said the victim made it to a hospital on his own, but died there. The victim was identified as Patrick Shaw, 26, of no fixed address.


Hogan reportedly canceled meetings this week due to illness

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan sits on board a magnetic-levitation train in Japan during his recent trip to Asia. (Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg) Correction: Gov. Larry Hogan has been feeling ill since returning from a trade mission in Asia nearly two weeks ago, according to two people familiar with his schedule, forcing him to cancel numerous meetings and public appearances. “The governor picked up a bug in Korea and has canceled everything since,” said one of the two people, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Hogan’s office declined to directly answer questions about his health, but a spokesman said that the governor has been getting work done all week and that the staff has been in contact with him. The spokesman said Hogan (R) canceled Wednesday’s meeting of the state Board of Public Works, which he chairs, because he had “some personal matters that required his attention.” On Monday, he attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a recreation center in West Baltimore. He even took a few shots on the basketball court, according to a post on Facebook. But then he canceled the biweekly meeting of the public works board, a three-member body that reviews all major state expenditures. He also canceled several other meetings and appearances, people with knowledge of those events said. The governor has had a busy schedule since his Jan. 21 swearing-in ceremony, which came a week after the start of the General Assembly’s annual legislative session. In April, shortly after the legislative session ended, riots erupted in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray. Hogan declared a state of emergency, brought in the National Guard and moved his office to Baltimore for more than a week. Hogan left on the 12-day trade mission to Asia on May 25 and returned June 6. The trip included more than 40 events and meetings in South Korea, China and Japan.


An Afghan jihadist’s life and death in Iraq: ‘They misused his innocence’

that has no doors and no windows,” Darwazi said. “Everyone comes and goes, and anyone plays with it based on his own interest.” Rafi’s recruitment and death occurred as the Islamic State’s footprint in Afghanistan is spreading. Fighters, mostly former Taliban members, have seized some areas and engaged in numerous skirmishes with Taliban forces in recent weeks. Their brutality is growing as they seek to co-opt more disaffected Taliban members to boost their emerging presence in South and Central Asia. But Rafi’s case is unusual, because he was neither a Taliban militant nor a sympathizer. The son of communists, he grew up in a comfortable middle-class family, loved soccer and tae kwon do, and earned a university degree in computer science. Although Afghan officials and Western analysts have argued that the Islamic State’s extremist ideology does not have strong roots among Afghans, Rafi’s radicalization suggests that at least some segments of the society are supporters. His family agreed to speak to a Washington Post reporter because they said they wanted to stop more Afghans from following the path Rafi took. Several relatives and friends spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared for their security. All said they struggled to comprehend how Rafi could decide to enter a faraway world where he would have to kill or be killed. He didn’t face the typical influences that have attracted other young men to jihad, such as a lack of economic opportunity, a disjointed family life or political alienation. But Rafi’s journey, also pieced together from his Facebook postings, suggests that he was struggling with his identity — and with what it means to be a Muslim. He eventually gravitated to the conservative thought that defines Islam for many of the faithful today. With Afghanistan increasingly connected to the world through YouTube and social media, those who drove him onto the path of holy war were near and far — and included two American-born radical Muslim preachers. “They misused his innocence,” Darwazi said. An escalated presence No one knows how many Afghans have traveled to fight in Syria and Iraq, but the numbers are thought to be modest, compared with the thousands who have flocked there from other Muslim nations and Europe. Afghan jihadists have rarely been attracted to outside conflicts pitting Islam against the West. But the rise of the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, has struck a nerve


Africa’s moment to lead on climate

on which we both serve, Africa can break the link between energy and emissions by leap-frogging over the damaging, carbon-intensive energy practices that have brought the world to the brink of catastrophe. Africa’s energy challenges are immense. Energy sector bottlenecks and power shortages cost the region 2 percent to 4 percent of gross domestic product annually, undermining efforts to promote sustainable economic growth, create jobs, reduce poverty and boost investment. The problems serve to deepen the disadvantage experienced by the poor, women and those who live in rural areas. But once strong global development goals are in place, backed by smart financing and a fair climate deal, Africa will be positioned to turn that situation upside down. Switching to low-carbon energy strategies immediately isn’t possible because doing so could undermine economic progress. But Africa has enormous potential for cleaner energy — hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power, as well as natural gas. Unlocking Africa’s clean energy potential can drive growth and create jobs. Africa can grow and show the way for the rest of the world by gradually replacing fossil fuels with renewable sources and embracing a judicious, dynamic energy mix. For that to happen, though, Africa’s leaders must seize the climate moment. For too long, Africa’s leaders have been content to oversee highly centralized energy systems that benefit the rich and bypass many of the poor. Power utilities have been centers of corruption. The time has come to revamp Africa’s creaking energy infrastructure, while riding the wave of low-carbon innovation that is transforming energy systems around the world. Actions taken by African leaders are essential. So is international cooperation. The 2015 development and climate summits provide platforms for deepening international cooperation and providing a down payment on measures with the potential to put Africa on a path toward an inclusive, low-carbon energy future — and the world on a path to avoid climate catastrophe. Unlocking Africa’s energy potential and putting in place the foundation for a climate-resilient, low-carbon future will require ambitious, efficient and properly financed multilateral cooperation. As we show in our report, the current global climate finance architecture fails these tests. In particular, we strongly urge governments in the major emitting countries to act now by ending the billions they spend to subsidize fossil fuel exploration, a policy that encourages greater carbon emissions, not fewer. Instead of subsidizing emissions, developed countries need to accurately price them, through


D.C. police investigating slaying outside Glover Park mission

A man described by police as being homeless was fatally injured Friday night under a portico in a courtyard of the St. Luke’s Mission Center in Northwest Washington’s Glover Park neighborhood, authorities said. Joel Johnson, 53, was pronounced dead at the scene, said D.C. police, who responded about 10 p.m. to the church complex in the 3600 block of Calvert Street NW, near Wisconsin Avenue and the U.S. Naval Observatory. No arrests have been made. D.C. police initially described the incident as a stabbing but in a statement issued later Saturday said only that Johnson was found unconscious and “suffering from visible injuries.” Police said the death has been ruled a homicide. The mission runs St. Luke’s Shelter, a seven-bed, year-round facility that helps homeless men transitioning into jobs, housing and recovery programs. In 2008, the church merged with Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church, also in Northwest, and is where services are held. The Rev. Charles Parker, senior pastor at Metropolitan, said the slaying occurred between the shelter and a condominium complex next door, in a church courtyard off Calvert Street. He said the area is often used by homeless people who visit the mission’s warming center during the winter. The warming facility is closed in summer months. Parker said Johnson was not one of the people staying in the shelter. He said he did not know Johnson and that D.C. police have not provided many details of the case. Police said Saturday that they knew of no suspect nor motive. The pastor said that none of the men staying in the mission shelter reported having contact with Johnson. He said staff members regularly walk through the area where the death occurred and try to help people staying there find some other shelter or get help. The slaying, Parker said, “is a great tragedy and I think a real indictment of our community.” He said it is sad that people who need help “don’t have the resources available that they need. This is the kind of tragedy that inevitably results from our lack of providing an appropriate safety net.” Parker said that if Johnson’s family does not come forward, the church will bury him, probably in a plot near the mission on Calvert Street. The homeless, Parker said, “are people who are easy to overlook.”


Animal Watch: Deer hears offspring’s call for attention

ALABAMA AVENUE SE Among cases received by the Washington Humane Society.


Public hearings could shed light on Metro’s response to smoke incident

occasional bulletins regarding urgent safety problems discovered during the investigation, the NTSB has been tight-lipped about the incident, saying its final report will be issued early next year. Metro has been circumspect, as well, citing federal rules that bar the transit authority from disclosing details of an ongoing NTSB inquiry. For two days, however, the silence will be broken, at least to a degree. Here are some of the still-murky issues that could come into clearer focus: Why did the smoke build up? Generally speaking, there was “an electrical arcing event,” the NTSB said in a safety bulletin, meaning that electrical current escaped from heavily insulated cables along the track bed and began flowing dangerously around the tunnel. The arcing, which generated tremendous heat, occurred about 1,100 feet in front of where the lead car of train No. 302 came to a halt. The resulting thermal damage to tunnel infrastructure created a huge amount of smoke, according to investigators. But how did the electrical current get loose? Although “additional analysis is needed before a cause can be determined,” the safety board said recently, an NTSB document released June 8 contained a possible explanation. It cited Metro’s failure to ensure that all power-cable connections in the subway are protected from contaminants. The contaminants (water, metal dust and other substances) can seep into a cable connection and form a pathway for electricity to flow out. Whether the hearings will shed more light on the issue of improperly constructed cable connections, along with other potential reasons for the arcing, remains to be seen. “The smoke in the tunnel,” the NTSB document said, “was generated by thermal damage to about 16 feet of electrical power cables and insulation, portions of 4 fiberglass cable connector covers” and about five feet of fiberglass that was covering the electrified third rail, from which trains draw propulsion power. The hearings could produce details about the chemical makeup of the smoke from the smoldering insulation. That’s a question of particular interest to passengers who choked on the fumes for more than 30 minutes, some of them clinging to consciousness, as they waited for firefighters to reach the train and begin an evacuation. A few of the riders left the cars and reached safety on their own. The rest inhaled an array of gases. Officials haven’t specified what the gases were. But an indication might be found in the autopsy


A spacecraft launched in 2006 is about to try for our first good photo of Pluto

For the first time, we’re about to get a close look at Pluto and its cold, outer region of the solar system. The Post's Joel Achenbach explains NASA's New Horizons mission. Pluto is so far away (3 billion miles) and so small (about two-thirds the size of our moon) that we’ve never had a good look at it, not even with the Hubble Space Telescope. In Hubble images, Pluto has always been a tiny, pixelated blob. Until now. A NASA spaceship, New Horizons, is bearing down on the dwarf planet at 32,000 miles per hour. The robotic probe, which weighs half a ton and is shaped like a vacuum cleaner attachment, will fly past Pluto, cameras and instruments ravenously gobbling data, at 7:49 a.m. Eastern time on July 14. That, at least, is what we can expect to happen given the current trajectory of New Horizons and the laws of physics. But this is not a mission free of hazard. A spaceship traveling so fast — New Horizons is the fastest spaceship ever launched from Earth — can be disabled by a collision with something as small as a grain of rice. Pluto had been left out in the cold for decades as NASA probes explored larger and flashier planets. Recently, it endured a downgrade among astronomers who declared that it wasn’t a full-blown planet at all. But it’s definitely something intriguing — easily the most famous of the small, icy worlds that inhabit the exurbs of the solar system. “We are running the anchor leg in a 50-year exploration of the planets,” says Alan Stern, the principal investigator — the leader — of the New Horizons mission. “I tell people, this is it, it’s the last picture show, it’s the last train to Clarksville. Better watch!” That’s vintage Alan Stern: He is a tireless promoter of New Horizons. You could call Stern “mercurial” if that weren’t inappropriate for a planetary scientist focused on Pluto. In a world in which scientists tend to speak in jargon, and where project managers default to bureaucratese, Stern, 57, a former NASA associate administrator who is now at the nonprofit Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., speaks in tweets, news alerts, sound bites, headlines and pull-quotes. “This” — he pauses dramatically — “is a moment. People should watch it. They should sit their freakin’ kids down and say, think about this technology. Think about


National Festival Orchestra well drilled in penultimate concert

Rossen Milanov led the National Festival Orchestra on June 20. (John O'Boyle) Rossen Milanov ably led the National Festival Orchestra — a summer training program at the University of Maryland — in its penultimate concert Saturday. The Bulgarian-born Milanov juggles five music directorships, according to his biography, and was associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 11 years. Such a schedule demands efficiency, and that carried over to making music with his young charges, who seemed to adore him. In a program of Henri Dutilleux (“Métaboles”), Strauss (Suite from “Der Rosenkavalier”) and Brahms (Symphony No. 2), Milanov was prepared, precise and Apollonian. He did not really respond to the more voluptuous passages in the Strauss, and many important structural points in the Brahms simply glided by. But small individual glitches aside, the orchestra sounded well drilled, even though the average quality may have been a little higher in past years. Dutilleux’s marvelous little essay from the 1960s combines finely calibrated orchestral textures with a pan-tonal language that teases the ear rather than tires it. The fourth part — “Torpide” — features the percussion section, but so subtly and softly that you cannot even notice it is playing. The opening woodwind chords were imperfectly tuned and the string color in the second part was a bit antiseptic. But this is very difficult music, and the orchestra showed collective virtuosity in the final part. The Strauss pastiche was also mostly well played. This composer always gives orchestra musicians a lot to sink their teeth into, and there was good effort all around. Although the winds and brass were usually in tune as a section, too often a soloist failed to match the strings. These problems are common in festival orchestras of short duration, but there has been better success in the pas. The Brahms symphony had a lot of momentum, perhaps too much in the third movement, where the shifts between slow and fast sections were scrambles each time. And Milanov’s focus on forward motion came at the expense of textural detail. Here, though, I would call out very fine horn and oboe playing by the principals. The orchestra also had a very impressive leader of the second violins, a young man who showed a rare understanding of this crucial role. This talented ensemble’s final concert, which will include Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra,” is Saturday at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center


Obama’s ancestral homeland in Kenya had lots of hope, but got little change

association with the world’s most powerful man but still wrestling with disease and poverty. He’ll find people proud enough to name their boys Barack Obama but disappointed that he waited until the seventh year of his presidency to return to his father’s homeland. “When he comes, we will present our problems,” said Edwin Okoth, Barack Obama Okoth’s father, his hands on his son’s shoulders. A man rides his bicycle past the market in Kogelo. (Kevin Sieff/The Washington Post) It’s not only people in Kogelo who remain unsatisfied. Given the president’s familial connection to East Africa, many expected Obama to transform America’s relationship with the region. That hasn’t happened. The White House has launched an initiative to expand access to electricity across the continent, and funding for public health and counterterrorism programs has increased, but by most measures, Africa has remained on the periphery of Obama’s foreign policy agenda. “As a country, we expected more,” said Augustus Muluvi, head of foreign policy at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, one of the country’s top think tanks. “We expected him to come earlier, and we expected him to come with specific programs for Kenya and East Africa. This hasn’t been the case.” Edwin Okoth remembers when Obama visited Kogelo in 2006 as a senator. When Obama walked through the village’s open-air market, a crowd gathered. Okoth got as close as he could and waved. It amazed him that a man just one generation removed from Kogelo could become so important. When Okoth’s wife became pregnant the next year, he knew they would name the baby Barack Obama. “Maybe the spirit of the man will follow the boy,” he remembers thinking. The small hospital where Barack Obama Okoth was born is also where hundreds of the village’s HIV/AIDS patients are treated. Nearly 18 percent of Siaya County, where Kogelo is located, is HIV positive, according to Kenya’s National AIDS control council, nearly three times the national average. In 2006, Obama took an HIV test here, an effort to remove the stigma from the exam. But since then, the fight against the disease has run up against cultural barriers to prevention and a lack of public health funding. “We have been waiting for assistance from outside,” said the clinic’s doctor, George Musa. Also in 2006, Obama visited the village’s primary and secondary schools, where his father attended. The schools were promptly


Third raccoon killed in string of rabies-related attacks

A raccoon suspected of being rabid was found and put to death Sunday in the third incident of its kind this month in the Washington region. The Sunday incident occurred in Howard County, Md., where police said residents of the Allview neighborhood and nearby areas complained Saturday and Sunday about a possibly rabid raccoon at three places, including the Patuxent Branch Trail. Police warned about encounters with any raccoon that staggers, appears oblivious to noise or shows other erratic behavior. Leave the area immediately and call 911, police urged. Police said the raccoon that apparently prompted the complaints was located Sunday afternoon and put to death. It was not immediately clear whether it was carrying the rabies virus. In Fairfax County, a 75-year-old woman who was walking on a path in the South Run RECenter was bitten June 10 after stopping to photograph a raccoon. The animal suddenly charged at her and bit her several times, police said. Later that day, a raccoon rushed at an officer in the same area, police said. They said it was captured, tested and found to have rabies. The Fairfax County police said they could not be certain that it was the same raccoon that bit the woman, but they said it was likely. In the first of the reported raccoon incidents, police said a man was attacked by a rabid raccoon June 7 in the Kings Park area of the county. In that incident, police said, the man was working in his garden when the animal approached from behind. Police said it bit him, leaving a 12-inch gash. An animal control officer was sent to the scene, and when the raccoon charged at the officer, it was shot and killed. The animal tested positive for rabies. They said the victim was treated and was taking medications. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called rabies a preventable viral disease of mammals. It is most often transmitted through the bite of a rabid animal, the CDC said. The agency said the vast majority of reports it receives each year occur in such wild animals as raccoons, skunks, bats and foxes. Most rabies deaths in this country occur in people who fail to seek medical assistance, the CDC said.


Russia warns of deeper rifts with West as Europe extends sanctions

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as they take part in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside Moscow's Kremlin Wall on June 22, 2015, to mark the 74th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP) MOSCOW — The extension until Jan. 31 will keep the European measures in place through the year-end deadline for implementing all parts of a cease-fire agreement to settle the conflict between Ukraine’s Western-allied government and pro-Moscow rebels. Western leaders have repeatedly said that Russia must support implementation of the agreement before sanctions can start to be rolled back. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev proposed answering the E.U. move by also extending Moscow’s restrictive measures — such as import bans — against the West for six more months, according to the Russian news service Interfax. European and U.S. sanctions have limited or banned the export of key technology to Russia’s defense and energy sectors and severely restricted financing for the Russian banking sector. In turn, Russia has banned the import of almost all produce, meat, dairy and fish from the E.U. and the United States. Both sides have drawn up blacklists of individuals subject to asset freezes and travel bans. Extending the sanctions against Russia was seen as a way to maintain pressure on Moscow to continue with cease-fire efforts, even as escalating clashes in Ukraine dim hopes of a lasting truce. But in Moscow, leaders complained that keeping the sanctions in place would undermine progress toward normalization of relations between Russia and the West. “Even partial softening of the sanctions would have created a positive dynamic,” Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian Duma’s international relations committee, told Interfax. “Even though the prolongation of the sanctions does not immediately sharply worsen the situation — it remains as it was — it creates a negative tone for at least another half a year in the relations between Russia and the European Union.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was “very disappointed” that the E.U. had sided with the “Russophobic lobby, which pushed the decision to extend the illegal restrictions.” Until several weeks ago, it was unclear whether the E.U. would be able to muster the necessary unanimous support to keep the sanctions regime going. In recent months, Russia has made concerted efforts to court sympathetic governments and foster


Japan and South Korea play nice as they mark 50 years of normalized relations

full-throated apology. Recent reports in the Japanese media have suggested that Abe will downgrade the statement to a personal one, rather than a cabinet-approved edict. South Korean President Park Geun-hye greets Fukushiro Nukaga, chairman of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians' Union during their meeting in Seoul on June 22, 2015. (Yonhap/Reuters) Abe and Park have been at odds for the entirety of their time in office, clashing over issues related to the colonial period, particularly the Imperial Japanese Army’s use of Korean women as sex slaves, known euphemistically as “comfort women .” Abe contends that Japan has apologized already, while Park says Japan has yet to sufficiently atone for its actions. Those tensions have been exacerbated by a territorial dispute over a cluster of guano-covered islets known as Takeshima to the Japanese and Dokdo to the Koreans, and more recently over Japan’s efforts to gain UNESCO recognition for industrial sites where South Korea says its citizens were forced to work in servitude. But Monday, history was barely mentioned. “Let’s build a new era for both of our countries, reflecting on the past 50 years of friendship and looking to the coming 50 years,” Abe said at a reception in Tokyo hosted by the South Korean Embassy. “Together with President Park Geun-hye, I will work toward that.” After Abe’s speech, South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se read remarks from Park, complete with a slideshow of photos with Japanese captions showing Park and Abe together — and smiling — at various meetings. This was despite the fact that the pair has never had a dedicated bilateral meeting. Meanwhile, at a parallel event in Seoul hosted by the Japanese Embassy, Park said the two countries should unload their “heavy burden of history” and look to the future. Park is under pressure at home — partly as a result over her government’s handling of the Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak — and analysts say that brokering a kind of peace with Japan could work in her favor. A joint survey published Monday by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun and South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo found that 64 percent of Japanese wanted to see an improvement in bilateral relations, as did 87 percent of South Koreans polled. Read more: South Korea makes a point about its claim on islands disputed with Japan South Korea’s Park is criticized for postponing U.S. visit The troubling history following Japan’s Shinzo Abe to Washington


Loudoun County news briefs

Online tool advises those interested in growing hops Loudoun County has launched an online interactive mapping tool that can help determine the suitability of land for commercially growing hops, plants used in the production of beer. The Suitability Model for Growing Hops combines soils, slope and aspect (the direction a slope faces in relation to the sun) to classify all land within the county, from the most suitable for growing hops to the least. The tool is at www.loudoun.gov/hopsmap. Users can search for property by address or parcel identification number, click the map for additional information such as zoning and specific soil type, and calculate acreage or distance by using the measurement tool. There’s also an “info” button with links to other sites of interest, such as the Loudoun Parcel Assessment Database and the Old Dominion Hops Cooperative. For information on growing hops in Loudoun, call Beth Sastre at the Virginia Cooperative Extension office, 703-737-8978, or e-mail flores69@vt.edu. Loudoun chamber ranked among top five in region In the annual rankings reported by the Washington Business Journal, the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce advanced three places to rank fifth in the Washington region. The Loudoun chamber ranks second out of all Virginia metro region chambers and ranks higher in total membership and total revenue than every other organization on the list, with the exception of the D.C. chamber, the largest chamber in the region. The rankings, published each year, are based on the total revenue for each organization, as published on the Form 990. Round Hill Aquatic Center ribbon-cutting is Tuesday The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services will host a ribbon-cutting Tuesday to mark the opening of the Round Hill Aquatic Center. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. and is open to the public. It will be followed by a facility tour and swimming; refreshments will be served. Pool admission fees will be waived Tuesday and Wednesday. The four-lane indoor pool facility, at 17010 Evening Star Dr., has accessible entrances, a zero-depth ramp, a maximum depth of 4½ feet, a maximum bather load of 54 and a consistent temperature of 81 to 82 degrees. A separate conference room can be rented for meetings and other community uses. For information, call 571-258-3562 or e-mail prcs@loudoun.gov. — Compiled by Caitlin Gibson


Getting monarch butterflies to hit the highways in Virginia

mowing or spraying herbicides on milkweed and other plants that pollinators need to survive, Hamilton said, officials should let the state’s median strips and roadside vegetation serve as a wild habitat for the butterflies that urgently need them. The group’s goal is aligned with a recently announced national priority: Last month, President Obama introduced the National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, a comprehensive plan that aims to stop the continuing decline of pollinating insect populations through a variety of methods, including placing restrictions on pesticides and restoring millions of acres of pollinator habitats. The population of monarch butterflies, which are famous for their extraordinary annual migration between Mexico and the United States, have declined dramatically in recent years. Experts have cited numerous factors, including changing climate patterns, illegal logging in the Mexican forests where the butterflies winter and the widespread use of herbicide sprays in the United States. Virginia transportation officials can help the orange-and-black butterflies survive, Hamilton said, by allowing existing habitats to flourish and by planting native, pollinator-friendly plants in place of fescue grass. “We already have this great resource that’s growing on its own, and just by changing mowing practices and herbicide practices, which saves taxpayer money, we can foster that,” she said. “And then we can look at replanting, so we can change fescue over to wildflower mixes.” Hamilton said her contacts at VDOT’s central office have been supportive and encouraging. Last year, VDOT officials and the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy headed a project to establish monarch way stations at four rest stops and commuter lots in Northern Virginia. But without a formal statewide plan, Hamilton said, not all jurisdictions will be aware of or support a pollinator-friendly approach to vegetation management. A few weeks ago, Hamilton learned that certain VDOT districts were spraying herbicides on milkweed and mowing medians and roadsides. On June 4, Hamilton wrote a letter to the commissioner of the department, urging him to take action: “This practice is not only damaging to monarchs, bees and other pollinators, but also a waste of taxpayer money,” she wrote. The letter included recommendations that included using a more environmentally friendly mowing schedule, and education and training materials to help the public understand why the look of public roadways might change. Hamilton said she hoped to hear back before the July Fourth weekend, which typically involves a “mowing blitz” along


Was Ebola the culprit in the ancient Plague of Athens?

treatment was useless. “Thucydides’s vivid description allows present-day historians and clinicians to speculate about the cause of prior epidemics and the historical roots of our epidemics we know about today,” Kazanjian said. The Athenian disease began south of Egypt in a region Thucydides called “Aethiopia,” a term that ancient Greeks used to refer to regions in sub-Saharan Africa, where modern Ebola outbreaks have occurred, Kazanjian said. In the ancient world, sub-Saharan Africans migrated to Greece to work as farmers or servants, thereby providing a potential human vector for Ebola. Kazanjian argued that the symptoms, mortality rate and sub-Saharan Africa origin that characterize the Plague of Athens are consistent with Ebola. He added that physicians were among the first victims of the Athenian disease in Thucydides’s account, just as modern health-care workers have proven especially vulnerable to Ebola, with nearly 500 having died from the virus as of January, according to the World Health Organization. “Diseases like Ebola, which we sometimes lump into the category of a new or emerging disease, may actually be much older than we realize,” Kazanjian said. His paper was published June 1 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. A number of other possible causes of Thucydides syndrome have been suggested over the years, including typhus, smallpox, measles, anthrax, bubonic plague and toxic shock syndrome. Kazanjian argued that no other disease matches the features of the Athenian disease as well as Ebola does; however, he said, “my study does not answer this question definitively.” “We may never know what caused the Athenian epidemic,” said Schaffner, who did not take part in Kazanjian’s paper. “I think it’s a bit far-fetched that the Plague of Athens was Ebola, but I think it’s great fun that new people have become engaged in what I call studious speculation of the subject.” Kazanjian added that the ancient, panic-stricken response to the plague holds lessons for the modern world. Thucydides noted that fear compounded the damage caused by the disease itself, often leading people to abandon their responsibilities to others. Fear also exacerbated the spread of the disease by causing people to crowd together, he wrote. This historical account gives perspective “to today’s observations about how fear and panic about Ebola” hamper efforts “to control the spread of the disease,” Kazanjian said. — Live Science In Photos: Remains of Epidemic Found in Ancient Egypt History’s 10 Most Overlooked Mysteries 7 Devastating Infectious Diseases


Don’t disparage healthy eating

George F. Will’s June 18 op-ed column, “Rebranding through kale,” was over the top. Why does Mr. Will feel the need to disparage consumers who choose to spend their money on healthier, better-tasting food? And why does he mock those who make the decision to purchase groceries at Whole Foods, even as the June 18 editorial “Goodbye, trans fat” acknowledged that “Americans’ unhealthy eating . . . is a public health nightmare”? When I buy food, the issue of whether the store that I patronize is a favorite of progressives or conservatives is completely irrelevant. It’s time we stop ridiculing people for making healthier food choices and realize that overconsumption of poor-quality food is one of the major contributors to the pervasive U.S. obesity crisis. Maura Vanderzon, Chevy Chase


Despite Baltimore unrest, Maryland has been adding hospitality jobs

jobs from April to May, led by about 4,400 in hospitality and about 4,500 in construction. Because the government’s jobs data lags by a month, the numbers released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are one of the earliest verdicts on whether the violent protests in Baltimore over Freddie Gray’s death while in policy custody damaged the region’s economy. “The thinking has been that the unrest in Baltimore might cost Maryland a lot of leisure and hospitality jobs at least in the near-term,” said Anirban Basu, chairman and chief executive of Sage Policy Group, an economic and policy consulting firm. “But in the May data, there wasn’t much indication of that.” At 5.3 percent, Maryland’s unemployment rate is half a percentage point lower than it was this time last year. This is slightly better than the national rate, which dropped by 0.8 percentage points to 5.5 in May. While the differences may seem minute, 12,900 new job-seekers entered the Maryland market between April and May — and the job market absorbed them without a spike in unemployment. “That tells you there was profound job creation,” Basu said. “These are pretty solid numbers for a state that has felt a disproportionate impact of sequestration, unrest in Baltimore and that is reputed to have a difficult business climate.” The unemployment rate in Virginia was 4.9 percent in May, roughly unchanged from the month before. The District posted a 7.3 percent jobless rate. Stephen S. Fuller, a George Mason University public policy expert who specializes in the D.C. area economy, says Maryland’s success seems to come from systemic population changes — not from temporary shifts such as seasonal tourism or the weather. As more young, single people with disposable income settle in suburban Maryland, the area could be poised for growth. “It’s hard to know from just one month — but certainly the negative aspects of [the Baltimore riots] seem to have moderated, and suburban Maryland has picked up some speed,” he said. “The jobs in hospitality sector are not supported by people coming to visit, they’re supported by [locals] going out to eat.” Basu said the numbers posted for May follow gains in April, when sunny skies helped drive more customers to retail outlets. “The regional economy appears to be coming back to life — I don’t think anyone predicted that Maryland’s year-over-year performance would be nearly this good,” he said.


What Metro train operator heard in tunnel: ‘Yelling, screaming, kicking and banging’

The fatal smoke calamity in a Metro tunnel Jan. 12 was exacerbated by the transit agency’s slow response to the crisis, including a critical communications breakdown and poor coordination among subway workers as they tried to help scores of riders trapped in a train filled with noxious fumes, according to documents made public Tuesday. As the National Transportation Safety Board began two days of fact-gathering public hearings, investigators questioned Metro engineers, first responders and other specialists about technical aspects of the incident, including subway electrical systems, ventilation fans and air shafts. But the most dramatic new information to emerge were first-person accounts of the crisis from transcripts of interviews with transit workers involved in the incident, which killed one rider on a Yellow Line train and sickened at least 86 others. In an interview with investigators, the operator of the train that stopped in the smoke-filled tunnel that day, just south of L’Enfant Plaza, described harrowing chaos. As he pleaded with central train controllers for permission to back out of the tunnel, he said, he was repeatedly told to “Stand by. Stand by” while screaming passengers desperate to escape were “kicking and banging” on the doors. “I was going back and forth with them, saying, ‘Central: Be advised — I got people on the train. They’re saying they can’t breathe, they’re coughing, they’re vomiting. I need to get back to the platform,’ ” James Curley said in his debriefing. But despite the smoke in the tunnel, additional train traffic in the vicinity of the L’Enfant Plaza station was not stopped, according to interview transcripts the safety board made public Tuesday. A train controller at Metro’s Rail Operations Control Center (ROCC) in Landover told investigators that she tried to halt a train behind Curley’s train, but the operator of the second train said she did not hear any such message. As a result, while Curley was asking the ROCC for clearance to return southbound Yellow Line train No. 302 to L’Enfant Plaza, the train right behind him already had pulled into the L’Enfant station, taking up most of the platform space. And because smoke from the tunnel had begun pouring into the station, the operator and passengers of the second train, No. 510, were evacuated by Metro Transit Police officers, leaving the southbound side of the station largely occupied by an empty train. ROCC employees, thinking that the operator of train


Tough questions on Iraq, and tough answers too.

Smoke rises from Tikrit, Iraq, during clashes between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in March. (Khalid Mohammed/AP) It’s time for a reality check on Iraq and the broader fight against the Islamic State. The issues were sharply laid out last Wednesday at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on U.S. policy and strategy in the Middle East when several Republican and Democratic members with military service backgrounds critically questioned Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey about the Obama administration’s approach. If you sat through the session, which went on for hours, or waded through the transcript as I did later, you got statements that began like this from six-term legislator Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), who prefaced his critical questioning of President Obama’s Iraq policy by asking, “What are we doing here since we don’t have a strategy?” Kline was employing a bumper-sticker version of Obama’s rambling answer June 8 to a reporter’s question about the administration’s response to the Islamic State’s recent takeover of Ramadi, about 68 miles west of Baghdad. Obama first described how he was waiting to share with the public the Pentagon’s new, post-Ramadi plans to train and equip additional forces in that primarily Sunni area. The president explained, “We don’t yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis, as well, about how recruitment takes place, how that training takes place. And so the details of that are not yet worked out.” Obama’s use of “complete strategy” instead of saying “tactical plans” for this training element of his existing Islamic State strategy gave his critics an opening that Kline was happy to use. That may be partisan politics. But the lawmaker is no amateur in military affairs. A retired Marine Corps colonel after a 25-year career, he had been a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, a personal military aide to Presidents Carter and Reagan, and from 1992 to 1993 commanded Marine aviation in Somalia for Operation Restore Hope, the United Nations humanitarian operations in that African country. In addition, he has a son who has served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. “My question,” Kline directed at Dempsey, “is where are we in Iraq today? Are we winning? Are we losing? Is it a stalemate? Is it a quagmire? What is Iraq today?” Dempsey, who has become more outspoken in his final months as chairman,


Takata, safety regulators slammed in hearing over deadly air-bag defect

about 34 million defective air-bag inflators in 32 million vehicles made by about a dozen of the world’s largest automakers. On Friday, an eighth death was conclusively tied to a faulty Takata air bag, which inflate with so much force that they blast out metal shards: a 26-year-old woman who rented a 2001 Honda Civic from a San Diego rental outlet, even though the car had been repeatedly recalled. Takata, one of the world’s biggest air-bag makers, was lambasted in the report issued by the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee’s Democratic minority, led by Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.). Internal company e-mails “suggest that Takata may have prioritized profit over safety by halting global safety audits for financial reasons,” the report said. The Japanese auto parts supplier, the report said, knew of quality-control gaps in manufacturing as early as 2001 and at least three incidents involving faulty air-bag parts by 2007. Yet the first and smallest recall was not launched until 2008, and Takata fiercely resisted an expanded recall that would cover millions of additional defective cars. In one 2011 e-mail exchange quoted in the report, a supervisor at a Takata plant in Mexico told a quality engineer about inflators that were not properly welded: “We cannot be faced with findings/defects of this sort and NOT do ANYTHING. . . . A part that is not welded = one life less, which shows we are not fulfilling the mission.” The engineer agreed, saying “we are in a very critical situation because of the most recent problems that we have detected on the line. . . . Situations like this can give rise to a Recall.” Nevertheless, quality-control problems continued. Displaying a jagged chunk of metal that blasted out of an air bag and bloodied a Miami driver, Nelson said: “This is deadly serious business. . . . For years, Takata did not put safety first.” Takata’s North American executive vice president, Kevin Kennedy, disputed the report’s findings, saying that the internal e-mails were misconstrued and that routine audits of product safety and quality were never paused. Asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) whether Takata would establish a victims’ compensation fund similar to the General Motors fund covering ignition-switch defects, Kennedy said that Takata would deliver an answer within two weeks. Even without the fund, the Japanese firm is facing huge financial hits. A Fiat Chrysler executive said Tuesday that the carmaker


Autopsy reportedly shows Gray suffered single ‘high-energy injury’

The Baltimore Sun has obtained a copy of Freddie Gray's autopsy report. Here's what the medical examiner says happened to Gray in a Baltimore police van after his arrest in April. Freddie Gray suffered a single “high-energy injury” — such as those seen in shallow-water diving incidents — most likely caused when the police van in which he was riding suddenly decelerated, according to a copy of the autopsy report obtained by the Baltimore Sun. The state medical examiner’s office concluded that Gray’s death fit the medical and legal definition of an accident but ruled it to be a homicide because officers failed to follow safety procedures “through acts of omission.” Although Gray was loaded into the van on his belly, the medical examiner surmised that he may have gotten to his feet and was thrown into the wall during an abrupt change in direction. He was not belted in, but his wrists and ankles were shackled, making him “at risk for an unsupported fall during acceleration or deceleration of the van.” Gray, 25, was arrested April 12 after a foot pursuit by officers in the Gilmor Homes area and suffered a severe spinal injury while in police custody. His death a week later sparked protests over police brutality and unrest in the city — including looting and rioting — that drew international attention to the case. The Baltimore state’s attorney’s office charged the six officers involved in Gray’s arrest and death. Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., the driver of the van, is charged with second-degree depraved-heart murder, while three other officers are charged with manslaughter. The remaining officers face lesser charges. Cellphone video captures the arrest of 25-year-old Freddie Gray by Baltimore police on April 12, a week before he died from a spinal cord injury while in police custody. All of the officers have pleaded not guilty, and a trial has been set for October. The autopsy report was completed April 30, the day before State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced criminal charges against the officers. The autopsy has not been made public, and the deadline for releasing evidence in the case to defense lawyers is Friday. A copy of the autopsy was obtained and verified by sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the high-profile nature of the case. Mosby’s office and the state medical examiner declined to comment. Gray tested positive for opiates and


About 29% of Americans are one emergency away from financial ruin

PERSONAL FINANCE One emergency away from ﬁnancial ruin About 1 in 4 people, or 29 percent, don’t have money set aside to cover emergencies, up from 26 percent last year, according to an annual survey from Bankrate.com. The findings pointed to the lowest saving rates seen in five years. “This is the money that helps you sleep at night,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate.com. “You know if something unplanned arises, you’ve got money squirreled away to cover it.” Many of the people who had savings didn’t have enough money to get them through a serious emergency or prolonged period of unemployment. About 20 percent of people said their savings would not last longer than three months, the amount often recommended by financial planners. At the same time, the number of people with substantial savings is falling. About 22 percent of people had enough cash to cover six months of expenses, the lowest level in five years. Many people find there’s not much money left over after they’ve paid the bills, according to a separate study by Capital One Bank. About 25 percent of people said they are struggling just to “keep up with” their mortgage, car payment and other monthly bills. One in 10 said they spend more money than they earn. — Jonnelle Marte TECHNOLOGY Facebook stepping up its facial recognition Facial recognition technology is already being used by big tech companies and the government. But Facebook is working on an experimental algorithm that doesn’t even need a good shot of your face to pick you out in photos. Human eyes can often easily pick out a person they know based on characteristics other than their faces — their hairstyle, clothing, body type and pose. “There are a lot of cues we use. People have characteristic aspects, even if you look at them from the back,” Yann LeCun, head of Facebook’s artificial intelligence lab, told New Scientist. “For example, you can recognize Mark Zuckerberg very easily, because he always wears a gray T-shirt.” Facebook’s research is trying to teach computers how to pick up on those same characteristics to identify people in pictures when they don’t have a clear view of a person’s face. The researchers took more than 37,000 public images from Flickr — some with faces visible, others without — and tried to tell apart the nearly 2,400 people in them, according to a