Federal agency orders new safety steps after Metro’s handling of Thursday fire

a third-rail insulator exploded Thursday morning, significantly damaging the track and spraying “fiery metal and ceramic projectiles” onto the station platform. According to the FTA, the operations supervisor on duty conducted only a “cursory inspection before ordering the damaged track back into service.” The dramatic explosion was captured on video. Metro personnel wheel a shopping cart full of new insulators into the Federal Center SW station. The station was shut down overnight Thursday so the insulators could be replaced following two fires. (Faiz Siddiqui/The Washington Post) The FTA specifically faulted controllers in Metro’s often-criticized Rail Operations Control Center (ROCC) for rejecting requests from both maintenance personnel and inspectors to shut down power along the track so it could be inspected after the fire. The controllers cut the power only after a second smoke event in the same station later that day. In the meantime, the FTA said, passenger trains “continued to operate across this potentially dangerous track without interruption.” The second incident was caused by debris cluttered around the electrified third rail. The smoke prompted the evacuation of the Federal Center SW station and the suspension of service on portions of three lines. The FTA said the directive shows that Metro needs to take more far-reaching actions than those announced Friday, when Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld unveiled a major, year-long rebuilding plan that will require stretches of some rail lines to be closed for days. Both the FTA and its parent agency, the Transportation Department, were surprisingly mum Friday when the new rebuilding plan, billed mainly as a safety effort, was unveiled. On Saturday, an FTA spokesman said the Metro plan “is an important piece of the puzzle, but . . . it does not fully tackle many of the serious safety issues facing the system.” Metro responded with a one-sentence statement saying Wiedefeld “met with FTA this morning and is committed to implementing the new directives.” A Metro spokesman said Wiedefeld would have no further comment until he had more time to study the FTA directive. But Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans voiced frustration with the FTA for second-guessing Metro when, in his view, the transit agency’s recently installed leadership was already pushing ahead aggressively on safety. “After the fact, everybody tries to pile on: ‘You’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that,’ ” said Evans, who also is a D.C. Council member. “We’re doing


A guide to help new graduates ace their job interviews

season, my pick this month for the Color of Money Book Club is “Private Notes of a Headhunter: Proven Job Search and Interviewing Techniques for College Students & Recent Grads” by Kenneth A. Heinzel, a retired professor, entrepreneur and headhunter. You can find the paperback online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble for $9.95. After a decade of recruiting as a headhunter hiring about 2,000 people, Heinzel describes the practical but also the psychological aspects of job interviewing. “In the final analysis, a job search is also a search for yourself,” he writes. “It requires not only a sure knowledge of the territory, but also knowledge of who you are and what you really want in life.” Let’s start with job-search fundamentals. The goal is to “know yourself as best you can, from your strengths and weaknesses to your overall outlook on life,” Heinzel says. The book aptly covers the basics — the do’s and don’t’s for your résumé, what makes for a good cover letter, and the importance of networking. But it’s the probing of who you are, what you want and how to sell yourself that I think will be especially helpful to young adults. Here are four basic questions Heinzel says are asked in some form during a job interview, and how to prepare for them: -- Who are you? Rehearse your two-minute bio. It’s your highlight reel. -- Why are you here? If you’ve just graduated with little work experience, pull from your history of internships, leadership positions and activities while in college. -- What can you do for me? “Yes, there is always something personal in it for the interviewer/hiring manager,” Heinzel says. “When you consider that approximately 20 percent of all new hires don’t make it past the first year for whatever reason, you can see why things can get real personal for the hiring manager -- your success or failure will reflect on them.” -- Why should I hire you? Boldly make a case for why this job is yours, Heinzel writes. “This is where you must concentrate on translating your strengths into benefits to the company that specifically relate to helping them make, raise and/or save money.” Do you wonder or worry what interviewers think during the hiring process? Heinzel has an appendix that’s a cheat sheet for managers. He encourages applicants to use it to prepare. You put yourself in a


Afghanistan hangs 6 Taliban inmates in face of increasing violence

One of the six nooses prepared for men sentenced to death at a prison in Kabul. (Massoud Hossaini/AP) KABUL — The inmates were hanged in the morning inside Pul-i-Charki prison — a detention facility on the outskirts of Kabul that was the site of mass executions by the country’s then-communist regime during the 1980s. Among those hanged were two Taliban members involved in the assassinations of two senior government officials in recent years, officials said. One prisoner facilitated a 2011 suicide attack on Burhanuddin Rabbani, who served as the country’s temporary president after U.S. forces helped topple the Taliban government 10 years earlier. The second Taliban member was involved in the 2009 assassination of Abdullah Laghmani, the deputy chief of the Afghan National Directorate of Security. Ghani administration officials released photos of the six men but did not provide details about the four other prisoners. Pul-i-Charki prison is where Anas Haqqani — son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, founder of the Haqqani network — has been held since 2014. Haqqani, whose family’s network has gained increasing influence within the Taliban, was not among those who Afghan officials said were executed. The six hanged were found guilty of crimes against “civilian national security,” officials said, adding that Ghani signed the order of execution in response to “repeated demands of the families of victims of terrorist attacks.” The executions come amid increasing security concerns. Taliban forces have vowed widespread attacks on the heels of a robust spring poppy harvest — a main source of income for the insurgent group through the heroin black market. Government officials had stopped executing imprisoned insurgents during President Hamid Karzai’s administration, in the hope that the Taliban would enter into peace negotiations. But in the wake of a suicide bombing in Kabul last month that killed 64 people and wounded about 350, Ghani said he is no longer interested in negotiating with Taliban leaders. The Taliban responded to the hangings with a cold threat of more violence. “For taking our revenge on the enemy, we have thousands of equipped suicide bombers,” said Zabiullah Mujahid, the group’s spokesman. On the day after two Romanian soldiers were killed in an apparent insider attack in the south while training Afghan security forces, news of the hangings drew praise in Kabul. “Justice and security are tied together,” said Jawed Kohistani, a retired Afghan general who works as a political analyst. “The Taliban and


Baltimore Symphony Orchestra debuts two works from two ‘uncommon’ women

and composers are almost there. But for now, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director Marin Alsop likes to give things an overt push every so often, so Saturday’s concert at Strathmore (“A Celebration of Uncommon Women”) featured world premieres by Joan Tower and Anna Clyne, along with the BSO debut of a sparkling violin talent, Alexandra Soumm. Tower’s piece is the sixth of a series titled “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” a trope on the famous Copland number. The initial fanfare was, like its model, a little curtain-raiser for brass and percussion. Subsequent efforts grew longer and included the full orchestra, and this sixth one is not really a “fanfare” at all, but basically a short, fully worked-out overture. It is an attractive work in the bustling American style of Michael Torke or John Adams (chugging, repeated notes as a unifying element), but with rapid shifts in texture. Tower is in many ways a worthy heir to Copland, and I am certain her work will someday be as firmly entrenched in the repertoire. Clyne is from a much younger generation, but her music seems less of a time or place. In some spots, it reminds you of Benjamin Britten, but in others, Arvo Part. Her basic technique of juxtaposing either static or busily repetitive elements against proper thematic material leads the ear along effectively. “Abstractions,” a suite based on five contemporary paintings in the Baltimore Museum of Art, veers between controlled chaos (rapid figurations in the strings cascading over one another frantically) and icy stillness (the first section, “Marble Moon,” has a single pedal point in the double basses throughout). The swooping arpeggios of the closing section, “Three,” give the work a giddy, exhilarating send-off. Soumm, a French artist in her 20s, is a firecracker onstage. In Lalo’s “Symphonie espagnole,” Op. 21, she personified the sexiness of the third and fourth movements and tore through the Rondo like a hurricane. As a performer, she is everything an audience could wish for. As a fiddler, though, to reach the top, she will need to cultivate a much wider range of tone color, particularly in slow, lyrical sections; the sound was too often dry or pinched. The concert concluded with a suite from “Carmen,” featuring very fine solos from the BSO’s concertmaster, principal trumpeter and principal flutist, and rather ragged playing from the rest of the group, probably getting short shrift in rehearsal.


Trinidad’s Olympic-caliber runners race toward one goal but on two tracks

Trinidad and Tobago’s Jehue Gordon, left, races the Dominican Republic's Felix Sanchez during the semifinals of the 400-meter hurdles at the 2012 London Olympics. (David Gray/Reuters) PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — Trinidad and Tobago, a twin island nation of 1.3 million people off the coast of Venezuela, is known more for high-intensity soca music and blowout Carnivals. But it is slowly building its Olympic presence through elite athletes such as Gordon, a 400-meter hurdler. Of the country’s 18 Olympic medals since 1948, 14 are in track, including six in the past two Summer Games. In London four years ago, the men’s team became the first in 20 years to medal in both the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. Ato Boldon, NBC’s lead track analyst and a four-time Olympic medalist for Trinidad and Tobago, predicted his country will win at least four medals, in the 400 hurdles, 4x400 men’s relay, women’s 4x100 relay and women’s 100. ESPN track analyst Larry Rawson tempered Boldon’s assessment, judging that only the men’s 4x400 relay seems certain. “They have a terrific chance to challenge the U.S. for gold,” Rawson said. He noted, however, that Trinidad and Tobago lacks the team depth of Jamaica and the United States. “Everyone will need to stay healthy. When you are a country the size of Trinidad, the margin of error is slimmer.” Trinidad and Tobago — or T&T, as the natives call it — has excelled despite a disparate training system. Some elite athletes stay home to train in family-oriented youth programs, while others go to the United States on track scholarships to compete at the NCAA level. Runners on the men’s relay team, for example, train separately across three time zones from New Mexico to Florida but mesh at competition time. This summer's international Olympians will be decked out in everything from patriotic boat shoes and candy pinstripe to "Zika-proof" clothing. Here's a look at the fashion statements a few countries will make in Rio. T&T’s nucleus of elite track and field athletes includes approximately 20 men and women and ranges in age from emerging 100 star Khalifa St. Fort, 18, to 33-year-old veteran Marc Burns, who won medals with the 4x100 relay teams in Beijing and London, and includes a handful with potential to see the podium in Rio. Michelle-Lee Ahye should qualify in July’s Olympic trials in the 100, 200 and 4x100 relay. Ahye, like


National digest: E-cigarettes making more children sick

have norovirus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 27 percent of the passengers aboard the Balmoral, operated by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, have gotten sick since the cruise began April 16. The CDC reported that 252 of the 919 passengers on the Balmoral have fallen ill, as well as eight members of the 502-member crew. Symptoms of norovirus include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The CDC said the ship has increased its cleaning and disinfection procedures. Two CDC health officers and an epidemiologist boarded the ship during its stop in Baltimore, last week. Mayor Ethan Strimling told the Portland Press Herald that he learned about the outbreak just before boarding the ship for a tour on Sunday morning. “I could see there were people wiping things down constantly,” he said. “We got onto the elevators and they wiped the elevators down.” The Balmoral set out from Southampton, England, on April 16 and is due to return May 20. Fred Olsen Cruise Lines did not immediately return a request for comment. — Associated Press California Student wearing hijab misidentified as “Isis” A California student was embarrassed and distressed after a picture of her wearing an Islamic headscarf, or hijab, appeared in her high school yearbook with the false name “Isis Phillips,” a Muslim advocacy group said Sunday. The senior at Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga and her parents were “embarrassed after seeing the picture in the yearbook and have suffered a great deal of emotional and psychological distress,” according to an emailed statement by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. The school’s principal has apologized for what she described as a “misprint,” and CAIR said its legal team would meet on Monday with the family and school officials and seek an investigation of the incident, a spokesman told Reuters. ISIS is one way to refer to the Islamic State, the militant group that has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria and claimed responsibility for bombings in Europe. The United Nations defines the Islamic State as a terrorist group. A student who worked on the yearbook said the printing of the wrong name was a mistake and that a student named Isis Phillips had transferred from the school earlier in the year, according to a report in the New York Daily News. — Reuters Man charged with killing three: Tenn. girl still missing: — From news services


U.S. maternal death rate is spiking. Here’s what’s being done to change that.

Typical causes of maternal death include hemorrhage, infection, hypertensive disorders and obstructions in labor. (iStock) The relatively high percentage of American women who die as a result of pregnancy, which exceeds that of other developed nations, is prompting a new national prevention campaign that relies on the states to take a leading role in preventing such deaths. The effort encourages states to go beyond the information provided on a typical death certificate by having mortality review panels investigate the causes behind every maternal death that occurs during pregnancy or in the year after delivery. The hope is that the investigations will reveal causes for at least some of the deaths and lead to preventive measures to save the lives of more women. A number of studies suggest that a third of deaths related to pregnancy are potentially preventable. “It’s hard to do anything about a problem if you don’t have the problem fully defined,” said Cynthia Shellhaas, an associate professor in the division of maternal-fetal medicine at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center who supports the campaign. The effort is led by the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP), an advocacy group, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They want every state that doesn’t have one to create a maternal mortality panel of medical and forensic experts. They want the panels to collect as much information as possible related to every maternal death, including matters related to prenatal care, other health conditions, use of medications, drug and alcohol abuse, violence and previous medical procedures. They also are encouraging states to standardize the data they collect. And they will provide a digital application to help them collect it, to make it easier to analyze the data for possible trends and remedies. About half the states — including Maryland and Virginia — have such panels, although each devises its own ways of classifying information and determining which cases to investigate. For example, some look at any woman’s death up to 42 days after a pregnancy. Others examine any death up to a year after delivery. Lower rates in other nations In the United States, there are 18.5 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which tracks mortality trends worldwide. The CDC says that about 700 maternal deaths occur in the United States every


OP-ED: How shortcuts are short-circuiting American entrepreneurship

of Americans do not have enough cash to pay off all their debts—and Lendstreet offers an innovative private sector solution. When Jerry started raising money, he wasn’t successful. In his words, “When it comes to pattern recognition, as a black guy, in central Virginia, solving a problem for poor people, I was 0 for 3!” The good news: by focusing on leveling the playing field for founders, we can create different results. I run a firm, Village Capital, who trains and invests in startups solving real-world problems. We have backed 60 companies over the past 7 years: 80 percent from outside the “big 3” states; 40 percent women founders; 20 percent people of color. Our founders are building private-sector solutions to the country’s biggest problems: from global inequalities in education and health toenvironmental concerns such as food, energy, and water. Jerry graduated our program in 2014, where he gained the network he needed to succeed. He got a boost from two of our partners: Silicon Valley firm Kapor Capital, which intentionally invests in under-represented founders, and the Financial Solutions Lab, which supports startups addressing problems facing low-income Americans in financial services. LendStreet now has a $37 million line of credit and they are helping hundreds of Americans break free of debt—reinventing what their future might be. Jerry’s story should not be an outlier. Entrepreneurs across America are building businesses reduce the cost of food production, improving health outcomes, and more. Many of these founders have a deep but mostly untapped understanding of consumer needs—for example, African-Americans or Latinos building education startups in a country where 60 percent of students in public schools are people of color, or people from Kentucky or Indiana, instead of New York or Silicon Valley, providing the next great innovation in agriculture. Founders closer to the problem better understand the solution; investing in founders who have deeper insights will deliver better long-term returns. To truly change the world, investors need to prioritize long-term value creation over short- term value capture. This might take more perseverance than the startup community is used to. AOL co-founder Steve Case writes in his new book, “The Third Wave,” the sectors that truly matter to society—such as energy, agriculture, education and health—haven’t been disrupted yet precisely because they take so much patience. Entrepreneurs and investors who are willing to think inter-generationally will build the next billion-dollar companies—and generate greater rewards for


Young science lovers needed for BioBlitz

An Eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly at Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens in the District. Kenilworth is one of the event sites for the National Park Service’s BioBlitz. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) Attention, budding biologists: Do you like creepy-crawlies, bees and birds? Then BioBlitz 2016 is for you. The National Park Service is celebrating its 100th birthday with hundreds of BioBlitzes across the country. Kids who live in the Washington, D.C., area can find several of them is in their back yard. On May 20 and 21, scientists, students and other volunteers will fan out across 17 sites in Maryland, the District and Northern Virginia. Their goal: to discover and document the living things found there. Activities include birding on Theodore Roosevelt Island and a bat count at Constitution Gardens on the Mall in Washington. You can search for insects at Catoctin Mountain in Maryland and reptiles in Prince William Forest Park in Virginia. Experts will be along to explain what you find and why it’s important in nature. Other parks — including Yosemite National Park in California and Fort Caroline National Memorial in Jacksonville, Florida — are also participating, Go to www.nps.gov/subjects/biodiversity/national-parks-bioblitz.htm to find a park near you. There are dozens of free events in the D.C. area, most of them open to age 8 and older. But you must register online. To do that, have a parent go to education.nationalgeographic.org/projects/bio blitz/washington-dc-2016 and click on one of the sites. The deadline to register is May 19. A Southern leopard frog keeps cool in the marshy ponds at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) The two-day blitz, co-hosted by the National Geographic Society, includes a free Biodiversity Festival on the Mall with hands-on science exhibits, art, food and entertainment. Festival hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a special program called “Bugs, Bats and Brew” from 7 to 10 p.m. on May 20. — Marylou Tousignant


Fairfax man known as ‘NoVa Creeper’ arrested on child porn charges, authorities say

On Twitter, he went by the name NoVa Creeper, police say. The bulk of his posts list inappropriate comments underneath up-close shots of women’s butts in tight jeans or yoga pants doing ordinary things like shopping for vegetables at a grocery store, waiting in line at a checkout or walking at malls. Authorities this week said they arrested the man known as the NoVa Creeper, charging Matthew P. Bishop, 37, of Chantilly with 10 counts of possession of child pornography. According to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, he also faces possible additional charges in Loudoun and Fairfax counties. Bishop’s arrest stems from an undercover operation by the sex crimes unit at the sheriff’s office that started last year. Authorities said they came across Bishop’s account and found him sending direct messages showing child pornography on social media accounts to another person. They did not reveal who he was sending the direct messages to. Bishop also used the app Kik, a popular mobile messaging app, they said. Matthew Bishop of Chantilly was charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography. Authorities say he also posted online as the “NoVa Creeper.” (Courtesy of Loudoun County Sheriff's Office) Officials at the sheriff’s office said undercover detectives communicated with Bishop and that led them to obtain search warrants for his home in Fairfax County in April where a “number of items were taken.” Bishop was then charged with child pornography. Bishop, officials said, was released on a secured bond of $10,000. Online, Bishop also used the Twitter handle volleyballperv, they said. On one of his Twitter accounts he had comments under photos of women’s butts. One reads “older woman in the freezer section” and shows a photo of a woman dressed in black, talking on her phone and shopping at a grocery store. In some posts, he identifies where the photos were taken, listing an Old Navy, a Whole Foods, a deli counter, a Walmart, a Chick-fil-A restaurant and a Petco. Other posts say they were taken at a charity event, a playground and a community pool. “Not really Creeper but some [women] from my neighborhood,” he wrote, using a derogatory term for an attractive mother, in a posting of three women at a pool, one of whom is in the water with a young boy. While the photos showing women and making comments on their body parts may be inappropriate, officials said


Uber to start guild for drivers in New York City

Cream Dean Foods, the largest U.S. dairy processor, agreed to buy the manufacturing and retail operations of Friendly’s Ice Cream for $155 million to add another consumer brand and help build its business beyond commodity fresh milk. The deal includes the Friendly’s trademark and the firm’s intellectual property, Dallas-based Dean said late Monday in a statement. The company will retain the senior management team of Friendly’s. The deal does not include the Friendly’s chain of more than 260 restaurants; those will still be owned and operated by an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, which will license the trademark from Dean. — Bloomberg News Also in Business ● U.S. wholesale businesses increased their stockpiles and reported higher sales in March for the first time since September, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Inventories held by wholesalers rose 0.1 percent in March from February. Sales rose 0.7 percent, the biggest monthly increase since April 2015. Rising oil prices helped snap the losing streak. Petroleum sales shot up 13.5 percent; petroleum inventories rose 3.3 percent. ● Kroger is holding a nationwide hiring event to fill 14,000 jobs across all its supermarket chains, including Ralphs, Fred Meyer and Food 4 Less. Job seekers can apply online at jobs.kroger.com and show up at a store Saturday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. for an interview. Many of the openings are for part-time associates who bag groceries, stock shelves or run cash registers. Kroger says the jobs are permanent. ● JPMorgan Chase won approval to pay $150 million to settle investor claims that it hid as much as $6.2 billion in losses caused by a trader dubbed the “London Whale.” U.S. District Judge George Daniels in New York on Tuesday accepted the accord, which ended a suit brought by a group of pension funds in 2012. They accused JPMorgan of turning a London-based office into a “secret hedge fund” that caused the losses. ● General Electric is closing a Pittsburgh-area plant that makes solar power equipment and says 250 of 380 workers there will lose their jobs. GE plans to close the plant in Blawnox, Pa., by year’s end, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette first reported Tuesday. Severance packages and other benefits, including help finding new jobs, will be spelled out in the next week, said Tim Waldee, GE’s site leader at the plant. The 130 other workers at the plant will keep jobs as contractors for the U.S.


Local Digest: D.C. man charged in slaying; Arlington has new fire chief

THE DISTRICT Man is charged in fatal shooting D.C. police have arrested a 21-year-old man in a fatal shooting last month in the Deanwood neighborhood of Northeast Washington, authorities said Tuesday. Anthony Blackmone of Southeast Washington was charged with first-degree murder. Police said members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Blackmone on Monday. He is accused of fatally shooting Nuru Frenche, 23, of Brandywine, Md., about 10:30 p.m. April 23 in the 4900 block of Just Street NE. Police said Frenche died at a hospital the next day. — Peter Hermann 23-year-old arrested on warrant in slaying A District man was arrested Tuesday in a fatal stabbing that occurred April 23 in Northwest Washington, D.C. police said. Francisco Daniel Ayala, 23, of Northwest Washington was arrested on a warrant in the death of Dimas Fuentes-Lazo, 23, also of Northwest Washington. Fuentes-Lazo was stabbed in the 800 block of Kennedy Street NW, police said. — Martin Weil Victim shot during attempted robbery A man was shot Monday morning in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Northwest Washington during an attempted robbery, and a suspect was arrested, D.C. police said. During the incident, which occurred about 11:30 a.m. in the 100 block of V Street NW, the victim grabbed the robber’s gun, police said. The gun discharged and the victim was hit, police said. His condition was not available. Police said that witnesses held the suspect and that an arrest was made on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon. — Martin Weil VIRGINIA Arlington has a new fire chief Arlington County promoted its acting assistant chief, James Bonzano, to fire chief last week after a national search. Bonzano, who joined the Arlington department in 1984, began his new job Sunday. Bonzano has led and served in nearly every section of the fire agency, county officials said. The previous fire chief, James Schwartz, was named deputy county manager in September. A native of Arlington, Bonzano received his bachelor’s degree from Old Dominion University and his master’s degree in organizational leadership and innovation from Marymount University. — Patricia Sullivan ‘NoVa Creeper’ faces child-porn charges On Twitter, he went by the name NoVa Creeper, police say. Most of his posts list inappropriate comments on up-close shots of women’s buttocks in yoga pants while doing ordinary things such as shopping at a grocery store or walking at malls. Authorities this week said they


The growing stress on the world’s water

A farmer carrying a hoe walks past a dried-up pond in Shilin Yi Autonomous County of Kunming, Yunnan province February 28, 2013. (STRINGER/CHINA/REUTERS) THE WORLD Bank has warned countries that one of climate change’s most significant impacts will be on a precious resource that many people, particularly in advanced nations, take for granted: water. The concerns go far beyond sea-level rise, which is perhaps the most predictable result of the planet’s increasing temperature, or an uptick in extreme weather. Countries must worry about whether their people will have enough fresh water to farm, produce electricity, bathe and drink. Global warming will not change the amount of water in the world, but it will affect water’s distribution across countries, making some much worse off. The World Bank calculates that water strain from population growth and climate change could reduce growth in some major economies by an astonishing 6 percent by 2050. That would push some countries into “sustained negative growth,” which would mean prolonged suffering for millions of people. The countries most responsible for climate change are not most at risk; instead, a belt of nations from Africa through the Middle East to central and east Asia are in most danger, the World Bank concluded. And within those relatively poor countries, water stresses “are felt disproportionately by the poor, who are more likely to rely on rain-fed agriculture to feed their families, live on the most marginal lands which are more prone to floods, and are most at risk from contaminated water and inadequate sanitation.” About 4 billion people already live in areas suffering from water stress. By 2030, “the world may face a shortfall in water availability of approximately 2,700 billion cubic meters,” the bank reports, “with demand exceeding current sustainable water supplies by 40 percent.” Though the bank tamps down speculation that countries will fight with one another for water, it warns that water scarcity could encourage other sorts of conflict and dislocation, such as civil wars. The first order of business is to limit the amount of warming humans will induce. That means slashing the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for driving up global temperatures. The world has started down this path, but the effectiveness of the global climate effort likely depends, in the first instance, on the results of this year’s presidential election. And limiting emissions will not be enough. Warming is happening, areas of the world are


Metro’s dangerous complacency

Footage from a security camera at the Federal Center SW Metro station captured a fire that happened on the tracks. The fire was caused by an arcing insulator. A YEAR ago, as federal investigators tried to unravel the smoke incident in a Metro subway tunnel that killed one passenger and sickened dozens of others, it emerged that the transit agency’s Rail Operations Control Center was riddled with problems ranging from inadequate training to antiquated computer software. Now comes word that the same control center, based in Landover, failed to notice or take timely action Thursday after a fire and an explosion — yes, an explosion — on the tracks at the Federal Center SW station. Despite the fact that the fiery blast propelled metal and ceramic shrapnel onto the tracks and platform about two seconds after a train had left the station, Metro personnel at Federal Center SW shrugged off the incident and the control center did nothing for hours, even after inspectors requested a power shutdown so they could examine the damage. For passengers wondering what it means that Metro’s “safety culture” is in tatters, last week’s incident at Federal Center SW is illustrative. It is also proof that the National Transportation Safety Board was not exaggerating when it criticized Metro last week for not having learned lessons from past accidents, including fatal ones. One question is whether Metro has replaced the software at the control center, which until recently generated such an incessant stream of alarms about smoke and other incidents that subway controllers simply tuned them out. We asked Metro; no answer yet. Another question is whether Metro has initiated disciplinary action as a result of recent serious mishaps, including the sluggish response at Federal Center SW. According to Paul J. Wiedefeld, Metro’s general manager, neither the operations supervisor at the station nor control center personnel were at first aware of the extent of the explosion or the resulting hazard and assumed it was nothing more than a routine (for Metro) mishap. That’s astonishing. How could the supervisor on the scene have failed to detect the aftermath of an explosion that left shrapnel on the tracks and platform, or shrugged off the event? That lapse enabled trains with passengers to continue traveling over the tracks for hours, until a second smoke event — evidently caused by debris from the morning’s explosion — finally prompted the control center


A common pesticide may be a menace to pollinators. Know how to protect them.

Be the guardian of your garden. (Gaby D'Alessandro/for The Washington Post) Many homeowners want to throw a lifeline to beleaguered bees and butterflies by planting pollinator gardens that will provide sustenance and habitat, but the unwitting use of insecticides may lure these beloved insects to their doom. The worry is that a common type of pesticide known as neonicotinoids, or neonics, will poison honeybees, bumblebees, monarch butterflies — all the species of insects that we want in our gardens. For a decade, neonics have dominated a frustrating quest to find a cause for the loss of commercial beehives in agriculture, but the issue has also moved into the garden, particularly with new legislation in Maryland. If the Pollinator Protection Act is signed into law by Gov. Larry Hogan this month, consumers will not be able to buy neonic insecticides after 2017. Farmers and licensed applicators could still use them. The pesticide industry says neonics are safe, that honeybees are doing all right and that the law “inexplicably blames homeowners for the nonexistent decline in bees.” But those who want to see broader restrictions for neonics in the United States are buoyed by it. Hogan has yet to announce whether he will sign the bill. “It’s important that Maryland be the leader and show the rest of the United States these are really harmful compounds and we need to limit their use,” said April Boulton, associate professor of biology at Hood College in Frederick. She was among scientists testifying for the bill earlier this year. (The Washington Post) Neonics control some of the most common and persistent garden pests, including thrips, adelgids, borers, scale insects and Japanese beetles, but they also kill or harm beneficial insects, as well as aquatic life if they enter bodies of water. Within a treated plant, the compounds also find their way to pollen and nectar, the treats that flowers give pollinators for their service. One of the major concerns is that homeowners, as opposed to farmers or professional landscapers, are the least likely to know what’s in a pesticide product and correctly follow the label’s directions. “Instead of putting in a capful in a bucket of water, the homeowner will pour in half the bottle or the whole bottle,” with highly toxic results, Boulton said. But Boulton and many other scientists say that even at correct doses, the compounds can harm desirable organisms, even if


Suspect arrested in fatal stabbing on Kennedy Street NW

A suspect was arrested Tuesday in a fatal stabbing that occurred April 23 in Northwest Washington, the D.C. police said. They said Francisco Daniel Ayala, 23, of Northwest, was arrested on a warrant in connection with the death of Dimas Fuentes-Lazo, 23, of Northwest. Fuentes-Lazo was stabbed in the 800 block of Kennedy Street NW, police said.


Two Amys review: A Neapolitan model rests on its laurels

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 24: A pizza comes out of the wood burning stove at 2 Amys, a Neapolitan pizzeria in Northwest, DC. (Photo by Dayna Smith/For the Washington Post) (Dayna Smith/For the Washington Post) A Neapolitan pizza comes out of the wood-burning stove at 2 Amys in Washington. (Dayna Smith/For The Washington Post) The following review appears in The Washington Post’s 2016 Spring Dining Guide. Strolling into this Neapolitan subscriber after too much time away, I’m struck by how familiar it all seems: the spare yellow dining room crowded with families, the wood bar with its tall tables and hanging meats, the frantic ding! ding! ding! of a kitchen bell alerting servers to a ready-and-waiting pizza. The crusts are as I remember them: thin, crisp, nicely charred in spots — bread you could eat on its own. But a topping of pale crumbled sausage, ramps and artichokes was vague enough for us to request anchovies for reinforcement. A menu category called “Little Things” still yields contentments, including salt cod croquettes, big as golf balls and best eaten with a spritz of lemon. But a bunch of rapini awash in vincotto, or “cooked wine,” made for a sadly sweet salad. Better: smoky swordfish belly arranged in ribbons over a minted green sauce, one of the many small plates on the specials list. “Save room for dessert,” urges our bartender, an amazing juggler of beers, wines, cocktails — and recommendations — in the back room. Strawberry shortcake lets us follow some misses with a hit. Ultimately, Two Amys feels like the good old days more than it tastes like them. Previous: 2 stars →3715 Macomb St. NW. 202-885-5700. 2amysdc.com. Open: Lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday, dinner Monday. Prices: Pizzas $9 to $15. Sound check: 90 decibels / Extremely loud. Previously (2009): 2.5 stars


Osteria Morini review: Elevated eating on the water

WASHINGTON, DC-February 14: The cornish hen entree is prepared in the kitchen at Osteria Morini in SE Washington, DC. (Photo by Scott Suchman/For the Washington Post) (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) The cornish hen entree is prepared in the kitchen at Osteria Morini in Washington. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) The following review appears in The Washington Post’s 2016 Spring Dining Guide. Osteria Morini was a pioneer when it settled along the Capitol Riverfront two years ago, and the New York import continues to chart an admirable course, now delivering one of the most satisfying Italian scores in the city. The first nicety you notice is a view of the Anacostia from the glass-walled dining room. The second observation, if you order pasta, and you should, is how adept the kitchen is at rolling out noodles, then not cooking them too long. Bucatini with creamy sea urchin, sweet crab and a hit of heat puts me in a three-star frame of mind. Diverting scenery and distinctive cooking are a rare package deal, but that’s what you get within this cozy environment, simply dressed with wood floors and yellow columns. Faultless? Not quite: Here’s the uncommon menu where appetizers take a back seat to main courses. At lunch, I gravitate to one of the very good panini, perhaps grilled chicken sausage bundled with smoked mozzarella and bright arugula pesto; at dinner, I’m partial to tender veal breast flattered with celery leaves and fava beans. Inevitably, I save space for something eye-catching from pastry chef Alex Levin. His lemony ricotta cheesecake with vanilla-poached rhubarb and mocha mousse decked out with cappuccino chip gelato are art worthy of frames. Previous: 2.5 stars →301 Water St. SE. 202-484-0660. osteriamorini.com. Open: Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday and Sunday. Prices: Lunch entrees $14 to $23 or prix fixe $25 and $29; dinner $19 to $31; brunch $14 to $23. Sound check: 74 decibels / Must speak with raised voice. Previously (2014): 2 stars


Mandu review: It’s better in the ’burbs

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 24: The restaurant Mandu serves traditional Korean cuisine like Dolsot Bibim Bap, rice served in hot stone bowl with vegetables and egg. (Photo by Dayna Smith/For the Washington Post) (Dayna Smith/For the Washington Post) Dolsot bibimbap at Mandu in Washington. (Dayna Smith/For the Washington Post) SATISFACTORY/GOOD The following review appears in The Washington Post’s 2016 Spring Dining Guide. The problem with Mandu in Dupont Circle is a pack of superior Korean restaurants in the suburbs. Diners who have experienced the flurry of gratis side dishes at, say, Kogiya in Annandale will be disappointed with the routine banchan at Mandu. And the heat at Mandu seems tamer than at the competition, too. If it’s not best-in-class, this decade-old, family-run restaurant nevertheless serves as a dependable source for steamed dumplings swollen with shredded cabbage, carrots and onions (mandu) and rice topped with squiggles of beef, bean sprouts and a fried egg, a.k.a. bibimbap and best ordered in a hot stone bowl that crisps the rice. Chap-chae — glassy sweet potato noodles tossed with meat and vegetables — errs on the side of sweetness. Gaeran jim — fluffy egg custard punched up with diced pork belly and fried garlic — keeps me interested. Where to sit? Upstairs is roomier, and easier on the eyes, than the plain ground floor. Better yet, head to the younger Mandu in Mount Vernon Triangle, detailed with wooden duck carvings and a notch more daring with its menu. Previous: 1.5 stars →1805 18th St. NW. 202-588-1540. mandudc.com. Open: Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Saturday and Sunday. Prices: Lunch entrees $15 to $29 or prix fixe $14; dinner entrees $15 to $29; brunch platter $15. Sound check: 74 decibels / Must speak with raised voice. Previously (2007): 1.5 stars


Fiola review: Glamorous and delicious Italian cooking

chef’s chic wife, and you, too, may tell the waiter “I’ll have what she’s having”; the “Maria menu” is a low-calorie, three-course menu that serves as an antidote to the restaurant’s extreme richness. Light turns out to be lovely. A cubed watermelon salad that could pass for art and olive oil-poached cod brightened with squash blossoms are followed by a celestial mango foam decked out with shards of lime-flecked meringue and glinting champagne granita. If you wish to throw caution to the wind, however, the kitchen is happy to accommodate you, with dishes including tortellini stuffed with osso buco and capped with rich duck prosciutto. The sting of the typical bill is mitigated by gratis warm cornmeal cookies laced with pine nuts and rum-steeped currants. All of which is why I give Fiola an “F,” for fabulous. Previous: 3 1/2 stars Fiola: 601 Pennsylvania Ave. 202-628-2888. fioladc.com . Prices: Sound check: -- The following review appeared in The Washington Post’s 2016 Spring Dining Guide. EXCELLENT/SUPERLATIVE Chef Fabio Trabocchi’s biggest competitor is himself. When it comes to haute Italian cooking in Washington, there’s Fiola Mare in Georgetown and his original Fiola in Penn Quarter. For a few years now, I’ve been talking up the former. But guess what? Senior is out-cooking junior right now, the evidence arriving with a treat from the kitchen that’s as much architecture as “benvenuto”: a candle-lit tower supporting a delicate cup of warm prosecco zabaglione and gingery oysters, the richness of the frothy custard cut with lemon zest. There’s no more arresting seafood carpaccio in the city than Fiola’s pink brick of Himalayan salt carpeted with sliced Maine scallops, pansies and a smear of ramp pesto. And I can’t stop dreaming about winey osso buco tucked into tender tortellini and garnished, grandly, with glazed sweetbreads. Or a sunny duck egg atop a forest of buttery mushrooms staged in a copper pan. Or, for that matter, the prettiest spring dessert now playing, the pink-and-green strawberry-pistachio-rhubarb torte created by pastry chef Brandon Malzahn, whose satiny chocolate-caramel bar and tuile-bound tiramisu are equally exquisite. This is not Italian food you could eat every day. The unrelenting decadence begs for levity. (Besides the richness, it’s probably not so healthy for a 99 percenter’s budget.) But for the duration of your stay, attended to as if you’re royalty in a room as chic as Milan, Fiola is ecstasy in the capital.


2016 Spring Dining Guide

UP GOAT (2.5 stars) 1827 Adams Mill Rd. NW. 202-986-9600. tailupgoat.com. Open: Dinner Tuesday through Sunday. Prices: Entrees $18 to $27. Seaweed sourdough with pickled fennel at Tail Up Goat. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) Behind the quirky name are three 30-somethings who have either cooked or served at two of the best dining experiences in town, Little Serow and Komi. No surprise, then, that they’re packing in scenesters with similar good cheer and food that pushes boundaries, but also all the right buttons. The house-baked breads include a chocolate-rye that gets topped with salt-crusted sardines. Skeptical? Your taste buds beg to differ. Pastas run to very good ravioli stuffed with carrot puree and freckled with a crumble of seeds, nuts and spices. Among the shared dishes are whole porgy, its center green — and great — with chopped ramps, spinach and capers. Be sure to tap co-owner Bill Jensen for any wine needs. The sommelier tells good stories and pours better treats. 8. THE DABNEY (2.5 stars) 122 Blagden Alley NW. 202-450-1015. thedabney.com. Open: Dinner Tuesday through Sunday. Prices: Entrees $19 to $52. Quail with Chesapeake oyster stuffing, brown butter, tatsoi and golden raisins at the Dabney in Washington. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post) In his valentine to the Mid-Atlantic in Blagden Alley, Jeremiah Langhorne is so obsessed with using only regional ingredients, the chef nixes olives for cocktails and even makes his own Worcestershire sauce. The heart of the restaurant is a massive hearth that’s part eye candy, part source of some very good eating: vegetables smoky from the embers in which they’re tucked, quail bronzed from brushes with fire, and cornbread cooked on a griddle in a cast-iron skillet. (Lard makes the dish lovely.) Langhorne claims a soft spot for heart (lamb or pork), slices of which are grilled and combined with potato soup, beer-pickled onions and a froth of buttermilk: a fist bump for offal. Named for a Virginia ancestor of the chef, the room fits the food, with old area maps gracing the walls and captain’s chairs pushed into sturdy wood tables. 9. NAZCA MOCHICA 1633 P St. NW. 202-733-3170. nazcamochica.com. Open: Lunch Monday through Friday, dinner daily. Prices: Lunch entrees $13 to $17 or prix fixe $18 and $23; dinner entrees $15 to $24. Causitas with a variety of toppings, including tuna seviche in the foreground, at Nazca, the upstairs portion of Nazca


Montgomery County Animal Watch

No cases were available from 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. Rabies vaccinations: The Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center will hold its next rabies vaccination clinic from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Sunday. The vaccinations are free with the purchase of a county pet license. Maryland law requires that dogs, cats and ferrets over 4 months old be vaccinated against rabies. Also, all dogs and cats must have a county pet license. Failure to vaccinate an animal is a $500 fine. Failure to have a license is a $100 fine. Rabies clinics will be held monthly through September at the center, 7315 Muncaster Mill Rd., Derwood. Take proof of previous rabies vaccinations. Dogs must be leashed. Cats and ferrets must be in carriers or otherwise contained. At the clinics, the rabies vaccinations will be administered by a participating veterinarian at no charge for dogs and cats owned by county residents. There will be a minimal $4 charge for ferrets and out-of-county pets. County residents, as well as residents of Rockville and Gaithersburg, will be required to buy a pet license if their pet is not currently licensed. For a $10 fee, microchip implantation for dogs and cats will also be offered. Visit montgomerycountymd.gov/animalservices. Reduced fees for cat adoption: Cats and kittens will be available for adoption at the next open house of Friends of Montgomery County Animals at the following location. Call 301-977-4833 or visit fmca.org or facebook.com/fmcainfo. Germantown Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt dogs and cats at MCHS no-kill rescue: Rockville — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


D.C. community calendar, May 12 to May 19, 2016

Thursday, May 12 One Destiny Memorials of the Reflecting Pool Spring garden tours Washington Cathedral behind the scenes Age 11 and older. See gargoyles and stained-glass windows and climb stairs for a panoramic view of the city. Bring a camera. Weekdays except holidays at 10:30 a.m. Washington National Cathedral, 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202-537-2228. www.nationalcathedral.org. $26, age 11 and 12 $21. Therapeutic yoga “We the People: Making a More Perfect Union, One Generation at a Time” Move, Learn, Create Demonstration: mighty alliums Thursdays at Noon Memorials of the Tidal Basin Tour: Nature in Motion Afterschool lounge After-school workshops AALEAD, an after-school program for middle and high school students, runs workshops on leadership development, educational empowerment and community. Thursdays and Tuesdays at 4:30 p.m. Northwest One Library, Meeting Room, 155 L St. NW. 202-939-5946. northwestonelibrary@dc.gov. Free. “Shear Madness” Game night at the library Washington National Opera’s “Ring” company in concert Learn to play chess Yoga at Northwest One “Martin Luther on Trial” Adult coloring corner “110 in the Shade” “Hedda Gabler” “The Body of an American” “An American Daughter” “Konstantin Makovsky: The Tsar’s Painter” “Luminous Landscapes: Photographs by Alan Ward” The Electric Baby Rorschach Theatre presents the area premiere of a new play about loss and the power of myth to change lives after a car accident kills a young man. Thursday-Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m. Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. 202-399-7993. rorschachtheatre.com. $15-$30. Friday, May 13 Conversation Circles Preschool story time Fridays at 10 a.m.Tenley-Friendship Library, 4450 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202-727-1488. tenleylibrary@dc.gov. Free, tickets distributed at the Children’s Desk 30 minutes before the program starts. Baby and toddler story time Shaw (Watha T. Daniel) Library, 1630 Seventh St. NW. wathashawlibrary@dc.gov. 202-727-1288. Free, ticket required. Preschool story time Fridays at 10 a.m.Tenley-Friendship Library, 4450 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202-727-1488. tenleylibrary@dc.gov. Free, tickets distributed at the Children’s Desk 30 minutes before the program starts. Bilingual Spanish story time Children’s safety seats and belts inspection Ingrid Jensen, jazz musician It is not What you Think: Flute and piano concert Lineage: From the Black Arts Movement to Cave Canem “12 Angry Jurors.” Saturday, May 14 Amending America Family Day LEGO time Visual journaling workshop American Sign Language class for beginners Family story time Family story time All ages welcome to use these 30-40 minute sessions to improve language and literacy skills; participation of


Imperiled monarch butterflies get some much needed help from Native American tribes

A monarch butterfly clings to a plant at the Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, Calif. (Michael Fiala/Reuters) Seven Native American tribes in Oklahoma will provide habitat and food on their lands for monarch butterflies, whose numbers have plummeted in recent years due to troubles along their lengthy migration route from Mexico to Canada. While an estimated 1 billion monarchs migrated in 1996, only about 35 million made the trip in 2013, according to Marcus Kronforst, a professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago. Their numbers have rebounded in recent years but are still well below what they were two decades ago. Tribal leaders said at a news conference that they will plant crucial vegetation for the butterflies, including milkweed and native nectar-producing plants, on their lands. “For the last several years, we have been raising bees and pollinators, so when this opportunity came along, it fit with what we were doing,” Thalia Miller, director of the Chickasaw Nation Horticulture Department, told reporters. The tribes will work with the University of Kansas’s Monarch Watch program and the Euchee Butterfly Farm in Bixby, Okla. The project is supported by a grant of about $250,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Monarch butterfly numbers have plummeted due to the expansion of farmland, the growth of housing developments and the clear-cutting of natural landscapes along their migration path, experts say. Monarchs lay eggs only on milkweed plants, which grow wild throughout the United States. But milkweed, on which butterfly larvae feed, can cause stomach problems for cattle that eat it, so ranchers and farmers destroy the plant, researchers say. The butterflies spend the winter in Mexico and then go through several generations as they fly north through Oklahoma to Canada. “The tribes are natural leaders on this issue,” said Jane Breckinridge, project co-director and owner of the Euchee Butterfly Farm.


Washington-area obituaries of note

said a friend and guardian, Pamela Buckles. Mrs. Gordon, a Bethesda resident, was born Barbara Ann Walker in Baltimore. At the State Department from 1948 to 1953, she was a delegate to a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) meeting in London. She was a past president of the National Symphony Orchestra’s women’s committee and a board member of the Washington Performing Arts Society and the Friends of the Corcoran Art Gallery’ acquisition committee. Henry S. Sizer, Foreign Service officer Henry S. Sizer, 82, a former Foreign Service officer who specialized in Middle East affairs who became a labor management officer at the American Foreign Service Association until retiring in 2003, died April 7 at his home in Washington. The cause was a heart attack, said a son, Michael Sizer. Mr. Sizer, a Buffalo native, was a Foreign Service officer from 1958 to 1986, and his assignments included Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Vietnam, France and Lebanon. In 1978 and 1979 he was charge d’affairs at the embassy in Oman. He was a volunteer at the Washington charity Martha’s Table. Anne Favo, trade magazine editor Anne Favo, 80, an associate editor for the American Bus Association’s Destinations magazine in the 1980s and ’90s, died April 10 at a nursing home in Verona, Pa. The cause was carcinoid syndrome, said a son, James McGrath. Mrs. Favo was born Anne Finnegan in Washington. In the 1960s and ’70s, she coordinated events for Blackthorn Stick, an Irish folk dance group. As a member of the Catholic Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Md., she co-founded a volunteer committee to help parishioners with limited mobility. A longtime Bethesda resident, she moved to Washington in the 1990s and began to split her time between the District and Oakmont, Pa. Robert A. Copeland Jr., ophthalmologist Robert A. Copeland Jr., 60, the founding chairman of Howard University medical school’s ophthalmology department, died April 11 at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. The cause was heart ailments, said Sholnn Freeman, a university spokesperson. Dr. Copeland was born in Germantown, Pa., and joined the Howard medical school staff in 1986. Over the last 30 years, he treated thousands of ophthalmology patients, trained and mentored hundreds of ophthalmology physicians and was co-author of a textbook on the cornea. He had done ophthalmology procedures in Haiti, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Chile, Liberia, Nigeria and India, and he had received the American Academy


Washington-area obituaries of note

of Ophthalmology’s distinguished service award. John A. Rhea, freelance journalist John A. Rhea, 79, a freelance journalist who specialized in coverage of electronics, space and military issues, died April 6 at a care center in Woodstock, Va. The cause was pneumonia, said a daughter, Nancie Turner. Mr. Rhea, a native of Urbana, Ill., covered space launches in Florida for military and electronics publications in the 1960s. He later moved to the Washington area and worked as a freelance reporter until about 2005, when he moved to Woodstock from Silver Spring, Md. Mary Morton, church volunteer Mary Morton, 84, who accompanied her husband around the world on Foreign Service assignments and later served as chair of the Opportunity Shop at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Washington, died April 3 at a residential facility for seniors in Bethesda, Md. The cause was lung cancer, said a family friend, Hans Tuch. Mrs. Morton, a Bethesda resident, was born Mary Bolmar in Topeka, Kan. Early on, she was a biographic analyst at the State Department. She then joined her husband on his postings to Europe and Asia before his retirement in 1989. Abdul Kadir Aziz, mathematics professor Abdul Kadir Aziz, 92, retired professor in the department of mathematics and statistics at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County (UMBC), died March 25 at a care center in Chevy Chase, Md. The cause was respiratory distress and arterial disease, said a stepdaughter, Beth Rogers. Dr. Aziz, a Chevy Chase resident, was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. He came to Washington in the 1940s when his father was the Afghan ambassador here. Dr. Aziz was a mathematics professor at Georgetown University, then in 1967 transferred to UMBC, where he retired in 1989. In 1999, he donated money to establish what is known as the Aziz Lecture Series on numerical solutions to certain mathematical equations, and which are now delivered at the University of Maryland at College Park. Thomas Ubois, science foundation officer Thomas Ubois, 83, who retired in 1994 as executive officer of the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation, died April 10 at a hospice center in Arlington, Va. The cause was kidney cancer, said a son, Jeffrey Ubois. Mr. Ubois, an Arlington resident, was born in Ambridge, Pa. He came to Washington in 1961 as a presidential management intern, initially at the Veterans Administration and then at the Bureau of the Budget. He


A hometown girl goes looking for the quirky heart of Houston

Filled with independent shops, restaurants and bars, the Heights neighborhood is one of Houston’s more walkable areas. (Kate Silver/For the Washington Post) The shimmery bungalow, set back a bit from sunny Malone Street in Houston’s Rice Military neighborhood, looks as though it’s covered in dangly metallic fur, like an aluminum Snuffleupagus. Aptly named the Beer Can House, it took an estimated 50,000 beer cans and a dedicated — if thirsty — upcycler to cover the home with this unique interpretation of aluminum siding. A tall docent with a booming voice welcomes me as I approach the front gate (made of beer cans, of course) and invites me in. Now that I’m a can’s throw from the house, with its mosaic of beer can parts — flattened aluminum strips from the cans here, circular bottoms there, garlands of lids everywhere — I’m less awed than incredulous. Behind my “Yep, it really is all covered in beer cans!” smile is a nagging question: “Why?” The docent fills in some blanks, explaining that the can collector, John Milkovisch, was an upholsterer for the railroad. In 1968, he began this project, and he wouldn’t stop until he died two decades later. His original plan was to cover the domicile in leather, the docent tells me, but he couldn’t get enough of the material. So he opted for an abundant Texas resource: beer cans. He used every part of the can — tab to tail, if you will. As an aside, she explains that he also got tired of mowing the lawn, so he covered it in concrete and stone, embellished with his marble collection, which numbered well into the thousands. She motions to a rusty old wheelbarrow in the yard — nicknamed “the Culprit” — and says John used it to haul rocks here from the nearby rail yard. His wife, Mary, was supportive — to a point. She reportedly told him that he could do what he wanted with the outside of the house, but the inside was hers. Over the years, he and Mary drank a lot of beer and created this aluminum beast, which served as an insulated, energy-efficient home. One that John would never have to paint again. The Beer Can House is lined with an estimated 50,000 beer cans and open to visitors on weekends. (Kate Silver/For The Washington Post) I tour the grounds, peeking inside the house at


‘There could be more planets than stars’: Scientists discover 1,284 new planets

According to NASA, the Kepler mission has verified 1,284 new planets – the single largest finding of planets to date. Here, an artist envisions what those planets might look like. (W. Stenzel / NASA/EPA) NASA scientists have discovered 1,284 more planets beyond our solar system. Nine of those planets have orbits suitable for surface water, raising the possibility of life beyond Earth. “This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth,” said Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA. The announcement, made on Tuesday, brings the total number of confirmed planets outside the solar system to 3,264. Called exoplanets, the bulk were detected by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which searched for habitable planets like Earth. The new planets were identified during Kepler’s four-year primary mission, which ended in 2013, and previously had been considered planet-candidates. “We now know there could be more planets than stars,” said Paul Hertz, NASA’s astrophysics division director. “This knowledge informs the future missions that are needed to take us ever closer to finding out whether we are alone in the universe.” Of the new planets, nearly 550 could be rocky like Earth, NASA said. Nine planets are the right distance from a star to support temperatures at which water could pool. The discovery brings to 21 the total number of known planets that could permit life. Kepler watched about 150,000 stars, looking for slight changes in the amount of light that came from those stars. Some of those changes were caused by orbiting planets that were passing across the face of their host stars. The results of the study suggest that if more stars were studied at least 10 billion potentially habitable planets could be found throughout the galaxy, said Kepler lead scientist Natalie Batalha. The nearest potentially habitable planet is about 11 light years from Earth. “Astronomically speaking, that’s a very close neighbor,” she said.


Five myths on being transgender

often come to regret transitioning. One of the most common and misleading tropes about transgender people is that many regret making their transitions. There are websites, YouTube channels and even books dedicated to the topic. One writer, Walt Heyer (who regrets his own transition), claims that 20 percent of transgender people regret transitioning, 41 percent attempt suicide and at least 60 percent suffer from some kind of mental illness. “Suicide and regret,” he writes, “remain the dark side of transgender life.” These statistics and misstatements are based on outdated research. More recent studies suggest that less than 4 percent of people who get gender-reassignment surgery regret it. Researchers have also found that the surgery dramatically reduces suicide rates among trans people. That makes sense — the surgery can improve self-esteem, body image and general life satisfaction. This is why the international standard of care for adolescents and adults in many countries is to offer transition services. Of course, some people regret transitioning. A handful may even transition back. But the vast majority do not. 5. Male-to-female transgender athletes have a competitive advantage. In January, the International Olympic Committee announced that trans athletes can compete as the gender they identify with, whether or not they’ve undergone gender-reassignment surgery. Columnist Janice Turner wrote sarcastically that the new policy was “great news — unless you are a woman athlete.” Trans athletes themselves have faced similar blowback. When mixed martial arts fighter Fallon Fox came out in 2013, competitors complained that she should be barred because of her “advantage.” These critics argue that transgender women have all the biological strengths — more muscle mass, greater lung capacity — of male athletes. But in reality, most of that dominance is pegged to hormones such as testosterone, not sex organs. Hormone therapy for trans women involves taking a testosterone-blocking drug along with an estrogen supplement. This usually leads to a decrease in muscle mass and bone density, as well as an increase in fat storage. “Together,” one trans runner and researcher wrote in The Washington Post, “these changes lead to a loss of speed, strength and endurance — all key components of athleticism.” To date, trans athletes have not won a disproportionate number of races. jackdreschermd@gmail.com Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.


Brazil’s new leader has a lot to fix — starting with the Olympics.

the filthy water of Guanabara Bay, where sailing races will be staged. When a 50-yard portion of a seaside bike path was struck by a wave last month and plunged into the sea below, it also renewed fears of corner-cutting on construction projects linked to the Games. Two people died, and the path has remained closed amid reports that it was not securely attached to its supporting stanchions. Brazil’s new Olympic facilities will open under a cloud of suspicion, with the chief executive of one major contractor recently sentenced to prison for 19 years on corruption charges. Executives of other construction firms are also in jail or under indictment. U.S. officials estimate that as many as 200,000 Americans will visit Rio for the Games, but for many spectators, the Zika epidemic may be more worrisome than the state of the Games facilities. Brazilians lawmakers weigh whether to oust the president as supporters and opponents took to the streets in protest. A public-health expert writing in the Harvard Public Health Review argued this week that the Games should be canceled or moved, because visitors infected with the Zika virus in Brazil will return home and accelerate the spread of the virus. “Rio is not on the fringes of the outbreak, but inside its heart,” wrote Amir Attaran, a public-health and law professor at the University of Ottawa. He cited Brazilian government data showing 26,000 suspected infections in Rio, the highest of any state in Brazil. Although most Zika-infected patients experience mild symptoms or none, the virus can cause devastating birth defects and also can trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare and sometimes fatal nerve disorder. “While Brazil’s Zika inevitably will spread globally — given enough time, viruses always do — it helps nobody to speed that up,” Attaran wrote. The International Olympic Committee insists that the Games will go forward as planned, and the World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday encouraging travelers to use insect repellent, wear light-colored clothing and take other precautions to avoid being bitten by Zika-infected mosquitoes. With the Brazilian economy in its worst depression since the 1930s and millions out of work, the country that will welcome the world to Rio is a battered and less confident version of the one picked as host in 2009, when its economy was purring. Stretched finances have forced security spending cuts in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where violent


The fallen SEAL — not his family’s history — is much more important

U.S. Navy Warfare Operator 1st Class Charles Keating IV, 31, of San Diego was killed in northern Iraq on May 3. (U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters) Regarding the May 5 news article “Life of SEAL, a college runner, transcended family’s past”: I lost a husband in Vietnam. He is missing in action, presumed killed in action. (His body has never been repatriated, and the Navy tells us it still searches for his remains in Laos.) That was tough enough for me, his parents, our children and his friends. I’m sure there were some scandals in his family’s background. What family doesn’t have them? But they weren’t caused by him; they had nothing to do with his character, his service and his death, nor did they have to do with the sacrifice he made in the name of doing what he believed was his duty. It might have been newsworthy to mention in the body of the article that Charles H. Keating IV was the grandson of Charles H. Keating Jr., who was part of the savings and loan scandal in the 1980s, but it was not appropriate to reference the travails of his grandfather in the headline describing the young Navy SEAL’s death. Did his family tie have anything to do with his death, his heroism in facing grave danger, the horror of the last moments of his life or anything remotely connected to the choice he made to serve in the military? Or what kind of young man he was? If not, that detail should have been saved for the article. Most people who are imbued with the military ethic cringe every time those in the media (or who are simply among the clueless) fail to understand that the life lost in service is honored first. Footnotes and familial ties that might put that person in the context of old headlines about his relatives do not belong in the headline about the person who died. Susan Creed Percy, Clifton


Man killed near D.C. park identified; homeless services center is burglarized

Columbia Heights on Monday night and took two guitars and a ukulele, according to a police report. A laptop computer and earphones also were reported stolen. Thrive DC, in the 1500 block of Newton Street NW, has security cameras, but the center’s director, Alicia Horton, said the group was struggling to reclaim the relevant portion of the recording. The center serves about 150 to 200 people a day, providing the homeless with services to help them live independent lives. Horton said the music sessions serve as therapy for many of the clients and help bridge cultural gaps between community members. — Perry Stein Third suspect held in January killing Police on Thursday arrested a third suspect in the January shooting death of a 37-year-old man who authorities said may have been targeted for marijuana he had in his downtown Washington apartment. Joseph Lee Jennings, 35, of Southeast Washington, has been charged with murder while armed. The victim, Matthew Shevlin, lived in an apartment in the 400 block of M Street NW, in Mount Vernon Triangle. He was shot twice at his residence at about 10 a.m. Jan. 22. D.C. police said that officers found Shevlin in a small courtyard and that one of the suspects stumbled out of the building with a .45-caliber handgun with an extended magazine in his pants leg and a Mason jar with a “green weed substance” labeled “White Fade Out” in his jacket. In the victim’s apartment, police found several jars of marijuana-like substances similar to the one found on the man arrested at the building, according to the charging papers. One was labeled “Girl Scout Cookies.” Police tested one jar and confirmed that it was marijuana, court documents state. Police said they also found large and small plants and a bin containing suspected marijuana. Also arrested in the case are the man found at the building, David Davalier Harvey, 18, of Northwest, and Eugene Ledex Sherman, 53, of Southeast. Both were charged with first-degree murder. Harvey has a hearing set for June 16; Sherman is to have one on Thursday. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Students sickened after drinking mixture At least six children were sickened at a Montgomery County middle school after drinking what appeared to be a mixture of alcohol, NyQuil and Jolly Ranchers candy, authorities said. The assistant principal of Francis Scott Key Middle School in Silver Spring learned at about 10


Jonathan Aberman: Greater Washington’s identity crisis

(Ricky Carioti/The Post) The greater Washington business community is suffering from the story it is telling about itself, that it is in an old-fashioned government town, dependent on federal contracts, and lacking innovation and fresh ideas. The reality is very different. Over the past six months, I worked with a multidisciplinary team of data scientists, economists and entrepreneurs to critically and objectively describe the state of technology entrepreneurship here for the 2030 Group, a civic and business organization working to plot a new path forward for the region’s economy. Our findings suggest much more possibility. Since 2004, this area has created more new businesses than have parts of the United States commonly considered entrepreneurial hotbeds. Over the past 20 years, our region has had the largest number of companies on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing businesses. This is a place where entrepreneurs, employees and investors are generously rewarded for growing successful businesses. Over the past 20 years, 6,000 businesses have been sold in the region, including 105 deals with sales prices exceeding $1 billion. Business sales create significant wealth in our region for subsequent investment. This good news is mitigated by the reality that 75 percent of these business sales occur to buyers from outside our region — meaning we often lose our entrepreneurial talent to other areas. Meanwhile, our own companies are buying businesses at the same rate: 6,000 over the past 20 years. The two business acquisition markets are like ships passing in the night. Many are concerned that our region does not get enough venture capital, and it’s true: It is the eighth-largest market for such funding. However, it has other impressive sources of investment: $30 billion in federal spending on information technology in 2015, as well as $26 billion in federal research and development spending . Our region also is a national leader in research and development. Most of the federal research and development funding here goes to local businesses, our 108 federal labs, or federally funded corporations such as MITRE or the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. Many of the technology innovations that shape our world were invented nearby. It’s no surprise then that entrepreneurs follow that money to grow great businesses. In the late 1990s, we were leaders in commercializing the Internet and the telecommunications revolution. Now, we are among those who set the standards in cybersecurity and health-care technologies. So the


Beer of the Week: Boulevard Tell-Tale Tart

Boulevard Brewing’s Tell-Tale Tart ale. (Goran Kosanovic/For The Washington Post) Sour beer was on everyone’s lips at the national Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia this month. Its growth was discussed in seminars on beer trends. Brewers packed a ballroom to learn more about “The Science, Art and Mystery of Sour Beer Production” from the New Belgium and Avery breweries. Post-conference happy hours featured weird and intense sours by Wicked Weed, Epic and Jester King. Despite all the enthusiasm of beer cognoscenti, the fact remains that for most drinkers, sour beers are an acquired taste. The notes of “horse blanket” and “barnyard” that sour-lovers chase can put off those who prefer IPAs or saisons. Boulevard Brewing’s Tell-Tale Tart sour ale is a good place for anyone new to sour ales to begin, though its interesting flavors will also reward more-experienced drinkers. The aroma is full of cherries and a little strawberry and other red fruits; a sip reveals a deep tartness — think sour cherries and SweeTarts — and sweet vinegar that intrigues without making you reach for the antacids. The body has a rounded biscuit flavor and a pleasant prickliness from carbonation, finishing dry with a vinous crispness and complexity. Tell-Tale Tart, which is part of the Kansas City brewery’s Smokestack Series, is made using a process called kettle souring, in which lactobacillus — the bacteria responsible for making your yogurt funky — turns sugars into acid before the wort is boiled. This is an increasingly popular method of brewing sour ales, because it doesn’t require breweries to have an expensive setup to prevent bacteria from contaminating other beers and equipment. On the other hand, kettle-soured ales earn disdain from sour purists, who prefer their beers to develop weird flavors during open-air fermentation or time spent aging in barrels. Consider those graduate-level sour ales. Tell-Tale Tart, which recently returned to Washington area bars and stores after an extended absence, is a perfect introduction, or a welcome and refreshing refresher course. — Fritz Hahn Boulevard Tell-Tale Tart. www.boulevard.com. About $12 for a four-pack of 12-ounce bottles. More from Food: Beer Column


George Zimmerman taps into an American tradition: Murderabilia

the murderabilia trade, those who try to sell his letters for profit, and the public fascination with homicidal violence — but he also knows it isn’t going anywhere. The flip side of the trade, though, is when a grisly item has historical significance and is going to be housed in some sort of educational setting. Then it really is worth something, in an aboveboard manner. For example, the derringer that John Wilkes Booth used to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, as well as the bullet extracted from Lincoln’s brain, are both in D.C. museums. Nor does every off-color motive end badly. The Mississippi judge in the original Medgar Evers trial took home the rifle that killed the civil rights legend after two hung juries in the early 1960s. He wanted it for a souvenir. Three decades later, it was rediscovered and used to help convict the killer, Byron De La Beckwith. “Absolutely essential” to the case, says Jerry Mitchell, the Clarion-Ledger reporter whose stories led to the renewed prosecution and conviction of Beckwith. Nobody in America is better versed in the ethics of dealing in these sorts of things than Allan Stypeck, the proprietor of the District’s Second Story Books. When he’s not dealing with first editions of Faulkner, he’s a professional and forensic appraiser of rare and historical items. He’s done work for the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Library of Congress. He appraised Booth’s derringer for $5 million. When Robert White, the Maryland collector who had more than 100,000 items of John F. Kennedy memorabilia — from the significant to the blood-stained — died in 2003, Stypeck helped with the sale of the controversial estate. In that sale, the flags that were on the presidential limousine when Kennedy was assassinated sold for $450,000. So does Zimmerman’s gun have social “value”? Would he touch it? Tricky question, Stypeck says. The ethical question lies in the intent of the seller and buyer, he says. If a client wanted him to appraise a notorious weapon for insurance purposes, to be housed in a museum that showcases the horrors of the crime — like the derringer — that’s fine. But, for him, to assess the same item for sale in an open market, that could mean profiting from an immoral object. And that’s untenable, he says. “That would be like asking me to appraise the last chalice Hitler drank


They fled Ethiopia amid war and privation. An economic boom is bringing them home.

Abezash Tameret, who left Ethiopia as a child and grew up in foster care in Georgia, founded a charity that helps HIV-positive orphans in Ethiopia and recently moved back to Addis Ababa for good with her children. (Aida Muluneh/For The Washington Post) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Tamerat had left Ethiopia as a child and grown up in foster care in Georgia. Now she was going back as a 20-year-old to rediscover the far-off, unfamiliar place that had shaped her identity. She arrived with about $40, trusting in a credit card in a country that even then, in 2003, had no ATMs. A week later, she was back at the airport trying unsuccessfully to change her ticket and get an early flight home to Atlanta. Frustrated, she gave her quest another chance, staying on to find her birth family, learn Amharic and start a home for HIV-positive orphans. Later, she founded Artists for Charity, a network of artists, volunteers and donors that supports the home. After many more trips, Tamerat, now 34, finally made the decision that more and more members of the Ethiopian diaspora are making: She returned to Addis Ababa for good last year. An estimated 2 million Ethiopians live abroad, driven out by years of war, famine and economic hardship. A report by the Migration Policy Institute puts the number of first- and second-generation Ethiopian immigrants in the United States at about 250,000. Now, courted by the Ethiopian government, many are bringing back money and skills acquired in the West, helping to transform a society still hobbled by the legacy of the 17-year communist dictatorship that ended in 1991. Over the past decade, a country that was once a byword for famine and privation has seen consistently high growth, welcoming foreign investment and pouring money into infrastructure. The homecoming is not easy for most. Returnees confront not just a complex bureaucracy, but also frequent suspicion from those who stayed and weathered the hard years. Yet they have changed the face of Ethiopia’s cities — launching businesses, opening art galleries, cafes and salons, and founding hospitals. “The things that are happening and moving through the city are initiatives of the diaspora’s vision. They are trying to bring what they know here and pushing some standards,” said Tamerat, citing customer service as an example. “You would go to a restaurant years ago, and it was almost like you were going


Managing philanthropy at the national parks

Capitan besmirched with company logos. But such befouling is not, in fact, being proposed. There is no reason the park system shouldn’t adopt fundraising practices that are commonly used in the nonprofit world — particularly because, given inadequate congressional support, the alternative is deterioration of these precious places. The National Park Service stirred controversy with its announcement of a revamp of its philanthropy policy. Private donations have played a role in development and maintenance of the park system throughout its 100-year history, but givers have received little or no recognition. The proposed change, currently under review, would offer temporary naming rights to some park buildings and the addition of company logos to temporary signage, printed materials, exhibits and digital media. Critics have attacked the plan as creeping commercialization that will lead to Old Faithful being used to sell Viagra, or the Lincoln Memorial being used to promote hemorrhoid cream. While those sky-is-falling characterizations are off-base exaggerations, there is the risk of corporate sponsors creating conflicts of interest that could detract from the purposes of the parks. It is important to establish clear lines; the experiences of museums, universities and other nonprofits show that the risks can be managed with advantage to both sides. A case in point is the more liberal giving policies of the Smithsonian Institution; that the panda habitat bears the name of donor David M. Rubenstein doesn’t detract from the experience of viewing the zoo’s prized mammals. It is disgraceful that the park system has been so systematically underfunded that it has been forced to look for new sources of revenue. With yearly appropriations that don’t keep pace with inflation and a backlog of needed repairs estimated at $12 billion, there is simply, as National Park Foundation President and Chief Executive Will Shafroth said, not enough money for the park service to accomplish its goals. Congress’s refusal to live up to its obligations leaves the Park Service with little choice but to look for other viable means of maintaining the nation’s parks and monuments. As the National Park Service finalizes its rules, it is important to ensure there are protections against abuses, complete transparency about plans and a process for prudent decision-making and oversight. Read more about this topic: The Post’s View: Invest in America the beautiful Robert Earle Howells: Five myths about national parks Jonathan B. Jarvis: Corporate America has a history of supporting national parks


Russia’s reported doping is a subversion of the Olympic ideal

comes from the director of the Russian anti-doping agency at the time, who played a central role and has since fled Russia. The doping involved at least 15 Russian medal winners, some of the country’s biggest stars; Russia won the most medals in the Games. None of the athletes was caught using the drugs at the time. The director, Grigory Rodchenkov, recalled how a man from the Russian security services helped pry open the supposedly tamper-proof bottles that are standard at international competitions and replace drug-tainted urine from the athletes with clean urine collected earlier. For hours each night during the Games, Russians worked in a shadow laboratory lit by a single lamp, passing bottles of urine through a small hole in a wall, putting the clean ones in place to be tested the next day. Responding to a German television report in 2014 alleging the existence of a sophisticated and well-established system of doping in Russian sport, the World Anti-Doping Agency investigated and issued a report in November that identified Mr. Rodchenkov as the linchpin. Mr. Rodchenkov admitted his role in the doping to the Times (but denied a charge in the report that he was part of a conspiracy to extort money from athletes to cover it up). Russia was provisionally suspended from international track and field competition, and in the coming weeks, leaders of the sport’s global governing body will decide whether to lift a ban ahead of the Olympics this summer in Rio de Janeiro. The CBS program “60 Minutes” also aired a report May 8 on Russian doping practices. This audacious cheating resonates beyond sports. The Russian Federal Security Service, a successor to the KGB, reportedly took part in the doping operation, subverting the Olympic ideal and soiling one of the globe’s most prestigious events. Such moral vacuity has been evident in the destruction of Russia’s nascent democracy, the siphoning off of its riches by Mr. Putin’s cronies, the harassment and murder of Mr. Putin’s foes, the promotion of dishonest propaganda and the way Russia has sought to undermine Ukraine with violence. Russia’s behavior in Sochi makes the Reagan proverb “trust, but verify” seem quaint. There can be no trusting as long as Mr. Putin is in charge. Read more about this topic: The Post’s View: Russia’s doping game gets exposed Richard N. Haass: What the Olympics medal count says about who runs the world


Attack by aggressive bees subsides in California

California Attack by aggressive bees subsides A California neighborhood overtaken by a swarm of aggressive bees suspected of killing two dogs and stinging several people is considerably safer after the insects didn’t make it back to their cluster, a bee expert said Sunday. Norman Lott of the Mount Diablo Beekeepers Association said he was called to the Concord neighborhood when an amateur beekeeper got rid of a hive after being attacked, leaving a swarm of possibly Africanized bees flying around, the East Bay Times reported. “Very few bees were left flying around that didn’t make it back to the cluster [Saturday] night,” Lott said. “I don’t anticipate going out there.” The bees are suspected of killing two dachshunds. They also stung a beekeeper, a child, a postal worker, news reporters and Lott. Concord police Capt. Chris Blakely said the problem was first reported Friday when Arthur Janke, the amateur beekeeper, went to check on backyard hives and his bees attacked him. He later went to the hospital with minor injuries from bee stings. — Associated Press A major new minor: Police chase trucker: Shark removed from arm: — From news services


Composer John Adams does double duty at Strathmore with BSO

John Adams conducted one of his own compositions at Strathmore on Sunday afternoon. (Lambert Orkis) John Adams, one of America’s foremost composers, was at Strathmore on Sunday afternoon conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in a concert of his own “Harmonielehre” and Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto with Jeremy Denk as soloist. “Harmonielehre,” German for “Harmony Lesson,” is a big three-movement symphony, running about 40 minutes, for a big orchestra. Adams’s musical language is abundantly tonal, goal-oriented and animated by an irresistible rhythmic vitality. His cultivated American vernacular is readily intelligible to the average listener. His musical discourse, on the other hand, is often surprising, occasionally violent and prone to mysticism and grandeur. The first and last movements of “Harmonielehre” evoke dreams; the second a medieval legend. Adams also is an excellent conductor and a gifted orchestrator. In “Harmonielehre,” his perennially fresh colors and textures create a musical tapestry so rich and enveloping that the kaleidoscopic soundscape itself becomes part of the message. As “Harmonielehre” nears its end, the musical narrative emerges from cloudy ambiguity onto a sun-drenched field of E-flat major. The sense of arrival is exhilarating, and with upwards of 90 musicians going full throttle, the effect is boisterous, throbbing and sublimely American in its affirmation. It’s a glorious noise, quite unlike any other. The orchestra acquitted itself magnificently. “Harmonielehre” is a hard act to follow, and Denk and a smaller ensemble had their work cut out for them in the Beethoven concerto. Denk has a highly developed finger technique, but because he plays from the shoulder rather than from the base of the spine, his sound in loud passages comes off as brittle. A tendency to punch up the rhythm adds extraneous accents to the musical flow, and his hyperactive demeanor at the piano can be distracting. Ultimately, however, his innate musicality and elegant phrasing, abetted by Adams’s vigorous accompaniment, delivered a brisk finale to a gratifying afternoon of music. A previous version of this review stated that high school students joined the orchestra onstage for the performance. In fact, students from the orchestra’s mentoring program were in the audience, not onstage.


Plan to store nuclear waste near Great Lakes proves radioactive

bodies near the Great Lakes in both countries have passed proclamations urging a veto of the plan. Dingell was among 32 members of Congress who signed a bipartisan letter to Trudeau asking him and McKenna to reject it. The GOP-dominated Michigan Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling on the White House and Congress to intervene under the Boundary Waters Treaty. (The White House referred questions to the State Department, which declined to comment on the issue.) Some of those U.S. politicians, though, support the long-delayed effort to bury the United States’ high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, outside Las Vegas. Dingell doesn’t see that as a contradiction. “This is different,” she said. “We’ve got to find a location that doesn’t impact large populations of people. A mountain that is in an isolated place is a better place than water that is 20 percent of the freshwater in the world. If there’s a leak or an accident at Yucca Mountain, it’s in an isolated area.” Yet for Canada, like the United States, the issue remains one of the biggest headaches for nuclear power generation. Nuclear power is one of the cleanest, cheapest sources of energy, especially in places like Ontario, where coal-burning power plants were banned in 2003. But the conundrum of what to do with the waste persists, even after more than half a century of nuclear-fueled electricity. Low-level waste includes mops, brooms and clothing, which are expected to reach safe radioactive levels in about a century. Intermediate-level waste includes hardware such as pumps, filters and other machinery that has been in direct contact with nuclear fuel and won’t return to safe levels for at least 10,000 years. (High-level waste includes spent uranium fuel rods; such material would not be sent to the planned repository.) The Bruce Energy facility here in Kincardine is the world’s largest nuclear-power-generation site, with eight of the province’s 20 nuclear reactors. Since the early 1970s, the Bruce site has stored the low- and intermediate-level waste for all of Ontario’s power plants in above-ground bunkers and vaults, which are evidenced only by dozens of cement caps of various shapes arrayed in neat rows across a concrete plain near the reactor buildings. OPG and Bruce officials have long assured the public that such storage is safe, and they’re not backing away from that contention. Yet it is an expensive long-term solution that relies on hundreds of future


As mosquito season shifts into high gear in the Washington region, so do Zika fears

John Montanaro, a technician with Mosquito Joe, mixes a mosquito barrier for a residential property in Rockville, Md., on May 10. (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post) Like a lot of pregnant women, Christine Kaineg carries a bag of supplies to get her through the day: Kind granola bars for hunger, a big bottle of Tums and a new staple — mosquito repellent. At almost eight months pregnant, the mom-to-be has read about the babies being born with severe brain abnormalities in Brazil and other countries, where birth defects have been linked to the mosquito-borne Zika virus. With mosquito season underway in the Washington region, Kaineg isn’t taking any chances. “I know it’s not in the area,” said Kaineg, who lives in Alexandria, Va., and works for a federal contractor. “But I also don’t want to be Patient A at such a critical time in my life.” Apparently a lot of Washington-area residents are taking precautions. Mosquito-control companies across the region say that business is booming. JChase Bernetich, technician with Mosquito Joe, applies a mosquito barrier to a residential property in Rockville on May 10. (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post) Al Tardiff, operations manager for Capitol Mosquito Control on Capitol Hill, said that calls to his office this spring have doubled from last year. The company recently bought a fifth vehicle and hired another full-time technician. “They tell me they’re pregnant or they plan on getting pregnant so they want to know how effective our products are,” Tardiff said. Kevin Wilson, chief executive of Mosquito Joe, said the company’s locations in the South, where mosquito season started this winter, have reported more than a 50 percent jump in new customers compared with last spring. Mosquito Joe franchises in the Washington area have seen a 32 percent increase. “The real sign will be in June and July, when the kids are out of school and start getting bit,” Wilson said. “That’s when we’ll see the uptick in volume. I can’t image it this year, when the kids are getting bit, and all people are thinking about now is Zika.” Public health officials say that there is a good reason for concern. The Asian tiger mosquito, the most common species in the region, has been found to carry Zika in other countries. Moreover, experts say, local mosquitoes are revving up just as summer vacations are set to begin, and the Washington area typically sees robust