Free concert at the Carter Barron Amphitheatre: Reggae Night

Archives band portrait photo shoot - Darryl D-Trane Burke, Chris Puma, Lenny Kurlou, Mateo Monk. (John Shore) Friday’s free Going Out Guide/Weekend concert at Carter Barron Amphitheatre is a summit of the area’s top reggae acts — the Archives, Image Band and Strykers’ Posse. But this heavyweight bout almost didn’t happen at all. The federal sequester led the National Park Service to cancel all live music at Carter Barron this summer, including The Post’s annual series of free concerts. But a compromise was eventually reached to put on one show. Reggae Night was “It was always a highly attended, very successful evening,” says Dera Tompkins, a local music promoter and band manager who has long served as what she calls “the go-between” for the NPS and the musicians. “It is the one genre that has remained throughout the whole history of The Post nights.” Tompkins, who also has consulted on the jazz, Latin and neo-soul nights, decided to emphasize groups with established followings. Her choices: Baltimore’s Strykers’ Posse, a female band that has been performing for nearly 30 years; Image Band, a calypso and soca group that Tompkins says is very strong in reggae; and the Archives, which she calls “the best and most respected reggae outfit in town.” Reggae Night, Tompkins says, “is an opportunity for the artists to be on a big stage. A lot of them would never get to play for 3,000-plus people. It’s really kept our community together. It’s something that we all look forward to.” “Carter Barron is an awesome venue, and the audiences are great,” says Ichelle Cole of Strykers’ Posse. Unlike some outdoor venues, Cole says, the amphitheater boasts excellent sound. “I’ve actually heard recordings of us performing there, and I thought it came out very well,” she says. “Every venue draws a different audience,” says Image Band leader Loughton “Sarge” Sargeant. The amphitheater’s location in Rock Creek Park, he says, encourages “a family-style event. A lot of the other events that we play are more adult oriented. At Carter Barron, the kids can come and enjoy.” Image Band plays shows — at Maryland wine festivals and in the Virgin Islands, where Sargeant and two of his cohorts grew up — that draw as many as 15,000 people. But for Strykers’ Posse, Carter Barron is about as big as it gets. “That is the environment you want to be in,” Cole says.


First Person: Maria Shields, Davidsonsville, ultra-marathon runner

you and thinking: This week, I have to wash those windows. I won’t stop thinking about those windows until they’re clean. I came to the United States [from Portugal] when I was 16. My mom put me to work: housekeeping work in a hospital. And I started thinking, I got to do something better than this. So from there, I go into medical record-keeping — a big step up. And then I went to work for an optometrist as an assistant, and that’s where I met my husband — goal, goal, goal. So being driven is part of who I am. So far, I’ve met all my goals. I set a goal to run 50 miles when I turned 50. I did the JFK 50, and that went fantastic. Afterwards, I thought: Okay, I did that. I’ll go back to my normal running — well, normal for me — more marathons, back on the road. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the trails. The peace you have when you are running, the beauty you see. It’s everything. People who don’t run on trails don’t know what they’re missing. I don’t have kids. I’m retired, and my husband thinks I’m crazy but loves that I’m crazy about running and is so proud of me. So why not disappear into the woods? My goal for the first 100-miler was to do it. My goal for the next one was to break the record, in my age group, of 22:15. When I realized I was on pace to break the record, I set a new goal for myself and ran it in 21:32. I was 35th overall of 263 people! During this last 100-miler, I just ran the way I felt, and I felt great. People tell me that I never stopped smiling. This was never my big plan, but now it’s my passion. Running came into my life when I needed it. Here’s the thing: It doesn’t take me away from my life; it’s part of it. I have an amazing ability to focus and compartmentalize. Four days after my race, my husband went into the hospital for open-heart surgery. I was there 24-7. I’m very devoted to him. My focus was my husband. I didn’t run for three weeks. I never thought: I should be running. I knew it would be there when I came back. And I always come back.


DC Beer Week: The best events, dinners and tap takeovers

to sell out in advance. Black Squirrel: Wednesday at 5 p.m. 2427 18th St. NW. 202-232-1011. www.blacksquirreldc.com. DC Brau: Wednesday at 5 p.m. The Quarterdeck, 1200 Fort Myer Dr., Arlington. dcbraudcbeerweekcrabfest.eventbrite.com. $50. New beers DC Beer Week might be the ideal time to launch a new brew, and several are making their way through taps during the celebration. Exquisite Corpse is a collaboration among Pizzeria Paradiso beer director Greg Jasgur, Meridian Pint beer director Sam Fitz, Stillwater brewer Brian Strumke and DC Brau brewer Jeff Hancock. Jasgur, Fitz and Strumke selected the beer’s grain, hops and yeast without consulting each other, while Hancock brewed the result. It’s being launched Sunday at a moveable feast of a dinner: Patrons get two courses and two beers at either Meridian Pint or the Pizzeria Paradiso in Dupont Circle between 4 and 7 p.m. When they’ve finished, they can head to the other bar for two different food courses and beer pairings, available between 7 and 10 p.m. Tickets are $65 including tax and tip, but not transportation. Meridian Pint: 3400 11th St. NW. 202-588-1075. www.meridianpint.com. Pizzeria Paradiso: 2003 P St. NW. 202-223-1245. www.eatyourpizza.com. DC Brau is unveiling Heurich Lager, a re-creation of the beer Washington brewery magnate Christian Heurich made before Prohibition, at the Heurich House Museum on Monday. Tickets are $80, or $150 for a Founding Member ticket that includes a one-year museum membership. Heurich House Museum, 1307 New Hampshire Ave. NW. 202-429-1894. heurichslager.eventbrite.com Smoke and Barrel also is collaborating with a brewery: Bartender and home-brewer Erich Streckfuss created a recipe for a golden IPA, which was brewed at Mad Fox. It’s named the Ambassador, after the former Adams Morgan concert hall, and will go on tap Tuesday during a Mad Fox tap takeover. Flying Dog, which just released its Duvel-inspired Belgian Devil strong golden ale at ChurchKey, will release the Truth, a hefty 8.7-percent ABV imperial IPA made with five hops, at Smoke and Barrel on Aug. 16 at 6 p.m. Smoke and Barrel, 2471 18th St. NW. 202-319-9353. www.smokeandbarreldc.com. Beer prices vary. Lost Rhino is taking over the taps at Meridian Pint on Aug. 16. Among the offerings will be Birth of Ace — it’s an Ace Ventura reference — which Meridian Pint’s Sam Fitz calls “a 100 percent brett-fermented IPA made using yeast from a famous lambic brewery.” Meridian Pint: 3400 11th St. NW. 202-588-1075. www.meridianpint.com. Beer prices vary.


Bad for the birds, bad for all of us

John W. Fitzpatrick is director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. George Fenwick is president of the American Bird Conservancy. Like canaries in the coal mine, declining bird populations across America’s grasslands are early warning indicators of much bigger ecosystem disruptions that affect us all. The birds are still singing to us, but they are doing so in greatly reduced numbers. They’re telling us that we need to do more, not less, to protect their precious habitats on our farms and ranches. Over the past four decades, many birds once common in U.S. farmlands have become uncommon. The clear whistles of the Eastern Meadowlark ringing across a pasture are being silenced, as their population has plummeted 70 percent since 1970. The same is true for the diminutive and mysterious Henslow’s Sparrow — a prairie bird whose population may be down as much as 95 percent since the mid-1960s. Yet, bright spots exist for both species, where local sub-populations are rebounding. In Illinois, recent spring counts of Henslow’s Sparrows are more than 25 times greater than they were in 1985. There is no mystery to these bright spots: The difference has been the farm bill’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which pays landowners an annual per-acre fee to allow cropland to go fallow and then helps with the conversion to grassland. Henslow’s Sparrow counts are highest in Illinois counties with the most reserve program acreage. The farm bill is not only important in helping our nation’s farmers produce food; it is also the biggest source of conservation incentives for private landowners. In addition to encouraging more grasslands, the incentives include paying some landowners to grow crops or graze cattle in a more sustainable manner. And as is shown in the recently published report “The State of the Birds 2013,” which we and several others helped compile, these conservation incentives work. Private farmlands provide critical bird habitat, with 80 percent of the populations of 29 vulnerable grassland-breeding bird species distributed across private lands. In the Prairie Pothole Region of the upper Midwest, farm bill CRP lands have produced a 30 percent increase in waterfowl breeding over the past two decades. Out west, the Sage Grouse Initiative has partnered with more than 700 ranchers to improve bird habitat on more than 2 million acres in 11 states, while promoting more nutritious grasses for grazing cattle. But now farm bill conservation gains are at risk.


The deep roots of the U.S.-Russia crisis

The writer was the prime minister of Russia from 2000 to 2004 and is the co-leader of the Party of People’s Freedom, a Russian opposition party. As a former prime minister of Russia, I was pleased to see that President Obama decided Wednesday to cancel his bilateral meeting with Vladimir Putin when he travels to St. Petersburg next month for the Group of 20 economic summit. Obama now has the opportunity to reinforce this strong message by speaking out during his visit against Russian officials who have engaged in electoral fraud, malicious propaganda and the oppression of civil activists. Political relations between Russia and the United States have been steadily fraying. Although the immediate explanation for Obama’s cancellation is connected to Russia granting temporary asylum to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor wanted on espionage charges, the roots of this crisis run much deeper. In fact, while the two countries have always held divergent views on many issues, since the fall of the Soviet Union they have never been at such odds as they are today. These differences go well beyond current bilateral affairs and involve Russia’s violation of universal values of human rights, freedoms and democratic principles that both countries have committed to supporting. These include the aggressive assault by Russian authorities on independent nongovernmental organizations and civil activists; politically motivated harassment of ordinary citizens who participated in peaceful protests against the government; and such unthinkable proceedings as a posthumous trial for whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who was tortured to death in a Russian jail. No longer can the United States and Russia’s other democratic partners tolerate such actions. It seems that business as usual — trying to engage Putin whenever and wherever possible in desperate pursuit of solutions to international concerns, such as the Syrian crisis and Afghanistan transit routes — became too difficult to sustain. The U.S. tactics of appeasement — engaging with Russia through the “reset” in relations between the two nations — have clearly reached their limit. Not only has this approach borne little fruit, but it has also resulted in long-term collateral damage to other essential causes, including the deterioration of political and civil liberties in Russia. The attorney general assures the Russians that the U.S. will not torture or execute Snowden Moscow’s leaders customarily use summits between the United States and Russia to send strong signals to their domestic audience. First, these


Buyers, not lenders, must decide how much mortgage is too much

go or become something different, I hope the efforts to revitalize the housing market focus on people’s ability to pay their mortgage. Obama also said something that shouldn’t be overlooked: “In the run-up to the crisis, banks and governments too often made everybody feel like they had to own a home, even if they weren’t ready and didn’t have the payments. That’s a mistake we should not repeat.” Although homeownership is still at the heart of middle-class life, it has to come at the right time financially. When mortgage rates and home prices hit historic lows, people would ask me if they should buy a house. “Are you ready”? I asked back. Blank stares often greeted my question. Even if you could get a zero percent home loan for 30 years, if it eats up more than half your net pay, you probably can’t afford it. Notice I keep focusing on net, not gross, income. The Center for Responsible Lending recently released a gloomy report on the state of lending in America. “Two trends are clear,” wrote Sheila Bair, a senior adviser at the Pew Charitable Trusts, in the report’s introduction. “First, families were already struggling to keep up before the financial crisis hit. The gap between stagnant family incomes and growing expenses was being met with rapidly increasing levels of debt. Second, the terms of the debt itself have acted as an economic weight and a trap, leaving families with less available income.” Bair writes that although we’ve seen some recovery in the economy, millions of families lost their homes to foreclosure and millions more are still at risk because they are trapped in “financial marginalization.” Despite the crisis, owning a home still has a strong hold on people. Four in five Americans still believe that buying a home is a better financial decision than renting, the center says in its report. As we reinvent the housing finance model, we have to throw out old advice and lending models. Start with the way we look down on renting. When you rent, you are not a financial failure. You are getting something for your money — a roof over your head. You also maintain flexibility, allowing you to move easily if you need to find a higher-paying job in a different location. When I traded up from my two-bedroom condominium to a single-family home, the lender said I could afford


Brooke Curran of Alexandria has run a marathon a month for over five years

the bucket list. She competed in her first marathon Marine Corps Marathon in 2004, she said, but was so unsatisfied with her time - 4:24 - that she ran another. And another. “I knew I was a whole lot fitter than that number reflected,” she said. Her times and fitness improved, and soon she was placing or winning her age group, running one in 3:09 in 2009. But even as she began to excel, there was a disconnect, Curran said. “The harder I trained the better got, the less it meant for me,” she said. After crossing the finish line, she said she would feel “literally nothing, void of any emotion.” And then she had another moment like what she experienced during the 9/11 attacks, while she was driving through a poorer section of Alexandria, which she described as a “look around and make sure your car doors were locked” neighborhood. She had just dropped off one of her daughters at a soccer camp. “Literally, this was two miles from home. ... I realized I can’t be the person that drives away and forgets about everything I just saw,” she said. “Nothing’s worse than doing nothing,” she said. After thinking about a suitable fund-raising challenge during a couple of long runs, she had a conversation with Mike Wardian, a fellow marathoner and an ultra-runner, she said. “A marathon a month,” he suggested. “I’m impressed she’s taken it as far as she has,” he said recently. “I wasn’t really sure how that would work, but it’s been great to see.” The challenge she came up with — marathons on every continent, every state, plus the world majors — has worked out to being a marathon a month for over five years. Curran’s attorney husband, Chris, remembers her telling him about the idea in the kitchen. “She was more informing me than seeking my consent,” he said. “It sounded ambitious,” he said. “It sounded expensive. I joked all along, it was the Running Broke Fund,” he said. “We pay for everything, so all the money she raises goes directly to charity.” And she has passed him as the fittest family member. “I think before she started running seriously ... I was in better shape than she was,” he said. “Now it’s not even a fair comparison,” he said. “She brings a military style discipline to her running and her fitness. She’s never


In greater Washington, many runners have special courses, favorite trails

Walter Barrera is seen at the end of a 20-mile training run in Northeast Washington in this file photo. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) D.C. is full of runners: road runners, ultramarathoners, adventure racers, and more. And they’ve all got a story, a special run and a favorite trail. Frank Fumich “I thought it would be neat to run the Marine Corps Marathon and offer it up for her while she was suffering from cancer,” said Fumich. That first race “hurt like hell,” he says now. Fumich hasn’t really stopped running — or paddling, or trekking, or anything else — ever since. On a recent July afternoon, he headed out on one of his favorite trails for a short seven-miler. He wore a gray shirt, an ID bracelet, UnderArmor shorts, and a pair of bright green-yellow Hoka running sneakers that looked like a pair of foot-size inflatable mattresses. He took off on a short grassy section before dipping into the body of the trail, bouncing over plank bridges, scrambling over rocky outcroppings and along paths carving through small hillocks along the Potomac Heritage Trail, which follows the Potomac from Roosevelt Island northwest along the Virginia side of the river. “There are very few people out there,” he said. “Even on a beautiful, sunny day, you can be out there and feel out on a far-out trail and you’re just a mile from a massive city.” “And it’s nice to see the river,” he said. After a sweltering June and July, the air is crisp, the river an intense blue, broken up by the occasional scull or kayak. “I just wanted to keep pushing the envelope,” Fumich said of his running. He ended up competing in a slew of Ironmans and adventure races, paddling more than 30 miles of open water and participating in the 41-hour, cringe-inducing “Death Race Challenge” in Vermont. Most recently, he ran from D.C. to Boston in solidarity with the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. The Potomac Heritage Trail is just one of the dozens of trails around D.C. region that runners and racers can use to get off pavement and into relative solitude in nature, local running experts say. On Fumich’s run, he passed four or five runners and two fishermen. Jim Harman, founder of EX-2, an adventure racing company that sponsors dozens of races in the D.C. area every year, said that one of


TRANSCRIPT: President Obama’s August 9, 2013, news conference at the White House

the intelligence community, if you are the ordinary person and you start seeing a bunch of headlines saying, U.S., Big Brother, looking down on you, collecting telephone records, et cetera, well, understandably people would be concerned. I would be too if I wasn't inside the government. And so in light of the changed environment where a whole set of questions have been raised -- some in the most sensationalized manner possible, where these leaks are released drip by drip, you know, one a week to kind of maximize attention and see if, you know, they can catch us at some imprecision on something -- in light of that, it makes for us to go ahead, lay out what exactly we're doing, have a discussion with Congress, have a discussion with industry, which is also impacted by this, have a discussion with the civil libertarians and see, can we do this better? I think -- I -- I think the main thing I want to emphasize is, I don't have an interest and the people of the NSA don't have an interest in doing anything other than making sure that where we can prevent a terrorist attack, where we can get information ahead of time, that we're able to carry out that critical task. We do not have an interest in doing anything other than that. And we've tried to set up a system that is as fail safe as so far at least we've been able to think of to make sure that these programs are not abused. But people may have better ideas, and people may want to jigger slightly sort of the balance between the information that we can get versus the incremental encroachments on privacy that, if haven't already take placed (sic), but take place in a future administration or as technology's developed further. And the other thing that's happening is, is that as technology develops further, technology itself may provide us some additional safeguards. So for example, if people don't have confidence that the law, the checks and balances of the court and Congress, are sufficient to give us confidence that government's not snooping, well, maybe we can embed technologies in there that prevent the snooping regardless of what government wants to do. I mean, there may be some technological fixes that provide another layer of assurance. And so those are the kinds of things that


H&M adds home to its fashion line-up

The Swedish retailer announces that its home line, previously available only in Europe, will be sold online to U.S. customers. H&M, the giant Swedish retailer known for its jaw-droppingly cheap prices on lace-trimmed sweatshirts and biker pants, is looking to fill not only your closet but also your living room. Last week, H&M announced that its line of home items (previously available only in Europe) is being offered to American customers online. In addition, four large H&M American stores will stock velvet bedspreads, floral curtains, organic baby blankets, printed trays and metallic pillows starting this fall. One of those will be H&M’s new, larger location at the Shops at Georgetown Park, which will be opening in November. “We are hoping to reach the same customers we have now for our fashions,” said Marybeth Schmitt, a spokeswoman for H&M, which has 278 stores in the United States. “But we are also hoping to speak to even more new customers with this home collection.” Prices for the 600 home items range from $1.29 for a cloth napkin to $129 for a bedspread.


Bats are in danger, and they could use some help from kids

Little brown bats hibernate in Breathing Cave in Southwest Virginia. White-nose syndrome has killed millions of bats, including this species. So far scientists haven’t found a cure. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) Correction: You’re probably aware that giant pandas, rhinos and Asian elephants are disappearing from the wild. But the problems these large but cute animals face are getting a lot of attention from adults and kids alike, so hopefully their numbers will rebound. There’s an animal that lives much closer to home that is also dying in large numbers. Would you be surprised to find out that not a lot of people are coming to its defense? In addition to fighting for its life, this animal is also battling old wives’ tales and an image problem. As you have guessed by the pictures, we’re talking about a bat. Bat myths It’s not surprising that myths have hung around about a flying animal that comes out only at night. People don’t have much interaction with them. So false information continues to be passed along. “It’s a common misconception that bats want to roost in your hair,” said Katie Coiner, an animal keeper at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. Coiner cares for the 172 Seba’s short-tailed bats at the zoo. She says zoo visitors sometimes get anxious when they see her inside the enclosure with the bats. “They’re not something to be scared of,” said Coiner, who admitted that she wasn’t a bat lover as a child. Another myth you may have heard is that most bats have rabies. Any animal that is a mammal can have rabies, but few do. (To be safe, it’s best not to touch any animal you don’t know.) What about the story that bats suck human blood? Not true. Even vampire bats — which are not found in the United States — don’t suck blood; they lick it. The zoo aims to tell bats’ true story by hosting its first International Bat Day on August 24. The event will feature chats with keepers and other bat-related activities. It will also spread the word that bats’ survival is being threatened by disease and fewer places to nest. The ‘aww’ factor With featherless wings, big ears and pointy teeth, bats don’t always look cute in photographs. But bat rescuer and educator Leslie Sturges says that kids who meet a bat at one of her talks are charmed by


the furry creatures. “It’s always ‘aww,’ ” said Sturges, who spoke to 4,000 kids about bats last year. “No one ever sees their faces. They’re adorable.” Sturges said kids often ask personal questions about the bats, such as their names and why she is taking care of them. Sturges has been trained to care for injured and orphaned bats. When they are healthy, she returns them to the wild. At the moment, she has 30 in the basement and back yard of her Annandale home. Learning the bats’ stories creates a connection, Sturges said. “Kids have a lot of empathy,” she said. “Bats and kids go together.” Sturges will get a chance to take her message to kids and adults at the annual Bat-Fest Arlington at Gulf Branch Nature Center on August 24 and at a similar event at Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Annandale on September 14. What bats do Regardless of whether you think bats are cute, they are useful. “Bats are extremely important to the ecosystem,” Coiner said. “Here in Maryland, they help keep control of the mosquito population.” A little brown bat, one of nine species found in the Baltimore-Washington area, can eat as many as 1,000 mosquitoes in an hour. They also feast on beetles and moths, which can damage vegetable gardens and farm crops. The Seba’s short-tailed bats, which are common in Latin America, are among those species that help pollinate plants. “Without bats, there would be a lot less crops,” Sturges said. They’re also interesting animals. More than 1,200 species include bats as small as an inch (the bumblebee bat) and those with a six-foot wingspan (the flying fox bat). They are the only mammal that can fly. Even though they are mostly small animals, they live a long time — 20 to 30 years. One of the coolest bat features is how they get around at night. They navigate by making sounds that bounce off objects and let bats know how far away those objects are, a process called echolocation. (They aren’t blind. That’s another myth.) Sturges noted several other qualities that have fascinated her since she began studying bats in college. “They’re really tiny, but they’re super smart,” Sturges said. “I like the socialness of most of them. They have friends. They have language.” (Bats use a series of buzzes, clicks and trills to communicate with one another.) Sturges said she


With warmer winters, ticks devastating N.H. moose population

of those still alive are eerily thin, with rib cages visible through ragged skin. They are mere shadows of themselves, zombies with antlers. “It’s pretty depressing,” said Kristine Rines, a wildlife biologist and moose project leader for the state’s Fish and Game Department. “It’s a pretty tough way to go. There’s no question that climate plays a huge part in this. If we had winters that lasted as long as they used to, we might not be having this conversation.” New Hampshire’s struggle with moose is part of a nationwide trend, according to the Wildlife Management Institute, a nonprofit group established by sportsmen and businessmen concerned about wild populations. A rise in moose die-offs has been reported in Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, other parts of the Rocky Mountains and a sliver of North Dakota. In Montana, Minnesota and North Dakota, it’s not clear that ticks are the entire problem, leaving scientists baffled over why so many moose have fallen. Only Maine, where colder winters and snow still kill ticks, is showing a population increase, with more than 75,000 in the state’s range. Moose are more than oafish creatures that lumber across the wilderness. They are the largest of the deer species, with bulls that top 1,800 pounds and grow antlers six feet wide. The impact of reduced moose populations reverberates through an ecosystem. Moose serve as walking lawn mowers, clearing brush and creating spaces for smaller species, such as rabbits and birds, to hide from predators. Moose also provide hearty meals for coyotes and bears; a single carcass can feed these animals for days. But loaded with ticks, they scratch until their fur falls off. They develop anemia and starve, Rines said. They eventually become so stressed from tens of thousands of tiny bites every minute and every day that they can’t eat even if food is handed to them. “They look terrible. Their body weights are down. They have secondary skin infections from multiple bites,” Rines said, and they lose so much fur that they freeze whenever the weather manages to turn cold. “In the central and White Mountain portion of the state where winters are short, we’ve seen a steady decline over the past five to seven years,” Rines said. The state’s moose population is about 4,500, at least 3,000 fewer than five years ago. New Hampshire Fish and Game’s Wildlife Journal magazine wrote about the moose die-off from


Mexican drug kingpin Caro Quintero released

MEXICO CITY — The court ruled that Caro Quintero was improperly tried in a federal court for a crime that should have been treated as a state offense. Prison officials were notified of the ruling Thursday, and an official at the Jalisco state prosecutors’ office said the 61-year-old drug lord left prison before dawn Friday. The official was not authorized to speak on the record. News media were not alerted until hours after the release, and it was unclear whether U.S. authorities received prior notification. Caro Quintero still faces active charges in the United States, and Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said it did not know whether there was a current extradition request. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico did not immediately comment on the release or court ruling, which came Wednesday. Caro Quintero is considered the grandfather of Mexican drug trafficking. He established a powerful cartel based in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa that later split into some of Mexico’s largest cartels, including the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels. Mexico’s relations with Washington were badly damaged when Caro Quintero ordered DEA agent Enrique Camarena kidnapped, tortured and killed, purportedly because he was angry about a raid on a 220-acre marijuana plantation in central Mexico that Mexican authorities had seized at Camarena’s insistence. The raid netted up to five tons of marijuana and cost Caro Quintero and his colleagues an estimated $8 billion in lost sales. Camarena was kidnapped on Feb. 7, 1985, in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and a major drug-trafficking center. His body and that of his Mexican pilot, both showing signs of torture, were found a month later, buried in shallow graves. U.S. officials accused their Mexican counterparts of letting Camarena’s killers get away. Caro Quintero was eventually hunted down in Costa Rica. Camarena’s fellow DEA agents consider him a hero in the war against drug trafficking, and the El Paso Intelligence Center, where U.S. federal agencies collect information about Mexican drug barons, is dedicated to him. — Associated Press


Local digest: Man fatally shot Thursday is identified, con artists strike in Fairfax

THE DISTRICT Police identify man fatally shot Thursday A man who was shot to death Thursday night in Southeast Washington has been identified as 25-year-old Torrence Joseph Allen, according to D.C. police. Allen was found about 7:50 p.m. in the 4100 block of Wheeler Road SE, in the Washington Highlands neighborhood. He has no fixed address. Police said they had made no arrests and knew of no motive. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Nonprofit clinic aims to open by Aug. 19 A nonprofit medical clinic aimed at serving low- and moderate-income patients expects to open in Greenbelt by Aug. 19. Community Clinic at Franklin Park had hoped to open the week of Aug. 12 but is still awaiting final approval from building inspectors in Prince George’s County. The clinic will offer primary medical care, mental-health care and dental care in a 10,000-square-foot refurbished grocery store training center. It is in the midst of a 6,000-resident garden apartment community with many low- and moderate-income tenants. The clinic is expected to see up to 35 patients a day initially but eventually hopes to provide care for up to 100 patients per day. Fees are on a sliding scale based on income. Founded by Community Clinic Inc., a Montgomery County nonprofit, the Franklin Park clinic is the first of what Prince George’s officials hope will be several new primary-care practices established in the next few years. More than 80,000 of Prince George’s nearly 1 million residents lack health insurance, and there is a shortage of primary-care practices in the county, even for those who have insurance, county data show. The clinic’s address is 9220 Springhill Lane in Greenbelt. The phone number for appointments is 240-624-2278. — Miranda Spivack VIRGINIA Con artists strike in Fairfax parking lots Fairfax County police warned Friday about a regional financial scam that involves suspects approaching victims in parking lots. On Tuesday, a 68-year-old man was approached by two men in the parking lot of the Home Depot in Merrifield, police said. The men asked for help and directions and eventually convinced the man to withdraw a large sum of money, which the suspects took, police said. In another case, a 30-year-old man was approached in the parking lot of a Seven Corners Home Depot, police said. The suspects asked the victim for a ride to D.C. and showed him large sums of cash. They convinced the victim to withdraw


In his second term, Obama becomes bolder on the environment

regulations. President Obama in his 2013 State of the Union Address promised to tackle climate change. Six months later, how is he doing? Nia-Malika Henderson talks to Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone about whether the rest of Obama's presidency will bring changes in environmental policy. Agency heads were given very different guideposts for the second term as Obama deputized a new team of Cabinet members to enact a series of rules and policies aimed at tackling global warming. In his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, Obama has a policy manager who has written and contributed to several pieces on climate change as a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank in 2006 and 2007. He is a sharp contrast to former Obama chiefs of staff William Daley and Rahm Emanuel, who both privately saw global warming as a political liability for the president. The shift has alarmed some industry officials, as well as coal allies. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) described the administration as coal’s “adversary” and brought a state delegation headed by West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) into the White House on Aug. 1 to meet with McCarthy and Michael Rodriguez, the White House legislative affairs director. While Manchin called the nearly hour-long session “very respectful and productive,” he also said it exposed the “deep differences” between politicians like himself and Obama. “You cannot describe this any differently than as a war on coal, and not just in West Virginia or the U.S. but on a global scale,” he said. “They’re using every tool they have to destroy the most abundant, reliable and affordable resource that we have.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who co-founded the “Safe Climate Caucus” with Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and has pressed the White House for years to address the issue more aggressively, said he has sensed “a sea change” since Obama unveiled his climate plan in June. “It does not appear to be ‘just make a speech and walk away,’ ” he said in an interview. “It appears to be a lasting and real policy shift.” The Office of Management and Budget — which has delayed finalizing decisions on issues including what constitutes a wetland, tighter energy efficiency standards for commercial walk-in coolers and freezers, and which substances should make the EPA’s “chemicals of concern” list — has agreed to speed up its process and to brief


Perseid meteor shower will help astronomers get a better view of space

compensate for the wavy air. Checking in from the International Space Station, NASA flight engineers Chris Cassidy and Karen Nyberg discuss their research, future NASA missions to Mars, and what they miss most about Earth. It’s like adding a pair of glasses with rapidly changing prescriptions to the telescope. This technique — adaptive optics — has been called the biggest advance in ground-based astronomy since Galileo’s first telescope some 400 years ago. “You get better resolution from the ground than you can from space,” Trujillo said. Astronomers began to tinker with crude adaptive optics in the 1950s. But the technology did not mature until the military became interested in artificial guide stars in the 1980s, said Claire Max, director of the center for adaptive optics at the University of California Observatories. “At that point, it was all highly classified,” said Max, who was working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the time. The military wanted to image Soviet satellites, but Max had other ideas: “I said, ‘Astronomical objects move a lot slower that satellites, so I think it will be a great idea for astronomy.’ ” Max and her colleagues pushed the Defense Department to declassify the technology, which it did in the early 1990s. “There was a famous meeting of the American Astronomical Society when the veil was lifted and everybody heard what the Air Force was doing,” Max said. The first laser guide-star system came online at the Lick Observatory in 1995. Max used the system to bring Saturn’s moon Titan into focus. A hazy blob sharpened into view, allowing study of the storms raging in the moon’s methane atmosphere. Earlier this year, the most sophisticated laser guide-star system to date came online at the Gemini South telescope in Chile. The $25 million system sharpens the image provided by the telescope’s 25-foot mirror onto a wider swath of sky than ever before. “We’re looking deep into the cores of colliding galaxies now and watching black holes. It’s really fun,” Max said. “You couldn’t see any of the detail if you looked without these systems.” Over the past 12 months, scientists have captured stunning images of the planets, a galaxy, a planetary nebula and more from space. It took five years to build the Gemini guide-star system, but the experience will aid the next generation of giant telescopes. Laser guide stars will be crucial for maximizing their views.


For Bezos, The Post represents new frontier

the smartest kid in the class, at least in his chosen field. He had gone to Princeton for physics, but when the classes turned to quantum mechanics, he noticed he was being outdone. “One of the great things Princeton taught me is that I’m not smart enough to be a physicist,” he later recalled, clearly in awe of his betters. “There were three or four people in the class whose brains were so clearly wired differently to process these highly abstract concepts.” He graduated instead with a BS in electrical engineering and computer science. Former classmate Andy Fleischmann, now a Democrat in the Connecticut House of Representatives, described Bezos as “vivacious and friendly” and an “extremely intellectually curious person.” “There’s a common image that has been around for 30 or 40 years of the student who is interested in computers who is some kind of a nerd who just wants to talk about programming and code,” said Fleischmann, who frequently sat beside Bezos at their dining club. “Jeff never fit that stereotype in any way as far as I could see. He was curious about a lot of things.” Fleischmann talked to Bezos at their 25th reunion, and two conversations stayed with him. One was about a trendy restaurant where Bezos and his wife had dined the night before. It turned into a lengthy discussion of molecular gastronomy, which takes a scientific approach to cooking. “He knew all about it,” he said. “He remains this really engaging, outgoing and curious guy.” The other conversation involved Bezos’s intense curiosity about his classmates’ lives, even if theirs were not as glamorous. “I told him I was in the Connecticut General Assembly,” Fleischmann said. “He was like, ‘Wow! That’s amazing!’ I started laughing and said, ‘Well, I guess it depends on your perspective.’ He let out a big guffaw and told me how great it was that I was in public service.” The Amazon campus sprawls toward the south end of Lake Union in Seattle. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) His first years after Princeton marked a somewhat restless time. Bezos worked for a start-up and then a financial firm in New York. He got married, too. He had a good job. He could have become comfortable. But the emerging possibilities of the Internet and its rapid growth tantalized the entrepreneurial garage inventor. He wanted in on the revolution. The origins of the empire


Charlie the Lab is taken to Canada, and becomes quite taken with it, too

after eating a needle? We took Charlie with us to Canada because we thought he’d enjoy a change of scenery. As you’ll see, he did. What he didn’t enjoy was the trip itself. I can’t believe the Russians sent dogs into space, what with how poorly conditioned Charlie was for long-distance car travel. He seemed not to understand the concept. Whenever the car slowed — for an exit ramp, stoplight or traffic circle — Charlie would attempt to stand up. Prone, he could have resisted the centrifugal forces at play. But when standing, he staggered around on the folded-down split rear car seat like a concussed draft horse. He also felt that the entire car was his, so that whomever occupied the back seat had to constantly fight for territory, hoisting dog haunches out of the way. And, of course, eventually the window became smudged with dog nose prints and the air became suffused with briny dog exhalations. For all that, I told the Canadian border guard that yes, he would be returning with us to the United States. This may have been a disappointment to Charlie, for the vacation seemed to awaken something deep in his canine DNA, reminding him that his forebears came from Canada. My brother’s cabin is reachable only by boat. We loaded our gear during a rainstorm, then motored across the lake, Charlie huddled on the floor. Despite being a water dog — webbed feet, water-shedding coat — he’s never much cared for the stuff. But once we arrived and the storm had cleared, Charlie was a dog transformed. He found his way down to the rocky lake shore and walked in. When the lake bottom dropped away he started his stately dog-paddle, his powerful tail sweeping back and forth. He made a point of doing this every day we were there, just a brief little swim, even though we didn’t always venture in with him. (The water’s cold up there, even in August, and we don’t have fur.) And when he got out, Charlie romped around friskily like a dog half his age. The lake was like that swimming pool in “Cocoon.” Charlie slept for most of the car ride back home, his paws twitching as dreams of the Great White North — of pine forests and glacial lakes, of moose and beaver — unspooled in his head. john.kelly@washpost.com For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.


More work for the goats

Regarding the Aug. 8 Metro article “A job they can really sink their teeth into”: When the goats regain their hunger after grazing at Congressional Cemetery, there are many other delicious invasive vines choking trees on Maryland public lands. They can be found in parks under the authority of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and roadsides controlled by Maryland’s State Highway Administration. David West, Silver Spring ● Perhaps the most practical aspect of Tom Toles’s portrayal of a weed-eating goat facing the metaphorically vine-infested Congress could be found in the bottom right of his frame, in the form of the play-on-word: “the cud zoo.” While one harbors, alas, little optimism for what transpires under our nation’s allegedly stateliest dome, unleashing tribes and tribes of goats into our southeastern landscapes, mangled beyond recognition by kudzu, would provide a solution on which all parties could agree. Michael Kent, Washington


World Digest: Deadly violence continues in Iraq; 3 U.S. troops are killed in Afghanistan

the morale of the attackers. It said that 21 people had been killed nationwide in the attacks and that a recent security crackdown called “Avenge the Martyrs” had been effective. The State Department said Saturday’s attacks bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch. The department reiterated that it was offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the killing or capture of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the group. “The terrorists who committed these acts are enemies of Islam and a shared enemy of the United States, Iraq, and the international community,” the statement said. The United States will work closely with Baghdad to confront al-Qaeda and will discuss the matter with Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari during his visit to Washington next week, the statement said. — Reuters Mali Voters head to polls for presidential runoff From the ancient desert town of Timbuktu to refugee camps in neighboring countries, voters on Sunday chose who should lead Mali out of the political upheaval that left the country’s north in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked militants for much of last year. Voters heading to the polls Sunday said they wanted a leader who could bring a lasting calm to the country after 11 / 2 years of turmoil. Former prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita won nearly 40 percent of the first-round vote and has received endorsements from almost all the other candidates. He faced former finance minister Soumaila Cisse in the runoff; the results are expected by Friday. The vote is aimed at unlocking about $4 billion in aid that has been promised to help Mali recover from the political crisis, which also decimated its tourism industry. The monetary aid is contingent on a democratically elected government replacing the interim leaders. — Associated Press Afghanistan 3 U.S. troops killedin Paktia province Three U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday in Afghanistan’s eastern borderlands, U.S. and NATO officials said. The soldiers, from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, were killed by insurgents in Paktia province, a U.S. official said. Paktia is one of several Afghan provinces that border Pakistan and have endured some of the worst fighting during the nearly 12-year-long U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. More than 2,100 American troops have died in the war. — Reuters Gunmen kill 5 Yemeni soldiers at checkpoint: Britain writes off $744,400 in Somalia aid to theft: Curfews set in Kashmir amid Hindu-Muslim clashes: — From news reports


Regional news roundup

THE DISTRICT Juvenile is stabbed during fight in SW A juvenile was stabbed during a fight Sunday afternoon in Southwest Washington, D.C. police said. Officer Paul Metcalf, a police spokesman, said several people were fighting about 3 p.m. Sunday at Third and K streets SW when the stabbing occurred. Police made one arrest, Metcalf said. No information was available about the severity of the victim’s injuries or about the suspect. — Luz Lazo MARYLAND Wisconsin Ave. work could snarl traffic Work crews were slated to begin two resurfacing projects Sunday night in the busy Wisconsin Avenue corridor in Bethesda. The Maryland State Highway Administration said motorists should expect traffic disruptions as construction crews complete the final phase of pavement resurfacing on the two projects, which are about 11 / 2 miles apart. The work will close lanes overnight and during the day. It is scheduled to be finished by late fall. The work includes resurfacing a mile of Wisconsin Avenue from Jones Bridge Road to Montgomery Avenue in the heart of Bethesda and more than a mile of Wisconsin from the District line to Bradley Boulevard in the Chevy Chase area. Crews will close one lane on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and two lanes Sundays through Thursdays between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. State officials said the work will improve road conditions for motorists and pedestrians in the heart of Bethesda. The state has already completed work on curbs and gutters, sidewalks and ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps and made drainage improvements and traffic signal adjustments for both projects. About 67,000 vehicles travel the stretch each day, according to the State Highway Administration. The agency said access will remain open for pedestrians and residents during the roadwork, but the agency said residents and travelers are advised that equipment used for construction can be loud and disruptive and that curbside parking will be prohibited during the work. The project is one of several affecting traffic in the Washington area this summer as highway departments crank up their roadwork programs. — Luz Lazo One held, another sought in man’s death A man was shot and killed Sunday morning in Bowie in what Prince George’s County police said appeared to be a domestic dispute. The victim was identified as Michael Leo Reese, 27, of Southeast Washington. He was found in a house in the 2500 block of Nicol Circle. Police said they


From Fisher’s Popcorn, different business models, but the same taste

The original plan, employees said, had been for Hall to sell to retailers near Delaware and the Fishers to oversee orders in Maryland. But the logistics proved messy. “When we started doing wholesales, there were worries that we’d hurt business in Ocean City,” said Will Hall, Marty’s son. “So we decided to split it up so — we do the wholesales, they do the fundraisers. It was an easy way to get along.” Meanwhile in Ocean City, the rising costs of corn kernels and butter had begun to take their toll. The Fishers had experimented with retail sales before, back in the 1980s, but wanted to try something new. Back then, they had snagged big customers, such as the department stores Saks Fifth Avenue and Gimbels. Popcorn had flown off the shelves — albeit too fast. “It was great initially,” Don Jr. said. “But then it became, ‘Saks wants 500 cases tomorrow,’ and it was like, ‘Excuse me, that’ll take us two weeks. We’ve got to make the popcorn, we’ve got to pack it.’ It got to the point where we just soured on it.” Since then, Don Jr. says he has been cautious about expanding too fast and buying into the business mentality of growth, growth, growth. After all, he says, the shop can only pop so much popcorn in a given day. He’s making enough money (although he wouldn’t disclose how much). What’s the point in always wanting more? “We only have so much space,” he said. “Business is steady and at this point, it’s about quality.” Instead, a few years ago, the company shifted its focus to fall and winter fundraisers that help keep the family business going well into January. “The season used to be from Memorial Day to the start of September,” said Scot Wessels, who began working at Fisher’s Ocean City in 1985. “But things have really snowballed. Now we are open every day for most of the year.” The shop has revived its tradition of military orders, too — a practice Fisher’s grandfather started in the 1950s. Thousands of pounds of popcorn have been shipped off to military bases in Europe and Asia, and, more recently, to Iraq and Afghanistan. Fisher recounts the time a customer sent popcorn to a son in Pakistan — it took nine months to arrive, but when it got there, the troops said it was as fresh as


Runners are not giving themselves arthritis

The notion that the wear and tear of running causes arthritic knees and ankles is not backed up by studies. (Bigstock) While out on a run recently, I passed a hiker on the trail. “My knees hurt just watching you,” he told me, shaking his head. It was a variation on a comment I hear over and over: Keep running like that, and you’ll give yourself arthritic knees. The notion that running causes wear and tear on the joints that could spur arthritis makes some intuitive sense. But is it true? No — if anything, running probably offers protection from osteoarthritis, says Paul Williams, an exercise scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who leads the National Runners’ Health Study and the National Walkers’ Health Study. These projects have enlisted almost 90,000 runners and walkers and followed them since the studies began, in 1991 and 1997, respectively. In an analysis recently published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Williams calculated rates of osteoarthritis and hip replacement among participants in his studies and found that runners were approximately half as likely as walkers to develop osteoarthritis or need a hip replacement. Furthermore, runners who ran the most had the lowest risk of osteoarthritis. “There’s a perception out there that somehow you’re wearing out your joints if you’re out there running,” Williams says, but the thousands of runners in his study show this just isn’t so. “I’ve recruited people who were doing 60 or 70 miles per week, and we’ve followed them over time,” he says. “If there had been an effect, we would have seen it.” The notion that running causes osteoarthritis arises from a misperception about how joints work, says Alex Hutchinson, a science journalist who is author of the Sweat Science blog at Runner’s World and the book “Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights? Fitness Myths, Training Truths, and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise.” “People think the joint is just a static, inert hinge that wears down, but it’s actually a dynamic, living thing that can respond to stress and adapt and get stronger,” he says. Rather than wear down cartilage and other joint tissue, running appears to strengthen them, Hutchinson says. The latest research shows that osteoarthritis isn’t just a result of wear and tear on your joints, says Patience White, vice president for public health policy and advocacy at the Arthritis


Deported veterans: Banished for committing crimes after serving in U.S. military

deported from the country where he had lived since he was 3. “It was a stupid thing to do,” Tepeyac, 37, said of his crime. “I feel like I’m stuck in a perpetual nightmare. I can’t seem to adjust to this life. In the Marines, we have a motto that we never leave a man behind. I feel like I’ve been left behind.” A little-known cadre of soldiers who served in the U.S. military as green-card holders — permanent legal residents but not U.S. citizens — have been deported following a conviction for a crime committed after returning to civilian life. As a deported veteran, Tepeyac is one of a little-known cadre of warriors who served in the U.S. military as green-card holders — permanent legal residents but not U.S. citizens — then committed a crime after returning to civilian life, were convicted and punished, then were permanently expelled from the United States. No one knows how many there are. U.S. officials said they do not keep track, but immigration lawyers and Banished Veterans, a group formed to help the deportees, said that at least hundreds, and perhaps thousands, have been deported in recent years. Some committed felonies; others were deported for drug possession, bar fights, theft or forgery. Veterans who fought for the United States in wars from Korea to Afghanistan have been sent to Mexico, Germany, Jamaica, Portugal, Italy, England and other nations. Most of them came to the United States as children; many have been deported to countries where they know no one and don’t speak the language. Deported veterans are receiving almost no attention in the Washington debate over immigration reform. Despite their full-throated support for U.S. troops, political leaders are generally unwilling to advocate on behalf of convicted criminals. U.S. immigration law states that noncitizens who commit serious crimes forfeit their right to remain in the country. Deported veterans and their advocates say those who wear the uniform should be treated as U.S. citizens: punished for any crimes they commit, but not deported. Retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, said deporting veterans “is not fair, and it’s not appropriate for who we are as a people.” “One thing America has always done is revere its veterans,” he said. “To say to them, ‘You swore to


support and defend the Constitution and put your life on the line for the rest of us. But you’re not a citizen. So, too bad. You’re gone.’ I just think that’s not us.” Although deported veterans are banned for life, they are welcome to return when they are dead. Honorably discharged veterans, even deportees, are entitled to burial at a U.S. military cemetery with an engraved headstone and their casket draped with an American flag, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. VA will even pay $300 toward the cost of bringing a deportee’s remains to the United States. * * * One of the few politicians who have been willing to raise the issue is Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), “If someone is willing to put on the uniform of the United States military, the last thing they should have to worry about is their immigration status and that of their family; we shouldn’t be deporting them,” Thompson said in an interview. But in June, he said, House leaders declined to consider the proposal, a move that he called a “slap in the face to our veterans, our service members and our history as a nation of immigrants.” Veterans are divided on this issue. “We hold all military veterans in high regard, but if following our nation’s laws is a requirement for any guest to remain in our country, then that’s the law,” said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the nation’s largest veterans group, the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “An honorable discharge is not a free pass.” Craig Shagin “When Milton was in the Marines, doing dangerous work on behalf of the United States, we treated him as an American,” Shagin said. “Why would that change when he is out of uniform? Because he failed to file a couple of pieces of paper?” Of all Tepeyac’s mistakes, one he especially regrets is not applying for citizenship when he was eligible. If he had, he would not have been deported. Under U.S. law, Tepeyac had been entitled to apply for citizenship when he was 18; he had received his green card five years earlier. Also, once he joined the military the next year he could have applied for citizenship immediately, under a policy Bush enacted in 2002. But he never filled out the paperwork. He said he thought that he automatically became a citizen when he swore his Marine Corps oath


World Digest: Aug. 12, 2013

GERMANY No-spying pact with U.S. called possible Germany and the United States will begin talks this month on an agreement not to spy on one another in the wake of revelations by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden about massive electronic surveillance by the NSA, a senior German official said Monday. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, Ronald Pofalla, told reporters such an accord would offer a unique opportunity to set standards for the work of Western intelligence agencies now that the Cold War is over. U.S. Embassy spokesman Peter Claussen said he had no immediate comment about Pofalla’s remarks, made after a meeting of a parliamentary committee overseeing intelligence services. Pofalla gave no details about how the accord, which he said would also cover economic intelligence, might limit NSA operations such as PRISM, which compels major Internet firms to hand over detailed contents ofe-mails, video chats and more. Public outrage over Snowden’s allegations has been strong in Germany, where privacy is cherished after the country’s painful history of mass surveillance in communist East Germany and Adolf Hitler’s Nazi state. U.S. officials have defended the NSA programs as necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, including threats in Europe. — Associated Press NIGERIA Attackers kill dozens praying at mosque Suspected Islamist militants wearing army fatigues gunned down 44 people praying at a mosque in northeastern Nigeria, while 12 civilians died in an apparently simultaneous attack, security agents said Monday. Sunday’s attacks were the latest in a slew of violence blamed on religious extremists in the West African oil producer, where Boko Haram, a group that wants to oust the government and impose Islamic law, poses the greatest security threat in years. It was not immediately clear why the Islamist Boko Haram would have killed worshiping Muslims, but the group has in the past attacked mosques whose clerics have spoken out against religious extremism. Boko Haram also has attacked Christians outside churches and teachers and schoolchildren,as well as government and military targets. Since 2010, the militants have been blamed for the killings of more than 1,700 people, according to a count by the Associated Press. The mosque slayings occurred Sunday morning in Konduga town, 22 miles outside Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s Borno state. — Associated Press Two Shining Path leaders may have been killed: Murdered Briton’s family seeks money from China: Keita wins Mali presidential vote: Ad firm ordered to stop trash-can


We can make a difference in bird habitat

“The silence of the sparrow” [Washington Forum, Aug. 9], by John W. Fitzpatrick and George Fenwick, was welcome but it did not go far enough to describe the “silence” crisis in the United States. It is happening in our own back yard, not just to beneficiaries of the farm bill. Since 1995, the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia has conducted the Northern Virginia Bird Survey. The data for Northern Virginia corroborate national figures showing a remarkable and steady decline in the abundance of birds. Marsh wren, Kentucky warbler and northern bobwhite populations have all but disappeared from our area. The bird population has dropped more than 1 percent per year since 1995. American landowners (including urban and suburban homeowners) need to do something immediately, without waiting for federal support. Each of us can plant bird food: put a native plant in the ground. The insects the birds rely on to feed their young cannot use the non-native landscape that has become commonplace in America. Lawn care also counts for more than 70 million pounds of pesticides in the United States each year, 10 times more than what is used in farming. Even a balcony container garden presents us with a critical opportunity to be conservationists. In Northern Virginia, some 50 volunteers visit homeowners, businesses and others to provide suggestions about the habitat value and uses of native plants in a given space. While we can’t bring the bird numbers back, we can try to stem the effects of habitat loss from development. We simply need to understand that we can make a difference. Terry Liercke, Oakton The writer is president of the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia.


When rabbits invade the garden

from another neighbor’s driveway into an adjoining hedge. Among rabbit and hare species, the cottontail is a small thing, weighing just three pounds when grown. But its reproductive prowess is kind of scary. Females typically produce three litters a year, with an average size of five babies. If no rabbits died, a mating pair could produce 350,000 rabbits in five years. However, only two out of 10 tend to make it beyond one year — they are devoured by foxes, hawks, owls and coyotes. Domestic and feral cats kill them as well. Rabbit populations seem to grow in the absence of predators, but the exact cause of these pockets of infestation is elusive: Some speculate that milder winters are behind it, and rabbits thrive where they have ready access to cover. “I have noticed more rabbits in my own yard in recent years,” said Rob Gibbs, natural resources manager for Montgomery Parks who lives in Damascus. “My wife, being a gardener — well, we’re putting up fences.” I have talked to gardeners and homeowners in American University Park, downtown Silver Spring, Glen Echo and the Williamsburg area of north Arlington for whom rabbit populations seem to have gone wild in the past two or three years. They say the bunnies seem almost tame, moving a few feet as you walk past but pretty much staying put. The problem for gardeners is that they appear just so darned cute and vulnerable that it’s hard to get hopping mad. If individual yards seem like curbside food trucks for these bold bunnies, community gardens are gourmet supermarkets without the checkouts. “They’re getting kind of brazen now,” said Lisa Crye, who has one of 36 plots at the Barton Street Community Garden near Arlington’s Courthouse neighborhood. Her friend was in her plot, she said, when a rabbit came in, “tore off a leaf of chard and just walked off with it. They’re like rabbit thugs.” She came to Arlington in 1980, but “I never saw a rabbit until about three years ago. All of a sudden, there were droves of them.” There are signs the gardeners are fighting back. Like others, Joanne and Powell Hutton have put a fence of hardware cloth around their 250-square-foot plot in the Barton Street garden, which seems to have thwarted the rabbits, if not the voles. “I don’t mind giving 10 percent to the animals, but I would


When rabbits invade the garden

harvest, harvest.” In other words, don’t leave the goodies out there too long. It’s sound advice against squirrels, chipmunks and raccoons, as well. We come across Maro Nalabandian, who said her Asian squash “is all bitten.” “A couple of years ago I had watermelon,” she said. “The watermelons were all eaten. I haven’t planted watermelons since.” Another gardener, Nancy Melvin, gave me some advice that others had also imparted: Don’t use plastic fencing against rabbits. “Last year we had vinyl poultry fencing, and they just ate right through it and destroyed our beans,” she said. This year, her plot is surrounded by a chicken wire fence. Lynch is planning to add fence flaps to the gaps in the gates and has asked the gardeners whether they want to put up a raptor perch in the adjoining lawn for hawks and owls. Back at her McLean garden, Yvonne Tsikata showed me how she applies the rabbit repellents, which also keep the deer at bay. She lives in a small cul-de-sac where the yards flow together. A fence would be unneighborly, she said, so five years ago she started the spraying regime. Tsikata has spent the past 12 years transforming her property into a series of gardens surrounding her home: a hillside shade garden with hostas, viburnums, summersweet, astilbes and ferns; a patio with annuals pouring out of containers; mixed perennial and shrub borders; and a formal but cozy rose garden with a shelter. She feels that alternating products makes sure the rabbits don’t get used to just one and says it is important to start early in the season when everything is particularly lush and tender. In addition to Bobbex-R, she uses a product called Liquid Fence Deer and Rabbit Repellent, whose ingredients include egg solids and garlic. Both sprays emerge as a single stream. She doesn’t squirt every plant, just those she knows are vulnerable, and even then she doesn’t coat them. She will offer a zigzag pattern on things like hostas and liriope, and then target the new growth. I find the Liquid Fence to be particularly stomach-churning — you think you have come across a den of feral cats. The odors take up to 30 minutes to dissipate, she said, something to think about if you’re having an outdoor event. “This is not something you want to spray before you have a barbecue,” she says. @adrian_higgins on Twitter


Dealing with rabbits

or to put one up would break some written or unwritten code. You can, however, create a smaller fenced area within your rabbit-infested property where you could grow, say, vegetables or flowers for cutting. Again, chicken wire is an option. Here it would be secured to readily available metal stakes that you hammer a foot or so into the ground (avoiding underground pipes and wires). The wire is attached to the stakes with zip ties. These rudimentary fences could be allied with raised beds formed from wooden boards. The enclosure would need some basic gate or flap for access that would have to be closed when not in use. Cynthia Ferranto Another aesthetically pleasing approach is to build a conventional picket fence and staple the wire to the inside, allowing it to visually recede. The fence would rise three feet above the soil line, the wire just two feet. Though rabbits are merely bothersome to veggies and annuals, they can do permanent damage to young trees and shrubs. In winter, with little to eat, they like to munch on the bark of young woody plants, especially smooth-skinned ones such as maples, beeches and hollies. If they gnaw all the way around, they will kill plants. Protect them by fashioning wire fences into cylinders that envelop the trunks but allow space for growth. Knit the ends with zip ties and secure the cylinder with opposing stakes. Repellents Commercially prepared liquid repellents use organic but pretty disgusting ingredients, including putrescent eggs, and they require continual application, with its attendant cost and effort. Gardeners report mixed results, and some of the repellents are not meant to be used directly on the edible parts of vegetables. This seems feasible for beans or zucchini, but how would you protect leafy greens such as lettuce or cabbage? Repellents work best if you use them before you have a problem. “If they are coming in and they are accustomed to your plants, it’s more difficult to stop a deer or a rabbit,” said Randy Smith, merchandise manager for Gempler’s, a horticultural supply catalogue based in Madison, Wis. Decoys Gempler’s and others sell plastic decoys of predators, including owls, hawks and even foxes. “Golf courses use our coyote decoy for geese,” Smith said. The downside is that unless you move the decoys often, the rabbits lose their fear of them. Reposition them “at least once a week,” he


Sordid details spill out in rare court-martial of a general

of scandals and frank admissions by military leaders that they have systematically failed to address the problem. A growing faction of lawmakers The last Army general to face court-martial was Brig. Gen. Roger B. Duff, who pleaded guilty in June 2012 to making false official statements and wearing unauthorized decorations. The Army did not publicly disclose that Duff had been court-martialed until months later, when Sinclair was charged. In 1999, Maj. Gen. David R.E. Hale pleaded guilty at court-martial after he was accused of committing adultery with the wives of four subordinates. He was fined and demoted. Before that, no Army general had faced court-martial since 1952, when Maj. Gen. Robert W. Grow, a military attache in Moscow, was suspended and reprimanded on charges of dereliction of duty. Given the intense debate in Congress over possible far-reaching changes to military law, all sides are intently watching how Sinclair’s court-martial plays out. It is scheduled to begin Sept. 30 after months of evidentiary hearings and pretrial wranglings that have foreshadowed what is at stake. Last week, the Army finished selecting a jury of five major generals, all men, who will determine Sinclair’s fate. Under military law, each juror must be senior in rank to the defendant. More than 40 generals were summoned to Fort Bragg from around the world to be interviewed. Most were rejected because they knew Sinclair or other key potential witnesses. During jury selection, lawyers for both sides acknowledged the heavy political pressures swirling around the case. They asked the potential jurors if they were worried that they might be passed over for promotion if they reached an unpopular verdict. They also questioned whether the generals could resist outside influences, such as Obama’s angry comments in May, when he demanded that military sex abusers be “prosecuted, stripped out of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged — period.” Virtually all the generals said that sexual assault is a serious problem in the ranks and that they had previously heard about the charges against Sinclair. One revealed that he had attended an Army-mandated training session on sexual assault prevention in which Sinclair was depicted as a case study in bad behavior. Another commander, Maj. Gen. Kendall W. Penn of the 1st Army, candidly recalled what he thought when he first read news accounts of the case. “My general reaction was, this is going to be a black eye on the


The lowdown on low down payments

allowed buyers to finance 105 percent of the home value. Those zero down and low-down-payment loans were part of the problem that led to the housing crisis, because homeowners who never made a down payment found themselves quickly underwater when home prices dropped and were more likely to face foreclosure because they couldn’t refinance without any home equity. The market for vacation homes, from in the hills to on the bay, is heating up, but these homes are far from the simple cabin in the woods. Conventional lenders quickly dropped risky loan products and the pendulum swung the other way to loans requiring a minimum down payment of 20 percent or, for borrowers with excellent credit, 10 percent. First-time buyers and repeat buyers who could not make a large down payment have been limited in recent years to loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which require both upfront and annual mortgage insurance premiums that increase monthly payments. Members of the military and veterans continuously have had access to zero-down-payment mortgages through the Department of Veterans Affairs loan program. But now conventional lenders are bringing back mortgage loans with lower down payment requirements . “Most conventional loans require a down payment of 5 percent, but some programs allow a down payment as low as 3 percent,” says Doug Benner, a loan officer with Embrace Home Loans in Rockville. “A few banks and credit unions have special 100 percent financing products, too, that they keep as portfolio loans.” Portfolio loans are mortgages that financial institutions keep on their books rather than sell on the secondary market. Lenders can establish their own criteria and be more flexible than they are with loans that are being sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Traditional conventional loans that are sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac require private mortgage insurance (PMI) for mortgages with a down payment of less than 20 percent, but borrowers have several options for paying PMI. They can pay it monthly until their loan-to-value ratio reaches 78 percent, or they can take advantage of other programs offered by many lenders, such as paying a one-time fee or having their lender pay PMI while they pay a slightly higher interest rate. Safeguards for lenders, taxpayers The resurgence of low-down-payment financing may seem dangerous on the surface, but Benner says the loans are different this time. “When we saw these loans


National Zoo goes on round-the-clock giant panda pregnancy watch

FILE - Mei Xiang, the female giant panda at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. (Susan Walsh/AP) The National Zoo’s annual giant panda pregnancy vigil has moved into its round-the-clock watch phase, zoo officials said Thursday. Since Aug. 7, volunteers have been monitoring live panda cams all day and night, as the end of the giant panda’s gestation period approaches. The zoo closed down the panda house Aug. 8 after announcing July 26 that Mei Xiang was experiencing the usual secondary hormone rise that signals the closing of the pregnancy period. It is difficult to determine if a giant panda is pregnant because the animal goes through the same physiological stages whether it is bearing a cub or not. “Keepers say that Mei’s behavior is still very lethargic,” the zoo said in a statement. “She is spending more time in her den, sleeping and shredding bamboo for her nest, and eating less. Take a look at some of the animals born at the National Zoo. “She has also occasionally been cradling and grooming her kong toy and boomer ball while in her den. Our veterinarians are still attempting daily ultrasounds . . . but she has been choosing not to participate. All of these behavioral changes are consistent with a pseudopregnancy or pregnancy, and are behaviors that we have seen every year during this time.” The conclusive evidence is either the arrival of a cub or the close of the period with no cub. Mei Xiang gave birth in September to a four-ounce female cub, but it died six days later. The cub had underdeveloped lungs that gave rise to liver problems. Mei Xiang had five consecutive false pregnancies between 2007 and 2012. This year, officials said, Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated twice March 30, after natural breeding attempts with the zoo’s resident male panda, Tian Tian, were unsuccessful. During the first procedure, she was inseminated with fresh sperm from Tian Tian and samples collected in 2003 that were frozen. In the second procedure, Mei Xiang was inseminated with Tian Tian’s frozen 2003 sperm, as well as frozen sperm from the San Diego Zoo’s male giant panda, Gao Gao. The zoo monitors Mei Xiang’s hormones and behavior for clues to the stages of gestation. Mei Xiang has started to build a nest, which is consistent with the hormonal changes she is experiencing. Zoo officials think that her pregnancy period will close around


the female giant panda at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. (Susan Walsh/AP) The National Zoo’s annual giant panda pregnancy vigil has moved into its round-the-clock watch phase, zoo officials said Thursday. Since Aug. 7, volunteers have been monitoring live panda cams all day and night, as the end of the giant panda’s gestation period approaches. The zoo closed down the panda house Aug. 8 after announcing July 26 that Mei Xiang was experiencing the usual secondary hormone rise that signals the closing of the pregnancy period. It is difficult to determine if a giant panda is pregnant because the animal goes through the same physiological stages whether it is bearing a cub or not. “Keepers say that Mei’s behavior is still very lethargic,” the zoo said in a statement. “She is spending more time in her den, sleeping and shredding bamboo for her nest, and eating less. Take a look at some of the animals born at the National Zoo. “She has also occasionally been cradling and grooming her kong toy and boomer ball while in her den. Our veterinarians are still attempting daily ultrasounds . . . but she has been choosing not to participate. All of these behavioral changes are consistent with a pseudopregnancy or pregnancy, and are behaviors that we have seen every year during this time.” The conclusive evidence is either the arrival of a cub or the close of the period with no cub. Mei Xiang gave birth in September to a four-ounce female cub, but it died six days later. The cub had underdeveloped lungs that gave rise to liver problems. Mei Xiang had five consecutive false pregnancies between 2007 and 2012. This year, officials said, Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated twice March 30, after natural breeding attempts with the zoo’s resident male panda, Tian Tian, were unsuccessful. During the first procedure, she was inseminated with fresh sperm from Tian Tian and samples collected in 2003 that were frozen. In the second procedure, Mei Xiang was inseminated with Tian Tian’s frozen 2003 sperm, as well as frozen sperm from the San Diego Zoo’s male giant panda, Gao Gao. The zoo monitors Mei Xiang’s hormones and behavior for clues to the stages of gestation. Mei Xiang has started to build a nest, which is consistent with the hormonal changes she is experiencing. Zoo officials think that her pregnancy period will close around the end of August.


Can Ireland’s Celtic Tiger roar again?

highly productive, globally competitive export economy, which directly accounts for less than 15 percent of the labor force, Ireland’s domestic economy is relatively inefficient, unproductive and uncompetitive. Sectors such as retail are highly fragmented, with local stores protected from competition from large chains by zoning and planning rules. Costs of insurance, legal and other professional services are among the highest in Europe, largely because of laws limiting competition. A big part of the domestic economy is a government that, even after significant spending cuts, still rivals Sweden’s in terms of its size but doesn’t come close in terms of the quality of its services. The health-care system is not particularly cheap or particularly good, leading many people to turn to private insurance and private health providers. Welfare and pension levels are among the highest in Europe, left largely untouched during the recent cutbacks. And while there are a number of world-class programs in Ireland’s higher education system, even those who teach in it acknowledge that it puts greater emphasis on the quantity rather than quality of graduates it produces. Structural problems — some legal, others cultural — also stand in the way of a full recovery of Ireland’s financial system. Stringent — some would say Dickensian— bankruptcy laws make it extremely difficult for borrowers who cannot repay their debts from ever getting out from under them. Even in the best of circumstances, it takes a decade for insolvent borrowers to have debts written off — and carries a social stigma for far longer. At the same time, the collective memory of British landowners throwing Irish farmers off their land creates social and political pressure on banks not to foreclose on mortgages that, in all likelihood, never can be repaid. The result has been a stalemate between lenders and borrowers in a country where a quarter of mortgages are in arrears — and nearly all of them for amounts in excess of the current value of the property. Nobody really knows what property prices will be once all those problem loans are resolved. Nor can anyone know whether the ensuing write-downs will put the banks into insolvency again, requiring yet another government bailout. Because of this prolonged game of “extend and pretend,” banks have been reluctant to make new loans even to sound businesses, while apprehensive households hoard their cash and pay down debts. “The domestic consumer is beset by fear,”


Rare mosquito-borne virus confirmed in Maryland horse

(AP) Maryland officials said Friday that a case of Eastern equine encephalitis has been confirmed in a horse in Worcester County and urged horse owners to consult with their veterinarians about vaccinations. The horse, which had not been vaccinated, tested positive for the virus, which, like West Nile virus, is spread by mosquitoes. The disease can cause a swelling of the brain. Although it is rare in humans, it can occur when an infected mosquito bites a person. The last confirmed human case in Maryland was in 1989. The last confirmed case in a horse in the state was in 2009 in Wicomico County. Although EEE occurs in humans less frequently than West Nile virus, it can be more serious. Typical symptoms of EEE in humans include fever, headache, mental confusion, nausea, vomiting, muscle aches, joint pain and sometimes seizure and coma. Symptoms usually occur four to 10 days after exposure to a mosquito carrying the virus. There is neither a specific treatment nor a vaccine available for use in humans infected with EEE virus. In horses, EEE is a serious disease that can be fatal; however, well-vaccinated horses are generally safe from the disease. Infected horses show a range of clinical signs that often progress over two to three days, including depression, altered mental status, circling, problems with balance, weakness, aimless wandering, impaired vision, walking abnormalities, head pressing, paralysis, convulsions and death. Horses that survive serious disease often have permanent nervous system deficits. The Maryland agriculture department is working with Worcester County officials and will conduct air spraying over 6,000 acres in the Whaleyville area. The spraying begins Friday at 5 p.m.


Wegmans gets picky planning Walter Reed store

A shot from Roadside Development's promotional video of its Walter Reed plans. D.C. residents who love Wegmans but loathe driving to the suburbs may have seen reports that the grocer — typically known for box-like stores with surface parking lots — has unveiled a new “urban” format. Like Safeway, Whole Foods and Wal-Mart, Wegmans decided being in cities was important enough that it would modify its template and allow a store to be integrated into a mixed-use development, like the one envisioned for the former Walter Reed Army hospital in the District. But a new design does not necessarily assure a new store. Though Wegmans has repeatedly said it would like to open its first D.C. store at Walter Reed, the grocer told ANC 4A commissioners and District officials in a letter last July that it would effectively only come to Walter Reed if its preferred development team, Roadside Development, is selected for the project. “Wegmans is an exclusive member of the Roadside Development team,” wrote Ralph Uttaro, senior vice president at the Rochester, N.Y. chain. He said the grocer “specifically partnered with Roadside” on the Walter Reed proposal because of the pair’s experience developing another successful project, in Woodbridge. Roadside and Wegmans are also negotiating to open an urban format store in Tysons Corner. After Roadside and two other competing teams presented to the community in July, Uttaro wrote that he was “surprised to hear that other developer(s) may have included the Wegmans logo in their presentation materials or claimed that Wegmans has been having discussions with them regarding their plans.” Those mentions, Uttaro wrote, were not authorized by the company. The full letter is here. Wegmans officials have also made it clear to Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) and Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) that it was not happy at the prospect of having to pay a “living wage” set by legislation the D.C. Council approved. Bowser said Wegman’s unease factored heavily into her voting against the legislation and Gray said its position will factor into his decision-making as he decides whether to veto the bill this month or next.


Local Digest: Woman sexually assaulted in D.C.

with a gun and drove about two miles to Southeast Washington. Police said the man then sexually assaulted the woman. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Equine encephalitis case in Maryland Maryland officials said Friday that a case of Eastern equine encephalitis has been confirmed in a horse in Worcester County, and they urged horse owners to consult with their veterinarians about vaccinations. The horse, which had not been vaccinated, tested positive for the virus, which, like West Nile virus, is spread by mosquitoes. The disease can cause a swelling of the brain. Although it is rare in humans, the disease can occur when an infected mosquito bites a person. The last confirmed human case in Maryland was in 1989. The last confirmed case in a horse in the state was in 2009 in Wicomico County. Although Eastern equine encephalitis occurs in humans less frequently than West Nile virus, it can be more serious. Typical symptoms in humans include fever, headache, mental confusion, nausea, vomiting, muscle aches, joint pain and sometimes seizure and coma. There is neither a specific treatment nor a vaccine available for humans infected with the virus. — Lena H. Sun Man sentenced in wife’s 2011 shooting A Prince George’s County man was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to the shooting of his estranged wife and attempted shooting of his son. Edward Vincent McRavin, 51, had pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree assault. On Mother’s Day in 2011, McRavin, of Colmar Manor, arrived by bicycle at the Family Crisis Center in Brentwood, where he was allowed supervised visits with his son. He shot his wife of 10 years before his gun jammed and he fled the scene. Hours later, he was shot by police when he pointed his gun at officers. — Aaron C. Davis VIRGINIA Moped driver killed in Woodbridge crash A 53-year-old Woodbridge man driving a moped was killed when he collided Thursday with the driver of a small SUV in a strip mall parking lot, according to Prince William County police. Ray A. Daugherty was riding through a parking lot at Woodbridge Shopping Center when a man driving a 2005 Hyundai Tucson turned left into the path of the moped, police say. Daugherty was unable to stop. He died at an area hospital, police said The Hyundai driver’s name was not released. — Jeremy Borden


Beer’s not-so-secret ingredient

In referring to hops in his Aug. 8 op-ed column, “Detroit’s Mr. Fix-it,” George F. Will stated: “This grain is used to make beer.” Well. While widely considered an erudite writer, perhaps Will should leave discussions of zymurgy (the process of fermentation) to those better versed in this area. Hops are not a grain but rather flowering plants that are used to provide beer with flavor and aroma. They act as a preservative as well. The grain used in making beer is typically, but not always, malted barley. William Marsteller, Rockville


Somalia polio outbreak spreads; 105 recorded cases

NAIROBI — Vaccination teams face a daunting challenge: accessing areas of Somalia controlled by al-Qaeda-linked militants, where seven of 10 children aren’t fully immunized. Polio is considered mostly eliminated globally, except in three countries where it is considered endemic: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. India marked a major success in February 2012 by being removed from the World Health Organization’s list of countries plagued by the disease. Somalia now has 105 cases, figures released Friday show, and an additional 10 cases have been confirmed across the border in a Kenyan refugee camp filled with Somalis. Globally there have been 181 cases of polio this year, including those in Somalia and Kenya. Vaccination campaigns in Somalia have reached 4 million people since the outbreak began in May, but health officials have limited access to about 600,000 children who live in areas of Somalia controlled by the armed Islamist group al-Shabab. “It’s very worrying because it’s an explosive outbreak,” said Oliver Rosenbauer of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative at the World Health Organization in Geneva. Somalia was removed from the list of endemic polio countries in 2001, and this year’s outbreak is the second since then.


Newly independent, Savi pursues commercial work

luggage, to attach to your car,” she said. It “is kind of [the] dawn of a new age in how we think of leveraging location-based technologies to improve the way we live.” Last year, Savi formalized a deal with global testing company SGS that allows the company to use GPS and satellite technology to track freight movements. SGS has deployed the technology in Kenya, Ghana and Tanzania, Clark said. With the tracking technology in place, the company can see if a truck leaves its route or its cargo is removed and then can act by calling the driver or alerting police. Savi also is readying a much larger shift, moving into data analytics related to its tags. By bringing together all of the information its technology picks up, the company is hoping to make observations that could save the government and commercial businesses money, Clark said. “We’re now looking at what you can discern, what insight you can get from this data,” he said. The move is part of a broader initiative to package hardware, software and analysis together. “The world today wants a complete solution,” Clark said. A decade ago, virtually every RFID project required customized planning, Hand said. “Now there’s more kind of out-of-the-box capabilities, so it becomes more accessible to more organizations,” she added. Still, Savi may face challenges in moving into commercial work, said Raghu Das, chief executive of British market research firm IDTechEx, which has been tracking RFID technology for 14 years. The company had great success winning the military market, he said, but simply hasn’t put the same emphasis on commercial industries. “They weren’t really actively pushing into other areas . . . but they’re now forced to,” he said. “It’s challenging to an extent that other people have been trying to break into these markets.” In taking on that challenge, Savi officials said the company will benefit from its new independence. Since its founding in 1989, Savi, which was previously headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., has been owned by three defense contractors: Texas Instruments from 1995 to 1997, Raytheon from 1997 to 1999, and Bethesda-based Lockheed from 2006 to 2012. “When you’re owned by a defense contractor — whether intentional or not — your focus is kind of solely on the Defense Department,” Clark said. Now, “we can go where the market wants us to go. We’re not predisposed to federal is first.”


A drone of your very own: These aren’t your average remote-controlled aircraft

earth not far from his feet. “You’re fine, you’re fine,” Druce told the other pilot. “No, I wasn’t fine,” he replied. They laughed. Another pilot offered the following observation: “Everyone crashes.” Especially amateurs. But Druce has a loftier goal — starting a company that helps farmers map their fields for fertilization. The group of fliers is mostly male, ranging from elementary-schoolers to retirees, and the diversity of backgrounds is best exemplified by Scott Avey, the group’s self-proclaimed “drone evangelist.” The title is not entirely in jest. Avey is a pastor at a Frederick church, or, as he put it, “a guitar-playing pastor who flies drones.” He has used his drone to get aerial footage of his church’s parking lot to figure out more-efficient parking strategies. Not long ago, he met with members of Congress to discuss the potential for commercial drone uses. Like other drone fliers, he is worried that privacy and safety issues will overshadow the commercial benefits of drones, a concern shared by a variety of groups. The National Football League and Motion Picture Association of America have reportedly both pushed the FAA to integrate commercial use into U.S. airspaces. “We are at the same place with drones in the technology curve as computers were in 1986,” Avey said. “People would have never thought of the uses that we use computers for now.” The D.C. group is sensitive to concerns about drones, and it has been pushing positive uses. There are hopes to partner with a local first-responder organization to help with search-and-rescue missions for missing children or Alzheimer’s patients who have wandered off. The group wants to work with disabled veterans to help them find commercial uses for the technology. This month, it hosted a guest speaker, University of Maryland professor Tom Snitch, who is helping park rangers in Africa spot poachers, with drones larger than the ones the group typically flies. Good, the wedding-ring deliveryman, wants to use drones to make commercials and movies, but he knows the nascent personal-drone community has more work to do to make people comfortable with the technology. “There are people outside the White House probably right now protesting drones,” he said. “But we’re trying to do really positive stuff with these things, developing uses that are cool and new and exciting. I want to live in the future that is more like ‘The Jetsons’ and less like ‘The Terminator.’ ”


In Afghanistan, redeployed U.S. soldiers still coping with demons of post-traumatic stress

the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team recommended a 1-to-700 ratio of behavioral health specialists to soldiers in the field. In Afghanistan, that percentage is now even higher. At FOB Arian, Capt. Stacey Krauss is one of dozens of behavioral health experts deployed across Afghanistan, where more than 60,000 U.S. troops are still based. Krauss meets with her patients in a tiny room with plywood walls. She is a marriage counselor and a financial adviser and the one who hears soldiers recount the horrors of war. She is often the only person on Arian who knows how the soldiers of 10th Mountain are really holding up. “They can meet the criteria for PTSD but still be able and willing to serve this kind of mission,” Krauss said. “After multiple deployments, soldiers are able to build robust coping mechanisms.” Self-monitoring In 2009, Maj. Loreto Borce was a company commander in Iraq when one of his soldiers, Spec. Beyshee O. Velez, shot and killed an American contractor. Velez, a medic, had treated close friends with gruesome injuries, including several who later died. In February 2010, an Army mental-fitness board said Velez had experienced a “short psychotic episode” during the shooting. For Borce, who is now one of the top officers at FOB Arian, it was more than a cautionary tale. Velez was Borce’s responsibility. How had his soldier unraveled without him noticing? Back home, Borce developed his own triggers. For the first time, he felt anxious in large crowds. He went to the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City and felt tightly wound, ready to burst. He tried talking to civilian therapists, but he did not seem to be making progress. “I felt like I was being blamed,” he said. His commanders and his subordinates said Borce is an impeccable leader, the kind of soldier his unit needs here in Ghazni province. He was chosen to redeploy. He followed orders. But he acknowledges that he was still reckoning with what he had already been through, even as he boarded the plane for Afghanistan in January. Like dozens of others, he has met with Krauss. He has also tried hard to monitor himself. “The first deployments were balls to the wall,” he said. “I’ve learned to control it.” Not far from Borce’s office, across the sparse base plopped in the middle of the Afghan desert and soon to be leveled, Staff Sgt. Jerry