Vehicle crashes on runway during Panetta visit in Afghanistan

news media. It came three days after the pre-dawn shooting rampage by a U.S. soldier — a massacre that has provoked widespread outrage across Afghanistan. Kirby said the soldier was moved to a pretrial detention center “based on a legal recommendation,” but he declined to say where. The unidentified staff sergeant has not been charged, but U.S. officials said he surrendered after the killings and admitted his involvement. A senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he was flown to Kuwait. The soldier’s unit is from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Wash., and it is likely that he will face prosecution there if he is charged. A decision on whether to convene a court-martial would be made by an Army general in the soldier’s chain of command. Amid continuing furor over the slayings, U.S. officials showed a base surveillance video of the staff sergeant surrendering to Afghan security guards upon his return to his combat outpost. The video, recorded from a spy balloon floating over the outpost, was released as part of an effort to knock down rumors that other U.S. troops might have been involved. Panetta, making his third trip to Afghanistan, pledged during his visit that a recent string of setbacks would not force the United States to alter its strategy here. Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus, the senior Marine commander in southern Afghanistan, virtually ruled out further restrictions on night raids, which have drawn repeated criticism from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and have been a major stumbling block in talks on the framework of a long-term security relationship. “I don’t know how much more accommodating we can be with what is a critical element of a counterinsurgency fight,” Gurganus said. All the night raids are being conducted by joint teams of U.S. and Afghan forces, he said. Speaking to U.S. and Afghan troops at Camp Leatherneck, Panetta sought to tamp down worries about the course of the U.S. war effort after Sunday’s killings in Kandahar province, as well as the nationwide riots that followed an inadvertent burning of Korans last month by U.S. troops at a base north of Kabul. “We have been tested time and time again over a decade of war,” Panetta told the U.S. and Afghan troops who gathered in a stuffy tent. “That is the nature of war. . . . Each of these incidents is deeply troubling, and we


D.C. news briefs

D.C. Water to discuss projects, other issues D.C. Water is hosting public meetings with general manager George S. Hawkins to discuss water and sewer projects and other issues. The two-hour meetings will begin at 6:30 p.m.. ●March 29 at Anacostia Public Library, 1800 Good Hope Rd. SE. ●April 5 at Watkins Elementary School, 420 12th St. SE. ●April 10 at Columbia Heights Community Center, 1480 Girard St. NW. ●April 12 at Shepherd Elementary School, 7800 14th St. NW. ●April 24 at the University of the District of Columbia Windows Lounge, 4200 Conn. Ave. NW. ●April 26 at Luke C. Moore Academy, 1001 Monroe St. NE. For information, call 202-787-2200 or e-mail aleizha.batson@dcwater.com. Duke Ellington student wins scholarship Niya Norwood of Duke Ellington School of the Arts was the grand prize winner in the DC-CAPital Stars competition March 5 at the Kennedy Center. She will receive a $10,000 scholarship. Corbin Johnson finished second, winning a $6,000; and in third place was Paris McMillian, with a $4,000. The contest featured vocalists, dancers and instrumentalists from the District’s public and public charter schools. Agency posts survey for D.C. Housing Expo The Department of Housing and Community Development has posted a survey on housing and related topics in advance of the fourth annual D.C. Housing Expo from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 2 at the Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place NW. The survey will help determine the types of training sessions and services offered at the event. Previous expos have focused on homeownership, foreclosure prevention, financial literacy and rental housing. To take the survey, go to http://dhcd.dc.gov/. — Compiled by Terence McArdle


Soldier suspected in rampage is flown out of Afghanistan

involvement. The soldier’s unit is from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Wash., and it is likely that he would face prosecution there if he is charged. A decision on whether to press charges or convene a court-martial would be made by an Army general in the soldier’s chain of command. The U.S. military has kept the name and motivation of the suspected spree shooter a closely held secret since Sunday, when he allegedly walked off a small combat outpost in Kandahar province in the pre-dawn hours and gunned down 16 Afghans, most of them women and children. Some Afghan lawmakers have demanded that the soldier be tried publicly in their country to reassure Afghans that justice is being served. Kirby said the U.S. military had not ruled out sending the soldier back to Afghanistan for trial, but other officials said that was highly unlikely. President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other U.S. officials have sought to tamp down Afghan anger over the massacre by promising a thorough investigation and accountability for the shooter. Panetta has said the soldier could face the death penalty. Some Afghans who survived the massacre have questioned the official U.S. account that a single person was responsible for the shootings, saying they saw other U.S. troops in the village. To dispel those rumors, U.S. officials have shown a base surveillance video of the staff sergeant surrendering to Afghan security guards in an effort to prove that he was a lone gunman and to knock down rumors that other American troops might have been involved, a U.S. official said. The surveillance video was recorded from a spy balloon floating over the combat outpost, known as Camp Belambi. At a White House news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama called the shootings “tragic” but said the incident had not deterred NATO from its plans to gradually withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. “In terms of pace, I don’t anticipate at this stage that we’re going to be making any sudden additional changes to the plan that we currently have,” Obama said. Jaffe reported from Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan. More world news coverage: - Vehicle crashes on runway during Panetta visit in Afghanistan - A year into uprising, Syrian protesters say they won’t give up - China’s Wen Jiabao renews calls for reform - Read more headlines from around the world


TV Column: HBO cancels ‘Luck’ after death of third horse

of muscle relaxant and anti-inflammatory and painkilling drugs, including Butorphanol, a painkiller so strong that it’s often used as an analgesic for horses undergoing some kinds of surgery.” “Butorphanol is so powerful, they can castrate a horse on that drug,” Guillermo told the TV Column. Rosa told the TV Column she didn’t know where PETA could have got that information. Guillermo, who’s based in Northern California, handles issues having to do with racehorses for PETA. She told the TV Column that PETA got its information from the necropsy report and from “caring whistleblowers” concerned about the horses being used to shoot the series. Rosa noted that new, stricter protocols, including blood testing for drugs, were put into place after the death of the first two horses. HBO had responded to PETA’s claims, saying, “Recent assertions of lax attitudes or negligence could not be further from the truth.” The network noted in a statement, issued after the third death, that its safety protocols for the “Luck” horses had gone “above and beyond typical film and TV industry standards and practices.” “For example, pre-race exams are performed by a California Horse Racing Board certified veterinarian, and radiographs are taken of the legs of all horses being considered for use in any simulated racing sequences,” HBO said before the show’s cancellation. HBO’s statement included a comment from California Horse Racing Board equine medical director Rick Arthur, who said of this week’s death: “Unfortunately, we see several of these injuries in the stable area every year. They are more common than people realize.” AHA’s “No Animals Were Harmed” disclaimer did not appear at the end of two episodes of “Luck” in its first season, Rosa told the TV Column. In those two episodes, the language was modified, she said, and “indicated we monitored the animals. We did not say no animals were harmed.” Jones’s ‘Idol’ exit Producers attempting to liven up the aging “American Idol” by retrieving Jermaine Jones — who’d been weeded out by judges — got more than they bargained for when they learned he’d had run-ins with the law using various fake names. “Awww I will no longer b on the show,” Jones tweeted Tuesday on his official “Idol” Twitter account, after the Web site the Smoking Gun posted documents indicating that he had outstanding arrest warrants in New Jersey. His entire “Idol” Twitter account has been deleted. “Idol” exec producer


Loosening China’s grip on rare-earth metals

THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC of China controls 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare-earth metals. Lucky for China — but not so lucky for the rest of the world, because these 17 minerals, with names like europium and neodymium, are used in the manufacture of everything from clean-energy devices to the U.S. military’s precision-guided munitions. That gives China more market power in more critical areas than the United States, Europe and Japan can comfortably afford. The risks became all too evident in 2010 when Beijing suddenly cut off rare-earth exports to Japan during a flare-up of the two countries’ long-standing dispute over maritime boundaries. That de facto embargo lasted only a short while, but China still maintains production limits and export quotas on rare earths. So President Obama is absolutely right to file a World Trade Organization (WTO) case against China, in partnership with Europe and Japan. China asserts that it has curtailed supply because of concerns that unlimited mining was damaging fragile ecosystems. There’s some truth to that — unregulated rare-earth mining can be devastating to the environment. But industry experts generally agree that China’s principal purpose was to create a competitive advantage for its own manufacturers of advanced products that contain rare earths. If so, that is the sort of behavior China’s membership in the WTO was supposed to discourage. By taking the issue to the WTO, Mr. Obama and the U.S. allies are doing nothing more than exercising their legal right to let a neutral party decide. Whether the case can lessen U.S. dependence on Chinese rare earths in the short term is another question. Mr. Obama did not claim that his goal was to eliminate the need for imports from China, only to ensure that China maintain a level playing field between China’s buyers of the materials and those in the rest of the world. The Defense Department, which has previously downplayed its dependency on Chinese rare-earths, must still persuade a skeptical Congress that it has a plan to deal with potential supply disruptions. Rare-earth prices have come down from their 2010 peak, and a U.S. firm, Molycorp, is bringing a large California rare-earth mine into production, which should help restore the United States as a leading producer over the next few years. Molycorp recently took over a Canadian firm that refines rare-earth ore in China, suggesting that some of the U.S. company’s supply could wind


Identity of Afghan shooting suspect still a secret

women and children — were found dead. But when asked about statements by officials that his client confessed to the shootings after he returned to camp, Browne said that the “only statement” the soldier has made was “that he wanted to talk to his attorney.” Browne met Wednesday with the soldier’s wife, who was moved for safety reasons with their two children to Joint Base Fort Lewis-McChord in Washington state, where he was based. She is “totally shocked” about the allegations, he said. Military officials have said they will not identify the soldier until he is formally charged, but legal experts say it’s highly unusual for a suspect’s name in a high-profile case to be kept a secret for so long. Browne told the Associated Press that the soldier is 38 years old and originally from the Midwest. Browne said that the soldier is “highly decorated” and had been hurt twice in Iraq, suffering a head concussion and an injury that resulted in the loss of part of his foot. Browne is a prominent Seattle-based defense lawyer who has represented serial killer Ted Bundy and Colton Harris-Moore, known as the Barefoot Bandit. The killings in Afghanistan have led to questions about the Army’s deployment of the soldier, who had served three tours in Iraq and received a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury. He was later deemed fit for duty, and it remains unclear whether anything in his medical history could have led to his alleged actions. Browne said that according to his client’s family, the soldier saw his friend’s leg blown off the day before the rampage, and the incident affected all of the soldiers at the base. “His leg was blown off, and my client was standing next to him,” Browne told the AP. The details have not been independently verified. Browne said the soldier’s entire unit was upset about being deployed to Afghanistan, because members received little notice. Col. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for U.S. and NATO forces, said the suspect received a pretrial confinement hearing on Tuesday. The military could detain him for as many as 120 days before formally charging him. Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report. More on this story: - Pentagon: Afghan security breach was more serious than reported - Karzai wants U.S. troops out of villages - Video: Panetta meets with Karzai in Afghanistan - Read more headlines from around the world


Soldier accused in Afghan shooting spree identified as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales

Gen. David M. Rodriguez, commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, which is in charge of training and equipping soldiers for war, said the Army has done a “very, very good job of sustaining” troops through multiple combat deployments.” He said the decision of whether to send soldiers on multiple deployments are made “on a case-by-case basis.” “There is not a cookie-cutter solution or rule that says this guy can handle two or three [tours],” he said. “It’s about taking care of soldiers.” Some fear that the stereotype of veterans as unstable at best and violent at worst will be resurrected. Many veterans spoke out against a headline about the shootings in the New York Daily News this week that read, “Sergeant Psycho.” Tom Tarantino, the deputy policy director at Iraq and Afghanistan of America, said that without the facts, “you have this wired mind-set in the public consciousness and immediately everyone goes to the ‘Sergeant Psycho’ thing.” Many veterans advocates have dismissed simple theories about what set off the killings. “There are plenty of service members with stress and trauma who are drinking and self-medicating every day to deal with their conditions, and they don’t go out and gun down a bunch of women and children,” said Josh Renschler, the director of Men of Valor, a service member support group. He argued that while bouts of rage can be caused by traumatic brain injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder, they alone are not sufficient to explain killing of this magnitude. Jonathan Shay, a clinical psychiatrist and author who was awarded a MacArthur “genius grant” for his work with veterans, wondered about the soldier’s relationship with the Special Operations forces — which can be very standoffish to outsiders — that he was attached to at a remote outpost in Afghanistan. “To me this is a presumptive case of leadership failure,” he said. “Whoever was directly responsible for this soldier did not do his job in the sense of getting to know him.” Flaherty reported from Tacoma. Staff writers Craig Whitlock, Peter Finn and William Branigin, staff researchers Julie Tate, Lucy Shackleford and Madonna Leibling, and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report. More world news coverage: - North. Korea announces April rocket launch - Sectarianism haunts Iraq as Sunnis call for more independence - 12 Turkish troops dead in Kabul chopper crash - Read more headlines from around the world


The high cost of being lazy

Being lazy is costing you thousands of dollars a year. Really. That sandwich you buy at the ubiquitous corner chain costs $7. Does it really taste that much better than something you could make at home? Sure, sometimes it’s a luxury to have an extra 15 minutes in the morning. But do the math: A $7 sandwich every work day adds up to about $1,700 a year. Is it more delicious than a summer vacation? We won’t go into the $4-a-day latte fix, but compounding that with other bad habits, including paying for cut-up fruit or crumbled feta cheese at the grocery store, gives new meaning to the term “convenience fee.” Sue Perry, deputy editor of ShopSmart magazine, says grocery stores rake in big profits from lazy shoppers. “On average, there’s a price markup of between 50 and 63 percent. Just so someone can cut your food for you,” she says. “You’re paying money unnecessarily.” If you’re guilty of any of these peccadillos, here’s your Average Cost of Laziness. The rule of five Dry-cleaning Comparison shopping Bring your lunch Happy hour Keep the receipt Plan errands The small things THE BOTTOM LINE: ON SALE THIS WEEK Design Within Reach’s Mosey along Vienna’s Maple Avenue to Beekman Place, where the spoils include a selection of secondhand furniture from the global travels of military and diplomatic families. Samurai sword, anyone? The price is $800. A 1890 Hopi drum is $3,000, while a solid walnut table from the 1950s is $195. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Tuesday, Thursday-Saturday. 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. 126 Maple Ave. E., Vienna; 703-938-8646. Get your garden ready to bloom at American Plant’s Welcome Spring Weekend Sale. Save 20 percent on flowering plants, trees, shrubs, garden supplies and decor Saturday-March 25 at the nursery’s two Bethesda locations. A six-inch pot of pansies (at least three plants per container) will be $4.79, down from $5.99. Check www.americanplant.net for hours and addresses.— Janet Bennett Kelly


“The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table” by Tracie McMillan

unskilled jobs that took her, as she describes it, from farm to plate: She labors as a farmhand in California, picking grapes, sorting peaches and cutting garlic. She stocks shelves at a Wal-Mart in suburban Michigan. She expedites orders at a busy Applebee’s in Brooklyn. And she lives on the paltry wages that she earns to see what culinary compromises she is forced to make. Along the way, she unpacks how these jobs, and the corporate food chain as a whole, have evolved and shape the way we eat. Think of it as the food version of “Nickel and Dimed,”Barbara Ehrenreich’s classic undercover investigation of life in low-wage America. McMillan is a lively storyteller. It’s not easy to create narrative tension while describing repetitive, menial jobs such as unloading pallets of processed foods, but somehow she keeps readers’ attention. “Like any stranger in a foreign land, I’m overwhelmed by the landscape around me,” she writes of her first overnight shift in the grocery department of a Wal-Mart in Kalamazoo. “Finding the Great Value (the Walmart house brand) flour is akin to locating North America on a map, but locating the solitary strip of Great Value Sugar-Free Strawberry Banana Gelatin is more like being tasked with finding the capital of Bhutan.” More important, her investigation pulls back the curtain on a host of unsavory practices along the food chain. At McMillan’s first stop, in the garlic fields of California’s Salinas Valley, she discovers how companies avoid paying workers the minimum wage. “The problem is that, somewhere between the farm and our paychecks, the company is changing the number of hours for which it is paying us,” she writes, explaining a friend’s paltry earnings. “Even though Rosalinda’s tarjeta will show that she came in at 5:30 a.m. and left at 2:30 p.m., a nine-hour day, her check will say she was there for two hours — exactly the number of hours she would have had to work at minimum wage ($8) to earn what she made via piece rate ($16).” As most workers are illegal, they have no recourse to get their due. To make the equivalent of minimum wage, McMillan notes, a picker would have to be superhuman, plucking half a ton of garlic in eight hours. ‘The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table’ by Tracie McMillan (Scribner) Later, at Wal-Mart, she shows


“The Story of Ireland: A History of the Irish People” by Neil Hegarty

in the view of many the definitive book on that terrible subject and a vastly more compelling account of that great human tragedy than Hegarty’s brief overview. This is doubly odd because Hegarty, a writer of both fiction and nonfiction, clearly knows his Irish history well and has done admirable research. As a one-volume guide to political, military and economic matters, “The Story of Ireland” can be read to useful effect. It is considerably less useful, though, on Irish social and cultural life. We are told, for example, that in the early 19th century, “social distress, vagrancy and destitution became part and parcel of the lives of the poor; agrarian crime, want and hunger grew following a disastrous collapse in agricultural prices,” but we really don’t get much sense of what quotidian life was like for those at the bottom of the ladder, i.e., for most of the Irish. By the same token we are told that beginning with medieval monastic writings, “a literary tradition evolved in Ireland centuries before it appeared elsewhere in Europe,” but the subsequent development of that tradition is only scantily attended to. You would hardly know from Hegarty’s narrative that Ireland — the land of Jonathan Swift, William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, Maud Gonne, James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Sean O’Faolain, Edna O’Brien and too many others to mention here — has in fact a literary tradition so deep and rich as to be the envy of the rest of the world. He quotes Yeats — “We are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke, we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell” — but is content to leave it pretty much at that. Nor are we told anything about Irish music, which from medieval balladeers to U2 has expressed the temper of the land and has become widely known, and loved, throughout the world. Ditto for other aspects of Irish culture and life, from food to architecture. How can the book be called “A History of the Irish People” with all that left out? Which is to say that so far as it goes, “The Story of Ireland” is fine, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. yardleyj@washpost.com THE STORY OF IRELAND A History of the Irish People By Neil Hegarty Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s. 380 pp. $27.99


Export-Import Bank’s damage to American firms

to consider “any serious adverse effect” on U.S. companies before supporting foreign purchasers to help other U.S. companies. But Richard B. Hirst, general counsel of Delta Air Lines, charges that the bank exempts 99.8 percent of its transactions from this requirement. Hirst says that, from 2005 to 2010, the bank “financed or guaranteed the financing for purchases of 634 Boeing aircraft” and in 2011 it “authorized over $11.4 billion in financing for foreign airlines to purchase Boeing aircraft.” Because airlines are capital-intensive, subsidized loans give foreign carriers a competitive advantage over U.S. international carriers. Hirst says that if Delta had been eligible for similar subsidies, “it could have saved approximately $100 million a year in financing costs” and could have used that money to hire more workers “or even purchase additional aircraft from Boeing.” To which Washington’s likely response will be: Fine, let’s expand the bank’s mandate. Speaking last month at a Boeing plant in Everett, Wash., President Obama pledged “to give American companies a fair shot by matching the unfair export financing that their competitors receive from other countries.” This looks like a promise to compound market distortions by further politicizing credit markets, while enunciating no limiting principle. Obama is directing the bank to offer United Airlines a subsidy to match any subsidy Canada offers to persuade United to choose the Montreal-made Bombardier as United chooses between it, Boeing and Airbus. So American taxpayers will subsidize United to subsidize Boeing, which is already being subsidized in ways injurious to Delta and others. There is an understandable urge to counter the subsidies that foreign governments give to companies competing with U.S. companies. The result, however, is an increasingly mercantilist world. And as Hirst’s argument indicates, it is difficult to prove that the net effect is to increase employment rather than just redistribute employment to different — and, inevitably, politically astute — companies and sectors. As Sallie James says, public choice theory teaches that government favors flow to the politically connected. Favor-dispensing institutions such as the Export-Import Bank are dispensing incentives for private interests to develop lucrative political connections. What next? Look for proposals to authorize the bank to subsidize U.S. manufacturers competing with foreign imports that have price advantages because of government subsidies. And so it goes, subsidies begetting counter-subsidies, as U.S. trade policy is increasingly set by foreign governments. Politicians, however, enjoy being drawn into largess sweepstakes, which pretty


Stink bugs migrating to the Deep South

Kudzu bugs, from Japan, chomped on Asian kudzu, reducing growth of the vine by up to 50 percent, said Dan Suiter, an associate professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. But as it turned out, the bug had a taste for other legumes, such as soybeans. It migrates from kudzu in spring to soybean in July, reducing yields by about 20 percent for two years and costing farmers millions of dollars. On top of that, the bugs are really annoying. “They’re a general nuisance,” Suiter said. “I was just driving home yesterday and had one in my vehicle. They fly very well. We’ve found it on the 40th floor of high rises. When we first found it in 2009, they covered 2,500 square miles in the area. Their known distribution as of last fall is 108,000 square miles.” With kudzu bugs limited for now to a smaller area, brown marmorated stink bugs, which, like kudzu bugs, give off a foul bittersweet odor like rotten cilantro when threatened, get the lion’s share of attention from entomologists. Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said entomologists can’t stop stink bugs, but they can slow them down. The USDA research program and its academic partners received a $5.7 million grant, allowing them to watch the bugs’ every move. So far they’ve learned that males emit a scent that attracts both sexes, a possible signal that they’ve found food or they want to mate. Entomologist want to use that to trap them, or “attract and kill,” as she put it. Entomologists have found stink bugs in woods, in dead trees, under vegetation, “dispersed across the landscape,” Leskey said. “We have to think about a landscape-level solution.” Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee weren’t what she had in mind, but they turned out to be a landscape solution. “There appears to be a reduction in the late-season population,” Leskey said. Inkley, who vacuums the bugs up and collects them for science, counted only 3,000 in his attic this year, enough to make most people’s skin crawl. “I feel like I’m living in heaven, relatively speaking,” he said. But with a mild winter blending into spring, stink bugs are returning. On a recent warm night, Inkley said he felt tiny legs crawling on his back. He knew right away what was up. “Any warm day, they come crawling out,” he said.


Foreign Wars. On Friday, Gen. David M. Rodriguez, commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, which is in charge of training and equipping soldiers for war, said the Army has done a “very, very good job of sustaining” troops through multiple combat deployments.” He said the decision of whether to send soldiers on multiple deployments are made “on a case-by-case basis.” “There is not a cookie-cutter solution or rule that says this guy can handle two or three [tours],” he said. “It’s about taking care of soldiers.” Some fear that the stereotype of veterans as unstable at best and violent at worst will be resurrected. Many veterans spoke out against a headline about the shootings in the New York Daily News this week that read, “Sergeant Psycho.” Tom Tarantino, the deputy policy director at Iraq and Afghanistan of America, said that without the facts, “you have this wired mind-set in the public consciousness and immediately everyone goes to the ‘Sergeant Psycho’ thing.” Many veterans advocates have dismissed simple theories about what set off the killings. “There are plenty of service members with stress and trauma who are drinking and self-medicating every day to deal with their conditions, and they don’t go out and gun down a bunch of women and children,” said Josh Renschler, the director of Men of Valor, a service member support group. He argued that while bouts of rage can be caused by traumatic brain injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder, they alone are not sufficient to explain killing of this magnitude. Jonathan Shay, a clinical psychiatrist and author who was awarded a MacArthur “genius grant” for his work with veterans, wondered about the soldier’s relationship with the Special Operations forces — which can be very standoffish to outsiders — that he was attached to at a remote outpost in Afghanistan. “To me this is a presumptive case of leadership failure,” he said. “Whoever was directly responsible for this soldier did not do his job in the sense of getting to know him.” Flaherty reported from Tacoma. Staff writers Craig Whitlock, Peter Finn and William Branigin, staff researchers Julie Tate, Lucy Shackleford and Madonna Leibling, and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report. More on this story Crisis over Afghan killings may follow familiar script Militants attack delegation at site of Afghan killings Afghan shootings refocus attention on Fort Lewis-McChord Read more headlines from around the world


Kun-yen Huang, former doctor and medical school dean, dies at 78

Kun-yen Huang, a doctor and former professor at George Washington University who later helped found the National Cheng Kung University College of Medicine in Taiwan, died Feb. 20 at the ManorCare nursing facility in Potomac. He was 78. He had a progressive neurological disorder, said his daughter, Amelia Hay. Dr. Huang lived in the Washington area from 1963 to 1988 before moving to his native Taiwan. He returned to the D.C. region in 2009. Beginning in the early 1960s, Dr. Huang studied microbiology at George Washington University and later joined the faculty, specializing in infectious diseases. In Taiwan, Dr. Huang served from 1982 to 1995 as the first dean of the National Cheng Kung University College of Medicine in Tainan. Kun-Yen Huang was born in Hsinchu, Taiwan and received his medical degree from National Taiwan University in 1959. He received his doctorate from George Washington University in 1967. Survivors include his wife of 51 years, the former Amy Hwei-mei Hsieh, of Bethesda; three daughters, Nellie Huang of Bethesda, Amelia Hay of Oakton and Susan Huang of New York; three siblings, Kun-ho Huang of Hsinchu, Shu-mei Huang of Cupertino, Calif., and Kun-huang Huang of McLean; and five grandchildren. — T. Rees Shapiro


Afghan rampage suspect Robert Bales was a soldier strained by deployments

apparently commit such a horrific act March 11 may never be known with certainty. Hundreds of thousands of other U.S. service members have borne similar stresses during 10 years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, 24 hours after Bales’s identity was made public Friday, a portrait emerges of a soldier and a young family struggling under the cumulative physical and emotional strain of a decade of deployments in the country’s two wars. By all accounts a devoted family man and an even-tempered soldier who received awards and accolades for his service, Bales appeared to have been transformed in a single day into an alleged mass murderer behind one of the worst atrocities since the start of the Afghan conflict. The slayings have thrown U.S.-Afghan relations into crisis as U.S. military planners search for ways to speed the U.S. exit from Afghanistan. While the crimes of which Bales is accused are singularly brutal, advocates for military families say the pressures Bales faced are commonplace in a military stretched by the longest period of conflict in the country’s history. Michael Waddington, an attorney for service members accused of violent crimes, said the Pentagon lacks the resources to adequately screen and treat troops suffering from serious anxieties and stress. “It’s surprising this kind of thing hasn’t happened before, given the amount of time we’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has been measured to be as high as 31 percent, and numerous studies have shown that repeated deployment is a risk factor. The relationship between PTSD, anger and violent behavior is less clear — and a subject of intensive research. On fourth deployment The man accused of the slayings is a former stockbroker from Ohio who joined the Army shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He witnessed combat during all of his four deployments, and on the day before the killings he saw a comrade lose his leg to a land mine. Bales himself had been wounded twice, including a concussive head injury suffered when his Humvee overturned in Iraq. Yet, the Army had certified him as fit for combat before deploying him for the fourth time — to Afghanistan — in December 2011. Army comrades described him as a model soldier who was polite, professional and exceptionally cool under fire. A student of Middle


For investment bankers, 2012 starts strong — like 2011, before things went south

$49.1 billion, matching the $49.1 billion from 2010. Total deal volume also matched 2010, at $6.9 trillion. Goldman took the top spot in the ranking even as its total fees fell in 2011, to $3.46 billion from $3.6 billion in 2010. The falling fees were part of a tumultuous year for the big banks. Trading revenue also plunged to $13 billion in the fourth quarter from $28 billion in the first for the top five banks in the Bloomberg 20. It was driven by anxiety over Europe; by the Volcker rule, which will limit proprietary trading; and by new global capital regulations, known as Basel III, that limit the amount of leverage banks can take on, by increasing the amount of equity capital they must hold against illiquid assets. The banks responded to the revenue shortfall by cutting jobs and compensation. Globally, more than 230,000 bankers were let go in 2011. Investment banking compensation fell as much as 30 percent. Bankers say they are more cautious when it comes to committing assets on their balance sheets to certain deals, including long-dated derivatives contracts. “Balance sheet is a much scarcer commodity and a much dearer resource,” says Hugh “Skip” McGee, head of global investment banking at Barclays Capital. Total merger and acquisition fees rose to $20.3 billion in 2011 from $17.9 billion in 2010. But those numbers were offset by declines in fees from debt and stock deals. And they conceal the M&A freeze in the second half, when announced M&A volume plunged to $1.03 trillion, a drop of 18 percent from the first half. The pullback from the deal market started in early July, when the International Monetary Fund authorized a $4.2 billion loan to Greece to prevent it from defaulting on debt held by European banks. Euro-zone leaders approved another rescue package July 21. U.S. lawmakers then stoked fears that the United States could miss its own debt payments by waiting until Aug. 2 — when the Treasury Department said its borrowing power would be exhausted — to adopt a plan to raise the country’s debt limit. S&P downgraded U.S. debt on Aug. 5. Dangerous cocktail “We had a cocktail of the U.S. deficit, the downgrade and a whole number of issues around the sovereign-debt crisis in Europe,” says James Amine, global co-head of investment banking at Credit Suisse. Economists revised growth projections down, and some predicted a double-dip


Business owners fear dip in foreign orders if Congress doesn’t re-up Ex-Im bank

is projected to hit its $100 billion limit sometime this month, meaning it would not be able to provide financing for new loans. Senate Democrats proposed last week to increase the exposure limit to $140 billion over the next three years, but the measure faces opposition from some House Republicans and from various free-market advocacy groups. “If there is no reauthorization, our bank in the next year is not going to be willing to loan against the overseas receivables the way they have been,” Patton said. “That puts us in a precarious position, including possibly cutting employment.” An unusual controversy As part of an overall plan of doubling exports by 2015, the Obama administration called on Congress to renew the bank’s charter and increase its lending cap. The reauthorization stalled over the past few months because of disagreements between the House and Senate about the size of the lending cap and about how to handle pressure from outside groups. The controversy is unusual because it pits typically pro-business groups such as the Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation, who oppose the bank, against commercial groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who support it. Some free market organizations argue that the bank’s backing of business loans amounts to favoritism and an unconstitutional overreach of government into the private sector. “The bank helps some businesses but hurts others,” said Andy Roth, vice president of government affairs for the Club for Growth. “It spends tax dollars, either explicitly through loans or implicitly through guarantees. If private banks are nervous about the loans [the Ex-Im makes], taxpayers should be as well.” The bank has also faced opposition about its practices from Delta Airlines, which filed a lawsuit last year alleging that Ex-Im’s financing of Boeing jets for its competitor, Air India, has caused unfair price competition. ‘Eliminate these subsidies’ But supporters say the bank’s services are now more necessary than ever because recent financial crises have made banks more cautious about guaranteeing overseas buyers. “The emerging markets are growing rapidly, so there is great opportunity for exports,” said John Hardy, president of the advocacy group Coalition for Employment Through Exports. “Those opportunities that are constrained by the fact that commercial banks are not as willing to get involved in export finance.” Proponents also say the bank doesn’t amount to increased government spending because it is


Review: Jiri Belohlavek leads Baltimore Symphony at Strathmore

Conductor Jiri Belohlavek led the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Strathmore on Saturday. Belohlavek is chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. (Clive Barda/Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) Music from central and Eastern Europe is popping up everywhere these days, much of it already in the standard repertoire. Besides the Kennedy Center’s ongoing festival, “Music of Budapest, Prague and Vienna,” concerts focused on these three cities have spread beyond the center. Such was the case Saturday, when the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra played (to a full house) at the Strathmore concert hall. Apparently by sheer coincidence, the Czech conductor Jiri Belohlavek led the BSO in works by Dvorak and Janacek (Prague), Kodaly (Hungary) and Beethoven (yes, he was German but rose to stardom in Vienna). Belohlavek is chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. All in all, the evening proved exciting and memorable because of the rapt interaction between Belohlavek and the BSO, which responded instantaneously to every stroke of his baton. From the opening of Dvorak’s familiar symphonic poem “Carnival Overture,” it was immediately evident that the conductor grasped the music’s essential impulsive temperament: speed-of-light fluctuations between boisterous, compelling dance rhythms and slower sections sliding along from one delayed beat to another. Pastoral images of the Czech countryside came to life in Belohlavek’s hands. Israeli-born pianist Shai Wosner came on stage for Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 in G, Op. 58. His opening notes immediately revealed his Schubertian way of gently coaxing resonant lyricism from the keyboard, and his phrasing was elegantly defined. Belohlavek precisely answered Wosner’s delicate manner with muted pastel tone colors voiced by woodwind solos. For Kodaly’s “Dances of Galanta” (more passionately played than the NSO’s recent account), Belohlavek underscored the wild temperament of Hungarian folk style with its tantalizing gypsy style of ever-shifting tempos and furiously intoxicating accelerandos. The audience was mesmerized. Belohlavek connected all the dots in Janacek’s motivically fragmented “Taras Bulba,” a captivating three-part tale of violence and tragedy, ranging from a languorous, bittersweet elegy to an insane urgency with the emotional impact of his operas. Unfortunately, the orchestral brilliance was somewhat marred by the hall’s wimpy electronic organ. Porter is a freelance writer.


Robert H. Scales [“Consumed by wars without end,” op-ed, March 14] pointed to the problem of redeployments into combat zones of members of the current volunteer military. There is, I believe, an obvious solution to the problem that would carry a second benefit: the draft (of both men and women, with no exemptions save for medical reasons). This would increase the pool of those available for combat and reduce the need for re-deployment. The second benefit is perhaps less obvious, but certainly at least as valuable. By placing a large number of young Americans in an “at risk” category for injury and death, we might well expect that they, their relatives and friends would demand strong evidence that war was an absolute necessity. If such a demand for compelling, honest evidence had faced the Bush administration, for example, there might well have been no Iraq war. In short, endless wars may be tolerated so long as other people are fighting and dying in them. But if we increase the number “at risk” of being called upon to do so, we may find that wars are not endless after all. Harold Nelson, Washington


As climate changes, Louisiana seeks to lift a highway

GOLDEN MEADOW, La.— In 1991 this stretch of road through the marshlands of southern Louisiana was 3.9 feet above sea level, but the instrument — which measures the ground’s position in relation to sea level — shows the land has lost more than a foot against the sea. It sank two inches in the past 16 months alone. That’s a problem because Highway 1, unprotected by levees, connects critical oil and gas resources in booming Port Fourchon to the rest of the nation. Ten miles of the highway is now standing 22 feet above sea level on cement piles. But another seven miles is not, and if less than half a mile of this highway succumbs to the 14-foot storm surges expected in the future, the highway will need to be shut down, cutting off the port. Local residents and business leaders are demanding that the federal government help pay to rebuild and elevate the remaining section of Highway 1, adding two miles to span the levees. Federal officials have provided scientific and technical expertise but will not contribute funding unless the state pledges to complete the road. Louisiana says it doesn’t have the money. The dilemma facing this important lowland road is one shared by communities across the country as climate change begins to transform the nation’s landscape. By 2030, many areas in the United States are likely to see storm surges combining with rising sea levels to bring waters at least four feet above the local high-tide line, according to a report released last Wednesday by Climate Central, a nonprofit research group. Nearly 2.6 million homes are on land that would be inundated. The Obama administration is trying to plan for a country altered by shifts in precipitation, higher oceans and more intense periods of heat. It is rethinking infrastructure projects and creating a new plan for how to manage plants and wildlife in the face of global warming. Every agency is required to come up with a plan by June for how to adapt to climate change. “It’s about how do we incorporate planning for a future that may look very different from the way the world looks today,” said Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who is spearheading the administration’s federal adaptation strategy. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who started measuring tides in Louisiana in the mid-1800s, have


Region’s tech names got big play in Austin

Chef: Just Desserts” contender. The event is March 24 and 25. Lights! Camera! Four local journalists are about to make their filmmaking debuts with a full-length documentary on The Bayou, the legendary Georgetown music hall that lived from 1953 to 1998. Video production company executive Dave Lilling, C-SPAN studio host Bill Scanlan and writers Vinnie Perrone (a former Washington Post staffer) and Dave Nuttycombe have spent 13 years producing “The Bayou: D.C.’s Killer Joint.” The project is scheduled for telecast on public television stations in Maryland and Virginia later this year. The film chronicles the club’s music and characters from its days as a Dixieland jazz haunt (1953 to 1965) and a rock-and-roll showplace (1965 to 1998). Count Basie and Woody Herman dazzled jazz lovers there, and Wild Bill Whelan hit high notes with and without his cornet. The filmmakers have engaged online fundraiser Kickstarter.com until the end of the month to help offset the estimated $60,000 cost. Business school Is there something in the water at St. John’s College High School? The school in Northwest D.C., known mostly for a long list of alumni in the construction and real estate business, also gave the world such local business success stories as the late financier Joe Robert, former AOL co-founder Jim Kimsey, real estate manager J oe Borger, as well as father-and-son businessmen Ed and Brendan Quinn. Now there’s Nick DeSarno, class of ’97, who started Rock Spring Contracting in Kensington in May 2010 with Georgetown Prep grad Sean Keegan. Other principals include Brad Richardson (Gonzaga ’97) and Chris Leonette of Cleveland. The company is grossing $4 million a year. “It’s been a lot of hard work starting a company in this environment,” said DeSarno, 32, who studied finance at Virginia Tech before cutting his teeth at Reston-based homebuilder NVR. “But we felt we had the right ingredients, and whether it’s this environment or not, we didn’t want to wait. We want to be the one-stop shop for general contractors looking for a demolition, dry wall and painting subcontractor.” Rock Spring employs 20 people and most of its work is in the District. Factoid of the Week Mercer and District-based HelloWallet say that 20 of Mercer’s benefits administration employer-clients now provide access to HelloWallet’s online financial guidance services for more than 54,000 employees. HelloWallet helps employees improve financial wellness. 54K+ Number of people who have access to HelloWallet through Mercer


In Pakistan, surviving suicide bombings is part of a political family’s life

in Britain). Attacks become familiar Sikander Sherpao — soft-featured but hard-willed like his father — also followed his political path, and father and son first endured a suicide bombing together in April 2007, at a gathering in their home district of Charsadda. Twenty-eight people died, many of them party faithful and officials. The father was about 15 feet from the explosion, and his son was somewhat farther away. Both were thrown to the ground, but neither was seriously hurt. “I got a pellet in my calf, which is still there,” the son said, adding, with a chuckle, “I am keeping it, as memorabilia.” Then came a far more devastating suicide bombing inside a mosque in their district that bears the family name (taken from the town’s). It was Dec. 2, 2007, the celebration of Eid al-Adha. In the front row, Aftab Sherpao, along with Sikander and some nephews, was among those offering prayers. Younger son Mustafa Sherpao was a row behind, along with Aftab Sherpao’s grandnephews. “The sound of the explosion. The smell of the explosive. One gets familiar with that,” Aftab Sherpao said. “Human flesh littered all around.” Mustafa Sherpao suffered severe internal injuries that took years to heal. Fifty-three people died, including many of the community’s poor, who were neighbors of Sherpao, and servants. “It was agonizing,” Aftab said, his voice lowering at the memory. “There was anger amongst the people. I felt it was because of me that this has happened. . . . They didn’t say it, but I felt that it’s because of me, and I felt responsible for that.” Although they increased security, the only way the Sherpaos could have substantially reduced the risk was to not hold gatherings with constituents. But neither Sikander Sherpao nor his father saw that as an option — even after police foiled a 2009 attack on the son by killing a would-be suicide bomber near a political rally. “It is not for personal aggrandizement,” Aftab Sherpao said. “We have a message, and we want to carry that message and give the people some sort of hope.” ‘Oh, God! Not again’ The March 3 public gathering was relatively small, drawing 100 to 200 people. It was uneventful until Aftab and Sikander Sherpao left in their Toyota Land Cruiser — the younger man in the passenger seat and the father in the back with another lawmaker. The suicide bomber emerged


Loudoun teen says Intel competition was an ‘absolutely fantastic’ experience

difficult to explain — a challenge he had to address as part of the Intel competition. When members of the public asked about his work at an exhibition event last Sunday, Dyckovsky said he focused on describing how quantum teleportation might be applied. For example, the quantum teleportation of information from one place to another could help government organizations such as the CIA or the National Security Agency convey a top-secret message without the risk of interception. “I couldn’t go to the deeper levels, depending on the audience, so I spent a lot of time explaining at a surface level — which, in quantum mechanics, is pretty deep anyway. But it was a lot of fun,” he said. Meeting the president was also a highlight of the week, Dyckovsky said. Obama congratulated the students individually on their work during a brief meeting Tuesday morning and spoke to the group about the importance of their projects. “It was awesome. It was so cool that he took the time to do that,” Dyckovsky said. “Definitely one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life is shake the president’s hand.” As ambitious as Dyckovsky’s project was, his fellow finalists were equally impressive. Among the top 10 winners were students who had developed projects with the potential to help astronomers see farther into the universe, to explore how the behavior of nocturnal migratory might affect the wind power industry and to pave the way for the development of micro-robotic devices. The first-place winner was a clear choice, according to contest judges: Nithin Tumma, 17, a Michigan student, claimed the top prize — a $100,000 scholarship — for research that could lead to a more targeted, effective and less toxic breast cancer treatment. The judges noted that Tumma’s work was remarkably sophisticated. “No matter who you are, that’s impressive,” Dyckovsky said of Tumma. “He deserved, hands-down, to be first. I’m really happy for him.” The opportunity to establish relationships with peers such as Tumma was the most meaningful part of the entire experience, he said. “The most rewarding thing was getting to know the finalists, and to know that I have a network of people who understand what I’ve gone through to do my research,” Dyckovsky said. “To know that in the future I will have these people as close friends and people I can call upon . . . is really nice.”


U.S. commander in Afghanistan to appear before a wary Congress

has insisted that foreign troops be banned from entering Afghan homes and that American soldiers obtain search warrants before storming into the houses of suspected insurgents. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the Obama administration was preparing to allow Afghan judges to review night operations in advance, as a concession to Karzai. But George Little, the Pentagon press secretary, said “no decisions have been made” on the night raids. “Discussions with our Afghan partners continue on this issue,” he said. A senior U.S. official in Washington said the discussions were very preliminary. The warrant requirement is “one option that’s being discussed that would shift the focus toward law enforcement. There’s a lot of work left to do. We’re not there yet. This is just an idea that’s being explored,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. Afghan officials have argued that Afghan troops ought to be put in the lead now, despite serious concerns about their readiness to fend off — let alone defeat — the Taliban. “Afghan security is . . . something we want to take on as quickly as we can,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai said in a recent interview. Afghans from provinces where the Taliban continues to wield considerable influence said in interviews last week that they support Karzai’s position. “People in the villages want the foreigners to leave,” said Muhammad Jamil, 57, a shopkeeper who splits his time between Kabul and Wardak province in central Afghanistan. “They come to our homes, they search our women.” To be sure, there are Afghans who see merit in a strong military partnership with the United States. And Allen, who lacks the reputation and name recognition of his predecessor, Petraeus, has nonetheless earned the trust of many prominent Afghans. Shukria Barakzai, a lawmaker who as the head of the parliament’s defense committee has met several times with Allen, praises him as sensitive to Afghan sovereignty concerns and the country’s Islamic culture. “I greatly respect him,” she said. “He was one that was always trying to listen, not to ignore.” Staff writers Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Craig Whitlock in Washington contributed to this report. More national security coverage: - U.S. accelerating cyberweapon research - U.S. soldier accused in Afghan killings under emotional, financial strain - Documents show Bin Laden wanted Obama, Petraeus killed - Read more national security news


Moscow authorities prohibit rally calling for justice for Sergei Magnitsky

in a tragedy that sparked international outrage. (AFP/GETTY IMAGES) Magnitsky was working for an American law firm in Moscow, advising the Hermitage Capital investment company on tax issues, when he discovered that thieves had used a fraudulent tax return to get $230 million from the Russian treasury. When he accused tax and police officials, they charged Magnitsky with the crime. He died in jail at the age of 37 while the case was being investigated, denied medical attention and with bruises on his body. Recently, Russian authorities reopened the case against him, putting him on trial in death. Last year, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and others introduced the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, requiring the United States to deny visas and freeze assets of Russians or others connected to human rights abuses, identifying them and reporting to Congress on enforcement of the penalties. The Obama administration has lobbied against the bill, saying the State Department has satisfied the desire for punishment by quietly putting together a blacklist of unwelcome visitors. Now the administration wants Congress to remove Russian products from sanctions applied by the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik trade amendment, and a group of senators is demanding passage of the Magnitsky bill in return. If restrictions are left in place, the United States will violate World Trade Organization rules when Russia enters that body, imposing unfavorable conditions on U.S. businesses. Democrats are pushing hard for removal of the restrictions, supported by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who has many cattle ranchers among his constituents. Republicans, critical of Obama’s Russia policy, have been reluctant to change Jackson-Vanik, which they see as registering disapproval over human rights questions. Last week, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) came out in favor of lifting the restrictions, but only in return for passage of the Magnitsky bill. McCain has openly taunted Putin, once tweeting: “Dear Vlad, The #ArabSpring is coming to a neighborhood near you.” McCain’s support could persuade other Republicans to go along. Russian activists also favor the swap. “We see the Magnitsky bill as a measure against concrete individuals — people who Russians themselves want to see punished,” Pelevine said. “It is not aimed at the Russian people.” More world news coverage: - U.S. automakers in a race for Indian market - Rabbi, three children shot dead in France - Pakistani family stands up to bombers - Read more headlines from around the world


Panda poop could help grow green tea

An Yanshi, wearing a panda costume Saturday in Ya’an, China, unloads droppings used as fertilizer at his tea farm. (Reuters ) China’s national treasure, the giant panda, will become more precious if one businessman succeeds in using its poop to grow organic green tea he intends to sell for more than $200 a cup. An Yanshi grows the tea using tons of panda dung from animals living at centers in China. The panda-dung tea will be sold in batches of 50 grams that will cost about $3,500. It takes about three grams to make a cup of tea. Can you do the math to figure out how much a cup will cost? An says he will donate some profits to a fund for pandas. “I just want to convey to the people of the world the message of turning waste into something useful,” the former teacher and journalist, 49, said at a tea tasting over the weekend. An described the tea as fragrant and smooth. Some of his guests, however, were not impressed. “It’s sold at such a sky-high price. Perhaps this is just hype,” said Li Ximing, 49.


Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was found liable in financial fraud

been given legal notice of his right to present his version of events — and an attorney for Liebschner said it had been years since his client had attempted to collect the award from Bales. But the finding of financial fraud adds to an increasingly complex picture of a man who, on the one hand, is described by friends and neighbors as a family man and an even-tempered soldier, and, on the other, had repeated encounters with the law, including an arrest on suspicion of drunken driving, involvement in a hit-and-run accident and a misdemeanor assault charge. In addition to those incidents, he had evidently been under financial stress. His home near Tacoma was put up for a short sale a few days before the March 11 shootings in Afghanistan. Bales is being held at a detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He is expected to be formally charged in the coming days. On Monday, his attorney, John Henry Browne, told the Associated Press that Bales has a sketchy memory of the night of the massacre and recalls very little about the time when military officials said the shootings occurred. Browne did not respond to requests for interviews over the past several days. At the time of the complaint involving the stock trades, Bales did not have an attorney. ‘Heartbreaking tragedy’ Bales, a 38-year-old father of two, was on his fourth war tour when he reportedly walked out of his unit’s camp alone in the black of night in a rural area of Kandahar province and shot sleeping villagers, most of them women and children. As a member of the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, he had deployed three times to Iraq and once to Afghanistan from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma. Bales’s wife, Karilyn, issued a statement Monday describing the shooting as a “terrible and heartbreaking tragedy.” “Our family has little information beyond what we read and see in the media,” she said. “What has been reported is completely out of character of the man I know and admire.” Financial details The period of Bales’s life immediately before he joined the Army has remained relatively opaque, even as details have emerged about his childhood and time overseas. Financial records, however, indicate that Bales held a series of brokerage jobs from July 1996 through December 2000, spending little more than a year at each firm. In 1996,


In the Loop: How can Romney make Ron Paul fans his buds? Back pot legalization.

Here’s a radical proposal for Mitt Romney : If he wants to pick up the much-coveted support of Ron Paul ’s energized and organized “army,” the best way to their hearts might be through their lungs. We don’t expect the teetotaling former Massachusetts governor, who has said he supports the federal ban on marijuana, to take the leafy bait — but there are a few reasons it might not be such a wacky idea, once the GOP field has shaken out and he’s the last man standing. First, Paul’s supporters could be quite valuable to the eventual GOP nominee. While they’ve been dismissed as the party’s fringe element, they’re young and enthusiastic, two characteristics the party badly needs in the general election. (After all, Romney’s managed to tick off Hispanics, so he needs any constituency he can get his hands on.) And then there’s Colorado. With medical-marijuana shops on nearly every corner and a libertarian-leaning electorate — not to mention its status as a swing state — the Centennial State could tempt Romney to take a seemingly radical turn on drugs. Pot legalizers note that he could couch his support in terms of a 10th Amendment argument — essentially saying it should be up to states to decide for themselves. That would allow him to maintain his opposition to legalization while giving a shout-out to social conservatives, who love a good nod to states’ rights. There’s evidence that the idea of pot legalization is going mainstream — even among Republicans. After all, Pat Robertson endorsed the idea, and approval among voters in recent polls is surprisingly, well, high. More ‘claptrap’ on Hungary In October, when last we visited matters Hungarian, Prime Minister Viktor Orban was riding high — constantly criticizing Western Europe, predicting the decline of the West, and praising the Chinese and their system. But things have gotten a bit rocky. The European Union moved last week to freeze about $650 million in next year’s development aid to Hungary, and the European Commission began investigating whether Orban’s new anti-democratic laws violate European norms. Orban’s party remains by far the most popular in the country. Tens of thousands or more turned out in Budapest on a national holiday Thursday to hear him, chanting “Viktor, Viktor” as he vowed that Hungarians “won’t be second-class citizens in Europe.” But an opposition rally also drew a large crowd, and tens of thousands have


Karilyn Bales, wife of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, issues statement

A statement from Karilyn Bales What happened on the night of March 11 in Kandahar Province was a terrible and heartbreaking tragedy. My family including my and Bob’s extended families are all profoundly sad. We extend our condolences to all the people of the Panjawai District, our hearts go out to all of them, especially to the parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents of the children who perished. I know that all good people around the world, regardless of nationality, religion or political values, join me in grieving that such a terrible thing could happen. Our family has little information beyond what we read and see in the media. What has been reported is completely out of character of the man I know and admire. Please respect me when I say I cannot shed any light on what happened that night, so please do not ask. I too want to know what happened. I want to know how this could be. I have no indication that my family’s own safety is at risk, but I appreciate the efforts that have been undertaken to protect us. I hope there will soon be no reason for protection of families, whether here or in Kandahar Province, or anywhere, because the pain inevitably inflicted in war should never be an excuse to inflict yet more pain. The cycle must be broken. We must find peace. I know the media has a right to pursue and report news. As you do your jobs, I plead with you to respect the trauma that I and my extended family are experiencing. Please allow us some peace and time as we try to make sense of something that makes no sense at all. All I can do now is emphasize my sadness and my condolences to the families in Panjawai for their terrible loss. The victims and their families are all in my prayers, as is my husband who I love very much.


A history of e-mail: Collaboration, innovation and the birth of a system

program was eventually funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), as part of its CSNet initiative. CSNet extended the reach of the ARPANET/Internet to more computer science research and academic sites, and served as the forerunner to a larger NSF Internet project, NSFNet, which helped to formulate the distributed and independent ownership and administration of today’s Internet. While users and developers of the original ARPANET were readying for the transition to the Internet’s technical infrastructure of today, I collaborated with the wider community again, to revise the format specification. This produced what I believe was the first “Internet” standard for electronic mail in 1982. The standard was developed in parallel with the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which is responsible for moving these messages across the Internet. The standard has been revised twice since then in order to refine language, remove obsolete sections and conservatively add improvements. Over the years, individuals and committees have added mechanisms for remote access and group discussion services (mailing lists), as well as improving capabilities for managing e-mail services and more. This tradition of selective increments, which preserves a stable operational base and therefore the user environment, has been a hallmark of Internet technical development. By 1989, the Internet was expanding into the commercial sector, including the addition of connections to commercial electronic mail services, such as MCI Mail, OnTyme, Telemail and Compuserve. The connection to MCI, whose e-mail service I helped create, used an enhanced version of my “MMDF” system. In spite of the changes over the years, an e-mail from the early 1970s is very similar to what we see in messages sent today. Those messages also contained “from,” “to,” “cc,” “bcc,” “subject” and “date.” However, in the 1970’s, messages were strictly text. Today, they can include pictures, Web pages, music, video and more. While there were ad hoc methods for including these, a standard for it was not developed until the early 1990s — around the time the Internet went global. Beyond the similarity of message appearance, even more remarkable is that the e-mail service we rely on today has been in continuous operation since those early days. There have been many incremental improvements, of course, but the basic service, allowing users to exchange mail across the extent of the ARPANET/Internet, has not been replaced or interrupted in 40 years. It simply grew from a couple hundred users to a couple billion.


Gen. Allen says Afghan withdrawal plans beyond September not yet set

General John Allen, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), speaks with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, at a NATO meeting of Defense Ministers at NATO Headquarters in Brussels last month. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Tuesday that, once a scheduled 23,000 U.S. troops are withdrawn by the end of September, he does not expect to consider additional drawdowns until next year. “I’ll give the president my best military advice with regard to the combat power that we’ll need to accomplish this mission, probably in 2013,” Gen. John R. Allen told Congress. “I’m not sure that I’d be able to see out to ’14 at that point, but I’d probably have a pretty good feel for it.” The United States and NATO have agreed to withdraw all combat troops by December 2014. By then, the U.S.-led coalition will have transferred security authority to Afghan forces throughout the country, Allen said. “But we will still have combat forces in Afghanistan all the way to the end.” Allen’s comments appeared to place a military marker in the path of the rapid withdrawal advocated by some lawmakers and, according to opinion polls, by a majority of the American public. The question, which the administration has barely begun to discuss, is how fast to withdraw the 68,000 troops who will remain after September. During a news conference last week, President Obama called for a “gradual pace” that “doesn’t result in a steep cliff at the end of 2014.” Allen and other commanders have indicated that they would prefer that all 68,000 troops remain through most of 2013 for an additional summer of fighting. Administration critics, including the leading Republican presidential contenders, have accused Obama of undermining the war effort by signaling withdrawal plans at all, of following the political winds in heading for an early exit, and of not listening to the advice of military commanders. Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, asked Allen whether he had the administration’s assurances that “you can have the forces you believe you need through the end of the 2013 fighting season.” In what appeared to be a carefully worded reply, Allen managed to be both pointed and respectful of presidential authority. “I have been given assurances by the White House that we’re in a strategic conversation,” he said. “There has been no number mentioned. There


Washington Post food calendar for March 21-April 2

WEDNESDAY TOUR OF BORDEAUX: THURSDAY WINE DINNER: FRIDAY GRANDE FETE DE LA FRANCOPHONIE: SATURDAY A TASTE OF THE HILL: BARREL TASTING: DRAFT AND CRAFT BEER TASTING CLASS: CHOCOLATE LAYER CAKE BAKING CHALLENGE: GREAT RUM PUNCH CHALLENGE: PARK HYATT MASTERS OF FOOD AND WINE: SPRING SOIREE HOW-TO: WINE BLENDING: SUNDAY COCKTAIL COMPETITION: DRINK LIKE “MAD MEN”: WILD ABOUT MUSHROOMS: BOOK EVENT: MONDAY ARTISANAL CHEESE AND CHARCUTERIE: WINE DINNER: WINE DINNER: TUESDAY WINE DINNER: WINE SEMINAR: The session will focus on the Ribera del Duero region of Spain. 6:30 p.m. $50, including tax and gratuity. Taberna del Alabardero, 1776 I St. NW. 202-429-2200. — Becky Krystal SEND NOTICES to: To Do, Food, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or e-mail food@washpost.com, 14 days in advance.


Beer Madness, Round 2: Tropical fruit and fresh laundry

Halley Fehner, third from left, participates in the Washington Post's annual Beer Madness which takes place at Church Key. Eight judges taste and judge dozens of quality beers to determine which one is the best. (Astrid Riecken/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) Round 2 of this year’s Beer Madness competition produced two 5-4 squeakers and one 8-1 blowout, as palates and memories began playing tricks on the tasting panel. The delicate Fordham Helles Lager defeated the darker Eliot Ness Amber by a hair’s breadth, 5-4. Reader/judge Samantha Polinik pronounced the Helles “fresh and springish,” while reader/judge Jim Munsterman praised its “pleasant snap to flavor.” Even Komi sommelier Kathryn Bangs, who panned this beer in Round 1, lauded its “great finish” and “great texture.” The hoppy Prima Pils lost to Sword Swallower, 7-2. Our tasters found the latter more complex, picking up notes of butterscotch, tropical fruit, apple, cardamom and even — according to mixologist Gina Chersevani — “light blue cheese.” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) voted for this strong lager (7.2 percent by volume) but added that it “didn’t seem to be in the same category” as the pils. “I remember this one — still getting a lovely subtle smokiness balanced with sweet melon,” wrote reader/judge Halley Fehner of DreamWeaver Wheat, the first entry in the Fruit & Spice category. (Actually, she had ascribed smokiness to Optimal Wit in the previous round.) “This is the true champagne of beers,” gushed Bangs, although she wound up voting for its opponent, Saison Rue, as did our panel, 7-2. Defending champion Flying Fish Exit 4, with its fruity and honeysuckle flavors, handily beat Siamese Twin, 6-3, although Palena pastry chef Agnes Chin thought Exit 4 smelled like “fresh laundry” and gave it a thumbs down. Greg Engert, Beer Director of the Neighborhood Restaurant group, breaks down the judging process for Washington Post Beer Madness 2012. In the Hop slot, Polinik liked the Public because she could drink a few without getting “hopped out,” while Bangs picked the District’s hometown brew for the opposite reason: “Whoa — high intensity. Seems like an imperial style.” It bested Belgo, 7-2. Chersevani detected notes of “wet socks, light vinegar, apple cider” in Burton Baton but voted for it anyway. Bangs complained that the woody, whiskeyish double IPA was “too rich for my blood,” but it still beat Red’s Rye, 5-4. “I can’t believe my favorite beer from last week didn’t


Junior ROTC offers lessons in leadership, service

important for people to know what our military does. It’s important that they get exposed to military-type things as a citizen. “It’s not a recruiting program. I don’t even talk to a student about military options until their junior year. Then we have ‘the talk.’ ” During the Great Recession, Cassara said, he was having “the talk” more often with students, as many of them were increasingly concerned about paying for college. ROTC offers scholarships to college students. “There was more of a hard look at things, especially in 2008,” said Cassara, who has worked at the school since 2000. “We do it every year with college planning. We say, ‘You need to talk to Mom and Dad about this because the money they had set aside for college might not be there anymore.’ ” Despite this increased interest, Cassara said, enrollment has decreased, causing concern about the future of Herndon’s Junior ROTC program. “We’re actually in a little bit of trouble here. The unit has been around since 1983. We’ve graduated a lot of kids. . . . These kids have done very well here,” he said, adding the program is not meeting enrollment numbers required by the Navy. “We have seen a couple dips in numbers. The Navy has put everyone on notice, saying we’re facing budget cuts and there are many people on our waiting list for programs like this.” Currently, enrollment is 98 students; the program needs 100 students. Although the program gives students interested in military careers a peek at what service life is like, it is really aimed at bettering students now, Cassara said. It is open to all students. The program can help align students with college scholarships provided through ROTC programs, he said. “If they are going in that direction [of military service], this is really good for them, and if not it’s still good for them,” Cassara said. “We’ve seen kids who are gung-ho to go into the military and now are not so much.” In class, fellow instructor John Maness tells students, “There are two grades in the Navy: satisfactory and unsatisfactory.” Knowing the difference, instructors said, is part of acknowledging personal responsibility. “Reinforcing things like personal responsibility, time management, prioritization. . . . There are important lessons,” Cassara said. “We lay some leadership things on them that I don’t think they get anywhere else.” Many students said they were


Group working to bring North Korean orchestra to United States

Musicians from the National Symphony Orchestra of North Korea tune their instruments during a rehearsal at the Moranbong Theater in on Feb. 29 in Pyongyang. (Kim Kwang Hyon/AP) A humanitarian group is working to bring the National Symphony Orchestra of North Korea on a tour of the United States — with the full blessing of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, one of the most repressive countries in the world. It would be the first time a large performing arts ensemble from North Korea has come to the United States. The tour, comprising 164 musicians and including stops in Atlanta; Oxford, Miss.; and New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, was scheduled for February, but plans ground to a halt with the death of Kim Jong Il in December. Further spring dates have been complicated by other geopolitical matters, notably North Korea’s announcement of its intention to launch a missile in honor of the 100th birthday of its late and still-revered Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, also jeopardizing a newly negotiated food-aid deal with the United States. The next tour possibility is in May — pending approval from the U.S. State Department. Robert Springs, the founder of Global Resource Services and the tour’s initiator, estimated the tour’s total cost at $3 million — if it gets off the ground. “We’ve spent, in the last 15 years, over $35 million in humanitarian aid,” he said. “If something like this [tour] could result in more normal international relations, that would be the tipping point to help solve all these humanitarian problems. I think that’s well worth the price tag.” Springs has made something of a sideline of North Korean cultural exchanges. He has brought three American bands to North Korea, including the Christian band Casting Crowns, which twice played at the international music festival celebrating Kim Il Sung’s birthday. This spring, Springs is traveling to North Korea with an all-male chorus called the Sons of Jubal. “We wanted to bring a group,” he said of the current tour, which has been in the works since 2007, “and it was suggested that we bring this group.” In short: It was North Korea’s idea. The National Symphony Orchestra of North Korea, whose name also has been translated as the State Symphony of North Korea, is the country’s oldest and most established Western-style orchestra. It bears no relationship to the Unhasu Orchestra, another North Korean ensemble, which


Prince George’s County Animal Watch

The following cases were received recently by the Prince George’s County Department of Environmental Resources Animal Management Group. Call 301-780-7200 for directions to the county animal shelter, hours of operation and adoption and licensing procedures. The shelter’s Web site is www.princegeorgescountymd.gov/der/amg. Stray chasing stray: Puppy held temporarily: Injured cat needed help: Bat in basement: Akita mix gets restrained: Bowie pet showcase: — Compiled by Jillian S. Sowah


Space scientist, sentenced to 13 years, expresses regret over espionage attempt

mind to advance the interests of Stewart Nozette.” The fraud investigation eventually led to his downfall on espionage charges. While searching Nozette’s home in 2007 in connection with the fraud case, federal agents found classified information on computers and grew concerned about a contract he had with an Israeli aerospace company. They also discovered a 2002 e-mail that said Nozette was willing to provide classified information to Israel or another undisclosed country. By September 2009, an FBI agent posing as a member of the “Mossad” approached Nozette and, in recorded meetings, asked the scientist whether he would spy for Israel. They agreed to exchange information through a post office box in the District, and Nozette collected more than $20,000 in cash for providing classified information about such defense programs as satellites and early-warning systems, according to court papers that accompanied Nozette’s September guilty plea to one count of attempted espionage. Federal prosecutors said Nozette’s motive was simple: greed. In court Wednesday, prosecutors played a video clip of the last meeting between Nozette and the undercover FBI agent in a Mayflower Hotel suite that they said demonstrated his determination to exchange secrets for cash. In the video, Nozette is wearing a dark blazer over a button-down shirt. Reclining on a couch, he tells the agent, “I gave you, in this first run, some of the most classified information that there is.” “I’ve crossed the Rubicon,” the scientist later says after accepting an envelope stuffed with $10,000 in cash. “I’ve made a career choice.” After playing the clip, Assitant U.S. Attorney Anthony Asuncion said Nozette “agreed to be a traitor to the United States with a smile on his face.” Frustrated Conceding that Nozette had made mistakes, his attorneys countered that their client was unfairly targeted by FBI agents who “manipulated and exploited” a vulnerable man under enormous strain. They noted that Nozette was deeply frustrated by the government’s fraud prosecution, which resulted in NASA denying him entry to Goddard Space Flight Center during an important lunar mission. Meanwhile, as part of his plea deal, Nozette was working covertly for federal agents, wearing a wire and making recorded phone calls with others he suspected of committing fraud. The undercover assignment was stressful, and Nozette worried that he might be in danger — at least two targets had guns and one belonged to a “violent hate group,” defense attorneys said in court papers.


Tips from some D.C. tastemakers

Thrillist: D.C. editor Leo Schmid creates a daily e-mail of local happenings, from zombie runs to beer academies. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) You may not know them all, but you’ve probably benefited from their work. When it comes to getting juicy tidbits about an amazing upcoming roof deck or a quirky art opening, you can count on these experts (along with the Going Out Gurus, of course) to spread the news. Through blogs, Web sites, e-mails and a radio show, they share the insights and recommendations that keep their followers plugged in, too. Read on to find insider tips from these tastemakers: the restaurants, events and deals they count among their personal favorites. Dan Silverman, 37 Editor and founder of Prince of Petworth Google a new restaurant/store/bar opening, and you’ll likely find a post from Dan Silverman’s Web site (www.princeofpetworth.com). The neighborhood blog he began in November 2006 became his full-time gig last September. Silverman is known for being first to announce news — such as the upcoming Tryst Diner in Columbia Heights — and he does it by walking five miles a day checking out the D.C. streets. On his calendar for months: Debut he’s looking forward to: Avoiding the tourist hordes: People-watching perch: When he has amorous aspirations: Leo Schmid, 28 Editor of Thrillist: D.C. Since joining the Thrillist team (www.thrillist.com/dc) in August 2010, Leo Schmid has been making his readers come off as hip dudes, thanks to his daily e-mail of local happenings from zombie runs to beer academies. On his calendar for months: Happy-hour haven: A splurge-worthy spot: Not-quite classified information: Debut he’s looking to: Joi-Marie McKenzie, 26 Editor and founder, the Fab Empire After graduating from the University of Maryland, Joi-Marie McKenzie launched the blog Fab University to document D.C. night life. It wasn’t long before she realized the site had tremendous opportunity for growth. She launched a new blog, D.C. Fab, in August 2007. Today, she heads up a network of blogs (www.thefabempire.com) with hubs in New York, Boston, Baltimore and Washington. Despite the fact that she now divides her time between the District and New York — she recently landed a gig as an entertainment producer at ABC News — she still writes and edits D.C. Fab, providing readers with the latest night life news, happy-hour happenings and celebrity sightings. On her calendar for months: Debuts she’s looking forward to: Also, the April


In ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi,’ chef’s philosophy is reflected in filmmaker’s approach

Jiro Ono and his son Yoshikazu in ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi.’ (Magnolia Pictures) David Gelb went halfway around the globe to make his first feature, a documentary about master chef Jiro Ono, whose 10-seat Tokyo restaurant boasts three Michelin stars. But in a way, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” which opened in Washington on Friday, is a homecoming. “My parents took me to Japan for the first time when I was 2 years old,” Gelb said by phone from Los Angeles. That was in 1985, when the filmmaker’s father, Peter Gelb, was assistant manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Its music director at the time was Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa, and the orchestra performed in Japan frequently. “I would come along with my mom, as well,” the filmmaker said. “So I started eating cucumber rolls when I was 2 years old.” Sukiyabashi Jiro, which has a tiny space in the basement of a Ginza office building, does not serve cucumber or any other kind of roll (“maki” in Japanese). “Real sushi chefs don’t even see that as sushi,” Gelb said. “It’s a whole different category of food.” The restaurant charges about $300 for 20 pieces of nigiri, which balance toppings (usually but not always raw fish) on hand-shaped lumps of delicately flavored rice. Each of the 20 pieces in a course is different. “It’s just an incredibly satisfying and thrilling sensation to eat a perfectly balanced piece of sushi,” said Gelb, who admitted to a squalid past in which he regularly ate low-grade sushi. “After working on this film, I began to realize that the true art of sushi lies in these high-end restaurants. So now I go maybe once a month, but I pay five times as much.” Like many high-end Japanese businesses, Sukiyabashi Jiro didn’t encourage non-Japanese patrons. “Originally, Jiro didn’t really like foreign customers that much,” Gelb said, “because they didn’t know that much about sushi.” Since Michelin published its first guide to Tokyo eateries in 2008, however, Ono now “loves to show foreigners the potential of sushi,” Gelb said. “If people are willing to come to the restaurant and try sushi his way, he’s always glad to have them.” Sushi made Ono’s way is the essential subject of Gelb’s documentary, which was filmed mostly in Sukiyabashi Jiro. (There are side trips to a spinoff location and to Tokyo’s massive Tsukiji fish market, as well as to a


YouTube announces Space Lab winners

and Sara Ma from the United States and Amr Mohamed from Egypt found out that they’ll get to see their experiments broadcast live from space. Chen and Ma, high school juniors from Troy, developed their project completely on their own, they said in a conversation with The Washington Post on Wednesday. They want to explore how conditions on the international space station affect the virulence of bacteria, and if they can cultivate the growth of helpful, probiotic bacteria in space. Mohamed, who his fellow finalists called the “Spider Man,” wants to see how zero gravity affects the habits of zebra spiders, who jump on their prey. He wants to know if those habits could adapt in space or if the spider — as he suspects — will be unable to catch its prey. They, along with the four other teams of regional finalists, got to hitch a ride Thursday on a flight to zero gravity, run by the Arlington, Va.-based company Zero G. Chen, Ma and Mohamed all managed to survive the trip — which let the winners experience what gravity would be like on Mars, the moon, and in open space — without getting sick, though Chen said she felt a little woozy. The contest was the brainchild of Google’s Zahaan Bharmal. His “day job” is as the head of the company’s marketing operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa, but he introduced and developed the idea of SpaceLab on the side. Bharmal said that the idea of the contest has gone farther than he ever imagined, and that he was very pleased with the reaction that the contest got. He said he was particularly impressed with how many students actually proposed experiments that would work in zero gravity, and the further scientific implications that could come from their efforts. An all-star panel of judges, including Stephen Hawking, had the final say in the contest. In a statement, Hawking said that it has great implications for the future of science and humanity. “Realising this goal will require an entrepreneurial spirit and a new generation of scientists and astronauts,” he said. “YouTube Space Lab is a wonderful initiative that helps inspire young minds around the world to take a greater interest in science and the future of space exploration.” Related stories: YouTube Space Lab to put students’ work into orbit YouTube Space Lab finalist turns to snowflakes for cosmic answers


University of Maryland University College President Aldridge resigns

weeks to eight, and supervised undergraduate final exams were eliminated. UMUC leaders say those changes reflect sound teaching practices. Faculty pay is the lowest in Maryland’s public university system. Meanwhile, the school requested an extra $30 million last year for print, radio and television advertising. Employees described a work environment under Aldridge that brooked little dissent. They said many workers were required to sign a confidentiality agreement, unusual for a public college, that forbade them to disclose institutional information to anyone inside or outside. “It was an atmosphere of fear; that’s what really ran the place,” said Spedden Hause, a former academic director at UMUC, who left in 2009. ‘Hush money’ allegations Those who raised too many questions were told to resign or face termination, the employees said, and those who left voluntarily were rewarded with generous severance packages if they signed nondisclosure agreements. What critics called “hush money” may have cost the state millions of dollars, according to a regulatory complaint a former employee filed this month with the state Office of Legislative Audits. It names more than 20 university employees who allegedly were fired or compelled to resign. “It was the UMUC ‘poof,’ ” said Scott Perry, a former administrator in UMUC’s exams and testing department. “Some people would just disappear.” Aldridge declined to address specific complaints. Miyares, the acting president, said the confidentiality agreements are “fairly standard in higher education.” He said no one was paid for silence. “I don’t think there was a climate in which dissent was punished,” he said. William “Brit” Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, termed the Aldridge tenure a success and the school a vital resource to Marylanders. “I think it’s doing very well,” he said in a telephone interview. “I think it has a unique niche, both within the [state university] system and, quite frankly, within public higher education.” Aldridge came to UMUC from Troy University in Alabama, where she was vice chancellor. Both institutions occupy an unusual place within public higher education, offering global online courses to an audience of mostly working adults. At Troy, Aldridge paid recruiters to find students overseas, a practice that federal regulations prohibit with domestic students. Aldridge hired the same headhunter at UMUC. The contract has since ended. “I’ve never approved of this,” Kirwan said of the overseas recruiting technique, “and I’m pleased UMUC is no longer engaged in this.” Concerns over


Lacking resources, it’s hard to stop a stink bug

Regarding the March 17 front-page article “For pesky stink bugs, a Southern migration”: Part of the problem with insect pests is that even when invasive species are detected, the systems we have in place to protect our nation’s natural resources and food production are failing, mostly due to lack of resources. There is an urgent need to revise legislation to ensure that we have the means to respond effectively. The brown marmorated stink bug, which reportedly arrived in the United States on cargo ships in the late 1990s, was identified early in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. According to some reports, it could have been contained, but it doesn’t appear that an effort was made to do so, even though the bug was a known agricultural pest in its native range in Asia. Another example of the problem is the crazy ant species that has come to be known as the Rasberry crazy ant around the Port of Houston. This ant was twice ruled “unactionable” by the Agriculture Department, apparently because it could not be identified and was deemed not a threat to agriculture. It is now expanding its range and will eventually account for billions in damage. It nests in electronic systems, and kills livestock and wildlife. The mandates, rules and systems for addressing invasive species were designed for a simpler time. Today, we are ignoring harmful impacts that are the unintended consequences of the movement of products into this country. John Peter Thompson, Upper Marlboro John Waugh, Upperville, Va. John Peter Thompson is a member of the Invasive Species Advisory Group to the National Invasive Species Council. John Waugh is an independent adviser on environmental strategies and planning.


result of the discount. And it would no longer be available if the law were overturned. Seniors would also lose access to the law’s requirement that Medicare cover preventive services, including an annual physical, with no out-pocket charges — an option about 32.5 million took advantage of in 2011. There are also large categories of people who would likely lose their insurance coverage altogether. These include approximately 50,000 Americans currently insured through temporary “high risk” pools set up for people unable to obtain private insurance because they have a pre-existing health condition. The pools were intended to tide such people over until 2014, when the law will bar insurers from discriminating against them. Many of the pools are run by states with federal dollars. And the states could choose to maintain them at their own expense. But it’s hard to say how many would opt to do so amid the financial pressure the sluggish economy has put on state budgets. Budget concerns could also prompt states to respond to an invalidation of the health-care law by dropping millions of residents from their Medicaid rolls. Currently the law bars states from tightening their eligibility rules for Medicaid before 2014, when the program will be expanded to cover a larger share of the poor, almost entirely at the federal government’s expense. State leaders across the country have complained that this “maintenance of effort” requirement has imposed a crushing burden, forcing them to shortchange other priorities such as education. “I would think almost all of them would want to revisit their eligibility rules,” said Cannon, “and they should because there’s a lot of people in Medicaid who don’t need to be there.” That assessment was hotly contested by Ronald Pollack, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA, which supports the law. “People in Medicaid today are the poorest of the poor,” he said. “In many cases their total annual income is less than the average premium for a family insurance plan. So there is no way in the world they can afford insurance.” Still, Pollack said his concern over the issue was lessened by his conviction that even if the Supreme Court strikes down part of the law it will leave the bulk of it — including the Medicaid provisions — in place. “To invalidate all provisions of the [law] would require a Herculean effort to avoid decades of precedents,” he said.


New agency tries to answer consumers’ common questions

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launched a new portion of its Web site on Thursday aimed at answering consumers’ most common questions. The initiative, dubbed Ask CFPB, includes plain-spoken answers to more than 350 inquiries focused on credit cards and mortgages. The agency began accepting complaints on checking accounts, private student loans and auto loans this month, and staff members said they will add information about those products soon. “We believe that an informed consumer is the first line of defense against unfair practices,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said. The agency said it plans to publicize the site through community organizations and seeks feedback on its utility.