Chefs and scientists team up to make Japanese food even more delicious

but it takes five or six seconds for each flavor in red pepper to be captured by your taste buds. But the chefs decided they wanted to delay the amount of time it took to experience the full flavor of a mouthful. “We thought, ‘Why don’t we come up with a dish that lets you taste different flavors one after the other over a period of seconds?’ ” he said. These changes count as revolutionary here, in the old imperial capital of Japan, renowned as the bastion of Japanese culture. Washoku is a key part of that culture. A basic washoku meal consists of a bowl of soup, rice and three dishes. Washoku chefs think a lot about “umami,” a fifth primary taste usually translated as “savory.” Outdoor zen gardens line Nakamura, a restaurant with three Michelin stars. (Noriko Hayashi/For The Washington Post) Culinary secrets are passed down through the generations. There are no recipe books. There is not even verbal instruction. Chefs of Japanese haute cuisine have traditionally learned the “mite nusumu” way — by looking and copying (literally: stealing) what their superiors are doing. In his kitchen on a recent day, Motokazu Nakamura was preparing lunch courses that looked like they’d been made by Leonardo da Vinci. Nakamura is the sixth-generation chef at his family’s 190-year-old eponymous restaurant, an “isshi soden” where a chef’s secrets can be passed down only to one son and heir. The main pillars of the menu, regardless of the season, are white miso with Western-style mustard — which gives the soup a rich, pungent yet somehow delicate flavor — and tile fish, which has been used by generations of Nakamuras. The current chef often just brushes it with sake and grills it. “We take an analog approach,” he said, looking more like a science professor than a chef, with his tie and white coat. But he is branching out, participating in Fushiki’s lab. “Chefs cook and provide something for people to enjoy,” the 52-year-old chef said. “For that, we need to use our imagination. That would have been unheard of for our ancestors.” The restaurant, which has three Michelin stars, preserves all the traditions expected by people who spend $230 each on dinner. It is housed in an old wooden Kyoto building, a series of private rooms with tatami mats, connected by hallways that run between outdoor zen gardens where water trickles with


Crowdfunding platform for budding restaurateurs debuts in the District

any business, there are going to be certain investments that are bad.” Vacca joined EquityEats from Philadelphia-based Starr Restaurants, the company behind D.C. hot spot Le Diplomate. He also heads up one of the four restaurant concepts debuting on the platform, a restaurant called Lighthouse that offers just four menu items: a whole grilled lobster, chilled lobster salad, burger and garden burger. “We’ve never seen an instance when we’ve had this many people invest in a restaurant, so it’s important for us to know what these entrepreneurs are going through and what’s going through their head,” Vacca said. EquityEats was originally conceived as a platform for the public to invest in local restaurants, but gaining the necessary legal approval in Maryland, Virginia and the District, let alone the rest of the country, was an expensive and time-consuming proposition, Moonesinghe said. Only some states have made equity-based crowdfunding legal for nonaccredited investors; it’s still prohibited on a national level until the Securities and Exchange Commission approves rules to mitigate fraud and abuse. Those who back restaurants through the platform must meet the SEC’s definition for an accredited investor, which is defined as having income greater than $200,000 for the past two years or a net worth of more than $1 million. “Eventually this will be a place where entrepreneurs who have a great idea can post it to the site,” Moonesinghe said. “There will be [an online guide] that walks them through the financials and how to put the concept together, then investors in the community can invest in that restaurant.” Investors have access to the restaurant’s financial statements through the EquityEats platform and the ability to provide feedback, however Moonesinghe said the entrepreneur retains control of the establishment’s menu, ambiance and other creative elements. Each restaurant can have as many as 100 investors. Arango at Bluebird Bakery considered other options, including a small-business loan, but believes EquityEats investors will flock to the concept she and her husband have put forth. “We have a really strong concept and my experience combined with my husband, we know what we’re doing,” Arango said. “I feel really confident about reaching that goal we have and feel like investors are going to be satisfied with the work we put in and the end result.” More from Capital Business: For a daily rundown of Washington area business news, sign up for the “CapBiz A.M.” e-mail newsletter.


Loudoun County news in brief

Landfill Special Exception Review Committee; the Loudoun Health Council; the Lyme Disease Commission; the Water Resources Technical Advisory Committee; and the Zoning Ordinance Action Group. For information on specific vacancies, contact 703-777-0204 or coadmin@loudoun.gov. Information on the appointment process, including a link to the new standard application form, is at www.loudoun.gov/advisory. Sheriff’s office to hold quarterly meetings The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office will hold its quarterly public safety meetings at each of the agency’s service area stations this month. The meetings are open to residents, homeowners associations, community groups, town representatives and business owners. The Dulles South Station meeting will be at 7 p.m. Monday at the Dulles South Public Safety Center, 25216 Loudoun County Pkwy., Chantilly. The Western Loudoun Station meeting will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Round Hill Town Office, 23 Main St., Round Hill. The University Station meeting will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at Trailside Middle School, 20325 Claiborne Pkwy., Ashburn. Authorities will discuss recent crime and crime trends in the service areas, traffic safety concerns and other issues related to public safety. The meetings will be led by a sheriff’s office captain who represents the service area. Sheriff Michael L. Chapman or a member of his leadership team will also attend the meetings. Information about station areas is at www.sheriff.loudoun.gov/findmystation. To learn about upcoming sheriff’s office meetings and events, go to www.sheriff.loudoun.gov/lcsocalendar . Adoption fees reducedfor cats and small animals The Loudoun County Department of Animal Services will host a “Frightfully Delightful Feline Fall Fest” through Nov. 2, offering reduced adoption fees for shelter cats and small animals. The fee for kittens younger than 6 months will be $75; cats 7 months to 6 years old will be $25. There will be no adoption fee for cats 7 and older. Small animals, including rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils and small birds, will also have no adoption fee through Nov 2. People interested in adopting a cat or small animal may visit the shelter from 12 to 6 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays; 12 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays; and 12 to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The shelter is at 39820 Charles Town Pike, Waterford. To see photos of adoptable cats and small animals or for directions to the shelter, go to www.loudoun.gov/animals. For information on the Department of Animal Services, contact 703-777-0406 or animals@loudoun.gov, or visit www.loudoun.gov/animals or www.facebook.com/loudounanimals. — Compiled by Caitlin Gibson


Ebola fears should not lead to overreaction

Nurse Kaci Hickox was quarantined at a New Jersey hospital because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa. (University of Texas at Arlington via AP) ONE OF the profound challenges of our age is how to evaluate risk from complex threats. At one level, experts provide scientific facts about, say, the transmissibility of a disease, and they can quantify the prospects for contagion. At another level, human emotions measure risk with irrational but powerful gut feelings. In a 1987 essay in Science magazine, Paul Slovic of the University of Oregon cautioned that emotions and science must be given equal weight. He wrote that “there is wisdom as well as error in public attitudes and perceptions.” His message was that, in communicating and dealing with perceptions of risk, fears and dread need to be considered as carefully as precise measurements by experts. Dr. Slovic’s advice is relevant to the debate about Ebola virus disease and the possibility of its spread in the United States. People are worried. To some extent you can blame alarmist news coverage and exploitative politicians. But that does not mean that everyone’s worry should be dismissed. Rather, the fears need to be taken into account as well as the science — meaning decision-makers must be vigilant, transparent, credible and candid. Maintaining public confidence is a big part of protecting public health. The decision over the weekend to quarantine a nurse, Kaci Hickox, who had returned to New Jersey from working in Sierra Leone with the charity Doctors Without Borders, overreached. Ms. Hickox had tested negative for Ebola, and her confinement was brusque. It made good sense for New Jersey to backpedal on Monday and permit her to go home under carefully controlled circumstances. It also made good sense for Dr. Craig Spencer to check himself into a New York City hospital after feeling symptoms last week following his return from West Africa. Dr. Spencer had been out and about in the city for two days prior to the symptoms emerging — jogging, walking the High Line, bowling. He traveled on three subway lines and in an Uber car. He has since tested positive for Ebola. This makes people nervous — understandably so. The right answer is to protect the public without overreacting. Mistakes made in the Dallas hospital ought to be a warning and a lesson, and it seems to us that they are being


Viral meningitis case reported at D.C. preschool

A D.C. public school is being cleaned after a teacher came down with viral meningitis, officials said Monday. The school system and the D.C. Health Department said the teacher works at the Peabody Primary Campus of the Capitol Hill Cluster School. The campus, which serves children ages 3 to 5, is remaining open during the cleaning process, school system spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz said Monday. Viral meningitis is serious but rarely fatal, unlike the more severe bacterial form of the illness. Cases of viral meningitis were recently reported at the University of Maryland in College Park. Meningitis affects tissue surrounding the brain and spinal cord. In a letter to parents of children at the school, the Health Department noted that viral and bacterial illnesses have symptoms in common — fever, severe headache, stiff neck and nausea. But the viral illness is not treated with antibiotics, and most patients recover on their own, the letter said. The principal of the Peabody campus — which is associated with elementary and primary school campuses — said in a separate letter that three to six custodians had cleaned surfaces there throughout the day Monday and that a more intensive cleaning would be performed at night. Health Department spokeswoman Kristen Randolph described the process as “deep-dive cleaning.” “We don’t believe the kids are in any great danger of contracting the disease,” Randolph said.


Baltimore Symphony opens Sunday matinee series with a hearty menu of robust classics

by the small size of the house. It takes a while to build an audience in a new time slot, but one hopes that the BSO will succeed, because there are signal advantages to this Sunday format. For one thing, it’s the final — rather than the first — performance of the program: The players and conductor have had several chances to figure out what they want to do with the music, and are getting their last crack at it. On Sunday, there was ease and authority in the playing, in a program that gave all the players a lot to do. I have sometimes found Marin Alsop’s conducting style to be overly controlling. On Sunday, the degree of control she brought had a number of payoffs, particularly at the ends of phrases. There was nothing arbitrary about the crispness with which the orchestra wrapped up its thoughts, letting sound deliberately linger in the air. And Alsop and the players reveled in the richness of “Heldenleben,” albeit with a slight emotional distance. There was more immediacy to the satire — the cackling winds that in this semi-autobiographical piece represent the voices of the composer’s critics — than to some of the bigger romantic effusions. Jonathan Carney, the orchestra’s concertmaster, played absolutely exquisitely in the extended violin solos representing the composer’s wife, but the music itself grew long-winded — one of the pitfalls of “Heldenleben,” which not even the finest playing can always overcome. And the heroic battlefield music was a little tight, pushing a little too hard. The orchestra sounded best in the less climactic passages, when tendrils of luxuriant sound curled off the stage and around the ear. Marin Alsop, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. (Adriane White) There was a certain academic air to Scriabin’s 20-minute outpouring of a symphony as well. Alsop’s reading emphasized the philosophical aspects of the composer’s paean to “the bliss of love” as much as the sensual ones. If there was a drawback to such an effulgent program, it was that this overtly sensuous piece paled a bit in contrast to the two even more luxuriant ones that framed it. One hitch in the new concert schedule, for some of us, is navigating the vicissitudes of the Red Line on a Sunday afternoon, which meant that it took an hour to travel from Woodley Park to Strathmore. I arrived just after the music


Transgender military members are in a precarious position

members, we all know it’s inevitable [that the policy will be changed] and it’s inevitable relatively soon,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “In the meantime, there’s all these service members who are at great risk.” In Fox’s case, she was not discharged but rather shifted to the Individual Ready Reserve, meaning she could be called back to duty but would not show up for training, draw a paycheck or have access to health benefits. When she reached the commanding officer who had been so encouraging, he was brusque. “You don’t get it,” she recalls him saying. “Don’t come tomorrow. Take the orders and go away.” An Army spokesman declined to discuss the details of individual cases but provided a publicly available profile of Fox that corroborated parts of her account. The transgender ban is not a top priority for the military right now, as a conflict with the Islamic State rages in Iraq and budget cuts loom, said retired Army Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, who co-authored a report by several senior retired military officers this year that found lifting the ban would cause no major problems. Moreover, the military is already grappling with a separate set of gender-related questions centered on how to expand women’s roles in combat. “I think the military is going to do the right thing. I just don’t think it’s going to happen in the short term that we might like,” Pollock said. In the meantime, she said, she would advise transgender service members to remain in the closet. “Stay quiet, stay the course.” About 15,500 transgender people are serving in the military, according to the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA that addresses lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. They are believed to have an outsize presence in the military, as many young people struggling with their gender identity are drawn to its masculinity and job prospects. Many of these members have been serving for some time when they realize they are transgender, at which time they face a tough choice: abandon their careers or suppress their identities. An increasing number of people are choosing to open up while actively serving, confiding their gender-identity issues to peers, supervisors and military doctors, many of whom are looking the other way, advocates say. In interviews, several current and former transgender service members say they have noticed a greater


Potential Ebola patient is transferred to U-Md. Medical Center

A patient was being evaluated for a possible Ebola infection Monday night at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, authorities said. The state health department said the initial evaluation suggested a diagnosis “other than Ebola infection.” According to the health department, the patient identified a symptom that caused concern and called for assistance. The department arranged for safe transport to the medical center, where the patient was being evaluated in an isolation room. As part of the evaluation, the state’s public health laboratory was conducting an Ebola test, and an update was expected by Tuesday morning, the health department said. So far, only one person with a confirmed Ebola infection has been treated in the Washington region. Nina Pham, a nurse who contracted the infection while caring for an Ebola patient in Dallas, was successfully treated at a special unit in the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. She left the facility on Friday. This story has been updated.


Ben Bradlee: A friend and a boss

the event because it was primarily to aid television networks in preparation for the January launch. What captured Ben’s attention was that Abel had also said any press speculation about the cargo would result in a Pentagon investigation into the source because “this information would have no value to anyone except the Soviets or other potential adversaries.” What got Ben’s blood rushing was that the Times had a second story on that front page, one about the government trying to block publication of information, the very approach that failed in the Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case 14 years earlier. Ben came out of his office with the Times in his hand. He stopped at my desk, which was the first outside his office. “What the hell is this all about?” he growled, and before I could answer, he added: “Find out what the f--- is on that shuttle!” Everyone has written about Ben’s enthusiasm, charisma and charm, tools that got us all to do our best. But the few times he issued an order like that you knew you had to perform. It was not because you were afraid of being fired. You just didn’t want to let Ben down. It turned out to be rather simple to learn what was going on the shuttle — a new military satellite that would stay in orbit above the Soviet Union and collect electronic signals intelligence (sigint), in this case Soviet conversations that were then retransmitted to U.S. receiver stations. Sources at NASA and the Pentagon and some retired defense officials were familiar with the mission and did not consider the information that classified. We could quickly piece together a story. What happened next was the kind of thing Ben thrived on. Post reporter Mary Thornton and I found new facts behind Abel’s press threat. Apparently NASA officials, unaware of how strongly the Pentagon wanted to keep secret the satellite’s capabilities, had briefed three other reporters on its operational details. When those reporters sought comment from the Pentagon, then-Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger cut a deal. He guaranteed that if their publications did not print stories, he would make sure no other publication would publish the information. Thus the cause of Abel’s remarks, clearly an overreach by Weinberger. Ben put the article on The Post’s front page on Dec. 19, 1984, with the headline “U.S. to Orbit Sigint Craft from Shuttle.” I


A pumpkin patch’s careful — and passionate — cultivator

home,” Heisler remembers thinking. “So I decided to grow pumpkins.” His affinity began early. As a young boy, maybe 5 or 6, he found seeds in his father’s toolbox; not knowing what they were, he planted them. The first seed grew into a sunflower; the second, a pumpkin. In the late 1980s, he started growing pumpkins on his grandfather’s property up the road. Several years later, in 1995, he opened Comus Market in an old wooden garage across the street from the historic Comus Inn. Today, Heisler cultivates nearly 40 varieties of winter squash (and sunflowers, too), many of them heirloom, on a large tract of land just down the road, selling his goods at the market until Thanksgiving. He keeps bees; has a garden where he grows tomatoes, beans, summer squash and herbs; and still manages a few acres that once belonged to his grandfather. On a recent afternoon, Heisler is bustling about the market, concerned about two early frosts that damaged many of his crops and watchful for a coming storm: more rain after a cool and wet summer. Sugarloaf Mountain swells above the surrounding fields, purple and gold in the afternoon light. Out back, an employee scrubs freshly picked pumpkins and other squash in a sink, while aging hens wander in and out through the market’s open door, skittering away from a rooster named Pretty Boy. Pumpkins have personality, says farmer David Heisler. “You’d be amazed at how many kids will come up to a pumpkin and give it a hug.” (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) Heisler, in jeans, a gray T-shirt and work boots, climbs into a cluttered white pickup and heads to his nearby fields. Rotund orange pumpkins lie in every direction, their unruly vines sprawling atop the rolled rye that he plants to control weeds, manage the moisture of the soil and give the pumpkins a bed to keep them clean. Bordering each field are rows of buckwheat and other cover crops that support native pollinators and beneficial insects, key to Heisler’s bio-centric approach to farming. Grabbing a pair of long-handled pruning loppers, he begins cutting. “Selecting an individual pumpkin out of hundreds, if not thousands, attributes a personality to it,” he says, rolling over a specimen as tall as his shins and clipping its dark-green stem with a decisive snap. “You’d be amazed at how many kids will come up to a pumpkin and


Local digest: A roundup of D.C.-area news briefs

MARYLAND Nurses to administer vaccines at 15 schools Nurses are administering vaccines to students at 15 Prince George’s County middle schools this week to help students get required vaccinations before Friday’s deadline. More than 3,000 county students still needed vaccinations as of last week and were in danger of not being able to attend school after the deadline. Max Pugh, a spokesman for the school system, said permission slips are available from the school system’s Web site, at www.pgcps.org, or at individual schools. Vaccinations will be given during the day. — Ovetta Wiggins VIRGINIA Insanity verdict in husband’s murder A Leesburg woman charged with fatally stabbing her husband was found not guilty by reason of insanity after a Loudoun County judge accepted a plea agreement, according to the Loudoun commonwealth’s attorney’s office. Dae Hwang, 59, had faced a second-degree murder charge in the March 2013 killing of her husband, Kyung Hwang. On Friday, Circuit Judge Burke F. McCahill accepted a plea agreement between Hwang and Loudoun prosecutors. The agreement was supported by two court-ordered reports by psychologists who concluded that Hwang met the legal criteria for insanity at the time of her husband’s death, according to the commonwealth’s attorney’s office. — Caitlin Gibson Matthew to appear in court in 2005 case The man accused of abducting University of Virginia student Hannah Graham this year is scheduled to make his first appearance in a Fairfax County court Friday on charges related to a 2005 sexual assault. Jesse L. Matthew Jr., 32, will not be transferred to Northern Virginia for the hearing, authorities said. He will appear via a video link from the Charlottesville-area jail where he is being held on a charge of abduction with intent to defile in the disappearance of Graham, 18, in September. Last week, Fairfax prosecutors announced that Matthew had been indicted on charges of attempted capital murder, abduction with intent to defile and sexual penetration with an object in a Oct. 24, 2005, Fairfax City sexual assault. Fairfax prosecutors announced the charges two days after Graham’s body was found in the Charlottesville area. — Justin Jouvenal THE REGION Rocket launch is set for Tuesday evening The launch of an Orbital Sciences rocket carrying supplies for the International Space Station is scheduled for 6:22 p.m. Tuesday at Wallops Island, Va., and is expected to be visible throughout the Washington area. A launch scheduled for Monday night was


Officials say patient at a Baltimore medical center does not have Ebola

A patient who was being evaluated for a possible Ebola infection in Maryland does not have the disease, health officials said Tuesday. The patient was at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. Officials at the Maryland state health department said the patient’s initial evaluation showed it was something “other than Ebola infection.” On Tuesday, a Maryland health official would not release details on the person’s diagnosis, citing patient confidentiality. In an e-mailed statement, health officials said, “the Ebola test performed last night was negative. The patient continues to receive appropriate treatment.” The patient identified a symptom that caused concern, according to state health officials. The health department ensured the person was transported to a medical center, where the person was taken care of in an isolated room. Nina Pham


Authorities set up hotline for potential victims of rabbi in voyeurism case

Authorities investigating a Georgetown rabbi accused of secretly recording women in a ritual bath in Northwest Washington have set up a hotline number for people who think they might have been victimized. D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, in her first public comments on the arrest of Rabbi Barry Freundel, said Tuesday that the investigation is expected to take a long time as forensic experts comb through computer storage devices seized in the case. “It’s really a tragic case and it is going to take some time for all the details to unfold,” Lanier told Bruce DePuyt on her monthly appearance on NewsChannel 8. “I think this case will be rolling out for some time.” She added, “For people who are potential victims, that is agonizing.” The number at the U.S. attorney’s office is 202-252-7585. There is also an e-mail address, usadc.bernardfreundelcase@usdoj.gov, and a web site with updated information: www.justice.gov/usao/dc/programs/vw/bernard_freundel.html. Lanier said it is important that potential victims “who are part of this larger family can follow what is going on.” Freundel, 62, was charged two weeks ago with six counts of voyeurism after police said they found images of six congregants from Kesher Israel synagogue that had been taken in the shower of the ritual bath and showed them in various stages of undress. Police said the camera was hidden in a clock radio. Freundel has been released from custody and is next due in D.C. Superior Court on Nov. 12. D.C. police have found numerous other computer storage devices and cameras hidden in a fan, another clock and a tissue box during searches of his home, the synagogue and his office at Towson University, where he has taught since 2009. Police have not said whether they have uncovered additional images. Attention has turned to the university, north of Baltimore, after students revealed that Freundel had taken some of them on field trips to the Washington synagogue and invited them to take practice dunks in the bath, known as a mikvah. The university is reaching out to Freundel’s current and former students, and police documents filed in court last week say that several students have told authorities that they went to the bath. It is not known if any were recorded. Police also found several miniature cameras in a bag in Freundel’s school office. He has been suspended from the university, as well as by the synagogue. The university’s


As many as 19 U-Md. students have contracted viral meningitis, officials say

(John McDonnell/The Washington Post) Nineteen students at the University of Maryland at College Park have come down with confirmed or suspected cases of viral meningitis in a little more than a week. Health officials at the university said that they are encouraging students to practice good hygiene to avoid the serious illness. David McBride, director of the campus health center, said that most of the students who became sick recovered quickly, returning to class in as little as two days. The viral form of meningitis is not as serious as the bacterial form, which had outbreaks at Princeton and the University of California at Santa Barbara last year and which killed a Georgetown sophomore in September. The bacterial outbreaks affected nine people at Princeton and four at the University of California at Santa Barbara. A student in California had to have his feet amputated because of the illness, and a Drexel student who had contact with Princeton students died. McBride said that students should not be alarmed because the outbreak at U-Md. is viral, not bacterial. The two forms have the same symptoms and both involve inflammation of the tissue around the brain and spinal cord, but viral meningitis is rarely fatal in people with healthy immune systems. University of Maryland spokeswoman Katie Lawson said that the first case of viral meningitis was confirmed at the school Oct. 20. Three days later, the university publicly confirmed that several students were being treated for the virus. University officials have said they provided information to “organizations that are primarily affected” but would not publicly identify them. The Diamondback, the student newspaper, said that fraternities have distributed fliers about the illness. Also this week, a D.C. public school was cleaned and parents were notified after a preschool teacher came down with viral meningitis. Dana Hedgpeth contributed to this report.


Gaithersburg-based Novavax developing vaccine to prevent spread of Ebola

prove to be safe and effective, there still would be more work to do. Executives said it remains unclear how quickly the medicine would be available for health workers and military personnel working in areas stricken with Ebola. Chief executive Stanley C. Erck said the company would expect to have results from its initial trial in humans during the first three months of 2015 and, based on those results, could plot a path toward selling the vaccine later that year. To get to that stage, Novavax would require both positive test results and an agreement with the Food and Drug Administration to expedite the approval process. Novavax has developed technology that uses the genetic code of particular strain of virus to generate a vaccine. It has allowed the company to respond quickly to recent outbreaks of influenza and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, known as MERS. “What our technology allows us to do is quickly make a vaccine that is both safe and stimulates antibody responses to emerging diseases,” Erck said. “Ebola comes up and that is a virus that is a perfect fit for our platform.” The company began work on an Ebola vaccine as soon as scientists had mapped the genetic sequence of the strain responsible for the ongoing outbreak in West Africa. Novavax has already tested the vaccine in rodents and rabbits, and plans are underway for a trial in baboons. “Safety in vaccines is really important because when you develop cancer drugs or drugs for severe diseases, you can afford to have drugs that work but have some side effects,” Erck said. “But with vaccines, you’re working with healthy people.” The FDA and global health agencies are fervently seeking ways to contain and treat the Ebola virus as it continues to spread across West African nations and isolated cases emerge in other countries, including the United States. “We’ve called [the FDA] up and told them what we’re doing, and we’ve worked very closely with the FDA,” Erck said. “They want to see products emerge that can be effective in this outbreak.” That sense of urgency has allowed some drugmakers and biotechnology companies to expedite safety trials. Regulators in Switzerland, for example, approved inoculating health workers traveling to Africa with an experimental vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline. More from Capital Business: For a daily rundown of Washington area business news, sign up for the “CapBiz A.M.” e-mail newsletter.


Rocket headed to International Space Station blows up seconds after liftoff

A rocket that was to resupply the International Space Station blew up Tuesday night a few seconds after lift-off from Wallops Island, Va. An unmanned rocket that was to resupply the International Space Station blew up Tuesday evening a few seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Va. The Orbital Sciences rocket rose a short distance from the launchpad and then exploded in a ball of orange flames. Orbital Sciences is a private company based in Dulles, Va. NASA confirmed that all personnel were accounted for and that there were no injuries in the explosion. However, it appeared that the explosion caused damage on the ground. Emergency personnel from nearby Virginia jurisdictions, including Chincoteague, were sent to the scene. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. At a news conference Tuesday evening, NASA described the explosion as a “catastrophic anomaly.” The unmanned rocket that was to resupply the International Space Station blew up after liftoff from Wallops Island, Va. At liftoff, rockets are filled with highly volatile fuel, including kerosene, and flight is considered risky. Officials reiterated that any specific determination of what went wrong would take time. Witness accounts of what happened varied somewhat. Some said that the rocket appeared to catch fire within seconds after liftoff, then fell back to the launchpad and exploded. The explosion directed new attention to the commercial space flight program. In contrast to earlier years, the commercial program involves craft that are built and operated by private companies. Officials indicated Tuesday night that they were determined to continue with the program. An Orbital Sciences official said that when the cause is identified, “we will begin the necessary work to return to flight.” NASA’s William Gerstenmaier said the failed attempt “will not deter us” from working to expand the “already successful” capability of supplying the space station from the United States. Shortly after the explosion, CNN quoted a launch director as saying that the spacecraft contained classified “crypto” equipment, but early Wednesday a NASA spokesman said by email that “We didn’t have any classified items on board.” Orbital Sciences had conducted previous resupply missions from Wallops Island under a contract with NASA. However, Tuesday’s launch was to be the first in which a more powerful second-stage motor was to be used. The launch was scheduled for 6:22 p.m. from the facility on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Had all gone according to plan,


Tunisia, after igniting Arab Spring, sends the most fighters to Islamic State in Syria

character: “The land of Levant is the land of jihad.” Latifa said she pleaded with him: “If you want to be a good person, you don’t kill people. If you come home and teach people the Koran, that’s doing jihad, too. You don’t have to go to Syria to kill people to do jihad.” On New Year’s Eve in 2013, he called home to say he was in Turkey and about to cross into Syria. Latifa, in tears, begged him not to go, but he told her not to worry. A month later he called his brother, Tijani, to say he was in an Islamic State camp near Aleppo, Syria. His brother started crying and told him to come home. Gasmi started crying, too, and said that he wanted to leave but couldn’t because the militants had taken his passport and wouldn’t let him go. He told his brother that he didn’t like the bloody infighting among competing Islamist forces in Syria. “I’m not here to kill people, I’m here to help people,” he said. The family didn’t hear from him again until late March, when he contacted his fiancee on Facebook. He seemed depressed, and his message was cryptic: “I can’t tell you anything,” he said. “I want to talk to you but I can’t.” He ended the message with a sad-face emoticon. On April 1, Gasmi’s aunt called the last number from which he had called. A man answered, and she asked to speak to Slim. “First of all, his name is not Slim,” the man said. “It’s Abu Qatada. And Abu Qatada was martyred today. We have already had a funeral for him and buried him.” The next day, a photo of Gasmi’s body, with his new martyr’s hashtag, was posted on Twitter by an al-Qaeda affiliate known as Jabhat al-Nusra. It showed him lying on a field stretcher, his face bruised and lined with dried blood. His eyes and mouth were half-open. The photo also appeared on a Facebook page maintained by the group. There, one commenter said Gasmi had fled the Islamic State but was stopped at a Jabhat al-Nusra checkpoint, where he was taken into custody and forced to join the group. It said he was killed in battle. “He was just naive. He didn’t know what he was doing over there,” said his uncle, Ahmed Lahmar. “Tunisian men are being sold as sheep.”


D.C. news in brief

Leaf collection begins this week; residential street sweeping ends The D.C. Department of Public Works begins collecting leaves this week and will continue through Jan. 10. Crews will collect leaves at least twice during the season. When snow is predicted, collections will be suspended and will resume after the snowfall. Leaves should be raked into tree boxes or bagged by the weekend that precedes each collection cycle. Tree limbs, dirt and other hard materials are not allowed because they can damage the vacuuming equipment. The department asks residents not to rake leaves into the street because the leaf piles block catch basins and create a fire hazard for parked vehicles. From Dec. 28 to Jan. 10, the department will also collect holiday trees and seasonal greenery. Friday is the last day for residential street sweeping until the spring. The department suspends sweeping in the winter because the water spray released by the sweepers can freeze, causing an ice hazard for vehicles and pedestrians. Overnight sweeping along major D.C. roadways, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Constitution and Independence avenues, will continue all winter as weather permits. Motorists should observe the street-sweeping signs posted along those streets. For information and collection schedules, go to dpw.dc.gov. Lung cancer group to hold fundraising walk Sunday The Breathe Deep D.C. 5K, a fundraising walk by the LUNGevity Foundation to benefit lung cancer research, is scheduled for Sunday at the Sylvan Theater on the Mall, 15th Street and Independence Ave. SW. Check-in is at 9 a.m., followed by a program at 9:30 a.m. and the walk at 10 a.m. The course is open to strollers, wheelchairs and pets on leashes. There will be children’s activities during and after the walk. Registration is free for lung cancer survivors and children 4 and younger. Fees are $10 for children 13 and younger, $15 for students and seniors, and $30 for others. For information, go to www.lungevity.org/dc. Five city agencies added to language access oversight law The D.C. Office of Human Rights recently amended several regulations governing the D.C. Language Access Act of 2004, the law that mandates access to city services for people who speak limited or no English. The changes include the addition of five agencies — D.C. public charter schools, the Department of Health Care Finance, the Department of General Services, the Office of the Attorney General’s Child Support Services Division and the Office of Administrative Hearings —


In the Loop: Got Ebola? Call a doctor. Or maybe a lawyer.

The Pentagon mad scientists who brought us the Internet were awarded their first Guinness world record this week, for developing an incredibly complicated electrical circuit that fits on the head of a pin (this is, of course, a vast oversimplification). For our Loop technology wonks, what they’ve done, in partnership with Northrop Grumman, is create the world’s “fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit.” (Got that?) The good people at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency explain to us tech laymen that the circuit runs at a trillion hertz (sounds like a lot) — or, put more simply, about a hundred billion times as fast as the electricity that powers your home. The practical real-world uses? Rick Weiss, spokesman for DARPA, tells us the new technology could result in “extremely high-resolution monitors, improved collision-avoidance radar, and electronic sniffers that can detect potentially dangerous chemicals and explosives with much greater sensitivity.” In other words, this could be a really big deal. In May, the Web site Defense One included the research among “Four DARPA Projects That Could Be Bigger Than the Internet,” suggesting it could lead to — wait for it — “cloaking for jets and equipment and even, perhaps, invisibility.” We hear the adjudicator from Guinness, who recognized DARPA’s work at a ceremony Tuesday, told the crowd of scientists and engineers that theirs might be one of the geekiest world records he has documented. He then told them that his life’s work is spent congratulating people who are obsessed over something. For them, it was creating the world’s first terahertz chip. For others, it’s having the dog with the longest tongue (4.5 inches), or the largest collection of Mickey Mouse dolls (a woman in Florida has more than 6,000 Mickey items). One person’s massive breakthrough in technology is another person’s . . . Thinking inside the tank Bill Burns The prominent global research think tank announced Burns as its new president Wednesday, effective Feb. 4. He will replace Jessica Tuchman Mathews, who held the job for 18 years. “I am delighted to be coming to Carnegie and honored to follow in the footsteps of Jessica Mathews,” Burns said in a statement released by Carnegie. The endowment, with five centers around the world, “offers an extraordinary opportunity to be able to continue to play an important and constructive role in global affairs from outside government service.” — With Colby Itkowitz Twitter: @KamenInTheLoop, @ColbyItkowitz


First vaccine for deadly form of meningitis approved in U.S.

immediately respond to questions on Thursday about whether it would start recommending Trumenba for all adolescents or just for use in locations where a meningitis outbreak is occurring. Serogroup B meningitis caused 160 of the 500 cases of meningococcal disease in the country in 2012, according to the CDC. The agency said that 10 to 15 percent of these cases are fatal. Among those who survive, 11 to 19 percent suffer permanent disabilities, including limb loss, hearing loss and brain damage. The outbreaks on the two university campuses in 2013 killed one student at Drexel University, who had come into contact with Princeton students, and caused a student in California to lose both of his feet. In September, a Georgetown University sophomore died of serogroup B, in what the university said was an isolated case. Viral meningitis, though less serious than the bacterial form of the disease, also causes inflammation of the tissue around the brain and spinal cord. There is no vaccine for the illness, which is rarely fatal. Viral meningitis has been reported this month in up to 19 students at the University of Maryland at College Park and a teacher at a District preschool. Bexsero, the Novartis vaccine administered at the universities last year with special FDA permission, had been approved for use in Europe and Australia, while the U.S. had no serogroup B vaccine. As part of getting speedy approval, Pfizer has agreed to keep testing the vaccine. Three studies in the U.S. and Europe, involving about 2,800 adolescents, demonstrated that the vaccine generated antibodies in the blood of 82 percent of participants. The antibodies can kill four strains of serogroup B, according to the FDA. The further testing will evaluate whether the vaccine is effective at creating antibodies that kill additional strains. Pfizer said in a press release that the new vaccine must be administered in three doses over the course of six months. It is approved for use in people ages 10 to 25, a key group for meningitis cases, which can easily spread among students living in close quarters in dormitories. Midthun, of the FDA, said that manufacturers might eventually develop one shot containing the vaccines for all five types of bacterial meningitis. But right now, full protection would require three doses of Trumenba in addition to an existing meningitis vaccine, for which the CDC recommends an initial shot and a later booster.


Man is fatally stabbed in Northwest D.C.

A man was fatally stabbed Wednesday night in the Columbia Heights area of Northwest Washington, D.C. police said. The stabbing happened about 6:40 p.m. in the 1400 block of Perry Place NW, near 14th Street NW. Police said the victim was breathing but unconscious when he was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he later died. Police have not yet identified a suspect and declined comment about whether there were witnesses to the stabbing.


Possible Ebola case tests Maryland’s readiness

indicative of the system and how we expect it to work,” said Christopher Garrett, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Interim Baltimore Health Commissioner Jacquelyn Duval-Harvey added: “We didn’t expect it just a few hours after [O’Malley] outlined new guidelines, but it all worked very smoothly.” Officials said the woman, whom they declined to identify, raised no red flags during enhanced screening at Dulles, which includes checking the traveler’s temperature and completing a medical questionnaire that asks whether the person has been in contact with Ebola victims. Those who show no symptoms, as was the case with this woman, are sent on their way with instructions for monitoring their health and reporting changes to health authorities. But by Monday afternoon, the woman’s condition had changed, Garrett said. She experienced “a symptom of concern” (officials declined to be more specific citing privacy concerns), and as per the information packet, she immediately called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was about 3 p.m. The CDC called Maryland officials, who contacted the woman. Just an hour later, the state health department arranged for an EMS vehicle to transport the woman to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, one of three hospitals designated to handle potential Ebola cases in Maryland. Hospital officials said they were ready. “As an academic medical center whose expertise is providing time-sensitive critical care, we have an experienced and trained staff who remain in a constant state of readiness to receive and care for patients who may present with any number of potential illnesses, including Ebola,” UMMC spokeswoman Karen Lancaster said in an e-mail. Baltimore health officials also were in contact with the hospital and EMS to ensure they were prepared to handle the incoming patient, Duval-Harvey said. During the calls, they addressed other issues of concern, including how to deal with “bystander reactions” — individuals who may have witnessed the scene as the patient was being prepared for transport to the hospital. And in the event the patient tested positive, how they would mobilize staff to contact those who may have been in contact with or in the same household as the woman. A surgeon working in Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and was flown to the United States for treatment. Mary Grace White, director of the Baltimore Health Department’s Office of Acute Communicable Diseases, said that while


Orbital Sciences Corp. investigates rocket-launch failure at Wallops Island, Va.

we can determine exactly the sequence of events, what went wrong, and then what we can do to fix it,” Culbertson said. “We also have video evidence that we’ll be evaluating to help us with the investigation.” That work began with an aerial survey of the launch pad area along the coast of Wallops Island; a team is searching for debris and evidence of hazardous materials, such as propellant or rocket motor fuel. “The thing that’s important is that we don’t overreact to this failure — that we really understand what occurred, we let the Orbital team run the investigation, we understand what happened, we fix it,” Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator of human exploration and operations, said at a Tuesday news conference. Orbital Sciences has been criticized for its use of the refurbished Soviet-era Russian AJ-26 engines. Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, called use of the rockets “the punchline to a joke.” “It uses Russian rocket engines that were made in the ’60s,” Musk told Wired magazine in 2012. “I don’t mean their design is from the ’60s — I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the ’60s and, like, packed away in Siberia somewhere.” In a tweet Tuesday night, Musk said he was “sorry” to hear about the launch failure. “I hope they recover soon,” he wrote. Beneski said his company has successfully launched eight AJ-26 rockets — two on each of its four previous missions — without any problems. In Wednesday’s call with investors, however, Thompson said the failure of the Antares launch could speed up the development of a new propulsion system to replace the Russian engines. Orbital is developing a second-generation version of the Antares rocket engine for NASA and is on track to test that in two years’ time, he said. Thompson said Orbital “may decide to accelerate this change if the AJ-26 is implicated in the failure.” Marco Caceres, the director of space studies for the Teal Group, an aerospace industry analysis firm, predicted Wednesday that the launch failure would inevitably lead to “Monday morning quarterbacking” from “people within Congress and the space industry who continue to believe that NASA should continue to own, manage and operate its own launch vehicle instead of leasing launch services from private companies.” But, Caceres said in an e-mail: “The reality is that catastrophic launch failures like the one we saw yesterday have


D.C. community calendar, Oct. 30-Nov. 6, 2014

LGBTQ Youth MeetUp Creative movement and expression, “Here We Come,” Zumba, Yoga for beginners, China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra concert, pianist Yuja Wang and the orchestra perform works by Qigang, Ravel and Dvorak. 8 p.m., Kennedy Center, Concert Hall, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. $19-$75. Tuesday, NOV. 4 Spiritual Reflections Tour, a one-hour docent-led tour that explores stories of faithful action and devotion highlighted in glass and stone, including story, silence, poetry and reflective invitations, participants will receive a pilgrimage medallion. 10:45 a.m., Washington National Cathedral, Wisconsin and Massachusetts avenues NW. Questions: pilgrimages@cathedral.org . 202-537-6200 or www.nationalcathedral.org . $15. “Rebel ” the film story of Cuban immigrant Loreta Velazquez, Confederate soldier turned Union spy, one of an estimated 1,000 women who secretly served as soldiers during the American Civil War, senior military archivist DeAnne Blanton discusses the film with writer-director Maria Agui Carter following the screening. Noon, National Archives, McGowan Theater, Constitution Avenue and Seventh Street NW. 202-357-5000. Free. “Cultural Identity in the Songs of Helen Hopekirk,” Medicinal and poison plants tour, Yoga at noon, led by traditional yoga teacher and therapist Heather Ferris; bring a mat. Noon Tuesdays, Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, 1630 Seventh St. NW. 202-727-1288. Free. Washington Bach Consort in concert, Yoga at the Georgetown Library Cathedral tour and tea, Sketching workshop, bring pencils and a small sketchbook, work with objects on display in the center. 2:30-4:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Luce Foundation Center, Eighth and F streets NW. Free. 202-633-1000. Explorer’s club, D.C. Youth Slam Team poetry, for ages 13-19, a poetry workshop; bring your imagination. 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW. Free; registration required. Jonathan Tucker, 202-787-5279. “AHA! Fun with Science,” Meditation and Qigong, Presidential term limits: Is their time up? The Life of a Poet: August Kleinzahler, “Ready for a Brand New Beat: How ‘Dancing in the Street ’ became the anthem for a changing America,” Yoga for beginners, “Cry Havoc,” Wednesday, NOV. 5 Coyote Mischief Tales, for ages 5-10, Philip Blue Owl Hooser’s play about Trickster Coyote, a crafty, funny and fearless fellow who is a little too smart for his own good but learns about making choices, sharing and giving gifts from the heart with the help of his spirit guide, Hashtahi. 10:15 and 11:30 a.m., call for additional dates, Discovery Theater at S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr.


Montgomery County Animal Watch

This case was received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Police kill vicious dog: Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt or foster rescue dogs: Rockville — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Prince George’s and Southern Maryland Going Out Guide, Oct. 30-Nov. 5, 2014

pianist Jay Cooley, bassist Paul Langosch, saxophonist Bruce Swaim and drummer Dominic Smithz of the Bruce Swaim Quartet, which performs Sunday at the College of Southern Maryland in Prince Frederick. ( College of Southern Maryland) Bruce Swaim Quartet 3The local saxophone player and his group (from left, pianist Jay Cooley, bassist Paul Langosch, Swaim and drummer Dominic Smith) perform original songs and jazz standards as part of the Ward Virts Concert Series. Sunday at 3 p.m. College of Southern Maryland, Building B multipurpose room, 115 J.W. Williams Rd., Prince Frederick. 443-550-6011. www.csmd.edu/arts. Free. THU 30 “Feast Your Eyes: The Art of Food” Thirty-eight artists showcase their works in this multimedia exhibit exploring humans’ sensory connection to food and the vital role food plays in our culture. Through Jan. 4. Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center, 13480 Dowell Rd., Solomons. 410-326-4640. www.annmariegarden.org. $3, seniors and ages 5-11 $2, age 4 and younger free. “Page Turner Adventures: The Mixed Up Fairy Tale” “Four Women of Annapolis” FRI 31 The International Gem Jewelry Show “Thriller” Halloween party UMD Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition Finals “The Murder Room” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” “ARTmazing” SAT 01 Hide tanning workshop American Indian Heritage Day Maple Lawn Autumn Harvest Music Festival “Elisabeth Jacobsen: A Matter of Faith” Fall in the Arts Raq Out belly dance concert “Basetrack Live” SUN 02 “Comforts of Home” “Lori Ulmer-Hanson” Mattawoman’s annual holiday show Taste of Laurel “Love Letters” Bruce Swaim Quartet MON 03 “Prince George’s Sampler” TUE 04 “The Word Paintings and Music From the Film Blog Photographs” WED 05 “The Pirate of Bully Bay” “Wadjda” — Compiled by Jillian S. Jarrett from staff reports


Meet the Twinkie-saving, beer-selling billionaire who has changed the way you eat

as the savior who last year rescued Twinkies from the trash bin of history. (Beverage Information Group) Yet Metropoulos’s Pabst deal was different in one important way. To lead the beer giant, he tapped his sons, who, unlike their decorous father, were known largely for their fast-talking, party-boy gloss: Daren, 31, who bought an $18 million mansion from Hugh Hefner, and Evan, 33, who a decade ago told a New York Times reporter, “I’ve been with more chicks than any fat guy you know, except Pavarotti.” Even before they unveiled any changes for the vintage brewery, the family’s legacy had some Pabst die-hards on edge. The brothers, San Francisco blogger Zach Perkins wrote in 2010, “are about as far from both hipster and blue collar (the demographics that keep PBR profitable) as they could possibly be.” Now, as Metropoulos and his sons close their latest turnaround, many in the beer world have wondered: How did they pull it off? And what quarry are they eyeing next? Neither Dean Metropoulos nor his sons would talk extensively with The Washington Post before the closing of the Pabst deal, planned for early November. The Metropoulos playbook, for all its success, is deceptively simple: Buy a well-known brand that has, as Dean told Leaders Magazine, lost its “mojo;” re-energize it with new packaging, maybe, or a high-profile ad campaign; sell the newly hyped brand for a handsome profit; repeat. The strategy works, Metropoulos says, because he can think more creatively and devote more attention to a brand’s future than its overextended conglomerate owners could. “We move quickly,” Dean told Time magazine last year. “We don’t like to be slowed down with analytics or bureaucracy.” A farmer’s son who emigrated from Greece at age 9, Metropoulos made his first corporate deal in his 20s, buying a European maker of space heaters and air conditioners with, as he told Greek American magazine Neo, “all the money I ever had.” He later made a series of profitable acquisitions for a Vermont specialty-cheese company. Mega-investor C. Dean Metropoulos made billions reviving stale brands. Then his party-loving sons joined in. (Handout/Handout) As his profile grew, big investment banks and private-equity giants began trusting him with their money in hopes he’d find the next big thing. Many of the gold mines were one-time middle-America favorites largely abandoned on store shelves. In 1996, for example, he and a Dallas buyout firm


U-Md.-Goddard programs offer students out-of-this-world opportunities

just come here and take courses and leave, it’s like going to France and seeing the Eiffel Tower and not eating the food. You miss out on the best part.” The collaboration has led to countless advancements, such as those made by professor L. Drake Deming and two graduate students who used NASA telescopes recently to discover traces of water vapor on a planet almost 729 trillion miles from Earth. The partnership also has resulted in new asteroids being named for U-Md. researchers and an alumnus in honor of their work in solar system studies. Protopapa and Kelleymichael were named for researchers Silvia Protopapa and Mike Kelley, respectively, and Matthewknight was named for alumnus Matthew Knight. “Our partnership has yielded unique interdisciplinary research and incredible discoveries,” said Patrick O’Shea,U-Md.’s chief research officer. “Our ongoing research together is not only preparing our country for future space missions, it is improving our ability to monitor and respond to earthly challenges, ranging from floods, forest fires and storms to changes in our planet’s lands, oceans and atmosphere.” Goodman said He helped spearhead the new $135 million Physical Sciences Complex that opened this year in part to meet campus research needs, as well as offer scientists more high-tech laboratories. The building has exacting humidity and climate control for labs, in addition to meeting areas. “We have this video wall that shows really cool stuff like images from satellites, and we have a great cafe and good WiFi, which brings people in,” Goodman said. “At finals time, people of all types are crawling all over the place here. We showed the World Cup on our screens for anyone to come watch.” Other university-Goddard collaborations include the Joint Space-Science Institute, involving the astronomy and physics departments. The College Park and Baltimore County campuses work with the Universities Space Research Association to study neutron stars, black holes and extremely hot gases. There are many other collaborations in each of the departments within U-Md.’s College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences. Katelyn Dolan, a PhD candidate in geographical sciences, started working as an intern with Goddard while she was a student at the University of New Hampshire in 2007. That led to her master’s work using Earth-observing satellites to assess how much damage Hurricane Katrina wreaked on forests. She came to College Park in 2011 and is now a fellow with U-Md. and Goddard’s Joint Global Carbon Cycle


National Cherry Blossom Festival dates announced for 2015

File: The National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade on Constitution Avenue in Washington. April 12, 2014 in Washington, DC. (Craig Hudson/For The Washington Post) The National Cherry Blossom Festival will extend beyond its traditional Tidal Basin and waterfront venues by adding new events in 2015, including a fair in Anacostia Park and a bike tour to Arlington Cemetery. In announcing the schedule of events for the annual spring festival this week, the organizers also debuted a cartoon image of a pink-haired garden gnome, who will serve as a mascot of sorts for the 2015 festival. The festival will conduct a contest to choose the gnome girl’s name. Though peak bloom period for the flowers that lure tourists to town in droves each spring won’t be announced for months, the dates of the festival that celebrates them are set. March 21, 2015, will mark the opening ceremony at the Warner Theatre; a “pink tie” fundraiser on March 19 will precede the opening festivities. The festival will conclude with the annual cherry blossom parade on April 11, 2015, and the activities — including kayaking and birdwatching — in Anacostia Park, on the east bank of the Anacostia River, on April 12. In between, eventgoers can attend fitness programs at the Washington Monument, a kite festival, fireworks, a Japanese Street Festival and more events. The complete schedule can be found here.


Advocates want restaurants to stop catering to young diners with kids’ menus

Julie Raley, left, cuts steak for her daughter Zoe, 7, as Tamara Wellons, right, cuts the steak for Brianna Santangelo, 7, at Equinox in Washington, D.C. Several DC chefs, including Todd Gray at Equinox, are revamping their kids menus so the children are eating the same types of foods adults eat. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) All that was left of Julia Washington’s seared-scallop entree were the baby artichokes. The 10-year-old speared one with a fork, eyeing it with curiosity and contempt. “I don’t know about new things. I don’t know how they taste,” the fifth-grader from Upper Marlboro said at the restaurant Equinox. “It looks like a mushroom. I don’t like mushrooms.” Julia is a typical child. She loves mac and cheese, fried shrimp, ice cream. But she couldn’t order from the kids’ menu that night, because Equinox has no kids’ menu. The restaurant’s chef, Todd Gray, does not believe in kid food. “With the right encouragement, kids will eat anything,” Gray said. Most restaurants don’t give children many choices: chicken fingers. Tater tots. Or bland, cheese-laden pizza, accompanied by a cup of limp fruit salad. And some parents are getting tired of it. “The idea that there is different food for children drives me nuts,” said Lynn Fredericks, founder of Family Cook Productions, an organization that teaches healthful family eating. She recently launched the Kids Food Reboot, a campaign to get restaurants to adapt their kids’ menus to rely less on frozen french fries and other beige fried foods and more on healthful, fresh and — most important — interesting choices for young diners. Given the chance to eat, say, spaghetti squash or broccoli rabe, children will rise to the occasion, Fredericks says. “Children will eat other foods. They will,” she said. “It’s just about how you present it.” She has enlisted several chefs across the country — among them such TV personalities as Mary Sue Milliken of “Top Chef Masters” and Arlington’s David Guas of the Travel Channel’s “American Grilled” — to adapt dishes on their regular menus to be more suitable in portion size, spice level and nutritional content for kids. She also asks them to add a “touch of whimsy” in the form of, for example, a sesame-seed face on a hard-cooked egg or a rainbow of vegetables with cauliflower clouds: Eating vegetables, she says, should be just as much fun as eating chicken nuggets. It’s


U.S. orders Japanese firm Takata to provide more information on its air bags

Also in Business ● ●The Federal Trade Commission accused baby-food maker Gerber of claiming falsely that its Good Start Gentle formula can prevent or reduce allergies in children. A complaint filed in federal court in Washington alleged that the company misled consumers by suggesting that its formula was the first to meet government approval for reducing the risk of allergies. The FTC wants Gerber to pull its claim from labels and advertisements.Gerber said it did not violate the law. ● Citigroup is slashing its third-quarter earnings by $600 million, saying recent investigations by regulators have altered the results it reported earlier this month. The bank, based in New York, revised its quarterly net income to $2.8 billion from a previously reported $3.4 billion, citing legal expenses. The company said the unexpected increase came from “rapidly-evolving regulatory inquiries and investigations, including very recent communications with certain regulatory agencies related to previously disclosed matters.” ● Visa shares jumped 10 percent to $236.65 after turning in quarterly earnings late Wednesday that topped Wall Street’s forecasts. The world’s largest payment-processing company announced plans to spend as much as $5 billion on buying its own shares. MasterCard, the world’s second-largest card-payment company, said its third-quarter profit surged as Americans appeared less hesitant to use their debit and credit cards. The results beat Wall Street’s expectations, propelling MasterCard’s stock up 9 percent to $83.13. ● Wal-Mart is considering matching online prices from competitors such as Amazon.com. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, based in Bentonville, Ark., has matched prices of local store competitors but has not followed other retailers including Best Buy and Target, in matching prices of online rivals. But last month Wal-Mart started to test the strategy in five markets: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Phoenix and northwest Arkansas. ● Starbucks’ relaunch of its popular Pumpkin Spice latte drink failed to heat up business at its U.S. cafes, disappointing Wall Street and sending the company’s shares down almost 5 percent. The world’s biggest coffee chain said a 1 percent increase in traffic contributed to a 5 percent gain in sales at Americas-region cafes open at least 13 months. But that result fell short of the 6.2 percent gain expected by analysts. The Seattle-based company reported quarterly net income of $587.9 million. — From news services Coming Today ● 8:30 a.m.: Personal income and spending for September. ● Earnings: Berkshire Hathaway, Exxon Mobil, Graham Holdings, Hilton Worldwide Holdings.


THE DISTRICT Police ID man slain in Columbia Heights D.C. police have identified the man who was slain Wednesday night in Columbia Heights. He was the second person to be stabbed and killed in that neighborhood in the past month. Inoe Javier Salvador, 41, of Gaithersburg, was attacked about 6:40 p.m. in the 1400 block of Perry Place NW, police said. When police arrived, Salvador was breathing but unconscious. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. This month, Kenneth Young Jr., 35, was fatally stabbed in the chest while he was in the 3400 block of 14th Street NW. Young lived about a half-block from where his body was found. D.C. police said they arrested a suspect in Young’s killing on Oct. 23. Carlton Hammond, 26, of Northeast Washington, was charged with second-degree murder while armed. — Dana Hedgpeth THE REGION Dates are set for Blossom Festival The National Cherry Blossom Festival will extend beyond its traditional Tidal Basin and waterfront venues by adding events in 2015, including a fair in Anacostia Park and a bike tour to Arlington Cemetery. In announcing the schedule of events for the annual spring festival this week, the organizers also debuted a cartoon image of a pink-haired garden gnome, who will serve as a mascot of sorts for the 2015 festival. The festival will conduct a contest to choose the gnome’s name. Though the peak bloom period won’t be announced for months, the dates of the festival are set. March 21 will mark the opening ceremony at the Warner Theatre; a “pink tie” fundraiser on March 19 will precede the opening festivities. The festival will conclude with the annual cherry blossom parade April 11 and the activities — including kayaking and bird-watching — in Anacostia Park, on the east bank of the Anacostia River, on April 12. In between, eventgoers can attend fitness programs at the Washington Monument, a kite festival, fireworks, a Japanese street festival and more events. — Julie Zauzmer


Woman claims she has Ebola as police try to serve a warrant on her at a Wheaton mall

A woman could face additional charges after falsely claiming she had Ebola as police tried to arrest her on other counts at a Wheaton shopping mall. Fire and rescue teams, along with hazmat crews, responded to the mall off University Boulevard on Thursday, but authorities say the woman has no symptoms of Ebola. Officials say health authorities and the FBI also report that the woman did not appear on any Ebola warning lists and had not traveled recently to areas affected by the disease. Montgomery County Police Capt. Paul Starks said Friday that Olufunmilola Akande-Elemoso, 29, was arrested on a warrant for fourth-degree burglary and theft less than $100, stemming from an incident in September. At about 4:20 p.m. Thursday, police tried to serve the warrant at the Westfield Wheaton shopping mall. As part of the department’s protocol, police said, they asked Akande-Elemoso if she was ill. She told them she had Ebola. It is not the first time a person has falsely claimed to have Ebola, the deadly disease that has spread rapidly in parts of West Africa. In Florida, an inmate caused a courtroom to be cleared Oct. 17 after he claimed he had Ebola. There was no confirmation that the inmate, Joseph Britton, was experiencing any symptoms associated with Ebola. Concerns about Ebola have been heightened throughout the United States after Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, died from the disease in a Dallas hospital. At the Pentagon, a woman touched off a scare after she became ill earlier this month in the parking lot. Passengers on a bus, which she had briefly boarded, were quarantined for four hours. The woman, who was tested at Inova Fairfax Hospital, was found not to have Ebola. Montgomery County has been in the spotlight with the Ebola outbreak after Nina Pham, the first nurse diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, was treated and released from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Doctors there declared Pham Ebola-free last week. Pham, a Dallas nurse, contracted the disease when she was part of a team of doctors and nurses at the Dallas hospital that treated Duncan.


Memorable night of music-making at Baltimore Symphony’s Strathmore Hall

Conrad Tao. (BSO) What looked on paper to be a business-as-usual subscription program of standard-repertoire fare, at the Baltimore Symphony’s Strathmore Hall concert on Thursday, emerged as a memorable night of music-making. Young keyboard phenom Conrad Tao commanded the solo part in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 1, with playing of assertive virtuosity, razor-sharp articulation, and an embrace of both the rhapsodic and the anarchic in the writing. (In an encore, Tao further displayed his chops by whipping through a scorching rendition of the final movement from Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata.) BSO principal trumpet Andrew Balio found just the right tone of cool detachment and dry wit in the trumpet figures Shostakovich weaves throughout his concerto as counterpoint to the piano and as sardonic musical commentary. No less arresting than the soloists was conductor Hannu Lintu. Gangly, emotive and idiosyncratic in his physicality on the podium, his sweeping, admirably clear baton technique drew from the orchestra beautifully gauged readings of the concerto, Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No 3 and Brahms’s Second Symphony. His was old-school conducting in the best sense of the term. With a scrupulous ear for instrumental color and blend, and a Karajan-like taste for seamless orchestral texture, Lintu rendered Beethoven’s and Brahms’s musical architecture with crystal clarity, kept phrasing supple and built climaxes organically, to powerful effect. The BSO responded to him with warmly affectionate playing and tremendous concentration. The silken sheen on the upper strings and the burnished tone of the brass choir gave particular satisfaction. Banno is a freelance writer.


In the galleries: Collaged drawings that zig and zag at Adah Rose

is beyond international. Her “PH Access” ponders both the cosmos and its smallest parts. Among the things “PH” denotes are photography, philosophy, photons and PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids). Alas, another of her enthusiasms, fractals, doesn’t start with “ph.” Rupp is not an astrophysicist, but she is trained as both an artist and an engineer. Blending the two disciplines yields photographs, paintings and constructions, such as her shimmering “galaxies in a box.” These present the illusion of a hot-colored sphere inside a clear cube but in fact are a sequence of paintings on aligned plastic squares. Also featured are acrylic-dot renderings of interstellar clouds on multi-layered panels, based on images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, and vignettes of a crystal-like ball that — in the tradition of Eleanor Antin’s “100 Boots” series — has been photographed while traveling the world. Much of this work is made of Lucite and similar materials that have a bad reputation in eco-oriented contemporary art. Rupp likes clear plastics both as substances and as mediums, perhaps because they suggest various kinds of scopes though which the vast and the tiny become visible. “I love transparency,” she says. “I want to see through the whole thing.” Anrika Rupp: PH Random Access Urban Aspect It’s no coincidence that “Winter Chicago,” with its vivid blacks and industrial vibe, sets the tone for Principle Gallery’s “Urban Aspect.” The painting of an elevated-train structure on a seemingly frigid day is by Jeremy Mann, the San Francisco painter who also curated this selection of work by more than 40 artists. While there’s a faint echo of the early-20th-century Ashcan School in Mann’s El vignette, most of these pictures don’t emphasize the down-and-dirty. But neither do they hail the glittery and the gentrified. Locations range from Christobal Perez Garcia’s impressionistic Madrid to Steven S. Walker’s meticulous account of what looks like an American small town, whose wide-angle format suggests the Great Plains. There are a few recognizable landmarks, notably in Gavin Glaskas’s and James Wolford’s views of central D.C. More often, though, the goal is to document a mood rather than a place. Many of the painters swirl yellow though urban darkness or twilight, whether to depict a blur of headlights (Jonathan Gleed’s “Hindsight”) or an entire town, glowing on a distant hill (Gina Tescon’s “Umber Shadow”). White dominates Geoffrey Johnson’s highly abstracted Manhattan snowscape, in which sky and ground are the


In Britain, financial technology start-up is leading the challenge of traditional lending

to work, we had to provide liquidity,” Mullinger said. “Without that, I wouldn’t put any money in it myself.” The three men formed Funding Circle in September 2009. Over the next year, they set up a risk-analysis system that grades borrowers using at least 400 bits of data, such as credit-card-payment history and legal judgments. They established a Web site where lenders scroll through a menu of potential borrowers. Funding Circle charges borrowers a 2 to 5 percent fee and lenders a 1 percent annual rate. Like bondholders, the investors receive a coupon-like payment; as of Sept. 8, their average net return was 6.4 percent. Those investors lend money to companies such as Kaizen Furniture Makers, a 35-employee firm. When company co-founder Antonius Wubben decided in 2013 that Kaizen needed a state-of-the-art Austrian hydraulic press to apply veneer to pieces of wood, he posted a loan request on Funding Circle’s Web site. Less than three weeks later, 612 investors had ponied up 100,000 pounds at a 9.1 percent interest rate. Now those investors are trading Kaizen’s debt on Funding Circle’s secondary market, which handles about a fifth of the site’s total loan volume. Big plans in store In less than five years, Desai and his partners have set up a lending alternative that’s growing so fast that they’re desperate to find more office space to accommodate all their new hires. Funding Circle has raised $123 million in venture backing from Index, Accel Partners, and Union Square Ventures, the same outfits that backed Skype and Facebook. Because of the Web, they’ve done so without the costly branch networks and capital requirements that burden commercial banks. Funding Circle and its online peers are originating loans for 40 percent less in costs than traditional lenders, said Leech of Liberum Capital. With a 1.4 percent default rate, Funding Circle has demonstrated that it can manage risk, he said Even so, Funding Circle has far to go. It isn’t expected to record a profit until 2016, according to a forecast by Leech. Desai has big plans. Funding Circle, which late last year began expanding into the United States, plans to push into asset-backed lending and property development debt. Asked if the inevitable next step might be an outright acquisition by a bank, Desai laughed. “If they can afford us,” he said. The full version of this Bloomberg Markets article appears in the magazine’s November issue.


Arts organizations are hiring pros to tell their stories

is a priority for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which launched “BSO Stories” in March. A separate section of the orchestra’s Web site, “BSO Stories” is written by Ricky O’Bannon, who was hired in July for a year-long “journalist-in-residence” fellowship. A former government reporter with a master’s degree in arts journalism, O’Bannon is responsible for writing several pieces each week; musicians and other BSO staffers contribute pieces as well. “It’s an interesting balancing act, for sure, because on the one side you have all resources available to you, but you want to be doing journalistic work,” O’Bannon says, adding that he feels less like a trailblazer than like a guinea pig. “BSO Stories” takes a slightly different approach in that it focuses more on classical music and less on promoting BSO concerts and events. Recent stories: A musician’s first-person account of getting her child to practice and an O’Bannon piece on whether modern concert halls are intimidating to audiences. In the spring, a quiz titled “What musical instrument are you?” went viral. “We like to have some fun,” says Eileen Andrews, the BSO’s vice president of marketing and communications. “It’s unexpected content. It’s not always self-serving. You could easily read it somewhere else.” The BSO also uses social media to extend the reach of the pieces, and Web traffic shows the experiment is working. “On a day we have posted a good story, I see the traffic increase two to four times a regular day,” Andrews says, though she declined to share exact numbers. ‘More stories than ink’ These organizations are pioneers, but more will surely follow, says Gabriel Kahn, professor and co-director of media, economics and entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “I see a flowering of high-quality journalism content coming from organizations that aren’t first and foremost journalism organizations,” he says. “Arts organizations are understanding that there is value in supporting arts journalism because it helps people understand and value the artifacts of that industry.” But, Kahn adds, there are challenges. Arts organizations need to have rules “to separate church and state” so the content has credibility. “It’s one thing to do marketing, and another thing to foster lively conversation and debate about a topic,” he says. “We still have to become comfortable with the structure that supports that, but I think it is happening.” O’Bannon senses that tension, noting that his


Download latest app before the symphony

digital pen with a sensor that can read information on object tags. The pens can then be used at special tables with interactive screens inside the museum or to upload data for visitors to access at home. A Brooklyn Museum project will merge technology to a new-styled help desk. A small team of newly hired art historians will greet visitors, show them how to access a new app and then help them by answering questions as they move through the building. The key, says Shelley Bernstein, the Brooklyn Museum’s vice director of digital engagement and technology, is not getting saddled with machinery. She proudly notes that the museum has only about a dozen iPads scattered throughout galleries. “I do not think people want to be watching a movie while they’re looking at a painting,” she said. “It’s better to get them looking at the art.” Apps available for concerts The days of musicians and artists locking themselves off from the public are largely gone. Today, violinists blog about their travel habits, and art conservators are put on display behind glass walls. Just as in televised sports, where a lone center field camera has been supplanted by multiple angles and players wired for sound, cultural consumers have grown to expect to get backstage and behind-the-scenes access to the creative process. Mobile devices are one tool that can open those doors. “It’s kind of anachronistic that we have all this technology, we use it, and the first thing we do when you come into a concert hall is ask you to turn it off,” said Youngmoo Kim, the associate engineering professor at Drexel University who helped develop LiveNote. Classical concerts and cellphones have always had an uneasy relationship. Errant rings usually inspire the wrath of the conductor, some of whom have been known to stop the players to scold the violator. And a 2004 experiment with handheld guides by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra was met with mixed reviews. “The novices enjoyed the commentary the most,” said Kevin DeLuca, Pittsburgh’s director of information technology. “The people familiar with the works found it more distracting and didn’t want to be fiddling with the devices.” But technology has advanced, so instead of having to distribute costly devices — the case in Pittsburgh — today’s orchestras can simply create an app for a user’s phone. The live stream can also be restricted to certain parts of


The Brittany Maynard effect: How she is changing the debate on assisted dying

hospice care, but not in the way he wanted. I see no reason he should have been denied that final measure of control. The case of Brittany Maynard, however, may finally signal a shift in this debate. Whereas hastening an inevitable death was once regarded almost exclusively as a medical issue, we are beginning to focus on what patients want, on their right to self-determination. And people are increasingly asking why anyone — the state, the medical profession, religious leaders — would presume to tell someone else that they must continue to die by inches, against their will. Maynard, the 29-year-old with incurable brain cancer, is the new face of the movement to give dying patients the choice to end their lives faster and more humanely. Her youth and attractiveness have helped make her a national media story. She also represents, and seems to have had a particular impact on, a generation that tends to support the rights of individuals to make personal choices, in matters such as same-sex marriage and marijuana use. When Maynard learned she had a fatal disease that would rob her of control over her body and mind, she and her husband decided to move from California to Oregon — one of five states where she could legally obtain a prescription for a barbiturate to end her life peacefully before the cancer destroyed who she was. This was not a matter of choosing death over life. Indeed, Maynard and many other people prefer the term “assisted dying” to “assisted suicide.” Oregon’s Death With Dignity law applies only to patients who are close to death, and Maynard was told in April that she had six months to live. The question was simply how she would die. The Supreme Court has twice maintained that that’s a medical question and as such should be left to the states, which regulate medical practice. The medical profession, meanwhile, has been among the main obstacles to more laws like Oregon’s. The American Medical Association’s official policy is that physician-assisted suicide is “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.” Sixty-five percent of New England Journal of Medicine readers who responded to an online poll last year were against it. One possible explanation for this opposition, particularly among palliative care specialists, is that assisted dying underscores their limitations in dealing with suffering at the end of life. But that stance puts the focus


Deadly explosion of Virgin Galactic spaceship rattles budding industry

tough day,” said a visibly shaken George Whitesides, the chief executive of Virgin Galactic and a former chief of staff at NASA. The company offered no explanation for the disaster, which is being investigated by federal aviation officials. This was the fourth powered flight of the spaceship, all at relatively low altitudes, well within the atmosphere. But it was the first powered flight since January. It used a new fuel mix that had been tested on the ground successfully, said Kevin Mickey, president of Scaled Composites, which built the vehicle for Virgin Galactic. “Ignition! #SpaceShipTwo is flying under rocket power again. Stay tuned for updates,” Virgin Galactic tweeted at 1:07 p.m. Pacific time. But soon thereafter came the ominous follow-up: “#SpaceShipTwo has experienced an in-flight anomaly.” The spacecraft was found ripped apart, in large fragments, amid the sagebrush on the desert floor. “From my eyes and my ears, I detected nothing that appeared abnormal,” Stuart Witt, the Mojave Air and Space Port’s chief executive, said of the launch at a news conference Friday afternoon. He later added, “If there was a huge explosion that occurred, I didn’t see it.” A photographer captured images, carried by CNN, showing the spacecraft firing its rocket engine and then, moments later, disintegrating amid a white cloud of vapor or smoke and leaving a trail of debris in the blue desert sky. This has been a terrible week for commercial space in general: An Antares rocket, topped by a Cygnus capsule loaded with supplies for the International Space Station, exploded Tuesday night seconds after liftoff from a launchpad at Wallops Island, Va. Investigators from NASA and Orbital Sciences Corp., the Dulles, Va., company that owned the rocket and had a contract for multiple cargo missions to the space station, continue to look into the incident. As bad as that explosion was, the crash of SpaceShipTwo was a greater tragedy, taking the life of a pilot who was identified by the Kern County coroner’s office Saturday as 39-year-old Michael Alsbury, of Tehachapi, Calif., the Associated Press reported . His body was found inside the wreckage, the AP said. A second pilot ejected and was found at the crash site by emergency teams, who took him to Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, Calif. His condition and identity had not been made public late Friday. The crash was a devastating blow to the most high-profile start-up devoted to


NTSB probes deadly explosion of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo

NTSB said early Saturday it was not yet sure whether the experimental vehicle had a black box, or at what altitude the accident had occurred. It will be the first time the NTSB has led an investigation into a space launch with passengers on board, Hart said. The agency helped investigate the fatal disasters of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles. The explosion happened seconds after the spaceship released from the WhiteKnightTwo, a cargo jet designed to tow the craft up to 50,000 feet. Rocket scientists and spaceflight experts said they were waiting for more information from investigators before discussing a potential cause. But some said their initial focus was on the new fuel mix. “For the anomaly, I would look really hard at the new engine,” said John “Danny” Olivas, a former NASA astronaut and director of the University of Texas at El Paso’s Center for Advancement of Space Safety and Mission Assurance Research. “It could have been structural or something different. But that’s certainly where I would start.” The accident came just days after a privately financed, NASA-contracted Antares rocket was destroyed during a failed launch at an island off the Virginia coast. The Tuesday explosion of the rocket, slated to deliver a payload of supplies to the International Space Station, is under investigation. The SpaceShipTwo was the industry’s glossiest showpiece, with Branson saying he wanted to be one of the first passengers when flights began as early as next year. More than 700 celebrities and spacefaring hopefuls have paid up to $250,000 each for flight aboard the rocket plane, during which they had been promised a few brief minutes of weightlessness at the edge of space. Friday’s explosion was the most visible failure of the biggest test program in space aviation history, and comes 10 years to the month after the program’s largest milestone. In 2004, SpaceShipOne soared out of the atmosphere for the first time, winning a $10 million prize. But development in the years since has not been smooth. In 2007, during a ground test at the Mojave port of the SpaceShipTwo’s nitrous oxide delivery system, three people were killed and three were seriously injured from an explosion and flying shrapnel. Some industry watchers were critical of the aerospace firms’ risk-taking and called for more transparency in the days ahead. Doug Messier, a commercial-space blogger who witnessed the accident, tweeted afterward a series of questions


Effects of climate change ‘irreversible,’ U.N. panel warns in report

the heat-trapping gas is 40 percent higher than in pre-industrial times, a level “unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years,” the report states. Most of the excess heat is absorbed by the ocean, muting the effects. Yet, climate change is having profound impacts on “natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans,” the panel concluded. It cited rising sea levels, more extreme weather events, warmer air and ocean temperatures, melting glaciers and vanishing sea ice. And because of the long amount of time that carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, some impacts are locked in, perhaps for centuries to come, the report warned. “A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change . . . is irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale,” the report said. Sea level rise, for example, “will continue for many centuries beyond 2100” because of ice-sheet melting that is underway and other causes. Scientists and policymakers have set a goal of restraining the average global temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, on grounds that a higher increase would change the climate so dramatically that neither humans nor natural ecosystems could easily adapt. That would probably require keeping concentrations of key greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to under 450 parts per million by 2100, the panel said. Concentrations passed 400 parts per million for the first time in 2013. Even with a rapid shift to renewable energy, the task of achieving such drastic reductions is daunting, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said in a speech last week as panel members began final revisions to the report. “May I humbly suggest that policymakers avoid being overcome by the seeming hopelessness of addressing climate change,” Pachauri said. “It is not hopeless. This is not to say it will be easy.” The report will likely add fuel to the debate over environmental policies in key congressional races. Candidates in several Senate and House races have clashed over how to respond to climate change and whether it indeed exists. Secretary of State John F. Kerry “We can’t prevent a large scale disaster if we don’t heed this kind of hard science,” Kerry said in a statement. “The longer we are stuck in a debate over ideology and politics, the more the costs of inaction grow and grow. Those who choose to ignore or dispute the science so clearly laid out in


Data should be plentiful in explosion of SpaceShipTwo

number of crucial elements from the wreckage, including two propellant tanks, but Hart could not say which cameras had been found. Engineers began carefully scouting for clues in the high-speed photos taken of the explosion. Experts said it appeared to break apart a few seconds after detaching from the belly of the WhiteKnightTwo, while pushing for a vertical ascent near supersonic speeds. More crucial evidence could come from Pete Siebold, the 43-year-old pilot who parachuted to safety after the blast. Siebold suffered a shoulder injury and underwent surgery but was alert and talking with his family and doctors Saturday, according to Scaled Composites, the firm that created the rocket plane. His co-pilot, Mike Alsbury, was found dead in the rocket plane’s wreckage. A 39-year-old father of two young children, he had worked for 13 years as a test pilot and engineer for Scaled Composites, logging more than 1,600 hours of flight time in research aircraft, the company said. Alsbury, who had helped in flight testing of nine manned aircraft, co-piloted SpaceShipTwo last year when it climbed to 56,000 feet and broke the sound barrier during its first successful powered flight. He last co-piloted the space plane during an unpowered “cold flow” test flight in late August, during which nitrous oxide was vented through the engine but not ignited, according to Scaled Composites’ public test logs. Friday’s flight was SpaceShipTwo’s 55th, its 35th “free” flight and its fourth powered flight, propelled on its own. But it was the first flight powered by a new plastic-based fuel mix. Its traditional fuel had been a hybrid of a rubber compound and nitrous oxide. Virgin and Scaled have said all parts of the spaceship underwent “extensive ground testing,” including test firings using the new fuel. Some engineers suspect the new fuel could be to blame for the disaster. But others have questioned whether it was the result of a structural failure, possibly due to the high aerodynamic force needed to approach suborbital flight. “If you look at the debris on the ground, you can clearly see that the nitrous tank is intact and the motor case is there,” said Tim Pickens, an engineer who worked on rockets for SpaceShipOne and Virgin Galactic. “That could not possibly be the case if the rocket itself was to blame.” Hart said a preliminary assessment showed that the spacecraft's engine landed intact. SpaceShipTwo has been a darling of


Federal unions pushing mostly Democratic candidates, but also some Republicans

Federal employee organizations are working — and spending — to make sure friendly faces claim victory on Election Day. Some of those faces belong to Republicans. The outcome of the vote could have a big impact on the lives of federal workers. Members of the House and Senate decide bread-and-butter issues, such as government pay and retirement benefits, that shape the lives of millions of people, including federal retirees and family members. So it makes sense that federal employee organizations, through their political action committees and grass-roots mobilization, would attempt to influence the outcome of congressional elections. This year is no exception. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) contributed more than $3.7 million in the 2014 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s more than twice AFGE’s political donations for 2012, a presidential election year, and more than three times its contributions for 2010. Most of this year’s spending, more than $2.6 million, went to political groups, with $904,000 to candidates. AFGE is a big spender. Of 16,411 organizations that made contributions in the current election cycle, the center says AFGE ranks 43. Other groups also are working and spending to get a Congress that is friendly to federal employees. “NTEU’s 2014 election strategy focuses on our traditional activities of voter registration, voter education, canvassing and GOTV [get out the vote] efforts,” Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in an e-mail. “This year, we have implemented a phone-banking program with a new twist. NTEU is using new technology that allows our members to easily make and track calls to their co-workers and follow up with additional information or information about volunteering. They can do all of this from home without having to go to a central location to get information, call sheets or scripts.” The $650,000 NTEU is spending this election cycle is “slightly more” than during previous midterm elections, Kelley said. Though federal employee organizations usually support Democratic Party candidates because they generally are more supportive of federal employees, there are exceptions. “We have endorsed Republicans, too, and stand firm behind them,” said Matthew Biggs, legislative and political director for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE). “But it is really in the best interest of our members that the Senate remain Democrat. So with the limited resources we have, we are trying to do our part to