Eschenbach to leave NSO, Kennedy Center music directorship in 2017

Eschenbach, furthermore, should be held to higher standards. The first person to occupy the joint position of music director of both the NSO and the Kennedy Center, he was, in 2013, the highest-paid conductor in the United States. His declared income from the NSO of more than $2.7 million, as reported by Kennedy Center tax returns, outstripped colleagues at better orchestras: Muti in Chicago and Gustavo Dudamel at the Los Angeles Philharmonic declared about $1.4 million each that year, while Michael Tilson Thomas earned $2.3 million at the San Francisco Symphony. It was also about $1 million more than Eschenbach earned from the NSO the previous year, perhaps because the NSO went on tour and he performed a duo recital with the star pianist Lang Lang. Rita Shapiro, the NSO’s executive director, said that Eschenbach is “differently compensated for tours.” She declined to give specifics. It’s not that Eschenbach’s tenure has been an unmitigated failure. And he reportedly has a generally warm relationship with the orchestra’s musicians. When the players learned Tuesday that he was leaving, Shapiro said, “It was very quiet.” What’s been missing, though, has been a clear vision for the orchestra — something that’s become, these days, a requisite part of the job. Shapiro says that those involved in the music director search — a committee formed of musicians, administrators and, most probably, Rutter herself — will be “spending a lot of time talking about what we need, rather than who we need.” The NSO has company. This month, both Alan Gilbert of the New York Philharmonic and Edo de Waart of the Milwaukee Symphony announced that they, too, plan to down in 2017, after eight seasons each. The San Diego Symphony is also looking for a music director for 2017-2018. The NSO is not alone, though, in having a proven veteran such as Rutter on its side. “The right person for New York or Milwaukee or San Diego or the NSO is not the same person,” Rutter said. “The chemistry in one place is not ever the same chemistry for another. An individual who’s really great in New Jersey is not necessarily really great for another city. . . . What was unique about Chicago was the connection Muti had within the city itself. That’s what we’re looking for: a great musician who feels he can do something in D.C.” Peggy McGlone contributed to this report.


U.S. invites a Russian fox into the chicken coop

The writer is senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute. The Russian KGB, known today as the FSB, has come to Washington.The organization’s director, Alexander Bortnikov, is leading the Russian delegation to President Obama’s “Countering Violent Extremism” summit this week. The optics of this — having the head of the successor agency to the Soviet KGB in Washington as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine and conducts a nasty crackdown on human rights at home — are terrible. Bortnikov is not on the U.S. sanctions list that denies dozens of Russians entry to the United States either because of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine or because of the 2012 human rights legislation known as the Magnitsky Act. His name does appear, however, on the Ukraine-related sanctions lists adopted by the European Union and Canada. Bortnikov should long ago have been included on the Magnitsky sanctions list dealing with human rights abuses as well as the Ukraine-related list. The FSB leads Russian President Vladimir Putin’s campaign to eliminate his political opposition, stifle civil society and independent media and perpetuate the myth that the West, and the United States in particular, are a threat to Russia. It is actively involved in the propaganda effort in which the Kremlin spreads lies and misinformation to its audiences via RT (formerly Russia Today) and the Sputnik news agency. Its special forces are heavily involved in Ukraine. Bortnikov is believed to be one of Putin’s closest and most hawkish advisers on Ukraine and other matters. The Obama administration’s decision not to place him on the U.S. sanctions list allowed Putin to select him to represent Russia at this week’s summit. U.S. officials arguably did not have the ability to tell Putin to designate someone else to lead the delegation to the summit. But they could have rescinded Moscow’s invitation to participate when it became clear that, instead of taking the summit seriously, Putin would use it to stick a finger in the administration’s eye. Moreover, Russia’s gross human rights abuses in the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus over the past two decades, in which the FSB has played a major role, most notably in two wars with Chechnya, have contributed to the extremism problem the world faces today. Having Bortnikov attend the summit is like inviting the fox into the chicken coop. Making U.S.-Russian relations even worse, Putin claimed this week that the United


New Washington-area bakeries are making us feel like kids again

other fat-, sugar- and carb-loaded goodie one could imagine. [What’s in store at some of Washington’s newest bakeries] “This is timeless,” said restaurateur Aaron Gordon, who opened Bakers and Baristas, a bakery and coffeehouse next to his Red Velvet Cupcakery in Penn Quarter, in January. “This is something people have been doing for hundreds and hundreds of years. It offers something for everyone.” The Washington area is dotted with legacy establishments that have been around for years, such as Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe in Arlington, Breads Unlimited in Bethesda and, until recently, Heller’s Bakery in the District. But the all-around model seemed to largely fall out of vogue for shops that opened in the past decade, whether due to the desire to capitalize on dessert trends, fad diets, changing shopping habits or the fact that it’s just plain hard to make good bread. Now, chefs and customers are rediscovering the appeal of the classic bakery. “I think it’s great that we seem to be slowly accumulating some neighborhood places,” said Mark Furstenberg, the longtime Washington baker who opened Marvelous Market on Connecticut Avenue NW in 1990. Bread Furst, his newest venture, opened in Van Ness in May. Bread Furst stands out from other recent arrivals for its emphasis on crusty loaves of bread, but it’s similar in that its menu offers a variety of sweet and savory items that change throughout the day. “With single-purpose or special-interest kind of bakeries, you really have a limited number of hours per day you can be open,” which doesn’t make sense economically, said Tiffany MacIsaac, the former Neighborhood Restaurant Group executive pastry chef whose solo business, Buttercream Bakeshop, exists as an ongoing pop-up. “You want to be open as many hours as possible.” Shop owners believe the well-rounded bakery appeals to customers’ interest in trying new things. “I think people like variety, yet we’re creatures of habit,” said Dawn Hart, who plans to open Village Sweet in Arlington’s Westover neighborhood this spring. “It’s way too easy to get the same thing every morning,” which is one reason Hart intends to change the menu seasonally. A varied menu is also more fun for chefs, according to MacIsaac, who spent a lot of time working at Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s two Buzz Bakery locations. “I think it’s the next wave for pastry chefs in general, being your own boss,” she said. “It’s also cool to have control


Local digest

maryland Annapolis man and dog pulled from icy river An Annapolis man was treated for exposure after he jumped into an icy river to try to save his dog. Vytas Penkiunas, 77, said Thursday that he was in his back yard with his 19-month-old black Labrador retriever, Sweets, when she walked onto the icy South River. He called for her but she fell through, he said. Penkiunas said he entered the river and pushed through the ice as he used his feet to try to find the dog. He located Sweets after about 20 minutes and was carrying her to shore when he tripped and went under. Rescuers pulled Penkiunas and his dog from the water. The dog did not survive, police said. Penkiunas was treated at a hospital and released. — Associated Press Instructor accused of abusing student A karate instructor has been charged with sexually abusing a student over a 10-year period beginning in 1984. Montgomery County police said Thursday that they think Jorge Raul Allica, who also taught in the Prince George’s County school system, may have victimized multiple people. The alleged abuse came to the attention of authorities in September, police said in a statement. The statement said that Allica, who also uses the name George Paul Allica, had sexual contact with the victim from 1984 to 1994 at his home in Silver Spring and the victim’s home in Chevy Chase. During most of that time, the victim was a minor. Allica taught the boy aikido karate at Aikido Dojo in Northwest Washington, police said. — Julie Zauzmer


Think of Earth, not just your stomach, panel advises

added that the recommendations “appear to be based on personal opinions or social agendas.” In the past, federal bureaucrats have come under lobbying pressure from groups that discovered their particular product had been targeted for opprobrium by the Dietary Guidelines. Americans are eating less meat than they have in the past, but they are still eating too much, according to the panel’s experts, and all that meat consumption is having detrimental effects on the environment. Many scientists say animal-based foods are a poorer choice for the environment because they are associated with significantly larger carbon emissions than their plant-based counterparts. Animals generate a lot of methane, and the production of meat products requires large amounts of feed, fertilizer and fuel, all of which put stress on the environment. Numerous studies have documented the outsize impact. A study published last year in the journal Climatic Change reported that meat eaters contributed more to global warming than do fish eaters, vegetarians and vegans. Red meat in particular, which the committee says Americans need to scale back on for health reasons, has been linked to a larger carbon footprint than other meats. For instance, on a per-kilogram basis, beef is associated with more than twice the carbon emissions of pork, nearly three times that of turkey and almost four times that of chicken, according to the Environmental Working Group. Red meat is also a comparatively inefficient source of calories and protein. The World Resources Institute has estimated that poultry, pork, shrimp, fish and eggs are all much better sources of those two nutrients relative to the amount of feed and land required to produce them. “It’s pretty much a consensus view among global environmental scientists that we would be better off if we ate less meat,” said Timothy Searchinger, a research scholar at Princeton University who focuses on agriculture and climate change. Miriam Nelson, a professor at Tufts University and one of the committee’s members, said the panel is not saying that people should become vegans. “But we are saying that people need to eat less meat,” Nelson said. “We need to start thinking about what’s sustainable. . . . Other countries have already started doing this — including sustainability in their recommendations. We should be doing it, too.” Read more: How cholesterol went from ‘public menace’ to ‘not a nutrient of concern’ How many eggs a day is okay? Your questions, answered.


Two Md. men arrested in drug-related murder in Montgomery County

Two men have been arrested in the January murder of a D.C. man in Montgomery County, police announced Friday. County police said that the victim, Wei Wu of Northwest Washington, had arranged to sell three and a half pounds of marijuana to Delton Alex Brown, 31, and Damien Jamaal Lee, 36, in the Bel Pre neighborhood of Montgomery. Instead, police said, Lee and Brown fatally shot Wu, 46, and split the marijuana between them. Wu was found dead Jan. 24 in the driver’s seat of a car in an apartment complex parking lot at Whispering Pines Drive and Weeping Willow Court. When police searched his car and home, they found cocaine and marijuana in quantities large enough to suggest he was a dealer, they said. Brown, of Gaithersburg, and Lee, of Brookeville, have both been charged with first-degree murder and held without bond.


Ethiopians deserve a free press

The Feb. 9 editorial “Ethiopia’s stifled press” raised fundamental issues of human rights, democracy and governance. The journalists and bloggers languishing in prison committed no crime except to criticize the ruling party. If the government of Ethiopia is concerned for its citizens, as a spokesman asserted in a Feb. 13 letter [“The Ethiopian government’s duty is to protect all of its citizens”], it should respect the rights and views of journalists and civilians who oppose its policies. It is repressive to block popular Web sites and broadcasts, such as Voice of America, that provide an alternative to government-controlled media. Ethiopians should have the right to voice their concerns about their country’s affairs. Private, independent media outlets facilitate the venue for an open discourse. The government’s persistent attack on press freedom, therefore, will only exacerbate the people’s anguish. No government is perfect. Those who use pens to expose the imperfections should not be subjected to abuse and persecution. All jailed journalists and bloggers — and many others who are incarcerated for speaking against repression and injustice in Ethiopia — should be freed. It will be one small step on a long democratic journey. Tewodros Abebe, Accokeek


Monarch butterfly doesn’t need so much help

A Monarch butterfly lands on a flower on Winona Avenue in Roanoke, Va., on Wednesday morning, Sept. 1, 1999. (Stephanie Klein-Davis/The Roanoke TImes via AP) The writer is a professor of entomology specializing in insect conservation at the University of Hawaii. One year ago, President Obama met with the leaders of Canada and Mexico. Their agenda included trade, security — and the conservation of the monarch butterfly. Such high-level attention is nothing new to the monarchs, which are used to being treated like celebrities. White House meetings are convened to focus on saving them, senators demand their protection and a North American Monarch Conservation Plan has existed since 2008. A new high-level working group, charged with developing management plans to bolster the butterfly’s numbers, includes the heads of the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Federal Highway Administration and Agriculture Department. Monarchs are an official insect of seven states, there are monarch festivals from California to Minnesota, and the monarch was the first butterfly to have its genome sequenced. We took them into space. The insect is even bred for release at weddings and funerals. It’s enough to make a panda blush. But it has gone too far: A group of organizations and individuals has petitioned the Interior Department to protect the monarch by having it listed under the Endangered Species Act. I strongly support insect conservation and the organizations behind this effort, but I don’t support an endangered listing for the monarch. It’s true that monarch populations in eastern North America are down about 90 percent in the past 20 years — a serious decline. Monarch watchers across the country report far fewer sightings than in the past. So why not list the species? To begin, the overwintering population in Mexico still totals more than 30 million. Most insect conservationists would be thrilled to record numbers even a tenth of that for many rare species around the country. And that total doesn’t include the millions of monarchs in populations wintering in California, or those that live year-round in Central America and the Caribbean, or the introduced populations thriving across the Pacific islands and in Australia. The monarch is one of the most widespread species of butterfly in the world. Its ability to find and colonize even isolated patches of milkweed — the host plant for their larvae — is renowned. Monarchs came to Hawaii more than


Carter arrives in Afghanistan on first trip as defense secretary

Newly sworn in Ashton B. Carter visited Afghanistan on his first trip as defense secretary, saying he wanted to talk to Afghan and American officials to ensure a "lasting" success as U.S. troops withdraw. KABUL – During a planned two-day visit, Carter is scheduled to meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and U.S. military commanders, as well as to visit some of the 10,600 U.S. troops remaining in the country. High on his agenda: determining whether the Obama administration should revisit its plans for pulling out half of the U.S. force by the end of this year, and the rest by the end of 2016. “We’re looking for success in Afghanistan that is lasting,” Carter told reporters traveling with him aboard a U.S. military aircraft shortly before he arrived in Kabul. “The best way to do that is precisely what I’m here to assess.” Carter said he met with President Obama on Tuesday — the day he was sworn in as the fourth defense secretary of Obama’s tenure — and pledged to take a fresh look at plans to wind down U.S. involvement in the war. “I promised the president that I would do that, that I would begin to get my own thinking together in this,” he said, “so that I can better inform his thinking.” Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, left, walks with Gen. John Campbell, who greeted him upon his arrival in Kabul. (Jonathan Ernst/AFP/Getty Images) The U.S. military ended conventional combat operations in Afghanistan on Dec. 31, but U.S. troops remain in the country to train and assist about 350,000 Afghan security forces in their fight against the Taliban. U.S. commandos are also still conducting counter-terrorism operations, including night raids and drone strikes. U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan are at a fraction of what they were four years ago, when they reached a peak of 100,000. Army Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has recently floated proposals that would keep more U.S. troops in the country beyond the 5,500 that are currently slated to remain by the end of 2015. U.S. officials have said they are not contemplating any changes to Obama’s promise to end the U.S. military mission completely by the time he leaves office in January 2017. But they are considering whether to revise their timetable for closing regional training hubs and a major base at Kandahar


Panda cub Bao Bao approaches life transition, seems happy and healthy

One of Washington’s most famous residents is nearing a significant life event. On Monday, Bao Bao, the National Zoo’s panda cub, will be 18 months old. “It’s hard to believe,” the zoo said, calling 18 months a milestone for panda cubs. It’s when they stop nursing and start living apart from their mothers. The relationship does not change overnight. In what the zoo said is the normal course of panda development, Bao Bao began the weaning process a few months ago. By now, it is noticeable. The amount of bamboo and solid food in the cub’s diet has increased significantly, the zoo said. Bao Bao now dines apart from her mother, Mei Xiang, and has spent about six hours a day separated from her. Ultimately, the zoo said, time spent apart will increase until the cub, born Aug. 23, 2013, begins to live on her own. The zoo expects the process to be over by early March. In the meantime, the zoo said, she has been faring well. The zoo said she has also shown herself as something of a snow lover.No sooner did Washington get its first substantial snowfall of 2015 last month, than there she was, out in the elements, , happily tumbling, climbing and sliding.


Could Matchbox become the next Cheesecake Factory?

of Northern Virginia-based Great American Restaurants. He joined the Matchbox Food Group as chief operating officer in January of last year. D’Amelio has a lot of experience taking restaurant concepts national. When he started at Cheesecake Factory as a manager, it had three locations. When he left as the head of the company, there were 153. He ticks off the three reasons for planting a Matchbox flag in the Sunshine State: “There’s no state income tax; it’s easier to get staff and managers there, because people want to live down there; there’s a lot of real estate available.” Even before he began working with Matchbox, D’Amelio was a patron and fan of the restaurant he says could be successful across the country. “It has potential to become an iconic brand,” he says. The Sunrise location is Saw-grass Mills mall. It’s set to be the largest Matchbox yet, measuring 11,000 square feet with more than 300 seats. Price tag: $5 million. The money comes from a group of approximately 100 friends and family investors; bank loans; and financial enticements from the mall’s developers. If all goes according to plan, the upscale- casual restaurant will be ready for guests early next year. The current game plan is for Matchbox to open four to seven new locations a year after its expansion to Florida. Already the restaurant group is looking at opportunities in Texas and California. Once this phase of the expansion process is complete, the group will start expanding Ted’s Bulletin into areas where Matchbox has a toehold. “It’s a leap, because a lot of people don’t know us in these new markets,” admits Ty Neal, “but we want to get our feet wet. Plus, we’re out of space to put more Matchboxes around here.” It’s an ambitious plan, but Matchbox Food Group has already proved its chops in the capital region. The company now employs 1,130 people here. Old ticket windows from the Philadelphia Civic Center are incorporated into the interior design at Ted's Bulletin on 14th Street NW. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post) It would have been hard to imagine this level of success when co-founders Ty Neal and Drew Kim first met in 1990 in Huntington, W.Va., at Mycroft’s, Neal’s first restaurant. A 100-seat eatery-bar adjacent to the Marshall University campus, perched between the basketball arena and the football stadium, Mycroft’s “was a Cheers-type place,” he says. “Kinda kitschy,


D.C. homicide detectives investigating death of Southeast woman

D.C. homicide detectives are continuing their investigation into the murder of a 34-year-old woman whose body was found Jan. 19 in the 3000 block of Stanton Road, Southeast Washington. Police on Saturday identified the woman as Lakida Goodman of Southeast. Police responded about 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 19 to a call reporting an unconscious woman and determined there was no sign of life. An autopsy later revealed that the cause of death was a homicide. No further information was released. D.C. police are offering a reward of up to $25,000 for anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest or conviction in Goodman’s death. Anyone with information is asked to call 202-727-9099.


D.C. police identify woman found murdered in January

THE DISTRICT Police identify Jan. murder victim D.C. homicide detectives on Saturday identified a 34-year-old woman whose body was found Jan. 19 in the 3000 block of Stanton Road in Southeast Washington as Lakida Goodman of Southeast. Police responded about 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 19 to a call reporting an unconscious woman and found her dead. An autopsy later revealed that she was murdered. No further information was released. D.C. police are offering a reward of up to $25,000 for anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest or conviction in Goodman’s death. Anyone with information is asked to call 202-727-9099. Keith L. Alexander MARYLAND Firefighters blame fire on heating tape Electrical heating tape used on frozen pipes was blamed for a fire that ripped through a home in a Germantown trailer park Saturday morning, leaving four adults and two children homeless. Pete Piringer, a spokesman for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services, said the fire at the home in the 19500 block of North Frederick Road near Middlebrook Road had spread underneath the floor of the home as a result of an electrical malfunction that Piringer said was caused by the tape. The fire broke out on water pipes near a water heater and utility room. Two firefighters sustained minor injuries while fighting the blaze. Damages were estimated at $75,000. The American Red Cross was helping to find shelter for the adults and children. Keith L. Alexander VIRGINIA Arlington board to advertise tax increase The Arlington County Board promised Saturday that although it will advertise a small increase in the property tax rate for the coming fiscal year, members hope not to hike the rate in a year when rising assessments could cost taxpayers an average of $281 more. The advertised tax rate will be 1.011 cents per $100 of assessed value, an increase of 1.5 cents in the property tax rate, including a .013-cent rainwater sanitary district tax. By law, the board cannot exceed the advertised rate, so it often publicizes a rate higher than it ends up enacting. Patricia Sullivan Arlington to license fiber-optic access Arlington County will open its high-speed broadband network to federal agencies, businesses and organizations later this year as part of an economic development initiative. The County Board voted unanimously Saturday to license access to Arlington’s 10-mile fiber-optic network in the county’s major commercial areas, as long as the final connection is


For Marine who urinated on dead Taliban, a hero’s burial at Arlington

A Marine court-martialed for urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters has died more than two years later after a painkiller overdose. His three combat tours in Afghanistan had been boiled down to a 38-second video clip, played and replayed on YouTube more than a million times. In it, Rob Richards and three other Marine Corps snipers are seen urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters they had just killed. “Total dismay” were the words then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used to describe the video when it surfaced on the Internet in January 2012. “Utterly deplorable,” agreed then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Richards’s career in the military was finished. More than two years later — long after the rest of the country had moved on to other scandals — Richards, 28, died at home and alone from an accidental painkiller overdose. Now an ammunition can carrying his cremated remains sat on the table of a hotel bar in Arlington, Va., as his family, friends and fellow Marines swirled around it. Almost everything about war is complicated, messy or morally fraught; in this case even more so. A Marine vilified by his country’s leaders and court-martialed for “bringing discredit to the armed forces” would soon be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the country’s most hallowed ground. On this mid-February night before the funeral, dozens who knew Richards beyond those 38 seconds gathered to celebrate his life. Rob Richards, seen July 2014, felt abandoned by the Marine brass who had heaped praise on his unit. (Courtesy of Raechel Richards) Richards’s mother spotted her son’s platoon commander and platoon sergeant, both of whom were in the video, ordering drinks at the bar. “My boys, my sons,” she called out to them. The two men are out of the Marine Corps now and have thick beards and long hair. The platoon sergeant rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt to show off a memorial tattoo bearing Richards’s name on his wrist. “Right where everyone can see it,” he said. Richards’s mother, Cate, a senior sales executive for IBM, hugged him and rested her head on his shoulder. When Richards was a sniper team leader in Afghanistan, she sent him regular care packages with items he and his Marines most needed. Her weekly shopping list included clean socks, cans of Chef Boyardee and six packs of Red Bull to help them stay alert in their


U.S. weighs more sanctions against Russia over violations in Ukraine

Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in London to meet with his British counterpart for talks that are expected to be dominated by the Ukrainian conflict. The Obama administration is weighing a new round of sanctions against Russia in response to its continued “land-grabbing” in eastern Ukraine despite a cease-fire agreement, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Saturday. Speaking to reporters in London, where he met with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Kerry said he expected that the United States and its European allies would impose some “very serious” sanctions and other steps to punish Moscow after repeated cease-fire violations by Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists. Kerry said one of the most egregious violations was a separatist assault on the strategically important railway hub of Debaltseve last week. President Obama and European leaders have vowed there will be consequences for violations of a Feb. 12 peace agreement. Amid ongoing violence and chaos in eastern Ukraine, their credibility could be undermined if those tough words are not backed up by action. “If this failure continues, make no mistake,” Kerry warned. “There will be further consequences, including consequences that would place added strains on Russia’s already troubled economy. We’re not going to sit back and allow this kind of cynical, craven behavior to continue at the expense of the sovereignty and integrity of another nation. “And I am confident that the United States and the United Kingdom and others are prepared to stand up and take the measures necessary to add to the cost of these actions.” As part of the cease-fire, government forces and rebels swapped prisoners. Kerry said satellite imagery proves that Moscow has kept up its support of the rebel fighters despite signing the agreement brokered in Minsk by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande. The pact called for both sides to pull back their heavy weaponry. That has not happened, Kerry said. “We know to a certainty what Russia has been providing, and no amount of propaganda is capable of hiding these actions,” Kerry said. However, Kerry said Obama has not decided whether to send lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, as many members of Congress have urged. He suggested the decision may depend on what happens in eastern Ukraine over the next several days. Hammond also criticized Russia’s “continued aggression” and said the Minsk agreement had been “systematically breached.” But he did not predict more sanctions.


Saving the eagles at Deep Creek Lake

The Feb. 19 news article “ ‘Killer’ bacteria emerges as threat to bald eagles,” a haunting story of nature under attack, struck close to home. A hydrilla-control program began at Deep Creek Lake in 2014 at a cost of $330,000. The project may cost $2 million over several years — if the hydrilla, an aquatic plant, doesn’t spread. The article said the “only way” to save eagles is through hydrilla-eradication programs because bacteria that threaten eagles hide under the plant’s leaves. But once established, hydrilla can’t be eradicated, only controlled. The best practice is preventing the introduction of hydrilla and other invasive species through boat inspections and cleaning. Cleaning stations have a one-time cost of $30,000 to $80,000. The Maryland General Assembly is considering the State Lakes Invasive Species Act of 2015, which would protect Deep Creek Lake from invasive species and protect the dozens of bald eagles that call the lake home. This should appeal to the governor: saving eagles and public funds with one action. Barbara Beelar, Oakland, Md. The writer is director of Friends of Deep Creek Lake.


How Chipotle is forcing sit-down chains like Olive Garden to rethink lunch

remain wary of an outing that feels like an indulgence. The Washington area has seen a boom in fast casual dining restaurants using a Chipotle-like model of building your own meal starting with a base, adding a protein and vegetables, and topping it with garnishes and sauces. The Chipotle-owned ShopHouse and D.C.-based Cava Grill are two newer outlets where customers can build a bowl. According to research firm Technomic, sales were up just 1.9 percent at casual dining restaurants open more than a year in the third quarter, compared to a 7.9 percent increase in the fast-casual category and a 2 percent increase in the restaurant industry overall. “The worst place to be in the restaurant industry in the United States today is to be a full-service restaurant with average check size of less than $20,” said Aaron Allen, a restaurant industry consultant. That’s because diners have been flocking to fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle where they can get meals that are similar in price and quality to those at casual dining chains, but can get in and out of the restaurant much faster. Wall Street has noted diners’ enthusiasm: Chains such as Shake Shack, Zoe’s Kitchen and El Pollo Loco saw their stock sizzle in recent public trading debuts. Chipotle, the shining star of the fast-casual category, has seen its stock soar nearly 600 percent in the last five years as it has repeatedly delivered stratospheric growth in sales at restaurants open more than a year. Fast-casual restaurants have taken advantage of one of the weaknesses of their sit-down dining counterparts. “I might say fast-casual exists because full-service doesn’t align very well with lunch during the week,” said Darren Tristano, a restaurant industry analyst with Technomic. “Monday through Friday, getting out of a full-service restaurant in under an hour is difficult.” Now, sit-down chains are looking for new ways to adapt to that problem. Currently, only 20 percent of Buffalo Wild Wings’ business comes during the lunch-time rush. The chain will try to change that with a marketing blitz starting in April that will trumpet quick-to-prepare menu items such as wings, salads, sandwiches, and “Buffalitos,” a taco-like concoction. It will also work to train the kitchen staff to move speedily. Hopefully, diners will be impressed if they are moved through the restaurant in 30 to 40 minutes, said Sally Smith, chief executive of Buffalo Wild Wings. “Lunch is really where


Mango Tree review: Why it doesn’t matter that it’s part of a chain

Green chicken curry, foreground, at the Mango Tree restaurant, on February, 11, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) After entry through a ubiquitous bar on the ground floor, diners ascend to the second-floor dining room, which has more personality. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) GOOD/EXCELLENT I t’s been said that the best Thai food is prepared by female chefs, and my experience with the cuisine, here and abroad — at Thai Basil in Chantilly, Va., even at a roadside grill outside Chiang Mai, Thailand — lends weight to the theory. Yet a couple of meals into the new Mango Tree in Washington reveals there are exceptions to rules. Chef Paul Kennedy, British born and French trained, is one of them. Eating his papaya salad, funky with dried shrimp and pulsing with heat, puts me in mind of Bangkok. If there’s a more elegant yet swashbuckling green curry with chicken and eggplant to be found, it has managed to miss my spoon. Mango Tree is part of a Bangkok-based company, the Mango Tree Group, with 70-plus places to eat around the world, including 11 Mango Trees in eight countries. The Washington outpost — set in glitzy CityCenterDC and the first in the United States — impresses me with its ability to feel personal despite its size and ambition. Hosts put their hands together and bow to greet you , just as those who live in the Land of a Thousand Smiles do. A dried red chili is affixed to each linen napkin with twine. “It’s like giving a hug,” says Kennedy, 36. To reach the second-floor dining room, you pass through a street-level bar with all the personality of a domestic airport lounge. If you want to start the evening off with a cocktail, head to the handsome bar upstairs and ask for a Spicy Siam. Mango juice spiked with rum and ignited with a tiny red chili is one of those drinks that, like the Gridiron Dinner, singes but never burns. (You may want another round, but the wine list, unusual for a Thai restaurant, is also worth sipping into.) Heat is a subject your waiter brings up from the start. “We’re still figuring out the D.C. market,” a server says, as if everyone in the region shares the same pain threshold. “We can adjust the level of spice to your taste.” In


Pinea review: New W Hotel restaurant needs tastes you can count on

The Saffron Risotto with lobster and mussels at Pinea Restaurant in The W Hotel in downtown Washington, DC. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) SATISFACTORY/GOOD The most consistent thing about Pinea in the W Hotel is the restaurant’s unpredictability. A returning customer shouldn’t expect to experience the same food — good or bad — as he did before in the dining room, named for the pine trees of southern Europe. An initial dinner left me eager to rebook A later lunch left me wondering not only if the chef had the day off, but also if he took his recipes with him. A few bites into a piece of damp swordfish with bland “charred” cauliflower and a vague carrot romesco, I put my fork down for the duration of the meal. The muddle of flavors wasn’t helped by stale lavash, which Pinea serves instead of bread. Chef Barry Koslow left downtown’s fine DGS Delicatessen, his “passion project,” to take over the venue once occupied by J&G Steakhouse. “I’m getting back to my roots: fine dining,” Koslow announced when he fired up the hotel ovens last October. His résumé suggested some lip-smacking to follow; the upscale 2941 in Falls Church and the late Michel Richard Citronelle in Georgetown were past employers. Those pit stops help explain why the more luxurious a dish sounds, the better your odds are of wanting to finish it. Foie gras fuels Koslow’s very good torchon, served on a cushion of brioche with kumquat marmalade and streaks of black pepper gastrique, the fruit and the heat working together to offset the richness of the foie gras. Risotto, cooked so the grains retain a welcome resistance, and fragrant with saffron, is richer still for the many morsels of lobster and mussels in the swirl of rice and butter. The saffron risotto at Pinea features with lobster and mussels, with rice that still offers a bit of resistance. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) Foie gras torchon is served on brioche with a kumquat marmalade to offset the richness of the liver. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post) Seafood and pasta are, for the most part, sure bets at Pinea. Consider as an appetizer Koslow’s creamy crab croquettes, lined up like marbles on their slender white plate. The menu says they include guanciale (cured pork), but that flavor is faint. To the rescue: a racy remoulade for


McConnell plan moves Senate closer to deal on DHS funding, but House support unclear

— will attend a news conference scheduled for Wednesday to warn of problems that could occur if the agency is forced to begin furloughs. Essential personnel, as many as 200,000 employees, would continue to report to work without pay during a partial shutdown. Although Johnson and the White House have said that national security would not be jeopardized, they have warned that long-term planning could be affected. In an interview, Chertoff warned of morale problems in the agency and said he thinks a shutdown would “no doubt adversely affect the nation’s security.” “A couple days of delay [of pay] will not make a difference, but if it starts to mount up and there’s real uncertainty, people will start to feel demoralized, and that could have an impact over a long period,” Chertoff said. “You wouldn’t do this to [military] troops in the field, send them into combat but not get paid. They need to take this seriously.” Doubts on the right While McConnell’s plan to split off the immigration issue into a stand-alone measure opened the door to winning over Democrats, conservatives were skeptical. “Senators arguing fund DHS but vote a separate bill to defund executive amnesty. Have you heard of Obama veto? Think we were born yesterday?” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a staunch opponent of Obama’s immigration actions, wrote on Twitter. Meanwhile, the administration has struggled to explain how a partial shutdown would affect national security. White House press secretary Josh Earnest, asked repeatedly about it Monday, declined to say that the nation would be more at risk. Rather, he said, the situation would not improve the nation’s safety. “It’s hard to imagine a good time for Congress to be mucking around with the funding of the Department of Homeland Security,” Earnest said. “But now seems like a particularly bad on Politically, the standoff could help the White House and Democrats. Republicans drew the brunt of public anger over the 2013 shutdown, and administration aides believe the same will happen if DHS is affected at week’s end. It is not lost on White House allies that the president is traveling to Florida, a key swing state in presidential races, for the Wednesday event, co-hosted by MSNBC and Telemundo. “In our travels to the immigrant community, the faith community, the law enforcement community and the business community, they want someone in D.C. to do something,” said Ali Noorani, executive director


Maryland Senate committee considers bill on chicken manure limitations

and pulled by Hogan last month. Royden N. Powell III, assistant secretary of the Department of Agriculture, said the ability to suspend the provision, called the Phosphorous Management Tool or PMT, is about capacity, not costs. The provision would ensure that the excess manure on Eastern Shore farms could be transported to another farm that has lower phosphorus levels or if alternative uses for the animal waste are found. “We are looking systemically at infrastructure, hauling, the spreading of manure,” Powell said. Powell asked the committee to reject the Senate bill. He said the regulations proposed by Hogan would be enacted by June. Environmentalists have blamed chicken manure, which includes phosphorus and nitrogen, for polluting the bay and contributing to the formation of oxygen-deprived “dead zones.” Hogan unveiled his proposal for limiting chicken manure and reducing pollution to the Chesapeake Bay on Monday. Pinsky, who introduced legislation after Hogan pulled O’Malley’s regulations, decided to move forward with the legislation on Tuesday. He had previously said he would pull the measure if Hogan’s proposal was comparable to O’Malley’s rules. On Monday, Pinsky said he didn’t have enough details about Hogan’s plan to withdraw the legislation. He said read the regulations less than an hour before the hearing. Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Hogan, said the governor presented regulations that he considered to be a fair and balanced compromise between environmentalists and farmers. “Our proposed regulations are all about finding common ground,” Mayer said in a statement. “But it comes as no surprise that there are some individuals in Annapolis whose starting position will always be that compromise is impossible. “The Hogan administration is a little more optimistic than that,” Mayer added. “We believe there is a better path to follow and that these enhanced PMT regulations represent a great opportunity for both the agricultural and environmental communities to achieve their shared goal of finally cleaning up the Bay.” Hogan’s plan mirrors the rules offered by O’Malley, except for the provision that would suspend full implementation of phosphorus limits. His plan goes a step further by placing an immediate ban on spreading chicken manure at farms that have the highest levels of phosphorus and which place the greatest threat on the bay. Hogan’s plan also calls for a test of phosphorus levels on farms across the state and for additional money to help the state Department of Agriculture prepare for the rules.


Food companies aim to reinvent diet foods to stay relevant

U.S. consumers are shifting away from weight-management foods, forcing companies including Kellogg’s and Nestle to change ingredients and focus their marketing on different health benefits as sales slip. Food companies are grappling with how to market brands such as Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice and Special K, and coming out with new products tailored to changing tastes. These days, companies say, consumers are more interested in ingredients that are simple to understand than they are about counting calories. They also want more ethnic flavors, as well as foods that are gluten free and higher in protein. Nestle will shift its Lean Cuisine frozen dinners from a diet brand to one built around “healthy eating and healthy lifestyles,” said Jeff Hamilton, president of the prepared food division. Instead of retaining the brand’s signature white box, which gave it a “diet” look, Nestle said, the company will use new packaging with bolder graphics to help Lean Cuisine stand out. It is also rolling out new ethnic flavors such as sweet-and-spicy Korean-style beef. “We have a heritage of being a diet brand, and we need to move to where the consumer is going,” Hamilton said. The changes come at a time when U.S. consumers’ perceptions of what is healthy are changing. According to a Nielsen study of 30,000 people released in January, the number of U.S. respondents who said they were cutting down on fats dropped 14 percent between 2011 and 2014. Meanwhile, the number of people who turned to diets low in carbohydrates to lose weight increased 10 percent. Eating smaller portions and fewer processed foods are also popular strategies, the study said. John Bryant, chief executive of Kellogg’s, said consumers wanted snack bars with ingredients that appear to be natural, even if they are not low in calories. “They’re still buying bars, but they’re often buying bars that are higher in calories and higher in fat,” he said. The company is changing the packaging and advertising for its Special K brand to reduce a focus on weight loss, as well as adding varieties of bars with ingredients that consumers can see in the product, such as fruit pieces. ConAgra Foods says its new Healthy Choice Simply Cafe Steamers are made with “100 percent natural chicken.” “As the definition of health evolves, we evolve our meals,” said Jenn Freeman, vice president and general manager, through a ConAgra spokeswoman. Consumers should also be skeptical


Montgomery County Animal Watch

These cases were received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Dog bites boy on lip: A pinky problem: Reduced fees for cat adoption: Germantown Adopt dogs and cats at MCHS no-kill rescue: Rockville Adoptable cats at no-kill shelter: Gaithersburg Adopt or foster rescue dogs: Rockville — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


Save species by planting local

Daniel Rubinoff’s Feb. 22 Sunday Opinion commentary, “The butterfly effect,” on efforts to save the monarch, made a good case for expanding our focus to include “less well-known insects that are truly close to extinction.” Homeowners, businesses, schools, government agencies and faith congregations can help save an array of species by planting trees, shrubs, perennial flowers and ground cover that are native to our region. Native plants provide essential habitat and food not only for beneficial insects but also for birds and other wildlife. There are attractive native alternatives to the countless non-native or invasive plants routinely used for landscaping. Correctly located, native plants are hardy, requiring less water and fertilizer than many non-natives. Thinking even more broadly, we need to preserve our region’s and nation’s ecosystem diversity. By conserving the 500-plus ecosystems in the continental United States, in which native plants are essential, we will go far toward protecting the thousands of species of birds, mammals, fish and invertebrates that depend on them. Alan Ford, McLean The writer is president of the Potowmack Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society.


‘Jihadi John’: Islamic State killer is identified as Londoner Mohammed Emwazi

could be “Jihadi John.” “This is making me feel fairly certain that this is the same person,” Qureshi added. Authorities have used a variety of investigative techniques, including voice analysis and interviews with former hostages, to try to identify Jihadi John. James B. Comey, the director of the FBI, said in September — only a month after the Briton was seen in a video killing American journalist James Foley — that officials believed they had succeeded. Nevertheless, the identity of Jihadi John has remained shrouded in secrecy. Since Foley’s killing, he has appeared in a series of videos documenting the gruesome killings of other hostages, including four other Westerners, some of whom he personally beheaded. [Read: The Islamic State is failing at being a state] In each, he is dressed in all black, a balaclava covering all but his eyes and the ridge of his nose. He wears a holster under his left arm. A spokeswoman for the British Embassy in Washington said: “Our prime minister has been clear that we want all those who have committed murder on behalf of ISIL to face justice for the appalling acts carried out. There is an ongoing police investigation into the murder of hostages by ISIL in Syria. It is not appropriate for the government to comment on any part of it while this continues.” ISIL is another name for the Islamic State. U.S. officials declined to comment for this report. Emwazi’s family declined a request for an interview, citing legal advice. The Kuwaiti-born Emwazi, in his mid-20s, appears to have left little trail on social media or elsewhere online. Those who knew him say he was polite and had a penchant for wearing stylish clothes while adhering to the tenets of his Islamic faith. He had a beard and was mindful of making eye contact with women, friends said. [Archives: The tactics of Islamic State beheadings] He was raised in a middle-class neighborhood in London and on occasion prayed at a mosque in Greenwich. The friends, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, believe that Emwazi started to radicalize after a planned safari in Tanzania following his graduation from the University of Westminster. Foreign policy reporter Adam Goldman explains who Mohammed Emwazi is and how The Washington Post discovered his identity. Emwazi and two friends — a German convert to Islam named Omar and


Scotland Yard: no details on probe after identity of ‘Jihadi John’ revealed

once they’re there, shoot over the border to Syria.” The International Center for the Study of Radicalization, a leading authority on foreign recruitment methods by militant groups, described the Post’s reporting on Emwazi’s identity as “accurate and correct.” [Read: Emwazi filed a complaint with police. This is the response.] “The fact that ‘Jihadi John’ has been unveiled in this manner demonstrates that whatever efforts are made, the ability to mask one’s identity is limited or in fact impossible, and their true identities will eventually be revealed,” said a statement from the center, which is based at King’s College in London. “This demonstrates what we have long said about radicalization, that it is not something driven by poverty or social deprivation,” the center added. “Ideology clearly plays a big role in motivating some men to participate in jihadist causes.” The daughter of British aid worker David Haines, who was beheaded in September by Jihadi John, told ITV News that identifying the masked man was “a good step,” the Associated Press reported. “But I think all the families will feel closure and relief once there’s a bullet between his eyes,” Bethany Haines said. The family of American journalist Steven Sotloff, who was similarly murdered earlier that month, expressed hope that the killer would go to prison. The family said it felt “relieved” and took “comfort” from the disclosure of Emwazi’s identity, according to the BBC. “We want to sit in a courtroom, watch him sentenced and see him sent to a super-max prison where he will spend the rest of his life in isolation,” the BBC quoted a family spokesman as saying. Earlier this month, the director of the U.S. National Counter Terrorism Center told a congressional panel that an estimated 20,000 foreigners from 90 countries — including about 3,400 from Western nations — have joined militant factions in Syria, including the Islamic State. Worries about Islamic State recruitment are particularly acute in Europe, where authorities have increased surveillance for citizens seeking to reach Syria or returning home after contact with the militants. Last month — just days after a series of terrorist attacks rocked Paris — police in Belgium and other countries conducted raids against suspected cells linked to Islamic State sympathizers. In New York, three men — all born in Central Asia — were arrested on Wednesday on charges of plotting to join the Islamic State. Murphy reported from Washington.


A mom in a minivan goes in search of a D.C. pot party

set with the smell in my hair and my coat. It is impossible to steep in that smoke for too long without craving Doritos. So I said goodbye to the beanie boys and headed to 7-Eleven. The guys there said business wasn’t up. And they did not purposefully rearrange their display to feature the Cheetos munchies product line near the cash register on this auspicious day in D.C. history. “Pot? Pots were illegal?” said the nice guy behind the cash register when I asked him if legalizing pot will change his business. Outside, a man with a cane held the door open for me and asked for $10 to buy a place to sleep for the night. “My leg’s all swollen, and I can’t hardly stand no more,” he said. I gave him the money, and he asked for a ride to an apartment building a few blocks away. I asked him what he thought of the legalization as we pulled away. “Whooowee,” he exhaled, putting his forehead on his cane. “I did six months for possession when I was 21,” David Johnson, 50, told me. “It changed my life.” He was chased down by a police officer after trying to buy a joint almost 30 years ago. “Every job, every interview, I had to answer for that,” he said. He lost jobs and began dealing PCP. That got him 10 years at Lorton. “That’s where I got stabbed. Doctors said I wouldn’t walk again. Stabbed 19 times,” he told me. “And just think, people are partying tonight, doing it legal. Something that got me locked up. Changed my life. Can’t they go back and sponge out the records of us who got convicted?” He got out of the minivan, slowly, with his cane. “I can get you some right now, in there if you want,” he offered, pointing to the apartment building where he’s renting a bed for $10. “If it’s legal now, you don’t have nothing to worry about.” He said he has asthma and doesn’t smoke anymore. But a marijuana cookie or brownie? He’ll take that. And he’ll smile, he said, when he eats it. He headed inside to get some sleep. I pointed the minivan toward home as early morning snow began to fall, giving my kids yet another weather-related day off school. I should have kept that joint. To read previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/dvorak.


For Yemen’s Arab Spring activists, hope plummets as chaos deepens

can’t let that happen again.” Scores of activists have chosen to emigrate rather than struggle for dwindling opportunities in a country of about 25 million that is wrestling with nearly 50 percent unemployment and grinding poverty. More than 10 of Mutte Dammaj’s friends who rallied with him four years ago in Sanaa left the country after the uprising, mostly to Europe, he said. “There is deep despair,” Dammaj said. He also expressed concern that the prevailing sense of hopelessness could push more young Yemenis into the arms of al-Qaeda, as well as secessionist groups in the south. Still, small protests continue as activists stage demonstrations against the Houthi rebels. Samia al-Aghbari, a 33-year-old activist, attributed the rekindled protests to the defiant spirit that the 2011 uprising helped instill in Yemenis, especially women. They were inspired by Sulimani and other female protesters, such as Tawakkol Karman, to overcome many of the barriers of their conservative culture. Karman won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent struggle. [Read: Tawakkol Karman in conservation.] “People used to question why women would step out of the home and demonstrate,” Aghbari said. “You’d hear them say: ‘Aren’t men strong enough to do this on their own? Why should a woman have to get involved?’ Even my family would tell me that.” “That’s not the case anymore,” she added. Aghbari acknowledged, however, that nonviolence would be difficult to sustain against the Houthis. Activists and human rights groups have accused the rebels of systematically targeting protesters in the capital with death threats, abductions and severe beatings. [Read: Who are the Houthis?] Ahmed Abdo Ali, 28, said his fellow 2011 protesters are increasingly concluding that Houthi violence has to be met with force. “You’re seeing the situation becoming a military conflict,” he said. “It’s terrifying.” That prospect, Ali said, could undo all that he and others like him fought for four years ago. He recalled how Sulimani remained committed to peaceful tactics even after six police officers dragged her out of a car in July 2011 and beat her with rifle butts. Soon after the incident, Ali said, she called to reassure him. “I remember her insisting: ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. Just keep going and I’ll be okay,’ ” said Ali, who described her as a “super-activist.” More upsetting for Sulimani, however, is the lingering pain from March 18, 2011. That was when men in civilian clothes opened


D.C.’s medical marijuana shortage: A little noticed crisis amid legalization

to the pot dealers they relied on before the District launched its tightly regulated medical marijuana network in 2013. Belinda Cunningham said she depends on the prescription she obtained last year to face life with HIV and Stage 2 cervical cancer. The 63-year-old grandmother was down to 129 pounds, taking more than 25 pills a day and suffering incessant vomiting. Cannabis, which she now smokes and vapes before every meal, settled the nausea and restored her appetite and her weight. “I just started feeling better right away,” she said. But until growers can ramp up production, she can’t always get what she needs. “Last week I went to the clinic, and they didn’t have anything, not even sticks,” Cunningham said. “I’m really struggling right now. I know people are going back to the street, but I don’t want to do that if I don’t have to. You don’t know what’s in it.” The shortage has gone largely unnoticed amid the drama leading up to Thursday’s legalization of recreational marijuana in D.C. (Although, the medical cannabis dispensaries have been besieged by calls from recreational users mistakenly hoping they could score some of the legal pot. “We have to tell them that, no, they cannot swing by,” West said. The law wouldn’t allow that, even if dispensaries had the pot to spare.) The scarcity is a big change from the early days of the medical marijuana program, when dispensaries catered to so few registered patients that some ran out of room to display all the Blue Dream, Master Kush and Lemon Skunk they had on hand. At the time, residents could get a prescription for only a short list of approved conditions, including HIV/AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and spasms. During a televised address, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said that marijuana possession would become legal in the District despite threats from House Republicans. Patients then had to apply to the Department of Health for a card that allowed them to enter one of the dispensaries and buy marijuana. There were fewer than 800 patients in the system last summer when the council, responding to pleas from dispensary operators and patient advocates, scrapped the list of conditions. Patients must still register, but since August, physicians have been allowed to prescribe cannabis for whatever they want. “We decided to open it up for the doctor to make the decisions,” said D.C. Councilwoman Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7),


‘Jihadi John’ is a Kuwaiti-born Londoner named Mohammed Emwazi

Foreign policy reporter Adam Goldman explains who Mohammed Emwazi is and how The Washington Post discovered his identity. Foreign policy reporter Adam Goldman explains who Mohammed Emwazi is and how The Washington Post discovered his identity. LONDON — But when the identity of the killer known as “Jihadi John” was revealed Thursday, the profile that emerged was disturbingly familiar: a young man whose parents’ decision to immigrate to the West afforded him a comfortable life and an education, but who ultimately found identity and succor in extremist ideology. His name is Mohammed Emwazi. And despite friends’ descriptions of a polite and quiet man not capable of violence, Emwazi’s links to extremist groups appear to have been long-standing, and he was well known to counterterrorism officials in London before he went to Syria. He has become infamous there in the past six months as the unidentified man who has beheaded American, British and Japanese hostages. The Washington Post revealed Emwazi’s name and details of his life on its Web site Thursday morning, based on information from two close friends and others familiar with his case. The BBC on Thursday posted an excerpt of what it said were 2011 court papers in which the British government described Emwazi, now 26, as a member of “a network of United Kingdom and East African based extremists which is involved in the provision of fund and equipment to Somalia for terrorism-related purposes.” [Read: How Mohammed Emwazi became Jihadi John: 5 key takeaways] Raffaello Pantucci, a security analyst with the Royal United Services Institute, said Emwazi was probably part of an informal gang of young Arab men from West London who became fixated on traveling to Somalia to fight alongside Islamist militants there. Many had criminal records and were involved in petty crime and drugs. One member of the group, a Lebanese-born, British-educated man named Bilal al-Berjawi, ultimately became a senior figure in the Somalia-based al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2012. A close friend of Berjawi’s, Mohammed Sakr, who grew up in the same West London neighborhood, was killed in a drone attack a month later. Emwazi, in the end, made his way to Syria, where 20,000 foreign fighters from 90 countries have flocked, according to U.S. figures. British security officials would not comment about Emwazi on Thursday and would not confirm that he is Jihadi John. They cited


The world should learn from the Ebola crisis to combat MERS in Saudi Arabia

A man wearing a mask looks on as he stands in front of camels at a camel market in the village of al-Thamama near Riyadh May 11, 2014. Saudi Arabia said people handling camels should wear masks and gloves to prevent spreading Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), (Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters) A DISEASE outbreak has a source and a pathway for transmission, but both can be exceedingly difficult to discover. Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, is surging anew in Saudi Arabia and raising familiar questions: Where is this coronavirus coming from and how is it spreading? There is growing evidence that the natural reservoir of MERS, which first appeared in 2012, is dromedary camels, and last year’s peak in the spring seemed to coincide with the weaning period of camel calves. A new seasonal oscillation may be starting now. But there are worrisome and unexplained gaps in recent case reports. This month alone, the kingdom reported 57 new cases, and 21 deaths, and many had no known exposure to camels. A large number of the new cases are in Riyadh. Since 2012, the virus has infected 1,042 people and killed 419. There is no known vaccine or cure. So far, there is not sustained human-to-human transmission, although the virus has spread among people in close contact and in hospitals. The World Health Organization, slow to respond to the Ebola crisis, just sent a team of experts to Saudi Arabia. Their report was disturbing. While data collection and surveillance have improved in recent months, the team said, “critical gaps in knowledge remain,” and there are obstacles still to be overcome. “For example, how and why infections occur in the community is yet to be understood, and this is critical for stopping the outbreak.” A third of the recent cases may have a hospital origin. But there is uncertainty about how and why, especially why infections appear to be spreading in some hospitals and not others. The leader of the WHO team, Keiji Fukuda, the WHO assistant director-general, said that when health-care workers are infected, they can spread the virus to all other patients in a facility, which he described as a “breach” that must be found — and repaired. Saudi Arabia announced it has closed one private Riyadh hospital for laxity. But the kingdom has a long tradition of opacity and insularity, and it has not handled MERS with sufficient transparency.


Effects of DHS shutdown might not be obvious to public but could run deep

than Johnson’s generally measured remarks, warning that a shutdown would cause a national security crisis at a time of continuing terrorist threats. Some Republicans have maintained there will be little impact, pointing out that a large majority of DHS employees worked during the 2013 government-wide shutdown and would do so again during a new stoppage. “This is a debate over funding a part of government so essential that if funding is not there, almost all of the employees show up anyway. They’re considered essential,’’ Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said recently on the Senate floor. While the most critical DHS functions — such as border and airport security and immigration enforcement — would continue, a review of the 2013 shutdown showed that some effects will be felt acutely in areas where the department already faces problems. Hiring would cease in an agency that has wrestled for years with high employee turnover. Morale would be devastated, DHS officials said, just as they are taking steps — such as improved training and more internal recognition of employees — to address deep dissatisfaction among workers. “This is crippling to morale,’’ said Matt Chandler, a former DHS deputy chief of staff who was at the agency during the 17-day shutdown in 2013. “When you inject uncertainty for families who may be relying on this income to pay their bills, there is a real impact felt by those individuals and their families.’’ DHS has also been riddled with management problems, largely stemming from the challenge of welding 22 separate government agencies into one when it began operations in 2003. Just as the department won praise for its efforts to improve management in a recent Government Accountability Office report, many top managers at headquarters would be furloughed. “While the rest of the workforce would continue to perform vital functions,’’ said Marsha Catron, a DHS spokeswoman, “the bulk of DHS management and headquarters administrative support activities would cease, including much of the homeland security infrastructure that was built following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.’’ The 2013 shutdown provides a template for how DHS would be affected this time. A 2013 Congressional Research Service report found that an estimated 31,295 DHS employees were furloughed, but about 85 percent of the department’s workforce remained on the job. The report said that “the total number of employees furloughed was relatively small compared with the overall size of the department,’’ but it pointed


Herbert Blomstedt illuminates Beethoven, joyously, with the NSO

last of the autocrats, Blomstedt is in fact an eminently collaborative artist; his approach seems to be about getting the best out of others rather than imposing his own will on the music. And if the piano concerto seemed to me a little flat, it was because he took a lesser role — to the extent of hiding, effectively, behind the open lid of the piano, since he conducted the first piece standing on the floor with the musicians, without benefit of a conductor’s podium. The soloist was Emanuel Ax, who is certainly celebrated enough and brilliant enough to deserve a front seat, and he played with consummate skill. But there was to his playing a sense of supreme competence rather than emotion: A kind of athleticism risked being the dominant impression. This was highlighted by the cadenza in the first movement, when he seemed to switch gears, when the orchestra stopped, and plunge into a new level of intensity and self-expression, as if this, finally, were the main event. This level of focus carried over into the gorgeous, aria-like opening of the second movement, but flagged a bit. It is quibbling, of course, to take any issue with a musician of Ax’s gifts, and his encore — the Brahms Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2 — confirmed him as a master of fluency in something exquisitely beautiful. One of the evening’s hitches is that the NSO didn’t always have the ability to rise to Blomstedt’s level, didn’t always have the magic to pass through the doors he was opening. Blomstedt conducted the symphony with a marvelous sense of buoyancy, a quickness it would be easy to call a young man’s. He managed to plumb Beethoven’s depths without evoking the cliched sense of a tortured psyche that often features in interpretations of his music. But both slow movements, in the concerto and the symphony, started to flag, in part because there wasn’t the crispness in the playing to support the space Blomstedt gave the players to be ravishing. They may well find their way to each other in the next two performances; the players sounded as if they were having fun. And there was some terrific playing: A shout-out goes to the flutes, and to the horns that plunged lustily into the hunting-like calls in the scherzo. The one part of the symphony that borders on the humorous is the repeated,


China suspends ivory carving imports, but move won’t stop poaching

A man looks at an ivory Buddha carving at a shop in Beijing. (Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images) BEIJING – Beijing’s decision came just before a visit to the country next week by Britain’s Prince William, who has become a leading figure in the global campaign to protect elephants. It seemed timed to head off the potential embarrassment of criticism from such a high-profile visitor, and also came days after conservation groups sent a letter to the Chinese government appealing for a total ban on domestic trade in ivory. Late Thursday, China’s State Forestry Administration (SFA) announced that it would suspend the import of African ivory carvings obtained since the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) went into effect in 1975. Although the announcement gave no dates, African elephants were listed under CITES in 1976. Chinese media quoted the “relevant SFA official” as saying the temporary suspension was designed to give authorities time to evaluate its effectiveness, and possibly take further, more effective measures in future. But experts said that the move would apply only to limited quantities of ivory and failed to address what conservationists were asking for — a ban on the legal Chinese domestic trade in ivory that provides the cover for a huge illicit trade. A man looks at a carved ivory tusk on display at a shop in Beijing. (Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images) Under CITES regulations, almost all global trade in ivory products is banned, although limited trade in certain items, including finished jewelry from Namibia and carvings from Zimbabwe, is allowed. Nevertheless Iris Ho, wildlife program manager for Humane Society International in Washington, one of the letter’s co-signatories, called the announcement “an encouraging signal that the Chinese government is ratcheting down the import of African elephant ivory into the country,” adding that regardless of its actual impact, she was “encouraged by the symbolism it carries and the reverberating effect on the Chinese public, including ivory traders and dealers.” “We are hopeful that more meaningful actions are being considered by the leadership and relevant government agencies,” she said. “We also encourage China and other countries to permanently ban domestic ivory trade and destroy all confiscated ivory stockpiles.” Grace Ge Gabriel, Asia regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Yarmouth Port, Mass., also called the move encouraging but “far from sufficient.” “China’s domestic ivory trade is a much bigger and pressing problem


Sports gambling in U.S.: Too prevalent to remain illegal?

other states are mulling similar challenges. In the past 50 years, while the United States has undergone an unprecedented expansion of legalized gambling, sports betting has been the only holdout, a testament to the impact of game-fixing scandals and the political power of the country’s professional sports leagues. America’s legal stance on sports betting puts it in unusual company; it’s the rare issue in which the United States has more in common with Russia and China than it does with Britain and much of continental Europe. America’s sports gambling prohibition has created what many consider (these things are difficult to measure) the world’s largest black market for sports betting. While nearly $4 billion is bet on sports legally in Las Vegas yearly, an estimated $80 billion to $380 billion is wagered illegally through a shadow industry of offshore online betting houses, office pools and neighborhood bookmakers. Legal or not, the money continues to flow, and a growing number of power brokers advocate legalization so government can tax those billions and sports leagues can track it for signs of corruption. Sports gambling in the United States in 2015 sits on a precipice; while it seems too big to continue to exist in its current form, legal hurdles and strong opposition remain. This debate is the latest that falls along the fault lines of familiar but contradictory American heritages, pitting moralistic puritanical ideals against the anti-government values of the frontier. While judges, politicians and commissioners mull their options, fans, gamblers and betting companies await the future. A history of ambivalence The history of gambling in the United States is not an inexorable march from outlawed vice to accepted leisure activity, but rather a recurring pattern: legalization, scandal, then prohibition. Legal bans last decades, until elected officials are desperate for cash, then the cycle repeats. Consider the lottery. America was founded on lotteries, literally. Most of the colonies raised money through lotteries, and the Continental Congress tried to help fund the Revolution with a lottery; the tickets were among the first documents to bear the words “United States.” Across early America, lotteries raised money for public projects such as roads, bridges and canals, and for private institutions such as Harvard and Yale. But by the early 1800s, people started getting fed up with how often lottery administrators absconded with all the cash. “Gamblers don’t always care if the game is crooked if it’s


Best state in America: D.C., where pot is legal — and untaxed

(Reuters/Reuters) Reid Wilson is the author of Read In, The Post’s morning tipsheet on politics. Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. The mind-altering-substance market got a little more crowded in Washington this past week when the District joined three states in allowing residents to possess and consume marijuana for recreational purposes. And despite the objections of some congressional Republicans, initially led by Rep. Andy Harris (Md.), who’s quite keen to tell D.C. voters that he knows better than they do, the District is actually the best place in America for marijuana aficionados — in part because of Harris’s efforts to block the will of the voters. For one thing, District residents can possess more pot than can residents of Alaska, Colorado and Washington, the states where it is legal. Washingtonians are allowed to grow the same number of marijuana plants as residents in Colorado and Alaska (six, three of which can be mature). But weed fans in D.C. can possess up to two ounces of marijuana for recreational use, twice the amount allowed in the three states. When marijuana becomes legal in Oregon in July, that state, too, will limit residents to an ounce. D.C. voters are more enthusiastic about marijuana than those anywhere else. The ballot initiative that legalized weed passed in November with a whopping 64.9 percent of the vote, higher than the 56.1 percent in Oregon, 55.7 percent in Washington, 55.3 percent in Colorado and 53.2 percent in Alaska. Now, here’s where Harris’s recalcitrance is paying off for marijuana users: A provision in the “cromnibus” bill, which funded the federal government through September, prohibited the District from writing rules governing marijuana, which means the city can’t levy taxes or set up a regulatory scheme like those in Colorado and Washington state. So while selling marijuana is still illegal, growers won’t have to pay any taxes on the plants they cultivate. And despite the best efforts of law enforcement, the new rules could eventually mean more product available on the black market — none of which can be taxed or regulated in ways that drive up the price, as in the states where marijuana is legal. (D.C. isn’t completely without restrictions on marijuana use. Just as in other states where it’s legal, one can’t smoke in public, and federal property is off limits.) The GOP efforts to block marijuana sales have created


Nigerian writer Helon Habila wins a Windham Campbell Prize

We’ve all gotten those e-mails: “You may already be a winner!” But for Helon Habila, a professor of creative writing at George Mason University, this one seemed different. The message, marked “urgent,” told him to call for some good news. “I hope it is not some 419 scammer,” his wife said. But when they Googled the sender — “Windham Campbell” — they discovered it was, in fact, a real prize. Worth $150,000. A celebrated Nigerian writer who now lives in Centreville, Va., Habila is one of nine winners of the 2015 Windham Campbell Prize , announced Feb. 24. The awards, established in 2013 at Yale University by the writer Donald Windham, are given in three categories: fiction, nonﬁction and drama. They honor writers anywhere in the world writing in English. Nominations are confidential; writers don’t even know they’re being considered until — unless — they get that e-mail. “I was in a daze,” Habila says. “I haven’t made a plan yet. But I guess the idea of the prize is to give a writer freedom from financial constraints so he or she can work on a book. I hope to do just that, to honor the vision of Windham and Campbell, who were actual writers and who understood how tough it is for writers to be free to work on just what they want to work on.” Habila knows that financial challenges aren’t the only constraints writers face. He grew up during a particularly tumultuous time in Nigeria, where freedom of expression was often violently curtailed. Nevertheless, he began writing poems and short stories, and by the early 2000s, he was attracting national attention. “I find myself drawn to subjects of justice and injustice, power and powerlessness,” he says. “I tend to focus on ordinary individuals and their capacity to be complex, and even heroic, to rise above the limits and expectations set for them by society.” Nigerian writer Helon Habila won one of the $150,000 Wyndham Campbell Prizes announced this week. (Jide Alakija (Courtesy of WW Norton)) Habila laments that not much has changed in his home country. “As a people, we let our leaders get away with too much impunity. Democracy only works when it is participatory, the people must be ready to challenge their leaders — only then can democracy be perfected.” In 2007, W.W. Norton published Habila’s second novel, “Measuring Time,” and in 2011 he served


Two books ask: will the electric car ever be the car of the present?

the ongoing insurrection. As both Levi Tillemann’s “The Great Race” and Steve LeVine’s “The Powerhouse” highlight, the central problem is the nearly miraculous energy density of gasoline. Just one kilogram of the stuff, or about one-third of a gallon, LeVine notes, contains 1,600 watt-hours of stored energy. A car can easily carry many gallons of that powerful liquid and cover hundreds of miles before needing a refill. Developing batteries that can hold even half as much energy, making them continually rechargeable and light enough to be carried around on two axles, and installing a nationwide charging infrastructure as ubiquitous as gasoline filling stations — all this has proved elusive. To Tillemann, a fellow at the left-leaning New America Foundation and a former policy adviser with the Energy Department, principled and tough-minded regulation is largely the answer. Indeed, while “The Great Race” spans the earnest and often contentious efforts of policymakers in China, Japan and the United States to develop — and own — the car of the future, the author’s primary protagonists are institutional. In this regard, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is the undisputed hero. CARB was established at the dawn of the environmental movement, and Tillemann rightly traces much of the progress on clean-car technology to the agency’s aggressive regulatory nudging. By setting low thresholds for common tailpipe pollutants, regulators in California — a huge slice of the car market by itself — were effectively setting national and even global emissions policy. Japan’s carmakers, themselves guided by top-down industrial policy set by the country’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, became CARB’s most attentive pupils, such that names like Honda and Nissan and Toyota came to dominate the American market for highly efficient gasoline cars and gas-electric hybrids. China’s leadership took notice, too, attempting — unsuccessfully, it turned out — to leverage the expertise of Chinese nationals educated abroad and its mass-production prowess to “leapfrog the West, and build the most advanced and cleanest auto sector in the world.” For the most part, American automakers, backed by Republicans seeking to neuter CARB, came to reform kicking and screaming. “Instead of sending engineers, we sent lawyers,” Tillemann quotes one GM executive as saying. That tack, of course, proved shortsighted. The bottom soon fell out on Detroit, and U.S. carmakers turned to Washington, hat in hand, for a bailout. Among other things, that made it easy for President Obama


Do we really want to know if we’re not alone in the universe?

could detect if we looked in the right places with the right techniques. “It’s 10,000 that we can detect. There are a lot more,” Drake clarifies. “A lot more young ones that can’t be detected because they don’t have the technology, and there are older ones that have technology that is so good that they don’t waste any energy.” The Drake Equation has endured despite being rather ungainly at first glance: N=R*· f p · n e · f l · f i · f c · L Drake also created the Arecibo Message, a simple binary encoded message broadcast into space by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 1974. The message encodes several things: the numbers 1 to 10, the basic chemistry of life on Earth, the double helix structure of DNA, Earth's population, a graphic of the solar system, a human figure, and a graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and its dish's dimensions. (Ramin Rahimian for The Washington Post) It’s not as complicated as it looks. The number (N) of detectable civilizations is the product of seven factors: the rate of star formation (R*), the fraction of stars with planetary systems (f p ), the average number of habitable planets per planetary system (n e ), the fraction that actually have life (f l ), the fraction that have intelligent life (f i ), the fraction with communicative civilizations (f c ) and the average longevity of the communicating phase of such civilizations (L). Exoplanets — outside our solar system — were first discovered in 1995. NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and other observatories in space and on the ground have found more than 1,000 planets in the years since. Astronomers say it’s likely that our galaxy has tens of billions of “habitable zone” planets. And of course (channeling Carl Sagan) our galaxy is just one of billions and billions of galaxies. But after the first three factors in the Drake Equation, we enter the murk. How many of those potentially habitable planets out there actually have life? No one knows, because we don’t yet know how life began on Earth. How likely is it that simple, microbial life will evolve into complex, multicellular organisms and eventually into creatures with large brains? We don’t know, because we have only the one data point of life on Earth. Do intelligent creatures tend to be communicative and potentially


Skywatch: Venus and Jupiter continue to accentuate the night heavens

In winter’s waning weeks, Venus and Jupiter continue to accentuate the night heavens, we change our clocks forward and we grab spring with no intention of letting go. Check the west-southwestern heavens at dusk to spy the vivacious Venus and the dim Mars. In late February, the two planets met for a sweet cosmic waltz, but in March, they appear to separate. Venus approaches negative fourth magnitude (very bright) while Mars makes do at magnitude 1.3 (dim, hard to find in urban light pollution). With a clear sky, Mars looks like a red pinpoint. A young, waxing crescent moon visits Mars on the evening of March 21, and on the next evening the crescent flirts with Venus. Robust Jupiter ascends the evening’s eastern sky. Find this gas giant at a -2.5 magnitude, very bright, in the constellation Cancer. The lion in the constellation Leo appears to stare at the planet. By the Ides of March, find it south around 10:30 p.m. The waxing gibbous moon drops by the dazzling Jupiter on March 2, days before the moon itself becomes full on March 5. Catch the ringed Saturn rising after midnight in the east-southeast now, hanging out near a gang of constellations, Scorpius, Ophiuchus and Libra. It’s a zero magnitude object, bright enough that it can be seen under urban skies. The waning moon loiters near Saturn before dawn on March 12. On that morning, the reddish star below them is Antares. We adjust our clocks to Daylight Saving Time at 2 a.m. March 8. Spring forward, moving the clock ahead one hour. Winter is almost over. Spring is weeks away. The vernal equinox brings spring’s official arrival on March 20 at 6:45 p.m. Also on March 20 — the day a new moon — the North Atlantic and the Arctic waters get a short total eclipse. We won’t see it here, but Slooh.com will carry it live. Totality will start seconds after 5:44 a.m. and end at 5:47 a.m., according to Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory. For details, visit www.eclipsewise.com. Down-to-Earth events ● March 2: ● March 4: ● March 5 ● March 6: ● March 8 ● March 14: ● March 20: ● March 20 ● March 26: Friedlander can be reached at postskywatch@yahoo.com.


A heated debate over ‘Jihadi John’ and his path to radicalization

on going to his house. He’s got family, he’s a family man. They were putting a lot of pressure on, really disrupting his life.” Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born British citizen in his 20s who grew up in West London and became a black-clad, blade-wielding, hostage killer in Islamic State videos, claimed similar tactics were used on him dating back to 2009, according to friends and e-mails he exchanged with Cage. He and two friends traveled to Tanzania for what they said was a safari. But they were stopped and deported, leaving Emwazi to fly to Amsterdam, where he claimed that an officer from Britain’s domestic security agency, MI5, accused him of trying to reach Somalia, where the militant group al-Shabab operates in the south. Emwazi stated that the British officer tried to recruit him, and, in subsequent e-mails, paints a portrait of continued pressure. In an e-mail exchange between Emwazi and Cage, dated June 2, 2010, he complains of being stopped by authorities from returning to Kuwait, where he had since found a job and a fiancee. He describes two British officials telling him he would be blocked from returning. “One of them became aggressive with me, he pushed me against the wall,” Emwazi said in the e-mail. He said that the officials refused to identify themselves. A spokeswoman for Britain’s Home Office said that “there is no confirmation or denying of any details around” the case. As the threat posed by the Islamic State has increased, European nations have taken different approaches. Denmark, for instance, has treated returning fighters like wayward youths, seeking to find them jobs and send them back to school. Britain, though, has joined a growing list of European countries including Germany and France making terrorism-related arrests. Some nations are trying to stop potential homegrown jihadists before they board planes to the Middle East. But if Qureshi argues that the government was too tough, others here are insisting it has not been tough enough. They question why and how Emwazi was able to leave Britain and travel to Syria after being repeatedly questioned since 2009. The British government, which has declined to confirm his identity, has not provided an answer. Some critics have blamed a decision to do away with so-called “control orders” that once allowed British authorities to relocate suspects away from their homes as well as ban them from using mobile phones or the Internet.


Could IBM’s brain-inspired chip change the way computers are built?

at International Business Machines created a chip last year that could imitate the structure of the human brain, in the hope that it would lead to a more efficient model of computing. The result has the potential to transform the way computers are built in the future, according to IBM, while consuming as much power as a hearing-aid battery. IBM’s long-term goal is to build a “brain in a box” that consumes less than 1 kilowatt of power and yet can quickly identify patterns in large data sets, said Dharmendra Modha, IBM’s chief scientist for brain-inspired computing. Applications for this technology range from national security to disaster response. That’s why IBM’s team and scientists from Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge and other national laboratories took a trip to Capitol Hill last week to demonstrate the technology before lawmakers. Devices powered by the chip could be used to perform biosecurity checks by sifting through biological samples to identify harmful agents, or power autonomous spacecraft, or monitor computer networks for strange behavior, scientists said. IBM’s flagship supercomputer, Watson, which is built on today’s computer architecture and consumes large amounts of power, exemplifies linear calculation, Modha said. In contrast, the chip has the ability to recognize or “sense” its environment in real time, similar to what humans do with eyes and ears. For instance, the chip has been used to play a game of Pong by “looking” at the ball and moving the paddle to meet it. But although IBM stresses that the technology could eventually be used for consumer products such as glasses for the visually impaired, those applications are still a long way off. The timing of the company’s trip to Washington also coincides with the reintroduction of a bill in the House last week — the 2013 American Super Computing Leadership Act — which directs the Energy Department to explore the development of low-power supercomputers. The bill passed the House in 2014 but stalled in the Senate. IBM won a $325 million contract One of the challenges engineers face at this point is the ability to scale up, or replicate, different brain sizes and program software to operate them, Modha said. IBM has worked its way up from a worm-size brain, with 256 processors that simulate neurons, to a chip with 1 million of them — the equivalent of a bee brain. By the end of next year, the team hopes


A trial by fire for young BSO conductor at Strathmore

New assistant BSO conductor Nicholas Hersh filled in for the guest conductor at Saturday’s performance at Strathmore. His successful outing should prove a solid step in his development. (Courtesy of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) Guest conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier’s illness threw the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra a curve — and its new assistant conductor, Nicholas Hersh, a big opportunity. This young man, judging from his résumé, is at the very beginning of his career, with very little time in front of professional orchestras, but on Saturday evening at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, he validated the BSO’s judgment, handling a difficult program quite competently. Hersh still lacks an ear for balances, including in a gentle Mozart concerto (in which the horns consistently subdued the other winds) and in thunderous passages in Berlioz’s “Le Corsaire” (in which the strings might as well have not played). Like many young conductors, he’s more about performing than leading, and he feels the music more than he creates it. But he is clearly talented and able, and this successful trial by fire should prove a solid step in his development. The concert’s principal work, Tortelier’s orchestration of Ravel’s Piano Trio, was surprisingly effective. Orchestration is almost as difficult as composing, as the numerous dreadful or dull efforts by well-known musicians have attested. But Tortelier worked some kind of magic here, using, I would guess, a very close study of Ravel’s “La Valse.” Other than some passages in the low brass and basses that lacked sufficient articulation, this version illuminated and colored the Trio wonderfully; it deserves to be taken into the repertory. And I say this after a first hearing of the work, which was alternately shaky and opaque. I’m sure that no one onstage had ever seen this arrangement before, and Hersh struggled to maintain order in the multilayered “Pantoum” movement. Pianist Louis Lortie held forth with warmly affectionate playing in Mozart’s Concerto No. 23 in A. He makes the instrument sing, with unassuming virtuosity and purling scales. The piece could have benefited from a little more impetuousness and elan, though, particularly in the first movement, which was a little earthbound in Hersh’s hands. We might have appreciated more of Lortie’s details had the orchestra given him more sonic space. The closer was Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite,” a work that the BSO plays more often than some of the Beethoven symphonies. It would take


A rare look inside a Saudi prison that showers terrorists with perks

convicted of murder) are allowed to attend funerals and weddings of close family members, and they are given as much as $2,600 in cash to present as a wedding gift. After the presentation, we visited the Family Home, a hotel within the prison that is used to reward prisoners for good behavior. The hotel has 18 large suites, which can sleep as many as nine family members and have lots of fresh flowers, a well-stocked buffet and a playground for children. Officials said the government spent $35 million last year on those perks. “Just because someone is a criminal, we do not punish his family, too,” Ahmed said. “Our strategy is to take care of these people to make the community better. This is what Islam tells us to do.” The majority of the 3,500 inmates in the five high-security prisons have been convicted of terrorism-related offenses, including al-Qaeda attacks inside the Saudi kingdom, that happened before the rise of the Islamic State last year. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, spokesman for the powerful Ministry of Interior, whose Mabahith secret police run the five high-security prisons, said taking care of inmates’ families is part of the Saudi strategy of trying to rehabilitate radicals. The Saudis have a long-standing program of placing those convicted of terrorism-related offenses in an intensive program of education and religious study designed to try to alter their thinking and behavior. Inmates in the five high-security prisons start with months-long in-depth courses inside the prisons. When they finish their sentence, they are transferred to one of two large rehabilitation centers, in Riyadh and in Jiddah, for further studies. “If you lose these inmates when they are in prison, they will come out of prison more radical,” Turki said, adding that supporting their families also helps make sure they, too, don’t “fall into the hands of the terrorists.” Turki said that about 20 percent of those who have gone through the rehabilitation program have returned to terrorism-related activities. Many rights activists think the failure rate is higher than Saudi officials admit. Critics often argue that Saudi Arabia, or at least many rich Saudis, supports violent Islamist radicals, and that the government’s emphasis on rehabilitation reflects a certain sympathy with terrorists. But Saudi officials argue that no country, except for Syria and Iraq, is more directly threatened by the Islamic State. They say their approach to convicted terrorists is more pragmatic