Trump hires a third general, raising concerns about heavy military influence

Retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly is the secretary of homeland security under President Trump. Here's what you need to know about him. President-elect Donald Trump has selected retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly as secretary of homeland security, officials familiar with the decision said Wednesday, recruiting a third former member of the military’s brass to serve at the highest levels of his administration. Trump’s choice of Kelly — and his continued deliberations about tapping as many as two more military figures for other posts — has intensified worries among some members of Congress and national security experts that the new administration’s policies may be shaped disproportionately by military commanders. “I’m concerned,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “Each of these individuals may have great merit in their own right, but what we’ve learned over the past 15 years is that when we view problems in the world through a military lens, we make big mistakes.” Despite making regular remarks on the campaign trail disparaging the nation’s generals, Trump has long shown an affinity for them. In shaping his administration, Trump has prioritized what one adviser described as “can-do, no-bull types,” which the president-elect sees as a deliberate contrast from the personnel choices President Obama has made. If confirmed, Kelly and defense secretary nominee James Mattis, a retired Marine general with the nickname “Mad Dog,” would join retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s pick for White House national security adviser. Meanwhile, retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus is under consideration for secretary of state, and Navy Adm. Michael S. Rogers is a contender for director of national intelligence. President-elect Donald Trump has already tapped three former generals to serve in his administration. The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson explains what attracts Trump to these men. Other figures with military backgrounds are populating the administration as well, including Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), who graduated from West Point and served in the Army in the Gulf War, is Trump’s nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, while Stephen K. Bannon, a former naval officer, will serve the president in the West Wing as chief strategist and senior counselor. Trump, who received multiple draft deferments and who has no military experience beyond his years at a military boarding school, is said to be drawn to generals by their swagger and dazzled by their tales from the


Plant proteins, healthy fats and more 2017 food trends

even make its way into your bar as it’s also used to make spirits. Sprouting everything The ’70s are back! Another trend for 2017 is sprouting just about everything: seeds, nuts, beans and grains. Do-it-yourself sprouting is an option if you have patience and aren’t worried about food safety, but sprouted foods will also be available in a variety of packaged foods this year. Why it will be a trend: Another bonus: Sprouting helps deactivate “anti-nutrients” such as phytic acid, making the protein and minerals easier to absorb. For example, sprouting rye can increase its folate content almost four times. Do the nutritional benefits remain once sprouts are heated? No, but they do offer benefits vs. un-sprouted versions when in comes to grains. Compared with whole-grain bread, eating sprouted-grain bread increases satiety-promoting hormones and lowers the blood sugar response. Where you’ll see it: Plant-based protein sources reinvented With the United Nations declaring 2016 the International Year of Pulses (another word for legumes), cooking with beans, lentils and peas is nothing new. What is a fresh take for 2017 is the movement to go beyond hummus and lentil soup to find creative new ways to incorporate legumes throughout your day. Nuts and seeds will continue to be featured as healthy go-to snacks. Why it will be a trend: Plant-based proteins are sustainable, affordable and nutritious. They’re also incredibly versatile, and healthy food companies are taking advantage of that aspect to bring vegetarian proteins to every meal and snack. Where you’ll see it: Beans and lentils are now being used to make pasta that’s higher in protein and fiber than wheat-based varieties. Legumes are going to dominate the snacking market in the new year with more roasted chickpea companies expanding nationwide and offering enticing flavors from mesquite barbecue to Thai coconut. New on the scene are roasted broad beans from companies such as Enlightened that are high in fiber and offer seven grams of protein for only 100 calories. Good fats Low-fat, carbohydrate and sugar-rich foods are the food villains of 2016. It follows that 2017 will be all about embracing the health benefits of a nutrient we once feared, fat. Why it will be a trend: Why now? KIND Snacks filed a Citizen Petition in December 2015 requesting that the FDA update what it allows to be called “healthy.” This change will mean that whole foods such as vegetables, seafood, nuts


Going Out Guide for Maryland, Dec. 8-14, 2016

Pianist and composer Scott Patterson will perform his one-man show “Ebon Kojo: The Last Tribe” on Friday at Joe’s Movement Emporium. (Photos By Kintz/ ) THU 08 “Nutcracker Fantasy” “The Game’s Afoot”/“Holmes for the Holidays” “The Marriage of Figaro” Margaret Leng Tan FRI 09 “Heaven Is for Real” Garden in Lights “Annie Junior” “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” “Ebon Kojo: The Last Tribe” SAT 10 WinterFest Family Plantation Christmas 14th annual Winter’s Eve SUN 11 Eric Byrd Trio CAFE holiday concert “Small Works — Gifts of Art From the Heart” MON 12 “Through Their Eyes — Art, Education and Influence: Creative Expressions Inspired by Prince George’s County CVPA Alumni” TUE 13 Snowday Bones Jugs WED 14 Annual holiday group show — Compiled by Jillian S. Jarrett from staff reports


When musicians risk painting themselves into corners

A dress rehearsal for the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra’s “Migration Series.” (Dylan Singleton) How do you write music based on “The Migration Series”? The composer Derek Bermel didn’t set out to do it. Rather, when he began writing his piece — commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center, and described as a concerto for jazz band and orchestra — he noticed a chugging motif emerging in it, which he associated with trains — and which carried him back to childhood memories of seeing Jacob Lawrence’s 60-panel series of paintings about the Great Migration of African Americans to the North in the first part of the 20th century. Bermel’s piece — which the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble performed last Friday — has music reminiscent of trains and blues and gospel: references to the African American history Lawrence’s paintings illustrate. But what really links it to its visual-arts antecedent is its structural approach: Bermel, like Lawrence, uses big, clear shapes and repeating colors to make sophisticated statements deceptively accessible. This kind of conceptual kinship, an inspiration of approach, is the only real link between a painting and the work of music it inspires. Yet the idea that music can convey something literal, and that conveying it will make the resulting piece more “accessible,” is widespread, and pernicious. Hence we have NSO performances of works based on Shakespeare interspersed with actors giving earnest Shakespeare readings, or slides projected on screens above the stage. You might as well show pictures of cuckoos and a thunderstorm during Beethoven’s “Pastoral.” Inspiration, be it taken from another work of art or from nature, is a lot more ephemeral than such literal renderings suggest. There were a couple of chances, this week, to examine music based on art — and the attitudes surrounding it. On Wednesday, the InSeries opened a rare production of Granados’s “Goyescas,” based on early paintings by Francisco Goya. Stage adaptations of visual artworks tend to be the most literal of all — as I observed when writing about the phenomenon before the opening of “Little Dancer,” a musical based on a Degas sculpture — and this “Goyescas” certainly was. Jaime Coronado’s production outfitted the cast in costumes that hewed closely to the paintings, and had them replicate certain tableaux — like the tossing in the air of a scarecrowlike puppet. The paintings, though, tell us nothing about the music. “Goyescas,”


Act locally to save declining bird populations

A house wren brings nesting material to a birdhouse in Lawrence, Kan., in May. (Orlin Wagner/Associated Press) Regarding David Holahan’s Dec. 4 Sunday Opinion essay, “What backyard birds can tell us about our changing world”: Yes, warming climates are affecting migratory bird populations. However, the loss of open spaces because of overbuilding, erosion, the destruction of understory plants and trees by deer, and the planting of nonnative species with berries and flowers that native birds do not eat all contribute to a decrease in bird and smaller-mammal populations. While we may not be able to solve global warming soon, the causes mentioned above are local problems that we can work together to solve with nearly immediate improvement. Awareness of and improvement of our surroundings are keys to improving habitat for all living things. I have made backyard bird sightings since 1976 and wish the days when a flock of evening grosbeaks visited my back yard each winter afternoon would come again. Julie Perlman, Potomac The writer is vice president of the Chesapeake Sustainability Institute. David Holahan’s Dec. 4 The causes go beyond climate change and include reduction and fragmentation of habitat, which put stress on the ability of ecosystems to support an essential web of interdependent plant and animal populations. Native plants essential for birds and other wildlife have been pushed out of our human-designed landscape by nonnative species, some of which have invaded our natural areas. Individuals and communities can do a lot to restore and reconnect natural habitats. They can plant more native trees, shrubs and perennials in their yards, along streets and in parks to provide habitat and needed food sources for birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife. For too long, we have considered nature to be something separate from where we live and work, but by bringing nature back to our homes and public spaces we can create healthier communities for our children and grandchildren. Joan McIntyre, Arlington


Tweets and theater entertain, but Congress is the main event

But with a cluster of equally theatrical personal interventions that by traditional standards seem distinctly unpresidential. It’s a matter of size. They seem small for a president. Preventing the shutdown of a Carrier factory in Indiana. Announcing, in a contextless 45-second surprise statement, a major Japanese investment in the U.S. Calling for cancellation of the new Air Force One to be built by Boeing. China's state media brushed off controversy over President-elect Donald Trump's phone call with Taiwan’s leader, but some investors are concerned about the break with diplomatic protocol. Pretty small stuff. It has the feel of a Cabinet undersecretary haggling with a contractor or a state governor drumming up business on a Central Asian trade mission. Or of candidate Trump selling Trump Steaks and Trump wine in that bizarre victory speech after the Michigan primary. Presidents don’t normally do such things. It shrinks them. But then again, Trump is not yet president. And the point here is less the substance than the symbolism. The Carrier coup was meant to demonstrate the kind of concern for the working man that gave Trump the Rust Belt victories that carried him to the presidency. The Japanese SoftBank announcement was a down payment on his promise to be the “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.” (A slightly dubious claim: After all, how instrumental was Trump to that investment? Surely a financial commitment of that magnitude would have been planned long before Election Day.) And Boeing was an ostentatious declaration that he would be the zealous guardian of government spending that you would expect from a crusading outsider. What appears as random Trumpian impulsiveness has a logic to it. It’s a continuation of the campaign. Trump is acutely sensitive to his legitimacy problem, as he showed in his tweet claiming to have actually won the popular vote, despite trailing significantly in the official count. His best counter is approval ratings. In August, the Bloomberg poll had him at 33 percent. He’s now up to 50 percent. Still nowhere near Obama’s stratospheric 79 percent at this point in 2008, but a substantial improvement nonetheless. The mini-interventions are working, but there’s a risk for Trump in so personalizing his coming presidency. It’s a technique borrowed from Third World strongmen who specialize in demonstrating their personal connection to the ordinary citizen. In a genuine democracy, however, the endurance of any political support depends on


D.C. police say house where man was fatally shot was ransacked

A 26-year-old man has been identified as the victim of Thursday afternoon’s fatal shooting inside a home in Northeast Washington, according to D.C. police. Victor Anthony Bolden, who had been shot several times, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said in a statement. A police report says Bolden lived in the home in which he was killed. The shooting was first reported shortly after 5 p.m. in the 600 block of Nicholson Street NE, adjacent to the Riggs Road Playground and near the Michigan Park neighborhood. The police report says that the inside of the house had been ransacked and property was taken. Police did not say if they believed the motive was burglary.


More and more older people are getting high

Researchers say marijuana could pose health challenges to older users. (BLAIR GABLE/REUTERS) A small but growing number of older adults are using marijuana, a trend that worries researchers who say not enough information exists about how pot affects those people. Abundant research has been done on how the drug affects developing brains, but little is known about the consequences for older users, even as recreational pot has been legalized in a number of states. Researchers at New York University say pot could pose such health challenges to older users as memory loss and an increased risk of falling. In a new study, these researchers reviewed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and found a big increase in people older than 50 reporting they had used pot in the past year. A decade ago, about 2.8 percent said they had done so. In 2013, the rate was about 4.8 percent — a 71 percent jump. “Historically, older people haven’t had high rates of substance use, but this is changing,” said Benjamin Han, an NYU geriatrician who led the study, which appears in the journal Addiction. “As baby boomers age, we’re going to see more and more of this.” Older people are still much less likely than younger ones to use pot. In the 2013 survey, about 19 percent of people age 18 to 25 reported using marijuana in the previous month. Doctors have little to go on when treating older pot users, Han said. “When it comes to, for instance, alcohol, there have been a lot of studies about effects on older populations, guidelines on how much older people should be consuming,” Han said. “But when it comes to marijuana, we have nothing.” The study drew no conclusions about whether older pot users were using the drug as medicine or for fun. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said last year that marijuana can be helpful for treating certain ailments, but he added that research on medical marijuana is preliminary, and he called for more studies. Federal law considers marijuana a drug that has no medical use. Legalization debates often discuss the drug’s consequences for young people, perhaps leaving older adults to think there’s no downside to using it. “Before the liberalization of marijuana policy, lots of young people used marijuana and then as they got jobs and kids and mortgages, they stopped,” said Jonathan Caulkins, a professor of


One-third of long-term users say they’re hooked on prescription opioids

he had no trouble giving up the drugs when he tried, but his pain returned and he was forced to resume taking them. “If they actually stopped you from getting the [drugs], it would be very difficult for me,” Stonesifer said. “It would put me in a wheelchair instead of being able to get around. And once you’re in a wheelchair, you never get up.” Nancy Horton, 62, of Martinsburg, W.Va., admits that she is addicted to the 190 milligrams of oxycodone she takes daily to dull the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. Without the drugs, “I get the shakes. I am very anxious,” she said. “I just pace constantly. I can’t get comfortable.” After 15 years on opioids, she said, “I look back now and think, ‘What could I have done differently?’ ” Sizable minorities of respondents report using the drugs for purposes other than managing pain. Such behavior is much more common among people who say they are addicted or physically dependent on opioids. Among this group, 47 percent say they sometimes take the drugs for “fun or to get high”; 38 percent use them to “deal with day-to-day stress”; and 30 percent use them to “relax or relieve tension.” Side effects are widespread. Over half of long-term users said that they have experienced constipation; almost as many felt indigestion, dry mouth or nausea; and 15 percent said that they have had breathing problems. One in 5 (21 percent) have taken additional medications to treat those symptoms. More than half (52 percent) of long-term users said that they have taken other prescription medications for anxiety, depression and sleeplessness while on opioids, and 1 in 6 said that they have consumed the drugs along with alcohol — risky combinations that could have dire consequences. Overall, nearly 6 in 10 said that they take at least four prescription drugs, and about one-third said that they take seven or more medications. The survey revealed a largely positive relationship between opioid consumers and their doctors. Large majorities said doctors have warned them to avoid alcohol, cautioned them about possible side effects and explained the risk of addiction. But 61 percent said that their doctors did not suggest a plan for getting off the drugs when they were first prescribed, and more than half said doctors have not altered their dose or frequency. Among long-term users who stopped taking opioids, 34 percent said the


WADA report misses mark by focusing on the wrong targets

or are effective. WADA has done no serious study explaining, for instance, why something that simply aids in overnight recovery should be banned. There is very little solid clinical evidence on “performance enhancers” at all. A body of work doesn’t exist — for the simple reason that no one has bothered to do it. WADA’s entire code rests on air and potentially faulty assumptions Here is a thought experiment. I’m going to describe a substance, and you decide whether using it is cheating. This substance does the following: strengthens muscle fibers, stimulates muscle cell activity, reduces tissue breakdown, aids in recovery, increases blood flow and speeds circulation. If you use it the wrong way, however, you could damage yourself. In one study, athletes who used it perform better in sprints. In another, athletes who used it showed faster restoration and increased strength and power compared with athletes who declined to use it. Guess what it is. Ice. This sort of thought experiment motivated the Dutch research team to look at EPO. They had doubts about its ratio of benefit to harm, as well as its true effect on race results compared with other factors. Adam Cohen, director of the Center for Human Drug Research, has noted that the winner of a race relies on a multitude of factors, including “technique, muscle power which is supplied by oxygen and glucose and amino acids and foods, on team tactics, on weather, on millions of things.” To assume that only one of these factors is the main difference is scientifically “naive,” he has said. But his main point is this: The Mont Ventoux study is the first time anyone has sought to gauge EPO’s effect in a race. Never been done before. Yet WADA conducts showboat trials and vicious public condemnations of athletes, and to do so, it uses lab results that aren’t always reliable. WADA should be dismantled until we have the rigorous clinical study of performance enhancement that is so badly lacking. Forget fixing it — it can’t be fixed. Replace it with a new organization independent of the IOC charged with investigating and determining what these substances actually do. Athletes, including the Russians, should receive a blanket amnesty so that they can participate voluntarily in studies and talk honestly about what they use and why, and understand what enhances and what doesn’t and what is truly harmful and what isn’t.


Ban fracking for good in Maryland

Marcellus shale formation that lies beneath nine states, including much of Pennsylvania, where there are more than 10,000 active fracking wells. Beneath a third of Prince George’s is the Taylorsville natural gas basin. The Taylorsville Basin extends into Anne Arundel, Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s counties and runs under the Potomac River and into Virginia, where Texas-based Shore Exploration and Production Corp. leased 84,000 acres of land for potential drilling. The Culpeper Basin runs below northern Montgomery County. The Gettysburg and Delmarva Basins run below nine more counties. So why ban? Fracking is far too risky and simply not worth the adverse impacts. Scientific studies by government, university and private researchers have long identified a causal link between fracking and increased rates of respiratory problems such as coughing and chronic nosebleeds, rashes and other skin conditions. In addition, some of the 632 known chemicals used in fracking have been linked to gastrointestinal and neurological problems, cancers and birth defects. Findings of adverse impacts are mounting almost daily, as described in a February 2015 letter from more than 100 Maryland doctors and health professionals to Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel). The letter urges lawmakers to take a “conservative and precautionary path” with fracking, citing overwhelming findings of risk to human health and air and water quality in peer-reviewed literature published between 2013 and 2014. In 2016, Duke University researchers published an analysis of nearly 4,000 oil and natural gas wastewater spills in North Dakota; it found environmental impacts are both severe and lasting. Selenium was found in waters at levels as high as 35 times the federal thresholds for protecting fish and wildlife, including those that people consume. “Unlike spilled oil, which starts to break down in soil, these spilled brines consist of inorganic chemicals, metals and salts that are resistant to biodegradation,” said Nancy Lauer, a PhD student and lead author of the study. “This has created a legacy of radioactivity at spill sites.” Which brings us to our final concern: State regulatory agencies and local governments are not equipped to handle the environmental, human health and workplace safety complaints that accompany fracking. Pennsylvania offers a sobering case study. In July 2014, the Pennsylvania state auditor issued a report concluding the Department of Environmental Protection was unprepared to enforce existing drinking-water regulations when the shale gas industry began growing


1 in 4 D.C. children can’t access affordable, nutritious food. This has to change.

her goal was to have the freezer full by winter so that if surprise expenses occurred, she could turn to it to feed her family. But in autumn, her youngest son was injured on the playground. An ambulance ride and an emergency room bill later, Kim was in a familiar situation: scrambling to pay unexpected expenses while trying to put food on the table for her family. By December, her freezer was bare except for a single, months-old chicken. For years, researchers and politicians have struggled to find solutions to Kim’s dilemma and to untangle another knot. Food insecurity, obesity and poor nutrition are tightly entwined because our cheapest foods usually are highly processed, heavily subsidized by federal funds and readily available at corner stores and carry-outs, which flourish in under-resourced neighborhoods. In Ward 8, for example, almost 80,000 people rely on a single full-service grocery store. And the quality items at that store come at a high cost. So telling people to eat more fruits and vegetables does not work if the fruits and vegetables are unaffordable or unavailable. In vulnerable communities, healthful-eating education must go hand in hand with healthful-food access. Because our goal is big: to eliminate hunger and food insecurity, and begin the journey toward healthful eating. For that to happen, two additional things are required: joy and community buy-in. Since 2015, Martha’s Table and Capital Area Food Bank have operated monthly no-cost pop-up food markets directly in elementary schools east of the Anacostia River where hunger is high and access to healthful food is scarce. Joyful Food Markets start when school ends. There, with 20 volunteers helping, families select healthful groceries and fresh produce. Martha’s Table’s chefs, including Chef JoJo, cook tasty meals using ingredients from the market. The children chop, sample and play with their food. They make kale chips, taste squash and even brine pickles. There are no waiting lists or the bureaucratic red tape that can create confusion or restrict access. If your family includes one of the more than 11,000 children in these 29 schools, you are welcome at the Joyful Market. While we measure success in more than a dozen ways, two stand out: Families accessing our monthly markets reported that hunger was dramatically down, from 70 percent to 26 percent, and weekly nights of healthful eating, defined as having vegetables served at dinner at least five nights per week,


Md. chooses 102 companies to open medical-marijuana dispensaries

Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn, who runs a medical-marijuana dispensary in the Takoma neighborhood of Northwest Washington, has secured preliminary authorization to sell the products in Bethesda. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post) Maryland officials announced on Friday the 102 businesses that have received preliminary authorization to sell the state’s first legal medical marijuana, bringing the long-awaited program a step closer to fruition. The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission said patients could begin to legally purchase the drug as soon as this summer to treat conditions including seizures, anxiety and the side effects of cancer or chemotherapy. Lawmakers first approved medical marijuana 3½ years ago, but the program has been beset by various delays. The commission gave preliminary authorization last month to dispensaries in each of the 47 state Senate districts, choosing from a pool of more than 800 applications scored by outside experts and with names of the companies and people involved redacted to avoid bias. “These dispensaries will be the new face of the medical cannabis industry in Maryland,” said Patrick Jameson, executive director of the commission. The businesses must pass additional vetting that includes financial and criminal background checks of owners and inspections of the facilities before the marijuana can reach shelves. A full list of winners can be found at http://mmcc.maryland.gov/default.aspx. In August, regulators approved 15 companies to grow marijuana and 15 companies to process the drug into medical products. There are seven companies that won preliminary licenses in all three categories — to grow, process and sell. Maryland law limits dispensaries to two per state Senate district, with exemptions for shops operated by growers. Eight districts have been approved for three dispensaries, while a Senate district that includes Rockville and Gaithersburg is slotted for up to four marijuana outlets. A business may operate only one dispensary, which limited the number of licenses in some areas of the state. Regulators approved just one dispensary for a district covering northwest Baltimore, for example, because all other applicants seeking to operate in that district were approved to operate dispensaries elsewhere. A Washington County district had a single applicant that met the minimum score to qualify for a license. A firm that hired Del. Dan K. Morhaim (D-Baltimore County) as a consultant won a preliminary license to operate in Baltimore. Morhaim, a physician and one of the foremost champions of legalizing medical marijuana in the legislature, has drawn scrutiny over his dual roles,


The prize that Bob Dylan really deserves

nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.” Strong letter to follow. One critic says Now 75, he was born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minn., and lived in Hibbing, 190 miles from Sauk Centre, home of Sinclair Lewis, who won the 1930 Nobel for literature (“Babbitt,” “Elmer Gantry”). This was evidence of abruptly defining literature down: Thomas Mann won in 1929. If you recognize even one-third of the 113 literature prize winners since 1901, you need to get out of the house more. Philip Roth has not won, a fact that would cost the Swedish Academy its reputation for seriousness, if it had one. The Weekly Standard’s Andrew Ferguson would win the Nobel Prize for Common Sense, if there were one. He notes that by not taking himself too seriously or encouraging others to do so, Dylan has “proved two propositions that seemed increasingly unlikely in the age of media-saturation: You can shun publicity and still be hugely famous, and you can be hugely famous and not be obnoxious about it.” For this, Dylan deserves some sort of prize. Ferguson laments that it is evidently impossible to take Dylan “for what he is, an impressive man worthy of admiration, affection and respect, and leave it at that.” Impossible. In an age of ever-more-extravagant attention-getting yelps about everything, people have tumbled over one another reaching for encomia, such as this from a Harvard University professor: “Dylan has surpassed Walt Whitman as the defining American artist.” (Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Wharton, Fitzgerald, Faulkner?) If song lyrics are literature, why did the academy discover this with Dylan and not Stephen Sondheim (from “West Side Story” on)? Last year, the literature prize was won by Belarus’s Svetlana Alexievich , whose specialty is interviews woven into skillfully wrought books (e.g., “Secondhand Time”). They are highly informative, even moving, but are they literature? Sean Wilentz, a Princeton professor of American history, grew up in New York City near the end of its red-tinged folk revival and was 13 when he attended Dylan’s 1964 concert at Manhattan’s Philharmonic Hall. Wilentz’s book “Bob Dylan in America,” which would better have been titled “America in Bob Dylan,” interestingly locates him in the stream of American culture and celebrates him for expanding his range as relentlessly as he has toured — more than 1,400 shows in this century. Wilentz recalls how Dylan “going electric” at the 1965 Newport


An unexpected result of Yemen’s war: More men are cooking and cleaning

A woman inspects what remains of a factory after an airstrike in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. As war erases jobs and countless men go to fight, more women are providing income for their families. (MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images) GUBAIYA, Yemen — Then the war arrived. Now before dawn each day, mothers and daughters walk to the mountainous scrub to gather wood, which they turn into charcoal and sell. The men stay home and care for the children, and sometimes do the cooking and the cleaning. “I feel the war has changed my personality,” said Ayde Ahmed Shabon, 33, her voice soft but clear. “I feel equal to the man now.” Yemen has consistently ranked among the worst countries for women and girls, and the war has only made life harder. But in pockets of the Middle East’s poorest country, an unexpected social recalibration appears to be underway, aid workers say. Ayde Ahmed Shabon, 33, and her husband, Hassan Abdo Ibrahim, 45. For most of her life, Shabon wasn’t allowed to participate in community life or to get a job. But the war has changed that. (Sudarsan Raghavan/The Washington Post) As the war destroys jobs and countless men join the fight, a growing number of women are providing income for their families. Often, they are working in areas that had been considered the purview of men or culturally unacceptable for women in Yemen’s ultraconservative tribal society. Some are now butchers, barbers and chicken sellers, interacting socially in ways their mothers and grandmothers could never have imagined. In a region where women historically have had much less power than men, the changes have given many Yemeni women new influence in their families and community. But they have also had a negative effect. “Women are becoming more empowered to make decisions for the household,” said Wael Ibrahim, Yemen country director for the aid agency CARE. “But many women have also reported that conflicts in their homes have risen.” Five years ago, there was great optimism for Yemeni women. Thousands took part in the revolt — part of the Arab Spring — that upended the nation’s political order and ended the three-decade rule of autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh. Women even took leadership roles in organizing protests across the country; the most well known was Tawakkol Karman, who shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. By 2014, women were making headway in seeking greater representation in government


Phillip Knightley, journalist who wrote of British spy ring, dies at 87

thing the soldier saw before he died was “the zoom lens of a . . . sound camera capturing his last moments of life.” Phillip George Knightley was born Jan. 23, 1929, in Sydney. His father was a sign painter. Mr. Knightley began his newspaper career in 1946 and had a peripatetic youth. He sold coconut oil in Fiji, worked as a telephone linesman in New Zealand, sold vacuum cleaners door to door in Sydney and worked as a gardener in Melbourne. But he always returned to journalism, and he first moved to London in 1954 as a correspondent for Australian newspapers. Later, he sold vending machines and set out on a round-the-world sailing voyage from London. He made it as far as Cornwall before turning back. For a time, Mr. Knightley ran a successful Viennese-style restaurant in London that featured a yodeler. He became a wine connoisseur and, from his experience as a restaurateur, offered this advice to diners: Never order cooked oysters because they’re likely to be spoiled. During the early 1960s, he lived in Mumbai, where he was the managing editor of a magazine — only to discover years later that it was a front for the CIA. In 2010, Mr. Knightley put up bail money for his fellow Australian, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. His 25,000 pounds were forfeited when Assange sought sanctuary at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London. In his 1997 autobiography, “A Hack’s Progress,” Mr. Knightley described his misadventures as a journalist, including a visit to the Punjab territory of India to interview Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, known as the “Muslim Gandhi.” “I sat, notebook poised,” he wrote, “while he had a nap. Then he woke up, looked at me and said to his major-domo, ‘Who is this guy?,’ turned over and went back to sleep.” Survivors include his wife of 52 years, the former Yvonne Fernandes of London; three children; and four grandchildren. In addition to his interviews with Philby, Mr. Knightley spent so much time with spies that many people suspected he may have been one himself. He published a well-received book, “The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century,” in which he suggested that many spy agencies had been ineffectual at understanding the world’s problems. Still, he was impressed by the skill and tactics of some of the people he met in the field. He described one meeting with


Beer of the Week: A symphony of coffee and whiskey

Almost 5 million barrels of bourbon are aging in distillery warehouses in Kentucky, which is good news for beer drinkers craving the distinct flavors that come from aging ales — particularly stouts — in wood that previously held whiskey. The final monthly release in Lagunitas’s One-Hitter series for 2016 involves those barrels, as well as another of my favorite essential liquids. High West-ified Imperial Coffee Stout is brewed with nutty, full-bodied coffee from Chicago’s Metropolis Coffee and then aged for 17 months in a mix of bourbon and rye whiskey barrels from Utah’s High West distillery. The resulting beer — black as night, with a tan head — is thick, cozy and well balanced, with flavors as rich as Christmas dinner: lots of vanilla, some dark fruits and chocolate-covered espresso beans, with char from roasted malts and a touch of spiciness from rye. Let it warm up a bit in your glass, so you’re able to experience all the flavors, and don’t forget that it’s 12.2 percent alcohol, which you’ll know if you read the label. This is a real winner, whether you find it in a pub or pour a snifter after holiday dinner. — Fritz Hahn Lagunitas High West-ified Imperial Coffee Stout. lagunitas.com. Around $14 for a six-pack of 12-ounce bottles, or $9-$10 on draft. More from Food: Beer Column archive


‘Politics is divisive. Beer is not’: Is home-brewing the key to harmony on the Hill?

The trophy for the first Hill Staff Homebrew Competition was inspired by Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm Just a Bill" cartoon. (American Homebrewers Association) The latest battle in Congress was fought between the offices of a Republican senator from Louisiana and a Democratic representative from Northern California. But it wasn’t over free trade, or military budgets, or a bridge to nowhere: It was the finals of the first-ever Hill Staff Homebrew Contest, a challenge launched by the Brewers Association, a trade group for craft brewers, and the American Homebrewers Association. As Katie Marisic, Brewers Association federal affairs manager, walked the halls of Capitol Hill, attending meetings and visiting congressional offices to discuss legislative priorities for breweries, she says staffers would regularly tell her, “Oh, I home-brew.” Some even shared their creations with her. She talked with American Homebrewers Association Director Gary Glass, Marisic says, and they decided to turn that previously untapped love of political home-brew into an interoffice contest, complete with a trophy. “As you know,” Marisic adds, “Washington is a very competitive town.” (Still, she also pointed out that home-brewing is, for many, a collaborative project, even with differing experience levels. “It’s something they could do on teams: Get together and brew a beer.”) And it’s a good time for home-brewing in Washington, with the opening of the Arlington Brew Shop in Rosslyn this year and the continued growth of the D.C. Homebrew Shop at 3 Stars Brewery in upper Northwest. Twenty-five Hill staffers signed up for the contest, though only 14 ready-to-drink beers were delivered last week to the 3 Stars taproom, where a team of eight certified national and local beer judges waited to evaluate them. The contenders’ levels of experience were all over the map, says John Moorhead, who took a break from directing the National Homebrew Competition, the largest beer competition in the world, to organize this contest. “One guy has been brewing for 20 years. Another told us this was his first competition, which is really cool to hear.” The quality of the beer also varied widely: For every delicate lavender saison, there was a wheat beer that just didn’t taste right. That’s not unusual at home-brew competitions, but Moorhead says he was surprised by the submissions themselves: “More Belgian-style beers than IPAs, which is not the way the National Homebrew Competition entries have been trending.” In the end, the judges narrowed the field to


Make room, wineries and brewpubs: Cider is surging in Virginia

industry,” said Denkers, who moved here seven years ago from Upstate New York. “A lot of wineries are now starting to do cider.” Jason Shupp, left, and Chris Denkers, right, outside their Coyote Hole Ciderworks in Mineral, Va., which is under construction and slated to open in April 2017. Coyote Hole Ciderworks will produce premium, all natural hard cider made from 100% Virginia apples and fruit and is located in the heart of Lake Anna, Virginia. (Photo by Gregory S. Schneider/TWP) (Gregory S. Schneider/TWP) The rise was predictable. There seems to be a winery at every highway exit, and craft beer breweries are popping up like coffee shops. Cider was ripe for a resurgence. But Virginia is catching up to a national cider-drinking trend that may have eased in the past year or two. Retail sales of hard cider (at stores, not restaurants) grew by about 11 percent in 2015, a fraction of the 71 percent growth the year before, according to Nielsen. Draft magazine, which covers the beer and cider industry, reported over the summer that cider sales slowed toward the end of last year. Washington state and New York have far more mature cider markets than Virginia. But Virginia has apples, and picturesque countryside, and the new businesses feed other industries important to the state. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is a big booster of cider, as well as craft beer and wine. His office regularly cranks out news releases announcing jobs that involve fermentation. Brewpubs and wineries are among his favorite spots to hang out. “Sometimes I get some grief from people” for the announcements, McAuliffe said. “But this whole space drives our agriculture business and at the same time helps boom our tourism.” He can spout the precise numbers off the top of his head: “Last year we sold 416,750 cases of cider, and that was up 52 percent from the year before.” And to be clear, the governor’s talking about hard cider. Technically, it’s a wine, fermented from the juice of a fruit. Most hard ciders have a little more alcohol than the typical beer, and maybe a little less than the average grape wine. The same is roughly true for its sweetness. Cider is another of those forsaken products that was huge in Colonial times — like hemp or leeches. Thomas Jefferson cultivated cider apples at Monticello, and John Adams drank it every day.


Russia’s big cheat

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks with the head of the Sochi 2014 Olympic preparatory commission, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, in January 2014. (Ria novosti/Reuters) FOR MILLENNIA, rules have been at the core of athletic competition. Not that they haven’t been broken, but the Olympics still stand for the principle of human striving on a level playing field, or the primacy of rules. This is why the final report of Richard H. McLaren’s investigation into Russian doping of athletes, submitted Friday, is so disturbing. The report shows that more than 1,000 Russian athletes scompeting in summer, winter and paralympic sports were involved in or benefited from coverups of positive doping tests in what Mr. McLaren calls a “conspiracy” between 2011 and 2015. Doping to gain unfair advantage has been a long-standing and serious problem in sport. But the Russians’ wholesale and systemic breaking of rules is on a plane of its own. While his previous report this past summer detailed a clandestine system of covering up doping at the Sochi Olympics in early 2014, the new document, based on additional investigation, shows that state-run doping and coverup poisoned the London 2012 Summer Olympics, the 2013 Universiade Games, the world track and field championships in 2013, and the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi. According to the report, 10 medalists in London already have had their prizes stripped; there were four track and field athletes in 2013 whose samples were swapped; two female ice hockey players’ samples at Sochi appear to have been swapped; two athletes who won four Sochi Olympic golds and a female silver-medal winner had samples with “physiologically impossible salt readings”; 12 medal-winning athletes at Sochi had scratches and marks on the inside of urine test bottles, indicating tampering; six winners of 21 Paralympic medals had urine samples tampered with at Sochi. What’s astounding is not only the quantity of rule-breaking but the system. According to Mr. McLaren, “the summer and winter sports athletes were not acting individually but within an organized infrastructure” that was overseen by the Russian state, including the Ministry of Sport and the Federal Security Service, successor to the Soviet KGB. The brazen scheme at Sochi that Mr. McLaren exposed this past summer, with a “mouse hole” through which dirty urine samples were swapped for clean, was part of what became a “well-oiled systemic cheating scheme.” In effect, if any athletes who used


The great opioid epidemic

“first-line or routine therapy” for chronic non-cancer pain, and that they should be prescribed only in low dosages and small amounts, after non-opioid alternatives have been tried — and after a thorough discussion of risks and benefits. Yet these best practices are not followed in a large minority of cases, according to a new and innovative survey of long-term opioid users by The Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Specifically, 38 percent of patients reported that their doctors had not even discussed alternative treatments, let alone attempted them; 35 percent said their doctors did not discuss the risk of addiction; and 30 percent said they did not even hear about side effects. Half of patients noted that they were concurrently prescribed opioids with anti-anxiety medications or anti-depressants, which the CDC also discourages. Small wonder that fully one-third of the opioid users surveyed described themselves as either addicted to or physically dependent on the drugs. And people who share a household with these long-term users (surveyed separately) have an even grimmer assessment; half of them suspect the opioid users in their homes are hooked. Other findings in the Post/Kaiser survey lend statistical color to what was already a sad but mostly anecdotal portrait of the opioid-using population, which includes 1 out of every 20 persons aged 18 or older. Only 23 percent of them work full-time, while 30 percent are on disability — hardly support for the claim that opioids help those with chronic pain resume normal functioning. Meanwhile, 15 percent report having passed drugs they got via prescription to other family members or friends. And a shocking number of respondents (34 percent) said they sometimes used the pills “to get high,” “to relieve stress” (22 percent) or to “relax” (12 percent). For such potent, addictive medications the only acceptable percentage in each of these categories would have been “zero.” The same goes for the number of overdose deaths. If progress is to be made on all of these fronts, American medicine must redouble its commitment to sound prescribing practices. The CDC guidelines show the way. Respondents who took part in The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey on long-term, opioid painkiller use share their experiences of living with pain. Read more here: The Post’s View: Locating blame in the opioid epidemic Charles Lane: A mega-case puts opioids on trial The Post’s View: The FDA sets a new course to save lives


Man found fatally shot in silver Jaguar in Northwest Washington neighborhood

gunman had been inside the vehicle. Authorities have not commented on a possible motive and have made no arrests. Grant Copeland Dosunmu, 21, of Northwest D.C., was fatally shot Dec. 11 in the 6900 block of 32nd Street NW. (Courtesy of Razak Dosunmu) A nearby homeowner found the car about 9:15 p.m. and called police to the 6900 block of 32nd Street NW. Crime in Hawthorne, near Barnaby Woods and the Western Avenue border with Montgomery County, is low compared with many other neighborhoods in the District. Sunday’s was the community’s first homicide of the year; there were none in 2015. And now a 61-year-old father of two is left along with his wife and grown daughter to mourn another young life lost to violence in the District. Dosunmu was the city’s 129th homicide victim of the year, down from 154 at this time in 2015. “I don’t know what’s left,” Razak Dosunmu said Monday. He owns an auto repair shop in Takoma Park, is a part-time inventor and runs a side company procuring fuel for the military. “For somebody to do that to my son, it’s incredible,” he said. “It’s almost like hate. How could you just shoot a young man like that? He was just 21 years old. For what reason?” Dosunmu said that his wife, Phyliss, cannot accept the loss. “She still believes Grant will come home,” he said. “She’s going around the house saying, ‘Come home, come home.’ I keep telling her that Grant isn’t coming home any more.” In addition to his parents, Dosunmu is survived by his older sister and a niece and nephew. The family had already been going through a difficult time. Three weeks ago, Razak Dosunmu was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison after being convicted by a jury on two counts of offering illegal gratuities. Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia said he offered a Defense Department procurement officer a new house, $2 million and other benefits in exchange for a jet fuel contract worth up to $80 million. Dosunmu’s car shop on Flower Road, United Globe Auto Body, also serves as United Globe, under which Dosunmu acquires energy products, including large amounts of aviation and marine diesel fuel for the U.S. military. Dosunmu, in an interview and in court documents, disputed the conviction and has filed an appeal, arguing that money discussed was part of what a


Passing the torch: Mikulski says goodbye to the Senate

ceiling buster, Mikulski relished the prospect of leaving office just as another pantsuit pioneer moved into the White House. After stunning the political establishment with her retirement announcement in March 2015, the senator threw herself into helping elect the first female president. But Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, a result that Mikulski — like many women who have heralded the former secretary of state — characterized as her “biggest” disappointment in politics. “On a scale of zero to 10,” Mikulski said, “this is a 52.” The morning after the election, Mikulski struggled to remain upbeat while acknowledging her anguish. “This has been a very emotional 48 hours for me,” Mikulski said at a Baltimore news conference before congratulating her successor, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D), who stood alongside. Mikulski pronounced herself prepared to pass the proverbial torch, handing Van Hollen a plastic lightsaber from “Star Wars,” a movie she loves to quote. Van Hollen, who towers over the senator, grinned as he inadvertently held the toy in front of Mikulski’s face, blocking the TV cameras’ view of her. The senator raised her hand to nudge the lightsaber a bit to the right so she could be seen. A grocer’s daughter Mikulski greets voters at the Belvedere Square market on Nov. 5. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) As she contemplated a campaign for the Senate in 1986, Mikulski summoned political consultant Robert Shrum. Mikulski understood that she was not exactly senatorial in her appearance. How would Shrum present her to voters accustomed to choosing graying men in dark suits? “My answer was that you’re short, loud, heavyset and ethnic — and the way you should be is short, loud, heavyset and ethnic,” Shrum recalled. “She was authentically authentic. Nobody dreamed her up.” For all her flamboyance, Mikulski learned over time to abide by Washington’s more genteel traditions, refusing to be lampooned as a replica of Bella Abzug, the New York congresswoman known for wide-brimmed hats and feminist bombast. If she never authored landmark legislation, Mikulski was a stubborn negotiator, securing highway funding, boosting security at the Port of Baltimore and advocating for environmental safeguards for the Chesapeake Bay. She promoted a litany of Maryland-based agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and NASA. Her prized causes included the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. “She was and is blunt and plain-spoken,” said Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. “But her


Investors approve $57 billion mega-merger of Monsanto and Bayer

at ConAgra faced any charges. The guilty plea settles a criminal investigation into the source of the salmonella blamed for sickening at least 625 people in 47 states. — Associated Press Also in Business ● Two Secret Santas have been paying off tens of thousands of dollars of layaway accounts at department stores in Pennsylvania. A man who goes by the name “Santa B” has been paying off layaway tabs at central Pennsylvania Walmart stores for at least three years. This year, he paid off $166,000 worth of accounts, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia reported. Another anonymous Santa paid off some layaway bills at a Kmart in Ridley Township, Pa. Employees say he’s done that every Christmas for several years and has asked to pay off accounts with toys and other holiday presents. ● A French association of people affected by an epilepsy drug that caused birth defects launched a class action against pharmaceutical company Sanofi on Tuesday. Marine Martin, president of the victims’ group, said Sanofi has four months to acknowledge its responsibility before a judge takes up the case. The company has been selling the anticonvulsant drug Depakine in France since 1967. The class action alleges that Sanofi failed to properly inform patients about the drug’s potential risks for developing fetuses, Martin said. ● Pakistan International Airlines Chairman Muhammad Azam Saigol has resigned after one of the company’s planes crashed in the country’s north, killing all 47 people on board. Saigol, 65, who was appointed in June, is leaving his position at the state-owned national carrier on “personal grounds,” a PIA spokesman said. Last week, a PIA ATR-42 aircraft crashed near the village of Havelian en route from Chitral to Islamabad. Pakistan has called for an investigation. ● Taco Bell plans to open 45 new locations in Spain. The company said Tuesday that 31 restaurants are in Spain, more than any country in Europe. The chain expects Taco Bell will grow from 330 international locations to 1,000 in the next six years. Taco Bell is owned by Yum Brands. — From news services Coming Today ● 8:30 a.m.: Commerce Department releases retail sales data for November. ● 8:30 a.m.: Labor Department releases the Producer Price Index for November. ● 9:15 a.m.: Federal Reserve releases industrial production for November. ● 10 a.m.: Commerce Department releases business inventories for October. ● 2 p.m.: Federal Reserve policymakers release a statement on interest rates.


As Brexit approaches, signs of a gathering economic storm for Britain

Famed costume supplier Smiffys had been based in England for 122 years, but is moving its headquarters to Holland in the face of Brexit's economic uncertainty. LONDON — Billowy white Marilyn Monroe dresses. Red velvet Santa caps. Rhinestone-studded Elvis jumpsuits. They were shipped out by the millions to 42 countries across the globe, and they brought the profits of countless Halloween parties, Carnival parades and Christmas wonderlands back home to England. But thanks to Brexit, not anymore. After 122 years, Peckett’s costume company, Smiffys, is moving its headquarters to the Netherlands. “One word sums up the issue: uncertainty,” said Peckett, the company’s director. “Any business needs as much certainty as it can get around the cost of goods or the markets you can trade in. But right now you don’t know where you are from one day to the next.” That uncertainty has become a defining feature of the British economy since the country stunned the world with its June 23 vote to exit the European Union. And although the initial economic impact has been milder than many feared, there are signs of a gathering storm as businesses opt to shift operations overseas rather than stick it out in the U.K. Nearly six months after the vote, the shape of Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with Europe remains a mystery. Prime Minister Theresa May has declined to say exactly what she wants from the two-year negotiations she has said she’ll trigger by March, a timetable that would put Britain outside the E.U. by the summer of 2019. With divorce proceedings not even begun, businesses have been left to guess where the talks could end up. Many are planning for the worst, expecting that the country will wind up outside both the common market for commerce within the E.U. — the world’s largest — and the customs union that governs trade between E.U. members and the rest of the world. For those firms, preparations go well beyond contingency planning. They have advanced to actively scouting out new homes for work that needs to be done from within the single market. “If you need to have an investment banking operation up and running in Europe in 2019, you need to start now,” said Mark Boleat, policy chairman for the City of London, the skyscraper-strewn heart of Britain’s behemoth financial industry. So far at least, however, no mass exodus has begun. Firms may be planning


Washington Post bestsellers: Dec. 11, 2016

Paulo Coelho. A Spanish shepherd boy goes on a journey of discovery through North Africa. [60] 10. STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS (Vintage, $16). By Ted Chiang. This collection, which examines what it means to be alive during uncertain times, is the foundation of the feature film “Arrival.” [2] Nonfiction/General 1. ALEXANDER HAMILTON (Penguin, $20). By Ron Chernow. [55] 2. MILK AND HONEY (Andrews McMeel, $14.99) By Rupi Kaur. A collection of poetry and prose about survival. [25] 3. THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE TRIPOLI PIRATES: THE FORGOTTEN WAR THAT CHANGED AMERICAN HISTORY (Sentinel, $17). By Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger. [7] 4. YOU ARE A BADASS: HOW TO STOP DOUBTING YOUR GREATNESS AND START LIVING AN AWESOME LIFE (Running Press, $16). By Jen Sincero. [38] 5. NIGHT (Hill & Wang, $9.95). By Elie Wiesel. The terrifying account of Nazi concentration camps. [124] 6. THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES: THE SECRET TO LOVE THAT LASTS (Northfield, $15.99). By Gary D. Chapman. [203] 7. HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE (Pocket, $16). By Dale Carnegie. Tips for professional and personal success. [38] 8. MICHELIN GUIDE WASHINGTON, DC 2017 (Michelin Travel Publications, $12.95). By the editors of Michelin Travel Publications. [6] 9. THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING: ADVENTURES OF AN AMERICAN IN BRITAIN (Anchor, $16.95). By Bill Bryson. [2] 10. THINKING FAST AND SLOW (FSG, $16). By Daniel Kahneman. The Nobel Prize winner in the economic sciences examines our modes of thought. [19] Hardcover Fiction 1. THE WHISTLER (Doubleday, $28.95). By John Grisham. A Florida judge may be taking mafia-linked bribes. [6] 2. CROSS THE LINE (Little, Brown, $29). By James Patterson. A killer is on the loose in the nation’s capital in Alex Cross’s latest investigation. [2] 3. NO MAN’S LAND (Grand Central, $29). By David Baldacci. Special Agent John Puller reopens an investigation into the murder of his mother. His father is now a suspect. [3] 4. MOONGLOW (Harper, $28.99). By Michael Chabon. A dying grandfather recounts in this autobiographical novel. [2] 5. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD (Doubleday, $26.95). By Colson Whitehead. A young slave makes a desperate bid for freedom. [14] 6. TURBO TWENTY-THREE (Bantam, $28). By Janet Evanovich. Stephanie Plum must stop someone who is murdering the employees of an ice cream factory. [3] 7. NIGHT SCHOOL (Delacorte, $28.99). By Lee Child. A jihadist sleeper cell might have recruited an American. [4] 8. TWO BY TWO (Grand Central, $27).


BLT Prime review: Trump Hotel’s steakhouse does plenty of things right

The salt-aged 20-ounce Kansas City steak. At left, creamed spinach is a standout side, as are the “couch” potatoes in back. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) (Good / Excellent) During the wee hours of Nov. 9, BLT Prime by David Burke in the Trump International Hotel became the reddest restaurant in Washington. The fact that it’s a steakhouse is beside the point. Maybe you’ve been to the landmark, curious to see how $212 million transformed the former Old Post Office Pavilion into one of the most opulent hotels this city has ever seen. Maybe you’ve avoided the venue, electing to spend your dining budget on something other than a controversial brand. (Never in my career have more people turned down the promise of a free meal. “It’s too soon,” a new acquaintance said, begging off my invitation to join me on a review visit.) If history had played out differently, of course, the hotel’s signature restaurant would be Spanish-Japanese in flavor — and former senator Bob Dole would likely not have been seated a table away from me, post-election. Instead, prompted by anti-Mexican remarks by candidate Donald Trump, followed by an election that split the country, the main restaurant is watched over not by D.C. mainstay José Andrés but by New York chef David Burke. Trump and his hire, 54, share some history. An alumnus of “Top Chef Masters,” among other credits, Burke first cooked for Trump 28 years ago, when he was asked to cater a Fourth of July party aboard the real estate mogul’s yacht. With several meals under my belt, I offer some thoughts on an establishment sure to be on the radar for at least the next four years. Server Asja Reid with ginger steamed black sea bass at BLT Prime. The restaurant overlooks the glittery lobby. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) The service is terrific. Siberia doesn’t exist. Go easy on the bread. Chef Marc Hennessy oversees day-to-day operations at BLT Prime at the Trump International Hotel. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) Anticipate some gimmicks. Slice into something different. Open wide for the burger. The black sea bass is frgrant with ginger. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) Pescatarians will be welcome. Most of the sides are stars. Garlicky red coat prawns. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) The dessert menu includes apple tart and cinnamon ice cream with goat-milk caramel. (Dixie


Montgomery County Animal Watch

Montgomery county This case was 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. Damascus Ordered to trim the hooves free workshop for dog owners A free workshop, “Advice for Adopters, Fosters, and Other Dog Lovers,” from 11:45 a.m.-1:45 p.m. Saturday. Learn about dog training and behavior, helpful pet products, and common issues that dog guardians face. Please leave your dog at home. Your Dog’s Friend training facility, 12221 Parklawn Dr., Rockville. 301-983-5913. yourdogsfriend.org/free-workshops. Free; registration required. The workshop will be repeated Jan. 21. Humane Society adoptions The Montgomery County Humane Society’s private rescue shelter has dogs, puppies, cats and kittens available for adoption. Call 240-252-2555 or visit mchumane.org.MCHS Adoptions and Education Center, 601 S. Stonestreet Ave., Rockville. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except holidays. Reduced FEES FOR CATS Cats and kittens will be available for adoption at the next open house of Friends of Montgomery County Animals at the following location. Call 301-977-4833 or visit fmca.org or facebook.com/fmcainfo.PetSmart at Milestone Center, 20924 Frederick Rd., Germantown. Hours: 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. Cats at no-kill shelter Cats and kittens will be available for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County’s no-kill shelter at the following location. For information, call 301-740-2511 or visit awlmc.org.Animal Welfare League of Montgomery County no-kill shelter, 12 Park Ave., Gaithersburg. Hours: 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


We need to feed a growing planet. Vegetables aren’t the answer.

in the United States, and there’s another 100 million for other commodity crops. Those 2 to 5 million additional acres we need for our massive shift to vegetables? That’s a measly 1 percent of our total acreage; if you want to fix agriculture, it’s the other 99 percent that need your attention. If that sounds counterintuitive, think about it another way. We all need to eat about 2,000 calories each day (give or take), and if we were to follow the government’s MyPlate recommendations for vegetable consumption, that comes to only 12 percent of our caloric needs (give or take). Although vegetables are a small slice of our agriculture and our calories, it’s easy to see how the vegetable-farm solution gets traction. Go into a grocery store, and the products with the shortest distance between us and the farm are in the produce section. They’re a tangible, edible link between us and the people we think of when we think “farmer.” The commodity crops — the corn and the soy, but also the oats and the barley and the lentils — don’t represent the farmer most of us meet at the farmers market, the one running the farm of our imagination. But it is those crops that will feed us. They feed us now. According the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 60 percent of the world’s calories come from just three crops: corn, wheat and rice. (The corn is field corn, which is different from the familiar sweet corn.) Those, and a few others — sorghum, millet and soy, for example — are the staple crops around the world. One of the reasons they became staples is that you can grow a lot of them on a small plot. Another is that they store well. Here in the United States, the conversation about commodity crops has been shaped by two ancillary issues: subsidies and the uses those crops are put to. Although subsidies certainly played a role in shaping our food system (and I think we need to change to a crop-neutral system, which I will keep harping on until somebody takes up the rallying cry), commodity-based agriculture is what feeds people around the world because of those crops’ inherent qualities. And, although commodities, particularly corn and soy, get a bad name because we eat them as components of processed foods (vegetable oil and high-fructose corn


Washington Post bestsellers: Dec. 18, 2016

floating bookstore on the Seine, which he takes to the south of France. [10] 10. THE ALCHEMIST (Harperone, $16.99). By Paulo Coelho. A Spanish shepherd boy goes on a journey of discovery through North Africa. [61] Nonfiction/General 1. ALEXANDER HAMILTON (Penguin, $20). By Ron Chernow. [56] 2. MILK AND HONEY (Andrews McMeel, $14.99) By Rupi Kaur. A collection of poetry and prose about survival. [26] 3. MICHELIN GUIDE WASHINGTON, DC 2017 (Michelin Travel Publications, $12.95). By the editors of Michelin Travel Publications. [7] 4. YOU ARE A BADASS: HOW TO STOP DOUBTING YOUR GREATNESS AND START LIVING AN AWESOME LIFE (Running Press, $16). By Jen Sincero. [39] 5. HIDDEN FIGURES: THE AMERICAN DREAM AND THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BLACK WOMEN MATHEMATICIANS WHO HELPED WIN THE SPACE RACE (William Morrow, $15.99). By Margot Lee Shetterly. [1] 6. THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE TRIPOLI PIRATES: THE FORGOTTEN WAR THAT CHANGED AMERICAN HISTORY (Sentinel, $17). By Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger. [8] 7. TRUMP: THE ART OF THE DEAL (Ballantine, $16.99). By Donald J. Trump and Tony Schwartz. The mogul and president-elect on closing the deal. [4] 8. JUST MERCY: A STORY OF JUSTICE AND REDEMPTION (Spiegel & Grau, $16). By Bryan Stevenson. [30] 9. MARCH: BOOK ONE (Top Shelf Productions , $14.95). By John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell. A graphic novel about Lewis’s civil rights experiences. [10] 10. WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS (Anchor, $7.95). By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. [3] Hardcover Fiction 1. THE WHISTLER (Doubleday, $28.95). By John Grisham. A Florida judge may be taking mafia-linked bribes. [7] 2. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD (Doubleday, $26.95). By Colson Whitehead. A young slave makes a desperate bid for freedom. [15] 3. CROSS THE LINE (Little, Brown, $29). By James Patterson. A killer is on the loose in the nation’s capital in Alex Cross’s latest investigation. [3] 4. NO MAN’S LAND (Grand Central, $29). By David Baldacci. Special Agent John Puller reopens an investigation into the murder of his mother. His father is now a suspect. [4] 5. MOONGLOW (Harper, $28.99). By Michael Chabon. A dying grandfather recounts in this autobiographical novel. [3] 6. TOM CLANCY: TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE (Putnam, $29.95). By Mark Greaney. U.S. intelligence agencies are compromised, jeopardizing spying activities around the world. [1] 7. TWO BY TWO (Grand Central, $27). By Nicholas Sparks. A man loses everything but tries to keep life normal for his daughter. [9] 8. NIGHT


Exploring post-Brexit Britain while the pound is at an all-time low

Falling poppies are projected onto Parliament’s Elizabeth Tower, home of Big Ben, on Remembrance Sunday in 2015. (GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images) All we ask of Britain is that it never change. But the world, worse luck, has been messing with Britain. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Whichever, the country’s dramatic vote to detach itself from the European Union in June forced devoted visitors like me to wonder: Would our future trips over the pond be — Gasp! — different? Two months after the referendum, my 19-year-old daughter Isabel and I pulled out of a rental-car garage in central London . . . and immediately turned into the path of a lumbering delivery van. Nothing new about the delights of forcing my right-lane brain into a left-lane roadway! But, intoning “left-left-left” at every turn, we set out on a week-long sea-to-sea drive across Britain, crossing borders that now seem more meaningful between Wales, England and Scotland, regions of the country that all viewed the leave vote differently. In every corner of the country, we found a post-Brexit tourist scene that was considerably cheaper for Americans and still wrestling with what kind of Britain it wants to be for its returning fans. “We’re in God’s hands now,” said Molly Breakspear, a tour guide in one of England’s most shamelessly backward-looking tourist sites: Highclere Castle, the still-occupied country mansion that is universally recognizable as the set of “Downton Abbey.” We made this PBS pilgrimage on our drive to Cardiff, Wales, where we would officially begin our cross-country tour. Standing in that unmistakable red library — furnished for the real-life Earl of Carnavon exactly as it is for the fictional Earl of Grantham — it is easy to imagine the globe before globalism. The house — like the show — is a window on another age. Maybe not a simpler one, but one with no crowds of Germans, Americans and Arabs driving the hour from London and paying for the pleasure of treading up the magnificent oak staircase or putting on bad Mr. Carson accents in the dining room lined with oil paintings. “It certainly hasn’t hurt us yet,” Breakspear said above the multinational murmur. “Plenty of Europeans still and quite a number of English people this year.” One early effect of Brexit has been an uptick in Britons vacationing in Britain. “What we’re seeing right now is a strong staycation market,” said


Don’t lose sight of the Trump team’s threat to NASA

President-elect Donald Trump in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Dec. 9. (Paul Sancya/Associated Press) The Dec. 13 Health & Science article “Bad news for glaciers: A Delaware-size iceberg is splitting off from an Antarctic ice shelf” continued The Post’s excellent coverage of the existential threat of climate change. But one aspect of the story has escaped attention thus far: The Trump transition team is threatening to reduce, if not end, NASA’s vital role in gathering data on climate change around the globe, despite that for nearly six decades one of the agency’s principal statutory objectives has been the scientific study of Earth and its atmosphere. NASA’s efforts resulted in the first weather satellites and Earth-resources craft such as the Landsat program and include this recent glacial discovery. Another example, just announced, is GeoCARB, a low-cost space-based platform for monitoring greenhouse gases and vegetation health throughout the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps the rationale of shutting down NASA’s climate-data collection is that what we don’t know somehow can’t hurt us. I hope The Post will closely monitor the status of NASA’s scientific climate studies in the crucial period ahead. Robert F. Allnutt, Bethesda The writer is a former NASA employee.


NSO ‘Messiah’ shows strengths of a tradition of change

lines, or from the strings in the recitative “There were shepherds.” So often, the arrival of the angel is heralded with a kind of sawing exuberance: here, the strings were buoyant beneath the radiant voice of the soprano Joelle Harvey. You could feel the angel suspended overhead. A challenge the NSO has had in HIP-inspired readings is that its musicians play modern rather than historical instruments. It didn’t, though, feel like a challenge on Thursday night. Cummings’s ease of delivery flowed over into the scaled-down ensemble; and having many fewer players than the symphony-orchestra norm emphasized the tautness and precision of the performance. Nurit Bar-Josef, the concertmaster, had some especially lovely solo moments. Cummings seemed to have devoted a lot of attention in his preparation to expression, both from the orchestra and from the University of Maryland Concert Choir, which covered itself with glory with some wonderful, character-full singing. The choir performed “Messiah” with the orchestra last year, as well, under Nathalie Stutzmann; I wonder if the repetition helped solidify their crack performance. The choir is led by Edward Maclary, husband of Rita Shapiro, who is departing at the end of the month after more than 15 years as the NSO’s executive director; an insert in the program appears to have been the orchestra’s official recognition of her departure, but her family connection to the chorus made their fine work seem like a nice, if unofficial tribute. It was also a fine crop of soloists. I heard Christopher Ainslie, the countertenor, in the Bach B minor Mass with the Baltimore Symphony earlier this year, but I found his work here especially fine — in particular the way he threw in idiomatic ornaments at will, taking a liberty with the written music that would have been expected in Handel’s day but is generally performed in a more careful, obedient manner now. Harvey sang with simple, glowing beauty, and in “He shall feed his flock,” their two voices seemed like extensions of each other rather than contrasts — consistent with Cummings’s approach as a uniter, rather than a divider. James Kryshak, the tenor, and Douglas Williams, the bass-baritone, both offered light, firm voices and solid performances. Repetition is a key part of our musical experience, whether it’s the greatest hits of a classic band — the Kennedy Center just feted the Eagles with yet another performance of “Hotel California” at the Honors


Russia and Japan agree to set up $1 billion investment fund

Putin praised the sake and hot springs in Abe’s home town of Nagato, where the two leaders met Thursday, while Abe said the meeting in Japan was worth the three-year wait. Relations between the two leaders had been somewhat constrained by the deterioration of ties between the United States — Japan’s key ally — and Russia in recent years. Putin arrived in Japan just as President Obama said the United States would retaliate against Russia over its cyber-activity during this year’s U.S. election. However, the election of Donald Trump, who has openly praised Putin and promised much warmer U.S.-Russian ties, has given Abe a green light to pursue closer links with Moscow. But for all the conciliatory words in Tokyo, the trip was a clear win for Putin, who was making his first visit to a Group of Seven country since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. He is keen for investment to counteract low oil prices and international isolation over Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine and Syria. Russia’s Direct Investment Fund and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation will each put $500 million in a new fund that will make investments in sectors including energy, urban planning and medical services, the two sides said. The fund will back Japanese companies operating in Russia, local media reported. Putin has been particularly interested in Japanese investment in the relatively undeveloped Russian Far East, the part of the country closest to Japan. Abe said agreements on more than 60 other projects the two discussed in Sochi six months ago were near completion, but the details remained vague. Neither the Japanese prime minister’s office nor the Foreign Ministry would provide details on any of the projects. Japan also relaxed visa requirements for Russian tourists and for business visitors. But the encounter was not so successful for Abe, who had been hoping to pave the way for the return of at least two of four disputed islands northeast of Hokkaido, known as the Northern Territories to Japan and the southern Kurils to Russia. During World War II, the Soviet Union seized the islands just days before Japan surrendered in 1945 — causing almost 20,000 Japanese residents to hurriedly flee — and the dispute over the islands’ ownership has hamstrung the countries’ relations ever since. Abe and Putin agreed to begin discussions on joint economic activities on the islands, which remain under Russian administration. “Joint economic activities


Mark and Scott Kelly: John Glenn, our hero

John F. Kennedy and, later, a ticker tape parade through New York. Even in the face of national adoration, true heroes never think of themselves as such. Just look at Glenn. When Pearl Harbor was attacked 75 years ago, Glenn — a kid from a small town in Ohio — dropped out of college to enlist in the Army Air Corps. He became a skilled aviator, flying 59 combat missions in the South Pacific. In the Korean War, his wingman was none other than future Hall of Fame baseball player Ted Williams. Glenn’s buddies in the service called him “Magnet Ass” because he had a knack for attracting enemy antiaircraft artillery. After retiring from NASA and the military, he found new ways to continue his distinguished career in public service. He represented his home state of Ohio in the Senate for 24 years. He was a champion of nuclear nonproliferation, writing legislation that helped slow the spread of nuclear weapons. It was a fitting cause for a man who made a name for himself riding a rocket into space during the Cold War. And in 1998 at 77 years young, Glenn once again climbed onto a big rocket, ready to hurtle off the planet as if the hand of God had grabbed hold of him. Flying aboard the space shuttle Discovery, Glenn once again orbited our planet in the blackness of space. We had the good fortune of getting to know Glenn as he trained for that final mission at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He was gracious, humble and a lot of fun. For a couple of young astronauts, showing up to work next to John Glenn was like a rookie playing baseball alongside Babe Ruth or a kid getting music lessons while Mozart composed in the room next door. After all, it was the idealism and courage of the early Mercury pioneers such as Glenn that helped pave the way for Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, the space shuttle program, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Mars rovers and the International Space Station. And as we stand on the precipice of a new era of exploration to Mars and beyond, it is possible only because of the gutsy pioneers and patriots such as Glenn who came first. Read more: Homer Hickam: The otherworldly spirit of John Glenn Lily Koppel: John Glenn survived space and celebrity — and still had a great marriage


Scientist argues vaccines, GMOs and cell phones are not threats to our well being

he strongly supports the need for scientists and federal agencies to take potential risks seriously — for example, praising the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency for funding high-quality research on population-wide exposure to BPA, a chemical found in many consumer products that has been suspected of causing hormone-like effects in animals and humans. Biological support for this theory stems in part from the discovery, several decades ago, that DES, a synthetic version of the hormone estrogen prescribed in the mid-20th century to prevent miscarriages in pregnant women, resulted in cases of a rare vaginal cancer in some of the exposed women’s daughters, as well as other reproductive-tract abnormalities in exposed children of both sexes. However, DES’s potency as a hormone is far greater than BPA’s, and women prescribed the drug were exposed to about 100,000 times the average exposure of Americans to BPA. Chapters describing how science was deployed in the BPA case and three others make up the most interesting section of the book. Kabat assesses the science on the hypothetical link between cellphones and brain cancer and on the theory that BPA and other environmental chemicals are acting as “endocrine disruptors,” affecting people’s reproductive systems. On both those topics, he concludes that the evidence is reassuring, failing to show that even heavy cellphone use or frequent, low-level exposure to BPA and other hormone-like environmental chemicals causes disease in humans. However, he argues that scientists on opposing sides of these issues continue to interpret the findings according to their own biases, resulting in a lack of consensus. His vivid descriptions of the political advocacy, dueling media campaigns and rival factions in these areas of research make it easy to see why so many people remain worried and uncertain. After considering issues where science hasn’t put controversies to rest, it’s a relief to read about two cases in which persistent investigators and elegant studies unequivocally nailed down an environmental cause of disease. In one chapter, Kabat recounts the inspiring story of how scientists showed that cervical cancer, the fourth-most-common cancer in women worldwide, is actually a sexually transmitted illness, caused by certain types of the human papilloma virus (HPV) that can infect women during sex. Those discoveries led to the development of HPV vaccines, whose global use may, one day, lead to the eradication of cervical cancer. In another example, a puzzling cluster of cases of


How a great marathoner — Joan Benoit Samuelson — keeps going at age 60

in diet, balance in everything. I always think of the mind/body/spirit triad and try to make sure those components of my life are all in balance. It’s easy to go overboard in any one area. Has your training changed as you have gotten older? I used to run a lot of double workouts — morning and evening — but now I only do single workouts, except on rare occasions. In the winter, I’ll go for a run every day, but I also cross-country ski to maintain my upper body strength rather than lift weights. Cross-country skiing also strengthens my legs and gets my heart rate up. In recent years, I’ve been running about half to two-thirds of the mileage I ran when I was on top of my game, although I still go for a long run once a week of 13 to 15 miles when I’m not training for a specific marathon. Trying to maintain a certain amount of speed in my training is what I find the most challenging, so I play games on the road — for example, racing cars from behind and ahead of me to specific landmarks such as utility poles, fire hydrants, trees, etc. I also do a lot of gardening, kayaking and downhill skiing so that I am constantly using my upper body — much more so than when I was younger. I also do yoga, and I swim in the ocean after my runs. It’s all part of keeping a balance in my life. Do you find yourself more vulnerable to injury now? I don’t recover as quickly as I used to from harder workouts. I think it’s easier for me to overtrain now compared to when I was younger. I’ve gone over the edge a couple of times when I have pushed myself and gotten injured, or become overly fatigued. What gets you out the door and on the roads every day? I love being outdoors. That’s why I’ve always trained well — and with focus — in Maine, where I live. I’m most comfortable here. I’m close to nature and the things I love. I motivate myself using what I like to call storytelling. I try to come up with a story, usually a goal that motivates me to go out — for example, running sub-2:50 marathons at the age of 50 and beyond, or trying to run within 30


Local Digest: Dec. 16, 2016

THE DISTRICT Man charged in fatal shooting An 18-year-old D.C. man was arrested in a fatal September shooting in Northwest Washington, police said. About 12:25 a.m. on Sept. 12, officers went to the 2300 block of 11th Street Northwest in response to a report of a shooting, D.C. police said. They found Eric Garrett, 23, of Northwest Washington with multiple gunshot wounds. He died Sept. 18. On Thursday, authorities arrested Bikila Kejella of Northwest. He was charged with first-degree murder while armed. — Justin Wm. Moyer Man sentenced in fatal shooting A District man was sentenced Friday to 24 years in prison for fatally shooting a Northwest Washington man during a break-in at his condominium in January, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. D.C. Superior Court Judge Michael Ryan sentenced Joseph Jennings Jr., 36, to the prison term plus five years of supervised probation following an October guilty plea to a charge of second-degree murder while armed. Prosecutors said Jennings, with two other men, broke into the home of Matthew Shevlin in the 400 block of M Street NW on Jan. 22 in an effort to steal marijuana. Just before 10 a.m., authorities said, Jennings pried open the building’s locked front door and tried to enter Shevlin’s unit through a sliding glass balcony door. As that was happening, Shevlin ran out of the front door and shouted for help. Authorities said that Jennings chased Shevlin, the pair struggled and Jennings shot Shevlin, 37, who later died of multiple gunshot wounds. — Clarence Williams MARYLAND Driver dies from crash injuries A 93-year-old woman injured after the car she was driving struck a tree in Bethesda early this month died Friday, police said. About 9:05 a.m. on Dec. 5, officers went to the 8000 block of Whittier Boulevard, Montgomery County Police said in a statement. They found that Audrey Sloope Bell, who lived on the block, had been making a left turn in a 2003 Buick Century from eastbound Whittier Court onto northbound Whittier Boulevard when the vehicle left the road and struck a tree, rolling onto the driver’s side, according to the statement. The cause of the crash remains under investigation. — Justin Wm. Moyer Wildlife officials say deer-kill numbers up State wildlife managers say hunters killed 12 percent more deer than last year during Maryland’s recently ended firearm hunting season. The Department of Natural Resources said in a statement Thursday


Local Digest: Dec. 16, 2016

front door and tried to enter Shevlin’s unit through a sliding glass balcony door. As that was happening, Shevlin ran out of the front door and shouted for help. Authorities said that Jennings chased Shevlin, the pair struggled and Jennings shot Shevlin, 37, who later died of multiple gunshot wounds. — Clarence Williams MARYLAND Driver dies from crash injuries A 93-year-old woman injured after the car she was driving struck a tree in Bethesda early this month died Friday, police said. About 9:05 a.m. on Dec. 5, officers went to the 8000 block of Whittier Boulevard, Montgomery County Police said in a statement. They found that Audrey Sloope Bell, who lived on the block, had been making a left turn in a 2003 Buick Century from eastbound Whittier Court onto northbound Whittier Boulevard when the vehicle left the road and struck a tree, rolling onto the driver’s side, according to the statement. The cause of the crash remains under investigation. — Justin Wm. Moyer Wildlife officials say deer-kill numbers up State wildlife managers say hunters killed 12 percent more deer than last year during Maryland’s recently ended firearm hunting season. The Department of Natural Resources said in a statement Thursday that hunters reported taking 35,078 deer during the two-week season that ended Dec. 10. Wildlife and Heritage Service Director Paul Peditto says the increase reflects fair weather, combined with a slow start to the archery and muzzleloader seasons that preceded the firearm season. — Associated Press VIRGINIA Man sentenced in MS-13 homicide case A 20-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison Friday for his involvement in an MS-13 gang killing in Northern Virginia in 2014. On March 29, 2014, Douglas Duran Cerritos, of Falls Church, and six other gang members killed Gerson Adoni Martinez Aguilar, a gang recruit, for breaking gang rules, Dana J. Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement. Cerritos was the leader of a group that lured Aguilar to Holmes Run Park in Fairfax County and stabbed him in the back and neck, severed his head and buried him in a shallow grave in the park, the statement said. The case was part of a large-scale prosecution of MS-13 members in Northern Virginia that involved 13 defendants, three murders and one attempted murder, prosecutors said. — Justin Wm. Moyer New college planned for Bristol A Chinese firm plans to


With her cub on a bamboo-free diet, momma panda forgoes evening meal

It is probably wise not to endow animals with too many human characteristics. It is still tempting, however, to suspect a National Zoo panda of seeming to show both consideration and maternal self-sacrifice. As Bei Bei the cub recovers from Nov. 25 bowel surgery, he is not yet ready for his usual bamboo, the zoo said Friday. But his mom, Mei Xiang, needs hers. And the two share indoor quarters. By day, Mei Xiang dines outdoors, while Bei Bei stays in. But nights, when both stay in, were a problem. At first, keepers stayed around the clock, feeding bamboo to mother alone. Finally, the zoo realized that Mei Xiang “wasn’t interested” in eating too much at night anyway. That could be classed as new data about the panda diet. Or it could seem admirable self-denial.


Ever been wobbly-legged at the National Zoo and dreamed of riding in a tram?

Friends of the National Zoo discontinued the tram service in 1978. (Smithsonian Institution Archives) The National Zoo used to have multicar trams for people to ride in. They were printed with animal designs. (I recall a white one with zebra stripes, an orange one with tiger stripes and an orange one with leopard spots.) What’s driving me nuts is that while I have pictures of me at the zoo during that time period, we have no pictures of these old trams. When did the zoo stop using them? — Don Smith, Washington If you have ever taken a child to the National Zoo on a hot summer day, you have eventually confronted one of the physical world’s most amazing transformations: When a toddler becomes tired, sweaty and cranky, it gains mass, eventually becoming as dense — and unstable — as a laundry basket full of plutonium. Many a parent has stood at the southern end of the zoo, down by the lions, and wondered how they were ever going to make it up to the Connecticut Avenue end. If only there was a tram . . . The National Zoo got its start in 1887 with something called the Department of Living Animals. It was the creation of William T. Hornaday, chief taxidermist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum. Accustomed to preparing dead animals for display, Hornaday thought it might be nice for people to look at live ones. He arranged for several North American species — including red foxes, white-tailed deer, prairie dogs, a golden eagle and a spotted lynx — to be put on display on the Mall. The “little try-out zoo,” as he called it, was a success, and in 1891 a more ambitious zoo opened in Rock Creek Park. Like the creatures they house, zoos are constantly evolving. While once they resembled prisons, now they attempt to evoke the animals’ natural habitats. The National Zoo has been revamped several times, perhaps most extensively starting in the 1960s. That was when zoo brass decided to do something about a curious design flaw that had worsened over the years: Vehicles traveled through the zoo. Beach Drive snaked past the Reptile, Monkey and Lion houses and through the American Waterfowl exhibit. Contending with cars did not make for a relaxing zoo experience. The solution was to dig a tunnel at the southeast edge of the zoo, allowing Beach Drive to


A seasonal ale that turns down the alcohol? Grab it.

Bell's Winter White Ale is the perfect antidote to all those dark, boozy holiday stouts and ales. (Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) It’s the time of year for Belgian Christmas ales, bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stouts and fortified winter warmers. The problem, both by design and tradition, is that these beers make it easy to overindulge: One or two glasses of St. Bernardus Christmas Ale (10 percent alcohol by volume) or Hardywood Gingerbread Stout (9.2 percent) will leave drinkers more the worse for wear than will a similar amount of, say, Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA (6 percent) or Guinness stout (4.2 percent). At the last holiday beer tasting I went to, it was impossible to find something at less than the mid-7 percent mark, and it seemed as if every sample was more potent than the last. If you’re looking for a beer that hints of the holidays without piling on more alcohol, try Bell’s Winter White, a cloudy, bready wheat beer with cloves and orange peel in both the nose and body, and pepper and other spices throughout. It’s a mere 5 percent ABV, on par with Budweiser. You might be thinking, “Hey, this sounds like the kind of thing I’d drink on a summer afternoon,” and you’re probably right. Outside of clove and coriander — spices associated with the holidays — there’s not much about this beer that screams Christmas. But this malty little witbier can be a welcome break from overpowering seasonal ales. — Fritz Hahn Bell’s Winter White Ale. bellsbeer.com. Expect to pay $8 to $10 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans, or $10 to $12 per six-pack of 12-ounce bottles. More from Food: Beer Column archive


Indigenous people are left poor as tech world takes lithium from under their feet

small size. A lithium ion can carry a positive charge in a tiny space. To be exact: A lithium ion is 76 trillionths of a meter in radius; sodium ions, which are being explored for use in batteries, are 102 trillionths of a meter, or about 34 percent larger. The size advantage means not only that batteries can be smaller but also that they can charge more quickly. The speed of charging comes in part from a lithium ion’s ability to fit in amid gaps in a battery’s other components, said Donald Sadoway, a materials-chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lithium brine was discovered in the Andean region in 1962 when a U.S. mining company found it while exploring for water, at a place called Salar de Atacama in Chile. It would also be discovered in nearby portions of Argentina and Bolivia, forming what is today known as the “Lithium Triangle.” It was not until the 1970s, however, when lithium was deemed useful for nuclear technology, that investors and the Chilean government decided to seize the opportunity. The government, led by strongman Augusto Pinochet, declared the lithium reserves to be under its control in 1979. It then partnered with a U.S. company, Foote Mineral, to extract and sell the mineral. Foote had the technology — developed at its plant in Silver Peak, Nev. — for converting lithium brine into useful forms. Since beginning at the site in 1980s, Foote, which soon after bought out the government portion, and its successor companies have extracted roughly 300,000 tons of lithium carbonate from under the ancestral lands of the Atacamas. At current prices, the market value of that much lithium carbonate runs into the billions of dollars. Through 2015, the lithium operation, now owned by Albemarle, was not required to make any payments to the Atacamas. But in 2012 the outfit began making some infrastructure improvements to nearby communities, and under a new agreement, Albemarle in 2016 made an initial payment of an undisclosed sum to the indigenous groups. The payments are supposed to amount to 3 percent of annual sales and are to continue for the duration of the new agreement, which is pending final government approval. “There is no doubt that the original deal with Foote was unfair to Chile and to the aboriginal communities,” said Juan Carlos Zuleta, an industry analyst from Bolivia who served on Chile’s National