The old and the new come together in winning springtime in Washington haiku

shoot a selfie with their head in a cellphone. “It’s not wrong or right, it’s just different. To me, it represents the city as it is in the 21st century, as opposed to when I was growing up in the 1950s.” Paul used to work in crisis communications for a PR company, then did consulting for Honeywell in Jersey City. Last year he decided to do something he’d always dreamed of: write a children’s book. It’s called “Spenser’s Story of the Constitution” and is about a cat present at the drafting of a certain important document. “I do my own publishing,” Paul said. “When you’re north of 70, you decide you don’t have two to three years to spend trying to get an agent or a publishing company, especially when you don’t have that much interest in making a fortune. I write for the kids.” Said Paul: “I put off writing children’s stories for most of my life. I decided that if I didn’t stop working and start writing, I wouldn’t do any of it.” Congratulations, Paul, and thank you to everyone who entered the haiku contest. Here are some of my other favorites: Water reflections This bonus around the pool Doubles the blossoms — M.J. McNamara, Springfield, Va. Pastel postage stamps dispatch cherry blossoms far, couriers of spring — Gretchen Smith Mui, Silver Spring, Md. pale rust edged blossoms painted by impassive frost dangle from branches — Susan Bennett, Reston, Va. Spring of ’17 Cherry blossoms pink, white, brown Cold winds freeze our hearts — Patricia Broida, Arlington, Va. Pansies in snow, torn, wrinkled, like our grandmothers, Yet, they persisted. — Ann Marie Moriarty, Silver Spring Spring — my heart is full My tongue painful and swollen In drink can, bee lurked. — Susan DiMaina, Annandale, Va. The beats of buckets Propel newly polished toes To Eastern Market — Jean Westcott, Montclair, Va. Crazy drivers whiz Past stunning cherry trees bright Their loss not mine. Smile. — Jill Strachan, Washington Winter storm warning: Goodbye cherry blossom hopes Try again next year — Scott Chase, Annapolis You know Spring is here When threats of snowstorms loom while Cherry blossoms bloom — Howard Walderman, Columbia, Md. Bao Bao’s gone away; Bei Bei, for the nonce, will stay, Eat bamboo, and play. — Mae Scanlan, Washington Spring cherry blossoms Blooming as the days get warm D.C.’s own pink snow! — Kathleen Young,


This company’s drugs helped fuel Florida’s opioid crisis. But the government struggled to hold it accountable.

of opioid diversion and misuse, and has continuously invested significant resources to address this serious drug epidemic,” the statement said. “We are proud of the programs and initiatives we’ve developed to ensure appropriate use of pain medication and, most importantly, to deter such medications from ending up in the wrong hands.” Officials at the DEA declined to comment for this article. The U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit, which is handling the case, issued a statement. “Our office works diligently to use all the legal tools available to us to hold corporations responsible for their actions,” acting U.S. attorney Daniel Lemisch said. “This is particularly true in a highly regulated industry such as the manufacture of opioids. As this case is still in settlement negotiations, we cannot comment on the specifics of the matter.” Under federal law and DEA policy, pharmaceutical companies such as Mallinckrodt are required to “know their customers” and monitor the pattern, frequency and amounts of drug orders. When suspicious orders occur, companies must immediately notify the agency or risk losing their DEA licenses to sell or manufacture controlled substances, as well as face civil and criminal penalties. According to the documents and sources familiar with the settlement talks, Mallinckrodt was willing to acknowledge its responsibility to report suspiciously large orders placed by its customers, a network of wholesale distributors. But the company said that it should not be held responsible for what happens to its drugs once the distributors send them to their customers, such as doctors and pharmacies. Mallinckrodt contended that the DEA has never required manufacturers to know their customers’ customers and that the agency provided the company with conflicting advice about its responsibilities under the law. “Mallinckrodt took unprecedented steps beyond the legal obligations of a manufacturer. Mallinckrodt began monitoring downstream sales between wholesalers and pharmacies, and proactively informed both its customers and the DEA of its findings,” said Brien T. O’Connor, a lawyer for the company. “The company continues to enhance its anti-diversion programs to this day.” The proposed $35 million settlement comes as the nation’s prescription opioid epidemic continues to worsen, with nearly 180,000 lives lost to overdoses since 2000. The Post reported in October that the DEA’s civil and administrative enforcement efforts against the mammoth wholesale distributors that deliver painkillers to pharmacies stalled in the face of a stepped-up lobbying campaign by the drug industry. The Mallinckrodt case was something different:


With Brexit looming, millions wonder whether they can stay in Britain

E.U. supporters called for the United Kingdom to remain in the 28-nation bloc during a rally in London on March 25. (Facundo Arrizabalaga/European Pressphoto Agency) LONDON — For all appearances, she is British. Only she’s not. She is an Italian national living in Britain, her future thrown into doubt following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. “I’ve lived here most of my adult life. I feel more British than Italian,” said Mayall, 45, a bubbly brunette who says she hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep since last summer’s Brexit vote. Mayall is able to live in the United Kingdom because it is a member of the European Union, a bloc of 28 countries that share freedom-of-movement rules. For decades, this has been the way of life in Europe: People can up and move to another country at a moment’s notice. Some decide to plant roots in their new homeland, acquiring families, jobs, pets and mortgages along the way. Aside from voting, the E.U. citizens who live here enjoy most of the same benefits as Britons. But with Brexit looming, the future for millions now hangs in the balance. Figuring out what happens to an estimated3.2 million E.U. citizens living in the U.K. — and the 1.2 million Brits living in Europe — will be the most high-profile aspect of early Brexit talks as the two-year exit process gets underway. British Prime Minister Theresa May insists that she wants a quick solution — alongside a reciprocal arrangement for Brits on the continent — but no one knows what that will look like. Analysts say the vast majority of E.U. citizens living here will have their right to residency confirmed, but it’s likely there will be some who fall on the wrong side of the line. How will those who live here go about proving their right to live and work in the U.K., thus differentiating themselves from newly arrived E.U. citizens, who may not have the same rights? What will the cutoff date be? What will happen to welfare and pension rights, or the ability to bring over family members? “After Brexit, our phones went off the hooks,” said Barbara Drozdowicz, director of the Eastern European Advice Center in London. “People phone in and ask, ‘Can I go home for Easter break? Will they still let me back in?’ ” In a sign of how anxious many are feeling, E.U.


Calling citizen scientists: Researchers want you to track nesting birds in your garden

bluebirds, wrens and chickadees, for example. Others don’t need any help, thank you, and build their nests in generally conspicuous places, such as mourning doves and robins. Other common species, though, are more secretive. Goldfinches, which nest in the summer, generally make their teacup nests in the lower branches of trees, while dark-eyed juncos actually make camouflaged ground nests. Some nests are inaccessible. Binoculars will help figure out the offspring situation. For barn swallows, “it’s easy to find the nest but they tend to be a bit high,” Bailey said. “That might be a selfie stick kind of situation.” This year’s NestWatch comes with an app that should make recording data more convenient, she said. A focus of this year’s observations, she said, will be in trying to see if bird feeders have a measurable effect on the success of the enterprise. Whether you monitor a nest or just take it in as part of the spring experience, you should not bother the parent birds, attempt to move a nest to a more convenient spot or generally interfere. “Outdoor cats are definitely a problem,” Bailey said. She puts her cat on a harness when she takes it into the garden. Purple Martin hatchlings. (Richard Winegar) Separately, the National Audubon Society is launching an online guide to selecting native plants of particular value to birds, either directly as shelter or food, or indirectly in attracting insect larvae that nestlings need in large quantities to develop. Configured to offer plant lists for your growing zone, the society’s Plants for Birds database offers a comprehensive range of trees, shrubs, perennials and grasses that provide an array of support for birds, particularly those spring migrants moving north. I would add that you might also consider your space and site conditions before sticking in, say, an American basswood. This is a handsome linden, and Plants for Birds says it will sustain such beauties as cedar waxwings, grosbeaks and vireos. But it’s a big tree that will define a landscape. You might just have space for some salvias for the hummingbirds. What I found fun about this database is that I could type in existing plants in the garden to see which birds are drawn to them. Part of the motivation, said John Rowden, director of community conservation, is to enlarge the suite of plants available to birds because climate change threatens to disrupt the synchronization


Man fatally shot in Landover

Prince George's County Police are investigating a homicide in Landover. (Courtesy of Prince George's County Police) A man was fatally shot early Tuesday in Prince George’s County, police said. At around 4:30 a.m., officers responded to the 7100 block of East Lombard Street in Landover for the report of a shooting, Prince George’s County police said in a statement. They found 31-year-old Charles Bennett of Northwest Washington suffering from gunshot wounds, and he was pronounced dead at the scene, the statement said. Police asked anyone with information about the shooting to contact them at 301-772-4925 or visit pgcrimesolvers.com to submit a tip online. The D.C. region has seen 66 homicides this year, according to tracking by The Washington Post. Of those, 27 were in Maryland, including 21 in Prince George’s County.


Alexei Abrikosov, Nobel laureate in physics, dies at 88

Alexei Abrikosov in 2003. (Stephen J. Carrera/AP) Alexei Abrikosov, a Russian-born physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics for theoretical work on materials that can carry strong electric currents without resistance and are vital in science, technology and medicine, died March 29 in Sunnyvale, Calif. He was 88. The Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, where he spent many years, announced the death but did not provide a cause. Dr. Abrikosov left Moscow in 1991, after the Soviet Union collapsed, and joined Argonne. He shared the 2003 Nobel for explaining the magnetic properties of a type of superconductor that has found wide applicability, known as Type II superconductors. Once thought to be outliers among superconductors, they are now considered to be the most common. Superconductors, as the name implies, have an almost astonishing ability to carry electric current. At low temperatures, current flows in them without resistance. No energy is wasted in generating unwanted, potentially damaging heat. But in high magnetic fields, they lost their superconducting properties, reducing their usefulness. In his prizewinning work, Dr. Abrikosov explained theoretically how another family of superconductors could withstand the invasion of magnetic fields. They could then be used to carry the strong currents needed to produce unusually strong magnetic fields. Type II superconductors, once considered rarities in nature, have come into daily use in producing the magnetic fields that make possible magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment, one of modern medicine’s most important diagnostic tools. They are also used in cellphone towers. Members of the Type II family are also key components in the superconducting magnets that guide charged particles around the celebrated Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. That is the super-powerful particle accelerator that made possible the discovery of the Higgs boson, the elusive particle so important to modern theories of matter. These advances owe much to Dr. Abrikosov’s work, which provided the theoretical understanding needed to make the best use of Type II superconductors. His theory propounded a system by which magnetic fields enter the superconductors but, in what almost seems a paradox, remain outside at the same time. His theory embodied a lattice of pathways on the atomic level, along which magnetic fields could be guided within superconductors. As long as the fields remain inside these tunnellike structures, the materials retain superconducting properties, no matter how high the field. The vortex description is associated with current that races around the perimeters


This $26 sandwich — literally ham, butter and bread — says everything about D.C. dining

There is a ham sandwich served at Mirabelle, a new restaurant near the White House, and it costs $26. The sandwich, more precisely, is a “jambon beurre,” a classic French preparation that combines ham with butter on a baguette. In Paris, it’s the ultimate grab-and-go food, the kind of thing that makes for a cheap and fast meal. At other Washington eateries, such as Bread Furst and Le Diplomate, similar sandwiches clock in at about half of Mirabelle’s price tag. But those places aren’t in the same fine-dining league as the French-American restaurant, which, within weeks of opening, has already vaulted to the upper echelon of D.C. dining rooms. In a city where craft cocktails and small plates have made it easy to drop $100 on dinner, Mirabelle’s sandwich is yet another example of skyrocketing restaurant prices and a quickly evolving dining scene. Diners with deep pockets have been clamoring for seats at Pineapple and Pearls or Minibar, where the tasting menus are close to $300, and paying $60 for steak or $9 for coffee. Now they’re paying up for the critically acclaimed food of Mirabelle chef Frank Ruta, formerly of the White House and the late Washington favorite Palena. At such top-tier restaurants as Mirabelle, where dining is not only about the food but also the experience, menu prices are affected by rents, which have as much as doubled in the last decade in sought-after neighborhoods, as well as salaries for increasingly in-demand experienced staff, wine collections and actual build-out. Mirabelle owner Hakan Ilhan, for example, had to cut square footage from the private dining room at Ruta’s request to accommodate a bigger pastry area, probably equating to several thousand dollars in lost revenue. Plus, there’s all the decor, often curated by design firms and collected from around the world. At Mirabelle, flourishes include custom-designed tables, brass fixtures, marble counters and handmade wood trolleys for desserts and cheese. It has to look nice for diners “so they feel good about a $26 sandwich,” Ruta said. As you’d expect in a town where chefs feel compelled by their own standards and diners’ expectations to seek out the best, most interesting ingredients, a lot of time and effort goes into making that sandwich. For the ham, Ruta uses a pig from famed winery Barboursville Vineyards, which trades more in grapes but also raises a limited number of swine. Ruta estimates he


Fairfax County Animal Watch

FAIRFAX COUNTY The following was reported by the Animal Control Division of the Fairfax County Police Department. For information, call 703-246-2253. Let them stay wild: FAIRFAX CITY The following incidents were reported by the animal control section of the Fairfax City Police Department. For information, call 703-385-7924 or go to fairfaxva.gov and click “Animal Control” on the department’s main page. Nipped by excited dog: Flight pattern barred: Wrong roost: VIENNA The following incidents were reported by the Vienna Police Department. For information, call 703-255-6396. Nipping the one who feeds: Deadly attack on cat: — Compiled by Ria Manglapus


The rusty patched bumblebee gets a leg up from the Trump administration

mechanism that sustains us and our world,” Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Regional Director Tom Melius said in January. “Without them, our forests, parks, meadows and shrublands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand.” The service reports that insects, mostly bees, contribute some $3 billion of economic value to the United States every year. Citing “a swift and dramatic decline since the late 1990s,” the service moved to list the species as endangered just before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. “Abundance of the rusty patched bumble bee has plummeted by 87 percent, leaving small, scattered populations in 13 states and one [Canadian] province,” the service warned in a Jan. 10 announcement. But the Trump administration froze all new regulations when Mr. Trump entered office, so the listing did not come into effect on Feb. 10, as planned. Fortunately, the delay was not a long one: The first bumblebee and first bee of any type in the continental United States is now officially protected under the Endangered Species Act. That means the federal government will move to protect the bumblebees’ habitat and restrict activities that drive down their numbers. They could use the protection. Though reports of massive die-offs and colony collapse have somewhat exaggerated the global threat bees face, the United States still has lost nearly a million honeybee colonies since 1989, when the number peaked at 3.5 million. Bees are resilient creatures, their queens capable of repopulating hives at an astonishing rate. Beekeepers have been able to fight the decline in honeybees, which humans store and truck around the country to provide honey and pollination services, through careful management. But bumblebees and other native species do not get the same sort of commercial attention, even though their “buzz pollination” technique, in which they shake pollen loose by buzzing their wings, is particularly effective at fertilizing plants. It may not be easy to repopulate the rusty patched bumblebee. The creatures must contend with shrinking habitat, climate change and pesticide use. Even so, at least the federal government will no longer delay the effort — assuming, that is, Republicans refrain from defunding it in their next budget. Read more here: Robert Gebelhoff: Yes, the Endangered Species Act should be reformed The Post’s View: Trump puts the planet on a dangerous path Robert Gebelhoff: Our biological concept of a ‘species’ is a mess


F-16 military jet crashes near Joint Base Andrews in Maryland; pilot parachutes out

the houses below and, hopefully, bail out before it was too late. The pilot safely ditched the tanks, which military patrols would later recover. The plane plunged into woods flanked by suburban cul-de-sacs. The crash was close enough to spray debris and set small brush fires in the surrounding neighborhood but, remarkably, caused no serious injuries or damage, local and military officials said. Dodson’s house on Maui Street gave him a chilling view of the unfolding crisis. The electrician looked up to see a fighter jet struggling to stay aloft, plumes of black smoke pouring from it. Suddenly, a human shape shot up and away, sprawling in the sky; then another blob flashed up and spread into a parachute, jerking the human figure upward. He watched the pilot hang, drifting, as the plane nose-dived, streaking toward the house where he, his mother, sister and 4-year-old nephew were having a quiet morning. “Get . . . out of the house,” he screamed to them as he began to run. He dialed 911 on the phone that he had just used to text a friend. “A plane is crashing,” he said. As he yelled the address, he realized he didn’t know if the plane was “one of ours or another 9/11 attack.” The jet was almost down, roaring in with a whoop, whoop, whoop. He threw his phone down as the plane streaked past the roofs on Wood Elves Way. A fireball rose in the air. The blast knocked Dodson off his feet, he said. He jumped up and kept running, only to feel sharp stings in his arm and hand. He pulled a small piece of metal from his thumb, so hot he dropped it immediately. He could hear the whizzing of what sounded like bullets all around him, and he ducked momentarily around the corner of a house, wondering if a jet-load of ammunition was about to explode. Later, homeowners would report hearing the “pop” of exploding rounds for at least 10 minutes after the crash. “I just tried to keep my eye on the pilot,” Dodson said. “I was worried that he was heading into the woods.” Dodson knew his family was safe, as the explosion was about 200 yards from his house. His two kids were in school. He’s a single dad of a 7- and a 9-year-old, and he had been heading to a parent-teacher conference when


Montgomery County Animal Watch

Montgomery county No case reports were available from the Montgomery County Animal Services Division this week. 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. Free workshop for dog owners Lisa Arant, a pet educator from Small and Tall Dog Training, gives a talk, “Bringing Home Your New Dog: Steps for a Smooth Transition,” and other practical advice to pet owners. 6-7:30 p.m. Kensington Park Library, 4201 Knowles Ave., Kensington. 240-773-9515. montgomerycountymd.gov. Free; registration required. volunteers needed The Partnership for Animal Welfare Lost Dog Cat Rescue Foundation 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. 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. — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


New Horizons passes halfway mark between Pluto and next stop at edge of solar system

Pluto is illuminated from behind by the sun as the New Horizons spacecraft travels away from it at a distance of about 120,000 miles. On Friday, the spacecraft will reach a halfway between Pluto and its next stop, the Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/AP) NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is now halfway between Pluto and its next much, much smaller stop. New Horizons — which reached the milestone this week — is bound for an even more remote object called 2014 MU69. Like Pluto, the object orbits in our solar system’s twilight zone known as the Kuiper belt, but it is barely 1 percent its size. MU69 is nearly 1 billion miles beyond Pluto. The spacecraft is scheduled to swoop past MU69 on January 1, 2019. “That flyby will set the record for the most distant world ever explored in the history of civilization,” chief investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute said in a statement. With 466 million miles remaining, New Horizons will go into a five-month hibernation later this week. This 2015 high-resolution image from New Horizons reveals new details of Pluto’s rugged, icy cratered plains. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute) Although still zooming along, the spacecraft is slowing down slightly as it gets farther from the sun. Besides aiming for MU69, New Horizons will study a couple of dozen other Kuiper belt objects from afar. New Horizons arrived at Pluto in July 2015, becoming its first visitor from Earth. It launched from Cape Canaveral in January 2006. The spacecraft is currently 3.5 billion miles from home. It takes radio signals five hours and 20 minutes to reach the spacecraft from the control center at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland.


Meet the three people who determine the beers you drink in D.C.

From left: Greg Engert, 37, is the beer director for the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, which includes ChurchKey, Iron Gate and the Red Apron Burger Bar; Jace Gonnerman, 30, is the beer director at Meridian Pint, Brookland Pint and Smoke and Barrel; and Drew McCormick, 27, is the beer director for the three Pizzeria Paradiso locations in Georgetown, Dupont Circle and Old Town Alexandria. (File photos) When you sit down to read a beer menu, you probably don’t think about all the work that went into selecting the beers that you’re about to pick from. You might not know Greg Engert, Jace Gonnerman or Drew McCormick, but they’re the gatekeepers responsible for choosing what flows through dozens (or, in Engert’s case, hundreds) of beer lines around the Washington area. Q. How many beers do you taste each week? Greg Engert: Jace Gonnerman: Drew McCormick: Five to 10 new ones that people bring in. But every time I go to a different location and there’s a new beer that has come on since the last time I was there, I taste for quality control. Q. What was the last beer you tried that made you think, “I have to get this on draft ASAP”? Greg: Jace: Drew: Pale Fire Salad Days Saison. It was a sunny day, the beer’s crisp and refreshing, and it really hit the spot. Q. Which small brewery are we all going to be talking about next? Greg: Jace: Drew: Hopefully a brewery that makes gruit! My friends at Earth Eagle in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, are making some good stuff. Q. What style of beer did you think was going to be popular but it just didn’t happen? Greg: Jace: Drew:


Arroz gives Mike Isabella another hit in a growing D.C. dining empire

claim leftovers at the front door rather than making you sit with them. Previous: 901 Massachusetts Ave. NW. 202-869-3300. arrozbymic.com. Open: Prices: Sound check: More of Tom Sietsema’s top 10 new restaurants 10. Colada Shop 9. Kobo 8. Fish by José Andrés 7. Bindaas 6. Tiger Fork 5. Ambar 4. Arroz 3. Himitsu 2. Sfoglina 1. Mirabelle -- The following review was originally published April 7, 2017. Arroz finds a flavorful niche in Mike Isabella’s growing D.C. dining empire Practice makes perfect, or something approaching it. Just look at the efforts of Mike Isabella, who’s done an increasingly impressive job over the years of feeding us Greek food, starting with Kapnos in Washington, followed by other accents, including Japanese and Korean at Yona in Arlington. His ninth restaurant (not including concessions), Arroz in the Marriott Marquis, looks to Spain, Morocco and Portugal for inspiration. Spain, Isabella says, was the first country he visited in Europe 15 years ago. As for Morocco, “I love the flavors and spices.” With no similar themes nearby to compete with his idea, Isabella figures Arroz (Spanish for “rice”) is a good fit for the neighborhood. Definitely, the restaurant is easy to look at. The approach — an azure foyer followed by a long, carpet-paved hall — is especially dramatic. Lucky twosomes are shown to one of the cozy, keyhole-shaped booths opposite the front windows. Semiprivate, the seating nevertheless lets you feel part of the party. The elm tables? Credit Isabella’s father-in-law, Charlie Nemeth, for the sleek touch. Two-person booths provide a semiprivate setting while allowing diners to feel like they’re part of the party. (Dayna Smith/For The Washington Post) Isabella recruited Michael Rafidi from the well-regarded RN74 in San Francisco to head up the kitchen at Arroz. A Rockville native, Rafidi, 32, returned to the East Coast in January with the ultimate goal of opening his own restaurant, most likely an homage to his Lebanese background. For now, he’s doing food that’s likely to keep tables in demand. Dinner starts with a snack from the kitchen, one night baby carrots the size of a pinkie finger with a potent garlic crumble for dipping. From there, diners might move on to sweetbreads, fried so they crackle and dappled with orange marmalade tweaked with lime juice and fish sauce. (Try it, you’ll like it.) Smoked as if in a bonfire, “burnt” eggplant gets pureed with tahini, black


Russia condemns U.S. missile strike on Syria, suspends key air agreement

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes a U.S. missile strike on a Syrian airbase has "seriously hurt" the U.S.-Russia relationship, according to news agencies citing the Kremlin. MOSCOW — Even as Russian officials expressed hope that the strike against Syrian President Bashad al-Assad’s forces would not lead to an irreversible breakdown in U.S. relations with Moscow, the Kremlin’s decision to suspend the 2015 memorandum of understanding on the air operations immediately raised tensions in the skies over Syria. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the risk of confrontation between aerial assets of the U.S.-led coalition and Russia has “significantly increased” after President Trump ordered the launch of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base in retaliation for a chemical attack that killed scores of civilians. Later Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it has officially informed the United States that it is suspending its obligations under the memorandum at midnight. Washington Post reporter Dan Lamothe explains why President Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian military airfield on April 6 and what this means for the fight against the Islamic State. Under the pact, the two countries have traded information about flights by a U.S.-led coalition targeting the Islamic State and Russian planes operating in Syria in support of the Assad government. Moscow was taking its action, the Defense Ministry said, because it sees the U.S. strike “as a grave violation of the memorandum.” During a special U.N. Security Council session on the airstrikes Friday, Russia’s United Nations envoy condemned what he called an “illegitimate action by the United States.” “The consequences of this for regional and international stability could be extremely serious,” Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said. “The U.S. has often talked about the need to combat international terrorism,” he said, yet it attacked the Syrian air force, which he claimed is leading that fight in Syria. “It’s not difficult to imagine how much the spirits of terrorists have been raised by this action from the United States,” Safronkov said. Earlier in the session, the British representative had mocked Russia, saying that Assad is making a fool of his backers by committing war crimes and rebuffing Moscow’s effort to negotiate. “Russia sits here today humiliated by its failure to bring to heel a puppet dictator,” said Matthew Rycroft, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations. The session was requested by Bolivia, which wanted to hold it behind closed


National Symphony rises under conductor James Conlon

James Conlon conducts the National Symphony in a program that runs through Saturday at the Kennedy Center. (Dan Steinberg) In nearly 2½ decades of listening to the National Symphony Orchestra, seldom have I heard the ensemble play as well for any conductor as it did Thursday night for James Conlon. One of America’s foremost conductors, Conlon has a long history of guest appearances with the orchestra. Mutual familiarity and respect translated into compelling musicmaking of great intensity and beauty. As part of a series honoring the NSO’s longtime music director, Mstislav Rostropovich, the program focused on three composers with whom he had long, fruitful associations — Benjamin Britten, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. Unfortunately, traffic delays prevented my hearing the “Four Sea Interludes” from Britten’s opera “Peter Grimes,” which opened the program. French pianist Lise de la Salle, who made her NSO debut in Prokofiev’s First Concerto, is that rarity among musicians, a child prodigy who has continued to develop into a full-fledged artist combining virtuosity and significant communicative skill. She is strictly business, sitting at the instrument with beautifully erect posture and a minimum of fuss. Her rhythmic vitality is viscerally bracing, and she seems to revel in Prokofiev’s thorny cross-rhythms. Her carefully calibrated dynamic palette runs the gamut from whispered passages that nevertheless retain their clarity to fierce fortissimos that are resonant rather than aggressive. In a languid slow movement, de la Salle threaded gossamer figurations around superbly executed wind solos. The hand-in-glove ensemble was most dazzling in the antic finale. After a witty give-and-take between soloist and orchestra that continually confounded expectations, as the concerto’s opening theme returned, enhanced by a full complement of percussion, it seemed as if the concert hall itself began to sparkle. If critical commentary and frequency of performance are indicators of a musical work’s continued vitality, then Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, first heard 80 years ago this November, is alive and well. Claims and counterclaims about the symphony’s inspiration and meaning are still debated. But it’s safe to say that it was with this symphony that Shostakovich reestablished his reputation as a leader of Soviet music in the wake of scathing official condemnation during the Stalinist Terror. French pianist Lise de la Salle is making her NSO debut in Prokofiev’s First Concerto. (Marco Borggreve) From the beginning, this performance emerged with great seriousness of purpose, unfolding with the unaffected naturalness of speech. Anguished


Malala to become U.N. Messenger of Peace

Malala Yousafzai, shown in 2015, will become a United Nations Messenger of Peace, the organization announced Friday. Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban at age 15 for promoting the education of girls in Pakistan. (Andrew Gombert/European Pressphoto Agency) Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is to become the youngest United Nations Messenger of Peace, the organization’s chief said Friday. Yousafzai, 19, will be appointed on Monday by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and will help promote girls’ education around the world as part of her new role. The Pakistani education activist came to prominence when a Taliban gunman shot her in the head on her school bus in 2012 as punishment for campaigning for girls to go to school. The militant Islamic group had banned education for girls and women. Yousafzai has since continued campaigning on the world stage and in 2014 became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner. “Even in the face of grave danger, Malala Yousafzai has shown an unwavering commitment to the rights of women, girls and all people,” Guterres said in statement. “Her courageous activism for girls’ education has already energized so many people around the world. Now as our youngest-ever U.N. Messenger of Peace, Malala can do even more to help create a more just and peaceful world.” Yousafzai, who received medical treatment in Britain where she has since studied, has also set up the Malala Fund to support girls’ education projects in developing countries. A regular speaker on the global stage, Yousafzai visited refugee camps in Rwanda and Kenya last July to highlight the plight of refugee girls from Burundi and Somalia.


Running marathons may hurt your kidneys

(iStockphoto) The question Marathon running can produce an array of benefits, both physical and psychological. It also comes with risks, including dehydration and heat exhaustion. Is kidney damage a risk as well? This study The study involved 22 men and women who competed in a Connecticut marathon. On average, they were 44 years old, had run five previous marathons and were described as fairly healthy, with no evidence of kidney disorders. They all completed the 26.2-mile course, finishing in just over four hours, on average. Blood and urine samples were collected 24 hours before the marathon, within 30 minutes of finishing the race and again 24 hours later. Analysis of the samples showed that, across the board, levels of creatinine (a waste product in blood that is removed by the kidneys) and albumin (a protein normally found in small amounts in urine) had increased twofold to threefold after the marathon, indicating that the kidneys were not working as they should. Cell analysis suggested structural damage to the kidneys in 73 percent of the participants. In 82 percent of the runners, the findings were indicative of at least Stage 1 kidney damage (acute kidney injury). Who may be affected? Marathon runners. In an average year, more than half a million people finish a marathon in the United States. Caveats The study involved a very small number of participants. The researchers described the kidney damage as “transient” but did not include data on when or whether the indicators of kidney injury declined or returned to normal. Whether the potential for kidney damage varies by the number of marathons people have run remains unclear. Find this study Online in the American Journal of Kidney Disease Learn more about Information on kidneys is available at niddk.nih.gov (search for “kidneys how they work”) and kidney.org (search for “acute kidney injury”). The research described in Quick Study comes from credible, peer-reviewed journals.


Was Trump’s Syria strike a moral impulse or a policy change?

corpses of Syrian children as a private citizen may provoke feelings of anger and helplessness. When a president sees the corpses of Syrian children, he is by no means helpless. When some moral norms are violated, it is not only the perpetrator who incurs responsibility; it is the bystanders as well. It seems that Trump felt this burden. And it is a sign that maybe, just maybe, the office has begun to shape the man. Whatever his motivation, Trump’s military actions have moved beyond the Iraq War Syndrome. And they represent a defeat for global Bannonism — the search for stability through the cultivation of despots and strongmen. We still have no idea whether Trump’s military response was a moral impulse alone or a policy change. A symbol or a strategy. We know that Trump is capable of impulsive ad hockery. There is less reason to be confident he is thinking three, four or five steps down the road. Does this signal a new attitude toward Russia’s expanded role in the Middle East or to the status of Assad in Syria’s future? Will every future mass atrocity gain such treatment? And why, when you think about it, is the crime of using nerve agents against civilians more heinous than killing them with forced starvation or barrel bombs? The specter haunting U.S. foreign policy is not so much the Iraq War as the Libya debacle. The imminent destruction of Benghazi provoked a moral and military response from Obama — an air campaign that worked well in its initial stages. But little thought and fewer resources were devoted to the follow-up. And what resulted was a jihadist playground. The problem with Obama’s Syria response was not just its moral bankruptcy or its lack of credibility. It was a woefully inadequate response to the largest strategic and moral challenge of our time — the collapse of sovereignty at the heart of the Middle East, with radiating effects throughout the region, Europe and beyond. And this failure would not have been rectified by a few dozen guided missiles. Our current president will find that a Tomahawk missile is not the equivalent of a particularly nasty tweet. It is the conduct of war against a foreign power. And it demands a strategy of equal seriousness. Read more from Michael Gerson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook Read more here:


Inside the NSO’s grand return to Russia

emotional stop-and-start movement, holding out pauses, catapulting to big emotional climaxes. Still, the symphony had many powerful moments and connected more with the audience than the Schubert 9th appeared to the night before. Some wiped away tears, and the applause felt more immediate and more insistent, which it had to be to coax an encore from Eschenbach after this draining music. Sibelius’s graceful, aching “Valse Triste” proved a poignant follow-up. For the orchestra’s last night in Moscow, the Rostropovich International Festival threw a lavish post-concert reception for the musicians on the top floor of the Ritz, where a rooftop terrace offered a panorama of Red Square and the Kremlin, some of the buildings lit up with strings of lights like a Texas subdivision at Christmastime. Inside, with abundant food and an open bar, Eschenbach chatted with musicians; Weilerstein took a night off from motherhood — she was traveling with her daughter, who celebrated her first birthday the following day — and Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter was in her element as a former orchestra executive. She was last here with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2012. Even Joshua Bell, the star violinist, showed up, since he happened to be staying in the same hotel. The music world is very small. The needle-nosed rapid train from Moscow to St. Petersburg takes about four hours, much of which, after the excesses of the previous night, the musicians spent asleep. Getting more than 100 people from place to place — along with the 30 or so NSO patrons who also made the trip — is a mind-bending job. This was the 30th NSO tour led by the Alexandria-based company Classical Movements, which specializes in tours for orchestras and choruses. The two full-time staffers it sent to Russia were fully occupied with travel logistics. What do you do when most of the orchestra’s luggage fails to make a tight plane connection and the authorities insist all the musicians have to come out to the airport, with their passports, to claim their bags? The staffers often worked past midnight to make sure the orchestra never had to know; magically, the missing luggage appeared at the hotel in the wee hours of the morning. The orchestra’s tour managers had similar challenges getting the instruments and wardrobe trunks transported on such a tight schedule, with myriad unexpected hitches along the way. It was, they said, one of


The Falcon 9 rocket stands tall

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 30. (Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via Associated Press) The March 31 news article “SpaceX launches, retrieves its first recycled rocket” mentioned a “15-foot booster.” A Falcon 9 booster is 135 feet tall. The interstage brings it to 150 feet, and with the second stage and capsule, the entire rocket is about 230 feet in height (and 12 feet in diameter). Al Friebe, Springfield


The Trump administration is ill-prepared for a global pandemic

from new infectious diseases, drug-resistant infections and potential bioterrorism organisms, despite advances in medicine and technology, experts say. Not only has the total number of outbreaks increased in the past three decades, but the scale, impact and methods of transmission also have expanded because of climate change, urbanization and globalization. The outbreak of Ebola that erupted in West Africa eventually infected more than 28,000 people and killed more than 11,000. MERS has killed nearly 2,000 people in 27 countries. Health officials around the world are monitoring a strain of deadly bird flu, H7N9, that is causing China’s largest outbreak on record, killing 40 percent of people with confirmed infections. Here's a look at the pandemics that made it to our shores. Of all emerging infectious disease threats, a global influenza outbreak is everyone’s worst fear because it could be highly lethal and highly contagious. A particularly virulent influenza pandemic that started in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. Today’s H7N9 strain poses the greatest risk of a pandemic if it evolves to spread easily from human to human, according to U.S. officials. Last month, several Democratic lawmakers wrote HHS Secretary Tom Price to raise concerns about the nation’s ability to respond to infectious disease threats. They also asked about the vacancies and the impact of proposed budget cuts in the event of a flu pandemic. They received no response. “Our whole community is kind of ear to the ground trying to figure out any clues we can discern,” said Rebecca Katz, co-director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University’s Medical Center. Global health security “is clearly an issue that needs to be taken up by the heads of state,” said one European official who declined to be identified because her government does not want to appear critical of the United States. Diseases travel fast and don’t recognize borders. In today’s connected world, a disease can be transported from a rural village to any major city within 36 hours. “It’s not just from travel of people, but birds, too,” she said. Referring to Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the border with Mexico, she added: “You can’t build walls to stop birds.” Global health security In Cameroon, the government developed a new emergency operations center able to respond within 24 hours to an outbreak of a highly lethal bird flu last year, removing more


This IT firm got rid of its federal work during sequestration. Now it wants back in.

and his counterparts at HP settled on plans to combine their businesses into an information technology firm that would sell IT services mainly to other businesses, with a smaller portion of government work. While the old CSC was seen largely as a Beltway contractor, investors now hope the $26 billion-a-year DXC will have the scale and energy to compete with business giants such as IBM and Accenture. But in the process, DXC also hopes to build on the U.S. government business it inherited from HP. Almost a quarter of the combined company’s revenue comes from government services, about half of that from the U.S. government, according to company financial documents. Lawrie said he expects the government-oriented segment of the company to “grow a little bit” moving forward. “The general feeling is there will be more expenditure in the U.S. public sector than there has been over the last three or four years,” Lawrie said last week in a presentation to investors. “We do think sequestration is finally going to be behind us.” President Trump has said he wants to end sequestration and spend money building the military. At the same time, Trump has proposed deep spending cuts at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department, leading some analysts to say agencies may start looking for technology solutions to operate more efficiently. “Government services companies see themselves as being a part of the shake-up rather than a victim of the shake-up,” said Bob Kipps, an investment banker who specializes in aerospace and defense companies. Even before Trump began outlining his plans, agencies were increasingly moving out of government data centers and onto Internet cloud networks managed by the private sector. It’s far too early to know whether the Trump administration will try to keep that trend going, but there are initial indications that it might. Trump’s “SWAT team,” to be run by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and meant to bring business ideas into government, listed “modernizing Government services and information technology” as something it wants to do. “If you’ve got someone that close to the president thinking about it — or that close to the president’s daughter, anyway — you’d think that escalates the priority for spending on government IT,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel for the Professional Service Counsel, which represents contractors. “But even if it happens, it’s not going to happen overnight.”


Hans Dehmelt, physicist who won Nobel Prize for trapping single electrons, dies at 94

Hans G. Dehmelt was a physicist who won a Nobel Prize for making possible the trapping of single electrons. (Davis Freeman/University of Washington) Hans G. Dehmelt, a German army veteran who served at Stalingrad and in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, studied physics in his postwar civilian life and won the Nobel Prize for making possible the trapping of single electrons, died March 7 in Seattle. He was 94. The University of Washington in Seattle, where he had been on the faculty for much of his career, announced the death but did not provide a cause. Probably none of the particles that compose the atom is as well known or as prominent in the devices of daily life as the electron. Great streams of electrons flow as electric currents through the wiring of computers, calculators and all sorts of communications equipment. They are everywhere and impossible to escape or do without. Dr. Dehmelt’s major scientific contribution was developing a technique for isolating a single electron, pinning it down, fixing it in a place where its properties could be carefully studied without interference from the environment. The technique he devised in the 1950s used electrical and magnetic fields to seize and hold individual electrons. The technique is also used for trapping other charged particles or ions. The electron is a negatively charged particle and as such responds to electrical and magnetic forces. For his work, Dr. Dehmelt shared half of the 1989 Nobel Prize in physics with Wolfgang Paul, of the University of Bonn in Germany, who worked in the same area. The other half went to Norman Ramsey of Harvard University. Dr. Dehmelt’s efforts helped make possible the study of important properties of electrons not in vast numbers, but on the level of individual carriers of electrical charge. Atomic properties depend on the laws of quantum mechanics that permit only fixed, or quantized, energy levels. Electromagnetic radiation is emitted or absorbed in transitions among these levels. More precise information about these levels and this radiation is obtainable if the sample involved can be reduced in size to a single particle, and if that particle can be studied over a sufficient duration. Trapping individual electrons makes it possible to gain more precise knowledge of their properties as infinitesimally small magnets. It also has applications to quantum computing. Dr. Dehmelt traced his years of work on electron trapping


2017 Pulitzer Prize winners

The complete list of 2017 Pulitzer Prize winners. JOURNALISM Public Service Winner: New York Daily News and ProPublica Finalists: Chicago Tribune; Houston Chronicle Breaking News Reporting Winner: Staff of East Bay Times (Oakland, Calif.) Finalists: Dallas Morning News staff; Orlando Sentinel staff Investigative Reporting Winner: Eric Eyre of the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette-Mail Finalists: Michael J. Berens and Patricia Callahan of the Chicago Tribune; Steve Reilly of the USA Today Network Explanatory Reporting Winner: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and Miami Herald Finalists: Joan Garrett McClane and Joy Lukachick Smith of the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press; Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu, Lauren Kirchner and Terry Parris Jr. of ProPublica; staff of National Geographic Local Reporting Winner: The Salt Lake Tribune Staff Finalists: Jenna Russell, Maria Cramer, Michael Rezendes, Todd Wallack and Scott Helman of the Boston Globe; Michael Schwirtz, Michael Winerip and Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times National Reporting Winner: David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post Finalists: Renee Dudley, Steve Stecklow, Alexandra Harney and other members of the Reuters staff; the Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff International Reporting Winner: The New York Times staff Finalists: Chris Hamby of BuzzFeed News; International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and the Miami Herald; the Wall Street Journal staff Feature Writing Winner: C.J. Chivers of the New York Times Finalists: Adam Entous and Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal; Eli Saslow of The Washington Post Commentary Winner: Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal Finalists: Dahleen Glanton of the Chicago Tribune; Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Media Network Criticism Winner: Hilton Als of the New Yorker Finalists: Laura Reiley of the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times; Ty Burr of the Boston Globe Editorial Writing Winner: Art Cullen of the Storm Lake (Iowa) Times Finalists: Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post; Joe Holley and Evan Mintz of the Houston Chronicle Editorial Cartooning Winner: Jim Morin of the Miami Herald Finalists: Jen Sorensen, freelance cartoonist; Steve Sack of the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) Breaking News Photography Winner: Daniel Berehulak, freelance photographer Finalists: Jonathan Bachman, freelance photographer; photography staff of the Associated Press Feature Photography Winner: E. Jason Wambsgans of the Chicago Tribune Finalists: Jake May of the Flint (Mich.) Journal; Katie Falkenberg of the Los Angeles Times BOOKS, DRAMA AND MUSIC Fiction Winner: “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead Finalists: “Imagine Me Gone,” by Adam Haslett; “The Sport of Kings,” by C. E. Morgan Drama


Catch a special Craft Brewers Conference edition of History & Hops

Beer is poured at the back bar of Right Proper Brewing Company in the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest Washington. Head brewer Nathan Zeender hosts a Craft Brewers Conference edition of History & Hops at the Heurich House on Thursday. (Craig Hudson/For The Washington Post) TODAY COOKING CLASS: THURSDAY HISTORY HOPS: SATURDAY COOKING CLASS: TUESDAY WINE CLASS: RESERVE NOW APRIL 19 COOKING CLASS: APRIL 22 CRAWFISH BOIL: CRAWFISH FOR CANCER: OYSTER FEST: SPRING BARLEY MUSIC FEST: — Kara Elder Submit event listings at events.washpost.com at least 14 days in advance. Events are subject to cancellation.


Whole Foods debuts in Riverdale Park, another symbol of Prince George’s progress

Graydon Hipple, 9, runs on a ledge outside the Whole Foods Market at Riverdale Park Station on April 9 in Prince George’s County. The store opens to the public Wednesday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) Prince George’s County’s first Whole Foods Market will open Wednesday with much fanfare. Store employees will tear a five-foot-long golden brown loaf of challah baked in-house and give customers a taste. And Prince George’s County will get a sweet taste of victory. Not just because the store is bringing 170 jobs to the county. Or because it will give residents of the county’s Route 1 corridor a high-end grocer where they can buy natural and organic products. Or because the wait for those doors to open took more than six years of planning, construction and delays. “This opening is the realization that the county is competitive with the region,” County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) said. “It symbolizes change.” The opening means Prince George’s, the most affluent majority-African American jurisdiction in the United States and one long ignored by big-name chains and businesses, is no longer an afterthought, Baker said. Scott Gunn stands with his family, daughter Mary, 11; his wife, Susan Gunn; and daughters Lillian, 16, and Colleen, 14, at an open house for the new Prince George’s Whole Foods Market. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) “No one believed that the county could put out the resources, the energy and manpower to push projects through,” Baker said. “That all changed after Whole Foods. That was important to give developers and business folks the confidence to come here.” The Riverdale Park store’s opening follows the December debut of the $1.4 billion MGM National Harbor casino resort in the southern part of the county and a wave of redevelopment in its northern end in Laurel. New residential and commercial projects are in the pipeline for New Carrollton, in central Prince George’s. And the Route 1 corridor, where the Whole Foods is located, is experiencing a construction boom from the District line to the Capital Beltway. But it took a while to get here, Baker administration officials say, recalling the efforts to bring the Austin-based grocer as a major turning point. The store opens in Prince George’s years after the chain established itself in nearly every other jurisdiction in the region — including five stores in both the District and Montgomery County. “We should have had one years


that homes nearby are selling quickly. Many are going to millennials looking to settle in an area where housing is more affordable than in other parts of the Washington region but with the same amenities. Elected officials anticipate the store will bring more vibrancy to the area, much like the revival of Logan Circle in the District, which many said was linked to the opening of a Whole Foods on P Street NW more than a decade ago. “The Whole Foods effect is real,” said state Sen. Paul G. Pinsky (D-Prince George’s). Two miles north of the Whole Foods, in College Park, a four-star hotel and conference center are set to open this year. The $115 million project will include a Mike Isabella restaurant and other dining options. Two academic buildings and student housing are under construction on the U-Md. campus, and an apartment building is set to open this year. Several small shops have announced leases, including a Vigilante Coffee shop that will replace a liquor store this summer, a vintage fashion and furniture boutique, and a Halal Guys casual restaurant. A university day-care center is in the pipeline. Alex Grob, 7, samples a slice of pizza during an open house at the new Whole Foods Market in Prince George’s. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) “Ten years ago, I said one day we would have people eating alfresco in the county. Now it is happening,” Pinsky said. “We see people on Friday night having a meal and having a drink. Just like downtown.” Morrissey said she still worries about the effect all the growth will have on traffic, schools, police and emergency services. But with the Cafritz development well underway, she said, the community is cheering for its success. “We don’t want it to fail. We don’t want it to be a ghost town with tumbleweeds coming through the street,” said Morrissey, who visited the Whole Foods during an open house Sunday. “I know people are excited about it, and I hope they shop there.” For Whole Foods, which is facing increased competition from supermarkets and big-box stores that are selling more organic products — often at lower prices — Prince George’s and its 900,000 residents offer an opportunity to expand its reach. “Customers [in Prince George’s] who do shop at Whole Foods have to do so in Montgomery County or D.C., and now they don’t have to do that


Bill to diversify Md. medical marijuana industry fails in final seconds of session

Maryland Del. Cheryl B. Glenn, who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus, faced a last-minute defeat on the final day of the legislative session when a bill to diversify the medical marijuana industry failed. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) The leader of Maryland’s powerful Legislative Black Caucus knew she was facing defeat. Del. Cheryl D. Glenn (D-Baltimore) made diversifying the state’s new medical marijuana industry a top priority for the largest caucus in the General Assembly, and the issue is personal. Maryland’s marijuana-regulating commission is named after her mother, Natalie M. LaPrade, who died before she could use the drug to alleviate her cancer symptoms. As a black woman, Glenn was tired of seeing her neighbors disproportionately locked up under drug laws but shut out of the profits of drug legalization. In the waning moments of the 2017 legislative session Monday, Glenn secured the votes for a bill giving minorities a shot at five new licenses to grow marijuana under the state’s lucrative medical cannabis program. But she ran out of time. With 22 minutes until the midnight deadline to send bills to Gov. Larry Hogan (R), Glenn marched over to the dais as presiding officers allowed time to praise legislative staff instead of considering legislation. She stood watch, pleading for her bill to have a hearing. With barely 10 minutes left, members of a health committee rushed into the hallway to vote on approving amendments to end a standoff with the Senate over giving licenses to a pair of prospective marijuana growers suing state regulators. At 11:55 p.m., the bill came up before the full House. One by one, Republican lawmakers delayed the vote by explaining their opposition and asking questions until the clock hit midnight. Confetti and balloons fell from the balcony to celebrate the end of the 90-day session. Glenn did not smile and rushed out of the State House. Asked about the failure of the medical marijuana legislation, House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) quipped, “I need some.” After months of fighting over who can share in the profits of marijuana legalization, Maryland lawmakers ended up back where they started. In a state that is nearly a third black, none of the companies approved to start growing Maryland’s first legal marijuana as early as this summer are owned by African Americans. And the state is still embroiled in a legal battle with two applicants who were rejected


Raw thighs, tummy trouble and other running struggles they don’t tell you about

water. “I can’t do any solid food for up to two hours before a race,” Firestone says. For longer training runs and races, usually 10 miles or more, many runners require some food mid-run. Sports gels are popular, although some folks prefer “real” food. Just like with hydration, small bites rule. Surprises can include cramping and diarrhea. The likely reasons for so many runners having gastric distress, called “runner’s diarrhea,” include jostling of the organs, nerves and anxiety, and a lack of blood flow to the intestines. Although runner’s diarrhea isn’t fully understood and can’t always be avoided, coaches recommend hydrating appropriately (early and often), avoiding caffeine and alcohol, and reducing anxiety as much as possible. But it all depends on the individual. Some people can drink tubs of coffee, while that would send others on repeated nature breaks. Some can tolerate high-fat foods, while others can’t. Ford even completed a race where he consumed 11 doughnuts midway and another where he enjoyed a chili half-smoke. “You can get used to running with food in you. But it’s not at your normal race pace,” he says. “It’s a fun event, not really a race.” Hot days: Slow down Whether you’re training or racing, a hot day is likely to mean a slower pace. Or, as Ford experienced in a marathon a few years ago, you might hit a wall, getting lead legs with many miles to go. “I had a great first 19 miles, and the last part was a death march,” he says. He was participating in the Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon in New Orleans in late February, after having trained in the D.C. winter, and it was 78 degrees and humid. “I didn’t fully account for the humidity, and my pace was too fast in the beginning,” Ford says. His goal was a 3:45 finish, and he was on target for that until Mile 19. The last few miles were significantly slower. He finished in 4:17. Bernardes knows the scenario well and says she starts “stupid slow” on hot and humid days. “No matter what, unless you are a regular racer, no one is going to run a [personal record] on a hot day,” Bernardes says. If the temperature is over 80, with humidity of 80 percent or more, she recommends slowing down by 20 seconds per mile. And make sure you’re dressed properly for the weather. Many


Baltimore school system put students at risk with unqualified bus drivers, investigators say

five school bus crashes Chappell was involved in between 2011 and 2015, he had passed out and injured a teacher’s aide on board, investigators found. Chappell had a history of hypertension, diabetes and seizures that caused him to black out, according to the federal findings. After one 2011 crash in which Chappell passed out, the school system’s transportation supervisor failed to have a conference with him as required by state law, the report said. “The NTSB concludes that BCPS did not adequately document or review the school bus driver’s prior crashes or take appropriate action in response to the October 14, 2011, crash in which the driver passed out while driving a school bus,” the report said. The school system also didn’t appear to track Chappell’s driving record in personnel files, even though the contractor that employed him sent 11 alerts involving criminal charges against him between 2011 and 2014, the report said. A school bus contractor in a neighboring Maryland school system had previously rejected Chappell for a position because of his criminal record and traffic violations, the report said. In addition to auditing the school system’s transportation department, the agency suggested the Maryland State Department of Education work to clarify policies on when a driver should be disqualified for a position and develop a database that would alert other school systems of people who have been found unqualified to drive a school bus. In response to the NTSB report, the school system said in a statement that it has already changed several safety protocols, including establishing “systematic and ongoing auditing of driver certification status, increased review of drivers following accidents regardless of cause or fault, enhanced programs for driver retraining and in-vehicle monitoring.” The school system also said it has implemented protocols to improve communications between the district and bus companies it has under contract to provide service. “The report received today from the National Transportation Safety Board will contribute to continuous improvement of our transportation services,” the statement said. The transportation board acknowledged the school system’s changes but urged it to go further: “Although BCPS has taken some steps to improve its processes, the risks posed by unqualified drivers remain.” Read more: Firefighters and cancer: Is a risky job even riskier? In a community of million-dollar homes, a fight over a $500 mailbox ends in court Behind the rise in seemingly chaotic MS-13 violence: A structured hierarchy


Bear cub found on a porch in Maryland causes an Internet stir

Casey Love said seeing bears in his town of Lonaconing, Maryland — just west of Cumberland — is a pretty regular occurrence. “[The bears] come and take the bird feeders down. They get into the pond and get the apples out of the yard,” he said. He even remembers one coming to his garage. But one bear cub has received exceptional fanfare this week after it was found taking a stroll on Love’s neighbor’s porch. “It was literally just walking around the banister just as a cat would do when you’re coming home,” said Love, 31. Love said he was helping his neighbor lift a lawnmower from his truck on Monday when they spotted a cub the size of a small Labrador puppy. Looking into the woods behind the home, Love said the cub’s mother was nowhere in sight. “We were more or less worried about the safety of the bear,” Love said, and so they decided to carefully remove the cub from the porch and away from the road. They placed it in a tree nearby the woods and called the Department of Natural Resources. The cub was tagged, so the DNR staff was able to use a radio tracker to locate the mother bear, who was wearing a tracking collar, Love said. Love posted the pictures and video on Facebook, which received more than 400 shares and myriad comments — most featuring heart-eyed emojis and people expressing their concern for the bear. “I never knew a little bear cub would be so popular,” Love said. But he has gotten some criticism for the photos — many people were upset that they picked the bear up. Love said that, though he knows it is advised to never go near a bear, he noticed it was frightened and wanted to be sure that it was safe. “We did it literally to get it out of the roadway,” he said. “We did what we thought was the best judgment.” (From The Baltimore Sun) Read more: After a shooting and cross-country trip, orphaned grizzly bear sisters make zoo debut Photo captures bear outside Arby’s restaurant in Leesburg


Montgomery County Animal Watch

Montgomery county These cases were received by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division. For information, call 240-773-5900. This number provides recorded information on topics such as the new animal services and adoption center’s hours and location in Derwood, adoption and licensing procedures, and lost-and-found and field services. Dog attack: Aggressive dogs: 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


Kim Jong Un’s rockets are getting an important boost — from China

spoke on the condition of anonymity in describing diplomatic negotiations. “With them, it was never a team sport. It was always just the bare minimum of what they had to do in order to avoid having to take serious action.” The Unha-3, the rocket that launched North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite into orbit on Feb. 7, 2016, was among the most powerful ever built by Kim Jong Un’s government. It is also the most worrisome. U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials have long believed that the three-stage, 100-foot-tall rocket was designed as a forerunner for a future nuclear-tipped space vehicle that could allow North Korea to threaten cities as far away as Washington. Mindful that spy agencies would seek to recover spent parts after the launch, North Korean engineers laced the rocket with explosives so that each stage would self-destruct while hurtling back to Earth. Still, South Korean navy ships were waiting to scoop up any parts that survived, eventually harvesting enough components to allow a crude reconstruction of the entire rocket. Investigators determined that the Unha-3’s frame was indigenously made. But inside the rocket’s shell was an array of electronics, including specialized pressure sensors, transmitters and circuitry. An extensive probe by U.S. and South Korean officials revealed that many of the components had been manufactured in Western countries and shipped to North Korea by Chinese distributors — a finding that was echoed in the United Nations Panel of Experts report made public on March 9. The report, which received scant attention outside the world body, described elaborate systems for disguising technology exports intended for North Korea. Some schemes involved Chinese front companies created by North Korean intelligence agencies; others were run through banks created as joint ventures by Pyongyang and foreign partners, including Chinese financial institutions. As sanctions grew tougher, the sanction-busters simply learned new tricks for getting around the rules, the panel’s investigators found. “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is flouting sanctions through trade in prohibited goods, with evasion techniques that are increasing in scale, scope and sophistication,” the eight-member panel concluded. International resolve for approving new sanctions had “not yet been matched,” the report said, “by the requisite political will, prioritization and resource allocation to ensure effective implementation.” Some of the banned components exported to North Korea can’t be found inside a missile frame. A separate report by U.S. weapons experts reveals how Pyongyang used Chinese middlemen


The Baltimore theater scene’s new projects: Buildings and songs

been technically upgraded but is fundamentally unchanged. It’s currently home to writer-performer Kelvin Roston Jr.’s solo “Twisted Melodies,” a brilliantly sung but intense downer of a musical about the mentally ill pop-R&B singer Donny Hathaway (“This Christmas,” “Where Is the Love” and other duets with Roberta Flack), who took his own life in 1979. The new Head was shown off with Natsu Onoda Power’s fantastical staging of Mary Zimmerman’s “The White Snake,” an eyeful (and earful, with seven live musicians) that made expert use of the ample thrust stage jutting into the audience. The Chinese fable was well suited to the simple backdrop, outsize costumes and heightened acting of Power’s production — now closed, to make room on the stage for the Third Space’s April 13-23 debut with British playwright Polly Stenham’s drama “That Face.” All Third Space tickets are $25. Everyman Theatre Everyman is so rooted in Baltimore actors that company members’ faces adorn the decor of the redesigned bank space it opened in 2012. “Los Otros” is different: It’s the company’s first musical, doubly notable as the East Coast premiere of a 90-minute suite by Tony-nominated composer Michael John LaChiusa. Judy McLane in the Michael John LaChiusa-Ellen Fitzhugh musical "Los Otros" at Everyman Theatre. (ClintonBPhotography) The two-character piece about two very different lives (straight white woman, gay Latino man) that gradually intersect is authoritatively sung by New York-based performers Philip Hernandez and Judy McLane, with music direction by Signature Theatre’s Jon Kalbfleisch. It’s not a big, splashy show; in its essential concentration on the score (and in its fundamental social justice concern), it recalls the far more overtly political Andrew Lippa oratorio “I Am Anne Hutchinson”/“I Am Harvey Milk” last year at Strathmore. Not coincidentally, the director of these like-minded projects is Noah Himmelstein, Everyman’s new associate artistic director. Himmelstein shows utter comfort telling “Los Otros” through the alternating narrative streams set up by LaChiusa and Ellen Fitzhugh, whose book and lyrics are almost entirely free of cliche. (The story is partly autobiographical.) The incidents are vivid, which is a tribute to Fitzhugh’s lyrical economy and LaChiusa’s fluid music, played by six musicians (guitar, bass, percussion, keyboard, trumpet, reeds). Picture the Mexican family secretly hopping off a train. Imagine illegally ferrying your new Mexican nanny across the border in your trunk. Feel the apprehension as the young migrant worker nearly gets caught by the boss with his pants


Scientists say alien life may be closer than we think — on an icy moon of Saturn

2015, when it dove deeper than ever through the moon’s clouds of vapor and particles. The researchers reported that the hydrogen, along with carbon dioxide that was also found, could mean that undersea microorganisms are producing methane. The gas is produced in a similar way in Earth’s oceans and waterways. An illustration of Cassini above Saturn. It will dive toward the planet and burn up in September, at the end of its mission. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via European Pressphoto Agency) “It really represents a capstone finding” — or high point — “for the mission,” said Linda Spilker, a scientist on the Cassini project who noted that the spacecraft has been circling Saturn for more than a decade. “We now know that Enceladus has almost all of the ingredients that you would need to support life as we know it on Earth,” she said at a NASA news conference. Observers asked the scientists questions using Twitter, including whether NASA was talking about tiny bacteria or something much bigger, such as giant squids. “Most of us would be excited with any life,” said Mary Voytek, a senior scientist for NASA. “We’re going to start with bacteria and, if we get lucky, maybe there’s something that’s larger.” The findings were reported Thursday in the journal Science by a team from Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. Launched in 1997, Cassini is now finally running low on fuel. The spacecraft will duck through the gap between Saturn and its rings 22 times before spiraling out of control and burning up in the sky above Saturn this September. A photograph of Enceladus taken by Cassini in November 2016. (NASA/JPL-Caltech and Space Science Institute via Reuters) Cassini has no instruments that can detect life, so it will be up to future robotic visitors to seek out possible life on Enceladus, the scientists said. Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter that is also believed to have an ocean, may have water-vapor jets spewing into space as well, similar to Enceladus. The Hubble Space Telescope has observed what looks to be plumes, or long clouds, coming from Europa. A spacecraft under development called the Europa Clipper could shed more light on the matter. It’s set to launch sometime in the 2020s. Voytek said her money is still on Europa for potential life, versus Enceladus. Europa is much older, and any potential life there has had more time to emerge.


Even Canadians are skipping trips to the U.S. after Trump travel ban

damage has been done. And it could be compounded by recent reports of Trump administration plans to implement “extreme vetting” of foreign travelers. Visitors — including those from allies such as France and Germany — could be pressed to turn over mobile phone contacts, social media passwords and financial records, according to a Wall Street Journal report. “The travel ban is only a negative at this point,” said Michael Bellisario, an analyst for the investment bank Robert W. Baird & Co. “It hurts travel, regardless of whether we’re talking about one of the six banned countries or not,” he said, referring to the second, revised entry ban. Demand for flights to the United States has fallen in nearly every country since January, according to Hopper, a travel-booking app that analyzes more than 10 billion daily airfare price quotes to derive its data. Searches for U.S. flights from China and Iraq have dropped 40 percent since Trump’s inauguration, while demand in Ireland and New Zealand is down about 35 percent. (One exception: Russia, where searches for flights to the United States have surged 60 percent since January.) The result could be an estimated 4.3 million fewer people coming to the United States this year, resulting in $7.4 billion in lost revenue, according to Tourism Economics, a Philadelphia-based analytics firm. Next year, the fallout is expected to be even larger, with 6.3 million fewer tourists and $10.8 billion in losses. Miami is expected to be hit hardest, followed by San Francisco and New York, the firm said. The administration’s travel ban deals a blow to an industry that has only recently recovered from a $600 billion loss following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “In the aftermath of 9/11, at first people didn’t feel safe coming here, and then they didn’t feel welcome,” said Jonathan Grella, an executive vice president at the U.S. Travel Association. “Our industry still refers to that as ‘the lost decade.’ There is a very real risk that that could happen again.” Flight attendants in Los Angeles watch a protest of the immigration ban imposed by President Trump. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) A demonstrator holds an American flag during a rally at San Francisco International Airport. (Stephen Lam/Getty Images) Broad-based apprehension As anecdotal evidence mounts, industry experts say it’s increasingly clear that travelers from all over — Canada and Mexico, Europe and Asia — are rethinking their plans to visit


Want to take that marijuana prescription to the yoga studio?

A yoga instructor’s book aims to bring relaxation to a new high. (Courtesy of Harper Collins) Maybe you already smoke (medicinal) pot or get into downward dog when you’re stressed-out. “But if you haven’t combined the two, you’re in for a treat,” writes yoga instructor Dee Dussault in her new book, “Ganja Yoga.” That’s also the name of the “cannabis-enhanced” classes she has created and teaches in San Francisco. Now she’s hoping to spread the practice by compiling her philosophy and advice. Chapter 1 provides a quick outline of marijuana as medicine, citing the number of conditions it’s used to treat, including pain, anxiety and depression. Medical marijuana is legal in the District and some states. The next chapter tackles yoga, and how relaxation and movement can make anyone feel better. Add it all up, Dussault says, and the benefits are off the chart. “Think about it like peanut butter and chocolate: Each is fantastic on its own, but when they come together, each makes the other better,” she writes. In her case, she says, marijuana deepens her senses, which has allowed her to treat her chronic back pain by “really feeling and releasing tiny muscular or energetic holds.” Dussault says in her book that there are dangers to the duo, although she’s most worried about overstretching, which can happen in any yoga class. She emphasizes the importance of selecting both a strain of marijuana and a style of yoga that “are in alignment with our intention for the practice.” Otherwise, you might end up too anxious. Another thing that might stress you out is going to jail, but Dussault glosses over that possibility. Instead, she addresses what may happen if you go to a traditional studio while high. Dussault recounts the time she and a buddy hit an exhausting Ashtanga class after downing a ganja milkshake. A summary: It was wacky! Because most people can’t make it to a class like Dussault’s, she offers DIY tips. Trying this with friends at home? “One person can be designated as leader for the session, to ensure the toking circle doesn’t end up chatting all night.” And Dussault notes that it’s important to recognize when any tool you’re using in your yoga practice — be it marijuana or soft music — is becoming a crutch. For balance, she suggests trying to go without, at least some of the time. It’s also worth


Man arrested in killing of 79-year-old on Capitol Hill

A man who was found fatally stabbed inside a rowhouse Sunday afternoon near Stanton Park on Capitol Hill has been identified, and a 21-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the slaying, D.C. police said. David Norwood, 79, of Northeast Washington was pronounced dead at the scene in the 600 block of C Street NE. His body was discovered about 1:40 p.m. The house is between Massachusetts and Maryland avenues. Police said Monday that Norwood suffered multiple stab wounds. A police lieutenant, commenting on an Internet community bulletin board, told residents that the attacker was “possibly known to the victim.” Malcolm Amir, 21, of Northeast Washington was arrested and charged with second-degree murder while armed. This comes as the District has had more than 30 homicides so far this year, according to a tracking by The Washington Post.


Atom-smashing scientists are unnerved by harsh Trump budget

after the obliteration of Hiroshimadid the government reveal what had been going on for several years — that inside the fences of Oak Ridge this secret community had a world-changing mission. After the war the federal government stuck around. One valley away from the national laboratory is the Y-12 National Security Complex, where the government stores and processes highly enriched uranium. Y-12 continues to be the site of protests by peace activists. Some of the local pain from Trump-era budget cuts could be offset by increased military spending. At the national lab, officials stick to their message about the merits of scientific research — and they show off their impressive hardware, such as the supercomputer named Titan. “If the private sector is doing what we’re doing, we’re not doing our jobs,” said Jack Wells, director of science for the lab’s National Center for Computational Sciences. OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — An archival photo is displayed on a transformer. (Jacob Biba/For The Washington Post) Wells reeled off the vital statistics of Titan, including 18,688 computer nodes working in tandem. Visitors have to wear earplugs in the computer room because of noise from the cooling fans. Wells said a new supercomputer will be built in a nearby room that is five to 10 times faster. This is competitive stuff — China has the fastest supercomputers in the world. The lab can show off its supercomputer’s moves with a 37-megapixel, 33-foot-wide, 3-D visualization screen. You can see, for example, how seismic waves would propagate across Southern California and reach peaks of intensity after a massive earthquake on the San Andreas fault. Titan can create a 3-D map of Earth’s interior and the hot plumes that feed volcanoes. Scientists write grant proposals hoping to get access to these unique government tools. They’re in demand: Langan, at the Spallation Neutron Source, said there’s a waiting list for each of those 19 beam lines. Langan’s operation is a cavernous realm of pipes, wires and humming machinery. He walks around with a radiation dosimeter around his neckto measure his exposureanda lapel pin that reads “Ts,” for Tennessine, atomic number 117, a recently created element whose name honors the state that is home to Oak Ridge. At the end of Beam Line 12, a scientist named Helen He showed off the object being scrutinized: a crystal inside a capillary tube, almost too small to see with the naked eye.


British prime minister calls for elections in June amid Brexit fallout

to vote against the final deal negotiated with the European Union. Tim Farron, leader of the pro-Europe Liberal Democrat Party, said the election offered an opportunity to urge May to take a more conciliatory line in the E.U. talks. Some critics worry that Britain could lose important trade and other links to Europe by pushing for what May has called a full break from the E.U. There are also concerns over the estimated 3 million E.U. citizens working and living in Britain and the more than 1 million Britons residing across Europe. May said she would seek to preserve their rights. “If you want to avoid a disastrous ‘hard Brexit.’ If you want to keep Britain in the single market. If you want a Britain that is open, tolerant and united, this is your chance. Only the Liberal Democrats can prevent a Conservative majority,” Farron said in a statement. The E.U. bureaucracy, however, has shown little interest in giving Britain an easy landing as it seeks to leave the bloc. E.U. officials are still smarting from Britain’s vote and worried that generous concessions could encourage other E.U. breakaway bids around Europe. European Council President Donald Tusk, a powerful voice in the Brexit talks, summed up the surprise many in Europe felt at May’s announcement. “It was Hitchcock who directed Brexit: first an earthquake and the tension rises,” Tusk wrote on Twitter. Although Britain as a whole voted 52 to 48 percent in favor of leaving the European Union, majorities in both Scotland and Northern Ireland favored staying. Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has charged that Scotland’s voters are being taken out of the bloc against their will. And she said last month that she wants a referendum on independence — a rerun of a September 2014 vote, in which a majority of Scottish voters opted to stay in the United Kingdom — between the autumn of 2018 and the spring of 2019. May has repeatedly said that “now is not the time” for a Scottish vote. But she has not threatened to veto another referendum. Moments after Tuesday’s election call, Sturgeon described it as an attempt by May to move the Conservative Party to the right and “force through a hard Brexit and impose deeper cuts.” “Let’s stand up for Scotland,” Sturgeon wrote on Twitter. Witte reported from Paris and Murphy from Washington. Michael Birnbaum in Brussels contributed to this report.


Man killed in Anacostia shooting, another fatally stabbed in Barry Farm

D.C. police are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred Monday night in the Anacostia neighborhood and the stabbing death of a man that occurred hours earlier in Barry Farm, both in Southeast Washington. The shooting occurred a few minutes after 7 p.m. in the 2200 block of Mount View Place SE, about five blocks from the Anacostia Metro station. Police identified the victim as 37-year-old Darryl Knight of Northwest. Authorities said he was found wounded in an alley behind a row of houses. He was pronounced dead at Prince George’s County Hospital Center in Maryland at 7:42 p.m. The fatal stabbing was reported about 10 a.m. Monday in the 1200 block of Stevens Road SE. Police said officers found David Blakeney, 53, of Southeast, suffering from multiple stab wounds inside a residence. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have not made arrests in either the shooting or the stabbing. In an unrelated incident, police said a man was stabbed and critically injured late Monday night in the 1100 block of First Street NW, near the Sursum Corda housing complex. A police report says the stabbing occurred about 11:45 p.m. and appears to be the result of a domestic dispute. Later Tuesday, police said they charged Devin Dupree Wood, 33, of Northwest, with assault with intent to kill. The victim, whose name has not been released, was reported by police to be unconscious at a hospital. He lives about two blocks from where he was stabbed, police said.


Man who threatened to ‘kill everyone’ is charged in Capitol Hill slaying, court documents say

A man charged with killing a 79-year-old inside a Capitol Hill rowhouse on Easter Sunday had been told to move out weeks earlier after relatives said he threatened to “kill everyone,” according to a court document filed Tuesday. Malcolm Amir Cunningham, 21, of Northeast, was arrested Monday and charged with second-degree murder while armed. He made his initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday. Police have identified the slain man as David Norwood, who lived in the two-story house in the 600 block of C Street NE, near Stanton Park. Authorities did not disclose the relationship between Norwood and Cunningham. According to court papers, several people lived in the house. The discovery of the body came through an anonymous tip. Police said officers had earlier received a text from somebody who reported seeing a man put a knife inside a recycling bin in an alley near the house on C Street. Police said they found a black and silver Sharper Image knife in a bin. The tip was bent and blood appeared to be on the blade, according to the affidavit. An investigation led to the house and the body in the living room, police said. Norwood was pronounced dead at the scene. Interviews by police with the suspect’s relatives revealed that Cunningham had been angry with Norwood over family issues and had repeatedly threatened to kill him and others, the arrest affidavit says. One time, the court document states, the argument involved a knife. Family members of Norwood and Cunningham could not be reached for comment. Police said relatives told them that Cunningham had moved out of the house two weeks ago but apparently returned Sunday, the court documents state. One witness told police Norwood confronted Cunningham: “I saw you trying to break in the back door,” he told the suspect, according to the affidavit. The suspect reportedly responded: “I want my clothes.”


The college graduate with a double major — and no debt

The May 1 college decision deadline is coming up. And where students choose to attend college can result in years of debt obligations. (iStock/iStock) My husband and I recently invited our daughter Olivia to speak to students attending the money-and-marriage class that we teach at our church. The couples could ask her anything. They were dying to know what it was like growing up under such frugal parents. Eventually, the conversation got around to borrowing for college. Olivia will be graduating from the University of Maryland at College Park next month. She’ll leave with a double major — and no debt. And we won’t have any on her behalf either. (Thank you 529 plan!) If you’re a parent with young children, you should be interested in what she had to say. And if you have a high school student trying to decide between a college that won’t require student loans — or very little — and one that would necessitate heavy borrowing, listen to what it feels like for a young adult not to have the burden of education debt. You can watch the video at www.facebook.com/MichelleSingletary. “Even the friends that I have who are frugal, even they have debt,” Olivia began. Taking a pause, she shared that her friends talk about the anxiety they have about paying back their loans and how they are dreading the end of their six-month grace period when their loans go into repayment. “I just don’t have those fears,” Olivia said. It’s in these types of moments, when your children are speaking to others, that you learn their heart. “When you are little, you don’t care,” Olivia said. “’College fund? Who cares? I want this toy.’ Or: ‘College fund? Who cares? I want that milkshake.’ But I didn’t need the toy. I didn’t need the milkshake. I’m going to graduate without debt. And I’m also going to go to grad school without debt. When I think about that, I can now set my kids up. The money I would be spending for my student loans, I can put that away for my kids. Generationally, we can have debt-free students.” What Olivia presents is an ideal situation. But what if your child is going to graduate with debt? There’s some relief. Borrowers with federal loans can opt for repayment plans to reduce their monthly payments based on their income and family size. There are four


How gardeners can combat climate change

addition, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are made by burning lots of natural gas. Fertilizer runoff pollutes waterways but, as it breaks down, can also add to air pollution. When it comes to nutrient runoff, homeowners pollute at a rate 10 times greater than farmers, said Via, “because homeowners don’t know what they’re doing.” Another way to reduce your carbon footprint is to grow your own fruits and vegetables organically. The right tree, well placed, can shade your house and further reduce your energy consumption. “Mention climate change and people just want to put their head inside the pillow, but if you say, ‘Here’s what you can do,’ people say, ‘Yeah, let’s try something,’ ” Via said. For environmentally savvy gardeners, there is another problem — in distinguishing between freakish weather and climate change. Serious gardeners are so attuned to the vicissitudes of the elements that even the most extreme floods, droughts, storms and heat waves can be viewed as strangely normal. “What people don’t recognize is that we have moved out of the territory of the kind of variation people are used to, and we are in new territory where it’s more extreme,” Via said. “Average temperatures have warmed, we have fewer colder nights — it’s not the same thing.” Janet Young, of Montgomery County Master Gardeners, lectures on gardening techniques in this new environment. Because tomato and pepper plants reduce fruit set and suffer poor quality in extreme heat, she advises shielding them with shade cloth. Another approach is to sow winter cover crops in late summer as a way of excluding weeds (one of the plant beneficiaries of climate change) and enriching the soil without fertilizers. Gardening simply requires greater vigilance than before; insect pests may have three generations a year instead of one, and you have to check them before they get out of hand. “You may want to get out there and weed as early as January, instead of March or April,” Young said. She is working with others to develop a list of plant varieties bred for better tolerance to environmental stresses. Another strategy is to expand the range of plants in your garden to include those that can endure more cold, more heat, more drought. At the New York Botanical Garden, “we are incorporating plants from climates similar to ours but more extreme,” said Todd Forrest, vice president for horticulture and living collections. These include