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A year after Japan’s triple disaster, an uncertain recovery

ISHINOMAKI, Japan — The rubble and ocean muck of last March 11 have been scrubbed from every wall, pulled from every basement and picked from every crevasse. Now the debris is piled in terraced mountains at the edge of this town along Japan’s tsunami-devastated northeastern coastline. But even after months of cleanup, the reconstruction remains at a starting point, equally capable of taking off or faltering, depending on whether people stick around. A full recovery, if it’s possible, will take at least a decade, authorities say. Residents along the battered coast must be willing to endure trying conditions — prefab houses that don’t stay warm; communities that don’t provide jobs; grief that doesn’t abate — all because they hope that, eventually, they will regain normal lives in functional towns. It’s a bargain that Takahiro Chiba struggles with every day. He says his city, one of the region’s largest and hardest hit, feels just livable enough to tolerate, but not yet livable enough to commit to. “I don’t want to stay in Ishinomaki anymore,” Chiba says on a Tuesday. “I’m really thinking we should stay in Ishinomaki,” Chiba says on a Thursday. Chiba sees more hope than he did a year ago. It’s not just all the debris that has been cleared away. Workers at the city hall are trying to attract clean-energy projects and offering tax incentives for businesses that relocate here. Lifelines have returned. A department store reopened this week. The progress of the last year, though, doesn’t begin to offset the damage of Japan’s greatest crisis since World War II. The triple disaster — an earthquake, a tsunami, a resulting triple meltdown at a nuclear plant — left 19,000 dead and displaced some 342,000 from their homes. Because of public opposition to nuclear power, only two of Japan’s 54 reactors are now in operation, prompting energy companies to fire up old thermal plants and import more coal and gas. In the aftermath of the disaster, Ishinomaki all but stopped. Gas stations had no fuel and stores had no food. Neighborhoods had been shredded. But people here say that cleanup was the easy part — all strategy, no planning. The city only now is “at a crossroads,” said Toru Asano, the chamber of commerce chairman. The hard part begins here, coordinating an economic recovery when thousands are in debt and have no permanent place to live. Some 6,000 have

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U.S. agrees to transfer control of detainees in Afghanistan

message for the Taliban: Your options are getting fewer and fewer. The time is now to join the peace process and be part of the future of Afghanistan.” Under the agreement, the U.S. military will transfer legal responsibility for batches of detainees over the next six months, until nearly all of the more than 3,000 inmates are nominally in Afghan custody. Some human rights activists expressed concern that the Afghan government has not created a legal framework to assume responsibility for the detention system. John Sifton, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said Afghanistan should immediately pass a law that “explains the foundation of this system of administrative detention, when it expires and how it will be renewed.” He noted that among the first acts of an Iraqi sovereign government was the declaration of a state of emergency, which allowed for the creation of a detention system compatible with international law. The Afghan system, Sifton said, “is lawless because there is literally no law.” The agreement does not address the cases of the roughly 50 non-Afghan prisoners held by U.S. forces here. An Afghan general will be appointed as the commander of the Parwan detention facility, a state-of-the-art complex designed to the standards of a U.S. federal prison. Parwan is next to Bagram air base, one of the largest U.S. military installations in the country. U.S. military officials will work alongside Afghan corrections officials as advisers for a time beyond the transition period and will seek to ensure that detainees are not mistreated, U.S. officials said. Because the Afghan government is not expected to be able to run the highly sophisticated facility without substantial help after the transition period, the U.S. military will build more rudimentary cell blocks in Bagram and at a prison near Kabul, the officials said. Afghan officials have long seen the U.S. military detention system in Afghanistan as an affront to their sovereignty. Detainees at Parwan are held without formal charges, and until now the Afghan government has been largely powerless to weigh in on individual cases. Afghan authorities have also voiced unease about the presence of foreign detainees who were captured in third countries and transferred to Afghanistan. The non-Afghan inmates will remain in U.S. custody for now, but Friday’s agreement is likely to add a sense of urgency to finding a resolution for those cases, Obama administration and foreign officials said. Some in the

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Recent debate over contraception comes as GOP loses gains among women

control; only 36 percent wanted to see the Republicans in charge. ‘Quantum leaps’ Both sides have tried to shape the narrative in this battle for and about women. But many Republicans are beginning to wish they had never waded into what has become a heated conversation over contraception, who should have it and what it says about people who use it. GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s campaign, said Republicans need to return to pocketbook and fiscal issues. “We know what works,” she said, “and we need to get back to it.” Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) recalled in an interview organizing meetings at the Reagan White House in the 1980s to help Republicans grapple with what was being dubbed the “gender gap.” Since then, she said, “we had made quantum leaps.” “We really don’t want to reignite a disparity of support between men and women,” she added, saying the debate over contraception “could create some serious fractures among women if we’re not careful. It feels as if we are going back to another era.” In focus groups, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, what women are expressing is not anger at the positions Republicans are taking but frustration with the amount of attention reproductive issues are getting. “Particularly among blue-collar women,” she said, “what we hear is, ‘How can you be arguing over this when Rome is still burning for me and my family?’ ” Even the wife of presidential contender Rick Santorum has told him to quit trumpeting his opposition to birth control. “My advice to him was stop answering the question,” Karen Santorum told Politico. “Tell them, ‘I’m not going to answer this question. Let me tell you what I know about national security. I know a lot about national security.’ ” A GOP strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s situation frankly, said: “It’s devastating. I don’t think it’s going to go away. I think it’s going to be a significant challenge the Republican nominee is going to inherit.” Democratic advantage Obama has moved aggressively to take advantage of the opening Republicans have provided. He personally called Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student who had been attacked by conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh over her advocacy for contraceptive coverage, and expressed his support. And the White House announced in recent days that the president will give the

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Pakistan names Zaheer ul-Islam new spymaster

Lt. Gen. Zaheer ul-Islam, at right, will lead Pakistan’s spy agency, replacing Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who had been in charge since 2008. (STRINGER/REUTERS) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced on Friday that Karachi-based Lt. Gen. Zaheer ul-Islam will head Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), replacing Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who has led the agency since 2008 — and whose retirement may improve the troubled U.S.-Pakistan alliance against terrorism. “Personal relationships with General Pasha have worn a bit thin,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It might be good to start afresh.” Pasha’s term already had been extended — unusual in the top echelons of the Pakistani military — so the appointment of a new spy chief was anticipated. Pasha had also faced criticism in the ranks for his perceived failures surrounding the U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden last May. The U.S. counterterrorism community relies to a certain degree on the ISI to identify al-Qaeda and other Islamic militant targets in Pakistan’s tribal regions, especially in the CIA’s long-running drone war. But the U.S. decision not to inform Pakistan about the impending raid on bin Laden’s compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad spoke volumes about the degree to which Washington mistrusted its supposed ally’s spy agency and military. Pasha’s successor was appointed the top military commander in the southern port city of Karachi in October 2010 — a post perceived as one of the army’s most important. Islam is close to the nation’s armed forces chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani; both served in the infantry in the army’s Punjab regiment. Islam had also served as deputy director general of the ISI, in charge of domestic intelligence-gathering, according to military officials here. A U.S. official who also spoke on the condition of anonymity noted that many of Islam’s army assignments had been focused on India but that he also had ties to the United States. “During his career, Zaheer traveled to the U.S. to participate in U.S. military-sponsored training and international fellowship programs,” the official said. Although U.S. officials have often harshly criticized the ISI, accusing it of sheltering militants in Pakistan and tolerating their attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan, the change of leadership brings an opportunity to reset the relationship. “We would expect General Zaheer to continue cooperation with the United States in our mutual fight

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Coming and Going: Growing tourism, family-friendly hotels, more travel news

not bust Travel and tourism to the rescue! The World Travel & Tourism Council has some cheery economic projections in its latest report: Travel and tourism will grow by 2.8 percent this year, trumping the predicted global economic growth rate of 2.5 percent. The industry is expected to contribute $2 trillion to the global economy and support more than 100 million jobs. And when you take wider economic impacts into account, the number jumps to $6.5 trillion and 260 million jobs. On a micro-level, the report forecasts strides and stumbles in specific destinations. Among them: ●South and northeast Asia will be the fastest-growing regions in 2012, expanding by 6.7 percent. ●After a tumultuous period, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and North Africa are showing signs of recovery. Morocco, which is perceived as more stable than Egypt and Tunisia, is at the head of the class. ●Expect slow growth in the restless Middle East. Of the countries in the region, Qatar is expected to grow fastest. Interesting trivia: In 2010, Syria attracted almost 15 percent of all international arrivals in the Middle East, just behind Saudi Arabia. It’s not looking likely to repeat the feat in 2012, so far. ●North America and Europe will continue to struggle. In fact, the European Union could experience a decline. Pack up the kids and go There’s enough to worry about on family vacations. Now you can at least take some of the guesswork out of deciding where to stay. Parents Magazine evaluated 70 hotel chains for family-friendly aspects In the budget category ($99 to $149 per night), the top chains were Embassy Suites, SpringHill Suites by Marriott, Hyatt House, Residence Inn by Marriott and Holiday Inn. One step up in the mid-priced group ($150 to $249 per night), the magazine liked Loews Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton Hotels, JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Omni Hotels & Resorts and Westin Hotels & Resorts. Check out the explanations behind the rankings at www.parents.com. Where travel’s a bargain If you’re curious about what U.S. destinations will give you the most bang for your vacation buck, Hotwire.com says it can help. The Web site’s 2012 Travel Value Index looked at prices and discounts on airfare, rental cars and hotels, as well as entertainment affordability. The top 10 destinations, beginning with the highest rating, were Orlando, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Phoenix, Tampa, Denver, Charlotte, Albuquerque and Miami. Andrea Sachs , Becky Krystal

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Last year’s tragedy failed to rouse Japan from its stagnation

population are so petrified, and so militant in their fear, that most local governments outside Tohoku are refusing to accept for burial some of the millions of tons of rubble left by the tsunami. (And I’m talking about the remnants of smashed buildings and vehicles in other prefectures, not junk from the nuclear plant’s vicinity.) In a town near where I live, officials rejected the debris, saying that even if the radiation emissions were zero, local farmers and fishermen might suffer from huu hyou higai — financial losses due to baseless rumors — just as many Tohoku producers are already. So much for kizuna. Of Japan’s 54 atomic reactors — which previously supplied about 30 percent of the nation’s power — all but two are shut down, mostly for maintenance and safety checks, and many local authorities are balking at plans to restart plants in their jurisdictions. Although the government is scrambling to devise plans for boosting investment in renewable energy, such efforts will take decades. Amid steep increases in electricity bills, and uncertainty about the reliability of power supplies in general, the nation’s corporate giants — including Sumitomo Electric Industries, Mitsui Mining and Smelting, and the popular social networking service Gree — are warning that they will be forced to shift more operations abroad. The hysteria about radiation reflects a breakdown in trust, as witnessed by endless media accounts quoting people who doubt the government’s monitoring of food and soil. This is lamentable; although officials disingenuously played down the possibility of a much worse accident at Fukushima Daiichi in the first days after the quake, reputable experts affirm the government’s major claim: that health risks are minuscule except in areas very close to the plant. The public’s growing skepticism of authority is arousing more citizen involvement in politics, which could prove positive in the long run. But it increases the chances that imprudent ideas — such as mothballing all those nuclear plants — will prevail. Meanwhile, more serious political and economic problems are left to fester. Tokyo’s political class, which was eager to appear unified after the disaster, is consumed anew with score-settling and power maneuvers of the sort that have given the country six prime ministers in the past five years. The upshot is a lengthy stalemate over the measures necessary to put Japan on sound long-term economic footing. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has proposed doubling the 5

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Flu strain confirmed in Calvert deaths

Four members of the Calvert County family stricken by flu complications had the same H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus, Maryland health officials said Friday. That strain is one of three seasonal varieties circulating in Maryland and nationwide, officials said. Previous testing had identified influenza A but not the specific subtype. Lou Ruth Blake A third child, Elaine, 51, who lived with her mother and had been her main caregiver, was hospitalized March 5 and discharged late Thursday, a MedStar Washington Hopital Center spokeswoman said. A fifth family member, a sister of Lou Ruth Blake’s, is still at the hospital center but improving, the spokeswoman said. Lou Ruth Blake had received a seasonal flu vaccination but none of the three adult children received one, Calvert County Health Officer David Rogers has said. This season’s vaccine protects against two strains of influenza A — H3N2 and H1N1 — and influenza B. State health officials confirmed Friday, as county officials had earlier said they suspected, that the two siblings who died also had a bacterial infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, a known and dangerous complication of influenza infection. MRSA The two siblings developed severe bacterial pneumonia, which is not uncommon in people infected with the flu virus. The flu virus weakens and damages the lungs, making the person more susceptible to bacterial infections. The Blakes are part of a large extended family in Lusby that traces its roots back several generations. Officials said no additional related severe respiratory illnesses have been confirmed and no other similar clusters have been identified anywhere in Maryland. This year’s flu season, however, has started late; the flu season typically can last as late as May.

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Why should my bike subsidize your car?

isn’t hidden. Even though this grocery store (okay, it’s a Whole Foods) must pay for leased parking that would amount to thousands of dollars a week at normal market prices, parking is free for store patrons. Despite encouraging customers to “go green,” Whole Foods and many other chains encourage driving by artificially reducing the cost of doing so. Parking isn’t the only driving incentive that is provided by grocery chains. Stop & Shop, Giant, Safeway, Price Chopper and other stores have deals with gas stations that give customers per-gallon discounts when they purchase a certain amount of groceries. The cost of such programs is simply incorporated into the prices on the shelves. Environmentalists and those who cannot afford to drive end up making it easier for other customers to shop by automobile. Many in the environmental movement would like to see the big ecological costs of polluting decisions (what economists call externalities) reflected in the price of goods and services through such governmental policies as a federal carbon tax. But simply removing the hidden economic costs of polluting activities would be a good start. The District’s 5-cent bag tax did just that by forcing customers, and not grocery stores, to pay for checkout bags. In truth, paper and plastic bags were never “free”; it’s just that users weren’t footing the bill. Customers who brought cloth bags before the bag tax was established were essentially helping to pay for others to do the opposite. Now we pay for our bag choices, and people’s behavior has changed dramatically. Perhaps fewer people would drive if we reattached costs to driving that are now being offset by non-drivers. When businesses eat the costs of environmentally burdensome decisions, those of us making sacrifices for the planet can end up having our actions nullified. Thus, when I ride my bike to pick up some fruit at the market, I make it easier for someone else to hop into his Range Rover for a three-block jaunt to grab some milk. If the true price of such trips had to be paid, perhaps more people would begin to make choices that would be better for their wallets, for their waistlines and ultimately for the Earth. The writer is national advocate for Bicycle Benefits. More Local Opinions: Bonnie J. Morris: Standing with Sandra Fluke Gabriel J. Michael: Budgetary ‘doomsday’ in Maryland? Bean and Principi: Don’t divert Va. foreclosure funds

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Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda: ‘Japan has made remarkable progress’

develop an industry and social infrastructure linked with compact cities and decentralized, environmentally friendly energy production that uses “smart” grids and large-scale solar and offshore wind farms. Japan is already a leader in energy efficiency, and it has a wealth of innovative technologies. We must put this expertise to use creating a model for growth and sustainability that we can share with the world. Another area where Japan can, and I believe must, lead the world and share its knowledge is disaster-risk reduction and response. We have learned, in the harshest possible terms, that it is no longer acceptable to claim that events had been unforeseen. To build resilient communities and a country able to withstand natural disasters, our disaster-management measures are being comprehensively reviewed, and I expect they will be dramatically strengthened. Of course, Japan also faces challenges that were apparent before last year’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. We have been tackling some, such as securing robust economic growth and rebuilding government finances, for a number of years. The longer these issues are left unresolved, the more serious they become. When I became prime minister last September, I promised the Japanese people that I would not tolerate the politics of indecision. A propensity to delay difficult and weighty decisions has been hurting our country. It is detrimental to our economy, society and future, and it cannot be allowed to continue. The many projects underway for Japan’s reconstruction and revitalization constitute the first step toward our country’s economic revival. Securing robust economic growth is a momentous challenge in the face of global economic uncertainty, the yen’s historic appreciation and long-standing deflation — but it is not insurmountable. We must draw on the unique strengths of the Japanese economy, seek an open and cooperative approach with our international partners, and intelligently exploit the promise of new growth areas. Sectors such as energy, the environment, health and nursing care hold significant potential as leading growth industries where Japan can tap innovative ideas and investment from the private sector, including foreign direct investment, and play a leading role globally. We aim to create the conditions to support increased international interest and investment in Japan, not only in business but also in tourism. As a prerequisite, we commit to providing timely and accurate information to the international community. In recent history, Japan seized rapid economic expansion from the ashes and desolation of World

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O’Malley opts for more regressive ‘flush tax’

In Senate budget committee negotiations, O’Malley’s plan to cap exemptions and deductions for high-income earners was reworked into a proposal to increase most filers’ income taxes by a quarter of a percent. The budget must go through the House of Delegates, where the progressive approach appears to have more support. The setbacks for the governor underscore the practical and political obstacles he has faced in trying to craft a package of tax increases that would fall more heavily on the higher earners. Another fee on residents could result from O’Malley’s plan to subsidize offshore wind power, with residential ratepayers potentially paying $2 more per month in 2017. Combined, the flush tax and the wind subsidy would add nearly $100 in annual fees for most Marylanders. Robert M. Summers, secretary of the Department of the Environment, said the push for a consumption-based flush tax was abandoned partly to assuage the concerns of businesses. Summers said “a number of folks have raised concerns about the progressive fee being a little too impactful on small businesses” that use a large amount of water. The “complexity” of moving from a flat fee to a consumption-based fee was another factor in the change, he said. Pitching his original plan to lawmakers in February, O’Malley said those who use the least amount of water could even see their flush tax decrease from its monthly flat rate of $2.50. According to the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, 11 percent of households in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties use fewer than 2,000 gallons of water per month, and those residents would have paid a monthly fee of $1.80 or less. Under the original proposal, the 31 percent of households in those counties that use between 2,000 and 4,000 gallons monthly would have paid between $1.80 and $4.30 per month — still less than the flat monthly fee of $6.25 being considered. And users of septic systems, which are not metered for water use, would have seen rates double to $5 per month. The new plan would put their rate, like everyone else’s, at $6.25 per month. But heavy users would have paid significantly more under the original plan. The 12 percent of Prince George’s and Montgomery County households that use more than 8,000 gallons of water monthly would have paid at least $9.30 a month. And many restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses would have seen their fees more

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A bugged life: Warm winter could mean more insects

If everything’s dried up, they can’t run down to the local McDonald’s and get something. They’re just out of luck.” Bee populations, especially colonies of wild bees, are already in trouble, having been devastated by a mysterious parasite. Weather-related stresses make a bad situation worse. Hives of 40,000 to 60,000 domesticated bees often respond to food shortages by slowing egg production, Royal said, which means there will be fewer bees to build honey stores for the next winter. “It’s a domino effect,” Royal said of the damage that can done by a winter during which it “seems like everything is running a month ahead of schedule.” “My peach trees are in full bloom right now,” he said. “They bloom . . . it pulls moisture up . . . it goes to the flower . . . the flowers produce more nectar. But if it’s dry, they can’t make something out of nothing.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last month that “warmer-than-average temperatures were widespread across the 48 contiguous states during January. Nine states — including Kansas, Minnesota and the Dakotas — had January temperatures ranked among their 10 warmest. “I don’t want to make any big pronouncements about climate, but there’s a pretty good indication this world is warming,” said Raupp, the Maryland professor. “Pests that were found only in the southern region are moving into the northern region. You’re seeing this penetration.” For farmers, pesticide costs can become terribly expensive, Raupp said, “if you have aphids or spider mites cranking through extra generations. For pests with faster generation times, the hotter it is the more they develop.” Aphids and psyllids, also called place lice, are among the pests that plague farmers. Aphids are a big problem because, when feeding, they can transmit a pathogen that destroys vegetables, said Eric Natwick, an entomology farm adviser for the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Tomato psyllids — lightning fast and tremendous jumpers, for their size — are also showing up this year in California’s Imperial Valley, where Natwick works. The psyllids tend to infest produce in California’s Coachella Valley, across a desert from the Imperial, but “when I see them here, it’s unusual,” he said. In urban areas, termites are waking up inside houses, and a homeowner who spots them has a problem. “If you notice termites in your house, you’re only going to notice

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The pros and cons of ditching cash for electronic currency

in my cash. I see the value in using it over electronic means such as credit and debit cards. Studies show that using plastic influences people to overspend. Paying with plastic doesn’t register in people’s brains the same way as when they use cash. I don’t trust that the minds behind electronic money will not manipulate people into spending more than they can afford. With cash, you have limitations. If you go to a store and have only $100 on you and no other form of payment, you can only spend up to that amount. Cash is a stopgap. Wolman shares my concern about credit and how it can be a catalyst for personal debt. But don’t use the problems with plastic to dismiss the argument that we should get rid of cash, he says. He wants to see someone build an app that will “simulate the pain in spending currently only associated with cash.” What about the people who rely on cash for tips, you might ask? Perhaps soon you will be able to tip by aiming your electronic device at the tip receiver’s smartphone, Wolman says. The most compelling argument for getting rid of cash comes when Wolman talks about the poor, whose lives are financially marginalized because they don’t have easy and affordable access to basic banking services. He visits Kenya and India to look at ways some are helping the poor transact without cash by using cellphones. “When your only option is cash, your assets are stuck in the material world,” he writes. “The poorer you are, the more crushing the costs and risks of cash become. . . . A fire or natural disaster can obliterate your meager savings.” Wolman is probably right that someday we will transition from physical money to electronic currency. I’m not ready to embrace his futuristic digital world, but he did come closer to convincing me that we are coming to an end of money. I’ll be hosting a live online discussion about “The End of Money” on April 5 at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/conversations. Wolman will join me to talk about his hope for a cashless society. For a chance to win a copy of this month’s book club selection, send an e-mail to colorofmoney@washpost.com with your name and address. Readers can write to Michelle Singletary at The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or singletarym@washpost.com.

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After U.S. soldier allegedly kills 16 civilians, Afghans voice rage and Taliban vows revenge

deaths doomed Washington’s goal of keeping a small contingent of U.S. troops in the country. The calls to prosecute the suspect in an Afghan court — a highly unlikely prospect because American troops have immunity from prosecution in Afghanistan — echoed the debate about whether U.S. service members should remain shielded from prosecution in Iraqi courts. In Iraq, the government began curbing the authority of U.S. troops as the American drawdown started in 2009, most notably by restricting their presence in urban areas. That stance was driven by a yearning for sovereignty after the violent years that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and by the widespread feeling among Iraqis that U.S. troops killed civilians wantonly. Similar forces are driving the Afghan government’s insistence that the United States halt night raids on the homes of suspected insurgents, an issue that is holding up the security-cooperation pact. Last week the United States agreed to start transferring legal custody of its inmates in Afghanistan to the Kabul government, but it has ceded little additional ground as Afghanistan has sought to assert more control over the operations of coalition troops. A Western official in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer his assessment, said he was hopeful that the anger over the shooting rampage could be overcome. The burning of Korans by U.S. troops on Feb. 20 — which American officials said was accidental — unleashed a wave of violent protests and prompted Afghan security forces to open fire on U.S. military trainers, but the fury subsided after a few days. “Everyone said the burning of the Korans was a turning point,” he said. “It came and it went. My best analysis is that everyone saw the abyss, and no one wanted to jump in.” Barakzai, the lawmaker, was far less optimistic. Although she expressed worry about the turn the country could take if the foreign troop withdrawal accelerated, Barakzai said the relationship between Afghanistan and the United States is nearing a breaking point. “If things keep going in this direction, we are really at the end of the road,” she said. “The trust between our governments is trashed on both sides.” Special correspondent Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul contributed to this report. More coverage: - U.S. soldier fires on Afghans, kills 16 - U.S., allies mull intervention in Syria - Al-Qaeda operations expand in Yemen - Read more national security news

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U.S. soldier held in shooting rampage that killed 16 Afghans, officials say

all shot in the head.” About an hour later, residents in a nearby village heard gunshots, and they later discovered the corpses of five men inside two houses located near each other, Esaqzai said. Karzai’s statement said nine of the 16 victims were children. In addition, at least five people wounded in the incident were being treated at a U.S. military medical facility. Afghan and American officials braced for a larger outcry later in the week. “I cannot explain the motivation behind such callous acts,” Lt. Gen. Adrian J. Bradshaw, the deputy commander of the international coalition in Afghanistan, said in a statement. “They were in no way part of authorized military activity.” Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, pledged a thorough investigation and full cooperation with Afghan authorities. The Taliban characterized the incident as a “massacre” committed during the course of a night raid by American and Afghan forces. “The so-called American peace keepers have once again quenched their thirst with the blood of innocent Afghan civilians,” the Taliban statement said. Panjwai, southwest of Kandahar city, has been one of the most challenging battlegrounds for international forces. The area was the cradle of the Taliban movement in the early 1990s, and the militant group has fought hard to maintain sway over villages there. Wresting Kandahar province from Taliban control was one of the chief objectives of Obama’s 2009 troop surge. U.S. military officials say they have been largely successful in restoring a semblance of Afghan government control in areas once commanded by the Taliban. But as the footprint of foreign troops starts to shrink in the south, many Afghans fear that the Taliban will regain lost ground. Anger over the Koran burnings last month sparked nationwide riots and was cited as motivation for at least some of the fatal attacks on six U.S. military personnel. But reaction to the incineration of the holy books — which U.S. officials said was accidental — was relatively muted in the south. Strains on partnership The death toll Sunday was far higher than in the notorious string of killings carried out in 2010 by a rogue U.S. Army platoon that became known as the “kill team.” The slaying of at least three men in Kandahar’s Maywand district became one of the biggest scandals of the war, after investigators found that soldiers had kept body parts as trophies and

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Japan marks earthquake and tsunami anniversary with prayers and mourning

TOKYO — At a theater in Tokyo, Japanese Emperor Akihito, 22 days after heart bypass surgery, stood for a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. — the precise time when one year ago a 9.0-magnitude earthquake pulsed 80 miles off Japan’s northeastern coast. In the many small towns devastated by the quake and the resulting tsunami wave — 45 feet high, in some cases — survivors dressed in black and laid flowers in spots where loved ones had died, places that now look like empty construction sites. And at a baseball stadium in Fukushima, the prefecture (state) where a radiation-spewing nuclear plant forced the evacuation of 90,000 people, anti-nuclear protesters gathered to speak out about an energy source that has turned into one of Japan’s most divisive, and unresolved, issues. One year later, the mega-disaster — 3/11 as it’s known here — remains a present crisis more than a part of history. It left scores jobless and homeless. It caused at least $200 billion in damage to ports, roads, buildings and other infrastructure, straining an already stagnant economy. Government bickering delayed the passage of reconstruction budgets, and authorities’ much-criticized response to the nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi facility led to a breakdown in public trust. The disillusionment with government shows itself in the current debate over nuclear power, where many local communities refuse to allow the restart of reactors on their shorelines. At the moment, just two of Japan’s 54 reactors are in operation, a sharp reversal in a country that before last year depended on nuclear power for one-third of its energy. The reversal comes with a cost, because utility companies have been forced to import fossil fuels to maintain a reliable energy supply, potentially leading to higher bills for consumers and a perpetual trade deficit for the country. The land immediately around the nuclear plant could be uninhabitable for decades, authorities have said, but even the tsunami-devastated towns untouched by radiation face a tenuous recovery. These fishing towns, even before last year, grappled with problems of shrinking and aging populations. Now these communities, in charge of their own reconstruction plans, find themselves torn between restoring the old way of life and conceiving something different. More than 300,000 people still live as evacuees, in temporary housing units, hotels or homes of relatives. A recent Asahi Shimbun survey of evacuees found that 40 percent had lost their jobs or

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Business Rx: Votifi

The entrepreneur In 2008, Lou Aronson had a “lightening bolt moment” while he was waiting at his children’s bus stop with other neighborhood parents. “We were standing around complaining about the robo-calls during the upcoming presidential election and I noticed that one of my neighbors wasn’t complaining. Turns out, no one ever called his house because he didn’t have a land line. He held up his BlackBerry.” In that moment, Aronson realized that polling companies would soon need another way to reach the American voters, so he created Votifi. This week, Aronson is at the South By Southwest Accelerator and the TechCocktail StartUp Showcase in Austin to present his company. The pitch Aronson “Votifi is a peer-to-peer recommendation engine for political discovery. We deliver mobile polls and use the results to help simplify your access to political content, quantify where you fit on the political map and amplify your voice through discussions with people who share your views and debates with people who are on the other side of an issue. Votifi is a one-stop shop for political engagement and exploration. “In addition, Votifi is a way for polling companies to reach Americans who no longer use their land lines. Right now, you’ve got an industry where you have to robo-dial approximately 40,000 people in order to get 1,200 respondents. That costs approximately $40,000. If you’re a local politician, you can’t do that and capture that data in real time. Votifi is a way to tap into this $3.6 billion industry and a way to solve the problem of the disappearing land line for polling companies. “Our technology recognizes that the strength of the American political system lies in diversity of opinion, and that voters’ views are multidimensional and evolve over time. Online competitors tend to reinforce party lines or attempt to create consensus without necessary debate, and traditional political pollsters are finding it increasingly difficult to capture voters’ views in a mobile world. Votifi’s mobile polls and platform capture political views in real-time and make political content more accessible, particularly to those groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the political process.” “What we currently need help with is building our user base. What is the most efficient and cost-effective way to build a large and demographically diverse user base that is representative of the American population?” The advice Andrew J. Sherman, adjunct professor for entrepreneurship, Robert H. Smith

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LightSquared From Monday to Thursday, the Reston firm’s controversial GPS issue will be discussed during a session at the Satellite 2012 conference. More than 11,000 participants from commercial satellite firms, U.S. and foreign militaries, and broadcast networks are expected to attend numerous sessions and check out the latest products from more than 300 vendors. In addition to the LightSquared issue, the conference highlights the latest business opportunities in “hosted payload” — the government’s use of commercial spacecraft to launch its equipment into space. Speakers include Burt Liebowitz, principal network engineer at Mitre; Hermon Pon, vice president of technology at Iridium; and Bronson Hokuf, principal engineer at Garmin International. The conference is scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. Monday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Pl. NW in Washington. Never mind tight budgets in the public and private sector. On Thursday, at least 15 federal and state agencies, corporations and nonprofits in the Washington area will be looking to do business with minority-owned vendors. The Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is hosting a business expo matching vendors with procurement officers and buyers from Clark Construction, Freddie Mac, the American Red Cross, the Federal Reserve Board, NASA, the U.S. Army and others. The session is to begin at 3 p.m. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Other events of note Tuesday, March 13 The Northern Virginia Technology Council outlines the emerging market for mobile money, in which consumers use their cellphones to make payments. The session is slated to start at 7:30 a.m. at Sprint, 12524 Sunrise Valley Dr. in Reston. Need information on financing your tech start-up? The University of Maryland is offering expert advice on a range of business issues starting at 10 a.m. at the school’s Technology Advancement Program Building, Room 1103 in College Park. Wednesday, March 14 The Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce is to present a panel on how women entrepreneurs can achieve the same level of success as their male counterparts. The session is to start at 7:30 a.m. at the Westin Tysons Corner, 7801 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church. Thursday, March 15 The Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is hosting an all-day business expo, set to begin at 10 a.m. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Google — V. Dion Haynes

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Class B apartments in the District outperforming suburbs

rents in Class B properties, at an average of $2.33 per square foot. Per-square-foot rents for suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia are $1.75 and $1.95 respectively. Rising rents and falling concessions with virtually stable vacancy rates suggest leverage for owners of Class B apartments in the District. A year-over-year comparison shows that while vacancy is up slightly in all three areas, the District’s 2.2 percent vacancy rate in December of 2011 was up only 0.1 percent from the year before. Concessions — discounts offered to prospective renters and measured as a percentage of asking rent — show similar trends. An analysis of fourth quarter 2011 rent concessions paints an even brighter picture for the District. Concessions there averaged 0.9 percent, compared to 3.1 percent in suburban Maryland and 1.8 percent in Northern Virginia. Concessions shrunk regionwide in 2011. However, also affecting rents at year-end 2011 was continued economic uncertainty, contributing to lower turnover and unwillingness on the part of property managers to raise rents significantly. Still, as new, higher-end Class A units come on line in the District in 2012, pressure on the Class B market will likely mount. This could lead to downward pressure on Class B rents. Notwithstanding, District Class B mid-rise and high-rise apartments have shown greater rent growth since 2006 when compared to Class A units. Rents per square foot for Class B apartments increased 20.1 percent to $2.33 from $1.94 in 2006 while rent in Class A mid-rise and high-rise units increased 11.5 percent to $3.00 from $2.69 over the same period. In addition, within the District the spread between Class A and Class B rents compressed steadily from 2006 through 2011, albeit at a slower rate in the latter months. At year-end 2011, Class A premiums showed a slight uptick, signaling that Class A performance may exceed Class B in the period ahead. We expect to see moderating rent growth in Class B buildings during 2012 despite continued low — yet slightly increasing — vacancy in the region. Several contributing factors will keep vacancy low and rent change from turning negative. Among them are job growth that is expected to continue in 2012, high overall prices and stricter underwriting standards leaving rental housing the only alternative for an increasing number of households. Ade Opoola is an associate at Delta Associates. Staff at Delta Associates contributed to this article. For more information, please visit www.deltaassociates.com.

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Amid anger over Afghan killings, U.S. faces growing public weariness about war

their overall war strategy. Their comments echoed messages they delivered this year in the aftermath of the Koran burnings, the fratricidal killings of U.S. troops by their Afghan partners and the release of an Internet video that showed Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. Given the gravity of the latest killings and the rapid sequence in which the other incidents have occurred, U.S. officials acknowledged that they didn’t know whether they could count on the same approach to work this time. A senior U.S. official said the administration is “not freaking out yet . . . but you’d have to be under a rock not to think this is the worst thing that could have happened.” “It plays to the absolute worst fears and stereotypes” Afghans hold of U.S. involvement, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It’s the type of boogeyman Karzai has always raised, but we’ve never had an incident like this.” A cloud over negotiations The shooting occurred just two days after the administration hailed progress on the long-delayed strategic-partnership agreement it is trying to negotiate with Karzai, a key part of U.S. military plans to retain a counterterrorism presence in Afghanistan after the final withdrawal of coalition combat troops at the end of 2014. After many months of negotiations and demands from Karzai, one of two outstanding issues was settled Friday, an agreement on the transfer of detention facilities to Afghan control. U.S. officials were optimistic that the other — whether U.S. Special Operations troops can continue conducting night raids in a bid to surprise and arrest suspected militants in their homes — would be settled by a NATO summit in May, when the alliance wants to draw up final withdrawal plans. “This makes the absolute worst case for us and our continuing involvement” in Afghanistan, the administration official said. “It’s just awful.” Overall, 60 percent of Americans believe the war has not been worth the loss in life and expense, according to the Post-ABC News poll, which was conducted Wednesday through Saturday, before Sunday’s attack in Kandahar province. There has been consistent majority opposition to the war for nearly two years. Staff writers Matthew DeLong and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. More national security coverage: - U.S. soldier fires on Afghans; 16 dead - U.S., allies mull intervention in Syria - Al-Qaeda operations expand in Yemen - Read more national security news

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Robert Griffin III: Poised to handle the pressure

him tape of star athletes who did it the right way, Olympic hurdlers and NFL quarterbacks. “The discipline the military has, the forethought, the planning, the backup planning, the after-action reviews, when I started to train Robert those are some of the tools we utilized,” Robert Jr. said. “They were expected in the military. It was part of our development as adults.” After football practice at Copperas Cove High, when other kids were relaxing, Jack Welch would watch open-mouthed as RGIII would pull a tire with his father. Then “you would see him running the road on the way back to his house, up the hills,” Welch said. By his senior year in high school, RGIII was class president and not only had earned his diploma early, he graduated seventh among his peers. “He was a scholar,” Welch said. He had also qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials as 400-meter hurdler, and was being recruited by most of the major football powers. He was a stunningly diverse talent, according to Welch. “There are some who can run awfully fast, and some who can throw awfully hard,” Welch said. “But you have not seen one as brilliant, and intelligent, and elusive. He puts all the ingredients together.” To top it off, he was a superb leader, though he exercised what Welch called a subtle “servant-type” leadership, always bringing doughnuts to his linemen and deflecting credit. Most of the schools recruiting him, however, were so in love with his sprinter’s speed that they wouldn’t promise to use him at quarterback. Instead they wanted to transform him to a receiver or running back. He discarded those, and instead committed to Art Briles and Baylor, which also had a world-class track program under director Clyde Hart, who coached sprinter Michael Johnson. “We recruited him as much for who he was as what he looked like,” Baylor track coach Todd Harbour said. He was far more than a fast athlete, Briles decided, after watching videotape with him during a recruiting visit — monitored by his mother, who sat quietly in a corner. “He’s extremely gifted athletically, with tons of natural ability,” Briles said, “but the great thing about Robert is, he’s not satisfied living on his ability. He wants to be a great technician, great from a schematic standpoint, and when you put those two together, he can be the best there is.” RGIII went

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Aging DC-3s serve as ‘buses of the jungle’ in Colombia

migrated to villages, miners, store owners, even troops running down rebels — face arduous days on a river boat to get to a town of any size. Out here, the only fast, viable way to travel and move cargo is aboard the DC-3s operated by airlines with names like Air Colombia, Andean Airlines, the Airline of the Plains or Sadelca. “There’s no other way,” said Wilson Hernandez, a government technician who took Flight 1149 into the interior to oversee a construction project. “You can go by water, but that can take weeks.” Colombia, with rugged Andean peaks and narrow and poorly maintained roads, long ago spawned pioneering air travel. The national airline, Avianca, is the world’s second-oldest, founded in 1919. And these days, modern jets offer regular service to provincial capitals – just not here in the Amazon, a region whose dirt landing strips seem tailor-made for the durable DC-3. “Here they call them the buses of the jungle, or the tractors of the jungle, because we fly over everything that is jungle,” said Carlos Martinez, one of the owners of Sadelca. “These planes are 60 years old and, as you can see, they are intact. We find the parts and the pilots. And they can land on any strip, paved or not paved.” Indeed, Hans Wiesman, a Dutchman who has researched DC-3s for a book and documentary film, said Colombia probably has the biggest fleet of flying DC-3s. He attributes that, in part, to the mechanics at the airport in this region’s only city, Villavicencio, who have made a fine art of overhauling DC-3 engines. “I was totally flabbergasted to see how they worked on those engines out there,” he said. “They repair to new again.” A 1935 introduction Introduced in 1935 by the Douglas Aircraft Co., the DC-3 revolutionized air travel, offering 14-berth sleeper transports that allowed passengers to fly from New York to Los Angeles. In World War II, they transported allied troops to Normandy and operated in the heat and sandstorms of North Africa and the frigid Arctic Circle. That history was not lost on the passengers of Flight 1149 as it began a milk run — like most of the other flights in the region, on an ad hoc schedule — over the plains and into the jungle loaded with boxes of newly hatched chicks, big jugs of gasoline, a 32-inch LG television, boxes of

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Putin critics oppose Jackson-Vanik trade sanction law

MOSCOW---A half-dozen Russian opposition leaders made an unusual statement Monday urging repeal of a Cold War-era trade sanction that has been defended in the United States as a means of supporting democracy and human rights here. The Obama administration has been lobbying Congress hard to repeal the trade amendment, known as Jackson-Vanik and introduced in 1974 to pressure the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate. Though its sanctions have been regularly waived for years, Russia considers it an affront. The amendment will put the United States in violation of World Trade Organization rules when Russia joins in a few months, resulting in unfavorable tariffs for American companies. The opposition leaders said Jackson-Vanik provides modern dissidents no help, while giving Vladimir Putin an opening for anti-American propaganda. “It helps him to depict the United States as hostile to Russia, using outdated cold-war tools to undermine Russia’s international competitiveness,” said the statement, signed by three liberal political leaders---Vladimir Milov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Boris Nemtsov, as well as Alexei Navalny, the blogger who has helped inspire the recent anti-Putin protests. “Those who defend [Jackson-Vanik] in order to punish Putin’s anti-democratic regime only darken Russia’s political future, hamper its economic development, and frustrate its democratic aspirations,” they said. Instead, they urge the United States to target individuals who violate human rights by denying them visas or freezing assets. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny speaks during a rally to protest against alleged vote rigging in Russia's elections. (Misha Japaridze/AP) Such a proposal has been introduced by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D, Md.). The bill is named for Sergei Magnitsky, who accused tax authorities of using a fraudulent tax return to steal $230 million from the government. They had him arrested on theft charges instead. He died in pre-trial detention at the age of 37, his body bearing signs of beatings. The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing Thursday on the issue of Russia and the WTO. More world news coverage: - Cameron to reinforce ‘special relationship’ - Dozens of civilians killed in Homs - Taliban vows revenge for soldier’s rampage - Read more headlines from around the world

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Bring home the troops now from Afghanistan

It was clear before Sunday’s horrific massacre of civilians that it’s past time for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan to end. Now the only question should be how quickly we can get our troops onto transport planes to fly them home. What are we accomplishing, aside from enraging the Afghan population we’re allegedly trying to protect? How are we supposed to convince them that a civilian massacre carried out by a U.S. soldier is somehow preferable to a civilian massacre carried out by the Taliban? How does it make any of us safer to have the United States military known for burning Korans and killing innocent Muslim children in their beds? The killing spree in southern Afghanistan, which left at least 16 people dead, seems to have been the work of a single deranged individual — a 38-year-old Army staff sergeant. Little about the man was known Monday except that he is married, has two children and belongs to a unit from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. The sergeant was in Kandahar province as part of a “village stability” operation. According to widely published reports, the sergeant went door to door, breaking into three houses and killing the residents in cold blood. Among the victims reportedly were nine children. The sergeant gathered some of the bodies and set fire to them. U.S. officials insisted the sergeant acted alone. Understandably, some Afghans were skeptical of that assertion and suspected the gunman must have had help. It’s not an unreasonable question: How could a soldier walk away from his unit and go on a murderous rampage without anyone noticing or trying to stop him? For the Taliban, which is competing against the U.S. military and the Afghan government for popular allegiance, the killings were a public relations gift. “If the perpetrators of this massacre were in fact mentally ill,” the Taliban said in a statement, “then this testifies to yet another moral transgression by the American military because they are arming lunatics in Afghanistan who turn their weapons against the defenseless Afghans without giving a second thought.” The U.S. image was sullied last month when soldiers at a NATO base burned a number of Korans — an act of desecration for which President Obama had to apologize. The violent reaction in Afghanistan made it reasonable to ask whether Obama’s withdrawal timetable should be speeded up. Sunday’s killings provide a definitive answer.

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Mysterious ‘nodding syndrome’ affects many Ugandan children; experts seek cause

Nancy Lamwaka, 12, is often tied to a mango tree to keep her from accidentally harming herself. Seizures have diminished her mental capacity. (STRINGER/REUTERS) PADER DISTRICT, Uganda — It’s not something he likes to do. But the disease that gives the 12-year-old violent seizures has so diminished her mental capacity that she no longer talks and often wanders off. Once, she was lost in the bush for three days. “It hurts me so much to tie my own daughter to a tree . . . but because I want to save her life, I am forced to. I don’t want her to [get] loose and die in a fire, or walk and get lost in the bushes, or even drown in the nearby swamps,” he said. Nancy suffers from nodding syndrome, a disease of unknown origin and no known cure, which Ugandan authorities estimate affects more than 3,000 children in the country. Named after its seizurelike episodes of head nodding, the disease, which mostly affects children between ages 5 and 15, has killed more than 200 children in Uganda in the past three years. Thousands of children in South Sudan are also sufferers. Because the seizures are often triggered by food, children who have nodding syndrome become undernourished and mentally and physically stunted. “There is a general effect on their neurological system to the extent that some can be impaired in vision, eating and even mere recognition of their immediate environment,” said Emmanuel Tenywa, a physician and adviser in disease control for the World Health Organization in Uganda. As her father watched helplessly, Nancy cried out and began to convulse. Saliva flowed from her mouth, and her whole body shook for a few minutes until she finally went limp in the dust. Nancy has had episodes like this up to five times a day for the past eight years. “When she was talking, she would ask for food,” he said. “These days she just stretches out her hand begging for it.” Nodding syndrome was first documented in Tanzania as early as 1962. Half a century later, researchers still don’t know what it is. “We have a long list of things that are not causing nodding disease. We still don’t have a definitive cause,” said Scott Dowell, director of the division of global disease detection and emergency response of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC officials were in Uganda

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Mysterious ‘nodding syndrome’ affects many Ugandan children; experts seek cause

food, children who have nodding syndrome become undernourished and mentally and physically stunted. “There is a general effect on their neurological system to the extent that some can be impaired in vision, eating and even mere recognition of their immediate environment,” said Emmanuel Tenywa, a physician and adviser in disease control for the World Health Organization in Uganda. As her father watched helplessly, Nancy cried out and began to convulse. Saliva flowed from her mouth, and her whole body shook for a few minutes until she finally went limp in the dust. Nancy has had episodes like this up to five times a day for the past eight years. “When she was talking, she would ask for food,” he said. “These days she just stretches out her hand begging for it.” Nodding syndrome was first documented in Tanzania as early as 1962. Half a century later, researchers still don’t know what it is. “We have a long list of things that are not causing nodding disease. We still don’t have a definitive cause,” said Scott Dowell, director of the division of global disease detection and emergency response of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC officials were in Uganda for nine days in February on the latest of three trips to investigate the disease. “We have ruled out, through our field studies and our laboratory testing, more than three different hypothesized causes including . . . 18 virus families with hundreds of members,” Dowell said. It’s a relatively rare situation for the CDC to be in: Of 600 outbreaks of illnesses investigated by Dowell’s division, just six are unresolved. The researchers do have some leads. One is a possible link with the black-fly-borne parasite that causes river blindness, or onchocerciasis. Researchers have also observed a deficiency of Vitamin B6 in the populations where the disease is prevalent. With the cause of the disease unknown, officials are focusing on treating its symptoms. CDC researchers met with Ugandan health officials to discuss how a trial of treatments would work. The trial, which could begin as early as May, will test two types of anticonvulsants as well as Vitamin B6 supplements. Some afflicted children are already on anti-epileptic drugs, with varying degrees of success. “I think everybody is in agreement that at this stage it would be good to have a much better idea about what treatments are working and if any

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Journalists cite danger of concussions in sports; registry lists genetic tests

Concussions It’s not just a football problem “The Concussion Crisis,” by Linda Carroll and David Rosner Concussions are among the most serious injuries facing athletes, especially if they happen multiple times. Journalists Linda Carroll and David Rosner argue that concussions can be detrimental to athletes, particularly kids. “Thinking could be slowed, attention dulled, judgement impaired, memory muddled.” In their book, you can read about kids and professional athletes who have suffered concussions and about the scientists working to understand the long-term effects of head injuries. “What drove researchers was a need to explain the haunting stories of National Football League players who slipped into early-onset dementia before they even hit middle age.” Parents can learn what signs to look for if they suspect a concussion. The authors point out that concussions can occur in any sport, including football, soccer, cheerleadering, volleyball, gymnastics. Professional athletes may hesitate to report concussion-like symptoms if it means they’ll be pulled from a game, but Carroll and Rosner believe that the pros need to set the example for all the young players out there. — Whitney Fetterhoff disease Want to test your genes? Genetic Testing Registry, National Institutes of Health Ever thought about getting your genes checked out? A registry of genetic-test information has been launched by the National Institutes of Health. NIH says the tool is designed to clear the fog of confusion that surrounds genetic tests for disease. About 2,500 diseases can be detected by such tests, according to the NIH. The Genetic Testing Registry will provide free information about them to researchers, clinicians and curious individuals. Searching for a specific condition, for example, can bring up the genetic tests available for it. Users can then find out more about the labs that run the tests. The information will be provided voluntarily by the test providers to help people to understand which tests are available and how they work. — New Scientist

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Antipsychotic drugs grow more popular for patients without mental illness

Adriane Fugh-Berman was stunned by the question: Two graduate students who had no symptoms of mental illness wondered if she thought they should take a powerful schizophrenia drug each had been prescribed to treat insomnia. “It’s a total outrage,” said Fugh-Berman, a physician who is an associate professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University. “These kids needed some basic sleep [advice], like reducing their intake of caffeine and alcohol, not a highly sedating drug.” Those Georgetown students exemplify a trend that alarms medical experts, policymakers and patient advocates: the skyrocketing increase in the off-label use of an expensive class of drugs called atypical antipsychotics. Until the past decade these 11 drugs, most approved in the 1990s, had been reserved for the approximately 3 percent of Americans with the most disabling mental illnesses, chiefly schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; more recently a few have been approved to treat severe depression. But these days atypical antipsychotics — the most popular are Seroquel, Zyprexa and Abilify — are being prescribed by psychiatrists and primary-care doctors to treat a panoply of conditions for which they have not been approved, including anxiety, attention-deficit disorder, sleep difficulties, behavioral problems in toddlers and dementia. These new drugs account for more than 90 percent of the market and have eclipsed an older generation of antipsychotics. Two recent reports have found that youths in foster care, some less than a year old, are taking more psychotropic drugs than other children, including those with the severest forms of mental illness. In 2010 antipsychotic drugs racked up more than $16 billion in sales, according to IMS Health, a firm that tracks drug trends for the health-care industry. For the past three years they have ranked near or at the top of the best-selling classes of drugs, outstripping antidepressants and sometimes cholesterol medicines. A study published last year found that off-label antipsychotic prescriptions doubled between 1995 and 2008, from 4.4 million to 9 million. And a recent report by pharmacy benefits manager Medco estimated that the prevalence of the drugs’ use among adults ballooned more than 169 percent between 2001 and 2010. Critics say the popularity of atypical antipsychotics reflects a combination of hype that the expensive medicines, which can cost $500 per month, are safer than the earlier generation of drugs; hope that they will work for a variety of ailments when other treatments have not; and aggressive marketing by drug companiesto doctors

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Military searches soldier’s records for clues in killings of Afghan civilians

Military investigators were combing through a U.S. Army sergeant’s personnel and medical records Monday to determine what might have caused him to slip away from his base in southern Afghanistan and allegedly massacre 16 sleeping villagers, most of them women and children, in the black of night. U.S. commanders said they think the shooter acted alone in Sunday’s rampage in the rural Panjwai district of Kandahar province. But they were struggling to deduce a motive for the attack, which has prompted outrage among Afghan officials and inflamed an already strained relationship between Washington and Kabul. The suspect, a trained sniper, received a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury after sustaining a head injury in Iraq during a vehicle rollover in 2010, two U.S. military officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of the case. The soldier was subsequently declared fit for duty, the officials said. Other U.S. military officials said they were working quickly to build a case against the suspect but declined to identify him until charges could be filed. They described him as a married, 38-year-old staff sergeant with two children who joined the Army 11 years ago. They said he had served three tours of duty in Iraq and deployed to Afghanistan for the first time in December. “The evidence at this point, both in terms of observations and reports and interviews, leads us to believe that he acted as an individual,” Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told CNN. “We’re going to do a thorough investigation. We’re going to hold this individual accountable.” Under military law, the shooter, if convicted, could face the death penalty. U.S. officials said the soldier abruptly walked off a combat outpost about 3 a.m. Sunday local time. Allen said that an Afghan soldier standing watch reported the unauthorized departure but that others on the base could not mobilize quickly enough to track down the missing American before the attack, the deadliest on civilians by a U.S. service member during the decade-long Afghanistan war. “There was a head count done amongst the American soldiers; [they] recognized that he was missing, unaccounted for,” Allen said. “We put together a search party right away, and it was as that search party was forming that we began to have indications of the outcome of his departure.” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the

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U.S. to challenge China’s curbs on mineral exports; China says it will push back

The Obama administration filed a trade complaint on Tuesday asking China to loosen its restrictions on exports of rare-earth minerals — materials essential to the manufacture of a wide range of products, from missiles and computers to car batteries and cellphones. In an appearance at the White House Rose Garden, President Obama announced that the United States has asked the World Trade Organization to facilitate formal consultations with China over its limits on rare-earth exports, in a case filed jointly with Japan and the European Union. Officials in Beijing said Tuesday that China will vigorously defend its right to control the export of such materials. The official state-run news agency, Xinhua, warned that any U.S. move to lodge a trade complaint over the issue would “backfire.” In choosing to make a stand, U.S. officials are highlighting an industry over which China has a near-monopoly. The country now produces more than 95 percent of the world’s rare-earth minerals, which are used in almost all advanced industrial products, from helicopter blades to solar panels to the batteries in electric cars to flat-screen televisions. And China has shown in recent years that it is not afraid to use its dominance in the crucial market as a cudgel. In 2010, during a territorial dispute with Japan, the Chinese government halted the shipment of anything containing so-called “rare-earths” to Japan, causing a temporary panic among electronics manufacturers. China has only about 30 percent of the world’s known rare-earths deposits. But other countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, stopped mining more than a decade ago, because the price of the Chinese-produced rare earths was cheaper. “If China would simply let the market work on its own, we’d have no objections,” Obama said during his remarks. “But their policies currently are preventing that from happening. And they go against the very rules that China agreed to follow.” Obama added: “Being able to manufacture advanced batteries and hybrid cars in America is too important for us to stand by and do nothing. We’ve got to take control of our energy future, and we can’t let that energy industry take root in some other country because they were allowed to break the rules.” Global buyers were rattled in 2009 when the Beijing government announced it was setting a quota on rare-earths exports, ostensibly to protect the environment and stop over-mining. Critics saw the move as an attempt

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Afghan support for U.S. pullout grows after killing rampage, attack on delegation

city of Jalalabad on Tuesday to demand that the U.S. soldier held in the Sunday shootings be tried in an Afghan court. In Kandahar city, hundreds of students attended a memorial for the victims, and many called for the prompt prosecution of the soldier. “He has to be punished,” said Hazrat Mir Totakhil, the dean of Kandahar University. “That was the demand of the students.” The type of riots and protests that followed the burning of the Korans would be counterproductive in this case, Totakhil said, because “the enemy would take advantage of that.” Seeking to capitalize on the anger at the shootings, the Taliban on Tuesday issued its third and most detailed statement on the incident, threatening to behead foreign “murderous sadistic troops in every corner of the country.” The statement said that residents of Kandahar have not reacted more viscerally and violently to the killings because local officials co-opted by the U.S. government have told them to stand down. “They have banned the courageous people of Kandahar and the country from taking to the streets,” the statement said, calling that “rubbing salt on the victim’s wounds.” The Koran burning triggered a week-long spate of riots and prompted members of the Afghan security forces to fatally shoot a handful of U.S. soldiers. The reaction to the killings Sunday has been more subdued because the desecration of Korans is seen as an affront to Muslims worldwide and because the loss of civilian life at the hands of foreign troops has become somewhat routine, Afghans said in interviews. “The burning of the Korans was more important because it targeted the foundation of our religion,” said Mawlavi Qiyamuddin Kashaf, head of Afghanistan’s Ulema Council, an assembly of religious scholars. The council condemned the killings in a statement Tuesday in which it called for an end to night raids by foreign troops on the homes of suspected insurgents. “Those who consider themselves as the upholders of human rights in the 21st century once again committed a barbaric, inhumane, shameful deed,” said the council, which is seen as closely allied with Karzai’s government. “If this is repeated again, it will be difficult to control people’s sentiments and prevent a general uproar” against foreign troops. Members of Afghanistan’s Senate echoed that sentiment. Instead of holding sessions inside parliament, lawmakers stood outside on the snow-covered pavement in silent protest of the killings. “We don’t know anymore

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In Spike Gjerde’s world

to source ingredients from the same community that would be their clientele. In fact, the growers and purveyors who dine at the restaurant are treated to a 50 percent discount. “The growers are our rock stars,” says the chef. After a rocky start in the fall of 2007 and winter of 2008, Gjerde hit upon a local sourcing model that worked. He expanded his network of growers, actively seeking out new ones to grow specific ingredients. He increased his kitchen work force — now at a total of 28 — so they could preserve large amounts of seasonal produce for year-round use and perform whole-animal butchery. “This allows us to work much more closely with small farms that produce sporadically. We can take the whole animal and use every single part of it, because we have to. It’s precious,” says Gjerde. It also means that certain cuts are limited, requiring menu changes throughout any busy night. A pork skirt steak, for example, might get switched to some other muscle during service; the nightly steak offering is listed generically as Tavern Steak. Buying produce in bulk and whole animals allows Gjerde to maintain a 28 to 30 percent food cost, which is good for a fine-dining restaurant and compensates for Woodberry’s higher-than-average labor cost. At a managers’ meeting in mid-February, chef de cuisine George Marsh went over the stats for the yield of an 898-pound Liberty Delight steer. About a quarter of the animal was unusable, but that represents tremendous savings. Whole animals cost much less than parts — say, $2.85 per pound instead of $4.50 — and can be butchered in a way that yields many more sellable cuts of meat. The result: lower cost, higher yield. The chef’s eyes light up when he talks about the local products he loves to promote, especially Chesapeake Bay bounty such as yellow perch, oysters and rockfish, or the 17 country hams and 300 pounds of Woodberry Kitchen lardo and pancetta hanging in a farmer’s smokehouse. On an insider’s tour of the restaurant, he points out organic spelt flour from Small Valley Mill in Pennsylvania, stone-ground whole-wheat flour from Yeehaw Farm and tins of espelette powder made from peppers two local growers supply. Gjerde is a pepper freak. While researching them, he found references to the fish pepper, a variety widely used in Chesapeake Bay area cooking in the 1800s that had become

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Recommendations

in Virginia at Arrowine in Arlington, Chain Bridge Cellars in McLean, River City Cellars in Richmond, Tastings in Charlottesville, Unwined in Alexandria and Belleview; on the list at Bastille in Alexandria, Mediterranee in Great Falls. Marc Bredif Vouvray 2009 ★★★ Loire Valley, France, $24 More substantial than most wines from Vouvray, this carries more weight and intensity. Definitely a wine to pair with richer foods. Republic National: Available in the District at S&S Liquors, Safeway in Georgetown, Trader Joe’s; on the list at Chef Geoff’s. Domaine du Clos de l’Epinay Vouvray Demi-Sec 2009 ★★1 / 2 Loire Valley, France $16 Demi-sec designates some residual sweetness in the wine, but don’t think of this as sweet. The sugar is deftly balanced by the fruit and graced with a subtle mineral quality. This wine could stand alone before a meal, but I’d recommend it with mildly spiced Asian foods or composed salads. Dionysus: Available in the District at Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits, and Whole Foods Markets P Street, Tenleytown and Foggy Bottom; on the list at Bombay Club and Brasserie Beck. Available in Maryland at Balducci’s, Bradley Food & Beverage and Capital Beer & Wine in Bethesda; Finewine.com in Gaithersburg; Frederick Wine House; Rodman’s in Wheaton and White Flint. On the list at Raku in Bethesda. Available in Virginia at Balducci’s in McLean and Alexandria; Wine Cabinet in Reston; Whole Foods Markets in Alexandria, Arlington, Fair Lakes and Charlottesville. Charles Bove Vouvray 2010 ★★ Loire Valley, France $16 This wine will benefit from a few more months in the bottle to help the flavors integrate, but there is appealing apricot and peach, with a tart beginning and a touch of sweetness on the finish. Vintage 59/Country Vintner: Available in the District at Morris Miller Wine & Liquor and Rodman’s; on the list at Hank’s Oyster Bar. Available in Maryland at Georgetown Square Beer & Wine in Bethesda, I.M. Wine in Fulton, Roots Market in Olney; on the list at Founding Farmers in Potomac. Jean Dumont Vouvray 2010 ★★ Loire Valley, France, $13 Although not labeled “sec,” this is one of the drier Vouvrays I have tasted, and it adds an appealing citrusy note of orange peel to the usual orchard in a glass. J.W. Sieg: Available in the District at Cleveland Park Wine and Spirits; on the list at Bistrot Lepic, Busboys & Poets Fifth Street NW, PS 7’s, Sax, Vidalia,

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Beer Madness, Round 1: Our panel goes straight to Helles

Church Key manager Brett Weinrieb serves another round of beer samples during the Washington Post's annual Beer Madness which takes place at Church Key. (Astrid Riecken/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) For the opening bout of Beer Madness, our host Greg Engert, beer director of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, took great pains to arrange matchups between beers that were stylistically similar: pils vs. pils, IPA vs. IPA, and so on. But surprisingly few of the contests were close. Typically, our judging panel ganged up on one of the beers, sending it down the drain by a 6-3, 7-2 or 8-1 vote. There were no unanimous decisions. In the Crisp category, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) flip-flopped, as is a politician’s prerogative, switching his initial vote for Bell’s Lager to Fordham Helles Lager . Six of his fellow tasters agreed, with Halley Fehner praising the Helles for its “slightly floral, honeydew” taste and Palena pastry chef Agnes Chin designating it her “game-day beer with salty snacks.” But our outspoken sommelier Kathryn Bangs opted for Bell’s, finding the Helles past its prime (“smells like a frat house the morning after a kegger”). Bangs was once again in the minority in choosing Small Craft Warning Uber Pils (“delicious, rich, honey butter and champagne”) over Sword Swallower . Mixologist Gina Chersevani concurred, panning Sword Swallower for resembling “oversteeped Lipton iced tea.” But the panel, by a 6-3 vote, gave the sideshow-themed imperial pils the nod for its floral and fruity notes and caramel malt richness. The Fruit and Spice category included some of the round’s most diverse beers, as well as some of the closest contests. Saison Rue edged Rayon Vert, 5-4, in a battle of the saisons, and the kaffir lime and lemon grass-flavored Siamese Twin narrowly defeated the strong, dark and fruity Three Philosophers by an identical score. “Tastes like the ginseng-ginger-date tea my grandfather used to drink,” Chin wrote approvingly of the Siamese Twin. Greg Engert, Beer Director of the Neighborhood Restaurant group, breaks down the judging process for Washington Post Beer Madness 2012. Last year’s champion, Flying Fish Brewing’s Exit 4, survived, besting Brooklyn Brewery’s Sorachi Ace, 6-3. Chersevani picked up “green pear” and “banana peels,” while Bangs was reminded of the Japanese citrus fruit yuzu. In a battle of the hometown brews, DC Brau’s hoppy pale ale the Public upended New River Pale Ale from Lost Rhino Brewing, 7-2. Chersevani couldn’t scribble

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The cost of U.S. soldiers fighting battles endlessly

Robert H. Scales, a retired U.S. Army major general and former commandant of the Army War College, is president of the consulting firm Colgen. I guess I knew it would eventually come down to this: Blame the Army’s institutions in some way for the horrific and senseless slaughter of 16 innocent Afghan civilians in Kandahar, allegedly by a U.S. infantry non-commissioned officer (NCO). In their search for a villain, the media seems to be focusing now on Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, where the accused soldier was stationed before his fourth deployment to a combat zone. Before we get too involved in attacking institutions, perhaps it might be right and proper to suggest that the underlying issue here is not about failure of our Army. Perhaps the issue might be that no institutional effort can make up for trying over the past 10 years to fight too many wars with too few soldiers? The accused NCO is an infantryman. Two weeks ago I talked with infantry soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., and I couldn’t help contrasting them with those of my generation of Vietnam veterans. What caught my attention were the soldiers’ amazing stories of patient, selfless, introversive commitment. First I took to heart the enormous disparity in stressful, extreme experiences between the infantry and other branches and services that have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. The senior NCOs I spoke to all had at least three, and in some cases five, tours, virtually all in close combat units. Contrast this with returning Vietnam NCOs and junior officers, most of whom in that era had only one tour in Vietnam. Of course infantry combat in Vietnam was perhaps more intense, but close fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was more pervasive and lasting, thus more likely to cause personal trauma in my mind. The infantrymen I spoke to at Fort Benning were different from those in my generation. They were more emotionally exhausted and drained, less spontaneous and humorless. My generation of professionals spent a great deal of time on Friday nights at the officer’s club, talking over a beer about the Catch-22 nature of Vietnam and many of the stupid and hilarious experiences we endured. None of this at Benning today. No clubs, no public displays of hilarity and certainly no beer. These guys seemed to view their time in combat as endless and repetitive. My sense is

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Fraud investigation targets recruiting program for Army National Guard, Reserves

A recruitment campaign to boost the Army National Guard and Reserve at a difficult time in Iraq and Afghanistan is the focus of a wide-ranging Pentagon fraud investigation, including allegations of kickback schemes involving military personnel, internal documents show. The alleged fraud involves programs that paid $2,000 bounties to soldiers or civilians who signed up as “recruiting assistants” and brought in new enlistees. Investigators have found evidence that recruiters for the Guard and Reserve who were not eligible for the bounties worked with some recruiting assistants to secretly secure and split up the money. More than 1,700 recruiters and hundreds of recruiting assistants are under scrutiny for $92 million in potentially fraudulent transactions — more than a quarter of all the bounty money paid, according to an internal Army Audit Agency document. Investigators have found that dozens of the recruiters apparently shared bank accounts with individuals who received bounties. Faced with a report on the abuses, Army Secretary John McHugh canceled the programs and ordered a probe of “systemic weaknesses and shortfalls, some of a potentially criminal nature,” according to an internal memo signed by McHugh on Feb. 9. In response to questions from The Washington Post, an Army spokesman said the investigation is ongoing. “If additional allegations of criminal conduct are found, the Army will take appropriate action,” spokesman George Wright said. “Because of the sensitivity of the criminal investigation, providing any further details or comment would be inappropriate.” The Recruiting Assistance Programs, launched in 2005, were billed as an innovative way to supplement active-duty units strained by the demands of the two wars. At the time, tens of thousands of servicemen and women were required to serve extended tours of duty because of the shortfall of troops to relieve them. The campaign offered bounties of up to $2,000 per recruit to soldiers or civilians who referred enlistees to the Guard or Reserve. Pentagon investigators started hearing allegations that some recruiters for the Guard and Reserve were taking advantage of the program. Over the past several years, investigators have opened at least 17 criminal cases and have called for a broader audit. A subsequent Army Audit Agency investigation showed that more than a quarter of the $339 million in bounties paid over the past six years “were at risk for fraud,” according to an audit briefing given to McHugh on Feb. 2. The transactions involved at least 1,706 recruiters

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Afghan shootings refocus attention on Fort Lewis-McChord

LAKEWOOD, Wash. — He said that he doesn’t want police shooting troops but that he fears the risk of such deadly encounters is growing. “We are having more and more issues with the military — suicides, domestic violence, DUIs, malicious mischief,” Bulman said. “They are trying to deal with issues unsuccessfully, and so they end up getting into trouble. But the situation can escalate if they are not treated properly.” Lewis-McChord, an Army and Air Force installation south of Tacoma, is the largest military base on the West Coast, and thousands of service members from here have been deployed, often repeatedly, to Iraq and Afghanistan. The consequences of those tours are being felt both on distant battlefields and in the communities that surround the base, according to activists who work with veterans. Confrontations with the police and criminal activity off the base are on the rise, and the legacy of battle is to blame, they say. PTSD “is a chronic problem, and it’s been growing for 10 years,” said Stephen Kubiszewski, who co-founded PTSD Anonymous, which meets at a chapel at Lewis-McChord. The 38-year-old soldier who is alleged to have killed 16 civilians over the weekend in southern Afghanistan was based at Lewis-McChord. Officials have said he had a traumatic brain injury in 2010 while in Iraq but was deemed fit for duty. It remains unclear what prompted the shootings or whether anything in the suspect’s medical history could have led to his alleged actions. But the disclosure this week that he was from Lewis-McChord has refocused attention on trouble at the base, where a string of high-profile incidents had already raised questions about the scale of the mental health problems here and how the military is responding. Last year, four members of a platoon from the base’s 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division were convicted for their roles in a self-described “kill team” that murdered three unarmed Afghan civilians. Two soldiers have been accused of waterboarding their children — one because the child couldn’t recite his ABCs and another because his foster son wet his bed. A 24-year-old Iraq war veteran fatally shot a ranger at Mount Rainier National Park. In April, David Stewart, 38, a decorated combat medic with two tours in Iraq, killed himself after leading police on a high-speed chase down Interstate 5 near Tumwater. His wife, 38, who had been shot in the head, was

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Afghan shootings refocus attention on Fort Lewis-McChord

found in the car beside him. Their 5-year-old son was found dead at their home. And on Tuesday, a lieutenant colonel at the base was charged with felony harassment in connection with allegedly threatening to kill his wife, with whom he is going through a divorce, and his superior officer. At least 12 suicides have been recorded in the past year among Lewis-McChord soldiers, and more than 60 since 2001, activists say. “The problem of suicide is very severe,” said Rod Wittmier, program director of the National Alliance to End Veteran Suicide. “And we don’t understand the full dimensions of what is going on.” The Madigan Army Medical Center at the base is under a wide-ranging investigation following allegations that a special psychiatric team altered staff clinicians’ diagnoses for hundreds of soldiers from PTSD to lesser conditions. Fourteen soldiers who complained early this year that their PTSD diagnoses were unfairly changed were flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington for reevaluation. Last month, six of them had their PTSD diagnoses reinstated. Soon after the reevaluations, Juliana Ellis-Billingsley, a leader of the forensic psychiatry unit that is accused, resigned. “I find that I can no longer work in a system that requires me to sacrifice my professional and moral principles to political expediency,” Ellis-Billingsley wrote in her Feb. 23 resignation letter. The Army’s preliminary review last month found that more than 280 additional soldiers evaluated at Madigan since 2007 had their diagnoses altered to less serious conditions, often adjustment disorders that receive fewer disability benefits. Col. Dallas Homas, who heads the center, and William Keppler, a mental health chief at the hospital, were placed on administrative leave while the investigation continues. The most dramatic evidence in the case, according to a congressional source who was briefed on it, is a PowerPoint presentation that Keppler offered to psychiatric and medical staff members. It emphasized that each soldier who receives a PTSD diagnosis costs the military $1.5 million over his or her lifetime in health benefits and pension payments. Keppler referred calls about the case to military spokesmen, who referred questions to the Army surgeon general. Ellis-Billingsley did not respond to calls to her home seeking comment. Nationwide, traumatic brain injuries among service members have been steadily rising each year since 2000, with 11,000 confirmed cases reported that year and 30,000 reported in 2011, according to the Defense and Veterans

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Vehicle crashes on runway during Panetta visit in Afghanistan

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

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D.C. news briefs

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

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Soldier suspected in rampage is flown out of Afghanistan

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

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

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

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Loosening China’s grip on rare-earth metals

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

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Identity of Afghan shooting suspect still a secret

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

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

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

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The high cost of being lazy

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

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

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

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

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

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Export-Import Bank’s damage to American firms

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

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Stink bugs migrating to the Deep South

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

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

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

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

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

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Afghan rampage suspect Robert Bales was a soldier strained by deployments

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

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

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

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

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

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Review: Jiri Belohlavek leads Baltimore Symphony at Strathmore

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

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

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As climate changes, Louisiana seeks to lift a highway

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

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Region’s tech names got big play in Austin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Moscow authorities prohibit rally calling for justice for Sergei Magnitsky

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

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Panda poop could help grow green tea

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

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Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was found liable in financial fraud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Washington Post food calendar for March 21-April 2

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

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Beer Madness, Round 2: Tropical fruit and fresh laundry

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

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Junior ROTC offers lessons in leadership, service

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

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Group working to bring North Korean orchestra to United States

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

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Prince George’s County Animal Watch

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

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

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

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Tips from some D.C. tastemakers

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

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

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

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YouTube announces Space Lab winners

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

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University of Maryland University College President Aldridge resigns

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

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

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

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

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New agency tries to answer consumers’ common questions

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

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Army to charge Robert Bales with murder in killing of Afghan civilians

The military will charge Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with 17 counts of murder stemming from a massacre of Afghan villagers, a U.S. official said Thursday. Bales, 38, will be formally charged Friday, the official said. He has been detained at a maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for the past week. The killings are considered the worst U.S. atrocity of the Afghan war and have roiled relations between the United States and Afghanistan at a time when American commanders are seeking to stabilize the country in preparation for an eventual U.S. exit. President Obama has promised to hold accountable “anyone responsible” for the killings. The murder charges indicate that Army prosecutors have concluded that the slayings were premeditated and that Bales was fully aware of his actions, but Bales’s civilian attorney has said that his client does not remember much about what happened in the pre-dawn hours of March 11. Military officials have said Bales walked off a small combat outpost in Kandahar province and killed 17 villagers, most of them women and children, and later walked back to his base and turned himself in. Authorities had previously said 16 Afghans were killed and several others critically wounded. They said the death toll has since risen to 17. Although Afghan President Hamid Karzai relies on the U.S. and NATO military coalition to hold the Taliban-led insurgency at bay, he referred to foreign troops as “demons” after the massacre. He also demanded that they withdraw from villages across the country, which would upend the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency strategy. Bales will also be charged with six counts of attempted murder and aggravated assault in the woundings of six other villagers, as well as dereliction of duty, said the U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the charges were not yet filed. Bales’s attorney, John Henry Browne of Seattle, could not be reached for comment. The attacks came at a time of evaporating trust between the U.S. military and its Afghan allies. In January, an Internet video depicted U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters. Soon after, American troops burned copies of the Koran and other holy texts, an apparently inadvertent act that sparked widespread riots. Meanwhile, Afghan soldiers and others have stepped up treacherous attacks on U.S. troops, including the slaying of two U.S. officers assigned to the high-security Afghan Interior Ministry. Last week, an Afghan

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As details of massacre emerge, Afghan man who lost 11 relatives says: ‘We want justice’

KABUL — Wazir, 35, said he did not believe that a military trial in the United States could ever bring justice. “This is not acceptable for us,” Wazir, said in an interview Friday from the Afghan town of Spin Boldak. “We want him to be tried in Afghanistan, in our presence.” A farmer and trader, Wazir lived in a mud home in Najeeban, one of the two tiny villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province that Bales allegedly targeted during the early morning hours of March 11. Also shot and killed in Wazir’s home were his brother, his brother’s wife and their child, according to Wazir and other villagers. At the time of the attack, Wazir was in Spin Boldak, about 85 miles south, with his 4-year-old son, Habib Shah. Habib is now his only surviving child. One other person was killed in Najeeban, according to accounts provided by locals. But that person’s name was not readily available. Four others apparently were killed in Alokozo, a neighboring village of 20 homes. Samisami-Ullah, a 30-year-old farmer, identified those victims as his mother, uncle and two cousins. Three others in his family were wounded, he said, along with three from his neighbors’ families. Five of the six wounded were transported to a U.S. military hospital, where three victims remain. One girl, superficially wounded, was treated at a local hospital, villagers said. To date, the U.S. military has not contacted any witnesses or those who lost relatives, said Wazir, provincial officials and others who have talked to the massacre victims’ families. “None of them have come to investigate, or to talk to us, or seen the village,” Wazir said angrily. “We want justice.” Two others from the Panjwai district said they could vouch for Wazir’s account of the staggering death toll in his family. “I saw the scene; 11 people were killed in one house, in different locations, and then brought in one room and were burnt,” said Fazl Mohammad, deputy head of the Panjwai district council. “I saw blood, flesh and brains.” Jan Agha, a farmer who along with Mohammad was one of the first to arrive at the shooting sites and talk to witnesses, said Wazir “lost all of his family, apart from his son who was with him during the killings." It remained unclear in Afghanistan why a 17th murder charge was added when the tally of dead from

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As details of massacre emerge, Afghan man who lost 11 relatives says: ‘We want justice’

neighbors’ families. Five of the six wounded were transported to a U.S. military hospital, where three victims remain. One girl, superficially wounded, was treated at a local hospital, villagers said. To date, the U.S. military has not contacted any witnesses or those who lost relatives, said Wazir, provincial officials and others who have talked to the massacre victims’ families. “None of them have come to investigate, or to talk to us, or seen the village,” Wazir said angrily. “We want justice.” Two others from the Panjwai district said they could vouch for Wazir’s account of the staggering death toll in his family. “I saw the scene; 11 people were killed in one house, in different locations, and then brought in one room and were burnt,” said Fazl Mohammad, deputy head of the Panjwai district council. “I saw blood, flesh and brains.” Jan Agha, a farmer who along with Mohammad was one of the first to arrive at the shooting sites and talk to witnesses, said Wazir “lost all of his family, apart from his son who was with him during the killings." It remained unclear in Afghanistan why a 17th murder charge was added when the tally of dead from the beginning has been given as 16. U.S. military authorities on Thursday said the toll has since risen to 17, but did not explain the discrepancy. More information was expected late Friday. Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, said none of the five people wounded in the shootings has died. He also ruled out the possibility that one of the slain women was pregnant. According to villagers, neither NATO nor U.S. forces have yet offered any compensation for the civilian deaths. As is practice when civilians are killed either by coalition or insurgent forces, President Hamid Karzai has paid families in Panjwai about $2,000 for each victim. Wazir confirmed that he had received that sum for each of the 11 in his family who died, but said he did not consider the money compensation for human loss. He said it was a charitable payment to cover burial expenses and other immediate needs. Survivors contend that the killings had to be the work of more than one soldier, a claim supported by Karzai after he met last week with relatives of those killed. Samisami-Ullah said that wounded relatives told him, “There were 10 soldiers in our neighborhood

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Hawaii bird-watching: A land of unusual, and often endangered, species

which it shares a zippy pace, it actually lands to feed on the flowers. Jeffrey described watching these birds as a series of three-second sightings. The pattern, he said with a metronome beat, is: “There it is, there it is, there it goes.” Even though we were sitting in the open and chatting, the birds came closer and closer as they got used to us. Soon we spotted an ‘i’iwi with orange-red plumage. Its beak, a pale orange, curved to dip perfectly into the spray of stamens that form the blossom. The ‘i’iwi paused, then extended its neck to sing with full-bodied earnestness — operatic vigor in a tiny package. An even smaller velvety yellow-green bird appeared in an adjacent tree. Like some sort of yoga master, the amakihi seemed to effortlessly bend itself backward as it looked around. It also seemed unaffected by gravity, dashing 180 degrees around a twig to get to a blossom. When the flowers are out, the various honeycreepers spend their days working a nectar circuit, sipping from one and then moving to the next, returning when the flowers have refilled. As we ate our sandwiches and watched the midday clouds settle in, Jeffrey explained how the islands’ isolation allowed for unique evolutionary relationships. In the millions of years between the time when the Hawaiian Islands burbled up from the seafloor and the Polynesians landed (around 1,400 years ago), the pattern was that a new species of plant or animal arrived every 50,000 to 60,000 years, drifting in via air or on ocean currents. There’s something spectacular about the tenacity and durability of life that changed those lumps of cooled lava into a set of unique ecosystems, but a key element was time, which allowed for often quirky adaptations. Birds, not insects, are the key pollinators for many plants. Bats were the only mammals on the islands, so the nettles lost their spikes, not needing a defense against herbivorous grazers. Similarly, the islands’ 54 varieties of mint lost their strong mint flavor, which, ironically, given its appeal to humans, is a defense against being eaten. Nowadays 10 to 20 nonnative species are introduced to the islands every year through the everyday flow of people and goods from the rest of the world. This has left the Hawaiian ecosystems rather battered. After several peaceful hours of talking and watching, we saw one amakihi landing on a

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The U.S. military doesn’t know who is fit to fight

traumatic brain injury. Since 2009, the Defense Department has spent millions of dollars on ANAM4 — Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics, Version 4 — the standard measure of brain injury for troops returning from combat. But ANAM has serious shortcomings. Developed by military researchers in the 1980s, it has been used to select pilots and astronauts, but was not intended as a diagnostic test for concussions or any other neurological disorder. ANAM and other psychological tests are useful but not definitive. They help identify particular problems, such as dementia, in up to 80 percent of cases, but the questionnaires are subjective, even when administered by professional psychologists. Clinicians should rely on psychological tests such as ANAM to supplement examinations — not to diagnose. Other factors complicate the psychological testing of soldiers. Psychiatrists at Washington’s Madigan Army Medical Center — located on Bales’s home base — may have changed PTSD diagnoses to save money. Meanwhile, the murky background of new recruits — some who have mental illness, have been on medication and had concussions we don’t know about — complicates assessment. Psychologists can’t always immediately identify a private’s ability to cope with training and combat. There are no good tools to discern predisposition to emotional stress or assess for a history of concussions. Soldiers fight a battalion of stresses: life-or-death missions, colleagues killed or badly injured, chronic aches from carrying heavy loads, disturbed sleep patterns, exposure to foreign toxins, and explosions that shake the body and the brain. No tests adequately account for every issue. Questionnaires can’t distinguish between medical problems caused by IEDs, shock, drug and alcohol abuse, or diseases that affect thinking and behavior. Using surveys to evaluate men and women before and after their service doesn’t offer a clear picture of the whole person or of the circumstances leading to their injury. What would be better than the outdated method we use? According to some, only electroencephalogram (EEG) tests, which measure brain waves, or diffusion tensor imaging, a specialized MRI, can detect specific evidence of a brain injury. EEGs are inexpensive, take less than an hour and can be done outside of hospitals. More sophisticated radiological testing is expensive and time-consuming, but can yield worthwhile information. ANAM’s subjective self-reports are no match for physiological data for diagnosing damage to the brain. Still, some may argue that the cost of definitive screening is prohibitive. That is a red herring. Refitting

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Murray Lender, the man who brought bagels to the masses

Murray Lender kisses the world's largest bagel while baker Larry Wilkerson, left, and Lender's Bagel Bakery manager Jim Cudahy watch after the weight of the bagel was revealed during Bagelfest in Mattoon, Ill. (DOUG LAWHEAD/AP) Only Lender’s, with Murray Lender as chief executive, saw the future. Lender’s became the first bakery to mass-produce and freeze bagels. By the late 1960s, the company produced thousands a day to be sold across the nation. Bagels became a reality in corners of the country where they had previously been a rumor, a whisper in the wind off New York Harbor. The union tried to fight back, but it was too late. It shriveled and Lender’s kept growing, shaping the bagel literally and metaphorically. By the end of the 1970s, more than 80 percent of the million bagels made each day by Lender’s were sold to non-Jewish households. Americans of all stripes knew and loved bagels. But what about the taste? At first the bagel machine had an unintended consequence: The dough gummed up the works, so it was changed to be less sticky. Then it turned out that, to sell bagels to people around the country, it helped to make them taste like white bread. Then people wanted “flavors.” Murray Lender’s bagel was very different from what his father would have made in the old country. In 1997, Eric Asimov described in the New York Times the Lender’s Line, an “informal border” between those who eat supermarket bagels and those who know better. And just this month, when Consumer Reports announced that Lender’s Original was one of the best bagels available, the New York Post lashed out at the foolishness of such an idea. But Murray Lender is not a villain. His frozen toroids opened the door for the proliferation of bagel shops. Consumers across the world met the bagel through Lender’s and later demanded hot, fresh, New York-style bagels. And in the towns where those shops are yet to open, they still have Lender’s. New Yorkers can be proud of their bagel heritage and still recognize that Lender was a bagel big shot. Barry Ansel, a close friend of the Lender family and vice president of sales at Lender’s from 1976 to 1994, told me years ago, when I started researching the history of the bagel, that Murray Lender’s genius was to convince the world that bagels were a good alternative to

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Area businesses finding opportunities south of the border

Local Business Development, started this month with $800,000 in grant money from the Small Business Administration and D.C. government. The new office is to offer technical assistance and provide support for small businesses to participate in trade missions. “Businesses that are new to exporting really need assistance with making contacts, and we can provide help through the U.S. embassies overseas,” LaCrosse said. “We do some pre-qualifications to make sure they are meeting the right business partners and buyers.” Importers score big with Latin American food Having business relationships in Latin American markets can be equally beneficial for exporting and importing, as Melissa Berthier can attest. Her husband, Alfonso, not only had family connections in Mexico, but had developed business contacts while working in sales for Mexicana Airlines. That gave the Chevy Chase couple a running start when they began importing tortillas from Mexico in 2009 to sell to Hispanic grocery stores in the Washington area. By the following year, demand was so strong that the couple began selling items online at LatinBag.com. Now, there are more than 1,000 grocery items from all over Latin America sold on the Web site. Goods are housed in warehouses in Landover and Rockville, where four workers manage logistics. “We sell products that remind people of their childhood in Peru or Mexico or Bolivia,” Berthier said. She estimates Latin Bag takes in 1,500 orders a quarter, and obtains goods from 30 distributors across the United States. While Berthier would not disclose figures, she said sales are up and the company is profitable. Revenue from the business is being used to grow operations. Pastor Payllo had to hire more people at his facility in Vienna to fulfill orders for El Ciebo products last year. The number of stores carrying the Bolivian chocolate bars and drinks nearly doubled from 40 to 75 in nine states in 2011. The El Ciebo brand already had cachet when Payllo and his wife, Carmen Segales, began distributing the products of their home country in the United States and Canada two years ago. The chocolate company has been run as a cooperative for more than four decades, with products only available in exclusive boutiques. Now, Payllo is negotiating a distribution deal with Whole Foods, after a chance encounter with a representative at the Hispanic Chamber Expo. He anticipates needing about $500,000 in financing to keep with orders, if the deal goes through.

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Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales charged with murdering 17 Afghans

The U.S. military charged Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales on Friday with murdering 17 Afghans during a village massacre this month but did not shed light on a possible motive for the worst U.S. atrocity of the decade-long war. Bales, 38, a member of an infantry unit and the married father of two young children, was formally presented with the charges at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he is being held in a maximum-security military prison. In a statement from Kabul, the U.S. military said Bales was also charged with assaulting and attempting to murder six other Afghan civilians during a rampage in the early morning hours of March 11. Most of the dead were women and children, and some of the bodies were burned, U.S. and Afghan officials have said. Col. Gary Kolb, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, said Bales is alleged to have walked off base armed with a 9mm pistol and an M-4 rifle with a grenade launcher. The U.S. military released charging documents in the case but redacted the names of victims in the shootings. Military officials have not provided a timeline of the events surrounding the killings or offered a motive for the alleged crimes. The massacre, in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, has roiled relations between the United States and Afghanistan at a time when American commanders are seeking to stabilize the country in preparation for an eventual U.S. exit. President Obama has promised to hold accountable “anyone responsible” for the killings. In its statement, the military said Bales acted with pre-meditation and that he could be subject to the death penalty if the case proceeds to court-martial and he is convicted. Bales’s civilian attorney has said his client does not remember much about what happened on March 11, when the military alleges he committed the massacre and returned to the base on his own to surrender. “This is going to be a very difficult case for the government to prove, in my opinion,” the lawyer, John Henry Browne, said on “CBS This Morning” on Friday. “There is no crime scene. There is no, you know, there’s no ‘CSI’ stuff. There’s no DNA. There’s no fingerprints. It’s just going to be interesting to see how the government’s going to prove this.” Bales had deployed three times to Iraq. He arrived in Afghanistan for the first time in December with other members of the

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Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales charged with murdering 17 Afghans

counts of murder. But a U.S. military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said forensic investigators subsequently determined that 17 bodies were at the scene. The dead included 10 females and seven males. The ages of the dead were not disclosed in the charging documents, but those wounded in the massacre included eight children. The decision to formally charge Bales did nothing to dampen the anger of Mohammed Wazir, who lost 11 family members — including his mother, wife, four daughters and two sons — in the rampage. Wazir, 35, said he did not believe that a military trial in the United States could ever bring justice. “This is not acceptable for us,” Wazir said in an interview Friday from the Afghan town of Spin Boldak. “We want him to be tried in Afghanistan, in our presence.” A farmer and trader, Wazir lived in a mud home in Najeeban, one of the two tiny villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province that Bales allegedly targeted. Also shot and killed in Wazir’s home were his brother, his brother’s wife and their child, according to Wazir and other villagers. At the time of the attack, Wazir was in Spin Boldak, about 85 miles south, with his 4-year-old son, Habib Shah. Habib is now his only surviving child. Four others apparently were killed in Alokozo, a neighboring village of 20 homes. Samisami-Ullah, a 30-year-old farmer, identified those victims as his mother, uncle and two cousins. Three others in his family were wounded, he said, along with three from his neighbors’ families. Five of the six wounded were transported to a U.S. military hospital, where three victims remain. To date, the U.S. military has not contacted any witnesses or those who lost relatives, said Wazir, provincial officials and others who have talked to the massacre victims’ families. “None of them have come to investigate, or to talk to us, or seen the village,” Wazir said angrily. “We want justice.” Leiby reported from Kabul. Correspondent Ernesto Londoño in Kabul and staff writers Mary Pat Flaherty and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report. More world news coverage: - Syrian rebels running out of ammunition - Despite mounting criticism, Iraq’s prime minister remains powerful - U.S. soldier to be charged with 17 counts of murder in Afghan massacre - Read more headlines from around the world

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“How Not to be Eaten: The Insects Fight Back” by Gilbert Waldbauer and “A World of Insects ”edited by Ring Carde and Vincent H. Resh

An entomologist is standing on the porch at a party, watching sphinx moths flit around. A guy asks him if the moths have ears. Who knows? He pulls out his car keys and shakes them at the moths. They dart away, alarmed by the ultrasonic noise the metal generates. (The chunks of plastic we carry around now are useless for party tricks like these.) Back at his laboratory, he pokes around until he finds two ear-like structures near the moth’s mouth. Its trick for evading bats at night by dodging their high-pitched cries is finally understood. Stories like this make scientists easy to love. The dashing fellow on the porch nursing a sweaty old-fashioned (I like to think he’s a bourbon drinker), casually making scientific breakthroughs by rattling his car keys? That’s a fine protagonist. Gilbert Waldbauer’s Waldbauer — a professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Illinois and author of several other popular books on bugs — won me over when he shared his recipe for bait to attract night-flying moths. He ferments molasses, sugar, canned peaches and stale beer for a couple of days, then brushes it on tree trunks at sunset. Later in the night, he returns to find slightly drunken moths sipping the nectar. Moth collectors call this “sugaring.” Although Waldbauer packs his essays with tidbits like these, the collection still reads more like a surprisingly interesting textbook than a compelling tale of popular science. Readers will certainly come away with a renewed appreciation for the ways in which insects use mimicry, deceit and poison to survive. The oleander aphid that sucks poisons from the shrub to protect itself is fascinating, as is the 11-spotted ladybird beetle that eats the aphids and takes in the poison for its own protection. But these bite-sized, easily digestible facts were at once too much and not enough to keep me turning the pages. I kept wanting to get back to that entomologist standing on the porch, jingling his car keys in the dark. ’How Not to Be Eaten: The Insects Fight Back’ by Gilbert Waldbauer (University of California Press) Waldbauer’s work also appears in a new collection, “A World of Insects,” which draws on 50 years’ worth of insect literature published by Harvard University Press. Here the editors have gathered some of the finest and most entertaining entomological writing I’ve ever read. Mark Winston, a professor at British

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“How Not to be Eaten: The Insects Fight Back” by Gilbert Waldbauer and “A World of Insects ”edited by Ring Carde and Vincent H. Resh

returns to find slightly drunken moths sipping the nectar. Moth collectors call this “sugaring.” Although Waldbauer packs his essays with tidbits like these, the collection still reads more like a surprisingly interesting textbook than a compelling tale of popular science. Readers will certainly come away with a renewed appreciation for the ways in which insects use mimicry, deceit and poison to survive. The oleander aphid that sucks poisons from the shrub to protect itself is fascinating, as is the 11-spotted ladybird beetle that eats the aphids and takes in the poison for its own protection. But these bite-sized, easily digestible facts were at once too much and not enough to keep me turning the pages. I kept wanting to get back to that entomologist standing on the porch, jingling his car keys in the dark. ’How Not to Be Eaten: The Insects Fight Back’ by Gilbert Waldbauer (University of California Press) Waldbauer’s work also appears in a new collection, “A World of Insects,” which draws on 50 years’ worth of insect literature published by Harvard University Press. Here the editors have gathered some of the finest and most entertaining entomological writing I’ve ever read. Mark Winston, a professor at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University, offers a clever essay on killer bees called “The Creation of a Pop Insect.” His own fieldwork helped measure the spread of the bees throughout South America, where they disrupted hives of docile European bees and terrified the public. He delivers a lively critique of the media’s coverage of the phenomenon and even pulls back the curtain on the linguistic debate among scientists over terms such as “killer,” “African” and “Africanized” to refer to the bees. It’s a juicy tale, an intriguing blend of science, politics and tabloid sleaze. Forensic entomologist M. Lee Goff’s “A Fly for the Prosecution,” about a murder in which the time of death was determined through his analysis of the insects living in and around the corpse, is as exciting as any murder mystery, making it one of the high points in this collection. And the late Cornell entomologist Thomas Eisner’s “The Love Potion,” about a blister beetle known as Spanish fly, works for the same reason: Eisner was willing to put himself at the center of the story. He explored the question of whether a poison excreted by the beetles could cause priapism (prolonged and painful erections) in men who

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Music: BSO performs Higdon, Tchaikovsky works

It takes a certain gutsiness to open a concert with not just one, but two big and brassy fanfares — you had better follow through with something worth the buildup. But no one’s ever accused Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conductor Marin Alsop of not having guts, and on Thursday night at the Music Center at Strathmore she pulled out all the stops and delivered two huge, spectacular works — including a percussion concerto by Jennifer Higdon that may be one of the most exciting orchestral works of the past decade. The fanfares themselves were agreeable enough. Aaron Copland’s much-loved “Fanfare for the Common Man” was paired back to back with Joan Tower’s less well known “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” and they made a cute couple: Where Copland paints in broad, simple and masculine strokes, Tower rushes busily here and there, generating lots of energy if not the same luminous and stately power as Copland. It wasn’t clear whether the fanfares’ titles were meant to refer directly to the next two composers on the program — you would have a tough time selling Tchaikovsky as “the ­common man,” after all — but “uncommon woman” fits ­Higdon perfectly. One of the most imaginative and uninhibited composers on the American scene, she embued her Percussion Concerto of 2005 with so much kinetic vitality and colorful invention that it sounded at times like the entire orchestra was tumbling gleefully downhill. The half-hour work was a tour de force for percussion virtuoso Colin Currie, who bounded back and forth across the stage while manning a small arsenal of instruments — evoking everything from tribal rhythms to Buddy Rich — as Alsop led the orchestra through a musical landscape of strange and almost unearthly beauty. A brilliant performance, and huge fun, any way you cut it. Alsop also managed a minor miracle in the program’s second half, which was devoted to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. Yes, it’s a tired old war horse. And yes, it’s awash in musty 19th-century themes of Fate and Hope and Despair and whatnot. And yes, it ends in a fit of over-the-top fist-pumping that’s caused millions of eyes to roll since its premiere in 1888. But Alsop treated it all with great respect, turning in a big-boned, perfectly paced reading that achieved both grandeur and a sense of deep human tenderness; a genuinely profound, personal and very moving performance. Brookes is a

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Independent panel says federal regulators partly to blame for fatal Massey mine blast

A scathing report by an independent panel has blamed federal regulators for failing to take steps that might have prevented the disaster that killed 29 workers at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine two years ago. The 26-page report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says that the Mine Safety and Health Administration failed to heed warning signs or implement the agency’s own regulations, leaving in place conditions that led to the explosion and fire that swept through the mine on April 5, 2010. “If MSHA had engaged in timely enforcement of the Mine Act and applicable standards and regulations, it would have lessened the chances of — and possibly could have prevented — the UBB explosion,” says the report, which was first posted online by Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward. The Labor Department released the report Friday evening. The report — which was requested by Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis — puts the focus on MSHA’s leadership, which only recently issued its own internal review blaming Massey Energy and mistakes by low-level inspectors. But MSHA did not place responsibility on senior officials in the agency, which is led by a former mine workers’ union leader, Assistant Secretary of Labor Joe Main. The new report says that while it agreed Massey had caused the explosion, the MSHA review’s “characterization of the facts underlying this conclusion understates the role that MSHA’s enforcement could have had in preventing the explosion.” Main defended the agency in a statement Friday evening. “Under the Mine Act, Congress gave mine operators responsibility for running safe mines,” he said. “Four investigations into the explosion all show that Massey Energy did not live up to that charge. Recent testimony confirmed that mine management routinely used illegal tactics to conceal violations from inspectors. MSHA cannot keep miners safe alone – mine operators must commit themselves to safety and health.” Main said that MSHA has already made “improvements” to keep miners safe and said it would review the new report. The NIOSH report, however, said that the agency didn’t need new regulations; it needed to enforce existing ones. The report singled out regulatory steps that should have been taken to reduce explosive methane and dust levels — or close down the mine entirely. The report said “the mine operator did not, and could not, conceal readily observable violative conditions such as float dust accumulations throughout the UBB

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Venus, Jupiter, crescent moon meeting up this weekend

The moon is illuminated in close proximity to Venus and Jupiter, on the top, during a spectacular display of celestial rare phenomenon called a planetary occultation. (Sayyid Azim/AP) Look to the west after sunset Sunday night and, unless clouds impede the view, you’ll see three worlds. One is the moon, a thin crescent, upturned like a smiley face. The second is Jupiter, a gas giant reduced by distance to a bright dot. It’ll be just to the left of the lunar smile, like a beauty mark. Above the moon and Jupiter, about a fist’s distance away on an outstretched arm, will be Venus, beaming like a headlight. The last four weeks or so have been a spectacular time for stargazers, or, more precisely, planet-watchers. Venus and Jupiter have had a conjunction, and on March 13 passed so close to each other in the night sky that they could have exchanged business cards. Throw in the moon on Sunday and Monday nights and it’s a must-look situation. “When you get a configuration like this, people who don’t normally look up above the horizon find that their eyeballs are being hijacked,” said Alan MacRobert, an amateur astronomer and senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine. More news is on the horizon: On June 5, Venus will transit the sun, the last such transit until 2117. With a safe solar filter, the tiny black dot of Venus will be visible as it gradually moves across the sun’s face. Meanwhile, the sun is acting up. We’re building to a solar maximum, which means lots of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, northern lights and the potential for damage to satellites or the power grid. And by the way, there’s a new theory afoot that the Titanic was sunk by an iceberg sent into the shipping lanes by tides associated with a rare arrangement of the sun, Earth and moon. Dare it be said: The solar system is trending. What’s unfolding Sunday and Monday nights is a reprise of what happened Feb. 25 and 26, when the crescent moon slipped past Jupiter and Venus. The two planets have a conjunction like this about once every 24 years, said Geoff Chester, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory. This is what’s known as an evening apparition of Venus (it can be a morning star or an evening star), and it has been particularly sublime because the planet is

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Venus, Jupiter, crescent moon meeting up this weekend

— too much information — even as they couldn’t name a single star in the sky. Many people would no more learn the names of the stars than figure out how to boil lye to make soap. “All this stuff was common knowledge among ancient people. Even people just a few hundred years ago, your average farmer would be keeping a very close eye on the season, they’d be keeping a very close eye on the moons,” Chester said. And yes, “moons,” plural. The moons had names. The last full moon, for example, was the Full Worm Moon, because it’s the time of year when the worms start moving around in the soil, Chester said. Owen Gingerich, a professor emeritus of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said that the spectacle in the western sky is so beguiling that “even our graduate students are aware of what’s happening.” That’s an inside joke because graduate students in astronomy do all their work now on computers and with equations and don’t spend a lot of time acting like Galileo and looking through telescopes. In certain respects, the planets are old news. The cutting edge in astronomy is the search for extrasolar planets — which orbit distant stars — and the investigation of the mysterious dark matter that is indirectly detected through study of the motion of galaxies. Cosmologists hope to understand the “dark energy” that is causing an acceleration of the expansion of the universe. But the nearby planets still have surprises. A probe orbiting Mercury discovered evidence of ice at the poles of the little planet that is seemingly fried by the sun. And this past week, scientists announced that they’d come up with a better measurement of the width of the sun, achieved by studying two transits of Mercury. The sun is 865,374 miles in diameter, plus or minus 40 miles. Now, about the Titanic. The ship hit an iceberg late on the evening of April 14, 1912. Where did the iceberg come from? The authors of an article in the latest issue of Sky & Telescope contend that an unusual abundance of icebergs in the shipping lanes that year may have had an astronomical explanation. According to Donald Olson, a professor at Texas State University and the article’s co-author, on Jan. 4, 1912, the moon was at its closest approach to the Earth even as the Earth was

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Rising concern on climate change

RISING SEA levels threaten to inundate low-lying roads in Louisiana America, meanwhile, is fixated on . . . paying an extra buck per gallon at the gas pump. A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) underscores how myopic the country’s energy debate is — and, consequently, how delinquent the United States has been in leading the world. The organization calculated that the world is on course to increase its carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2050. That’s because global energy use will increase by 80 percent by mid-century, with 85 percent of the energy mix coming from fossil fuels. That would likely raise global temperatures well past the target of 2 degrees Celsius, beyond which scientists say climate change could be extremely dangerous. It would also produce lethal amounts of air pollution, manifested in more heart attacks, asthma and other maladies. Such a large problem sounds difficult to fight. It is — but more because of politics than a lack of clarity on what the right policy is. Carbon taxes or simple cap-and-trade systems encourage businesses and consumers to pollute less and to find alternatives, without the spectacle of government trying to pick which clean-energy technologies should win out. Ending fossil fuel subsidies would also save treasuries money and discourage pollution. There will still be transition costs associated with these policies, which the OECD reckoned will increase over the course of this century. But the OECD is only the latest reputable, nonpartisan organization to explain that pricing pollution is more efficient than governmental micromanagement — the current policy, explicit or implied, of both political parties — and, given the wide range of risks and high uncertainty, much more attractive than doing nothing. The report noted that global warming could reduce average yearly consumption by 2 percent to more than 14 percent across the world this century — but, a spokesperson said, the estimates on the upper end of that range are more comprehensive, and the possibility of extreme or even catastrophic events argues that policymakers shouldn’t risk finding out what the exact figure is. Timing also matters. The OECD reckons that continuing to slack on cutting emissions through 2020 — the current plan — would result in 50 percent higher costs in 2050 and could also enhance the risk of permanently damaging the environment. Yet the only energy debate America seems capable of having during

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Commentary: How the Dodd-Frank Act hurts small businesses

low credit scores or a thin credit history. This process of eliminating options and/or access for creditworthy businesses and consumers is now hindering our country’s efforts to get our economy back on track. Even more concerning is the plight of the small-business owner, the true driver of America’s economic future. For small businesses, being able to secure a $300 to $2,500 loan can make all the difference to their economic survival. For example, just a few hundred dollars can mean being able to purchase the supplies to paint a house or being able to hire extra employees to cater a wedding. Obtaining that small loan can help a small-business owner make it through another week, fulfill payroll obligations and still have something left to put food on the table. It is the growth of small businesses that will help our economy rebound, but we need to create an environment that will facilitate that growth. According to the National Small Business Association, however, lending to small businesses declined in the past two years. And a recent survey reports that 60 percent of entrepreneurs say the terms on their credit cards have worsened. Small businesses are essential to the well-being of many underserved and unbanked communities. Traditionally in this country, recent immigrants and others from diverse backgrounds are overwhelmingly employed by small businesses. The banks, recently shaken by the housing bubble, are understandably reluctant about making low-dollar loans to small businesses because of the inherent risks associated with shelling out loans that yield low returns. The solution for many is non-bank lending and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is tasked with regulating that market. We hope that they will look closely at the need for non-bank credit, bringing necessary regulation to level the playing field and ensure fair terms and adequate disclosure to this important industry. It is critical that our leaders in Washington, and those in state capitols and city halls across the country, find ways to ensure that small businesses and consumers have access to credit. Whether this means incentivizing banks to make loans or preserving or expanding access to other types of credit, it is essential that something is done soon. If not, any hope of progress will be thwarted, resulting in more job losses and a serious setback to the slowly improving economy. Javier Palomarez is president and chief executive of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

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Cassidy expands non-lobbying work, partners with agribusiness consulting firm

AgriThority’s Jerry Duff, left, and ShiGui Zhang, center, discuss cotton with a plant breeder in China. (Courtesy of AgriThority) Cassidy & Associates, one of Washington’s most lucrative lobbying shops, is partnering with the Kansas City, Mo.-based food and agriculture consulting firm AgriThority to expand its services in developing countries, leaders at both firms said. It is Cassidy’s first joint venture with an entity in the agricultural business, and vice chairman Gregg Hartley said the alliance will help Cassidy tap into new clients, particularly in Southeast Asia and Africa, that are looking to modernize agriculture technology and distribution. AgriThority, a four-year-old private company with 70 consultants worldwide, works with major agricultural groups and biotech companies on food safety, quality and sustainability and issues, such as how to grow and maintain crops in developing nations to cut down on imported foods. “For almost three decades of the 37 years we’ve been in business, we’ve had a fairly sizable international practice and represented foreign governments and NGOs that work in developing parts of the world,” Hartley said. “In terms of helping a country that eats a lot of rice quit importing rice and start growing it and set up a distribution model to do it, we didn’t have an answer to give them. Now we can go back to those clients and demonstrate how to develop a more modern agrarian system.” It is the latest move Cassidy and other lobbying firms are making to diversify services beyond traditional lobbying. Cassidy, led by K Street veteran Gerald Cassidy, has seen revenue from formal lobbying decline each year since 2007, when the firm brought in $24.5 million in lobbying fees. By 2010, that figure had dropped 18 percent to $20.2 million, and in 2011 it slipped to $19.7 million — a 12-year low, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Now, the firm is more aggressively seeking consulting work that doesn’t fall under the traditional definition of lobbying. Those efforts include a 16-month contract the firm signed with public relations firm and sister company Weber Shandwick last year to consult on the Russian government’s bid to host the 2020 World Expo. Cassidy also began consulting for Korean companies selling their products to the U.S. government (through the Korean Trade-Investment Promotion Agency), and for not-for-profits on climate and environmental public policy issues. In total, between 8 and 10 percent of Cassidy’s revenue now comes from non-lobby

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Former Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf dead at 78

control of the Somali capital in 2006, Mr. Yusuf invited Ethiopian troops into the country. The Ethiopian advance quickly routed the Islamist forces, but the memories of previous Somali-Ethiopian wars and the presence of soldiers from a majority Christian nation in a mainly Muslim country made the Mr. Yusuf’s government unpopular. The situation also encouraged Ethiopia’s archenemy, Eritrea, to offer the Islamists assistance, making Somalia a proxy war zone. The Islamists quickly launched an Iraq-style insurgency. Mr. Yusuf’s government also was weakened by internal struggles. Mr. Yusuf was operating far from his power base in the semiautonomous northern region of Puntland. Clan squabbles and public disagreements with his prime minister over foreign aid led many Somalis to see the government as divided, corrupt and ineffective. Somalia has not had a fully functioning government since 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown. Barre and Mr. Yusuf had been military colleagues, but Barre imprisoned Mr. Yusuf after he refused to take part in the coup that bought Barre to power in 1969. While in prison, he became friends with warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed, whose battle with U.S. soldiers in the early 1990s inspired the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.” Three years after his release in 1975, Mr. Yusuf tried to overthrow Barre but failed and fled to Kenya, where he recruited members for his guerrilla movement. Mr. Yusuf, who had studied in Italy and the former Soviet Union, was backed by the socialist government of Ethi­o­pia. But Mr. Yusuf later quarreled with the Ethiopians over their claims to Somali territory. Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam imprisoned Mr. Yusuf in 1985, and he was released only when the Mengistu regime fell in 1991. Mr. Yusuf spent much of the 1990s in his native Puntland, where he sought semiautonomous status in an effort to save the region from the chaos engulfing the rest of the nation. Aides described his style as ruthless, and many of his opponents were jailed or killed. There also were sporadic clashes over territory with the neighboring region of Somaliland, and he was deposed for a year over his attempts to increase his term of office in 2001. Mr. Yusuf regained control of Puntland in 2002 with Ethiopian help, forging an alliance with the new Ethio­pian government. Mr. Yusuf was elected Somalia’s president in 2004, having systematically undermined several other attempts at forming a government. — Associated Press