‘Are you a U.S. citizen?’ This question locked a Kansas couple out of a bank account.

are required to collect information about their customers to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which requires American financial institutions to help the government detect and prevent money laundering — and other “Know Your Customer” standards to ensure bank services are not misused. Since 9/11, strict regulatory requirements have expanded to deter illicit activity within the U.S. financial system, Bernstein said. “As a result, banks are required to verify the identities of all customers and to maintain updated and accurate customer information,” she said. "Federal regulators routinely examine banks for compliance.” Information that banks are required to collect about their customers include name, address and Social Security number, said Alma Angotti, an anti-money laundering expert at Navigant. There isn’t an explicit Treasury Department requirement for banks to ask about citizenship, but banks can decide what criteria they collect, including data that can help detect users who present risks of money laundering and terrorist financing. For example, it may be helpful for a bank to know if a customer is a dual citizen of the United States and France if that customer regularly sends wires to Paris. “Banks and financial institutions need to figure out ‘what information do we need to really understand this customer,’ ” Angotti said. But questions about citizenship could still be a barrier, particularly for immigrant communities, to establishing trust with financial institutions, said Rachel Peric, executive director of Welcoming America, a nonprofit organization that works to build inclusive communities. Banks should consider how they can build trust with communities that may not have it in financial systems, she said. “It’s important that financial institutions, and all institutions, take a good hard look at what they’re incentivizing because what they want to be incentivizing is inclusion,” Peric said. On the phone, the bank operator told Josh the bank would unfreeze his money but that the account wouldn’t be accessible until 2 a.m. the next morning. Jessica said the couple had $12 in cash on them. It was noon. The next day, Jessica tried to buy movie tickets and again had her card declined. She got back on the phone with the bank, which passed her among multiple people who couldn’t help. By then, her bill pay had been deactivated. So she and Josh went to a Bank of America storefront looking for help. That’s where a service representative pulled up Josh’s customer profile. “Right away,


A 10-year-old nicknamed ‘Superman’ broke a really old Michael Phelps record

If your name is Clark Kent Apuada, there’s really only one nickname that could work, and on Sunday, the 10-year-old who goes by “Superman” took down a record that had been set by 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps way back in 1995. Swimming at the Far Western Long Course Championships in Moraga, Calif., Apuada finished the 100-meter butterfly in 1:09.38, besting Phelps’s 23-year-old, 10-and-under meet record of 1:10.48 by more than a second. “That was one of my dreams — to beat Michael Phelps’s record — since I was 7,” Apuado said in the above video. In 1996, Phelps set the overall U.S. 10-and-under record for the 100 butterfly at 1:08.54, a mark that since has been bested by Carson Foster in 2012 (1:07.24) and then Andrew Rogers, who broke the record twice at a 2015 meet in Texas. Rogers’s 1:05.98 still stands as the 10-and-under U.S. record in the 100 butterfly. Apuada, a rising fifth-grader who has been swimming competitively for four years, ended up with gold medals in every event he swam in at the meet, winning the 200 individual medley, 50 butterfly, 50 backstroke, 100 backstroke, 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle to go along with his 100 butterfly crown. As for his nickname, Apuada’s mother Cynthia told the Huffington Post that she always liked the name Clark and that her husband’s favorite superhero was Superman, and everything just flowed naturally from there. “We’re always just telling people his name is Clark. But when they realize his full name, people just call him Superman,” Cynthia Apuada said. Not to get too far into the (nerdy) weeds here, but Arthur Curry Apuada perhaps would have been a more apt name. Read more from The Post: Serena Williams suffers most lopsided loss of her career Rays going with unorthodox zero-starting-pitcher rotation Johnny Manziel says he feels ‘very blessed’ to get his first CFL start Friday night Athletes can easily trick popular concussion test, study finds ‘Our worst nightmare’: ESPN’s Samantha Ponder describes her newborn’s emergency surgery Bode Miller and his wife talk about their daughter’s drowning: ‘It happens in the blink of an eye’ Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen rips Cowboys owner Jerry Jones for his anthem stance — and for not following it himself LeBron James: Trump has used sports ‘to divide us’


RGIII had a shot at the Olympics. But when Ravens called, it was ‘a message from God.’

it had football and a track-and-field program, helmed by coach Brooks Johnson, who also trained Sadeiko. At Baylor, Griffin ran the 400-meter hurdles all the way to the 2008 Olympic Trials semifinals but left track — even though “at heart, I’m a track guy” — to focus on football. He started to consider a comeback. Griffin split time between the football and track workouts, where he trained alongside Olympians, including Justin Gatlin, who last year outran Usain Bolt for the gold in the 100-meter dash at the world championships. Griffin, who once weighed more than 225 pounds, had slimmed down to 193. He spoke with Johnson about preparing for the decathlon or the 110-meter hurdles. “He didn’t look at himself as RGIII,” Gatlin said. “He looked at himself as Robert. He was hungry, and he had another a shot to get back out there.” For about 10 weeks, Griffin arrived at the facility four days per week at 8:30 a.m. and, over the next five hours, stretched, lifted weights, honed footwork and threw to receivers. Whenever workouts called for speed, he sidled over to Johnson. When asked if track was a plan B, Griffin said he didn’t think so, citing one of his favorite quotes from actor Will Smith: “There’s no reason to have a plan B because it distracts from plan A.” But the track group watched Griffin chip away at his rusty technique. At first, his body launched wide and splayed over the hurdles, but it quickly became tighter. Griffin is 6-foot-2, but Gatlin said football’s emphasis on low centers of gravity conditioned Griffin to run as if he were 5-foot-2. His short strides generated less power. Slowly, Griffin ran straighter, lengthening his legs. The knee injury that hampered his football career seemed to have no effect. Within a year, Gatlin and Johnson said, Griffin would have seriously contended for a spot at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. “He is an Olympic-level talent,” Johnson said. “It didn’t take a lot to get him technically sound.” Then Baltimore called. It was late March, at the beginning of free agency, and Griffin considered it “a message from God” and that “things don’t just happen by accident.” He inked a one-year, $1.1 million deal. In the facility, during stretches and cool-downs, Griffin started bringing index cards made from the Ravens playbook. While they worked out together, Sadeiko quizzed him on


13 things to see, eat and do in the Washington area in August

from its longtime home in Baltimore. The main draw of the convention is the passionate communion between creators, composers, actors and fans of East Asian pop culture, but what will stand out is the elaborate cosplay from die-hards, who can compete in a costume contest and lip-sync battle. Hours vary. $40-$100. — H.C. Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week Late summer brings sweet corn, ripe tomatoes and Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week, when restaurants across the area serve up multicourse meals for a fixed price that’s easy on the wallet. This year, more than 250 different eateries in the city, Maryland and Virginia are participating in Summer Restaurant Week. That includes new restaurants you might not have tried yet, like José Andrés’s America Eats Tavern in Georgetown, the lively Mexican restaurant Mi Vida at the Wharf and the Israeli-themed Sababa in Cleveland Park. Peruse Restaurant Week menus online, and then book a table in advance for a summer dining deal. Various locations. Visit ramw.org/restaurantweek for a full list of participating restaurants. — Adele Chapin Bad Bunny at Eagle Bank Arena The story of Bad Bunny’s rise might have been overlooked by some, but the Puerto Rican supermarket bagger turned Latin trap star is making his name known in pop music as he sets off on his first North American tour. You may have first heard the 24-year-old’s slick verses on Cardi B’s summer chart-topper “I Like It,” but devoted fans have long been bumping the rapper’s tracks like “Soy Peor’” and “Amorfoda,” which has more than 578 million views on YouTube. 8 p.m. $59-$99. — H.C. Around the World Cultural Food Festival at Freedom Plaza The Washington area’s mix of international cultures is one of the city’s strongest selling points, as this annual festival shows. Where else can you snack on Nigerian and Guamanian food, watch Honduran and Egyptian dance troupes and browse African fashions and South American jewelry? Cooking demonstrations, a dozen performers and booths sponsored by embassies sweeten the experience at the festival, which is moving to Freedom Plaza after two years on the Washington Monument grounds. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Free; food and drinks priced individually. — F.H. DC Beer Week The 10th annual celebration of Washington’s beer scene is a mix of new events and old favorites: It starts Aug. 19 with the inaugural Lager Fest at City Winery, an afternoon of lagers, pilsners and other easy-drinking styles


Hand, foot and mouth disease strikes again. This time, the Yankees’ J.A. Happ is ailing.

Yankee Stadium. The Mets believe Syndergaard came down with the disease when he visited a kids’ camp over the all-star break. Syndergaard is expected to be activated Wednesday. The Yankees do not, for now, plan to place Happ on the disabled list. Happ is 11-6 after winning his Yankees debut Sunday, and Cashman said he “probably” would be able to start against the Red Sox in the four-game series that begins Thursday at Fenway Park. He is scheduled to pitch Saturday. “I can only convey to you what our internist who evaluated Happ conveyed to me,” Cashman said. “He feels currently this is a mild case, but he’ll stay connected. We’ll be in a better position [Wednesday] to evaluate whether this is toward the tail end of this thing or if it’s ramping up.” For Syndergaard, one clue that he was ill came during a start in which the velocity of his pitches was low and he was having trouble breathing. Happ complained of blisters on his hands when he arrived at Yankee Stadium and was sent to New York Presbyterian Hospital. Symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic, can include fever; sore throat; malaise; painful, blister-like lesions; and a red rash. Although people afflicted with the virus are most contagious during the first week, it can remain in the body for weeks after symptoms and signs are gone. Some people — especially adults — can pass the virus (often by coughing or sneezing) without showing any symptoms of the ailment. “There’s no real treatment. You just monitor the patient and let the virus take its course,” Cashman said. “He’s still scheduled to start. That’s not something that as of now is in jeopardy as of yet. . . . [O]ur internist felt if everything is as is right now, he probably would be able to go on Saturday. But it’s a to-be-determined story.” Read more from The Post: Johnny Manziel says he feels ‘very blessed’ to get his first CFL start Friday night Athletes can easily trick popular concussion test, study finds ‘Our worst nightmare’: ESPN’s Samantha Ponder describes her newborn’s emergency surgery Bode Miller and his wife talk about their daughter’s drowning: ‘It happens in the blink of an eye’ Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen rips Cowboys owner Jerry Jones for his anthem stance — and for not following it himself LeBron James: Trump has used sports ‘to divide us’


Suspect in 1995 D.C. homicide is extradited from El Salvador to face trial

Nearly a quarter-century ago, when homicides in the District were so common that the city was known as “America’s murder capital,” a 31-year-old accountant, Charles E. Wilkins Jr., was killed in a drive-by shooting shortly after leaving a D.C. nightclub. Police at the time described him as an innocent victim and said the alleged gunman was a gang member who apparently mistook Wilkins for a rival. The predawn killing, on May 27, 1995, was one of 379 slayings in Washington that year, and it attracted a flurry of media attention because the suspect, charged with first-degree murder, vanished after paying $500 to a bail bondsman to gain his release. Amid the city’s homicide epidemic back then, as more and more cases piled up, the public soon forgot about Wilkins. But investigators remembered. And today his alleged killer is again in custody. After living incognito in his native El Salvador for more than two decades, authorities said, Raul Rodriguez, now 45, has been extradited to the United States to face a trial in a case that echoes a bygone era of record-setting violence. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail. In announcing the extradition, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington provided few details of Rodriguez’s years in El Salvador, saying only that he “was found by law enforcement in 2015 working as a teacher.” He was arrested there in November 2016 and brought back to the United States two weeks ago. He is a reminder of a blood-soaked period in the city’s history. The District’s yearly body count reached a record 479 in 1991 as Washington, like major cities across the country, coped with drug-gang violence fueled by the lucrative crack-cocaine trade. Annual homicide totals in D.C. began to gradually decline after that, falling to 242 by 2000. Last year, the city recorded 116 slayings. On Friday, May 26, 1995, the start of Memorial Day weekend, Wilkins, who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, took part in a sibling’s birthday celebration at Tracks nightclub in Southeast. The popular club, which closed in the late 1990s, was in a grimy industrial area near Washington Navy Yard, a part of the city that has since been revitalized and is home to Nationals Park. As Wilkins was walking to his car after leaving the club about 3:30 a.m. Saturday, a witness told police, a Toyota station wagon carrying at


Company to explore ocean floor off Maryland’s coast for offshore wind farm

docked at General Ship Repair in Baltimore’s harbor, receiving finishing touches that will allow it to spend weeks at a time using multiple types of sonar to scan the seabed 24 hours a day. The Danielle Miller is normally a work boat, ferrying supplies to larger ships or oil rigs, but it has been outfitted for its next assignment with three separate sonar systems and a command center to gather the data they observe. One such system is contained in a yellow torpedo-like device that will be dragged behind the Danielle Miller; another extends from a pole that rests along the boat’s deck but swings downward into the water to scan the bottom. Each sends sound waves and measures reverberations to map the sea floor, which is about 100 feet deep in that part of the ocean. The combination of sonar signals, some in chirps, others in thumps, gives the scientists aboard the ship a multilayered map of the texture, shape and content of the sea floor, as well as the properties of Earth’s crust below it, as much as 250 feet deeper, said Richard McGee, a marine geophysicist who is managing the project for Oceaneering, an engineering contractor working for Deepwater. “This region has some very interesting geology,” McGee said. Beneath the waters off the Delmarva Peninsula is a formation known as the Delaware River paleochannel, an ancient estuary and network of tributaries buried beneath the sandy coastal plain. Deepwater is looking for the older — and firmer — portions of that geologic formation as the perfect places to build the foundation of a towering wind turbine, said Zach Finucane, the company’s foundation package manager. Joining Deepwater and Oceaneering’s crews will be half a dozen marine biologists. In addition to its radar technologies, the Danielle Miller has been outfitted with infrared cameras that the biologists will use to track any whales, dolphins or other ocean life, to ensure the surveying work, not to mention a wind farm, does not disrupt their habitats. The survey’s observations will become public when Deepwater is ready to file plans with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and Grybowski said they could be of interest to more than just his company. Deepwater plans to submit its construction operations plan in the first half of 2019. “We’ll know a lot more about the ocean just off the Delmarva Peninsula,” he said. — Baltimore Sun


3 offbeat movie picks in the D.C. area: ‘Puzzle,’ ‘McQueen’ and ‘Brief Encounter’

This week’s Indies + Arties roundup for the D.C. area: ‘Puzzle’ ‘McQueen’ ‘Brief Encounter’


The Health 202: ‘Medicare for all” is the dream. ‘Medicaid for more’ could be the reality.

of eHealth and Health Insurance Innovations, two companies that sell short-term plans, rose in response to the news, CNBC reported. — Meanwhile, the New York Time's Margot Sanger-Katz laid out all the things a consumer should know before choosing a short-term plan. — Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is expected to oppose a planned Cigna Corp. merger with Express Scripts, Icahn, who is a stakeholder in Cigna, is reportedly afraid that when Amazon enters the health-care space it will dilute Express Scripts’ value. He’s also fearful of a Trump administration proposal to limit drugmaker rebates to pharmacy benefit managers.The WSJ reports that Icahn is trying to convince other stakeholders to oppose the $54 billion deal. — A new study suggests public-health efforts to combat the ongoing opioid crisis may not be as successful as you’d think. The research looked at a national database of medical and pharmacy claims for opioid use among 48 million insured people between 2007 and 2016, including working-age adults with commercial insurance and Medicare beneficiaries, Linda reports. The study found 52 percent of disabled Medicare beneficiaries, 26 percent of older Medicare beneficiaries and 14 percent of commercially insured patients had used opioid medication during the given period. — A new Ebola outbreak has emerged in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with four people testing positive for the disease, Congo’s health ministry said yesterday. Just last week, the World Health Organization announced the Ebola outbreak in the region was officially over, but WHO officials were again moving resources into the area yesterday, This would be the 10th Ebola outbreak in central African country since 1976 — The Delaware general health district has received more than 500 inquiries (95 emails and 423 phone calls) related to potential customers who may have been affected by a food-born illness outbreak at a Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant in Powell, Ohio. There have been 200 people who have so far reported nausea, diarrhea and fever in interviews with health department staff, CNBC’s Sarah Whitten reports, and the department will be testing for salmonella, shigella, E. coli, and norovirus, as well as for two different bacteria, bacillus cereus and clostridium perfringens. — And here are a few more good reads: Coming Up White House announces support for 1988 plastic gun law: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called insults shouted at CNN reporter Jim Acosta by President Trump’s supporters “freedom of speech:”


Brookstone is filing for bankruptcy and closing all of its stores

also operates 35 airport stores, which it is looking to sell. It was not immediately clear how many employees would be affected by the closures. The company is owned by Sanpower, a Chinese conglomerate that bought Brookstone for $173 million at a 2014 bankruptcy auction. The company, founded in 1965 as a mail-order business, got its start selling dental clamps, dovetail saws and other specialty tools. It soon expanded to novelty items including “un-dullable” kitchen knives and self-watering plant pots, and in 1973 opened its first physical location, in New Hampshire. In the decades since, Brookstone became a staple of U.S. malls, offering shoppers a distraction — and often, a resting place — as they milled about. But in recent years, the business has struggled to keep up as more Americans shop online. Specialty stores have struggled, analysts said, as mainstream retailers such as Amazon.com and Target expand their selection of quirky gadgets and other novelties. Brookstone competitor Sharper Image filed for bankruptcy in 2008, while mail-order business SkyMall followed suit in 2015. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.) “Brookstone was quite innovative in their day in a category that’s become ubiquitous,” said Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia Business School and the former chief executive of Sears Canada. “Customers today go into a Brookstone and say, ‘Hey, this is cool.' And then they check their phones and see that Amazon is selling 12 variations of that item, often for less money." Although the retailer has helped launch several household brands, including Tempur-Pedic, iRobot and Fitbit, it was unable to capitalize on the success of those products, said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst for Forrester Research. “Anytime Brookstone had a bestseller, it got commoditized and sold by competitors,” she said. “Honestly, I’m shocked they’ve been around for as long as they have.” In its bankruptcy filing, Brookstone cited debts of up to $500 million against assets of $50 million to $100 million. Several mall retailers, including Nine West, Claire’s and Gymboree, have filed for bankruptcy in the past year, as heavy debt loads and increased competition continue to batter the industry. Read more: Minimum wages are rising. Pay for experienced retail workers is not. The end of Ivanka’s fashion brand kicks off a buying frenzy among her fans A Toys R Us death blow: Mattel to lay off 2,200 workers


Grain bowls, cold brew and ‘hustle’: Nestlé has a plan to bring customers back to Big Food

In the five months since Steve Presley took the helm of America’s largest foodmaker, Nestlé USA has fought to prove “Big Food” is still in touch with modern consumers. It has launched ancient grain bowls with turmeric and quinoa. Probiotic bars are coming soon. And behind the scenes, the company has embarked over the past five months on an aggressive, three-pronged plan to modernize its oldest brands and better compete with start-ups eroding the authority of products including Perrier and Stouffer’s. Presley calls the plan, which he conceived during his time as Nestlé’s chief financial officer, a play for the company’s long-term survival. Major foodmakers have struggled through several years of sputtering sales, losing market share to brands that are younger, trendier and, frequently, more healthful or sustainable. Globally, Nestlé’s sales growth has slowed every year since 2011, hitting a 20-year low in 2017. The decline prompted one powerful investor to publicly demand sweeping changes — including a corporate restructuring — at the 152-year-old company. Presley says he’s confident his division can claw back its lost market share by “obsessively” refocusing on consumer trends. It’s a point Nestlé has made rather self-consciously at its new Virginia offices. Murals in the 35-story building exhort the value of “authenticity” in food, and a shiny test kitchen boasts open shelving stocked with cookbooks and enameled Dutch ovens. At a ribbon-cutting event Tuesday, employees dished out compostable plates of chicken and freekeh while wearing shirts emblazoned with the phrases “in a relationship with food” and “good things come to those who hustle.” Presley sat down with The Washington Post amid the festivities, in his first interview since becoming chief executive. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length, and there have been changes to the sequence of questions and responses. Q: A: It also used to be if you developed a successful product, you had 50 years of runway. It would stay successful for a long period. But consumers are changing so rapidly today in terms of what they want and what the trends are. It’s about building an organization today that has the agility and desire to meet those rapidly changing needs. Q: A: There has been an industry-wide trend of “Big Food” losing share to “small food.” But there’s no magic to those products, there’s no intellectual property behind those products — it’s about meeting an unmet consumer need. If we


Immigration crackdown: U.S. soldier honored for service could be heading for ICE custody

and professionalism needed to bring the U.S. Army to new heights,” a supervisor wrote in a character assessment. “She represents the best that the Army has to offer: a smart, agile young leader capable of handling immense challenges with marked success.” But there was an unforeseen problem hidden in her immigration visa that would upset her bid for citizenship. Under MAVNI, service members are required to apply for naturalization as soon as they receive an honorable service designation. Sea submitted her first application in February 2014. That’s when investigators discovered the issue. In 2008, Sea had obtained her F-1 student visa from an institution called the Neo-America Language School. Unbeknown to Sea, the school’s owner at the time was working with a corrupt U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent to rubber-stamp visas for bribes. In 2013, federal immigration officials were indicted in connection with the scheme. Sea had no idea the visas were fraudulent — the school was listed as an approved program by ICE, the legal complaint stated — and she believed that her paperwork was legitimate. In reality, a date was off in the application about when she entered the country. “The fraud was actually perpetrated by the corrupt CBP officer,” Ahmed said. “She had no idea there was this . . . document that was put in her student visa application. No one told her.” The officer pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison. But officials flagged the visa tied to the fraudulent school when she applied for naturalization in 2014. In an interview with officials, Sea “stated that she had never given false information to any U.S. government official while applying for any immigration benefits,” her lawsuit argues. She maintained that the document was accurate, “even though it was not,” her complaint says. Recognizing the inaccuracy, the government rejected her first naturalization bid because she had not established herself as a person of “good moral character.” Under the regulations, she had to wait another year, until July 2016, to reapply. In January 2017, she also applied for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. But she has received no answer on either request. She hoped to pursue a career in the service, but the wait left her in limbo. Sea continued to perform her duties but also worked toward advancing her military credentials. She looked into both a physician assistant program and


Critics of the Endangered Species Act are right about what it does. But they miss the point.

created an “incidental take” permit system that allowed federal or federally permitted activities to harm endangered species if the agency could show that, among other things, “the taking will not appreciably reduce the likelihood of the survival and recovery of the species in the wild.” It was these issues — bureaucratic authority, economic considerations and which actions constituted “taking” endangered wildlife — that came to a head in the 1995 Babbitt v. Sweet Home Supreme Court case. In that case, debate over the Northern spotted owl took center stage. A group of logging interests claimed that including owl habitat degradation in the definition of “harm” exceeded the authority and intent of the original legislation. After all, the owls’ habitat infringed on their business. Distinguished biologists from across the country fought back. They argued that the owl was threatened because of human actions like those of the loggers. By destroying the habitat, loggers were putting the owl on the path to extinction. These scientists wrote a court brief explaining that species depend on the larger ecosystems of which they are a part, and therefore “harm” to habitat constituted harm to the species themselves. Furthermore, because ecosystems did not follow legal property lines, “attempting to divide ecosystems, for purposes of habitat conservation measures, between federal and nonfederal land is sheer folly.” They concluded with a fierce defense of the ESA and the need to focus on habitat: “There is no other law like the ESA. No law so boldly states the commitment to respect all forms of life, and strives to understand the human role in evolution. If the ESA does not protect habitat, wherever it be found, then it does not protect species, and it cannot succeed.” The biologists won. Critically, the court accepted the notion that if the government couldn’t protect the land that was so critical to the existence of species, it couldn’t protect the species. Still, government officials sought to achieve a middle ground: The ruling coincided with a push from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to initiate a series of internal reforms that encouraged public-private agreements to balance economic development and wildlife conservation before listing even became necessary. By and large, this state of affairs has persisted to the present: avoiding listing species as “threatened” or “endangered” if possible, listing them (if necessary) based on scientific assessment instead of economic concerns and — most important — keeping “critical


Leading orchestra dismisses conductor Gatti after harassment allegations

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, considered by some to be the leading orchestra in the world, announced Thursday that it is terminating its relationship with its chief conductor, Daniele Gatti. “On 26 July, The Washington Post published an article in which Gatti was accused of inappropriate behavior,” the orchestra said in a statement. “These accusations and Gatti’s reactions with this respect have caused a lot of commotion among both musicians and staff, as well as stakeholders both at home and abroad. “Besides this,” it continued, “since the publication of the article in The Washington Post, a number of female colleagues of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra reported experiences with Gatti, which are inappropriate considering his position as chief conductor. This has irreparably damaged the relationship of trust between the orchestra and its chief conductor.” The Post story In a statement issued through his lawyer on Thursday, Gatti said that he is “extremely surprised” and “firmly denies all sorts of allegations.” In an earlier statement, put out through his new publicity firm The Reputation Doctor, Gatti had issued a blanket apology. “To all the women I have met in my entire life,” the apology said, “especially those who believe I did not treat them with the utmost respect and dignity they certainly deserve, I sincerely apologize from the bottom of my heart.” It continued: “Today and moving forward, I plan to focus much more on my behaviors and actions with all women. This includes women both young and old, to be sure no woman ever feels uncomfortable ever again, especially women that I work with in my profession in classical music. I am truly sorry.” The three men accused in the Post story have suffered public consequences for what are alleged to be years of misbehavior. Bernard Uzan, the stage director and artist manager whom four women accused of harassing and assaulting them, announced Tuesday that he was quitting opera. And William Preucil, the concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, accused of assaulting a violinist in his hotel room and other inappropriate behavior, resigned from his teaching post at the Cleveland Institute of Music, was terminated from a visiting post at Furman University and had several concerts canceled. His orchestra has placed him on paid suspension pending the outcome of an internal investigation. “All concerts planned with Daniele Gatti will proceed with other conductors,” the Concertgebouw wrote. This includes a performance Feb.


Winner of top mathematics prize has medal stolen from him minutes later

“existing work and for the promise of future achievement.” Then, at a meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians, they announce the winners and hand out 14-karat gold medals that cost more than $4,000 each. When Caucher Birkar, a professor at Cambridge University, heard that he would be awarded one of this year's medals at a ceremony Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, he was thrilled. Birkar, who specializes in algebraic geometry, was raised in a Kurdish village in Iran and, after studying at the University of Tehran, sought political asylum in Britain and completed his studies at the University of Nottingham. In an interview with Quanta Magazine Then the medal was stolen from him. The recognition is huge, but the award itself is quite small: The medal is only 2½ inches wide. Birkar apparently put his medal in his briefcase, alongside his wallet and phone. He left the briefcase on a table in the convention center, and in a matter of minutes, the briefcase was gone, according to Brazilian outlets. Security officers later found it, but the wallet and the medal were missing. In a statement, the organizing committee said that it is “cooperating with local police authorities in their investigation” and that “images recorded at the event are being analyzed.” Cambridge University released a statement saying that Birkar was honored “for his work on categorizing different kinds of polynomial equations.” “He proved that the infinite variety of such equations can be split into a finite number of classifications, a major breakthrough in the field of bi-rational geometry,” the statement said. The award also comes with a cash prize of about $11,500. This is the first time that Brazil has hosted the International Congress of Mathematicians. Brazilian mathematician Artur Avila won the award in 2014, the first time that Brazil had taken home the prize. The other Fields winners this year are Peter Scholze, a professor at the University of Bonn; Alessio Figalli of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich; and Akshay Venkatesh, from Princeton and Stanford. Birkar recognizes that his rise to mathematical fame was particularly improbable, having grown up during the 1980-1988 war between Iran and Iraq. “War-ridden Kurdistan was an unlikely place for a kid to develop an interest in mathematics,” he said at the conference in Brazil. “I'm hoping that this news will put a smile on the faces of those 40 million people.”


In wake of Post story about allegations, an opera director leaves the field

In the latest response to The Washington Post’s report about sexual harassment in classical music, Bernard Uzan, 73, the stage director and artists’ manager, announced that he is leaving opera. “I come from a very different culture, I am of the sixties generation, which is not an excuse, but simply a fact, and I have made my mistakes throughout my life,” Uzan wrote in a letter that he sent first to the artists on his roster and then issued as a release by his agency. “If I have offended any of you, I deeply apologize. The world has changed tremendously and continues to change every day at a fast speed. While I still deny the recent allegations, I am realizing that it is very difficult, practically impossible, for me to adapt to the new rules of behavior and human relations. I will now concentrate and consecrate my life to my other passion, writing.” In The Washington Post story, four women accused Uzan of sexually harassing behavior, including inappropriate language, propositions and groping. Uzan, who had already resigned on Sunday from his post as co-director of the young artist studio at the Florida Grand Opera, was one of three men alleged to have sexually harassed women in the story. Since it appeared — posted online July 26 and in print Sunday — there have been a number of consequences. William Preucil, the concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, accused of assaulting a young violinist in his hotel room during a teaching stint at the New World Symphony in Miami, has been placed on paid leave by the orchestra and has resigned his position at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as well as being removed from the programs of several scheduled concerts. He was also removed from his post as distinguished visiting professor of violin at Furman University in South Carolina. As of Wednesday there was no statement from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam about Daniele Gatti, its chief conductor, who was accused in the article of assaulting two women in his dressing rooms, one in Chicago and one in Bologna, Italy. The Concertgebouw offices were operating on limited summer hours through July, and some staff members are on vacation. Gatti has, however, engaged a publicity firm, the Reputation Doctor, through which he issued a blanket apology “to all the women I have met in my entire life.” Uzan International Arts, the


It’s not Trump’s lack of familiarity with grocery stores. It’s his bad arguments.

vote will be the deciding one to elect a county supervisor. Not the sort of anti-establishment rule-breaking in which teens are clamoring to engage. For those a-ha-ing at the “coordinated effort” line, please note that repeated investigations have found no evidence of any such coordinated efforts in practice in recent years (this isn’t Chicago in 1960), much less successful ones. We should not, however, be surprised that Trump’s pitch for voter ID laws was based on an obviously inaccurate argument. Trump’s administration is riddled with untrue and bad-faith arguments in support of his preferred policy initiatives. His campaign was launched on the basis of one such argument, that immigrants from Mexico were a huge criminal threat in the United States, which was untrue then and is untrue now. On Wednesday morning, The Washington Post updated its list of untrue or misleading claims made by Trump. It stands at 4,229 — 7.5 false claims each day of his presidency. The ID-to-buy-groceries line is more misleading than anything, of a piece with other assertions from Trump’s administration. On Tuesday, it was reported that an effort to overturn fuel efficiency standards for cars — a boon to the energy industry that’s been at the center of much of Trump’s decision-making as president — was being pitched as a public-safety move. Better fuel efficiency means more driving, after all, and the more you drive, the more at risk you are of a deadly car accident. This is actually the argument. It is similar to the argument made earlier this year in defense of Trump’s most-beloved industry, coal mining. As coal-burning power plants are increasingly shuttered because of pollution concerns or converted to cleaner, cheaper natural gas, reports emerged that the administration planned to use a Cold-War-era law to argue that keeping coal plants open was critical for the national security of the United States. The obvious intent was to bolster a revenue stream for an industry that Trump has repeatedly embraced, but the argument used was something both odd and trickier to defend on the merits. Of course, then, Trump is arguing that voter ID laws are needed because (insert tangential and possibly erroneous reason). His administration repeatedly embraces misinformation. That this bit of misinformation was immediately and obviously untrue to any listener doesn’t change any of the calculus underlying Trump’s pitch. It does make one wonder the last time Trump went grocery shopping.


Trump shows he’s clueless about groceries — like so many politicians before him

Is it any surprise that the man who lived in a gilded penthouse doesn’t know how grocery stores work? At a Florida rally on Tuesday, President Trump related voter ID laws to grocery shopping. “If you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID,” Trump said at the event at the Florida State Fairgrounds. “You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture.” Purchases of alcohol, cigarettes or cold medicine, or payments made with a check require a photo ID. Purchases of, say, Cap’n Crunch or rhubarb or frozen chicken nuggets do not. “This man has never bought a carton of milk in his life, has he?” tweeted Kaili Joy Gray of Shareblue. Of course he hasn’t. Respectfully: Duh. The grocery store is a minefield for politicians. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush, who had “lived the cloistered life of a top Washington bureaucrat for decades,” according to the New York Times, was described as being amazed by an electronic grocery scanner, technology that had been in use for more than a decade — though his team later clarified that he had been impressed by a particular scanner that could read torn bar codes. Still, in a recession, the characterization that he was out of touch took hold — all the way to the polls. He’s not the only politician to fall in the grocery trap: During his 2007 presidential campaign, Rudolph W. Giuliani underestimated the cost of milk and bread by more than half. And even politicians who go into the store can be criticized for shopping at the wrong one, or buying the wrong thing. In a famous gaffe, then-candidate Barack Obama posed a question at an Iowa rally: “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.” There were no Whole Foods stores in Iowa at the time — and besides, why wasn’t he eating iceberg or romaine like a Real American, anyway? It’s a great clueless-rich-person trope in pop culture, too. On the sitcom “30 Rock,” executive Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin), having expanded his television company’s empire to include couches, gives a rousing speech: “As we speak, our fellow countryman are rolling out our Kabletown Couches on the assembly line, earning


Paul Manafort trial Day 2: Witnesses describe extravagant clothing purchases, home remodels, lavish cars paid with wire transfers

bank fraud trial on Tuesday, Manafort’s former business associate Tad Devine was asked more than once about Konstantin Kilimnik. Each time he was asked, Devine, a political consultant who helped Manafort run campaigns in Ukraine, testified that Kilimnik was Manafort’s Kiev-based translator. But that’s not all the Russian army veteran was. According to court documents previously filed by the special counsel’s office, Kilimnik has been assessed by the FBI to have ties to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit that has been accused of hacking Democrats before the 2016 election. Kilimnik, who worked for Manafort starting in 2005, has denied that allegation, indicating he served in the early 1990s in the Russian military but was never involved with intelligence. Because Manafort speaks no Russian or Ukrainian, people who worked the American consultant in Ukraine have said that Kilimnik became his local alter-ego and was eventually named manager of his Ukraine operations. Manafort remained in close contact with Kilimnik even after he became Donald Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016. Over email, the two discussed how to use Manafort’s new role to make money. Manafort also asked Kilimnik to extend an offer to hold “private briefings” about the campaign to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire and former Manafort business partner. In August 2016, Kilimnik came to New York and had dinner with Manafort, where the two discussed the presidential campaign. Just this year, prosecutors have said that Kilimnik, acting on Manafort’s behalf, contacted witnesses who will likely be called in the second of two criminal trials Manafort is facing. That trial is scheduled for September in Washington. As a result, Kilimnik was charged with obstruction of justice. Prosecutors have said he is living in Russia and has not been arrested. But will any of that come out at the trial now underway in Alexandria? Unlikely. Prosecutors have agreed that they will leave Russia and any suggestion of Trump campaign coordination with Russia out of a trial that will focus on Manafort’s personal finances. In Alexandria, Kilimnik will likely be known only as Manafort’s translator. 9:15 a.m.: First round of testimony focuses on Ukraine While Paul Manafort is the one on trial, the first round of testimony is focused in part on how two Democratic strategists worked with him to help strongman Viktor Yanukovych and his Russian-backed, oligarch-funded Party of Regions win power in Ukraine. The only witness to appear Tuesday, Tad


In a cosmic first, scientists detect ‘ghost particles’ from a distant galaxy

the way we “hear” the universe and light is how we “see” it, some scientists have wondered whether neutrinos would be how we “smell” it.) Of all these “senses,” neutrinos are in some ways the most reliable. High-energy light from distant sources rarely makes it to Earth, because photons are so reactive that they get lost along the way. Neutrinos, on the other hand, will travel in a straight line right from their origin point to a detector. “It's an absolutely beautiful messenger,” Grant said. Neutrinos' ghostly quality also means they can be used to probe celestial objects that light can't penetrate. Schellman pointed out that astronomers using regular telescopes can't see beneath the surface of the sun, but 30 years of observations of the low-energy neutrinos that emanate from our star's center have allowed scientists to peer into its core. By looking at their energy levels, researchers could understand the fusion process that creates the neutrinos and generates the sun's energy. This research also revealed that it takes 100,000 years for energy at the center of the sun to make it to the surface, “which means the sun is going to keep working for at least 100,000 years,” Schellman said. So that's one disaster Earthlings don't have to worry about just yet. The neutrinos detected by IceCube are millions of times more energetic than those coming from the sun, but they offer the same kinds of insights into the intense environments from which the particles emanate. The telescopes looking at TXS 0506+056 could only capture what happened on the surface of the blazar; the neutrinos carry signatures of the processes at its very center. It's in these extreme settings that the laws of nature are stretched to their limits. What neutrinos reveal about the acceleration of charged particles and the voracious behavior of black holes could help scientists refine the rules of physics — or rethink them. There are even more energetic neutrinos out there — ones that make the powerful IceCube particles look practically wimpy. These particles may yet reveal "t Correction: A photograph provided by IceCube and included in an earlier version of this post misidentified the IceCube lab. Read more: Scientists detect gravitational waves from a new kind of nova, sparking a new era in astronomy ‘I’ve never seen anything like this’: Astronomers dazzled by brilliant supernova Cosmic rays reveal mysterious void in Egypt's Great Pyramid


You might think there are more vegetarians than ever. You’d be wrong.

for PETA, but one thing the survey doesn’t take into account is how many people are eating less meat, a figure that may prove to be just as important over time. Flexitarianism — the term was coined in the early 2000s — is the practice of reducing the amount of meat you eat or eating meat only with certain meals. A recent British study found that one-third of all dinners in the United Kingdom are meatless. And there are more options than ever before: Market research firm Mintel found that the number of new vegetarian products introduced to the market doubled between 2009 and 2013. According to Gallup, sales of plant-based food grew 8.1 percent in 2017 and exceeded $3.1 billion last year. Studies have found that semi-vegetarian diets have a positive effect on weight loss, diabetes prevention and blood pressure. And even though some vegetarians might classify flexitarianism as cheating, the label may help people adhere to a more plant-based diet without feeling as though they are failing if they slip up. “The ‘flexitarian,’ ‘climatarian’ and ‘reducetarian’ movements mean there are three more clubs out there helping people work toward goals to improve the health of their bodies and the planet,” wrote Brian Kateman for the Atlantic. Still, a separate Mintel survey found that 51 percent of Americans think a meal is not complete without meat. (And, given the hostility toward some of The Washington Post’s vegetarian recipes — carrot dogs, anyone? — that mentality seems difficult to change.) People younger than 50 are slightly more likely to be vegetarian or vegan than older people. And people who make less than $30,000 a year are likelier to follow either one of the diets — a factor that may be related to age, as well as financial decision-making, as meat adds expense to an already-tight grocery budget. People who make more than $75,000 a year are less likely to self-identify with either diet. And, confirming all of the Fox News stereotypes, Gallup found that there are far more liberal vegetarians and vegans — approximately 1 in 10 liberals don’t eat meat — than conservative ones. More from Food: Trump shows he’s clueless about groceries — like so many politicians before him A customer couldn’t find any ginger in Canada Dry ginger ale, so she’s suing Taco Bell’s nacho fries vs. Dunkin’ Donuts’ donut fries: Which one is worth a try?


Maryland open houses Aug. 4-5

COUNTY BRUNSWICK 21716 1036 Orndorff Ct 1111 Dargon Quarry Lane EMMITSBURG 21727 Timbermill Ct #coronado Timbermill Ct #hopewell Timbermill Ct #decker Timbermill Ct #bedford Timbermill Ct #hemingway 1422 Ramblewood Dr FREDERICK 21701 235a Church St 204 Carroll Street S 400 Rockwell Ter 1710 Algonquin Rd 6512 Springwater Ct #4402 204 Carroll St S 21702 7000 Ridge Rd 7901 Opossumtown Pike N 4910 Round Hill Rd 21703 6509 Brittanic Pl 6536 Alan Linton Blvd E 6527 Brittanic Pl 6599 Corbell Way 6550 Alan Linton Blvd 4661 Calisto Way 6552 Alan Linton Blvd 6546 Alan Linton Blvd E 6554 Alan Linton Blvd E 598 Chukkar Ct 5919 Leben Dr 6688 Canada Goose Ct 6309 Posey St 21704 3711 Seward Lane 3862 Sugarloaf Pkwy 3932 Sweet Briar Lane 3421 Urbana Pike 3609 Katherine Way 9111 Charterhouse Rd JEFFERSON 21755 4812 Stockton Ct 3409 Westport Dr MIDDLETOWN 21769 0 Ingalls Drive 1 Ingalls Drive 2 Ingalls Drive 3 Ingalls Drive 110 Ingalls Drive 315 Church St S 206 Ingalls Dr 12 Dean Lane 208 Ingalls Dr 4397 Agate Ct MOUNT AIRY 21771 5317 Ridge Rd 1446 Long Corner Rd 5406 Boyers Mill Rd MYERSVILLE 21773 10240 Rollingridge Ct NEW MARKET 21774 3 Fallfish Ct 2 Fallfish Ct 1 Fallfish Ct 10234 Nuthatch Dr 10232 Nuthatch Dr 10230 Nuthatch Dr 6801 Chickadee Lane 6805 Chickadee Lane 6855 E. Shavano Rd 11106 Eagletrace Dr 6712 Lakeridge Rd W 6899 Oakledge Pl WALKERSVILLE 21793 9736 Glade Rd 214 Solar Dr WOODSBORO 21798 10713 Dorcus Rd HOWARD COUNTY CLARKSVILLE 21029 6116 Rippling Tides Ter 13805 Mill Creek Ct 13810 Mill Creek Ct 13610 Curtis Vista Way 13618 Curtis Vista Way 13825 Mill Creek Ct 13627 Curtis Vista Way 13815 Mill Creek Ct 13804 Mill Creek Ct 13619 Curtis Vista Way 6206 Bridget Way 12518 Vincents Way 12571 Vincents Way 12541 Vincents Way 10835 Mill Creek Ct 10835 Curtis Vista Way 6110 Flutie Lane 12510 Vincents Way 6104 Braden Way 5014 Gaithers Chance Dr COLUMBIA 21044 11127 Willow Bottom Dr 5623 April Journey #86 10671 Green Mountain Cir 21045 7394 Sweet Clover 6075 Charles Edward Ter 7105 Banjo Ct 5816 Alderleaf Pl COOKSVILLE 21723 2336 Route 97 ELKRIDGE 21075 7724 Rearden Ct 6309 Wimbledon Ct 6020 Hunt Club Rd 7762 Dagny Way 7805 Richard Halley Way 7804 Taggart Ct 7689 Bluff Point Lane 5919 Meadow Rose ELLICOTT CITY 21042 10626 Warburton Ct 3324 Burton Dr 10630 Warburton Ct 10947


Judge rules that attorneys for man charged in 2015 quadruple slayings can withhold evidence of alternative suspect until trial

In a blow to federal prosecutors, the attorneys for the man charged in the 2015 slayings of three members of a Northwest Washington family and their housekeeper can wait until the beginning of his trial next month to unveil newly found evidence that they say implicates another suspect in the killings, a D.C. judge ruled Friday. Attorneys for 36-year-old Daron Wint of Lanham, Md., alerted the court last month that they planned to introduce an alternative-suspect defense based on newly discovered evidence. Prosecutors had argued that Wint’s attorneys should be forced to reveal such information before trial to allow the prosecution to thoroughly investigate the allegations. But in court Friday, D.C. Superior Court Judge Juliet J. McKenna ruled that prosecutors were not entitled to such information. Wint is charged with murder and other crimes in the slayings of businessman Savvas Savopoulos, 46; his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47; their son Philip, 10; and their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. McKenna said Wint’s attorneys had privately outlined to her the motive and opportunity for their alternative suspect, which the judge determined could be a defense. Police have said that the four victims were held captive the evening of May 13, 2015, and that their attacker fled with $40,000 in ransom that had been delivered to the stately home in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive NW, the neighborhood where the vice president’s official mansion is located. The family’s burned-out house has since been demolished. Prosecutors say Wint beat, strangled and stabbed his four victims before setting the house on fire. Police discovered the bodies after firefighters were called to the home. Authorities initially said they thought Wint did not act alone, but he remains the sole defendant in the slayings. The next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 24 before two days of jury selection begins after Labor Day. keith.alexander@washpost.com


First West Nile virus infection in Virginia reported in Fairfax County

The first case of West Nile virus infection in Virginia this year has been reported in Fairfax County, coming on the heels of a confirmed case in Maryland. Health department officials in Fairfax said the adult who contracted the disease lives in the northeastern part of the county. The person has been hospitalized and is recovering. Officials did not identify the person’s gender or age. Last week, Maryland health officials reported the first confirmed case of a West Nile-infected adult in that state. Officials with the Maryland Department of Health said in a statement that the infected person lives in the Baltimore region. Maryland’s Department of Agriculture said it also found the virus in mosquitoes collected in the Riverdale Park area of Prince George’s County. Fairfax County health officials said they’ve seen a “large increase” in mosquitoes carrying the virus. The increase, officials said, is widespread across the county and has occurred earlier this summer than in previous years. “In recent years, when one human case occurs in an area, other cases often follow in the same part of the county,” Fairfax officials said. The number of confirmed infections can vary from year to year. Fairfax County health officials said they had five reports of people contracting West Nile last year but none in 2016. In Maryland, there were five reported cases of West Nile last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Virginia, there were 13, and in the District, there were four. West Nile virus, spread by the bite of an infected mosquito, can affect a person’s nervous system. Symptoms can include muscle aches, headache and fever. Most people make a full recovery over weeks or months, officials said, but severe cases can lead to meningitis, paralysis and even death, according to experts. Less than 1 percent of those people contracting the virus will develop severe symptoms. The most vulnerable to the virus are people age 50 and older and those who have weakened immune systems. Anyone who thinks they may be infected should see a doctor immediately, officials said. Benjamin Schwartz, director of epidemiology and population health for Fairfax County, said that with the high levels of the virus in mosquitoes and recent rain leading to even more mosquitoes, it is important for residents to take precautions. Officials provided several tips: Use a mosquito repellent that contains DEET; wear long sleeves and pants


Conservation efforts aim to save endangered Mexican gray wolves

shot to death because many people thought of them as pests and competition for such food animals as elk and deer. Eventually, people realized that killing off wildlife harms our shared environment. In 1973, a law called the Endangered Species Act was enacted to protect animals and plants in danger of extinction. If not for this law, there would probably be no wild wolves (or other species such as grizzly bears and black-footed ferrets) left in the United States. Return of the wolves Thanks to conservation efforts and the resilience of the gray wolves themselves, populations have rebounded. In the United States, gray wolves can be found living in remote areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, Michigan, Idaho, Montana and Washington state. In 2012, gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains were “delisted,” or removed from the list of endangered animals. But the southernmost subspecies of the gray wolf — the Mexican gray — remains very much endangered. “In the late 1960s there were only seven Mexican gray wolves left on the planet,” says wolf conservationist Maggie Howell. She’s the director of the Wolf Conservation Center (WCC) in South Salem, New York. (It’s a nice coincidence that her name is pronounced “howl.”) She says that today there are approximately 83 Mexican gray wolves in the wild in Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico. Conservation groups such as the WCC are working with the U.S. government to help further expand the population of Mexican gray wolves. One member of the species, a wolf labeled M1141, was born in captivity at the WCC on Earth Day 2008 and will be released in northern Mexico any day now. “This gorgeous New Yorker will be a wild Mexican gray wolf,” Howell says. “He’ll face challenges, but we’re hopeful that he and his mate will soon have a litter of wild-born pups.” As for Crystal and Coby, their life in captivity is more metropolitan than their wild cousins. Instead of hunting deer and moose, they nibble on kibble and a special wolf meatloaf served by caretakers. They also enjoy an occasional belly rub from their keepers. No matter what their lifestyle, Howell says, “all of these wolves are an important piece of Mother Nature’s puzzle.” kidspost@washpost.com Endangered species need your help In the United States, more than 1,200 animal and plant species are listed as “endangered” or “threatened,” which means close to being endangered. The International


The world is burning, and the Trump administration wants to make it worse

being altered rapidly and perhaps catastrophically. The rapid thawing of permafrost soils in Siberia, Canada and Alaska could release vast amounts of methane, which traps more heat than carbon and would accelerate the warming process. At the moment, you might be more inclined to worry about the weather, which has been weird — and, in many places, brutal. Climate scientists have always been careful to say that no one weather event can be definitively blamed on climate change; after all, there were hurricanes and heat waves long before the Industrial Revolution. But now, with more data and better climate models at their disposal, some researchers are beginning to calculate the extent to which global warming is making freakish weather events more common and more intense. An international collaborative effort called World Weather Attribution — involving Oxford University in Britain, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the French Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, Princeton University and the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research — was established in 2014 to make “the emerging science of extreme event attribution” into a useful tool. The WWA consortium analyzed this year’s blistering temperatures in northern Europe and came to the “confident” conclusion that such heat waves are now more than twice as likely in that region as they were before human activity altered the climate. By contrast, the WWA looked at last month’s torrential rain and flooding in Japan, which killed more than 200 people, and concluded that, while climate change appears to have made such an event more probable, there is not enough data to make a formal statement of attribution. This is how science advances — cautiously. It is our great misfortune to have a president who always lurches foolishly and recklessly, who does not believe in science, who wants to prop up the carbon-spewing coal industry while ceding leadership in clean-energy technologies to China and Europe — and who now wants to force California and other states to stop using gas-mileage standards as a tool in the climate battle. As the nation’s biggest auto market, California is the tail that wags the dog — automakers comply with its rules. Gov. Jerry Brown eugenerobinson@washpost.com Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.


Republicans, Democrats partner on Russia sanctions bill, new cyber measures

A bipartisan group of senators has unveiled a comprehensive package of Russia sanctions and measures to counter cybercrime, the latest attempt to push congressional leaders to intensify punitive measures against would-be election hackers ahead of November. Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Robert J. Menendez (D-N.J.), whose bill is co-sponsored and includes contributions from Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), announced their plans for the legislation last month after President Trump’s widely criticized showing at a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the weeks since, the clamor from lawmakers and experts to better safeguard the upcoming election has grown more urgent. They point to social media, in particular, as fertile ground for disinformation and influence in campaigns that have proved difficult to police despite the occasional crackdown — such as Facebook’s announcement this week that it had shuttered 32 fake pages . The bipartisan effort to move sanctions and other legislation through Congress is a sign of lawmakers’ growing frustration with the White House, which has offered mixed messages on Russia’s attempts to manipulate the American electorate and so far declined to fully implement sanctions already at the administration’s disposal. “The Kremlin continues to attack our democracy, support a war criminal in Syria and violate Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Menendez said in a statement released with the bill. “With the passage of this legislation, Congress will once again act to establish a clear U.S. policy to hold Russia accountable with one clear message: Kremlin aggression will be met with consequences that will shake Putin’s regime to its foundation.” The administration’s top national security officials — including national security adviser John Bolton, Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats, National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray — appeared at Thursday’s White House press briefing to explain their organizations’ collective efforts to counter Russia’s activity. The bill’s backers face an uphill battle convincing congressional leaders that the moment is ripe for additional sanctions, or any other measures, to counter interference campaigns. Republican lawmakers — including some of those sponsoring this legislation — have been reluctant to commit any more funds to election security in advance of the midterms. And while the Senate’s Foreign Relations and Banking committees have promised to hold hearings on Russian interference and related matters, there are no guarantees that any


Young women’s fantasies inspired by literature and pop culture

how to grow up in a culture that refuses to do so? The book begins by exploring the myths of innocence and guilt that recur in both true and fictional crime stories about dead women and their male murderers. Bolin weaves together analyses of a range of media, including the TV show “True Detective,” “Gone Girl,” the podcast “Serial,” “Twin Peaks,” several novels and true-crime journalism, to puncture the myth that men who kill women are special and unknowable, rather than banal products of a culture that teaches them to blame women for their unhappiness. It’s a depressingly relevant insight now, amid regular reports of violent acts committed by angry boys with assault rifles. Drawing on James Baldwin, Bolin shows how innocence migrates from victim to perpetrator, so that it’s the ex-girlfriend who gets the blame for making her murderer feel shame and sadness, emotions from which he believes he ought to be exempt. In the second section of essays, Bolin shifts perspective, moving from an America where myths are consumed to the strange sun-drenched city where they are produced. She has a keen eye for the uncanny contradictions of California, its self-image as “native, independent and wild” hopelessly at odds with its reality as “immigrant, corporate, and over-developed.” For a while, she writes, she started every essay with “I moved to Los Angeles,” believing it to be “the only brave or interesting thing I had ever done.” Yet her tales of alienation in L.A.’s strange environment of looping freeways, baking sunshine and decentralized development are less memorable than her writing about the “uncanny countryside” around Moscow, Idaho, where she grew up, distinguished by its proximity (relatively speaking) to the site of the Ruby Ridge siege and the Unabomber’s cabin. The region’s remoteness and isolation send an unavoidable message: “The Inland Northwest makes people go nuts.” To put it another, less grandiose way, it is a place for angry white men to feel alone and to feel at home. Bolin’s home town, with a population of 25,000, experienced two mass shootings in 10 years, one perpetrated by a former classmate. In an essay about witchcraft and its hold on the imaginations of teenage girls, the author recalls a seventh-grade assignment to write out her greatest fear: “I wrote ‘school shootings’ and then quickly erased it, afraid someone would see and, deeper down, that writing it would make it come true.”


The tribulations of ‘oligarch’ No. 27

are susceptible to considerable political influence,” they wrote. In the House, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) introduced an amendment that became part of the defense authorization act that would seek “the location, size and contents of any assets of any oligarch” on the list to “further expose key networks which the corrupt political class in Russia uses to hide the money it steals.” The cries for new sanctions could grow with the prospect of a Putin visit to the United States. “I think Congress wanted to have some ammunition in the U.S. government’s pocket,” Smith said, “not only to deal with election interference that has already occurred but to have ready if there were further malicious activities by the Russian government.” Recently, Gapontsev, a dual citizen, persuaded Forbes to move him to the list of American billionaires. The Trump administration hasn’t budged. “There is not a formal mechanism for removing names from or amending the report,” the Treasury said, “nor is there a requirement or expectation that the report will continue to be updated prospectively.” Had he been the target of sanctions, Gapontsev could go through a delisting procedure at the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Elizabeth Rosenberg, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former Treasury official, said Gapontsev wasn’t the only person trying to get off the public list. Others had sent “emissaries or teams to plead their cases” with lawmakers or the Treasury. Rosenberg said Gapontsev might have a good case, but some of the reasons he has offered to get off the list haven’t worked in past sanctions cases. Other oligarchs have dual citizenship. Others have business interests in the United States. Others have distanced themselves from Putin. 'A brilliant man' In the hall outside Gapontsev’s office, there is a wall of black-and-white photos of “50 years of laser luminaries,” including Nobel Prize winners. One award photo shows a younger Gapontsev, who is quoted as saying, “My dream is to see lasers — like computers — become a tool of choice in mass production.” Lasers convert electrical energy to optical energy. The firm focuses on fiber lasers, which deliver greater precision while using less power. IPG Photonics’ products help cut metal parts for cars and appliances, weld electric-car battery components and smartphones, go into 3-D printers, and improve solar-cell efficiency and medical care. Gapontsev, whose English is heavily accented, has leaned


Trump administration’s use of sanctions draws concern

February was a typically busy month for U.S. officials who announce government sanctions. One package of measures issued by the Treasury Department targeted North Korea, with dozens of ships, companies and other entities cited for shipping coal and fuel to the country in violation of previous sanctions. Before the month was over More sanctions rained down on abettors of various terrorist groups in Pakistan, Somalia and the Philippines, plus Hezbollah in Lebanon. And the State Department added to its list of designated terrorist groups organizations in the Philippines, West Africa, Bangladesh and Burkina Faso. Most months nowadays, the United States issues a similar barrage of sanctions, as the Trump administration pursues an aggressive strategy of using economic tools instead of military might against foes. The sanctions that attract the most attention have been aimed at governments threatening U.S. national security interests, including North Korea, Iran and Russia. But increasingly, sanctions are being used to counter other kinds of destabilizing behavior. Sanctions have been around since the earliest years of the United States, but they have been used more frequently since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. They are seen as a potent tool to cut off terrorists and their financiers from access to the international financial system, as well as a way to crack down on human rights abuses and corrupt leaders. But the reliance on them has led to concerns that they are being overused as the foreign policy of first resort, hurting U.S. credibility among allies who complain that they are being forced to bow to U.S. policies and potentially undercutting the U.S. dollar. 'Extremely seductive' tool Administration officials dismiss the criticism, saying they have proved effective in convincing nations like Iran and North Korea to agree to negotiate their nuclear weapons programs. “No doubt, we are strategic and thoughtful about how we deploy these tools,” said Sigal Mandelker, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Treasury Department, citing human rights and corruption cases as areas where sanctions can change behavior. “When you think of the atrocities happening, and you know leaders are trying to steal the wealth of their citizens, how can you not cut them off from the financial system?” According to an analysis by the law firm Gibson Dunn, the administration blacklisted nearly 1,000 people and entities last year. That is 30 percent more than were added in President Barack Obama’s last year in


Band bus crashes on Baltimore-Washington Parkway

A repurposed school bus carrying 14 adult members of a Latin American musical group crashed Sunday morning on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway near Route 32 after its driver fell asleep, according to U.S. Park Police. The bus hit the median wall and rolled several times, strewing gear and musical instruments, spokesman Sgt. James Dingeldein said, citing preliminary reports. He said 12 occupants were transported by ambulance for evaluation at a hospital , including three who had serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The crash — which happened around 10 a.m. -- closed the southbound lanes for a time as police and other first responders worked the scene. fredrick.kunkle@washpost.com


Three troops under U.S. command, dozens of Afghan soldiers die in separate attacks

KABUL — Three foreign troops serving under the U.S. military’s command and more than 40 Afghan soldiers were killed Sunday in two separate attacks in Afghanistan, officials said. The foreign soldiers lost their lives during a combined dismounted patrol with Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives, the coalition said in a statement. The statement did not identify the nationality of those killed or the exact location of the incident, but the Associated Press reported that the three killed were Czechs. An American was wounded. The losses are the most for the coalition in a single attack in many months in Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents and sympathizers of the Islamic State have stepped up their strikes in recent months. A spokesman for the Taliban said the group carried out the attack, which came less than two weeks after U.S. officials and Taliban emissaries held direct talks over how to end the protracted war. In addition to the three killed, the coalition said in the statement, “another Resolute Support service member, which U.S. Forces-Afghanistan acknowledged was an American, and two Afghan National Army soldiers were also injured in the blast.” “My thoughts and prayers, along with those of all of the 41 Resolute Support nations, are with the families and friends of our fallen and wounded service members, and our injured Afghan brothers and their families,” said U.S. Army Gen. John Nicholson, Resolute Support and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan commander. “Their sacrifice on behalf of the Afghan people and our coalition will endure in both our hearts and history, and further strengthen our resolve,” he said. A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, Mohammad Radmanesh, said by phone that the incident occurred in a village near the U.S. main military base of Bagram, in Parwan province, to the north of Kabul. The Taliban spokesman also said the attack took place there. The attack is part of increasing violence in Afghanistan, where several dozen national security forces lose their lives daily in strikes by the Taliban and other militants. Local officials in southern Uruzgan province said 42 Afghan army soldiers were killed early Sunday when Taliban insurgents stormed their posts in an area of the province. In Kabul, Radmanesh confirmed the incident and that there were losses but did not provide any figures. He said there was an ongoing battle in which the Taliban has also suffered casualties. foreign@washpost.com


Venezuela braces for possible crackdown after apparent drone attack on Maduro

CARACAS, Venezuela — The Venezuelan government made more arrests Sunday in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on President Nicolás Maduro, as the crisis-plagued South American nation braced for a possibility of wider crackdown on dissent. Interior Minister Néstor Luis Reverol said six “terrorists” were detained Sunday, a day after the government said drones carrying explosives targeted Maduro in the midst of a nationally televised address. Reverol said all the “material and intellectual authors inside and outside of the country” have been identified, but he did not provide further details. Maduro was unharmed in the incident, which officials said injured seven soldiers in an extraordinary scene captured on video that showed hundreds of Maduro’s troops seemingly fleeing in panic at the sound of an explosion. Saying a “shield of love” had protected his life, the president accused “far right” extremists linked to Colombia and Venezuelan dissidents living in the United States for the alleged attack during an impassioned speech delivered three hours after the incident. Although some opposition leaders said they doubted the government’s version, two residents of a nearby building said Sunday that they saw the drone and watched it explode. “We saw the drone that looked like the size of half a bicycle. It came from the sky and we thought it was a boy playing with it,” said Pedro Peña, 62, who was in a seventh-floor apartment with Gladys Miquelena, 56. Seconds after they saw it, it exploded, he said. “We were scared. It sounded like a bomb.” There were reports of a gas leak and explosion, but witnesses dismissed them. “It was not a gas leak. We have direct gas,” said Catherine Pita, 24, a neighbor. “It was a drone that hit the building and caused the fire. One girl was hit by flying glass on the head and was taken to the hospital.” Reverol said there were two drones, which he identified as DJI M600s. Neither, he said, reached its intended target area before detonating. Two separate videos, posted on Twitter, showed drones at the scene; one crashed into a building and the other exploded in midair. Maduro went so far as to blame Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos by name for the attack, prompting Santos’s office to issue an “emphatic denial.” “The suggestion that the Colombian president is responsible for this supposed attack against the Venezuela president is absurd and lacking in all foundation,”


Suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan kills 3 under U.S. military’s command

Three foreign troops serving under the U.S. military’s command were killed in a suicide attack on Sunday in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said. The incident happened during a combined, dismounted patrol with Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said in a statement, without identifying the nationality of the soldiers and exact location of the incident. The statement added, “Another Resolute Support service member, which U.S. Forces-Afghanistan acknowledged was an American, and two Afghan National Army soldiers were also injured in the blast.” “Their sacrifice will endure in both our hearts and history, and further strengthen our resolve,” said General John Nicholson, the U.S. top military commander in Afghanistan, according to the statement. Sunday’s losses are the deadliest for the coalition in many months in Afghanistan. This is a developing story. It will be updated.


World Digest: Aug. 8, 2018

SOUTH SUDAN Warring leaders sign power-sharing deal South Sudan’s warring parties signed a peace deal Sunday in the latest attempt to end the country’s five-year civil war, which has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. Sudan’s state news agency said that as part of the deal, President Salva Kiir will remain in his post and rebel leader Riek Machar, a former vice president, will return as the first vice president, one of five people in that position. There will be an eight-month pre-transitional period led by Kiir, followed by a three-year transitional period. The government will include 20 ministers from Kiir’s party, nine from Machar’s and six from other groups, according to the agreement. This is the latest of several attempts at peace agreements and cease-fires since the war broke out in 2013. All the previous cease-fires have been violated within hours of being implemented. The international community’s patience with the young nation has been waning, and the U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo last month. — Associated Press SYRIA Report: Top chemical arms scientist killed A research director at a military agency linked to Syria’s chemical weapons program has been killed, a newspaper close to the government reported. The al-Watan newspaper reported on its website that Aziz Esber, of the Scientific Studies and Research Center, died in a blast targeting his car Saturday night in Hama province. It said Israel was suspected of carrying out the attack. There was no comment from Israeli or Syrian officials. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syria war through local contacts, also reported Esber’s death. It said he specialized in developing rocket systems at the center’s Masyaf facility in Hama. Esber’s driver also was killed, according to al-Watan and the Observatory. An insurgent group calling itself the Abu Amara Brigades asserted responsibility for the operation. Western and Israeli intelligence agencies have long linked the center to Syria’s chemical weapons program. In April, the United States, Britain and France carried out joint airstrikes against the center’s Damascus facilities in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by government forces near the capital. Israel is thought to be behind airstrikes targeting the center’s facilities in Masyaf last month and in September. Israel has been carrying out strikes inside Syria to prevent advanced weapons transfers to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of the Syrian government. — Associated Press


World Digest: Aug. 8, 2018

chemical weapons program has been killed, a newspaper close to the government reported. The al-Watan newspaper reported on its website that Aziz Esber, of the Scientific Studies and Research Center, died in a blast targeting his car Saturday night in Hama province. It said Israel was suspected of carrying out the attack. There was no comment from Israeli or Syrian officials. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syria war through local contacts, also reported Esber’s death. It said he specialized in developing rocket systems at the center’s Masyaf facility in Hama. Esber’s driver also was killed, according to al-Watan and the Observatory. An insurgent group calling itself the Abu Amara Brigades asserted responsibility for the operation. Western and Israeli intelligence agencies have long linked the center to Syria’s chemical weapons program. In April, the United States, Britain and France carried out joint airstrikes against the center’s Damascus facilities in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by government forces near the capital. Israel is thought to be behind airstrikes targeting the center’s facilities in Masyaf last month and in September. Israel has been carrying out strikes inside Syria to prevent advanced weapons transfers to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of the Syrian government. — Associated Press YEMEN At least 80 killed in two days of fighting Heavy fighting in Yemen’s port province of Hodeida between pro-government forces and Shiite rebels has killed at least 80 people on both sides over the past two days, Yemeni officials and witnesses said. Government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, have been advancing in the area in recent weeks as they battle Iran-allied rebels, known as Houthis. The fighting has escalated as government forces try to retake the port city of Hodeida, the main entry point for food in a country teetering on the brink of famine. The officials said that pro-government forces backed by coalition airstrikes have been trying to seize the rebel-held district of ad-Durayhimi south of Hodeida city and that at least 100 were wounded over a 24-hour period. The rebels have killed at least 30 government forces in an ambush in ad-Durayhimi, they said. The Saudi-led coalition launched the campaign to retake Hodeida in June. — Associated Press Iran detains top bank official in fraud crackdown: Protests surge in Bangladesh's capital: 20 killed as vintage plane crashes in Swiss Alps: — From news services


For subway buskers, an increasingly complicated calculus: Where to perform?

by creating spaces with grandiose arcing ceilings and an aural aesthetic of serenity. But musicians, and others, bristled. In the late 1980s, Metro changed its rules, allowing for noncommercial “free speech activity” as long as individuals were aboveground, off the platform and more than 15 feet away from fare gates or escalators. Then, in 2014, an acoustic guitarist named Alex Young grew tired of getting hassled by transit police at the Vienna, West Falls Church and Ballston stations. So he sued Metro and a U.S. District Court judge upheld his right to perform and solicit tips, determining that subway busking was a form of free speech, not panhandling or commerce, and therefore a protected practice on the outskirts of each Metro station. Recently, however, there’s been a crackdown on what constitutes the outskirts. And concerns about noise at Gallery Place prompted hearings by the D.C. Council. (So far, the council has declined to enact an emergency ordinance.) And the interior of stations, particularly the platforms, remain no-go zones for busking musicians, even though performers are commonplace on subway platforms in Boston and New York. Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld has advocated for broadcasting recorded music in stations and, at his request, smooth jazz, mellow music and occasional holiday tunes are played on the speaker system in some downtown stations. But Wiedefeld said recently that he’s not considering allowing musicians to perform on station platforms. Then there are the ubiquitous cellphones, which have begun to diminish the serendipity of passing a guitarist playing a beloved ballad. “It’s not appreciated or as revered now as much as it once was,” Nickens said of his performances, “because all you have to do is pull up your smartphone and Google any song you want, by any artist you want, and you can listen to it instantly.” But they keep going, living for the moments when a passerby approaches and offers an edifying comment: I heard your music, and it filled me with joy — it convinced me to keep on living, Those interactions are what is so special about preserving public space for buskers, said John Whitehead, a constitutional lawyer and president of the Charlottesville-based Rurtherford Institute. Whitehead represented guitarist Alex Young in the 2014 lawsuit against Metro. And even now, he says, he gets occasional inquiries from people in D.C. or other urban centers in the country, who have been stopped by


Baltimore is seeking millennial, minority and local police recruits — and a marketing firm to attract them

to rebuild its reputation within the community, which has suffered amid high crime rates, scandals — such as the recent convictions of eight officers with the corrupt Gun Trace Task Force — and a U.S. Justice Department determination that officers regularly engaged in unconstitutional policing practices. Officials said more applicants also will help alleviate police overtime, which has been a perennial problem in Baltimore, where the department has spent millions more than what has been budgeted. The department spent $47.2 million on overtime in the fiscal year that ended June 30, even though only $16 million was budgeted. City finance officials typically use excess tax revenue to pay for police overtime that surpasses the city’s budget. The marketing campaign might address staffing and hiring concerns outlined in the city’s police consent decree with the Justice Department. The consent decree requires the police department to implement a wide range of reforms. The decree’s first-year plan requires the police department to complete a staffing study by September. The plan requires “an analysis that candidly addresses its staffing needs and lays the groundwork for a staffing plan that will provide for sufficient personnel to meet the requirements of the consent decree,” according to recent filings by the independent monitoring team that is helping the department implement reforms. The department will use the study to develop a new staffing plan due in late November. In recent years, the police department has seen more than 100 officers leave each year. Data received previously by the Baltimore Sun showed that between 2002 and 2017, there was an overall net loss of 811 officers, with 3,832 departures and 3,021 hires. Last year, the department saw a net gain for the first time, coming out four officers ahead. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, the union that represents city police officers, has long called for the department to ramp up its recruitment and retention efforts. Last September, Pugh asked a Bloomberg-funded “Innovation Team” to figure out how to recruit more police officers and retain them. The team has begun a number of initiatives, city officials said, such as launching a cadet apprenticeship to encourage young people to consider a career in law enforcement and receive training early. The team also is piloting a free fitness boot camp to help candidates prepare for the physical agility test. The innovation team also created an online application process in June.


Maduro speech interrupted by explosions in what Venezuelan government calls a ‘failed attack’

politically, continue to resort to criminal practices, and they have failed once again,” Rodríguez said. Maduro, who was speaking at an event celebrating the 81st anniversary of Venezuela’s National Guard, was in the middle of a pledge to lead the country toward an economic recovery when the apparent explosion occurred. He addressed the nation nearly three hours after the alleged attack, saying that some of the “far right” plotters had been captured and pointing the finger at Venezuelan dissidents in the United States as well as neighboring Colombia and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. “This was an attack to kill me,” he said. “Already, the first investigations show that those intellectually and financially responsible for this attack live in the United States of North America, in Florida. I hope the government of Donald Trump is willing to combat terrorist groups that want to attack presidents of peaceful nations.” Some of Maduro’s detractors suggested that Saturday’s alleged attack could have been staged to stoke patriotism and buoy his flagging national support. The Associated Press, citing three officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident, said the blast was caused by a gas tank explosion inside an apartment building. Local journalists identified the site of the explosion as the Residencias Don Eduardo apartment building in central Caracas, and they posted photos on Twitter of smoke billowing from an apartment there. However, a military expert and former member of the armed forces who asked that her name be withheld out of fear of government reprisals said her internal sources told her that the attack had not been staged. She predicted that the incident would spark a new series of military arrests. Another military expert, Rocio San Miguel, who is also head of Control Ciudadano, an investigative website focused on security and the military, said that based on what she had gathered from internal sources, she thinks that the incident was “a security mistake. A military drone was destroyed by the military because they lost control of it. It started descending and to avoid it hitting the presidential stage, they destroyed it.” She said the explosion of the building was probably a separate incident. Carlos Julio Rojas, an activist who lives blocks away from where the incident took place, said he heard two explosions, and that the walls of his apartment “rumbled.” “We saw how


South Korea longs for a train to Europe — but U.S. sanctions on North Korea block the way

No longer an 'island' For many South Koreans, the prospect of reconnecting the rail link to North Korea is one of the most evocative, even romantic, aspects of the Korean detente. It represents not only a step toward eventual reunification of North and South but also a correction to the cruel 20th-century history that made their nation an “island” without an open land border. Much attention has been focused on a west coast line between Seoul and Pyongyang. In the DMZ not far from Seoul, another station that opened in 2007 is now a tourist attraction where visitors can buy “tickets” and look at part of the Berlin Wall. But while a west coast railroad would connect political capitals, an east coast line through Jejin would be important for two key areas of Moon’s plans for cooperation with North Korea: trade and tourism. Following existing tracks, this line would start at Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city and one of the world’s busiest seaports. Train service would run through Jejin and on into North Korea, passing through the Mount Kumgang tourist zone and then Wonsan, a weapons-industry hub converted into a beach resort. The service would continue to Hamhung, an industrial city and the second largest in North Korea. Eventually, it would reach Rason, an ice-free seaport close to North Korean natural resources. From there, travelers would go on to the Russian border, where there are links to the Russian seaport of Vladivostok and beyond. In theory, a train could continue to Europe on what’s been dubbed the “Iron Silk Railroad.” South Korean experts believe that this trade and tourism could help open up North Korea politically. At the same time, there is hope that such a connection could boost South Korea’s struggling economy and bring more business to the port of Busan. Na Hee-seung, the president of the Korea Railroad Research Institute, said that using container ships to send goods from Busan to Europe takes far too long for high-end goods. Freight rail would cost more but would take half the time, he said. A railroad could also solidify relationships with neighbors, particularly Russia. Artyom Lukin, a political scientist at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, said Russia has long seen an inter-Korean connection to the Trans-Siberian Railway as a way of extending its influence in the Far East. “Russia expects to rake in profits,” he said. Off the tracks


NASA unveils the astronauts who will relaunch human space flights from U.S. soil

a big deal.” Both Boeing and SpaceX have faced setbacks and delays — with the latest schedule slips being announced on Thursday. While both companies had recently said they would conduct their first test flights with astronauts on board by the end of this year, those flights are now scheduled for 2019. Taking the stage Friday before a huge American flag, Gwynne Shotwell, the president of SpaceX, told the crews: “What a sacred honor this was to be part of this program and to fly you. Thank you. We take it very seriously. We won’t let you down.” SpaceX said it would fly crews by April of next year. Boeing said only that it would fly NASA’s astronauts by the middle of next year. Bridenstine said he had faith in the revised timelines. “We’re so close,” he said. “Yes, I’m confident.” Last week, Boeing confirmed that it had a problem with its launch-abort system, which is designed to ferry crews to safety in the event of an emergency. In a call with reporters this week, John Mulholland, Boeing’s program manager, said several of the valves failed to fully close, resulting in a propellant leak. Boeing has since identified the problem, he said, and is working to fix it. “The result is that we’ll have a better and safer spacecraft,” he said. SpaceX did not give a reason for the delay of its first crewed test flight. But it had been working to resolve an issue with its second stage that caused one of its Falcon 9 rockets to explode while it was being fueled ahead of an engine test. “Safely and reliably flying commercial crew missions for NASA remains the highest priority for SpaceX,” Benji Reed, SpaceX’s director of crew mission management, said in a statement. Since the shuttle was retired seven years ago, U.S. astronauts have had to fly on Russian rockets from a remote launch site in Kazakhstan. In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office said further delays in NASA’s “Commercial Crew” program could “disrupt access” to the space station, which would be an enormous embarrassment for NASA after investing about $100 billion to build and operate it. The report warned that the companies’ schedules are “aggressive” and that they “have set ambitious — rather than realistic — dates, only to frequently delay them.” In an interview, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said the day marked “a return