Democratic candidates are finally talking about domestic terrorism. Here’s why that matters.

party’s diverse and progressive base, have become far more historically literate than their predecessors. Large numbers of African Americans first came to the Greenwood District in an effort to escape racial violence. After the Civil War, from the 1870s to the 1890s, the region that would become the state of Oklahoma (then known as Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory) saw an influx of over 70,000 African Americans, fleeing lynchings, poverty and political coercion. The Greenwood District, built on land taken from Native Americans by the U.S. government, represented their new beginnings, their hard-fought social independence and the peak of their economic fortunes. Tulsa began as a supply station for the oil fields throughout the region, a place where oilmen would go to find laborers, drills and scientists. Like their white counterparts, resolute African Americans found that they could run prosperous businesses that fed off the wealth brought in from the oil fields. The Greenwood District, a portion of Tulsa defined by its all-black-owned businesses, became known as “black Wall Street” because of the financial success of the grocery stores, rooming houses, movie theater, auto repair shop, and dentist and physicians’ offices that lined its streets. It was these very accomplishments that aroused the jealousy of whites in the community, who used the pretext of an African American man’s purported assault of a white woman — a common excuse for violence — to massacre over a hundred black women and men. As James S. Hirsch recounted in his examination of the events in Tulsa, on May 30, 1921, an African American teenager had an interaction of some kind with a white, 17-year-old elevator operator, leading her to scream. Although it is doubtful that the elevator operator, Sarah Page, was sexually assaulted, that is the story that quickly spread across Tulsa, making its way into the afternoon newspaper. Whites reacted, rousing friends and family members to violence under the cover of avenging white femininity, while black Tulsans hurried to protect jailed black men — often the victims of mob “justice” — and their property. By the evening of June 1, the white mob, which included law enforcement officers, had destroyed millions of dollars in property, much of which would never be fully recovered. In the decades following the massacre, newspapers and history books either erased the achievements of African Americans in Tulsa and the traumatic episode that led to their misfortune, or


Two men lied about being veterans. The judge’s sentence: Wear signs saying ‘I am a liar.’

In the first days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan in 2001, a Blackhawk shuddered through a Pakistani dust storm before it crashed. Two soldiers were killed on board, including Pfc. Kristofor T. Stonesifer, a 28-year-old Army Ranger from Missoula, Mont. Nearly 18 years after Stonesifer’s obituary was written, two men who lied about their military service are being told to rewrite it by hand —along with 39 other obituaries of soldiers from Montana. Ryan Patrick Morris, 28, and Troy Allan Nelson, 33, were both sentenced for separate crimes Friday by Cascade County District Judge Greg Pinski, following apparent bids to get resources and preferential treatment from a veterans court. Morris received 10 years in prison for violating probation after a felony burglary and falsely claimed he was injured by an IED explosion during one of seven combat tours, the Associated Press reported. Nelson was sentenced to five years for drug possession and enrolled in a veterans court before it was discovered he isn’t a veteran at all. The judge said their claims were “abhorrent to the men and women who have actually served our country,” the Great Falls Tribune reported. “You’ve not respected the veterans. You’ve not respected the court. And you haven’t respected yourselves.” But within his sentencing, the Montana judge gave them a chance for parole — if they abide by certain conditions. Both must hand-write the names of all 6,756 Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to qualify for future parole, along with the obituaries of the 40 Montana soldiers in that group. They must also complete 441 hours of community service after being released from prison. That adds up to an hour per Montanan killed in combat going back to the Korean War. Morris and Nelson must serve seven and three years, respectively, and they would be eligible for parole part of the way through if they meet those conditions, county attorney Joshua Racki said Monday. But if they decline or fail to meet the requirements, the men must serve out their entire sentences without a shot at early release, Racki said. Additionally, while on probation, they must wear placards on Memorial Day and Veterans Day outside the Montana Veterans Memorial with a sign that reads: “I am a liar. I am not a veteran. I stole valor. I have dishonored all veterans,” the AP reported. Veterans courts are designed to help veterans with nonviolent


American Zach Bitter crushed the 100-mile world record — by running 363 times around a track

“It kind of evolves and your interests evolve with it. When I got into the sport of ultrarunning originally, it was basically just because when I did high school and college track and cross-country, my favorite workouts of the week were the long runs. When I finished college, I didn’t have that kind of team and competitive atmosphere so I just started doing what I enjoyed the most. That meant I was doing longer sessions at a slower pace and that led me into doing my first ultramarathon. “I think if you ask any person who has done years of ultramarathons, they’ll tell you it’s a bit of a slippery slope, where you do a 50-miler or a 50K or something. Sometimes you spend time trying to optimize that distance or course, but usually the increase in distance draws you. ’Maybe I’ll try a 100k or a 100-miler.’ You get the motivation to see what you can do, there’s a curiosity component to it. For me in just under the last six years, I got really interested in just how fast can I run 100 miles when most of the variables are controllable. On a track you get to eliminate as many of those as you can and see how fast you can do it.” Bitter said he hopes his accomplishment puts “a spotlight on these events,” even if it means that he is no longer the record holder. “One of my goals is to get other people interested so we can have a situation where we can really see how fast a human can run 100 miles, and by the way, I’m very content with being a steppingstone along the way to that,” he said. “I think it would be cool when I run my last ultramarathon to look back and say I was part of the catalyst that drew people toward the fast side of things in the modern era. I think I would take more satisfaction from that than holding onto the world record as long as possible.” Read more from The Post: With one prescient observation, Patrick Corbin illustrates the fragility of the Nationals’ torrid run Fantasy Football 2019 beginner’s guide: The best draft picks for Rounds 1-3 Coco Gauff, looking unflappable in her U.S. Open debut, rallies for a three-set win Carli Lloyd is ready for the NFL if the NFL is ready for her


With one eye on China, Japan vows to expand its engagement in Africa

Rather than competing directly, it has tried to differentiate itself from China by stressing the quality of the infrastructure it can build in Africa. As concerns rise about Chinese state-to-state lending pushing African countries further into debt, Japan has stressed financial sustainability and private-sector partnerships that don’t raise government borrowing. Where China brings its own workers across to build infrastructure, Japan says it employs locals and transfers technology to Africa, just as it has done across Asia. That’s the theory. The problem in practice is that poor countries with huge infrastructure deficits often do not feel they can afford to pay for quality, while Japanese corporations are not exactly bursting with enthusiasm for Africa, officials admit. Corporate Japan — notoriously cautious in its decision-making — sees significant risks and relatively unattractive returns in Africa’s small and often fragmented markets, said Razia Khan, chief Africa economist for Standard Chartered Bank. Japan’s trade with Africa “It’s obvious with Japan’s declining budgets they don’t have the ODA [overseas development assistance] capacity to just be tossing out money, so they went to these public-private partnerships,” said J. Berkshire Miller, a senior visiting fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs. “But the key question is whether the private sector can sustain this, and I think that’s challenging.” To address that challenge, Abe pledged “limitless support” for investment, innovation, enterprise and entrepreneurship — by partnering with local financial institutions to establish a new trade insurance plan, for example. He highlighted a Japanese satellite monitoring crop harvest and water resources in Rwanda, a Japanese business executive employing single mothers and former child soldiers to make colorful bags in Uganda, and a Japanese company laying the first undersea cable connecting Angola with Brazil. He also highlighted Japan’s contribution to supporting health care and education in Africa, as well as cleaning cities of waste and clearing land of mines, while also announcing a project to train police officers, judges and prosecutors. In return, Abe wants African support for an old idea and a new one. The old one is reform of the United Nations Security Council to allow more permanent members, “a common cause for Africa and Japan that still awaits a resolution,” he said. The new one is support for Japan’s idea of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, uniting the region behind the principles of free trade and freedom of navigation, the rule of law, and the


More than two dozen people killed in fiery attack on a Mexican bar

the emergency exits, and set fire to the place." “The majority died of suffocation,” Veracruz Gov. Cuitláhuac García told the “Sergio y Lupita” radio program Wednesday morning. The bar is in the port city of Coatzacoalcos, which has been plagued by violence, caused in part by fractures within the Zetas criminal organization. Last week, a 4-month-old child was critically wounded in a shootout. In recent years, Mexico has faced the dual challenges of trying to build a large, effective security force capable of cracking down on crime and also a judicial system that can hold the guilty accountable. On both fronts it has struggled, with Veracruz a jarring example. The state police force is 61 percent smaller than it should be, López Obrador said this month. The state was supposed to receive 7,200 members of the newly formed national guard, drawn from a mix of different federal and state security agencies. But many of those officers have been dispatched on an immigration enforcement mission, part of the U.S.-Mexico deal to reduce the number of migrants arriving at the U.S. border. López Obrador, who created the national guard, once spoke of it as a potential vanguard in the fight against organized crime. Other parts of Mexico have also seen dramatic violence in recent weeks. Cartels were blamed for a gruesome attack this month in the western city of Uruapan, where 19 mutilated corpses were left on display. A Catholic priest, the Rev. José Martín Guzmán Vega, was stabbed to death last week in the northern city of Matamoros. Across the country, four journalists have been killed in the past month alone. “The fact that 2019 is on pace to be the most violent year does not come out of nowhere. We have seen how violence has been progressively increasing,” said Francisco Rivas, director general of the National Citizen Observatory, a research group. The increase, he said, is the result of an “incapacity of the state, lack of identification of the problem, with no clear goals or strategies.” “The president says we are improving, but we are worse than ever before." Within hours of Tuesday’s attack, López Obrador suggested the perpetrator had previously been “arrested and released.” “There is a problem that needs to be investigated regarding the actions of the prosecutor’s office in Veracruz, and we are telling the attorney general to look into this matter,” he said. López Obrador did


The color of gene-edited critters

Scientists edited the genes within lizard embryos for the first time, using the powerful tool CRISPR. CRISPR, which can snip through DNA like molecular scissors, has allowed biologists to manipulate genes in dozens of species. Most of those animals were already regulars in biology labs such as fruit flies and monkeys (and their clones). But the technique’s simplicity has also triggered a wave of gene-editing in more exotic species such as cuttlefish, ants and beetles, as Nature magazine pointed out earlier this year. These lizards join the ranks of those unusual organisms. As is the case for many proof-of-concept edits in animals, the scientists changed nothing but their color. A report published this week in Cell Reports describes the technique in Anolis lizards: By deleting a gene, the lizards developed without pigment — the biologists, in other words, made albino lizards. Color is often a target for biologists who want to hone their gene-editing craft. Researchers working with squid embryos have had some success altering pigment in cephalopod cells. Mutant butterflies, altered with CRISPR, grew different patterns in their wings. Color is appealing for a couple of reasons: Scientists can generally tell whether they were successful at a glance. Plus, removing pigment won’t kill the animals. Editing lizards such as Anolis has future potential beyond tweaking their skin, said Douglas Menke, a study author and developmental biologist University of Georgia, in a news release. “Humans and other primates have a feature in the eye called the fovea, which is a pit-like structure in the retina that’s critical for high-acuity vision,” he said. Most animals used for model systems don’t have this. But anole lizards, who use their sharp eyes to hunt insects, do.


Woman fatally stabbed in NW Washington, police chief says

A woman was fatally stabbed Tuesday night on what D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham called a usually quiet street in Northwest Washington. Newsham said the woman, who was in her 20s, was stabbed “multiple times” in the 400 block of Irving Street NW. The street is just west of the Washington Hospital Center campus. People in the area heard screams, Newsham said, but as of late Tuesday, no eyewitness to the attack had been found. A motive is not yet known, Newsham said during a brief news conference at the scene. He said that when police arrived at the scene, someone was already tending to the victim. She died after being taken to a hospital, Newsham said. Newsham said the woman had not yet been positively identified, and relatives had not been notified. He called the street quiet and said police were called there for violent crime “very infrequently.” martin.weil@washpost.com


Veggie burgers were living an idyllic little existence. Then they got caught in a war over the future of meat.

sides, relying on the ranchers for traditional meat but also investing heavily in these new alternatives they believe consumers increasingly desire. The future of ranching faces a big threat if plant-based meat, thought to be much better for the environment, becomes a mainstay of the American diet. Traditional animal agriculture is looking to the lessons learned by the dairy industry, which saw cow’s milk sales dwindle by $1.1 billion last year, much of that business scooped up by alternative milks such as almond and oat. And as the stock price of Beyond Meat, which went public this year, has soared, some of the biggest retailers and restaurants in America have got on board with plant-based alternatives. In September, Impossible Burgers roll out in grocery stores. Subway has announced meatless meatballs, Carl’s Jr. and sister company Hardee’s have gotten on the meatless meat wagon, Dunkin’ introduced its Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwich and Burger King expanded the reach of its Impossible Whopper to all franchises. On July 22, Tofurky joined forces with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Good Food Institute (a nonprofit that promotes plant-based meat) and the Animal Legal Defense Fund to file a lawsuit claiming Arkansas’ new labeling law, which went into effect July 24, violates the First and Fourteenth amendments. “If we lose, there’s something wrong with our judicial system,” said Tofurky chief executive Jaime Athos. “The first thing to get out of the way is that people are confused. It’s all [the cattlemen’s associations] can come up with to censor speech.” He said there is mandatory court-ordered mediation because the two sides have failed to reach an agreement. If Tofurky loses, plant-based meats will have to be repackaged to reflect approved nomenclature, an expensive endeavor for a national company that sells to all 50 states. The bigger issue, Athos said, should focus on the emerging science about the benefits of a plant-based diet. “The meat industry’s chickens are coming home to roost. Their industry was propped up by agricultural subsidies and misrepresented the true nutritional value and necessity of meat in the American diet,” he said. “We know better. These are not healthy things.” Despite being dragged into the fight, Athos said he’s not miffed at what’s transpired. “When it comes down to it, we’ve undertaken a monumental task and we now have partners to help us achieve those goals,” he said. “What a great thing to


be able to live your values. What we’re seeing with plant-based is the conversation shifting from ‘why’ to ‘why not.’ ” There are reasons for Athos to be sanguine. Tofurky has seen year-over-year double-digit growth that has been limited only by production capacity, he said. “There’s no question we’re seeing more attention to the category,” said Michele Simon, executive director of the Plant Based Food Association, which advocates for the leading plant-based food companies. “ … To have a company like Tofurky have an easy time talking to Walmart? This wasn’t the case five or 10 years ago.” Morningstar Farms, which has been around for more than 40 years, has shifted from being just in grocery stores to being in restaurants, universities, schools, cafeterias and hospitals, with nearly 25,000 locations and with 7,500 new restaurants projected by 2020. While parent company Kellogg doesn’t disclose specific sales data, it issued a statement saying the plant-based surge led by Impossible and Beyond has been beneficial, driving more consumers to meat alternatives. Morningstar has announced its entire portfolio will be vegan by 2021 (plant-based cheese and egg will be added into the mix), while Boca, owned by Kraft Heinz, went through a major brand refresh with new recipes and retro-cool packaging updates in 2018. For Jan Dutkiewicz, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University who teaches a class titled “Modernity and the Slaughter House,” these first- and second-generation plant-based companies make strange bedfellows, with widely discrepant agendas. “Tofu and seitan have been around for centuries. These were not on the mainstream radar — the stuff hippies eat. For Tofurky and Morningstar, customers were more vegans and vegetarians, not mainstream consumers. They weren’t trying to compete with meat on taste,” he said. “Impossible and Beyond are not an outgrowth of Tofurky. Their aim is to mimic meat as closely as possible. They are trying to supplant meat entirely.” The investment capital involved is different, too, Dutkiewicz said, “by orders of magnitude.” Plant-based items that closely mimic meat are seen as a promising new revenue stream for most big meat and food companies. These giants are beginning to reposition themselves as “protein companies.” Earlier this month, Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the world, announced it would launch a plant-protein line under the Pure Farmland brand. Maple Plant-Based Breakfast Patties, Simply Seasoned Plant-Based Protein Starters and six other products will debut in stores in


Trump administration ends automatic citizenship for some children of military, federal workers born abroad

Children born overseas to some American parents serving in the military or working for the federal government may no longer automatically claim U.S. citizenship if their parents had lived in the United States for less than five years, according to a new federal policy issued Wednesday. Instead, officials said, those parents must apply for citizenship on behalf of their children before they turn 18 years old. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes citizenship applications, said it rescinded a policy that had allowed some members of the military and government employees to easily transmit citizenship to children born overseas, because it conflicted with other policies and federal law. The policy takes effect on Oct. 29 and applies only to children born afterward, officials said. Acting USCIS director Ken Cuccinelli said the new policy does not affect people who were born and raised in the United States. “This policy update does not affect who is born a U.S. citizen, period,” Cuccinelli said. “This only affects children who were born outside the United States and were not U.S. citizens. . . . This policy update does not deny citizenship to the children of U.S. government employees or members of the military born abroad.” Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Carla Gleason said she “understands the estimated impact of this particular change is small.” Still, changing the rules stirred widespread confusion Wednesday amid concerns about the Trump administration’s emphasis on restricting immigration and amid fears that federal employees and military workers — including those deployed to military bases or dangerous countries — might not have the ability to protect their own children. The Trump administration has cracked down on immigrants in the military, all but shuttering a program that recruited immigrants with key language and medical abilities and expelling some recruits because of their family backgrounds. President Trump and past administrations have also faced criticism for deporting veterans, generally those who had been convicted of crimes, including minor offenses. Some immigration lawyers said there is no guarantee that the government will approve citizenship applications. Martin W. Lester, an immigration attorney in Chattanooga, Tenn., and chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s military assistance program, said children born overseas to U.S. citizen parents usually can automatically claim citizenship as long as their parents had lived in the United States for five years, including for two years after they turned 14. In the past, he said, federal


Yahoo Japan to end ivory sales amid evidence of smuggling to China

Many African elephant range states have joined wildlife groups in pleading with Japan and the European Union to close down their domestic ivory markets, arguing that they contribute to illegal cross-border ivory trading and, ultimately, to elephant poaching. But Japan’s government insists that all the ivory in the country was purchased when international trade was legal. A Traffic study released in 2018 identified Yahoo Japan as the single-biggest online platform for elephant ivory sales in Japan, with 4,414 ivory items and 35 whole tusks worth more than $340,000 sold over a four-week period in June and July last year. Traffic said its research revealed a lack of effective regulation over online trade and evidence of illegal international trade. The Environmental Investigation Agency also has documented persistent loopholes in Japan’s domestic ivory controls that facilitate illegal trade. Wildlife groups say Japan’s poorly regulated market and lack of effective controls at its borders represent an easy target for ivory poachers to smuggle and launder tusks. Although China has tightened customs checks since banning the ivory trade, wildlife groups say poached ivory is still making its way there. “WWF hopes Yahoo! Japan’s proactive step will encourage the Japanese government to look critically at the country’s domestic market and its influence on international illegal trade,” Margaret Kinnaird, WWF wildlife practice leader, said in a statement. “WWF’s consumer research reveals Chinese overseas travelers are persistent buyers of ivory even after the domestic ivory market was shut down in mainland China at the end of 2017.” At a key meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in Geneva this month, countries agreed to examine whether domestic ivory markets are contributing to poaching or illegal trade but stopped short of calling for those markets to be immediately closed. Concerns in Japan have also been heightened by a boom in tourism from China and the approach of the Olympics in Tokyo next year. Iris Ho, senior wildlife specialist at Humane Society International, said she hoped Yahoo Japan’s decision will soon spell the end of Japan’s domestic ivory market. “We now call on the government of Japan to swiftly move toward the complete closure of its domestic ivory market so that the millions of international tourists who will descend on Japan for the 2020 Olympic Summer Games can visit a Japan that is free of elephant ivory trade,” she said. simon.denyer@washpost.com


A summer day at the beach? For many Gazans, the conflict has put an end to that, too.

Middle East demonstrated that sewage from Gaza had washed up on nearby beaches, as well as interfered with the operations of Ashkelon’s desalination plant. Earlier this year, Israel pledged to build both a fourth water pipeline into Gaza as well as a new sewage pipeline to treat some of Gaza’s waste on the Israeli side of the border. The Persian Gulf country of Qatar, meanwhile, has tried to address the electricity shortage in Gaza but has not supplied enough money to pay for the estimated 400 to 600 megawatts the enclave needs every day. Engineers in Gaza argue that Israel’s blockade has made adequate sewage treatment almost impossible. Housam Badawi, an electrochemical engineer, is overseeing the construction of a new central Gaza waste-management plant, a project that was initially slated for completion in 2005. The reason for the delay, Badawi said, is that Israeli authorities have classified certain items and materials required for completion as “dual use,” meaning they could also be used to build weapons. The new facility is funded by KfW, a German development bank, which will continue to pay a fraction of operating costs upon completion. Thomas Gaier, a German project manager on the site, said the work is now being hamstrung because of a dispute over measuring instruments, which he said Israeli authorities have held up for more than three months. COGAT, the organization within the Israeli Defense Ministry that coordinates Israel’s activities in Palestinian territories, confirmed in a statement that the measuring devices were classified as “advanced dual use technological equipment.” But COGAT also said that KfW had been granted a permit for this equipment but had failed to procure the devices within the required 30-day window after the permit was issued. The delays on the new facility, slated to process 60,000 cubic meters of sewage, have contributed to the unabated flow of sewage into the sea, with three other plants able to treat only about 85,000 cubic meters of the daily waste. Most Gazans seem aware of the pollution flowing into the Mediterranean, but many cannot bring themselves to abandon the beach. “The beach is the only source of life for Gazans — especially when the electricity is out in their homes,” said Abulraheem Abu Qumbuz, director of the Gaza municipality’s water sanitation department. “We consider it as a lifeline in the summer particularly.” In some areas, the putrid stench is inescapable. And if


As the Amazon burns, breathing problems spike

SAO PAULO, Brazil — A haze of toxic smoke clouds the tropical city of Porto Velho. Now patients are flooding its health centers. During the first three weeks of August, the Cosme and Damião Children’s Hospital in Porto Velho admitted more than 400 children with respiratory problems — three times the average, according to officials. Brazil’s northwestern state of Acre reported 47,000 cases of respiratory illnesses during the same period. Lines at public health clinics are growing, and officials say they’re scrambling to hire more staff. As fires spike across the Amazon rainforest, an environmental challenge is becoming a public health hazard. “Every year we have some fires and issues with smoke, but this was the worst year of them all,” said Izaura de Campos, a pediatrician in Porto Velho. “This is the year when we are finally seeing what we are breathing.” Children and the elderly are most susceptible to smoke-related illnesses, doctors say, but anyone who inhales the pollutants can be affected. The toxics can hinder breathing and oxygen flow and exacerbate chronic conditions such as asthma and bronchitis. Prolonged exposure can increase the risk of some cancers. “Just one day’s exposure to these pollutants has a critical impact on health,” said Marcos Abdo Arbex, a pulmonologist in Sao Paulo state who specializes in environmental diseases. For those who live downwind of the flames, there’s no escape. Authorities in Porto Velho are telling residents to avoid exercise, stay inside and shut their windows. Sarah Nachiro keeps her family inside and her windows closed. Still, she said, her 4-month-old son, Henrique, has suffered from coughing fits so strong he has turned purple. Weeks of colds and shortness of breath have left him on antibiotics. Sarah herself has been to the emergency room twice with asthma. She faults the government response for the effects on the country’s health. “It’s a crime,” she said. “A complete lack of respect for the population as a whole but especially with the children.” Campos said she has seen twice as many patients complaining of respiratory issues and colds as usual. The emergency room at her hospital is packed with children seeking oxygen, she said, and pharmacies have run out of saline solution. Fires in the Amazon are common during the dry season, but this year has been exceptional. More than 25,000 fires have been spotted in the rainforest in August alone, a nine-year high,


Boris Johnson seizes momentum on Brexit with combative move to suspend Parliament

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sparked angry talk of a “coup” Wednesday after he moved to shut down Parliament for several weeks in an extraordinary effort to silence rebel lawmakers and ram through Britain’s departure from the European Union. The decision to shutter the legislature for more than a month, starting no later than Sept. 12, stifled dissenters as the days ticked toward Britain’s most momentous deadline in generations. Outraged lawmakers said it concentrates power in Johnson’s hands and sharply curtails their ability to thwart a no-deal Brexit. Some spoke of a constitutional crisis. It also suggested that Johnson’s bumbling exterior conceals a ruthless tactician, ready to exploit any opening to bring about the split from the E.U. and consolidate power. Absent a delay, Britain will leave the European Union on Oct. 31. If it leaves without a transition deal, analysts say, the country could face food and fuel shortages. The economic turmoil could spread to the E.U. nations, which collectively are the United States’ biggest trading partner. Many observers fear that with a hardened border, fresh violence could flare in Northern Ireland. And because President Trump has embraced Brexit and Johnson, the break with Europe would become a major test of the White House’s skepticism of multilateral institutions and trade blocs. In Brussels, diplomats said they are increasingly convinced that Johnson will pilot Britain off the cliff without the safety net of a deal. European lawmakers expressed astonishment that he would so brazenly tie the hands of Parliament, in which a majority opposes a no-deal Brexit. The Conservative prime minister denied claims that Brexit is the reason he sought the new timetable, telling reporters he wants a new session of Parliament so he can lay out the government’s “very exciting agenda.” He added that there would be “ample time” for lawmakers to debate Brexit. But few in Britain, even among Johnson’s allies, accepted his explanation of why he had decided to ask Queen Elizabeth II to “prorogue” — or suspend — Parliament. The queen, who is on holiday at her Scottish estate of Balmoral, approved the request, as is customary. A “constitutional outrage,” John Bercow, speaker of the House of Commons, said in a statement. “However it is dressed up, it is blindingly obvious that the purpose of prorogation now would be to stop Parliament debating Brexit and performing its duty.” Proroguing Parliament is not unheard of


The Japan-South Korea dispute isn’t just about the past

The quarrel between Japan and South Korea reached a new low last week when Seoul pulled out of an intelligence-sharing agreement that had taken the United States years to broker. What’s behind this dispute? Some observers blame President Trump for neglecting these two U.S. allies. But relations between Japan and South Korea have soured numerous times over decades, long before Trump came along. Others point to Japan’s brutal history in Korea and Tokyo’s handling of the past. Japan committed terrible violence against Koreans in the 20th century, and Japanese policies since then have sometimes triggered bilateral crises. But this story, too, is incomplete. Korean resentment about history has been a constant over this period. It is the South Korean government’s interest in activating, or suppressing, this resentment that has varied. Japan’s history on the Korean Peninsula made the normalization of relations difficult Japan annexed Korea in 1910. For the next 35 years, Japan brutalized Koreans in many ways  — forcing them to work as slave laborers in Japanese companies and as sex slaves, or “comfort women,” as they were known, for Japanese soldiers during World War II. After liberation, Koreans reviled Japan. South Korean President Syngman Rhee told American officials that Koreans feared the Japanese more than the North Koreans or the Soviets. Negotiations to establish even basic political relations between Seoul and Tokyo dragged on for more than a decade. But a subsequent president, Park Chung-hee, perceived an interest in moving forward. He promoted economic development as essential for his country’s prosperity and security, and saw Japan as a key source of capital. Park normalized relations with Japan in 1965. The normalization treaty obliged Japan to pay compensation (in grants and loans) but — crucially — declared the matter of compensation settled. The South Korean people were incensed, erupting into mass protests that led Park to declare martial law. Compensation flowed into development projects and into Park’s political slush funds — not to victims. Normalization led to increasing economic integration between the two countries. Their security relations sometimes warmed as well. During the Vietnam War, fearing U.S. abandonment and a worsening security environment, Seoul and Tokyo sidestepped historical fights and expanded their cooperation. When the regional security environment worsened in the 1980s, Seoul welcomed a more militarily active Japan in Asia. To be sure, Japanese behavior affected relations, too. At times, Koreans were outraged by Japanese textbooks they


'3 pounds of adorable’: Baby red panda at zoo’s Virginia facility is growing

A baby red panda at the National Zoo’s facility in Virginia — three pounds of dark reddish-colored, white and black fur — is doing well and growing, zoo officials report. The red panda is at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal. A video shows him looking around as he’s weighed and then yawning at one point with pointy claws outstretched. The zoo describes him as “3 pounds of adorable.” Officials said the red panda is “still young but already has thick fur and sharp claws.” He spends most of his time in his nest box, but officials said they expect that he will soon be “climbing trees with ease.” The red panda was born to mother Moonlight in June. Red pandas are named for their thick, woolly layer of fur that has a rusty red color. When the cub was born, officials said it would stay with its mother until it was 12 to 18 months old. Annalisa Meyer, a spokeswoman for the National Zoo, said on Friday that it is not known when or if the baby red panda will debut at the zoo’s main facility on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington. She said experts decide which animals are moved around the Smithsonian’s facilities. The cub could stay at the conservation facility in Virginia or go to another zoo. Red pandas are found in the wild in high-altitude forests of bamboo in Asia. They face threats from development and logging, according to experts. The number of red pandas in the wild has dropped by as much as 50 percent in the past 20 years, according to experts. And the International Union for Conservation of Nature calls them “endangered.” The biology institute has five red pandas, including the cub. The National Zoo has two red pandas: One is Asa, a female, and the other is Jackie, a male. One red panda at the National Zoo became famous a few years ago. Rusty, the red panda, created a stir six years ago when he escaped from an enclosure. He was found safe in Adams Morgan and returned to the zoo. Rusty now lives at the facility in Front Royal.


Trump administration clarifies policy on citizenship of children born abroad to American servicemembers

The Trump administration scrambled Thursday to contain a political firestorm that erupted over a highly technical policy that officials say will affect the citizenship applications of “a very small” number of children born abroad to U.S. servicemembers and federal employees. Some initial news reports said the administration’s new policy would broadly bar such children from automatic U.S. citizenship, but federal officials said it would affect only children whose families fall into atypical categories: children adopted overseas by government workers or military members, children whose parents weren’t citizens when they were born, and children of Americans who didn’t meet the residency requirements needed to automatically transmit citizenship at birth. Officials for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services estimated that the policy, which goes into effect Oct. 29, would affect 20 to 25 people a year, while the Pentagon said it may affect fewer than 100 a year. Most American citizens can easily transmit citizenship to their children born abroad under federal law, and federal immigration and State Department officials emphasized that the policy would not change that. Instead, they said, the policy update resolves a long-standing bureaucratic dispute between the citizenship agency and the State Department. USCIS said it updated its policy manual to eliminate conflicting rules between the Homeland Security and State departments that were making it difficult for some of these children to obtain passports from consular offices abroad. Officials say the shift is mainly about paperwork: Parents who could not easily transmit citizenship to their child can still apply to naturalize them, though they have to file different forms. USCIS officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to explain the issue Thursday, said they reluctantly updated the policy because the State Department requested it. “As a former Marine myself, I know the sacrifices our military families endure without complaint in service to their country, and the idea that this policy negatively impacts or takes anything away from them is absolutely incorrect,” one USCIS official said. “It bears repeating that this affects a very small population of individuals and they have another means of obtaining citizenship for their children.” Widespread confusion over the policy update spread quickly Wednesday night amid conflicting media reports and fears that the Trump administration, which has curbed some protections for immigrants in the military, would make it difficult for children of American citizens overseas to obtain citizenship. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the policy


China expels Wall Street Journal reporter over coverage of Xi’s family

BEIJING — China effectively expelled a Wall Street Journal reporter from the country, one month after the newspaper published a report detailing allegations that a cousin of Chinese leader Xi Jinping was involved in high-stakes gambling and potential money laundering in Australia. Chinese authorities told the Journal on Friday that press credentials would not be renewed for Chun Han Wong, a Singapore national who has covered Chinese politics out of the paper’s Beijing bureau since 2014. Those credentials expired Friday. China sometimes withholds or refuses visas to punish international news organizations for what the ruling Communist Party perceives as unfavorable coverage. But the decision amounted to the first time that the Chinese government has effectively banned a reporter from the Journal, a publication generally known for incisive but evenhanded coverage of the country. Wong was one of two authors of a July 30 report disclosing a far-reaching Australian law-enforcement and intelligence probe into Ming Chai, one of Xi’s cousins and an Australian citizen. The report, citing Australian officials and casino documents, detailed Chai’s lavish spending in resorts owned by the gambling mogul James Packer, and Chai’s links to what Australian officials deemed to be a money-laundering front in Melbourne. The story noted there were no indications Xi knew about his cousin’s activities in Australia or that the Chinese leader was implicated in any wrongdoing. Still, Beijing considers the private wealth of top leaders’ families to be the most sensitive and taboo reporting subject of all, given the chasm between the Communist Party’s ideological rhetoric and the vast, often hidden wealth accrued by elite families since the party turned toward state capitalism in the 1980s. “We can confirm that Chinese authorities have declined to renew Chun Han’s press credentials. We continue to look into the matter,” a spokesman for Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, said in a statement to The Washington Post. China’s Foreign Ministry, in a faxed statement, said the Chinese government handled affairs concerning foreign news organizations and correspondents in accordance with the country’s laws. “We firmly oppose that a few foreign reporters are maliciously tarnishing China, and we don’t welcome such reporters,” it said. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in a statement Wong was the sixth journalist to leave the country under such circumstances since 2013, and condemned the move “in the strongest possible terms.” “Such treatment of foreign correspondents runs completely counter


Vaccines save lives. But stricter laws may backfire.

schoolchildren in Minneapolis and Portland, Ore. Yet this movement of parents proved to be no match for the terror spawned by the reality of epidemic disease. After smallpox epidemics struck Milwaukee in the 1870s, parents’ resistance to vaccinating their children eroded. As a result, no Milwaukeeans died of smallpox between 1883 and 1893. In the early 20th century, polio infected thousands of children each year. The virus loomed like a specter over public swimming pools, movie theaters and schools. When Jonas Salk introduced a promising vaccine in 1953, parents’ fear of childhood paralysis or death overrode any customary aversion to vaccines. By 1979, officials could declare the United States to be polio-free. With the passage of time, however, the terror felt by parents has dissipated. Today’s mothers and fathers may not remember when children died of preventable infectious diseases such as smallpox, polio or — as recent events suggest — the measles. Feeling the pressure to protect their children from perceived harms, some have decided that vaccinations do more damage than good. While scientific evidence does not support that idea, it has fueled a resurgence of parental anti-vaxxer sentiment. In April, hundreds of parents thronged a California Senate meeting room to protest a bill that would restrict nonmedical vaccine exemptions. Echoing 19th-century skepticism about medical science, one activist held up a sign that read: “MY KIDS ARE NOT YOUR GUINEA PIGS.” The state Senate passed the bill, signaling that the resurgent strength of the anti-vaccine movement has actually prompted governments to enact new, stricter measures. Last month, German parliamentarians passed a law requiring parents to show proof of their children’s immunizations or face fines of up to $2,800. However, history shows that governments must tread cautiously here. “Overly strict mandates can result in parents finding ways to avoid the vaccine requirements,” warned experts Saad B. Omer, Cornelia Betsch and Julie Leask recently. The world in 2019 is very different than it was in the 19th century. Vaccine technology has been proven safe and effective, and yet there remains pervasive insecurity about what constitutes “good parenting,” fueled by popular media and easily exploited by an anti-science fringe. The return of measles might scare parents into complying with vaccine requirements, as smallpox and polio eventually did. If not, the most effective way to counter anti-vaxxer propaganda might be education that recognizes that vaccine aversion is often driven by love for one’s children.


Readers critique The Post: Finally, some good news on the front page

coach, recruiting athletes and figuring out where to practice and play. Ferguson, the young man who had the conversation with Curry, was instrumental in laying the groundwork but temporarily lost contact with Curry when basketball season intervened. But their story had a happy ending. Darden Chambliss ● In her Aug. 20 Tuesday Opinion essay, “To save opera, let it die,” Olivia Giovetti argued that opera could be saved by letting it die — or rather, adapting to a new demographic in listeners. So far as I can figure, from the somewhat convoluted argument, that means modernizing the staging, adding new operas (“M. Butterfly” by Huang Ruo was mentioned) and having performers examine the operas from the point of view of life here and now. Okay, why stop with opera? Why not update all that old, musty stuff from Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, et al.? Why not get rid of orchestras that try to re-create the sound and tempo of the originals ( the Hanover Band, say)? Hey, let’s replace the original “The Night Watch” with an acrylic group portrait of Amsterdam’s current police force . Of course, Shakespeare is absolutely ripe for updating. That frumpy language, those silly costumes, the long-winded soliloquies. (Oh wait, that has been going on for 300 years, and yet Shakespeare productions with the original language and setting still seem to thrive.) A different tack: Operas I’ve seen recently, at small venues or medium ones, are from almost full to full, presenting operas in a traditional form with sometimes remarkable results. Even opera companies that disappear (Baltimore Opera Company) tend to be replaced by look-alikes (Lyric Opera Baltimore). In short, not a well-reasoned argument, and probably not accurate. David E. Silber Olivia Giovetti’s Placing operas out of the original settings does not necessarily make them more relevant; it just obscures the historical element of the work. So a major part of the blame for not luring more people into the opera and concert halls belongs to both the abundance of media, which has almost always catered to the popular tastes, and the elimination of many music and art classes from elementary school up through college. Without exposing young people to opera, there is little chance that it will survive, much less grow. Giovetti did no favor to opera by suggesting it should just quietly go away. There’s room for classical, modern and experimental work in opera, and


Will technology or tradition save the global food supply? Why not both?

will feel the impact of climate change not through floods, storms or forest fires, but through what we eat, the price we pay for it and how much is available. Having traveled to 13 states and 11 countries, Little depicts the changes taking place in the global food system — both the developing threats to our food supply and the solutions hoping to mitigate them — and tells the stories of the experts who might help us avoid a freeze-dried future. She explains that advocates in the battle over our food challenges fall into two camps: the deinvention camp and the reinvention camp; in other words, those advocating for a return to a pre-Green Revolution era centered on organic and biodynamic farming practices, vs. those hoping to build a smarter food system through technology and innovation. But as with many issues in the public discourse, this creates an impossible dichotomy, where you’re on one side or another. It’s led to acrimony and curbed progress and potential. The solutions need to be more nuanced, as Little suggests. To save the world from hunger, obesity, disease and other problems, a combination of approaches is the answer. We need innovations in technology to bolster the regeneration of natural ecosystems, as well as approaches that value the generational wisdom of women and men who have been part of farming for generations. The stories in this book depict these issues as not simply about the food we eat but about the way it is grown. How a frozen dinner is produced and transported to the grocery store has implications not just for consumers’ health and nutrition but for the health of the planet. Despite a potential wealth of cynicism over the many vexing challenges, Little finds hope in a variety of efforts, such as engineers who are building robots that can weed crops and allow growers to reduce agricultural chemical use, and a smart water network pioneered in Israel that is able to dramatically cut waste. Little concludes — like many who have been studying the fate of our food — that there is no one answer to creating a food system that is environmental, economical and socially sustainable. It is critical that the different sides come together for the future of food and humankind. We have the tools, the knowledge and the resources to build a food system that better serves every eater today


Fatal vehicle accidents in the military expose dangers troops face far from the battlefield

deaths are down overall, they acknowledge that at least 15 service members have been killed in military vehicle accidents this year, an increase from the previous year. For Alexandrina Braica, a struggle to obtain clear information about what caused Joshua’s death has compounded her grief as she awaits an official investigation. “I keep thinking, is anyone taking seriously what happened to my son?” Braica asked. “Did anyone say, ‘Okay, we had a fatality, let’s ensure this doesn’t happen again?’ ” Those killed in recent vehicle accidents also include Marine 1st Lt. H. Conor McDowell, 24, who died in May in a rollover at Camp Pendleton, and Marine Lance Cpl. Hans Sandoval-Pereyra, 21, who died in Australia later the same month. In June, Army Spec. Marquise Elliott, 25, died in a Humvee accident in Alaska. On Aug. 15, an Indiana national guardsman, Staff Sgt. Andrew Michael St. John, 29, was killed in a Humvee rollover at Fort Hood, Tex. Now the families of those killed are pushing the Pentagon to more closely examine the incidents and prioritize improving training standards to prevent future deaths. Lawmakers — including two Maryland Democrats, Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee — have also urged senior military leaders to investigate and petitioned a government watchdog to conduct an independent analysis. The Government Accountability Office is expected to study the issue. Military officials say they are looking into the incidents, but they do not appear to be considering any sweeping changes, pointing to what they say is a slight improvement in training safety despite what officials characterize as a “spike” in vehicle-related deaths. Officials representing the military services said they prioritize troop safety but deferred to the Pentagon to address military-wide responses to the incidents. The Pentagon is taking a series of modest, mostly bureaucratic steps that include improving how it tracks training fatalities, which are reported differently across the military services. Officials acknowledge that the inconsistencies make it difficult to detect and fix systemic issues that may contribute to deaths. The military “continues to work hard to standardize data to improve analytical efficiencies,” said a senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to address the issue publicly. Pentagon officials say they have put in place technical solutions intended to improve training safety, including the installation of ground collision avoidance systems they


Suspect sought in attack on deaf woman

to a hospital. The driver was “not on the scene when officers arrived,” officials said. Authorities said in a statement that “it is possible the driver did not know he or she struck the victim.” Officials said they found a driver-side mirror that indicates the van that hit him was a 2015 to 2019 Ford Transit. The color is not known. Police said the van has “other minor damage to the driver’s side front corner.” — Dana Hedgpeth VIRGINIA Rossie D. Alston Jr. was sworn in Friday as a federal judge in Alexandria after a decades-long career in state court. In a speech drawing heavily on his faith, Alston pledged to devote himself to “helping to restore some measure of public confidence” in a justice system that “suffers from a lack of self-esteem.” Noting that Friday was the anniversary of Thurgood Marshall’s confirmation as the first black Supreme Court justice, Alston said, “I have a feeling he’s looking down . . . seeing the colors of the rainbow and saying, ‘This looks pretty good.’ ” Alston replaces Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, who retired in 2017. Although Alston was blocked by Democrats in the state legislature from a seat on the state Supreme Court, he was recommended for the federal bench by Virginia’s two Democratic senators. Alston has already been assigned a major case — the trial of a group of alleged MS-13 members accused of killing two young teenagers. Prosecutors have indicated they may seek the death penalty against some of the defendants. — Rachel Weiner A baby red panda at the National Zoo’s facility in Virginia — three pounds of dark reddish-colored, white and black fur — is doing well, zoo officials report. The red panda is at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal. A video shows him looking around as he is weighed, at one point yawning with pointy claws outstretched. The zoo described the cub in a tweet as “3 pounds of adorable.” He spends most of his time in his nest box, but officials said they expect he will soon be “climbing trees with ease.” The red panda was born to mother Moonlight in June. Annalisa Meyer, a spokeswoman for the National Zoo, said on Friday that it is not known when or if the baby red panda will debut at the zoo’s main facility on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington. — Dana Hedgpeth


Boris Johnson is taking British democracy to the brink

Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday, along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions? Critics of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson picked up the gauntlet he threw down this week In normal times, there’d be nothing particularly controversial about Parliament being suspended for a few days and then reconvening as the prime minister attempts a new legislative agenda. But these are not normal times. Johnson is seeking a far longer gap during which Parliament will be unable to stymie his actions. And the smoldering divisions within Britain over the tangled path forward make the sidelining of its elected officials all the more alarming. The British Parliament has been paralyzed by its inability to realize anything close to what Brexit’s proponents — including Johnson — promised voters in a 2016 referendum. A withdrawal agreement forged with the European Union by the previous prime minister, Theresa May, failed three times to get approval by lawmakers. Unlike many of his opponents and even rivals within his Conservative Party, Johnson is willing to take Britain headlong out of Europe without a divorce deal in place. That’s an outcome that remains widely unpopular and would have grave implications for travel, trade and much else in Britain — as well as sparking deep concerns over the status of Northern Ireland, where centuries-old sectarian tensions subsided in the shadow of an open border with Ireland. Now, a prime minister who Analysts placed his gambit as part of a wider trend of demagogic executive rule seizing democratic politics in the West. “Johnson’s ploy is legal, but it stretches the conventions of Britain’s constitution to their limits. His scheming is just one example of the cynicism that is gnawing at Western democracies,” wrote Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor in chief of the Economist, in an introductory note to her magazine’s latest issue. “These days, however, they are more likely to be strangled slowly in the name of the people. Old-established polities, such as Britain and America, are not about to become one-party states, but their democracy is already showing signs of decay. Once the rot sets in, it is formidably hard to stop.” Across the Atlantic, the parallels between Westminster’s chaos and the ferment in Washington grow all the more stark. “A ruthless executive is pushing the outer bounds of what is constitutionally possible to achieve unpopular outcomes,” observed Washington Post columnist


American dies in combat in Afghanistan as peace talks continue

KABUL — An American service member was killed in combat operations in Afghanistan on Thursday, the U.S. military said, the third to be killed here in eight days. Thursday’s death, which coincides with the final stages of peace talks between U.S. and Taliban negotiators in Qatar that could lead to the withdrawal of thousands of U.S. troops, brings the total number of U.S. service members killed by hostile forces in Afghanistan this year to 15. The military announced the death Friday but has withheld the name of the service member until the family is notified. Last week, two Army Special Forces soldiers were killed in small-arms fire in Faryab province. At the time, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told CBS News that their deaths would have a “positive impact” on the talks because they reinforced that “it is very necessary to put an end to the war.” There are about 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but President Trump said in an interview with Fox News Radio on Thursday that his administration plans to initially scale back the U.S. presence to 8,600 troops. About 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed since the war began in 2001. This week’s meetings in Doha mark the ninth round of talks between U.S. and Taliban officials in the past 10 months intended to put an end to 18 years of war. Negotiators are now just days away from an unofficial Sept. 1 deadline to secure a deal. In June, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said making a deal before then is Washington’s “mission set.” Before traveling to Doha this week, chief U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad tweeted he was ready to “close on remaining issues” in the talks. “We’re ready,” he wrote. “Let’s see if the Taliban are as well.” Trump said Thursday that the United States is “getting close” to finalizing a deal with the Taliban. A draft agreement outlined the initial withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops over the following months in exchange for the Taliban cutting ties with al-Qaeda. The United States is also asking the Taliban to agree to a cease-fire and include the Afghan government in intra-Afghan talks. The Taliban has thus far excluded President Ashraf Ghani’s government from peace negotiations, calling it a U.S. puppet regime. A presidential election is scheduled here for late September, and Ghani is up for a second five-year term. He has insisted on moving ahead with


Why Boris Johnson is so desperate to lock Parliament out

United Kingdom and the European Union fail to agree on a new trading relationship after departure, then there would be continuity in cross-border commercial activity. The implication of the backstop, however, is that the United Kingdom may stay within the European Union’s single market and customs union after departure, which makes leaving the European Union pointless in substance. Brexiteers who oppose the backstop have a point: It would be a Brexit in name only. This and other concerns have meant that many members of Parliament are adamant that the deal cannot be endorsed. Failure to get a deal through led to the last prime minister, Theresa May, being forced from office. European leaders, on the other hand, are adamant that this backstop insurance is necessary. They, too, have a point: The United Kingdom has shown throughout the exit negotiations a lack of seriousness and good faith and so the European Union, on behalf of the Irish government, is insisting that the foreseeable consequence of there being no new trading agreement in time is set out in a legally meaningful way. That contradiction cannot easily be resolved. There have been efforts to show how “alternative arrangements” could address the Irish border issue, but few are convinced, and there is no concrete detail. It is unlikely that a resolution can be found before the Brexit deadline or, indeed, at any time. The problem may not have a solution. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson has stated that, despite there not being a deal in place, the United Kingdom should leave the European Union on Oct. 31. For him and his supporters, the delay to Brexit has been long enough, and this is how the June 2016 referendum result should be honored: Departure is more important than the terms governing it. Johnson and his government do not, however, control a working majority of Parliament on that question. And just as Parliament is against the deal Johnson’s predecessor negotiated, it is also against a “no deal” departure. The magnitude of the predicament that no deal would cause is overwhelming: For example, supply lines for items such as medicine and automobiles would be disrupted if not destroyed, and millions of people would have uncertain legal positions. And it is in this context that the significance of Johnson’s use of the prorogation device can be seen. Prorogations usually are not controversial: They mean one parliamentary session will


Former British leader joins bid to derail shuttering of Parliament amid Brexit crisis

Britain to the current transition deal, which was reached after two years of negotiations. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said his country had not yet seen any proposal from Britain to replace the “backstop,” the guarantee that would keep an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The guarantee has emerged as a focus of British opposition to the transition deal, since it could leave Britain trapped partway out the door of the European Union with limited ability to negotiate independent trade deals. “Nothing credible has come from the British government in the context of an alternative to the backstop,” Coveney told reporters in Helsinki. Johnson has promised the European Union that he would come up with another proposal. E.U. negotiators are skeptical that another plan can be found that meets both sides’ red lines. Senior E.U. policymakers fretted Friday that Johnson’s tactics were undemocratic and that they were increasing the likelihood of a no-deal Brexit. “Westminster is the mother of all parliaments, and now there is a situation where the parliament risks being sidelined,” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told reporters in Helsinki. “This a way to proceed that is not very compatible with being a democracy.” He warned of “a lot of misery” if Britain departed without a deal. The challenges ahead for Johnson’s opponents prevailing via the legal system were spotlighted by a quick defeat on Friday, when a Scottish court rejected one such attempt to halt the suspension immediately. But the judge in the case said a full hearing of the case, originally scheduled for next Friday, could be brought forward to Tuesday. The case was filed by a group of 75 lawmakers. In Northern Ireland, a court in Belfast started hearing a case Friday that argued that exiting the European Union without a plan breaches the Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 accord that helped to advance peace in Northern Ireland after decades of sectarian violence. The judge adjourned the proceedings until next week. “Like hijackers of a plane, Boris Johnson’s ministers and acolytes are trying to keep everyone calm by giving as much as possible the impression of normality,” Miller, the business executive, wrote in the Guardian. “This is the way of people seizing power by force, but let’s be clear: there is nothing that is normal about what they are doing.” Opposition lawmakers led by Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, were preparing a blitz strategy to


Japan is a Trumpian paradise of low immigration rates. It’s also a dying country.

new arrivals — young workers from developing countries in the prime of their lives, eager for a better future for their families. Not in Japan. A solid political consensus has rejected mass immigration here for as long as anyone can remember, leaving this one of the most homogeneous countries on earth. You can think of Japan as a kind of Trumpian paradise: an ethnically defined national community with few foreigners. And no future. Recently, sales of adult diapers outnumbered sales of baby diapers here for the first time The problem has recently become bad enough to force even the conservative administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to rethink its stance on migration. Under strong pressure from the business lobby, which has been desperate for extra workers for years, the government is opening up new routes into the country for foreign workers — but the political schizophrenia around migration is only too evident even in this partial new opening. The government has begun making more work permits available to foreign workers, but makes little effort to help them integrate. Visa rules force most foreign workers to apply for extensions frequently and prevent them from bringing their families. By all accounts, discrimination in housing is rife, as well as perfectly legal. The foreign workers who do come can’t fail to hear the message: Come, work, but don’t think you’re welcome to stay. Economic imperatives and cultural consensus are at war in Japan’s immigration debate: It’s no longer possible for the country to continue to pretend it can get by without migrants. But it’s politically impossible to truly welcome them, either. The result is that more and more jobs simply stay vacant, not just in industry and agriculture but also in the kinds of elder-care jobs this aging country most desperately needs to fill. All the while, invasive bamboo shoots dig deeper into the grounds of the abandoned house across the street from my in-laws’. A huge glut of these kinds of homes and next-to-no demand have driven the market prices for homes like this one all the way down to zero in many cases, setting off a raft of click-baity “Japan Is Giving Away Abandoned Houses for Free” stories in global media. It’s a half-truth, at best: Many of the houses require thousands of dollars in repairs and maintenance to be habitable, and property taxes have to be paid all the same.


Allies of British prime minister resign amid outrage over Parliament suspension

the business executive who in 2017 won a high-profile legal challenge over how the British government could start the Brexit process, has filed an application at the High Court in London seeking an urgent review of Johnson’s decision. Johnson’s government insists that it is not doing anything unusual and that it is normal for a new prime minister to suspend Parliament ahead of the queen’s speech presenting the country’s legislative agenda. It generally does happen every year, but the length of the suspension — the longest since 1945 — and the timing have drawn widespread criticism. Johnson’s allies — the ones who were not quitting — were quick to dismiss the concerns Thursday. Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons, brushed off what he called the “candyfloss of outrage” over the temporary shuttering of the legislature, using the British term for cotton candy. “I don’t think there is any attempt to railroad,” he told the BBC on Thursday, insisting Johnson simply wanted to get on with his domestic agenda. But one top Johnson lieutenant, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, was caught on camera acknowledging that Johnson was struggling to push through Brexit without a majority. “Parliament has been very good at saying what it doesn’t want. It has been awful at saying what it wants. That’s the reality. So eventually any leader has to, you know, try,” Wallace explained to French Defense Minister Florence Parly, caught on camera ahead of an unrelated meeting in Helsinki. A government spokesman said later that Wallace “misspoke.” The British Parliament voted down the Brexit deal three times, mostly because of the “backstop,” an insurance plan that would guarantee an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland to prevent a return to violence there. Under the plan, the United Kingdom risks getting stuck inside the European Customs Union, limiting its ability to conduct independent trade deals. European leaders were mostly quiet about the British drama, wary of being sucked into a domestic political dispute and already skeptical about the chances that Britain would manage to agree to a transition deal before it departed. One senior diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive assessments, said that because a no-deal departure was the default expectation for many E.U. policymakers, the fight over Parliament actually felt like a distraction. And in Germany, one prominent ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that Johnson’s tactics may be


‘A dangerous drug’: Surgeon general warns against marijuana use by pregnant women, youths

The U.S. surgeon general raised a national alarm Thursday about the use of marijuana among pregnant women and youths at a time when 33 states and the District of Columbia have broadly legalized the substance’s use in some form. Citing greater access and increased potency of what’s available on the market, Jerome M. Adams and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the drug “carries more risk than ever” and announced that they would be starting a public awareness campaign on social media about the effect it can have on the developing brain. The initiative, they said, is funded by President Trump, who donated his full second-quarter presidential salary of $100,000 to the effort. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to his personal fortune but underscores how much of a priority addiction and substance abuse is for the administration, they said. “We need to be clear: Some states’ laws on marijuana may have changed. But the science has not. And federal law has not,” Azar said. Azar also put his weight behind efforts to increase marijuana research — which is limited by the fact that there’s only a single institution, a facility at the University of Mississippi, where it can be cultivated for scientific use because of the plant’s status as a Schedule 1 controlled substance under federal law. Azar said that the work should look at both the risks and the potential benefits of marijuana use, and that he had “very constructive” conversations with the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration about how to do this. Those talks led the DEA to announce this week that it would begin to process other pending applications. U.S. health officials said they have been especially alarmed because the potency of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the new professionally grown strains of the marijuana plant is much higher than it was in the past. In 1995, when marijuana was mostly smoked, the amount was about 4 percent, they said. It’s now 12 percent to 25 percent. Marijuana is also now available in even more-concentrated forms — including cookies and oils — where the concentration can be as high as 80 or 90 percent. “This isn’t your mother’s marijuana,” Adams stated at the news conference announcing the initiative. Although the officials said they recognize the potential medicinal uses of marijuana’s components — indeed, low doses of the marijuana extract cannabidiol is now being


Shoves, brawls and shouts: Welcome to Costco’s opening day in China

BEIJING — The United States and China may be involved in a trade war, but the Chinese shoppers at an American wholesaler were at war with one another this week in a pitched battle that forced the warehouse store to close early. The opening of the first Costco store in China, in the commercial capital of Shanghai, was a scene of chaos. Shoppers lined up for hours to get into the store upon opening, ducking under the roller door as it inched up from the ground. They fought over Birkin bags and Moutai liquor. They wrestled for detergent and grabbed at a piece of pork with their bare hands, even as the butcher was trying to cut it. There was a three-hour wait for a space in the parking lot — and sometimes longer in checkout lines. By the afternoon, the discount retail store was in such chaos that it had to close early. “Please don’t come,” Costco said in an alert sent to members, who paid $28 to join for a year. Even for veterans of Black Friday in the United States, the scenes would have been extraordinary. Beyond the chaos, they illustrated an important political point. The Chinese and American economies are inextricably intertwined. Chinese shoppers want American products, especially at bargain prices, and American companies want Chinese shoppers. President Trump a week ago ordered — without the authority or the ability to do so — American companies to leave China. Chinese state media outlets responded by gleefully pointing out some of the big-name American companies, including Costco, that are doing just the opposite. The Global Times, a nationalist newspaper that often reflects the foreign policy thinking of the ruling Communist Party, noted that Starbucks and Walmart were expanding, Tesla was set to produce Model 3 cars at its Shanghai factory by the end of the year, and the local head of Coca-Cola said it “must not give up” on China. “It’s just one beautiful daydream of U.S. President Donald Trump that U.S. companies will give up China,” Liang Ming, a research fellow of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the paper. If the American retail landscape has created winners and losers, the rifts are even more stark between companies that make it in China — and those that don’t. Home Depot closed its last stores in 2012. Best Buy bought a majority stake


Trump officially launches U.S. Space Command in counter to Russia, China threats

In June, the Senate confirmed Air Force Gen. John Raymond as the commander of Space Command. Raymond told reporters in a briefing before the ceremony that protecting America’s assets in space, including the satellites the military depends on for everything from missile defense to communications, was a critical mission of the new command. “I really believe we are at strategic inflection point, where there is nothing that we do in the joint coalition force that isn’t enabled by space. Zero,” he said. The U.S. Space Command is the nation’s 11th combatant command. Others include geographic commands, such as Central Command, Africa Command and Indo-Pacific Command, which oversee operations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, respectively, and functional commands, such as Transportation Command, which oversees logistics across the military, or Strategic Command, which controls the nuclear arsenal. Space Command is the U.S. military’s first new unified combatant command since the Pentagon elevated Cyber Command to become a unified combatant command in 2018. Cyber Command was created in 2009. (A previous version of this story incorrectly said it was Africa Command.) As of Thursday, Space Command counted 287 personnel assigned to it, largely made up of those currently deployed with a unit of U.S. Strategic Command devoted to space. Raymond said the Air Force is still deciding where to locate Space Command’s headquarters among six U.S. bases. The United States military has had a Space Command before. It was launched in 1985 and disestablished in 2002 as the Pentagon reorganized in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Raymond said the new version is a “different command built for a different environment.” In particular, he cited advances by Russia and China that have rendered space a contested domain where the United States faces threats that it didn’t before, from the jamming of GPS and communications satellites to the possibility those satellites could be shot down. He cited a 2007 test in which China used a missile fired from Earth to destroy one of its own weather satellites. Fighting extraterrestrial life in outer space is not one of the new command’s missions, said Stephen L. Kitay, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy. “Space Command and the United States Space Force, at the end of the day, is focused on life here on Earth, because space does impact… our way of war and our way of life,” Kitay said.


Someone has killed 42 wild burros in the Mojave Desert, and there’s a $50,000 reward.

deeply disturbed by this wanton crime and the senseless slaying of our nation’s wild burros,” Kitty Block, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said in a statement. “Anyone who is capable of this level of violence must be held accountable.” Burros evolved in the deserts of North Africa and were first introduced to North America by Spanish colonists. They were pack mules for the west’s early European explorers, and by the Gold Rush they were critical for miners in need of strong and sure-footed helpers to transport supplies to and from their campsites. With no natural predator, they thrived in the arid Southwest. Indeed, they did so well that they drew the crosshairs of hunters and frustrated farmers, who were sick of watching the donkeys graze on the grass they used to feed their livestock. In the 1950s, the Los Angeles Times reported, the mass killing of wild burros was so rampant that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals lobbied for legislation to protect the animals. Finally, Velma Johnston — now known as “Wild Horse Annie” — persuaded Congress to pass the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. At the time, the animals were quickly disappearing. But now, more than 45 years later, their proliferation has sparked new conflict between creatures and residents and between local and federal agencies, which have sparred over equine management. The Bureau of Land Management estimates there are about 16,000 wild burros roaming around government-supervised “herd management areas” across five states. Officials have tried a number of plan to keep their population at a “sustainable” level, from birth control to adoption. Shooting them, however, has been illegal for decades. Dig Deeper: Animals + Environment Want to explore how wild animals are adapting to changing environments? Check out our curated list of stories below. Context matters: Why more tigers live in cages than in the wild As the world’s tiger population has plummeted, the number in captivity has exploded because of a robust illegal tiger farming and poaching economy.* Understanding the limitations of reviving extinct species Once extinct in the wild, the return of red wolves 30 years ago was a minor miracle. Now they face extinction again, revealing the limits of government bureaucracy in saving wildlife. Ho Textbooks say these polar bears and grizzlies aren’t supposed to exist together. But thanks to climate change, they’ve been mating


Space: The final legal frontier

more than three decades enmeshed in space law, Jakhu warned of several other issues that have become increasingly dangerous: the militarization of space, exploitation of natural resources and space debris. “The biggest changes have been the development of technology and business and the militarization of space,” Ram Jakhu, former director of the Institute of Air and Space Law, told The Post in a phone interview Thursday. “The problems have increased significantly but the law has not kept pace with that.” On Thursday, President Trump announced the establishment of the U.S. military’s Space Command. Jakhu explained that, like the U.S., Russia and China are building space forces, and “once you have a dedicated force, you’re preparing for war.” “These are issues with lack of law,” he said. “Things are going to be worse in the future because the number of actors and activities will increase — and they should increase. Space offers tremendous benefits. We just need to keep up with the technology.” Article 4 of the Outer Space Treaty addresses military use. It says that the moon and other celestial bodies must be used “exclusively for peaceful purposes.” According to Harrington, the language doesn’t inherently prohibit military activity. “Part of the problem is that most space objects are dual-use,” she said. Anything that can closely approach another space object, like the space shuttle sent to service the Hubble, also has the potential to be used as a weapon. The “peaceful purposes” limitation doesn’t apply to deep space activity, she said. There, the bar is exclusively on nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. There’s no prohibition on things like setting up military bases, conducting weapons testing, or bringing weapons into space, so long as they aren’t weapons of mass destruction and comply with other Outer Space Treaty requirements. Another major concern voiced by many experts in the field was the increase in space debris. These pieces of left-behind, man-made objects lead to in-orbit collisions. They can be as large as a motorcycle and as small as a tool lost by an astronaut, and move around at fatal speeds, threatening people, space stations, and satellites that impact global commerce, commercial and military missions. Debris, which will multiply as the exploration and uses of space increase, has been created accidentally and deliberately. Every collision, breakup or fragmentation creates additional debris. For example, China launched a missile to strike down one of its


Space: The final legal frontier

the problem is that most space objects are dual-use,” she said. Anything that can closely approach another space object, like the space shuttle sent to service the Hubble, also has the potential to be used as a weapon. The “peaceful purposes” limitation doesn’t apply to deep space activity, she said. There, the bar is exclusively on nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. There’s no prohibition on things like setting up military bases, conducting weapons testing, or bringing weapons into space, so long as they aren’t weapons of mass destruction and comply with other Outer Space Treaty requirements. Another major concern voiced by many experts in the field was the increase in space debris. These pieces of left-behind, man-made objects lead to in-orbit collisions. They can be as large as a motorcycle and as small as a tool lost by an astronaut, and move around at fatal speeds, threatening people, space stations, and satellites that impact global commerce, commercial and military missions. Debris, which will multiply as the exploration and uses of space increase, has been created accidentally and deliberately. Every collision, breakup or fragmentation creates additional debris. For example, China launched a missile to strike down one of its aging satellites in 2007; the collision caused thousands of new pieces of debris. If debris causes damage or loss of life on the earth’s surface, the liability is on the launching state, said Matthew Schaefer, co-director of University of Nebraska College of Law’s Space, Cyber and Telecommunications program. But if the harm happens in space, he explained, it becomes murkier. “If it’s in outer space, it’s a fault-based standard,” which is difficult to assess, Schaefer said. (Among other things, the debris’ origin would need to be known and it would need to be big enough to track.) As of March, there were 2,062 satellites orbiting Earth, more than 40 percent of which belonged to the United States. The nation’s overwhelming dependency on its space assets places it at a greater risk of space debris — deliberate or accidental. There’s a commercial burst underway due to new technology, lower-cost access to space, and new business models, Schaefer said, and as traditional space activities are revolutionized, new and complex legal issues crop up. Although the Outer Space Treaty says no nation may appropriate territory anywhere in space, it’s silent to individuals and corporate entities. Companies are already building models for space hotels,


Anger over Brexit push without Parliament reaches Boris Johnson’s doorstep

including those in Johnson’s Conservative Party, have opposed his suspension of Parliament because they said it would dramatically shorten the timetable politicians have to express their views on Brexit and to try to stop a no-deal Brexit, which the majority of lawmakers oppose. Starting Tuesday, when Parliament returns from its summer break, opposition lawmakers will try to lay down legislation that will stop the suspension and mandate Johnson to seek a delay to Brexit. As the British prime minister, Johnson has the power to temporarily close down Parliament. He argued it’s normal practice and that lawmakers will still have “ample” time to debate Brexit. The suspension is scheduled for some time before Sept. 12 to Oct. 14. Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on Oct. 31. Johnson’s argument hasn’t washed well with the public. A recent poll showed that the British public disapproved of Johnson’s prorogation 47 percent to 27 percent. Sara Thompson, 35 and a graphic designer, brought her son Lenny, 8, to the protest. “I feel it’s really important for Lenny to understand that he does have a voice. We are all feeling very powerless at the moment,” she said, as they sat on the sidewalk eating homemade chocolate chip cookies. Alison Martin, 52 and a small-business owner who says her business will take a hit if there’s a no-deal Brexit, said Johnson’s “bully-boy tactics overturn centuries of democratic process. This is a parliamentary democracy and our elected representatives should be able to debate; it’s outrageous.” The outpouring of discontent comes as legal challenges against the government are piling up. On Friday, the former Conservative prime minister John Major said he was throwing his weight behind a legal challenge in England against the prorogation. Courts in Scotland and Northern Ireland are also hearing similar cases. It has been more than three years since Britain voted 52 to 48 to leave the European Union and the country is as divided as ever. Johnson has vowed to take Britain out of the bloc “do or die” by Oct. 31. He says he wants to strike a deal with the European Union, but the two sides remain at odds over the vexing issue of the Irish border. Johnson’s willingness to steer Britain out of the E.U. without an exit deal would lead to food and medical shortages and a return to a hard border in Ireland, a leaked government


Skywatch: What’s happening in the heavens in September

just after midnight in the eastern United States, the full moon occurs on Sept. 13 for the remaining time zones. Thus, for the central time zone, that moon becomes full at 11:33 p.m. Sept. 13. ● Sept. 5 — The University of Maryland Observatory, College Park, hosts an open house, which features an astronomy talk and then observations of the heavens, weather permitting. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/open house. ● Sept. 6 — “Quantum Gravity: It’s Different and Why,” a lecture by Jared Kaplan, a Johns Hopkins University physics professor, at the Philosophical Society of Washington. Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. pswscience.org. ● Sept. 7 — Gaze toward Jupiter and Saturn — and other objects — at “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers, at Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center, in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 8 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. ● Sept. 8 — Local astronomers share knowledge on purchasing telescopes and binoculars at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com. ● Sept. 9 — Watch “Stars Tonight” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington, adjacent to Washington-Lee High School. 7:30 p.m. $3. www.apsva.us/planetarium overview/. ● Sept. 12 — “Women of Apollo,” the 2019 John H. Glenn Lecture in Space History, features aerospace engineer JoAnn Hardin Morgan, engineer Poppy Northcutt and Carolyn Leach Huntoon as they discuss their trailblazing work on the NASA Apollo missions. Lockheed Martin Imax Theater, National Air and Space Museum, Washington. 8 p.m. For webcast detail: airand space.si.edu. ● Sept. 14 — NASA planetary astronomer Carrie Anderson speaks on the Cassini Mission’s journey into Saturn’s system. She will explain how the rings formed and their composition at the regular meeting of the National Capital Astronomers, held at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. ● Sept. 20 — “Space Architecture for a Moon Village,” a lecture on living in space, by senior designer Daniel Inocente of the architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill, at the Philosophical Society of Washington. Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. pswscience.org. ● Sept. 20 — Learn about the sky and then enjoy cosmic wonder — through telescopes — at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Weather permitting. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● Sept. 22


Maryland Observatory, College Park, hosts an open house, which features an astronomy talk and then observations of the heavens, weather permitting. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/open house. ● Sept. 6 — “Quantum Gravity: It’s Different and Why,” a lecture by Jared Kaplan, a Johns Hopkins University physics professor, at the Philosophical Society of Washington. Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. pswscience.org. ● Sept. 7 — Gaze toward Jupiter and Saturn — and other objects — at “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers, at Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center, in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 8 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. ● Sept. 8 — Local astronomers share knowledge on purchasing telescopes and binoculars at the regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com. ● Sept. 9 — Watch “Stars Tonight” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington, adjacent to Washington-Lee High School. 7:30 p.m. $3. www.apsva.us/planetarium overview/. ● Sept. 12 — “Women of Apollo,” the 2019 John H. Glenn Lecture in Space History, features aerospace engineer JoAnn Hardin Morgan, engineer Poppy Northcutt and Carolyn Leach Huntoon as they discuss their trailblazing work on the NASA Apollo missions. Lockheed Martin Imax Theater, National Air and Space Museum, Washington. 8 p.m. For webcast detail: airand space.si.edu. ● Sept. 14 — NASA planetary astronomer Carrie Anderson speaks on the Cassini Mission’s journey into Saturn’s system. She will explain how the rings formed and their composition at the regular meeting of the National Capital Astronomers, held at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. ● Sept. 20 — “Space Architecture for a Moon Village,” a lecture on living in space, by senior designer Daniel Inocente of the architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill, at the Philosophical Society of Washington. Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. pswscience.org. ● Sept. 20 — Learn about the sky and then enjoy cosmic wonder — through telescopes — at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Weather permitting. 9 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● Sept. 22 — “Looking Up at the Stars,” a public observation event at the historic Montpelier Mansion, 9650 Muirkirk Rd., Laurel. Hosted by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, in partnership with the Goddard Astronomy Club. 6 to 10 p.m. Weather permitting. www.mncppc.org.


World Digest: Aug. 31, 2019

SYRIA U.S. forces struck an al-Qaeda facility north of Idlib in Syria on Saturday in an attack aimed at the organization’s leadership, U.S. Central Command said. “This operation targeted AQ-S leaders responsible for attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians,” Lt. Col. Earl Brown, Central Command Chief of Media Operations, said in a statement. Brown said the destruction of the facility would further constrain al-Qaeda’s ability to carry out attacks and destabilize the region. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said airstrikes pounded bases belonging to Islamist militants in Syria’s northwest. The U.K.-based monitor said the strikes killed more than 40 militants, including some commanders. — Reuters IRAN Iran on Saturday displayed for reporters what it said was an intact satellite ready for orbit, a rebuttal to President Trump’s comments suggesting that a “catastrophic accident” had delayed its launch. Officials presented the satellite, Nahid-1, at a space research center in Tehran, where it is awaiting the preparation of a rocket launcher, Iranian media reported. Iran has successfully sent several satellites into orbit. “The latest tests … have been carried out, and the satellite will be delivered as soon as the launcher is ready,” Iran’s information and communications technology minister, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, told Iran’s state broadcaster. On Friday, Trump posted on Twitter a detailed aerial image of an Iranian launchpad that showed extensive damage, the apparent result of a failed rocket launch, while saying the United States “was not involved in the catastrophic accident during final launch preparations.” — Erin Cunningham Venezuela claims proof that Colombia harbors attackers: Thousands again march in Moscow, but no mass arrests: Iranian oil tanker no longer headed for Turkey: — From news services


Hurricane forecasters turn to new tools to predict when storms will rapidly intensify

about $20,000, with one military-grade prototype costing $70,000. They need to be a lot cheaper for their one-time use in a storm. Cione said he would like to see a design that costs less than $10,000. While that is considerably more than a dropsonde, which cost about $800 each, the per-minute value is a lot higher. Dropsondes are active for only about five to eight minutes in a storm. Drones can operate for more than an hour gathering information and can be directed to specific locations. This data has the potential to improve the physics of the models NOAA uses to predict hurricane intensity. Advanced radar systems provide an even wider field of vision than that of the drones. Marks and his team are experimenting with the use of Doppler radar and Doppler lidar, which can measure wind motion and potentially record data about wind speeds near the core of a hurricane that could help predict when intensification will occur. The lidar is owned by the U.S. Defense Department and has been loaned to NOAA during the past five hurricane seasons. It is mounted on NOAA’s P-3 aircraft, which fly right through the hurricanes. Use has been sporadic. One of the two P-3′s that researchers use has not been available, and there were already too many instruments on the remaining plane, so the lidar could be used only during part of the season. The 2019 season is the first in which the lidar will be in operation all season. Marks and others don’t expect an immediate breakthrough in the effort to predict rapid intensification. It’s a long-term goal, he said. But every year, there are prediction improvements. And because of the warming oceans (warm water is hurricane fuel), it’s never been more crucial. Several recent studies have indicated that intensification has been occurring more frequently, probably because of climate change. The most recent, published in the journal Nature Communications this year, calculated 24-hour wind-speed changes between 1982 and 2009 and detected that the proportion of rapid intensification in storms has increased by a magnitude that natural climate variability could not explain. As far as Hurricane Dorian is concerned, forecasters had warned about the elevated odds of a leap in strength. A promising sign. Tristram Korten is a journalist based in Miami and author of “Into the Storm,” about Hurricane Joaquin and the sinking of El Faro in 2015. Follow him