Hasan Minhaj speaks out after Netflix pulls an episode of ‘Patriot Act' in Saudi Arabia

As news of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death rippled across the world, an assassination that the CIA concluded was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, comedian Hasan Minhaj spent the majority of an episode of his Netflix talk show “Patriot Act” examining the United States' relationship to Saudi Arabia, and Mohammed’s touted reputation as a reformer. “The only thing he’s modernizing,” Minhaj says in the episode, “is Saudi dictatorship.” Now, the Financial Times first reported, that episode is no longer available to view on Netflix in Saudi Arabia. The streaming service pulled it after the country’s Communications and Information Technology Commission said that the episode violated a law there banning “production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers.” The episode had been available in Saudi Arabia for several weeks before the request. Article 6 of the country’s anti-cybercrime law is punishable by up to five years in prison, and it has been used in the past to charge activists for organizing or sharing photos of protests online, and to crack down on satire. Netflix said in a statement to The Washington Post that it has a policy of complying with local laws, like many tech companies. “We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request,” Netflix said. The episode is still available domestically on Netflix, and to everyone on YouTube. Minhaj spoke out about the incident Wednesday. “Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube," he tweeted. “Let’s not forget that the world’s largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now.” “It took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go, ‘Oh, I guess he’s really not a reformer,’ ” Minhaj said of Mohammed on the episode in question. Khashoggi was a contributing columnist for The Post’s opinion section. “Meanwhile, every Muslim person you know was like, ‘Yeah.’ " Minhaj added, using an expletive for emphasis. The majority of the monologue, first released in late 2018, argues that it’s time to “reassess” the U.S.-Saudi relationship — one Minhaj likens to a “marriage of convenience.” Minhaj also looks at Saudi funding of major tech companies. Saudi Arabia, through a huge donation


Saudi Arabia to seek death penalty for five defendants in Khashoggi trial, prosecutors say

ISTANBUL — Eleven people accused by Saudi Arabia of involvement in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi attended their first court hearing Thursday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, according to a statement by the country’s general prosecutor that was carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The statement, which did not name the defendants, said prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for five of them. The defendants’ attorneys attended the hearing, the statement added. Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post who had written columns criticizing the Saudi leadership from his self-imposed exile in the United States, was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Saudi and Turkish authorities have said that the perpetrators were members of a 15-person team of Saudi government agents who were sent to Turkey and that Khashoggi’s body was dismembered after he was killed. The Saudi government has offered shifting explanations of what occurred in the consulate, after initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate. In November, Saudi prosecutors said that two senior Saudi officials had ordered an operation to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia alive, using either persuasion or force. The team sent to Istanbul disobeyed those orders and killed him, the prosecutors said. The statement summarizing the court hearing Thursday did not offer much detail except to say that the defendants had requested a copy of the indictment as well as “additional time to respond,” which was granted. It did not answer some of the most urgent questions surrounding the trial, including whether any senior Saudi officials were being prosecuted. In the three months since Khashoggi’s death, Turkish officials have repeatedly accused the Saudi government of obstructing the investigation by withholding key details, including the location of the journalist’s remains. The prosecutors’ statement Thursday asserted that Turkey has failed to respond to Saudi requests for evidence in the case. kareem.fahim@washpost.com


The shutdown leaves the most vulnerable federal workers paying the price

NEW YEAR’S DAY has come and gone, with agencies encompassing 25 percent of the federal government — from the National Park Service to the Justice Department — still shut down because of a budget impasse soon to enter its 13th day. This is an inconvenience for tourists and a headache for federal workers, hundreds of thousands of whom must either work without pay or go on furlough. For the most vulnerable members of the federal workforce, however, the shutdown represents outright hardship. We refer to the maintenance, security and foodservice personnel who staff the entrances and cafeterias of federal buildings. You don’t necessarily notice what they do, because much of their work takes place after hours, when civil servants have gone home and their trash cans need emptying and floors need polishing. It’s important work nevertheless, albeit often paid at or around minimum wage by the companies that contract with the government to provide these services. Like civil servants, hourly workers for government contractors do not collect their pay during shutdowns; unlike civil servants, however, they do not get back pay when the shutdown ends. How many low-wage workers face this predicament is difficult to ascertain, though perhaps fewer than in some past shutdowns, which affected more agencies. Still, The Post reports that the number could be approximately 2,000, based on estimates from the union that represents many such employees. Past efforts to legislate earnings protections for these humblest of federal workers have come to nothing, and it’s a difficult problem because any solution that makes workers whole would inevitably require the government to pay for services it did not receive. On the other hand, perhaps the prospect of having to do just that might help deter future shutdowns, if only a little. Certainly we could all use a bit more urgency about getting out of this one. President Trump made it clear Wednesday there will be no settlement until he gets his way on funding for a border wall, and Democrats seem determined not to cut a deal with him until the House, which they won in November, has an opportunity to vote for the Democrats’ preferred solution. This would consist of two measures: one to fund departments such as Agriculture and Interior through Sept. 30, at levels already accepted on a bipartisan basis by the Senate; and another to fund the Department of Homeland Security, at current levels,


The subset of the subset of Americans to whom Trump’s wall stubbornness is catering

Before President Trump’s first Cabinet meeting of 2019 on Wednesday, he took questions from reporters. One asked how long Trump was willing to let the partial government shutdown last — beyond the nearly two weeks it has already extended — to secure the funding he seeks for a wall on the border with Mexico. “As long as it takes,” Trump replied. “I mean, look, I’m prepared. I think the people of the country think I’m right. I think the people of this country think I’m right.” A slew of asterisks dot Trump’s commentary about funding for the wall in general, including his promises that Mexico would foot the bill, his assertions that Mexico already had paid for it, his claims that the wall is already being built, his claim this week that most of the wall was built or overhauled and his various dubious presentations of why the wall is needed. We must similarly set aside, in the context of Trump’s remarks above, his repeated insistence that the shutdown isn’t a function of his stubbornness but, instead, is the fault of Democrats who, in his most recent iteration on Twitter, are forcing a shutdown because of the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s response is about as directly accurate as you’ll hear from him, acknowledging that the shutdown is something that is in his power to end and that it hinges on how much funding he wants for that border wall. But it’s still inaccurate. “The people of the country” don’t agree with Trump on the shutdown or on the wall. We looked at this last month, considering polling that showed that most Americans don’t support building a wall and that most think a shutdown should be avoided. Trump’s discussion of what the American people want, though, is often a shorthand meant to refer to a specific subset of the American population: his base of supporters. There certainly are people who want the wall to be built, most of whom are Republicans and most of whom approve of the job Trump is doing. If that’s your definition of “the people,” then, well, sure. The people want the wall to be built. It’s worth asking how many people that encompasses. Or, really, we can invert the question: Of Trump’s fervent base of support, what percentage thinks that this particular fight is one that is critical to pick? If Trump didn’t insist on this


Volunteers, friends and states try to fill the void left by the federal shutdown

In Vicksburg, Miss., the Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park and Campaign are paying $2,000 a day to keep the park open during the federal government shutdown. When a storm blew down trees in the park last week, volunteers and a local contractor showed up to clear the debris. And Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said the city passed a resolution Wednesday to make up the funding when the friends fall short. Across the country, cities, states, private agencies and volunteers are trying to fill the void created by the shutdown — with little certainty of reimbursement. In the Redwood National and State Parks, California’s Department of Parks and Recreation has paid for the restrooms to be cleaned and for trash removal. In New York, the state is paying $65,000 a day to operate the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island. “We’re watching government at its worst in Washington,” New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo told radio station 1010 WINS. “The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of America at her best.” The Utah Office of Tourism, meanwhile, is providing money to staff visitor centers and to continue custodial services at Arches, Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks. In the past, some state spending during shutdowns has been repaid but only in part, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. During the 2013 shutdown, Utah paid almost $1.7 million to keep five national parks open, according to a Pew report last year. The federal government repaid about $666,000. But the states, cities and volunteers can’t do everything. In Washington on Wednesday, as city garbage trucks collected trash on the Mall, rubbish overflowed from cans within sight of the White House. (The city is collecting trash at the National Park Service’s 126 properties in the District, and will treat and clear Park Service roadways during bad weather.) In Philadelphia, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Center closed again Monday after the city tourism agency’s donation of $32,000 to keep the sites running for three days ran out. Visitors must now view the Liberty Bell through a window. Cara Schneider, a spokeswoman for the tourism agency Visit Philadelphia, said the organization did not expect to be repaid. “It’s a donation,” she said. “The understanding was: [Visitors] are in town already, and they’re going to be disappointed, and it’s possible for us to do this by reallocating marketing money. Let’s just do this.


A new space power is born as China lands on the far side of the moon

some ways, the Chinese program already matches U.S. capabilities, even though it still has far less funding. Last year, China scheduled over 40 space mission launches, more than twice the number of those in 2017. Although the rapid Chinese progress may be surprising given its program’s financial shortcomings, researchers say that the country deliberately focuses on prestige projects that will speed up its recognition as a top space power. “China makes very visible advances, but they don’t operate scientific missions in such depth as NASA does, for instance,” Duffy said. Moon missions appear to be especially valuable to Beijing, and the country has made progress on that front far more quickly than in other, less prestigious realms. In a white paper published in December 2016, China made some of its most important missions public on its own, including the now-successful moon landing, several planet flybys and a Mars landing that’s scheduled for 2020. Those missions, Beijing has maintained, all serve peaceful purposes. “The white paper sets out our vision of China as a space power, independently researching, innovating, discovering and training specialist personnel,” read a news release accompanying the 2016 white paper. But those assurances failed to convince the Pentagon, which asserted in a report last August that China’s space program was “central to modern warfare.” Although NASA works closely with Russia, U.S. lawmakers have banned similar projects with the Chinese space agency over espionage fears. In August, Vice President Pence announced plans to create a “Space Force” military command by 2020 and specifically cited an incident involving a Chinese satellite as a key reason to expand efforts in space. As it was seeking to leave a mark about a decade ago, China opted to blow up one of its own weather satellites in a 2007 military test in low Earth orbit. The destruction created so many particles that its remnants still account for about 25 percent of today’s space debris, posing growing risks to satellites and space missions of all nations. Thursday’s announcement might be threatening U.S. leadership in space — but not in the same way as in 2007. “It’s more about prestige,” Duffy said. More on WorldViews: Paul Whelan probably isn’t a spy. So why did Russia detain him? The unlikeliest player in Trump’s border standoff? Israel’s prime minister. ‘New Year’s miracle’: With help from a dog, a Russian baby was rescued after 36 hours in rubble


Trump falsely claims Mexico is paying for wall, demands taxpayer money for wall in meeting with Democrats

President Trump rejected a plan from Democrats on Wednesday to reopen key parts of the federal government, as a meeting of the country’s top political leaders disbanded with no sign of progress toward ending the partial shutdown. The president is demanding more than $5 billion to build a new wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. House Democrats plan to advance legislation that would reopen key parts of the government but deny Trump any additional money for a wall, as one of their first acts after they take control of the chamber on Thursday. But Trump told congressional leaders he will not sign the measure, said incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who attended the meeting. “The president’s not going to sign it . . . Now’s the time to come together, find common ground and solve this problem,” McCarthy said. “I didn’t find the Democrats were wanting to negotiate today.” Trump has invited congressional leaders back to the White House on Friday for more discussions. But neither side offered any indication that a deal was within reach. The jostling between Trump and top Democrats reflects how Washington’s new balance of power will not immediately break the impasse that has shuttered large parts of the government since Dec. 22. And with no obvious path to a compromise, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday said the shutdown could drag on for “weeks.” The 12-day government shutdown has entered a new and unruly phase. Before the meeting, Trump leveled a series of false claims about immigration and the federal budget. Democrats countered by accusing the president of intransigence and said they would not yield to his demands. “We have given the Republicans a chance to take ‘yes’ for an answer,” Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) the expected incoming House speaker, said after the meeting. Earlier, Trump said the shutdown would go on “as long as it takes.” The shutdown’s effects are spreading, particularly in the Washington region. The Smithsonian Institution closed its museums and the National Zoo on Wednesday. Trash and human waste are piling up at national parks. The District of Columbia has stopped issuing marriage licenses because of cutbacks to its funding, and the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a number of other agencies have suspended or scaled back a variety of services for families and businesses. As Trump and Democrats scrap over the wall, both sides


At Raseef22, we gave Khashoggi a platform. After his death, Saudi Arabia is blocking us.

Kareem Sakka is the publisher of Raseef22. Eight years ago, men and women across the Arab world took to the streets demanding freedom, dignity and justice. Arab fiefdoms struggling with newly found post-colonial identities could no longer muffle the demands of the satellite TV and Internet generations. For decades, Arab rulers owned the blueprint of tyranny and failed to sugarcoat their supposed divine right to stay in power. Inspired by these events and high on the hope of the Arab Spring, I helped start Raseef22, a digital space for those eager to know what was going on around them. Six years later, the website (now based in Lebanon) boasts 12 million readers a year spread across 22 Arab countries. We have more than 150 active contributors. Raseef22 cultivated a following among a burgeoning progressive readership whose members wanted to see the shattering of myths that have long divided us along sectarian and ethnic lines. We have a readership that believes in the talent and promise of the Arab mind and sees the ugliness of tyranny, patriarchy, misogyny and the futility of proxy rulers and wars. Jamal Khashoggi was one of many journalists we engaged with. Seven months before his murder, Khashoggi became a regular contributor at Raseef22; he was aware that his words would be closely read back in Riyadh. He wrote with the knowledge that a few words held the power to alter the course of media and popular discourse — and could land a publisher in jail or worse. His articles with Raseef22 were constructive and, in some instances, supportive of certain ideas presented in Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plans for Saudi Arabia. From the Oslo Freedom Forum, Khashoggi addressed the whole Arab world in a masterpiece on the value of freedom; in another article, he voiced fear of imprisonment. Khashoggi constantly voiced his disappointment at the state of human rights in the Arab world, writing about post-traumatic stress disorder and the fear many journalists, thinkers and even imams live in, knowing that they could wake up in jail for any random reason. In December, possibly as a result of the unprecedented reaction that followed the Khashoggi murder, the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission was instructed to block Raseef22. We were one of a handful of media outlets covering the development of the story in Arabic. Being blocked in Saudi Arabia meant losing our most dynamic


Couples can’t get marriage licenses in D.C. during federal shutdown

Of all the casualties of the federal government shutdown — sidelined employees, shuttered museums, the dark Panda Cam at the National Zoo — few anticipated this one: holy matrimony. Dewy-eyed couples planning to tie the knot in the nation’s capital have been doused with cold reality: The courthouse office that issues marriage licenses is closed. It doesn’t matter that the event space is booked. Or that guests have checked into the hotel. Or that the floral arrangements are starting to wilt. The Marriage Bureau at D.C. Superior Court is not open. Even though Congress allows the city to spend its own revenue to maintain D.C. operations during a federal shutdown, the local courts are funded by the federal government. And while court hearings are proceeding and juries are being seated, the Marriage Bureau is considered a nonessential function and has been suspended, along with bar admissions, the judicial library and a child-care center. Claire O’Rourke, 33, learned the hard way when she went on the D.C. Superior Court website Wednesday to print out an application for her marriage license before her Jan. 12 wedding. Instead, she saw red text blaring “The Marriage Bureau is closed during the government shutdown.” “It never occurred to me that this very tiny aspect would shut down right when I needed it the most,” said O’Rourke, a Capitol Hill resident and lobbyist who is planning a 140-person wedding at a Chinatown hotel. “It’s a surprising thing to happen in the final few weeks when you’re getting ready for your wedding,” said O’Rourke, who angrily texted the news to her fiance, Sam Bockenhauer, using words that can’t be printed in a newspaper. “Little inconveniences — and this isn’t exactly a little inconvenience — are very frustrating.” Without a license, a marriage is not legal and lacks the advantages for taxes, property ownership and hospital visitation. Officiants also need to be licensed by the D.C. Marriage Bureau, and O’Rourke is waiting to find out if the relative planning to conduct her wedding is already authorized. In a stroke of good luck, local officials repealed penalties for holding a wedding without a license more than a decade ago. But D.C. law still requires officiants to send the court a signed marriage license within 10 days of a ceremony. Failure to do so results in a $50 fine for the officiant, not the happy couple. Danielle Geanacopoulos and Dan


Whiskey sour: U.S. craft distillers say Trump trade war with Europe is killing export plans

U.S. market grows crowded with craft distillers. When the Harrises co-founded Catoctin Creek in 2010, there were six distilleries in Virginia. Today there are 70 — and more than a thousand nationwide. The boom has revived an industry that dates back to America’s earliest English settlers, who made whiskey on the banks of Virginia’s James River. George Washington eventually became one of the country’s biggest distillers, producing more than 10,000 gallons of whiskey at Mount Vernon a year. Whiskey production withered in some parts of the country during Prohibition; when Catoctin Creek opened for business, it was the first legal distillery in Loudoun County since the 1920s. Scott Harris, an engineer by training, had spent 20 years working in government contracting and wanted a change of pace. Becky Harris, a chemical engineer, was the brains behind the distilling process. “If there is a fruit, vegetable, tuber with starch or sugar in it, you can bet that Becky will try to distill it,” the company’s website says. The couple got a $250,000 small-business loan and renovated a former Buick dealership from the 1920s. On a recent morning, a handful of employees filled and labeled bottles for shipping as a new batch of rye mash fermented in a large tank, filling the room with a sweet aroma. Later, the mixture will be pumped into a pair of German-made stills that will boil it and turn the alcohol into vapor, which will revert to liquid as it cools. Catoctin Creek did well in the U.S. market, but as competition grew, it found U.S. distributors weren’t as interested in new products, Harris said. About five years ago, the distillery decided it wanted to crack Europe. It started investing in new bottles and labels that met E.U. standards, hired a European consultant, and began attending an annual trade show in Berlin. Catoctin Creek eventually found distributors in Germany and Italy, which helped get the company’s whiskey into some high-end cocktail bars, Harris said. All told, the company has spent about $100,000 on the effort, he said. Early last year, the Harrises traveled to Britain to meet with a potential distributor and to market their whiskey to top hotel bars. They poured samples for buyers at London’s famous Savoy and Claridge’s hotels and struck a tentative agreement with a distributor in Manchester, Harris said. Two weeks after they returned to the United States, the White House


Dry January is getting easier every year. Here’s how to do it.

under the National Press Building, has a dozen tables for playing with groups, and you can order sodas or house-made lemonade to go with your Vietnamese lettuce wraps. (And if being the sober one helps you win, so much the better.) The new Spring Valley branch of Pizzeria Paradiso offers nonalcoholic beers as well as video games and wood-fired pizza. If you’re feeling self-conscious about not drinking, one of these bars would be a better choice than a local dive where there’s not much to do except watch sports. Your drink choices are wider than ever. After years of offering non-drinkers a choice of iced tea, Coke or water, restaurants have started putting more nonalcoholic options on the table. More mixologists are showing their creativity and crafting housemade sodas, which offer interesting and unusual flavors without with the preservatives and chemicals found in big brands. Others are bringing back shrubs, the savory blends of vinegar and herbs or fruit that can be mixed into cocktails or served straight with carbonated water. The Green Zone Andrew Shapiro, the creator of local soda and ginger beer line K&B, is also the beverage director at Dino’s Grotto, where he makes seasonal fruit sodas and shrubs. Three-star restaurant St. Anselm has almost as many fancy soft drinks (Moxie, Cheerwine, etc.) as cocktails on its menu. The Smith, a New York City transplant that opened a location on U Street to go with the one in Penn Quarter, pours adult Shirley Temples and a concord grape and rosemary soda that’s as attractive as one of their cocktails. There are benefits for your wallet as well as your health. Do the math: A glass of wine can have 135 to 200 calories, depending on the sugar and alcohol levels, while a pint of craft beer — not a low-cal, low-carb Michelob Ultra — can be about 250 if it’s 6 or 6.5 percent ABV. Go out to happy hour, have two drinks and that’s a significant chunk of your suggested daily caloric intake. Just watch out that your nonalcoholic replacement isn’t as bad as the booze: A can of San Pellegrino sparkling fruit juice or an Ale-8-One Ginger Ale is a calorie-laden sugar bomb. At most of the bars mentioned above, a soda or nonalcoholic drink is far cheaper than booze. At the Smith, for example, a cocktail is $13.50, while a housemade soda is $5.


In shutdown, national parks transform into Wild West — heavily populated and barely supervised

this place and we know how trashed it’ll get if we don’t,” she said. “It’s not quite ‘Lord of the Flies’ yet,” said Bryan Min, 30, who traveled to Joshua Tree with friends from Orange County and is camping outside the park. “Who knows how it’ll be tonight?” The partial government shutdown, triggered by a dispute between Pr esident Trump and Congress over funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, is now well into its second week, with no resolution in sight. Democrats, who take control of the House on Thursday, plan to vote on a bill to open much of the government while denying Trump money for the wall. The president, in a tweet on Tuesday, rejected the legislation, which would provide money for border security but nothing for the wall. Trump also invited congressional leaders to the White House on Wednesday for a briefing on border security, the first sit-down since the shutdown began Dec. 22 though it was unclear if the session would break the budget impasse. One of the most dramatic repercussions of the shutdown will arrive Wednesday, when the Smithsonian Institution, having depleted temporary funding, will close all of its museums and the National Zoo. Some parks across the country have remained partially operational with state funding. Contingency plans adopted by the National Park Service last year have allowed many national parks to remain accessible, but without staffing. The result is that “closed” parks are essentially wide open. In some cases, that gives them a Wild West vibe. The Park Service runs a constellation of parks, monuments, battlefields and historical sites. At Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland, the visitor center has a notice on the front door advising people “to use extreme caution if choosing to enter” park property. On the hallowed ground, where the federal Army of the Potomac collided with the rebel Army of Northern Virginia in the bloodiest day in American military history, the flagpole in front of the visitor center remains conspicuously bare. The access road to Maryland’s Great Falls of the Potomac, part of C & O Canal National Historical Park, has been blocked. At midday Tuesday, hundreds of cars were lined up on nearby neighborhood roads and streets as people walked into the park, many taking advantage of the canal towpath, which remains unblocked. The situation is fluid: Rumors spread Monday that Joshua Tree would close the campgrounds, though the


Airlines worry about planned increase in commercial rocket launches

traffic controllers need to make, reducing workloads and the potential for human error. The agency is also working toward getting rocket telemetry and data directly to the airplane pilots, so they can see what’s happening for themselves. But those measures are years away, officials said. 'Manage together' While the Falcon Heavy launch certainly caused delays for the airline industry, the week as a whole was not a great one at Orlando International Airport. The day before the launch, 74 flights were delayed an average of 43 minutes, according to FAA data. The day after, the number climbed to 95 flights with an average delay of more than an hour. The day of the launch, 61 flights were delayed, fewer than any other day that week — a reminder, the space industry says, that weather and mechanical problems are far more likely to gum up the works than the relatively few rocket launches. Unlike storms, which can pop up without warning, forcing air traffic controllers to scramble, launches are known well ahead of time, allowing the airlines to plan their routes accordingly to minimize the impact. “We don’t have any control over where the thunderstorms are. That’s a force of nature,” Canoll, the head of the Air Line Pilots Association, told Congress last summer. “This is something we can mange together.” The launch of the Falcon Heavy was an extreme example — the first test flight of what is now the world’s most powerful rocket in operation. While the Falcon Heavy required a restricted area as long as the distance between Washington, D.C., and Dallas, SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket requires far less airspace to be closed and for a shorter amount of time. But a study by the FAA found that the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on March 1, 2013, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida caused planes to fly between 25 and 84 miles longer, burn between 275 and 2,387 pounds more fuel, and fly between 1 and 23 minutes longer. If space travel remained an infrequent, special circumstance, it might not be a problem, the airline industry says. But more launches would “likely place pressure on regulators and operators to reduce the size of airspace protection zones, so as to minimize commercial space’s impact on commercial aviation,” a report from the Air Line Pilots Association said. “Without proper mitigations in place, the elevated


Here are the Washington museums you can visit if the shutdown continues

The government shutdown has the potential to disrupt a lot of things — government workers' earnings and federal services, for example — but it's also a precarious situation for your social plans. That's especially true if you have out-of-town visitors coming to the District during the affected time period: Many of the city's best attractions, such as the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo, will be open through Monday but could be closed afterward if the shutdown continues. (The National Gallery of Art will be open on Monday and Tuesday, but its status is unsure after that; The Library of Congress and U. S. Botanic Garden have already closed.) What will you do with your disappointed nieces and nephews? Where will you take Great Aunt Mary, who traveled all this way? But the Washington area is so much more than the Mall. For every shuttered museum or park, we've offered up an apt substitute that is privately-run, thus avoiding the shutdown. They may not be free, like the Smithsonians are, but they offer new and different cultural or historical experiences, especially for seasoned Mall-goers. Or at least they'll get you and your kids out of the house. Update: The National Building Museum is offering free admission to government employees with IDs, while Newseum tickets purchased online are 15 percent off during the shutdown. Anacostia Community Museum and the National Museum of African American History Alternatives The Anacostia Community Museum takes a community-focused look at African American history. So does the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis, which traces the African American experience in Maryland from colonial days through Harriet Tubman and Matthew Henson, and the Alexandria Black History Museum, where exhibitions honor local activists and explore the impact of slavery in the area. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Alternative Get your modern art fix at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, where “Magnetic Fields” examines common threads in multiple generations of abstract art created by African American painters, printers and sculptors, and “Hung Liu in Print” rounds up paintings, tapestries and prints by Chinese artist Hung Liu. Library of Congress Alternative While it doesn’t have the same American focus, the Folger Shakespeare Library is another repository for important, historical documents, including 82 of the 235 known copies of Shakespeare's First Folio. National Air and Space Museum/Udvar-Hazy Center Alternative The College Park Aviation Museum is a great way, even under normal


Consequences of the government shutdown strike the private sector

really sad because most of the cooks, they have only one job. I’m lucky because I have a second job,” said Lazaro, who works the evening shift at Grille District at Reagan National Airport. Lazaro, who is married with two daughters, said his family cut back on expenses a month ago, buying less expensive Christmas gifts. His older daughter got a $100 used iPhone for Christmas instead of a new one. “It isn’t connected yet. There is no line. I can’t afford it right now,” he said. “But she’s happy.” The partial shutdown that began Dec. 22 has really been a sequence of shutdowns. The early repercussions were muted by the holidays and by the ability of some institutions, national parks and agencies to remain at least partially operational for a few days or longer through table-scrap funding, volunteer help and donations. But the budgetary squeeze is intensifying. The National Gallery of Art in Washington closed Thursday, a day after a similar move by the Smithsonian Institution’s many museums and the National Zoo. “It’s really only yesterday and today that things are getting out of holiday mode and into serious business,” said David Berteau, president and chief executive of the Professional Services Council, which represents about 400 firms that contract with the federal government. “For many agencies affected by the partial shutdown, their flexibility has been used up. And now they’re having to start issuing more stop-work orders, with no end predictably in sight.” Contractors — including security guards, suppliers and researchers — form a vast shadow government and must abide by byzantine regulations about whether and how to continue operations during a funding shortfall. The contractors have expanded in size and power in recent decades in a push by small-government conservatives to outsource federal functions to the private sector. Four out of every 10 people who work for the federal government are private contractors, according to 2017 research by New York University professor Paul C. Light. The federal government spends about $300 billion a year just on contracts for services, Berteau said. “This shutdown is harder in two ways. One is the uncertainty of how long it’s going to last and when it’s going to end. The other is the ambiguity, because it’s partial — it’s not a full government shutdown,” he said. “There’s insufficient communication from the government to the companies over what to plan for.” Unlike federal


Warren aligns with Trump on Afghanistan and Syria, signaling a potential shift among Democrats

reconsideration of the U.S. mandate in Afghanistan. Potential 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called Afghanistan an “unwinnable war” in 2008 and as a presidential candidate in 2016 said he opposed continuation of the Afghan “occupation.” Joe Biden, who has the most foreign policy experience among frequently mentioned potential 2020 Democrats, opposed the large-scale troop surge when he served as Barack Obama’s vice president. He favored a smaller counterterrorism force. Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told interviewer Rachel Maddow that after 17 years of war there remain “lots of different problems in Afghanistan, and what seems to be the answer from the foreign policy establishment? ‘Stay forever.’ That is not a policy. We can’t do that.” Warren, like other Democrats and some Republicans, took issue with Trump’s abrupt announcement via Twitter last month that he would immediately close out the troop commitment in Syria. Roughly 2,000 U.S. forces are there under a limited mandate authorized by Obama in 2015. The announcement, in which Trump declared that the Islamic State had been defeated, prompted the resignation of retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis as defense secretary and the resignation of the lead U.S. envoy to the coalition fighting the militant group. “You can talk about our generals. I gave our generals all the money they wanted. They didn’t do such a great job in Afghanistan,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that was open to reporters. “They’ve been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years.” Obama had approved an enormous expansion of the Afghan war during his first term in office — a “surge” bringing military gains that have now been substantially reversed. Obama also was unable to end the Iraq War as he had hoped. Trump, who visited troops in Iraq last month in his first trip to a war zone, has said he supports the continuation of that mission. But he has ordered the gradual departure of about half the approximately 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The merits of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were a back-burner issue during the 2016 presidential campaign, despite Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine’s long-running effort to force a reconsideration of the George W. Bush-era war authorization. Kaine annoyed some in the Obama White House by pushing for Senate review of the 2001 military authorization, and he argues that congressional oversight is even more essential now. Like other


Three have died in accidents in national parks since shutdown began. The parks were closed during previous extended shutdowns.

The deaths follow a decision by Trump administration officials to leave the scenic parks open even as the Interior Department has halted most of its operations. During previous extended shutdowns, the National Park Service barred access to its sites across the nation. This is a developing story. It will be updated.


The shutdown has closed the Smithsonian. Here’s where you can go instead.

The government shutdown disrupts a lot of things — government workers' earnings and federal services, for example — but it’s also a precarious situation for your social plans. That’s especially true if you have out-of-town visitors coming to the District: Many of the city’s best attractions, such as the Smithsonian museums, National Gallery of Art and the National Zoo, are closed indefinitely. What will you do with your disappointed nieces and nephews? Where will you take Great Aunt Mary, who traveled all this way? Some federal institutions, such as the Library of Congress and the U.S. Botanic Garden, are already funded for the year and will be open as usual. But the Washington area is so much more than the Mall. For every shuttered museum or park, we’ve offered up an apt substitute that is privately run, thus not subject to the shutdown. They may not all be free, like the Smithsonians, but they offer new and different cultural or historical experiences, especially for seasoned Mall-goers. Or at least they’ll get you and your kids out of the house. Making the process easier: Some museums, including the Phillips Collection, National Building Museum, the Newseum, President Lincoln’s Cottage and the Woodrow Wilson House, are offering free admission to any furloughed federal employee who shows a government ID. Anacostia Community Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture Alternatives The National Museum of African American History and Culture is one of the hottest draws on the Mall, with free tickets taken weeks in advance. Its sister museum, the Anacostia Community Museum, takes a community-focused look at African American history. So does the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis, which traces the African American experience in Maryland from colonial days through Harriet Tubman and Matthew Henson, and the Alexandria Black History Museum, where exhibitions honor local activists and explore the impact of slavery in the area. And unlike the African American Museum, neither requires you to plan ahead. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Alternative Wandering through the galleries at Glenstone, the private art museum that reopened in Potomac, Md., in October, you’ll come across some of the biggest names in 20th century art — Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Rauschenberg — arranged in a serene setting of “pavilions” around a lily pond. Glenstone sits on a 230-acre estate that doubles as an outdoor sculpture garden, with Jeff Koons’s 37-foot-high


Restriction on transgender troops serving in military can stand for now, D.C. federal appeals court rules

when it comes to policy decisions about standards for service. Attorney Jennifer Levi, director of GLAD’s transgender rights project, said the decision is “based on the absurd idea that forcing transgender people to suppress who they are in order to serve is not a ban. It ignores the reality of transgender people’s lives, with devastating consequences, and rests on a complete failure to understand who transgender people are.” GLAD is an acronym for GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders. President Trump announced a sweeping ban on transgender people’s military service via Twitter in July 2017, citing what he viewed as the “tremendous medical costs and disruption.” The administration’s order reversed President Barack Obama’s policy of allowing transgender men and women to serve openly and receive funding for sex-reassignment surgery. Attorneys for active-duty service members went to court to block the policy shift, which could subject current transgender service members to discharge and deny them certain medical care. The court rulings were met with another policy revision this year from then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who issued a plan to bar men and women from the military who identify with a gender different from their birth gender and who are seeking to transition. Mattis’s plan makes exceptions, for instance, for about 900 transgender individuals who are already serving openly and for others who would serve in accordance with their birth gender. The order Friday said the lower-court erred by not giving sufficient weight to the administration’s effort to revise its policy in response to the initial court ruling. The appeals court specifically mentioned the creation of a panel of military and medical experts for input. “It was clear error to say there was no significant change,” on the administration’s part, the appeals court said. “The government took substantial steps to cure the procedural deficiencies the court identified,” according to the order. “Although the Mattis Plan continues to bar many transgender persons from joining or serving in the military, the record indicates that the plan allows some transgender persons” previously barred to join and serve. The policy is not a “blanket ban,” the court concluded, because “not all transgender persons seek to transition to their preferred gender or have gender dysphoria.” Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, called the decision “cursory and misinformed” and said it “rests on the utter fiction that this ban is not a ban.


Britain clings to imperial nostalgia as Brexit looms

Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? British Prime Minister Theresa May may be on her last legs Now the March deadline for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union is looming, and the chances are rising that no deal will be reached. A “no-deal” Brexit would be a significant blow to the British economy, creating chaos at the country’s ports and even raising the prospect of shortages of medicines and other goods. But as potential havoc draws near, May’s government seems to have its attention elsewhere. Burdened by their deliberations with Europe, key cabinet ministers are instead trying to woo support from Britain’s former colonies. In an interview published last weekend by the Telegraph, a British newspaper with a Tory-friendly line, Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson offered a grandiose vision of a “global” post-Brexit Britain resuming a central place in world affairs. “This is our biggest moment as a nation since the end of the Second World War, when we can recast ourselves in a different way, we can actually play the role on the world stage that the world expects us to play,” Williamson said. He added that being free of Brussels would allow Westminster to “quite dramatically” shift focus, even saying that May’s government was planning on opening two new military bases in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt made Williamson and Hunt are hardly the first British officials to see the country’s post-Brexit future through the lens of the past. Imperial nostalgia has always shadowed the push for Brexit. Diehard Brexiteers conjured visions of Britain restored to its former glory once free of the E.U.'s bureaucratic shackles; government officials spoke of an “Empire 2.0,” anchored by new trade deals with Commonwealth countries. Even as Brexit teetered on the verge of collapse last month, the old colonial hubris wasn’t far from view. “We simply cannot allow the Irish to treat us like this,” an anonymous Tory grandee told the BBC, referring to Ireland’s maneuvering over the future status of its border with Britain. “The Irish really should know their place.” Those convictions — as much as Brexiteer anger over immigration and E.U. regulations — have long animated a segment of the British press and public. “After more than four decades in the EU we are in danger of persuading


House Democrats vote to reopen government and deny Trump wall money, defying veto threat

of Americans rely on may grind to a halt beginning in February, and the Internal Revenue Service will not be able to process refunds. Complicating matters for the White House, McConnell has distanced himself from the discussions since Trump turned on the spending bill passed by the Senate last month, which enraged some Republicans who had voted for the measure believing that they had Trump’s backing. Shelby’s comments marked the first time a top political figure estimated the shutdown could drag into the spring, drawing alarm from federal workers and others. “Hearing this from the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee is, quite candidly, a punch in the jaw of federal employees,” said Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents about 150,000 federal employees. “Their mental anguish and anxiety is bad enough. To hear this coming straight from congressional leaders does not instill a lot of hope.” During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to erect a wall along the Mexico border and have Mexico pay for it. He said terrorists, drugs and criminals were coming to the United States through Mexico and needed to be stopped. This pledge proved very popular with many of his supporters. Since taking over in 2017, Trump has continued to assert that a wall is needed but has backed away from insisting that Mexico pay for it. He has instead said the money should come from U.S. taxpayers, an idea that has divided Republicans. But many Republicans, some reluctantly, have agreed to follow his lead during the current shutdown. Though some Senate Republicans broke with Trump and leadership Thursday, others cautioned about what would happen if he caved on his signature promise. “If he gives in now, that’s the end of 2019 in terms of him being an effective president,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on Wednesday during an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. “That’s probably the end of his presidency. Donald Trump has made a promise to the American people: He’s going to secure our border.” The shutdown is affecting about a quarter of the portion of the federal government funded by Congress, since the Pentagon and major agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services have already been funded through Sept. 30 by spending bills passed by Congress earlier in the year. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security also are not affected. erica.werner@washpost.com damian.paletta@washpost.com seung-min.kim@washpost.com


Attention, ‘snowflakes’ and ‘me me me millennials’: The British Army wants you

to reach its recruiting target. The Guardian reported that the Army “underestimated the complexity of what it was trying to achieve” when it contracted recruitment work to Capita in 2012, according to a National Audit Office report in December. Since the contract began, the Army has missed all recruiting targets, the Guardian reported. The length of the process may have contributed to a pattern of people voluntarily dropping out of the application process, the Army and Capita said in the report. “People are fundamental to the Army,” said U.K. Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson. “The ‘Your Army needs you’ campaign is a powerful call to action that appeals to those seeking to make a difference as part of an innovative and inclusive team. It shows that time spent in the Army equips people with skills for life and provides comradeship, adventure and opportunity like no other job does.” “Now all jobs in the Army are open to men and women,” Williamson continued. “The best just got better.” Past iterations of the “This is Belonging” recruitment campaign had drawn criticism. One retired commander said the 2018 installment, which focused on recruiting people from a diversity of genders, sexualities, faiths and ethnicities, was bowing to political correctness. “The army, like the rest of government, is being forced down a route of political correctness,” retired colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British troops in Afghanistan, told BBC Breakfast, the Guardian reporter. “What is most important is that the army is full of soldiers. It is of secondary importance that they reflect the composition of society.” Other leaders denied that the campaign meant the Army had “gone soft.” “We are getting new types of applicant; that’s why we need to adjust the approach we are using to how we nurture them into the army,” Gen. Nick Carter, who was at the time chief of the general staff, told BBC Radio 4′s Today program. “This campaign is a recognition that we don’t have a fully manned army at the moment, that the demography of our country has changed, and that we need to reach out to a broader community in order to man that army with the right talent." The most recent campaign has received criticism, too, both for insulting millennials and for insulting the integrity of the armed forces. A reporter for The News in Portsmouth spoke with Army veterans who weren’t fond of the warm,


In London, eat your way through the history — and future — of fish and chips

too, although that’s a modern thing. Historically, the pub was reserved for drinking. I walk through Clerkenwell, where United Chip opened to much fanfare earlier this year, aiming “to shake up fish and chips.” Alas, it has fallen victim to a complaint as old as the dish itself. In the restaurant’s doorway is a sign announcing that “due to odor complaints from local residents, we have had to close the shop for the remainder of the summer.” It’s now fall and the restaurant remains closed. I hurry on, as there’s another new shop that I’m particularly keen to try. Sutton and Sons, a small chain in East London, has just opened the capital’s first vegan-only chip shop in Hackney. Hackney is, like many East London neighborhoods, caught between a working-class tradition and the rapid onset of gentrification. It’s a place where you’ll find real estate agents offering two-bedroom flats for the equivalent of a million dollars cheek-by-jowl with workmen in the cafes. Vegan fish and chips, I guess, fits somewhere in between the two, but not everyone is convinced. As I approach, two middle-aged women come bowling out of Sutton and Sons, one apologizing to the other: “I saw the sign and I thought it would be ordinary fish and chips!” I’m not put off. The number of customers in this hole-in-the-wall place and, more important, the smell, are encouraging. “Vegan fish” is offered in three forms here. I order battered banana blossom, which has been marinated in seaweed and the marine vegetable samphire, to take away. It’s a wonderful surprise; gently flavorsome, with a texture not unlike artichoke heart, and very good with a squeeze of lemon. Is it like fish? Not really. But it’s delicious. By the time I arrive at Hackney Central station to get my train home, it’s all gone. It’s heartening, I suppose, that fish and chips retains enough cultural cachet for a vegan version to be thought desirable, and even better that it’s so good. The next step, I think, is for London to start celebrating this simple native dish — and I know exactly where to start. There’s an empty plinth in Frank Dobson Square that could do with a nice new statue. travel@washpost.com More from Travel: Tea for one! Enjoying London’s top afternoon tea spots on a solo trip. Want to minimize jet lag? Here’s what the doctors order. A Londoner’s London


With the government shut down, we’re trying to keep chaos at bay in Joshua Tree

Clear across the country from Washington, it can feel as though Congress is continuously in crisis, and a shutdown always looms over us. At any moment, we’ll have to spring into action to keep things from falling apart. For me and some 40 other volunteers, this now means cleaning up after the tens of thousands of tourists coming to Joshua Tree National Park every day. When government workers are told to stay home, we trek in and do some of what they can’t. We scrub restrooms, restock toilet paper and empty the garbage cans, hoping to keep the chaos at bay. We’ve been doing this amid the flurry of the holiday period, the busiest time of year for the rock climbing guide service that my husband and I run. It isn’t pretty, but we count ourselves lucky that the park’s gates are open. In 2018, the Park Service developed a shutdown contingency plan so that parks could be accessed by the public, even without visitor services. If we’d had to cancel all our trips and refund our customers’ deposits, we wouldn’t have been able to make payroll, and our staff would have taken a huge financial hit. The last major shutdown, in October 2013, locked everyone out of the park for 16 days. Between that and nearly 1,300 civilian employees of the nearby Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center getting furloughed, the local economy suffered enormously. The motels, restaurants and shops were all empty. Joshua Tree was a ghost town. A shutdown affects not only those directly employed by the government but all the people whose livelihoods depend on federal land: Although October was relatively early in the season, my husband and I still lost about $5,000 in income. With our schedules suddenly clear, we filled the time with gardening, and getting people to call their congressional representatives and attend our Shut Down the Shutdown rally. (We sang “This Land Is Your Land” in front of the park’s locked front gates and put on some silly political theater involving Uncle Sam being attacked by zombie congressmen.) This time, the shutdown is happening during peak tourist season. It has barely dented the usual traffic — in fact, more people may have come once they figured out there wouldn’t be fees or rangers. Cars are lining up to enter and then parking in crazy configurations. No one is staffing the kiosks out


Russia dismisses chances of swap involving detained American

arrest of Dmitry Makarenko on Dec. 29, which Russia’s foreign ministry disclosed Saturday. U.S. court records show Makarenko, who lives in Russia, was indicted in Miami in 2017 on charges he broke American laws against exporting military equipment. He was also charged with money laundering. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the case. There has been widespread speculation that 48-year-old Whelan, who was arrested on Dec. 28 under the relatively broad charge of espionage with zero details on what he is accused of doing, would be exchanged for a Russian citizen. “To speak about any kind of ‘swaps’ at this stage is inappropriate and wrong,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov told the state-run RIA news agency. Whelan’s arrest came weeks after Russian national Maria Butina, 30, pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to acting as an agent for the Kremlin in conspiring with a senior Russian official to infiltrate conservative American circles ahead of the 2016 presidential campaign. Whelan’s case, which continues to zigzag as details about his past emerges, has further heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow: The United States and Russia are at loggerheads over a range of issues from election interference to the crises in Syria and Ukraine. Whelan, a Michigan resident who served in the Marines, was court-martialed and discharged for trying to steal thousands of dollars from the U.S. government. He also claims citizenship in the United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland. The Russian Embassy in Washington found out about Makarenko’s detention from those close to him, not the U.S. government, violating the Vienna convention of giving notification within 72 hours of a foreign national’s arrest. “This is not the first time the US does this,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The United States’ neglect of its international obligations has become the norm.” Five days passed before Whelan was visited by U.S. government officials. The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman Jr., met with Whelan on Wednesday in his cell at a Moscow detention facility. Neither Washington nor Moscow have provided a reason for the delay in that meeting. Russia’s security services arrested Whelan when he was in Moscow on a personal visit, his family and company have said. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would demand his release if his detention is deemed inappropriate, while London has said its citizens should not be used as pawns. amie.ferris-rotman@washpost.com devlin.barrett@washpost.com


Three dead in national park system accidents as shutdown wears on

drownings, falls, and motor vehicle crashes, natural causes such as heart attacks and suicides. Drowning, automobile accidents, falls and suicides are among the top causes of death at national parks. “Throughout the year, the National Park System offers a wide range of visitor experiences in unique landscapes with potential hazards that may exist at parks across the nation,” Barnum said in an email. “Visitors can reduce their risk of injury if they plan ahead and prepare properly, select the most appropriate activity that matches their skill set and experience, seek information before they arrive at the park about hazards and environmental conditions, follow rules and regulations and use sound judgement while recreating.” In 1995 and 2013, respectively, the Clinton and Obama administrations made the decision to close the parks altogether. Officials concluded that keeping the parks open would jeopardize public safety and the parks’ integrity, but the closures also became a political cudgel for Democrats because they exemplified one of the most popular aspects of federal operations that had ground to a halt. In January 2018, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney and then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made the decision to keep national park sites as accessible as possible in the event of a shutdown. Trump officials forged ahead with the plan — but that shutdown lasted only three days. The current shutdown enters the third week on Saturday. [ Several former Park Service officials, along with the system’s advocates, said in interviews that activities such as viewing animals and hiking outdoors can carry a greater risk when fewer employees are present. Diane Regas, president and chief executive of the Trust for Public Land, said the group has sent a letter to President Trump calling on him to close all national parks. In an interview Friday, she said administration officials may have underestimated the broad scope of what it takes to maintain these sites. “I think we all know that not having bathrooms is a nuisance. What I think people forget is, not having adequate sewage treatment can be dangerous,” Regas said. “When you bring people together, running these parks is like running a small city. “We are taking risks with some of our most treasured natural resources without knowing that we’re doing our best to protect people, that we’re doing our best to protect park resources,” she said. “When it comes to our national parks, I just don’t believe


Millions face delayed tax refunds, cuts to food stamps as White House scrambles to deal with shutdown’s consequences

consequences of a shutdown,” but said the whole situation could be easily resolved if Democrats would appropriate several billion dollars for the border wall. The government shutdown began Dec. 22 after Trump blocked a bipartisan deal to fund numerous federal agencies through Feb. 8 because he wants more than $5 billion to construct 200 miles of wall along the border. During his campaign and earlier in his presidency, Trump said the wall would be paid for by Mexico. That has not happened. The shutdown began with an acute impact, cutting off funding to pay 800,000 federal employees, closing national parks and museums, and limiting federal services. The workers are expected to begin feeling the consequences of the shutdown more sharply next week: They will miss their first paychecks on Jan. 11 if a resolution isn’t reached. “A month into this, we’re going to see people start to get evicted and their cars start to be repossessed,” said David Borer, general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 750,000 federal employees. And a much broader part of the federal bureaucracy is expected to begin grinding to a halt in February, absent a resolution. Nonprofit groups have been able to patch together money to keep certain parts of the government open for several weeks, but it’s unclear how much longer they can hold on. And none has sought to replicate the level of funding that would be lost if SNAP runs out of money or tax refunds are stalled. “That’s scary, really scary,” said Lyman Hafen, executive director at Utah’s Zion National Park Forever Project, a nonprofit partner of one of the country’s most scenic parks. “It’s not a good situation without that support. We’re just taking it a day at a time, a week at a time.” The cumulative impact of these changes could have a major impact on the economy. Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RMS U.S., an accounting and consulting firm, said a prolonged shutdown would shave an entire percentage point off the U.S.’s economic growth, in part because of an “uncertainty tax” that would freeze spending by households and businesses. “If one doesn’t know what’s going to happen with respect to their own income . . . there will be a pull back on the purchase of big-ticket items,” he said. “Large firms will pull back on outlays on software, equipment and capital.” damian.paletta@washpost.com erica.werner@washpost.com


This South Carolina Republican is off to tackle Everest — then climate change

Amazon River Basin and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Mullikin is that rare conservative who knows that climate change is real and that human contribution is part of it. He also knows that there’s no way to tackle the problem without a global approach. “We only have one atmosphere,” he says. That China’s toxic emissions have effects elsewhere may be an obvious observation. Less obvious, perhaps, is the State Department’s finding that 70 percent of the mercury deposited in the United States comes from global sources. Although climate change isn’t within his immediate purview, the state’s increasing water problems are most certainly related to the increase in severe weather owing to rising temperatures on land and sea. Thus, it isn’t surprising that Mullikin brings a global perspective to local problems. Rather than tackle only the state’s 187-mile coastline, the Floodwater Commission composed of 10 task forces will approach the water problem comprehensively, addressing everything from shoreline plantings to ditches, canals, rivers, estuaries — any place where water accumulates — as well as beautification and development adjustments, such as permeable surfacing materials. Charleston, the state’s largest city, has taken measures to prevent future damage to the historic peninsula by constructing a tunnel system beneath the streets to channel water and also, possibly, a seawall. But those efforts won’t help other coastal and smaller inland communities that often suffer the worst flooding. The proposed artificial reef system is the most dramatic part of the mission, involving the sinking of defunct naval ships, among other ramparts, that would become the foundation for ocean ecosystems, while also reducing flood events through wave breaking and wave-energy dispersion. Other task forces composed of a who’s-who of South Carolina experts, policymakers, legislators, scientists and military leaders will address living shorelines, infrastructure, “smart rivers,” grid security and, not least, national security. Perhaps most important is the task force on stakeholder engagement. The real makers and breakers of this particular deal are everyday people whose ideas and contributions will be sought by mayors and task-force leaders. All hands are needed on deck, says Mullikin, if the state is, indeed, to shift the tides — or at least tame the waves. In the meantime, assuming Mount Everest’s hospitality, Mullikin vows that South Carolina will soon be first in the nation in environmental protection. That guy. kathleenparker@washpost.com Read more from Kathleen Parker’s archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook.


American detained by Russia was convicted of trying to steal thousands of dollars while deployed to Iraq as a Marine

absent from his unit twice, in one case for two days. The court knocked him down two pay grades; restricted him to places of lodging, eating and worship for 60 days; and discharged him from the Marine Corps for bad conduct. He appealed the ruling, but the conviction was upheld. The bad-conduct discharge resulted in his rank being reduced to private after some 14 years in the Marine Corps Reserve. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, bouncing checks is a violation of an article designed to uphold discipline and good order and prevent conduct that brings discredit to the service. Broadly speaking, the military seeks to prevent officers from having outstanding debts that could offer adversaries leverage in espionage or blackmail. Whelan’s brother David said he had no knowledge of the judicial proceedings or convictions in the Marine Corps. In a statement issued on behalf of the family Friday, he urged Congress and the State Department to help secure his brother’s release, and expressed gratitude to the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman Jr., for his assistance. “Our focus remains on ensuring that Paul is safe, well treated, has a good lawyer, and is coming home,” the statement said. Whelan’s family has maintained that he is innocent, and that the Michigan resident and former police officer was in Moscow for a friend’s wedding when he was arrested by members of Russia’s security services in an upscale hotel not far from the Kremlin. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said Washington will demand Whelan’s release if his detention is not “appropriate.” Huntsman visited Whelan inside his cell. Whelan’s possible financial problems could have made him a prime target for Russian intelligence services. Intelligence services routinely look for people in financial distress whom they might recruit or blackmail. An active-duty Marine traveling in Russia would have quickly caught the attention of Russian intelligence services, said Dan Hoffman, a former CIA officer who served as the chief of station in Moscow. Hoffman emphasized that he had no knowledge of whether Whelan was recruited or approached. He said that from the moment Whelan set foot in Russia, he was probably monitored, and that the intelligence services would have developed a profile of his comings and goings and potentially his communications. The Russian government would have known that Whelan was coming when he applied for a visa. Whelan also had an active profile for


‘Hoping that this will end soon’: D.C. tourists, residents find workarounds as shutdown drags on

here before and people are realizing a lot of what D.C. has to offer has nothing to do with the federal government,” said Elliott Ferguson, president of Destination DC, the city’s tourism arm. “They’ve realized a government shutdown doesn’t mean we’ve put a padlock on New York Avenue.” Hotels are seeing fewer cancellations than in past shutdowns, Ferguson said, and fewer tour groups have called Destination DC in a panic. Two conventions scheduled this month are expected to bring about 27,000 people and $33 million to the city. “Right now, we’re all hoping that this will end soon,” Ferguson said. “But in the meantime, we want everyone to know D.C. is open for business.” Getting that message out has been a challenge for small businesses, especially those near closed attractions. Yael Krigman, owner of Baked By Yael, a bakery across from the National Zoo, said she’s leaned more heavily on catering and “cake pop parties” in lieu of the usual zoo-goer foot traffic. It hasn’t been easy. “It’s not as though January was going to be our best season anyway, but that’s why we really rely on the zoo even more than in other months, because people aren’t sending gifts and throwing parties as much as they do in December or February,” Krigman said. “But people still go to the zoo — when it’s open.” Private museums have worked with tour guides to fill gaps in tourists’ schedules left by shuttered public attractions. The Newseum and Madame Tussauds wax museum are offering free admission for furloughed federal workers. “During shutdowns, we always see an increase — especially of tour groups who are trying to change their itineraries at the last minute,” said Sonya Gavankar, director of public relations for the Newseum. The National Geographic museum isn’t fully operational, with two rotating exhibits closed for construction, but spokeswoman Lexie de los Santos said the museum also has seen a “significant increase in the number of people visiting.” Still, museum officials and city leaders say no one wants to see the shutdown persist. “During a shutdown, there are no winners and our nation’s federal workers, including the 170,000 federal employees who work in Washington, DC, pay the highest price,” D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser wrote in a letter to Trump last week. Dawit Kassa, 41, a full-time Lyft driver from Arlington who works primarily in downtown Washington, said his earnings have been


Man fatally shot in Northwest Washington early Sunday

A man was shot and killed by an unknown assailant in Northwest Washington early Sunday morning, D.C. police said. Police said the shooting occurred shortly before 3:30 a.m. in the area of O and North Capitol streets NW, in the Truxton Circle neighborhood. Police said the unidentified victim was found with multiple gunshot wounds. The man was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said, and was later pronounced dead. Authorities had yet to publicly identify the man late Sunday afternoon and the shooter remained at large, police said. Anyone with information was asked to call police at 202-727-9099 or text message tips to D.C. police at 50411. faiz.siddiqui@washpost.com


Park Service takes ‘extraordinary step’ of dipping into entrance fees to bolster operations at popular sites

fishing and photography. Jon Jarvis, who led the Park Service under President Barack Obama, said in an email that the agency decided not to tap the fees during the 2013 shutdown because “that is a slippery slope” that would blur the line between the operating budget provided by Congress and these supplemental funds. The agency’s solicitor agreed with that interpretation, he added. The Park Service has not yet determined how many parks will be able to tap into these funds, officials said, but they would include the nation’s most popular ones. Only 115 of the agency’s 418 park sites collect entrance fees, though a few dozen more collect fees for campgrounds, parking and other purposes. These fees represent just a fraction of the agency’s roughly $3.2 billion annual budget. Because any staffers returning to work will have their salaries funded through fees, this will mean some Park Service employees will be paid for the hours they work during the shutdown while others, including some law enforcement officers, will not. In some sites where state governments or outside groups are funding operations, employees are receiving at least part of their regular salaries. In the memo, Bernhardt asks for a list of parks that will expand their operations by dipping into these fees, as well as ones that don’t collect fees but can demonstrate a need for additional funds and how they would distribute them. “While the [National Park Service] will not be able to fully open parks, and many of the smaller sites around the country will remain closed, utilizing these funds now will allow the American public to safely visit many of the nation’s national parks while providing these iconic treasures the protection they deserve,” Smith said in a statement. But Theresa Pierno, president and chief executive of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in an email that the move would drain money that was supposed to be spent on addressing the parks' massive maintenance backlog. “It’s incredibly concerning that the Acting Interior Secretary is putting political pressure on superintendents to keep parks open at the expense of parks' long-term needs and protection,” Pierno said. “For those national parks that don’t collect fees, they will now be in the position of competing for the same inadequate pot of money to protect their resources and visitors. Draining accounts dry is not the answer." Even as Trump officials sought to maintain operations


Chinese censors go old school to clamp down on Twitter: A knock on the door

to air sensational — and largely unsubstantiated — allegations of corruption against Chinese leaders. The campaign would have been unthinkable on Chinese social media. But it played out dramatically over several months on Twitter, drawing in a new generation of Chinese users. For months, Guo and his supporters shared corporate records and satellite images of California mansions allegedly linked to senior Communist Party officials. “We tend to see cycles of tightening and relaxing, and China is clearly in a tightening phase currently as the economy slows down and domestic and intentional challenges loom large,” said Dali Yang, an expert on Chinese politics. The Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Internet regulator, did not respond to requests for comment. The first time Chinese state security actively sought out Twitter users was in 2011, when Chinese dissidents, inspired by the wave of uprisings in the Arab world, tried to use the platform to mobilize protests, said Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch. After that movement fizzled, Chinese authorities have kept an eye on the platform but, until recently, rarely intervened. That helped cultivate Twitter’s reputation as a safe space for an improbable and colorful cast of Chinese voices. The veteran journalist Gao Yu, for one, tweets prodigiously despite living under house arrest after being charged with leaking state secrets in 2015. Bao Tong, a purged 86-year-old Communist Party official and former top aide to Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang, set up an account last year and hurls daily criticism of the Xi administration to 137,000 followers. (Calls by foreign journalists to Bao’s home are frequently cut off, but his access to Twitter appears to be rarely interrupted.) He, the Beijing-based columnist, said there are fears that a full-scale crackdown on Twitter would choke off the last online venue in China for open intellectual debate. Last year, He wrote pointed comments on Weibo and WeChat urging the Chinese central bank to lower reserve requirements for lenders because, in his estimation, the Chinese economy was struggling. “I never touched politics. I’m not a dissident, and I’m not a celebrity,” he said. “They still took away my voice.” When police visited him last month to warn him about tweeting, He did not promise to stop. He’s not sure he could. “We go to Twitter because we have no choice,” He said. “For people like us, if you have


Ask Amy: Son’s delirium causes unexpected hurt

crushed in my entire life. I started to cry and ran out, and kept running. My daughter and husband brought me to the cafeteria in the hospital to try to calm me down. After the surgery, he and his wife came back to stay at my house until he was healed enough to go to his home. This incident was never brought up or talked about. Now, 15 years later, I still harbor hurt and resentment. How do I handle it? I'm not in good health. Should I keep it buried or bring it up? I'm not sure if he remembers it and do not want him to feel bad. However, it gnaws away on my mind and heart. The Real Mother The Real Mother: I don’t know if you have ever been hospitalized and recovered from a major operation using anesthesia, but I have seen people hallucinate and suffer from delirium while in the grip of “ICU psychosis.” My own children were completely loopy after only getting their wisdom teeth extracted. (One seemed to think that our dog, Calvin, would be driving her home from the dental office.) I don’t think your son’s reaction while emerging from anesthesia is out of the ordinary. I do think that you were traumatized by watching your son suffer and skate so close to death. Please, do yourself and your family a favor and bring this up with your son. I hope you can temper your reaction to this enough so that you will understand that he didn’t know what he was saying and likely has no memory of it. I hope a reassuring hug and an “I love you, Mom,” will allow you to finally close the book on this strange chapter in your emotional life. Holding on to this is not good for your own health. Find a way to let it go. Dear Amy: Then I found out that Annie cheated on me with another guy. They were at a bar, drinking and laughing. I broke up with Annie, and I never went back to her. Last month, I met a pretty girl, "Rebecca," who is a warm and kindhearted person. We hit it off right away. Yesterday, I saw her with another guy at a shopping mall. I'm afraid that I'm being cheated on again. What should I do? Cheated Upon? Cheated Upon: Dear Amy: Plain Talker Plain Talker:


ICE is moving to deport a veteran after Mattis assured that would not happen

proceed with citizenship. Laws in place since World War I say noncitizens who leave the military under “honorable conditions” are eligible for naturalization. But ICE disputes the circumstances. Jordan L. Jones, an ICE assistant chief counsel, said in a Seattle federal immigration court filing on March 29 that Mattis was actually referring only to recruits who came to the country illegally as children and enlisted later through DACA as those who are protected. Zhu is removable “despite his honorable discharge,” Jones wrote, adding the judge, John F. Walsh, cannot dismiss proceedings. Stock said Mattis could not have meant only DACA recipients because they overwhelmingly naturalize in the military and are only a small portion of foreign recruits who enlist. “They’re ignoring what Mattis said,” Stock said. When asked to clarify Mattis’s remarks, Pentagon spokesman Maj. David Eastburn referred to the February statement. Mattis previously said he wants to preserve the MAVNI program. Zhu, a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese, could have proved useful in uniform as the U.S. military focuses on countering an increasingly aggressive China and Russia. Instead, deportation looms, including threats from Zhu’s former homeland. A former State Department official told The Post in July that Chinese-born U.S. military recruits who are deported to their native land may face harsh confinement and interrogation. If deported, Zhu would probably return to his home town in Chongqing. It features an unusual memorial for a communist nation: a bust of Army Gen. Joseph Stilwell, who commanded U.S. and Chinese forces from the city during World War II. A library named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt is also there, Zhu said. But the city also brims with hostility toward the United States. Zhu said that after he graduated in 2013, local authorities investigated allegations of corruption involving his father, a businessman. They obtained his phone and viewed instant messages in which he and his son discussed Zhu’s future military service. The authorities were suspicious and called his son unpatriotic, then let him go without charges after 48 hours, Zhu said. The episode rattled his father. “If you get a chance,” he told his son, “don’t ever think about coming back.” Correction: This story incorrectly stated Zhu’s discharge date. It has been updated. Read more: How the Pentagon ending its deal with immigrant recruits could hurt the military The Pentagon tried to kill a program for immigrants. Mattis thinks it can be saved.


Saudi Arabia’s trial for Khashoggi’s murder is a travesty. Congress must insist on justice.

IT MIGHT not have been a coincidence that as the new Congress convened Thursday, Saudi Arabia announced the opening of a trial of 11 people charged in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. After all, the U.S. Senate so far has come closest to imposing meaningful consequences on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA believes oversaw the 15-member hit team that awaited Mr. Khashoggi when he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018. In December, the outgoing Senate unanimously approved a resolution holding the crown prince responsible for the killing, in spite of his denials and President Trump’s attempts to cover for him. Senators also invoked provisions of a human rights law that will require the administration to issue a finding about Mohammed bin Salman’s responsibility in the coming months. If the Saudi action was meant to head off further congressional action, it was pathetically weak. The government press agency reported that an initial court hearing had been held and that a state prosecutor planned to seek the death penalty for five of those charged. But the court hearing was not public, and none of the suspects was named. By all indications, not just the crown prince but also other senior officials whom Saudi authorities have previously accused of involvement in the murder have not been charged. Instead, a small group of security personnel, who undoubtedly followed orders when they participated in the attack, are being set up as scapegoats. Those to whom the death penalty is applied will be beheaded, in keeping with the kingdom’s barbarity. The higher-ups escaping responsibility include Saud al-Qahtani , one of Mohammed bin Salman’s top aides, who is believed to have orchestrated numerous illegal operations against dissidents; Ahmed al-Assiri , the former deputy chief of intelligence; and Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy , a forensic doctor who reportedly dismembered Khashoggi’s body with a bone saw he brought from Riyadh for that purpose. The Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported recently that Mr. Tubaigy is living quietly with his family in a villa in Jiddah. This impunity is so blatant that even the Trump administration stopped short of endorsing it. A senior State Department official told reporters Friday, in advance of a trip to Riyadh by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that “the narrative emerging from the Saudis” had not yet “hit that threshold of credibility and accountability” the administration says it is


As the U.S. withdraws from Syria and Afghanistan, here are lessons from the Iraq War

President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and roughly halve the number deployed in Afghanistan may set the stage for the return of the Islamic State, which some commentators warn is already underway. In December 2011, U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq, formally ending Operation Iraqi Freedom, after they and partner forces had reduced terrorist and insurgent violence there. Islamic State militants that they had driven into hiding took advantage of the civil war in neighboring Syria and reemerged as the organization against which U.S. and other forces have most recently been engaged. Preparing for the future If the United States withdraws from Syria, Afghanistan and potentially Iraq, its planning for potential future engagements with the Islamic State or some splinter organization should include a robust strategy for collecting intelligence from locals, lest it repeat its experience during the early months of the Iraq War. That’s what we concluded after evaluating emails recently released by the U.S. government from the first year of the Iraq invasion in 2003. The emails consist primarily of “tips” that Iraqis sent to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) — the country’s transitional government — from December 2003 to May 2004. They offer a rare, unfiltered look into the shadowy world of human intelligence collection. And they help piece together the historical record of America’s knowledge of and response to the growing insurgency in Iraq. These and other wartime documents suggest that the CPA did not lack intelligence during this early war period. Rather, it probably had difficulty determining the credibility and relative importance of potentially competing information. Its tips program had too few resources and ran into trouble coordinating with various U.S. entities deployed in Iraq. What challenges did the United States’ early “tips” efforts face? The CPA originally launched the tips program to help root out corruption and track down senior Baathists, including Saddam Hussein himself. But Iraqi citizens responded with a much broader range of information. While we now know that some of the tips were inaccurate or irrelevant, at the time these were potentially considered serious. Much of the information received may have distracted U.S. officials from the growing insurgency. For instance, the CPA received a number of tips about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which may help explain why the United States kept searching for WMD for more than 18 months after the invasion had begun. Several informants claimed to


Pianist Leon Fleisher marks 90th birthday with a buoyant spirit

The legend of Leon Fleisher only grows with time. A once-in-a-generation musical talent who burst onto the scene in the 1950s, Fleisher had a brilliant career as a pianist, which was cut short in 1965 at the age of 37, when a mysterious ailment robbed him of the use of his right hand. He turned to teaching, conducting and a career as a left-handed soloist, all the while desperately seeking answers for his undiagnosed condition. After decades of unsuccessful treatment, a proper diagnosis (a neurological disorder called focal dystonia) and experimental Botox injections finally enabled a triumphant return to two-handed playing in the 1990s. Now, at the age of 90, Fleisher continues to enjoy this miraculous rebirth of his concert career. To celebrate his milestone birthday, Fleisher appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at a near-sold-out concert at Strathmore on Saturday night. Fleisher graced the audience with a delightfully limpid account of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12, K. 414, a genial work that has become one of his late-career calling cards. Inevitably, some allowances needed to be made — for Fleisher’s use of the score, some stiff passagework in the right hand and an occasional tendency to drag. Yet it was a performance that was suffused with a remarkable buoyancy of spirit and bore many of the hallmarks of Fleisher’s iconic recordings: clarity of line, a lean but gleaming tone and musical sensitivity in spades. Fleisher was nimbly supported by guest conductor Peter Oundjian. After the concerto, the orchestra feted Fleisher with a charming mash-up of “Happy Birthday” and Mozart, arranged by bassist Jonathan Jensen, a sign of genuine affection from his adopted hometown orchestra. Oundjian was a fitting conductor for the occasion as, like Fleisher, the Canadian musician had a successful instrumental career (as a violinist) curtailed by injury and discovered a fruitful second life as a conductor. In Brahms’s Second Symphony, Oundjian led an unusually driven and turbulent performance that accentuated the shadows that darken this sunniest of symphonies. It wasn’t the most elegant reading, but it pulsed with a rough-hewed intensity that was often gripping, particularly in its autumnal shadings. After all, as Oundjian and Fleisher know, the darkness makes the light all the more beautiful. style@washpost.com


As shutdown drags on, Trump officials make new offer, seek novel ways to cope with its impacts

and Internal Revenue Service officials are trying to determine whether they will be able to pay tax refunds next month, despite the fact that they said last year they would be prohibited from doing so in the event of a government shutdown. And the National Park Service, under pressure because of deteriorating conditions at some of its most popular parks, authorized tapping entrance fees to pay for trash pickup and other operations that have halted as a result of the shutdown — a move some critics said may be illegal. Under a memorandum signed Saturday by the Interior Department’s acting secretary, David Bernhardt, and obtained by The Washington Post, park managers will be permitted to bring on additional staff to clean restrooms, haul trash, patrol the parks and open areas that have been shut because of the budget standoff. In a statement Sunday, National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith acknowledged that the administration’s practice of keeping understaffed parks open now threatens to degrade some of its most beloved sites. “As the lapse in appropriations continues, it has become clear that highly visited parks with limited staff have urgent needs that cannot be addressed solely through the generosity of our partners,” Smith said. “We are taking this extraordinary step to ensure that parks are protected, and that visitors can continue to access parks with limited basic services.” At least seven people have died at national park sites since the shutdown began, including a man at Yosemite National Park who illegally brought his dog on a trail and subsequently fell. At Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco, the buildup of human waste became so severe that officials closed the park because of public health concerns. At Joshua Tree National Park, authorities shut campgrounds after determining that illegal off-road driving had damaged the park’s resources. Theresa Pierno, president and chief executive of the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, said in an email that drawing from visitors’ fees would drain money that was supposed to be spent on addressing the parks’ massive maintenance backlog. “For those national parks that don’t collect fees, they will now be in the position of competing for the same inadequate pot of money to protect their resources and visitors,” Pierno said. “Draining accounts dry is not the answer.” Congressional Democrats and some park advocates question whether the park-fee move is legal because the fees that


The Energy 202: Democrats balk at Trump plan to keep parks open with entrance fees

Committee, said in a statement Sunday his panel “will demand answers about whether these moves are legally justified.” “President Trump and his advisors apparently just woke up to the fact that the shutdown they created several weeks ago has done terrible damage to our country,” he added. The threat is the latest point of tension between Democrats in Congress and Republicans in the Trump administration over reopening the federal government. Historically, the closure of museums and zoos in Washington and national parks elsewhere the country have been among the highest-profile consequences of the government shutdowns. In Joshua Tree Meanwhile at Yosemite, As the shutdown grinds on, volunteers are trying to fill the void. “In Vicksburg, Miss., the Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park and Campaign are paying $2,000 a day to keep the park open during the federal government shutdown,” Ruane writes. ”In New York, the state is paying $65,000 a day to operate the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island... The Utah Office of Tourism, meanwhile, is providing money to staff visitor centers and to continue custodial services at Arches, Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks.” Paulina Firozi contributed to this report. THE IMPACT OF THE SHUTDOWN Deaths in national parks during the shutdown: Beyond the parks: Not all scientists are impacted: A NEW CONGRESS, A NEW CLIMATE FOCUS The threat of our time: Pelosi said Friday the House plans to revisit a climate bill reminiscent of a 2009 cap-and-trade legislation that passed the House but stalled in the Senate, Bloomberg News reports. “We couldn’t pass in the Senate our climate bill, and we’ll be returning to that,” Pelosi said during remarks at a Trinity Washington University event. Before the new year, Pelosi appointed Rep. Kathy Castor to chair the new select climate committee, touting the Florida Democrat as a “proven champion for public health and green infrastructure.” First order of business: A tax threat: ZINKE'S FAREWELL In his final note on departmental stationary, the interior secretary bid farewell last Wednesday, calling it a “high honor to serve the president and the American People as @ Interior Secretary.” “He departed amid a partial government shutdown forced by the president that left garbage piled high at the national parks he oversaw,” The Post’s Fears wrote. The probes continue: Zinke defends his legacy: No rush to replace Zinke: REMEMBERING MCINTYRE — Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Kevin J. McIntyre died


Why Elizabeth Warren — and every would-be president — prefers macrobrews

his wife Nancy even used the same wine merchant they had hired for gubernatorial functions in Sacramento. However, the president kept this oenophilia largely to himself. On the campaign trail, whether in a tavern, a bar or the local VFW, Reagan invariably hoisted a mug of macrobrew. No way would he have ever held up a nicely balanced cabernet sauvignon. Walter Mondale would have clobbered him! So, what to make of the enduring appeal of pale, yellow fizz in presidential politics? Capitalism has something to do with it. For all the meteoric growth in craft beer, or microbrews, during the past few decades, it remains a minority in the American beer market, accounting for about 13 percent of sales nationwide — maybe more in some metro areas. Domestic macrobrews such as Budweiser, Miller, Corona and Heineken account for everything else in the market, worth approximately $112 billion. Drink the job creators. It also has to do with the city vs. country divide in beer in the United States. That popularity of craft beer is most pronounced in the nation’s bigger urban areas. The San Francisco Bay area, the New York City orbit, San Diego County, Portland (Maine and Oregon), Warren’s greater Boston: These places are where most of the nation’s 7,000 or so craft breweries are located, and where their fans are mostly concentrated. So if you’re trying to relate to what the political media has convinced itself is the prototypical Trump voter, best to imbibe what they do. Finally, maybe it’s just a generational thing. Until the 1990s, when Pete’s Wicked and Sam Adams became the first national craft brands, beer in America meant Budweiser or its major rivals. This wasn’t necessarily about taste, it was just how things evolved. The United States was once ale country — as far as the early republic drank beer at all. The most popular hard beverages were whiskey and cider. Then Germans and Czechs arrived en masse in the 1840s and 1850s and started making lager by the oceanful, and soon the thinner, paler lagers from little start-ups like Miller and Anheuser-Busch became the benchmark in the United States. The people preferred them to other available styles like porters and cream ales. Now, the people prefer just those kinds of beer, produced by more than just a few breweries. Might their politicians someday catch up? Perhaps somewhere among the legions of younger