Company shoots shiny orb into orbit and angers astronomers over ‘space graffiti.’

stargazers. On Thursday, Mashable journalist Miriam Kramer collected criticisms from astronomers on Twitter. The scientists described the Humanity Star as vandalism, a disco ball, “space graffiti” and “space garbage.” Naked eyes can already see the International Space Station, astronomer Eric Mamajek tweeted, and sending reflective objects into orbit has not, in the past, prompted “awe and world peace.” Columbia University astronomer Caleb A. Scharf, writing at Scientific American, said the idea “sounds like jolly nice fun” but also fills him “with a big dose of dread.” The satellite, in his perspective, is an unwanted intrusion into an environment increasingly crowded by satellites. There are a few thousand satellites in Earth's orbit. And our ability to deploy a bunch of satellites at once is growing: In February, India deployed 104 small satellites from a single rocket, setting a world record. Decades before space powers had such capabilities, NASA astrophysicist Donald Kessler worried about space debris triggering a chain reaction of collisions among a sky thick with satellites, a scenario termed the “Kessler syndrome.” This is not to suggest that the Humanity Star will be the spark that sets off a Kessler syndrome. “Kessler was describing an orbital Nagasaki, where everything was annihilated,” Federal Communications Commission economist Peter J. Alexander, who has written a paper on space trash, told The Washington Post in 2013. “But there are degrees in which the environment gets degraded even before that sort of collisional cascade,” he added. “I don't want to be too negative about the Rocket Lab ball — I salute them for their success in putting it into orbit,” New York University astrophysicist Benjamin Pope told The Post. He also pointed to a tweet that suggested not everyone in the field was opposed, summing up the counternarrative: “It is probably short lived and kind of cool.” That said, he disagreed with Rocket Lab's decision. “Privately sending bright toys up there can harm the international astronomical community's use of it,” he said. Satellites do not need to be chronic pests or annihilators to cause headaches. A quick blaze through a telescope's field of view can disrupt research. “Astronomers are well used to finding their hard won images streaked with the destructive light trails of glinting objects as they pass overhead,” wrote Scharf, who also compared launching the Humanity Star to sticking a “big flashing strobe-light on a polar bear.” “This Humanity Star could well be


Trump ordered the firing of Mueller. That makes it more likely he obstructed justice.

THE MORNING PLUM: President Trump is kinda sorta denying the New York Times’ explosive report that he ordered the firing of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III last June and backed down only when the White House counsel threatened to quit. Trump vaguely dismissed the report as “fake news,” but as some analysts pointed out, if Trump were really denying it, you’d hear that message a lot more forcefully. But there is a lot of information in the Times report — and other reports that have followed it — in addition to the precise question of whether Trump issued a blanket order for Mueller’s firing. And that information, taken along with the top-line scoop, sheds new light on how Mueller will likely seek to build an obstruction-of-justice case against Trump and why success at building such a case is now more likely. For instance, the Times reports two other crucial details: First, that the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, worried that firing Mueller “would incite more questions about whether the White House was trying to obstruct the Russia investigation.” Second, that Trump has “wavered for months” about firing Mueller and that this is an “omnipresent concern” among people around Trump, meaning it is a concern right now. This means Trump was very likely informed by his lawyer that firing Mueller would make him more legally vulnerable to the charge that he obstructed justice in his other previous efforts to impede the investigation into his campaign’s possible conspiracy with Russian sabotage of our election. Yet, having likely been so informed, Trump still continues to mull firing him. The question of whether Trump obstructed justice turns on whether he acted with corrupt intent in trying to impede the investigation. Former prosecutor Renato Mariotti told me in an interview today that those additional facts in the Times piece could help Mueller try to establish that intent. “It’s hard to conceive of McGahn not having a conversation with Trump regarding the potential legal consequences of firing Mueller,” Mariotti said. The fact that Trump continues to consider that route may mean he continues to bring it up with the people around him. Indeed, CNN recently reported that Trump continues to rage in private about the probe and that his lawyers have talked him down by telling him he’ll be cleared soon. Thus, any more recent conversations about whether to fire Mueller could be of interest,


China’s violation of rights grows ever more brazen

THE STORY of Gui Minhai offers a measure of China's growing audacity in exercising "sharp power," or the use of sinister tools ranging from economic pressure and cyberattacks to illegal abductions, to silence its international critics. In October 2015, Mr. Gui, a Hong Kong book publisher and Swedish citizen, disappeared while on a visit to Thailand; it only gradually became clear that he had been secretly abducted by Chinese agents. Last Saturday, a few months after he was finally granted partial freedom, Mr. Gui was again kidnapped by security forces — this time on a train traveling to Beijing, and in full view of the Swedish diplomats who were escorting him. In 2015, the regime of Xi Jinping might have worried that grabbing citizens of Western countries could produce a damaging backlash. Now it is content to do so openly, flagrantly violating international as well as Chinese law in full view of Western officials. That is probably because the response to its previous offenses has been, at best, muted. Mr. Gui was one of five Hong Kong-based booksellers who were illegally arrested in 2015 by Beijing, which objected to their gossipy publications speculating about Communist leaders. The detentions were a flagrant violation of the autonomy guaranteed Hong Kong in the Sino-British agreement under which it was returned to Beijing's rule — not to mention the sovereignty of Thailand, where Mr. Gui was seized. But Britain, which was busy proclaiming a new "golden era " in relations with China, said little and did nothing, as did Thailand. Sweden mostly pursued silent diplomacy. The latest incident provoked louder public protests from Stockholm, which said Mr. Gui was traveling with its diplomats to seek medical treatment at the Swedish Embassy in Beijing. He is said to have symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a debilitating neurological disease, and was hoping to seek treatment abroad. If it is true, as Swedish officials have repeatedly been told, that Mr. Gui is at liberty after serving a sentence in China for a traffic violation, then there is no reason he should be denied Swedish consular services, much less be re-arrested. China's foreign ministry could offer no coherent explanation for Mr. Gui's disappearance. Instead, at a regular news briefing, a spokeswoman said it was "not a matter that falls under the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," before going on to hint that it was


Trump encourages a buy-American brand of globalism at Davos

DAVOS, Switzerland — President Trump invited the world to share in resurgent U.S. economic success for which he took credit Friday, wrapping his "America first" message of sovereignty in a salesman's offer to other nations and businesses. "I'm here to deliver a simple message: There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest and to grow in the United States," Trump said in a much-anticipated address to global business and political leaders. "America is open for business, and we are competitive once again." Trump's keynote address to the World Economic Forum was a gentler delivery of his trademark economic populism and the trade protectionism on which he campaigned. His invitation for mutual economic advancement was an implicit answer to criticism that he is leading a retreat from U.S. global leadership. "I believe in America. As president of the United States, I will always put America first. Just like the leaders of other countries should put their countries first. But America first does not mean America alone," Trump said. Trump received, and reveled in, a mostly warm reception from the CEOs and international finance titans at Davos, many of whom praised the tax-cut package that Trump shepherded through Congress last month. The package included a large reduction in the U.S. corporate tax rate. The U.S. leader's business-centered approach has played well here, despite his past contempt for "globalism," which he has blamed for an exodus of U.S. jobs. "A lot of people had high anxiety about Trump. That level of anxiety has fallen somewhat," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist of IHS Markit. Even business leaders who have been vocal critics of Trump in the past, such as Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, softened their tone in Davos. "I thought it was a speech that very well represented the American policies he's put into place and his position, and it encouraged the discussions to continue," said Benioff, who backed Trump opponent Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Trump remains broadly unpopular in Europe, where his proposed travel ban on some Muslim-majority nations has been called racist and reactionary. British Prime Minister Theresa May, who met with Trump here Thursday, called his retweets of anti-Muslim videos last year "wrong," an unusual rebuke from a close ally. But there were few signs of protest at the speech Friday. At least two people walked out. Ahead of the speech, Trump met


The Health 202: Health care is still a top issue for voters in 2018. But Republicans lack a script.

in other countries. The company's stock was down 2.8 percent Thursday afternoon after tumbling by as much as 6 percent during the advisory panel's meeting." --The flu seems to be hitting the headlines a lot lately. (Although the The Health 202 would like to brag we never get the flu, probably guaranteeing we will be stricken over the weekend.) So what's going on? Our colleague Lena Sun breaks down some of the most frequently asked question after talking to health officials about the illness's unrelenting spread this year. Is there something particularly bad about this year's flu strains? The predominant flu strain this season, H3N2, is also the nastiest. Seasons when this particular strain has dominated have more hospitalizations, more deaths and more illnesses. "We hate H3N2 more than the other ones," a top CDC flu expert told Lena. Are there any differences in flu symptoms this season? The short answer is no. Flu symptoms vary by person and can include any or all of the regular symptoms that include fever, coughs, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle aches, headaches, fatigue or vomiting and diarrhea. How effective is this year's vaccine? Sixty percent, at best. "Even in a good year, the flu vaccine isn't as good as most other vaccines," Lena writes. "Health officials must choose the influenza strains that vaccine makers should target for an upcoming season months in advance, when it is hard to know what strains might be circulating. When flu vaccines are well matched to circulating viruses, effectiveness is, at best, about 60 percent." Yet the CDC still recommends that everyone 6 months of age or older get the flu vaccine every year. How long will this flu season last, and when will it peak? The timing and duration of the flu can vary. But in general, activity begins to spike around October and peaks between December and February, though it can last as late as May. What flu symptoms should parents watch for in their children? Parents should call or bring their child to a doctor if they are not drinking, are lethargic, have pain in a specific place, have difficult breathing after normal activity, or if their condition declines rapidly, Lena writes. What if I think I have the flu? What kind of treatment is available? Most people don't need antiviral drugs, but those such as Tamiflu can lessen the symptoms of the


Mama and baby red panda make debut at National Zoo

There’s nothing but cuteness from a video that shows a mama and baby red panda that made their debut this week at the National Zoo. Nutmeg, a 4-year-old mother red panda, and her cub, 6-month-old Jackie, can be seen in the video playfully swatting and roughhousing with each other. In another scene, they appear to nuzzle noses on a branch. Nutmeg gave birth to Jackie and one other cub in June. But the other cub had to be euthanized in October after dealing with weight loss and other issues. The mother and son recently moved to the zoo from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. They had their first day exploring their new yard, zoo officials, said Thursday. The zoo has a third red panda, Asa, a 3-year-old who has been at the zoo since January 2016. Red pandas have thick, reddish fur, long and bushy tails that have white on them and long whiskers. They are said to look like a cross between a raccoon, a house cat and a small bear cub. Like giant pandas, they are native to China and like to climb trees. Perhaps the zoo’s most famous red panda was Rusty. In June 2013, then-1-year-old Rusty escaped from his enclosure, resulting in a day-long search. He eventually was found in Adams Morgan, apparently managing to make it out of the zoo and across Rock Creek and the parkway. Rusty was returned to the zoo and tweaks were made to his enclosure to ensure he and any other red panda couldn’t get out again. Rusty is now living at the Smithsonian’s facility in Front Royal.


Rescued barred owl doing better and set to be released this spring

A barred owl that was rescued from a Maryland highway is doing better and is expected to be released this spring to the wild, officials said. In a Twitter message, Maryland Natural Resources Police said, “Whoooo is feeling better? The barred owl rescued by @MDNRPolice.” They went on to say that she’s being “nursed back to health” at Frisky’s Wildlife and Primate Sanctuary in Howard County. The injured owl was rescued by an officer from the Maryland Natural Resources Police on Jan. 10 in rush-hour traffic along Route 100 near Arundel Mills Boulevard in Hanover. The officer, Cpl. Michael Lathroum, who is also an avid birder, came and helped get the owl off a busy stretch of the highway. The bird appeared unable to fly. With help from a detective with the Anne Arundel County Police department, Lathroum gradually got close and put his coat over the bird to calm it. He then got it into a carrier. The barred owl was taken to the wildlife sanctuary and is being nursed back to health. The female owl will be let into the wild sometime this spring. Officials believe the barred owl was likely struck by a vehicle. Bald eagles and other birds often get hit by vehicles, wildlife experts said. It is becoming one of the biggest killers of many types of birds. As development encroaches on their habitat, birds are doing more scavenging. They often are hit by vehicles as they eat carcasses on roads or hunt for small animals near roads, experts said.


As Congress prepares to loosen bank regulations, it still refuses to address the cause of the two worst financial meltdowns in history

As the debates over tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires die down, the political push to roll back the Obama-era financial regulations is beginning to catch the media’s attention. Recently In pushing deregulation, the Senate has shown a failure to appreciate, and thus address, a recurrent source of trouble for the American financial system: bank runs. A run occurs when too many depositors demand cash from a bank. Such demands pose a problem because most of a bank’s funds are not waiting in an on-site vault. Rather, they are tied up in long-term loans that cannot be sold off quickly without incurring losses. Bank runs fueled the two most dramatic financial crises that the United States has experienced: the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession in 2008. The emergence of another kind of short-term debt — funds that can be quickly withdrawn — now once again threatens the stability of the financial system. Instead of addressing that threat, the Senate has chosen to weaken regulations, leaving the country at risk for another severe economic downturn. Over the course of the Great Depression, several thousand banks went bankrupt and closed their doors. The consequences were dire. These bank failures led to a freeze on productive lending that further depressed economic activity. Uncertain as to whether their local banks would survive, Americans rushed to their branches to withdraw cash. If the bank failed before a customer could get there, that customer lost his or her life savings. Because of the severity of the banking crisis, Congress prioritized the problem. In 1933, lawmakers passed the law that established deposit insurance. By deciding to insure a fraction of demand deposits — funds that can be taken out at any time — at commercial banks, lawmakers ended the terrifying prospect of losing one’s life savings. However, the New Deal regulatory apparatus that stabilized the banking system was more a product of good fortune than forward thinking. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and others initially resisted deposit insurance on the grounds that it would encourage banks to take excessive risks. Nevertheless, deposit insurance, along with tough entry restrictions and prudent oversight, brought, in economist Gary Gorton’s words, a “quiet period” to American banking for the next few decades. These decades of financial stability also saw income inequality decrease, the power of labor unions soar and the welfare state expand. These years now appear to


New poll shows Russians are defiant in face of U.S. sanctions

What do Russians and Americans think about U.S. sanctions on Russia? To put it very mildly, Russia has been a hot topic in U.S. news for several years now. After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, removing it from eastern Ukraine, the United States imposed economic sanctions. And one of the first major bills Congress sent over for President Trump’s signature in 2017 imposed still more sanctions on Russia, a rebuke over attempts to interfere in U.S. elections. Trump grudgingly signed the bill, but hasn’t yet implemented the sanctions. His next deadline is approaching at the end of January. So are the sanctions affecting public opinion? The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Levada Analytical Center fielded nationwide surveys in Russia and the United States to find out what Americans and Russians think of bilateral relations between their nations. Russians are fairly defiant in backing current Russia policies despite the sanctions. Americans approve of the sanctions and want to keep the pressure on. Conducted in December, the joint survey finds that about two in three Russians say they are not concerned about the political and economic sanctions imposed by Western countries, with 68 percent saying they’re unconcerned compared with 28 percent concerned. Nor are they concerned about how Russia’s official position on Ukraine has left it internationally isolated, with 66 percent saying they’re not concerned, compared with 29 percent who say they are. What’s more, only 15 percent of the Russian public thinks that U.S. economic sanctions are a critical threat to their country. Here’s how we did our research The Chicago Council Survey on issues related to Russia was conducted by GfK Custom Research using their national online omnibus service, KnowledgePanel™, between Dec. 1-3 among a weighted national sample of approximately 1,000 American adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The data are weighted according to the Current Population Survey bench marks on gender, age, race, education, census region, household income, homeownership and metropolitan area. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. The Levada Center survey was conducted between Dec. 1-5 by the Levada-Center (Levada Analytical Center) with face-to-face interviews conducted among a representative sample of 1,605 Russians ages 18 years and older, living in eight federal districts of the Russian Federation (including Crimea). Inside each district, the sample is distributed among five strata


support of rebel separatists in eastern Ukraine in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions. What do people think about the August round of U.S. sanctions on Russia? The latest set of U.S. sanctions passed in August with an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress. This bill targets people and entities that undermine U.S. cybersecurity on behalf of the Russian government; invest in Russia’s energy export pipelines; help the Syrian government acquire arms; and conduct transactions with Russian defense and intelligence agencies, among others. The legislation also gave Congress new veto power, allowing it to stop President Trump if he tries to lift sanctions against Russia. But the Trump administration hasn’t yet implemented the sanctions (the bottleneck is in the State Department). In fact, it missed the law’s first deadline on Oct. 1, by which time, it should have issued guidance about which Russian entities in the military and intelligence sectors should be affected. The next implementation deadline is scheduled for the end of this month, by which time the Trump administration should have provided a list of foreign entities that have continued to do business with Russian individuals or entities in the Russian defense or intelligence sectors that have had sanctions imposed on them under the bill. Surveys show that the American public would like the president to forge ahead. The Chicago Council December survey finds that seven in 10 Americans believe the Russian government tried to influence the outcome of 2016’s U.S. presidential election, as U.S. intelligence services unanimously report. According to a May Quinnipiac University poll, a majority of Americans are concerned that the Russian government may try to interfere in the 2018 elections. That poll also reports that majorities think that Russia is working against the United States in Syria, with 56 percent believing Russian and U.S. aims are different while only 22 percent believe they’re the same. They also believe Russia and the United States are at odds about improving world cybersecurity, with 59 percent believing the nations’ aims are different while only 19 percent believe they’re the same). And after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine, polls showed that solid majorities said that Russia’s actions violated international law (81 percent) and were unjustified (72 percent). Sanctions haven’t changed Putin’s foreign policy course. Russia has continued to support rebels in eastern Ukraine, intervened in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, and hacked into U.S. political organizations. The


I thought Amazon’s new cashier-free store was creepy. My teenage son couldn’t care less.

SEATTLE — This week, I asked if the grocery shopper of the future — my 15-year-old son, Benjamin — might be interested in checking out Amazon Go. I didn't have to ask twice. The market in the burgeoning Amazon campus near downtown Seattle was the talk of the town. Word had already spread of the literal grab-and-go store — there are no registers or, indeed, any cash accepted — at Benjamin's high school, where kids stretch the lunch-period limits to snag a salad at the nearby Whole Foods Market, also owned by Amazon. (Amazon's chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, also owns The Washington Post.) "How about today?" he asked with an enthusiasm usually reserved for opening-night movie tickets. A Seattle native barely old enough to recall dial-up modems, Benjamin felt none of my Orwellian angst about a cashier-free business where customers are automatically charged for purchases when they exit the store. "It's not as creepy as Alexa," he said. We made our way to the store's sleek entrance, where we saw more humans at work than I expected: restocking crews, chipper brand ambassadors, salad-tossers in the food prep area visible from street-level windows. Entering the 1,800-square-foot store required scanning the Amazon Go app I had downloaded earlier, sliding my iPhone over a plastic-gated turnstile something like a subway entrance. The app ensures anything you take will be charged to your Amazon account. Effectively, it also restricts customers whose incomes don't support smartphones or credit cards. I beeped Benjamin through the gates, linking his purchases to my account, then scanned once more to follow. Inside, the market felt surprisingly spare, an upscale but monochromatic convenience store with a camera-jammed ceiling. There was no produce department, beyond some pre-cut packaged fruit. No meat counter. It was like the inverse of a Costco warehouse, every item designed for a household of one or two, from single-serving boxed Duncan Hines mug cake mix to shelves of Amazon-branded meal kits. The selection was squarely aimed at urban workers in the South Lake Union neighborhood, once jokingly and now seriously referred to as Amazonia, who are notorious for prizing speed and ease when they emerge for snacks and meals. A wall of candy featured an "Amazon Go" bar from Theo Chocolate, Seattle's fair-trade chocolate factory. Boxed pastries came from Seattle's Macrina Bakery and the Essential Baking Company, mainstays at indie cafes. If 69-cent Diet Cokes didn't


Metro defends track inspections, radio signal system in aftermath of derailment

Rust was found on the steel rail that fractured in a Red Line derailment near Farragut North last week, but the cracked rail that probably caused the crash would have been imperceptible to track walkers and ultrasonic inspection technology, Metro officials said Thursday. Agency investigators are awaiting the results of metallurgy testing by outside experts, which are expected next month and may give a clearer indication about what caused the eight-foot section of track to crack at the start of the morning rush on Jan. 15. Metro officials also discovered that the agency's communications maintenance unit failed to keep up with prescribed inspection schedules of the radio signal system — a potential reason it took Metro's traffic control center more than 10 minutes to receive an update from the train operator and determine that a derailment had occurred. The new details were shared at a specially scheduled meeting of the Metro board's safety committee Thursday. None of the 63 people on board the eight-car 7000-series train were injured, but the crash came as officials were trying to make the case that the agency had turned the corner on safety and reliability. "Let's put this in perspective — we have only started to move the needle," Paul Wiedefeld told board members, responding to concerns some expressed that the derailment came after nearly two years of ramped up track maintenance through the agency's SafeTrack program. Wiedefeld noted that the agency had reduced recorded track fires by 25 percent. "That's progress, but it's not where we need to be. There is more work that needs to be done, and that will continue for years to come," Wiedefeld said. While the outcome of the cause of the derailment is still weeks away, the investigation has provided some clues. The rust found on the edge of the fractured rail suggests the crack may have been there before the derailment happened, because a tiny fracture in the steel would have been susceptible to moisture in the air, according to Metro Chief Safety Officer Patrick Lavin. The crack was on the underside of the rail. "The question is could that crack have been identified by a track walker?" Lavin asked. Perhaps not, he said. Officials said the rail remained intact as the first and second cars of the eight-car train traveled over the fracture point. The rail started to snap as the third car passed. Looking at


We’re as close to Doomsday today as we were during the Cold War

the landmark Iranian nuclear deal adds to a bleak picture. A related danger is the rise of cyberthreats targeting national infrastructure, including power grids, water supplies and military systems. On climate change, the danger may seem less immediate than the risk of nuclear annihilation, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases in the long run requires urgent attention now. Global carbon dioxide emissions have not yet begun the sustained decline toward zero that must occur if we are to avoid ever-greater warming. Nations will have to significantly decrease their greenhouse-gas emissions to manage even the climate risk accepted in the Paris accord. So far, the global response has fallen far short of this challenge. The Trump administration's decision essentially to turn a blind eye to climate change transpired against a backdrop of a worsening climate, including powerful hurricanes in the Caribbean and other parts of North America and extreme heat in Australia, South America, Asia, Europe and California. The Arctic ice cap achieved its smallest-ever winter maximum in 2017. Last week, data from 2017 demonstrated a continued trend of exceptional global warmth. We believe that the perilous world security situation described here would, in itself, justify moving the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. But there also is a real threat posed by a fundamental breakdown in the international order that has been dangerously exacerbated by recent U.S. actions. In 2017, the United States backed away from its long-standing leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges. Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably predict U.S. actions or discern between sincere U.S. pronouncements and mere rhetoric. Allies have needed reassurance about American intentions more than ever. Instead, they have been forced to negotiate a thicket of conflicting policy statements from an administration weakened in its cadre of foreign policy professionals and suffering from turnover in senior leadership. Led by an undisciplined and disruptive president, the administration has failed to develop, coordinate and communicate a coherent nuclear policy. This inconsistency constitutes a major challenge for deterrence, alliance management and global stability. We hope this resetting of the clock will be interpreted exactly as it is meant: an urgent warning of global danger. The time for world leaders to address looming nuclear danger and the march of climate change is long past. The time


Bombardier scores big win over Boeing in U.S.-Canada trade dispute

far outside the norm." The ruling leaves Boeing in a difficult spot. The Canadian government has already retaliated against the aircraft maker for its petition for government protection. Late last year, Canadian officials made good on an earlier threat to cancel a proposed purchase of F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter planes, dealing a blow to Boeing's defense contracting business. Now, Boeing finds itself in a situation in which it has alienated a key customer for its defense business and irked a key commercial customer in Delta Air Lines, while failing to block the U.S. expansion plans of its Canadian rival. Boeing officials expressed "disappointment" with the ruling, while Bombardier applauded it. "Today's decision is a victory for innovation, competition, and the rule of law," Bombardier said in a statement. "It is also a victory for U.S. airlines and the U.S. traveling public." Likewise, Canadian government officials, business groups and labor leaders welcomed the unexpected verdict. "I'm thrilled that common sense has finally won out and that these ridiculous tariffs have been tossed," said Unifor National President Jerry Dias. "The USITC ruling means that good-paying Bombardier jobs can stay in Canada." The dispute took a twist in mid-October when Bombardier agreed to sell the C Series plane to Airbus, a deep-pocketed European aerospace giant that is Boeing's closest competitor. The companies promised to shift future production of the plane from Canada to Mobile, Ala. Airbus executives argued that moving production in that way should allow them to avoid the tariff. "The fact is that when you produce an aircraft in the U.S., it's not subject to any U.S. import tariff rules," Bombardier President Alain Bellemare said in an October news conference. In its arguments before the trade commission, Boeing's lawyers cast doubt on the idea that Airbus would set up a production line in Alabama, arguing that the company could change its plans. "There is no joint venture. Period. And there may never be one," Boeing's lawyers argued in the company's most recent official filing with the commission. "The parties have not broken ground on anything in Mobile related to the joint venture, let alone a full C Series production facility." Boeing later revealed in December that it is pursuing a joint venture with Brazilian aerospace firm Embraer, a close competitor with Bombardier in the market for smaller commercial jets. The two companies have not announced a finalized deal yet. david.lynch@washpost.com aaron.gregg@washpost.com


Team USA is loaded, diverse — and the biggest in the history of the Winter Games

The American contingent that starts pouring into South Korea for next month's PyeongChang Olympics will feature seasoned veterans and past champions, familiar names such as snowboarder Shaun White, skier Lindsey Vonn and speedskater Shani Davis. The U.S. team will also include promising young talent, phenoms such as 17-year-old snowboarder Chloe Kim, 17-year-old short track speedskater Maame Biney and 18-year-old figure skater Nathan Chen. And somewhere in the middle is an Alpine skier who might prove to be Team USA's brightest star of all, Mikaela Shiffrin, entering the prime of her career with an Olympic title already in her trophy case and space in her carry-on luggage to bring back a couple of more medals from South Korea. The U.S. Olympic Committee announced its full roster of Olympians headed to PyeongChang, 242 men and women in all, the largest team that any nation has ever sent to a Winter Games. The previous mark was set by the U.S. squad four years ago, a 230-person Olympic roster. The Americans will be trying to top their 2014 medal haul, which included nine gold medals and 28 overall (though that number will increase to 29 when American Katie Uhlaender's fourth-place skeleton finish is upgraded after Russia forfeited a gold due to doping). Four years earlier, the Americans won a record 37 medals in Vancouver, including nine gold. The Opening Ceremonies are scheduled for Feb. 9. This year's American squad ranges in age from 17 to 39 and features a mix of familiar faces and promising newcomers. The average age is 26 1 /2, a half-year older than four years ago, but the group also includes six 17-year-olds. A total of 103 athletes are veteran Olympians, including 37 returning medalists. Davis, snowboarder Kelly Clark and cross-country skier Kikkan Randall will all be competing at their fifth Winter Games. Vonn, the most decorated female Alpine skier of all time, is headed to her fourth Olympics, having missed the Sochi Games because of a knee injury. "It's been pretty brutal to wait for another Olympics," she said Friday. Vonn will be racing the downhill, super-G and combined in PyeongChang and hopes to improve on her Vancouver medal haul, which included a gold and a bronze. "I feel like in Vancouver, I finally figured out how to approach the Olympics, how to deal with pressure, how to perform under the highest amount of pressure possible. And I want


Police find no clues after launching new search for remains of Relisha Rudd

shelter at the former D.C. General Hospital, where she had been living with her family. Police said they believe she was abducted by a janitor at the shelter, who later killed his wife and himself. Relisha is believed to be dead, police have said. Police on Friday said a tip led investigators to the new location, which authorities said included the water of the Anacostia River. Police said in a statement they received a tip "that potential evidence" related to the case might be found. Authorities did not describe the tip that prompted the search, which lasted about six hours and ended shortly after noon. Investigators have conducted several lengthy yet unsuccessful searches for the girl in the past, including in April 2016 on the grounds of the U.S. National Arboretum in Northeast Washington and in December 2015 on a 15-acre construction site off New York Avenue in Northeast. Relisha was seen with her suspected abductor, Kahlil Malik Tatum, on Feb. 26, 2014, on surveillance video walking with him in a hallway of a Holiday Inn Express at Bladensburg Road and New York Avenue NE. She was last seen with him on March 1, 2014. The first search for Relisha occurred during that month. Authorities spent days scouring the 700-acre Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, which abuts the arboretum. After that search, police all but declared the girl dead and described further searches as recovery missions. During the search of the Kenilworth site, police found Tatum's body in a shed at the park. Police said they think he committed suicide after abducting Relisha and killing his wife in a Maryland hotel room. They also said Tatum, 51, had bought large trash bags. The hotel where he was seen with Relisha is not far from the construction site that was searched and is near the arboretum. The search launched Friday is in an area about four miles south of the location where Tatum's body was found. Finding Relisha has been a priority for police, the girl's family and teams of volunteers that have spent weekends searching on their own. Friends and family have thrown Relisha birthday parties themed "Where is Relisha," and some officers have her picture taped to the windshields of their cruisers. Of the approximately 19,000 people reported missing in the District since 2012, a little more than a dozen cases remain unsolved. Relisha's is one of them. peter.hermann@washpost.com


NTSB: Engineer in fatal Washington Amtrak crash may have lost track of train’s location

The engineer of an Amtrak train that derailed south of Seattle last month may have lost track of where he was and thought he had already passed a curve that would have required him to slow the train to 30 mph, according to new details released by federal safety officials Thursday. The new information comes from interviews with two key witnesses — the engineer and a conductor trainee — who were riding in the locomotive of the Portland, Ore.-bound train when it derailed Dec. 18, killing three people and injuring at least 70 others. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board had not previously been able to speak to the men, because of their injuries. In interviews conducted last week, both detailed what they recalled about the moments before the fatal crash. The 55-year-old engineer, who has worked for Amtrak since 2004, said he felt rested at the beginning of his shift. He told NTSB investigators he recalled passing several mileposts as he traveled along the route. He said he was aware there was a curve ahead of him with a 30-mph speed limit and had planned to begin slowing the train about a mile before he approached it. While he saw Mileposts 16 and 17, he told investigators, he did not recall seeing Milepost 18 or the sign advising him about the 30-mph speed restriction, located roughly two miles ahead of the curve. He told officials he recalled seeing a wayside signal at Milepost 19.8, located at the curve where the crash took place, but mistook it for a signal north of the curve. However, he said, when he spotted the 30-mph sign as he was about to enter the curve, he immediately applied the brakes. But seconds later, the train derailed. The 48-year-old conductor, training on the route, was hired by Amtrak in 2010. He said he, too, felt rested and alert at the beginning of his shift. He told investigators that there was minimal conversation between him and the engineer and that he had spent his time going over paperwork to help him learn the territory. He said he had been looking at copies of general track bulletins and recalled hearing the engineer say or mumble something. Investigators said he then told them he looked up and sensed the train was becoming "airborne." The circumstances of the crash in Washington state echo those of a 2015 Amtrak


Woman is slain near sites of other killings in Southeast D.C.

A woman was fatally shot in Southeast Washington on Friday on a street that has been the scene of three homicides in a little more than a year. The first of the three was one of last year's more notorious killings. On Friday, Bernadette King, 49, was found in a house in the 2400 block of Elvans Road with a gunshot wound. No information was available about suspects or a motive. In November, a 43-year-old man was found fatally shot in the parking lot of an apartment house on the same street. And on Jan. 16, 2017, a 68-year-old woman was fatally shot outdoors in her motorized wheelchair. The woman, Vivian Marrow, was not the target, police said. She was hit in an exchange of fire between two other people, they said. The surrounding area has had its problems. It was reported last January that 10 people had been killed in the previous two years within a one-block radius of where Marrow was shot. Metrobus schedules were cut back briefly in 2015 after a passenger on a W8 bus was hit by gunfire. A stabbing was reported on that block Saturday. No connection could be learned between Friday's killing and any of the other incidents. martin.weil@washpost.com


A long way from PyeongChang, NHL all-stars lament missing Olympics

looking forward to for a while. But again, it is what it is. There is nothing you can do about it now." Multiple factors led to the NHL pulling its players out of the Olympics. There were questions of who would pay for the players to attend and be insured in South Korea, something the IOC did from 1998 to 2014 before announcing it would no longer do so. There was also the NHL's concern with how the Olympics could affect the rest of its season, as players could get injured while competing for their countries or come back fatigued ahead of the Stanley Cup playoffs. And still, the players have consistently expressed their interest in participating. In Tampa on Saturday, that included veterans who have played in multiple Olympics and young players who are still looking for their first chance. Nathan MacKinnon, the Colorado Avalanche's 22-year-old star forward, said, "I've never been to an Olympics so I would love to compete in that." Karlsson lowered his voice to say, "Hopefully we get to go to the next one." He spoke for many of those around him. "I don't have an answer," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Saturday when asked if he expects the NHL to participate in future Olympics. "The fact is that we find, the clubs find, the owners find that the Olympics are very disruptive on our season. And that, and a whole host of other reasons that we've discussed repeatedly in the last year or so, it didn't make sense for us to attend." A few bright spots were mentioned about the decision to stay in North America. Doughty joked that it's a lot easier to fly to Tampa than South Korea. Capitals Coach Barry Trotz added that it could be good for players' bodies, both short- and long-term, to not travel across the world in the middle of an already-trying season. Oilers' center Connor McDavid, one of the league's most promising young stars, said he is excited to see the guys who will get a shot in place of the NHL players. But the sense of resignation remained. "Olympics is the Olympics. It's probably the best memories I have of my career," said Ovechkin, who has been outspoken about his disappointment in missing out on PyeongChang. "But, you know, different guys are going to have an opportunity to play. Hopefully we win. We'll see." jesse.dougherty@washpost.com


‘A whole new level of gross’: Photos of raw pork being carted into store spark investigation

Loretta Seto couldn’t believe what she was seeing at a San Jose supermarket Thursday, so she took out her cellphone and snapped photos of the surreal scene. Two men, dressed in yellow coats, were pushing oversize shopping carts filled with raw, unwrapped meat into the store — presumably for sale. In both carts, the meat was piled high, topped with unwrapped pork legs that jutted out into the open air. Seto posted the pictures on Facebook later that night, with a caption expressing her shock and disgust. The incident had unfolded outside a 99 Ranch Market store across from a Costco on the north side of San Jose, she said. “We were at the 99 Ranch Market across from this Costco and saw their vendors delivering meat with Costco shopping carts!! Talk about disgusting!” Seto wrote. “I’m usually okay with sticking the kids in the seat of the [shopping cart] basket, but this is a whole new level of gross. Beware.” Her pictures sparked hundreds of angry comments, concerned not only about the cleanliness of the carts, but also about the sanitary level of the meat sold at 99 Ranch Market, a California-based Asian supermarket chain. Two days later, Seto’s widely shared post has resulted in the firing of two employees and sparked an investigation by the Santa Clara Department of Environmental Health. “We are taking immediate steps to conduct a thorough investigation and appropriate actions to ensure food safety for the public,” the health department said in a statement to the San Jose Mercury News about the “unauthorized delivery of pork.” “Other regulatory and oversight agencies, including those at the federal and state level, shall be notified as appropriate.” Meanwhile, the supermarket and the meat vendor each appear to be casting blame on the other. A representative for 99 Ranch Market responded directly to Seto’s Facebook post, saying it had tossed all pork meat shown in the photos and filed a complaint against the vendor, NBC Bay Area reported. “99 Ranch Market is committed to food safety and customer satisfaction. In addition to an investigation and filing a complaint, we immediately discarded on-hand inventories of the related pork products,” the company said in the Facebook comment. “Again, thank you for your patience and understanding. We’ll continue to take all necessary steps to resolve this issue with our customers in mind.” However, the vendor has denied that this is the


Why have Baltimoreans been hoarding this rye whiskey?

and downs, Marylanders, especially Baltimoreans, remained devoted to Pikesville Supreme, a three-year-old, 80-proof rye easily distinguishable by its trademark white label with gold and black lettering. For some of them, aware that its distribution was largely limited to the Baltimore region, it became an object of reverence. As tastes changed last decade, Heaven Hill did, too. Take, for instance, the trajectory of another of its brands, Rittenhouse Rye: Until the new millennium, Heaven Hill was bottling an 80-proof version of Rittenhouse. But bartenders making craft cocktails preferred stronger ryes for mixing their signature drinks. Eventually, Heaven Hill phased out its 80-proof Rittenhouse in favor of a 100-proof version — which, in 2005, Esquire magazine drinks columnist David Wondrich declared the best cheap whiskey in the world. Ultimately, the market dynamics that enabled rye to become king again were the same ones that dug Pikesville's grave. "Rittenhouse kind of surrounded Pikesville," says Hafer. "Places wanted the higher-proof rye. It's a better backbone for an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan. That's really what kept Pikesville from expanding nationally." Without a national market clamoring for 80-proof rye whiskeys, Pikesville Supreme's days were numbered. Three years ago, Heaven Hill began bottling a six-year, 110-proof version called Pikesville Straight Rye Whiskey. According to Hafer, Heaven Hill was prepared to keep bottling the 80-proof product indefinitely, but once a stronger-proof Pikesville was on the market, bars and stores began ordering it more. "We saw the sales flip," he says. When the popularity of the 110-proof version, locally and nationally, eclipsed that of the 80-proof original in Maryland, the company decided to stop bottling the latter. "The product has not been discontinued," Hafer says. "The product has just changed." Tell that to the fanatics. The new Pikesville is not only stronger, thanks to its higher alcohol content; it's also more expensive (perhaps getting a bump because whiskey expert Jim Murray ranked it No. 2 on his 2016 "World Whiskies of the Year"list). At the Wine Source, a bottle goes for $49.99. "They're changing it from blue collar to white collar, is what they're doing," says John Ellsberry, a Baltimore artist who was turned on to Pikesville by Van Smith. "It's a little too potent for my stage of life," explains Greene, who lives in northern Baltimore County. "I was a big fan of the 80-proof. ... I definitely bought a few bottles. I must say it's all


Who is Alwaleed bin Talal, the absurdly rich Saudi prince just released from a mysterious imprisonment

Last November, the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the arrest of hundreds of Saudi Arabia's elite, including cabinet ministers and nearly a dozen blood relatives — princes like himself. Among the most prominent of those arrested was the crown prince’s cousin, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal — a globe-trotting billionaire once rumored to have designs on the throne. While Saudi officials said the arrests were from an “anti-corruption” probe, Alwaleed’s imprisonment fueled suspicion that the crown prince was really trying to eliminate rivals as he prepares to inherit the throne from his father. Alwaleed was suddenly set free Saturday. The precise reasons for his months-long incarceration in a Ritz-Carlton hotel remain unknown to the public. So do the implications for his massive portfolio of investments, many in the United States, and his rumored lifestyle of occasionally bizarre opulence. The biography on Alwaleed’s personal website consists of a single sentence about his lineage (born 1955; grandson of the first king of Saudi Arabia), followed by a dense page crammed with details of his wealth and power: his companies’ holdings in Twitter, Lyft, Euro Disney and Twentieth Century Fox; luxury hotels around the world; a tower under construction in Saudi Arabia that will soon be the world’s tallest building. Business Insider once reported the prince kept “a group of dancing, laughing, joking dwarfs” in his entourage, occasionally tossing them around as sport like human shot puts. That isn’t in the official biography. And it would be a shame if all you knew about Alwaleed was his wealth, because the personality behind those billions of dollars sounds no less extraordinary. It’s true that Alwaleed descends from King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, which the Saud family has controlled ever since. But the website biography doesn’t mention what Vanity Fair will tell you: that Alwaleed’s father rebelled against the repressive monarchy in the 1960s, forever damaging his line’s chances of inheriting the throne. Though that hasn’t stopped Alwaleed from hinting that he might one day sit on it. Vanity Fair’s profile also retells — with some skepticism — the official story of how Alwaleed amassed his immense fortune. It reads like a fairy tale. The prince was about 30, having returned from Menlo College in California with a business degree in 1985. “Alwaleed claims his father gave him $30,000. Within a year, he had lost the money,” the Vanity


Why everyone is freaking out about a White House plan to nationalize the country’s 5G data networks

incentives on businesses. “This development ... is potentially the most significant government policy affecting stock market values in our sector since the 1996 Telecom Reform Act,” said the industry analysis firm New Street Research in a note on Monday. “The announcement puts a very significant cloud over the terminal value, and therefore the stock value, of all ISPs.” Still, it added, the impact to the industry would likely play out over years, if the proposal moved forward at all. Telecom industry officials said Monday that they do not believe the memo has gained much support beyond the NSC, and that the proposal fails to grasp the complexity of the undertaking it outlines. “We have spent decades and hundreds of billions of dollars building those networks,” said the senior industry official. “Now the [U.S. government] is going to build one from scratch? It just doesn’t make sense.” Cybersecurity experts acknowledged that China is seeking to dominate the market for networking equipment, and enjoys some advantages over the United States. “Our companies went out of business — Nortel and Lucent,” said James Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And we didn't replace them, so we basically gave up a strategic industry. And the Chinese competitors are subsidized.” Still, he said, the memo overstates the risk and fails to account for the global competition in 5G technology. The U.S. intelligence community views network equipment made by Chinese companies with close ties to Beijing as insecure, according to James Barnett, a retired Navy rear admiral and an expert on telecommunications security. But, he added, for the United States to react by nationalizing part of its own telecom industry would “represent an enormous shift in the way the communications business in the U.S. works.” The NSC memo argues that by encouraging U.S. firms to build networking equipment domestically, the United States can create more manufacturing jobs and enhance the security of its nationalized network, which would eventually lease capacity to other carriers. It estimates that the network could be deployed in as little as three years. But the Trump administration could be forced to spend much of that time trying to overcome opposition from the telecom industry. “The government should pursue the free market policies that enabled the U.S. wireless industry to win the race to 4G,” said Meredith Attwell Baker, president of the wireless industry trade group CTIA.


German carmakers backed studies exposing people and monkeys to toxic car exhaust

Süddeutsche Zeitung and Stuttgarter Zeitung newspapers reported Monday that healthy test subjects were asked to inhale nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a gas that is primarily emitted through traffic. Even short-term inhaling of the gas can have serious health repercussions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “Breathing air with a high concentration of NO2 can irritate airways in the human respiratory system. Such exposures over short periods can aggravate respiratory diseases, particularly asthma, leading to respiratory symptoms (such as coughing, wheezing or difficulty breathing), hospital admissions and visits to emergency rooms,” the EPA writes on its website. The human experiments appear to have been conducted between 2012 and 2015, and there were no reports of subsequent injuries related to them. A researcher involved in the study acknowledged the experiments’ existence on Monday, but cautioned that the deployed nitrogen dioxide levels resembled those found in normal work spaces. He added that the three carmakers were aware of the human experiments but had no say over them. They appear to have been disconnected from emissions tests. But the research institute behind the controversial tests was founded by Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen and automotive components supplier Bosch, which has raised questions over the extent to which the experiment with humans was backed by the three major carmakers, too. Nitrogen dioxide was the gas at the center of Volkwagen’s emissions cheating scandal, which led to the U.S. Department of Justice charging the company with conspiring to defraud the government and violate environmental regulations last year. According to the DOJ, Volkswagen installed devices in its diesel engine vehicles that obscured the amount of emitted nitrogen dioxide. The devices and software that accompanied it allowed the German carmaker to evade U.S. regulators for years. Overall, the evasion efforts affected 11 million vehicles across the globe and over 500,000 in the United States. Last year, federal U.S. prosecutors indicted six Volkswagen executives in connection with the emissions scandal. Only one executive ended up being charged in the United States; the others escaped arrest. The pursuit of the six top people at the time was nevertheless a rare occurrence among big companies, whose executives hardly ever face time in jail. More on WorldViews: Afghanistan’s bloody week shows how U.S. policy there is failing Westerners accused of ‘singing and dancing pornographically’ could face a year in Cambodian prison The desperate attempt to save frostbitten climbers on one of the world’s highest peaks


Fake video: What do we do when seeing is not believing?

it should also create an economic opportunity for our region. Our largest regional industry, national security, sees the degradation of the fidelity of information as an existential security challenge. Chuck Howell, chief scientist for dependable artificial intelligence at the research contractor MITRE, points to an “arms race over various kinds of deception” attracting the attention of our national security establishment. Many of our largest private businesses – media, consulting, advertising and other highly skilled knowledge worker businesses – depend upon the reliability of information and a consequent shared reality. More than many others, our region’s economy depends on informational expertise and having insights that are expensive to generate and correspondingly scarce. A world that does not share facts and informational integrity has no way to value informational experts. In that world, many of our businesses will suffer. Therefore, our region has a very stark choice to make. It can either accept that the erosion of the quality of information is an irreversible technological trend, as many national observers have suggested. Or it can meet the challenge and fight for information quality and objectively demonstrable facts. When I asked Kurt Roberts, chief innovation officer at RP3 Agency, about the threat posed by technology cheapening information, he told me we should “flip the notion on its head” and focus on using technology to help people know whether something is true or fake. This point was echoed by Adam Zuckerman, founder of the Fosterly community that promotes regional entrepreneurship. For him, technology is neither good nor bad. It just is a tool, and how we use it is an opportunity. Any entrepreneur will tell you that the biggest businesses are often built by solving society’s biggest problems. We have the technologists and entrepreneurs to come up with new technology applications and the means to ensure that our society is based upon a shared reality and facts. We also have large customers that need that those solutions now more than ever. Informational integrity may be a political issue for all, but for our region it is also a large business opportunity. Jonathan Aberman is a business owner, entrepreneur and founder of TandemNSI, an organization that connects innovators to government agencies. He is host of “What’s Working in Washington” on the radio station WFED, a program that highlights business and innovation, and he lectures at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.


U.S. soldiers are revealing sensitive and dangerous information by jogging

and in 2013 distributed 2,500 of them as part of a pilot program to battle obesity. The Global Heat Map was posted online in November 2017, but the information it contains was publicized Saturday only after a 20-year-old Australian student stumbled across it. Nathan Ruser "I wondered, does it show U.S. soldiers?" Ruser said, and he immediately zoomed in on Syria. "It sort of lit up like a Christmas tree." He started tweeting about his discovery, and the Internet also lit up as data analysts, military experts and former soldiers began scouring the map for evidence of activity in their areas of interest. Adam Rawnsley, a Daily Beast journalist, noticed a lot of jogging activity on the beach near a suspected CIA base in Mogadishu, Somalia. Another Twitter user said he had located a Patriot missile system site in Yemen. Ben Taub, a journalist with the New Yorker, homed in on the location of U.S. Special Operations bases in the Sahel region of Africa. The site does not identify app users and shows many locations that may be connected to aid agencies, U.N. facilities and the military bases of other nations — or any group whose personnel are likely to use fitness trackers, said Tobias Schneider, an international security analyst based in Germany. But it is not hard, he said, to map the activity to known, or roughly known, U.S. military sites and then glean further information. The location of most of the sites is public knowledge — such as the vast Kandahar air base in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has publicly acknowledged that U.S. Special Operations troops maintain a small outpost at Tanf in the Syrian desert near the Iraqi border, which shows up on the map as a neatly illuminated oblong, probably because U.S. soldiers wearing Fitbits or similar devices either jog around or patrol the perimeter. But the data also offers a mine of information to anyone who wants to attack or ambush U.S. troops in or around the bases, Schneider said, including patterns of activity inside the bases. Many people wear their fitness trackers all day to measure their total step counts, and soldiers appear to be no exception, meaning the maps reveal far more than just their exercise habits. Lines of activity extending out of bases and back may indicate patrol routes. The map of Afghanistan appears as a spider web of lines connecting bases, showing


Something amazing will happen with the moon on Jan. 31

During the early hours of Jan. 31, there will be a full moon, a total lunar eclipse, a blue moon and a supermoon. None of these things is all that unusual. What is rare is that they're happening all together on one day. What makes the moon look full? Like Earth, half the moon is illuminated by the sun at any one time. The moon orbits Earth, and as a result we see different amounts of the lit-up side. A full moon occurs when we see its entire lit-up side. This occurs every 29.5 days, when the moon is directly opposite the sun relative to Earth. Jan. 31 will be our next full moon in the lunar cycle. What's a lunar eclipse? The moon's orbit is tilted by about 5 degrees relative to Earth's orbit. So, most of the time the moon ends up a little above or below the path Earth follows as it revolves around the sun. But twice in each lunar cycle, the moon does cross into our planet's orbital plane. If that crossing corresponds to a full moon, the moon will pass into Earth's shadow, resulting in a total lunar eclipse. Since the moon needs to be behind Earth, relative to the sun, to become overshadowed, a lunar eclipse can happen only on a full moon. To see the phenomenon, you need to be on the night side of Earth; this eclipse will be visible mostly in Asia, Australia, the Pacific and North America. But don't worry if you miss it: Lunar eclipses happen, on average, a couple of times a year. The next one visible in North America will occur on Jan. 21, 2019. A blue moon that looks red When a lunar eclipse happens, the moon appears to darken as it moves into Earth's shadow, which is called the umbra. When the moon is all the way in shadow, it doesn't go completely dark; instead, it looks red because of a process called Rayleigh scattering. The gas molecules of Earth's atmosphere scatter bluer wavelengths of light from the sun, while redder wavelengths pass straight through. This is why we have blue skies and red sunrises and sunsets. When the sun is high in the sky, red light passes straight through to the ground while blue light is scattered in every direction, making it more likely to hit your eye when you look around. During


The super blue blood moon happens Wednesday. Here’s how to see it.

eclipse is at 6:30 a.m. Mountain time, 5:30 a.m. Pacific time. Wednesday’s blue moon is the first of two this calendar year. March also will feature two full moons during its 31 days, but there will be no full moon in February. The last time we had two blue moons in the same year was in 1999, also during January and March. Alexander Brown offered a lyrical description of the 1866 eclipse, observing from Arbroath, Scotland, north of St. Andrews, on the North Sea. “For hours previous to the entrance of the moon into the earth’s dark shadow, not a cloud covered the face of the sky; and Luna was beheld pouring her mild radiance on field and town, path and moor,” wrote Brown, a weaver by trade and insatiable scholar, in the Intellectual Observer, a scientific magazine. “When the entire disc, at forty-four minutes past three, had passed into the shadow, the eclipsed moon became distinctly visible, showing a gradation of tints from blue to green on the outside, to a gradually increasing red, which further on changed to a color resembling that of incandescent iron when at a dull-red heat,” he wrote. We only have to wait 19 years for the next trifecta super blue blood moon, Chester said. The next total lunar eclipse on the second full moon of a calendar month will be Jan. 31, 2037, at 9:06 a.m. Eastern time. “This one actually occurs closer to perigee than the one coming up,” said Chester. That perigee will be Feb. 1, 2037, about 16 hours after the full moon, with 222,199 miles between Earth and the moon. “Once again, this is the second-closest perigee for the year,” he said. The next blue moon and total lunar eclipse that is not super will occur Dec. 31, 2028. Eclipses occur in 18-year cycles called saros. This upcoming eclipse is lunar eclipse saros 124, which stretches from the years 1152 to 2450. In this series, the total eclipses occur every 18 years from June 25, 1657, to April 7, 2144. The astronomy webcaster Slooh.com will follow the lunar eclipse from western North America, Hawaii, Australia and Asia on Jan. 31, starting at 7 a.m. The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles will host a public viewing event from 3:45 to 7 a.m., Pacific time. The observatory offers free admission to this event, and it will stream it online starting at


At JFK Airport, every day is wild for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inspectors

or educational purposes," Chapelle said. "We use a number of methods to destroy — burning, crushing, cutting." If the animals are still living, the agency might return them to the originating country or donate them to a refuge, zoo or aquarium. In 2004, the Long Island Aquarium in Riverhead, N.Y., received a gift of two dozen African penguins seized by the agency. The staff cuts up shoes, belts, wallets and purses (shed a tear for permitless Hermes Birkin bags made of protected skins such as alligator, crocodile or monitor lizard); burns sea horses, cosmetics and ivory; and dumps caviar down the sink. If the object is part of a larger criminal investigation, it becomes evidence. About 1.3 million items live at the National Wildlife Property Repository, an agency warehouse northeast of Denver. Its New York District Office of Law Enforcement also houses a collection that it uses for educational and training purposes. The windowless storage space a few miles from JFK resembled the overstock room of a natural-history museum or a flea market run by a taxidermist. Animals, whole and piecemeal, covered stainless-steel countertops. A chirpless aviary contained a flamingo, king penguin, snowy owl and green parrot perched on a branch. Skeletons and skulls of a tapir, cougar and several primates formed a macabre lineup. In the center of the room, a table displayed a freakish still life of jarred turtle eggs, brain coral, a puffin, one Italian high-heeled shoe, a purse with a dwarf crocodile head closure, a jaguar-and-feather head dress and two cans of iguana soup. "I think a lot of people read about this stuff, but I don't think they realize how their individual activities on vacation have an impact on the wildlife," Chapelle said. "Conservation isn't as ingrained as recycling." Aziz entered a drafty, cavernous warehouse on the grounds of the airport and walked by teetering stacks of cardboard boxes. Ten federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and Customs and Border Protection, receive their mail at the 800,000-square-foot processing facility. She stopped at a table with a sign that read, in plain type, "F&W." "Everything here is a surprise," she said of the squat skyline of parcels. In their quest to find wildlife, the inspectors follow several scents. They receive referrals from other departments and spot-check passengers' luggage in the international arrivals terminal. Sometimes, they just grab a package and rip it open. Aziz


Kremlin reacts with anger and ridicule to Treasury list of influential Russians

MOSCOW — Russian officials and business executives on Tuesday reacted with anger and ridicule to a Treasury Department list of influential Russians who could face U.S. sanctions for their proximity to the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called the list, which includes 114 government officials and 96 business executives, a "hostile act" that would harm U.S.-Russian relations but added that Russia did not have plans to retaliate. The list, submitted to Congress under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, was highly anticipated in Russia. Some wealthy business executives were reported to have hired lobbyists in Washington to stay off the list or to have applied for foreign passports to sidestep possible sanctions. In the end, the list appeared to have been copied and pasted from two sources widely available to the public: the Forbes rankings of the wealthiest Russians and the Kremlin's directory of officials, which is available on its English-language website. The 96 business executives listed by the Treasury Department are the same as those indicated to have a net worth of more than $1 billion, according to Forbes. "One does not have to be very smart to make this list," Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the Kremlin Human Rights Council, said in remarks to journalists. He was also on the list. "It would suffice to visit the Kremlin website and take a look at the names of the administration heads, presidential advisers, presidential aides, et cetera. This is not a great piece of work." There is also a classified section of the Treasury Department report that was not released to the public. In emailed remarks, a Treasury Department spokesman said the unclassified portion of the report "was derived from open sources, including Russian sources, such as kremlin.ru, Forbes, and others." Since there is no definition of an oligarch, the spokesman said, $1 billion was chosen as "a reasonable number, which is the criteria contained in the U.S. Forbes list of Russian individuals with a net worth of at least $1 billion." He said that the Treasury Department would not comment on the classified portion of the list, which draws attention "to certain other individuals who we deemed to be significant, but about which classified information was necessary to explain their role and activities." Adam Smith, a former Treasury official who worked on sanctions against Russia, said what was released to the public was


Here’s where clouds could interfere with seeing the super blue blood moon

The super blue blood moon will show up early Wednesday morning — just in time to catch it before you head out the door to work on the East Coast, but perhaps something you should set your alarm for on the West Coast. In general, the farther west you are, the more eclipse you will be able to see, but you may be fighting cloudy skies to see it. Unfortunately, a lot of the Lower 48 will be cloudy early Wednesday morning, so check the schedule and forecast below to see what your chances are. All times are approximate. What you will see and when depends on your exact location. 6:15 a.m. — Look west and see the moon enter the outer rim of Earth’s shadow. 6:45 a.m. — Just before the moon sets, it will enter the inner shadow of the Earth and darken a little bit more. 7:15 a.m. to 8 a.m. — The moon sets before it turns red. The eastern United States will see the least of the eclipse, but people there will have the best skies. From the Gulf Coast to Maine, clouds should cooperate and allow us to see the moon turn a few shades darker before moonset. 4:50 a.m. — The moon enters the outer rim of Earth’s shadow. 6:50 a.m. — The moon turns red as it enters Earth’s inner shadow. 7:00-7:45 a.m. — The moon sets. The central United States will have hit-or-miss skies. Notably, a lot of the Midwest will be covered in clouds at the time of the eclipse, including Detroit, Chicago and perhaps Minneapolis. The Dakotas have a decent shot of seeing the eclipse through partly clear skies. Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and northern Texas will have clear skies, too. 2:50 a.m. — Look up to see the moon enter the outer rim of Earth’s shadow. 3:45 a.m. — The moon enters Earth’s inner shadow. 4:50 a.m. — The moon starts to turn red. 5:30 a.m. — Lunar eclipse totality, the moon is deep red. 7:10 a.m. — The moon exits Earth’s shadow. 6:45-7:45 a.m. — The moon sets. It is really unfortunate the places where the eclipse will be most awesome could also be the most cloudy. It is not going to be a total loss — we just don’t know exactly where these clouds will pop up overnight. It is likely that much of California, Nevada and


‘The Kremlin list’: Why Russian oligarchs shrugged

government, as the threat of sanctions had already affected the Russian economy. Hours after that, about 10 minutes to midnight, the Treasury released its unclassified version of the “Kremlin list.” There are two separate lists included in the classified document. The first, a list of “senior political figures,” features 114 individuals in the Russian government. It includes well-known names such as Medvedev, Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov and Dmitry Peskov, Putin's presidential press secretary. The second list features 96 business executives, including many of Russia's top oligarchs, with perhaps the best-known being Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich. Of a total of 210 individuals on these lists, about 22 have already been hit with sanctions by the United States. Putin is not named on either list. The broad variety on the list quickly became a joke among Russian critics — in a post on Facebook, Russian Sen. Konstantin Kosachev accused the Treasury of simply “rewriting the Kremlin phone book.” And certainly, some inclusions in the list are surprising: Anna Kuznetsova, an envoy for children's rights, is included, as is Mikhail Fedotov, head of the Kremlin human rights council. “One does not have to be very smart to make this list,” Fedotov told the news agency Interfax. Among the oligarchs, there are surprises, too. Wealthy Russian business executives who have faced off against the government, such as vodka billionaire Yuri Shefler or the Ananiev brothers, forced to hand over their bank to Russia's central bank last year, were included, as were some others who hold Russian citizenship but who no longer do business in Russia. At least one person on the list, Valentin Gapontsev, is reported to be a U.S. citizen. Perhaps more egregious still were a number of exclusions. Anatoly Chubais, head of the Russian state nanotechnology company Rusnano, was not included, though he is widely considered part of Putin's circle. He soon issued a mock apology to the Kremlin for not being able to get on the list. Soon after the “Kremlin list” was made public, observers began to note that much of it appeared to almost exactly match two publicly available resources — the Kremlin's English-language list of top officials and Forbes Magazine's 2017 list of the wealthiest Russian business executives. In remarks later emailed to reporters, a Treasury Department spokesman confirmed that the unclassified report was derived from sources that included “kremlin.ru, Forbes, and others.” The spokesman


A stunning solar eclipse visits the moon Wednesday during the lunar eclipse on Earth

Early Wednesday morning, Americans west of the Mississippi River can watch the moon turn blood red, when it plunges through Earth’s shadow in a lunar eclipse. But if you could somehow hitch a ride to the moon, you would witness a magical celestial show seen only by astronauts: a spectacular total solar eclipse more than an hour long. A solar eclipse of such duration is more than 20 times longer than the amazing total solar eclipses witnessed by millions of Americans in August. It lasted two minutes and 41 seconds at the most. (The longest a solar eclipse can ever last on Earth is seven minutes and 29 seconds.) A solar eclipse seen from the moon would not only last much longer than the Earth version, but it would also take on a unique appearance as Earth blocks the sun. (During a solar eclipse seen from Earth, the moon blocks the sun.) Watching a solar eclipse from the moon, the disk of the Earth would appear over three times larger than the sun. (During an earthen solar eclipse, the moon and sun are roughly the same size. That’s why they produce such an exquisite site during their heavenly flirtations up above.) On the moon, as the solar eclipse progressed, the bright side of the moon would gradually darken as the earth interrupts the flow of sunlight. Shadows would become sharper, and the color of the light would change. The ordinarily bland sunlight would transition to a bronze tinge that would wash over everything. Then, as Earth wedges into more and more of the sun, the light streaming down to the moon would shrink into a bead — the same “Bailey’s Bead” phenomenon that we saw during the Great American Eclipse. But that’s when things become markedly different. Next, a red ring would form around Earth, which would otherwise appear as an inky-black sphere across the dark vastness of space. It would be much brighter on one side of the outlined earth. This “ring of fire” would develop as the last rays of sunlight streamed through the earth’s atmosphere tangentially to the surface, filtering out all but the red wavelengths. It’s the same reason sunsets look red from the ground. This razor-thin crimson ring would be an “incredible sight,” said Karen Runyon, a science teacher in Massachusetts. Runyon is passionate about everything science and shares this love of learning in the


Shifting toward a greater understanding of bugs – the good and the bad

is our common understanding of insects. Yes, there are still too many people who reduce the insect universe to one of "bugs" that must be annihilated. But gardeners have never been more ecologically minded, and the idea that we must shelter pollinators is now instilled in every grade-schooler, which is all to the good. We became aware of widespread and mysterious declines in honeybee populations, particularly with the advent of colony collapse disorder. We learned that overwintering populations of monarch butterflies have dropped. If you were paying attention, you'd know that bumblebees and other native bee species have been declining alarmingly. A lot of people are worried about the damage of agricultural pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, to non-targeted insects. There are lots of dire news stories generated by scientific studies, but one report from Europe last year was particularly unsettling. In western Germany, biologists tracking flying insects over 27 years at 63 locations found a decline of about 80 percent in the population by total weight. The causes are open to speculation, with agricultural pesticides high on the list. The results, if extreme, are consistent with other studies of species decline. If you might think it time for an updated version of "Garden Insects," Cranshaw has obliged with a fully revised second edition put together with David Shetlar, a professor of urban landscape entomology at Ohio State University. The page count has grown from 672 to 704, with more than double the number of color photographs (thanks to the advent of digital imaging). More important, the book has been reorganized to be more useful to the gardener, amateur and pro. The pest insects are now grouped by the type of damage they cause, rather than scientific alliances, and there is a new chapter on "good bugs" — insects that we rely on for pollination, to prey on "bad bugs" or to aid in turning yard waste into humus. Underpinning the book is the idea that to know an enemy or friend, you must first be able to identify it. Most of us know that ladybird beetles — ladybugs — devour aphids; perhaps not so many of us realize it's the ugly larvae that do most of the hunting. As a boy, I thought the common hover fly was a clownishly bad mimic of a bee. But Cranshaw and Shetlar tell us that its larvae "are particularly important in controlling aphid infestations


Elon Musk is set to launch his Falcon Heavy rocket, a flamethrower of another sort

wondered if the Falcon Heavy obviates the need for SLS. “If the SpaceX model works, it creates direct competition to SLS,” said Howard McCurdy, a professor of public affairs at American University. Given its relatively low price, the Falcon Heavy could be a real boon to NASA’s moon plans, said Charles Miller, the president of NextGen Space, a consulting company. “The only way NASA is going to go back to the moon in a sustainable manner is by leveraging commercial heavy lift and commercial space flight in general.” The Heavy is made up of three Falcon 9 rocket “cores,” the long tubes that hold the engines and propellant, that sit alongside each other, providing 5.1 million pounds of thrust, or the equivalent of the power of 18 747 airplanes. The chance of failure of new rockets has been exceedingly high, especially in the early days of the Space Age. Between 1957 and 1966, the United States attempted to launch 424 rockets to orbit. Of those, 343 were successful, meaning there was a failure rate of nearly 20 percent. The average number of failures during that time was about eight per year, according to Bryce Space and Technology, a consulting firm. SpaceX knows both failure and triumph. Its Falcon 1 rocket launched three times before reaching orbit on the fourth try. But its Falcon 9, a far more complicated vehicle, was successful on its first launch. The Falcon Heavy, though, is another beast altogether — so complicated that its launch has been repeatedly delayed. Last year, Musk said preparing the rocket for launch was “way, way more difficult than we originally thought. We were pretty naive about that.” He said the chances of an explosion on the first flight are high. “I hope it makes it far enough from the pad that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider that a win,” he said. “Major pucker factor, really. There’s no other way to describe it.” Then again, if SpaceX is able to pull of a successful launch, now scheduled for Tuesday, it would be an extraordinary show. During a recent engine test firing, a massive plume of smoke could be seen for miles. As part of the mission, SpaceX will attempt to land all three first-stage boosters so that they could be reused. Two would fly back to Cape Canaveral, to touch down on landing pads along the coastline,


Pentagon survey details effects of climate change on military sites

toll on coastal installations such as Naval Station Norfolk, and that drought and wildfire were affecting inland facilities. But they needed reporting from those locations to have a clear nationwide picture. According to the survey, which was rolled out to military sites in 2014, the most frequent problems named were drought, wind and non-storm-surge-related flooding. Nearly half of the sites reported no impact. The report provides examples from the facilities, including the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., which has been subject to storm surge flooding and hurricane damage, and the Cape Lisburne Long Range Radar Station in Alaska, where extreme weather and "wave action" have worn down a key sea wall. It also includes the U.S. Air Force Academy and Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. Both have been affected by wildfires. In a few instances, the report cites weather-related problems severe enough to "cripple the operational mission of a base," such as Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Langley Air Force Base in Virginia after Hurricane Isabel in 2003. Conger said the survey was intended in part to act as a baseline for future assessments. "It's in the Defense Department's interest to make investment decisions in a wise way and to make sure it doesn't have damage to those investments," he said. Conger said he was surprised by the widespread wind damage to power lines on bases. The survey did not address the financial cost of climate-related phenomena on military facilities or the possible impact on defense missions. The Defense Department produced a comprehensive "road map" for climate change during the Obama administration, but it is not clear what actions will be taken under the current administration. President Trump has questioned the science behind climate change, and his recent national defense and security strategies did not mention the issue. But numerous senior defense officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, have publicly stated that climate change has affected U.S. security. The Pentagon is required to prepare a report for Congress in coming months that would lay out which military sites are vulnerable to "rising sea tides, increased flooding, drought, desertification, wildfires, thawing permafrost." It also would address whether the military is facing increased requests for disaster and humanitarian assistance. "This is only the first step," Conger said of the new survey. "Nobody should assume that this is the end of the story." missy.ryan@washpost.com


The Trump administration’s weird explanation for withholding Russia sanctions

a response to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The second problem is that, even if it were a successful deterrent, it doesn't seem to be deterring the specific behavior that spurred the sanctions. Mere hours before the State Department issued this statement ahead of the deadline for imposing sanctions, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said that Russia hadn't really scaled back its election interference efforts. “I haven't seen a significant decrease in their activity,” Pompeo told BBC News. He added: “I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that, but I'm confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election, [and] that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won't be great.” So to recap, the head of America's foreign intelligence agency is suggesting Russia will attempt to do what it did in the 2016 election again in 2018 and that he hasn't “seen a significant decrease in their activity.” But then the State Department announces that it doesn't need to impose the sanctions that were meant to punish that behavior because the legislation is already serving as a deterrent? The sanctions themselves specifically target those who do business with Russian defense and intelligence firms, aiming to harm Russia's economy. The State Department argues that foreign governments have indeed backed out of doing such business because of the mere threat of sanctions. But if the overall goal is to deter future election interference, Pompeo seems to argue that hasn't really happened. For all of Trump's talk about building an alliance with Russia as president, his administration has taken some tough positions on it, as Commentary's Noah Rothman points out. Even as the drama Monday night played out, for example, the Treasury Department was preparing to release a blacklist of wealthy Russian oligarchs linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Trump's reluctance to sign these sanctions into law has been crystal clear — he called them “seriously flawed” and apparently only signed them because Congress could easily override his veto — and his continued doubts about Russian meddling in the 2016 election can't help but make this decision seem convenient. The contrasting narratives on the purpose and effectiveness of these sanctions could use some explaining. Otherwise, it risks looking as if it's just ignoring Congress's will to cozy up to Moscow.


Moon will be putting on a show early Wednesday

As part of our imaginative lives for thousands of years, the moon is embedded into song, story and poetry. But Wednesday morning, our silvery satellite will become the focus of renewed attention and for multiple reasons. Lunar specialists say it will be a blue moon and a red moon. It will give us a lunar eclipse. And if that were not enough, it will also be a supermoon. In order to make each of those events geometrically and astronomically possible, it will be a full moon. By now, many of us are familiar with each of those celestial ornaments and descriptions. But seldom do we have a chance to experience them all together. A blue moon is the second full moon in a month and is essentially metaphorical, not some visual characteristic. But calling Wednesday's full moon a red (or blood) moon recognizes that the moon is, indeed, expected to be tinged with red. In a lunar eclipse, rays of red light pass through the Earth's atmosphere to reach the surface of the moon. On Wednesday, specialists say, Washington will be able to see a partial lunar eclipse starting at 5:51 a.m. and continuing until the moon sets in the west about 7:15 a.m. We have come to apply the term supermoon to one that is full but that looks bigger and brighter than the normal full moon, which occurs about once a month. It looks bigger and brighter because it happens to be full at just about the time it makes its closest approach on a given monthly orbit. Essentially, as it travels around the Earth each month, the moon reaches points where its distance from the Earth is the greatest and where its distance is the least. This characterizes an orbit that is not a circle, which would always keep it at the same distance from Earth. Instead, the moon traces out a geometric figure known as an ellipse. At a time like this, when the moon, in addition to all else, is reaching its closest point on its elliptical orbit, it may be worth noting that Washington has a huge piece of prominent parkland that is laid out in the shape of an ellipse. The grassy expanse between the White House and the Washington Monument is called the Ellipse, and with reason. It is laid out as a geometric ellipse, according to a study by mathematician Clark


Relax, Californians: Cheaper weed is coming

The excitement that marijuana devotees felt as California initiated legal, recreational sales this month was tempered by sticker shock from prices as high as $40 per eighth of an ounce. These prices included state and local taxes totaling up to 45 percent. Commentators are warning that high taxes will strengthen the black market, advocates are calling for marijuana tax cuts, and angry customers are posting their receipts online with the taxes circled in red. Everyone needs to chill. Nothing raises the price of a drug like making the industry that produces it illegal, and nothing causes those prices to collapse like legalization. However, transitory price spikes in the early days of legalization are common because the supply chain and the regulatory structure are immature and disorganized. The experience of Colorado, now four years into its recreational marijuana legalization, is illustrative. Supply shortages caused a price spike in the industry’s stumbling first year, driving wholesale marijuana flower to $2,865 per pound. But as the industry matured, prices tumbled 56 percent and have not hit bottom yet. A virtually identical price change pattern occurred in Washington state’s legal market. Because most states tax marijuana based on a percentage of price, the amount of tax collected per sale drops as marijuana’s price falls. In California, this economic effect will be tempered by the state’s wise decision to make its tax structure include a flat charge on harvested flower that does not vary with price. But the bulk of California state and local taxes are price-linked, and will therefore fall in tandem with the cost of the marijuana plant. California’s policymakers should resist any effort to cut taxes based on a transitory price spike. Consumers will be appeased without tax cuts as prices tumble in the years ahead. And restoring taxes to a healthy level once prices fall would be politically challenging because a deep-pocketed, mature industry will be ready to oppose it. Keith Humphreys is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University and is an affiliated faculty member at Stanford Law School and the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. He served as a drug policy adviser in the Bush and Obama White Houses, and advises many state and national governments on how scientific evidence can inform policies regarding addiction and other psychiatric disorders.


White House says there’s no need for new Russia sanctions

The Trump administration, under fire from lawmakers for not punishing Moscow over election meddling, said Monday it will not implement Russia-related sanctions mandated by Congress last year because the threat itself is acting as a "deterrent." The decision was made public after nightfall on deadline day for implementing sanctions against those who do business with Russian defense and intelligence firms, as required under a 2017 law. Since the law took effect six months ago, said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, "We estimate that foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions." The decision was less concrete than some lawmakers envisioned when the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act passed last summer. Though also mentioning Iran and North Korea, the law was billed as a U.S. response to Moscow's interference in the 2016 presidential election. A list of potential targets was drawn up last month in anticipation of Monday's deadline for implementing secondary sanctions. Instead, a State Department official said there is no need for them to be put into place now "because the legislation is, in fact, serving as a deterrent." The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under State Department rules, said future sanctions would fall on foreign governments and business entities that buy from Russia, not the Russian firms, the official said. More details were provided to Congress in classified briefings, and some Democrats were angered. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was "fed up" with the administration's failure to punish Russia over election interference. "The Trump administration had a decision to make whether they would follow the law and crack down on those responsible for attacking American democracy in 2016," he said in a statement. "They chose instead to let Russia off the hook yet again." Though the administration's decision did not pile on more sanctions for the time being, the State Department used language it usually reserves for its most bitter enemies, such as Iran and North Korea. The official said the legislative threat of sanctions would impose a cost on Russia for its "campaign of malign influence and destabilization." The sanctions decision was announced as the Treasury Department was preparing to release a blacklist of Russia's richest tycoons linked to President Vladimir Putin. The list carries no penalties , but many wealthy Russians fear they could be


U.S. military reviewing its rules after fitness trackers exposed sensitive data

engine of economic activity. We pay for a lot of things not with money but our data. And people are not catching up quickly enough to what's going on," said Omri Ben-Shahar, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and co-author of "More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure." Even when companies are careful about restricting access to data, sensitive location information, when paired with names and other identifying details, makes a valuable target for hackers, including those working for foreign intelligence services, experts said. News reports about the possible vulnerability of U.S. personnel drew notice within the online Islamist militant community Monday. Articles about the availability of location information were posted on at least one pro-Islamic State channel on Telegram, a social media application popular with militant Islamists. It "should be expected" that groups such as the Islamic State would seek to exploit any vulnerabilities, said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington nonprofit that monitors militant Islamist websites. "We do know that they have a lot of computer experts and engineers working for them around the world who today may very well be checking out other ways to use Strava," Stalinsky said. But he said there is "no clear evidence" that such efforts are underway. The public availability of the data represents "a potential catastrophe," said Nathaniel Raymond, who is director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard School of Public Health and researches the use of data technology for humanitarian workers. He said he used the map to pinpoint the jogging route he would take when he served with U.N. peacekeepers in South Sudan in 2015. The route is evidently still being used by peacekeepers deployed there. Since Sunday, Raymond and his team have used Strava to identify the names and daily routines of eight foreigners working for aid agencies and the United Nations in the Somali capital Mogadishu, one of the most dangerous cities in the world. "Once you can identify individuals, the data becomes a lot more valuable," said Tobias Schneider, a Berlin-based security analyst who has identified the names of 573 people who jog every morning around the parking lot of the headquarters of British intelligence, making it highly likely they work for the agency. "You could for example identify somebody who works at a known secret