Amazon prohibits CBD sales, but it’s still easy to buy on the site

selling privileges, withholding funds, and pursuing civil and criminal penalties.” Amazon declined to say why it forbids the sale of CBD, other than to say it can decide what to sell like any retailer. CBD is still controversial and its legal situation is murky, with some federal agencies, states and localities prohibiting its sales. CBD is usually derived from hemp, a crop that was legalized in a 2018 farm bill. But it remains illegal to put the compound in food, and the Food and Drug Administration has warned CBD makers several times, including last month, over violating the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Muddying the waters further, three states — South Dakota, Idaho and Mississippi — make no distinction in their laws between marijuana and hemp plants, meaning CBD is considered a controlled substance in those states. CBD, though, does not contain the chemical in marijuana that makes people high. While CBD makers often claim the chemical can help with anxiety, improve sleep and reduce pain, the only legally edible version of CBD is a drug, Epidiolex, prescribed to treat seizure disorders. But because CBD is so widely available and seemingly on a path toward legalization in edible form, prosecutors rarely take action against companies that make supplements or individuals who use them. Makers of those items who spoke with The Post offered a wide range of explanations for the presence of their CBD-containing products on the site, from mistakenly shipping the wrong item to ignorance regarding the rule. Two of the companies said that other merchants were selling products without their permission, and they worried that reviews for poor service could damage their brands if the e-commerce giant eventually does allow CBD product sales. “We’re trying to control a problem [of unauthorized sales] that’s really, really hard to control,” said Sequoia Price-Lazarus, chief executive and founder of Seattle-based Lazarus Naturals. More than 500 million products are available on Amazon at any given time, according to estimates by e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse. That’s because Amazon isn’t just a retailer, it’s a marketplace that has invited more than 2.5 million sellers to hawk those wares, by Marketplace Pulse’s measure. Creating a digital storefront on Amazon requires little more than a driver’s license and a bank statement. By making it so easy to set up shop, Amazon has amassed so much selection that sellers often compete against one another, driving


The Cybersecurity 202: 2019’s top cybersecurity story is still what Russia did in 2016

continues to rack up global contracts. Trump also made things worse by repeatedly wavering on pulling back some Huawei penalties in exchange for Chinese trade concessions -- though there’s no indication of a Huawei component in a phase-one deal announced last week. Huawei has steadfastly denied any involvement in Chinese spying. The situation is even more precarious because the United States doesn’t have a domestic 5G supplier and is urging allies to contract with companies in friendly nations such as Finland’s Nokia and South Korea’s Samsung instead. And the Huawei fight could be a harbinger of even more serious problems. 5G is just one of many vital technology fields in which the United States is falling behind China, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing. That could be disastrous for cybersecurity if the nation doesn’t change course and start investing heavily in research and development. “It’s an ASAP thing,” Robert Silvers, a former top DHS cybersecurity official who’s now an attorney at the law firm Paul Hastings, told me. “China is racing ahead and we need to have done this yesterday.” Hacking hits home Some of the biggest cybersecurity stories of 2019 were about ransomware attacks against local governments in which hackers locked up computer systems and refused to release them until they got a payout, threatening vital city services. Baltimore, New Orleans, Pensacola, Fla., and Albany, N.Y., were just a handful of the cities hit with ransomware this year. The Baltimore attack was among the most damaging in history, knocking out some services for more than a month and costing the city at least $18 million. “More and more cyber incidents are coming home to affect Americans’ daily lives,” Bateman told me. “When you’re part of a data breach, that might spill your personal information and you’ll get free credit monitoring, but that’s very abstract. When the local government is closed for business, that hits home.” Runners up The Justice Department revamped its attacks on encrypted messaging apps that cops can’t penetrate, focusing on the dangers of child sex trafficking. This time, lawmakers are joining the call. Commercial hacking tools are helping a new group of national governments spy on their critics. Facebook is pushing back. The United States is getting more aggressive about punching back in cyberspace. Lawmakers want to make sure it doesn’t go too far. The Cybersecurity 202 is taking a couple weeks off. You are reading


The USDA saw no problems at this zoo. Local authorities found ‘a monkey dungeon.’

When a U.S. Department of Agriculture animal welfare inspector visited Wilson’s Wild Animal Park this summer, she identified no violations. The federal inspection report for the Virginia zoo, home to about 200 exotic and barnyard animals, was pristine. But that is not what local law enforcement officers found the very next day. Sent by the state attorney general, their observations triggered a search one week later by a team of veterinarians, zoologists and law enforcement officers. They discovered an array of problems, according to later court testimony, including a pony with a swollen face, maggot-covered meat in the tiger cage and what a prosecutor described as a “monkey dungeon.” The search team seized 119 animals whose lives they deemed to be in danger. Last month, zoo owner Keith Wilson and an employee were each charged under Virginia law with 46 counts of animal cruelty. The chasm between the USDA and local assessments is a stark illustration of a dramatic decline in federal animal welfare enforcement amid a Trump administration deregulation push. From 2016 to 2018, the number of citations issued by the USDA to about 10,000 zoos, circuses, breeders and research labs it regulates dropped by 65 percent. The agency attributes the drop in citations, which can lead to fines and revoked licenses, to new efforts to work closely with businesses and their veterinarians to correct violations. Former employees have said it’s the result of a more lenient approach that puts animals at risk. Wilson’s was among the facilities the USDA stopped citing. For years, inspectors documented numerous violations there, including a lion enclosure with walls too short to prevent the cats’ escape and a concrete-floored bear pen with little more than a tire swing for entertainment. Since mid-2018, the zoo’s three reports have been clean. Mark Patterson, CEO of the Cavalry Group, an organization that advocates for animal businesses and is representing Wilson, said the Virginia charges are “false, unfounded and capricious.” The state, he said in an email, had sent “unqualified experts” to the zoo and denied Wilson due process “to literally steal private property.” He said Wilson had fixed the problems cited on previous USDA inspections. In rare cases, local authorities are pursuing cases against animal owners whose USDA inspections reflect few, if any, problems. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sued a dog breeder in October after state inspectors repeatedly found what Schmitt called “horrible and inexcusable”


The Technology 202: 2019 brought new challenges to Silicon Valley. Here’s how the Post covered it.

Note to readers: The Technology 202 is taking off for the holidays. This is the final edition of the year. The newsletter will be back in your inboxes on Monday, Jan. 6, with an edition dedicated to the tech policy issues that will shape 2020. Send your predictions about the ways disinformation, privacy, antitrust and other topics will evolve next year to 2019 was the year the techlash got real for Silicon Valley. The industry still hasn’t recovered from the reckoning, despite pressure to do more to improve privacy and address disinformation as the 2020 election approaches. Lawmakers, presidential candidates and regulators targeted Silicon Valley in unprecedented ways, handing out record-setting fines and opening broad investigations into the industry’s power. The Washington Post’s expanded technology team led coverage of this period of the industry’s adolescence, as reporters broke major stories and found creative ways to illustrate society’s ever-evolving relationship with the Internet. My colleagues submitted their favorite stories from the past year, along with their thoughts about what these articles said about the state of tech as we head into the next decade. 1. Trust in tech giants eroded, as consumers grew more suspicious about how companies were using their data. From 2. From From 3. Tech companies struggled to police their services at scale, raising new questions about the responsibilities of platforms. From From From Jay Greene, Seattle technology reporter: 4. Washington took unprecedented action to hold the tech giants to account — but many critics didn't think federal enforcers went far enough. From From Christina: 5. The industry's power was challenged in new ways, as Washington began antitrust investigations of major tech companies. From 6. Disinformation tested companies' investments in fighting falsehoods. From From From 7. Tech workers stood up to companies as i From 8. Silicon Valley's party turned into a hangover as Wall Street challenged so-called 'unicorn' valuations. From 9. Our relationship with our devices continued to evolve, changing everyday interactions. From You are reading The Technology 202 , our guide to the intersection of technology and politics. BITS: The Post’s investigation illustrates Amazon’s struggle to police its marketplace, which is dominated by third-party sellers offering millions of unvetted items. Sellers have in large part been able to circumvent Amazon’s ban by leaving CBD out of their product descriptions — a practice they say Amazon turns a blind eye to. (Amazon representative Patrick Graham denied this


Yes, aid workers are getting killed more often. But why?

The recent suspicious death of James Le Mesurier, a key backer of the Syrian civilian rescue group the White Helmets, put a spotlight on the real risks faced by aid workers today. While Le Mesurier’s death shocked the world, it’s not typically foreign aid workers who are targeted in conflict zones today. Instead, attacks on aid workers in their own countries are dramatically on the rise. Syria is the deadliest place in the world for those delivering medical aid — after the Assad regime made providing medical care in opposition areas effectively illegal in 2012 and subjected medical personnel to intimidation, torture and killing. One out of every six White Helmet volunteers whom Le Mesurier helped train has reportedly lost their life. The vast majority of aid workers who are targeted for kidnapping and killing are often local members of international aid organizations who, like Syrians working for foreign aid groups inside Syria, are citizens of the countries where interventions are taking place. In fact, even as the humanitarian industry grows and the absolute number of attacks on aid workers rises, the attacks are more than keeping pace with increased national staff presence in the field but declining relative to the presence of their international staff counterparts. National staff fatalities climbed from 19 percent of all reported aid worker deaths across the United Nations, the Red Cross and Crescent movement, and INGOs before 2000 to 71 percent in the period before the Arab Uprisings in 2010. And yet, research I conducted in the Middle East among humanitarian responders to the Syrian War in 2011 shows that despite the deadly toll already borne by national staff, international organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) transferred a great deal of additional risk to Syrian workers and local organizations. This was after measures to protect staff adopted during wars in Afghanistan and Iraq swung the pendulum of protection far in favor of international aid worker lives. Violent events like the bombing of the Canal Hotel in Iraq in 2003 led aid agencies to move their staff behind walls and into compounds, to hire private security contractors, and to limit aid worker movement. Going underground, leaving, or becoming remote. Humanitarian operations in Syria were carried out in increasingly clandestine ways. Hospitals moved underground and identifying emblems were removed from project sites and vehicles. GPS coordinates were no longer shared with warring parties who were once expected


Man fatally shot in Northeast Washington

A man was fatally shot Thursday afternoon in Northeast Washington, officials said. D.C. police said the shooting happened just before 4 p.m. in the 3900 block of Minnesota Avenue near the Anacostia Freeway in the Benning area of the city. Police later identified the victim as Richard Washington, 28, of Northeast Washington. Authorities said officers responded to a report of a shooting in the area and found Washington suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. No arrests have been made. Police are offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information. Anyone with information is asked to call authorities at 202-727-9099. The killing brings the number of homicides in the District this year to 161 as of Friday, according to a tracking done by The Washington Post. That compares with 160 homicides for all of last year. dana.hedgpeth@washpost.com


Did Congress just thwart a Russian pipeline?

would protect countries like Ukraine in the 21st century. In late 1981, Reagan announced sanctions to prevent the completion of the Euro-Siberian gas pipeline that shipped Soviet natural gas overland to Western Europe. Sanctions initially applied to American companies such as Caterpillar and General Electric, ceasing the sale of American equipment and technology for pipeline construction. Nevertheless, the pipeline construction used capital and technology from Europe that initially escaped the sanctions. For Western Europe, in the midst of a deep recession, the pipeline was a boon. The project promised relief in the form of jobs and industrial orders for hard-hit industries in West Germany, Britain and France. Soviet natural gas also diversified Europe’s energy profile away from dependence on OPEC, amid OPEC’s price surges and oil shocks. Economically, the pipeline made sense for European leaders. Diplomatically, however, it triggered a crisis between the United States and Europe. Reagan and members of his administration viewed the issue through a Cold War lens and could not abide a Soviet win. The administration worried that the natural gas profits from the pipeline would increase the Soviet Union’s influence and allow the country to modernize its military. European allies rejected Washington’s reasoning and construction continued. After failing to convince the United States’ NATO allies to adopt sanctions, Reagan took a risk by expanding the sanctions to European subsidiaries of American companies and applying them retroactively in an effort to stop the pipeline construction in its tracks. He hoped that Europeans would acquiesce to these unilateral sanctions. Leaders in Bonn, Germany, and in London and Paris refused to bend and warned the Reagan administration that they would not surrender their sovereignty. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, one of Reagan’s staunchest allies, rebuffed him and told the BBC she felt “deeply wounded by a friend.” Resolving the diplomatic crisis fell to Secretary of State George Shultz. He deftly brokered a solution that both convinced Reagan of the sanctions’ folly and mitigated European allies’ anger. Less than a year after announcing the sanctions, the Reagan administration retreated and the Euro-Siberian Pipeline proceeded. Tensions cooled and relationships were rebuilt. After the pipeline opened, European countries steadily increased their consumption of Russian natural gas. Germany — one of the world’s largest economies — became increasingly dependent on it to power its economic expansion as well as heat homes. Today Germany is Russia’s primary foreign consumer. Almost a quarter of Germany’s


Evidence mounts that vitamin E acetate is to blame for vaping-related illnesses, deaths

of a disturbing development: Dozens of patients with vaping-related lung illness were rehospitalized shortly after discharge, and seven died after being discharged, suggesting that the illness must be closely monitored and may worsen in older patients with chronic conditions. “We don’t know why they worsened so suddenly,” Schuchat said. Of 1,139 hospitalized patients who were discharged by Oct. 31, 2019, 31 were readmitted to the hospital within about four days, on average, after initial discharge. The median age of those readmitted to the hospital was 27. The other seven patients died within about three days of initial discharge. They were more likely to have underlying conditions, such as heart disease, sleep apnea or diabetes, and they tended to be older, with a median age of 54. There is anecdotal evidence that some patients who were readmitted in the past had relapsed and vaped again, but Schuchat said she didn’t have detailed information about these patients. Based on the new data, CDC updated its recommendations to clinicians that hospitalized vaping patients have an initial outpatient follow-up within two days of discharge. Among the other findings, the reports show that the vaping-related outbreak was a new phenomenon and not an illness that had gone unrecognized, Schuchat said. Emergency department visits increased sharply beginning in June 2019 and peaked in September. Since then, emergency room visits for vaping-related illnesses have declined, although new cases continue to be reported. The reports — two in the NEJM and two in the CDC’s weekly morbidity and mortality reports — provide the most detailed look at the scope of the outbreak and its likely cause, as well as the potential ways that vitamin E acetate may be damaging lungs. Last month, the CDC announced a “breakthrough” discovery when officials identified vitamin E acetate in the lung fluids of 29 people. It was the first direct evidence of the compound at the primary site of injury within the lungs. With the latest data, “we are of the belief that vitamin E acetate has caused” the vaping-related lung illnesses “in the vast majority of patients,” Schuchat said. Although other studies are ongoing to understand the specific mechanisms of the harm to lungs, “we don’t have to hold our breath to go deeper.” At the same time, she added: “That doesn’t mean there aren’t other substances in e-cigarettes or vaping products that can or are causing lung injury.” The CDC


A new U.S. sanction reminds us that Iran’s Revolutionary Courts aren’t real ones

On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a major speech on the dire state of human rights in Iran. The list of the regime’s abuses of the Iranian people is long and well-documented — even if American prescriptions for changing Tehran’s behavior seem unlikely to achieve the promised effect. Still, there was one policy move that grabbed my attention: the sanctioning of two judges of the Islamic republic’s Revolutionary Court. One of them — Abolghassem Salavati — presided over the case against me while I was held, without due process or legal protections, for 18 months in Iran’s Evin prison. “Salavati has sentenced hundreds of political prisoners,” Pompeo said in his remarks. “He’s the go-to guy. He sentenced journalists and human rights activists to prison — or worse, to death. He’s a tool of the regime’s oppression, not an impartial friend of justice. And today he’s now sanctioned by the United States of America.” Many Iranian officials — especially senior members of the judiciary — are largely unable to travel abroad, due to a combination of E.U. travel restrictions and Interpol “red notices,” so the sanctions are unlikely to cause new difficulties for Salavati or the other designated judge, Mohammad Moghisseh. But the move sets an important precedent. The U.S. government has long been opposed to sanctioning or levying other punitive measures on members of another country’s judicial system. But as a senior State Department official told me, they used available evidence to prove that Moghisseh and Salavati were not real judges since they do not act independently from the state security apparatus. “Judges on these Revolutionary Courts, including Salavati, have acted as both judge and prosecutor, deprived prisoners of access to lawyers, and intimidated defendants,” said a Treasury Department statement announcing the sanctions. Both judges, it said, “oversaw the Iranian regime’s miscarriage of justice in show trials.” That description certainly tracks with my experience in Salavati’s courtroom. Salavati, who presides over Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, is known as the “judge of death” and the “hanging judge” for the hundreds of political prisoners he has sentenced to death over the years. As I recount in detail in the book I wrote about my imprisonment, Salavati made absolutely no pretense that he was impartial. He even threatened to execute me in the pretrial phase. He and the prosecutor were present during all of my encounters with my own


Setting the record straight on ‘The Afghanistan Papers’

The Post’s “Afghanistan Papers” project attempted to shine a light on problems in the United States’ longest war and the $133 billion U.S. reconstruction effort. I’m intimately familiar with those problems. The agency I lead — the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) — has a long record of uncovering waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan. Over the years, media organizations around the world have reported our findings far and wide. Poor planning. Pointless spending. Corruption that corrodes Afghans’ confidence in their government. “Ghost soldiers” on the rolls of the Afghan security forces. Rampant theft of U.S.-supplied fuel — much of it winding up in the hands of insurgents who kill Americans. The list goes on. But the Afghanistan Papers fell short in several respects when it comes to the labors of the men and women of SIGAR, some of whom work under often dangerous conditions in Afghanistan. I am compelled to correct the record: The Post claimed SIGAR offered anonymity to sources it interviewed in its Lessons Learned Program “to avoid controversy over politically sensitive matters.” SIGAR withheld names of confidential sources to protect them from retaliation and because we are required to by law: the Inspector General Act of 1978. Protecting confidential sources is a bedrock principle at all U.S. law enforcement and inspector general offices, including SIGAR. Moreover, it’s a necessity: Often a witness will provide important evidence of government waste or fraud only if his or her identity is protected, something that reporters and news outlets should well appreciate. Ironically, The Post is suing us in federal court demanding that we reveal the names of the confidential sources of the Afghanistan Papers. The Post’s series also claimed, “To avoid controversy, SIGAR sanitized the harshest criticisms from the Lessons Learned interviews.” That’s absurd. We’ve been criticized for many things. Avoiding controversy is not one of them. A simple Google search reveals hundreds of articles, spanning years, detailing how SIGAR routinely speaks truth to power and exposes mismanagement of reconstruction programs, often provoking the ire of generals, ambassadors and other high-ranking officials. Many SIGAR reports and the controversies they provoked have been covered by The Post. The series also criticized some of our Lessons Learned reports for their “flat, bureaucratic jargon.” SIGAR is an inspector general, not a newspaper. It’s one thing to turn a snappy quote into a headline. It’s another to produce


Last month, the humanitarian world was shocked by the suspicious death of James Le Mesurier, a British man who co-founded the White Helmets, a volunteer group that rescues civilians wounded in the Syrian war. The death revealed how dangerous aid work can be. But unlike Le Mesurier, most aid workers who are attacked or killed are citizens of the country in which they’re working. They’re local staff hired by international aid organizations, not outsiders. Syria is now the deadliest place in the world for those delivering medical aid. In 2012, the regime of Bashar al-Assad effectively outlawed caring for the sick and wounded in rebel-held areas. With that law in place, the regime and Russian warplanes targeted such medical personnel for intimidation, torture and killing. Of the White Helmet volunteers Le Mesurier helped train, the Economist reports, one out of six has died. Since the 1980s, the humanitarian industry has grown dramatically as governments rely more on nongovernmental organizations to deliver aid during long-lasting conflicts and large-scale disasters. Alongside that growth, attacks against aid workers have also risen. But it’s not expatriate or international staff who are being killed at higher rates; rather, it’s locally based aid workers, citizens of the country receiving aid. They are suffering rates of attack that are rising faster than their growing involvement in aid activities. Before 2000, local staff deaths made up 19 percent of all reported aid worker deaths at the United Nations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and other international humanitarian groups, according to Insecurity Insight’s research. By 2010, locally hired staff made up 71 percent of all aid workers killed. But research I conducted in the Middle East among humanitarian responders to the war in Syria in 2011 shows that these organizations still transferred a great deal of additional risk to Syrian workers and local organizations while that proportion was climbing. They moved to protect their expatriate workers at the expense of Syrian local staff. Going underground, leaving or becoming remote How? Hospitals moved underground. Organizations removed their names and emblems from project sites and vehicles. Once, aid groups had given their GPS coordinates to warring parties, expecting them to spare hospitals from violence; now they withheld their locations lest they be deliberately targeted. During the Syrian conflict, aid groups have based themselves across the border in Turkey and Jordan — leaving Syrian staff and local groups in “the field”


D.C. police investigate fatal shooting of Hyattsville woman near Northeast park

D.C. police are investigating the fatal shooting of a Hyattsville, Md., woman whose body was discovered near a park in Northeast Washington late Friday. Police identified the victim as Nyesha Lenea Galloway, 28. Galloway had been shot multiple times, and her body was found near Fort Mahan Park in the 400 block of 42nd Street NE, police said. Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact D.C. police at 202-727-9099. keith.alexander@washpost.com


Move over, White Claw? Here’s what we’ll be drinking in 2020.

brewers, mainstream brands, craft brewers and spirits companies all getting in the game. And with all that competition, producers will be trying to break out of the pack, so look for new entrants to differentiate themselves with qualities like “higher ABV, healthy ingredients and features, bolder flavors.” The mania for all things “hard” could mean your kombucha or coffee will be spiked in 2020, it says. While its predictions for seltzer are rosy, wine (save for a few categories, including rosé and prosecco) isn’t looking so good. And beer companies will probably be focused on “everything but beer,” it says, including getting into canned cocktails, traditional spirits and even wine. Speaking of canned cocktails, they’ll continue their march. “Many will be traditional cocktails with a twist to make them more interesting (e.g. Mezcal Mule),” the report says. Overall, the trend is less. Lower-alcohol spirits, ready-to-drink cocktails and IPAs (as well as nonalcoholic beers) are all drinks to watch. And customers will be looking for “alternative beverages with no/low sugar and carbs, and low-calorie options,” the report says. The report looked not just at what we’ll be buying in stores, but also at trends at bars and restaurants, too. In those settings, Nielsen says, drinkers will keep looking to lighten up, too, seeking alcohol-free options and lower-octane spritzes and “low-alcohol sherries, vermouths and sake options.” Vodkas will be hot, with sugar-free and diet options flourishing, and flavored options moving from the candy-flavored varieties of the past to natural ones such as yuzu and kumquat. But, classicists, take heart: There’s hope for whiskey (with interesting flavor profiles) and even that old standby, the G&T. But this one is no old-school, post-golf quaff at the country club. It will be upscale — and probably ’grammed. “With increased distribution of premium tonics in the U.S., lower sugar content of premium mixers and the social shareability of a perfect cocktail, a path is being cleared for the rise of this trend,” the report finds. “Through a more premium experience, we expect gin and tonics to grow in popularity over the next year and finally have their moment in the spotlight.” More from Voraciously: Is fonio the new quinoa? One chef hopes the tiny West African grain will be. Is Pepsi’s Bubly the new LaCroix, or just another cute can? Four Loko hard seltzer might taste like cough syrup, but flavor has never been the point


Carolyn Hax: Sister is not wild about typical kid behavior

Adapted from an online discussion. Dear Carolyn: Throughout Olivia's toddlerhood, my sister constantly said how Olivia was introverted and shy, just like her. She frequently asked that my kids act less physical around her and essentially expected the whole family to meet Olivia where she was. Olivia was never expected to get out of her comfort zone at all. Olivia is by nature, and probably due to my sister's parenting, a well-mannered, polite and charming little girl. However, Olivia is struggling a lot in kindergarten with getting along with other kids her age. Olivia can be inflexible and quick to tattle on other kids. My sister handles this by essentially freaking out at the school, the teacher and the other parents. Last week, she told me I couldn't understand because "your kids are wild just like the kids in Olivia's classroom." My kids are not wild, and neither are the kids in Olivia's classroom. They are normal little kids behaving in age-appropriate ways. I'm starting to genuinely worry about Olivia because I feel my sister has given her this little princess identity that will not serve her well in the long run. My kids are in the same school as Olivia, and my sister has made a reputation for herself as being a very difficult parent. I am torn whether to discuss this with my sister or not. Part of me feels like it's her child and her business, and another part of me aches for Olivia. My sister is extremely sensitive, so I will have to handle this carefully. What do you think? — Anonymous Anonymous: I think your sister is raising Olivia exactly as she was raised, if we subscribe to the theory that nurture is paramount. Or, if you’re a believer in nature as the last word, then Olivia is your sister’s sensitivities all over again. Either way, I hope you change your role in this new generation: Don’t grant Olivia (or your sister) any (more) special fragility allowances. Don’t tiptoe. Don’t interfere on Olivia’s behalf. Or yours, or your kids’, or any of the happy little kindergarten savages’. Instead, let the school teach Olivia and her mom and stay waaaaay out of it yourselves. The whole thing is booby trapped. Plus, it’s early yet; Olivia has years of natural socialization ahead of her. The time to speak plainly was when your sister described all non-Olivias as


A January Brexit wins endorsement from a new U.K. Parliament dominated by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party

ignominy of seeing her Brexit deal repeatedly voted down in Parliament. Johnson, too, faced a series of embarrassing Brexit-related defeats in the fall, when he faced a hung Parliament. But his landslide win in last week’s election put him in control. Johnson has hailed his Brexit deal as his own creation. After Friday’s vote, inside the House of Commons chamber, the prime minister appeared to sign copies. But it is approximately 95 percent his predecessor’s deal — with the exception that Johnson caved to European demands to find a way to protect at all cost a peace accord in Ireland. Johnson did what May swore no British prime minister would do, which was to allow for a regulatory and customs border within the United Kingdom. In Johnson’s deal, that new border runs down the Irish Sea. No matter. Johnson now has the votes, and he does not need to kowtow to his former governing partners in the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, who have complained the prime minister tossed them under the bus and that this deal endangers the union. Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called the deal “terrible” and said his side would not back it. “This deal is a road map for the reckless direction in which the government and the prime minister are determined to take the country,” he said. Corbyn charged that Johnson’s vision for Brexit would be “used as a battering ram to drive us down the path of yet more deregulation and towards a toxic deal with Donald Trump.” But Corbyn is on his way out. He is no longer in a position to change the path of his party or the country. Six Labour members voted for Johnson’s Brexit bill, while more than 30 abstained. There was a giddy, almost gloating sense in Johnson’s Conservative Party that a new era had begun. The opposition was defeated, demoralized — and old foes on Johnson’s right flank had been neutralized. Conservative lawmaker Rachel Maclean ended her brief remarks, saying, “I want to wish everybody a very Merry Brexmas.” Arch-Brexiteer Mark Francois, a leader of European Research Group, which so vexed the previous prime minister, said, “All I want to for Christmas is not E.U.” Conservative Liam Fox got a loud cheer from his party’s benches when he took a dig at Hugh Grant, the British actor who campaigned for tactical voting to keep


‘I don’t think anybody has died in vain’: Top general gives emotional defense of the Afghanistan war

The Pentagon’s top general defended the war in Afghanistan on Friday, saying there was not “some coordinated lie” by senior officials to mischaracterize the conflict and noting that no terrorist attack originating in Afghanistan has been carried out on American soil in the past 18 years. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he does not believe U.S. troops died in vain in the war. “I do not. I absolutely do not,” he said. “I could not look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t answer myself at 2 or 3 in the morning when my eyes pop open and I see the dead roll in front of my eyes. So no, I don’t think anybody has died in vain, per se.” The comments came in response to questions prompted by The Afghanistan Papers, The Washington Post’s recent reporting about the war based on documents. The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year court battle, detail not only dysfunction during the conflict but how U.S. officials often publicly touted progress while privately harboring doubts about the war’s long-term outcome. Milley, who served three tours in Afghanistan and often cited progress there, disagreed with assertions he has seen that senior U.S. officials deceived the American public or Congress. He addressed this issue while standing alongside Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper at a Pentagon news conference. “More than a stretch — I find that a mischaracterization in my own personal experience,” Milley said. “You are looking at probably hundreds of general officers, State Department employees, CIA, Department of Defense folks. I just don’t think you can get that level of coordination to that kind of deception.” Esper said the war “has been very transparent,” noting that the media and members of Congress have traveled to Afghanistan on numerous occasions over the past 18 years. “It’s not like this war was hiding somewhere, and now there has been a revelation,” Esper said. “So I think, between all of the people looking at this conflict over all the years, some type of insinuation that there has been this large-scale conspiracy is just, to me, ridiculous, and I certainly echo the chairman’s comments on that front.” The Post’s reporting did not say there had been a conspiracy or coordinated lie, but rather that a succession of senior officials have made “rosy pronouncements they knew to


To protect birds, more architects and local governments alter building designs

Birds are winging their way somewhere unexpected: building codes. Turns out that glass-covered buildings in modern cities can become graveyards for migrating birds, leading to hundreds of millions of bird deaths each year. Under pressure from conservation groups, architects and local governments are increasingly tweaking building codes to protect birds from hitting buildings. This month, the New York City Council passed legislation that puts birds into its building code. It requires new construction and newly altered buildings to incorporate specially treated glass on the lowest 75 feet in an attempt to reduce the number of bird strikes. As more and more buildings incorporate glass, the number of bird crashes has grown. According to a 2014 study, up to 599 million birds die every year when they hit buildings. Most of the species at risk are migratory — and they crash because they cannot see glass. As they cruise toward reflections of trees, resting places or even themselves, birds court disaster. (Steady lights attract and confuse them at night, too.) One notoriously bird-unfriendly building, New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, reduced bird deaths 90 percent when it incorporated glass with patterns during a 2015 renovation, according to the Audubon Society. A statewide bill to establish a building council to promote similar guidelines was recently vetoed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D). New York isn’t the first city to adopt bird-friendly building rules: San Francisco has had similar standards since 2011, and the American Bird Conservancy says bird-friendly design is becoming recognized as part of sustainable design. Even if you don’t live in a skyscraper, you can help protect birds from your windows. According to the American Bird Conservancy, 46 percent of bird crashes per year happen at homes, even ones with small amounts of glass. To help, you can apply tempera paint to your windows, apply patterns of opaque tape or special translucent bird-smart tape, hang external screens or opt for vertical blinds indoors. Decals can help, too, with a caveat: You need a lot to deter birds. They should be spaced no more than two to four inches apart. Want information on bird-friendly building? Visit Collisions.abcbirds.org.


Trump’s proposal for a Space Force was widely mocked. But could it be a stroke of stable genius that makes America safe again?

to win that conflict,” Manor explains. “To leave no doubt in an adversary’s or potential adversary’s mind that we will triumph.” The greatest deterrence to a space war may be space junk. When China shot down its weather satellite in 2007, the explosion created 3,400 pieces of debris that will remain in orbit for decades. At the time, that single event increased the number of pieces of space junk by about 30 percent, according to NASA. The problem is so serious that NASA publishes “Orbital Debris Quarterly News” to report on the latest accidental collisions and disintegrations. The Air Force tracks about 25,000 objects orbiting the Earth, and only about 2,100 are operational satellites. The rest are bits and pieces down to the size of a softball. By some estimates, as many as 500,000 smaller scraps are also hurtling around the Earth up to 17,500 mph. At that speed even a paint chip can do damage. A shooting war in space would clutter the zone with bits of satellites, making further operations difficult or impossible. Everyone loses. That factors into training for the satellite operators as they practice how to assist fighters on the ground while fending off an attack in space — possibly by handing off the ground mission to another satellite and maneuvering out of the way of a missile. “I’m trying to provide those effects [to ground fighters], but I’m also trying to save the satellite and sometimes save the domain,” Todd says. “Because if you create a debris field, that just complicates the scenario for everybody trying to use the domain.” I left Peterson and headed to Schriever Air Force Base outside Colorado Springs. A sign at the entrance of the headquarters of the 50th Space Wing read, “Master of Space.” Now that such a bold claim is being challenged by rival space powers, the airmen and officers I met went about their jobs with a kind of heightened sense of purpose. In a secure room off what looks like a regular office corridor, about 15 members of the 4th Space Operations Squadron were sitting at terminals controlling about two dozen satellites orbiting roughly 22,000 miles away. Those satellites facilitate 70 percent of all military satellite communications around the globe. In the past, the squadron’s job was like that of a fancy telephone switchboard operator. Now there’s more to it. Airman 1st Class Brice Brewington, 20,


Inside a California utility: Mandatory blackouts amid wildfire threats and bankruptcy

according to the Columbia study, suggesting that investors aren’t too worried — yet. But experts warn that climate change will impose sooner, greater and more widespread costs in the future — and not just in California. A paper by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said that investors are often “under-estimating the likely frequency and severity of extreme weather events” because they’re basing assessments on historical data. Newsom wants PG&E to harden its infrastructure in the next five to ten years. But the models say that will be difficult. The state’s sobering climate change assessment predicts a 77 percent increase by 2100 of areas burned by wildfires. And Cal-Adapt, a state-funded project led by the University of California at Berkeley, charts a variety of grim scenarios. The costs are daunting. There are 2.4 million utility poles in PG&E’s jurisdiction with an average age of 39 years. The wires are vulnerable to falling trees that have been killed or weakened by bark beetles or drought. To keep dry vegetation cut back away from potential sparks, the utility had already jacked up spending from $100 million in 2014 to $500 million three years later. In addition, seven of PG&E’s roughly 100 substations are located in what in the past have been considered 100-year flood zones, but where big floods are expected to occur more frequently. Each substation would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to relocate. Climate change has also stepped up the frequency of extreme heat waves. In the central valley, extreme heat waves in the past took place on average once every three or four years. Now they happen about four times a year, a company official said. And they’ll grow more frequent by 2050, when each will be as severe as one that took place in July 2006 and knocked out nearly 2,000 transformers, according to the company. In building new infrastructure, PG&E weighs six climate-related dangers: wildfire, extreme heat, inland coastal flooding, drought, severe storms and sinking land, or subsidence. Sinking land already poses special problems in the state’s agricultural central valley and for PG&E’s large network of underground natural gas pipelines. For PG&E to succeed in financial restructuring, it must rely on the ability of financial wizards, meteorologists, policy experts and state politicians to peer into the future and accurately quantify the changing climate. The state created a $21 billion emergency fund, half provided by three big


John Robbins, pioneer of a meningitis vaccine, dies at 86

In the early years of his career, as a pediatrician in the 1960s, John B. Robbins witnessed the ravages of meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord that in many patients was fatal. Even with antibiotic treatment, those who survived often suffered brain damage resulting in intellectual disability, deafness or epilepsy. It was a scourge, striking as many as 20,000 children per year in the United States and hundreds of thousands more around the world, yet it never attracted the attention accorded to the polio virus — “probably because we didn’t have a president who had recovered from it like we had with polio,” Dr. Robbins once told ABC News, referring to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Determined to find ways of protecting children from meningitis and other dangerous diseases, Dr. Robbins decided to become a research scientist, ultimately spending much of his career at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. His most celebrated accomplishment was his role in the creation of a vaccine effective even in infants for the form of meningitis caused by the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib — a medical advance that has been credited with saving as many as 7 million lives around the world. “The Hib vaccine has reduced the incidence of Hib meningitis by 98 percent in less than 10 years — a truly remarkable achievement in the history of medical science,” jury chairman Joseph Goldstein said in awarding the 1996 Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award to Dr. Robbins and three colleagues. “No other vaccine has ever shown such a rapid and dramatic effect in virtually eliminating a fatal disease,” Goldstein said. “The story of our four awardees constitutes a wonderful chapter in the history of medicine — comparable to the eradication of smallpox by Edward Jenner, polio by Salk and Sabin, and mumps and measles by Maurice Hilleman.” Dr. Robbins, who had continued his research at NIH until his retirement seven years ago, died Nov. 27 at his home in Manhattan. He was 86. The cause was complications from prostate cancer, said his son Rob Robbins. Dr. Robbins and Rachel Schneerson, a fellow NIH scientist, shared the Lasker Award with another team of researchers, Porter W. Anderson Jr. and David H. Smith, for research that began in the late 1960s. The Lasker Foundation described the two pairs as working on “parallel but separate tracks”


Bypass Ibiza’s crowds and parties for Majorca’s beauty and tranquility

On Ibiza, endless, crowded parties take place on land and sea More than 3 million partiers visit Ibiza every year, drawn by the raves that run from night to day, the sunsets that split the sky like pink lightning, and the celebs that hold court like Spanish royalty. The revelers don’t confine themselves to land — speed boats, yachts and catamarans host sunning Europeans and chilly bottles of Moet. You can join the floating party with an on-demand rental through Get My Boat, the new Uber of boats. Glammed-up celebs and wannabes aren’t the island’s only visitors, though — avid birdwatchers descend upon Parc Natural de Ses Salines in the southeast, peering at 210 species of birds flouncing through shimmering salt plains. History lovers will be enchanted by Dalt Vila, Ibiza’s fortified old town and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Enter the ancient maze of cobblestone pedestrian streets through the Portal de Ses Taules, then walk the perimeter of the town’s walls high above the sea, imagining you are a 16th-century Spanish sentry defending the island from Turkish invaders and marauding North African pirates. The island was once so attractive to plunderers, it was deemed the “pearl of the Mediterranean.” But Ibiza’s popularity has resulted in soaring prices and environmental degradation. If you’re craving more tranquility, an alternative — known as the Island of Calm — is only a ferry ride away. Location: Majorca has varied terrain and several Michelin-starred restaurants Majorca, known for its velvety beaches and citrus groves, is six times the size of Ibiza. Although it receives its fair share of tourists, they spread across the island; Majorca’s diverse terrain boasts mountains, ocean and limestone caves. It is also a gastronomic sanctuary, with more than its share of Michelin-starred restaurants. Among the highlights: historic seaside Palma with its towering, craggy cathedral and a timeworn fortress now boasting a buzzy modern-art museum, Es Baluard. The circular Castell Bellver, perched high above the ancient city, offers a stunning, 360-degree view of the city and its port, where sails flutter atop an aquamarine ocean. At night, weave through Palma’s serpentine cobblestone alleys, dotted with cocktail bars, chandelier-clad boutique hotels and secret gardens hidden behind giant cast-iron doors. Port d’Andratx is a luxurious town in southwest Majorca, where gleaming Spanish and British yachts wave to each other across crisp, blue water. The heavenly — or treacherous, depending on your outlook —


Who is Bruce Ohr, and why does Trump keep tweeting about him?

has asked that the 302s be declassified. Some have speculated that the FBI used the Ohr channel as a way to continue to get information from Steele even though the relationship had been officially terminated. But it is not clear what Ohr relayed to the FBI — and whether the FBI even used the information. Regarding Ohr, the Democratic rebuttal to the majority report said that it “overstates the significance of his interactions with Steele.” Finally, the Deripaska angle. Deripaska is an aluminum magnate close to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman now on trial for fraud. When Manafort joined the Trump campaign, he owed Deripaska nearly $20 million, according to legal complaints filed by Deripaska’s lawyers. Manafort offered to give Deripaska private briefings once he took the campaign role. The emails reviewed by York but not publicly released indicate Steele was concerned about Deripaska’s legal status — Deripaska at the time was seeking a visa to the United States — and regularly communicated with Ohr about the issue. “Steele said he was ‘circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting’ on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a ‘tool’ of the Kremlin,” York wrote. The communications suggest Deripaska may have been a possible source for Steele for material in the dossier on Trump. Marcy Wheeler, an independent national security writer, has noted that this means that Deripaska — who “virtually owned Donald Trump’s campaign manager during most of the time Steele was digging dirt on Trump” — was in a position to play both sides against each other. As yet, there is little evidence to support Trump’s contention that Ohr helped Steele find dirt on Trump. He appears to be only a messenger. At this point, it’s unclear what Ohr even told his friend at the FBI about Steele’s information and whether any of that reporting ended up influencing the Russia investigation. There is also, as yet, no evidence that senior Justice Department officials were even aware of Ohr’s sideline communications with Steele about the Russian probe. Trump’s mention of Ohr’s wife appears gratuitous. Her role in the matter, as yet, appears minimal. All of this may amount to a molehill, not a mountain, but the various connections are certainly intriguing. (About our rating scale) Send us facts to check by filling out Sign up for The Fact Checker The Fact Checker is a verified


Saudi Arabia sentences five to death for killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside Turkish consulate

The country’s top prosecutor said three more people were sentenced to jail terms totaling 24 years. Saud al-Qahtani, an aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the most senior official implicated in the plot to kill Khashoggi, was investigated but cleared of wrongdoing.This is a developing story. It will be updated.


Ethiopia’s prime minister wants to change the ruling coalition. Who’s getting left out?

in 2012. Since then the four parties that make up EPRDF haven’t been able to agree how to share power. The power struggle enabled protests to escalate in 2016 and culminated in Abiy Ahmed becoming prime minister in 2018. The fragmentation of the EPRDF was exacerbated under Abiy Ahmed’s leadership, leading to, among other things, the political assassination of Ethiopia’s military chief and the president of the Amhara Regional State on June 22. The power struggle also crystallized irreconcilable ideological positions within the leadership. Abiy’s reforms break from EPRDF’s foundations Abiy Ahmed came to power with a vision to transform the EPRDF as well as Ethiopia at large. His first target was the developmental state economic model, which had guided policy in Ethiopia since 2000. Under this model, the government plays an active role in the economy and invests in infrastructure, human capital and energy to fast-track a structural transformation of the economy from largely agrarian to increasingly industrial. Abiy undermined this development model by drawing attention to financial mismanagement in Ethiopia’s state-owned enterprises, notably the military industrial complex METEC. He then declared that Ethiopia’s model for development would be “capitalism.” The most controversial reform, however, was Abiy’s move away from the EPRDF’s nationalist narrative. The EPRDF had long depicted Ethiopia’s ethnic groups as victims of forced assimilationist policy — under a nation-building project that began in the 19th century and ended in 1995 with the introduction of the Ethiopia’s federal constitution, which granted the “nations, nationalities and peoples” the right to self-determination. Abiy formulated an alternative history that de-emphasized ethnic oppression and instead focused on ethnic harmony and national unity. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front leads the resistance against Abiy’s revolution The Tigray People’s Liberation Front wants to continue the centrally directed economic model and has made saving the federal constitutional arrangement its main rallying point. In August, it convened a conference for pro-federalism forces that resembled a first step toward making a “federalist coalition” as an alternative to Abiy’s new Prosperity Party. A peaceful divorce of EPRDF member parties could be derailed by the internal fragmentation with the factions. The leadership in Abiy’s own Oromo Democratic Party, for example, is split between those that embrace Abiy’s nationalist narrative and those that want to stick to the old ethno-nationalist discourse. Abiy’s critics claim that the dismantling of the EPRDF and establishment of the Prosperity Party did not follow appropriate


Carolyn Hax: Sure, all couples have their problems. But this issue is a red flag.

more comfortable talking to guys. My boyfriend doesn't like or understand this since he doesn't have any female friends except for his friends' girlfriends. Also, he's 30, I'm 21. He worries that I might meet some other punky artist like myself, closer to my age, and fall for him. But he really has nothing to worry about. I love him and I would never cheat. This past semester there was a guy in my photo class who I had a lot in common with and ended up talking to a lot. He just emailed me about how much he likes me and how he was too shy to ask me out. I feel really bad now. He's a really nice person, very attractive and fun to hang out with, but I have no romantic interest in him. I'm used to blowing off strangers, but here is a great person who if I were single I'd go for. What do I do? — Flattered but Unavailable Flattered but Unavailable: (And that all of us can answer in one sentence: Tell him he’s great but your feelings for him aren’t romantic. Unless they are?) Which means we’ve either taken a long walk through the daisies to answer an obvious question, or you won’t admit your real concern: that you’re in a rocky relationship with a jealous, possessive guy who at 26 picked out a 17-year-old, and you’d like to get out and feel fresh air in your lungs and discover yourself and maybe eventually date nice photo-class guy. If that’s not your real concern, then it should be. If you need to play up your boyfriend devotion and play down other male attention sooo thoroughly and irrelevantly to me — a completely neutral stranger — then I can only imagine how doggedly you’ve had to reassure your skeptical boyfriend. And that’s not something you bat away with “Don’t we all have problems?” This. Is. Bad. News. He doesn’t trust you, will never trust you, and it has nothing to do with your loving him enough (or not) or cheating on him (or swearing you won’t) or having male friends (or not) or getting whistled at on the street (or scaring the tourists). He’s looking for guarantees in a world that, sorry dude, doesn’t offer them, and he’s going to pressure you for them till someone breaks. Get out, now, while you can.


Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft faces another perilous test: Getting back to Earth

spacecraft that faced problems almost as soon as it was released by the Atlas V rocket and set to fly freely Friday. Boeing struggled with the Starliner’s parachute system previously when one of its three main parachutes failed to deploy. “Make no mistake, we still have something to prove here on entry tomorrow,” Chilton said. The capsule will hit speeds as high as 25 times the speed of sound as it plummets through the atmosphere, and its heat shield will have to withstand 3,000-degree temperatures that will ignite a fireball around the capsule. Then a series of parachutes will have to deploy, slowing the spacecraft before air bags soften its landing at the White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. A parachute failure during an abort engine test was attributed to a pin not being properly secured that was supposed to attach the larger main chute to a smaller drag chute. The pin was beneath a protective sheath and out of sight, so Boeing officials inspecting the chutes before the test didn’t know it was not secure. Chilton said Saturday he had high confidence that the rigging system on the spacecraft launched Friday was secure. And Steve Stitch, deputy director of NASA’s commercial crew program, said NASA inspectors independently verified the system. They “could clearly see the parachutes were rigged correctly, and we don’t have any concerns about that.” Chilton said Boeing was still investigating what went wrong Friday when the Starliner’s engines failed to fire as expected after what appeared to be a flawless on-time launch aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Officials have attributed the engines’ firing failure to a miscalibrated timing system that made the spacecraft think it was at a different point in the mission than it really was. Because of communications problems, controllers on the ground could not get commands to the spacecraft in time to correct the error, and NASA and Boeing decided that the spacecraft should not attempt to dock with the space station as planned. While the spacecraft was in the wrong orbit, a series of thrusters fired to try to correct the flight path. That burned fuel and stressed the system, resulting in some error messages from sensors that monitor the health of the thrusters. Since then the team has been checking on the propulsion systems, “and so far they’re all working,” Chilton said. “We think we


NASA spacecraft circling the sun stumbled upon a trail of shooting stars

SAN FRANCISCO — Once there was an asteroid that flew too close to the sun. It was small and dark and rocky, too fragile to withstand such scorching conditions. The asteroid cracked, releasing a burst of dust and debris. Though it continued traveling along its orbit, it dropped millions of fragments in its wake. Humans named the asteroid Phaethon, for the child of the Greek sun god who couldn’t handle his father’s chariot and nearly destroyed the world. Each December, when our planet plunges through Phaethon’s wake, we can see bits of the broken asteroid burn up in our atmosphere. Researchers call the light flashes the Geminid meteor shower. Children call them shooting stars. Scientists have struggled for years to photograph Phaethon’s debris trail — until a NASA spacecraft serendipitously stumbled upon it. Parker Solar Probe While retreating from a close approach to the sun in November 2018, the probe captured something curious with its wide-field imager. Just to the left of the Milky Way, there was a faint line of dust. Karl Battams, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, compared the position of the dust trail to Phaethon’s known orbit. It was a perfect match. “We’re very confident that we’re seeing the Geminid meteor shower,” Battams said last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The segment of the trail captured by Parker Solar Probe is 60,000 miles across and 12 million miles long, though the dust in fact suffuses the entire length of Phaethon’s 524-day orbit. Astronomers estimate it contains a billion kilograms of material. Phaethon’s messy habits make it unusual among asteroids. Some researchers even refer to it as a “rock comet,” though it spews dust instead of gas. By studying this debris trail, scientists hope to learn more about what caused Phaethon to splinter several thousand years ago. The asteroid’s history may one day be deeply relevant to Earth’s future; NASA has classified the Mount Kilimanjaro-size rock as a potentially hazardous Near-Earth Object (but no collisions are predicted for at least 400 years). Astronomers have tried several times to capture Phaethon’s trail with the Hubble Space Telescope. But because it’s so close to the sun, its light is swamped by our star’s glow, and they’d never been successful until Solar Probe went soaring past. “We’ve seen something in the data that we’ve never seen before, and in fact no one has


How can we feed our kids better? Start by taking a look in the mirror.

familiar cartoon characters to get kids’ attention, placing kids’ products at their eye level in the supermarket, and making sure the taste is bland and sweet, marketers — who have all seen that study that says kids have input into 95 percent of food decisions — win kids over. Permission marketing leverages confusion and uncertainty about what we should actually be eating to make parents feel better about buying the stuff their better judgment might otherwise nix. The tactics include earth-tone packaging and words like “natural,” the prominent featuring of fruits and vegetables on products that are really candy or salty snacks, and health claims for vitamin or fiber content. “ ‘Made with whole grain’ makes you feel better,” Siegel says. “No one’s putting the sticker on scissors, ‘Okay to run with.’ ” Reason 3: The treat loophole. The turning of treats into mainstays of kids’ diets has played out as the idea “gets endlessly reinforced in all the contexts where pleasing kids’ palates is seen as essential to the bottom line: restaurant kid menus, processed food products, school meal menus, summer camps, etc.” So how do we fix all this? At the top of Siegel’s list is severe restrictions on marketing to kids, but she sees that as a long shot in today’s political environment. Parents, though, aren’t powerless. If you’re trying to feed kids better, Siegel has several suggestions. First, “dispense with the idea that kids should eat something different.” Put one meal on the table for everyone, and don’t be a short-order cook. It also helps if you have the time and resources to cook more. Siegel is acutely sensitive to the constraints parents face, but she says cooking is one of the best tools you have to improve family meals. And those meals may play out better if kids don’t have unfettered access to snacks. “Hunger is the best sauce,” she says, and you lose that motivation to try something new if kids come to the table full of goldfish. She emphasizes, though, that the big problems are systemic. If you want to try your hand at advocacy in the hopes of changing what your kids encounter in schools or at sporting events or in grocery stores, her first piece of advice is not to fly solo. “One parent is a fruitcake,” she says. “Three are troublemakers.” Get 50, though, and you’ve got a powerful organization.


America weaponized the global financial system. Now other countries are fighting back.

sanctions or risk substantial penalties. Now, these tools are leading to backlash and reaction. As we discuss in a new article in Foreign Affairs, other countries are beginning to think about how they can best respond: by threatening retaliation, by creating their own networks, or by insulating themselves from U.S. pressure. Here’s what is going on. Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not threatening retaliation, other German politicians are less sanguine. Key lawmakers responded fiercely to U.S. legislation that would impose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that transports gas from Russia to Europe. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said, “We are opposed in principle to interventions from abroad, and to extraterritorial sanctions.” German members of parliament are claiming the sanctions are a “hostile act” and are calling for “countermeasures.” These calls feed into a wider European debate. A widely read report published this year by the European Council on Foreign Relations described U.S. use of financial networks as a “critical challenge” for Europe and suggested Europe should consider developing tools that could be used to retaliate or to deter the United States from using these sanctions in the future. Rivals such as China are also worried and angry. This week, a provisional first stage trade deal was reached between the United States and China. However, as Julian Gewirtz reported in Politico, Chinese policy intellectuals don’t see any prospect of happy relations between the United States and China. Instead, they see a “financial war” emerging. Gewirtz describes how the liberal economist and former finance minister Lou Jiwei foretells the “next step in the frictions between China and the United States is a financial war. … The U.S. has been hijacked by nationalism and populism, so will do everything in its power to use bullying measures [and] long-arm jurisdiction.” Other Chinese policy experts are making similarly dire prophecies. The problem, as they see it, is that U.S. efforts to weaponize the global financial system are undermining Chinese security. Countries that are unhappy with U.S. domination have three major options. First, they can try to develop their own networks. As Gewirtz notes, there is a lot of discussion in China about creating alternatives to SWIFT and dollar clearing, although it is not clear whether China can do this. Russia, too, is trying to build up an alternative international payment system and has gotten interest from other countries, including NATO member Turkey.


A major funder of the anti-vaccine movement has made millions selling natural health products

later convicted of manslaughter for improperly mixing the vaccine with a muscle relaxant instead of water. The National Vaccine Information Center was founded in 1982 by Barbara Loe Fisher, who has said that her son was injured by a vaccine. The group claimed credit this year for helping to defeat legislation in a dozen states that would have made it harder for parents to opt out of vaccinating their children. At the beginning of last year’s flu season, Fisher and Mercola appeared in a YouTube video urging people to be skeptical about flu shots. Mercola claimed that vaccines have been associated with “deaths and permanent neurological complications,” and he said vitamin D supplements were among “far more effective, less expensive and less risky alternatives.” Such claims are highly misleading, government health officials say. For example, they say, while on very rare occasions people have developed the neurological disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome after receiving the flu shot, research suggests the disorder is more strongly associated with contracting the flu itself than with receiving the vaccine. In addition, while some studies have suggested that vitamin D might help prevent the flu, others have found no such benefit, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that the best way to protect against the infection is vaccination. Mercola referred The Post to materials he said showed evidence that vaccines can be harmful, including some studies on vaccines no longer in use. Experts and government health officials say medical evidence overwhelmingly supports the safety and efficacy of vaccines. “He mixes the boring, sensible health advice with pseudoscientific advice in such a way that it’s hard for someone without a medical background to figure out which is which,” said David Gorski, an oncologist and surgeon at Wayne State University who is widely regarded as a leading expert on the anti-vaccine movement. Fisher said in an interview that Mercola has asked for nothing in exchange for his donations and that the National Vaccine Information Center does not sell or advertise Mercola’s products on its site. “I do not take funding for a quid pro quo,” she said. “When [Mercola] called me, he said, ‘I admire your work. I’d like to help you.’ ” The center’s homepage, which the group says was visited more than 1.2 million times last year, displays Mercola.com’s logo. An affiliated website run by Fisher’s group refers numerous times to Mercola.com as


7 unanswered questions a year after Jamal Khashoggi’s killing

power. Though efforts to silence critics of the Saudi kingdom stretch back decades, they appear to have intensified under Mohammed. In recent years, dissidents had found themselves targeted all over the world, with Saudi agents working covertly or co-opting the local government. In a number of cases, those targeted disappeared from the public eye. The Saudi government has insisted Khashoggi’s killing was a tragic mistake and has pledged to restructure its intelligence services, but the kingdom has not been clear about whether it will end efforts to target and intimidate critics who have fled to other countries. Khashoggi’s children — two sons and two daughters — have generally kept a low profile in the year since the killing and have refrained from openly criticizing the kingdom. Salah, the oldest son, even met with the crown prince and King Salman shortly after his father’s murder. He later told CNN the king had assured him “everybody involved will be brought to justice” for the killing and that he had faith it would happen. The Post reported in April that Khashoggi’s children have received million-dollar houses in the kingdom and monthly five-figure payments as compensation for the killing of their father and that they may receive much larger payouts when the trial is completed. But some friends of Khashoggi have suggested Salah, the only child who lives in the country, may have been banned from leaving Saudi Arabia. Since January, 11 officials have been on trial in Saudi Arabia for their alleged role in the killing of Khashoggi. However, the trial takes place behind closed doors. Saudi Arabia has not named the defendants, and the trial is closed to the media, though a few diplomats have been allowed to attend. It is unclear what the status of the trial is or even how many trial sessions have taken place. U.N. Special Rapporteur Callamard found herself stonewalled by Saudi officials. Though she said she never found a “smoking gun” linking the crown prince to the killing, she has called for a freeze on the prince’s assets and that sanctions be imposed against him until he is either cleared or definitively implicated. Saudi Arabia has resisted any effort to launch an international probe. Khashoggi’s killing led to bipartisan calls for action from the U.S. Senate, with even longtime supporters of the kingdom such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) suggesting sanctions be imposed against Saudi


Wild turkey menace: Angry birds are pecking cars, deflating kiddie pools and harassing the elderly

swiftly as 25 mph and fly as fast as 55 mph. They are omnivores, eating primarily plants unless, during periods of skeletal and feather growth, they require more insect protein. They have talons and spurs but seem daunted by hoses and open umbrellas. (The Humane Society gives this advice on what to do in encounters.) So why so many angry birds? Marcus Lashley, assistant professor in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida, says some of what set the stage for the population explosion is counterintuitive. “When I talk to people, most don’t think of hunters being the drivers of conservation,” he said. “There’s an excise tax on hunting goods — guns and ammunition — and the money goes back into conservation at state agencies. And we wouldn’t have certain species if it weren’t for established bag limits.” Lashley points to two pieces of historic legislation that established the framework for turkey population rebound: The Lacey Act of 1900 that banned trafficking in illegal wildlife, and the Pittman-Robertson Act in 1937 which added an excise tax for guns and ammunition that provides federal aid to states for management and restoration of wildlife. More than $7 billion has been collected from manufacturers since enactment and made available to states. “The extinction of the passenger pigeon — it was a huge food source and the feathers were sought after — woke everybody up that we could drive a species to extinction,” Lashley said, listing bag limits, the funding for conservation and restocking efforts as the three factors most responsible for the turkey’s resurgence. Wildlife biologist Mark Hatfield, who works for the National Wild Turkey Federation, points to other factors that may have given rise to human-turkey beefs. “Urban and suburban settings are creating safe havens where hunting is not allowed,” he said. “We’re making good habitat in the suburbs, with nice open green spaces and lack of predators.” The males like golf courses, for instance, because they provide a glamorous backdrop to display and show off to the hens. Hatfield says that urbanization and a shifting zeitgeist have led to a decline in hunting. Less than 4 percent of the American population has a hunting license. He says 49 states have a spring turkey hunting season and 41 have a fall season but that there aren’t as many people interested. And, as Lashley says, we have extirpated


Calls increase for Saudi Arabia to drop charges against U.S. physician

Saudi Arabia is facing a growing number of calls to lift a travel ban on a prominent Saudi American physician who has been in legal limbo since being jailed and allegedly tortured as part of a mass crackdown in the kingdom more than two years ago. Human Rights Watch this week urged Saudi authorities to drop what it characterized as politicized charges against Walid Fitaihi, a Saudi native who obtained U.S. citizenship while studying medicine at George Washington University and Harvard University more than a decade ago. The group also called for the kingdom to lift a travel ban imposed on eight members of Fitaihi’s family, all U.S. citizens as well. The State Department expressed concern about the case this week and vowed to work toward a resolution. The attention to Fitaihi’s case suggests Saudi Arabia will continue to face pressure from the United States, even after announcing death sentences for five Saudis in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year and prison sentences for three others. Fitaihi’s son has lobbied the Trump administration and members of Congress to intervene. Fitaihi comes from one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. He is known throughout the kingdom as the founder of a private hospital, a motivational speaker and a television host with millions of followers on social media. He discussed his Muslim faith in his speeches, but his message also focused on personal health and self-help. Fitaihi was among hundreds of business executives, government officials and royal family members arrested in 2017 and imprisoned at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. He eventually was transferred to a prison and held without charges for almost two years. His family has said he was tortured while behind bars. In late July, Fitaihi was brought to trial on charges that the courts did not specify but that Human Rights Watch said were rooted in accusations he sympathized with the Muslim Brotherhood, a political Islamist movement, and had publicly criticized Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. Fitaihi was released from detention and is free for the time being, but the travel ban prohibits him and his relatives from leaving the country. “For 776 days, Saudi Arabia has railroaded a US citizen and has confined him and his family to the country like hostages,” said Mohamed Soltan, the leader of the Freedom Initiative, which released a joint statement with Human Rights Watch on Fitaihi’s case this


We still don’t have answers on Khashoggi’s murder

The message to critics in the West seemed to be “buzz off.” “Saud al-Qahtani alone, a front in the face of the enemies of the homeland . . . [H]is return today made them return to their holes,” tweeted @altamimi14, celebrating the man who until Khashoggi’s death had directed the barrage of social media operations for the royal court. With this verdict, will Qahtani now return to Twitter, reviving his “#Blacklist” of enemies and mobilizing his “army of flies” online? Another Qahtani supporter, @a_albander, tweeted a picture of Qahtani back in his heyday, before the uproar over the killing, and called him a “knight and a symbol of the loyal homeland.” Maher Mutreb, the Saudi intelligence official who allegedly led the team that killed Khashoggi in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, wasn’t named in the prosecutor’s account, so it’s unclear whether he was among those sentenced to death. But the prosecutor’s overall finding seems to be that he and his team acted on their own, without orders from Qahtani or others, and that the operation wasn’t carefully planned. This strikes Saudis who know Mutreb as implausible. “Maher was a bright young intelligence officer who always followed orders from his immediate superiors,” one Saudi who knows him well said Monday. “It’s unfathomable that Maher would have acted on the spur of the moment to kill Jamal without getting proper orders to do so.” The Khashoggi case represented a breach of trust — not with the kingdom’s critics, but with its longtime supporters at the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department and Congress. Officials from all those branches of government have told me repeatedly over the past year that to rebuild a strong U.S.-Saudi relationship, the kingdom needed to demonstrate that it had turned a page — and that such a murder of a dissident U.S.-based journalist could never happen again. Monday’s action is likely to widen that trust gap rather than repair it. The CIA still believes that the crown prince bears ultimate responsibility for Khashoggi’s death. That’s why this case cuts so deep. A sign of the fractured U.S.-Saudi bond was the decision this fall by the State Department, backed by the CIA, to reject a proposal to train the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency, as their spy service is known. U.S. officials think such training would be helpful, and they credit the GIP as a good partner over the years.


Local Digest: Man dies in accident at Northwest D.C. construction site

11 a.m., and the man was pronounced dead at the scene, which was within the construction site at 3900 Wisconsin Ave. Builders are redeveloping the old Fannie Mae headquarters into a housing and shopping complex. Police are withholding the man’s name pending notification of his next of kin. — Rachel Weiner Authorities in the District said they’ve arrested a man in connection with the 2018 killing of a Virginia resident. Avadis Holtzclaw, 23, of Northwest Washington was arrested and charged Dec. 23 with second-degree murder in the death of Mohammed Kamara, 37, of Alexandria. D.C. police said Kamara was killed Feb. 27, 2018. Officers found him unconscious on Forrester Street SW. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The Office of the Medical Examiner found that the cause of death was blunt-force trauma, and his death was ruled a homicide, according to police. — Dana Hedgpeth VIRGINIA Virginia is set to get its first female director of its state parks service. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced Friday that he’d hired Melissa Baker to oversee 38 state parks and more than 270 employees. She will be the first woman to run the department in the park system’s 83-year history when she starts in January. Baker had worked as director of the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department and as chief of operations for Montana State Parks. She taught at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point and the University of Maine. — Associated Press THE REGION A man died after he crashed a vehicle following an approximately nine-mile police pursuit that started after a robbery in Maryland and ended in the District. The incident began on Monday just before midnight in the 9100 block of Livingston Road near Indian Head Highway in the Fort Washington area of Prince George’s County when police said they received a call for a report of a robbery. As officers responded, the suspect took off in a vehicle and drove into the District on Interstate 295, according to Prince George’s County police. D.C. police said the driver of the vehicle exited at the 11th Street SE ramp, where he lost control and crashed the vehicle into the north-side jersey barrier. The driver, identified as Danny Leon Washington, 36, of Northeast, was taken to a hospital and later died. Authorities said the incident remains under investigation. — Dana Hedgpeth and Justin Wm. Moyer


Saudi Arabia says five sentenced to death in killing of Jamal Khashoggi

had no advance knowledge of the plot. At a news conference in Riyadh on Monday, Shalaan al-Shalaan, a spokesman for the Saudi public prosecutor, declined to identify the five people who were sentenced to death. Three other people were sentenced to jail terms totaling 24 years. Shalaan said two senior officials — Saud al-Qahtani, a royal adviser, and Ahmed al-Assiri, a former deputy head of intelligence — were investigated and exonerated. Mohammed al-Otaibi, who served as consul general in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul when the killing occurred, was also cleared, the spokesman said. Salah Khashoggi, the eldest of Jamal’s four children, called the verdicts “just.” “We affirm our confidence in the Saudi judiciary on all its levels, in it being fair to us, and achieving justice,” he wrote on Twitter. But Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, also on Twitter, said the findings were “not acceptable.” The Post’s publisher, Fred Ryan, also criticized the outcome. “The complete lack of transparency and the Saudi government’s refusal to cooperate with independent investigators suggests that this was merely a sham trial,” Ryan said in a statement. “Those ultimately responsible, at the highest level of the Saudi government, continue to escape responsibility for the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi.” Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia, visited the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, to obtain documents that would allow him to marry Cengiz. Turkish and Saudi investigators say Khashoggi was killed soon after he arrived at the mission, as Cengiz waited outside, by a team of agents who had flown to Istanbul from Saudi Arabia. Shalaan said the killing resulted from a “snap decision” by the Saudi operatives. Turkish investigators have cast doubt on claims that it was spontaneous. They note that the Saudi team included an autopsy expert whose role included dismembering Khashoggi’s body. Khashoggi’s remains have not been found. It is unclear when the trial concluded. Shalaan said attendees included Khashoggi’s two sons and their lawyers, as well as representatives of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, Britain, China, Russia and France — and Turkey. The death sentences await confirmation by higher courts. After the killing, Saudi authorities said they were investigating the roles played by Qahtani and Assiri in organizing and dispatching the team of agents that confronted Khashoggi inside the consulate. The decision to investigate the two men — loyal and trusted aides


The Khashoggi verdict is exactly what impunity looks like. It must be denounced.

or was planned at the last minute by team leaders on site once they determined they could not kidnap Khashoggi alive. But the evidence clearly shows that his killing was no accident: dismemberment requires planning. The forensic doctor was recruited at least 24 hours before the crime, and that dismemberment was discussed before it actually occurred. It beggars belief to claim that these five men, now sentenced to death, decided on their own, once in Turkey, to kill a prominent journalist without seeking direction or informing their superiors in Riyadh. Indeed, the defendants themselves repeatedly stated that they were obeying orders. According to my sources, even the Saudi prosecutor had argued that the killing was premeditated. Nonetheless, the crown prince argues, against all the evidence, that this was either an accident or the actions of rogue players. It is no surprise that the judge decided to follow his lead. As detailed in my report, however, there is credible evidence, warranting further criminal investigation, of the involvement of top Saudi officials, including Qahtani and Mohammed bin Salman. The prosecutor publicly stated that Qahtani had demanded the abduction of Khashoggi on the grounds that he was a threat to national security. The consul general allowed his office to become a crime scene, knowing, at minimum, that kidnapping was intended. He also took all necessary precautions to ensure that there would be no eyewitnesses. The state then appears to have attempted to hide the murder, engaging in what amounted to a state-sponsored cleanup of the crime scene. None of these actions suggests a state committed to justice, to protecting the lives of its citizens, or ensuring that such murders or attempted renditions never occur again. Impunity for the killing of a journalist commonly reveals underlying political repression, corruption, abuse of power, propaganda and even international complicity. All are present here. This trial could not have been held in secret without the complicity of governments who attended and agreed to secrecy. Judging by their participation in several recent events hosted by the kingdom, it is clear that the government officials, chief executives and investors are hoping to move on, given the wealth and geopolitical prominence of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi verdict may offer them a fig leaf for their complicity. But there has been no justice. The government of Saudi Arabia should not be excused from holding a proper investigation and impartial trial. If


50 Cent gave his 7-year-old son a whole Toys R Us for Christmas

it, but he did,” reads on post on Sire’s Instagram, which is run by his mother, Amber Joy. “Thank you Daddy! Best Christmas Ever!” Aside from being an unbeatable Christmas present for Sire, the celebrity shopping spree gives the gift of publicity to the newly revived Toys R Us. Saddled with nearly $8 billion in debt and unable to keep up with online and big-box competitors, the company closed more than 800 stores and shuttered its doors in 2018 after 70 years of business, putting nearly 33,000 employees out of work. Now, a little more than a year later, Toys R Us has been reborn, just in time for the holidays. The comeback is starting small, with just the New Jersey store and one at the Galleria in Houston. But the new stores mark a stark departure from the labyrinthine behemoths Toys R Us was known for; the new stores are just 6,500 square feet, compared to the typical 40,000 square-foot ones of the company’s heyday. New stores are geared more toward experiences than overwhelming aisles, with spaces for events, toy demonstration and in-store play. The New Jersey store even has an in-store treehouse, complete with a doorbell and a spiral staircase. Its anchor brands — Lego, Nintendo, Nerf, Paw Patrol — are on full display, but the in-store selection is smaller than in the past. “We’re reinventing Toys R Us to make it fun and interactive for kids and parents,” Richard Barry, a former Toys R Us executive who is leading the new venture, told The Washington Post earlier this year. “This is a global brand that is absolutely beloved in the United States.” In October, Toys R Us announced it was teaming up with one of its fiercest rivals, Target, to jump-start its online business. Through the partnership, shoppers on Toys R Us’s recently relaunched website can click a link to make their purchases through Target, while taking advantage of other Target perks such as curbside pickup, two-day delivery or same-day delivery through Shipt. Target had rushed in to get a piece of Toys R Us’s business after its demise in 2018, (Toys R Us had annual sales of $11.5 billion when it filed for bankruptcy) adding 250,000 square feet to its toy sections and an amped-up toy selection and a partnership with Disney. The revamped Toys R Us is a joint venture between Tru Kids Brands —


Saudi Arabia’s Khashoggi verdict is a mockery of justice

SAUDI ARABIA has delivered a shameful travesty of justice in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Following a closed trial, authorities announced Monday that five people implicated in the Oct. 2, 2018, killing had been sentenced to death, and three more were given prison sentences. None were named. But two men who are known to have directed the operation, former deputy chief of intelligence Ahmed al-Assiri and Saud al-Qahtani, a top aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were exonerated. Most likely they were excused at the direction of the crown prince, who, according to the CIA, is the real author of the crime. The result is an insult to Khashoggi’s family and to all those, including a bipartisan congressional majority, who have demanded genuine accountability in the case. International acceptance of the result would not only be morally wrong but dangerous, too: It would send the reckless Saudi ruler the message that his murderous adventurism will be tolerated. Beginning in 2017, Khashoggi lived in the United States and contributed columns to The Post criticizing the brutal domestic repression carried out by Mohammed bin Salman, who has targeted activists, writers and intellectuals advocating peaceful reform, as well as conducted the disastrous war in Yemen. After the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul reported that Khashoggi was seeking papers he needed to marry, Mohammed bin Salman’s deputies dispatched a 15-member hit team to meet him, including a forensic doctor who arrived with a bone saw. A spokesman for the Saudi public prosecutor said Monday “there was no prior intention to kill” Khashoggi and the murder was “a snap decision.” That’s a documented lie: An investigation by a U.N. envoy, Agnes Callamard, heard audiotapes in which the doctor and the head of the hit team discussed Khashoggi’s dismemberment before he entered the consulate. “According to my sources, the prosecutor had argued that the killing of Mr. Khashoggi had been premeditated. The Crown Prince had argued that this was an accident against the evidence,” Ms. Callamard tweeted Monday. “Guess who the Judge followed?” It’s unlikely Mohammed bin Salman would have so brazenly obstructed justice if not for the support of President Trump. Incredibly, the White House issued a statement Monday calling the verdict “an important step in holding those responsible for this terrible crime accountable.” Republicans in Congress who vowed to insist on consequences for the murder quietly folded this month, stripping a sanctions provision


Collaboration between the public, private and academic sectors makes the weather enterprise stronger

Conrad Lautenbacher, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the time, asked the National Academy of Science for guidance to create proper “swim lanes” for cooperative collaboration between the Weather Service, commercial providers and academic research institutions. This led to the Fair Weather Report: Effective Partnerships in Weather and Climate Services, which advocated removing the delineation of what the government and industry sectors were doing in favor of a more flexible delineation of what the government and the weather industry should and could do, and facilitated growth of the industry. This created and strengthened the nation’s weather enterprise. Because of this policy, endorsed by the Weather Service and the American Meteorological Society, and accompanied by great advances in technology and innovation, the commercial weather sector has contributed much in terms of forecasting advances — which had provided the American public with the very best weather forecasting services in the world. Congress took note of the Fair Weather Report, and since its publication, taxpayer funds are being better spent on resources that are making a significant difference in public safety, such as putting more resources behind lifesaving severe weather warnings. Commercial weather-industry innovations have extended the reach of the Weather Service and ensured faster delivery of lifesaving warnings to the public through mobile apps and other digital devices. In AccuWeather’s case, innovations have led to more than 150 exclusive patents, such as the AccuWeather RealFeel Temperature, AccuWeather MinuteCast and even patents that we license free to the Weather Service in the interest of public safety. Andrew Blum in his book, “The Weather Machine,” discusses how the cooperation between government, commercial and the academic research communities — our weather enterprise — is the envy of the world. It should be celebrated as the epitome of a public-private partnership that costs the American taxpayer nothing yet yields huge benefits, including tens of thousands of lives saved and hundreds of billions of dollars in reduced losses over the past few decades. AccuWeather and its 500 employees are extremely proud of the unique weather forecasts and warnings we issue every day to help people and their families stay safe and plan better and for businesses to make better decisions. We are also very proud of our cooperative relationship with the Weather Service, which is stronger than ever. Every day, AccuWeather works with the Weather Service to help build a resilient weather-ready nation.


The mysterious assassination of an Afghan analyst with close ties to the Taliban

Arghandiwal, a former economy minister who was a classmate of Mozhdah at Kabul University and called him a “knowledgeable and sincere” person. “Unfortunately, for many Afghans who have suffered greatly under the Taliban, to hear someone defend them may be intolerable.” A number of political observers said they believed that Mozhdah had been targeted for his outspoken views as part of a campaign by powerful pro-government groups to stifle dissent, and they criticized Ghani’s government for failing to protect him and others. Several major Afghan news outlets reported that Mozhdah had been arrested at least once. “Everyone has to be cautious now,” said Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban ambassador who is a member of the government’s High Peace Council. “There are certain centers of power that cannot tolerate open expression.” Mozhdah, he said, was “outspoken but not an extremist. He criticized the government and the Taliban, too. His death has affected a lot of people.” Mozhdah was never a member of the Taliban religious militia, but he was a strict Sunni Muslim who lived an austere family life in Kabul. His two children graduated from the prestigious American University of Afghanistan. At the family’s home this week, his son Ahmad Jahid, 28, was downcast but spoke movingly of his father, saying he loved learning and often spoke about wanting peace to come. “He was always bringing people home, and he was never afraid. We cannot think of anyone who would want to kill him,” Jahid said. “He loved his country, and he had a lot of dreams.” One of the family’s cherished possessions is a slim volume of poems Mozhdah wrote years ago, when he was a member of the anti-Soviet mujahideen. The cover is a painting of militiamen shooting at tanks. The poems express a mix of religious conviction and wartime bravado. “We are not afraid to be imprisoned . . . I am not afraid to sacrifice my life,” reads one in Afghan Dari. “God has put us on this path . . . If we hold the torch of the Koran in our hands, we need never be afraid to resist.” pamela.constable@washpost.com Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified a man who said he had been attacked and fled Afghanistan. His name is Nazar Mohammed Mutmaen, not Abdul Shukoor Mutmaen, and he was a provincial official under the Taliban, not a former Olympic committee head.