Victims of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts were encouraged to come forward. Hundreds responded.

Scouts on Wednesday that she had found “no evidence of a coverup” during her analysis. The Boy Scouts also have a helpline for members to report abuse. In 2010, Boy Scouts of America was forced to pay $18.5 million in punitive damages in a case brought by a man who said he was assaulted by an assistant troop leader in the 1980s, when he was about 12. That lawsuit led to the partial disclosure of the files. In 2012, the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the full release of files after the lawyers for accusers and media organizations fought for access to the documents. Also in 2012, the Los Angeles Times published a multipart investigation into the perversion files, obtaining documents that spanned from 1947 to 2005. They published a database containing information of 5,000 men and some women who were ousted from the organization because of suspected abuse during this time. Several of the cases collected by Kosnoff in recent months did not appear in any of the files. He described the new allegations he had discovered as “rich in detail” and said that some clients broke down when they recounted their stories to his team. As part of the vetting process, they asked alleged victims questions such as their age at the time of the assault, their troop number and location, and details about what had happened to them. While Kosnoff said the claims have not yet been verified with the Boy Scouts or in discovery, he was requiring accusers who wished to retain his services to sign a document saying they were prepared to give a sworn statement to law enforcement — as it would be a crime to do so falsely. But he was not surprised that so many had kept their stories secret for so long. “It’s humiliating, kids don’t tell, they carry the secret into adulthood, their coping strategy is not to tell anyone,” Kosnoff said. “Many of these men have indicated that they have suffered and struggled their entire lives with this burden.” Read more: Parents reported their 5-year-old son missing. Now they’re charged with murder. Police came to a house to serve a citation — and found guns, ammo and kids in cage-like cribs Opinion: The Boy Scouts are rebranding. But they’re still excluding a big group. Scouts’ recruitment war raises questions about what it means to be a girl or a boy


‘We never target innocents’: U.S. envoy responds to report that U.S. and Afghan forces killed more civilians than Taliban

A day after the United Nations reported that Afghan forces and their U.S. allies had killed more civilians in Afghanistan than the Taliban and the Islamic State had in the first quarter of 2019, a U.S. envoy to the country said Washington was “distressed” by the news. “We deeply regret any loss of innocent life during military operations. We never target innocents,” U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad wrote in tweets on Thursday morning. “War is treacherous & unintended consequences are devastating.” Khalilzad, appointed by President Trump to help restart Afghan peace talks, suggested the civilian deaths underscored the need for a peace agreement with the Taliban. “I challenge Talibs to join other Afghans and work to make this the year of peace,” he wrote, referring to supporters of the Islamist political movement and insurgency. In its report, the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan found that Afghan and international forces had caused 305 deaths and 303 injuries among civilians, compared with 227 deaths and 736 injuries at the hands of groups such as the Taliban and the Islamic State. UNAMA has been documenting civilian casualties in Afghanistan since 2009. According to the U.N. report. pro-government forces were responsible for 53 percent of civilian deaths in the first quarter, though insurgent groups were responsible for 54 percent of all civilian casualties, a figure that includes injuries and deaths. Overall, civilian casualties decreased in this period, the report found, dropping 23 percent year on year to mark the lowest first-quarter number since 2013. The report noted the decline was “driven” by a lower number of suicide bombings, but it was unclear whether the harsh winter or planned peace talks in Doha, Qatar, played any role. But the report also noted the rising toll from airstrikes and search operations by pro-government forces. Women and children made up half of the civilian casualties from aerial operations, it stated. Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, said all sides need to take “urgent steps” to prevent harm to civilians. “Pro-government Forces are called upon to take immediate measures to mitigate the rising death toll and suffering caused by airstrikes and search operations,” Yamamoto said in a statement released Wednesday. In his messages on Twitter, Khalilzad said the United States was “distressed by reports of civilian casualties, each one an unnecessary victim of a war that has gone on too long.” A veteran diplomat who was


Russia says its sea-based nuclear power plant is safe. Critics call it a ‘Floating Chernobyl.’

has written reports about what it calls Rosatom's checkered past and criticized the company's plans to use its latest venture to drill for fossil fuels. Rosatom, a conglomeration of nuclear-related industries under the Russian government, produces nearly 20 percent of Russia's electricity, according to its website. Among its activities, the company also mines uranium. But Greenpeace says Rosatom's latest venture, the floating nuclear barge, is dicey. For land-based nuclear power plants, “there are thousands and thousand of measures that have been taken in order to prevent things from going really wrong,” Haverkamp told The Washington Post. “If you look at the possibilities of a barge … the possibilities are a lot more limited. Most of the lessons of the land-based reactors cannot be adapted to this small space. You're limited to what you can do if things go wrong.” But Rosatom insists that the nuclear barge and the concept are safe and “meet all requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency and do not pose any threat to the environment.” And there are, of course, dozens of nuclear-powered vessels that spend almost their entire life at sea. According to the World Nuclear Association, about 140 ships — mostly submarines, but also icebreakers and aircraft carriers — prowl the world's oceans. The first nuclear-powered submarine was launched in 1955. That could be a point for either side: Some nuclear-powered submarines have been in service for years. But accidents involving nuclear-powered submarines have occurred. In one case, an explosion killed 10 and injured 49 in 1985 on Russia's Pacific Coast, according to the Maritime Executive: “Two thousand people were involved in the ensuing cleanup, 290 of which were exposed to high levels of radiation. It was later discovered that the nuclear fuel had rocketed out of the Echo II class submarine and onto neighboring vessels, further onto the shore and into the water. Portions of the seabed are still contaminated even now.” The post originally gave an incorrect location for the final destination of Akademik Lomonosov. This post has been updated. Read more: British government to anyone near site of nerve agent attack: Keep calm and wash your stuff Hawaii brings back Cold War-era nuclear warning sirens amid fears of North Korea strike Search for a missing submarine is stymied by new challenges: 20-foot waves and 50 mph winds Nuclear sub sailors fired after ‘absolutely disgraceful’ parties with a prostitute and cocaine


When two marathoners beef, they’re in it for the long run

In one corner stands Mo Farah, only the second runner in Olympic history to win consecutive gold medals in both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters. And in the other corner is Haile Gebrselassie, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 10,000 meters and a former holder of the world-record time in the marathon. The two distance-running titans are feuding over a number of things that may or may not have happened at a hotel owned by Gebrselassie in Addis Ababa. Farah got things started Wednesday near the end of a news conference ahead of Sunday’s London Marathon by saying, “I am disappointed with Haile.” He then told Rob Harris of the Associated Press that, during a three-month stay at the YaYa Africa Athletics Village, his room had been robbed in March of two phones, a Tag Heuer watch (gifted to him by his wife) and approximately $2,900 in cash, all stolen from a locked case. He then accused a hotel employee of engineering the theft. “Someone in reception had given my key to someone and someone has gone in and opened my room and opened my suitcase,” Farah said. “It was locked on a code. And someone taken my two phones, taken my money, taken my watch that my wife got me that you can’t buy. “The hotel never took responsibility or . . . [did] anything to get my stuff back. I asked them, they got the police involved. They said they arrested some five guys, they were released.” In a statement to the BBC, Gebrselassie said he had received a text message from Farah before the news conference, which he described as an attempt to “blackmail” him, and said he was considering legal action for defamation. He added that Farah had declined to let the hotel keep his valuables in a safe box, relieving it of its responsibility; that an investigation resulted in no criminal charges; and that Farah left without paying his $2,400 hotel bill even though he had been given a 50 percent discount. “I told the police, it is very clear, this is an international issue — we have to find out where his property is,” Gebrselassie told the Guardian. “Five people were there at the time. All of them were took by the police. The police arrested them for three weeks. Would that happen in England? No way. “I ended up not going back


A bloodsucking ‘kissing bug’ was found in Delaware. Beware its poop.

It’s like “Sleeping Beauty” with a dose of nightmare fuel: A flat-bodied, six-legged insect moves toward you as you slumber, bound for the blood that surges around your eyes and lips. It crawls on your face. And the poop it leaves behind can be deadly. The triatomine bug, also known as the notorious kissing bug, has been an obscure threat in the United States, with the highest density in Latin America and some Western states. But the insect has found new prominence in Delaware, where health officials recently confirmed their first run-in with a kissing bug, making its known distribution across 28 states, according to researchers at Texas A&M University. The bugs have previously carved out territory from California to the Carolinas. The insects may have been in Delaware already, but they are elusive and more difficult to trap, compared with mosquitoes and ticks, said Sarah Hamer, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Texas A&M. And that means it’s difficult to determine whether there is an expansion. There is not a lot of evidence that would show a northward invasion, but there is an uptick in awareness, she told The Washington Post. A kissing bug in Delaware bit and sucked the blood from a girl’s face in July 2018, a state health official wrote. Subsequent research confirmed the species, but scientists found no traces of Chagas disease, which is carried by kissing bugs. Immediate Chagas disease infection can cause fever, rash, loss of appetite, diarrhea and vomiting, researchers have said, but the danger comes from potential chronic infection targeting the heart and gastrointestinal tract. About 300,000 U.S. residents have Chagas disease, the CDC said, and they mostly contracted the disease in Latin America. Approximately 30 percent of people who contract Chagas disease are at risk of heart failure and cardiac arrest, which is a growing concern for the American Heart Association. The disease is an “important cause of heart failure, stroke, arrhythmia, and sudden death,” according to a 2018 statement commissioned by the group. The prevalence is growing outside endemic areas throughout Latin America, said the statement, which was commissioned alongside the Inter-American Society of Cardiology. About 8 million people in Mexico and Central and South America are living with Chagas disease, the CDC said. Health officials have cautioned that Chagas disease is difficult to contract from kissing bugs despite their vectoring ability, and it comes down to their feces.


The co-founder of Blue Apron has his next big idea, and it involves heirloom chicken

there in the retail space with higher quality ingredients. It can represent us well in a digital and physical space. And [co-founder] David McInerney is a fellow Culinary Institute of America alum with a great respect for food.” The new venture joins Crowd Cow and ButcherBox among a growing number of direct-to-consumer online resources for meat, including butcher shop Porter Road and premium e-retailers Lone Mountain Wagyu and Flannery Beef. Many of these companies talk about supply-chain transparency, sustainability and improving animal welfare, buzzwords that have resonated with customers in recent years. But what Cooks Venture is poised to do is disruptive and potentially revolutionary in farming. On 800 acres on three farms in Arkansas, the company is raising Naked Neck Free Rangers, a three-way cross bred for its heat tolerance. With a hatchery, 30 houses for broilers and 27 for pedigree birds (these are the parent stock for the broilers), they aim to produce up to 700,000 chickens per week, chickens with unrestricted access to the outdoors, no antibiotics and feed that includes toasted soy, hemp and whole legumes like lentils and high-protein lupins. These birds are bred for slower growth (55 to 62 days from birth to slaughter, compared to the 42-day industry standard), with a focus on proportional growth so the birds don’t develop health problems struggling to support their breast weight. The slaughter process includes creating a soothing sound environment and belly rubs to calm the animals. “If you can offer customers something that is better for the same amount of money, it’s a no-brainer. Any consumer can get behind that,” Wadiak said. FreshDirect will sell the meat for $3.99 per pound. Cooks Venture on Wednesday begins taking orders for whole chickens, two for $40 — prices that are comparable to the higher-end chicken available in grocery stores. Still, the terms that Wadiak and Cooks Venture are most excited about are things many consumers don’t yet understand: regenerative agriculture and carbon sequestration. “Early in the organic movement, people didn’t know what organic meant either,” Wadiak said. “For me, what regenerative ag means is farming where they are measuring and improving their land year over year. It’s about working with agronomists who recommend better crop rotations so that they are putting biological matter back into soil rather than taking it out.” So, increasing biodiversity, enriching soil and enhancing the ecosystem, but also capturing carbon in soil and


This animation of the wondrous monarch butterfly migration was the work of thousands of citizen scientists

nine months and flying the entire distance of up to 2,000 miles in the fall, back to the warmth of that exact spot in Mexico. Click here for more about the cycle. The route and progress of monarchs is vividly illustrated above, thanks to a project called Journey North funded by the Annenberg Foundation, which makes the map each year using monarch sightings reported by thousands of “citizen scientists.” About half are school children, according to Journey North director Elizabeth Howard. You can participate here on the Annenberg Learner site. Over the past year some 9,100 sightings were reported to Journey North. About 31,000 citizen scientists take part in the program, which tracks, in addition to monarchs, robins, hummingbirds, gray whales and other species. The colors indicate the range of dates of sightings in two-week clusters. A great burst of a new color like the pink dots that explode between May 24 and June 6 represents a surge of first Spring-generation monarchs born to carry on northward, Howard explained. The monarchs have always been a bit of a mystery, less so recently as scientists have begun to understand what guides and sustains them. Recent research unlocked a monarch navigation system that uses both light and the Earth’s magnetic field for guidance. The monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed and the caterpillars feed only on milkweed. Recent studies led by the University of Georgia’s Andrew Davis demonstrated monarch larvae deprived of milkweed for even 24 hours may emerge with somewhat stunted wing-growth. Unfortunately, the supply of milkweed in the United States has declined dramatically due to a number of factors, including crops made resistant to herbicide through genetic modification, which allow the farming industry to use more weed killer in the fields. Among the weeds killed: milkweed. Thousands of Americans are now trying to help by planting milkweed along monarch migratory routes. People are also raising monarchs and releasing them. A sense of urgency pervades the effort. The number of monarchs overwintering in Mexico declined dramatically during the past decade. They occupied about 27 acres in 2003. By 2013, that territory dwindled to 1.65 acres. The decline seems to be accelerating: In 2010, some 201 million monarchs overwintered in Mexico; in 2011, 145 million; in 2012, 60 million; and in 2013, 33 million. Clarification: The original version of this story was fuzzy about the monarch generations. The story has been clarified.


In honor of 7/11: How Japan slurped up 7-Eleven

1946, Southland’s stores became “7-Eleven” to reflect their hours: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. No store had ever dared keep its doors open so often. The business grew with the rise of the automobile. 7-Eleven went to Florida and Pennsylvania. In 1963, one got so busy after a football game in Austin that it stayed open for 24 hours. It was a revolution — the beginning of the 24-7 7-Eleven. Soon, there were 1,000 stores. Then, in 1965, another innovation — a refreshingly mushy drink licensed from the ICEE company rechristened “the Slurpee.” With 1,500 locations, 7-Eleven brought a plague of brain freeze to the nation. Yet another disruption: to-go coffee. By 1969, 3,500 stores — some in Canada. By 1974, 5,000 stores — some in Mexico and Japan. More novelties: Big Gulps and Big Bites. And then: the 1980s. In the Reagan-Gekko-Duran Duran era, corporate raiders attacked Southland — still 7-Eleven’s parent company. ”It’s no secret that Southland’s convenience stores are perceived as a very solid, highly promising franchise that could be built upon or meshed with other retail trades,” William E. Ainsworth, an analyst with Nassau Securities, said at the time. ”The rumors were that a lot of folks had their eyes on them.” But the Thompsons wanted to keep their business in the family. Fighting for its life, Southland took on $3 billion in debt to go private — just months before the 1987 stock market crash. This was bad. In 1991, after losing $1.5 billion in three years under the weight of high interest payments on its junk bonds, Southland went bust. Its savior? Ito-Yokado — its Japanese subsidiary, which bought a controlling stake. “What you have that’s extraordinary is a Japanese investor that will live with bankruptcy,” a Salomon Brothers analyst told the L.A. Times back then. “In Japan, that’s anathema, but Southland has done a good job educating them” — about how Americans did business in the Ivan Boesky years. Optimism abounded. After bankruptcy, the storybook company from Dallas had a very different story: The Japanese were better at running the company Uncle Johnny had midwifed. “The Japanese chain is showing that this nation, known more for its skills in exploiting technology, can also refine and retool a distribution business,” the New York Times reported in 1991. The article: “New Japanese Lesson: Running a 7-11.” In 2005, the Japanese bought the rest of the


As climate changes threaten California’s giant redwoods, the key to their salvation might be within them

and plant sciences at UC-Davis who has spent 40 years in the field developing and refining the technology being used in this project. While examining the initial redwood sample, Neale and his team have gathered genetic material from 10 other old-growth redwoods across a variety of climates and altitudes. This is the second stage of the project: expanding the genetic library available to forest managers. “It begins to give you an estimate of the kind of genetic variation that can be found in specific stands of these trees,” he said, describing how the information will be used in terms similar to how genetic material is applied in human health care. “Once the patient is determined to be at some genetic risk, you apply treatment and prescribe medicine.” LEFT: A line of blue spray paint indicates a tree that Richard Campbell has marked to be taken down. RIGHT: Thinning some of the younger redwoods helps improve the health of other nearby redwoods. The redwood’s genetic code can only be “read” in Neale’s lab 150 letters at a time (each piece of genetic information is assigned a letter). At Steven Salzberg’s lab at Johns Hopkins, a more expensive process can read strings of up to 10,000 letters. Salzberg is a professor of biomedical engineering, computer science and biostatistics. Like Neale, he has mapped a tree’s genome before but never one the size of the redwood’s. The identification of the genome’s composition is one challenge. The sequencing and assembly — putting the various strands of letters back together in the right order — is another equally daunting one. “Imagine we took 100 copies of today’s edition of The Washington Post and shredded it so that strings of words remained intact,” Salzberg said. “The job then is to take those scraps and make a single edition of The Post.” The work is done by matching up overlapping strings of gene sequences. “The longer the strands, the easier to do,” he said. Salzberg has a number of questions about what he is finding, including, in his words, “Why is there no penalty for having a genome as large as the redwood’s?” The bigger the genetic code, the more can go wrong, and much of what the genome contains, Salzberg said, is unnecessary. The same is true of humans. “On a pretty routine basis, we learn about our own biology by studying the genetics of others,”


It’s not too late to stem climate change. But we have no more time to waste.

2018, with energy efficiency increasingly ignored. The “we’re doomed, the end” mind-set even touches purported solutions. McKibben describes Oxford bioethicist Julian Savulescu’s depressingly absurd conclusion that humans are too morally stunted to fix climate change. So: “The only way to solve global warming before it destroys our planet is to genetically alter human beings so that they become more altruistic and willing to make more sacrifice for the common good.” McKibben has no patience for this. “Knowing cynicism is no threat to the Exxons of the world — it’s a gift,” he writes. Having harnessed “usefully naive outrage” to help divest trillions of dollars from fossil fuels, he believes we’re not “grossly defective,” but rather, “capable of acting together to do remarkable things.” So in the final, and most illuminating, section of “Falter,” he narrows those remarkable things down to two elements. The first is the solar panel — a “technology of repair” to heal the atmosphere and mitigate inequality heightened by profit-hungry energy companies. McKibben visits social entrepreneurs in rural Africa who are leapfrogging communities from powerlessness to solar, reportage that feels a bit too credulous for such a sober book. You can’t help but cringe at the imbalance — village grids against the Koch brothers’ billions? To replace fossil fuels, the United States would have to build about a dozen wind and solar plants per state, which sounds daunting. But such mobilization has happened before, McKibben says: During World War II, bombers, tanks, guns, cannons and engines were cranked out from factories nationwide in mere months. “If . . . we did something like that again, in the name of stopping climate change instead of fascism,” he writes, “we wouldn’t have to kill a soul.” McKibben’s second tool is nonviolence. “If we are to build the political will to deploy renewable energy fast enough, we’ll need a bulldozer for reshaping the zeitgeist. That’s the job of movements.” Cue the cynics, but again, he reminds us that we’ve done it before: In 1970, a 10th of the population demonstrated against smog-choked cities and burning rivers, forcing President Richard Nixon to act. And today, millions of students striking against climate change, and proposals such as the Green New Deal — a comprehensive plan to reorient the economy around clean energy — are bold indications that we aren’t done yet. Despite the book’s bleakness, its most stirring takeaway is perhaps McKibben’s


Metro, please don’t fall for China’s trap and buy their rail cars

China, via the state-owned CRRC Corporation Limited, enters a market at the local level, subsidizes the assembly of Chinese rail cars with Chinese parts and components and supplies them to cash-strapped transit agencies at bargain-basement prices. In the process, Chinese companies bring a small number of assembly jobs to the United States but keep the manufacturing, technology, and research and development locked down in China. CRRC made headlines when it announced plans to build a 42,500-square-foot facility in Springfield, Mass. Though hiring fewer than 200 employees, CRRC has worked tirelessly to create the facade that it’s bringing manufacturing back to the city. It’s not. Just like CRRC’s presence in Chicago, the Massachusetts CRRC facility is nothing more than an assembly plant for transit rail parts made in China and then shipped to our shores. CRRC’s aggressive show of force hinges on anti-competitive bidding practices and only serves the long-term strategic and technological aims of the Chinese government. CRRC contracts also come with serious cybersecurity risks. After all, rail cars are no longer just big metal boxes. They are computerized smart cars with sensors that transmit billions of instructions per second and are prone to the same kinds of cyberattacks as a 5G network. Regrettably, cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia have contracted with CRRC already, putting short-term savings over long-term national and economic security. Such shortsighted decision-making simply cannot occur in Washington, where national security is essential. In a February hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Erik Olson, vice president of the Rail Security Alliance, said, “Whomever is selected to supply rail cars for WMATA will become a partner in the day-to-day operations of a Metro system whose stops include the Pentagon and the Capitol, as well as unfettered access to our nation’s tunnels and underground infrastructure.” Now that WMATA has built in more time to handle its procurement of the 8000-series rail cars, it needs to take a page from the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. MARTA recently rejected CRRC’s active, anti-competitive bidding and awarded its contract to Stadler, a Swiss company. With Stadler, new subway cars will be manufactured from start to finish in the United States in Salt Lake City, creating genuine manufacturing jobs for up to 1,000 people. Real jobs. Real construction. Really American-made. And no security concerns. WMATA, please pay attention, and don’t fall into the trap set by China.


UMMS chief executive resigns one day after federal agents search Pugh office, home

The president and chief executive of the University of Maryland Medical System resigned Friday, one day after federal agents searched Baltimore City Hall and Mayor Catherine E. Pugh’s home in a highly visible indication of a federal criminal case over lucrative book deals Pugh made with private businesses, including UMMS. Robert A. Chrencik submitted his resignation to the board of directors Friday, interim chief executive John Ashworth said in a statement. “This action is an important step in moving the Health System forward during this critical time and we remain focused on delivering exceptional, safe, quality health care across Maryland,” said Ashworth, senior vice president for UMMS and associate dean at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “We thank Mr. Chrencik for his leadership, service and commitment during his 35 years of executive employment at UMMS.” Mike Ricci, a spokesman for Gov. Larry Hogan (R), said the medical system “has a lot of work to do to restore trust, but this is a step in the right direction. The governor believes very strongly that with a change in leadership must come a change in culture, meaning real accountability and transparency.” UMMS is a private, nonprofit organization that operates a network of 13 hospitals, including the state’s trauma unit in Baltimore, and is one of the largest employers in Maryland. It has received nearly $25 million in public funds in the past two years. The UMMS board of directors asked Chrencik to take leave in March amid a scandal surrounding lucrative contracts board members made with the system they oversaw, including $500,000 the system paid Pugh (D) for her Healthy Holly books. The book sales were first reported by the Baltimore Sun. Pugh resigned from the UMMS board and has taken an indefinite leave of absence from the mayor’s office. She has apologized for the deals, and her lawyer said Thursday that the many calls for her resignation have “not fallen on deaf ears.” “In the near future, she will make a decision that is in the best interests of Baltimore,” attorney Steve D. Silverman said. Hogan has asked the state prosecutor to launch an investigation into Pugh’s deals with UMMS, and the Baltimore Ethics Board has also launched a probe. Pugh was among nine UMMS board members who had contracts with the system, which were worth millions of dollars in some cases. They have all taken leaves of absence


‘Stopping the bad stuff’: Japan’s Abe visits White House in latest bid to soothe Trump’s ego — and avoid his ire

said Abe has not paid a significant political price for his efforts to woo Trump. Tokyo has been pleased with the administration’s tougher stance with Beijing on economic issues, and Abe believes Trump is listening on North Korea. Yet the Japanese official acknowledged that Trump, embroiled in the fallout of the special counsel probe into Russian election interference, “faces a lot of challenges to get reelected. The president will do anything to get elected, so we have to be realistic.” It is on trade where the Japanese are most circumspect. Burned once by Trump, who included Japan in a round of steel and aluminum tariffs early in his administration, the Japanese have engaged in a delicate dance of trying to demonstrate a willingness to negotiate while seeking to avoid the most challenging sticking points. Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan’s economy minister, arrived in Washington on Thursday to resume trade talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer. Their second meeting this month, the discussions are aimed at accelerating progress toward a limited deal involving agriculture and autos, with additional provisions on digital trade deferred to subsequent bargaining. Trump wants to reduce the $67.6 billion annual merchandise trade deficit with Japan by getting Japanese automakers to produce more vehicles in the United States and by prying open Japan’s agricultural markets. Abe insists he won’t give the U.S. any greater agricultural concessions than Japan agreed to in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade accord that was awaiting ratification before Trump ended U.S. participation during his first week in office. The talks are shadowed by Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on imported vehicles on national security grounds, which would hit Japan and Germany especially hard. The president agreed last fall to hold off on tariffs while the talks continue. Abe, whose Liberal Democratic Party faces challenging upper house elections in Japan’s parliament this summer, is eager to avoid a blowup with Trump. Yet he appears to have little leverage to force concessions from the United States on trade that could help him win ratification in Tokyo for any potential deal. “My sense is that the Japanese are hanging on by their fingernails,” said a congressional aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The aide, who recently visited Tokyo, said one senior adviser to Abe told him of Trump: “If this goes on for another six years, we can’t survive.” david.nakamura@washpost.com


Giving facts a fighting chance: Learning how to know what to believe

the viruses being spread in this pandemic and become part of the solution, instead of mindlessly aggravating the problem. The stakes are nothing less than the health of our democracy and the future of the country’s civic life. It isn’t simply a clever turn of phrase when we talk about content going viral: Just as the measles virus is spreading rapidly both across the United States and around the world, with reported cases up 300 percent from this time last year, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, rumors and outright falsehoods proliferate on social media platforms, multiplying with each like, share and retweet. In fact, those platforms are, in part, responsible for the resurgence of measles — a disease that, while potentially deadly, is highly preventable, thanks to a safe and effective vaccine. (It was even declared eliminated in the United States in 2000.) In recent years, though, the “anti-vaxxer” movement has used social media to spread misinformation about the safety of vaccines, and millions of people have made health care decisions for their children based on the conspiracy theories and debunked pseudoscience promoted in these posts. This is one especially unfortunate example of the Internet as an echo chamber: We are increasingly inclined to accept as credible the news and social media posts that align with our beliefs and to dismiss content that contradicts our beliefs as biased, or even “fake.” This tendency to see the news through such prisms makes us more vulnerable to content that plays to our biases, exploits our vulnerabilities and further widens our divisions. And you don’t have to look far to see evidence of the real threat to our nation: The massive Russian disinformation campaign before and during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign sought to sow discord, influence the outcome of the election and undermine faith in democracy itself. Russia is hardly the only entity deploying such tactics. Online, there is no barrier to entry to those who want to mislead, misinform or exploit, whether to promote an ideology, make money, cause mischief, or worse. It may not come as a surprise that false news spreads much faster and farther — and penetrates more deeply — than real news, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There is no disputing the profound challenge that this complex information landscape presents. A Pew Research Center study found that nearly nine in 10 Americans say that the


Sweet corn out, sweet potatoes in: Data shows fundamental shifts in American farming

behemoth’s supply chain during their offseason, Scott said. (Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.) Sweet corn shouldn’t be confused with the field corn common in states such as Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois. Field corn is destined to become animal feed or be processed into ethanol or foods like corn syrup and cornmeal. Green beans and peas suffered most in places where they’re primarily processed for canning or freezing. Acre-for-acre, the sharpest declines were in specialty crops such as chicory, lima beans and black-eyed peas. Delaware has been a hotbed of lima-bean farming for decades. In Harbeson, Del., Ritter Family Farms once devoted a third of its 900 acres to limas. But the Ritters phased out the broad beans entirely this year after the nearby processing plant closed, Laura Ritter said. Fresh lima beans are too perishable to be widely sold at grocery stores. The Ritters have pivoted to green beans and, following another growth trend, goat’s cheese and ice cream. To beef up her goat business, Laura Ritter runs Goat Joy, which offers goat yoga and goat socials. The processing plant was a casualty of changing American tastes. Emmalea Ernest, an extension associate for vegetable crops with the University of Delaware, says folks are eating fewer frozen and canned vegetables. Ernest sees a dwindling number of processing plants as a further loss of safety net for farmers. “The processing plants have given farmers an opportunity to diversify. Limas are a legume, a fairly robust plant from a disease-management perspective. You don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket.” Black-eyed pea acreage fell across the South. It has been popular in the region since it was brought from West Africa to feed enslaved people. Unlike limas’ fall from favor, though, this legume’s struggles are more a matter of pest management than changing tastes. David Riley, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia, works with vegetable pests like cowpea curculio, which has decimated the state’s black-eye pea fields. The common name cowpea stems from the vines’ use as cattle feed. Acreage peaked in 1937 and has ebbed and flowed since, this small weevil a near-constant threat. “New World beans have natural resistance to the weevils we have in the Americas, but if you take an Old World bean like cowpeas, they don’t have that natural resistance,” Riley said. He said that despite the pest


Skywatch: What’s happening in the heavens in May

have leapfrogged the big planet, then approaching Saturn. In the middle of May, the ringed planet rises around midnight, loitering by the teapot handle of Sagittarius. It is reasonably bright at zero magnitude in urban, light-polluted skies. The moon appears to draw near to Saturn on May 22 and then pass the planet by the next night. The effervescent Venus is a morning object that will be found low on the eastern horizon throughout May. Get up before sunrise and find a beach with an eastern view to see it. The Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks on the morning of May 6, just before dawn, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Thanks to a young moon, lunar brightness will not interfere. While the society predicts 60 meteors per hour at peak, a sky gazer — simply looking up consistently — will likely see substantially fewer shooting stars. The parent comet for the Eta Aquariids is Comet Halley, as comets leave a trail of dusty debris and Earth smacks into these dusty trails, the dirt hits our atmosphere, burn and we enjoy shooting stars. Down-to-Earth Events: ● April 29 — “Is Pluto a Planet?” — A friendly debate with Alan Stern, the principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission and Ron Ekers, the past president of the International Astronomical Union. The event is hosted by the Philosophical Society of Washington, at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. pswscience.org ● May 4 — “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers, at Rock Creek Park near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 9 p.m. capitalastronomers.org ● May 5 — Astrophysicist Duncan Lorimer from West Virginia University provides insight on fast radio bursts, at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club’s regular meeting, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com ● May 5 — University of Maryland undergraduate students discuss their research results on asteroid rotation periods at the university’s observatory in College Park. Scan the sky through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse ● May 6 — “Stars Tonight” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington, adjacent to Washington-Lee High School. 7:30 p.m. $3. friendsoftheplanetarium.org ● May 11 — Astronomy Day! Enjoy safe views of the sun in the afternoon, guided tours of the night sky, fun


● April 29 — “Is Pluto a Planet?” — A friendly debate with Alan Stern, the principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission and Ron Ekers, the past president of the International Astronomical Union. The event is hosted by the Philosophical Society of Washington, at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. pswscience.org ● May 4 — “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Park Service and the National Capital Astronomers, at Rock Creek Park near the Nature Center in the field south of Military and Glover roads NW. 9 p.m. capitalastronomers.org ● May 5 — Astrophysicist Duncan Lorimer from West Virginia University provides insight on fast radio bursts, at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club’s regular meeting, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com ● May 5 — University of Maryland undergraduate students discuss their research results on asteroid rotation periods at the university’s observatory in College Park. Scan the sky through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse ● May 6 — “Stars Tonight” at the David M. Brown Planetarium, 1426 N. Quincy St., Arlington, adjacent to Washington-Lee High School. 7:30 p.m. $3. friendsoftheplanetarium.org ● May 11 — Astronomy Day! Enjoy safe views of the sun in the afternoon, guided tours of the night sky, fun activities for kids. Among the talks: Night sky photography with smartphones. 3 to 11 p.m. Hosted by the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club at C.M. Crockett Park, 10066 Rogues Rd., Midland, Va. Admission free, but $7 vehicle fee if not a Fauquier County resident. novac.com ● May 17 — “The Big Bang and Inflation: Glimpsing the Beginning of Time from the Ends of the Earth,” a lecture by physicist Brian Keating, University of California at San Diego. Hosted by the Philosophical Society of Washington, at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW. 8 p.m. pswscience.org ● May 20 — “Astronomy from 40,000 Feet,” a talk by research scientist Tracy Huard, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 9 p.m. Telescopic night sky gazing afterward, weather permitting. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse ● May 22 — “Apollo Landing Sites Revisited: Modern Datasets at Familiar Locales,” a lecture by Noah Petro, research space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, as part of the Exploring Space lecture series. 8 p.m. Lockheed Martin Imax Theater, National Air and Space Museum. Lecture free, but reserve tickets at event page on airandspace.si.edu


Maryland plan to add Beltway toll lanes sinks in, raises alarm for nearby residents

interested in moving right now. . . . The closer they get to me, my resale value goes way down.” Not everyone who lives along the Beltway objects to it getting wider. Grace Abong, 48, said she wouldn’t want to lose any of her yard, which backs up to the highway in Lanham. But she’s also tired of having to allow an hour to get to her caregiving job in Bethesda — a drive that she said would take no more than 30 minutes if traffic didn’t grind to a halt so frequently. “I think there are things we have to sacrifice to make things better,” Abong said. “The Beltway needs to be widened.” Noise and parkland effects The red dotted line on the map showing which properties could hear more noise cuts through the cafeteria, gym and playground of Carderock Springs Elementary School in Bethesda. Nearby residents who say they have been asking for a noise barrier for 20 years don’t want highway sounds or exhaust any closer to the school’s 370 children. “Their bodies are growing, and their lungs are still developing,” said Karen Roman, the school’s former PTA president. “We want to keep pollutants away from their lungs as much as possible.” Choplin said the state is investigating the possibility of a sound barrier for the school. Even so, she said, adding lanes doesn’t increase highway noise as dramatically as might be assumed. Even if traffic volumes double, she said, the overall noise increases by three decibels — barely enough for most people to notice. The potential environmental impacts also are getting attention. Any widening could affect up to 45 parks and recreational facilities and require cutting up to 1,460 acres of woods, the study found. Carol Rubin, special project manager on the toll lanes study for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, said the agency would object to the state taking parkland that protects streams feeding into the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. When the Beltway was built through Montgomery County, she said, it incorporated parkway land that the commission believes it still owns. She said the commission also might argue that the state’s legal powers of eminent domain don’t extend to public land. “We look at the parks as the lungs of the county,” Rubin said. “It’s what makes the environment breathe. It gives fresh air to the residents and to the built environment.” katherine.shaver@washpost.com


Trump and Pence push ‘America First’ agenda to the moon and outer space

International Space Station, a joint venture that has survived geopolitical strife among member nations. The celebrated first direct image of a black hole, unveiled this month, came from an international collaboration involving telescopes on four continents. The image was created by turning the entire globe into one giant radio antenna. In a 2015 breakthrough, physicists from universities and research institutes in more than a dozen nations pooled their energies to detect gravitational waves for the first time. And NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, includes instruments provided by Canada and Europe, and it will launch on Europe’s Ariane rocket from a spaceport in French Guiana. For years, U.S. space policy has been relatively immune to the most intense partisan battles in Washington. Democrats and Republicans have supported each other’s favored projects — a big new telescope over here, a big new rocket over there. But NASA remains an agency in the executive branch, answering to the dictates of the White House as well as powerful members of Congress. After the space shuttle Columbia disaster of 2003, President George W. Bush’s administration decided NASA should retire the shuttle fleet and invest in new hardware to send astronauts to the moon by 2020. President Barack Obama was cool to the moon plan, saying been there, done that. And a presidential committee appointed by Obama concluded that the agency didn’t have enough money to make the moon plan plausible. Obama ordered the agency to send astronauts to an asteroid and then eventually to Mars. Trump’s election led to another pivot. Trump came into office hoping to do something dramatic in space. He expressed disappointment that NASA couldn’t send humans to Mars in his first term. Pence took the helm of the National Space Council, a White House unit that had been moribund for a generation and that now put civilian and military space operations under one roof. The administration told NASA to reverse course again and cobble together a moon program, ASAP. How much the new MAGA-in-space rhetoric will translate into reality is unclear. Without additional funding from Congress or a change in the laws of physics, NASA has little chance of putting boots on the moon within Pence’s five-year time frame. But Pence’s speech certainly energized the aerospace community and jolted NASA, in part by signaling that the administration would consider a moon plan that used


Pentagon set to expand military role along southern border

nonpartisan institution further into a divisive domestic political issue. In a sign of the sensitivities surrounding a move that might be seen as putting troops in a law enforcement role, the documents note that military personnel would remain in a “segregated driver’s compartment” when driving migrants to detention facilities. Customs and Border Protection officials would provide security on those trips. The soldiers would also be asked to hand out snacks and refreshments to migrants in detention, where families often receive items such as cookies, crackers and juice boxes between meals. CBP agents often complain such tasks amount to “babysitting” duties and say their time would be better spent guarding the border. Troops would be accompanied by law enforcement personnel as they provide migrants food and periodically check on their welfare. All those activities, the documents note, require Shanahan to “grant a temporary exception to the ‘no contact with migrants’ policy.” The documents also note that military personnel are barred from undertaking law enforcement activities in keeping with the Posse Comitatus Act. The order drew concerns from policy experts who worry about the politicization of the military. “To lean on the military to handle these functions that are not [military] in nature is essentially choosing to not invest in governance and relying on the military to make up the gap,” said Alice Hunt Friend, a former Pentagon policy official and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We’ve seen that happen overseas for years, and now we are seeing it at home and that’s very concerning. This is mission creep for the U.S. military. A few hundred personnel doesn’t break any dams, but it is a really worrying sign.” Friend also worried about the implications of the military being thrust into a battle between the White House and Congress. “I do worry there will be more conflation of the military with those kinds of politics even though the military isn’t doing anything other than following lawful orders,” she said. The request comes as an unprecedented surge of Central American families arriving at the U.S. southern border pushes American agents to “the breaking point,” according to DHS officials. Last month, U.S. authorities processed more than 103,000 migrants, the highest one-month total in more than a decade. Tyler Houlton, a Homeland Security spokesman, said the DHS has been “transparent and vocal” about its need for help from the Defense Department


Samantha Bee has barbs for Trump and gratitude for journalists at ‘Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner’

Association as not “unifying” and “not in the spirit” of the host organization’s mission. So, the WHCA booked a historian, Ron Chernow, for Saturday’s dinner. Like other comedians, Bee was dismayed by the decision, saying from stage on Friday that “we are holding the dinner that they should be holding.” “Our president tweeted the White House correspondents’ dinner should change, and they did it,” Bee added. “No one should ever do what the president tweets at them." Bee herself has been caught in the White House’s crosshairs; last year, she apologized for using a vulgarity to describe Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump after condemnation from advertisers and the White House. She also hosted a similar show in 2017, and has announced that proceeds from Friday’s ticketed event, as before, will benefit the Committee to Protect Journalists. On Friday, Bee focused heavily on the media, opening with a pretaped “Alien” spoof, featuring Sigourney Weaver and journalists, about leaving Earth instead of enduring another election cycle. “I’d rather get another televised colonoscopy than cover the 2020 election,” Katie Couric said. Bee also critiqued the media, using a song-and-dance number to call out the practice of labeling politicians’ actions as “racially charged,” rather than simply racist. A pretaped segment warned of “deepfakes,” or highly realistic, computer-generated videos; she scrubbed Bill Cosby’s face from “The Cosby Show” and created a fake Trump who said “I believe in climate change” and called the #MeToo movement “totally fabulous.” Bee eventually did take to the dais to roast Trump as if he were there. “You are the most powerful man in the world and you can’t listen to a comedian razz you for five minutes?” Bee said, adding that Justin Bieber, who has sat for a roast before, is “braver than you, and he’s a man who once let a monkey go to jail for him.” The hordes of celebrities who once descended on Washington for the annual weekend have diminished during the Trump years. On Friday, media personalities, activists and other vaguely recognizable people turned up at Bee’s event by invitation, cramming into DAR Constitution Hall for free drinks and to pose on a giant mock typewriter. Actress Minnie Driver, in a floor-length white dress, held court by the bar before the show. Jordan Klepper (an alumnus of “The Daily Show”) posed for photos. Later, Michael Kelly (“House of Cards”) whisked through the lobby. Onstage, Bradley Whitford


New EPA document tells communities to brace for climate change impacts

it, will likely increase as a result.” The guidance is directed toward “communities at increased risk from natural disasters due to climate change,” according to the document, which included a section titled “Incorporate Climate Change Adaptation into Debris Management Planning.” Asked about the document Friday, the EPA declined to comment. “This EPA guidance is clearly telling the public you need to start dealing now with disasters that are being made worse by climate change and will be made even worse due to climate change,” said Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate at the group Public Citizen. “It’s pretty troubling to me to see the head of EPA saying the exact opposite thing.” To some extent, the new document reflects the advances scientists have made attributing extreme events to climate change since a landmark analysis was published in 2004 looking at a deadly European heat wave the year before. The U.S. government’s main climate change website, Climate.gov, features a detailed explanation of how the science has evolved in recent years, including how federal researchers have contributed to the field. “Scientists are increasingly able to distinguish evidence of human-induced climate change from natural variability,” according to the government explainer. But the research into extreme event attribution is hardly limited to the government. Since 2011, the American Meteorological Society has compiled an annual assessment of how human-caused climate change probably affected the strength and frequency of extreme events such as record heat waves, droughts and wildfires. The group has said that of the more than 130 peer-reviewed studies published as part of the annual reviews, about 65 percent have identified the fingerprints of climate change in extreme weather events, while about 35 percent found no clear connection. “The science has really developed in the last decade, in particular, around the influence of global warming on extreme events,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor and senior fellow at Stanford University who studies the climate system. For starters, he said, researchers are constantly gathering more data and studying more weather events, so that the observational record has grown over time. Computing power and modeling capabilities have improved. And there also has been an “explosion of research” on the topic, as scientists have developed frameworks for better evaluating the role of climate change in specific events. The result, he said, is a growing body of research that details how human-caused climate change is contributing to record heat, more-intense


Sweetgreen says it’s going ‘back to the future’ — by accepting cash

Two years after going “cashless,” salad chain Sweetgreen will begin accepting cold, hard cash at its stores again. The policy reversal comes amid criticism that cashless stores discriminate against people who don’t have -- or want -- credit cards, debit cards or bank accounts. New Jersey and Philadelphia passed laws last month that would require businesses to accept cash. A number of other jurisdictions, including the District, are considering similar legislation. Sweetgreen, founded in Washington in 2007, said it will accept cash at all 94 of its stores by the end of the year. The fast-casual chain specializes in salads and bowls that start at about $10. "Going cashless had positive results, but it also had the unintended consequence of excluding those who prefer to pay or can only pay with cash,” the company said in a blog post this week. “Everyone in the community needs to have access to real food.” Sweetgreen said that when it first decided to go cashless in 2016, it thought the move would reduce the number of robberies in restaurants and cut down on the use of armored cars and paper. It was also supposed to speed up service for customers standing in line. In other words, a “win, win, win” for customers, communities and the company alike. “Welcome to the future -- it’s cashless,” the company wrote that December. The move was meant to make business more efficient. Sweetgreen said forgoing cash helped cashiers process as many as 15 percent more sales per hour, shaving “several minutes” off of each transaction. And, it said, fewer customers were using cash anyway, opting instead to pay by card or mobile app. “When we started Sweetgreen in 2007, 40 percent of our transactions were cash,” the company said. By 2016, that figure had fallen to less than 10 percent of transactions. But this week, the company switched its tune: “Back to the Future -- it’s cash,” it said in a blog post. Sweetgreen ultimately decided that keeping stores cashless clashed with its mission of “connecting people to real food.” A growing number of retailers, including Amazon, are rethinking their policies. The Seattle-based tech giant recently confirmed that it plans to soon accept cash at its Amazon Go convenience stores. The cashier-less stores currently require shoppers to pay using an app on their smartphones. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, also owns The


Man accused of spying for the United Arab Emirates dies in Turkish custody

ISTANBUL — A man accused by Turkish authorities of spying for the United Arab Emirates has been found dead inside his prison cell, according to a statement released Monday by the Istanbul public prosecutor that suggested the suspect had killed himself. The man, whom prosecutors identified as Zaki Hasan, was one of two men arrested this month and charged with committing espionage on behalf of the UAE, a Persian Gulf state that Turkey views as a regional rival. Authorities said they were also investigating whether the men were connected to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last year. Prosecutors have not disclosed the identity of the second man, the nationality of either suspect, or released any details about their activities while in Turkey. The prosecutor’s statement said that Hasan died Sunday in Silivri Prison, outside of Istanbul. He was seen alive at 8:16 a.m., during a morning attendance check, the statement said. At 10:22 a.m., when food was served, a guard found Hasan “hanging on the door of the bathroom of his single-person cell,” the statement said, adding that an autopsy had been conducted. The murky allegations of state spying and the suspect’s death come as Turkey and the UAE are entangled in a years-long, bitter dispute that has divided and unsettled the states of the Middle East. A fight for influence around the region pits a bloc led by the UAE and Saudi Arabia against Turkey and Qatar, and involves proxy militias, Internet hackers, lobbyists in Western capitals and spies. Turkish media outlets said that the two arrested men were suspected of trying to collect information on Palestinian factions in Turkey, as well as on the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. The men’s connection, if any, to the Khashoggi killing was unclear. The journalist and Washington Post contributor, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed by Saudi agents in Istanbul on Oct. 2, according to Saudi and Turkish prosecutors. Saudi officials have portrayed the killing as a botched abduction attempt. Turkey says the killing was premeditated and ordered by the highest levels of the Saudi leadership. The Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel on Monday broadcast an interview with a man who said he was Hasan’s son. Youssef Zaki said the family had been surprised by what he called the “false accusations” against his father and called for an international investigation into his


Man found dead in Northwest Washington was homicide victim, D.C. police say

A man whose body was found in the woods in Northwest Washington on Saturday night with at least one hand cut off was the victim of a homicide, according to D.C. police. The victim, who has not yet been identified, suffered “multiple sharp force injuries” and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said in a statement. Authorities said the body was found about 7:20 p.m. in the 5200 block of Canal Road NW, in the Palisades neighborhood on the banks of the Potomac River near Chain Bridge. The body was about 25 feet from shore in the jurisdiction of the U.S. Park Police, near the Capital Crescent Trail. At its eastern end, Chain Bridge passes over the C&O Canal and the C&O Canal National Historical Park and links the District with Northern Virginia. D.C. police said Sunday night that the medical examiner has ruled the death a homicide, and detectives from the District have taken over jurisdiction in the case. The body was found in an affluent area of the District northwest of Georgetown, in a police patrol area that serves the Palisades, Foxhall Crescents and Wesley Heights. Police statistics show five violent crimes this year in that patrol area. In addition to the homicide, there have been two sexual assaults, one robbery and one assault with a gun. peter.hermann@washpost.com


The agonizing decision faced by the relatives of Saudi prisoners: Whether to speak out

ISTANBUL — Only after her brother had been gone for months, after the confounding silence of officials in Saudi Arabia about his fate and the rumors he was being abused in prison, did Areej al-Sadhan turn to what she considered a last and painful resort. She went public. Sadhan decided to give interviews to the foreign news media and post appeals online, hoping the attention would prod the Saudi government into revealing the status of her brother, Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a 35-year-old aid worker who was arrested more than a year ago. Saudi authorities strongly discourage families from seeking publicity, and she feared they might retaliate against her or her brother. Her decision also seemed likely to invite a torrent of insults from the kingdom’s defenders online. “We tried everything possible,” she said in a telephone interview from California, where she lives. “I felt like all the doors were shut in my face.” She was not alone. Over the past year, relatives of several other people held by Saudi Arabia, exasperated by long detentions or the absence of formal charges, have made the difficult and unusual decision to speak openly about the cases. In doing so, they have ignored the long-held notion that the royal family, with its penchant for privacy, responds better to private entreaties than public scolding. Several relatives said they went public after trying, and failing, to find back doors to government officials. Their frustrations are the consequence of the changes being wrought by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is making the kingdom more authoritarian than in the past, critics say, even as he is relaxing some strict social codes. The profiles of these families reflect the breadth of Mohammed’s crackdown, which began in earnest in September 2017 and has led to the arrests of people for their dissent, their prominence or for reasons that remain a mystery to their families and the public. The decision-making by the kingdom’s leaders seems increasingly unpredictable, relatives say, and thus the risk of staying quiet even greater. Some said the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in October — a once unthinkable act of brutality against a critic of the government — also hastened their decisions to speak up. Saudi officials say the agents had disobeyed orders to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia alive, and several are now on trial. Some relatives said their families had previously


This $1,650 pill will tell your doctors whether you’ve taken it. Is it the future of medicine?

care will increasingly face as the medical industry and Silicon Valley try to promote innovation. For decades, medicine has been effectively delivered through a few simple mechanisms: a pill, a cream, a nose spray, a needle. But in the hopes of improving outcomes further, the industry is turning to an array of new technologies against one of the biggest, and most human, challenges in treating disease: getting people to take their medicine in a consistent way. Companies are producing apps for substance abuse treatment, diabetes management, and heart and blood pressure monitoring at a rapid clip. Studies are underway for more digital pills to treat cancer, cardiovascular conditions and infectious disease. And while many of these may pass regulatory hurdles that show they’re safe — especially at a time when the Trump administration has been leaning into medical innovation and pushing back against excessive regulation — doctors and insurers are not convinced that the technologies will so easily make the difference that the pharmaceutical industry is betting billions on. “I think that these technologies have a lot of potential benefits, but it’s going to be a question of evidence — that they can demonstrate value to patients and payers,’’ said Scott Gottlieb, who stepped down this month as FDA commissioner, a job in which he made approval of leading technology a hallmark. The first digital therapy to win FDA market clearance, Abilify MyCite’s sensor-embedded pill remains off the market because of physician and insurance industry reservations. Now Maryland-based Otsuka Pharmaceutical, which makes the medication, may be able to jump-start its acceptance by offering it to mentally ill people who qualify for low-income government health insurance. Otsuka won approval from Virginia Medicaid authorities last month to begin coverage. The company also is starting a pilot program in Florida and is considering another in Oklahoma. Otsuka considers itself a pioneer. Abilify is an older brand-name drug marketed by the company to treat schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses. Abilify MyCite adds the electronic tracking component and, at $1,650 a month, costs almost 30 times as much as a 30-day supply of generic Abilify at a Costco pharmacy. Otsuka developed the treatment with Proteus Digital Health, a Silicon Valley company that markets the digital component. Proteus is pioneering its use in other therapies including cancer patients taking chemotherapy drugs. After the daily antipsychotic pill is swallowed, a digital sensor the size of a


A new effort to save birds pinpoints in amazing detail where they fly

about 4 million acres of wetland; only about 200,000 acres remain today, according to research from a regional conservation plan. When Reynolds heard about eBird, his team dug into the data on the flyway over California. “One member of our team said, ‘Have you thought about renting habitat instead of buying it? It looks like these birds only need this for a few weeks out of the year,’ ” he recalled. That led to a kind of auction in which farmers and other landowners along the Pacific Flyway bid to flood their fields as the migration peaks. In 2014, the first year of the effort, 50 farmers submitted bids to flood fields along the 450-mile Central Valley. Over the next five years, participation increased to about 100 farmers and an equal number of other landowners, accounting for about 55,000 acres of temporary wetlands. Those lands serve as crucial stopovers for birds to rest and feed during migrations that can stretch thousands of exhausting miles from Alaska to Argentina. Reynolds said he will always remember the call he got that first year from a biologist reporting on a flooded field filled with 5,000 small wading birds called dunlin. “We were awestruck by this number,’’ Reynolds said. “That was really heartening.” Giving hope wings The Cornell Lab, funded by contributions and foundations, has big plans. The lab has created maps so far for 107 species, from easy-to-spot birds such as pelicans, herons, eagles, vultures, robins, blackbirds and swallows to the more elusive warblers, buntings and kinglets. By the end of this year, it plans to have detailed reports on 500 birds, about half of the species found in the United States and most of those that are in decline. Broad threats to birds stem from changing weather and habitat loss caused by agriculture and land development, factors that are not likely to ease. But threats also come from airports and planes, windmills, and the urban lights that can confuse birds and throw off their migration patterns. These all make promising targets for the eBird Project. Researchers can now advise cities, airports and energy firms of the 10 to 20 days when migration is at its height. Andrew Farnsworth, a Cornell researcher studying these concerns, said if planes could adjust takeoff trajectories and the tallest buildings could dim lights during those short periods, the impact would be significant. “It doesn’t have to be


Rideshare discount gives seniors in Wards 7 and 8 temporary relief in a food desert

eggs for the grandchildren. But one of the challenges of living in a low-income area is that it’s hard to find places to buy eggs, grapes or bananas. The supermarket closest to her subsidized senior apartment complex in Ward 8 is a Giant, which she would have to walk a mile-and-a-half to reach, or take the bus with all of her groceries. So, until recently, whenever she needed groceries, she’d pay another of the seniors in her complex $20 or $25 to drive her. A 2017 study by the D.C. Policy Center found that 80 percent of food deserts in the District — where residents do not have easy access to groceries — were in Wards 7 and 8 in Southeast. The study defined food deserts as areas with no grocery stores in walking distance, where most people do not have cars, and the median income is too low to be able to afford alternatives like Lyft or Uber. There are no such areas in wealthier Ward 3 in Northwest and only one in Ward 2. “We’ve been left out of a lot of things,” said Jones. She’s lived in the area for all of a life that’s seen changes. She grew up in a house with outdoor bathrooms. It was a time when colds were still treated with a drop of kerosene with a bit of sugar. But last week she found herself calling up a Lyft with an app on her phone to go shopping. It’s only temporary reprieve from life in a food desert. Since January, Lyft has been offering a discount to Jones and a limited number of seniors in the two Southeast wards on shared rides to shop for groceries. The fare: $1.50 each way. The company has been offering a similar discount to families with children in Southeast elementary schools. Jones used to work as a verifier for the U.S. Treasury, making sure the amount of money being made at the mint was correct. So when a car came, Jones checked the license plate. “Who are you picking up?” she asked, only getting in once the driver said her name. “$1.50. It’s a blessing,” Jones said later in the dairy aisle, making sure the eggs in her cart were the same brand as her coupons. Soon, though, it will cost more again to buy her groceries. The discount ends at the end of June.


David Hamburg, honored for efforts to end global violence, dies at 93

he had visited Africa for research. People say “you can never know until the last minute,” Dr. Hamburg remarked to an audience at a 2010 event hosted by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. “Nonsense.” In 1996, Clinton awarded Dr. Hamburg the Presidential Medal of Freedom, honoring his work toward “understanding human behavior, preventing violent conflict, and improving the health and well-being of our children.” Dr. Hamburg’s citation lauded him for “teaching us about the challenges and difficulties of raising children in a rapidly transforming world” and stressing the need for “families, schools, and communities to work together in our children’s interest.” David Allen Hamburg was born in Evansville, Ind., on Oct. 1, 1925. His grandfather was a pushcart peddler who had fled anti-Semitic pogroms in Latvia in 1900 and settled in the Indiana town. Dr. Hamburg said that his family history inspired his work fighting genocide. Dr. Hamburg graduated from Indiana University in 1944 and its medical school in 1947. One of his early influences was “Men Under Stress” (1945), a book for a popular audience by Roy R. Grinker and John P. Spiegel, psychiatrists who had served as medical officers during World War II. They recounted their efforts to treat stress associated with servicemen, including combat fatigue. As a medical trainee working with Grinker at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Dr. Hamburg treated patients with severe burn injuries, polio and leukemia, hoping to understand “how is it that people could maintain a sense of worth as a person, and maintain significant human relationships, and mobilize some hope for the future,” as he told a Carnegie Corp. oral historian in 1998. He added that at the time he felt doctors had little to offer combat veterans under their care. But Grinker and Spiegel’s book “added a kind of dimension of hope about the therapeutic side of the field,” he said, and he decided to pursue specialty training in psychiatry. At Yale University, he studied the impact of stress on the brain, working to develop tests to more precisely measure cortisol and other stress hormones, and analyzing the activation of stress responses in people who were depressed. He also met and began working with his future wife, who was the first openly black woman to graduate from Vassar College and the first black woman to graduate from Yale’s medical school. In 1961, the Hamburgs moved to Stanford, where


Minnesota Orchestra lockout is over

salary of $96,824 in the first year of the contract, going up to $102,284 by the third year. “Keeping our salaries in the top ten was a critical issue for us,” the cellist Marcia Peck, one of the musicians on the negotiating team, said in a statement in the press release, “as it allows us to attract and retain the finest musicians in the country.” In the same release, the orchestra’s board chair, Jon Campbell — who had remained in office throughout the negotiations, and who will step down now that the situation is resolved, called on the public to help keep the orchestra afloat. “Now more than ever,” he said, “we will need members of our community who voiced strong support for world-class orchestral music in our state to help us achieve long-term fiscal responsibility through increased concert attendance and financial support.” This could be construed as a tacit appeal to members of the community who had sided with the musicians, who had started to form, in effect, an organization of their own during the lockout. As “the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra,” they raised some $600,000 during the lockout and gave a number of concerts in the community — including two under Osmo Vänskä, last October. Vänskä will remain one of the greatest losses as the orchestra tries to rebuild. In his 10 years as music director, he kept the 111-year-old orchestra squarely on the radar of the classical music world with vital, engaging performances and a string of recordings. He resigned in October, after the orchestra’s inability to reach a contract settlement meant the cancellation of its long-planned trip to Carnegie Hall. Another casualty was the head of the orchestra’s Composer Institute, Aaron Jay Kernis, who resigned — after a 15-year tenure — shortly after Vänskä did. A whole string of the orchestra’s prominent players — among them the clarinetist Burt Hara, violinists Peter McGuire and Sarah Kwak, and violist Thomas Turner — also departed for other jobs during the lockout. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is likely to be frequently cited in the coming days and weeks as a hopeful model; after a six-month strike in the 2010-11 season, the orchestra has managed to stay on a positive course. The scars in Minnesota may run deeper, but the relief that this long tragedy has ended will, one hopes, buoy musicians and audiences for some time to come.


Trump’s latest garbage lawsuit has one goal: Delay, delay, delay

When President Trump is faced with genuine accountability, he knows just what to do: delay and delay and delay. He might not be able to stave off the prying eyes of Congress, the courts or the public forever, but he might do it long enough to get reelected. A week ago, the president sued his own accounting firm in an attempt to get it not to comply with a congressional subpoena for his financial records. And now he has filed yet another joke of a lawsuit: The only problem with that argument is that as a legal matter it’s utterly irrelevant. His lawyers’ argument seems written not to convince a judge but to provide talking points to Fox News, where all of Trump’s advocates can cry that the whole thing is a fishing expedition, nothing but Democrats searching for something they can nail the president on. But even if that were true, as a legal question question it would make no difference. That's because legal experts are all but unanimous in the conclusion that claiming a congressional subpoena doesn't have a good enough reason behind it is an argument with approximately zero legal weight. “What the courts have made clear repeatedly is that congressional oversight power is incredibly broad,” Brianne Gorod of the Constitutional Accountability Center told me last week after Trump sued his accounting firm. “I’m not aware of any case law that suggests that Congress has to supply specific, granular justifications” for the subpoenas it issues. Here’s more from The Post’s report Tuesday: The reason Congress is looking at Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank is that it is particularly critical to the question of whether he has committed any financial fraud. In the early 2000s, after he declared bankruptcy multiple times and earned a reputation as a liar and a grifter, every major bank refused to lend money to him — except Deutsche Bank. As reporting revealed last month, the bank continued to lend him money even though they knew he was lying to them about his assets. It’s a bizarre and mysterious tale, one that the records might help shed light on. And there appears to be a very specific potential crime the House is investigating: money laundering. The New York Times reports that "people with knowledge of the investigation said it related to possible money laundering by people in Russia and Eastern Europe.” This makes sense,


How the murder of Jamal Khashoggi made the income of Boeing competitor Airbus plummet, more than 6 months later

BERLIN — On Oct. 2, 2018, Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Seemingly unrelated, on April 30, 2019, more than six months later, one of the world’s largest aerospace companies, Airbus, announced that its net income fell almost 90 percent during the first quarter of 2019. What would appear to be two very different developments are in fact part of same story, which started hours after Khashoggi’s disappearance was noticed. In the days following Khashoggi’s death, President Trump immediately faced mounting pressure from human rights groups and even members of his own party to impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia, whose Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was deemed by the CIA to be responsible for the murder. The most effective way of punishing Saudi Arabia, human rights advocates argued, was to stop selling the kingdom U.S. weapons, which have also been used by the Saudi-led coalition in the controversial war in Yemen. Fighter jets and other high-tech arms cannot easily be replaced by other competitors such as Russia or China, because nations usually order entire systems that are connected and need to be maintained. Ordering fighter jets from the United States and having them maintained by Russia would be difficult in the long run, if not impossible in the short run. But citing the risk of job losses in the United States, Trump refused to pursue such measures. So did some of the other Western exporters to Saudi Arabia, notably France and Britain. One exception was Germany, since World War II a country torn between economic lobbies and its human rights shame that persists today. On Oct. 21, the German government announced it would halt all arms exports to Saudi Arabia. “I agree with all those who say that the, albeit already limited, arms exports can’t take place in the current circumstances,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the time. The move was applauded by Trump critics, but it was ridiculed by other weapons exporters, including some in Europe. What they forgot, however, was that few things in Europe work if one of the big three nations — France, Germany and Britain — don’t play according to the rule book. The reason that had ensured Saudi Arabia was a loyal customer — weapons systems that aren’t one-off purchases but decades-long political and financial commitments — now threatened the very basis of that


Military spouses face added challenges while trying to find jobs. This could help.

as they relocate with the military compromises the quality of life of military families and the readiness of the military force.” The employment barriers facing military spouses may also make it more difficult to recruit men and women willing to serve in the armed forces. One of the most significant barriers for military spouses, as it is for many other job seekers, is state occupational licensing rules governing hundreds of occupations, including teaching, paralegal and health-care work. Obtaining state certification can require taking courses, passing tests and paying steep fees. These requirements are especially onerous for military spouses, who usually expect to be in a particular state for only a couple of years. According to Syracuse University research, more than one-third of military spouses work in fields subject to occupational licensing, disproportionately more than the general population. And according to the Chamber survey, nearly one-quarter of military spouses cite occupational licensing as their biggest barrier to employment. Like countless people across the country who selflessly put their spouses’ careers ahead of their own, military spouses will always face some additional employment challenges. Not only are their moves frequent, but also the military bases are often far from urban centers, where jobs are more plentiful. Numerous public and private programs already exist to help overcome some of these challenges. But state legislators can do even more good by eliminating the burdensome state occupational requirements that require military spouses to repeatedly acquire expensive and time-consuming licenses to work legally in their chosen professions. Military spouses will no longer have to worry about such rules in Kentucky and Iowa. We are proud to have each recently signed statewide legislation to allow military spouses (and veterans) to use their occupational licenses, issued in any other state, in our states as well. Under the legislation, state administrative bodies must issue occupational licenses within 30 days of receiving an application from military spouses who are licensed in another state. The reform will benefit not only military spouses but also our state economies, which can now more easily employ this underutilized talent pool. With help from the Job Creators Network , which has led this multistate effort by convening a meeting of governors and Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta to address this issue, support is growing nationwide for such occupational-licensing reforms. We are working with 12 other states to implement similar legislation. We encourage every state to join


Officials must prevent another deadly natural gas explosion

The April 24 front-page article “NTSB points to utility in Silver Spring blast” reported that the long-awaited report by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the gas explosion that tragically took seven lives at the Flower Branch Apartments was because of a failed gas regulator and disconnected vent line that were “owned and operated by Washington Gas and were the utility’s responsibility to maintain.” As the article noted, neither the landlord nor firefighters notified Washington Gas of the numerous reports of natural gas smells before the explosion. While such notice may have prevented this tragedy, it does not excuse or relieve Washington Gas of its responsibility to provide safe and reliable service to its customers. According to the NTSB, Washington Gas not only failed in this responsibility but also was not fully cooperative during the investigation. As with many of my neighbors in the surrounding neighborhood, I was deeply saddened by the loss of life and suffering of the residents left injured and homeless. Now that the NTSB investigation is concluded, I hope the Maryland Public Service Commission, which regulates Washington Gas, will launch its own investigation into the company’s role in this catastrophic explosion. The worry is that Washington Gas may have failed to maintain its equipment in a safe manner, and a commission investigation might help to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. Sharman Brown


America’s cherry pies may soon feature fewer cherries. Here’s why.

to taxpayers and allowing industries to innovate, for example, in meeting new consumer demands for diet foods and healthier convenience foods. But these promises overlooked a crucial reality: Industry could game labeling just as it could game food standards. In the early 1990s, the FDA seized frozen concentrated orange juice for misusing the descriptor “fresh.” Which ingredients and additives qualify as “natural” continues to this day to be a mystery to most consumers, a source of wry humor and sour grapes (those grapes may or may not be artificial). And recently, there has been a demand for “clean labels,” food products whose ingredient lists are short and familiar, thus indicating less processing. This push reveals that we still have not achieved the sorts of processed and packaged foods — simple, natural and familiar — that the food standards of identity were intended to create. The problem with labeling, like regulation, is that neither is inherently pro-business or pro-consumer. Both, in fact, can benefit consumers or business. While business often decries regulations, industry can often benefit from them. In food production, they might invite government oversight to reassure the public that basic safety measures are being enforced or to protect a sector’s brand reputation, to name but two reasons. They also can provide market uniformity and certainty, enabling national producers to avoid dealing with a hodgepodge of state and local rules. This was the goal when, in 1990, most national manufacturers came out in favor of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act in the hopes that it would “pre-empt” stricter state laws in California. The far more important variable then isn’t labeling vs. standards. It’s having regulators who put the public interest ahead of the narrow particular interest of producers. And that’s exactly what the Trump administration isn’t doing. Instead of freeing up innovation, it seems to be protecting the food industry over consumers. It might well make sense to eliminate the cherry pie standard. But the culture and process behind its proposed removal are all wrong. The culture in the administration encourages officials to remove rules to give the appearance of action, without considering why those rules are in place and whether removing them really helps consumers or industry. That’s precisely the wrong approach. Whether with standards or labeling, we need regulators who put consumers first and ask what will give consumers the most helpful information and the best choices?


As bank profits soar, Wall Street’s political spending hits new high

overzealous regulations in the Dodd-Frank legislation signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 after the Wall Street crash, and needed regulatory relief to inject additional capital into rural or poorer communities. Among those who received the largest contributions from the financial sector were Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and then-Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), according to the report. All three voted for the banking overhaul bill, but only Tester won his 2018 reelection bid. “Tester answered the calls of Montanans to cut red tape on local community banks and credit unions in order to allow them to lend to families and small businesses in rural America," said Sarah Feldman, a spokeswoman for Tester. "This bill strengthened consumer protections and did virtually nothing for the largest Wall Street institutions.” The financial sector poured millions of dollars into ensuring the passage of the legislation, with particularly large sums going to members of the Banking Committee who drafted it and ensured it was voted on by the full Senate, according to Americans for Financial Reform. Some large banks — those with between $100 billion and $250 billion in assets — have already benefited from looser rules around “stress tests," periodic audits from federal regulators to see if the banks can survive an economic shock, said Gregg Gelzinis, a banking expert at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. The legislation also removed other requirements for banks with between $100 billion and $250 billion in assets, including rules around how much they must hold in liquid assets. Banks also benefited from the Republican tax law passed in 2017. This February, federal regulators said that more than half of banks’ $59.1 billion in net income for the fourth quarter of 2018 was due to changes from the GOP tax law. Income tax rates for the largest financial companies in the S&P 500 fell from 29 percent in 2017 to 19 percent in 2018, according to research by Howard Silverblatt, a senior industry analyst at S&P Global. In January, a handful of U.S. banks recorded $111 billion in profits, crossing the $100 billion threshold for the first time ever in part due to the overall success of the American economy, according to reports by Bloomberg News and other publications. Banks have also faced criticism for increasing their bets on lucrative but dangerous loans, with the help of federal regulators and congressional Republicans.


What the NTSB findings omit could be at the heart of rental housing disaster prevention

Matt Losak is a co-founder and executive director of the Montgomery County Renters Alliance. The National Transportation Safety Board recently released its report on the Flower Branch apartment explosion that killed seven renters, including two children, on Aug. 11, 2016. The NTSB, whose primary mission is to investigate pipeline, airplane and train accidents, was called in to investigate. The board focused primarily on the mechanical source of the explosion and pointed to the responsibility of Washington Gas and Kay Management, which owns the property, to properly maintain and provide access to the gas pipeline infrastructure. The NTSB found that Flower Branch residents complained to property management six times about gas odors months before the explosion, but no one called Washington Gas to check for leaks. Why didn’t Kay Management’s front office call in qualified gas company technicians who might have averted the fatal explosion? The NTSB found that one month before the accident, a renter had smelled gas and reported it. In an opinion piece I wrote for The Post after the disaster in 2016, I noted that threatening renters with eviction or other intimidation in response to complaints has a chilling effect on entire communities, possibly stifling or delaying warnings that could avert a tragedy. This year, Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Montgomery) submitted just-cause eviction legislation to the Maryland General Assembly that would have protected whistleblowers from eviction. Her legislation would have made it illegal for a landlord to evict any tenant without a stated, justifiable reason. The legislation applied only to Montgomery County. It received unprecedented, combined support from the County Council, the county executive and an overwhelming vote of 17-6 from the county’s state legislative delegation as well as the majority of the county’s leading civic groups. Yet, the legislation never had a fair hearing on the floor of the General Assembly and failed to become law. How did this happen? Despite the overwhelming county support, Wilkins’s just-cause eviction bill was blocked in its final hours by the General Assembly’s Environment and Transportation Committee. In committee hearings, landlords lobbied to block the bill at every step. Led by the Apartment and Office Buildings Association and leading landlords, they collectively wrung their hands in front of the committee, complaining that they would be deprived of their right to evict “problem” tenants whom they described as child molesters, sexual deviants, drug dealers and MS-13 gang members. The landlords conveniently forgot


As zero-calorie natural sweeteners such as stevia surge in popularity, here’s what you need to know

help with weight management and could even cause weight gain, metabolic syndrome and high blood pressure with continual use. Natural sweeteners have the health halo of being plant-based and appear to check all the right boxes. But are they as innocent as they seem? What's the difference? Stevia leaves have been used as a sweetener since the 16th century, but the extract has only been approved for use as a food ingredient in the United States since 2008 and in Europe since 2011. The full name of the stevia plant is stevia rebaudiana Bertoni. It is a shrub native to South America that is also grown in Japan and China. The leaves are harvested, dried and then steeped in hot water. The resulting liquid is filtered and purified to isolate the sweet compounds called glycosides, the most common of which are stevioside and rebaudioside A (also known as reb A). Then the stevia extract is dried for use as a sweetener. Stevia is 200 to 300 times as sweet as sugar, so you only need a small amount to sweeten foods and beverages. It’s low enough in calories that it can be called a “zero calorie” sweetener. To give it more bulk so it can more easily be used to replace sugar, other sweeteners, carbohydrates and fibers are typically added to packets and bags of stevia you see in the grocery store. One drawback is that some of the compounds in stevia, particularly steviosides, tend to have a bitter aftertaste. This is another reason other sweeteners are sometimes added. Truvia is the top-selling stevia brand in the United States. Its Natural Sweetener product has zero calories and is sugar-free. It’s sweetened with reb A and is mostly erythritol, a sugar alcohol needed to provide bulk and a sugar-like appearance and texture. Natural flavors are also on the ingredients list. Monk fruit, also known as lo han guo, is a small melon from China. The sweet component, mogroside V, is extracted from the dried fruit or juice and is 150 to 250 times as sweet as sugar. Monk fruit sweetener contains 2 calories per teaspoon, which is low enough to be labeled as “zero calorie.” Monk fruit tastes different from sugar and can have an aftertaste. As with stevia extracts, monk fruit is often mixed with other sweeteners, starches and fibers to add bulk and improve the flavor. Which is best


Sticking to your New Year’s resolution is not about willpower

Effortless Attention. Experiencing flow also encourages us to keep pursuing a goal. “When the activity is difficult and takes a long time to achieve the goal, it helps to experience flow,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of Flow, told me. He explained: If your goal is to perfect your baseball game and you experience flow from playing baseball, you will continue to play baseball even if a particular game is not enjoyable. Approach your goals, then, in a way that maximizes your chances of experiencing flow. Flow is most likely to occur when the challenge of what you are doing matches your skill level. If you are a new runner training for a marathon, don’t push yourself to sprint hills on the first day. Wait until you are a more skilled runner for that challenge. 3. Relationships Hiker Caleb Miller knows something about relationships on the trail. He met a woman at mile zero and married her at mile 445. Their partnership pushed him to hike farther than he had planned. “I didn’t realize how crucial the camaraderie would be, how powerful it is in keeping you going,” he says in the memoir his wife wrote about their hike. “There is a good deal of research that social support (the tangible, informational, or emotional help) we receive from others is an integral part of reaching one’s goals,” says Shelly Gable of UC Santa Barbara. A 2008 study demonstrates how social support helps when we encounter hurdles. “We showed that when a friend was actually present, or when participants merely thought of a supportive significant other, a steep hill looked less steep. This suggests that people rely on close others when considering how difficult tackling a given environment might be,” says lead author Simone Schnall. Consider how to strengthen your connection to others as you pursue your goal: If you want to lose weight, think about joining a support group like Weight Watchers or recruiting friends to join you at healthy restaurants. 4. Meaning Meaning is belonging to, and serving, something you believe is bigger than the self. Hiker Natalie Chudacoff, who works as a director at a nonprofit science camp, called the Pacific Crest Trail “grad school.” On trail, she says, “I would be learning and living the goals I wanted to have accomplished to make myself a better and more qualified camp director.” With a couple hundred miles to go