Obama officials failed to focus as fentanyl burned its way across America

treat it like an epidemic.” Ground zero Judith Varone, 53, a waitress, died of a fentanyl-related overdose on March 23, 2013, in Lincoln, R.I. The first wave of the opioid epidemic began in 1996 after drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma introduced what it claimed to be a wonder drug for pain — OxyContin, a powerful opioid that was aggressively marketed to physicians as less addictive than other prescription narcotics. As the medical community embraced the new drug, it became a blockbuster for Purdue, generating billions in sales. Over the next decade, doctors and corrupt pain management clinics prescribed massive amounts of opioids. To meet the demand, drug manufacturers and distributors flooded communities across the country with opioid pills, including oxycodone and hydrocodone. Drug users and dealers diverted hundreds of millions of doses to the streets. The DEA started to crack down on the illegal trade in 2005. Two years later, Purdue paid $600 million in fines and its executives pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges for claiming the product was less addictive than other painkillers. The company agreed to make its marketing conform to federal rules and has launched programs to combat opioid abuse. “It is deeply flawed to suggest that activities that last occurred 18 years ago are responsible for today’s complex and multi-faceted opioid addiction crisis,” the company said in a recent statement. The federal government also fined the largest drug distributors and pharmacies tens of millions of dollars over allegations that they failed to report suspicious orders of pain pills. As the supply of prescription opioids began to tighten, America’s pill addicts became desperate. Street prices soared. Mexican drug cartels saw an opening to sell more heroin, a cheaper, more potent way to get high. That set off the second wave of the epidemic by 2010 and a rise in overdose deaths. Then fentanyl hit the streets. A synthetic opioid developed in 1960 by a Belgian physician, fentanyl is normally reserved for surgery and cancer patients. It is up to 100 times more powerful than morphine, its chemical cousin. For traffickers, illicit fentanyl produced in labs was the most lucrative opportunity yet, a chance to bypass the unpredictability of the poppy fields that produced their heroin. The traffickers could order one of the cheapest and most powerful opioids on the planet directly from Chinese labs over the Internet. It was 20 times more profitable than heroin by weight.


At Ethiopian Airlines crash site, an outpouring of grief from victims’ families

It’s been three days since an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board. The victims included professors, humanitarians and tourists from more than 30 countries. Since their tragic deaths, those mourning them have expressed an outpouring of grief, holding vigils in their home countries and sharing eloquent tributes to them online. In Ethiopia, as investigators work to determine the cause of the crash, relatives and friends of the victims gathered at the site of the crash, leaving flowers and offering prayers. For those grieving, their communal anguish shares the thread of a single question: Why? Photographer Mulugeta Ayene has documented the aftermath of the crash for the Associated Press from Ethiopia.


Britain must swallow the hard realities of Brexit — or leave the choice to voters

BRITAIN’S PARLIAMENT has once again demonstrated that it is unable to swallow the hard realities of leaving the European Union, as opposed to the fantasies that were peddled to voters when they voted for an exit nearly three years ago. Those realities include heavy costs for the British economy and the imperative to preserve an open border with E.U. member Ireland — which could mean remaining inside the E.U.’s customs union and its regulatory regime indefinitely. Prime Minister Theresa May did her best to fashion an accord with Brussels that minimized these harms. By voting it down for the second time Tuesday, Parliament increased the prospect that voters, rather than its members, will have to make a decision. Ms. May’s Brexit was sunk primarily by pro-leave politicians in her Conservative Party and its coalition partners, who claim there is a better deal to be had despite repeated and unequivocal statements to the contrary by E.U. leaders. Parliament will now vote on the option of leaving the union on March 29 without an accord, which could cause severe disruption on both sides of the English Channel. But that extreme course, favored by Conservative hard-liners, has already been rejected once. The only measure Parliament may be able to agree upon is requesting an extension of the exit deadline from Brussels. That would avert the disaster of a no-deal Brexit for now, but the political crisis could then be prolonged for months more, with no clearer path toward a solution. The impasse results from a broad failure of political leadership. Ms. May might have been able to put together a centrist majority behind a Brexit formula that minimized the break with Brussels, had she been willing to spurn the Conservative Party hard-liners. But she never tried. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, for his part, made no effort to find a solution but instead has angled to bring down Ms. May’s government and force a general election. That gambit, too, already failed once but could now have a better chance of success. A general election might produce a government that had the backing to push through a Brexit accord, either on Ms. May’s terms or a softer version. Another option, favored by many in and outside Parliament, would be a second referendum. Now that the true costs and consequences of leaving the European Union are clearer, the result might be different; if it were the


Maryland’s new Guinness brewery is a destination for fans — and everyone else, too

Open Gate opened, Wiens says, Draught Stout and Blonde Ale were the best sellers. But as time has gone on, “I think people are getting a little more adventurous, trying some of the other beers,” such as the popular Tart Apricot Ale, a fruity but not-too-aggressive kettle sour. The best introduction to Open Gate is to take one of the free hour-long tours, which are offered multiple times a day but are frequently booked out in advance. (At press time, the first available Saturday tour for a group larger than two is at the end of April.) The tour goes beyond the “These are the fermentation tanks, this is what raw hops smell like” spiel that is the staple of most brewery visits. Here, guides lead guests around a three-story building that could double as a Guinness museum, drawing on Guinness’s long history: the creation of John Gilroy’s iconic zoo animal ads, the scientific development of nitro kegs and the story of Guinness’s 9,000-year lease in Dublin. Statues of the animals from Gilroy’s ads are scattered around, providing frequent selfie opportunities. It occasionally comes off as propaganda, but what brewery tour doesn’t? My guide on a recent Wednesday evening had a great sense of humor, at least. “I need to address the non-blue crab in the room,” she joked, standing in front of a mural of a vintage ad containing a large Irish brown crab and a pint of Guinness. “Some people think we chose Maryland because of this crab, but we got the wrong one. Folks, there are no blue crabs in Ireland.” When the tour ends, there’s an optional $15 tasting that includes samples of four beers — two standards, including the Draught Stout (which tastes almost as fresh as it would in Dublin), and two of the experimental beers. It’s fun, but not essential, although the tasting happens next to a display of Gilroy’s sketches of Guinness’s toucans flying past the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Rushmore and other American landmarks. There’s also a chance to peek into the 1817 Restaurant, a fine-dining option with seared sea scallops or hanger steak with a stout demi-glace (both $32). More affordable bar food, such as large metal bowls of Chesapeake crab poutine ($16) and Irish dip sandwiches ($12), are available in the taproom. As interesting as a visit here can be, the seven-month-old attraction remains a work in progress: Once


Brexit vote: British Parliament overwhelmingly rejects Theresa May’s plan, diminishing chance of withdrawal on March 29

be “indefinitely” tied to European rules and regulations, even if the sides cannot agree in the future on how else to keep the border on the island of Ireland free and open. But an opinion from Attorney General Geoffrey Cox proved devastating. Cox said May’s tweaked deal did “reduce the risk that the United Kingdom could be indefinitely and involuntarily detained within the protocol’s provisions,” but he warned that “the legal risk remains unchanged.” Cox said Britain would have “no internationally lawful means of exiting the protocol’s arrangements, save by agreement” with the Europeans. Cox’s assessment helped influence Brexit hard-liners and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party to vote against the deal. The withdrawal agreement, which will still serve as the foundation of any future deal, is only about the terms of departure and does not include what the future relationship between Britain and the E.U. will look like. It sets out the $50 billion divorce settlement that Britain will pay; it allows for a two-year transition period, when things will remain essentially as they are now in terms of trade, migration, security and travel; and it seeks a guarantee to preserve the free and open border on the island of Ireland. It is that guarantee — the Irish backstop — that is at the heart of the impasse. Many British lawmakers fear that it would limit their country’s sovereignty, requiring them to continue to abide by European rules and regulations on customs and trade forever, without having any say. Some have hoped for a sunset clause, or a provision allowing Britain to unilaterally terminate the backstop. E.U. leaders on Monday offered fresh pledges that they would seek all possible ways to avoid invoking the politically toxic plan. They wanted to give May a fig leaf, allowing her to say she had received concessions and win over wavering British lawmakers ahead of Tuesday’s vote. But the assurances were framed as the E.U.’s final offer. In Brussels and across Europe, the mood was black following the vote, with many leaders warning publicly that they were stepping up their preparations for a chaotic, no-deal Brexit and some warning privately that they were completely serious — despite British assumptions that an extension to the departure deadline will be granted more or less automatically if they ask for one. “Deeply saddened by the outcome of the #Brexit vote this evening,” Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke


The story of Christopher Columbus’s son, the ultimate completist

Venice and London, the young Spaniard didn’t simply acquire the canonical classics or a few rare manuscripts. He actively pursued what we would now call ephemera — satirical pamphlets sold by itinerant hawkers, scurrilous poems stuck on walls, street ballads, every sort of printed throwaway. In Rome he took home cheap, sleazy works such as “The Story of the Blonde and the Brunette” but also shelled out a small fortune to acquire the mystico-sexual fantasy “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,” now widely regarded as the most beautiful of all Renaissance incunables. Today the informational plenitude, range and instant access Hernando imagined for his universal library doesn’t seem at all quixotic. As Wilson-Lee notes, Hernando’s purchases provide a map of his life: “In every book he bought, Hernando recorded the date and place of its acquisition and how much it cost, often also noting where and when he read it, if he met with the author, or from whom he received the book if it was a gift.” To make the more than 15,000 titles and 3,000 images in his collection readily accessible, Hernando worked up bibliographical guides, subject catalogues and abstracts of each book’s contents. After all, ordered knowledge bestows power, as even Hernando’s father knew. At one point on the fourth voyage, Columbus was able to cow some hostile Taino people by prophesying — courtesy of an almanac — an awe-inspiring lunar eclipse. Wilson-Lee borrows his biography’s striking title from one of Hernando’s most touching lists: When a ship carrying treasures bought in Venice foundered, the bibliophile memorialized his losses in a “catalogue of shipwrecked books.” He then began to replace them. In later life, the Spaniard’s collecting even expanded beyond printed material. Once he’d constructed a house for himself and his books, he laid out elaborate gardens and began to gather botanical specimens from all over the world. Because of his father’s accomplishments and the wealth they brought, Hernando always moved easily in court and artistic circles. He not only picked up Dürer prints and Luther’s heretical tracts; he also met or at least glimpsed some of the most renowned figures of the age: Michelangelo, Erasmus, Thomas More, Magellan, Henry VIII. As part of the royal entourage, Hernando even observed the coronation of Spain’s King Charles as Holy Roman Emperor. Hernando’s life, then, was one packed with wonders, some discovered in the New World with his father, others because of the


Before Lori Loughlin’s alleged cheating scandal, daughter Olivia Jade made her life at USC a YouTube brand

Last September, influencer Olivia Jade Giannulli gave her 1.6 million YouTube subscribers a tour of her dorm room at the University of Southern California. Amazon had paid for everything in sight, but the room itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Like any other freshman, Olivia Jade knew the value of a power strip, a sign of what her brand was on track to become: #relatable college content with a splash of aspirationalism. Five months later, that brand is shattered. Olivia Jade’s famous parents, “Full House” actress Lori Loughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, were among the 50 people charged Tuesday by the Justice Department with participating in a bribery scheme to get their children admitted to prestigious colleges and universities. The influencer’s college acceptance is under scrutiny, along with the standardized test results of children born to wealthy people such as actress Felicity Huffman, who was also named in the indictment. Huffman appeared in federal court in Los Angeles on Tuesday and was released on $250,000 bond. Andrew Blankstein, an NBC investigative reporter in Los Angeles, tweeted that Loughlin was not in town but a warrant was out for her arrest. A spokeswoman for Loughlin said there was no further information available at this time, and a representative for Olivia Jade declined to comment. (Representatives for Huffman — whose husband, actor William H. Macy, was not indicted — did not return a request for comment.) The criminal complaint alleges that Loughlin and Giannulli agreed to “pay bribes totalling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits to the USC crew team — even though they did not participate in crew — thereby facilitating their admission to USC,” and includes copies of emails and transcripts of recorded phone calls. It is unclear whether Olivia Jade or the other students knew about their parents’ alleged schemes. USC released a statement on Twitter that read in part, “We are aware of the ongoing wide-ranging criminal investigation involving universities nationwide, including USC. USC has not been accused of any wrongdoing and will continue to cooperate fully with the government’s investigation.” As details of the investigation flew around social media, attention turned to Olivia Jade, the younger of the two Giannulli sisters, who enrolled in USC in fall 2018. Olivia Jade, 19, has 1.3 million Instagram followers and 1.9 million YouTube subscribers, a substantial following that has also earned her the


For former athletes fighting NCAA amateurism rules, a muted victory

she found NCAA rules violated antitrust law and athletes should be entitled to compensation for the use of their names, images and likenesses in video games and television broadcasts. That ruling was partly overturned by appeals judges, who agreed the NCAA had violated antitrust law but tossed out proposed payments to athletes as a “quantum leap” for college sports. Gabe Feldman, law professor and director of the sports law program at Tulane Law School, was one of several legal experts who speculated Wilken had that appeals ruling in mind as she crafted this latest decision. “It’s another technical loss for the NCAA . . . but it upholds the core of the NCAA’s amateurism restrictions . . . and falls far short of what the plaintiffs were seeking,” Feldman said. “The people who were expecting fundamental change in college sports from this ruling have to be disappointed.” Jeffrey Kessler, the famed sports labor attorney who was among those representing the athletes, argued in a phone interview that his side had won a clear-cut victory. He seized on passages in Wilken’s ruling in which she appeared to approve of schools offering payments capped at $5,600 per year for each athlete for academic advancement. Theoretically, based on Kessler’s interpretation of the ruling, a school could offer athletes $28,000 over the course of a four-year career: $5,600 for each year of taking classes and an additional $5,600 for graduating. Kessler’s reading of the cash payments section was disputed by other legal experts, but he also celebrated the other academic-related perks the judge ruled schools should be able to offer. “This is huge. . . . They can get computers, all sorts of equipment that they need to do their studies,” Kessler said. “Is this a complete freeing of the market? No. But this is a dramatic difference.” Kessler has another lawsuit against the NCAA over its amateurism model, currently on hold because of this case, that he could revive and refile in federal court in a different district. This week, he declined to discuss his plans for that case, other than to say he will await a ruling by appeals judges in this case before making a decision. Among those who have been waging the legal battle against the NCAA for more than a decade, however, the response to the ruling was much more muted. “The NCAA is now a serial offender of


Banks bow to pressure to stop profiting from Trump’s immigration policy, but Big Tech remains defiant

last week, 58 percent of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of immigration issues, while 40 percent approved. A Washington Post-Schar School poll last summer found that 69 percent of Americans opposed separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents, while 29 percent supported the policy. Among Republicans, 61 percent supported the family separation policy. Other banks are backing away from financing private prisons, where the number of immigrant detainees is increasing under the Trump administration. Wells Fargo, in a lengthy business standards report released in January, said it is no longer “actively marketing” to that sector. “Our credit exposure to private prison companies has significantly decreased and is expected to continue to decline,” the report said. Wells Fargo spokeswoman Jessica Ong told The Post that it made the “risk-based business decision” roughly two years ago to “exit banking relationships with private prison companies” when their contracts expire. “Since then, we have steadily reduced our exposure and have no plans to add additional relationships from the private prison industry,” Ong said. U.S. Bank, too, has pulled back, a company spokesman told The Post. The move has not previously been reported. “Our credit exposure to private prison companies has decreased to an immaterial amount in recent years and we continue to reduce our exposure given the risk characteristics of this industry,” said Dana Ripley, U.S. Bank spokesman. The pressure on financial firms is also building among newly elected Democrats in Congress. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a freshman on the House Financial Services Committee, has called for hearings to “make these banks accountable for investing in and making money off of the detention of immigrants.” CoreCivic and GEO Group said that their companies were unfairly targeted for political reasons and that neither manage detention centers housing children separated from their parents. Pablo Paez, GEO Group spokesman, said activists have deliberately mischaracterized its long-standing work with the government. Amanda Gilchrist, CoreCivic spokeswoman, said the company has played a “limited role in America’s immigration system” during every administration — Democratic and Republican — for more than 35 years. Public employee pension funds in New York City, Philadelphia, New York state and California have also divested from private prisons over the past two years. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley called the protests against businesses that work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement “sad” because the agency “protects American communities every day by arresting murderers, dangerous gang members, rapists


Farms aren’t tossing perfectly good produce. You are.

few good days left, to food banks. Many retailers already do this for the tax write-offs. But the infrastructure — donation matching software, cold storage and refrigerated trucks — to handle large donations of eggs, dairy, meat, bread and produce is still being built. Funding more food bank infrastructure, educating potential donors about liability laws, creating more donation tax incentives and standardizing food safety regulations would recover up to 996,000 tons of food, or 1.7 billion meals, per year, according to ReFED. Ugly produce maxes out around 266,000 tons of potential recovery per year — much of it just diverted away from processing, food service and food banks. Homes, food service and grocery stores generate 7.8 million tons of food waste per year that can’t be salvaged, accounting for 12 percent of the problem. This waste needs to be recycled. The Environmental Protection Agency says that the United States composts only 5 percent of its food waste. (Compare that with 15 percent in the European Union.) That’s a lot of room for growth. Biochar — made by heating inedible food and other organic waste until it becomes inert, odorless, nutrient-rich charcoal — could be a very effective way to recycle food waste, but it’s underutilized, because the equipment to do it at municipal scale is so new. Like composting, biochar can be used as a fertilizer, returning food waste’s nutrients back to the soil. Unlike composting, it can handle food waste that’s mixed with general nonhazardous trash — no need for costly separate collection and handling. Biochar also sequesters carbon for centuries. S To be clear, ugly produce isn’t bad. If it works for your budget and routine, use it: Our distribution systems should make food affordable and accessible. But the movement’s narrative, built around tales of dented squash rotting in fields, distracts us from the data about the real sources of waste and how to address them. As long as we eat fresh food instead of shelf-stable nutrient bars, perishability is part of the bargain. The only way to completely eliminate food waste is to abolish fresh food. Beyond that, all we can do is manage the waste. Consumers are forever being bombarded with claims that our individual buying choices can put a meaningful dent in some big problem. Food waste is one of the few areas where that’s true. But we won’t make much of a difference by


Ireland’s prime minister talks Brexit and Trump

only speculating here — a short extension that would allow the deal we’ve agreed to with the British government to be ratified or a much longer extension allowing us to explore a much closer relationship between the U.K. and the E.U. than had been envisaged up to this date. Are the other E.U. leaders on the same page about this? Obviously, Ireland is very worried about issues like the border with Northern Ireland, for example, but other European nations have differing priorities. There has been enormous solidarity behind Ireland on the issues of the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement and the border. A lot of people have predicted that solidarity would break — it hasn’t. The unity in the European Union is undoubted, just as nobody can doubt the extent that disunity now pervades politics in the United Kingdom. Do you view the U.S.-Ireland relationship differently because of Brexit? Brexit solidifies Ireland’s position as a reliable partner and a safe place for U.S. companies to invest because we know where we want to be in the world, which is at the heart of the European Union. We believe in free enterprise and free trade. We believe in the multilateral system, and we have a political consensus around that in Ireland. Potentially, when the U.K. leaves the European Union, we can be a strong partner for the U.S. [in the E.U.] We will always be on team Europe, but we are going to be an English-speaking country — the only one in the European Union — and a country with a very similar business culture to the U.S. I think potentially Ireland can be a bridge between the E.U. and the United States, which the U.K. can’t be anymore. A lot of people would argue your administration and the Trump administration have quite different values. How do you reconcile that? I am not sure I can. We are very different politically, and our governments are very different. We have very different views on social policy and very different views on multilateralism. I don’t think those can be reconciled, but I think that the relationship between Ireland and the U.S. is long-lasting, it’s strong. Governments in Ireland change, and presidents in America change. The job that I have to do and others have to do is to make sure that those things that transcend the administrations or governments that are in


Hogan presses Trump administration for more work visas

weighs plea The man charged in the Capital Gazette newsroom shooting filed a deadline extension request Thursday to consider an insanity plea, citing an overwhelming amount of evidence submitted by the prosecution in the past month. Defense attorneys asked Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Laura Ripken for up to a 90-day extension. Jarrod Ramos, 39, faces 23 counts for killing five people at the office in Annapolis on June 28. Police say Ramos killed Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, Rebecca Smith, Wendi Winters and John McNamara. Six staff members survived the attack. Ripken previously granted two extensions of the deadline to explore the plea that asserts a person could not understand the criminality of his or her actions at the time of the crime. In filings Thursday, the defense argued that state prosecutors intentionally withheld vital information over the past eight months. The state has 15 days to respond to the motion, “which we intend to do in writing,” said state’s attorney spokeswoman Emily Morse. — Baltimore Sun Breeding program ends after 52 years The last of a flock of 75 whooping cranes has left a U.S. Geological Survey site in Maryland, marking the end of a breeding program that began in 1967. There were fewer than 50 whooping cranes alive when the Patuxent Research Refuge program began with a one-winged bird named Canus in the 1960s. While still vulnerable, the population is around 700, thanks to efforts including artificial insemination and biologists dressing in crane costumes. USGS officials say its breeding research is no longer needed. The whooping cranes have gone to research institutions and zoos in Virginia, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Louisiana and Canada. — Baltimore Sun THE REGION Police: Teen killed, then dumped in river A 16-year-old was killed in a home in Landover Hills, Md., before his body was driven to Stafford County, Va., and later found near the Rappahannock River, police said. The body of Jacson Chicas of Falls Church was found about 5 a.m. Saturday by a Stafford County sheriff’s deputy. It appears as if there was trauma to his body, the sheriff’s office said. Chicas was identified after detectives released a photo showing a tattoo on his left forearm. Authorities say he was killed in the 7000 block of Varnum Street. Prince George’s police took over the homicide investigation Thursday. Police said they do not think the killing was random. — Lynh Bui


Afghan official says any U.S. deal with the Taliban would ‘dishonor’ American troops as relations sink

Relations between the Trump administration and the government of Afghanistan fell to a new low this week, as they exchanged public accusations of bad faith and exposed deep differences over U.S. negotiations with the Taliban. On a visit to Washington, Afghanistan’s national security adviser, Hamidullah Mohib, charged that any U.S. deal with the Taliban would “dishonor” American troops who have fought and died in the war. Afghan-born U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad was acting out of “personal ambition,” Mohib said, and seeking to “create a caretaker government, of which he will become viceroy.” In Kabul, U.S. Ambassador John R. Bass responded Thursday on Twitter that it was “Afghan corruption and misuse of equipment, funds and other support provided by the American people” that dishonored the troops. “So do any Afghans who put their personal or political interests ahead of the national interest,” Bass tweeted. In a sharply worded statement, the State Department said Mohib had been “summoned” to a meeting with U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs David Hale, who reminded him that “attacks on Ambassador Khalilzad are attacks on the Department and only serve to hinder the bilateral relationship and the peace process.” President Trump has said he wants to withdraw all 14,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a vow that his top military and civilian aides recently persuaded him to tie to progress in the Taliban negotiations. The Afghan government has been excluded from talks between Khalilzad and Taliban representatives, who concluded a lengthy fifth round of negotiations Tuesday in Qatar. Afghan-to-Afghan talks about the country’s future eventually will happen, Khalilzad has said, but the dialogue has focused so far on U.S. counterterrorism concerns and the Taliban demand for foreign troops to withdraw. The U.S.-Afghan relationship has been marked by mutual suspicion and exasperation throughout the nearly 18 years since the Afghan war began, when U.S. troops arrived and ousted the Taliban government. But, with the exception of a brief foray under President Barack Obama, successive U.S. administrations have rebuffed repeated Taliban demands to hold direct talks with Washington, saying they should be talking to their own government. The Taliban calls the Kabul government a U.S. “puppet.” During his campaign, Trump described the Afghan war as a “total disaster” and vowed to bring home U.S. forces. Instead, a lengthy White House review of Afghanistan policy resulted in the deployment of 5,000 additional troops and a commitment to a “conditions-based” withdrawal


Why don’t U.S. nuclear regulators acknowledge the dangers of climate change?

Susan Q. Stranahan is a journalist who covered the Three Mile Island accident and is a co-author of “Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster.” When America’s fleet of nuclear reactors was designed some four-plus decades ago, few people had ever heard the phrase “climate change.” Today, the global threats of worsening weather patterns and natural disasters are well recognized, commanding concern and responses across the board. Except, apparently, at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In late January, by a 3-to-2 vote, NRC commissioners rejected a recommendation from their own senior staff to require reactor owners to recognize new climate reality and fortify their plants against real-world natural hazards such as flooding and seismic events. Most, if not all, of those reactors were engineered, built and maintained with highly optimistic assumptions rooted in the late 1960s and 1970s. For those keeping tabs, March is nuclear accident month. Three Mile Island occurred 40 years ago; Fukushima Daiichi, eight. In the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima disaster, the NRC asked its staff to scrutinize U.S. reactor operations and identify ways to prevent a similar accident. The experts crafted a list of 12 sweeping recommendations. The underlying theme: Prepare for the unexpected. High on the list was a recommendation that plant owners be required to reevaluate the seismic and flooding hazards at their sites “consistent with the current state of knowledge and analytical methods,” and update buildings and equipment to reflect actual risks — not projections formulated back when “Laugh-In” was must-see TV. The 12 recommendations were delivered to the NRC commissioners in July 2011. A draft of new rules implementing the recommendations was finally hammered out in 2016. Lobbyists for the industry pushed back, arguing existing rules provide adequate protection. That’s not surprising. After the Three Mile Island accident, when safety enhancements were ordered, the price tag was steep. The industry set out to ensure that didn’t happen again. Heeding the NRC’s initial calls to conduct hazard assessments, plant operators performed “walkdowns” at their facilities, evaluating critical safety systems for vulnerabilities, with varying degrees of thoroughness. In 2012, Florida Power & Light reported that its St. Lucie plant was prepared for disaster, but two years later, heavy rainfall sent 50,000 gallons of water through flood barriers that had been missing the proper seals for decades. Duke Energy underestimated peak storm-surge heights at its Brunswick plant near Wilmington, N.C., by about eight feet. Flooding


Vice President Pence hosts the Irish prime minister and his gay partner for breakfast

time, it would have ended up breaking laws,” the Irish prime minister said. “But today, that is all changed. I stand here, leader of my country, flawed and human, but judged by my political actions, and not by my sexual orientation, my skin tone, gender or religious beliefs.” This is the first time that Pence has hosted the partner of an openly gay world leader at his residence, though that may simply be a reflection of their low numbers. After he met Pence at his home last year, Varadkar told Irish reporters that the two discussed LGBT issues and that the vice president told the Irish leader that his partner would be welcome at his home. “They were very well briefed,” Varadkar said of his meeting with Pence and his wife. “They knew about my personal story, that my partner was living in Chicago, and they said both Matt and I would be very welcome to visit their home in future.” Speaking to Ireland’s RTE News on Wednesday, Varadkar confirmed that his partner would attend the traditional breakfast with Pence. “As you can imagine, with everything else going on at the moment, I’ve barely had time to think about that,” Varadkar said, a reference to votes on Britain’s exit from the European Union earlier that day. Historically Catholic and socially conservative Ireland has become more LGBTQ-friendly in recent years; in 2015, the country became the first in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote. Varadkar, who was Ireland’s health minister at the time, publicly announced his sexual orientation in a radio interview earlier that year, describing it as “part of my character, I suppose.” According to the Irish Independent newspaper, Varadkar and Barrett have been a couple since 2015. There have been only a handful of openly gay world leaders in modern history; Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel and Serbia’s Ana Brnabic are among them at present. In 2017, a White House photo caption omitted the name of Bettel’s husband, Gauthier Destenay, in a group photo of spouses of NATO leaders during a summit in Brussels. The caption on the photo was later edited to correct the error. Correction: Read more: Ireland’s prime minister talks Brexit and Trump ‘I bet she treats you well’: Trump calls over Irish reporter, compliments her ‘nice smile’ Karen Pence, America’s second lady, is teaching at Virginia religious school that bars LGBTQ students and employees


Brexit is breaking British politics

If you walk up into the Welsh hills, four hours’ drive from the political storms of Westminster, there is the noisy sound of spring as usual — throngs of lambs bleating for their mothers as they tear across the fields. Across Britain, about 17 million lambs are born every year. But if Britain crashes out of the European Union without a deal, nearly half of them might have to be slaughtered for lack of an export market, farmers have warned. The National Farmers Union has called for the government to offer massive financial compensation to avoid that. A choice between huge numbers of dead lambs and huge payouts to sheep farmers is just one example of the turmoil that a no-deal Brexit could bring. This week, which has been chaotic in British politics even by recent standards, has made that just a bit less likely. It is the week that Remainers invoked the horror of a no-deal Brexit to grab back some control over a Parliament still unable to decide what it wants. But it was also the week the country saw just how badly the debate is straining its political system. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May failed in her second attempt to win Parliament’s support for the deal she has struck with the European Union. This time, it was defeated by a margin of “only” 149 votes in the 650-seat House of Commons, compared with the 230-vote defeat in January. On Wednesday, members of Parliament voted to bar the government from taking Britain out of the E.U. with no deal at any point. Yet as the prime minister pointed out wearily after the vote, her voice failing, it is not under Britain’s control whether it leaves without a deal on March 29, the date derived from the Article 50 procedure for exit. MPs can block the no-deal option only by backing her deal, choosing another one or voting for an extension. But an extension — the subject of a vote on Thursday — depends on the European Union’s agreement, and the 27 other members are not sympathetic. “Why would we extend these discussions?” Michel Barnier, the E.U.’s chief negotiator, said Wednesday morning. “The discussion on Article 50, that is done and dusted. We have the withdrawal agreement, it is there.” Britain would have to come up with a plan to secure “a constructive majority” in Parliament before the


Universities race to quell outrage over bribery and cheating scandal in admissions

to be trusting of the students, the counseling communities, the teachers and others who help students apply. And the students and others need to be able to trust the institution that they’re going to be considered fairly and equitably.” William “Rick” Singer, of Newport Beach, Calif., the mastermind of the cheating and bribery scheme who has pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges, was able to identify and exploit what he called a “side door” into colleges that reject far more applicants than they admit. That door was guarded by allegedly corruptible coaches who wield heavy influence over admission slots. Among those charged in the case: a former women’s volleyball coach at Wake Forest University, a former women’s soccer coach at Yale, a former men’s soccer coach at the University of California at Los Angeles and a former water polo coach at USC. Many parents were also charged. “To some extent, the system got hacked,” said Jim Jump, a former president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling who writes on the ethics of college admissions for Inside Higher Education. “The people involved found a vulnerability. That vulnerability is the way athletic admissions is done.” Essentially, admissions officers take coaches at their word when a recruit is recommended. Georgetown shifted course in November. The university now requires head coaches to provide a written description of a recruited athlete — something like an athletic résumé or other documentation of accomplishments — before the admission office releases a letter telling students they’re admitted or likely to be. Georgetown also said it plans to audit sports programs regularly to determine which athletic recruits don’t participate on teams after enrolling. Stanford said it fired a sailing coach, John Vandemoer, who accepted financial contributions to recommend two candidates. One of the two was denied admission, Stanford said, and the other never completed an application. Another long-noted vulnerability is the security of admissions testing. The scandal showed some parents were willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to help their children cheat on the ACT or SAT. Under Singer’s scheme, students would obtain a learning disability diagnosis and special accommodations for testing. Then a stand-in or proctor at a site Singer “controlled” through bribes would manipulate the test to get the right result. Authorities named Mark Riddell, a college-entrance exam counselor, as Singer’s cheating accomplice and charged him in the case. Riddell on Wednesday


What a spike in toilet paper sales says about Brexit

While British lawmakers fumble through Brexit negotiations, sales of two items might hint at how the public is bracing for impact: toilet paper and painkillers. On a recent earnings call, David Potts, chief executive of British supermarket Morrisons, said that the chain had seen a “small amount” of stockpiling and that sales of these two goods had risen more than 7 percent in the past year. “We’ve seen quite a tick-up in painkillers and toilet rolls [sales],” Potts said, according to reporting from Reuters. “Whether that has any bearing on how people are feeling about Brexit, I don’t know.” The specter of food and goods shortages after a no-deal Brexit has loomed over negotiations, as about a third of British food is imported from the European Union, and the prevailing sense of unease has manifested in shopping habits and retailer behavior. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) reported a steep drop-off in February retail sales, as shoppers reined in spending to focus on essentials. The British government has instructed supermarkets to stockpile as many goods as possible, and has spent at least £23 million ($30 million) on reserve supplies at military bases, Sky News reported. “Uncertainty surrounding the UK’s imminent exit from the European Union has hit consumer spending,” said Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, in a statement. “If government wishes to reassure both the public and businesses, they should ensure a chaotic no deal ... is taken off the table." Experts have warned that a hard exit from the E.U. could spell disaster for British consumers and businesses, as imports would be subjected to high tariffs set by the World Trade Organization in absence of an agreement between Britain and the E.U. In late January, heads of competing supermarkets, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Marks & Spencer, Lidl and Waitrose, as well as the BRC, sent an open letter to lawmakers warning of “significant disruption” to supply chains in the event of a no-deal Brexit. “We are extremely concerned that our customers will be among the first to experience the realities of a no deal Brexit,” supermarket leaders wrote. “We anticipate significant risks to maintaining the choice, quality and durability of food ... and there will be inevitable pressure on food prices from higher transport costs, currency devaluation and tariffs.” The timing of the Brexit deadline is particularly troubling, the letter suggested, because the bulk of Britain’s spring produce comes from


from the European Union has hit consumer spending,” said Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, in a statement. “If government wishes to reassure both the public and businesses, they should ensure a chaotic no deal ... is taken off the table." Experts have warned that a hard exit from the E.U. could spell disaster for British consumers and businesses, as imports would be subjected to high tariffs set by the World Trade Organization in absence of an agreement between Britain and the E.U. In late January, heads of competing supermarkets, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Marks & Spencer, Lidl and Waitrose, as well as the BRC, sent an open letter to lawmakers warning of “significant disruption” to supply chains in the event of a no-deal Brexit. “We are extremely concerned that our customers will be among the first to experience the realities of a no deal Brexit,” supermarket leaders wrote. “We anticipate significant risks to maintaining the choice, quality and durability of food ... and there will be inevitable pressure on food prices from higher transport costs, currency devaluation and tariffs.” The timing of the Brexit deadline is particularly troubling, the letter suggested, because the bulk of Britain’s spring produce comes from mainland Europe, including 90 percent of lettuce, 80 percent of tomatoes and 70 percent of soft fruit. A lack of available warehouse space in the U.K. limits just how much supermarkets are able to stock up, heightening chances that supermarket shelves might wind up empty. “Our ability to mitigate these risks is limited,” the letter said. “Retailers typically store no more than two weeks inventory, and it becomes difficult to restock stores if the supply chain is disrupted. We are also attempting to find alternative supply routes, but there are limited options and not enough ferries.” A study published early this week by consultancy firm Oliver Wyman and law firm Clifford Chance found that a handful of industries — agriculture, financial services, automotive, consumables and chemicals and plastics — would bear about 70 percent of the Brexit impact. The study analyzed data from businesses around the E.U. and found that Brexit would cost exporters in the U.K. £27 billion ($36 billion) a year, and exporters in the E.U. £31 billion ($41 billion) a year. Members of Parliament voted twice Wednesday to reject an exit from the E.U. without a sufficient withdrawal agreement. The votes suggest that lawmakers will have to


‘This is a kangaroo court’: American arrested on spy charges in Russia lashes out

MOSCOW — Paul Whelan, an American citizen imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges, sharply criticized the handling of his case on Thursday and suggested he was being poorly treated at the Moscow prison where he has spent the past three months. “This is a kangaroo court,” Whelan, 49, told reporters from inside a glass enclosure in a Moscow court, where a judge upheld a decision to keep the former Marine behind bars through late May. Since members of Russia’s security services, the FSB, seized Whelan in his Moscow hotel room in late December, charging him with espionage shortly after, there have been no formal or public statements explaining what crime the Michigan resident is accused of committing. A citizen of four countries — Ireland, Canada and Britain, in addition to the United States — Whelan receives consular visits, but they are heavily restricted. This week, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow called on the Russian government to allow consular officials unrestricted visits, so Whelan’s case can be discussed “freely and without obstruction .” Whelan’s family says the investigator in the case is preventing his signed Privacy Act Waiver from reaching U.S. officials, hindering them from lobbying on his behalf and publicly disclosing case details. The embassy also says the family has been denied the power of attorney, despite the correct documentation being provided to prison officials. “It seems fairly clear, although of course we don’t know, that he is being purposely isolated so that some sort of confession can be contrived and the Russians can save face,” Ryan Fayhee, a former Justice Department lawyer working pro bono for the Whelan family, told The Washington Post. Statements from Whelan’s Russian attorney, who Fayhee says was appointed by the FSB, only seem to add to the obfuscation. Vladimir Zherebenkov said Thursday that his client had been set up by a member of the FSB when he was unwittingly handed a flash drive containing “state secrets.” “He was framed,” Zherebenkov told reporters outside the courtroom. Fayhee said Zherebenkov is clearly not acting in Whelan’s interest. “This is what is obvious, and troubling to the family,” the lawyer said. “The Russians need to tell us what he did, what specifically happened. Otherwise, it’s unlawful,” Fayhee added. Though President Trump has not commented on Whelan’s detention, and the response from the State Department has been minimal, there is a growing chorus of discontent in Congress. The


British Parliament votes to delay Brexit, rejects a second referendum for now

for Brexit, she would ask E.U. leaders for a longer delay. Staying in beyond June probably would require Britain, as one of the 28 E.U. member states, to hold European Parliament elections in May 2019. This would essentially keep Britain in the economic and political union for a good while. How long? Maybe forever, opponents of Brexit hope and hard-line Brexiteers fear. President Trump waded into the debate But in a later meeting with the Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar at the White House, Trump was critical of May’s leadership. “I’m surprised at how badly it’s all gone from the standpoint of a negotiation,” Trump said. “I gave the prime minister my ideas on how to negotiate it, and I think you would have been successful. She didn’t listen to that and that’s fine — she’s got to do what she’s got to do. I think it could have been negotiated in a different manner, frankly. I hate to see everything being ripped apart now.” European leaders will have to decide what to do with Britain when they gather for two days in Brussels starting next Thursday. They are divided over how much rope to give. Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi compared the suspense of Brexit to a “Hitchcock film.” Some countries, especially France, feel that if a no-deal departure is going to happen anyway at the end of an extension, it would be preferable to face the pain sooner. French President Emmanuel Macron would prefer to take Brexit off the table as an issue in May elections for the European Parliament, since euroskeptic far-right groups in France have been energized by the Brexit turmoil. Others think a long extension would be best, so that voters do not blame mainstream leaders for whatever economic turmoil arises. Or they want to preserve good relations with a country that will continue to be an important trading and security partner even after its departure. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, tweeted Thursday that he would urge E.U. leaders to support a “long extension” if Britain needed to “rethink its Brexit strategy and build consensus around it.” “Once they sort themselves out, I’m pretty sure the 27 will still be united on the next steps forward,” European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told Sky News. “But many member states are saying, yes, you’re talking about an extension, but to do what?” Conservative


Patrick O’Connell wins James Beard lifetime achievement award for his decades at the Inn at Little Washington

In September, Inn at Little Washington chef Patrick O’Connell achieved a lifelong goal, one of the highest culinary achievements: a third Michelin star. Turns out, there were more accolades to come. On Thursday, the James Beard Foundation announced that O’Connell would receive its lifetime achievement award at the annual James Beard Awards gala on May 6. O’Connell, 73, founded his restaurant in a former garage 41 years ago in Washington, Va. It has since grown to become a world-class dining destination, modeled after the grand inns found in remote villages throughout Europe. In that time, O’Connell has won five James Beard Awards, and has served the queens of England, Jordan and Spain and the king of Spain. The restaurant has topped the list of best restaurants in Tom Sietsema’s Fall Dining Guide, and it debuted in the Washington Michelin guide with two stars before earning its third in 2018. “The trompe-l’oeil peach — spun from peach compote, peach mousse, a chocolate stem and a fondant leaf — is worth the trip,” wrote Sietsema in his most recent dining guide, in which he named the inn to his inaugural D.C. Restaurant Hall of Fame. “But the dessert, whose fruit changes with the season, is one of many pieces of evidence. I’d throw in the hors d’oeuvre that imagines a BLT as a parfait, the brilliant curry arranged with diver scallops finished with a spritz of calvados at the table, the eggplant Milanese bedded on ribbons of onions and tarted up with tomato-ginger jam, the last dish among the sumptuous vegetarian options.” The restaurant and inn are dedicated to an over-the-top level of service: “Visitors have been known to be greeted outside with an invitation to tour the hamlet in a horse-drawn carriage.” O’Connell celebrated the inn’s anniversary last year with four events, including a $2,500-per-person dinner that re-created the experience of dining at the table of George Washington, with Thomas Keller and Alice Waters among the invitees. The JBF’s lifetime achievement award is “bestowed upon a person in the industry whose lifetime body of work has had a positive and long-lasting impact on the way we eat, cook, and think about food in America,” said the news release. It praised O’Connell for “cultivating fruitful relationships with his neighbors — many of whom have a strong connection to the land” in his small town. In 2017, another local chef, Nora Pouillon, was


The organic food industry is booming, and that may be bad for consumers

are David-turns-into-Goliath successes: White Oak Pastures in Georgia grew from a small family farm into the largest USDA-certified organic farm in the state while maintaining high standards for animal husbandry and adopting an innovative zero-waste production system. But many of the original organic food companies are now owned and subsidized by huge conventional companies. Kellogg’s owns Kashi, General Mills owns Annie’s, Perdue owns Niman Ranch, etc. This is big food companies hedging their bets and adopting the General Motors marketing model, according to Kastel: We have Chevys, we have Buicks, whatever you want. The gatekeepers are the federally accredited third-party certifiers. Many certifiers started as nonprofit companies established by farmers in the early days of organics but have turned into multimillion-dollar corporations pursuing certification of multibillion-dollar corporate agribusinesses. “It’s a constant fight on the national level to keep the spirit of organics alive, that the earth is as important as the people eating the food,” said Pam Smith, a former board member of Florida Organic Growers who resigned in protest recently because of what she perceived to be a tenor change in the organization. "I started feeling like the director himself wanted to make more money. There’s more money in the certification than in the farming itself, especially if you’re no longer concerned about small family farms. It’s way easier to certify the large ones.” An imperfect system, perhaps, but USDA-certified organic is the only available signpost for now. “Organic is the only federally set label that has legal meaning. It’s not perfect, but I know what it is,” said George Kimbrell, legal director of the Center for Food Safety. He suggested that “organic” may best be seen as a floor, and that socially just foods and climate-friendly foods are needed. The Cornucopia scorecard is mostly a mechanism for shaming certifiers and the organic businesses that employ them. Cornucopia aims to follow up with letters to every organic farmer and food business in the country, urging them to ask their certifiers for a moratorium on hydroponics and to identify fraudulent dairies and egg operations. Kastel’s hope is that consumers in turn will demand greater transparency in the certification system. “If you can’t trust a certifier universally, or the USDA system, then none of it is trustworthy. There’s a higher authority in these issues than the USDA. It’s the consumer. They control the dollar and have the last word,” he said.


Brexit is Britain’s midlife crisis

as you might expect, it’s the kind of can-kicking exercise that the government prefers. Not least because it would allow the government to say that Brexit had happened when it hadn’t in any meaningful sense of the word. The bigger problem, though, is that it doesn’t seem as though there’s any possible agreement that would take Northern Ireland out of the E.U.'s customs union but leave its border open — that’s the round peg and the square hole — so there’s a strong chance that this would mean Britain would just stay in the customs union itself indefinitely. In which case, what would be the point of all this? Britain may as well just as stay in the E.U., and try to do something productive for a change. It’s enough of a fear that Conservative Brexiteers have teamed up with Labour MPs to vote down May’s deal in two of the three biggest majorities in the history of Parliament. The point is that populism might be able to win in the short term, but reality always does in the long term. The question, though, is how long that long term is. It can be a while. Britain’s problem is that it’s a bit like a guy going through a midlife crisis who wakes up one morning and decides he wants a divorce (leaving the E.U.), in part because he has vastly overrated his attractiveness (how important its economy is). Which is to say that he’s under the mistaken impression that everyone is going to want to date him (offer it free trade deals) once he’s on his own. Not to mention that he didn’t count on the fact that sharing custody of his kids (the Ireland-Northern Ireland border) means that he actually isn’t free to do whatever he wants, but will still have to coordinate things pretty closely with his soon-to-be-ex wife (the E.U.). Now, in the movie version of this story, he’d belatedly realize that he was better off when he was married, and beg his wife to take him back right before they finalized their I-Don’ts. In real life, things are a lot messier than that. Both the Conservative and Labour parties have a lot of Brexit supporters among them, so neither one is willing to take a firm stand against it. At the same time, they’re not so in favor of it that they want to do


Paul Manafort sentenced to a total of 7.5 years in prison for conspiracy and fraud, and charged with mortgage fraud in N.Y.

sentenced in Virginia. “Let me be very clear: I accept responsibility for the actions that led me to be here today, and I want to apologize for all I contributed to the impacts on people and institutions. While I cannot change the past, I can work to change the future,” Manafort said from his wheelchair, turning to face Jackson. “I want to say to you now, I am sorry for what I have done and for all of the activities that have gotten us here today.” He added that nine months in what he called “solitary confinement” gave him “new self-awareness.” Manafort had been held in protective custody, away from other inmates. Prosecutors questioned whether Manafort was capable of change, depicting him as a mastermind of a conspiracy in which he was paid $50 million over more than a decade by a Russian-backed politician and party in Ukraine, and by Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin. “His work was corrosive to faith in the political process, both in the United States and abroad,” prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said. “He served to undermine, not promote, American ideals of honesty, transparency and playing by the rules.” Manafort’s attempt to cover up his crimes by asking witnesses to lie for him, Weissmann said, “is not reflective of somebody who has learned a harsh lesson. It is not a reflection of remorse. It is evidence that something is wrong with sort of a moral compass.” Weissmann said Manafort led a sophisticated scheme “to avoid a duty all Americans have” — to pay their taxes. He hid wealth in 30 foreign bank accounts containing more than $50 million for his work for the government of Ukraine and Deripaska, the prosecutor said. Downing said his client is genuinely remorseful and has endured a “media frenzy.” Downing said all sides have sought to spin Manafort’s predicament to their political advantage, adding that “but for a short stint as campaign manager in a presidential election, I don’t think we would be here today. I think the court should consider that, too.” Jackson dismissed that argument, telling Manafort, “Saying ‘I’m sorry I got caught’ is not an inspiring call for leniency.” The investigation of Manafort predated Mueller’s appointment in 2017, and it wasn’t the special counsel’s office that made Manafort lie to investigators, she said. Manafort asked for mercy on more personal grounds, asking Jackson to


Military to begin enforcing Trump’s restrictions on transgender troops

The military will begin enforcing President Trump’s restrictions on transgender troops on April 12, according to a Pentagon memo, which drew rebukes from Democratic lawmakers and civil rights advocates who decried the change as bigoted. The memo stipulates that a history of gender dysphoria would disqualify applicants to the military unless they have been stable in their biological sex for 36 months, are willing to abide by the rules for that sex, and have not transitioned and do not need to in the view of medical providers. Those who are already in the military or under contract to join before the start date will fall under the 2016 policy enacted by the Obama administration. That policy allowed people who have transitioned to join the military and gave those already serving an opportunity to transition while in the armed forces. It also allowed service members to change their gender marker in the military system and abide by uniform, grooming and facilities rules for their new identity. None of that is allowed under the new restrictions. Under the new policy, secretaries of the military services will be given latitude to grant exceptions to certain individuals, who would then be able to access medical care in accordance with the old policy. The decision by the Defense Department to begin enforcing the policy comes more than a year and a half after Trump announced the ban by tweet in July 2017, surprising his own defense secretary. “After consultations with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump wrote at the time. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.” The actual Pentagon policy that former defense secretary Jim Mattis formulated and rolled out after the tweet stopped short of a categorical ban, according to defense officials. It allows transgender individuals to serve in the military, as long as they aren’t diagnosed with gender dysphoria, haven’t transitioned sex and don’t need to, and submit to rules for their biological gender regarding uniforms, grooming and facilities. Critics, however, say those rules amount to a de facto ban, because they essentially allow transgender people to serve in the military only if they refrain


U.S. military to test missiles banned under faltering nuclear pact with Russia

The Pentagon is gearing up to test missiles banned by a Cold War-era arms control pact with Russia that is set to end formally this summer after President Trump’s withdrawal over Russian violations. The U.S. military plans to test a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of about 600 miles in August and a midrange ballistic missile with a range of about 1,800 to 2,500 miles in November, according to senior U.S. defense officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters. The testing, production and deployment of missiles with those ranges is prohibited by the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or the INF Treaty. But Trump withdrew from the treaty on Feb. 1 and triggered a formal six-month wait period before the final expiry of the agreement this summer. Washington and Moscow will then be free to test, produce and deploy the intermediate-range missiles that both countries have agreed to ban for more than three decades. Research and development of the banned missiles isn’t prohibited by the treaty. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty after Trump’s withdrawal. Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to design new weapons banned under the pact but said he would deploy them only if the United States does. Washington has said Moscow is already deploying a missile that violates the agreement and cited that weapon as a reason for its withdrawal from the pact. The Kremlin has denied that accusation. The race to develop new intermediate-range missiles banned by the treaty raises concerns about a new nuclear arms race with Russia as an arms-control framework constructed during the Cold War shows increasing signs of eroding. The senior U.S. defense officials cautioned that the United States was looking at only conventional variants of the new missiles slated for testing later this year. Theoretically, in the future they could be armed with nuclear warheads. Signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the INF Treaty was widely viewed as a breakthrough in arms control. The pact banned all ground-launched missiles, both nuclear and nonnuclear, with ranges from 310 to 3,400 miles. It ended a particularly tense period in the Cold War arms race, in which Washington and Moscow dotted Europe with nuclear-tipped rockets. U.S. officials say the Trump administration has no plans to seek the forward deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe once again, but the breakdown of


Brexit: Parliament rejects a no-deal departure

that he would “keep voting this down however many times it is brought back.” If all hope for a deal crumbles, May could resign, or she could pivot and call for a snap election. Or Parliament could demand another Brexit referendum. After warning the House about the perils of no-deal, Exchequer Phillip Hammond said May’s government and lawmakers should “start to map out a way forward towards building a consensus across this house for a deal we can collectively support to exit the E.U. in an orderly way” — suggesting moves toward a softer Brexit. While the chaos in London rattled other European capitals, there was also some satisfaction that the British Parliament appeared to fear a no-deal Brexit as much as Europe does and might favor a softer or more gradual departure. “An extension is better than no deal,” said Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, speaking in Washington a day ahead of planned meetings with President Trump and Vice President Pence. If Britain decided to reconsider its “red lines,” Varadkar added, they’d receive a “very generous, very warm and very open response” from E.U. member states. In Brussels, E.U. ambassadors gathered to plot their next moves. Most countries appeared willing to accept some sort of delay. But there were disagreements about what Britain would have to promise in order to receive an extension. May’s domestic brinkmanship gives little time for E.U. leaders to lay the diplomatic groundwork for their response ahead of a two-day summit that begins March 21. Some groused that proposals that could set off E.U.-wide earthquakes typically get aired at least a few days in advance. And although most European leaders would welcome a Brexit reversal, the necessary consensus for a long delay is less clear. Some E.U. policymakers watched with amazement at Wednesday’s maneuvers in the House of Commons, noting the energy being expended on the “Malthouse Compromise” — a proposal the E.U. sees as the British attempting to preserve the divorce deal while stripping out the parts that would guarantee an open Irish border. It was roundly defeated. Brexiteers have been accused of chasing unicorns, conjuring up magical solutions to complex situations like the Irish border problem. That may have been what the European Union Council President Donald Tusk — known for setting off social media — had in mind when he posted a child’s unicorn drawing on his Instagram account. william.booth@washpost.com karla.adam@washpost.com michael.birnbaum@washpost.com


Major Japanese art exhibition at National Gallery put off by a month

The National Gallery of Art’s major spring exhibition, “The Life of Animals in Japanese Art,” will open a month late, the latest casualty — but not the last — of January’s record-setting government shutdown. The Japanese art exhibition will open June 2 and run 11 weeks instead of 12. After closing Aug. 18, the show will move to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The National Gallery of Art already delayed the year’s blockbuster exhibition, “Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice,” because of the shutdown. That show, and two complementary print shows, will open March 24. Two other spring shows will be delayed, and a show planned for November has been postponed until 2020. Museum officials had expected to be able to open the Japanese show on time, according to D. Dodge Thompson, the gallery’s chief of exhibitions. But contractors took other jobs during the shutdown, and materials were delayed. The gallery must build more than 80 display cases, some of them 20 feet long, for the show, which features 315 works of various media, including paintings, sculptures, textiles and metalwork. It will cover 18,000 square feet of the Concourse Galleries in the museum’s East Building, according to Thompson. The partial government shutdown lasted 35 days, from Dec. 22 through Jan. 25. The National Gallery and the Smithsonian museums used reserve funds to keep their doors open through December, one of their busiest times of the year. The National Gallery estimates it lost more than 300,000 visitors during its 25-day closure. Dozens of films and concerts were canceled, and the gallery’s Sculpture Garden ice rink lost one-quarter of its season. The gallery also lost $1.2 million in revenue from its restaurants and shops. The shutdown’s ripple effect will continue into next year. “Oliver Lee Jackson: Recent Paintings” will open three weeks late, on April 14, while an exhibition of lunar photographs set for April 28 will open July 14. A small exhibit, “Raphael,” has been moved from November to February 2020. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has delayed its landmark exhibit on women’s suffrage, “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence,” from March 1 until March 29, and the National Museum of African Art has pushed the opening of “Striking Iron: The Art of the African Blacksmith” from Feb. 27 until April 17. peggy.mcglone@washpost.com


‘In deep grief’: Aid workers, U.N. staff, tourists among victims in Ethiopia plane crash

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Among the dead in Sunday’s Ethiopian Airlines crash were law students, tourists, writers, academics and a number of aid workers and employees of the United Nations — 157 victims who represented more than 30 nationalities. The route connected East Africa’s two premier cities: Addis Ababa, home to the African Union, has been called the political capital of the region, while vibrant Nairobi is the commercial capital. Both host regional headquarters for several international institutions and have large populations of expatriates. Addis Ababa is the location of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, while the World Food Program, the United Nations’ refugee agency and its children’s agency, UNICEF, all have their regional headquarters in Nairobi. Nineteen U.N. staffers were on board Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, many of whom were traveling to Nairobi for the U.N. Environment Assembly, which opened Monday with flags at half-staff and a minute of silence for the victims. One of them was Victor Shanghai Tsang, who, his colleagues say, embodied the spirit of the United Nations. A former intern who rose to become a program officer, he brought together a group of interns and staffers to promote innovation goals at this week’s summit. He is survived by his pregnant wife and his son. “The environmental community is in mourning today,” the U.N. Environment Program said in a statement, describing the loss of “seasoned scientists, members of academia and other partners.” The Rome-based World Food Program, which provides food assistance to millions of people across the world and in the Horn of Africa, lost seven employees. David Beasely, the agency’s executive director, said the loss was “devastating, heartbreaking. I don’t think there was a dry eye today in our team in Addis.” “Every day, our friends, our WFP team, put their life on the line for everyone out there,” he said, describing the aid workers as “average people giving everything they’ve got to make the world a better place, and that makes them superheroes.” Among the victims from WFP was Irish aid worker Michael Ryan, who had been set to move from Cork, Ireland, to Rome in a matter of months and left behind a wife and two children, one just 7 months old. He was described by the Irish Independent newspaper as a respected aid worker who was involved in projects in Asia and Africa, including with Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh. “Michael


Investigators find 2nd piece of key evidence in crash of Boeing 737 Max 8 in Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A new piece of evidence found by investigators on the ground here suggests the Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed Sunday may have had a problem with a new flight-control system also suspected in the crash of a Lion Air flight in October. It is the second piece of information suggesting similarities between the two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max 8 jets. Investigators found a device known as a jackscrew in the wreckage. The jackscrew, used to set the trim that raises and lowers the plane’s nose, indicates the jet was configured to dive, according to John Cox, a former pilot and an airline-safety consultant with the Washington-based aviation-safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems. Cox, formerly the top safety official for the Air Line Pilots Association, said he was privately briefed on the evidence Thursday by people familiar with the investigation. “All we can say definitely is that the trim was in a position similar to the position found on the Lion Air airplane and it would cause the nose to go down,” he said. “This will be consistent with a nose-down flight path, which they think is likely with the Ethiopian airplane. “It points to one central link,” Cox said. “We need the data from the flight data recorders. We need it as quickly as possible. . . . The faster that we get that information, it will let everyone know what needs to be done. We don’t know in fact if these accidents are related. There are some similarities.” Daniel K. Elwell, acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, cited newly refined satellite tracking data and evidence recovered from the wreckage site as factors in his decision to ground the jets Wednesday. That data also showed similarities to the Lion Air flight. Cox said he believes the jackscrew is the new evidence Elwell was citing. Meanwhile, French aviation experts began work Friday on the plane’s heavily damaged data and voice recorders. Officials with France’s Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses, which has extensive experience analyzing crashes in Europe, said that work to retrieve information from the flight data recorder of the Boeing 737 Max 8 has begun in coordination with the Ethiopian investigation team. President Trump spoke by telephone with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Friday to again express his condolences and underscore the United States’ commitment to work with Ethiopian and international civil aviation authorities


Business digest: Qualcomm awarded $31.6 million in Apple patent suit

using the chipmaker’s patented technology. A federal jury in San Diego awarded Qualcomm about $31.6 million in damages on its patent infringement claims Friday, the amount Qualcomm had sought. The verdict boosts Qualcomm’s contention that its patent portfolio provides significant value to smartphones beyond the ability to connect to a telecommunications network. The disputed patents pertain to technology for graphics processing and battery conservation, which the firm says improves the efficiency and reduces the cost of smartphones. Apple and Qualcomm didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Qualcomm has lost billions of dollars in revenue after Apple stopped paying patent royalties in 2017. — Bloomberg News AIRLINE INDUSTRY American Airlines stops Venezuela flights American Airlines is stopping flights to Venezuela because of safety concerns after the pilots’ union told its members to refuse to work the flights. American was the last major U.S. carrier to fly to the troubled country. It flew daily to Caracas and Maracaibo from Miami. The airline said Friday that it temporarily stopped the flights as it evaluated conditions in Venezuela, where civil unrest has increased amid opposition to President Nicolás Maduro. “American will not operate to countries we don’t consider safe,” said spokesman Ross Feinstein. The decision followed a union president’s order Thursday night that American Airlines pilots refuse Venezuela assignments. Daniel Carey of the Allied Pilots Association noted that the State Department issued a warning about crime and detention of American citizens in Venezuela. The United States pulled its last diplomats out of the country Thursday. — Associated Press EMPLOYMENT U.S. job openings increased in January U.S. job openings rose in January as the employers in wholesale trade, real estate and government sought workers in a tight labor market. The number of positions waiting to be filled increased by 102,000 to 7.58 million, from an upwardly revised 7.48 million in the prior month, according to the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, released Friday. The quits rate was unchanged at 2.3 percent as 5.55 million Americans left jobs. The rising number of job openings add to evidence that employers are having difficulties in finding suitable workers. The February payroll figures pointed to the likelihood of a moderation in job gains this year as economic growth slows amid an uptick in wage gains. — Bloomberg News Also in Business PwC agreed to pay CBS directors U.S. factory — From news reports


World Digest: March 15, 2019

BREXIT 'Good' talks with May's Northern Irish allies The Northern Irish party crucial to Prime Minister Theresa May’s hopes of getting her twice-defeated Brexit deal through Parliament said that it had good talks with British ministers Friday but that differences remain over the Irish border. To succeed, May must win over dozens of Brexit-supporting rebels in her own Conservative Party and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which has 10 lawmakers in Parliament and is in a governing coalition with May’s Conservatives. “We have had good discussions today. Those discussions will continue,” DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said. He said the British government was “very focused” on addressing the issue of the Irish backstop, an insurance policy that sets out what happens to the border between Northern Ireland — which is part of the United Kingdom, and the Irish Republic, which is a member of the European Union — after Brexit. The backstop has been a constant sticking point as May has tried to push her deal through. Many Brexiteers and the DUP are concerned that the backstop will trap Britain in the E.U.’s orbit indefinitely and have sought guarantees that it will not. — Reuters ECUADOR Human rights agency rejects Assange request An international human rights organization has turned down a request by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that Ecuador, which has sheltered him for more than six years at its embassy in London, ease the conditions it has imposed on his residence there. A spokeswoman for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is linked to the Organization of American States, said the group rejected Assange’s complaint. Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson had no comment. Assange took refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation. That probe was later dropped, but Assange fears he could be extradited to face charges in the United States, where federal prosecutors are investigating WikiLeaks. He says Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum and is putting pressure on him by isolating him from visitors and spying on him. — Reuters 50 opposition prisoners freed in Nicaragua amid talks: 19 bags containing human remains found in Mexico — From news services


How the New Zealand mosque shootings moved across social media

Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post. For your ears. Martine Powers is your host, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Listen online. How YouTube, Facebook and Twitter handle violent content On Friday, at least 49 people were killed and dozens more injured in shootings at two mosques in New Zealand. The violence was documented on social media — first streamed live on Facebook and later disseminated to other platforms, along with the hate-filled ideology that apparently spawned it. Hamza Shaban takes a close look at the technology that enabled the broadcasting of the mass murder. More on this topic: What’s the deal with Brexit? On Thursday, lawmakers voted to delay Britain’s exit from the European Union, following Parliament’s numerous rejections of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans. The deadline for Brexit to take effect is March 29. The Post’s London bureau chief, William Booth, reports on the Brexit hold-up and what could happen next. More on this topic: Why free tax-prep services aren’t so free Companies such as Credit Karma offer free services that prep users’ tax forms, but it comes at the cost of the private data in customers’ returns. Tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler explores how such sites use income data gleaned from tax forms to advertise other services. More on this topic:


Russian oligarch and Putin ally sues Treasury, demands lifting of U.S. sanctions

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska sued the Treasury Department and Secretary Steven Mnuchin in U.S. federal court to demand the lifting of remaining U.S. sanctions against him, alleging the measures were illegal and harmed his finances and reputation. Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed that Washington’s 2018 sanctions were “completely untethered” from “legal criteria.” The lawsuit, filed in district court in Washington, D.C., said the oligarch’s net worth has fallen by more than $7.5 billion, or 81 percent, since he and some of his companies were sanctioned for what Treasury called his support of “the Kremlin’s global malign activities.” In January, the Treasury Department lifted sanctions on three Deripaska-connected companies, but left in place the sanctions on Deripaska himself. “Treasury does not generally comment on pending litigation,” an agency spokesman said Friday. Sanctions experts said it is not unusual for sanctioned individuals to sue Treasury. The government usually wins the cases, “since the judiciary is pretty deferential to [Treasury] and the government on issues of national security,” said Peter Harrell, a former State Department official who worked on sanctions policy during the Obama administration. The D.C.-based lawyer representing Deripaska in the case, Erich Ferrari of Ferrari & Associates, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Ferrari’s online profile says he has previously “worked to have names removed” from Treasury sanctions lists. jeanne.whalen@washpost.com


Congress makes a move against Russia’s worst human rights abuser

against Oleg Orlov, the head of Russia’s Memorial human rights organization, who had openly accused the Chechen leader of being behind Estemirova’s murder. Human rights groups and international organizations have documented the widespread practice of enforced disappearances, torture and “honor killings” in Kadyrov’s Chechnya, with the strongman reportedly participating in some acts of torture personally. Days after the assassination of Boris Nemtsov in 2015, five Chechens were arrested and charged with his murder; they were later found guilty and sentenced to various prison terms. The convicted gunman, Lt. Zaur Dadayev, had served under Kadyrov’s command in a Chechnya-based battalion of the Russian Interior Ministry. Kadyrov publicly referred to him as a “true patriot” — while calling Nemtsov “an enemy of Russia.” Another Kadyrov associate, Major Ruslan Geremeyev, was nearly indicted as an organizer in the Nemtsov assassination — until Russia’s top law enforcement official personally vetoed the attempt. Numerous requests by lawyers representing the Nemtsov family to have Kadyrov questioned were denied by the investigators and the courts. The Chechen leader enjoys the full protection of the Russian state. Ten days after the assassination of Nemtsov, Putin awarded Kadyrov the Order of Honor, one of Russia’s highest civilian decorations. The moves by Western countries to counter Kadyrov’s impunity with visa and financial sanctions had profound symbolic importance. Their practical effect, however, was limited by the fact that Kadyrov had no interests and no presence in the democracies of Europe and North America. The Middle East, however, is a different matter. Kadyrov’s Instagram feed is filled with reports of his frequent visits to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. These three countries are now reported to be the largest investors in Chechnya. UAE investments alone total more than $350 million, with funding for airports, hotels, shopping malls and skyscrapers. Kadyrov’s relationship with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, has been described as a “blossoming friendship.” He has also met on several occasions with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. Close ties with Arab monarchies have benefited not only Kadyrov’s regime but also his own pocket. A recent report by Transparency International showed that the Chechen leader made nearly $1 million in winnings from his racehorses in the UAE (none of it reported on his government declarations). These profits could well be considered “significant transactions” that would merit secondary sanctions against those


The Marines don’t want you to see what happens when propaganda stops and combat begins

a shopkeeper. Afghan troops mull hiding his corpse. “Just like a deer,” someone notes as Marines flip his body over to inspect his wounds. The documentary implies he was innocent, though Marines in the unit have said the shopkeeper used a radio to communicate with militants and the shot to kill him was approved by the chain of command. Various other scenes channel surreal flashes of banal violence, like Marines gathering fingerprints from the severed and scorched hand of a militant killed while planting an IED. Lagoze said films like “Full Metal Jacket” were embedded in his mind and guided how he thought about his shots — a feedback loop of war images becoming war images becoming war images. He brought back a cache of video and enrolled in film school at Columbia University, where he discovered he had something that could, in aggregate, approach the truth in ways that piecemeal clips on CNN could not. He watched another veteran — Matt Bissonnette — embroiled in a scandal after his book about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden allegedly revealed sensitive information. He submitted the documentary to Marine officials tasked with reviewing books and films for classified material. The officials found something else entirely. Lagoze was a self-interested threat to the safety of other Marines, the Marine Corps said, and his videos were evidence of crimes like smoking marijuana that have since passed the statute of limitations. Officials sent flurries of requests to Lagoze, demanding a full account of government-provided video equipment he used to collect the footage. Lagoze found himself in a murky gray area of free speech and fair-use government products. U.S. citizens can already go on Pentagon-operated sites and download free military photos and video. Their tax dollars fund it, and federal government creations are not protected by copyright. So could Lagoze take the moments he filmed with government resources and make something new? He worked with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University to push back against the military’s claims of impropriety. The Marine Corps relented this month. “While we contend that at least some of the content of the film — produced with Marine Corps equipment, during a Marine Corps deployment, and not cleared for public release by any official release authority — is rightly the property of the U.S. government, we do not plan to pursue any legal action against Mr. Lagoze


FAA, still suffering from shutdown, now takes reputation hit after Boeing crash

lockout affected work on the Boeing planes specifically, but the shutdown generated a backlog that will take time to remedy. When the employees returned, “they had that pile of work to do, plus their day-to-day continuation of activities,” he said. “So I’m not sure where the 737 was in the pipeline as far as getting that work signed off or certificated. But any work that was in line just sat in the inspectors’ inboxes until they got back to work.” His interview comments echo those he and others told a recent House hearing titled “Putting U.S. Aviation at Risk: The Impact of the Shutdown.” Representatives from various parts of the industry agreed that “the government shutdown will have a lingering negative impact upon certification activities for the foreseeable future,” as Peter J. Bunce, president and chief executive of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, said. He cited flight testing of new aircraft, which “even under the best circumstances, we anticipate disruptions will continue for months.” Nicholas E. Calio, president and chief executive of Airlines for America, which represents large airlines, predicted that “the ramifications of the shutdown, compounded by previous shutdowns, will have dramatic and unforeseen repercussions in the long term,” including on safety training enhancement, voluntary safety reporting and the ability to complete airworthiness directives. “The reality that no one wants to hear is that the [national airspace system] was less safe during the shutdown than before it began,” said Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. “The system began to experience decreased efficiency and capacity as a result of the shutdown and was on the verge of unraveling.” But the problems didn’t end when the shutdown did. The airspace system “and the FAA did not revert to normalcy when the shutdown ended,” Rinaldi added. “It may take weeks, months, or even years for some aspects of the system to return to normal order.” The FAA did not respond to a request for comment. Like others, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) praised the American aviation system as the “largest, busiest, and safest system in the world.” But “unfortunately,” he added, “the effects of the shutdown — the longest in U.S. history — will be felt for years to come.” The shutdown contributed to existing conditions such as controller staffing levels that DeFazio said “are already at a 30-year low, due in


Trump and Irish leader celebrate their countries’ close ties, but differences over Brexit are evident

if you remember,” Trump said describing his visit during the presidential campaign to his golf resort in Scotland. The visit and the news conference were the day after the June 23 Brexit vote, not the day before. “I think it could’ve been negotiated in a different manner, frankly. I hate to see it being — everything being ripped apart right now,” Trump said, adding that holding a second referendum “would be very unfair to the people that won.” British lawmakers voted Thursday not to seek a do-over vote, at least for now. Nile Gardiner, a former aide to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, said Trump “has been very clear in his view that Brexit is great for America and for Britain.” Gardiner rejects Irish concerns about the border and said the issue has been used as a “battering ram” by E.U. leadership keen to make Britain a cautionary example to other member states flirting with an exit. “The Irish government has played a very adversarial role,” Gardiner said. “There is very deep-seated animosity within the Irish government to Brexit.” Pence glossed over the Brexit disagreement as he welcomed Varadkar for the breakfast, and grew nostalgic as he recounted his grandfather’s emigration from Ireland and his own affection for the country. Pence attempted the Irish leader’s formal title, calling him “Taoiseach Varadkar.” Pence got the pronunciation right — “TEE-shuck” — and said he, too, plans a trip to Ireland shortly. Trump gave it a try, too, and got pretty close, during the final theatrical rite of the Irish visit — the presentation of a crystal bowl of shamrocks. Brexit won’t spoil the relationship, even given Trump’s history of turning on leaders who cross him, said Marquette University historian Timothy G. McMahon, president of the American Conference for Irish Studies. “The United States and the Republic of Ireland have such close ties that it’s unlikely that anything permanently damaging would happen,” McMahon said. “Friendly disagreements happen in diplomacy all the time.” Trump may agree. At the luncheon, he sounded cheerful as he described his discussion with Varadkar. “We talked about Brexit, something that is turning out to be a little more complex than they thought it would be. But it will all work out. Everything does,” he said. “One way or the other, it’s going to work out.” anne.gearan@washpost.com


‘Brazen’ daylight shooting kills man in D.C.’s Columbia Heights

A man was fatally shot Thursday evening in the courtyard of an apartment complex in the center of the Columbia Heights neighborhood, D.C. police said. Officers found the man unconscious near a playground and parking lot in Columbia Heights Village, in the 1300 block of Columbia Road NW, around 6:30 p.m., said Officer Sean Hickman, a spokesman. D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, who responded to the shooting, said police reviewed surveillance video that shows a hooded gunman who walked up to the victim and fired. The assailant then walked away. The fact that the shooting happened just steps away from a playground and streets busy with vehicles and pedestrians added to the “reckless” and “brazen” nature of the incident, Newsham said. Police said the assailant is about 5-foot-10 with a slim build. Investigators were still trying to identify the victim, Newsham said. He said there were officers nearby the scene of the shooting on Thursday because there had been reports on Wednesday of gunshot sounds in the area. About 90 minutes before Thursday’s killing, a crime suppression team from the 3rd Police District recovered a gun about a block away, police said. clarence.williams@washpost.com


Brexit will mark the end of Britain’s role as a great power

party. By the midpoint of Cameron’s premiership, they were able to hold the party hostage and force Britain to walk the plank. We’re all weary of the drama, but keep in mind: Brexit would be a disaster. As Sandbu points out, Britain’s economy is competitive and productive only in high-value manufacturing and services, both of which depend on a deeply integrated market with Europe. Although Britain can and will adjust, Brexit would probably mean a path of slower growth and less innovation for the country and its people. The foreign policy consequences of Brexit are being discussed least but might prove to be the most consequential. If Brexit does occur, within a few years, Scotland and Northern Ireland would probably loosen their ties to Britain to maintain their association with Europe. The United Kingdom would then be reduced to just England and tiny Wales, not really fitting into any of the three economic blocs of the 21st century — North America, Europe and China. London, a city that has shaped global affairs for 250 years, would become the West’s Dubai, a place where lots of money sloshes around but of no great geopolitical consequence. Europe would also lose a lot with Brexit. Britain has a large and vibrant economy. But more important, Britain has been a crucial voice in the community for free markets, openness, efficiency and an outward-looking foreign policy. It has been one of the few European countries that has maintained and deployed a powerful army, often for broader global purposes. As non-Western countries such as China rise, the central question of international relations is: Can the international system built by the West — which has produced peace and prosperity for 75 years — last? Or will the rise of China and India and the revival of Russia erode it and return us to what Robert Kagan calls “the jungle” of international life — marked by nationalism, protectionism and war? The world order as we know it was built over two centuries, during the reigns of two liberal, Anglo superpowers — Britain and then the United States. Brexit would mark the end of Britain’s role as a great power, and I wonder whether it would also mark the day that the West, as a political and strategic entity, begins to crumble. fareed.zakaria.gps@turner.com Read more from Fareed Zakaria’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his daily newsletter.