Too big to sanction? U.S. struggles with punishing large Russian businesses.

large energy projects outside Russia if they involve a Russian state-controlled company. Kirkegaard said that would probably complicate investments by German companies and Royal Dutch Shell in Nord Stream 2, a planned pipeline that would ship Russian natural gas to Germany. Deripaska’s camp is dangling the threat of even worse outcomes for the United States if Washington doesn’t lift the Rusal sanctions. Failure to reach a deal could lead the holding company through which Deripaska controls the aluminum producer to seek “other avenues to resolve the current impasse, including a potential acquisition by Chinese interests or the potential nationalization of the company by Russia,” according to Justice Department filings made by a U.S. lobbying firm representing the holding company’s chairman. One former Treasury official said the tumultuous rollout of the Rusal sanctions showed a lack of coordination with U.S. allies and ignorance about the global metals market. “One lesson we should draw from this is that while folks at Treasury have a pretty good sense of how their sanctions on financial products will play out, they don’t have the same expertise and knowledge of nonfinancial commercial sectors,” said Liz Rosenberg, who handled sanctions policy during the Obama administration and is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. The Treasury Department says its strike was well thought out. “We understand this was a very significant action targeted against Deripaska and the companies he has ownership of,” Sigal Mandelker, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in an interview. “We were well aware this was going to be impactful, and are focused on sanctions that have impact.” Deripaska isn’t likely to make a clean escape even if Rusal sanctions are lifted because sanctions on him personally will remain intact. And he is having to make serious concessions as he seeks relief for his aluminum company. To placate Treasury, Deripaska has “agreed in principle” to reduce his shareholding in En+ Group, the holding company that controls Rusal, from 70 percent to below 50 percent, according to En+, which says it is working “with Mr. Deripaska and his family to transfer their assets to approved organizations or trustees.” Deripaska and his allies have also resigned from the boards of Rusal and En+. Deripaska, Rusal and En+ did not respond to requests for comment. The Deripaska-controlled holding company is leaning on several Western establishment figures to plead


World Digest: Aug. 27, 2018

UGANDA Key Museveni critic is released on bail Ugandan pop star turned government critic Bobi Wine was freed on bail Monday, ending days of incarceration during which he and some of his co-accused allege they were tortured. The 36-year-old lawmaker, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, was on crutches as he left the courthouse in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu. He claims he was severely beaten by security forces. Ssentamu had been detained since Aug. 14. A judge freed him alongside others similarly charged with treason over their alleged roles in an incident in which President Yoweri Museveni’s motorcade was pelted with stones. Ssentamu was initially charged with illegal possession of firearms and ammunition. On Thursday, those charges were withdrawn. But he was immediately rearrested and charged with the more serious offense of treason. Authorities have been under pressure to free Ssentamu, who is challenging the long rule of Museveni by appealing to young people who despair over the lack of jobs and other opportunities. His supporters are urging him to run for president in 2021. The treason case could drag on for months and maybe even years, potentially crippling Ssentamu’s efforts as an anti-government activist. Museveni, a U.S. ally, took power by force in 1986 and has since been elected five times. — Associated Press BOSNIA U.S., E.U. condemn journalist's beating The United States, the European Union and Bosnian journalists expressed outrage Monday after two masked assailants attacked and seriously hurt a reporter for an independent Bosnian Serb television station. BNTV reporter Vladimir Kovacevic was hospitalized after the beating late Sunday outside his home in Banja Luka, the main town in the Serb-run part of Bosnia. Kovacevic posted a photo on Twitter that showed his head bloodied and bandaged. He said the men attacked him with metal bars as he was returning home from reporting on an anti-government rally. BNTV has faced criticism from the Bosnian Serb authorities for its independent editorial policies. The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo tweeted that attacks on journalists are “unacceptable.” “We strongly defend the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. When journalists are silenced, society suffers,” the embassy said. E.U. Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic said she was “profoundly shocked by the violent assault.” “This is the latest of several alarming attacks against journalists and media actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Mijatovic said. A Bosnian journalists’ association


Photos of the Sturgeon Full Moon rising over Washington

“An army of photographers is about to arrive,” said a young woman carrying a camera. I was setting up my tripods to shoot the Sturgeon Moon Sunday evening. Until that moment, my friend and I were the only photographers in sight on the west side of the Tidal Basin. But she was right. Within a few minutes, we were surrounded by dozens of photographers who were part of the Sunday Night Full Moon Walk sponsored by Washington D.C. History and Culture. The group arrived just in time to watch a beautiful, cloud-free moonrise over the Jefferson Memorial and Tidal Basin. This weekend’s Sturgeon Moon was the last full moon of summer. Its namesake is the sturgeon fish which, according to folklore, is most easily caught this time of year. The moon was 99.9 percent full Saturday and 99.4 percent full Sunday, giving photographers back-to-back chances to get the perfect shot. I set up for Saturday evening’s moon photo shoot on Key Bridge, facing southeast down the Potomac River. At 7:39 pm, the moon began to rise above the Watergate Hotel and tracked over the Washington Monument during the same time the fading light of sunset transitioned to dusk. There was plenty of color in the sky Saturday evening from sunset but, unfortunately, clouds obscured the moon for most of the moonrise. I photographed with Kevin Wolf who contributes copious photos to the Capital Weather Gang. Sunday evening’s moon shoot was all about the Jefferson Memorial and positioning the moon next to the dome. The weather was absolutely perfect for a moonrise shoot, particularly for August when haze and clouds tend to obscure the moonrise. My friend Dennis Govoni and I chose to shoot the moon with the Jefferson Memorial. I need to choose an August photo from my 2019 calendar. For now, I’m leaning toward the photo showing a blue hour moonrise over the Watergate Hotel but I also like the lead image showing 13 moons next to the Jefferson Memorial. Let me know if you have a favorite photo or image from this post that would look for August 2019.


Ebola outbreak now at 105 cases, and bordering countries are on alert

MPONDWE, Uganda — On Tuesdays and Fridays, an estimated 19,000 people stream down the hill from Congo’s North Kivu province to cross the border into this small town, many of them headed to a sprawling open-air market. In recent weeks, crossing the border has become more difficult as Ugandan health authorities have beefed up precautions against the spread of the Ebola virus. An outbreak centered in North Kivu is responsible for 105 confirmed or suspected cases, including 67 deaths, according to Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who has just returned from the area. Uganda is determined to keep the deadly hemorrhagic fever from spreading to its side of the border. Before travelers are allowed through, they must step in small tubs of chlorinated water to disinfect their shoes, and their temperatures are taken with no-touch thermometer guns aimed at their temples. Uganda moved quickly, imposing the precautions a week after the latest outbreak was declared Aug. 1. It has found six suspected cases at this crossing, but laboratory tests cleared them all. “So far, we have not gotten any case of Ebola,” Ithungu Honorata, a nurse who oversees the screening effort, said Friday. “But we don’t want it to come to Uganda.” The latest Ebola outbreak, Congo’s 10th, was declared just a week after a smaller one was quelled in another part of the country. It comes four years after the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea killed more than 11,000 people, sickened more than 28,000 and sparked panic about travel in other parts of the world, including the United States. The current outbreak is still escalating, according to Redfield and workers at nongovernmental organizations that have rushed in to treat victims and interrupt the spread of the disease “Really, in two weeks, we’ve gone from 24 cases to 105 cases,” Redfield said, mainly because many health workers at a hospital in the town of Mangina, where the outbreak began, became infected when they treated early patients without recognizing that they had Ebola and therefore did not take adequate precautions. The disease spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of victims, putting health workers and patients’ family members at greatest risk. “In the next couple of weeks, we’ll have greater clarity” about the scope of the problem, Redfield said. “The scary thing is that we are above 100 cases already,” said


Food deserts don’t cause obesity. But that doesn’t mean they don’t matter.

Do food deserts cause obesity? That was the question I set out to answer, and I was prepared for a mishmash of evidence and a variety of expert opinion. After all, on any complex issue, that’s what you’re likely to find. But that’s not what I found. Just about all the evidence, and every expert I read up on or checked in with, is on one side of this issue. So I’m ready to shout it from the rooftops. No, food deserts don’t cause obesity. People — experts, advocates and just plain people — used to think they do, but then a funny thing happened. Scientists studied the question, and it simply turns out that no, they don’t. “2009 was the height of food deserts,” says Tamara Dubowitz, senior policy researcher for the RAND Corporation (a policy think tank) who has studied the issue for years. Advocacy groups — and former first lady Michelle Obama — were focused on food deserts “because access was a social justice issue. It wasn’t based on evidence because there wasn’t any evidence.” There were some studies that showed a rough correlation, but that was it. The idea that areas that lack of access to a full-service supermarket — a.k.a. food deserts — promoted obesity “made theoretical sense,” Dubowitz says. And it was a testable thesis. So, it got tested! Scientists looked closely at the relationship grocery access has to obesity, and tracked changes to obesity and other health outcomes in low-access neighborhoods that got a new supermarket. It turns out that grocery access doesn’t correlate cleanly with obesity, and a new grocery store is unlikely to make a dent in obesity rates. And those results came up in study after study after study. In South Carolina, distance to the grocery store didn’t correlate with BMI. “These findings call into question the idea that poor spatial access to grocery stores is a key underlying factor affecting the obesity epidemic,” the authors conclude. In Philadelphia, it was the same story. In Detroit, too. Ditto among veterans. An economic model found that “exposing low-income households to the same availability and prices experienced by high-income households reduces nutritional inequality by only 9%.” A paper that describes an effort to assess neighborhood changes when a supermarket moves in begins by saying, “Initiatives to build supermarkets in low-income areas with relatively poor access to large food retailers (“food deserts”) have


Bee swarm forces police to close Times Square street

Bees swarmed the top of a hot dog vendor’s umbrella in New York Aug. 28, forcing police to close the street to remove them.


Another big reason to want a Democratic takeover of the House

sabotage our election, etc., etc. A Dem takeover could also matter because it would mean serious investigations of the Trump administration’s governing fiascoes. Consider that memo circulated by House Republicans that Axios reported on this week that lays out investigations the Republicans anticipate Democrats will launch if they take control of the House. Naturally, it talks about Russia, Trump’s tax returns and his business arrangements. But the memo also says Republicans expect probes into the administration’s Puerto Rico response and into the creation of policies such as the thinly veiled Muslim ban and the cruel and destructive family-separations policy. It is hard to say exactly what such investigations would accomplish at this point, given that these policies have been up and running for months or years and have already done extensive damage. But these are very ripe areas for investigation, because the processes behind them have long given rise to serious, lingering questions. The veiled Muslim ban, for instance, was rolled out in horribly slapdash fashion and moved forward despite two Department of Homeland Security studies undercutting its “national security” rationale. These things strongly suggested that the policy was rooted in a bad-faith desire to just get as close as possible to fulfilling Trump’s bigoted, off-the-cuff vow of an actual Muslim ban, with no serious regard for its actual consequences or implementation challenges once in office. We learned about that horrible process and the flimsiness of its rationale through leaks. What else don’t we know about the creation of this policy? Meanwhile, the Trump administration proceeded with family separations after being warned by officials that they could result in psychological trauma to immigrant children. This is one area where there has been some congressional oversight, but more could surely produce additional revelations about this policy’s creation and the “reasoning” behind it. Or take Obamacare. As Nicholas Bagley and Abbe Gluck detailed, the sheer volume of sabotage tactics the administration has used to undermine the law, and the absurd rationales for them, suggest that in reality the administration is “transparently” acting in “bad faith” to “destroy Congress’ handiwork,” something the GOP Congress failed to do itself. We all know Trump just wants to crush the law because it is President Barack Obama’s signature achievement, and thus the sabotage will continue. Could real oversight shed more light on the administration’s obvious lack of good faith here, too? On multiple fronts, the administration’s


The Daily 202: ‘Dick Russell was a racist. But he was much more than that,’ says niece

Iowa’s Hispanic community, offering a rebuke to those who have used his daughter’s death to call for stricter immigration laws. -- “This toddler got sick in ICE detention. Two months later she was dead,” -- The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House GOP leadership, is running an attack ad against a Democratic candidate in Kansas for supporting the abolition of ICE. The candidate is trying to clarify her statement. THE MIDTERMS: -- Arizona and Florida voters will head to the polls today for two crucial primaries that will help determine the Senate's balance of power. -- Rep. Martha McSally, who is vying for Arizona’s GOP Senate nomination, originally asked the White House to keep Trump out of the race — only to go back and ask for the president's endorsement. -- “ ‘It Is the Era of Trump’: How the President Is Remaking the Republican Party,” -- Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is a lock to win the state’s Republican Senate primary today, and his wife earned at least $2.9 million last year from hedge funds in the Cayman Islands. -- In Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, Andrew Gillum is trying to score an upset as he seeks to become the state’s first black governor. -- David Trone, the Potomac businessman and Democratic nominee running to succeed Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) released a new attack ad against Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) aimed at his challenger's comments about NFL protests staged during the national anthem. -- Cruz has been skipping Senate votes recently to spend time on the trail as Mitch McConnell’s decision to cancel much of the chamber’s August recess hurts at least one Republican. THERE'S A BEAR IN THE WOODS: -- Paul Manafort’s attorneys held talks last week with special counsel Bob Mueller's team in hopes of resolving a second set of charges before Manafort was convicted. But the two sides ultimately failed to reach a deal and are ramping up for a second federal trial next month in D.C. -- In 2008, McCain denied Manafort the opportunity to manage the Republican National Convention because he “couldn’t abide” Manafort’s pro-Russian clients, including close Vladimir Putin ally Oleg Deripaska. -- “Bruce Ohr Fought Russian Organized Crime. Now He’s a Target of Trump,” -- Roger Stone posted an Instagram video in which he preemptively denied an apparently imminent story in the New Yorker, which


Coal helped make America great. Now it’s holding us back.

propelled the national economy. This paved the way for the inauguration of the Hydrocarbon Age in the mid-1860s. While coal had been just one of several energy sources, it became an essential component of the American way of life. Coal-fired steel manufacturing, in particular, developed into the nation’s most important industrial frontier. It was used to construct continent-straddling railroad networks and vertically expanding urban centers. In the 20th century, coal became the central force behind the electrification revolution. This dramatically expanded its importance and led to yet another wave of massive economic growth. Disturbingly, most of the increase in coal use during the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century did not involve relatively clean-burning anthracite. Instead, the more readily available and dirtier-burning bituminous coal came to the fore. While coal was powering economic, political and social progress, it was also birthing a climate crisis that has come to threaten humanity’s ability to survive on this planet. Climate science began to emerge in 1896, when Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius published research suggesting that increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide from the burning of coal could produce a greenhouse effect that would alter the global climate. Significant efforts to understand global warming, however, arose only in the mid-20th century. In the 1950s, Roger Revelle, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, conducted research proving that the oceans could not absorb all of the carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. That same decade, he began a collaboration with Charles David Keeling to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide contributions. This eventually spawned the famous Keeling Curve, a simple chart that clearly showed that the share of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was increasing dramatically. Although for some time it could be plausibly argued that climate science wasn’t mature enough to mandate aggressive actions to address global warming, that level of certainty was achieved long ago, and the conclusions were unimpeachable: The carbon dioxide emitted from coal-fired power plants around the world has played an outsize role in creating the global warming that is radically altering our climate. For most, this contradiction is hard to reconcile. Coal should be good or bad. But it is critical for everyday Americans and policymakers alike to chart a path forward that acknowledges the benefits coal provided, while also embracing the need to eliminate its use, to safeguard the advances that it delivered. This will allow us


Climate change ‘switchboard’ visualization shows every country on the planet turning red-hot

In presentations of global warming, sometimes watching maps morph from blue (cold) to red (hot) grows tiresome. Talented data visualizers are finding new and creative ways to illustrate the warming of the planet. The latest visualization of the Earth heating up was built by Antti Lipponen, a research scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, and it has caught fire. Just since Saturday, it has been shared 16,000 times on Twitter. It reveals the majority of countries have warmed by at least one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), and all but one (Kiribati) have warmed by at least 0.5 degrees (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s. Maddie Stone, managing editor at Earther, aptly described the visualization as a “climate switchboard.” Lipponen’s creation shows temperature trends for 191 countries over a rectangular grid. Each country is represented by a circle. The size of the circle indicates how much the temperature has changed relative to the average temperature between 1951 and 1980, using NASA data. Colors are used to illustrate whether it’s warming or cooling. Warming temperatures follow a gradient from orange to red based on intensity, while circles that show cooling are filled in shades of blue. The visualization is an animated time series that spans 1880 and 2017. When you set the animation in motion, the switchboard — to borrow Stone’s description — is initially filled with an array of blue lights, indicating cool temperatures, but they gradually fade away by the 1970s as the Earth warms. By the 2010s, the switchboard becomes flush in big orange and red flashing lights, as if to yell caution or, even stop! The red circles convey at least two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming, which some equate with dangerous interference with the climate system. “No matter how you visualize it, it looks scary!,” Lipponen wrote in his tweet unveiling the switchboard. Lipponen presented this same data a year ago using a different visualization style, in which each country’s temperature relative to normal is a spoke that extends from a wheel and expands outward with time as the climate warms. This tweet has been shared over 10,000 times. Twitter has turned into a treasure trove for stellar climate visualizations that lucidly illustrate the unambiguous warming of the Earth’s climate. Below find several we have featured in the past: Below find two additional excellent visualizations of climate data posted to Twitter this month, which


Quick and easy garnishes to glam up your plain, boring food

A poached egg, runny yolk and all, can double as a sauce in your grain bowl. Or put together an impromptu eggs Benedict with an English muffin and whatever extra veggies or meat you have. Hard-boiled eggs contribute heft to salads, sandwiches or tacos. Pickled Cue the “Portlandia” sketch For a quick DIY garnish, there’s no need to go the whole canning route. Small-batch refrigerator pickles are easy to throw together on a weekend (or even a weeknight) and will give you a good few weeks of use. When the banana pepper plant my mother-in-law planted for us went bonkers, I took the surplus and just poured hot vinegar seasoned with salt and sugar over the sliced rings and stored them in a couple of half-pint jars. Hot peppers are ideal for this type of prep. Pickled onions are versatile as well. Or don’t worry about making your own, because pickled foods are all over the grocery store. Naturally, there are cucumber pickles in all kinds of shapes, sizes and flavors. Other pickled/fermented foods to consider: Olives, green beans, capers, sauerkraut and kimchi. Spicy You know the line on the bottle of Frank’s RedHot — “I put that —- on everything.” That sums up the way I feel about spicy condiments. Almost anything can be doctored with a little — or a lot — of heat, depending on your taste. It’s a matter of what type of garnish you’re looking for and whether you want it combined with other flavors. For straight-up heat that is more inconspicuous, grab the crushed red pepper flakes or hot pepper sauce, whether it’s runny, like Tabasco, or thicker, like Sriracha. If you want something funky and spicy with crunch, pull out the kimchi. If you want that kind of flavor but without the veggies, you can get a similar effect with nuoc cham, a Vietnamese dipping sauce made with fish sauce and some kind of spice, such as sliced hot peppers or Sriracha. A sweet spice is another way to go, as in hot honey or even salsa. For a paste that can be stirred in but lends both color and heat, consider harissa or zhug, the herb-based Middle Eastern condiment that is quickly catching up to harissa in popularity. Fruits, vegetables and herbs Raid your produce bin for leftovers or buy a few things that you can specifically use on a flexible basis.


Dathan Auerbach got his start as a horror writer on Reddit. Now he’s back with ‘Bad Man.’

crimes against children — crimes recollected, and ultimately understood, in adulthood. The book made a significant ripple in the horror community, leading now to the mainstream publication of Auerbach’s larger, darker, more ambitious second novel, “Bad Man.” Like “Penpal,” “Bad Man” tells a story of damaged and endangered children. It begins when 15-year-old Ben, the troubled, overweight protagonist, accompanies Eric, his 3-year-old half brother, on a routine trip to a grocery store. There, in a seemingly mundane setting filled with fellow customers and store employees, Eric vanishes. “Bad Man” is an unsparing account of the endless aftermath of that disappearance. In the primary narrative, which begins five years later, Ben has just graduated from high school. His stepmother is an emotional wreck, and his father struggles to hold things together during a severe economic downturn. Meanwhile, Ben, wracked by guilt, searches obsessively for the brother he believes is still alive. All three remain frozen by tragedy until Ben goes to work as an overnight stock boy in the very store from which Eric disappeared. Once Ben’s work on the graveyard shift begins, his search takes on a renewed urgency. A stuffed toy belonging to Eric mysteriously reappears. A defaced version of Eric’s missing persons flier shows up in Ben’s locker. Drawings of enigmatic stick figures suddenly proliferate, and a fellow employee claims to have glimpsed Eric in a nearby stretch of forest. Urged by these various “clues,” Ben follows his obsession through assorted hazards to a resolution that is both satisfying and unexpected. “Bad Man” is an atmospheric and unsettling novel, but not a perfect one. The plot, seen largely through Ben’s limited point of view, can be murky and difficult to follow. Certain elements — one of which involves shadowy events at a place called Blackwater School — are insufficiently developed. Yet the book works. Auerbach’s portrait of an after-hours grocery store — as benign a setting as one could imagine — takes on an aura of almost Gothic menace. Most importantly, his ability to convey the grief, guilt and sense of loss that fuel Ben’s fixation gives the book a resonant emotional center. With just two novels, Auerbach has established himself as a significant figure in the post-King generation of horror writers. It will be interesting and instructive to see what dark places he takes us to next. bookworld@washpost.com BAD MAN By Dathan Auerbach Doubleday. 400 pp. $26.95


No president has used sanctions and tariffs quite like Trump

Since entering office in January 2017, President Trump has relied heavily on financial penalties, especially sanctions and tariffs, to bolster his aggressive approach to international relations. This, in itself, is not unusual. But Trump, said international trade lawyer Adam Smith of law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, “appears to be using these tools in a much more forceful and much more coordinated fashion than any president in the past.” In doing so, he has also blurred longstanding distinctions between trade policy and foreign policy, using tariffs as apparent political weapons in a way that could eventually backfire on Washington. Sanctions are a favored Trump administration tool, and the easiest way to measure the spike in their use under Trump may be to look at the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals list. It’s effectively a blacklist of foreign nationals and organizations that U.S. citizens and residents are restricted from doing business with. Both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations increasingly used these targeted sanctions — rather than broader sanctions like those imposed on Cuba — as a tool to punish foreign policy rivals, criminals, human-rights violators and terrorists. But the Trump administration brought the number of people on the list to its all-time high last year, and then broke its own record again this year, according to an analysis by Smith. The list now contains roughly 6,500 names in total. The SDN list is the “sharp end of the spear,” said Smith, who previously worked at the White House and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) during the Obama administration. The expansion of the list “demonstrates the desire to use this sanctions tool ever more creatively and in a forward leaning and unilateral manner" under Trump, he added. Yet the Treasury Department has announced relatively few civil penalties or settlements with U.S. citizens or residents who were caught doing business with those on the list. So far in 2018, there has been only one settlement announced. In theory, that could mean sanctions are being enforced less stringently than before — perhaps because they are successfully acting as a deterrent, or because the larger list is stretching the limits of enforcement. Richard Nephew, a former U.S. government specialist on sanctions and a research scholar at Columbia University, suggested in an e-mail that there could simply be a delay in announcing penalties because of staffing problems or senior-level departures


Three shot in Northwest DC incident, police say

Three people were wounded Tuesday night in a shooting in Northwest Washington, the police said. The gunfire broke out about 9:30 p.m. in the 4700 block of Third Street, police said. The victims, two women and a man, were all described as conscious and breathing after being hit, said Officer Hugh Carew, a police spokesman. The site is in a tree-lined neighborhood of two story brick houses just west of Rock Creek Cemetery. Martin.Weil@washpost.com


Trump administration seeks to ease tensions with Moscow as new sanctions loom

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is trying to reach an understanding with Moscow before a deadline for imposing sweeping new sanctions against Russia for allegedly poisoning a former Russian spy in Britain, said diplomats familiar with the efforts. The outreach reflects a desire by President Trump to open up a constructive dialogue with Moscow and break the cycle of tit-for-tat sanctions that the Kremlin has decried as ruinous to bilateral relations. The prospect for rapprochement between the two adversaries remains slim as U.S. lawmakers demand strict enforcement of existing sanctions laws and deliberate a new package of even more punitive measures against Russia, limiting the Trump administration’s maneuverability. Pompeo’s effort to find a way forward with Russia is supported by major European allies with economic ties to the United States and Russia, such as Germany and Italy, but has rattled some post-Soviet bloc countries wary of engagement with Moscow. Under a 1991 law on the use of chemical weapons, the Trump administration is required to punish Russia if it doesn’t take steps to account for the March attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter involving the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, England. The first round of U.S. sanctions for the poisonings came into effect on Monday with a ban on the export of security-sensitive goods and technology. The second round of more punishing sanctions, which are required to come into effect by November, could include banning flights to the United States by Russian airlines, downgrading or suspending diplomatic relations, and prohibiting U.S. bank loans to the Russian government. Moscow denies responsibility for the poisoning and has vowed to retaliate against the sanctions by imposing its own. To find a way forward on the sanctions dispute, Pompeo asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an Aug. 10 phone call to meet before the United States takes action, said U.S. and European diplomats. Pompeo underscored that he was asking for the meeting at the direction of the president of the United States. The diplomats spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive diplomatic discussions. Lavrov agreed to meet Pompeo and requested that the two sides also discuss three other topics of interest to Moscow: arms control; the establishment of a business council to promote trade between the two countries; and an exchange of Russian and American scholars and think-tank fellows. Those initiatives have been longtime goals of Russian President Vladimir


FDA pushes for development of non-opioid pain medications

intently on the field. And overall, they say, the drug industry is moving toward more-targeted therapies and away from the broad use of medications. Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University psychiatrist, praised Gottlieb's efforts on the opioid epidemic overall but expressed skepticism that the new guidances would make a big difference. He said that the biggest problem is not a lack of non-opioid alternatives but that physicians are still prescribing opioids too often. “Doctors have been trained since the 1990s that when they hear about pain, they pull out their pads and write prescriptions for opioids,” he said. “If you are a pharmaceutical company, that’s what worries you. It’s marginally helpful if the FDA says we will give you a faster review. But your main concern is that if doctors see pain, they say, that means Vicodin.” Gary Mendell, founder and chief executive of Shatterproof, a nonprofit organization working to combat addiction, applauded Gottlieb's announcement and said it will raise the bar for FDA approval of opioids as well as promote the development of non-addictive alternatives. As more non-opioid pain medicines enter the market, he added, pressures will mount for more doctors to prescribe them and more insurers to pay for them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that prescriptions for opioids have declined somewhat in recent years, but a recent Mayo Clinic study found that opioid use over the past decade has not substantially decreased. In any case, there is widespread agreement that people in the United States still rely too much on prescription opioids — the per capita usage rates are much higher than for other countries, Humphreys noted. “We are still way out of whack on that,” he said. Last week, Gottlieb said the agency plans to contract with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to develop evidence-based guidelines for the prescribing of opioids for acute and post-surgical pain. He said that FDA analyses suggest that doctors are providing too many pills for many common pain uses. Excess pills get diverted to illicit markets or used by families or friends, he said. In other cases, the patients themselves may become addicted. Read more: FDA ramps up warnings about kratom, calling unregulated herb an 'opioid' A quarter of adults with sprained ankles were prescribed opioids in the ER, study shows Justice Dept. to target opioid manufacturers, distributors in new push to curb deadly epidemic


World Digest: Aug. 29, 2018

leads Myanmar’s civilian government and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for campaigning for democracy, has been criticized for failing to speak out against the army crackdown on the Rohingya. “It’s important to remember that a Nobel Prize, whether in Physics, Literature or Peace, is awarded for some prize-worthy effort or achievement of the past,” said Olav Njolstad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. “Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for democracy and freedom up until 1991, the year she was awarded the prize,” he said. And the rules regulating the Nobel do not allow for a prize to be withdrawn, he added. — Reuters NIGERIA Pact signed with Britain to counter Boko Haram Britain and Nigeria signed a security and defense agreement during a one-day visit by Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday as Africa’s most populous country struggles to defeat Boko Haram extremists and others linked to the Islamic State militant group. May is on a three-country Africa visit with a large business delegation as Britain seeks to boost economic ties ahead of a bumpy exit from the European Union in March. This is the first visit by a British prime minister to Africa in five years. May also stopped in South Africa, and she goes next to Kenya. After meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, May said Britain and Nigeria will work together on “shared security threats like Boko Haram and human trafficking.” The defense aid includes more training and equipment for Nigeria’s military, which has been criticized by human rights groups over alleged abuses that it denies. As elections approach next year, Buhari is under pressure to deliver on promises to improve security, in particular to defeat Boko Haram’s years-long insurgency in the northeast. The group, known for mass abductions and for using young women as suicide bombers, continues to carry out attacks on military bases and in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and the insurgency’s birthplace. As Europe worries about migration and human trafficking from West Africa, May also announced a new project with France to help Nigeria, the region’s powerhouse, and neighboring Niger improve border cooperation along one of the main migration routes north. — Associated Press Car bombing claimed by Islamic State kills 7 in Iraq: U.S. airstrike in Somalia against al-Shabab kills 3: British Iranian detainee in clinic after panic attacks: — From news services


How a restriction on Chinese-made subway cars makes life harder for commuters

Party, and the national security risks they create for the United States. And I understand the Trump administration’s desire to punish Beijing for unfairly restricting American companies in China through tariffs on Chinese goods and the reduction of Chinese investment in the United States. But hurting American commuters to punish CRRC is just silly. Not all Chinese, state-run companies are bad for American interests. CRRC is an example of a company that, while firmly under state control, does more good for the United States than harm. Members of Congress interviewed about the bill provided two explanations for it: fairness and fears of espionage. “All of us are full-throated supporters of competition,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) told Bloomberg Government. However, he added, the Chinese state is “very aggressive to not compete, but destroy the competition, to in essence have a monopoly.” Encouraging city governments to buy American products is often reasonable. But there are no domestic manufacturers of transit cars. CRRC bid lower than Canadian, South Korean and Japanese firms – in part because of Beijing’s support and in part because CRRC makes a good product. Why use taxpayer money to subsidize a Japanese or Korean firm? Legislators worry that “smart” freight cars could monitor military supplies and the transfer of hazardous materials, or that WiFi-connected subways could hoover up data. I’m no subway engineer, but it seems like there is an easy workaround – say, have different government restrictions for freight cars than subway cars, or spend some of the tens of millions of dollars saved to ensure that the WiFi is secure from Beijing’s meddling. The American city most in need of a transit miracle is New York, where subway delays are so common they are unremarkable. In January, New York City’s transport authority voted to spend $1.4 billion to order subway cars from the Japanese company Kawasaki, passing over a bid from a joint venture between a CRRC subsidiary and the Canadian company Bombardier. It’s unclear if CRRC’s bid was more competitive or cheaper — but if national politics did intercede, that would be a shame. Let’s not, in the words of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), let American subways be a “bargaining chip” in international trade. The Chinese are a world leader in subway cars. American brands no longer make them. Let’s get over it, so we can get to work on time. Bonnie Cao contributed research.


Maryland man is charged in fatal 2017 shooting in Southeast Washington

to a police statement. — Justin Wm. Moyer Blaze breaks out at site set to be museum Fire broke out Monday night at a historic downtown building that is being made into a museum and that, through its architecture, is already a kind of museum. The fire broke out in a 1907 rowhouse-style building in the 1200 block of 16th Street NW, half a dozen blocks north of the White House. About 10 p.m., the D.C. fire department said the fire was under control, with no injuries. According to its website, the Chinese American Museum is scheduled to open in the five-story Beaux-Arts building in stages in phases next year and 2020. — Martin Weil Man in stable shape after Metrobus fight A man was stabbed during a dispute on a Metrobus in Northeast Washington on Monday evening, officials said. The victim and three other people got into the dispute about 7:15 p.m. on a D8 bus in the 1700 block of Montello Avenue in the Trinidad area, the transit agency said. After being stabbed, the victim was taken to a hospital. He was in stable condition, Metro said. — Martin Weil Tree falls on house in Upper Northwest A tree fell onto the roof of a house in the Barnaby Woods neighborhood on Tuesday. No injuries were reported in the incident in the 6600 block of 31st Street NW, the D.C. fire department said. Many trees have fallen in the Washington region after the recent heavy rains. — Martin Weil Two arrested in Takoma burglary Burglars entered an occupied house Saturday evening in the Takoma section of Northwest Washington and fled with items, police said. They said two 17-year-olds, one from Prince George’s County and one from Southeast Washington, have been arrested. — Martin Weil MARYLAND Big jewelry purchase follows wallet theft A wallet was stolen earlier this month at a country club in the Rockville area, and before the victim was aware of the theft, a $15,000 jewelry purchase had been charged to his account, Montgomery County police said. Police said the wallet was stolen Aug. 5 while the man was at the Lakewood Country Club. He learned of it only when his bank called later that day to notify him of the purchase. According to police, an attempt was made to make another credit card purchase later that day, but the bank rejected it. — Martin Weil


A tragedy followed by a debacle: Maryland football to kick off without answers

ex-wife and, for good measure, engaged in sketchy professional behavior. There are no correlations between what happened at Maryland, where a player died, and what happened at Ohio State, where the most powerful man on campus harbored a reckless assistant out of loyalty. But it says here that Ohio State got exactly what it wanted from its investigation: enough to take some sort of faux moral high ground and suspend Meyer for three games, but not enough to fire the coach who has led the Buckeyes to a national championship and a 73-8 record over six years. What the public didn’t get: real answers. The report issued by the two “independent” investigators was released after Meyer faced reporters last week. Among the findings included: Meyer and an assistant discussed deleting text messages from Meyer’s phone so journalists couldn’t unearth them. Among the questions Meyer has not yet answered: Did you, in fact, delete texts, and why? The point being that the people of Maryland should expect better. Not from Durkin, who should be fired. Not from Evans, who shamelessly tried to distance himself from the situation by calling himself the “new” athletic director at a news conference earlier this month, willfully ignoring the fact that he had been the top administrator in the department for 10 months — during both McNair’s collapse and, later, his death. It’s worth remembering that the committee formed first by Loh and then enhanced by the board of regents is, in theory, asking questions about a program Evans has overseen directly since his arrival in College Park in 2014. Is Doug Williams, or Bob Ehrlich, or Bonnie Bernstein — or the entire lot — sitting down with him this week and, over hours, probing about what Evans had seen in Durkin’s practices and workouts? Evans eventually found out enough, in the wake of an ESPN report bolstered by confirmation in other outlets, that he ousted strength coach Rick Court, who resigned. The answers are there, somewhere. Meanwhile, in the heat of Tuesday afternoon, the Terrapins practiced. “Like everybody else in the country,” Canada said, “we’re excited for Saturday afternoon to get here.” Like nobody else in the country, the result of that game Saturday afternoon will say little about the direction of the program. Maryland’s questions are far more serious than who will take the first snap from center. They include the most basic: How


Lily Lines: How Beyoncé and Jay-Z challenge tradition in their new video at the Louvre

separating children from their parents at the border. “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel,” Bush wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. “It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.” In 2007, 13.4 percent of female students in the United States said they made a suicide plan, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number rose significantly in 2017, the CDC discovered in its annual survey on teen behavior. The survey, released last week, showed that 9 percent of male students said they made a suicide plan. Of that group, 5 percent actually attempted suicide. Cassandra Lee started Justice Rising, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building schools and providing quality education in areas affected by war, with her husband Edison Lee in 2015. The couple started with one school in the the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the organization has grown in size and scope since then: Today, Justice Rising works with communities to run seven schools in the country, employing more than 60 teachers and administrators. They’ve also expanded to Iraq and Syria, countries that have been affected by the battle against the Islamic State. I saw you recently took a trip to Syria and met with students and educators. How would you describe the state of education in the places you visited? Justice Rising has achieved complete gender parity in the classrooms you work in. What are some overlapping challenges you had to overcome to make this happen with community partners? How does your faith play a role in the work you do with Justice Rising? Why filmmaker Domee Shi brought a dumpling to life This section contains a spoiler for Pixar’s animated short, “Bao.” As a young girl growing up in Toronto, filmmaker Domee Shi said she felt like an “overprotected dumpling for my Chinese mom.” She used that experience to create “Bao,” the Pixar short shown before “Incredibles 2.” In the film, a mother is adjusting to life as an empty nester. While in her kitchen, a steamed bun she made comes to life. At first, she is elated to have something to care for again: a dumpling child of her very own. But when she gets worried that he will stray, the mother does something she regrets: She eats the dumpling. “I just thought it was such an inevitable


The Trump presidency marks the end of the American century

build in peace as boldly as they fight in war,” the president declared. Overall, the United States would provide approximately $60 billion in grants and loans to South Korea between 1946 and 1978, while also developing successful cultural export programs and other soft power connections, all in the hopes of creating an American-oriented bulwark in East Asia. If South Korea once stood as the archetype of the American commitment to liberal internationalism, it now stands, perhaps unsurprisingly, as one of the Trump administration’s central points of attack. Trump has repeatedly singled out South Korea as a nation that does not shoulder its fair share of the partnership and exploits its relationship with the United States “We have 28,000 soldiers on the line in South Korea between the madman and them,” he lamented. “We get practically nothing compared to the cost for this” (a statement that is both incredibly shortsighted and empirically incorrect). The administration has thus turned its back on conventional diplomatic efforts to maintain the relationship: denying a request to meet with a national security delegation shortly after meeting with Japanese officials, delaying the appointment of an ambassador and demanding the renegotiation of the Korea-U. S. Free Trade Agreement and an increased payment for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system. These actions, along with many other diplomatic missteps, have contributed to a weakening of this traditional relationship. As a consequence, the United States — facing a collapsing negotiating effort with the North, tensions with an increasingly assertive China and trade wars springing up on multiple fronts — seems likely to suffer for this erosion of the traditional order that Trump’s vision has wrought. For many Americans, Korea in 1950 was just one example of a larger effort to defend and advance the American system. Almost 70 years later, it may stand as one example of the end of that very system, and as a symbol of the declining American influence that comes with it. Liberal internationalism, of course, might continue without the United States, but without the traditional leader at the helm, the system’s long-term future seems gloomy. While every day seems to bring a new and more salacious headline about Trump’s most recent foreign policy misstep, we should not lose sight of what is really at stake: the potential demise of an international system that played a critical role in the emergence of the modern American nation.


The White House is looking for ‘negative trends’ on marijuana. We’ve got them.

here is that most of this increase in potency happened prior to legalization in Colorado and Washington in 2012. If anything, the available federal data shows that average potency has plateaued and even fallen slightly since then. This gets to a point that many legalization proponents make: Simply outlawing a drug may not be the best way to protect people from the risks of using the drug. And with a relatively benign substance such as pot, outlawing it may actually make dangers worse. 4. In legalization states, more drivers are testing positive for marijuana A big concern with increased availability of marijuana is an increase in stoned driving. While federal research has shown that marijuana is generally less debilitating to drivers than alcohol, driving while high still significantly increases the risks of crashing your car relative to driving while sober. Last year, for instance, the Denver Post collected data showing that the number of drivers involved in fatal crashes who tested positive for previous marijuana use rose sharply from 2013 to 2016. But as the Post points out, there’s a big asterisk with these numbers: Because detectable traces of marijuana remain in people’s systems long after they consume the drug, the rising numbers don’t necessarily indicate that THC-positive drivers were impaired at the time of their accidents. Still, the numbers are increasing fast enough that public health experts are taking them seriously. 5. Marijuana-related ER visits are on the rise A recent study out of Colorado found that the number of teenagers going to the emergency room or urgent care on account of marijuana use rose sharply from 2009 to 2015, from 1.8 marijuana-related visits per 1,000 visits in that age group in 2009 to 4.5 in 2015. There are a number of possible explanations for this. Following legalization, more teens may be exposed to pot simply because there’s more of it lying around in Colorado homes. However, the fact that total rates of teen marijuana use are falling in the state casts some doubt on this notion. Another explanation is that liberalization of attitudes toward marijuana use is making teens more likely to seek out medical help when they feel they need it. One final point to consider is that while overdoing it with marijuana can make you have a very unpleasant evening, it’s quite literally impossible to fatally overdose on pot the way it is with, say, alcohol.


Maligned cownose ray could be vulnerable to overfishing, study suggests

Virginia portions of the Chesapeake, as well as in Georgia, all of them to spots near where they were captured. Back in what appears to be their home waters, the females give birth and then mate again. The researchers tracked the rays over two years, but were only able to get signals during both summer seasons for five rays. Four of them returned to the same waters where they had been initially caught, while the fifth one spent both summers in the Chesapeake, though one in Maryland waters and the other in Virginia. Ogburn said that isn’t enough information to say for certain that the rays return to the same spots year after year. But he said he suspects that they are being drawn back to the same waters where they were born — a phenomenon found in other fish species such as salmon and sturgeon. Previously, researchers knew little about cownose rays’ migration patterns. Past research hinted that the rays might return to the same areas, but the new study presents that case in finer and more thorough detail. “The evidence seems to suggest they’re coming back to the same general area, at least,” Ogburn said. The finding could factor into the plan Maryland is developing to regulate cownose ray fishing. The plan is required under a law the General Assembly passed last year — legislation that also banned ray-catching tournaments until July 1, 2019. A work group that includes Ogburn and Fisher, as well as watermen, sportfishing enthusiasts and conservationists, is expected to begin reviewing a draft state plan soon, then offer it for public review. The plan is on track to be adopted by the end of the year, a deadline established in the law. Any fishing regulations will also depend on the rays’ numbers. John Van Alstine, a member of the group who is a waterman and oyster aquaculturist in Calvert County, said he notices cownose rays getting “more and more prevalent” feeding on his oyster beds. But until the state can gather more information like the Smithsonian study, it’s unclear how many of those rays he and other watermen can catch without harming the population, he said. “We have oysters that get eaten up. They certainly are in my environment,” Van Alstine said. “We’re just trying to get as much information as we can so we can develop a good business practice.” — Baltimore Sun


‘Dark side of college sports’: Maryland students return to a conflicted campus amid football scandals

Zoë Ferrara wondered what she should do when she received an email about a football ticket this summer. The 19-year-old from Rhode Island attended the University of Maryland’s home football games last year. She likes the team spirit, the tailgating and the way the school comes together on gameday. But as controversy hangs over the Maryland football team, Ferrara wasn’t sure whether she should go this season. “Do you want to support the athletic department, or the students? That’s the conflict,” said Ferrara, as she moved into her dorm for her sophomore year. Much has happened here in College Park since University of Maryland students went on summer break. A 19-year-old football player died following a team workout, and investigations have begun. Maryland now faces tough questions about the culture of its football program and the decisions by its leadership. Then, just hours after Ferrara spoke last week, news broke that Maryland’s former athletic director steered department funds for the legal defense of two student-athletes who were being investigated in a sexual misconduct case. In a text message, Ferrara called it “just another example of the dark side of college sports.” This is what students have returned to at Maryland, a university that opens its football season Saturday against Texas at FedEx Field. The game was something that Maryland president Wallace Loh noted in a welcome message this August, telling students that their football team needs their support “more than ever.” In late May, Maryland offensive lineman Jordan McNair suffered exertional heatstroke during a team workout, and died in a hospital days later. University officials have since acknowledged that team athletic trainers failed to diagnose and treat the condition. Loh said the school accepts “legal and moral responsibility” for the mistakes that staffers made. In the aftermath of McNair’s death, concerns emerged about the culture of Maryland’s football program and its athletic department operations. The school has placed head coach DJ Durkin on administrative leave, and the governing board of Maryland’s public university system has taken control of the investigations into McNair’s death and the culture of the football program. Last Thursday, Maryland’s marching band practiced its halftime routine on the school’s grounds, because scandal or not, the first home game was around the corner. The same day, across campus, Patrick O’Toole was moving into his residence hall as he began his freshman year. O’Toole, who is from New Jersey,


More facts are needed to determine the fate of Maryland’s football program

In his Aug. 29 Sports column, “For U-Md., a debacle is following a tragedy,” Barry Svrluga again blasted the University of Maryland football program and for the third time called for head coach DJ Durkin to be fired. It may well be that the Maryland football program needs to be thoroughly revamped, and that Mr. Durkin, Athletic Director Damon Evans and even President Wallace D. Loh deserve to be fired for their handling of the situation leading to football player Jordan McNair’s tragic death and the university’s investigation of that situation. However, some key facts needed to make such a determination have not been released and evaluated, including what Mr. Durkin’s actions (or inactions) were during the workout at which McNair died, why the university waited so long to launch an investigation into the death and whether the football program truly had a “toxic” culture, as an ESPN article asserted, but which has been disputed by many current and former players and their parents. Richard Hale


Updated D.C. area forecast: Flash flood watch through tonight due to risk of heavy rain

As expected, heavy storms have flared up in the northeastern parts of our region. Flood warnings are in effect for southeast Howard County and northwest Anne Arundel County into this evening, including Columbia, Crofton, Odenton and Elkridge. Some flooding has been reported around Jessup. Radar shows a rather concentrated area of heavy storms between Bowie and Columbia. Along Interstate 95, heavy storms span from Calverton to Laurel. Definitely allow extra time if traveling in this region. Due to scattered storms expected to develop this afternoon and evening, which may be quite heavy in spots, the National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for Fairfax County, the District and locations to the north and northeast. “High rainfall rates may lead to rapid rises of water in low-lying and poor drainage areas as well as some small streams,” it states. The storms may well be hit or miss, and are expected to be most numerous from the District and to the northeast. However, because the steering flow in the atmosphere is weak, storms that form may linger over the same area for a long time, which would increase the chance of flooding. We do not expect this to be a widespread flooding event. However, remember not to attempt driving across a flooded road and, if it is raining heavily, avoid routes near creeks and streams. From 5:00 a.m…. TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 3/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: View the current weather at The Washington Post headquarters. FORECAST IN DETAIL Oppressively muggy and steamy conditions persist for our foreseeable future. At least in the near-term, shower and storm chances keep us a bit cloudier. This will prevent high temperatures from soaring too high, and keep readings lower than in recent days. Hydrate mindfully, monitor storms if on a beach this weekend and continue to use some sunscreen. Do also have a good time over the holiday! Listen to the latest forecast: Get our daily forecasts on your Amazon Alexa device. Click here to find out how. Today (Friday): Tonight: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest updates. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast into next week. Saturday: Saturday night: A LOOK AHEAD Sunday: Sunday night: It possibly turns sunnier with lower rain chances Labor Day (Monday) and Tuesday. We continue to be uncomfortably steamy. When combining high temperatures around 90 with oppressively muggy


Democrats accuse Republicans of leaking sensitive communications that could put confidential source at risk

and text messages with Steele and Ohr’s handwritten notes relating to his interactions with Steele. During the interview, the lawmakers “never introduced these documents into the official record, never marked them as exhibits, never explained how they obtained them, and never provided copies to Democratic staff” who were present, the letter said. “It is unclear whether Republican members consulted with the department prior to distributing these highly sensitive documents more widely or before using them during the interview with Mr. Ohr,” Cummings and Nadler said. FBI and Justice Department officials have expressed concern to Democratic committee aides that the leaks of the Ohr-Steele communications could harm national security, potentially endangering confidential sources, said one Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. The officials also voiced exasperation with what they saw as a breach of trust by Republicans, after the documents were shared with the House Intelligence Committee on the condition they would be protected, the aide said. “If Judiciary or Oversight Committee Republicans used materials during their questioning of Bruce Ohr that [the Justice Department] made available only to [the Intelligence Committee] but not to their committees, that would be in violation of rules that are supposed to govern the handling and use of sensitive information provided to the committee by executive-branch agencies,” said a Democratic aide to the intelligence panel who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the record. “No vote, which should precede any disclosure, has been taken in the committee to share or release any such information.” Nadler and Cummings said in their letter that “select portions” of the documents were leaked to the press to create “false and misleading narratives.” For example, they stated, an Aug. 7 piece in the news outlet the Hill cites a portion of one email in which Steele wrote to Ohr: “There is something separate I wanted to discuss with you informally and separately. It concerns our favorite business tycoon!” The Hill article stated that was “an apparent reference” to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. In fact, Ohr explained in his interview Tuesday, the “business tycoon” in question was actually Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the Democrats said. They said the Republicans made the same mistake in the interview with Ohr when they read the same portion of the email and accused Ohr of discussing Trump with Steele. ellen.nakashima@washpost.com


Let D.C. businesses go cash-free

Bruery Store — but not if they want to pay with cash. These establishments, along with many others in the city, have opted to only accept card or mobile payments, joining a growing movement of businesses that are going cashless. Though the trend has quickly spread across the globe, it has come under fire from low-income advocates and some members of the D.C. Council, who have introduced legislation requiring all retail food establishments to accept cash. Critics of no-cash policies argue that they impose barriers to access for low-income, young and undocumented patrons who are less likely to have bank accounts. According to a federal survey, 7 percent of U.S. households did not have a checking or savings account in 2015; among black and Hispanic households, that figure was more than twice as high. In the D.C. area, an estimated 37,000 households are currently “unbanked.” With more businesses choosing to go cashless, these people are seeing their retail options dwindle. At the same time, many retailers have valid reasons for going cashless. Accepting cash can leave them vulnerable to theft and can generate miscellaneous costs, such as the extra hours needed to close the register and the armored vehicles required to take money to the bank. It can also result in slower service, because it generally takes more time to process cash and calculate change at the register. Sweetgreen, for instance, found that its stores were able to process between 5 and 15 percent more transactions per hour when it first experimented with no-cash policies in 2016. For many businesses, this extra revenue could have a significant effect on the bottom line. As the cashless movement expands nationwide, policymakers need to find ways to ensure that people are not left behind. But forcing retailers to change their business models and accept cash is going a step too far. Instead of cracking down on no-cash stores, a more sustainable solution would be to offer affordable banking options to low-income residents. The city government has already started this process by partnering with financial institutions and nonprofits to establish Bank on DC, a program that provides financial education and expands access to low-cost accounts. The program has helped open more than 11,000 accounts since 2010. This type of initiative, which can help residents adapt to a rapidly changing financial landscape, would better serve the District than the short-term fix of banning cashless stores.


As college football season dawns, Maryland braces for days of reckoning

least one with experience in the top job, not another up-and-coming assistant, after this situation. But can the Terrapins afford to poach such a coach? If the results of this football season are particularly bad, that affects the department’s bottom line, too. A lost season and no momentum for the revenue-generating football program? Complete football irrelevance in the mighty Big Ten? It trickles down to all the nonrevenue sports that need a boost from football and men’s basketball. Once the mind wanders deep into the collateral damage of this tragedy, it takes you to some vexing places. For now, it’s best to focus on the simple, distressing fact: McNair died of complications resulting from heatstroke during a team workout. And filing it under “sadly, one of those things that happens” isn’t a satisfying conclusion. The university apologized publicly to the McNair family and accepted “legal and moral responsibility for the mistakes that our training staff made on the fateful workout day of May 29,” university President Wallace D. Loh said two weeks ago. Loh and Evans seem resigned to the fact that those “mistakes” will cost the university significant money — millions, probably — if the McNair family follows through on its desire to sue Maryland. It’s unacceptable to conclude only that “mistakes” killed McNair. Life is too important, and money won’t bring him back. For its investigation to have any credibility, Maryland must uncover a deeper truth, and once it reaches that point, the blame probably will go beyond the team’s strength and conditioning coach, Rick Court, who resigned recently. Welcome to the 2018 college football season, Maryland. It’s heavy. Durkin is gone, for now. McNair is gone forever. But here comes Texas, and if there’s not enough red, white, black and gold at FedEx Field on Saturday, the color of burnt orange will overwhelm the stadium. Of course, the Season That Doesn’t Matter would begin with a game that usually would carry the utmost significance. It feels like a season that will force you to turn away frequently. It feels like a season in which temporary excitement will be followed by long sighs. It feels like a season in which the fate of Durkin and other consequences soon will interrupt the action. And there’s only one proper response to all the depressing possibilities: So be it. Football can go on, but McNair’s death cannot be in vain. jerry.brewer@washpost.com


James A. Mirrlees, Nobel laureate in economics who studied taxation, dies at 82

James A. Mirrlees, a British economist who won the Nobel Prize for his theories of economic incentives, which have been applied to taxation, insurance and the allocation of public services, died Aug. 29 at his home near Cambridge, England. He was 82. His death was announced by Nuffield College of the University of Oxford, where he was a longtime professor. The cause was a brain tumor, the London Times reported. Dr. Mirrlees, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize with William Vickrey of Columbia University, approached economics from a background in mathematics. He was particularly fascinated by ideas first put forth by Vickrey and others concerning “information asymmetry,” in which one party in an economic transaction is privy to knowledge the other does not have. “That just means not knowing as much as you would like,” Dr. Mirrlees explained. He sought to explore the implications of information asymmetry and how it affected individual behavior and economic policy. A simple example of the concept would be when someone offers a used car for sale. The seller has a greater understanding of the condition of the automobile than the buyer. The idea has been used to understand costs and benefits in real estate, health insurance, investing, welfare and employee motivation. “My subject has always been economics and human welfare,” Dr. Mirrlees said after winning the Nobel. He was perhaps best known for his work on “optimal taxation,” for which he developed a mathematical model to define a balance between what he called equity and efficiency. In other words, he sought to find a point where government taxation would provide a shared benefit to society without being an onerous burden on individual workers. The happiest day in his life, he said, was not the day he learned that he was to receive the Nobel but another day, in 1968, when he “finally cracked the optimal tax problem. . . . It came in a flash and was very satisfactory.” Tax codes were traditionally based on income levels, graduated to assess a higher tax rate on people who earned more money. Dr. Mirrlees was interested in discovering whether there was a point of diminishing return, when high taxes would reduce the motivation of productive workers. “Mirrlees’s work on the optimal income tax was a starting point for a vast amount of research,” economist Bengt Holmstrom of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told the New York


Trump will visit Ireland in November. Some are already planning a ‘uniquely Irish’ protest.

they fail to do so,” he wrote on Twitter. "I can't sit back and let him opt out of the Paris climate agreement,” he told The Post. “You have to protest. That isn't just an American issue, that's an issue for the whole world." The United States and Ireland have historically had a very close relationship. Tens of millions of Americans claim Irish heritage, including President John F. Kennedy, who famously visited Ireland in 1963. He was the first Irish Catholic to serve in the Oval Office. Trump, as he has elsewhere in Europe, has proven a much more divisive force in Ireland. On Saturday, Ireland's Labour Party tweeted that Ireland is “an open and tolerant nation. Trump's values are not our values, and there should be no welcome mat laid out for a man of his worldview.” The tweet included a photo whose caption said “the invitation to Trump is unnecessary, unwelcome & unwise." Brendan Howlin, the Labour leader, tweeted that Trump “has been no friend of democracy or human rights." "We will always be firm friends of the American people, but Ireland will not welcome a man with Trump's record of discrimination, sexism and lies,” he said. Trump, the businessman, has already stirred some controversy in Ireland. The Trump Organization owns a golf course in the coastal town of Doonbeg in County Clare. Last year, Trump International Golf Links, Doonbeg, got permission to build a wall around its course to protect it from the sea. Environmentalists protested, saying it will be harmful to wildlife in the area. Trump wouldn't be the first president to receive a less-than-warm welcome in Ireland. When President George W. Bush visited in 2004, thousands of people turned out to protest him and the Iraq War. The year before, about 100,000 people protested the war on the streets of Dublin. It's impossible to predict how big any Irish Trump protests in November will be. Ryan said it will probably depend largely on what kind of visit it turns out to be, including whether Trump is given the opportunity to address Ireland's Parliament. But Ryan said he hopes pushback against the visit is “kind of clever." He told The Post that he wants to make a statement but also doesn't “want to just feed the hate." "We'll have to do something uniquely Irish,” he said. “We need to do something with a slight Irish twist."


Skywatch: What’s happening in the heavens in September

quartet of planets that saunter across the southern evening stage provides a heavenly spectacle for dog walkers, after-work joggers and sky aficionados. In a cosmic kind of way, the planets bring to mind the Beatles crossing Abbey Road, and you’ve got a ticket to watch. Find the glorious planet Venus low in the west-southwestern sky at sunset, as the month starts. You can’t miss our intensely bright planetary neighbor, seen at -4.6 magnitude, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. When September ends, the planet is even brighter, at -4.8 magnitude, but it’s skimming the horizon. Moving on from Venus, look for the large, gaseous Jupiter lounging in the southwest at dusk. It’s a bright -1.9 magnitude now, but throughout the month, it will appear to get lower. At month’s end, Jupiter will set around 9 p.m., according to the observatory. Next in line, making our way east, catch the large Saturn in the south in the early evening, hanging out above the teapot’s dome shape in the constellation Sagittarius. To the unaided eye, the ringed planet will look like a bright dot because it is a zero-magnitude object — less bright than Jupiter or Venus. The rusty-looking Mars ascends the south-southeast in the early evening. Mars began rising about a few hours before dusk and the end of civil twilight. In clear skies, you may notice the reddish color. Our neighboring planet begins the month at -2.1 magnitude, very bright, according to the observatory, but the brilliance fades throughout September. Like a stone skipping across a pond, the magical, waxing crescent moon appears to hover over Venus — low on the horizon — on Sept. 12 in the west-southwest. The moon skips to Jupiter’s proximity in the southwest Sept. 13 and 14, then pays a social call to Saturn on Sept. 16 and 17. The fattening, waxing gibbous moon skips by Mars on Sept. 19, and the moon officially becomes full Sept. 24. Balancing day and night, the autumnal equinox falls on Sept. 22 at 9:54 p.m. for the eastern United States, according to the observatory. Just a few days past the equinox, Washington will see a nearly even 12 hours and two minutes of daylight on Sept. 25. The next day, the area sees 11 hours and 59 minutes of daylight. Down-to-Earth events ●Sept. 5 ●Sept. 7 ●Sept. 8 ●Sept. 9 ●Sept. 10 ●Sept. 15 ●Sept. 20 ●Sept. 30


New general takes over in Afghanistan amid questions about the U.S. military’s future there

Nicholson Jr. Miller’s most recent assignment was as the commander of Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees elite forces that include SEAL Team 6, Delta Force and the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. He has deep experience in Afghanistan, including a stint heading Special Operations forces there from 2013 to 2014. “The more I stay there, sometimes the more difficult it becomes to understand,” he said of Afghanistan and its protracted conflict during his confirmation hearing this year. “I think I recognize what I do not understand at this stage of my career.” The arc of Miller’s career reflects the evolution of U.S. Special Operations over the past quarter-century. His actions as a Delta Force captain are described in the book “Black Hawk Down,” which details the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia that killed 18 U.S. service members and included the shoot-down of two Army helicopters. He was wounded in Somalia and Iraq. The war in Afghanistan is at a delicate point. The Taliban still controls about 14 percent of the country’s 407 districts and contests an additional 30 percent after nearly 17 years of war, according to a recent report from a government watchdog. The fragility of the Afghan government’s grip was highlighted most recently by a powerful militant assault on Ghazni, a provincial capital, that took U.S. and Afghan reinforcements to shake loose. Unlike earlier years when U.S. troops spearheaded combat operations, the role of U.S. ground forces is now primarily aimed at enabling local troops, making their performance a central metric for U.S. success. The Afghan army continues to struggle with desertions and high casualties and, without help from a small cadre of elite forces, has difficulty mounting major offensives. Miller has said the strategy Trump adopted a year ago, which provided for a modest increase in troop levels and greater leeway for U.S. forces to conduct air attacks, appears to be working. But he has avoided the kind of pronouncements about military progress other generals have made that have failed to stand up over time. Speaking in June, Miller told lawmakers that he would not talk about turning points “unless there is one” and that he could not guarantee “a timeline or an end date” to the war. A military official familiar with Miller’s thinking said that while the general supports the administration’s overall strategy, he is open to making changes within it. He said Miller


World Digest: Aug. 31, 2018

BRAZIL Lula must be struck from ballot, court says Brazil’s embattled former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the front-runner in the country’s presidential election, will be struck from the ballot, an electoral court ruled Friday, reshaping Brazil’s election one month before voters cast their ballots. The much-anticipated decision brings some clarity to a chaotic campaign season in which the man who had been favored to win Latin America’s largest election was sitting behind bars. Lula, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2011, was sentenced in April to 12 years in prison for money laundering and corruption. Yet, running a campaign largely from jail, he has been able to capture nearly 40 percent of prospective votes in October’s presidential election, according to the latest opinion polls. The Supreme Electoral Court barred Lula from running because it would violate an anti-corruption law that the former president himself signed. The 2010 “Clean Slate” law prevents any candidate with a conviction that has been upheld from running for office for eight years. He is the first presidential candidate to be barred from running because of the law. Lula’s Workers’ Party is expected to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court and has until Sept. 17 to replace Lula or forfeit the ticket. The party is widely expected to cast Lula’s running mate, Fernando Haddad, as his replacement. — Marina Lopes EUROPEAN UNION Both sides in Brexit talks express optimism British and European Union negotiators on Friday talked up prospects of reaching a Brexit deal this fall, citing progress in detailing very close security cooperation, including the exchange of data, to take effect after Britain leaves the bloc. The European Union’s Michel Barnier said it was “possible” there would be an agreement in time for a summit of all the bloc’s leaders in Brussels on Oct. 18-19, though a delay into November was also possible. Britain’s Brexit minister, Dominic Raab, said he was “stubbornly optimistic.” After weeks of warning of growing risk of a damaging no-deal Brexit, the E.U.’s strategy is now to stress that close cooperation with Britain may be possible after the break in order to make London more willing to accept divorce terms. That goes specifically for the sensitive issue of the E.U.-U.K. land border between Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland. — Reuters German stabbing suspect could have been deported in 2016: Ebola risks still "substantial" in Congo: — From news


Is there a mysterious Planet Nine lurking in our solar system beyond Neptune?

Many astronomers remain convinced a once-in-a-generation discovery is in the offing — one that would rewrite textbooks down to the elementary school level. “Every time we take a picture,” said Surhud More, an astronomer at the University of Tokyo, “there is this possibility that Planet Nine exists in the shot.” Circumstantial evidence Michael Brown The first evidence for Planet Nine surfaced in 2014, when the discovery of a planetoid revealed that a handful of mini ice-worlds in the outermost reaches of the solar system followed suspiciously similar paths around the sun. “If things are in the same orbit, then something’s pushing them,” said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington and the co-discoverer of the 2014 planetoid. Brown and his colleague Konstantin Batygin made a specific prediction two years later: The “perturber,” as they call it, should weigh between five and 20 Earth masses and follow an elliptical orbit hundreds or even 1,000 times more distant from the sun than Earth. Out there, space gets dark alarmingly fast. Planets twice as far away look 16 times dimmer: The intensity of the sunlight weakens by a factor of four going out and then four times again coming back. At an orbital distance of 600 astronomical units (an AU is the distance between Earth and the sun), Planet Nine would be 160,000 times dimmer than Neptune is at 30 AU. At 1,000 AU, it would appear more than 1 million times weaker. “There’s really a brick wall, basically, at 1,000 AU,” said Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University. That’s partly why laying eyes on the planet has proved so tough. Both Brown and Sheppard are leading teams that are searching for the planet with the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. Subaru has a wide field of view, which helps the teams scour a potential search area that’s the size of 4,000 full moons. Over the past two years, each team has secured about a week of viewing time each year. With perfect weather, that would theoretically have been enough time to cover most of the area of interest. But windy and cloudy nights have scuttled many planned observations. Even if the astronomers do soon cover the search area, cosmically bad luck could keep the planet hidden. Perhaps it’s lost in the light pollution of the Milky Way, or hiding in the glare of a bright star.


As temperatures keep trending up, ‘heat belt’ cities maneuver to stay livable

at 107 and San Antonio at 104. Such relentless, triple-digit temperatures — the equivalent danger of rising seas in many coastal communities — are straining power grids, buckling roads, grounding planes and endangering lives. The Phoenix area reached a dubious record last year: at least 155 heat-related deaths. “Extreme heat is not just an inconvenience,” said Kim Knowlton, deputy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s science center. “It is killing people, and it’s making people sick to a higher and higher degree.” Although few people fear that communities throughout the region will become unlivable by 2100, as various projections suggest for parts of the Middle East and Africa, researchers and urban planners say that local governments can’t ignore the threat. The challenge is what to do. According to David Hondula, senior sustainability scientist at Arizona State University and one of the nation’s leading experts on how to adapt to or mitigate extreme urban heating, many efforts to date “have been disconnected from one another or operated in an ad hoc manner, [so] that it’s really hard to get a sense of the big picture and really hard to understand which are most helpful and which are at least helpful or redundant or maybe even have undesirable trade-offs.” Los Angeles, where the number of 95-plus-degree days is expected to triple by 2050, is among the municipal pioneers. In 2013, it became the first major U.S. city to require new and remodeled homes to install what is called cool roofing, made from materials of lighter shades such as white, pale gray or tan. The mandate took effect in 2016, and officials say at least 18,000 homes across the L.A. basin are now topped with cool roofs. “L.A. is way out in front,” said George Ban-Weiss, an environmental engineer at the University of Southern California, who calculates that temperatures in the basin would drop by up to 2 degrees Fahrenheit if all buildings and households adopted cool roofs. The city also has experimented with pavement treatments. Crews covered about a dozen streets in a milky coating, CoolSeal, as part of a pilot last summer to test the substance’s ability to reduce extreme heat. The project found that the streets’ surface temperature dropped by up to 10 degrees, but Ban-Weiss cautions that more research is needed. “What people sort of experience isn’t really surface temperature, unless you’re walking barefoot,” he said. “Air temperature


$3 billion deal could turn Manassas into key supplier for self-driving car components

a gem when it comes to being export-based, and getting the kind of non-federal money we need coming into the region," said George Mason Economist Stephen Fuller. "They pay good wages for what you might consider blue collar jobs. These are smart workers but they don't necessarily need a college education to do what they do." Micron made its entrance in 2002 when it bought Dominion Semiconductor, then a subsidiary of the Japanese electronics giant Toshiba, and it has since grown into one of the city's largest employers. Micron itself is the fourth-largest U.S.-based chipmaker behind Qualcomm, Broadcomm and Intel. Unlike its larger peers, however, the company has doubled down on the market for so-called memory chips, feature nondescript trade names like DRAM, NAND and NOR. The company's memory chips are used to store information, in comparison to micro-processor chips made by companies like Intel, which provide computing power. The Manassas plant expansion is part of a broader growth spurt at Micron: the company brought in $7.35 billion in the most recent quarter, a 58 percent jump from the same period a year ago. That growth has been fueled by what company spokesman David Oro called "the new data economy," in which established industries are embracing information-age technologies. Companies that make memory chips once sold into a relatively limited market for personal and industrial computers. Today, computing resources are stretched across a vast range of tangible objects -- a phenomenon referred to by tech wonks as "The Internet of Things" -- leading to a diversification in the demand for computer chips. Micron's memory chips are now used in cars, drones, high-resolution cameras and smartphones. Data-centers needed to support new cloud-based technologies have also given the company a boost. Keeping up with that demand has required the company to make new investments as the company pursues what chief executive Sanjay Mehrotra called "fundamental transformation, driven by changes in our markets, our industry and within our company," in a recent call with investors. The expansion could also make Northern Virginia a player in the race to develop and market self-driving cars. Micron's Manassas plant is the site of the company's Automotive Center for Excellence, where it develops memory chips used in connected cars. "This is especially true in the automotive field, where data is both increasing and requiring leading-edge technology to support applications within smart cockpits and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)


World Digest: Sept. 3, 2018

AFGHANISTAN American is killed in insider attack A U.S. service member lost his life and another was wounded Monday in an apparent insider attack in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition said. The Resolute Support mission, which is under U.S. command, did not immediately identify the exact location of the incident or provide further details. “The sacrifice of our service member, who volunteered for a mission to Afghanistan to protect his country, is a tragic loss for all who knew and all who will now never know him,” the U.S. top commander for Afghanistan, Gen. Austin Scott Miller, said in a statement. “Our duty is to honor him, care for his family and continue our mission.” Insider attacks — also called “green-on-blue attacks” — have gone down sharply since the drastic reduction of foreign troops in Afghanistan. The service member killed Monday is the sixth American to die in action this year in Afghanistan, according to the statement. — Sayed Salahuddin EUROPE Report: Migrant sea travel more dangerous Crossing the central Mediterranean has become more treacherous than ever for migrants trying to reach Europe, with 1 in 18 dying or going missing during the voyage — more than double the rate last year, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said Monday. More than 1,600 people have perished or vanished en route to Europe this year, mostly while attempting to cross by sea from North Africa, according to a UNHCR report. Although arrivals have plummeted in recent years, European countries remain bitterly divided over how to share the burden of refugees and migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The UNHCR said about 72,000 people had arrived in Italy, Greece and Spain between January and July, compared with about 121,000 for the same period in 2017. However, 1 in 18 who attempted the risky central Mediterranean route died or went missing, up from one in 42 in the first part of last year. — Thomson Reuters Foundation LIBYA 400 jail inmates escape amid fighting Some 400 prisoners escaped from a jail in the Libyan capital, authorities said Sunday, as recent fighting between rival militias that has killed dozens compelled the U.N.-backed government to declare a state of emergency in and around Tripoli. Riots broke out inside the Ain Zara prison, and inmates overwhelmed guards and forced open the gates, police said in a statement posted on Facebook.


Chinese billionaire leaves the U.S. despite arrest on suspicion of sexual assault

BEIJING — Chinese billionaire and tech mogul Richard Qiangdong Liu returned to China on Monday, three days after Minneapolis police arrested him on suspicion of sexual assault. Liu, the 45-year-old chief executive and founder of e-commerce giant JD.com, was released Saturday from the Hennepin County Jail, with booking records showing no posted bail. “He has been released without any charges and without requirement for bail,” JD.com spokeswoman Tracy Yang said. “Mr. Liu has returned to work in China.” The Minneapolis Police Department had not yet decided Sunday whether it would bring charges against Liu, spokesman John Elder said. The alleged assault would be a felony, authorities said, declining to provide further details. Liu was in the United States on business when he faced questions about an “unsubstantiated accusation,” according to a statement JD.com posted Sunday to the Chinese social network Weibo. “The local police quickly determined there was no substance to the claim against Mr. Liu,” the statement read, “and he was subsequently able to resume his business activities as originally planned.” JD.com declined to elaborate on the event. Liu’s attorneys in Minneapolis said he denied any wrongdoing. “Under these circumstances, based on our substantial experience in the criminal justice system in Minnesota, charges are highly unlikely in the future to be brought against our client,” attorneys Earl Gray and Joseph Friedberg said in an email. China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday it had launched an investigation into the circumstances of the chief executive’s arrest. Investors flinched slightly at the news Friday of Liu’s arrest, but JD.com’s stock value had rebounded by the end of the day. JD.com is among China’s biggest online retailers and lauds itself as the first Internet commerce company in the country to offer next-day delivery nationwide. Liu is known for pushing the company toward “100 percent” automation and speaking at global conferences about reducing the need for workers. JD.com is now testing drone deliveries in rural areas and recently unveiled a robot-run warehouse in Shanghai that can package 200,000 orders per day with the help of only four human engineers. Google announced in June that it had invested $550 million in the firm, which plans to expand in the United States and compete with Amazon.com. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.) The Minneapolis arrest was not the only harsh spotlight on Liu this year. An Australian court revealed in July


U.S. service member dies in apparent insider attack in Afghanistan

KABUL — A U.S. service member lost his life and another was wounded in an apparent insider attack on Monday in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition said. The Resolute Support mission, which is under U.S. command, did not immediately identify the exact location of the incident or provide further details. “The sacrifice of our service member, who volunteered for a mission to Afghanistan to protect his country, is a tragic loss for all who knew and all who will now never know him,” the U.S. top commander for Afghanistan, Gen. Austin Scott Miller, said in a statement. “Our duty is to honor him, care for his family and continue our mission.” The death is the first of a U.S. soldier since Miller on Sunday assumed his new position. Insider attacks, or green on blue attacks as they are also called, have sharply gone down in recent years in Afghanistan since the drastic reduction of foreign troops in the country. The service member killed Monday is the sixth American to have died in action this year in Afghanistan, according to the statement. Afghan security force fatalities are routinely higher. foreign@washpost.com


Forget food trucks. Now ‘food halls’ are having a moment, and they’re changing the landscape.

cheese doughnuts or tour a brewery. At New York’s Chelsea Market, you can graze on vegan maki stuffed with braised fennel and sundried tomato, or wait in the snaking line for an adobada taco. This summer, Rockville, Md., got the Spot, where diners can flit from beef noodle soup to Hong Kong-style “bubble” waffles, photogenically wrapped around a mountain of Thai tea ice cream, mango and gummy mochi candies. Austin will soon have four food halls. New York has two dozen, including Eataly, the market that may have started the craze. More are bound for college towns and the ground floors of apartment buildings and old shopping strips, even Flushing, Queens. In Arlington, Va., a new food hall is being erected for tenants that include a pizzeria whose chef has been nominated for a James Beard Award. It will be in a mall. Which brings us to the singular question worth asking about the food-hall boom: Aren’t these just . . . food courts? For decades, food-court The old food court and the new food hall are deeply intertwined within the trends haunting the retail sector, one gasping for breath as shoppers embrace the convenience of purchasing with a click, and the other thriving in the places left vacant. As many old pillars of retail crumble — the Limited, Radio Shack, Toys R Us — landlords are suddenly faced with a vast sea of space and a dearth of potential tenants. Developers “have said, ‘Wait a second. What really drives foot traffic?’ ” says Jodie McLean, chief executive of Edens, which operates Union Market, a sprawling Washington food hall that sees more than 2.5 million visitors a year. These days, it’s avocado toast, Taiwanese fried chicken, Israeli-style pita — exotic or artisanal foods that fulfill the supposed need of millennials for experiences. “Everyone has ADD,” says Mei, himself a millennial. “Food hits most of their requirements.” Including camera-ready food: Munch, one of the Block’s vendors, hawks “Insta-worthy donuts” on its chalkboard. Frequently, they’re sold out by midday. Still, “you can’t put lipstick on a food court, call it a food hall and make it work,” insists Garrick Brown, head of retail research for the real-estate firm Cushman & Wakefield and author of a recent report on food halls. They are a “reverse of what the old model was. This is not food as an amenity, this is food as the