A night with no music: Alina Zagitova feels weight of Russia’s doping ban

and the misery ended, Zagitova gave her only significant reaction. She sneered. And she walked off the stage to great applause, wearing a gray winter coat and a long scarf — the entire outfit plain, save for the circular “Olympic Athletes from Russia” patch on the right side of the outer garment. The International Olympic Committee has been criticized for its wishy-washy method of punishing Russia for vile systematic doping when it hosted the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. A popular adjective has been “toothless,” and considering that two Russian athletes have been busted for doping violations in PyeongChang, there’s plenty of reason to question whether the IOC accomplished anything with how it handled the scandal. But it’s always a difficult endeavor to go about disciplining a country full of individuals who don’t all share the same values or deserve the same blame. There will always be a gray area and collateral damage. Friday night represented the most personal level of punishment levied upon Russia. It watched its charming new favorite daughter squirm during a public shaming that she did not provoke. That was the teeth of this ban, and it took a hard bite. This is what the IOC intended to do. It didn’t want to ban just the athletes who tested positive; it wanted to ban Russia — its flag and its anthem — because the country sought to undermine the core competitive values of the Olympic movement. Zagitova had a crowning moment — but only for herself, not her country. It was sad. It felt both like justice and a grossly unfair and abusive act. Earlier in the day, Zagitova was asked whether she had prepared for how that would feel. She shot back with a nervous laugh: “Could I please not answer this question?” But she wanted a gold medal for Russia. She couldn’t hide that. “I was trying with all my strength to ignore it, but I couldn’t,” Zagitova said. “I was really worried because I knew I didn’t have the right to make a mistake. I had to skate clean and show my maximum. I’m so happy I could.” Although there was little doubt that Zagitova and Medvedeva were superior to the field, the Russian girls could not relax. The athletes had fought so hard just to be here. Medvedeva, 18, had a broken foot in December when she visited IOC headquarters in Switzerland


Five Below is a wonderland of things no one needs. It’s also one of the most successful retailers in America.

really want it!" With its menagerie of shiny, nonessential items that cost $5 or less, Five Below has been shaping a new category of retailer, one that harnesses fun in a consumer landscape often dominated by necessity. Nobody needs hedgehog headphones or lava lamps or unicorns full of iridescent ooze. But for many, there’s something thrilling about being swept up in a shopping experience that hinges on surprise as much as affordability. “If you spend time in a dollar store or mass merchant like Target or Walmart, it’s not really about letting go because you’re there to meet your needs.” said David Makuen, executive vice president of marketing and strategy. “Our purpose is really simple: We want customers to be able to let go and have fun.” In the decade since the Great Recession, consumer habits have shifted, with more shoppers looking both for bargains and experiences more than luxury. That’s been a boon to inexpensive stores such as Walmart, Dollar Star and Dollar. But as malls and their anchor stores have begun to fade, it hasn’t been clear what might fill that hole. Five Below could be part of the answer. A 16-year-old company, Five Below added 125 new locations in 2018. In 2017, it reported revenue exceeding $1 billion. according to its earnings reports. This year, it has already surpassed that figure. Eventually, Five Below aims to have 2,500 U.S. locations and go international. The company is also toying with a move to a slightly higher price point, currently operating six Ten Below stores at cities on the East Coast. Founded in Philadelphia, Five Below benefited from shifts in spending habits without being in direct competition with other discount-heavy stores. Even if their marquee products capitalize on fads and quirky buys, the stores still carry a wide variety of merchandise and practical items, including electronics and fitness equipment. The chain’s website touts an “amazing experience with unlimited possibilities,” and its stores are lined with slogans such as “$1 stuff: As close to free as it can be!" The question it faces is whether it will continue to thrive in a hypercompetitive environment. Myriad online competitors, including Amazon and subscription boxes, are targeting Five Below’s customer base, while Target and Walmart are always looking for the next big idea in retail. Meanwhile, a downturn in the economy could make consumers think twice about buying a DIY crystal bath-fizzies kit,


Trump’s visit to Iraq prompts concerns about politicization of military

violate rules because “there is no rule against airmen bringing personal items to be signed by the president.” The rules are set out in Defense Department Directive 1344.10 and emphasized in training with American service members. The directive, among other things, prohibits active-duty service members from participating in political rallies, giving the appearance of endorsing a candidate or even displaying partisan political signs, posters and banners on a private vehicle or one’s residence on a military installation. The directive “outlines permissible and prohibited activities regarding political campaigns,” the Pentagon said in a statement. The visit to Iraq and Germany wasn’t the first time that Trump faced criticism for politicizing the U.S. military. In his first days in office, he signed a travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim nations in the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, a choice of venue that made it seem as though the policy decision carried the military’s imprimatur. Last year, in a commissioning ceremony for the USS Gerald Ford, Trump asked a crowd that included uniformed naval officers to call Congress and advocate both increased defense spending and his policy on health care. Since the campaign, Trump has viewed the military’s rank and file as his base. “We had a wonderful election, didn’t we?” he said at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa in February 2017. “And I saw those numbers, and you liked me, and I liked you.” Critics and retired military officers described president’s decision to deploy thousands of active-duty troops to the border with Mexico ahead of the midterm elections as a political stunt, even as Mattis defended the move as good training for the troops. Top officials in the military regularly telegraph the need for political neutrality, traditionally delivering the message around elections. In mid-2016, for example, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., wrote an article in Joint Force Quarterly explaining that while U.S. forces retain the right to vote and engage in policy issues, they must guard against allowing the military to become politicized and must “protect the integrity and political neutrality of our military profession.” Political strategists said Trump undercut the positive decision to visit the troops in Iraq with the politicking bravado he brought to his appearances at the base. “It’s important to the troops and morale that the commander in chief was willing to go out and see it with his


Official: Guatemalan boy who died in U.S. custody tested positive for influenza B, final cause of death remains under investigation

He expected that he’d pay it off after working in the United States. He left Guatemala with Felipe about two weeks ago and reported that they were fine on the journey through Mexico, Gomez Lucas said. Homeland Security officials also said Felipe initially appeared to be well. But on the sixth day in custody, he fell ill. His sister said her father told her in phone calls from immigration custody that Felipe had been playing that morning when he said his tummy hurt. “Don’t get sick on me,” she said her father told him gently. “We have just a few days left.” “I’m not going to die, papa,” she said Felipe told him. “My father doesn’t know what happened,” Gomez Lucas said. “He was well. He was happy. He was playing.” Border Patrol officials took Felipe to the hospital. His fever was 103 degrees. Doctors placed him under observation for 90 minutes, gave him ibuprofen and the antibiotic amoxicillin, and sent him back to federal custody. “The doctor said his health was okay,” she said her father told her. They’d been held twice the amount of time the agency’s detention standards recommended. About 7 p.m., while they were being held at a highway checkpoint on Route 70, Felipe vomited, officials said. U.S. officials said his father declined medical assistance because the child had been feeling better. Gomez Lucas said her father told her Felipe had vomited blood and it trickled out of his nose, which DHS wouldn’t confirm. She said their father barely has a grade school education and speaks Chuj better than Spanish. At 10 p.m., Homeland Security officials said, Felipe appeared lethargic and nauseated, so the agents took him back to the hospital. Gomez Lucas said her father told her Felipe suddenly worsened. His “stomach hurt, that he couldn’t breathe.” “My father started to cry,” she said, recalling his words. “It can’t be. Don’t abandon me here. We have a dream to fulfill.” He was not allowed to inform the family of the boy’s death until Dec. 26, Gomez Lucas said. DHS denied that account. She said the family would ask the U.S. government for two things: Return Felipe’s body so that they can bury him in Guatemala, and let his father work in the United States so that “my brother’s death won’t be in vain.” “All we want are those things,” she said. “We have nothing.” maria.sacchetti@washpost.com


With a fire in her belly and a hunger for profit, Soupergirl aims to change lives

mission to change the world, one bowl of soup at a time,” said the occasional stand-up comic. “I do believe in the power of food to change the world.” Polon believes in the power of making money, too. Soupergirl got a taste of profit when the business was in its nascent stage, and now she hungers for more as she weathers an ambitious expansion. She and her 72-year-old mother, Marilyn, the company’s “chief anxiety officer,” own 87 percent of the company. Revenue has nearly doubled from $1.5 million in 2016 to almost $3 million this year. The company has two retail locations. Its soups can be found at 25 Costco warehouses and more than 50 Whole Foods stores, which make up about 60 percent of total sales. The rest of the revenue comes from Soupergirl stores and home deliveries. Polon also pays leases at three locations. She has a restaurant/test kitchen in Takoma. There is another takeout location at Dupont Circle. The leases are her biggest cost. The next biggest expense is Soupergirl’s five full-time employees and more than 30 part-timers, who do everything from chopping sweet potatoes for winter chili to slinging soups at Whole Foods giveaways. There is also a production kitchen north of Massachusetts Avenue (NoMa) in the District, where the soups destined for Whole Foods, Costco, Peapod and the home-delivery meals are prepared. “I don’t do any marketing,” Polon said. “It’s all knocking on doors.” Soupergirl pays herself only when the company is profitable. The winter months tend to be the most profitable because demand rises for hot soup and the cost of the ingredients is lower. The flavors are unique and interesting: colorful red lentil butternut squash; creamy butternut squash miso; Mexican-style black bean, winter root vegetable chili and Indian style mulligatawny. Polon is likable and ambitious. She told me her goal is to double sales in 2019. “Nearly 40 percent of Americans are trying to incorporate more plant-based foods into their diets,” she told me. And there’s been a 90 percent increase in vegan-related Google searches in the past year. This entrepreneur is admirably sincere: “Tom,” she said to me in an email, “the truth is I believe in this in a way that cannot be put into words. I am going to do it.” She put it into words anyway: “With each bowl of Soupergirl soup that people purchase, they hopefully know they


Disruptive, disappointing, chaotic: Shutdown upends scientific research

2019, panels in January will have to be canceled and rescheduled, disrupting the flow of science. The NSF does not distribute grant payments to scientists during a shutdown. The U.S. Antarctic Program remains operational “for the foreseeable future,” according to a statement from Kelly Falkner, director of the NSF’s Office of Polar Programs. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the Agriculture Department, is running on a skeleton crew. Only four of the 399 NIFA staff members, according to the USDA shutdown plan, report to work during a shutdown. As at the NSF, the NIFA grant program tends to be quiet during the final week of the year — but January is a critical time in its grant review process. The Agriculture Department’s in-house body of scientists, the Agricultural Research Service, shrinks by 82 percent to just over 1,100 people. Those exempt from the furlough will maintain laboratories, greenhouses and care for research animals; there are time-sensitive data to collect as well as crops and cells to tend. The USDA shutdown plan allows studies involving human subjects to continue. The Agriculture Department did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday, perhaps because the USDA shutdown plan furloughs all but two of the 58 people who work in its communications office. Federal science agencies are “basically closed for business today,” Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.), the likely next chair of the House Science Committee, said in a Dec. 22 statement. “As I’ve noted in previous shutdowns, as our competitors in other countries surge ahead in their R & D investments, we have basically shut down a large chunk of our federal science and technology enterprise.” Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo, supported by prior-year funds, remained open as scheduled this week. But if the shutdown continues into the new year, the museums and zoo will close on Jan. 2. All research will cease, but employees who feed and care for animals at the zoo and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute are exempted. “It’s like being put in the penalty box and not being told when you can come back out on the ice,” said Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the National Museum of Natural History and author of “Spying on Whales.” Smithsonian scientists cannot communicate with collaborators. Researchers in the field — who are spread across the world — must return home. “That’s really


federally funded scientists who would be unable to attend if funding is not restored. “There could be a lot of empty poster boards, missing oral talks,” Marvel said. “It’s just going to be a mess.” The conference is the biggest annual gathering of astronomers in the United States and offers an important chance for researchers to meet with federal officials who operate their field’s most important instruments, such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. “Without the government scientists that make the missions go and make the telescopes operate,” Marvel said, “you’re missing a big component of what makes the meeting valuable.” Much astronomical research will go forward despite the lapse in federal funding. Operations staff for ongoing space missions are deemed essential, and observing time at ground-based telescopes is awarded far enough in advance to allow for several weeks of uninterrupted research. Facilities like the National Radio Astronomy Observatory have implemented short-term cash management measures to continue normal operations during the shutdown. But a prolonged closure could stretch these temporary measures to their breaking points, scientists said. Even though instrument operators are allowed to stay on the job, without working scientists they won’t have new targets for their telescopes. For a time, it seemed as though the shutdown might also put a damper on two high-profile space events: the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s arrival into orbit around its target asteroid, Bennu, on Monday; and the New Horizons probe’s historic encounter with a faraway space rock called Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever explored by humans, early on New Year’s Day. Though NASA scientists and engineers who operate the missions are considered essential and able to work, the people who run its vaunted publicity operation — which includes NASA TV and its Twitter account with 30 million followers — were among those furloughed without pay. Alan Stern, a Southwest Research Institute scientist and the principal investigator for New Horizons, said the absence of publicity from the agency would be “incredibly disappointing.” But on Friday, NASA Administrator James Bridenstine announced that forward funding of the projects would allow for coverage of both missions. “Yay!!” Stern tweeted. Read more: Trump administration threatens future of HIV research hub Half of women in science experience harassment, a sweeping new report finds House Science Committee’s likely next chair wants a return to science Everything you need to know about a government shutdown


Attacker sought in Northwest D.C. sexual assaults

THE DISTRICT Attacker sought in NW sexual assaults D.C. police are searching for one man who they say sexually assaulted two women in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington. The first case occurred about 3:15 a.m. on July 15, police said, when a man armed with a knife knocked on the door of a residence in the 5500 block of Eighth Street NW. Police said a woman answered and was forced to the ground and sexually assaulted. On Oct. 21 at about 6:45 a.m., police said, the same man approached a person in the nearby 500 block of Longfellow Street NW and sexually assaulted the person in an alley. Authorities did not provide a description of the attacker but released video surveillance of him running from the scene. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND Arrest made in June killing in Pr. George's A Maryland man has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of another man in Prince George’s County in June, authorities said Friday. On June 26 around 9:50 p.m., officers responded to the 8000 block of Binghampton Place in Upper Marlboro for a report of a shooting, Prince George’s County police said in a statement. James Puryear, 22, of Bowie had been shot and was pronounced dead at the scene, the statement said. On Friday, police said they arrested 23-year-old Alhaji Bah of Bowie, who was charged with first- and second-degree murder. The shooting stemmed from a dispute between Bah and Puryear, who were acquaintances, police said. — Justin Wm. Moyer VIRGINIA Man accused of filming teen in fitting room A Virginia man was arrested this week after a teenage girl reported being filmed in a dressing room at Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax County, authorities said Thursday. Officers responded to a call about 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve after the teen reported seeing a black device pointing down from the wall of her dressing room at a Forever 21 store and that she suspected photos were being taken, Fairfax County police said. Mumtaz Rauf, 39, of Alexandria, who was seen exiting the store, was arrested with a pinhole camera and battery-powered Bluetooth transmitter that police suspect was used to remotely gather images from fitting rooms, authorities said. Rauf was charged with unlawful filming of a minor, a felony. — Justin Wm. Moyer


The U.S. needs a reset in its relations with Saudi Arabia

of states willing to murder those who disagree with or criticize its policies. If the crown prince and the government of Saudi Arabia do not change course, then King Salman, the leader of Saudi Arabia, must rethink who should be his successor. In the aftermath of Khashoggi’s murder, there must be dramatic and demonstrated change in policy in Riyadh. First and foremost, we need meaningful commitments from the Saudis that they will respect human rights. This will require frank conversations between U.S. officials and their Saudi counterparts. The crown prince should immediately release all imprisoned dissidents, including Raif Badawi, Samar Badawi and other women’s rights activists who were arrested earlier this year. The Saudis also must follow through on holding all of the officials involved in Khashoggi’s murder accountable. In Yemen, meanwhile, diplomatic cooperation with the U.N. special envoy must continue to bring an end to the war and resulting humanitarian crisis. The recent cease-fire in the port of Hodeidah, a crucial entry point for humanitarian aid, is a welcome first step to relieving the suffering of the Yemeni people. Any work on a potential peace settlement must safeguard the well-being of Yemenis while preventing Iran or any terrorist groups from gaining a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula. Finally, Congress should require that future arms sales to Saudi Arabia be preconditioned on real social and human rights progress. Such a policy will take into account the importance of Saudi Arabia to our interests in the region while also standing up for our values. Saudi Arabia is a crucial ally in the Middle East, supporting U.S. efforts to fight terrorism and halt the ambitions of a hostile and increasingly aggressive Iran. But the murder of Jamal Khashoggi represented a blatant disregard for human rights and an unfortunate reversal from the hopes many of us had for the new Saudi leader. The crown prince and his government must change course, or there will need to be new Saudi leadership if the close, decades-long cooperation between Washington and Riyadh is to continue. Read more: Read Jamal Khashoggi’s columns for The Washington Post The Post’s View: Saudi Arabia’s barbaric price for protest The Post’s View: MBS has a toxic record of recklessness. The Trump administration doesn’t need him. The Post’s View: Press freedom is in retreat around the world — including here Kathleen Parker: Trump may look away, but we can’t forget Jamal Khashoggi


D.C. police seek man in two sexual assaults in Northwest Washington

D.C. police are searching for one man who they say sexually assaulted two women in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington. In the first case, which occurred about 3:15 a.m. July 15, police said a man armed with a knife knocked on the door of a residence in the 5500 block of Eighth Street NW. Police said a woman answered and was forced to the ground and sexually assaulted. On Oct. 21, police said, the same man approached a person in the 500 block of Longfellow Street NW, around the corner from the house on Eighth Street, and sexually assaulted the victim in an alley. That attack occurred about 6:45 a.m. Authorities did not provide a description of the attacker but released video surveillance of him running from the scene. peter.hermann@washpost.com


As police struggle to solve homicides, Baltimore residents see an ‘open season for killing’

Brown, a Morgan State University professor who coined the term Baltimore butterfly in 2015. “What hypersegregation does is that it distorts social dynamics. You don’t have resources in these communities, and people have to fight for every little crumb. And then comes the violence that ends up on the evening news.” Local criminologists and activists say that the surge in violence and the police department’s low success rate in solving homicides is directly linked to the deep distrust both highlighted and stoked by Gray’s death. “This boils down to the relationship between communities and police,” said Tara Huffman, director of criminal and juvenile justice programs at Open Society Institute-Baltimore. “They need people to come forward, they need people to answer the door when they knock, and they need people to talk to them on the scene.” “You cannot coerce that,” she said. “You can beg and plead all you want to. If the relationship is screwed up, you’re simply not going to get the help that you need to solve these crimes.” And those relationships, never great, have been further damaged within a few tumultuous years. First came Gray’s death. Then state’s attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced that she would charge six of the officers involved, enraging the local police union and, some local leaders say, further encouraging officers to police less actively. Many Baltimore community leaders fear that shift helped drive the uptick in violence. Prosecutors failed to secure a single conviction in the case — abandoning the prosecutions after a mistrial and two acquittals — prompting a new round of anger from residents who wanted to see officers held accountable. In the meantime, city and police department leaders were locked in tense negotiations with the U.S. Justice Department, which launched an investigation after Gray’s death and ultimately concluded that Baltimore police regularly violated residents’ civil rights. “This is a city where law enforcement has felt massively under siege, and where there was one of the worst police killings ever for which there was no accountability,” said Phil Goff, president of the Center for Policing Equity, which works with police departments across the country. Then another policing scandal arose: Eight members of an elite “Gun Trace Task Force” pleaded guilty or were convicted in federal court of widespread abuses across Baltimore. An investigation found that officers set people up for baseless searches, stole property and money from residents, and


Congress punts shutdown into new year, when Democrats will retake the House

don’t seem to be in any hurry are the Republican leadership and the president.” The country on Thursday entered the sixth day of a government shutdown that has closed a quarter of the federal government and furloughed an estimated 350,000 workers, sending them home at risk of losing paychecks during the holiday season. Barring a surprise resolution, it will become the second-longest shutdown of the decade when the new, divided Congress convenes next week to open its 116th session. “We have not been able to reach agreement, with regards to the leadership on both sides,” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told reporters after presiding over a pro forma session in the Senate that lasted less than four minutes. “In Dodge City, Kansas, they say a horse divided against itself cannot stand,” Roberts added. “That’s about where we are.” Around the federal government, the effects were spreading, even though the bulk of the government — including the Pentagon, the Health and Human Services Department and Congress itself — has been funded through September, thanks to spending bills passed earlier in the year and signed by Trump. The Office of Personnel Management shared a tweet Thursday in which it shared advice and letter templates for federal workers to use in negotiating for deferred rent and payments to other creditors. “As we discussed, I am a Federal employee who has recently been furloughed due to a lack of funding of my agency. Because of this, my income has been severely cut and I am unable to pay the entire cost of my rent, along with my other expenses,” one of the sample letters says. It also suggests the possibility of doing building chores in exchange for reduced payments. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Smithsonian museums, two departments that had followed the White House’s direction to find money to stay open as long as possible, announced Thursday that reserve funds that had carried them through this week will end, shuttering the EPA on Friday at midnight and the museums and the National Zoo starting Wednesday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the National Flood Insurance Program would not issue new policies during the shutdown, a potential nightmare for would-be home buyers who need the insurance before closing. Lawmakers from both parties have ripped the decision and called on the agency to reopen the program. The signs of surrender were littered across the Capitol on


She fought cancer and Congress for D.C.’s right-to-die law. Would she be able to use it?

in pain from a catheter draining fluids from her midsection or sleepy from powerful pain medications, according to her diary. On an evening at the end of July, Klein told Dawson that she would take Eiger to Rock Creek Park. She was training him for their next competition, in the fall. Dawson left to pick up groceries and returned to find Klein sitting in an armchair. “I just don’t feel good,” Klein said. She went to bed shortly after. On Aug. 2, doctors discovered that tumors had spread throughout her midsection. Klein asked for her wife’s siblings from Maine, France and England to visit one last time. She began her goodbyes. “Hi. I am not sure I can do this later, I wanted to tell you now how much I have enjoyed time with you,” Klein texted Saunders, the friend who signed her request for the drugs. “Lots of love, Mary.” The next morning, a Sunday, Klein fell out of bed and blacked out. Her neighbor Dorothy McGhee, the second required witness for her request for a fatal dose of medication, visited that afternoon and sat by her bedside. They cracked jokes while Klein texted her doctor for advice about painkillers. Adina and Eiger, her dogs, rested by the bed. On Monday morning, Dawson bathed her wife. “It’s time,” Klein said. Her doctor, Katalin Roth, visited that evening. “Her hands and her feet were cool and turning blue,” Roth recalled in a phone interview. “Her mind was good, but her body was already shutting down. She was very close.” Dawson opened the cupboard and retrieved the end-of-life medication, looking at it for the first time. There were six individually wrapped anti-nausea pills. There was a white bottle of Seconal Sodium, a barbiturate, with 100 empty orange capsules inside. The powder from the emptied capsules sat in a brown bottle, to be mixed with water. At lethal doses, the drug should put patients to sleep and slow the nervous system and organs until they stop functioning. Later that evening, Klein put on a light blue T-shirt that her wife bought in Chincoteague Island. Dawson mixed the drugs with water in a porcelain cup and filled another with cranberry juice to balance out the bitter taste. She brought them to her wife’s bedside. Klein, the nausea medication already circulating in her blood, drank from the cups at 2:15 a.m. and fell back


‘This is a crisis’: Pay for Coast Guardsmen uncertain amid government shutdown

lot of people in the military are traditionally Republican, so I can’t believe he said that,” she said. “It’s bananas that the people working down on the border right now are the ones not getting paid right now.” Ashley Totten, who lives with her petty officer husband near Houston, said she does not care whether someone is a Republican or Democrat, as long as they advocate for her family. She stays at home taking care of a son who has heart defects. “We are already stressed out worrying about if he will need open-heart surgery or not,” she said. “That deserves my attention, not trying to figure out how long we are okay without money coming in.” Several Coast Guard family members said the situation has been compounded by USAA, a financial services firm that provides banking and insurance to about 11 million people with connections to the military. During previous government shutdowns, the company offered zero-interest payroll advance loans to service members, who were required to pay the money back when the government reopened. This time, USAA decided to instead offer loans with a minimum amount of $2,500 and an annual percentage rate of 0.01. “We have been with USAA for 14 years now, and we actually have started the process of moving away from them,” said Kristin Kuzik, whose husband is stationed on the Saginaw River in Michigan. “We were very disappointed that they did not have our backs and would not allow us to defer loans.” A USAA spokesman, Matthew Hartwig, said the company understands “the angst many Coast Guard families are feeling during this shutdown.” USAA decided to “redesign” its offerings to offer affected service members 12 months to pay back the money with a loan, rather than requiring them to do so immediately. “The product we are offering now is meant to be more flexible,” Hartwig said. “It would be available to other active-duty service members in the other branches of the military if they were facing a pay disruption. There is a new reality of potentially recurring or prolonged government shutdowns.” Kuzik said she is grateful that members of her church pooled $340 for food and gasoline gift cards when they heard how the shutdown would affect their family. Not everyone is that lucky, she said. “To me, this is a crisis right now for people,” she said. “They’re strapped, and we don’t know


He fled before his trial for allegedly killing a teen girl. A U.S. prosecutor thinks Saudi Arabia helped him.

Saudi officials told investigators with the Department of Homeland Security, which had made contact with them, that he was back in his home country, Pfenning said. “All other requests for more info to Saudi officials have gone unanswered,” he said. Overstreet said he developed his theory after the disclosure from Saudi Arabia. He says he believes that Noorah was issued a new passport with a different name. Pfenning said the marshals think Noorah boarded a flight back to Saudi Arabia but do not know how. Overstreet said investigators have checked airport records for commercial and private flights but found no indication that Noorah passed through afterward. “There’s no way in my mind that Noorah could have got this orchestrated, and got himself back to Saudi Arabia with his resources,” he said. “He doesn’t have any.” After Noorah disappeared, investigators found a packed bag at the house of the family with which he had been staying, Overstreet said. Noorah had been receiving an $1,800-per-month government stipend as he lived with the family. Overstreet said he was told by Noorah’s defense attorney that his mother was a teacher and his father worked with a tractor trailer. “I’m assuming this guy has money and access to money in Saudi,” Overstreet said. “Whether they were connected beyond the parents I don’t know. We know that Noorah did not have a lot of money. I think there was $80 in his account.” Amos Guiora, a professor at the University of Utah and an expert on national security and international law, said the case was unusual but not especially surprising. “In the context of international law or sovereignty, yes, this is pretty offensive,” he said. “Is it offensive enough for [Jared] Kushner to call the crown prince? Probably not.” He noted the old news that dozens of well-connected Saudis had fled the United States on chartered flights in the days after 9/11. Norms typically dictate that countries respect each other’s judicial systems, Guiora said, “but for these kinds of regimes which don’t really understand the rule of law and have a deep mistrust of our judicial system, if it’s important for their own domestic reasons, I don’t find anything shocking about this at all.” A statement from the Saudi government distributed by an embassy spokesman said it was Saudi policy to post bail for citizens who were incarcerated in the United States when they sought that


‘What an absolute disgrace’: E.U. citizens react angrily to British government’s Brexit settlement video

LONDON — Well, that didn’t go down well. The British government on Friday was criticized for poor taste and bad timing after posting a video informing European Union citizens of the steps they will need to take if they want to “continue living” in Britain after the country leaves the E.U. “EU citizens and their families will need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to continue living in the UK after 31 December 2020,” the Home Office said in a tweet posted Thursday. Glad tidings, it was not. A group called the3million, campaigning for the rights of the 3 million E.U. citizens who live in Britain accused the government of “poor timing” by announcing, over the holidays, that they will have to register and pay if they wish to stay. Free movement of people is one of the key pillars of the E.U., a bloc of 28 countries. For decades, citizens from other E.U. member states could simply buy a plane ticket, stuff clothes in a suitcase, and move to another E.U. country — no special visa needed. Many E.U. citizens planted deep roots in Britain, acquiring spouses, mortgages and pets along the way. Concerns over immigration were one of the key drivers behind the Brexit vote in 2016, and even though attitudes appear to have dramatically mellowed since then, British Prime Minister Theresa May has made it clear she wants free movement of people to end after Britain leaves the bloc. What happens to the 3 million E.U. citizens who live in Britain — and the 1 million British citizens living in the E.U. — has been one of the most prominent issues in the Brexit negotiations. In June, the British government announced that E.U. citizens living in Britain will have to apply to stay. But E.U. citizens this week have criticized the upbeat tone of the new Home Office video, its timing and the need to “pay to stay.” The new settlement status scheme is being tested, and the government says it will be fully up and running as of March 30, the day after Britain is scheduled to leave the bloc. E.U. citizens will need to apply for settlement status before the end of June 2021. The cost will be 65 pounds for an adult and half that amount for children younger than 16. It will be free for those who already have indefinite leave to


Nancy Grace Roman, astronomer celebrated as ‘mother’ of Hubble, dies at 93

Hubble is widely considered to have yielded the most significant astronomical observations since Galileo began using a telescope in the early 1600s. The design and launch of Hubble was fraught by scientific, financial and bureaucratic difficulties that Dr. Roman worked to resolve. Lobbying for early funding for Hubble, whose price tag reached $1.5 billion, she recalled arguing that every American, for the cost of one ticket to the movies, could be assured years of scientific discoveries. “During the 1960s and early 1970s there was no one at NASA who was more important in getting the first designs and concepts for Hubble funded and completed,” space historian Robert Zimmerman wrote in “The Universe in a Mirror,” an account of the creation of Hubble. “More importantly, it was [Dr. Roman] more than anyone who convinced the astronomical community to get behind space astronomy.” The telescope did not launch until 1990, more than a decade after Dr. Roman retired, but when it did, its photographs of the cosmos electrified the world. In 1994, when NASA announced the repair of a faulty mirror and other problems that had caused its early photographs to be blurry, Dr. Roman was in the audience, knitting. Edward J. Weiler, then Hubble’s chief scientist, surprised her by recognizing her publicly, according to Zimmerman’s account. “If Lyman Spitzer was the father of the Hubble Space Telescope,” Weiler said, referring to the noted astrophysicist, “then Nancy Roman was its mother.” Nancy Grace Roman was born in Nashville on May 16, 1925. Her father was a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Her mother was a former music teacher and a nature enthusiast who took her daughter outside at night to view the stars. Dr. Roman, who recalled founding an astronomy club at age 11, moved frequently for her father’s work before landing in Baltimore, where she graduated from high school. She received a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in 1946 and a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1949, both in astronomy. After early work at the University of Chicago and the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin, she was hired by the Naval Research Laboratory in 1955, working in radio astronomy. NASA was formed three years later, with Dr. Roman among its earliest employees. She spent the final part of her career at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where she oversaw the Astronomical Data Center. Her


Skywatch: What’s happening in the heavens in January

be just northwest of Jupiter on Jan. 21 and then northeast on Jan. 23. After that, the dancing partners appear to part. Spending most of January vacationing in the sun’s glare, Saturn ascends the east southeastern morning sky — following Jupiter and Venus — for the month’s last week. Find it on the horizon before sunrise. Bundle up, keep hot chocolate handy and catch shooting stars. The Quadrantid meteors are predicted to peak around 10 p.m. on Jan. 3, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. While the peak can produce as many as 120 meteors each hour, chances are that if you’re patient and brave the cold night, you may see a handful of meteors. All of North America (and South America, for that matter) secures a front-row seat for the Jan. 20-21 total lunar eclipse — when Earth’s shadow embraces a full moon, creating a reddish tint on the moon’s surface. Unlike a solar eclipse, your eyes will be safe for this night event. From our earthly vantage point, the sun will be behind us as the moon scoots through Earth’s shadow. For Washington, the total lunar eclipse starts Jan. 20 on the night of a full moon. At 10:34 p.m. Eastern time, the moon enters Earth’s umbra (the deep part of our planet’s shadow.) By 11:41 p.m., totality begins, as the moon will be fully immersed in the shadow, and at 12:12 a.m. (Jan. 21), we’ll see the peak of the eclipse, according to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The moon becomes officially full at 12:16 a.m., according to the Naval Observatory. The eclipse’s totality portion lasts 62 minutes and ends at 12:43 a.m., when the moon departs the umbra (in the second partial phase) at 1:51 a.m. Two weeks before the total lunar eclipse, there will be a partial solar eclipse Jan. 6 that stretches from China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. For detail on both eclipses, visit eclipse expert Fred Espenak’s MrEclipse.com page. As we move away from the winter solstice (Dec. 21), our days get longer. On Jan. 1, Washington will have nine hours and 30 minutes of daylight, according to the Naval Observatory. By Jan. 31, the capital will see 10 hours and 13 minutes of daylight. Down to Earth events: ●Jan. 5 — ●Jan. 7 — ●Jan. 12 — ●Jan. 13 — ●Jan. 20 —


PM Update: Dense fog tonight, then dry until New Year’s Eve

9:30 pm update: From 3:45 p.m.... Another rainy day. Classic 2018, right through the end of the year. The commute home is wet, and it stays that way into the night, although rain will be winding down with time. Once we get through this, there’s a whole two-day break! Listen to our daily D.C. forecasts: Apple Podcasts | Amazon Echo | More options Through tonight: View the The weekend: New Year’s Day: See Camden Walker’s forecast through the beginning of next week. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Gridlock. Dulles joins the club: Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email inbox?


Police say fatal shooting in Southeast is 160th homicide of the year in D.C.

D.C. police are investigating what they say is the 160th homicide in the nation’s capital in 2018. Police say Curtis Wills-Bey, 53, of Southeast Washington was shot in the same part of the city on Saturday afternoon. Wills-Bey was the 160th homicide in the District this year, according to D.C. police. In 2017, there were 116 homicides in the city. Authorities said police responded to the 3000 block of Stanton Road about 2:21 p.m. after a report of a shooting and found the victim with multiple gunshot wounds. Wills-Bey was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police have offered a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest and a conviction in the shooting. Anyone with information is asked to call 202-727-9099. keith.alexander@washpost.com


As shutdown threatens tourist sites, visitors squeeze in their last moments

By all accounts, Saturday was a near-perfect day to be a tourist in Washington. It was unseasonably warm, and the sun cast a soft orange glow on the monuments and cupola, creating the postcard-like scene that draws so many visitors to the city. Legions of strollers took to the winding paths of the National Zoo, where a tiger’s deep bellow rang out over the chatter of visitors. But the partial government shutdown cast a shadow on the day. So far, the Smithsonian Institution’s museums, research center and zoo have been spared from the shutdown that has furloughed thousands of federal employees. But if the closure continues beyond New Year’s Day, all Smithsonian institutions will shutter, locking visitors out of tourism mainstays like the National Zoo, the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden ice rink, where visitors can skate in the shadow of the National Archives building, will also close. “We have no control over this,” said Linda St. Thomas, spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution. She lamented that closures were bound to disappoint visitors next week, many of whom make visiting the free museums a central part of their trips to the nation’s capital. Tourists often have their heart set on seeing the 45-carat Hope Diamond at the National Museum of Natural History, or the portraits of the Obamas at the National Portrait Gallery. “The Smithsonian museums are a big part of a person’s trip to Washington,” St. Thomas said. Luckily, it is slow season, she said, so a closure will affect far fewer travelers. The partial shutdown is set to be one of the longest in history, the result of an impasse between President Trump, who is demanding billions for a border wall, and congressional Democrats, who refuse to authorize the funding. There were few signs the shutdown would end anytime soon, with Trump tweeting threats to shut down the entire southern border if he did not get funding for the wall. Lawmakers are not scheduled to return until at least Jan. 2. The shutdown has meant about 800,000 federal workers are without paychecks during the holiday season, plunging many low-wage workers into economic peril. The Smithsonian is set to be the latest tourism casualty of the shutdown, which has also suspended the work of the National Park Service. That meant hikers at Great


As a grocery chain is dismantled, investors recover their money. Worker pensions are short millions.

MUNCIE, Ind. — Once the Marsh Supermarkets chain began to falter a few years ago, its owner, a private-equity firm, began selling off the vast retail empire, piece by piece. The company sold more than 100 convenience stores. It sold the pharmacies. It closed some of the 115 grocery stores, having previously auctioned off their real estate. Then, in May 2017, the company announced the closure of the remaining 44 stores. Marsh Supermarkets, founded in 1931, had at last filed for bankruptcy. “It was a long, slow decline,” said Amy Gerken, formerly an assistant office manager at one of the stores. Sun Capital Partners, the private-equity firm that owned Marsh, “didn’t really know how grocery stores work. We’d joke about them being on a yacht without even knowing what a UPC code is. But they didn’t treat employees right, and since the bankruptcy, everyone is out for their blood.” The anger arises because although the sell-off allowed Sun Capital and its investors to recover their money and then some, the company entered bankruptcy leaving unpaid more than $80 million in debts to workers’ severance and pensions. For Sun Capital, this process of buying companies, seeking profits and leaving pensions unpaid is a familiar one. Over the past 10 years, it has taken five companies into bankruptcy while leaving behind debts of about $280 million owed to employee pensions. The unpaid pension debts mean that some retirees will get smaller checks. Much of the tab will be picked up by the government’s pension insurer, a federal agency facing its own budget shortfalls. “They did everyone dirty,” said Kilby Baker, 70, a retired warehouse worker whose pension check was cut by about 25 percent after Marsh Supermarkets withdrew from the pension. “We all gave up wage increases so we could have a better pension. Then they just took it away from us.” Founded by two onetime colleagues at Lehman Brothers, Marc Leder and Rodger R. Krouse, Sun Capital manages billions in private-equity investments, buying and selling companies for profit. The public face of the firm is Leder, a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team and the New Jersey Devils hockey team. Noted for his extravagant parties and yachting expeditions, he has been dubbed by tabloids as “the Hugh Hefner of the Hamptons.” Politically, he may be best known for hosting the Boca Raton, Fla., dinner where presidential candidate Mitt Romney made


NASA’s New Horizons to beam back images of the farthest world humans have ever explored

exploring an even more distant and mysterious world. NASA’s New Horizons Ultima Thule will be the farthest world ever explored by humankind. It is 1 billion miles beyond Pluto and an astounding 4 billion miles from Earth, at the edge of the solar system. Its nickname means “beyond the known world.” No spacecraft has visited anything so primitive. New Horizons, which launched in January 2006, flew past Pluto in 2015, providing the first close-up views of the dwarf planet. As dramatic and illuminating as the Pluto flyby was, scientists know even less about what to expect from Ultima Thule. Because it’s so far away and so dim, they aren’t even sure if it’s a single mass. They suspect it is made up of two lobes, but it also could be two separate objects orbiting around each other. “We were already getting hints of what Pluto was going to be looking like well in advance of the day of closest approach,” said Hal Weaver, the mission’s project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “This time, everything is going to be pretty much a mystery, we think, until the last hour or so.” The scientists hope to fly the spacecraft within about 2,200 miles of Ultima Thule, four times closer than its encounter with Pluto, to capture images and other data with as much resolution as possible. But that could depend on what, if anything, New Horizons spots in its path as Ultima Thule gets closer and brighter. Mission engineers were preparing for the possibility they would have to steer the speeding spacecraft as far as 6,200 miles from its target, if that means avoiding any bits of debris in space. “A rice-sized pellet hitting the spacecraft in the wrong place could destroy it,” Weaver said. The first signal back from New Horizons is expected about 10 a.m. New Year’s Day, with the best images and data from Ultima Thule expected to come down later Tuesday and also on Wednesday, the scientists said. Any good data would be the first collected from a planetary object so far from Earth. Only the Voyager and Pioneer missions have traveled farther than New Horizons will, but they were taking relatively more crude observations of plasma and particles in space. When they launched in the 1970s, Weaver said, scientists “didn’t even know what existed out there.” — From news services


Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common: ‘I see no way out.’

“Inescapable.” “It's a constant stressor.” “I see no way out.” What do professors, real estate agents, farmers, business executives, computer programmers and store clerks have in common? They’re not immune to the harsh reality of living paycheck to paycheck, according to dozens of people who responded to a Washington Post inquiry on Twitter. They’re millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers. They work in big cities and rural towns. They’ve tried to save — but rent, child care, student loans and medical bills get in the way. National data on the paycheck-to-paycheck experience is flimsy, but a recent report from the Federal Reserve spotlights the prevalence of extra-tight budgets: Four in 10 adults say they couldn’t produce $400 in an emergency without sliding into debt or selling something, according to the 2017 figures. The partial government shutdown, which began last Friday and is temporarily halting pay for some 800,000 federal workers, has touched off a heated discussion on Twitter about what it means to get by in the United States. (President Trump warned this closure could “last a very long time” if Congress doesn’t meet his demands for billions of dollars for a border wall.) Even brief income lapses can spell disaster for some households. “My husband is a Park Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and he had to sign his furlough papers,” one woman tweeted. ”We have a 4 yr. old and a 4-month-old, and we don’t know when his next check will come. Mortgage is due, Christmas 2 days away.” “Broke my lease to accept new fed job for which I have to attend 7 months of training in another state,” another Twitter user said. (He later deleted the tweet). “Training canceled with shutdown. Homeless. Can’t afford short(?)-term housing/have to work full-time for no pay/returning Christmas presents.” These and other #ShutdownStories took off online after U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) suggested last week that a gap in wages wouldn’t be so bad. “Who’s living that they’re not going to make it to the next paycheck?” he asked reporters, adding that most of those impacted would qualify for back pay. According to economists: A lot of people. “It’s astronomical what people need just to make it month to month,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Department of Labor who now studies how middle-class families spend their wages at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington


Trump is losing military voters. Here’s how Democrats can win them over.

see white nationalism as more of a national security threat than Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. This finding indicates that many service members are likely to join progressives in their fight against bigotry, provided they are encouraged to do so. It might also signify an awareness of racist elements in the military, something Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), along with ProPublica, Frontline PBS and the historian Kathleen Belew, have attempted to bring to light. It would be wise for Democrats, both as a matter of principle and strategy, to devote more energy to confronting this reality. Similar consideration should be directed to Islamophobia within the ranks, which has already led to the death of at least one Marine recruit. And this must be accompanied by continued advocacy on behalf of green-card holders in the uniformed services, especially in the face of persistent attacks from the Trump administration. Plenty of other issues could be mentioned, like the fact that the military spouse unemployment rate floats around 20 percent, or that veterans make up an overrepresented 11 percent of all homeless adults and commit suicide at 1.5 times the rate of their non-veteran adult counterparts. Even when it comes to countering Trump’s “America First” posturing with a genuinely left internationalist (as opposed to imperialist) foreign policy, centering the perspectives of service-members and veterans makes sense, since their inordinate support for presidential candidates such as Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Bernie Sanders and Trump have been driven in large part by disillusion with American interventionism abroad. Polling There is no doubt Trump wins the award for most mendacious pandering when it comes to his interactions with the troops. But Democrats have yet to offer a clear alternative. They have yet to speak in a progressive voice that conceptualizes the military not just as a special interest looking for a pay raise, but as a unique community that has constituted ground zero for many of America’s most pressing injustices and challenges. Such a shift in mind-set bears a small chance of winning over the bulk of service members or veterans, but the imaginative outreach it might inspire could certainly help in mobilizing the activist energies of (and turning out the vote for) a number of citizens who would otherwise remain aloof from electoral politics. Just as important, such a shift would provide freshly compelling ways to speak to a self-consciously patriotic citizenry about dire problems affecting everyone.


I’m a furloughed park ranger. Good thing my job taught me survival skills.

shutdown ever occur again. This time was different. The Thursday before, we were enjoying an all-staff tamale lunch meeting, marveling how our park visitation grew over the year. Then, mid-tamale, a colleague got a news alert. “You guys, the shutdown is on.” We laughed, saying that he was behind the times. It all worked out; it wasn’t happening. Then he showed us his phone. My superintendent looked grave. “I better go back to my office,” he said. “I bet there’s a conference call.” The next day, shutdown preparations took precedence over any other work. I work Saturdays, and so I would be one of the first staff members furloughed. I scanned news reports and texted D.C. friends who had Congress’s pulse, who confirmed that there would not be any further votes. When I left work at 7 p.m. on Friday, I knew the next day I would begin the shutdown dance. The next morning, I had my coffee, kissed my husband and said, “I’m off to shut down the government.” Bewildered, he answered, “Good luck?” During a shutdown, you’re given four hours to get your affairs in order. You set your email auto-reply, park social media, website and voice mail to the federally mandated script and water your office plants. You lock up visitor facilities and place notices of the shutdown. In my ranger job, I partner with other parks, nonprofits and volunteers for programming. I alerted these colleagues that we were closing and they would have to watch the news to figure out if our ice-fishing workshops or New Year’s Eve snowshoe hikes would happen. I couldn’t help promote upcoming events or even confirm if I would be present. Technically, I’m not even allowed to take a phone call from a partner who finds me at home and asks, “Hey, do you think you’ll be here this weekend, or should we find someone else?” Not knowing when we’d see each other again, my co-workers and I had a farewell brunch after we completed our shutdown list. We tried to guess how long this would last and who would return with the most lustrous “shutdown beard” when it was over. By the time I came home, frustrated and sad, my husband declared it “pajama o’clock” and tried to comfort me with Jameson and “The Great British Baking Show.” Some think that a government shutdown means federal employees get to party


PM Update: Steady rain pauses into the evening, but fog and more showers likely overnight

Rain that overtook the area during the midday will move east and northeast as we head into evening. There is still more to come but maybe not a ton more. On the bright side, it will not be cold out there tonight as we ring in the new year. Listen to our daily D.C. forecasts: Apple Podcasts | Amazon Echo | More options Through tonight: View the Tomorrow (Tuesday): See Jason Samenow’s forecast through the weekend. And if you have not already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Gridlock. Wettest year: Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email inbox?


NASA has a New Year’s date with a distant space rock. Here’s how to watch.

belt object as anything but a point of light. No one has ever seen an object that’s frozen almost to absolute zero. There are a lot of ideas and every one of them might be wrong.” He took a breath. “We’ll find out Tuesday.” NASA is celebrating the record-setting encounter at what is perhaps the solar system’s nerdiest New Year’s party. At the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which built and operates the spacecraft, scientists will count down to the moment of New Horizons’ closest approach, at 12:33 a.m. Eastern time, then reconvene 10 hours later to watch the first signals from the flyby stream on their screens. (It takes more than six hours for light to travel from Ultima Thule to Earth.) NASA’s vaunted social media operation, a casualty of the partial government shutdown, has been temporarily restored to cover the event. The countdown, signal acquisition and subsequent news conferences will be streamed live on NASA TV and YouTube. Alice Bowman, mission operations manager for New Horizons at APL, said the spacecraft entered “encounter mode” on Wednesday. This configuration limits the spacecraft’s communication with Earth, commanding it to quickly address any technical issues on its own, then get back to science. Though nerve-racking for engineers, encounter mode ensures that New Horizons makes the most of its brief time near Ultima Thule. “Because this is a flyby, we only get one chance to get it right,” Bowman said. New Horizons left Earth in January 2006. It was the first mission designed to explore the most distant part of the solar system. Nine years and 3.5 billion miles later, it took the first-ever close-up photos of Pluto, revealing a complex and colorful world mottled with methane mountains and a vast, heart-shaped nitrogen ice plain. After that flyby, Stern and his colleagues set about searching for a new target in the Kuiper belt, which extends from the edge of Neptune’s orbit out to about 5 billion miles from the sun. Until the 1990s, no one knew what was hiding out there, where sunlight is 0.05 percent as faint as it is on Earth. Now, the Kuiper belt is thought to include millions of icy objects, unused planetary building blocks left over from the earliest days of the solar system. These bodies are time capsules, preserved in a deep freeze for the past 4.6 billion years. NASA says Ultima Thule is


Roy Glauber, Nobel-winning physicist who applied quantum mechanics to optics, dies at 93

Roy J. Glauber, an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize for helping lay the foundations of quantum optics, providing an expanded and modern explanation of the properties of light, died Dec. 26. He was 93. Family members said he died at a hospital in Newton, Mass. The cause of death was acute respiratory failure, his son said. As a young man, Dr. Glauber worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the atomic bomb was built. He was one of the last survivors among the scientists who saw the first bomb test in the New Mexico desert in 1945. A longtime member of the physics faculty at Harvard University and an adjunct professor of optical sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Dr. Glauber conducted work that provided a quantum explanation for the interaction between light and matter. In 2005, Dr. Glauber was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in physics for what the Nobel Committee described as “his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence.” The other half was awarded to John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch for their work in precision spectroscopy. Optical coherence is a term associated with the pure beams of light produced by lasers, and it was the development of lasers that helped prompt Dr. Glauber to develop his theory. In part, it provides a fundamental way of explaining and distinguishing between the “coherence” of the narrow, tightly focused laser beam, characterized by its single frequency, and the light that is produced by everyday sources, which generally contain many frequencies. Sunlight, or light from an electric bulb, is divergent and is termed “incoherent.” Modern physics is based to a great extent on quantum theory, in which matter and energy may exist as both wave and particle. Even before quantum theory, it was recognized that light had aspects of both. But the theory provides more powerful and sophisticated explanations of that duality and of how it affects the physical world. In the modern explanation, particles of light, known as photons, follow circumscribed laws. Quantum accounts of photons and their interactions depart from the predictability and continuity that typify earlier physics. In the case of light, the theory involved is known as quantum electrodynamics. Light waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation, and quantum electrodynamics unites the quantum theory with electromagnetism. Calling him “Dr. Quantum Optics,” University of Rochester physicist Joseph H. Eberly described


Guatemalan boy who died in U.S. custody tested positive for influenza

Services did not answer questions about their efforts this week. Colleen A. Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the flu could easily spread in the crowded air-conditioned facilities where migrants are often detained, and urged federal officials to release the children. She called such conditions “a recipe for disaster.” Four child deaths from the flu were reported to the CDC last week, bringing the season’s total to 11 for children. Ten of those deaths were linked to influenza A, and one was influenza B, which was not Felipe’s case. In El Paso, where immigration officials have unexpectedly released hundreds of migrants in recent days, two adult migrants are hospitalized with the flu, said Robert Resendes of the El Paso Health Department. A 1-year-old was also taken to the emergency room with respiratory illness Friday and given a prescription for Tamiflu, which is used to treat the flu, said Ruben Garcia, executive director of El Paso’s Annunciation House, a nonprofit that provides temporary shelter to migrants. ICE said it has released hundreds of migrants in recent months in part because of a 20-day court-imposed limit on how long it can detain children. In El Paso, Garcia said a handful of migrants in his area have required trips to the emergency room. “Most of the ER visits have been in relation to fevers and congestion, which you would normally associate with colds and flu,” he said. ICE spokeswoman Liz Johnson said they have “curtailed reviews of post-release plans from families apprehended along the southwest border” so that they can release them before the court’s deadline. Previously, the agency released family members after ensuring they had travel arrangements to reach a relative or another destination in the United States. “ICE is redoubling its efforts to work with local and state officials and NGO partners in the area so they are prepared to provide assistance with transportation or other services,” she said. Flu killed and hospitalized more people in the United States last winter than in decades. About 80,000 people died in the 2017-2018 season, including 180 children, according to the CDC. The CDC is sending influenza response teams to the U.S.-Mexico border region in Texas and Arizona, Resendes said. Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately reported the agency that released Agustin Gomez Perez on Thursday. It was Customs and Border Protection, and the story has been corrected. maria.sacchetti@washpost.com


A year in comments from Washington Post readers

With the recent changes in opioid prescription restrictions (which I agree with), it is difficult to get more than a few days of Vicodin from my PCM, as she is afraid of being flagged by the DEA for over-prescribing. But I need pain relief to be able to go to work and function. It seems like there is no happy medium these days. If medical marijuana was allowed to be prescribed by the VA and other health professionals it would go along way to helping those with chronic pain. I know several people, many of whom are veterans, who self-prescribe pot to help manage pain. But with my security clearance and random urinalysis, I am not willing to use it myself. I really hope that Congress will move forward on this issue and change these antiquated laws ... but I am not holding my breath.” — Dennis A A lesson learned in Barbara Bush’s bathing suit “One Christmas, my husband, who worked for the RNC, and I were invited to the Bush’s Christmas party. We arrived at their beautiful home; it was packed with other invitees. My husband and his best friend (an important person), whom we rode up with, proceeded to get drunk and were making loud fools of themselves. I left them and wandered around, looking at Barbara Bush’s exotic plants. A tap on my shoulder — it was her. I started to apologize for my husband, but she knew my name and said, ‘I heard you love cats. Come on upstairs.’ She took me up to one of the guest bedrooms; under the bed were a couple of beautiful kitties. She got one out from under the bed. We sat on the bed and talked while petting the cat. It was a nice memory. She was a lovely woman.” — yellowjournalism May Oculus Go is the first VR gadget you might actually buy “I grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s riding bikes and searching farm roads and railroad tracks for ever more remote ponds and creeks, frogs and crawdads, dragonflies and sunfish, living life as a tomboy if there ever was one. And it makes me so sad that I can and have cried for some of the young ones coming up in this digital world so far distant from mine. ... Am I among only a few who sees those two poor souls pictured above


Russia arrests American citizen on suspicion of spying

MOSCOW — An American citizen has been arrested in Moscow on suspicion of espionage, Russia’s domestic security service, the FSB, said Monday. The agency identified the man as Paul Whelan. A criminal case has been opened against him. The U.S. State Department said it has been notified by the Russian Foreign Ministry of an American citizen’s detention but could not confirm the name or provide more details, citing privacy considerations. The United States has asked for consular access. “We have requested this access and expect Russian authorities to provide it,” a State Department spokesman said. By Russian law, foreigners found guilty of spying on Russia face between 10 and 20 years in prison. “On December 28, staff members of the Russian Federal Security Service detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan in Moscow while on a spy mission,” the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB service, said in a statement on its website. No other details were given. The arrest of the U.S. citizen comes as tensions between Washington and Moscow continue to escalate over a range of issues, including election interference and the crises in Syria and Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin, in his New Year’s greeting to President Trump, said he was open to a meeting of the two leaders. Trump canceled a formal meeting with Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires in December over Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian naval vessels and crew members. “Russia-U.S. relations are the most important factor behind ensuring strategic stability and international security,” Putin wrote to Trump on Sunday, in one of many messages to heads of state around the globe. The Foreign Ministry notified the U.S. Embassy in Moscow of Whelan’s arrest in compliance with procedure, the Interfax news agency cited officials there as saying. The ministry said his full name is Paul Nicholas Whelan, state-run media outlets reported. In December, Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring with a senior Russian official to infiltrate U.S. conservative groups. Butina, 30, is the first Russian national to be convicted of seeking to influence U.S. policy in the run-up to the 2016 election by acting as a foreign agent. Shortly before Butina pleaded guilty, Putin said she was not known to any of his spy agencies. The Foreign Ministry has gone to great lengths to paint Butina as a political prisoner, notably by launching a wide-ranging social media campaign.


The Smithsonian and the National Gallery held on as long as they could. They’re closing.

Mount Pleasant residents are accustomed to the roars of lions and cries of gibbons emanating from the National Zoo. And while they’ll still be able to hear the animals Wednesday, they won’t be able to see them in person for the foreseeable future. When the government shutdown was announced the week before Christmas, every Washingtonian expecting visitors experienced a moment of terror: “Ohmigod, are they going to close the Smithsonian?” Relax, we were told: The Smithsonian found enough unused “prior-year funds” to stay open through the holidays, while the National Gallery of Art pieced together “unexpired two-year and no-year appropriations” to do the same. Except that funding has finally run out. Tourists hoping to see the Star-Spangled Banner, the Hope Diamond and Harriet Tubman’s shawl will find locked doors at all 17 of the District’s Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo Wednesday. The National Gallery — both the East and West buildings as well as the popular skating rink in the sculpture gardens — will follow suit Thursday. They’ll join the museums and National Park Service-run sites across the region — the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, the DEA Museum — that have been shuttered since Dec. 22 due to a lack of government funding. What makes this especially confusing for visitors is that while Washington is full of government-funded cultural attractions, it’s not always clear how a shutdown impacts their individual operations. The National Archives closed when the shutdown began on Dec. 22, for instance. But the Library of Congress and the U.S. Botanic Garden — and the Capitol Visitor Center and Capitol Building, ironically — are operating as normal, since they were funded by the 2019 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill. The Kennedy Center and Ford’s Theatre operate in a gray area: Neither uses federal funds for performances, so those will go on as scheduled, but the Kennedy Center’s hours are slashed, because the government pays for essential services, such as cleaning and security, and the National Park Service-run museum at Ford’s Theatre is closed. And to further add to the confusion: Smithsonian-sponsored events scheduled to take place at non-museum sites — such as a free listening party for the new Smithsonian Folkways album “The Social Power of Music” at Songbyrd Music House in Adams Morgan on Wednesday — will go on as planned. With Washington’s star attractions closed, the nonfederal museums are


A vacuum of accountability for Baltimore’s horrific murder problem

The Dec. 28 front-page article “Murder with impunity: Baltimore’s ‘open season’ ” neglected three major issues relating to the horrific murder problem in Baltimore: • The lack of outrage by Baltimore’s political leadership regarding the problem. We do not hear calls for action to solve the problem from the political leadership there, even when we see 3-year-olds being shot. This lack of outrage and action equates to tolerance of the problem. • Similarly, we don’t see outrage on the part of Baltimore residents to hold the political leadership accountable. • The legal system also plays a huge part in the problem. It is not uncommon to see young people with repeated gun offenses (often three or four) placed back on the streets after being arrested. For the acting police commissioner to cite a 10 percent drop in homicides in 2018 as a positive stride is like saying a student increased a grade on an exam from 20 percent to 30 percent. It’s still a failing grade. Both the political leadership and the entire community must come together and chart a course to resolve this problem. Currently, we see a vacuum of accountability and an unwillingness to solve the problem. Tom Jurkowsky


NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft just visited the farthest object ever explored

room lit with sparkling blue and white lights. Small children up long past their bedtimes scurried between chairs and sneaked cookies from the buffet. “This is like a dream come true,” said Chuck Fields, a podcast producer from Indianapolis who drove nine hours to attend Monday’s event. He was dressed in a blindingly bright blazer and tie bearing images of planets, galaxies and the sun. His wife, Dawn, wore matching pants. NASA nodded to the encounter by counting down to 12 a.m. and distributing plastic cups of champagne. Astrophysicist Brian May, better known as lead guitarist for the rock band Queen, debuted a song he wrote for the occasion. “This is an anthem to human endeavor,” he said. Thirty-three minutes after the rest of the East Coast had already popped their champagne, the scientists at APL were still waiting. Way out in the Kuiper belt, they knew, New Horizons was performing its riskiest observations yet. Particle and dust detectors were probing the chilly Kuiper belt environment. Three cameras were snapping as many images as possible in an effort to map the tiny world and determine its composition. And Ultima Thule was growing ever larger in New Horizons’s field of vision, glowing like a full moon. “Thirty seconds to fly-by,” Stern said. “Are you ready? Are you psyched? Are you jazzed?” Twenty seconds. Ten. And then Stern raised his hand in the air while confetti fell from the ceiling. The crowd cheered. “New Horizons is at Ultima Thule,” Stern proclaimed. Or so he hoped. The following morning, New Horizons’s operators sat in mission control, anxious. Data from the Deep Space Network, a chain of radio antennas NASA uses to communicate with distant spacecraft, was displayed on their screens. Bowman sat with her hands folded, leaning toward her computer. “In lock with telemetry,” Bowman said. In the APL auditorium, where the rest of the team and their families were watching, the crowd erupted. Next came the status check: Planning — nominal. Power — green. Solid state recorders — pointed right where NASA wanted them. Every subsystem looked good. New Horizons had survived. Thirty minutes later, members of the New Horizons mission operations team entered the APL auditorium to high-fives and riotous cheers. “I’m not a New Year’s kind of guy,” said Mike Ryschkewitsch, the head of APL’s space exploration sector. “But I can’t think of a better reason to stay up late.”


On an island famous for wild ponies, a dangerous infection is killing horses

like this before,” Bowden said as vets were still trying to save the four ponies the week before Christmas. “It’s been very, very trying.” Most of the 150 or so horses roam loose in different parts of the refuge. But Bowden was standing next to a pen where several late-born ponies were spending their first winter with their mothers. Sheltering from the offshore breeze behind a line of bush, the gangly foals alternately dozed in the sun and nudged the mares for milk. A group of three adult horses grazed in an adjacent enclosure, newly arrived gifts from Chincoteague pony raisers wanting to replace some of the recently lost animals. In the middle of the compound is a long shed newly fitted with canvas sides. Inside, the four remaining infected animals were being seen regularly by two herd veterinarians. Before their deaths, about 20 volunteers from the fire company tended to their daily needs, which included removing and burning the stable muck. The unexpected malady is pythiosis, an infection typically caused when a horse steps in water carrying a fungus-like organism known as Pythium insidiosum. Pathogens can enter small cuts or abrasions and, in some horses, create itchy, swelling lesions that will eventually become tumor-like growths. Untreated, the infection is invariably fatal. The disease, sometimes known as swamp cancer, strikes mostly horses and dogs and has long been known in subtropical areas, including Florida. But cases are becoming more common in higher latitudes in recent years, with some reported as far north as Minnesota. “It’s an emerging disease,” said Richard Hansen, a research veterinarian in Oklahoma working on a vaccine and new treatments for pythiosis. “It seems to be moving north with the changing climate.” There have been occasional unconfirmed cases of the disease among Chincoteague ponies over the years, according to Charles Cameron, the herd’s primary veterinarian for 29 years. But he’s seen nothing like the spate that began two years ago and spiked significantly this past autumn. It was in late summer of 2016 when volunteers spotted a mare with small sores above her hoofs. Blood tests would confirm pythiosis and, caught early, it was successfully treated. But finding it at that initial stage may have been rare luck, as the ponies roam largely unmonitored over more than 4,000 acres. In 2017, two more infected animals were found with more advanced infections and, despite aggressive treatment, both died.


Shutdown and science

The government shutdown has wreaked havoc on scientific progress, as The Post reported last week. Because the shutdown has lasted into the new year, the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are closed. Visitors are barred from seeing the pandas and the Hope Diamond. And Smithsonian scientists around the world must return home. They must go silent, too, which is sure to frustrate their collaborators. “You absolutely cannot use your government email,” Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the National Museum of Natural History, told me last week. “You are not allowed to communicate, period.” Has the shutdown affected your science? A few readers chimed in via email: “The proposal review process is interrupted and the flow of research is correspondingly disrupted. I will have a lot of catching up to do once my active status is restored,” said a furloughed NSF employee. One reader mentioned that more than 3,000 scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s labs in Gaithersburg and Boulder have been furloughed, too. If you have a perspective on science and the shutdown, let me know at: ben.guarino@washpost.com. — Ben


Tension, trash and empty museums: Ground views of the government shutdown

The view from the closed spaces, some of them tourist destinations, is a sobering reminder of just how much work goes into keeping federally-funded institutions operating.


‘Nothing short of inhumane’: Union sues Trump administration over shutdown

Chuzi, Newman & Fitch, and the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, initiated the complaint as the shutdown entered its second week. It is the first legal action targeting effects of the closure. The two named plaintiffs, Justin Tarovisky and Grayson Sharp, are corrections officers with the federal Bureau of Prisons. Both are also deemed “essential.” “They’re working a dangerous job, they’re critically understaffed, and now, they don’t know when they’ll next get paid,” she said, adding that “essential” employees will continue incurring the costs of commuting to work, such as gas and child care. Without knowing how long the shutdown will last, many workers may be forced to make challenging choices. "They may be paycheck to paycheck, have cellphone bills, mortgages. ... It’s unacceptable for any employer, but especially for the U.S. government,” Burakiewicz contended. Her firm sued the government during a 16-day shutdown in 2013 over the funding for President Barack Obama’s health-care law, arguing that failure to pay federal workers on their regularly scheduled payday violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. The court agreed, holding that employees needed to know when they would receive their paychecks, and ordered the government to pay double the amount owed them. There are 25,000 employees still waiting to receive those damages. Federal employees are paid biweekly. Because of the late-December timing of the shutdown, only employees with unpaid overtime wages, like Tarovisky and Sharp, can currently file suit. The next pay cycle ends at midnight Jan. 5, with the scheduled payday soon thereafter. If the government closure is still ongoing, and no “essential” employee receives a salary, legal claims will become available to them all. Of the 2.1 million federal workers nationwide, The Post reported, approximately 800,000 are expected to be affected by the shutdown. There are 420,000 federal employees deemed “essential.” At least 380,000 other federal workers are deemed “nonessential,” according to CNBC, and have been placed on temporary leave until the shutdown ends. Furloughed employees span the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Forest Service, National Park Service and IRS. Because they are not performing government duties, those employees have no recourse for financial harm suffered. Since Dec. 22, Trump has continued to defend his positions on the border wall and government shutdown, even claiming that many federal workers encouraged him not to waver. Tony Reardon, president of


The Panda Cam is dark. But not everything is shut down at D.C. attractions.

You can’t see the Wright Flyer at the National Air and Space Museum, or snap a selfie with Henry, the African bush elephant at the Natural History Museum, or even peek at the pandas at the National Zoo. On Wednesday, the partial government shutdown hit many of Washington’s cultural attractions when the Smithsonian museums — and the zoo and its popular Panda Cam — closed to the public. The National Gallery of Art — which, like the Smithsonian museums, stayed open during the busy holiday week — will close Thursday if an agreement hasn’t been reached. The museums, which are partially federally funded, used reserve money to keep operating when the shutdown began Dec. 22. The holiday season is typically one of the busiest times of the year for Smithsonian museums. (Officials reported 1.1 million visitors between Dec. 22 and Jan. 1.) But the closure doesn’t mean the entire Smithsonian Institution has gone dark. About 2,000 of the Smithsonian’s 6,000 employees are not paid by the federal government, so those staffers — including museum directors, senior-level administrators, fundraisers and employees of its magazine, television channel and Folkways music label — haven’t been furloughed and are working as usual. Construction is underway at the Air and Space Museum, which this month begins a long-planned seven-year renovation. And at the National Museum of Natural History, exhibits are still being installed in the popular Fossil Hall, which is set to reopen June 8 after a five-year renovation. “The contract has been signed and we’re able to move forward, using nonfederal dollars, to allow the exhibit installation to move forward,” said Jim Wood, communications director at the Natural History Museum. But, Wood said, things could get difficult if the shutdown goes on for an extended period. “Where it gets a little tricky,” he said, “is . . . when you have other components, like curatorial review of wall text,” as most curators are furloughed federal employees. “In the short term, we’re okay.” Some Smithsonian workers, including minimal security and maintenance personnel, are exempt from the shutdown because their jobs are considered essential, said Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas. The largest number of exempt employees are at the National Zoo, taking care of the animals. Animal care remains a priority, but the widely watched Panda Cam and other zoo cameras are no longer broadcasting. Employees at the National Museum of American History reported to work


at the Natural History Museum. But, Wood said, things could get difficult if the shutdown goes on for an extended period. “Where it gets a little tricky,” he said, “is . . . when you have other components, like curatorial review of wall text,” as most curators are furloughed federal employees. “In the short term, we’re okay.” Some Smithsonian workers, including minimal security and maintenance personnel, are exempt from the shutdown because their jobs are considered essential, said Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas. The largest number of exempt employees are at the National Zoo, taking care of the animals. Animal care remains a priority, but the widely watched Panda Cam and other zoo cameras are no longer broadcasting. Employees at the National Museum of American History reported to work Wednesday for a four-hour “orderly shutdown,” after which they set out-of-office replies on their phones and email and then left, some taking office plants with them. Furloughed staff are not allowed to work, even on a volunteer basis, so progress on upcoming exhibitions will be stalled, a museum spokeswoman said. During the shutdown, social media accounts will be dark and no new content will be shared. If the shutdown doesn’t end quickly, exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art that are scheduled to come down will require registrars and other staff to uninstall the items, said gallery spokeswoman Anabeth Guthrie, who added that it’s too early to tell whether any exhibitions will be delayed. Many projects that are not in public view also have been affected by the shutdown. Four students from Los Angeles are expected to begin internships Monday with the Smithsonian Latino Center and its museum partners, who are federal workers. “We’ve found people who are willing to help us, but it means the students won’t have the internships we had thought,” said Eduardo Diaz, the center’s director, adding that his office also will provide space for workers who can’t access their museum offices. “We are improvising and picking up the slack where we can,” he said. “We’ve been through this before, so we know how to manage, not only the work itself, but the mental aspect as well.” Meanwhile, several thousand museum workers are in limbo. “We’re hopeful that this gets resolved as soon as possible,” Wood said, “so we can get back to serving the American people through science and access to our exhibits and programs.” peggy.mcglone@washpost.com


Here are 11 climate change policies to fight for in 2019

industry is a leading source of greenhouse-gas emissions globally. Practices that improve soil health will play a critical role in our efforts to combat climate change by reducing the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and states can help by passing legislation that incentivizes carbon farming. Carbon farming refers to climate-smart agricultural practices that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by sequestering, or storing, carbon in the soil instead of promoting its release into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Carbon farming improves soil health and productivity, thereby maximizing crop yields. It also increases soil resilience and reduces the need for pesticides. Carbon-farming strategies include planting cover crops that increase water retention and soil nutrients and keep weeds down; using no-till approaches that limit aeration of surface soils and reduce erosion; and planting diverse perennial forages with deeper root systems for grazing animals. Longer root systems increase organic matter (carbon-based molecules) in the soil. These practices could have a huge impact on our emissions: Project Drawdown estimates that widespread adoption of these types of practices could reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 23.2 gigatons by 2050. In New York, I introduced the Carbon Farming Act, a first-of-its-kind bill that would give farmers a financial incentive for implementing climate-smart practices. This legislation creates a tax credit for farmers to continue these practices and to encourage others to begin them, because policies that reward — rather than punish through carbon penalties, for example — will ultimately be more effective and equitable. Farmers, who are responsible for producing the fresh food we put on our tables and depend on weather for their livelihoods, could make significant contributions to helping us reach emission reduction goals. Incentivizing carbon-farming practices will ensure that agriculture’s future is both economically and environmentally sustainable. By Juliette Majot We must begin regulating the factory-farm model of livestock production to step up the fight on climate change. A 2018 report from the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy and GRAIN analyzed the greenhouse-gas emissions of the world’s 35 biggest meat and dairy conglomerates and found that the top 20 emitted more greenhouse gases in 2016 than several Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries did. The mass production of ruminant animals produces untenable amounts of climate-warming methane. The conversion of large swaths of land into feed grain monocultures to raise ever-growing numbers of animals emits the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, as synthetic fertilizers leach


Smithsonian museums and National Zoo close because of government shutdown

Smithsonian Institution museums and the National Zoo in Washington closed Wednesday for lack of funds because of the partial government shutdown. Some Smithsonian museums were able to remain open when the shutdown happened about a week before Christmas. Now that their funding has run out, the 21 Smithsonian facilities are closed to visitors. “Due to the federal government shutdown, all Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are closed,” the institution said in statement Wednesday. “Museum and National Zoo programming and events are also canceled.” The National Gallery of Art is expected to shut its doors Thursday. The Newseum, National Geographic Museum and Museum of the Bible — which are not part of the government — are open throughout the shutdown. Congress returns to Washington on Thursday with a new Democratic House majority — and the partial government shutdown first on the list of problems to solve. President Trump met with congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said no progress was made. Federal workers will miss their January 11 paycheck unless the government reopens. Departments without funds include Justice, Homeland Security, Interior and Treasury, while independent agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission are also affected. Democrats in the House — Bloomberg News


The Quadrantid meteor shower, 2019′s first, peaks Thursday night

This year, the display will be a partial hit. Meteor rates forecast to crest around 9 to 10 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, according to the International Meteor Organization. The timing favors viewers in Eastern Europe, but anyone on the night side of Earth will have a shot at catching some shooting stars whiz through the sky. The exceptionally quick rise and fall in meteor rates is owed to a very narrow stream of debris that Earth intercepts each January. Plus, the planet crosses the stony river nearly perpendicularly, so we don’t stay in it for long. It’s instigated by object 2003 EH1, labeled by NASA as “an asteroid or possible rock comet.” The Quadrantids are unlike most other meteor showers in that respect; the majority other meteors can be traced back to comets. When the interstellar pebbles collide with Earth’s outer atmosphere, they burn up. The Quadrantids get their name from the constellation Quadrans Muralis, the radiant of the annual shower. Since that’s the apparent origin of the shooting stars, it helps for the constellation to be high in the sky. You can spot the star cluster near the handle of the Big Dipper in the northeast. Unfortunately, this year’s 9 p.m. peak means the radiant will be below the horizon when meteor rates are predicted to be at their best. That will hack away at the advertised 100 meteor/hour rate, since 60 percent of them will occur outside our field of view. Still, a more realistic 30 to 40 shooting stars per hour will make for welcome spectacle — if skies are clear and you’re willing to brave the cold. Quadrantid meteors are slow-moving, blazing green, pink, yellow and light blue. Like the Geminids three weeks ago, they’re rich in sodium, magnesium and iron. Scientific study of their light spectra reveals the sodium is peeled off by atmospheric friction rapidly, allowing for “early fragmentation” of the meteors. They move 26 miles per second — quite sluggish for shooting stars. That means they’ll stick around for longer. On the flip side, Quadrantids aren’t overly bright, so efforts to view them must involve dark skies and a clear view to the north. The nearly new moon will cooperate, setting before dark and only 3 percent illuminated to begin with. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, don’t fret. This month will also feature a total lunar eclipse on the night of Jan. 20.


Here are some steps to take when your paycheck is stopped

Many federal workers living paycheck to paycheck haven’t yet felt an income shock because of the partial government shutdown. Most federal employees received their last checks based on time worked before the shutdown began the night of Dec. 21. Some, who were required to work the Saturday following the shutdown — the last day of the pay period — weren’t paid for one day, according to Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union. But if the shutdown continues into the next pay cycle and paychecks aren’t retroactively restored, many people will face extreme hardship. As we get further into January, “it is going to get dramatically worse,” Reardon said. Already, this political tug-of-war has harmed government contractors and people working in businesses that cater to and depend on money from federal employees. Much of the lost revenue and wages won’t be recovered. A 2015 study for the National Bureau of Economic Research looked at the impact of the 2013 federal government shutdown. The pay of a typical affected worker was 40 percent below normal. The government was closed Oct. 1-16, which included four days of the previous federal pay period, according to the report. By the next pay period, however, employees were back at work and were reimbursed for the wages they lost while furloughed. But look how little people had prepared for such a financial emergency. “Many affected workers maintained low levels of liquid assets (checking and saving account balances), especially in the days just before their regular paychecks arrive,” the study found. “Prior to the shutdown, the median worker . . . held an average liquid assets balance sufficient to cover just eight days of average spending.” A disruption in your income can create a paralyzing situation. If you’re affected by the shutdown, you need to act fast. Here are moves to make when your paycheck is stopped. ● OPM pulled that letter, saying it was released by mistake. The agency said it was a letter from the 2013 shutdown. Whenever it was written, it was an idiotic recommendation. Professionally run rental complexes typically have staff or contractors who maintain their properties. Nonetheless, OPM is right in encouraging employees to immediately contact their landlords and explain their situation. Find out what, if any, relief you can get. If you have a mortgage, call your lender. Ask about deferring January’s payment if you don’t have enough