and water crossings, as flights between the United States and Mexico have largely continued since the early days of the pandemic. Until last week, the State Department’s Mexico advisory was a Level 4 (do not travel) nationwide. Some less-visited regions of Mexico remain classified Level 4 for “crime and kidnapping.” The modified travel advisory said U.S. travelers should “reconsider travel to Mexico due to covid-19” as well as “crime and kidnapping.” A border closure restricting nonessential travel has been in place between the United States and Mexico since March 21 in an effort to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. The popular resort areas of Cabo San Lucas, Cancún and Cozumel have been allowing U.S. travelers who fly into the country to visit without required quarantines or coronavirus tests. Instead, Mexican airports have been carrying out health-screening procedures such as temperature checks, according to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 3 Travel Health Notice for Mexico due to COVID-19,” the advisory states. “Mexico has lifted stay at home orders in some areas and resumed some transportation and business operations. Visit the embassy’s COVID-19 page for more information on COVID-19 in Mexico.” Mexico has seen a total of 668,000 coronavirus cases and more than 70,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, with daily new cases peaking in August before lowering and holding steady in the range of 4,000 to 6,000 per day since then. The United States has reported more than 6.5 million total coronavirus cases and 194,000 deaths, with the peak in daily new cases hitting mid-July, at more than 75,000. Major tourist sites in Mexico have reopened, including Teotihuacán, a UNESCO World Heritage Site outside of Mexico City. The only area in Mexico that has a higher covid-19 rate than Mexico City is the tourist-frequented state of Baja California Sur, which includes Los Cabos. Subregions that have earned the World Travel and Tourism Council’s “Safe Travels stamp,” which certifies a locale follows health protocols established by the WTTC, include Los Cabos, Cancun, Riviera Maya, Riviera Nayarit, Yucatán, Jalisco and the islands of Cozumel. Read more: Where can Americans travel to in the Caribbean? What to know about getting tested for the coronavirus to travel Miami airport officials seize $490,000 stuffed into an accent chair passing through customs


Seven spots for a socially distant Oktoberfest

In a year when it’s been impossible to celebrate some of our favorite holidays and festivals, the coming of Oktoberfest brings a sigh of relief. The things we love most about this fall tradition — sitting outdoors on cool autumn afternoons; sipping delicious, malty beers; listening to peppy German drinking songs — can be enjoyed while social distancing. That said, the coronavirus pandemic has canceled the traditional festival in Munich, which was to begin this weekend, as well as some of the D.C. area’s most popular annual events. Lovettsville’s long-running, townwide Oktoberfest has been postponed until 2021, and the Frederick Oktoberfest has been converted into an at-home event, with to-go meals and mixed six-packs of local beers sold to benefit charity. Some spacious beer gardens, breweries and restaurants are forging ahead, albeit with reduced capacities and streamlined entertainment. Here’s where you can find a giant mug of beer or some roast pig over the next few weeks. Biergarten Haus There are some notable changes: There won’t be live music or dancing on weekends, with bands replaced by a soundtrack of upbeat party hits. And in a stark departure from pre-covid days, groups can call or email Biergarten Haus to request reservations (previously, only parties of 15 or more could call to reserve tables). Co-owner Aaron McGovern says the Biergarten will save a number of tables for walk-ins. 1355 H St. NE. The Brig General manager Ryan Roller says the Brig will be rotating marzens from German breweries on its two dozen taps over the next few weeks, as well as American craft Oktoberfests, and offering a platter of German-style sausages and sides. Reservations are only taken for groups of six; everything else is first-come, first-seated. 1007 Eighth St. SE. Cafe Berlin Doener Bistro Hops N Shine On Sept. 26, the Virtual Oktoberfest includes a guided Zoom tasting of 12 seasonal beers from six breweries, including Germany’s Tucher and Maryland’s Flying Dog, as well as live music. (The beers and food will be available to pick up at Hops N Shine.) Sept. 27 is Puptoberfest, a day featuring rescue dogs from Project Second Chance, local pet vendors, and a dog costume contest. 3410 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. Silver Branch Brewing Wunder Garten Weekend schedules include live music and DJs, as well as theme nights: pig roasts with Federalist Pig every Friday; a “Bavarian Olympics” with stein-holding contests and other games on


How the coronavirus pandemic is fueling ethnic hatred

likely to express hostility to members of other groups. Here’s how we did our research Through a locally recruited team of enumerators, we conducted a phone survey in May with 868 market vendors of different ethnic backgrounds from a representative sample of 146 markets around Lagos, one of the world’s largest cities. Lagos has an estimated population of more than 20 million, and it attracts migrants of different ethnic backgrounds from across Nigeria. Members of the Yoruba ethnic group are an estimated 60 percent of the city’s population, but are split on religious lines and along region of origin. The non-Yoruba population is divided between Igbo, Hausa and other ethnic groups from Nigeria’s southern Delta region. The vast majority of Lagosian workers are employed in the informal economy, including mostly small businesses unregulated by the state. Markets are the largest sites of informal economic activity. Like other informal workers, market vendors rely on daily earnings for their livelihood. The study sample, which we randomly selected from the population of Lagosian vendors during earlier in-person research, gives us a window into the pandemic-related struggles faced by the city’s poorer residents and by similarly vulnerable populations in megacities around the world. Our survey asked questions about individuals’ livelihoods; covid-19’s effects on their businesses and households; what pandemic assistance they’ve received, if any; and possible xenophobic attitudes toward other ethnic groups. To measure social polarization, we asked respondents how willing they might be to share a meal with a person from a different group; how warmly they felt toward their own group and toward others; and whether they saw members of a different group as a serious threat. Most Lagosians suffered losses, but those in the ethnic majority faced less hardship Most survey participants suffered losses from the government-imposed March and April lockdowns on movement and economic activity. More than 70 percent reported lost income; 37 percent reported they’d had less access to food than before the lockdowns. Yoruba vendors, who were roughly half of our respondents, were 7 percent less likely to report food shortages and 9 percent less likely to report that their shops had been closed than were their ethnic minority peers. Yoruba politicians and the bureaucrats they hire dominate state and local politics, which may have protected ordinary Yorubas from pandemic regulations. Most elected officials are Yoruba, even those representing diverse communities, and the city has never had a


and the city has never had a non-Yoruba governor. State government agencies enforce lockdown regulations, with some assistance from federal police, and state and local government personnel distribute government relief. Yoruba respondents were more likely to keep running their businesses during lockdown. At the same time, they were significantly more likely to have applied for and received government benefits during the crisis, particularly food assistance. This was not because they were poorer than ethnic minority vendors; we found no evidence that pandemic food assistance was targeted to the most vulnerable. Affected majority group members expressed more polarized and xenophobic attitudes Yorubas — especially those who can trace their families’ origins to Lagos — expressed more polarized attitudes than members of other groups. For instance, when asked if members of a different group are a “serious threat” to Lagos, 26 percent of Lagosian Yoruba and 14 percent of other Yoruba said yes. Only 7 percent of ethnic minority respondents said the same about other groups. Yoruba vendors who had their shops closed express more polarized and xenophobic attitudes than Yoruba who were less affected by the crisis. We found similar results when we looked at other economic difficulties, such as food insecurity. Among ethnic minorities, we found no such increase in polarized views if they suffered covid-19-related economic hardships. What does this mean for pandemic response? Lagos politicians and community leaders have not been openly encouraging ethnic divisions. And yet majority-group Lagosians who’ve been hurt by the pandemic still grew more xenophobic. Our findings suggest that ethnic polarization and xenophobia will keep increasing along with the pandemic. Xenophobic attitudes can exacerbate existing inequalities in access to covid-19 information and care, since news about benefits is often filtered through politically connected social networks. Social polarization can additionally increase distrust in the media and government, undermining covid-19 responses. Our research shows that people belonging to more powerful and privileged identity groups become more hostile to ethnic “outsiders” when faced with hard economic times. Politicians may therefore need to grapple with significant backlash from political “in-groups’” if they want to care for the whole community. In Lagos, had politicians distributed aid and support equitably, xenophobic and polarizing backlash might have been even worse. Don’t miss any of TMC’s smart analysis! Sign up here for our newsletter. Jessica Gottlieb Adrienne LeBas Funding for their research on the covid-19 pandemic in Lagos is provided by the


D.C. police investigating fatal shootings in Northwest, Southeast Washington

A man and a woman were killed in separate shootings Thursday night in Northwest and Southeast Washington, according to D.C. police. The latest shooting occurred about 11:40 p.m. in the Takoma neighborhood. Police said two men were shot in the 7000 block of Blair Road NW. One of the men died at the scene, police said. He was identified as Phillip Roache, 38, of Waldorf, Md. The second man was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries believed not to be life-threatening. The shooting occurred on a street with apartment buildings and a gas station near the Takoma Metro station. The other shooting occurred about 6:30 p.m. in the Shipley neighborhood of Southeast. Police said it appears a woman was shot in the 1800 block of Alabama Avenue SE and was then driven several blocks to the 3500 block of 22nd Street SE. The victim was taken to a hospital, where she died, police said. The victim was identified as Donika Hawkins, 24, of Southeast Washington. Police said no arrests have been made in either case. There have been 138 homicides in the District this year, up 12 percent over this time in 2019.


Stopping climate change could cost less than fighting covid-19

of the world they are cheaper to install than fossil-fuel power production. With sustained effort, they should be able to meet energy demand and help us fulfill the widely held goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. That would be significant mitigation and damage control. But it would not restore a livable climate. The preindustrial atmospheric CO2 level was about 270 parts per million. We’re already at 415 ppm, or about 500 ppm if other greenhouse gases like methane are counted. On top of this, we continue to emit about 40 gigatons of greenhouse gases each year. So beyond reducing emissions and slowing carbon buildup in the atmosphere, we urgently need scalable, financeable and nondestructive strategies that can remove enough carbon to restore the atmosphere to below 350 ppm by the end of the century (ideally by 2050). Promising interventions exist, and they will cost an order of magnitude less to deploy and scale up than what we’re spending now to fight the pandemic. For example, direct air capture (DAC) systems extract CO2 from the atmosphere chemically, much as it is done in submarines and spacecraft. The concentrated CO2 can then be used or pumped securely underground. The Canadian company Carbon Engineering is building the world’s largest DAC plant in the Permian Basin in Texas. It will be able to capture one megaton (1 million tons, or one-forty-thousandth of our global output) of CO2 annually at a cost of $94 to $230 a ton. An average tree can absorb 48 pounds of carbon per year, so it would take 1 million trees about 42 years to remove the same quantity of CO2. The Swiss company Climeworks has developed a scalable, low-power DAC device that can operate anywhere. In Iceland, Climeworks has partnered with the CarbFix2 project to pump CO2 from the DAC underground, where it binds the gas to mineral deposits, forming carbonate rock such as limestone. It’s feasible to scale up this mineralization process globally to sequester 50 gigatons of atmospheric carbon a year, though for now, it would be expensive — about $5 trillion annually, assuming Climeworks meets its goal of reducing costs to $100 per ton. But if the CO2 is mineralized in a factory rather than underground, those economics improve markedly, because the rock can be sold for commercial use and just about pay for itself. This would involve combining low concentrations


What sets apart countries that successfully handled the pandemic? Failure.

What explains why some countries have handled the covid-19 pandemic well and others have done poorly? It’s a complicated question, but if we look at the place that has arguably had the greatest success, the answer is failure. Taiwan gets the gold medal for its coronavirus strategy. It has close ties with mainland China, where the disease originated, receiving almost 3 million visitors from there in a typical year. It is a densely populated land, and Taipei, the capital city, has crowded public transit. And yet, with a population of nearly 24 million, Taiwan has had just seven deaths. New York state, with a smaller population, has had 33,000. Taiwan’s greatest asset turns out to be its failed response to a pandemic in 2003, SARS, which taught it many important lessons. SARS was a respiratory virus, less contagious than covid-19 but more deadly. SARS also came out of China, where authorities bungled the initial response and withheld information from the outside world. The Taiwanese were caught unprepared and made several mistakes. In the aftermath, they totally overhauled their pandemic preparedness procedures. They ensured they had adequate supplies of equipment on hand. They made plans to act early, smartly and aggressively. Many Asia-Pacific countries have succeeded against covid-19 — South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia. All were hit by SARS or witnessed its economic damage, and they learned from the experience. The only non-Asian country with a SARS outbreak was Canada, and it, too, changed its procedures after 2003 and took precautions. Even China learned a great deal from its disastrous SARS response, and, despite early stumbles this time, Beijing has managed to crush covid-19 so completely that the disease has virtually disappeared from the country where it began. SARS doesn’t explain the success of every country that has handled covid-19 well, but it reveals an important aspect of the story. Consider, on the other hand, countries that have handled covid-19 badly. Anthropologist Martha Lincoln, writing in Nature, points out that several of these countries tend to think of themselves as exceptional in some way. She notes that the United States, Britain, Brazil and Chile all have strong national narratives that see themselves as separate, distinct and better than others. The United States is notorious for this attitude, but that is, after all, also the motivation behind Britain’s desire to leave the European Union. Brazil, meanwhile, believes it enjoys good


Many Asia-Pacific countries have succeeded against covid-19 — South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia. All were hit by SARS or witnessed its economic damage, and they learned from the experience. The only non-Asian country with a SARS outbreak was Canada, and it, too, changed its procedures after 2003 and took precautions. Even China learned a great deal from its disastrous SARS response, and, despite early stumbles this time, Beijing has managed to crush covid-19 so completely that the disease has virtually disappeared from the country where it began. SARS doesn’t explain the success of every country that has handled covid-19 well, but it reveals an important aspect of the story. Consider, on the other hand, countries that have handled covid-19 badly. Anthropologist Martha Lincoln, writing in Nature, points out that several of these countries tend to think of themselves as exceptional in some way. She notes that the United States, Britain, Brazil and Chile all have strong national narratives that see themselves as separate, distinct and better than others. The United States is notorious for this attitude, but that is, after all, also the motivation behind Britain’s desire to leave the European Union. Brazil, meanwhile, believes it enjoys good fortune because “God is Brazilian,” and Chile is smug about being the region’s economic superstar. That sense of being special makes a country unlikely to adopt the standard attitude of any business when confronting a challenge — to look for best practices. Bill Gates recently wrote that he has always approached problem-solving by starting with two fundamental questions: “Who has dealt with this problem well? And what can we learn from them?” He suggests that we apply the same philosophy to the pandemic. And yet the United States is remarkably uninterested in how other countries approach similar challenges. Dozens of advanced countries have health-care systems that deliver better results at half the cost of America’s. Most have a fraction of our homicide rates. Many much poorer countries have better infrastructure, which they build at far lower cost. They ensure that money does not dominate their elections. Not only do we not learn from them, we barely bother to look. In an essay in Foreign Affairs, Jeremy Konyndyk argues that “American exceptionalism — the notion that the United States is unique among nations and that the American way is invariably the best — has blinded the country’s leaders (and many of


Storing carbon in the prairie grass

Center, learned this while studying Hurricane Ike, which hit the upper Texas coast in 2008. The Bolivar Peninsula in Galveston and other inhabited areas were “absolutely wiped out” by storm surge that pushed 20 miles inland, Blackburn said. But native prairies and grazing land on the coast recovered quickly. “If you are looking for a definition for the word ‘resilience,’ it is these native prairie and marsh systems,” Blackburn said. “They evolved with storms. Storms are built into their DNA. Storms are not hard-wired into human DNA, except to run from them or the results they leave behind.” Blackburn wondered how property owners could be persuaded to keep the land in its natural state to help bear the brunt of future storms. “That would be the best long-term insurance policy on the Texas coast,” he said. It was hard to identify anyone who would pay landowners to mitigate flood damage, Blackburn said. But carbon storage is another matter, particularly for oil and gas companies looking for ways to offset the carbon dioxide that they emit. All native grasslands in the country together could sequester up to 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, Blackburn estimates. The nation’s annual carbon dioxide output was nearly 7 billion metric tons in 2018, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The group led by Blackburn and the Baker Institute is working on a blueprint for a nationwide program to pay for carbon storage in soil. Landowners who enter such a program would agree to a 10-year commitment. If the land is sold, the commitment restarts. The amount of carbon retained in soil can be measured in a variety of ways. The earliest method was to put a soil sample in an oven at 500 degrees. At that temperature, organic matter is burned off and carbon can be calculated using the weight of what is left. Another rudimentary way of measuring is to bring a book of color palettes into the field and match the shade of the soil to estimate the amount of carbon. Land that has been not been tilled or overgrazed has the potential to sequester the most carbon, said Hal Collins, a microbiologist with the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. One acre of pristine prairie can store about 5 tons of carbon, he said. Soil scientists like Collins bring samples into a lab and use an


Is it covid-19 or the flu? What doctors say about the symptoms.

The confluence of the coronavirus pandemic and the annual flu season this fall and winter has public-health officials nervous. Simultaneous surges of both respiratory viruses — sometimes called a “twindemic” — could overwhelm hospitals, straining resources and health-care workers’ time. Infectious-disease doctors are urging people to get a flu vaccine to lower their risk of contracting influenza viruses and helping them to spread. But flu symptoms and warning signs of covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, are similar, and it can be hard to tell the difference. Here’s how experts respond to common questions about the illnesses. Is there a way to distinguish between flu symptoms and covid-19 symptoms? Most people won’t be able to tell which illness they have, according to infectious-disease doctors. Common warning signs for both include fever, cough, chills and shortness of breath. The one symptom that’s common with covid-19, but not with the flu, is loss of taste and smell. But not everyone with covid-19 experiences that symptom, and experts warned that someone with allergies or a cold might also struggle to smell because they have a stuffy nose. Absent a loss of taste or smell, most patients will need a nasal swab to get a proper diagnosis. “This is going to be a very tough year,” said Gary Simon, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at George Washington University. “Many physicians will have patients that could have either one, and there won’t be any way to distinguish them, short of a laboratory test.” How long is someone contagious with the flu or covid-19? Influenza viruses tend to cause illness sooner after contact with an infected person than covid-19. Flu patients usually develop symptoms within one to four days of exposure, whereas up to 14 days could pass before someone with covid-19 becomes sick. Once a person has been infected, the flu is contagious for a shorter period of time than scientists believe covid-19 is. A flu patient can usually transmit the virus from a few days before developing symptoms until about 24 hours after those symptoms go away. Someone with covid-19 is contagious before they develop symptoms and could be contagious for up to 10 days afterward. Neha Vyas, a family medicine doctor at Cleveland Clinic, suggested that anyone who has been sick should wait three days after their symptoms clear up to return to their normal activities. When should someone


see a doctor if they have symptoms of the flu or covid-19? Vyas said anyone who has at least two symptoms should call their primary-care physician to find out whether they should get a test. Aaron Milstone, associate hospital epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, recommended being even more proactive by contacting a doctor “the minute someone’s concerned.” He emphasized that anyone with symptoms, no matter how mild, should get tested for the coronavirus so that public-health officials can track the spread. “It’s hard to recommend saying to someone, ‘If it’s just a little something, don’t worry about it,’" Milstone said. “Given that we’re really trying to identify people early and contain the virus, I’d encourage people to get tested, especially if they can’t isolate themselves for some period of time to see if those symptoms are going to change.” Can someone get both the flu and covid-19 this fall or winter? Yes, it’s possible to come down with both illnesses in the next few months, possibly even at the same time. Someone who has either disease is likely to be more vulnerable to contracting the other because their immune system is weakened, Vyas said. Milstone said doctors don’t yet know whether having the flu or covid-19 increases a person’s chances of having severe complications if they also pick up the other illness. Does getting a flu vaccine make it easier to tell if someone has the flu or covid-19? While the flu vaccine doesn’t protect against covid-19, health officials say limiting circulation of influenza viruses is critical to preventing a double epidemic over the next few months. Getting a flu vaccine makes someone less likely to come down with that illness, which means any symptoms they experience are more likely to signal covid-19. Still, the annual vaccine is more effective some years than others, and a person could get the flu even if they’ve been vaccinated. Milstone said people should keep in mind what’s happening in their communities. If there’s a flu outbreak, any symptoms they have are likely to represent the flu. If they live in a covid-19 hot spot, they’re more likely to have that disease. The strategies for protecting against the flu are the same ones that guard against covid-19: Wear a mask in public, maintain physical distance from other people, wash your hands frequently and stay home when you’re sick. “We’re hoping all those things


Trump’s appointees sought to censor what government scientists said about the coronavirus, emails show

way Schuchat’s report took senior leaders by surprise, according to a senior HHS official. In the call, Redfield echoed Azar’s frustrations that they did not have more notice ahead of publication, the official said. But Caputo and Alexander went much further than Azar and other senior HHS leaders by seeking full control over the reports, several agency officials said. Alexander also criticized Schuchat for saying in the JAMA interview that for most people, covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in two to three weeks. But she noted that in older adults and people with preexisting health conditions, including children, it could cause more severe illness and death. “It also causes no symptoms as it is so mild … you don’t even know you have it,” Alexander wrote in his critique. “Many people never know they had it. Not one indication. It is very false her statement that it causes death in children … Based on CDC’s own data, the risk of death in children 0-19 years of age is basically 0 (zero) … PERIOD … she has lied here.” In fact, several studies have shown that children can develop severe complications from the virus which can cause life-threatening and lasting complications, and a small number have died. Schuchat, who could not be reached for comment, has more than three decades of experience at the CDC, and is well regarded inside the agency, within HHS and by lawmakers. She has played key roles in many public health emergencies, including the 2009 swine flu epidemic, the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Alexander has no real-world experience responding to a health crisis on this scale. “It is complete nonsense for someone who has not worked on preparing for, or responding to epidemics or pandemics before … to say he knows better than Fauci and CDC when it comes to the response to this pandemic,” he said. Alexander, who was previously a caller to Caputo’s onetime Buffalo radio show, holds a doctoral degree in health research methodology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, according to his résumé. His doctoral dissertation looked at ways to use data to make effective recommendations for clinicians and


Often, the elderly handle the pandemic very well. Here’s why.

reports reveal similar data, including a study by the investment company Edward Jones and the think tank Age Wave looking at 9,000 people across five generations. The older participants in the study reported the highest percentages of coping “very well” with covid-19. This disparity may be partly explained by seniors often having fewer work-family conflicts than those with younger children. But others recognize that living in one’s later years gives perspective that difficult times will pass eventually, and that there is experience to draw upon to help remain resilient during hardship and challenges. My Uncle Lou, for example, who just turned 90, describes his surviving the Korean War at 22 to be a “defining moment” that taught him to be “thankful” to be alive; he still remembers his four brothers serving in World War II, including one who was taken as a prisoner of war. Lou has been spending time during the pandemic listening to music and working on his autobiography. He commented, “We are handling [the pandemic] with a positive attitude.” To point out that many older people are weathering this pandemic is not to minimize the serious problems that are affecting them. More than 48,000 nursing home residents have died of covid-19, and Blacks and other people of color have been disproportionately affected. Countless nursing homes still do not have sufficient testing and the personal protective equipment needed to guarantee the safety of employees and residents. Isolation But amid these worrisome trends, positive developments have emerged. Quarantining during the pandemic has made people experience what many older adults go through every day, spending significant time at home without a set schedule providing structure to days and a certain tempo. With everyone having less social interaction outside of the house when quarantined, families spent more time using technology to connect with relatives. For those seniors without available family members, organizations have developed innovative projects to expand older adults’ social interaction. The nonprofit group TimeSlips initiated Milwaukee Tele-Stories, for example, pairing local artists with 10 “underconnected” elders for weekly conversation and creative engagement that will end with artists making a “legacy gift” for each. TimeSlips founder and chief executive Anne Basting also started a “creative care” postcard project with care facilities that have requested personal, uplifting mail be sent to their residents. Basting says that “FaceTime calls” can be great but a postcard can be a “little gasp of joy


World Digest: Sept. 19, 2020

ETHIOPIA Ethiopia has filed terrorism charges against Jawar Mohammed, a prominent media mogul and opposition politician from the Oromo ethnic group, the attorney general’s office said on Saturday. Jawar, founder of the Oromia Media Network and a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress party, was arrested in June amid the widespread unrest that followed the assassination of popular Oromo musician Hachalu Hundessa. Jawar was instrumental in protests that brought Abiy Ahmed to power in 2018. But he became a critic of the prime minister, accusing him of failing to protect Oromo interests. Jawar and 22 other activists, including Oromo opposition leader Bekele Garba, face charges relating to the violation of anti-terrorism laws, telecom fraud laws and firearms laws, the attorney general’s office said. Those charged also include journalists and scholars. — Reuters Libya's prime minister doesn't back oil deal with rebels: Peruvian president survives impeachment vote: Police arrest 8 in deadly gas explosion in Bangladesh: India says arrested militants have Pakistani al-Qaeda ties: Storm kills 2, brings flooding to Greece: — From news services


Big Ten football schedule filled with familiar rivalries packed into nine weeks

and so forth. Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, who chaired the football scheduling subcommittee on the Big Ten’s Return to Competition Task Force, said those matchups could be tweaked to avoid rematches. This is the Big Ten’s third version of the 2020 schedule. The conference previously announced a 10-game, conference-only schedule that began in early September before it decided to postpone the season. Big Ten schools will not sell tickets to the general public, but the conference still could allow the families of players and staff to attend. In the Big Ten, teams will play nine games in nine weeks, leaving no room for error. Unlike other conferences — and the Big Ten’s previous schedule released in August — there are no windows to make up canceled games. The conference could end the season with some teams playing an unequal number of games. That may require unusual tiebreaker procedures in determining each division’s champion. For any team contending for a spot in the College Football Playoff, missed games could hurt its résumé. The availability of daily testing has reassured the conference, which once deemed the season too unsafe to play. The Big Ten hopes that quickly identifying positive cases will keep the virus from spreading. During the first few weeks of the 2020 season, more than a dozen games in the Football Bowl Subdivision have been postponed or canceled because teams didn’t have enough players available. The ACC and Big 12 already returned to play, and the SEC begins its schedule Sept. 26. Because of its initial decision to postpone, the Big Ten is weeks behind those leagues. But barring a mass of canceled games, the Big Ten’s teams still will be able to play meaningful seasons. The Pac-12, which followed the Big Ten and postponed its season in August, is the only Power Five conference without a plan for the fall, but it is taking steps toward playing. After conferences around the country began postponing fall sports, the NCAA opted to allow football teams not playing this fall to practice 12 hours per week — five hours of on-field work and seven hours of strength and conditioning and meetings. With the Big Ten reversing its decision, its teams can return to the usual 20-hour week and still have more than a month to prepare for their first games. Oct. 24 at Northwestern Oct. 31 vs. Minnesota Nov. 7 at


Railroads near full implementation of lifesaving automatic-braking technology

U.S. railroads are on track to meet a December deadline to implement an automatic braking system that could prevent catastrophic collisions and derailments caused by speeding, the Federal Railroad Administration said. The rollout of positive train control (PTC) systems nationwide is one of the most consequential investments in rail safety technology. It also comes more than 50 years after the National Transportation Safety Board first made the recommendation for a safeguard of its kind. “It’s frustrating always to see where safety recommendations take 50 years to implement. Meanwhile, people are dying,” NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy said. “It is frustrating and heartbreaking. On the other hand, I’m happy where we are today because there will be lives saved in the future.” The PTC is an automatic braking system designed to take human error out of operating a train. The system automatically applies the brakes if a train is exceeding set speed limits. It can prevent a train from going down the wrong track if a switch is left in the wrong position. And, it can prevent rear-end and head-on collisions by keeping two trains off the same track. Congress passed legislation mandating the technology after a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train collided head-on at 84 miles per hour, killing 25 people and injuring 135, in Chatsworth, Calif., in 2008. Railroads were to have the PTC installed by 2015, but the deadline was pushed back twice after the industry complained that it was being rushed to install a complicated technology that was not fully developed. It also argued that the nearly $15 billion cost of installing the systems and training workers on its use was prohibitive. Congress relented and gave railroads until the end of this year to comply. As the Dec. 31 deadline approaches, the PTC is operating in 98.8 percent of 57,500 route miles that are subject to the 2008 congressional mandate, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) said in a progress report last month. The technology has yet to be activated on 700 route miles as of June 30, the agency said. The congressional mandate applies only to large freight railroads’ mainlines that carry toxic hazardous materials and any mainlines carrying intercity or commuter passengers. That’s why only about 58,000 of the roughly 140,000 routes miles that make up the nation’s rail network are required to be PTC-ready. Of the 41 commuter railroads subject to


Trump celebrates with his faithful over a chance to replace a liberal icon with a conservative on the Supreme Court

it.” “I won’t say it Susan. I won’t say it Susan,” he said, alluding to Collins, who said she opposes voting for a high court nominee this election year. Trump said he realized that the 2016 election and even the 2018 midterm elections were about the Supreme Court, while repeatedly reminding the crowd that he was not on the ballot in 2018. “There’s a lot of time. You’re talking about January 20, right?,” Trump said. Much of the evening was a meandering speech about the president’s news coverage, the 2016 election, the Democratic primaries, his Nobel Prize nomination, Biden’s campaign, his polling in certain states and a litany of other topics. On several occasions, he reenacted the TV coverage he saw of himself and even predicted how his rally would be covered. “We’re winning by about 400 points,” he said of South Carolina, which is not a swing state. The crowd seemed to lose interest at times. By 8:15 p.m., hordes were filing out of the venue, which Trump deemed a “peaceful protest against stupidity.” Among the topics discussed by Trump: His relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg; the journalist Bob Woodward; his Nobel Peace Prize nomination and that it was not being covered on TV; Lester Holt of NBC’s ratings; Hunter Biden; forest management; the Fox News hosts that he likes; the pro-Trump network One America News; Middle East wars; the embassy in Jerusalem and the type of stone of which it’s built; the Space Force; polls in South Carolina, Maine and other states; U.S. ventilator production; whether the “fake news” media accurately reports his mood when he wakes up in the morning; New York real estate; “leakers”; expensive aircraft carriers with electric catapults that are overpriced; elevators that are operated by magnets that don’t work; the price of Air Force One and how he negotiated it; Rush Limbaugh and his radio show; and the Medal of Honor and far more. Rallygoers seemed confused at times at the president’s analysis of the 2016 election and the 2020 primaries and was often silent as he rambled in his trademark rally style. At minute 86, he quickly veered from a discussion on forest fire management to China. A bit later, Trump acted out a conversation he had with Abe. “I know Shinzo, I need some car companies,” Trump said. “Shinzo, you have to do


Nearly 11,000 people have been exposed to the coronavirus on flights, the CDC says

and was in quarantine after arriving in South Korea, leading the researchers to conclude that she contracted the virus on the plane, perhaps when she removed her mask while using the lavatory. The research team acknowledged the role of the plane’s filters as a defense against the virus but said contaminated surfaces or the mingling of passengers during boarding could be opportunities for exposure. “Our results suggest that stringent global regulations for the prevention of COVID-19 transmission on aircraft can prevent public health emergencies,” the scientists concluded. They recommended the use of masks, hand washing and social distancing while getting on and off planes. Another study examined a flight from Israel to Germany carrying tourists who were exposed to a hotel manager who had the virus. Seven of them were carrying the virus when they boarded the plane, and the study concluded that it was most likely transmitted to two more people on board. “Transmissions do occur, even though the air circulation in the cabin likely reduces the rate of transmission,” said Sandra Ciesek, a virologist at the University Hospital Frankfurt in Germany and one of the study’s authors. People on the flight were not wearing masks, a factor that Ciesek said could have made a difference. She pointed to another study, in which she was involved, concerning an evacuation flight from China to Germany with sick passengers. Those passengers wore masks, Ciesek said, and there were no cases of transmission. Although the studies suggest transmission is possible on planes, Joshua Santarpia, a microbiologist and pathologist at the University of Nebraska who was not involved in the studies, said that if the same groups of people were put in other enclosed spaces for several hours, he would expect to see many more people falling ill. “If I were to pick between going into a crowded bar or getting on the airplane, I’d get on the plane any day,” said Santarpia, who said he has flown about two dozen times for work during the pandemic and took a plane trip with his son. Convincing travelers that they will be safe on board has been a top priority for the airline industry, which has been among the hardest hit during the pandemic, with passenger numbers plummeting more than 95 percent. Passengers have slowly been returning, but the industry remains on its heels, warning of tens of thousands of furloughs and layoffs this


The Health 202: Obamacare's chances of surviving Supreme Court diminished with RBG's death

world’s best hope for ending the pandemic,” the New York Times’s Denise Grady, Katherine J. Wu and Sharon LaFraniere report. AstraZeneca’s blueprint calls for a vaccine to be 50 percent effective against the virus. To conduct the statistical analysis necessary to determine whether it has reached this target, at least 150 cases of covid-19 must be confirmed among people who have received either the vaccine or a placebo, although the company could conduct an interim analysis after 75 cases. Despite the release of the blueprint, AstraZeneca has still not released many details about two serious illnesses among the 18,000 people who have received the vaccine so far. In one case, a woman developed inflammation of the spinal cord, known as transverse myelitis, after a single dose of the vaccine. A source told the New York Times that a second case, which prompted a pause in the vaccine trial this month, was also transverse myelitis in another participant who fell ill after a second dose of the vaccine. Researchers have still not determined whether the illnesses were connected to the vaccine. Britain, Brazil, India and South Africa have resumed clinical trials of the vaccine, but it is still on pause in the United States. “A report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that the wildfires that have been raging in California, Oregon and Washington have been ‘complicating the response’ to covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus,” our colleagues Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Karin Brulliard report. “As a result, the agency said, the rate of positive coronavirus tests in Oregon rose sharply to 5.6 percent last week, the highest since July and the first upward movement after six weeks of declines.” The smoke from the fires has kept many people indoors, where they may be more likely to come into close contact with other people and where poor ventilation often makes it easier for the virus to spread. At the same time, the recommendations to stay indoors, evacuation orders, and the closure of outdoor testing sites due to hazardous air have slowed testing in many communities. Other factors, such as the possibility of increased transmission during Labor Day festivities, may have also contributed to the spike in cases. “Still, a dozen days avoiding atmospheric contaminants may provide a prelude for a nation still unclear about what will happen when winter forces most people inside,” Wootson and Brulliard write.


Fed aims to revamp laws ensuring access to credit for low- and moderate-income families

The Federal Reserve on Monday took steps toward revamping a 40-year-old law intended to ensure low- and moderate-income Americans have access to credit and banking services. The move comes as the Fed is under urgent pressure to craft policies that lift all Americans, and in particular, reduce the long-standing racial gaps that are only widening in the current recession. Apart from setting monetary policy, the Fed could go further in building a more fair economy through its supervision of banks, which includes the Community Reinvestment Act, economists and lawmakers say. The Community Reinvestment Act, known as the CRA, was crafted to encourage banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. Under the CRA, regulators routinely look at banks’ lending practices for low- and moderate-income borrowers, so that those with less money also have access to loans to buy houses, cars and make other purchases. “The CRA is a seminal statute that remains as important as ever as the nation confronts challenges associated with racial equity and the covid-19 pandemic,” Fed Gov. Lael Brainard wrote in a statement. “We must ensure that CRA is a strong and effective tool to address ongoing systemic inequities in access to credit and financial services for low- and moderate-income and minority individuals and communities. ” Changes to the CRA laws are considered long overdue among banking experts, especially given the rise of online banking. The banking industry has argued that the CRA hasn’t been revised since more customers have shifted to mobile or Internet banking and the number of physical bank branches has been cut back. Starting with Monday’s early proposal, the Fed is looking for feedback on how to strengthen retail lending to low- and moderate- income communities, where banks can get credit for community development activities and how online banks should be assessed. The proposal considers ways to assess banks based on size and business model, differentiating large retail banks from smaller rural banks, for example. Brainard, the Fed’s leader on issues related to the CRA, wrote that changes could also clarify that banks can receive credit for partnerships with minority depository institutions and that doing so could be one avenue to getting a top rating. The Fed is also looking for feedback on ways of designating certain areas, based on persistent inequities, where banks could get credit for community development activities that may lie beyond the boundaries of a bank’s branches, helping to address


Tofu sales skyrocket during the pandemic, as consumers search for affordable meat alternatives

American grocery store shoppers became accustomed to limits on certain household staples during the first half of 2020. The quest for toilet paper, ground beef and hand sanitizer sparked panic buying and supermarket aisle scuffles, while overzealous bread bakers desperately searched for flour and a drop in carbon dioxide supply threatened the soda industry. But the biggest surprise of this year’s covid-19 public health crisis may be a sudden outpouring of love for tofu. Since U.S. coronavirus shutdowns began in mid-March, tofu shortages have been reported from Seattle to Washington, D.C., with manufacturers struggling to keep up with demand even as grocery stores rationed sales to customers. Nielsen data shows tofu sales 40 percent higher in the first half of 2020 as compared to last year, while Pulmuone Brands — owner of Nasoya, the nation’s No. 1 tofu brand — was forced to ship an additional 1 million packs from South Korea, the world’s biggest consumer of tofu, to the United States this summer while their American plants caught up with demand. “We’ve struggled for years to figure out how to get more tofu into people’s mouths in the U.S.,” says Jay Toscano, executive vice president of sales for Pulmuone. “In the past, if we’d had 2 percent growth in sales from one year to the next, we’d be high-fiving each other. This year we’re seeing 20 percent growth, and we could easily have grown 50 percent if we could keep up with production.” Why the increase? Several makers attributed the spike to an interest in healthy, affordable proteins as the economy suffered. Consumers also may have been snatching up tofu in response to meat supply disruptions, possibly swayed by a nationwide campaign by PETA that proclaimed, “Tofu never caused a pandemic. Try it today!” after several slaughterhouses were closed because of widespread covid-19 outbreaks among workers. Either way, Google searches for tofu recipes have doubled since March — and is it any wonder that New Yorkers appear to have been frantic to find General Tso’s tofu recipes in the early spring when their favorite restaurants were shut down? At Allrecipes, a recipe database for home cooks owned by Meredith Corp., the jump in tofu recipe searches over the past few months has been eye-popping: Leading up to the pandemic, such searches had been steadily declining year over year. But in April, Allrecipes said those searches surged 266 percent, with


trends are going for tofu,” says Wolovitz, “because it still continues to fluctuate. It’s definitely continuing to grow, but it’s also a balancing act.” At Kroger, the parent company of more than 2,700 supermarkets across 35 states and the District, sales of tofu have gone up 30 percent since May vs. the same period in 2019, according to Kroger’s data science and analytics firm. That trend seems to be common across other grocers. Increased online shopping habits have made tofu a product that consumers have the time to consider while browsing for groceries on sites such as Instacart and Peapod, which have seen tremendous growth over the past several months as consumers avoided shopping in close quarters with other customers. “Shopping online is more leisurely,” notes Toscano. “A consumer looks at a shelf in the grocery store for three seconds before moving on, but when they are sitting at a computer, they can look at items and recipes easily at the same time. Retailers are finding that when a shopper places tofu in their online basket, then they add rice, vegetables, soy sauce and additional items to make their meal. It can double the price of their basket, so stores are able to see the impact that tofu can have.” At Pulmuone, the numbers are telling an encouraging story about the demystification of tofu. Just two years ago, the tofu giant was seeing its products in just 5 percent of American households. Adding baked tofu to the Nasoya lineup increased that penetration to 7 percent, and now, six months into the pandemic, the number has soared to over 16 percent. “We’re finding that consumers have increased confidence in cooking with tofu,” says Toscano. Still, traditional tofu packed in water is a harder sell, and it’s the baked and other ready-to-eat options that are making the most headway at Nasoya and Hodo, with a growing focus on middle America and enticing flavors, such as Mexican and Moroccan. “As we’ve moved into the convenience space with marinated cubes, nuggets and burgers,” says Tsai, “we’ve seen very steady growth. People don’t think of these products as tofu per se anymore, just as interesting-flavored plant-based foods.” Pulmuone, too, is placing an emphasis on convenience products, with plans to launch a variety of new options over the next 18 months, while also seeing the need to educate the public on how to cook traditional tofu


U.S. doubles down with new sanctions on Iran as many countries wait to see what happens next

In a show of its resolve to crack down further on Iran, the Trump administration on Monday issued sanctions against more than two dozen people and entities involved in Tehran’s nuclear program, missile tests and trade in conventional weapons. Among the targets of the new U.S. sanctions are the Iranian Defense Ministry and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the Trump administration accuses of collaborating with Iran to flout a U.N. arms embargo. “Our actions today are a warning that should be heard worldwide,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the State Department, flanked by a high-powered array of senior administration officials. “No matter who you are, if you violate the U.N. arms embargo on Iran, you risk sanctions.” The new measures came a little more than a day after the administration declared the reimposition of international U.N. sanctions that were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Except for a handful of allies, most nations say the United States has no legal standing to unilaterally put the sanctions back in place because it withdrew from the agreement in 2018. The sanctions, announced by the Departments of State, Treasury and Commerce, were put in place under an executive order President Trump signed Monday aiming to deter conventional arms trade with Iran. A U.N. embargo on arms transfers expires next month, a deadline that prompted the United States in August to trigger a “snapback” clause in the agreement. “My administration will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, nor will we allow Iran to endanger the rest of the world with a fresh supply of ballistic missiles and conventional arms,” Trump said in a statement. Iran denies it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb. In answer to a question, Pompeo rejected the notion that it had been counterproductive to withdraw from the agreement. “The regime would have even more money to build more centrifuges, to build more capabilities, to build more air defense systems, to prevent us from having the capacity to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon,” said Pompeo, alongside Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien and Kelly Knight Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “All of the elements of the terror state would be enhanced had we not done what President Trump directed back in May of 2018,” Pompeo


Hurricanes, wildfires further hamper Census 2020 count

operations, and it is unclear whether the count will continue past the end of September; a hearing in the California case is scheduled Tuesday, and a three-judge panel in Maryland is considering a request for a similar injunction this week. When the pandemic hit, the administration originally requested approval from Congress to move the deadline to report census data for House apportionment from Dec. 31 to April 30. But on Aug. 3, the administration reversed course, saying the count would end Sept. 30 to deliver the data by the end of the year, while President Trump is still in office. In testimony in the Maryland lawsuit on Sept. 11, Albert E. Fontenot Jr., the bureau’s associate director for decennial census programs, acknowledged that the bureau is “facing significant risks to complete all states by [Sept. 30], due to factors beyond the Census Bureau’s control, such as wildfires in the western part of our country, major storms, resurgence of COVID-19 restrictions and other similar disruptions.” In a call Thursday with the federal government’s Census Scientific Advisory Committee (CSAC), which includes statisticians, demographers and others, Fontenot said that the bureau is setting up mobile outposts and that enumerators are contacting households by phone, but he also acknowledged that natural disasters may prevent the bureau from reaching 99 percent in all states by the end of the month. Inaccuracies in the count can stem not only from the shortened data collection time but also from a truncated timeline for quality checks and analysis. The government’s accelerated “replan,” announced in August, reduced the post-count operations from six months to three and eliminated reviews with state demographers designed to help identify people who were either missed or counted more than once. On Friday, the CSAC unanimously recommended that the bureau keep the count going through October and publish daily response rates at the census-tract level. “When the weather isn’t right, we postpone the launching of rockets into space,” the committee wrote. “The same should be true of the decennial enumeration.” Internal documents released this weekend as part of a lawsuit show Census Bureau career officials warning that the count would be compromised under a shortened schedule. And the Commerce Department’s inspector general released a report Monday finding that the decision to accelerate the schedule was not made by the Census Bureau and that the truncated schedule “increases the risks” to obtaining a complete and accurate


The fitness industry is trying to lure gym members back — but experts say it’s using flawed data

these facilities are not contributing to the spread of COVID-19,” Meredith Poppler, IHRSA’s vice president of communications, wrote in an email. So when MXM approached the association with the idea for its study, IHRSA helped get the word out to gyms. Clubs were mostly contacted through social media and by calling executives, McHaney said. A team within MXM set up an online registry of participating gyms. These included large franchises, such as Planet Fitness, Life Time and Orangetheory, and more regional businesses, such as the D.C. area’s VIDA Fitness, and amounted to about 10 percent of gyms in North America, McHaney said. Gyms provided identifying information about the locations, so the MXM team could verify they were legitimate companies. Data collection started in mid-July and covered visits from May 1 to the first week of August, McHaney said. Gyms that submitted data logged cases of coronavirus flagged through calls from their state health departments or by members and employees self-reporting positive tests. The gyms also pledged that their facilities are at least following safety recommendations from the CDC. To McHaney, the final numbers convey a clear message: “It’s pretty darn safe to go back to the gym.” That conclusion came as a shock to Paul J. Lavrakas, a research psychologist who reviewed MXM’s data and methodology. “Unfounded, unsupported, irresponsible,” Lavrakas said of McHaney’s interpretation of the data. “He doesn’t have credible evidence that that statement is true. As a result, he’s making a recommendation that’s based on unreliable and not valid data.” There are several “major sources” of error in the data collection, Lavrakas said. “Possibly the biggest reason to discount the accuracy (reliability and validity) of the data that MXM has assembled is that such data are very likely to be incomplete and biased in the direction of underestimating the prevalence of COVID transmission at health clubs,” Lavrakas wrote in his analysis of the data provided to The Washington Post. Landon agreed that relying on data from state health departments or self-reporting could fail to capture an accurate case count, noting that a majority of states are still struggling to perform contact tracing in a timely fashion. “I’m not sure how many people would call their gym and be like, ‘Hey, I think I went out to eat at a restaurant, and I also went to the library, and I also worked out in your gym, and now I


Pentagon used taxpayer money meant for masks and swabs to make jet engine parts and body armor

So DOD lawyers approved an arrangement whereby some $17 billion in HHS funding would be used for the medical industry instead, freeing up more money for defense contractors. “So it expands the pool, and allows us to use even more money while taking the balance of the $1 billion that came through for DPA Title III, and use a portion of that for the defense industrial base,” Lord said at the hearing. Ultimately, in the spending plan that the Pentagon presented to Congress in June, it set aside $688 million for the defense industry. Thomas Spoehr, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, said Pentagon officials contend that they have thrown all the money they can at the effort to produce the medical supplies needed to combat the pandemic. “Their belief is that any investment that could be made to increase the production of covid-19 items has been made,” he said. One midsize company that benefited from the DOD awards was SolAero Technologies, an Albuquerque firm that makes satellite solar power systems and employs about 320 people. When the pandemic hit, the firm was squeezed between the huge companies it supplies, which slowed down production, and the smaller, often cash-based businesses that make up its own suppliers, which it was trying to support, chief executive Brad Clevenger said. Around March, the company heard from Lord’s office, which was contacting defense contractors to understand how the pandemic was affecting them. SolAero worked with the Pentagon to find out whether the company was eligible for other relief programs, which it was not, Clevenger said. In late May, the Pentagon announced a $6 million award to SolAero to expand production. Clevenger praised the process, which he said involved multiple layers of review but still delivered needed help in two months. In its news release announcing the deal, the Defense Department said the funding would “enable SolAero to retain critical workforce capabilities throughout the disruption caused by COVID-19 and to restore some jobs lost because of the pandemic.” Clevenger estimated that the award saved the jobs of 25 SolAero employees. But the Pentagon did not impose any requirement that SolAero refrain from layoffs as a condition of receiving the money, only that it deliver on the agreed project, Clevenger said. “How we do that, with what workforce, is up to us,” he said. Neena Satija and Alice Crites contributed to this report.


Blast levels Hezbollah-linked site in southern Lebanon

channel, reported that the blast had resulted in a small number of injuries. Lebanon’s state National News Agency said that the blast had coincided with “intensive” traffic from Israeli aircraft but that the cause was unknown. The incident comes as Lebanon is still reeling from a huge explosion at Beirut’s port Aug. 4, which destroyed surrounding neighborhoods, killed almost 200 people and injured more than 6,000. An investigation is still underway into the initial cause of a fire that ignited 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the port. A string of subsequent fires and explosions has kept the country on edge since then, including a small fire at Tripoli’s port and one at a paint factory in Beirut’s southern suburbs Tuesday. Lebanon’s powerhouse Hezbollah hit by backlash after blast The Ayn Qana explosion, however, appeared to be the first involving a site linked to Hezbollah, raising the possibility of sabotage. It coincides with heightened tensions along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, after Hezbollah vowed to retaliate for the killing of a Hezbollah operative in Syria in July. On at least two occasions, Israeli troops have opened fire on what they claimed were Hezbollah operatives attempting to infiltrate the border. Israeli warplanes have also intensified their surveillance flights across Lebanon, contributing to the jumpy mood here. Israel has long threatened to strike at Hezbollah weapons sites in Lebanon, but there has been no evidence that any of the unexplained fires and explosions in recent weeks have been anything other than accidental. The lights go out on Lebanon’s economy as financial collapse accelerates There were echoes in this incident of a string of initially unexplained explosions at weapons storage facilities across the region, including earlier this year at Iranian power plants and military sites, which intelligence officials have attributed in part to Israeli sabotage. A United Nations force that monitors the volatile border between Lebanon and Israel said the explosion occurred just outside of its area of responsibility and that it would not send a team to investigate. The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, which had its 42-year-old mandate renewed in August, is prohibited from straying from its strictly drawn boundaries even when arms caches, tunnels or other military assets are identified, according to spokesperson Andrea Tenenti. “We have no authority there unless our involvement is requested by the Lebanese government,” Tenenti said. “We have received no request at this time.”


Montgomery County loosens restrictions on houses of worship, but keeps cap on indoor dining

are not moving forward,” Montgomery Health Officer Travis Gayles reiterated Tuesday in a briefing with lawmakers. According to contact tracers, he said, coronavirus outbreaks in the county continue to be associated with indoor dining and large family gatherings. The county’s rolling seven-day average of new cases Tuesday stood at 80 infections — a number that has changed little in recent weeks. While Hogan is allowing more patrons to dine in, a trade group representing about 2,000 Maryland restaurants complained Tuesday that new state Health Department rules “make it impossible” for restaurants to operate at 75 percent capacity. Social distancing guidelines — and the state’s unwillingness to permit the use of plastic barriers to separate customers — limit seating capacity to less than 75 percent, said Marshall Weston, president and chief executive of the Restaurant Association of Maryland. He said in a statement that the state’s newly issued guidance “essentially negates” Hogan’s directive and that the state Health Department is undermining it. Health Department officials said Tuesday that the guidelines were crafted in conjunction with the governor’s order and changes are possible as the state’s health metrics improve. Several Maryland counties in the Washington region on Tuesday notched a record-low coronavirus test positivity rate. State health officials said the statewide positivity rate fell to 2.65 percent — the lowest number recorded — while Montgomery, Prince George’s, Howard and Baltimore counties also set record lows. In the District, the D.C. Council unanimously extended a pandemic-related public health emergency through the end of 2020. The declaration allows Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to impose certain measures, including a moratorium on utility disconnections, debt collections and evictions. Lawmakers can revisit the provisions of the emergency before the year ends. The council also approved legislation that would prohibit landlords from sending tenants eviction notices while the eviction moratorium is in place. The greater Washington region on Tuesday reported 1,259 new coronavirus infections and 51 additional deaths. Virginia had 872 new cases and 39 deaths; Maryland had 344 new cases and 12 deaths; D.C. had 43 new cases and no deaths. Virginia’s rolling seven-day average death toll stood at 32 on Tuesday, up from eight to start last week. The spike comes after state health officials reported a backlog that included deaths that occurred over the past month. That continuing backlog accounted for 30 of the new deaths reported Tuesday in Virginia, with most occurring in


Beware of covid-19 vaccine trials designed to succeed from the start

William Haseltine is a former Harvard Medical School professor and founder of the university’s cancer and HIV/AIDS research departments. He serves as chair and president of the think tank ACCESS Health International. In response to widespread demand for more transparency, pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer have released clinical study protocols for their covid-19 vaccine trials. The goal is to reassure the public that the trials are being conducted responsibly and that any approved vaccine would be safe for all. But the protocols should heighten anxiety rather than alleviate it. A close reading suggests the clinical trials have been designed to ensure the greatest possible success for these candidates — and that could overstate their effectiveness. In both the Moderna and Pfizer trials, for example, the primary objective is to prevent any occurrence of covid-19, not necessarily a severe case. Preventing serious illness is a secondary objective. Yet it is the severe cases of covid-19 that have killed nearly 1 million people worldwide and left many millions more with long-term damage. With the current protocols, it is conceivable that a vaccine might be considered effective — and eventually approved — based primarily on its ability to prevent mild cases alone. If we were developing a vaccine for a simple cold virus, perhaps this would indeed be enough. But covid-19 is far from a common cold. People are not concerned about the tickle in their throat or a runny nose; they are concerned about being put in the hospital. A covid-19 vaccine should, first and foremost, protect us from severe instances of the disease. Equally troubling is the size of the group in which efficacy for each vaccine would be proved. Both Pfizer and Moderna have touted the large number of participants in their trials, at upwards of 30,000 participants slated for each. But while the full trial sizes might be large, the protocols suggest that efficacy can be proved in an initial test group of just 106 for the Moderna vaccine and in a group of 64 for Pfizer. But keep in mind only half of each group receives the vaccine; the other half receives a placebo. The protocols suggest that successful initial interim trials for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines would show efficacy among 74 percent and 76.9 percent of participants, respectively. This means if 39 of those who receive the vaccine do not get sick, Moderna will consider the


vaccine a success. For Pfizer, the number is 25. At this point, the Food and Drug Administration could grant emergency-use authorization. In other words, the two vaccines could hinge on the combined results of 64 people. Granted, proof of efficacy in such a small group doesn’t guarantee that a vaccine candidate will be approved for manufacturing and use worldwide. But the U.S. government has shown that it’s willing to rush new anti-covid-19 drugs to market on promises of even less. Were these two vaccine-makers to come out with early results from an interim analysis of their trials and claim their candidates to be effective, there is little doubt the FDA would grant an emergency-use authorization. The public would likely take such a decision as a sign that the vaccine is completely effective, despite the fact that it would have been proved effective only in a small sampling of individuals and might not be useful at all in preventing severe cases of the disease. While both companies say they would continue their trials and continue to explore potential long-term health risks, it might not be possible to do so if participants receiving the placebo demand the real vaccine. As we saw with previous emergency authorizations — namely hydroxychloroquine, convalescent plasma and remdesivir — once they were granted, the trials ended. Are we really willing to conclude a drug is safe based on the health outcomes of so few? Recent trials by AstraZeneca were paused after a patient developed symptoms of an inflammatory spinal disease. Rushed Moderna and Pfizer trials could bring about similar short-term health consequences or, potentially far worse, lead to long-term health consequences that we won’t discover until months or years after the vaccine’s approval. At a time when an average of 40,000 cases and nearly a thousand deaths are reported every day in the United States — and far more globally — these protocols are outrageous. The fact that one would base the health of billions of humans on the outcomes of a few defies any definition of common sense. If — or perhaps when — positive early results from these trials are announced, keep my warnings in mind. These protocols seem designed to get a drug on the market sooner rather than later, on a timeline arguably based more on politics than public health. The lives of millions are at risk; we can and should demand better.


Man slain in Northeast DC, near Kenilworth Park, police say

A man was fatally shot in Northeast Washington on Monday evening, the police said. The shooting occurred a few minutes after 6 p.m. in the 3500 block of Jay Street NE, said Officer Sean Hickman, a police spokesman. The site is in a residential area adjacent to Kenilworth Park, and just east of the Anacostia River. The victim was found outdoors, Hickman said. Police said they were looking for two people in connection with the shooting. One was described as a black man who wore a blue sweater hoodie and gray jeans. The other was described as a black man in a light blue jacket and bleached jeans. The name of the victim was not released immediately.


Secret CIA assessment: Putin ‘probably directing’ influence operation to denigrate Biden

declined to comment on whether he received materials from Derkach. Democratic leaders wrote to Wray in July to demand a briefing based on concerns that members of Congress were being used to launder information as part of a foreign interference operation. Johnson has launched an investigation into Biden and Burisma, the results of which could be released as early as this week. The State Department provided Johnson with more than 16,000 pages of information for his investigation months ago, but only shared those documents with Congress on Friday, following a subpoena by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.). After meeting with Derkach in December, in the middle of Trump’s impeachment proceedings, Giuliani tweeted that U.S. aid to Ukraine might face a “major obstacle” if the Ukrainian government didn’t resolve his concerns about corruption. Giuliani and Derkach’s allegations against Biden were covered extensively by the One America News Network, which sent a correspondent with Giuliani to Kiev. In February, Giuliani interviewed Derkach on YouTube, where Derkach alleged that U.S. aid to Ukraine was misspent. Even though Derkach is a former member of a pro-Russian party who attended the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow, Giuliani has consistently defended his relationship with Derkach. Following the Treasury Department’s announcement sanctioning Derkach, Giuliani told the New York Times he had “no reason to believe [Derkach] is a Russian agent,” but added, “How the hell would I know?” Engel told me he is not surprised to learn that parts of the intelligence community have concluded Putin is directly trying to help Trump’s election campaign, again. But he called on the administration to publicly release these findings. “What’s most infuriating is that the administration seems to be doing everything it can to hide the facts from Congress and the American people,” he said. “The president seems to be trying to turn the entire executive branch into an arm of his reelection campaign, dangerously politicizing foreign policy and intelligence.” Read more: Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman: This new pro-Trump talking point is one of their most cynical lies yet Max Boot: The strongest evidence yet of Trump’s (ongoing) collusion with Russia Greg Sargent: How much will we really learn about outside attempts to sabotage our election? Jennifer Rubin: Russia is actively helping Trump. Again. Richard Blumenthal: The threat to U.S. elections is real, and frightening. The public has a right to know.


Africa has defied the covid-19 nightmare scenarios. We shouldn’t be surprised.

After the novel coronavirus first appeared in Africa in late February, Ghana’s government decided it would take no chances. Ghanaian citizens were soon put under lockdown, and travel between major cities was banned. Then President Nana Akufo-Addo announced the closure of the country’s land and sea borders. At the time, my dad was in Ghana visiting family, and he faced the prospect of being stuck until commercial flights resumed. As experts predicted how the pandemic would be a unique and devastating disaster in Africa, my siblings and I scrambled to get my father a spot on a State Department repatriation flight for U.S. citizens. We rushed to get him out because we thought he would be better off in the United States. But after he got back to Texas, the number of cases there started to rise, and I joked with him that he would have been safer in Ghana. “Ghana is doing much better with this than America,” he had said after I picked him up from the airport, amused that I sprayed down the entire car with disinfectant before making him sit in the back seat, away from me. News reports and opinion articles have posited that corruption and a lack of health-care infrastructure meant that Africa was a “time bomb” waiting to explode. Rampant poverty and a lack of effective governance would cause the dark continent to fall apart under the weight of a public health emergency. The world, the experts said, should prepare to offer aid, loans and debt forgiveness to African governments — in other words, they should prepare to save Africa. No need. While so much about the virus and how it operates remains unclear, sub-Saharan Africa so far has dodged a deadly wave of coronavirus cases. Many factors have contributed to this. A number of West African nations already had a pandemic response infrastructure in place from the Ebola outbreak of late 2013 to 2016. Just six years ago, Liberia lost nearly 5,000 people to Ebola. At the beginning of this year, Liberia began screening for covid-19 at airports. Travelers coming in from countries with more than 200 cases were quarantined. To date, Liberia, a country of some 5 million, has 1,335 cases and around 82 deaths. After the Ebola pandemic, Senegal set up an emergency operations center to manage public health crises. Some covid-19 test results come back in 24 hours, and


‘It affects virtually nobody’: Trump incorrectly claims covid-19 isn’t a risk for young people

As the U.S. death toll from the novel coronavirus prepares to eclipse 200,000, President Trump on Monday incorrectly claimed at a campaign rally that covid-19 “affects virtually nobody” younger than 18, again downplaying the extent of the pandemic and contradicting his previous statements that the virus poses a risk to “plenty of young people.” In front of a crowd of mostly maskless supporters not adhering to social distancing in Swanton, Ohio, Trump suggested that only older Americans with heart problems and preexisting conditions truly need to fear the virus. “It affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems. That’s what it really affects,” the president said. “In some states, thousands of people — nobody young. Below the age of 18, like, nobody. They have a strong immune system, who knows? Take your hat off to the young, because they have a hell of an immune system. But it affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing.” Trump’s sentiments go against the guidance of most public health experts and what he told Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward in an interview in March. In one of the president’s interviews with Woodward for the book “Rage,” Trump acknowledged downplaying the severity of covid-19, saying that the virus affected “plenty of young people.” “Now it’s turning out it’s not just old people, Bob,” Trump told Woodward. “But just today, and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old, older.” Much remains unknown about the virus’s effect on young people, but public health agencies have made clear that individuals younger than 18 are at greater risk of falling ill and spreading covid-19 than originally thought. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the number and rate of coronavirus cases among children younger than 18 had increased “steadily” from March to July. The agency emphasized that while covid-19 remains more serious and prevalent among adults, a lack of widespread testing prevents public health experts from understanding the true incidence of infection for American children. A CDC study found that young people of color, much like their older counterparts, have been disproportionately hospitalized from covid-19, compared with their White peers. The World Health Organization warned in August that young people are becoming primary spreaders of the virus in many countries. Several American studies published over the summer suggested that those younger than 18, with their high rate of infection


severity of covid-19, saying that the virus affected “plenty of young people.” “Now it’s turning out it’s not just old people, Bob,” Trump told Woodward. “But just today, and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old, older.” Much remains unknown about the virus’s effect on young people, but public health agencies have made clear that individuals younger than 18 are at greater risk of falling ill and spreading covid-19 than originally thought. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the number and rate of coronavirus cases among children younger than 18 had increased “steadily” from March to July. The agency emphasized that while covid-19 remains more serious and prevalent among adults, a lack of widespread testing prevents public health experts from understanding the true incidence of infection for American children. A CDC study found that young people of color, much like their older counterparts, have been disproportionately hospitalized from covid-19, compared with their White peers. The World Health Organization warned in August that young people are becoming primary spreaders of the virus in many countries. Several American studies published over the summer suggested that those younger than 18, with their high rate of infection and viral loads, play a much larger role in community spread of the coronavirus than researchers previously believed. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently said that the long-term effects of covid-19 in young people — residual symptoms such as a high rate of cardiovascular abnormalities — are “really troublesome.” The increased risk of spread among children has taken center stage in the debate over in-person learning, as K-12 schools across the nation that had reopened have had to close or change course after students or staff members fell ill or were forced to quarantine. On Monday, Trump repeated his wish for educators to reopen in-person learning, saying, “Open your schools; everybody, open your schools.” Reports of Americans younger than 18 dying after contracting the coronavirus have become more regular in recent months, whether it’s a 17-year-old in Florida or a 2-month-old in Michigan. “We are seeing young people who are dying from this virus,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging disease and zoonosis unit, at a news conference last month. Before Trump spoke in Swanton and promised to “end the pandemic” if he’s reelected in November, many of the


Amid covid-19, recession and violence, Mexico’s López Obrador takes aim at his predecessors

petition cites those allegations and calls Peña Nieto “complicit.” Peña Nieto, who was president from 2012 to 2018, has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged. He could not be located for comment this week. López Obrador accuses Calderón, who served from 2006 to 2012, of “exacerbating violence” and abetting “criminal gangs” in launching an aggressive war on drugs. Calderón’s top security aide is now awaiting trial in the United States on allegations he made deals with the Sinaloa drug cartel. Calderón tweeted last week that López Obrador was “mistaking the Republic for a Roman circus” by asking the crowd to “convict or pardon innocents with a show of thumbs up or down.” López Obrador says Zedillo, a staunch neoliberal in office from 1994 to 2000, took privatization to extremes but does not suggest he broke any laws. Zedillo, an economist, now teaches at Yale. An aide there said he has not commented on events in Mexico since leaving office, “even when they involve falsehoods and calumnies” against his presidency. López Obrador says Salinas, whose 1988 election is widely seen as flawed, was “imposed by fraud” and deepened inequality by launching a mass wave of privatizations. He left office in 1994 and now lives in France. He could not be located for comment this week. The president accuses Fox, who took office in 2000, of interfering improperly in the 2006 election, when Calderón defeated López Obrador. But Fox was not linked to corruption or other crimes while in office. An aide said Monday he would have no immediate comment. Critics warn that the referendum could undermine the independence of the justice system and encourage a dangerous form of populist presidential power. “If the consultation is used as a popular judgment, it will lead us to where justice stays beyond the law and above the law,” columnist Manuel Guadarrama wrote in El Sol newspaper. “It will place judicial power in a crucible between violating the constitution and issuing an unpopular ruling.” López Obrador emphasizes that the referendum calls for the “appropriate authorities” to investigate any charges against the ex-presidents and prosecute them only if there is enough evidence. He has held snap polls on narrow issues, such as whether to build a new international airport, but the referendum could have far greater reach and constitute a major break with the country’s political norms. López Obrador’s administration said he “seeks to inaugurate


The sweeping hypocrisy of Trump’s shrugging claim that ‘virtually nobody’ young dies from coronavirus

Speaking in front of an elbow-to-elbow crowd at an airport in Ohio on Monday, President Trump waved away concerns about how covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, affects young people. The disease “affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems,” Trump said. “If they have other problems, that’s what it really affects. That’s it.” “You know,” he continued, “in some states thousands of people, nobody young — below the age of 18, like nobody — they have a strong immune system. Who knows. You look — take your hat off to the young because they have a hell of an immune system, but it affects virtually nobody.” “By the way, open your schools,” he added to cheers. “Everybody, open your schools.” This riff of Trump’s that young people are less affected by covid-19 and, in some states, haven’t died from the disease isn’t new. (For a while, Trump would tell an anecdote about how the governor of New Jersey told him that only one young person had died from the disease.) What is less common from Trump is that flat “affects virtually nobody” claim, apparently centered on younger Americans. It’s an assertion that’s both dangerously misleading and aggressively hypocritical. As Trump spoke on Monday, the death toll from the pandemic in the United States was nearing the 200,000 mark, a boundary that Trump repeatedly insisted this spring and summer that we probably wouldn’t near. It is true, to Trump’s point, that the vast majority of those deaths were among older Americans. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through mid-September indicate that nearly 8 in 10 deaths from covid-19 occurred among those who were 65 and older. But it’s not the case that “virtually nobody” who is younger has been affected by the disease. About 400 people younger than 25 have succumbed to the virus, making up more than 1 out of every 100 deaths in that age group since February. Among those aged 25 to 64, 8 percent of all deaths in that period were the result of covid-19. Among those 65 and older, 9.8 percent of deaths since February were linked to the virus. Of course, death is only the worst possible outcome from contracting the virus. The American Academy of Pediatrics compiled data on how the virus affected children across the United States, finding that between 0.2 and 8 percent of


Latinos are disproportionately getting sick, dying of coronavirus, exacerbating historic inequalities

Oralia Soto had pain in her lungs, but being the sole caregiver for her 12-year-old diabetic great-granddaughter left no time to see a doctor. When Soto, 87, finally sought medical care, she was critically ill with the coronavirus and needed to be put on a ventilator. She died days later, one of 15 members of a large Latino family in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley who fell ill with or succumbed to the virus. “It is just too much to handle,” said Brenda Benitez, Soto’s niece. “I feel numb inside. I just pray.” The novel coronavirus is devastating Latino communities across the country, from California’s Imperial Valley to suburban Boston and Puerto Rico. Workers at Midwestern meatpacking plants and on construction sites in Florida are getting sick and dying of a virus that is exacerbating historic inequalities in communities where residents, many of whom are “essential” workers, struggle to access health care. The undocumented are largely invisible. Latinos, who are not a racial group and come from diverse backgrounds, make up an increasing portion of deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. More than 36,500 Latinos have died of the virus, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Washington Post. “If you look at all the negative factors, risky jobs or unemployment, unsafe housing, poor air quality and preexisting conditions, it’s all people of color,” said Carlos E. Rodriguez-Diaz, an associate professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. “It's not because we are non-White, it's because of the social conditions that historically placed us at a disadvantage,” Rodriguez-Diaz said. “These are not new, but covid is giving us the unfortunate opportunity to highlight these factors.” The disparities are particularly acute in Texas, where people who identify as Hispanic or Latino comprise 40 percent of the state’s population. They are more likely to be hospitalized, face financial ruin or die of the virus than their White neighbors, experts said. The burden on Hispanics is diverse, affecting recent migrants to Houston, natives of San Antonio, indigenous immigrants in Austin, Dallas business owners or those who called the Borderlands their home before it was Texas. State data presents an incomplete picture of how Latinos in Texas are faring, because not all municipalities report race or ethnicity information. But when Texas reworked its coronavirus data in July, it added 600


street should be named after them. Ernesto Muñoz moved there first, leaving Mexico 36 years ago with the hope of returning. The 66-year-old worked as a maintenance man in a meat factory past retirement age because he was so grateful to the company that gave him his first opportunity. He was never paid what he deserved — until this year, his daughter said. His hard work, she said, felt validated. 2020 was going to be Ernesto’s year. He promised his wife it would be his last working. He finally had the money saved to build a little house in Mexico. Monica Muñoz lives on the street, in a house sandwiched between her parents and grandparents. At the start of the pandemic, Monica, who works in occupational safety, sat down with her father to go over safety protocols. In mid-June, she noticed her father had come home early. He had not been feeling well. Ernesto Muñoz didn’t want to go to the hospital. Like many Latinos, he feared that once you go in, you don’t come out. After a week of being sick, he went. Four days after he was admitted, Muñoz was on a ventilator. He called his children before he was intubated. “He talked to us like it was a normal day,” Monica Muñoz said. It was strange, but she could feel he was trying to say something. She later learned her father told her brother the family was now his responsibility. “That was his way of saying goodbye.” Her grandfather was hospitalized days later. As the oldest, Monica helped handle the piles of paperwork, the nurse phone calls that came in the middle of the night and, ultimately, the funeral arrangements. Her father died July 6. Her grandfather, July 7. “You know, sometimes it feels like we’re just another number, another statistic. I’ve seen on social media how people say, it’s just the 1 percent of the population that it’s affecting,” she said. “But it happened to us. Two heads of households. Two fathers.” Gil Vasquez needed his father to recover from the coronavirus. Vasquez, 40, who has lived with muscular dystrophy since birth, depends on his father to be his arms and legs. Wherever Vasquez’s mind took him, his father, also named Gilberto Vasquez, gladly did the walking for his son. The elder Vasquez carried his son’s school books and typed out his papers. The two traveled


College newspaper reporters are the journalism heroes for the pandemic era

In New York, it was the Washington Square News that first reported a covid-19 outbreak in a college dorm. In Gainesville, Fla., the Alligator is the newspaper that has been painstakingly updating a map of local cases. And the Daily Gamecock alerted the public to the ways that University of South Carolina officials were withholding information about covid-19 clusters. While the pandemic economy has devastated the local news business, there remains a cadre of small newspapers that are more energized than ever, producing essential work from the center of the nation’s newest coronavirus hot spots. Those would be college newspapers, whose student journalists have been kept busy breaking news of campus outbreaks, pushing for transparency from administrators and publishing scathing editorials about controversial reopening plans. “I do feel and I know the staff feels a sense of responsibility,” said Jacob deCastro, editor in chief of the Indiana Daily Student at Indiana University. “We want to make sure people know what’s going on both on-campus and off-campus so they can make informed choices. We also want to hold the university accountable in keeping students safe and making sure they’re using our tuition dollars to keep us safe, to keep the community safe.” Working for a college newspaper is a rite of passage for many budding journalists, who get hands-on experience in the kind of reporting and editing they learn about in classrooms. But the pandemic has also demonstrated how valuable this brand of journalism is for the broader public. Student-run newspapers have been reporting about the prevalence of covid-19 at fraternity and sorority houses, in campus residences halls and among student athletes. Professional media outlets have been crediting them for scoops, like the one at NYU. And student newspaper editorials taking school administrators to task for reopening plans — like Notre Dame’s the Observer’s front-page editorial titled “Don’t make us write obituaries" and the University of North Carolina’s Daily Tar Heel’s f-bomb headline — have made national news. “If we weren’t covering these efforts and if we weren’t diving deeper into these issues — I shudder to think about it,” said Elizabeth Lawrence, editor in chief of the Michigan Daily, which has extensively covered covid-19 strikes by graduate students and resident advisers at the University of Michigan, where testing is limited. “The fact that we’re able to keep the conversation on this and really bring it to so many people, is


‘Condor Comeback’ tells the story of a native bird that had nearly disappeared

In the early 1980s, California condors seemed doomed. They could soar to 15,000 feet with their nine-foot wingspans, but they numbered fewer than 30 in the world. That total included those cared for in zoos. Many wildlife experts believed condors could never thrive in the wild again. But as Sy Montgomery, a writer of excellent books about animals, points out, “Just because someone says something is impossible doesn’t mean it really is.” In “Condor Comeback,” Montgomery shows how and why a dedicated group of people worked to boost the population of California condors to more than 450 birds. They had to figure out what was killing the condors in the wild, as well as how to make living in the wild safer for them. Unlike Montgomery’s previous books, this one begins in a zoo. She and photographer Tianne Strombeck traveled to the Santa Barbara Zoo to get a close look at these large, unusual creatures and the scientists who study them. Zoos, says Montgomery, “are the reason that California condors exist on this planet today.” Scientists figured out that condors were harmed by eating lead and small pieces of trash. Despite the objections of some conservationists, the remaining condors in the wild were captured. They would be able to breed safely in captivity and then be released and monitored. It has not all gone smoothly, but the team has learned from past mistakes. Condors are a species of vulture, which have sometimes been described as unclean scavengers. Montgomery points out not only how clean they are (“Their breath smells sweet, like a fresh carrot,” she said), but also that they have been revered by many cultures throughout history. The Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for “mother” is a vulture, for instance, because they take great care of their young. And in Native American cultures, the California condor has been sacred to many tribes, including the Southern California Chumash. Although condors are scavengers, Montgomery sees what they do as miraculous: “By eating carcasses to feed themselves and their young, they can turn death into life.” “Condor Comeback” introduces readers to many people who are helping condors thrive. We meet Estelle Sandhaus, a conservation scientist who has enabled adult condors to teach younger ones how to live in the wild. She and her team track the birds, monitoring their movements, and give them twice-a-year health checkups in the San Joaquin Valley. We meet a