more than 10,000 samples from saliva and feces. They also went beyond disease detection. They studied human behavior in the region to understand the ways in which the virus might jump. Many of the caves serve as holy places, and custom calls for people to take off their shoes and socks, leaving their feet exposed, Valitutto says. Bats in that region, similar to China, are also eaten and sold in wild animal markets. Experts say the outbreak that has infected tens of thousands of people probably resulted from a wild animal market in Wuhan. Bats were quickly identified as a likely culprit. More recently, a new possible suspect emerged — the pangolin, a critically endangered animal that is often killed for its meat and scales. The pangolin is what initially pulled Valitutto into the wildlife field. It is the most trafficked mammal in the world, and he has spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to save it. During the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s, he says, some pangolins tested positive for the coronavirus. At that time, he says, it hit him that maybe the best way to help the pangolin is by helping people. Maybe people would stop eating them if they knew they could carry a deadly disease. “I came into my career with a focus on wildlife, and not so much an interest in working with humans,” he says. “Now, I realize cannot save wildlife unless I’m saving people, too.” He is currently working with pangolins and giant pandas for the Smithsonian. For that work, he has now settled in a new country: China. “Far from Wuhan,” he tells me when we Skype one recent evening. He is in Chengdu, which is about 700 miles from the outbreak’s epicenter. He has used that distance to reassure his relatives who have called more frequently lately. He has also told them about the precautions the country is taking to keep the virus contained. He is required to wear a mask in public and have his temperature checked three times a day. Other Americans have fled that region, but Valitutto does not have plans yet to return to the District. “I have my general fears, but I know the measures that China has taken, and I know how to protect myself,” he says. “I’m not entirely too worried about contracting it.” For him, unlike most people,


2 U.S. service members killed after coming under ‘direct fire’ in eastern Afghanistan

KABUL — Two U.S. troops were killed and six others were wounded in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday after a gunman wearing an Afghan military uniform ambushed a team of Americans and their Afghan colleagues, officials said. Precise details remain unclear. U.S. military officials here announced the casualties in a brief statement, indicating that the names of those killed would not be released until after their families had been notified. The incident, which occurred near the Pakistan border in the Sherzad district of Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, was under investigation, officials said. Those wounded were receiving medical treatment at a U.S. facility. “Upon completing a key-leader engagement at the district center, current reports indicate an individual in an Afghan uniform opened fire on the combined U.S. and Afghan force with a machine gun,” Col. Sonny Leggett, a U.S. military spokesman, said in a statement. Newsweek reported that nine Afghan soldiers also were killed in the attack, but Leggett’s statement made no mention of additional casualties. Earlier Saturday, a member of Nangahar‘s provincial council, Mohammad Ajmal Omar, described the shootout as a possible insider attack. Attacks perpetrated by militants who infiltrate Afghan military units have posed a long-standing threat to U.S. and Afghan forces, though such incidents have abated in recent years as the U.S. presence in Afghanistan has shrunken. The Taliban and factions linked to the Islamic State have footholds in the country’s east. “We are still collecting information and the cause or motive behind the attack is unknown at this time,” Leggett said earlier Saturday. The attack comes as formal peace talks between U.S. and Taliban negotiators remain hampered by the ongoing bloodshed. U.S. negotiators have demanded a reduction in violence before a deal can be signed. Last month, a roadside bomb attack in Kandahar province killed two American service members and left two injured. The Taliban claimed responsibility. susannah.george@washpost.com


Chinese officials note serious problems in coronavirus response. The World Health Organization keeps praising them.

provincial and federal authorities during SARS. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said the WHO was doing a good job under tough conditions. But she noted that critical epidemiological data that researchers use to understand a virus — information about who got sick, when — was slow to get out from China. “One criticism that we should direct at WHO is that when it puts out situation reports, they are basically missing data from China,” she said. “It’s fair to ask, ‘If you don’t have data, why not? And what are you doing about it?’ ” In late January, China moved from denial to drastic action. On Jan. 20, with 400 million people about to travel for the Lunar New Year holiday, officials confirmed what many had long suspected: The virus could spread person to person. President Xi called for swift, transparent action. “It is necessary to release epidemic information in a timely manner and deepen international cooperation,” according to state media reports. Authorities started to seal off Wuhan, a city of 11 million, canceling some flights, trains and suspending public transportation. In Geneva, an emergency panel convened to discuss the situation and decide whether to declare a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, which signals “serious, unusual or unexpected” health crisis “that poses a public health risk to other countries through international spread.” On Jan. 22, Tedros applauded China’s recent efforts. “What they are doing is a very, very strong measure and with full commitment,” he said. The comment surprised public health experts because travel bans can create panic and make things harder for first responders. On Jan. 23, China announced it was expanded the quarantine to other cities — and millions more people. Later the same day, in Geneva, the WHO decided against declaring a PHEIC. That meant, among other things, no calls for restrictions on travel in and out of China, even as Beijing locked down the Chinese heartland. Asked about China’s quarantine, Tedros demurred. “At end of the day, a sovereign country has the autonomy to do what it thinks is right,” he said, adding that he hoped it would be short. In China, officials were increasingly talking about what went wrong. In a Jan. 27 interview, Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang admitted that information should have been released more quickly. But in a visit to


expanded the quarantine to other cities — and millions more people. Later the same day, in Geneva, the WHO decided against declaring a PHEIC. That meant, among other things, no calls for restrictions on travel in and out of China, even as Beijing locked down the Chinese heartland. Asked about China’s quarantine, Tedros demurred. “At end of the day, a sovereign country has the autonomy to do what it thinks is right,” he said, adding that he hoped it would be short. In China, officials were increasingly talking about what went wrong. In a Jan. 27 interview, Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang admitted that information should have been released more quickly. But in a visit to Beijing, Tedros commended officials. The state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Tedros lauded not only the coronavirus response, but the very effectiveness of “China’s system.” On his return from Beijing, he heaped compliments on China and its president. “I was very encouraged and impressed by the president’s detailed knowledge of the outbreak and his personal involvement in the outbreak,” he said. “This was for me a very rare leadership.” On Jan. 30 the WHO declared a PHEIC, finally acknowledging the risk the Wuhan outbreak posed to other countries. “The Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak,” Tedros said, adding that China is setting “a new standard” for outbreak response. Some experts have defended the comments as sound strategy. “WHO has really tricky balancing act,” said Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh. “If that means praising China publicly, that’s what he has to do.” Others worried that it could shake faith in the U.N. body. Praising China’s leaders “is not a bad idea, but do you want to do it in a professional and credible way,” said the Council on Foreign Relations’ Huang. For now, the WHO seems to be sticking with the strategy. At a new conference on Thursday, Tedros was asked, again, about China, including the death of one of the Chinese doctors who sounded the alarm on the virus, only to be detained by police. (He later died of the virus.) He first deferred to a colleague, then took the chance to speak again, defending China’s handling of the epidemic. “It is very difficult, given the facts,” he said, “to say that China was hiding.” emily.rauhala@washpost.com


Trump budget cuts funding for health, science, environment agencies

President Trump once again is asking Congress to make major cuts to the budgets of science and health agencies while favoring research deemed essential to national security. The 2021 budget request delivered Monday to Congress includes a nearly 10 percent cut to Health and Human Services and a 26 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency. It asks for increases in funding for research on quantum computing and artificial intelligence, areas in which the United States competes with China. Trump also wants to grant NASA a multibillion-dollar boost to help the space agency put astronauts back on the moon. Trump budgets Administration officials held a conference call with reporters Monday to tout the initiatives in science and technology. The budget request calls for $25 million to be spent building the National Quantum Internet, which would in theory be impossible to hack and would exploit breakthroughs in quantum computing. “As the Roman poet Ovid once said, the gods favor the bold,” said Paul Dabbar, undersecretary for science at the Energy Department. Kelvin Droegemeier, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said research and development “are at the absolute forefront” of Trump’s agenda. But the 2021 Trump budget received a cool reception from nonprofit organizations that advocate for research. “The administration’s proposed budget cuts to research risk slowing our nation’s science just when it is reaping benefits for all Americans in the forms of better health, a stronger economy, a more sustainable environment, a safer world, and awe-inspiring understanding,” said Sudip Parikh, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “The President’s proposed budget is a severe disappointment for science and ignores the many ways in which science fuels our economy, safeguards our security, improves our health and well-being, and is critical for a thriving future,” said Chris McEntee, chief executive and executive director of the American Geophysical Union. The Trump administration hopes to eliminate nearly 50 EPA programs. “Environmental protection must go hand-in-hand with a strong economy, as proven by America’s continued improvements to air quality and public health while simultaneously growing the economy,” the administration’s Office of Management and Budget wrote. The Energy Department would get a boost in funding for safeguarding the nuclear weapons stockpile, a core mission, but outside that program would see a 28.7 percent cut, including more than 1 billion cut from its $7 billion science program. The budget


A D.C. Dream Day with Good Company Doughnuts’ Charles Kachadoorian

to his word, Kachadoorian is joined by the Good Company team for much of his ideal day in and around the District, which includes a tour of area restaurants and some well-earned rest and relaxation. I’d start by coming into the shop and getting things opened up — get the coffee going, dial in the espresso machine, check in on how Kate’s doing with the baking. Then I’d shoot into D.C. and go to the Dupont Circle Farmers Market and see what’s fresh and what people are up to. There’s a little bakery there called Mastiha that does some really nice pita, and Call Your Mother has amazing bagels. There’s also a great floral shop there and a lot of fresh produce. One of my big hobbies is high-performance driving, so then I’d get out to Summit Point Motorsports Park, get on a racetrack and do a couple [of] hours of driving. I’d also maybe do some teaching — as an instructor, I really do enjoy getting people out there. Whether a person is an experienced driver or a new driver, it’s fun to watch someone go through that. For lunch, Kabob Bazaar in Clarendon is a nice little secret over there. I like the salmon kebab, and the zereshk polo is delicious, too. I also love the Royal in D.C. It’s an all-day cafe concept, and I obviously like those. Then I’d get back to Good Company and get in the kitchen. I love to make pasta, so I’d make some ravioli fresh. But on my dream day, maybe we close early and get out to one of the really nice restaurants to get a taste of what some of the top chefs around are doing. The Inn at Little Washington comes to mind — I’ve had the tasting menu there, and anything they’re going to put in front of you, you’re going to enjoy. Another great place we love in D.C. is Komi, which has a goat dish that’s unique, and the service there is just out of this world. Sometimes we’ll go to Momo Sushi and Cafe in Alexandria — the fatty tuna is some of the best stuff you can get. Or since it’s my perfect day, Restaurant Eve and PX Lounge in Alexandria would still be open and we could go there. In the evening, if it’s a nice day, Melissa and I would take


Since a traumatic pregnancy, I’ve tried to control everything in my life. It’s time to let go.

Mayo Clinic but still no definitive diagnosis. The doctors weren’t sure what was making my son measure the way he was measuring or react the way he was reacting on screen. It was a situation inside my body that was out of my control. It wasn’t until I was on bed rest at 30 weeks that we got the definitive call on my son’s condition: Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome — a rare overgrowth condition that wreaks havoc on the pituitary gland. This news was swiftly followed by surprise No. 2: I went into labor shortly after hanging up the phone. Mere hours later, Charlie was born. After a head scan while Charlie was still in the NICU at 30 days old, the head of the department asked to speak with me. I didn’t know the results of the scan, but the request triggered a primal reaction. I couldn’t breathe, and I backed away from him, my heart racing and my head shaking. There is only so far you can go, however, before you’re out the hospital room door, and I couldn’t leave Charlie. So I stood and held my panicked breath while he told me that Charlie had damage in all four quadrants of his brain. “No one has a crystal ball,” he said, when I managed to gather my wits enough to ask what this might mean for his future. But after the rickety unpredictability of my pregnancy and Charlie’s first days of life, all I wanted was a crystal ball. Read my tea leaves. Study my palm. Check my astrological sign. Please, someone, tell me exactly what is down the road for both of us. When Charlie was 2, after a few days of up-and-down fevers, I gave him a bath. It was one of those endless Thursdays in January where day slips into night without much noticeable difference. As I was pulling on his Batman pajamas, he began to stiffen and then shake. It wasn’t just the fever — it was a seizure. That ended with an ambulance ride, a spinal tap and 48 hours in the pediatric intensive care while experts hooked electrodes to Charlie’s head and watched the screen for errant waves. We left with a prescription for daily seizure medication and a phone number for a neurologist. This is roughly when I began to gather up the reins of control over anything I could. I never


Maryland pet store puppy sale ban upheld in court

A federal judge has upheld Maryland’s ban on retail pet stores selling puppies and kittens, which took effect Jan. 1. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) signed the bill prohibiting such sales in 2018, making Maryland the second state in the country, behind California, to have such a ban. Animal rights advocates said the measure would help reduce demand for dogs born in “puppy mills,” an informal term for establishments that breed dogs for profit in inhumane conditions. Opponents, including the pet store owners who challenged the legislation in court, said that they use responsible breeders and that the law will mean Marylanders have fewer options for finding purebred puppies. They argued that residents might start looking for puppies online, where they said there is even less regulation than in stores. State Sen. Benjamin F. Kramer (D-Montgomery), who sponsored the original legislation, has introduced a bill this session to bar retail pet stores from online sales of puppies and kittens. That bill is scheduled for a hearing Feb. 27 in the Senate Finance Committee. No other state has such a ban in place. The lawsuit to overturn the ban was dismissed Friday by U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, who wrote in her opinion that “protecting consumers, reducing financial support for mill breeders, and encouraging pet adoption are indisputably legitimate state interests.” The lawsuit was brought in U.S. District Court in Baltimore by four pet store owners in Maryland and a Missouri-based breeder and broker. Plaintiff Jeanea Thomson, who with her husband owns Just Puppies, referred questions to attorney Jonathan Kagan, who did not respond to requests for comment. Hogan, himself a dog owner, applauded the court’s decision, saying in a statement that the legislation protects “vulnerable animals from inhumane breeding mills.” Maine also recently passed a law banning the sales of dogs and cats in pet stores, and New York’s legislature is considering similar legislation. Emily Hovermale, Maryland state director for the Humane Society of the United States, which lobbied for the legislation in Maryland, said in a statement that Hollander’s ruling “reaffirms that states have the authority to eliminate cruelly-produced animals from their marketplace.” rachel.chason@washpost.com


What’s behind Virginia’s latest move to fix lending laws and protect borrowers

Under current law, Virginians pay up to three times as much as borrowers in other states for the payday and similar high-cost loans that are often used by cash-strapped households. But a reform bill on which the state Senate will vote Monday would bring down the price to match what lenders charge in states with recently updated laws, such as Ohio and Colorado, while closing loopholes that high-cost lenders use to avoid regulation. It would also enable installment lenders, who offer lower-cost small-dollar credit, to serve Virginia households. Virginia used to have workable small-dollar lending laws. But over the past four decades, piecemeal changes slowly eroded state consumer protections and introduced loopholes that allowed lenders to charge much higher prices. And it is Virginians who have paid the price. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Virginia households use payday and other forms of high-cost credit, paying fees that can exceed the amount they originally borrowed. Although many Americans use small-dollar loans, regulations vary widely from state to state — meaning that borrowers in some states have access to affordable credit while others enjoy few protections from lender overreaching. Proposed federal regulations could have established protections for payday borrowers nationwide, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau retracted the rules before they came into effect. As a result, cash-strapped households still depend on state legislatures to protect them from harmful credit terms. That’s what the latest reform bill aims to do. Virginia first confronted the problem of high-cost, small-dollar lending more than a century ago. By the early 1900s, various “salary loan” and “chattel loan” companies had sprung up across the country to lend to working-class households. As one Virginia newspaper account described the situation, these lenders served those “whom dire necessity has driven to them for small sums of money.” Unable to obtain credit from banks, industrial workers instead sought quick cash from salary and chattel lenders, who operated under the radar and charged high prices. Although Virginia capped interest rates at 6 percent under its general usury law, the law failed to stop the spread of high-rate, small-sum lending. Even if the state shut down one lender, another would appear in its place. Rather than allow unregulated lending to grow quietly in the shadows, Virginia social welfare groups concerned about the plight of the poor — such as the Legal Aid Society of Richmond and the Associated Charities — urged


Trump’s budget would bolster NASA’s plan to return humans to the moon

capsule. NASA plans to use those vehicles to get astronauts to the moon. The SLS rocket has suffered several years of costly setbacks and delays. But Monday, Bridenstine said it had made significant progress and called it “America’s rocket” that will serve as the “foundation of our 21st-century space exploration.” Still, the budget request shows just how expensive the rocket is. The spending plan calls for NASA to look at other commercially available rockets to launch a mission as early as 2024 to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. Doing so would save the agency “over $1.5 billion compared to using an SLS rocket,” the budget request says. If all goes according to plan, NASA’s Artemis program calls for the first launch of the SLS rocket with the Orion capsule for a mission around the moon without crews in 2021. The following year, astronauts would be on board Orion to orbit the moon, with the goal of landing on the surface by 2024. Instead of going straight to the surface, however, the astronauts would first stop at an outpost known as the Gateway in orbit around the moon. They would then fly to and from the lunar surface in the landing vehicles. The budget would allocate more than $700 million for activities on the surface of the moon, such as mining, which would allow astronauts to “live off the land.” The program, however, has met stiff resistance in Congress, especially in the Democratic-controlled House. Recently, the House Science subcommittee on space and aeronautics voted out a bill that directs NASA to land on the moon by 2028, not 2024, and spend most of its energy and resources on a mission to put astronauts in orbit around Mars by 2033. Members of Congress are likely to be dismissive of provisions in the White House budget that would cut funding for the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), a key astrophysics mission for NASA. In the past, the White House has tried to defund the program, only to be reversed by Congress. The White House plan would also cut funding for NASA’s Office of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Engagement. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), the chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, said it was “encouraging to see a proposed budget that supports returning American astronauts to the moon. I remain eager to receive sufficient budget details to match our ambitious


Love in the time of coronavirus, quarantines and travel bans

There’s nothing like a quarantine or an international travel ban to test a relationship. Gabrielle Autry, a 26-year-old American from Georgia living with her Chinese boyfriend in Hangzhou, China, experienced this firsthand. Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang province, one of the worst-hit by the coronavirus outbreak that has killed at least 800 people and infected more than 37,000 in China since December. The world around her is on lockdown. But although Autry had the choice to leave because of her U.S. citizenship, she stayed. Her boyfriend, now effectively trapped along with many other Chinese nationals by travel restrictions, would otherwise have had to stay alone in their shared apartment. “I’m not leaving, even though I can,” she told The Washington Post. “It wouldn’t be the right thing to do for our relationship, just to leave him.” Their bond has weathered the first storm. But their reality is far from romantic. As China and governments around the world impose hastily concocted quarantines, travel bans and evacuations, mixed-nationality couples and families looking to leave China have found themselves divided by citizenship status. Frustration and anxiety is running high as people struggle to navigate emergency measures meant to contain the virus, but which critics say have stoked xenophobia and public panic. Monte Gisborne, a Canadian citizen whose wife and stepchild are visiting relatives in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, had hoped they would get seats on a plane evacuating Canadians. He said Canada excluded his wife and child because they are Canadian permanent residents, not citizens. “Aren’t we a Canadian family?” he asked. Getting out of China, no matter one’s nationality, is getting harder and harder. Airlines around the world are canceling flights. Countries are imposing bans on people traveling from China. Within the country, movement between and within cities is highly restricted. Chinese regulations and diplomatic relations have further complicated some efforts by governments to evacuate their citizens. On Jan. 31, the Trump administration issued stringent new travel restrictions, effectively barring entry to any non-U.S. citizens who recently traveled in China and imposing a 14-day quarantine on returning U.S. citizens. Chinese nationals who are spouses or immediate family members of a U.S. citizen are exempt from the ban. Autry and her boyfriend, Li, who spoke on the condition that only his last name be used to protect his privacy given sensitivities around the virus, had been


which critics say have stoked xenophobia and public panic. Monte Gisborne, a Canadian citizen whose wife and stepchild are visiting relatives in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, had hoped they would get seats on a plane evacuating Canadians. He said Canada excluded his wife and child because they are Canadian permanent residents, not citizens. “Aren’t we a Canadian family?” he asked. Getting out of China, no matter one’s nationality, is getting harder and harder. Airlines around the world are canceling flights. Countries are imposing bans on people traveling from China. Within the country, movement between and within cities is highly restricted. Chinese regulations and diplomatic relations have further complicated some efforts by governments to evacuate their citizens. On Jan. 31, the Trump administration issued stringent new travel restrictions, effectively barring entry to any non-U.S. citizens who recently traveled in China and imposing a 14-day quarantine on returning U.S. citizens. Chinese nationals who are spouses or immediate family members of a U.S. citizen are exempt from the ban. Autry and her boyfriend, Li, who spoke on the condition that only his last name be used to protect his privacy given sensitivities around the virus, had been set to travel to Hong Kong to get engaged. The couple met while she was studying in China. Two years later, “he’s part of my family,” she said. Then the virus hit. Autry first heard about it from the U.S. media and Reddit, she said, while news from China was censored. The two decided to proactively self-quarantine and began limiting trips outside their apartment. After a few weeks, officials formally banned any unnecessary travel. These days, the guards at Autry’s apartment complex take her temperature before and after she steps out for a moment to pick up delivered groceries, she said. Inside, life is fairly boring: Li works remotely, she studies Chinese and they play video games. But at least they’re together. “I can’t imagine being alone in this kind of situation,” she said. “[Leaving], it’s not something I would even consider.” Others have been separated, though not by choice. Gisborne’s wife, Daniela Luo, and her daughter, 9-year-old Dominica, were visiting Luo’s family in Wuhan when the quarantine took effect. Gisborne had not come on the trip. As permanent residents of Canada, Luo and her daughter have nearly all the rights of Canadian citizens; however, Canada only allows permanent residents


Afghanistan claims the Islamic State was ‘obliterated.’ But fighters who got away could stage a resurgence.

persevering despite territorial and leadership losses, thanks in part to a sophisticated recruitment system and the use of extreme violence to control civilian populations. “They have not been eliminated,” said Ahmad Ali Hazrat, the head of Nangahar’s provincial council, who cited intelligence reporting that hundreds of Islamic State fighters previously based in Nangahar villages moved into urban areas during the military fight. “They have suffered defeats. Now we wait and see.” Originally rising from the chaos of Syria’s civil war, the Islamic State expanded its reach into Iraq in 2014, declaring a caliphate roughly the size of Britain stretching across the two countries. It would take four years for U.S.-backed ground forces in Syria and Iraq to slowly claw that territory back. In Afghanistan, the group’s branch carried out some of the war’s most brutal attacks targeting civilians, killing more than 1,200 between 2016 and 2018, according to analysis of U.N. reports. But under increased military pressure, over the past year, the number of civilians killed and injured in Islamic State attacks decreased by nearly half in the first nine months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. Between military operations on Afghanistan’s eastern edge and raids in Kabul, Afghan and U.S. forces swept up hundreds of fighters. “The key there is making sure you’re capturing who’s leaving,” the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, said in an interview in December about the next steps in the Islamic State fight. “Are you talking to them all, and who are they?” In interviews, Islamic State militants detained at an Afghan intelligence facility in Kabul detailed savvy recruitment systems that appeal to Afghans across diverse social, economic and geographical backgrounds. And on the ground in remote villages, fighters held at a Nangahar detention facility described years of relatively stable command despite an air campaign so intense some local emirs had to be replaced every three to six months. The Islamic State announced its expansion into Afghanistan in 2015, appointing Pakistani militants as the group’s local leaders and calling on fighters to join from the “Khorasan,” a historical region encompassing northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan and northern Afghanistan. Recruiters described the group’s mission as a purer form of jihad, at a time when the Taliban was struggling to justify taking steps to open up to the rest of the world and eventually enter peace talks with American officials. The


the outskirts of Jalalabad. There, he heard that his cousin was one of 10 men executed by Islamic State fighters in a now-notorious August 2015 killing. The prisoners were placed in front of a row of land mines and forced to kneel on the explosives. They were killed instantly. Graphic video of the scene was circulated on social media. “We never saw such evil,” Namas said. Nangahar was prime real estate for the extremists: large swaths of lawless territory with natural resources, all just a few hours’ drive from the capital, Kabul. But the group was operating with a relatively small fighting force — about 5,000 fighters at its height in mid-2018, according to the U.S. official. Without enough boots on the ground to protect busy supply routes that were used to ferry weapons, recruits and fighters seeking martyrdom, the Islamic State turned to intimidation to exert control. Khadi Gul, a farmer who estimates he is in his 30s, decided to flee his village in a Nangahar valley in eastern Afghanistan the day Islamic State fighters beheaded three soldiers captured at a nearby checkpoint. After decapitating the men, the extremists paraded the heads through the village on the hoods of their vehicles, calling residents to come out and look at the spectacle, Gul said. “They called to the women: ‘You can boil these heads of the infidels for food.’ After that, Daesh played football with them,” Gul said, using an alternate name for the militant group. He and his family fled days later. They returned after the Islamic State was expelled from their valley two years ago. Their belongings had been trashed and their marijuana crops burned, but they counted themselves lucky their home was still standing, not hit by an airstrike like many of their neighbors’ houses. Women are again allowed to work in the gardens, some schools have reopened, and marijuana fields grow tall and thick in patches that line the valley’s main road. Government forces maintain relative security in part of retaken Achin, but they do not enforce a ban on growing illicit drugs. But many of the fighters who fled Gul’s province are reinforcing logistical hubs and receiving recruits to the north in Konar, according to local lawmakers. “Once they get settled in Konar, no one can defeat them,” said Din Mohammad Sapai, a provincial council member. Sapai said the province is home to some of


Ireland’s left-wing nationalist Sinn Fein party surges in historic but inconclusive election

nationalist proposals — including a reunification referendum — and left-wing positions, such as higher taxation of global corporations, a boost in public spending and residential rent freezes. “Whereas the government would say the economy is doing well, a lot of people feel they haven’t achieved benefit from it,” said Irish News columnist and political commentator Deaglán de Bréadún. “Virtually everywhere you go in Dublin, for example, you will pass a location where someone is sleeping in a tent.” In the center of Dublin, voters on Sunday echoed that sentiment. Michael Doyle, 52, said he once supported Varadkar’s center-right party but voted for Sinn Fein for the first time Saturday. “Homelessness and crime are a big thing, and the two big parties are not helping with that,” he said. Kevin Burns, a 26-year-old Sinn Fein youth wing activist, said the party “spoke to the issues that are affecting everybody in this country.” “The housing crisis and the health-care crisis, these things didn’t fall from the sky,” he said. If Sinn Fein were to be included in a coalition in Dublin, it would become the first major party represented in the government of both Northern Ireland, where it is the second-largest party, and the Republic of Ireland. The rapid gains in support for Sinn Fein appeared to have caught the party itself by surprise. After weak results in local elections last year, the party fielded 42 candidates — only about half as many as Fine Gael and Fianna Fail each put forward, and probably fewer than needed to fully capitalize on Saturday’s results. The threshold to form a majority government is 80 seats. Varadkar never commanded such a majority. He was able to govern only because his center-right competitor Fianna Fail had entered into a loose deal to keep the government in power in 2016. Still, his international profile had steadily risen since he became premier in 2017 as the youngest-ever Irish leader, at 38. The trained doctor backed grass-roots campaigns that pushed through the legalization of same-sex marriage and abortions, navigated difficult Brexit negotiations with the European Union and Britain and oversaw a phase of economic recovery. In other E.U. capitals, Ireland was increasingly seen as a new liberal role model in recent years — with the gay and dual-heritage Varadkar as its poster boy. After months of falling approval, however, Saturday’s vote could spell the end of Varadkar’s ambitions. rick.noack@washpost.com


Blockbuster Mookie Betts trade could fall through over prospect’s medical review

Graterol’s health, per multiple media accounts. Boston’s front office grew concerned after reviewing Graterol’s medical files. But the Twins declined to add another player to the swap or offer other incentives, leaving the three teams — plus the Angels — deadlocked over how to proceed. “To suggest that this player is not healthy going forward, or has any form of substantive medical defect that would in any way damage his career, all of that is false,” Graterol’s agent, Scott Boras, said in a statement, via the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune. “This is a scant supposition created by medical review, by someone who has never seen him physically.” The conflict may have also affected Pederson’s arbitration case with the Dodgers. The outfielder, who finished 2019 with 36 home runs and 74 RBI, asked for $9.5 million in 2020 but was awarded $7.75 million, ESPN reported. That drew the ire of the MLB Players Association President Tony Clark, who in a statement demanded that the trades be completed “without further delay.” “The events of this last week have unfairly put several players’ lives in a state of limbo,” he said. “The unethical leaking of medical information as well as the perversion of the salary arbitration process serve as continued reminders that too often players are treated as commodities by those running the game.” The Red Sox chose to trade Betts largely over the heft of his contract. The 27-year-old is set to make $27 million. Dealing him allowed Boston to get under the $208 million luxury tax threshold. By trading Betts — and Price, who in 2019 went 7-5 in 22 starts with a 4.28 ERA — the Red Sox, just a season removed from a World Series title, firmly enter a transition period in which the team will offload more than half of its 2019 salary burden in 2023, per salary database Spotrac. Boston’s top baseball executive, Chaim Bloom, who was hired in October, has still not landed a new a manager to replace Alex Cora, who mutually parted ways with the club for his role in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. Read more: Adding Mookie Betts to the Dodgers’ lineup is almost unfair DC Defenders top Seattle Dragons as XFL relaunches in D.C. NFL player reps ‘will continue to grind’ on deliberating 17-game season and new CBA Former top Olympics doctor sues, claims he was fired for standing up for athletes


For Americans, a nightmare escaping Wuhan, then 14 days of quarantine

distances between family units, but at the same time we are not restricting people to their rooms. So it’s a delicate balance,” Walke said. Many plans are still fluid, said Christopher Braden, the CDC infectious-disease doctor who briefed reporters at Miramar. “This mission changes . . . not by the day, by the hour,” Braden said. With many employees of the U.S. Consulate in Wuhan previously evacuated, Wednesday’s travelers said they were left on their own to secure a seat on the flight, make their way through locked-down Wuhan to the airport, and find the flight in the confusion there. For Ken Burnett’s family, it was just the latest harrowing chapter in a month of worry. It started as a getaway vacation for his wife, with Burnett staying behind in San Diego to work while Yanjun Wei took 3-year-old Rowan and Mia, 1, to visit her family in Wuhan for the Lunar New Year. Burnett was supposed to join them later in Hong Kong and they would fly back together. Then the coronavirus struck, and Wuhan came to a standstill. Wei and the children were trapped in a relative’s apartment with her Chinese parents for a month. As their supplies dwindled, Wei’s mother would venture out every few days to try to find food, including fresh vegetables. “As a father it’s just the worst feeling you can imagine,” Burnett said. “The thing you want most in the world is to say, ‘It’s going to be okay; I’m coming over to get you guys.’ And instead I’m stuck here, helpless.” The U.S. government originally promised Wei and the children seats on a chartered plane that was supposed to leave Saturday, but that flight was canceled at the last moment. To make Wednesday’s flight, Wei had to find her way through multiple checkpoints and police roadblocks. Burnett said his wife later told him that she reached a breaking point on the plane and sought help from other passengers and medical staff. Leonhard and another American took an eerie four-hour drive from Songzi City to Wuhan airport to get out. For hours they were the only car on the freeway, she said, with trucks taking supplies to the idled city. She was in China on a Fulbright grant during a sabbatical from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. She was told to be at the airport by 6 p.m. Tuesday for a


Passengers quarantined on cruise ship are desperate to escape coronavirus that infected 64 fellow travelers

the number of sick steadily ticked up to 64 Friday, fears mounted among passengers that the quarantine could potentially expose them to the virus rather than protect them from it. Japanese officials are investigating how the disease spread on the ship. Late Friday a Japanese official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to be named, told reporters, “As of now, we haven’t seen information that the virus is transmitted by air or . . . by the ventilation system.” The State Department official said that Japanese officials and cruise employees are doing their best to keep passengers safe and that “medical consensus and protocols state that the safest and most reliable way to prevent further spread of viral infections on cruise ships is for passengers to shelter in place.” The outbreak on the ship is believed to have begun when an infected passenger carried the virus onto the ship, later disembarking in Hong Kong. Alan Steele, 58, is among the dozens of people aboard the cruise liner who have since learned they have the virus. Steele and his wife, Wendy, married last month and were celebrating their honeymoon with a cruise vacation that has turned into a nightmare. “I have been infected and am being transferred to hospital,” Alan Steele said via Facebook Messenger on Friday. “Must say I am not showing any symptoms at the moment.” Wendy, a nurse, is to celebrate her 52nd birthday Tuesday, and her husband was to start a new job Monday. The couple was reluctant to be separated but only Alan tested positive for the virus and disembarked for treatment. “It was a hard first night without Alan,” Wendy said the next morning. But she added that the pair are in constant communication and that “Japanese doctors are excellent and he is in safe hands.” All who tested positive have been or will be taken to local hospitals for treatment. Of the most recent 44 found to have the virus, 21 are in their 70s and six are in their 80s, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported, citing the Ministry of Health. Japan’s tourism industry has been badly hurt by the epidemic, and fears are mounting that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics could be disrupted. Aside from the 61 cases on the cruise ship, 25 people have tested positive for the virus in Japan. A second ship, the World


Coronavirus came from bats or possibly pangolins amid ‘acceleration’ of new zoonotic infections

occurred somewhere else, as some early cases occurred in people with no known link to it. The disease detectives need to nail down the host species because there could be a population of animals capable of sparking new outbreaks, said Melissa Nolan, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina. “If we don’t know what the intermediate host is and it’s clearly capable of transmitting this infection, then we ultimately can’t stop the spread of this virus,” she said. The World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency because of the outbreak, which has sickened almost 40,000 people, killing more than 800, mostly in China. The virus appears to be sufficiently contagious to become a global pandemic if not contained. It remains unclear whether the virus can be transmitted by infected people before they show symptoms. In recent days scientists have wrestled with the sticky question of what to call the new coronavirus. Right now it is officially “2019-nCoV,” which is inelegant at best and does little to describe the virus or the resulting disease in humans. One possibility is that the virus will be given a name that is a variant of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), a virus that killed 774 people in 37 countries before it was contained. The two coronaviruses are very similar genetically, and both are found in bats. “They likely had a common ancestor in the bat population,” said Stanley Perlman, a virologist at the University of Iowa who is part of the Coronavirus Study Group, a subset of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses. “It’s like a cousin,” he said. “They probably started from a common ancestor some years ago in bats, and they mutated and evolved, and that’s what you have now.” He said the committee favors including SARS in the name of the new virus. “It’s close to SARS. But it’s not SARS. You could say a SARS-like virus, slash Wuhan, slash 2019,” he said. “From a taxonomic point of view, it’s so related to the previous virus, it needs to be included in its name.” After the emergence of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in Saudi Arabia in 2012, the WHO in 2015 asked national authorities, scientists and the news media to not name a virus after people, a geographic location, a cultural group or even a species of animal, because that can stigmatize communities or


Coronavirus updates: Hong Kong reports first coronavirus fatality as new cases spread across Southeast Asia

that the French Embassy and consulates in China will remain open and provide essential services to those who stay. However, the ministry suggested that nonessential trips to China should be canceled and that visits to Hunan, Henan, Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces are not recommended without important justification. The ministry formally discouraged travel to Hubei, the province at the center of the coronovirus outbreak. By: Adam Taylor 2:15 PM: What does it mean to be cured of the coronavirus? WASHINGTON — Along with rising figures for those infected with and those who have died of the novel coronavirus, there’s a third category in question: How many have been cured? To answer that requires answering another question: What does it mean to be cured? There are two kinds of “cured” in this context, said Bruce Ribner, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine. There’s being “clinically cured,” he said, when someone starts feeling better and stops showing symptoms like fever and coughing. Then there’s being “pathogen cured,” when doctors determine that the virus is indeed no longer in the body and therefore the patient can’t transmit the disease. The former is clear to a patient. The latter, “we don’t yet have a good handle on what it takes,” said Ribner. Scientists are busy trying to find out as much as they can about the coronavirus, including how long the transmission period lasts. As part of that process, they’ll also learn more about how to define “cured” in both senses. “It’s an area of active investigation,” said Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health in Massachusetts. There still remains no antiviral available to treat the novel coronavirus. But Ellerin said that, as with the influenza, “most patients are cured of this on their own” just by their immune system fighting back against the invading virus. For others, especially older people and those with pre-existing illness, the novel coronavirus infection can be far more severe and deadly. On Tuesday, a hospital in Everett, Wash., discharged the first diagnosed coronavirus patient in the United States. The 35-year-old Washington state man, however, will continue to recover at his Snohomish County home and remain in isolation and monitored by medical officials. Lauren Sauer, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at John Hopkins University, said that people with the virus should expect long hospital stays. “We don’t have a definition of what cured


and closed up 1.3 percent after the People’s Bank of China injected liquidity to support the market for the second day in a row. China-exposed companies whose stocks took a beating last week saw their shares rise in premarket trading, with Apple’s shares up 1.8 percent, and air carriers Delta Air Lines and American Airlines up 1 and 1.25 percent, respectively. Investor optimism was reflected in oil futures, which turned positive after sinking beneath $50 a barrel Monday, a one-year low. The coronavirus has all but halted travel in China, the world’s leading oil consumer, and prompted air carriers and tourism companies to announce widespread cancellations. Gold, a safe haven for investors in turbulent times, was down 0.6 percent in early trading. Read more here. By: Taylor Telford 9:40 AM: Cambodian leader pledges to visit Wuhan himself HONG KONG — Cambodian leader Hun Sen has not only refused to evacuate his citizens from Wuhan but has also pledged to visit the virus-stricken city himself if Chinese officials allow it. The 67-year-old is Asia’s longest-ruling leader and, with China’s backing, has undermined democracy and cemented one-party rule in his country. “Why would Hun Sen not dare to go to Wuhan to visit Cambodian students,” he said at a summit in Seoul, referring to himself in the third person. He has declined to impose travel restrictions on visitors and flights from mainland China, saying it would “destroy ties with China.” Hun Sen’s stance has left Phon Malis, a 20-year-old pharmacy student at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, feeling scared and isolated. One of about two dozen Cambodian students in Wuhan, she arrived in August, hopeful that the opportunity would chart a new future for her once she returned home. Instead, a nightmarish situation began for her and other Cambodians when the city was locked down, leaving them with scarcely any food and confined to a tiny dormitory. It especially hurt, she said, to see friends from Thailand and Myanmar leave on chartered planes aided by their governments. “When I heard our prime minister say such things, I feel so small and insignificant, like we don’t have any value,” Malis said. “I just want to reunite with my family and go home.” Read more here By: Shibani Mahtani 9:10 AM: Chinese media shares doctored thermal imaging video linking virus to flatulence WASHINGTON — The Global Times, a tabloid newspaper


to and from the Chinese mainland since the severity of the outbreak became clear. In addition, many countries, from the United States and Australia to Italy and Singapore, have banned entry to noncitizens coming from or through China — forcing some Chinese carriers to rethink their routes. More than 25,000 flights to, from or within China will be canceled this week, OAG Aviation Worldwide said, according to Reuters. But Chinese authorities, wary of the economic impact of the outbreak, are urging Air China, China Southern and China Eastern to maintain their routes. “The Civil Aviation Administration requires domestic airlines to maintain certain international flight services to meet the demand of cross-country transport amid the coronavirus outbreak,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday. By: Anna Fifield 6:06 AM: Half of the coronavirus infected may not realize it, says Japanese expert TOKYO — Half of the people with coronavirus might not even realize they have been infected because their symptoms are so mild, a leading Japanese expert said Tuesday. Furthermore, another sizable proportion — taking the total number of unreported cases as high as 90 percent — might not bother to report their symptoms because they are only mildly affected, said Hiroshi Nishiura, a specialist in emerging viral infectious diseases at Hokkaido University. As Chinese health authorities try to contain the new coronavirus, Nishiura and his colleagues have been studying it. “Through a series of studies, we have found that the novel coronavirus has a substantial pandemic potential,” he told reporters Tuesday in Tokyo. But, he added, the disease is generally mild, and the vast majority of people will be either asymptomatic or only mildly affected. This suggests that the virus is much more contagious than currently believed, he said. On a positive note, however, Nishiura said the virus is much less deadly than many fear. “The risk of death of all infected individuals may be 10 times smaller” than the number of severe infections, he said, “and maybe 0.3 percent to 0.6 percent.” The infections are likely to be concentrated among the elderly or those with underlying health problems — a serious concern for a country with an aged society like Japan’s. Japan has already reported 20 cases of infection but has not issued an outright ban on arrivals from China, instead just restricting travelers from Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak. Other countries in the region, including South


Key evidence for coronavirus spread is flawed as public health decisions loom

are fever and cough, officials have said. The WHO declared the outbreak a global health emergency on Thursday and warned countries against imposing travel and trade restrictions on China. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated that call Tuesday, noting that 22 countries have reported such restrictions. The United States is one of them. “Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit,” he said. In countries that have imposed them, he called for them to be short, proportionate to the public health risks, and reassessed regularly. He chided “some high-income countries” with confirmed cases that are “well behind” in sharing complete data about their cases. “I don’t think it’s because they lack capacity,” he said. Without better data, it’s difficult for the WHO to assess how the outbreak is evolving or what impact it could have. Hong Kong became the second place outside mainland China to report a fatality, after China reported 425 deaths, bringing the overall toll to 427. A 39-year-old man who died had a preexisting condition and had traveled to Wuhan last month. He was hospitalized Friday. More infections were announced outside China, including six more in both Thailand and Singapore, suggesting that the virus is gaining steam internationally. In the United States, the top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overseeing the coronavirus response has cited the NEJM report about asymptomatic transmission as one of several “worrisome data points” about a serious public health situation. “We are aware of the correction to the NEJM article on asymptomatic transmission, and the fact that this patient did have mild symptoms is consistent with what we know of other cases,” CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said Tuesday. She said the “enhanced response posture” of the federal government is based on “a dramatic increase in the number of cases reported, supporting efficient person-to-person spread, the geographic expansion of the outbreak, and continued reports of severe illness including those resulting in death.” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has often been the official called on by the past six presidents to explain outbreaks to the American public, said he still believes it is possible for the virus to spread from someone who is not showing symptoms. Fauci initially said the report had served as an important confirmation of rumors and anecdotes that had been filtering


in from China, and he mentioned it at a White House briefing on Friday. “One of the problems with when the virus is transmitted in an asymptomatic way and has its implications — it puts a terrible burden on the screening process. How do you screen somebody?” Fauci said last week, when referencing the NEJM report. “You know, remember back with Ebola? Ebola doesn’t get transmitted unless you’re actively very ill, and you know that. It’s very, very clear.” Upon learning of the journal error, Fauci said he called a top public health official and scientist in Beijing who told him that the disease could spread without symptoms. “I think it’s a double-edged sword. I think it’s important to get information out quickly when you’re dealing with an emerging and evolving public health issue, but there is a danger in that, and we have just seen now a classic example of this danger,” Fauci said Tuesday. But he said his conversation made him confident that while the report was incorrect, the phenomenon it described is real. Patients often recall their symptoms differently when multiple people ask them, said Trish Perl, chief of infectious diseases and geographic medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, who has fought other respiratory virus outbreaks, including severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which also emerged in China and infected about 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 between 2002 and 2003. “Stuff you might not consider a symptom, like a little bit of a runny nose, is something people kind of ignore,” she said. The information about the German case was published Thursday as a letter in the NEJM, which — like other scientific and medical journals — has promised to make emerging scientific information available rapidly. That speed has been praised because sharing information is essential in a public health emergency, but also opens the door for more errors. Julia Morin, a spokeswoman, said that the NEJM “is looking into the matter” but that the journal has not posted a correction or update. Degen, at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, said its researchers had submitted its findings, and “it is still open when (and in which journal) this will be scientifically published.” The main author of the letter did not immediately respond to questions about the report. The report could still have value, experts said, because it shows that a person with mild symptoms can


when multiple people ask them, said Trish Perl, chief of infectious diseases and geographic medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, who has fought other respiratory virus outbreaks, including severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which also emerged in China and infected about 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 between 2002 and 2003. “Stuff you might not consider a symptom, like a little bit of a runny nose, is something people kind of ignore,” she said. The information about the German case was published Thursday as a letter in the NEJM, which — like other scientific and medical journals — has promised to make emerging scientific information available rapidly. That speed has been praised because sharing information is essential in a public health emergency, but also opens the door for more errors. Julia Morin, a spokeswoman, said that the NEJM “is looking into the matter” but that the journal has not posted a correction or update. Degen, at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, said its researchers had submitted its findings, and “it is still open when (and in which journal) this will be scientifically published.” The main author of the letter did not immediately respond to questions about the report. The report could still have value, experts said, because it shows that a person with mild symptoms can transmit the illness initially. Lipsitch added that public policy should be flexible in the face of an emerging threat, to take into account information that may change or evolve. The travel restrictions announced by the White House late last week stated that policy should be reevaluated at least every 15 days. Lauren Ancel Meyers, a mathematical epidemiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said she is gearing up to simulate scenarios in which the disease spreads in the United States to help with preparation and planning for countermeasures. But much depends on information that is still murky: how soon people can begin to spread the virus after contracting it, how readily it spreads and other factors. “There is so much uncertainty, and the information is changing every day about what is going on with the virus,” Meyers said. Lenny Bernstein contributed to this report. Read more: Early missteps and Chinese secrecy likely allowed the coronavirus to spread farther and faster First U.S. case of potentially deadly Chinese coronavirus confirmed in Washington state States scramble to carry out Trump’s coronavirus quarantine order


Rescued wolves have a safe space in the Pennsylvania woods

“Hello, Miss Sophie. You’re so beautiful,” my daughter, Sam, says to the wolfdog who was rescued from a New York City apartment. The neighbors had heard howling. In most states, it’s illegal to own a wolf or wolfdog. “Even though she’s a mix, she has a beautiful wolf howl,” says Mandy Wagner, our tour guide at the Wolf Sanctuary of PA in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Two chain-link fences (four to six feet apart) are between us and the mostly wooded wolf enclosures, which vary in size from one to three acres. Wagner, who’s volunteered for 15 years, unlocks the outer fence, closes the gate and puts her hand through the inner fence to pet Sophie, who wags her tail. Pure wolves have straighter tails that have a black spot (which marks a scent gland) on them. Sophie’s mate died, and the sanctuary has tried to find her another. Wolves generally prefer pack life, and the sanctuary aims to match personalities. To test compatibility, caretakers might give the wolves a “playdate.” The day we visited was cold and blustery — the kind wolves like. (They can be slow-moving in the heat.) Sam and her friend Mary Kate opted for the private tour to see all the packs on the 40-acre sanctuary. During our drive up, they had eagerly read the wolves’ profiles on the website. The sanctuary houses 54 wolves and wolfdogs rescued from across the country, including gray wolves and timber wolves (a subspecies of gray wolf). Most mixes are part husky, German shepherd or malamute. As we walked, Wagner discussed each animal’s history and personality. Many arrived malnourished or mistreated, and most clearly enjoyed her affectionate voice and attention. A century ago, wild gray wolves roamed the Mid-Atlantic region, but none do now. In 1995, gray wolves were successfully reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park, and packs are now in nine states. Since 1978, gray wolves have been classified as endangered in the Lower 48 states (except for Minnesota), but in 2019 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed lifting those protections. The sanctuary is next to a larger, privately owned property that includes a bed-and-breakfast in a historic building dating to 1760 when this area was known as Speedwell and included a cannonball forge. In the 1980s, owners Bill and Barbara Darlington began rescuing wolves, and the sanctuary became a nonprofit in 1993. Their packs are known as “the Speedwell


‘We’re like refugees’: Americans departing virus-hit Wuhan criticize U.S. government response

say that the pneumonia-like virus is transmitted through respiratory droplets or fecal matter. There is also concern it may live on surfaces for some time, enabling transmission through contact. The U.S government closed its consulate in Wuhan and evacuated its staff and their dependents last month, but it has been difficult for the other Americans in the city to get out. Those difficulties have been compounded, some Americans in the city say, by a feeling that their government has deserted them. “We’re like refugees here,” said one woman from New Jersey who was visiting family in Wuhan for the Lunar New Year holiday when she got trapped in the city. She spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her family members there from Chinese government retribution. “It’s been so frustrating, mainly because of the lack of information,” she said. Others at the airport, while grateful to be getting out, expressed similar sentiments. “I’ve been sitting here with people and trying to encourage them, keep everybody’s spirits as up, but it’s hard,” said John McGrory, a writer from Columbus, Ohio, who has been living in Wuhan for six years. “The other day it hit me, you know, it hit me hard. I don’t think we really understand the toll that it takes on you.” Acknowledging that the U.S. Embassy in China is under pressure, McGrory echoed concerns that the evacuation of the consulate had made it more difficult for the Americans in the city. “I was a little taken aback by that. I was like, ‘Okay, you guys leave. What about the 1,000 Americans here? Who’s looking out for our best interests?’ ” he said. Furthermore, they described scenes of chaos at the airport, with no officials there to help them and not even a sign indicating where to gather. This was in contrast to the Russian evacuation, where consular officials had set up an information desk with a Russian flag and had provided buses to bring Russian citizens through the checkpoints into the airport. Americans described hours-long delays at the checkpoints to get through Chinese security. Some had been in the airport since 4 a.m. local time on Monday, waiting for information about their flight. They were still there more than 48 hours later, and photos supplied by people at the airport showed vending machines empty except for a couple of juice boxes. Scott Walker, a spokesman for the


Coronavirus vaccine research is moving at record speed

In a suburb south of Boston, robots have already started manufacturing a potential vaccine against the fast-spreading coronavirus. Another candidate vaccine — developed when a similar virus terrified the world — sits in deep freeze in a repository in Houston, ready to be thawed and formulated into thousands of vials for further testing. Yet another is being put together at facilities in San Diego and Houston, with projections that it could be tested in people by summer. To scientists, the work to create a vaccine against the new coronavirus is advancing with a speed they could barely have imagined a decade ago. At the same time, it’s not even close to quick enough to contain the spreading infection — and in many ways, the outbreak will test the capacity of science to react in real time to a new and unknown “pathogen X” that takes the world by surprise. “Traditional vaccine development efforts have usually taken decades, not months,” said Barney Graham, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, which hopes to have a vaccine in human testing by April. “This is, first, a response to this new virus, but it’s also a drill for pathogen X … [to] press the system, to see how rapidly we can go.” When a mysterious new illness emerges and public alarm is at its peak, there’s a race to develop a way to prevent or treat the disease. But by the time a promising candidate is ready, it’s often too late to be helpful against the outbreak that triggered the rush. Public interest, funding and the urgency that drove the early vaccine development can quickly taper. “We were getting candidate vaccines, the epidemics would die down, and they’d get put back on the shelf,” said Jacqueline Shea, chief scientific officer of Inovio, a biotech company that has been developing vaccines for Zika, Ebola and Middle East respiratory syndrome. That’s what happened with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), to the dismay of Peter Jay Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Eight years ago, he and his co-director, Maria Elena Bottazzi, won federal funding to create a vaccine against SARS, a coronavirus that emerged in 2002 and infected 8,000 people and killed nearly 800. By 2016, they had manufactured enough of the potential vaccine to get through toxicology tests and human safety trials. But


people on the front lines of treating the disease or in emergency situations before they are approved for the general population, as happened with Ebola. When Ebola devastated West Africa in 2014, a vaccine was not ready. But when the virus resurfaced in 2019 in Congo, more than 200,000 people were vaccinated. If the infections have begun to subside by the time vaccines are through the first round of safety testing, getting a vaccine approved would still be useful in case the virus flares again — but showing it is safe for healthy people in the general population will take time and continued effort. In the meantime, researchers are also looking at ways of quickly repurposing existing antiviral drugs to see whether any might work against the coronavirus. Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson, said the company has donated 100 boxes of an HIV medication, Prezcobix, to clinicians in Shanghai to see whether it showed any efficacy against the illness. Purdue University researchers hope to test experimental drugs that were initially developed to fight SARS. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, researchers have been gearing up to test remdesivir, an experimental antiviral drug that has shown promise against other coronaviruses but failed against Ebola. But every step takes time. Even having the right laboratory tests, ingredients and animal models of the disease are crucial and time-consuming steps. Laboratories have been waiting for the viral genome to be synthesized by companies and are anxious to get samples of the actual virus. A decade after SARS, another coronavirus emerged that caused Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Many say the coronavirus in China is a lesson that this family of viruses will continue to cross from animals into humans and cause potential pandemics. That means scientists would like to be prepared, with vaccine platforms that can be readily adapted to new infections and antiviral drugs that work broadly for multiple diseases. “Emerging viruses, they’re a moving target. They come, and they go, and sometimes they come and they don’t go. But it’s impossible to predict the trajectory of an emerging virus,” said Timothy Sheahan, assistant professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina. “So one way we’re trying to maximize the utility of a given antiviral drug is to develop broad-spectrum antivirals. Rather than have one drug for one bug,


virus resurfaced in 2019 in Congo, more than 200,000 people were vaccinated. If the infections have begun to subside by the time vaccines are through the first round of safety testing, getting a vaccine approved would still be useful in case the virus flares again — but showing it is safe for healthy people in the general population will take time and continued effort. In the meantime, researchers are also looking at ways of quickly repurposing existing antiviral drugs to see whether any might work against the coronavirus. Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson, said the company has donated 100 boxes of an HIV medication, Prezcobix, to clinicians in Shanghai to see whether it showed any efficacy against the illness. Purdue University researchers hope to test experimental drugs that were initially developed to fight SARS. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, researchers have been gearing up to test remdesivir, an experimental antiviral drug that has shown promise against other coronaviruses but failed against Ebola. But every step takes time. Even having the right laboratory tests, ingredients and animal models of the disease are crucial and time-consuming steps. Laboratories have been waiting for the viral genome to be synthesized by companies and are anxious to get samples of the actual virus. A decade after SARS, another coronavirus emerged that caused Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Many say the coronavirus in China is a lesson that this family of viruses will continue to cross from animals into humans and cause potential pandemics. That means scientists would like to be prepared, with vaccine platforms that can be readily adapted to new infections and antiviral drugs that work broadly for multiple diseases. “Emerging viruses, they’re a moving target. They come, and they go, and sometimes they come and they don’t go. But it’s impossible to predict the trajectory of an emerging virus,” said Timothy Sheahan, assistant professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina. “So one way we’re trying to maximize the utility of a given antiviral drug is to develop broad-spectrum antivirals. Rather than have one drug for one bug, we want one drug for many bugs.” Read More: Global companies scramble to respond to coronavirus in China A prototype of how to fight the next pandemic: A vaccine without the shot Russian trolls and Twitter bots exploit vaccine controversy


What we know about the mysterious, pneumonia-like coronavirus spreading in China and elsewhere

The World Health Organization (WHO) held an emergency meeting in Geneva on Wednesday on whether to designate the outbreak of a mysterious, pneumonia-like virus that originated in China as a global health emergency. By Thursday, the WHO announced that it would hold off, saying that it’s too early to make such a decision. The WHO designating the outbreak a global health emergency would help countries coordinate their responses. In the meantime, it remains a scary time for people in China and beyond as the virus and fears of contamination spread. On Tuesday, the United States confirmed its first case: A man who flew from China to Washington state is in stable condition. On Friday, U.S. authorities reported a second case of an infected woman, a Chicago resident, and France confirmed its first three patients as well. Travel bans in central China have left tens of millions of Chinese people effectively on lock down. As the news continues to develop, keep calm and catch up on what is known so far. According to the WHO, coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that range from the common cold to much more serious diseases. These diseases can infect both humans and animals. The strain spreading in China is related to two other coronaviruses that have caused major outbreaks in recent years: Middle East respiratory syndrome, also known as MERS, and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Symptoms of a coronavirus infection range from respiratory problems, difficulties breathing, fever and cough, to the much more severe cases of pneumonia, kidney failure, acute respiratory syndrome (when fluid builds up in the lungs) and death. The elderly, young and those with an already weakened immune system are at a higher risk of developing severe lower-respiratory tract diseases, such as bronchitis and pneumonia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials haven’t identified this latest strain in humans before. That’s why, for now, it has the generic name of “a novel coronavirus” while they investigate. As it’s a virus, antibiotics won’t work in treating it. In rare cases, coronaviruses can spread from animals, such as camels and bats, to humans. (Household pets are not a threat.) Health officials report that’s what they believe has happened here. In even rarer cases, that same virus can then start to spread from human to human. That’s what happened with MERS and SARS. WHO officials are investigating


of illness and the extent of human-to-human spread. “The fact that I’m not declaring a [public health emergency] today should not be taken as a sign that WHO does not think the outbreak is serious or that we’re not taking it seriously,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday. “Nothing could be further from the truth. WHO is following this outbreak every minute of every day at country, regional and global levels. We’re working to prevent human-to-human transmission.” Tedros reported that one-fourth of the infected went on to develop severe symptoms, while the majority of those who died had underlying health problems, such as hypertension or diabetes, which can weaken immune systems. WHO officials said they could reconvene to make a decision based on additional information. Chinese authorities are screening people at airports for coronavirus symptoms. Other airports in Asia are doing the same. North Korea has entirely banned foreign tourists, the majority of whom are Chinese nationals and travel via China, as a precaution. Federal health authorities in the United States announced Friday that they would immediately begin screening passengers for the virus who are flying into three international airports popular with Chinese travelers — Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York’s John F. Kennedy. On Tuesday, they added international airports in Chicago and Atlanta to the list. The screening includes taking temperatures; those with high temperatures could be singled out for additional tests. While screening for a common virus usually takes just hours, health authorities told The Post’s Lena H. Sun that people with suspected cases could miss their connecting flights as the testing could take up to a day. Masks intended to filter out airborne particles, like surgical masks, are useful but have a limited effect, according to public health officials. In the United States, where the threat of contracting the virus is low, they are not needed; but in China, health officials are recommending people wear them. “Wearing a mask walking around isn’t going to do any good, but if you’re in a situation where you’re highly exposed, a mask is helpful,” said Colleen Kraft, associate chief medical officer for Emory University Hospital. “You may wear a mask when someone is going to cough directly on you or [in] a place with a lot of ill people. In a hospital, we wear a mask with patients who have influenza.” Infectious disease experts stressed that masks


Michael Phelps says Olympians face greater mental health risks. Does the USOPC care?

You would like to believe athletes who wear USA on their chests are better cared for these days, after all the ghastly problems. The trouble is, you can’t. Not after you read William Moreau’s lawsuit accusing U.S. Olympic Committee officials of mishandling mental health issues. And especially not after you call up Michael Phelps and ask him what the leadership’s response was to his revelation that he suffered from depression while he was winning gold medals. The phone line practically burns up with Phelps’s answer. At first, after you pose the question, there is dead quiet from Phelps. It stretches on and on until the silence becomes the point. You realize that contained in it is an angry tension, like a buzz on the line. Finally, Phelps speaks. “That’s what I got from them,” he says. Nothing. “How long should I stay silent?” he asks. “I can sit here and be silent for as long as you want, because that’s what I got.” Ask former skeleton World Cup champion Katie Uhlaender how the bureaucracy treated her when she suffered from repeated panic attacks in 2018, after finding the body of her close friend Steven Holcomb, the gold medalist bobsledder, dead of an overdose in his room at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center. “I felt like a leper,” she says. “I know [U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee officials] aren’t evil,” she adds. “I just think they are engulfed in a system that has existed in a certain way for a very long time.” Even now, years after the Larry Nassar disaster, that system still causes athletes to fear career repercussions if they complain or show too many signs of mental distress. It’s a system that for so long was trained on the commodification of young bodies that it became insensible to their inner pain. It’s a system that has had trouble repurposing and still produces more propaganda than reform, still overpays all the wrong people at the expense of those who work hardest. It’s a system that remains a top-down operation, with athletes at the bottom, fearful of speaking up. “We have no rights,” Uhlaender says. “To be clear, the only right we have is the right to compete.” It’s a system that continues to be profoundly distrusted by the very champions it is supposed to serve. Last week, Moreau, longtime vice president of sports medicine for the USOC, filed


The Technology 202: 2020 Democrats get personal in Facebook ads ahead of New Hampshire primary

Mark T. Esper for its high-stakes protest of the Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud computing contract award to Microsoft, “The preservation of public confidence in the nation’s procurement process requires discovery and supplementation of the administrative record, particularly in light of President Trump’s order to ‘screw Amazon,’ ” Amazon Web Services spokesman Drew Herdener said in a statement Monday. “The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of the [Department of Defense] to pursue his own personal and political ends.” (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post). Amazon said in a federal court claim it wants to question Trump on any communications he’s had with Microsoft and Oracle, which fought the Pentagon and Amazon in court for allegedly tainting the contract in Amazon’s favor. Trump requested Esper review the award process in the summer, citing complaints from Amazon’s competitors. Esper recused himself just three days before the contract was awarded. Microsoft declined to comment on Amazon’s motion and referred to a previous statement spokeswoman Janelle Poole issued on the JEDI contract. “ We have confidence in the qualified staff at the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft,” Poole’s statement said. BYTES: The White House wants a big increase in artificial intelligence research, according to a 2021 “It’s imperative that the U.S. continues to lead in technologies like AI,” U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios told reporters. “We see others using artificial intelligence to track their people, to imprison ethnic minorities — this is something that does not align with American values.” Yet the budget, which Congress is unlikely to adopt, still trails behind spending by China on AI. The budget also calls to increase investment in military artificial intelligence research by more than $100 million, including increased investments in the controversial Pentagon initiative Project Maven as it expands to other intelligence-based projects for military use. The proposed budget would also double investments across key agencies into quantum computing, a key area of competition between the United States and China. Some of that would go toward developing the a new “quantum Internet.” — News from the public sector: — News from the private sector: — Tech news generating buzz around the Web: — Today: — Coming up:


Europe’s center isn’t holding

stronger, stronger than today.” To some commentators, the developments are a worrying sign of the new political head winds. “Germany in 2020 is not Germany in 1933. But German politics have shifted in recent years in a disturbing way,” journalist Lukas Hermsmeier wrote in the New York Times. “Centrists and the far right share talking points on immigration. They share what they perceive as a common enemy in the left. And now, for the first time in decades, they even share a governor.” In Ireland, the picture is similar in one key way: In an interview with the Financial Times, Gerard Howlin, once an adviser to former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern, said that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail’s refusals to enter talks with Sinn Fein wouldn’t last. “At the end of the day there will be only two choices. One is to bring Sinn Fein into government or else for Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to form some arrangement again, but that will have the inevitable result of diminishing them further,” he said. “In a 100-year trajectory since the foundation of the state, this is the final end of a political system and architecture that was intact since the late 1920s.” It’s a stunning development — and startling for onlookers abroad. Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of the center-right Fine Gael had become something of a liberal poster child, given his gay identity and mixed-race heritage (his father was born in India). “The trained doctor backed grass-roots campaigns that pushed through the legalization of same-sex marriage and abortions, navigated difficult Brexit negotiations with the European Union and Britain and oversaw a phase of economic recovery,” my colleagues explained. Now, Varadkar could be a political lame duck “We have a cohort of younger voters who vote on issues rather than parties … They have obviously identified Sinn Fein’s message on that issue as something to rally behind,” Jonathan Evershed, a researcher at University College Cork and Queen’s University Belfast, told Politico. Similar concerns have influenced the German political scene, as well, with widening inequity fueling populist discontent. “Deregulation and neoliberal policies have done as much damage to people’s sense of shared responsibility as to their sense of economic security,” Peter Kuras wrote in Foreign Affairs last December. “The ‘new center’ is too thin to bind an increasingly diverse German society, and, as a result, political consensus around centrist policies is crumbling.”


Instead of releasing this greenhouse gas, beer brewers are selling it to pot growers

big number,” she said. “We could get there pretty quickly, and hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide could be saved.” In Colorado, the Denver Beer Co. and the Clinic are focused on ensuring that the pilot project is efficient and economical. And that it makes tasty beer and cannabis. The brewery’s co-founder, Charlie Berger, said his business spent about a year testing Earthly’s CiCi, as its carbon capture technology is known. Those tests made it clear that the machine — emblazoned with a charcoal-colored sign declaring, “This box can capture more CO2 than 1500 trees a year” — is a “game changer.” Gesturing toward rows of two-story-tall, 120-barrel stainless steel fermentation tanks in a cavernous warehouse in northwest Denver, Berger said the $100,000 CiCi is poised to turn a CO2 waste stream into a commodity that craft brewers can sell to cannabis firms, restaurants and tap rooms. Cleaner than gas purchased from industrial sources, which contains volatile organic compounds, the CO2 from the CiCi made a perceptible difference in taste, he said. It is also affordable for smaller brewers — their larger peers recover carbon with technology that costs millions of dollars. “Economically it makes sense,” Berger said. “We saw almost 40 percent growth in 2019, and now we’re trying to do right by our community and the environment.” Berger lifted an industrial plastic tube that carries CO2 from fermentation tanks into a dryer, where water separates from the gas. Next, the gas flowed into the CiCi, through a carbon filter and was chilled to liquid stored in a tank bound for the Clinic. In a low-slung warehouse near the South Platte River behind an unmarked evergreen door crowned with a shredded off-white awning, managers at the Clinic recently hooked tanks up to a vaporizer to turn the carbon liquid back to a gas. The CO2 gas traveled up a small white tube and through a bank of controls that determine how much is pumped into rooms where marijuana plants are at different stages of growth. Carbon dioxide from the brewery will be used in one vegetation room, home to about 1,200 plants, and another room whereas many as 1,300 plants are in the flowering stage. Growers, who triple the amount of CO2 typically found in ambient air to speed the growing process, will test the plants over their 16-week cycle to see how they respond. Labs will


Sudan official signals alleged war criminals will be referred to International Criminal Court

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A high-ranking Sudanese government official signaled on Tuesday that the country would refer citizens who are accused of war crimes to the International Criminal Court — a group that would include Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a former leader of the country. Bashir, who is accused of crimes against humanity in Sudan’s Darfur region, was deposed by the military in April after 30 years in power. But the official, Mohammed Hassan al-Taishi, did not mention Bashir by name in his statement, which came during peace talks with rebel groups that Bashir once fought against in a prolonged and bloody war. Sudan’s information minister echoed Taishi’s statement that the government would allow numerous Bashir-era officials wanted by the ICC to be prosecuted by the court, according to Reuters. Fadi El Abdallah, a spokesman for the ICC, said the court could not confirm Sudan’s announcement. Sudan is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. Bashir spent years flouting an arrest warrant from the ICC and is jailed in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. Until now, leaders of Sudan’s transitional government had said Bashir would not be referred to the ICC. Sudan’s top military and civilian leaders had not yet released public statements confirming the announcement from the peace talks, which were taking place in Juba, the South Sudanese capital. The ICC is based in The Hague, in the Netherlands. It issued its first arrest warrant for Bashir in 2009 — its first for a sitting head of state. Bashir was charged with crimes against humanity for murder, forcible transfer, extermination, torture and rape; two separate counts of war crimes for attacks against civilians; and another three of genocide. “This decision represents a total about-face for Sudan and is a measure of how far Sudan has come in such a short time. Sudan has gone from leading the international coalition against the ICC to delivering it the most important case it has ever had,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who focuses on Sudan. “The decision also demonstrates the fundamental shifts occurring within the country.” Bashir’s alleged crimes took place in Sudan’s Darfur region after rebel groups there mounted an insurrection, sparking years of crackdowns in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were massacred and millions more displaced. “The fledgling post-Bashir Sudan government is demonstrating a serious commitment to human rights principles in


Does my travel insurance cover coronavirus? Read the fine print.

foreseeable events and epidemics. “What people want to do is look at the details of the policy they are considering,” Josowitz said in an interview. Allianz Travel recently issued an alert about the virus, asserting the exact date the public was alerted to the dangers of this health crisis. “For customers booking trips to China and other impacted areas, the coronavirus became a known event on January 22, 2020,” the company said. “Travel protection plans generally exclude losses caused by events that were known or foreseeable at the time the plan is purchased.” So, if you purchased a standard travel insurance policy before Jan. 22, you might still have coverage for the loss of a trip booked to China or other impacted areas, Allianz said. Allianz has received about 200 calls and 1,000 claims related to the coronavirus. Most of the claims are for trip cancellations, said Daniel Durazo, director of marketing and communications for Allianz. Here’s something I didn’t know: “Many travel insurance plans exclude coverage for losses caused directly or indirectly by epidemics,” Durazo said. The company pointed out that, as of Feb. 3, both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognized the coronavirus as an epidemic. “There are policies that limit themselves to covering health conditions that were not known, not preexisting, at the time the travel was booked,” Josowitz said. That’s the thing with travel insurance. You’ve got to pay attention to policy exceptions, even for “cancel anytime” insurance. When it comes to medical expenses, check whether your policy’s health coverage is primary or secondary. A primary policy is designed to be the first payer for any incurred medical costs. A policy that is secondary would pick up costs not covered by a traveler’s personal health insurance company. “This may mean the traveler has to pay deductibles and co-pays out of their own pocket,” Josowitz said. Also, be aware that policies will have limits — a maximum the company will pay — and many will have deductibles or other restrictions. Whether you’re worried about the coronavirus or a weather disaster, be sure to double-check the exclusions and limits of a policy prior to purchasing. Where I would have simply dismissed travel insurance with no thought at all in the past, I’m giving it more consideration with each trip, as should you. Your dream destination may too easily become a nightmare.


The Health 202: 2020 Democrats are schooling Bernie Sanders on his Medicare-for-all math before today’s New Hampshire primary

and CEO of Mental Health America, an advocacy organization, told our colleagues. “First of all, it’s too little. Second, if you look at the other policy changes they’re making, they’re actually pulling more money out of the mental health system than they are putting in.” OOF: More than 1,000 people have now died of — Researchers are rushing to find a vaccine, but they might not be quick enough, our colleague Carolyn Y. Johnson “To scientists, the work to create a vaccine against the new coronavirus is advancing with a speed they could barely have imagined a decade ago,” Carolyn writes. “At the same time, it’s not even close to quick enough to contain the spreading infection — and in many ways, the outbreak will test the capacity of science to react in real time to a new and unknown ‘pathogen X’ that takes the world by surprise.” The last push for a vaccine, when severe acute respiratory syndrome emerged in 2002, was close to reaching human trials but didn’t. When one of the researchers who had worked on that vaccine, Peter Jay Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, saw the coronavirus was similar to SARS, he thought it might have prevented the new virus. Instead, it exemplified wider concerns. “This is the problem with the whole vaccine infrastructure — it’s reactive, not anticipatory enough,” he told Carolyn. — One British man has been dubbed a “super spreader." He may have unwittingly passed on the coronavirus to at least 11 people while traveling between Singapore, France, Switzerland and England, our colleague Karla Adam “On Tuesday, the businessman was identified as Steve Walsh, a project management lead for Servomex, a gas analytics company,” Karla writes. “He attended a sales conference from Jan. 18 to 22 at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Singapore, which is where he is thought to have contracted the virus.” With the incubation period for the virus lasting anywhere from about 3 to 24 days, super spreaders can pass on the virus to several people within days. OUCH: Researchers project that by 2030, nearly half of adults in the United States will be obese and a quarter will be severely obese, But little is being done to scale back the trend, the Times reports, attributing the slowdown to industry efforts. “With rare exceptions, the sugar and beverage industries have blocked nearly every attempt


Community deaths

Center in Greenbelt, Md., from 1959 to 2005, died Nov. 20 at a hospital in Arlington, Va. The cause was sepsis, said a niece, Joanna Miller. Mr. Wade, an Arlington resident, was born in Clearwater, Fla., and grew up in the Washington area. His work at Goddard included a determination of the orbital characteristics of the Russian Sputnik satellite and work on data archives for the International Ultraviolet Explorer. Millard “Mickey” Boteler, 86, a Supreme Court Police officer for 31 years who also was a tennis teacher and a roller skating champion in his youth, died Dec. 11 at a hospital in Fairfax County, Va. The cause was renal failure, said a brother, Richard Boteler. Mr. Boteler, a resident of Centreville, Va., was born in Washington. He retired from the Supreme Court Police in 1988. Among his tennis partners was Justice John Paul Stevens. For 40 years, Mr. Boteler taught professional individual and group tennis lessons. Jane Haslem, 85, the owner and proprietor of Washington’s Jane Haslem Gallery for 55 years, specializing in American artists of the last half of the 20th century, died Jan. 13 at a hospital in Rockville, Md. The cause was respiratory disease, said a son, John Haslem. Mrs. Halsem, a D.C. resident, was born Jane Nehf in Knoxville, Tenn. She owned galleries in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Madison, Wis., before opening the gallery in Washington in 1969. Her shows ranged from an exhibition of Garry Trudeau’s original drawings for the “Doonesbury” cartoons to works by Leonard Baskin, Gabor Peterdi and Mauricio Lasansky. In 2015, Mrs. Haslem closed her gallery but continued to operate an online art business. Laurin Knutson, 98, who retired in 1986 as director of program control and administration in the office of the secretary of defense for research and engineering, died Nov. 30 at his home in Bethesda, Md. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a grandson, Brian Knutson. Mr. Knutson was born in Parshall, N.D., and began his Pentagon career in 1951. In 1981, he received a Civilian Service Medal. He was a former commodore of the Chesapeake Yacht Club. Leroy Clark, 85, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund during the 1960s who then served on the faculty of Catholic University’s law school from 1981 to 2006, died Nov. 24 at a retirement center in Washington. The cause was dementia, said his wife, Jeanette Clark. Mr.