Five myths about space

to describe these gravity wells as if they were oversize cosmic vacuums. “Black Hole Sucks Down Star Stuff at 30 Percent Speed of Light,” proclaimed a recent Discover magazine headline. The website Futurism offered a survival guide for those who somehow “get sucked into a black hole.” And then there’s Beavis and Butthead, who warned us that a black hole “sucks up the whole universe, and then it’s like, it grinds it up and sends it all to hell or something.” In truth, black holes are a bunch of mass crunched together into a tiny volume, creating a huge gravitational field. Where their gravitational field is strongest, not even light, the fastest thing in the universe, can escape. As a result, black holes have long been hard for astronomers to study, since most of our understanding of the universe relies on measuring light. What we do know is that the huge masses of black holes (anywhere from tens to millions of times the mass of our sun) bend space-time in extreme ways, which is why illustrations often make them look like deep cosmic funnels. If you get close enough to one, you will certainly experience its powerful gravitational force, which is why astronomers see stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. But the gravitational tug is just like that of any other object — dependent on mass, and distance — and it’s not special just because it’s caused by a black hole. If I could magically replace our sun with a black hole that had exactly the same mass as our sun, our Earth would keep orbiting exactly where it is now, and similarly, those stars at the center of our galaxy will spend their entire lifetimes happily orbiting, with no danger of getting sucked in. In that sense, black holes are more like sinkholes than vacuums: One sinkhole in Florida isn’t going to destroy the whole Earth, but best not to get too close. Myth No. 3 The sun is yellow. Every child has reached for the yellow crayon or marker when it’s time to draw the sun. This common perception leads to articles like one in Sciworthy that begins, “The yellow sun in our sky provides the light and energy needed to sustain our planet.” Pretty forgivable, given that even astronomers refer to the sun as a “yellow dwarf.” And Superman


التحقيقات السعودية في جريمة قتل جمال خاشقجي مهزلة تامة

الانتهاء منه.” حسنًا. أنا أكاديمي سعودي تخرج من جامعة سعودية ودرس القانون السعودي لفترة طويلة وكان يراقب حيثيات قضية خاشقجي وكذلك دور النائب العام الحالي. يتبين لحد الآن أنّ التحقيق السعودي في مقتل خاشقجي هو تحقيق زائف تماماً في شهر فبراير/شباط الماضي، كتبتُ عن المدعي العام السعودي وأشرتُ إلى المرسوم الملكي] الصادر يوم 17 يوليو/تموز 2017 الذي حوّل منصب هيئة التحقيق والادعاء إلى منصب النائب العام وأشار إلى وعد لم يتحقق أبدًا بـ”الاستقلالية التامة“. منذ البداية، وعلى الرغم من افتقاره إلى أي خبرة [aawsat.com] في التحقيق الجنائي في القضايا الجنائية، فقد عُيِّنَ سعود المعجب كمدعٍ عام بعد أن أصبح محمد بن سلمان وليًّا للعهد ببضعة أيام فقط. اختِيرَ المعجب على الأرجح لأنه أثبت أنّه رجل مطيع خلال فترة عمله كعضو في مجلس القضاء الأعلى، وهو أعلى هيئة قضائية تتحكم في الشؤون الإدارية للقضاة. بلغت ذروة انتهاك ولي العهد لاستقلالية الادعاء العام في نوفمبر/تشرين الثاني 2017 عندما ترأس ولي العهد شخصيًا لجنة كان ينبغي أن تكون من اختصاص المدعي العام في التحقيق في قضايا الفساد، وبدلًا من ذلك، كان المدعي العام مجرد عضو في اللجنة التي تقدم التقارير لرئيسه محمد بن سلمان. المدعي العام الذي يحقق في وفاة خاشقجي، الصحافي الذي كان من المحتمل أن يكون قد قُتِلَ بسبب نشاطه السلمي، هو نفسه الذي يسعى إلى فرض عقوبة الإعدام على والدي، رجل الدين السعودي البارز سلمان العودة، وغيره بسبب أنشطة مماثلة. ووفقًا لما قاله الرئيس ترامب] “يقول ممثلون عن الحكومة السعودية إنّ جمال خاشقجي كان عدوًّا للدولة وعضوًا في جماعة الإخوان المسلمين.” بالتالي،لو كان قد اختُطِفَ خاشقجي حيًا وحُوكِمَ في المحاكم السعودية، لكان على الأرجح سيواجه عقوبة الإعدام بسبب مدعٍ عام مُسَيطَر عليه بشكل كامل وقضاةٍ يتعرضون للتخويف والتهديد. إنّ القضاة الذين من المفترض أن يشرفوا على قضية خاشقجي يتعرضون لضغوط هائلة من ولي العهد. خلال هذا الأسبوع فقط، أُطلِقَ سراح قاضيَيْن بعد بضع أشهر من احتجازهما خارج نطاق القضاء بسبب رفضهما الوقوف أثناء النشيد الملكي، وفقًا لقاضٍ آخر تحدثتُ معه. ستة قضاة آخرين من نفس المحكمة التي من المفترض أن تكون مسؤولة عن محاكمة قضية خاشقجي كانوا أنفسهم محتجزين بشكل تعسفي لعدة أشهر. يبدو أنّ الدافع وراء الاحتجاز هي القضايا التي رفض فيها هؤلاء القضاة اتباع العقوبات الموصى بها التي اقترحها المدعي العام. أخبرني عن هذا الأمر قاضٍ قريب من الحالة، والذي قال أيضًا إنّ القضاة المعينين حديثًا في هذه المحكمة يخشَون من أن يلقوا ذات المصير. ثقافة الخوف تطارد المؤسسات الحكومية في السعودية، خاصة القضاء. السعودية تبتعد أكثر فأكثر عن أي مظهر من مظاهر سيادة القانون ومراعاة الأصول القانونية


Russians sanctioned over election hacking and assassination attempt

Trump administration has sanctioned to 272, even as President Trump has continued to deny any collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. Nine officers for Russia’s Main Intelligence Director (GRU) were sanctioned for playing a role in undermining the election. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said they were engaged in cyberactivities that targeted election systems and political parties. It said they released stolen documents related to the election, using online personas, and promoted their spread on social media accounts operated by the GRU. Treasury also sanctioned the chief accountant for a Russian company that took part in the information war by producing English language news sites such as USA Really, which played up divisive political issues and attempted to stage a political rally in the United States. In addition, Treasury imposed sanctions on Alexander Petrov and Rusian Boshirov, two GRU officers who have been accusing of attempting to assassinate Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, last year. Skripal, a former Russian spy, and his daughter fell gravely ill after being exposed to a military grade nerve agent called Novichok. Britain, the United States, Germany, France and Canada have all concluded that the Russian government was responsible for the attack. The Kremlin has denied involvement. British police have charged Petrov and Boshirov with conspiracy to murder the Skripals and a British detective who also fell ill after being exposed to the nerve agent. Also among the individuals who were sanctioned is a former GRU officer who gave money to a political party in Montenegro before its 2016 elections. The Treasury Department said Victor Boyarkin was acting on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin-connected oligarch who despite being sanctioned has been invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At the same time, the Treasury Department lifted sanctions on three companies after the companies agreed to diminish Deripaska’s holdings or sever his control over the companies. Two GRU agents were sanctioned for playing a role in hacking into the databases of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). WADA exposed Russia’s state-sponsored doping program for athletes, and the Russian hacking exposed confidential medical data of professional athletes, Treasury said. The OPCW assisted in investigating the Skripal attack and the use of chemical weapons in Syria, where Moscow has provided military backing for the government. carol.morello@washpost.com


Tired of going to the grocery store? In Arizona, a robot-driven car will deliver groceries to your home.

If you live in the Phoenix metropolitan area, you may have already encountered autonomous vehicles delivering passengers from one location to another. Now, Scottsdale, Ariz., residents can have their groceries delivered via robotically driven vehicles, as well. This week Kroger — the nation’s largest grocery chain — announced a new partnership with Nuro, a Silicon Valley start-up that produces a self-driving, unmanned vehicle known as the R1 that operates on major roadways alongside cars. As of Tuesday, customers have been able to have their groceries delivered to their homes by the autonomous vehicle with a design inspired by a Formula One racing helmet. “Kroger customers are looking for new, convenient ways to feed their families and purchase the products they need quickly through services like pickup and delivery,” Yael Cosset, chief digital officer for Kroger, said in a news release. “Our autonomous delivery pilot with Nuro over the past few months continues to prove the benefit of the flexible and reliable technology." How does it work? After making grocery purchases online, customers schedule a same-day or next-day delivery time for the R1 or one of Nuro’s self-driving Prius vehicles, which are also in operation. The R1 uses public roads, does not have a human backup driver and can reach 25 mph. Nuro was founded by two alumni from Google’s self-driving car project. The company says that as far as its team knows, the unmanned service — which costs $5.95 per drop-off — is the first of its kind. Regardless, the autonomous delivery service will compete with a growing number of big-name firms in the grocery-delivery space such as Amazon and Walmart. A July 2017 Gallup poll “This pattern — highly frequent grocery shopping occurring mostly in person — highlights the theoretically enormous potential for growth in the online grocery business,” Gallup reported. “Amazon’s purchase of the retail grocer Whole Foods recently underscored this possibility, giving rise to speculation the online giant will use the grocery chain as a launching pad to expand its online operations into the food sector," the report added. In Miami, Ford has already teamed up with Walmart and Postmates to create a delivery service using autonomous vehicles. The San Francisco-based start-up Udelv has begun making grocery delivers in the Bay Area and in Oklahoma City. Known for its bright orange vehicles, the company announced this week plans to begin delivering automobile parts to businesses in Houston.


A second referendum could help avoid a Brexit meltdown

that even approaches agreement on what to aim for. The E.U. is prepared to negotiate an arrangement along any of these models but will find it difficult to negotiate with a partner that hasn’t made up its mind on what it wants. Is there then no way out of this rolling meltdown? Momentum is building toward a second referendum. The campaign for a new People’s Vote has the vocal support also of former prime ministers John Major and Tony Blair. A second referendum is nothing unusual in Europe and does not violate principles of democracy, as some of its opponents are claiming. In fact, second thoughts are sometimes healthy, and E.U. countries have a solid track record of second referendums as they confront different difficult issues. Denmark and Ireland are among the masters of this. But even a second referendum isn’t an easy way out. There will be fierce debates on what a referendum should be about. Should it be about choosing between Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement and crashing out without any deal? Between staying in the E.U. and the uncertainties of the withdrawal agreement and the negotiations that will follow? Between a Norway or a Canada model of an E.U. relationship? The confrontation is likely to deepen, and the divisions will not disappear when a result is announced. The meltdown that the United Kingdom is in is the result of a massive failure of leadership that goes back decades, primarily but not only within the Conservative Party. Bashing Brussels for everything, and hiding the fact that Britain was actually fighting above its weight in the councils of the E.U., was a recipe for today’s disaster A new referendum might finally force Britain to have an honest debate about the alternatives for the future. It will be necessary to be honest about the true long-term alternatives for the country. It will not be easy, and the outcome is by no means guaranteed. But it might well be the only way in which the once great nation starts to pull itself out of the morass it is in at the moment. Let’s hope it does — even if it will take some time. Read more: The Post’s View: There’s no good way out of the Brexit disaster Henry Olsen: Brexit would be hard for Britain. Staying in the E.U. would be worse. Bronwen Maddox: How the Brexit drama is changing Britain


Mexico’s new president wants a new National Guard to address violent crime. Will it work?

When Andrés Manuel López Obrador was inaugurated as president of Mexico on Dec. 1, he made history as the leader with the broadest mandate since the country’s democratization in 2000. But López Obrador also inherited a country facing significant challenges, including high levels of inequality, poverty and corruption — and a difficult relationship with the United States. His most pressing concern, according to public opinion surveys, will be to reduce the rampant violence that has plagued the country for over a decade. While his plan to create a National Guard with military personnel can seem an appealing solution, my research shows that the militarization of law enforcement can have damaging consequences. Here’s what you need to know. Mexico’s violent crime problem has deepened With more than 27,000 homicides in the first 10 months of the year, 2018 will be the country’s most violent since at least 1990, the earliest year for which the government has kept statistics. At this pace, the country will top last year’s record 32,000 homicides, or a rate of about 25 per 100,000 people, for a staggering decade with 233,000 accumulated killings and tens of thousands of kidnappings and people who have disappeared. To put things in perspective, the number of homicides is roughly four times the number of U.S. casualties during the Vietnam War. The announcement that the new Mexican government would create a National Guard reporting to the Ministry of Defense came as a surprise. López Obrador’s campaign messages emphasized economic development and national reconciliation to address violent crime — not the tough-on-crime militaristic approaches offered elsewhere, such as those of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil or Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. López Obrador’s left-of-center perspective was perhaps best captured by his campaign slogans: “abrazos, no balazos” (hugs, not gunshots) and “no se puede enfrentar violencia con más violencia” (you can’t fight violence with further violence). López Obrador’s proposed National Guard would incorporate military police from the Army and Navy, which already participate in domestic law enforcement. It would also incorporate some personnel from the Federal Police, which he would dismantle altogether. The plan involves dividing the country into 266 territorial coordination units, in which the National Guard would operate under military leadership. Why militarize domestic policing? There are many reasons governments opt to militarize domestic security. In particular, when violent crime indicators rise and organized crime overwhelms civilian police, governments turn to the armed


The follies of Brexit

In his Dec. 16 Sunday Opinion essay, “Britain can’t thrive without Brexit,” Henry Olsen argued that the European Union “holds Britain in contempt.” Mr. Olsen’s claim is at odds with decades of European accommodation of Britain’s demands. Britain has achieved a unique form of E.U. membership. It is in the European single market but not in the European single currency, it benefits from access to E.U. labor without accepting uncontrolled travel, and it fully participates in the E.U. without being tied into the European project of “ever closer union.” Better yet, the E.U. has given Britain a substantial rebate on its budget contribution every year since 1985 and has adopted former prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s notion of a European single market. The folly of Brexit is that we are now discarding this genuinely “special relationship.” Andrew Apostolou The writer, a Briton, is a historian. One of the many holes Perhaps the vilified “old” explains why the capital of France remains among the world’s top tourist destinations. But Paris has not become a museum. One can find plenty of steel and glass “sparkle” west of the (alas, recently graffitied) Arc de Triomphe, and, the “yellow vests” movement notwithstanding, the city becomes especially festive around this time of year, particularly in the great department stores and on the Champs-Élysées. France, in the wake of Brexit, bypassed the United Kingdom economically . As for Paris being “downcast,” it seems a part of the city’s character; certain Parisian circles consider giddy exuberance not a sign of great thought, perhaps even a little vulgar. As for London, mercifully, not every pre-World War II building in London has been demolished. Tradition counts, too. The Brexit vote painted the United Kingdom into a corner. It is not by cherry-picking facts or impressions, pitting old vs. new, and perpetuating certain traditional cliches against France steeped paradoxically in the superficial that the fork in the road ahead becomes an obvious choice. Michael Kent Brexit, but briefly. Henry Olsen’s Brexit essay was a clarion call for a return to the 18th-century British Empire. With his sop to Brits, extolling their superiority over other European people, he was flirting with nationalism, xenophobia and racism. We are still struggling in the 21st century to overcome the legacies of those toxic beliefs. The gleaming new London skyline and glitter that Mr. Olsen finds so appealing are a direct result of lax laws and


With 100 days to go before Brexit, Theresa May is running out the clock

and journalists, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt pointed out that there were bigger problems in the world than Brexit. He mentioned Yemen. At the Christmas fete at the Irish Embassy in London, a journalist with the Daily Mail had to be escorted from the room after shouting “Brexit!” during the ambassador’s speech. This made the newspapers. Upon news of further delay, Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, which represents 190,000 businesses, warned that her members were absolutely desperate for clarity. “Investment plans have been paused for 2½ years,” she said. “Unless a deal is agreed quickly, the country risks sliding towards a national crisis.” In the Commons debate over Brexit on Monday, Conservative Justine Greening, a pro-Europe former cabinet minister, said: “We have spent 2½ years going round in circles, and we cannot simply go nowhere. We have to now take some decisions about going somewhere.” Greening added: “People simply won’t understand why this place is packing up and having a two-week holiday when we face the biggest constitutional crisis that this country has had in decades. It is simply wrong. The government has to recognize this.” May said she will be busy over the holidays seeking “assurances” from European leaders on her Brexit deal. The Europeans have said no meetings are scheduled. Diplomats in Brussels familiar with the negotiations said that May’s decision to scrap the December date for her parliamentary vote, just days before a summit of E.U. leaders, was a serious miscalculation if her aim was to extract concessions — or even symbolic reassurances — from Europe. Leaders of Germany, France and the Netherlands have made clear there will not be any substantial changes to the agreement on the table. By delaying, the thinking goes, Downing Street and the parliamentary whips will have a little more time to cajole, frighten and squeeze lawmakers who do not like May’s deal. They hope that once members are away from the fractious, febrile atmosphere of Westminster, in the bosom of family and friends and frustrated constituents, that upon reflection and a couple of stiff drinks over the holidays, they might see May’s Brexit in a more favorable light. Yet it is May’s fellow Tories who appear as frustrated as anyone with the continual delays. Anna Soubry, a Conservative lawmaker, bluntly accused May of “blackmail.” Sam Gyimah, a Tory lawmaker who resigned from May’s cabinet over Brexit,


They tested positive for HIV. Then the military kicked them out.

to do. I’m not going to have some people deploying constantly and then other people, who seem to not pay that price, in the U.S. military,” Mattis told reporters in February. “If you can’t go overseas [and] carry a combat load, then obviously someone else has got to go. I want this spread fairly and expertly across the force.” The two airmen, who filed suit using the aliases Richard Roe and Victor Voe to avoid the stigma of publicizing their HIV status, say they can in fact go overseas and carry a combat load. Their doctors agree. The ban on them deploying to the Middle East, they say, is forcing them out of their jobs, even though those living with HIV elsewhere in the military have been retained. The Defense Department and the Air Force declined to comment on the legal case, which LGBT civil rights group Lambda Legal prepared with the assistance of LGBT military association OutServe-SLDN and pro-bono counsel at Winston & Strawn LLP. All airmen diagnosed with progressive illnesses are referred for disability evaluation, according to a spokeswoman for the Air Force. The service evaluates their ability to perform duties, whether the condition represents a risk to their health or that of other service members, and whether the condition imposes unreasonable requirements on the military to protect them, the spokeswoman said. “The Air Force does not find all airmen with asymptomatic HIV unfit, and has returned more than 150 such Airmen to duty,” the spokeswoman said. She said airmen in career fields with a low possibility for deployment or who are unlikely to deploy because of rank or experience may be returned to duty, “whereas airmen in career fields with a high possibility for deployment may be found unfit.” In particular, the spokeswoman said, airmen with laboratory evidence of HIV are precluded from deploying to Central Command’s area of operations or the Middle East. The implication is that because the two airmen were in career fields that could deploy there, the Air Force discharged them. Neither the Air Force nor Central Command provided a rationale for why HIV-positive service members are precluded from deploying to the Middle East, where the U.S. military sees active combat. Scott Schoettes, a counsel at Lambda Legal representing the plaintiffs, said the ban is arbitrary and inconsistent with the current medical reality for those serving with HIV. It is easy for such


Saturn’s rings are halfway to their death

If dinosaurs had possessed telescopes and the will to gaze skyward 100 million years ago, they might have seen a very different Saturn — one without its iconic rings. And if humans manage to survive another 100 million years, our descendants may also miss the discs of ice and dust that encircle the golden gas giant. We live in an extraordinary era, scientists say — the brief blip in the 4.6-billion-year life of our solar system in which Saturn’s rings are visible. According to a study published this week in the planetary science journal Icarus, the material that makes up this feature is “raining” into the planet’s interior at a “worst case scenario” rate. The rings are already halfway to their death. “We are lucky to be around” right now, the study’s lead author, James O’Donoghue, said in a statement. Scientists have long debated whether Saturn’s rings were born with the planet or are a relatively new acquisition. Some models suggest that the ring material is debris left over from the planet’s formation more than 4 billion years ago. But others theorize that the rings formed when objects like comets, asteroids or even moons broke apart in orbit around the massive planet. It’s hard to imagine the sixth planet from the sun without its most famous feature. Though Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune are also banded, Saturn’s adornment is by far the most impressive in the solar system. The planet’s rings span 170,000 miles across and are bright enough to be visible with a child’s telescope. And although they look solid from Earth, observations by the Voyager and Cassini spacecraft have revealed that the rings are instead made of floating bits of material, ranging in size from as small as specks to larger than the Empire State Building. They stay suspended around the planet’s midsection through a careful balance of gravity, which tries to pull the material inward, and their orbital velocity, which seeks to sling them into space. But sometimes ring particles get electrically charged by light from the sun or other cosmic phenomena. This makes them susceptible to the siren song of Saturn’s magnetic field, which bends inward at the rings. The particles slide along magnetic field lines into the planet’s atmosphere, where they vaporize, generating glowing, charged hydrogen and droplets of water. O’Donoghue and his colleagues observed this phenomenon with the huge Keck telescope in Hawaii and concluded


‘Really a disappointment’: Colonial farm in Northern Virginia to close Friday after rejecting agreement

that all animals are registered and that the reason rare-breed animals are not vaccinated is that “it can kill some of them.” “I believe you receive most of your information from the NPS,” she wrote. “The animals are fine.” Some employees and volunteers said the practice of transporting animals to Eberly’s farm in Loudoun County was inappropriate, but Curzon defended the practice. He described Eberly as an experienced farmer and said it was “not a mystery” that some animals were being kept at her farm as Claude Moore decamps from McLean and determines what to do with its resources, which he valued at “a couple million” dollars. “The animals . . . need to be taken care of,” he said. “They could be sold. The proceeds of the sale would go into the farm’s assets.” Eberly on Wednesday said her farm has the equipment for livestock moves, as well as barns and pasture, adding “there’s a lot of opinion about livestock care but they are very thin on real knowledge.” Rachel Bartgis, who recently volunteered at Claude Moore for about a year, said the farm showed “lax oversight.” Still, she said, Claude Moore is unique in the Washington area because it depicts lower-class life in Colonial America — a contrast with attractions such as Mount Vernon, the estate in Fairfax County once owned by George Washington. “For the community to lose that because the Friends can’t compromise with the Park Service is really a disappointment,” she said. Some criticism was echoed in a 99-page “operations evaluation” the Park Service released in 2015, alleging shortcomings that included maintenance problems and possible safety issues, such as missing electrical plates and smoke alarms. It said that the farm had inadequate fencing in animal areas and that cattle at the property did not have “enough shelter from the elements.” It also stated that financial relationships with some private contractors had not been approved by the Park Service and that the farm “has expanded commercial activity far beyond the scope of services” originally agreed upon. Curzon responded to the report Tuesday, saying that some repairs were made but that others were postponed pending a new agreement with the Park Service. “We were not willing to make those significant capital investments if the Park Service had the ability to terminate our agreement before we had a chance to enjoy those improvements for their useful life, much


Have a layover in Atlanta? The Delta Flight Museum will renew your appreciation for air travel.

museum. Just turn in between the Boeing 747 and Boeing 757.” Soon enough, the behemoth planes were before us, standing sentry to more than 100 years of aviation history housed in two 1940s-era hangars. We meet Tiffany Meng, director of operations, as she is showing tours around one of the hangars. The first thing we notice is a long line to see the interior of a meticulously restored Douglas DC-3, its silver coat polished to a dazzling shine that reflects every light in the building. When the crowds around the DC-3 subside, I ask Meng what had prompted Delta to open the museum to the public. “Up until a few years ago, the museum was more for employees than anything else,” she said. “In celebration of Delta’s 85th anniversary of service in 2014, the decision was made to update the museum and share the company’s history to a wider audience.” From 2012 to 2014, it underwent a renovation that cost more than $12 million before opening almost full time in June 2014. As Meng, Roy and I walk through the expansive rows of artifacts, she tells us that the museum collection includes items from the history of 40 airlines — including Northwest, going back to when it was Northwest Orient, as well as Pan Am. Here and there, she stops to show us her favorite objects, including a ticket from Aug. 14, 1929, for a flight from Monroe, La., where Delta was headquartered for a spell, to Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. The cost was $13.25. She directs our attention to an employee identification badge. “Delta was named by Catherine FitzGerald, called Miss Fitz, and she was one of Delta’s first employees,” Meng says, referring to the longtime assistant to C.E. Woolman, Delta’s first CEO. “She came up with the name of Delta from the Mississippi Delta region.” Other Delta memorabilia includes a reproduction of the first Huff-Daland crop duster, and flight attendant uniforms throughout the years, including the “groovy” designs from the 1960s. Even the hangar is historical. “The hangar is one of the oldest buildings on Atlanta airport property,” Meng says as she sweeps her arm toward the crop duster suspended from the ceiling. (Two original Huff-Daland Dusters still exist. One is at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Northern Virginia; the other at the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Ala.) “As far as I know,


Deadly Marburg virus found in bats in Sierra Leone

Scientists have discovered the deadly Marburg virus in fruit bats in Sierra Leone, the first time this cousin of Ebola has been found in West Africa. There have been no reported cases of people or animals with active infections. But the pathogen’s presence in the bats raises the potential for it to infect humans in a new region more than a thousand miles from previously known outbreaks. There have been a dozen known Marburg virus outbreaks in other parts of Africa, most recently in Uganda in 2017. Like Ebola, Marburg virus initially infects people through contact with wild animals. It can then spread person to person through contact with bodily fluids. It kills up to 9 in 10 of its victims, sometimes within a week. The discovery was made by two teams of U.S. researchers and their partners in Sierra Leone. One was led by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Njala University; the other was led by the University of California at Davis and the University of Makeni. The virus was found in Egyptian fruit bats, which are the natural reservoir for Marburg. That means the virus can live and grow inside the bats without harming the animals, and can be passed on to humans or other animals through bat saliva, urine or feces. The bats live in caves or underground mines throughout much of Africa and parts of the Middle East and southwest Asia. Marburg virus has been detected in Egyptian fruit bats caught in sub-Saharan Africa, primarily in Uganda and Congo but also Kenya, South Africa and Gabon. But to find it in fruit bats in Sierra Leone — more than 1,600 miles from Gabon, the “closest dot on the map” of countries where the virus had previously been detected — provides scientists much more information about the potential viral landscape, said Brian Bird, a virologist and bat expert at UC Davis. For a country like Sierra Leone that was devastated by Ebola, “this finding of a very dangerous pathogen on a par with Ebola can put them ahead of the game. They can take proactive steps” to warn communities about its hazards, said Jonathan Towner, a CDC ecologist who led the CDC team. Sierra Leone was among the three West African countries ravaged by the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people. Bats are commonly hunted for food across Africa. Public


Sacrificing peace in Northern Ireland is not acceptable price for Brexit

union and single market. It will leave both after Brexit, which will raise the status of the Irish border to a customs border with associated controls. In addition to practical challenges, this will be psychologically devastating to many who live there. London wants to avoid the imposition of a hard border, by either developing alternatives to physical infrastructure or negotiating a future economic agreement with Brussels. Unless and until it does, the E.U. has insisted on a “backstop:” The entire U.K. will remain in a customs union with the E.U., plus Northern Ireland will comply with single-market regulations on goods. In short, harmonized rules reduce the need for intrusive checks. As the backstop does not include time limits or allow the U.K. to withdraw unilaterally, Brexiteers fear the country could remain bound by its provisions and unable to negotiate separate trade deals. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 members of Parliament prop up Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government, opposes a special status for the region. The E.U. has resisted British calls to revise the backstop, yet there is a risk that this issue could cause the U.K. to crash out with no deal — which would lead to a hard border. For all the talk about Northern Ireland in the Brexit debate, the region’s voice has been noticeably absent. Almost 56 percent of voters there preferred to remain in the E.U. Soon after the poll, Northern Ireland’s first minister (from the DUP) and deputy first minister (from Sinn Féin, the largest nationalist party) sent a joint letter to May; despite holding opposing views on Brexit, they shared concerns about how it could negatively affect the region. The power-sharing executive collapsed several months later over a local scandal, with the politicized Brexit debate among the factors that made it impossible to reconstitute the assembly. As a result, Northern Ireland has not had a government in nearly two years. The DUP has the most sway over the British government, but it does not speak for everyone; a recent poll found 65 percent of voters in Northern Ireland would prefer a Brexit that preserves closer ties with the E.U., while pro-Remain opposition parties and businesses have publicly supported the backstop. The very debate over Brexit has increased polarization in this post-conflict society, where “peace walls” still separate communities, fewer than 7 percent of children attend integrated schools, and punishment beatings


Will U.S. trade pressure actually change China’s industrial policy?

exclusionary business measures as well as policies related to public investment, land use and goods distribution. Japan agreed to some but not all of the demands. Analysts saw the SII concessions as a successful case of “gaiatsu,” or external pressure. SII created an impetus for change by shifting the domestic balance of power — to undermine entrenched interests (within and outside the government) that were blocking reforms. Will this approach also work against China? The Japan example does not mean the current U.S. trade war with China is likely to produce similar concessions. Recent reports point out China might be starting to play down MiC 2025, but State Council policy continues to emphasize industrial upgrading, high-tech industries and indigenous innovation. Why might the Japanese and Chinese responses to U.S. pressure diverge? Here it is useful to distinguish between two different dynamics that external pressure can unleash. Political scientists are familiar with the mechanics of the first dynamic — when external pressure increases the probability of change by creating political space to expand the base of supportive domestic constituents. This generates positive feedback loops, where new domestic advocates for change emerge to reinforce the external demands. But the second dynamic is less widely understood. External pressure can also result in less political space for domestic constituents to express their support, instead emboldening policymakers or groups that are opposed to reform. In this scenario, external pressure generates negative feedback loops by strengthening domestic opposition to the very change that’s being demanded. The difference between the two results isn’t about the demands being made, but rather the overarching strategic context and how domestic policymakers and interest groups interpret that context. The U.S. government’s SII pressure on Japan, while driven by concerns over Japan’s economic rise, was nonetheless undergirded by the assurance of a security alliance. Not everyone in Japan saw the U.S. pressure as hostile aggression. Rather, the pressure expanded political space for previously sidelined domestic constituents to make their presence felt in the negotiations. For instance, pro-spending agencies and politicians used U.S. pressure as leverage to push for an end to Japan’s policy of fiscal prudence. In contrast, the current U.S. trade war is unlikely to result in substantive concessions anytime soon. Here’s why: Chinese tend to see U.S. demands as part of a broader containment strategy. It is not that there is zero support within China for the types of reforms


The Technology 202: Ron Wyden says Zuckerberg is ‘racking up the Pinocchios’

fundamental role in a company's decision to expand, Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, said labor costs, raw materials, transportation and other factors weigh more heavily when companies choose a location. “The trouble is we've had this system created in America that allows companies to control the narrative, and get paid to do what they would have done anyway based on the business basics,” LeRoy told Wired. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Post.) Nathan Jensen, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said that Apple, which recently announced a new campus in Austin, would probably have decided to expand in the area regardless of incentives. BYTES: Third-party sellers on Amazon are turning to unforgiving tactics s they compete against one other — even framing other businesses to get them suspended A new industry has emerged as a result: People whose businesses have been suspended can hire consultants to appeal the decision. “They are like lawyers, only their legal code is the Amazon Terms of Service, their court is a secretive and semiautomated corporate bureaucracy, and their jurisdiction is an algorithmically policed global bazaar rife with devious plots to hijack listings for novelty socks and plastic watches,” Dzieza reported. — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, or PIF, and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co., which are key investors in SoftBank's tech fund, aren't so sure that a plan to invest $16 billion in WeWork is the right way to go — Matt Chasen hopes that the Hexa, which my colleague Peter Holley described as an “electric-powered vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft,” will one day help remedy traffic congestion by letting people ride in air taxis. — Lighthouse, a start-up making security cameras equipped with artificial intelligence features, is closing shop — More technology news about the private sector: — Chinese authorities control content that users post on WeChat and other platforms and censor what they deem out of bounds, but at the moment Beijing seems to be making an exception when it comes to criticism of the Trump administration — More technology news from the public sector: — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a business conference in Jerusalem that the country's tech sector needs to hire foreign workers to continue flourishing — More news about tech workforce and culture: Coming soon Watch Obama surprise patients at D.C. children’s hospital: Bush’s dog, Sully, ready for


executive director of Good Jobs First, said labor costs, raw materials, transportation and other factors weigh more heavily when companies choose a location. “The trouble is we've had this system created in America that allows companies to control the narrative, and get paid to do what they would have done anyway based on the business basics,” LeRoy told Wired. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Post.) Nathan Jensen, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said that Apple, which recently announced a new campus in Austin, would probably have decided to expand in the area regardless of incentives. BYTES: Third-party sellers on Amazon are turning to unforgiving tactics s they compete against one other — even framing other businesses to get them suspended A new industry has emerged as a result: People whose businesses have been suspended can hire consultants to appeal the decision. “They are like lawyers, only their legal code is the Amazon Terms of Service, their court is a secretive and semiautomated corporate bureaucracy, and their jurisdiction is an algorithmically policed global bazaar rife with devious plots to hijack listings for novelty socks and plastic watches,” Dzieza reported. — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, or PIF, and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co., which are key investors in SoftBank's tech fund, aren't so sure that a plan to invest $16 billion in WeWork is the right way to go — Matt Chasen hopes that the Hexa, which my colleague Peter Holley described as an “electric-powered vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft,” will one day help remedy traffic congestion by letting people ride in air taxis. — Lighthouse, a start-up making security cameras equipped with artificial intelligence features, is closing shop — More technology news about the private sector: — Chinese authorities control content that users post on WeChat and other platforms and censor what they deem out of bounds, but at the moment Beijing seems to be making an exception when it comes to criticism of the Trump administration — More technology news from the public sector: — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a business conference in Jerusalem that the country's tech sector needs to hire foreign workers to continue flourishing — More news about tech workforce and culture: Coming soon Watch Obama surprise patients at D.C. children’s hospital: Bush’s dog, Sully, ready for a return to service: Trump’s most awkward moments of 2018:


Inside the stunning fall and war-crimes investigation of an Army Green Beret war hero

When President Obama draped the nation’s highest award for combat valor around the neck of an Afghan war hero at the White House in October 2013, a highly decorated Green Beret officer who sat nearby faced an ugly reality: The Army was investigating him on charges of murder and conspiracy. Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn was invited to the ceremony by William D. Swenson, who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in Afghanistan four years earlier. Like Swenson, Golsteyn had braved enemy fire repeatedly, seen fellow soldiers die and voiced deep frustration with the ways he saw U.S. troops restricted in combat. But Golsteyn, a friend of Swenson’s, also may have had a darker chapter to his service. According to Army documents, the young officer disclosed to CIA personnel during a 2011 job interview that he had killed an unarmed Taliban fighter he suspected of being a bombmaker. The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, also suggest an elaborate cover-up that, if true, could amount to serious war crimes involving not only Golsteyn but fellow Green Beret soldiers. [See document excerpts in the Army’s war-crimes case against Maj. Mathew Golsteyn] However, the service closed a lengthy criminal investigation into the case last year without finding any evidence to charge Golsteyn. His lawyer and other supporters say that the service has exaggerated the claims and selectively released details from the case. The case underscores a stunning fall for a highly regarded officer who has been lauded for his leadership and graduated from the prestigious U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 2002. It has also pitted the Army against a war hero. The Army has defended its actions, saying it had conducted its investigation without bias or outside influence. Phillip Stackhouse, Golsteyn’s lawyer, said the narratives laid out in documents from the Army’s Criminal Investigations Command “are taken out of context and are biased.” “It’s fantasy to say he confessed to shooting an unarmed detainee,” he said. The alleged killing of the Taliban fighter in question took place during the iconic Battle of Marja, during which more than 15,000 coalition troops assaulted a Taliban stronghold of mud compounds, canals and poppy fields in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Dozens of Americans were killed there in following months, with hundreds more wounded. At the height of the battle, an explosion rocked a Marine unit working alongside Golsteyn’s soldiers in Marja.


There’s a little science to predicting food trends — but there’s a lot of guesswork, too

thought it would. Yes, we ate artisan pickles and drank Cristalino tequila and had ghee and plenty of veggie-forward dishes. It’s true that Jewish delis are on the upswing, and Israeli cuisine hit its stride. And tsukemen, or brothless ramen, got more popular on menus in the United States. But why didn’t we get really into deep-frying, or Tanzanian barbecue seasoning? Chain restaurants never picked up on “trash fish.” Norwegian and Icelandic “Arctic cuisine” has yet to hit the mainstream here. Other predictions — locally sourced produce, Instagrammable foods, “authentic ethnic cuisine” and street food — were already in, some for more than a decade. What is a trend, anyway? There’s no set way to measure one, no threshold of sales or number of products on the market past which a food becomes Certifiably Trendy, especially because food trends, like fashion, trickle down into mainstream ubiquity. There’s just a bunch of market researchers and food industry consultants and publicists and journalists, a little bit of data, a looming Dec. 31 deadline and an intangible notion of what feels cool and new. “The science to predicting a trend is to figure out, what is actually happening here? Is it just now, is there some sort of immediacy to it or does this actually have a longevity?” said Jenny Zegler, associate director of food and drink for consumer research company Mintel. “And, what does that mean, and what is that reflective of, in terms of what consumers want?” Some trend lists come from huge teams of professional trend-spotters and industry-watchers, and some come from just one person with a finger on the pulse. But all of the predictions tend to fall into one of four categories. In the first category are the vague, evergreen, massive buzzword trends — like “plant-based foods” and “specialized diets” — that will both always and never be trends, because they’re so all-encompassing. But don’t count them out, says Zegler, whose report for Mintel pinpoints three trends: sustainability, foods for healthy aging and enhanced convenience foods. A list should be measured by its goals, Zegler says: Theirs is global in scope, and based on the work of 91 analysts in 13 countries, backed by actual consumer research data, and geared toward large brands for whom a menu change is a major supply-chain overhaul and a big gamble. “I think a lot of what we’re trying to do is


The Health 202: States in the Obamacare lawsuit are biting the hand that feeds them

will eventually total $4 million in grants from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. But many promised programs never launched. “Officials at the clinic contracted by the District with most of its federal funds said not a single patient has been referred to them for addiction treatment,” Peter writes. — The bipartisan criminal justice bill that easily passed the Senate and is expected to pass the House and head to the president’s desk is representative of a major GOP shift has made from its"war-on-drugs" stance to supporting policies aimed at reducing some prison sentences. That pivot “comes as crime rates have dropped, the opioid crisis has ravaged the country and prison populations, after reaching record highs, are now on the decline,” our Post colleagues Katie Zezima and Sean Sullivan report. “Many Republicans are also embracing the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana, which is legal in 10 states and the District.” Republicans’ embrace of new policies is in part a way to redeem an era of anti-drug policies by restoring fairness to the criminal justice system, Katie and Sean write. Some Republicans have also embraced treating drug addiction as part of a public health effort, rather than a law-and-order one. But the policy shift has a financial motive, too: Supporters hope to save money by moving low-level offenders out of the prison system. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) insisted the pivot doesn’t mean the party’s values have changed. “I think Republicans are still law and order — but the question is, you know, with crack cocaine and powder cocaine in particular, how do you level the degree of consequence? And I think that’s the common-sense thing. And on other drugs, the idea is to get people into treatment and not lock them up,” he said. — Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, is calling on Pfizer to explain the steep increase of the price of its nerve pain drug, Lyrica. Stat’s Nicholas Florko reports it could be a signal of Wyden will up his actions to hold drug companies to account. “The cost of Pfizer’s drug, Lyrica, has grown tremendously over the past several years,” Wyden wrote in a letter sent to Pfizer. “In 2016 alone, over 850,000 Medicare beneficiaries were prescribed Lyrica resulting in $2.1 billion Medicare spending. The main cause of this increase has been Pfizer’s consistent and egregious price increases.”


Why the U.S. might get eclipsed by Russia or China

This past week, the foreign minister of Slovenia met with our secretary of state “to warn that the United States must make its leadership more visible in Europe or risk being eclipsed by China and Russia” [“During visit, Slovenian diplomat warns of waning U.S. interest in Europe,” news, Dec. 17]. Slovenian Foreign Minister Miro Cerar highlighted China’s economic initiatives in the region as part of China’s ongoing influence expansion. For decades, China has invested heavily in Africa, assisting nations in improving their infrastructure. It now appears that China is seeking inroads into Europe. At the same time, because of the ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc., the United States has focused primarily on providing military assistance where needed. Discretionary spending of other departments for international activities has been reduced to support increased defense budgets. We need a state-of-the-art military, but we also need to ensure that the other elements of our national security strategy are adequately funded so that we may retain influence in critical regions. Our peer competitors, Russia and China, fully understand the need for multifaceted approaches as they demonstrate their willingness to expand their influence globally. David Garner


The Daily 202: Trump hands the Russians more victories with Syria withdrawal, sanctions relief and Ukraine inaction

year, told Louisa. “It has real-life consequences. We’re dying for this.” -- Syria isn’t the only reason the Kremlin is celebrating. “The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it intends to lift sanctions against the business empire of Oleg V. Deripaska, one of Russia’s most influential oligarchs, after an aggressive lobbying campaign by Mr. Deripaska’s companies,” the New York Times’s Ken Vogel reports. “The decision by the Treasury Department, which had been postponed for months, was both politically and economically sensitive … Mr. Deripaska and his businesses — including the world’s second-largest aluminum company, Rusal — were hit with sanctions in April in retaliation for Russian interference in the election and other hostile acts by Moscow. … The companies responded with a sophisticated multimillion-dollar lobbying and legal campaign seeking to delay and ultimately remove the sanctions in exchange for promises from Mr. Deripaska to give up majority ownership and control of EN+, the holding company that controls Rusal. … “Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who has criticized the administration for being soft on Rusal, said the move to lift sanctions amounted to Mr. Trump ‘sliding another big gift under Vladimir Putin’s Christmas tree.’ Saying that the plan ‘appears to be a shell game brokered by a sanctioned Russian bank, VTB Bank, involving one of Putin’s closest buddies,’ Mr. Doggett said it ‘only encourages Putin to pursue his destabilizing activities around the world.’ … “The administration appeared to take pains to head off criticism that it was letting up on Moscow or Mr. Deripaska. The decision was disclosed on the same day that the Treasury Department announced new sanctions against a former Russian military intelligence officer who it said works for Mr. Deripaska, as well as several Russian intelligence officers and entities linked to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In a statement justifying the move, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said that the companies had been punished because of Mr. Deripaska’s ownership and control, ‘not for the conduct of the companies themselves.’” -- Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) also expressed some skepticism of the deal, which they promised to monitor closely. -- This comes just days after the Geneva-based World Economic Forum reversed its decision to ban three Kremlin-connected oligarchs — including Deripaska — from its upcoming meeting in Davos, caving to an intense Kremlin campaign that included calls to the


The most-read Global Opinions columns of 2018

India, I was raped by M.J. Akbar. Here is my story." by Pallavi Gogoi “I am writing this because I know what it is like to be victimized by powerful men like Akbar. I am writing this to support the many women who have come out to tell their truth. I am writing this for my teenage daughter and son. So they know to fight back when anyone victimizes them. So they know never to victimize anyone. So they know that 23 years after what happened to me, I have risen from those dark times, refusing to let them define me, and I will continue to move forward.” 5:"#NewsKiMaut: The Way Indian media has covered Sridevi’s death has been shameful” by Barkha Dutt “Sridevi was an icon who deserved much better than this salacious scavenging. “For me, the final embarrassment was watching a news host on India’s most watched Hindi channel stand next to a white bathtub across which was 6: “'Black Panther': Why the relationship between Africans and African Americans is so messed up" by Larry Madowo and Karen Attiah Larry: “The accents are all over the place! It was jarring and annoying to me! They wanted to base the accents on Xhosa from South Africa, but some of it sounded Nigerian, others sounded more Ugandan. It was very confusing, and I understand perfecting an accent is difficult, but oh, my goodness, it was so messy!” 7: “Please, President Trump, shed light on my fiance’s disappearance” by Hatice Cengiz “Although my hope slowly fades away each passing day, I remain confident that Jamal is still alive. Perhaps I’m simply trying to hide from the thought that I have lost a great man whose love I had earned. As an individual who believes that life and death are in the hands of God, I pray to God alone for Jamal’s safe return.” 8:“We are Jamal Khashoggi’s daughters. We promise his light will never fade” by Noha and Razan Jamal Khashoggi “Jamal Khashoggi was a complex man, but to us, his daughters, he was simply ‘Dad.’ Our family has always been proud of his work, and we understood the awe and grandeur with which some people viewed him. But in our lives, he was ‘Baba’ — a loving man with a big heart. We loved it when he took us every weekend to the bookstore. We loved looking through his passport,


The Cybersecurity 202: The big cyber story of 2018: The U.S. hasn’t been tough enough on Russian hackers

Google Podcasts | Stitcher PINGED: The Trump administration announced sanctions Wednesday against nine officers of Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, for seeking to interfere in the 2016 election. Treasury also announced sanctions against other Russian intelligence officers for activities including an assassination attempt against former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, and the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. “Treasury also sanctioned the chief accountant for a Russian company that took part in the information war by producing English language news sites such as USA Really, which played up divisive political issues and attempted to stage a political rally in the United States,” my colleague reported. PATCHED: The House passed a bill Wednesday containing several cybersecurity measures, including a measure to help spot potential national security threats to government supply chains. Additionally, the bill would create a vulnerability disclosure policy at DHS to codify how security researchers can report weaknesses in the department's computer systems and would require DHS to offer cash rewards for some digital bug reports. Under the legislation, DHS would be required to submit a report to relevant congressional committees after completing a pilot program. The measure has not yet been passed by the Senate. PWNED: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) demanded that DHS improve the protection of oil and gas pipelines against cyberattacks Cantwell and Pallone requested in a letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that her department come up with a plan to address the concerns laid out in the report. — Facebook is facing the first lawsuit from regulators in the United States following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Racine said in a statement that Facebook “failed to protect” its users’ privacy and misled them about how their personal information was being used. “Facebook put users at risk of manipulation by allowing companies like Cambridge Analytica and other third-party applications to collect personal data without users’ permission,” Racine said. “Today’s lawsuit is about making Facebook live up to its promise to protect its users’ privacy.” — More cybersecurity news from the public sector: — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country's decision to either allow or ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from Canada's 5G networks will be based on national security and not political considerations — Hackers have sought to infiltrate the e-mail accounts of hundreds of human-rights


Man fatally shot in Northeast Washington early Wednesday

A man was fatally shot early Wednesday in Northeast Washington. On Twitter, D.C. Police said the incident happened just after midnight in the 1700 block of West Virginia Avenue NE near Gallaudet University. Police gave a description of the suspects, saying they were believed to be two black men who were wearing dark jackets and jeans. They were last seen heading west on West Virginia Avenue NE. The victim was later identified as Donald Lewis, 25, of Northeast Washington. The District has seen a violent year of homicides. So far, 158 killings have been reported in the city this year, according to tracking done by The Washington Post. dana.hedgpeth@washpost.com


The U.S.-China tech battle is make-or-break

Institute’s 21st Century Council in all our meetings over the last six years and in his message to the council in our meeting this week, China is closer to “rejuvenation” than ever before and entering a “new era.” But the “new era” now emerging is not the one he was expecting. As China navigates the already wrenching transition from factory of the world to a wired consumer society, the nation is mired in a confrontation, led by the United States, over the mercantilist trade policies that helped get it where it is today. And it is also facing what its leaders consider an existential challenge by the Trump administration over its quest to conquer the latest technologies, from 5G telecom to robotics and artificial intelligence. The concern in Washington is that dominance in such technologies by a reemergent Middle Kingdom will lead to a spillover of opaque and autocratic conduct beyond its borders to nations in thrall to its growing economic clout. For China’s leaders, falling behind in the tech race is a recipe for another century of humiliation at the hands of the West. They fiercely insist on China’s right to follow its own development path. Everyone I met in Beijing this week, from the elite to the street, believes the recent arrest of the prominent Huawei executive transiting through Canada confirms what they suspected all along: the United States is intent on keeping China down. As the conflict deepens, both China and the United States are realizing that the interdependence, built up over decades, can’t be so easily unraveled. China’s Achilles’ heel is that more than 90 percent of the semiconductor chips it relies on to technologically upgrade its economy are imported — mostly from the United States or American-owned companies. For its part, the United States should be careful what it wishes for as it aims to block China’s advance. Swaggering rhetoric aside, America’s vulnerability lies in the fact that a trade war that damages the Chinese economy also damages its own. The stock market — an indicator of confidence in where things are headed — has taken notice with yet another steep dive driven by fresh reports of a slowdown in China. From soybeans to services, Chinese imports have helped fuel growth in the United States. When China slows down, so does America. And so does the rest of the world. As was inevitable, the stock


‘Once an Amazonian, always an Amazonian’: Former Pentagon official’s business ties draw scrutiny

A Silicon Valley start-up founder helped guide the U.S. military’s cloud computing efforts as a Pentagon employee for more than a year, even though he had previously worked for Amazon’s cloud computing division, widely seen as a front-runner for a pending $10 billion cloud contract coveted by four of America’s biggest technology companies, computing giant Oracle alleged in a recent lawsuit. Oracle alleged in the suit that the start-up founder, a man named Deap Ubhi, had been engaged in business discussions with Amazon while he was still employed at the Pentagon. He left the government late last year and rejoined Amazon. The possibility that Ubhi was biased toward Amazon as he helped plan high-stakes military procurements has put him at the center of a protracted legal battle involving the Defense Department, Amazon and Oracle. According to court documents he had been engaged in early planning and market research for what is known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or “JEDI,” which is designed as a departmentwide cloud computing infrastructure for the U.S. military. Oracle, the Redwood, Calif.-based software giant, has filed a lawsuit to block the contract award pending further investigation, arguing Ubhi’s involvement has skewed the process in Amazon’s favor. (Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos also owns The Washington Post.) While Ubhi worked for the Defense Department, he openly praised Amazon on Twitter. He also cheered the growth of TableHero, the Silicon Valley-based reservation-booking start-up he founded in 2015. “Once an Amazonian, always an Amazonian. Proud today. Thank you, @JeffBezos,” he tweeted on Jan. 30, 2017, referencing a news article noting that Bezos had pledged to fight President Trump’s immigration ban. Ubhi did not respond to calls and emails Monday. In response to a list of questions, an Amazon Web Services spokesman said, “in both his previous and current capacity, Deap has worked on the AWS Commercial team and has never supported the AWS Public Sector organization,” while also noting that the company does not comment on pending litigation. An AWS spokesman did not respond to multiple requests to make Ubhi available for an interview. Heather Babb, a Defense Department spokeswoman, declined to comment on personnel matters because of pending litigation but defended the Defense Department’s handling of the cloud procurement. “From the beginning, the enterprise cloud initiative has been open, transparent and full,” Babb wrote in an email. “The JEDI Cloud final request for proposals reflects the unique


This city is offering you $10,000 to move there

the enormous amount of momentum out of the box,” he said. According to Labor Department statistics, the Tulsa metro area has an unemployment rate of 3 percent, ranking 110th out of all areas, but still below the national rate of 3.7 percent. “Tulsa and other small cities are having an increasingly hard time competing for highly educated and skilled workers, who mostly prefer the largest 5-6 metro areas,” Jenny Schuetz, a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, said. One advantage that larger metros enjoy is what she described as “thick” labor markets, in which multiple companies that hire specific types of workers exist within a given city. So engineers or product developers, for instance, can switch employers without having to leave a major city. That’s harder to pull off when a person lives in smaller areas, she said. To qualify for Tulsa Remote, applicants must be at least 18 years old and employed with a company that allows them to work remotely. Entrepreneurs who do not reside in Tulsa County can also apply. The total package of $10,000 spread out over a year covers $2,500 for moving expenses, monthly payments of $500 to help cover rent and $1,500 after living in Tulsa for one year, according to Levit. “There are other benefits that make the offer even richer, which include about $300 per month in additional rental assistance,” Levit said. Applicants will go through a video interview and visit the city before they are made an offer. The remote employees and entrepreneurs who move to Tulsa will also receive free co-working space to do business, offered by 36 Degrees North, in downtown Tulsa, according to Levit. Several other cities offer major incentives to people willing to relocate, according to CNBC. Students who have graduated in the past 10 years with a degree in a STEAM program (science, technology, engineering, art or math) can get up to $15,000 from the Community Foundation of St. Clair to pay off their student loans if they move to St. Clair, Mich., where the joblessness rate is 3.9 percent. The Hamilton Community Foundation in Hamilton, Ohio, offers recent college graduates up to $5,000 to relocate if they have already secured a job there. The area has an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent. And in New Haven, Conn., people can get $10,000 in interest-free loans on their first home. The unemployment rate


Afghan government puts brave face on U.S. withdrawal, but experts are alarmed

could face an additional burden if political turmoil or insecurity were to send a new wave of Afghans fleeing across the border. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the topic. “Any troop withdrawal or major reduction in their number before peace is restored would be a very unwise move,” the official said. “It would bring chaos and disorder, more fighting and perhaps a civil war. He noted that after the United States turned away from Afghanistan in 1989, “Pakistan, too, had to bear the brunt of what happened” amid the turmoil that followed. “We would not like to see a repeat of that.” Mushahid Hussain, chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said a U.S. troop drawdown would be “an admission of defeat in America’s longest war” and “the biggest military setback for the U.S.” since the fall of Saigon in 1975. He said it would increase Washington’s dependence on Pakistan as a force for peace in Afghanistan and could lead to a postponement of Afghan elections “to pave the way” for a broad unity government including the Taliban. Until recently, U.S. officials have accused Pakistan of paying lip service to peace talks while harboring anti-Afghan Taliban militia forces. But in recent months, under a new prime minister, Pakistan has worked to convince the United States of its sincere interest in peace and sent representatives to talks last week in the United Arab Emirates with U.S., Saudi and Taliban delegations. Observers in Afghanistan and Pakistan said they could not understand why Trump would suddenly decide to withdraw thousands of troops at a time when negotiations were finally beginning to gain traction. The Taliban has long demanded a total departure of U.S. forces, but many other issues are on the table, and the insurgents seemed to show their seriousness by sending an unusually senior group to the UAE talks. Amrullah Saleh, a former chief of the Afghan intelligence agency, said in an email that Trump’s plan to cut back troops shows that he sees Afghanistan as a “burden, not a strategic and necessary ally.” He said there has been “no progress” in peace talks and “no sign” of Pakistan halting support to the Taliban, and that now the country faces an added threat of diminished U.S. military assistance. “Maybe it will be the end for the U.S., but a bitter beginning for us,”


A reporter’s dispatch from Trump country featured a ‘Mexicans Keep Out’ sign. But he made it all up.

the owner of a local Mexican restaurant who had become a Trump supporter after the Affordable Care Act made it more expensive to treat her kidney disease. The real Maria Rodriguez turned out to be a waitress at the restaurant. She had never had kidney disease and was never interviewed by Relotius, she said. Similarly, her son — described in the piece as a 15-year-old named Israel, but in actuality a college sophomore named Pablo — told Krohn and Anderson that the story that Relotius had weaved about his life in Fergus Falls and the prejudice he had encountered at the local high school was completely false. Many of the made-up details reflected certain prevailing stereotypes about rural America. Bremseth, the city administrator, wore a gun to work, disparaged the idea of a female president and was the only person in the city who subscribed to national publications, Relotius wrote. But according to Krohn and Anderson’s thorough takedown, none of it was true. “Not only did Relotius’ 'exposé’ on Fergus Falls make unrecognizable movie-like characters out of the people in my town that I interact with on a daily basis, but its very basic lack of truth and its bizarrely bleak portrayal of the place I love left a very sick, unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach,” Anderson wrote. “There’s really nothing like this feeling — knowing that people in another country have read about the place I call home and are shaking their heads over their coffee in disgust, sharing the article on Facebook and Twitter, and making comments on the online article like ‘creepy,’ and ‘these are the people who don’t believe electricity exists.’” After joining Der Spiegel as a freelancer in 2014, Relotius became one of Germany’s most respected writers, receiving numerous awards, including CNN’s “Journalist of the Year,” the European Press Prize and, on four separate occasions, the German Reporter Prize. But cracks started to show when he collaborated with another journalist, Juan Moreno, for a piece about an Arizona border militia that was published in November. Suspecting that Relotius hadn’t spoken to the people who appeared in the story, Moreno ended up using his own money to travel to the Arizona desert, where he learned that Relotius had not only never met his subjects but also altered key details about them, including their names. What motivated Relotius to lie? “It was the fear


There’s a huge and hidden migration in North America — of dragonflies

Each spring and fall, large dragonflies called green darners fly across North America. A green darner can travel as far as 900 miles on its two-inch wings, fluttering from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. They are some of the most abundant dragonflies on the continent — but few people notice this mass migration. Unlike monarch butterflies and songbirds, whose long-distance migrations draw crowds, green darners are inconspicuous travelers. These dragonflies rarely migrate in huge swarms. Radiant up close — emerald green at the thorax, splashes of blue on the abdomen — a three-inch-long dragonfly becomes a speck at a hundred yards. Even dragonfly experts have had little luck observing this cross-continental journey. In one study, published in 2006, a research team in New Jersey glued tiny radio transmitters to 14 green darners; the scientists shadowed the insects by Cessna but could follow them for only about 80 miles from the scientists' base at Princeton University. Research published this week in Biology Letters is the first to describe dragonfly migration in detail. The authors did not bother with tracking live insects. Instead, they extracted chemicals from dragonfly wings that link an animal to its birthplace. Using 850 wing samples, from museums and private collections in the United States, Canada, Mexico and five Caribbean countries, the scientists constructed 140 years of dragonfly migratory history. Colin Studds, an animal ecologist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and an author of this study, had tracked bird migration by chemical signature. This technique exploits a property of the element hydrogen. In nature, hydrogen comes in three forms, called isotopes, with different numbers of neutrons. The International Atomic Energy Agency began tracking hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in the 1950s while looking for nuclear contamination in rain. In the 1980s, biologists realized they could use this isotope data to their own ends. Heavier forms of hydrogen concentrate more densely in the water in Southern states, where warmer weather leads to more evaporation. Dragonflies, which live in ponds as wriggling larvae, absorb the native isotopes of hydrogen and incorporate them into their chitin. That’s the stuff that, when larvae grow into adults, makes up their wings. The ratio of hydrogen isotopes revealed the approximate location of the dragonflies' birth-ponds. It’s not a super precise tracking system, Studds said, but it’s enough to tell if a dragonfly was born in Florida, Maryland or Maine. A dragonfly caught


‘I had no idea how beautiful the border is’: Beto O’Rourke solicits photos of habitats at risk from Trump’s wall

in Lajitas, Tex. “Couldn’t imagine an ugly cement barrier running through this beautiful stretch of Texas,” wrote one person from Big Bend National Park. “It will destroy the National Butterfly Center, which is home to endangered monarchs as well as to a whole ecosystem of wildlife,” said actress Katharine Towne. Of all those locations, the National Butterfly Center is perhaps imperiled most immediately. Funding for 33 miles of fencing in the Rio Grande Valley, where the center is located, was already approved as part of the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill in March, and construction on parts of the barrier is expected to begin in February. As the San Antonio Express-News reported earlier this month, the wall could be as tall as three stories high, consisting of 18-foot steel beams called bollards melded into a concrete base. It is expected to slash the 100-acre butterfly sanctuary by 70 percent, leaving most of the habitat on the Mexican side of the wall. Luciano Guerra, an employee at the butterfly center and a Trump voter, wrote in a guest column for The Washington Post this week that “we dread the destruction that will come when the bulldozers arrive. ... That loud, heavy machinery will cause irreparable damage to the habitat we’ve worked so hard to restore.” He said he fears that if the wall goes up, his grandchildren’s “only experience of the Rio Grande Valley’s natural beauty will be through the photographs I take today.” Nearby, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tried to warn U.S. Customs and Border Protection about the environmental threats the border wall poses to animals and their habitats in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. But Interior Department officials edited the Service’s letter to remove some of those concerns so that CBP apparently never saw them, as The Post’s Dino Grandoni and Juliet Eilperin reported last week, citing documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Biologists and wildlife managers for the Service said in a 2017 draft letter that the proposed 28-mile levee wall in Hidalgo County could leave animals trapped in the event of a wildfire or “catastrophic” flood, with the former being difficult to stop if a wall bisects the ecosystem. The levee wall would also have a 150-foot concrete enforcement area with bright floodlights, severely disrupting the habitats for nocturnal animals. Endangered species that live there, including the


Christmas in China: Another holiday away in a long Foreign Service trek

detail to the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. He was chosen as ADST president after retiring from State in 2015, having served as executive director. About the time he was leaving the Foreign Service, his wife, Lycia, joined, so they remain a Foreign Service family. Their other postings include Copenhagen, Costa Rica, Havana, Moscow and Vienna. Now they live in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, about two blocks from the U.S. Embassy. From their 17th floor apartment in a 25-story building, they have a nice view, when it’s not thwarted by Beijing’s thick pollution. It can leave their balcony too sooty to use. Their Northern California loyalties are evident by the big Golden State Warriors sticker on the refrigerator and the Stanford University blanket on the couch. Except for Copenhagen before their two sons were born, this is the first posting without their now-grown children. I spoke with Chris Sibilla, who turns 59 the day after Christmas, about life abroad as a Foreign Service family in a country many don’t understand. The embassy nixed my request to speak with Lycia. This is an edited transcript of my conversations with Chris. Federal Insider: How will you spend Christmas this year? Sibilla: We will be going to Christmas Eve mass at the Swedish embassy, celebrated by our regular Catholic priest, and then to a traditional Christmas buffet called a julebord hosted by a Swedish Catholic couple at their home in the Swedish compound. Most of our friends will be traveling out of the country, so we won’t be able to see them until January. How much language training did you have before going to China? Even though this time I was only a spouse, I was able to get the eight months of training that Lycia had. [Chinese is one of the] “super hard languages.” That’s the actual term they use at the State Department. I sort of gave up on the reading after a couple of months because it was so difficult. Do you have any issues on day-to-day things such as shopping? They do have supermarkets like in the United States, but they are few and far between, so most of the time, we go to a little market downstairs in the apartment building and the one down the street. You can get just about everything delivered to your door, especially food. You can even have (hot) coffee delivered to your


How to persuade Americans to act on climate change

resulted in widespread apathy. But there is another reason that has been discussed far less openly. While a growing number of people understand that climate change will have significant worldwide consequences, many Americans have an intuitive belief that our nation is more capable than others of adapting to a changed environment. Why? Because we have before. This historical success, however, resulted from the federal government taking science seriously, and making investments to spur innovation and ingenuity. In the mid-1930s, the Dust Bowl saw the desertification of 100 million acres in the High Plains, forcing tens of thousands of families to flee the region. Because the U.S. is so large, however, it was relatively easy to relocate this displaced population. Modern irrigation projects, miracle seeds and petrochemical fertilizers eventually allowed agriculture to return, and now nearly one-third of U.S. wheat is grown there — one reason for our impressive food security. In the early 1940s, as the Nazis threatened to engulf the planet, President Franklin D. Roosevelt essentially took over the national economy and turned it into the most potent military machine in history, leading to the ultimate defeat of the fascists. In the 1960s, in reaction to the Soviet launches of the satellite Sputnik and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the Apollo space program proved the United States' superior technological capabilities by putting astronauts on the moon. And finally, in the 1970s, more than a dozen laws were passed to address environmental calamities such as air and water pollution, with tremendously positive results. But these innovations did not happen by themselves, or simply because of the United States' bountiful resources. They depended on consistent and steadfast advocacy from our leaders about the need to take action when faced with crises. This has been especially true in the environmental realm. Presidents from both political parties have advanced environmental security policies, in particular Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter. Just as climate science became more robust in the 1980s, however, Americans began to reject environmental policies that they thought threatened their standard of living. This idea came from conservative think tanks, in particular the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute, and fossil fuel lobbyists who argued economic growth and sustainable development were mutually exclusive. These climate change deniers suggested that efforts to address the crisis would crash the economy, despite mounting evidence that green policies could have


With spending bill stalled, federal agencies prepare to cease operations at midnight Friday

encouraged to use extra money, if they have it, to try to stay open for a short period. But late Thursday, officials had not spelled out which offices would be able to keep operating and for how long. Many national parks would be accessible to the public, for example, as they were during a brief shutdown last January, but their visitor centers and restrooms would be closed and there would be no trash collection or park rangers on duty. Historical homes and areas of parks where roads cannot be plowed would be closed. Roads and trails and open-air memorials would stay open. Most employees who are likely to be sent home without pay were not expected to be notified until Friday, when many of them will be on vacation, leaving managers rushing to come up with plans to notify them. “At the operational level, our people have not been given instructions for how to wind down,” said Jacque Simon, policy director for the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers. “Right now, everyone is just acting in a state of uncertainty,” Simon said. “They were operating on the assumption that Trump was going to sign something.” With the government already closed for Christmas on Monday and Tuesday, and so many staffers planning to be away the rest of the week, bosses were preparing for how to contact employees in case they needed to officially inform them of staffing plans. The reality was that it could be Wednesday before many agencies would be able to start official preparations for a shutdown, during which furloughed workers must come to work briefly to turn in their government-issued laptops and cellphones and change their voice mail greetings. Employees who have been approved for days off but who are deemed essential would be called back to work. About 75 percent of the portion of the federal budget controlled by Congress has been funded through September, including the Pentagon, Veterans Affairs and the Health and Human Services Department. That leaves about a quarter of the government — and more than one-third of federal workers — that would have no money appropriated to operate. The unfunded agencies include the Peace Corps, the Small Business Administration, the General Services Administration, the National Archives and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. About 800,000 of the 2.1 million federal employees across the country would be affected.


Five myths about Brexit

Two and a half years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Brexit is a mess. Prime Minister Theresa May, who once opposed the policy, can’t sell the departure agreement she negotiated with the European Union, and she barely survived a no-confidence vote in her own party this month. Few in Britain believe she will make Brexit successful — and few even know what a successful Brexit would be. Indeed, after a couple of years of debate, several myths have developed. Myth No. 1 A Brexit vote was inevitable. Former prime minister David Cameron has justified his 2013 promise to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership in the E.U. by saying the situation was “unsustainable” — that it “needed to be addressed.” Shortly after the vote, the Conservative Brexiteer Boris Johnson said that the vote was “inevitable,” because there was “no way of dealing with a decision on this scale except by putting it to the people.” But polls from the time tell a different story. In the months before Cameron’s promise, Ipsos MORI asked Britons what the biggest issues facing their country were. Sixty-one percent said the economy, followed by 35 percent who said unemployment. Just 1 in 20 mentioned Europe. According to a BBC tally, 138 Conservative members of Parliament supported Brexit, compared with 185 who wanted to remain in the E.U. The vast majority of other parties supported staying in the bloc. Cameron’s referendum wasn’t answering any demands from the British public. The prime minister was worried that pressure from a few euroskeptic Conservative lawmakers and the fringe anti-E.U. party UKIP would cost him a parliamentary majority in the next election. (He thought the vote would neutralize those critics, and he didn’t expect it to pass.) But Brexit was a self-fulfilling policy: Polls show that, since the plebiscite, Europe is considered the biggest problem facing the country. Myth No. 2 Brexit spells doom for the European Union. Immediately after Britain’s vote to leave the E.U., some predicted that it heralded the beginning of the end for the bloc. “Europe will fall,” said Peter Lundgren, a member of the European Parliament from the far-Right Sweden Democrat party. A YouGov poll from July 2016 found that many around Europe thought more countries would leave the E.U. as a result of Brexit. Two and a half years later, how has that panned out? Even when populists have taken power


Readers critique The Post: Voyager 2, the Harvard-Yale game, and funny, sad and bad cartoons

the network may want to get Los Angeles back to the future. Chuck Hadden ● Forget Paris The Dec. 5 front-page article “Amid violence, France cools heels on climate-change tax” cited President Trump’s Twitter message — “The Paris Agreement is fatally flawed because it raises the price of energy for responsible countries while whitewashing some of the worst polluters in the world. . . . American workers shouldn’t pay to clean up other countries’ pollution.” The article then noted, “Fuel taxes, however, generate revenue that stays inside home countries.” That is the kind of broken, disjointed commentary on the climate change issue that is at the root of why the Paris accord is doomed. First, the United States, France and the rest of the “responsible countries” to which the president refers have largely caused the environmental problem. And if new environmental revenue “stays inside home countries,” that leaves poor developing countries to fund any mitigation efforts themselves. Good luck with that. Irfan Ali ● Bon Voyager I read with great interest the Dec. 13 Politics & the Nation article “Interstellar II: Another spacecraft leaves the heliosphere,” marking the departure of Voyager 2 from the direct influence of the sun after 41 years and 11 billion miles of space travel. Although we tend to focus on the short time spans and distances of our day-to-day life, this story broadened my horizon in a big way. The article even had me tearing up when I read the concluding paragraphs about the gold-plated disks with sounds and images of Earth that the Voyager spacecrafts will carry to our neighbors in another star system. To infinity and beyond! Ivor Knight ● Don't deny what deniers really are It is unfortunate that The Post has adopted the framing of the science deniers by giving them the undeserved title of “skeptic,” as in the Dec. 3 front-page article “GOP falling in line with skeptics on climate.” Skeptics value evidence and scientific method and use them to debunk unscientific claims. The science deniers in the GOP do nothing of the sort. An appropriate name for them would be “nihilists” (literally, nothing-ists), because they start with the conclusion that we should do nothing to mitigate climate change, and they then cherry-pick sound bites to support that position. This is pseudoscience at its worst and is thus the polar opposite of skepticism. William McLeese ● Conflationism As a secular


The Daily 202: Mattis resignation and shutdown saber-rattling signal an even more chaotic Trump presidency in 2019

never asked Justice Department ethics officials for a formal recommendation, nor did he receive one ... However, after Whitaker met repeatedly with Justice Department ethics officials to discuss the facts and the issues under consideration, a senior ethics official told the group of advisers on Tuesday that it was a ‘close call’ but that Whitaker should recuse himself to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.” -- Schumer said the Mueller memo penned earlier this year by William Barr, Trump's pick to replace Whitaker, should disqualify him. -- Mueller may submit a report on his findings to the attorney general as early as mid-February, -- The House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously to give Mueller a transcript of Roger Stone’s testimony to the panel. -- House Democrats plan to use an obscure federal law from 1924 to try to obtain Trump’s tax returns. -- Russian agents used a back channel with the Treasury Department during the 2016 campaign to try to obtain information on some of Hillary Clinton’s influential supporters and Kremlin enemies. SYRIA FALLOUT: -- Echoing his proposal to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, Trump is pushing to reduce by roughly half the number of U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan. “A senior administration official ... said that other U.S. officials are still trying to change Trump’s mind ... The news … is certain to worry senior officials in Afghanistan, who already are battling deteriorating security in the country despite the existing U.S. military presence there. And it will be greeted wearily by many senior U.S. military officers, who have launched more airstrikes in Afghanistan this year than in any during the 17-year-old war, the longest in American history.” -- The back-to-back news about Syria and Afghanistan could define a Trump Doctrine on foreign policy, -- Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria has caused a sense of betrayal among the country’s Kurds and other U.S. allies in the region. -- Turkey will delay a planned offensive against Kurdish forces in Syria's northeast, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday, citing talks with Trump. MORE MATTIS FALLOUT: -- “The defense secretary resigned during what one senior administration official described as a disagreement in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, in which Mattis sought to persuade the president to stand down on the Syria withdrawal but was rejected,” per Paul Sonne, Josh Dawsey and Missy Ryan. “Trump was later given a copy


Garden after House Republicans passed a health-care bill that ultimately died in the Senate.) Pelosi responded by once again placing the onus of a potential shutdown on the president: A House Republican mocked Mark Meadows’s tough-love take on government employees who might be furloughed — or work unpaid — over the holidays: A Democratic senator reminded her Twitter followers of the government employees who could be affected by a shutdown: A Democratic congresswoman-elect criticized the priorities of the House bill: But immigration hawks urged Trump to force a shutdown, even if he’s going to be blamed: The shutdown chaos gave one Democratic senator just 17 minutes with his family in Hawaii: From a HuffPost reporter: From an editor at the Atlantic: A Post reporter raised this conflict-of-interest concern: Two potential 2020 candidates ran into each other in Iowa, per a Wall Street Journal reporter: “West Wing” star Bradley Whitford, who played Josh Lyman, criticized Zach Fuentes: And a presidential historian noted another president’s visit to Mar-a-Lago as Trump prepares to leave for two weeks at the “Winter White House”: But, depending on what happens today, Trump may be stuck in Washington: A CBS News reporter noted that Friday is the winter solstice: GOOD READS: -- “The end of Lean In: How Sheryl Sandberg’s message of empowerment fully unraveled,” by Caitlin Gibson: -- “Michelle Obama can wear whatever she wants now. What she wants is sparkly thigh-high boots,” by Robin Givhan: DAYBOOK: Trump NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.: -- Washingtonians who are traveling today should keep an eye out for possible late-day storms. -- The Nationals reached a deal with pitcher Anibal Sanchez. -- D.C. Council member Jack Evans received stock in a digital sign company worth up to $100,000 just before he promoted legislation benefiting the company. -- Virginia plans to stop suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid court fines. VIDEOS OF THE DAY: Stephen Colbert suggested a replacement for Jim Mattis: The Post’s Beirut bureau chief shared this video of Raqqa as Trump moves to pull U.S. troops out of Syria: One of Trump’s senior advisers tried to yell over a CNN host during an interview about border-wall funding: As he rejected a deal to avoid a shutdown, Trump posted an old video of himself pretending to be a farmer a la “Green Acres”: And gorillas at London Zoo enjoyed treats from a large advent calendar:


Trump says he won’t sign Senate deal to avert shutdown, demands funds for border security

Senate votes to block any bill that includes funding for Trump’s wall, and Trump says he’ll veto any bill that doesn’t. The chances of a shutdown are “certainly higher than they were this morning,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said after Thursday night’s House vote. Funding for roughly 25 percent of the federal agencies whose budgets rely on Congress will expire at the end of Friday. The agencies affected deal with homeland security, law enforcement, national parks, transportation and housing, among others. The rest of the government, including the military, would not be affected, as it’s funded through September by bills lawmakers passed earlier this year. The impacted agencies would continue to perform some of their functions, but more than 100,000 employees are expected to be sent home without pay. The White House hasn’t yet revealed the full impact of a partial shutdown, as it is up to each agency to implement its own plan. But it is clear the effects would be widespread: Close to 80,000 Internal Revenue Service employees would no longer come into work, and national parks that are locked at night would not reopen in the morning. It can occasionally take several days for the full impact of a shutdown to kick in, and some agencies could remain open on Saturday but close by Monday. Numerous agencies would be affected immediately, and some on Thursday seemed unprepared for the brinkmanship. Officials from the Smithsonian Institution, Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate National Park and Gateway Arch either said they weren’t sure whether they would be open Saturday or didn’t respond to requests for comment. A government shutdown could drag on for days or weeks, as Democrats have shown no willingness to budge from their refusal to finance a wall. Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in early January, giving them even more leverage in negotiations. As Thursday night wore on, a partial government shutdown began to appear all but inevitable to many on Capitol Hill, though House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) insisted that “there’s still plenty of time” to avoid one. “I think you’ll find that we’ll be able to move forward and make sure we keep the government open,” McCarthy said after returning from the White House. “And also we believe we need border security.” But the path forward was far from clear, and the 115th Congress threatened to end on a bitter note