Stung by Hong Kong vote, China slams Reuters report on liaison office shake-up

BEIJING — China’s Communist Party admonished the Reuters news agency Tuesday over what the party called a “false report” about a move to replace the head of the government’s Hong Kong liaison office for failing to foresee the resounding defeat of the pro-Beijing establishment in local elections last weekend. Reuters reported The report said Beijing was considering replacing its most senior official stationed in Hong Kong, liaison office Director Wang Zhimin, because it was dissatisfied with his handling of the crisis. In a stunning rebuke to Beijing, Hong Kong residents gave an overwhelming majority to pro-democracy candidates running in local elections held Sunday. Voters handed control of 17 of the territory’s 18 councils to representatives who oppose China’s increasing influence, giving the pro-democracy camp greater say in the choice of Hong Kong’s next leader. The Foreign Ministry’s office in Hong Kong said Tuesday that it had lodged “solemn representations” with Reuters about the “false report.” It said it had urged the agency “to uphold a true, professional and responsible attitude, and immediately stop spreading false information.” The ministry has insisted throughout the six months of protests in Hong Kong that the unrest is an internal domestic matter and that China will never waver from the “one country, two systems” formula under which Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997. Under that framework, Hong Kong is supposed to enjoy a degree of autonomy and relative political freedom until 2047, but its residents are bristling at Beijing’s increasingly muscular control over the territory. Tensions burst into the open in June, when the Beijing-backed Hong Kong government moved to implement a law that would have allowed Hong Kongers to be extradited to the mainland. Hong Kong has a much stronger and more transparent rule of law than the mainland, and many residents feared that the proposal, which has since been scrapped, could be used to target Beijing’s critics. The Reuters report, which cited Chinese officials briefed on the discussions, said that Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other top officials have been receiving daily written briefings from the villa, named Bauhinia after the flower emblem of Hong Kong, bypassing the liaison office in Hong Kong. Embattled Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam had attended meetings there, according to the report, which could not be independently verified. China’s leaders appear increasingly vexed about how to deal with the unrest in Hong Kong, analysts say,


At a few farms, turkeys are the guest this Thanksgiving — not the main course

middle of the table.” But Baur comes prepared. He brings vegan dishes for others to sample, confident that plant-based foods can be made to taste as good as any other. And yet, Americans will eat an estimated 46 million turkeys on Thanksgiving, with most of the birds having been raised in factory farms. Animals raised on factory farms generate about 1 million tons of manure a day, Baur says. It doesn’t just stink and pollute the land; the waste also produces greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the hormones and excessive quantities of antibiotics used on factory farms put people at risk for a variety of chronic diseases, obesity and drug-resistant bacteria. “The blunt reality is that most of us are unwitting supporters of a food production system that is cruel, unhealthy and environmentally destructive,” Baur said. “But I believe that most people are humane and that they would rather live well without doing harm to others, if they only knew how.” Farm Sanctuary has an “Adopt a Turkey” project that can help with the empathy. One of the featured animals is named Anna, who was a week old when she was brought to the sanctuary with 23 other sick baby turkeys. “Since they were all debeaked — a cruel practice of animal agriculture — these turkeys likely started life on a factory farm,” the adoption brochure says. “Despite the physical and emotional scars of a past life, Anna is a playful member of her flock.” There’s also one named Pamela. “Raised on a factory farm, she would have been among the 240 million turkeys slaughtered for meat in the U.S. each year,” the brochure says. “Instead, she was rescued and came to Farm Sanctuary. Even after all she’s faced, Pamela loves people and enjoys a good cuddle!” Visitors to the sanctuary have an opportunity to at least see what a turkey really looks like, to realize that there is more to the animal than the shrink-wrapped hunk of meat you get at the grocery store. It has a face. It gobbles. It has feelings. As a show of gratitude, the turkey would probably prefer being alive to being blessed and eaten for dinner. “They are curious and good-natured,” Baur said of the rescued birds. “And like all animals, they want to enjoy life and avoid pain and suffering.” courtland.milloy@washpost.com


Amid lawsuit, Hogan plans to empty State Center site, relaunch redevelopment

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced Tuesday that he was expediting redevelopment of the long-stalled State Center project in Baltimore that has become the subject of major lawsuits and a symbol of missed opportunity. His plan includes moving thousands of state workers out of the deteriorating, 28-acre complex and finding a new master developer to build retail, housing and other amenities. An attorney for the former developer of the site, which is suing the state over canceling its $1.5 billion contract, denounced Hogan’s plan as a betrayal of the city. State Center serves as a physical barrier, blocking the economic resurgence that has transformed downtown from moving toward impoverished West Baltimore. Hogan (R), who owns a real estate company, said Tuesday that he has instructed the Maryland Stadium Authority to fast-track plans to redevelop the site in a “transformative” way. The property sits near transit lines and is bordered by the home of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Maryland Institute College of Art, the affluent Bolton Hill neighborhood and a public-housing project that served as a setting for the HBO series “The Wire.” Hogan is the third governor to attempt to get the complicated project off the ground. He is also responsible for sidelining the redevelopment deal negotiated by his predecessor. In 2016, he persuaded the Board of Public Works to file a lawsuit canceling its redevelopment deal with Baltimore-based Ekistics. The governor criticized that plan as unworkable, unacceptably slow-moving and unnecessarily expensive, and he floated the idea of building a sports arena on the site. Ekistics countersued the state for $70 million in damages. While the litigation is ongoing, Hogan and state lawyers said they believe they can solicit new plans now. The 3,300 employees who work in the complex will be moved to Baltimore’s central business district to prepare for demolition, Hogan said. Collectively, the workers will use 1 million square feet of office space — and Hogan said there is no plan for them to ever return to the neighborhood. Michael J. Edney, a lawyer representing Ekistics, accused Hogan of “the hollowing out of State Center” and said the economic loss of the removed workers cannot be replaced. “The Governor is long on details for cleaning out State Center, but short on any description of the future,” Edney said in a statement. Hogan said state lawyers have spent three years working to “free the state” from the development


Russia could be banned from next two Olympics over doping if WADA follows recommendation

the Compliance Review Committee, which recommended the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) be declared noncompliant with the WADA Code. The committee formally submitted its recommendations Friday, and they were intended to remain confidential until the 12-member executive committee votes at its Dec. 9 meeting in Paris. But WADA reversed course Monday and announced the recommendations after news began to circulate in media reports, including the New York Times. WADA did not release the committee’s full 26-page report. If the executive committee accepts the recommendations, RUSADA will have three weeks to decide whether it will appeal its case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Barring a successful appeal, the WADA ruling would be binding, and the International Olympic Committee would have to abide by the decision. Thomas Bach, the IOC president, has said he is not in favor of Russia being completely barred from Olympic competition. The committee’s recommendations make clear that Russian athletes can still compete as long as they haven’t been implicated in Russia’s doping scheme. In PyeongChang, 168 Russian athletes competed as an “Olympic Athlete from Russia,” accounting for 17 medals. RUSADA was initially suspended in November 2015 for its role in the widespread, state-sponsored scandal. It was reinstated in September 2018 but was required to turn over data from its Moscow laboratory. When WADA’s investigators received that data in January, they noticed irregularities between data submitted by Moscow’s laboratory and information shared by a whistleblower in October 2017. WADA launched a “formal compliance procedure” over concerns that the data had been tampered with or altered, and Russian officials were given three weeks to answer questions about the suspect data. According to a WADA statement Monday, the “Moscow data are neither complete nor fully authentic.” The organization noted that while some of the data matched information shared by the whistleblower in 2017, “hundreds of presumptive adverse analytical findings” weren’t included in Russia’s 2019 submission, and “the related underlying raw data and PDF files have been deleted or altered.” The investigators were able to determine that the deletions and alterations were made in December and January — more than three months after RUSADA had been reinstated and ordered to turn over the data. “These activities were concealed by backdating of computer systems and data files in an attempt to make it appear that the Moscow data had been in their current state since 2015,” according to WADA. “Furthermore, the


The U.S. diet is a climate disaster. Here are four easy fixes.

picture: Emissions are also a major problem at grocery stores and restaurants. “It’s not just about the food you eat — it’s about all the other things that are required to bring the food to you,” she said. “That includes things like the electricity to light restaurants or to cook food in them.” Boehm admits that it’s difficult for consumers to prompt change at the industry level — but they can support businesses that are documenting and reducing their carbon emissions. One restaurant group in Portland, Ore., has published dish-by-dish emission data online. The Zero Foodprint project helps restaurants calculate and offset their carbon footprints. Major grocery chains, including Walmart and Meijer, have also tweaked their supply chains to reduce emissions. In the future, Boehm plans to look at whether ditching restaurants altogether would reduce a household’s food emissions — but there’s no data to support that now, she said. Boehm acknowledges that this tip is the most abstract — and for some, it wouldn't be practical or nutritious. But the economic logic is that the cost of food frequently reflects the cost of the resources that went into it, and those resources also draw on the environment. Consider a bag of carrots. The carrots require resources on the farm, from soil and water to harvesting machines. But when a consumer buys carrots at the store, they're also paying for the plastic bag the carrots came in, the design team that designed the bag, and a lot of other distant corporate activities. High-income households tend to buy a lot more resource-intensive — read: expensive — food, as well as more red meat and dairy products, Boehm said. Reducing spending does not make sense if it makes your diet less healthful, Boehm said. She and other researchers have found that many processed and packaged foods — such as chips and Twinkies — generate fewer emissions because they’re made from grains and other ingredients that do not have a large carbon footprint. Here, as with all attempts to reduce emissions, it's important to make careful substitutions. “If people are going to switch, what do they switch to?” Boehm asked. “That's an area for future research in the U.S.” Read more You're about to see a big change in the sell-by dates on food Why Americans have stopped eating leftovers What we eat has bigger consequences for the planet than we ever thought


Afghan leader, U.S. envoy rebuke spy agency’s detention of activist reporting on sexual abuse

550 boys had been sexually abused at half a dozen schools in Logar. He said teachers, headmasters and local officials were involved in the alleged abuse, according to local news reports on his findings. After confirming Mahmudi was in its custody, the Afghan intelligence agency released a video clip of him renouncing his findings and asking for forgiveness from the Afghan people and government. Mahmudi appeared tense in the video, shifting his gaze from the camera to his hands on the table in front of him. The video also featured Ehsanullah Hamidi, the fellow activist from Logar detained with Mahmudi. Bass described the spy agency’s release of the videotaped confession as “Soviet-style tactics.” Human rights activists in Afghanistan have come under attack from forces aligned with the government as well as anti-government armed groups. In August, Amnesty International warned that such attacks were intensifying and criticized the Afghan government for failing to investigate. “The Afghan government has a duty to respect, protect and support activists, to investigate threats and attacks against them, and to hold suspected perpetrators accountable,” said Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director at Amnesty International in a news release accompanying the report. The NDS has repeatedly come under fire from human rights organizations for abuses against civilians. Most recently, the intelligence agency was the focus of an October report from Human Rights Watch on night raids carried out by forces under its command. “The NDS has a long track record of illegal detention and torture. But this is a new low,” said Patricia Gossman, the lead Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “To detain two human rights activists who exposed government officials and teachers responsible for widespread sexual abuse of children is nothing short of silencing the messenger.” While illegal in Afghanistan, the practice of “bacha bazi,” or “boy pleasure” — where wealthy or prominent Afghans sexually exploit underage boys — persists, according to human rights groups. Perpetrators are rarely prosecuted, and instead the victims are often punished by their families or communities. Mahmudi’s report on allegations of abuse in Logar was met with sharp criticism from local officials who accused him of tarnishing the province’s reputation. Amnesty International released what it said were text messages Mahmudi sent just before he was taken into NDS custody last week, in which he indicated the spy agency was “trying to arrest me” and “blame me for everything.” “Every minute


Trump would be unfit to hold the lowest rank in the military

Regarding the Nov. 25 front-page article “Navy secretary is forced out over SEAL’s case”: With the firing of Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer and the resignation last December of then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, we see career military leaders choosing duty to country and duty to their oath of office over duty to a personality. The reason that any president would be obsessed with pardoning war criminals and dishonoring war heroes (Sen. John McCain, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, Army Sgt. La David Johnson) gets lost in the shuffle. Mental-health professionals such as myself see nothing mysterious. The president telegraphed all of this when, as a candidate, he said that the Geneva Conventions tie the hands of our military. As a career mental-health officer, I would have been obligated to discharge any soldier who refused to accept our rules of engagement, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Like the commander in chief praising neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville (people who would be disqualified from military service for their unconstitutional beliefs), we have, for the first time in U.S. history, someone in charge of the military who would be unfit to hold the lowest rank within the military. Steve Nolan The writer is retired as a major from the U.S. Air Force. Read more letters to the editor.


Richard Spencer’s stark new warning about Trump unmasks a deeper truth

The battle that culminated in President Trump’s firing of Richard V. Spencer once again illustrates an ugly truth about the Trump presidency: The only core value Trump aspires to in public service is that there are no core values. For Trump, in other words, the impunity is the point. Spencer, the Navy secretary who was ousted over his effort to discipline a Navy SEAL convicted of posing for a photograph with the corpse of a teen-aged member of the Islamic State, delivered a stark new warning about Trump’s decision in an interview with CBS News that aired Monday night. “What message does that send to the troops?” Spencer said. “That you can get away with things. We have to have good order and discipline. It’s the backbone of what we do.” You can get away with things Trump, who ordered Spencer to refrain from taking away Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher’s Trident pin identifying him as a SEAL, claims he was protecting “our war fighters.” “A war fighter is a profession of arms,” Spencer responded on CBS News. “And a profession of arms has standards that they have to be held to — and that they hold themselves to.” It’s eerie how perfectly these Spencer quotes overlap, in reverse, on top of the message that Trump has blared about his whole presidency from Day One. In every conceivable way, Trump has proclaimed that he and his loyalists will not be held to any standards of any kind in public service — and will not hold themselves to any such standards, either. In a narrow sense, Trump is quite explicitly declaring that the standards for “our war fighters” should be far more lax than they are. This is exactly what makes his decision so destructive. That’s what retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling told CNN, noting this will be the “gift that keeps on giving” for future fighters facing discipline, because they’ll say, “you’re taking my Trident, but you let Gallagher get away with it?” As an excellent Deep State Radio podcast details, Trump has the authority to do this, but such a corrupt application of it is the stuff that institutional degradation is made of. Beyond this, it’s plainly obvious that Trump — whether by instinct or design — is sending a larger message here, about his own ability and willingness to render rules, standards and, above all, accountability moot through


Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on dissent keeps going. Here are the latest arrests.

that Mohammed gave the assassination order. Khashoggi was a prominent critic of Mohammed, and his death was a chilling message to other dissidents and Saudi nationals that even those outside of the kingdom are not safe. Khashoggi’s murder initially made Saudi Arabia somewhat of an international pariah — but business executives and politicians, including President Trump, did not stay away from the oil-rich kingdom for long. “There has been virtually no accountability for the past rights abuses, including the murder of Khashoggi and alleged torture of the women’s rights activists,” Coogle said. This month’s arrests were in part possible because of “the failure of world leaders and others to hold Saudi accountable,” he added. Beginning in May 2018, Saudi authorities arrested at least a dozen of the key female activists who campaigned for years for the right for Saudi women to drive, “accusing them of nefarious contacts with foreign parties and branding them traitors in the press,” The Post’s Kareem Fahim wrote. “The activists did not limit themselves to the driving campaign,” Fahim wrote. “They fought for survivors of domestic violence, women shackled by restrictive guardianship laws and political prisoners. They represented different generations of Saudi women, trying over decades to bend the will of a harshly conservative and often obdurate state. Some garnered international acclaim. Others toiled at home, enlisting Saudi women in a struggle for rights.” Authorities reportedly tortured some of the women after their arrests. Many of their trials are ongoing. In November 2017, Mohammed rounded up about 300 Saudi royals, senior officials and wealthy business executives in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in a bizarre affair in which the crown prince accused family members and potential rivals of corruption and pledged to release them only once they had repaid their debts. It was a move intended to show the public that he was cracking down on corruption — but also a signal to those around Mohammed not to test his power. In the months that followed, Mohammed arrested other princes and members of Saudi’s elite who questioned his tactics. As Mohammed rose within the palace and moved to consolidate power in 2017, Saudi authorities arrested at least 20 prominent clerics and academics known to be critical of the kingdom and supporters of political changes. At the time, state media said those ensnared were working on behalf of “foreign parties against the security of the kingdom,” the BBC reported.


Maryland man charged with murder in D.C. shooting

A Maryland man was arrested and charged with murder Tuesday after a fatal shooting in Northeast Washington last month. At around 5:15 a.m. on Oct. 24, 32-year-old Alie Labay of New Carrollton was found fatally shot in a residence in the 900 block of 21st Street NE, D.C. police said in a statement. On Tuesday, police said 30-year-old Gregory Washington of Temple Hills was charged with first-degree murder while armed in the killing. No further information about the circumstances or motive in the shooting was immediately available. There have been more than 150 homicides this year in the District, according to tracking by The Washington Post. justin.moyer@washpost.com


Boston Dynamics’ ‘terrifying’ robotic dogs have been put to work by at least one police agency

sparked, sometimes literally, harm to people and property,” Calo writes. “We formed the Federal Railroad Administration in response. This agency now lives within the U.S. Department of Transportation, though the DOT itself grew out of the ascendance of rail and later the highway.” Boston Dynamics has produced other four-legged robots — with names like Wildcat and BigDog — that can carry heavy loads and run nearly 20 miles per hour. Atlas, the company’s athletic humanoid robot, may be its most recognizable product, but Spot is the company’s first commercial product. The robot, which has amassed millions of views on YouTube, went on sale earlier this year and is “currently shipping to select early adopters,” according to Boston Dynamics. The company says early customers are using the robot to “monitor construction sites, provide remote inspection at gas, oil and power installations, and in public safety.” The machine can be directed by a person using a remote control, but much of the machine’s movements — such as how the robot walks and balances itself — occur reflexively, without human intervention. Boston Dynamics founder, Marc Raibert, has also predicted that his company’s robots could one day be used to clean up dangerous environments such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster site, where human workers have been at risk. Michael Perry, Boston Dynamics vice president for business development, told WBUR-FM that the company opted to lease Spot to new customers to give company officials the ability to revoke a machine that is misused. The agreements include language that prohibits using the robots to “physically harm or intimidate people,” Perry told WBUR. “Part of our early evaluation process with customers is making sure that we’re on the same page for the usage of the robot,” he added. “So upfront, we’re very clear with our customers that we don’t want the robot being used in a way that can physically harm somebody.” How much does it cost to lease Spot? Reluctant to reveal that cost, company officials have said that Spot will be “less than the price of a car,” according to IEEE Spectrum, a magazine published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. MORE READING: At this Chinese hotel, the bellhops have been replaced by talking robots Banking that electric cars can also be cool, Ford introduces an all-electric Mustang The future of autonomous delivery may be unfolding in an unlikely place: Suburban Houston


I was a drug rep. I know how pharma companies pushed opioids.

subtle way of making the recipient feel obligated to reciprocate in some way. But simply getting in the door was a start: A concept I introduced in a casual pitch would later be echoed from the podium, during a formal address by a sponsored speaker. Repeat a marketing message enough times, through enough mouthpieces, and it comes to seem like established scientific consensus. I helped recruit those speakers from among my high-volume prescribers. I’d look out for physicians who were Ivy League-educated and spoke well on their local lecture circuits — and who spoke well of our medications, parrying any critiques. If they were good, we would pay them thousands of dollars to lecture at national conferences, interlacing their clinical language with our company line. Some physicians stood to make hundreds of thousands a year through speaking engagements and “consulting fees.” These programs are key to establishing a drug’s legitimacy when it enters the market or when it begins to have competitors. Similarly, Purdue Pharma’s launch plan for OxyContin called for the company to use its “speakers bureau” of several thousand doctors to give promotional talks at hospital programs. Sales reps have a vital role in their company’s synergistic marketing apparatus, which aims to permeate the medical establishment and control its discourse. Recently, former Purdue Pharma reps have come forward, describing how they played down addiction risks during sales calls. If patients reported withdrawal symptoms like nausea or the shakes, the reps were trained to call this “pseudo-addiction.” A doctor who was skeptical of this concept could find studies to back it up — many of them conducted by J. David Haddox, Purdue’s scientific adviser. His research claimed that these symptoms resembled drug-seeking behavior but were actually caused by unrelieved pain. This pain, of course, could be treated by increasing the opioid dosage; these patients should not be diagnosed with addiction. Though “pseudo-addiction” became a popular term in medical literature, there has been no empirical evidence backing up the concept. After my experience selling Prozac and Zyprexa, I know how easy it is to cherry-pick studies and present them as straightforward, neutral information: A review of industry-sponsored research on SSRI anti-depressants in the 1990s revealed that the published literature exaggerated how many clinical trials had positive results. Over the past 30 years, opioid-makers built their case for the long-term safety and non-addictiveness of their products on a thin scientific foundation.


Don’t eat romaine lettuce from California’s Salinas Valley, CDC warns

so you can protect yourself and your family.” No deaths have been reported in this E. coli outbreak, but the strain is the same one that caused outbreaks linked to leafy greens and romaine lettuce in the last two years. Just two days before Thanksgiving last year, CDC issued an unusually broad alert, warning consumers to avoid eating romaine lettuce of any kind in response to an outbreak. Of those who have been sickened in this outbreak by E. coli O157: H7, 28 people have been hospitalized, including five who have developed a type of kidney failure. This E. coli strain produces a Shiga toxin that can enter a person’s bloodstream and wreak havoc on kidney function. Symptoms of infection include vomiting, painful cramps and diarrhea that is often bloody. The largest number of cases reported so far has been in Wisconsin, with 10 cases. Other cases have been reported in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. FDA and states are tracing the source of the romaine lettuce eaten by the ill consumers. No common grower, supplier, distributor, or brand of romaine lettuce has been identified. The Maryland Department of Health identified E. coli O157: H7 in romaine lettuce from an unopened package of Ready Pac Foods Bistro® Chicken Caesar salad collected from a sick person’s home in Maryland. Ill people in Maryland also reported eating Ready Pac Foods Bistro® Chicken Caesar salad, which contained romaine from Salinas. To date, sickened consumers in other states have not reported eating this particular salad. Laboratory evidence and interviews with the sickened consumers indicate that romaine lettuce from the Salinas region may be contaminated with this strain. Whole genome sequencing shows the strain in romaine lettuce tested by the Maryland Health Department is closely related genetically to the E. coli found in sick people. That lettuce was harvested from the Salinas growing region. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a list of 35 recalled products. They were sold under different brand names and “use by” dates from Oct. 29, 2019 to Nov. 1, 2019. Brands include Bonduelle Chef Salad, Marketside Bistro, Signature Cafe and Signature Farms. On Thursday, Missa Bay LLC recalled salad products due to possible E. coli contamination. At this time, there is no recommendation for consumers or retailers to avoid using or selling romaine harvested from places other


How NASA could help stop climate change with solar satellites

Just two months after the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg told leaders gathered at the United Nations that they had stolen her dreams by not figuring out how to stop climate change within her eight-year deadline. Today, Congress can give Greta her climate dream back. The key is President Trump’s plan to have NASA return Americans to the moon by 2024. But this time, we shouldn’t go just to get there: Instead, we should set off with a plan to kick-start a technological plan that has been in the works for decades. That tech is solar satellites. As first conceptualized in 1968 by Peter Glaser, an engineer, these huge arrays — lightweight frames several miles across that would hold thin panels — would orbit 22,000 miles above the equator in a geosynchronous orbit. Because of the Earth’s tilt, satellites in this orbit are never in its shadow. That means they would be constantly exposed to sunlight, which they would convert into electricity. They would then use a cellphone-like microwave signal to send that electricity safely down to equally large antennas on the ground below them anywhere on the planet, and into the grid. Each of these satellites would transmit 3,000 to 15,000 megawatts to the ground, enough to power several cities. Today, 1,000 megawatts will supply 1 million American homes with constant power. (Wireless energy transmission may seem implausible, but we’ve had the capacity to pull it off as far back as 1975. That’s when NASA and the Raytheon used satellite components to send a wireless microwave electric signal across a mile-wide valley in Goldstone, Calif.) Glaser spent decades testifying before Congress about the engineering and environmental benefits of these satellites, as did Ralph Nansen, who headed Boeing’s solar satellite program in the 1980s and 1990s, and John Mankins, who headed NASA’s Advanced Programs Office in the 1990s and early 2000s. As the oil embargo hit the United States in the 1970s (when much of our electricity came from burning oil), Congress asked NASA’s contractors to update Glaser’s plan. The proposals that General Dynamics, Boeing and others dreamed up built on our previous experience with moon exploration by astronauts, which ended in 1972, and NASA’s first space station, Skylab, which launched in 1973. With these past successes, some posited that astronauts could build Skylab-like space stations in Low Earth Orbit 200 miles up, where


A national reckoning on privacy and consumer protection

The call in the Nov. 23 editorial “Privacy is not partisan” for more congressional negotiation on a national privacy law isolated the practical consequence of further delay. Every day without action, Washington cedes oversight and influence on key privacy questions to Sacramento and the European Union, which have enacted privacy rules that are slowly but surely becoming the de facto standard for the United States and the entire world. Is this what we want? We’ve arrived at a national reckoning on privacy and consumer protection, but a “hodgepodge” approach would create confusion and leave consumers exposed — exactly what we should avoid. Instead, a national privacy law with a single high standard that protects consumers and applies to all companies operating online will put the United States back in the global pole position — where it belongs. Only Congress can get us across the finish line. Jonathan Spalter The writer is president and chief executive of USTelecom — The Broadband Association. Read more letters to the editor.


Personal loans are ‘growing like a weed,’ a potential warning sign for the U.S. economy

payday loan products. But there is concern that some Americans get personal loans to tide them over and then continue to take on more credit card or other debt. Credit card debt has continued to rise alongside personal loans, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. TransUnion has recently noticed an uptick in retailers offering personal loans when someone comes to the cashier to buy furniture or holiday toys. “I have mixed feelings about personal loans. They are superior to credit cards because the payments are fixed,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. “The problem is many people still have their credit card and end up running up their credit card again, so they end up in a worse situation with credit card debt and installment loans on top of it.” Saunders also notes these loans are mainly regulated by state law, and the rules and watchdog capabilities vary widely by state. FinTechs say they are using technology to deliver a better deal. One of their big innovations is giving people who take out personal loans a discount if they transfer the cash they get from the loan directly to pay off their bills instead of sending it to their bank account first. “This has been one of the most successful products we have ever launched. People are trying to do the right thing and they’re getting offered a lower rate if they do balance transfer and direct deposit,” said Anuj Nayar, a financial health officer at LendingClub, a peer-to-peer lender that offers personal loans up to $40,000. Despite the rapid growth in personal loans lately, borrowers appear to be able to pay back the debt. The delinquency rate for personal loans is 4.5 percent, according to Equifax, a low level by historical standards and well below the 8.4 percent delinquency rate in January 2008. But as the number of Americans with one of these loans grows, so does the potential for pain if the unemployment rate ticks up and more people find themselves strapped for short-term cash. Related: After a summer of panic, fears of a U.S. recession ease a bit ‘This doesn’t look like the best economy ever’: 40% of Americans say they still struggle to pay bills A record 7 million Americans are 3 months behind on their car payments, a red flag for the economy


I’m not alone in wishing a fond D.C. farewell to the panda Bei Bei

In today’s world, it’s good to know you are not alone. Thanks to Roberta Bailey of Orlando for waxing so eloquent in her Nov. 23 letter, “Thank you, Bei Bei, for being you,” about Bei Bei, the National Zoo’s little bundle of sunshine, who also stole my heart — and whom I unofficially adopted as my third son. If one person was so moved to write to The Post, I know now there is a whole community of Bei Bei enthusiasts across the country. This panda helped me not only navigate the political world — the typical ups and downs of everyday life — but he also softened the blow of the past four Redskins seasons. I don’t know who can ever replace Bei Bei. Really, will any other little critter ever be as endearing or as cute? Not likely, but I do have my eye on that cute little porcupette born at the zoo this month and then featured in The Post [“Porcupette born at National Zoo,” Metro, Nov. 10]. Thanks again to Bei Bei for the immeasurable joy he brought to so many of his adoring fans. Sheri Langford Read more letters to the editor.


Congress should let D.C. buy RFK Stadium

The writers, all Democrats, are the current mayor and former mayors of the District. If you travel past the U.S. Capitol and head along East Capitol Street, you will pass the diverse neighborhoods of Lincoln Park, Kingman Park, Barney Circle and Hill East. But before you reach the Anacostia River, you will encounter a sprawling, desolate network of parking lots, the site of the now-shuttered Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, named for an American hero who battled poverty and income inequality. Now, at that site, we have a new opportunity to carry on Kennedy’s legacy to use the land to expand opportunity and create the housing and jobs that Washingtonians need and deserve. The land is an anchor tethering us to an unequal past. Now we can make it a sail guiding us to a more inclusive and prosperous future for residents on both sides of the river. RFK is owned by the National Park Service and leased to the District until 2038. The time left on the lease is too short a period for the District to make a substantial investment, and the lease’s current use restrictions, which allow only sports, recreation and entertainment, are too narrow to match the needs of a growing city. Without congressional action, the site will continue to be 190 acres of mostly asphalt, providing no benefit to D.C. residents or the 20 million people who visit the nation’s capital every year. There is, however, an opportunity to deliver a win-win for both the federal government and D.C. residents. H.R. 1883 We know by example that conveyances of federal land can successfully transform underused assets into vibrant neighborhoods. The flourishing neighborhoods of Navy Yard and Capitol Riverfront were run-down and underused less than two decades ago. Businesses shunned these areas, roads were in disrepair, and housing was limited. Norton got Congress to transfer those sites to the District, and the District got to work. The Transportation Department headquarters opened along M Street in 2007, and investors began to recognize new potential. A waterfront many thought unsalvageable is now the envy of cities across the world. On upper Georgia Avenue, the federal government conveyed nearly 67 acres of the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center campus, which is now being developed with housing and other community-serving amenities, including a firehouse and two schools already delivered, creating 5,000 permanent jobs and 2,100 homes, nearly 450 of which


Trump makes surprise visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, says he has reopened peace talks

flew from an undisclosed Florida airport after nightfall Wednesday to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, where he boarded Air Force One for the 13-hour flight to Afghanistan. The president’s aircraft took off without lights and with its cabin window shades drawn shut to preserve secrecy. To limit suspicions about Trump’s whereabouts, White House staff sent tweets from the president’s Twitter account during the time he was flying. Air Force One descended and touched down at Bagram in complete darkness, and once on the ground, the president was flanked by combat troops wearing night-vision goggles and bearing rifles. First lady Melania Trump remained in Florida. The president was accompanied by a retinue of senior aides, as well as Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). He was joined here by Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who already had been traveling in the region. During Trump’s bilateral meeting with Ghani, he confirmed that he would like to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600, down from about 13,000. “We’ve made tremendous progress and at the same time we’ve been drawing down our troops,” Trump said. Ghani told Trump that “Afghan security forces are taking the lead now.” Trump’s visit had a political dimension, too. With House Democrats poised to impeach him for abusing his office and military leaders alarmed by his intervention in war crimes cases, Trump stood with cheering service members as a reminder that for all his troubles in Washington, he remains the commander in chief. After Trump addressed a campaign rally-style crowd in the hangar, Ghani took the stage to heap praise on him. Ghani celebrated Trump as the architect of a strategy that had helped weaken the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and personally credited him for the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — which Ghani suggested was more important than the killing of the former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. “I’d like to thank you for your leadership, for your determination,” Ghani told Trump. He also expressed gratitude to Trump for “your very principled decisions regarding putting limits on the type of peace that will ensure the gains of the past year and ensure your security and our security.” Trump has repeatedly questioned why the United States has kept troops in Afghanistan after nearly two decades of fighting,


Our dangerous fear of pain

were replacing more and more worn-out joints. New techniques meant that pain anesthesiologists could block nerves, sever the signals to the brain, and insert catheters or electrodes into spinal columns and brains. Pain was to become a thing of the past, conquered by modern medicine. As part of the push to defeat pain, “physician experts” compensated by drugmakers hawked these medications at conferences, telling doctors that the new and more potent analgesics were not addictive when prescribed for pain. They told us that there was no upper limit on dosing, that patients would develop tolerance to the medication and that some would need extremely high doses to control their pain. But not to worry; this was normal: A new, unsubstantiated ailment called “pseudo-addiction” was offered as an explanation for the patients who ran out of pills early and borrowed more from friends and family or got them on the street; this wasn’t because they were addicted but because their doctors were under-prescribing. In at least a few cases, physicians lost court cases accusing them of undertreating pain. (No empirical evidence has ever shown that pseudo-addiction is real.) This evolving outlook on pain created a flurry of new business opportunities. Physicians and health systems benefited from an explosion of diagnostic testing with CT and MRI scans, for which they could bill insurers, and which led to a rapid rise in invasive treatments, injections and surgical procedures without adequate scientific proof of their long-term benefits. Incidence of spinal fusions, for instance, varies twentyfold depending on the area of the country you live in. Unethical medical practitioners were opening “pill mills,” often taking only cash for almost unlimited amounts of addictive medications with no real attempt to make a diagnosis or assess the need for such prescriptions. Fear of pain can also be aggravated by pain specialists or surgeons. Patients have told me that some practitioners planted the seed of fear as soon as their treatment ended: Warning them that they would eventually need another surgery or shot. That they should never lift more than five pounds unless they wanted the pain to return. Or, if patients declined treatment, that they would end up in a wheelchair. Patients are not in a position to regard such recommendations skeptically, and second opinions are expensive, time-consuming and unlikely to countermand recommendations made by a surgeon who has operated on the patient. Insurance companies also bear


Searching for a killer: Inside the CDC’s scramble to solve a mysterious vaping disease

Scientists were ecstatic. The test results were in. For the first time, the lab team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had direct evidence that a chemical compound, vitamin E acetate, was a likely culprit in the disease that has sickened nearly 2,300 people and killed 47. Officials set a date to share the news. But as the lab team raced to test a last batch of lung fluid samples, the tool needed for the chemical analysis suddenly crashed. Scientists feared their precious samples would be destroyed. “My stomach dropped,” recalled Jim Pirkle, who oversees CDC’s chemical lab analyses. “Since we have limited volume [of fluid samples], it could mean we weren’t going to be able to analyze them.” The equipment failure in early November was one of countless challenges confronted by the more than 100 CDC scientists who have been working around the clock on the agency’s Chamblee campus in Atlanta, scrambling to create new investigative tools and techniques as they seek to prevent additional injuries and deaths from the vaping-related illness. The devastating lung illness was reported for the first time this summer among previously healthy young people in the Midwest, and then began popping up all over the country. Doctors thought it was linked to e-cigarettes, battery-powered devices that can look like flash drives or pens and mimic smoking by heating liquids containing nicotine or marijuana, among other substances. But the devices had been sold for more than a decade without reports of such a disease. Why was this happening now? Over the past three months, teams of scientists working to solve the mystery developed extensive lab tests and built a new data-collection system on the fly. They even relied on 3-D printers to manufacture custom parts so vaping devices could be fit into CDC’s special smoking machines, enabling them to “puff” on the devices to test the aerosols that are released. In many infectious disease outbreaks, disease detectives have some idea of the likely culprit, or at least a sense of how to approach the investigation. The challenge in this case was that no one had any idea what might be making so many people so sick. Even more daunting, federal and state health officials were dealing with a vast number of possible suspects that included several hundred e-cigarette or vaping devices and thousands, if not more, of e-liquids, many of which contain more


An alien comet from another star is soaring through our solar system

SEWANEE, Tenn. — Something strange is sailing toward us. Something small and cold and extraordinarily fast. No one knows where it came from or where it is going. But it’s not from around here. This is an interstellar comet — an ancient ball of ice and gas and dust, formed on the frozen outskirts of a distant star, which some lucky quirk of gravity has tossed into our path. To astronomers, the comet is a care package from the cosmos — a piece of a place they will never be able to visit, a key to all the worlds they cannot directly observe. It is only the second interstellar interloper scientists have seen in our solar system. And it’s the first one they’ve been able to get a good look at. By tracking the comet’s movement, measuring its composition and monitoring its behavior, researchers are seeking clues about the place it came from and the space it crossed to get here. They have already found a carbon-based molecule and possibly water — two familiar chemicals in such an alien object. As the sun sinks behind the Tennessee mountains, and stars wink into view, astronomer Doug Durig climbs onto the roof of his observatory, powers up his three telescopes and angles them skyward. Every night, the comet grows bigger and brighter in the sky, expelling streams of gas and dust that may offer up clues to its history. On Dec. 8, it will make its nearest approach to Earth, offering researchers an up-close glimpse before it zooms back into the freezing, featureless void. Far below in the darkness, Durig will be waiting. Each star in the night sky represents a possible solar system. Every light in the universe is, more likely than not, some alien planet’s sun. This is the chief lesson of two decades of studying exoplanets. Scientists have identified thousands of worlds beyond our solar system: gas giants and tiny rocky spheres, worlds lit by dim red suns and ones that orbit the spinning remains of collapsed stars. There are even planets circling medium-size yellow suns like ours — though nothing found so far can match the breathable atmosphere and deep, blue oceans of Earth. Yet even when viewed through the most powerful telescopes, exoplanets are not discernible as anything more than specks of light. And no human alive has a hope of traveling to another star — merely


The Cybersecurity 202: The White House needs a 5G czar to win the race to secure next-generation networks, senators warn

companies selling components to Huawei — as a sweetener to a U.S.-China trade deal. As Huawei scoops up more and more 5G contracts, U.S. officials are trying to dull the impact by increasing innovation around the software components of those networks where U.S. companies are more competitive. But that will only help so much. The letter predicts a decades-long effort to reverse the U.S. slide and to rally allies to help combat Chinese dominance. “We must shape the future of advanced telecommunications technology by supporting domestic innovation through…a sustained effort over the course of decades, not months,” they warn. “A challenge of this magnitude requires a more ambitious response than traditional agency processes can support.” The senators’ call echoes a bill the House Commerce Committee is considering that also demands a national 5G strategy. You are reading The Cybersecurity 202 , our must-read newsletter on cybersecurity policy news. PINGED: Britain’s Labour Party is refusing to upgrade its basic $20-a-month cybersecurity package, despite two attacks by hackers last week that managed to knock its web services offline, according to internal emails reviewed by Jack Stubbs at Reuters. The decision could put the party at increased risk of attacks, experts warn. The party buys cybersecurity protection from the firm Cloudflare — but at a level much lower than what is recommended for large, high-risk organizations, Jack reports. Instead, it’s buying a package recommended for small websites and blogs -- and expressing confidence that it sucessfully dealt with last week’s back-to-back attacks, which were aimed at flooding its websites with phony traffic to knock them offline. “We are confident that the Labour party took the necessary steps to deal with the attack. The attack was not successful,” a spokeswoman for Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre told Reuters. Britain’s Conservative Party was also hit with a denial of service attack last week, but a spokeswoman did not respond to Reuters’s questions about what cybersecurity protection services it used. The NCSC has not released a final analysis of last week’s attacks and say its investigation is still ongoing. Electronic Frontier Foundation Director of Cybersecurity Eva Galperin speaks at a Washington Post Live event. PATCHED: Prominent anti-virus companies and nonprofit organizations are teaming up to combat apps that stalkers and abusive partners use to track their victims, Anti-virus software company Kaspersky Lab, one of the initiative’s founding partners, launched a feature for flagging stalkerware in Android


Opioid crackdown forces pain patients to taper off drugs they say they need

view opioids as a safe, effective, relatively nonaddictive treatment for chronic pain from common ailments such as bad backs, torn rotator cuffs, headaches and arthritis — and millions of pain patients had become dependent on opioids. “You practice according to what you’re taught and according to the textbooks you read and according to the lectures you go to,” said Jane Ballantyne, who came to the United States in 1986 from Britain, trained as a pain specialist and became chief of the pain program at Massachusetts General Hospital. “You don’t really have time to look into it deeply. As soon as I began looking it into it more deeply, it was clear the evidence is weak.” What she and many others found was that opioids simply didn’t work very well when it came to relieving pain over long periods of time. Patients developed tolerances and needed greater dosages. Opioid patients weren’t thriving in general. “It was an experiment gone wrong,” Ballantyne said. In July, The Post published a Drug Enforcement Administration database that revealed drug companies had flooded the U.S. with 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills in a seven-year period, from 2006 to 2012. The database was unsealed after The Post and HD Media of West Virginia, publisher of the Charleston Gazette-Mail, won a legal battle in connection with a lawsuit against drug companies filed by roughly 2,000 cities, counties and other local jurisdictions and pending in federal court in Cleveland. Other government records show that individual opioid prescriptions in the United States peaked at 255 million in 2012. After that, the numbers fell steadily, to 199 million by 2017. As the dosages dropped, drug deaths didn’t, because the epidemic mutated. Some people addicted to the opioid high turned to street heroin when they couldn’t get pills. A surge of heroin into the United States was followed by an even deadlier arrival of illicit fentanyl. In 2017 in the United States, 47,000 people died of opioid overdoses — more than the death toll from traffic accidents, and more than all the gun deaths, including by suicide. The drug industry now faces a reckoning. A state judge in Oklahoma ruled on Aug. 26 that drugmaker Johnson & Johnson must pay $572 million to the state for the company’s role in the opioid epidemic. The next day came the news that Purdue Pharma has offered to settle state and local lawsuits by


Skywatch: What’s happening in the heavens in December

The bright, brilliant planet Venus stars in the December night skies. In the waning days of November, Venus waltzed with the large Jupiter, but now the planet approaches Saturn. Look to the southwest sky in the early evening to find Venus, which is a -3.9 magnitude object so bright that it seems like a spotlight. Saturn (zero magnitude) sits higher in the heavens, to Venus’s upper left, but it is substantially dimmer than Venus. By Dec. 7, Saturn and Venus appear much closer, and early next week, Venus appears to skirt the ringed planet. On Dec. 10-11, Venus is within two degrees of Saturn, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Late in the month, the young sliver of a new crescent moon moves toward Venus. Find them in the southwest in the early evenings of Dec. 27-28. The skinny moon gains heft and moves past the glorious Venus by Dec. 29. If your favorite number is 12, you’re in luck — on the East Coast. The moon reaches its full phase after midnight Dec. 12 at 12:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Officially, the moon reaches full at 5:12 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time), which means that if you’re in Central Time, for example, the moon reaches full phase Dec. 11 at 11:12 p.m. The Geminid meteors peak Dec. 13-14, according to the American Meteor Society, with a shower as heavy as 150 shooting stars an hour. (The Royal Astronomical Society forecasts the peak at 120 meteors an hour.) Regardless, on Dec. 13-14, the plump gibbous moon beams all night and washes many meteors out. The following night, the moon remains bright. You may see a handful of meteors, at best. Meteor showers occur when the Earth strikes the leftover dust trails of comets gone by. In the Geminids’ case, it is asteroid Phaethon 3200 dispensing the dust. Earth’s atmosphere strikes the debris and we get a light show. The Ursids are a smaller meteor shower with about 10 shooting stars an hour that peak Dec. 21-22. The parent comet for the Ursids is 8P/Tuttle, named for Horace Tuttle, a late-19th-century Naval Observatory astronomer. On the other side of the world, an annular eclipse — the “ring of fire” kind, where the moon doesn’t quite fit in front of the sun — will occur Dec. 26. Astronomy webcaster Slooh.com will feature live


On Dec. 10-11, Venus is within two degrees of Saturn, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Late in the month, the young sliver of a new crescent moon moves toward Venus. Find them in the southwest in the early evenings of Dec. 27-28. The skinny moon gains heft and moves past the glorious Venus by Dec. 29. If your favorite number is 12, you’re in luck — on the East Coast. The moon reaches its full phase after midnight Dec. 12 at 12:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Officially, the moon reaches full at 5:12 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time), which means that if you’re in Central Time, for example, the moon reaches full phase Dec. 11 at 11:12 p.m. The Geminid meteors peak Dec. 13-14, according to the American Meteor Society, with a shower as heavy as 150 shooting stars an hour. (The Royal Astronomical Society forecasts the peak at 120 meteors an hour.) Regardless, on Dec. 13-14, the plump gibbous moon beams all night and washes many meteors out. The following night, the moon remains bright. You may see a handful of meteors, at best. Meteor showers occur when the Earth strikes the leftover dust trails of comets gone by. In the Geminids’ case, it is asteroid Phaethon 3200 dispensing the dust. Earth’s atmosphere strikes the debris and we get a light show. The Ursids are a smaller meteor shower with about 10 shooting stars an hour that peak Dec. 21-22. The parent comet for the Ursids is 8P/Tuttle, named for Horace Tuttle, a late-19th-century Naval Observatory astronomer. On the other side of the world, an annular eclipse — the “ring of fire” kind, where the moon doesn’t quite fit in front of the sun — will occur Dec. 26. Astronomy webcaster Slooh.com will feature live feeds of the event starting at 9:30 p.m. EDT on Dec. 25 (Christmas night). The centerline of the eclipse passes through the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia. For more information, visit eclipsewise.com. On Earth’s annual trip around the sun, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, so that we reach the winter solstice — when winter officially starts — Dec. 21 at 11:19 p.m. EST, according to the Naval Observatory. * Dec. 5 — * Dec. 5 — * Dec. 8 — * Dec. 14 — * Dec. 20 —


Scientists find ‘monster’ black hole so big they didn’t think it was possible

it is huge. “Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our Galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution,” Liu Jifeng, a professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of China, said in a news release from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “… Now theorists will have to take up the challenge of explaining its formation.” Previously, about two dozen black holes have been discovered and studied in our galaxy using X-ray technology that detects a bright light emitted when a black hole eats a neighboring star. While successful, this process limited scientists’ ability to find more black holes because the vast majority of them in our galaxy are not actively consuming other stars. LB-1 was discovered by China’s Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), which has provided scientists with a new way to find the estimated 100 million black holes in the Milky Way. LAMOST enables researchers to detect black holes by first tracking stars that are orbiting something invisible to more than the naked eye, such as a black hole. When LAMOST identified a star orbiting LB-1, the team next used the world’s largest telescopes — from the United States and Spain — to take a closer look at the system. The results, according to the news release, were “nothing short of fantastic.” There are two kinds of black holes. Stellar black holes, like LB-1, are made from the evolution and death of stars, which rarely exceed 150 times the mass of the sun when they are born, Bregman said. There are also supermassive black holes, which almost always live in the center of galaxies and range from a million to a few billion times the mass of the sun. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has a supermassive black hole in the center that has a mass of about 4 million suns. How supermassives form is unclear, Bregman said, but it’s possible they are created when stellar black holes merge. “Black holes are basically the most mysterious objects in the cosmos,” Shep Doeleman, the director of the global Event Horizon Telescope array, has previously told The Washington Post. Even Albert Einstein almost didn’t believe they were real, he said, even though it was his theory of general relativity that helped predict them more than 100 years ago. Black holes are “the most exotic animals in the cosmological zoo,” Doeleman said;


U.S. military acknowledges allegations of civilian deaths in Afghanistan airstrike

KABUL — The U.S. military command in Afghanistan said it is aware of allegations of civilian casualties after an airstrike targeted Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan. The strike was conducted Thursday in Khost province’s Terezayi district along the border with Pakistan, according to the U.S. military statement. “We are aware of the allegations of civilian casualties and working with local authorities to determine the veracity of these claims,” the statement said, adding that the strike targeted three Taliban fighters. American forces in Afghanistan have stepped up the air campaign against the Taliban over the past year as the two sides are discussing reopening peace talks to end the war. During a visit Thursday to U.S. service members at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, President Trump asserted the Taliban is ready for a cease-fire, but Afghan and Taliban officials said informal discussions aimed at jump starting the peace talks were still ongoing. A local lawmaker from Khost, Janmir Zazai, told The Washington Post the airstrike hit a vehicle, but he was unaware of the number of people killed. The Terezayi district is also known as Alisher. As the American air campaign has intensified in Afghanistan, civilian casualties have increased. This year the United Nations has recorded record numbers of civilians killed and wounded. According to a U.N. tally released in October airstrikes have killed 579 civilians and wounded 306, nearly a third more than the previous year. In September the United States dropped more munitions on Afghanistan than in any other month since 2010. susannah.george@washpost.com


When Bei Bei went to China, his red ball went too, National Zoo says

Something of ours, something of Washington and of America, went with the giant panda cub Bei Bei this month to his new home in China, and remains with him, according to the National Zoo. In a Wednesday statement the zoo said Bei Bei “also has a little bit of home with him” at the Bifengxia panda base. Laurie Thompson, the zoo’s assistant giant panda curator who made the 16-hour trip with him, “brought his red ball, which he likes to curl up and sleep with tucked between his arms,” the zoo said. It is difficult not to associate that ball with the cherished symbols of childhood that we know from film, books and daily life, among them the sled named Rosebud with its talismanic role in the famed motion picture, “Citizen Kane.” So the zoo statement indicates that when Bei Bei, following international agreement, was taken Nov. 19 from the only home he had known, he may have been able to keep with him something more tangible than mere memory. martin.weil@washpost.com


Science warnings, US retreat add urgency to UN climate talks

was a concern. “If we cannot complete it correctly, it’s better to lay the ground for later completion,” Ribera said. That view was echoed by Yamide Dagnet, a former climate negotiator for the E.U. who is now with the Washington-based environmental think tank World Resources Institute. “Without proper oversight and robustness, these mechanisms could severely undercut climate action by creating loopholes, letting countries off the hook for making meaningful emission cuts, resulting in double counting and jeopardizing environmental integrity,” Dagnet said. The question of compensating poor countries for environmental destruction — technically referred to as loss and damage — is also likely to be sensitive, Dagnet said. Attributing specific weather disasters such as hurricanes and floods, or slow but irreversible changes like sea level rise and desertification, to climate change remains a delicate issue. Concerns about the cost of climate change are growing on all fronts. Trump cited financial demands on the United States as one of the reasons for quitting the Paris accord; European countries have hesitated to raise fuel prices for fear of sparking yellow vest-style protests like those seen in France. Meanwhile, businesses are beginning to consider the price not just of reducing emissions but also of failing to do so. Scientists, however, say the time to act is now, if the world wants to meet the goal set in Paris of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ideally 1.5 C by the end of the century. By some measures average temperatures have already increased by 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times, with the sharpest rise occurring in the last few decades. “Global warming is going faster,” said Johan Rockström, co-director of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Climate impacts are occurring earlier, and we are approaching potentially irreversible thresholds earlier than we previously thought.” Rockström and several colleagues recently warned that the world is heading for several “tipping points” that could sharply accelerate the pace of climate change. They include deforestation in the Amazon and the decline of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Such messages resonate with environmental activists like Laura Laguna, a member of the Madrid chapter of Fridays for Future, one of the groups planning to protest during the climate talks. “We are close to the point of no return on global warming,” Laguna said. “Our generation’s future depends on what we do now.” — Associated Press


Suburbs try Vision Zero to protect walkers and cyclists on roads designed for vehicles

In Montgomery County, where more people are killed in road accidents than in homicides, planners recently asked residents to tweet about their experiences as pedestrians. They responded with photos of four-lane thoroughfares lacking sidewalks, bus stops with no nearby crosswalks, traffic whizzing past without buffers, and narrow sidewalks that end abruptly or are blocked by utility poles and overgrown bushes. The problems, planners say, will be addressed in Montgomery’s first-ever pedestrian master plan aimed at making walking safer and more appealing in a Washington suburb where the car has long been king. “We’ve had highway plans for 60 to 70 years,” said Montgomery planner David Anspacher. “This is the first time we’re doing a pedestrian master plan, and it shows. The pedestrian conditions aren’t great in Montgomery County.” Montgomery, in Maryland, is among a growing number of car-centric suburbs across the country that are sharpening their focus on walking and cycling as a way to try to contain traffic congestion. They’re also responding to sweeping demographic changes, including more low-income residents and aging baby boomers, that have left more transit-dependent residents walking or riding to bus stops and rail stations. More suburbanites also want car-free commutes and a smaller carbon footprint, planners and public officials say. “You have a whole lot more people walking along roads designed for suburban traffic,” said Bob Dallas, an Atlanta-area transportation safety advocate. Meanwhile, more pedestrians and cyclists are dying. Nationwide, overall traffic fatalities declined in 2018, for the second-straight year, but the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed was up by 3.4 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And a study by the Governors Highway Safety Association found that pedestrian fatalities nationally were recently projected to approach a 30-year high. Governments in the Washington suburbs and in sprawling auto-oriented cities including Tempe, Ariz., and Charlotte are beginning to adopt Vision Zero, a traffic-safety strategy previously limited mostly to dense urban areas, such as the District, New York and San Francisco. In addition to Montgomery, recent suburban adopters in the Washington region include Prince George’s and Arlington counties and the city of Alexandria. Many are wrestling with a central tenet of Vision Zero: Redesigning roads to lower speeds and reduce the severity of crashes. Planners and traffic engineers are narrowing lanes, lowering speed limits, adding crosswalks and making crossings more visible with brighter paint or flashing lights. They’re


Trump’s talk of Afghanistan cease-fire appears to surprise the Taliban, Afghan government

envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, the parties reached a four-part agreement that included a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops and a Taliban pledge to sever relations with al-Qaeda and to ensure that none of the territory it controls — now more than 50 percent of Afghanistan — would be used for terrorist activities directed at the United States or its allies. The Taliban also committed to beginning direct talks with the Afghan government, with a cease-fire at the top of the agenda. But after secretly planning a meeting with Taliban negotiators at Camp David to seal the deal, Trump suddenly canceled the agreement and negotiations altogether, saying that “as far as I’m concerned, they’re dead.” Trump said at the time that he had called off the talks after the Taliban took responsibility for an attack that killed 12 people, including a U.S. service member. “What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position?” Trump said in a tweet. The announcement threw into doubt Trump’s hopes of drawing down the number of troops in Afghanistan, a pledge made during his 2016 campaign. Despite his claim that he was responding to a U.S. service member’s death, the move also reflected divisions inside the administration between Khalilzad’s boss, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and then-national security adviser John Bolton, who opposed the negotiations. The Taliban said it would be willing to continue talking, even as Afghanistan headed toward a heavily contested presidential election that Ghani hoped would strengthen his hand in direct government talks with the militants. Barred from formally restarting the discussion, Khalilzad has conducted low-profile consultations with Afghanistan and regional governments, and in recent days began informal conversations with the Taliban. Although the election took place in late September, no winner has been declared amid charges of widespread irregularities at the polls. Earlier this month, Ghani agreed to release three Taliban prisoners in exchange for two hostages — an American and an Australian, both professors at the University of Kabul — held by the Taliban for the past three years. At the same time, the United States has moved forward with planning the same withdrawal — a reduction to 8,600 troops from about 13,000 deployed there now — that was envisioned as part of the original deal. “We’re bringing it down very substantially,” Trump said Thursday of the U.S. force. “And we’re going to stay until


It’s a good bet Trump pardons his felon allies. Here’s when that’s most likely.

before turning off the lights in the Oval Office. The Stone, Manafort and Flynn prediction is offered with confidence because of Trump’s demonstrated disregard for the integrity of the criminal-justice system. That disdain was on display in his recent chiseling of the military judicial process. Against the advice of experienced, respected leaders in the Pentagon, Trump intervened in three cases involving war-crimes accusations, overturning decisions of military juries and issuing full pardons to two soldiers convicted of war crimes, as well as reversing disciplinary action against a third service member, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL. For good measure, Trump also tweeted that the firing of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was due to the Navy’s handling of Gallagher’s case, when in truth Spencer’s dismissal had more to do with his reaction to Trump’s irresponsible interference in Gallagher’s punishment. Unlike Trump’s three military honorees, thousands of men and women in uniform have served under equally demanding conditions while abiding by the law and not crossing clearly drawn moral lines. None of which matters to Trump. As Spencer wrote in a Post op-ed, “the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.” Trump’s Thanksgiving Day drop-in on troops in Afghanistan doesn’t change Spencer’s bottom-line assessment of the commander in chief. Besides, as he has repeatedly demonstrated since assuming the presidency, Trump doesn’t think rules apply to him. With that presidential mind-set, Stone, Manafort and Flynn can rest easy this holiday season. Help is on the way; it’s only a matter of time. Would that the same could be said for our democracy. Consider the impact of Trump’s refusal to accept congressional oversight on the separation of powers. He orders administration officials to refuse to honor congressional subpoenas — they click their heels, salute and hope to hell they did it fast enough. Think about his relentless, incendiary assaults on a free press. Witness his attack on judges who won’t let him have his way. “Democratic checks and balances”? In Trump’s mind, his presidency is uncheckable, and no other branch of government equals its power. He gets caught bribing a foreign country to interfere in a U.S. election — specifically by offering desperately needed military assistance in exchange for that country pledging publicly to dig up dirt on an opponent.


Two found with apparent gunshot wounds after zoo disruption, officials say

Two youths were found with apparent gunshot wounds within a dozen blocks of the National Zoo on Saturday night after teenagers set off fireworks at a winter festival there, touching off a disruption, according to officials’ accounts. In addition, Metro said it had been told of “large groups of disorderly juveniles” on the subway system Saturday night, traveling to and from the Woodley Park station, which is just south of the zoo. Preliminary information indicated that at least one person described as a juvenile male was found about 8:35 p.m. near Connecticut and Cathedral avenues NW “suffering from a gunshot wound,” said police spokesman Hugh Carew. A youth with an apparent gunshot wound was also found near Calvert and Biltmore streets, several blocks from the zoo, said Doug Buchanan, a spokesman for the D.C. fire department. A police official said both were in stable condition, and officials described them as conscious and breathing. Investigators were trying to determine late Saturday whether there was a connection between the victims and the disruption at the zoo. Unauthorized fireworks reportedly played a role in Saturday night’s incident. Zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson confirmed that people, whom she described as adolescents, “set off some firecrackers” near the lower end of the zoo, closer to Rock Creek Parkway. She said visitors at the festival, known as “ZooLights,” heard the fireworks and were alarmed. There was also “some fighting” among youths at the festival, she said. Baker-Masson said she understood that D.C. police took two people into custody and that the zoo held another person, which could not be immediately confirmed. The festival, an annual winter event with free admission, opened Friday night and runs through Jan. 1. It is open from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Baker-Masson said the festival closed “a little early” on Saturday. After the disturbance was reported, large numbers of people streamed south from the zoo down Connecticut Avenue toward the Woodley Park Metro station. Sections of the avenue were blocked off in the area. Saturday’s disruption is the first in memory at the ZooLights event, which attracts thousands of visitors as part of a holiday tradition, according to the zoo’s website, and includes live music, food and shopping. More than half a million LED lights transform the premises into a winter wonderland, it says, and visitors are encouraged to use public transportation. Sherri Ly, a Metro spokeswoman, said officers were at


At least 19 killed as Mexican cartel battles police and army south of U.S. border

was targeted. Coahuila was ravaged by attacks by the Zetas in the early part of this decade, but has not been among Mexico’s most violent states more recently. The clash came as Mexico is trying to prevent Trump from carrying out his pledge to designate the country’s drug cartels as terrorist groups. Mexico fears such a move could hurt investment and tourism and open up the possibility of unilateral American action. Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard plans to meet this week with U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr to discuss the designation. The attack in Villa Union was the latest in a series of assaults that highlighted the expanding grip of organized crime. In October, Sinaloa Cartel gunmen virtually took control of the city of Culiacan to free the son of Sinaloa cartel druglord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. They were successful — authorities soon released Ovidio Guzmán. Weeks later, gunmen killed nine members of the LeBaron family, Mormons who hold dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship, outside the town of La Mora in Sonora state. Mexican authorities say the family apparently was caught in the middle of a fight for territorial control involving offshoots of the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels. On Sunday, the federal attorney general’s office announced that “various individuals” had been arrested in the killing of the three mothers and six children. The communique did not give details, but the Mexican daily El Universal said three suspects had been arrested in the city of Bavispe, near LaMora. The U.S.-backed strategy of going after drug kingpins has led to a pulverization of the main cartels, with dozens of smaller groups emerging. “That makes conflict even harder to control,” said Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst for the International Crisis Group. Mexico’s homicide rate is expected to hit record levels this year. López Obrador has tried to address the roots of violence by offering employment and scholarships to young people. He also established a 70,000-strong National Guard to improve security, but it has just gotten off the ground — and many members have been diverted to stop U.S.-bound Central American migrants, under an agreement with Trump. López Obrador has been criticized for lacking a more integrated strategy, that would include strengthening local police and the judiciary. Ernst said it wouldn’t be fair to blame the president for an armed conflict that had intensified under the past two administrations. “But the responsibility indubitably lies with him


World Digest: Nov. 30, 2019

AFGHANISTAN The U.S. military command in Afghanistan says it is aware of allegations of civilian casualties after an airstrike targeted Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan. “We are aware of the allegations of civilian casualties and working with local authorities to determine the veracity of these claims,” the military’s statement said. The strike was conducted Thursday in Khost province’s Terezayi district along the border with Pakistan, according to the U.S. military statement. A local lawmaker from Khost, Janmir Zazai, told The Washington Post the airstrike hit a vehicle, but he was unaware of the number of people killed. U.S. forces in Afghanistan have stepped up the air campaign against the Taliban over the past year. In September, the United States dropped more munitions on Afghanistan than in any other month since 2010. But as the air campaign has intensified, civilian casualties have increased. According to a United Nations tally released in October, airstrikes have killed 579 civilians and wounded 306, nearly a third more than the previous year. — Susannah George MALTA Maltese prosecutors on Saturday charged prominent local businessman Yorgen Fenech as an accomplice to the 2017 slaying of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was reporting on the leak of the millions of documents known as the Panama Papers. Eight months before her death in a car bombing, Caruana Galizia had alleged on her blog that a company called 17 Black Ltd. that was listed in the documents was connected to Maltese politicians. She never discovered who owned the company. Later, 17 Black was identified in a leaked email as a source of income for the Panama companies set up by Keith Schembri, the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and one of three top government officials who recently resigned. Caruana Galizia’s reporting was continued by the Daphne Project, which reported last year that Malta’s anti-laundering watchdog identified Fenech as 17 Black’s owner. Fenech has declined any comment about the alleged ownership. — Associated Press Iraqi prime minister turns in his resignation: Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian throwing gasoline bomb: Opponents of coalition win party vote in Germany: — From news services


Why scientists — not investors — should decide the future of technology

investors on Wall Street pouring their money into Marconi’s system, Tesla began to run out of funding. Despite sending more than 50 letters to Morgan pleading his case, Morgan was unconvinced that Tesla’s system was feasible or profitable. Disheartened, Tesla lived his last decades in a New York hotel, working on new inventions despite failing physical and mental health. He died penniless on Jan. 7, 1943, without a financial backer to bring his ideas to life. Tesla was brilliant, but his asocial nature and his inability to harness crucial alliances, especially with captains of industry, cost him the ability to materialize his ideas. Tesla’s legacy was secured by his breakthrough inventions, especially the AC motor. But his less-known, never-fulfilled vision about mass communication and the transmission of instantaneous information is also important. That’s because his idea, an early predecessor of the Internet, would have expanded human communication and connection. As Tesla put it, “We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance.” Seeing the world as interconnected, as akin to a “huge brain,” was a wondrous idea as Tesla envisioned it. Yet the funding flowed to other inventions, ones on which investors could secure a quick return on investment. While those inventions fueled industry and eventually shaped consumers’ lives, it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the United States invested in networked communications through the Defense Department. Perhaps if Tesla’s vision of a permanently connected world had guided the development of the Internet as we know it, our Internet would be more concerned with human connection rather than nationalism and commercial profit. The early structure of the Internet was supported by decades of public investment. In the 1990s, new commercial Internet service providers broadened access to new users — while ushering in an era of spam, clickbait and data mining. The digital world has quickly evolved into a monumental commercial project, rife with advertising and private ventures. Today, some users believe Internet services should be treated as a public utility to facilitate human connection over profit-driven corporate interests. But as in Tesla’s time, money still guides much of the innovation we see in the world. Financialization has led corporations to focus on boosting stock prices rather than innovation, productivity and job growth. Rather than advance the cause of humanity as a public good, financial interests trump other elements of technological progress, leaving us poorer for it.


Body of homicide victim from D.C. found in Montgomery, police say

The body of a 19-year-old District woman who had apparently been shot was found in a wooded area of upper Montgomery County, and police said Sunday that the death is being investigated as a homicide. Sara Gutierrez-Villatoro was found dead Friday in the 25700 block of Old Hundred Road in the Dickerson area, police said. She lived in the District, but no street address had been confirmed, they said. Her body was found at about 12:20 p.m. by a passerby. It was in the woods but not far from the roadway, police said. In a statement Sunday, police said her body was taken to the state medical examiner’s office in Baltimore. The death was determined to be a homicide, police said. martin.weil@washpost.com


When a crusading Maltese journalist was murdered, her sons vowed justice. Almost miraculously, it’s happening.

with dissatisfaction that the prime minister says he’ll stay in office for another month, allowing him to manipulate and cover up — or so the family fears. “He can’t serve even another day as prime minister,” Caruana Galizia told me in a steely tone. The family, understandably, is not yet satisfied — but for press advocates around the world, the developments are stunningly positive, because they suggest a rare accountability taking shape. “This is an incredible moment and achievement,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. This year alone, 21 journalists have been killed around the world — 10 of them murdered. And 870 journalists have been murdered since 1992, according to CPJ. Perhaps the most notorious of these killings was that of Jamal Khashoggi, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post who was brutally murdered at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last year. Almost always, Simon told me, nothing happens: The killers go free, if they are identified at all. “The level of impunity is close to 90 percent,” Simon said. In those extraordinary situations involving some justice, one element is common: A deeply involved family. And so it is in the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia. “This family has been so relentless and such an inspiration, pushing every lever and never resting,” Simon said. The brothers — Matthew, Andrew and Paul — are 33, 32, and 31 years old, respectively; their father, Peter, has been actively involved, too. One of the most important levers they pulled was a visit, by all three brothers, to Strasbourg, the seat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in northeast France, where they petitioned that international organization — devoted to human rights — to investigate their mother’s death. The result was the appointment of a special rapporteur, the Netherlands’ Pieter Omtzigt, who told me about his initial meeting with the brothers. “I was impressed by their resilience, their determination and their belief that something was wrong in Malta beyond what happened with their mother’s assassination,” Omtzigt said. And that, he said, proved entirely true, as his report made clear: “There is a very large problem with the rule of law, with checks and balances, and particularly with the all-powerful prime minister.” The report, overwhelmingly approved by the council, called for an independent public inquiry — and that is now taking place. Matthew Caruana Galizia (a former


Today’s tech industry mirrors the pre-2008 financial industry. Have we learned our lesson?

Daniel M. Price served as international economic adviser to President George W. Bush and helped organize the first Group of 20 leaders’ summit. Data-driven innovation from the tech industry promises to improve productivity, competitiveness and growth across the global economy. But it also poses significant risks, such as hacking, data breaches, the exploitation of personal data and challenges involving artificial intelligence. These risks are compounded by underdeveloped or conflicting legal frameworks across the globe. World leaders should act now to enhance global regulatory cooperation to address challenges in the digital economy before a crisis forces them to do so. We’ve seen this story before. Similar warning lights were flashing in the financial system before the 2008 economic crisis: regulation lagging behind innovation; companies and governments failing to appreciate the build-up of risks; and ineffective international cooperation mechanisms among governments for assessing and addressing risks. The financial crisis was devastating, but given the volume, speed and complexity of data-driven systems, a major digital crisis could be just as crippling. Imagine a freeze or failure of global navigation, air-traffic control or telecommunication systems. Or imagine a disruption of the computer programs operating our stock markets or defense systems. Imagine also the cost of having lifesaving medical treatments blocked if differing standards on data analytics among countries caused the same scientific test data to yield contradictory results. As our dependence on data-intensive technologies increases, so, too, does the need for common regulatory principles and enhanced global cooperation. The response to the financial crisis is instructive. That crisis revealed an international regulatory architecture ill-equipped to rebuild confidence and reform the global financial system. In response, President George W. Bush worked with allies to launch the first leader-level meeting of the world’s 20 largest economies. At the first Group of 20 summit in Washington in 2008, leaders agreed on a blueprint for action to address key financial stability risk factors such as bank capital, leverage and liquidity. In 2009, the London G20 summit empowered a Financial Stability Board to address vulnerabilities in the global financial system and establish principles for regulatory reform. The FSB and its constituent representatives from central banks, finance ministries, bank supervisors and market regulators became a robust body for international cooperation. We should not wait for a global crisis to pursue this kind of international cooperation on data and technology. Countries should look to the post-financial crisis architecture as a model


Mexican authorities make arrests in killings of American Mormons

MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities on Sunday arrested several people suspected of involvement in the killing of nine members of the LeBaron family, the extended clan of American Mormons whose deaths last month drew international attention to rising violence in this country. The federal attorney general’s office said in a communique that soldiers, Marines, National Guard and other security forces launched a joint operation early Sunday and detained “various individuals believed to be involved” in the killings outside the town of La Mora in the northern state of Sonora. Officials didn’t provide details, and the attorney general’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. The newspaper El Universal cited sources as saying three people were arrested in Bavispe, not far from La Mora. Mexican authorities have said the LeBarons — an extended family of fundamentalist Mormons with dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship who have lived in northern Mexico for generations — appear to have been caught unawares in a conflict between affiliates of the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels that dominate the rural area. Three mothers and six children were slain in the ambush. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador faces mounting pressure to rein in the country’s growing violence. In the latest eruption, authorities said at least 19 people were killed over the weekend in a gun battle between the Cartel of the Northeast and security forces in the northern town of Villa Union, about 40 miles southwest of Eagle Pass, Tex. President Trump said last week he was planning to designate Mexico’s cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a move that Mexico fears could lead to foreign interference in everything from the business sector to government security policies. Attorney General William P. Barr is expected to visit Mexico City this week at the invitation of the Mexican government to discuss Trump’s plan. Julian LeBaron, a family spokesman and longtime anti-violence activist, said the three suspects detained Sunday were low-level “thugs.” He and about 50 other members of his extended family are scheduled to meet with López Obrador on Monday morning. “We think that’s the reason why they went and picked up these local thugs — so these people can say, ‘Yeah, we did something about this,’ ” he said. He said the family wasn’t satisfied with the arrests of the triggermen, but wanted the detention of “the people who were responsible for giving the order” to carry out the attack. The


National Zoo beefs up security after disruption and two youth found shot nearby

The National Zoo beefed up security after two young people were found shot outside its grounds in a weekend incident that disrupted an annual winter festival, officials said Sunday. The zoo has increased the number of security guards and is working with D.C. police and Metro Transit Police to increase patrols nearby, a zoo spokeswoman said. Officials also plan to conduct bag checks and use handheld metal detectors at the three main entrances later this week, a measure the zoo also takes during busy days in spring. The measures come after Saturday night’s commotion, when young people fought during the Zoo Lights festival and set off fireworks on the grounds. Two youths were found with gunshot wounds several blocks away, and authorities are investigating whether the incidents are connected. Zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson said violence was highly unusual for Zoo Lights, which for 13 years has drawn large crowds for an LED light display through New Year’s Day. “We take security very seriously — security of our guests, security of the staff and security of the animals,” Baker-Masson said. “We want people to feel safe and secure, and we believe we are going to provide that experience.” The people shot were initially reported in stable condition and conscious. Police said Sunday they were not aware of any changes and have not released the identities or ages of the victims. D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), whose district includes the zoo, said she was talking to authorities about deploying “violence interrupters” to prevent any retaliation for the shootings. “I want people in and around the zoo to know this was not a sort of random shooting, because these people were apparently known to each other, and police have a definite focus to make sure this won’t happen again,” Cheh said. fenit.nirappil@washpost.com


Winter survival tips for health and home

out the top. Or call a chimney sweep. ●Critters such as squirrels and insects, like those high-jumping crickets, can also seek shelter from the storm in attics and basements. Pest control experts can help. There are also handheld bug vacuums and a bug gun that shoots a blast of table salt at intruding insects. (Think buckshot for bugs.) ●Go out now and buy ice melt, a windshield scraper, windshield washer fluid and a snow shovel before the stores sell out. You might want two bottles of washer fluid, because it can go fast. ●As for the shoveling, don’t do it if you have a heart condition. Otherwise, go easy and take rests, especially if the snow is wet, or hire the kid down the street. ●Take care of your neighbors, and don’t pitch snow into the roadway. ●Of course, be careful walking on ice. ●Be careful of big icicles, too. They’re pretty but they can be heavy, and if they fall on you, they can hurt. You don’t want to wind up in the ER. ●Clean the top of your car after a snowstorm. Snow flying off a car’s roof can be dangerous to the driver behind you. In some places, you can be fined if snow from your car hits another car or injures someone. ●Don’t drive in the snow if your car can’t handle it. You’ll get stuck and irritate other motorists. ●Allow more time for everything. ●Be prepared for power outages if a storm is coming. A little extra food and water, flashlights and batteries and an independent phone charger are recommended. Extra pet food and bags for dog waste are also good to have. ●Clean out your rain gutters and downspouts. After a snow, a clogged gutter or spout can lead to a nasty phenomenon called an ice dam, where melting snow gets backed up by trapped ice and water flows inside the walls and ceiling of your house. Also clean out accumulated leaves in outdoor drains. A blocked drain can let water back up into the house. ●If you have to drive in the snow, go slow and be aware of your car’s ground clearance. If you have a four-wheel-drive vehicle, remember that your car may perform better in the snow than a two-wheel-drive vehicle, but it might not stop any better. Good luck, stay warm and don’t drive with the windshield iced over. michael.ruane@washpost.com