What a bobcat sighting tells us about a rewilding Washington

wild creatures moved along these natural pathways, coming ever closer to Washington. The mighty Potomac drains the high Allegheny Plateau of West Virginia and western Maryland, creating an inviting pathway for wildlife. First came the white-tailed deer. Then the floods of Hurricane Agnes in 1972 brought down refugee beavers that recolonized the wetlands around the capital. The burgeoning population of black bears in the Appalachians began searching for new haunts. We now find young bears arriving each spring in the D.C. suburbs (and occasionally in town). The red fox, a small predator seldom seen in the 1960s, is today commonplace in the wooded parts of the District. When bicycling to work not long ago, I encountered a gray fox one morning at the intersection of M and 20th Street. And of course, the coyote, first camera-trapped in Rock Creek Park in 2004, has now become a wary resident of the woodlands throughout the Washington area — causing alarm to owners of free-ranging cats and lap dogs. This is all part of the long-term rewilding of the east. As a child I could only dream of seeing a wild turkey. These days, the big game birds appear in suburban back yards, the aggressive gobblers insolently stalking wary residents. What’s next? The discovery of the bobcat indicates the rewilding continues. Perhaps the next arrival will be the fisher, a cunning but little-known weasel that hunts for rabbits and other small, forest-dwelling mammals. And then, of course, there is the chance of an errant mountain lion. One of its favorite prey species is the white-tailed deer — hyper-abundant here. Every year brings sightings of mountain lions in the Appalachians, though they almost always remain unconfirmed. Yet in 2011 a young male that was radio-collared in South Dakota wandered east to Milford, Conn., where it was struck and killed by a car. It’s about time a top predator returns to the D.C. area, to bring us some humility when we walk the canal towpath in the dusk of a winter’s afternoon. Read more: Jonathan M. Smith: Gentrification in D.C. was not fated. Policy made it happen. Christopher R. Dickman: There’s a glimmer of hope for Australia’s wildlife Bruce Beehler: It’s September. Seize the moment. Robert Gebelhoff: Coyotes are poised to invade South America. Humans are to blame. Helaine Olen: We’re in danger of killing off the biodiversity that makes our way of life possible


First U.S. case of potentially deadly coronavirus confirmed in Washington state

A man in Washington state has been diagnosed with the mysterious virus, the first case reported in the United States since the pneumonia-like illness first appeared last month in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, people familiar with the investigation said. The man, who is in stable condition, flew to the United States from China before federal health officials began screening travelers at three major U.S. airports.This is a developing story. It will be updated.


A coyote attacked a toddler. His father strangled it.

Three times on Monday, residents in a cluster of towns in southeastern New Hampshire called police to report an aggressive coyote. The first caller, at 8:40 a.m., said a coyote had attacked their vehicle. Twenty minutes later, the second caller, a 62-year-old woman, said a coyote attacked her and her dogs on her enclosed porch. Then came a third call, at 11 a.m., with news that the coyote had been strangled by a protective father. Ian O’Reilly had been walking on a trail in the town of Exeter with his wife and three children when a coyote latched onto their 2-year-old son’s jacket and pulled him to the ground, the father told WMUR9. O’Reilly and his wife tried to pull the boy away, kicking at the animal and shooing it away. It didn’t work. Eventually, O’Reilly told WMUR9 that he was able to wrestle the coyote to the ground — and choke it to death. “In the middle of the moment you’re not really thinking or recording a whole lot,” O’Reilly told WMUR9. “It’s really just instinct. The fact that when we tried to kick and push and get rid of him, it became clear that he was not disengaging.” O’Reilly was bitten on his arm and chest. The boy was uninjured. New Hampshire Fish and Game retrieved the dead coyote and are testing it for rabies, according to a statement from the Kensington Police Department. It is not clear if it is the same coyote from the vehicle or porch incidents. Kensington Police warned the public of a dangerous coyote early Monday, posting a photo of the animal running behind a vehicle in the middle of the road and telling residents to keep their pets and children inside. Pat Lee, the 62-year-old woman, told police that the coyote came onto her three-season porch and tried to attack her dogs. At first she thought the aggressive animal was someone’s pet, before quickly realizing it was a coyote. “I just started screaming at the top of my lungs to try to get him to stop and go away,” Lee told WMUR9. “It was very, very scary, but it could’ve been a lot worse.” Lee’s dogs retreated into her home, she told police, and the coyote tried to follow. Lee was bitten and later treated at a hospital, where she received the first in a series of rabies shots. Her dogs were


Disappearance of Mexican advocate for monarch butterflies alarms rights activists

[business] interests of people illegally logging in the area,” Cardona told the news agency. Parts of the forest where the monarchs winter in Michoacan have been damaged by illegal loggers in recent years, displacing butterflies. But Gómez González and other conservationists have helped restore much of the natural environment. In 2018, World Wildlife Fund reported that forest degradation in the region had decreased dramatically, but warned illegal logging was on the rise. Gómez González, a former commissioner of the town of Rosario, manages the local butterfly reserve. In an article published this month, he told The Washington Post that the protection of the species is steeped in local traditions. The people of Michoacan have long welcomed the remarkable annual migration of the insects who travel thousands of miles from the United States and Canada to Mexico to escape the winter weather. “Our grandparents told us, ‘Take care of them. They’re angels,’” he said. Gómez González’s Twitter feed is full of photos and footage of the insects. In some videos, he stands amid swarms of swirling butterflies as they land on his face and shoulders. He tweeted several times the same day the human rights commission said he was last seen. One post shows a group of smiling tour guides, dressed in matching blue jackets, standing at the entrance to a butterfly sanctuary. Another shows groups of butterflies fluttering in the forest. More than 61,000 people have disappeared in Mexico Environmental activists are often targeted in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. In 2017, gunmen killed indigenous Mexican activist Isidro Baldenegro López, who had been honored with the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005 for his work protecting forests from logging. Baldenegro López was the second Goldman recipient to be killed in less than a year, following the 2016 killing of Berta Cáceres, a Honduran activist who protested against a controversial dam. Amnesty International said in October it had recorded the killings of 12 activists defending Mexico’s land, territory and environment in the first nine months of 2019 alone. They included Samir Flores Soberanes, who was shot to death in the state of Morelos last February. The motive behind his killing was unclear, but thousands of people protested his death in Mexico City, amid suspicions it was linked to his work protesting a controversial pipeline project. The state’s attorney general opened an investigation into his killing last June, Amnesty reported. siobhan.ogrady@washpost.com


Sharing a cocktail menu: Is it an environmental act or a missed opportunity?

be prepared and served. It could be 20 minutes, or longer, from the time they sit down to the moment they press a drink to their lips. That’s a lot of down time, which, potentially, bites into the mealtime minutes available to order a second or third drink. Again, there’s the possibility of lost revenue. Third, consider the stress that one menu places on customers. “The pressure you’re going to feel, knowing that you’ve got to pass that thing around to a bunch of other people … is going to make you want to make a decision quicker than you need or should,” says Jeremiah Langhorne, chef and owner of the Dabney, the Michelin-starred restaurant in Blagden Alley. So why do restaurants hand out only one drinks menu per table (or sometimes one menu per two diners)? As they say on Facebook, it’s complicated. To properly answer this question, I think we need to differentiate between fine-dining restaurants and just about everyone else. The expectations are so much higher at the upper levels of dining, and the managers and owners of such places are communicating with diners through every element inside their walls, including the cocktail menus. Take, for example, the beverage menu at Kith and Kin on the Wharf. It’s a custom-made, leather binder that runs about $40 per menu to produce, says Kwame Onwuachi, the James Beard Award winning chef behind Kith and Kin. “It’s bound, so it’s expensive, and they definitely go missing,” says Onwuachi. “People just take them as souvenirs.” How often do people steal them? Onwuachi initially says he doesn’t know but then turns away from his cellphone to ask the dining room manager. I can hear the answer before Onwuachi even repeats it: “All the time,” the manager sighs. But even at more casual restaurants, those without leather-bound beverage menus, the costs can add up, says Rose Previte, owner of Compass Rose and Maydan in the District. Printing costs are not cheap, and restaurants can burn through a lot of menus, even when customers are not stealing them. So limiting the number of menus can be an economic and environmental decision, Previte says. “We try to use as little paper as possible, honestly,” she says. “We do care about the Earth. We also care about printing costs and ink, and it’s all very expensive. And with more menus on the table, people start to


Trump crows about the U.S. economy at Davos as Senate impeachment trial begins back home

25 percent tariff on European cars over a foreign policy dispute — created more tumult in the Middle East and in the transatlantic relationship between the United States and its closest allies. Trump was billed as the keynote speaker for the annual business-themed confab in this Alpine ski town, but the main attraction was Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 17, who has sparred with Trump on Twitter. “Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour,” she told conference attendees Tuesday. “And we are telling you to act as if you loved your children above all else.” In December, Trump insulted the teenager and Time magazine “Person of the Year” as “so ridiculous” and suggested that she “work on her anger management problem.” Thunberg was quick to respond, updating her Twitter biography to describe herself as “a teenager working on her anger management problem.” Trump had not yet arrived in Davos when Thunberg gave her first address Tuesday morning, saying that “without treating this as a real crisis, then we cannot solve it.” He did not attend her main speech later in the day, although she was in the audience for his. Trump is an outlier at the forum for his views on climate change. The president has publicly criticized global efforts to combat rising temperatures and has made ridiculing energy-efficient products a key part of his reelection stump speeches. Ahead of Trump’s address, Schwab told the gathering that “the world is in a state of emergency” and that the window to address climate change is closing. He also reminded the audience that “every voice” heard at the forum deserved respect. Although climate change and environmental stewardship lead the agenda here, a survey of chief executives released Monday shows that they do not count climate change as among the top 10 threats to business growth. Trump was accompanied here by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, and a delegation including national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien, Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Also present was adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller, whose hard-line stance on limiting immigration and denunciations of “globalism” infused Trump’s address to the United Nations in September. “This is the wreckage I was elected to clean up,” Trump said Tuesday of the “bleak” economic landscape he inherited. He praised himself repeatedly, saying that his actions


Mexico’s homicide count in 2019 among its highest

MEXICO CITY — Mexico has confirmed that 2019 was its most murderous year in recent history as homicides ticked up 2.7 percent during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's first full year in office. The National System of Public Security said late Monday that 35,588 people were victims of homicides last year, 2.7 percent more than the previous year. That includes 1,006 women targeted in “femicides,” or killings committed because of the victims’ gender. In addition, nearly 5,000 people disappeared in Mexico in 2019 and were not found. Authorities opened the highest number of murder investigations last year since they started keeping such data in 1997. López Obrador has acknowledged his government’s failure to bring down the homicide rate but said Tuesday that other problems were more important. “I think that the bigger damage has been done by white-collar criminals, whether politicians or businessmen who call themselves entrepreneurs,” the leftist leader said at his daily news conference. Violence has surged in recent years as some organized-crime groups have fragmented into warring cells and criminal organizations have diversified. Whereas they once focused on shipping drugs to the United States, many now also engage in predatory crimes in Mexico, including extortion, kidnapping and retail drug sales. Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez, the director of the consulting firm Lantia, said the latest figures showed that the homicide rate was at least growing at a slower pace than in the past. Homicides surged 17 percent in 2018 but rose less than 3 percent last year. “That’s very important,” he said in an interview. And López Obrador’s plan to use social programs to wean young people off crime appeared to be having some effect in lowering street crime, he said. But it isn’t hurting organized-crime groups, which are responsible for most killings. “There is no clarity or objectives or strategy or actions that are weakening organized crime,” Guerrero said. Ricardo Márquez, a former senior security official, noted that the number of homicides appeared to have leveled off, but at a very high number. “We are stalled in a situation that is tragic, of brutality and carnage,” he said. And there appears to be no national plan to confront the violence, he said. “Every state, every governor has his own strategy,” Márquez said. Recent months have brought vivid new examples of the extraordinary power and reach of organized-crime groups. In November, assailants massacred three women and six children who


China virus: Expert says it can be spread by human-to-human contact, sparking concerns about the massive holiday travel underway

BEIJING — Under the best of circumstances, the Spring Festival in China is a logistical exercise of mind-blowing proportions: hundreds of millions of people traveling via planes, trains, buses and taxis to return to their hometowns to ring in the new lunar year with their families. It’s the biggest human migration on the planet. And that’s without mentioning the bursting bags of gifts, clothing, food and liquor that travel with them. But this year, authorities are dealing with a new and potentially deadly challenge: the spread of a mysterious, pneumonia-like virus that has killed four people. Experts initially thought that the virus, which began in an animal market, could not be spread between people but have now confirmed is being transmitted between humans. “The outbreak is at a critical stage, and we estimate an increasing number of infections during the 40 days of Spring Festival travel rush,” said Zhong Nanshan, the leader of a group of experts at China’s National Health Commission and the respiratory disease specialist who discovered the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, during an outbreak in China in 2003. China’s National Health Commission has confirmed 219 cases nationwide, almost all of the cases in the central city of Wuhan, where the outbreak was first detected on Dec. 31. But the diagnosis of the virus in other parts of the country, including among people who have not been to Wuhan, shows that the virus can be spread through human contact, Zhong told the state broadcaster, CCTV, Monday night. “Guangdong has confirmed two cases that were definitely contagious [between human], because the patients have never been to Wuhan, but had been transmitted via infected family members,” said Zhong, referring to the southern province on the border with Hong Kong, where there have now been 14 confirmed cases. Furthermore, 15 medical staff who treated the first patients in Wuhan have been diagnosed with the virus. A fourth infected person in Wuhan died Monday. While Zhong and other experts expressed confidence that the virus could be contained and controlled, they said the mass movement of people around the country for the Spring Festival would complicate those efforts. “If you live in Wuhan and have a fever, you should not leave the city right now,” Zhong said. The news that the virus can be passed between people sparked panic buying of surgical masks across the country on Tuesday morning and led


some people to cancel their travel plans. The timing of the outbreak could hardly be worse. China’s Ministry of Transport expects an astonishing 3 billion trips to be taken in the 40 days that surround Lunar New Year’s Day, which falls on Saturday. The Spring Festival, signaling the dawn of a new lunar year — the Year of the Rat, according to the Chinese zodiac — is the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar. Migrant workers of all stripes, from those who labor in factories to upwardly mobile professionals in big cities, return to their hometowns. It’s often the only time each year that families can gather together. This flood of humanity even has a special name in Chinese: “Chunyun,” from the characters for spring and movement. China’s multitudinous trains are packed literally to the rafters during this odyssey. People lie under the seats in sleeper cars and crouch in the hallways or in the vestibules between train cars. It’s not unheard of for people, even adults, to contort themselves into the overhead luggage racks. Those who aren’t so lucky might find themselves standing for a 12-hour journey home. Despite the crush, the atmosphere on the trains is convivial and filled with the aroma of instant noodles. Almost everyone is excited to be going home and eager to share their snacks and their bottles of baijiu liquor (although some try not to drink a drop of anything to avoid having to go to the bathroom and potentially losing their few inches of real estate). But as China becomes wealthier, and as more young professionals dread the idea of going home to be harangued about still being single, many people opt out of the spring movement by going abroad. Southeast Asia is a popular destination because it’s close, warm and cheap. As a result, authorities in neighboring countries are also on high alert. Cases of the mystery coronavirus have now been confirmed in Thailand and Japan, and on Monday, a woman was quarantined after thermal detectors at South Korea’s main airport, Incheon, singled her out. Health authorities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam are also monitoring suspected cases. Three international airports in the United States — Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York’s John F. Kennedy — have started screening passengers on flights from China. The virus appears to have started in a market that sold wild snakes, marmots,


Travelers at 3 U.S. airports to be screened for new, potentially deadly Chinese virus

to a large live animal and seafood market that Chinese authorities shut down Jan. 1. The airport screening is the first time such monitoring has been deployed for an infectious disease since the Ebola epidemic in 2014, when officials screened travelers arriving at U.S. airports from three West African countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The process began after a man flew from Liberia to Texas and was later diagnosed with Ebola. No cases were detected. Since Wednesday, outbound passengers at the international airport in Wuhan have been required to pass through electronic temperature sensors before boarding flights, the South China Morning Post reported. Anyone with a temperature over 100 degrees is required to undergo a manual check and if high temperature is confirmed, “spend a period of time in a quarantine facility.” Health officials say they don’t yet have enough information to draw conclusions about whether the new virus can spread easily from person to person, or describe its clinical features. The source of the virus also remains unknown. But the emergence of a new respiratory illness that originated from an animal has raised concerns among health officials and infectious disease experts. If an infected person gets on a plane, “they have the potential to transmit the virus on the way, and the more people who are infected, the more chances the virus has to replicate in people and mutate,” said Matt Frieman, a virologist and associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who studies coronaviruses. Human coronaviruses, known for their crown-like spikes on their surfaces, cause illnesses of differing severity. Some transmit easily. Novel coronaviruses emerge periodically, with SARS emerging in southern China in 2002 and MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome, a decade later. With cases of the new virus found in Japan and the most recent case in Thailand, there is increased worry of spread to a wider area, Frieman said. “This also suggests that either animals shedding the virus are still in Wuhan or that there is more human-to-human spread than is recognized,” he said. “Both of these scenarios are problematic for control of this new virus.” CDC’s Messonnier said “there is some indication that limited person-to-person transmission is happening, including outside China.” Based on preliminary information, the incubation period, or time from exposure to the infection and appearance of first symptoms, seems to be between two and 14 days, she said.


plane, “they have the potential to transmit the virus on the way, and the more people who are infected, the more chances the virus has to replicate in people and mutate,” said Matt Frieman, a virologist and associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who studies coronaviruses. Human coronaviruses, known for their crown-like spikes on their surfaces, cause illnesses of differing severity. Some transmit easily. Novel coronaviruses emerge periodically, with SARS emerging in southern China in 2002 and MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome, a decade later. With cases of the new virus found in Japan and the most recent case in Thailand, there is increased worry of spread to a wider area, Frieman said. “This also suggests that either animals shedding the virus are still in Wuhan or that there is more human-to-human spread than is recognized,” he said. “Both of these scenarios are problematic for control of this new virus.” CDC’s Messonnier said “there is some indication that limited person-to-person transmission is happening, including outside China.” Based on preliminary information, the incubation period, or time from exposure to the infection and appearance of first symptoms, seems to be between two and 14 days, she said. “But we don’t have all the information at the level of detail that our scientists would prefer,” she said. “We want to see every tidbit. We are more in a waiting mode. Things are still moving fast.” Of 45 confirmed cases in China, most were male, middle-aged and elderly, with early symptoms of fever and cough, Wuhan health authorities said. The patients included a man who worked at the closed market and his wife, who had never visited it. The two who died were both men over 60 with underlying chronic diseases. The first had been a regular customer at the market, but health authorities have not said whether the second had contact with it. Five others are reported to have severe illnesses. Of the 45 cases, four — all men — were reported late Friday, Wuhan health authorities said. Their condition is stable. In addition, of 17 close contacts of the first confirmed patient in Thailand, at least one has low fever and mild cough, authorities said. The number of serious illnesses indicates this “is a big worry, this is a legitimate infection and that this is really going to cause problems,” Frieman said. Controlling transmission and finding the


new virus.” CDC’s Messonnier said “there is some indication that limited person-to-person transmission is happening, including outside China.” Based on preliminary information, the incubation period, or time from exposure to the infection and appearance of first symptoms, seems to be between two and 14 days, she said. “But we don’t have all the information at the level of detail that our scientists would prefer,” she said. “We want to see every tidbit. We are more in a waiting mode. Things are still moving fast.” Of 45 confirmed cases in China, most were male, middle-aged and elderly, with early symptoms of fever and cough, Wuhan health authorities said. The patients included a man who worked at the closed market and his wife, who had never visited it. The two who died were both men over 60 with underlying chronic diseases. The first had been a regular customer at the market, but health authorities have not said whether the second had contact with it. Five others are reported to have severe illnesses. Of the 45 cases, four — all men — were reported late Friday, Wuhan health authorities said. Their condition is stable. In addition, of 17 close contacts of the first confirmed patient in Thailand, at least one has low fever and mild cough, authorities said. The number of serious illnesses indicates this “is a big worry, this is a legitimate infection and that this is really going to cause problems,” Frieman said. Controlling transmission and finding the animal source are key, health officials say. Chinese authorities said specimens collected from the closed market tested positive for the new virus. Several countries in Asia have increased surveillance and entry screening at airports and other transport hubs. Suspect cases with pneumonia and recent travel history to Wuhan have been detected in Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Analysis of air travel patterns to map the potential spread of the new virus found that the top 20 destinations for travelers from Wuhan are in Asia. Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Taipei had the largest volume, according to a study in the Journal of Travel Medicine, based on 2018 travel data. Read more: Specter of possible new virus from central China raises alarms across Asia China identifies new strain of coronavirus as source of pneumonia outbreak None of these 195 countries — the U.S. included — is fully prepared for a pandemic


In France, an iconic restaurant loses its third Michelin star — pushing national strikes and Iran off the front page

— though the country has been crippled by more than 40 days of transport strikes, while at the same time being caught in the middle of the Trump administration’s standoff with Iran — the humiliated restaurant became the news of the day, dominating the headlines. The reason for the outrage was not so much the tired cliche that France loves its food, which, of course, it does. This was more about a diminished national symbol in a country deeply proud of its traditions but increasingly anxious about its place in the world. French cuisine used to be seen as the pinnacle of sophistication, but these days not so much. The restaurant — still in the throes of a transformation after Bocuse’s death — issued a crestfallen statement on Friday. “Although devastated by the inspectors’ judgment, there is one thing we never want to lose, and that is the soul of Monsieur Paul,” the statement read. “Paul Bocuse was a visionary, a free man, a force of nature.” A restaurant spokesperson declined to comment further. In an interview, Gwendal Poullennec, the director of the Michelin Red Guide that issues the star ratings that can make or break a chef’s career, said he traveled to Lyon on Thursday to inform the restaurant’s team in person about the downgraded status. “Obviously, there was a lot of emotion,” he said. “[Bocuse] was someone who made a lasting imprint on French cuisine, in France and around the world,” said Poullennec. He said the iconic chef’s restaurant remains an exemplary destination — just no longer a destination that merits the three-star designation. “The difference between two and three stars is that three means a true culinary experience of irreproachable quality,” Poullennec said. “This is a variation in the level of the cuisine, but it remains excellent,” he said. Michelin’s official 2020 ratings will be unveiled Jan. 27 at a ceremony in Paris, an event that has known its fair share of controversies. When Marc Veyrat, another venerated practitioner of French haute cuisine, lost his third star last year, he sued Michelin — a case a French judge dismissed last month. Such is the power of the ratings that they have even been linked to chef suicides, such as in the case of Bernard Loiseau, who killed himself with a hunting rifle in February 2003 after the French press reported rumors his restaurant would lose its third


A Syrian American risked everything to help rebuild the country of her birth

the Syria of Ghadir’s childhood, few could have imagined a future in which cities like Manbij would be dominated by a succession of bearded jihadists, burly American special operators and Russian soldiers. Ghadir, who was born in February 1991, was the indulged first grandchild of her mother’s large, tightknit clan in Damascus. Although Syria in the 1990s remained a police state largely closed off from the world, where the ruling Baath Party dealt with dissent with swift brutality, it was secure and, for a child unaffected by those crackdowns, in many ways an idyllic place. After Amina divorced the children’s father in 1997, they moved in with her parents. The following year, Amina met Kawa, a Kurdish man who had fled ethnic persecution in his native Iraq. Starting over in Damascus, Kawa one day encountered a young woman with big dark eyes. He started coming by more often, then proposed marriage. “Wait a second. I have two kids,” Amina countered. “I need your kids, too,” he said. “That’s when I knew he was a good man,” Amina said. Around the time of the engagement, Kawa received news that the U.S. government had granted his asylum request. But because Kawa didn’t have legal custody of Amina’s children, only she would be able to join him at first. Amina and Kawa left one night in 1999. The children remained behind with Amina’s parents. Amina said her ex-husband had largely bowed out of the children’s lives after the divorce, but she needed his consent to take them. Ghadir, 7, was crying so hard she couldn’t breathe. Ali was only 5. It would be three years before they saw their mother again. The absence fused a tight bond between the young siblings. “It was always just me and her,” Ali recalled. “We had this understanding. If something was wrong, we’d always know.” In 2001, Ghadir and Ali were able to join their mother, Kawa and a new little brother in Clarkston, Ga. The area was full of recent immigrants — from Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq. Ghadir and Ali learned English watching TV and playing with neighborhood kids. The children adapted quickly to life in America. Ghadir was motivated and watched out for people, said Anne Davis, a school counselor. When Ali entered high school, Ghadir tried to help arrange the right schedule and teachers for him, Davis said. She was also entrepreneurial, getting her first


A guide to the best happy hours in D.C.

the well-made margaritas and mojitos. The only downer is that it ends so early. Pizzeria Paradiso Game Room 3282 M St. NW (entrance in back, off Potomac Street NW). When Specials The basement beer bar at Pizzeria Paradiso’s Georgetown location underwent a significant makeover in January 2018, adding skee-ball, pinball and video-game machines to become the Game Room. It’s a comfortable place to hang out over a few rounds of shuffleboard or Big Buck Hunter, especially given the specials: All eight of the rotating craft taps are $3 off, which means you’ll pay as litte as $3 or $4 for choice drafts from breweries like Allagash, Right Proper or Union. (Selections change frequently, so check the menu.) Pair your brews with a personal pie or appetizers, and you’ll have plenty of fuel for one more round of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The Salt Line 79 Potomac St. SE. When Specials While it’s best known as a bar to visit before and after Washington Nationals games, the Salt Line’s New England-style seafood and waterfront patio with firepits still attract bargoers during the offseason. Happy hour food specials include half-price local oysters and a $5 choice of “coddies” (fried balls of salt cod and potato served on crackers) or “stuffies” (middleneck clams stuffed with sausage, Parmesan and bread crumbs). Drinks continue the down-easter theme, with $3 Narragansetts and $7 draft Cape Codder and Fish House Punch cocktails, while locals are represented by $5 DC Brau and Port City pints. The Sovereign 1206 Wisconsin Ave. NW. When Specials The dark, cozy Sovereign is the Washington area’s best Belgian-style beer hall. Sometimes that comes at a price, like when you realize the rare farmhouse or abbey-brewed ales you’re eyeing are $14 a glass. But the Sovereign has one of the best happy hours of any local beer bar, with a quartet of drafts — say, a stout from Brussels’s De La Senne, or a saison by France’s Thiriez — for $4 each. Friends don’t like beer? Not a problem, a quartet of wines and cocktails, such as a genever and tonic or a pastis spritz, are also on the $4 menu, as are tartines and loaded fries. Sushi Taro 1503 17th St. NW. When Specials D.C. foodies are used to lining up outside Bad Saint, Rose’s Luxury or Little Serow before opening time to guarantee a seat. But lining up early for happy hour


The Cybersecurity 202: Glenn Greenwald says Brazil charges are part of a global trend to criminalize journalism

critical facts about the government or politicians,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in an emailed statement reported by the Intercept. Advocacy groups also came to Greenwald’s defense. The American Civil Liberties Union called the charges an “outrageous assault on the freedom of the press.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation called them “a threat to democracy” that “discourages journalists from using technology to best serve the public.” Even some former intelligence community officials jumped in. House impeachment managers and President Trump’s defenders PINGED: The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, may have personally helped to hack the phone of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2018, a United Nations report to be released Wednesday will find, The report details a forensic investigation that found Bezos’s cellphone was hacked in 2018 after he got a WhatsApp message containing a malicious file that came from an account purportedly belonging to MBS, as the crown prince is known. The Guardian was first to report the findings, which appear to confirm suspicions raised by Bezos’s private investigators that Saudis were involved in leaking intimate text messages between Bezos and his girlfriend to American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer tabloid, in early 2019. The hack occurred just five months before the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist who was highly critical of the royal court. “Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, has alleged through his security consultant, Gavin de Becker, that the Saudi government had ‘access to Bezos’s phone, and gained private information,’” my colleagues reported. De Becker wrote in the Daily Beast that the Saudis were “intent on harming Jeff Bezos since . . . the Post began its relentless coverage” of Khashoggi’s murder. The revelation could put pressure on the White House, which has maintained friendly ties with the Saudi royal family despite concerns about its human rights record. Bezos’s spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment. PATCHED: Hillary Clinton had some potent advice for this year’s candidates in a Clinton’s campaign was upended in 2016 after Russian hackers stole troves of emails from her chairman, John Podesta, and dribbled them out to cause as much damage as possible. “You’ve got to deal with the theft of your personal information, particularly your emails,” she said in the interview connected with an upcoming documentary about her campaign. “Then you’ve got to worry about the propaganda, the fake news,


In Japan, sumo is a man’s game. Female wrestlers are pushing their way in.

only men — and one that is open to both genders and focused on athleticism and competition. “That way, the tradition can be observed by the professional sumo group," he said. "And in the meantime, sumo as a sport can prosper separately.” In October, Sekiguchi was in Osaka for the national tournament where his 16-year-old student, Maho, won her national title. He watched another star pupil there, 22-year-old Seika Izawa, take second place. But as Izawa prepares to finish school at Tokyo Gakugei University, she and her coach know her sumo days are numbered. Cultural shifts happen slowly here, Izawa said, so the day that male and female sumo wrestlers are treated as equals in Japan remains a long way off. “The situation is changing along with the changing of the times,” she said. With the Olympics here this summer, highlighting both male and female athletes, activists hope Japanese girls will tune in and be inspired to pursue athletic dreams, including in sumo. And while the sport won’t be formally included in the Summer Games, the government and Tokyo 2020 officials are expected to showcase the sport to out-of-town visitors as a treasured cultural activity. “Just like any other sports or any other thing, if more people start to do it, then that can change the perceptions. That’s what’s happening here,” said Ken Nakatani, president of the Ota Arashi dojo and a former professional sumo wrestler. “If you see people play sumo, there’s less sense of embarrassment and more sense of, ‘I can do it.’ I believe unless women participate, things don’t change.” In the ring that day, the young wrestlers battled for leverage, grunting and tugging, pushing one another like tiny bulldozers grinding their gears. Clashing against a boy her age, 7-year-old Himeka clenched her eyes shut. She gripped the mawashi around the boy’s waist but struggled to gain leverage. When her foe went low and drove her outside the ring, Himeka began to cry. “Why are you crying?” asked Sekiguchi, the coach. “You’re doing much better than before.” Himeka put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath. She wiped away the tears, pursed her lips and hustled to the back of the line to try again. Akiko Kashiwagi contributed to this report. Read more: Protests or not, politics and Olympics are intertwined Worried about the Tokyo heat, 2020 Summer Games organizers experiment with snow cannons


Amnesty International is suing the Israeli firm that experts say might have helped Saudi Arabia hack Bezos’s phone

of perceived opponents” by Saudi authorities that was relevant to “ongoing evaluation of claims about the Crown Prince’s involvement in the 2018 murder of Saudi and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of Khashoggi, a government critic. The crown prince has denied any involvement in the Khashoggi and Bezos incidents. The U.N. investigators further found that the forensic analysis of evidence from Bezos’s phone “suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in surveillance of Mr. Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia.” In October, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, filed its own lawsuit against NSO in a federal court in San Francisco. The encrypted messaging app accused the company of helping government spies hack the phones of 1,400 users on several continents. The suit in Israel against NSO is ongoing but is playing out behind closed doors, meaning the arguments and results probably won’t be released to the public. Human rights advocates said they will challenge the state for the information to be made public at every step of the process. The presiding judge, Rachel Barkai, issued a gag order at the initial hearing Thursday, siding with the government’s claim that if Amnesty could give public testimony, then the state’s silence in court could appear like an admission of guilt. The court also cited national security concerns as cause for barring the media and public from the proceedings. “The Ministry of Defense, instead of treating this issue as a human rights crisis, they are treating this issue as a PR crisis,” Mack said. “Which I think is madness, as they need to give answers.” Mack has been part of other cases aimed at curbing the ministry’s sales of arms and surveillance systems to governments accused of human rights violations, including in Myanmar, Cameroon and South Sudan. These cases were similarly placed under gag order on national security grounds. In the cases of Myanmar (also known as Burma) and South Sudan, Mack said, public pressure and not just the court proceedings helped to push Israel to stop the sales. Regardless of the case’s outcome, he urged the Israeli government to revoke NSO’s export license. “Where there is smoke, there is fire,” he said. “There is so much smoke all around the world with different claims about the


Saudi crown prince implicated in hack of Jeff Bezos’s phone, U.N. report will say

murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Post contributing columnist, in October 2018. After Khashoggi was killed in Istanbul, Bezos became a target of waves of criticism from Saudi-based online trolls. But the alleged hacking of his phone took place five months earlier. A spokesman for Bezos, Jay Carney, declined to comment. Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and one of the authors of the forthcoming report, declined to comment Tuesday evening and said she will issue detailed findings Wednesday morning. It was unclear Tuesday whether the United Nations conducted its own forensic investigation or relied on work done by a consultant hired by Bezos or someone else. De Becker wrote last year that “our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone.” The Saudi Embassy in Washington denied the report. “Recent media reports that suggest the Kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr. Jeff Bezos’ phone are absurd,” the embassy tweeted. A Palestinian researcher who lives in Norway and focuses on the Saudi government’s use of online propaganda, Iyad el-Baghdadi, said on Twitter that the hacking of Bezos’s phone “came directly from MBS’s personal phone, a few days after [the prince and Bezos] exchanged numbers.” Baghdadi said he assisted de Becker and Bezos in their investigation of alleged Saudi attacks on the billionaire. In addition, a new documentary film titled “The Dissident,” which premieres at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, reports that the video file Mohammed sent to Bezos probably contained Pegasus, a hacking program that lets users surreptitiously extract past and future data from a phone after the target clicks on a link. The film reports that the two men had been discussing a plan for Amazon to build data centers in Saudi Arabia. Relations between Bezos and the Saudi government seemed to go from promising to poisoned over the past two years. After Trump picked Saudi Arabia for his first foreign trip as president, and Mohammed visited the United States in early 2018, Bezos’s company continued its efforts to make a $1 billion deal to build three data centers for Amazon Web Services in the desert kingdom — a project that seemed to dovetail with the prince’s desire to expand his country’s participation in the global economy. Bezos and Mohammed exchanged phone numbers at a dinner in Los Angeles during the prince’s trip to


Elephant seal born far from home becomes South African celebrity

When Zelda returned to the ocean in mid-November, the pup was fat and healthy but still at risk on the beach, Hofmeyr said. That’s when Bayworld became Ziggy’s temporary home, and he became the team’s sweetheart. He loved to play with the dead fish added to his pool each day for mealtime. And though he wasn’t in a public space, visitors frequently asked about him. Just a few days before Christmas, a new adventure began. The research team secured a satellite-linked tag atop the young seal’s head that would allow him to be tracked in the ocean. They loaded him carefully onto a boat and released him about 40 miles off the coast, betting he would head toward ever-deeper waters. His journey could provide important new details on his species. Researchers hope to gauge whether elephant seals rely on instinct to find their way or learn where to go by experience. Or maybe it is both, Hofmeyr said. “We will be able to follow Ziggy’s movements and diving behavior at sea.” When the scientists released him, they expected him to swim more than a thousand challenging miles. “We hope that he doesn’t meet any killer whales!” Hofmeyr said. If he proves a smart, lucky seal, he will reach one of those islands near Antarctica in a few months. The research team wants to follow him for a full year. “Ziggy could teach us more about how pups adapt to the sea and navigate for the first time,” Hofmeyr said. As of Sunday, Ziggy’s adventure had taken him more than 1,200 miles from Port Elizabeth. On January 6, he entered the Roaring Forties, a stormy region of the Southern Ocean that is home to his species. Braving the region for the past two weeks, he reached the Antarctic Polar Front and is swimming southwest. Ziggy is still fairly far from any subantarctic island, the natural homes of the elephant seals. The nearest is Bouvet Island, which is about 500 miles to his southwest. It’s not just the researchers who are keeping a close eye on him. Bayworld is updating the public on Port Elizabeth Museum Marine Animals’ Facebook page. After a recent journey update, 67 readers had shared the post and 22 commented. “Well done Ziggy,” wrote one fan. “Keep going you’re getting there!” urged another. It looks like everyone is rooting for a successful journey for the brave seal! kidspost@washpost.com


Tom Sietsema’s 8 favorite places to eat for December 2019

buttermilk, bolstered with clam juice and streaked with green nasturtium oil. Scarlet rounds of venison show up with charred endive, glossy chanterelles and roasted curried squash that’s whipped to cloudlike lightness. Dessert keeps pace. The star is a silky passion fruit custard, its surface a little art show of miniature meringues, honey “caviar” and colorful violas. Green peppercorns make their presence known in the sassy pudding. Were you expecting nursery food? The Oval Room’s prime location means you might be within earshot of a potentially headline-making conversation. Kellyanne Conway, Nancy Pelosi and diplomats from near and far have all broken bread here recently. 800 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-463-8700. ovalroom.com. Dinner entrees, $24 to $39. ALMA COCINA LATINA I’ll be honest. I was concerned for this South American dining room in Baltimore when Enrique Limardo decamped for the bright lights of Washington, where the visionary chef now dazzles patrons at Seven Reasons. Could the food at Alma Cocina Latina be as luscious without one of the Mid-Atlantic’s top talents at the helm? A sip of a classic daiquiri and a bite of a crisp-soft arepa, brimming with mango-sweetened shredded pork, had me mentally applauding the work of his replacement. The arrival of the smoky grilled baby octopus — creamy with roasted pepper aioli and served on a plate painted with spokes of squid ink — erased any doubts I was in good hands. “It was a seamless transition,” says Irena Stein, owner of the convivial restaurant in southeast Baltimore. The new executive chef, Venezuela native Karem Barragan, worked for several years under Limardo, whom Stein retained as culinary director. “No new dish goes out without Enrique’s approval,” she says. Whew. The precise and beautiful food draws you in. The design encourages you to unwind. Hoping to “bring in the garden,” Stein hung her lush outdoor photographs on the walls and planted tropical details throughout. Everywhere you look, there’s something green: palm trees, asparagus ferns, philodendron. As the owner puts it, “Nature is in your face.” Much like the memorable plates. 2400 Boston St., Baltimore. 667-212-4273. almacocinalatina.com. Entrees, $21 to $45 (for prime rib-eye). AMBER SPICE Keep in mind that the owner of this delightful Indian outpost used to cook at the nearby Curry Leaf in Laurel and order the haleem. Lentils, cracked wheat, chicken and warm spices add up to a fabulous golden porridge. Note that Saravan Krishnan also put in


See how the coronavirus is upending daily life in China

An apparent new strain of the coronavirus, which can bring symptoms similar to pneumonia, with fever and respiratory problems, has claimed at least 17 lives in China and stricken hundreds of people. Checkpoints for screenings were being set up around China and far beyond, including at five airports in the United States. Stores in China have sold out face masks as quickly as they stock them. A travel ban was imposed in Wuhan — the central Chinese city where the virus was first detected — and surrounding areas. The order covers about 25 million people. That’s bigger than the population of Florida. Here are photos of how the health crisis is unfolding.


What must be done to head off the coronavirus threat

Scott Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from May 2017 to April 2019. He consults for and invests in biopharmaceutical companies. Health authorities’ concern about the new coronavirus in China, with cases spreading in Asia and as far as the United States, deepened Wednesday with news that the Chinese government plans to shut down transportation from Wuhan, a city of 11 million people that is considered ground zero of the pneumonia-like virus. After the outbreak began in December, the Chinese government for weeks portrayed it as a problem largely restricted to Wuhan, in the Hubei province. Infections have since been found in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macao, and in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan — as well as in this country in Washington state. Of particular concern: The news Monday that Chinese authorities had determined that the virus can be spread by human-to-human contact, and that 14 health-care workers had been infected by a single carrier. As of Wednesday, 17 people have died and more than 470 have fallen ill with the virus, The Post reported. China’s seeming reluctance to share information in the early stages of the outbreak slowed the international recognition of the threat. A turning point came when video footage surfaced earlier this month showing Chinese health authorities — clad in full-body protective suits — examining passengers on an airplane. The earlier secrecy raises doubts that China has fully learned key public health lessons since the SARS virus killed nearly 800 people in 2003 and then MERS claimed some 850 lives a decade later. This time, the world is better prepared to deal with the threat. Though the warning signs are unsettling, there is reason to believe that the virus may mostly cause mild illness and can be contained without major impacts. But how it unfolds will turn on some critical questions and on actions that still need to be taken. As with the MERS and SARS viruses, the Wuhan pneumonia is caused by a novel coronavirus that jumped from animals to people. Poor animal husbandry in open food markets make China an epicenter for these risks. Wuhan’s bazaar sells freshly slaughtered animals — including chickens, pheasants, marmots, snakes, deer and rabbits. These “wet markets” create perfect conditions for viral species to spread from their animal hosts to humans. Coronavirus is a species implicated


the outbreak slowed the international recognition of the threat. A turning point came when video footage surfaced earlier this month showing Chinese health authorities — clad in full-body protective suits — examining passengers on an airplane. The earlier secrecy raises doubts that China has fully learned key public health lessons since the SARS virus killed nearly 800 people in 2003 and then MERS claimed some 850 lives a decade later. This time, the world is better prepared to deal with the threat. Though the warning signs are unsettling, there is reason to believe that the virus may mostly cause mild illness and can be contained without major impacts. But how it unfolds will turn on some critical questions and on actions that still need to be taken. As with the MERS and SARS viruses, the Wuhan pneumonia is caused by a novel coronavirus that jumped from animals to people. Poor animal husbandry in open food markets make China an epicenter for these risks. Wuhan’s bazaar sells freshly slaughtered animals — including chickens, pheasants, marmots, snakes, deer and rabbits. These “wet markets” create perfect conditions for viral species to spread from their animal hosts to humans. Coronavirus is a species implicated in bad colds and, on rare occasion, viral pneumonia. Seven strains are already known to circulate among humans. The bug behind the Wuhan outbreak is new, which makes its emergence a cause for significant concern. Humans may not have much immunity to its main components. By some measures, Chinese health authorities have put us ahead in addressing the risks. Unlike SARS, which took about five months to firmly identify after it first began to spread, the Wuhan virus has been quickly sequenced and large-scale containment efforts were implemented early. China has already made diagnostic tests available to its health-care system. Yet, on other measures, more-seamless information-sharing by Chinese authorities is needed. They published the sequence of the viruses they had isolated, but China doesn’t appear to have shared viral samples with key international health authorities who could have used the pathogen to help validate diagnostic screening tests and evaluate potential antidotes. It is now up to other countries to work together on steps to avert wider outbreaks or pandemic spread. First, we need to better understand the nature of this bug, and its severity. The illness may be more widespread than we realize in the fog of viral war. Because


in bad colds and, on rare occasion, viral pneumonia. Seven strains are already known to circulate among humans. The bug behind the Wuhan outbreak is new, which makes its emergence a cause for significant concern. Humans may not have much immunity to its main components. By some measures, Chinese health authorities have put us ahead in addressing the risks. Unlike SARS, which took about five months to firmly identify after it first began to spread, the Wuhan virus has been quickly sequenced and large-scale containment efforts were implemented early. China has already made diagnostic tests available to its health-care system. Yet, on other measures, more-seamless information-sharing by Chinese authorities is needed. They published the sequence of the viruses they had isolated, but China doesn’t appear to have shared viral samples with key international health authorities who could have used the pathogen to help validate diagnostic screening tests and evaluate potential antidotes. It is now up to other countries to work together on steps to avert wider outbreaks or pandemic spread. First, we need to better understand the nature of this bug, and its severity. The illness may be more widespread than we realize in the fog of viral war. Because its incubation period is likely to be as much as a week, travelers can be harboring the infection and show no symptoms. A key to containing the virus’s wider spread will be developing effective point-of-care diagnostics to implement more widespread screening of patients. We learned that lesson with the mosquito-borne Zika virus when it was first reported in the United States in 2015. Initially, most blood samples had to be shipped to a central lab operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That slowed diagnosis and limited the ability of doctors to intervene more quickly when patients were infected. Health-care providers urgently need easy access to effective diagnostic tests for the Wuhan virus. There’s much we don’t know yet, but answers should emerge that will help us gauge the risks. It’s troubling that the virus seems to have jumped quickly from animal to human transmission. But, for most people, it might cause only a mild illness. For the young, old or infirm, an infection could be more serious. Yet even if it the Wuhan virus doesn’t mutate into a more potent illness, as it could, it’s a disturbing reminder that we remain too vulnerable to these zoonotic threats,


have shared viral samples with key international health authorities who could have used the pathogen to help validate diagnostic screening tests and evaluate potential antidotes. It is now up to other countries to work together on steps to avert wider outbreaks or pandemic spread. First, we need to better understand the nature of this bug, and its severity. The illness may be more widespread than we realize in the fog of viral war. Because its incubation period is likely to be as much as a week, travelers can be harboring the infection and show no symptoms. A key to containing the virus’s wider spread will be developing effective point-of-care diagnostics to implement more widespread screening of patients. We learned that lesson with the mosquito-borne Zika virus when it was first reported in the United States in 2015. Initially, most blood samples had to be shipped to a central lab operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That slowed diagnosis and limited the ability of doctors to intervene more quickly when patients were infected. Health-care providers urgently need easy access to effective diagnostic tests for the Wuhan virus. There’s much we don’t know yet, but answers should emerge that will help us gauge the risks. It’s troubling that the virus seems to have jumped quickly from animal to human transmission. But, for most people, it might cause only a mild illness. For the young, old or infirm, an infection could be more serious. Yet even if it the Wuhan virus doesn’t mutate into a more potent illness, as it could, it’s a disturbing reminder that we remain too vulnerable to these zoonotic threats, as illnesses that spread from animals to humans are known. One day, a virus will occupy the terrifying spot where lethality and dissemination meet. It will be nimble enough to propagate widely and virulent enough to cause catastrophic harm. The Wuhan episode shows that while we’ve learned some lessons from SARS and MERS, we remain tragically vulnerable. Read more Ronald A. Klain: The coronavirus has landed in the U.S. Here’s how we can reduce the risk. Leana Wen: Governments need people’s trust to stop an outbreak. Where does that leave us? The Post’s View: China should embrace the lessons of previous outbreaks to combat the new coronavirus Anna Fifield: As families tell of pneumonia-like deaths in Wuhan, some wonder if China virus count is too low


U.S. readiness for a viral outbreak has improved, but there’s a long way to go

evaluated the response to those crises. Twenty years ago, the nation had few programs or resources dedicated to coordinating the response to an outbreak among federal, state and local agencies and the hospitals that are the front-line protection against an epidemic, said Thomas V. Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Now, he said, agencies like the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, part of the Department of Health and Human Services; the CDC; the Defense Department; and the Department of Homeland Security have spent years and countless millions of dollars training, testing and coordinating with the nation’s health-care facilities for just such an occurrence. Inglesby said he is confident that hospitals in the five cities that could receive passengers on flights from Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the outbreak — have been warned to be on alert. Under new precautions, anyone traveling from Wuhan will be funneled to airports in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago or Atlanta. “In major hospitals in big cities, and definitely in the ones where flights will be landing from Wuhan, those people are very well aware of what’s going on,” he said. “It doesn’t mean everyone in the country is properly trained, but the front line is.” At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, front-line health-care workers who have long asked patients about travel to the Middle East as a way of screening for MERS are also raising questions about travel to China with anyone who complains of the respiratory problems and fever caused by the new virus. At UCLA and Emory University hospitals, nurses and doctors in the emergency room already ask open-ended questions about travel, officials said. “I would think my colleagues in hospitals across the United States are doing something very, very similar,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. The stockpile of drugs and equipment such as ventilators has been expanded, Frieden said, and training for disease response in Asia and Africa has been stepped up. The science necessary to respond to an outbreak also has progressed rapidly. When the first U.S. patient in the current epidemic, a man in his 30s in Snohomish County, Wash., exhibited symptoms, the CDC was able to test specimens and confirm his diagnosis in 24 hours. The National Institutes of Health and other agencies are


going on,” he said. “It doesn’t mean everyone in the country is properly trained, but the front line is.” At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, front-line health-care workers who have long asked patients about travel to the Middle East as a way of screening for MERS are also raising questions about travel to China with anyone who complains of the respiratory problems and fever caused by the new virus. At UCLA and Emory University hospitals, nurses and doctors in the emergency room already ask open-ended questions about travel, officials said. “I would think my colleagues in hospitals across the United States are doing something very, very similar,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. The stockpile of drugs and equipment such as ventilators has been expanded, Frieden said, and training for disease response in Asia and Africa has been stepped up. The science necessary to respond to an outbreak also has progressed rapidly. When the first U.S. patient in the current epidemic, a man in his 30s in Snohomish County, Wash., exhibited symptoms, the CDC was able to test specimens and confirm his diagnosis in 24 hours. The National Institutes of Health and other agencies are already working on a vaccine and treatments. And the Chinese rapidly sequenced the virus’s genome, then distributed the information around the globe within weeks, Schaffner and other officials noted. Identification of the SARS virus in 2003 took months, and developing a reliable test for the virus took even longer. But any system is only as good as the information fed into it, and Frieden pointed out in an interview Wednesday how little is still known about the new coronavirus. How were 14 health-care workers in China infected — from one incident or from numerous patients? Why are some patients in China asymptomatic? How long do the infections last? How many are severe? What characteristics do the 17 people who died share? “Large parts of the world have really bad diseases spreading that could bite us tomorrow and we don’t know about it,” Frieden said. At home, the list of deficiencies that could undermine a quick and effective response is lengthy. When an independent panel evaluated the U.S. response to Ebola in 2016, it found “the U.S. government was not well prepared to respond to emergent crises that require a rapid, integrated domestic and international response.” It said U.S. officials “did


infected — from one incident or from numerous patients? Why are some patients in China asymptomatic? How long do the infections last? How many are severe? What characteristics do the 17 people who died share? “Large parts of the world have really bad diseases spreading that could bite us tomorrow and we don’t know about it,” Frieden said. At home, the list of deficiencies that could undermine a quick and effective response is lengthy. When an independent panel evaluated the U.S. response to Ebola in 2016, it found “the U.S. government was not well prepared to respond to emergent crises that require a rapid, integrated domestic and international response.” It said U.S. officials “did not demonstrate an appreciation of the public’s perceptions and fear,” and even had trouble supplying enough of the protective suits health-care workers had to wear while treating Ebola patients. When HHS’s inspector general evaluated hospitals after the Ebola crisis, it found that 71 percent of administrators considered their facilities unprepared to receive Ebola patients in 2014 — a figure that had dropped to 14 percent by 2017. The first U.S. coronavirus patient offers little evidence of how well the system responded. After returning from two months visiting family in Wuhan and developing symptoms on Jan. 16, he guessed he could have been infected by the virus and sought care at a clinic Jan. 19, John Wiesman, secretary of health for the state of Washington, said Wednesday. The patient appears to have a mild case of the infection. Health authorities said they are monitoring 16 people he came into contact with. The next person may not be so healthy or well-informed. The question remains: What will happen when he or she walks through the doors of a health facility somewhere in the United States? “Well-trained and resourced health-care workers will be the key to detecting new cases, implementing infection control procedures — including isolating suspected ill individuals — and treating those who are ill,” said Alexandra L. Phelan, a faculty research instructor at Georgetown University’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology. “The good news is there has been real progress globally, so progress is possible,” said Frieden, now president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a program aimed at preventing epidemics and saving lives from cardiovascular disease. “The bad news is it takes a lot of time. This is not something that gets fixed overnight.” leonard.bernstein@washpost.com lena.sun@washpost.com


China should embrace the lessons of previous outbreaks to combat the new coronavirus

NO ONE yet knows the severity of an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, that causes a pneumonia-like illness that has infected at least 555 people and led to at least 17 deaths. But it is not too soon to embrace the lessons of two earlier outbreaks: severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which began in China in 2002, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Both showed that transparency and early international cooperation are vital to saving lives. The tendency of authoritarian regimes to cover up at times of trouble must be resisted. China was shaken by the mistakes in handling SARS, which killed 774 people, including 349 in China, and infected more than 8,000 worldwide between November 2002 and July 2003. A subsequent study of China’s response concluded: “A fatal period of hesitation regarding information-sharing and action spawned anxiety, panic, and rumor-mongering across the country.” This time, China’s leadership has attempted to show a different reaction, with one Beijing government agency declaring, “Anyone who deliberately delays and hides the reporting of cases out of his or her own self-interest will be nailed on the pillar of shame for eternity.” That is the right message, if a bit melodramatic. But the real test will be in execution. Local authorities may fear the consequences if the virus seems to be out of control. They will also be tempted to use China’s considerable censorship machine to suppress the facts. The Post’s Anna Fifield described a case in which a woman with a suspected infection died under circumstances that would suggest the government did not want her family to know she had the coronavirus. China at first said the new virus did not appear to be spreading from human to human, but then reported that it was. A disease outbreak comes with significant uncertainty, but Beijing must be careful not to complicate the situation by deliberately masking it. China promptly shared the genetic sequence of the new virus with the rest of the world, but the challenges will not end there. Key unknowns are how the virus transmits from person to person, and its lethality, both of which China should help answer in the near future. As many epidemics — from swine flu to Ebola — have demonstrated in recent years, managing public trust at a time of crisis is just as important as


Mnuchin said Thunberg needed to study economics before offering climate proposals. So we talked to an economist.

her case. Speaking specifically about calls to divest, Wagner pointed to a letter released this month by BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink. In it, Fink announced the asset management firm he controls will divest — move investments away — from companies like those that are centered on fossil fuels and contribute to climate change. “The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance,” Fink wrote in the letter, according to the New York Times. “It’s precisely this scenario of having fossil fuels go the way of tobacco that makes fossil fuel execs the most nervous,” Wagner told The Post. He noted that Shell Oil Co. predicted the rise of activists focused on climate change — back in 1998. But, again, the question is economics, not politics. Wagner, who spent nearly a decade working for the Environmental Defense Fund, explained the economic argument for applying pressure on oil companies. “It’s Economics 101 that tells us that when there is a difference between private costs and costs to society, that difference ought to be included in one’s decision-making,” Wagner said. “And when I say ought, of course the private individual won’t; it’s up to somebody in a position of power — let’s say the secretary of Treasury — to want to guide economic policy in the right direction.” It’s not that Mnuchin may have learned his economics in a time before climate change was a prominent factor in economic decision-making. Wagner noted the key argument derives from a 1920 book by Arthur Pigou called “The Economics of Welfare.” “Pigou wasn’t worried about climate change. His example was rabbits overrunning a communal meadow,” Wagner said. “If you are a British aristocrat trying to shoot rabbits in your spare time and you put your own rabbits on the communal meadow — well, you get the benefits but everyone else has the costs because your rabbit is eating everybody else’s food, too." “What’s the solution? You tax. You put a price, a fee, what we now call Pigovian taxation, equal to the difference between the private costs and the societal costs,” Wagner explained. “Explicitly or implicitly, we need to price the negative externality” — in this case, unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases — “at the Pigovian rate.” “Every undergrad learns that first semester, introductory microeconomics,” he added. (Earlier this week, Wagner wrote about the effort within oil companies themselves


The Health 202: Coronavirus may not get as bad as SARS, but U.S. officials are on alert anyway.

15. Anna also interviewed the family of Chen Min, a woman who was recorded as dying of “severe pneumonia” last week. But hospital staff told her stepson they strongly suspected she had “that” kind of pneumonia. “At the crematorium, where the workers were in hazmat suits, Chen’s body was immediately incinerated without a proper farewell, and the vehicle it arrived in was disinfected,” Anna writes. Yet there are also some positive signs this time around. And the new coronavirus appears to be less deadly than SARS was. Jason describes the symptoms this way: “Mainly fever, with some patients experiencing fatigue, a dry cough and difficulty breathing. Chest X-rays have shown invasive lesions of both lungs, the WHO said. However, only cases requiring hospitalization have been reported so far. It’s possible other people have been infected and experienced no, or only mild, symptoms. Many people have recovered and been discharged from the hospital.” There are three big questions to be answered, The bottom line, Frieden writes, is this: “The new virus is likely to continue spreading and be recognized more, and in more countries, in the coming days and weeks. We need to learn — and fast — about how it spreads and how often it causes severe illness so we can try to prevent its spread.” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.): And then there's this question: Is the United States prepared for a catastrophic outbreak authorities have long feared? “There is little doubt the country has made big leaps in preparedness since the anthrax scare of 2001, the SARS crisis in 2003, the MERS outbreak of 2014 and the West African Ebola epidemic that ended in 2016, according to experts and reports that evaluated the response to those crises,” Lena and Lenny Bernstein write in this piece exploring U.S. readiness for a viral outbreak. But any system is only as good as the information fed into it. In an interview yesterday, Frieden noted to Lena and Lenny how little is still known about the new coronavirus. “How were 14 health-care workers in China infected — from one incident or from numerous patients? Why are some patients in China asymptomatic? How long do the infections last? How many are severe? What characteristics do the 17 people who died share?,” my colleagues write. “Large parts of the world have really bad diseases spreading that could bite us tomorrow and we don’t know about


A Jamal Khashoggi documentary could take the film world — and U.S.-Saudi relations — by storm

the Bezos hacking “absurd” and “absolutely silly.” Using transcripts and other evidence, “The Dissident” lays out the plan to kill Khashoggi, who died just days before his 60th birthday. The plan was allegedly designed by Saud al-Qahtani, then one of Mohammed’s chief advisers, and Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy, the forensic doctor who allegedly worked out how to eliminate evidence. With grim specificity, Tubaigy is shown via transcript describing how to cut up Khashoggi’s body so it can be easily removed. The body was never found, but Fogel cites Turkish investigators who say it was taken to an oven that had been bought and installed at the consul general’s house and burned. The consulate at that time also had purchased 70 pounds of meat at a local restaurant — ideal to burn and mask the smell of an incinerated corpse. Tubaigy is believed to be one of five people the Saudis say were sentenced to death after a closed-door trial conducted by the Saudi government. Callamard objected to the proceedings, after which she tweeted the “masterminds … walk free.” The film features extensive on-camera interviews with Omar Abdulaziz, a 28-year-old democracy activist who fled Saudi Arabia before the Khashoggi killing and lives in Montreal. Abdulaziz recounts how agents of the crown prince threw his friends and relatives in jail while using both threats and enticements to try to get him to return to Saudi Arabia or visit one of its consulates — for what purpose he can only speculate. Little known before the attack, Abdulaziz turns out to be a central player in the narrative. He and Khashoggi had collaborated to launch “the bees” — a democracy-minded Twitter offensive to counter Mohammed’s jingoistic troll farm known as “the flies.” Abdulaziz thinks this effort, along with $5,000 Khashoggi wired him to get it off the ground, cemented the decision to kill Khashoggi. Since Khashoggi’s death, Abdulaziz has struggled with guilt. “Whenever I remember him, I feel I have to do more,” the activist says in the film. “I don’t want to fail him.” There are parallels in Abdulaziz’s story to the main character in “Icarus,” Grigory Rodchenkov, the chemist who helped design the Russian doping plan before risking his life to blow the whistle on it in that Fogel film. Fogel said the two movies are companion pieces of sorts, both growing out of his desire to use former insiders to show cutthroat


Maryland open houses Jan. 25-26

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The Finance 202: U.S. bankers at World Economic Forum in Davos see bull market extending its run

Aaron C. Davis — U.N. says MBS was involved in Bezos hack: “Human rights investigators Agnes Callamard and David Kaye said that a forensic probe of Bezos’s phone ‘suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in surveillance of Mr. Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia.’ In a statement, Callamard and Kaye called for the United States and other nations to investigate the alleged hacking of Bezos’s phone as part of a larger look at what they called ‘the continuous, multiyear, direct and personal involvement of the Crown Prince in efforts to target perceived opponents.’ ” — New Boeing CEO says company has hurt itself: “The CEO went further than his predecessor, Dennis Muilenburg, in saying the company and regulators made a ‘fatal assumption’ in how pilots would respond to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) in situations when it forcefully pushed the jets’ noses downward. He described the circumstances that led to these crashes as a ‘boundary condition,’ which wasn’t considered in the design of the jets. … Another priority for Calhoun will be repairing Boeing’s corporate culture following recent revelations that employees had mocked regulators, bragged about persuading an airline not to require training and described its airplane as ‘designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.’” — Complaint says FAA had lower bar for Southwest: “The preliminary conclusion by the Office of Special Counsel pertains to a Federal Aviation Administration employee’s allegations that agency managers gave the carrier preferential treatment by rushing the approval process and cutting corners in other ways. The counsel’s staff ‘found a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing’ by FAA employees, according to one document, among several documents and emails between staff and the whistleblower reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The inquiry hasn’t been made public.” — TikTok looks for new CEO: “The company has interviewed candidates in recent months for the CEO role, which would be based in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the search is private.” — Tech giants are spending big money on lobbying: “Since then, though, these technology companies have evolved into some of the most potent political forces in the nation’s capital, a Washington Post analysis of new federal records reveals, with just seven tech giants accounting for nearly half a billion dollars in lobbying over


He told me of his battle to save the monarch butterfly from illegal loggers. Now he’s missing.

environmentalists, watching the destruction of the population in real time, began lobbying for anti-logging measures, many in Rosario were up in arms — Gómez González included. He had grown up admiring the butterflies — his grandparents told him they carried the souls of their ancestors — but he knew how much Rosario depended on its timber industry. “We were afraid that if we had to stop logging, it would send us all into poverty,” he told me. But Gómez González, who would serve as Rosario’s commissioner — the mayor of the small community — eventually came around to the idea that preserving the monarchs would also draw tourism to Rosario, which could be an important revenue stream. Later that preservation was codified into law, first limiting logging in Rosario and then outlawing it entirely. The federal Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, of which the Rosario sanctuary is a part, is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gómez González started working alongside the World Wildlife Fund on its conservation initiatives. He created a Twitter account where he posted videos of himself surrounded by butterflies, called their migration “the great spectacle” and invited visitors to Rosario’s monarch sanctuary. He stood still when they landed on his face and clung to his clothes. “Since he was young, Homero has been behind the sanctuary,” said Gloria Tavera, an official with Mexico’s National Commission of Natural Protected Areas. But Tavera said she doesn’t think his disappearance was connected to his activism. “We think they are independent things,” she said. She did not suggest an alternative theory. I met Gómez González at the cafeteria in the Rosario sanctuary, where he appeared to know every waiter and janitor and tour guide by name. He walked around with the confidence of a local celebrity. In the hours before he was last seen, he added more videos of the monarchs to his Twitter feed. Authorities have said little about his disappearance. “We can’t disregard any possibilities,” said Magdalena Guzmán, the spokeswoman for the Michoacán attorney general’s office. She said Gómez González’s family had recently received calls demanding money for his safe return. They are also being investigated. The Michoacán state Human Rights State Commission thinks illegal loggers could be responsible. “We can’t ignore the work of this man, who was considered an activist attempting to preserve the forest of the monarch,” said Mayte Cardona, a member of the commission. kevin.sieff@washpost.com


Following the SARS playbook, China keeps a dangerous tight leash on coronavirus information

Almost 17 years ago, I flew from Beijing to Guangdong province in southern China to write about a fast-spreading disease called severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Interviewing doctors, government officials and journalists, I soon learned that the Communist authorities in Guangdong had known they had a serious health problem on their hands for months but still suppressed information about it because they did not want to scare off the millions of tourists who descend on southern China every Chinese New Year to spend reams of money. Faced with a rampaging disease that the government was ignoring, residents in Guangzhou exchanged information via text messages on their mobile phones. Soon the authorities cracked down, accusing more than 100 people of rumor-mongering. In desperation, many turned to folk remedies to fight the disease. A special type of vinegar was rumored to kill the virus, so scores of people headed to the farms where it was produced in Shanxi province, 1,000 miles to the north. The virus followed them. When one of the afflicted from Shanxi traveled to Beijing, SARS exploded, infecting thousands. In Beijing, the authorities clamped down on information, too. That spring, the Communist Party had scheduled its first leadership transition in 14 years — it was not convenient to report bad news. Beijing’s failure was made worse by the fact that the first SARS cases landed in the capital in a hospital run by the People’s Liberation Army, which operated then like a separate fiefdom. China’s generals declined to cooperate with government authorities and refused to hand over information, especially once the World Health Organization got involved. Things began to change only when a scrappy newspaper in Guangdong, the Southern Metropolis Daily, defied government censors and contradicted the party’s claims that SARS was under control in Guangdong. A month later, a courageous army doctor reported that officials in Beijing were covering up the severity of the disease there, too. By the time the SARS virus ran its course by July 2003, more than 8,000 people worldwide had become sick, of whom 774 had died. Now another coronavirus has emerged, and the parallels with SARS are striking. Like SARS, the new virus emerged from a live food market, although this time in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. As with SARS, the local authorities were slow to report the new disease because they did not want the news to interfere


By the time the SARS virus ran its course by July 2003, more than 8,000 people worldwide had become sick, of whom 774 had died. Now another coronavirus has emerged, and the parallels with SARS are striking. Like SARS, the new virus emerged from a live food market, although this time in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. As with SARS, the local authorities were slow to report the new disease because they did not want the news to interfere with Spring Festival celebrations and a major political meeting in Wuhan that ended on Jan. 15. Just like 17 years ago, China’s police persecuted alleged rumor-mongers after the government claimed the disease was under control. The party began to move only when courageous people challenged the government’s narrative and demanded action, except this time they did it through social media and not through text messages. Chinese journalist Jing Zhao, known as Michael Anti, surely hit a nerve on Twitter (which is blocked in China) when he wrote: “some local officials act as if appointed not to serve humanity but to serve the virus. They interrogate physicians who reveal the epidemic, lock up those who warn about it online, and unreasonably give big banquets as if their main mission were to optimize the virus’ spread.” I remember when optimists, including some of my Western colleagues, claimed the SARS epidemic had taught the party a lesson that openness was the wave of the future. In reality, China has made a firm commitment in the past decade to controlling information all the more tightly. Today there are no crusading newspapers left in China. The party has moved to place the nongovernmental-organization sector under its control. Social media is closely monitored, and people go to jail for trafficking in “rumors.” The foreign press is routinely harassed. When a group of Hong Kong journalists went to Wuhan last week to investigate the disease, police detained them and banned them from reporting. At least I was allowed to work in Guangzhou in February 2003. Read more: The Post’s View: The world should learn from the Ebola crisis to combat MERS in Saudi Arabia The Post’s View: Fighting MERS, again The Post’s View: Ebola is back. It’s an emergency. Ronald A. Klain and Daniel Lucey: It’s time to declare a public health emergency on Ebola The Post’s View: The world is flunking in the fight against disease


Mr. Peanut had to die

“late-stage capitalism” has become a cliche to describe our experience of everyday life — and even as brands seep their sneaky way into all we see, do and eat — the experience is supposed to be seamless. This is the age of ambient corporatism, and the hope for any brand is that we’re so far gone we don’t even notice when it tries to close a sale. The trick to self-promotion without self-immolation, at least on Twitter, is to play human — to make clear, for example, that there’s someone behind the MoonPie handle, riffing with company accounts that have similarly large followings, but also perhaps going a little crazy from spending his days selling a soft cookie sandwich. Brands: They’re just like you! Of course, it’s all dressing in a window to soullessness, but the point is not to be so obvious about it. And there’s nothing more obvious than Mr. Peanut. The folks at Planters tried to humanize Mr. Peanut before they stopped his beating heart, back in 2010 — to make him out as a friend instead of a firm embodied. They called him, inexplicably, a “WingNut.” They gave him, somewhat more explicably, Robert Downey Jr.’s voice. They gave him also a diminutive buddy nut named Benson who idolized Mr. Peanut but did “not live in Mr. Peanut’s house.” This probably taught the Planters folks they could only go so far to convince the modern Everyman to identify with a legume decked out in a monocle, spats and top hat. Mr. Peanut drips with plenty to which the woke vanguard of society today has grown allergic: maleness, dandyism and money, money, money. The only solution that remained? Premeditated murder. This is a coup for admen and -women everywhere. Even as Planters gives up on Mr. Peanut for not being human enough, they’ve managed to make him more human than ever before: forgoing the dreaded “rebranding” that trades out one old, disposable marketing symbol for another, and deciding instead on death — an end reserved only for the living. The company has snatched victory from the nut-cracking jaws of defeat. Read more from Molly Roberts No one has to be the liar The terrible honesty of World War III memes The secret that makes Baby Yoda so captivating Trump goes after Greta Thunberg — and shows he’s the real baby How the White House ruined the hero dog


Tiger Woods begins 2020 with Olympic dreams and likely a light schedule

age — and all the surgical work he’s had on his body — could make consistent success hard to come by. “It’s hard to put it together for all four days as you get older,” Woods said. “It’s just harder.” Woods confronted this inconvenient fact of life last season by cutting down the number of events he played, from 18 in 2018 to 12. After winning his fifth green jacket in April, he played in only six more tournaments the rest of the season and missed the cut at two of them, both of them majors, while also failing to qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship. Apart from the slams, Woods has confirmed his presence at only two tournaments: This week’s Farmers Insurance Open and the Genesis Open at Riviera next month, when he’ll be the tournament host. Considering everything he’s said about how hard it is to put it together for merely four days, don’t expect Woods to play much — if at all — on back-to-back weekends, apart from FedEx Cup events at the end of the season. Last year he did so in non-playoff tournaments only once, competing in the Genesis and then the WGC-Mexico event in February. He might skip the latter this year to space things out ahead of the Players Championship in March. But there’s one tournament Woods definitely is aiming at, as it might be his last chance: the Olympics in Japan. He said last year that making the U.S. Olympic team “is a big goal,” though his presence is not guaranteed. Each country is allowed a maximum of four golfers based on the Official World Golf Rankings as of June 22, one day after the final round of the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Woods currently sits fourth among U.S. golfers, behind Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson and just ahead of Patrick Cantlay. “There’s so much golf to be played, so many big events, major championships, Players, World Golf Championships,” Woods said this week. “There will be some pretty good fluctuating [in the rankings] over the next six months.” Read more: At The Ringer, workers are worried about possible sale to Spotify Feinstein: Morgan Wootten was a teacher above all Derek Jeter falls one vote shy of becoming baseball’s second unanimous Hall of Famer The selling of CTE: How the ‘Concussion’ doctor has built a career out of distorted science


The Recording Academy is imploding the week before the Grammys. Here’s what we know.

Dugan noted that “Mr. Katz’s comments about my looks and suggestive remarks have continued unabated since our first meeting.” (As reported by Deadline, Katz responded through his attorney, who said Katz “categorically and emphatically denies her version of that evening.”) Dugan’s complaint includes an email response from the HR executive, who notes “these are serious issues that need to be investigated.” Dugan was put on administrative leave just three weeks later — a decision her legal team says “was clearly made in retaliation” for raising concerns. The complaint also takes issue with the statement the academy released recently. Dugan claims board chair Harvey Mason Jr., currently serving as the academy’s interim chief executive, assured her the organization would not offer any statements about the leave, aside from saying, if asked, that Dugan had taken a leave of absence. Instead, the complaint claims, “the board leaked to the press that Ms. Dugan had been ‘placed’ on administrative leave.” Dugan further disputes the academy’s framing of the unspecified allegations of misconduct. Her complaint cast the issue as a dispute involving Portnow’s former executive assistant, and Dugan’s efforts to find the employee a new role after it “became clear that” the employee “was not up to the task” of assisting Dugan. The New York Times, citing “a person with direct knowledge of the events,” said the assistant had accused Dugan of a “bullying management style” that led the assistant to take a leave of absence. After the academy’s statement last week, a lawyer for Dugan put out a statement alluding to the Grammys’ tumultuous history. “What has been reported is not nearly the story that needs to be told,” Bryan J. Freedman told the paper. “When our ability to speak is not restrained by a 28-page contract and legal threats, we will expose what happens when you ‘step up’ at the Recording Academy, a public nonprofit.” The Grammys have been in relative chaos since 2018 when then-president Portnow was asked about the lack of female winners at that year’s ceremony. Portnow told Variety that “women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level” needed to “step up.” That didn’t go over well. For one, the nominees for the 2018 ceremony included chart-topping female artists such as Lorde, Lady Gaga