I decided to take a year off from social media. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

of places, but mostly I’ve lived online. My brother, Hank, and I have made a YouTube video series since 2007; we now produce a wide variety of online educational videos on subjects ranging from the U.S. health-care system to quantum mechanics to “The Great Gatsby.” I have millions of followers on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. Without the Internet and my public presence there, my novel “The Fault in Our Stars” would never have become as successful as it did. So many good people are doing so many good things on the social Internet, and I am immensely grateful for the opportunities my online life has given me and the new perspectives it has shown me. And yet. Over the past few years, I found myself looking at my phone hundreds of times per day. I was constantly checking — refreshing and refreshing, as if something truly fresh were just over the horizon. The companies competing for our attention have built algorithms that are incredibly good at capturing and holding that attention. Netflix has said “consumer screen time” is its most important metric; YouTube and Twitter and Facebook and many other companies all worship at the altar of growing session length. Ultimately, these algorithms are not incentivized to show us accurate information, or information that helps us to lead fulfilling lives. And at some point last year, I began to feel I could no longer effectively regulate the amount of time I spent on the social Internet, or the quality of my experience there. So I decided to take a year off. For my computer, I installed a Chrome extension called StayFocusd that has a “nuclear option” through which you can prevent access to certain websites. I turned off the ones that occupied most of my attention: Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and Twitter. On my phone, I used the Screen Time app to block access to Web browsers, the App Store and all my attention-grabbing apps. Now, my phone still does a lot of things — it can hail rides, order food, predict the weather, check in for flights and take high-resolution photographs. Also, it’s a phone. It’s basically a magic wand — just a magic wand that can no longer tell me how people feel about President Trump serving McDonald’s to college athletes. I had noticed over the past couple of years that my attention had become more fractured. I


The shutdown could soon block telescopes’ view of the heavens

stopped during a shutdown. It will be “a big loss of science in general,” Sheppard said. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which operates a network of telescopes across the United States and in Chile, would also have to furlough 350 to 400 employees in mid-February. Most equipment will be put into a safe mode and maintained by a skeleton staff, but Chilean operations and national security functions will continue, according to observatory director Tony Beasley. “Our prediction is the first time the monthly paychecks don’t come, we’ll see our staff getting jobs elsewhere,” Beasley said. “For highly trained, specialized staff, it will be straightforward for most of them to get jobs in industry — and take us three years to rebuild. It gets weird and difficult really fast.” Future operations of the Gemini Observatory, with sites in Hawaii and Chile; the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is under construction in Chile; the National Optical Astronomy Observatory sites in Arizona and Chile; and the National Solar Observatory in Hawaii are in doubt. “Although we have sufficient funds on hand to continue operations in the short term, we cannot continue in perpetuity under this partial shutdown,” the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, a nonprofit group that runs the NSF-funded facilities, said in a statement. “As we exhaust the existing funding on hand, we will need to scale back or halt operations altogether.” Typical shutdown plans for large instruments such as telescopes are designed for a month-long closure, said Angela Wilson, a chemistry professor at Michigan State University who directed the NSF’s chemistry division from 2016 to 2018. As the shutdown stretched into Day 33 on Wednesday, “we’re going to begin to see more and more of the scientific facilities begin to shut down." “Getting this back on track is not just turning a light switch back on and everything’s fine,” she added. At the Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile, a few dozen of the 120 staff members will be permitted to work by mid-February. The facility is responsible for maintaining the electric power lines and Internet connections that serve the remote observatory and other telescopes clustered on nearby peaks. Director Stephen R. Heathcote predicts that closing the observatory would affect operations at the neighboring Gemini Observatory, which is run by an international consortium, as well as the construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. “Staff really are gung-ho to keep


in Astronomy, a nonprofit group that runs the NSF-funded facilities, said in a statement. “As we exhaust the existing funding on hand, we will need to scale back or halt operations altogether.” Typical shutdown plans for large instruments such as telescopes are designed for a month-long closure, said Angela Wilson, a chemistry professor at Michigan State University who directed the NSF’s chemistry division from 2016 to 2018. As the shutdown stretched into Day 33 on Wednesday, “we’re going to begin to see more and more of the scientific facilities begin to shut down." “Getting this back on track is not just turning a light switch back on and everything’s fine,” she added. At the Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile, a few dozen of the 120 staff members will be permitted to work by mid-February. The facility is responsible for maintaining the electric power lines and Internet connections that serve the remote observatory and other telescopes clustered on nearby peaks. Director Stephen R. Heathcote predicts that closing the observatory would affect operations at the neighboring Gemini Observatory, which is run by an international consortium, as well as the construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. “Staff really are gung-ho to keep things running as long as they can,” Heathcote said. “We will do what we can, but at some point we won’t be able to continue.” The observatory normally assigns a team of about 10 people per telescope to monitor and maintain sensitive tools. Despite high demand for nighttime surveys from astronomers around the world — the observatory receives double the requests it can schedule — no data can be collected while the facility is closed. Still, three people will remain assigned to each telescope and its attendant instruments, Heathcote said. The powerful, $35 million Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the Blanco four-meter telescope, must be kept chilled to minus-150 degrees, and its sensors must be protected from condensation by a vacuum. “We have to have at least somebody around 24/7 to monitor the system,” Heathcote said. It is unclear whether these observatory workers will get paid, he said, because they are contracted by the NSF rather than employed by it. The Blanco four-meter telescope “is one of the main telescopes we use in our survey that is going deeper and covering more sky for outer solar-system objects than any past survey,” said Sheppard, who returned from the Chilean observatory last


White House seeks list of programs that would be hurt if shutdown lasts into March

a backlash from many federal workers. Some have balked at continuing to work without being paid, and their unions are filing legal action against the administration. A widening number of organizations are warning that the shutdown could lead to catastrophic problems any moment. Associations that represent airline pilots, air traffic controllers and flight attendants issued a statement Wednesday saying the shutdown has caused major security and safety issues at airports. “In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break,” the groups said. “It is unprecedented.” And there were new signs that federal agencies are still trying to comprehend the scope of their growing problems. The U.S. General Services Administration, an agency that manages many of the government’s leases and contracts, notified a number of departments that it probably needs new flexibility from Congress for it to make utility and lease payments in the coming days. Many federal agencies lease space in commercial buildings around the country, and if the GSA can’t make rental payments for these departments, the government could incur major fees and other costs. This could also have a big impact on the property owners, which rely on large government payments for their income. The prospect of the budget impasse extending into the spring has prompted some agencies to reassess the way they would operate under such a scenario. National parks across the country would normally start hiring seasonal staff right now for their busy seasons. In a call Wednesday with senior agency staff, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Interior officials explained that the Park Service may soon bring back human resources staff to start processing seasonal applications for law enforcement, sanitation and other public safety functions. The hiring push would not extend to employees focused on resource protection or interpretive services, they said. Kristen Brengel, vice president for government relations at the National Parks Conservation Association, said in an email that the move was short-sighted. “Thousands of seasonal park rangers are essential to protecting natural and cultural resources during the busiest seasons in many of our national parks. If most of them don’t get hired soon, our national parks won’t be able to deal with the massive influx of visitors, which will continue to make parks even more vulnerable


Trying to translate Trump into Chinese, one tweet at a time

page on WeChat, a Chinese social media app, in April when the trade battle was beginning. He thought it would be a good way to inform Chinese people what Trump was saying through his tweets. It was difficult at the beginning because Zhang needed to learn about American politics, American history, American personalities and American idioms. He is clearly a quick study. He drops Dan Scavino, Trump’s social media director, into conversation and riffs on Republican Ron DeSantis’s win in the Florida gubernatorial race. But he found that he couldn’t just translate Trump’s tweets. He also had to provide context. “If I just translated his Twitter, no one would understand it.” What Trump conveys in a word takes Zhang whole sentences to contextualize. He had to introduce his followers to Stormy Daniels. “Pocahontas” was particularly time-consuming. To explain why a Kardashian was visiting the Oval Office, he had to first explain what a Kardashian was. And Trump’s pejorative nicknames lose much of their zing in the translation. “Cryin’ Chuck” Schumer becomes “Chuck the Weeper” and “Crooked Hillary” is “Hillary the Liar.” James B. Comey, instead of being a “total sleaze,” becomes “outright despicable.” Then there’s the “manipulated and nauseating political persecution” instead of Trump’s “Rigged and Disgusting Witch Hunt.” The ubiquitous “Fake News” becomes the much less catchy “made-up news.” This newspaper, however, gets something of an upgrade, becoming the “Amazonian Washington Post,” while the New York Times is not “failing” but merely “decaying.” “Democrat spin machines” becomes “Democrat lie generators” in Chinese. “Pocahontas”: “The colluding Indian woman Bo Ka Hong Ta Si.” “America First”: “America takes precedence.” “Elizabeth Warren beer catastrophe”: “Elizabeth Warren’s acting was terrible in the beer video.” Zhang’s most popular post was about Trump’s complaint that it was too expensive to have a military parade in Washington, so he would go to France to watch its parade. “Many people are critical of how much money China spends on parades so they liked that the U.S. is being frugal,” Zhang said. China has a small but active online community of Trump supporters who use the Chinese version of “libtards” — that’s the “white left” — and champion the American president’s policies, even in these trying days of U.S.-China relations. But Zhang said he is not translating the American president because he’s a supporter necessarily, but because he’s doing a public service. “Trump writes his foreign policy and


Bill Gates comes to Washington — selling the promise of nuclear energy

First, TerraPower has discovered that the traveling wave didn’t travel so well and that it would not evenly burn the depleted uranium in the “candle.” Second, and partly as a result, it needed to change the design to reshuffle the fuel rods — and do that robotically while keeping the reactor running. Third, it has struggled to find a metal strong enough to protect the fuel rods from a bombardment of neutrons more intense than those commonly used in reactors — and for a much longer period of time. TerraPower’s Burkey said in an email that the company has been researching new steel alloys. It has sent ingots to a unique Russian test reactor and brought them back for examination. She said the company had made important advances in that and other areas. In many ways, TerraPower’s design resembles fast breeder reactors. Fast breeders have faster moving neutrons, the subatomic particles that trigger fission. Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said earlier versions of fast breeder reactors have turned in a “dismal performance.” The United States built two small reactors at a government laboratory in Idaho, Japan built a commercial unit called Monju, and France built two called Phenix and Superphenix — and all of them have been shut down. TerraPower also suffered a setback in October when the Energy Department effectively killed any chance of building a demonstration reactor in China. The department announced measures to prevent “China’s illegal diversion” of U.S. civilian nuclear technology for military purposes. Three years earlier, TerraPower had unveiled an agreement to establish a joint venture with China National Nuclear Corp. to build a pilot reactor. But the Energy Department, in a move that seemed aimed directly at TerraPower, said it would deny new license applications or extensions to existing authorizations related to the Chinese state-owned company. TerraPower has been working on “advanced” nuclear technology for a decade, and it remains far from filing a final proposal for review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In fact, a small modular reactor design by NuScale Power is the application currently before the NRC. The commission is expected to complete its review by September 2020, NuScale says. TerraPower has also been working with the Energy Department on another reactor. If it moved ahead, it could obtain federal funds for 60 percent of the cost of a test reactor, Burkey said. That design would rely


Here’s why a historic site remained open at Trump’s hotel despite the government shutdown

buildings fund “to operate federal facilities, as needed, until they are expended, notwithstanding a lapse in appropriations.” The decision to keep the clock tower open was “unrelated to the facility’s tenant,” the GSA has said. The majority of national parks were closed during the shutdown, according to the National Park Service. In a statement to The Post, the Park Service said it staffs the Old Post Office under an agreement with the GSA, which owns the building and pays for Park Service staff. Of 418 national parks, about 80 — or about 19 percent — remained open, according to the Park Service. The operating sites were funded using recreation fee revenue, but the clock tower is not funded this way. The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment. The continued operations of the clock tower raised questions about why it remained open while many other federal sites were closed, and whether the building received special treatment because its tenant is the president’s company. This month, the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent a public-records request to the GSA, asking for information about the funding for the tower’s continued operations. CREW is seeking documents from the GSA, the White House, the National Park Service and the Trump Organization. CREW told The Post it has yet to receive a response to its records request. CREW’s executive director, Noah Bookbinder, said the tower’s ongoing operation seemed particularity problematic, because hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors faced financial hardship and key public services were disrupted during the shutdown. “It certainly looks like this is open because it is located at the site of the president’s business," he said. “People may have felt pressure to give preferential treatment, even if nobody said anything.” The Associated Press reported earlier this month on the clock tower remaining open. The Trump Organization won the lease to the building several years before Trump was elected president. But according to a recent report from the GSA’s inspector general, the agency “ignored” concerns that the lease might violate the Constitution by allowing his company to keep it after Trump took office. The clock tower is one of the tallest structures in the city. Since the Washington Monument is turning away visitors until the spring so it can update its elevator, the clock tower offers an unrivaled view of the nation’s capital.


Recalls for risky products are on the honor system during federal shutdown

Power-tool maker DeWalt was ready late last month to launch a national recall of some models of its bright yellow electric drills. A wiring problem posed a shock hazard. Federal regulators were on board. They signed off on DeWalt’s recall plan. They even had a recall date picked out: Jan. 10. Then came the federal government shutdown, and the agency that handles product recalls, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, went dark. The agency — best known for policing flammable pajamas and hazardous cribs — never got the chance to announce the DeWalt recall. It hasn’t issued a recall since December 20 — a period when it might normally issue 10 to 20 defective-product alerts. The shutdown, the longest in U.S. government history, also has prevented the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from announcing recalls for faulty automobiles, child car seats and tires. So while government recalls of bad food and drugs continue during the shutdown, efforts to stop dangerous toys, tools and tires are going without government oversight. Even a quick end to the shutdown is expected have long-running effects as regulators work through a backlog of risky-product notices. “People have no idea if they’re using something that is dangerous,” said Nancy Cowles, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Kids in Danger. Now, companies are unsure about what to do. Some are launching their own recalls without federal oversight, but it is not clear how thorough those efforts are. There is concern that some companies might be reluctant to take action. Two years ago, Viking Range failed to tell regulators about problems with its cooking ranges spontaneously turning on, leading to a $4.65 million penalty. Others have resisted recalls. In 2014, Takata fought regulators pushing for a national recall of its defective air bags, a fight it soon lost. “I’d be concerned about some of the hazards that could be out there,” said Mike Gentine, a former safety commission attorney working at the firm Schiff Hardin. Consumers are left without the biggest megaphones for alerting them to potentially harmful products. Federal agencies act as information clearinghouses, helping the notices to be picked up by the press and social media. The agencies also tell corporations what kind of recall actions are needed and how broad they should be. In some cases, companies are going it alone. Hyundai and Kia last week said the companies were recalling nearly 170,000 vehicles to


‘Digging a bigger and bigger hole’: Shutdown stalls Trump’s deportation efforts

the damage to the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts will likely last for years. During the shutdown, immigration jails remained filled with more than 40,000 detainees a day, on average, and officials said Border Patrol agents and immigration fugitive teams were still arresting people, despite working without pay. But the agents were pouring new cases into an immigration court system that was nearly paralyzed by the shutdown. Before the government’s partial closure, the courts were grappling with a historic backlog of more than 800,000 cases. Then three-fourths of the roughly 400 immigration judges were furloughed, and more than 80,000 cases were canceled. The hearings will probably be rescheduled months or years down the road, undermining the administration’s goal of unclogging the court system and speeding the resolution of cases. “They are just digging a bigger and bigger hole,” said Susan Long, co-director of Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, which publishes court data. Despite dire warnings from former Homeland Security secretaries that the shutdown could affect public safety, current DHS officials, union representatives and federal contractors insisted that immigration enforcement had not been affected. “The mission is still getting done,” said Manuel Padilla Jr., director of the DHS-led Joint Task Force-West and until recently the Border Patrol chief for the Rio Grande Valley. “Everyone is still gung-ho.” Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council and a vocal Trump supporter, said few Border Patrol agents had been furloughed and there had been no uptick in retirement, attrition or sick leave. But with employees absorbing their second missed paycheck Friday, “there is a lot of angst among agents,” he said. “Obviously they do want to get paid. They have bills and mortgages.” One concern Judd did have, however, was that the shutdown could set back the Border Patrol’s ongoing recruitment efforts, one of many immigration-related duties the U.S. government delegates to private contractors. Some contractors said they got paid during the shutdown, while others did not. Shelters for migrant youths detained at the border were fully funded, but some private immigration jails said they had to operate without federal money. CoreCivic, which jails thousands of undocumented immigrants for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, remained opened and was still paying its employees, said Amanda Gilchrist, a spokeswoman for the for-profit firm. But its invoice payments were delayed by the shutdown. Immigration judges were still hearing the cases of detained immigrants.


Metro to offer free rides for federal workers affected by shutdown, pending board approval

Metro board Chairman Jack Evans said the gesture, which is aimed at relieving commuting costs for federal workers, came at the urging of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. Metro will offer the free rail and bus rides beginning Monday, provided the board approves the measure in an emergency vote set for Friday afternoon. This is a developing story. It will be updated.


Scientists say these ‘frozen’ alligators aren’t dead. They’re still creeping people out.

one really does. Adam E. Rosenblatt, a biology professor at the University of North Florida who studies how alligators respond to environmental changes, said that’s the big mystery. The behavior, he said, is likely not something the alligators learned by practicing but, rather, is instinctual, something developed over time through natural selection. “If the alligator species has been living in cold temperatures for a long enough time, then the ones who were able to do this are the ones that would be able to survive and reproduce,” he said. “How they knew how to do it? I don’t think anybody knows the answer at this point.” In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Rosenblatt said, scientists began studying the behavior in detail. Because most alligators live in warm, southern climates — North Carolina is about as far north as they go — it’s unusual for them to even experience extended freezing temperatures. No one except the alligators seemed too curious about how they managed to make it through the rare freezing nights. Then in 1983, alligator ecologists noticed an entire congregation of alligators sticking their noses through the ice in North Carolina. They had heard herpetological legends of outcast alligators somehow managing to survive six straight winters in Pennsylvania or four years in Virginia. But they knew the ice technique couldn’t be new behavior. The ancestors of alligators evolved 245 million years ago. Surely, they didn’t just choose a Keystone State cold snap to debut a new survival technique. It turns out scientists simply weren’t paying close enough attention. Now, they know what’s going on in the ice: When the alligators go under, Rosenblatt said, they enter what’s called “brumation” — like hibernation but for the coldblooded — and their bodies almost entirely shut down. All they need to do is breathe. “They basically shut down their metabolism. They don’t need to eat because they’re not burning a lot of energy,” Rosenblatt said. “They slow down their heart rate, their digestive system, and they just sit there and wait out the cold weather. It’s a pretty amazing adaptation.” It does not always work. One of the earliest studies of “icing” among alligators, in 1982, examined an alligator who died doing it. After three days, its body temperature became too low for survival. And scientists in 1990, for example, watched a group of alligators in South Carolina, including baby ones and


Saudi Arabia asked the world to forget Khashoggi at Davos. It’s working.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Just a few months ago, Saudi Arabia was placed under the heat lamps of international scrutiny. The steady drip of revelations surrounding the covert abduction and killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inflamed the U.S. Congress, led to protests in various capitals around the world and blackened the reputation of the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA found had ordered the plot. But Mohammed and the Saudis were defiant in the face of international censure. They were defended by the Trump administration, which focused its ire instead on Iran, and received only timid reproach from European governments wary of isolating a key customer for military hardware. And if it wasn’t clear that the West had largely moved on beyond the whole Khashoggi affair, events this week at the World Economic Forum made it all the more obvious. The Saudis sent a large delegation to the Swiss Alps, including their economy, finance and foreign ministers. The country’s oil giant, Aramco, staged a lavish party Wednesday evening for executives and bankers attending the forum. In various conversations, Western politicians and business executives indicated their unwillingness to turn their back on the kingdom. “We have long since dealt with the Khashoggi case,” Swiss President Ueli Maurer told local news agency SDA. “We have agreed to continue the financial dialogue and normalize relations again.” At a panel alongside two Saudi ministers and Morgan Stanley chief James Gorman, the head of French oil company Total, Patrick Pouyanne, urged the audience to put the nastiness of Khashoggi’s killing behind them: “Let’s look more positively and move forward.” No wonder Saudi officials could feel confident. “I don’t see any issues — quite the opposite — in terms of our investment, it’s welcomed,” said Amin Nasser, Aramco’s chief executive. At a forum driven by business concerns, this ought not be surprising. In an interview with WorldViews, Alain Bejjani, chief executive of Majid Al Futtaim — a Middle East retail giant that owns shopping malls, cinemas and other properties throughout the region — dismissed negative coverage of the Saudi crown prince as “very unfair” and “biased.” Bejjani’s company opened the first cinema in Saudi Arabia and has plans to expand rapidly in the kingdom. He credits Mohammed for spurring “deep reform,” citing his moves to curb corruption, open up the country’s economy and allow women to drive. “As an investor, and as the CEO


Metro to offer free rides for federal workers impacted by shutdown, pending board approval

Metro will offer free rail and bus rides for federal workers affected by the government shutdown, provided the board approves the measure in an emergency vote set for Friday afternoon. Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans said the decision came at the urging of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who announced Thursday that Maryland would waive fares for state transportation services, including MARC commuter rail, and called on Metro to follow suit. Evans said the gesture would send a message to federal workers who aren’t receiving paychecks but still have to report for work. “We support them and we’re going to allow them to ride free on Metro, and hopefully that will alleviate some of the concerns they have moneywise — those who have to work and aren’t getting paid,” Evans said. Metro staff declined to comment Thursday because fare policy is set by the board. Evans said the measure has the support of both District board members and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and he expected it to pass. Asked whether he planned to support the measure, board member Michael Goldman, who represents Maryland, replied “absolutely, yes” and he said Maryland’s other board member, Clarence C. Crawford, was expected to, as well. With the District and Maryland’s members signaling their support, the only question remaining was whether Virginia’s board members — who have repeatedly raised concerns about the agency’s operating expenses — would support the proposal. Reached Thursday night, Virginia board member Paul C. Smedberg said the state was undecided on the proposal because it had to coordinate with local jurisdictions to see whether they were responsive to the idea. “We’re circling back with all of our local leaders, and we have a series of calls scheduled for tomorrow,” Smedberg said, adding that he expected to have a better idea of his position early Friday. Metro resolutions require buy-in from at least one member each from the District, Maryland and Virginia. Metro estimates 21,000 federal workers will lose their SmartBenefits beginning Friday because the commuter benefits, meant to encourage transit use, won’t be disbursed by federal agencies for the month of February because of the shutdown. Metro estimates that federal workers make up 40 percent of its rush-hour ridership and said the agency is losing $400,000 a day during the shutdown because of the loss of those riders. The agency said about 136,000 federal workers are enrolled in the SmartBenefits


Border wall dispute and political dysfunction has snagged even popular programs

The Land and Water Conservation Fund enjoys bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. The fund helps pay for the conservation of things that most people like: parks, recreation areas, wildlife preserves, Civil War battlefields. The money comes from fees paid by oil and gas companies for offshore drilling rights. But the fund’s legislative authorization expired nearly four months ago, at the end of the past fiscal year. Members of both houses of Congress managed to advance bills to reauthorize the fund permanently, but the legislative process can be glacial and the fund was still awaiting final passage when the border wall dispute reared up and put everything on hold. Now, despite its popularity, the fund — known to supporters simply by its acronym, LWCF — is right where so much other legislation is: in shutdown purgatory. “LWCF is being held hostage. We’re waiting to move. We see this as an easy win that everyone would get behind, but we’re waiting,” said Tom Cors, director of government relations for lands at the Nature Conservancy and a spokesman for a coalition that supports the fund. He and other advocates for the fund, while frustrated and worried about land deals that are hanging in the balance, aren’t panicking. They know the fund still enjoys political support. They also admit that the fund’s problems are small potatoes compared to some of the other effects of the partial government shutdown, including economic distress suffered by hundreds of thousands of workers missing paychecks. But what happened to the Land and Water Conservation Fund is a reminder that the shutdown has also effectively halted one of the most important duties of the government: the passage of laws. The political dysfunction in Washington has reached the point where Congress might struggle to pass a resolution endorsing apple pie. (Imagine the outrage from the powerful Cherry Pie Lobby.) The conservation fund had been authorized by Congress to tap up to $900 million annually from fees paid by oil and gas companies for offshore leases, although some of that money is routinely diverted by lawmakers to pet projects, according to Cors. The fund has been used for projects large and small that are prioritized by the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. The lag in authorization for the fund has held up land deals being negotiated. For example,


Johns Hopkins to buy Newseum building in D.C. as journalism museum plans to relocate

A major museum on Pennsylvania Avenue will close within a year and make way for the opening of a prominent university center for graduate studies under a real estate deal announced Friday that is destined to transform a marquee address in the nation’s capital. Johns Hopkins University is buying the landmark building that houses the Newseum for $372.5 million, a purchase that will enable the struggling cultural institution devoted to news and the First Amendment to seek a new home in the Washington area. The Freedom Forum — the private foundation that created the Newseum and that is its primary funder — said the museum will remain open at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW for the rest of the year. Then, assuming the deal wins regulatory approval, the university will take control of the property and prepare to move several graduate programs to the site. The Newseum has operated since 2008 at the Penn Quarter location, near the Mall and a few blocks northwest of the Capitol, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors a year but enduring financial challenges as it charged an admission fee while neighboring Smithsonian museums were free. The Freedom Forum announced in August 2017 that it was studying options for the building, including a sale, to escape what had become an untenable run of perennial budget deficits at the Newseum. “This was a difficult decision, but it was the responsible one,” Jan Neuharth, chair and chief executive of the Freedom Forum, said in a statement. “We remain committed to continuing our programs — in a financially sustainable way — to champion the five freedoms of the First Amendment and to increase public awareness about the importance of a free and fair press. With today’s announcement, we can begin to explore all options to find a new home in the Washington D.C. area.” For Johns Hopkins, a prominent research university based in Baltimore, the purchase will raise its profile in the nation’s capital. The university’s School of Advanced International Studies, which for decades has been on Massachusetts Avenue NW, will move to the Pennsylvania Avenue building after it is remodeled. So will other D.C.-based graduate programs in business, nursing, and arts and sciences. Hopkins said it has about 3,300 faculty, students and staff in the city, in addition to faculty at Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital in Northwest Washington. “Acquiring this iconic property in the heart of the


Senate Republicans unexpectedly shake up their party

Senate Republicans and President Trump may look back on Thursday as the day their relationship fundamentally changed. Both heretofore stalwart Trump defenders and skeptical moderates joined forces to embarrass the president. To get the ball rolling, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave up on the canard that he could not bring up anything for a vote that Trump wouldn’t sign. That was aimed at protecting McConnell from being undercut (again) but also at shielding Trump from an embarrassing display of disloyalty. He brought up the clean continuing resolution — something he vowed he would never do — and let a vote proceed. If he could do that Thursday, why couldn’t he have done it weeks ago? Well, of course he could have. He discovered that waiting for Trump to figure out how to get himself out of a jam was fruitless; he’d never get off his unsellable wall unless it went down in flames. It did. Since he has done it once, McConnell now can bring up all sorts of compromise proposals, in essence daring the president to veto them. The counterpart to McConnell’s action was the defection of six GOP senators. Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) all voted for the continuing resolution. (Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), who is up in 2020, may regret not joining them.) The size and ideological diversity of the group were remarkable. Thursday’s vote may, if we are lucky, mark the emergence of a core group of sensible Republicans who I have suggested could wield tremendous power. They can deny their party a simple majority, lure moderate Democrats into collective action and potentially push back against the worst aspects of this administration. With additional safety in numbers, they showed no hesitation in humiliating Trump on a vote that was never going to reach 60 needed for cloture anyway. By taking the vote, they put themselves in a position to find a way out of this debacle. This could happen in other contexts. They could deny unqualified nominees, slow the buildup of debt, rebuff the president on Russia (11 Republicans voted to oppose lifting of sanctions on companies still controlled by Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska) and forge a larger deal on dreamers, those on temporary protected status and even on legal immigration. (Interestingly, only Gardner and Collins were in


Local runners felt shutdown’s impact as Washington races are postponed

Even as President Trump and congressional leaders struck a tentative deal Friday to temporarily reopen the federal government, some Washington area runners had already started to feel the squeeze, and the region’s winter race calendar still remains largely unsettled. The partial government shutdown caused the postponement of at least two local races on federal land, and event organizers say more could be in jeopardy if President Trump and Congress can’t hammer out a permanent solution. The DC Road Runners Club was informed this week by the National Park Service that it could not stage its MLK 20-kilometer race or its JFK 5-kilometer race, both scheduled for Saturday at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, marking the second event the group had to postpone because of the shutdown. Trump announced Friday afternoon the government would reopen while lawmakers continue to discuss the president’s demand for border wall money. Friday’s agreement doesn’t allow the running club enough time to stage its weekend races, though, and with the threat of another shutdown looming three weeks down the road, other events could still be in danger of cancellation or postponement. Accounting for the government being open is a wrinkle with which local race organizers are plenty familiar. Pacers Running had a 5- and 15-kilometer event that was endangered last month until Congress approved a two-week funding extension, temporarily staving off the shutdown and allowing the races to go off without a hitch. Lisa Reeves, Pacers’ senior events director, is already working on a contingency plan for the group’s 5- and 10-kilometer race — the St. Pat’s Run — in March, a course that cuts through West Potomac Park alongside the Mall. The group stages five events annually that hinge on the federal government being open and operational. “Unfortunately, we find ourselves dealing with shutdowns annually,” Reeves said, “so for me it’s just another part of my event planning these days, which is sad.” This is considered a particularly slow time on the race calendar for Washington-area runners, though there are small community events scheduled for most weekends. Only those staged on federal lands or requiring federal government resources appear to be at risk of cancellation. While Trump’s announcement should temporarily open the government, it means race plans are still in flux for many runners. The president gave a deadline of Feb. 15 for government leaders to work out a permanent solution. The next day the


Potomac Valley Track Club is scheduled to hold its By George 5- and 10-kilometer races at East Potomac Park. Craig Chasse, the club president, said race organizers are already looking for alternative locations. That same weekend the DC Road Runners Club is planning to host its biggest winter event, the George Washington Birthday Marathon and Relay, scheduled for Feb. 17 in Greenbelt. The race, which serves as a Boston Marathon qualifier and attracts 350 or so runners, winds through the USDA’s Agricultural Research Center. Ben Richter, the club president, said the race organizers applied for a permit in November but are still awaiting approval. “We recognize these are a relatively small inconvenience compared with what most of the government workers are going through,” he said before Friday’s tentative deal. The club’s winter series consists of eight races. Each draws about 200 runners, and six of the events take place on land controlled by National Park Service. The Al Lewis 10-miler was scheduled for Jan. 12 at East Potomac Park but was delayed because the course is on federal land. The DC Road Runners informed runners and volunteers Thursday this weekend’s race at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal also would need to be rescheduled for a date after the government permanently reopens. “We filed timely permit requests. The core staff at the Park Service that’s still operating told us the permits were revoked and we were not to conduct the races,” Richter said. Messages and emails seeking comment from the National Park Service were not immediately returned. “The races are fun activities for us but of course nothing prevents runners from putting on shoes and going out,” Richter said. “We have several training groups that continue to operate throughout the winter. They provide the group running and camaraderie at a slightly slower pace than the races.” Ray Pugsley, owner of Potomac River Running Store, said the shutdown’s impact could be felt across the running community, as furloughed workers who’d missed two paychecks were forced to make tough decisions about how to spend their time and money. “We can clearly see that people are being careful in how they’re spending their dollars,” Pugsley said. “ … People are being careful. Even if you make a decent salary, you don’t know how long this goes. So do they go out to dinner, go to the movies, buy some running shoes?" Read more Sports


winter event, the George Washington Birthday Marathon and Relay, scheduled for Feb. 17 in Greenbelt. The race, which serves as a Boston Marathon qualifier and attracts 350 or so runners, winds through the USDA’s Agricultural Research Center. Ben Richter, the club president, said the race organizers applied for a permit in November but are still awaiting approval. “We recognize these are a relatively small inconvenience compared with what most of the government workers are going through,” he said before Friday’s tentative deal. The club’s winter series consists of eight races. Each draws about 200 runners, and six of the events take place on land controlled by National Park Service. The Al Lewis 10-miler was scheduled for Jan. 12 at East Potomac Park but was delayed because the course is on federal land. The DC Road Runners informed runners and volunteers Thursday this weekend’s race at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal also would need to be rescheduled for a date after the government permanently reopens. “We filed timely permit requests. The core staff at the Park Service that’s still operating told us the permits were revoked and we were not to conduct the races,” Richter said. Messages and emails seeking comment from the National Park Service were not immediately returned. “The races are fun activities for us but of course nothing prevents runners from putting on shoes and going out,” Richter said. “We have several training groups that continue to operate throughout the winter. They provide the group running and camaraderie at a slightly slower pace than the races.” Ray Pugsley, owner of Potomac River Running Store, said the shutdown’s impact could be felt across the running community, as furloughed workers who’d missed two paychecks were forced to make tough decisions about how to spend their time and money. “We can clearly see that people are being careful in how they’re spending their dollars,” Pugsley said. “ … People are being careful. Even if you make a decent salary, you don’t know how long this goes. So do they go out to dinner, go to the movies, buy some running shoes?" Read more Sports coverage: ‘When everything is bad in the world, Gritty is good’: A Philadelphia love story Swimmer Nathan Adrian, a five-time Olympic gold medalist, has testicular cancer 10-year-old’s science fair project concludes: ‘Tom Brady is indeed a cheater’ Tony Romo could help CBS counter Patriots Super Bowl fatigue


Five myths about globalization

While world leaders converged on Davos, Switzerland, this past week to discuss “Globalization 4.0” at the World Economic Forum, President Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May stayed home to deal with globalization-related crises: a government shutdown over Trump’s demand for a border wall and Parliament’s rejection of May’s Brexit deal. Meanwhile, U.S.-China trade tensions continued to roil financial markets, and trade conflicts contributed to another downgrade of global growth forecasts. The political crossfire over globalization has propagated a raft of myths. Here are five of the most prevalent. Myth No. 1 Populist nationalism has begun to reverse globalization. After 2016’s electoral surprises (Brexit and Trump), many predicted globalization’s imminent demise. A headline in the Guardian proclaimed, “Globalisation as we know it is over — and Brexit is the biggest sign yet,” and one in the Boston Globe read, “Trump won. Globalization lost. Now what?” In 2017, former HSBC chief economist Stephen King published a book titled “Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History.” The actual interactions that take place among countries, however, tell a different story. The new DHL Global Connectedness Index, coming next month, shows that globalization — measured based on flows of trade, capital, information and people — rose to a record high in 2017. For the first time since 2007, all four types of flows crossing national borders increased significantly. Trade in goods grew at its fastest pace since 2011, and international tourism the fastest since 2010. Free calls over the Internet continued to power strong growth in international communications. In 2018, major public policy threats to globalization did turn from rhetoric to reality. There were tit-for-tat tariff increases, new restrictions on foreign corporate takeovers and crackdowns on immigration. But there was no general collapse of globalization. Trade continued growing last year, though at a slower pace, while foreign direct investment declined. Myth No. 2 We live in a world of borderless markets. This idea has been around for a long time, especially in business circles. Strategy consultant Kenichi Ohmae’s 1990 book was titled “The Borderless World.” In 1997, economics journalist Frances Cairncross published “The Death of Distance.” Then, the most popular book about globalization ever, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s 2005 volume, “The World Is Flat,” proclaimed a “level playing field” for global competition and collaboration. NYU Stern and IESE Business School professor Pankaj Ghemawat has been debunking this myth


Perennial grains could be a key weapon against climate change. But not quite yet.

thinks Kernza is a viable commercial product right now. And, while yields will certainly improve as scientists continue to fine-tune the crop with their breeding programs, it remains to be seen whether yields will get to the point where they’re competitive with annual grains. Flavor wise, Kernza is perfectly nice but unremarkable, something I had to go all the way to New York to find out. Will Emery, the chef at Tannat, a restaurant on the northern tip of Manhattan, is from Salina and was one of the very first to put Kernza on a menu, in a porridge flavored with an ever-changing mix of vegetables. It was parsnip when I was there, and can report that Kernza is solidly in the spelt-bulgur-freekeh axis of wheat flavors. In Kansas, I tried Kernza in beer, in which it tasted like beer. The Land Institute is working on other grains that are farther along. The biggest win so far has been perennial rice, which is planted on several thousand acres in southwest China, and yields are comparable to — and sometimes exceed — other local varieties. Then there’s sorghum, which isn’t an important crop in the United States, but is in parts of Africa, where varieties of perennial sorghum may actually increase yields. It won’t be easy getting these crops ready for prime time here. The very thing that makes perennials so good for the soil — they devote half or more of their energy to what’s below ground — makes them bad at increasing yield. The idea that you can have both your robust root system and your big, plentiful seeds smacks of magical thinking. But wait! During the Green Revolution, plant breeders coaxed higher yields out of annuals, and perennials have the same potential, Crews says. “Wild plants under natural selection may invest in structures to compete with their neighbors. It can change when they no longer have to,” and it can “redirect its aboveground productivity to seed heads.” It’s the luxurious prerogative of a coddled plant. Crews also points out that perennials emerge earlier in the spring, and get the jump on annuals. Because of their longer growing season, each year they convert more sunlight to biomass than annuals do. Smaller slice, but bigger pie. Yields aren’t the only obstacle to commercialization of perennial grains. One man’s perennial is another man’s monocrop, and when you expect a crop to


A crisis of conservatism creates gridlock on both sides of the Atlantic

the need for a hard border with the island of Ireland. Some think that this is what May wants and that she will let backbench Conservative MPs try to achieve it. But she has lost months of valuable time because she won’t propose it herself, for fear of a party division. Her party, not the country, is what matters to her most. At least until now, Republican leaders in Congress have also refused to embrace a pragmatic solution — pass legislation to reopen the government, make a compromise on border security — for exactly the same kinds of reasons. Like May, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to reach across the aisle in order to pay civil servants because he fears a split in his party. Like the British Conservatives, American Republicans answer only to their own voters, not to the population at large. As for the president, Trump’s personal narcissism leaves no room for concern for anyone — not government workers, not his party colleagues. His voters seem motivated by tribalism, not ideas, to support him. Eventually, these two crises will be resolved. But even when the stalemates in Washington and London come to an end, this moment should not be forgotten. The collapse of any motivating ideas on the center-right in the two great anglophone powers will have broader consequences. By losing the ability to think and act in the name of national interest, British Tories and American Republicans have also lost the ability to think internationally. For Europeans accustomed to thinking of Anglo-American politicians as pragmatic and outward-looking, it has come as a shock to learn just how little British Tories actually know about Europe and about trade, just how little Republicans really care about far-flung allies, and just how much conservative politics in both countries has given way to self-dealing and self-interest. All that talk about “opportunity” and “entrepreneurship” sounds different in a world where Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of the louder Brexiteers, has moved his own investment funds to Dublin to escape the effects of Brexit, or where the U.S. president has lied about the business deals he pursued with Moscow all the way through his election campaign. Their language sounds hollow because they don’t believe it themselves anymore, either. Like the Communist parties of Eastern Europe in the 1980s, they are going through the motions, acting out their roles, without any faith in


Scientists find deadly Ebola virus for first time in West African bat

Scientists have found evidence of the deadly Ebola virus in a bat in Liberia, the first time the virus has been found in a bat in West Africa, researchers and officials announced Thursday. A team of scientists working with the government of Liberia presented their findings in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. The discovery represents a major step forward in understanding where human Ebola cases come from, one of the biggest unanswered questions surrounding these outbreaks, said Jonathan Epstein, a scientist with EcoHealth Alliance, a global nonprofit that is part of the research team. No human cases of Ebola are linked to this discovery, scientists said. Liberia has reported no new human cases since the end of the 2014-2016 epidemic that devastated West Africa, killing more than 11,000 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Bats have long been suspected of being a natural reservoir or animal host for Ebola, meaning the virus can live and grow inside the animals without harming them. But more than 40 years and over two dozen outbreaks after Ebola emerged in Central Africa, researchers still don’t know what animal or animals carry it, much less how it spreads to people. “It’s been really difficult to get definitive evidence,” Epstein said. The findings add to evidence suggesting that bats could serve as the natural wildlife carrier for Ebola, scientists said. The team found genetic material from the virus and antibodies in the bat’s blood, indicating the animal’s immune response against infection. But Epstein and others cautioned that much more research is needed. Scientists tested samples taken from 150 Miniopterus inflatus bats in northeastern Liberia. But only one of those bats tested positive, Epstein said. If this species of bat, known as the greater long-fingered bat, turns out to be a natural host for the virus, scientists would expect to find more than one bat with antibodies against the virus, he said. It’s also possible the bat became infected by another bat species living in the same habitat, he said. The Miniopterus inflatus bats live in caves, mines and forests, and eat insects. They are about the size of a small mouse, with about a 12-inch wing span. Other experts said much more study is required to know whether this bat species is a natural host. “It’s not un-useful information, but it’s not altogether convincing of reservoir status,” said Tom Ksiazek, a virologist at the University of


Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who specializes in hemorrhagic fever viruses, such as Ebola. “It’s a step in the right direction,” Ksiazek said. “This suggests that certainly, the virus is naturally occurring in the ecology of West Africa.” Most experts say the natural animal host for Ebola is some type of fruit bat, not one that eats insects, he said. Previous evidence of Ebola in bats has all been in fruit bats, Ksiazek said. Most notable is that a tiny fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus, has been found definitively to be the animal host of Marburg virus, a close and equally fearsome cousin to Ebola. Scientists are writing a research paper about their discovery. But Liberian officials did not want to wait for publication, which can take a year, before releasing the information, Epstein said. Officials want to use the information to reinforce a public health message to Liberians to avoid bats to prevent potential infection. Bats can excrete the virus in their saliva, urine and feces. The animals are also a common food source; handling or eating infected animals can also spread the virus. The findings shouldn’t be taken as a reason to exterminate or remove bats in their natural environment, researchers said. The animals play an important role by eating pest insects and pollinating fruit trees. Previous research has found that efforts to remove bat populations can result in the increase risk of disease. The West Africa Ebola epidemic began with a single transmission from an animal to a 2-year-old boy in a remote village in Guinea, according to the World Health Organization. Scientists still don’t know exactly how the child became infected, but researchers say it probably involved contact with wild animals. Before he became sick, he was seen playing near a hollow tree heavily infested with bats, according to a 2015 WHO report on the epidemic. Scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, which is part of the team, are working to determine whether the virus found in the bat is the exact same virus that caused the West Africa epidemic and the current Ebola outbreak in Congo that is the second-largest ever recorded. There have been at least 713 cases and 439 deaths as of Wednesday, according to Congo’s health ministry. The surveillance work that led to Thursday’s findings was done as part of the PREDICT project of the U.S. Agency for International Development,


As the shutdown draws to a close, thousands of disabled federal contract workers are still in limbo

anonymity last week to discuss the administration’s internal deliberations. Brian Hoey, a spokesman for the U.S. AbilityOne Commission, an independent federal agency that administers the program, said it was “closely monitoring” the shutdown’s impact. An Interior Department spokeswoman, Faith Vander Voort, said agencies are “taking all appropriate measures” to assist contract employees during the shutdown. Other agencies referred questions to the Office of Management and Budget. “In complete compliance with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations, [Interior Department] Acting Secretary [David] Bernhardt is taking all appropriate measures to allow employees to work and earn a paycheck on time,” Vander Voort said in an email. “That applies not only to our full-time and part-time employees, but also to those that support us through contracts. We sympathize with folks who are experiencing difficult circumstances because Congress is failing to pass a budget that secures our borders.” For the nonprofits that depend on AbilityOne contracts, the shutdown stretched finances thin. New contract awards all but ground to a halt at civilian agencies, making it hard to find new funding. Some managers kept their employees on the payroll through the shutdown by dipping into overhead, but it is unclear how long they would have been able to do so. Jim Cassetta, president and chief executive of Work Inc., says he was forced to send 29 people home without pay who had been working at an EPA building and the federally funded John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, both in Boston. Many of them have been out of work since Dec. 22, while others are using up vacation and sick days. Cassetta says the shutdown was a “double whammy” for disabled workers because it is hard for them to quickly find part-time work. Soon after news of the shutdown broke, he started rushing the workers to local unemployment offices to begin the process of getting them unemployment benefits. “Once they’re trained to do the job, they do phenomenal work,” Cassetta said of his disabled employees. “But they need to be supported; they need to deal with the anxiety of losing one job and being trained for another.” One of those sent home from Work Inc. was Zach Weiner, who described himself as disabled. He was waiting for his unemployment benefits to kick in for his job in the mailroom of an EPA building. Another was Yolanda Pagan, a janitor at the JFK Library for two years


Brexit debate has brought out the worst of modern politics

for the Brexit referendum itself. To be fair to the prime minister, there is not a lot of maneuvering room left after months and months of discussions with E.U. leaders, who are not making the terms of the divorce easy. Nor is there much give in the views of the members of Parliament. She is scratching at the edges. Meanwhile, the March 29 deadline for leaving the E.U. nears, deal or no deal. The Brexit debate can be bewildering to outsiders, as terms like “customs unions” and “backstops” are tossed around in ways that suggest they are part of normal conversation. Perhaps they are in British households. One of the stickiest Brexit issues involves keeping an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Lawyers and politicians haven’t found a way to resolve that and some other obstacles, which has left Britain with few options. One option is a so-called softer Brexit, which essentially would keep the country in the European trading system. But that is deeply opposed by hard-line leavers. May’s critics say she will resist this at all costs, fearing an irreconcilable split of her party. She would not want to be remembered as the modern prime minister who destroyed the modern Conservative Party. Critics say she is putting party ahead of country. Another option is a hard Brexit, or a no-deal Brexit, which would result in Britain heading off into the unknown after March 29 with no clear set of terms for its relationship with the E.U. Some hard-liners favor this approach, seeing it as a true declaration of sovereignty from the bureaucrats in Europe and an expression of confidence in Britain’s capacity to create its own destiny in the world. There is also the possibility of calling for a second referendum, to give the public another opportunity to express its views after two-plus years in which politicians have failed to agree. But that is considered a risky proposition. No one can be certain about the outcome of a second referendum, though those who favor staying in the E.U. believe public opinion has shifted in their direction. Some analysts also worry that a second vote, no matter its result, would result in an even bigger cleavage in British politics — with unpredictable consequences for the country’s politics and its institutions. Recent polling The survey found 60 percent of Labour voters would feel delighted, 8 percent pleased and 14


D.C. police investigate fatal shooting Saturday in Northeast, possible self defense

D.C. police are investigating the fatal shooting of a man that occurred in the 1800 block of Queens Chapel Road in Northeast just after midnight Saturday. No details about the victim were released. A police spokeswoman said authorities were looking into whether the shooting was “justifiable by citizen” or self-defense. keith.alexander@washpost.com


There is no excuse for the needless revival of measles outbreaks

WITH ALL the lurking unknowns concerning infectious disease — including the brain-damaging Zika virus, the paralyzing acute flaccid myelitis, and the deadly Ebola virus — why would anyone leave themselves or their family vulnerable to an illness for which there is a known, proven and safe vaccine? Why endanger others? These are the urgent questions that must be raised in the wake of yet another needless outbreak of measles, this one in Clark County, Wash. The county’s public health department reported 30 confirmed cases this week — and 20 of them are people who had not been immunized. Twenty-one of the cases are children under 10 years old, and eight were between 11 and 18 years old. Measles is a highly contagious illness caused by a virus; it can lead to serious complications — especially in children — including pneumonia, encephalitis and death. It spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes and can linger in the air for up to two hours. Clark County’s largest city is Vancouver, just north of Portland, Ore. According to the public health department, infected people may have exposed others in schools, churches, stores, food outlets, emergency rooms, an airport and a Portland Trail Blazers basketball game. The county warned residents, “Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90 percent of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected.” Measles was eliminated in the United States by 2000 with extensive use of the vaccine. But in recent years, pockets of the exposed and vulnerable have appeared, in part because of distrust of vaccines. In 2016, 18 states granted nonmedical exemptions to vaccination based on religious or philosophical beliefs. Research has disproved the fears of a link between vaccination and autism, but ignorance and distrust are still causing people to forgo immunization. The anti-vaccination movement stirs these irrational fears and condemns people, mostly children, to unnecessary suffering. Recently, outbreaks have occurred in New York and New Jersey, primarily among unvaccinated people in Orthodox Jewish communities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreaks also originated with travelers who brought measles back from Israel, where a large outbreak is occurring. Also according to the CDC, 81 people brought measles to the United States from other countries last year, the greatest number of imported cases since elimination was declared in 2000. Overall, 349 individual cases


Century-old logs of whaling ships might improve data for climate-change research

What does a long-forgotten whaling ship have to do with future climate change? A lot, it turns out. Old Weather The project, part of the Zooniverse citizen-science portal, is a collaboration among archives, museums and libraries, scientific institutions, and national meteorological services including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Met Office, Britain’s national weather service. Users can choose from a variety of whaling expeditions from the 1880s and the early 1900s; they then can help annotate or transcribe those ships’ logs. Each of the whalers sailed through Arctic waters, driven to colder and more challenging territory by a whaling boom that wiped out whales in warmer and less dangerous waters earlier in the 19th century. Their risk could be science’s gain. The crews of whaling ships kept detailed logs that collected all kinds of information on the world around them. They contain detailed weather observations, such as what the temperature was at a specific time and place. The ships’ crews also documented water conditions and Arctic ice. Today, loss of sea ice is a leading indicator of a changing global climate. Information about what the ice used to look like can help scientists create better models and more accurate predictions about how the climate may change in the future. Humans are better at reading the old-fashioned script of the logs than computers (for now). Users can either mark up the documents, pointing to key information, or pitch in on transcription. The project’s blog highlights how scientists use the data and the many scientific projects that incorporate the data. (One, the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set, has collected millions of historical weather observations.) Every new contributor blows even more wind into science’s sails. Get started at Oldweather.org.


Smithsonian museums, National Zoo set to reopen Tuesday

Washington is back to being a museum town. The federally supported Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are scheduled to open Tuesday, pending the passage of a bill that reopens the government for three weeks, according to a statement Friday. The National Gallery of Art will also reopen on Tuesday, according to a museum spokeswoman. The 34-day partial shutdown, the longest in history, began Dec. 22, but the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian museums and zoo stayed open through December. They used reserve funds to keep operating during the busy holiday season but were forced to close this month. As a result, no visitors were able to enjoy the final three weeks of the popular “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” at the Renwick Gallery, and “Rachel Whiteread,” a solo show of the British sculptor’s work, closed two weeks after the National Gallery shut its doors to the public. The three-month run of “Charline von Heyl: Snake Eyes” at the Hirshhorn Museum was cut to two because of the shutdown. The shutdown hurt the museums financially, too. The Smithsonian lost about $1.5 million in revenue during the first 10 days, and roughly $1 million a week for the past two weeks in food and beverage sales, Imax theater admissions and parking fees. Dozens of classes were postponed, lectures and performances were canceled, and deadlines for future exhibitions missed. peggy.mcglone@washpost.com


Dinosaurs, fossils and the experts who study them have all waited for an end to the shutdown

wilderness such as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument may have to wait for another year. The comparatively small chunk of funding the National Science Foundation sets aside for fossil research has been held up, too. University of Rochester paleontologist Penny Higgins has been waiting with colleagues for word on NSF support for research focused on how a dramatic global temperature spike 40 million years ago relates to climate change today. The pressures from not having a funding decision grew over the past five weeks, she said. Not only was fieldwork planning essentially suspended, but “summer courses and field experiences also need to be planned and students recruited, which can’t be done until funding is available,” Higgins said. University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh paleontologist Joseph Peterson faced a similar situation. Peterson and his colleagues were in talks with the Bureau of Land Management for a long-term agreement to continue work at Utah’s Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, an incredibly dense Jurassic bonebed full of the carnivore allosaurus. “We were told that we would hear a formal announcement at the beginning of the year,” Peterson said. “Then everything just stopped.” How quickly the Bureau of Land Management — and other federal agencies — will be able to clear the backlog is uncertain. Farke noted that there have certainly been worse effects of the shutdown, and the plight of paleontology is not unique. Still, the government closure dramatically affected researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and universities nationwide, as well as experts in other countries hoping to study America’s fossil wonders. “Everyone loses,” Peterson said. Planning on key conferences has been on hold. Even the process of how new discoveries make their way to publication has come to a halt for anyone needing Interior Department paleontologists to review papers based on findings made on federal lands. “It’s harder to keep the general scientific process flowing,” Farke said, “even if it’s a paper by someone in another country.” In Washington, where the National Museum of Natural History has been dark since early January, postdoctoral fellows such as Kendra Chritz have lost valuable time. She studies paleoecology as part of the museum’s Human Origins Program and was ready to complete her research when the shutdown hit. “The shutdown has put us fellows in a strange place of limbo,” she said. Chritz couldn’t archive samples she had collected from specimens, couldn’t meet with her collaborators at the museum, and


The federal government is open but the pain continues for craft breweries

it stalls our business.” His company spent the last four months of 2018 planning release and production schedules for six new beers. The shutdown threw those plans “out the window,” he said. Wineries and small-batch distilleries don’t face the same conundrum because their products take longer to produce and are not released as often as craft beers. Last year, the federal government received 192,000 applications for new lines of wine, spirits and beer, including more than 34,000 for beer, according to the Brewers Association, the industry trade group based in Boulder, Colo. At that rate, it’s feasible that thousands of beer labels are awaiting review. That includes the Precious One, an apricot IPA produced by Atlas Brew Works in the District’s Ivy City neighborhood, said founder and chief executive Justin Cox. There’s a limit on how long the brewery can sell kegs of the seasonal beer and, without federal label approval, he can’t distribute it in Maryland, Virginia or Tennessee. Frustration with the shutdown led Cox to file suit Jan. 15 against the federal government in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He argued that he could not exercise his right to free speech because labels are how Atlas communicates with its customers. No label means no speech, he said. He sought a judge’s approval to distribute beer outside the District without label approval and was still awaiting a decision as of Friday afternoon. In the meantime, he said, he was glad his friends and neighbors will be back to work soon, “at least for a short while.” Colorado brewer Zac Rissmiller recently contracted with a Baltimore brewer to produce beer under the name 1623 Brewing Co., a reference to the distance between him and his Maryland-based business partner and cousin. They ordered a big batch, planned to sell it in the D.C. area, Northern Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and submitted their label application. Three days later, the government shut down. They’re sitting on 1,000 cases worth about $30,000, with a shelf life of 120 days. “You almost can’t do anything until everything’s set government-wise,” Rissmiller said. “You can’t assume they’re not going to do something dumb.” Burns was also in limbo and wondered when he would get the go-ahead for wider distribution of Old Ox Brewery’s Goal Crusher IPA and War Wagon Kolsch, named for a local fire engine. A portion of the proceeds from War


Backlogs, deadlines and a massive bureaucratic reboot await federal workers after shutdown’s end

New voice-mail greetings will have to be recorded, announcing the reopening. Programs will need to be restarted, a process that can involve many layers of bureaucracy and boxes to be checked. Private contractors may have reassigned employees who had been working on projects put on hold during the shutdown, said David Berteau, president and chief executive of the Professional Services Council, which represents workers at roughly 400 private government contractors. “It may take days to get started,” he said. “We have no experience at starting back up after five weeks. . . . You have to make sure that the funds are still available before you can start the contract again. And everybody’s going to be trying to do it at once.” Even employees who are anxious to get back to work say they feel paralyzed by what comes next. When she steps into her office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center on Monday morning, astrophysicist Julie McEnery knows exactly what she’ll do first: water her plants. But then? “I’m scared to even think about it,” she said. “The amount of work isn’t less, and we’ve got a lot less time now to do it.” As project scientist for the Fermi Space Telescope, which surveys the cosmos using the highest-energy form of light, McEnery was called into Goddard a couple of times this month to take care of specific tasks related to the maintenance of the telescope. “I hope people know this was not a vacation,” she said. “It was very discouraging. . . . We’re not all going to arrive back at work Monday bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” To boost morale, several agencies are planning hero’s welcomes for their staffs. The Peace Corps is holding an official event for returning employees starting at 7:30 a.m. Monday. But many workers say they’re still anxious. They won’t see the back pay they’re owed until later this week. And President Trump has threatened another closure in three weeks if his demands for border wall funding aren’t met. “It’s a reprieve,” said Gary Morton, president of AFGE Council 238, a union representing about 9,000 Environmental Protection Agency employees around the country, “but how much will we be able to accomplish before we have to start worrying about shutdown procedures again if they don’t reach a deal?” Several federal managers said their agencies still cannot issue or announce new grants with the uncertainty of such


1) “Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths” at the National Museum of African Art (Feb. 27) and the Smithsonian Gardens’ popular orchid display, planned this year for the Kogod Courtyard at the NPG and Smithsonian American Art Museum. (Feb. 2). New opening dates have not been announced. Federally funded science research could take a long time to recover too, scientists said. At the National Science Foundation (NSF), there’s a backlog of nearly 2,000 research grants waiting to be reviewed, on subjects ranging from cyberinfrastructure to earth sciences. More than 100 panels of outside scientists were canceled during the shutdown. Rescheduling them will be a massive undertaking. “The impacts are going take some time to sort out,” said Benjamin Corb, spokesman for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “It is likely that the scientific enterprise won’t truly know what the impact was for months.” A program director for the NSF, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly, said the agency’s reopening brings much uncertainty. “It doesn’t feel resolved at all,” the program director said. “I’ll be very happy to see my colleagues and make a little progress. But it’s not like we feel relieved. We worry that we’re just going to be used again in three weeks, if nothing is resolved.” Work also has piled up in the Bureau of Prisons. All but 3 percent of employees were required to report to work, but those returning Monday have mixed feelings. In the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission office, where employees file harassment and discrimination cases complaints, one counselor said 150 to 200 cases will be waiting when they return. “It’s going to be crazy,” the counselor said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak with the media. “I expect to have at least 300 emails waiting for me. The cases may have been placed on hold, but the harassment has been allowed to continue while we were gone.” At Coleman penitentiary in Florida, Joe Rojas, union president, said several employees quit during the shutdown, including a secretary hired days before it began. “There is a lot of work piled up on his desk that someone is going to have to handle,” Rojas said. “When you start a job, you don’t expect them to say, ‘By the way, we aren’t going to pay you for this.’ ” lisa.rein@washpost.com juliet.eilperin@washpost.com sarah.kaplan@washpost.com


Three men shot and killed in Southeast Washington incident, police say

This story has been updated. Three men were shot and killed Saturday night in Southeast Washington, D.C. police chief Peter Newsham said. In a separate incident earlier in the day another homicide was reported in Northeast. The four killings on Saturday occurred amid a surge in homicides in the District in recent months. The rate of slayings so far this year appears to exceed last year’s rate, which was substantially higher than the previous year. In the Saturday night incident, two of the victims were found in a car in the 1500 block of Fort Davis Place SE, Newsham said. A third was found in the street, about 50 yards away. It was not clear if he had been shot while in the car, police said. The incident was reported about 10 p.m. in what Newsham described as a “very, very quiet residential neighborhood.” The slain men were not identified immediately. D.C. police said they were trying to find two people in connection with the attack. They said both were black and male. One was wearing a red hoodie, and the other was wearing a white baseball cap, black jacket and white pants, police said They were last seen in a black or dark blue sedan that was headed toward Alabama Avenue SE. Earlier in the day, the first of the four slayings was reported about 4 p.m. in the 4100 block of Hayes Street NE. Few details were available. At least two other shootings were also reported Saturday, including one at 11:20 p.m. at North Capitol Street and New York Avenue NW. That has been one of the more volatile areas in the city in recent years. Midnight brought a new day. But it did not bring an end to the shootings. A shooting was reported at 12:10 a.m. Sunday. The location was the 800 block of H Street NE. It is on the H Street dining and entertainment strip. Clarence.Williams@washpost.com; Martin.Weil@washpost.com


‘Ugh,’ say the visitors: After shutdown, Washington’s still not back to normal

Aaron Shaw bounded up the stairs of the National Air and Space Museum, ready to marvel at the flying wonders inside. It was a crisp, clear Saturday morning in Washington, a town that had just the day before learned it could officially reopen for business. After nearly 35 days, the nation’s longest government shutdown — workers furloughed, paychecks delayed, national parks and museums shuttered — was over. Shaw, 18, reached the museum’s door and reached for the handle. He tugged. He tugged. The door was locked. “Closed,” his father, Chris Shaw, said, after reading a sign on the door. The two tourists from Minnesota looked around. There was no line of tourists. No security guard at the door. The only people out were joggers bundled in stretchy layers, zipping by on their routes. The gears of government may be running again in Washington, but they were still apt to move slowly. Payouts for federal workers are still days away, the Internal Revenue Service is predicting it may not recover for an entire year, and on the Mall, the Smithsonian museums won’t open their doors until Tuesday. “We thought we’re going to get to see everything because no one would be here today,” Chris Shaw said. “But at least the weather is nice.” They were able to pop into the U.S. Botanic Garden, one of the few attractions open on the Mall. Nigel Wright and Christine Jahn, visiting from London, would not give up so easily on getting a glimpse of historic aircraft. They pressed their foreheads against the glass, cupped their hands around their eyes and tried to see inside. “See that black plane over there?” Wright asked, his breath fogging up the glass. “That’s the fastest-ever plane.” They were on their way to a work trip in Chicago but had flown first to Washington for the weekend, specifically so Wright could show his colleague his favorite museum. The British don’t have this shut-down-the-government thing, they said. “You stop paying your civil servants, and you do that just because you can’t get a policy through on its merits?” Jahn said. “That seems like you’re holding someone to ransom. It’s just crazy.” Across the street, a vendor felt the same way as he readied his Mexican food truck for another dismal day. His business depends on tourists schlepping from museum to museum, finding themselves hungry after hours on their feet. No


By pursuing shutdown, Trump revealed how much America depends on government

families who receive housing benefits. Even though the shutdown affected less than a quarter of the government’s budget, White House officials said they believed it could have stalled the entire economy if it continued for much longer. “The government touches so much of the economy that you don’t even realize,” said Melissa Kearney, an economics professor at the University of Maryland. “This brings into really sharp focus that the government is part of our daily economic lives in so many dimensions.” The U.S. government is projected to spend roughly $4.5 trillion this year, a figure that represents 21 percent of the overall economy. The funding lapse affected just a small segment of that budget, and even though it broke the previous record for a funding lapse, it still only lasted for 35 days. And while 800,000 federal employees weren’t paid for the month, they represent a tiny fraction of the overall workforce. But their role in the government proved integral enough to cause panic among major U.S. businesses and industries, who pleaded with policymakers in recent days to back down. “Even though it was one-half of 1 percent of the workforce that was furloughed, those jobs provide the context for the whole economy,” said Matthew Slaughter, who was a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the George W. Bush administration and is now dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Slaughter likened it to referees being pulled off the field during a professional football game. The referees often go unnoticed, but they set the rules and boundaries for much of the game, and without them the system eventually becomes unmanageable. Republicans, particularly when they are in power, have long struggled to agree on the role of government in America. Tax-cut crusader Grover Norquist once called for shrinking the federal government down to a size that would make it possible to drown it in a “bathtub.” In an interview Friday, however, Norquist said a government shutdown was never the way for conservatives to lead a serious debate about how much government is enough. He said a government shutdown doesn’t even shut down the government; it just cuts paychecks and causes inconveniences that are eventually going to be restored. “You don’t cut the federal budget,” he said. “You reform the federal government to cost less.” Both political parties are in the midst of a fierce


April trial date set for retired Army general charged in Virginia rape case

A retired Army general will face trial in Virginia on charges of rape and incest beginning in April, according to court documents filed in the case. James J. Grazioplene, a retired two-star general, was charged by a grand jury in December with three counts of rape and three counts of incest in Prince William General District Court. A Feb. 1 pretrial hearing has been set, with the trial scheduled to begin April 29. The Army was planning to court-martial Grazioplene, 69, in the spring of 2018, but the charges were dismissed in March after a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in another case effectively limited the statute of limitations in the case to five years. Army investigators focused on accusations from 1983 to 1989, while authorities in Virginia are focused on a period from 1988 to 1989 when Grazioplene lived in Virginia. Legislation passed by Congress in 2006 says that rape cases have no statute of limitations under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but cases from before then are subject to the laws at the time of the alleged crime. Grazioplene’s case was the subject of a Washington Post report in which the general’s daughter, Jennifer M. Elmore, 47, accused him of years of abuse that spanned numerous military assignments and locations. Five other people, including one of Grazioplene’s sisters, corroborated aspects of her story. The Post generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault but did so in this case after Elmore said she wanted to tell her story. She first reported the allegations to the Army in 2015, prompting a lengthy investigation. “Sometimes, it’s just easier to shut your mouth,” she said earlier this year. “But if I stay silent and the next person opts for that, and the next person opts for that, and the next person opts for that, where are we?” A lawyer for Elmore, Ryan Guilds, declined to comment on the status of the case. Lawyers for Grazioplene did not respond to a request for comment. He has denied the accusations. “I will not comment,” Grazioplene said in a Sept. 6 phone call. “The charges are false and incorrect. Nope.”


Families of service members killed in Mississippi disaster want more answers

Ashley Kundrat and the man she would marry first grew close in high school in Frederick, Md. They dated back then, and by 2004, they were beginning a family that would eventually include a son, a daughter, evenings cooking together and lots of hiking. All of that changed in a few fateful moments 20,000 feet over rural Mississippi. On July 10, 2017, Marine Staff Sgt. William J. Kundrat, 33, was among 15 Marines and a sailor who were killed when a KC-130T transport plane disintegrated in explosions and crashed in a soybean field in the town of Itta Bena. In findings released Dec. 6, the service determined that the disaster began when a corroded propeller blade on the plane’s left wing broke free, shooting into the fuselage. That started a chain reaction in which an entire propeller on the right wing snapped off and cut into the body of the plane. The plane fell to pieces in a series of explosions. The destruction was preventable, investigators found: The corrosion on the first propeller blade to go should have been spotted six years earlier in a maintenance overhaul. Kundrat’s widow said the long wait for the results of the investigation was frustrating, especially as senior Marine officials granted six time extensions to allow investigators to search for more information. About 17 months later, she and other Gold Star families who lost loved ones were briefed on the findings shortly ahead of its public release. “It was very, very frustrating to all of us, and I wish we would have been kept in the loop a little better regarding that,” she said. "It’s hard with your husband dying and your friends dying, and then knowing that people know what happened, and yet you’re just being kept in the dark. It was a very frustrating point.” The search for information isn’t over. Kundrat said she and other families involved are in touch with an attorney who will pursue additional information in an effort to make sure no similar disaster ever happens again. The investigation cited failures in maintenance six years prior at the Air Force’s Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in Georgia, and in oversight by the Navy Department, which was supposed to provide quality assurance. The corrosion on the first propeller blade should have been noticed during an overhaul of the aircraft in 2011, investigators found. Among the questions that Kundrat still


The Daily 202: The Koch network donor retreat turns touchy-feely

totally closed the door on a 2020 campaign. -- Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper (D) returned to Iowa as he nears a final decision on launching a presidential bid. -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is relying on her policy expertise to set herself apart from other presidential candidates. -- Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has bragged about his collaboration with Democratic legislators as he eyes a primary challenge against Trump, but his tenure has included moments of divisive partisanship. THERE’S A BEAR IN THE WOODS: -- Roger Stone dodged a question about whether he would consider cooperating with special counsel Bob Mueller after his indictment. “Trump on Saturday night seemed to distance himself from Stone, tweeting: ‘Roger Stone didn’t even work for me anywhere near the Election!’ ‘What about the Fake and Unverified “Dossier,” a total phony conjob, that was paid for by Crooked Hillary to damage me and the Trump Campaign?’ he tweeted.” -- It remains unclear why several of Trump’s former advisers felt compelled to lie to investigators about their activities during the 2016 campaign, -- Chris Christie claims in his new book the president and Jared Kushner thought firing Michael Flynn would end the “Russia thing.” -- The Treasury Department officially lifted sanctions on three companies owned by Oleg Deripaska, the Russian oligarch and ally of Vladimir Putin. -- “After the sanctions were officially lifted, EN+ announced the appointment of seven new directors under the deal, including Christopher Bancroft Burnham, a banker who served on Mr. Trump’s State Department transition team and worked in George W. Bush’s State Department,” THE NEW WORLD ORDER: -- Juan Guaidó, Venezuela's self-declared interim president, said the opposition is in talks with military and civilian officials to force out President Nicolás Maduro. -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he has recently heard Trump weigh military intervention in Venezuela, -- The British Parliament’s maneuvers in reaction to Brexit have been shaped by the unconventional speakership of John Bercow. -- Thousands wearing red scarves took to the streets of Paris to protest the “yellow vest” demonstrators. SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ: Trump insisted he would build the wall: Meanwhile, the Texas Tribune corrected one of Trump's tweets on immigration: The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee hammered Trump for his Russia connections: Kamala Harris’s communications director loaned her boss something that once belonged to her grandmother Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas: Harris’s husband


The Cybersecurity 202: The government’s cyber workers are back in action. First task: Checking for hacks

THE KEY Thousands of federal cyber workers are returning to their posts after more than a month on furlough today. And they have a big to-do list. The first priority: Looking for evidence of any major hacks that wormed through government defenses the past 35 days while agencies were working with a skeleton crew of security pros. It will take them days or weeks to pore through security logs to assess how much damage the shutdown did to the security of government computer networks and the sensitive data they hold. The attacks did not abate because the government was closed: One cyber manager who worked without pay during the shutdown described an uptick in attacks on his agency -- including phishing emails containing malware, attempts to reset employee passwords and attempts to trick users into downloading malicious software cloaked as a legitimate update. Also on the docket: Figuring out how to adjust the multimillion-dollar contracts to upgrade and secure federal IT systems that have spent more than a month on ice. Perhaps most dishearteningly, cyber and IT leaders across the government will need to figure out the smartest way to prepare for the possibility of another shutdown if Congress and the president can’t reach a new funding deal when the current one expires in three weeks. The best hope, former officials told me, is that agencies can learn from the shutdown just ended to prepare as smartly as possible for the next one — if and when it comes. “In terms of preparing to shut down again, the agencies should look at any lessons they have learned from having to operate with a skeleton crew and make adjustments based on that very recent experience,” Michael Daniel, former White House cybersecurity coordinator who’s now president of the Cyber Threat Alliance, told me by email. Already, the Homeland Security Department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is gearing up to take on some big projects post-shutdown. Digital tampering stemming from that vulnerability affected “a number of agencies” during the shutdown, according to a tweet stream from CISA Director Chris Krebs. Other CISA priorities include cutting paychecks as quickly as possible to employees who have been furloughed or working without pay, relaunching stalled work on election cybersecurity and helping industries combat Chinese hacking, the official told me. The agency also plans to relaunch efforts focused on supply chain cybersecurity and pipeline security, the official


The Energy 202: Bill Gates is selling Washington on the promise of nuclear power

in the “candle.” Second, and partly as a result, it needed to change the design to reshuffle the fuel rods — and do that robotically while keeping the reactor running. Third, it has struggled to find a metal strong enough to protect the fuel rods from a bombardment of neutrons more intense than those commonly used in reactors — and for a much longer period of time. TerraPower’s Marcia Burkey said in an email that the company has been researching new steel alloys. It has sent ingots to a unique Russian test reactor and brought them back for examination. She said the company had made important advances in that and other areas. In many ways, TerraPower’s design resembles fast-breeder reactors. Fast breeders have faster-moving neutrons, the subatomic particles that trigger fission. Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said earlier versions of fast-breeder reactors have turned in a “dismal performance.” TerraPower also suffered a setback in October when the Energy Department effectively killed any chance of building a demonstration reactor in China. The department announced measures to prevent “China’s illegal diversion” of U.S. civilian nuclear technology for military purposes. Three years earlier, TerraPower had unveiled an agreement to establish a joint venture with China National Nuclear Corp. to build a pilot reactor. But the Energy Department, in a move that seemed aimed directly at TerraPower, said it would deny new license applications or extensions to existing authorizations related to the Chinese state-owned company. TerraPower has been working on “advanced” nuclear technology for a decade, and it remains far from filing a final proposal for review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In fact, a small modular reactor design by NuScale Power is the application before the NRC. The commission is expected to complete its review by September 2020, NuScale says. Since 2016, TerraPower has also been working with the Energy Department and Southern Co. on another reactor design. That one would rely on molten salt as both coolant and fuel. TerraPower believes an advanced molten salt reactor could be more efficient and produce less waste than current models. However, that technology was examined in different countries 60 years ago — and abandoned. Lyman said the molten salt was “highly corrosive, so you need special materials for the reactor. That’s an engineering problem they still have to confront.” The political engineering problem still needs work, too, though some surprising bipartisanship