Chefs pay tribute to French master Joël Robuchon, who showed us fine food doesn’t need a white tablecloth

It wasn’t the Michelin stars or the fact that his white-tablecloth establishment in Paris was once considered the best restaurant in the world. No, what New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer most vividly recalls about Joël Robuchon, who died Monday at age 73, was the French master chef’s foray into the world of casual dining. Opened in the early 2000s in both Paris and Tokyo, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon was a breakthrough in French gastronomy — an affordable (at least in terms of Michelin Guide standards) experience in which your meal was served at the counter in full view of the kitchen. Inspired by Japanese and Spanish tapas restaurants, Atelier (French for “workshop” or “studio”) gave chefs and restaurateurs around the world the freedom to rethink the standards of haute cuisine, including Meyer, the man who helped create such celebrated Manhattan restaurants as Gramercy Tavern, Eleven Madison Park and the Modern inside the Museum of Modern Art. “He understood that what you get on a plate matters more to people than how luxurious the accommodations were,” Meyer said in a telephone interview Monday morning. Meyer said that Atelier made such an impression on him that he incorporated its influences into the Bar Room, the refined-but-casual concept he opened at MoMA in 2005, less than two years after Robuchon debuted his own bar-style restaurant in France and Japan. Like Atelier, the Bar Room at MoMA doesn’t require a reservation, or a small bank loan, to dine there. “It took a lot of courage to break tradition from what was expected in France,” Meyer said. Perhaps not widely known, Robuchon created Atelier after he had retired from the kitchen, around his 50th birthday, to focus on a television project that would pass along his vast knowledge of French cuisine. But the bricklayer’s son found that he could not rest on his laurels, which included Jamin, located in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. Robuchon earned his third Michelin star in 1984 after Jamin had been open only three years, often cited as the quickest any chef ever netted three of those coveted stars. Robuchon later moved Jamin and renamed the place after himself. In 1994, Patricia Wells, then restaurant critic with the International Herald Tribune, called it the best restaurant in the world. But in 1996, Robuchon shocked the culinary establishment by shutting down his three-star restaurant. He was exhausted. “The first time I saw


Craft beer is booming. Is that bad news for the U.S. economy?

2017, from 990 the year before and 877 in 2015, according to the Brewers Association, a trade group for smaller producers. There are well over 6,500 craft breweries in the United States as of mid-2018, more than triple the number at the start of the decade. And that, not multinational corporations buying up independent brands, is the real problem for craft brewers — and maybe for the U.S. economy. The existential threat doesn’t come from AB InBev but from the small operation down the street coming out with its own IPA or Belgian sour. Take the case of Smuttynose. A New Hampshire mainstay with national reach since the late 1990s, the brewery was sold at foreclosure auction in March. One of its founders, a former Brooklyn schoolteacher, said competition from newer breweries drove the distressed sale. Boston Beer, the second-largest U.S. craft brewery behind Yuengling, has itself endured drops in sales since Jim Koch’s Times op-ed. Why? Competition from other craft breweries. It’s more than just that consumers want to gulp flavors and styles beyond Samuel Adams Boston Lager. There is that. The more alarming issue is that older and more recent craft brewers alike have all ridden a wave of investment, financing and consumer spending since the financial crisis in 2008, but that wave can’t take them that much higher. And we all know what happens when a wave crests. A lot of the financing is in the form of loans that take advantage of historically low interest rates (here’s to you, Fed!) A sizable chunk, too, comes from angel investors and from private-equity firms flush with post-crisis investments themselves. Private-equity firms have invested heavily in well-known breweries such as Dogfish Head, Cigar City, Oskar Blues and Stone — which in June became the first independent U.S. craft brewery to open a taproom in China. Then there’s consumer spending. Americans have money to drop, and they’re dropping it. Most of it is going toward services, but vices such as alcohol are benefiting. In 2017, Americans spent $241.8 billion on alcohol, up 2.7 percent from the year before; in general, Americans tend to spend more on alcohol in flusher economic times than in choppier ones. Finally, a sharp per-barrel excise tax cut for beer included in the Republican tax legislation at the end of 2017 is rippling through the industry in forms of lower operating costs and greater output. The


11 kids rescued from armed ‘extremists’ at buried compound, New Mexico sheriff says

A months-long search for a 3-year-old led police to a compound buried under New Mexico scrubland. After authorities raided the compound on Friday, they did not recover the toddler but found his alleged abductor and 11 other children — all of whom had been living in what the Taos County sheriff described as “the saddest living conditions and poverty I have seen.” The search began nine months earlier and nearly 1,500 miles east — in Jonesboro, Ga., where a mother told police that her husband had taken little Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj to a park and never returned. The boy was encephalopathic In December, the News Daily reported that Abdul-Ghani and his father had last been seen traveling west through Alabama with several other children and adults. They had been involved in a car accident on a highway there on Dec. 13, the newspaper reported. The officer who helped them had been under the impression that they were headed to New Mexico to go camping. That was before Ibn Wahhaj’s estranged wife, Hakima Ramzi, recorded a desperate Facebook video. “He’s sick, he needs his medications,” she said through tears in January. “He needs everything. I don’t know if he’s alive, or he is, well, I don’t know his condition now. So please, please, I need your help to find my husband and my son.” Neither family nor authorities could be reached over the weekend, so it’s unclear how police tracked Ibn Wahhaj and company to Taos County — a mountainous, sparsely populated region along New Mexico’s northern border. Along a remote stretch of road, Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said in a news release, someone had buried a travel trailer in the dirt, ringed it with tires and earthen berms and covered it in plastic. In this “compound,” the sheriff said, Ibn Wahhaj lived underground with his abducted son, an alleged accomplice named Lucas Morten, three unnamed women, 11 other children, four pistols, an AR-15 rifle and a large quantity of ammunition. The FBI placed the compound under surveillance. Photos released by the sheriff’s office show a ramshackle bunker with no apparent electricity or plumbing. Dust coated the inside of the buried trailer. Outside, children’s pants hung across a broken sheet of hardboard, backdropped by dust, tires and the mountains. During a two-month investigation, the sheriff’s office wrote, the FBI “didn’t feel there was enough probable cause to get on the property.” The federal


Somebody added cow’s milk to Almond Breeze, FDA says, sparking a recall in 28 states

appropriately be labeled soy juice or hemp drink. In 2000 and 2010, the National Milk Producers Federation wrote the FDA to argue for a more exclusive use of the word “milk” on labels. At the time, federation spokesman Christopher Galen told USA Today, “We had to do something,” which included creating a Facebook page: “They Don't Got Milk.” Last month, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that the agency would move toward enforcing rules about what can — and can’t — be called milk. As it stands, the only products companies can call “milk” are things that come from the “milking of one or more healthy cows,” and as Gottlieb pointed out, “an almond doesn’t lactate.” Gottlieb promised there would be public input before new enforcement. The debate has also entered the halls of Congress. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) submitted an amendment to kill spending for the required FDA study that would look at relabeling, according to Roll Call, but it was defeated. Afterward, the National Milk Producers Federation declared a small victory. “Today’s vote should send a very strong message to food marketers who have long been ignoring FDA’s food labeling standards by inappropriately using dairy terms on products that do not contain any dairy,” the federation said. “Those days are numbered.” The other side argues that no consumer believes that when she buys, say, almond milk, that it originated from a cow. Declining sales of cow's milk and the exploding market for alternatives is not due to the labeling on the carton, they argue, but rather what's inside it. Increasingly health-conscious consumers view milk alternatives as simply better for them. Nancy Chapman, executive director of the Soyfoods Association of North America, told The Washington Post in 2016 that her organization has conducted studies of shoppers and found that the “overwhelming majority” — 98 percent — don't confuse it with cow's milk. “Folks are selecting soy milk because they know it's not from dairy,” she said. Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly listed Kemps as one of the brands of HP Hood. Farmers co-op Dairy Farmers bought Kemps in 2011. A previous version of this story also stated that the FDA planned to start heavily enforcing regulations regarding the word “milk.” It remains unclear to what degree the agency will enforce its regulation, which may yet be altered before it is enforced. Read more: Almond drink? Soy juice?


She made a career out of studying the brain. Then hers veered off course.

brain. Her credibility, she realized, was shot. Even if she was sane, no one would believe her. After all, she was the neuroscientist who’d lost her mind. It was only later, lying in their hotel room after the argument, that she reached out to Gorski and found him hot. He had a high fever — a symptom of Lyme disease, they’d discover, after they returned to the United States and saw their family doctor. In retrospect, she says, Gorski’s suspicion was probably the result of his being delirious. Halpern told me later that he’d heard that story, too. He said he had never heard his mother-in-law sound as terrified talking about her cancer as she did when discussing the prospect of losing her mind again. In her book, Lipska mentions having lost sight in one eye She’s had to revise her athletic expectations; before, her plan for old age was a marathon every five years and triathlons in between. Now, her balance and strength and speed are diminished, but she tells me that if trails give her problems, she runs in the street. Sometimes she falls and shreds her arms and knees and declares herself finished, and then something makes her go out and do it again. One day after I returned home to New York from visiting her, she emailed me that she ran six miles and I thought: I have no business going easy on myself. My hips hurt, and I did the stretches she taught me. When I email her in July, she tells me that her latest scan looked good, and that she’s still running and biking and swimming, trying to bring back the strength she’s lost. There is still so much that’s unknown about the brain. What is it that makes one person cry over this strange, harrowing, incredible life — and another laugh? What makes some of us give up while others keep running when they bleed? And what causes the brain to veer off course? It’s not usually something so explicable as tumors and immunotherapy. A teenager develops obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a new mother is racked with anxiety, and a man in his 40s decides he never wants to leave his bed again, and we don’t know why — not really, not enough to fix it every time. The line between sanity and insanity may be perilously thin, but Barbara Lipska’s decision about


An ambitious new New York restaurant proves Korean fine dining is ready for its close-up

Move over, mignardises. There’s a fresh way to send diners into the night, and they’re pretty enough to frame. “We love fine dining, but it’s hard to remember everything,” says JeongEun “Ellia” Park, the serene mistress of ceremonies who owns the restaurant with her husband, chef Junghyun Park. While some other restaurants are dispensing with printed menus altogether, Atomix knows: Surprises can be fun, but cheat sheets are more helpful. By meal’s end, we learn that the rice is polished in-house, the sesame oil is made on-site, and petals of steamed eggplant make a lovely cover for smoked eel nestled in a froth of eel, crème fraîche and lemon. Also: Waygu beef fermented in fruit juice for three days has an affinity for 33-year-old Portuguese wine. Korean food has never been hotter in this country; hasn’t gochujang become every other chef’s condiment of choice? But its elevation to fine dining is relatively recent, evinced in Manhattan this year by the steakhouse Cote, an upgrade from the standard Korean barbecue — and even more so by the ambitious Atomix. The chef, 34, was raised in Seoul and has cooked around the world. After graduating with a major in food sciences in Korea 10 years ago, he went to London for an externship at the Michelin-starred Ledbury, then to Melbourne, Australia, where he cooked in three restaurants owned by top chef Andrew McConnell. Back in Seoul, Park cooked at the modern Korean Junsik, which sent him to New York City when the restaurant opened a branch in Tribeca in 2012. The Parks’ original idea was to open a fine-dining restaurant. But as unknowns in Manhattan, they opted for a less-risky path. Hence Atoboy (ah-TOE-boy), a casual Korean restaurant they opened two years ago. The New York Times rewarded their celebration of banchan, the collection of side dishes that accompany Korean meals, with two stars. “Ato” is an ancient Korean word for “gift.” Atomix (ah-TOE-mix) refers to the mix of ground-floor bar, downstairs lounge and dining room: 14 seats around a rectangular black granite counter, with a visible kitchen in the rear. The entrance has us double-checking the address. A small sign with the name is affixed to the building, but the door pushes open to what looks like a residential foyer. Our tentative knock on an unmarked door is met with a nod and a smile. Inside, we’re led past a posh


Violent hailstorm kills rare African vulture brought to the U.S. to help save the species

Motswari was around eight months old when she smashed into a power line in South Africa, sending her into a violent spiral toward the ground. She survived, but the injury robbed her from the key trait for vultures to eat and to live. Motswari’s cream, black-tipped wing was shattered. She could no longer fly. But as a member of a long-dwindling population of Cape vultures, an important link in the ecosystem now endangered by human activity, Motswari was still vital. Perhaps even existentially important to what’s left of her species. Motswari was a member of an eight-vulture cadre spirited off to the United States to breed chicks in a race against encroaching doom, said Kerri Wolter, the chief executive and founder of VulPro, a South Africa-based conservation group that helped get Motswari and others to the country. She settled at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, becoming an icon for awareness and fundraising for the often maligned and vastly misunderstood birds, Wolter told The Washington Post. On Monday, the skies over the zoo were choked with softball-size hail. It raked enclosures and struck guests, staffers and animals alike. One visitor’s video shows hail plunging into the water at a bear enclosure and violently churning the water like a wave thrashing a rocky shore. At least 14 people and a number of animals were injured, and hundreds of cars were damaged. The guests and staff were evacuated. A 4-year-old Muscovy duck named Daisy was killed. Motswari, too, lay dead. She was 13. Every dead Cape vulture affects the species, which has declined as much as 94 percent in three generations, Wolter’s group said last year. But there are fewer than 20 in the United States, where conservationists focus on breeding in an effort to release more in the wild, Wolter said. Their work demands genetically pure birds — hatched at the glacial pace of one egg per year — to avoid specimens weakened by inbreeding. Their offspring heading back to Africa need to be tough. Motswari was as tough as they came, a mother in her breeding prime. “It’s a massive loss,” Wolter said of her death. Cape vultures crisscross southern Africa in a vast network, stretching from Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and others. One tagged vulture visited eight countries in eight days, soaring high to scan the ground for dead animals to scavenge. The vultures can eye potential meals from


‘Christopher Robin’ won’t play in China amid government censorship of Winnie the Pooh

For many, the name Winnie the Pooh recalls childhood bedtime stories and Saturday morning cartoons. But in China, the famous honey-hunting bear has become a symbol of resistance. Starting in 2013, memes comparing Winnie the Pooh’s appearance to that of Chinese President Xi Jinping began to circulate on China’s Internet. The government responded by cracking down on images of the paunchy cartoon character. And now, according to the Hollywood Reporter, China is yet again censoring Pooh by declining to release Disney’s “Christopher Robin,” starring Ewan McGregor and a computer-generated Pooh, in Chinese theaters. While the government gave no reason for the decision, a person told the magazine that past censorship of the bear had something to do with it. The government has not completely banned photos of Pooh from the Internet, but it has restricted them. In 2015, the Financial Times reported, a photo of Xi waving at supporters from a parade car next to an image of Pooh in a toy car was named the most censored image of the year by Global Risk Insights. Even images that don’t compare Pooh to Xi can face trouble. In 2017, according to the Financial Times, attempts to write “Winnie” in Chinese characters on Sina Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, were met with “content is illegal” messages. In June, China also blocked access to HBO after its show “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” criticized the country over its human rights record and poked fun at Xi’s aversion to the Winnie the Pooh comparison. “I’m not even sure it’s that strong a resemblance, to be honest. But the fact he’s annoyed about it means people will never stop bringing it up,” Oliver said. “Trust me, Xi, if your face even remotely resembles that of a beloved cartoon character, the smart move here is to lean in,” he added. China could also be passing on the film for less controversial reasons. As the Guardian reported, the country allows only 34 foreign films to play in Chinese cinemas each year. Read more: The curious case of China’s ‘ban’ on Winnie the Pooh China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works China takes its political censorship global. Will America resist?


Saudi Arabia’s fight with Canada exposes its fragile crown prince

to Riyadh, told Today’s WorldView that the crown prince has to react to Western posturing as he seeks to liberalize his own country. “MBS sees himself as managing an unprecedented and delicate reform process and doesn’t want outside criticism making it more difficult, let alone from allies who are beneficiaries of Saudi business," he said. But it’s also a mark of the crown prince’s heavy-handed governing style. MBS “has led a drive to reform his country by diversifying its economy, lifting some social restrictions while curbing the influence of the once-powerful ‘religious police’ who enforced austere moral codes,” explained my colleague Kareem Fahim. “The changes, though, have been accompanied by a steady drumbeat of repression, including the arrest of popular clerics, prominent business executives and the women’s rights advocates — sending a message, analysts said, that the reforms do not include a sliver of tolerance for political expression.” MBS is also increasingly seen as the steward of an incoherent and largely unsuccessful foreign policy that includes the stalemate over Qatar, the ruinous war in Yemen and a botched attempt to collaborate with the Trump administration on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. On the last matter, MBS has voiced support for the White House’s vague peace plans. But there is growing disquiet in the Middle East, including in Riyadh, over the Trump administration’s near-total embrace of Israeli interests over Palestinian concerns. It prompted the Saudi king to issue a statement last week reiterating his support for Palestinian claims to Jerusalem as well as refugees' rights of return, a clear rebuke to Trump — and perhaps to the crown prince’s willingness to play ball with Israel. “While the Crown Prince has had a long leash from his father, King Salman, the regional and public heat was apparently too much for the older monarch, and in an unexpected move, the King overturned his son’s foreign policy proposal and reaffirmed the long-standing Saudi position on the matter,” wrote Bessma Momani, a professor of international affairs at the University of Waterloo in Canada. The dispute with Ottawa, she argued, offered a welcome distraction: “For a leader who is used to the nationalist support of his young and energized followers, it was time for MBS to get the Saudi people riled up again.” Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know?


When a Trump supporter’s wife is deported

Mexican immigrants murderers and rapists was “peanuts compared to what turns out to be the truth.” In real life, the ones Trump loves and the ones Trump demonizes are not so far apart. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tells me it doesn’t track the number of military spouses subjected to deportation. But the advocacy group American Families United, extrapolating from census figures, estimates there are as many as 11,800 active-duty military service members with a spouse or family member vulnerable to deportation. And that doesn’t include veterans’ families. Since the Marquis de Lafayette during the Revolutionary War, and the Irish Brigade during the Civil War, immigrants have had a central role in the U.S. military. That’s true now, too, says Jon Soltz, an Iraq veteran who founded the group VoteVets. If zero tolerance is enforced, he said, it will feel as if “everybody has a family member who is affected.” As many as 1,000 foreign nationals, recruited to the military for their critical language or medical skills, face potential discharge over delays in background checks. The Trump administration’s removal of protected status for Salvadorans and Haitians means many more military family members will face deportation. Many veterans themselves have been deported because of missed application deadlines. ICE, in a statement, says it “removed Alejandra Juarez, a citizen and national of Mexico, to her home country.” ICE said she had attempted in 1998 to enter the country by falsely claiming she was a U.S. citizen and was issued an “expedited order of removal.” She returned, illegally, and remained without incident until a traffic stop led ICE to reinstate her removal order in 2013. But the Obama administration did not prioritize the deportation of military family members — a policy of protection supported by, among others, then-Rep. Mike Pence. These are different times. Juarez hasn’t spoken much in public about his family’s ordeal. (He wasn’t home Monday when I attempted to reach him.) But in the Stars and Stripes interview, he spoke about preparing his daughters for the impending family separation. “I’ve been preaching to them you’ve got to be mentally tough — pretty much what they teach you in the Army,” he said. But nothing the military taught him could have prepared him for the cruelty his country just inflicted on his family. Twitter: @Milbank Read more from Dana Milbank’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.


Paul Manafort trial Day 5: Rick Gates testifies he committed bank, tax fraud at Manafort’s direction

minutes of questions for the accountant before the next witness. Court is on a break until 3:05 p.m. 2:45 p.m.: Accountant testifies Manafort made more than $30 million over a decade Manafort’s attorneys are now arguing that he did ultimately declare many of the loans prosecutors called fraudulent as income. Defense attorney Kevin Downing showed accountant Cindy Laporta a spreadsheet of his liabilities from 2005 to 2015 pulled from his tax filings. Laporta said her firm would make these spreadsheets for clients to be better prepared for the next year. Included is a $10 million loan from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in 2010, as well as one marked only “Russian NGO” from the following year for $3.5 million. “There are over $30 million in loans reported?” Downing asked. She agreed. About $10 million came from Yiakora Ventures, which prosecutors describe as one of Manafort’s shell companies. But Downing pointed out that $15.7 million was set to be categorized as a distribution to Paul Manafort — meaning he would have paid taxes on it. [From ‘the count’ to inmate: The fall of Paul Manafort] Downing then asked Laporta to look at Manafort’s 2016 tax return. Her firm did not prepare it, but his new accountants relied in part on information she gave them. Assistant U.S. Attorney Uzo Asonye objected, saying 2016 is outside the time frame of the tax fraud alleged in the trial. But Judge Ellis allowed the defense to proceed. Laporta, the accountant, confirmed that the spreadsheet she prepared showed that Manafort had reported $30.2 million in gross income to the federal government during the 10-year period and paid $8.38 million in federal income tax. In 2016, she said, his return showed he reported as income a $1.9 million loan from Telmar Investments, another Cypriot company that prosecutors say he used to avoid taxes. He also paid a $30,000 penalty. Downing is arguing that Manafort ultimately did pay his taxes, and that any lapses were simply mistakes made in a small and complicated business. He asked her if it was common in partnerships for a partner to pay for some expenses and call it loan to the firm, then forgive that loan — she agreed that it was. 2:14 p.m.: Attorney tries to highlight complexity of Manafort’s finances, Gates role In his early questioning of accountant Cindy Laporta on Monday, defense attorney Kevin Downing seemed to be trying to


The best gardens aren’t static. Case in point: Chanticleer.

area was going to be a place of low ground covers incidental to the experience of moving to lower ground. Instead it is a captivating vertical jungle of perennials rising to greet the wayfarers. One shares the walk with dragonflies and hummingbirds. The fare includes red-flowering crocosmias and lobelias, the tall yellow daisies of silphiums and giant coneflowers, and a pink-flowered bee balm named Monarda bradburiana. Some things, though, haven’t changed, including a couple of guiding principles in Chanticleer’s plant artistry. The first is that there are no barriers between plant types. Annuals, perennials, hardy and tender shrubs, tropicals, herbs, and more are all thrown into a grab bag. In the border above the swimming pool terrace, the fleshy, wavy leaves of sea kale, a leafy vegetable, function as a foil against a specimen of succulent agave and, farther along, the fine textures of an ornamental black-leaved elderberry. It’s odd but highly effective. In another area named the Kitchen Courtyard, container plantings feature a baby upright birch paired with varieties of marigold. On paper, the combination seems outlandish, absurd even, but here it is, and it looks good. The marigolds get to the second principle, which is that in haute horticulture, common plants are fine if you use them uncommonly. In water-filled ceramic pots, plucked nasturtium leaves and tiger lilies are presented as floating elements in a way that elevates them both. (Thomas and his team wrote a book in 2015, “The Art of Gardening,” that examines their creative techniques.) In the Tennis Court Garden, with its generous four-square beds, the extraordinary use of ordinary plants continues. The towering, giant-leafed plant is a paulownia tree that has been chopped to the ground or coppiced to produce gigantic heart-shaped juvenile foliage. Once an exotic beauty, the paulownia is now considered a weed. Here, it grows close to an orange-flowering amaranth named Chinese Giant Orange and a brash, almost contorted tropical tree named Cecropia. The weed theme is continued with eruptions of variegated varieties of the towering marsh reed named Arundo donax. In sum, the Tennis Court Garden is beautifully, defiantly vulgar. I can’t end without mentioning another relatively new feature that is so perverse that it caused me to laugh out loud. This is the former panel of turf close to the main residence, Chanticleer House, which has been fashioned into a “flowery lawn.” At a time when meadows are trendy,


Plumcots, apriums and pluots: How to keep track of all those hybrid fruits

(nectarine-plum), Peacotum® (peach/apricot/plum), Pluerry™ (plum-cherry).” Only the varieties developed by the Zaigers can carry these names. But all of these crossbreeds have created consumer confusion: In the case of pluots, the name is hard for people to pronounce and spell, and it’s hard for the average consumer to tell the difference between pluots and plumcots. If you heard both of those names, which one would you assume was more plumlike? Probably not the pluot. “We used to get emails that were like, we want to try your plutos, or your plouts,” Plain said. The farm has been leading the charge in changing the industry’s standard name from pluot to plumcot, which is easier for both customers and marketers. But that won’t answer all of the questions that shoppers might have in the grocery store. “What’s challenging for consumers is that they all look a little different, they’re only in stores for three or four weeks sometimes,” Plain said. “They get in their head what they think a plumcot is, and they go back and they don’t see it.” At our local Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, there were two types of pluots, one type each of plumcots and apriums, and also some plum cherries. One pluot was bright green and the other was light purple, while the apriums, counterintuitively, were the darkest-colored fruit. The apriums were the sweetest of the bunch, too, and the green pluots were the most plum-like. Family Tree Farms also has a proprietary variety of plumcot, grown only on its farm. It has “a deep, dark red-purple flesh to it, and it’s high in antioxidants,” Plain said. Because of its appearance and nutrition, when it came time to name the fruit, the farm had the perfect idea — though, not exactly one that aids in its goal of decreasing consumer confusion about hybrid fruits. It’s called the plumogranate. It does not actually come from pomegranate, though perhaps that could be a fascinating project for the next aspiring horticultural geneticist. “The way we explain it to people is, think of cherry tomatoes,” Plain said. “It’s not a cross of cherry and tomatoes.” More from Voraciously: Edible birthday candles are here because some people got tired of eating wax on their cake A customer couldn’t find any ginger in Canada Dry ginger ale, so she’s suing You might think there are more vegetarians than ever. You’d be wrong.


Trump administration to impose new sanctions on Russia for nerve agent attack in England in March

Former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were sickened in Salisbury after they were exposed to Novichok, a Soviet-era chemical weapon. A British woman died in July after coming into contact with the nerve agent. The State Department said the United States had determined that Russia had used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law. The Trump administration, acting with allies, had earlier expelled 60 Russian diplomats following the attack on the Skripals. The new sanctions include bans on the sale of certain defense technologies to Russia.This is a developing story. It will be updated.


In this Age of Malware, we’re flirting with national disaster

Welcome to the Age of Malware. It promises to be a huge downer and, possibly, a great tragedy. For years, we have regarded personal computers, the Internet, smartphones and various digital devices as evidence that America continues to dominate the central new technology of our time. Just last week, Apple attained a stock market value of $1 trillion — the first publicly traded company ever to do so. This seemed yet again to confirm American leadership. The reality, of course, is much different. By now, millions of Americans — probably most — must recognize that the Internet and its digital sidekicks constitute a double-edged sword. They provide services (photography, maps, email) that now seem indispensable. Yet, the same technologies increasingly pose a fundamental threat to our way of life. Hardly a day goes by without news reports of the Internet being used to undermine our democracy, steal people’s personal information (names, Social Security numbers, credit scores, health data and the like), hijack corporate secrets and attack “critical infrastructure” — the power grid, financial and communications networks, water and transportation systems. Many Americans remain in a state of confused denial. We simply cannot bring ourselves to acknowledge that such promising technologies can be turned against us in such destructive ways. The injection of malware — computer software (”viruses”) that aims to corrupt legitimate data systems — has become an everyday occurrence. Other digital vulnerabilities abound. Just recently, the Pentagon restricted military personnel’s use of global positioning devices, because they can help adversaries monitor our troop movements. Anyone who doubts cyber’s unintended consequences should read David Sanger’s new book “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age.” Sanger, a reporter for The New York Times, has been a dogged and diligent observer of cybersecurity issues for years. His book is a readable account of what went wrong. It’s difficult for Americans to deal with these questions, because we want to play both sides. We deplore other countries’ (read: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) use of the Internet to attack their geopolitical or commercial rivals. But we are not innocent victims. Sanger rates Stuxnet — a joint U.S.-Israeli virus that temporarily destroyed Iran’s nuclear centrifuges — as a highly successful use of the Internet for strategic purposes. Similarly, Sanger presents much circumstantial evidence that, via the Internet, the U.S. caused North Korean missiles to fail. (Kim Jong Un apparently


A startling insight into the climate-change debate

A short, inconspicuous article, “Clues to how Mayan world dried up” [news, Aug. 6], revealed a startling insight into the ongoing debate on human-induced climate change. It is true that over hundreds of thousands of years, the Earth’s climate has fluctuated wildly (ice ages, extreme heat and drought) and will continue to do so; however, the effect of human activity, which began only about 150 years ago, is unprecedented. What we humans need to worry about is the timing of natural cycles and human-induced climate change. Whereas a natural cooling cycle could temporarily mitigate global warming, the inevitable coincidence of natural and human-induced warming would be catastrophic. This argues for intensive, science-based analysis of the Earth’s climate to understand the effects of human activity and predict naturally occurring cycles of climate change. This article should be required reading for all citizens (particularly politicians of all stripes) who are concerned with the Earth’s climate. B.K. Krueger


Silicon Valley should stop ostracizing the military

reality can help ensure that the United States maintains superiority over increasingly aggressive challengers. Technological superiority was crucial to U.S. military success in World War II, kept the Soviet Union at bay during the Cold War and enabled the United States to deter untold armed conflicts over the past half-century. The United States can no longer take this technology leadership for granted. Its adversaries worldwide are marshaling their tech capabilities, often compelling their best scientists to unify behind the goal of achieving preeminence. Putin in September 2017 said that AI leadership was a means to become “the ruler of the world.” China has vowed to achieve AI dominance by 2030. Moscow and Beijing are aggressively pursuing full-scale tech collaborations between the public and private sectors. Meanwhile, much of the top AI talent in the United States is working on things such as ad optimization. That might contribute to the U.S. economy, but it does nothing to protect against competitors who are using their best and brightest to bolster their militaries. By all means, let’s debate the ethics surrounding any new technologies with military applications. In one of the knottier dilemmas involving AI and the use of force, we agree with many others that the decision to take a human life should not be made without human direction. But an essential part of ensuring that technologies are used ethically is ensuring that the terms are not dictated by authoritarian regimes. For the United States to set ethical norms and assert a moral high ground, it must first hold the technological high ground. When U.S. tech companies — which have profoundly benefited from the liberties and protections of operating in the United States — shun working with their own government, they do not freeze the global race for defense technology. They simply make the path easier for the United States’ adversaries by default — or worse, by actively collaborating with countries such as China. Whether through action or inaction, companies choose sides. Tech companies like to talk about making the world a better place. In the past, much of their success in doing so — such as the development of GPS and the Internet — was the result of collaborating with government. Helping ensure that the United States can continue to defend allies and deter aggressors is a powerful way to keep making the world a better place in the coming decades.


This climate-change hack would reflect more sunlight. Not such a bright idea, study says.

Scientists are pondering what might be called the volcanic solution to global warming. It would be the ultimate desperate measure, a climatological Hail Mary and, possibly, a very bad idea. The only reason it's an actual subject of research is that human civilization has failed to take steps to stave off dangerous levels of climate change. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted in spectacular fashion. The ash fall and lahars killed hundreds of people in the central Luzon region of the Philippines. Molten-hot ash and gas shot into the upper atmosphere, spread out across the globe, reflected sunlight and naturally cooled the planet for more than a year. Researchers say nature may be offering an example of a possible technique for limiting global warming. People can't command volcanoes to erupt, but they can more or less mimic the effects of a volcano through technology. The basic idea is to use aircraft, or some other means, to spew sunlight-reflecting aerosols into the stratosphere and change the albedo — the reflectivity — of the planet. It goes by many names: solar geoengineering, solar radiation management, albedo management, albedo hacking. One hypothesized reason for doing something so audacious is that it might benefit agriculture by preventing heat stress on food crops. But a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature came to a different and surprising conclusion. Using historical data from two volcanic eruptions, the researchers concluded that tampering with the atmosphere would have no net effect on crop yields. The food crops wouldn't suffer as much heat stress as they would without the intervention in the atmosphere, but they also wouldn't receive as much photosynthesis-powering sunlight. The pluses would be offset by the minuses. “If we think of geoengineering as experimental surgery, our findings suggest that the side effects of treatment are as bad as the original disease,” said Jonathan Proctor, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Berkeley and the lead author of the paper. But David Keith, a professor of applied physics at Harvard University who was not involved in the new research, said the paper by Proctor and his colleagues should not be interpreted as evidence that solar geoengineering is a bad idea. "Reducing crop damage is but one of many reasons why geoengineering might make sense as a tool to limit climate risks in conjunction with emissions cuts," Keith wrote in an email. "There are — of


Big and beautiful, D.C.’s newest Japanese restaurant masters the grill

(Good) Washington’s newest Japanese restaurant has me at the door. O-Ku D.C., located across from Union Market, is accessed by pulling a leather grip, smooth as a glove, attached to a handsome slab of red oak. The detail feels promising. A place that pays attention to such minutia is probably particular about bigger things, like what’s for dinner. Admittedly, I’m trying to keep an open mind. O-Ku, the Japanese word for “oak,” comes to the District from a Charleston, S.C., restaurant group, the Indigo Road, which opened the first O-Ku there in 2010, followed by outposts in Charlotte and Atlanta. Next up: Raleigh and Nashville. Fairly or not, chains come with some baggage, preconceived notions included. Steve Palmer, managing partner at the Indigo Road, wants District denizens to know that while his Japanese restaurants share a label, that’s pretty much where the similarities stop. Every outpost looks different, he says. None have in common even a single dish. “We’re hiring chefs, not kitchen managers,” he says. Bryan Emperor, the chef at O-Ku D.C., went to college in Japan and became a sales trader in New York. One of his more enjoyable tasks was entertaining portfolio managers at fine restaurants in New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. He became so passionate about Asian food that he ended up leaving finance for cooking school, after which the 2003 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America went on to apprentice in Japan, where he cooked in both Japanese and Korean kitchens, and serve as a line cook at the original Nobu in Manhattan. O-Ku’s introductory plates reflect the chef’s travels. Korea inspires, among other dishes, the chicken wings, fried to a soft crunch and tossed with a moistener extracted from ginger, chili sauce and brown sugar, then freckled with fresh sesame seeds. China is responsible for the juicy, pork-and-shrimp steamed dumplings known as siu mai and the lamb chop teetering on a thatch of blanched julienne potato, seasoned to rouse taste buds with Sichuan peppercorns. The meat is cooked on equipment no other O-Ku can claim: a robata grill fueled with petrified white oak from Japan called binchotan . The signature nigiri are sold by the piece and keep the focus on the fish while slipping in a pleasant enhancer or two. Big eye tuna, red as steak, is adorned with a dot of creamy anchovy sauce and micro-parsley, and Hawaiian prawns, seasoned


The Chinese threat that an aircraft carrier can’t stop

he created the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, or DIUx, with offices in Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin. That operation thrived initially, negotiating 60 defense contracts with start-ups. The program has slowed under the Trump administration, despite support from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, because it lacks funds and bureaucratic support, warned Christopher Kirchhoff, a former DIUx partner. If Mattis can appoint a strong new DIUx leader soon, maybe he can revive this innovation hub. The biggest technological challenge discussed here was artificial intelligence. In a few years, these systems have taught themselves to play complex games such as chess and Go better than humans, and to recognize voices and objects better, too. And soon, they will be driving the weapons of combat. China appears determined to seize this AI “high ground” of future conflict. For the past two years, Chinese companies have won an AI competition for detecting objects. The Chinese are happy for the United States to keep building carriers and bombers, so long as they deploy the more advanced technologies that can disable these systems. Richard Danzig, a former Navy secretary, published a brilliant paper discussed at the conference warning that as AI systems dominate warfare, they will “introduce important new risks of loss of control.” Humans must be “maximally thoughtful and creative” during design (and plan for failure), because these AI-driven weapons will have accidents and unintended consequences. Wise policymakers must avoid a “Dr. Strangelove” world of unsafe killer robots and doomsday machines. America’s vulnerability to information warfare was a special topic of concern. One participant recalled a conversation several years ago with a Russian general who taunted him: “You have a cybercommand but no information operations. Don’t you know that information operations are how you take countries down?” The Aspen Strategy Group is a devoutly bipartisan forum. But there was an intense discussion here of the issue that’s vexing America this summer: the growing political polarization that’s creating so much discord that it’s becoming a national security problem. As the gathering concluded Monday, Republicans and Democrats were equally passionate about spreading the message that this is a Sputnik moment for modernizing our military. Competing with a rising China begins at home, with a more nimble Pentagon and a country that’s more united to face the big problems ahead. Twitter: @IgnatiusPost Read more from David Ignatius’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.


Oracle challenges Pentagon’s multibillion-dollar cloud computing contract before bids are even submitted

cloud computing initiative under the Defense Department’s umbrella, JEDI is among the largest: Officials have indicated it would account for about 16 percent of the Pentagon’s overall cloud computing work. Whichever company wins will have a strong foothold from which to compete for other opportunities. Amazon has often been alone among potential competitors in praising the Pentagon’s single-cloud strategy for the JEDI contract, arguing that operating a single cloud will make for an easier transition. Competitors have criticized that approach, arguing that giving one company too much influence over the Pentagon’s computing systems will lock the government out of innovations happening elsewhere. In its protest, Oracle accused the Pentagon of ignoring procurement regulations that require contracting officers to give preference to making multiple awards for certain contracts. It also said the decision to go to one provider will ultimately hamper the Defense Department’s ability to employ the best technologies. The Pentagon’s strategy “effectively closes a significant market … to competition in violation of statutory and regulatory mandates and assuredly (by tying DoD to a single technological cloud vendor for ten years) will frustrate (not foster) the innovation necessary for DoD to operate on technology’s leading edge,” a lawyer representing Oracle wrote in the bid protest. Oracle argues that advancements in technology areas such as quantum computing, blockchain and artificial intelligence, promise to remake the IT systems of the future but that such technologies are unlikely to be limited to within the walls of any particular company. “The only constant is change. DoD knows this,” the company wrote. “Indeed, DoD routinely warns Congress and others about the rapid pace of technological change. Yet, the DoD … oddly intimates that DoD … can determine the single best value cloud computing technological leader over the next ten years when some — if not most — of the impactful technology has yet to be developed.” Oracle has had success getting the Pentagon to reverse course in past procurements. In February, the Defense Department awarded a contract worth up to $950 million to REAN Cloud, a Herndon, Va.-based small business that specializes in migrating computing systems onto modern cloud-based systems. The award sparked consternation among those watching the Pentagon’s cloud efforts because REAN was thought to have an overly close relationship with Amazon. At the time of the award, the company advertised itself as an Amazon Web Services partner, and founder Sekhar Puli told The


Joël Robuchon, innovative French ‘cook of the century,’ dies at 73

artist who most influenced the 20th-century world of cuisine.” While Mr. Robuchon was no stranger to the fancy — truffles and caviar were among his favorite foods — his cuisine was often described as simple because he preached the use of only three or four ingredients in most dishes. His goal was always to show off, not mask, their flavors. He started a revolution with his “Atelier” (workshop in French) business model: small, intimate restaurants where diners sat at a counter surrounding the kitchen. They didn’t take reservations, and many didn’t even have tables. His goal, he said, was to make diners feel comfortable, let them interact with the chef and, above all, put the focus back on the food. It was partially a rebuke to the Michelin-star regime, which awards points not just for technique but also for ambiance and service. But Michelin, and just about everyone else, gobbled up his culinary innovations. With Ateliers around the world, Mr. Robuchon reached a total of 32 Michelin stars in 2016 — a record — and still held 31 stars this year, including five three-star restaurants. Joël Robuchon was born April 7, 1945, in the French town of Poitiers, south of the Loire Valley. He considered becoming a priest, but hours spent cooking with the nuns convinced him that he had another calling. He got his professional start at 15 at a local restaurant and by 29 was running the kitchen at a large Paris hotel, in charge of 90 chefs. For years, his culinary home was at Jamin, a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower that he opened in 1981. The restaurant racked up a Michelin star a year in its first three years — a feat no one had accomplished before. The wait for a reservation was two months, even though the price for a meal without wine was $200. Even at this classic restaurant, Mr. Robuchon shook up the culinary scene: His most famous dish was the lowly mashed potato. “I owe everything to these mashed potatoes,” he said once during a demonstration of how to make the almost liquid dish. “Maybe it’s a little bit of nostalgia, Proust’s madeleines. Everyone has in his memory the mashed potatoes of his mother, the mashed potatoes of his grandmother.” The idea that a restaurant might be a warm, casual place, rather than a stuffy temple to awkward food, was taking root.


Why running slow can eventually help you run faster

to be faster with less effort. This can be helpful if one of your goals is to participate in a fall race. And, according to Sharp, there is research showing that aerobic training can increase both ligament and tendon strength, which could help prevent injury, especially during marathon training. Still there are obstacles — mostly societal — to running slow, according to Jennifer Sacheck, chair of the exercise and nutrition sciences department at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. The time factor is the biggest hurdle to doing slow runs, Sacheck says. “Physical activity has been engineered out of our day, so people have to plan their physical activities. So, planning an hour or an hour and half is much more difficult than saying, ‘I’m going to bang out 10 minutes.’ ” Sacheck suggests that one way to fit in a long, slow run might be to run to work or home after work. Another hurdle is thinking that running slow might be “less manly,” according to Sacheck, or that you can’t get an endorphin rush from taking it slow. “For guys especially, who stereotypically turn to ‘manly’ activities such as speed workouts, I’ll tell them they can ‘man-it-up’ by wearing a backpack or by going out for a long adventure hike.” And, she says, most people can get the same endorphin rush from about 35 minutes to an hour of slow running as they can from 10 minutes of sprinting. Lifelong distance runner and Road Runners Club of America certified distance coach, William Etti, 41, of Burtonsville says he was never a fast runner, but through slow running training was able to improve his marathon time from 5 hours and 51 minutes in 2014 to 3 hours and 57 minutes in 2016. He thinks this is because he began doing more medium- to long-distance runs when he ran at a conversational pace with the Montgomery County Road Runners Club and when he ran on his own without looking at his pace. “You think you have to do a lot of speed work to get faster,” he said, “but after doing most of my runs at a slow pace my marathon finish time was much faster.” After a car accident injured his knees in 2017, Etti says now he runs slow for longevity in the sport. His hope is that “by running slower, I would


British farmers worry: Who will pick the fruit after Brexit?

HAREWOOD END, England — After a dozen futile calls to big farms, agricultural lobbyists and labor contractors, we finally found him. The rarest of the rare, the British berry picker. Meet Max Hughes, a 20-year-old university student and history major, who is spending his summer harvesting black currants at the Snell family farm in Herefordshire. He rides in the back of a harvester all day, standing beside a Czech migrant and a couple of sun-bronzed Romanian guys, who know very little English. “No matter, you can’t hear a thing they say over the noise,” Hughes said, gesturing toward the wheeled harvester beside him. Its vibrating metal fingers shake the currant bushes and bring the tart berries via conveyor belt to the sorting table, where Hughes and his teammates discard the leaves, twigs, slugs and occasional mouse — whatever you don’t want to see in a frozen fruit pack. Britain today is completely dependent on foreign workers to pick its fruit and vegetables. According to the National Farmers Union, an industry lobbying group, of the 60,000 seasonal workers in the fields last year, barely 1 percent was British. The vast majority come from Eastern Europe, particularly Bulgaria and Romania. As long as Britain has remained part of the European Union, by treaty its doors have been wide open to the “free movement” of fellow members, including those seasonal farmworkers who come for four or five months, get paid in British pounds and return home for the winter. But as Britain prepares to leave the E.U., bringing the era of free movement to a close, farmers have begun to panic: Who will pick the crops next spring? Already, labor shortages driven by economic shifts have left produce rotting in the strawberry fields and the high-tech, hydroponic poly-tunnels where top-tier soft fruit is produced. Jacqui Green, chief executive of the Berry Gardens growers cooperative, reports a 30 to 40 percent shortfall in labor this year. “It’s pretty grim,” Green said. “And it’s probably going to get worse before it potentially gets better, post-Brexit.” During the 2016 Brexit campaign, anxiety over mass migration was top of mind, fueled in part by claims that, for example, millions of Muslims would arrive as soon as Turkey joined the E.U. (Turkey is not in the union and has no prospect of joining in the foreseeable future.) With Britain’s exit from the bloc, Prime Minister Theresa May vows


At Interior, we’re ready to bring the Endangered Species Act up to date

David Bernhardt is deputy secretary of the interior. A modern vision of conservation is one that uses federalism, public-private partnerships and market-based solutions to achieve sound stewardship. These approaches, combined with sensible regulations and the best available science, will achieve the greatest good in the longest term. Last month, the Trump administration took this approach to bringing our government’s implementation of the Endangered Species Act into the 21st century. We asked ourselves how we can enhance conservation of our most imperiled wildlife while delivering good government for our citizens. We found room for improvement in the administration of the act. When Congress created the Endangered Species Act, it built a tiered classification for our most at-risk wildlife, designing different protections for “endangered” and “threatened” species. The act was designed to give endangered species the most stringent protections while affording federal agencies the authority to tailor special rules for lower-risk, threatened species on a case-by-case basis. It may surprise most Americans, however, that the highest level of protection is often applied, regardless of the classification, through application of a “blanket rule.” The use of this rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service automatically elevates protections for threatened species to the same level as those given to endangered species. But automatically treating the threatened species as endangered places unnecessary regulatory burden on our citizens without additional benefit to the species. The blanket rule reflexively prohibits known habitat management practices, such as selective forest thinning and water management, that might ultimately benefit a threatened species. We need creative, incentive-based conservation, but that becomes impossible with the current blurring of the lines between the two distinctions. This muddle discourages collaborative conservation from the parties we most need to partner with us — states, tribes and private landowners — ultimately harming species that can thrive with a more tailored approach. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency that also administers the act, understands this. NOAA has never employed a “blanket rule,” and we propose to follow this approach. The Endangered Species Act provides intensive care for the species with the greatest need in order to ensure they survive for future generations. Like with a hospital’s intensive care unit, the goal is not to keep patients there forever. The goal is recovery — to send the healthier patients home where they can continue to receive the lower level of care they still need.


5 can’t-miss meals during Washington’s summer restaurant week

recently rolled out a new lunch menu, and many of the plates appear on the restaurant week spread, giving you the perfect opportunity to try his creations. Highlights include bing bread with salted chili pimento cheese, a half branzino Ssäm and a vegetarian summer bap with pickled shiitake mushrooms, wakame, gochujang and a poached egg. Dinner is also offered, but for value-seekers, lunch is the way to go. Dinner at Unconventional Diner Unconventional Diner chef and owner David Deshaies gives comfort foods a creative twist, and many of his staples are up for grabs during restaurant week. First course picks include two millennial favorites: avocado toast and an everything lox bagel. Both come with an egg on top. Entrees include chicken Parmesan, a double cheeseburger and miso salmon. Dessert caters to both fans of decadent (chocolate or carrot cake) and lighter (passion mango sorbet) treats. This is the summer restaurant week debut for Deshaies’s solo project, and it’s a deal considering that appetizers are typically priced around $11 to $14, while entrees hover in the low $20 range. Lunch at America Eats Tavern An afternoon meal is an especially smart opportunity to visit José Andrés's newest D.C. spot, which relaunched in Georgetown earlier this summer after a nearly two-year hiatus and stints downtown and in Tysons Corner. The tavern’s lunch menu features recreations of historical American recipes that include hush puppies, Caesar salad, dry-rubbed and smoked pulled pork, a crispy catfish sandwich and Martha Washington’s chocolate cake, among other things. Brunch at BlackSalt BlackSalt isn't new, but restaurateur Jeff Black’s Palisades spot remains an anchor for all things seafood — take note of its popular Addie’s mussels and its house-cured Atlantic gravlax. Brunch is imbued with Southern flare through plates of eggs “Pontchartrain,” topped with blue crab, Tasso ham, and crawfish, and Texas shrimp and grits with sage sausage gravy. A slice of Key lime pie or chocolate Chambord truffle cake make for a sweet ending. It's a bargain: An entree any other day would almost be enough to crack the $22 price tag for the three-course meal. Read more: Stuck in a lunch rut? Head to a D.C. farmers market for barbecue, crab cakes or Mexican street food. Planning to save a seat for a friend in a crowded bar? Don’t. An Asian food hall, a stunning basement pub and other new restaurants and bars to check out now


Army suspends discharges of foreign-born recruits from citizenship program

Lucas Calixto, a 28-year-old reservist from Brazil, who entered the military through the program and sued the Pentagon because he faced an uncertain future in the United States owing to his separation. The decision is the latest controversy surrounding a pilot program that the Pentagon established in 2008 offering expedited American citizenship for foreign-born recruits with highly desired language and medical skills. More than 10,000 recruits have enlisted in the U.S. military through the program, in some cases obtaining citizenship by the end of their basic training. It wasn’t clear if the Army suspension would lead to fewer MAVNI recruits being discharged in the future. The Pentagon suspended the program in 2016 after judging that its procedures presented an unacceptable risk of insider threats including espionage and terrorism. The department ordered that those service members who enlisted through the program be subjected to enhanced security screening — a procedure that would be impossible for many of them to pass. An increasing number of service members in the program have been receiving discharge orders since then. They have argued in court filings that they haven’t received proper explanations about why they are being pushed out or opportunities to appeal the decisions. Cynthia O. Smith, a spokeswoman for the Army, said in a statement that the service had suspended discharges of individuals recruited through the program “in order to conduct a thorough review of the administrative separation process.” Smith added, “We continue to abide by all requirements to include completing a thorough background investigation on all MAVNI applicants.” Maj. Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokesperson, said the required security screening can be difficult and time-consuming for MAVNI recruits because they are foreign nationals and the military has a limited ability to verify information in the individual’s home country. Margaret Stock, a lawyer and retired lieutenant colonel in the military police, who helped create the program, said she believed the Army memo was a reaction to Calixto’s lawsuit and “an admission by the Army that they are violating the soldiers’ rights.” “It violates Army regulations to discharge them without telling them why they are being discharged,” Stock said. She said the program had been designed to recruit qualified immigrants and now the Pentagon was expelling them in some cases for having foreign relatives. “It’s clear to me that they just want to get rid of people — and it looks like a good clean


Maryland-based drug firm to acquire cholera and typhoid vaccines in $270 million deal

Emergent BioSolutions, a Maryland-based pharmaceutical company that provides infectious disease vaccines for the U.S. government, is about to add cholera and typhoid vaccines to its arsenal. The company announced Thursday that it is spending $270 million cash to acquire PaxVax, a specialty vaccine manufacturer that sells Vivotif and Vaxchora, FDA-approved vaccines that protect against typhoid and cholera, respectively. The merger is expected to close by the end of 2018. Before the acquisition PaxVax was majority-owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity fund that is heavily engaged in the defense contracting space through its ownership of companies like DynCorp, a Virginia-based security and logistics firm. The acquisition also gives Emergent the rights to a handful of not-yet-developed vaccines. They include one being developed for U.S. military personnel by the Defense Department that targets adenovirus, which can cause acute respiratory disease, and a vaccine candidate that targets a mosquito-transmitted virus called chikungunya. The deal also gives Emergent its first research and development facility in Europe, thanks to PaxVax’s substantial presence in Switzerland. Emergent said it will add about 250 employees to its ranks through the merger. Emergent Chief Operating Officer Robert Kramer described the PaxVax acquisition as a “dual-market” strategy that will give it revenue stability and growth potential. PaxVax’s cholera and typhoid vaccines already have government customers that provide a stable stream of revenue from year to year. The adenovirus and chikungunya vaccines offer a mix of risk and reward: They could provide a financial windfall for Emergent if they are approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration, or they could disappoint investors if they are found to be ineffective. “For us it’s consistent with the types of transactions we’ve done in the past,” Kramer said. “These are revenue-generating products in the public-health space that further our mission in protecting human life but also provide a portfolio of advanced pipeline products to fuel future growth of the business.” A publicly traded company, Emergent has set the aggressive target of reaching $1 billion in annual revenue by 2020 (it made about $220 million last quarter), a goal it has pursued through a patchwork of acquisitions. In 2015, it spun off several of its drug candidates into a separate publicly traded company, separating the firm’s biodefense work from its riskier commercial biosciences work. Last year it made a series of rapid-fire acquisitions, acquiring a smallpox vaccine from pharma giant Sanofi


Three Mar-a-Lago members tell Veterans Affairs what to do, and it is very bad

would not want to lose sight of the app, and I definitely meant to mention it in those last several emails. It is at the forefront of my mind at all times. * Dear Secretary, You may not know this, but Ike is in charge of Marvel, and you really should think about using some of Marvel’s technology, as seen in “The Avengers,” to benefit veterans. P.S. Attached please find the lyrics of “Born in the USA,” which I have had my son type up for you. Please get on this right away! * Dear Mar-a-Lago Crowd, I did not realize the Avengers were using real technology! Of course, as always, I am all ears! P.S. I got a very strange message on my personal phone where someone read out a complete URL to what appeared to be a Yahoo! News article from three years ago, and then said, “I see a lot of veterans are in the NFL now, very interesting, something to consider.” Do you know anything about this? * Dear Secretary, That was me. Please, get on it. Also, I heard through my secret eyes and ears that I have embedded in your department that we might be switching to a new software? I would not recommend that program. I used it many years ago and it did not have voice recognition.³ And it took a lot of floppy disks to install, more than I think you want. Better vet this more carefully. P.S. Attached please find a picture of a plane with an angry face drawn on it. Do something about this. P.P.S. Still haven’t heard back about those Veterans Affairs papers from the Defense Department. Let us know when you have anything; it is very awkward around the tennis courts lately. P.P.P.S. Is VA on LinkedIn? VA should be on LinkedIn. * Dear Mar-a-Lago Crowd, The program you mentioned has been updated since you used it in what sounds like the mid-1990s. But I am happy to vet it more carefully, if that would make you happy. I don’t know what to do about the plane, or LinkedIn, and I still have nothing about the papers which, as I said, are from the Defense Department. * Dear Secretary, I don’t feel that you are being responsive to our concerns. You are being replaced. ¹ This actually happened. ² This actually happened. ³ This actually happened.


The Cybersecurity 202: White House’s draft order imposing sanctions for election interference lacks teeth

show the administration is doing something when in fact it doesn’t oblige them to do much of anything... To be a credible deterrent, a foreign country like Russia would need to think that sanctions would automatically go into effect if X, Y and Z happened.” To be sure, the administration is engaged in an array of activities beyond sanctions designed to punish Russia for election interference and help safeguard the upcoming midterms. Yet Trump's own wavering on whether Russia is responsible is hindering the administration's work to counter Moscow's cyber-aggression “To deter an adversary, the adversary must feel like there are serious and painful consequences for it adversarial actions,” “The message from the White House itself is undermining those efforts, even if only in terms of public perception,” Indeed, there are even parts of the draft order that analysts viewed as attempts to assuage Trump PINGED: Ben Petok, director of communications for the office of Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, told NBC News that the agency is still taking steps to improve election security. “These efforts include providing security guidance to counties and cities as well as grants for equipment upgrade, implementing software patches on the state voter registration system and multifactor authentication and working with federal intelligence officials to conduct vulnerability assessments of their systems, which is why Simon is still ‘confident’ ahead of the midterm elections,” Butchireddygari reported. PATCHED: The Intercept’s Ryan Gallagher has new details about Google’s project, called Dragonfly, to launch a censored version of its search engine in China via an Android app. “Google analyzed search terms entered into a Beijing-based website to help develop blacklists for a censored search engine “After gathering sample queries from 265.com, Google engineers used them to review lists of websites that people would see in response to their searches. The Dragonfly developers used a tool they called ‘BeaconTower’ to check whether the websites were blocked by the Great Firewall. They compiled a list of thousands of websites that were banned, and then integrated this information into a censored version of Google’s search engine so that it would automatically manipulate Google results, purging links to websites prohibited in China from the first page shown to users.” Several senators have expressed dismay about the Internet giant’s plan. “Google claims to value freedom and one hopes Google will put its corporate principles and America first, ahead of Chinese cash,” Sen. Tom


White House drafting sanctions order to punish foreign interference in U.S. elections

election interference, which includes “Internet-based disinformation efforts” — for which biting sanctions can be imposed. But the most pain-inducing sanctions are discretionary. The only mandatory sanctions would be against individuals found to have taken part in an interference campaign against a U.S. election, a step that the Obama and Trump administrations have taken against Russian intelligence officers. The Trump administration also sanctioned people working for a Russian “troll” factory, churning out divisive social media posts. So far these steps have not prompted changes in Moscow’s behavior. The draft order “looks much more like a cover-your-behind exercise to show the administration is doing something when in fact it doesn’t oblige them to do much of anything,” said Michael Carpenter, a former Pentagon and White House official who worked on Russia policy for the Obama administration. “The sanctions on foreign individuals for election interference are not going to dissuade anyone. To be a credible deterrent, a foreign country like Russia would need to think that sanctions would automatically go into effect if X, Y and Z happened.” The draft order specifies that the president may impose sanctions on “10 of the 30 largest business entities” in a country whose government has interfered in an election. That measure could be quite powerful, experts said. But its discretionary nature, combined with the administration’s lack of a clear Russia policy, undermines its effectiveness, they said. “If you’re the Russians looking at the United States, you have to ask yourself, is this something the president is going to allow to be used, and how much?” said Daniel Fried, a former diplomat in Republican and Democratic administrations who is an expert on Russia and Eastern Europe. Last Thursday, Trump’s top national security aides, including Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, appeared in the White House briefing room and warned that Russia was, as Coats said, continuing its “pervasive efforts to undermine our fundamental values.” But Trump, speaking at a political rally that evening in Pennsylvania, did not mention those concerns. Instead, he criticized special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference, dismissing it as the “Russia hoax,” and accused the news media of portraying as negative his “great meeting” with Putin in Helsinki last month. Then on Saturday, at a rally in Ohio, the president equivocated. “We have to stop meddling and stop everybody from attacking us. But


Children were brought to New Mexico compound for weapons training, officials said

for clothing.” Prosecutors did not raise the allegation that a child was being trained for a school shooting in court on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Hakima Ramzi recorded a desperate plea on Facebook in January about her son’s disappearance. “He’s sick, he needs his medications,” she said through tears in January. “He needs everything. I don’t know if he’s alive, or he is, well, I don’t know his condition now. So please, please, I need your help to find my husband and my son.” Wahhaj’s father, Siraj Wahhaj, is the imam of a mosque in Brooklyn in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. “In light of the recent events, The Masjid At Taqwa community would like to ask that you just please continue to pray for our Imam and his family,” the mosque posted on its Facebook page on Tuesday. In January, a note on Wahhaj’s Facebook page spoke about Siraj, Hujrah, and Subhannah, his children, and Morton and Leveille, whom he identified as his son and daughter-in-law, and 12 grandchildren. “We believe they may be traveling together,” the note said, asking people to call the police if they had any information. Facebook posts and public messages dating to December revealed an unfolding family drama, and relatives’ growing concern that Abdul-Ghani and the other children who had disappeared could be in trouble. In January, a Facebook account of Naeemah Rashid, who said she is the imam’s daughter-in-law, posted a picture of other children around the missing poster for Abdul-Ghani. “I wanted to take the time now to make sure we also focus on praying for the other children as well, because of their parents making these choices it’s going to affect these children as well,” she wrote. “AND AGAIN THE FATHER (SIRAJ IBN) AND SON (ABDUL GHANI) WAS THE ONLY ONES REPORTED AS MISSING TO THE POLICE, BUT THEY ARE LIKELY TO BE TRAVELING TOGETHER WITH ALL IN THE PICTURE BELOW.” Subhannah maintained her Facebook page, but left no clues and blocked her relatives, shortly after posting a January rebuttal to the cry for help that had appeared on her father’s page. “Deception and lies!” she wrote. “Be careful what you believe. And be careful who you believe. The truth will come to light. Don’t worry everyone. I am safe and well.” The compound was found on property that was owned by a couple, Tanya and Jason Badger, according to documents released


Trump administration to impose new sanctions on Russia for nerve agent attack in England

The Trump administration said Wednesday it would impose extensive new sanctions against Russia, banning a wide range of exports and other measures, as punishment for its use of a nerve agent in an attempt in March to assassinate British citizen and ex-Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The sanctions again highlighted the gap between President Trump’s conciliatory language toward Russia and the tough position taken by many in Congress and within the administration itself. Trump, who has resisted congressional insistence on additional sanctions on Russia for election interference and other activities, appeared to have had little choice in the matter, however. Under a 1991 law, he was required to act once the administration determined Russian responsibility for a chemical or biological weapons attack. A release from the State Department said that such determination had now been made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over the attack this spring in Salisbury, England — following a British government conclusion that the administration had said months ago it accepted. Russia, which was informed of the measures Wednesday afternoon, has denied responsibility for the attack. A State Department official said the first new sanctions would take effect in two weeks, including a broad ban on technology exports to Russia. Most national-security-related technology is already restricted, but some is permitted on a case-by-case basis. When the new ban is in place, the official said, nearly all export requests — including electronics and engines — will be denied. The official briefed reporters under a State Department-imposed condition of anonymity. Unless Russia agrees within 90 days to stop all use of chemical weapons and permit inspections to confirm their elimination, the law requires selection from a broad range of additional measures, including withdrawal of U.S. support for international loans and U.S. bank loans, prohibition of landing rights for Russian airlines, and suspension of diplomatic relations. The export bans will apply to all state-owned or state-funded enterprises in Russia, a category the State Department official said could encompass 70 percent of the Russian economy and 40 percent of the workforce. Once fully implemented, the sanctions could cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in exports, the official said. Two-way trade between Russia and the United States totaled $38 billion in 2013, the last year for which figures are posted, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Since then, the amount is believed to have


broad ban on technology exports to Russia. Most national-security-related technology is already restricted, but some is permitted on a case-by-case basis. When the new ban is in place, the official said, nearly all export requests — including electronics and engines — will be denied. The official briefed reporters under a State Department-imposed condition of anonymity. Unless Russia agrees within 90 days to stop all use of chemical weapons and permit inspections to confirm their elimination, the law requires selection from a broad range of additional measures, including withdrawal of U.S. support for international loans and U.S. bank loans, prohibition of landing rights for Russian airlines, and suspension of diplomatic relations. The export bans will apply to all state-owned or state-funded enterprises in Russia, a category the State Department official said could encompass 70 percent of the Russian economy and 40 percent of the workforce. Once fully implemented, the sanctions could cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in exports, the official said. Two-way trade between Russia and the United States totaled $38 billion in 2013, the last year for which figures are posted, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Since then, the amount is believed to have decreased, with Russia continuing to hold a surplus. U.S. exports are primarily machinery and technical goods, while leading U.S. imports from Russia are petroleum products. Some U.S. technology exports will likely get waivers allowed by the law, the official said, including equipment needed for the International Space Station and parts for commercial airliners to ensure they can fly safely. The 1991 Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act “requires the President to make a determination with respect to whether a country has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals.” Once that determination is made, sanctions are mandated, unless the president determines it is in the national-security interest of the United States to waive them. The State Department official said there was no contradiction between Trump’s efforts to improve relations with Russia and the sanctions required by Congress. “This is a question not of Russia policy per se, but of implementing laws that Congress has put in place,” the official said. “This is not about different bits of the administration going in different directions. We are all one administration, and we’re all on the


Report warns Trump’s wall could cost more, take longer and underperform

Trump. On the Aug. 1 Rush Limbaugh program, he said: “I say, ‘Hey, if you have a shutdown, you have a shutdown.’ Now, the shutdown could also take place after the election. I happen to think it’s a great political thing, because people want border security.” Here he is at a July 30 news conference: “As far as the border is concerned — and personally, if we don’t get border security, after many, many years of talk within the United States, I would have no problem doing a shutdown.” On July 29, he tweeted, “I would be willing to ‘shut down’ government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall!” While shutting down the government is the opposite of public service and anathema to practically all federal employees, Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, fears no evil. The council represents Border Patrol agents. It and the National ICE Council, representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, are the only federal unions that endorsed Trump’s candidacy. Both are part of the American Federation of Government Employees, which strongly opposed him. Judd said he agrees “100 percent” that DHS has not done proper studies but added, “I believe they will be able to make the case, if they try.” Like Trump, but surprisingly for a federal employee not named Trump, Judd thinks a government closure would be worth it to get border-wall funding. “If a government shutdown would give us the border security that is necessary, I’m absolutely for it,” he said by phone. Law enforcement personnel continue working during a partial shutdown, so his members would not be affected to the same extent as other feds. Employees furloughed if funding lapsed over a border-wall dispute probably would be paid retroactively, leading Judd to compare furloughs to vacation days — workers being paid for days not worked. “Would I be in favor of shutting down government parks for a week in order to get border security,” he said. “Yes, I would.” Thompson strongly disagrees. “Shutting down the government would be irresponsible,” he said by email, urging “congressional Republicans not to give in to their President’s demands for his boondoggle border wall.” Read more: The immigration-officer shortage and a caution against hiring too quickly Federal employees and contractors trapped by Trump’s family separation policy Trump aggravates immigration judges’ problems with tweet opposing Constitution


These books are brought to you with the help of Uncle Sam.

won two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, Stiles notes that working as a historical biographer without a job at a university is freeing but financially stressful. “Currently, my royalties don’t even pay my family’s health insurance premiums for the year,” he says. The advance he’s received from his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, does not cover all his research and living expenses. “I had hoped that my career would be more self-sustaining by now, but life is full of unexpected twists and setbacks.” For other Public Scholar grant winners, support from the NEH represents not just money but time. Carole Emberton, a professor of history at the University at Buffalo, is writing a biography of the emancipated slave Priscilla Joyner. “While I love teaching,” she says, “the NEH grant will effectively buy me out of my teaching and service obligations for 12 months, allowing me to focus all my energies and time on the book.” And that book sounds fascinating. “Like so many formerly enslaved people,” Emberton says, “Priscilla Joyner experienced emancipation not as a single moment but as an extended, lifelong process that entailed very intimate struggles to find love and acceptance and to make peace with the memories of slavery.” Some of the projects being funded today by the NEH could even save your life. Carl Elliott, a professor in the Center for Bioethics and the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, is working on a book about medical research scandals and the people who exposed them. “In many scandals, doctors and nurses have stayed silent for years,” he says, “even when they have seen research subjects shamefully mistreated.” He hopes his forthcoming book will explain what our society can do to make it easier for conscientious people to speak up. Here is a full list of this year’s Public Scholar grant winners: Julie Byrne “American Catholicism and the Cantor Fitzgerald Employees Who Lost Their Lives on 9/11.” Writing an account of five men killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, focused on their shared cultural and religious background. Tom Dunkel “White Knights in the Black Orchestra.” Research leading to publication of a book on a Nazi resistance group that included German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945). Natalie Dykstra “Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Life in Art.” Research and writing leading to publication of a biography of Boston art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924). Hugh


Here’s how we know sanctions against Russia are working

Last week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would extend sanctions on Russia in retaliation for interference in U.S. elections, despite Trump’s reluctance. Would such sanctions matter? Some observers argue that sanctions on Russia don’t work. However, in a recent report for the Center for European Policy Analysis, I found that the existing sanctions have increasingly undermined the Kremlin’s ability to distribute wealth among its supporters in exchange for political support. Putin’s regime combines the institutions of electoral democracy with informal patron-client relationships and networks. The leadership wins the loyalty of support groups by distributing perks. Elites get affluent positions in business and government. Important political constituencies — such as security officers, bureaucrats and public-sector employees — get good pensions, budgets, salaries and one-off payments. Such neopatrimonial systems are quite vulnerable to economic stagnation. If the economy struggles, the government has fewer funds to distribute among its supporters. The existing sanctions on Russia are contributing to such a dynamic. Here’s how it works. 1. The sanctions are hurting the Russian economy at large First, the current sanctions are contributing to the shrinking of Russia’s overall economic pie, thus forcing the regime to make unpopular decisions. By the end of 2017, Russia’s gross domestic product was 1.8 percentage points lower because of the cumulative effect of sanctions on capital inflows than it would have been in a hypothetical scenario without sanctions, Ilya Prilepskiy of the Economic Expert Group explained in an email to me last month. Russia’s Higher School of Economics issued a report suggesting that the most recent round of sanctions, issued in April, would worsen the situation. All this means that the sanctions hinder the Kremlin’s ability to re-boost the economic growth. 2. A smaller economic pie means less government largesse to distribute to supporters As the economic pie shrinks, the government can’t keep redistributing perks of the same size to its most important constituencies — and in return, their support for the regime is weakening. Over the past months, Levada Center polls show that Russians have increasingly negative assessments of both their own personal financial situations and of the nation’s economic situation. Concerned about the long-term sustainability of Russia’s budget, the Kremlin recently announced increases in the value-added tax (VAT) and in the retirement age. The increase in the retirement age hurts the people in one of Putin’s key constituencies: people of pre-retirement age, one


Russia chastises U.S. after sanctions over chemical attack in Britain

Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that the sanctions could be a “declaration of economic war” and vowed to respond. “Speaking on further sanctions, I would not like to comment, but I can say one thing,” Medvedev said at a meeting of employees of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve. “If a kind of prohibition of bank activities or using this or that currency followed, this can be called, absolutely directly, this is a declaration of economic war. “And to this war, we will have to react by economic, political and, in case of necessity, other methods. And our American friends must understand that.” Trump administration officials made clear that U.S. law gave them no choice but to enact new sanctions — and that it was not their policy decision after President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting in Helsinki last month. Russia’s continued denial of responsibility increases the likelihood that more-sweeping U.S. sanctions will be imposed in 90 days. Under U.S. law, the next round of sanctions will start unless Russia admits it used chemical weapons on foreign soil, promises not to do it again and agrees to allow international inspectors access to sites in Russia to verify it. Since Russia’s reaction suggests it will not take such steps, the administration will have to choose from additional sanctions. Those could include denying Russian airlines landing rights in the United States and even severing diplomatic relations. Distrust between the two countries has spiked amid Russia’s renewed aggressiveness on the world stage, starting with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Moscow’s subsequent interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Trump administration has aggressively used sanctions as a tool to deploy when diplomacy won’t work. The biggest targets have been Russia, Iran and North Korea. On Thursday, Russia and China blocked a U.S. proposal at the United Nations to blacklist a Moscow-based North Korean banker and two other entities as punishment for breaking U.N. sanctions designed to get Pyongyang to negotiate abolishing its nuclear weapons. Russia contends that U.S. sanctions against Moscow are illegal. Maria Zakharova, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said Thursday that the ongoing waves of “odious” sanctions are an effort to demonize Russia. “Russia has repeatedly warned that talking to us from a position of strength, and in the language of ultimatums, is futile and pointless,” she said. “We will consider countermeasures to this most recent unfriendly move by Washington.” carol.morello@washpost.com


Is our planet headed toward a ‘Hothouse’? Here’s what the science does — and doesn’t — say

greenhouse gas, this means Earth retains more heat, causing more permafrost to thaw, and so on. Other possible self-reinforcing processes include the large-scale dieback of forests, the melting of sea ice, or the loss of ice sheets on land. Steffen and colleagues introduce the term “Hothouse Earth” to emphasize that these extreme conditions would be outside those that have occurred over a few hundred thousand years, which have been cycles of ice ages with milder periods in between. They also present an alternative scenario of a “Stabilized Earth” where these changes are not triggered, and the climate remains similar to now. The authors make the case that there is a level of global warming that is a critical threshold between these two scenarios. Beyond this point, the Earth system might conceivably become set on a pathway that makes the extreme “hothouse” conditions inevitable in the long term. They argue — or perhaps speculate — that the process of irreversible self-reinforcing changes could in theory start at levels of global warming as low as 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, which could be reached around the middle of this century (we are already at around 1 degree Celsius). They also acknowledge large uncertainty in this estimate and say that it represents a “risk-averse approach.” A key point is that, even if the self-perpetuating changes do begin within a few decades, the process would take a long time to fully kick in — centuries or millennia. Steffen and colleagues support their suggestion of a threshold at 2 degrees Celsius through reference to previously published scientific work. These include other review papers, which themselves drew on wider literature, and an “expert elicitation” study in which scientists were asked to estimate the levels of global warming at which “tipping points” for these key climate processes might be passed (I was one of those consulted). The authors argue that the 2 degrees Celsius can still be avoided if humanity takes concerted action to reduce its warming effect on the climate. In a similar way that the “Hothouse Earth” scenario involves huge changes in the climate system with multiple effects of one process leading to another, the concerted global action to avoid the 2 degrees Celsius would, they suggest, also involve huge changes in the human system, again with several fundamental steps leading from one change to another. Personally, I found this an interesting and important


D.C.’s cider scene is blossoming. Here’s where to go and what to try.

“fortifying and mellowing the taste over time.” (Look for pommeau, similar to an apple port, at some point.) The vibe House ciders Food Cider to go 3930 Georgia Ave. NW. Open Thursday and Friday from 4 p.m. to midnight, Saturday from 11 a.m. to midnight and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Supreme Core Will Sullivan and Kyle Crosby were Washington consultants who made their own cider at home. They met on an online forum for cider makers, figured out they were both in the District and started collaborating. After initially producing and canning their cider at Baltimore’s Charm City Meadworks, they’re now fermenting and aging cider at a facility in Northeast Washington. [Supreme Core expands the D.C. cider scene] The vibe House ciders Food Cider to go 2400 T St. NE. Open Saturday and Sunday from noon to 8 p.m. Anxo When Anxo opened its Basque-inspired restaurant and cider bar in Truxton Circle in July 2016, no one else in the city had the same focus on cider — and no one had created a “Made in D.C.” cider featuring fruit foraged from city trees. The following year, the Anxo team opened a second, airier production facility and tasting room in Brightwood Park, expanding their output to 30,000 gallons. [Anxo’s new cidery serves Old World ciders and Basque-style snacks] Now, they’re getting ready to expand again. Founder Sam Fitz says he’s about to sign a lease on a new D.C. cider-making facility that will allow Anxo to ramp up production to around 100,000 gallons each year, with 12 products going into cans before being sent as far afield as North Dakota and Nova Scotia. The new space will have a tavern license, Fitz says, but it will operate mostly as production and canning house. The Kennedy Street tasting room is also expanding this year to add an all-day coffee shop, bar and restaurant at the front of its current building. “Farm to dive” is the theme, Fitz says. It will host freshly roasted coffee from D.C.’s Lost Sock Roasters and serve breakfast and lunch on weekdays. They’ll also pour two dozen craft beers. The cider house will continue to produce most of the cider served on tap at the two Anxo locations, around 20,000 gallons a year. The vibe: The two locations are very different. The original Anxo is a semi-traditional bar and restaurant with a large, bustling