Dumplings, noodles and red envelopes: How 5 chefs from around the world celebrate the Lunar New Year

didn’t cut them, because if you cut them, that meant cutting your life short.” Hannah’s favorite Lunar New Year dish was nian gao, a sticky rice cake similar to mochi with red bean paste inside. Marian’s favorite was her mom’s pork wontons, which they’d cook in a hot pot and serve with cilantro and spicy sauces. The hot pot served as a conduit for special Lunar New Year ingredients like dumplings and noodles. The holiday served as a conduit to get the Cheng family and family friends together to celebrate. They’d practice Mandarin and eat. For those without a Lunar New Year tradition of their own, Marian recommends grabbing as many people as possible for your Chinese or Taiwanese dinner — not only to capture the convivial spirit, but so that you can order more food to share, family-style. As a kid, Vicky Cheng most looked forward to Lunar New Year for the promise of getting pocket money from red envelopes. “As you get older and older, you realize that it isn’t about the money, but it is actually about bringing the families together,” says Cheng, a Hong Kong native and chef of the Michelin-starred Vea Restaurant and Lounge. “In terms of food, it’s always about having big celebratory dishes. It’s also not just what you eat. It’s also about how it’s cooked and how it’s presented." Cheng’s family would go to restaurants to eat dishes like whole chicken or a whole fish, the latter served with the head and tail on the plate to go with a Chinese idiom that means “to finish what you started” and to symbolize surplus. To pair with the phrase “gung hei fat choy,” a well-wish for prosperity, there was the dish ho see fat choy, with dried oysters and black moss kelp. While the foods are eaten for their name and flavor, they’re also special because they’re rarely eaten outside of the celebration. Fat choy “is not a dish that we eat all the time, it’s a dish that we eat during this time of the year, because it’s the first day of the year,” Cheng says. “We believe for the first day of the year you must eat well, because [then] the rest of the year you’ll eat well.” For Brandon Jew, chef and owner of the Michelin-starred Mister Jiu’s, Moongate Lounge and Mamahuhu, in San Francisco, Lunar New Year growing up


A coronavirus spreading in China is new. But efforts to stop it began nearly 20 years ago.

Disease Control and Prevention. Two years on, in 2005, the International Health Regulations — which outline the organization’s authority and the rules it is bound by — were radically overhauled to reflect the WHO’s expanded role. Whereas the rules previously required the reporting only of cases of yellow fever, the plague and cholera, they were revised to cover “any event that may constitute a public health emergency of international concern,” or PHEIC. Some experts have raised doubts over the extent to which some of those revisions were implemented. Kelley Lee, author of a book about the WHO, said in an email that many countries still lag behind on their 2005 commitments to expand their capacity to respond to health emergencies. The WHO has not yet declared this latest outbreak a PHEIC, but Morrison said he expects it will, because it has spread so quickly to other countries, with one case diagnosed in the United States. Countries do not always welcome such moves, because they “do not want to be seen as losing control,” Morrison said. In Congo, it took around a year for the WHO to give a deadly, ongoing Ebola outbreak that designation, even after it infected more than 2,500 people and killed nearly 1,700. The delay drew criticism from many public health experts. Even after the declaration, Robert Steffen, chairman of the WHO emergency committee, said the Congo outbreak “is still a regional emergency and by no way a global threat.” The emergency declaration came amid concerns Ebola had the potential to spread rapidly into neighboring countries, especially after a patient died in Goma, a city of 2 million on the border with Rwanda. Still, efforts to control the outbreak, largely confined to Congo’s North Kivu province, have proved difficult. The region has experienced decades of conflict, sowing deep distrust in the government. Armed groups have attacked clinics and killed several medical workers, increasing fears among people who might have already been reluctant to seek treatment. But officials there also knew that the threat of a major international outbreak was less likely, Morrison said, because they were dealing with communities that are less likely to travel internationally by plane or have foreign visitors. In Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, the numbers of people traveling in and out was “staggering,” he said. And officials did not suspend travel until Wednesday, weeks after the outbreak was first documented.


We’re past ‘if’ on the coronavirus. We’re on to ‘how bad will it be?’

to diagnose the disease has already been developed. The World Health Organization — properly criticized for a flaccid response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak — is moving quickly: organizing a response and meeting urgently to determine if a Public Health Emergency of International Concern should be declared. But if these are reasons to avoid the kind of fear that spread in our country during the “Ebola Autumn” of 2014, there are reasons for great concern as well. Some gaps in our disease response system were patched at that time, but serious holes remain and new ones have emerged. Policymakers need to move immediately to address four particular issues in light of the new infectious virus. First, there needs to be leadership in the White House. President Barack Obama followed his designation of an “Ebola response coordinator” in October 2014 with a permanent office on pandemic preparedness and response in 2015. While Trump maintained this structure into 2018, John Bolton abolished it when he took over as national security adviser. With threats such as the new coronavirus requiring an “all of government” response — domestic and foreign; health and security agencies; federal, state and local authorities — someone needs to be in charge at the highest level of our government. Additionally, critical organizing structures throughout the executive branch that have been weakened in recent years — including the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise — need to be reinvigorated and empowered. Second, Congress must change the way it funds epidemic responses. Congress did move on a bipartisan basis during the 2014 Ebola outbreak to fund the Obama administration’s response plan, but even that relatively prompt action created delays in vaccine development and on-the-ground response. When it comes to making a new vaccine to stop an epidemic, developing treatments or deploying other countermeasures, funding delays mean countless people are infected or die as a result. Last year, Congress did beef up a fund that could be tapped by the president to respond to public-health emergencies without waiting for a specific funding bill. But these funds are limited, and Congress rejected proposals for a dedicated emerging infectious disease fund that could be used to further public-private partnerships to develop diagnostics, vaccines and treatments. These shortcomings should be addressed. Third, Congress needs to fund the full network of hospitals and treatment facilities nationwide it established after the 2014 Ebola epidemic, which enables prompt testing


U.N. report: Saudi crown prince was involved in alleged hacking of Bezos phone

tweets targeting Bezos, Amazon and The Post. The alleged hack of Bezos’s phone took place five months before Khashoggi’s death in 2018, which the CIA linked to the Saudi government in a briefing with senators in December of that year. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Qahtani for his role as “part of the planning and execution” of Khashoggi’s death, but a Saudi public prosecutor last month found a “lack of evidence” against him. The Saudi government said five other Saudis were sentenced to death in connection with the Khashoggi killing but did not identify them. Ferrante’s report said Qahtani bought a 20 percent ownership in a company called Hacking Team that had been working to develop a way to infect phones by sending videos through the WhatsApp messaging platform. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, called the U.N. report “absurd.” At a meeting of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland, the minister said, “The idea that the crown prince would hack Jeff Bezos’s phone is absolutely silly.” A person close to Mohammed called it inconceivable that the crown prince would try to hack Bezos’s phone but said one of his aides might have. Like others, the person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the issue. Khashoggi’s columns in The Post “hit Riyadh like a bombshell,” the person said. “There is also this thrill when you buy some software, and you don’t know your limits.” A spokesman for Bezos declined to comment. Bezos on Wednesday tweeted a photo of himself at a memorial ceremony in October, honoring Khashoggi a year after his death. Bezos accompanied the picture with just one word, the hashtag #Jamal. Ferrante’s report says that “within hours of receipt of the MP4 video file from the Crown Prince’s account, massive and (for Bezos’ phone) unprecedented exfiltration of data from the phone began.” The flow of data out of Bezos’s phone jumped suddenly by 29,156 percent, and the “spiking then continued undetected over some months.” Material extracted from Bezos’s phone included personal photos, text messages, instant messages, emails and possibly “eavesdropped recordings done via the phone’s microphone,” Ferrante found. Twice in the months after the initial breach, Bezos received texts from the crown prince’s account that seemed to demonstrate that the sender had access to Bezos’s private information. On Nov. 8, 2018 — two months before the National


Trump hasn’t ended the ‘endless wars.’ Neither will Democrats.

It’s easy to say you’re against “endless wars.” Who, after all, is in favor of them? That’s why both President Trump and his Democratic opponents endlessly promise to end the endless wars. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was on to something during the Democratic debate in Des Moines last week when she said: “Everyone on this stage talks about nobody wants endless war. But the question is, when and how do you plan to get out of it?” Bingo. Turns out it’s much easier to talk about ending endless wars than actually doing so. Remember that in 2015 President Barack Obama also proclaimed “I do not support the idea of endless war,” and he actually tried to end the U.S. involvement in Iraq. But the U.S. troop pullout in 2011 created a security vacuum that allowed the Islamic State to rise from the ashes of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a terrorist group that had been all but defeated. With the Islamic State carving out a terrorist empire and beheading American hostages on television, Obama decided in 2014 to send U.S. troops back to Iraq — and there they have remained. Obama’s attempt to end the war in Afghanistan was similarly ill-starred. He initially increased U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan to 100,000 with the intention of drawing down to close to zero by 2017. But, mindful of the lesson of Iraq and worried about the precarious security situation, Obama still had 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the time he left office. Trump has been even more vociferous than Obama about bringing troops “home from the ridiculous & costly Endless Wars” — and yet the total number of U.S. forces in the Middle East has gone up over the past year, to roughly 65,000 personnel. Trump twice announced a withdrawal from Syria and twice rescinded it. Having failed so far to reach a peace deal with the Taliban, Trump now has more troops in Afghanistan (14,000) than were there when he took office. If two presidents as different as Obama and Trump, who were both intent on exiting endless wars, have so far been unable to do so, it tells you something about the difficulty of accomplishing that chimerical goal. Why is it so hard? Because there are always significant risks to removing U.S. troops from a region where the United States still maintains a significant stake. I agree with the veteran


The winning conservative climate solution

albeit a shrinking number. They fear that putting a price on carbon could hurt ordinary Americans, grow the size of government and harm the competitiveness of American manufacturers. These concerns are legitimate but are based on a false premise: that all carbon taxes are poorly designed. The carbon pricing approach we propose would turn each of these concerns on its head, transforming potential liabilities into major advantages. Let’s start with the worry that a price on carbon would hurt working-class families and reduce living standards. We propose returning all the net revenue raised directly to the American people through equal quarterly checks. Under this model, the vast majority of American families would win financially. That makes carbon pricing quite popular: A poll by Luntz Global found that Americans in general support this carbon dividends concept by a 4-to-1 margin, and Republican voters under 40 by a 6-to-1 margin. Thus, our carbon fee would be self-financing and revenue-neutral, making it the fiscally conservative choice while eliminating any risk of a fiscal drag. Instead of growing the size of government, our approach would “finance” the transition to a low-carbon future by harnessing the power of the market and leveraging the vast resources of the private sector for innovation and investment. In fact, carbon pricing could actually shrink the size of government by rendering less efficient regulations unnecessary. This would provide businesses the regulatory certainty they need to make long-term investments in clean energy, further turbocharging the innovation engine. In the absence of national climate policy, we are already witnessing a proliferation of state and local energy mandates and regulations, sure to be compounded at the federal level under a future Democratic White House. The Green New Deal offers a preview of the heavy-handed and growth-inhibiting alternative that may lie ahead. The best antidote is a meaningful carbon fee, which justifies replacing and preempting less cost-effective carbon regulations of this type. Finally, border carbon adjustments that extend the reach of domestic carbon pricing to imports and exports would protect the competitiveness of U.S.-based companies. Because businesses in the United States are more carbon-efficient than companies in high-emitting countries such as China and India, U.S. manufacturers would actually gain a competitive advantage. No other climate solution offers this benefit. Without an ambitious national climate plan, Republicans risk hemorrhaging younger voters who care disproportionately about climate change. The party has everything to gain from embracing


The end of Florida orange juice? A lethal disease is devastating the state’s citrus industry.

can better tolerate disease and genetically engineer new types of oranges to replace traditional varieties that are more vulnerable. “We’re in a race right now to save the Florida citrus industry,” said Michael Rogers, the director of the University of Florida’s Citrus Research and Education Center. HLB, short for huan long bing, is spread by yet another invasive species — a tiny insect called a citrus psyllid, which sucks the bacteria into its gut as it feeds on citrus leaves. The insect then infects the next healthy leaf on which it feeds. Citrus psyllids reproduce so rapidly that they develop a resistance to insecticides within a year. Spraying to control them while trying to revive trees has driven up farming costs. Growers are spending $663 more per acre than they did the year before the discovery of the bacterium, a 54 percent increase. A study by researchers at the University of Florida and Virginia Tech shows that climate change will allow the psyllid to spread to states north of Florida as their temperatures rise. According to the report, the pest thrives in temperatures between 60 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. That is bad news for growers in Florida, whose temperatures hover in that range year-round. It means the bug is here to stay. “Much of the Florida citrus groves are already pretty inundated,” said Leah R. Johnson, an assistant professor of statistics at Virginia Tech and co-author of the study. “It’s going to be hard because we didn’t catch it early enough.” A ray of hope Despite the grim news, the state citrus department struck an upbeat tone recently, saying an increase in the amount of fruit boxed in the past two years was a sign that the industry was rebounding. Sales jumped from a low of 40 million boxes two seasons ago to 70 million last season. Citrus growers “are resilient and optimistic about the future,” Shelley Rossetter, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Citrus, said in July. “Florida will continue to be a major producer of citrus for years to come.” Two of the nation’s largest orange juice distributors — PepsiCo, the owner of Tropicana, and Coca-Cola, the owner of Minute Maid — were similarly optimistic, even though citrus production has dropped by half and revenue loss is approaching $5 billion. If Florida’s citrus industry were to fail, the companies could buy citrus products from other parts of


Scientists triple their estimates of the number of people threatened by rising seas

for the sea level of 50 years ago or more, and will be increasingly ill-designed to protect people against floods, leading to rapidly increasing coastal flood losses in the absence of large upgrades,” Hallegatte said. “Upgrading those systems will be expensive but is unavoidable if one wants to avoid unacceptable economic losses in large cities.” Several other researchers said the new estimates are a step forward, although some criticized the work. “This study is an important step toward a more accurate estimation of population at risk from global sea level rise,” said Pinki Mondal, a University of Delaware researcher who uses satellite and other remote-sensing tools to study climate change risks and effects. “With advancements in technology, computing resources and machine learning, it is becoming increasingly possible to have highly accurate estimates of say, elevation, as shown in this study.” Athanasios Vafeidis, a sea level expert at the University of Kiel in Germany, agreed that the research presents “new, improved information on coastal elevation.” “However,” he said, “important factors such as socioeconomic development and adaptation are not considered in these estimates. Physical processes are represented in a rather simplistic manner.” Vafeidis noted that it’s not clear how well the algorithm, which is trained on the U.S. coastline, performs in other countries. He also said that the way populations grow and adapt to rising seas is more complex than the study was able to account for and that the effects of floods, too, depend on much more nuanced factors than the sheer elevation of the land. Climate Central’s Strauss acknowledges that the study does not give any “explicit consideration” to current adaptation measures, such as sea walls, in assessing present-day exposure; it is merely measuring the elevation of the land itself and the number of people living on it. That, he argues, may be good news — an indication that humans are already capable of adapting to threats from the sea. “We infer that there must be coastal defenses protecting those 100 million-plus people below today’s high tide line,” Strauss said. “Because only a handful of them can be living in houseboats or homes on stilts.” Still, whatever their current defenses, people already living below high-tide lines are likely to be increasingly tested in coming years. “This new study suggests that a lot of the assessments published on climate change risks are underestimated and would need to be revised,” Hallegatte said.


20 Years of Dining in Washington

D’Angelo). Chef Johnny Monis at his no-reservations Little Serow (Scott Suchman). As for my profession, the saying is true, notably in the years after Yelp made its debut in 2004: Everybody is a critic. Not only are amateur reviewers sharing with the world their thoughts about their dining experiences, they’re commenting on professional critics. Frankly, I’m fine with any competition. The more people talking about food, the merrier. Plus, competition tends to keep people on their toes. At the dawn of my tenure, I got dozens of calls a day and baskets of letters a month. Now, readers are comfortable instant messaging me at all hours of the day on social media — alas. (I heart you, gang, but I host a weekly online chat to address any burning restaurant questions.) Thirteen years ago, I declared Washington a top-tier restaurant city, evinced in part by my travels around the country: “The more I sample the handiwork of chefs outside the region, the more I admire what’s on the menu right here at home.” It wasn’t until 2016, however, that national media seconded my vote of confidence. That’s the year Bon Appétit anointed Washington the restaurant city of the year and the Michelin Guide began evaluating our dining establishments (not well or widely, perhaps, but the District lapped up the attention). “Born here, I’d always considered D.C. a one-horse town,” recalls veteran restaurateur Jackie Greenbaum, a champion of underdog neighborhoods. Three years ago, she visited a bunch of new spots in Los Angeles and says she couldn’t wait to come home. “I couldn’t figure out why for a bit, then I realized it was because D.C. was just as cool as L.A., if not cooler, and lacked the pretense.” She has a point. Just look at all the good things in small packages, and all over the city. As far as fine dining is concerned, no market in the country does it better than Washington, which has replaced the form’s traditional stuffiness with whimsy while remaining delicious. The Inn at Little Washington got the ball rolling here, with word plays on its menu and a cheese cart that moos, but successive high-end players keep the bar high. Witness the tiny (and oft-stolen) hammers used to shatter toffee at Kinship, the cocktails whipped up tableside at Pineapple and Pearls, the everything at Minibar. The more I think about it, O’Connell and my


The selling of CTE: How the 'Concussion' doctor has built a career on distorted science

potentially afflicted with CTE. Several studies have found former NFL players die with brain disease at significantly higher rates than comparison populations, but nothing approaching 100 percent, with figures ranging from 5 percent to 8 percent. There have been no published studies examining rates of brain disease among former college football players, but one sizable research project, overseen by the NCAA and the Department of Defense, is underway. Three studies of former high school football players who played in Minnesota and Wisconsin between 1946 and 1970 found they had no higher rates of brain disease than their classmates. Studies examining the rates of brain disease among athletes who played other sports have produced mixed results. A study published late last year of thousands of former professional soccer players in Scotland found higher rates of players dying with brain disease — 11.4 percent among soccer players, compared with 3.2 percent among the general population. But smaller studies examining groups of former NHL players and professional rugby players found no signs of higher rates of brain disease. At BU, McKee and her colleagues focus criticism on football, which they believe has a relationship with CTE similar to smoking and cancer. They support banning tackle football before age 12 and rule changes in other sports to reduce head hits. They have not echoed Omalu’s call for the abolition of youth wrestling, hockey and mixed martial arts. “I don’t know where he’s coming up with those recommendations,” McKee said. “I don’t think he is basing them on any data.” Omalu repeatedly has cited data that he claims show children who play these sports are at increased risk to see their lives unravel from mental illness, substance abuse or other struggles. “Studies have shown that if a child plays a high-impact, high-contact sport,” Omalu wrote in “Truth Doesn’t Have A Side,” “that child stands a higher risk of dropping out of high school, not attending college, not doing well in life . . . developing psychiatric and psychological problems . . . and even dying at a younger age.” No studies have found that merely playing a contact sport increases the risk of the tragic life outcomes Omalu has described. In some settings, when citing these figures, he has mentioned “a paper that came out of Sweden.” This appears to be a reference to research led by Seena Fazel, professor of forensic psychiatry at the


Travel ban goes into effect in Chinese city of Wuhan as authorities try to stop coronavirus spread

cancel public celebrations planned to mark the new year this weekend. The emergence of a new illness out of China has carried echoes of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, which sparked mass panic as it spread across more than two dozen countries over eight months after starting in China in November 2002. SARS caused an estimated $30 billion in economic losses, experts have said. But with SARS, it took months to identify the cause — civet cats, a delicacy in southern China. In contrast, the virus in Wuhan was identified quickly and its genome sequenced and shared within days. Chinese health officials have confirmed that the pneumonia-like virus came from animals sold at a live-animal market in Wuhan. Members of the Geneva-based WHO said in a briefing Wednesday that they were split on whether to issue an emergency declaration after listening to presentations from Chinese officials and others. The committee made recommendations to contain the virus both in China and other countries, and plans to meet again on Thursday, Tedros said. “The decision of whether to declare a public health emergency is one I take extremely seriously and one I am only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of all the evidence,” he said. “We will have much more tomorrow.” The two factors determining such a designation are severity of illness and the extent and nature of the disease transmission, said Didier Houssin, a Russian infectious-disease expert who chairs the WHO’s emergency committee on the coronavirus. “The committee felt it was a little too imprecise to suggest to [Tedros] to declare” an international public health emergency, Houssin said. Officials said it’s not unusual in outbreaks of respiratory illness for patients to become infected through close contact with family members and in health-care settings, as has happened in Wuhan. What matters is the route of transmission and whether authorities can track those contacts down, they said. “There are still many unknowns,” said Michael Ryan, the WHO’s executive director of health emergencies. He said that the patients who died in China tended to be older people, and that 40 percent had significant underlying medical conditions, a feature of previous coronavirus outbreaks. He noted that all viruses change but that this one is showing stability. “We’re not seeing huge changes in the viral genomic sequence,” he said. President Trump said from Davos, Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum,


that Americans have nothing to worry about because there was only a single case in the United States so far. “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control,” he said. But at least so far, the virus has defied control in China. “At present, during the Spring Festival travel rush, the number of people on the move has surged, which has increased the risk of an epidemic and the difficulty of preventing and controlling transmission,” National Health Commission Vice Director Li Bin said Wednesday, using the Chinese name for the holiday. Highlighting the difficulties of the response effort, Wang Guangfa, a member of the National Health Commission’s expert group that traveled to Wuhan to investigate the outbreak, was among the infected. He wrote in a social media post that he thought he contracted the virus through his eyes because he had been wearing a mask. But, he said, he was responding well to treatment. The outbreak could hardly come at a worse time. Before the travel suspension in Wuhan, officials estimated that 3 billion trips would be made in China during the 40-day period around the turn of the Lunar New Year. It is a time notorious even in China for crowded trains and buses, conditions that are ripe for the airborne virus to spread. Authorities had already mandated use of medical masks in public places. Across China, people raced to buy specific masks that can protect against the microbes. Many physical and online stores had sold out on Wednesday, leading Taobao, the huge online marketplace, to ban its online vendors from raising mask prices to exploit the crisis. One mask manufacturer in Zhejiang province said it received orders for 80 million masks in the space of a week and has had to call 100 workers back from their holidays and promise to pay them triple their usual salary. Still, the company has said it will not be able to meet demand. “We should not take this situation lightly and should be on high alert,” Li said Wednesday in a news conference called by central government authorities to allay concerns after confirmation that the virus could be spread between humans. Wuhan, which straddles the banks of the Yangtze River, is a major transport hub for trains, planes and ships. Some 27 million passengers traveled through Wuhan Tianhe International Airport last year. The airport is among


Frieda Caplan, ‘Kiwi Queen’ who brought a touch of the exotic to the American fruit basket, dies at 96

Arriving each morning at 1 a.m., dressed in a skirt and heels and ready for work in the rough-and-tumble of the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market, Frieda Caplan stood out — an exotic exception, much like the wares she began selling there in 1962. Among the many merchants peddling tomatoes, onions and other mainstays of the traditional American dinner table, Mrs. Caplan was for many years the lone woman. The staples of her stand were not staples at all. Rather, she dealt in rarities — the kiwi when the furry brown fruit was known as a Chinese gooseberry, alfalfa sprouts before they were a favorite of health-food nuts, and avocados before the brunch crowd began eating them on toast. With her ever-evolving array of offerings, which she sold to specialty shops as well as to chains including Safeway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Costco, Mrs. Caplan was credited with whetting the American appetite for dozens of once-rare fruits and vegetables that today are commonplace in groceries, kitchens and restaurants. Mrs. Caplan — known to admirers as the “Kiwi Queen” for her role in popularizing the fruit in the United States — died Jan. 18 at her home in Los Alamitos, Calif. She was 96. Her daughter Karen Caplan, the president and chief executive of Frieda’s Specialty Produce, which is based in Los Alamitos, confirmed her mother’s death but did not cite a specific cause. Mrs. Caplan had no experience in produce sales when she entered the trade in the 1950s as a bookkeeper for the wholesale operation run by her husband’s aunt and uncle. She had recently given birth to Karen, her first daughter, and was seeking work that would provide the flexibility necessary to nurse the baby. The early-morning hours of the wholesale fruit-and-vegetable trade suited her perfectly. As Mrs. Caplan told the story, she was managing the stand while the owners were on vacation when a client placed a request for a quantity of mushrooms in the neighborhood of 500 pounds. Frantically searching for a supplier able to satisfy such a large order, Mrs. Caplan personally drove to a mushroom farm to procure them. Her spunk and grit so impressed the wholesale market landlords that they invited her to open her own stand. She did, in 1962, and it grew into the modern-day company with annual sales of $60 million, according to Karen Caplan. When she was starting


Science ranks grow thin in Trump administration

been delayed or scuttled as the Agriculture Department scrambled to keep up with departures. The agency has been forced to hire back 21 retired employees on temporary contracts, to stanch its losses. But experts on bee pollination, organic farming, commodity markets and trade are gone, setting back research that has been in process for months or even years. “They never tried to refute our work; they tried to bury it by getting rid of the people who produced the work,” Crane-Droesch said. To restore the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service to their size under the Obama administration, the USDA would have to hire more than 400 people. One USDA official said the department has “well over 150 active recruitments in process between both agencies.” Current and former employees interviewed said they felt the move to Kansas City was intended to diminish research areas such as trade policy, farm income and climate change; Perdue is a climate skeptic who recently described the problem as “weather patterns, frankly.” A USDA spokesman defended the move, saying that Perdue believes the agencies can better serve “customers” — farmers, ranchers, academic institutions and agribusiness — by relocating to Kansas City, “a hub for all things agriculture in America’s heartland.” The department estimates it will save $300 million over 15 years from employment and rent in Kansas City. Some federal researchers said they left the Trump administration after concluding their work was being undermined. Dan Costa, who worked at the EPA for 34 years before stepping down as director of its air, climate and energy research program in January 2018, said the tipping point for his retirement came when an EPA spokesman undercut a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that the agency had funded. The study found that long-term exposure to levels of soot and smog lower than current national standards can cause premature death among older Americans. Such a finding suggests that current standards don’t adequately protect public health, which would have implications for industries that pollute. An unidentified EPA spokesman attacked the study in an interview with the Washington Times, an act Costa called “scientifically unethical.” Peter Van Doren, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Insitute, said in an interview that scientists need to remember that they don’t set policy. “When nerds and politicians disagree, nerds lose,” he said. “Scientists think, ‘We are


Chinese cities cancel New Year celebrations, travel ban widens in effort to stop coronavirus outbreak

saying it’s too early. HOW CHINA IS PUTTING A CITY UNDER QUARANTINE The extreme measures were accompanied by other indications that Communist Party authorities were struggling to control the outbreak, notably the aggressive censorship of any criticism or skepticism on social media. But some outspoken doctors warned that the controls would not be enough to stop the spread of the pneumonia-like virus, which has killed 26 people, according to China’s National Health Commission. At least 835 people have been infected. The people who died were between ages 48 and 89, but the vast majority were at the top of that range and almost all of them had existing health conditions. Only two of the deaths occurred outside of the epicenter of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital. “A bigger outbreak is certain,” said Guan Yi, a virologist who helped identify severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. He estimated — “conservatively,” he said — that this outbreak could be 10 times bigger than the SARS epidemic because that virus was transmitted by only a few “super spreaders” in a more defined part of the country. “We have passed through the ‘golden period’ for prevention and control,” he told Caixin magazine from self-imposed quarantine after visiting Wuhan. “What’s more, we’ve got the holiday traffic rush and a dereliction of duty from certain officials.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that health officials in Texas notified it about a potential case of coronavirus. The CDC said in a statement that it is in communication with state health officials and will share more information as it becomes available. Health officials in Brazos County, Tex. — which is where Texas A&M University is located, about 100 miles northwest of Houston — said they are investigating a patient who meets the definition of a potential case of the new virus. The patient contracted a respiratory illness within two weeks of traveling in Wuhan and is being isolated at home in accordance with recommendations from the CDC. In Geneva, the World Health Organization cited Chinese efforts to prevent transmission and the limited number of cases recorded abroad as its reasons for not declaring Thursday that the outbreak was a public health emergency of international concern. But WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference that the decision “should not be taken as a sign that WHO does not


A scenic spin through the hills of southwestern China

2019 is the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, so the parade is something special. Soldiers march in strict uniformity, with a precision that is evident even on this tiny screen. Then from apparently nowhere, a local man emerges with a large sack on his back, filled with rubber sap. Today is officially a holiday, but as the old Chinese saying goes, “The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away” — what is decreed in the capital is easily ignored down here. Weights slide along the metal scale, and a figure is jotted down, then the entire sack is poured into a vat to join the rest, looking as cool and inviting as fresh milk, except for the pungent, rubbery smell. The landscape changes yet again. Water buffalo soak in muddy pools beside fields of rice. At one large farm, rows of flowery, cactuslike dragonfruit plants droop over their wire props, heavy with juice that stains our fingers and lips a bright purply pink. It’s both China’s and a local resident’s birthday, so that night in the riverside village of Manbo while we are lulled to sleep by the sound of rushing water, further up the road, the party continues at the karaoke bar until the wee hours. Then suddenly, the emperor feels close again. In China, all foreigners are monitored, but in the village of Bulangshan, the authorities take a special interest. We’re within a stone’s throw of the Myanmar border, and the police are vigilant about illegal crossings, scrutinizing our passports until they are satisfied that we are simply passing through. The rain that we’ve been expecting finally arrives on the sixth day of our tour, as we pile our bowls full of rice noodles at the local outdoor restaurant in Manzhao. We top up with dollops of hoisin sauce, chili, scallion, brown vinegar and a fried egg over easy (our standard breakfast so far), then crowd under a shelter and watch the rain soak into the ground. The rain is still falling at the small family-run paper mill around the corner. This family still uses the traditional method to create sheets — dipping a large mesh rack into a pool of water cloudy with paper fibers. Lifted out, a smooth, thin layer of paper settles on the wire, ready to dry. We see the end result later the same day,


What’s the best jarred salsa for your next party? We tasted and ranked 14 top brands.

Open a jar of salsa and you’ve just completed most of the work needed to get a crowd-pleasing party snack on the table. (You also have to tear into a bag of chips, sigh, but that’s usually an even easier task.) Such convenience might explain the popularity of salsa, which famously dethroned ketchup as America’s reigning condiment back in the 1990s. Since then, our jars have runneth over with dipping options: You can find versions of the tomato-based sauce laced with everything from peaches to pickles to Thai spices, and a range of spice levels all the way up to face-melting for the truly masochistic among your party squad. So which of the options you’ll find on your grocery aisle deserves a spot amid your game-day spread? We assembled 14 nationally available brands, including the top sellers in the United States, and some of the most common store brands, along with a few bags of tortilla chips. To get as close to apples-to-apples as possible, we kept it simple and stuck to the “medium” spice level where it was available and the chunky style that is standard among the best-selling brands. Testers were asked to grade each salsa on a scale of 1 to 10, factoring in consistency and overall flavor. With 10 testers, the maximum possible score was 100. The verdict? There are some decent options out there. But overall, we were left with a not-so-burning question: WHERE’S THE HEAT? This assemblage was about as timid as a meeting of Introverts Anonymous, which made us wonder that if these were “medium,” what were the “mild” varieties like? In other words, if you like your salsa with even a bit of kick, you might want to pick up a bottle of hot sauce, also, to wake up whatever jar you take home. But spice is only part of the equation — here’s how they stacked up, from worst to best: 14. Herdez This was the salsa we least wanted to show up at the party. Most of our tasters found it to be watery and bland, and the few that detected something in there didn’t like their discovery. If this was a musical genre, it would be heavy metal: “Tinny,” said one. “Canned tomato,” said another. “Tastes like what you’d make if you had to make food out of salvaged car parts.” 13. Trader Joe’s Salsa Autentica This was a


House managers focus on alleged abuse of power on second day of opening arguments against Trump

every aspect of U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine . . . as directed by President Donald John Trump.” He sought to show that the effort was not a “rogue operation, but one blessed by senior administration officials at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.” He closed by quoting Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who testified that “everyone was in the loop.” By: Colby Itkowitz 6:00 PM: Marsha Blackburn criticized for calling Purple Heart recipient unpatriotic Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) went after Schiff on Twitter for “hailing Alexander Vindman as an American patriot” during his testimony. “How patriotic is it to badmouth and ridicule our great nation in front of Russia, America’s greatest enemy?” Blackburn tweeted — a baseless accusation spread as part of a smear campaign against Vindman. In a second tweet, she continued her degradation of Vindman, calling him vindictive over her allegation that he leaked the contents of the July 25 call to the intelligence agency whistleblower. Vindman’s attorney, David Pressman, released a statement condemning Blackburn’s tweets. “That a member of the Senate — at a moment when the Senate is undertaking its most solemn responsibility — would choose to take to Twitter to spread slander about a member of the military is a testament to cowardice,” Pressman said. This isn’t the first time Blackburn has questioned Vindman’s loyalty to the United States. After he testified in the House impeachment probe in November, she derisively called him the whisleblower’s “handler.” Vindman, who is Soviet-born and serves as director of European Affairs at the White House National Security Council, received a Purple Heart after he was injured from an IED during the Iraq War. Blackburn, who was seen reading a book during the proceedings this morning, was roundly criticized on Twitter for going after Vindman. Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul challenged Blackburn to provide evidence to back up her claim. “Otherwise, stop slandering a US soldier serving our great nation,” he tweeted. Tim Miller, former spokesman for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign and frequent Trump critic, tweeted: “1. The president you’re running interference for ridiculed our military intelligence officers & groveled before Putin in front of the world. 2. Vindman has shrapnel in his body from an IED attack he suffered fighting for our country. It’s reprehensible how low you have gone.” By: Colby Itkowitz 5:45 PM: Val Demings appeals to senators on behalf of American


Southern Maryland home sales

Dr., Horn Rd., Small Reward Rd., Verda Lane, LUSBY AREA Bald Eagle Lane, Catalina Dr., Coyote Trail, Golden West Way, Huron Dr., Red Cloud Rd., Skyview Dr., Tumbleweed Trail, NORTH BEACH AREA Bedford Dr., Seventh St., OWINGS AREA Dearbourne Ct., Persimmon Lane, PORT REPUBLIC AREA Abelia Rd., Wades Way, PRINCE FREDERICK AREA Calvert Towne Dr., Clydesdale Lane, Goldstein Rd., Pin Oak Ct., Willow Way, SOLOMONS LANDING AREA Oyster Bay Pl., ST. LEONARD AREA Bayview Ave., Saint Leonard Rd., SUNDERLAND AREA Hardesty Rd., These sales data recorded by the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation in September were provided by Black Knight Inc. For information about other residential real estate transactions, visit washingtonpost.com/homesales. BRYANS ROAD AREA Amherst Rd., Hoover Lane, Ruddy Duck Pl., CHARLOTTE HALL AREA Hillmeade Ct., HUGHESVILLE-PRINCE FREDERICK ROAD AREA Barney Dr., Cloverleaf Pl., INDIAN HEAD AREA Dove Tree Ct., Jenkins Dr., Lookout Dr., LA PLATA AREA Autumn Pl., Charles St., Dulles St., Llano Dr., Suffolk Dr., Willow Woods Dr., MATTAWOMAN CREEK AREA Avon Pl., Golden Gate Pl., Hens Rest Lane, Leland Pl., Meadowbrook Lane, Orkney Pl., Sandalwood Dr., Tanglewood Dr., Twin Oak Dr., Winbrell Ct., NANJEMOY AREA Tayloes Neck Rd., NEWBURG-ROCK POINT ROAD AREA Hill Rd., PORT TOBACCO AREA Potobac Landing Rd., ST. CHARLES AREA Crooked Creek Ct., Garner Ave., Saint Matthews Dr., Tipperary Ave., WALDORF (WEST) AREA Biltmore St., Caribou Ct., Eutaw Forest Dr., Golden Eagle Pl., Halibut Pl., Linden Grove Dr., Mockingbird Cir., Pupfish Ct., Sirenia Pl., Wolverine Pl., WHITE PLAINS AREA Esprit Pl., Inwood Lane, Marshall Corner Rd., Saint Luke Dr., Spotswood Pl., Telluride Pl., These sales data recorded by the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation in September were provided by Black Knight Inc. For information about other residential real estate transactions, visit washingtonpost.com/homesales. CALIFORNIA AREA Baringer Dr., Black Oak Ct., Dahlia Cir., Indian Bridge Rd., Locust Ridge Ct., CALLAWAY AREA Golden Eye Ct., CHAPTICO AREA Old Chaptico Wharf Lane, CHARLOTTE HALL AREA Mount Wolf Way, GREAT MILLS AREA Athlone Dr., Cosmos Ct., HOLLYWOOD AREA Broad Creek Dr., Greg St., Mervell Ct. W., Windward Way, LEONARDTOWN AREA Cedar St., Funny Cide Way, Knight Rd., White Point Beach Rd., LEXINGTON PARK AREA Dent Dr., Hartman Dr., Planters Ct., Sunburst Dr., MECHANICSVILLE AREA Asher Rd., Chaptico Rd., Elizabeth Ct., George F Dr., Greenhead Dr., Morgan Brothers Rd., Old Golden Beach Rd., Prospect Hill Rd., Sun Rise Lane, Wagon Wheel Lane, — Compiled by Lisa M. Bolton


E.U., China and other nations work around U.S. freeze on WTO appeals

left in limbo without an appeals mechanism. The E.U. previously teamed up with Norway and Canada to form a separate appeals body that could resolve disputes. The other countries that signed up Friday are Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Singapore, Switzerland and Uruguay. While the United States is outside the group, President Trump, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, vowed “very dramatic” action for the Geneva-based WTO. WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo did not address the temporary appeals system in a news conference in Davos on Friday but said WTO members meeting there had discussed the tasks ahead. — Reuters RETAIL Walmart is testing out a higher minimum starting wage for certain jobs in hundreds of stores as part of a broader overhaul of roles and responsibilities across its massive U.S. workforce. In the 500 or so stores that have introduced the retailer’s new operating model, dubbed “Great Workplace,” some employees in the fresh, front-end and replenishment areas will see their hourly pay rise from $11 an hour to $12, Walmart spokeswoman Jami Lamontagne said. Those roles, which Walmart has reclassified as “team associates,” include cashiers, shelf stockers and deli workers. The wage hike is a test, Lamontagne said, and right now the company has no plans to raise its minimum starting wage across the board for its 1.5 million U.S. employees, the biggest private workforce in the nation. The redefined roles carry more responsibility, Walmart has said, which justifies the higher compensation. Still, the move could be the company’s first step toward boosting its starting pay, which it last raised in 2018. “We are really excited about our test that further empowers our associates to take care of customers,” said Drew Holler, Walmart’s senior vice president of associate experience. After weathering years of criticism from labor activists, Walmart has made a slew of improvements to its wages and benefits in recent years. Since 2015 it has lifted starting pay three times, instituted a more generous parental-leave policy, offered college tuition for $1 a day and even relaxed its dress code to let workers wear jeans. On Thursday, Walmart and Tivity Health rolled out a program that lets employees use 9,000 fitness centers nationwide for as little as $9 per paycheck. — Bloomberg News Also in Business The Rust Belt states Intel's — From news services


Travel ban halts flights between Wuhan and U.S., as airports prepare to screen passengers for coronavirus

More than half of the 566 flights scheduled from China’s Wuhan international airport were canceled Thursday, giving U.S. health officials a brief respite as they focused on the logistics of rerouting U.S.-bound travelers from the region to one of five airports for special screening. The U.S. airports have been designated as enhanced screening points for travelers arriving from the region believed to be the epicenter of a new strain of coronavirus that has killed at least 25 people and sickened more than 800 in China. The virus has also been detected in at least five other countries in Asia, and in the United States. Public health officials continue to say the coronavirus poses a low risk to the American public, but say the enhanced screenings, which began at three U.S. airports last week and expanded to two more this week, are part of their “proactive preparedness precautions.” In an effort to contain the virus, authorities in Wuhan have shut down the region’s transportation network, including its three railway stations, 13 bus stations and its entire subway network. It is not clear when service, including flights out of Wuhan Tianhe International Airport will be restored. Once flights to the United States resume, the plan is to funnel travelers from Wuhan to airports in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, where they will be screened for the virus. If cleared, they will be allowed to continue to their final destination, officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said. Passengers from Wuhan who did not arrive in the United States at one of those five airports have been given information about the virus that details about what they should do if they think they are infected, a CDC spokeswoman said Thursday. Since last week, travelers from Wuhan who arrived at John F. Kennedy, Los Angeles and San Francisco international airports have been required to go through enhanced health screenings, including having their temperatures taken with a noncontact thermometer. This week, health officials added Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago’s O’Hare international airports to the list. Screenings at those airports began Wednesday. CDC officials said more than 1,200 travelers have been screened. Doug Yakel, spokesman for San Francisco International, said a flight from Wuhan, scheduled to arrived Thursday, was canceled. He was not certain whether another nonstop flight scheduled to arrive Saturday would also be canceled. Even though travelers have stopped arriving


ineffective. Instead, many of those infected with SARS were identified through regular channels — monitoring those who had come in contact with individuals who had been infected. “What it comes down to is a cost-benefit analysis,” he said. “Airport screening [involves] a lot of effort, a lot of labor, a lot of costs — and you have to weigh that against the likelihood of finding a case.” And while some public health officials view airport screenings as more of a cosmetic measure, he said, there is something to be said for doing so if it eases fears. The key, he said, is to ensure that efforts to screen travelers don’t take away from other surveillance efforts. U.S. health officials have tried to limit the impact on airports, focusing screening efforts at the five that receive the greatest number of passengers from the affected region. JFK and San Francisco are the only U.S. airports with nonstop flights from Wuhan, while Los Angeles has a large number of connecting passengers. Coronaviruses are part of a large family of viruses that range from the common cold to more serious respiratory diseases. The strain identified in China is related to two other coronaviruses that caused major outbreaks in recent years, Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, and SARS. Chinese officials first detected this new strain of the virus on Dec. 31 in Wuhan. They initially linked it to an unsanitary food market where seafood and mammals were sold for human consumption. Scientist said people who were sickened were likely to have eaten something infected with the virus. In a news release, Chicago airport commissioner Jamie Rhee said the screenings at O’Hare would only impact a small number of travelers. “The broader traveling public and airport employees are not at risk,” she added. “Nevertheless, we will continue to take this seriously, as well as continue working with our partners to ensure the airport community is fully informed.” In a statement Thursday evening, Lori Bassani, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents those who fly for American Airlines, said airlines need to provide crew members with the most updated information possible, including how to identify signs of the illness and how to manage potentially ill travelers. “The health of our crew members and passengers is a top priority for us and we refuse to compromise their health or safety in any way,” Bassani


The Health 202: March for Life activists credit Trump with wholeheartedly embracing their antiabortion agenda

Ghebreyesus said at a news conference that the decision not to declare a global health emergency “should not be taken as a sign that WHO does not think the outbreak is serious or that we’re not taking it seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth.” The pneumonia-like virus has killed 26 people so far. — Global health officials believe the new virus came from animals sold in a Wuhan market and also say the virus shares similarities with SARS, our Post colleague “Similar to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which infected more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 before it was mostly contained in 2003, the new virus spreads through close person-to-person contact,” she writes. “... Still, it is not nearly as infectious as the measles virus, which can live for up to two hours in the air after an infected person coughs or sneezes. Nor does it appear to be anywhere near as deadly as Ebola, which is also much harder to transmit. Ebola is passed largely through direct contact with an infected person’s blood or bodily fluids.” OUCH: White House officials put together a short list of potential replacements for Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma just in case either was forced out of the administration, The list was assembled late last year as the public reports of infighting between the senior health officials hit a fever pitch. " Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb was on the list of potential Azar replacements, as was Adam Boehler, who previously led the CMS innovation center; Joe Grogan, the White House domestic policy council director; and HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan. Paul Mango, who currently serves as HHS deputy chief of staff, was considered a potential replacement for Verma. — The 34 major drugmakers that are members of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the top trade group for pharmaceutical companies, spent more than $120 million on lobbying last year, paying for more than 450 lobbyists who worked to bat down legislative efforts to lower prescription drug costs, Stat News’s PhRMA lobbied on more than 90 drug pricing bills, including smaller efforts. “PhRMA also broke its all-time annual lobbying record this year. It spent $28.9 million in 2019, surpassing its previous record of $27.5 million, set last year,” he writes. “The all-time high sums helped the industry


Police release surveillance photo of suspect in Md. gull killing

Authorities have released new details in a case of animal cruelty in which at least 11 gulls were killed when they were lured to a parking lot in suburban Maryland and run over with a vehicle. The killings happened Jan. 4 in the parking lot of a Dollar Tree store in Laurel on Fort Meade Road. Laurel police said the suspect used popcorn to lure the gulls to the parking lot and then was seen “intentionally running over” the birds with a vehicle, killing them. On Thursday, Laurel police put out a description of the vehicle they say was involved in the incident and a surveillance photo of the suspect. Police said they think the person was in a newer-design Chevrolet Equinox that was blue-gray and had a Maryland license plate. The vehicle also had a roof rack. The suspect is described as a black man in his 50s or 60s who was last seen wearing a burgundy Old Navy sweater, a dark-green jacket, black sweatpants, white sneakers and a beige beanie-style hat. A $5,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest in the case. Audrey Barnes, a spokeswoman for the city of Laurel, has called the killing of the birds a “senseless act of animal cruelty.” “It takes a cruel, dangerous person to coax gulls over with the intention of violently killing them,” Colleen O’Brien, a vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said in a statement after the incident. dana.hedgpeth@washpost.com


Two fatalities confirmed after explosion at a Houston manufacturing plant

about five hours after the blast that his team will launch a criminal investigation into the deaths in partnership with other agencies. “We have no reason to believe terrorism is involved,” he told reporters, adding that an investigation is department protocol. A 2,000-gallon tank of highly flammable gas that caused the explosion has been secured, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said in a Friday morning news briefing. All valves that were emitting gas have been closed, he said. The tank contained propylene, a very flammable gas, the owner of the plant told KTRK. “We’re waiting for a final fire to burn off,” Peña told reporters. “Adding water could cause runoffs [of chemicals].” There are no concerns about toxins in the air at this time, Peña said. Nearby homes were shaken and some were damaged, with shattered windows, collapsed ceilings and a few crumbled structures, KTRK reported. “[The explosion] knocked us all out of our bed, it was so strong,” Mark Brady told KPRC 2. “It busted out every window in our house. It busted everybody’s garage door in around here.” Another resident captured the blast of orange flame on camera. Debris shot through the air, traveling as far as a half-mile from the blast site, Acevedo tweeted. Peña told reporters that a strip mall adjacent to the plant suffered significant damage in the blast. He estimates that he and his crew will be surveying the area for as long as a week. A Mormon temple has been designated as a temporary shelter, according to Houston Mayor pro tem Dave Martin. The city is trying to set up shelter and permanent housing for people whose houses are uninhabitable, he said. Two schools in the area are closed for the day. Residents are being warned to take precautions, although no mandatory evacuation was issued, according to KHOU-11. Acevedo said his employees have brought in personal drones to survey roofs and to get a better scope of the damage. He also issued a stern warning to anyone caught looting in the affected area: “If you are caught, you will be charged to the full extent of the law. You will not get a slap on the wrist,” he said. Acevedo and Peña requested that the public search their homes and neighborhoods for debris and body parts. If anything is found, they urge residents not to touch their discoveries but instead to contact authorities


Peacocks, ducks and doomed hamsters: The wildest emotional-support-animal travel stories

and brought her on a flight from San Francisco to Japan in a carrying case, Insider reported. But when Ogawa had no business class neighbor, she let Coco stretch out. The passenger told Insider that staffers came by to visit the bunny and brought her treats. Although the flight was in 2018, the tale of Coco’s flight only started making headlines this month. Insider said the rabbit is not likely to repeat the journey: Ogawa said that at almost 9, Coco is getting too old for such jet-setting. A Frontier passenger informed the carrier that she would be bringing an emotional-support animal on her flight from Orlando to Cleveland in October 2018, according to the airline. But she apparently left out what, exactly, the animal was. An employee who noticed what was inside the cage asked the passenger, later identified by a Cleveland TV news station as Cindy Torok, to get off the plane. She would not. That prompted workers to call police and remove everyone else from the plane. Torok ultimately left once police arrived, but she fumed at the treatment. She told Fox 8 Cleveland that employees threatened her with arrest and having the 11-week-old squirrel taken away if she didn’t leave the plane on her own. “I said: ‘You’re not taking my squirrel. Sorry, you’re not. I refuse. You will not take my baby from me,’” she told the news station. This is a story the squeamish may want to skip, a tale of emotional support gone wrong. College student Belen Aldecosea said she confirmed with Spirit Airlines that she would be allowed to fly from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale with her emotional support dwarf hamster, Pebbles. But when she showed up at the airport in November 2017, she discovered that the hamster would not be allowed to fly. Aldecosea, who was trying to get home to handle a medical issue, said someone from the airline gave her some brutal suggestions: set the hamster free or flush it down a toilet. (Spirit acknowledged that someone gave her wrong information initially, but denied suggesting the toilet option or any harmful outcome.) After trying for hours to figure out another way home, Aldecosea ultimately flushed the hamster down a toilet at the airport. Read more: DOT offers guidance for people traveling with emotional-support animals United changed its policy for emotional-support animals. That peacock still can’t board. Fur and fury


Healthy young man dies of coronavirus in China; new cases in Japan, South Korea

emergency of international concern, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday that it still amounts to “an emergency in China.” “It has not yet become a global health emergency, but it may become one,” he said. Some details about the latest deaths in China have raised concerns about the virus’s spread. Until now, the vast majority of the victims had been older than 60, and almost all of them had existing health conditions. All had been in Hubei province and especially in its capital, Wuhan. But the latest announcement said that a 36-year-old man from Wuhan, identified only by his family name, Li, died on Thursday. He had no chronic diseases or other existing health conditions, and had been treated with anti-virus medication and antibiotics since being admitted to a hospital on Jan. 9. Another death occurred in Suihua in Heilongjiang province, near the border with Russia and some 1,500 miles from Wuhan. New travel restrictions were put in place Friday to try to curb transmission of the virus. Wuhan shut down tunnels under the Yangtze River to stop the flow of traffic. That comes in addition to travel bans imposed on Wuhan and seven other areas in Hubei province Thursday, with trains and buses canceled and highways closed. All ride-hailing services in Wuhan were cut off from midday Friday in attempt to stop transmission of the virus, and only half of taxis are allowed on the road every day, alternating between tags ending in odd and even numbers. China Southern, the country’s biggest airline, had already canceled all flights in and out of Wuhan airport on Thursday. The other two main carriers, Air China and China Eastern, said they would cancel all Wuhan flights from Friday to at least Feb. 8. Authorities are taking extreme measures to stop the large public gatherings that are a hallmark of the Spring Festival, which is often the only time of year that families can come together, much like Thanksgiving in the United States. New year festivals and temple fairs around the country have been canceled, and the Forbidden City in Beijing, which can admit 80,000 people a day and was already entirely sold out for the holiday, has been closed until further notice. Production companies have postponed the release of seven blockbuster films that were to be released over the holiday, prompting Chinese cinema companies to close the country’s 70,000 movie theaters.


El nuevo TLC entre EEUU, Canadá y México. Noticias del coronavirus. Elecciones en el Perú.

¿Qué gana México con el nuevo tratado? ¿Cómo evitar el síndrome respiratorio que atemoriza a la China? Desde Lima nos habla Rosa María Palacios.


The Daily 202: ‘Right matters.’ Adam Schiff quotes Alexander Vindman in plea to unmoved GOP senators.

17, needs to study economics before offering her thoughts on climate change. -- Actress Annabella Sciorra, who played Gloria in "The Sopranos," testified that Harvey Weinstein raped her more than 25 years ago. THE NEW WORLD ORDER: -- “A young, healthy man from Wuhan and a person living 1,500 miles from the epicenter of the coronavirus are among the latest victims of the outbreak, which has incited fear and anger across China as the important Spring Festival gets underway,” Anna Fifield reports from Beijing. “Reports of eight new deaths from the pneumonia-like virus, taking the total to 26, came as authorities enforced a lockdown across large parts of the province of Hubei, population 59 million. But they also came as the medical system clearly struggled to cope with the outbreak, with reports of crowded hospitals, stressed doctors and dwindling supplies. Adding to the stress, Friday marked the official start of … when China celebrates the arrival of the new lunar year. Authorities around the country, including in the capital Beijing, have canceled the temple fairs and festivals that accompany the holiday to avoid having large public gatherings where the airborne virus could be spread. …The Forbidden City in Beijing, which can admit 80,000 people a day and was already entirely sold out for the holiday, has been closed until further notice. Production companies have postponed the release of seven blockbuster films that were to be released over the holiday, leading Chinese cinema companies to close the country’s 70,000 movie theaters. … “The National Health Commission reported Friday that there are now more than 830 confirmed cases of infection, and reports of new cases continued to roll in from around the country: from Xinjiang in the west to Shandong in the east, from Inner Mongolia in the north to Hainan in the south. A total of 8,420 were reported to be under observation. South Korean authorities confirmed Friday that a second person tested positive for the new coronavirus. … Japan also confirmed a second case, a man in his 40s from Wuhan who arrived in Japan on Sunday on a flight through Hong Kong. Other countries to have reported infections including Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States. In addition to a confirmed case in Washington state,Texas has reported a potential case of coronavirus in Brazos County, about 100 miles northwest of Houston. The patient contracted a respiratory illness within two


can admit 80,000 people a day and was already entirely sold out for the holiday, has been closed until further notice. Production companies have postponed the release of seven blockbuster films that were to be released over the holiday, leading Chinese cinema companies to close the country’s 70,000 movie theaters. … “The National Health Commission reported Friday that there are now more than 830 confirmed cases of infection, and reports of new cases continued to roll in from around the country: from Xinjiang in the west to Shandong in the east, from Inner Mongolia in the north to Hainan in the south. A total of 8,420 were reported to be under observation. South Korean authorities confirmed Friday that a second person tested positive for the new coronavirus. … Japan also confirmed a second case, a man in his 40s from Wuhan who arrived in Japan on Sunday on a flight through Hong Kong. Other countries to have reported infections including Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States. In addition to a confirmed case in Washington state,Texas has reported a potential case of coronavirus in Brazos County, about 100 miles northwest of Houston. The patient contracted a respiratory illness within two weeks of traveling in Wuhan and is being isolated at home, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. “Some details about the latest deaths in China have raised concerns about the virus’s spread. Until now, the vast majority of the people had been older than 60 and almost all of them had existing health conditions. All of them had been in Hubei province … But the latest announcement said that 36-year-old man from Wuhan, identified only by his family name, Li, died on Thursday. He had no chronic diseases or other existing health conditions, and had been treated with anti-virus medication and antibiotics since being admitted to a hospital on Jan. 9.” -- Wall Street stumbled yesterday amid fears that efforts to curtail the virus could further disrupt the global economy. -- The U.S. has officially refused to extradite Anne Sacoolas, the diplomat’s wife who fled the U.K. to avoid facing charges for killing a British teen by driving on the wrong side of the road. -- Trump’s sanctions on Iran are fueling a new refugee crisis – in Turkey. -- A critic of the Saudi Arabian government said a suspected Saudi agent tried to kidnap him on U.S.


weeks of traveling in Wuhan and is being isolated at home, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. “Some details about the latest deaths in China have raised concerns about the virus’s spread. Until now, the vast majority of the people had been older than 60 and almost all of them had existing health conditions. All of them had been in Hubei province … But the latest announcement said that 36-year-old man from Wuhan, identified only by his family name, Li, died on Thursday. He had no chronic diseases or other existing health conditions, and had been treated with anti-virus medication and antibiotics since being admitted to a hospital on Jan. 9.” -- Wall Street stumbled yesterday amid fears that efforts to curtail the virus could further disrupt the global economy. -- The U.S. has officially refused to extradite Anne Sacoolas, the diplomat’s wife who fled the U.K. to avoid facing charges for killing a British teen by driving on the wrong side of the road. -- Trump’s sanctions on Iran are fueling a new refugee crisis – in Turkey. -- A critic of the Saudi Arabian government said a suspected Saudi agent tried to kidnap him on U.S. soil, a claim backed up by multiple U.S. and foreign sources familiar with the episode. -- The Trump administration has missed the deadline, established by law, to turn over to Congress an unclassified report on Khashoggi's murder and the role played by the regime in Riyadh. -- A small team of FBI agents spent years trying to solve a stubborn mystery – whether officials from Saudi Arabia were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. -- Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political rival, Benny Gantz, next week to discuss his Middle East peace plan. -- Hundreds of thousands reportedly protested the American troop presence in Iraq. -- The top U.S. commander in the Middle East said the recent troop surge there may not end soon, despite what the president said. -- Some Mexicans believe the Central American caravans might soon come to an end as the nation’s authorities strengthen their anti-migrant operations at the Guatemalan border. -- East Africa is suffering its wort invasion of desert locusts in 25 years. -- Climate change will disrupt the global economy, but central banks aren’t ready. SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ: Tim Miller, the former spokesman for the Republican National


Why we should be skeptical of China’s coronavirus quarantine

doesn’t act — or delays reporting on the situation, as officials did for five long months during the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic of 2002-2003 — then the virus will spread quickly and, if it proves especially lethal, could kill many more people than it already has. China will also incur international blame, economic sanctions or worse. Doing nothing is not an option in an era when information, fear and gossip travel at the speed of electrons and the public invariably demands action from leaders. On the other hand, by taking the draconian step of closing down densely populated urban areas, China can hope only to diminish the coronavirus’s spread, knowing full well that some additional infections, or many, will inevitably occur. It takes just a few cases to spread outside the Chinese quarantine zone before critics say it has failed. As Lawrence O. Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown, has, for example, already said, “It’s very unlikely to stop the progressive spread.” It’s possible that this coronavirus may not be highly contagious, and it may not be all that deadly. We also do not know yet how many people have mild coronavirus infections but have not come to medical attention, especially because the illness begins with mild to moderate respiratory tract symptoms, similar to those of the common cold, including coughing, fever, sniffles and congestion. Based on data from other coronaviruses, experts believe the incubation period for this new coronavirus is about five days (the range runs from two to 14 days), but we do not yet know how efficiently this coronavirus spreads from infected person to healthy person. And because antibodies for coronavirus do not tend to remain in the body all that long, it is possible for someone to contract a “cold” with coronavirus and then, four months later, catch the virus again. The case fatality rate, a very important statistic in epidemiology, is calculated by dividing the number of known deaths by the number of known cases. At present, the virus appears to have a fatality rate of about 3 percent, which mirrors that of the influenza pandemic of 1918. But what if there are 100,000 Chinese citizens in Wuhan with mild infections that we do not know about? That would lower the case fatality rate to a mere 0.02 percent, which comes closer to seasonal flu death rates. If that’s the case,


The fastest-growing vegan demographic is African Americans. Wu-Tang Clan and other hip-hop acts paved the way.

“The message is health is wealth,” Slom says. “If you want to continue to do your art at a high level, fuel yourself with high-quality fuel. It’s about reclaiming oneself. Look at the top 20 rappers and 10 of them are talking plant-based.” Some of the change may be powered by growing options and an increasing national interest in plant-based foods. A 2017 Nielsen survey found that 39 percent of Americans are actively trying to eat more plant-based foods. Grubhub reported orders of vegan-friendly dishes increased by more than 25 percent in 2019. NPD Group found that plant-based alternative sales were up 30 percent last year. And plant-based restaurants with strong African American patronage, places like Slutty Vegan in Atlanta or the Land of Kush in Baltimore, have long lines and Instagram accounts crowded with celebrities. Afya Ibomu, a holistic nutritionist, sees distinct reasons for the rise of African American vegans. “We have higher rates of obesity, cancer, diabetes and asthma. It’s partly our DNA; we’re not well-suited to a standard American diet,” she said. “Many of us came from West Africa where they mostly had goat’s milk. And here it’s cow’s milk. The majority of health guidance is based on European bodies.” She says that some of the health disparities have been the byproduct of oppression, poverty, food deserts and lack of education but that African American culture can also contribute to the problem: “We use food as a cultural thing, showing someone you love them by giving them high-sugar, high-fat food.” Music industry heavyweights Jermaine Dupri, Badu, Waka Flocka Flame, André 3000, Common, YG and DJ Khaled have dabbled or committed to plant-based lifestyles. AshEL Eldridge, a wellness and food-justice activist and rapper in Oakland, speaks about how the plant-based food movement for African Americans is about reclaiming food sovereignty. “You have your history, your body, your culture.” He says his community is grappling with questions: “How do we take care of ourselves? How do we govern ourselves? How do we regain the wisdom of our ancestry? And how do we reclaim our health?” he asked. He says people want a sense of agency and that diet exemplifies that. “There’s a huge movement around decolonizing the diet,” Eldridge notes. “There is disease related to diets heavily reliant on meat and genetically modified crops and monocropping. How do we extricate ourselves from that? It’s revolutionary.” Stic.man says younger hip-hop


When classical music had a place on America’s political stage

congressman from Kansas who objected to Copland’s leftist politics. Rosenberg also explores the vehement public protests against some great artists who had, for a variety of reasons, not all of them political, chosen to remain in occupied Europe during World War II. This is not only valuable and fair-minded history but an unceasingly engaging series of tales. My favorite section is the examination of the anti-German hysteria (the word is not too strong) that overtook the United States during World War I, which has rarely, if ever, been examined in such detail. Richard Wagner’s music disappeared from the Metropolitan Opera, and the Philadelphia Orchestra dropped Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” from an opening-night program. The German Karl Muck, the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was jailed for his disinclination to conduct “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and his neighbors in Seal Harbor, Maine, reported that Muck’s summer cottage, “with its unobstructed hilltop view of the ocean, had allowed the maestro to transmit light signals to vessels at sea. Some declared they had witnessed alternating flashes of light emanating from the cottage, signals which they believed were part of a scheme designed to relay messages to German vessels located far off the coast.” Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Music Teachers’ Association in Oshkosh unanimously condemned the employment of foreign music teachers in wartime. As Rosenberg notes, “The list of violent episodes would grow throughout the period of American belligerency and included, according to one account, the stoning of dachshunds on the streets of Milwaukee.” Rosenberg closes with the New York Philharmonic’s 2008 visit to North Korea, which created some controversy among those who thought it a misguided sop to a totalitarian country. With a certain mournfulness, he writes: “During those few days when a surge of interest erupted over the New Yorkers’ excursion, a handful of people might have recalled a time when classical music and the wider world converged. They might have remembered when the melodies of Beethoven, Wagner, Strauss, Copland, and Shostakovich, along with the work of the esteemed artists and institutions that performed such extraordinary music, were entwined with developments beyond America. However difficult to imagine, across those eventful decades, countless people embraced the idea that what happened in the concert hall and the opera house was inseparable from the destiny of the United States and the well-being of the American people.” Dangerous Melodies By Jonathan Rosenberg Norton. 485 pp. $35.95


China’s coronavirus outbreak has prompted some travel restrictions. That could backfire.

don’t limit the spread of diseases, they do contribute to the substantial economic losses suffered by countries facing an outbreak, and they introduce other unintended consequences. My research shows that fear of restrictions may encourage economically and politically vulnerable countries to conceal outbreaks. Delayed or inaccurate reporting is a persistent challenge to outbreak prevention and response. Disregarding the WHO’s recommendations disincentivizes transparency and increases global vulnerability. Indeed, despite a laudable initial response, analysts see China’s shutdown of major cities as evidence that President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party, facing political and economic pressure, may have concealed the severity of the outbreak. Despite the limited utility and potential harm of border measures, countries often ignore the WHO’s guidance. For example, during the H1N1 (2009) and Ebola (2014) outbreaks, nearly 25 percent of countries imposed travel or trade restrictions when the WHO said not to. So why do countries ignore the WHO’s guidance? My research points to two reasons governments don’t always follow the WHO’s guidance: They face domestic political incentives to impose border measures and anticipate few costs for doing so from the WHO and the international community. In examining the H1N1 outbreak, I find that the countries most likely to impose trade and travel barriers were those most concerned about a negative public reaction. They used these barriers as domestic political cover in case the outbreak crossed the border and caused harm. Soon after the H1N1 PHEIC declaration, for example, Jordan imposed a ban even though imports of U.S. pork products were negligible, casting doubt that this action was in the name of public health. Jordan’s assistant secretary general for animal welfare explained that the ban was meant to allay public pressure and fear. While many governments follow the WHO’s guidance, domestic political incentives weigh more heavily for some than commitments to the IHR. This may be particularly true because ignoring the WHO’s guidance has resulted in few consequences. During the H1N1 pandemic, 47 countries targeted the United States, Mexico, Canada and other H1N1-affected countries with pork import bans. The United States issued diplomatic warnings but did not retaliate. For its part, the WHO relies on its members for funding and support. Given that it is strapped for cash, criticizing member countries is not always an attractive option. As a result, as my research on the 2014 Ebola outbreak suggests, a PHEIC declaration can make matters worse by unintentionally


to impose trade and travel barriers were those most concerned about a negative public reaction. They used these barriers as domestic political cover in case the outbreak crossed the border and caused harm. Soon after the H1N1 PHEIC declaration, for example, Jordan imposed a ban even though imports of U.S. pork products were negligible, casting doubt that this action was in the name of public health. Jordan’s assistant secretary general for animal welfare explained that the ban was meant to allay public pressure and fear. While many governments follow the WHO’s guidance, domestic political incentives weigh more heavily for some than commitments to the IHR. This may be particularly true because ignoring the WHO’s guidance has resulted in few consequences. During the H1N1 pandemic, 47 countries targeted the United States, Mexico, Canada and other H1N1-affected countries with pork import bans. The United States issued diplomatic warnings but did not retaliate. For its part, the WHO relies on its members for funding and support. Given that it is strapped for cash, criticizing member countries is not always an attractive option. As a result, as my research on the 2014 Ebola outbreak suggests, a PHEIC declaration can make matters worse by unintentionally provoking border measures. A PHEIC declaration is meant to motivate a coordinated international response. However, such a declaration also signals a serious outbreak that people and governments should worry about. In the absence of higher costs for disregarding the WHO’s recommendations, governments can feel tempted to impose restrictions. In fact, concerns about restrictions have factored into past PHEIC deliberations. Similar worries may have contributed to the WHO’s Thursday decision about the coronavirus. Will global health cooperation improve? There is reason for some (guarded) optimism. The WHO does recognize these dynamics. Tedros used strong language last year when WHO declared the Congo Ebola outbreak a PHEIC, stressing that border restrictions “can actually hamper the fight” and were “punitive” and “counterproductive.” He has also been willing to criticize governments, and the WHO has developed a tool to monitor compliance with its recommendations. Furthermore, countries don’t always impose trade or travel restrictions — the 2016 Zika outbreak and the ongoing Ebola outbreak provide examples that similar cooperation is possible during the current coronavirus outbreak. There are still unanswered questions, such as the mode and ease of transmission and the number of coronavirus cases so far. But whether countries follow the WHO’s recommendations against


‘What kept me focused on this work was not a love of battle and adventure, and not a quest for truth and understanding. . . . It was the lies that I found so riveting.’

Photographer Ben Brody’s new book, “Attention Servicemember” (Red Hook Editions, 2019), is one of the most fascinating and compelling works on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that I’ve come across in recent years. The power of the book rests not only with the photos, but also with all of the other elements. What is most compelling to me is Brody’s dissection of the roles he played during the wars, from being a combat photographer whose images were used by the government propaganda machine, to being an independent journalist trying to get at the “truth” of what was happening on the ground, to ultimately coming home as a veteran and trying to find his place in “normal” society. The book examines the various roles Brody played in four chapters: First we go to Iraq, then we see images of Brody’s photos used as propaganda, next we have personal recollections and, finally, we are in the war in Afghanistan. Photographically, it is bookended front to back by black-and-white images Brody made on his return home to Massachusetts. The combination of all of these elements, especially the personal recollections, is what makes the book so compelling. One recollection, for example, finds Brody ruminating on the restrictions of being a combat photographer. In particular, he remembers not being allowed to photograph anything related to the memorial services for soldiers because, he says, “the brigade commander considered that negative press coverage.” As a combat photographer, he says, “you don’t get to choose. There is only doctrine, down to the smallest detail.” I can’t think of any other photobook that attempts to look at war from so many different angles, from the viewpoint of one person who was directly involved in each. There are books that examine the brutal consequences of the theater of war; books that examine the toll that war has on soldiers who return home; and books that look at how war imagery has been used as propaganda. But Brody’s book encompasses all of these things, from a first-person point of view. That is a rare and very powerful thing. His book comes at a time when our world is grappling with how information is disseminated. You can see it happening every day, especially in politics. Just this week, The Washington Post released “The Afghanistan Papers,” a monumental, deeply researched report showing that senior U.S. officials “failed to tell the truth about


‘Under Every Yard of Sky’: Life in Iraqi Kurdistan, a land of both war and hope

Iraqi Kurdistan. In the book, U.S. photojournalist Sebastian Meyer documents life in Iraqi Kurdistan, home to Kurds who sided with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and eventually helped spearhead the fight against the Islamic State. For a decade, Meyer covered this region, and “Under Every Yard of Sky" is his testament of that time. Meyer gives us a deeper understanding of how the book came to be as he writes in its foreword: “When I first began planning this book, I envisioned it as an exploration of a modern Kurdish identity, one that was grappling with past victimizations while simultaneously confronting contemporary issues, such as rural exodus, gender equality and the widening income gap. Then ISIS came, and Kurdistan returned once more to war. Over ten years, I saw this place — one I briefly called home — rise from a brutal and poverty-stricken past to a fleeting moment of peace and prosperity, only to be plunged back into war. “A bright future fueled by natural resources and an educated, passionate and entrepreneurial population is tantalizingly within reach. Yet the region remains teetering on the brink of further violence and exodus. This book is my interpretation of Kurdistan: a place of stunning natural beauty, humor, tradition and love, where the young are raised to dream of freedom and independence. But it is also a land of war, loss and grief, a living cemetery to vanished martyrs.” During his time in Iraqi Kurdistan, Meyer not only worked as a photojournalist but he also helped found the first Iraqi photo agency, Metrography, with his friend Kamaran Najm. Together, they helped train a generation of Iraqi photographers whose work would go on to be published in outlets including National Geographic, Time, the New York Times and here at The Washington Post. In 2014, two days after ISIS overran Mosul, Kamaran was kidnapped by insurgents. Meyer joined the search for his friend, one that continues to this day. “Every Yard of Sky” is dedicated to Kamaran. In Sight is The Washington Post’s photography blog for visual narrative. This platform showcases compelling and diverse imagery from staff and freelance photographers, news agencies and archives. If you are interested in submitting a story to In Sight, please complete this form. More on In Sight: Thousands of live World War II explosives still lie buried around the world. This man lost his sight and hand


Oil drillers, nature lovers get access to public lands despite shutdown

did just that. Using revenue from entrance fees, officials averted the scheduled closure and even said they would make some recently closed areas again accessible to park visitors. And on Tuesday, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials told employees they will bring back roughly 240 of them, for 30 days, to help operate 38 national wildlife refuges across the country. A coalition of organizations that work on park and refuge issues urged Trump in a letter Wednesday to keep areas closed. They argued that keeping understaffed parks and refuges open to visitors makes them vulnerable to vandalism, habitat degradation and illegal hunting. “A lot of the damages could be avoided, knock on wood, if the refuges were closed,” said Geoffrey Haskett, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association. In all of these instances, the department is using unspent appropriated funds from the past fiscal year, which ensures that it does not violate the Antideficiency Act. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Barbara Wainman said in an email that the agency is using its previously appropriated funds “to resume work for the next 30 days on high-priority projects and activities in support of the service’s mission and on behalf of the American public.” The agency is using $2 million of the $8 million remaining in its wildlife habitat and visitor services account to bring back its furloughed employees. “These expenditures will meet the public’s desire for access to National Wildlife Refuge lands and use taxpayer dollars in a responsible manner consistent with existing service mission and priorities,” Wainman said. The agency has halted other activities during the shutdown, such as work on listing endangered species or writing biological opinions on proposed federal projects. The decision to reopen some wildlife refuges comes as the Park Service is pressing ahead with a plan to tap entrance fees to help remove the trash and human waste that has built up in many sites, which has prompted a series of partial closures. One senior Park Service official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to avoid retaliation, said that Interior Department officials “did a 180” on their approach to park site closures once it became clear that mounting human waste and other factors posed serious health risks. “Week one, it was, ‘Keep it all open,’ ” this employee said. “Week two or three, it was, ‘Close what you need to close.’ ” Wild animals


The government shutdown is disrupting retirement plans for some federal employees

and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE). Although most of the OPM is furloughed, the unit that processes retirements is open, Weaver pointed out. “That unit is working on retirement paperwork from agencies not affected by the shutdown and on their backlog of retirement applications. So, that means furloughed employees are not able to access their TSP account as a retired/separated employee unless their agency is open to transmit their retirement paperwork to OPM.” If someone is in a holding pattern, from the TSP’s point of view, they are still an active employee, Weaver added. As such, if they are 59½ years old, they can take an in-service withdrawal that is taxable income but not subject to the 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty, she said. “I’m so frustrated,” Loftis said. “If I was just a year older, I would be able to get my TSP money. And there are five people who retired in my organization who are all caught up in this same situation.” NARFE recently produced a webinar that addresses employee concerns about retirement paperwork and claims. I reached out to the association to learn how the shutdown affects the retirement plans of federal employees. The following responses are from the association’s federal benefits experts and have been lightly edited for clarity. Q: A Employees who planned to retire during the shutdown period but had not informed their agency, likely must wait until the government reopens to start the process. While retirements will be effective on the scheduled dates of retirement, there may be delays in processing retirement applications. First, some agency retirement offices have been affected by the shutdown. If the employees at the relevant agency who finalize the retirement packages are furloughed, the process may be delayed until they return to the job. Second, most agency retirement offices forward retirement application packages to the OPM through the agency’s payroll office first. If the agency’s payroll office was affected by the shutdown, then that agency’s retirement application packages are likely to be left sitting there until those employees return to work. Retirement applications for federal employees who work for agencies indirectly affected by the shutdown will probably not be affected by the shutdown. Furthermore, years of service toward federal retirement will not be affected by a short-term government shutdown. Employees are allowed leave without pay for six months in a year before it would be considered a break in