A world-famous conductor performed in a D.C. public school. The result? Mixed marks.

Washington Metro during the morning rush hour, during which almost no one stopped to listen to the famous violinist. In the wake of that controversial performance, one busker said something that stuck with me: Musicians who regularly play on the street, from violinists to singers to trash-can drummers, learn how to connect with passersby in such a way that this doesn’t happen. Classical musicians aren’t usually trained to establish this kind of rapport, and even a born communicator like Noseda can’t do it single-handedly. There tends, inevitably, to be a hit-or-miss aspect to outreach events. There are a huge number of logistical challenges to overcome simply to get musicians on the stage — finding venues that can accommodate them, audiences to listen to them, musicians willing to play in a range of circumstances. Most of the NSO in Your Neighborhood events involve only a few musicians. On Tuesday, the program’s first day, the Juniper Trio — the NSO’s assistant principal oboe, Jamie Roberts; the Washington National Opera Orchestra’s principal bassoon, Joseph Grimmer; and the pianist Jamila Tekalli — played at the Hillcrest Children and Family Center, an organization devoted to behavioral health services. The performance was in a room so small that the 30-some listeners were seated only a couple of feet from the performers, and Tekalli had to put an electric keyboard on a corner table, with an electric pedal that kept inching away from her over the carpet. Yet it was a delightful and warm performance of short, engaging pieces, from a transcription from Verdi’s “La Traviata” through a gracious Terzetto by Theodore Lalliet to a Poulenc trio, all played with immediacy and conviction, and the listeners had broad smiles on their faces. You can’t ask for more. Orchestra programming for such events is even more difficult: It also depends on what music the orchestra can prepare and what the conductor is able to learn. I wish that the middle- and high-schoolers at CHEC could hear a piece by a living composer, such as Gabriela Lena Frank, to show some of the young women in the audience that this music is also for them. And indeed, the NSO’s next free In Your Neighborhood concert, on Saturday night at the Lincoln Theater, features a piece by Frank and plenty of other American music. It just didn’t work out to have it played at this particular concert. Outreach risks taking


Will the government shutdown affect your next flight?

impact on airport operations. According to TSA officials, roughly 51,000 employees are involved in the airport screening process. The TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which is the largest federal agency affected by the partial shutdown. TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said Tuesday that “call outs” were slightly higher at 4.6 percent versus 3.8 percent at this time last year but that that the number was not large enough to have a significant impact on operations. TSA officials have declined to detail the total number of screeners who aren’t showing up for work, saying that personnel who would provide those answers have been furloughed. There have been scattered complaints about long lines, but for the most part, travelers say they aren’t seeing an impact. Many report security lines are moving and that at many airports, the checkpoints appear to be fully staffed. But that could change after Friday, when most TSA employees are scheduled to be paid. No deal to end the shutdown means no paycheck. For concerned travelers, the advice remains the same: Airlines and airport officials advise passengers to allow plenty of time to get through security. And, if you have questions, the agency’s @askTSA Twitter handle is staffed and responding to questions, including whether screeners who are on the job even despite not being paid can accept tips. (No, they cannot.) Note that those who apply for the Global Entry program may face delays since many appointments have been canceled due to the shutdown. However, TSA’s Precheck program is continuing to accept applications. Precheck is funded by user fees, so it is not affected by the shutdown. Still, the uncertainty of what might happen should more TSA screeners call out is drawing attention from the Hill. In a follow-up to a letter sent Tuesday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, blasted DHS for failing to be “forthcoming about the security implications of President’s shutdown on DHS” and continued to press for answers on whether TSA is able to carry out security functions, particularly at foreign airports. On Monday, Thompson sent a letter seeking answers from TSA Administrator David Pekoske about how many officers had failed to show up for work and whether TSA has a contingency plan in place to ensure the nation’s airports are secure. However, TSA officials said they could not provide written answers due to the shutdown.


The National Weather Service is ‘open,’ but your forecast is worse because of the shutdown

This story, originally published Jan. 7, has been updated to reflect statements from NOAA’s deputy administrator Ostensibly, the partial government shutdown does not affect National Weather Service operations related to its mission to protect lives and property. The agency is considered critical, and the “staff continue mission-essential functions,” according to a spokeswoman. But there are less-obvious ways in which the shutdown does affect the Weather Service — even its operations. Forecasters and managers are not getting paid. Weather models are not being maintained, launched or improved. Emergency managers are not being trained. Effects could stretch well beyond when the government reopens. The National Weather Service is a 24-hour operation with often-grueling shift work. Not getting paid to do that job makes it even more stressful. One manager of a National Weather Service office, who wished to remain anonymous to speak openly, said the lack of empathy from the people in their community — and the government — is like a slap in the face. “Federal employees care about what they do,” the manager said. “As much as we can repeat in our minds, ‘It will be okay, eventually,’ you can’t tell your body to stop worrying. One employee got two hours of sleep last night after going through all his bills, trying to figure out where to start.” “We constantly hear, ‘You’ll get paid eventually, right?’ ” the manager said. “Well, we have to pay bills today.” The National Weather Service is also responsible for the forecast models it uses on a daily basis. From the massive Global Forecast System to the narrowly focused hurricane models, forecasters partner with researchers to improve those systems or bring them back online when they fail. Suru Saha, a union steward at the Environmental Modeling Center in College Park, Md., said the main impact has been on the National Weather Service’s new global forecast model, which was scheduled to go live in February but will surely be delayed because of the shutdown. But in the meantime, the current Global Forecast System — or the GFS — the United States' premier weather model, is running poorly, and there’s no one on duty to fix it. “There was a dropout in the scores for all of the systems” on Dec. 25, Saha said of the scoring system used to rank how the forecast models are performing. “All of the models recovered, except for the GFS, which


A church spent $16,500 on groceries for federal workers. The gift cards were gone in 30 minutes.

organizations were also there, including the Alabama Department of Labor, a local food bank and two credit unions offering tips on surviving missed paychecks. The shutdown was triggered by an impasse between President Trump and congressional Democrats over his demand for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The president was expected to present a new deal on border wall funding on Saturday, but Democrats have indicated that the proposal will not be enough to sway their votes, meaning the shutdown is likely to continue into a fifth week. On Wednesday, Trump signed legislation that would give back pay to the 800,000 federal workers affected by the partial shutdown. But the workers can’t pay rent or buy groceries with IOUs. And the shutdown is affecting not just government employees and contract workers, but also the economies built around their spending. The community groups at First Baptist on Saturday morning joined a growing number of organizations and individuals trying to help workers who have been furloughed or are required to work without pay. Members of churches in Atlanta paid electricity and grocery bills for federal employees hurt by the shutdown. A Tennessee congregation donated $1,200 worth of gift cards to TSA workers. But seeing all those people stream through his church’s doors hammered home the effect of partisan wrangling on his community, Collins said. On Sunday, he said, he plans to preach a sermon from the book of Galatians, a strong message about joy. “I’m going to make reference to the situation,” he told The Washington Post. “How do you find joy when you’re not getting a paycheck and your neighbor or your sister is not getting a paycheck? But barring deep wounds or depression, joy is a choice.” He also wanted to highlight the many members of his church who volunteered Thursday morning. “Instead of sitting home and writing their congressman, which they would be well within their rights to do, they got out and decided to help someone." Read more: Her furloughed husband missed a paycheck on Friday. She picked up a $100K lottery check instead. ‘I been eatin like a boss’: Federal prisoners served steak by unpaid guards during shutdown A black R&B artist hoped singing for Trump would build ‘a bridge.’ It derailed her career instead. Watch a truck driver rescue a child who tumbled out of a car onto a busy road


Winter’s bite might put lunar show in the shade

In contrast to watching solar eclipses, which demand some eye-protection, lunar eclipses can in theory at least be marveled at without any special precautions. But special attire will almost certainly be necessary for watching the total eclipse of the moon that begins Sunday night, amid what is predicted to be the harshest weather of the season. The eclipse is to begin about 9:30 p.m. The National Weather Service predicts temperatures in the teens in the Washington region, with wind chills only a few degrees above zero. Lunar eclipses occur when the moon passes through the Earth’s shadow. Solar eclipses occur when the Earth passes through the shadow cast by the moon. At any given point on the Earth, lunar eclipses are more frequent, because of the relative sizes of the shadows. But aside from the question of how unusual it may be to see a total solar eclipse at any place on Earth, this total lunar eclipse, for those who go outdoors in Washington to see it, is likely to be a particularly memorable experience. Whether it creates awe or not, this example of the timeless motion of the heavenly bodies is almost sure to give viewers in Washington the chills. martin.weil@washpost.com


Britain is operating as if a Brexit delay is there for the taking. It’s not.

leave the European Union. But a no-deal departure that British policymakers do not desire would be the ultimate exclamation point to end the process. If Britain left without a transition plan in place, trade would screech to a halt. Food and medicine could become scarce commodities. “I don’t see how the current deal can be tweaked,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters Friday, warning Dutch businesses to begin “urgent” preparations for a chaotic British departure. On Wednesday, Rutte said Brussels would look “charitably” on a Brexit extension request from London, echoing remarks from French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But there were strings attached — many of which seem to have sunk in the English Channel on their way over to Britain. “We have to have an idea how they want to solve things, because it is no use to continue to run in circles for a few more months,” Rutte said. That viewpoint is widely shared in Brussels: a willingness to entertain a British request for more time, but only on the condition that Downing Street gives credible assurances that it will not use the time to press for concessions that have already failed on the continent. Many policymakers working on Brexit in Brussels say Britain has given them little reason to expect a real plan. “Miscalculations are a continuous fact,” one senior European diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity to offer a frank assessment of the British position. “There will be no extension with unknown purpose.” E.U. policymakers say they could foresee various scenarios that would warrant granting an extension. One might be if British Prime Minister Theresa May reconsiders her refusal to join the E.U. customs union, for example, which would take away Britain’s ability to do many trade deals but would simplify efforts to preserve peace in Northern Ireland by keeping the border with Ireland open. That has been a key sticking point in the negotiations. Or British leaders could commit to holding another Brexit referendum, opening the door to a total reversal. Or they could try to convince Europe that they were close to finding a compromise inside their own ranks and that they just needed a little extra time, policymakers and analysts said. Still, to read the British press, Brussels is sitting and waiting to be asked. “E.U. ready to delay withdrawal until next year,” read one headline this


Shutdown’s invisible costs: Cyberthreats, untrained firefighters, bug invasions

Doctors nervously watch for signs of significant delays with new treatments. “You have to worry,” said Walter Curran Jr., executive director of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. Another concern is wildfires. They’ve been getting worse in the western United States, and particularly horrific fires have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres and killed scores of people over the past two years. About 200 federal workers who were set to begin training to fight forest fires last week in Colorado Springs were forced to drop out because of the shutdown. Many of them hoped to join fire hotshot crews. Another training session in Tennessee also was canceled. The missed training means many workers will not be qualified to help fight forest fires or can’t move on to become crew bosses or incident commanders. There’s already a shortage of wildland firefighters, said Wendy Fischer, executive director of the Colorado Wildland Fire and Incident Management Academy. “This situation sets people back,” she said. “And we’re coming up on fire season.” The shutdown obviously doesn’t help the economy. A top White House economist this week said that the economic impact from the shutdown will be twice as great as previously estimated. But the numbers, even if they involve multiple billions of dollars, remain fairly modest compared with the vast scale of the U.S. economy. That said, the shutdown has the potential to deliver a psychological blow to the country that could send the economy reeling, economists have warned. “Broadly it’s more like an economic corrosive rather than a cliff event. It’s wearing down the economy and sentiment, confidence, people’s optimism,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “At some point the corrosive will eat through the foundations of the economy and the economy will break, but no telling when that will happen.” The broader business community likes predictability and reliable data, noted economist Robert Shapiro, who was an official in the Commerce Department during the Clinton administration. He said the Bureau of Economic Analysis — an agency with data so sensitive that it puts officials in a locked room to review numbers that could jolt the markets — is not putting out valuable monthly reports during the shutdown. “What’s happening in home construction? What’s happening in manufacturing orders? What’s happening in retail sales? What’s happening in exports and imports? Do you know we don’t know what the trade deficit is, in


Left-wing rebel group blamed for car bomb that killed 21 in Bogota

she said of the victims. “The ELN is not interested in peace, not at all. Peace is never going to exist in Colombia.” The government said the “author” of the attack and driver of the vehicle was a high-ranking member of the ELN who had a history of working with explosives. Prosecutors said a second man, also accused of being an ELN militant, was arrested early Friday in Bogota and would be charged with aggravated homicide and terrorism. “The ELN are responsible for the terrible attack on the General Santander police academy,” Defense Minister Guillermo Botero said. “We will find those that are responsible for this irrational act, and they will face justice. This crime will not go unpunished.” The country’s peace commissioner, Miguel Ceballos, said that the attack had been planned for more than six months, adding that “there has been no desire [for peace] on behalf of the negotiating team of this group.” The driver — José Aldemar Rojas, who went by the nom de guerre “El Mocho” — had spent more than 25 years as an ELN militant, leading some of its armed fronts and heading up its explosives operations, according to Botero. He is believed to have lost his right hand a decade ago while working on the group’s bombmaking operations. Although Rojas had no criminal record, he had been investigated for his role in the ELN. Fingerprints from his left hand were used to identify the body, according to government officials. The force of the explosion shook the neighborhood, breaking windows in shops and homes that shoulder the academy. Although the General Santander school had a checkpoint and sniffer dogs at its main entrance, Rojas plowed his vehicle through a side entrance, surging past the checkpoint as some motorbikes left the facility. After he was confronted by an officer, he crashed into a wall, detonating the 176 pounds of explosives outside a women’s dormitory. Among the injured were several police recruits from neighboring Panama and Ecuador. Political analyst Ariel Avila told Caracol television that the latest attack was likely to mean the end of the stalled peace talks between the government and the group. “The peace process with the ELN is dead,” he said. “Today there is no road to negotiation.” He warned, however, that trying to defeat the guerrilla group, which has operated in Colombia since the 1960s, would be “long and painful.” foreign@washpost.com


The government shutdown could become a government breakdown

Paul C. Light is a professor of public service at New York University and the author, most recently, of “The Government-Industrial Complex.” Even as the federal shutdown continues to exact an uneven toll on 800,000 federal employees and the U.S. economy, it may yet produce an even greater toll through a government breakdown that could affect large numbers of Americans. The White House and Congress are paying too much attention to the political risks of delayed tax refunds and missed paychecks, and not enough to the economic and human risks of a major malfunction. According to my research into the most visible federal failures since 2000, the shutdown has already armed many of the same bureaucratic triggers that contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and led to a litany of breakdowns in subsequent years, including the 2004 flu vaccine shortage and Vioxx recall; the 2005 sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina; the 2007 Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal; the 2008 financial crisis; the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill; the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack; the 2014 rise of the Islamic State; and last summer’s failed family-separation immigration program. Those breakdowns fall under the description of what the 9/11 Commission described as failures of policy, capabilities, management and imagination. They also involved simple errors that could have been fixed by collecting and connecting the dots of possible breakdowns. The current partial government shutdown has undermined this focus on prevention by creating a wave of uncertainty with potentially long-term damage to many facets of American life if the president and Congress do not act soon to disarm the triggers of failure. On failures of policy, skeleton staffs are all that stands between the public and breakdowns in fighting financial fraud, dealing with the opioid epidemic, maintaining food safety and keeping air travel safe. As of this week, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is operating with half of its staff, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is a ghost town, the Agriculture Department’s E-Verify system for identifying undocumented employees is offline, the FBI has furloughed thousands of special agents and intelligence analysts, and even after announcing Tuesday that it would have 2,200 aviation safety inspectors back on the job by the end of the week, the Federal Aviation Administration is still missing about a third of its inspectors. It is not clear how the shutdown is affecting U.S. intelligence agencies,


Jason Rezaian’s tale of his bizarre 544 days in an Iranian prison

The end of Rezaian’s book includes a dramatic airport scene worthy of “Casablanca,” as the Iranians try to keep his wife in their grasp and a Swiss diplomat makes sure she gets out with him. Not all of Rezaian’s book is as fast-reading as that final scene. There is a slow-going chapter about the many relatives in his large Iranian American family, and in general, the narrative about the incremental progress of his court case inches along. It is Rezaian’s descriptions of the way the Iranian regime operates at the working level — its twisted logic and paranoia — that make the book so worthwhile. Barely two months into his captivity, for example, Rezaian’s jailers took him out of prison for a brief shopping expedition and then delivered a stern warning to him. “The Great Judge said you must buy flowers for your wife,” he was told. When he said he had no money, the jailer said he would just put it on Rezaian’s account. Rezaian’s case can now be seen in a new light after the death of Jamal Khashoggi, another writer for The Post, who was most likely brutally murdered by officials of Saudi Arabia last year at their consulate in Istanbul. Both cases demonstrate the dangers that journalists confront while working and traveling overseas. Khashoggi was a commentator; Rezaian a reporter. Khashoggi operated among elites, seeking to change ideas in the Middle East; Rezaian covered day-to-day events. Yet both men, in their different ways, were threatening to the regimes about which they were writing. Under current American foreign policy, Iran is an adversary while Saudi Arabia is supposed to be a friendly country. Yet in the end, Rezaian’s fate in Iranian hands was better than Khashoggi’s with the Saudis. Iran subjected Rezaian to a long captivity and what could be called psychological torture — but he was not beaten and was even accorded regular conjugal visits. Khashoggi was killed while in the process of trying to get married. Rezaian was given ridiculous show-trial hearings in court, but at least he was accorded some sort of trial — which was more than Khashoggi ever got. And Rezaian is alive today. Thanks for small favors. Prisoner My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison — Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out By Jason Rezaian Ecco/Anthony Bourdain. 311 pp. $29.99


Trump administration calling nearly 50,000 back to work, unpaid, as shutdown drags on

risk.” Molly A. Elkin, an attorney representing the air traffic controllers union, had implored the judge to tell the government and the president to “get their hands out of the pockets of the air traffic controllers.” “We need you, judge, to give this workforce hope that at least one branch of the American government has their back,” Elkin said. Workers showed up to the hearing wearing red pins demanding “Back Pay Now” and blue stickers with the message “RESPECT.” They were asked to remove those accessories before entering the courtroom. Other shutdown impacts still threatened. White House officials warned earlier this month that the nation’s food stamp program was at risk of running out of funding in March if the shutdown is not resolved. And White House officials were continuing to be caught unprepared for major problems with how the shutdown is unfolding. For example, the initial notification they gave 800,000 federal employees that they would not be paid was set to expire Monday, and all of those employees must be notified again. But agency officials do not know how to notify all the employees, some of whom are working in outposts around the globe. They cannot email these workers — the employees are not allowed to check their work email during a shutdown. The White House Office of Management and Budget held a conference call with a number of agencies Tuesday to discuss how to proceed but could not come up with a solution. One idea was to send a certified letter to all 800,000 employees, but because of the shutdown, the agencies lack the money to pay for the postage. The departments and agencies affected by the shutdown make up about a quarter of the parts of the federal government that are funded by Congress. The Pentagon is mostly unaffected, since a spending bill for the military was passed by Congress and signed by Trump in 2018. Congress and the president also passed legislation to fund the Labor Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others before Trump’s demands for wall money ground negotiations on other spending bills to a halt. Programs such as Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid also are unaffected, because their budgets proceed automatically, without the need for annual congressional appropriations. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation also is unaffected; it is paid for by a permanent, dedicated funding stream. erica.werner@washpost.com


Number of TSA checkpoint agents calling out during shutdown stresses major airports

calling out, predominantly for financial reason,” TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said. “This is isolated now to a number of our largest hub airports.” Bilello said the agency had sent special agents from its National Deployment Force (NDF) to supplement checkpoint agents. NDF members normally are dispatched when an event like the Super Bowl or a crisis like a major hurricane takes place. “We have fully deployed our established NDF and [are] increasing its size substantially,” Bilello said, “but TSA’s capability is still limited and will ultimately lead to increased lane closures in order to maintain security effectiveness.” Bilello said NDF officers have been deployed at airports across the system, including Atlanta, Newark and New York’s LaGuardia. He reiterated that the TSA will not allow the staffing shortage to compromise airport security. “Airports will continue to change daily as needs arise; TSA will continue to monitor volume fluctuations to schedule those changes and make decisions accordingly,” Bilello said. “While we are not releasing specific numbers, we can confirm that there are limited resources available and our ability to reinforce airports with National Deployment Officers is becoming more difficult.” TSA agents are among the estimated 800,000 federal employees who are furloughed or working without pay during the shutdown, which has entered its fifth week. Brent D. Bowen, a professor of aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Arizona campus, said the demand for TSA workers to continue work without pay would have an inevitable impact. “We can’t expect any group of people to work indefinitely for no pay,” Bowen said. “It affects morale. They’re worried about their families. When that happens, you can’t focus on your job as well as you would under normal circumstances.” Rolland Vincent, an industry expert and co-chair of an aviation group under the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, said TSA agents have a vital job to do, and their work, along with that of the Federal Aviation Administration, is being recklessly undercut by the shutdown. The nation, he said, “is playing with guns.” “We’re exposed,” added Vincent, co-chair of the Transportation Research Board’s subcommittee on commercial aviation. “Somebody is going to get hurt.” Despite the record number of no-shows among TSA checkpoint agents Saturday, the TSA said that virtually all of the 1.6 million passengers screened passed through within the agency’s 30-minute standard, and that almost 94 percent were cleared in 15 minutes or less. ashley.halsey@washpost.com michael.laris@washpost.com


Because of shutdown, Restaurant Week extended in D.C. area

Since the federal government’s partial shutdown began Dec. 22, leaving thousands of federal workers without paychecks, restaurants in the D.C. area have reported a 20 percent drop in business, on average, compared with this time last year, according to the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington. Some restaurant owners reported losses of more than 60 percent. To help stimulate local businesses and support furloughed federal workers, the restaurant association announced Sunday that it has extended Winter Restaurant Week in the Washington area until Jan. 27. “The promotion is helping to lift spirits as it offers a dining deal to those impacted by the shutdown,” said Kathy Hollinger, president and CEO of the association, which represents 182 restaurants in the District, Maryland and Virginia. “The Restaurant Week promotion drives traffic to restaurants who are experiencing a slow-down in business.” During Restaurant Week — which is planned twice a year — more than 180 restaurants in the Washington region offer discounted dinner, lunch and brunch menus. According to the association, Restaurant Week began more than 18 years ago after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. In the aftermath of the attacks, restaurant owners noticed people were not dining out. “Over time, Restaurant Week has grown to represent an affordable opportunity for guests to enjoy a great meal while helping to stimulate our local economy,” Hollinger said in a statement. “Now, during the longest federal government shutdown in our nation’s history, restaurants want to continue providing an opportunity for their guests to save, but also to promote dining out.” Hollinger said that some restaurants will offer special discounts to federal workers. deneen.brown@washpost.com


Why I’m (slightly) less pessimistic about global warming

On global climate change, I’ve changed my mind — just slightly. I’ve written about this issue for more than two decades, and my theme has been monotonously consistent. As a starting point, I’ve accepted the prevailing scientific view that man-made greenhouse gases contribute to global warming. But I’ve been routinely pessimistic and skeptical that we can do much about it. That is, we can’t easily control the forces that worsen global warming. We have yet to discover or create some low-cost fuel that would replace fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal), which provide roughly 80 percent of the world’s energy. Most nations aren’t willing to scrap the energy status quo — the very basis of modern civilization — before having a practical substitute. Thus, despite the enthusiasm for non-fossil fuels (wind, solar, hydro, nuclear), global greenhouse-gas emissions are higher today than, say, in 1990. This raises the atmospheric concentration levels of those gases, which in turn trap heat above the Earth’s surface. From 1990 to 2018, the concentration level of carbon dioxide rose from 354 parts per million to 409 parts per million. The emissions continue. Poorer countries (China, India, Indonesia and the like), where most energy growth now occurs, won’t condemn their populations to perpetual poverty to satisfy hard-to-attain environmental goals. Many governments — rich and poor — resist inflicting pain on today’s voters, in the form of higher energy prices or more regulations, for imprecise future gains. Politics is present-oriented. Implicitly, I’ve been critical of much media coverage, which has portrayed the climate-change story as a struggle between good guys and bad — climate-change believers vs. deniers. The real story is our relative helplessness. Still, we should do something. We need to learn how much, if at all, we can influence emissions. Last week, a large group of economists, including 27 Nobel Prize winners, 15 former chairs of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and two former treasury secretaries — Democrats and Republicans — issued a manifesto endorsing what’s been called a “carbon dividend” plan. This would be a good start. Here’s how it would work. The government would tax CO2 emissions. The idea is to prompt Americans to use less fossil fuels and to prod businesses to focus on renewables and energy efficiency. That’s a standard carbon tax. What defines the “carbon dividend” plan is that all the money collected would be rebated to households.


Inside the Mueller team’s decision to dispute BuzzFeed’s explosive story on Trump and Cohen

effectively terminated before the Iowa caucuses of February 1, 2016.” People familiar with the matter said after BuzzFeed published its story — which was attributed to “two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter” — the special counsel’s office reviewed evidence to determine if there were any documents or witness interviews like those described, reaching out to those they thought might have a stake in the case. They found none, these people said. That, the people said, is in part why it took Mueller’s office nearly a day to dispute the story publicly. In the interim, cable news outlets and other media organizations, including The Washington Post, dissected its possible implications — even as their reporters were unable to independently confirm it. Told of the special counsel’s failure to find support for the story, Mittenthal, the BuzzFeed spokesman, said, “Our high-level law enforcement sources, who have helped corroborate months of accurate reporting on the Trump Tower Moscow deal and its aftermath, have told us otherwise. We look forward to further clarification from the Special Counsel in the near future.” Two people familiar with the matter said lawyers at the special counsel’s office discussed the statement internally, rather than conferring with Justice Department leaders, for much of the day. In the advanced stages of those talks, the deputy attorney general’s office called to inquire if the special counsel planned any kind of response, and was informed a statement was being prepared, the people said. Around 7:30 p.m. Friday, Carr distributed it to numerous media outlets via email. “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate,” he wrote. People familiar with the matter said the special counsel’s office meant the statement to be a denial of the central theses of the BuzzFeed story — particularly those that referenced what Cohen had told the special counsel, and what evidence the special counsel had gathered. BuzzFeed, though, asserted that the language was not specific about what was being contested. “We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the Special Counsel to make clear what he’s disputing,” BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith said in response to the special counsel's statement. Cohen has not addressed BuzzFeed’s reporting, and BuzzFeed has made clear he was not a source


PM Update: Coldest weather of the winter into Monday, with brutal subzero wind chills

* Howling winds from the northwest sent temperatures tumbling 20 to 25 degrees Sunday, falling below the freezing mark by late this afternoon. Temperatures will continue to free-fall, and the winds will continue cranking, resulting in widespread negative wind-chill values overnight and into tomorrow morning. Do make sure you bundle up and limit skin exposure should you feel the need to venture outdoors through Monday morning — for example, to see the total lunar eclipse tonight. Listen to our daily D.C. forecasts: Apple Podcasts | Amazon Echo | More options Through Tonight: View the Tomorrow (Monday): Very cold but not as windy tomorrow night. Lows range from 5 to 10 degrees in our colder areas to near 15 downtown. Winds from the northwest at 10 to 15 mph produce wind-chill values from around zero to the single digits. See Brian Jackson’s forecast through next week. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Gridlock. Did I mention that it was windy? Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email inbox?


Brits don’t like Theresa May’s Brexit deal. But they still admire her grit.

suffer the humiliations on a global stage that she has done would have finished off weaker people far sooner.” “No one doubts her determination, which is generally an admirable quality,” Watson said. “But misapplied it can be toxic. And the cruelest truth of all is that she doesn’t possess the necessary skills, the political skills, the empathy, the ability and most crucially the policy to lead this country any longer.” He said, “The country feels genuinely sorry for the prime minister. I feel sorry for the prime minister. But she cannot confuse pity with political legitimacy.” The 62-year-old vicar’s daughter from home county England, who enjoys long hikes and a stiff whisky, would probably hate to be pitied. A newly assertive Parliament demanded that May present her “Plan B” on Monday and tell the members how she will extricate Britain from Europe. Four days of talks with opposition members, and Tories who opposed her Brexit bill, do not appear to have broken the impasse. One option may be for May to seek a bilateral treaty with Ireland that circumvents the European Union but prevents a hard border on the Irish island — which might win more approval for her exit plan. But the chaos is likely to continue. The lead item in the Sunday Times of London was headlined “Theresa May in Brexit meltdown,” and suggested that the members of Parliament were plotting to “hijack” the agenda and force May to delay Brexit. May served for six years as home secretary — essentially interior minister, in charge of domestic security and immigration — in Cameron’s government, always the outsider in a chummy cabinet filled with a posh set of private-school debating champs. “I know I’m not a showy politician,” May said when she announced her bid to become prime minister in June 2016, when Cameron abruptly resignation after losing the Brexit referendum. “I don’t tour the television studios. I don’t gossip about people over lunch. I don’t go drinking in Parliament’s bars. I don’t often wear my heart on my sleeve. I just get on with the job in front of me.” Last week was among the most tumultuous in the Conservative Party’s 184-year history — and that is squarely on May. She lost the vote on her Brexit deal by an eye-popping 230 votes, with more than a third of Tories joining the opposition to reject the withdrawal agreement


Proposed solar energy developments draw opposition over loss of farmland

areas and can build more easily upon the open land. Kach says rules in neighboring Carroll and Harford counties, which restrict solar development on agricultural land, have pushed developers to set their sights on Baltimore County. If county farmland became off-limits, it would be much harder for developers to build projects on the scale needed to make community solar work, said Lauren Barchi, Maryland program director with the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors. “The whole idea of community solar is to make solar cheaper,” she said. Atkinson, a retired attorney who leases much of his land to a farmer, said solar developers began approaching him a few years ago about leasing a portion of his property. He now has a deal with OneEnergy Renewables, which wants to install 12 to 14 acres of solar panels, along with security fencing and landscaping. The project is billed as “pollinator-friendly,” featuring plants such as black-eyed Susans and bee balm. Atkinson says he likes that solar panels are not permanent, unlike other development. The 74-year-old said his 100-acre property has been in the family since the early 1800s. Income from the solar lease, he says, will give his four children incentive to keep the farm. “I am a person who believes very much in the environment,” he said. “I want to see it protected, and I believe this can do it.” OneEnergy Renewables project manager Kate Larkin and other industry representatives say they face deadlines imposed by the state’s community-solar pilot program and have already invested significant time and money in their projects. “I would be very hesitant to work in Baltimore County again” if a moratorium passes, Larkin said. In 2017, Kach was the only council member to vote against the solar legislation, which was sponsored by then-Councilwoman Vicki Almond, a Democrat from Reisterstown. That bill was meant to be a compromise, said Kevin Kriescher of the Greater Baltimore Sierra Club, a group that opposes Kach’s proposed moratorium. The legislation allowed 10 projects for each of the council’s seven districts, though more were allowed in Kach’s district because some were already pending when the law passed. Kriescher says the projects allowed under the county law are relatively small — up to 2 megawatts. He believes the county must move forward with alternative energy, and thinks the public will become more receptive to solar facilities as they become more common. “On the whole, we all


A day in shutdown life: Free mac and cheese, clean closets, empty bank accounts

folks from the office. Anxious rewrites of the old résumé. That impossible clutter in the basement, finally attacked because if not now, when? Politically, the shutdown is a beached whale, stuck in place, with no apparent way back to the water. Even though a large majority of Americans oppose using public employees as a bargaining chip, and even though most voters blame Trump for the shutdown, neither side in Washington has much incentive to compromise. Both sides’ bases have hardened in their positions for and against the wall. For most Americans, life has proceeded as normal. Only 18 percent said the shutdown has inconvenienced them at all. They worked and they got paid, which would hardly be worth pointing out except that almost 1 percent of U.S. workers haven’t seen a dime in the past month. But look closer on this one day in the life of the shutdown and things do appear a bit off kilter: On the Mall in Washington, you had your choice of parking spaces, which generally happens only on Christmas. Tourists wandered aimlessly, wondering what to do because federally funded museums were shuttered. Johannes Schmidt, 23, a dental technician from Germany, zipped to and fro on an electric scooter — “We don’t have these yet back home,” he said — taking pictures of closed buildings. Instead of viewing masterworks inside the National Gallery of Art, he settled for standing beneath its majestic steps, reading a National Park Service plaque that spelled out “James Garfield’s Legacy.” Across town, there were hardly any parking spots within blocks of a pop-up shop that Kraft Foods opened in an industrial space in Northeast Washington, offering anyone with a government ID a brown paper grocery bag full of the company’s products, most of them bright orange. No charge, just a request that the workers “pay it forward to your favorite charity” once their paychecks resume. Nearly 200 workers — most of them, like Hardy, loading up on mac and cheese — arrived in the first two hours. One of the people helping them collect food was Taylor McBride, herself a furloughed fed, picking up a few hours of work at the Kraft shop because the bills must be paid and, well, she was going a little stir-crazy sitting at home in Alexandria, Va. “That first week, I barely did anything,” said McBride, 31, a media archivist at the Smithsonian Institution.


Swiger and Wayment, work at the IRS, which has a large office in Ogden. Swiger, who has worked at the IRS for 31 years, saw on Facebook that Wayment, who has 28 years in, needed a ride and picked her up. Wayment had been up since 4:30 a.m. She turned on MSNBC, which she’s been watching obsessively, hoping for word of a breakthrough. When she gets bored — “I’m tired of hearing about [special counsel Robert S.] Mueller,” she said — she binges on crime dramas like “Bones” and “Person of Interest.” “I just loop those, ’cause everything gets resolved,” she said. “My husband goes, ‘You’ve already seen that. You know how it ends.’ ” “Yah, and it ends good,” she said. At the food pantry, Wayment took the turkey. Then, Thursday night, after washing clothes and going to see “Welcome to Marwen” at the discount movie house, she was thrilled to get the call to return to work, even if it was without pay: “To feel useful, to feel wanted, to feel needed. It’s a relief.” A cure for boredom Being told you may not work sounds a bit like a vacation at first, but after four weeks of thinking about why your job is not deemed essential, existential questions creep in. Allison Youngblood has started to look for jobs in private industry, even if it means giving up her dream of a career at NASA. A young astrophysicist who works in the two-year postdoctoral program at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, she got an email alerting her that her stipend would cease Jan. 18. Her work in a lab, studying small and distant stars as part of the effort to find planets beyond this solar system, would halt. Unlike civil servants, the postdocs aren’t guaranteed back pay when the government reopens. Still, planets keep spinning and “our work doesn’t stop,” Youngblood said. She is supposed to lead an observation of Sunday’s lunar eclipse, testing new ways to look for signs of life on far-off planets. Because of the shutdown, she can’t access her grant money or talk to her civil servant colleagues. She planned to do the work unpaid, because her career depends on it. René Gwinn isn’t looking to go anywhere but back to the Securities and Exchange Commission, where she schedules meetings and trainings — she calls herself a “details person.” Four weeks at home


D.C. restaurants grapple with drop in business from government shutdown

the fact that they don’t have the money they wanted.” Just as telling, Hank’s has seen an increase in phone calls, ostensibly from furloughed workers, who are asking about shutdown specials, Gabice says. Hank’s offers federal employees 50 percent off certain dishes, including lobster bisque, oysters on the half shell and the restaurant’s signature burger. In recent days, Gabice has seen more people flashing their government IDs to take advantage of the deals. “It’s sustainable,” the manager says, “but it’s not beneficial to the staff.” He says diners will base their tip off the discounted bill, not the bill before the discount. As a result, “the staff makes less money,” he says. Countless bars and restaurants around Washington are offering similar shutdown specials. The deals range from happy-hour prices all day long to discounted meals to freebies such as the meatball slider at Carmine’s and the free pies at &pizza. The restaurants within ThinkFoodGroup, celebrity chef José Andrés’s company, have been giving away free sandwiches daily at the bar, almost since Day 1 of the shutdown. The giveaway also includes a federal worker’s family. By Andrés’s estimate, each restaurant — including Jaleo, Beefsteak, Zaytinya and Oyamel — has handed out nearly 300 sandwiches a day. The group, in turn, has spent more than $50,000 in labor and food costs on the handouts. “It’s very expensive,” says Andrés, whose nonprofit organization World Central Kitchen has separately opened a relief kitchen to feed furloughed workers. And that expense is coming at a time when ThinkFoodGroup is watching sales closely. The shutdown hasn’t exactly hurt the restaurant group’s revenue compared with last year’s, says Kimberly Grant, its chief executive. Then again, last year’s sales were down because of inclement weather, Grant adds. “Without the government shutdown, we might be even higher” in sales this year, she says. The government shutdown has not just hit workers’ pocketbooks. It’s also affected the tourism trade. All 17 of Washington’s Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are closed, the victims of a lack of funding. No major attractions translate into fewer tourists, which means fewer people walking the sidewalks of Penn Quarter, searching for a place to eat. Lunch sales are down at Hill Country, says owner Marc Glosserman. Customers who may have previously waited in a long line at the Texas barbecue joint can now walk right up to the meat counter. At Carmine’s, across the


The Daily 202: From Brexit to NATO and the shutdown, Putin is winning so much he might get tired of winning

has so clear a threat to national security been so clearly ignored by a U.S. president.” Trump said Monday that he has “never worked for Russia.” -- May’s plan to ease Britain out of the European Union went down 432 to 202 on Tuesday evening. -- Putin has been especially angry with May, the leader of the Conservative Party, since she showed backbone and resolve against Moscow by stiffening sanctions after the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. -- The latest Brexit breakdown followed a New York Times report earlier Tuesday that Trump has been more serious than previously understood about wanting to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Former secretary of defense Jim Mattis specifically mentioned the imperative of NATO in his resignation letter, explaining that the strength of the United States is “inextricably linked” to our “unique and comprehensive system of alliances.” -- Because of their fealty to Trump, many conservative platforms have become less outspoken about the threat posed by Russia since Barack Obama left office. -- The former president of Estonia, now a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, responded by highlighting the casualties his country has suffered in support of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan: -- The NATO alliance depends on deterrence, and that depends on the credibility of the mutual-defense pact. -- Many Republicans, especially those who have served in uniform, understand this. -- In a Tuesday afternoon rebuke of the Trump administration, 11 Republican senators joined all their Democratic colleagues in voting to keep sanctions in place on companies owned by Russian oligarch -- Meanwhile, a model whose alleged affair with Deripaska made her an unexpected player in the Russia probes, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Thailand to charges linked to a “sex training” seminar, setting the stage for her deportation. -- “Deripaska’s aluminum empire … has quietly installed a new board chairman who has expressed support for the Russian aggression that got Deripaska sanctioned in the first place,” the Daily Beast reports this morning: Jean-Pierre Thomas “has also become a regular on Russian state TV, pushing a conspiracy theory about chemical weapons in Syria, and asserting that the Russian government couldn’t have been involved in the poisoning of [Skripal]. That background … has concerned lawmakers as well as Western intelligence officials.” -- Information is power: While the U.S. government has no detailed records of Trump’s five face-to-face interactions


with Putin over the past two years, experts agree that the Russian regime almost certainly does. -- What’s next for Brexit? “In the House of Commons on Tuesday, May stood almost alone, flashing defiance and frustration, as many in her own party abandoned their leader. … She has until Monday to return with a Plan B. Her office has been tight-lipped about what alternatives she might offer. May said she would reach out to members of Parliament to find out what kind of Brexit deal, if any, they would endorse. … Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition Labour Party leader … introduced a motion of no confidence, to be debated and voted upon Wednesday. Afterward, leaders of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May’s minority government, announced that they would support the prime minister, thereby making her ouster unlikely.” -- The president of the European Council is suggesting that Britain should just give up on Brexit: -- Widening the aperture: “Brexit has been a catastrophic political failure,” writes columnist Anne Applebaum. -- The bigger picture: The two most important beacons of freedom in the world are dimming. And just as the seas become more dangerous when lighthouses go dark, the same is true on the increasingly stormy world stage. -- Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the publication date of the Senate report on Russian influence operations. It was released last year. WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: -- Kenya’s president declared that a terrorist attack on a Nairobi hotel had ended after 14 civilians were killed. -- The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide blast in Syria’s U.S.-patrolled city of Manbij, marking the first such attack since Trump said American forces would be withdrawing from the country because the militant group has been defeated. GET SMART FAST: SHUTDOWN LATEST: -- Trump is recalling nearly 50,000 government employees — but won't pay them while they work — to soften the impact of the shutdown in a move that could reduce political pressure to compromise. “[Trump] extended an unusual lunch invitation to a handful of rank-and-file House Democrats in an attempt to woo them and create a divide within the Democratic camp over the shutdown. But the lawmakers rebuffed the outreach as Democratic leaders voiced concerns the meeting would prove little more than a photo opportunity bolstering Trump.” -- Senate Republicans have largely stood by Mitch McConnell as he refuses


Trump is ignoring the law to keep the shutdown from causing him political pain

during a shutdown to mitigate harm. The government provides a wide range of important services, and when it has no funding, most of those services must stop, and the people who provide them cannot get their paychecks. The law limits what activities can continue during a shutdown: those necessary to protect life or property, to carry out the president’s core constitutional responsibilities, and to operate programs that Congress has said should continue in the absence of funding. But Trump has shunted aside legal and programmatic considerations in favor of two imperatives: keeping bad press to a minimum and keeping influential supporters happy. Take national parks. During a shutdown, the Interior Department cannot legally maintain the full workforce needed to safely operate the parks; it can keep only a skeleton staff on the job to protect life or property. In 2013, the Obama administration closed parks as a result of this legal requirement — and we faced intense political criticism for it. But the Trump administration has chosen instead to keep them open with insufficient staffing. The predictable result: a buildup of garbage and human waste, safety risks to visitors, and damage to the parks themselves. As public pressure intensified, Interior decided to divert user fees to pay for some park services. The National Parks Conservation Association has suggested that using these fees for operating expenses is illegal, and the group has requested that the department’s inspector general investigate. Even if it’s legal, this diversion uses money earmarked for long-term maintenance projects to ease the short-term political fallout from the shutdown. And the damage to the parks has already been done. This is the same strategy Trump has applied to the entire government: putting forward patchwork solutions for his own benefit, regardless of long-term consequences or legal requirements. The clearest example is with tax refunds. The Internal Revenue Service has repeatedly determined, including multiple times during Trump’s administration, that tax refunds legally cannot be paid during a shutdown. There is no funding for the personnel who process them and no evidence in the law that Congress wanted refunds to occur as normal during a shutdown. This distinguishes tax refunds from Social Security payments, which Congress has made clear must continue during a shutdown by requiring that they be made on a regular basis — because not making those payments would damage the program. There is no such timing requirement for tax


D.C. Labor chorus: ‘The musical arm of the resistance’

Trump was elected, the chorus had five or six gigs a year, said founding director Elise Bryant, executive director of the Labor Heritage Foundation, which works to strengthen the labor movement through music and the arts. Last year, it had 25 performances. The group sang on Jan. 9 at an anti-shutdown rally organized by Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), inspiring even politicians such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) to sing along. “They act like the musical arm of the resistance,” said Raskin, who also had the group perform at a memorial service for his father, Marcus Raskin, a pianist and left-leaning activist who died in 2017. “They’re not just there as entertainers. They are there as participants in the moment.” These are not Trump’s “Make America Great Again” people, to say the least. Some, like alto Sarah Starrett, a solicitor at the Labor Department who is not affected by the shutdown, are careful to steer clear of politics at work. But with the chorus, there is no such restriction. “I can’t say the word ‘impeachment’ on federal property,” she said, referring to a recently distributed guidance on the Hatch Act in which the government warned that talking about sanctioning the president, or “the Resistance,” may constitute prohibited activity. The group was especially busy over the weekend, performing at the Indigenous Peoples March on the Mall on Friday and at a Democratic women’s club event that evening. On Sunday, they donned dashikis and other dressy attire to sing three times: at the AFL-CIO interfaith Martin Luther King Day program in the District, at a Unitarian Universalist church in Bethesda and at an MLK Day ball in Silver Spring. “We sing for all labor,” Bryant sang during an interview, echoing Kirk Franklin’s “Why We Sing.” “We sing to organize. We are a mighty chorus. We’re singing for our lives.” Union membership is down significantly from its peak in the mid-1900s, when about one-third of American workers belonged to unions. But labor choruses are still hanging on and even thriving in some places. Groups in Seattle and San Francisco said they have seen no spike in invitations during the Trump era. Demand for Baltimore’s Charm City Labor Chorus is up only slightly, said Darryl! Moch, a consultant, activist, advocate, performance artist and minister who runs the group. “It feels like people just need to be in an


Theresa May’s Brexit Plan B leaves Parliament underwhelmed

LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday spelled out a “Plan B” for Brexit that appeared very much like a warmed-over version of her Plan A, which suffered a crushing defeat in Parliament last week. May was forced to return to Westminister by a newly assertive Parliament that has been trying to exert more control over what withdrawal from the European Union looks like. But while May said she would “ensure that members have the chance to make their views known,” she has not altered her approach in response to many of the views that have already been expressed. May refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit — the possibility that Britain could “crash out” of the European Union without a deal March 29, which the government warns could create economic hardship, shortages in medicine and traffic jams at the ports. May reiterated her opposition to delaying Brexit beyond the March 29 deadline, saying that an extension to allow more parliamentary debate would be “simply deferring the point of decision” — and probably would not be agreed to by the other 27 members of the European Union. She also repeated arguments against a second referendum — another “people’s vote” on Brexit. May said that the people already voted for Brexit and that the job of her government and Parliament is to deliver it. A second referendum, she warned, “could damage social cohesion by undermining faith in our democracy.” May said she thought progress was possible on the most contentious element of the withdrawal deal — the “Irish backstop,” an insurance policy meant to prevent the reemergence of a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit. An open border was a key part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to decades of conflict in Northern Ireland. May said she would consult with lawmakers “to consider how we might meet our obligations to the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland in a way that can command the greatest possible support in the House.” “And I will then take the conclusions of those discussions back to the E.U.,” she said. But how much room to maneuver is there on the E.U. side of the table? Although there is some openness to delaying Brexit by a few months, European leaders have repeatedly said the deal May presented to Parliament last week, painfully negotiated over several months,


Photos of the ‘Super Blood Wolf Moon’ Sunday night

The moon began to glow red just before midnight last night as the lunar eclipse approached totality. During a total lunar eclipse, the sun’s direct light is blocked from reaching the moon by the Earth’s shadow and the moon glows red because sunlight is refracted, or bent, around the edges of the Earth and directed toward the moon. The reddening of the moon is very similar to the process that makes sunsets glow red before the sun appears above the horizon. This particular lunar eclipse was dubbed the “Super Blood Wolf Moon” because it was a: 1. Super moon, meaning the full moon was approaching Earth at about the nearest point in its orbit. 2. Blood moon, for the reddish color the moon turns during an eclipse. 3. Wolf moon, which is the name for January’s full moon. I braved the brutally cold, subzero wind chills with my friend, Dennis Govoni, and set up my camera and tripod on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial to capture the eclipsing moon above the memorial. I knew it was going to be very cold, so I dressed in many layers and packed boots, gloves and usual cold-weather gear. But I truly underestimated the strength of the wind. The gusts blowing across the Potomac River and Tidal Basin on Sunday night were extreme, the kind that seem to want to knock you off your feet. On the elevated steps of the Jefferson Memorial, we experienced the full fury of the wind. I used my body as a wind shield to keep my camera and tripod from vibrating as I took photos. I felt the sting of the wind on my exposed cheeks and nose as I fine-tuned my camera’s settings. Then I made my big mistake. I bent over to reach into my camera and immediately heard a loud “Bam!” It only took a second for the wind to lift my camera and tripod into the air and slam it onto the granite steps of the Jefferson Memorial. I ran over to my camera, a Sony a7R II, to check for damage. I didn’t see any cracks or breaks, but the camera displayed a single error message, “Turn camera off.” I turned the camera off, but it stayed on. I repeatedly turned it off and on, but the error message did not disappear and the camera did not power off. I was done


Temperatures head swiftly downward during blood-red eclipse of the moon

This story has been updated. And it came to pass Sunday that on the coldest day of the winter one of nature’s most memorable outdoor spectacles began to take place. Neither condition could be readily changed, but one was to be welcomed and the other endured. . The total eclipse of the moon, visible in Washington almost directly over our heads, went majestically forward. Slowly the moon slid into the shadow cast by the Earth across space. And slowly that shadow moved across the face of the moon. And a few clouds also sailed across Washington’s night sky. Yet it was not those clouds that provided the principal obstacle to viewing the celestial sights. It was the numbing cold, and the bitter wind, and the combination of the two. At midnight. Washington’s official temperature, as measured at Reagan National Airport, had sunk to 19 degrees. . It was a steep decline from only hours earlier when readings had been in the 50s. And any feelings of discomfort were aided and abetted by the wind. Winds and gusts were fierce, and tore across the Washington landscape with Arctic harshness. At points in the afternoon, winds in the 30 mph range and gusts in the 40s lashed Washington. Between 11 p.m. and midnight, the wind at National gusted as high as 40 mph. Trees toppled. A light pole fell on an Alexandria street. Several thousand people lost power. It might have been almost too cold and windy to watch. But the machinery of the heavens proceeded implacably and unalterably onward. Described as our only total eclipse of the moon this year, it was well underway by 11 p.m. about 40 minutes from totality. It proceded majestically, through the deepest position of totality. And then out again. Through the chilly night, the moon seemed to exemplify each word in its designation, the Super Wolf Blood Moon. Super because of its proximity, Wolf, from folklore, and Blood because of the tint given its face by light bending around Earth. Although in the eyes of some perceptive and precise eclipse watchers, it seemed as much rust-colored as ruddy. But the time of color has passed. Before the sun rose and the moon set, it was gain that silvery disk from which humanity has for centuries derived assurance and inspiration. martin.weil@washpost.com


From the North Pole on down, the shutdown is having an international impact

Regarding the Jan. 18 news article “The North Pole is moving, and the furloughs mean we aren’t keeping up”: Recent observations of Earth’s shifting magnetic field have created a crisis with international ramifications. Scientists have been unable to update “the World Magnetic Model, which cellphone GPS systems and military navigators use to orient themselves.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hosts the World Magnetic Model, but its website is shut down; thus all countries have to navigate by the old World Magnetic Model, which becomes less and less accurate each day. Perhaps it is time for an emergency meeting of the United Nations so the rest of the world can call on the United States to end the shutdown, which is causing many international problems. Marvin Gold


European shares fall as China slowdown stalls rally

stock market futures, which offer an indication of how Wall Street shares will next open, were down about half a percent. “It seems that the optimism we saw in Asia did not extend into Europe,” said Brittany Baumann, macro strategist at TD Securities in London. “And the start of this week is a reflection of the downside risks that still exist — Brexit and China-U.S. trade developments.” China’s economy faces deep and complicated changes, President Xi Jinping said on Monday. Growing signs of weakness in China — which has generated nearly a third of global growth in recent years — has fueled anxiety about risks to the world economy in recent weeks and are weighing on profits for firms such as Apple. “On balance, the [China] data is relatively positive and does not point to a hard landing,” said Timothy Graf, head of macro strategy at State Street Global Advisors in London. “The consumption data being better than expected is the positive takeaway in that China is trying to engineer a move toward a consumer-led economy.” But in other signs of caution, the Australian dollar, often used as a liquid proxy for China investments, nudged down to $0.7156. Oil prices also fell on further evidence that economic growth in China, the world’s second largest crude consumer, was easing. Brent crude oil futures fell 0.2 percent to $62.57 a barrel. In currency markets, sterling firmed after May indicated that she would be more flexible with lawmakers, even though she refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit. There are few signs that she can break a deadlock with Parliament after her Brexit deal was rejected last week. May offered to tweak her defeated deal by seeking further concessions from the European Union on a backup plan to avoid a hard border in Ireland. Sterling fell initially as she spoke, then climbed to session highs, rising above $1.29. Against the euro it touched a high of 88.07 pence, up 0.2 percent on the day, reversing earlier losses. “Her failure to detail Plan B could be the catalyst to the Parliament to taking control of the process,” said John Marley, a senior currency consultant at FX risk management specialist SmartCurrencyBusiness. “Ultimately that makes an extension, a deal or even a second referendum more likely.” Britain’s FTSE index traded around flat while British government bond yields slipped 3 basis points to 1.32 percent. — Reuters


For this top New York chef, an asparagus dish that ‘didn’t make sense’ led to a career without borders

“But the dish represents many themes important to my career. It was probably one of my earliest experiences seeing something creative in the kitchen. It was something different, an example of what immigrants do with flavors they grew up with and how food evolves, how it doesn’t have borders, per se. It is also Midwestern and of that era of the 1960s when quick recipes were taken off the sides of convenience foods like peanut butter.” Lo was born in Detroit and raised in Birmingham, Mich., the daughter of Chinese immigrants. How she became one the most prominent chefs in New York with her restaurant Annisa, which held a Michelin star for nine consecutive years, is a great story. (Not to mention defeating Mario Batali in the first season of “Iron Chef America” and being the first female guest chef to cook a state dinner at the White House, for Chinese President Xi Jinping.) I was surprised, though, to discover that Lo is a reticent storyteller when the story is herself, because as a writer, she is forthright, funny and sly. Her newest book, which Eater named its 2018 Cookbook of the Year, is “Solo: A Modern Cookbook for a Party of One” (Knopf, $29). It begins this way: “I put the ‘Lo’ in ‘solo.’ The A Lo in ‘alone.’ I’ve been dumped almost as many times as I’ve been in relationships — and I can count those on less than two hands. Spread over my fifty-year life span, that’s a lot of solo meals.” In her recipe for Valentine’s Day, “A Single, Broken Egg on a Bed of Torn, Wilted, Bitter Greens with Blue Cheese,” the last ingredient is “A healthy dose of self-pity.” “I always include something for the lonely person,” she writes. Lo’s loneliness began early. When she was 3, her father, Lien-Fu Lo, died in an electrical accident when their home flooded; her sister was 5 and her brother was 8. Lien-Fu had been a pathologist, as was Lo’s mother, Molly Hayden. She continued working at a hospital outside Detroit, where Lo noted, “she made one-quarter of what my father made for the same job.” Her mother remarried the next year, and by the time Lo was a sophomore in high school, she found herself boarding at Concord Academy in Massachusetts. “I kind of got kicked out of my house,” she said with a shrug. “I


Shutdown cancels MLK day of service programs in some national parks

for the park, including trash removal and clearing invasive plants, she said. “It’s disappointing.” But she added, “We’ll be back.” Still, the shutdown did not seem to reduce the number of sign-ups, Davis said. “It was on track with past years of the numbers that turn out for these type of service events.” Samantha Jo Warfield, a spokeswoman for the federal Corporation for National and Community Service, which has not been affected by the shutdown, said of the anticipated turnout for service day: “I know of many projects that are already at capacity or have expanded their event to utilize more volunteers.” “The nation’s volunteer rate has . . . remained remarkably stable for 15-plus years . . . [and] the D.C. area ranks in the top 10, about 10% above the national average,” she wrote in an email. George Washington University had about 100 students lined up for a service day in the District’s Rock Creek Park before the shutdown, said Amy Cohen, head of school’s Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service. “We had it scheduled for a while, but we got notice pretty early on that we were not going to be able to work with them,” she said. “Once folks realized that the shutdown was really real, they let us know that we could not do that.” “Generally, if we have a [service project] cancellation, we turn to the Park Service,” she said. “But they’re not able to take volunteers now.” Cohen said the school has about 1,000 students and community members who will be volunteering elsewhere on other King service projects. At Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, an enclave of quiet wetlands along the Anacostia River in Northeast Washington, the friends had to cancel their annual service day because the park is closed. “It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Tina O’Connell, executive director of the friends group. “The Park Service needs the help of volunteers and partners like friends groups to carry out its mission,” she said. “So with the shutdown, they’re not able to provide the services they do for all their visitors, and it makes it very difficult for us to continue to support them.” “I think there are a lot of things people can do to support the national parks right now,” she said. “One is to support their friends group that belongs to the national park of their choice.” michael.ruane@washpost.com


Auto accidents higher in 4 states where pot is legal, comparison study says

Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with any advertisers on this site. According to a recent study, motor vehicle crashes are up 6 percent in four states that have legalized recreational marijuana compared with four neighboring states where the drug is restricted or illegal. The study was conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), which say the crash data suggest that as more states legalize recreational marijuana, more effort will be needed to determine how best to prevent impaired driving crashes. “What we’re seeing is a definite increase in crash risk that is associated with the legalized recreational use of marijuana,” says David Harkey, president of IIHS and HLDI. Harkey cautioned that the study results indicate only a correlation between marijuana legalization and a higher number of crashes, and says more research would be necessary to determine whether marijuana use caused the increase. Other groups disagree with the findings. They point to surveys that seem to contradict the conclusions. Experts and advocates interviewed for this report say that more study is needed and that greater education around driving impairment is a good idea. The IIHS/HLDI study compared insurance claims for vehicle collisions in Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington — where recreational marijuana is legal — with Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming — where it’s not, and controlled for factors including driver age and employment status, seasonality, weather and location. Paul Armentano, deputy director of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, an advocacy group that works toward the legalization of recreational marijuana, said he was doubtful of the findings. “I am skeptical that legal marijuana is the variable here that is solely responsible for the difference in these states versus controls, or that investigators could have definitively identified cannabis as a factor absent other potential confounders,” he told Consumer Reports. He pointed to demographic differences that may not be controlled for — such as tourism, population density and number of cars on the road — that he says call the findings into question. Additionally, Armentano cited similar research that does not show a correlation between marijuana legalization and motor vehicle crash fatalities. That research includes a July 2017 study published in the American Journal of Public Health, which found no statistically significant difference in changes in motor vehicle crash fatality rates for Washington and Colorado after recreational marijuana legalization, compared with


A blood-red supermoon happens Sunday night, and much of the eastern U.S. will be able to see it

(This story was updated with a cloud cover forecast on Sunday morning, Jan. 20.) On Sunday night, the air will be cold and skies clear for parts of the country as a total lunar eclipse bathes the moon in an eerie blood-red hue. From Hawaii to Maine, all 50 states will have a chance to see it, weather permitting — the most widely visible lunar eclipse in the United States since October 2014. Oh, and it will be a supermoon, meaning it will be ever so slightly closer to Earth than normal. The cloud-cover forecast suggests the eastern half of the United States will have the best viewing conditions — with fairly widespread clear skies in the wake of a big storm exiting New England. Bundle up, as many areas will experience frigid temperatures and subzero wind chills. Out west, pervasive cloud cover will make seeing the eclipse more challenging. Lunar eclipses occur when Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, forming a straight line. This year, the moon will be high in the sky, which makes this the best chance to watch an eclipse in years. Specific starting and ending times of the eclipse will vary based on time zone. During totality, no sunlight reaches the moon, because Earth blocks all the rays. The only reason the moon is visible is because some of the light is refracted, or bent, around the edges of the globe and toward the moon. The reddening of the moon is akin to what makes sunsets so spectacular, with pink and orange hues. Green and blue don’t make it through, scattered away by the particles in Earth’s atmosphere. The only light wavelength left is red — dimly illuminating the moon with less than one-thousandth of the full moon’s normal brightness. It’s difficult to predict the exact hue of lunar eclipses, but whatever shade results can offer insight about the chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere. Maroon or auburn tinges have been known to result when the atmosphere is particularly polluted, often after large volcanic eruptions. Particles in the atmosphere generate more clouds, boosting the number of small water droplets in the air, and the tiny drops of water in clouds scatter light very well. In addition to changing color, the moon will be super. (Not that it isn’t super already — we love our only natural satellite.) This recently popular but decades-old term is


‘We shall return’: Eugene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon. There was no return.

who landed jets on aircraft carriers and once slid down the banister while visiting the White House. He flew on the Gemini IX mission in 1966, in orbit for three days, and became the second American to walk in space. He was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 10 in 1969, which circled the moon, and commanded Apollo 17, where he was stunned by the vastness of space, by the beauty of the Earth in the distance that turned a blunt-spoken pilot into a poet. As he said in a NASA 2007 oral history: He was convinced that the journey NASA had been on would continue, and he predicted that humans would reach Mars by the end of the 20th century. “I was a little off on my timing,” said he said in an interview with The Post in 2014. Now, 45 years later, President Trump has declared that Americans will go back to moon. At a White House ceremony Monday, Trump signed a directive that he said “marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 for long-term exploration and use.” It’s unclear when, or if, that will happen. And it’s not the first time a president has promised a return to the moon. In 2004, with Cernan in the audience, George W. Bush cited Cernan’s promise: “We shall return.” And Bush vowed: “America will make those words come true.” Cernan died in January When it was time to board the spacecraft for the return home, Cernan glanced down “and there was my final footsteps,” he recalled in the NASA oral history. He glanced over his shoulder to look back at the Earth, over the mountains of the moon in the southwestern sky. Finally, up the ladder he went. “Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make,” he said. “I didn’t want to go up. I wanted to stay a while.” Read more Retropolis: An asteroid was streaking toward Earth. A collision seemed all too possible. ‘Houston, we have a problem’: The amazing history of the iconic Apollo 13 misquote Pence vows America will return to the moon. The history of such promises suggests otherwise. ‘I wanted to serve’: These deaf men helped NASA understand motion sickness in space The solar eclipse that made Einstein famous Discovered: Never-before seen photos of Charles Lindbergh’s first Spirit of St. Louis flight


You’re probably breathing dangerous air

Christiana Figueres was executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010 to 2016. Climate change is here now, and it’s time to urgently ask ourselves: What kind of future do we want to work toward? The air we breathe is key to answering this question. Global warming is not just manifesting in devastating fires, floods and heatwaves; its causes are impacting nearly every breath we take. A recent World Health Organization report said that nine out of 10 people on the planet breathe dangerous air, and an estimated 7 million premature deaths a year are caused by air pollution-related diseases, including stroke and heart disease, respiratory illness and cancer. A recent Health Effects report reiterated these statistics, saying more than 95 percent of the world population breathes bad air. Just a few weeks ago, another study showed that air pollution damages cognitive abilities. Thick, heavy smog caused by the burning of fossil fuels and crops is choking cities around the world. China has been forced to close tens of thousands of factories to reduce its air pollution. Air pollution in Africa has been ruled responsible for more deaths than unsanitary water or malnutrition. Last November, Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of India’s capital city, wrote: “Delhi has become a gas chamber.” Pollution is not invisible — but it can be hard to see. The pollutants that give most cause for concern are toxic gases such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, or PM2.5. These gases come from car, truck and bus exhaust, the burning of fuels such as coal, oil, gas and petrol, as well as burning crop materials or naturally-occurring forest and grass fires. These particles are so small — a fraction of the size of the diameter of a human hair — that they are easily ingested deep into the lungs. PM2.5 is now increasingly showing up in places like Europe and North America, partly due to wildfires. Studies have linked air pollution to about 40,000 deaths a year in the United Kingdom — with about 10,000 in London, partly due to the rise of diesel vehicles there. Meanwhile, wildfires are reversing decades of air quality improvements across wide swaths of the western United States. The most vulnerable people are impacted the hardest. Fossil fuel combustion byproducts have been deemed one of the most serious threats to children’s health and global equality. Emerging


Officials warn of icy spots in severe cold; some schools open late

Drivers should use caution, officials said, as there are reports of some icy roads in the D.C. region. Some schools in the area are opening two hours late because of the severe cold. One dangerous spot, according to D.C. Police, was at Rock Creek Ford Road and Fort Stevens Drive in Northwest Washington. Drivers are advised to allow extra travel time as road conditions may be dangerous. Many drivers in the area have also reported that the winter snow and cold temperatures have made potholes in some spots particularly bad. There are reports of rough potholes along Canal Road near the Key Bridge, along Interstate 495 near the Roosevelt Bridge and along the Memorial Bridge. But getting the potholes fixed is tough, given that some of the roads are maintained by the U.S. Park Service, which is under the partial federal government shutdown. In Maryland, Whites Ferry is closed because of high water and ice on the Potomac River. On Tuesday morning, there are also reports of delays on the Penn Line of the MARC commuter train service that runs from the Baltimore area to the District. There’s a track problem between the Bowie State and New Carrollton stops. It’s not clear how long the delays will last. It may be cold in the D.C. area, but at the Cincinnati Zoo it’s the perfect weather for the facility’s penguins to take a walk. On its Facebook page, the Cincinnati Zoo said “this weather is for the birds.... penguins that is!” The zoo has a "penguin parade over the weekends when it’s below 50 degrees outside.


This start-up is launching a remote-controlled ‘grocery store on wheels'

At first glance, the black and white Robomart vehicle, with its minimalist design and rounded body, looks like a vision of the future. But if you ignore the lack of a steering wheel and human driver, the electric, grocery-filled machine — about the size of a minivan — is actually something of a throwback. For much of U.S. history, perishable kitchen items such as produce, milk, eggs and ice arrived outside people’s homes on a daily basis, first by horse-drawn wagon and later by truck. This curbside service would eventually fall victim to refrigeration, automobiles and the rise of the supermarket, making weekly shopping trips the modern American norm, according to Boston Hospitality Review. Now Robomart — a Santa Clara, Calif.-based start-up — seeks to merge the old with the new. From AmazonFresh to Peapod and Instacart, there’s no shortage of grocery delivery services flooding the marketplace. But Robomart founder and CEO Ali Ahmed said his company isn’t a grocery delivery service. Instead, he considers Robomart an on-demand, remote-controlled “grocery store on wheels.” Last week, Robomart announced a new partnership with grocery store chain Stop & Shop and will begin operations in the Greater Boston area in the spring. But some local officials say the company hasn’t received proper permitting to do so, according to the Boston Globe. Moving forward, Ahmed said, Robomart hopes to partner with other retailers that would lease its vehicles and brand them as their own, creating self-driving grocery fleets. “We turned delivery on its head for a number of reasons,” Ahmed said. “You don’t have to spend time ordering online and you get to pick out food yourself, which is the fundamental reason groceries have never flourished on e-commerce. We are making it not only convenient, but the fastest possible way to shop. " “Even at its fastest, delivery will take up to an hour,” he added. How does it work? Unlike a typical grocery delivery service, which requires customers to select groceries online first, Robomart vehicles — which can reach 25 mph — will be dispatched to a particular neighborhood, where customers can summon one through an app. There is no human on board: The delivery vehicles will be operated by people from another location using “cameras and navigation systems,” according to the Globe. Once it has arrived, customers can open the vehicle’s sliding doors using the app, giving them access to a selection


A car bomb has stirred fears that Brexit will blow up peace in Northern Ireland. That isn’t likely.

in Dublin. Asked whether Brexit and a hard border will lead to increasing violence, he responded: “I think it is inevitable. It depends what kind of deal will happen but if there … is a requirement that a physical hard border is established and this physical hard border is manned by British security forces, that increases the opportunity and the motivation for violence in that area, and this will most likely happen.” The New IRA is not being spurred by Brexit As Kenna’s statement, as well as various others from activists, shows, the New IRA wants to exploit Brexit for its own aims. However, that is a very different thing from saying that Brexit is spurring further violence. There has been constant low-level violence by Loyalist and Republican organizations since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, as discussed by scholars such as John F. Morrison and John Horgan. These groups are responsible for 70 deaths in the past 21 years; in the past 10 years, they have killed two police officers, two soldiers and two prison warders. As Carine Berberi notes, they are responsible for 10 deaths in 2015 and 2016. As my research and the existing literature by Berberi, Michel Savaric, Brigid Laffan and others show, these attacks would likely continue, hard border or not. Dissident Republicans see British security force members as a legitimate target, whether they are manning a border post. Their interpretation of Irish history will not be affected by Brexit. At most, border posts would merely add additional targets to the existing ones. My research shows that even if dissident Republicans are willing to conduct a larger-scale military campaign, they don’t have the resources. They are small, fractious, heavily infiltrated by Irish and British intelligence, and have outdated bombs and weapons. The bomb attack in Derry was the exception rather than the rule, and even it was relatively primitive. The number of sentenced prisoners in the high-security prisons Maghaberry and Portlaoise vastly outnumber the number of active Republican paramilitaries outside. In 2018, only one national security attack by dissident Republicans was reported while 164 arrests were made for all terrorist activity, with 11 people subsequently charged. A return to large-scale violence is unlikely Under current circumstances, it is unlikely that we will see a return to high-level attacks from the existing groups in Northern Ireland. Nonetheless, dissident Republicans will continue to mount occasional attacks,


Exclusive: Iraqi scientist says he helped ISIS make chemical weapons

experts — chemists, a biologist and at least one technician who had worked inside the weapons program of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Together, he said, the team was tasked with making sulfur mustard, a powerful chemical-warfare agent commonly known as mustard gas. A blister agent that killed or maimed tens of thousands of soldiers during World War I, sulfur mustard attacks the bronchial tubes of the lungs when inhaled, often causing a slow and agonizing death. Afari’s role, he acknowledged in the interview, was to organize a supply chain for mustard gas, outfitting a small cluster of labs and workshops that stretched from Mosul University to the suburbs. From his conversations with Islamic State overseers, he became convinced that the toxins were intended more to evoke fear and deter Iraqis from trying to retake territory that had been seized by the caliphate. Many Iraqis can still remember the suffering caused by Iraqi chemical attacks on Kurds in the 1980s. “It was important [for the Islamic State] to make something strong so that they could terrify,” Afari said. “It was more about creating horror, and affecting the psychology and the morale of troops fighting them. I don’t believe the quality of the weapons was ever at such a dangerous level.” The job itself was similar in many ways to his work as a manager for the Iraqi government, Afari said. “They came to me for help with the equipment: the containers, the things they needed for chemical weapons,” he said. “I have experience with stainless steel, and they were looking for stainless steel. You have no choice but to become one of them.” Startling new weapons On Aug. 11, 2015 — exactly 14 months after the black flags were raised over Mosul — Islamic State militants lobbed 50 mortar rounds at a village held by Kurdish peshmerga fighters south of Irbil. The projectiles exploded with a soft thud and released white smoke and an oily liquid. Within minutes, about three dozen peshmerga soldiers fell ill, complaining of nausea and burning eyes and lungs. Two officers who were splattered by the liquid developed painful blisters on their legs and torsos. An initial laboratory test confirmed that the mortar shells contained sulfur mustard. A second test ruled out what had by then become conventional wisdom: that the Islamic State had stolen the toxins from Syria, or found them in discarded remnants of


Shutdown puts major Tintoretto exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in jeopardy

The National Gallery of Art’s signature spring show might become the latest victim of the partial government shutdown now entering its second month. The exhibition of 16th-century Italian master Tintoretto — one of the most anticipated art shows of the year — is set to open March 10, along with two complementary exhibits on Venetian prints and drawings. Preparations for the shows are weeks behind schedule because of the prolonged shutdown, the longest in history. “[Gallery leaders] are having internal meetings to discuss the impact of the shutdown on all of the spring shows,” said NGA spokeswoman Anabeth Guthrie. Three exhibitions at Smithsonian museums, which also are supported by federal dollars, have been postponed because of the 31-day shutdown. “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence,” at the National Portrait Gallery, was scheduled to open March 1; “Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths” was set for Feb. 27 at the National Museum of African Art; and Smithsonian Gardens’ popular orchid display was planned for Feb. 2 in the Kogod Courtyard shared by the Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. No new dates will be announced until the shutdown is over, said Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas. The shutdown has prevented workers at the National Gallery from preparing the exhibition space for “Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice,” the first retrospective of the Venetian artist to be presented in North America. The exhibit, which celebrates the 500th anniversary of the artist’s birth, was on view in Venice until Jan. 6 and features almost 50 paintings and dozens of drawings. Two companion shows are scheduled to open the same day: “Drawing in Tintoretto’s Venice,” which closed earlier this month at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, and “Venetian Prints in the Time of Tintoretto,” featuring about 30 prints from the gallery’s collection. The main exhibition, curated by Tintoretto experts Robert Echols, an independent curator, and Frederick Ilchman, curator of paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, will hang in the galleries that most recently housed “Corot: Women.” After that exhibition closed Dec. 31, furloughed staff members were permitted to take it down (as well as other exhibits that ended later) and pack the art for shipment, Guthrie said. Other employees have been able to accept the shipments for the Tintoretto exhibits from New York and Venice. But before they can be installed, the galleries must be


Model who claimed U.S.-Russia collusion evidence freed from jail in Moscow

MOSCOW — A self-described sex trainer from Belarus who became an unlikely player in an investigation of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential campaign was released from a Moscow jail on Tuesday, a defense lawyer involved in the case said. Anastasia Vashukevich, also known as Nastya Rybka, and her partner, Alexander Kirillov, still face possible prostitution charges stemming from a “sex-training seminar” they held in Thailand last year, Kirillov’s lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina said in a phone interview. The two had spent nine months behind bars in Thailand after a police raid on their seminar and were deported last week after they pleaded guilty. Russian authorities detained them after they landed in Moscow, alleging that they also violated Russian prostitution law. Vashukevich, who also worked as an escort, made headlines last year after video footage she posted to social media surfaced showing her on a yacht with Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska and a then-deputy prime minister. After her arrest in Thailand, she pleaded for U.S. help and said she had recordings documenting links between Deripaska and Donald Trump’s campaign. The claim was notable because Deripaska used to work with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. But no recordings related to the campaign — or proof that they exist — have surfaced. Vashukevich apologized to Deripaska in comments to journalists in court on Saturday and indicated that she planned to stay silent. “There will be no more tapes or records about Oleg Deripaska,” she said. “I will stop compromising him, so he can relax.” On Tuesday, police were expected to seek an extension of Vashukevich’s and Kirillov’s detention as the Russian authorities’ investigation continued. But instead, police told the court that the two could be released during the investigation. “The investigators changed their decision,” Sidorkina said. But Vashukevich and Kirillov remain suspects, she added, and could be charged at any time. Although Vashukevich is a citizen of Belarus, Sidorkina said she intended to stay in Russia while she was required to be in the country. Sidorkina declined to comment on whether Vashukevich’s apology to Deripaska might have affected the police decision. Deripaska has not commented on developments in the case, although he has denied any wrongdoing and won an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Vashukevich last year. The pair’s release came after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko appeared to get involved. His spokeswoman told the Belarusian edition of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper that he