Postmaster general announces he is ‘suspending’ policies blamed for mail delays

of,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement. “The Postal Service has been in dire straits long before Mr. DeJoy’s leadership and he rightfully took action to improve its efficiency and operations to better serve the American people.” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, will gavel the Friday hearing remotely and is expected to press DeJoy on whether the Postal Service truly needs the $25 billion in emergency funding that the House has pushed. The Trump administration has started backing away from its hard-line stance against any postal aid, signaling over the weekend it would be willing to approve $10 billion. Senate Democrats — including the party’s presumptive vice-presidential nominee, Kamala D. Harris (Calif.), and Gary Peters (Mich.), who launched his own investigation of mail delays last week — are poised to grill DeJoy on his connections to the White House. DeJoy has given more than $2 million to the Trump campaign or Republican causes since 2016, according to the Federal Election Commission, including a $210,600 contribution to the Trump Victory Fund on Feb. 19. He has given more than $650,000 to the Trump Victory Fund and more than $1 million to the Republican National Convention. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in March attempted to leverage an emergency coronavirus loan to the Postal Service that would allow the White House to approve the next postmaster general, along with higher package rates — long a target for Trump. The announcement also leaves unresolved DeJoy’s plans for the agency’s long-term finances. The Postal Service has $15 billion in the bank, plus a $10 billion loan from an early round of coronavirus relief as a backstop. That’s more cash on hand than it had at the start of the pandemic, when the agency forecast it would run out of money in October. Since then, volume declines in first- and second-class mail — the USPS’s most profitable products — have been smaller than anticipated. Package volume, meanwhile, has skyrocketed, up 55 percent in the last week of July from the year-ago period. That has put off financial calamity until at least spring 2021 and could sustain the agency for another year, according to recent projections. “This is totally a perception issue that the postmaster general is addressing. He and his board of governors,” Meadows said. “But any logistical operational concerns in terms of getting mail as quickly


The virus isn’t going away. That’s why campuses need to reopen.

the endpoint. Manufacturing enough doses to vaccinate the entire country, let alone the world, will take many months. A recent national survey shows that just 62 percent of Americans would accept a vaccine — below the 70 percent that most experts say is the minimum needed to achieve herd immunity. And we don’t yet know the strength and duration of the immunity that will be conferred, making it likely that the world will experience covid-19 outbreaks, albeit at lower levels, for years. This will likely make covid-19 at least a four-to-five-year problem, epidemiologists say. Pausing in-person education that long would be devastating to colleges and their students. And even a one-year delay would be a substantial challenge. It would disproportionately hurt low-income students who spent the spring continuing their studies online, without adequate technology, sometimes in overcrowded and even traumatic living conditions. And it would impair universities’ ability to discover solutions that would make the world safer — from this pandemic, and from ones that are yet to come. Once we decided to reopen Northeastern, we had to figure out how to do so. The reopening plan’s core principle, we decided, would be safeguarding the health and safety of our campus community and nearby neighborhoods. The planning would need to be far more comprehensive than hybrid classrooms, coronavirus testing and takeout meals. The plans hinge on developing a large-scale operation for regular covid-19 testing that does not rely on the chokepoint of commercial testing labs. As a research university, we have the space and expertise to administer and process thousands of tests each day, with the 24-hour turnaround time that is necessary to get an accurate snapshot of community health. We are using all of the tools at our disposal to ensure that students, faculty and staff are tested regularly, even if they are asymptomatic. And we have comprehensive tracing and quarantining protocols in place so we can contain an outbreak quickly and effectively. Other needed changes: improving airflow systems, instituting a continuous cleaning and sanitizing regimen, and reducing density in residence halls and classrooms. Fostering a community culture of mask-wearing, physical distancing and personal hygiene is essential, and that requires putting faith in students. At Northeastern, extensive surveys, focus groups and monitoring of social media make it clear that our students want to return to campus, and stay. Their parents want them here, too. That gives students a powerful


Thousands flood banks as federal small-business loan program has a chaotic first day

bankers to make decisions about who should receive the taxpayer-backed loans. “This is an unprecedented expansion of SBA lending that will take some time before it’s fully functioning,” said Rob Nichols, president of the American Bankers Association. The government is guaranteeing 100 percent of the loan’s value, meaning banks are repaid by taxpayers if the business fails to repay the loan. But community banks are also concerned about the loans’ low interest rate, which was increased from 0.5 percent to 1 percent following complaints from banking associations. The law allows for a maximum interest rate of 4 percent. In a mark of the frenetic pace with which federal agencies are trying to get money out the door, final regulations for the program were not released until just hours before the program was scheduled to begin. The federal guidance release addressed many of the industry’s concerns. Banks aren’t required to verify the accuracy of the documents a borrower submits with their application, removing the risk that the lender could be held legally liable for fraudulent behavior. Still, the industry warned it would take time to fully implement. “Having just received guidance outlining how to implement a $349 billion program literally hours before it starts, we would ask for everyone to be patient as banks move heaven and earth to get a system in place and running to help America’s small businesses and the millions of men and women who work at them,” Richard Hunt, president and CEO of the Consumer Bankers Association, said in a statement. The program requires small businesses to spend 75 percent of their loan on keeping workers employed to have the loan forgiven. If not, the borrower may be forced to repay the loan and may not be eligible to have it forgiven. That may limit the program’s appeal to some small-business owners Small-business owners say they are in limbo and can’t make critical decisions until the program is operational. Some worry that the fund — which officials say is first come, first served — is not large enough and that they might not get approved in time to claim their share. Some banks’ hesitation to jump into the program is frustrating, said Phil Rodocker, a real estate agent in Seattle who is seeking a loan. “We gave them tons of money to bail them out back in 2008, and now they won’t help us,” Rodocker said.


What happened at UNC-Chapel Hill?

The coronavirus outbreak at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill could be a cautionary tale for other higher education institutions. Joe Biden’s decades-long journey for the Democratic nomination. And, untangling the legacy of Susan B. Anthony.


The Daily 202: PR_8-20_DraftTest01_ML - THIS IS A TEST - PLEASE IGNORE!!

mid-March this year. Unemployment rates by state are highest in Nevada (25 percent), Maine (23 percent), Michigan (23 percent), Hawaii (20.6 percent) and New York (19 percent).” “The same day in mid-March that the United States launched human testing of its first experimental coronavirus vaccine, scientists in China announced their own trial would begin. Days after a company unveiled the partial data from the first U.S. human tests last month, a complete report of the Chinese trial was published in a prestigious medical journal,” Carolyn Johnson and Eva Dou report. “The nation that produces the first safe and effective vaccine will gain not only bragging rights but also a fast track to put its people back to work, a powerful public health tool to protect its citizens and a precious resource to reward allies.” “For a time, early in the pandemic, when Latin America was mostly a spectator watching outbreaks in China, then Europe, then the United States, there was hope that when the coronavirus arrived here, things would be different. The climate was warmer. The people were younger. The governments had more time to study the mistakes made elsewhere, and to prepare,” Terrence McCoy reports. “Weeks later, more than a million people have been infected, tens of thousands are dead, and those hopes are gone. … More than 31,000 [have died in Brazil]. … Peru has now confirmed twice as many infections as China. Mexico has suffered more than 10,000 deaths. Officials in Chile, now in the throes of one of the world’s most explosive outbreaks, warn that the hospital system in Santiago is teetering at capacity. The World Health Organization has declared Latin America the new epicenter of the global pandemic.” Rebel threats, secret burials and shuttered hospitals mask the spread of the pandemic in Yemen. The president wants top health officials to approve a vaccine by year’s end, and this could lead to cutting corners. “The goal is to instill confidence among voters that the virus can be tamed and the economy fully reopened under Trump’s stewardship. In a meeting last month with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar — who is overseeing the effort called Operation Warp Speed, along with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper — Trump pushed Azar repeatedly to speed up the already unprecedented timeline," Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey, Laurie McGinley and Carolyn Johnson report. "Some scientists and even several people close to


The first coup d’etat of the coronavirus era

this spring may have accelerated tensions past the point of no return. It’s a similar story in other nations. This has been a summer of protests around the world, despite the pandemic. U.S. marches after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a global movement against racism. In Belarus, huge crowds rejected the Aug. 9 election in which President Alexander Lukashenko claimed he won more than 80 percent of the vote. In Thailand, students have demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who took power after a 2014 coup and won disputed elections last year. Years of economic insecurity and political chaos had prompted huge protests in Lebanon well before the coronavirus, but it took the death of more than 100 people and the devastation of the capital city in an enormous explosion before protesters stormed government buildings and demanded, “Resign or hang.” The seeds of Mali’s coup were planted years before the virus’s spread. During the seven years he led the country, Keïta’s critics increasingly argued he had botched the long and draining fight against religious extremists with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Others had pointed to allegations of corruption within the political elite linked to the president and his party. Then the coronavirus arrived. So far, the estimated spread of the virus within Mali is limited compared to some nations — there have been 2,666 confirmed cases, including 125 deaths, in a country of 19 million, according to the latest government figures. But the pandemic added fuel to political and economic turmoil. Keïta’s government had moved ahead with plans for a parliamentary election in March despite a strict, virus-mandated lockdown. And the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of the main opposition leader, Soumaila Cisse, remained unresolved. Election monitors suggested that turnout in the second round of the election on April 20 was less than 24 percent. Mali’s Constitutional Court later overturned the results and Keïta’s newly elected government quit after a massacre by a vigilante group shocked the nation, leaving the country in a state of political limbo. Lockdown restrictions first imposed in March led to further economic devastation in what was already one of the poorest countries in the world. But the virus didn’t stop a surge in radical Islamist and insurgent violence in the country, despite the presence of around 4,500 French troops and many more United Nations peacekeepers — several of whom


Montgomery County and Frederick County homes sales

These sales data recorded by the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation in March were provided by Black Knight Inc. For information about other residential real estate transactions, visit washingtonpost.com/homesales. ASPEN HILL AREA Arctic Ave., Beaver Terr., Elizabeth St., Grenoble Dr., Muncaster Mill Rd., Wild Grape Ct., BETHESDA AREA Battery Lane, Burdette Rd., Cindy Lane, Eames Way, Hollins Dr., Magruder Mill Ct., Newbold Dr., Osceola Rd., River Rd., Still Spring Ct., Welborn Dr., Wilson Lane, BOYDS AREA Black Kettle Dr., Kings Crossing Blvd., BROOKEVILLE AREA Brighton Dam Rd., BURTONSVILLE AREA Ballinger Terr., Hollyhock Way, Monmouth Dr., CALVERTON-COLESVILLE AREA Billington Rd., Castle Terr., Colesville Manor Pl., Fog Mist Pl., Regent Manor Ct., Springloch Ct., CHEVY CHASE AREA Cedar Pkwy., East-West Hwy., Lynwood Pl., Ridgewood Ave., CLARKSBURG AREA Clarks Crossing Dr., Clarksridge Rd., Newcut Rd., Public House Rd., Timber Creek Lane, CLOVERLY-EDNOR AREA Cutstone Way, Hopefield Rd., Piping Rock Dr., DAMASCUS AREA Damascus Park Terr., Ridge Manor Dr., DERWOOD AREA Avery Rd., Deer Lake Lane, Indian Hills Dr., Shremor Dr., FOUR CORNERS-BURNT MILLS AREA Baritone Ct., Dallas Ave., Greenock Rd., Marvin Rd., Sutherland Rd., Weaver St., GAITHERSBURG AREA Badenloch Way, Cape Jasmine Way, Chesley Knoll Ct., Coriander Dr., Girard St., Hummingbird Terr., Pullman Pl., Whetstone Glen St., GAITHERSBURG-NORTH POTOMAC AREA Bucksfield Rd., Diamondback Dr., Highland Ridge Ave., Lake Varuna Mews, Parkview Ave., Query Mill Rd., Rich Branch Ct., Sioux Pl., Timberbrook Lane, GERMANTOWN AREA Afternoon Lane, Bargene Way, Chalet Dr., Cloverleaf Center Dr., Island View Cir., Long Channel Dr., Palmetto Cir., Seabreeze Ct., Spring Meadows Dr., Thackery Pl., Whitechurch Cir., KENSINGTON AREA Calvert Pl., Denfeld Ave., Everett St., Matthews Lane, Warner St., LAYTONSVILLE AREA Barberry Lane, Watkins Rd., MONTGOMERY VILLAGE AREA Brassie Pl., Chadburn Pl., Delcris Dr., Fountain Valley Dr., Greenside Terr., Highland Hall Dr., Maple Leaf Dr., Montgomery Village Ave., Strath Haven Dr., Yankee Harbor Pl., NEW HAMPSHIRE ESTATES-HILLANDALE AREA Stateside Dr., NORBECK-LAYHILL AREA Atherton Dr., Chesterwood Dr., Connecticut Ave., Dewey Rd., Estelle Rd., Greenery Lane, Interlachen Dr., Landing Way, Leisure World Blvd. N., Leisure World Blvd. N., Leisure World Blvd. S., Pittson Rd., Rippling Brook Dr., Urbana Dr., Wilcox Ct., OLNEY AREA Broom Dr., Clovercrest Cir., Gooseneck Terr., Macduff Ave., Rolling Meadow Way, POOLESVILLE AREA Chiswell Rd., Hoskinson Rd., POTOMAC AREA Apple Hill Ct., Chateau Dr., Deborah Dr., Fallsmead Way, Hackamore Dr., Kimblewick Rd., New London Dr., Pipestem Ct., River View Dr., Turncrest Dr., ROCKVILLE AREA Ashley Dr., Beall Ave.,


Local Digest: 16-year-old charged with murder in shooting near Takoma Metro station

THE DISTRICT A 16-year-old was arrested Thursday in connection with a fatal shooting that occurred last month near the Takoma Metro station in Northwest Washington, according to D.C. police. Quincy Tate Johnson, of Takoma Park, was charged as an adult with first-degree murder while armed. He had not made an initial appearance in court as of Thursday, and an attorney is not yet listed. Johnson is charged in the July 17 shooting death of Anthony Riley, 20, of Northeast Washington. Police said another man was also shot, and he survived. The shooting occurred about 1 a.m. in the 100 block of Walnut Street NW, near the border with Maryland. Police said shots were fired into a 1997 Subaru the victims were in as it was driven on Walnut Street toward Eastern Avenue, in the District. Police said the vehicle crashed after it crossed into Takoma Park. The Maryland medical examiner ruled Riley’s death a homicide by shooting. Police identified Riley as the driver of the Subaru. Authorities have not commented on a possible motive, but said two handguns, drugs and cash were found at the scene of the crash. — Peter Hermann D.C. police arrested a suspect Wednesday in the fatal stabbing of a man in the Brightwood neighborhood of Northwest Washington. Jaamil Hipps, a 43-year-old from Northeast, has been charged with second-degree murder while armed in the death of Sa’id Grey, 40, of Northwest Washington, according to police. Hipps was under court supervision at the time of his arrest, police said. A police investigation revealed that the incident was “the result of a dispute between known parties.” Grey was found fatally wounded Aug. 12 in the hallway of a residential building in the 1300 block of Missouri Avenue, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said Hipps had prior arrests on charges including assault with intent to kill. — Emily Davies MARYLAND A pedestrian was struck and killed by a vehicle in Prince George’s County. Maryland State Police said the incident unfolded just before 11:30 p.m. Wednesday when a woman — who was later identified as Amy Howard, 26, of Brandywine — walked into the road along part of Route 301 south near Cedarville Road in Brandywine. An initial investigation found that the driver of a car went from the center lane to the right lane when Howard “suddenly walked from the right side of the


There’s no covid-19 in Syria’s worst refugee camp. That may be about to change.

Just 10 miles away from a U.S. military base in Syria, 8,000 people are starving to death, besieged on all sides, and cut off from any food or medicine or other aid, in a camp called Rukban. Yet this isolation had one benefit: It protected them from the added calamity of a covid-19 outbreak. Now, however, Jordan is deporting its Syrian refugees directly into Rukban, some of whom could be bringing the virus back to their homeland with them. There are lots of tragic stories in Syria, but few match the sheer horror and hopelessness of the internally displaced civilians in this southeast Syrian camp, which is protected by a nearby U.S. military outpost from the Bashar al-Assad regime as well as Russian and Iranian forces. There are no roads out and no roads in. The last U.N. aid convoy arrived with a month’s worth of food over a year ago. The Assad regime and its allies are using starvation as a weapon of war, which is a war crime. The U.S. military recruits partner forces from the camp, but the U.S. government won’t feed the residents. There used to be over 30,000 people in the camp, who fled there from all parts of Syria. Thousands have since returned to regime-held areas (the only option other than starvation), where they faced detention, torture, conscription or execution. Subsisting on smuggled morsels, the remaining residents have waged a public campaign to beg the United States and the international community for help. But it has fallen on deaf ears. Now, to make matters worse, the Jordanian government has been forcibly repatriating refugees from camps inside Jordan, dumping them in Rukban with no food or aid, according to camp leaders and activists. By doing so, they are potentially exposing the thousands of existing residents to a pandemic they have no means to deal with. “We fear that they carry covid-19 or other sicknesses to our camp, which is isolated and doesn’t have any outbreaks right now,” one Rukban community leader, who goes by the name Abu Khalid al-Homsi, told me. “And if coronavirus does come to our camp, we have no way to protect ourselves. It would be a catastrophe.” Over the past month, the Jordanian government has dropped off several dozen Syrian refugees who had been in Jordan for years, he said. They came from the Azraq refugee camp and a camp called


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California fires cause parts of the U.S. to have some of dirtiest air in the world

in the coming days. The smoke could be visible in skies across the entire western half of the Lower 48 by this weekend. Where the smoke is densest at the lowest levels, air-quality indexes have plummeted. In fact, California’s air quality was regionally among the worst in the world on Thursday, with only a couple of monitoring stations in India and Mexico reporting dirtier air during the early afternoon. At the San Lorenzo Valley Middle School, in Santa Cruz, Calif., the air-quality index spiked to 351 on Thursday afternoon. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, values below 100 are considered “acceptable.” Air-quality indexes exceeding 300 are in the worst category and are shaded in maroon, corresponding to a “health warning of emergency conditions” when “everyone is more likely to be affected” whether or not they have underlying conditions. Areas around Sacramento reported particularly bad air-quality indexes, between 150 and 300, in the “unhealthy” and “very unhealthy” categories. The main contributor was elevated levels of fine particulate matter originating from the fires. Robert Gould is the president of San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization. He says that the combination of wildfire smoke along with a continued rise in reported covid-19 cases could prove overwhelming on top of an already stressed health-care system. “We’re very much concerned about respiratory diseases, the exacerbation of chronic conditions such as asthma, and cardiovascular conditions,” Gould said. He cited several academic studies that have found a “direct relationship between chronic exposure to particulate matter … and what we’re seeing as a toll of [covid-19]." “They weren’t saying such an exposure caused the death to [covid-19],” Gould said, “but for people who have a lot of other stressors, you worsen it. The wildfires represent the acute exacerbation of this.” Gould noted that vulnerable populations were especially at risk and likely to have frequent exposure to particulate matter because of California’s pollution problems even in the absence of wildfires. He said communities of color, for example, tend to be more significantly affected by proximity to pollution sources. “On top of that, we’re already aware that covid itself has had much more of a toll on communities of color, poorer communities, African American, Latinx communities, and that’s been, in my view, evident in what’s been reported on the increased morbidity and mortality of such communities.” The wildfire smoke and steep drop in


a continued rise in reported covid-19 cases could prove overwhelming on top of an already stressed health-care system. “We’re very much concerned about respiratory diseases, the exacerbation of chronic conditions such as asthma, and cardiovascular conditions,” Gould said. He cited several academic studies that have found a “direct relationship between chronic exposure to particulate matter … and what we’re seeing as a toll of [covid-19]." “They weren’t saying such an exposure caused the death to [covid-19],” Gould said, “but for people who have a lot of other stressors, you worsen it. The wildfires represent the acute exacerbation of this.” Gould noted that vulnerable populations were especially at risk and likely to have frequent exposure to particulate matter because of California’s pollution problems even in the absence of wildfires. He said communities of color, for example, tend to be more significantly affected by proximity to pollution sources. “On top of that, we’re already aware that covid itself has had much more of a toll on communities of color, poorer communities, African American, Latinx communities, and that’s been, in my view, evident in what’s been reported on the increased morbidity and mortality of such communities.” The wildfire smoke and steep drop in air quality can be particularly problematic for children and infants, whose lungs are still developing. “This tiny particulate matter, PM2.5, is around all the time,” said Lisa Patel, a pediatrics professor at Stanford University. “But it is a toxin to the body. In an individual that is struggling with a respiratory condition, it certainly will not help.” Children breathe faster, Patel said, and their maturing lungs are more susceptible to air pollution. “We always tell parents to run an air purifier, keep the kids inside, close windows …” Patel said. “But the problem is that we’re going to be seeing these wildfires every year now because of climate change. One wildfire event may not affect their whole life, [but] now we’re talking kids exposed to this high level of pollution year after year after year. We don’t have the data to know what that’s going to mean.” By altering the timing of spring snowmelt, speeding up summer drying and raising the odds of extreme heat events, climate change is contributing to larger wildfires across much of the West. One study, published Thursday in Environmental Research Letters, found that climate change has already led to a significant increase in the number


Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy tests positive for virus

same,” Cassidy said, noting that he will quarantine for 14 days. Cassidy, who is running for reelection on Nov. 3, is experiencing mild symptoms, the Associated Press reported, citing his spokesman. Cassidy, a former physician and one of three medical doctors in the Senate, is the second senator to test positive for the coronavirus; Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tested positive in late March. At least a dozen House members have been confirmed or presumed positive, with dozens more members of Congress from both chambers entering into voluntary quarantine after potential exposure. — Kim Bellware TENNESSEE Three White Tennessee police officers have had their police powers suspended after they broke down the door of an innocent Black family early Tuesday morning. Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake ordered a full investigation of the incident by the department’s Office of Professional Accountability. He said the family should have been given more time to answer the door and officers did not exercise due diligence in confirming that the person they were looking for lived at the apartment. “No innocent family in Nashville, anywhere, should be subjected to what the mother and her two children went through on Tuesday morning,” Drake said in a news release. “They were awakened by a team of officers who banged on their door and ultimately knocked it in with a ram.” The officers had used a Nashville public housing agency database to find the home of a 16-year-old they were investigating, according to a news release from Nashville police. However, the database had not been updated since 2018, after the agency determined that providing housing information to the police violated privacy laws. — Associated Press OKLAHOMA The Oklahoma zoo featured in Netflix’s “Tiger King” documentary has closed after federal authorities investigated it for alleged maltreatment of animals and suspended its license. The Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park closed to the public after the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday suspended the exhibitor license for owner Jeff Lowe for 21 days. The zoo, previously run by Joseph Maldonado-Passage — also known as Joe Exotic — became famous after being featured in Netflix’s “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.” The Garvin County Sheriff’s Office and USDA investigated the zoo after receiving a formal report that documented photos showing a lion with its ears covered in flies and another with the tips of its ears covered in blood. — Associated Press


Police charge 16-year-old with murder in shooting of man in Northwest Washington

A 16-year-old was arrested Thursday in connection with a fatal shooting that occurred last month near the Takoma Metro station in Northwest Washington, according to D.C. police. Quincy Tate Johnson, of Takoma Park in Maryland, was charged as an adult with first-degree murder while armed. He had not make an initial appearance in court as of Thursday, and an attorney is not yet listed. Johnson is charged in the July 17 shooting death of Anthony Riley, 20, of Northeast Washington. Police said another man also was shot, and he survived. The shooting occurred about 1 a.m. in the 100 block of Walnut Street NW, near the border with Maryland. Police said shots were fired into a 1997 Subaru the victims were in as it was driven on Walnut Street toward Eastern Avenue, in the District. Police said the vehicle crashed after it crossed into Takoma Park. The Maryland medical examiner ruled Riley’s death a homicide by shooting. Police identified Riley as the driver of the Subaru. Authorities have not commented on a possible motive, but said two handguns, drugs and cash were found at the scene of the crash.


D.C. man under court supervision arrested in fatal stabbing, police say

D.C. police arrested a suspect Wednesday in the fatal stabbing of a man in the Brightwood neighborhood of Northwest Washington. Jaamil Hipps, a 43-year-old from Northeast, has been charged with second-degree murder while armed in the death of Sa’id Grey, 40, of Northwest Washington, according to police. Hipps was under court supervision at the time of his arrest, police said. A police investigation revealed that the incident was “the result of a dispute between known parties.” Grey was found fatally wounded Aug. 12 in the hallway of a residential building in the 1300 block of Missouri Avenue, police said. He was pronounced dead on the scene. Police said Hipps had prior arrests on charges including assault with intent to kill. An attorney for Hipps is not yet listed.


NCAA Div. I Council recommends fall-sport athletes receive extra year of eligibility

The NCAA’s Division I Council recommended Wednesday that all fall-sport athletes, regardless of how many games they play this academic year, receive an extra season of eligibility. The NCAA’s Board of Directors has to approve the recommendation before it goes into effect. The council previously agreed that athletes who opted out or had their season cut short or canceled because of the novel coronavirus pandemic receive an extension of their eligibility clock and an additional season of eligibility if they participated in 50 percent or fewer of the NCAA’s maximum number of games in their given sport. The council, which includes athletic directors and other administrators, said in its statement that “more flexibility is warranted” and that all fall-sport athletes should have that relief. Typically athletes have five years to complete four seasons of eligibility. The council also recommended that athletes have an additional year to complete their eligibility. If the board approves this recommendation, seniors who play in the 2020 season, or in a winter version of the season for the conferences that have postponed, could play another season in 2021. Those athletes who return for an extra season during the 2021-22 school year would not count toward the team’s scholarship limits. The Division I Council made a similar decision for spring-sport athletes who had their seasons cut short by the coronavirus. For those athletes, the NCAA granted schools the ability to self-apply the waiver for additional eligibility, meaning schools could choose whether athletes would be able to return. Some universities did not allow any athletes to take advantage of the eligibility relief, usually citing financial concerns. The council also recommended that all Division I fall championships move to the spring “if they can be conducted safely and in accordance with federal, state and local health guidelines,” the statement said. The NCAA canceled those championship events last week. Many conferences had already postponed fall sports, and the Board of Governors required that at least 50 percent of schools participate in a season for a championship to be held. Six conferences — the SEC, ACC, Big 12, Sun Belt, American Athletic Conference and Conference USA — are still planning to play fall sports. While the NCAA does not control the College Football Playoff, the championships for every other fall sport will not take place as scheduled. The council’s statement said that Division I oversight committees are working on developing models


How Paul Manafort promoted Russian disinformation that has been embraced by Trump

attorney for Manafort did not respond to a request for comment. Kilimnik, who was charged in 2018 with obstruction of justice and is believed to be in Russia, also did not respond to an email requesting comment. He has previously denied ties to Russian intelligence. In its nearly 1,000-page report on Russian counterintelligence threats released Tuesday, the committee said Russia’s influence operation included “overlapping false narratives which sought to discredit investigations into Russian inference in the 2016 U.S. elections and spread false information about the events of 2016.” The committee said the disinformation campaign claiming Ukraine’s role began in late 2016 and continued until at least January 2020 and was promoted not just by Manafort and Kilimnik but by “numerous Russian-government actors,” including an oligarch named Oleg Deripaska who had business ties to Manafort. The committee wrote that “similarities in narrative content, the use of common dissemination platforms, the involvement of Kremlin agents Kilimnik and Deripaska” led them to conclude that “the influence efforts were coordinated to some degree.” The bipartisan finding was released at a key moment, just weeks after the country’s top counterintelligence official described Russia’s efforts to again try to shape public opinion in the United States before a presidential vote — and named a Ukrainian lawmaker as a key participant. Earlier this month, William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, publicly asserted that Russia is using a “range of measures” to denigrate Biden and said that Kremlin-linked actors are working to boost Trump’s reelection bid. Evanina cited the recent release by pro-Russian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach of leaked phone calls dating to 2016 between Biden and the former Ukrainian president as part of a Russian effort to hurt Biden. The new Senate Intelligence Committee report also identified Derkach as a figure who played a role in promoting the false narrative that Ukraine interfered in the U.S. election to help Democrats. Earlier this week, Trump retweeted an account promoting snippets of one of the recordings promoted by Derkach to his more than 85 million Twitter followers. The account has since been suspended by Twitter for violating the site’s policies on “platform manipulation and spam.” The White House did not respond to questions about the tweet. Derkach, the son of a KGB officer who also attended a school associated with the former Soviet intelligence service, has met at least twice in the past year with Trump


Richard L. Trumka, Rep. Val Demings and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms

As president of the AFL-CIO, Richard L. Trumka represents America’s federation of labor unions, with 12.5 million members. The AFL-CIO endorsed former vice president Joe Biden in May. With millions of Americans fighting to keep their jobs and stay afloat, we’ll discuss the current COVID-19 crisis and how they will organize for a Biden victory in November. We’ll also discuss Trumka’s call for a federal standard that protects all working people, as well as pushing for economic relief. Join Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart for a one-on-one interview on Tuesday, Aug. 18 at 12:00 p.m. ET. She’s been a social worker, a police chief, a congresswoman, and was on Joe Biden’s shortlist as a possible vice-presidential candidate. Washington Post Live hosts Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) in conversation with Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart to hear her views on the Biden-Harris ticket, whether President Trump will win Florida again in 2020, and how the global pandemic continues to wreak havoc on her home state. We’ll also get her unique perspective on police reform and civil unrest, and the key issues that will drive the 2020 election. She is in the national spotlight, having been on Joe Biden’s short list for vice president and now, a prime time speaker on the final night of the Democratic National Convention. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms joins Washington Post politics reporter Eugene Scott to discuss Sen. Kamala Harris’ (D-Calif.) historic ascent to the Democratic ticket, efforts to combat voter suppression, and how she is responding to rising COVID-19 cases in her city after recovering from the virus herself. We’ll also get her unique perspective on the key issues driving the 2020 election.


Climate change is bad news for your beach vacation

of mangrove forests help dissipate storm energy, prevent erosion and filter water as it drains from the land into the sea. As an added bonus, the world’s mangroves are a potent tool for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere; one study found that 75 billion pounds of carbon are sequestered in these rich habitats each year. Oyster beds provide a natural breakwater in front of coastal communities. One study of sand deposits left by hundreds of years of storms in New York City found that wave energy in the city’s harbor increased 200 percent when people dredged up the shellfish for food and other purposes. After seeing the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy in 2013, New York is attempting to restore that natural protection by resurrecting reefs throughout the harbor. A similar effort in the Chesapeake Bay, where the oyster population now numbers a billion strong, has been credited with cleaning the water and providing protection against erosion. A 2014 study of salt marshes — where hardy grasses grow in spongy peat that gets flooded by the tides — found that they are more durable and better at preventing erosion than human-built bulkheads. Meanwhile, some communities are considering what to some might seem unthinkable: managed retreat. The transformation of the world’s waterfronts is already underway. In North Carolina’s Outer Banks, a beloved East Coast vacation spot, average sea levels are about 8 inches higher than they were 40 years ago. Around the globe, the pace of sea level rise over the past 10 years was about twice the rate recorded during most of the 20th century. Even if humanity acts to halt climate change, the world’s oceans are projected to be about one foot higher in 2100 than in 2000. If we do nothing, that increase could be as much as eight feet. The evidence is undeniable: There is no going back to the beaches we once knew. The only question is, how do we want them to change? Sea walls could protect homes but not necessarily the sand in front of them. Nourishment could help sustain beaches if communities commit to the upkeep. Many environmental experts and coastal researchers say natural solutions are the way to go — after all, they’ve been working for the planet longer than humans have been alive. All of these options come at a cost, and communities will have to evaluate whether it’s better


Coronavirus in the DMV: What you need to read

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Flu and covid-19: In the face of a looming double threat, U.S. expands access for flu shots at pharmacies

picture in the United States is likely to be different. In Australia and elsewhere, “people were following government directives and staying put,” Munoz said. “Here in the United States, clearly people are relaxing more,” she said. The consequence is that mass gatherings at parties, weddings and other social events have the potential to be “super-spreader” events. More than ever, consumers should make flu vaccination a priority, health officials said. Pharmacies and doctor offices have put systems in place for social distancing. The CVS pharmacy chain said it is planning to supply twice the number of vaccines as last flu season. Starting in September, CVS is expanding digital options for making appointments, allowing people to make them via text for the first time. “There is not going to be a vaccine shortage,” said Arnold Monto, an epidemiology professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “There are systems in place to make sure you do not wait in the crowd,” he said, noting that people need to remember that the main way both diseases spread is through person-to-person contact. “This is not rocket science.” There is not yet a vaccine for the coronavirus, and if one is approved by the end of the year or early next year, only limited doses would be available initially. Reducing flu cases would free up space in hospitals, medical offices and laboratories to deal with covid-19. The influenza virus changes every flu season, and vaccine effectiveness varies between about 40 and 60 percent, depending on how well matched the vaccine strains are to the circulating virus. The vaccine’s overall effectiveness last season was about 39 percent. Each year in the United States, influenza is responsible for up to 45 million cases of illness, 810,000 hospitalizations and 61,000 deaths, according to the CDC. The disease caused by the novel coronavirus has infected more than 5 million people and killed at least 170,000 in the United States since February, according to Washington Post data. Only about half of Americans get a flu vaccine each year. For Black, Hispanic and American Indian adults, immunization rates are even lower. “These gaps in vaccination coverage are particularly concerning this season as COVID-19 reveals another facet of health inequity in the U.S.,” according to CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, who co-authored an essay published Thursday in JAMA. Those groups have also been disproportionately affected in the pandemic. An analysis


the end of the year or early next year, only limited doses would be available initially. Reducing flu cases would free up space in hospitals, medical offices and laboratories to deal with covid-19. The influenza virus changes every flu season, and vaccine effectiveness varies between about 40 and 60 percent, depending on how well matched the vaccine strains are to the circulating virus. The vaccine’s overall effectiveness last season was about 39 percent. Each year in the United States, influenza is responsible for up to 45 million cases of illness, 810,000 hospitalizations and 61,000 deaths, according to the CDC. The disease caused by the novel coronavirus has infected more than 5 million people and killed at least 170,000 in the United States since February, according to Washington Post data. Only about half of Americans get a flu vaccine each year. For Black, Hispanic and American Indian adults, immunization rates are even lower. “These gaps in vaccination coverage are particularly concerning this season as COVID-19 reveals another facet of health inequity in the U.S.,” according to CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, who co-authored an essay published Thursday in JAMA. Those groups have also been disproportionately affected in the pandemic. An analysis of data from more than 3,000 U.S. counties through mid-April found that 20 percent of counties where Black residents made up more than 13 percent of the population accounted for more than half of covid-19 diagnoses and deaths, according to the CDC. Getting a flu shot will be a critical intervention in reducing or preventing people from getting severe illness and dying, Redfield said. “This fall and winter could be one of the most complicated public health times we have with the two coming at the same time,” he said in a separate interview Thursday with JAMA. He said the CDC’s goal is for 65 percent of Americans to get a flu vaccination this season. The directive allowing pharmacists to give children vaccinations was issued by the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure immunization rates remain high during the pandemic. HHS Secretary Alex Azar used emergency powers granted during the coronavirus pandemic to issue the directive. Currently, 28 states allow pharmacists to administer vaccinations to children, but 22 limit such vaccinations. The HHS directive would supersede those restrictions during the public health emergency. Pharmacists must complete a training program, according to an HHS statement. Many of the symptoms


As the restaurant industry suffers, the James Beard Foundation scraps its prestigious awards until 2022

With the coronavirus wreaking devastation in the restaurant industry — many establishments are closed or operating at low capacity, thousands of workers have been laid off, and many sickened — the organization that has bestowed the culinary and food-media world equivalent of the Oscars has decided not to declare winners in its 2020 ceremony. The James Beard Foundation on Thursday announced that “substantial and sustained upheaval” in the industry prompted its decision. “The Foundation believes the assignment of Awards will do little to further the industry in its current uphill battle,” the organization said in a news release. A James Beard Award is considered a coup that can burnish a chef’s reputation and drive attention and traffic to restaurants around the country. But many of the restaurants that are up for awards have closed or shifted focus to takeout during the pandemic, and upheaval in the industry has furloughed some nominated chefs. Anxiety about the usually glittery event had begun to surface in recent weeks, as some in the industry worried about the optics, and others simply didn’t feel like celebrating. David Kinch, the chef behind the three-Michelin-starred Manresa in Los Gatos, Calif., this week withdrew from consideration after being nominated in the “Outstanding Chef” category. “The idea of celebrating achievement — and all that our @Manresarestaurant team has accomplished — simply does not feel right in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, and the devastation it has pressed upon our chosen métier and industry,” he wrote in an Instagram post. The foundation, which is named after the food writer and educator credited with elevating American culinary culture, had already named 2020 winners in its media awards and in a handful of the restaurant categories, including its awards for lifetime achievement, and had named nominees in the rest. And so what had been planned as a virtual awards ceremony will instead be a Sept. 25 broadcast on Twitter honoring the previously announced winners and nominees, as well as highlighting the crisis the industry faces and looking to its future. The 2021 awards ceremony is off, too, since the awards traditionally are based on work in the previous calendar year. “Any intent to hold a ceremony in 2021 based on 2020 work would be unfair and misguided, taking into account the unprecedented hardships which restaurants and potential nominees faced this year,” it said. Instead, the Beard Foundation will broadcast “an industry


U.S. officially moves to trigger sanctions ‘snapback’ against Iran despite opposition at U.N.

All sanctions against Iran that were suspended under the 2015 nuclear deal will resume in 31 days under a process Secretary of State Mike Pompeo started Thursday, in a move that is exposing deep divisions between the United States and other countries on the U.N. Security Council and could spell the death of the landmark agreement. Pompeo filed an official complaint with the president of the Security Council, accusing Iran of violating the 2015 nuclear deal, which President Trump withdrew from two years ago. Under the agreement, that means sanctions will be “snapped back” into place next month unless the Security Council votes to keep them lifted — a move certain to trigger a U.S. veto. The process “Our message is very, very simple,” Pompeo told reporters after meeting with the Security Council’s president and U.N. Secretary General António Guterres. “The United States will never allow the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles and other kinds of conventional weapons.” The U.S. action, though long expected, drew sharp condemnation from Russia and the three European countries that were partners in negotiating the agreement, which lifted all sanctions against Iran in return for limits on its nuclear program. France, Germany and Britain issued a statement questioning the authority of the United States to demand a snapback since it is no longer a participant in the agreement, which is known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The countries noted that the United States “ceased to be a participant to the JCPOA following their withdrawal from the deal on May 8, 2018,” said the statement, which was issued in the name of the countries’ foreign ministers. “We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA.” They warned that the U.S. effort could undermine the U.N. Security Council. “We remain guided by the objective of upholding the authority and integrity of the United Nations Security Council,” the statement said. “We call on all UNSC members to refrain from any action that would only deepen divisions in the Security Council or that would have serious adverse consequences on its work.” The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the agreement means it cannot initiate snapback. “I will continue to do everything possible to ensure the preservation and full implementation of the JCPOA


Coronavirus cases rising again in Europe, and crowded events in U.S. raise concerns

Campus parties. Church services. Motorcycle rallies. These types of large, crowded gatherings — often populated with younger people — raised fresh concerns among health authorities Thursday about possible coronavirus super-spreader events in the United States and elsewhere around the world. After months of decline, the coronavirus is now “steadily increasing” each week in Europe, a worrisome resurgence believed to be driven by infections among younger people, the World Health Organization said Thursday. In the United States, Centers for Disease Prevention and Control Director Robert Redfield expressed optimism about one region: the South. States there have begun “to turn the tide,” he said in an interview with JAMA, and he predicted the country could bring the pandemic under control with basic measures of mask-wearing, social distancing and hand-washing. Redfield praised efforts by Arizona in turning around what had been among the nation’s worst spikes in virus cases and deaths earlier this summer. “You really see that we can get control of this pandemic,” he said. “We don’t have to close retail. We don’t have to lock down.” At the same time, Redfield said he was concerned about the situation elsewhere in the country. “Middle America is stuck right now,” he said. “The Nebraskas, the Oklahomas, we need to see those numbers [come down].” Even as the trend in daily cases declines in the United States, recent gatherings of younger people have prompted concerns about possible new outbreaks, as social distancing-fatigue sets in and some test ways to resume normal activities. Hundreds of thousands of motorcycle fans convened in South Dakota earlier this month for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, even though a majority of city residents polled opposed hosting the event this year during the pandemic. A person who spent about five hours at one of the Main Street bars — One-Eyed Jack’s Saloon — has now tested positive for the coronavirus and could have exposed others, state health officials said. The 10-day event may have been one of the largest gatherings in the country during the pandemic. College students newly back on campus have also been slacking on their social distancing in some cases, hosting crowded parties at Penn State and Syracuse universities, among others. Social media videos from late Wednesday showed crowds of Syracuse students noisily gathering on the campus quad, the Daily Orange campus newspaper reported. Police in State College, Pa., also broke up a campus party late


Black Christians have lived out their faith by fighting for voting access

sleeping in their homes or uses pickup trucks to stalk Black men? How can we vote for hope and against terror except through concrete policies designed to expand Black freedom? Although her efforts at the 1964 convention were unsuccessful, Hamer dedicated her energy to helping the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference expand voting rights to others. Many voter registration drives such as the one that inspired Hamer occurred in Black churches. Hamer described her activism as rooted in her Christian faith. After American women obtained the right to vote 100 years ago, many Black Christian women such as Hamer fought against restrictions that kept them from the same voting booths as White women. Much attention has been rightly paid to the late congressman John Lewis for his historic role in voting rights activism, but Americans should also familiarize themselves with Hamer’s story. The fight for voting access is one way that Black Christians have lived out their faith in the public square. But when one constructs a list of issues that religious voters care about, voting rights is not often mentioned. What does Christianity have to do with voting? A central teaching of Christianity, arising from the Genesis 1:26-28 text that we share with Judaism, states that all people are created in the image of God. We believe that there is no hierarchy of value based on ethnicity, class or gender. Therefore, any laws undergirded by assumptions about human worth are enacted parables that tell a lie about the world that God created. The job of the Christian is to name those lies for what they are. Restricting voting rights for Black people was rooted in a falsehood about what Black people were. It was a heretical anthropology. The same was true of the limits on the voting rights of women. It was rooted in a lie about what women were, the gifts and abilities that they possessed. More importantly, voting can be an act of neighborly love. In a democratic republic, laws should be a manifestation of the will of the people. Therefore, the Christian who supports policies that do the most to assist in human flourishing is showing a deep concern for others. Voting is not a Christian requirement, but it can be a profoundly Christian act. Black Christians who are heirs to this legacy have every reason to be concerned about voting


Evidence grows that children may play a larger role in transmission than previously believed

they were not overrepresented in those who were hospitalized or critically ill. “This suggests that although children and young adults with asthma may commonly experience exacerbation in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, asthma exacerbation is not the primary determinant of more severe disease requiring hospitalization,” they wrote. Bill Kapogiannis, a National Institutes of Health researcher in pediatric infectious diseases who was not involved in Fasano’s study, called those findings “potentially concerning” but said further investigation is needed to understand some of the signals. “It’s interesting, but we need a bigger cohort to make strong conclusions,” he said. Several such efforts are in the works. NIH has pledged as much as $20 million over four years to study biomarkers and other indicators that will characterize how the disease progresses in children and be able to predict severe illness in children. “The central question is: Why is it that so many more children have milder illness, compared to adults?” Kapogiannis said. “There is valuable information that we could learn and harness that could be used to treat this in all of us.” Adrienne Randolph, a critical care specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, is leading a group involving 73 medical centers across the United States that is collecting records and biological samples from children. They are looking at numerous aspects of serious illness, such as the mix of antibodies present and how they change over time, and genetic sequencing of different types of patients. Most important, Randolph said, “these teams are taking a deeper dive into trying to understand therapies and overcoming covid.” So far most of the treatment regimens have been formulated on the fly through experimentation and word-of-mouth. But it is hoped that this work will be able to quantify the treatments and outcomes. The most important lesson she said pediatric specialists have learned over the past eight months is that “this disease never stops surprising us.” “I think we shouldn’t make any assumptions that minimize the virus,” Randolph said. This story has been updated. Read more: Teens and the virus: Evidence is emerging that young children and teens do not seem to react to covid-19 in the same way Forty percent of people with coronavirus infections have no symptoms. Might they be the key to ending the pandemic? ‘Superspreading’ events, triggered by people who may not even know they are infected, propel coronavirus pandemic


Mexico moves to ban junk food sales to children, citing obesity as coronavirus risk factor

34 percent morbidly obese, according to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study published in January. Oaxaca, one of the country’s poorest states, has one of the highest levels of obesity, according to a 2019 Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey. Indigenous communities are exposed through predatory marketing practices and through the cheaper pricing of ultra-processed foods. “The environment has made it really easy for children to have access to low-nutrient, high-calorie, ultra-processed foods,” Pérez-Escamilla says. A nationwide labeling law, modeled after one in Chile, goes into effect in October in Mexico, requiring black stop signs on packages of foods high in added sugar, saturated fats, calories and added sodium. Nothing with black stop signs can be sold or promoted in schools, further protecting children. In 2010, sugar sweetened beverages were estimated to cause 12 percent of all diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity-related cancer deaths in Mexico, according to Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. He says that the epidemic of these lifestyle-related diseases and the coronavirus pandemic are “harmfully synergistic.” Mozaffarian says Oaxaca’s ban is a watershed event in food policy, likening it to the Food and Drug Administration’s ban on trans fats in 2015. “In Mexico and the United Kingdom, we are seeing people at the highest levels talking about the incredible links between lifestyle-related diseases and worse outcomes with covid-19,” he says. Still, he is pessimistic about the United States following suit. “In our country, there is all this focus on hand-washing and mask-wearing, but where is the focus on improving metabolic health? It should be the third leg of the stool,” he says. “We spend $11,000 per person on health care — public, private and out of pocket. If we could leverage some of those dollars for food, it would be highly cost-effective.” In recent years, Latin American countries have been in the vanguard of efforts to tax or regulate sugary beverages and junk foods. In Chile, the Senate passed strict food labeling laws. Mexico imposed a tax on sugary drinks and junk food, and Brazil opted for voluntary measures — such as rewriting its dietary guidelines with clear and forceful language about proper diet — that have proved effective. Barry Popkin, an obesity researcher at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says Colombia and Brazil are


the third leg of the stool,” he says. “We spend $11,000 per person on health care — public, private and out of pocket. If we could leverage some of those dollars for food, it would be highly cost-effective.” In recent years, Latin American countries have been in the vanguard of efforts to tax or regulate sugary beverages and junk foods. In Chile, the Senate passed strict food labeling laws. Mexico imposed a tax on sugary drinks and junk food, and Brazil opted for voluntary measures — such as rewriting its dietary guidelines with clear and forceful language about proper diet — that have proved effective. Barry Popkin, an obesity researcher at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says Colombia and Brazil are pushing to pass laws requiring food warning labeling. Popkin, who has researched the rise of ultra-processed food across the low- and middle-income world, says the pandemic has exacerbated the obesity epidemic. “Covid is accelerating it. We’re seeing new lines of junk food introduced, see companies giving out free junk food and calling it disaster relief,” he says. “It’s very stressful, so you go for comfort foods and tasty things. And we expect the recession will take hold and we’re going to hit a food-insecure world where people are buying this food because it’s cheap.” Popkin says working from home, limiting social visits and a reduction in everyday activities have made it difficult for people around the world to achieve or sustain healthful weights. And visiting the grocery store less often has put a premium on highly processed junk foods and sugary beverages that are less expensive and more shelf-stable. “In most of the places I’m looking at in Latin America, Asia and Africa, purchases of junk food and all shelf-stable and sugary beverages have increased,” Popkin says. Simon Barquera, the director of the nutrition research center at the National Institute of Public Health in Cuernavaca, says the new laws in Oaxaca and Tabasco took the junk food industry by surprise. “They have been preparing for the labeling change in October,” he says. “This is a case where civil society organizations and academia have joined, using social media, to show how this must be taken seriously. In more-developed countries, they have the same kinds of packaging and misleading labels, but consumers are more informed; they have other ways to protect themselves.”


A criminal justice reckoning in Maryland

Jill P. Carter, a Democrat, represents Baltimore in the Maryland Senate, where she is chair of the Courts and Criminal Justice System Workgroup. The coronavirus pandemic has prompted a reckoning in Maryland. Very few facets of our society are more in need of reform than our state’s broken criminal justice system. Regrettably, Maryland has earned the dubious distinction of being the worst practitioner of mass incarceration in the nation, locking up the highest percentage of Black people and for longer periods of time than any of her sister states. The system’s disproportionate use of incarceration has heightened a crisis in the Black community, a community that suffers disproportionate rates of coronavirus infections and related deaths. Jails and prisons are by their very nature — warehouses for large numbers of people with chronic health concerns for minimal cost — breeding grounds for infectious diseases. The pandemic created the urgent imperative to refashion policies for pretrial and post-conviction release to depopulate state prisons, local jails, juvenile detention centers and commitment facilities across the state to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Our moral imperative is to continue and expand these policies and carry them forward into a post-coronavirus world. In May, Maryland state Sen. William C. Smith Jr., chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, created the Courts & Criminal Justice System Workgroup and appointed me chair. Other members of the workgroup were Sens. Jeff Waldstreicher, Michael J. Hough, Susan S. Lee and Justin Ready. Because of various measures taken by the courts, local jails, prisons, prosecutors and public defenders, numbers are down across the board for Marylanders being held in custody. This took months of hard work and compromise. All stakeholders demonstrated courage and willingness to rethink the fundamental notion of incarceration as a public health crisis that served as an exacerbator of the world’s coronavirus health crisis. This is an encouraging new beginning. Still, more must be done. Recently, I received a call from Barbara, a 41-year-old inmate at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women who is dying of Stage 4 ovarian and peritoneal cancers. She’s transported biweekly from MCIW to medical facilities for chemotherapy and some testing. Not only does each trip present opportunities for contagion to be introduced into the prison, but also, according to Barbara, each trip causes her incalculable trauma and costs the state upward of $3,000. Twice a week, she is moved from her regular


A week of corruption allegations in Mexico leaves political elite pointing fingers at one another

For years, while corruption quietly pervaded Mexican politics, there were rarely high-profile investigations into who was stealing what — or how. But in the past week alone, a deposition from a former senior official and video footage of stacks of cash changing hands have circulated widely, as members of Mexico’s political elite simultaneously point fingers at one another. Almost none of those claims has been verified, and the video clips lack context, but taken together they have ignited a national conversation about corruption that has reached the country’s halls of power. As of Friday, the allegations included President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose anti-corruption platform was at the heart of his campaign in 2018. It was López Obrador’s administration that arrested and extradited Emilio Lozoya, the former head of the country’s state oil company, now on trial facing corruption charges. This week, Lozoya’s 60-page deposition was leaked, including allegations against more than a dozen former officials, including three ex-presidents and several presidential candidates and senators. Lozoya claimed that former president Enrique Peña Nieto and former finance minister Luis Videgaray instructed Lozoya to establish a “criminal association, aimed at enriching themselves not only from the public treasury, but also through extortion.” He also claimed that Peña Nieto’s campaign accepted a $6 million bribe from Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction company that was behind corruption scandals across Latin America. It is unclear how much legal heft Lozoya’s deposition will carry — for now, there is little or no evidence accompanying his claims and Mexico’s judicial system has a notoriously low conviction rate, hovering below 10 percent. But what is clear is that López Obrador plans to use the allegations to bolster his own political position, attempting to weaken his already anemic opposition. Videgaray, a visiting professor at the Massachusetts of Technology, called the allegations “absurd, inconsistent and baseless” and “invented [by Lozoya] to free himself from the consequences of his own actions.” Peña Nieto could not be reached for comment. Other politicians mentioned in the Lozoya testimony struck back. Ricardo Anaya, a former presidential candidate, filed a lawsuit against him alleging “moral damage.” Former president Felipe Calderón claimed López Obrador was using Lozoya “as an instrument of vengeance and political persecution.” Amid that fallout, a video was released that appeared to show employees of Mexico’s senate putting stacks of cash into a suitcase. López Obrador claimed the video “displays the filth of the


Readers critique The Post: A memorial that could be the first step of many toward a reckoning

deserves to be seen. Joy McGlaun ● In his Aug. 12 WorldViews column, “A 100-year-old treaty haunts the Mediterranean,” Ishaan Tharoor got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It is not the Treaty of Sèvres from 1920 that acts as an impediment to Turkey’s expansion, but its successor, the Treaty of Lausanne from 1923. It was this treaty that defined the borders of modern Turkey and renounced any claim to a number of Aegean islands and the Dodecanese as well as Cyprus, which has since become a bone of contention. It is no coincidence that the reconversion of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul took place on July 24, which is the anniversary of the signing of the Lausanne Treaty. Instead, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has often argued, this should be replaced by the Misak-i Millî (National Pact), which was passed by the last Ottoman parliament in 1920. This included Cyprus, the Aegean islands, Western Thrace, Aleppo, Mosul and Kirkuk in the borders of postwar Turkey. In fact, the National Pact is the template for Turkey’s irredentist ambitions, which are now being played out with full force in Syria, Libya, northern Iraq (Kurdistan) and the Eastern Mediterranean. According to this plan, by 2023 the Republican period established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk will be “a parenthesis” to be replaced by an Islamic state. Robert Ellis The writer is a member of the Advisory Board of Vocal Europe. ● Well, some things never change. Although it has been months since I have taken MARC from Baltimore to Union Station, I see that management of Union Station still has not figured out a way to keep out the rats with wings. Thanks for the memory of what appears to be a reliable nuisance under foot and in the air with the photograph that accompanied the Aug. 10 front-page article “Asymptomatic virus carriers could be clue for immunity.” Timothy Schoepke ● The Aug. 4 Health & Science essay “An odd headache for patient led to difficult diagnosis” was written by a physician. The perspective of this astute doctor and the level of detail he provided were a refreshing change from the more general columns written by journalists, or occasionally by patients or their families, which don’t provide much of the physician’s thinking. As a physician, I particularly enjoyed the details provided about how he reached the correct diagnosis on this case


A tidbit of historical intrigue is baked into this Alexandria house

Martha Peterson, who does home renovations and restorations, was working on a house in Old Town Alexandria, Va., when she learned that the building next door was being put up for sale. It was a run-down six-unit apartment building, unremarkable in every way, except that part of it was said to have once been George Washington’s kitchen. And because of its connection to the nation’s first president, she and her husband, Steven, decided to buy it. “Martha and I bought the property not knowing exactly what we were going to do with it,” Steven said. “But when you have [a chance] to buy George Washington’s property, I said we’ll figure something out.” George Washington purchased a lot in Alexandria for 10 pounds 10 shillings on May 9, 1763, according to the website “New to Alexandria.” Washington designed and built the house for himself and Martha as a pied-à-terre for when they were in Alexandria. During the Revolutionary War and his presidency, he often rented it or lent it to friends and relatives. It was the first piece of property listed in his will and the only one he left outright to Martha, who later bequeathed it to a nephew. The house eventually fell into disrepair and was demolished around 1855. When Washington built the house, the kitchen was a separate structure — as many kitchens were in those days. It is that kitchen that is believed to have been incorporated into the 1815 house that the Petersons bought. Because of the regulatory obstacles to operating a bed-and-breakfast or an inn in Old Town Alexandria, the Petersons chose to make it an Airbnb property called the George. Reconfiguring the building for guests was a challenge. “There was a bedroom and kitchen in every room,” Martha said. “We had to take it back to its original, actual house.” Because few historical elements remained in the house, Martha and Steven went to Mount Vernon for inspiration. “They let us tour the property for two hours,” Steven said. “We went through to pick out ideas of what we could add to the George.” The fireplace mantel in the living room is a reproduction of one at Mount Vernon. The paint for the dining room was matched to a color at Mount Vernon. The dentil molding in the foyer is copied from the foyer at Mount Vernon. The project was a family affair as their


D.C.’s mayor and council agree on one thing: Local businesses need help

Monty Hoffman is founder and chairman of Hoffman & Associates, a real estate developer. We’re all affected by the novel coronavirus. Essential workers are stretched thin, loved ones have been lost, and the way we live has changed. We walk past empty storefronts with “closed” signs hung from our favorite shops and restaurants — and feel saddened by their closure and uncertain if they will recover. Behind these signs are businesses struggling to survive, thousands of lost jobs, missed paychecks for families and bills that continue to mount. Some stores remain partially open, exhausting their remaining savings as they courageously push forward on a long, undefined and unmarked marathon. Simply put, the survival of our local businesses is in jeopardy. As a local business owner who has lived and worked in the D.C. area for 35 years, I’ve seen the incredible growth of this city. Local businesses are the heart of our communities, especially those that bring people together. Restaurants, retailers, day cares, hotels, and sports and entertainment venues make up this now-endangered social economy that has been shattered by the pandemic and restrictions necessary to protect us. I’ve witnessed family-owned businesses such as the SW Soda Pop Shop at the Wharf struggle as they work nonstop — despite greatly reduced income — to survive another day. I’ve also seen homegrown music venues such as the Anthem furlough hundreds of loyal employees and sit empty, with no reopening date in sight. The District relies more on this social economy than do Virginia and Maryland — or any state, for that matter. We’re not only the nation’s capital, but we’re also the region’s social hub. Residents of Maryland and Virginia take millions of trips into D.C. to dine, watch a game, see a concert or go to a show. D.C.’s social economy generates annual revenue of $20 billion, providing 170,000 jobs and $2.7 billion in annual taxes that pay for D.C. services. Allowing our social economy to collapse is not an option we can afford. Not only would it inflict long-term damage to our communities, but also it would disproportionately hurt our most vulnerable families — many of whom live in Wards 5, 7 and 8, and rely on these jobs and services these taxes provide. We can do better. Our leaders know that local businesses are in crisis. That’s why Business and Economic Development Chairman Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5)


Looking for respite from the coronavirus, these Israelis sought peace in nature

Israel has had relatively few coronavirus cases when compared to, say, the United States. After initially beating back cases beginning in March, with a low of about 10 new cases a day in mid-May, the country has recently seen a resurgence in cases. According to The Washington Post, Israel has recently responded to the resurgence by bringing in the army to help fight the virus. The changes related to using the military as opposed to the country’s Ministry of Health to manage the resurgence, according to The Post, “are part of a major reboot of the national covid-19 strategy, as Israel has plummeted from a pandemic success story to suffering the highest per capita morbidity rate in the world.” As of this writing, Johns Hopkins puts the number of confirmed cases at 97,969 and deaths at 781. And although the numbers are relatively low (actually, any number of deaths is too high), they have created an economic fallout in the country that has caused social unrest. And with that, Israelis have turned to different methods of trying to find solace in a sea of chaos. Photographer Daniel Rolider’s project “A Piece of Sky Remains” introduces us to some of the Israelis who have sought refuge in nature. Rolider told In Sight: “As Israel went under a lockdown in early March, and as uncertainty and stress increased, nature has become a spiritual refuge for many of us. Easy access to the outdoors allowed people to find peace without putting themselves, or others at risk. … “I made daily trips to the fields and photographed the people I met there. Each person photographed, a complete stranger or a close friend, was asked to reflect upon our new reality by writing and drawing. Later, the texts and photographs were integrated, as every encounter provided a fresh, new insight into the individual’s private world. … “Together, the people who took part in this collaborative documentary project shed a light on our story. A story about nature. About a community.” Rolider’s images are reminiscent in approach to photographers like Jim Goldberg. But whereas Goldberg’s photos are generally penetrating looks at and commentary of socially marginalized people, Rolider’s work here focuses on relatively normal people escaping the daily agony and chaos of dealing with a global pandemic. In Sight is The Washington Post’s photography blog for visual narrative. This platform showcases compelling and diverse imagery from


European countries have no intention of recognizing a sanctions ‘snapback’ on Iran

deal he charged was too soft on Iran, withdrew the United States from it more than two years ago. According to all the other signatories, that means it also relinquished the right to trigger the reimposition of international sanctions. But on Thursday, Pompeo delivered a letter to the Council president saying the administration was doing just that. The immediate U.S. concern and the snapback justification, Pompeo and other administration officials have said, is the expiration of the conventional arms ban. Brian Hook, the administration’s special envoy for Iran, told reporters Friday that the Council was guilty of an “abdication of duty” in rejecting a proposed U.S. resolution last week to indefinitely extend the weapons embargo. None of the other signatories, he said, offered a proposal to address the issue. “We made it clear that we can do it the easy way or the hard way. Other nations decided to do it the hard way,” Hook said. All of the signatory countries, except Iran, are members of the Council. Of its 15 members, only the Dominican Republic voted with the United States. The European officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive matter, said they are equally interested in not allowing Iran to buy and sell sophisticated conventional weapons. They said they repeatedly offered compromises that would have at least temporarily extended the ban with a Council resolution, which they maintained was the only way to avoid a Russian or Chinese veto. But, they said, the United States refused over the past year and a half to accept anything but its own maximalist position. They said they believe the U.S. goal all along was to open the door to a full reimposition of the much broader sanctions. In addition to the arms embargo, Hook said, snapback restrictions will prohibit Iranian uranium enrichment and missile testing, and impose travel bans on those who work on Iran’s nuclear and missile program. He said the United States also expects other countries to stop ships carrying Iranian weapons. While Iran has violated some of the terms of the deal since the U.S. withdrawal, the European goal is to ensure Tehran doesn’t leave it altogether. In communications with the Iranians over the next two months, the countries plan to “make sure they understand there is no snap back [in place] and therefore they should not take any rash decisions,” the European official said.


Coronavirus infections are rising in Europe and vacationers may be partly to blame

with cases steadily declining, they agreed to remove most restrictions within the region. A surprisingly robust pandemic vacation season followed, even with travelers from the United States banned. That was an especially welcome relief for the Mediterranean countries that are heavily reliant on tourism. Croatia, for example, reported earlier this month that it was hosting more than 800,000 tourists, 70 percent of the total from a year ago. But just as Europe’s travel season is reaching its peak, officials in country after country have started worrying about a second wave. Spain, in particular, has seen case numbers spike. France and Germany are now contending with their highest infection rates since April. “I think we are basically relapsing to the initial stages of the pandemic,” when border-free travel was halted, said Stefan Lehne, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe. “Countries exporting tourists are particularly worried about returnees, and finding a collective approach is impossible. Primarily, the virus is driving the member states apart.” Lehne this week was visiting his summer home in the Italian hilltop town of Orvieto. When he drove back to his native Austria, he expected to wait several hours at the border. “There are stringent controls,” he said. Northern Europe has been attuned to the plight of hard-hit southern economies, as demonstrated in a massive E.U. recovery package approved last month that will primarily aid Italy and Spain. But when it comes to keeping the virus at bay, Lehne said, countries are watching out for themselves, and “they don’t pay much attention to what [new restrictions] might mean for tourism in Greece or employment in Croatia.” Travel is far from the only factor in the virus’s resurgence in Europe. In Greece, which is now experiencing its highest daily case numbers of the pandemic, a civil protection official said this week that 83 percent of positive cases are coming from local transmission, not incoming travelers. But Gkikas Magiorkinis, an epidemiologist who is part of a Greek government coronavirus task force, said it is hard to “disentangle” tourism from other changes that help spread the virus. When tourists arrive, businesses open. People in vacation mode let down their guard. “We see an increase of transmission in popular touristic destinations, but it is not dramatic,” Magiorkinis said. Throughout the summer, Greek officials have instituted random testing of incoming visitors, with the hopes of swabbing 15 to 20 percent of those who


Can you get coronavirus via secondhand smoke? The smell is a warning sign.

transmitted in airborne particles, but the hypothesis is gaining traction. While the main source of transmission is believed to be large respiratory droplets — which do not hang around in the air for long before falling to the ground — some believe that certain outbreaks could have only been possible if the virus can be suspended in air. A group of prominent scientists in July pointed to “superspreading” events, during which an infectious person unwittingly spreads it to many others, as evidence shows the virus is being transmitted long distances through the air in far smaller and more numerous particles. This has implications not just about what’s wafting around in exhaled cigarette smoke but about the hazards of indoor settings as well. William Nazaroff, an environmental engineer from the University of California at Berkeley, believes the coronavirus can be airborne and suggests we should consider modifying indoor ventilation systems to filter or kill the virus. “It has to do with the plume of what is emitted and the extent it can infringe on your breathing zone,” Nazaroff told The Post’s Ariana Eunjung Cha. Smokers also need to remove their masks to take a puff. Being around people who aren’t wearing masks is inherently a risk, but on top of that, smokers tend to exhale more forcefully, according to Herman Gatzambide, a pulmonary specialist in Orlando who was interviewed by WFLA. Someone who isn’t smoking may only project respiratory particles six feet, but it could be more like 10 or 12 feet for someone who is smoking. “Not only are they potentially spreading virus by not wearing a mask, they are blowing those droplets to the people around them to potentially get infected,” Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association, told the Associated Press. Ristenpart said smelling someone’s cigarette smoke “serves as a proxy to warn you that, ‘Hey, I might be breathing in that person’s virus.’” Smokers themselves are also at higher risk of severe illness from covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking increases the risk of illness because it impairs lung function and makes it more difficult for the body to respond to respiratory infection. Recent studies have shown young adults who smoke, even if they don’t have other underlying health conditions, are more susceptible to severe symptoms, intensive care admissions and even death. Ariana Eunjung Cha contributed to this report.


A severely troubled school district in Pennsylvania faces takeover by for-profit charter organization

the charter movement for years on this blog. Since the covid-19 pandemic began, forces for school privatization — including the Center for Education Reform, CATO and other libertarian organizations, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — have used the physical closing of schools to make the argument that parents should be able to shop with tax dollars among public and private educational options. We have seen this playbook before. Former education secretary Arne Duncan claimed that Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans” by turning that school system into a patchwork of charter schools that open and close, run by no less than 38 different private entities. (He later apologized for saying it.) Following Hurricane Maria in 2017, privatizers started disassembling Puerto Rico’s public school system by closing down schools and “reimagining” the system with the help of DeVos. It is no surprise, therefore, that during the covid-19 pandemic, a small, struggling school district in Chester, Pa., finds itself on the brink of having its pre-K to 8 schools run by a for-profit charter management company known as CSMI. In May 2020, Delaware County Court of Commons Judge Barry Dozor directed the school district to “move forward with proposals to outsource the management of its schools” to charter schools, citing the financial crisis caused by covid-19 as putting additional financial stress on the district. That plan — unprecedented in Pennsylvania — set into motion a process for securing proposals, which will continue through the fall of 2020. Dozor did not come up with the idea that charter schools should take over the district; rather, he echoed the local charter school’s plan. CSMI’s charter school, Chester Community Charter School (CCCS), first proposed the idea last November. According to this report by Maddie Hanna of the Philadelphia Inquirer, CCCS asked the Delaware County Court to order the district and state to seek proposals to allow charter schools to educate all of Chester Upland’s students, from pre-K through eighth grade. According to Hanna, “the charter did not ask that it be the only operator considered, but its management company [CSMI] said it is positioned to expand if the court moves ahead with the plan.” Chester Community Charter School and CSMI Chester Community Charter School (CCCS) first opened its doors in 1998, just a few years after the school district found itself in financial distress.


The Health 202: For Joe Biden, it's all about fixing the coronavirus pandemic

Trump administration for cuts to the U.S. Postal Service. “Millions of Americans with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, asthma, and other chronic conditions, illnesses or health care needs rely on the USPS for delivery of their prescription drugs and are at grave risks if President Trump’s efforts to degrade mail service results in delays and disruptions,” the senators wrote. The senators say they have received thousands of messages expressing concerns about postal delays, and anecdotal reports about delayed medication are rampant in news reports and on social media. Many pharmacies, however, have reported that they are not experiencing any unusual disruptions of service. “Our understanding of COVID-19 has accreted around the idea that it kills a few and is ‘mild’ for the rest. That caricature was sketched before the new coronavirus even had a name; instead of shifting in the light of fresh data, it calcified. It affected the questions scientists sought to ask, the stories journalists sought to tell, and the patients doctors sought to treat,” the Atlantic's Ed Yong writes. But some of these so-called mild patients report extreme fatigue, erratic heartbeat, memory loss, and other symptoms lasting for months, and these patients are largely not reported or tracked in the current system. In response many patients with lasting symptoms set up their own networks, support groups and research projects, Ed reports. New data and reporting suggests that the long-term effects are rampant. Ed cites an Italian study in which 87 percent of hospitalized patients had symptoms after two months and a German study that found three-quarters of patients had heart abnormalities after two or three months. “These findings, though limited, are galling. They suggest that in the United States alone, which has more than 5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, there are probably hundreds of thousands of long-haulers,” Ed writes. The CDC's website, however, does not mention long-term symptoms, and patients who report them frequently encounter disbelief from doctors. Nisreen Alwan, a public health professor at the University of Southampton who has had covid-19 since March 20, told Ed that she thinks officials should stop referring to nonhospitalized cases as “mild” and should agree on a definition of recovery beyond getting released from the hospital and testing negative for the virus. “We cannot fight what we do not measure,” she told Ed. “Death is not the only thing that counts. We must also count lives changed.”


Trump defies Congress — to shield MBS from accountability on Jamal Khashoggi

Act requiring the White House to make a determination of all those responsible for the extrajudicial killing and report to Congress on whether sanctions would be applied. The legal deadline for the administration’s response was Feb. 8, 2019. It was ignored. That defiance prompted another bipartisan congressional alliance to attach an amendment to last year’s National Defense Authorization Act requiring — once again — an unclassified report identifying “any current or former official of the Government of Saudi Arabia” with “advance knowledge and role” in “the directing, ordering, or tampering of evidence” in the killing. It would be impossible to prepare such a report without naming Mohammed bin Salman, to whom President Trump has catered ever since he was lavishly feted by the kingdom early in his administration. And so, the administration once again declined to comply with a clear legal requirement. Instead, weeks after the deadline expired, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence delivered a classified report to Congress, along with a letter contending that it could not supply the required unclassified report because it would compromise intelligence sources. This, too, drew bipartisan resistance, including from the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who dispatched letters to the DNI contending the report could and should be released in unclassified form. There was no response — once again demonstrating Mr. Trump is willing to violate U.S. law rather than publicly confirm that a tyrannical Saudi ruler was involved in the murder of a permanent U.S. resident. The matter has since lapsed in Congress, but a civil society group has taken the matter to federal court. This week, the Open Society Justice Initiative filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York seeking the release of the Khashoggi report under the Freedom of Information Act. The group filed a FOIA request for the documents in July, but — no surprise — received no response by the legal deadline. The lawsuit follows ongoing litigation by the Justice Initiative to obtain government records on the Khashoggi case. These would almost certainly show that Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly lied in saying it is not known whether Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the murder. They would also lay the groundwork for a long-overdue change of U.S. policy toward the crown prince and his regime — perhaps just in time for a new administration.


Rise in fatal drug overdoses in D.C. region likely tied to pandemic, officials say

said. “The wide variation in the data with decreases in February and March followed by a jump in April requires more data and analysis, including any impact of covid-19, which some federal officials have suggested is driving the national increase,” she said. Other jurisdictions in the Washington region have also reported increases, saying they appear to be linked to the pandemic. Prince George’s County is one of several Maryland jurisdictions to report year-over-year increases in opioid-related fatalities. According to a report from the Maryland Opioid Operational Command Center, established by Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in 2017 to respond to opioid deaths, the county saw 37 overdose fatalities in the first quarter of this year compared with 14 in the same period last year. The state also saw increases in other kinds of drug-related fatalities, according to the report, including 136 alcohol-related deaths, a 13 percent increase from the first quarter of 2019. Steven R. Schuh, the command center’s executive director, wrote in the report that there is a “near certainty of an accelerated substance use crisis as we emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.” He added: “Everybody involved in addressing the opioid crisis — every clinician, every advocacy group, every concerned parent, and every citizen — needs to renew their dedication to addressing this problem.” Kathrin Hobron, an epidemiologist with the Virginia Department of Health, said the state had “anecdotally” seen an increase in suspected fatal overdoses, but data is available only through the first quarter of the year. In a report on overdoses, health officials estimated the state would record almost 1,700 such fatalities by year’s end — the highest annual toll since at least 2007. The first cases of the novel coronavirus began to appear in early March across the Washington region, with stay-at-home orders issued in D.C., Maryland and Virginia at the end of that month. Numbers from some local jurisdictions reflect only the beginning of the pandemic, although Arlington County is reporting a “spike” in overdose fatalities through the past week. Arlington “We have no direct evidence that the pandemic is fueling the crisis,” Arlington police spokeswoman Ashley Savage wrote in an email. “Given timing, the loss of income and jobs and the isolation of stay at home orders it’s likely a factor.” Not every jurisdiction has seen an increase in fatal overdoses. In Fairfax County, for example, police said year-to-date overdoses are the same as last


What the coronavirus can teach us about fighting climate change

Manning told the Post. Each country is a case study in a different tactic, he said. Guidance from German Chancellor Angela Merkel (who holds a PhD in quantum chemistry) has been statistically rigorous and starkly unemotional. In New Zealand, where covid-19 has been almost eliminated, citizens received government text messages urging collective action: Let’s all do our bit. The director of South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jung Eun-Kyeong, gave twice-daily briefings about the nation’s outbreak, earning praise for her “graceful crisis comms” from the magazine PR Week. The three nations have been among the most successful at controlling the virus. The coronavirus pandemic seems to have boosted the public’s appetite for what once seemed like niche scientific information, many scientists said. For the first time in Cruickshank’s career, she is bombarded with requests to explain the role of T-cells or describe the workings of the immune system. Manzanedo said friends and family members often email him for help evaluating new research or surprising claims. And people are gaining fluency in concepts they may not have thought about since 11th-grade biology class, Manning noted, growing more accustomed to reading about scientific models and comparing growth curves. “I think maybe that’s primed the public for ... looking at a future at which something bad is going to happen, but just how bad it’s going to be depends on a range of behaviors and actions that could be taken,” Manning said. Online covid-19 dashboards, where growing case counts “provide feedback on a daily basis of what happens when you ignore science,” could serve as a model for communicating the local effects of climate change, Hayhoe said. And, much as stories of outbreaks among school kids and churchgoers have brought home the toll of the disease, accounts of ordinary people harmed by climate change could help “close the psychological distance” between Americans and the looming environmental disaster. This moment in the fight against climate change, Hayhoe said, is roughly equivalent to early March in the fight against the covid-19 pandemic. The threat has already been set in motion. The effects are just beginning to be felt. “Swift decisive action at that point was the difference between planking the curve and a runaway epidemic,” Hayhoe said. (“Planking the curve” is the catchphrase for eliminating infections in Canada, where Hayhoe is from.) One study suggested that the United States could have avoided 36,000