What’s behind the wave of protests in Africa?

be driving this differential behavior. How we did our research More specifically, we analyze data from the long-standing Afrobarometer surveys to try to make sense of the role that experiences of bribery play in fueling protests. Given the focus of Afrobarometer, we analyze data from individuals in more than 30 countries across Africa, taken from the 2005-2006 and 2014-2016 surveys. The data is not rich enough for us to be able to come to wide-ranging conclusions as to exactly when people choose to protest corruption. But they do enable us to test whether a percentage increase in one phenomenon — in this case the experience of having to bribe someone — leads to change in another: the propensity to go out on the street and protest about it. More experience with bribery leads to more support for protests … In practice, the picture is obviously complex. People act as they do for a multitude of reasons. But we are nonetheless able to illustrate that the more someone experiences bribery, the more likely that person is to support anti-corruption protests. Here’s what we found. We can predict that a respondent who has the highest experience of paying bribes will have a 40 percent probability of taking part in anti-corruption demonstrations. On the other hand, the same individual has a less than 5 percent chance of preferring to report the need to pay a bribe — or indeed to say that nothing can be done about corruption. We also find that those who regularly pay bribes take part in actual protests and demonstrations. The bribery experience perhaps encourages people to take action against corruption; this effect survives various empirical tests and is evident across both rounds of the Afrobarometer survey we analyzed. … but also to greater willingness to rely on bribes to solve problems But there’s a catch. We also find that having paid bribes increases an individual’s willingness to rely on those bribes to solve public administration problems. Moreover, those who bribe are significantly more likely to reject the notion that refusing to pay a bribe is the best tactic a citizen can use to tackle corruption. These findings cast some light on the idea that residents of highly corrupt societies, especially those who are regularly involved in corruption, appreciate the “problem-solving” function of bribery. These individuals know that refusing to pay often means going without the public good or


The Good Friday Agreement ended decades of conflict. Ireland worries Brexit could unravel it.

In 1998, after 30 years of violence that left 3,500 people dead, peace was finally achieved in Northern Ireland. Now some are concerned that Brexit could be putting at risk the treaty that helped end the fighting, usually known as the Good Friday Agreement. A critical part of that agreement was softening the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which was militarized during the decades of violence known as the Troubles. Today, people and goods can pass freely across that border, thanks to the peace and the European Union’s policy of free movement between its member countries. But if Britain leaves the E.U., it could potentially need to reestablish customs controls and entry points with Ireland. Many fear that returning such checkpoints to the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland — making it a “hard border” once more — would be reminiscent of the island’s dark past, potentially unleashing a new wave of instability. “Both the U.K. and Ireland will have an obligation to honor the Good Friday Agreement, protect the peace and honor our commitment to the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland, that there won’t be a hard border,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Wednesday. Former U.S. senator George J. Mitchell, who served as independent chairman of the Northern Ireland peace talks, wrote in The Washington Post in December that changing the status of the border “could increase the possibility of a resumption of violence.” Those living there have similar concerns. As William Booth and Amanda Ferguson wrote for The Washington Post in November, some people just over the border in Northern Ireland “worry that a bungled Brexit could rekindle tensions and possibly lead to violence.” In recent days, hundreds of people have gathered by the border, holding signs and protesting the possibility of new restrictions. But attempts to solve the issue have ground the Brexit process to a halt. The withdrawal deal that British Prime Minister Theresa May struck with the E.U. included a provision known as the “backstop” to make sure that a hard border would not be reinstated in Ireland. The backstop specified that Northern Ireland would leave the E.U. customs union only when Britain and the E.U. were able to work out an arrangement to avoid a hard border. It was intended to give the two sides time to hash out a final deal on the issue after Britain leaves


Why my friend Loujain al-Hathloul deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

Prize. The momentum to nominate Loujain for the award has picked up recently, including in a recommendation in a New York Times op-ed by journalist Nicholas Kristof, and efforts led by Bessma Momani, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Canada, who is working with a number of academics to nominate her. In these past few months, we have worked to call attention to our friend’s plight. We have held several rallies in Vancouver. We have reached out to Loujain’s former professors at UBC, as well as the president of UBC, Santa Ono, to pressure them to take action. We have held a mock photo shoot calling out Vogue Arabia’s hypocrisy in featuring Princess Hayfa bint Abdullah al-Saud, the daughter of the late Saudi king, as the vanquisher of the driving ban. We wrote an op-ed in Teen Vogue expressing our rage that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has been praised for being “progressive” while our friend spent her last birthday in jail, simply for fighting for women’s rights. However, things only seem to be getting worse. “She said she had been held in solitary confinement, beaten, waterboarded, given electric shocks, sexually harassed and threatened with rape and murder,” Loujain’s sister, Alia al-Hathloul, who lives in Belgium, shared in a New York Times op-ed Jan. 13. Their parents, who live in Saudi Arabia, are allowed one visit a month to see Loujain. On one occasion, Alia wrote, they saw that Loujain’s legs were covered with bruises. Often, Alia wrote, she has been “shaking uncontrollably, unable to hold her grip, to walk or sit normally.” Worldwide attention to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October had finally shed some light on the kingdom’s shoddy record of human rights abuses. However, the U.S.- and British-led war on Yemen carried out by its Saudi proxy continues, while Loujain and her fellow women’s rights activists languish in prisons in the absolute monarchy run by religious clerics. Here in Canada, while the government’s criticisms of the arrests of Saudi women’s rights activists soured diplomatic relations between the two countries last summer, a $15 billion arms deal between them remains intact — arms that continue to rain down on Yemen. Despite acts of war, senseless murders, arbitrary arrests, accounts of torture and allegations of rape — nothing has broken these ironclad imperialist alliances. We call on the Nobel Peace Prize committee to accept


Louise Linton is rebranding herself with a Sundance appearance and two upcoming films

Just in time for all this talk about taxing the rich, Washington’s favorite Marie Antoinette has resurfaced! Louise Linton — wearer of designer clothing, owner of expensive jewelry and the wife of uber-rich Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — was spotted at Sundance Film Festival this week. Linton appears to be trying very hard to put all her controversies behind her. A brief recap of her let-them-eat cake blunders: Her 2016 self-published memoir about her gap year in Zambia was torched for being a classic “White-Savior-in-Africa” account; she was savaged for an Instagram post of herself accompanying Mnuchin on a government plane in which she tagged her pricey designer clothing — and then clapped back at a critical commenter by boasting about how much she and Mnuchin pay in taxes; later, she posed with him, clutching a newly minted sheet of American currency bearing his signature — an image that immediately sparked memes and comparisons to Bond villains. But enough rehashing! Linton is trying to turn the page and cast herself as a hustling everywoman — albeit in the business of Hollywood films. Per an interview she gave the Hollywood Reporter, she has a new production company and is working on two movies: One is the never-released rom-com she filmed in 2014, and the other is a “dark comedy called ‘Me, You, Madness,’ about a young thief, played by Ed Westwick, who discovers he’s robbing the home of a serial killer.” Which sounds . . . interesting? Linton, who wore a pair of Ugg boots (her go-to “I’m relatable!” footwear) and a Dodgers cap around Sundance, is producing, directing and writing the flick. The former actress also recently refocused her Instagram account away from designer-flaunting and onto her philanthropy, she said in the interview. And she brushed off questions about a congressional investigation into her husband’s department lifting sanctions on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, telling THR, “I’m a filmmaker, I’m not a politician.”


Trump’s tweets on Mexico’s rising murder rate conflict with his new asylum policy

In a series of tweets Thursday, President Trump sought to justify his calls for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico by pointing to the rising murder rate in that country. In doing so, however, he also highlighted the dangers of the Trump administration’s new “remain in Mexico” asylum policy, which requires those who have applied for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to return to Mexico for months while they await a decision. Trump’s tweets noted that there were 33,341 murders in Mexico in 2018, a rise he attributed to the drug trade. Trump’s appeared to reference figures released by Mexico’s Interior Ministry this month. There are other estimates that suggest the number might be lower, but even those are worryingly high: Mexico’s public safety secretariat estimated there were 28,816 homicide cases opened in 2018 — a 15 percent increase over the previous year. Trump’s newly enacted asylum policy means that migrants must now face those dangers for months while their cases are processed. Traditionally, foreign visitors to the United States were able to apply for asylum at a port of entry, under what is known as “affirmative asylum.” They would then be allowed to stay in the United States while their case was adjudicated. The Trump administration changed that in response to groups of asylum seekers from Central America who have arrived on the southern border over the past few years, including those in the high-profile “caravan” groups traveling together. The large number of pending cases in the asylum system last year lead to a lengthy backlog. This week, a new policy was rolled out that requires asylum seekers to return to Mexico once they have applied. The asylum seekers would stay in Mexico but have multi-entry visas to attend court dates in the United States; the Department of Homeland Security has said that final decisions would be made within a year. As The Washington Post wrote Tuesday, the new policy is “one of the most dramatic changes to the American asylum system in decades.” Even before the new asylum policy was implemented, some hopeful migrants were been murdered after being deported from the United States. The United States has also deported people back to some of the areas of Mexico worst hit by violent crime. That includes Reynosa, a border city in the northeast that has been called Mexico’s least secure city, and Tijuana, where last year’s


يجب على الكونغرس أن يدافع عن السجينات السعوديات

بقلم هيئة التحرير هتون الفاسي هي إحدى أبرز علماء السعودية وأكثرهم احترامًا. كانت أستاذة في جامعة الملك سعود بالرياض لأكثر من ربع قرن وألّفَت كتابين هامين حول تاريخ المرأة في السعودية وكتبت العديد من المقالات الصحفية. لقد حصلت على مرتبات شرف دولية، بما فيها الانضمام إلى مجتمع الشرف الأكاديمي في فرنسا. كما دافعت بشكل سلمي عن تحسين حقوق المرأة السعودية طوال أكثر من عقد من الزمان، بما في ذلك حق التصويت في الانتخابات المحلية وحق قيادة السيارة. إنّها تمكث في السجن منذ شهر يونيو/حزيران الماضي بسبب أنشطتها. الفاسي هي واحدة من أكثر من 12 ناشطة أُلقي القبض عليهنّ في حملة قمع لا معنى لها ولا تطاق أطلقها ولي العهد الأمير محمد بن سلمان. لقد بدأت الاعتقالات في الوقت الذي منح فيه النظام النساء حق قيادة السيارة في يونيو/حزيران الماضي واستمرّت خلال فترة الصيف. لا تزال تسع نساء على الأقل في السجن، واحتُجز كثير منهنّ في الحبس الانفرادي لفترات طويلة وتعرض البعض للتعذيب الوحشي. تعرّض جميعهنّ لحملات تشهير شنيعة في وسائل الإعلام الموالية للحكومة. لم تُدَن إحداهنّ بأي جريمة حتى الآن. وفقًا لحساب تويتر السعودي الذي يُدعى “معتقلي الرأي “، فإنّ الفاسي كانت واحدة من ثلاث سجينات نُقِلن مؤخرًا إلى زنزانات مشتركة في سجن الحائر جنوب الرياض بعد احتجازهن لفترات طويلة في الحبس الانفرادي. لا يُعرف سوى القليل عن قضيتها أو حالتها الصحية. في أواخر العام الماضي، أفادت عدة منظمات معنية بحقوق الإنسان ومنظمات إخبارية، بما في ذلك صحيفة البوست، بأنّ العديد من النساء الأخريات المحتجزات في الحبس الانفرادي قد تعرضن للتعذيب. لقد تعرضوا للضرب والإيهام بالغرق والصدمات الكهربائية والإساءة الجنسية. كما شهد كبير مساعدي محمد بن سلمان سعود القحطاني إساءة معاملة إحدى النساء المعتقلات، لجين الهذلول، بينما كان يهددها بالاغتصاب والقتل، وفقًا لعائلتها . لم يجذب هذا السلوك الفاحش إلّا مقدار ضئيل جدًا من الاهتمام الدولي والمحاسبة. بعد أن ناصرت كندا الناشطتين المعتقلتين سمر بدوي ونسيمة السادة في أغسطس/آب الماضي، طردت الحكومة السعودية السفير الكندي وسحبت سفيرها من أوتاوا. لكن بدلًا من دعم النساء السعوديات أو كندا، ردت إدارة ترامب بحثّها الحكومتين على تسوية خلافاتهما. في الآونة الأخيرة، قال وزير الخارجية مايك بومبيو إنّه أثار قضية النساء السجينات خلال اجتماعات في الرياض هذا الشهر. مع ذلك، لم يُطلَق سراح أي منهن. يدرك محمد بن سلمان الآن أنّ هذه الإدارة الأميركية لن تحمّله مسؤولية هذه الانتهاكات الفاضحة لحقوق الإنسان بعد أن تجاهل الرئيس ترامب ضلوع ولي العهد في مقتل جمال خاشقجي. في الأسبوع الماضي، وقع أكثر من 200 باحث من جميع أنحاء العالم رسالة إلى الحكومة السعودية تدعو إلى إطلاق سراح


Trump administration faces an increasingly adversarial Congress — in both parties

While there have been some long-standing disagreements between Senate Republicans and the White House on foreign policy, the amendment — coming from the top Republican senator who has worked hand-in-glove with Trump on many shared priorities — was one of the most forceful protests against the president’s foreign policy. “The United States is engaged in Syria and Afghanistan for a simple reason: Because our enemies are engaged there,” McConnell said Wednesday. “Real dangers to us and to our allies still remain in both these nations. We must continue to confront them.” The amendment will come to the Senate floor for a vote on Thursday. If it passes, it would be the first clear rebuke of Trump’s foreign policy in the Senate this year. Earlier this month, 11 Republicans sided with Democrats to try stopping the administration from lifting sanctions on Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Behind the scenes, administration aides whipped votes fervently to make sure the push failed. “It would have been an embarrassment,” one administration official said. In making his case with GOP senators, Mnuchin tried to cast Deripaska as a bad actor but someone who had fulfilled the terms of his sanctions. Mnuchin said if the United States didn’t follow through on lifting terms when the sanctions were met, it would be impossible to get others to follow the requirements. When it comes to domestic policy, Republican senators are also sending some warning shots in Trump’s direction. Twice in his weekly news conference on Tuesday, McConnell underscored the need to reach an agreement on border security that both averts another shutdown in February and prevents Trump from concluding that he should declare a national emergency. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), a top McConnell confidant, said he is opposed to the declaration of a national emergency in part because of the precedent it would set and what it might empower a future Democratic president to do down the line. “I think it would be a mistake,” Cornyn said. “There’d be a race to see who could get to the courthouse first to try to get an injunction. So, that means it would be tied up probably for the next couple years, sort of like his travel ban.” Two senior GOP aides said Trump and other top officials have continued to float a national emergency declaration to secure money for a border wall —


U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan tied to Afghan dialogue and a Taliban cease-fire

The Trump administration struggled this week to clarify its intentions in Afghanistan, after the president’s call to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops and reports that it was negotiating a departure schedule with the Taliban, rather than with the Afghan government. No withdrawal will occur until a comprehensive cease-fire and a political road map for peace have been negotiated between the militants and the Afghans, a senior administration official said. Instead, the official described a step-by-step process in which nothing of substance will happen until every piece of a complex series of actions is in place. “Our position right now, and [the Taliban] understand it, is that nothing will be implemented” until agreement on all issues has “not only has been completed, but has started to be implemented,” the official said. “Everything is to be implemented at the same time,” said the official, who agreed there has been “some misunderstanding” about what happened during the latest U.S.-Taliban meeting, and in subsequent U.S. talks this week with the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The U.S. official spoke on the condition of anonymity to address the sensitive diplomatic exchanges. The talks with the Taliban were an early sign of diplomatic progress toward ending the 17-year war in Afghanistan. Reaching a broad deal with the militants, selling it to the Afghan government and bringing the U.S. role in the conflict to a peaceful conclusion would together be a major achievement for President Trump. But the lengthy war, chief U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad wrote on Twitter early Thursday, “won’t be resolved in one meeting.” After six days of talks with a Taliban delegation in Qatar last week, Khalilzad announced an agreement in principle on a draft “framework” on the eventual withdrawal of some 14,000 U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan and a Taliban guarantee that Afghan territory would never be used by terrorists — including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Critics in Washington and Kabul quickly charged that the administration was seeking an early exit from Afghanistan without obtaining further Taliban concessions, including direct negotiations with the Afghan government, a step the militants have long refused to take. Ghani and his advisers have been increasingly perturbed at being excluded from the talks, expanding a growing rift between Afghan government officials and the U.S. peace envoy. They accuse Khalilzad if making what they consider needlessly generous concessions to the Taliban and allege that he wants to


Former U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for work on North Korea

President Trump has bemoaned that he will be denied a Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomatic outreach to North Korea, and now Democrats have nominated some competition for the award — a veteran diplomat and politician known for his work with the secretive nuclear-armed regime. Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson was nominated last month by members of Congress. His nomination, which has not been previously reported, is for decades of work on behalf of hostages and prisoners held in several nations. The Norwegian Nobel Committee was asked to consider case histories including the late Otto Warmbier, an American college student released by North Korea in 2017 after 17 months, and returned to the United States with severe brain damage. He died days after returning to the United States. “The innovative private diplomatic efforts by Governor Richardson and the Richardson Center have mitigated the risk of violent conflict, de-escalated tensions, opened critical back channels and made strides towards peace in conflicts around the world and in North Korea in particular,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and 23 current and former Democratic lawmakers wrote to the Nobel Peace Prize selection committee. Richardson, a former Democratic congressman and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has made numerous trips to North Korea to seek release of Americans held there. In addition to Warmbier, the nominating letter says he also helped secure the release of two other Americans, journalist Laura Ling and Evan Hunziker. “For as long as I have known Bill Richardson, I have known him to be a tough, relentless, and effective diplomat and advocate for peace and human rights around the world,” Udall said in a statement to The Washington Post. Richardson and the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, his nonprofit organization, work independently from the U.S. or other governments, using what Richardson calls “informal diplomacy.” This is the fifth time Richardson has been recommended to the Nobel committee for work on behalf of hostages and international prisoners. “No person or family should ever feel abandoned by their country when taken prisoner or hostage by hostile entities,” Richardson said in a statement to The Post. “I’ve got a lucky blue blazer for years I’ve worn into situations I didn’t know if I will make it out of. Doing this type of work is a challenge I love and will continue to do as long as I am able and as long as


Why winning and losing are irrelevant in Syria and Afghanistan

If the United States pulls out of Afghanistan, the Taliban is likely to seize most of the country, and if we pull out of Syria, the Islamic State is likely to revive. In fighting these insurgents, the United States needs to eschew its big-war mind-set. Yes, there will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of the USS Missouri. But even victory in World War II would have been squandered as readily as victory in World War I if the United States hadn’t kept troops in Europe and Asia for 73 years and counting. The longer U.S. troops stay anywhere, the greater their chances of achieving our objectives. When U.S. troops pull out, the consequences are usually costly, whether it’s the communist takeover of Cambodia, Laos and South Vietnam in 1975, or the rise of the Islamic State after 2011. And, while the Viet Cong weren’t trying to attack the American homeland, the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are. The New York Times reports that U.S. intelligence has warned that “a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan would lead to an attack on the United States within two years.” Advocates of retreat will argue that an open-ended deployment is not sustainable. But that’s not true. U.S. troops are volunteers. As long as they aren’t taking many casualties, the public isn’t opposed to their deployment. U.S. forces have suffered six fatalities in Syria and 66 in Afghanistan since 2015 — an average of 18 a year. Those losses are tragic, but in 2017 the U.S. military lost 80 service personnel in training accidents. Training is now four times deadlier for U.S. forces than combat. Nor are these conflicts financially ruinous: The war in Afghanistan accounts for less than 10 percent of the defense budget. If Trump chooses to pull out, it will be his choice. Unlike Richard Nixon in Vietnam, he will not have been compelled to exit by public pressure. There are no antiwar protests in the streets. These kinds of deployments are invariably lengthy and frustrating. Think of our Indian Wars, which lasted roughly 300 years (circa 1600-1890), or the British deployment on the North West Frontier (today’s Pakistan-Afghanistan border), which lasted 100 years (1840s-1940s). U.S. troops are not undertaking a conventional combat assignment. They are policing the frontiers of the Pax Americana. Just as the police aren’t trying to eliminate crime, so troops are not trying to eliminate


Man found fatally shot after early-morning incident in Hyattsville home

Piringer, spokesman for the fire department. The house in the 20500 block of Neerwinder Street had a “newer-type” chimney with a metal flue, and wood and siding on the outside, Piringer said. He said that when the dog woke the homeowners, there was no smoke in the house. Smoke alarms were installed, he said, but they did not activate because of the absence of smoke. Four occupants left the house safely, Piringer said. He said the fire broke out about 11 p.m. Monday and caused $425,000 in damage to the house where it started, and $75,000 to its contents. Heat also damaged a neighboring house, he said. In a tweet, the county fire department described the canine as a “hero dog.” — Martin Weil White rhino dies at zoo in Baltimore The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore said that one of its white rhinoceroses has died. News outlets quoted a zoo statement saying that Jaharo died on Sunday. The zoo’s general curator, Mike McClure, said that the 6-year-old rhino’s condition suddenly declined after he had been undergoing treatment for serious health issues, but that Jaharo had been eating, drinking and behaving normally for the past several weeks. Ellen Bronson, the zoo’s senior director of animal health, conservation and research, said Jaharo was diagnosed last fall with a disorder in which the body’s immune system destroys red blood cells. Bronson said that as far as zoo officials could determine, the disease had never before been seen in a white rhinoceros. McClure said that zoo officials will discuss whether to bring in another companion for Stubby, the other male rhino. — Associated Press VIRGINIA U-Va. confirms cases of norovirus The University of Virginia in Charlottesville has confirmed cases of norovirus among its students. News outlets reported that the university confirmed the cases Tuesday but has not provided an estimate on the number of suspected cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the virus is highly contagious and can cause vomiting and diarrhea. The university said in an email that the virus is most contagious from the onset of symptoms to a couple of days after recovering from the virus. The email noted that the virus can continue to be spread for two weeks or more after those infected with norovirus are feeling better. The university said that the most effective protection is frequent hand-washing with soap and water. — Associated Press


Four cold-weather experiments to distract from the fact that you can’t feel your face

And it’s possible to visualize this too! All you need is a balloon. When a gas heats up, its volume grows as the molecules become more energetic. The same is true in reverse: Cooling the balloon will cause it to shrink in volume as the molecules begin to settle down. You can test this principle yourself by taking a balloon for a walk. Fill it indoors, making careful note of its dimensions with a ruler. If you wait outside for a few moments, the balloon will diminish in size. If you do the opposite and start outdoors, the balloon may expand enough upon walking inside that it pops! That contraction of gas is also why we have to fill our tires with more air in the wintertime. An easier way to try this could be to use two empty glass bottles. Take one outdoors and put a balloon on top. When you transport it inside, the gas in the bottle will expand, inflating the balloon. Now take the other glass bottle, affix the second balloon to it inside, where it’s warm, and bring it outside. The air will contract so much that the balloon will be sucked into the bottle. Yes, this is scientific. And yes, you can make a beer slushy of your very own. Temperatures this low don’t necessarily mean instant freezing. Freezing requires the aggregation of ice crystals, but crystals need something to freeze onto — a nucleus. Otherwise, they can’t freeze. The alcohol in beer lowers its freezing point. That’s why beer stored at 32 degrees won’t ice up. Most beers with 10 percent alcohol content freeze at 20 degrees or so. But it takes a while, and you could end up with a beverage frozen solid. With temperatures in the minus-20s, however, you can make your slushy, start to finish, in less than an hour. You want the beer to be supercooled — liquid, but below its freezing temperature. If a beer is clear enough (dark beers don’t work well for this), it will remain in a liquid state, as it doesn’t have enough impurities in it to seed ice crystallization. But when you come indoors and open the bottle, the rush of tiny carbon dioxide bubbles will kick-start this process inside-out. Lowering the air pressure within the bottle speeds it up further. You can watch as your beer transforms into slushy before your eyes!


Trump administration announces sanctions targeting Venezuela’s oil industry

said that several unnamed generals who last week publicly pledged loyalty to Maduro were already in contact with the opposition. Maduro, Bolton said, had “allowed the penetration” of Venezuela “by adversaries of the United States,” including Cuba and Iran, posing “a strategic significant threat.” But he made no mention of China, one of Venezuela’s biggest creditors, and Russia, which has supplied extensive aid to the Maduro government, owns or controls oil and gas fields there, and is Venezuela’s biggest weapons supplier. The measures announced Monday place sanctions on PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, freezing $7 billion in U.S.-based assets and blocking more than $11 billion in revenue that would otherwise flow from oil sales over the next year, Bolton said. Virtually all of those assets belong to Citgo, the U.S.-based PDVSA subsidiary that owns three refineries in the United States and a nationwide network of pipeline and gas stations, and employs thousands in this country. Revenue from Citgo, which imports Venezuela’s heavy crude oil, and refines and distributes it in the United States, provides much of the cash income currently available to Maduro to run the country. Any drop in U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude would also affect refining giants Valero and Chevron as well as PBF Energy, which has five refineries around the country, according to Height Securities, an investment advisory service. With transportation constraints limiting the ability of Canadian crude to reach the U.S. Gulf Coast, the refiners could have trouble replacing lost Venezuelan imports, Height said. Mnuchin said there would be little impact on U.S. oil supplies. “Gas prices are almost as low as they’ve been in a very long period of time,” he said, noting that there would be no “big impact” on the affected refineries “in the short term.” Neither Bolton nor Mnuchin provided more than scant details of how the sanctions would work, or how and when the money could be distributed to the opposition. Analysts and oil company advisers were still trying to decipher the announcement, and Treasury officials said they were not yet prepared to answer questions about the hastily put-together measures. “We have continued to expose the corruption of Maduro and his cronies, and today’s action ensures they can no longer loot the assets of the Venezuelan people,” Bolton said. When there are “rightful leaders” in Venezuela, Mnuchin said, the blocked money “will be available to Guaidó.” At least 20


Sanctioning Assad is the very least the United States can do in Syria

around. Today, nobody could think this is “thinly-veiled call for no fly zone & war to oust Syrian gov,” as Gabbard said at that time. Trump is getting the United States out of Syria. The president has made it clear he does not believe there is any U.S. national interest there whatsoever. “We’re talking about sand and death. That’s what we’re talking about,” Trump said at a televised Cabinet meeting Jan. 2. “We’re not talking about vast wealth. We’re talking about sand and death.” Nonetheless, there is a broad bipartisan congressional consensus that the United States does have interests in Syria. The fight against Islamic State is not over and can’t be entrusted to Turkey and Russia. If Assad and Iran are allowed to take over currently liberated areas, more death, extremism, refugees and regional instability will surely follow. Sanctions are not a panacea. It’s possible they don’t present enough leverage to force Assad, Russia and Iran change their strategic calculus. But it’s all we have left to try to exert influence there. The European Union on Monday sanctioned 11 individuals and five companies for doing business with the Assad regime. They are trying to enforce the principle that the reconstruction of Syria should begin with political progress and an end to the atrocities. The White House has already issued a statement of support for the Caesar bill. The Senate should take a break from show votes on the shutdown and vote to remind Assad and the rest of the world that the United States still cares about what happens in Syria. It’s literally the least we can do. “Passing the Caesar bill will give renewed hope to an oppressed and downtrodden people that our revolution and justice for our victims is not dead,” Caesar told me. “That our yearning for freedom will continue as long as there are free men and women in the world like the American people and their Congress.” Read more: Brett McGurk: Trump said he beat ISIS. Instead, he’s giving it new life. Josh Rogin: Syrian defector who documented Assad’s atrocities returning to Washington Robert S. Ford: Trump’s Syria decision was essentially correct. Here’s how he can make the most of it. Keith Kellogg: President Trump led us to success in Syria. Now it’s time to leave. David Ignatius: What Trump’s Syria decision means on the front lines of the fight against the Islamic State


What the INF Treaty means for the U.S. and Europe

where it could place a ground-launched missile within range of China without consent from allies. It is an open question whether governments such as Japan, South Korea or Australia would be willing to host such systems. 4. What are the military implications of withdrawal? It is unclear what INF-prohibited systems the United States could deploy to Europe or Asia in the near term. The U.S. military has not developed any land-based missiles within the prohibited ranges for decades and has only just started funding a new ground-launched cruise missile to match the 9M729. Moscow is in a very different position and could rapidly expand deployment. The number of operational 9M729 missiles has been quite limited, but released from its official obligations under the treaty, Moscow could deploy more units rapidly. Russia could also effectively reclassify the RS-26 Rubezh, an experimental system that has been tested just above the INF Treaty’s 5,500-kilometer limit. To avoid violating the INF, Russian officials previously described the RS-26 as an intercontinental ballistic missile. However, it could form the basis for a missile of a slightly shorter range if Moscow wished to boost its INF forces — without counting it under the U.S.-Russian New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, governing longer-range systems. 5. What are the diplomatic implications of withdrawal? Withdrawal is likely to be controversial with U.S. allies in NATO, further splitting the alliance at a difficult time for transatlantic relations. Many Western European NATO states favor retaining the INF, in conjunction with previous U.S. policy designed to push Moscow back into compliance. This raises concerns that divisions within NATO may worsen when the United States officially withdraws from the INF. There is little desire for a new arms race in Europe, and few NATO countries are likely to want to host any new U.S. systems. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas described Trump’s announcement as “regrettable” and has urged Moscow to resolve its compliance issues. British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson declared Britain stands with the United States but also hopes the treaty will “continue.” Central and Eastern European states may align more closely with Trump’s stance, though their positions are unclear. Withdrawal will probably not lead to a new INF deal. Given its heavy investment in intermediate-range systems, China will not take up Trump’s offer of talks with the United States and Russia. Moscow seems to be in no mood for negotiations. Trump’s


If grocery shopping drives you to drink, here are the 5 best bars in D.C. supermarkets

also has locations in Baltimore and Virginia.) But no Streets Market has a bar like the one in NoMa, which is located on the first floor of the Ava NoMa apartment building. With soaring ceilings and a comfortable, table-filled mezzanine level, the concrete-walled space resembles a Buffalo Wild Wings or upscale beer destination more than a grocery store’s dining area, thanks in part to the row of flat-screen TVs behind a bar that runs the length of the room. There are 30 draft lines pouring a mixture of craft beer, mead and cider; 15 wines by the glass and bottle; and a small cocktail program. Food, which comes from the Streets Market prepared-food counter, includes ramen and udon noodles, donburi bowls and Korean BBQ tacos, while crispy chicken wings and fries covered with bulgogi and kimchi soak up the booze. Even more impressive: quick table service. 51 M. St. NE. No. 2: This is no longer the newest, shiniest Whole Foods in town, but the mezzanine-level bar, which looks out over the rest of the store, remains the most comfortable of any in the city. You’ll find neighborhood moms getting together for a glass of wine; flex workers staring at laptops, taking advantage of the free WiFi; and regular shoppers enjoying one of 16 craft beers on tap (available in 4-, 8- and 16-ounce pours) and watching sports on the 90-inch flat-screen, often with reusable bags of groceries at their feet. Grab pizza from downstairs or order raclette from a special bar-only menu. 600 H St. NE. No. 3: This market, focused on products made within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, stretches our definition of a supermarket — you can pick up charcuterie or a pint of artisanal ice cream, but not a jug of Tide. The front bar, though, has the best deal going: Craft beers start at just $4 for pints of Port City’s Optimal Wit or Hellbender’s Grampus smoked nut brown, and climb all the way to $6 for more rare selections from Burley Oak or Väsen. Coolers are stocked with bottles of beer or wine that can be purchased to take home or drink in-house, perhaps with a snack from the deli. The seating can be a little cramped, especially when it’s too cold to huddle around a table on the patio, but it’s worth it. 2001 S St. NW. No. 4: The star attraction at this


World Digest: Feb. 1, 2019

NIGERIA Boko Haram kills 60 after army leaves town The Islamist militant group Boko Haram killed at least 60 people in the northeast Nigerian town of Rann on Monday, a day after it was abandoned by the military, Amnesty International and security sources said Friday. The attack on Rann, home to a camp housing tens of thousands of people displaced by the Islamist insurgency, was one of the group’s bloodiest. It came two weeks after Boko Haram had overrun the same town, signaling its reemergence as a force able to capture army bases. The bloodshed is a challenge for President Muhammadu Buhari, in particular as he seeks a second four-year term in a vote on Feb. 16, having been elected in 2015 partly on a promise to restore security. A Nigerian army spokesman denied that troops had left the town and that Boko Haram had killed the people. The two attacks have driven some 40,000 people to flee, many of them into nearby Cameroon, according to aid agencies. — Reuters IRELAND Police seize firearms in probe near border Irish police seized a substantial quantity of firearms and a suspected explosive device near the border with Northern Ireland on Friday as part of a probe into the activities of militant Irish nationalist groups. The searches took place near the County Louth village of Omeath, which lies on a small peninsula along the border between European Union-member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland. The currently seamless border will become the United Kingdom’s only land frontier with the E.U. when it leaves the bloc, scheduled for March 29. Police on both sides have warned that any hardening of the border as a result of Brexit could be a target for the small number of militant groups still active in Northern Ireland after the 1998 peace deal. A militant group calling itself the “IRA” said this week that it was behind a recent bombing in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. No one was injured in that blast. — Reuters BRAZIL Rescuers stop to honor victims of dam failure A week after the deadly collapse of a mining dam in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, dozens paid homage to the 110 people killed and 238 who are still missing. A ceremony was held at the site of the disaster around 1 p.m., the hour at which the dam breached Jan. 25, unleashing a destructive


Baltimore has a detention problem

Todd Oppenheim is a lawyer in the Baltimore City Felony Trial Division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. Imagine spending a year behind bars waiting for your day in court, only to have a jury find you not guilty after deliberating for 20 minutes. That’s barely the amount of time it takes folks to get settled in the jury room and vote — never mind reviewing the tangible evidence in the case. It happened to a client of mine in a Baltimore City murder trial last summer. Another client, also charged with a felony in Baltimore, had his case dumped by the state at the first trial date after he spent more than five months in jail. Sure, they both got out, but these people can never reclaim that time away from work, family and life. Particularly egregious for hundreds of individuals like my two clients whose trials are pending in Baltimore City is that they are not being housed in Baltimore pretrial. Sometimes it’s in Jessup, 20 miles away. Sometimes, in rarer instances, it’s in the outer reaches of the state. When you’re arrested in Baltimore City, authorities normally take you to the Central Booking and Intake Facility. Central Booking, as its name implies, handles the booking process. It also houses arrestees for temporary detention pending a bail hearing (within 24 hours of arrest), a judicial bail review, if necessary, (next business day) and, finally, potential pretrial detention. The building can hold about 900 people. Baltimore has nearly double that number sitting in jail awaiting court dates for new charges, violations of probation and a handful of warrants from other jurisdictions. So, the extra detainees need to go somewhere. That destination used to be a complex of older buildings adjacent to Central Booking formerly known as the Baltimore City Detention Center. The complex included a women’s detention center. For the most part, male arrestees spent about 30 days shuffling through Central Booking. Then they’d usually move to another building, usually within a couple of city blocks. In July 2015, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) threw a wrench in the pretrial detention “two-step” by beginning to shutter the detention center. Spurred by a corrections officers’ corruption scandal, not necessarily by the outdated and decrepit conditions, Hogan closed the ancient men’s detention center building. Public defenders did not know what would be done with our clients. Gradually, the other buildings


The U.S. militarized its southern border once before. It didn’t work.

to deploy militarized tactics and technologies along the border in a mass deportation program accompanied by a well-orchestrated public relations campaign. Joseph Swing, a former Army general who headed the INS, took the lead to militarize the border region. He created a mobile task force of law enforcement agents to round up undocumented Mexican immigrants and force them south of the border. Deploying the military terminology of “sweeps” and “operations,” several hundred agents would quite literally encircle communities, forcing people across the border via bus, boat, train and airlifts. The use of military means to remove “wetbacks” (mojados) — a racially divisive and pejorative term — was a way to cast doubt on all Mexican migrants’ rights to be in the United States. All of this was done with careful attention to public relations. Swing and his agents controlled media coverage, creating news releases to tout the successes of deportations and crafting media relations in a manner conducive to INS interests. Such media strategy was necessary because the sweeps could be violent, even deadly. As historian Mae M. Ngai noted in her book, “Impossible Subjects,” “Some eighty-eight braceros died of sunstroke as a result of a round-up that had taken place in 112-degree heat, and [labor official Milton Plumb] argued that more would have died had Red Cross not intervened.” The U.S. operation was deployed at the height of the Bracero Program, a temporary worker initiative with Mexico that had been designed as a wartime labor relief measure but continued at the behest of the U.S. agriculture industry from 1942 to 1964. The program actively recruited over 309,000 Mexican laborers in 1954 to temporarily work on U.S. farms to, in the words of legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow, “harvest the food for the best-fed nation in the world.” But the demand for labor exceeded the federal contracts issued for workers, creating a demand for more undocumented migrants. And so in 1954, the INS began repatriating these undocumented workers with Swing’s tactics. Now recognized as a Low Intensity Conflict doctrine, Swing’s approach was similar to that used on the battlefield in response to the guerrilla tactics deployed first by Korean and later Vietnamese soldiers. In short, undocumented immigrants were treated as “enemies.” The military-style deportation campaign used sweeps, mop-up operations, military equipment and principles from low-intensity conflict spatial containment). Historian Juan Ramon García notes Attorney General Brownell gave a speech on


I just ran 135 miles in the middle of a polar vortex

at the second of three checkpoints, at a cabin — but I’m not certain I actually did sleep. There was a lot of noise from people coming and going; this was the spot where many people decided to end their races, and they waited for rides back to the start. Some experienced runners recommend lying down your sled at regular intervals for quick five-minute naps. Even if you don’t really sleep, shutting your eyes is a good reset for your brain. But even with my sleeping bag, I was worried about exposure to the wind — it didn’t feel safe to stop. Even though I’m pretty even-keeled for an ultramarathoner, I definitely faced some hills when I thought, “This really sucks.” I was so exhausted the slopes felt ridiculous to me. They were steep, and that section was never-ending. It just kept going, one hill after another. Though I didn’t seem to hallucinate, the way some distance runners say they do, I did start to see some strange shapes. Navigating by the light of my headlamp through the woods, out of the corner of my eye I’d see animals or faces in the piles of snow sitting on branches. The finish line at Tower was very quiet at around 7 a.m. Wednesday. The temperature was minus-33 degrees — minus-59 with wind chill. I got to see the most beautiful sunrise. When I crossed after 48 hours and 34 minutes, I was the first woman to finish. It felt amazing to get to the lodge at the end of the trail, leave my sled in some hallway and take off all those layers — including what felt like pounds upon pounds of ice. I showered and then slept. When I woke up, the volunteers who administer the race had ordered pizza. Only 36 percent of the 146 total participants ended up completing the race this year, but there wasn’t a lot of fanfare. For me, that’s part of the appeal. I’d run a few marathons before I got into trail running seven years ago and quickly found its style suited me better — more laid-back. Trails are easier on your body than roads, and the people are friendly. After all we’d endured during the Arrowhead, everything felt very calm. My next race, in a few weeks, is 100 miles — in Canada. As told to The Washington Post editor Sophia Nguyen.


The Daily 202: Senate vote shows 2020 Democrats are more aligned with Trump on Syrian pullout than the GOP

With Joanie Greve THE BIG IDEA: Senate Republicans voted Thursday afternoon to rebuke President Trump for his plans to draw down troops in Syria and Afghanistan The nonbinding measure advanced 68 to 23, yet all but one of the Democrats considering a run for president in 2020 opposed it. All four senators who have announced their bids voted no, including Cory Booker (N.J.), who threw his hat into the ring this morning. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) also opposed the measure. The only potential candidate who voted for the amendment was moderate Michael Bennet of Colorado. All told, 20 of the 47 senators in the Democratic caucus voted no, and 25 voted yes. -- Sanders has been calling the fight in Afghanistan “unwinnable” for more than a decade, and he referred to the U.S. presence as an “occupation” during his 2016 campaign. -- As she kicked off her campaign last month, Warren also praised Trump’s plan to bow out of Syria and Afghanistan so that America could escape its “endless wars.” -- The president tweeted on Jan. 13: “Stop the ENDLESS WARS!” -- Gillibrand took a similar stance, though she didn’t go quite as far as Warren, when she appeared on Maddow’s show a few weeks later. -- Reluctant to be seen as agreeing with Trump on anything, several 2020 Democrats have criticized his style and the way he announced the pullout via tweet, but they didn't say what they’d do if they were in charge. -- An exception is Gabbard also expresses no remorse for her 2017 sit-down with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a.k.a. “the Butcher of Damascus.” Assad has been credibly accused of using chemical weapons to murder civilians, including children. The congresswoman has voiced skepticism that he was behind such barbaric attacks, despite consensus across the U.S. intelligence community. -- Politics can make for strange bedfellows. -- -- But, but, but: “The number of U.S. troops in Syria has spiked to around 3,000 in recent days as more troops have moved in to help with the withdrawal,” per Courtney Kube, Josh Lederman and Carol Lee. “Logistical support and security forces are in the country to help move equipment and eventually troops out. The U.S. military remains under orders for a complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops in 120 days, ending the U.S. presence there in mid-spring.” -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch


Why the shutdown didn’t tank the January jobs report

There were a lot of gasps and “Wow!” exclamations when the U.S. Labor Department announced Friday that the economy added 304,000 jobs in January. It’s a massive number of hires, and it occurred in a month when the federal government was partially shut down and hundreds of thousands of federal employees went without pay. Some of the best forecasters in the country had predicted job gains of about 170,000, a substantially lower figure. So how did this extremely good jobs report happen? Here’s a brief rundown on how the shutdown did and did not affect the January unemployment report. 1. The shutdown had no impact on the 304,000 jobs number. This whole process is known as the “establishment survey,” and the Labor Department has used this methodology for previous shutdowns, which also showed no impact on monthly job gains. (Economist Martha Gimbel from Indeed.com wrote a great explainer of what happened during past shutdowns, including in 2013.) 2. The shutdown did affect the unemployment rate, which ticked up to 4 percent. Furloughed workers were supposed to be categorized as “unemployed on temporary layoff,” but the Labor Department has to use whatever language the person answering the door says. So some furloughed workers classified themselves as “employed” while others said (correctly) that they were “unemployed temporarily." The Labor Department said that some furloughed federal workers almost certainly misclassified themselves. The result is the unemployment rate probably should have been even higher — maybe 4.1 percent. “If the federal workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work had been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate would have been slightly higher than reported,” the Labor Department wrote in a note at the bottom of the January jobs report. 3. The shutdown probably caused a jump in Americans working part time. This metric is closely watched as a sign of the health of the labor market, since people who want to work full time should be able to find jobs in such a “hot” market. It is calculated from the household survey (the one where the Labor Department goes door-to-door). “Blockbuster job number distorted by workers forced to accept part time employment to make ends meet during government shutdown. A whopping half million more people forced into part time instead of full time for economic reasons in January,” tweeted Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. The takeaway:


Local control of alcohol is best

Regarding the Jan. 17 editorial “A dubious wine law”: Expression of diverse viewpoints can be a positive thing. The 21st Amendment ended the failed experiment of national Prohibition and decentralized federal control of the alcohol marketplace, giving states the right to regulate alcohol in accordance with local customs, needs and social sensitivities. By design, alcohol laws are reliably non-homogenous. Alcohol, as an intoxicant, is different from other products and requires a distribution and sales system that guarantees extra caution and care be taken to promote a healthy marketplace and protect consumers and non-consumers alike. Because legislative needs and policies are unique to all 50 states and the District, it’s critical to support states’ rights under the 21st Amendment and keep decisions in the hands of state legislatures and local regulators, who understand their communities best. Sometimes, local residents would like the party selling liquor to have a vested interest in the local community to ensure regulatory oversight and responsible sales. And we believe that a state’s residents have every right, through the legislative process, to express this. Michelle Korsmo The writer is president and chief executive of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America.


House Democrat invites Parkland shooting survivor to State of the Union address

cars. Democrats will use Tuesday’s speech to draw attention to the plight of refugees, family separations at the border and the Trump Organization’s history of employing undocumented workers. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) will bring a mother and daughter who fled Guatemala and were separated for nearly two months last year after crossing into the United States, according to his office. The daughter, Yakelin Garcia Contreras, was 11 at the time. “This child separation policy came from a dark and evil place within the heart of this administration,” Merkley, who is weighing a presidential bid, said in a statement. “I’m bringing Albertina and Yakelin as my guests to the State of the Union because we need to bear witness to the suffering that this cruel policy inflicted, and resolve to make sure that nothing like this ever happens in the United States of America again.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he will bring Regina Moller, executive director of a nonprofit group in Groton, Conn., that provides shelter for child refugees and minors who may have been separated from family members at the border, his office said. “I’m so glad she is joining me at the State of the Union to shed light on how President Trump’s border policies are traumatizing a generation of children and how the recent government shutdown affected Connecticut,” Murphy said of Moller in a statement. Guests will also include two women who worked at Trump’s Bedminster, N.J., golf club while undocumented. They were invited by Reps. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.). At least one presidential candidate will use the opportunity to hammer the Trump administration for the recent government shutdown. Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), who launched her White House bid last month, will bring Trisha Pesiri-Dybvik, an air traffic controller from central California who lost her home in the 2017 Thomas fire and was furloughed during the 35-day shutdown. Pesiri-Dybvik’s husband, also an air traffic controller, worked without pay during that time, Harris’s office said. “Trisha’s story is just one of many stories I heard during the shutdown of Americans whose lives were upended and who faced those difficult days with strength and resilience,” Harris said in a statement. “Washington needs to hear her story and avoid another harmful shutdown.” Several lawmakers invited people whose work promotes science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, education. Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) will bring Bethlehem Gronneberg,


These Marines were falsely accused of war crimes. Twelve years later, they have vindication.

deceit. That makes me so mad. That kind of behavior doesn’t inspire confidence in the ethics of our military’s leaders. It corrodes public trust in the institution.” Galvin was the commanding officer of Marine Special Operations Company Fox. On March 4, 2007, as he and 29 others traveled in a six-vehicle convoy through the village of Bati Kot, a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives attacked the American vehicles and then fighters on both sides of the road opened fire. The Marines fought back and escaped with only one minor casualty. But in the fight’s immediate aftermath, images of bullet-riddled vehicles and ambulances loading bloodied Afghan men were transmitted worldwide. Accounts gathered at the scene portrayed the Marines as murderers, and allegations of wrongdoing were fueled by erroneous media coverage and a bogus narrative fostered by American military officials who fed false information to news outlets, the court’s conclusions would later make clear. Galvin harbors resentment for many, peers and superiors alike. “That 12-page report is an indictment,” he said. “It shows the decay of ethical and moral leadership in our military. And the people who did this to us got a free pass.” Chief among his adversaries is John W. Nicholson Jr., who retired from the Army last year after ascending to the rank of four-star general and serving for 2 1 / 2 years as the head of all NATO forces in Afghanistan. When the incident occurred, Nicholson was a colonel and brigade commander overseeing operations in the area, along the mountainous span of Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan that was thought to be harboring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Francis H. Kearney III, then a two-star Army general with purview of covert Special Operations activity in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East, dispatched his chief of staff, Patrick Pihana, to investigate. Independent assessments of the casualty count varied widely. Amid widespread protests in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, the country’s president at the time, condemned the Marines. Hoping to contain the backlash, Nicholson broadcast an apologetic statement declaring the incident a “stain” on the U.S. military’s honor. Privately, officials were suspicious of the unit because of a separate incident involving Galvin’s men in which, days after the ambush, they deceived him and other leaders to undertake a mission in an area declared off limits. Commanders in Afghanistan, still riled by the allegations of indiscriminate killing, pointed to the


15 things to do around D.C. in February, including Lunar New Year celebrations and a star-studded “Music Man”

was local artist Robin Bell, who has made headlines for his politically charged displays at the former Old Post Office and the Newseum, above. “Open,” his new installation at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, further explores freedom of speech and censorship through striking lights and projections. The piece also serves as a prelude to a forthcoming exhibition that examines the cancellation of Robert Mapplethorpe’s retrospective at the now-defunct Corcoran Gallery of Art nearly 30 years ago, after the planned exhibit had received negative attention for its sexual imagery and content. Free. — Stephanie Williams Grand Reopening of the Black Cat Red Room The Black Cat’s decision to close its first-floor Red Room bar and intimate Backstage performance space sent ripples through Washington music lovers of a certain age. But after a month of remodeling, the new upstairs bar, complete with jukebox and pinball, is ready for the world — and the cynical old punks who worry about how different it will be than the old space. The new hours are slightly later, with doors opening at 9 p.m., which might help provide that old night-owl atmosphere. 9 p.m. Free. — Fritz Hahn Lunar New Year Celebration It might make sense to celebrate the Lunar New Year by pigging out on food, but for those looking for a classic celebration, head to Chinatown for the annual parade. The city will ring in the Year of the Pig starting off at Sixth and I streets NW, with a traditional lion dance, martial arts display and firecrackers to cap off the festivities. 2 p.m. Free. — Hau Chu Carolina Mayorga: Pink Ranchos and Other Ephemeral Zip Codes at Art Museum of the Americas Sure, Carolina Mayorga’s exhibition happens to open on Valentine’s Day, but the subject matter is anything but romantic. The Colombian artist tackles displacement and exile through sculptures, projections and installations that incorporate a color that’s normally associated with much less serious subjects: pink. The opening reception on Feb. 14 features “Cambuche Party: A Pink Musical,” which is comprised of three musical pieces inspired by life in transient, short-term housing. Free. — Stephanie Williams Big Apple Circus at National Harbor There’s a lot of girlpower at the Big Apple Circus, starting with ringmaster Stephanie Monseu. Then there’s animal trainer Jenny Vibel, who works only with rescued horses and dogs, and acrobat Virginia Tuells, who’s earned the nickname “strongest


These seals took over a California beach during the government shutdown — and won’t give it back

It’s unclear whether the initial incursion happened stealthily at night or brazenly during the day — though authorities are almost certain the invasion occurred by sea. And federal employees who returned from the month-long partial government shutdown decided that it was probably not worth the effort to relocate the roughly 90 individuals involved. That’s because some of them were pregnant or newborns, and all of them were opportunistic elephant seals that have taken over what used to be the tourist area of Drakes Beach, Calif. Across the nation this week, returning federal workers slogged through backlogs of voicemails, sifted through bursting email inboxes and tried to remember the name of the childhood pet at the beginning of their log-in passwords. At Drakes Beach, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore, employees had a much bigger problem. Literally. Some of the elephant seal squatters weigh as much as a car. A colony of nearly 1,500 seals inhabits nearby Chimney Beach, which is protected from binocular-wearing tourists by 100-foot-tall cliffs. But Drakes Beach, with its wide swath of sand and spectacular views of the Pacific, has been claimed by humans. Park officials have used a decidedly low-tech method to enforce an armistice between the mammal species: They waved blue tarps to annoy the seals away from the areas most popular with Homo sapiens. “It doesn’t scare them, and it’s a standard technique used with elephant seals,” John Dell’Osso, chief of interpretation and resource education for the seashore, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This would have kept them farther away from tourists.” The annoying tarps were an effective plan, usually chasing all but a seal or two away from the beach, which is a 90-minute drive from San Francisco. But the federal government apparently does not regard the tarp-wavers as essential federal employees, so the workers who did it were among the 800,000 furloughed. During that time, according to the Chronicle, high tides and storms battered the seals' normal habitat. So the seals showed up at the suddenly deserted Drakes Beach, and they brought friends and apparently family, too. Seals give birth during winter, and the unoccupied Drakes Beach appears to be an excellent place to raise pups. On Jan. 27, Point Reyes National Seashore notified eager would-be visitors that Drakes Beach and other popular locations would reopen after the shutdown. Then four days later, officials posted this: “Drakes Beach and its access


Democrats send messages on immigration, jobs and shutdown with State of the Union guests

Democrats are sending a political message with their guests for President Trump’s State of the Union address, inviting a government worker who was affected by the shutdown, immigrants who worked for Trump properties while undocumented and a union official who represents employees at an auto plant that is scheduled to be closed this year. Sandra Diaz, a native of Costa Rica who worked at Trump’s Bedminster, N.J., golf club from 2010 to 2013, will attend the speech as a guest of Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), his office confirmed Thursday. Diaz is a legal permanent resident of the United States but was undocumented at the time of her employment by the Trump Organization, her lawyer said. Diaz will join Victorina Morales, a Guatemalan who also worked at Trump’s Bedminster property and is attending the speech as a guest of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.). The two women met with lawmakers this week as part of a group of immigrants who worked for Trump National Golf Club Bedminster and Trump National Golf Club Westchester, in Westchester County, N.Y., while not legally authorized to do so. The president’s annual State of the Union address is a major event on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers, members of the Supreme Court and administration officials gather in the House chamber for the speech. Guests of the president, the speaker of the House and other lawmakers sit in the second-floor gallery overlooking the floor. At the White House on Thursday, Trump said his speech will cover “a lot of territory.” “Unity will be part of it,” he told reporters. Trump has not yet announced whom he will invite, but presidents’ guests also tend to be chosen to send a political message. Last year, Trump’s guests included a man who benefited from the Republican tax plan and two couples whose daughters were killed by members of the MS-13 gang, according to the White House. As Trump speaks Tuesday night, the audience will include federal workers who were affected by the 35-day partial government shutdown and are wondering whether another impasse will trigger a closure of agencies and departments in mid-February. Freshman Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) has invited Linda McCray, who works at the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center and was furloughed during the recent shutdown, Wexton’s office said. Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) will bring a Transportation Security Administration agent from Pittsburgh International Airport, his office said. Rep.


How Russia is corrupting the liberal world order

Authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China see two main uses for international organizations: protecting their regimes and undermining Western values. That’s why they try to control and then corrupt them as much as possible. The story of the Russian diplomat Vladimir Kuznetsov is a perfect case in point. Kuznetsov, a career Russian official, serves on the financial oversight and advisory boards of three major international organizations: the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. The Russian government appointed him to these roles despite the fact he is a convicted money launderer — or perhaps because of it. When Moscow submitted Kuznetsov’s official curriculum vitae to the OPCW last year, it noted that from 1999 to 2005 he was a member and then chairman of the U.N.’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, a senior oversight post. But his CV omitted that Kuznetsov was convicted in 2007 of abusing that role to launder bribes connected to the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food Program. Kuznetsov was sentenced to 51 months in U.S. federal prison after his co-conspirator, Russian official Aleksandr Yakovlev, pleaded guilty and testified against him. Now, over a decade later, Kuznetsov is back overseeing budgets of the U.N. organization that governs food aid as well as the body charged with protecting Syrian civilians from chemical attacks. The Kuznetsov case was so egregious that the U.S. government and Congress felt compelled to get involved. The Trump administration has protested to the OPCW, officials told me, but no action has yet been taken. On Jan. 25, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the Kuznetsov case and other attempts by authoritarian regimes to corrupt the leadership of multilateral institutions. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a KGB thug who installs his cronies wherever he can to advance his interests,” Cruz told me. “Russia and Iran have a vested interest in undermining the OPCW, and Russia has already started to do so by putting Vladimir Kuznetsov, who was convicted by a U.S. court of financial crimes, in a position where he’s supposed to be monitoring the OPCW’s finances.” Russia sits on the OPCW Executive Council — along with Iran, which the Trump administration in November accused of being in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. An OPCW spokesperson said members of


January manages to weather a mammoth run of ups and downs

We speak of a month when the first day was the warmest, with a 64-degree reading. We speak also of a month when the last day was the coldest, with a low reading of 10 degrees. We speak, of course, of the month that has just ended, January 2019, a month that gave Washington many meteorological memories and at least a few miseries. It was a month of icy slipperiness, Arctic air and wintry precipitation that prompted the federal government to close early Tuesday and open late Wednesday. The same conditions led school systems around the metropolitan area to close for a day or open late for a day or more. Nothing that occurred in Washington seemed quite commensurate with accounts of frightfully frigid conditions elsewhere in the country. In fact, our January turned out on average warmer than normal, 37.2 degrees compared with 36. But that fails to adequately assess the psychic effects created here by such notably wintry events as persistently gray skies, nine days with at least a few snowflakes, and the 8.3-inch snowfall of Jan. 13, a record for the date. martin.weil@washpost.com


Combating the opioid crisis one doctor at a time

It has also given new energy to a countermovement that borrows the style, if not the substance, of that outreach. Late last year, Aetna invested nearly $7 million in the counterprogramming strategy, partnering with a nonprofit, Alosa Health, to bring its pain treatment education to doctors in Pennsylvania, Maine, Illinois, Ohio and West Virginia — states hit hard by opioid overdose deaths. The health system Kaiser Permanente and the Department of Veterans Affairs also use the approach. Bains is one of about 30 trained academic detailers, as they call themselves, who will be knocking on doctors’ doors for the next year, deploying their knowledge about drugs and their people skills to provide the best evidence about how to treat pain. Aetna will measure how well the intervention works and could expand it to other states — or to other health problems, such as overuse of antibiotics. “What’s fascinating about this program is that . . . the cause of the opioid epidemic was inappropriate and aggressive marketing of opioids by these sales reps,” said Daniel Knecht, vice president of clinical strategy and policy at Aetna. Holly Campbell, a spokeswoman for PhRMA, a lobby for the drug industry, said that ethical relationships between drugmakers and health care professionals were beneficial for patients and aided in the development of new medicines. “An important part of achieving this mission is ensuring that health care professionals have the latest, most accurate information available regarding medicines,” Campbell said. Policymakers often favor top-down approaches to change how doctors practice: Some states, for instance, set limits on pain prescriptions, or send doctors report cards on their prescribing habits in hopes of quelling a crisis that now kills more Americans each year than AIDS at the height of the HIV epidemic. Bains’s approach, in contrast, adopts the very method of building relationships with doctors that helped seed the opioid crisis. “The message is not: ‘Don’t use opioids,’ ” Bains said, after quizzing Michael Lyons on when he would consider using narcotics to treat pain. “It’s . . . be cautious. Use immediate-release and not necessarily long-acting drugs. Short course of treatment.” He sees himself as peddling evidence, often championing treatments that may be too old or too unconventional, like Advil and Tylenol or acupuncture, to have a sales force dropping by to remind doctors to use them. “The drug company is frankly much smarter about how to get


Following U.S., Putin suspends nuclear pact and promises new weapons

the 1987 pact between Washington and Moscow, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, by developing and fielding a banned missile. Russia denies the allegation. Critics of U.S. withdrawal from the treaty say that, despite Russia’s violation, the best way to keep Russian arms in check would be to negotiate while keeping the treaty intact. Trump administration officials say the treaty threatens U.S. national security by preventing the country from responding to missile threats, not just from Russia but also from China, which isn’t a signatory to the INF Treaty. Putin’s directive on Saturday to start new development referred to missiles that would be different from the prohibited one the United States accuses Russia of already having deployed. He approved a request from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to create a land-based version of existing sea-launched missiles and to start developing a new, hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile. Both of those missiles would be capable of a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, or 311 and 3,418 miles, which is banned by the INF Treaty. The pact, signed near the close of the Cold War by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, eliminated more than 2,600 missiles and ended a years-long standoff with nuclear missiles in Europe. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that, effective Saturday, the United States will suspend participation in the agreement, starting a six-month countdown to a final U.S. withdrawal. Pompeo said Russia could salvage the treaty by ending its banned missile programs, but Putin’s remarks Saturday underscored the very low likelihood Russia will make such a move. In the televised meeting, the Russian president directed officials to stop initiating any talks related to arms control. Putin had previously been eager to negotiate with the United States on the matter — in part because, analysts say, discussion of nuclear arsenals is one of the only issues on which Moscow can engage on near-equal diplomatic footing with Washington. “I’m asking both ministries to no longer initiate any negotiations on this issue,” Putin said, referring to his foreign and defense ministries. “Let’s wait until our partners are ready to hold an equal, meaningful dialogue on this extremely important topic.” But Russia’s defense budget is far smaller than that of the United States — another incentive for Moscow to avoid a full-fledged arms race, especially as polls show growing domestic discontent. Putin on Saturday said Russia would not let


Pot brownies, and other edibles, could be next for Maryland’s medical marijuana industry

in the Health and Government Operations Committee hearing this week, is not yet scheduled for a committee vote. “Brownies are wonderful,” committee chair Shane E. Pendergrass (D-Howard) said when asked about the bill. “That’s all I need to say.” Edibles — which are permitted in most jurisdictions nationwide that have legalized medical marijuana — provide an alternative for patients who would rather not smoke or who need the long-term pain relief that comes with ingesting cannabis, advocates say. Regulating and selling the products in stores, they say, would also reduce the risk that comes when customers take the dosing and baking into their own hands. “It’s kind of like a Wild West out there,” said Michael Chiaramonte, a physician who owns Haven dispensary in Brandywine and is president of the Maryland Medical Dispensary Association. Most marijuana-related emergency room visits, he said, are caused by people who ingest too much THC in edibles. “If the industry can produce it in a standardized fashion, then it will be much safer,” he said. Depending on the dosage, the relief provided by edibles can last for up to six hours, compared with between one and two hours when smoking or vaping. In addition to Maryland, the jurisdictions where medical cannabis is legal but edibles are banned from being sold are Hawaii, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Dakota, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a nonprofit focused on marijuana policy revisions. Ten states and the District Lawmakers in Maryland have said they will consider a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana in 2020. State Del. Cheryl D. Glenn (D-Baltimore), who sponsored the edibles bill, said marijuana products that could be eaten were banned in the legislation that legalized medical marijuana because supporters of the industry wanted to minimize possible sources of controversy. “It was very, very, very difficult to get this bill passed,” she said, noting that she began pushing to legalize medical marijuana when she first took office in 2007. Legislation was not passed until 2013, and the first dispensaries did not open until 2017. Glenn, who is registered with the state’s medical marijuana program for her arthritis, said she likes the idea of edibles because she hates taking pills, and “it doesn’t appear as medicinal as other forms.” “I think they give people a higher level of comfort,” Glenn said. The state now has nearly 55,000 certified medical marijuana patients, Joy Strand, the


‘Universal Life’: An insider’s look at NASA’s hunt for other worlds, organisms

What’s out there? When the Kepler space telescope hurtled into space in 2009, the answer to that question became a matter of when, not if. The telescope’s launch kicked off NASA’s first attempt to hunt for planets outside our solar system. It yielded the discoveries of more than 2,600 confirmed planets. One, or even some, of those exoplanets might have the conditions needed to sustain life. In his new book, “Universal Life: An Inside Look Behind the Race to Discover Life Beyond Earth,” astrophysicist Alan Boss gives the reader an up-close look at the Kepler project, its amazing journey and the search in the past two decades for Earthlike planets in our galaxy. Boss, an accomplished scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, has long contributed to NASA’s exoplanet exploration program (including as past chair of the executive committee of the program’s analysis group). In the book, he gives a comprehensive view of Kepler’s origins and contributions to our knowledge of possible life in the great beyond. NASA retired Kepler late last year after it ran out of fuel. By then, the telescope had observed more than 530,000 stars and had traveled 94 million miles through space, according to NASA. Boss gives a brisk, detailed tour of its dizzying contributions to science. The book is packed with the budget woes and scientific celebrations (and acronyms) that make up life at NASA. It covers the agency insiders who are making discovery possible in tiny, sometimes frustrating steps. Each chapter is broken into small, vignette-type sections with such titles as “Can We Build It Any Faster?” and “Hey, I Had That Idea First.” These bite-sized segments make the fire hose of material accessible. So does his conversational tone. Reading the book is like sitting in the office with someone who’s eager to explain the ins and outs of the science and the program. Boss also has an upbeat take on what comes next thanks to Kepler. “We now know that Earthlike planets are universal, and we expect that life will be just as universal,” he says.


The facts about Congo’s frightening Ebola epidemic.

Since last summer, Congo has been in the crosshairs of the second worst outbreak of the Ebola virus disease. As of the end of January, more than 730 cases and 459 deaths have been reported. International public health officials are working to get effective treatments into the conflict-ridden region. The World Health Organization’s Ebola virus disease website is a clearinghouse for information on the epidemic, from details about its toll to publications about the virus and how the world is working to fight it. It offers an up-to-date view of the progress of a disease that is shrouded in fear. And for good reason: Highly contagious, Ebola can spread rapidly and be difficult for health officials to contain. In 2014 and 2015, more than 28,000 cases were reported throughout West Africa, and 11,310 people died. The Ebola outbreak in Congo is so serious that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in November warned that it is possible the deadly virus cannot be brought under control there. Instead, he said, Ebola will have to be viewed as an entrenched disease. An experimental Ebola vaccine is being used in Congo. On the WHO’s website, you can find more information about the strategic response underway in Congo, including situation reports on deaths and infections and information about the vaccine. It also has background information about how the virus is transmitted, contained and treated, along with valuable information on preparedness and lessons learned from the deadly 2014-2015 outbreak. Want to dive deeper into this major public health concern? Consider taking the WHO’s free online course about Ebola. Designed for decision-makers, the three-hour course is also a valuable resource for anyone who wants a more in-depth look at the deadly virus and how to protect themselves and others from its spread.


U.S. to withdraw from nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, raising fears of a new arms race

of a banned missile, according to the administration, while China never faced its constraints, deploying what a senior U.S. official said was more than 1,000 intermediate-range missiles banned by the treaty. Russia has in turn accused the United States of violating the INF Treaty through its missile defense systems in Europe, an allegation that the State Department has rebutted. The Trump administration faced criticism among arms control experts for not doing enough to save the treaty and engaging in what critics described as a box-ticking exercise to negotiate with the Russians in recent months designed more to satisfy European allies than to save the pact. “Withdrawing from INF . . . isn’t the best way to punish Russia for its non-compliance,” Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, wrote in a Twitter post. “Rather, sticking with it is still the best way to keep a lid on Russian threat.” Some analysts have also faulted the Obama administration for not doing enough in its final years to induce Moscow into abiding by the treaty. Russia has said it wants to remain in the INF, and it blames the United States for the breakdown of the treaty. But a senior Trump administration official told reporters that Russia has in fact sought to get out of the treaty for years and began violating it after Washington refused its request to end the pact. Russian President Vladmir Putin is likely to continue seeking new arms control talks with Washington, in part because negotiating over nuclear arsenals puts Moscow on near-equal diplomatic footing with the much richer and better-armed United States, analysts say. Russia’s far more limited defense budget also incentivizes Moscow to avoid a full-fledged arms race. There was no immediate response from the Kremlin, although Russian officials had earlier said they expected the U.S. announcement. “I don’t think we need to take tough countermeasures right now,” Andrei Krasov, deputy head of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, told the Interfax news agency after Pompeo’s announcement. “We have a huge military potential anyway that can counter any threat.” The Trump administration has signaled for months that it wants to end the agreement covering both nuclear and conventional ground-launch missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (311 and 3,418 miles). Many NATO diplomats have greeted the U.S. moves with resignation, saying they would prefer to preserve the arms control treaty


While female activists remain locked up in Saudi Arabia, there can be no return to business as usual

desperately needed investment, without meaningful change in the regime controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It’s in the interest of the United States and its allies, as well as Saudi Arabia itself, that this strategy fail. The 33-year-old crown prince has suppressed real and perceived opponents with a brutality that is unprecedented in Saudi history, culminating in the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last October. He has refused to accept responsibility or alter his methods. A top aide who oversaw the Khashoggi murder and the torture of female activists, Saud al-Qahtani, remains active. Though a number of big businessmen have been freed, at least nine of the female activists — whose offense was to press for rights such as driving — remain imprisoned. The regime promised accountability for the Khashoggi killing, but in practice continues to stonewall. Eleven unidentified people — out of 21 the kingdom once said were responsible — are said to be on trial, but principal figures, including the forsenic scientist who dismantled Mr. Khashoggi’s body with a bonesaw, are reportedly immune. A United Nations investigator who launched her own probe, special rapporteur Agnes Callamard, this last week was denied access to the crime scene at the Saudi Consulate when she visited Istanbul. Khalid bin Salman, the crown prince’s brother, has resumed his duties as ambassador in Washington, apparently calculating that his alleged role in luring Mr. Khashoggi to the Istanbul consulate and his false statements for days afterward will be forgotten. The Trump administration appears content to accept all this. But success by Mohammed bin Salman in resuming normal relations will have bad long-term consequences. He will be encouraged to continue his reckless international adventures, which have ranged from kidnapping the Lebanese prime minister to the deliberate bombing of civilian targets in Yemen. He will continue to imprison and torture the best and brightest Saudis, who seek peaceful reforms in a hidebound political and social system. Mohammed bin Salman’s apologists frequently speak of the need to preserve “stability” in the kingdom. But it is unstable now, and becoming more so. The best way to foster genuine equilibrium is for Western governments, investors and entertainers to shun the regime until it puts on more than a show of change. We’ll know that’s beginning to happen when Loujain al-Hathloul, Hatoon al-Fassi, Samar Badawi and other imprisoned women are free.


‘It came out of nowhere’: After a student is killed, Radford University moves forward

RADFORD, Va. — Chris Clemons’s eyes darted to the clock. His team, the Campbell University Fighting Camels, trailed the Radford Highlanders 67-65. He needed to move. Fast. Clemons sprinted down the court and heaved the ball from well beyond the 3-point line. It sank into the net as the buzzer sounded. Campbell beat Radford, 68-67. Few witnessed the dramatic end to Wednesday night’s game. Although the area was crowded earlier, the wooden bleachers at the Dedmon Center now stood empty. Outside, students complained about the referees and homework and debated weekend plans as they boarded university shuttle buses. No one acknowledged where they were heading. The shuttle buses snaked through the dark, winding roads of campus to a vigil for Alexa Cannon, a 20-year-old junior at Radford University who was stabbed to death the week before. Hundreds packed the Student Recreation and Wellness Center for the vigil. A projector beamed a recent photo of Alexa after a haircut — she flashes a goofy smile, her eyes laughing at the camera. “Even When It Hurts (Praise Song)” by Hillsong United played softly. Radford — a city of about 17,000 in Southwest Virginia where the last murder was three years earlier and the one before that was eight years ago — finds itself caught between moving forward and memorializing the death of a student, between life and loss. “People are at a loss, but they’ve also known exactly how to respond,” said George Anderson, a senior pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, Cannon’s congregation. “I’ve heard very few of those stupid but well-meaning idioms like, ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ “Those things aren’t helpful,” the pastor said. “People know their presence is more important than their words.” The suspect: Her 'best friend' It was barely 30 minutes past sunrise on Jan. 24 when the call to police came in. Something had happened at an apartment in the 1200 block of Clement Street, they were told. Please come. Officers said that when they arrived, they were met at the door by Luisa Cutting, Cannon’s 21-year-old roommate. Cutting was covered in blood. Warrants say Cutting turned around, placed her hands behind her back and said, “Arrest me.” “Tell me what’s going on,” one of the officers responded. “I killed her,” Cutting replied, according to police. Cannon was lying dead on the floor inside with stab wounds. Cutting was arrested and charged with second-degree


These female insects have male-type sex organs. Evolution explains why.

Genitals are among the fastest-evolving features in the animal kingdom. They’re also among the most diverse, arrayed in all shapes and sizes, adorned with spines, hooks and even teeth. Ducks have corkscrew-shaped genitalia. The male sea horse has a brood pouch that receives his mate’s eggs for fertilization and in which he nurtures the resulting offspring until birth. Female cabbage white butterflies have a hinged jaw inside their genital tract. Nature is full of strange reproductive organs with unusual uses. For the most part, though, certain genital morphologies are associated with males, others with females. But in 2014, a tiny insect called the barklouse broke even that rule when researchers reported that the females of all four species of a genus found in the caves of Brazil had a penis. It didn’t just look like a penis but acted like one, too: a penetrative organ the female insects used to anchor themselves to their mates during copulation. Moreover, complementary changes in the genitalia of the males had left them with a small pumping mechanism inside a membranous “vagina-like” cavity. The finding not only piqued widespread interest (and amusement — the team was awarded a comedic Ig Nobel Prize in 2017), but also led to a debate about whether the scientists involved were correct to refer to the structure, called a gynosome, as a “female penis.” (Some experts, for instance, disagree with that characterization because the gynosome collects sperm rather than delivering it.) Now, the story has developed even further: It turns out the gynosome evolved not once, but twice, as described recently in Biology Letters. Evolutionary forces seemed to favor these structures so much that they emerged independently in two lineages of the barklice, the Neotrogla in South America and the Afrotrogla in Africa. As scientists have sought to gain a better understanding of how the structural reversal arose in these barklice, they’ve had the opportunity to test the universality of sexual selection theory, explore the selection pressures on sex roles and assess the major, often overlooked part that environment and ecology play in the evolution of genitalia. In doing so, they’ve also challenged our conceptions about what it means to be male and what it means to be female, and witnessed just how flexible and innovative nature can be. Anatomy of sexual selection In evolutionary terms, gametes, not genitals, define sex: Males make numerous small, mobile sperm, while females


Percussion concerto offers less bang than whimper

It was supposed to be a double bill of concertos by female composers. But on the program that Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony gave at Strathmore on Thursday night, Jennifer Higdon’s Low Brass Concerto, a BSO co-commission that was originally announced, was replaced with Brahms’s “Variations on a Theme by Haydn” in a refreshingly leisurely, light-of-foot interpretation. This left the U.S. premiere of a percussion concerto by the Scottish composer Helen Grime, who teaches at the Royal Holloway, University of London. Grime wrote this piece last year for Colin Currie, the evening’s soloist. Putting the spotlight on percussion makes for a crowded stage. On one side of the conductor’s podium, at stage right, were instruments with indefinite pitches: bass, snare and conga drums, suspended cymbal and wood blocks. The pitched instruments — marimba, vibraphone, xylophone and crotales — were on the other side of the podium, and Currie moved back and forth. This visual interest, though, wasn’t matched by the music. The concerto, lasting about 23 minutes, was a single movement with three contrasting sections, first featuring the pitched instruments, then the indefinitely pitched ones and, finally, the marimba. The orchestration was carefully balanced, so when Currie’s solos were accompanied at all, it was usually quietly. Yet Grime didn’t exploit two dynamic elements of the concerto form: dialogue between soloist and orchestra, and the dramatic potential of the individual juxtaposed against the crowd. Also curious for a percussion concerto was the absence of strong rhythmic character. Lucky is the soloist who has conductor Alsop as an ultrasensitive concerto partner, but despite her and her musicians’ best efforts, Grime’s Percussion Concerto came off as unimpressively bland. The second half of the program was given over to two of Ottorino Respighi’s orchestral showpieces from the 1920s: the seldom encountered “Brazilian Impressions” and a rousing “Pines of Rome” to close. style@washpost.com


Why is Nigeria cracking down on peaceful religious protests?

to repress faith communities — even those that don’t engage in armed opposition. This appears to be the case in Nigeria. The IMN has peacefully demonstrated its opposition to the secular Nigerian government since the 1980s. Yet repression of the group intensified after the start of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009. Our paper suggests these events are part of a larger pattern. To better understand the link between religious violence and repression, we analyzed cross-national data on religious civil wars and government restrictions on religion from 1990 to 2009. We coded a civil war as “religious” if at least one conflict party mobilized supporters along confessional lines or explicitly issued religious demands, such as to create a state ruled by sharia law. An example of the latter is Boko Haram’s aim to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state with sharia criminal courts in northern Nigeria. Our information came primarily from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict data set and Isak Svensson’s Fighting With Faith data set. We focused primarily on religious civil wars because they are an increasingly common form of religious violence — and because they provided a direct comparison to studies that instead argue that religious violence leads to civil war. To evaluate government repression of religion, we relied on data from the Religion and State Project. In particular, we looked at official restrictions on religion, restrictions on minority religions and restrictions on religious practices. Even when controlling for other reasons a government might repress a faith community, we found that the type and severity of government restrictions on religion increased following religious civil wars. Perhaps most interestingly, these regulations were not limited to the faith tradition associated with the fighting. Rather, a regime’s experience with religious armed opposition was associated with greater regulation of all faith communities. Our study has important implications for how we think about recent events in Nigeria, but also sheds light on a global increase in government restrictions on religion. Local patterns of violence, rather than divisions based on faith, appear to be an important driver of religious repression. In Nigeria, this means both Muslim and Christian communities can expect additional regulations as long as the Boko Haram insurgency endures. This appears to be taking place already — a recent bill in Kaduna state, for instance, requires Muslim and Christian preachers to obtain a local license and restricts the playing of religious recordings in public.