Investigators insist MH370 crash was an accident, not a mass murder-suicide by the pilot

that the MH370 suicide-by-pilot theory was “plausible” and that the ATSB had listened to experts who supported the “controlled ditching” theory. And the death-by-pilot theory adherents have an answer for something that has vexed investigators for years: a circumstantial but chilling explanation for an unexpected turn the plane made while passing over Zaharie's Malaysian home town. “Captain Zaharie dipped his wing to see Penang, his home town,” Simon Hardy, a Boeing 777 senior pilot and instructor, said on “60 Minutes.” “If you look very carefully, you can see it's actually a turn to the left, and then start a long turn to the right. And then [he does] another left turn. So I spent a long time thinking about what this could be, what technical reason is there for this, and, after two months, three months thinking about this, I finally got the answer: Someone was looking out the window.” “It might be a long, emotional goodbye,” Hardy added. “Or a short, emotional goodbye to his home town.” The secret of what happened in the final moments of the ill-fated flight — and the motive behind it all — probably died with its passengers and pilot. The wreckage, of course, might corroborate or dispel theories about what caused the crash; but it has not been found, though hundreds of millions of dollars have gone into the four-year search. The governments of Malaysia, China and Australia called off the official search in January 2017. The ATSB's final report said authorities were no closer to knowing the reasons for the plane’s disappearance or the exact location of its wreckage. The latest attempt to discover it was a private effort by a Texas company called Ocean Infinity, according to the Associated Press. Ocean Infinity chief executive Oliver Plunkett said the company's technology had performed “exceptionally well” and collected “significant amounts of high-quality data.” Still, it found no trace of MH370, and on Wednesday, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Malaysia's new transport minister said Ocean Infinity's search will end next week. Read more: MH370 experts think they’ve finally solved the mystery of the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight Researchers think they know where Amelia Earhart died — days after a photo suggested she lived A researcher discovered how cave men cleaned their teeth. It will make you want to brush yours. Was Anne Frank’s family betrayed? After 72 years, historians have a new theory.


What’s in a food truck?

Crepes Parfait truck launched in 2012, its focal point was four 16-inch, cast-iron crepe makers imported from France and arrayed like a drum kit in front of Elhilali. Is it hard to operate them all at once? “Not at all,” he said. “I wish I had five.” A freezer and a new career Brandon Byrd is just as finicky about frozen custard as Elhilali is about crepes, and he couldn’t find the creamy frozen delicacy on the East Coast when he moved to New York in 2010 to work for XXL Magazine. Frozen custard is denser than ice cream, he said, thanks to ingredients (eggs and at least 10 percent butter fat) and technique (slow churning so that not much air is mixed in). The squeeze of the recession on the publishing industry — and a hefty sense of burnout with the entertainment world, where he’d worked for years in marketing — brought Byrd to the District in 2011 and the food truck scene in 2012. Now he is an evangelist of sorts, sharing the glory of Wisconsin-style frozen custard from a restored 1952 International Harvester Metro Van named Gigi. In his home state, “the popularity of frozen custard is equivalent to gelato or soft serve on the East Coast,” Byrd said. “It’s like going to New England and having a lobster roll, like going to New York City and having the pizza. In Wisconsin, it’s brats, beer, frozen custard and cheese curds.” Byrd adapted his mom’s recipes for Goodies Frozen Custard & Treats, and he outfitted Gigi to function like an old-time soda fountain. Inside is a Kegerator with root beer for floats and an industrial blender for his signature banana and peanut butter shakes. And the keeper of the custard is a freezer that can hold 15 gallons at a time. Byrd is far from the only person nudged into food trucks by the Great Recession. The modern food truck culture took root during that time, when people had less money to start new restaurants — and to dine in them. Chef Roy Choi and his pal Mark Manguera are credited with launching the movement in 2008 with their Kogi BBQ truck. They began rolling around Los Angeles in 2008, slinging Korean short rib tacos and Tweeting their locations to the masses. Che and Tadd Ruddell-Tabisola took the plunge in 2011 after Tadd’s boss in the corporate world


These white animals are struggling to hide in a world with less snow

a winter period can “seriously influence the mortality of this species,” Zub said. There are 21 species known to change the color of their coats in winter, Mills said, including six species of hares, three weasel species, hamsters, lemmings and arctic foxes. He predicts the other coat-changers are faring about as poorly as the snowshoe hares and least weasels. In the new work, the study authors analyzed weather data in the Bialowieza Forest going back to 1967. The average period with permanent snow cover decreased from about 80 days per year to 40 days. Historically, the snow cover vanished around March 16. But in recent years, it disappeared by Feb. 21, more than three weeks earlier in the season. Zub and the other co-authors conducted a field experiment to observe whether predators were hunting the exposed white weasels. Because using real weasels was impractical, they constructed mock weasels out of cheap toy rats purchased from Ikea, slimmed and elongated into more weaselly silhouettes. They placed model brown weasels and model white weasels in front of camera traps, either in snow cover or on bare ground. Five species of predators — buzzards, common ravens, gray wolves, raccoon dogs and red foxes — detected the models. The predators were far more likely to attack, sniff or otherwise harass the mismatched weasel models, particularly the white weasels in areas without snow. All this has happened before. A well-known case of coloration mismatch occurred in a population of peppered moths in the 1800s. During the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, soot blackened the trees and other surfaces of moth habitat. Birds began to pick off these moths, betrayed by their light wings. But some peppered moths developed a mutation that turned their wings black. Those insects blended in, survived and multiplied. In the warm Polish forests and soot-covered Britain, “the mechanism of natural selection is exactly the same,” Zub said. Those who blend in live longer. Individuals who clash with their environment are eaten. Like the mutant moths, a few weasels are adjusting. Normally, Zub said, the weasels molt into white in November. But now they are delaying their wardrobe switch. “About half of weasels we observed last winter started to molt at the beginning of January.” Life on Earth is reacting to climate change. Bears appear to be hibernating for fewer days. Tropical fish are swimming away from the equator in search of


Ireland votes on its abortion ban, a ‘once in a generation’ decision

CASTLEREA, Ireland — Aine Kelly knows her home town. “The young leave,” she said. “The old stay.” As the 29-year-old campaigner with a stack of pamphlets walked through a housing development, knocking on doors, the locals revealed themselves: They were retirees who favored garden trolls, statues of the Virgin Mary and wee, excitable dogs. “Hello, sir!” Kelly said to an elderly gentleman who kept a wheelbarrow filled with peat for his fireplace. “We’re here to talk to you about the referendum and what you might be thinking.” For the next seven minutes, Kelly and the man in a gray sweater engaged in a remarkable conversation, a civil, skeptical, charged, raw and very personal debate, about what Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar this week called “a once-in-a-generation decision.” The Irish will vote Friday on whether to scrap the Eighth Amendment to their Constitution. The amendment, passed in 1983, gave “the unborn” and the mother “the equal right to life” and outlawed almost all abortions — even in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality or risk to maternal health. Ireland, for centuries guided and dominated by the Catholic Church, its culture and its priests, has one of the strictest abortion bans in the developed world. Seeking or providing an abortion is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Since 2013, there has been an exception for when a mother’s life is at risk. If the repeal wins, Ireland’s political leadership has promised that Parliament will quickly pass a new law guaranteeing unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks, and beyond that in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities or serious risks to a mother’s health. That’s in line, more or less, with the other 27 members of the European Union. It’s in the rural heart of Ireland where there is greatest resistance. Castlerea is in Roscommon, the only county to vote against, by a slim margin, Ireland’s 2015 referendum that approved same-sex marriage by a countrywide landslide, 62 percent to 38 percent. The elderly man at the door said to Kelly, “I was your way once” — meaning he supported abortion rights. “I worked the ferries. I saw the girls coming and going. It broke your heart.” Between 1980 and 2016, at least 170,000 Irish women traveled to Britain for abortions. Today, they more typically make the journey via discount airline. And thousands more each year — an accurate count is impossible


Six things to know about Ireland’s abortion vote

Ireland has one of the strictest abortion laws in the world. This week's historic referendum could change that. On Friday, Ireland will decide whether to repeal its Eighth Amendment and change its current abortion laws. Ahead of the vote, thousands of people living abroad are returning home to Ireland to mark their ballots. The hashtag #HomeToVote trended on Twitter on Thursday, with many sharing their stories of just how far they had traveled to have their votes counted and their voices heard. Photos of both “yes” and “no” campaign posters on display across Ireland have dominated social media in recent weeks. Here is a look at what Ireland is voting on, what “Repeal the Eighth” means and what might happen if a majority votes to ditch the amendment. When is the Irish abortion referendum? Ireland will go to the polls from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday. The votes will be counted Saturday and a final result is expected before Sunday. What is the Eighth Amendment? The Eighth Amendment was added to the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland in 1983. It equates the right to life of a pregnant woman with that of her fetus, thereby nearly criminalizing abortion. As The Washington Post's William Booth outlined this week, the amendment outlaws almost all abortion — even in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality and risk to the woman's health. The amendment has been called “archaic” and “dangerous” by the Abortion Rights Campaign and “yes” supporters. The hashtag #RepealThe8th has been used increasingly on social media by “yes” campaigners in the run-up to Friday's vote. The hashtag has been used almost 90,000 times on Instagram, with users sharing photos of themselves wearing clothing with the word “Repeal” emblazoned on the front. Other search results for this hashtag include “her body, her choice” quotes and images of “Yes for Repeal” street art spray-painted onto walls. Why is Ireland voting now? The United Nations Human Rights Committee has long called for the country's near-total abortion ban to be revoked. But the Eighth Amendment came under major scrutiny after the death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012. Halappanavar, 31, went to a hospital in grave pain. Her doctors said a miscarriage was “inevitable,” but they refused to terminate her pregnancy. She died days later from sepsis, an infection of the blood. At the time, her husband said he thought an abortion might


Trump signs law rolling back post-financial crisis banking rules

group. The final measure represents a compromise that leaves the overall structure of the post-financial-crisis rules in place and does not touch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog agency created after the crisis. Trump had vowed to “do a big number” on the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and some House Republicans had hoped to repeal the law entirely — or at least make major changes to rein in the watchdog agency. But former congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) himself has said that the new law amounts to only a “little number” on his signature legislation, although Trump argued Thursday that he was keeping his commitment to “rescue these community banks from Dodd-Frank, the disaster of Dodd-Frank.” Under the new law, banks with more than $50 billion in assets would no longer be automatically subject to the toughest federal regulations, including a yearly stress test to prove they could survive another onslaught of economic turmoil. The bill would raise that threshold to $250 billion in assets, potentially allowing several high-profile financial institutions, including American Express and Ally Financial, to escape the extra regulatory scrutiny. By raising the asset threshold to $250 billion, the law is expected to reduce the number of banks subject to heightened regulatory scrutiny from 38 to 12. The law is further expected to unleash a rush of industry consolidation as some banks see an opportunity to get bigger without incurring additional regulatory scrutiny. The law also exempts banks with less than $10 billion in assets from the Volcker Rule. Small banks will also be exempted from a Dodd-Frank requirement that they report more detailed data on borrowers. The industry has complained that both regulations are too cumbersome and time-consuming. Supporters say the measure’s benefits are limited almost exclusively to small and regional banks, but critics challenge that argument, noting a Congressional Budget Office assessment that there’s about a 50 percent chance that behemoths JPMorgan and Citibank could take advantage of provisions aimed at helping smaller firms. Banks reported $56 billion in profits during the first quarter of 2018, up 27.7 percent compared with the same period last year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday. Both figures surpass the industry’s previous record for quarterly profits. For the more than 5,000 community banks in the industry, profits rose 17.7 percent, to $6.1 billion, during the first quarter, according to the FDIC report. erica.werner@washpost.com


Nigerian soldiers ‘rescued’ women, then starved and raped them, Amnesty International says

As the Nigerian military reclaimed territory from Boko Haram extremists, troops also opened fire on civilians, forcibly separated them from their families and burned down their homes, according to a report released by Amnesty International on Wednesday. Soldiers and members of a militia working alongside the military also raped women and starved civilians, the human rights watchdog group said, in what amounted to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. “It is absolutely shocking that people who had already suffered so much under Boko Haram have been condemned to further horrendous abuse by the Nigerian military,” said Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty International Nigeria. A number of allegations of human rights abuses have emerged against the Nigerian military, especially in Nigeria's northeast, where Boko Haram extremists have been targeting civilians in violent attacks for nearly a decade. In 2015, the military revamped its efforts to push back the group, which once controlled a territory the size of Belgium. Since then, Nigerian officials have repeatedly claimed that Boko Haram is defeated, even as the group continues to carry out deadly attacks. The conflict in Nigeria's northeast has killed more than 30,000 people and caused a massive humanitarian crisis across the Lake Chad region. Amnesty's latest report, “They Betrayed Us,” which is consistent with some accounts from journalists and other advocates, claims that as the Nigerian military cleared Boko Haram strongholds and moved civilians to remote “satellite camps,” it denied them access to food and medical support — in many instances effectively leaving the civilians to die. Men were routinely detained and women then traveled without them to locations far from home. In one satellite camp, called Bama Hospital Camp, Amnesty said that “at least hundreds, and possibly thousands,” died of hunger and illness between 2015 and 2016. Civilians interviewed for the report suggested that 15 to 30 people were dying each day. Those who survived had to go to extreme measures to acquire food and water for their families in some instances, and were at times either physically forced or coerced into having sex with soldiers and militia members. A pregnant 25-year-old said two soldiers raped her, one after she ignored his advances and one who cornered her when he found her collecting water. A married woman said a soldier raped her after he offered her food in exchange for sex and she refused. A 20-year-old woman said a member of


The Museum of Ice Cream is launching its own ice cream line — with “Sprinkle Pool” and piñata flavors

The Museum of Ice Cream Those people are now in luck. The museum announced Wednesday that it’s planning to open a new concept, the Pint Shop, in New York — no tickets required — and is launching its own brand of ice cream, which will be available in most Target locations nationwide. The Pint Shop, which will open in New York’s Meatpacking District on June 6, will be free and first-come, first-serve — so expect to wait in incredibly long lines. It “celebrates the accessibility and democracy that ice cream brings,” founder Maryellis Bunn said in a news release. The experience will be an imaginative riff on a grocery store, featuring “life-size pint installations,” likely in the museum’s signature rainbow colors, and opportunities to take a million selfies and buy the new brand of ice cream. Guests can make paid reservations for a special tasting of all of the flavors, and they’ll have the opportunity to “learn about the making of ice cream through all five senses.” As for those flavors: They have cheeky names, and some are direct references to experiences at the Museum of Ice Cream. The two signature flavors are Piñata, “vanilla ice cream with iced animal cookies, frosted cupcake bites, fizzy cotton candies and rainbow sprinkles,” and Sprinkle Pool, which contains the titular ingredient. There’s also Vanillionaire, Chocolate Crush, Cherrylicious, the cinnamon and churro-filled Churro Churro and Nana Bread, a banana ice cream with salted caramel almond butter swirls. The museum says that the brand will be available exclusively at Target beginning July 8. It has also collaborated with Target on a line of ice-cream-themed children’s clothing, which points to one of Bunn’s aspirations: to become a multi-platformed cultural force, a “millennial Walt Disney.” More from Voraciously: Millennial pink took over your Instagram feed. Now it’s coming for your food. Elderflower soda and lavender lattes: Flowers are suddenly everywhere in food Dark, masculine restaurants are out. The freshest design is feminine.


Congress approves plan to roll back post-financial-crisis rules for banks

Under the bill, banks with more than $50 billion in assets would no longer be automatically subject to the toughest federal regulations, including a yearly stress test to prove they could survive another onslaught of economic turmoil. The bill would raise that threshold to $250 billion in assets, potentially allowing several high-profile financial institutions, including American Express and Ally Financial, to escape the extra regulatory scrutiny. The legislation would also exempt banks with less than $10 billion in assets from the “Volcker rule,” which bars banks from making certain risky wagers with their own money. Small banks will also be exempted from a Dodd-Frank requirement that they report more detailed data on borrowers. The industry has complained that both regulations are too cumbersome and time-consuming. How the bill will reshape the financial sector is difficult to forecast, and critics and supporters offer radically different predictions. Supporters say the measure’s benefits are limited almost exclusively to small and regional banks. Critics challenge that argument, noting a Congressional Budget Office assessment that there’s about a 50 percent chance that behemoths JPMorgan and Citibank could take advantage of provisions aimed at helping smaller firms. Big banks still must undergo periodic “stress” tests to prove they could withstand another financial calamity. But the likelihood that a big bank would fail, though still small, would be “slightly greater under the legislation,” the CBO said in March. “Ten years ago, Wall Street almost destroyed our economy,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who led opposition to the legislation in the Senate. “Now bank profits are up. . . . And now they want more, because Wall Street always wants more.” Banks reported $56 billion in profits during the first quarter of 2018, up 27.7 percent compared with the same period last year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said Tuesday. Even without the corporate tax cuts that Trump and congressional Republicans passed last year, the banks would have still reported a 12 percent jump in quarterly profits, to $49.4 billion. Both figures surpass the industry’s previous record for quarterly profits, the $48.1 billion the industry posted during the second quarter of 2017. For the more than 5,000 community banks in the industry, profits rose 17.7 percent, to $6.1 billion, during the first quarter, according to the data. By raising the asset threshold to $250 billion, the number of banks subject to heightened regulatory scrutiny would fall from 38


Rare, brain-damaging virus spreads panic in India as death toll rises

The Hindu reported that some ambulance drivers even declined to take a victim's body to the crematorium for fear that they would contract the illness. There is no clear preventive or curative treatment for Nipah, a newly emerging disease spread by bats, pigs and people who have become infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. The current outbreak is suspected to have been spread by infected fruit bats. India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said Tuesday that public health crews found numerous bats in a water well that had been used by three family members who were among the victims. Crews have since covered the well with nets, according to BBC News. A nurse who treated some of the victims died Monday from the disease, according to the BCC. In her final days, Lini Puthusheri (which has also been spelled Puthussery) wrote a note to her husband from a hospital isolation ward, asking him to take care of their two children. “I think I am almost on my way. I may not be able to see you again. Sorry,” Puthusheri wrote, according to the Associated Press. “Take care of our children.” The Nipah virus was first identified in 1999, after farmers and others who had come in contact with infected pigs in Malaysia and Singapore developed severe respiratory problems and inflammation in the brain in 1999. Nearly 300 people were diagnosed with the disease, and more than 100 of them died, according to the CDC. Symptoms typically present one to two weeks after exposure and can include fever and headache, convulsions, respiratory and neurological problems, according to the agency. The virus has a mortality rate of 75 percent, according to WHO. Henk Bekedam, WHO's representative to India, said the agency is monitoring the outbreak. “WHO has been informed about Nipah virus cases being reported in a family from a village in Kozhikode district of Kerala,” he said. “Both the central and the state health authorities have been quick in responding to the situation and have promptly deployed teams and experts to the village to further assess the situation. WHO is in close contact with the teams of experts deployed to the affected areas. We await the assessment reports of the teams to clarify the situation and guide further action.” Bekedam said the key to stopping the spread of the disease is


Let’s pay Trump to leave office

that name, offers a prize of $5 million, payable over 10 years, to an African leader who exemplifies quality leadership. The prize, which was created in 2006, also offers the possibility of $200,000 per year for the rest of the winner’s life. The requirements? Change your country for the better, and step down at the end of your democratically elected term. Seems pretty easy — except Africa’s leadership has apparently been so bad over the past 12 years that only five presidents in the continent’s 54 countries have been given the prize. (Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was the 2018 awardee.) I find it hard to believe that a number of African leaders who sit atop resource-rich countries and embezzle endlessly from the state would be motivated by a measly $5 million. But Trump, America’s first African president, just might be tempted by a nice payday. He may be rich, but he’s not Teodoro-Obiang-of-Equatorial-Guinea-level rich, you know? The promise of $10 million or $100 million (we have to offer him more than the Africans, of course) just might induce Trump to change course for the better. If cash prizes are supposedly good enough to improve democracy and development in Africa, they should be good enough for us, right? Besides, nothing else has worked to rein in Trump’s behavior. We thought the military generals would be a moderating force. White House aides have tried to keep the president off Twitter. None of it has worked. He’s still railing against immigrants, stoking trade wars and assaulting democratic norms. At this point, we might as well try throwing cash at our Trump problem. At least we know that Trump, a businessman, former game show host and beauty pageant impresario, is preoccupied with how much money he has. He’s been known to overstate his net worth. In 2006, he unsuccessfully sued a journalist who claimed he was worth only $150 million to $250 million. So Mr. Ibrahim, if you read this, perhaps you might consider adding Trump to the list of candidates for the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership in the next year or two. Maybe the payments could be in bitcoin. Whatever it takes. Nothing less than the future of the United States is at stake. Read More: Patrick Gathara: Trump’s America Could look a lot of Kenya Karen Attiah: What if Western Media covered Charlottesville the same way it covers ‘other’ nations?


Here’s what you need to know to get around the Washington region this Memorial Day weekend

weather may turn out to be much better than expected, according to the Capital Weather Gang, which is great news for those planning a cookout. There is still a chance of storms Saturday, Sunday and Monday, however, so keep an eye for the latest forecast. Metro Track work will affect the Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange and Silver lines this holiday weekend, meaning less frequent service through Monday. Here’s what service will look like on Memorial Day: The Metro system will open at 8 a.m. and close at 11 p.m. Trains will operate on a Sunday schedule, but there will be disruptions because of track work on most lines. Off-peak fares will be in effect all day, and parking will be free at all Metro parking facilities. Buses will operate on a Sunday schedule. All MetroAccess subscription trips will be canceled on Monday. MetroAccess customers who want to travel on the holiday should make a separate reservation. Here are the details of the track work effects: Red Line Orange Line. Blue Line. Silver Line. Yellow Line. Green Line. Several Memorial Day events are likely to attract crowds to the nation’s capital and create traffic backups. Rolling Thunder. Motorcyclists will cross the Arlington Memorial Bridge to 23rd Street NW, go north to Constitution Avenue NW, east to Pennsylvania Avenue, then right onto Third Street SW and west on Independence Avenue SW to parking fields in West Potomac Park. The roads along the route will close as the bikers pass. D.C. police say the roadways affected, listed here, will be closed to traffic from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. This year, parking will also be prohibited along the Rolling Thunder run, starting at 8 a.m. and until 4 p.m. Enforcement of the parking restrictions includes towing, authorities said. Good viewing points include the Arlington Memorial Bridge and Constitution Avenue. The ride usually continues until about 3:30 p.m. Expect to see large numbers of motorcycles on roads throughout the area during the entire weekend. Memorial concerts. The Marine Band plays a free concert at Wolf Trap at 8 p.m. Sunday. Gates open at 6:30 p.m. The parking areas shut when they reach capacity. A fireworks display will follow the concert. Memorial Day parade. Police close these streets between about 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday: the staging area on Seventh Street NW between Independence and Pennsylvania avenues; Constitution Avenue NW between Sixth and Ninth


Paul Schrader, the writer of ‘Taxi Driver,’ shifts gears with ‘First Reformed’

and theorist, is reissuing his seminal 1972 book on those three artists, “Transcendental Style in Film.”) Shot in the pinched, virtually square format of filmdom’s earliest works, “First Reformed” is a minimalist throwback, displaying a maverick approach to moviemaking in an age of widescreen special effects. There’s no soundtrack, for instance, until the third act, and even then, Brian Williams’s score sounds less like music than like an unsettling alien soundscape, more appropriate to sci-fi than to psychological realism. According to Schrader, this serves “to cut against the grain of cinema itself, which loves to move, and loves to dazzle.” But dropping the razzle-dazzle, he admits, entails risk: “You create dead time.” Of course, the flip side of “dead time” can be that we pay more, not less, attention to what’s happening on screen. Schrader says his first acting notes to Hawke were, arguably, counterintuitive (but ultimately responsible for the actor’s mesmerizing characterization): “ ‘This is a lean-back performance,’ I told him, ‘and you are a lean-in kind of actor. Every time you feel the viewer interested in you, I want you to just lean back a little further. Recede.’ ” Not everything in “First Reformed” is quite so, er, recessive. One unforgettable scene features Seyfreid lying on top of Hawke — both fully clothed — as their characters appear to levitate off the floor, ultimately floating over a montage of scenery featuring both the beauty and the degradation of the natural world. Although Schrader, a former theology student, no longer subscribes to the concepts of sin, let alone a physical heaven and hell, he says he still “chooses to believe that there is an existence beyond this material world.” That levitation scene — inspired by the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, who used it in films such as “The Mirror” and “The Sacrifice” — is a metaphor for the journey that “First Reformed” takes you on. Unlike most films, the destination isn’t a physical place, or even an emotional one. “I knew that by the end of the film, we had to jump into the parallel world — the world that runs alongside this one, that we can’t see, the world of the spirit,” Schrader says. “I wanted to remind the viewer, ‘You know there is another world out there than the one these people are living in, don’t you? And that it’s really quite close to the surface?’ ”


When an extraordinary collection of talent gathered at the White House

Suez Canal. It also included several bright lights in the emerging field of American letters. Of the five U.S. winners of the literature prize, three were dead (Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O’Neill and Hemingway); William Faulkner, in his final weeks and under care in Charlottesville, said he thought 100 miles was a bit too far to go for supper; and John Steinbeck, who got his Nobel later that year, pleaded business in Europe. T.S. Eliot, a St. Louis native and eventually a British subject, wasn’t invited; but Pearl Buck was there and briefly debated Korea policy with Kennedy before the post-supper program in the East Room. Relative youth also had its place. Thirty-eight-year-old William Styron (his wife, Rose, wrote the forward to the book) and 37-year-old James Baldwin attended. They were close friends, with much of their creative and activist lives ahead of them. But 43-year-old J.D. Salinger, already a budding recluse, declined without an excuse. Esposito brings a solid blend of intellectual and writing background to his task. He has taught history, written it and lived it in three administrations. The book is a largely skillful mix of diligently researched detail and chatty anecdotes, all woven together without excessively florid Camelot rhetoric. Readers with equally rich backgrounds can probably skip the frequent digressions (histories of White House rooms, for example), but we generalists appreciate the added information. He calls his work “a paean to what America can be.” Even at the height of the Cold War, the evening was boldly inclusive. It marked the formal reemergence of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physics genius and scientific manager of the Manhattan Project. He had famously lost his security clearance eight years earlier during the McCarthy days — a dark period that a younger Kennedy had done nothing to combat. And two of the guests, along with their wives, had that very afternoon picketed the White House during a demonstration supporting a ban on atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that Kennedy would propose 14 months later: Linus Pauling, whose chemistry Nobel would be supplemented by the Peace Prize later that year; and Clarence Pickett, a veteran leader of the American Friends Service Committee, the Peace Prize recipient in 1947. Preferring wit and grace to posing, the Kennedys knew all about them. Jacqueline Kennedy even asked Pauling in the receiving line, “Do you think that it is right to walk back and forth out there


World Digest: May 25, 2018

NETHERLANDS Russia held liable for downing airliner A day after international prosecutors said they had unequivocal evidence of Russian involvement in the downing of a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine nearly four years ago, the Netherlands and Australia announced Friday that they were holding Moscow legally responsible for its role in the missile attack. The move puts further strain on already tense relations between Russia and the West and opens a new legal front in the long-running process of apportioning blame for the July 17, 2014, missile strike that blew Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 out of the sky and killed all 298 people on board. On Thursday, a Dutch-led international team of investigators said it had strong evidence that the Buk missile system that brought down the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight came from a Russia-based military unit, the 53rd Antiaircraft Missile Brigade in the Russian city of Kursk. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop called for international support for the Dutch-Australian legal initiative and quickly received it from allies including the United States, Britain and the European Union. “It is time for Russia to acknowledge its role in the shooting down of MH17 and to cease its callous disinformation campaign,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. — Associated Press LIBYA Car bombing kills 7 near hotel in Benghazi A car bombing on a busy street in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi early Friday killed at least seven people, including a girl, and wounded 20, a security official said. The blast, the latest to rock Libya’s second-largest city, took place on a commercial street full of people behind the city’s largest hotel, Tibesti, said Capt. Tarek Alkharraz, a spokesman for the military and police forces in Benghazi. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Footage that circulated online shortly after the blast showed a massive fire in the middle of the busy Abdel Nasser Street. Plumes of heavy smoke rose into the night sky as firetruck and ambulance sirens blared in the background. — Associated Press ARGENTINA Thousands protest IMF assistance request Thousands of Argentines swarmed into downtown Buenos Aires on Friday to protest the government seeking financial help from the International Monetary Fund. Marching on the holiday commemorating the Revolucion de Mayo, which led to Argentina’s independence from Spain in 1816, demonstrators draped themselves in the country’s white-and-sky-blue national flag. They also held banners protesting high inflation


A trade war with Europe would be calamitous for Maryland

sources of investment and goods is Britain, a country whose economy is predicted to contract as it negotiates a divorce from the European Union. Although China is a major trading partner of the United States, Europe remains the No. 1 destination for Maryland goods. An estimated $2.7 billion worth of goods was exported to Europe from Maryland, compared with $484 million of exports to China. A burgeoning middle class in China is demanding more goods, but the numbers do not lie: Europe outpaces China as the premier source for Maryland’s goods five times over. Britain alone imports more goods from Maryland than China does. Overreliance on Britain could prove calamitous as it negotiates its exit from the European Union and the common market established on the European continent. U.S. investments into Britain fell more than 50 percent in the first three quarters of 2017, signaling a shift from that nation as a traditional trading partner over Brexit uncertainty. Maryland should seek to diversify sources of European imports and destinations of exports in Europe to ensure continued strong economic performance. Concentrating Maryland’s trade and investment on Ireland instead of Britain would mitigate potential economic risks from Brexit while providing an English-speaking springboard into the European market for Maryland’s businesses. Approximately 89,400 jobs in Maryland are from Europe — more than the population of the cities of Frederick or Rockville. European companies make up 76 percent of foreign-affiliate jobs — third overall, with Maryland only narrowly behind Rhode Island and Connecticut for the highest percentage. The Dutch provide about 21 percent of all foreign-affiliated employment, or approximately 24,800 jobs in Maryland. More than 3,400 jobs were generated from Dutch multinationals between 2010 and 2015. Almost every state has seen an increase in the number of jobs that stem from Europe since 2006. Across all 50 states, the average growth in jobs from Europe as a percentage change between 2006 and 2015 was 24 percent; Maryland saw only a 3.2 percent increase in jobs generated from the transatlantic economy, and Virginia saw an 18 percent increase. Maryland has not added nearly as many jobs as other states; it is ranked sixth from the bottom in generating jobs from Europe. Either Maryland is not courting European investment enough or this investment is not translating into jobs. Maryland has much room to grow in European trade — but only if a trade war is avoided.


Inside a truck in Nebraska, troopers found enough fentanyl to kill millions of people

In a record-breaking drug bust in Nebraska, state troopers seized 118 pounds of fentanyl — containing enough lethal doses to kill tens of millions of people. Nebraska State Patrol Col. John Bolduc announced Thursday that a massive amount of suspected opioids seized last month in the state have tested positive for fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Nebraska officials said “I'm especially proud of our troopers and our staff, because these drugs, as we know, are contributing to the opioid crisis in our country, which is killing Americans every single day,” Bolduc said Thursday at a news conference. “This work is saving lives. We can't even extrapolate out the number of lives that this particular bust has impacted.” But, as the Kansas City Star reported, that amount of fentanyl would contain enough lethal doses to potentially kill more than 26 million people, given that the DEA says as little as 2 milligrams can be fatal. Pharmaceutical fentanyl, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration use by medical professionals, can be prescribed as a legal painkiller, but it's the illicitly manufactured fentanyl that has experts particularly concerned amid a nationwide drug crisis. The DEA states that people who have been exposed to the drug may experience drowsiness, nausea, confusion and sedation; in fact, the agency has even warned law enforcement officers not to touch the white powdery substance or inhale it while on the job. The agency said that with repeated use “comes tolerance, addiction, respiratory depression and arrest, unconsciousness, coma and death.” Opioids, including fentanyl and heroin as well as other painkillers, are the main drivers of overdose deaths across the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over the years, opioid deaths have continued to spike, with more than 42,000 fatalities reported across the country in 2016, according to the most recent numbers released by the agency. Nebraska state troopers discovered the 118 pounds of fentanyl late last month while conducting a routine traffic stop along Interstate 80 near Kearney, about 130 miles from Lincoln. A trooper spotted a Freightliner tractor-trailer weaving April 26 onto the shoulder along the interstate and switched on his emergency lights, according to a probable-cause affidavit. After following the truck for about two miles,


The exit polls say Ireland has voted to legalize abortion with a smashing majority

reported 59 percent in favor of constitutional change. If these numbers bear out, it will be enormously disappointing to religious conservatives and the “no” campaign, which expected to lose, but not so decisively. The very high turnout — up to 70 percent in some areas — provides further democratic legitimacy for the outcome. This reverses religious conservative efforts to create a bulwark against secularism Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion was introduced in the relatively recent past. In Ireland, constitutional change requires a referendum. Religious conservatives pressed for a constitutional amendment to strictly ban abortion, and it was passed by referendum in 1983. They correctly perceived that Ireland was gradually becoming a more secular country, and they wanted to create a bulwark against the introduction of abortion that would be difficult to reverse. While they succeeded in getting the antiabortion amendment passed, they didn’t succeed in ending the debate. The “X” case in 1992 involved a teenager who had been raped, and who decided to travel to Britain to obtain an abortion — and found herself stopped by the attorney general from leaving the country. After a Supreme Court appeal, she was allowed to travel to Britain on the grounds that her life was in danger, since she was suicidal as a result of her situation. A subsequent referendum made it legal for women to travel to have abortions and for information about abortions to be provided (before this, ads for abortion providers had been cut out of the pages of British women’s magazines that were imported into Ireland), but the ban on abortion was not rolled back. That almost certainly changed Friday. The fight isn’t over yet The vote Friday was to remove the constitutional amendment. Now, the government has to introduce enabling legislation regarding the circumstances under which abortion can be provided. This is likely to lead to further political debate. Some people in the traditionally conservative Fianna Fail party are strongly opposed to abortion, and there are conservatives in the governing Fine Gael party, too. This means some politicians want substantial legislative restrictions on abortion. However, the apparently decisive vote in favor of abortion means these politicians will probably have a much tougher time than they expected. A narrow victory might have led to more limited abortion with more stringent conditions attached. But now, pro-abortion-rights politicians are going to be much better able to push liberal legislation through.


Despite sanctions, some Americans still want to do business in Russia

drive us further apart,” Huntsman said in a video address on the embassy’s Twitter feed. “That is why I’m going.” Joining the panel was sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, in whom special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has taken a recent interest. The Washington Post reported Friday Later that month, Cohen signed a consulting contract with Intrater’s investment firm, Columbus Nova. Company officials have said Vekselberg, who is Columbus Nova’s biggest client, played no role in Cohen’s hiring. Vekselberg, one of Russia’s richest men, is under intense media scrutiny and spent much of the first two days of the St. Petersburg forum dodging reporters’ questions. On the panel, Vekselberg, who has made his fortune from oil and metals, was wearing one of his many hats as president of Skolkovo, ostensibly Russia’s answer to Silicon Valley. Vekselberg appeared wistful as he described current relations between Moscow and Washington. “The number of optimists has declined, though some remain in this room,” said the tycoon, whose two children both attended universities in the United States. He quoted a famous song by Soviet writer Bulat Okudzhava, about the futility of military service and soldiers’ feelings of disappointment at not being able to truly change the world. Vekselberg was not the only one to wax lyrical. Mark von Pentz, who heads agriculture and turf equipment at Deere & Co., cited the 19th century Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev, saying “Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone,” before saying the world’s largest country has the potential to feed a growing world. The president of Boeing, Bertrand-Marc Allen, said Russia “is a place for long-term partnership,” noting that his company’s 25 years in Russia exceeded the time he has been married to his wife. The U.S. aerospace company was recently on the receiving end of the Kremlin’s ire when Russia said it would cancel titanium exports to Boeing as part of counter-sanctions. That proposed ban was later rolled back by Russia. Sitting near the front was Sergey Kislyak, until recently Russia’s long-serving ambassador to Washington and once at the center of alleged collusion by Russia in Trump’s campaign. The veteran Russian diplomat issued the most measured response to the surge of enthusiasm in the room. “I consider the people who gather here as sort of pioneers in a new environment in bettering American-Russian relations,” he told reporters on the panel’s sidelines. “There are still a few.” amie.ferris-rotman@washpost.com


A son killed in action and his parents ask why

A Colorado family buries their son who was killed in action and ponders what he was fighting for in the 17-year-old Afghan war.


Unseen face of the opioid epidemic: drug abuse among the elderly grows

The face of the nation’s opioid epidemic increasingly is gray and wrinkled. But that face often is overlooked in a crisis that frequently focuses on the young. Consider this: While opioid abuse declined in younger groups between 2002 and 2014, even sharply among those 18 to 25 years old, the epidemic almost doubled among Americans over age 50, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Because of information like that, the Senate Special Committee on Aging convened a hearing Wednesday on opioid misuse by the elderly. “Older Americans are among those unseen in this epidemic,” said Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (Pa.), the top Democrat on the panel. “In 2016, one in three people with a Medicare prescription drug plan received an opioid prescription. This puts baby boomers and our oldest generation at great risk.” Unwittingly, Medicare compounds the epidemic by funding needed opioids that can be abused, but, generally, not funding the care and medicines needed to fight opioid addiction. “Overall, one in three older Americans with Medicare drug coverage are prescribed opioid painkillers. However, while Medicare pays for opioid painkillers, Medicare does not pay for drug and alcohol treatment in most instances, nor does it pay for all of the medications that are used to help people in the treatment and recovery process,” William B. Stauffer, executive director of the Pennsylvania Recovery Organizations Alliance, in Harrisburg, Pa., said at the hearing. “Methadone, specifically, is a medication that is not covered by Medicare to treat opioid use conditions.” Offering scary statistics and practices involving older folks, Gary Cantrell, a deputy inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, said “our nation is in the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic.” He focused on Medicare Part D beneficiaries. Part D is the prescription drug section of Medicare, the government health insurance program covering older people. About a half-million Part D recipients “received high amounts of opioids” in 2016, Cantrell said. Almost 20 percent of that group are at “serious risk of opioid misuse or overdose,” he warned, placing the high risk in two categories — those receiving “extreme amounts of opioids” and some “who appeared to be ‘doctor shopping.’ ” Doctor shoppers “each received high amounts of opioids and had four or more prescribers and four or more pharmacies for opioids,” Cantrell explained. “While some of these beneficiaries may not have been doctor shopping, receiving


E.U. countries want to save the Iran nuclear deal. Don’t expect cooperation on U.S. sanctions.

Iran by penalizing foreign firms for violating U.S. sanctions. E.U. states actively resisted these efforts, which almost resulted in a transatlantic trade war. As part of their response, the E.U. adopted a blocking statute that forbade E.U. firms from complying with U.S. sanctions. The United States eventually backed off in return for minor E.U. concessions. In contrast, E.U. members did not resist the Obama-era penalties imposed on European banks violating U.S. sanctions. Here’s why: President Barack Obama invested significant diplomatic capital to persuade European governments of the need to sanction Iran and built up a cooperative sanctioning coalition. The Trump administration appears to be trying to push Europe to acquiesce via intimidation instead of cooperation. The E.U.’s adamant defiance of U.S. pressure during the 1990s suggests that this will not be an effective tactic. Already, E.U. policymakers have resurrected the blocking statute from 1996 to resist U.S. sanctions. 2) Does the U.S. have sufficient sanctions and coordination capabilities? In fall 2017, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson nixed the State Department’s Coordinator for Sanctions Policy Office, which helped coordinate U.S. sanctions policies internally and with foreign governments. While other agencies can help coordinate sanctions policies, the U.S. government has also lost a significant number of experienced sanctions experts over the past year and a half. Another key U.S. player, the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC), is under-resourced, given its wide responsibility for overseeing the enforcement of U.S. sanctions. OFAC’s responsibility for enforcing U.S. sanctions overseas has grown dramatically over the past decade. During the Obama administration, OFAC pursued a smaller number of sanctions-related enforcement actions but imposed large penalties to create a deterrent effect. This strategy reflected that OFAC lacks the resources to conduct lots of enforcement actions against small and medium-sized enterprises in other countries. If the E.U. unleashes a wave of sanctions-busting on Iran’s behalf by its companies, it will overwhelm OFAC’s existing enforcement capabilities. The United States will not be able to address the problem without adopting broad-based policies that could risk a major trade war with the E.U. 3) Do European companies believe Trump will clamp down? President Trump has made promoting U.S. trade and eliminating corporate regulations two of his administration’s top priorities. His reliance on economic sanctions is seemingly at odds with those pro-business prerogatives, since sanctions create significant regulatory burdens for firms and tend to be bad for U.S. businesses. While


Legalizing marijuana is fine. But don’t ignore the science on its dangers.

Although studies have not found that legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana leads to increased use among adolescents, perhaps this is because it is already so popular. More teenagers now smoke marijuana than smoke products with nicotine; between 30 and 40 percent of high school seniors report smoking pot in the past year, about 20 percent got high in the past month, and about 6 percent admit to using virtually every day. The potential consequences are unlikely to be rare or trivial. The decade or so between puberty and brain maturation is a critical period of enhanced sensitivity to internal and external stimuli. Noticing and appreciating new ideas and experiences helps teens develop a sense of personal identity that will influence vocational, romantic and other decisions — and guide their life’s trajectory. Though a boring life is undoubtedly more tolerable when high, with repeated use of marijuana, natural stimuli, like those associated with goals or relationships, are unlikely to be as compelling. It’s not surprising, then, that heavy-smoking teens show evidence of reduced activity in brain circuits critical for flagging newsworthy experiences, are 60 percent less likely to graduate from high school, and are at substantially increased risk for heroin addiction and alcoholism. They show alterations in cortical structures associated with impulsivity and negative moods; they’re seven times more likely to attempt suicide. Recent data Might the relationship between marijuana exposure and changes in brain and behavior be coincidence, as tobacco companies asserted about the link between cancer and smoking, or does THC cause these effects? Unfortunately, we can’t assign people to smoking and nonsmoking groups in experiments, but efforts are underway to follow a large sample of children across the course of adolescent development to study the effects of drug exposure, along with a host of other factors, on brain structure and function, so future studies will probably be able to answer this question. I Now, as a scientist, I’m unimpressed with many of the widely used arguments for the legalization of marijuana. “It’s natural!” So is arsenic. “It’s beneficial!” The best-documented medicinal effects of marijuana are achieved without the chemical compound that gets users high. “It’s not addictive!” This is false, because the brain adapts to marijuana as it does to all abused drugs, and these neural adjustments lead to tolerance, dependence and craving — the hallmarks of addiction. It’s true that a lack of benefit, or even a risk


A Chevy Chase, Md. mansion is the second-most expensive house for sale in the D.C. area

organ installed at one end of the room. Many famous musicians gave concerts there, including French organist Marcel Dupré. Besides concerts, the Corbys held many social events in the house. Muriel Corby started the Chevy Chase Garden Club there in 1926. A 1967 New York Times article hinted that the Corby mansion was among several being considered as a permanent home for the vice president of the United States. Maryland reportedly balked at allowing it to be annexed into the District, which put an end to those discussions. After the Corbys died, their daughters donated the estate to National Cathedral School, a school for girls on the grounds of the cathedral. Because of zoning restrictions, the school eventually sold it to John E. Threlfall in 1976 for $350,000. Just before the sale was completed, the National Symphony Orchestra Women’s Committee used Ishpiming for its annual Decorators’ Show House. The current owners bought the property in 1991 and did extensive renovations. But what makes this house special remains. A sweeping drive leads to the gracious porte cochère. An arched double door opens to an elegant foyer. To the left is the grand hall. The organ is no longer — some say it was donated to the NSO — but some of the pipes remain. Aside from the grand hall, the house is a cluster of small gathering spaces. Several sitting areas are scattered throughout, but you won’t find a formal living room. Nonetheless, it is well suited for indoor and outdoor entertaining. A water feature with a fountain is the focal point of the landscaped grounds. The second and third floors are a labyrinth of bedrooms, bathrooms and sitting areas. Among the seven bedrooms are three potential master suites. Listing agent Ted Duncan of Long & Foster has had interest from countries that want to use it as an embassy and philanthropists who could turn it into another Evermay or Halcyon House, two historic properties in Georgetown that were converted into philanthropic and artistic incubators. Listing: 9 Chevy Chase Cir., Chevy Chase, Md. Listing agent: Ted Duncan, Long & Foster Previous House of the Week More Real Estate: Do you dream of living abroad? Four couples share how they made it work. Booking a place to stay on your summer vacation? You have more options than ever. Mortgage rates have been rising at a pace not seen in almost 50 years


This $10 rosé and co. are a little racy — and we like that

Exceptional Excellent Very Good With the rise in popularity of rosé over the past few years, pink wines have proliferated rapidly. And for the past few vintages, I’ve wondered whether French winemakers, especially in Provence, might be tweaking their rosé’s for the American palate by making them softer and riper, with lower acidity than traditional. Not that the recent vintages have been disappointing, but I get all the more excited when I find racy, refreshing rosés that stand out. Here are three: from Provence, the Loire Valley and a relatively little-known wine area of south-central France called Cevennes. We also have a delightful white from northern Italy and an affordable and delicious pinot noir from Oregon. Chateau Vignelaure 2017 Coteaux d'Aix en Provence, France, $22 This is fine, old-style Provençal pink — racy and vibrant with flavors of cranberry and melon. Absolutely delicious. Alcohol by volume: 13 percent. Distributed by M. Touton: Available in the District at Cairo Wine & Liquor, Eye Street Cellars, Rodman’s. Available in Maryland at Arundel Mills Wines & Spirits in Hanover, Bradley Food & Beverage, Cork 57 Beer and Wine and Georgetown Square Wine and Beer in Bethesda, Old Farm Liquors in Frederick, the Old Vine in Baltimore. Available in Virginia at Specials Wine Seller in Kilmarnock, the Vineyard in McLean, the Wine Outlet in Great Falls, Wegmans (various locations). Kevin et Christian Lauverjat, Moulin des Vrilleres Sancerre Rosé 2017 Loire Valley, France, $25 It’s wild salmon season, and a rosé of pinot noir is the perfect wine to match. This one has bright cherry and berry flavors and fine, refreshing acidity. It is also quite popular in D.C.-area stores and restaurants. ABV: 13 percent. Distributed by Elite: Widely available in the District, Maryland and Virginia. GREAT VALUE La Tour de Gatigne 2017 Cevennes, France, $10 Every now and then I crave a rose’ to just suck down on a hot day. These wines need to be delicious, refreshing and cheap. This one fits the bill. It’s racy and tasty, with melon, mint and cherry flavors. A hint of citrus rind gives the finish an intriguing bitterness that nicely balances the wine’s slight sweetness. That intrigue may come from the blend — it’s 70 percent grenache, the mainstay of southern France, with the balance coming from nielluccio. Never heard of it? That’s the Corsican name for sangiovese, the main red grape of Tuscany. Don’t buy


It’s copperhead mating season. One of the snakes was spotted near the Mall this week.

It’s mating season for copperhead snakes, which means the snakes are traveling more than normal — and this week, the National Park Service spotted a northern copperhead near the Mall. Officers snapped a picture of the snake wrapped around a chain-link fence Monday in East Potomac Park. Although infrequently seen at the Mall, copperheads — which are venomous, but rarely have fatal bites — are common in the Washington area, the Park Service said. If you spot one, you should “remain calm and move away slowly,” the Park Service said on Facebook. Scott Smith, a wildlife ecologist with Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, said the recent rainfall is “driving a lot of critters out of their normal habitat,” which could be another reason the copperhead ended up on a fence on Park Service land in Southwest Washington. He said anyone bitten by a copperhead should seek immediate medical attention and not try to treat the bite themselves. “Like all wildlife in national parks, the copperhead is a protected species,” the Park Service Facebook post read. “And with up to 80% of their diet consisting of rodents, copperheads provide a very valuable service in controlling those populations in the park!” rachel.chason@washpost.com


‘A lot of dial tones’: The inside story of how Trump’s North Korea summit fell apart

The historic nuclear disarmament summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — the one that Trump thought might earn him the Nobel Peace Prize — crumbled nearly as quickly as it came together, in a sudden and startling decision Thursday morning by the American president. Inside the White House residence, the first alarm sounded about 10 p.m. Wednesday when national security adviser John Bolton told Trump about North Korea’s public statement threatening a “nuclear-to-nuclear showdown” and mocking Vice President Pence as a “political dummy.” Trump was dismayed by Pyongyang’s bellicose rhetoric, the same theatrics Trump often deploys against his adversaries. Bolton advised that the threatening language was a very bad sign, and the president told advisers he was concerned Kim was maneuvering to back out of the summit and make Americans look like desperate suitors, according to a person familiar with the conversations. So Trump called it off first. The result was a crushing disappointment for a president eager to achieve a peace accord with North Korea that his recent predecessors had failed to reach. In a snap decision in early March, Trump had agreed to face-to-face talks with Kim, and in the weeks that followed, he was optimistic — even boastful — about what would happen when the two men met June 12 in Singapore. “It was a legitimate disappointment for him, even though he’s been half-warned it was not going to happen,” said Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, who visited with the president Wednesday in New York. Trump debated summit locations and seriously considered meeting Kim along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. He imagined the pageantry. The White House Communications Agency manufactured a limited run of red, white and blue challenge coins embossed with Trump’s silver visage facing off against Kim’s. He even mused about winning the Nobel Peace Prize. This was to be the ultimate Trump production. But the president’s imagination collided with the reality of negotiations with a rogue and mistrusted regime. Though Trump is hardly the first president to have sensitive diplomatic entreaties fall short, his played out in full public view, like a soap opera narrated daily from the Oval Office. Tony Schwartz, who co-authored “The Art of the Deal” with Trump, said the president scotched the summit to save his ego. “Trump has a morbid fear of being humiliated and shamed,” Schwartz said. “This is


Man charged with murder after fatal stabbing in downtown Washington

A D.C. man was arrested after stabbing another man early Wednesday near the National Portrait Gallery in Northwest Washington, police said Thursday. At around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, officers responded to the 600 block of Seventh Street NW for the report of a robbery in progress, D.C. police said in a statement. They found 26 year-old Matthew Scott Rooker of Jacksonville, N.C., suffering from multiple stab wounds, and he was pronounced dead at a hospital, the statement said. On Thursday, 24-year-old Kavonte Richardson of Northwest was arrested and charged with first-degree murder while armed in the killing, police said. dana.hedgpeth@washpost.com peter.hermann@washpost.com


Alan L. Bean, Apollo 12 astronaut who walked on the moon, dies at 86

gray-like concrete appearance.” He added: “If I wanted to go out and look at something that looked like the moon, I’d go out and look at my driveway.” Mr. Bean followed him onto the lunar surface, where they collected moon rocks and took core samples of dirt, going down as deep as 32 inches. As images were transmitted back to television viewers at home, the astronauts set up scientific instruments to measure wind, solar radiation and other conditions. When the TV camera stopped working, Mr. Bean attempted some repairs. “Okay, it’s coming in there now, Al,” a NASA spokesman from Mission Control in Houston said. “What changes did you make?” “I hit it on the top with my hammer,” Mr. Bean said. “Skillful fix, Al,” the NASA spokesman replied. Ultimately, the camera failed. Nonetheless, Conrad and Mr. Bean pushed on with a second walk on the lunar surface, taking photographs of their surroundings and retrieving parts from the Surveyor III, an unmanned spacecraft that had reached the moon in 1967. They were practically giddy during their four hours on the moon. “Hey, it’s real nice moving around up here,” Mr. Bean said. “You don’t seem to get tired. You really hop like a bunny.” He and Conrad tossed a Frisbee and, in an atmosphere with one-sixth the gravitational pull as on Earth, took steps 10 feet long. “Do you know what I feel like, Al?” Conrad said. “Did you ever see those pictures of giraffes running in slow motion? That’s exactly what I feel like.” At one point, they witnessed an eclipse of the sun by Earth. “This has got to be the most spectacular sight of the whole flight,” Mr. Bean said at the time. “You can’t see the Earth. It’s black just like the space.” As the astronauts finished their scientific work — and their gambols — they planted an American flag on the moon. They also left behind their boots and pressurized suits, to have more storage space for lunar rocks. After more than 31 hours on the moon, Conrad and Mr. Bean lifted off and rejoined Gordon in the Yankee Clipper. Their 10-day journey ended on Nov. 24, when they splashed down in the Pacific. Four years later, Mr. Bean returned to space as commander of the second mission to the Skylab orbiting space station. He and two astronauts, Jack Lousma and Owen Garriott, stayed aloft


Exit polls suggest Ireland has voted to repeal its abortion ban

mother’s health. That would bring Ireland’s access to abortion more in line with the other 27 members of the European Union. Although Ireland bans the procedure, it does not restrict travel to procure an abortion. Since 1980, more than 170,000 women have traveled by ferry or airplane to Scotland, England or Wales to get an abortion there. Researchers estimate that about 3,500 make the trip each year and that another 2,000 end their pregnancies with pills they buy over the Internet and smuggle into Ireland. Campaigns to lift the abortion ban have emphasized that it is a woman’s right to decide what to do with her body — and that Ireland should be a compassionate society, not one that forces pregnant women to travel to another country to receive a procedure that should be available at home. Kevin Keane, 23, is the president of the Students’ Union at Trinity College Dublin. He’s been campaigning hard for repeal — a position he says reflects a dynamic, young, European outlook and a turning-away from the scandal-ridden Catholic Church. “So many people in Ireland have rejected religion. We were raised with it; we went to Catholic schools, and growing up with that rhetoric made people hate it,” Keane said. Three years ago, Ireland became the first country to back same-sex marriage in a popular vote, confirming a profound shift in Irish social attitudes. Keane, who is studying law, had one worry — that men who supported abortion rights would stay home. “They’ll say, ‘I don’t think I should vote on this. I think this is something the women should decide.’ ” The “No” campaigns stressed the “human rights” of the fetus. Some Irish activists have called abortion “murder,” but many campaigners have tried a softer tone, saying Ireland should “love both” the pregnant woman and her unborn baby. “Ireland has treated its daughters terribly,” said Marylou Doherty, 66, a teacher who has been an active antiabortion activist since the 1983 campaign. Where are the fathers and family to help a young mother cope with a crisis pregnancy? she asked. “We know the majority of abortions are about their lifestyle,” Doherty said. “It just doesn’t suit them to have a baby at this time.” Doherty maintained that making abortion more difficult to obtain forced women to think more about their decisions and perhaps to seek help or put a baby up for adoption. william.booth@washpost.com


Could the U.S. fight dual wars in North Korea and Iran? After diplomacy breaks down, questions loom.

resource for a potential conflict with China or Russia, then getting into conflict with Iran and North Korea is the exact wrong thing to do,” said Mara Karlin, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a former Pentagon strategist. Whereas military planners envision a war with North Korea as primarily a land and air fight, ultimately requiring a massive ground invasion and ending in regime change followed by stabilization, conflict with Iran would more likely be primarily a naval and air battle, focused on crippling specific missile and nuclear sites rather than dismantling the government itself. Simultaneous warfare in the two countries would stress intelligence and reconnaissance assets such as drone overflights, which the U.S. military has come to rely on heavily, according to former Pentagon officials. Battles in two theaters also would strain Special Operations forces and possibly electronic warfare and tactical air support units, they said. Another challenge would be getting forces and equipment to both theaters in a prompt manner and sustaining them once they arrive. Amid the attention on Iran and North Korea, Trump has stressed the strength of the U.S. military and his administration’s efforts to reverse what military commanders say has been underinvestment in the force. “We’re sharpening the fighting edge of everything, from Marine infantry squads to combat ships to deliver maximum lethal force,” Trump said during his Naval Academy address. “We will have the strongest military that we’ve ever had, and it won’t even be close. And when did we need it more than now?” While Trump has boasted of major increases to defense spending, the impact of greater budgets won’t be felt for some time. Meanwhile, the military continues to feel the effects of more than a decade and a half of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. “It’s still in many respects a tired force — the toll of the wars and constant deployments, the effect on both manpower and equipment, the lack of opportunity to do the right kind of training,” said Brian P. McKeon, who served as acting undersecretary of defense for policy during the Obama administration. Mattis has regularly emphasized the need for diplomacy for Iran and North Korea, even as other members of the Trump administration have threatened military options. Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, suggested Mattis’s approach might reflect his firsthand understanding of the potential costs


Dinner and a show: These nine goats draw spectators while clearing an overgrown Maryland park

He almost didn’t see them at first. A crowd of people standing along his usually clear jogging route up Eastern Avenue, straddling the District-Maryland border, tipped him off that something was up. Following their gaze into a small clearing of overgrown trees and wild flora, he saw something move. “I thought it was a deer at first, to be honest,” said Spencer Douglas, 33, a financial analyst who lives in Mount Rainier, Md. “It took me a minute to be like, ‘Nah, that’s a goat.’ ” A herd, to be precise. Nine goats from a farm in Centreville, Md., took up residence this week on a plot of land in Mount Rainier, where they have been eating poison ivy, honeysuckle and other overgrown plants since Monday afternoon. But these aren’t just any goats. They’re professional goats. And they’re in high demand. Eco-Goats, which offers its services to clear invasive species, overgrown brush and difficult-to-handle plants such as poison ivy, poison oak and brambles, has been in business for about 10 years. Owner Brian Knox said he’s recently gotten pickier about what contracts the goats will or won’t take. The Maryland company’s most recent job in Mount Rainier, clearing a parcel of city land neglected since the turn of the century, is the latest in a line of gigs around the Washington area that are part of a national push toward greener solutions and natural methods of clearing land. Knox said he prefers to work with cities, counties and school districts — anywhere there’s an opportunity to engage with children and community members, where the goats can show off all they can do. “We used to do an exercise where you have one person wander through the woods with a pair of clippers and a bag and try to see if they can collect what a goat will typically eat in a day — that’s about 20 pounds of leaves — and it doesn’t add up as quickly as you’d think,” he said. Goats have been used to clear foliage for centuries, but in recent years, the age-old method has become new again. Goats have been called to clear land near airports, schools, the Anacostia watershed, the District’s Congressional Cemetery, fire-prone ranches and private residences. Eco-Goats used to deploy crews of up to 140 animals per job. But, Knox said, he’s learned that smaller is better, and he pared down the


USDA drops proposal to allow third-party animal welfare inspections

month. “Things are going to be cleaned up, suffering and dead animals are going to be hidden, and we’re just not going to know what the real, day-to-day conditions of the facilities are.” APHIS did not advertise that it was weighing whether to allow announced inspections, and the pilot project was not identified in the Federal Register docket USDA opened on the prospect of weighing third-party inspections of animal welfare conditions. While Juarez’s letter said the pilot was targeted toward “certain situations involving certain facilities,” it did not clarify how those facilities would be selected. As required by the Animal Welfare Act, the agency conducts inspections annually at research facilities and at least every three years at others, looking for proper enclosures, trimmed hoofs and clean drinking water, to name a few. The frequency of inspection depends on how well a facility has previously performed and other criteria the agency does not specify. (PETA sued the USDA in March over its failure to respond to a public records request for this information two years ago.) At a public listening session in Santa Clara, Calif., in January, Juarez said third-party inspections — which might be carried out by voluntary accrediting organizations — would not replace government inspections. Instead, she said, the agency could rely on them to determine how often to inspect and whether an accredited facility “should receive a positive factor.” “We may be able to kick out the frequency with which we visit those facilities so that we can conserve our resources and make more frequent visits to facilities that we know have compliance challenges,” she said. As examples of third-party accrediting organizations, she cited the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, or AZA, and AAALAC. The third-party proposal was opposed by animal protection groups, which cast it as a fox-guarding-the-henhouse idea. It also was strongly opposed by several facilities the USDA regulates. The AZA, in a letter submitted to the agency as part of the public comment period, complained about the vagueness of the idea and said the current system “is working fairly effectively.” At a February listening session in Maryland, the Zoological Association of America expressed concern that it might be saddled with performing inspections. At a March listening session in Kansas City, Rodney Blosser of the Missouri Pet Breeders Association worried animal advocacy groups might be deployed as inspectors. “I don’t like to see the third party


PM Update: Flooding reported in Ellicott City; storms with heavy rain and lightning possible through this evening

* Flash Flood Watch for the entire region until 10 p.m. * BREAKING, 5:00 p.m.: For more information, see this story: 4:10 p.m. update The immediate D.C. area isn’t out of the woods for showers and storms, as additional activity could develop through the evening but, aside from a passing shower, there is nothing immediately threatening. Stay weather-aware and monitor our radar updates on Twitter (@capitalweather). If any severe weather or flash flooding moves into the immediate area, we’ll add an update to this post. Original post from 2:19 p.m. The atmosphere is a bit more “juiced” today, and, much like Saturday, it won’t take much to get storms to pop up this afternoon. You may have noticed that the air outside is a bit stagnant (little wind), and that characteristic will lead to slow-moving storm cells dropping lots of rain in some areas. That is why we’ve got a flash-flood watch up. In addition to the rain, please be aware of lightning this afternoon and evening. While the risk of damaging winds and hail is low in today’s storms, the lightning is likely to be frequent and dangerous. So if you hear thunder, make sure you go indoors! Listen to the latest forecast: Get our daily forecasts on your Amazon Alexa device. Click here to find out how. Through tonight: The storms that do develop will be slow-moving and packed with moisture. Heavy rain and frequent cloud-to-ground lightning will be the main threats. A flash-flood watch has been issued for the entire area, mainly because storms may sit over some of the same locations for an extended period. Hardest-hit areas could receive a quick one to three inches. Storm activity should ease locally by about 10 p.m., though the risk of an isolated shower or two remains through the overnight hours. Otherwise, it’s mostly cloudy, mild and humid tonight, with lows in the upper 60s and a light east wind at 5 mph. Areas of patchy fog are likely to develop as wet roadways and surfaces cool overnight. View the current weather conditions at The Washington Post. Tomorrow (Memorial Day): See Brian Jackson’s forecast through next week. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Gridlock. Where are the mosquitoes? Cornell University puts out an experimental mosquito forecast (shown above), and even it shows a


Ireland votes to overturn its abortion ban, ‘culmination of a quiet revolution,’ prime minister says

marriage in 2015. Ireland’s political leadership promised that Parliament will quickly pass a new law guaranteeing unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks and beyond that in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities or serious risks to a mother’s health. That would bring Ireland’s access to abortion in line with the other 27 members of the European Union. In Ireland, seeking or providing an abortion has been punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Since 2013, there has been an exception for when a mother’s life is at risk. Varadkar, who is gay and whose right to marry was accepted in Ireland only three years ago, called the vote a turning point. “It’s also a day when we say no more,” the prime minister said. “No more to doctors telling their patients there’s nothing can be done for them in their own country, no more lonely journeys across the Irish Sea, no more stigma as the veil of secrecy is lifted and no more isolation as the burden of shame is gone.” Simon Harris, Ireland’s minister of health, said a bill would be written this summer and passed by year’s end. “The people of Ireland have told us to get on with it,” he said. Harris said he was as surprised as anyone with the high turnout and outsize vote for repeal. “If you can find anybody today who said they were expecting this majority, I’d love to meet them. I don’t think anybody was expecting this margin,” he said. Campaigners for repeal, watching the votes being counted in auditoriums around Ireland, were giddy with news of a landslide. In Dublin constituencies, the vote topped 75 percent for repeal. Even in elderly, traditionally conservative Roscommon- Galway, the only constituency to reject same-sex marriage in the 2015 referendum, the “yes” vote for overturning the abortion ban was 57 percent. Exit polls released by Irish broadcaster RTE and from the Irish Times found women outpolled men, but men still supported the yes side. So did farmers and rural counties. Support was largest among the young and urban. Of the Republic of Ireland’s 26 counties, only Donegal in the far northwest voted down the repeal. Irish Times columnist Finan O’Toole tweeted: “For all the attempts to divide us into tribes, the exit poll shows that every part of Ireland has voted in broadly the same way, which is to trust women and make them


A Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned in Russia just won a Freedom to Write Award

film. He had "so many ideas for films in his head that it was impossible to keep them there," he told one friend. So he traveled to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to persuade Olga Zhurzhenko, a student at the Kiev National I.K. Karpenko-Kary University of Theater, Cinema and Television, to help him make "Gamer," the story of a young man who hopes to escape his impoverished life by winning an eSport tournament. To fund the film, Sentsov sold his car and Internet cafe. The crew consisted of just five amateurs. That was, to Sentsov's mind, an asset. "Oleg wanted the characters the actors create on the screen to be 'real.' When actors have something in common with their characters, when they are not limited with acting rules and principles — then they stay on screen the same people they are in real life," Anastasiya Chorna, an actress in the film, explained. The movie was well-received by critics, and Sentsov had begun work on a second feature. Then Russia intervened in Crimea. And Sentsov abandoned his latest project to coordinate relief efforts for Ukrainian soldiers trapped in their base by Russian troops. He was arrested in 2014 and charged with planning a terrorist attack in Crimea after the territory was annexed by Russia. Russian officials accused Sentsov of setting fire to the offices of a political party in Crimea and of trying to blow up a Lenin statue. The filmmaker vociferously denied the charges and said he was tortured in prison; he had the bruises to prove it. But investigators dismissed the marks as the the result of a supposed penchant for sadomasochistic sex. The main witness recanted his claims in the courtroom, telling onlookers that evidence was extracted under torture. Even so, after a quick trial (described by Amnesty International as "redolent of Stalinist-era show trials"), he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. His co-defendant received a 10-year sentence. Defiant, Sentsov wore a "Glory to Ukraine" T-shirt in court. When the pair heard the news, they began singing the national anthem of Ukraine. "When they put a bag on your head, beat you up a bit, half an hour later you’re ready to go back on all your beliefs, implicate yourself in whatever they ask, implicate others, just to stop them beating you. I don’t know what your beliefs can possibly be worth if you are not ready to


Trump’s top Army appointee wants faster innovation. Can his service make it happen?

the Army after a tumultuous period in which two other nominees changed their minds about taking the job. Vincent Viola, a billionaire Wall Street trader and owner of the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers, withdrew in February 2017 after struggling to untangle his financial conflicts of interest. Trump then nominated Tennessee state Sen. Mark E. Green, who stepped aside in May under pressure for past comments about Muslims, transgender people and Hispanics. Trump nominated Esper in July, and the Senate confirmed him in November with an 89-6 vote. Like some of Trump’s other Pentagon nominees, he joined the administration after working in the defense industry, a trend that some government watchdogs consider troubling. For the previous seven years, he was vice president for government relations at Raytheon, acting as a senior lobbyist. Esper, a native of Uniontown, Pa., attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., graduating in 1986, the same year as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He embarked on a 25-year military career that included time in the active-duty Army and the Virginia National Guard, and a deployment during the Persian Gulf War. Outside the military, he has held several other jobs in government, including deputy assistant secretary of defense during the administration of President George W. Bush, national security adviser to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), and a legislative director to then-Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). He also was chief of staff from 1996 to 1999 at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has been influential in the Trump administration. Esper, who is married and has three children in their 20s, has eschewed commentary about polarizing issues while focusing on building up the military. Asked about Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military, he told reporters that the issue “really hasn’t come up” during his visits with U.S. troops. When it comes to fully integrating women in the military, he said that “everybody wants to be treated with a clear set of standards,” a response suggesting that he sees no reason to exclude women. Taking the Army secretary job was appealing because of the team of leaders the Trump administration has assembled in the Pentagon, beginning with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Esper said. As Army secretary, Esper is the senior civilian official in the service, overseeing such matters as weapons acquisition, personnel issues and the approval of awards for valor. The secretary


D.C. man found fatally shot early on Memorial Day in Northeast Washington

A 24-year-old D.C. man was shot and killed early Monday in the 700 block of Langston Terrace NE, police said. Anthony Jerome Clark was found on Langston Terrace shortly after 2:30 a.m., after police officers from the 5th District heard gunshots, according to a news release from the Metropolitan Police Department. Clark, of Southeast Washington, had been shot multiple times and died at the scene. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the police at 202-727-9099. Anonymous information may be submitted to the department’s text tip line by texting 50411. Individuals who provide information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case are eligible for a reward of up to $25,000. ian.shapira@washpost.com


Spec. Conde was the 2,264th member of the U.S. military to die in Afghanistan. His parents ask why.

of the Special Operations team that he was supporting. The insurgent was about to fire on U.S. troops before Gabe shot him. By March, he was preparing to come home. His time in Afghanistan had been rewarding, “an experience I will remember fondly,” he wrote. “I will miss it even.” But the frustrations of Army life — “the waiting, the pointless training, the lack of freedom” — still grated, even in a war zone. Sometimes he talked about going back to college when his enlistment was done. “I’ll be coming to you for advice on how to handle the quantity of work,” he wrote to one high school friend. At other moments, he spoke to his parents in grand, but vague, terms about trying to establish a nonprofit organization that could rescue child victims of sexual abuse, a problem in Afghanistan that enraged him. In late April, he sent a final text message to Bob and Donna, letting them know he would be heading out on one more mission — “a great quest,” he called it — before he returned to the United States. “Please pray that it will be lively,” he said, “and that God is glorified.” 'Well done' On May 9, nine days after their son was killed, Bob and Donna sat at the kitchen table at their home in Berthoud. “Oh, it’s been a hard morning already,” Donna said. In front of them was a three-inch-thick binder, issued by the Department of the Army, “The Days Ahead: Essential Papers for the Families of Fallen Soldiers.” Gabe’s body was scheduled to arrive home on Friday, just two days away. There was still so much to plan. Their Army casualty assistance officer, who had been assigned to help them, was on the phone with the county sheriff arranging an escort from the airport to the funeral home. “We’ll make sure we have sufficient police presence,” the sheriff was saying. The governor’s office wanted to schedule a phone call and a reporter from a television station in Denver was stopping by the house for an interview in about an hour. Bob and Donna still needed to order food for their family — aunts, uncles, cousins — who would be gathering at the house on Friday night after the funeral home viewing. “Do you want the soldiers from Gabe’s platoon to come over as well?” the casualty assistance officer asked. "If


The alarming statistics that show the U.S. economy isn’t as good as it seems

income for food and rent. “Half of the people we serve are above the poverty level. They are working, but they are not making it,” said Catherine D'Amato, president of the Greater Boston Food Bank. “It’s a deep struggle for people to provide for themselves based on their wages.” D'Amato has worked at food banks and pantries since 1979, but she says she's never seen it like it is today with so many people with jobs but still unable to survive. October and November were the highest food bank usage on record for her organization, a reminder that many are still not stable years after the Great Recession officially ended in 2009. Nonwhite households continue to have a harder time finding good-paying employment. The unemployment rates for African Americans and Hispanics, while at record lows, are still significantly higher than that of whites. The Fed survey highlighted that far fewer minorities in America feel “okay” financially compared with whites. In addition to low pay, many struggling Americans say a major problem is that their hours vary greatly from month to month. They may be able to make it one week, but not the next because their hours — and their earnings — fall substantially. Three in 10 adults say their family income varies from month to month, according to the Fed survey, and one in 10 say their income varies a lot, making it difficult to pay bills on time. One of the most widely watched statistics in the Fed's “Report on the Economic Well-being of U.S. Households” is how many adults say they could cover an unexpected $400 expense. When the survey was released for the first time in 2013, half of those surveyed said they didn't have enough savings to cover an emergency expense of a few hundred dollars. Today that has fallen to 40 percent, a figure that is better but still troubling to many economists. It means nearly 48 million households aren't saving or are unable to save. “Nothing is more fundamental to achieving financial stability than having savings that can be drawn upon when the unexpected occurs,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com. Related: The U.S. now has a record 6.6 million job openings The U.S. doesn’t have enough truckers, and it’s starting to cause prices of about everything to rise The unhappy states of America: Despite an improving economy, Americans are glum


China aims for independence as the rift with America and Europe widens. Will it work?

on the United States. Reports now indicate that the Justice Department is investigating whether another, much larger and far more important Chinese telecom company, Huawei, also violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. As the ZTE case unfolded, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered Chinese companies to grasp the “historic opportunity” to develop China’s own high-tech manufacturing, to develop products and intellectual property as dominant as those now sourced from the United States. Tens of billions of dollars in new government investment and subsidies are on their way. In April, Xi observed that the “unprecedented challenges” faced by Chinese chip-makers actually amounted to “unprecedented opportunities” for them to seize the global lead in chip technology. While patriotic chest-thumping might rally the troops, so far China has slammed into roadblocks trying to achieve semiconductor parity with the United States. This may be a problem that doesn’t yield to Chinese cash, to technocratic guidance or to the applied intelligence of so many smart Chinese engineers. There are other fundamental aspects that make it hard for China to achieve greater high-tech self-sufficiency, starting with lax protection of intellectual property and a reliance on technologically backward and monopolistic state-owned enterprises, both in chips and the specialized equipment used to make them. With Internet search, e-commerce and social media, China’s go-it-alone approach has worked out well, nurturing domestic private sector giants such as Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu. But these firms, truth be told, are also trapped by the very environment that made them successful. All three have stumbled badly in efforts to expand outside the country. And semiconductors are a very different story than online chat or shopping. Chips are upgraded at a furious pace, in tune with global demand, and if anything, the gap between the best of China and the best of firms such as Intel, Qualcomm, Apple and ARM is as large as it ever was. In his essay, Li said he was optimistic that the Chinese Communist Party would be able to weather its stormy relations with the United States. But he cautioned those in China urging a hard line against the West. “The most important thing,” he concluded, “is to choose the kind of path that is more in line with the needs and the future of China’s development.” By choice as much as duress, China will move toward greater economic and technological self-reliance. Can China become equal in those spheres? Few questions


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