Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100

a phone interview. “These are their numbers. They aren’t our numbers.” Conservatives who condemned President Barack Obama’s climate initiatives as regulatory overreach have defended the Trump administration’s approach, calling it a more reasonable course. Obama’s climate policies were costly to industry and yet “mostly symbolic,” because they would have made barely a dent in global carbon dioxide emissions, said Heritage Foundation research fellow Nick Loris, adding: “Frivolous is a good way to describe it.” NHTSA commissioned ICF International Inc., a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Va., to help prepare the impact statement. An agency spokeswoman said the Environmental Protection Agency “and NHTSA welcome comments on all aspects of the environmental analysis” but declined to provide additional information about the agency’s long-term temperature forecast. Federal agencies typically do not include century-long climate projections in their environmental impact statements. Instead, they tend to assess a regulation’s impact during the life of the program — the years a coal plant would run, for example, or the amount of time certain vehicles would be on the road. Using the no-action scenario “is a textbook example of how to lie with statistics,” said MIT Sloan School of Management professor John Sterman. “First, the administration proposes vehicle efficiency policies that would do almost nothing [to fight climate change]. Then [the administration] makes their impact seem even smaller by comparing their proposals to what would happen if the entire world does nothing.” This week, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned leaders gathered in New York, “If we do not change course in the next two years, we risk runaway climate change . . . Our future is at stake.” Federal and independent research — including projections included in last month’s analysis of the revised fuel-efficiency standards — echoes that theme. The environmental impact statement cites “evidence of climate-induced changes,” such as more frequent droughts, floods, severe storms and heat waves, and estimates that seas could rise nearly three feet globally by 2100 if the world does not decrease its carbon output. Two articles published in the journal Science since late July — both co-authored by federal scientists — predicted that the global landscape could be transformed “without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions” and declared that soaring temperatures worldwide bore humans’ “fingerprint.” “With this administration, it’s almost as if this science is happening in another galaxy,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Union of


Walmart’s new line of wines is just the juice that bargain-hunting Americans need

Earlier this year, on a business trip out west, my colleagues and I checked into the motel that would be our home for four nights and then dashed to the local Walmart to stock up on provisions. We bought chips, dip, granola bars, bottled water (someone even bought salads to stick in the mini-fridge) and, of course, beer and wine. Unfortunately, we were too early to discover Walmart’s Winemakers Selection line of wines, which the chain introduced to 1,100 stores nationwide in June. These were 10 private label wines, exclusive to Walmart, from Italy, France and California, priced at either $11 to $16 per bottle. Perfect for those late-night motel debriefs, or for everyday drinking. Normally, I’m skeptical about any large chain’s private label, having cut my wine teeth on jugs of Kroger’s Cost-Cutter brand back in the 1980s, before a visit to California wine country ignited my palate. And I’m not the only one. There once was a popular Internet meme about “Walmart wine” that played on the company’s Arkansas roots, blue-collar demographic and its selection of firearms to ridicule the idea that the stores would carry anything so classy as vino. For several years, I could count on someone forwarding me this joke every few months. But then last year I wrote about La Moneda, a delicious $7 malbec from Chile that was a Walmart exclusive and won high marks from Decanter magazine. No one has sent me that meme since. In fact, Walmart is one of a few national retail chains that don’t specialize in alcoholic beverages — think Costco Wholesale and Lidl and Trader Joe’s groceries — that have done an impressive job finding good-quality wine at affordable prices. This isn’t easy: Remember when Trader Joe’s Charles Shaw wines, known as “Two-Buck Chuck,” were so inconsistent that customers would buy a bottle, open it and taste it in the parking lot, and if it was any good, run back into the store to buy more? So how does a company develop a private label line of wine that can supply more than 1,000 stores with a consistently available product at good quality? I reached out to Nichole Simpson, who carries the rather unromantic title of senior adult beverage buyer for Walmart at the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., to ask her secrets. “I looked at the data to see what gaps we were missing, and I


NASA stands by SpaceX, even as Elon Musk’s troubles grow

The future of Tesla may be imperiled by a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that seeks to oust Elon Musk, the chief executive. But SpaceX, one of Musk’s other companies, has continued to garner support from its key customers, especially NASA, which can’t afford to see one of its main suppliers falter. SpaceX has become vital to NASA’s operations and is also a key supplier to the Pentagon. The government has invested billions of dollars in SpaceX and relies on it to send science experts and cargo to the International Space Station, and to launch national security satellites used in modern warfare. By next year, SpaceX is poised to fly NASA’s most valuable assets — its astronauts — to space. While once it was a scrappy start-up that clawed and sued its way into the federal market, now it is a major federal contractor that is vital to the government’s space program. While Musk is chief executive (and “lead designer”), others at the company are in charge of day-to-day operations. “There’s no alternative at this point to using a commercial company,” said Carissa Christensen, the chief executive officer of Bryce Space and Technology, a consulting firm. “NASA cannot magic up its own vehicle. It doesn’t have one.” On Thursday, the SEC sued Musk and sought to ban him from leading any public company (SpaceX is private). The agency alleged that Musk lied to investors when he announced on Twitter over the summer that he had the funding secured to take Tesla private. That followed months of erratic behavior, including smoking marijuana on a live broadcast and, without evidence, calling one of the Thai cave rescue divers a pedophile. While all of that could prove to be devastating to Musk, SpaceX has continued to charge ahead. And its clients have stood by it. In a statement, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said the contracts the agency has awarded are to the company — not the man. And Jacobs said that NASA is “focused on successful commercial cargo and crewed missions to the International Space Station. Our contracts are with SpaceX and other commercial spaceflight companies. We expect our commercial partners to meet all legal and safety requirements in the execution of the services they provide.” Since bursting onto the launch market, SpaceX has disrupted the commercial industry as well, lowering prices for commercial satellite operators, and in 2017 it restored the United


The NHL is back and so are the surprisingly popular Golden Knights

Things I’d Rather Do in Las Vegas Before Going to a Hockey Game: 1. Bet on a hockey game. 2. Play blackjack and win. 3. Play blackjack and lose. 4. Get married and divorced in an Elvis-themed chapel. 5. Drive into the Mojave Desert and see where all the bodies are buried. 6. Celine! 7. Stand in front of the exotic fish tank at the Mirage. 8. Look for Howard Hughes. 9. Go to the unlikely, 24-hour Oyster Bar at Palace Station for its otherworldly pan roast. 10. Walk to Pahrump. 11. Penn or Teller. 12. Pick up some spares — that town has the best bowling centers in America. 13. Spit in the nearby Hoover Dam. Hockey in Las Vegas? I don’t think so. Indeed, just 365 short days ago, I would’ve told readers that elephants-on-skates is your only chance to attract a crowd in Las Vegas to an ice arena. That’s absolutely, positively what I would’ve written. I guess I would’ve been wrong. Ask The Slouch Q. Clay Matthews tackled Kirk Cousins and Alex Smith from the front, causing each of them to fall backward and Matthews to land on top of each of them. Instead of “roughing the passer,” shouldn’t he more accurately have been penalized for “refusing to ignore the laws of gravity”? (AJ Carle; Oak Hill, Va.) A. Actually, the laws of gravity were a sticking point in the last NFL-NFLPA collective bargaining agreement; the holdup was Roger Goodell’s belief that the Earth is flat. Q. A good investigative journalist always seeks answers to the questions of who, what, where, when and why. In regards to this Baltimore Orioles season, I just need to know why? (Steve Owings; Spokane, Wash.) A. The only chance to obtain that answer would be to conduct a séance to contact either Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, Archimedes, Sun Tzu, Plato, Thomas Aquinas or Earl Weaver. Q. Do you like beer? Do you still like beer? (Tim Franks; Fort Worth) A. I suspect the Washington Nationals will have a “Brett Kavanaugh Bobblehead Night” next season — first 65 women in attendance who sign an affidavit attesting to Brett Kavanaugh’s character get a bobblehead and a free beer! Q. Will ESPN will be increasing its coverage of the NHL because hockey is the only major sport with a “left wing” position? (Terry Golden; Vienna, Va.) A. Pay the man, Shirley. You, too, can


Trump is rising to the China challenge in the worst way possible

gross domestic product as a result of AI deployment, nearly double the bonanza expected in all of North America. The stakes here are enormous. Artificial intelligence is not a discreet product class, like social media platforms or ride sharing. Rather, it is like electricity: a breakthrough that will revolutionize activities from translating documents to making loan decisions to predicting consumer behavior. Moreover, because AI requires large data sets, there is a winner-takes-all tendency that should alarm China’s competitors. Companies with the most data will have the best products. The best products will attract the largest number of customers, who in turn will generate additional data, reinforcing the front-runners’ advantage. And then there is AI’s military potential: swarms of autonomous killer drones, new forms of cyberwarfare. Trump’s strategy of clamping down on Chinese intellectual-property theft misses the scope of this challenge. As Lee and other venture capitalists attest, China’s AI acceleration is powered by ferociously gladiatorial entrepreneurs who (as Lee puts it) would send Google employees scurrying for their nap pods. It is also driven by richer data, reflecting the way the Chinese use smartphones for everything from booking a doctor’s appointment to paying for their vegetables. Finally, China’s success is helped along by AI-friendly infrastructure. The government has plans for intelligent highways equipped with sensors and solar panels to guide and power electric self-driving vehicles. The United States will never match China’s maniacal, frequently unethical, win-at-all-costs commercial culture. On the other hand, there is nothing to stop it from investing in smart infrastructure and recognizing the social gains from rich data before it regulates its tech titans. But the really obvious imperative is the one that Trump mangles completely: The United States should make the most of its attractiveness to immigrants. Whatever China’s progress, most talented people would prefer to live in the United States — for its intellectual and personal freedom, for the security afforded by the rule of law, for its culture and its heroes. Just the other week, the erstwhile cloner Wang Xing celebrated his company’s initial public offering. He seized on this occasion to thank none other than the late Steve Jobs: “Without iPhone, without mobile Internet, everything we do today wouldn’t have been possible.” The worldwide allure of American role models gives the United States a unique advantage in drawing talent to its shores — if only American leaders could bring themselves to leverage it.


Opponent of U.S. military bases wins Okinawa gubernatorial election

TOKYO — Denny Tamaki was elected Sunday as the next governor of Okinawa prefecture in Japan, after a campaign focused on sharply reducing the U.S. military presence on the island. Okinawa is home to about half the 54,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan and houses the largest U.S. air base in the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. military says its presence on the island is vital not only for the defense of Japan but also for keeping the peace in the entire region, from Taiwan and China to the Korean Peninsula and down to the Philippines. But Okinawans feel that their small island bears an unfair burden of the U.S. military presence in Japan. They complain about the noise of low-flying aircraft and the dangers of accidents, as well as crimes committed over the years by members of the U.S. military. Some also feel that the presence of the bases could make their island a target in any regional military confrontation. Tamaki, like previous governor Takeshi Onaga, who died in office last month, wants a fundamental reduction of the U.S. presence here, a stance that will add stress to the United States’ alliance with Japan. With 99 percent of ballots counted Sunday night, he had won 55 percent of the vote, with his main rival, Atsushi Sakima, who was backed by Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, winning 44 percent. Tamaki is the son of an Okinawan woman and an American Marine, whom he has never met. He says that will stand him in good stead as he tries to negotiate with Washington as well as Tokyo. The key issue is Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which sits in the middle of residential areas in the city of Ginowan. There is a two-decade-old plan to relocate the base to a more remote site at Henoko in the north of the island and move nearly half of the 19,000 Marines on the island to bases in Guam, Hawaii and Australia. The move has been delayed largely because of local opposition. Tamaki opposes the expansion of the Henoko facility, known as Camp Schwab, and instead demands a more radical redistribution of U.S. forces to other parts of Japan or abroad. The central government in Tokyo insists it has the constitutional right to decide on national security issues, and it wants to push ahead with the relocation plan. It won a legal battle against Onaga


Wayne M. Meyers, researcher and doctor who treated leprosy patients in Africa, dies at 94

In preparing for what would become his life’s work, Wayne M. Meyers served in the Army in the Pacific during World War II, received two doctorates, attended theology school, studied French and held two medical internships. Perhaps most important, he never lost the inspiration he felt as a child when he heard tales of missionary life while attending a Methodist church in rural Pennsylvania. In 1953, he was still eight years away from his first trip to Africa when he married Esther Kleinschmidt, who had grown up in what was then called the Belgian Congo, where her parents were medical missionaries. Eight years later, Wayne and Esther Meyers and their three — later four — children moved to Central Africa, where they spent more than a decade working with people afflicted with one of the world’s most feared and misunderstood diseases: leprosy. From the beginning, it was apparent that Dr. Meyers was no ordinary physician. As the chief medical officer at a leprosarium in Burundi and later in Congo, he did not shield himself from his patients or their conditions. “When he treated his patients,” his son George Meyers said, “he didn’t gown up or wear gloves or a mask.” He shook his patients’ hands, examined their wounds, listened to their stories and embarked on a lifetime of care, learning and teaching. He sought to understand the causes of leprosy (or Hansen’s disease, as it is also known) and other tropical illnesses such as Buruli ulcer (a dreaded skin disease) and the debilitating parasite-caused ailment known as river blindness. Dr. Meyers, who became one of the world’s foremost infectious disease researchers, died Sept. 12 at his home in Laurel, Md., at 94. The cause was cerebrovascular disease, George Meyers said. Throughout his career, Dr. Meyers wrote more than 400 scientific papers, gave hundreds of lectures and maintained a global registry of leprosy cases. He was president of the International Leprosy Association, a consultant to the World Health Organization and a contributor to or editor of textbooks on infectious diseases. “The work Wayne did was absolutely essential and helped change science in amazing ways,” said Aileen M. Marty, a Florida International University professor and former Navy physician who worked alongside Dr. Meyers at the old Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington. “First and foremost, he was a profoundly humane man,” Marty added. “He was a scientist, he was a researcher,


UPDATE 4-Insisting on respect, Britain takes new combative tone to Brexit talks

criticism of the European Union for taunting Prime Minister Theresa May and souring difficult Brexit talks. May’s ministers came out one by one at their party’s annual conference here in Birmingham to warn the E.U. that they would embrace leaving without a deal if the bloc fails to show “respect” in the talks to end Britain’s membership. Just six months before Britain is due to leave the E.U. in the country’s biggest shift in foreign and trade policy in more than 40 years, May faces growing criticism over her proposals not only from her governing party but also from Brussels. Party unity is on British ministers’ minds, and they are encouraging the faithful to direct their anger at the E.U. rather than at the prime minister, who some euroskeptic Conservatives accuse of leading Britain toward a “Brexit in name only.” But the strident new tone has annoyed many in Brussels, especially when Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt compared the E.U. to the Soviet Union. Other cabinet ministers have taken a softer tone, pointing out that leaving without a deal could hurt Britain’s economy, the world’s fifth-largest. Raab said he had called on the E.U. to match the “ambition and pragmatism” of May’s Chequers proposals, named after her country residence, where an agreement with her ministers was hashed out in July. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t on display in Salzburg,” he said, describing a summit last month in the Austrian city where E.U. leaders rejected parts of the Chequers plan. “Our prime minister has been constructive and respectful. In return, we heard jibes from senior leaders and we saw a starkly one-sided approach to negotiation.” “What is unthinkable is that this government, or any British government, could be bullied by the threat of some kind of economic embargo into signing a one-sided deal against our country’s interests,” Raab said, later calling again on the E.U. to meet Britain halfway. With no divorce deal and a standoff over the shape of any future relationship, the possibility of a “no-deal Brexit” has increased. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the discussion in Britain over Brexit was still far removed from reality. Raab later said that the government was open to looking at regulatory checks to try to ease talks on a “backstop” to prevent a return to a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and E.U. member Ireland, one of the outstanding issues.


Former D.C. police desk clerk charged with conspiracy to commit murder

A former civilian D.C. police desk clerk fed secret information to gang members during a deadly feud between rival neighborhoods in Southeast Washington, tipping them off to investigations and helping them evade arrest, according to court records. In less than a year in 2016 and into 2017, police attribute four homicides and 12 other violent acts to the warring crews from Wahler Place and Trenton Park in the Congress Heights community. Police said three other killings might be linked to the groups. The clerk, Ronnika Michelle Jennings, 40, worked at the Seventh District police station, which covers Congress Heights. Police allege in court documents filed Saturday that she accessed internal password-protected police files 35 times and talked with Wahler Place associates 85 times. One of those associates, Derek B. Turner, is implicated in two killings and several shootings, the court documents say. Jennings was first charged in connection with the case in June 2017 with 13 counts of obstruction of justice and a single count of conspiracy. On Friday, police announced an additional charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder while armed. She is being detained until a hearing Oct. 5. Her attorney did not respond to calls for comment. The latest charge expands the corruption case and provides new details as to what kind of information Jennings allegedly fed Turner and his girlfriend, who police said often acted as an intermediary. The documents say the information Jennings obtained provided Turner and others “with knowledge about police investigations and about their own status as defendants or suspects.” The tips helped them in evading apprehension and “facilitating further violent acts.” A police spokesman on Monday declined to comment on the case, citing the ongoing investigation. After Jennings was charged last year, Police Chief Peter Newsham called the allegations “disgraceful” and said they “do not represent the standard of ethics that our civilian employees are committed to upholding.” Jennings is charged in connection with the March 1, 2017 shooting death of Andrew McPhatter, who was fatally shot on Wheeler Road in Southeast, outside his son’s school. Authorities allege Turner was the gunman, and he is awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge. Police linked McPhatter, who they said had a gun in his waistband when he was shot, to Trenton Park, according to court records. He was one of six people shot on Wheeler Road in seven days; The Washington Post wrote


Motivation or abuse? Maryland confronts football’s fine line as new allegations emerge.

was vomiting in a trash can following a workout. Court was speaking at the time and grew upset that he was interrupted. Court pushed the player into a refrigerator, screamed at him and tossed the trash can across the room. He then forced the player to clean the mess, the players said. ●Injured players were sequestered from teammates in an gravelly area near the practice fields called “the Pit,” and Durkin referred to them as a “waste of life,” a phrase some players heard as degrading but another characterized as being said “in a joking way.” A person close to Durkin said the coach told investigators that he had never called any player “a waste of life” and that “the Pit” wasn’t designed to punish injured players but rather was set up to provide a safe area for individualized workouts that were customized based on the constraints of their injuries. ●During meals and in the training room, players were shown graphic videos featuring loud music, violent imagery and animals killing each other. The videos were intended to motivate the players. “There would be videos of animals eating other animals, pulling them apart,” one player said. “Video segments of, like, zombies just pulling out the intestines of other people.” “A predator attacking prey,” former wide receiver DeAndre Lane said. “Kind of just to get you in that mind-set: Attack, kill or be killed.” When asked to comment, Maryland Athletic Director Damon Evans said in a statement Saturday: “These allegations, if true, are unacceptable. We will not tolerate any behavior that is detrimental to the mental or physical well-being of our student-athletes. When the commission completes its charge, we will act decisively and take all actions necessary to ensure the safety of our student-athletes.” Evans also said he has recently changed the staffing structure, so the strength and conditioning coach now reports to the associate athletic director for sports performance, not the head coach. Robert L. Caret, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, told the board of regents at its Sept. 21 meeting that the commission’s review was “proceeding very quickly” and could be completed by the end of the month. That means a report could be submitted without some scathing allegations from one mother, whose sons have not been interviewed by investigators. A mother's anguish Kimberly Daniels, a pastor who also serves in Florida’s state legislature, said her twin sons,


New laws: Gun restrictions in Maryland, tax hikes in D.C.

The District’s exemption level was previously pegged to the federal level, which rose to about $11 million under the Republican tax bill approved by Congress last year. The tax on cigarettes will go up by $2, to $4.94, a 68 percent jump. The legal age for purchase of tobacco is also increasing, from 18 to 21, D.C. Council Secretary Nyasha Smith said. Maryland is trying to rein in the widespread use of e-cigarettes by teenagers by creating new penalties for retailers that sell to them, said Del. Sandy Rosenberg, a Baltimore Democrat who pushed for the law. Starting Monday, retailers face the same penalties for selling e-cigarettes and vaping devices to minors as they would face for selling traditional tobacco products. “The tobacco industry is looking for new customers . . . so we need to be vigilant in terms of shutting off that ave nue and making it less likely that minors will get hooked and addicted,” Rosenberg said. In May, after Maryland passed its law, the Food and Drug Administration announced a crackdown on sales of e-cigarettes and the popular Juul vaping products to minors. The cartridges come in fruit flavors and can be disguised in a device that looks like a USB drive, making teen use of them difficult for adults to detect. Also on Monday, Maryland joins a handful of states that prohibit licensed counselors from trying to change the sexual orientation of LGBTQ people. The ban on “conversion therapy” passed after a delegate came out as bisexual on the floor of the House of Delegates in an emotional speech that also criticized her father, a state senator who defended the practice as therapeutic. Other laws taking effect in Maryland will: ●expand the medical marijuana industry in an effort to include more black-owned firms, which were largely shut out of the initial growing and processing market. ●grant state employees the most generous parental leave benefit in the region, giving parents of newborns and newly adopted children as much as 18 weeks off with pay. ●prohibit drug distributors from placing a “gag rule” on pharmacists, which prevents them from telling customers the cheapest way to obtain a drug. ●broaden the prosecution of hate crimes to include actions that target a group in general, rather than a specific individual. The law comes after a surge of hate-based incidents at Maryland schools, including many in Montgomery County. erin.cox@washpost.com peter.jamison@washpost.com


Winners of Nobel Prize honored for their work with lasers

Three scientists from the United States, Canada and France won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for work with lasers described as bringing science fiction into reality. One of them, Arthur Ashkin of Bell Labs in New Jersey, became the oldest person to receive a Nobel. He’s 96. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Ashkin’s development of “optical tweezers” that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them realized “an old dream of science fiction — using the radiation pressure of light to move physical objects.” Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Ontariois the first woman to have won a Nobel in three years and is only the third to have won for physics. Frenchman Gérard Mourou of the École Polytechnique and University of Michigan shares half of the prize’s $1 million with Strickland; Ashkin gets the other half. Strickland’s award is the first to have gone to a woman in physics since 1963, when it was won by Maria Goeppert-Mayer; Marie Curie was the only other one, in 1903. Strickland and Mourou helped develop short and intense laser pulses that can be used medically, including laser eye surgery. “Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there. And hopefully, in time, it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe,” Strickland said in a phone call with the academy after the prize announcement. Michael Moloney, head of the American Institute of Physics, praised all the laureates and said, “It is also a personal delight to see Dr. Strickland break the 55-year hiatus since a woman has been awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, making this year’s award all the more historic.” On Monday, American James Allison and Japan’s Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel in medicine for groundbreaking work in fighting cancer with the body’s own immune system. The Nobel for chemistry comes Wednesday, followed by the peace prize Friday.


Post contributor and prominent Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi feared missing in Turkey

Our contributor Jamal Khashoggi entered the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on Tuesday afternoon. Many hours later, there is still no news from him. We don’t know if he is being detained, questioned or when he will be released. His fiancee accompanied him to the consulate where the couple went to complete routine paperwork, but she was not allowed to enter with Jamal. Upon entry he was reportedly forced to leave his cellphone behind, which is a common practice in many Middle Eastern bureaucratic offices. Over the past year, Saudi authorities — led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — have claimed to be undertaking a process of reform in the kingdom that will finally bring it into modernity, they say. Troubling developments from the community of activists inside the country, however, tell a vastly different story. Those pushing for change — whether they are women’s rights activists, journalists or ethnic minorities — report being systematically harassed by the authorities. With every supposed reform comes a wave of fresh arrests, prison sentences and increasingly repressive behavior. At each turning point, though, Jamal has offered readers of The Post insightful commentary and sharp criticism about the seemingly impenetrable country. He began writing for us last year and has since become one of the most consistent contributors to our Global Opinions section. In recent months, we’ve translated his pieces into Arabic to reach his massive audience on social media. “When I speak of the fear, intimidation, arrests and public shaming of intellectuals and religious leaders who dare to speak their minds, and then I tell you that I’m from Saudi Arabia, are you surprised?” Jamal wrote in his first piece for us. But despite his criticisms of his homeland, Jamal consistently expressed his love for it and his desire to return, always reiterating his belief that Saudi Arabia could and would do better. When the crown prince visited The Post’s editorial board in March, Jamal wasn’t present, but I was. MBS was working hard to sell us on his proposed reforms. Detaining a well-known journalist and commentator, in a foreign country and without cause, would be another reminder of the hypocrisy and emptiness of the promise to open Saudi society. Activists, Middle East experts and journalists have been swift to raise the alarm about Jamal’s possible detention: Read more: See all of Jamal Khashoggi’s opinion pieces for The Post Journalists’ Day


Transcript: Cybersecurity Summit 2018

economic sanctions on Russia haven’t really, as you’ve noted, moved—changed their behavior, and they’re much more willing to accept a level of pain, so what would you do? Flournoy: Yeah, I think for Putin, there are two key issues: one is getting at his own legitimacy, or perceptions of his legitimacy with his population, and we know that there’s ample evidence that is known in the intelligence community about Putin’s own corruption, and also a number of topics on which he clearly lies to his own people. So, the whole question of outing Putin on some of these issues, and then I think the other thing is he’s extremely reliant on the oligarchs around him for financial and political support. And again, creating some difficulties and pain for them, to get them to lobby him to tone it down, I think those are the kinds of levers we need to explore more fully, in addition to things like sanctions and diplomatic repercussions. Nakashima: What about you, Dmitri, on Russia? You’ve thought a lot about that. Alperovitch: Well, I do think that at some point, we should be thinking about if you can’t beat them at this game, can you join them? And should we be engaging in our own information operations? Do some of the things that Michele is talking about to make it clear that two can play this game. Let’s be clear, when you look at the capabilities of our cyber command, they are head and shoulders above everyone else, including Russia, so can we unleash some of those capabilities of cyber command, NSA, and other intelligence agencies to actually do more in this space, and actually have effects beyond just sort of the kinetic focus that they traditionally try to think about, of can we disable this node or take down this? Let’s integrate our defense system, but can you actually do information operations— Nakashima: What do you mean by that? Deception? Disinformation? Alperovitch: All of the above, potentially. We should be thinking about how to use all toolkits of our power, including cyber, to achieve our effects. Flournoy: I would add a slight footnote. I actually think what is most terrifying for Vladimir Putin is truth, is accurate information, and rather than thinking up a lot of deception measures, which has, I think, issues in terms of how our system works and our values and so


Transcript: Cybersecurity Summit 2018

engine for investigation. We share that output. We share that output with our peers that have signed—that have joined our intelligence security association, but it’s those type of security, industry sharing amongst the private sector that I don’t see as sophisticated as I would like as we see with the private-public sector sharing. Zakrzewski: Interesting. And so, what is holding the private sector back from having better sharing practices? Johnson: It’s interesting. I’d like to—I’m going to take the higher road and say it’s not because it’s competition. I’m going to assume that that’s a baseline. I think it’s a lack of mechanisms. It’s a lack of consistency of how we look at information, so there are no standards necessarily, when you see threats signaling. What does it mean? There’s no easy way to pass that. There’s not a mechanism to do it. Until we had the cloud, we couldn’t even see things on a huge global scale at near-real time like we can today. It’s one of the benefits of the cloud in security, is that I can actually see something in Beijing before it ever hits the United States, potentially. I think all of those things are in place. I will tell you that the Financial Services ISAC is the gold standard for information sharing, from my point of view, and I think that that is a model that all the other ISACs are adopting. As I see the maturity of the health ISAC and the manufacturing and regulated industries, I see those maturing, but I think that then the technology companies also—there have been a lot of starts and stops with the technology companies on mechanism for sharing, and I think a lot of it comes down to the mechanism to begin with. When it becomes hard, it goes in that hard to do task, and you don’t do it. We have to make it easier. Zakrzewski: So, could you tell us a little bit more specifically about what your conversations look like today with a company like Facebook or Twitter or Google, when it comes to these practices? Johnson: Absolutely. So, we’re having conversations with them on twofold. One of the conversations we had was with our tech accord, where we said we won’t help any nation-state hack civilians, basically. I’ll put that in the highest level. There’s a lot more detail to that, but that’s


New report details extent of how student loan debt weighs on prospective home buyers

While prospective home buyers are told to reduce their debt and improve their credit to prepare for buying property, the burden of student loan debt remains an obstacle that keeps many people renting for longer than they might like. The burden is greater in areas with high housing costs, because the loan payments add to already-strained budgets. Nearly 60 percent of Americans who have student loans say the debt is at least somewhat of an obstacle to buying a home, according to the sixth annual NeighborWorks America at Home survey. Nationally, total student loan debt is more than $1.5 trillion, representing 42 percent of all consumer debt. Student loan debt has increased 130 percent since 2008 and has the greatest impact on millennials and women. NeighborWorks’ research found that women are disproportionately impacted by student loan debt and carry two-thirds of the national student loan debt, or almost $900 billion. The NeighborWorks survey found that 29 percent of women have student loan debt, compared with 23 percent of men. In addition, women of color carry more student loan debt than other groups, at 48 percent, compared with 22 percent of white women and 15 percent of white men. Fifty percent of women with student loan debt say they worry about debt all or most of the time. Thirty-eight percent of women said they know someone who has delayed buying a home because of student loan debt. A housing counselor can provide information about down payment assistance programs and work with people to develop a budget to pay down loans and prepare to buy a house. Nonprofit credit counselors also provide advice for student loan repayment options. The NeighborWorks survey found that 46 percent of millennials are not aware that local nonprofits offer free or low-cost student loan debt counseling.


Trump’s ambassador to NATO sets off diplomatic incident with a nuclear edge

concerns. Zakharova said that Russian military experts were preparing a more technical response to Hutchison. During the final years of the Obama administration, the State Department regularly stated that Russia was violating the treaty but stopped short of specifying which Russian weapon was going against the pact. Last year, Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Russia had violated the treaty’s “spirit and intent” by deploying a ground-based cruise missile. Russia has accused the United States of violating the treaty with its Aegis Ashore missile defense installations in Romania and a similar installation still in the works in Poland, claiming that those platforms could launch Tomahawk cruise missiles in violation of the treaty. The United States has denied those accusations, saying the system launches only SM-3 interceptor missiles not covered by the pact. Efforts by U.S. diplomats to bring Russia back into compliance with the treaty, including meetings between American and Russian officials as part of the pact’s enforcement mechanism, have so far come up short. Under direction from Congress and to ratchet up pressure, the Pentagon has begun drawing up plans for a banned missile that the United States could deploy quickly if the treaty formally falls apart. The treaty bans only production, testing and use of intermediate-range missiles; research and development isn’t prohibited. The dispute over the INF Treaty has also prompted the U.S. military to consider stepping up defenses against cruise missile threats from Russia in Europe. The Pentagon had drawn up a draft of the Trump administration’s new missile defense policy early this year, but top officials sent it back to the drawing board after demanding that it more thoroughly address the Russian cruise missile threat in Europe. One possible step would be to stand up a better sensor network that could track any Russian cruise missiles from the moment of their launch at a European target. The Pentagon is also looking at technologies that could be put in place to shoot down missiles heading toward specific targets — an effort Hutchison might have been referencing in her remarks. “This treaty is in danger because of Russia’s actions,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. “All allies agree that the most plausible assessment would be that Russia is in violation of the treaty. It is therefore urgent that Russia addresses these concerns in a substantial and transparent manner.” michael.birnbaum@washpost.com


Boris Johnson trashes Theresa May’s Brexit plan as a sad, ‘politically humiliating’ cheat at party confab

wrote that Johnson “humiliated” May at her own party — “and Tory members cheered every word.” Conservatives have long suspected that what Johnson wants most of all is to become prime minister some day, but they are doubtful he will mount a challenge right now. “The voters would punish us for staging a leadership fight in the middle of Brexit,” said Tom Lees, an engineer and Conservative party member attending the conference. The flamboyant Johnson was the face of the Brexit campaign in the summer of 2016, when citizens voted 48 to 52 percent to split from the E.U. Back then, Johnson and his allies promised Brits that leaving the world’s biggest free-trade zone would be easy, allowing London to “take back control” from faceless bureaucrats in Brussels, while slashing the number of immigrants and providing a windfall of cash to save Britain’s financially strapped universal health-care service. But Brexit has been nothing if not chaotic and costly — as the pound sterling has been hammered and economists say uncertainty over future relations with Europe has slowed growth. Hardcore Brexiteers like Johnson hate May’s plan. They deride it as “Brexit in name only,” a capitulation to wily continentals. They want a clean, complete break from the Europe’s rule-making, so a “global Britain” could flex its new regulatory freedoms to strike trade deals on its own. Johnson resigned in July as the foreign secretary after May persuaded her fractured cabinet — including Johnson — to approve her “Chequers plan,” named after her official countryside estate. May’s plan seeks to protect as much as possible frictionless, tariff-free trade of goods with the bloc by agreeing to follow a “common rule book” with E.U. regulations for safety and standards for goods, while Britain goes its own way on financial services. May has struggled to come up with a plan that avoids a hard border — for passport control, customs duties and inspections — between Northern Ireland, which remains a part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland, which remains in the E.U. To add to May’s challenges, the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland — which is propping up the Conservative’s minority government — warned they would crash the ruling coalition if May agreed to erect a border in the Irish Sea. May’s 100-page Chequers plan is not only unpopular at home and among her own party members, but also in Brussels.


DNA evidence links Muhammad Ali to heroic slave, family says

When Cassius Clay joined the Nation of Islam in 1964 and changed his name to Muhammad Ali he had a straightforward explanation. “Why should I keep my white slavemaster’s name visible and my black ancestors invisible, unknown, unhonored?” Ali asked. Then, it was more of an abstract concept, a statement against white oppression; Ali did not know much, if anything, about his ancestors or his own family tree. Decades later, though, Ali’s family has made a discovery that appears to shed new light on the boxer’s lineage — where he came from, and also his place American history. Ali, according to his family’s research, is the great-great-great grandson of Archer Alexander, a slave who heroically fought both for his own freedom and against slavery. Alexander escaped from bondage and surreptitiously fed information to the Union Army during the Civil War. He was later the model for the slave depicted in the Emancipation Memorial, a statue in Lincoln Park, about a mile east of the U.S. Capitol. “The beautiful thing about Ali is that he acted all along as if he were royalty, that he had a claim to greatness,” said Jonathan Eig, the author of “Ali: A Life.” “Ali spent much of his life attacking racist ideas," Eig said. "If he had known that his great-great-great grandfather was such a brave and intelligent man, it surely would have strengthened his argument.” After being alerted to the family’s discovery in recent weeks, Eig investigated the claim and then included it in the paperback edition of the biography, which comes out this week. “To the best of my ability to confirm this, it checks out,” he said. Ali’s daughter, Maryum, said that her father would have been proud to call Alexander family. “He would have loved knowing he was connected to someone like that,” she said. “He was ahead of people in understanding that there was a connection that went back through slavery to the kings and queens in Africa.” The discovery was made by Ali’s third cousin, Keith Winstead, who is retired from a career in computer manufacturing and is something of an amateur genealogist. Winstead discovered the connection between Ali and Alexander while conducting research on the website 23andMe. The finding is supported by DNA evidence, which, according to Maryum Ali, was collected when Ali and his wife, Lonnie, participated in a study with 23andMe to raise awareness for Parkinson’s


The Cybersecurity 202: Facebook disclosed a major hack very quickly. But the alert was short on details.

of intellectual property can inflict long-term damage on American companies PATCHED: The Energy Department on Monday announced awards of up to $28 million to help fund 11 cybersecurity research projects to strengthen the defenses of America's critical energy infrastructure Just last week, Karen Evans, the assistant secretary for the department's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, said “energy cybersecurity and resilience” is one of the “most important security challenges” that the United States faces. PWNED: A hacker group tied to Saudi Arabia used the Pegasus spyware from Israeli cyber-surveillance company NSO Group to break into the iPhone of a Saudi dissident living in Canada “After examining his text messages, we identified a text message that masqueraded as a package tracking link,” the report said. “This message contained a link to a known Pegasus exploit domain.” The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Matthew Braga reported — The Senate Commerce Committee should hear from consumer privacy experts as lawmakers consider whether to develop data privacy legislation, a coalition of consumer and privacy groups said Monday. The Center for Digital Democracy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the National Association of Consumer Advocates and other groups signed the letter. They lamented that a recent hearing convened by the Commerce Committee included only industry representatives and “was unnecessarily biased” as a result. “We understand that you are planning to hold a second hearing in early October,” the letter said. “In keeping with the structure of the first hearing, we ask that you invite six consumer privacy experts to testify before the Committee.” The groups also suggested that the committee solicit input from other experts as well as state attorneys general. — “It’s no secret the federal tech workforce is getting older, but some agencies are having a lot more difficulty recruiting young IT professionals than others — More cybersecurity news from the public sector: — “Travelers who refuse to surrender passwords, codes, encryption keys and other information enabling access to electronic devices could be fined up to $5,000 in New Zealand, according to new customs rules that went into effect Monday,” — “The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority issued a £16.4 million ($21.4 million) penalty to Tesco Bank for failing to protect clients from a cyberattack in November 2016,” Today Coming soon U.S. Army medic receives Medal of Honor for Afghanistan heroism: Brett Kavanaugh and alcohol: two dueling narratives: Las Vegas shooting victims remembered one year later:


‘Sammies’ honor government’s best and most innovative employees

the Year, will be presented to Daniel L. Kastner, scientific director of the intramural research division of the National Institutes of Health’s Human Genome Research Institute. Kastner discovered the genetic underpinnings of a family of debilitating “autoinflammatory” diseases using very early maps of the human genome more than 20 years ago. “What we’ve discovered is a family of diseases that are inherited disorders of inflammation,” Kastner said in an interview. Therapies based on this research have been used to treat strokes, fevers, arthritis and pain caused by these disorders. The Career Achievement Medal will be given to Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, who developed surveillance systems for the CDC that revealed the prevalence of autism, developmental disabilities and other conditions. In 1968, Yeargin-Allsopp became the first African American woman admitted to Emory University’s medical school. “I feel that I’ve done the best I can do with the gifts and talents that I’ve been given,” she said. “That’s what we all should do.” Other winners include: ● ● Karen D. Dodge of the Federal Trade Commission and Margaret Moeser of the Justice Department, who won the Homeland Security and Law Enforcement Medal. They led civil and criminal investigations that forced Western Union to admit it allowed con artists to use its service to collect payments related to scams. The company forfeited $586 million to reimburse victims. ● Andrew M. Herscowitz and the Power Africa Team of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who will receive the National Security and International Affairs Medal. They brought together the private sector, financial institutions, 12 federal agencies and foreign governments to provide electricity to more than 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. ● Marcella Jacobs and the Digital Service team of the Department of Veterans Affairs, who will be given the Management Excellence Medal for streamlining online processes for veterans to simplify applying for and receiving benefits. ● Parimal Kopardekar and a team at NASA’s Ames Research Center, who designed a traffic management system for drones, including rules and technologies that will allow commercial drones to safely deliver packages, monitor traffic and aid search-and-rescue operations. An eighth award, the fourth annual Service to America Medals People’s Choice Award, chosen by the public, was given in July to Alison Smith of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Smith pioneered the use of nanomaterials to mark sensitive military equipment with a “fingerprint” to guard against the use of counterfeit products. leonard.bernstein@washpost.com


Indicted congressman falsely ties opponent to terrorism

his last name, just as “Ammar” remains his given name. The timing of these changes, well before this campaign began, for us dispel the notion that Campa-Najjar is trying to hide his family’s past from voters. ‘His grandfather masterminded the Munich Olympic massacre’ Campa-Najjar’s grandfather was Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, or Abu Yusuf, a senior member of Black September described by Haaretz as “one of the architects of the Munich massacre.” Israeli commandos later killed Yusuf and his wife, among others, in retaliation for the Munich attacks. Campa-Najjar said in an interview that he never knew his grandfather, who died 16 years before Campa-Najjar was born. He condemned the Munich attacks. “I denounce those actions,” he said. A different member of Black September, Mohammed Oudeh, claimed responsibility for the Munich attacks in a 1999 book. The New York Times in a 2010 obituary described Oudeh as “the mastermind of the deadly attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.” This claim in Hunter’s ad is problematic in two ways. Campa-Najjar never knew Yusuf, and although Yusuf is widely reported to have been a key planner behind the Munich attacks, Oudeh appears to be the one who “masterminded” the plot. ‘His father said they deserved to die’ Hunter’s ad attributes this claim to a Sept. 11 broadcast on the right-wing One America News Network. The newscaster says, “Far from condemning the attacks, Najjar’s own father praised the deaths of the Israelis, saying they deserved to die.” But there’s no attribution for this purported statement by Campa-Najjar’s father in the segment. Yasser Najjar is a former Palestinian Authority official. After his parents' death, he and his siblings were adopted by the king of Morocco, sent to live in Egypt, and Yasser Najjar later moved to San Diego before returning to the Middle East. According to a 1996 Washington Post report, he kept a photograph of his father, Yusuf, on his desk. In 2003, NPR described Najjar as “a passionate advocate of peace" after years of hating Israel. “I can hate the Israelis or Ehud Barak forever, you know, and I’m entitled to," he told NPR. Barak led the Beirut operation that killed Yusuf and his wife, according to a 2002 article in the Chicago Tribune. “He took everything from me: my mother and my father,” Najjar told NPR. "But at the end, for my children to live, I have to put my


Amtrak makes financial gains but safety issues persist

bookings for long-distance trips plummeted. Between the two incidents, Amtrak named a former airline executive as its chief safety officer. “As recommended in the report, we have made significant steps to become America’s safest passenger railroad,” Amtrak said in a response to the inspector general’s report. Primary among those steps is implementation of what is known as positive train control (PTC), a system designed to remove human error from train movement, preventing crashes. Preliminary reports suggest that PTC could have prevented both crashes last winter, as well as crashes on freight and passenger railroads that the NTSB says have killed 141 and injured 2,426 since 1988. The challenge for Amtrak is that in regions other than the Northeast Corridor — from Washington to New England — and about 230 miles in Michigan, most of the track on which it operates is owned by other railroads. Some of the host railroads have made more progress in implementing a congressional mandate that they install PTC, while others have not. Amtrak “is dependent on those railroads to install their own PTC systems and then synchronize them with Amtrak’s onboard systems,” the report said. “The company predicts that 13 [of 19] of these host railroads will not be able to fully synchronize their systems or operate their PTC by the end of 2018.” Congress initially required railroads to install PTC by the end of 2015. But as the deadline approached, the industry argued successfully that the technology was too complicated and not fully developed. Railroads argued that the nearly $15 billion required to educate rail workers and install onboard computers in engines and communication towers along more than 40 percent of the nation’s 134,000 miles of freight and commuter lines was prohibitive. Congress extended the deadline until the end of this year but allowed an extension to 2020 for qualified railroads. The inspector general’s report also said Amtrak’s long-distance train routes will continue to be a drag on the bottom line. “While the company has made significant progress in reducing its operating loss, it will face difficulties in eliminating the loss without addressing the historically high costs incurred on its long-distance routes,” the inspector general’s report said. Those losses have averaged $517 million over the past five years, the report says, “enough to significantly offset the company’s net earnings from other routes.” A key element in the decision to fly or to take the


U.S., Canada and Mexico just reached a sweeping new NAFTA deal. Here’s what’s in it.

making the vehicles in Asia. Trump’s victory: Canada opens up its milk market to U.S. farmers. In the end, Canada is keeping most of its complex system in place, but it is giving greater market share to U.S. dairy farmers. U.S. negotiators say they got a major victory by forcing Canada to eliminate the pricing scheme for what are known as Class 7 dairy products. That means U.S. dairy farmers can probably send a lot more milk protein concentrate, skim milk powder and infant formula to Canada (and those products are relatively easy to transport and store). Canada’s victory: Chapter 19, allowing for a special dispute process, stays intact. Chapter 19 allows Canada, Mexico and the United States to challenge one another’s anti-dumping and countervailing duties in front of a panel of representatives from each country. This is generally a much easier process than trying to challenge a trade practice in a U.S. court. Over the years, Canada has successfully used Chapter 19 to challenge the United States on its softwood lumber restrictions. Mexico and Canada get assurance Trump won’t pound them with auto tariffs. The side letters say Canada and Mexico can continue sending about the same vehicles and parts across the border free of charge, regardless of whether auto tariffs go into effect down the road. Only parts above that quota could face tariffs. Trump’s steel tariffs stay in place (for now). Improved labor and environmental rights. Increased intellectual property protections. Big drug companies gain more footing in Canada. Deal must be reviewed after 6 years. Chapter 11, giving investors a special way to fight government decisions, is (mostly) gone. Critics argue that Chapter 11 was mainly used as a way for big corporations to get taxpayer money, but businesses say it was necessary to ensure they weren’t harmed by sudden changes when new governments came into power in Mexico, Canada or the United States. In the end, Chapter 11 is mostly gone, except for a few key industries, such as oil, that lobbied hard to be able to challenge the Mexican government if it changes the rules and tries to nationalize its energy sector again. Related: Under Trump, the jobs boom has finally reached blue-collar workers. Will it last? Canada agrees to join trade accord with U.S. and Mexico, sending new NAFTA deal to Congress U.S. and China clobber each other with biggest sets of tariffs yet


Volunteers at Reagan Airport worry about looming Metro disruptions

going on their own exotic trips, but Weisberger, a retired high school principal, has always loved the activity and romance of airports. So she’s been volunteering at the travelers aid desk once a week for the past 19 years. In a couple of months, though, it will be Weisberger who’ll face challenges getting around as Metro shuts down the Reagan National Airport and Crystal City stations to replace switches and interlockings on all four tracks. Though the Nov. 9-12 shutdown isn’t as big as this summer’s 45-day closure of two Red Line stations or the 16 days of single-tracking on the Orange and Silver lines, the closure will affect thousands of travelers going to and from faraway lands and the workers who help them get there — or just to the nearest bathroom. Millie Kilpatrick was waiting for a train on a bench at the airport station with knees sore from standing for most of the past eight hours behind a United Airlines ticket counter. She wondered how much more she’ll have to walk to take the free shuttles Metro is promising between the Braddock Road and Pentagon station during the shutdown. Weisgerber, meanwhile, just hoped the shuttles will come often, a detail Metro hasn’t yet revealed. Weisgerber was actually the newbie among the retirees behind the travelers aid desk on a recent Monday. Eighty-year-old Jim Flanigan and his 81-year-old wife of 40 years, Pat, had Weisgerber beat by a year. They’ve been spending the Mondays of their retirement together at the airport since Jim retired as a newspaper reporter and Pat as a public health nurse. The travelers aid desk follows the rhythm of the arriving planes. Before the arrival of a Jet Blue flight from Boston sent the carousel in motion and a line of travelers asking how to get to car rentals, hotel shuttles and Metro, there was a lull to talk about the coming shut down. Pat Flanigan said she and her husband usually take Metro from L’Enfant Plaza to the airport, but they’ll probably Uber to the airport during the closure. “We’ll have to pay more to volunteer,” she griped. Got a question or a story to share? Contact DC Rider at Read more DC Rider: New D.C. interns face challenges adjusting to Metro DC Rider’s Answer Line: Why do some Metro stations look brighter? DC Rider’s Answer Line: Why aren’t all Metro escalators covered?


Baltimore approves study of toxic chemicals in river to help scientists figure out how to get rid of them

BALTIMORE — Traces of toxic chemicals have persisted in waterways and animals for decades since the U.S. government banned their use. And they continue to flow into waterways such as the Back River in Baltimore County. A study there could soon help explain why that is happening — and maybe provide insights into how to get rid of them. Industrial chemicals known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, were long used in electrical and hydraulic equipment and plastics. They were outlawed in 1979 but continue to be found throughout the environment, including in humans. As Baltimore City, Baltimore County and other jurisdictions around the state struggle with how to tackle the toxic pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and University of Maryland at Baltimore County are focusing on the Back River to better understand the contamination. They plan to collect and analyze samples of PCBs that are embedded in muddy creek bottoms, flowing out of wastewater treatment plants and floating around in the water — and into fish gills. Baltimore’s Board of Estimates approved city funding for the research Wednesday. PCB pollution is often thought of as a contaminant found only in soils and sediments, a remnant of old factories and dirty industry. But the research aims to address a different reality regarding PCBs, said Upal Ghosh, a professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering at UMBC. “What we are finding for our area, especially, and many other urban areas, is there are ongoing sources still,” he said. “We’re starting to figure out what these sources are.” PCBs are known to cause cancer and impair reproductive and immune systems in animals, building up the most in those at the top of the food chain. Research published last week found the chemicals are threatening the future survival of killer whales. Enough of the contamination has been found in fish tissue or sediments in many Chesapeake waterways and their tributaries — including the Potomac, Severn, South, Rhode, Elk and Sassafras rivers, along with the Back — that they are classified as PCB-impaired by the Environmental Protection Agency. Much like the state’s responsibilities to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution across the Chesapeake, the EPA requires jurisdictions that contain those impaired waterways to address the pollution. But given relatively poor understanding of the types and sources of PCBs, there is little those governments can do for now, said Emily Majcher,


Arresting journalists only makes democracy more fragile

sponsored by the Committee to Protect Journalists on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. She and other experts pointed out that journalists are confronting the same problems in countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh, Hungary and the Philippines. These regimes routinely hide behind claims that cases brought against journalists are matters of national security being carried out by independent judiciaries. But this is becoming a tired refrain from tyrants as well as leaders previously thought to be promoters of democracy who, unfortunately, have learned they can get away with it. President Trump’s tirade about sovereignty in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly last week only emboldens the perpetrators of this behavior by sending the message that the United States doesn’t care. In the case of Myanmar, its de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has become a shameless abuser of power, divorcing herself from involvement in the case even while continuing to suggest that the two journalists deserve their punishment. “If anyone feels that there has been a miscarriage of justice, I would like them to point it out,” Aung San Suu Kyi said recently. “They were not jailed because they were journalists.” The Nobel committee has said it would not rescind the Peace Prize awarded to her in 1991, which she won for her heroic struggle against her country’s military dictatorship. But Canada’s House of Commons last week voted to revoke honorary citizenship that it granted her in 2007, citing her “persistent refusal to denounce the Rohingya genocide.” Reuters’ reporting on the massacre in Rakhine state, and the mass grave it exposed, has been essential in raising international attention to the plight of the Rohingya. The arrests of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have only increased that awareness. “People have trouble dealing with tragedy in the abstract, but when you have specifics it helps,” Stephen Adler, Reuters editor in chief, told me. “So if we can talk about reporters who are out there and the efforts they make, and also emphasize how fairly and accurately they’re trying to get the story, I think that helps.” Aung San Suu Kyi might feel as though she is being treated unfairly by the West after years of unqualified support. But this is a function of the transparent nature of today’s world, aided by technology, that is making it ever harder for leaders to run from the truth. Time


Transcript: Inside The Washington Post’s new book, ‘The Apprentice’

are two very different things. Nakashima: There have been sanctions on Russia, and for instance, the sanctions on a number of companies and Russian companies and oligarchs were maybe among the most impactful—at one point even causing one Russian company, aluminum company linked to the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, to have its shares price plummet. So much so that I think the Treasury Department is maybe easing off on it a bit. But generally speaking, these sanctions are a little more symbolic, as opposed to having true pain or cost impacts on Russia. Because Russia, even more so than I think China, is able to withstand great amounts of pain in its country and economy. And Putin is sort of, you know, just going to gut it out. And he doesn’t think that these sanctions are really going to, at this point, crater his economy. And until there are more forceful sanctions that will in fact maybe cause some pain to us and our allies, I don’t know that anything will change Putin’s behavior. Casey: Greg, questions you’re asking? Miller: Can I take a stab at that? Casey: Yeah, sure. Miller: So, I think about some questions that I’m not sure we can answer, and that are about, you know, where does this moment in our—this political moment lead for us. This sort of extraordinarily polarized moment in our political history. Where does this take us as a country? Is this a sort of spasm that we snap back from and we somehow recover what we used to think of as an equilibrium? Or are we into a new era, some sort of new era of dysfunction, hyper-partisan dysfunction, that we’re going to have to figure out a way to adapt to, going forward? I mean, and also just sort of how much every institution, almost, in Washington now, every agency is under just an enormous stress test, right, in this Trump administration. The Justice Department perhaps most of all. How do they respond? How much damage can they sustain before it becomes too much? How much can they be discredited? How much can they be vilified by the president before the reputational damage becomes too much burden to carry for them to be able to function the way we need them to function in our democracy? And then I just think there are these societal divisions that I wonder how


The forgotten organization behind one of the most iconic moments in sports history

within individual teams, often spontaneously, rather than carefully plotted collective actions. One reason: There is a barrier to this sort of action. After watching Kaepernick get blacklisted, many athletes fear losing multimillion-dollar contracts and sacrificing their ability to play games they love. Amateur OPHR athletes who took a stand lost everything, but everything for them was far less to lose. Indeed, Kaepernick’s shiny new contract, even though it comes after the NFL seemingly ended his career, shows companies want to work with social justice warriors, even if sports teams don’t. In 2018, athletes have both the cash flow and the celebrity status to ensure their voices are heard, no matter how loud — or presidential — the voices of opposition. But to do so, they must regain touch with the legacy of collective action. The insular focus to be the best in the world at what they do, not to mention endorsement contracts, agents and other forces, pushes athletes to prioritize the individual — the brand — over the group. Even when they think in group terms, they often think of their teams (or sponsors) and goal of winning. Collective action that transcends tribal affiliation can be divisive. But such collective action can overcome the risk to athletes’ careers that activism poses. While Kaepernick saw his career derailed because of his activism, when more NFL players protested last year, most avoided consequences. Since then, the NFL announced, and — after player and public outcry — suspended, a policy to penalize teams and fine protesting players. And now even Kaepernick’s former teammate Eric Reid, who also filed a collusion case against the NFL after losing his job despite being among the league’s best defensive backs, has been signed. Today’s athletes must also avoid a major mistake made by OPHR: To be successful in 2018, an activist athlete organization must include women as equal participants. OPHR never asked the Tennessee State Tigerbelles — basically, the women’s Olympic sprints and jumps corps, including two-time 100-meter gold medalist Wyomia Tyus — to join the movement. At most, female athletes fielded requests to cheerlead and vocalize support for the men, never invitations to join as collaborators. In 2018, that cannot and should not fly. A successful activist athlete organization must include all voices. Choosing activism is risky. But some athletes will find the risk worth the reward — and, in the process, become icons themselves.


Honda and GM partner for ‘ultimate engineering challenge’ — a new autonomous vehicle

future have giant TV screens, a mini bar, and lay-flat seats?” Vogt statement said. “Maybe it should. We’ve been quietly prototyping a groundbreaking new vehicle over the past two years that is fully released from the constraints of having a driver behind the wheel.” “Building a new vehicle that has an incredible user experience, optimal operational parameters, and efficient use of space is the ultimate engineering challenge,” the statement added. The funding arrives nearly 10 months after GM unveiled the Cruise AV — a fourth-generation autonomous vehicle based on a Chevy Bolt EV that lacks a steering wheel, pedals and manual controls that have come to define the experience of riding inside an automobile for more than a century. “Autonomous vehicles are not simply a Silicon Valley-based dream,” Zo Rahim, research manager at the automotive media company Cox Automotive told CNN Money after Wednesday’s announcement. “Current auto manufacturers are primed to dictate the direction and growth of the future of mass mobility.” GM is already testing second- and third-generation self-driving Cruise AVs on busy streets in San Francisco and Phoenix with a human engineer in the vehicle. The vehicle relies on cameras, radar and high-precision laser sensors known as lidar for navigation. The fourth generation of that vehicle will be used in a ride-sharing program in multiple American cities, where “the vehicles will travel on a fixed route controlled by their mapping system,” Bloomberg reported. The partnership with Cruise is not the first time Honda and GM have teamed up. The automakers recently began collaborating on electric car battery technology as part of a multiyear agreement, according to GM. In the company’s news release, Mary Barra, GM’s chairman and chief executive, called the latest partnership with Honda a “logical step,” given their joint work on electric vehicles. “Together, we can provide Cruise with the world’s best design, engineering and manufacturing expertise, and global reach to establish them as the leader in autonomous vehicle technology — while they move to deploy self-driving vehicles at scale.” In his statement on Medium, Vogt said the vehicle produced with Honda is “what comes next.” A teaser image produced alongside the blog post appears to show a futuristic-looking, black and silver vehicle that vaguely resembles the front of a bullet train. “We’re going to do this right, and by joining forces with Honda we’ve found the perfect partner to help make it happen,” Vogt added.


Fireball seen over Washington late Monday night

A meteor streaked across the skies of the Washington region on Monday night, witnessed by a relative few, but described as impressive by those fortunate enough to see it. As of late Tuesday, the American Meteor Society said it had received 15 reports “about a fireball” seen over Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania about 11:30 p.m. on Monday. Slashing silently across the skies, most frequently seen at night, meteors seem to disrupt the normal overhead order of things, and in their speed and brilliance, often arouse sensations of awe and a sense of the mysterious. A report from Oakland, Md, called it “bright white like staring at the sun.” It then seemed to turn orange, the report said. “This was so cool,” said a report from Purcellville, Va. Another report to the meteor society came from Dale City, Va. It came from someone who had watched many videos of meteors and meteor showers. “There are not many I’ve seen this bright and large,” said the brief report. Not all those who spot the fireball report it to the meteor society. One witness, who reported his observations on Twitter, asked: . Anybody else see that meteorite just now fall & burn out (looking west from #DC)?!” According to the witness’s Tweet, “ From Logan Cir it looked like it was right over Georgetown! It was nuts. “ Martin.Weil@washpost.com


The wolf spider is autumn’s most frightening home intruder

eyes, eight hairy legs and two sharp fangs that inject a mild venom — nonlethal to humans, although the bite may cause swelling or a slight fever, comparable to a wasp sting. Wolf spiders are the only spiders known to carry their spiderlings. A mother spider can have more than 100 babies clinging to her abdomen. If the mother is disturbed, however, the babies often flee in all directions. The best way to keep wolf spiders out of your home is to caulk cracks and holes in the foundation and outer walls, and to add weather stripping to doors and windows. Spraying insecticides around the outside of a house can create a barrier for spiders, but chemical barriers are less effective than physical barriers because they wash away if they aren’t applied frequently. Mixing a few drops of pure peppermint oil, which can repel spiders, with water and spraying the mixture indoors (kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and other areas you’d prefer to be spider-free) could also be effective. A citrus oil mixture might also work if you’re not a fan of peppermint. Like many of us in the Washington area, I have a horror story involving the wolf spider. I was weed-whacking in late September along the front of my house when I spotted what I would classify as a giant specimen on the brick at grass level. Before I knew it, the weed whacker hit the spider, which instantaneously exploded. Wolf spider bits sprayed everywhere, including into my face. A big, sloppy hunk of spider hit me square in the eye, and no amount of swiping with my fingers or shirt could remove it. Gooey, liquid spider spread across my eyeball. I flushed my eye with water, never feeling like I got it all out. I will always wear eye protection when weed-whacking in the future. Ultimately, my eye was fine, but I haven’t received my super-spidey powers yet. I polled my friends on Facebook to find out how many have encountered this oversized spider. I quickly learned that many of them have interesting and creepy wolf spider stories. Here are a few of the stories I received, lightly edited: I woke up in the night and discovered a giant wolf spider was on my neck. I grabbed it with my hand and threw it across the room. It was a gut reaction. The spider was so heavy I heard


The Pentagon is letting down women who serve

military, and that the "standards are the standards, and when people meet the standards, then that is the end of the discussion on that." Mattis acknowledged at VMI that "our natural inclination" is to "have this open to all," but he added "we cannot do something that militarily doesn't make sense." More data is needed, he said: "There are a few stalwart young ladies who are charging into this, but they are too few." The number of women working their way into combat positions is indeed small, but they continue to increase even as women face obstacles to entering them. These include a "leaders first" policy, flowing from "guiding principles" issued by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey in 2013 when the full-integration policy was announced. "Leaders first" means that Army women can serve in combat units only if two female officers have been assigned at the battalion level. The intention was good, but the effect was detrimental to female soldiers' advancement. The entire gender integration plan was designed by the military to carefully and methodically "grow" women into positions rather than speed integration at all levels — it was expected to take 20 or more years to complete. Juliette Kayyem, a CNN national security analyst and former Department of Homeland Security official in the Obama administration, noted in an opinion piece for the Boston Globe in August that there are 80 women in the Marine Corps who hold "previously combat-excluded roles. The Army has fared better, with 740 women now in jobs they once were not allowed to hold. It is a slow process." Someone at the Pentagon should remind Mattis that 2018 is the "Year of the Woman" and that a record number of female veterans are running for Congress. Among them is M.J. Hegar, a Democratic congressional candidate in Texas. As an Air National Guard helicopter pilot, Hegar was shot down in Afghanistan in 2009 and returned enemy fire, defending her crew and patients; she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor for her heroism. Hegar was also among a group of female veterans who pressed the Defense Department to lift the combat exclusion rule in 2013 and introduce the full gender integration policy. Given Mattis's recent comments, the fight continues. For women willing to die in the defense of their country, this is one battle that needs to end for good.


Friends fear for safety of prominent Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi

LONDON — Friends and relatives of Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran journalist from Saudi Arabia who has recently become a vocal critic of the kingdom’s leadership, said they were worried about his safety on Tuesday after losing contact with him while he was visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi entered the consulate around 1 p.m., according to his fiancee, who said she accompanied him but waited outside. The fiancee, who asked that her name be withheld, called police when Khashoggi did not emerge at 5 p.m., after the consulate had officially closed. By midnight, there was still no sign of him, according to Turan Kislakci, a friend of Khashoggi’s who stood outside the consulate. “We have talked with some Turkish authorities and the police,” he said. “I think 100 percent that he is inside.” Spokesmen for the Turkish and Saudi foreign ministries did not respond to messages seeking comment on Khashoggi’s possible whereabouts. Khashoggi, a prominent commentator on Saudi affairs who writes for The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section, has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since last year, when he left Saudi Arabia over concerns that he would be arrested or prevented from traveling. “We have been unable to reach Jamal today and are very concerned about where he may be,” The Post’s international opinions editor, Eli Lopez, said in a statement. “We are monitoring the situation closely, trying to gather more information. It would be unfair and outrageous if he has been detained for his work as a journalist and commentator. Jamal is a great writer and insightful political observer, deeply committed to the open exchange of ideas; we are honored to have his point of view be part of our Global Opinions. We hope that he is safe and that we can hear from him soon.” Khashoggi, who was trying to obtain documents related to a marriage license, had initially visited the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Friday, his friends said. He went to the consulate and left without incident that day, they added. After traveling to London over the weekend, he returned to Istanbul on Monday and called the consulate Tuesday morning. He was told to visit at 1 p.m., his friends said. Over the past year, Khashoggi has written extensively about the growing influence of Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince, and been critical of some of Mohammed’s policies, including a


These deaths violate international humanitarian law

The Sept. 26 news article “Afghan civilian casualties alarm U.N.” represented another example of how limiting the use of precision-guided munitions to only well-trained combatants with strict rules of engagement is no guarantee that civilians will not be inadvertently killed or injured. Global statistics show that when explosive weapons with wide-area impacts, such as those that killed a teacher and her family in Kapisa province in Afghanistan on Sept. 22, are deployed in populated areas, 92 percent of casualties are to women, children and men who are not part of the conflict. These losses are unacceptable. They violate international humanitarian law and are clearly preventable. Simply put, we must instruct our military and those of our allies to stop bombing civilians. Jeff Meer The writer is the U.S. executive director of Humanity & Inclusion.


Ebola is back — and a threat to people in Congo. Are African public health systems ready?

are finding their way onto the global stage African stakeholders also demonstrate far broader power on health issues. For example, a number of African presidents made highly publicized speeches at the United Nations on AIDS in 2001 — and to the global media on Ebola in 2014. These statements made it hard for powerful states to ignore these crises. African countries have organized health responses themselves, not waiting for international assistance. Before the WHO’s intervention in the West African Ebola outbreak, WAHO, within two days of Guinea and Sierra Leone declaring an Ebola an epidemic, contributed $12 million toward regional intervention. WAHO supported the rapid repair of health-care facilities in Sierra Leone. WAHO also supported teams who traced the contacts of infected people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. And WAHO provided essential supplies: 14 ambulances, 2,000 infrared thermometers, 200 disinfecting products and 1,000 safety boxes for the transport of vitamins and supplements in areas with infected people. These actions often occur in contexts that are highly dependent on foreign assistance. Congo, for example, gets 39 percent of its health money from donors. Approximately 70 percent of WAHO operational funding comes from external partners. Despite this dependence, African stakeholders have managed to make the aid work on their terms. They have pushed back against health policies they think are not appropriate in their cultural or religious contexts. For example, Liberian religious and traditional church leaders successfully demanded the end of the cremation of Ebola-infected bodies. Traditional healers in Burkina Faso and Togo have sought scientific evidence about the efficacy of their therapies. They also received training on intellectual property rights to ensure they can maintain control over traditional remedies in the face of pressure from pharmaceutical companies. What gives stakeholders power in health responses? Research indicates that local populations need to “trust the messenger” before they adopt health behaviors such as immunizing children. In surveys conducted in 36 African countries by Afrobarometer, a nonpartisan research network, the majority of respondents in all countries said that they trusted traditional leaders “somewhat” or “a lot.” A high level of trust makes these leaders effective health messengers. Our research indicates that when there is limited information — such as an Ebola outbreak — people rely heavily on these leaders to help them understand events and respond. However, trust is not absolute. Research on African pastors and the AIDS epidemic in Uganda indicates that


Industry has too much influence in medicine. It’s time to end that.

the strong undercurrent of professional doubt continued. Radiologists at a 1958 National Academy of Sciences conference questioned the many uncontrolled, single-center reports claiming success with higher-powered devices. Nonetheless, they all had one (or more) and used them extensively. In a moment of brutal honesty, New York University radiologist Milton Friedman — not the University of Chicago economist — advised a colleague in private correspondence that, although the higher-powered devices provided “no additional benefits to the cancer patient … the public relations impact of these gadgets is enormous.” Around the same time, Edward Ginzton — the Stanford University engineer and Varian Associates (now Varian Medical Systems) partner who would become company CEO and board chairman — bet that the Stanford/Varian linear accelerator (linac) would outcompete cobalt-60 devices because it could process patients faster and generate greater hospital revenue. Ginzton teamed up with Stanford radiologist Henry Kaplan, whose laboratory — like Trump’s at MIT — conducted company R&D. In what has been called the best use of radiotherapy (in conjunction with chemotherapy), Kaplan made his name treating Hodgkin lymphoma patients on the linac, and Varian came to supply the world with them. Although effectiveness research methods had gained in sophistication, they still were not adequately applied to clinical care. Many radiation oncologists conceded in Certificate of Need applications to purchase new devices in the 1970s that there was little evidence that upgraded linacs brought better outcomes than the lower-voltage ones or the cobalt-60 “bombs” they were replacing. But, as the oncologists explained, their hospital departments needed to provide the latest devices to attract more patients and compete in the marketplace, and the doctors needed to use the devices to avoid professional obsolescence. Twenty-first-century developments in “radio surgery” and proton beam therapy bring the history of industry’s role in using and diffusing high-cost technologies of uncertain efficacy up to date. Proton oncologists have been famously resistant to comparative randomized controlled trials to assess outcomes of their work, and proton center websites make unsupported claims of effectiveness. Accuray, launched by a Stanford neurosurgeon to manufacture his CyberKnife innovation, has been accused of deceptive advertising. This preference for market-based, rather than science-based, solutions continues to escalate the cost of medical care in the United States while making it less effective. The public should not only demand greater transparency, but greater reliance on science and less reliance on industry hype when it comes to medical treatment.


U.S. and its allies target Russian cyber spies with indictments, public shaming

In the summer of 2016, the GRU hacked drug-test results from the World Anti-Doping Agency and leaked onto the Internet confidential information about U.S. Olympic athletes, including tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, and gold medal gymnast Simone Biles. WADA that year called out the Russian military agency for the operation. Now, the U.S. government is seeking to punish the cyberspies. “We at the Department of Justice are not satisfied with merely exposing the conduct,” said Scott Brady, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, where a grand jury indicted the Russians. “We seek to arrest those who broke the law. We want to bring them to Pittsburgh. We want them to stand trial. And we want to put them in jail.” Dutch security officials said they expelled four of the Russians from the Netherlands for attempting in April to hack the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an international watchdog organization based in The Hague. All seven GRU officers are now believed to be in Russia, U.S. officials said. Allegations in the indictment show “the defendants believed that they could use their perceived anonymity to act with impunity, in their own countries and on territories of other sovereign nations, to undermine international institutions to distract from their government’s own wrongdoing,” Demers said. The GRU campaign ran from December 2014 until at least May 2018, targeting U.S. individuals, corporations and international organizations based on their strategic interest to the Russian government, officials said. In July 2016, WADA released a report describing Russia’s systematic subversion of the drug-testing process before, during and after the 2014 Winter Olympics, held in the Russian resort city of Sochi. As a result, 111 Russian athletes were banned from the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. The International Paralympic Committee imposed a blanket ban on Russian athletes for its 2016 games. Days after WADA released its report, the indictment alleges, the GRU officers prepared to hack the networks of WADA and the United States Anti-Doping Agency, among others, from Russia. Apparently unsuccessful in the effort from afar, two of the spies flew to Rio to hack the WiFi networks used by anti-doping officials in their hotels and elsewhere, officials said. They succeeded in stealing the log-in and password for one U.S. Anti-Doping Agency official’s email account, obtaining summaries of test results and prescribed medications, they said. In September, they flew to Lausanne,


The Cybersecurity 202: Keep calm and trust the feds on Election Day, national security officials tell states

announcement about the breach comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill consider whether to craft consumer privacy legislation amid concerns over how Facebook and other tech giants handle users’ personal data. “In an onstage interview Monday with The Wall Street Journal as part of Advertising Week in New York City, Facebook’s vice president of global marketing solutions, Carolyn Everson, compared the hackers to an ‘odorless, weightless intruder that walked in’ that the company could detect only ‘once they made a certain move,’ ” Seetharaman and Volz wrote. “Facebook’s efforts to keep lawmakers in the loop about the incident are notable given that the company has been under intense scrutiny for the past two years for a range of issues, including its handling of user data.” PATCHED: The Dutch defense minister said that his country’s military intelligence thwarted a Russian cyberattack against the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, PWNED: Chinese spies secretly implanted surveillance chips in data center equipment used by Amazon and Apple during the manufacturing process, The report continues: “The chips had been inserted during the manufacturing process, two officials say, by operatives from a unit of the People’s Liberation Army. In Supermicro, China’s spies appear to have found a perfect conduit for what U.S. officials now describe as the most significant supply chain attack known to have been carried out against American companies. One official says investigators found that it eventually affected almost 30 companies, including a major bank, government contractors, and the world’s most valuable company, Apple.” Amazon, Apple and Supermicro disputed the report. " — Vice President Pence plans to renew accusations by the Trump administration that China is seeking to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections — The Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would rename and reorganize NPPD, making it the lead civilian cybersecurity agency in government. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), the original sponsor of the legislation, applauded the move. “With the advancement of technology and our increased dependence on computer networks, nation states, hackers, and cybercriminals are finding new ways to attack our cyber infrastructure and expose vulnerabilities,” McCaul told me in an emailed statement. "This streamlining effort will achieve DHS’s goal of creating a stand-alone operational organization, focusing on and elevating its vital cybersecurity and infrastructure security missions to strengthen the security of digital America and our nation’s critical infrastructure.” From Krebs: — “The U.S. and


Lyme-disease research in Howard County seeks best ways to reduce tick populations

Grace Hummell, a University of Maryland graduate school student, plans to wade into tall grasses and scour the edges of Howard County’s woodlands this fall for the common white-footed mouse. From woodlands to neighborhood backyards, mice are everywhere, even if usually unseen. But Hummell aims to capture dozens of them as part of a five-year effort by U-Md. and other researchers to figure out how best to reduce tick populations and, they hope, Lyme disease. Contrary to the popular belief that deer are the primary source of the disease spread by ticks, researchers say, it is mice that usually first infect young ticks with the bacteria that causes Lyme. Once the young ticks feed off the mice, they will drop off, grow into adults and then attach to a larger mammal such as a human or a deer on which they will continue to grow and reproduce. “The science is fuzzy,” said Jennifer Murrow, a wildlife ecologist and an assistant professor in U-Md.’s Department of Environmental Science and Technology. “What we think is the primary role of the deer is to maintain populations.” The Howard County work Murrow and Hummell are participating in is part of a much larger Lyme-disease prevention study being done in areas across the country, led by the Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Research Service. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is participating along with U-Md. and the University of Massachusetts. More than 300,000 people contract Lyme disease through tick bites each year. The disease is concentrated on the East Coast from Maryland to Maine, and there were 1,866 confirmed and probable cases of Lyme in Maryland in 2016, according to the CDC. Lyme disease gives people fever, headaches, fatigue and a skin rash, according to the CDC. If it is not treated, it can lead to an infection in the joints, the heart and the nervous system. With the cases of Lyme disease increasing over the past 25 years, researchers have been turning their attention to prevention, including efforts to find a vaccine and attempts to reduce the population of ticks carrying the bacteria. The effort in Howard County is decidedly low-tech. Murrow, working with Hummell, puts out traps for mice and deer. The trap for mice is a mere bait box, developed by the CDC and sold by a private company, that is filled with cotton or something to eat. When a mouse enters to


Dear Nobel Committee: Don’t even think about giving a prize to Kim Jong Un

It has been a year of bad ideas and contempt for reason, a year of assaults on integrity and attacks on independence, a year of rewards for dictatorial oppression and respect for distortions of the truth. And this Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee might stand up and say, “Hold my beer.” According to the website Oddschecker, which gathers odds from across betting platforms, the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, along with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, are the leading contenders to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Stunningly, at press time the several betting websites that Oddschecker follows on Nobel prospects predict a greater than 50 percent chance of Kim winning. The leader of one of the world’s cruelest social experiments, with 25 million people stuck in a medieval personality cult, and more than 100,000 people languishing in concentration camps, might win one of the world’s most respected prizes. Sigh. There would be no problem with recognizing the democratically elected Moon, who has sought to end North Korea’s isolation and temper his northern neighbor’s belligerence without overlooking the Kim dynasty’s crimes against humanity. Or the Nobel Committee could honor the UN Refugee Agency (odds: 1/12), the Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta (1/16) or the Saudi dissident Raif Badawi (1/20). As many in the United Kingdom and the United States learned in 2016, the future is hard to predict. That said, there is a real chance that Kim might get the prize. Awarding it to him would stain the Nobel Committee’s already shaky reputation in the same way that the election of Donald Trump — ranked scarily close to Kim on Oddschecker — has weakened the United States’ global stature. Kim’s crimes against his own people should disqualify him for a prize awarded to those who “have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” More importantly, the Nobel Committee would be singling out Kim for reducing tensions that he mostly caused in the first place. (Trump, with his threats of “fire and fury like the world has never seen” also deserves some of the blame.) Since Kim assumed power after the death of his father Kim Jong Il in December 2011, Pyongyang has conducted four nuclear tests, dozens of missile tests and threatened the United States, Israel, Japan, the United Nations and Australia. Until this spring, many worried that the United States would bomb Pyongyang. But Kim moderated his rhetoric and