Apple appeals E.U. ruling on Ireland taxes; job market strong, Yellen tells grads

TECHNOLOGY Apple appeals E.U. ruling on Ireland taxes Apple has set up a court battle with European Union watchdogs who ordered Ireland to claw back a record 13 billion euros ($13.6 billion) in unpaid taxes from the iPhone maker. Apple said Monday it formally appealed the E.U.’s Aug. 30 decision to the bloc’s General Court in Luxembourg. The E.U. “took unilateral action and retroactively changed the rules, disregarding decades of Irish tax law, U.S. tax law, as well as global consensus on tax policy, that everyone has relied on,” Apple said in a statement. In slapping Apple with the tax bill, the E.U. said that Ireland had granted unfair deals that reduced Apple’s effective corporate tax rate. The U.S. Treasury said the E.U. was acting as a “supra-national tax authority” that could threaten global tax reform efforts. Apple’s appeal adds to the Irish government’s challenge submitted to the E.U. court. The European Commission on Monday published details of its two-year probe, attacking the way Irish authorities taxed profits attributed to two of Apple’s Irish units. — Bloomberg News EMPLOYMENT Job market strong, Yellen tells grads Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet L. Yellen said Monday that college graduates are entering the strongest job market the country has seen in nearly a decade. Yellen said that with changes in the job market, such as technology and globalization, success is increasingly tied to obtaining advanced degrees. “Those with a college degree are more likely to find a job, keep a job, have higher job satisfaction and earn a higher salary,” Yellen said in remarks at commencement ceremonies at the University of Baltimore. Along with the improved unemployment rate, which in November fell to a nine-year low of 4.6 percent, there have been signs that wage growth is picking up, Yellen said. But she said that challenges remain. “The economy is growing more slowly than in past recoveries and productivity growth, which is a major influence on wages, has been disappointing,” she said. — Associated Press Also in Business ● Boeing is making deeper job cuts in its commercial airplane business and planning further workforce reductions for 2017, executives told employees Monday. The U.S. planemaker will trim the workforce in its largest division by 8 percent by the end of this year, Boeing vice chairman Ray Conner and unit chief executive Kevin McAllister said in a memo. Cuts will come through attrition, unfilled positions


Railroads, regulators clash over braking system for trains carrying flammable liquids

An oil train burns near the town of Mosier, Ore., after derailing on June 3. Federal regulators said a better braking system on the train — based on newer technology — would have contained the disaster. (Alan Berner/AP) Just past noon on a Friday in June, a Union Pacific freight train carrying oil jumped the tracks in a small town in Oregon, not far from a school filled with children, and exploded in flames that burned for 14 hours. Bad tracks were cited as the cause, but federal regulators said a better braking system on the train — based on newer technology — would have contained the disaster. The railroad industry newsletter said the notion that the brake system would have made a difference was “horse manure.” It was another skirmish in a battle over safety standards that often pits federal regulators against an industry. And while such fights are not uncommon, federal officials say this is one that keeps them awake at nights because of the high stakes — what if the next oil train crash happens in a major metropolitan area? This June 6, 2016, aerial video image taken from a drone shows crumpled oil tankers lying beside the railroad tracks after a fiery June 3 train derailment that prompted evacuations from the tiny Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Ore. (Brent Foster/AP) Regulators have mandated a new electronically controlled braking system that would prevent — or lessen the severity of — crashes like the one in Oregon. The railroad industry calls the requirement a classic example of regulatory overreach. Lawmakers responded to the industry complaints by requiring a pair of new studies that could delay the regulation set to take effect in 2021. One congressional requirement, for example, stipulates that a train be wrecked to see how many of its cars derail and leak their flammable contents. “It was deliberate and intentional by the railroad industry to try to make this study as expensive as possible,” said John Risch, who spent 30 years as a BNSF Railway engineer before becoming a rail union lobbyist in Washington. “It’s completely unreasonable. You wouldn’t see that in maritime, you wouldn’t see that in aviation; they do this stuff computer-simulated, without causing this chaotic crash that’s going to cost all kinds of money.” The railroad industry counters that the new regulation would force it to spend billions of dollars on a


2016 Washington Post Sports Figures of the Year

100 free. We got reacquainted with Anthony Ervin, the eccentric, 35-year-old sprinter who won Olympic golds in the same event, the 50 free, 16 years apart. We saw Maya DiRado score four medals, including two golds, then walk away from the sport and into corporate America. The Summer Olympics and the U.S. presidential election are always linked by their shared quadrennial cycles. But this year, at least thematically, they were sometimes hard to tell apart — except that one made you want to stand up in your living room and shout “USA! USA!” and the other made you want to vomit. Undue influence by the Russians? Yep. Though there were no cyberattacks reported in Rio, a major Russian doping scandal broke in the days and weeks leading up to the opening ceremony, hovering over the competition. One of the indelible images of Rio 2016 was of Lilly King, the fiery, 19-year-old Indiana breaststroker, wagging her finger at Russia’s Yulia Efimova, a former world champion suspended in 2013 for doping, then torching her in the pool to win gold in the 100 breast and calling her a drug cheat on NBC afterward. A well-known playboy and reality TV star with strangely colored hair — in this case, a sudden coat of silver — who sometimes has a difficult time telling the truth? Check. The night the Rio swim meet ended, Team USA veteran Ryan Lochte, whose only trip to the medal stand was a relay gold, took three teammates out for a night on the town, which ended, in the wee hours the following morning, with a confrontation at a gas station with armed security guards — an incident that went from an unfortunate episode to an international scandal after Lochte concocted a phony story about an armed robbery. Formerly the star of E!’s “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” the 32-year-old, the second-most-decorated male Olympic swimmer in history behind Phelps, revised his story and apologized to the Brazilian people for preying on their worst stereotypes, but still lost all his major sponsors. Much as the loser of a presidential contest does, the winners of Team USA faded slowly from our consciousness in the months following Rio, as we turned our attention to the start of football season and the baseball playoffs. Ledecky went off to college at Stanford, where she became Manuel’s teammate on an NCAA juggernaut. Phelps threw himself into


Rhythm of change: Marin Alsop leads the Baltimore Symphony into the future

Marin Alsop is the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. ( KK Ottesen/For The Washington Post) Marin Alsop is the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil. She lives in Baltimore with her partner and son. Do you remember when you first decided you wanted to be a conductor? Sure, Yes, I think I’ve heard of him. And the interest was abiding? It was like almost a calling — what I imagine when people say they have a religious epiphany. I never changed my mind, not one day. And now you’re the first female conductor of a major American symphony. How do you feel about that? And what does that “first” bring with it? I’m very proud to be the first, but I’m also pretty shocked that we can arrive at this year and there can still be firsts for women. I started a fellowship for women conductors in 2002 because there just weren’t enough. And, like anything, if there are very few opportunities, every opportunity becomes make-or-break. And in conducting, you can’t even practice until you go to the orchestra. Right, that’s pressure. You really need time to make mistakes and try things. So I decided I would try to create more opportunities for young women just to be seen, and also have them do parts of concerts with me so I can kind of protect them and coach them through. Like the double wheel in driver’s ed? A little bit. I’ve had 11 recipients of the fellowship, and all 11 are working for American music directors. The level of applicants just in the past few years has gone up exponentially. Clearly women are getting more opportunities earlier — finally. Seeing you must be an important visual. I think it helps. It also starts to get our larger world comfortable with the idea. Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t particularly think it’s about prejudice, I think it’s about comfort — people just aren’t used to it. And when you’re not used to something, you’re not comfortable with it. The more and more women we see — not just one, me — the more comfortable people will become. Do you have advice you give young conductors, or that you, yourself, live by? As someone growing up having very few opportunities, I always try to maximize every opportunity. And conducting is very


Suspect in Berlin market attack was radicalized in an Italian jail

in Paris. But just because information is in a database does not always mean that it gets used, they say. “I’m not sure it’s that we don’t have enough information,” said Brian Donald, the chief of staff of Europol, the pan-European police agency. “I think it’s more about ensuring that law enforcement has access to the information we have.” Back in Oueslatia, Amri’s family remains incredulous. His brothers and sisters rushed back to their mother’s home, a simple house on a dirt street, when they heard the news. They said he changed after his arrest in Italy. “He started praying during his time in jail in Italy,” his sister said. “He even asked me to send him a book called, ‘Paradise for good people.’ ” After his release, he told them he survived off small jobs — painting, running errands. The siblings huddled around a little charcoal burner, the sisters all hunched, arms wrapped tightly around them. They said they find it hard to believe that it was him, but if it’s true, that he brought shame on his family and Tunisia. They have been trying to contact him ever since they heard about him being wanted. His phone has been switched off. They say he left for Italy in spring 2011, following a crime they say he was framed for. The arson in Italy, they insist, was also an accident. His mother, Nour el Huda, 60, who at times had to leave the room to compose herself, described her youngest son as someone who used to drink alcohol and enjoyed Tunisian folk music. In jail in Sicily, according to the Italians, he spent time with a violent group of Tunisians and religious radicals. But there was so much he didn’t tell them — including his attempt to claim asylum in Germany. After his release from the Italian jail, he got by, they said, by doing odd jobs. House painting. Running errands. “My son was planning to come back next year and start a small business here, said his mother, Nour el Huda, 60, her voice trembling. “He was homesick.” “We hope he didn’t do it; we really hope he wasn’t involved,” she repeated as a German camera crew pulled up outside. Kottoor reported from Oueslatia, Tunisia; Pitrelli, from Rome. Souad Mekhennet and Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin, Michael Birnbaum in Brussels and Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.


Tech firm Optoro joins forces with UPS as part of $30 million investment

Optoro, the D.C.-area firm that helps big retailers re-sell extra inventory, said the venture capital arm of the United Parcel Service was part of a group that invested $30 million in the e-commerce company. Optoro said UPS would partner with the company as part of the investment to open doors to new customer relationships. UPS “has great relationships with the biggest retailers and brands,” said Optoro founder Tobin Moore. “We’re already targeting very large retailers but this allows us to implement relationships with large retailers faster.” The latest funding round brings the total Optoro has received from investors above $100 million. It has already attracted capital from some of the region’s most prominent technology funders: Revolution Growth, the $1.1 billion venture firm backed by AOL co-founder Steve Case and Washington sports-teams owner Ted Leonsis, business executive Fred Schaufeld’s Swan & Legend Venture Partners, California private equity firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, even Al Gore. Optoro’s investors are betting on its ability to capitalize on what they say is a rapidly-growing cost for online retailers that offer liberal return policies at a time when shoppers expect free or low-cost shipping. “That is a hidden, ticking time bomb” for retailers, Leonsis said in an interview. “If 15 percent of your stuff is coming back -- and you’re paying for it to come back — you better have really good automated solutions to help get the costs down.” Returned goods often move through a network of middlemen that sort through the merchandise and buy what they think they can move, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. It’s a process that can eat away at retailers’ margins. Optoro’s solution is to use a set of complicated software algorithms to figure out, on a massive scale, where to send that excess inventory. The company’s online brand Blinq allows customers to re-sell the goods to hundreds of millions of potential buyers. Moore boasts that his company has helped some big retailers double the “recovery rate” on returned items, such that they make up more of what they lose due to returned goods. Leonsis says the partnership with UPS mainly lends Optoro the legitimacy it needs to work for the biggest retailers in the global economy, implying that its status as a young company is making it difficult to sign deals with established brands. “The issue for Optoro is that if you’re a massive company and


U.S. companies want to play China’s game. They just can’t win it.

secure access to the Chinese market, the social network remains blocked, with little chance of that changing anytime soon, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity. To comply with Chinese law and regulations, Facebook would need to drastically change its product, experts said. If the company were to secure the requisite permits to operate — and that’s a big if — it’s not clear that it would succeed. In the years that Zuckerberg has been studying Mandarin, China’s government has ramped up its focus on innovation and helped build an alternate universe where local technology rules. Facebook would need to compete, for instance, with Tencent’s WeChat, a chat service with more than 800 million active users that has morphed into one-stop shopping for socializing, news and e-commerce. “When I think about Facebook in China, I think, ‘What’s their advantage?’ ” said William Bao Bean, a Shanghai-based partner at SOSV Ventures and the managing director of Chinaccelerator, which invests in start-ups. “Their product is so outpaced by the local companies.” That does not mean Facebook won’t try. Tim Sparapani, who was Facebook’s first director of public policy and is now principal at SPQR strategies, said entering China was part of Zuckerberg’s vision and he “wouldn’t bet against Mark.” “If Mark says he is going to connect the world, he is going to connect the world. It’s about fulfilling that vision of ubiquitous worldwide connectivity.” Facebook declined a request for comment. Carmen Chang, a partner at the Silicon Valley firm New Enterprise Associates and a longtime China dealmaker, said that ambitious companies such as Facebook will take the long view in China — strengthening their ties and waiting for new opportunities. “China is too important a market for these companies to settle for a Plan B,” she said. “They will take what they can get and keep probing. Some companies will never give up.” Others wonder why Silicon Valley stays optimistic. “The people at the top are used to moving forward at cyber-speed, not to being pushed aside, blocked, for reasons that are not based on the technology or based on somebody having a better idea — it’s just foreign to their way of thinking,” said Lester Ross, a managing partner at Wilmer Hale in Beijing, who advises U.S. and Chinese companies. “If you can afford it, it’s patience and


U.N. discovers that some peacekeepers have disturbing pasts

shows scars from a gunshot wound and other injuries that he said he sustained when police and soldiers stormed Bumerec hospital in the Burundian capital in May 2015. The soldier said that Pierre Niyonzima was among the security forces involved in the attack. (Jane Hahn/For The Washington Post) Niyonzima did not respond to emails from The Post seeking comment. Ndabashinze, the ambassador, said the allegations against the Burundian military and the soldiers it nominates as peacekeepers “are part of a strategy of manipulating the international community.” He also said that Burundi vets its prospective peacekeeping troops. “The results are there,” he said. “When they are deployed, they do their jobs in a professional manner.” Beyond Burundi Burundi’s military isn’t the only one that supplies peacekeepers despite a widely criticized human rights record. Congo sent 850 peacekeepers to the Central African Republic as part of an A.U. mission that in 2014 was absorbed by the United Nations. For years, Congo’s military has been accused by human rights groups of raping and killing civilians during a civil war. The United Nations announced in January that it was ending Congo’s role in the mission in the Central African Republic, after finding that incoming troops failed to meet U.N. standards for vetting, training and equipment. U.N. officials said privately that the move was also in response to abuse allegations against the Congolese peacekeepers. At least 21 of them have been accused of raping or exploiting women and children during their assignments in the Central African Republic, according to the United Nations. In many developing countries, peacekeeping assignments are considered a reward. In Burundi, a lieutenant makes about $500 per year but can earn more than $12,000 as a U.N. peacekeeper, according to interviews with eight former Burundian soldiers. Current and former soldiers said the Burundian government frequently reserved the coveted peacekeeping nominations for loyalists. “You have no chance unless you’re seen as protecting the regime,” said one army captain who fled Burundi after the coup attempt. Mayuyu was a government loyalist, an officer who had run a military detention center in Bujumbura where military and civilian dissidents were sent after the coup attempt, according to Burundian civil-society groups and eight men, interviewed separately, who spent time in the prison. In August, a journalist asked at a U.N. news briefing in New York whether Mayuyu was being deployed as a peacekeeper, adding that the soldier


Afghanistan’s vice president is known for brutality. But he may have gone too far.

in Russia and Central Asia from his time as a pro-communist military commander in the 1980s. Moreover, he is only one of several former militia bosses with whom the Ghani government has compromised. In September, with support from Washington, the president signed a peace deal with longtime fugitive leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, hoping to persuade Taliban insurgents to lay down their weapons, as well. He has now asked the United Nations to remove Hekmatyar, a former U.S. Cold War ally, from an anti-terrorist blacklist. “Dostum may be the poster child for impunity in Afghanistan, but he is not an anomaly,” Patricia Gossman, the U.S.-based senior Afghan analyst for Human Rights Watch, wrote in an email. “If President Ghani wants to demonstrate that he is serious about accountability, it cannot start and stop with Dostum, and it cannot be seen as selective.” Representatives of Dostum have proposed settling the Ishchi matter through a traditional gathering of elders, a process in which he might make amends or agree to live abroad. Aides to Ghani insist that if enough evidence is gathered to prosecute Dostum, he will be removed from the vice presidency. But they also acknowledge that putting him on trial or forcing him from office would be legally complicated and politically risky. Even if Dostum avoids prosecution, however, Ishchi’s charges have brought new attention to other incidents in the general’s past. There is talk of reopening an international war crimes case for the alleged mass suffocation of Taliban prisoners in 2001, and several people have spoken up about previous alleged cases of abuse. According to Bai, a now-deceased Afghan senator was sexually assaulted on Dostum’s orders. Perhaps just as important, the old warlord’s sway over hundreds of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks in the north may be weakening. A crop of better-educated, more-moderate politicians has been waiting in the wings, serving in parliament and other posts. Dostum’s loss of stature, they suggest, may finally allow them to challenge his dominance. “In history, our leaders were poets and scholars, but when Russia invaded, warlords and illiterates emerged in power,” said Qudratullah Zaki, 45, an ethnic Uzbek legislator and an ally of Ghani. “Many people, including those who supported Dostum, realize that he is not morally qualified to hold his position.” “This is no more the time for tyranny,” he added. “We need to deal with real issues, and we need to create hope again.”


Forgetting a Nobel laureate in literature: Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison in 2012. (Michael Lionstar/Associated Press) I agree with George F. Will that the Swedish Academy’s decision to award the Nobel Prize in literature to Bob Dylan was curious [“Dylan Derangement Syndrome,” op-ed, Dec. 11]. But Will’s worldview is so racially myopic that, in an op-ed in which he mentions “Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Wharton, Fitzgerald [and] Faulkner,” he did not mention the last American to win the Nobel in literature: Toni Morrison. Rawn James Jr., Washington


No ‘Santa Claus rallies’ for Wall Street

a 2008 anti-monopoly law in what appears to be an effort to force down prices. Friday’s announcement followed public criticism by President-elect Donald Trump of Chinese trade practices, but there was no indication the case was linked to that. GM had announced in August 2014 that its joint venture, Shanghai GM, was under a regulatory probe. The Shanghai Price Bureau said that Shanghai GM, a joint venture with state-owned Shanghai Automotive Industries, improperly suppressed competition by enforcing minimum prices dealers could charge for Cadillac, Chevrolet and Buick models. In a statement, GM said, “We will provide full support to our joint venture in China to ensure that all responsive and appropriate actions are taken with respect to this matter.” — Associated Press Also in Business ● A buying spree in the Midwest spurred new U.S. home sales last month to the fastest pace since July. The Commerce Department said Friday that new-home sales in November rose 5.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 592,000. It was the fastest pace since July’s 622,000. Sales were up 16.5 percent from November 2015. Sales in the Midwest shot up 43.8 percent. Sales were up 7.7 percent in the West, flat in the Northeast and down 3.1 percent in the South. ● The Justice Department has subpoenaed a high-profile whistleblower in its criminal investigation into Wells Fargo’s opening of accounts without customer permission. U.S. prosecutors have asked Wells Fargo banker Yesenia Guitron, who lost a lawsuit against the fourth-largest lender, to testify before a grand jury in San Francisco on Tuesday, according to a subpoena dated Dec. 12. A Wells Fargo spokesman declined to comment. Guitron is among at least five Wells Fargo employees who sued the bank or filed complaints with regulators alleging that they were fired after reporting the opening of customer accounts without their permission, according to a review of lawsuits and complaints to the Labor Department. ● Consumer confidence jumped to the highest level since 2004, extending a surge in Americans’ optimism for their finances and the U.S. economy after Donald Trump’s election victory. The University of Michigan said Friday that its final index of sentiment rose to 98.2 from 93.8 in November. Inflation expectations for the next five to 10 years fell to a record low. A record share of respondents “spontaneously mentioned” the expected impact of Trump’s policies, according to the report. — From news services


Beer of the Week: An ale with the seasonal flavors of ... a Christmas tree?

Uinta's Rise and Pine, a winter ale made with juniper and piney hops. (Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post) Flavors beer lovers are used to finding in their holiday ales: cinnamon, cloves, honey, nutmug. Flavors they might be more used to finding in their Christmas tree: juniper and pine. I’d understand if some people are suspicious of Uinta’s new Rise and Pine: The Salt Lake City brewery’s seasonal ale advertises on its label that it’s “brewed with juniper and piney hops.” That would give me pause: “It tastes like a Christmas tree” is the kind of a flavor description that needs to be followed by the phrase “in a good way.” Rise and Pine, though, does not taste like a Christmas tree. It’s much more complex and flavorful than that. It’s an inky black ale with a fluffy tan head, redolent of dark chocolate, grapefruit and juniper. A malty, nutty body is the perfect platform for earthy hops and spicy juniper, and there’s a roasty, bitter espresso quality before some spiky pine-resin Chinook hop notes come through in the finish. It’s just dry enough to make you want another sip, even after New Year’s Day has passed. This is a dark, hoppy ale worth keeping in your fridge until spring. — Fritz Hahn Uinta Brewing Rise & Pine. uintabrewing.com. Around $10 for a six-pack of 12-ounce cans. More from Food: Beer Column archive


Sidney Drell, physicist and arms-control expert, dies at 90

SLAC. His specialties included quantum electrodynamics, which describes the interactions of matter and light, and quantum chromodynamics, a study of the behavior of subatomic particles. He and a colleague, Tung-Mow Yan, developed the Drell-Yan Process, which describes the effects of a quark in one particle colliding with an antiquark in a second particle. It has become part of the framework of particle physics. “Drell’s theoretical work was very critical in setting SLAC on the course that it took,” Stanford physicist and Nobel laureate Burton Richter said in a statement. “As head of the SLAC theory group, Drell brought to us a whole host of a younger generation of theoretical physicists who began creating the present picture we have of the structure of matter.” In addition to his scientific work at SLAC, Dr. Drell was co-director of the Stanford Center for International Security and Arms Control (now the Center for International Security and Cooperation). It followed an interdisciplinary approach in proposing solutions to worldwide problems, through science, diplomacy, economics and other fields. When Stanford refused to grant tenure to scholars in the program, Dr. Drell abruptly resigned in 1988, leading to the departure of several notable figures at the center, including astronaut and physicist Sally Ride. Since 1960, Dr. Drell was a fixture in an elite group of scientists known as “Jason” (after Jason and the Argonauts of Greek myth), who act as advisers to military and intelligence experts on sensitive issues of national security. He had been a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency since 1961. “One gets a feeling, with a few people sitting around a table, that one is being heard,” Dr. Drell told the San Jose Mercury News in 1996, describing his interactions with high-echelon officials. “They come at you with all the questions and concerns and then have to go think about it.” Long known as a proponent of arms control, Dr. Drell led a study that determined that the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons could be maintained without underground tests. He was a persuasive behind-the-scenes voice in high-level discussions that led to the 1996 signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits global testing of nuclear devices. In the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Drell was a leading public supporter of Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his work on nuclear disarmament


A state of emergency has brought calm to Ethiopia. But don’t be fooled.

People from the Oromo group block a road in Ethiopia after protesters were shot dead by security forces in Wolenkomi, about 35 miles west of Addis Ababa in December 2015. (AFP/Getty Images) METI, Ethiopia — They were supposed to be celebrating the country’s Nations and Nationalities day, which commemorates the much-vaunted equality of Ethiopia’s 80 ethnic groups. Instead, they defied a two-month-old state of emergency to voice their anger over stalled political reforms and endemic corruption. The protest was quickly dispersed and arrests were made, locals said, and calm returned to the village. But the incident is a sign of the simmering resentment that threatens to shatter Ethiopia’s enforced quiet. The United States, one of Ethiopia’s biggest backers, is urging the government to address the widespread dissatisfaction and open up the country’s politics before it is too late. “We feel it has reached an inflection point where some hard decisions are going to have to be made,” said Tom Malinowski, the assistant secretary of state for human rights, in an interview during a recent visit to the capital, Addis Ababa. “Otherwise, a lot of the achievements could be jeopardized, and we know from the country’s history what a true crisis could look like.” It is difficult to overstate the importance of Ethiopia to Africa’s stability. It has the continent’s second-largest population — nearly 100 million people — one of its fastest growing economies and a powerful military that helps stabilize a string of troubled countries around it. The United States — and many other countries — have invested extensively in aid programs to help the Ethiopian government wrest the country out of poverty and bring it to middle-income status. If it succeeds — and becomes a democracy as well — it could be a model for developing nations everywhere. Ethiopia has witnessed double-digit growth in the past decade. But this rapid economic expansion has resulted in strains, especially when new factories and commercial farms are being built on land taken from farmers. The central Oromo region, which has historically felt marginalized — despite having the largest segment of the population and some of the richest farmland — has been particularly hard hit. Protests erupted there in November 2015 over the land grabs, corruption in the local government and lack of services such as running water, electricity and roads. The demonstrations later spread to the northern Amhara region, which has grievances


Russia focusing on pilot error or technical issues rather than terrorism in plane crash

A rescue operation is underway off the Sochi coast after a Russian military plane crashed en route to Syria killing all 92 on board, according to Russia's Defense Ministry. On board were members of the Red Army choir and orchestra. MOSCOW — Sunday’s crash was the second national tragedy for Russia in less than a week, once again in the shadow of the country’s military involvement in Syria. Once again, the nation was left with more questions than answers. Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said on television the main theories for the crash “do not include the idea of a terrorist act.” “We are working on the assumption that the reasons for the catastrophe could have been technical or pilot error,” he said. All 92 people on board are believed to have died. The crash shook Russia six days after its ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was killed in public by a man who shouted about the war in Syria after the shooting. A beloved and prominent charity worker was also killed in the crash when the plunged into the Black Sea minutes after it took off en route to a military base in Syria Russia’s special Investigative Committee, which opened a criminal inquiry, said it was considering all possibilities. A massive sea and air search operation has been launched with some 3,500 people and 32 ships, including over a 100 divers from across the country. The government has helicopters ships and submarines searching the Black Sea for debris and bodies, the Defense Ministry said. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a military spokesman, told reporters in Moscow that no one survived after the aging Soviet-era jet, which had set out from Moscow, crashed shortly after taking off from the Sochi airport. The plane did not send a distress signal. The pilot was “first-class,” Konashenkov said, and the 33-year-old Tu-154 jet had been serviced recently. Photos show those grieving over the crash that may have killed all 92 on board. In nationally televised comments, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Monday a national day of mourning and said the cause of the crash would be carefully investigated. Throughout the day, top-ranking legislators and Defense Ministry officials assured the public that a terrorist could never have made it onto the heavily guarded airfield outside Moscow where the jet first took off. Later, officials revealed that the plane had been scheduled to refuel at the military


Chinese ice workers carve Christmas-scape at National Harbor

Li Jiayan, an ice carver from Harbin, China, works on ice sculptures that are part of a show at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post) Li Jiayan was chiseling an ice angel in a massive refrigerated tent at National Harbor. It was 9 degrees. And he was feeling fine. “We’re used to it,” said Li, a retired art teacher wearing snow boots he brought from home in China’s industrial northeast. Back in Harbin, where temperatures can dip to 20 below, farmers pull frozen slabs from the Songhua River and carvers like Li turn them into 15-story towers that make visitors to the city’s famed outdoor ice festival look like Lilliputians. Here beside the Potomac, Li, the head carver, and three dozen co-workers put in 12-hour days for a month. Working with 2 million pounds of clear and colored ice trucked in from Ohio, they have crafted a frigid Christmas-scape complete with slides, a black-belted Santa, a clear panda nestled on an ice shelf and a crystalline baby Jesus. Li’s angel — and accompanying “Elizabeth, will you marry me?” sculpture — were custom made for a just-departed White House worker planning to propose in the space the next day. Ice carvers from Harbin, China, work on massive ice sculptures that are part of a show at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post) What drew the Chinese crews to the Gaylord National resort in suburban Maryland — and similar gigs in Orlando, Dallas and Nashville — was a mix of aspiration, adventure and cold cash. They are the international carnies of the frozen-wonderland industry, fueled by Yunyan brand cigarettes, dumplings rolled in an office trailer and an occasional splash of fiery “white alcohol.” By spending a few months in the United States, then doing a similar carving stint in a warm Chinese city seeking to experience Harbin’s icy aesthetic, some of the workers earn enough in six months to cover a full year’s expenses. Zhou Yubin, who’s been in the United States six times for ice duty, wielded a broad blade to scrape a jade-green dragon into shape. Back in Harbin, he built a 20-foot ice replica of Tibet’s grand Potala Palace, part of a vast constellation of glowing riverside creations, from towering Buddhas and pagodas to Disney-esque castles and Russian onion domes. For the exhibition here, which runs through


Russia avoids suggesting terrorism caused plane crash that killed 92 en route to Syria

Russia holds a national day of mourning on Dec. 26, a day after a Syria-bound military plane crashed into the Black Sea killing all 92 people on board, and expanded a search operation to try to recover passengers' bodies and the jet's black box. MOSCOW — Russia’s Federal Security Service told the Interfax news agency that there has been no evidence “indicating the possibility of a terrorist attack or an act of sabotage on board” the Tu-154 jet, which lost contact with air traffic controllers Sunday just one minute after taking off from the southern Russian city of Sochi. The crash site was pinpointed Monday about a mile off the Black Sea coast, where divers found the fuselage and other parts of the plane strewn over a distance of about 500 yards, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. The plane initially took off from a heavily guarded military airfield in Moscow, officials said, and was under close watch during refueling in Sochi, making it unlikely that someone placed a bomb onboard. By late Monday, divers had recovered parts of at least 80 bodies of those aboard the flight; other victims may have been swept out to sea with the current. Rescuers carry fragments and remains found at the site of the Tu-154 plane crash Sunday near the Black Sea Russian city of Sochi. No survivors have been found, and the remains of at least 11 people have been recovered. (Yevgeny Reutov/European Pressphoto Agency) Russian investigators said they were considering a number of technical and other accidental causes, including “foreign objects getting into the engine, low-quality fuel” and pilot or mechanical error. The crash of the Tu-154, which was carrying military officers, musicians, journalists and others to Syria, was the single deadliest incident tied to Russia’s intervention there since a passenger jet exploded over the Sinai Peninsula in November 2015, killing all 224 people aboard. An Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for that attack and linked it to Russia’s intervention in Syria. Russian authorities later said an explosive device had been smuggled onboard. In televised comments, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a full investigation and declared Monday a national day of mourning for the crew and passengers. Among the dead were more than 60 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, also known as the Red Army Choir, which had recently gained widespread recognition for its rendition of the “James Bond” theme song “Skyfall.”


A ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for long-awaited medical marijuana program

medical marijuana in 2014, and already have the drug available for purchase with a doctor’s recommendation. Glenn insists that her efforts to diversify the industry will not drive further delays. The issue is personal for her — the cannabis commission is named after her mother, Natalie LaPrade, who died of cancer before she could use medical marijuana to alleviate her pain. “I had my mother’s picture with me when the bill was signed into law; I never forget the pain and suffering that people go through every day,” Glenn said. “We can get medicine in the hands of our patients, but we can do it with the correct amount of diversity.” Commission officials have defended their process for awarding licenses, and plan to hire a diversity consultant to advise them on ways to help boost minority participation in the industry. Any attempts to redistribute or expand the number of licenses probably will face resistance from the companies that have won approval to grow and process. Michael Bronfein, a prolific donor to Maryland Democrats who is chief executive of Curio Wellness, has been recruiting growers and processors to form a trade association and hire lobbyists to represent their interests in Annapolis. At an October panel in Baltimore, he opposed expanding the number of cannabis growers in the coming year, according to news reports. He declined to comment for this article, citing a busy schedule. Marijuana regulators say the success of the program depends on interest from patients and their doctors — and the quality of the businesses supplying them. As of December, just 171 physicians have signed up to recommend medical cannabis — a number regulators expect to grow once the drug is available. Other medical professionals — including nurse practitioners, dentists and podiatrists — can start signing up in June. Those who want to purchase medical marijuana will have to enroll in a patient registry that will also be set up in 2017. Patients must have a Maryland physician registered with the commission and a qualifying medical condition, including cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder and seizures. Commission officials warn that businesses currently trying to sell medical marijuana patient identification cards are scams. “After all of the politics,” said Jameson, “this program is about supply and demand.” A year in medical marijuana coverage: Meet the ex-cops, former politicians and even clergy trying to grow Md.’s marijuana Missing from Maryland’s legal pot growers?


Obituaries of residents from the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia

Catholic U. professor Warren MacIsaac, 86, a professor for 25 years in Catholic University’s drama department and a specialist in the plays of Shakespeare, died Nov. 14 at his home in Washington. The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said a son, Tom MacIsaac. Dr. MacIsaac, a native of Worcester, Mass., taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at secondary schools in Massachusetts before joining the Catholic University faculty in 1970. For five years, he also was literary director at Center Stage in Baltimore. He wrote articles for scholarly journals and playbills for Washington-area theaters. Bethel Moore, quilter, gardener Bethel Moore, 95, a quilter and gardener who grew and tended flowers and vegetables at her home in Fairfax City, Va., died Nov. 19 at a nursing center in Fairfax City. The cause was vascular dementia, said her daughter, Karen Moore. Mrs. Moore was born Bethel Triplett in Fair Grove, Mo., and had moved to the Washington area in 1940. She was a founding mother of the Fairfax chapter of Quilters Unlimited and a member of Fairfax United Methodist Church. Moeen Qureshi, equity fund chief Moeen Qureshi, 86, a former World Bank vice president, equity fund chairman and interim prime minister of Pakistan, died Nov. 22 at a care center in Bethesda, Md. The cause was Parkinson’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said a son, Samu Qureshi. Dr. Qureshi, a Washington resident, was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He began his career in international finance in 1958 with the International Monetary Fund in Washington. He retired from the World Bank in 1991 as senior vice president for operations. He was co-founder and chairman from 1992 to 2013 of Emerging Markets Partnership, a private equity fund. For three months in 1993, he was interim prime minister of Pakistan. Cynthia Grenier, writer, editor Cynthia Grenier, 89, a former film and theater critic for the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune who later did editing and writing for the Washington Times and contributed pieces to the Weekly Standard, died Nov. 12 at her home in the District. The cause was dementia and senile brain degeneration, said family friend Roger Kaplan. Mrs. Grenier was born Cynthia Baker in Medford, Mass. While in Paris in the 1950s and 1960s, she interviewed actor Richard Burton and director Ingmar Bergman for Playboy magazine. She also worked as a senior editor at Ballantine Books and a vice


Trump Hotels has had its eye on China — but the door hasn’t opened

President-elect Donald Trump greets Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad during a rally on Dec. 8 in Des Moines. Branstad is Trump's nominee to become U.S. ambassador to China. (Charlie Neibergall/AP) BEIJING — Although negotiations have yet to bear fruit, Trump Hotels has made confident predictions this year about opening 20 or 30 luxury hotels in China. It is an ambition that would involve the company in direct negotiations with a Communist Party that the president-elect professes to fundamentally distrust. On Dec. 12, Trump tweeted that he would do “no new deals” during his time in the White House. It is not clear what that means for Trump Hotels as a company, and both the Trump Organization and the Trump transition team declined to comment for this article. If Trump Hotels goes ahead with its efforts to expand to China, or even if it only lays plans to do so after his term in office, it could hugely complicate one of the most important foreign policy relationships Trump will have to negotiate during his presidency. And the suspicion that Trump as president might be trying to badger China or butter it up to promote his business there risks coloring perceptions of his every move in regard to Beijing — even those that are completely aboveboard. “It’s very hard for foreign politicians to do business in China,” said Liu Xuemei, vice president of New World Development’s Huamei Real Estate Development. “If you want to do politics, don’t try doing business in China.” As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, questions and concerns have been raised over how his business interests may interfere with the business of running the country. The Washington Post spoke to Public Citizen to untangle and unpack the potential consequences of Trump’s conflicts. Liu said it isn’t hard to throw up a building in China; the difficulty lies in all the procedures involved in buying land and getting permission to build on it. “It’s a lot of trouble,” she said. “If your relationship with China isn’t good, there’s no way your papers and permits will be approved. The Chinese government is hard to deal with, so buildings are hard to build.” The complications for Trump of mixing business and politics were thrown into sharp relief Dec. 2 when he accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that infuriated the Chinese government in Beijing and


A ‘pan-Asian’ restaurant may seem dated. In fact, the trend is hotter than ever.

to China later, Drewno leads the kitchen at the Source, Puck’s restaurant in Washington, where diners can sample his refined takes on dishes from Taiwan, Shanghai, Sichuan, Thailand and other locales. It’s pan-Asian fine-dining, though you’d be hard-pressed to find those words in the Source’s marketing materials. Puck wasn’t the only chef looking East for inspiration. Jean-Georges Vongerichten made a strong first impression on diners and critics in 1992 when he opened Vong, his Frenchified take on Thai cooking in Midtown Manhattan. The late Barbara Tropp, a Chinese scholar at Princeton, would spend two years in Taiwan before moving to San Francisco and opening China Moon Cafe in 1986 in a space that conjured up old-time diners, not Chinese temples. The place became a magnet for celebrities and young cooks; one of Tropp’s apprentices was Lee Hefter, who would become executive corporate chef for Wolfgang Puck — and have a formative influence on a young Drewno. Shrimp buns at David Chang’s Momofuku. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) When David Chang was growing up in Vienna, Va., his father frequently would take him to Pho 75, a beloved Vietnamese chain in the D.C. area. The pho parlor imprinted itself on Chang’s palate: In 2004, when the chef opened his first Momofuku Noodle Bar in Manhattan, he didn’t provide togarashi, the Japanese spice blend often sprinkled into ramen. Instead, he offered Sriracha, the hot sauce found at pho shops everywhere. (Momofuku would later create its own chicken pho, too.) A groundbreaking bun Momofuku’s opening menu also featured gua bao. They were a last-minute addition based, in part, on Chang’s frequent stops at Oriental Garden in New York’s Chinatown, where the spongy bao were stuffed with duck, scallions, cucumber and hoisin: a Taiwanese variation on Peking duck pancakes. Chang wanted to tuck pork belly into his steamed buns, since he would be producing the fatty meats for his ramen. “If there’s a claim to fame that I know that I can [make],” Chang says, “there wasn’t a ramen shop in the world that served pork buns with ramen. Anywhere. It was only gyoza or fried rice. So the whole phenomenon of the pork bun really started when we served it with ramen.” Erik Bruner-Yang knows all about the pork bun phenomenon. The chef behind Maketto (a restaurant that mixes Bruner-Yang’s takes on Taiwanese and Cambodian dishes) remembers when he was still creating


Man charged with murder in slaying of D.C. actress

Tricia McCauley, a resident of the Bloomingdale neighborhood in Northwest Washington, disappeared on Christmas Day. She was found dead two days later. Adrian Duane Johnson was charged in her death. On Christmas Day, Tricia McCauley made a pie and prepared her signature Brussels sprouts to take to a holiday party with fellow members of the District’s theater scene. At 4:30 p.m., she posted on Facebook that she was on her way. She never showed for dinner. A frantic search by friends and family, scouring city blocks, ended just after midnight Tuesday, when a man walking his dog near Dupont Circle spotted McCauley’s white two-door Scion iQ with its “Plant more plants” bumper sticker. He called police. Police found the car a few minutes later parked in the 2200 block of M Street NW in West End. In a nearby CVS store, they confronted a man who had been spotted driving the Scion. A police report says that an officer asked the man for the keys and that he surrendered them. Inside the car, police found McCauley’s 5-foot-4, 115-pound body. Tricia Lynn McCauley, 46, of Washington, D.C. (Courtesty of Metropolitan Police Department) McCauley had been strangled and beaten, authorities said. Police charged the man, Adrian Duane Johnson, 29, with first-degree felony murder, among other crimes. Police said they don’t know how the 46-year-old McCauley first encountered Johnson. The two were strangers, police said. Interim D.C. police chief Peter Newsham said detectives don’t know where or when McCauley was killed. Johnson has a long record of arrests, mostly for theft and nonviolent crimes, in the District, Maryland and Virginia. Court files contain notations of possible mental illness, though he has been ruled competent in the past. Russell Dixon, Johnson’s stepfather, said Johnson had been living on the streets and suffered from mental problems. But Dixon said he never saw any signs of violence. “I never saw any aggression,” he said. A beloved mayor in Fairfax faced allegations of a meth-for-sex scheme, and a man (successfully) used a “the-stop-smoking-pill-made-me-do-it” defense after shooting his wife. Dixon said Johnson’s mother, Marlene, had tried to help her son. He suggested that the courts had been too lenient on his stepson. “The court system let him go. That’s not the help he needs,” he said. “He should have been held.” Marlene Dixon was unaware that her son had been arrested. When she heard he was a suspect


Obama administration is close to announcing measures to punish Russia for election interference

senators, the CIA shared a secret assessment. The agency concluded it was now “quite clear“ that Russia’s goal was to help Donald Trump win the White House. But officials concluded this fall that the order could not, as written, be used to punish the most significant cyber-provocation in recent memory against the United States — Russia’s hacking of Democratic organizations, targeting of state election systems and meddling in the presidential election. With the clock ticking, the White House is working on adapting the authority to punish the Russians, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. President Obama pledged this month that there would be a response to Moscow’s interference in the U.S. elections. Russia had denied involvement in the hacking. One clear way to use the order against the Russian suspects would be to declare the electoral systems part of the “critical infrastructure” of the United States. Or the order could be amended to clearly apply to the new threat — interfering in elections. Administration officials would also like to make it difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to roll back any action they take. “Part of the goal here is to make sure that we have as much of the record public or communicated to Congress in a form that would be difficult to simply walk back,” said one senior administration official. President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a news conference in Beijing in 2014. A year later, Xi reached an agreement with Obama that his country would stop commercial cyberspying. (Feng Li/Getty Images) Obama issued the executive order in April 2015, creating the sanctions tool as a way to hold accountable people who harm computer systems related to critical functions such as electricity generation or transportation, or who gain a competitive advantage through the cybertheft of commercial secrets. The order allows the government to freeze the assets in the United States of people overseas who have engaged in cyber-acts that have threatened U.S. national security or financial stability. The sanctions would also block commercial transactions with the designated individuals and bar their entry into the country. But just a year later, a Russian military spy agency would hack into the Democratic National Committee and steal a trove of emails that were released a few months later on WikiLeaks, U.S. officials said. Other releases followed, including the hacked emails of


Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. “Fundamentally, it was a low-tech, high-impact event,” said Zachary Goldman, a sanctions and national security expert at New York University School of Law. And the 2015 executive order was not crafted to target hackers who steal emails and dump them on WikiLeaks or seek to disrupt an election. “It was an authority published at a particular time to address a particular set of problems,” he said. So officials “need to engage in some legal acrobatics to fit the DNC hack into an existing authority, or they need to write a new authority,” Goldman said. Administration officials would like Obama to use the power before leaving office to demonstrate its utility. “When the president came into office, he didn’t have that many tools out there to use as a response” to malicious cyber-acts, said Ari Schwartz, a former senior director for cybersecurity on the National Security Council. “Having the sanctions tool is really a big one. It can make a very strong statement in a way that is less drastic than bombing a country and more impactful than sending out a cable from the State Department.” The National Security Council concluded that it would not be able to use the authority against Russian hackers because their malicious activity did not clearly fit under its terms, which require harm to critical infrastructure or the theft of commercial secrets. “You would (a) have to be able to say that the actual electoral infrastructure, such as state databases, was critical infrastructure, and (b) that what the Russians did actually harmed it,” said the administration official. “Those are two high bars.” Although Russian government hackers are believed to have penetrated at least one state voter-registration database, they did not tamper with the data, officials said. Some analysts believe that state election systems would fit under “government facilities,” which is one of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors designated by the Department of Homeland Security. Another option is to use the executive order against other Russian targets — say, hackers who stole commercial secrets — and then, in either a public message or a private one, make clear that the United States considers its electoral systems to be critical infrastructure. The idea is not only to punish but also to deter. “As much as I am concerned about what happened to us in the election, I am also concerned about what


Treasury and Justice officials pushed for economic sanctions on China over commercial cybertheft

U.S. President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a press conference at the Great Hall of People on November 12, 2014 in Beijing. (Feng Li/Getty Images) President Obama noted at a news conference this month that the United States has seen “some evidence” that Chinese government hackers have reduced their pilfering of U.S. companies’ intellectual property and sensitive data. But, he added, they have “not completely eliminated these activities.” Although some researchers say the hacking activity has plummeted, officials at the Treasury and Justice departments and at the National Security Council have been pushing to impose economic sanctions on several Chinese firms that have benefited from past thefts of U.S. firms’ commercial data. Over the past year, they have advocated the use of a 2015 executive order on cyber-sanctions that would allow the government to sanction individuals and companies that were enriched by material hacked from the computer networks of American businesses. “It’s about specific justice for specific victims,” said one U.S. official, who like others interviewed requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. A sanctions package that names specific Chinese companies has been ready for more than a year. But other senior officials in the State Department and within the National Economic Council have been opposed, largely for diplomatic and timing reasons. These officials did not want to risk torpedoing a global warming accord with China. At other times, it was concern about adding to tensions over China’s activities in the South China Sea. The administration was close to pulling the trigger on the sanctions last year but drew back after Chinese President Xi Jin Ping reached an agreement with Obama that his country would not conduct such activity, and would set up a high-level joint dialogue on cybercrime and cooperate in investigations. Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, said China’s commercial hacking dropped 90 percent over the past year after the agreement. “I think this drop in activity after the threat to use sanctions has been the biggest accomplishment in cyber in the last 30 years,” he said. Others note, however, that the indictments of five Chinese military hackers for economic espionage also played a role in changing China’s behavior. But Beijing’s cooperation in law enforcement matters has not been optimal, officials said. And the Chinese government has not taken action against those who hacked U.S. companies and stole their intellectual property or pricing information, they


Over the past year, they have advocated the use of a 2015 executive order on cyber-sanctions that would allow the government to sanction individuals and companies that were enriched by material hacked from the computer networks of American businesses. “It’s about specific justice for specific victims,” said one U.S. official, who like others interviewed requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. A sanctions package that names specific Chinese companies has been ready for more than a year. But other senior officials in the State Department and within the National Economic Council have been opposed, largely for diplomatic and timing reasons. These officials did not want to risk torpedoing a global warming accord with China. At other times, it was concern about adding to tensions over China’s activities in the South China Sea. The administration was close to pulling the trigger on the sanctions last year but drew back after Chinese President Xi Jin Ping reached an agreement with Obama that his country would not conduct such activity, and would set up a high-level joint dialogue on cybercrime and cooperate in investigations. Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, said China’s commercial hacking dropped 90 percent over the past year after the agreement. “I think this drop in activity after the threat to use sanctions has been the biggest accomplishment in cyber in the last 30 years,” he said. Others note, however, that the indictments of five Chinese military hackers for economic espionage also played a role in changing China’s behavior. But Beijing’s cooperation in law enforcement matters has not been optimal, officials said. And the Chinese government has not taken action against those who hacked U.S. companies and stole their intellectual property or pricing information, they said. If the Obama administration were to impose economic sanctions on Chinese companies, that would be a gift to President-elect Donald Trump, said James A. Lewis, a cyber-policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It would be a chit he could trade in talks with the Chinese,” he said. “He could offer to lift sanctions in exchange for some economic or trade concession.” At this point, the use of the order against China is highly unlikely, officials said. “It’s hard to see the administration picking that fight with China with so few days left in the administration,” a second senior official said. The Trump administration, however, could choose to use it.


2 persons of interest sought in fatal shooting in Northwest D.C.

A man fatally shot Monday night in Northwest Washington has been identified as police search for two people in connection with the shooting. Around 7:45 p.m. Monday, officers responded to the 200 block of Cedar Street NW after a report of a shooting and found 37-year-old James Dorsey Jr., of no fixed address, with a gunshot wound, D.C. police said in a statement. Dorsey was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the statement said. On Tuesday, police released a video of two people of interest who may be connected to the shooting and asked anyone with information about the incident to call 202-727-9099. Information may be sent anonymously to the department by text-messaging 50411, police said.


Navy repeatedly dismissed evidence that ‘Fat Leonard’ was cheating the 7th Fleet

featured a steady flow of alcohol and prostitutes, according to an indictment of one officer who allegedly attended. In January 2010, Edward B. Hanel Jr., a senior civilian lawyer based in Hawaii, drafted an ethics message for all 140,000 sailors and civilian personnel in the Pacific Fleet. It was meant to remind them that federal ethics rules prohibited accepting gifts worth more than $20 apiece, or $50 over the course of a year, from defense contractors. While there were exceptions to the dollar limit for personnel serving overseas, Hanel’s directive introduced a crackdown: a requirement to submit receipts and a written justification for accepting gifts of meals, lodging, transportation or entertainment. The draft ethics message did not single out Francis by name, but it applied only to contractors that provided port services to the Navy. In Asia, that almost always meant Glenn Defense. The proposal, however, quickly hit a wall. Senior Pacific Fleet officers rejected the draft and spent 2½ years revising and softening the message, according to the Navy emails and memos. By the time it was approved, the requirement to submit gift reports and receipts had been watered down. Hanel declined to comment. But two retired Navy officers familiar with the matter said the ethics message was blocked by admirals who were friendly with Francis. With the ethics message bogged down in the Pacific Fleet bureaucracy, Francis continued to host dinners and parties for Navy officers, particularly those on the USS Blue Ridge, the 7th Fleet flagship. Mike Seaman, a retired chief petty officer who served on the USS Blue Ridge, recalled a party that was held under a big-top tent on the bow of the warship when it visited Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2010. Seaman said he and other enlisted personnel were not invited but were standing on the pier watching guests arrive when Francis appeared in a black stretch Hummer limousine. “About a dozen beautiful Asian women got out, and there were no dudes, other than Fat Leonard and maybe one of his guys,” Seaman said in an interview. The women were scantily dressed and boarded the USS Blue Ridge with Francis, according to Seaman. “It was kind of weird to see the dude roll up with some badass chicks,” he added. “They weren’t bottom-shelf tuna. They were real good-looking women.” Pushing back against bilking At the same time that ethical concerns were growing in 2010, some


Deaf woman is killed in Northwest Washington hit-and-run

THE REGION WiFi coming to Metro underground stations All underground Metro stations will offer free wireless Internet for passengers by the end of 2018 under a program set to launch in the summer, Metro officials announced Tuesday. In August, Metro started a pilot program to test a public WiFi system. Now, a plan to provide WiFi in all underground stations has been approved. By the end of next year, WiFi would be available in 60 percent of underground Metrorail stations. The remaining stations would offer WiFi by the end of 2018. — Martine Powers Maryland Woman severely hurt after car strikes her A woman retrieving her young child from their car was struck by a passing motorist Tuesday afternoon in Montgomery County and had to have a leg amputated, police officials said. The mother, 28, was flown by helicopter with life-threatening injuries to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, said Officer Rick Goodale, a Montgomery police spokesman. The child, a girl about 1 year old, received far less serious injuries, Goodale said. Rescue officials said she was taken to a hospital. Investigators said the baby was still strapped in her carrier-type car seat, which the mother had taken out of the vehicle, Goodale said. The car seat was either thrown or dropped after the collision, but the child remained in the seat, he said. — Dan Morse THE DISTRICT Deaf woman killed in NW hit-and-run Adeaf woman was killed in a hit-and-run incident Tuesday in the District, D.C. police said. About 6:20 a.m., police responded to the 3500 block of 14th Street NW in Columbia Heights after a dark SUV struck a woman in a crosswalk, police said. The vehicle did not stop. Police identified the woman as Jacqueline Cole, 54, of Northwest Washington. — Justin Wm. Moyer Man fatally shot in Takoma identified The man fatally shot Monday in the District’s Takoma neighborhood was identified by D.C. police as James Dorsey Jr., 37. Police said he was shot about 7:45 p.m. in the 200 block of Cedar Street NW. No address could be learned for him. Police said they were looking for two people they identified as persons of interest. — Martin Weil


Homicide on Cedar Street in D.C.’s Takoma neighborhood

The man fatally shot Monday night in the District’s Takoma neighborhood was identified by D.C. police as James Dorsey, Jr., 37. Police said he was shot about 7:45 p.m. in the 200 block of Cedar Street NW. No address could be learned for him. Police said the were looking for two people they identified as persons of interest.


Two top D.C. restaurants that will make a vegetarian feel special

A periodic look at my communication with readers. (Iker Ayestaran/For The Washington Post) Bad Saint Charney should practice his line-waiting skills, because “Bad Saint can definitely accommodate vegetarians,” says Genevieve Villamora, co-owner of the 24-seat dining room. Since the restaurant opened in fall 2015, about a third of the menu — three to five dishes — has been meatless, she says. Some options are even vegan, among them an heirloom rice salad (ensaladang ifugao) with roasted celery root, roasted sunchokes and a tamarind vinaigrette. “I am partial to our newest vegetarian dish,” Villamora says via email, “a veggie version of pancit canton (which you almost never see in a vegetarian incarnation).” The pleasure is composed of fresh egg noodles and royal trumpet, beech and oyster mushrooms, which are stir-fried in a wok. Charney’s missive went on to ask if I could recommend another of my Top 10 dining picks as especially accommodating to customers who don’t eat meat, not necessarily based on their vegetarian menu selections, but on chefs who “would create something somewhat special.” One of the best examples comes from Cedric Maupillier, chef-owner of Convivial in Shaw. For vegetarians who want to splurge, he says he can make a casserole that sounds tempting even to this carnivore: lightly roasted and smoked celeriac, cauliflower, butternut squash, Brussels sprouts and mushrooms, everything arranged on a hazelnut soubise, scattered with sliced black truffles and cooked in parchment paper. “It will be cracked open in front of the guest to release all the scents,” Maupillier says, painting a heady picture, then finished with a few drops of apple cider vinegar at the table “to brighten the dish.” But, please, asks the chef, who spends an hour a day customizing his menu: Call ahead with any special requests so he can be prepared. Happy endings (Iker Ayestaran/For The Washington Post) Looking out for the two 4-year-olds in his party at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House in the District this fall, Robert Rosen inquired about a children’s menu. The waiter told him the restaurant didn’t offer one but said the chef could make macaroni and cheese without the lobster that was part of the dish. “We then jumped at the opportunity as the kids were starving. The mac and cheese was phenomenal,” Rosen reported in an email. “However, when the bill arrived, it included two lobster mac and cheese orders” at $18.50 each.


TenPenh review: A wide melting pot, with some ripples

traditional courses, the new restaurant serves dim sum snacks, bao buns, ramen, rice bowls and party-size entrees: dishes designed with sharing in mind. And the number of areas represented on the menu has expanded to include Cambodia, Japan, Korea and Tennessee. You read that right. Among the steamed buns is a pouch stuffed with fried “Nashville Hot Chicken,” every bit as fiery as I’ve endured in some of Music City’s culinary legends. The cayenne kick is tempered, just a bit, with bread-and-butter pickles. Another cross-cultural pleasure: the juicy lamb pot stickers, arranged on a yogurt sauce whose accents flirt with both China (hot mustard) and the Mediterranean (pomegranate seeds). Tunks bought 30 stone bowls to stage riffs on Korean bibimbap, and he wishes he had picked up more. His crispy rice bowls are the biggest attraction at TenPenh, where they come to the table sputtering and topped with a poached egg waiting to be cut and mixed into the steamed grains, julienned carrots, sesame oil-flavored spinach and whatever protein you’ve requested (go for smoked brisket). A little squeeze bottle of gochujang, Korean chili paste, contributes to the Seoul-ful eating. In crafting the menu, Tunks says he took liberties with classic dishes, tweaking them to arrive at “our favorite version.” Here and there, I wish he had sided more with tradition. TenPenh looks to Italy and Korea with its arancini (rice fritters) veined with elements of bibimbap. The snack, dropped off in a fry basket, works only if you dunk the bites into their gochujang. Otherwise, they’re a walk on the mild side. The most labor-intensive dish is the Peking duck. Among the “specialties of the table,” the $60 signature starts with thick-skinned Buddhist-style ducks from Pennsylvania, pumped full of air so they swell like a blimp, transported to an aromatic water bath, seasoned with ginger and dried overnight using fans. Eventually, they’re hung and roasted in a vertical oven. Sorry to be the bearer of sad news, but all that time and energy tastes for naught, at least the evening I sampled the presentation: Slices of dry, vaguely seasoned duck with less-than-crisp skin and a syrup-sweet hoisin sauce for slathering on the pancakes. A wiser strategy for a crowd is a platter of cumin-scented lamb chops positioned on smoky caramelized onions, dates and Fresno chilies. Shrimp and red Thai curry. (Jennifer Chase/For The Washington Post) Nashville hot chicken bao buns.


Ethiopia’s bold infrastructure initiatives

The new Chinese-built electric locomotives and train line in Ethiopia. (Paul Schemm/For The Washington Post) The Dec. 25 World article “Calm in Ethiopia belies seething anger underneath” omitted Ethiopia’s bold initiatives to advance its nation with a commitment to transform its economy and eliminate poverty through investments in vital categories of infrastructure in rail and electricity. On Dec. 17, Ethiopia inaugurated the Gibe III hydroelectric dam that will generate 1,870 megawatts of electricity. Ethiopia’s new electrified train, the first such train in sub-Saharan Africa, travels about 465 miles from the capital, Addis Ababa, to Djibouti. It will reduce travel time from several days to 12 hours or less . The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam under construction will provide 6,000 megawatts of electricity to the region. Ethiopia is experiencing growing pains, graduating a large number of students per year who are eager to work. While there may be shortcomings in governance, it is clear that the government’s intention is to create a unified state to benefit all Ethiopians. Violent demonstrations that weaken the economy harm the nation. Lawrence Freeman, Gwynn Oak, Md.


5 habits worth cultivating in 2017, according to a dietitian

would be to eat more whole plant foods: vegetables, fruit, whole grains, beans and legumes, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices. Simply put, adopting a plant-based diet is one of the best moves you can make for your health if you want to make your meals more nutrient-rich and reduce your risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and other chronic diseases. The good news is that plant-based diets can take many forms, from vegan to vegetarian to flexitarian to omnivore. The common denominator is that they put plant foods at the center of your plate. If you also choose to eat animal-based foods (meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy), they play smaller, supporting roles. While the benefits of a plant-based diet come from eating a variety of plant foods, you can’t go wrong by making vegetables the star. They are packed with vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients — compounds that reduce chronic inflammation and disease risk — while being lower in calories than other foods. Let go of rigid rules Although it’s hard to go wrong with eating plenty of plants and minimizing a reliance on highly processed foods, the fact is that there’s no single perfect eating plan. A nutritious diet allows for flexibility and shifts over time to suit your tastes and nutritional needs. Trying to find and follow a “perfect” eating plan is not only an exercise in futility, but it also often leads to all-or-nothing thinking: You’re either perfect or you’re a failure. This can lead to feelings of shame, and shame is a lousy motivator for positive change. Perfection is the enemy of progress. If you have a history of all-or-nothingism, why not try something new this year: Start small, start today and keep moving forward. Pick one or two areas to focus on — adding more vegetables to lunch and dinner, bumping up protein at breakfast, eating regularly instead of skipping meals and curbing mindless snacking are a few favorites — then add another only when you feel solid in your new habits. Correction: An earlier version of this story stated the incorrect year. The text has been updated. More from Lifestyle: Plant proteins, healthy fats and more 2017 food trends My answer to the holiday sugar glut: Pomegranates, and lots of them The nutrient you didn’t know you were missing Winter running just isn’t for you? Maybe you’ve been doing it wrong.


Russia says malfunction, not bomb, probably caused deadly crash of military jet

A diver lifts a fragment of a plane outside in Sochi, Russia on Dec. 28, 2016. (Emergency Situations Ministry Photo via AP) MOSCOW — The three-engine Tu-154, flying to Syria from the southern Russian city of Sochi, crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 92 aboard. Why it went down remains a mystery, although Russian officials are leaning toward accidental causes, such as mechanical problems or pilot error, rather than an act of sabotage. “It is clear that there was a technical malfunction,” Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said during a briefing in Moscow. “What caused it remains to be explained by the experts.” More than a year after Russia first deployed military aircraft and special forces in Syria, blowback in the form of a terrorist attack has become a growing concern. Investigators said Thursday that the information revealed by the flight recorders has not eliminated the possibility the crash was caused by a terrorist attack, although it has made it less likely. Photos show those grieving over the crash that may have killed all 92 on board. “We arrived at the conclusion that there was no explosion aboard,” Sergei Bainetov, head of the Russian armed forces’ flight safety service, said at a briefing in Moscow. “However, a terror attack does not have to be an explosion. Other causes are possible. Hence, we have not ruled out this theory for now.” Bainetov also said that an analysis of the pilots’ remarks before the crash indicated an “emergency situation” on board, but he did not elaborate. Earlier, the Russian tabloid Life, which is close to the security services and regularly obtains surveillance camera footage after accidents, said the captain yelled “the flaps!” and a string of profanities shortly before the plane crashed. The flight was in the air for a total of 70 seconds and reached an altitude of 820 feet, Bainetov said Thursday. Sokolov said 19 bodies, along with 230 body parts, have been retrieved by divers at the crash site. Tu-154 jets, which have been in service for 33 years, were once the workhorse of the commercial airline industry here and are still widely used by government ministries. It has been involved in serious crashes in Russia and abroad in recent years. Most significantly, a Tu-154 carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski and other senior Polish officials crashed in 2010. No one survived. Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict has made the


Medical marijuana for kids: Often, no clear path, legally and practically

country, thousands of children use medical marijuana for a range of ailments including intractable epilepsy, pain, anxiety and symptoms of multiple sclerosis. As the number of pediatric medical users grows, so do issues that confront parents, patients, doctors and policymakers. There are no federal laws specifically covering children’s use of medical marijuana, and state laws on the subject are a complex and sometimes contradictory patchwork. Twenty-nine states and the District have made medical marijuana of all kinds legal. Among those state is Maryland, which has not yet set up a system for distribution. Another 15 states, including Virginia, allow people to use cannabis containing high levels of CBD and low levels of the psychoactive component THC. In large part, these laws have come in response to pressure from parents of children with severe epilepsy and other illnesses that may be treated with CBD. However, none of these states has a distribution system with licensed dispensaries. As a result, parents are left to find cannabis through other sources, either buying it in another state and bringing it home or buying it from a dealer — both of which are illegal under federal law. (Florida has CBD-only dispensaries, and it will be expanding to full medical marijuana as the result of an amendment to the state constitution that was approved by voters in November.) Some states require that parents get permission from two doctors before their children can receive the drug rather than the single practitioner required for adults. Many states limit pediatric use to high-CBD doses. Advocates say that this limits options for children who may find relief with higher levels of THC. They also note that states rarely limit children’s access to medicines that can have powerful psychoactive side effects, such as opioids and stimulants. At the same time, many doctors are unwilling to prescribe medical marijuana to children. “They tend to be very suspicious of it,” says Beth Collins, senior director of government affairs for Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group for wider access to medical cannabis. Moreover, she says, many hospitals are worried about legal liability, and discourage their practitioners from helping pediatric patients get marijuana. “Parents who want to try this for their kids have more options than they did five years ago,” she says. “But there are still a lot of hoops to jump through, a lot of hurdles to get over.” — David Kohn


A powerful new form of medical marijuana, without the high

of psychoactivity undermines any argument that it should be illegal. It’s really shifted the national discussion on this issue.” Voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada just approved recreational marijuana use. Here's what they can learn from Washington, Colorado and Oregon, states where marijuana use has already been legalized. As more scientists recognize the compound’s potential, there has been an “explosion of research,” according to Pal Pacher, a pharmacologist and cardiologist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. He has been studying the chemical for more than a decade; his work has shown that CBD may have benefits in both heart disease and diabetes. One key area of CBD research is epilepsy. Several scientists are focusing on its potential to reduce seizures, especially among those for whom other treatments have failed. “We’ve found significant positive effects with CBD,” says New York University neurologist Orrin Devinsky, who studies the compound for severe childhood epilepsy. In a study whose findings have not yet been published, he and a colleague, Daniel Friedman, found that patients receiving CBD in addition to their usual medicines had 39 percent fewer convulsive seizures than patients who remained on their normal drug regimen. Given that the study included only the most treatment-resistant patients, this is an “excellent response,” Devinsky says. Much more research is needed, he says, to establish whether CBD works, and if so for what conditions, but he understands that severely ill patients, or their parents, may not want to wait for this data: “If other drugs don’t work, it’s certainly reasonable to try this.” The compound has also shown promise in treating anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. Much of this work has been in rats and mice, but several studies have found benefits for humans. For instance, German researchers showed in 2012 that giving CBD to schizophrenic patients reduced psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and disordered thinking. CBD seems to have anti-cancer properties, too. At the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, researchers Sean McAllister and Pierre Desprez have found that CBD can block cancer cells from metastasizing. It’s not clear how CBD works. This is partly because it stimulates multiple biochemical pathways, which may account for its wide range of effects. The compound is a powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, and it increases levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin as well as another molecule, anandamide, which reduces pain and anxiety. Francisco Guimaraes, a


I had lump in my breast. So why did the radiologist focus on my disability?

a deep breath and try to relax, leafing through a People magazine. In what is only 15 minutes but feels like an hour, I hear the door squeak open. I look up. In walk the X-ray technician, the doctor and a nurse. Why a nurse? I ask myself. It must be bad news, and they think I might fall apart. Wrapping the paper gown around me more tightly, I hear it rip in the back. The three of them stride over and look down at me. The young doctor is tall and pale and wears a white lab coat that’s too tight on his bodybuilder shoulders. He holds a file folder; the room is totally quiet except for the tap-tap-tap of his forefinger on the folder. The nurse and technician hover right behind him. “The tech tells me that you had polio,” he says, his tone professorial. “I never met anyone with polio.” I am speechless. The nurse and technician move in closer. “Didn’t you get the vaccine?” he continues. “What? What?” I say. I start to shake, and my breathing grows rapid. “Didn’t you get the vaccine?” he repeats, more loudly. Suddenly I realize that I’m not cold anymore. The bright fluorescent ceiling lights seem to burn into me. With an effort, I hold back an angry retort. “I got it in 1952 when I was 6 years old,” I respond in a staccato voice. “The vaccine came out in 1954.” Inwardly, as so often before, I feel again like the little girl who was always afraid of the doctor. The little girl who always answered people’s questions so that they could learn. Once more, I am the child who wanted to please. Now, as then, I want to scream. I sit up tall, pulling back my shoulders and not caring what happens to the paper gown, and suddenly feel a gust of cool air against my back. Looking straight into the doctor’s eyes, I speak loudly and firmly. “Stop with the unnecessary questions. What about my breast?” “Oh, that,” he responds dismissively. “It looks like nothing to worry about. See you back in six months.” No. I won’t be back to see him ever. Turner has spent her career working with disenfranchised groups, including people with physical disabilities and those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. This story was originally published by Pulse — Voices From the Heart of


Why Shaw was the District’s best dining neighborhood of 2016

Post food critic Tom Sietsema placed Michael Friedman’s All-Purpose atop his Fall Dining Guide. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post) Shaw was the District’s hottest dining neighborhood of 2016. The Northwest enclave saw a raft of openings within the past year, ranging from the very high-end (Eric Ziebold’s $200-a-head Métier, Kwame Onwuachi’s $185-per-person Shaw Bijou) to the very casual (Marjorie Meek-Bradley’s Smoked and Stacked sandwich shop, laid-back Chinese spot Chao Ku). Diners have plenty of options, whether it’s for a quick pregame bite or a special-occasion dinner. “I didn’t expect to have that many restaurants coming in the neighborhood,” said Cedric Maupillier, who has witnessed the parade of newcomers join Convivial, which he opened in late 2015. Not that the company bothers him. “More restaurants attract more people” — and that’s good news for everyone. Michael Friedman, who opened the red-hot pizza joint All-Purpose — the No. 1 restaurant in Post food critic Tom Sietsema’s 2016 Fall Dining Guide — agreed. “A rising tide does raise all ships,” he said. “The more competition, the better.” For diners, the strength in numbers means that when one restaurant is full, it’s not hard to amble to a nearby spot. And while the volume of restaurants and redevelopment has raised comparisons to the 14th Street NW corridor, Maupillier said Shaw has a particularly good dining scene because of the many chef-driven restaurants in small, intimate spaces. It also helps that the proximity of such destinations as downtown, Verizon Center and the Walter E. Washington Convention Center is balanced by residential surroundings — both new and old. All-Purpose moved into a new apartment building, along with Buttercream Bakeshop and Espita Mezcaleria, but remnants of the neighborhood’s past remain in the historic rowhouses and the revived Howard and Lincoln theaters. This isn’t to say that Shaw didn’t experience setbacks in 2016. The neighborhood lost the beloved Ethiopian restaurant Zenebech after the owners sold their property to developers. Now the strip is slated to become a mixed-use development, much like the neighborhood’s north end, home to Tim Ma’s Chinese-accented Kyirisan; the Daikaya’s team’s third ramen shop, Haikan; and Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s Hazel. There’s plenty more to come next year: a modern diner from Central executive chef David Deshaies, Morris American Bar from Spike Mendelsohn, Hong Kong-inspired Tiger Fork from the Fainting Goat team and Union Kitchen Grocery. “I see it just getting better,” Friedman said of


Six facts about dying young

of long-term opioid use, The Post found. In addition to anti-anxiety medication, they might get drugs to help them sleep or to ease a condition known as “opioid-induced constipation.” A Post analysis found that nearly 6 in 10 working-age women who take opioids have three or more additional prescriptions. Read more about follow-on prescriptions. Meanwhile, The Post found that the suicide rate has risen alongside prescriptions for anti-depressants and other psychiatric drugs, which are often ineffective. “Multiple drugs overload the system in ways we can’t predict,” said Rene Muller, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins. Read more about suicide. Some of the pills that Karen Franklin regularly takes during an eight hour period. Franklin suffers from a back injury and lives with chronic pain. She said that despite taking morphine and other prescription medications her pain level is usually a "10". (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post) 3. Doctors could be doing more to prevent opioid addiction. 4. The federal government could be doing more, too. Read more about the DEA pullback Read more about the cases against drug distributors Meanwhile, the drug companies have hired some of the best and brightest DEA regulators. At least 42 DEA personnel — 31 of them directly from the division that regulates the pharmaceutical industry — have taken jobs in the pharmaceutical industry since the campaign against distributors began. Read more about the revolving door 5. But heavy drinking is also a major factor. Unlike suicides and drug overdoses, alcohol-related liver failure is increasingly striking white women in big cities as well as in rural areas, The Post found. Read more about the trend and the role of alcohol marketing. 6. The epidemic of substance abuse is damaging entire communities while destroying individual lives. In Tecumseh, Okla., where Anna Marrie Jones died at age 54 of cirrhosis, family members buried her alongside friends and relatives who had died in the past decade at ages 46, 52 and 37. Jones had buried her fiance at 55. She had eulogized her best friend, dead at 50 from alcohol-induced cirrhosis. Read more about Jones. In Jasper, Ala., opioid painkillers are so enmeshed in the local economy that they’re traded for lawn mowers and school clothes. Read more about Jasper. In McCreary County, Ky., there has been a 75 percent increase in the mortality rate for white women age 35 to 59, one of the highest increases in the nation,


No longer ‘Mayberry’: A small Ohio city fights an epidemic of self-destruction

year, overall life expectancy in the United States fell for the first time since 1993, when HIV was rampant. Today there is no emergent virus running amok. Instead, Americans are dying from a rash of pathologies, sicknesses and addictions that experts call “diseases of despair.” Downtown Chillicothe, a small town in Ross County, Ohio, where opioid abuse and overdoses are on the rise. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post) In a year-long series, The Washington Post has explored a complex epidemic that combines an oversupply of addictive prescription drugs with a dismaying demand for them among people struggling with pain and hopelessness. Opioids come in many forms, from prescription painkillers to street heroin. Fatal overdoses from prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999 and heroin overdoses have gone up about sixfold since 2001. But other drugs also play a role. A Post analysis of federal health data found that white women are five times as likely as white men, for example, to be prescribed drugs for anxiety in tandem with painkillers, a potentially deadly combination. Meanwhile, the suicide rate among middle-aged white women has risen in parallel with prescriptions for often-ineffective psychiatric drugs. Both have roughly doubled since 1999, The Post found. According to federal health officials, nearly 1 in 4 white women ages 50 to 64 are being treated with anti-depressants. Binge drinking is also on the rise, as women close the gap with heavier-drinking white males. As a result, The Post found, alcohol-related deaths have more than doubled since 1999 among white women ages 35 to 54. Booze is also a factor in myriad opioid overdoses. The federal government’s response to the opioid epidemic has been slow and halting. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines urging doctors to sharply limit opioid prescriptions only this year — fully 20 years after OxyContin, the pill that helped spark the crisis, gained regulatory approval. Law enforcement agencies have been largely ineffective. Amid pressure from the drug industry, the Drug Enforcement Administration curtailed an aggressive campaign targeting drug distributors suspected of shipping millions of opioids that wound up diverted to the black market, The Post found. Federal officials have said they are committed to combating the epidemic but are focusing more narrowly on doctors, pharmacists and companies that continue to violate the law. Chillicothe (pronounced “chill-i-COTH-ee”) lies in Ross County, population 77,000. Last year, 40 people here died of drug


Why you’ll probably be dining in Georgetown more often next year

House. And now that another is headed there, the neighborhood appears to be on the rise once again. Shaw may have been the “it” neighborhood of 2016, but 2017 will mark the great Georgetown comeback. There’s a reason Georgetown tends to become more popular under Republican administrations. One of the neighborhood’s precincts has the highest concentration of registered Republicans in all of overwhelmingly Democratic Washington, D.C. Board of Elections data show. So, as more Republicans come to D.C. to work for the new administration, Georgetown restaurateurs are banking on the social scene moving westward. Bo Blair, the owner of Smith Point — the bar most famous for being a raging young-Republican staffer scene in the second Bush presidency — had planned to sell his bar. But he changed his mind when Donald Trump won. Inauguration-weekend bookings at political haunts like Café Milano are going quickly. But a Trump White House isn’t the only thing that could Make Georgetown Great Again. A longtime liquor license moratorium for the neighborhood expired this year, inviting more restaurants and bars to move into the area. It also helps that some high-profile chefs are taking big projects there. José Andrés is moving America Eats Tavern, his ode to historic American recipes, from Tysons Corner to Georgetown next year. The neighborhood will be the destination for former Minibar chef Johnny Spero’s newest endeavor, Reverie, a modern American restaurant off a cobblestoned alley on Grace Street. National brands have taken notice. Ladurée, the Parisian maker of perfect pastel macarons, will open a shop on M Street, in addition to a Union Station boutique. Blue Bottle, the San Francisco coffee company with a cult following, chose the neighborhood for the first of three coffee shops it’s bringing to D.C. This isn’t to say that Shaw, Bloomingdale, Logan Circle and Adams Morgan are suddenly going to drop off the social radar, or that there aren’t already acclaimed restaurants in Georgetown, such as Fiola Mare, the Sovereign and Chez Billy Sud. Chances are, though, you’re going to be taking more trips on that westbound Circulator next year. Read more: - If there’s a Trump bump for restaurants, Georgetown is first in line - The $20 Diner’s favorite cheap eats of 2016 - The eight best bars that opened in 2016 - The most exciting restaurant and bar openings planned for 2017 - These are our 15 favorite dishes of 2016


Neighborhood news site built a loyal D.C. following but couldn’t make money

to the site like readers did,” Regan said. “Our readership is growing, but everything costs money, and that includes running a local news website.” Borderstan co-editor Tim Regan is pictured in Dupont Circle. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) The latest iteration of Borderstan launched in June 2015, when Arlington-based Local News Now purchased the then-defunct neighborhood news website of the same name, which had started in 2008 and gained a local following. Local News Now also is the owner of ARLnow.com and RestonNow.com, which operate in Virginia, but had hoped to branch into the District. In October 2014, Scott Brodbeck, the founder of Local News Now, launched HillNow.com to cover the Capitol Hill neighborhood. When that site closed in July 2016, Regan and Borderstan co-editor Andrew Ramonas — who had both also worked at HillNow — moved full time to Borderstan. Borderstan covered Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, U Street NW, Logan Circle, Dupont Circle, NoMa and H Street NE — hip neighborhoods filled with new, young and deep-pocketed residents. In July, the site attracted 80,000 unique visitors, setting a traffic record. “Even though we are closing down, it’s not a failure of journalism,” Brodbeck said. “We can’t stay in a place where we are losing business.” Borderstan’s struggles have mirrored the media landscape in recent years. In 2015, the American Society of News Editors reported that newsroom jobs had declined 10.4 percent from 2013 to 2014, dropping to 32,900 full-time journalists at nearly 1,400 daily newspapers. Borderstan’s two reporters, who were part of a digital media company with no print component, wouldn’t be included in the count, but it illustrates a tough news market in which media organizations are struggling to make money from content available free online. Borderstan also faced other competition in what Brodbeck described as a crowded local market. DCist, owned by the Gothamist media company, and PoPville, which covers neighborhoods across the city, also tailor to a local audience, as do a handful of local blogs. Brodbeck said this competition, as well as bigger players like The Washington Post, in the District contributed to the lackluster advertising support. “There are going to be two fewer local news reporters in D.C. with this closure, and that’s disappointing,” Brodbeck said. Ramonas and Regan work in their office. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) By contrast, he said, ARLnow and RestonNow face less competition in the Virginia suburbs and are